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 THE CULTURE OF 
 
 * 
 
 ANCIENT ISRAEL 
 
 BY 
 
 CARL HEINRICH CORNILL 
 
 PROFESSOR OF OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF HALLE 
 
 CHICAGO LONDON 
 
 THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING CO. 
 
 1914
 
 COPYRIGHT BY 
 
 THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING CO. 
 I94
 
 ZtVB 
 
 0. 
 
 UJ 
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Rise of the People of Israel (Translated by A. H. Gun- 
 
 logsen) . . 1 
 
 Moses, the Founder of Monotheistic Religion (Translated 
 
 by Lydia G. Robinson) 38 
 
 The Education of Children in Ancient Israel (Translated 
 
 by W. H. Carruth) 68 
 
 Music in the Old Testament (Translated by Lydia G. 
 
 Robinson) 101 
 
 The Psalms in Universal Literature (Translated by W. H. 
 
 Carruth) 133 
 
 Index . . 163
 
 m 
 
 RISE OF THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL. 
 
 A^Y one wishing to speak upon the history of 
 the people of Israel must regard himself as 
 particularly favored, from the very nature of the 
 subject itself. To all of us Abraham and Moses, 
 Saul and David, and the others of whatever name, 
 are like dear old acquaintances. These, in fact, are 
 among the first impressions which the susceptible 
 minds of children receive, and the unique magic of 
 religious poetry that clings to these legends always 
 deeply and ineffaceably impresses itself upon their 
 youthful hearts; and even he who has long since 
 forgotten to look upon the Bible with the eyes of 
 faith, nevertheless will not be able to wipe out alto- 
 gether those tender youthful memories. 
 
 Accordingly, I may anticipate a general interest 
 in and, at least in its broad outlines, assume a certain 
 general knowledge of the subject to be treated. 
 Still, on the other hand, this knowledge is not so 
 complete that I may not hope to be able to show 
 those old and well-known forms in a new light, and 
 through the accumulation of various details and the 
 revelation of a grand historical inward connection,
 
 2 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 to work them into well-colored and realistic histor- 
 ical pictures. 
 
 Indeed, what an astonishing wealth and variety 
 of separate material is here ready at hand! The 
 history of the people of Israel, in fact, shares with 
 the common and many-sided life of humanity the 
 eminent quality of being interesting at whatever 
 point we may touch it. We may turn our attention 
 to characters more particularly belonging to political 
 history and we shall behold Saul, David, Ahab; or 
 to the heroes of the soul, and we shall encounter 
 Moses, Samuel, Elijah. We behold the ruin of the 
 people as a political nation through Babylonian con- 
 quest, and the resurrection of the people as a relig- 
 ious sect through Ezra and Nehemiah. The ideal 
 heroical figures of the early Maccabees justly awaken 
 our admiration, and even their degenerate descend- 
 ants, during the period of the people's decadence, 
 are themselves not altogether destitute of a certain 
 attraction. The truculent grandeur of a King Herod, 
 and the appalling extermination of the nation by the 
 Roman sword the most heartrending catastrophe, 
 perhaps, that history ever has witnessed fitly close 
 this grand historical panorama, in which on every 
 side and at all times we are confronted by entrancing 
 phenomena, arousing all our interest. 
 
 From out of this superabundant wealth of ac- 
 cumulated materials I shall select particularly the 
 rise of the people of Israel and of its national or- 
 ganization ; and as legitimate ground for this prefer- 
 ence of mine I may remark that it accords perfectly
 
 RISE OF THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL. 3 
 
 with the predominant trait of our century and of its 
 science, to investigate precisely the origins of organ- 
 isms, and to explain all the most hidden processes 
 in the life and action of nature; for the nations of 
 the earth may likewise be regarded as organisms. 
 Still, my principal motive in choosing this part of 
 the subject was the hope of being able to contribute 
 results regarding this very epoch which are least 
 known. In fact, since the grand work of Heinrich 
 Ewald, signalizing an epoch in these researches, 
 science has not achieved more for any era of the 
 history of the people of Israel than for the history 
 of its primitive existence. Our present subject, ac- 
 cordingly, expressed in popular language, will em- 
 brace the period from Abraham to David, as related 
 in the Pentateuch and in the books of Joshua, Judges 
 and Samuel. 
 
 The usual exposition is to the effect that Abraham 
 went forth from the land of Haran into Canaan in 
 order to settle there. In the fourth generation after 
 him his descendants migrated to Egypt. In the lat- 
 ter country for a long period they led a quiet and 
 peaceful life until the unbearable oppression of the 
 Egyptians drove them out of the country. Their 
 leader, Moses, by birth a Hebrew yet thoroughly 
 imbued with Egyptian culture, led them through the 
 desert and across the peninsula of Sinai, back to 
 the land of their fathers. Moses conquered the land 
 to the east of the Jordan, Joshua the land to the west 
 of that river ; the latter almost entirely exterminated 
 the Canaanite population and allotted the land as un-
 
 4 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 tenanted possessions to the Israelites. Thereupon 
 twelve judges in succession wielded supreme power 
 over the people, until finally the national kingdom 
 arose in the person of the Benjamite Saul, and in 
 the person of his successor, David, was transferred 
 to the house of Judah. 
 
 It cannot be denied that this was the prevailing 
 idea as early as the time of the Babylonian exile, 
 when the historical books of the Old Testament were 
 for the first time subjected to a comprehensive re- 
 vision ; and in fact to-day, upon the whole, the books 
 of Judges, Samuel, and Kings lie before us in this 
 shape. 
 
 This version is a relatively recent one, having 
 arisen at a period when living historical tradition 
 no longer afforded information. The oldest written 
 sources, having by a fortunate chance been only 
 slightly digested and thus preserved in all substantial 
 features, were incorporated in the great historical 
 collection and give a widely different picture of the 
 earliest history of the people of Israel. 
 
 At this point there arises the unavoidable question 
 whether, generally speaking, we are permitted to re- 
 gard these oldest traditions of the people of Israel 
 as history in the strict sense of the word. Not be- 
 fore the exodus from Egypt can we speak in a strict 
 sense of a history of the people of Israel. All that 
 lies before this point of time may be characterized 
 as prehistoric or primeval. Only in the first book 
 of Moses, the book of Genesis, is information to be 
 had of this prehistoric or primeval era.
 
 RISE OF THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL. 5 
 
 Even if we regard Moses as the author of the five 
 books that bear his name, yet concerning this remote 
 epoch, separated from his own by a series of cen- 
 turies, Moses himself would have had to resort to 
 oral hearsay and tradition. It was impossible for 
 him to report these things as an eye-witness. But 
 it is now generally conceded that Moses cannot pos- 
 sibly be the author of the books ascribed to him. 
 These books have rather originated from the com- 
 prehensive digestion of a whole series of indepen- 
 dent written sources, of which the oldest cannot be 
 older than King Solomon, nor yet much later, and 
 which consequently were written between 900 and 
 850. Thus between them and Moses there is an 
 interval of several centuries. Only a few scattered 
 sections in the books of Judges and Samuel, and a 
 few poetical fragments from the Pentateuch might 
 be older. No comprehensive and coherent historical 
 work earlier than 900 can be proved. 
 
