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FROM THE LIBRARY
OF
ROBERT MARK WENLEY
PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY
1896
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WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
WOMANHOOD, 1 vol. 12mo, cloth..
RIGHT AND WRONG USES OF THE BIBLE,
I vol. 16mo, cloth....
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I
THE
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS
A STUDY OF GENESIS
WITH AN INTRODUCTION TO THE PENTATEUCH
Richard
BY
HEBER NEWTON
RECTOR OF all souls' PROTESTANt episcopal CHURCH
NEW YORK CITY
SONS
G. P. PUTNAM'S
NEW YORK: 27 AND 29 WEST 23D STREET
LONDON: 18 HENRIETTA ST., COVENT GARDEN
1884
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COPYRIGHT, 1884,
By G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS.
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"As a book written in Hebrew and in provincial Greek, given in
the historic form, its meaning, so far as it touches on any points of
language, history, science, literature, can only be reached by an open
criticism. Any theory that forbids or evades this is not only fatal to
science, but to revelation itself. The authority of the church is valid,
in that it preserves our unity in the essential truth of Christ, but it
can never pronounce its decree on those questions which, in the
nature of the case, are within the fields of a growing knowledge. If
it do this, it has denied the supremacy of the Word, and affirmed the
Romish dogma of a human infallibility. Biblical science, then, is
simply the science of right reason and moral honesty."-" Epochs in
Church History, by E. A. Washburn, D.D.," page 244.
"It is not only in the six days of creation that science finds a
stumbling-block, but in the story of Adam and Eve, of the genera-
tions before the Flood, of the Flood itself, and so on. If we add to
the conclusions of physical science those of historical research, and of
the comparative criticism of religious myths, it is impossible not to
feel that an implicit belief in the Old Testament narratives is exposed
to most serious difficulties. Any creed, therefore, which is built up
on the assumption of the perfect authenticity of the earlier scriptures
is likely to be rudely shaken.
"Either great injury or some important gain ought certainly to
accrue to our theology from such a disturbance of the traditional doc-
trine concerning creation and the Bible. We have reason to hope
that the influence exerted will turn out in the end to be a beneficial
onc.
Whilst we are children we may speak, think, and understand
as children. But the childish forms of thought are only excusable,
they are not to be permanently clung to. The moment it is possible to
rise above them they begin to be restrictive, confusing, and injuri-
ous.
J
}
"The change of attitude with regard to the Bible, which science
is forcing upon us, only brings us back to the Apostolic principle.
The faith of the Christian Church, in its first days, certainly did not
rest upon an infallible book. 'Not the letter, but the spirit,' was St.
Paul's maxim, and he included in the letter' the words of documents
which he held sacred. It cannot, indeed, excite any surprise that
the reverence of Christendom for the books contained in the canon
of Scripture should have passed into an idolatry of the book; or that
Protestantism, which had emancipated itself from the despotism of
Rome by appeals to the Bible, should have substituted the infallibility
of the Bible for that of the Church. But however natural was the
letter-worship, its effect was none the less to numb and cramp the
faith of Christendom. It was the design of God that the world
should be governed by the spirit, and not by texts. The sacred
volume is therefore exhibited in the face of the world, to the incredu-
lous dismay of the general multitude of Christians, as not wholly trust-
worthy. The Christian will no longer be able to avail himself of the
short and easy method of the syllogism, All that is in the Bible is
true; this is in the Bible, therefore this is true.' But the loss ought
to be a great gain. The Word of God interpreted by history and
life is a grander object of faith than even the Bible."-" Theology
and Morals. By the Rev. J. Ll. Davies. With an introduction by
Henry C. Potter, D.D.," pages 32, 35.
►
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PREFACE.
}
THE Bible has always yielded the chief subject matter of the
preacher's instructions in the Christian Church, at least in times when
sermons consisted of anything better than the travesties of mediæval
monks. In Protestant churches, it has been recognized that a
part of the pastor's duty in expounding the Scripture lay in
meeting the proper desire of the intellectual nature of man for knowl-
edge about the sacred books, in which the spiritual nature found its
fresh pastures and its waters of comfort. He has been expected to pro-
vide some assistance in the study of these books, as books, with a view
of making the mental interest awakened and the fuller knowledge
gained minister to a more living use of the Bible. The pastor's Bible
class has taken its place as an auxiliary to the more purely spiritual
instruction of the sermon. Some churches, by the rigidly dogmatic
character of their confessions of faith, and by the tyranny of public
opinion thus developed, have narrowed within close quarters the area
in which the pastor might feel free to teach his people, in such Bible
classes, his honest convictions concerning the nature of the biblical
books; and indeed have thrust the minister's own intellect into
such a tight-fitting yoke that he has had very little real liberty of
personal inquiry on such subjects. It has been the glory of the
Church of England, a glory which the daughter Church in America
has proudly claimed as her heritage, that she left her clergy free to
think as best they could upon the intellectual aspects of the Bible, if so
be they reverently recognized in it those Scriptures of Holiness which
are able to make men wise unto salvation; and that thus she left
her clergy free to teach their people such views of these sacred books
as their own studies might lead them to form.
The people who have placed themselves under my pastoral care
made repeated requests to me for such a Bible class, especially after
my course of sermons last winter on The Right and Wrong Uses
of the Bible. Persons of mature years, intelligent and thoughtful,
+
viii
desired to know more definitely the applications of the general princi-
ples there indicated to the Old Testament. Parents, troubled and
perplexed in meeting their children's objections to the Old Testament
as ordinarily read by Christian pcople, asked the help which could
only come in the systematic study of the early books of the Bible, in
the light of those principles, which had their hearty sympathy. I
therefore proposed a mid-week Bible class; but the difficulty of find-
ing an hour when both gentlemen and ladies could conveniently
attend, drove me back upon the choice of Sunday. The necessity of
linking this instruction with the second service modified the original
plan of a Bible class still further; and a course of Talks upon the
books of the Bible finally shaped itself with the opening of Ad-
vent. These "talks" were not designed to be sermons-discourses
primarily seeking the inspiration of personal life; they were intended
to be familiar lectures-discourses contemplating mainly the intellect-
ual instruction of the hearers, and, only through the fresh thought thus
gained, looking on to the spiritual inspiration of the hearers and of
their families. My sermonic work was to continue in its customary
place on Sunday mornings. As seeking a secondary and special aim,
an aim which made a mixed congregation undesirable, these talks
were purposely stowed away in the most unattractive part of Sunday.
The evening would have ensured me a much larger audience than I ex-
pected for these afternoon lectures, but it would have made that audi-
ence thoroughly miscellaneous, and this was what I did not desire for
the work proposed. My plan contemplated the covering of the Penta-
teuch during the winter, in a series of lectures which, in the exercise
of the traditional liberty of the Episcopal Church, should give a plain
and popular account of the nature and contents of these five books,
in the light of the new criticism; not failing to bring out, in pass-
ing, the spiritual and ethical truths which have always been divined
in these writings; because of which they have been felt to have the
marks of inspiration, and to form a real revelation to the human soul.
These lectures were duly begun, and were continued for several
weeks, to rapidly growing congregations drawn from the class whom
I sought to reach; for whom, I have ample reason to be assured,
they were words fitly spoken, helpful and enlightening.
CC
PREFACE.
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ix
I had expected no publicity for these quiet Sunday afternoon
"talks." Publicity came to them, however, and with it an excite-
ment which led to the action of my Bishop, asking me to discontinue
this course of parochial lectures. For me there was but one path
open-respectful obedience. But the singular position in which I was
thus put made it seem duc, alike to my people and myself, that the
public should be enabled to judge of the real nature of the lectures,
which had called forth such a very unusual, if not unprecedented
episcopal interruption of a presbyter in the course of his parochial
ministrations. Neither deference to my Bishop, nor the sincerest de-
sire for peace, can make it right that I and the people who have so
loyally upheld me in good report and in evil report, should rest under
the misconstructions which have been placed upon the teachings of
All Souls' pulpit.
12
It had been a part of my original plan to work over the material pre-
pared for these lectures, leisurely, into a hand-book for the general
Christian reader; believing that to many others besides my own congre-
gation such plain and frank treatment of the subject would prove help-
ful. The premature suspension of my course of lectures left me with
but a portion of the material for the proposed book on the Pentateuch
prepared; and, with the busiest season of the church year upon me,
I knew full well that the convenient opportunity for a continuance
of the work would not come before the summer, so that the book
could not appear until the autumn-nearly a year after the original
lectures had been given. I preferred to issue a part of the proposed
book at once; believing that, even in this fragmentary form, it might
sufficiently indicate the application of the principles of interpretation
in the case of the Old Testament histories, as I understood them, to
be of practical service to the general reader.
In the midst of the task of preparing this volume, I was attacked
seriously with iritis, and all further use of my eyes was taken from
me. A part of the Introduction to the Pentateuch remained to be
dictated, all of this portion of the book had to be revised, by the
guidance of my ear alone, and the whole book was obliged to be
carried through the press by the aid of others' eyes, thus delaying its
appearance. The Introduction to the Pentateuch amplifies the
PREFACE.
J
angel and
X
PREFACE.
ľ
original lecture, on which it is based, but the chapters on Genesis re-
produce almost identically the discourses in my church.
My little book has no more ambitious aim than that of helping the
intelligent and the thoughtful to a better understanding of the nature
of the Pentateuchal history. In the department of Biblical criticism,
which has become a province so large as to require a man's undivided
efforts in order to compass it, specialists must write for scholars. A
city pastor can only hope to keep sufficiently abreast of the results of
trained specialists to enable him to popularize their most valuable
conclusions
I had intended to embody in notes some material which I thought
might be of interest to the general reader; but, under the circum-
stances in which the volume was made ready for the press, the
references involved in the preparation of such notes were necessarily
hampered, giving an imperfect character to this part of the work.
May this little book be quietly passed by on the part of those who
find no trouble in the traditional reading of the Old Testament, and
may it be read alone by those, who, like the author, can find in the
so-called destructive criticism a reconstruction of the old Christian
Faith on new and more solid grounds! And may the time soon come
when the growth of a manly spirit of free inquiry among the clergy,
and the spread of an intelligent conception of the Bible through the
laity, shall make it no longer needful for a Bishop to stay a disrepu-
table panic in the Episcopal Church by asking for silence from a Pres-
byter who may be seeking, in whatever imperfect way, to lead men into
a rationally reverent view of the Scriptures, and who may be endeav-
oring thus to keep his ordination vow, in which he promises to "in-
struct the people committed to his charge out of the said Scriptures,
and to teach nothing as necessary to eternal salvation, but that
which he shall be persuaded may be concluded and proved by the
Scriptures."
Jin You
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I. THE COMPOSITE STRUCTURE OF THE
PENTATEUCH....
PAGE I.
D
-Leviticus-Numbers.
100+
Meaning and origin of 'Pentateuch.'
M
I. INTERNAL UNITY. In subject matter-In religious spirit.
II.—INORGANIC CHARACTER : DEUTERONOMY AN ACCRETION. Early
historics, compositions-Pentateuch of this nature-Deuteronomy
a separate work-Handles the history freely-Legislative omis-
sions-Changes in laws-Some serious, eg, position of Levites—
And unification of worship-New institutions-Different state of
society-Higher morality-Loftier religion-Unique style-Later
period.
III.-COMPOSITE FORMATION OF OTHER BOOKS.
Genesis-Exodus
IV. DUAL AUTHORSHIP.
Minor traces of composite character-
Differences of style-Coincident with use of 'God' and 'The
Lord' (Elohim and Jehovah)-With change in subject matter-
With changed point of view-Two documents plain in Genesis.
V.-TESTS OF DUAL AUTIIORSHIP. Explains confusions-Deluge,
pa
Ką
etc.-One history extricable in partial completeness.
VI.—SUMMARY. Three hands thus traceable-Theories of critics as
to other hands-All blended in our Pentateuch.
TEUCH.
CHAPTER II.-THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE PENTA-
.PAGE 28.
Ì.—GROUNDLESSNESS OF TRADITIONAL THEORY. Mosaic author-
ship limited by composite character-Rendered improbable by it—
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xii
CONTENTS.
What are its grounds? (1) Pentateuch does not claim it. (2) Pre-
exilian books do not support it. (3) Post-exilian books do, thus
dating origin of tradition. (4) New Testament does not validate
it-Christ's language.
II.--INDICATIONS OF NON-MOSAIC AUTHORSHIP, IN PENTATEUch.
(1) Work quoted of later date than Moses. (2) Historical, geo-
graphical, archæological hints of later date. (3) Expressions im-
probable from Moses. (4) Omissions ditto. (5) Historical re-
duplications ditto. (6) Historical discrepancies ditto. (7) Omissions
in the Deuteronomic code ditto. (8) Repetitions of legislation
ditto. (9) Discrepancies and contradictions in legislation ditto.
(10) Legislation for post-Mosaic ages. (11) Legislative develop-
ment impossible in life-time of Moses. (12) Language of Penta-
teuch of late period.
J
;
III. HEBREW HISTORY DENIES EARLY EXISTENCE OF LEVITICAL
LEGISLATION. (1) Fundamental ideas of Cultus, one sanctuary,
etc., absent in early periods. (2) Essential spirit contradicted by
actual religion. (3) Attitude of prophets toward established re-
ligion proves it not Mosaism. (4) Levitical legislation cap-stone
not corner-stone of Israel's polity.
IV.-SUMMARY. A fair case against Mosaic authorship.
CHAPTER III. THE GROWTH OF THE PENTATEUCH,
AND THE RE-CONSTRUCTION WROUGHT BY THE
NEW CRITICISM..
PAGE 71.
·
Pentateuch the work, not so much of individuals as, of a people.
I.—Period of Oral TraditioN. First form of people's knowl-
edge-Contents of-Unconscious action of imagination-Begin-
nings of law preserved by tradition.
II.—EARLY LITERARY PERIOD. First essays at writing-At history
-Probable influence of Moses in developing history and law-
Schools of the prophets nurseries of literature-Jehovist history
(ninth century B.C.).
III.—Origin of Deuteronomy. Triumph of prophetic reformers
Ja
h
}
CONTENTS.
xiii
under Josiah-Discovery of Book of the Law-Our Deuteronomy
(624 B. C.).
IV.-INFLUENCES OF EXILE AND THEIR OUTCOME IN Literature.
Social conditions for transformation of religion-Spiritual dis-
cipline-Intellectual influence-Chaldean Lays of the Beginnings
-Influence of Babylonian institutions and law-Institutionalizing
of Jehovism completed-Priestly history of Hebrew origins (Elo-
histic narration)-Fusing of prophetic and priestly histories in one
sacred book (444 B.C.).
V.-BEARINGS OF THIS THEORY OF THE PENTATEUCH ON THE
NATURE OF ITS HISTORIES. Point of view for larger problems.
(1) Human books. (2) History not first-hand, thus lacking exact-
ness. (3) Miracles thus lacking evidence. (4) Historic substance
not affected. (5) Key to passages offending moral sense.
(6) To
passages offending religious reverence. (7) To unscientific repre-
sentations of divine action. (8) Reality of revelation through
Moses. (9) Revelation the historic growth of human conscious-
ness, an inspiration.
VI.-NATURE OF JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY AS NECESSITATED
BY TRADITIONAL VIEW OF PENTATEUCH. (1) Natural order of
growth in other religions-Fetichism-Nature-worship-Polytheism
-Monotheism-Institutionalism. (2) No such development in
Israel. (3) Supernatural priesthood at basis of religion, foreclos-
ing free life and progressive thought-Revelation an external com-
munication of truth, stereotyping orthodoxy. (4) Christianity
patterned after Judaism. (5) Divorce thus created between Chris-
tianity and ethnic religions, between religion and life.
VII.-TRUE Nature of JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY AS Deter-
MINED BY NEW CRITICISM. (1) Israel's religious history a natu-
ral development. (2) Original Christianity resuming progressive
development of prophetism. (3) Essential Christianity a free re-
ligion. (4) Antagonizes no real religion but interprets all. (5)
Harmonizes all truth and life.
VIII. THE PENTATEUCH A CATHEDRAL GROWING THROUGH
CENTURIES, FOR THE WORSHIP OF GOD IN HISTORY.
}
xiv
1
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER IV.-THE PRIMEVAL SAGAS.... PAGE 116.
Inevitable contents of a Hebrew Book of Beginnings-Original
arrangement of Genesis,
ase.
S
1. THE CREATION. Cosmogonies-Growth of Hebrew cosmogony
-Affiliation with Chaldean cosmogonies-Characteristics-True
II.-PRIMEVAL MAN. Contents-Growth-Legends of other peoples
-Symbols thus interpreted-Tree of Life—Of Knowledge of Good
and Evil-Serpent-Cherubim-Flaming sword-Character and
meaning of Saga-Uses.
III.—GENEALOGY OF SHEMITES. Races and demigods-Enoch a
solar-myth.
IV. THE DELUGE.
Two-fold account-Legendary character-
Parallels among other peoples-Chaldean version-Growth-Ethi-
cal character-Nature of Divine Judgments-Noah and vine.
V.-GENEALOGICAL TABLES. Character and origin of-Nimrod-
Tower of Babel-Origin-Ideas-How far correct?
CHAPTER V.-THE TRADITIONS OF ABRAHAM.
↓
PAGE 144.
Character of Patriarchal traditions-Prehistoric memories-Legends
—Tribal personalities—Personifications of nature-Real men—Eth-
ical incongruities-Backward reflection of Messianic expectation.
Migration of Terahites-Call of Abram-Migration to Egypt, and
deceit about Sarai-Abram and Lot-Abram as a warrior-
Abram's vision--Ancient forms of contract-Hagar and Ishmael-
Patriarchal polygamy-Angels in Hebrew tradition-Origin and
significance of circumcision-Legend of Sodom-Abram's inter-
cession-Spiritual character of Hebrew traditions-Lot's daughters
-Sarai and Abimelech-Tree and stone worship among Hebrews
-Taken up into Jehovism-Sacrifice of Isaac-Historic signifi-
cance-Abolition of human sacrifices.
1
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER VI. THE TRADITIONS OF ISAAC.
|
PAGE 175.
Paucity of-Explained as type of domesticity-Yet hints of warlike
character-Explained as tribal hero-Hero of the Simeonites-
Glory obscured in declension of tribe.
Isaac and Rebekah-Light cast on primitive society-Genealogies of
Ishmael, etc.
CHAPTER VII.-THE TRADITIONS OF JACOB.
PAGE 182.
Hebrew hero-Dramatic form-Blending of ideals-Tribal charac-
ter-Second Hebrew migration.
Jacob and Esau-Memories of Isaac-Fraud for birthright-Literary
character of story-Ethical do.-Vision at Bethel-Historic signifi-
cance-Characteristics of story-Jacob and Laban-Ethical feat-
ures-Return from Harran-Wrestle by Jabbok-Spiritual experi-
ence-Growth of legend-Significance of-Meeting with Esau-
Beginnings of civilization-Dinah's betrayal-Historic bearings-
Fragments of traditions-Jacob's story centres in the divine edu-
cation of man.
CHAPTER VIII.-THE TRADITIONS OF JOSEPH.
J
XV
Silence as to other sons of Jacob-Joseph an historic personality—
Head of House-Tribal hero of Ephraim-Shared its pre-emi-
nence-Idealization of its virtues-Dramatic form.
PAGE 210.
•
S
Joseph and brethren-Dreams-Judah and Tamar-Curious social
survival-Potiphar's wife-Advancement in Egypt-Coming down
of brothers, etc.-Mystification- Literary character-Moral and
religious aim Hebrew migrations-Joseph's administration-
Revolution in land tenure-Ethical character of—Jacob's blessing
-Shiloh-Closing scenes of Jacob and Joseph.
CHAPTER IX.-CONCLUSION
PAGE 237.
Contents of Genesis-Character of traditions-Genesis a human
book-Interest of it-Place in Biblical revelation-Hints to parents
for use of.
1
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BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
CHAPTER I.
THE STRUCTURE OF THE PENTATEUCH.
“THE PENTATEUCH" is the slightly altered form
of the Greek title given to the first five books of the
Old Testament (Pentateuchos). According to this
title, these books together constitute a "five-fold
book"-one work in five parts. We can trace
this division of the five-volumed book up to early
times.
Josephus, the Jewish historian (A.D. 37–100), knew
of it, and so did Philo, the Egyptian-Jewish philos-
opher, who lived about the time of Christ. This ar
rangement was observed in the Septuagint-the
Greek translation of the Old Testament, which was
made in Alexandria somewhere prior to the first
century before Christ. It is probably as old as the
last reëditing of the work, in which these books
reached their present form. This was about the
middle of the fifth century before our era. The
I
34
2
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
Pentateuch forms, to this day, one roll or volume
in the Jewish manuscripts, being divided only into
larger and smaller sections.
This five-volumed work was "The Law," "The
Law of Moses."
I.
There is a real internal unity among these books,
corresponding to their title and ancient outward
form. They are plainly parts of a whole.
They carefully link themselves together in pursu-
ing the story of the Hebrew origins.
""
The opening paragraph of Exodus glances back-
ward, in a list of the tribes that came down with
Jacob into Egypt, and covers the great gap of four
hundred years by the words "now there arose up a
new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph.'
Exodus concludes with the dedication of Jehovah's
tabernacle, and Leviticus presents its body of legis-
lation as proceeding from this sacred oracle: "And
Jehovah called unto Moses, and spake unto him out
of the tabernacle." Leviticus ends with the words,
"These are the commandments which Jehovah com-
manded Moses for the children of Israel in Mount
Sinai." Numbers takes up the thread thus-" And
Jehovah spake unto Moses in the wilderness of Sinai,
in the tabernacle." Its conclusion is-"These are
the commandments and the judgments which Jeho-
3
vah commanded by the hand of Moses unto the chil-
dren of Israel in the plains of Moab, by Jordan,
near Jericho." Deuteronomy thus introduces the
farewell addresses of Moses: "These be the words
which Moses spake unto all Israel on this side of
Jordan, in the wilderness, in the plain over against
the Red Sea."
THE STRUCTURE OF THE PENTATEUCH.
Taken together these books constitute a history
which pictures the creation of the world, the story
of primeval man, the migration of the primitive.
Hebrews into Canaan and subsequently into Egypt,
their deliverance from this land of bondage, the rev-
elation of Jehovah through Moses, the organization
of the tribes, the establishment of a system of legis-
lation for the people, their nomad life in Arabia,
and the reissuing of the law by Moses in his last
solemn addresses to the people on the borders of
Canaan. The entire work thus gives the origins of
Israel, as understood by the Israelites themselves.
There are some indications that the book of
Joshua was at one time appended to this work, thus
leading the story of the beginnings of the nation.
down to the settlement of the tribes in Canaan.
Each of the five divisions of this work has, how-
ever, its own special character, and forms a unit in
itself. Genesis, the book of the generations, the
birth-book, covers the origins of the world, of the
human family, and of the house of Israel. Exodus,
the book of the going out, describes the bondage
C
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
4
of the Hebrews in Egypt, their deliverance by the
hand of Moses, the giving of the Law at Sinai,
and the origin of the chief religious institutions
of Israel. Leviticus, the book of the Levitical legis-
lation, is almost wholly occupied with the laws of
the ecclesiastical system of Israel. Numbers, the
book of the numberings, covers the period of the
wanderings from the time of the setting up of the
tabernacle to the occupation of the country east of
the Jordan. It contains several returns of the cen-
sus takings of the people, various groups of legis-
lation, interspersed with historical narrations. This
book has less internal unity than any of the other
divisions of the Pentateuch. It is a miscellany of
material belonging to the Mosaic period, loosely
threaded together by the phrase "The Lord spake
unto Moses" or "Aaron," which opens fifty-two
paragraphs; and by the simple conjunction "And,"
which begins one hundred and eighty of the two
hundred and fifty paragraphs in the Bagster Para-
graph Bible. Deuteronomy, the second law, records
a renewed statement of the Mosaic legislation, as
given in a farewell address of Moses to the people,
shortly before his death.
Ewald groups these five books into three divisions
-Genesis, The Law (Exodus, Leviticus, and Num-
bers), and Deuteronomy.¹
The Pentateuch resolves itself thus into an histor-
¹ Sce Note I to Chapter I.
THE STRUCTURE OF THE PENTATEUCH.
ical narration, in which is imbedded the legislation
of the nation.
บา
5
The distinguishing feature of this Hebrew book
of origins, the characteristic which unites all these
members into a body animated by one spirit, and
which, by virtue of this dominant tone, marks off the
whole work from similar works of other peoples, is
the fact that it is not so much a history of the polit-
ical or social life of the people as of their religious
life. We hear necessarily of the inter-relationships
of tribes and peoples, and we come across many ar-
chaic social customs in the narrative, but it is not on
these that the mind of the reader is allowed to rest.
Of wars, the staple of most histories, we hear little.
The ancestral heroes of the race are not painted in
the glory of the warrior, but in the finer grace of
the saint. One passage we find, indeed, picturing
Abram's martial prowess, but that is generally sus-
pected of being a leaf from the history of some other
neighboring race.¹ The stories of Isaac and Jacob
form peaceful scenes of pastoral life, and only from
stray hints do we find that there was a might and ter-
ror in Isaac that led the surrounding tribes to speak of
the god under whose protection he was rendered so
invincible as "the Dread of Isaac;" or that Jacob
wrested fair fields from hostile tribes, as he once said,
"with my sword and with my bow."2 We should
never have dreamed of the splendid military move-
2 Gen. xxxi. 53; xlviii. 22.
¹ Gen. xiv.
1
J
6
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
1
{
ment which lies hidden in the modest story of the
Exodus, but for an Egyptian historian. The institu-
tions of whose founding we hear so much, in the second
group of books, are chiefly the institutions of relig-
ion. There is, indeed, as we shall hereafter see, noth-
ing peculiar to the Hebrews in the ascription of
their laws to Jehovah; since, as we well know, many
ancient peoples accounted for the origin of their laws
by representing them as having been communicated
from their gods. Neither is there anything neces-
sarily exceptional in the constant interference of
Jehovah in the history of the Hebrew heroes; inas-
much as such extraordinary action of the gods in the
affairs of men is common to the stories of all early
races. That which is unique in this Hebrew history
is the general spirituality of the religious atmosphere,
in which the riper soul of man finds itself still breath-
ing so easily the very air of the Divine Presence;
and through which we feel so readily, in this tribal
god of the early Hebrews, the Eternal One himself.
"Jehovah" translates itself, on the whole, naturally
into "GOD." This peculiarity of the Hebrew book
of origins marks the history of "the people of relig-
ion"; a history in which the chief actor is really
God.
1 The Law.
}
THE STRUCTURE OF THE PENTATEUCH. 7
II.
While there is a real and substantial inner unity
among the parts of this five-fold book, a oneness of
spirit and scope corresponding to its form and title,
there are yet plain and palpable tokens, scattered on
the surface of the story, that this unity is not such
as we often find in histories.
One mind will sometimes plan a history; will
gather the needful materials, and will digest them
thoroughly, making them part of itself; and then
one hand will write a flowing story, fresh from the
reservoirs of the stored brain. Such a work has a
vital organic unity. It is not a composition, but.
a creation. The great works of modern history
are of this character. Early works generally be-
long to the composite order of history. The
stories floating among a people as oral tradition,
the fragments of songs preserved through genera-
tions, the brief annals of important events in the
history of the tribe, the rude codes of law that have
grown into authority, the first essays at written nar-
rative, are by some Father of History carefully col-
lected; and the mass of conflicting tales, detached
records, discordant legislations and independent
fragments of literature are artlessly soldered to-
gether and fashioned into a book, which becomes
the wonder of the age and the priceless treasure of
succeeding ages.
1
1
8
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
One does not need to go back of his English Bible
to find abundant marks of the usual character of
early histories in the Hebrew Book of Origins.
Deuteronomy marks itself off at once from the rest
of the Pentateuch as having an independent unity
of its own.
It purports to be a record of the last
addresses of Moses to the people, at the end of his
life and at the close of the people's wanderings. It
thus separates itself by over a generation from the
central creative period of the Lawgiver's career.
Its
aim is to present a re-statement of the Law originally
given at Sinai. When we examine its contents, we
find that this second law differs materially from the
first law.
The historical narrative, while preserving substan-
tially the outline of the story of the wanderings as
already told, handles the subject quite freely. The
legislation is by no means the complete and exact
re-statement of the original Law that would be ex-
pected, under the circumstances. Some important
portions of the earlier codes are omitted; as for
example, the laws concerning offerings, the law
of the great day of atonement,2 that on the water of
cleansing and that on the offerings at the feasts.4
1
Changes are made in the forms of some laws that
are repeated. A notable example of such change is
furnished in the new ground laid for the institution
of the Sabbath. The observance of this day is here
'Levit. i.-vii. 2 Levit. xvi. 3 Numb. xix. Numb. xxviii.
1
1
THE STRUCTURE OF THE PENTATEUCH.
9
based on the deliverance of the Hebrews from slave-
ry, in Egypt, while in Exodus it is founded on the
divine rest upon the seventh day of the Creation.¹
These changes in some instances seriously affect
the character of the legislation. The position of the
Levites in the priestly hierarchy differs radically in
the two legislations, as concerning their dignity,
their offices, their income and their homes. In the
law contained in the other books they were care-
fully distinguished from the priests in full orders;
they were ranked habitually below them; were as-
signed to the menial duties of the tabernacle, and for-
bidden on pain of death to officiate in the place of
the priests; while they were entitled to a tithe of
the produce of the land and of the yield of the flocks
and herds, and to the possession of forty-eight cities
which were allotted for their homes.2 In Deuteron-
omy the sharp distinction between the Priest and the
Levite almost disappears. The expressions formerly
used of the priests alone, and reserved jealously for
them, are now applied freely to the Levites. They
"stand before Jehovah," and "minister in the name
of Jehovah." The lower offices of the Levites, in
the other legislation, are assigned to the priests, who
"bare the ark of Jehovah."
The two terms are freely commingled, as synon-
yms; and we read of "the priests, the Levites
1
¹Deut. v. 15; Ex. xx. II.
2 Numb. xviii. 6, 24; Lev. xxv. 32.
3 Deut. xviii. 5, 7.
* Deut. x. 8.
1
ཀ
""
1
ΙΟ
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
and "the priests, the Sons of Levi."1 On the other
hand, the emoluments of both priests and Levites
are much smaller; the Levites losing their annual
tithe and only getting a share of a triennial tithe, the
rest of which goes to the strangers, the orphans and
the widows of the nation. Instead of occupying
certain cities reserved for them, the Levites are rep-
resented as scattered among the tribes, homeless
and poor, and needing aid from the charitable.2
There is a similar change with respect to locality,
in the worship of Jehovah. The very earliest leg-
islation seemed to allow of more than one shrine of
Jehovah: "In all places where I record my name I
will come unto thee." Later legislation, however,
clearly limited the priestly sacrifices to the presence-
place of the sanctuary and of the ark of Jehovah. But
there is no specification as to the location of this
sanctuary in Canaan, nor anything to forbid a change
of place for the tabernacle. In Deuteronomy, how-
ever, the one tabernacle is throughout regarded as
fixed in one holy place, "the place which Jehovah
your God shall choose out of all your tribes, to put
his name there." This place is plainly Jerusalem.
And with an urgent and intense zeal, nowhere shown
in the earlier legislation, the people are exhorted to
"utterly destroy" all other places of worship. The
second legislation also provides for at least two in-
5
Deut. xviii. 1. 2 Numbers xviii. 20–32, with Deut xiv. 27-29.
3 Ex. xx. 24.
¹ Deut. xii. 5.
Deut. xii. 2.
THE STRUCTURE OF THE PENTATEUCH.
stitutions concerning which no regulation had been
previously made.¹
A new spirit breathes through this after-legislation;
an air as of a more advanced civilization and culture.
It assumes a settled society, a people dwelling in
cities; and it speaks to this people as from a higher
level of morality.
2
3
4
The archaic crimes of the laws in the second code
of Exodus are not repeated. The change in the
ground of the Sabbath betokens a spirit of humanity
which finds constant expression. The regulation:
concerning war show this character strikingly. Two
new enactments guard against the cruelty of sub-
stitution in the death penalty and the savagery of
excessive scourgings.5 Female slaves receive their
freedom in the seventh year, as well as males. A
profounder tone of religion is very perceptible. Al-
most immediately after the Decalogue, in the open-
ing of the central address, occurs that lofty expres-
sion of the Divine Unity and of the spirituality of
religion in which Israel has for centuries made its
confession of faith in the services of the Syn-
agogues" Hear, O Israel: Jehovah our God is one
Lord and thou shalt love Jehovah thy God, with all
thine heart and with all thy soul and with all thy
might." These two conceptions charge the whole
book, and give it that rich and ripe spirit which led
:
Deut. xvii. 14-20, and xiii. 1–5.
3 Deut. xx. 4 xxiv. 16.
b xxv. 3.
5
II
2 Ex. xxi.-xxiii. 14.
0
XV. 12. 7 vi. 4, 5.
#
}
:
I2
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
Ewald to call it the Gospel of John of the Old
Testament.
Even the style of the book differs strikingly from
that of the other writings. This is felt at once in
passing from any of the earlier books to Deuteron-
omy. The calm simplicity of the historian and the
dry precision of the Jurist give place to the im-
passioned rhetoric of the orator. The sentences
move in a stately rhythm, with swelling and sonorous
cadences. Literary art has evidently polished these
resonant paragraphs, which have the balancing of
clauses of a Hebrew Macaulay, and the reiteration.
of telling phrases of an Israelitish Matthew Arnold.
The touch of this cunning hand is indeed to be
traced more than once through the earlier portions of
the Pentateuch, in the recurrence of the unmis-
takable phrases which characterize this book: a
hint this that the style of Deuteronomy is not the
new manner of the great Lawgiver, when he
assumes the role of the orator.¹
An open mind must find it difficult to resist the
impression that Deuteronomy is the work of another
hand than that which penned the bulk of the earlier
books, writing in another period.
1
III.
When we examine the other books, we see on
J ¹ Ex. iii. 8, 17; xiii. 5; xxiii. 20-33.
T
THE STRUCTURE OF THE PENTATEUCH.
13
the surface of the story abundant marks of a com-
posite formation. The joinings in the narrative
show through the literary finish that is spread over
the whole work. There is no such homogeneousness
in any of these books as Deuteronomy presents.
Again and again we are sensible, as we read, of awk-
ward transitions, of breaks in the narrative, of gaps
that leave us puzzled, of passages unnaturally inter-
jected, of needless repetitions, which betray an
editor in the process of compilation rather than an
author throwing off a continuous story in the white
heat of creation.
Genesis has many of these water-marks of literary
composition. In the story of Joseph, just as he is
landed in Egypt, a slave in a strange land, we are
taken aside to hear an irrelevant tale of Judah and
Tamar,¹ after which the narrative is resumed, as
though there had been no abrupt interruption.
We read in the opening of the twentieth chapter:
"And Abraham journeyed from thence toward the
south country;" and we naturally look back to the
preceding chapter to get the bearings of his course;
only to find that the locality of the story there told
was one in which Abraham had not been staying,
and that we have to retrace our steps through sev-
eral chapters in order to start this new movement
aright. Two lists of Esau's wives are given the
discrepancies of which are unexplained. The origin
2
8
* xiii. 18. 9 xxvi. 34, with xxviii. 9, and xxxvi. 2.
¹ xxxviii.
1
!
{
f
14
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
of several names is thus reduplicated; of Beth-el;¹
of Beersheba; and of Israel.
2
4
Abraham, on account of his advanced age-being
then an hundred years old-could not believe that
a son should be born to him; yet, forty years later,
he takes Keturah to wife, and has six sons by her.5
Sarah likewise feels herself so decrepit that she
laughs at the thought that she "should have
pleasure,' " notwithstanding which, after this she
was so fascinating that Abraham passed her off as
his sister to save his life. These and other per-
plexities of a similar kind in Genesis, can be readily
explained by the conclusion to which they have
forced one of the most judicious of modern critics:
"The most probable solution is that the author of
the book adopted early records wholly or in part
into his work, retaining partially or entirely their
original form and character without any general at-
tempt to connect them organically, or to blend them
into one whole."
118
3
Exodus repeats these literary features. At a crit-
ical moment in the mission of Moses, when he is
bidden by Jehovah to go to Pharaoh on behalf of
the Hebrews, a genealogical table of the chief fami-
lies of the tribes of Reuben, Simeon and Levi is given
1
¹ xxviii. 19, and xxxv. 9-15.
* xxxii. 28, and xxxv. 10.
0
2 xxi. 22-34, and xxvi. 26–33.
• xvii. 17. 5
XXV. I.
7
XX.
xvii. 19.
"Bleck. Introduction to the Old Testament, i. 266. (Bohn's ed. 1875.)
į
15
THE STRUCTURE OF THE PENTATEUCH.
us to study, while we wait outside the palace gates.¹
Under the plague of the murrain "all the cattle of
Egypt died," and yet we meet them shortly after in
the old fields, endangered by the plague of hail.2
The visit of Jethro to Moses is given in the eigh-
teenth chapter, as occurring when the Hebrews were
"encamped at the Mount of God"; which place-
Sinai-is not reached in the narrative until the fol-
lowing chapter.
When Moses has gone up into the sacred mount,
Jehovah addresses him, and, after an impressive ex-
ordium, opens the body of his communication thus:
"These are the Words which thou shalt speak to
the children of Israel." Then, when we expect to
hear the Ten Words, Jehovah's revelation breaks off
abruptly, the divine voice dies away, and the narra-
tive resumes as though the Decalogue had been duly
given : "And Moses came and called for the elders
of the people and laid before them all these Words
which Jehovah had commanded him." Then follow
elaborate preparations to receive these Words, which
Jehovah had been represented as about to give,
and which are not actually uttered until at least
three days later.
Leviticus, consisting almost wholly of legislation,
does not disclose its composite character quite as clear-
ly as the historical sections. He who notes the for-
mula of conclusion, which recurs through the book
2 ix. 6 and 19.
³ xix. 6, and xx. 1.
'vi. I.
}
1
16
I
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
2
"This is the law of," etc.-will, however, recognize
different groups of legal matter.¹ Two of these bod
ies of laws stand wholly apart from their surround-
ings, and their place in the general code seems un-
natural. In the midst of the Levitical legislation,
which constitutes the chief part of this book, is in-
serted a collection of civil laws, interrupting the
priestly canons that precede and follow it. The re-
markable body of socialistic legislation which occu-
pies the twenty-fifth chapter, and Jehovah's solemn
commendation of his law to the people in the twenty-
sixth chapter, form a natural close to the book; es-
pecially when we read the formula of conclusion,
"These are the statutes and judgments and laws
which Jehovah made between Him and the children
of Israel in Mount Sinai by the hand of Moses."
Nevertheless, we pass on to another chapter of laws
concerning vows, which seems an inappropriate end-
ing to the book. The renewed formula of conclu-
sion-"These are the commandments which the
Lord commanded Moses for the children of Israel in
Mount Sinai "gives to such a chapter, thus placed,
the unquestionable appearance of an appendix.
Every thoughtful reader probably feels the diffi-
culty of recognizing any logical or chronological
arrangement in the book of Numbers. It has the
appearance of a miscellany of historical incidents.
and of legal enactments, whose bond of connection
xviii.-xx. 0
³ xxvi : 46.
¹ vii. 37; xi. 46; xiv. 54~57 ; xv. 32.
2
1
17
is the fact that they all belong to the period of the
Hebrew wanderings in Arabia. As we follow from
chapter to chapter, we feel drawn on by no threading
plan. And the characteristics which we have found
in the earlier books disclose themselves here also.
The age at which the Levites entered upon their
ministry is placed at thirty, and again at twenty-
five. In the opening of the ninth chapter we have
a communication from Jehovah, which is there
dated "in the first month of the second year after
they were come out of the land of Egypt," while the
book began with a message from Jehovah "on the
first day of the second month in the second year.'
112
The closing paragraph of this chapter, which de-
scribes the coming of the cloud upon the sanctuary
"on the day that the tabernacle was reared," ap-
pears to belong to the account of the dedication of
the tabernacle,3 and this was upon the first day of
the first month in the second year of the Exodus.
The story of the "man that gathered sticks upon
the Sabbath day" comes in amid legislation not
bearing upon the Sabbath. A little painstaking
suffices to unravel the confused account of Korah,
Dathan and Abiram, and to resolve it into two
separate stories that have been intertwined into one
narrative. The record of the stations in the
journeyings of the Hebrews, which would seem to
THE STRUCTURE OF THE PENTATEUCH.
¹iv. 3; viii. 24.
9 Ex. xl.
3
" ix. I, and i. I.
"Numb. xv. 32-36.
• xvi.
2
1
!
ĭ
18
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
find a more suitable place at the conclusion of the
book, appears also not to have been written as a
part of the larger history, but as a complete
itinerary in itself; and yet further differs somewhat
from the record of the halting-places in the narra-
tive.¹
IV.
With his eye once opened to see the composite
character of the Pentateuch, a few of the more
significant hints of which have been given, the in-
telligent reader will naturally watch the movement.
of the history more carefully; and thus he will,
without great effort, pick out finer seamings in the
story, traces of the piecing together of different
materials, which are, however, not so fine that they
cannot be detected in the English Bible. We need
not pause upon these marks of literary composition,
as any observant reader can gain an idea of them
from examining the account of Joseph's sale by his
brethren, the opening of the story of the dreams of
the butler and baker, or the narrative of the plagues,
with especial reference to the relation of Moses and
Aaron in these marvels.
With this growing perception that different threads
of narration have been woven together in the history,
the attentive reader will not be long in noticing a
'xxxiii. 45, etc., and xxi. 12, et seq.
1
}
THE STRUCTURE OF THE PENTATEUCH.
19
change of style, continually recurring in the earlier
portions of the Pentateuch especially. Again and
again he will find himself passing from a clear, calm,
rather prosaic narrative, written in a somewhat for-
mal and studied manner, that rarely kindles with
feeling, into a fresh, free bit of picturesque drawing,
naïvely realistic; a scene that is all aglow with imag-
ination, and alive from the touch of a hand trem-
ulous with poetic sensibility.¹ Here and there will
be heard, strangely breaking in upon the calm judicial
tone of the legislator, the voice of the saintly rheto-
rician whose oratorical manner we have learned in
Deuteronomy.2
On examining the passages in the narrative of
Genesis which show these marked peculiarities of
manner, the observant eye will quickly note a still
more suggestive fact. The interchanging use of two
names of the Deity, "God" and "The LORD," may
have been often noticed, but without suspicion that
there was any significance in this alternation. Now,
however, it is seen that each of these names forms a
further idiosyncrasy of one of the two groups of
narration which have already marked themselves off
from one another by their respective literary styles.
→
A little knowledge of Hebrew will enable any one.
to discover that these English names correspond to
words which express quite as marked a distinction
¹Cf. Gen. xvii. and xviii.; Gen. xx. and xxii.
2 Ex. xxiii. 23-33; Levit. xxvi.
20
{
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
in the original, "Elohim" and "Jehovah." It is
true that in itself such a different naming of the
Divine Being is no necessary indication of a
difference of authorship. One writer will quite
naturally vary his name for God according to the
aspect of the Divine nature or action which he is
contemplating. Thus this double name of God,
which was noticed by some of the fathers of the
Church, has been through many centuries satis-
factorily explained in various ways. But, as we
have already seen, this changing use of the names
God and The LORD is accompanied by a very
marked difference of style in the narration. It is
also accompanied by quite as marked a difference in
the subject matter. In the one class of passages are
to be found, for the most part, the genealogical
tables and the accounts of the origin of Jewish insti-
tutions and customs. These passages, generally
speaking, unite in picturing the primitive period as
a simple, artless time, a golden age of human child-
hood. The Levitical institutions are rarely repre-
sented as in existence in pre-Mosaic times.¹ A sense
of historical development is thus impressed upon
the story of Israel. If we turn to the other class of
passages we find there is little of this sense of
historical development in them. They picture a
growth of the arts of civilization in the primeval
+
'Cf. Horne, Intro. to Holy Scriptures, ii. 533: Longmans, Green &
Co., ed. 1877; Keil, Intro. to Old Test., i. 121: T. and T. Clark, 1881.
THE STRUCTURE OF THE PENTATEUCH.
world, and carry back the Levitical sacrifices to the
very gates of Eden. They represent the patriarchs
and the very Gentiles as worshiping God under the
name of Jehovah, thus antedating by centuries the
Mosaïc revelation of the Divine unity, and the name
in which the idea of Monotheism was shrined.
Their attention is chiefly given to the personal and
inner life of the patriarchs, and in them we find
almost all of those stories which have become mystic
parables of man's communing with God and of his
wrestling with the dark problems of life. They
breathe the spirit of the great prophets.
"
Genesis has been specially indicated as the book
wherein this singular duality could best be studied.
The reason for this is that, as we see from Ex. vi. 3, it
is an underlying idea in the one class of passages that
the name Jehovah was not to be used until the time
of Moses, in which it became the Hebrew title of
their God; and that, accordingly, from the opening
of Exodus onward the chief clue in the separation
of the material of the Pentateuch is lost. Recurring
tokens that the material is indeed composite meet
us on every hand as we thread our way through the
Pentateuch, and not infrequently unmistakable marks
of the same two general classifications under which
we have found Genesis grouping its chief contents;
but it becomes increasingly difficult to draw the
boundary lines of the different currents, which at
length mingle inextricably in a common stream.
✰
21
22
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
The most clear-cut severance of the two main threads
of the story is to be found in the first division of
Genesis, and more especially in the very opening of
the book. The first chapter of Genesis, with the ad-
dition of the first three verses of the second chapter,
records the immortal saga of The Creation, in the
hand of the Elohist; while the fourth verse of the
second chapter begins another saga, the story of
Primeval Man, in which the hand of the Jehovist
is perfectly plain. From Genesis onward it may
be said that, speaking generally, the narrative por-
tions are Jehovistic, and the legislative portions.
Elohistic.
1
V.
From such a scrutiny of the inner structure of the
Pentateuch as is most readily laid bare in Genesis, the
open-minded reader must surely arise with the strong
persuasion that, in these two broadly-marked classi-
fications of the narrative, we are to recognize two
original narrators, whose stories have been blended.
into one history; that our Book of the Beginnings is
really a composite work, welding together separate
writings, each of which had its own aim and plan and
standpoint. The cautious student will, however,
naturally ask for further evidence of a theory which,
1 lixi. 27.
í
THE STRUCTURE OF THE PENTATEUCH.
23
outside of scholarly circles, seems still so novel. Two
further tests will readily suggest themselves. If this
theory of the structure of the Pentateuch be true,
we should be able to resolve by it the perplexities of
some of those narratives which, as they now stand,
are utterly baffling. The story of the Deluge has,
in particular, always bothered adults as well as chil-
dren by its repetitions and contradictions. Much
learned labor has been vainly spent in trying to rec-
oncile its discordant statements. Using the name
of the Divine Being as a test, we find that the thread
of the story can be unraveled into two distinct
strands, each of which is tolerably complete in itself
and wholly harmonious within itself; and that all
the confusions arise from their having been twisted
together into one narrative. Now, if the entire
thread of the Pentateuch could be thus unraveled
into two whole strands, reaching from the beginning
to the end, and two complete and consistent narra-
tives could be extricated from the history, we should,
of course, have an irresistible demonstration of the
theory. If one alone of these supposed narratives
could be reproduced in anything like an entirety we
should feel perfectly certain that the imagined dis-
covery was not an illusion.
For it does not necessarily follow from what has
been said above that there were two absolutely inde-
pendent narrators, each writing a complete history
'See Note 2 to Chapter I.
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
1
r
24
of the origins of Israel, whose works were subse-
quently amalgamated. An earlier historian's work
may have lain before a later author, who had a dif-
ferent standpoint in writing the Hebrew history
from that of his predecessor, and who kept his own
aim steadily in view in his labor, while quoting freely
from the book of the more ancient narrator. No
one, however, pretends that two whole narratives.
can be drawn out of the Pentateuch, nor even that
one continuous narration in anything like complete-
ness can be thus separated from this double body of
history. The Elohist's work comes much the nearer
to such completeness. The larger part of the first
four books of the Pentateuch probably belongs to
this document, which, beginning in the first chapter
of Genesis, reaches on to Deuteronomy. But it cer-
tainly does not form a perfect work. There are great
gaps in the story which refuse as yet to be drawn
together, charm our critics never so wisely. Never-
theless, there is an internal correspondence between
many of these disjecta membra that strongly suggests
a vital union, in some earlier age, a whole and inde-
pendent organism. And, indeed, in the first division
of Genesis these fragments lie in such an order, with
such relations and references one to another, and
with such an entire ignoring of the Jehovistic pas-
sages which lie between them, that it is natural to
suppose them to have originally followed one another
immediately, in a history which we find we can readily
Q
+$
THE STRUCTURE OF THE PENTATEUCH. 23
reconstruct-recognizing in it a unity and complete-
ness of its own.
2
8
4
This Elohistic history of the primeval world em-
braced the following sections: An account of the
creation of the heavens and the earth;¹ a genealog-
ical list, reaching from Adam to Noah, or from the
Creation to the Deluge; a history of the Flood,
down to the death of Noah; and genealogical lists
covering from Noah's sons to Abram; thus leading
on to the story of the Hebrews. Though this contin-
uousness of the Elohistic narration is not preserved
in the later history, but is lost at times in the over-
lapping of other materials, yet this strong thread
forms the warp of the whole Pentateuch, through
which a woof of many colors is shot-the Grund-
schrift, or ground-writing, as the critics call it.
Ewald called this work The Book of Origins.5
VI.
There seems no room, then, to doubt that, however
unable we are to completely unravel the texture of
the Pentateuch into the original threads, this great
book is in reality a woven tissue, three of the chief
of whose strands we can fairly well pick out. Other
threads doubtless were woven into this cloth of many
colors, spun by other cunning hands.
¹ Gen. i. ii. 3.
2 v...
xi. 10-26.
vi. 5; ix. 29—the Elohistic verses only.
5
See Note 3 to Chapter I.
ļ
}
}
1
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
Ewald thinks that he can pick out the work of
seven different hands, and with thorough-going Ger-
man confidence he proceeds to assign to each Nar-
rator his special share of the Pentateuch. David-
son more modestly distinguishes four writers. Each
critic has his own notion on this matter. In many
of these fine distinctions there is an over-nicety
of criticism, into which we need not care to follow
the Masters; as there is often an over-positiveness
of conclusion on which less learned folk can cer-
tainly not venture.
26
When the Masters have reached a reasonable
unity of judgment concerning the minor elements
of the book, or even concerning the exact apportion-
ment to the two chief narrators of their respective
contributions, it will be time for us scholars to try
to reconstruct our Pentateuchs. We should not,
however, turn our faces away from the light in which
we can at least see, looming through the mist of
time, the forms of the two great authors who, with
the fervent Deuteronomist, undoubtedly wrote the
bulk of the five-fold book, leaving it for some final
editor, perhaps, to fashion their triple workmanship
into its present shape.
This wonderful book is like the noble Mississippi, in
whose bosom mingle the waters of three great rivers,
which, rising far apart, have carried into the common
stream very different elements from the soils through
which they have flowed; the two largest branches
ļ
書
​THE STRUCTURE OF THE PENTATEUCH.
27
on their first meeting, rolling along side by side in
clearly marked currents, while later on they mingle
together in inextricable confusion; the imposing
three-fold flood being ever fed, along its course, by
other tributaries, into whose channels the springs of
a nation have drained, to feed the mighty Father of
Waters.
i
}
{
1
1
1
}
S
CHAPTER II
1
THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE PENTATEUCH.
THE Pentateuch has sufficiently disclosed to us
its internal structure to warrant our classing it under
the usual type of early histories. It is, as we have
plainly seen, a composite. Its fabric is woven out
of many threads of history, three of the chief strands
of which we have been able to pick out, at least,
here and there in the body of the work.
Who were these great authors, and when did they
write?
I.
Tradition has assigned the Pentateuch to Moses;
which, of course, would fix its date. In the light of
the composite character of the Pentateuch which
has opened upon us, such a traditional authorship
necessarily limits itself, however, very considerably.
Moses might have written one of the chief works
which together compose the book; or he might
have edited this triple work of others; or, at the ut-
most, he might have written the main contribution
to this history and have united the labors of the
other two great authors with his own material, thus
3
S
THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE PENTATEUCH.
29
1
fashioning the Pentateuch. There is nothing in the
view of the book that we have thus far gained to
deny the possibility of such a Mosaic authorship;
and either of the two latter alternatives might be
thought sufficient to validate the ancient tradition.