 The memory of the past, accordingly, has been 
 handed down substantially through the medium of 
 oral tradition. The Israelitic nation itself is the 
 author of these historical narrations, to which the 
 biblical narrator, in giving them a permanent written 
 form, has only imparted a finer psychological char- 
 acter and the magic of his unsurpassed art of pres- 
 entation. The material contents, the ingredients of 
 these narrations, must be regarded from the point 
 of view of popular tradition, of legend. 
 
 What is legend ? Its main characteristic, of course, 
 is popularity. Legend is a natural product unaf-
 
 6 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 fected by tendencies, an unconscious poetry; and 
 moreover it is characteristic of legend that it does 
 not invent its material but embellishes extant tradi- 
 tion with poetic imagery. Legend winds itself like 
 ivy about cold matters of fact, often resistlessly 
 overpowering them and flourishing in rank luxuri- 
 ance, yet not able to thrive without them and un- 
 supported by them. 
 
 Legend and history, therefore, are not contradic- 
 tions, but advance together in brotherly harmony; 
 legend from its very nature presupposing an histor- 
 ical substratum. Only traditions that are attached 
 to some definite locality, some definite monument or 
 name, are to be regarded as exceptions to the truth 
 of these remarks. Traditions of the latter kind ad- 
 here exclusively to the locality, monument, or name 
 that they are intended to explain. Instead of an 
 historical substratum they here have a material one, 
 but even in these instances they still have a substra- 
 tum. The legend always stands with firm, marrowy 
 frame upon solid and durable ground, and not with 
 uncertain foothold touching the stars, a sport for 
 wind and wave. On this ground, precisely, in my 
 opinion, we are altogether wrong in looking upon 
 legend with an exaggerated skepticism. 
 
 Legend bears a resemblance to the youthful mem- 
 ories of man. The child will not retain everything, 
 but only distinct events, and not always the most 
 important; but what it does retain it retains firmly. 
 ' And above all the child will never be mistaken as to 
 the total character of its childhood. A man who
 
 RISE OF THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL. 7 
 
 has spent a cheerless youth will never imagine that 
 he has been a merry, happy child; a man who has 
 been raised in a village or among the mountains will 
 never believe that he was born in a large city or on 
 the plain. The youthful reminiscences of nations 
 must also be judged according to this same analogy. 
 The ready-made, artistically complete, and finished 
 shape that these reminiscences have assumed on the 
 lips of the people, or of any great poet, is not to be 
 called legend and as such the result of unintentional 
 poetic creation; but, on the contrary, its historical 
 substratum and the basic character of the whole 
 must be regarded as authentic tradition. 
 
 It shall be my endeavor to sketch in brief outline 
 the character of the historical substratum underlying 
 the oldest traditions of the people of Israel, and to 
 show how upon this basis may be erected the true 
 course of the early history of this remarkable people. 
 
 According to established tradition the people of 
 Israel were not native in the land that afterwards 
 became their home, but had immigrated from the 
 northeast of Mesopotamia. This tradition is all 
 the more striking in view of the fact that the lan- 
 guage spoken by the people of Israel could only 
 have originated in Canaan itself. This linguistic 
 difficulty was felt even in biblical times, as the re- 
 markable forty-seventh verse in the thirty-first chap- 
 ter of Genesis testffies. In this verse, which is 
 plainly the product of a later learned interpretation, 
 "Laban the Aramaean" calls the stone-wall which
 
 8 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 Jacob in the Hebrew language had called Galeed, 
 "Jegar-Sahadutha," a correct Aramaean expression. 1 
 According to the familiar tradition of the He- 
 brews themselves their primitive home was in the 
 mountainous tract extending between the left bank 
 of the Tigris and Lake Van, which separates Meso- 
 potamia from Armenia, and by the Greek geog- 
 raphers is called Arrhapachitis. (Arphaxad, son of 
 Shem, is the ancestor of the Hebrew people Gen. 
 x. 22-25 ; xi. 10). From the above-mentioned high- 
 lands there descended an emigration of tribes into 
 the fertile plain of Mesopotamia. (Salah, Arpha- 
 xad's son, denotes "emigration," "emission." See 
 Gen. x. 24; xi. 12.) They crossed (Eber, Salah's 
 son, is "crossing," "passage"; Gen. x. 24; xi. 14) 
 the Tigris, and then they separated, (Peleg, Eber's 
 son, is "separation," "division." See Gen. x. 25; 
 xi. 16). The main body advanced through the heart 
 of the region and finally settled in and around the 
 Haran, the Karrhae of the ancients, in the north- 
 western part of Mesopotamia. A smaller band, in- 
 cluding the ancestors of Israel, struck out in the 
 opposite direction toward the extreme southeast, and 
 at Ur in Southern Babylonia (Gen. xi. 28, 31) en- 
 deavored to obtain possession of permanent settle- 
 ments; still in the end they preferred to follow the 
 main body of their kinsmen to Haran (Gen. xi. 31). 
 Here their migratory instincts awoke once more. 
 Following the direction of the common highroad of 
 
 *A11 Hebrew words and names are given according to the 
 spelling of the King James Bible.
 
 RISE OF THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL. 9 
 
 the ancient world between Egypt and Babylonia 
 they journeyed still further toward the southwest 
 (Gen. xii. 4, 5). The great leader of this tribal 
 migration was Abraham. 
 
 The most careful and impartial weighing of all 
 adverse arguments and difficulties has not as yet 
 been able to shake my faith in the genuine historical 
 authenticity of Abraham. I regard Abraham as 
 an historical personality in the strictest sense of the 
 word, as really so as Alaric, the king of the Visi- 
 goths, or Rurik, the prince of the Varangians. 
 
 Egypt, perhaps, was the original ultimate goal of 
 this Abrahamic migration, that same Egypt which 
 time out of mind had exerted a kind of magic at- 
 traction upon all Semitic tribes, and which probably 
 even during the very centuries of the Abrahamic 
 emigration had on repeated occasions, and not al- 
 ways willingly, received and harbored Semitic guests 
 on its fruitful soil. Still, the story purporting to be 
 an account of Abraham's expedition into Egypt 
 (Gen. xii. 10-20), is altogether a recent one and 
 purely a luxuriant outgrowth from the stem of the 
 original tradition. As a matter of fact the Abra- 
 hamic migration remained in Canaan. One division 
 of this migration, the one personified in Lot, moved 
 toward the eastern bank of the Jordan (Gen. xiii. 
 7-12), where comparatively early both nationally 
 and politically it became consolidated as Moab and 
 Ammon (Gen. xix. 37-38). Abraham himself set- 
 tled in the west Jordan region, Canaan proper ( Gen. 
 xiii. 12).
 
 10 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 Abraham and his tribal kinsmen were nomads, 
 wandering shepherds, roaming peacefully about the 
 country, whereas the aboriginal inhabitants of the 
 land had long before attained the higher culture of 
 city life. The immigrants borrowed their language 
 from the latter, but at the same time guarded as be- 
 fore the primitive purity of their pastoral life, and 
 their healthy, simple natural sense revolted above 
 all against the religion of the Canaanites. 
 
 The religious character of the Canaanites particu- 
 larly displayed two characteristic manifestations, 
 namely, religious obscenity, and infant sacrifice. 
 Abraham held aloof from both. In the touching 
 and deeply poetical story of the intended sacrifice 
 of Isaac for whom ultimately a ram was substituted, 
 tradition has recorded Abraham's positive rejection 
 of infant sacrifice (Gen. xxii). 
 
 In describing this predominant feature and in 
 characterizing Abraham as a religious hero, tradi- 
 tion has, further, correctly interpreted the true state 
 of things. The work of Moses was not absolutely 
 new; it is linked to a popular initiative of the past, 
 and there is no reason for entertaining a doubt, 
 when tradition even in this most specific manifesta- 
 tion of the Israelitic popular spirit makes Abraham 
 the patriarch of his race; although very naturally 
 we now are unable to prove and correctly expound 
 in all its details this "faith of Abraham." 
 
 The descendants of Abraham in the region west 
 of Jordan, true to the usage and customs of their 
 fathers, continued to be wandering nomads. Being
 
 RISE OF THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL. 11 
 
 unable to wrest lands from the superior power of 
 the Canaanites, they turned their eyes southward 
 to the highlands about Mount Seir, where the primi- 
 tive tribes of the Horites stood far below the Ca- 
 naanites both in power and culture. The main 
 body of the descendants of Abraham, accordingly, 
 pushed forward toward the south, conquered the 
 Horites, and settled down permanently on Mount 
 Seir as Edom (Gen. xxxvi. 1 ; Deut. ii. 12-22) and 
 soon effected their national and political consolida- 
 tion. Edom thereupon remained in undisputed pos- 
 session of the aforesaid territory. 
 
 The remnants of the descendants of Abraham, 
 who had remained behind on the west side of the 
 Jordan, would perhaps have been absorbed by the 
 Canaanites, or would have been compelled to seek 
 connection with one of the kindred tribes, if a new 
 and considerable immigration from the common 
 ancestral home of Haran had not brought them 
 aid and reinforcements. This was the Jacobite mi- 
 gration, represented in the person of Jacob. 
 
 It is the merit of Ewald with subtle insight to 
 have detected in Jacob the "after-comer," the "loit- 
 erer." 
 
 Jacob appears as the father of twelve sons. These 
 are the twelve tribes into which in historical times 
 the people of Israel were divided. The twelve tribes 
 again became subdivided into four groups, by legend 
 personified in four mothers, two legitimate wives 
 and two concubines of the patriarch : a Leah-group, 
 a Rachel-group, a Bilhah-group, and a Zilpah-group.
 
 12 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 Leah and Rachel were the more considerable, Bil- 
 hah and Zilpah the inferior groups. The Leah- 
 group surpassed all the others in number and im- 
 portance, and the Zilpah division was connected 
 with it; yet the Rachel-group was hardly inferior in 
 power and nobility, and the Bilhah-group closely 
 adhered to the latter. 
 
 The legend states that Jacob brought along with 
 him his eleven sons but of Haran ; only the youngest, 
 Benjamin, was born in Canaan. Might we also from 
 this draw certain historical conclusions ? As regards 
 the rise and growth of the tribes, we are confronted 
 with the most obscure problems of the prehistoric 
 period of the people of Israel, which perhaps will 
 never be perfectly cleared up. Tradition is only in 
 so far incontrovertibly right as it relegates the be- 
 ginnings of tribal growth to pre-Egyptian times, 
 while weighty reasons corroborate the truth of this 
 fact ; and we have likewise to regard as correct that 
 the tribe of Benjamin branched off from that of 
 Joseph at a comparatively late period. But nothing 
 more definite than this can be asserted. 
 
 Ewald has given expression to a clear hypothesis, 
 which, in fact, possesses a high degree of probabil- 
 ity. He believes that in the Leah-group he can dis- 
 cern the remnants of the Abrahamic group that re- 
 mained in Canaan ; in the Rachel-group the auxiliary 
 reinforcement from Haran, that is, the Jacobite mi- 
 gration a statement that asserts much. At all 
 events, the Jacobite migration certainly did join the 
 remnants of the Abrahamic migration that had re-
 
 RISE OF THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL. 13 
 
 mained in Canaan, and henceforth becomes the rep- 
 resentative of the entire national and historical de- 
 velopment. The Jacobite migration, however, en- 
 tered not only externally but also spiritually upon 
 the inheritance of Abraham. The faith of Abraham 
 passed to Jacob and was perpetuated in him as the 
 father's noblest legacy. 
 
 Yet at an early time there must have arisen con- 
 tentions among the kindred tribes. Joseph, from 
 whom Benjamin perhaps had not as yet branched 
 off, boasting his power and noble pedigree, claimed 
 the supreme hegemony, but was forced to yield to 
 a coalition of the other tribes and went into Egypt, 
 where the rich pasturages of the Asiatic borderland 
 had been since remote antiquity the playground of 
 Semitic nomads. The Leah-tribes at this juncture 
 seem to have attempted to draw the Bilhah-tribes, 
 Dan and Naphtali, into the sphere of their power, 
 the latter subtribes having been deprived of their 
 old support ; and Reuben, particularly, seems to have 
 intended to do them violence (Gen. xxxv. 22). But 
 both those vigorous and valiant tribes were able to 
 maintain their independence, and Reuben himself 
 came out of this contention so severely damaged 
 that henceforth and for all time to come he lost his 
 "primogeniture," his old power and tribal prestige 
 (Gen. xlix. 4). 
 
 Later there occurred events that forced them all 
 to emigrate; but we are, of course, utterly unable 
 to give a precise account of these events. On this 
 occasion Joseph wreaked a noble vengeance, hos-
 
 14 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 pitably receiving his brothers in the district in which 
 he had settled, oblivious of former injuries and only 
 mindful of the old relationship. And in this manner 
 the sons of Jacob became inhabitants of the land of 
 Egypt. 
 
 At first the Egyptian government seems to have 
 assumed a well-meaning attitude of neutrality toward 
 the strangers; but soon the situation became com- 
 pletely altered. The Pharaoh Ramses II happened, 
 at the time, to be involved in a severe conflict with 
 the populations and kingdoms of western Asia; 
 Palestine, partly at least, being the theater of the 
 struggle. The contest, as regards Egypt, ended, 
 indeed, not in open defeat nor yet in victory; the 
 ultimate result being a peace which nevertheless 
 failed to warrant complete security to either side. 
 The consequence was that henceforward Ramses 
 naturally began to look with distrust upon the for- 
 eign population of alien blood that had settled on 
 the Asiatic border, while at the same time he hap- 
 pened to be in need of laborers for his numerous 
 public works. He, accordingly, resorted to the ex- 
 pedient of pressing into the service of the state all 
 the Semites who were settled on the eastern border 
 of Egypt on the isthmus of Suez, and under strict 
 military supervision compelled them to perform toil- 
 some villein-service. 
 