Our elder scholars saw quite plainly that Moses
must have drawn from much earlier sources in writ-
ing Genesis; whose conclusion was separated from
his age by four hundred years. Luther put this
theory in a naïf form:
"Many things were written and described ere
Moses was born. Doubtless Adam briefly noted the
history of the creation, of his fall, of the promised
seed, etc. The other patriarchs afterward, no doubt,
each set down what was done in his time, especially
Noah. Afterward Moses, as I conceive, took and
brought all into a right method and order
all which, doubtless, he had out of the sermons of the
patriarchs that always one inherited from another." 1
But it will probably be confessed, by most dispas-
sionate minds, that such an editing of this book in
the age of Moses looks very improbable. It presup-
poses a considerable literary development among
the Hebrews in a very early period, whereas the
little that is known of them in those times reveals a
rude semi-nomadic people, among whom no trace
of "letters" is discernible.
2
What, then, are the grounds on which tradition has
'Luther's Table Talk, § cxix.
2 Ante 1280 B.C.
1
1
30
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
assigned the Pentateuch to Moses? As in the case
of many other traditions, the basis for this belief
proves sadly lacking in solidity.
(1) In our English version the titles of these
books seem to determine their authorship-" The
First Book of Moses, called Genesis," etc. These
titles, however, form no part of the original text.
They are not found in the Hebrew editions and
manuscripts, nor in the Septuagint, nor yet in the
Vulgate, but only in some modern translations.
Books which appeared anonymously have had their
present titles fathered upon them anonymously, and
no one knows by whom.
Nowhere in them is there a claim of Mosaic
authorship for the Pentateuch as a whole, nor for
any one of its five books, with the possible exception
of Deuteronomy. Genesis has not the slightest
hint as to its authorship, nor any clue that links it
with Moses. The three books which make`up
Ewald's second part of the Pentateuch, The Law,¹
readily resolve themselves into an historical narra-
tive, in which lie imbedded legislative records. The
historical narration nowhere professes to have come
from the pen of Moses as a complete composition.
Two entries in the narrative are attributed to Moses.
One is the brief paragraph that records the battle
with Amalek, in Rephidim.2 The other is the epit-
ome of the journeyings of the Hebrews in Arabia,
'Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers.
2 Ex. xvii. 8-13.
素
​}
THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE PENTATEUCH. 31
which looks very much like a veritable memorandum
from the journal of the Hebrew Xenophon.¹ This
special ascription of two items in the narrative to
Moses, inferentially, excludes his pen from the rest
of the history.
The legislation bedded in this history is also no-
where said to have been, as a whole, recorded by
Moses. At least three distinct codes are embodied
in this second group of books. The first code, The
Decalogue, is said to have been written by Moses,
in the durable form which he might naturally have
chosen in order to its preservation, by his rude
Nomads. The second code, the body of simple,
social "Judgments," found in Exodus, and the
third code, the body of Levitical legislation scat-
tered through this whole division of the Pentateuch,
are not said to have been put in writing by Moses.
2
On the contrary, in the first mention of the fact
that the Decalogue was recorded on stone tables by
Moses, there seems to be an express and careful ex-
clusion of the judgments from this Mosaic record;
although this body of laws stands in immediate con-
nection with the Ten Words, and in this very passage
is included in the legislation which Moses is said to
have given the people from Jehovah. The entire
legislation of this second division of the Pentateuch is
certainly everywhere described as having been given
to the people through Moses, as the mouth-piece of
'Num. xxxiii. 3-49. Ex. xxxiv. 28. xxi.-xxiii. 19. xxiv. 3, 4.
4
C
"
1
L
{
↑
32
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
Jehovah. This is the fundamental idea of the book
--an idea which expressed a certain truth to the
ancient Hebrews that we ought to be able to recog-
nize and revere, without following them in their
literal ascription of this whole mass of heterogeneous
legislation, of legislation that is sometimes rude and
even savage, to the Divine Being. The uniform
description of this legislation, as orally given, may
point us to its original nature, and thus place in our
hands the clue to the true character of the book—a
late codification of early Hebrew law, piously re-
ceived as from Jehovah.
Not until we reach the last part of the Pentateuch
do we find a single statement that Moses wrote
down any laws but the Ten Words. In Deuter-
onomy, however, at the conclusion of the farewell
address of the great Lawgiver, we find this record-
"And Moses wrote this law, and delivered it unto
the priests, the sons of Levi, which bare the ark of
the covenant of Jehovah, and unto all the elders of
Israel." We have seen that Deuteronomy is, by its
own account of itself, clearly separable from the rest.
of the Pentateuch, though fitly concluding it. It
professes to be a new statement of the Law, given a
generation after the original legislation, as the form
in which Moses saw fit to commend that legislation
to his successors. We are therefore wholly un-
warranted in referring the language-" the words of
1 xxxi. 9.
?
THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE PENTATEUCH. 33
this law "—to anything back of the code which was
formulated in the great address recorded in this
book.¹ There would seem to have been a Jewish
tradition limiting the reference of these words to
Deuteronomy.2
But it is by no means clear that even this much is to
be understood by this passage. In the twenty-seventh
chapter, at the eighth verse, Moses commands that
"all the words of this law" are to be written on the
plaistered stones" that are to be set up on Mount.
Ebal; by which some most conservative commenta-
tors have thought that only a summary of the law
was meant, because of the difficulty involved in sup-
posing the whole of Deuteronomy to have been in-
scribed on such material. If the Law could mean
only a summary of Deuteronomy in one case, it might
also in the other. But if this statement be taken in
its fullest sense, as covering the whole of the book
of Deuteronomy, its authority remains to be weighed.
Waiving the modern view of Deuteronomy, the book
is still an anonymous production, and the particular
"C
¹i.-xxxi., or more accurately, perhaps, v., with xii.-xxvi.
2 Cf. Horne, ii. 543. This venerable work, which still forms the
text-book in Episcopal seminaries, airily dismisses this tradition by re-
ferring the reader to Keil for its disproof, who in turn is found to refer
to his edition of Havernick. Surely so voluminous a work as Horne's
might have spared a paragraph to sum up this evidence. Of course
the view of Deuteronomy's complete, original independence, held by
most scholars, however they differ as to its date, robs its language of
any possible reference to the other books.
'
3
}
1
34
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
passage in which these words are found is fairly open
to the suspicion of being an appendix. The last
chapter is universally admitted to be a postscript,
since it narrates the death and burial of Moses. But
the two preceding chapters look more or less like
additions to the main body of the book. The great
address of Moses closes with the end of the thirtieth
chapter. This is followed by an historical narration,
in which the legislator gives directions for the pres-
ervation and observance of his law, receives a warn-
ing from Jehovah of his approaching death, recites
"a song" to the assembled people, pronounces a
'blessing" on the tribes-a poem patterned upon
Jacob's Blessing-and finally goes up the mountain
of Nebo to die. The weaving in of these two poems.
gives the air of an addition to the whole of this pas-
sage. A cautious critic like Bleek admits all after
verse twenty-four of chapter thirty-one to be an ap-
pendix; but there seems to be no especially strong
reason for drawing the line there. A possible ap-
pendix to an anonymous book-this is the historic
authority for the statement, which cannot be proved
to refer to even the whole of Deuteronomy.
(C
Reviewing, then, our examination of the Penta-
teuch's testimony as to its own authorship, we find
that a brief record of a battle in Exodus, a memo-
randum of camping stations in Numbers, together
with the Ten Words and the book of Deuteronomy,
in whole or in part, constitute all the narrative and
THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE PENTATEUCH. 35
legislation that is claimed to have been written by
Moses. The Pentateuch as a whole appears anony-
mously. This fact of itself ought to settle the case.
For, if these books were really written by Moses, is
it conceivable that he would have left them uncerti-
fied; when, according to the story, he showed so
much concern about perpetuating the Law which he
gave to his people? Or, is it conceivable that the
Divine Being, who, as the narrative runs, Himself
gave the Law here embodied to Moses on Sinai, and
who was Himself the chief actor in the history here
given, should have left the record of His action to the
authority of anonymity? When the Almighty inter-
fered in such an absolutely unparalleled and wholly
miraculous manner, was He so careless of the faith
of the future, whose basis He was laying, as to forget
to authenticate the book of which He Himself was
the real author?
(2) The traditional authorship of the Pentateuch
finds no real confirmation in the other books of the
Bible.
The Old Testament is constantly cited as a con-
clusive witness in support of this tradition, but its
evidence really proves nothing in the case. It cannot
be claimed that there is a single statement in any of
its books which affirms that Moses wrote this work,
nor that even so much as fairly infers it. It is
claimed, however, and rightly, that there are a large
number of passages in it which refer to the Law of
I
36
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
Moses, and to the Book of the Law of Moses.
These are ordinarily read as synonyms of the Pen-
tateuch. This, however, is a pure assumption, being
the very question at issue. It is not doubted by
any one that the nation received its legislation, tra-
ditionally, as the work of Moses; nor is it doubted
by any, save a very few ultra critics, that this tra-
dition grew out of a substantial historic fact. Moses
is generally conceded to have given the Hebrews the
Decalogue, and to have committed it to writing,
with, perhaps, other portions of the legislation re-
corded in the Pentateuch. There was, then, from
the Exodus onward, a real Law, bodied probably in
a Book of the Law, hallowed with the name of
Moses. This original germ constituted the nucleus
around which later legislations slowly crystallized—
the successive growths of law all taking on the name
and authority of the first lawgiver. The use of the
expressions The Law of Moses, and The Book
of the Law, was thoroughly elastic in Israel, as can
readily be seen by an examination of the passages
where they occur. Before we read into such pas-
sages the later meaning of these expressions, we
must be sure of the correct age of the books from
which we make our citations. Books written after
the age of Ezra undoubtedly meant by these
terms The Pentateuch, since we know beyond ques-
tion that he brought this work with him from Baby-
lonia, and that the people reverenced it as the Law
THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE PENTATEUCH. 37
of Moses. And while a considerable number of
the Old Testament books have always been assigned
to the exilian and post-exilian periods, the tendency
of scholarship is to push an increasing proportion of
the sacred writings forward into this late age. Most of
the Psalms are now dated from these times. The con-
tinuous history of the nation, which has been called
The Great Book of the Kings-Joshua, Judges, First
and Second Samuel, and First and Second Kings-
is supposed to have been then revised and cast in its
present form; while the two books of Chronicles are
placed wholly in this period. And it is in the histo-
ries and the historical psalms, naturally, that by far
the greater portion of the references to Moses occur.
These writings placed aside, the few passages other-
wise found bearing on the case are to be read in the
elastic use of the terms in question which character-
ized the earlier Hebrew books; and thus they prove
nothing at all as to the Pentateuch.
Direct quotations from the Pentateuch would of
course prove that, in some form, it was in existence
at the dates of the books in which the citations are
found; and unmistakable references or allusions to
its contents would, in a feebler measure, indicate the
same fact; though any amount of such passages
would prove nothing as to the author of the Penta-
touch. The utmost that this line of evidence could
do would be to make it certain that the book, in
¹Nehemiah, xiii. 1.
1
38
some form, was in existence soon after the Mosaic
age. To do this, however, it would be necessary to
establish the relative chronological order of the Old
Testament books, accurately and by a fair consensus
of authority. We are far from any such knowledge
as yet, and the general tendency of criticism is, as
already indicated, to widen the gap between the age
of Moses and the age of the earliest books, which
already yawns across some centuries.¹ The great
prophets, whose writings form the earliest books
which we can accurately date-the historic opening
of the literary epoch in Israel-have a number of
references to the contents of the Pentateuchal his-
tory; though few in comparison with what we might
have expected. In addition to general references to
the patriarchs, there are allusions to the Garden of
Eden, to Nimrod, to Noah, to Sodom, to Jacob's
visit to Laban, to the Plagues, to the Red Sea and
to the apostasy at Baal-peor.' These allusions
prove nothing beyond the existence of the oral tra-
ditions which are written out in the Pentateuch, or,
at the utmost, their existence in writing.10
8
/
5
77
8
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
1
¹ Five centuries, say the later critics.
li. 3; Eze. xxviii. 13, xxxi. 9, 16, 18, xxxvi. 35.
5 Isa. iii. 9; Amos, iv. II.
Eze. xiv.
7
8
9
2 Joel, ii. 3; Isa. xliii. 27,
Micah, v. 6.
• Hosea, xii. 12.
Amos, iv. 10. Isa. xi. 15, 16. Hosea, ix. 10.
(The paucity of the references to the Primeval Sagas before the
exile is one of the arguments for the late date of these poems. See
Goldziher: Hebrew Mythology, 325 et seq.)
}
#
THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE PENTATEUCH. 39
>>1
2
8
There are also a few expressions which are unmis
takably the same as those which are found in the
written form of these traditions preserved in the
Pentateuch. Jeremiah writes: "I beheld the earth,
and lo it was without form and void."
The song
of triumph over Heshbon is quoted by the same
prophet. Hosea uses the language of the story of
Jacob concerning his pre-natal struggle with Esau,
and concerning his midnight wrestle by the Jabbok.4
Passages with such unmistakable verbal identity
are very few. They may prove either that the
prophets took them from received written forms of
the old sagas, traditions, and popular songs, or that
they themselves wrote them out and were after-
ward quoted by the historians of the Pentateuch.
They cannot, in their paucity, prove the existence of
a book like our Pentateuch, and in any conceivable
number could not prove the authorship of the book
of which they say nothing. In all the writings of
the prophets there are only five mentions of the
name of Moses. One of these is from a prophet
who dates after the exile, Malachi; two are from a
prophet of the period of the captivity, the Deutero-
Isaiah; and only two are from prophets prior to the
dispersion-one of these being indeed contemporary
with the fall of Jerusalem-Micah and Jeremiah.5
These references are simply to the leadership of Mo-
¹iv. 23.
4 xii. 3, 4.
2 Numbers, xxi. 27,30.
3 xlviii. 45.
"See Note 1. to Chapter II.
:
Į
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
40
ses, with the exception of the allusion in the latest
of these writers, which is to the Law of Moses.¹
(3) The Old Testament utterly fails to validate
the traditional authorship of the Pentateuch. The
books which clearly date before the exile bear no
testimony pertinent to our inquiry. The books
which were written after the Restoration establish
the facts that the Pentateuch was then in existence,
and that it was regarded as the work of Moses. So
late a development of this tradition is at once its
refutation and its explanation. It is not traceable
back of the exile, for the reason that it did not ex-
ist before that period. It originated in the priestly
revival of the Restoration, which shrined a Book, the
Pentateuch, in the worship of the people. That book
bodied the Law which had slowly crystallized around
the original legislation of Moses, taking ethical and
spiritual shape from the forces moving in that great
thought. In a most true historic sense, all the sub-
sequent developments of the national legislation
took on thus the name and authority of the great
lawgiver. In the profound religious instinct of the
race, it was felt to be from God, by the hand of His
servant Moses. The devout souls who wrote the
history of the giving of the law thus pictured it as
a revelation from Jehovah. They may not have.
meant to ascribe to Moses the book which told the
story of that revelation. The reverence of the na-
¹ Malachi, iv. 4; Isaiah, Ixiii. 11, 12; Jer. xv. I; Micah, vi. 4.
P
1
THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE PENTATEUCH. 41
tion, however, transferred the awe felt for the Law
to the book in which it was recorded. There was
no criticism existent in those days, but abundance of
superstition. The age of bibliolatry set in, and "the
people of the book," led by the rabbins, who said
that after the giving of the Torah there was no Law
left in heaven, could not think of that sacred volume
as penned by a less glorious hand than that of the
half-divine Moses. Thus, probably, grew up the
tradition of the Mosaic authorship of the Penta-
teuch.
/
(4) But it will be said, as the conclusive answer to
this interpretation of the tradition, that Christ re-
ceived the Pentateuch as the work of Moses, and
thus sealed this belief with his own authority.
Without raising any question as to the absolute
accuracy of the reports of Christ's language, this
conclusion by no means follows of necessity from
any expressions recorded in the Gospels. On any view
of the person of Christ, he must needs have spoken
down, from a vastly superior height, to the level of
his hearers. To speak at all and be understood, he was
obliged to talk in the current terms of the day. Are
there no well-recognized instances of his accommo-
dating his thought and language to the conceptions
of his hearers? Why, then, should he not have
spoken, as is reported of him, to the good souls who
could have had no other notion than that Moses
actually wrote down every word of the Book of the
!
42
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
Law? If he knew otherwise, why should he raise
any questions on such a matter, nearly two thousand
years before they could be intelligently answered,
and thus lose a hearing for his real message? Nor,
indeed, in any view of Christ, are we bound to be-
lieve that he necessarily knew that there was little
ground for the tradition in which he had been nur-
tured. The highest thought of Christ's nature pos-
sible does not deny that he shared the limitations
of his age, in matters of mere knowledge. A laying
aside of superhuman knowledge, and a stooping
within the narrow area of human thought are involved
in the Incarnation. In truth, the sum of the mat-
ter is that Christ did not come to teach Biblical Criti-
cism. Since the Heavenly Father, in His manifesta-
tion of Himself to man's soul, has not been pleased.
to dispense with human efforts after truth, but has
left the world to learn science and philosophy by
slow, laborious studies, it might have been expected
that the Son, in his revelation of the Father, would
not discharge scholarship from the disciplining toils
of criticism.
II.
We have thus seen that the Mosaic authorship of
the Pentateuch is certified merely by tradition.
Tradition is, of course, not lightly to be set aside.
It is always safe to assume that there may have
1
THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE PENTATEUCH. 43
been grounds for the formation of a venerable opin-
ion that have not come down to us. Only when
there are strong reasons for questioning a dictum of
tradition ought we to challenge it to verify itself.
Are there any grounds in the Pentateuch itself for
suspecting its Mosaic authorship? It is no novel
opinion that there are such grounds. Some writers
in the early Church, whose names are tainted with
heresy, and whom we may thus know to have been
very
foolish and unlearned men, appear to have held
this tradition in light esteem. So safe a Father, how-
ever, as St. Jerome had his doubts about this belief.1
A few Jews in the middle ages let their suspicions go
upon record. Early in the modern era these ques-
tionings began again, and have continued in gather-
ing volume down to our own day. Carlstadt, in
the Reformation age, saw reason to doubt this tradi-
tion. Hobbes, Spinoza and others called this tradition
in question. The growth of modern criticism has
thrown up on the surface of the Pentateuch an ever-
increasing number of tokens of its non-Mosaic au-
thorship, until the old tradition is now held by few
scholars who have not shelved their views a genera-
tion ago.
It has always been admitted that there must have
been some re-editing of the Pentateuch after Moses'
'See Note 2 to Chapter II.
"For opinions of Carlstadt and Spinoza, cf. Bleek: Intro. I: 194.
For opinion of Hobbes, see Note 3 to Chapter II.
1
}
44
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
death, except by that rare class of minds who could
seriously entertain the notion that, under prophetic
influences, he penned a notice of his own funeral in
advance of the occasion. How far this re-editing
must have gone will readily appear to most people,
in a summary of the chief features of these books
which point to a hand later far than that of Moses.
The most convincing of these water-marks in the
tissue of the Pentateuch are, of course, only to be
seen through the glasses of critical scholarship; but
there are enough lying open to the naked eye to
satisfy the average man that, if Moses edited these
books, they have been so much retouched as to de-
stroy the identity of his work, and that the most
natural conclusion is that he never edited them
at all.
(1) At least one document is quoted which is
plainly of a date subsequent to the wanderings in
Arabia. In the narrative of the Hebrew occupation
of the district bordered by the river Arnon, there is
a poetical quotation from a book whose title ap-
pears to have been well known, referring to this
action :
What he did in the Red Sea
And in the brooks of Arnon," etc.
The book from which the song was taken evident-
ly celebrated the Hebrew victories of the age of
Moses, and contained a poem describing the success-
1 ¹ Numbers, xxi. 14, 15.
THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE PENTATEUCH. 45
ful crossing of the Arnon, which occurred near the
close of Moses' life. Yet it is quoted in Numbers,
as an earlier work: "Wherefore it is said in the
Book of the Wars of Jehovah."
112
(2) There are many passages which contain state-
ments or allusions, historical, geographical, archæo-
logical, etc., implying a post-Mosaic date. Joseph
tells the chief butler-" I was stolen out of the land
of the Hebrews." Neither in his age nor in the age
of Moses had the Hebrews any land. They had not
even begun to conquer Canaan when Moses died.
The story of the man who gathered sticks on the
Sabbath is thus prefaced-" And while the children
of Israel were in the wilderness. The Hebrews
are warned not to defile themselves, bestially, by the
fate of the Canaanites-" for all these abominations
have the men of the land done, which were before
" As Abraham first enters Palestine the record
you.'"
is made-" And the Canaanite was then in the
land." In the genealogical tables of Edom it is
said "These are the kings that reigned in the land.
of Edom, before there reigned any king over the chil-
dren of Israel." The first king of Israel was over
two hundred years after Moses. This is as though
in a history of the American colonies, supposed to
have been written before the war of Independence,
we came across the expression-These were the
2 Numbers, xv. 32. 9 Levit. xviii. 27.
• Gen. xxxvi. 31.
5
8
1 Gen. xl. 15.
¹ Gen. xii. 6.
1
Paint
Y
46
i
{
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
"1
chiefs of the Indian tribes who ruled in the land be-
fore there were any Presidents over the Americans.
Among the Deuteronomic laws, we come upon
this provision-"Thou shalt not remove thy
neighbor's land mark, which they of old time have
set in thine inheritance." What surveyors of real
estate had laid out Canaan in private lots for the
Jews, before they had conquered it? The formula
"unto this day" occurs a number of times, not alone
in Genesis, where it would be natural in a writing of
Moses, but in the portions of the Pentateuch which
describe his own times. Thus, for example, in a
story which belongs to the very close of the life of
Moses, we have this language: "Jair called them
(the cities of Bashan) after his own name, Bashan-
havoth-Jair, unto this day."2 Names which came.
in vogue after the Mosaic age are used in these
narratives. Abram pursued the confederate chief-
tains "unto Dan," which name was given to a town
previously called Laish, by the tribe of Dan, in the
period of the conquest. Sarah's death is placed "in
Kirjath-arba-the same is Hebron in the land of
Canaan."4
Hebron was a later name of the old.
town, given to it when Caleb, to whose lot it fell on
the division of Canaan, called it after one of his sons.
A history of Long Island which spake of “Coney
Island-the same is Brighton Beach," would not
3
1 Deut. xix. 14.
³ Gen. xiv. 14, with Judges, xviii. 29.
{
2 Deut. iii. 14.
Gen. xxiii. 2.
}
THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE PENTATEUCH. 47
leave us in much doubt as to when this passage at
least was written.
1
(3) There are passages that are difficult to accept
as from the pen of Moses. His comments upon
himself are certainly unusual for a modest man.
"The man Moses was very meek above all the men
which were upon the face of the earth;" "Moses, the
man of God." It is strange for him to threaten the
people that if they prove disobedient to Jehovah they
shall be brought "into Egypt again, with ships."2 An
historian writing of his own life-time and of his own
work, would hardly confuse the chronological order
of his narrative, as is done in Numbers, where the
contents of the first chapter describes what ought to
come after the ninth chapter, according to the head-
ing of these sections.8
5
(4) There are historical omissions which are in-
conceivable, as made by Moses. We read: "Then
came the children of Israel, even the whole con-
gregation, into the desert of Zin, in the first month,
and the people abode in Kadesh." In the same
chapter we find the récord—" And the children of
Israel, even the whole congregation, journeyed from
Kadesh, and came unto Mount Hor." We thus
pass in one chapter from the first month of the third
year after the Exodus to the fifth month of the
fortieth year of that epoch. Thirty-eight years slip
1. 2 Deut. xxviii. 68.
Numbers, xx. I.
4
'Numbers, xii. 3; Deut. xxxiii.
8 Numbers, i. I, with ix. I.
}
XX. 22.
"
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
48
by between two verses, without any indication of
the great gap, as though the story moved straight
on; and this, after a minute record of the stations
of the wanderings up to the time of encampment at
Kadesh. Could Moses have thus written the history
of the migration that he himself led? Would
Moses have dismissed his great brother with such a
curt obituary as this-" And the children of Israel
took their journey from Beeroth, of the children of
Jaakan, to Mosera: there Aaron died, and there he
was buried: and Eleazar his son ministered in the
priest's office in his stead?"1
tand
(5) The historical reduplications, which were no-
ticed in the first chapter, are incomprehensible as
the work of a writer narrating events in his own ex-
perience. There are two accounts of the calling of
water from a rock by Moses, in each of which the
main features of the story are found, even to the
naming of the place, Meribah, from this experience.2
There is a double account of the miracle of the
quails. The story of the wonderful plagues is un-
accountably involved in needless repetitions of Je-
hovah's charges to Moses and to Aaron. A long list
of such reduplications can be made.
3
(6) There are curious historical discrepancies,
which are scarcely conceivable as coming from Moses.
According to one place, the feast of unleavened bread
¹ Deut. x. 6.
2 Ex. xvii. and Numbers, xx. 1-13.
Ex. xvi., and Numbers, xi.
ľ
1
THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE PENTATEUCH. 49
was introduced before the Exodus; while by another
passage we are taught that it was instituted after that
event, at Succoth.¹ The institution of the sacred
order of the Levites is placed at Sinai, in the life-time
of Aaron; and also at another spot, in a much later
time, after Aaron's death. We are told in Exodus
that Moses, Aaron, Nadab, with Abihu and seventy
of the elders of Israel, saw the God of Israel. The de-
scription is thoroughly anthropomorphic-mention
even being made of his hands and feet. In Deu-
teronomy, however, we read: "They saw no manner
of similitude in the day that Jehovah spake to them
in Horeb." This direct contradiction is interesting,
as a sign of the growth of thought, from a physical
to a spiritual conception of God; and indicates a
much later date for the second passage, and thus for
the book in which it is found and whose spirit it
breathes.
8
The legislation is marked by similar features, be-
traying a later hand than that of Moses.
(7) There are omissions in the Deuteronomic code,
which are entirely explicable on the modern theories
of its chronological place in the Hebrew legislation,
but which are inconceivable as a repetition, by Moses,
of the Law he had given at Sinai. Would he have
omitted such important laws as the body of enact-
Ex. xii. 15, etc., with Ex. xiii. 3, etc.
2 Numbers, viii., with Deut. x. 8.
Ex. xxiv. 9, with Deut. iv. 15.
4
1
50
ments concerning offerings,¹ the directions concern-
ing the water of cleansing, those pertaining to the
offerings at feasts, and the most solemn ordinance
of the great day of atonement-the culminating sac-
rament of the Jewish Church? *
8
(8) There are repetitions of legislation that scarcely
consist with a codification made under such an august
commission as Moses held. The agent of Jehovah
solemnly gives prescriptions which he has already
given-and very shortly before-even repeating the
very language of the previous legislation. A con-
siderable number of such reduplications occur in the
second division of the Pentateuch-the original legis-
lation according to the traditional view.
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
(9) There are direct discrepancies and contradic-
tions in the legislation, which one law-giver would
not have allowed. According to the confused ac-
counts of the numberings of the Levites and of the
people at large, the proportion of the first-born males
to the whole of the male Israelites would appear to
have been as one to forty-five-an inconceivable re-
lation. The age at which the Levites were to enter
on their duties is given in one place at thirty, and in
another neighboring passage of the same book at
twenty-five. As previously pointed out, the Levites
Levit. xviii.
¹ Levit. i.-vii.
1
B Cf. Ex. xxxiv. 17-26, with Ex. xxi. and xxiii.; Levit. xx. with
3
Numb. xix. 9 Numb. xxviii. ff. 1 Levit. xvi.
Numbers, iii. and iv.
7 Numb. iv. 3, and viii. 23-26.
{
1
i
↓
THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE PENTATEUCH. 51
were to receive certain towns for their homes, with a
tithe of the people's produce; and yet again they are
provided for as homeless and poor, objects of charity
in common with "the stranger.'
"1
(10) There are specific prescriptions in the legisla-
tion which plainly point to an age subsequent to that
of Moses. Of course, under the traditional view of
this legislation, there would be a natural onlook of
the lawgiver to the period when the wanderings of
the people should cease, and they should settle down
in Canaan. There might well be, therefore, occa-
sional provisions contemplating that future state of
society. The suspiciousness of such directions as
those concerning the offering of "the first of thy
ripe fruits," and concerning the man "that hath
built a new house," may be thus removed, especially
when these provisions are found in the farewell ad-
dress of the lawgiver. But, in the earlier legislation,
the directions touching fields, vineyards, olive yards,
and the harvest feast, occur amid legislation adapted
to the Arabian nomadic life, without any indication.
that they are given for future generations. The
order exempting from military enrollment the man
that had built a house, or had planted a vineyard,
might naturally have been accompanied by a proviso
adjourning its operation to the future time contem-
plated; since Joshua could scarcely have regarded it
1 Numb. xviii. 20-22, and xxxv. 1-8, with Deut. xiv. 27-29.
2 Ex. xxii. 29.
9 Deut. xx. 5.
!!
1
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
52
as stimulating the people to the military ardor neces-
sary for the difficult war bequeathed to him. The
provision already referred to, in another connection,
"Thou shalt not remove thy neighbor's landmark,
which they of old time have set in thine inheritance,"
is scarcely adjusted to the age of Moses by the
onward look of the following clause-" which thou
shalt inherit in the land that the Lord thy God
giveth thee." Of course, Moses may have been pro-
phetically inspired to anticipate two hundred years
in his legislation, and to provide for a king over a
nation not as yet formed out of loosely confederate
tribes.¹ The general improbability of such very
previous action is, however, rendered still more in-
credible by the fact that Samuel evidently knew
nothing of this legislation-since, had he known it,
he could not have regarded the people's wish for a
king as a sin against Jehovah; 2 and by the further
fact that the description of the manners of the future
king is a close parallel to the actual doings of Solo-
mon. The warning that the land should "enjoy her
Sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate, and ye be in your
enemies' land," is too plain a retrospect from the
exile in Babylonia or from amid its oncoming
shadows to bear an argument.
3
(11) The legislation plainly reveals a process of
development which could not have been crowded
1 Deut. xvii. 14, etc.
3
Cf. 1. Kings, iv. 26, and xi. I, etc.
2 1. Sam. viii. 6-10.
4 Levit. xxvi. 34.
THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE PENTATEUCH. 53
into the forty years of the Arabian wanderings.
One of the minor instances of such a development
may be seen by comparing the provision for three
great annual festivals in Exodus with the provision
for five such feasts in Leviticus.1 A far more strik-
ing picture of this process is gained by contrasting
the code of laws known as the "Judgments," with
the Deuteronomic code, and with the Levitical legis-
lation scattered through the three central books.
These Judgments form a body of social laws, dating
evidently from an early period in the people's
history. They bespeak a simple, rude society, whose
notions of justice are, in some cases, quite primitive,
and whose very crimes are archaic. An ox that
gores a man to death is to be stoned, and his flesh is
not to be eaten. A man who smites his slave so that
he dies at once is to be punished, but, "if he con-
tinue a day or two, he shall not be punished, for he
is his money"—that is, the owner is sufficiently
punished for the brutal treatment of a slave which
stops short of instantaneous murder by the loss of
his human property. It was
It was the shock which
these words gave to the conscience of a Christian
Zulu, as coming from God, that opened Bishop
Colenso's eyes to the difficulty of the conventional
theory of the Pentateuch, and that started him.
upon the investigations which finally led him to
abandon utterly the tradition of a Mosaic authorship
¹Ex. xxiii. 14-17, and Levit, xxiii.
}
1
54
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
of these books.¹ A capital punishment is needful
in the age of this body of Judgments, upon the man
that "lieth with a beast." We may form a picture.
of this age from our knowledge of the state of Eng-
land in the time of Alfred the Great, who, in draw-
ing up his famous "Dooms," incorporated these
"Judgments almost bodily as the basis of his
legislation. Over against this picture of a primitive
people there stands the impression of a well de-
veloped civilization made upon our mind by the
great mass of legislation.
""
Our attention has already been drawn to the com-
paratively advanced stage of society that is indicated
in Deuteronomy. The Levitical legislation points.
to a still later religious development. An elaborate
priestly hierarchy, officering a complex and artificial
ecclesiastical mechanism, is always a late product.
in the history of a people. Before a religion can
develop into such a system, it must have been
growing through many generations, if not through
many centuries. Such a cultus is invariably a sign
of an over-ripe religion-a faith in decadence. Un-
less historic parallels are of no value in interpreting
the Jewish development, this Levitical legislation
belongs to the end and not to the beginning of
Israel's life. Such a legislation, among a semi-
nomadic people, whose state was, according to the
received narratives, one of utter simplicity, re-
'See Note 4 to Chapter II.
!
THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE PENTATEUCH. 55
ligiously as well as socially, is an anomaly that sets
law at defiance.
In fact, there are at least four separate codifica-
tions of law clearly recognizable in the Pentateuch.
There is, first, the Law of the Ten Words-a simple
summary of religious and moral duties, in all
probability given by Moses. The second code is
The Judgments, or the Book of Covenants,¹-a col-
lection of primitive social laws of a rude, agricult-
ural people, such as the Hebrews may have been in
Goshen, and such as we know that they were, a cent-
ury later, in Canaan; having no indication of
locality; embodying the Decalogue, freely rendered.
The third, or Deuteronomic code,2 is a body of
religio-social laws; independently reproducing the
earlier legislation, with free modifications of its pro-
visions; breathing the ethical and spiritual thought
of the great prophets, and indicating a well-devel-
oped civilization and a martial State in Palestine.
The fourth code is the Levitical Legislation—a mass
of ecclesiastical law concerning the priesthood,
the temple ritual and the general cultus of the
Jewish Church. This legislation is scattered through.
the three central books, being threaded upon the
historic narrative of the Hebrew wanderings, during
which it is represented as having originated. It is
recognizable always by its sacerdotal character,
wherever interwoven with other material. The
2 Deut. xii.-xxvi.
¹Ex. xxi.-xxiii. 19.
56
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
social background of this legislation is not a polit-
ical Power but a Church, a Holy Hebrew People,
such as is found in the period of the Restoration.
It addresses the people habitually as "The Congre-
gation" or The Church.¹
The life-time of Moses, is scarcely an adequate
period for such a historic development as is in-
volved in these successive codifications.
(12) To intrude for a moment in the inner domain
of scholarship, where all these considerations gather
increased force, and where other evidence, not by
us to be weighed, is producible-let it be noted,
finally, that the language of the Pentateuch is said,
by those competent to express an opinion, to indi-
cate a late period in the history of Israel. We know
quite well how final and conclusive the appeal to lan-
guage may be, in the case of a newly discovered lit-
erary work. Were Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" to
be, in our day, dug out of some old library, as an
anonymous work, unknown to the world of letters,
how much difficulty would there be in placing it in
its proper historical period? The language alone.
would infallibly indicate its general age.
If an
anonymous book were to appear, written in the
English of the nineteenth century, could there be any
question about the possibility of its having been
composed in the ninth century of our era? Could a
history of Macaulay be seriously taken for a journal
*See Note 5 to Chapter II
1
Į
{
THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE PENTATEUCH. 57
Kang
of Alfred the Great? If scholars are to be trusted,
this would be the precise parallel of the problem in-
volved in the age of the Pentateuch. Dr. Davidson
says:
"The verdict of every competent critic unquestionably is, that the
Hebrew language appears substantially in the same state of cultiva-
tion in the Mosaic books as it afterward attained in the times of
David and Isaiah."
He himself goes farther and says:
"There is no important difference between the language of the
Pentateuch and that of the other books written shortly before the re-
turn of the Israelites from captivity in Babylon."
He quotes the high authority of Gesenius to the
effect that
"If there was an interval of nearly a thousand years between these
writings, as there must have been on the supposition that Moses was
the author of the Pentateuch, a phenomenon would be presented to
which nothing in the whole history of language is parallel, namely,
that the living language of a people and the circle of their ideas
should remain unaltered for so long a time.'
"; 1
Such an outline of the nature and variety of the
internal evidence that the Pentateuch was written
by another and later hand than that of Moses-and
it is only an outline of the case that has been here
presented—ought to satisfy any open mind. It is
true that some of these objections, taken singly, can
be plausibly explained. Others, and those the chief
Introduction to the Old Testament, Samuel Davidson, I. 106
and 103.
14
1
58
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
difficulties, admit apparently of no natural explana-
tion on the hypothesis of a Mosaic authorship.
Moreover, the force of this testimony is cumulative.
It is the combination of so many and such varied
testimonies which forces conviction on us.
1
Water-marks in a manuscript form an irrefragable
evidence of its age.
III.
This whole question of the Mosaic authorship of
the Pentateuch may find a concluding answer in a
bird's-eye view of the course of Hebrew history, as
outlined in the Old Testament itself. That history
fails utterly to show any evidence of the operation
of the elaborate Levitical Law which is bodied in
the Pentateuch, until we reach the seventh century
before Christ; while throughout these six hundred
years it reveals abundant evidences of recognized,
habitual customs and ideas, among the people and
their leaders, that are wholly irreconcilable with the
existence of such legislation. It has been always
recognized that this legislation was never carried out
before the exile. This practical abeyance of the
Mosaic Law has been heretofore explained as a na-
tional apostasy, from which the prophets were ever
seeking to reclaim the people. The usual marks of
apostasy are, however, lacking in this case. The dis-
regard of the Law is habitual, general, persistent,
THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE PENTATEUCH. 59
complete, and fails to waken any protest from the
religious leaders of the nation.
(1) The Levitical Legislation constituted an elab-
orate cultus of monotheism. In one holy place alone
was Jehovah to be sought and found. That holy
place, as indicated in Deuteronomy, was the temple
in Jerusalem. Other holy places endangered the fun-
damental idea of the cultus; and were thus made
illegal, and as such were under no circumstances to
be tolerated. The worship of no god save Jehovah
was to be allowed on the sacred soil. Jehovah's
worship was to be without any similitude whatever.
No visible image or symbol, such as might seduce
the people into idolatry, was to be permitted. One
sacred order of priests alone could offer sacrifices,
in the one Sanctuary, to the One God. The vil
lages of Israel were never to establish the local
priesthoods which were common through the
East. To the one Sanctuary all the families of
Israel were to repair, on the high festivals, to offer,
through the appointed ministers, their sacrifices to
Jehovah.
With such a clear, consistent, well-elaborated sys-
tem as the fundamental law of the land, according to
the traditional view, what were the actual facts of
the religious life of the nation?
Not until the age of David did the shrine of Jeho-
vah settle down at Jerusalem. For many genera-
tions after this late locating of the Ark in the place.
бо
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
originally indicated, other holy places continued in
more or less successful rivalry with Jerusalem; cen-
tres each of an earnest worship, from which pulsed
the best blood of the nation. Hebrew history cen-
tres round Shechem and Bethel, Mispah and Gilgal,
Hebron and Beersheba, Tabor and Carmel; every
one of these sanctuaries being thoroughly illegal, an
open defiance of Jehovah's law, which commanded
their utter destruction. These local shrines were
served by local priests, who held up their heads with-
out any sense of shame, and were supported by the
people without awakening any antagonism from the
Jerusalemitic priesthood; which, if priestly nature
was then the same as in all other times, would
scarcely have allowed such rivalry when its orthodox
prerogatives and emoluments were guaranteed by
the authority of Jehovah's law. This multiplicity
of sanctuaries was evidently regarded as the natural
order of religion in Israel. Nor was it the common
people alone who thus maintained, through these
long centuries, a system that completely ignored the
Mosaic Law-sinning through ignorance. The lead-
ers of the nation followed in the same ways. Saul
and David offered sacrifices with their own hands
wherever they chanced to find themselves.¹ Even
the religious leaders, the reformers and early proph-
ets, never appear to have condemned these unlawful
usages, and never seemed to have tried to lead the
1
¹ 1. Sam. xiv. 35; 1. Sam. vi. 14.
}
THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE PENTATEUCH. 61
people back to the forsaken ordinances. Samuel
offered sacrifices unhesitatingly on the hills of
Ephraim. Elijah, the stern embodiment of utter-
most loyalty to Jehovah, treated the breaking down
of Jehovah's altars in the Northern Kingdom—all of
which were illegal and sinful according to the Leviti-
cal Law-as a violation of the national covenant 2
with the God of Israel.
2
By the side of the altars of Jehovah the altars of
Baal stood, amicably, during the greater portion of
this early period, with only occasional outbursts of
antagonism, such as are shown in the reform of Eli-
jah. Many other cults existed, undisturbed for the
most part, in the very heart of Jehovah's land.
Even into the worship of Jehovah himself, idolatrous
rites entered habitually. In the Northern Kingdom,
which established its independence chiefly in the in-
terest of a purer worship of Jehovah, there was in
the central shrine an image of a bull-the popular
symbol of Jehovah himself. From all that we can
gather, there would seem, indeed, during a large part
of this period, to have been very little recognizable
difference between the popular worship of Jehovah
and that of other gods. Their rites, even though
savage and licentious, were freely introduced into the
religion of Israel's God. In the detailed historic rec-
ords of the great reform of Jehovism, which took
place under Josiah, we can see what was the actual
3
¹I. Sam. xi. 15.
Hosea, viii. 5.
2
1. Kings, xviii.
g
1
}
62
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS. -.
state of the worship in the temple at Jerusalem as
late as the year 624 B.C.; and from this picture we
can judge what was the condition of religion in out-
of-the-way places, and in much earlier times.
"And the king commanded *** to bring forth out of the temple
of Jehovah all the vessels that were made for Baal, and for Ashera,
and for all the hosts of heaven. *** And he put down the idola-
trous priests whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense
in the high places of the cities of Judah; *** them also that
burned incense unto Baal, to the Sun and to the Moon, and to the
signs of the Zodiac, and to all the host of heaven. And he brought
out the image of Ashera from the House of Jehovah *** And he
brake down the houses of the Sodomites [prostituting priestesses,
like the Nautch girls in the Hindu Pagodas] that were by the House
of Jehovah, where the women wove tents for Ashera. *** And he
defiled Topheth, which is in the valley of the children of Hinnom,
that no man might make his son or his daughter to pass through the
fire to Molech. And he took away the images of horses that the
kings of Judah had given to the Sun, at the entering in of the House
of Jehovah *** and burned the chariots of the Sun with fire. ***
And the High Places that were before Jerusalem *** which Sol-
omon the King of Israel had builded for Ashtaroth, the abomination
of the Sidonians, and for Chemosh, the abomination of the Moabites,
and for Molech, the abomination of the children of Ammon, did the
king defile." 1 *
The reformation under Josiah was the earliest
successful attempt to carry out the fundamental
ideas of the Levitical legislation; and the abortive.
movement in the time of Hezekiah (726-710 B.C.)
was the very first endeavor in this direction of which
1 2 Kings, xxiii. 4-14.
(*Sharpe's translation.)
THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE PENTATEUCH. 63
we have certain knowledge. Seven hundred years
after Moses the nation wakens to a consciousness of
the fundamental principles of its polity, as distinctly
and positively embodied in the elaborate system of
law and in the imposing institutions revealed from
Jehovah!
Not until the period of the Restoration do we
find any record of the systematic operation of the
Levitical Legislation. Only in this late age did
Jerusalem become the one holy place of the land.
Only then did the Levitical priesthood become the
one sacred Order, conducting the worship of Jehovah
without any idolatrous symbolisms. With this tardy
obedience to the first principles of the national
polity, we find an equally dilatory enforcement of
minor laws of this system. In no book, dating
from before the exile, do we discover any reference
to such important features of this religious cultus as
the sin-offering and the trespass-offering. In the
Restoration, for the first time, the Levites entered
upon the enjoyment of their legal privileges. With
a patience of self-denial wholly unparalleled in the
history of priest craft, they had refrained from claim-
ing their fees throughout eight centuries, without so
much as entering a protest or recording their own
virtuousness!
Twenty-four generations of hungry and homeless
priests lived and died without a whisper that they
had been cheated out of the fat tithes and snug
e
1
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
64
cities provided for them in the Law, which was the
charter of the nation, signed and sealed by Jehovah
himself!
(2) In fact, the whole character and spirit of the
actual religion of Israel, in the earlier times, was
utterly and irreconcilably unlike the tone and
temper of the Levitical legislation. This system
represented Jehovah as an awful and jealous being,
who was only to be approached in one spot of earth;
who was there surrounded by a cordon of awe,
through which no one might lightly break; whose.
presence was to be sought alone through the
mediation of an imposing priesthood. The actual
religion of the Hebrews, through many centuries,
found Jehovah's presence on any high hill, and
sought it freely through local priests, or directly
without any priest at all; the elders and house-
fathers offering the sacrifices at the vintage and the
harvest, which were consumed by the people amid
hilarious festivities. The Levitical legislation was
an elaborate cultus of the spiritual nature of man,
impressing a profound sense of sin, haunting the
soul with the fearful shadows of guilt, disciplining
the life in a minute directory, whose aim was the
fashioning of saints. The actual religion of the
nation for many centuries was the joyous worship
of the gracious powers of the physical world; drop-
ping, in seasons of distress, to appalling propitiations
of the wrathful forces before which the people
THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE PENTATEUCH. 65
perished; both the major and the minor settings
of this nature worship being pitched far below the
key of conscience. The Levitical legislation shrined
the high truths of the unity, the spirituality and the
righteousness of God. The actual religion of the
people, down to the exile, was a worship of many
gods, a persistent polytheism that differed but slightly
from the polytheisms of surrounding peoples, save
as the recognition of Jehovah as the tribal god
kept alive the thought of Moses which, in the
loftier spirits, blossomed into the promise of the
true faith.
That this picture of the actual religion of Israel is
correct, is evidenced from the whole story of the na-
tion, even as found in the histories which we have
good reason to believe were written after the late
development of the Levitical legislation, and which
thus naturally reflected its light back upon earlier
times.
(3) It is evidenced unanswerably by the attitude
of the Great Prophets toward the priestly religion
of their day. Had the Pentateuchal Law been the
basis of that sacerdotalism, these illustrious reformers
would not have thrown away the magnificent lever-
age-ground that it gave for their endeavor to lift the
nation to the worship of One Supreme and Righteous.
Being, whose adoration was aspiration after goodness.
Whatever the defects or corruptions of the existing
temple-worship, they would have been quick to per
10
5
¡
1
h
!
66
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
ceive its ideal; and, siding with the more advanced
priests, they would have called the nation to a stricter
carrying out of this sacramental system. If the ex-
isting institutions of Jehovism had been those out-
lined in the Pentateuch, the Prophets would have been
orthodox reformers, within the church. Whereas,
the facts are that they more nearly resembled the
modern "come-outer." They do not speak from the
standpoint of institutionalized religion, but of free
religion. Far from exalting "the Church" of their
day, which, in the traditional theory, had a supernat-
ural charter such as our highest churchmanship can-
not claim for Christianity, they habitually ignore it.
Instead of exhorting to attendance upon the services.
of the Sanctuary, or to a more scrupulous observance
of the church order, they speak of the temple ritual
and the ecclesiastical institutions-which we suppose
to have been designed by Jehovah-if alluding to
them at all, with undisguised dislike and with scorn-
ful depreciation. Isaiah represents Jehovah as say-
ing to Israel:
"For what is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith Je-
hovah.
<<
I am full of burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts;
And I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he-
goats.
"When ye come to appear before me,
“Who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts
Bring no more vain oblations;
"Incense is an abomination unto me;
"L
SAGE
3
THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE PENTATEUCH. 67
"The new moon days and Sabbaths, the calling of convocations.
"I cannot bear wickedness together with a solemn assembly.
"
'Your new moon days and your appointed feasts my soul hateth:
"They are a trouble to me;
"I am weary to bear them." 1
Amos utters the word of Jehovah to the same
effect:
"I hate, I despise your feast-days,
'And I will not smell (snuff the incense of sacrifice) in your solemn
assemblies.
Though ye offer me burnt offerings and your meat offerings,
"I will not accept them :
"Neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts.
"Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs,
"For I will not hear the melody of thy psalteries.'
"C
>> 2
From the priestly religion, as it existed in their day
in its highest conceptions, the prophets turned away
in disgust, as from a system that had nothing in com-
mon with their simple religion of justice and purity,
as the worship of the true God. In fact, two of the
Great Prophets expressly repudiated the popular tra-
dition which, in their day, assigned the origin of the
existing priestly system to Moses. Amos asks, in
the name of Jehovah :
"Did ye bring to me sacrifices and offerings
"In the wilderness for forty years, O House of Israel?
"But ye carried Sikkooth, your king,
"And Kiun-your images ;
"A star your gods, which ye made to yourselves.'
'i. II-14. 2v. 21--23. 9
)) 3
v. 25, 26; see Note 6 to Chapter II.
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
And Jeremiah makes Jehovah distinctly say:
"I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them
4C
In the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt,
Concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices :
But this thing commanded I them, saying,
68
"
"L
"Obey my voice
"And I will be your God,
"And ye shall be my people."
» 1
(4) The history of the nation, down to the
exile, thus amply evidences the total inoperative-
ness of the Pentateuchal Law during that period.
It discloses an habitual, persistent, and general
violation of its fundamental principles, by the
greatest as well as by the least of the people; a
complete absence of any sign that such a system
of legislation was even as much as known to be in
existence. It reveals a radical and irreconcilable un-
likeness between the religion of this Law and the
religions of the nation. It shows a contemptuous
attitude of the prophets, who were sent by Jehovah
to reform the nation's religious life, toward the in-
stitutions which He himself is supposed to have
founded, through the agency of Moses. The hy-
pothesis of an apostasy wholly fails to meet the facts
of the case. It seems impossible to conceive of such
a history with a Mosaic Law, like that which is de-
scribed in the Pentateuch, hidden away in the archives
of the nation. When we see this state of affairs com-
J
¹ vii. 22, 23.
J
1
THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE PENTATEUCH. 69
pletely change, as the nation emerges from the Baby-
lonian exile, and when we see the nation of the
Restoration present just such a picture of religion as
would be natural under a law of the land like the
Pentateuch, the conclusion seems irresistible that
this Law was then first throned above Israel-the
cap-stone and not the corner-stone of its polity.
IV.
We have thus seen that the Mosaic authorship
of the Pentateuch rests simply upon tradition,
being confirmed by no testimony of the book itself,
or of the other Old Testament writings, and finding
no real support in the language of the New Testa-
ment. We have seen that there are in the Penta-
teuch very many and very various touches of a
hand writing in a much later date than the period of
the Exodus; touches which, both by their number
and their nature, make the supposition of a later
edition of the work of Moses exceedingly im-
probable. We have also seen that the whole history
of the nation, down to the period of the exile, de-
nies the operation and even the existence of any
such book. All this we have learned after having
found that the Pentateuch is a composite work, of
such a character, that, at best, Moses could merely
have been the third of an author, or an editor of
other men's compositions. It would certainly seem
I
(C
70-
to the average man that only a very Stalwart of Tra-
ditionalism could, in the face of such facts, continue
to affirm, with the antique scholar who duly in-
structs divinity students in the Episcopal Church-
Nothing is more certain than that this book was
written by Moses."1
¹ Horne. Intro. Old Test., ii. 511.
}
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
I
Į
1
1
Anch
Maj
18
{
1
?
CHAPTER III.
THE GROWTH OF THE PENTATEUCH, AND THE
RECONSTRUCTION WROUGHT BY THE NEW
CRITICISM.
"
IF Moses did not write the Pentateuch, who,
then, did write the works which make up the five-fold
book, and when were they written? Questions,
these, much easier to ask than to answer. In truth,
we do not know at all the names of its authors,
though we have a little more approach to reason-
able certitude as to the age of its leading docu-
ments, and of its final revision. As it stands before
us, it is the result of a long growth. It embodies
the labors of many unknown hands, each working
over the rich store of material furnished by the tra-
ditions of a great race. As says Matthew Arnold-
"To that collection many an old book had given up
its treasures and then itself vanished forever. Many
voices were blended there, unknown voices, speak
ing out of the early dawn." We may picture this
growth somewhat as follows:
"
1
¹ God and the Bible, page 161, chapter iv., § III.
1
71
1
72
{
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
I.