 In this manner, the Israelites had been turned 
 from free nomads into Egyptian socage-serfs. So 
 long as Ramses, one of the most warlike of the 
 Pharaohs, wielded his iron scepter in Egypt with a
 
 RISE OF THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL. 15 
 
 strong hand, the oppressed Israelites seem reluc- 
 tantly to have borne up with their hard fate. But 
 even chains of servitude availed not to break the 
 stubborn, independent heart of these proud Bedou- 
 ins. When the turbulent Ramses was succeeded by 
 a son very unlike his father, the people of Israel 
 again took heart. There only lacked a resolute 
 leader who should guide the latent ferment to a 
 definite goal ; this leader was soon found. 
 
 Moses, a Hebrew of the tribe of Levi, had through 
 a fortunate chance been received into the ruling 
 caste of Egypt and thus found an opportunity thor- 
 oughly to acquire Egyptian training and culture; 
 but the natural impulse of his heart drew him toward 
 his own people. He preferred to be the brother of 
 these despised serfs rather than live in the enjoy- 
 ment of Egyptian splendor and magnificence. His 
 keen insight soon discerned that the only way to free- 
 dom from the iron encompassment of Egyptian for- 
 tresses and military garrisons lay across the sea 
 into the heart of the desert. It was a desperate 
 undertaking. He obtained precise information con- 
 cerning the topography and the political situation of 
 the neighboring country, allied himself with kindred 
 Bedouin tribes of the Arabian desert, and when 
 dreadful scourges and visitations were terrifying the 
 Egyptians, and had paralyzed their efforts, Moses 
 thought the right moment had at last arrived. His 
 fellow countrymen with many other kindred national 
 elements in their train (Ex. xii. 38; Num. xi. 4)
 
 16 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 assembled, and forthwith marched out from the 
 land of bondage. 
 
 By well-devised marches and maneuvers they were 
 able to deceive the Egyptian guards on the frontier ; 
 they soon reached the Isthmus of Suez, but there 
 they were overtaken by a flying corps of Egyptian 
 cavalry. Before them the raging sea, behind them 
 their pursuers, panting for revenge. It was a mo- 
 ment of supreme anxiety ! A violent northeast wind 
 drove the shallow waters from the channel, and they 
 marched through on the dry bottom of the sea into 
 the desert, to freedom. The pursuing Egyptians 
 were overwhelmed by the retreating flood ; but Israel 
 was safe. 
 
 The entire highway leading to Canaan being in 
 undisputed possession of the Egyptians, and the 
 latter by treaties with the neighboring kingdoms hav- 
 ing stipulated the mutual extradition of all fugitives, 
 Moses accordingly led his people into the narrow 
 defiles of Mount Sinai, which were accessible indeed 
 to a band of wandering nomads but could not be 
 approached by a large army. Israel tarried for a 
 long time in the region of Mount Sinai, and in this 
 grandly impressive mountainous scenery tradition 
 has located the scene of Moses's greatest work, his 
 religious reorganization of the people. The entire 
 tradition is agreed to the effect that Moses was the 
 initiator, pioneer, and creator of that unique spirit 
 which belonged peculiarly to the people of Israel 
 and through which it most radically differed from 
 other tribes related by speech and descent. There.
 
 RISE OF THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL. 17 
 
 upon Mount Sinai, Moses gave to Israel its national 
 God Yahveh 2 (this is the original and correct pro- 
 nunciation, instead of Jehovah), thereby making 
 Israel a nation as the people of Yahveh. The name 
 of Yahveh, in fact, cannot be explained from the 
 Hebrew tongue, but seems to have been borrowed 
 from Sinai ; and, indeed, according to Israelitic tra- 
 dition, Moses's adviser and assistant, his father-in- 
 law Jethro, was a priest of Sinai (Ex. xviii). 
 
 Still, it remains utterly impossible to state pre- 
 cisely and positively of what the work of Moses 
 really consisted, since however unwelcome the 
 truth may be not even the ten commandments can 
 be regarded as having been actually formulated by 
 Moses; we have here only an inverted conclusion 
 from effect to cause. Israel is the only people known 
 to us that never had a mythology, not even making 
 the easy step, by way of complement, of associating 
 a female divinity with the highest divine being. 
 Yahveh's unique nature must accordingly be a Mo- 
 saic idea. Yahveh alone is the God of Israel and 
 this Yahveh is the origin and source of all divine 
 and human law. This must be a thought peculiarly 
 Mosaic. A lofty spiritualization of the divine idea 
 and, as a direct result of this, a lofty spiritualization 
 
 "The word Yahveh, according to the traditional etymology, 
 is derived from the verb hajah, "to live, to exist, to be," and 
 signifies "the being, the living, the eternal one." So it is ex- 
 plained in The Idea of God, pp. 7 and 8. Professor Cornill 
 in a private letter to the publishers, writes: "My reason for 
 not considering Yahveh an original Hebrew word is founded 
 upon the fact that hajah, in the sense of "to be," is not Hebrew. 
 In a word originally Hebrew the change of v into / would be 
 difficult to account for." Tr.
 
 18 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 of the Ethos are to be regarded the prominent fea- 
 tures of the Mosaic Yahveh faith. We have, more- 
 over, to attribute to Moses the creation of, at least, 
 a very simple worship, since a religion without wor- 
 ship would be, with primitive nations, inconceivable. 
 The institution, also, of a priesthood as the only 
 legitimate mediator between Yahveh and Israel must 
 be Mosaic; but the tradition that Moses entrusted 
 his brother Aaron with this high office has not been 
 found as yet among the oldest sources. 
 
 Sinai, however, was only a station and not the 
 final goal of the migration. Soon after, the multi- 
 tudes, strengthened by their rest, moved onward; 
 this time to Kadesh-Barnea in the desert south of 
 Canaan (Num. xiii. 27; xx. 1, 14; Deut. i. 19, 46; 
 Judges xi. 16, 17). This locality, at least, seemed 
 sufficiently adapted to receive the permanent coloni- 
 zation of frugal shepherds; it lay beyond the reach 
 of the Egyptian arms, and yet on the very threshold 
 of the coveted land itself. Here they might quietly 
 await the development of things. According to all 
 traces the sojourn in Kadesh must have been a 
 rather long one. Moses probably died there. Tra- 
 dition is constant in regard to the point that he never 
 personally entered the land of promise; in fact, 
 neither he nor any other of the emigrants that left 
 Egypt. And this constant tradition is all the weightier 
 if we recall to mind that here there is the question of 
 a distance that under normal circumstances it would 
 be easy to complete within a fortnight. 
 
 An external event finally brought Israel to the
 
 RISE OF THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL. 19 
 
 goal of its wishes. The Canaanites, here called 
 Amorites, under a king called Sihon, made an ad- 
 vance upon the eastern bank of the Jordan, drove 
 the Moabites and Ammonites out of the most fertile 
 parts of their territory and founded a new Amorite 
 kingdom with the capital at Hesbon (Num. xxi. 26). 
 Then Moab and Ammon remembered their kinsmen 
 in the desert at Kadesh, and themselves, perhaps, 
 on this occasion invoked the aid of Israel. At all 
 events they were welcome allies, and the youthful 
 and well-husbanded natural strength of Israel was 
 able to achieve the proposed task. They destroyed 
 the kingdom of Sihon of Hesbon, and Israel re- 
 mained settled in the fruitful region, and kept for 
 itself the prize of war and victory. 
 
 Yet soon the fertile valleys and meadows could 
 not contain the ever-increasing number of men and 
 flocks; they were urged resistlessly to cross the 
 Jordan. There seemed to exist every possibility 
 of settling down across the river. According to all 
 accounts the Canaanites were scattered in numerous 
 small isolated territories without internal connec- 
 tions or mutual sympathy. Moreover their energy 
 had been relaxed by luxurious habits, and in valor 
 they could not match the impetuous sons of the 
 desert. 
 
 Judah was the first to advance (Judges i. 1-20; 
 Gen. xxxviii. 1). They crossed the Jordan and turned 
 toward the south where the mountain range that 
 later bore the name of Judah, with its fruitful slopes, 
 excited their covetousness. Judah doubtless sue-
 
 20 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 ceeded in gaining a permanent foothold in this re- 
 gion, but only at the cost of severe losses which 
 were made good by the amalgamation of Canaanite, 
 Edomite, and Arabic elements ; but after a hard and 
 long struggle "the interloper" (Pharez) became the 
 master of "the first begotten" (Zarah) (Genesis 
 xxxviii. 27-30). In the time of David, when Judah 
 stands in the broad daylight of history, the Israelitic 
 part of the population is undisputed master of the 
 country, and the latter throughout felt as Israelitic. 
 
 The tribes of Simeon and Levi made the second 
 attempt, which turned out a complete failure. By 
 means of treason they obtained possession of the 
 Canaanite city of Shechem, commanding Mt. Eph- 
 raim; but Israel turned shuddering away from the 
 nefarious deed, and Simeon and Levi were van- 
 quished by the revenge of the Canaanites (Gen. 
 xxxiv. 25-30; xlix. 5-7). Levi as a tribe was en- 
 tirely exterminated, yet later through a most re- 
 markable metamorphosis awoke to a new life as a 
 sacerdotal caste, and the remnants of Simeon hid 
 with the kindred tribe of Judah (Judges i. 3) by 
 which they were absorbed. 
 
 The house of Joseph undertook the third and 
 most successful expedition. Only Reuben and Gad 
 continued to dwell in the district east of Jordan. 
 The other seven tribes under the leadership of the 
 Ephraimite Joshua combined in a common cam- 
 paign against Middle and Northern Palestine. They 
 gained a firm foothold in Gilgal on the other side 
 of the Jordan (Josh. iv. and v.) and from that po-
 
 RISE OF THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL. 21 
 
 sition they were able to conquer Jericho (Josh, vi.), 
 Ai (Josh, viii.), and Bethel (Judges i. 22-25). Then 
 at last the Canaanites were aroused into a deter- 
 mined and general resistance, but at Gibeon they 
 were another time defeated by Joshua (Josh, x.) 
 and thus Israel became the master of all Middle 
 Palestine. In the north they were again confronted 
 by a coalition of Canaanites under King Jabin of 
 Hazor; but at Lake Merom this coalition also was 
 vanquished by Joshua. 
 
 It would be erroneous to suppose that the whole 
 land of Palestine, directly upon occupation, became 
 the undisputed possession of the Israelites. In the 
 first chapter of the Book of Judges one of the 
 most important and valuable historical documents 
 extant we possess a detailed enumeration of all 
 the Canaanites whom Israel "did not drive out." 
 From this enumeration it appears that the best and 
 most fertile parts of the country, and above all the 
 majority of the cities with their strong fortifica- 
 tions, at all times impregnable to the rude military 
 art of the Israelites remained in the possession 
 of the Canaanites. Only the forest-covered moun- 
 tain ranges of Middle and Northern Palestine were 
 occupied by Israel; and a very long and obstinate 
 work had still to be performed before the Canaanite 
 population was finally subjugated ; a task partly ac- 
 complished by force of arms and the imposition of 
 tributes, and partly by peaceable conquest and ab- 
 sorption with the people of Israel. 
 
 It must be admitted that Israel was indebted to
 
 22 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 Moses and his work for the power with which 
 through ages it struggled victoriously in full con- 
 sciousness of the high aim that was to be attained. 
 Moses had given to the people a nationality and 
 therewith an inalienable palladium, which, purified 
 and strengthened by the power of religion, could 
 not submit to oppression, but marched conquering 
 onward. It was owing to Moses alone that in Canaan 
 Israel did not become Canaanites, but, on the con- 
 trary, that the Canaanites were transformed into 
 Israel. 
 
 Indeed, the actual outcome of the protracted con- 
 flict between these two peoples and different na- 
 tionalities, had not, to human calculations, by any 
 means been absolutely certain. In Canaan Israel 
 passed from a nomadic to an agricultural life, and 
 might not such a radical change of life and of its 
 conditions easily have brought about a transforma- 
 tion of national character? Irrespective of the 
 superior culture and number of the Canaanites, Is- 
 rael certainly harbored within itself a very danger- 
 ous foe, and a living germ of disorganization ; 
 namely, the stubborn, stiffnecked feeling of inde- 
 pendence and the strong family instincts, peculiar 
 to nomads, that still clung to the national character 
 after the people had abandoned nomadic ways of 
 life. Even after the common effort under Joshua 
 had partly laid the foundations of national organi- 
 zation, the people were once again broken up into 
 families and tribes, who without concerted action, 
 without discipline or plan, aimlessly sought local-
 
 RISE OF THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL. 23 
 
 ities in which to settle. Tradition, also, has ex- 
 pressly handed down a number of peculiar features 
 of this tribal and family history. 
 
 One fraction of the tribe of Manasseh, the fam- 
 ilies of Jair and Machir conquered the region to 
 the east of Lake Galilee (Num. xxxii. 39-41 ; Deut. 
 iii. 14-15; Judg. x. 3-5) a fact of the greatest im- 
 portance, because thereby there was reestablished a 
 connection between the West-Jordan country and 
 Gilead, as the Israelites called the East- Jordan re- 
 gion. The tribe of Dan in its struggle against the 
 powerful and warlike Philistines, had failed to se- 
 cure a permanent settlement in the fertile plain 
 along the coast of the Mediterranean; but Dan 
 thereupon conquered the city of Laish in the far-off 
 north on the slopes of Mt. Hermon, and changed 
 its name into that of Dan (Judg. xvii. and xviii. ; 
 compare also i. 34) . Shamir, on Mt. Ephraim, was 
 settled by the family of Tola of the tribe Issachar 
 (Judg. x. 1-2) ; Pirathon, in the same locality, by 
 the family of Abdon (Judg. xii. 13-15); Aijalon 
 by the Zebulonite family of Elon (Judges xii. 11- 
 12). This dispersion might have proved injurious 
 and even ruinous, if over all of them, each family 
 and each tribe, there had not reigned supreme one 
 common idea ; namely, Yahveh, the God of Israel. 
 
 Yahveh was the only national principle, the only 
 bond that bound together all Israelites; in fact, as 
 Yahveh's own people they were a nation. Only ex- 
 treme emergency had been able to effect a national
 
 24 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 union, and that not a general, but merely a transient 
 one. 
 