Far back in the early days of the Hebrew tribes,
oral traditions circulated among the people, told
from father to son in
son in family gatherings, and
recited in the festivals of the clans. Later in the
history of the people we find their writers alluding
to this original fount of historic knowledge:
"Remember the days of old; consider the years of
many generations; ask thy father and he will shew
thee, thy elders and they will tell thee."1 "Tell
ye your children of it, and let your children tell
their children, and their children another gene-
ration." 2 The seventy-eighth Psalm, which recites
the history of the people from the Exodus onward
to the age of David, opens this patriotic narration
by ascribing its data to tradition:
"Give car, O my pcople, to my law:
"Incline your ears to the words of my mouth.
"I will open my mouth in a parable:
"I will utter dark sayings of old,
"Which we have heard and known,
"And our fathers have told us."
Among the contents of these oral traditions may
have been the great group of primeval sagas, which
the early Hebrews doubtless learned before their
migration from the borders of Chaldea; where Se-
mitic and Accadian civilizations had, even in those
1 Deut. xxxii. 7.
3 * Joel, i. 3.
THE GROWTH OF THE PENTATEUCH.
73
dim distances of antiquity, elaborated the crude forms
of these myths, poetically picturing the mysteries of
the beginnings. Among these household words.
would certainly have been found stories of the great
ancestors of the tribes-Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and
Joseph, and in later times Moses. In these tales, the
shadows which may well have been originally cast
by rarely noble men would naturally have grown
continually greater and more imposing. The forms of
these heroic patriarchs, looming ever larger through
the mist of time, and seen through the roseate at-
mosphere of wonder in which a child-people lived,
must inevitably have drawn upon themselves the
weird drapery of legend. With these memories of
real men, there must have mingled reminiscences of
the clans and tribes themselves; which in the early
days of communism constituted the real social units.
Thus the persons of the patriarchs must have some-
what merged in the larger figures of tribal personal-
ities. These central forms of a people's admiration
and reverence would furnish the crystallizing centres
for the rich and varied creations of a youthful people's
imagination, which without such permanent figures
in the heart of a race would dissolve in forgetful-
ness. Poetic personifications of nature would shape
themselves around these colossal forms, strangely
confusing fact and fancy for later generations.¹ Great
'Dr. Peters points out a striking exemplification of this process in
Mediaval story; the interweaving of the Niebelungen-Lied with Bur-
1
{
i
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
74
deeds, by whomsoever wrought, would gravitate to
these heroes of the people, and weave themselves
into the fabric of their histories. The folk-lore of
the villages of Israel would mix up all these incon-
gruous elements of tradition in its usual way, and
thus, with entire unconsciousness, real heroes would
be represented as doing most unreal marvels. Thus
the people's oral traditions would come, in after
time, to present grotesque blendings of historic
memories, of spiritual truths, of poetic imaginations,
of patriotic exaggerations and of superstitious won-
derings. But, as handled fondly by a fresh and vig-
orous race, the poetic instinct of a primitive people
would play about these oral stories, slowly fashion-
ing them into artistic lines, despite their incongruous
materials, and breathing into them the grace and
charm of life. Many bodies of such traditions
would be preserved in Israel's archives of memory;
each tribe having its own rendering of some of these
stories, in which inter-tribal relationships were in-
volved, and its own special tribal tales.
Justice was originally administered among the
Hebrews, as among other peoples, by the House-
Fathers; and then, in the development of the race,
successively, by the tribal Sheikhs, the Elders of the
people, selected for that purpose, and by the Priests
of the local oracles. To these primitive Judges the
gundian history, where the proof that nature-myths and historic facts
have been worked in together is well nigh perſect.
ope
75
people brought their complaints and quarrels, and,
by the rulings rendered, precedents were established
and law was made. There must thus have been an
ever-increasing mass of judgments held in the tradi-
tions of the people, and preserved doubtless with
especial care, in all important cases, by the Elders.
and Priests; the whole forming an ample store of
legal material for the work of future codifiers, in
harmonizing conflicting decisions, and in systematiz-
ing the living laws into a compact body of legisla-
tion, covering the great social relationships.
THE GROWTH OF THE PENTATEUCH.
II.
In the course of time there came the simple be-
ginnings of the literary age. Oral traditions were
committed to writing, records of important events
were made, laws were inscribed on tablets, songs
were composed and gathered into popular collec-
tions, like The Book of the Wars of Jehovah.¹
Then came the first rude histories, child essays in
narration, like Eginhard's Charlemagne. Such was
possibly The Book of Jasher, or of The Upright,2
which Ewald supposes to have been biographies of
noble men, and which Emmanuel Deutsch thinks
were poetic in their form; and such certainly were
the various Annals of the sovereigns of Israel and
2 Josh. x. 13.
'Numb. xxi. 14.
1
3
76
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
Judah, which are referred to more than thirty times
in the Books of the Kings.¹
1
Of this literary development it may well have
been that Moses was the originator, as tradition has
made him, exaggerating his work as is its wont.
Moses was, without doubt, a real and imposing his-
toric personality; the leader in the exodus, the
father of a free people, the founder of the national
institutions, the first lawgiver, the seer through
whom came to the sons of Israel the revelation of
the moral character of Jehovah. A true philosophy
of history would lead us to posit some great person-
ality at the centre of this remarkable movement. An
Egyptian historian, Manetho, confirms the fact of
the Hebrew exodus, and corroborates some of its
details, singularly enough preserving even the name
of Moses! 2 Brugsch Bey thinks that he has found
an Egyptian reference to the great Hebrew in the
name of a place in middle Egypt-I-en Moshé, "the
island of Moses." s The Egyptian and the Hebrew
traditions unite in representing Moses as highly edu-
cated in Egypt, the one making him a priest of that
land, and the other the adopted child of a royal
princess. Egypt was at that time "the university
of the world." It would, then, have been unnatural
if the great Hebrew leader had not recorded the
chief events in the astonishing movement which he
See Note I to Chapter III. 2 See Note 2 to Chapter III.
3 Sce Note 3 to Chapter III.
THE GROWTH OF THE PENTATEUCH.
77
commanded, and the laws that he gave his rude
freedmen. Of this literary work we appear to have
traces in the passages of the Pentateuch which are
expressly ascribed to him, and in such other frag-
ments as suggest some writer of that period; as, for
example, the list of camping places in the Arabian
wilderness,¹ and the stone tables of The Law, which,
as graven by him, were long kept inside of the Ark
in the sacred Tent of Meeting.
Concerning the extent of his work as legislator, the
form in which his action would most certainly have
been recorded by himself, scholars differ greatly.
All, however, unite in regarding it, whatever its pro-
portions, as the germ-cell of Israel's legislative de-
velopment. He certainly did bequeath a Law to
the Hebrews, though that Law of Moses may have.
been only The Ten Words in their original form.
Brought up amid highly developed forms of justice,
in a land where law was peculiarly reverenced, and
charged by his position with the responsibility of a
numerous people, taken abruptly out from a settled
order into a nomadic life in a wilderness-his educa-
tion and the necessities of the situation must have
forced upon him the duty of providing his freedmen
with some simple system of social law. The tra-
dition of Jethro's visit to Moses, with the de-
scription of the organization of justice which fol-
lowed from his counsels, is a valuable hint upon this.
2 See Note 4 to Chapter iii.
2
Numbers, xxxiii.
t
1
78
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
subject; a hint which becomes more significant as
this story is seen to stand quite apart from the main
body of the narration—thus indicating that it was felt
to be of sufficient importance to justify its very
awkward insertion. ¹ 1 There are not a few laws
in the central group of books which look as though
they dated from this period. An evident adaptation
to the wilderness life suggests such a date, though
this may easily be pushed too far, as is often done;
the fact being overlooked that the priests of a late
age, in developing the elaborate Levitical system,
sought to represent it as the original institution of
Moses, and therefore cast its provisions into forms.
suitable to the life in Arabia. A body of simple,
social laws, pointing to a settled life but having no
indications of Palestinian relations, especially as pre-
faced by The Ten Words, may possibly have been a
code made under the direction of Moses; gathering
into itself the laws of the Hebrews in Goshen, and
adding some further provisions. It will be found that
the references in the Old Testament books, dating
from before the exile, to the Law of Moses, gen-
erally have in mind some such simple, social legisla-
tion as it would seem that Moses must have framed.
Whatever his actual legislation, it would have been
· most natural that around this germinal work the
successive developments of law from that time on-
ward should cluster; and that institutions and laws,
2 Ex. xxi.-xxiii. 19.
2
¹ Ex. xviii.
THE GROWTH OF THE PENTATEUCH.
79
1
vitalized by this original code and patterning after it,
should take on the name of Moses. This is the
process which we have every reason to believe actu-
ally took place among the Hebrews, of which we
have a hint in the record at the conclusion of Josh-
ua's farewell address "So Joshua made a covenant.
with the people that day, and set them a statute and
an ordinance in Shechem: And Joshua wrote these
words in the book of the law of God."2 In successive
incrustations the growth of the law continued; the
whole body of accumulating legislation, with historic
truthfulness though not with literal accuracy, being
known as the Law of Moses.
The schools of the prophets probably furnished
the earliest centres of literary life in the nation.
Growing out of Samuel's mighty influence, there
arose in Israel Orders known as the Sons of the
Prophets, or the Scholars of the Prophets; Brother-
hoods of men devoted to the cultivation of the pro-
phetic powers, and through them to the inspiration of
a higher religious life among the people. These men,
living in common, kindled one another's noble am-
bition, and the Brotherhoods became the nurseries
of oratory, of music and of poetry. These recluses
recorded the laws of the tribes, collected the ancient
¹ Ewald points out how the original decimal form-The Ten
Words-repeats itself in the groups of ten laws which are found in
the Pentateuch.
2 Josh. xxiv. 25, 26.
1
J
80
sagas of the race, and the later legends and songs of
the land, and wrote out the traditions of the people.
In these Orders, probably, arose the first serious.
essays at a history of the Hebrew origins.
S
A people only arouses to an interest in its origins
when, with advancing culture and growing political
power, the national consciousness wakens. Then
men look back curiously on the past, and seek to re-
vive the dim memories of the nation's early days.
Later on, these dreams of childhood may come to
occupy too much time and interest, and a prophet.
of the exile may need to say, "Record ye not begin-
nings, and antiquities contemplate ye not." But,
in earlier times this study of the past knows no ex-
cesses, and guides the progress of the nation. The
first great historian of Israel naturally drew his
materials from such rude literary essays as thus lay be-
fore him in these Brotherhoods. He used their collec-
tions of annals, narratives, genealogical tables, sagas,
legends, songs, and laws; weaving them into a con-
nected whole, and breathing through this history the
spirit of prophetic religion-its reverence for Jehovah,
as a Moral Being, its spiritual life, its stern conscien-
tiousness, and its sense of a holy, national mission.
Putting together the various hints which are
scattered through the first of the great documents
that we have seen threading the Pentateuch, the
masters of the New Criticism have concluded, with
Isa. xliii. 18.
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
81
tolerable agreement, that this work was written in
the Northern Kingdom, by one of the Sons of the
Prophets, somewhere during the eighth century be-
fore Christ. This work, poetically written, con-
cerned itself slightly with priestly legislation, which,
from every indication, was very imperfectly devel-
oped in that period.
THE GROWTH OF THE PENTATEUCH.
III.
Late in the seventh century before Christ, the re-
markable movement toward the spiritualizing of the
religion of Jehovah, which had been led by the
Great Prophets, was cresting into triumph. The boy
king Josiah came to the throne of Judah under the in-
fluence of the prophetic reformers. In his early man-
hood occurred the singular incident which proved
the turning point in the reform movement—an
account of which is fully given in the twenty-second
chapter of the second book of Kings. A book was
brought to light in the "house of Jehovah," and was
read to the young king as "the book of the law."
Its reading filled the good monarch with con-
sternation, as it revealed to him a complete
violation of Jehovah's Law in Israel. Under its
influence, sweeping measures of reform were carried.
out. A great purification of the temple was insti-
tuted. The idolatrous symbolisms, which had
been in peaceful possession of "the House of
Jehovah" were all removed and destroyed, and the
6
A
}
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
82
impure customs that had established themselves in
the temple-courts were abolished. Enactments went
forth forbidding through the land the worship of
other gods than Jehovah, ordering the overthrow of
all sanctuaries except the Jerusalem temple, and con-
stituting one sacred Order of priests the sole cus-
todians of the national religion. A solemn league
and covenant was made, on behalf of the nation,
with Jehovah, and the people were pledged to the
observance of this new-found law. This great re-
form occurred in the year 624 B.C.-thirty-seven
years before the destruction of Jerusalem.
What was this "book of the law"? The old
notion that it was the Pentateuch, re-discovered
after a complete loss-always an intrinsically im-
probable conjecture-is now seen to have no basis
whatever. It might have been the traditional “book
of the law," or "law of Moses," to which we have.
found frequent allusions in the Old Testament
histories-the body of legislation which had grown
around the original Mosaic nucleus. It is scarcely
likely, however, that, if such a book actually existed,
the pious king was so wholly ignorant of its general
nature as, on this hypothesis, his action shows him
to have been. Nor were there any provisions in
this traditional book, judging by the allusions to it
in the Hebrew historics, that looked to such a re-
ligious cultus as Josiah established. All his actions
show an unmistakable reference to the legislation.
f
}
THE GROWTH OF THE PENTATEUCH.
83
embodied in the book of Deuteronomy. This was
the law which he actually carried out in his sweeping
reforms. Of this book, as of its peculiar legislation,
there does not seem to be the faintest trace in the
history of the nation up to this point. Its ideas
came to the front on the great wave of the prophetic
reformation which rose in Isaiah's time, and again
in the period of Jeremiah-the age of Josiah. The
inevitable conclusion appears to be that the book
was really written at this period, as an exponent of
the principles and aims of the prophetic reformers.
It codified the existing legislation, in so far as that
legislation accorded at all with the spirit of the
prophets; adding some new provisions, and breathing
through the whole body of laws the lofty tone of
humanity and the devout recognition of the divine
unity which characterized the Hebrew Evangelical-
ism. In accordance with the historic instinct of the
nation, this late development of the religion of
Jehovah, as the growth of the germinal truth which
had been revealed through Moses, was represented
as the work of the original lawgiver. The book
was cast into the form of a farewell address of the
father of the nation, and was brought to light in a
way the details of which we can no longer trace.
The character of such an action must be judged, not
in our light of developed literary ethics, but by the
imperfect notions of that age. Centuries later, we
have ample reason to know that good men counted
84
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
it a wholly innocent disguise to write under the
name of some great personage of the past, and thus
win a hearing for their words. This Great Unknown
kept his secret well, and we have no trace of his
name. This author, or some one writing under his
influence and after his manner, re-edited the earlier
history of the Origins of Israel, giving it a few
touches in the peculiar style of Deuteronomy, and
adding to it this new work as a concluding section.
And thus the Pentateuch took its second form.
IV.
Thirty-seven years later (B.C. 586) Jerusalem was
destroyed, and the élite of the nation were carried
away to Babylonia. That exile lasted fifty years
[586-536 B.C.]¹ This prolonged absence of the in-
fluential classes from their native land created
the conditions under which a thorough transforma-
tion of religion was possible. It tore the nation
from its ancestral rootings, and broke utterly, as it
seemed, the historic continuity of the national de-
velopment. It was a profound spiritual chasten-
2
1
Many of the Israelites remained in Babylonia after Cyrus' edict of
the Restoration, thus prolonging the period through which the influ-
ences described in the text were acting. Ezra returned nearly a cent-
ury later.
2 Prolegomena Zur Geschichte Israels, von J. Wellhausen, pp.
28, 29.
1
THE GROWTH OF THE PENTATEUCH.
85
ing of the better natures of the people, a discipline
sharp and stern, under which there was a rapid growth
of the inner life, such as had never been experienced
before. The spiritual teachings of the Great Prophets
ripened and flowered in the holy aspirations of the
Second Isaiah and in the intense sense of sin of -
Ezekiel. The exile was also a period of astonishing
intellectual quickening. The best minds of the na-
tion came under the influence of a venerable and
noble civilization. Huge libraries opened to them
the stored treasures of Chaldean literature. Observ-
atories revealed to them the mysteries of astronomy.
A massive and ornate architecture, a rich and delicate
sculpture, and a brilliant system of mural painting
introduced them to the fascinations of art. The
sensitive Hebrew mind breathed more deeply in this
atmosphere of culture, and new and high imaginations
arose within the insulated thought of the Judæan
provincials. New materials of knowledge were
opened to the study of these highly stimulated minds.
In the Royal Babylonian Library, whose ruins
we are now uncovering, educated Israelites learned
to read the great cycle of Lays of the Beginnings,
in which they found the originals of their own an-
cestral group of primeval sagas, elaborated through
centuries of high cultivation. From the lips of the
learned priesthood of the land, quick-witted Hebrews
received their initiation into the secrets of these po-
'See Caldean Genesis, George Smith.
1
Mad
>
Vi
86
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
etic imaginations and philosophic speculations of the
Chaldean seers and sages. These ancient Lays were
then worked over in the devout thought of the He-
brew poets, and were charged with the profound
spiritual and moral consciousness of the people of re-
ligion; becoming thus the noble monotheistic poems
on which we still feed anew our faith.¹
The novel sense of their own affiliation with these
wonderful peoples of Mesopotamia aroused a deep
interest in the question of their race origins; so that,
as we have seen, the Second Isaiah found it needful
to caution men against the fascinations of this new
study. The overshadowing presence of a vast and
highly organized empire, with its elaborate system
of administration, could not fail to impress the ruling
classes of Israel with the importance of a more per-
fect legislation than their nation had hitherto pos-
sessed. Legal minds took up with fresh zest the
study of Hebrew law. "The genuine old statutes
of Israel," the "ten thousand laws "2 of the people,.
were collated, systematized, and harmonized; and a
new and comprehensive codification was perfected.
In the imposing worship of the temples of Babylon,
the pious priests of Israel had, for the first time, an
'Cf. Des Doctrines Religieuses des Juifs, par Michel Nicholas
[1866], p. 161, for influence of the exile in developing Monotheism.
2
2 Sam. xx. 18. Ask at Abel and at Dan whether the genuine
old statutes of Israel have lost their force? Restored by Ewald from
the LXX. Hosea, viii. 12. Heb. Cf. W. R. Smith, Old Test. in
Jewish ch., 297, and W. H. Green, Moses and the Prophets, 114, 340.
+
1
THE GROWTH OF THE PENTATEUCH.
87
opportunity of observing the devotional possibilities
of an artistic ritual. A nobly poetic and devout
Psalmody, rendered by trained choristers and accom-
panied by orchestras of "the cornet, flute, harp,
sackbut, psaltery, symphony and all kinds of music,"
bore up the vast throng of worshippers upon a swell-
ing tide of song. The Hebrew Psalter, as a ritual
of temple worship, dated its peculiar development
from this period, and patterned its sacred hymns
upon the Psalmody of Babylonia.¹ The priesthood
of Israel also could not but ponder, in this hoary
civilization, the enormous power for good which lay
in institutionalized religion, through an elaborate
cultus of the devotional life and a minute directory
of conduct; as daily they watched the people being
trained under one of the most remarkable priestly
systems of the ancient world. A movement toward
institutionalism had already gathered powerful head-
way in Judea, as we have seen from the story of
Josiah's reformation. This was the tendency to
organization which the prophetic religion had natur-
ally developed, in the endeavor to incorporate its
ideas in legislation and to apply them through wor-
ship and discipline. Such a movement always fol-
lows a creative epoch in religion. This ecclesiastical
tendency received an immense accession of force in
Babylonia. Priestly students busied themselves in
elaborating a more perfect cultus, to be set up in the
'See Note 5 on Chapter III.
1
laplanky
T
}
i
88
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
Restoration, to which they looked forward confi-
dently; under which a peculiar people should be
systematically trained in the true faith of the Divine
Unity and in the holiness of saints. Ezekiel's book
is a sign of the priestly processes that were working
during this period. It was an essay toward the ideal
cultus of the Restoration.
1
Finally, out of these converging intellectual and
religious processes, the new literary life of Israel
brought forth, through the labor of some unknown
author, a new history of the Hebrew beginnings-
the great work which Ewald called The Book of Or-
igins. This noble book began with the cycle of
primeval poems; retold the primitive traditions of
the Hebrew patriarchs; and then took up afresh
the story of the Exodus, from the standpoint of the
jurist and the priest. The true historic feeling that
Moses was the father of Hebrew law was by this
time sinking into a superstition, which made it pos-
sible and necessary to cover all legislation with the
august name of this greatest Son of Israel. Into
the history of the wilderness wanderings, and around
the person of Moses, the codification that had lately
been wrought was woven, and made part of his leg-
islative work.
Two great histories of the Hebrew origins were
thus before the people, each containing material
not found in the other, each possessing a value and
'He placed it, however, at a much earlier date.
1
}
89
charm of its own; each representing a study of the
nation's beginnings from the standpoint of one of
the two schools of thought which divided the
leaders of the people; each, therefore, incomplete
in itself and needing to be supplemented by the
other. After the restoration had taken place, it be-
came evident that the old State was not to be re-es-
tablished in political power, and that the ecclesiasti-
cal organization was to be the authority in the land.
Thus the need was felt of a visible symbol of
that authority, in which the unity reached between
the prophetic and the priestly schools should be man-
ifest, and from which one Law should rule over the
one system that was to rear the nation to believe in
the One Living and True God. Another unknown
hand, in the providence of God, performed this
needful task. The two great histories of the Hebrew
origins, with some minor additions, were fused into
one work. Ezra carried this work with him to Je-
rusalem, nearly a century after the original restora-
tion (444 B.C.); and the Sacred Book of the Law of
Moses was throned above the nation.
THE GROWTH OF THE PENTATEUCH.
The Pentateuch was complete.
Such at least appears to be the story of the growth
of this most wonderful of histories, as we are able to
spell it out now, after the modern masters of criti-
cism.1
1
¹ See Note 6 to Chapter III.
1
90
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
V.
These inquiries concerning the literary character
of the Pentateuch-its structure, composition, au-
thorship, date, etc.,-have been considered at great
length, because, in following them out to their con-
clusions, we have gained the standpoint whence we
can intelligently answer other and deeper inquiries,
easily and briefly and assuredly.
(1) We have here most thoroughly human books,
compositions elaborated slowly and painfully,
through the processes of history-making found
among all early peoples. A Book of Mormon may
be discovered whole and complete, where, as its wor-
shippers claim, an angel left it for the prophet. The
Pentateuch grew, under Providence, in the growth
of a people, by accumulations which we can peel off
and assign, approximately, to their several ages. It
was fashioned by a host of painstaking writers, each
of whom wrote his leaf and left it in the literature
of a people, to be, by later authors, extracted and
inserted in the history of the Hebrew origins. It
was not dictated to Moses on the mount, during the
forty days spent there-according to the quaint
theory of the Jewish rabbin; it was composed bit
by bit, "in sundry times and in divers portions."
(2) These books give us a history of the Hebrew
origins, but not at first-hand. Who could have
1
THE GROWTH OF THE PENTATEUCH.
91
overheard the sublime soliloquy of The Eternal One,
on the morning of creation? Even Moses could not
have interviewed Noah, or have reported the con-
versations of the Patriarchs, the last of whom was
four hundred years before him. He might, indeed,
have kept a daily journal of the forty years' wander-
ings in Arabia; and men once supposed that they
had a history compiled by him from such a diary.
But the first draft of the book, imagined to have
been written by his hand, turns out to have been
composed five centuries after that hand had
crumbled into dust; and the completed work proves
to have been issued almost a thousand years later
than his age. A journal of the events which took
place under his own eye would warrant a confi-
dence in its details which a history written so many
centuries after these incidents cannot claim from the
most reverent of readers. Contemporaneous history,
warranted by the chief actor in its great affairs,
compels a deference to tales that seem most
marvellous. The Englishman who sits down to-day
to write what happened in the times of the Plan-
tagenets, or in the age of Alfred the Great, or in
Britain under the Roman rule, must accept the data
offered him in the works of earlier writers, and out
of them construct, as best he can, a picture of the
days he never saw. What would be the difficulties
of his task if he wrote in the very dawn of lit-
erature, with no great libraries to consult, and no
bnat
#
1
I
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
capable predecessors to follow; if the centuries
lying between him and the periods he would
reproduce had left him only meagre fragments of
written material, rude and simple child essays at
history, bare, bald annals, together with the mass of
oral traditions which he was obliged to search out
among the yillages of England, sifting their vast bulk
for the residuum of well-authenticated memories!
92
1
Meanwhile tradition had been at work-tradition
which generally clothes the facts of history in a
drapery of the imagination. Story-tellers and poets
draw a nimbus of marvel around the forms of the
heroes whom they celebrate. The poetic personifi-
cations of early times and the nature myths of a
child people are read by more prosaic generations
literally, as stories of historic personages and of
actual events. What, then, could be expected of the
early historian, drawing from such material, writing
himself in an atmosphere of credulity, lacking the
critical spirit and training, but that, unconsciously,
despite the utmost endeavor to be careful and dis-
criminating, he should narrate much for actual
history which was mere tradition and legend? The
story which Niebuhr gave of the great Roman
historian must needs have applied equally well to
each of the great Hebrew historians:
-*- *
"He wrote with no feeling of doubt * bringing down the
marvels of the heroic age into the sphere of history, as was com-
monly done even by those who, in what belonged to their own times.
}
THE GROWTH OF THE PENTATEUCH.
93
and experience, were anything but credulous, at a period when the
careless belief of childhood continued undisturbed throughout life.
Even those primitive ages when the gods walked among mankind he
would not absolutely reject: all that was related of the more recent,
provided it was not inconsistent with man's earthly condition, he only
held to be less full and certain, but of the same kind with the records
of accredited history."
1
In reading this Hebrew Book of Origins we must,
then, expect to find frequent traces of ancient le-
gends, and of still more ancient nature-myths, dis-
guised, unwittingly, as history; whose beauty we may
freely enjoy without being beguiled into mistaking
fancy for fact, poetry for prose, the drapery for the
historic forms beneath it.
(3) The miraculousness of the Pentateuch thus re-
solves itself naturally to us. The unusual in history
demands unusual evidence. It is not to be denied
on a priori grounds. It is folly to read history with
the predetermined conviction that no exceptions to
the usual order of nature are to be found. Nature
has her surprises, which are always, however, within
the realm of law. Man is ever learning to master
nature more completely, and is thus producing
effects which, to earlier generations would have
seemed sheer impossibilities. Our belief in such
unusual actions of nature, or of man, should rest
wholly upon the evidence presented, in Hebrew
history as in Roman history. Where that evidence
is offered by an historian writing centuries after the
The History of Rome, by B. G. Niebuhr, i. 3.
↓
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
↓
94
alleged events, with no authentication of the stories
he narrates as he had found them in the traditions
of his people, most readers will conclude the testi-
mony insufficient to certify such marvels as abound.
in this history. The natural interpretation of these.
wonders is that they are the legendary growth of pop-
ular tradition, written down in good faith by histori-
ans who were themselves unable to critically sift the
mass of material found in the folk-lore of the villages.
of Israel. This judgment is confirmed in the mind
of the careful reader, as he observes in the narratives
of other Old Testament historians, themselves the
chief actors in the events which they relate, and
those events scarcely secondary in importance
to the great Exodus itself, a total absence
of anything marvellous. The return from Babylonia
to Judea repeats, after many centuries, the story of
the Exodus under Moses. Of this great restoration,
heralded by jubilant bursts of prophecy, welcoméd
as a signal interposition of Providence, we have a
narrative written by two of the leaders of this move-
ment. We search the books of Ezra and Nehemiah,
however, in vain, for any traces of the merely
marvellous in this imposing providence of God. The
ways of the Most High herein traced are as those
with which we are familiar in the realm of law. The
inference is to most minds of our age irresistible.
The yet greater lapse of time which separates the
historians from the pre-historic period of the patri-
1
THE GROWTH OF THE PENTATEUCH.
archs, sufficiently explains the unearthly atmosphere
through which its scenery looms upon our vision.
Beautiful are its pictures of the free commingling of
beings from other spheres with the children of earth,
angels eating and drinking with the sons of men-
too beautiful to be marred by the rude handling of
Criticism, where Criticism is so plainly fenced out from
the sacred gardens of Poetry.
No dogmatic denial of miracle is here made.
Those who can receive these stories as in all details
literal history are free so to do; and those who sus-
pect their historical exactness are equally free thus
to judge, where Providence has been pleased to leave
these matters to the unauthenticated testimony of
anonymous books, composed so many centuries after
the events described.
95
(4) There is nothing in this lack of exactitude in
details to cast any distrust upon the great historic
fact which constitutes the kernel of this story. The
historic reality of Moses and of the mission on which
he was sent of God is, as we have already seen, am-
ply certified by the traditions of Israel, with some
corroboration from the traditions of Egypt. That
certification becomes more impressive when relieved.
from the incredibilities of the legendary growth
twining round this body of tradition.
(5) In this view of the Pentateuchal history we
have the clue to the interpretation of the passages
which offend the moral sense. One might well be
除
​96
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
puzzled in reading many of these passages in the light
of the traditional theory of the nature of this book.
In such a composition as we have seen it to be, their
presence is quite readily explainable. The tra-
ditions of the people naturally preserved memories
of cruel and brutal actions, of dark and dreadful
passions, from the times when man was still very
much of a savage. These would have to a later his-
torian, a value in picturing the actual social state of
antiquity which would warrant their admission on
his pages.
Many a primitive nature-myth, when its personifi-
cations of physical forces had stiffened into actual
historic personages, took on a revolting character
which the historian himself could not perhaps ex-
plain away, and thus left with no comments from
his pen.
These we are, however, able to resolve
back into their original mythic forms, in some in-
stances at least; and thus we can deodorize offensive
stories, much as we have learned to do with the
myths of Greece.
Eastern law, as declared by the village elders and
the priests of local oracles, often set forth cases of
simple casuistry, such as were presented to these au-
thorities for judgment, in the form of symbolic sto-
ries, tales illustrating these questions of morality.
Such "token-tales" are found in Hebrew tradition,
as in the traditions of kindred peoples. ¹ Exam-
'See Note 7 to Chapter III.
1
1
THE GROWTH OF THE PENTATEUCII.
97
ples of these "token-tales" will be found in our
study of Genesis, where the reader ordinarily sees
simply disgusting stories.
(6) In reading the Pentateuch, as a history written
at first hand by the chief actor in the principal part of
its story, we are troubled by the constant ascription
to Jehovah of feelings and conduct which we cannot
transfer to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Reading the book in the light in which it
has presented itself to us, these difficulties disappear.¹
This history is seen to embalm the consciousness
of a people through a growth of centuries. It rep-
resents all stages of development in a nation's
thought of God, from the primitive tribal-god of the
Hebrew nomads, who differed but slightly from the
gods of surrounding peoples, up to the sublime con-
ception of the One Divine Being, perfectly just and
good, of whom all men are the children. In the early
periods of Hebrew life men spake of Jehovah much
as the early Greeks spake of their Olympian divini-
ties; attributing to Him with entire freedom, the
changeful feelings and partial affections and revenge-
ful dispositions of a magnified Sheikh. Through a
slow and long-continued growth of the human nat-
ure in these sons of Israel, the thought of Jehovah
grew-enlarging, ennobling, purifying, spiritualizing;
until the same name which, in olden times had
clothed the rival of Baal and Chemosh and Moloch,
See Note 8. to Chapter III.
7
↑
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
98
veiled the unutterable glory of the Infinite and Eter-
nal Being who had been revealed by the prophets to
the chastened nation in the exile. In reading, then,
the passages which speak of Jehovah unworthily, as
it seems to us, we must allow for the crudity of the
ancient traditions which have been taken up into
this later history.
}
(7) And if the constant intervention of Jeho-
vah, visibly and audibly, troubles us who have
learned to think more reverently of the reserve.
which characterizes the Most High, we must remem-
ber that this is the bold expression by the historian.
of the nation's profoundest belief, the vivid reflec-
tion upon outward history of its innermost conscious-
ness-that everything it held most dear was the gift
of God, that all its noblest aspirations were the in-
spirations of the living Lord.
(8) There is nothing in the view of the Penta-
teuch which has opened upon us to call in question,
in the slightest degree, the reality of the revelation
which our fathers rightly believed was bodied in this
book. These books, as books, in their entirety, can cer-
tainly no longer be regarded as constituting a direct
revelation. They were not miraculously communi-
cated to the minds of the writers, either by direct
dictation from God or by any modification of such
a theory of inspiration as the ingenuity of Jewish and
Christian rabbins has devised. Indeed, wise men have
generally disclaimed any such conception of these
THE GROWTH OF THE PENTATEUCH.
99
books. That, in some way, they do record a most
real communication of truth from God to man has
been the belief of the Church in the past, and will
continue the belief of the Church in the future. The
central point of that revelation has always been felt
to lie in the historic person and mission of Moses.
Our fathers said that Moses had been sent from
God to give the Hebrews a new and higher thought
of Him whom they ignorantly worshiped. That
such a thought did come to the people at this time,
through Moses, is indubitable. Its immortal monu-
ment is the Decalogue-that sublime identification
of the Power in nature with the Power in conscience.
It was nothing short of a religious revolution when
these Hebrew nomads were taught to worship their
Jehovah as the Author of the law written in the
moral nature of man-the Being who was to be wor-
shiped through aspirations after righteousness.
From that germinal conception was evolved the whole
after unfoldings of the thought of God in Israel.
We can trace back the glorious development of
truth which flowered in the prophets to this seed-
thought planted by the hand of Moses in the Hebrew
mind. And the fact of this work of Moses stands,
as we have seen, the historic kernel of these books,
and thus of the history of the nation.
How this truth came to Moses is a secondary con-
sideration. If there be those who find it most con-
genial to read the literary record of this revelation
>
A
t
100
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
prosaically, making no allowance for the transfer of
physical terms to the realm of mind, forgetting that
all descriptions of mental processes must necessarily
be expressed in material metaphors; and who thus
think that they hear the echoes of an audible voice
speaking to the great Hebrew on the mount amid
the thunder's roar-so be it.
A finer perception will hearken for this voice in
the silences of the soul of Moses, and will listen
to it through the whispers of his human conscious-
ness. Within the spirit of man is the true mount
of God, where the Eternal One comes down to
reveal Himself. There is the Most Holy Place,
whither man retires to commune with God; where
that candle of the Lord is lighted which giveth light
throughout the true temple-"which temple are ye."
Revelation is light. It is the unveiling, within this
holy temple, of the sacred mysteries which stand
forth in the light of the inner spirit.
{
Nor can the careful reader follow the story of the
preparation of Moses for his divine mission, as that
story is sketched in the national tradition, without
recognizing a training of the mind and soul of the
great Hebrew through which he was qualified to hear
the still, small voice of the Spirit. Hebrew tradition
pictured Moses as having been nurtured "in all the
wisdom of the Egyptians;" as the Egyptian Manetho's
tradition also implies, in representing him as a priest
of Heliopolis, the Oxford of the Empire, which was
1
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THE GROWTH OF THE PENTATEUCH.
IOI
itself the "University of the world." He must,
therefore, have been initiated into the secret philos-
ophy of the learned priesthood; which, behind the
outward symbolisms of an apparently idolatrous
system, veiled profound conceptions of the unity,
the spirituality, and the righteousness of the Divine
Being. 1 From this intellectual training Moses
was led by Providence into the world-old school of
the Spirit, the wilderness. In the awful silence of
the Arabian mountains, placidly watching his flocks
in the lonely wadys of Sinai, Moses brooded through
many years over the problems of being; until at
length the most common bush grew "afire with
God," and the whispers of the sacred mount, whither
his ancestors through many generations had sought
the Presence of The Highest, echoed the voice re-
sounding through the chambers of his soul, and he
heard "I AM." Thus there came to him, in the
consciousness of his spirit, the Spirit's revelation—
the unveiling of the truth of the unity and spirit-
uality and righteousness of God-a truth, this,
which was centuries beyond the grasp of the Hebrew
people, and which waited patiently its time for ripen-
ing, in the spring season of the prophetic reformation
in Israel.
(9) Nor is the revelation bodied in this book to be
narrowed to the age and person of Moses. Wherever
See Note 9 to Chapter III.
1
102
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
there is a flash of light, spiritual or ethical; wherever
the dark problems of man's origin and nature and des-
tiny grow luminous; wherever the being and person-
ality and character of God come forth from the dark-
ness, thrilling us with a fresh sense of worship, with
higher hope and faith and love-there is a real revela-
tion to our spirits of truths which were unveiled ages
ago in the consciousness of Hebrew saints and seers,
it matters not where nor when nor whom. Such rev-
elation was an inspiration, real and true-a deep
breathing in the spirit of man by the Spirit of God.
And as we may learn, in the growth of criticism,
to assign to its rightful place in the development of
Israel each broken bit of truth in the composite
structure of the Pentateuch, we shall be able to re-
construct, upon the lines of history, the sweep of the
great arc of light, which, springing through a nation's
growth, mounted toward the zenith in the full-orbed
Sun of Righteousness, Jesus Christ our Lord.
VI.
tnt Ad
So far from this new reading of the Pentateuch
being, as it is so often called, "mere destructive
criticism," it is in reality most truly reconstructive.
-constructive of an historical and a philosophical
order in the development of Israel's religion, such
as never obtained under the traditional theory.
(1) In the history of all other religions we find a
1
}
THE GROWTH OF THE PENTATEUCH.
103
thoroughly natural order of growth. There has been
"first the blade, then the ear, and then the full corn in
the ear." Our new science of religion constructs the
general order of religious evolution.
The vague
sense of Higher Power which early awakens in man,
feeling blindly after the Reality beyond the human
ken, forms rude and crude shapings of this mysterious
power, whose presence breaks upon the consciousness
in unusual objects-huge boulders and venerable
trees. This is the period of fetichism.
With the growth of intelligence, man learns to
recognize the mystery and the majesty of nature's
forces; to feel his dependence upon them, to look
with trembling adoration up to them and to per-
sonify them; and thus to people nature with hosts
of divinities, each of whom receives the special
homage of some particular race, and is worshiped
through a cultus of its own. This is the period of
polytheism. It develops naturally the use of sym-
bolisms, which in turn invariably degenerate into
idolatries—the transparency of the symbol clouding
into utter opacity, and the thought of the worshiper
being arrested upon the image through which he
should have seen some great principle.
These gods many ever tend to rank themselves
into a sacred hierarchy, a pyramid pointing upward
to an apex.
St
The growth of man's moral nature is ever clarify-
ing the vision of the power divine, and over a better-
1
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
4
104
ing manhood a nobler, juster, purer, holier deity
looms in the skies. Thus at length, in some great
soul, there dawns the truth that God is one; a Being
spiritual and good, the Father of men. Generations
pass, during which this supreme thought ripens in a
people, and then it bursts forth in a spiritual religion.
This spiritual religion finds that it must body
itself in institutions, if it would live in this material
world and reproduce itself through the generations.
of men. It seizes existing institutions which already
command the mass of men, and seeks to charge
them with new and higher meanings. The temple,
the altar, the sacrifice and the priesthood, which
human nature has always developed as necessities.
in religion, have been accepted as they were found
existing, and turned into the service of the higher
faith and life. In the place of a pagan, priestly sys-
tem there has arisen a spiritual sacerdotalism, a cultus
seeking to nurture men into true believers and to
train them into saints. The body has grown faster
than the spirit; the house has become a prison; the
institutions designed to cherish spiritual religion have
stifled and corrupted it. Religion has stereotyped
into formalism, and degenerated into superstition
and immorality, out of which it has escaped into
some new movement of the spiritual nature of man,
or in which it has perished among that people.
(2) Such in broad outlines is the general story of
the growth of religion. Should Israel be expected to
م
!
T
THE GROWTH OF THE PENTATEUCH.
105
furnish the one exception in history to this natural
order the plain plan of God's education of man?
According to the traditional theory, Israel did fur-
nish such an exception. Reading the Pentateuch as,
in its entirety, the work of Moses, there was no de-
velopment at all in Hebrew history. In the dim
distances of prehistoric times, the patriarchs walked
with God in the clear thought and spiritual com-
munings which, among other peoples, have been
won by centuries of growth. They spake, and
acted and thought as though they were the con-
temporaries of Jeremiah and the Second Isaiah.
Under the traditional theory we were not al-
lowed to see in these descriptions a reflection of
light upon those far back times, from the age of
the great prophets. We were obliged to read these
charming tales as exact historic sketches of the
thought and life of the patriarchs. Thus devel-
opment was exhausted in the germ, and progress
made a superfluity. In the historic beginning of
Israel, Moses was seen not only to have communi-
cated a germinal truth, but, to have grown it into
blossomings and fruitage; not only to have laid the
foundations of Israel's polity, but to have builded
the walls and roofed in the structure. Into his life-
time was condensed the process of development
which, in other nations, has taken centuries. When
he died, he bequeathed to Israel formulated truths to
which successive generations could add nothing, and
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an elaborated priestly system upon which centuries.
could not improve. The history of Israel could only
be an apostasy from this original, perfect revelation,
with possible recoveries. Its ideal was stationari-
ness-its experience a fall.
(3) The bearings of this traditional theory of the
Pentateuch upon the problems of religion were mani-
fold and serious. A supernatural priesthood was
posited at the base of Israel's development, and thus
at the foundation of true religion. Such a supernat-
ural priesthood necessarily stereotyped religion.
There could be no free thought or life, and no prog-
ress. All truth of religion was given to Israel in
the opening of its career. There was no need, there-
fore of intellectual growth. There was no possibil-
ity of a continuous, orderly unfolding of the divine
knowledge, since a perfect primer of revelation had
been placed in the hands of the infant nation.
Light could not increase when the day began with
the sun in its zenith.
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
According to the traditional theory, revelation
was not the historic growth of the human con-
sciousness, mirroring ever more clearly the face
of an over-brooding God. Revelation was an ex-
ternal communication-tables of stone or books
of parchment, written by the finger of God or dic-
tated in an audible voice by Jehovah to Moses on
the mount. The only intellectual virtues possible
to man under such a system were unquestioning be-
1
THE GROWTH OF THE PENTATEUCH.
lief, unhesitating obedience and absolute submission.
The religious condition of the people during the
last period of the national life, the five hundred.
years preceding Christ, was the normal state of the
nation. "The people of the book" knew no proph-
et; experienced no free, upspringing life; felt no
breath of inspiration; knew no fresh unveiling of
truth divine. Priests administered the ordinances
of the sanctuary according to the unvarying use of
centuries, and scribes expounded the sacred book
from which there was no more light breaking forth.
The Word of God was no longer heard through liv-
ing men, in the changing idioms of successive gene-
rations; it was an echo from the past, a memory of a
voice which had died out in the souls of men.
107
This Church of Death was, according to the tra-
ditional theory, the ideal of Israel, from which
the free thought and life of the prophets was
a dangerous revolt, quickly hushed in the stifling
embraces of an iron priesthood, and laid to sleep in
an entombing orthodoxy.
(4) Still more strange were the results when this
theory undertook to explain Christianity. Forget-
ting the rebuke of Him who said, "Ye have made.
void the word of God because of your tradition,"
those who have upheld this traditional view have
gone back from the New Testament to the Old,
from the New Covenant in Christ to that former
Covenant of which the writer of the Epistle to the
J
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!
1
108
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
Hebrews ventured to say, "That which is becom-
ing old and waxeth aged is nigh unto vanishing
away."
Judaism was made the pattern shown upon the
mount, which Christianity must copy.
The child of Judaism must needs reproduce the
nature of its parent. It, too, found a superhuman
priesthood, and miraculous institutions waiting by
its cradle. It, too, received in childhood an exter-
nal revelation, complete and perfect, dispensing with
all growth. The free thought and life of its creative
period speedily stiffened into a new orthodoxy and
ecclesiasticism, which in Protestantism and Roman-
ism repeat the story of Jewish scribes and priests.
The religion of the Prophet of Nazareth has thus
come to be an institutionalism, smothering the free
voices of the soul, and locking reason within the
cloistered walk of the fathers. Christianity's dead-
liest sin has become heresy, not in the New Testa-
ment sense of factious party-spirit, but in the utterly
unscriptural sense of erroneous opinions.
(5.) Judaism and Christianity, according to this
theory, constitute exceptions in the natural order
of religious growth. They stand wholly apart
from all other religions. They are not the chiefs
in a divine hierarchy, the supreme forms of human
religion; they are the only true religions, denying
instead of fulfilling other systems. Hence there
is a profound antithesis between the supernatural
109
and natural religion, or, in other words, between the
truth of Christianity and all truths of ordinary knowl-
edge. Faith stands over against reason, revealed
religion over against knowledge, in a perpetual dual-
ism, an irreconcilable antagonism, whose mischiefs.
and miseries plague our civilization. Nature and
history are alike emptied of divine forces. Nature
becomes a mechanism, outside of which, somewhere,
stands God. History ceases to be an unfolding of
the divine being in man's existence, a revelation of
God in human consciousness. Agnosticism and
atheism form the lengthening shadows behind a de-
clining church.
THE GROWTH OF THE PENTATEUCH.
VII
The new reading of the Pentateuch reverses all
this unnatural order.
(1) Israel's history is seen to be a true develop-
ment, whose successive stages follow the usual
course of religion's growth. From rude beginnings,
in fetichisms and nature-worships, the thought and
life of Israel mount toward reason's recognition of
One Living God, and the spirit's aspiring commun-
ion with the Eternal Righteous Lord.
The seed planted by Moses grows naturally into
a noble flowering, in the age of the Great Prophets.
The history of the people is a continuous unfolding
of the truth. There is a most real revelation to the
people of religion, but it is in the historic develop-
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
}
ΠΙΟ
ment of the human consciousness. It is the spread
of light, the dawning of day.
The period of institutionalism follows the period
of free life. The priesthood and its legislation come
as the embodiment of the religion inspired through
the prophets; as the writing out in laws of the
word which God spake through the seers; as the
record of the revelation which had been made. The
body formed around the spirit, as always, material-
izing its essence, mechanizing its action, imprisoning
its energies, corrupting its life, bringing it under the
law of death. The Levitical legislation marks the
arrest of Israel's development. The Law worshiped
by the people was in truth a providential ordination,
but in a far other sense than that which the people.
imagined. It came to keep alive the great truths
of the prophets, until the time should arrive for their
safe ripening, in the person of the Master Prophet.
Its function was that of the cerements enwrapping
the corn on the withering stalk. As Saint Paul said,
"it came in from one side." It was a necessary evil,
from which Christ came to deliver men.
It was
not the cradle of the Hebrew religion-it was its
tomb.
1
(2) In the light of the reconstruction wrought by
the new criticism, Christianity is seen to have come
as the resurrection of the free religion of the proph-
ets, a new life from the death of the Law.
1 Romans, v. 20.
THE GROWTH OF THE PENTATEUCH.
III
The attitude of Jesus toward the Mosaic Law, so
strangely misunderstood, holds the key to his posi-
tion. Though respectful always toward the institu-
tions of his people, content to live within the Jewish
laws and ordinances, he walked as a free man, unbur-
thened by their yoke. He was neither priest nor
scribe. He received no official authority, and con-
formed not to the traditional doctrines. He rarely
visited the temple-according to the Synoptics only
on the eve of his death-and then, not to participate in
the sacrificial worship of the priesthood, but to meet
the people gathering at the festival, and to speak to
them the words of life. There is a studious ignoring
of the whole priestly system, until the complete dis-
harmony between his "new teaching," and the tradi-
tional dogmas brought down upon him the enmity
of the priests, and the rupture ensued which termi-
nated in his excommunication and death as a blas-
phemer. Jesus was the Prince of the Prophets. In
him the free religion of Israel's living, growing days
came to life again, in a higher form. In him religion
was the reason's free thought of God, and the spirit's
free communion with the Father.
The supreme
revelation was a perfect human consciousness of
God. It was not a Book nor a Church, but a Life.
"The life was the light of men."
(3) The religion of the Christ is essential Christian-
ity. It is reason's freedom to think of God, and the
spirit's freedom to approach Him, without restraint
*
1
¦
I12
}
f
1
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
of external authority, be it book or church. Such
was primitive Christianity. Its great apostle was
the Jewish Protestant Paul, who boldly threw off the
authority of the Mosaic Law, as an incubus upon
spiritual religion. True, the first flush of inspiration
soon breathed itself out. The new spirit felt the
need of a new body. Institutions grew around the
fresh life. Around the new prophetism gathered a
new priesthood. The Levitical system, which Saint
Paul had cast out, crept into the Christian Church
by a back door. The Catholic Church was simply a
christianized Judaism. Again, this incrustation of
institutionalism served a needful function. It housed
the infant religion through the chill winter of the
dark ages and the middle ages, in which it might
otherwise have perished. Thus, as the spring re-
turns, the Divine Child comes forth to the freedom
of the Father's Son in the Father's House. The
Christian ideal is re-asserting itself in the intellectual
renaissance and in the spiritual revival of our age.
Within the historic institutions and the traditional
creeds the new Christianity would live content, as its
Founder would have done within Judaism, if so be
the reason can be free to think and the spirit free to
speak its intuitions. This freedom is the essential
condition of progress. And progress alone is life.
"The true Light, which lighteth every man, was
coming on into the world." The religion of the
Christ is the religion of the future, in that the Christ
1
THE GROWTH OF THE PENTATEUCH.
113
types Humanity, freely thinking, freely worshiping,
walking as the child of God-into which sonship the
Elder Brother must ever lead the younger children.
(4) In the light of this essential Christianity the an-
tagonism between it and other religions fades away.
There is no longer any antithesis of true and false
in human religion; there is only the distinction of
perfect and imperfect. All religions, in so far as
they are living, spiritual and progressive, are of God.
Each ennobling aspiration, each purifying instinct and
intuition, is an inspiration of the Eternal Spirit.
Each truth leading man upward, each flash shining
in the darkness of earth, is a beam of the Light
which "lighteth every man that cometh into the
world." The Word of God is heard in every tongue.
The Christ cometh as the Son, sent after the servants
of the Father. He denies nothing good in any
teacher who has preceded him, among any of the
nations of the earth-he interprets all truths of the
Spirit, and fulfils all ideals of the children of God.
(5) In the light of this essential Christianity, the
antithesis between religion and knowledge, between
faith and reason, between the sacred and the secular,
between the supernatural and the natural, is resolved.
into a correlation. Religion is the worshipful posture
of all true knowledge and all noble life. Faith is
reason's sight of realities beyond its power to resolve.
The sacred is the secular grown conscious of its
divineness. The supernatural is the natural, laying
8
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}
114
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
bare the soul of its order, revealing, in the shrine of
law, an immanent God. "Conscious Law is King of
kings." The Divine Personality, veiled in nature, is
unveiled in man; and in the Perfect Man that reve-
lation is of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ.
Such in outline is the reconstruction of Christian
Faith which is to follow the new reading of the
Pentateuch.
VIII.
A master mind, far back in the dawn of Hebrew
history, fashioned a rude shrine; and, dreaming of a
nobler structure, passed away, with no more than
the ground plans sketched for those he left behind
him. The people who came after him looked with
wonder and with awe upon his simple shrine, around
which hallowed associations had gathered; and were
content to add to it, bit by bit, as was found needful,
in a loose, amorphous growth, which kept the name
of the mighty master, whose primitive building was
the centre of this straggling mass. At length the
hour came when a worthier structure was desired.
Another master arose, responsive to the instinct of
a people, and a new building reared itself upon the
site of the old shrine; preserving its original
structure, as the walls of the most holy place in
the grander temple of the later age. Successive
epochs of creative power called to the development
THE GROWTH OF THE PENTATEUCH.
115
of this pile the genius of the nation, and laid at the
feet of worthy builders the wealth of a people's re-
sources. Each new master hand that wrought upon
the structure bodied his own dream of what the
work should be; and thus its parts took on most
varied aspects, as of unlike and even incongruous de-
signs. With a reverence for the human which saw
nothing undivine in grinning gargoyles and gro-
tesque shapes of dreamy fancy, each individual
workman's free labor was left encrusted in the walls
of Jehovah's temple. Yet when the structure was
complete, the massive building stood a living whole;
a composite indeed, but crystallizing around one
dominating idea, rearing itself upon one inspiring
thought; a work of most human handicraftsmen,
yet solemn with the felt presence of the Most High;
a Cathedral, into which scores of generations of the
children of men have gathered, to bow down before
the revelation there embodied-The Living God in
Human History.
If we must name this work, let us call it, with De
Wette, "The Theocratic Epic of the Israelites."
}
1
CHAPTER IV.
THE PRIMEVAL SAGAS.