 After Joshua's victories, the Canaanites, through 
 the concentration and straining of all their resources, 
 seem to have made but one single effort to overcome 
 the invaders. Under the leadership of Sisera there 
 was effected a powerful coalition of Canaanite kings, 
 who undertook a war of extermination against Is- 
 rael. This extermination threatened to be realized 
 to the fullest extent. The Israelites were forced 
 to seek hiding-places in the woods and in the moun- 
 tains where they stayed until Yahveh finally brought 
 assistance. At this critical moment a divinely in- 
 spired woman, the prophetess Deborah, aroused the 
 discouraged Israelites. Under the leadership of 
 Barak, of the tribe of Issachar, 40,000 Israelites 
 of the tribes of Ephraim, Manasseh, Benjamin, Zeb- 
 ulun, Issachar, and Naphtali assembled together, 
 and now the power of the Canaanites was unable 
 to resist the ardent impetuosity of that great host, 
 fighting for Yahveh. At Taanak, on the River 
 Kishon, the Canaanite army was defeated and dis- 
 persed, and Sisera himself in his flight was slain 
 by a woman (Judg. iv. and v.). After this battle 
 we never again hear of resistance on the part of 
 Canaanites. 
 
 Israel at last enjoyed rest from the Canaanites; 
 but now there threatened still another foe. Kindred 
 tribes looked with envy upon the success of Israel, 
 and naturally coveted their own share of the Ca- 
 naanite prey. Thus Moab even advanced across the
 
 RISE OF THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL. 25 
 
 Jordan, and at Jericho, its king, Eglon, received 
 the homage and tribute of the tribe of Benjamin, 
 until the Benjamite Ehud stabbed Eglon and freed 
 his people from the foreign yoke (Judg. iii. 12-30). 
 Likewise Ammon advanced toward the Jordan, and 
 the hard-pressed tribe of Gad was only saved 
 through Jephthah's valor (Judg. xi.). At the very 
 time when in Canaan Israel was becoming an agri- 
 cultural people, the nation constantly suffered from 
 the hostility and rapine of the sons of the desert. 
 Amalekites, Midianites, Ishmaelites, all of them 
 sought to enrich themselves at the expense of the 
 Israelite husbandman, and to rob him of the fruits 
 of his labor. 
 
 The fact that bands of Midianites advanced, kill- 
 ing and plundering, as far as Mt. Tabor, far in the 
 north, in the vicinity of Lake Galilee in the West- 
 Jordan region, is in itself a telling proof of how 
 defenceless Israel remained through its unfortunate 
 disunion against these predatory sons of the desert. 
 
 This invasion of Midianites, moreover, had cer- 
 tain important consequences. From sheer arrogance 
 and wantonness the Midianites had on Mt. Tabor 
 butchered a number of prisoners belonging to the 
 noble Manassite family of Abiezer. Then Gideon 
 or Jerubbaal, the head of the family, took to arms 
 to wreak vengeance of blood on the murderers. He 
 assembled his own household and retainers, to the 
 number of 300, and with these went in pursuit of 
 the departed Midianites, overtaking them far beyond 
 the Jordan. He succeeded in dividing the forces
 
 26 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 of the enemy, and took prisoners the two Midianite 
 kings, Zebah and Zalmunna, whom he ordered exe- 
 cuted to expiate the murder of his brothers. He 
 thereupon punished the inhabitants of Succoth and 
 Penuel, who had scornfully refused him their assis- 
 tance in this expedition of revenge (Judg. viii.). 
 
 The conclusion of the narrative concerning Gid- 
 eon has, unfortunately, been mutilated. It must 
 have related that Gideon actually founded a tribal 
 kingdom, erected in his ancestral city of Ophrah 
 a golden image of Yahveh and held a regular court, 
 with a number of female retainers. 
 
 Thus from the house of Joseph proceeded the 
 first attempt at political concentration the foun- 
 dation of a dynastic kingdom; and perhaps from 
 this dynastic kingdom there might have been de- 
 veloped a folkkingship but the time for this had 
 not yet arrived. 
 
 During his lifetime Gideon remained in undis- 
 puted possession of power over Joseph; but after 
 his death the harem-regiment that constant curse 
 of all oriental dynasties likewise effected the ruin 
 of his house. Abimelech, the son of a woman of 
 noble birth from the city of Shechem, which was 
 at the time a thoroughly Canaanite city, with the 
 aid of his Shechemite retainers, seized the supreme 
 power, attacked Ophrah and slew his brothers 
 according to tradition, threescore and ten in number 
 upon one stone ; only the youngest escaped. This 
 event, naturally, was not of a kind to cause king-
 
 RISE OF THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL. 27 
 
 ship to strike deep roots in the heart of the people 
 of Israel. 
 
 Abimelech enjoyed the usurped power for only 
 three years, when he became involved in difficulties 
 with the men of Shechem. He also played the part 
 of an Israelite king to the city of Shechem, which 
 scarcely proved agreeable to the proud Canaanite 
 nobles. They openly revolted against him, in con- 
 sequence of which event he conquered Shechem and 
 razed it to the ground. But fate overtook him at 
 Thebez, upon which city he had wished to bring the 
 same ruin. In the act of setting fire to a tower into 
 which the inhabitants of Thebez had fled for shelter, 
 a woman from the roof of the structure hurled a 
 mill-stone upon his head, and he was killed (Judg. 
 ix.). Thus the first attempt to found an Israelitic 
 kingdom ended in murder and conflagration. 
 
 Again the old anarchy prevailed, the old lack of 
 cohesion, which the Book of Judges describes in the 
 following words : "In those days there was no king 
 in Israel, but every man did that which was right in 
 his own eyes" (Judg. xvii. 6; xxi. 25). 
 
 Incidentally, it may be observed that it is simply 
 impossible to give even an approximate chrono- 
 logical statement and arrangement of the events be- 
 tween the exodus from Egypt and the reign of Saul. 
 If Merenptah was the Pharaoh of the exodus, we 
 may place them in the interval between 1300 to 
 about 1030; the year 1017 as the year of Saul's 
 death seems tolerably certain. 
 
 The kingship of Gideon had vanished from sight
 
 28 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 like a will-o'-the-wisp, and was followed by utter 
 darkness over the land of Israel. This darkness is 
 only cleared up by the subsequent events that brought 
 about the solid foundation of the national kingdom. 
 The national kingdom had become an absolute ne- 
 cessity. An orderly government, popular feeling, 
 and nationality could only be preserved through the 
 concentration in some strong hand of all the scat- 
 tered and, consequently, weakened national energies. 
 
 The notion that the creation of a purely human 
 kingship would be a grievous sin, because an apos- 
 tasy from Yahveh, the only legitimate king of Is- 
 rael, is but a later assumption of Hebrew theolog- 
 ical schools, and discoverable for the first time, with 
 certainty, in the prophet Hosea. This idea was en- 
 tirely unknown to the olden time. The oldest sources 
 relate all these events with a rejoicing and thankful 
 spirit. In the rise of the national kingdom they 
 justly behold a signal proof of the grace of Yahveh, 
 a direct, divine interposition of Yahveh for the re- 
 demption of his people. 
 