GENESIS, the Book of the Beginnings, is the sec-
tion of the five-fold book, or Pentateuch, which
gives the origins of the Human Family, and of
the Jewish race, as understood in Israel. What
would we naturally look for in a book written
among any other people, purporting to give simi-
lar accounts of the national origins and of the
beginnings of the human race? We have such
books, and from their contents we have come to
expect, in all such early works, traditions of real
historic personalities mantled in imaginative drapery ;
stories of half-fabulous heroes, confounding individ-
uals with tribes; poetical legends, seeming to be
histories, but resolving themselves into nature-
myths; and speculations concerning the origin of
life upon the earth. Should we expect the Jewish
people, so thoroughly human as they were, to form
an exception to this general order? Such matter we
ought to anticipate in a Hebrew book of origins-
and such matter, as we shall see presently, we find
in it. But we should also expect these tradițions,
legends, nature-myths and speculations to differ,
116
G
'
117
in important respects, from those of other peoples.
Each people has its own national characteristic, and
Israel was
"the
a mission growing out thereof.
people of religion"; a people made peculiarly sensi-
tive to spiritual realities in their nature by God, and
peculiarly educated by Providence in order to the
development of this sensitiveness; so that at length,
out of them might come the true religion, in the
person of the holy Son of the Jewish Mary. We
ought, then, to feel sure, even in the absence of data,
that such a people had an exceptional ancestry ;
that really great men were the fathers of the race,
dowering it with its spiritual susceptibilities.
If the child be father to the man, there must have
been among the ancestors of "the people of re-
ligion" beautiful and noble types of character; fine
examples of the spiritual sensibility of childhood
together with its intellectual simplicity, of the true
feeling of religion co-existing with imperfect notions.
concerning the Object of religion; men whose
memories gave the outline which after ages might
fill out, reverently, into real heroes of the soul. We
should look, amid the usual growth of legend, for
traces of their soulfulness. We ought to expect,
when the mind of such a people turned back upon
the national traditions, that its idea of the true use
of history would show itself in breathing into the
legends of its patriarchs a peculiarly noble and
beautiful spirit; in trying to fashion out of the
THE PRIMEVAL SAGAS.
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
memories of its ancestors religious heroes who yet
were true to human nature as it is; and in picturing
for all ages the rarest stories of noble men, such as
should serve to feed the life of piety in all who read
them. It should seem natural to us that in casting
into poetic forms its deep thoughts of the origin of
nature and of man, such a people would slough
off most of the merely mythic tendency of other
peoples, the tendency to read the secrets of nature.
and of man imaginatively rather than spiritually and
ethically; and that, enabled by the Divine Spirit,
their seers would give us noble prose-poems, full of
deep and searching truth, of truth which really in-
terprets the great problems of nature and of man.
Such light as this we should hope to find in the
Hebrew Genesis; because of which it has gained its
place of honor among our sacred books. This light
-but not any light of mere historical accuracy
where there were no data for such accuracy, nor any
light of scientific accuracy where was scarcely any
science. The spiritual nature of the Hebrews won,
through their earnest grappling with the moral prob-
lems of life, the religious truths which they have left
for us in their Genesis; and our intellectual natures
must, through hard study, win the historical and
scientific truths which our age is seeking. Such is
the plan of our schooling on earth.
118
Thus coming to the study of Genesis we shall
escape the troubles of those concerning whom the
119
Jewish Rabbi long ago said "He who reads Gene-
sis literally is a fool;" and, seeing what vast vistas of
history it opens, what mighty problems it handles,
what grace is in its charming stories, what wisdom
lies in its philosophy, what life divine breathes
through its human heroes, we will say with Luther
"Than Genesis nothing is more beautiful, nothing
is more useful.”
{
THE PRIMEVAL SAGAS.
Let us open our Book of the Beginnings and take
a bird's-eye view of its contents. Genesis parts, to
any careful reading, into two general divisions.
Chapters i.-xi. are occupied with the primeval human
history; chapters xii.-1. are occupied with primitive
Hebrew history. Our ordinary Bibles often confuse
the movement of the thought, by their arbitrary
breaking up of the text into chapters and verses;
on which account a paragraph Bible is preferable.
Thus we find that more exactly the division occurs
at verse 27 of chapter xi., which commences, "Now
these are the generations of Terah." There the book
forks from the main stream of human history into
the branch of Jewish history, and occupies itself
with the stories of the Hebrew Patriarchs.
}
Now this phrase "These are the generations of "
is the same which occurs frequently through the
book; having at times other shades of meaning, e.g.
"These are the generations" (beginnings, ori-
gins) "of the heavens and of the earth," etc. The
{
1
120
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
recurrence of this phrase marks the joints in the
framework of the book-the sections into which its
contents naturally group themselves.
From this phrase, Ewald called the work of the
unknown writer to whom we owe a large part of
Genesis, and whose work threads the Pentateuch,
"The Book of Origins." There are ten of these
original chapters in Genesis, with an introduction
-the sacred number. These chapters begin as
follows: ii. 4 v.; vi. 9; x.; xi. 10; xi. 27; xxv. 12;
xxv. 19; xxxvi.; xxxvii. 2.
1
I. The Introduction to Genesis, or the first
original chapter, is contained in our chapter one,
with the addition of the first three verses of
chapter two (i., ii. 3). It is a simple but sublime
Poem of the Dawn. Sooner or later, in the history
of every growing child, the mind begins to ask the
meaning of the wonderful life of nature. Who made
it all? How was it made? And the thoughtful
child will not rest until it finds some answer to these
questions; very imperfect answers, possibly, but an-
swers that satisfy it for the time..
The child-race goes through the same experience.
Sooner or later each race starts the question of the
origin of the world and of its beautiful order. The an-
swer which it finds for this question makes a cosmog-
ony, a genesis of the cosmos, the beautiful order, as
1 ¹ See Note I to Chapter IV.
THE PRIMEVAL SAGAS.
121
the Greeks called nature. These cosmogonies we find
in the literature or traditions of all peoples, from the
ancient Hindus to our American Indians. They
differ as the peoples themselves differ, being dull and
prosaic in some, and picturesquely poetic in others;
now full of gross superstitions and again luminous.
with philosophic insight,
This section records a Hebrew cosmogony-not
the only one they had, but the noblest.¹ How it
grew up we do not know, but we are quite sure that
it was not made by any one scholar in his study, nor
mechanically copied from the cosmogonies of other
peoples, but that it did really grow up in the thought
of the people, slowly ripening into its present
artistic form. Perhaps, as Herder suggested, that
form grew out of the daily watching of the coming
in of day, whose successive scenes follow much as
here pictured; and thus is in a double sense a
Poem of the Dawn.
When it grew thus into its present shape we do
not know. It has many marks of a child-race, and
other marks of a mature people. A race-child, like
an individual child, has to be somewhat mature in
mind to seriously start and follow questions of the
origin of things and beings; but if it passes wholly
out of childhood, it will never picture such a poetic
vision as this. It seems probable that this poem of
the dawn, in rude outline, was handed down from
'See Note 2 to Chapter IV.
1
122
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
father to son through long centuries, slowly shaping
itself toward its present form, and that its final
moulding was wrought by some master's hand during
the exile in Babylonia. Thus at least we can best
account at once for its similarity to the cosmogonies
of kindred peoples and for its superiority to them.¹
Now that we have unearthed some of the literary
records of the great race family to which the He-
brews belonged-the Semites-we find in them close
parallels to this cosmogony. This is especially true
of the wonderful peoples whose home was in the
fertile plain of Mesopotamia; where, by its huge.
rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates, successive empires.
rose and fell, from an immemorial antiquity. Out
from this great centre of life the Hebrews came,
carrying with them, probably, as part of their an-
cestral heritage, a stock of traditions, among which
was held the primitive Chaldean form of this cos-
mogony; and back to this centre of civilization they
went, long centuries later, to study again on the old
benches the old lessons of its sages and savants.
That the cosmogony had not reached, in the popular
traditions, any high spiritual form before this return
to Chaldea is evidenced, I think, from the fact that
we find few, if any, traces of its presence in the
writings of the great authors, poets or prophets, be-
fore the exile. In the exile, the mental and spiritual
nature of the Hebrews rapidly ripened, under the in-
See Note 3 to Chapter IV.
S
1
THE PRIMEVAL SAGAS.
123
fluence of Babylonian culture and of the national
sorrow. There, coming upon the Babylonian forms
of this cosmogony, they were by some great soul
shaped into the lofty poem in our Bible.
It is certainly very noble and beautiful, exquisitely
simple, finely rhythmic in the movement of its sen-
tences, stately and sublime in its imagination, pure
and high art. It is more than this. It is a philos-
ophy of nature, at once subtle and profound. In its
grouping of the creative action into progressive
stages it divines our secret of evolution; though, of
course, in the unripe knowledge of those ages, it
misses the order of the successive periods. Man's
place in Nature is rightly read, as the last term in
the long series of developments-the crown and
consummation of the physical evolution. But his
place above the physical nature, as a spiritual being,
differentiated from the animal kingdom, is also
rightly read. The stereotyped introduction to the
successive creative activities changes. The Divine
Power solemnly summons itself for the culminating
task, the fashioning of a being who is to reproduce
the essential nature of God, to whom the govern-
ment of earth shall be deputed. "Let us make man
in our image, after our likeness; and let them have
dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl
of the air, and over all the earth, and over every
creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth." The
plural "us," we may note, in passing, is probably a
}
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BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
124
trace of polytheism, lingering on in speech after it
was rendered obsolete by the conception of the
Divine Unity.
In its opening sentence this Hebrew cosmogony
affirms the profoundest philosophy man has reached;
the thought in which his mind still rests; the
thought which holds the perpetual charter of religion
"In the beginning God created the heavens and
the earth." Sweeping away all polytheism with a
stroke of the pen, penetrating through all materialism
with a flash of insight, it reveals one Divine Being,
the spiritual source and ground of all existence.
We wrong this astonishing Poem of the Dawn
when we try to torture it into a scientific primer,
exact to our latest knowledge, anticipating our
astronomy and geology, shutting up our thought of
nature to its primitive conceptions. We rightly use
it to the purpose for which it was providentially
prepared, under the inspirations of the Spirit of
Truth, when we interpret all the laws and processes.
of nature that we learn from science by this vision
of the seer, and so affirm our Credo—“I believe in
God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and
earth.”1
II. The second of the original chapters of Genesis
covers from chapter second, verse fourth, to the
close of chapter fourth, in our arrangement (ii. 4–
'See Note 4 to Chapter IV.
125
1
iv). It begins again, as the first chapter began, at
the beginning of all things-"These are the genera-
tions of the heavens and the earth." But, unlike
the first saga, it dismisses the beginnings of nature
and hastens abruptly to the story of man.
It is,
in fact, as many signs show-the notable difference
of style, the introduction of a new title of the
Almighty, "The Lord God," "Jehovah Elohim,"
etc. the work of another hand, drawing from other
traditions of Israel; the work of the second of the
two great authors whose combined labors, with those
of others, probably, in lesser measure, have given us
the compilations of narratives and codifications of
laws, which together make up the Pentateuch. It
tells the tale of the creation of Adam and Eve, of
the Garden of Eden, of the act of disobedience
which drove them forth to a life of labor, of their
sons, Cain and Abel, of the murder of Abel by Cain,
and of the posterities of Cain and Abel. Like the
first saga, this, too, is a growth; representing early,
simple, even childish conceptions, such as Jehovah's
modelling man out of clay, etc., transformed into
profound poetic imaginations by later prophets, prob-
ably in the Babylonian exile. 2 Thus, as in the
case of the first saga, we can account for the slight
reference to it in the writers prior to that period.
Early generations possibly told, as literal stories,
g
THE PRIMEVAL SAGAS.
¹ Sce Note 5 to Chapter IV. 2 See Note 6 to Chapter IV.
See Note 7 to Chapter IV.
}
7
t
126
1
2
of Jehovah walking in the garden and of the
talking serpent; but the great soul who gave it its
present beautiful form wrote as a poet, of things
only to be represented allegorically. It, too, in its
chief features, is common to other peoples than the
Hebrews, and formed part of the cycle of sagas
developed among the Semites, before their breaking
up into different races. We are reading on the
baked clay tablets of Babylonia the same legends,
as handed down independently of the Hebrews from
the dim past of the civilizations of Mesopotamia.
We even see rude pictures of the tree of life, with
the man and woman, the apple and the serpent.'
All the symbols used in this saga find their clue in
the mythologies of other races. The existence of
a tradition of a sacred plant or "tree of life" may
be traced among many peoples. The most ancient
name of Babylon signified "the place of the tree of
life." As a symbol of eternal life it is found upon
Chaldean sarcophagi. Its representations identify
it with the Soma plant of the Aryans of India, and
the Haoma of the Iranians (Persians); from which
an intoxicating beverage was drawn that was offered
in libation to the gods, and that was identified with
the celestial drink of immortality. This tree of life
is always a most lofty religious emblem, and often
has the image of the supreme deity, the winged
disk, floating over it. On the Assyrian bass-reliefs it
'See Note 8 to Chapter IV.
2 See Note 9 to Chapter IV.
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
1
{
THE PRIMEVAL SAGAS.
127
is guarded by winged genii, the counterparts of the
cherubim of Genesis.
Akin to the Genesis story is the familiar Grecian
legend of the garden of the Hesperides, with its
golden apples guarded by the serpent.
This tree of life becomes also the symbol of the
lower and physical life, which, as the "Asherah,"
the original of the Maypole, signs the productivity
of nature. It thus connects the Genesis story with
the ancient notion that "the forbidden fruit" was
sensual indulgence.
The tree of the knowledge of good and evil, in so
far as it is distinguished from the tree of life, was
the symbol of the ancient belief in the prophetic
character of the rustling of leaves. It grew out of
the sense of a Divine suggestion in this sound. A
tree cultus is one of the earliest forms of worship
that our scholars have traced. Memories of it are
found in the direction to David, "When thou hearest
the sound of a going in the tops of the mulberry
trees, then thou shalt bestir thyself: for then shall
the LORD go out before thee."1
All ancient mythologies show a serpent or dragon
in whom was personified the hostile power of dark-
ness, physical and moral.
With the Hindus this was a natural symbol, a rep-
resentation of the storm-cloud. With the Persians
it was an ethical symbol, a representation of sin.
12 Sam. v. 24.
1
128
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
The imagery of the Apocalypse, "the old dragon,
etc., is anticipated in Assyria and Persia. Serpent-
worship, one of the most singular and widespread of
ancient cults, had a double aspect. The serpent
was, as has just been said, the symbol of physical or
moral evil. Thus he appears in Genesis as a tempter.
Yet he was at times the symbol of wisdom and benefi-
cent power, strangely enough as it seems to us.¹
1
There are traces of this notion in our Genesis
story. "The Serpent was more subtle than any
beast of the field." One interpretation has found
in him the emblem of an ancient God of Wisdom;
the medium of leading "the man" into a higher
life. What if the two thoughts blend, and through
sin man-advances !
OVE
The Cherubim are probably to be identified with
the winged bulls with which we are familiar from
the Assyrian explorations, the symbols of the guar-
dian genii of the royal palaces and pleasure grounds,"
called kirubi. This, of itself, indicates the birth-
place of the story.
"The flaming sword which turned every way,"
Lenormant translates: "The flaming blade of the
sword that turns." He identifies it with the wheels
in Ezekiel's vision; and finds the material object
creating the symbol in "a sharp weapon designed
for hurting, which, cast from a distance, would make
the same kind of wound in striking as a sword, by
¹Cf. The Brazen Serpent; the Serpent of Esculapius, etc.
129
the horizontally rotating motion imparted to it in
the act of throwing"-" a disk with sharp edges,
flung horizontally after having been whirled around
the fingers.'
},
THE PRIMEVAL SAGAS.
He quotes for illustration from an Accadian poem,
a song of triumph of a warrior god: "In my right
hand I hold my disk of fire." Such a weapon was
known among the Hindus-the tchakra. The fact
that we come upon a notice of this weapon in an in-
scription dating from the remotest past of Chaldea,
and that we find an allusion to it in Hebrew litera-
ture only in this tradition of the origin of man,
"affords an important indication of the extremely
remote date at which we must place this story, not
only as to subject, but for the determination of at
least some of its essential terms.'
"1
What a charm gathers round these sagas, as we
think thus of children listening to them among
peoples who have been buried so long ago that we
have lost, until of late, all knowledge of them and of
their civilizations!
This saga tells the story of man, of his origin and
of his primitive home, his fall in the effort to rise,
and of the rapid degeneracy which followed. It is
not to be read literally, and taken for history, as
wise men long ago pointed out. Josephus said that
Moses here began "to talk philosophically," in a
manner "enigmatical and allegorical."" Origen,
¹Beginnings of History, p. 145. 2 Antiq. i. 1, § 2.
9
1
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
130
%
one of the most learned of the Christian fathers,
wrote: Who so silly as to think that God like an
husbandman planted a garden, and in it a real tree.
of life to be tasted by corporeal teeth; or that the
knowledge of good and evil was to be acquired by
eating the fruit of another tree?
No man
can doubt that these things are to be taken figura-
tively and not literally, to denote certain mysteries
or recondite senses.'
>> 1
One does not need to be a scholar to see for him-
self that here is not the history of an individual
Adam, but the legend of "the Man." It is a sym-
bolic story, a prose-poem, whose meaning is not
hard to guess nor likely to grow out of date. Very
ancient, very fresh, are the questions, Whence am I?
Why is evil in me and in mankind? As the ancients
mused over these questions, there grew up this legend,
in whose graphic pictures were represented important
truths, perceived by the souls of devout Semites
and pious Jews. Man is not a material organization
alone; he has in him a breath, the Spirit of the
Most High; in the image of whose spiritual nature
he was created. Innocent and happy at first—not
virtuous or civilized, be it noted, but simply un-
knowing and contented, as a child, with his beautiful
garden-the hunger for knowledge wakens. He
gains knowledge at the expense of innocence, and
he can no longer stay in his happy garden. He goes
'Cf. Davidson, Introd. to Old Test. i., p. 170.
1
!
THE PRIMEVAL SAGAS.
131
forth to a life of toil that opens the pathway of prog-
ress, in which he reaches forth to the arts of civili-
zation; a pathway, however, through scenes of strife.
and violence.
This legend probably takes up into it a memory
of the antagonism between the agricultural and shep-
herding peoples. The early Hebrew nomads glori-
fied the free life of the "comely tents of Kedar”
(Arabia); and, like the Arabians and others, re-
garded agriculture as a coming down, a fall. Here
it is a curse, and its representative, Cain, is not in
favor with Jehovah.
Under this notion is the philosophical perception,
already indicated, that even an advance in civiliza-
tion may be a fall in morals, a profound truth which
we need to ponder in our vaunts of progress.
How
such an archaic fragment as the Song of Lamech
(iv. 23, 24)-probably the oldest bit from prehistoric
times in the whole book, if not in human literature
-speaks to us to-day, when rightly read! It is the
song of triumph of the man who first fashioned.
metal weapons, and who by them beat down his
fellows who had only clubs; the song of the selfish
mastery of nature, and thus of men, which still
reigns-whose weapons now are dollars.
"And Lamech said unto his wives,
Adah and Zillah, hear my voice,
Ye wives of Lamech, give ear unto my speech!
For I slay a man if he woundeth me,
1
132
}
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
Even a young man, if he hurteth me.
Lo! Cain would be avenged seven-fold,
But Lamech seventy-and-seven-fold." ¹
"
There is a truth in this saga which history repeats
again and again; as race after race arises, fresh,
vigorous, innocent; and, after ages of contented
simplicity, begins to hunger for improvement, for
knowledge, and for wealth, and mounts toward
civilization; winning political power and intellectual
culture and social manners, but losing the early
simplicity and hardihood and innocence; becoming
cultivated and corrupt, wealthy and selfish, mighty
and quarrelsome. This is the story told by the con-
trast of the age of Homer and of Pericles in Greece;
by the change from the Romans of the Republic to
the Romans of the Empire; by the difference be-
tween the townships of the Puritans and the cities
of Boston and New York. The gates of Eden shut
behind nations as they grow out of childhood. There
is a truth here which the story of individual lives
repeats. The child, dwelling in a fairy-garden, goes
out of the father's inner grounds, and grows to be a
man; knowing and able, but alas! knowing good
from evil by the experience of evil. The golden
gates of Paradise are behind us all-poor prodigals
that we are! A genius like Hawthorne feels out
¹ Translation given in The Speaker's Commentary. See Note 10
to Chapter IV.
THE PRIMEVAL SAGAS.
133
the deep meaning of this legend, and interprets it
to us in The Marble Faun.
1
This story is charged with the intense ethical
power of the Hebrew Prophets. It is a perfect
parable of the progress of temptation. It abounds.
in touches of wonderful suggestiveness. The central
thought of the saga, that the root of all earthly evil
is in moral wrong, is verily a truth not lightly to be
thrown away by us, but humbly to be received and
pondered, in all our studies of society and of indi-
vidual life.
We need not exaggerate this truth, as perhaps
the Hebrews exaggerated it, in their moral earnest-
ness, and as the Puritans, we know, have done; and
deny the reality of the progress of man, because his
intellectual advancement is accompanied by moral
lapses. As the Genesis writers will show us, un-
der the dark story of selfish strife there run the
threads of a purpose weaving the plan of a beautiful
order; in which, the mental progress held, and the
moral loss recovered, the race is to stand developed
into a perfect man. The real golden age lies not
behind man, but before him. We are in a vast evo-
lution, which takes up into its out-working even the
fall of man into moral evil. And as with the race,
so with us as individuals, if we co-operate with God.
Progress is a spiral, at the end of which, as at the
beginning, is the Garden of the Lord, Paradise, for
'See Note II to Chapter IV.
1
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
134
those who in spirit become again as little children.
A truth this which the prophetic narrator threw back
into the earliest scene of sin, over which rises the
light of the great faith that the seed of the woman
should bruise the head of the serpent.
I need scarcely add that to rear upon such a beau-
tiful legend a structure of theology, after the fashion
of the Jewish rabbins and of Christian_doctors, is
inexcusable in men of the nineteenth century. 1
III. The third of the original chapters of Genesis
begins with our chapter fifth, and ends with the
eighth verse of our sixth chapter (v.-vi. 8). It gives
us a genealogical table of the children of Seth, one
of Adam's sons, down to Noah. It is not to be read
as an actual family tree. The names--which often
repeat those of the preceding table of the children
of Cain-are those of the fabulous demi-gods of
Semitic legend, and represent races and periods,
and perhaps obsolete divinities of primitive poly-
theisms, looming up in the dim distance of pre-
historic ages, through which their names alone lived
on as personages. The interpretation of the names
given is such as was yielded by the imperfect lin-
guistic knowledge which prevailed among the early
Hebrews, and is worth little to us. The extraor-
dinary age of these antediluvians, as part of legend-
ary lore, calls for no explanation, save that the
'See Note 12 to Chapter IV.
THE PRIMEVAL SAGAS.
135
figures belong to a chronological system that runs
through the whole book; the outgrowth of later
speculations, which fixed the end of the world at four
thousand years from the creation, and placed the ex-
odus of Israel from Egypt midway in this period. ¹
We have thus far met few of the fanciful nature-
myths that abound in similar traditions of other
peoples-the tendency to which was repressed in
Israel by its stern and spiritual monotheism. But
in this list there is at least one figure which looks
very much like a solar-myth; that of Enoch, “the
opener," as Ewald paraphrases his name; the man
of three hundred and sixty-five years, who ascended
into the heavens. Yet, so completely did this poetry
stiffen, later on, into prose, that Enoch became a cel-
ebrated prophet, to whom reference is made in the
Epistle of Jude, and in whose name a remarkable book
was written which has been lately brought to light.2
IV. The fourth original chapter begins at the
ninth verse of our sixth chapter, and ends at the
close of our ninth chapter (vi. 9-ix.). It contains the
story of the deluge-too familiar to need even an
outline here. Its numerous self-contradictions that
have so bothered good people, prove to be the result.
of the dove-tailing together of two separate versions
of the tradition. These separate accounts can be
tolerably well disentangled, and then each reads co-
¹ See Note 13 to Chapter IV. * See Note 14 to Chapter IV.
I
}
S
}
tot 20 of what the
136
2
herently enough.¹ The incredibilities of the story,
when read as a literal history, of course do not
trouble us; since the story is so plainly one of the
primitive legends; and we need not puzzle our
children with its perplexities. It is another great
prosc-poem; in which out of the germ of a tradi-
tion of some actual flood, or possibly out of one
of the oldest nature-myths, the stern moral sense of
the Hebrews wove a story of divine retribution upon
human sin. It, too, was probably a growth; its
cruder and less ethical form being found in the very
ancient tradition of a flood which we know to have
been held in common among so many peoples.³
We all remember from our school-days the Greek
story of Deucalion and Pyrrha, spared on account
of their piety from a great deluge. Celts and Ger-
mans in Europe, and in Asia Syrians, Phoenicians,
Persians, and Hindus have had similar traditions. The
Chaldean legend tells of a Xisuthros, a great ruler,
who was forewarned of the coming judgment by the
highest god, and who took his relations and friends.
with him into a great ship, together with all kinds of
beasts and birds and insects, and sailed for Arme-
nia. By sending birds out of the ship he tried the
state of the earth; the birds bringing back mud on
their feet the second time, and not coming back at
all the third time. Whereupon Xisuthros and his
*
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
¹ See Note 15 to Chapter IV. 2 Sce Note 16 to Chapter IV.
See Note 17 to Chapter IV.
FITNE
137
2
wife left the vessel, but were rapt away to the home
of the gods in reward for their piety. We may feel
quite sure, therefore, that our Hebrew version of
the Deluge was drawn from the Chaldaic tradition;
either in the original migration from Chaldea, or
during the exile in Babylonia; or, more probably,
at the first departure from the race home, in a rude
form which was improved on their return there in
later times. As we have the story, it represents a long
growth. Childish notions of an early age linger on in
the crude representations of Jehovah's repentance
at having made man, His smelling Noah's sacrifice,
etc.; expressions which afterward became subli-
mated by poetic feeling, until they were read as we
read them, without offence. And into this legend,
as into others, the Hebrews breathed their noble
moral spirit; making it a graphic picture of the
certain retribution following upon man's wrong-
doing. To be sure, the story represents this
punishment as wholly arbitrary in the form it
took. For aught that the narrative shows, a fire
might just as well have been sent as a flood. We
correct this representation of the Divine dealing
by the larger knowledge which centuries of God's
education of man have bequeathed to us. He does
not punish men for one class of offences by visiting
them with calamities of another class in nowise con-
nected with their wrong-doing. His punishments are
¹ See Note 18 to Chapter IV. 2 See Note 19 to Chapter IV.
1
THE PRIMEVAL SAGAS.
T
138
natural, entailed in the wrong; so that we may see the
connection and learn the law in obeying which we shall
be happy. He does not punish the vice and crime of
New York by a tidal wave from the Atlantic. Our
punishment for these wrongs comes through our
taxes, through the disease that breeds in this moral
and physical filth. But let us not make the mistake
of thinking that the physical nature does not re-
spond to the moral order in the punishment of
wrong. The lone Campagna breathing deadly poison
where once was a thriving population; the drouths
coming upon our country by the selfish greed or
thoughtlessness of private parties who care not
for the commonwealth, and ruthlessly destroy its
forests; the fearful epidemics which ravage cities
and nations-tell of physical judgments as real as
the Flood.¹ A French Revolution and a Russian
Nihilism, with their reigns of terror, are the Di-
vine judgments working through the social order;
the awful retribution coming upon the classes which
have abused the trusts of power and repeated the
selfish strife and fleshly lusts of the antediluvians,
saying, "after us the deluge."
The thread of hopefulness in man, spun out of
the thought of God, and running under the story of
human degeneracy which culminates in the Flood,
as told by the narrator of this chapter, issues in
this last scene into light; in the beautiful and im-
See Note 20 to Chapter IV.
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
i
1
み
​}
THE PRIMEVAL SAGAS.
139
pressive covenant of mercy made by Jehovah, whose
sign was set in the rainbow. Other peoples have
dreamed over the mystery of the lovely rainbow,
and have given us charming fancies. The Hebrew
saw in it-with singular fidelity to the symbolism of
nature in this physical phenomenon-a sacrament of
the victory of light over darkness, of the following
of peace upon storm, of the working, even in the
most appalling forces of disorder, of a beneficent
purpose toward a beautiful order; a vision which
makes us feel the inbreathings of the Spirit of Truth.
Here, as elsewhere, they saw so much of spiritual
truth because One was showing that truth to them
-revealing or unveiling Himself.¹
To this story of the Flood is appended a brief eth-
nological chart-a legendary account of the branches
of the new humanity; which is of slight interest
to us at present, whatever delight our slave-hold-
ing fathers may have taken in it, except inas-
much as it preserves a very early attempt at group-
ing the races of earth, and as it embalms, in the
story of Noah's culture of the vine and of his fall
into drunkenness and shame through it, the earliest
warning on record against intemperance.2
V. The next two original chapters may be grouped
together. They cover the tenth of our chapters,
and the eleventh down to the twenty-seventh verse.
I
¹ See Note 21 to Chapter IV.
2
See Note 22 to Chapter IV.
:
;
140
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
(x-xi. 27). They contain the genealogies of the
sons of Noah, of Japheth, Ham, and Shem, in the
tenth chapter; and of Shem again, the head of the
branch from which the Hebrews were descended, in
the eleventh chapter. These are not the records of
individuals. As Augustine long ago pointed out,
"nations, not men," are represented. They are an-
cient ethnographical tables; perhaps the earliest es-
says at the science which masses men in families and
connects the scattered races in organic union. And
whereas the ancients generally viewed the nations.
of the earth as literally of different stocks, these group
them upon one tree; thus first hinting the secret of
a possible unity of the human race. They show, by
various signs, their probable origin in the hoary sci-
ence of the Chaldeans.
Two legends, bedded amid these tables, call for a
passing remark. In "Nimrod, the mighty hunter
before the Lord," looms up, through vast vistas of an-
tiquity, the colossal form of the earliest of the mighty
empires of earth known to us; an impersonation of
a Power such as that which lately, in another form
of art, has been reared upon the banks of the Rhine-
the gigantic figure of Germania. A rude and warlike
Power, leaning on a sword, using brute force brutally,
but none the less hunting wild beasts and wilder men
from off the earth, after the fashion of King Arthur,
as Tennyson has told the story; ordering the
bases of civilization, so that even this hunter did a
1
THE PRIMEVAL SAGAS.
141
work "before the Lord"-Who through the hands
of warlike Powers is still preparing the way for the
Prince of Peace, and using the selfish ambitions of
mighty men to further the growth of the brotherly
commonwealth of the sons of God.¹
1
In the story of the Tower of Babel we have the ear-
liest known suggestion of the cause of the dispersion
of mankind, and of the dissimilarity of human lan-
guages-a strange phenomenon to the ancient, as
indeed to the modern. The Elohist narrator, in the
table of the sons of Noah, had spoken of the distri-
bution of mankind as though brought about nat-
urally; from which it would have followed that the
variety of tongues was also a merely natural growth.
The Jehovist writer, true to his constant stand-point,
saw in such striking phenomena a supernatural cause.
His intense ethical spirit saw the consequence of
some sin in every apparent disorder. This break-up
of unity was a sequence of the process of deteriora-
tion that was renewed after the Deluge. It was the
result of a divine judgment upon the vainglorious am-
bitions of man; a judgment which, however, sub-
served the ulterior aim of Providence, the restora-
tion of man, by barring combinations for evil
purposes. Where the tradition originated we may
guess from its crystallizing around the vast tower
of Babel. The colossal temple of Bel, which rose
in the centre of Babylon to a height out-topping
1 See Note 23 to Chapter IV.
1
142
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
the Egyptian pyramids, was one of the wonders
of the ancient world. It was a sight which must
have strangely stirred the simple Hebrews in
the exile, and confirmed the traditional prejudice of
their poets against the peoples who forsook the sim-
ple, unostentatious life of the tents and said, "Go
to, let us make brick; let us build a city and a tower
whose top may reach to heaven." Following his
usual method, the writer pictures Jehovah as com-
ing down to see the city, and, as moved with jeal-
ousy of man's powers-a notion familiar to us from
Greek legends-confounding men's speech, so that,
no longer understanding one another, they were
forced to scatter over the earth; which, as he inti-
mates, in a play upon the word, is meant by Babel.
The explanation of the singular phenomenon
rather reverses the order of cause and effect. Men
separated because, perhaps, of discord growing out
of over-crowding; and when separated, amid differ-
ent scenes and under different climates and engaged
in different tasks, they slowly and unconsciously modi-
fied their speech, until, through the natural growths
of varying dialects, dissimilar languages developed.
God works here as elsewhere through natural means
and methods. None the less is He working, as the
old Hebrew saw, and stated in a crude way. The
progress of civilization scatters mankind; and this
largely, not alone through natural necessities, but
through unnatural compulsion, through the selfish,
1
24
>
THE PRIMEVAL SAGAS.
143
scheming ambitions of those who would sit alone
upon the earth. Men's alien speech is a sign of an
inward alienation, in which they are providentially
kept apart for the time. Not even a Napoleon can
unite Europe while there is no solidarity of inter-
ests. So the earth-creatures creep and crawl where
they might climb into the skies of a new order. In
the swelling words of Ruskin :
"The associative work of immodest men is all fruitless and astir
with wormy ambition; putridly dissolute and forever on the crawl;
so that if it come together for a time it can only be by metamorphosis,
the flash of volcanic fire out of the vale of Siddim, vitrifying the clay
of it and fastening the slime, only to end in wilder scatteredness; ac-
cording to the fate of those oldest, 'mightiest, immodestest of men, of
whom it is told in scorn, They had no brick."
When the times come ripe, and men are one in
mind and heart again, they will grow into a new
unity of speech, and, as brothers, bind themselves
into a “federation of man;" on whose colossal insti-
tutions, dedicated to the highest, the Lord will come
down as upon a sacred temple, "a gate of God,"
through which the hymn of Humanity will ascend, in
antiphon of races and of nations-
"'Am I not thine? Are not these thine ?'
And they reply,' Forever mine !'"
1
CHAPTER V.
THE TRADITIONS OF ABRAHAM.
THE second division of Genesis opens at the
twenty-seventh verse of the eleventh chapter, in our
arrangement, and runs through the rest of the book.
It is occupied with the traditions of the patriarchs.
Before entering upon its details, a few words may
be given to the general character of these traditions.
As we pass from the primeval period, whose
story, according to the Hebrew traditions, we have
been thus far tracing, into the patriarchal period
now opening before us, with its familiar names and
realistic scenes, it is natural to imagine that we are
leaving legend behind us and are coming upon the
solid ground of history.
We must remember, however, that whatever we
find in this second division of Genesis is still origi-
nally oral tradition; tradition that was not com-
mitted to writing until centuries after the periods.
described. Oral tradition may be, as we know,
among peoples who depend on it, singularly tena-
cious of long past events, even in their minuter
features. But when such traditions run far back
into dim distances, through imaginative and credu-
B
THE TRADITIONS OF ABRAHAM.
145
lous generations, we naturally suspect the memories.
of real personages of having unconsciously suffered
exaggeration; of having drawn around these ancient
heroes the nimbus of marvel, and of having woven
into the stories of actual men much that was only
the play of fancy. We suspect such primitive tra-
ditions of preserving, with these relics of real person-
ages, the legends of semi-fabulous heroes that have
floated down upon the stream of story from im-
memorial antiquity, and the nature-myths that
abounded in child-ages; and of then having forgot-
ten, later on, the original character of these incrus-
tations of the imagination.
瀑
​Just such processes we trace clearly in the tra-
ditions of all other peoples; and it would lay these
venerable traditions of Israel open to the suspicion
of being the manufacture of a late literary period,
if we found no touches of this nature in them.
The times into which we are now to pass prove to
be really pre-historic ages, as far as the Hebrews are
concerned. Their true history opens in the age
of
Moses. Before that period they appear to have been
rude nomads; a loose confederation of allied tribes,
each carrying its own stock of traditions, into which
its legends and myths entered of necessity; legends
and myths, whose poetry was afterward taken for
prose and written out into history. Further than
this, we must remember that in the earlier periods
of tribal life the social unit was not the individual,
IO
}
146
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
but the tribe. Property was held by the community;
and the rude forms of law existing recognized the
community as the personality which was responsible
for wrongs done by any of its members. Such ages
would preserve in their traditions the stories, not
alone of individuals, but also of the tribe itself; and
these latter tales would appear to after times, when
this sense of tribal personality was lost, as the
history of individuals. We know this to have been
the fact in other primitive peoples, and we see now
that it was so with Israel. The secret is dropped
more than once. The thirty-sixth chapter of Gene-
sis begins thus: "Now these are the generations of
Esau, who is Edom." At the conclusion of Jacob's
Blessing of his Sons, apparently a prophetic vision of
the dying patriarch, we read-" all these are the
twelve tribes of Israel" (Gen. xlix. 28). We find
other such hints, that while we are reading the his-
tories of individuals, as we think, we may be read-
ing the histories of tribal-personalities, as told by
tradition. Thus we find good reason to believe that
in the traditions of the Patriarchs lie concealed the
memories of migrations of peoples, as in the west-
ward journey of Abraham; and the secret of the
inter-relationship of tribes, as in the brotherhood
of Isaac and Ishmael, of Jacob and Esau. The
awakening national consciousness of a people, hunger-
ing for ancestral heroes, often converts the personi-
fications of nature into actual persons; and thus
1
THE TRADITIONS OF ABRAHAM.
147
we meet traditions of inconceivable men and of im-
possible actions. Hebrew traditions certainly show
some traces of this tendency; as notably in the
mythic Samson; though less of it than in the case
of most peoples.¹
Have we, then, no true memories of actual men in
these familiar stories? Are Abraham and Isaac and
Jacob and Joseph not real personages? Unquestion-
ably we do hold in these sacred stories memories
of real men, of men of heroic proportions; whose
struggles and falls and victories, in the trials and
temptations of our human life, so much the same,
spiritually, now as thousands of years ago, largely
moulded the nature of the early Hebrews; and
through whose efforts toward the light, the truth of
God broke upon the souls of the sons of Israel. In
all ages strong men make history, and the ruder the
people the more the strong man impresses himself
upon the multitude. In most of the race migrations.
of which we have knowledge, some great leader
looms up at the head of the host. We need not
doubt that real men gave form to these traditions,
though their persons may have become merged, at
times, in the larger figures of tribes; and though
their forms have become clothed with drapery, into
whose tissue legend and myth may have entered,
producing grotesque patchings of fancy on fact.²
The vast mass of popular tradition formed the
¹See Note I to Chapter V. 2 See Note 2 to Chapter V.
}
I
{
148
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
plastic material, out of which the hands of devout
Hebrews built up the colossal figures of their Patri-
archs; but the original casts were modeled by
heroic personalities. As the growth thus of genera-
tions, the traditions of the Patriarchs must be ex-
pected to present incongruous elements of ethical
and religious thought; the crude moralities and
superstitions of an early age side by side with lofty
principles of conduct and noble visions of God.
We at times read stories whose inner meanings.
we feel to be profoundly philosophic, but whose
outer forms are the quaint, archaic relics of a primi-
tive age.
MORE
It is, on the whole, a charming picture of pastoral
life upon which we are to enter, that makes us
feel the fresh, dewy air of morning that plays over
many of Homer's scenes; a picture which bears in-
trinsic marks of a fidelity equaled only by its
modesty. As we proceed, we shall have occasion to
observe also how the backward look of later ages
fondly brought out into prominence every feature
of the traditions that indicated the Providential
preparation of Israel for its holy mission; and how
it suffused the story with that Messianic conscious-
ness which awoke only in the after history of the
people.
The seventh original chapter of Genesis opens in
our eleventh chapter at the twenty-seventh verse,
i
}
THE TRADITIONS OF ABRAHAM.
149
with the generations of Terah, the father of Abram,
and continues with the traditions of Abram and
Isaac to the eleventh verse of our twenty-fifth
chapter (xi. 27-xxv. 11). The preceding genealogical
charts had led down to Terah, showing thus in an
ethnographical table the relations of the Hebrews
to the great families of man; and the direct ances-
tral line of the Hebrews is now entered. The mi-
gration of the Terahites is first briefly recorded in
the paragraph concluding our eleventh chapter. All
that we as yet know of it is the record thus handed
down by tradition. According to it, we are to locate
the region whence the migration started in the dis-
trict that formed the westward outpost of the Chal-
dean Empire, the capital of which was " Ur of the
Chaldees."
Below the Chaldean civilization, whose ruins we
are now digging up in the plains of Mesopotamia,
lay a yet more ancient Accadian civilization; one of
whose seats was a city of Ur; the site of which our
antiquarians think that they have found. A royal
city, a mart of trade and commerce, the home of
an educated priesthood, the centre of a worship in
which the Sabbath was observed as a day of adoration
of the Moon and a day of rest from secular pursuits
-this much we can now dimly see, through the vast
vista of time, in the capital of the province whence
the Terahites moved westward to find new pastures
for their flocks. There would seem to have been a
150
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
temporary arrest of the movement in the region of
Harran; from which district a new start was made
later on, under Abram.¹
With our twelfth chapter another hand takes up
the thread of the Abramic story. The impulse to
this new migration is found, by the Hebrew writer,
in a call of Jehovah. Let us not think of any mere
voice speaking from without to Abram, as doubtless
the earlier generations who told this tale may have
thought, but of that Voice which speaks within the
soul of man, in strange stirrings of the spirit, in im-
pulses and instincts that goad into action, until a
man, a people, moves to what proves a mission for
the race.
Familiar facts of human consciousness,
these; disclosed in the minds of the men and the
peoples who have changed the face of earth, from
Abram and his tribe down to Columbus and the
Pilgrim Fathers. Have we any better account to
give of these mysterious influences than to say-A
Call of God? Seeing the vast issue of this step of
the Hebrew Sheikh, can we reasonably refuse to
own, in a peculiar sense, the action in his mind of the
Spirit who was, in those far back ages, beginning
that education of the race out of which, at length,
was to come "the truth as it is in Jesus?" Can we
fail to hear in this Call the first articulation of that
revelation which the history of Israel was to spell
¹ See Note 3 to Chapter V.
1
THE TRADITIONS OF ABRAHAM.
151
out, until its syllables were complete in The Word
made flesh? Very beautifully does the writer of
the Epistle to the Hebrews bring out the spirit of
all such actions as this of Abram: "By faith Abra-
ham, when he was called to go out
obeyed;
and he went out, not knowing whither he went."1
The greatest deeds of man prove to be those
attempted from a sense of duty, which does not dis-
cern whither one is being led-for what ends or by
what ways-but none the less trusts the influence
from on high and goes forward.
There are interesting and suggestive traditions
handed down outside of the Bible, which make
Abram to have acted in protest against the prevail-
ing idolatries and nature-worships of Chaldea; one
of which is so significant that it is worth recalling.
•
"Abraham stood on the face of the desert. And when he saw the
sun shining in all its glory, he was filled with wonder, and he thought,
Surely the sun is God the Creator!' and he knelt down and wor-
shiped the sun. But when evening came, the sun went down in the
west, and Abraham said, 'No! the Author of Creation cannot set.'
Now the moon arose in the cast, and the stars looked out of the fir-
mament. Then said Abraham, This moon must indeed be God,
and all the stars are his host!' And kneeling down he adored the
moon. But after some hours of darkness the moon set, and from
the cast appeared once more the bright face of the sun. Then said
Abraham, 'Verily these heavenly bodies are no gods, for they obey
law. I will worship Him who imposed the law upon them.'" 2
After moving slowly through the land of Canaan,
C
1 Hebrews, xi. 8.
Legends of the Patriarchs and Prophets, Baring Gould, p. 151.
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
152
and receiving assurances from on high that this was
to be the future home of his people, Abram and
his nomad tribe wander into Egypt to escape a
famine-Egypt being of old the granary of the Medi-
terranean countries. We thus catch a glimpse of the
lower side of this movement, as a migration of the
Hebrews toward the land of plenty.¹
We have then an incident narrated-Abram's
jealousy of Sarai and fear for his own life—which
had, from all we know of the life of Egypt, plenty of
ground in the manners of "the princes" of that sen-
sual people. The story is noticeable for the frankness
with which the patriarch's deceit is told; which may
have been, of course, only a manifestation of blunt-
ness of conscience on the part of the narrator; but
which may rather have been an honorable fidel-
ity to fact, in the portrayal of a race vice, even in
the person of the Father of Israel.2 These traditions.
of the patriarchs are noble examples of the sort of
biography for which grim old Carlyle asked. Even
the Friend of God has his faults, and they teach us
as well as his virtues.
This story reappears twice in Genesis; in the
twentieth chapter, where it is told of Abraham and
Abimelech, King of Gerar, and again in the twenty-
sixth chapter, where it is epitomized in a narrative
of Isaac. Such repetitions are a common feature
of popular traditions.
See Note 4 to Chapter V.
2
See Note 5 to Chapter V.
JAN
1
THE TRADITIONS OF ABRAHAM.
153
Chapter thirteen preserves a beautiful tradition of
the generosity and magnanimity of the great Sheikh.
As always, there is not room for two big men to-
gether; and strife arises between the herdsmen of
Abram and those of his nephew Lot, when the tribe
had moved back into Canaan. The Head of the
tribe gives the choice "of the whole land" to the
subordinate chieftain. "If thou wilt take the left
hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou depart
to the right hand, then I will go to the left." Would
that we could be in this spirit "the children of
Abraham!" With a fine ethical feeling, the story
represents a renewed assurance of his posterity's
possession of the land as following this splendid act
of unselfishness. "The meek shall inherit the earth."
Chapter fourteen is a fragment of tradition quite
complete in itself and separable from the rest of the
story. It is the tale of the chivalric courage and
the martial prowess of the mighty Sheikh Abram.
A band of confederate chieftains had swept a part
of Canaan, in a wild foray, carrying off Lot and his
goods. Hastily putting himself at the head of his
retainers, Abram pursues the victorious bands; over-
takes them, defeats them, and chases them hotly
out of the land. This is a light in which the Hebrew
traditions do not seem to have greatly cared to set
the Friend of God; feeling, nobly indeed, that there
are higher glories than those of the tented field.
154
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
The story of this warlike hero appears, by many
water-marks such as the title given him, "Abram
the Hebrew," etc.-to be a fragment from the tra-
ditions of some other people; a leaf torn out of the
records of some neighboring race, and inserted here
as preserving an interesting remembrance of the great
Head of the House of Israel. A curious gratifica-
tion, thus to peep into the lost annals of some Syrian
people! What a fine realism it gives to the colossal
figure of the father of three great religions-Judaism,
Mahometanism, and Christianity-as we see him.
walking with God, but dealing doughty blows to rob-
ber sheikhs; trusting in Jehovah, yet keeping his
spears bright and his swords sharp! In the light of
modern decipherings of Assyrian inscriptions this
modest story looms into vastly larger proportions,
and we see the Head of the Hebrew peoples repuls-
ing a mighty invasion from Chaldea, led by Kudur-
Lagamer, "The Ravager of the West." 1
Toward the close of this ancient fragment
occurs the mysterious reference to Melchizedek,
King of Salem" and "Priest of the Most High
God,” who blesses Abram, and to whom Abram pays
tithes; the passage over which so much learned
guessing has been wasted. Occurring amid such an
interpolated fragment, speaking of "Salem," a later
poetic form of Jerusalem, of which place we hear
nothing in authentic history until later times, and
¹ See Note 6 to Chapter V.
4C
•
THE TRADITIONS OF ABRAHAM.
155
couched in such mystic terms-it seems a hopeless
task to try now to resolve its meaning. It looks
like an insertion of some priestly hand, to represent
the Father of the Faithful as owning the higher au-
thority of the priesthood of the sacred city. The
reference to this passage in Hebrews is after the
manner of the rabbins, whose imagination must
have been at least as much excited by it as we know
has been the case with the imagination of Christian
doctors.
The fifteenth chapter contains an account of a
vision had by Abram, in which he finds a solemn
renewal of the assurance of Jehovah concerning the
destiny of his posterity.
Contracts used to be made with most elaborate
ceremonies, designed to impress the none-too-honest
minds of ordinary men, and hold them to their bar-
gains under the spell of supernatural terrors. An
early Hebrew form of sealing a contract would seem
to have been as follows: An animal was slain, was
cut in half, and its bleeding sides were placed on
the ground so as to form a narrow passage-way be-
tween them, through which the contracting parties.
walked. This strange ceremony appears to have
been a dramatic representation of the fate impre-
cated upon the negotiators if they proved faithless.¹
This realistic ritual-happily no longer needful in
¹Cf. Jer. xxxiv. 18, 19, and Gen. xxi. 27.
1
156
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
our exchanges, where, through the education of the
ages, a word is as good as a bond-would seem to
have cast the shape which the vision took in Abram's
mind, as he dreamed that he saw Jehovah thus
sealing his covenant with his servant.
We may note, in passing, one of the frequent dis-
crepancies which betray the hands of more than one
author, working over more than one body of tradi-
tions. Verse thirteenth makes Jehovah announce
to Abram the servitude of his posterity in Egypt
during "four hundred years;" while verse sixteenth
puts into Jehovah's mouth the promise that they
should return to Canaan "in the fourth generation."
Chapter sixteen records a tradition of Hagar and
Ishmael. Sarai, having no child, gives her lord her
maid to wife; and Hagar, losing her head on the
prospect of becoming a mother, takes on airs and
makes herself so unbearable that, at length, Sarai
turns upon her and sends her, together with her son
Ishmael, into the wilderness; where she is met by
an angel, who prophecies that she is to become the
mother of a great race, and bids her return to the
tents of Abram and submit duly to Sarai. Strange
and revolting as it seems to us, such a motherhood
by proxy was once an unobjectionable custom.
Hebrew women regarded childlessness as a reproach,
which they were ready to wipe out by even such a
remedy. Custom and the sense of duty reconciled
4
A
THE TRADITIONS OF ABRAHAM.
157
them to sharing the affections of their husbands;
much, I suppose, as the Mormon women put down
the strong instinct of womanhood before a sup-
posed religious obligation.
The polygamy of the patriarchs, which will thrust
itself upon us at every step in our study of Genesis,
is not disguised by the writers, to whom it must
have been as offensive as it is to us. The Hebrews
became a monogamous people, holding loyally to
the high ideal of the love of one man and one woman,
which it was given them to win; but they frankly
let their traditions stand, showing the lower social
state of their great ancestors.
No intelligent reader will be troubled by these
traditions. Men's perceptions of right and wrong
are always largely dependent on the state of society
in which they live. The best men cannot rise wholly
above their age. Morality grows with the growth
of a race, and we must not judge the child by the
standards of the man. No apology need be entered
for what was recognized then as the proper law of
marriage. But with what fine touches the writers
of these stories bring out the inevitable jealousy
and strife and domestic bitterness that entered the
tents of the patriarchs with each successive wife!
Mormons, who are so fond of quoting the example
of the patriarchs, might well " read, mark, learn and
inwardly digest" these Biblical illustrations of the
state they laud so highly.
เ
158
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
In this passage occurs the first mention of "angels'
visits," which in these traditions are neither "few
nor "far between." Beautiful are these pictures
of superhuman beings; appearing visibly to men,
walking, talking, eating and drinking with them;
and tenderly do they loom through the hallowed
imaginations of our childhood, in which we easily
saw the visions that had delighted a child-race.
Other intelligences higher than man there well may
be in the vast universe-as most men instinctively
believe. If such there be, all we are learning of the
unity of plan in nature would lead us to expect
that they are higher forms of man-the crown of
nature's development on our globe; which is the
secret hinted, with singular philosophic insight, in
these Hebrew stories of the angels, who always ap-
pear as nobler human beings, "young men," not at
first sight to be distinguished from actual flesh and
blood men. The Angel, in Hebrew philosophy,
whether that wisdom was learned from Persia or
worked out in Israel's own mind, was Man, devel-
oped further; a higher generalization of human
nature, Humanity idealized.
From such more spiritual beings, akin to ourselves,
former dwellers on our earth or inhabitants of other
spheres, there may well come communications to our
human spirits, bodied in the flesh. These tales of
the Hebrews may be only poetic forms of such spir-
itualistic experiences as have befallen man in all ages;
}
THE TRADITIONS OF ABRAHAM.
159
""
experiences which have obtruded themselves so insist-
ently upon our own materialistic age as to have devel-
oped a new form of religion, centring in the belief in
intercommunication between the seen and the unseen
worlds, and to have called out, on the part of science,
a Society for Psychical Research. The time has not
yet come for any pronouncement upon these experi-
ences. We should neither affirm nor deny the reality
of such communications, but await in patience the
coming in of larger lights. But all "materializings
of spirits are, to say the least, very suspicious, even
to those who are ready to believe in mental com-
munications; and the more physical any manifes-
tations become, the more difficult is it to believe
in them. It is the naif naturalness of these
Hebrew tales that surrounds them with the un-
mistakable air in which we feel ourselves carried
back to the dewy days of childhood's all-believing
imagination.