 On the present occasion, the troubles arose from 
 a different direction, and were by far more serious 
 than any former one had been. To the southwest 
 of Mt. Ephraim, toward the Mediterranean, there 
 dwelt the warlike and valiant race of the Philistines 
 the hereditary foe of Israel. Profiting by the 
 helplessness of Israel the Philistines advanced 
 toward the mountain and invaded the fertile plain 
 of Jezreel. The first collision between the bellig- 
 erents, at Ebenezer, proved calamitous to Israel.
 
 RISE OF THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL. 29 
 
 Then Israel, in order to secure the assistance of 
 Yahveh, brought out of the temple at Shiloh the Ark 
 of the Covenant, the ancient and sacred war-symbol 
 of the house of Joseph ; but the second battle turned 
 out even more disastrous. Thirty thousand Israel- 
 ites covered the field of battle, the Ark of the Cov- 
 enant was captured, and the power of Joseph was 
 utterly broken ( 1 Sam. iv. ) . The Philistines dragged 
 the Ark of the Covenant as a trophy of war into 
 their own country, burned and destroyed the temple 
 at Shiloh, and conquered the whole land of Israel to 
 the bank of the Jordan; the people were disarmed 
 and held in awe by Philistine viceroys and Philistine 
 strongholds. Thus Dagon had triumphed over 
 Yahveh. 
 
 But Yahveh had not forsaken his people. Through 
 the trying fire of extreme need and suffering he 
 wished to weld it together to a strong and united 
 nation. An aged seer, Samuel by name, had dis- 
 covered in the Benjamite Saul the man of the period, 
 and had kindled in his heroic soul a spark of patri- 
 otic enthusiasm. Just at this time also the Am- 
 monites insolently insulted Israel, and threatened the 
 city of Jabesh in Gilead. Then Saul slaughtered 
 a yoke of oxen and sent the bleeding pieces through- 
 out Israel with the following message : "Whosoever 
 cometh not forth after Saul, so shall it be done unto 
 his oxen !" A desperate host then assembled around 
 the bold leader. The enemies were taken by surprise 
 and scattered to the winds. 
 
 The people, exultant over this first victory after
 
 30 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 long servitude and shame, bore the fortunate general 
 in triumph to the ancient sacred spot of Gilgal, 
 there to place upon his head the royal diadem (1 
 Sam. ix.-xi.). 
 
 Saul owed his crown to his sword, and his whole 
 reign was one uninterrupted strife; for the main 
 point was to become master in his own land and 
 to secure it against determined enemies and over- 
 weening neighbors. Saul at once addressed himself 
 to the more difficult and important task of throw- 
 ing off the yoke of the Philistines. His son, Jona- 
 than, slew the Philistine governor, who held his 
 court at Gibeah, and at this signal of revolt the 
 Philistine armies again poured into the insurgent 
 land of Israel. Saul could only muster 600 men 
 who had remained with him ; but the lofty conscious- 
 ness of fighting for home and hearth, for freedom 
 and honor, imparted heroic courage to the men of 
 Israel. Jonathan, above all, performed wonders of 
 bravery, and, after a hot contest, victory declared 
 itself for the desperate little band (1 Sam. xiii.- 
 xiv. ) . 
 
 Yet this success was only a transient one. Saul 
 regarded it his main task to keep in constant readi- 
 ness the fighting strength of his people, and to this 
 end he assembled about his person a small standing 
 army made up of 3000 of his boldest subjects. Thus 
 the star of King Saul arose at the beginning, bright 
 and brilliant, but very soon it was overcast by dark 
 clouds. 
 
 An "evil spirit from God" suddenly saddened
 
 RISE OF THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL. 31 
 
 the heart of the king. His attendants called to his 
 side the Judean David from Bethlehem, a man of 
 tried courage, a skilled performer on the harp, a 
 knight and troubadour in one, who by his pleasant 
 art was expected to dispel the melancholy of the 
 king. This new actor on the stage of Israelitic 
 history is, next to Moses, the greatest personage 
 of ancient Israel. For him was reserved the glory 
 of completing the work of Moses. What Saul be- 
 gan, David executed to its fullest extent ; outwardly 
 he made Israel free and independent, and inwardly 
 united. The political and national consolidation of / 
 the people of Israel is the work of David. 
 
 David was one of those divinely endowed natures 
 that win the hearts of all a born ruler, to whom 
 all willingly submit, and serve with alacrity. He 
 appears before the king as a highly attractive figure, 
 graced with every ornament of mind and body 
 radiant with youth, beauty and strength, and by 
 his bewitching amiability commanding the love of 
 all. At first everything went well. Saul, too, could 
 not resist the magnetism of his person; he made 
 him his armor-bearer, his squire or "aide," and 
 while David became devotedly attached to Saul's 
 son, the king gave him his daughter in marriage. 
 
 This state of harmony, however, was not destined 
 to last long. The Philistines again invaded the land, 
 and during the war that ensued David distinguished 
 himself to such an eminent degree that even the 
 glory of the king was overshadowed. At that time 
 of history kings had also to be the bravest of their
 
 32 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 nation, and we therefore easily understand that 
 gloomy jealousy now began to devour the melan- 
 choly heart of the suspicious monarch. Once in 
 a fit of sullen dejection he even hurled a javelin at 
 his son-in-law, and the latter fled from his pres- 
 ence. From that instant Saul's good genius forsook 
 him forever, and the close of his reign exhibits a 
 sad picture of civil strife and external troubles. 
 
 Despite the critical condition of his kingdom, 
 Saul with an armed retinue pursued the fleeing 
 David, and finally drove him out of the country. 
 The hounded fugitive was at last compelled to seek 
 refuge among the Philistines the enemies of Israel. 
 Within a year and four months from that time, fate 
 had overtaken the Israelitic king. The Philistine 
 host again combined against Israel. A decisive 
 battle was fought on Mt. Gilboa, in which Israel 
 was utterly routed. Saul, beholding the death of 
 his three sons, fell upon his own sword in a fit of 
 despair. Such was the untoward end of the first 
 king of Israel. 
 
 Saul is a truly tragical figure. Although en- 
 dowed with a grand and noble disposition, chival- 
 rous and heroic, fired with ardent zeal, yet after 
 all he had achieved next to nothing. At his death 
 the condition of things had again become the same 
 as at the time of his accession. Israel lay prostrate, 
 and the power of the Philistines was greater and 
 firmer than ever before. Saul's failures must be 
 attributed mainly to his moral disposition. He was 
 more of a soldier than a ruler. He lacked the com-
 
 RISE OF THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL. 33 
 
 manding personality, the inborn power of leader- 
 ship, and still more the versatile, statesmanlike tal- 
 ent that David possessed. Saul had performed his 
 kingly duties honestly. When attacked, he returned 
 blow for blow with telling vigor, but he was far 
 from being a creative, organizing genius. Above all 
 he lacked to a deplorable extent all sense and appre- 
 ciation of the essential character and national raison 
 d'etre of the people of Israel. In this latter respect, 
 tradition has handed down a clearly drawn portrait 
 of Israel's king. 
 