This tradition of Hagar and Ishmael clearly hints
a tribal meaning under its personal aspect; and we
recognize, without much effort, that, as in a symbol-
story, we are reading of the relationship of the Bed-
ouins and the Hebrews.
The seventeenth chapter narrates the tradition of
the change of the patriarch's name from Abram,
"exalted father," to Abraham, "father of a multi-
tude;" and then proceeds to give the origin of the
1
1
160
rite in which the Hebrews dedicated their children
to Jehovah, and by which they felt themselves to
be set apart as a peculiar people. Circumcision
was in reality a usage observed by many races, the
origin of which is lost in the obscurity of pre-historic
times. Our elder scholars saw the sanitary grounds
out of which it may have grown. Later scholars
have seen that it may also have arisen as a com-
promise with the dreadful rite of dedicating children
to death, in the name of the gods. This slight mu-
tilation would seem, from many hints, to have been
substituted for the immolation of children, when con-
science grew enlightened enough to protest against
such religious wickedness.¹
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
In such an understanding of its origin we can en-
ter into the spirit which, as in this tradition, as-
signed it to Jehovah's command. The suggestion
in the patriarch's mind might well be felt to have
come from the Divine Spirit-that patient teacher
of man, who by thus prompting to a mild and mer-
ciful substitution for the abhorrent sacrifice of chil-
dren, lifted an awful pall from human life, filled
myriads of homes with gladness and peace, and led
man to take a vast stride forward in the thought of
God. The sense of an educative character in the
general movement of history forbids our regarding
the least instrumentality in that training, the lowest
advance won in the upward climb, as unworthy of
'See Note 7 to Chapter V.
$
1
161
the Divine Spirit. Thus it was, perhaps, that this
strange rite became a sign of the Covenant of Je-
hovah with Israel-the people which felt itself
called to the mission of developing essential and uni-
versal religion. As such, its institution is accom-
panied by the giving of a new name to Abram,
who henceforth is called Abraham, the Father of
Nations.
THE TRADITIONS OF ABRAHAM.
How readily even such a repulsive rite lent itself
to the symbolizing of spiritual truths, in later ages,
we may see from the beautiful Collect for The Cir-
cumcision of Christ :
<<
Almighty God, who madest thy blessed Son to be circumcised,
and obedient to the Law for man; Grant us the true Circumcision of
the Spirit; that our hearts, and all our members, being mortified
from all worldly and carnal lusts, we may in all things obey thy
blessed will; through the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord.” '
II
The eighteenth and nineteenth chapters record the
tradition of the destruction of Sodom. The story
of the heavenly visitors who appear as" three men,'
whose feet are washed by the patriarch, and who
then entered his tent and "comfort their "hearts
with the hospitality of the Sheikh, eating of the fat-
ted "calf" served up with fresh "bread" and "butter
and milk "one of whom acts and speaks as Jehovah
himself, while yet Sarai laughs at his assurance of her
approaching maternity in old age-all this plainly
betrays a legendary drapery round some experience
See Note 8 to Chapter V.
1
,,
??
>>
2
162
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
which it is impossible for us now to resolve. The
story gives us a pleasant glimpse of the gracious cour-
tesy of these tent-dwellers, whose good breeding
might be studied to advantage in our brown stone.
"palatial residences." Jehovah is pictured as rea-
soning himself into the conclusion that Abraham
was worthy of being admitted to his confidence; and
as accordingly communicating to him the informa-
tion that one errand which had brought him down
to earth, was his desire to see, personally, whether
the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah, which had reached
his ears, was borne out by the facts of the case.
Far indeed from omniscient, in the thought of the
men of those early days, was the god who needed.
thus to assure himself of the condition of two Ca-
naanitish towns, and who only after such a visit of
inspection could say, "I will know." Thus crude was
the early thought of God which has grown at
length to be so spiritual, so sublime. The scene that
follows, under its poetic garb, is a noble vision of the
human soul's wrestling with the awful Power which
looks so far from just; a wonderful picture of the
spirit of man crying out, from its own strong sense of
justice and love, against the appearance of injustice
and severity in the Most High, and of its finding at
once an answering voice from God, an assurance that
above its own moral nature there is a reality of Divine
Righteousness and Mercy. With touching humility,
yet with fearless confidence, "Abraham drew near
}
163
and said, Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with
the wicked? That be far from thee to do after
this manner
Shall not the Judge of all the
earth do right?" Final appeal of the poor human
heart, never failing to bring down the secret of
peace!
THE TRADITIONS OF ABRAHAM.
Then with what persevering patience, from this
vantage-ground of Right, the patriarch urges the
plea of mercy; rising with each new answer to a
higher effort of faith; asking for the sparing of
Sodom if fifty, forty, thirty, twenty, ten righteous
men could be found in it; hesitating then as though
he had gone as far as he dared to venture, and leav-
ing Sodom to its fate, because he failed at last in
his human trust of the Divine goodness, while no sign
was given of the running out of that "mercy which.
endureth forever." This is one of the passages which
make us feel that even amid the early legendary
scenes of Israel's story we are on a peculiar ground.
-the soil of the people of religion; where such tradi-
tions as are common to all primitive peoples take on
new and significant meanings, and light up profound
problems of the soul. If, as some suppose, this
legend of Sodom, contained in our eighteenth and
nineteenth chapters, is drawn from Canaanitish
sources, it is certainly charged with the Hebrew
spirit; and thus even this quaint tale becomes part
of the growing consciousness of God, in which lay
the revelation coming to man through Israel. What-
}
164
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
ever the original source of this tradition, it carries
on its surface plain marks of the weaving in of late
ideas upon an archaic woof. The ground-work of
the story shows ample traces of a child-people.
The reasoning with Jehovah, as with one who is to
be persuaded into justice and mercy by man's prayer,
betrays a period in which the moral character of
God is struggling into clear recognition. The ap-
peal, "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?"
carries us on into the age of the Great Prophets of
the Exile, when there rose above the higher souls of
the race the vision of the One God, the Righteous
Ruler of all mankind. We need not, however,
doubt that under this story, told over and over again,
and taking up into itself the growing consciousness
of God, there lay a real, profound experience of a
great soul; an experience which interprets itself to
every earnest spirit to-day, and in our understanding
of which we know that far back in the twilight of
history a mighty nature had travailed with the
problem of being, and had come to the birth in a
new thought of God.
The story of the overthrow of Sodom, in chapter
nineteenth, lights up luridly the beastly vices of
those far back ages, by sentimental philosophers
formerly supposed to have been scenes of Arcadian
innocence. We may be thus confirmed in the thank-
ful sense of the reality of the human progress
which leaves, behind our bad-enough present, a past
1
:
?
1%
X
C
THE TRADITIONS OF ABRAHAM.-
165
The
whose vices are embalmed in fossil words.
story has a legendary garb; as we see by the ac-
count of the angels smiting the men of Sodom with
blindness, and by the tale of Lot's wife turned into
a pillar of salt. It probably grew into its pres-
ent shape out of the memory of some volcanic up-
heaval, which submerged the cities of the plain be-
neath the then formed Dead Sea; drawing materi-
als from the superstitious fancies suggested by the
oppressive surroundings of that mysterious lake,
and from the fantastic figurings of its salt-incrusted
rocky shores.¹
The revolting story appended to this tradition
may, probably, be saved from its abominableness, as
a tale of actual life, by a frank recognition of its
legendary character. We know how the nastinesses
of the Greek myths clear, as we discern in them po-
etic representations of the action of impersonal forces
in nature which have petrified into prose accounts of
personal divinities. We know, too, how common in
the East was the custom of casting ethical problems
into the form of narratives of actual deeds, in or-
der to solve conscience-cases by illustrations which
should have the additional force of historic prece-
dents. If we cannot see clearly, with Goldziher, a
nature-myth in this story, we may perhaps, with
Fenton, find in it a "token-tale," or narrative in
¹Cf. Jer. xx. 16; xxiii. 14; xlix. 18; 1. 40. Lamentations, iv. 6.
Zeph. ii. 9.
1
{
166
which the sin of incest was illustrated by the
priestly teachers of Israel.¹
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
Chapter twenty tells a tale of Abraham's fears.
concerning Sarai, and of the consequences that fol-
lowed his attempt to guard her. Coming into the
land of Gerar, Abraham suspects Abimelech, the
king, of designs upon his wife. He accordingly rep-
resents her as his sister; apparently that his own
life might not thus be exposed to the royal jealousy.
She is forcibly appropriated by Abimelech; who,
however, has a vision, in which God appears to him
and rebukes him for his action; and who therefore
restores her in purity to Abraham. Through the
prayer of the patriarch he then obtains the lifting
of the curse that had fallen on his household.
This story repeats at greater length, and with a
change of scene, an incident already told in the
twelfth chapter. Of course such an experience may
have easily recurred in the patriarch's wandering life;
but since Sarai, according to the tradition, was at
this time ninety years of age, it seems most prob-
able that we have here another version of the earlier
story.
This tradition curiously illustrates the notions of
morality that were current in primitive periods.
Abimelech sees God come to him in a dream by
1
¹ Mythology among the Hebrews, p. 254. Early Hebrew Life, p.
84.
t
THE TRADITIONS OF ABRAHAM.
167
night, and hears the warning that he is "but a dead
man," because he had taken "a man's wife" into his
harem. He protests-" In the integrity of my heart
and the innocency of my hands have I done this;"
evidently seeing nothing out of the way in forcibly
appropriating any woman who took his fancy, pro-
vided that she was not another man's property.
Those were days in which a woman was a mere
chattel, with no rights of person; having not even
any property in herself. Out of such social origins
does civilization climb toward the ideal justice.
Chapter twenty-one records the birth of Isaac;
the renewed jealousy that Sarai felt toward Hagar
and Ishmael, and their final banishment from the
tents of Abraham; with the alliance entered into
between Abraham and Abimelech. The story of
Ishmael resumes the thread of the tradition in which,
under a personal narrative, the relationship of the
Hebrews and the Bedouin tribes of Arabia is pic-
tured. The chapter closes with the mention of Abra-
ham's planting "a grove," or tree, in Beersheba, and
calling "on the name of Jehovah." A simple item,
which, however, has a more important significance
than that which lies upon the surface. In common
with other peoples, the early Hebrews developed
various forms of fetichism, such as the worship of
trees and stones. A great boulder in a valley, a huge
and aged tree, appealed to the imagination and roused
}
Į
}
"
1
168
a superstitious awe that surrounded these strange ob-
jects with sacredness, and called forth before them
rude religious rites. As late as the beginning of
the fourth century of our era, we find one of
the Christian Fathers thus describing his former
fetichism: "Whenever I espied an anointed stone,
and one bedaubed with olive oil, as if some power
resided in it, I worshipped it, I addressed myself to
it and begged blessings." 1
Such rude rites before things-rites in which there
was nothing of real religion save the feelings of
wonder and awe-are rightly to be called "religious."
In those feelings worship roots; needing for its
growth into true and noble forms only that it shall
be fed with the materials of larger knowledge.
Thus wise men, themselves above such fetichisms,
have seen. When they have found themselves un-
able to dispossess these childish rites, which had
taken hold of the popular heart through the habi-
tudes of generations and the hallowing asso-
ciations of memory, they have said: These poor
people cannot be ripe for a higher worship, or
they would not cling to such superstitions; better
even such superstitions than no sense at all of any
higher Power in the world; let us then take up these
ancient customs into our higher religion, and then
try to wean the people gradually from them, as we
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
¹ Arnobius adversus Gentes, i. § 39. (Ante-Nicene Christian
Library.)
"}
THE TRADITIONS OF ABRAHAM.
169
teach them nobler thoughts of God. Under some
such reasoning the early Church baptized many
pagan customs with Christian names; and the He-
brew Prophets left undisturbed those primitive su-
perstitions which proved themselves too strong to be
uprooted; seeking only to graft upon them new and
nobler significances. Sacred trees and stones were
allowed to stand, but were consecrated to Jehovah ;
becoming Memorials, and Jehovah-altars. Thus the
people were kept from wandering out of Jehovah's
host, and were held in line, even though in the rear
of the line, with the advancing life of religion, and
found themselves carried slowly along upon the
movement of the nation into a higher faith.
The twenty-second chapter brings before us one.
of the best known and most interesting stories of
Genesis. Abraham hears Jehovah bid him offer his.
son Isaac, his heir and hope, as a sacrifice. Obedi-
ent to the awful command, the patriarch goes, with
his son, to the appointed place, and is in the very
act of slaying him, when an angel stays his hand,
tells him that his obedience has been sufficiently
tested, and saves the lad; a ram, caught in the
thicket, being offered in his stead. The story is told.
with inimitable pathos; touches so lightly laid that
we scarcely notice them heightening the effect upon
our sympathies. Nor are these subtle touches the
mere workmanship of art. They betray the deep
170
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
feeling of one to whom the telling of the tale re-
vived real and awful experiences of human hearts,
and to whom the dramatic issue of the pathetic
struggle was big with historic significances.
The use of the names of God, "Elohim” and
"Jehovah," in this narrative-which is usually the
sign of two hands, separated by several generations
and by wider chasms of thought-gives us the clue
to the historic aspect of the story. "Elohim" calls
Abraham to the sacrifice of Isaac [verses 1-10]; i.e.,
the earlier religion of Israel saw nothing wrong in
such offerings. The angel of "Jehovah" arrests the
hand of Abraham [verse II, etc.]; i.e., the later and
higher religion, worshipping God under this name,
forbade such offerings; substituting animal sacrifice
for the sacrifice of human life.
'
And thus we are guided to read the riddle of the
story. Of course we do not think of any outward audi-
ble voice speaking to the patriarch. Within his soul
was heard the whisper which resolved itself into the
call of Jehovah. Jehovah asked for the life of his son,
"thine only son, whom thou lovest," as the father's
agony goes over it again and again. How could he
obey? How dare he disobey? Could such a deed
be asked in the name of Jehovah? But who was he
that he should question the voice of Jehovah? So,
through a struggle that we may dimly trace in the
story, the poor human heart nerved itself to obey
the voice from on high, and to slay an "only son."
:
THE TRADITIONS OF ABRAHAM.
171
Through such an experience of anguish, of tortur-
ing suspense, of awful questionings, of agonized
resolve, hosts of Hebrew fathers passed, finding,
alas! no blessed culmination in a rescue from on
high. It is hard for us to realize that human beings
like ourselves ever offered their children's lives in
sacrifice; but such, we know too well, was the abhor-
rent rite of many peoples, through long ages. They
felt that they must needs placate their gods, whose
natures they read in the whirlwind and the volcano,
in the earthquake and the flood, in the deadly power
of the pestilence and the blasting heat of the sum-
mer's sun. They gave that which such gods seemed
to relish life. They gave their choicest lives.
Such awful rites crept into Israel, as we know from
its histories; crept even under the shadow of Jeho-
vah himself.
The religion of the early Hebrews appears to have
been, like that of their kindred races, a Nature-
worship; broken into the various forms which the
manifoldness of Nature's powers suggested, and
characterized, in some of those forms, by the gross
and cruel spirit that breathed through certain physi-
cal forces. Nature's reproductive energy, when dei-
fied, developed sacraments of licentiousness; and
Nature's destructive forces, when personified, as in
the summer sun, developed a ritual of death. We
have many reasons for believing that one of the
forms of Nature's forces chiefly worshipped by the
{
t
172
early Hebrews, was the personification of pitiless
power, familiar to us in the religion of other Semitic
peoples, which was fashioned by the scorching heat
of the midsummer sun. Even after the revelation
which came through Moses, and the dedication of
the people to Jehovah, the old Nature-worship re-
asserted itself; and the sublime vision of the Self-
Existent One, the source and norm of the Moral
Law, clouded over the souls of the common people
and was lost to sight; the new name, Jehovah, re-
maining as the title of the fierce and dreaded power
which was their highest conception of the divine.
Jehovah was long worshipped by the lower strata of
the people, as was the Canaanitish Moloch, with
offerings of human lives. In some hour of sore
need, when everything went wrong with a man, and
when the resistless forces of nature appeared to be
leaguing to crush him utterly, he would hear the
whisper-The gods are angry; they must be pla-
cated; they call for blood. And then the voice
would articulate itself in horror-"Take now thy
son, thine only son whom thou lovest, and offer
him." And again and again, in myriad instances,
led by this voice which seemed to come from on
high, man did actually offer up the son of his love.
At last the time came when the growing conscience
revolted against such religious crime, and the grow-
ing intelligence saw that Jehovah could not really
¹See Nole 8 to Chapter V.
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
173
desire such frightful oblations. And then in the
awful silence that followed an agony of struggle, was
heard the voice calling unto him "out of heaven"
THE TRADITIONS OF ABRAHAM.
"Lay not thine hand upon the lad."
Some commanding soul must have first gone
through this experience; heard, as he thought, Elo-
him bidding him to this frightful sacrifice; and then
heard, as he knew, Jehovah restraining him forever
from such a wrong. Hebrew tradition assigned this
memorable experience to the Father of the Faithful.
But that lofty soul in whose " abysmal depths of per-
sonality" this problem of sacrifice first resolved it-
self, questioned, agonized and triumphed for the
people; receiving a revelation in his spirit which
was not for himself alone but, as souls were pre-
pared to receive it, for all tortured fatherhood.
and motherhood. Thus, around the tradition of the
patriarch, this story wove itself out of the heart of
a people. It vibrates with the quiverings of a na-
tion's agony, and thrills with the joy of a race freed
from the ghastly fear that shrouded homes in horror,
and that made the very charms of a beautiful child
sicken a mother's heart. It marks the victory of the
most beneficent reform ever achieved in the progress
of religion-the abolition of human sacrifices. Sac-
rifice of life continued still for ages; for man moves
slowly, step by step, toward the truth of religion.
The ram in the thicket took the place of Isaac; the
blood of poor dumb brutes flowed instead of human
174
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
blood, in propitiation of the Heavenly Power. And
still conscience and reason grew in man, under the
Spirit of God which was nurturing him, until at
length came forth the lofty strain of pure religion.
"Wherewithal shall I come before the Lord,
And bow myself before the high God?
Shall I come before him with burnt offering,
With calves of a year old?
Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
Or with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my first-born for my transgression,
The fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
He hath showed thee, O man, what is good;
And what doth the Lord require of thee,
But to do justly, and to love mercy,
And to walk humbly with thy God."
The ancient instinct was right. We are called of
God to sacrifice; but as the Lord Christ has per-
fectly shown us ourselves; to withhold not our very
lives from duty, from humanity, from God.
The twenty-third chapter leads the story of Abra-
ham into the shadows of the end. Sarah dies; and
the old man bethinks himself of a resting-place in
which to lay the dear dust. He therefore buys the
field of Ephron, with its cave of Machpelah; his
one possession in the land of promise, the final real
estate investment of every man-a burying-ground.
* See Note 9 to Chapter V.
J
}
CHAPTER VI.
THE TRADITIONS OF ISAAC.
WITH chapter twenty-four, the central figure in
the Hebrew traditions ceases to be Abraham. The
venerable and noble form of the Father of the
Faithful lingers on the stage awhile, but in the back-
ground, preparing for the final exit. Isaac is the
coming man.
Every intelligent reader of the Bible must have.
noticed the great contrast in the representations of
Abraham and of Isaac. Twelve chapters are devoted
to the first of the patriarchs, and only three chap-
ters to the second patriarch. Abraham's form is
drawn in great detail, and lighted up with warm,
bright color.
Isaac's figure is only sketched, and is
left faint and colorless.
Brief as the story is, it repeats at least one of the
incidents of Abraham's life. Isaac seems like a
feeble echo of his great father; a negative sort of
character, whose story is told in order to link to-
gether Abraham and Jacob. Why is this?
It may be that we have in Isaac the type of the
quiet, domestic character, which makes little noise in
the world, but which is quite as important to a peo-
1
176
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
ple as the natures which loom so much larger in its
history. These patriarchs undoubtedly stand as
types of human relationships; as Ewald happily
points out. The Hebrew mind, in working over
the national traditions, probably idealized the virtues.
of domesticity, so dear to the race, in the person of
Isaac-who like the happy woman has no history.
Hosts of men and women in Israel found thus in
this story the comfort that still is found in it by
multitudes in America, whose sphere of action cen-
tres in the home and its sweet but lowly responsi
bilities. Yet there are hints in the story that point
to another aspect of the Sheikh Isaac, in ancient
times. We find Jacob swearing by "the fear of his
father Isaac." This expression doubtless refers to
the Object of fear who was worshipped by Isaac.
There is, however, nothing in the traditions, as
preserved for us, that gives any ground for such
a titling of Isaac's God. His quiet life found
the sunny side of the divine power above it. We
have here, probably, a remembrance of the terror
inspired among surrounding tribes by the great
patriarch himself; and thus of the awe felt by these
peoples toward the Power under whose protection.
Isaac was found invincible.
2
If we keep in mind the fact already pointed out,
that within these traditions of individual patriarchs
are embedded traditions of tribal personalities, we
'See Note I to Chapter VI.
"Gencsis, xxxi. 53.
P)
1
THE TRADITIONS OF ISAAC.
177
shall quickly suspect one reason of the little space
assigned to Isaac. In the time when the Hebrews
first enter the field of history proper they formed a
loose confederation of allied tribes. Each of these
tribes probably carried on the stream of oral story its
own stock of traditions, in which the special patri-
archical hero of that tribe was peculiarly exalted.
The relative importance of a tribal hero in later ages
would be greatly affected by the position and influ-
ence of that tribe itself in the nation. Thus Joseph,
as the hero of Ephraim-the leading tribe in the
Northern Kingdom-loomed very large. Now we
know that one tribe dropped out of separate exist-
ence in the course of the earlier history of the
nation, though we do not know from what causes.
The district occupied by this tribe, Simeon, was
that with which Isaac's story is connected. Alone
among the prophets, with one exception, Amos
mentions the name of Isaac; while he alone uses the
name of Isaac interchangeably with that of Jacob, as
the patronymic of the nation. He writes:
ร
"And the high places of Isaac shall be desolate,
And the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste;
墨
​1
and again: "Prophesy not against Israel, and drop
not thy word against the house of Isaac." Amos
came from the region formerly occupied by the Sim-
eonites, the traditional scene of Isaac's life. It
¹Amos, vii. 9-15.
12
·
>>
E
178
seems fair to conclude from this hint that, in the dis-
trict once occupied by the tribe which had looked
up to Isaac with special reverence, there were am-
pler traditions of him than were known in the rest of
the land. There his personality remained clear and
impressive, while beyond that region it faded out into
indistinctness and comparative insignificance his
glories being eclipsed in the obscuration of Simeon.
One other curious matter may be referred to be-
fore taking up the narrative. All through the story
of Isaac there runs a series of plays upon the mean-
ing of his name-The Laugher. This looks like the
relic of some very ancient legend or myth, that had
become inwoven with the tradition of the patriarch;
whose key-word lived on after its meaning had be-
come lost, calling forth such various interpretations
as are offered in the narrative.
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
Chapter twenty-four tells the tale of that most so-
licitous of cares to the parental heart in all lands and
in all ages-the concern of Abraham as to a wise
marriage of his beloved son. With exquisite grace
is this love story told. How fine is the picture of
the faithful steward who is so anxious to discharge
his errand well! Noble type of the trusted servant!
How life-like is the touch that brings out Laban no-
ticing "the earrings, and bracelets on his sister's
hands," and saying to the man who could bestow
such princely gifts-" Come in, thou blessed of the
THE TRADITIONS OF ISAAC.
179
Lord!" How simple, yet how graphic the whole
narrative! Forever sacred in our dearest associa-
tions stands that pair of wedded lovers, of whom, at
the moment that makes us supremely happy, we
hear in the solemn prayer-" that as Isaac and Re-
bekah lived faithfully together, so these persons may
surely perform and keep the vow and covenant be-
twixt them made, and may ever remain in perfect
love and peace together."
Under this story of Abraham's concern that Isaac
should not marry into the surrounding tribes, there
probably lies the traditional expression of the ex-
clusive spirit of the Hebrews-their opposition to
intermarriages with the Canaanites. That feeling,
like most human feelings, was partly noble and
partly ignoble. Out of the very strenuousness of
the national character grew the aversion to those
interminglings which it was rightly felt would weaken
the moral earnestness of the people, and would en-
danger their fidelity to Jehovah and to the higher
thought of God which was bodied in his worship.
But this noble feeling easily passed into the narrow
and insulated attitude of the people who became
known as "the haters of men.” Thus easily does a
virtue shade off into a vice! Ever constant must be
our care lest religion itself come to separate us from
our fellows who differ from us; lest it sunder us from
the great world that lies outside our creeds and in-
stitutions, but not outside of God.
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
This story also preserves for us the record of the
continuance of inter-tribal relationships between the
tribe of Abraham, which had gone out from the pa-
ternal home, and the ancestral Terahites.
Much light on the customs of the early Hebrews
is shed by this story. We have a picturesque view
of the life of these simple tent-dwellers, abounding
in attractive colorings, but not without its shadows.
Among other facts we may notice that a young
woman's consent was not so much as asked to her
own marriage. Throughout these stories of the
patriarchs we are ever being reminded of the con-
trast between the position of woman in modern so-
ciety and her position in those good old days; a
contrast that tells a significant tale of the gradual
emancipation by which she is acquiring the right to
her own person and property. Yet are we reminded,
also, that under all disabilities the true woman can
make herself the centre of every human story.
There is a curious mixture of piety and supersti-
tion in the good steward's manner of finding out the
destined bride of Isaac-methods not wholly obsolete
yet. Rightly did he feel that God must guide him
in such a momentous step; but wrongly did he look
to some outward chance-the reception given him
by the daughters of the tribe, as they came out to
the well-for an indication of the divine will. Slow
of heart are we indeed to learn that not in self-ap-
pointed, arbitrary omens, the mere play of chance,
180
THE TRADITIONS OF ISAAC.
181
as we say, but in the intelligent use of the reason
given us, are we to receive the guidance from on
high.
Chapter twenty-five opens with the account of an-
other branch of Abraham's family, giving us the re-
lationships of certain Arabian tribes to the Hebrews.
The last days of Abraham are then simply told.
With verse twelve the eighth original chapter of
Genesis begins: "Now these are the generations of
Ishmael." In this genealogical table we have an-
other ethnographical chart, in which the inter-rela-
tionships of the various peoples of Arabia are out-
lined.
•
1
}
CHAPTER VII.
THE TRADITIONS OF JACOB.
THE ninth original chaper of Genesis opens in verse
nineteen of our chapter twenty-five, with the words
“And these are the generations of Isaac "—and
reaches down to the end of our chapter thirty-five
(xxv. 19-xxxv.). It gives us The Traditions of
Jacob. We rarely find traditions of Jacob among
other peoples, while we meet many traditions of
Abraham outside of Israel. Abraham, in fact, as the
Genesis stories show, was regarded as the ancestor
of the various peoples who were recognized by the
Hebrews as allied with themselves. Jacob, on the
contrary, was viewed as the founder of a separate
people the ancestral head of the House of Israel.
He was plainly the favorite Father of the people.
His story is told in great detail, and with touches of
realism that show hands fondly lingering over the
picture. The national consciousness of the people
found in this composite character-gifted with high
spiritual powers, yet delighting in smartness-the
type of its own double nature. They called them-
selves, not after Abraham, but after Jacob. Abra-
ham shrank into the background of tradition through
}
183
long centuries; and only came forward again as Israel
passed out from its national exclusiveness into broad
human relationships. The imagination of the race
busied itself in magnifying the heroic form of the
original Jew. He became the Great Shepherd; the
nomad's ideal hero; who was represented in story
with his "staff "-the sign in which he conquered.
He was dowered with cunning against which none
could contend; and "The Crafty" became a Hebrew
Ulysses, over whose unfailing subtlety the people.
delightedly chuckled. He was invested with extraor
dinary strength, and was pictured as rolling away,
single-handed, the great stone that was usually placed
over the jealously-guarded well, and as wrestling
through a whole night with an angel and coming off
victor-a Hebrew Hercules, in fact. Ewald calls
the story of Jacob "The Hebrew Comedy of Errors,"
and thinks that it was originally cast in a form
designed for acting in popular assemblies of the
peasantry.
The various threads of tradition, which, as a woof
of many colors, are shot through the warp of the
story, mingle curiously at times. From the manner
in which the parts of the story fail to fit properly
together, it would appear that there had been one
body of traditions which represented Jacob as a
noble, upright man, deceived repeatedly by Laban;
and another body of traditions which represented
him as a master of craft and cunning. The national
THE TRADITIONS OF JACOB.
萨
​1
184
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
hero's form was for a long time plastic. Different
ideals strove together, until at length they were
fused into their present shape. When these various
representations were finally cast into the form in
which they now stand, the Hebrews had grown into
a people of profound spiritual and ethical insight;
and this spirit breathed through the ancient tradi-
tions, doing its best to transform them into pictures.
of the soul-training of the Prince of God, the educa-
tion of a Jacob into an Israel.
The tribal significance of these traditions is almost
thrust upon our notice in the opening of our story;
when Jehovah is represented as saying to Rebekah :
"Two nations are in thy womb; and the one people
shall be stronger than the other people; and the
elder shall serve the younger." Israel recognized
the kinship of the people of Edom; the people
whose home was in the rocky table-land of Seir, on
the southeast border of Canaan; the strange people
who built their great city in the face of the moun-
tain wall. Before the Sons of Israel had consoli-
dated into a nation, the Edomites had organized
a powerful kingdom; a kingdom whose constant
strife with Judah largely shaped its later history.
The inter-relationship of these brother-peoples; the
characteristics of each race; the explanation of the
superiority of the younger nation-such were the
problems that were woven by tradition into the story
of Jacob and Esau, the Father of the Jews and the
1
THE TRADITIONS OF JACOB.
185
Father of the Edomites, with which our narrative
opens. The play upon the color of Esau-“red”
arose from a name of Arabia, Tesher, or "the red
land;" which, as Brugsch-Bey points out, was a
well-known title, contrasted with Kem, "the black
land" of Egypt; both adjectives growing out of the
color of the soils of the two countries.¹
1
In the return of the Mesopotamic-Hebrew chief,
Jacob, with his flocks and herds and followers, from
his uncle's home in Haran, we are to see the remi-
niscence of a second great migration from the ances-
tral region of the Hebrews; a migration which grad-
ually merged its bands in the earlier tribes, and gave
to the combined body a new character that crystal-
lized into the nature of "the peculiar people." The
strife of wits between Laban and Jacob probably
embodies, in the persons of the heads of the two
houses, the wrangles of the Hebrews on the oppo-
site banks of the Euphrates; a contest out of which
the southern Hebrews came victorious. In this light
the tale of cunning looks much less disagreeable.
For low as cunning is, it is intellectual force; the
first feeble form of mental power; and with the
mastery of the brute force of man by mind, civiliza-
tion begins.
We have in chapter twenty-five, from the nine-
teenth verse, the story of the birth of Jacob and
History of Egypt, i. 16.
1
1
186
Esau, and of Jacob's bargain with his brother for the
birthright. There should be no sophistication of
our minds, or of the minds of our children, over this
famous tale of the canny Hebrew. It is an ugly
piece of cunning, made the uglier in its being a snare
laid by a brother's hand. The picture of the bold
hunter, always impulsive and reckless, and now
weary and faint, met by an appetizing dish whose
savory odors were concocted in order to beguile from
him the tribal honors, presents a scene before which
we can hesitate in judgment only by condemning
ourselves. But the first stone should not be cast
against this ancient Hebrew by the modern Chris-
tian, whose ideal of success is bodied in the "smart"
man of the Exchange and the street; the brilliant
financier who plans to entrap his brother in a tight
corner, where, in desperate extremities, the poor fel-
low sells out his slowly gathered possessions at a
ruinous sacrifice; and who then retires from the
speculation, rubbing his hands and chuckling with
self-satisfaction.
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
Let us not overlook, as we pass from this story,
its keen perception of the weakness that so often
ensnares those whom the world calls "good fellows."
A generous, manly nature, such as draws our in-
stinctive sympathy, may yet be reckless of any
higher aim than momentary pleasure; and may
point again and again the moral which the writer
of the Epistle to the Hebrews drew from this tale,
}
THE TRADITIONS OF JACOB.
187
as he turns the finger of reproach at " Esau, who for
one morsel of meat sold his birthright."
*
Chapter twenty-six takes up once more the story
of Isaac. After a renewed assurance from Jehovah
of the greatness of his posterity, there is an account
of Isaac's fear that Abimelech, king of Gerar, would
kill him, so as to obtain possession of Rebekah, and
of his passing her off as his sister. This story looks
like an echo of the tradition already twice recorded
of Abraham. The very name, Abimelech, king of
Gerar, is the same with that given in the second ver-
sion of the Abrahamic story. This is followed by a
notice of Isaac's growing prosperity, and of the jeal-
ousy that it created among the other sheikhs of Ca-
naan; by another assurance from Jehovah concerning
his descendants; by a mention of the alliance sought
with the prosperous Isaac on the part of the Ca-
naanites; and finally by a reminiscence of Esau's
marriages against the wishes of his parents-" which
were a grief of mind unto Isaac and to Rebekah.”
Chapter twenty-seven contains the familiar tale
of the plot whereby Rebekah and Jacob contrive
to get the better of Esau again, and to defraud
him out of his father's blessing. It was an early
superstition that a dying man's blessing or curse.
had a mysterious and fateful power. Doubtless
there must be an influence most benign in the loving
188
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
benediction of a dying father upon a dutiful son; and
an influence most malign in the embittered maledic-
tion of a broken-hearted parent upon an ingrate child.
But these are influences which work intelligibly and
naturally, through the spirit of man. They are not
magical incantations, working in a supernatural
manner through the physical world; as this story
seems to represent, in making Jacob, on awakening
to a sense of the fraud practised upon him, sigh-
"I have blessed him; yea, and he shall be blessed."
Through a dying benediction the tribal chieftaincy
would appear to have been transferred from father
to son; and the language of Isaac may thus be only
the expression of the conviction that, despite his
faults, Jacob was destined to the leadership of his
people.
This tale is a masterly bit of story-telling. What
pathos is there in the scene where Esau, "with a
great and exceeding bitter cry, bursts forth—' Bless
me, even me also, O my father!" What realistic
power in the blind old man feeling Jacob's hands, in
order to tell whether it was his "very son Esau;"
snuffing the scent of the chase in the "goodly rai-
ment" of the hunter; and kindling under the mem-
ories of the field, by subtle associations meshed in
the sense of smell! What suggestions of past expe-
riences of Jacob's cunning lie in Isaac's suspicions,
which rise so quickly and are so difficult to allay!
¹See Note I to Chapter VII.
F
THE TRADITIONS OF JACOB.
189
How the awful depths of motherly love are laid bare
in Rebekah's readiness to run the risk of drawing
upon herself the curse of her dying husband, so
that her Jacob did not lose the chance of such a
prize! Was there ever more unblushing lying than
that of this "plain man," dwelling in tents; who,
when the old father asks how he had procured the
venison so quickly, hesitates not a moment with
the blasphemous answer-"Jehovah, thy God,
brought it before me."
The frankness with which such pious knavery is
recorded in the person of the typical Hebrew, may,
again, betray only an ignoble ethical bluntness, not
uncommon in "the unco guid," who feel themselves
the favorites of heaven. It may, however, much
rather bespeak a noble superiority to the modern
arts of "whitewashing" historical characters, and
of "restoring" defective antiques. Perhaps we have
in the narrative a blending of both traits, from dif-
erent ages and stages of moral culture. That a high
ethical aim breathes through the later rendering of
the old tradition, which, perhaps, originally vaunted
the great hero's might of craft, seems unquestiona-
ble to one who notes the masterly manner in which,
without any formal moralizing, the story is made to
show how one sin leads on to another, and how every
sin prepares its own punishment. Jacob wins his
coveted "blessing," but its echoes are his brother's
curses, that drive him to flee for his life. In his
1
{
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
190
uncle he meets one who tricks him out of his rights
as he had tricked his brother out of the tribal hon-
ors. In his sons, his own nature, handed down by
heredity, rises up to plague him, as he had plagued
his father. Thus the consequences of his misdoings
scourge him through life, but as under the hand
of One who is seeking to lead him to repentance; so
that at the last the patriarch can speak, reverently,
of "the Angel which redeemed me from all evil.”
Chapter twenty-eight gives the sequel to this tale
of deceit. Ostensibly seeking a wife from his own
kindred, Jacob starts upon the long journey to his
ancestral home, on the borders of Chaldea. At
the close of his second or third day's journey, he lays
down to sleep, where night overtakes him; and, in a
dream, sees a ladder, or stairway, reaching from the
earth to the skies; at the top of which stands Jeho-
vah, who addresses him in solemn assurance of his
personal safety and of his posterity's destiny. Awak-
ing from his sleep he feels that he is on holy ground,
and rears a column of stones, which he consecrates
to Jehovah, and calls "Beth-El," House of God. In
this tradition the origin of Bethel, a famous shrine
of Jehovah, and of its sacred stone was given. Beau-
tiful as the story is, it means much more in the de-
velopment of religion than at first sight appears.
Through long ages men believed that Jehovah, like
other gods, dwelt in his holy places; so that when
+
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THE TRADITIONS OF JACOB.
191
men left these holy places they felt that they were
leaving the fortunate circle in which their god's
power could be felt, as a help in their time of need.
Thus Jacob must have felt as he left Beersheba, the
sacred spot where the Dread of Isaac dwelt, and
where Isaac lived secure beneath his care. And lo!
he finds in another place-beyond the charmed cir-
cle of Jehovah, as he thought-the presence of his
mighty god. This experience marked an early epoch
in that expansion of the divine presence which has
continued until at length "the whole earth is full of
his glory." True, it was but the sense of one more
holy spot, and by no means the perception that all
places were holy. But only through this localiz-
ing of God was his presence then to be felt at
all. Through long ages the earth was redeemed
from commonness and sordidness by this sense of
sanctity in special localities. There the gods surely
came down to meet men. There at least heaven
could be seen. Thus from beneath the sacred tree
or from the top of the holy hill or from the solemn
glories of the great minster, built upon the spot
where some peasant had seen a vision of the Virgin
Mother, the poor hind went forth to his daily task,
with a tender light following him, in which the
barest life grew somewhat noble and divine. No
one could tell over what rood of the most common
earth there might be a new opening of the clouds;
what most ordinary bush might grow "afire with
1
1
*
1
A
192
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
God." Slowly, thus, these spots of sacredness have
spread, until "the hour cometh, and now is, when
neither at Jerusalem nor yet in this mountain" we
"shall worship the Father"--since "God is Spirit."
Nor let us question the reality of the spiritual
impressions through which men found, as in this
tradition Jacob found, some bit of earth "awful."
Fanciful shapings in dream-land of the scenes that
the bodily eye had but lately witnessed, might form
the setting of the vision; as in the stairway sug-
gested to Jacob by the rocky steps up which he had
been climbing during the day. Superstitious no-
tions concerning the sacred tree or stone or altar, as
of a veritable "house of God," might be in the minds
of the worshipers, as in the mind of Jacob when he
said, "and this stone shall be God's house." Much
ethical bluntness might mingle with the spiritual im-
pressions of these child-peoples; as in the tradition
of the man whose abominable fraud drives him forth
from home a fugitive, and who at the outset of his
wanderings, without any recorded awakening to re-
pentance, gains such a glorious vision of the Divine.
protection and favor. None the less must we hold
the spiritual experiences to have been often most
real; believing that souls faced the unseen world on
the spots which became "gates of heaven" to men.
And thus read, how true to universal human ex-
perience becomes the story of the home-sick exile's
Sce Note 2 to Chapter VII.
1
THE TRADITIONS OF JACOB.
193
quickened sense of the spirit sphere! How true to
the Divine education of man, as we know it, is the
opening through sorrow, and through shame, if this
had been really felt, of a new vision of God! Alas!
that we must add-how true to the average human
conception of piety, then and now, the patriarch's
bargain with Jehovah:
"If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go,
and will give me bread to eat and raiment to put on, so that I come
again to my father's house in peace, then shall Jehovah be my
God."
This tradition undoubtedly preserves the memory
of one of the soul-lessons through which the Divine
revelation in Israel was gradually spelled out into the
Word of God.
Chapter twenty-nine tells the tale of Jacob's set-
tling down in Haran, under his uncle Laban-the
Head of the ancestral tribe in Chaldea. It is a
graphic story of Greek meeting Greek, a diamond-
cut-diamond play of craft and cunning, in which
finally the Hebrew Ulysses fairly wins the field.
The story is evidently told con amore. A people's
instinct for getting the better of men in bargaining
found infinite satisfaction in this story of the smart
Jacob, whom no one could overreach; who was en-
titled to prey upon others, inasmuch as he was the
favorite of Jehovah.
13
!
}
1
194
}
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
"This was a way to thrive, and he was blest;
And thrift is blessing, if men steal it not."
f
Yet, the nobler nature of the Hebrews, faithful to
the vision of Nemesis which they had seen in the
moral law, was at pains to bring out in this story the
retribution in kind that ever haunts the man who
deceived his father and cheated his brother. After
serving seven years for Rachel, he has the weak-eyed
Leah palmed off upon him; while during twenty
years of labor, through which, as he said, "in the
day the drought consumed me and the frost by
night," his wages were "changed ten times"-or,
as we would say, were forever being changed. Nor
let us fail to note the touch that reveals, with ex-
quisite delicacy, the noble ideal of love that early
awoke in Israel; the pure passion which gave birth
to the first great poem in her literature-The Song
of Songs-and which inspired her civilization with
its central ethical force, monogamy.
And Jacob served seven years for Rachel; and they seemed unto
him but a few days, for the love he had to her."
Peoples and individuals, alike, are largely fashioned
by their thought of love. Over against this picture
of pure youthful love, is the story, constantly recur-
ring in these patriarchal traditions, of the jealousy
and bitterness that enter the household into which
lower usages creep; a tale whose pathos we can feel
in the records of the names given to the children of
Jacob's wives.
$
TATEA "
THE TRADITIONS OF JACOB.
TRADITION
195
Chapter thirty continues the story of the domes-
tic rivalries in the patriarch's tents; and then
passes on to tell of Jacob's desire to return to Ca-
naan, and of the bargain driven between the canny
uncle and the cannier nephew, which induced the
Hebrew to stay and spoil the Chaldean. To inter-
pret the story we must bear in mind the fact that
in the East the sheep are seldom brown but are
generally white, while the goats are rarely found
speckled but are usually black. Evidently the world
had not waited for Mr. Darwin to experiment in the
variation of species, nor for fanciers to learn the se-
crets of the stock-farm. What a curious and painful
sense of the possibility of blending ethical blunt-
ness with religious sensibility we have in reading of
this "respectable man," proposing his cunning
trick to his uncle with this pious profession: "So
shall my righteousness answer for me in time to
come, when it shall come for my hire before thy
face!"
1
Chapter thirty-one gives the account of Jacob's
return to Canaan. It was not unnatural that such
a partnership should at length be dissolved. The
wide-awake Hebrew was not deaf to the mutterings
of Laban's sons, nor blind to the fact that his uncle's
face was (6
not toward him as before." The piety
of this Eastern Yankee heard, in these suggestions.
This is one rendering of the expression, "Jacob was a plain man.'
1
'
}
196
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
of the expediency of a change, the voice of his god—
apparently, to his mind, the patron divinity of
knaves, much as was Mercury, in Greece; whose
symbol, like that of the Grecian god, might have
been a purse.
“Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself.”
With splendid special pleading the Hebrew wins
his wives over to his side of the case of Laban vs.
Jacob showing them how everything had turned
out thus well with him as a reward of his righteous-
ness; and capping the climax of his argument by
crediting the angel of Jehovah with having put him
up to the questionable bargain that he had driven
with their father. Let our scorn of this ancient
"respectable" trickster be attempered by the con-
sciousness of how closely such rascally respectability
reproduces itself in our commercial dealings!
Watching his chance, Jacob steals away, but is
soon chased hotly by Laban; between whom, after
a stormy interview, in which long-suppressed feelings
are mutually let loose, a friendly alliance is con-
cluded; and thus the patriarch continues on his way
in peace.¹
Chapter thirty-two tells of Jacob's approach to
Canaan. He was naturally afraid of meeting his
brother. The memory of such a wrong as he had
'See Note 3 to Chapter VII.
¿
ار
THE TRADITIONS OF JACOB.
197
done to Esau was not a particularly pleasant re-
introduction of the returning brother. Our story
makes, indeed, no allusion to this past offence, as
would have been most natural in this place. We
may construe this as a sign of the commingling of
different traditions, in one of which this earlier
tale had been omitted. A sufficient ground of anx-
iety, however, is given in the jealousy of Esau at
the coming of a powerful rival into his fair pasture
grounds. In the simple record of Esau's approach
at the head of four hundred armed men, there proba-
bly lies embalmed a reminiscence of the strife which
arose between the Hebrews of the earlier and of
the later migrations, as they met in Canaan.
Tidings of the warlike reception which Esau was
preparing for him completed Jacob's alarm. With
characteristic craft, he acts at once in a masterly man-
ner. Dividing his train, that there may be a chance
of at least a half escaping, he starts forward, in a
series of detachments, royal presents for Esau;
shrewdly calculating on the mollifying influence of
the successive approach of goodly flocks and herds,
each "
a present unto my lord Esau." When his
whole caravan is well over the rushing stream Jab-
bok, as the evening shades gather around the lin-
gering patriarch, a man lays hold of him; with whom
he wrestles through the night, and whom he refuses
to let go, as the stranger prays, when the dawn is
breaking, until he wrests a blessing from him and
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BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
ĭ
198
receives a new name, Israel, in token of his prevail-
ing power. As the sun rises, Jacob crosses the
ford, limping from the withering touch of the mys-
terious being on his thigh; saying, "I have seen
God face to face, and my life is preserved."
What are we to make of this singular story, eerie
with the mysterious terrors of the night, of the un-
seen world, and yet breathing such spiritual sugges-
tiveness?
In such a crisis of a really great man's life, when
the labors of a generation were in danger, and life
itself hung trembling in the scales; when the threaten-
ing danger came clothed with the memory of long
past sins-Nemesis overtaking him in the very hour
of prosperous return to the old home; in such an
hour there must needs have been a mighty inward
struggle, a grappling in the spirit with the forces of
destiny, a wrestling with the mysterious Power which
lays hold of man in the darkness of earth; a pro-
found personal experience, such as could not fail
to leave imperishable traces of its agony on the char-
acter, nay, even on the physical organization. But
how would a spiritual experience of this kind shape
itself in the minds of the ignorant and superstitious
nomads who heard of their great chief's midnight
struggle? We have the answer in the curious story
before us.
The natural metaphor in which one capable of
such an experience would speak of it to his intimates
THE TRADITIONS OF JACOB.
199
is embalmed in this tale. The tribesmen thus whis-
pered among themselves that the Great Sheikh had
been wrestling with some mysterious Power during
the night. Even if the original report of the patri-
arch's strange emotion had not been clothed in this
suggestive metaphor, there was another natural origin
of it ready at hand.
،،
The careful reader-if he be careful enough to
hunt up the meaning of the name of the brook on
whose banks the scene is laid-will note that Jabbok
means "wrestled," or the wrestler." If he be at
all familiar with the ancient traditions of other
peoples, he will recall illustrations of the ease with
which a legend shapes itself around a poetic name;
a whole story fructifying out of a seminal metaphor.
The angry mountain torrent, which threw itself
around the great stones in its bed, as though wrest-
ling with them; the strengthful stream, which grap-
pled with the man who entered its embrace, and
forced him to wrestle with it for his life; fur-
nished a sufficient hint to the imagination in cloth-
ing the memory of the Sheikh's experience. Men
would then proceed to ask-With whom did he wres-
tle? In the stage of the Hebrew development in
which this tradition took shape, the people were
rude polytheists. Jehovah was only one of many
gods, though the greatest of them all and their own
tribal god. Stories of conflicts between human heroes
and the gods are common to many people. In the
200
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
Iliad we see the gods and goddesses coming down
into the thick of the fray and striving with the
Greek and Trojan warriors; sometimes getting well
wounded by earthly spears and losing much celestial
ichor from their veins; even, occasionally, retreating
discomfited to the skies, with undignified shrieks.
Readers of Hiawatha will recall the Indian legend
of the midnight wrestling of Shingebis, the diver,
with Kabibonaka, the north wind:
1
"Once the fierce Kabibonaka
Issued from his lodge of snow drifts,
From his home among the iccbergs,
And his hair, with snow besprinkled,
Streamed behind him like a river,
Like a black and wintry river,
As he howled and hurried southward,
Over frozen lakes and moorlands.
There, among the reeds and rushes,
Found he Shingebis, the diver,
Lingering still among the moorlands.
Though his tribe had long departed
To the land of Shawondasec.
Cried the fierce Kabibonaka,
Who is this that dares to brave me?
-X-
*
*
I will go into his wigwam,
I will put his smouldering fire out!'
And at night Kabibonaka
To the lodge came, wild and wailing,
Heaped the snow in drifts about it,
Shouted down into the smoke-flue,
Shook the lodge-poles in his fury,
Flapped the curtain of the doorway.
}
}
1
THE TRADITIONS OF JACOB.
Shingebis, the diver, feared not,
Shingebis, the diver, cared not.
""
Entering the wigwam, Kabibonaka finds himself
unable to drive him out; finds himself unable to
bear the heat, and rushes out into the open air, chal-
lenging Shingebis-
"To come forth and wrestle with him,
To come forth and wrestle naked
On the frozen fens and moorlands.
Forth went Shingebis, the diver,
Wrestled all night with the North-Wind,
Wrestled naked on the moorlands
With the fierce Kabibonaka,
201
Till his panting breath grew fainter,
Till his frozen grasp grew feebler,
Till he reeled and staggered backward,
And retreated, baffled, beaten,
To the kingdom of Wabasso,
To the land of the White Rabbit,
Hearing still the gusty laughter,
Hearing Shingebis, the diver,
Singing, 'O Kabibonaka,
You are but
my fellow-mortal
Through some such process of natural personifica-
tion--perhaps out of the materials furnished by the
ghostly terrors of the night, that disappear at dawn
of day, or perhaps out of an ancient myth of the
conflict of the dawn with the darkness-the imagina-
tion of the earlier people fashioned around a mystic
memory of Jacob a story of the Hebrew Hercules,
1 Song of Hiawatha, Canto 2.
"
$
202
L
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
limping away from his midnight wrestle with a su-
perhuman man.
Bunsen happily brings out this character of the
legend:
"4
'It was then in that night before the meeting, the issue of which
became so important for universal history, that Jacob fought the
difficult fight of faith, in lonely prayer, as the truc Israel; in contrast
to the divine fighter of the heathenish Shemites, the Phoenician He-
rakles or Hercules, who is the representative of the first feeble Spring-
Sun, and was also represented as limping."
>> 1
Into this weird tale were woven allusions to the
origin of well-known names-Israel, Peniel, etc.—
after the usual manner of these popular traditions;
and an explanation of the singular custom of ab-
staining from eating the hip-sinew of animals, which,
for reasons no longer intelligible, was connected with
this midnight wrestle. But this legend was, after all,
only the drapery around a spiritual reality of a most
noble character. When later ages came to read this
quaint, archaic legend, in the light of the higher
spiritual conciousness wakened by the prophets, they
divined the inner conflict which gave form to this
mystic memory; and in retelling it brought out, be-
neath the folds of the legend-drapery, its substance
of personal religious experience. Thus under the
grotesque garb of the story, we now feel the struggle
of a great soul with the awful Power in whose hands
our destinies lie; a struggle out of which was
2 See Note 4 to Chapter VII.
¹ Bibel-Werk, i. 70.
THE TRADITIONS OF JACOB.
203
wrested the secret of peace; as the new name signed
the new nature which was opened within "The
Crafty," who had "seen God face to face,” and had
found in God his own better self. A reality this
which we ought to need no human hand to inter-
pret to us, if ever we have fronted an overhanging
calamity; but which, if we do need help in its de-
ciphering, we may find profoundly read in the ser-
mon of Frederick Robertson upon this passage.
The great historian nobly sums the significance of
the story thus: "Man knows no real or unalienable
possession but that which he has won rather from
God than from man, and has thus made a part of his
very life and soul."1
Perhaps the finest rendering of the legend is that
of the rugged poem of Charles Wesley:
"Come, O thou Traveller unknown,
Whom still I hold, but cannot see!
My company before is gone,
And I am left alone with Thee;
With Thee all night I mean to stay,
And wrestle till the break of day.
*
*
*
Yield to me now, for I am weak,
But confident in self-despair ;
Speak to my heart, in blessings speak,
Be conquered by my instant prayer :
Speak or Thou never hence shalt move,
And tell me if Thy Name is Love.
X
*
*
X
Kop
1
¹ History of Israel, Ewald, i. 357.
204
1
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
My prayer hath power with God: the grace
Unspeakable I now receive;
Through faith I see Thee face to face-
I see Thee face to face and live!
In vain I have not wept and strove-
Thy Nature and Thy Name is Love.
--
**
*
J
X
Contented now, upon my thigh
I halt, till life's short journey end;
All helplessness, all weakness, I
On Thee alone for strength depend;
Nor have I power from Thee to move;
Thy Nature and Thy Name is Love."
It is this profound spiritual meaning which charac-
terizes so many of the Genesis stories, even where
their outer form is similar to that of the legends and
myths of other child-peoples, that makes us feel a
unique spirit in the Hebrew traditions. This spirit is
rightly to be called God-breathed or inspired. It car-
ries in it a real revelation of religious truth for man.
Chapter thirty-three tells the story of Jacob's
meeting with Esau, and of his settling down in Ca-
naan. It has some fine touches of character-drawing.
Esau's brotherly unselfishness comes out nobly when
Jacob presses his princely presents upon him—“I
have enough, my brother, keep that thou hast unto
thyself." Jacob's craft, not wholly exorcised in the
midnight experience by the Jabbok, creeps up to the
surface in his obsequiousness to his powerful brother
"I have seen thy face, as though I had seen the
}
THE TRADITIONS OF JACOB.
205
face of God, and thou wast pleased with me;" and
again in his persistent declining of all Esau's offers to
accompany him, or to leave some of his followers
with him as an escort, in order that he might "lead
on softly" his flocks and herds, "until," as he said,
"I come unto my lord, unto Seir." He led on so
softly that he never reached Seir.
We have in this narrative, very literally, the story
of Jacob's settling down in Canaan. Under the sim-
ple entry-" And Jacob journeyed to Succoth, and
built him a house, and made booths (huts) for his cat-
tle, therefore the name of the place is called Succoth"
(booths)—we are to read the record of the initial step
in the passage of the Hebrews from a nomadic to an
agricultural life. A long historic process is here con-
densed into a sentence; a social change of vaster
consequences than any other that has followed it in
the development of man. Civilization began when
men ceased to wander about with their flocks and
herds and commenced to till the ground, building
them booths for their cattle and houses for their
families. In fact, when we look carefully at the nar-
rative, the whole scene has changed. We are no
longer in a land of mere nomads, but in a land where
men are living in villages and towns. Before "the
city" of Shechem Jacob pitches his tent. He buys
"a parcel of a field," and not a mere sepulchre such
as Abraham had bought. "He dwelt in the land of
his father's sojourning."
1
1
A
1
1
206
}
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
}
He pays for his real estate "an hundred pieces of
money," or "lambs," as the margin reads; i. e., an
hundred pieces of money stamped with the figure of
a lamb. Primeval trade, everywhere, was simply
barter-actual lambs for land. When, in after-ages,
a medium of exchange was needed, the metals used.
were stamped with an image of a sheep or a cow,
the representatives of the chief forms of wealth in
those times-flocks and herds; of which "basis of
currency" in early ages, the Latin word for money,
pecunia, bears record; derived as it was from pecus,
cattle. The Hebrew equivalent for these cattle-
stamped coins were the "lambs" of Jacob. It is
interesting to note that it is Jacob, the hero rather
of the war of wits than of the tented field from
which Abraham carries off the laurels of the soldier,
with whom this great advance toward commercial
civilization is linked.
Chapter thirty-four is, upon the surface, a disa-
greeable story inserted here in the main body of
traditions, from sources and for purposes that are no
longer clear to us. Read as a literal story of actual
people, it is a tale of rude times, in which the be-
trayal of Dinah, Jacob's daughter, was avenged by
Simeon and Levi, her brothers, in a manner which
indicated more cunning than courage. The murder
of "all the males" of the city of Shechem, for the
offence of its prince's son, and the appropriation of
THE TRADITIONS OF JACOB.
207
"their sheep and their oxen and their asses and all
their little ones and their wives," forms a tale of sav-
age cruelty and ruthless robbery that carries us back
into times that ought to be further off than they
really are.
Jacob's remonstrance with his high-handed sons is
not very noble. It is indeed simply the selfish
whine "Ye have troubled me to make me to stink
among the inhabitants of the land: and I, being few
in number, they shall gather themselves together
against me, and slay me; and I shall be destroyed,
I and my house." The one redeeming feature of
the story is the intense sense of the supreme neces-
sity of womanly honor that breathes in the sharp
retort of the brothers-“Should he deal with our
sister as with an harlot ?"
Whatever the original traditions may have been,
we must again remember that we are dealing in
Genesis with tribal legends as well as with traditions
of individuals; of which a renewed hint is given us
in the anger of the brothers because Shechem "had
wrought folly in Israel." We must remember also
that the original traditions were worked over by
later ages, and fashioned into stories that set forth
the ideas and sentiments of after-times. This story
probably expresses the horror of "the zealots"
against intermarriages with the Canaanites.
Chapter thirty-five consists, apparently, of a num-
208
ber of ancient fragments, pieced together. The first
fragment (verses 1-8) tells of Jacob's being directed
by Jehovah to go to Beth-el, and of his building an
altar there and giving to the place its name-which
had already been done according to the account we
have before considered. In connection with this
visit Jacob bids his people "put away the foreign
gods that are among you." "And they gave to
Jacob all the foreign gods which were in their hands,
and Jacob hid them under the oak which was by
Shechem." The expression "foreign gods" has the
sound of later ages, when the national spirit of relig-
ious exclusiveness was developed; and, taken in con-
nection with the renaming of Bethel, seems to show
the hand of a prophet of the time in which an ear-
nest movement was being made against idolatry.
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
1
❤
Another fragment (verses 9-15) repeats, in a dif-
ferent form, the story of God's appearing to Jacob,
when he was re-entering Canaan on his return from
the East, and of the giving of the new name Israel.
It is evidently taken from some other body of tradi-
tions than that which yielded the story in the thirty-
second chapter. We have also, in this chapter, brief
entries of the death of Deborah, Rebekah's nurse, and
of Rachel's death in giving birth to Benjamin; a
passing mention of a dark deed of lust on the part of
Reuben; a table of Jacob's sons; and a record of the
death of Isaac.
The tenth original chapter of Genesis covers our
}
¿
THE TRADITIONS OF JACOB.
209
chapter thirty-six with the first verse of our chapter
thirty-seven [xxxvi.-xxxvii. 1]. It contains "the
generations of Esau, who is Edom." As thus di-
rectly told, we have here an ethnographical table,
giving the affiliations of the branching clans of the
Edomites. As linking these records of the Edomites
with the story of Joseph that is to follow, we have
a brief reference to Jacob's peaceful, settled life in
Canaan.
He reads these fascinating traditions of Jacob-Is-
rael blindly, whatever his critical learning, who does
not find therein the undying story of earth; the
story which is renewed in each new generation and
which is the key to life's many problems-the Di-
vine education of man; an education of Man writ
large, Humanity, and of man writ small, the indi-
vidual; a training in which each nation is fitted,
notwithstanding its defects, for a mission in the
world, and through which selfish, crafty Jacobs are
one day to become the Israels of God.
14
}
1
1
CHAPTER VIII.
THE TRADITIONS OF JOSEPH.
THE eleventh original chapter of Genesis opens
with verse two of our chapter thirty-seven, and con-
tinues to the end of the book [xxxvii. 2-1.]. Its
heading is, "These are the generations of Jacob."
We naturally expect to find the traditions of the
twelve sons of Jacob; but, as we proceed, we dis-
cover that, while eleven of the sons do indeed ap-
pear and disappear in the story, they do so simply
as secondary figures, revolving around the central
personage, Joseph. We have here The Traditions of
Joseph, which, of necessity, take up into them some-
what of the story of the other brothers. There is
no trouble about this peculiarity while we read these
stories as purely personal memories. Jacob's house-
hold would not stand alone in history as having only
one great son among many children. Joseph is the
next heroic figure, and the last, in the patriarchal
group; the Head of the House, after Jacob. These
traditions undoubtedly do preserve memories of an
illustrious personality, a real Joseph; though there
are difficulties in the way of reading the story
throughout as unadorned history. Such difficulties
1
THE TRADITIONS OF JOSEPH.
indeed there must needs be in a body of ancient
traditions like these. A true substance of personal
history, when handed down from generation to gen-
eration in oral story, could not fail to draw upon it
a drapery of fancy.
There are, however, ample hints that these stories
of the Sons of Jacob hide again, beneath the mem-
ories of individuals, reminiscences of tribal person-
alities; legends whose shadow-figures were cast by
the large forms of the Clans which bodied round
these Hebrew Sheikhs. And then the question recurs
with new significance-Why have we merely the tra-
ditions of Joseph, and not the traditions of all the sons
of Jacob? An answer is not hard to find, though
indeed it may not be the whole answer.
The tribe of Joseph, if indeed it ever definitely
formed out of the clan or family, soon broke up into
the brother-tribes, Manasseh and Ephraim, whose
traditional heads were the sons of Joseph. The his-
torians are careful to emphasize Jacob's formal bless-
ing of these sons of Joseph, and his acceptance of
them as his own sons. They represent the aged pa-
triarch also as insisting upon reversing the natural
order of age in the sons, and as laying his right hand
upon the younger, Ephraim; his reason for which he
explained thus to the "displeased" Joseph-" He
(Manasseh, the first born) shall become a people, and
he also shall be great; but truly his younger brother
shall be greater than he." "And he set Ephraim
2II
}
212
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
before Manasseh."1 The tribe of Ephraim became.
the leader of the group of tribes which broke away
from the kingdom of Solomon, after his death, and
formed the Northern Kingdom. This vigorous and
numerous tribe so completely mastered its associ-
ates that its name was used for the kingdom of the
ten tribes, interchangeably with that of the great
Head of the Hebrews, which belonged to this
kingdom as embracing the chief part of the race.
The prophets and historians call it, indifferently,
Ephraim or Israel.
It was natural that the heroic ancestor of the tribe
which dwarfed the others, himself having been the
worthy father of such children, should dwarf the
other sons of Jacob. Their traditions paled away
before the glories of the father of such a tribe.
Over the noble tales of their illustrious ancestor the
children of Ephraim must have lingered with de-
light and reverence. The Great Brother grew
greater in the growing life of this remarkable peo-
ple. He became an idealization of the character
reverenced by their better natures. The two strik-
ing features of the Northern Kingdom were its
purity and its piety. Both of these traits appear
in the revolt that Ephraim led against the son
of Solomon. The polygamy and the polytheism
of the brilliant court of Solomon offended the con-
science of the simpler, hardier, and more spiritual
1 ¹ Gen. xlviii. 5-20.
G
THE TRADITIONS OF JOSEPH.
213
people of the north country; where the purity of
the home and the worship of Jehovah were held to
be of supreme importance, of far greater conse-
quence than any splendor of political power or so
cial refinement. It was a movement for the reform
of society and of religion. The Song of Songs-that
noble poem of pure passion-was written probably
about the period of this revolt: and, if it was too
late to feed this movement, it at least expressed
the spirit of outraged domesticity which had fired
the rebellion, as it told the story of the country
maiden, who scorned all Solomon's blandishments,
and held herself true to her shepherd lover. It was
in Ephraim that the battles of the higher religion
were fought, whose heroes were Elijah and Elisha.
The memory of the great and good Joseph crystal-
lized the visions of purity and piety that rose above
this people, and his figure grew as lofty as the re-
ligious ideal which moved before the prophets of
Israel.
The character of Joseph, as thus portrayed, is one
of majestic nobleness and fascinating sweetness-an
almost ideal hero. The story is set against a dreamy
background, in which an Egyptian atmosphere suf-
fuses the scenes with beauty and mystery. The ar-
tistic character of the narrative I never felt so
strongly as when, a few years since, in preaching a
course of sermons to children upon it, I found
myself unconsciously arranging its sections as the
4
214
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
scenes of a drama. Such it may have been, among
the early Israelites, a Hebrew "Mystery;" which,
like the Medieval Mysteries, beginning with the
recitation of a sacred story, interspersed with music,
gradually took on a rude action, representing the
personages of the plot.
Chapter thirty-seven gives us the familiar tale
of Jacob's partiality for Joseph, of Joseph's
dreams, of his brethren's jealousy, of their sale
of him to a Midianite caravan, and of his sale
by these "merchant-men" to Potiphar, in Egypt.
The shadow of Jacob's deceit still creeps after
him, and he is cruelly left to long years of
suffering the recoil upon him of his own false
nature in his sons. There seems to be in this story
a blending of different traditions; one indication of
which is found in the change of name of Joseph's
purchasers, taken in connection with the manner in
which these names are introduced. Verses twenty-
five, etc., read: "And they sat down to eat bread;
and they lifted up their eyes and looked, and behold
a company of Ishmaelites came from Gilead with
their camels.
And Judah said unto his
brethren
come and let us sell him to the
Ishmaelites.
And his brethren were con-
tent." Verse twenty-eight takes up the story, as
from some other source that had not mentioned this
consultation. "Then there passed by Midianites,"
}
THE TRADITIONS OF JOSEPH.
215
etc.
Then apparently the narrative falls back
into the language of the first account-" and
they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit,
and sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for twenty
pieces of silver." The tribal reminiscences that
underlie the story of Joseph come to the sur-
face in the very opening of the tale; as we read
of his dreams of destiny, and of the jealousy of the
other sons of Jacob. Jealousy more bitter than that
of individual men-strife handed down from father
to son, arraying clan against clan-lies veiled, prob-
ably, behind this familiar tale.
Dreams play a great part in the story of Joseph.
They recur at each critical point in the tale, and
through them the movement of the story is shaped.
The dream has been regarded with wonder and awe
among most peoples, and early came to be viewed as
having a supernatural character. Thus the gods
communicated with men, in the still hours of the
night, when the spirit was less meshed in the world
of sense. A feeling, we may suspect, not without a
basis of real truth, as in the case of many other
superstitions. Profound criticism, in the person of
Ewald, has insight to discern the heart of the popu-
lar feeling:
>
P
Dreams were considered in ancient times to be a method by
which the purer spirit finds its way to men; and that a higher
thought, which probably has before desired to approach the mind,
may sometime in the calm of a dream collect its force and urge
}
}
F
216
itself upon it in the form of a formed conception, can hardly be
denied."
›› 1
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
The early prophetic spirit of Israel laid hold of
this thought, and made much of dreams as the
revelation of Jehovah; and they became, as here,
means of prediction. Ewald thinks that he discerns
in the use of the dream one of the marks by which
he picks out a special writer, whom he calls the
Third Narrator of the Hebrew traditions. It cer-
tainly is a significant fact in the narrative that
prophetic dreams abound in the story of Joseph, but
with no visions of God, and no voices from Jehovah;
while there are no predictive dreams in the story of
Jacob, but constant visions of Jehovah and voices
from Him. When Jacob re-appears in the tradi-
tions of Joseph, these visions and voices re-appear
with him. This curious fact may indicate the
natural difference of form which the divine mani-
festations assumed in dissimilar natures.
It may
also indicate a difference of authorship.
Chapter thirty-eight interrupts the thread of the
narration with another fragment of a very unpleasant
character, as we ordinarily read it-the story of Ju-
dah and Tamar. As a tale of early times it is
curiously instructive concerning the notions of mo-
rality that were current among the people. Judah
has no shame about his conduct. He sends his
¹Prophets of the Old Testament, i. 18.
1
3
THE TRADITIONS OF JOSEPH.
217
friend with the kid, the hire of the woman, as if it
were a debt he need not hesitate to speak of or to
ask his friend to pay for him. He only fears that
he may be thought to have cheated the woman.
His sense of wrong does not awaken until he finds
that he has committed adultery with a married wo-
man; Tamar being legally the wife, in expectancy,
of Shelah, Judah's son. Neither masculine unchas-
tity nor the assoiling of woman's honor seems to
have been felt to be anything out of the way; but
the appropriation of another man's wife was at once
recognized as a wrong.
While it is not a sign that men are cleaner than
their forefathers, in that such archaic frankness is no
longer found in society, it is a sign that virtue is
gaining ground when men hesitate to speak of those
things that may be done of them in secret. Silence
and secrecy, on the part of vice, form the tribute
which Virtue exacts when throned upon the con-
science of society, however powerless she may be to
enforce her orders upon the rebellious passions.
V
This story is, however, more than a disagreeable
incident, illustrating the low moral standards of in-
dividuals among the early Hebrews. It is a relic of
a curious primitive custom, in which an archaic code
of honor is brought to light. The "next of kin," in
tribal times, was expected to marry his relative's
widow, and his children were to bear the name of
the dead kinsman. The foundation of this custom
1
1
[
218
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
is not wholly clear. It may have been, as has been
suggested, a religious instinct-the duty of children's
offering sacrifices for the repose of the dead parent.
The Head of the House held himself bound to see
that this custom, with other responsibilities of the
kinsman, was fulfilled, and, in default thereof, he was
expected to assume it himself. In this case Tamar
felt herself wronged, and her dead husband wronged,
by the neglect of her next of kin, and by the neglect
of Judah, as Head of the House. There was no bar
to her union with Judah, since, according to primi-
tive usage, it was only affinity by maternal descent
that ruled out marriage; which custom was a relic of
still earlier times, when the disgusting usage of
polyandry prevailed, and one's ancestry could only
be certificated on the mother's side. Tamar, there-
fore, used her woman's wits upon the weakness of
Judah, in order to right her wrong, in somewhat the
same way that Helena did in "All's Well that Ends
Well:"
"Which, if it speed,
Is wicked meaning in a lawful deed,
And lawful meaning in a lawful act;
Where both not sin, and yet a sinful fact.
This story is marked all over with the imprint of
a very primitive religion and morality, and is stored
with social fossils. The conception of Jehovah's
character and action is very rude: "And Jeho-
1
See Note I to Chapter VIII.
E
1+
THE TRADITIONS OF JOSEPH.
219
vah slew him;" "he slew him also." In the disin
clination of Onan to beget children who "should
not be his" is hinted, probably, the change that was
coming over society; as the early communism of
property was breaking up, and as men became anx-
ious to bequeath estates to their children, and to
found families bearing their own names. "Let her
be burnt" was the early sentence upon adultery,
which in many countries and through long ages was
a capital offence.
1
The opening of the chapter gives the origins of
the three great families of the tribe of Judah—the
Shelanites, the Pharzites and the Zarhites. 1
Chapter thirty-nine resumes the thread of the story
of Joseph. The ability and fidelity of the Hebrew
slave advance him rapidly in Potiphar's favor, until
the Egyptian "left all that he had in Joseph's hand;
and he knew not aught that he had, save the bread
which he did eat." Potiphar's wife casts her eye upon
the "goodly" and "well-favored" major-domo, but
his principle foils her passion; only to bring upon him.
a false charge, his master's "wrath," and his own im-
prisonment; in which, however, he prospers again,
through Jehovah's favor, until the "keeper of the
prison committed to Joseph's hand all the prisoners.
that were in the prison."
The faithfulness of the Egyptian coloring, in the
¹CI. Numbers, xxvi. 20.
L
220
!
}
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
story of Joseph, is peculiarly shown in this portion
of the narrative. The women of society in Egypt
-the land of soft and sensuous life-tended toward
the type that has become well known in Cleopatra.
In the chaste, high-principled and heroically strong
young man, whom no temptation could seduce, we
see the fathering out of which sprang the character
of the Ephraimites; the ideal hero of purity and
piety, who led them in their aspirations after noble
life and true religion. Such an ideal might well
make them "the people of religion." What an
incalculable blessing to hosts of tempted young
men has been this story of Joseph! How the voice
of God speaks through it to the souls of men! A
hero-worship such as "the children of Joseph " cher-
ished will free any young man from Circe's spell.
This tale became a great favorite in the East, and
gave rise to elaborate stories of the love of Joseph
and Zuleika; in which, however, the purity of the
original narrative has leavened all the admixtures.¹
Chapters forty and forty-one tell of the series of
dreams which lead to Joseph's high advancement.
The renewed intermingling of different versions of
these traditions is indicated by the repetition, in the
second verse of chapter forty, of the prelude already
given in the first verse. The chief of Pharaoh's
butlers and the chief of the bakers, who are impris-
1 See Note 2 to Chapter VIII.
THE TRADITIONS OF JOSEPH.
oned with Joseph, have each a dream which the
Hebrew interprets rightly, as events soon proved.
Pharaoh himself, later on, has a dream which none
of his magicians can resolve. The chief butler, who
had been restored to the royal favor, bethinks him
of the Hebrew; and this leads to Joseph's coming
before the great monarch, whose perplexing vision
he reads in such a manner as to win the confidence
of the whole court. He counsels Pharaoh to pre-
pare during the seven years of plenty for the seven.
years of famine that are to follow; and his advice is
at once acted upon, and he himself is placed in
power next to the king, with authority to carry out
the statesmanlike plans which his far-seeing sagacity
had suggested. Such a surprisingly sudden eleva-
tion, from a prison to a vice-royal palace, is not un-
common in the caprice of an Oriental court, but it
is the more readily understood as we recall the
words of Herodotus concerning the Egyptians-
"With respect to divination, they hold it to be a gift
possessed by no mortal, but only by certain of the
gods." Thus we can understand the words of
Pharaoh, in this astonishing promotion of the He-
brew slave-words in which the higher religious
thought of the cultivated Egyptians breathes their
secret of the Divine Unity--"Can we find such an
one as this is, a man in whom the Spirit of God is?"
The catholic feeling of the Hebrew prophets, under
'Rawlinson's Herodotus, ii. 83.
221
P

1
}
1
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
whose hands this story took its present shape, did not
hesitate to put such an enlightened spiritual utterance
into the mouth of an Egyptian; recognizing thus the
truth that a late seer in the line of this "goodly fel-
lowship" declared, in those immortal words which
form the biblical charter of Universal Religion-
"That was the true Light which lighteth every man
that cometh into the world."
222
Kompakt
The conclusion of the chapter, which tells of
Joseph's naturalization in Egypt and of his adminis-
tration of its affairs through the years of famine, will
be considered presently. It is interesting to note.
that so high an authority as Brugsch-Bey thinks
that he has found confirmation of the historical fact
at the heart of this story in Egypt itself. On a
tomb of this period he discovered this inscription:
"I collected corn, as a friend of the harvest god.
And when a famine arose, lasting many years, I
distributed corn to the city each year of famine.'
"1
From the beginning of chapter forty-two, on to
the end of chapter forty-seven, we have a continu-
ous story; whose internal unity is such that it is
best to mass these chapters together in our study.
They tell the tale of the successive steps by which
the Hebrews were led into Egypt. A sore famine
compels Jacob's sons to go down thither in order to
buy corn. Joseph meets and recognizes them there.
'History of Egypt, i. 304.
(
THE TRADITIONS OF JOSEPH.
223
He charges them with being spies; demands their
brother Benjamin, and holds Simeon as a hostage
for his delivery. The continuance of the famine.
compels a second visit of the brothers; and under
sore necessity Jacob parts with Benjamin. Joseph
prepares a great feast for the strangers, and plans
a successful ruse by which he gets Benjamin into his
power. Judah makes a pathetic appeal to the mighty
Prince, which overcomes Joseph and leads to his
revealing himself to the astonished brothers. A
happy scene of reconciliation follows, after which
the Hebrews are dismissed, laden down with good
things for their father. The old man leads his clan
down into Egypt; meets his long-lost son; is pre-
sented to "His Holiness," "The Great Gate" or
Sublime Porte-Perao or Pharaoh ; and the Hebrews
settle down in Goshen, the north-eastern frontier-
province of Egypt.¹
It is this part of the story which impresses one
most strongly with the sense of a drama. The struct-
ure of the narrative is thoroughly dramatic. The
scenes mark themselves off clearly, and rise one out
of another, most naturally. The genuine dramatic
mystification pervades the story; as it moves on
through a perpetual play of surprises, without be-
traying the plot to the brothers, until the grand dé-
nouement opens in a perfect climax of astonish-
ment.
1
See Note 3 to Chapter VIII.
I
bang
{
1
1
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
224
The startling and dangerous accusation against the
innocent shepherds; the mighty Grand Vizier's de-
mand that Benjamin shall be produced, and his de-
tention of Simeon as security for his delivery; the
astonishment of one of the brothers on opening his
sack, upon the homeward journey, at finding there
the money that he had paid for his corn; the deeper
astonishment of all the brothers at the rolling out of
their moneys from their several sacks, as they unlade
their beasts at home; the mystic assurance of the
Grand Vizier's steward when they returned the money
"Your money came to me;" the agitated recep-
tion of Benjamin by the great Egyptian; the feast
in the viceroy's palace, to which the brothers are
invited; the knowledge shown of their respective
ages, in the order of the places assigned them at the
table; the hot pursuit made after them, on their
way home, by the steward of the viceroy, and his
charge that they had stolen his master's "divining
cup;" the discovery of the cup in Benjamin's sack,
and their affrighted return to the city, not knowing
what would follow; the awing reception which they
met from the mighty Adon-" Wot ye not that
such a man as I can certainly divine;" the refusal
of the great man to allow Benjamin to return home
with them; his sudden and overpowering agitation
on Judah's pathetic appeal; the quick clearing of
the officials from the room and his turning upon the
brothers, while weeping aloud, with the words, "I am
The
',
THE TRADITIONS OF JOSEPH.
225
Joseph:" such a series of surprises forms a tissue of
baffling mystery, through which the brothers grope,
as in the toils of some mighty magician. As we fol-
low this story we can almost fancy ourselves back in
the festival-gatherings of the people of the Northern
Kingdom, watching with them, delightedly, some
rude rendering of the Sacred, National Drama of
The Great Brother.
The necessities of the dramatic plot may perhaps
sufficiently account for Joseph's severe trial of his
brothers, and his severer trial of his aged father,
in carrying out his scheme.
}
The literary merits of the story are of a very high
order. There is an indescribable charm in the narra-
tive, and there are scenes of thrilling pathos. The
character of Jacob is drawn with singular fidelity to
the earlier traditions. His care to provide rich pres-
ents for the great Egyptian, when his sons carry Ben-
jamin away with them, is true to the old Jacob; and
his offering sacrifice and receiving a vision of God,
on setting out upon his journey, is true to the new
man, here, with fine feeling, called Israel. How naif
the touch," and when he (Jacob) saw the wagons
which Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit of
Jacob their father revived!" What noble eloquence
in Judah's appeal-a passage which no sensitive
nature can read unmoved! Fatherly love, in the
person of Jacob, is pictured with great tender-
ness; while the love of Joseph toward his unbroth-
shaki
-
15
1
"
226
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
erly brethren is most nobly gracious and magnani-
mous. A profound moral and religious aim is seen to
be working throughout this charming story. Joseph's
schemes evidently look to the disciplining and purify-
ing of his bad brothers; and he acts as a human Prov-
idence in leading them to repentance, and in then
forgiving them freely all their sin. The reality of
such a Divine Providence over man is the lofty
motif of the whole story; felt as an undertone
through every passage, and rising into clear utterance
by its hero in the critical moment of the history-
"God did send me before you to preserve life."
Thankful indeed may we be for such a portraiture
of all that is pure manly, wherewith to feed our chil-
dren's hero-worship; a picture in which, through
eighteen centuries, men have piously traced a type
of "the highest, holiest manhood." And thankful
may we also be for the strong influence of this his-
tory, through our childish years, in forming the
great faith that
"There's a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-how them how we will.”
For
Back of the personal memories embalmed in these
traditions of Joseph we may see shadowy reminis-
cences of the movements of tribes. Egypt was to
the nomads of the ancient world very much what
Italy was to the Goths and Vandals in later ages-
the land of plenty, the seat of a wealth that was
Data Dat
1
I
THE TRADITIONS OF JOSEPH.
227
constantly tempting the bolder tribes to inroads,
which had little risk for the hardy and swift-moving
children of the desert. We know from history that
a race of "Shepherds," as the Egyptian records call
the hated strangers, did break into Egypt before this
period. Apparently, they found the Empire in a
state of internal weakness and dissension, and actu-
ally won possession of Lower Egypt, and established
a dynasty that continued in power through several
centuries. These Semitic nomads readily became
naturalized in Egypt, adopting the manners and
customs and religions of the Delta. From some
sphinxes the faces of these Hyksos-Kings still look
down upon us moderns; faces of gnarled strength-
fulness, chiselled in lines that tell of mighty mental
forces working within these royal shepherds; faces
that are fringed by vast and shaggy manes, as of
leonine men. Knowing this fact of history, and
knowing the singularly modest reticence of the He-
brew historians, which, as we have already seen,
retires the warlike character of their heroes to the
background, we are tempted to read between the
lines of these simple traditions a larger tale. Joseph
in Egypt suggests an early movement of a branch
of the Hebrews into the fertile fields of the Nile
Valley. Joseph, naturalized and in power next to
Pharaoh, suggests the temporary success of the war-
like Hebrews in establishing a rule in Lower Egypt
tributary to the Empire. In the coming down into
1
!
拿
​228
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
Egypt of Jacob's sons we may thus see the migra-
tion of the main body of the Hebrews, drawn by the
invitation of their successful brother-tribe. Their
settling in Goshen indicates a provisional and partial
passage from a nomadic to an agricultural life in
the rich border-land, where these vigorous Hebrews
formed a semi-military frontier, protecting Egypt
from the inroads of the Arabs, much as some of the
feared barbarians were invited by the later Roman
emperors within the Empire, to form a barrier
against the rest of their race. Of all this, however,
we can do no more than venture a surmise, and then
fall back contentedly upon the humbler aspect of
the Hebrew history; not, so may it be, without
learning a lesson concerning the true glory of a
people, which Israel's historians teach as do no
others.¹
The account of Joseph's administration is so
plainly a record of a vast social change in the polity
of Egypt, and lets so much light in upon similar
revolutions in the social system of other peoples,
that we may pause a moment upon it. By making
long-continued and thorough provision for the pro-
longed famine which he anticipated, Joseph was
enabled to carry out measures of a sweeping charac-
ter when the famine actually set in. His superior
foresight placed in his hands the control of the abso-
lute necessities of life, which the starving people
1
¹ See Note 4 to Chapter VIII.
1
1
THE TRADITIONS OF JOSEPH.
229
were compelled to purchase from him on his own
terms. After their money was exhausted, the poor
people came to him, saying, "Give us bread; for why
should we die in thy presence?" In answer to his
proposition, they parted with their cattle, getting
bread in exchange for horses, and for the flocks,
and for the cattle of the herds, and for the asses;"
and so "he fed them with bread for all their cattle for
that year." They evidently retained their cattle, no
longer, however, as their own, but as the property of
the king. At the end of the second year they came
to him again with the pitiful plea, "We will not hide
it from my lord how that our money is spent; my
lord also hath our herds of cattle; there is not aught
left in the sight of my lord but our bodies and our
lands: wherefore shall we die before thine eyes, both
we and our land? buy us and our land for bread,
and we and our land will be servants unto Pharaoh;
and give us seed, that we may live and not die."
Joseph accepted at once the proffer which he had
foreseen, and for which he had prepared. The land
of the people became the property of the King. A
tax of a fifth of the produce was affixed upon the
land in perpetuity, as rent due to Pharaoh. The
discontent of the people, that must have inevitably
arisen after the danger of starvation was over, but
which is only hinted in the narrative, was, of course,
intensified as they felt themselves serfs on the land
that had but lately been their own. A gigantic sys-
{
Į
1
230
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
tem of eviction was accordingly planned and rigor
ously carried out, doubtless, under the pressure of
armed forces that could not be resisted; and the
people were interchanged among the various prov-
inces, thus breaking up the old ties and the sense of
freedom which roots in the paternal homestead.
There need be no doubt that we have in this nar-
rative the record of a real historic, social revolution.
Historians outside of the Bible tell us that such a
land tenure actually existed; though they account
for its origin differently.¹
Such famines as Egypt has sometimes known might
well have led to this voluntary serfdom for the sake
of food. And in fact just such a social change has
been effected, historically, in many countries, under
similar pressure. One well-known form of slavery
has been land-serfdom; in which the peasant labor-
ers, villeins regardant, were counted as belonging to
the land; were sold and resold with it, and were
not allowed to wander from the estates of which
they formed part. This variety of slavery has
generally arisen in some such way as that described
in this story. In times of distress the poor have
sold themselves to the rich and great for bread.
Such apparently voluntary self-enslavement has
modern parallels in certain too well known relations
of labor to land and capital.
We shall then answer more than an antiquarian
See Note 5 to Chapter VIII.
THE TRADITIONS OF JOSEPH.
231
puzzle when we allow our consciences to sum up
upon this policy of Joseph fairly. It has a defence,
such as it is. The people at large must have been
improvident to have been reduced to such straits at
the end of a year. If they knew of a prediction of
a famine and neglected to prepare for it they had
themselves to blame for their distress. They would
have starved had it not been for Joseph's foresight
and enterprise. They paid a heavy price, but they
bought life. They probably did not value freedom
as highly as other peoples valued it, or they would
have tried revolt. The peculiar nature of Egypt-
ian agriculture-which depended wholly on the an-
nual rise of the Nile, and on its overflow of the soil
-made necessary an elaborate and universal system
of irrigation; which could probably have been car-
ried on only by a Central Government, vested with
proprietary rights over the whole land. Perhaps,
for the age, such a social system was, on the whole,
the best order possible. Having frankly owned all
this, let us not blind our eyes to the fact that this
policy of Joseph was a gigantic "corner" in corn,
planned and carried out with pitiless severity; by
which a whole people was entrapped into serfdom,
their real estate and personal possessions made the
property of the king, and a crushing tax laid upon
a nation in perpetuo. Let us face the ugly fact
that slavery, serfdom, villeinage-the various forms
of human bondage-when not created by conquest,
1
}
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
232
have generally arisen through some such "states-
manship" or financiering." Let us face the
uglier fact that the landlord system of a considera-
ble part of Europe--soon, from our present tenden-
cies, to become the system of our own country-
}
rests upon a monopoly of land; which, as a matter
of history, has been largely built up after the
methods of Joseph; and that the problem of the
origin of Rent has here its key. Then let us
awake to the duty of guarding our home of free-
dom against any such serfdom as has already
overtaken Europe. Let us begin the slow prepa-
ration for a better and a nobler system of land
tenure; founded not on might but on right, not
enslaving the many to enrich the few, but settling a
free people on the lands of a real Commonwealth,
over which shall be enthroned the stately form of
Justice. This story certainly sullies in our minds
the bright image of Joseph; but we must allow for
the imperfect ethical perceptions of social and
political relationships in earlier ages. We must
remember how true to life, even to-day, is the
picture of a man who is pure and noble in private
life, faithful and unselfish in family life, and who
yet, in business or in public affairs, uses his superior
foresight and enterprise to build up an industrial or
political power which presses hard upon those
beneath him-thinking all the time that he is doing
the best thing for society.
(4
порив
1
THE TRADITIONS OF JOSEPH.
233
Chapter forty-eight leads the venerable Jacob
down into the valley of the shadow of death. It is
chiefly occupied with the formal blessing bestowed
by the Head of the House of Israel upon the two
sons of Joseph, Manasseh and Ephraim. In this
blessing, the aged patriarch insists upon reversing
the natural order, and on placing Ephraim in the
position of honor-the tribal significance of which
has already been indicated. In connection with
this, we have touching reminiscences of the patri-
arch; a noble invocation upon Joseph; and a re-
assurance concerning the future possession of
Canaan by his descendants. The patriarch's glance
back along his checkered life brings out the thread-
ing plan which has woven all its experiences into a
beautiful order-the clue to the perplexing riddle.
of all human life-the Divine Education of man's
soul. On the mountain tops, overlooking the val
ley of the shadow of death into which he is about
to descend, Jacob-Israel sees light upon the scenes
that were so dark as he painfully toiled through
them; and he breathes this noble invocation:
God, before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk, the
God which fed me all my life long unto this day, the Angel which
redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads."
"
Chapter forty-nine contains a prophetic discourse
of the dying Jacob. It was a very ancient belief
which Socrates expressed in his immortal Apology:
辈
​\
}
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
234
"I am about to die, and that is the hour in which men are gifted
with prophetic power.
>> 1
Around some tradition of the dying patriarch's
swan-song, a writer of later days bodied this fine
poem, preserving in it the form of the traditional
prophecy of Jacob. In graphic touches, with a
rhythmic swing that we feel even in our translation,
this unknown poet pictured the characteristics of
the tribes of Israel after the traditions that we have
already studied, and according to the history that
we shall hereafter read. That tribes stand behind
the persons described we know upon the authority
of the historian who inserted this fine poem in our
Book of the Beginnings. He adds to it the remark
"all these are the twelve tribes of Israel." The
animals mentioned in the poem, to which the tribes
are likened, were the symbols of these tribes-
their totems. The Lion, the Ass, the Serpent, the
Hind and the Wolf were the standards respectively
of Judah, Issachar, Dan, Naphtali and Benjamin.
There is no certainty as to the date of this poem.
Ewald and Bleek assign it to the period of the
Judges; Davidson to the time of the Kings, from its
allusion to the pre-eminence of Judah. Ewald thinks
that the section on Joseph is of "extreme antiq-
uity" from "some part of the time before Moses."
Joseph here appears as a tribe, and no mention is
therefore made of Ephraim and Manasseh. The
'Jowett's Plato, i. 372,
N
{
}
#
THE TRADITIONS OF JOSEPH.
235
title of God-"the Shepherd, the Stone of Israel"--
is to be noted in passing, in connection with what
has already been said concerning stone-worship.¹
One passage in this poem has had a factitious
interest, from its being taken as a prediction of the
Messiah:
"The Sceptre shall not depart from Judah
Nor a law-giver from between his feet,
Until Shiloh come.
And unto him shall the gathering of the people be."
Jewish rabbins, and, after them, Christian doctors,
reading the passage as above, have found in it a
prediction of the Messiah. Such an interpretation,
however, long antedates the age of the awakening of
the Messianic expectation, and is an historical an-
achronism. Moses is silent upon this matter, and
even some of the prophets are very vague-outlin-
ing an impersonal rather than a personal Messiah, a
nation rather than an individual-as Zephaniah and
the Second Isaiah. In fact, this belief arose centuries.
after the age of the patriarchs, as a late historic de-
velopment of the mature nation; which slowly fash-
ioned, from its experiences of sorrow, the high hope
of a Deliverer and Teacher and Saviour. This vision
only cleared in the consciousness of the nation a few
generations before the coming of Christ.
And, in truth, a more accurate translation of
See Note 6 to Chapter VIII.
1
*
}
236
this passage, whose substantial correctness is quite
generally admitted, leaves no room for this Mes-
sianic meaning; but makes it speak of Judah's
greatness in the wilderness-wanderings, a greatness
which lasted until the settlement in Canaan-of
which the traditional locating of the ark at Shiloh
was the sign.
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
"The Sceptre shall not depart from Judah
Nor the staff of power from between his feet,
Until he come to Shiloh;
And unto him shall be the obedience of the peoples." I
The remainder of the book, from the twenty-ninth
verse of chapter forty-nine [xlix. 29-1.], records
the death of Jacob; the stately funeral cortege that
paid the last honors to the father of the great Joseph,
accompanying the body to the ancestral burying-
place in Canaan; the natural suspicion of the
brothers that Joseph would now revenge himself
upon them; the magnanimous way in which "he
comforted them and spake to their hearts;" his
long life; his assurance to his people that they
should be brought by God to the land of promise;
and-last entry in all earthly annals-his death and
burial. 2
'Sharpe's translation.
Genesis thus brings down the origins of Israel to
the age in which the Hebrews settled in Egypt.³
2 Sce Note 7 to Chapter VIII.
3
* See Note 8 to Chapter VIII.
T
??
I
CHAPTER IX.
CONCLUSION.
1
As we close our study of Genesis, we may take a
retrospect of its contents and character.
We have found, in the first general division of the
book, a group of primeval poems, kindred in nature
to the cosmogonies and myths and legends of other
peoples. We have found, in the second general
division, a narrative which weaves into the story of
the Hebrew Patriarchs the compositions of at least
two historians, of different ages and schools of re-
ligious thought. These narrators did not invent the
stories which they wrote. They found them already
existing among the people, in the form of oral tra-
ditions which had long been growing among the sev-
eral tribes of Israel. Not all of the popular traditions.
were embodied in these narratives, but, from the
large mass of the people's tales, such portions were
selected as seemed of greatest historical value, and
of most ethical usefulness; this latter consideration
being dominant in the minds of the historians of
"the people of religion." Naturally, therefore, we
have found ourselves chiefly occupied in reading
stories of the great Patriarchs, the founders of the
1
}
¦
'
238
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
Tribes; and such stories of these ancestral Hebrew
heroes as illustrate their religious and moral charac-
ter, or the religious and moral character of the age
in which they lived.
These stories, thus handed down through succes-
sive generations, preserve substantial memories of
real historical characters; but they also embody
reminiscences of tribal histories, which crystallized
around the names of the heads of the houses; so
that it is not always easy to distinguish between the
forms of persons and personifications. This, how-
ever, does not in the least affect the value of the
ethical and spiritual truths embodied in the lofty
forms of the patriarchs. Whenever we have come
upon spiritual realities, experiences through which
were received visions of God, we have found reason to
feel quite sure that we were in the presence of real
human beings, "amid the abysmal depths of per-
sonality."
As handed down orally from father to son, through
many generations, the original spiritual realities
clothed themselves in the drapery woven by the im-
agination of unspiritual ages, and became entangled
in the lower forms of legend which abounded in the
tales of the people. We have found it easy, how-
ever, to penetrate through the drapery of legend to
the form of personal experience shaping the story;
and to feel the great souls of the Hebrew heroes,
agonizing over the dark problems of earth, com-
bakal
J
239
muning with the Eternal and finding the secret of
peace.
CONCLUSION.
Bedded in these primeval poems and in these per-
sonal and tribal traditions, we have found genea-
logical lists, apparently of actual individuals; which
prove to be mythological fragments, the names of
outgrown gods, and ethnographical tables, giving
the Hebrew view of the inter-relationship of nations.
We have found also, inserted in the narrative, frag-
ments of other traditions than those of the great
patriarchs, and fragments that appear to have been
drawn from the traditions of other peoples; while
we have come across at least two ancient songs,
which have been threaded into the story.
Having seen all this, we cannot fail to recognize in
Genesis a truly human book; a book which em-
bodies the literary labors of men like ourselves, in
by-gone days-poets, philosophers and historians;
as well as the ruder mental efforts of primitive peo-
ples, in shaping their oral traditions.
Is Genesis, then, merely an ordinary human book?
If it were merely a human book it would still be not
at all an ordinary book, but a most extraordinary
one. It preserves fragments which are, perhaps, the
very oldest bits of literature that have been rescued
from the wreck of the ancient world. Its group of
primeval sagas presents us with the noblest forms
which the Semitic philosophy and poetry fashioned
for the speculations of these wonderful peoples con-
2
240
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
cerning the beginnings of life. Its tales embody the
earliest traditions of the people whose influence
upon humanity has been the most potent of all races,
in the most important of all spheres-religion.
It tells us all that we know of the origin of this
gifted race out of which came the Lord Christ. In
it we have the beginnings of the literature from
which successive generations of the common people
of the western world have mainly fed their mental
life, and on which all classes have alike chiefly nurt-
ured their moral and religious life. Our children
find in it the charming tales, fresh from the dew of
man's morning, through which their tender con-
sciences are exercised in moral discriminations, and
their souls wakened into the consciousness of God.
*
Having acknowledged which, thoughtful minds
will still raise the questions: Where comes in that
peculiar element which our fathers felt, and because
of which they called it a part of the Word of God?
Where is to be found a revelation from God, an in-
spiration of the Divine Spirit ?
Unless this simple study of Genesis has been
wholly in vain, the answers to these questions must
have been indicated, as we read its several sagas,
and need now only to be formulated. The Revela-
tion which came through Israel, came in the human
consciousness of God which slowly wakened into
clearness. It was an historic growth in man, of man.
The beginnings of this historic process of learning
}
CONCLUSION.
241
the true knowledge of God, are set before us in
Genesis. The crude thoughts and the low ideals in
religion and morality, that we have met at every
step of the story, formed the background for the
vision of God which was slowly to open upon Israel.
Every childish superstition and every deed of sav-
age cruelty or brutal lust help in darkening the
shadows against which the truth was to be picked
out in light. In these scenes we see what Israel was
before its education had fairly begun; and from this
level of life we can measure the reality and immen-
sity of the historic growth-the Revelation of God.¹
But we have not only the background of the
Revelation laid, we have the blocking in of the
vision. The dawn breaks even in these early ages.
Every fresh glimpse of truth concerning God, every
sight of a high human virtue which has broken upon us
through these stories, formed part of the first lessons
in this historic Revelation. The profound philo-
sophic thoughts of a Personal Creator, of human
sin, of the Divine Judgments, taught in the cycle of
universal poems, constituted, in the age in which
these poems were written, real revealings of truth.
The vision of God which rises out of the deep, in-
ward experiences bodied in the stories of the patri-
archs; the vision of a Righteous yet Merciful
Ruler of earth, a Guide and Teacher of man, who is
educating the souls of men and redeeming them
¹See Note I to Chapter IX.
R
16
}
{
242
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
from all evil-was a true unveiling, to the human
spirit, of God himself.
How did these visions of God, and of man's true.
self in God, open upon men? Our answer must be
in the reversal of familiar words, which forms, how-
ever, no reversal of their meaning. All writing
profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction,
for instruction in righteousness, is God-breathed.
The power in which man's spirit rose to grasp these
high thoughts, the power in which the sight of the
soul was cleared and strengthened to make out
these realities, hidden from the mass of men, was
the energy of the Spirit in whom we live and move
and have our being. God breathed deep and full
in man, and man thought and felt and saw; and
there was the Revelation.
We can believe this the more readily in that we
do not feel obliged to confound with this reality
of Divine Revelation any parts of Genesis which do
not reveal truths of God; and in that we do not feel
bound to assign to the Divine Inspiration any por-
tions of the book which do not inspire.
The writer dares not hope that, in seeking to apply
the principle involved in these ideas of Revelation and
Inspiration, no error has been made. He may have
often failed to bring out the truths which constitute
the Revelation, and to make felt the Divine breath
wherein is the Inspiration. Many mistakes may
have been made in trying to lift the enveloping
Gal
|
1
CONCLUSION.
243
drapery, so as to recognize the substantial form of
truth within. Whether or not he has thus failed in
special instances is of secondary importance, if so be
that the principle of interpretation has been sug-
gested by which this ancient book can be read at
once rationally and reverently.
A practical question remains to be answered before
the last word is said. Some mothers may ask: "How
am I then to read these tales of mingled fact and fancy
to my children? Am I to try to distinguish the fact
from the fancy, the reality from the drapery of the
imagination?" Answer may be made somewhat as
follows: Tell them these stories as stories from the
good book that God has given us to teach our souls
about Himself, and to guide our lives in the way of
peace. The younger children will probably raise no
troublesome questions over these tales; and until they
themselves meet difficulties, it would be most unwise
to suggest any. The child-mind loves stories that lead
it through a fairy land of wonder and beauty. It is
not bothered by incongruities over which adults may
stumble. Prose and poetry, substance and imagina-
tion, fact and fancy, are not distinguishable in their
minds by the hard and fast lines that are drawn in
older heads. When they do raise questions, be per-
fectly honest with them. Never evade an earnest
inquiry. Tell them no pious falsehoods. These will
probably only succeed in making them suspect you,
as well as the book. It is not necessary that you
+
+
1
Į
10
244
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
should tell them all that you may think about any
of these stories. The principle of reserve is always
to be borne in mind in teaching. "I have many.
things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them
now." But the reserve must not skulk into equivo-
cation. When such questions arise spontaneously
in the children's minds, point out the nature of most
of these stories, as tales told from father to son,
through long generations before they were written
down; tales that have thus, perhaps, grown con-
fused, as objects grow dim in the distance. Say to
them that these things happened so long ago that
we cannot always make out how they really oc-
curred; that we have the best account which people
in the olden days could give of these events; and
that we must think chiefly, not of the strange and
wonderful things in the stories, but of the lessons
that we are to learn from them.
Throw them back upon their own minds, in some
such manner, and leave them to feel their way to an
apprehension of the truth. If they still press you for
definite answers upon particular points, tell them
what you really think about the matter-using the
best aid you can find in forming your own judgment.
It will not hurt a thoughtful child to be told frankly,
“I don't understand this myself;" and thus again to
be left to the inward Teacher. Elder children can
readily grasp such ideas of the stories as these pages.
have sought to give.
CONCLUSION.
245
Concerning the ethical questions that may arise.
over these traditions be equally honest. Attempt
no sophistication of your child's conscience, under
the plea of reverence for sacred characters. These
tales were written out for men, in the Provi-
dence of God, in order to exercise the conscience
and train the power of distinguishing right from
wrong. Do not let your children lose the moral
discipline that is to be gained in trying to judge the
conduct of Abraham concerning Sarah and Ishmael,
or the action of Jacob toward Esau and Isaac.
Encourage them in essaying judgment upon these
incidents. Draw out their thoughts by direct ques-
tions; when their perceptions are defective enlighten-
ing them, and when their judgments are wrong cor-
recting them.
Be always most careful, in telling these stories, to
bring out the inner ethical and spiritual truths which
are shrined in them. Make these really felt, and it
will matter little what may be the children's thoughts
about the outer garb of the tales. Then they will
never be tempted to cast away this venerable and
sacred book, by reason of the envelope of legend or
myth that they may discover, later on, around the
spiritual kernel of a story; any more than a miner
who has seen rich veinings of gold in a lump of ore
will throw it aside because it is bedded in a worth-
less mineralizer.
If we, ourselves, thus learn to see the gold in Gen-
L
1
1
246
BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS.
sis, and thus lead our children to discern it, then-
though we and they may look elsewhere for a scien-
tific and historic account of the origin of our world
and of the races of men that live upon it, even to
the teachers whom God has sent to give us these
knowledges-we will continue to prize, as an in-
estimable treasure of truth, concerning God and
man, this Hebrew Book of the Beginnings.
}
1
T
1
Add
1.
1
NOTES.
ง
+
NOTES.
NOTE I TO CHAPTER I.
THE THREE-FOLD GROUPING OF THE PENTATEUCH.
Tag
The three-fold division of the Pentateuch seems a natural group-
ing, inasmuch as the first and last books plainly mark them-
selves off from the three central books by their subject-matter. The
primeval and primitive periods, covered by Genesis, are, in reality,
quite separable, as a subject of history, from the Mosaic period.
The renewal of the Law made in Deuteronomy also separates itself
naturally into a distinct work, a second codification. This three-
fold grouping is further borne out by the structural nature of the
books of the Pentateuch. Genesis has a rounded and symmetric
form, an organic unity as a work of literature, such as but one of the
other books can claim. It parts broadly into the two general divi-
sions of primeval human history and of primitive Hebrew history.
Its minor divisions are, on the whole, quite clear cut, even to the
English reader. Its original sections are traceable by the recurrent
phrase "These are the generations of," etc., which together form
the sacred number ten, with an introductory section not beginning
with this stereotyped formula.
Deuteronomy also betrays an artistic arrangement of its sections.
There is first a preliminary discourse of Moses, an historical review of
the experiences of the people in his life-time, which enforces an ap-
peal for loyalty to Jehovah's Law (i.-iv.).
After a few connecting words, the main discourse of the book is
opened, in which a formal re-statement of the Law is made (v.-xxvi.).
Then follows an oratorical postlude, a third brief and concluding
L
}
1
250
NOTES.
discourse, enjoining obedience to the Law given in the main oration
(xxvii.-xxx.). Appendices of an historical and literary character oc-
cupy four concluding chapters. The whole book thus outlines its
anatomy very distinctly. It is a thoroughly organic structure.
The first and fifth books thus differentiate themselves, both in
subject-matter and in form, from the central books. These central
books together cover the Mosaic period. They are comparatively
structureless. Each is of the nature of a literary composition, rather
than an artistic creation. Its parts hang together with comparative
looseness. Numbers has the least organic unity.
This grouping of the Pentateuch preserves the mystic triplicity.
NOTE 2 TO CHAPTER I.
THE ELOHIST AND JEHOVIST NARRATIONS OF THE FLOOD.
1
The portions marked "A" of the Jehovist version give the same
story as those marked "A" of the Elohist.
"B" Jehovist corresponds to "B" Elohist.
"C" Jehovist has nothing Elohistic to correspond.
"D" Elohist has nothing Jehovist to correspond.
“E” Jehovist and "E" Elohist are apparently corresponding ver-
sions again.
ELOIIIST VERSION.—A.
GEN. VI.-9. These are the
generations of Noah. Noah was
a just man and perfect in his gen-
erations, and Noah walked with
Elohim. 10. And Noah begat
three sons, Shem, Ham, and
Japheth. II. The earth also
was corrupt before Elohim, and
the earth was filled with violence.
12. And Elohim looked upon
the earth, and, behold, it was
corrupt; for all flesh had cor-
flesh had cor-
rupted his way upon the earth.
JEHOVIST VERSION.-A.
GEN. VI.-5. And Yahveh saw
that the wickedness of man was
great in the earth, and that every
imagination of the thoughts of
his heart was only evil continually.
6. And it repented Yahvch that
he had made man on the earth,
and it grieved him at his heart. 7.
And Yahveh said: "I will de-
stroy man whom I have created.
from the face of the earth; both
man and beast, and the creeping
thing, and the fowls of the air;
}
NOTES.
ELOHIST VERSION.-A. (Cont'd.)
13. And Elohim said unto Noah,
"The end of all flesh is come be-
fore me; for the earth is filled
with violence through them; and,
behold, I will destroy them with
the earth. 14. Make thee an ark
of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou
make in the ark, and shalt pitch
it within and without with pitch.
15. And this is the fashion which
thou shalt make it of: The length
of the ark shall be three hundred
cubits, the breadth of it fifty cu-
bits, and the height of it thirty
cubits. 16. A window shalt thou
make to the ark, and in a cubit
shalt thou finish it above, and
the door of it shalt thou set in the
side thereof; with lower, second,
and third stories shalt thou make
it. 17. And, behold, I, even I,
do bring a flood of waters upon
the earth, to destroy all flesh,
wherein is the breath of life, from
under heaven; and everything
that is in the earth shall die. 18.
But with thee will I establish my
covenant; and thou shalt come
into the ark, thou, and thy sons,
and thy wife, and thy sons' wives
with thee. 19. And of every liv-
ing thing of all flesh, two of every
sort shalt thou bring into the ark,
to keep them alive with thee; they
shall be male and female. 20. Of
毋
​251
JEHOVIST VERSION.-A. (Cont'd.)
for it repenteth me that I have
made them." 8. But Noah found
grace in the eyes of Vahveh.
[The Jehovist document prob-
bably placed here the instructions
given by Yahveh for the building
of the Ark; which were omitted
by the writer who fused the two
accounts, as unnecessary, since
they were given in the Elohist
narrative.]
GEN. VII.-1. And Yahveh said
unto Noah, Come thou and
all thy house into the ark, for
thee have I seen righteous before
me in this generation. 2. Of
every clean beast thou shalt take
to thee by sevens, the male and
his female: and of beasts that are
not clean by two, the male and
his female. 3. Of fowls also of
the air by sevens, the male and
the female; to keep seed alive
upon the face of all the earth.
For yet seven days, and I will
cause it to rain upon the earth
forty days and forty nights; and
every living substance that I have
made will I destroy from off the
face of the earth." 5. And Noah
did according unto all that Yahveh
commanded him.
4.
เ
I
252
ELOHIST VERSION.-A. (Cont'd.)
fowls after their kind, and of cat-
tle after their kind, of every creep-
ing thing of the earth after his
kind; two of every sort shall come
unto thee, to keep them alive.
21. And take thou unto thee of all
food that is eaten, and thou shalt
gather it to thee; and it shall be
for food for thee, and for them."
22. Thus did Noah, according to
all that Elohim commanded him,
so did he.
NOTES.
t
ELOHIST VERSION.-B.
GEN. VII. II. In the six hun-
dredth year of Noah's life, in the
second month, the seventeenth
day of the month, the same day
were all the fountains of the great
deep broken up, and the windows
of heaven were opened. 13. In
the self-same day entered Noah,
and Shem, and Ham, and Ja-
pheth, the sons of Noah, and
Noah's wife, and the three wives
of his sons with them, into the
ark; 14. they and every beast
after his kind, and all the cattle
after their kind, and every creep-
ing thing that creepeth upon the
carth after his kind, and every
fowl after his kind, and every
bird of every sort. 15. And they
went in unto Noah into the ark,
two and two of all flesh, wherein
JEHOVIST VERSION.-B.
GEN. VII.-6. And Noah was six
hundred years old when the flood
of waters was upon the earth. 7.
And Noah went in, and his sons,
and his wife, and his sons' wives
with him, into the ark, because
of the waters of the flood. 8. Of
clean beasts, and of beasts that
are not clean, and of fowls, and of
everything that creepeth upon the
earth.
earth. 9. There went in two and
two unto Noah into the ark, the
male and the female, as Elohim
had commanded.
["Elohim "
appears here
though the passage is plainly a
part of the Jehovist document.]
10. And it came to pass, after
seven days, that the waters of the
flood were upon the earth. 16.
And Yahveh shut him in. 17
A
1
1
NOTES.
ELOHIST VERSION.-B. (Cont'd.)
is the breath of life. 16. And
they that went in, went in male
and female of all flesh, as Elohim
had commanded him. 18. And
the waters prevailed, and were
increased greatly upon the earth;
and the ark went upon the face of
the waters. 19. And the waters
prevailed exceedingly upon the
earth; and all the high hills, that
were under the whole heaven,
were covered. 20. Fifteen cu-
bits upward did the waters pre-
vail; and the mountains were
covered. 21. And all flesh died
that moved upon the earth, both
of fowl, and of cattle, and of
beast, and of every creeping
thing that creepeth upon the
earth, and every man 22. all in
whose nostrils was the breath of
life, of all that was in the dry
land, died. 24. And the waters.
prevailed upon the earth a hun-
dred and fifty days.
GEN. VIII.-I. And Elohim re-
membered Noah, and every living
thing, and all the cattle that was
with him in the ark: and Elohim
made a wind to pass over the
earth, 3. and after the end of
the hundred and fifty days the
waters were abated. 4. And the
ark rested in the seventh month,
on the seventeenth day of the
}
253
thed
JEHOVIST VERSION.-B. (Cont'd.)
And the flood was forty days upon
the earth; and the waters in-
creased, and bare up the ark, and
it was lifted up above the earth.
23. And every living substance was
destroyed which was upon the face
of the ground, both man and cat-
tle, and the creeping things, and
the fowl of the heaven; and they
were destroyed from the earth:
and Noah only remained alive,
and they that were with him in
the ark.
GEN. VIII.2. And the rain
from heaven was restrained. 3.
And the waters returned from off
the earth continually.
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}
}
NOTES.
254
ELOHIST VERSION.-B. (Cont'd.)
month, upon the mountains of
Ararat. 5. And the waters de-
creased continually until the tenth
month in the tenth month, on
the first day of the month, were
the tops of the mountains seen.
:
»
JEHOVIST VERSION.-C.
GEN. VIII.-6. And it came to
pass, at the end of forty days, that
Noah opened the window of the ark
which he had made: 7. And he
sent forth a raven, which went
forth to and fro, until the waters
were dried up from off the earth.
8. Also he sent forth a dove from
him, to see if the waters were
abated from off the face of the
ground. 9. But the dove found
no rest for the sole of her foot,
and she returned unto him into
the ark for the waters were on
the face of the whole earth.
Then he put forth his hand, and
took her, and pulled her in unto
him into the ark. 10. And he
stayed yet other seven days; and
again he sent forth the dove out of
the ark. II. And the dove came
in to him in the evening, and, lo,
in her mouth was an olive leaf
plucked off so Noah knew that
the waters were abated from off
the earth. 12. And he stayed yet
other seven days, and sent forth
the most und
}
ELOHIST VERSION.-D.
GEN. VIII.-13. And it came
to pass in the six hundredth and
first year, in the first month,
the first day of the month, the
waters were dried up from off
the earth. 14. And in the sec-
ond month, on the seven and
twentieth day of the month, was
the earth dried. 15. And Elo-
him spake unto Noah, saying,
16. "Go forth of the ark, thou,
and thy wife, and thy sons, and
thy sons' wives with thee. 17.
Bring forth with thee every living
thing that is with thee, of all
flesh, both of fowl, and of cattle,
and of every creeping thing that
creepeth upon the earth; that
they may breed abundantly in the
earth, and be fruitful, and multi-
ply upon the carth." 18. And.
Noah went forth, and his sons,
and his wife, and his sons' wives
with him: 19. Every beast,
every creeping thing, and every
fowl, and whatsoever creepeth
upon the earth, after their kinds,
went forth out of the ark.
!
NOTES.
1
255
JEHOVIST VERSION.-C. (Cont'd.)
the dove, which returned not
again to him any more. 13. And
Noah removed the covering of
the ark, and looked, and, behold,
the face of the ground was dry.
1
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256
}
NOTES.
ELOHIST VERSION.-E.
GEN. IX.-I. And Elohim blessed
Noah and his sons, and said
unto them, "Be fruitful, and
multiply, and replenish the earth.
2. And the fear of you, and the
dread of you, shall be upon every
beast of the carth, and upon every
fowl of the air, upon all that mov-
eth upon the earth,and upon all the
fishes of the sea: into your hand are
they delivered. 3. Every moving
thing that liveth shall be meat for
you; even as the green herb have
I given you all things. 4. But
flesh with the life thereof, which
is the blood thereof, shall ye not
cat. 5. And surely your blood of
your lives will I require; at the
hand of every beast will I require
it, and at the hand of man; at the
hand of every man's brother will
I require the life of man. 6.
Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by
man shall his blood be shed; for
in the image of Elohim made he
man. 7. And you, be ye fruitful
and multiply; bring forth abun-
dantly in the earth, and multiply
therein." 8. And Elohim spake
unto Noah, and to his sons with
him, saying, 9. "And I, behold,
I, establish my covenant with you,
and with your sced after you:
10. and with every living creature
that is with you, of the fowl, of
the cattle, and of every beast of
1
God
JEHOVIST VERSION.-E.
GEN. VIII.-20. And Noah build-
ed an altar unto Yahveh; and took
of every clean beast, and of every
clean fowl, and offered burnt off-
erings upon the altar. 21. And
Yahveh smelled a sweet savour;
and Yahveh said in his heart, “I
will not again curse the ground
any more for man's sake; for the
imagination of man's heart is
evil from his youth; neither will
I again smite any more every-
thing living, as I have done.
While thecarth remaineth, seed-
time and harvest, and cold and
heat, and summer and winter, and
day and night shall not cease."
22.
}
{
NOTES.
ELOHIST VERSION.-E. (Cont'd.)
the earth with you, from all
that go out of the ark, to every
beast of the earth. II. And I
will establish my covenant with
you; neither shall all flesh be cut
off any more by the waters of a
flood; neither shall there any
more be a flood to destroy the
earth." 12. And Elohim said,
"This is the token of the cove-
nant which I make between me
and you, and every living creat-
ure that is with you, for perpet-
ual generations: 13. I do set my
bow in the cloud, and it shall
be for a token of a covenant be-
tween me and the earth. 14.
And it shall come to pass, when
I bring a cloud over the earth,
that the bow shall be seen in the
cloud: 15. And I will remember
my covenant, which is between
me and you and every living
creature of all flesh; and the
waters shall no more become a
flood to destroy all flesh. 16. And
the bow shall be in the cloud, and
I will look upon it, that I may
remember the everlasting cove-
nant between Elohim and every
living creature of all flesh that is
upon the earth." 17. And Elo-
him said unto Noah, "This is
the token of the covenant, which I
have established between me and
all flesh that is upon the earth."
--17
5.
257
258
NOTES.
NOTE 3 TO CHAPTER I.
1
ELOHIST HISTORY OF THE PRIMEVAL WORLD.
Being the Elohistic passages in the first general division of Gene-
sis, connected together,. showing the continuousness of this docu-
ment.
1. THE CREATION.
I.-I. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 2.
And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the
face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the
waters. 3. And God said, Let there be light and there was light.
4. And God saw the light, that it was good and God divided the
light from the darkness. 5. And God called the light Day, and the
darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were
the first day. 6. And God said, Let there be a firmament in the
midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. 7.
And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were
under the firmament from the waters which were above the firma-
ment and it was so. 8. And God called the firmament Heaven.
And the evening and the morning were the second day. 9. And God
said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one
place, and let the dry land appear and it was so. ro. And God
called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters
called he Seas and God saw that it was good. 11. And God said,
Let the carth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit
tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the
earth and it was so. 12. And the earth brought forth grass, and
herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose
seed was in itself, after his kind and God saw that it was good.
13. And the evening and the morning were the third day. 14. And
God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide
the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons,
and for days, and years. 15. And let them be for lights in the
firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth and it was so.
16. And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day,
t
}
259
and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. 17.
And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon
the earth, 18. And to rule over the day and over the night, and to
divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.
19. And the evening and the morning were the fourth day. 20. And
God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature
that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open
firmament of heaven. 21. And God created great whales, and every
living creature that moveth which the waters brought forth abun-
dantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and
God saw that it was good. 22. And God blessed them, saying, Be
fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let the fowl
multiply in the earth. 23. And the evening and the morning were
the fifth day. 24. And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living
creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the
earth after his kind: and it was so. 25. And God made the beast of
the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing
that creepeth upon the earth after his kind and God saw that it was
good. 26. And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our
likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and
over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth,
and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
27. So
God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he
him; male and female created he them. 28. And God blessed
them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replen-
ish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the
sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that
moveth upon the earth. 29. And God said, Behold, I have given you
every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and
every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it
shall be for meat. 30. And to every beast of the earth, and to every
fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth,
wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it
was so. 31. And God saw every thing that he had made, and,
behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were
the sixth day.
NOTES.
W
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F
260
NOTES.
J
1
II.-I. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the
host of them. 2. And on the seventh day God ended his work which
he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work
which he had made. 3. And God blessed the seventh day, and
sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which
God created and made.
✔
II. THE RACE OF SETH.
M
V.-I. This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day
that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him; 2. Male
and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name
Adam, in the day when they were created. And Adam lived an
hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after
his image; and called his name Seth: 4. And the days of Adam
after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years and he begat
sons and daughters: 5. And all the days that Adam lived were nine
hundred and thirty years: and he died. 6. And Seth lived an hun-
dred and five years, and begat Enos: 7. And Seth lived after he
begat Enos eight hundred and seven years, and begat sons and
daughters: 8. And all the days of Seth were nine hundred and
twelve years and he died. 9. And Enos lived ninety years, and be-
gat Cainan :
10. And Enos lived after he begat Cainan eight hun-
dred and fifteen years, and begat sons and daughters: II. And all
the days of Enos were nine hundred and five years: and he died. 12.
And Cainan lived seventy years, and begat Mahalaleel:
13. And
Cainan lived after he begat Mahalaleel eight hundred and forty years,
and begat sons and daughters: 14. And all the days of Cainan were
nine hundred and ten years: and he died. 15. And Mahalaleel lived
sixty and five years, and begat Jared: 16. And Mahalaleel lived
after he begat Jared eight hundred and thirty years, and begat sons
and daughters: 17. And all the days of Mahalaleel were eight hun-
dred ninety and five years: and he died. 18. And Jared lived an hun-
dred sixty and two years, and he begat Enoch: 19. And Jared lived
after he begat Enoch eight hundred years, and begat sons and daugh-
ters: 20. And all the days of Jared were nine hundred sixty and
two years, and he died. 21. And Enoch lived sixty and five years,
th
1
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261
and begat Methuselah : 22. And Enoch walked with God after he begat
Methuselah three hundred years, and begat sons and daughters: 23.
And all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years.
24. And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took
him. 25. And Methuselah lived an hundred eighty and seven years,
and begat Lamech: 26. And Methuselah lived after he begat La-
mech seven hundred eighty and two years, and begat sons and daugh-
ters 27. And all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty
and nine years: and he died. 28. And Lamech lived an hundred
eighty and two years, and begat a son: 29. And he called his
name Noah, saying, This same shall comfort us concerning our work
and toil of our hands, because of the ground which the LORD hath
cursed. 30. And Lamech lived after he begat Noah five hundred
ninety and five years, and begat sons and daughters: 31. And all
the days of Lamech were seven hundred seventy and seven years:
and he died. 32. And Noah was five hundred years old: and Noah
begat Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
NOTES.
III. THE Deluge.
10.
VI.-9. These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just
man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God.
And Noah begat three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. 11. The
earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with vio-
lence. 12. And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was cor-
rupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.
13. And
God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the
earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will de-
stroy them with the earth. 14. Make thee an ark of gopher wood;
rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and with-
out with pitch. 15. And this is the fashion which thou shalt make
it of: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the
breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits. 16. A
window shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it
above; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof;
with lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make it. 17. And,
behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to de-
262
stroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven: and
every thing that is in the earth shall die. 18. But with thee will I
establish my covenant; and thou shalt come into the ark, thou, and
thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons' wives with thee. 19. And of
every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into
the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female.
20. Of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, of every
creeping thing of the earth after his kind, two of every sort shall come
unto thee to keep them alive. 21. And take thou unto thee of all
food that is caten, and thou shalt gather it to thee; and it shall be for
food for thee, and for them. 22. Thus did Noah ; according to all
that God commanded him, so did he.
NOTES.
VII.-11. In the sixth hundredth year of Noah's life, in the
second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were
all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of
heaven were opened. 13. In the selfsame day entered Noah, and
Shem, and Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah's wife,
and the three wives of his sons with them, into the ark: 14. They,
and every beast after his kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and
every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind, and
every fowl after his kind, every bird of every sort. 15. And they
went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh, wherein is
the breath of life. 16. And they that went in, went in male and
female of all flesh, as God had commanded him. 18. And the waters
prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark went
upon the face of the waters. 19. And the waters prevailed exceed-
ingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the
whole heaven, were covered. 20. Fifteen cubits upward did the
waters prevail; and the mountains were covered. 21. And all flesh
died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of
beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and
every man.
22. All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all
that was in the dry land, died. 24. And the waters prevailed upon
the earth a hundred and fifty days.
VIII.-1. And God remembered Noah, and every living thing,
and all the cattle that was with him in the ark; and God made a
1
NOTES.
263
wind to pass over the earth, and the waters assuaged. 2. The foun-
tains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and
after the end of the hundred and fifty days the waters were abated.
4. And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day
of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat. 5. And the waters de-
creased continually until the tenth month: in the tenth month, on the
first day of the month, were the tops of the mountains seen. 13.
And it came to pass in the six hundredth and first year, in the first
month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from off
the earth. 14. And in the second month, on the seven and twentieth
day of the month, was the earth dried. 15. And God spake unto Noah,
saying, 16. Go forth of the ark, thou, and thy wife, and thy sons,
and thy sons' wives with thee. 17. Bring forth with thee every living
thing that is with thee, of all flesh, both of fowl and of cattle, and of
every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth; that they may
breed abundantly in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply upon the
earth. 18. And Noah went forth, and his sons, and his wife, and his
sons' wives with him: 19. Every beast, every creeping thing, and
every fowl, and whatsoever creepeth upon the earth, after their kinds,
went forth out of the ark.
IX.-1. And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them,
Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth. 2. And the fear
of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth,
and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth,
and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered.
3. Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the
green herb have I given you all things. 4. But flesh with the life
thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat. 5. And surely
your blood of your lives will I require at the hand of every beast
will I require it, and at the hand of man: at the hand of every man's
brother will I require the life of man. 6. Whoso sheddeth man's
blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made
he man.
7. And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply; bring forth
abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein. 8. And God spake
unto Noah, and to his sons with him, saying, 9. And I, behold, I
establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you;
10.
1
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264
4
And with every living creature that is with you, of the fowl, of the
cattle, and of every beast of the earth with you; from all that go out
of the ark, to every beast of the earth. II. And I will establish my
covenant with you; neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the
waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy
the carth. 12. And God said, This is the token of the covenant
which I make between me and you and every living creature that is
with you, for perpetual generations. 13. I do set my bow in the
cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the
earth. 14. And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the
earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud: 15. And I will re-
member my covenant, which is between me and you and every living
creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to
destroy all flesh. 16. And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will
look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between
God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth. 17.
And God said unto Noah, This is the token of the covenant, which I
have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth.
F
NOTES.
IV. THE RACE CHILDren of NoAH.
X.-I. Now these are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem,
Ham, and Japheth and unto them were sons born after the flood.
2. The sons of Japheth; Gomer, and Magog, and Madai, and Javan,
and Tubal, and Meshech, and Tiras. 3. And the sons of Gomer;
Ashkenaz and Riphath, and Togarmah. 4. And the sons of Javan;
Elishah, and Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim. 5. By these were the
isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands; every one after his tongue,
after their families, in their nations. 6. And the sons of Ham; Cush,
and Mizraim, and Phut, and Canaan. 7. And the sons of Cush;
Seba and Havilah, and Sabtah, and Raamah, and Sabtechah: and the
sons of Raamah; Sheba and Dedan. 8. And Cush begat Nimrod:
he began to be a mighty one in the carth. 9. He was a mighty hun-
ter before the Lord: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty
hunter before the Lord. 10. And the beginning of his kingdom was
Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.
II. Out of that land went forth Asshur, and builded Nineveh, and
1
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265
the city Rehoboth, and Calah, 12. And Resen between Nineveh and
Calah the same is a great city. 13. And Mizraim begat Ludim, and
Anamin, and Lehabim, and Naphtuhim, 14. And Pathrusim, and Cas-
luhim, (out of whom came Philistim,) and Caphtorim. 15. And Ca-
naan begat Sidon his firstborn, and Heth, 16. And the Jebusite, and
the Amorite, and the Girgasite, 17. And the Hivite, and the Arkite,
and the Sinite, 18. And the Arvadite, and the Zemarite, and the Ha-
mathite and afterward were the families of the Canaanites spread
abroad. 19. And the border of the Canaanites was from Sidon, as
thou comest to Gerar, unto Gaza; as thou goest unto Sodom, and
Gomorrah, and Admah, and Zeboim, even unto Lasha. 20. These
are the sons of Ham, after their families, after their tongues, in their
countries, and in their nations. 21. Unto Shem also, the father of all
the children of Eber, the brother of Japheth the elder, even to him
were children born. 22. The children of Shem; Elam and Asshur,
and Arphaxad, and Lud, and Aram. 23. And the children of Aram ;
Uz, and Hul, and Gether, and Mash. 24. And Arphaxad begat Salah,
and Salah begat Eber. 25. And unto Eber were born two sons: the
name of one was Peleg; for in his days was the earth divided; and
his brother's name was Joktan. 26. And Joktan begat Almodad, and
Sheleph, and Hazarmaveth, and Jerah, 27. And Hadoram, and Uzal,
and Diklah, 28. And Obal, and Abimacl, and Sheba, 29. And
Ophir, and Havilah, and Jobab; all these were the sons of Joktan,
30. And their dwelling was from Mesha, as thou goest unto Sephar a
mount of the east. 31. These are the sons of Shem, after their fami-
lies, after their tongues, in their lands, after their nations. 32. These
are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations, in their
nations and by these were the nations divided in the earth after the
flood.
NOTES.
V. THE ORIGIN OF THE Terahites.
XI.-10. These are the generations of Shem. Shem was an hundred
years old, and begat Arphaxad two years after the flood: II. And
Shem lived after he begat Arphaxad five hundred years, and
begat sons and daughters, 12. And Arphaxad lived five and
thirty years, and begat Salah: 13. And Arphaxad lived after he be-
gat Salah four hundred and three years, and begat sons and daugh-
}
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266
ters. 14. And Salah lived thirty years, and begat Eber: 15. And Sa-
lah lived after he begat Eber four hundred and three years, and begat
sons and daughters. 16. And Eber lived four and thirty years, and
begat Peleg: 17. And Eber lived after he begat Peleg four hun-
dred and thirty years, and begat sons and daughters, 18 And Peleg
lived thirty years and begat Reu: 19. And Peleg lived after he begat
Reu two hundred and nine years, and begat sons and daughters. 20.
And Reu lived two and thirty years, and begat Serug: 21. And Reu
lived after he begat Serug two hundred and seven years, and begat sons
and daughters. 22. And Serug lived thirty years, and begat. Nahor :
23. And Serug lived after he begat Nahor two hundred years, and be-
gat sons and daughters. 24. And Nahor lived nine and twenty years,
and begat Terah: 25. And Nahor lived after he begat Terah a hun-
dred and nineteen years, and begat sons and daughters. 26. And Te-
rah lived seventy years, and begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran.
VI. THE MIGRATION OF THE TERAHITES.
XI.-27. Now these are the generations of Terah: Terah begat
Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran begat Lot. 28. And Haran
died before his father Terah in the land of his nativity, in Ur of the
Chaldees. 29. And Abram and Nahor took them wives: and the name
of Abram's wife was Sarai; and the name of Nahor's wife, Milcah, the
daughter of Haran, the father of Milcah, and the father of Iscah. 30.
But Sarai was barren; she had no child. 31. And Terah took Abram
his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son's son, and Sarai his daugh-
ter in law, his son Abram's wife; and they went forth with them from
Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came
unto Haran, and dwelt there. 32. And the days of Terah were
two hundred and five years: and Terah died in Haran.
NOTES.
NOTE I TO CHAPTER II.
G
ALLUSIONS TO MOSES IN THE PROPHETS.
Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded
unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments.
Malachi, iv. 4.
1
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NOTES.
267
Then he remembered the days of old, Moses, and his people say-
ing, Where is he that brought them up out of the sea with the
shepherd of his flock? Where is he that put his holy Spirit within
him?
That led them by the right hand of Moses with his glorious arm,
dividing the water before them, to make himself an everlasting name?
Isaiah, lxiii. 11, 12.
Then said the Lord unto me, Though Moses and Samuel stood
before me, yet my mind could not be towards this people; cast them
out of my sight, and let them go forth.
Jeremiah, xv. I.
For I brought thee up out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed
thee out of the house of servants; and I sent before thee Moses,
Aaron, and Miriam.
Micah, vi. 4.
NOTE 2 TO CHAPTER II.
JEROME ON THE MOSAIC AUTHORSHIP OF THE PENTATEUCH.
"Whether you wish to say that Moses is the author of the Penta-
teuch, or that Ezra restored it, is indifferent to me."-Quoted by Dr.
Briggs in "Biblical Study," page 182.
NOTE 3 TO CHAPTER II.
HOBBES ON THE PENTATEUCH.
Hobbes [1588-1679] quaintly expressed his opinions, which in
some respects were a curious anticipation of later criticism.
"Who were the originall writers of the severall Books of Holy
Scripture has not been made evident by any sufficient testimony of
other History (which is the only proof of matter of fact); nor can be
by any arguments of naturall Reason: for Reason serves only to
convince the truth (not of fact, but) of consequence,
The light,
therefore, that must guide us in this question must be that which is
held out unto us from the Bookes themselves: And this light, though
it shew us not the writer of every book, yet it is not unuseful to give
us knowledge of the time wherein they were written.
"And first, for the Pentateuch, it is not argument enough that
they were written by Moses, because they are called the five Books
1
2
268
of Moses; no more than these titles, the Book of Joshua, the Book of
Judges, the Book of Ruth, and the Books of the Kings, are argu-
ments sufficient to prove that they were written by Joshua, by the
Judges, by Ruth, and by the Kings. For in titles of Books, the
subject is marked, as often as the writer. The History of Livy, de-
notes the Writer; but the History of Scanderbeg is denominated
from the subject. We read in the last Chapter of Deuteronomie, ver.
6, concerning the sepulcher of Moses, that no man knoweth of his sep-
ulcher to this day, that is, to the day wherein those words were
written. It is therefore manifest, that those words were written after
his interrement. For it were a strange interpretation, to say Moses
spake of his own sepulcher (though by Prophecy), that it was not
found to that day, wherein he was yet living. But it may perhaps be
alledged that the last Chapter only, not the whole Pentateuch, was
written by some other man, but the rest not: Let us therefore con-
sider that which we find in the Book of Genesis, Chap. 12, ver. 6.
And Abraham passed through the land to the place of Sichem, unto
the plain of Morch, and the Canaanite was then in the land; which
must needs bee the words of one that wrote when the Canaanite was
not in the land; and consequently, not of Moses, who dyed before
he came into it. Likewise Numbers 21, ver. 14, the Writer citeth
another more ancient Book, Entituled The Book of the Warres of the
Lord, wherein were registred the Acts of Moses, at the Red-sea,
and at the brook of Arnon. It is therefore sufficiently evident, that
the five Books of Moses were written after his time, though how long
after it be not so manifest.
NOTES.
"But though Moses did not compile those Books entirely, and in
the form we have them; yet he wrote all that which hee is there said
to have written as for example, the Volume of the Law, which is
contained, as it seemeth, in the II. of Deuteronomie, and the follow-
ing Chapters to the 27th which was also commanded to be written on
stones, in their entry into the land of Canaan. And this also did
Moses himself write, and delivered to the Priests and Elders of Israel,
to be read every seventh year to all Israel, at their assembling in
the feast of Tabernacles. And this is that Law which God com-
manded, that their Kings (when they should have established that
I
NOTES.
269
form of Government), should take a copy of from the Priests and
Levites; and which Moses commanded the Priests and Levites to
lay in the side of the Arke; and the same which having been lost, was
long time after found again by Hilkiah, and sent to King Josias,
who causing it to be read to the People, renewed the Covenant be
tween God and them." "Leviathan, or the Matter, Forme, and
Power of a Common-Wealth, Ecclesiastical and Civill. By Thomas
Hobbes, of Malmsbury," p. 298 (fac-simile edition, Oxford, 1881).
NOTE 4 TO CHAPTER II.
BISHOP COLENSO'S ZULU, AND THE JUDGMENT OF EXODUS, XXI. 20, 21.
"I shall never forget the revulsion of feeling with which a very
intelligent Christian native, with whose help I was translating these
words into the Zulu tongue, first heard them as words said to be ut-
tered by the same great and gracious Being, whom I was teaching
him to trust in and adore. His whole soul revolted against the
notion that the Great and Blessed God, the Merciful Father of all
mankind, would speak of a servant or maid as mere 'money,' and
allow a horrible crime to go unpunished, because the victim of the
brutal usage had survived a few hours. My own heart and con-
science at the time fully sympathized with his. But I then clung to
the notion that the main substance of the narrative was historically
true. And I relieved his difficulty and my own for the present by
telling him, that I supposed that such words as these were written
down by Moses, and believed by him to have been divinely given to
him, because the thought of them arose in his heart, as he conceived,
by the inspiration of God, and that hence to all such Laws he prefixed
the formula, Jehovah said unto Moses,' without it being on that ac-
count necessary for us to suppose that they were actually spoken by
the Almighty. This was, however, a very great strain upon the cord,
which bound me to the ordinary belief in the historical veracity of
the Pentateuch; and since then that cord has snapped in twain
altogether."-
"-" The Pentateuch and Book of Joshua critically exam-
ined, by the Rt. Rev. John William Colenso, D.D., Bishop of Natal,”
P. 50.
f
1
1
!
270
NOTES.
NOTE 5. TO CHAPTER II.
KUENEN ON THE GROUPING OF THE PRIESTLY LAWS IN THE PEN-
TATEUCH.
Į
7
Kuenen classifies the Priestly legislation of the Pentateuch into
three groups, as follows :
"The first embraces some laws concerning clean and unclean
things, the priests and religious worship, which are now included
in Leviticus, chap. xviii.-xxiii., xxv., xxvi., but in an elaborate form,
and linked with a few younger regulations.
"The second is formed by a complete system of priestly ordinances,
the author of which was acquainted with, and adopted the first
group; to this group belong in great part the laws in Exodus, chap.
xii., xxv.~xxxi., in Leviticus, chap. i.-xvii., xxiv., xxvii., and most
of the priestly documents in Numbers, both the purely legislative
and the semi-historical. From this corpus of the legislation of the
priests must now, finally, be distinguished
•
1
"The third group, which includes the later additions: they are usu-
ally closely united with the older documents in the three centre books
of the Pentateuch, and cannot be separated from them without diffi-
culty."-"The Religion of Israel to the Fall of the Jewish State, by
Dr. A. Kuenen," Vol. II., 150.
NOTE 6 TO CHAPTER II.
Dr. Peters, whose rendering of the passage from Amos was adopted
in the third chapter, makes the following note: "Schrader has
shown Sikkooth to be the god Ninip or Adar, the god of battle and
revenge; in the astrological system, the planet Saturn. The name is
Akkadian. Kiun is the Arabic Kaiwân, also the planet Saturn.
'Sikkooth, your king and Kiun, these two were your images: that
which you made your gods is nothing but a star.””
NOTE 7 TO CHAPTER II.
The picture of the early religious life of Israel presented in Chap-
ter III, in outline, will find amplification and confirmation in the fol-
1
}
You
NOTES.
271
lowing works, accessible to the general reader: Prolegomena zur
Geschichte Israels von J. Wellhausen, especially pages 17, 18, 131
ff.; The Religion of Israel, by A. Kuenen, especially Vol. I., chap.
5, section 2; The Old Testament in the Jewish Church, by W. Rob-
ertson Smith, especially Lecture 9; The History of the Hebrew Na-
tion and Its Literature, by Samuel Sharpe, especially pp. 20, 42, 80,
81; History of Antiquity, Max Duncker, especially vol. ii., pp. 90,
92, 93, 163, 195.
Wellhausen points out a very curious expression for the ordination
of priests, which, as throwing a side light upon the improbability of
the priesthood's consent to the long ignoring of the claims warranted
by the Levitical legislation, may be given here:
"The stages of development of the power of the clergy are indi-
cated by the dulling of the proper meaning of the formula 'to fill
the hand,' used at all times for the ordination. Originally it can
only have meant to fill the hand with gold or goods."-"
-" Prolego-
mena zur Geschichte Israels, von J. Wellhausen," p. 157 (1883).
**
NOTE I TO CHAPTER III.
DEUTSCH ON THE BOOK OF JASHER,
"Twice this work is distinctly quoted in the Bible: once in Joshua,
on the occasion of the battle of Gibeon, and once in Samuel, at the
death of Jonathan. On the first occasion it is quoted as containing
Joshua's song of victory; on the second it is referred to for David's
dirge. The only reasonable inference to be drawn from both pas-
sages seems this, that the book alluded to was a collection of songs
composed upon certain events important in national history. Whether
it contained, also, a running prose narrative which illustrated these
poetical portions is at least doubtful. That it must have existed
before the 'Redaction' of the Book of Joshua in its present form, and,
further, that it was not completed before the time of David, seems
obvious. Also that it must have disappeared at an early period.
"}
Literary Remains of the late Emanuel Deutsch," page 441.
}
272
ļ
NOTES.
NOTE 2 TO CHAPTER III.
NOTE 3 TO CHAPTER III.
MANETHO'S ACCOUNT OF THE EXODUS.
Manetho's account is in substance as follows: A king of Egypt
named Amenophis, desiring to see the gods, was informed that in
order to do so he must clear the country of lepers and unclean per-
sons generally. The king willingly agreed to this, and collected all
who had any bodily defect, to the number of 80,000, and sent them
to the quarries east of the Nile, to join other Egyptians who had
already been condemned to labor there. They revolted and set up
Osarsiph, one of the priests of Heliopolis, who was among their
number, as their leader. He gave them a law, neither to worship
the gods, nor to abstain from any of the animals most venerated in
Egypt, but to slay and eat them all; and to hold communication with
none but their confederates. After this protest against the prevailing
forms of religion in Egypt, he opened communications with the Shep-
herds (the Hyksôs) who had been expelled from Egypt, and planned
a general war against the Empire, promising to lead his followers to
Avaris, the abode of their ancestors. They rose in a body numbering
200,000. King Amenophis ordered the images of the gods to be hidden
away throughout the Empire, and collecting a force of 300,000 men,
went forth to meet the rebels. Unnerved, however, by a prediction
of the oracles, he retired to Ethiopia without venturing on an engage-
ment. There he remained for thirteen years, during which Osarsiph
and the lepers remained masters of the Empire. Their rule was
marked chiefly by the contempt shown toward the gods of Egypt.
Osarsiph assumed the name of Moses. King Amenophis returning
from Ethiopia at the end of the predestined thirteen years, defeated
Osarsiph or Moses, and drove the unclean people out of the country
as far as Palestine.
BRUGSCH-BEY ON SUPPOSED EGYPTIAN REFERENCE TO MOSES.
1
1
1
"Is it by accident, or by divine providence, that the reign of
Ramses III., about 100 years after the death of his ancestor, the
}
:
ま
​NOTES.
273
great Sesostris, a place is mentioned in Middle Egypt, which bears
the name of the great Jewish legislator? It is called I-en-Moshé,
'the island of Moses,' or 'the river-bank of Moses.' It lay on the
eastern side of the river, near the city of the heretic king Khu-n-
aten. The place still existed in the time of the Romans; those who
describe Egypt at that time designate it, with a mistaken apprehension
of its true meaning, as Musai, or Musôn, as if it had some connection
with the Greck Muses.”—“ A History of Egypt under the Pharaohs,
derived entirely from the Monuments. By Dr. Henry Brugsch-Bey,"
}
vol. ii., page 117.
[Reuss, "Die Geschicte der heilgen Schriften Alten Testaments,"
p. 67, says that the Egyptian records found and deciphered up to the
present time give no certain notice of Moses and the exodus.
am afraid the general verdict of sober scholars agrees with his.—J. P.
Peters.]
I
NOTE 4 TO CHAPTER III.
WILKINSON ON THE HIGH ESTIMATION OF LAW IN EGYPT.
"The superiority of their (Egyptian) legislation has always been
acknowledged as the cause of the duration of an empire which lasted
with the same form of government for a much longer period than
the generality of ancient states.
The laws of the Egyp-
tians were handed down from the earliest times, and looked upon
with the greatest reverence. They had the credit of having been
dictated by the gods themselves, and Thoth (Hermes, Mercury, or
the Divine Intellect) was said to have framed them for the benefit of
mankind."- -“The Ancient Egyptians, by Sir J. Gardiner Wilkin-
son," vol. ii., 202, 207.
NOTE 5 TO CHAPTER III.
เ
ACCADIAN PSALMODY.
"The subjects of Accadian literary composition were multifarious.
Among the most interesting are the hymns to the gods, some of
which strikingly resemble the Hebrew psalms in substance as well as
in form. Indeed, the parallelism of Hebrew and Assyrian poetry
}
1
18
NOTES.
274
seems to have been borrowed from the Accadians. But the sim-
ilarity of expression and feeling is no less remarkable. Thus we
read in one-(1) 'May God, my creator: take mine hands. (2)
Guide thou the breath of my mouth: guide thou mine hands; (3)
O lord of light!' And in another (1) 'In heaven who is high?
Thou alone, thou art high. (2) In earth who is high? Thou
alone, thou art high. (3) As for thee, thy word in heaven is
declared the gods bow their faces to the ground. (4) As for thee,
thy word in earth is declared: the spirits of earth kiss the ground;'
or in a third-(1) 'O Lord, my transgressions are many great are
my sins. (2) The Lord in the anger of his heart: has confounded
me. (3) God in the strength of his heart set himself against me.'
A collection was afterward made of these hymns, which was used for
ritualistic purposes and regarded as an inspired volume, and has been
aptly compared by M. Lenormant with the Rig-Veda of the Hin-
dus."-"Encyclopædia Britannica," vol. iii., Art. Babylonia, p. 191.
NOTE 6 TO CHAPTER III.
THE GROWTH OF THE PENTATEUCH.
The bird's-eye view presented in chapter three of the growth of the
Pentateuch is that of the school represented by Kuenen, Wellhausen,
Robertson Smith, etc. The view of the composite structure of the
Pentateuch and of its non-Mosaic authorship presented in chapters one
and two may be held without necessitating the view of the develop-
ment of the texts of the Pentateuch held by this school. Many
scholars who reject the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch and its
internal unity repudiate the conception of the growth of the Penta-
teuch presented by this more radical school. There is a clearly defined
school of thought in Germany which accounts for the development
of the Pentateuch very differently. A good statement of the general
idea of this school is made by Duncker, vol. i., 383, etc.:
“After they had settled in that land, and had passed beyond the
loose combination of their tribes to the unity of civic life, after a
monarchy had been established, and under it a metropolis and a cen-
tre for the national religion had been founded, the priesthood en-
T
}
Zal
NOTES.
275
gaged in this worship began to collect together ritualistic observances
and customs of law, and to write them down in combination with
anything still living about their early history in the traditions of their
families.
"Of their own history they could have preserved nothing but
prominent facts and decisive crises. Songs of praise and victory
which celebrated the great events of the Hebrew past, such as the
exodus from Egypt and the victories won over the Canaanites, of
which some were already written down, forms of blessing, genealo-
gies, isolated fragments of the moral law, or time-honored sacrificial
custom, or ancient rules of justice, and, finally, narrations of wars,
constituted fixed points of connection in this tradition. At the new
centre of religious worship the whole stock of existing ritual and
custom had to be brought under review, and from hence provision
made for the use of the true and acceptable kind of sacrifice, and
sentence of law.
On the basis of this tradition, these songs and poems, genealo-
gies and ancient records, and under the guidance of the views just
pointed out, there arose at Hebron, in the first decade of the reign
of David, within the circle of a priestly family, which apparently
claimed to be sprung from Aaron, the brother of Moses, the Judæan
text of the Pentateuch, and the Book of Joshua. Composed as an-
nals, this text deals primarily with the connection and course of the
fortunes of Israel; the central point is the covenant between Jeho-
vah (Elohim) and Israel, Israel and Jehovah, and the law, which is
the body of this covenant. The unity of religious worship, and the
centralization of it at one place and only one, is brought prominently
forward, and this could not have happened till political unity had
been obtained, a metropolis founded, and a seat erected there for the
worship of the whole nation, or at least contemplated, if not erected.
A
"Not long after this first text arose a second, which, however,
can hardly have been composed in priestly circles, and certainly did
not come from Judah. With the author of this second text, it is not
}
276
the collection and establishment of the law, and the desire to insist
on the obedience to it, which is the main point. It is rather the
personal fortunes of the fathers of the race, in which the divine
guidance is shown, the manifestations of the Deity in their favor, the
revelations made to them by divine messengers, the importance of old
customs and old names, on which he lays especial weight. He also
availed himself of older written sources. The language and style of
this second text are more lively, versatile, and distinct than those of
the first; and the importance which he ascribes to the fortunes of
Joseph and the tribe of Ephraim confirms the assumption that the
author belonged to this tribe. The origin of this second text falls in
the second half of Solomon's reign, or immediately after it-in the
decades from 970 to 950 B. C.
"About a hundred years later, toward the middle of the ninth
century B. C., both these texts were combined and, transformed into
one work. The author of this combined text (the Jahvist) was
guided by the feelings and views of the prophets. He is superior to
the authors of the two texts in versatility, in reflection, and vivid
power of imagination. Not only did he work up the two texts into
one, and insert into the whole his own views, but he has added some
sections, the materials of which must have been furnished partly by
tradition and partly by written records. In this shape were the first
four books of the Pentateuch, the beginning and the end of the fifth
book, and the Book of Joshua, at the time of the prophets Amos and
Hosea. The Second Law,' i. e., the main portion of the fifth book
of the Pentateuch, on the other hand, was not written till the time of
King Josiah, about 625 B.C., and was then added to the rest. The
author of this second law also revised the Book of Joshua.”—“ The
History of Antiquity. From the German of Max Duncker, by Evelyn
Abbott, M.A." Vol. i., pp. 383 ff..
NOTES.
▸
1
NOTE 7 TO CHAPTER III.
TOKEN-TALES IN HEBREW LAW.
"When writing is unknown, how are customs and usages preserved
from falling into desuctude? How are the decisions of the elders in
doubtful cases handed down for the benefit of posterity? In a two-
7
277
fold way: first, by symbolical actions-token-deeds, as Ewald hap-
pily termed them-of which instances like beating the bounds and
tenure by the rod remain to this day; and secondly, by traditions,
symbolical stories-token-tales, if one may say so, which are handed
down in the general folk-lore of a people. Such stories, semi-legal
precedents, are not unfamiliar; the tradition of Zelophehad's daugh-
ters is one such, embodying the pre-historic notion of the duty of heir-
esses. In this way various dubious points of primitive morality and
politics were governed; and the stories which enshrine them stand to
primitive life in much the same relation as do collections of precedents
to modern lawyers, and dictionaries of cases of conscience to father
confessors.
(C
Str
'Many of the stories of the Old Testament appear to me to share
this feature of primitive morals, e. g., Abraham and Sarah, Absalom
and Tamar, Judah and Tamar."-" Early Hebrew Life; a Study in
Sociology. John Fenton," p. 81.
NOTES.
1
NOTE 8 TO CHAPTER III.
NEWMAN SMYTH ON THE MORAL DIFFICULTIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.
"The view which we have gained of the process of revelation lifts
us at once out of many other moral difficulties which are often popu-
larly urged against the authority of revelation, and which sometimes
vex the hearts of believers. We need hardly follow them here farther
into their details. The faults of the Old Testament are, as Herder
said, the faults of the pupil, not of the teacher. They are the neces-
sary incidents of a course of moral education; they are the unavoidable
limitations of a partial and progressive revelation. If God chooses
to enter upon a historic course of revelation, then that revelation must
be accommodated to the necessities, and limited by the capacities,
mental and moral, of each successive age. Otherwise, revelation
would be a wild, destructive power-a flood sweeping everything
away, and not the river of life. We cannot suppose that the Almighty
can pour the Mississippi River into the banks of a mountain brook.
He can begin, however, with the springs and the brooks, and make
in time the broad Mississippi River. We cannot expect God to pour
the full Christian era into the limited moral experience of the patri-
[
Y
278
archal age. He may begin, however, with the first welling-up of
truth in far-off times, to prepare for the Christian era. He will not,
by a too early flood, wash away the very possibility of an enlarging
revelation. His stream keeps within its banks; his revelation never
breaks through the appointed limits of a great historical influence.
But this patience of the divine Teacher with man's slowly maturing
capacity for instruction, this self-restraint of revelation, is itself the
sign of a higher wisdom.
But with the divine Instructor
a thousand years are as one day. His unit of time is not the short
axis of a revolving world, and his good providence puts no blessing in
peril by unsecinly haste. These very limitations, imperfections, and
moral deficiencies of particular stages of revelation, so often alleged
against the Bible, are among the signs which cannot be counterfeited
of God's handwriting in it. The same powers of development, the
same law of evolution, seem to have been followed, alike, in nature
and in the Bible.". Old Faiths in New Lights, by Newman
Smyth;" p. 118.
NOTES.
•
·
NOTE 9 TO CHAPTER III.
TIELE AND RENOUF ON THE HIGHER EGYPTIAN RELIGION.
"In all that the monuments tell us about the beliefs of the ancient
Egyptians, two things may be clearly observed: first, a vivid con-
sciousness of the spiritual nature of the deity combined with coarsely
sensuous representations of the various gods; secondly, a no less
vivid consciousness of the oneness of God conjoined with the great-
est diversity of divine persons. The Egyptian gods accordingly
became, for the most part-certainly the principal gods became-
moral beings. Thus Ptah is called Lord of the Ell, or, what is the
same thing, of righteousness; and consequently law and also prop-
erty is under his divine protection, and transgression in respect of
them is an offense against God. The prominent part taken by Ma,
the goddess of truth and of righteousness itself, in the whole symbolism.
and mythology deserves notice in this connection. When the Egyp-
tian wished to give assurance of his honesty and good faith, he called
Thot to witness, the advocate in the heavenly court of justice, with-
out whose justification no soul could stand in the day of judgment.
•
•
279
The entire symbolism, as it sprang from the great myth of the Egyp-
tians, depicts the struggle between light and darkness, fertility and
barrenness, life and death; and in that idea there is a moral power
already latent. But the moral significance was given to it by the
people themselves. Osiris was not simply the sun-god: this signifi-
cation was even completely thrown into the background by the later
conception of him. He is the good being (Unnefer), in opposition
to the evil power by whom he is persecuted, Apepi the serpent, or, at
a later period, Set, his brother. And, to crown all, we have that
striking feature in the religious views of the sons of Ham, the judgment
of the dead, with its great tribunal of forty-two judges, who each in-
stitute an inquiry as to one particular transgression; and presiding
there we see the Great God, the Lord of Ages, Osiris himself with his
unerring balance and his sure retribution. All this shows us that a
moral life, a life of holiness and beneficence, was conceived of as
being a matter of solemn obligation toward the deity himself. To
become like god Osiris, a benefactor, a good being persecuted but
justified, judged but pronounced innocent, was looked upon as the
ideal of every pious man, and as the condition on which alone eternal
life could be obtained and the means by which it could be continued."
"Histoire Comparée des Anciennes Religions de l'Egypte et des
Peuples Sémitiques. Par C. P. Tiele," 133, 141.
D
NOTES.
ܚ
էլ
"The Egyptian mythology, as far as I can see, dealt only with
those phenomena of nature which are conspicuously the result of
fixed law, such as the rising and setting of the sun, moon and
stars. The recognition of law and order as existing throughout the
universe, underlies the whole system of Egyptian religion. The
Egyptian maat, derived, like the Sanskrit rita, from merely sensuous
impressions, became the name for moral order and righteousness.
"Besides the powers recognized by the mythology, the Egyptians
from the very first spoke of the Power by whom the whole physical
and moral government of the universe is directed, upon whom each
individual depends, and to whom he is responsible.
CA
The moral code which they identified with the law governing the
universe, was a pure and noble one. The summary of it as given in
}
(
280
the Book of the Dead has often been quoted. 'He hath given
bread to the hungry, water to the thirsty, clothes to the naked; he
hath given a boat to the shipwrecked; he hath made the offerings to
the gods, and paid the due rites to the departed.'
"The rites are paid to the departed, because death is but the be-
ginning of a new life, and that life will never end.
"A sense of the Eternal and Infinite, Holy and Good, governing
the world, and upon which we are dependent, of right and wrong, of
holiness and virtue, of immortality and retribution-such are the
elements of Egyptian religion. But where are these grand elements
of a religion found in their simply purity?"-" Lectures on the Origin
and Growth of Religion as Illustrated by the Religion of Ancient
Egypt, by P. Le Page Renouf,” p. 250.
NOTES.
$
NOTE I TO CHAPTER IV.
"It is the first work known to us that seeks to arrange infinitesi-
mal details of origin in one comprehensive genealogy. The work
does, to be sure, take the nation of Israel at once as the grand
centre of all nations and as the great final purpose of all history;
but from that centre it overlooks the wide circle of all nations, and
from this final purpose it boldly rises to the earliest conceivable be-
ginning of all history. Both clements unite in the idea of portray-,
ing the Origins-the origins of all historical things that admit of it,
of the nation of Israel as of its individual tribes and families, of the
heroes of Israel as well as of all its institutions and laws, of all nations
of the earth as well as of the earth and heaven themselves."-Ewald:
History of Israel," i., 81 and 78.
46
NOTE 2 TO CHAPTER IV.
There are three in the Bible: Gen. i.-ii., 4; Gen. ii., 4 ff.;
and Proverbs, iii. 19, 20, with viii. 22–31.
NOTE 3 TO CHAPTER IV.
George Smith ("The Chaldean Account of Genesis ") found tablets
containing the Chaldean version of the creation, which, he says, "so
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281
far as I can judge from the fragment, agrees generally with the ac-
count of the creation in the Book of Genesis, but shows traces of
having originally included very much more matter," (p. 61.)
The parallels are thus summed in the Enc. Britt. (Cosmogony):
"(1) The general arrangement; (2) The introduction of a God
speaking; (3) The notion of the primeval flood; (4) The repeated
eulogy on the previous created work as delightful; and (5) The
mention of the stars as placed to determine the year."
Those who are interested to trace the resemblances and contrasts
between the Hebrew cosmogony and the cosmogonies of other
peoples, may be referred to the following works, readily accessible
to the general reader. Encyclopædia Britannica, Vol. 6, Article Cos-
mogony, gives a good bird's-eye view of the subject. The Begin-
nings of History, by François Lenormant, is one of the latest and best
books upon this topic, and is stored with the results of large learn-
ing. Bible Myths and their Parallels in Other Religions (J. W.
Bouton, New York) condenses the contents of many scholarly and
of some curious and almost inaccessible books, into a convenient
form.'
In successive chapters it presents the more striking parallels found
among various peoples to the Hebrew stories of the Creation and
Fall of Man, The Deluge, The Tower of Babel, The Trial of Abra-
ham's Faith, Jacob's Vision of the Ladder, and other tales found in the
Old Testament beyond the limits of the present book. Valuable
as a classification of the materials bearing on this subject, Bible
Myths is, however, utterly crude and raw in its reasonings; and the
reader should be warned of its entirely untrustworthy character as an
interpreter of the myths it handles. It is a singular exhibition of
the failure of wide reading to form a sound judgment. There is
nothing in all the array of facts which it presents to warrant its atti-
tude toward Christianity. A reasonable conception of Christianity
finds not the slightest difficulty in a recognition of its kinship with
other religions, and in the admission of the natural order of its de-
velopment. The Christian faith is no more emptied of its signifi-
cance by showing its symbols to have developed out of nature-myths
than are any of the great laws of civilization evacuated of their
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NOTES.
reality by being shown to be higher terms of the same laws which
are to be found in lower terms in the animal and vegetable kingdoms.
A flower is none the less a flower because of its roots. See remarks
in Note 12 to this same chapter.
Parents will find in The Childhood of Religions, by Edward Clodd,
an admirable presentation of comparative religion adapted to the
child mind; and in Chapter Second an interesting account of the
Legends of the Past about Creation.
NOTE 4 TO CHAPTER IV.
"That which we read in the first chapter of Genesis is not an
account dictated by God Himself, the possession of which was the
exclusive privilege of the chosen people. It is a tradition whose
origin is lost in the night of the remotest ages, and which all the
great nations of Western Asia possessed in common, with some
variations.
The family of Abraham carried this tra-
dition with it in the migration which brought it from Ur of the Chal-
dees into Palestine.”—“ The Beginnings of History," François Le-
normant, preface, p. xv. Lenormant was a conservative, devout
Catholic-and his admissions carry thus peculiar weight.
He continues: "I shall be asked, Where then do you find the
Divine inspiration of the writers who made this archæology, that
supernatural aid by which as a Christian you must believe them to
have been guided? Where? In the absolutely new spirit which
animates their narration, even though the form of it may have re-
mained in almost every respect the same as among the neighboring
nations," p. xvi.
NOTE 5 TO CHAPTER IV.
"The story of the Creation of Man lends itself very readily to
that interpretation of his place in nature which is suggested by
Mr. Wallace.
"If the views I have endeavored to sustain have any foundation
they give us a new argument for placing man apart, as not only the
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head and culminating point of the grand series of organic nature,
but as in some degree a new and distinct order of being."-" The
Action of Natural Selection on Man, by Alfred Russel Wallace,"
P. 22.
NOTES.
NOTE 6 TO CHAPTER IV.
The vexed question of the historic connection of the Hebrew cycle
of primeval sagas with the Chaldaic Lays of the Beginnings is still
far from being settled. It is too early to pronounce definitely upon
the problem. Whether the Hebrews carried these legends with them
on their migration from Chaldea, in their developed forms; or
whether they learned them from the Babylonian libraries during the
exile, is still undetermined. Scholars divide upon this question, and
much can be said on each side of it. The extent of the references
to these legends in the prophets has been indicated in Chapter II.
There is no doubt that these traditions, in oral or written forms, ex-
isted in Israel at the time of the great prophets. The references are
too slight, however, to prove the form in which the traditions existed.
Among these references there are next to none to the story of
Creation, as embodied in the first of Genesis, until we reach the
Second Isaiah. On the other hand, a considerable portion of these
sagas are found in the Jehovistic document which is now claimed as
the oldest of the great texts of the Pentateuch. I have taken a
media/ing position, as between the two schools; representing the
Hebrews as having carried some of these legends from Chaldea in
crude forms, which were subsequently worked over, in the spirit of
the Jehovist, after communications had been renewed with Chaldea ;
while additions were made to the group of primeval sagas in that
period by the Elohist, thus incorporating into the ancient body of
traditions much new material.
NOTE 7 TO CHAPTER IV.
Biblical references to the stories of the creation and of Paradise
are cited and examined in "Mythology among the Hebrews,'
Goldziher, pp. 324 et seq.
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pa polymede st
NOTES.
NOTE 8 TO CHAPTER IV.
The saga of Eden opens a peculiarly rich field in the study of
comparative religion. Almost every feature of the story is paralleled
in the traditions of other peoples, and its main points form part of
the most ancient legends of man. How closely it followed the
Chaldaic traditions may be seen in Smith ("Chaldean Genesis "). He
gives this cut as a probable representation of the scene of the temp-
tation, taken from very ancient seals, and presenting the familiar hu-
man pair with the tree and the serpent.
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Key Aut
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Maurice ("Indian Antiquities") tells of, a similar representation in an
ancient Hindoo temple. He also describes a representation of Krishnu
stamping on the head of the serpent. Fergusson ("Tree and Serpent
Worship") gives curious accounts of that strangest of ancient worships,
that of the serpent, in its double character of the personification of the
evil principle and of the embodiment of the spirit of wisdom.
The action of the modeller in moulding clay is one of the most com-
mon, as it is one of the simplest conceptions of the divine action in
the creation of man. We meet with it among our own North Ameri-
can Indians as well as among the most ancient people of the East.
We recall from our school-days the story of Prometheus moulding
man out of clay, and of Athênê, the spirit of wisdom or the spirit of
the air, breathing into the maiden formed by Hephaistos the breath
of life. The whole imagery of the legend is familiar to every one
who knows aught of the mythologies of the East.
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NOTE 9 TO CHAPTER IV.
The strong ethical sense which seems to have early developed in
the higher forms of the Chaldean religion, the keen perception of
sin and the profound recognition of the necessity for repentance
made it natural that such a legend should be wrought out among this
people.
285
NOTE 10 TO CHAPTER IV.
'From every indication, this song (Lamech's Song) must be actu-
ally pre-Mosaic, and therefore the most ancient contained in the Old
Testament."-Ewald. Lenormant even says "The most ancient
bit of Semitic literature ;" and as he counts the Semitic traditions older
than the Aryan, he means the oldest song known to us.
"The first unquestionably poetical lines which we meet with in
the Scriptures are woven into a legend of the antediluvian time.
They present a brief address of Lamech, a descendant of the outcast
Cain, to his two wives, Adah and Zillah.
1
Elated by the consciousness of the great advantage which the use
of forged weapons, the work of Tubal Cain, gave to his household,
Lamech speaks boastfully to his consorts, alluding with disparagement
to the divine promise of vengeance for deadly violence which was to
comfort his forlorn ancestor. He, Lamech, is now able to repel and
avenge injury himself, most terribly. He says (Genesis, iv. 23, 24):
"'Adah and Zillah, hear my voice;
wives of Lamech, listen to my speech:
I slay a man for wounding me,
a youth for inflicting a stripe.
Lo, Cain would be avenged twice-sevenfold,
but Lamech seventy-sevenfold.'
Lamech's speech is evidently a fragment of a poem which celebrated
the exploits, or related the fate, of the Cainites; a number of mytho-
logical figures of probably foreign origin having been converted in
Hebrew tradition into historical characters of the antediluvian age."
286
-"The Historical Poetry of the Ancient Hebrews, Translated and
critically examined by Michael Heilprin," vol. i., pp. 1-3.
NOTES.
NOTE IT TO CHAPTER IV.
How profoundly true, e. g., is the passage,
"When the woman
saw," etc., which Newman thus opens: "Our great security against
sin consists in our being shocked at it. Eve gazed and reflected,
when she should have fled." How picturesque is the description,
4
If thou dost not well, sin lieth (as a beast of prey) at the door-
way."
NOTE 12 TO CHAPTER IV.
"The Babylonians recognized two principal races: the Adamic or
dark race, and the Saku or light race; probably in the same manner
that two races are mentioned in Genesis-the sons of Adam and the
sons of God.
It appears incidentally, from the fragments of inscrip-
tions, that it was the race of Adam, or the dark race, which was be-
lieved to have fallen, but there is at present no cluc to the position of.
the other race in their system."-Geo. Smith, Chaldean Account of
Genesis," p. 86.
For Chaldean legends of the Fall, cf. "The Chaldean Account of
Genesis," p. 90.
The association of fratricide with the founding of cities is common
to most ancient traditions. Every one will recall the familiar legend
of Romulus laying the foundation of Rome in the blood of his
brother Remus. The Hebrew myth is to be connected, probably, with
the astronomical sign of the Gemini; in whose month was the month
of brick-making in Chaldea; the period of the year when the soft
clay could be casily worked, and when the warm sun would easily bake
the bricks. There was connected with this tradition the tradition of
the child-god ("I have gotten me a man "), the saviour-genius, whose
symbols are found everywhere; the child Zeus with Rhea, etc. Various
scholars show how common was the association of the idea of passion
and death with the work of this youth-god. Even the cross as the sym-
bol of this idea is not lacking. Thus we can see how the Hebrews found
in their early mythic stories the germ of the idea out of which later
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287
ages evolved a prophecy of the crucified Messiah. We can fairly
well trace these traditions back into solar-myths. The sun arising
for man's help and life, struggling with clouds and tempests, begin-
ning to decline in vigor when in its fulness of power, slowly dying
in the skies and being buried in the deep sea-this familiar daily phe-
nomenon, when read by fresh, child-like minds, easily wrought itself
into such a poem of the bright sun-god. Nor need this evacuate the
myth of the deeper significance into which it grew, and in which it
has become a sacred type of the sacrificial life and death of our Lord
Christ. To him who believes in the unity of nature, the cosmic order
must hold the ethic order in lower and physical terms. Nature's phe-
nomena must be translatable into symbols of the human; and the
spiritual history of man should be expected to reproduce, on its higher
plane, the truths whose shadows were cast before in the material order.
The superiority of the Biblical narrative even when read literally is
apparent from contrasting it with similar traditions of other peoples.
Thus, c. g., the Chaldean account; in which Bel cut off his own head,
and the other gods, after kneading with earth the blood that flowed
from it, formed men.
NOTE 13 TO CHAPTER IV.
"Unquestionably we must recognize here the same four ages of the
world which the old legends, both of the Greeks and of the Hin-
dus, speak. They have all likewise worked out the conception
of a gradual decline of the human race from the primitive perfection
of the first age. . . These facts force us to recognize the traces of a
primary tradition which was given before the separate existence of
such nations as the Hebrews, Grecks, and Hindus, and from which
they all drank in common."-Ewald, vol. i., p. 257.
The four ages are from the Creation to the Deluge, from the Del-
uge to Abraham, from Abraham to Moses, and from Moses on.
These genealogical tables are probably to be regarded as largely myth-
ical relics, and we may look for the key to much that is now ob-
scure therein in the astronomy of the Chaldeans, and the myths born
from it. These tables show the insistent repression of genealogies by
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the Hebrew teachers; their reduction to the briefest and baldest
forms as a means of guarding against the polytheisms connected with
these fabulous heroes.
NOTES.
NOTE 14 TO CHAPTER IV.
The chief points in the very brief mention of Enoch which suggest
his solar character are as follows: The name stands in a genealogical
list which is confessedly a table of fabulous heroes, constructed out of
legends and myths. His name, as Ewald and Goldziher unite in
rendering it, is "The Opener.". This is one of the well-recognized
titles of the Sun, which first opens the womb of night, and thus opens
anew cach morning the life of the world. He lived three hundred
and sixty-five years; as many years as there are days in the year,
His departure from earth is thus told: "He was not, for God took
him;
an indication of a being wrapt away to the skies. Accord-
ingly, in Hebrew tradition, we hear of the ascension of Enoch. Ascen-
sions are always marks of the Sun-myth. Sometimes this character is
more plainly indicated in the legends which have grown around real
historic personages, than in the case of pure solar personifications.
Elijah, a real historic hero, has this myth drawn around his end in
great detail of expression; and we read of his going up into heaven
by the chariot and horses of fire, the ancient symbol of the Sun, fa-
miliar to us moderns in Guido's great picture of Aurora. For further
illustrations concerning this subject, see "Mythology among the He-
brews, by Ignaz Goldziher," pp. 97, 127, 128, etc.
It may be of interest to the thoughtful reader, as illustrating the
growth of a mythic personage into a most influential personality,
to examine the book written under the name of Enoch. This book
was quoted in the New Testament, and by many a sign is proven to
have had a great influence in inspiring and fashioning the Apocalyptic
literature of the Jews in the age immediately preceding Christianity,
and thus to have been a powerful factor in the development of Chris-
tian dogmatics. See the book of "Enoch the Prophet, translated from
an Ethiopic MS. in the Bodleian Library, by the late Richard Lau-
rence, LL.D., Archbishop of Cashel. London : Kegan Paul, Trench
& Co., 1883."
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NOTE 15 TO CHAPTER IV.
The Elohistic account of the Flood is found in-
Chapter VI. 9-22.
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'
IX. 1-17.
See Note 2 to Chapter I.
NOTES.
VII. 6, II, 13-16a, 18-22, 24.
VIII. 1, 2a, 3b-5, 13a, 14-19.
"
289
NOTE 16 TO CHAPTER IV.
If any evidence of this legendary character of the Flood story were
needed, it ought to be found in the description of the state of the
world bringing on the Deluge-the sons of God taking wives of the
daughters of men; and the issue of this mésalliance, a generation of
giants, gigantically wicked; the old fable from our classic readings.
of the Titans, springing from the union of amorous Olympians and
frail women.
NOTE 17 TO CHAPTER IV.
For the universality of the legend of the Deluge, and the curious
forms it has taken, the reader may consult Encyclopædia Britannica,
vol. vii.; Art. Deluge; "The Beginnings of History," Chapter viii.;
"Bible Myths," Chapter ii.
Compare Note 3 to Chapter IV.
NOTE 18 TO CHAPTER IV.
Tablets believed to date from the seventeenth or eighteenth
century B.C., with fragments of this legend, have been exhumed by
George Smith. The legend of course dates far back of that age.
For details of it, cf. "Chaldean Account of Genesis," Chapter xi.
NOTE 19 TO CHAPTER IV.
The "Eleventh Lay," discovered by George Smith, came from the
Library of King Assurbanipal, and dates from about 660 B.C. The
Lay may have been composed between 1000 and 2000 B.C., say
cautious authorities, and the legend of course long antedates that
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290
time. It even seems possible that the Babylonian narrative consisted
of two stories welded together.
"The Jehovistic version of the flood story in Genesis agrees not
only in details, but even in phraseology with that which forms the
Eleventh Lay of the great Babylonian epic."-Ency, Britannica, Art.
Babylon, vol. iii., p. 193.
NOTE 20 TO CHAPTER IV.
'The connection between the doctrine of successive catastrophes
and repeated deteriorations in the moral character of the human race
is more intimate and natural than might at first be imagined."-Lyell,
'Principles of Geology," i. 13.
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NOTE 21 TO CHAPTER IV.
The Accadian Lay of the Deluge fails to bring out the fine sense of
law which is in the Hebrew Covenant, whereby Jehovah ordains that
there shall be no more irregular judgments.
It makes Ea say: "Instead of making a new deluge, let the lions
appear, and let them reduce the number of men," and in like manner
invokes the hyenas, famine and pestilence.
The comparison
between the Flood and Baptism made in the early Church brings out
the Hebrew view of the Deluge-as a new-creating cataclysm."
NOTE 22 TO CHAPTER IV.
"The ascription of the first culture of the vine to Noah only
expresses the honor paid to him as the introducer of a joyous age,
since the growth of the vine was justly esteemed the sign of a higher
civilization."-Ewald, i. 270. But then, why the story of the
drunkenness and its shame? The prophetic spirit early turned against
the sin of intemperance, as we see from the Nazarite order, and prob-
ably used this legend to enforce its protest.
P
•
NOTE 23 TO CHAPTER IV.
George Smith finds in the Izdubar Legends "the history of the
Biblical hero Nimrod. They record the adventures of a famous
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sovereign of Babylonia. He was a great hunter, who contended with
and destroyed the lion, tiger, leopard, and wild bull or buffalo. He
extended his dominion to the Armenian mountains, and one principal
scene of his exploits was the city of Erech, which, according to Gene-
sis, was the second capital of Nimrod."-" Chaldean Account of
Genesis," pp. 169, 182.
Seals of the kings of Accad and Ur have been found, with
devices from these legends, dating from about 2000 B.C.
NOTE I TO CHAPTER V.
Abram stands for a branch of the Terahites; Lot for the Moabites
and Ammonites; Ishmael for the Bedouin tribes of Arabia; Isaac
for Israel and Edom together; Jacob for Israel alone; and his twelve
sons for the tribes of Israel.
NOTES.
NOTE 2 TO CHAPTER V.
Nothing is more certain than that real personages often have
mythic incidents tacked on to their history, and that they even figure
in tales of which the very substance is mythic.
"No one disbelieves in the existence of Solomon because of his
legendary adventure in the Valley of Apes, nor of Attila because he
figures in the Nibelungen Lied. Sir Francis Drake is made not less
but more real to us by the cottage tales which tell how he still leads
the wild hunt over Dartmoor, and rises to his revels when they beat
at Buckland Abbey the drum that he carried round the world. The
mixture of fact and fable in traditions of great men shows that legends
containing monstrous fancy may yet have a basis in historic fact. But,
on the strength of this, the mythologists arranged systematic methods
of reducing legend to history, and thereby contrived at once to stultify
the mythology they professed to explain, and to ruin the history they
professed to develop."-" Primitive Culture, by Edward B. Tylor,"
vol. i., p. 278.
Samson is the most clearly marked example of the accretion of
nature-myth around some historic personage that is to be found in
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292
the Hebrew histories. Steinthal's essay on the Legend of Samson
(1862) practically settled the fact that the story is largely a solar-
myth. He is the Semitic Hercules. The incidents in the narrative
that have most troubled readers proved to be features of a solar-myth
found among different peoples. These points will be found clearly
and amply stated in the essay of Steinthal appended to Goldziher's
Mythology among the Hebrews," pp. 392 ff.
፡፡
NOTE 3 TO CHAPTER V.
It is clear that in Abraham's time not Erech, but Ur was the reign-
ing city, which dominated the whole of Babylonia in the time of
Urukh (or rather Ligbagas, as his name is now read), the great
builder-king, and his son Dungi, whose signet cylinder is now in the
British Museum.
When (as both the Book of Genesis and the monumental history
indicate) the Elamitic power again swept over Western Asia, that
would be in itself an incentive to migration from Ur, whence the
decisive voice of Jehovah summoned Abram and his father toward
Canaan.
In truth, the monumental records entirely agree
with holy Scripture in representing the region between the Persian
Gulf and the Armenian Mountains as the hive of the world, throwing
off successive swarms of various great races; "the cradle of Semitic
civilization," as Dr. Birch writes, "highly civilized and densely pop-
ulated at a time when Egypt was still in its youthful prime."
Ur was a walled town of somewhat oval boundary, some centuries old
at the time of Abram's birth. It was the great port for the commerce
of the Persian Gulf, and had been, as we have said, the capital of Chal-
dæa in the time of the great builder-king Ligbagas, and for some
time afterward at any rate. The city was devoted to the worship of
its chief tutelary deity, the great moon-god, whose huge ziggurat, a
sacred observatory tower of three stages or more upholding the shrine,
oblong in form and ascended by stairs, rose high above the buildings
of the city in its northern quarter. There the royal "monthly prog-
nosticators" kept the night-watches, holding in highest worship the
"light that rules the night," chanting their hymns, casting their
omens, offering sacrifices, receiving votaries, and within the temple-
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bounds holding courts of justice in the name of the king, their sov-
ereign pontiff. The very bricks, made under sacred auspices, were
stamped with the king's devotion: "To Hurki his king, Ligbagas
of Ur his house built, and the wall of Ur built ;" and the like.
NOTES.
Of all the liturgical hymns of Ur, the best preserved of all, and
almost uninjured, is the hymn to the moon-god actually used in the
city of Ur in the carliest times, of which the Akkadian original is
given with its Assyrian translation on a tablet in the British Muscum.
From the French of M. Lenormant we have rendered this incanta-
tion as closely as may be, preserving a somewhat rhythmical cast, in
order to save it from prosaic flatness of effect.
The grammatical construction, fluctuating from the second to the
third person, is preserved.
"Lord! prince of gods of heaven and earth, whose mandate is ex-
alted!
Father! god enlightening earth! Lord! good god, of gods the
prince!
Father! god enlightening earth! Lord! great god, of gods the
prince!
Father! god enlightening earth! Lord god of the month! of gods
the prince!
Father! god enlightening earth! Lord of Ur, of gods the prince!
Father! god enlightening earth! Lord of the alabaster house, of
gods the prince!
Father god enlightening earth! Lord of crowns, duly returning, of
gods the prince!
Father! god enlightening earth! awarder of kingdoms, of gods the
prince!
Father! god enlightening earth! by lowering the proud himself
enlarging, of gods the prince!
Timely crescent mightily horned, doom-dealer,
splen-
did with orb fulfilled!
Self-produced, from his home forth-issuing, pouring evermore plente-
ous streams!
High exalted, all-producing, life unfolding from above!
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Father, he who life reneweth in its circuit through all lands!
Lord in thy godhead far and wide as sky and sea thou spreadst
thine awe!
Warder of shrines in (Akkad's) land and prophet of their high
estate !
Gods' sire and men's, of childhood guide (?), even Ishtar's self thou
didst create!.
Primeval seer, rewarder (sole) fixing the doom of days remote,
Unshaken chief, whose heart benign is never mindful of thy
wrongs:
Whose blessings cease not, ever flowing, leading on his fellow
gods.
Who from depth to height, bright piercing, openeth the gate of
heaven!
Father mine, of life the giver, cherishing, beholding (all) !
Lord who power benign extendeth over all the heaven and earth!
Seasons (?) rains, from heaven forth-drawing; watching life and
yielding showers !
Thou! thy will upon the earth to me by deeds
declare !
Who in heaven is high exalted? Thou! sublime is thy behest!
Who on earth is high exalted? Thou! sublime is thy behest!
Thou thy will in heaven revealest; (thee) celestial spirits (praise !)
Thou thy will on earth revcalest; thou subdu'st the spirits of
earth!
Thou! thy will in heaven as the luminous æther shines!
:
thou dost
Thou! thy will extendeth life in greatness, hope, and wonder wide!
Thou thy will itself gives being to the righteous dooms of men!
Thou through heaven and earth extendest goodness, not remember-
ing wrong
!
Thou! thy will who knoweth? Who with aught can it compare?
Lord! in heaven and earth thy lordship of the gods none equals
thee!"
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44
We have seen that in the hymn to the moon-god he was invoked
as Lord of Rest." This must refer to the Sabbath-rest, the new
moons and Sabbaths having been ever very closely connected. “The
Sabbath-rest was known," writes Mr. Sayce, “to the Accadians, who
had been led by their astronomical observations to set apart the
seventh, fourteenth, twenty-first, and twenty-eighth days of the
month, as days of sulum, or rest, on which certain works were for-
bidden."
It is clear that when Abram was brought up in his father's house at
Ur of the Chaldees, the seventh day was a sacred day of rest; and
the very word sulum, which is, I suppose, equivalent to the Hebrew
shalom, is fragrant with thoughts of peace, salutation, benediction,
and salvation.
This, then, is the scenery in which we are to picture the childhood
and rising life of Abram in the house of Terakh his father, in a city
renowned and venerated with especial honor, the sanctuary of a
splendid religion, the mart and haven of a thriving commerce, the
walled fortress of a royal military system, of which, indeed, it was the
exposed western outpost across the boundary of the great river, and,
as we have before noticed, open to the pastures and the wild spaces
of the Arabian deserts." Studies on the Times of Abraham, by the
Rev. Henry George Tompkins," pp. 2 ff. (Bagster & Sons, London.)
NOTE 4 TO CHAPTER V.
"Little as we are able to prove all the details of that migration
from the north toward Egypt, which probably continued for centu-
ries, it may with great certainty be conceived as, on the whole, sim-
ilar to the gradual advance of many other northern nations; as of
the Germans toward Rome."-Ewald, i. 309.
NOTE 5 TO CHAPTER V.
"Two of the oldest Egyptian papyri that have been translated
have a bearing on this episode. The one tells us that under the
twelfth dynasty the wife and children of a foreigner were confiscated
1
↓
296
as a matter of course, and became the property of the king. The
other tells of a Pharaoh who, acting on the advice of his princes,
sent around men to fetch a beautiful woman by force and then make
away with her husband."-" Hand-Book for Bible Classes: Genesis ;
Marcus Dods," p. 60,
NOTES.
NOTE 6 TO CHAPTER V.
44
There are traces, not clearly worked out as yet, that the tradition
of Abraham and Chedorlaomer refers to an action of a much grander
scale than is suggested in the story. Sir Henry Rawlinson, in his
notes to Herodotus, thinks that he can identify this Chedorlaomer
with a Kudar-mapula, a military hero of Chaldea, known in Baby-
lonian inscriptions as The Ravager of the West," who, with
allied or tributary powers, swept over the western countries about
the supposed time of Abraham. The points he makes are as follows:
(1) The names are substantially the same. (2) Their lives are con-
temporary. (3) The Assyrian records indicate the entrance of an
Elamite monarch on the Chaldean throne at this time. (4) The
records give him the credit of just the deeds ascribed by Scripture to
Chedorlaomer. (5) The Scriptures indicate his superiority as com-
plete over the confederate kings.
Another account of this interesting conjecture will be found in
Rev. George Rawlinson's " Historical Illustrations of the Old Testa-
ment,” pp. 37-40. The Chaldean's name is there given as Kudur-
Lagamer-a much closer resemblance to the Biblical name.
In the light of such probabilities we see anew how much grander
and more important these traditions really are than we might sup-
pose from the modesty of Genesis.
-
NOTE 7 TO CHAPTER V.
Circumcision was certainly practised in Egypt before the immigra-
tion of the Hebrews, as we know from the monuments of that land.
It was observed of old among the Arabians. It has been in use in
Africa, in South America, etc.
44
Circumcision was an economical recognition of the divine owner-
ship of human life; a part of the body being sacrificed to preserve
{
NOTES.
297
the remainder. It can scarcely be doubted that it was a sacrifice to
the awful Power on whom the fruit of the womb depended; and
having once fixed itself in the minds of the people, neither priest
nor prophet could eradicate it. All that these could do was to spir-
itualize it into a symbol of devotion to a high religious ideal."-En-
cyclopedia Britannica-" Circumcision."
NOTE 8 TO CHAPTER V.
<<
By various paths we arrive at one and the same conclusion.
Originally Jahveh was a god of light or of the sun, and the heat of
the sun and consuming fire were considered to proceed from him and
to be ruled by him. In accordance with this, Jahveh was conceived
by those who worshipped him to be a severe being inaccessible to
mankind, whom it was necessary to propitiate with sacrifices and
offerings, and even with human sacrifices."-"The Religion of Is-
rael, by Dr. A. Kuenen," i. 247.
NOTE 9 TO CHAPTER V.
Interesting information concerning human sacrifices among the
different races of man will be found in the "Origin and Develop-
ment of Religious Belief," by S. Baring Gould, Part I., chapter 18.
A graphic delineation of the experience prompting to the offering
of a child in sacrifice is found in the "Epic of Hades;" Tantalus-
from which an extract is given :
، ،
For my stained soul,
Knowing its sin, hastened to purge itself
With every rite and charm which the dark law
Of priest-craft offered to it. Spells obscene,
The blood of innocent babes, sorceries foul
Muttered at midnight-these could occupy
My weary days; till all my people shrank
To see me, and the mother clasped her child
Who heard the monster pass.
"They would not hear,
They listened not-the cold ungrateful gods-
T
{
}
298
!
NOTES.
Noz
}
For all my supplications; nay, the more
I sought them were they hidden.
'At the last
A dark voice, whispered nightly: Thou, poor wretch,
That art so sick and impotent, thyself
The source of all thy misery, the great gods
Ask a more precious gift and excellent
Than alien victims which thou prizest not
And givest without a pang. But shouldst thou take
Thy costliest and fairest offering
"Twere otherwise. The life which thou hast given
Thou mayst recall. Go, offer at the shrine
Thy best beloved Pelops, and appease
Zeus and the averted gods, and know again
The youth and joy of yore.'
C4
Night after night,
While all the halls were still, and the cold stars
Were fading into dawn, I lay awake
Distraught with warring thoughts, my throbbing brain
Filled with that dreadful voice. I had not shrunk
From blood, but this, the strong son of my youth-
How should I dare this thing? And all day long
I would steal from sight of him and men, and fight
Against the dreadful thought, until the voice
Seared all my burning brain,'and clamored, 'kill!
Zeus bids thee, and be happy.' Then I rose
At midnight, when the halls were still, and raised
The arras, and stole soft to where my son
Lay sleeping. For one moment on his face
And stalwart limbs I gazed, and marked the rise
And fall of his young breast, and the soft plume
Which drooped upon his brow, and felt a thrill
Of yearning; but the cold voice urging me
Burned me like fire. Three times I gazed and turned
Irresolute, till last it thundered at me,
C
*
t
1
NOTES.
'Strike, fool! thou art in hell; strike, fool! and lose
The burden of thy chains.' Then with slow step
I crept as creeps the tiger on the deer,
Raised high my arm, shut close my eyes, and plunged
My dagger in his heart.
4.
And then, with a flash,
The veil fell downward from my life and left
Myself to me-the daily sum of sense-
The long continual trouble of desire-
The stain of blood blotting the stain of lust-
The weary foulness of my days, which wrecked
My heart and brain, and left me at the last
A madman and accursed; and I knew,
Far higher than the sensual slope which held
The gods whom erst I worshipped, a white peak
Of Purity, and a stern voice pealing doom-
Not the mad voice of old-which pierced so deep
Within my life, that with the reeking blade
Wet with the heart's blood of my child I smote
My guilty heart in twain.
ME
"Ah! fool, to dream
That the long stain of time might fade and merge
In one poor chrism of blood. They taught of yore,
My priests who flattered me-nor knew at all
The greater God I know, who sits afār
Beyond those earthly shapes, passionless, pure,
And awful as the Dawn-that the gods cared
For costly victims, drinking in the stream
Of sacrifice when the choice hecatombs
Were offered for my wrong. Ah no! there is
No recompense in these, nor any charm
To cleanse the stain of sin, but the long wear
Of suffering, when the soul which seized too much
Of pleasure here, grows righteous by the pain
Which doth redress its wrong."
299
}
1
|
300
NOTE I TO CHAPTER VI.
(C
Ewald thinks that these traditions formed originally a Circle of
the Twelve Types," which we possess only in an imperfect form. He
groups them as now existent into a seven-fold arrangement:
I. Of the Father.
"
NOTES.
1
2. Of the Wife.
3. Of the Child.
4. Of Marriage.
5. Of Polygamy.
6. Of the Nurse.
7. Of the Servant.
44
'History of Israel," i., 290, etc.
NOTE I TO CHAPTER VII.
In sketching the lower phases of prophecy, Ewald points out that
'it need not create any further surprise if the prophet is misled to
look increasingly to external aids and excitements instead of to the
acuteness and vitality of the spirit, and if through the use of such
means he is reduced to the necessity of first putting himself into a
tolerable or apparent prophetic mood.". "Prophets of the Old Tes-
tament," i. 20.
A g
NOTE 2 TO CHAPTER VII.
"The western slopes of the ridge are crossed by the track which the
thoroughfare of centuries has worn in the central route of Palestine.
This track winds through an uneven valley, covered, as the grave-
stones, by large sheets of rare rocks; some few here and there
standing up like the cromlechs of Druidical monuments."-Stanley,
"Sinai and Palestine," p. 216.
"In approaching Bethel, the hillsides presented frequently such an
exact resemblance to the steps of a stair, that it may have been from
them that the vision of Jacob's dream was borrowed."-Hanna,
"The Patriarchs," quoted in Dod's "Hand-Book on Genesis," p.
121.
NOTES.
301
NOTE 3 TO CHAPTER VII.
"As in later times the fortress on these heights of Gilead became
the frontier post of Israel against the Aramaic tribe that occupied
Damascus, so now the same line of heights became the frontier be-
tween the nation in its youth and the older Aramaic family of Meso-
potamia. As now the confines of the Arab tribes are marked by the
rude cairn or pile of stones erected at the boundary of their respect-
ive territories, so the pile of stones and the tower or pillar erected by
the two tribes of Jacob and Laban, marked that the natural limit of
the range of Gilead should be their actual limit also.
"The variation of the dialects of the two tribes appears also for the
first and last time in the two names of the memorial. The sacrifi-
cial feast of the covenant was made on the mountain top; and early
in the morning Laban rose up and kissed his sons and his daughters,
and blessed them; and Laban departed and returned to his place;
and in him and his tribe, as they sweep out of sight into the Eastern
Desert, we lose the last trace of the connection of Israel with the
Chaldean Ur or the Mesopotamian Haran."-Stanley, "Lectures on
the History of the Jewish Church," i. 68.
NOTE 4 TO CHAPTER VII.
"Every incident and word is fraught with a double meaning; in
every instance, earthly and spiritual images are put one over against
the other, hardly to be seen in the English version, but in the original
clearly intended."-Stanley, "Jewish Church," i. 70.
The prophets in the time of Hosea interpreted the story as we now
do:
"He had power over the angel and prevailed: he wept and
made supplication unto him."-Hosea, xii. 4.
Before the account of the wrestle, the narrative has a noble prayer
of Jacob, a cry from the depths of his distress, unaccompanied by
any sacrifice; which, like the sublime intercession of Abraham with
Jehovah on behalf of Sodom, betrays in this the hand of a late age.
It was not until the exile that prayer alone, apart from sacrifice, be-
came a recognized form of worship.
ނ
1
302
I
•
NOTES.
เ
NOTE I TO CHAPTER VIII.
“In the patriarchial life the next of kin is an important personage.
To him the tribe looks to avenge a kinsman's death or misfortune;
on him the widow and the fatherless depend for support; he it is who
inherits the property of the deceased in default of direct heirs-if
indeed he be not, under the archaic system, the heir himself; he,
when the heir is young, manages for him such property as he may
possess. After the transition to agricultural life various causes com-
bine to bring about the decadence of this importance. The aveng-
ing of blood is superseded by the police regulations of the commune;
the widow and fatherless become the care of the commune; and the
control of the heir's property passes into simple trusteeship.
Three duties of the Goel still exist in the Hebrew law books, viz.:
the duties of avenging blood, of raising up seed to a kinsman, and
of redeeming the forfeited share of a kinsman in the common land.
The raising of seed to a deccased kinsman is an interesting
survival of a still earlier custom. Its foundation is the religious de-
sire for children qualified to offer sacrifices for the repose of the
dead. . . . As soon as the village community began to break up into
private estates, and descent to children thereby acquired strength,
compliance with the obligation became equivalent to cutting one's
self off from the succession, a stage which is indicated in Ruth, iv. 6.
This, and the disintegration of family life which follows upon it,
renders it impossible to call upon kinsmen of a remote kind to fulfil
the duty, and thus arises that special form of the custom known as
the levirate, where the duty is confined to the brother-in-law of the
widow. . . . In this story there appears not only the custom of de-
scent in the female line, but the custom of levirate and also the joint
family life. . . . The neglect of Judah to marry Tamar to the next of
kin to the deceased Ur was really the neglect of a religious duty.
But in the joint family life Judah was the head of the house and
accordingly the duty which Judah had neglected to have performed
by the intervening kinsman devolved upon himself. Tamar,
therefore, was legally in the right, according to the feeling of
those times, in looking to Judah as the one by whom, either
per alium or per se, her right should be recognized. Nor was there,
•
303
under the archaic rule, any bar to her union with Judah, seeing there
was no maternal kinship between them. A sacred obligation had
fallen upon the head of the house, and since he showed no disposi-
tion to comply with it, Tamar had exerted herself to fulfil the duty.
From this point of view Tamar's action was honorable; nor can one
withhold one's admiration from the wit of the lady who so inge-
niously diverted the weaknesses of her kinsman to the attainment of
an end which, in those days, was in the eyes of all men, emphatically
righteous. Early Hebrew Life: A Study in Sociology, by John
Fenton," p. 49.
""
((
J
NOTES.
NOTE 2 TO CHAPTER VIII.
The British Museum possesses a papyrus in the hieratic character,
containing a tale known as "The Tale of Two Brothers.
<< It was
composed by a scribe named Anna for Siti II., son of Mincptah II.,
of the Nineteenth Dynasty, when he was crown prince. Though
the latter part goes off into a purely imaginative fairy tale, the first
portion has so wonderful a resemblance to the story of Joseph and
Potiphar's wife, as to allow of little doubt that the scribe worked up
into his tale an incident which would naturally be recorded, together
with the whole history of Joseph, in the annals of the Egyptian
court."-Brugsch-Bey, Hist. of Egypt,” i. 309.
""
<<
>>
"
In a rabbinical rendering of the story of Joseph's temptation, given
by Baring-Gould, there is an account of the secret of his victory that
holds a fine thought. In the moment of temptation, the form of
his father Jacob appeared in the window or doorway, and thus ad-
dressed him: 'Joseph! hereafter the names of thy brothers engraven
on gems shall adorn the breastplate of the High Priest, and shall
thine be absent from among them.' Then Joseph dug his ten
fingers into the ground and so conquered himself."-"Legends of the
Patriarchs and Prophets," p. 233.
NOTE 3 TO CHAPTER VIII.
Among the countless representations with which the hall of sac-
rifice is adorned, the greatest consideration and regard is due to the
?
}
I
NOTES.
304
scene, historically so interesting, of the entry of a strange race into
Egypt. A Semitic family, belonging to the great people of the
Amu, had left their native land, in the days when Usurtasen II.
ruled as king in Egypt, to migrate to the blessed banks of the Nile.
The immigrants numbered thirty-seven persons, consisting of men,
women, and children, who are represented standing before our
Khnumhotep, to testify to him their high esteem according to their
manner, and, as it appears, to beg for a gracious reception in the ter-
ritory of his name.
Behind him appears, standing
in the place of honor, the head of the foreign race, or, as
the inscription above the picture designates him,
'the Haq
(prince or chieftain) of the land of Abesha.' This name is of
pure Semitic complexion, and recalls to mind Abishai, the sister's
son of King David, who particularly recommended himself to his
uncle by his skill as a general. Our Abesha approaches, full of
respect to the person of Khnumhotep-who is accompanied by ‘the
eldest son that God gave (him)' of the same name-and offers him
as a 'baksheesh,' or present, a magnificent wild goat of the species
still met with on the rocks of the Peninsula of Sinai. Behind their
chieftain appear, rank by rank, bearded men, armed with spears,
bows, and clubs, women in the bright-colored dress of the Amu, with
their children, and asses laden with the goods and chattels of the im-
migrants, who turn curious eyes on the distinguished Egyptian lord
Khnumhotep, whilst a member of the little band seems to call forth
with the plectrum harmonious tones from his lyre of antique form.
T
‘Thus far the remarkable picture of Benni-Hassen may serve as an
illustration of the history of the immigration of the sons of Jacob
into Egypt; only we must guard ourselves against falling into the
strange error of wishing to discover in this picture a direct reference
to the account in the Holy Scriptures."-"History of Egypt under the
Pharaohs Henry Brugsch-Bey," i. 177, etc.
NOTE 4 TO CHAPTER VIII.
"The land of Edom and the neighboring hill country of Se'ir
formed the home of the principal tribes of the Shasu, who in the
}
NOTES.
305
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries before our era left their mountains
to invade Egypt sword in hand, or in a peaceful manner, followed by
their flocks and herds, to beg sustenance for themselves and their
cattle, and to seek an entrance into the rich pastures of the land of
Succoth. It was evidently famine that drove them to the rich corn-
lands of the favored Delta, where they took up their temporary abode
in the tent-camps near their brethren of the same race, who had be-
come settled inhabitants.
"As in the neighborhood of the city of Ramses and the town of
Pitom the Semitic population formed, we may say, the main stock of
the inhabitants from remote antiquity, and as subjects of Pharaoh
were obedient to the laws of the empire, so, in course of time, un-
welcome neighbors settled on another part of the eastern borders in
the neighborhood of Pibailos (the Bilbeis of our modern maps), close
on the edge of the desert and in sight of the cultivated land, and
pitched their tents where they found pasture for their cattle. They
were Bedouins, who in all probability roamed through the dreary
desert in a north-westerly direction, by the difficult paths of the great
papyrus marsh near the present town of Suez, to find the goal of
their wanderings near the town of Pibailos. Mineptah II., the son
and successor of Ramses II., gives on his monument of victory at
Karnak a graphic account of the dangerous character of these unbid-
den guests, to whom the way lay open from Pibailos to On and Mem-
phis, for the king's predecessors had not deemed it worth their while
to establish fortresses to hinder the approach of these strangers
to the most important cities of the lower country.
Mineptah II. saw himself obliged to take needful precautions for
the safety of the land. For the protection of the eastern frontier,
the capitals On and Memphis were provided with the necessary forti-
fications, for, as the eloquent inscription expressly says, the foreigners
had pitched their ahil, or tents, before the town of Pibailos, etc.
"In fact, the supposition that it was under the Hyksôs that Joseph
was sold into Egypt, and afterward rose to great honor, as resulting
from the chronological relations we have explained, obtains a new
foundation of probability in a Christian tradition preserved by
Georgius Syncellus. According to this tradition, 'received by the
20
NOTES.
306
whole world,' Joseph ruled the land in the reign of King Aphophis
(the Apopi of the monuments), whose age preceded the commence-
ment of the Eighteenth Dynasty by only a few years."-Brugsch-
Bey, "History of Egypt," i. 250, 300.
"If the shepherds who conquered Egypt had not been Semitic,
and closely related to the Hebrews, Manetho would not have made
them the ancestors of the Hebrews, and founders of Jerusalem after
their expulsion from Egypt."—"History of Antiquity: Duncker," i. 127.
"Four sphinxes of unique type were uncovered at San, one of
which is in the museum of Bulak. These are sculptured with ex-
treme vigor, but quite different in style from the Egyptian treatment.
Instead of the fully developed human head royally adorned, the
faces are compassed by a vast and shaggy mane, rayed round the
visage with a hairy fringe, from out of which look the stern features,
royally distinguished by the Egyptian basilisk-crest above the fillet
or diadem bound across the hard brow, and by the square-cut beard
below; both marking, I imagine, a later Hyksôs-date than the fish-
offerers and the Ludovisi head. And what a front is this! as full of
gnarled strength as the great sphinx of Gizeh is instinct with super-
human serenity. The brows are knit with anxious care, the full but
small eyes seem to know no kindly light; the nose, of fine profile
curve, yet broad and square in form, has its strongly-chiselled nos-
trils depressed in accordance with the saddened lines of the lower
cheek. The lips are thick and prominent, but not with the unmean-
ing fulness of the Negro; quite the opposite. The curve is fine, the
Cupid's bow' perfect which defines so boldly the upper outline; the
channelled and curved upper lip has even an expression of proud
sensitiveness, and there is more of sorrow than of fierceness in the
down-drawn angles of the mouth.
"To look at these strange forms,' writes Mariette-Bey, one
divines that we have under our eyes the products of an art which is
not purely Egyptian, but which is not exclusively foreign either, and
one concludes that the sphinxes of Avaris (San) may well offer the
immense interest of being of the time of the Hyksôs themselves." "-
"Studies on the Times of Abraham: Henry George Tomkins,"
p. 138.
NOTES.
307
NOTE 5 TO CHAPTER VIII.
Wilkinson quotes Diodorus as saying that the Egyptians "rented
the arable lands belonging to the king, the priests, and the military
class, for a small sum ;" and adds, "this is shown by the paintings of
the tombs; which frequently represent a person of consequence in-
specting the tillage of the field, either seated in a chariot, walking, or
leaning on his staff, accompanied by a favorite dog."-" The Ancient
Egyptians," ii. 4.
¡
NOTE 6 TO CHAPTER VIII.
"Another phenomenon confirms us in this conviction. Jahveh is
called in the Old Testament, rock (çoer), rockstone (selá), stone (ében).
How these names are used will appear best from the following series
of passages: (1) Isa. xxx. 29 (here Jahveh is called 'the rock of Is-
rael'); Deut. xxxii. 4, 15, 18, 30, 31, 37; Ps. xviii. 3; xxvii. 5; xxviii.
I; xxxi. 3, etc.; 2 Sam. xxiii. 3. (2) Ps. xviii. 3; xxxi. 4; xlii. 10;
lxxi. 3. (3) Gen. xlix. 24 (where, according to Kohler's amendment,
P. 78 sqq., we must read:
by the hands of the strong one
of Jacob, by the arms of the stone of Israel'). We notice at once
that all these writers speak figuratively on account of its firmness
and durability, rock seems to them a fitting image for Jahveh, in whom
Israel can safely and unreservedly confide. Stone-worship, in the
sense explained above, is out of the question here. But it is not un-
reasonable to assume that the stone-worship gave rise to the use, or at
least to the frequent use of this image; if this or that rock' was
worshipped by some as a god, the Jahvists were very likely to call
Jahveh emphatically 'their rock,' or the 'rock of Israel.'
Let it, at the same time, be kept in view that the poet of Gen. xlix.
-who lived in the period of the Judges, or in David's reign-and,
a fortiori, the later writers, were fully conscious of speaking metaphor-
ically in calling Jahveh a 'rock.' Therefore the period of the stone-
worship lies farther back than their times."-Kuenen, "Religion of
Israel," i. 394.
"After that,
NOTE 7 TO CHAPTER VIII.
Baring-Gould gives another fine tradition of Joseph:
Jacob went down into Egypt that he might see his son Joseph before
}
NOTES.
}
308
he died. And when they met, they fell on one another's neck and
wept, and kissed; and Jacob said to his son, 'Tell me, I pray thee,
what evil thy brothers did to thee?' But Joseph answered, 'Nay,
my father, I will tell thee only how great good the Lord did to me.
-"Legends of the Patriarchs and Prophets," p. 241.
NOTE 8 TO CHAPTER VIII.
In his admirable Primer on the History of the Religion of Israel,
Prof. Toy gives the following clear and compact description of the
life of the Hebrews in the period which we have been considering in
our study of Genesis :
"In historical times the Semites occupied Western Asia, from the
Tigris-Euphrates valley (Mesopotamia) to the Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb.
But in still earlier times a large part of them dwelt, along with other
nations, in Mesopotamia and the adjoining country, and here proba-
bly lived the ancestors of the Hebrews. In those days it was not
unusual for tribes to leave their country and seek other abodes, where
they could have more room and more easily find sustenance, just as
people came and still come from Europe to settle in America, and as
now many persons go to the west of this country to live. So, at a
very early date, one Semitic tribe travelled away and settled on the
shores of the Mediterranean Sea, and founded the cities of Sidon and
Tyre; these were the Phoenicians. Not far from the same time other
Semitic tribes came into the same region, and took possession of the
land of Canaan, expelling or destroying the people they found there.
These new-comers were the tribes that are called Canaanites in the Old
Testament; such as the Jebusites, the Amorites, the Hivites, and the
Perizzites. They dwelt in Sodom and Gomorrah, and many other
citics. Probably about the same time came the Philistines, who
were somehow connected with the Canaanites; but it is uncer-
tain from what region they entered Canaan. Who the older tribes
who preceded the Canaanites in this land were, we do not know.
Some time after the Canaanites had settled there, perhaps about the
ycar B.C. 2000, came another migration, that of the tribes that we
call Hebrews. Besides the Israelites, this group of tribes included
the Edomites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, and, perhaps, the Am-
NOTES.
309
alekites and some others. Probably these did not all come at the
same time.
It is likely that the Israelites themselves were made up
of several different though closely related bodies of immigrants, who,
in the course of centuries, were welded together into one nation; for
a long time after they settled in Canaan, Judah and Ephraim held
aloof from each other, and quarrels and wars often occurred between
them. At first the Hebrews wandered about with their flocks and
herds in the southern half of Canaan, and, perhaps, in the country
east of the Jordan. Gradually the tribes settled down in various
parts of the land, all except the Israelites, who, as we shall see, before
they came to rest in permanent habitations, were to spend some time
on the borders of Egypt. During this period of wandering or no-
madic life they had no regular government. Each small tribe had its
chief, and probably each subdivision of a tribe had its elders, who ex-
ercised a sort of control over its movements, and administered justice.
The laws in use were, no doubt, such as we commonly find among
the wandering tribes of the desert. For the most part, each man had
to look out for himself. If a man was killed, his next of kin had the
right and was expected to kill the slayer. The penalty of theft was
double or fourfold restitution. Property consisted wholly of flocks
and herds. There were no books among them: whether they were
acquainted with writing is doubtful. Purchases of goods were made
frequently by barter, though it is not unlikely that they had money
of uncoined silver which was estimated by weight. The best picture
of their life is to be found in that of the wandering tribes of the Ara-
bian desert to-day. We should not expect that the religion of
such half-civilized tribes would be very pure. God had great de-
signs for these Israelites in after years they were to become the
teachers of the world in the knowledge of God; he was to lead them
along a wonderful way. But their growth was to be slow. As it re-
quired many ages for our earth to reach a condition in which it should
be habitable for man, so it required many centuries before the re-
ligion of Israel attained the form in which it could minister to man's
highest needs, and prepare the way for Jesus the Christ. Before
reaching full age the people had to pass through childhood; and it is
of its childhood that we are now speaking-we might say of its
كم
NOTES.
310
infancy. At this stage of its life, Israel differed hardly at all, at least
in outward appearance, from its heathen neighbors. All these tribes
had formerly worshipped stocks and stones-dead things in which they
believed gods dwelt. The Israelites had almost outgrown this, but
still they had the custom of setting up sacred stones, and worshipping
under sacred trees, as the Druids in England used to do. Old habits
cling long to nations, as they do to us all. However, the Israelites
had by this time got to the worship of gods who were mostly con-
nected with the visible heavens and the heavenly bodies.
This was
idolatry, but it was better than worshipping stones. The broad sky,
the terrible thunder-storm, the sun, the moon, the stars-all
these suggested to them divinities who dwelt in and governed
these objects. We know very little about the names and characters
of these gods. 'El' was probably a general name for divine per-
sons. One deity seems to have been called Elyon, which means
'high;' another, Shaddai, the 'mighty,' or the 'destroyer.' There
was, perhaps, a Gad, the god of fortune; and an Asher, the god of
prosperity. Perhaps, too, at this time, they worshipped Yahwe (Je-
hovah), who afterward became their only God. Like all other ancient
nations, they sacrificed to the gods, the offerings being animals (sheep,
goats, bullocks, calves, pigeons), or wheat, oil, and wine. Priests,
also, perhaps they had, though it is likely that every father of a family
acted as priest in his own household. They had no temple, but built
altars wherever they chose. Their worship was of the simplest kind,
and they had no sacred books.' History of the Religion of Israel,
An Old Testament Primer, by Crawford H. Toy," pp. 9-11.
J
J
NOTE I TO CHAPTER IX.
TAYLER LEWIS ON REVELATION AS THE HISTORIC GROWTH OF THE
HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS.
Prof. Tayler Lewis in his introduction to the Book of Job in
Lange's Commentary, p. 4, says:
"From the doctrine of the being, personality, moral government,
and moral sovereignty of God, were to grow out all other religious
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NOTES.
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ideas. Under the divine direction of human history, and especially
of the people who were chosen to be keepers of truth for the world,
their development in the soul was to be their revelation.'
>>
At p. 173 in a note on Job, xix.: 25-27, (“I know that my Re-
deemer liveth"), he remarks: "that the true force of the passage, as
testimony, would seem actually weakened by overstraining it into a
dogmatic teaching or anticipation of the New Testament doctrine of
the resurrection. This would involve the idea of an outward super-
natural revelation, made directly by an outward divine influence upon
the mind; for Job could not have thought of it otherwise. The
other supposes it an idea brought out of him in his extreme anguish,
his experience of the vanishing body with the soul yet vigorous, and
his strong yearning after the reconciled presence of God. It is such
a sudden flashing up of hope as might be believed to come from
such a state. The Scripture has also more power for us in this way,
when we feel its revelations to be thus brought out of the depths of the
soul-revelations all the more divine by being thus, in Goa's providence,
pressed out of the human, than if they had been outwardly and me-
chanically given as dogmatic truths.”
I
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