 Saul was well on the way toward changing Israel 
 into a secular, military state, and thus turning the 
 nation from its true historical mission. A conquer- 
 ing kingdom of this world, perhaps, might have 
 boasted a brief period of transient splendor and 
 prosperity; but it would have disappeared, without 
 leaving a trace of its existence, like Egypt and As- 
 syria, Babylonia and Persia, Media and Lydia. King 
 Saul is certainly entitled to our deepest compassion 
 and heart-felt sympathy, but the fall of his dynasty 
 was fortunate for Israel. 
 
 Yet not unavenged was Saul's blood shed on the 
 heights of Gilboa. His avenger and the genuine 
 performer of his life-work arose in the Judean 
 whom he had attacked and persecuted. Cautious 
 conduct was now necessary on David's part. It would 
 have been worse than foolhardy with only 600 Ju- 
 deans to open war with the Philistines. Above all 
 David wished to save what still might be saved. 
 He therefore caused himself to be anointed heredi-
 
 34 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 tary king of Judah, under Philistine suzerainty; 
 while Abner, Saul's general, assembled the scattered 
 remnants of Saul's power in the East-Jordan coun- 
 try, and at Mahanaim made young Ishbosheth king, 
 who was Saul's only surviving son, and probably 
 not yet of age. 
 
 David resided seven years in Hebron, and Ish- 
 bosheth likewise seven in Mahanaim. Abner made 
 an effort to subject David to the scepter of Ishbo- 
 sheth, but in this attempt he was completely foiled 
 by the bravery of David's Judeans. Shortly after- 
 wards Abner, the only support of the house of Saul, 
 was murdered and Ishbosheth himself fell a victim 
 to the vengeance of blood. At this juncture the 
 northern tribes agreed to confer upon David the 
 government of the lands of Saul. 
 
 Even the first measure enacted by David as suze- 
 rain of Israel bears witness to his high statesmanlike 
 genius. The city of Jebus remained still in the hands 
 of the Canaanites; David conquered this city and 
 made it the political capital of the new kingdom. 
 Jebus was strongly fortified by its natural sur- 
 roundings, situated rather toward the center of the 
 kingdom, and being independent of any of the tribes 
 and raised above and beyond their petty rivalries, 
 it was better adapted for the purpose intended than 
 any other city. As a characteristic contrast to this 
 policy, Saul, even as king, had quietly continued to 
 reside in his native village. The founding of Jeru- 
 salem, as David called his new "city of David," was 
 a fact of the greatest historical importance when we
 
 RISE OF THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL. 35 
 
 bear in mind what Jerusalem became to the people 
 of Israel and later through Israel to humanity. 
 
 Next at last the eyes of the Philistines were 
 opened at their former loyal vassal, and they en- 
 deavored to choke at its very birth the rising power 
 of David but in vain. The task upon which Saul 
 had been wrecked was accomplished by David, and 
 indeed definitely. David for all coming ages made 
 the return of the Philistines an impossibility, yet, 
 on the other hand, he did not molest them in their 
 own country; he did not rob them of a single inch 
 of land or take a single stone from their fortresses. 
 
 David figures as the greatest warrior of ancient 
 Israel. Victory ever remained faithful to him. He 
 humbled all the neighboring nations or conquered 
 them, but we must particularly lay stress upon the 
 fact that David waged all his brilliant wars only in 
 order to repel unprovoked attacks and in defense 
 of the most vital interests of his people. It cannot 
 be proved, or even made to seem probable, that any 
 of his wars were begun by himself personally. David 
 was no greedy robber, no vulgar swashbuckler. 
 
 Yet even all these heroic deeds do not display the 
 grandest trait of his character. What he achieved 
 in the inner moral sphere is of infinitely greater 
 importance. Above all, his heart beat high in unison 
 with the national soul of Israel. As a true Israelite 
 he was a faithful servant and worshiper of Yahveh, 
 for whose sole glory and trusting in whose aid he 
 wielded the sword. He wisely understood that a 
 king of Israel must not only be a brave warrior,
 
 36 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 but that in the Israelitic state there must also be 
 a place for Yahveh. In conformity with this view 
 David wished within the political center of his king- 
 dom to create also an ideal, religious center. While 
 Saul characteristically had allowed the Ark of the 
 Covenant, the people's old-time halidom, to perish 
 from oblivious neglect, David's earliest concern was 
 to bring it back from the little village where it re- 
 mained forgotten into the new political capital where 
 it would occupy a more worthy station, just as 
 Gideon once had inaugurated his tribal dynasty by 
 the erection of a sanctuary in his native city of 
 Ophra. David himself never undertook any im- 
 portant action without first consulting Yahveh 
 through the priest. 
 
 The portrait of David is not wanting in human 
 traits of the worse sort, and the books of Samuel 
 with inexorable love of truth have not in the least 
 tried to hide or mince the matter. Still, the fact 
 remains that David stands forth as the most lumi- 
 nous figure and gifted personality in the whole his- 
 tory of Israel, in greatness surpassed only by the 
 prophet of Sinai, by Moses, "the man of God." 
 
 What David achieved for Israel cannot be rated 
 too high. Israel as a people, as a political factor, 
 as a concrete power in the world's history, as a na- 
 tion in the highest sense, is exclusively the work 
 of David ; and, although the kingdom which he built 
 up through the struggles and anxieties of a long 
 and active life, soon collapsed; although Israel itself, 
 even a few generations after his death, was again
 
 RISE OF THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL. 37 
 
 divided into two halves still, the ideal unity long 
 survived the division that had really taken place. 
 The past grandeur of the Davidian epoch still be- 
 came the haunting dream of the future days of Is- 
 rael; and it is not through a mere chance that the 
 wistful longing, and even the consolation of Israel, 
 should reappear in the form of a returning ideal 
 David, who should combine all the virtues and excel- 
 lencies of the historical David without his foibles. 
 
 With David the people of Israel had once for all 
 reached the acme of its national existence; his like 
 never appeared again. After David, the history of 
 the people of Israel changes into a continuous trag- 
 edy, pointedly illustrating the words of the Apostle 
 Paul, that the misfortune of Israel enriched the 
 world. The pearl is a disease of the shell, and kills 
 that which creates it, and thus, also, the costly legacy 
 bequeathed by Israel to the world, gushed forth 
 from a well of tears. The worldly grandeur of 
 Israel collapsed stone by stone, inch by inch, into 
 utter decay; but the smaller it might appear out- 
 wardly the greater it became inwardly. In the down- 
 fall of Israel Yahveh triumphed, and on the ruins of 
 Jerusalem, Jeremiah proclaimed the New Covenant. 
 
 Israel died as a political nation, but arose again 
 as a religious sect, as a community of the pious, the 
 Godfearing, who alone would be privileged and 
 able from out of their midst to send forth another 
 son of David, according to the flesh, and spiritually 
 the performer of the work of Moses; greater than 
 David, greater even than Moses.
 
 MOSES, THE FOUNDER OF MONOTHE- 
 ISTIC RELIGION. 
 
 AJL, that is great and significant in humanity is 
 accomplished by great and significant per- 
 sonalities. To be sure we have been warned against 
 exaggerated personality worship or hero worship, 
 and have been told that the so-called great men are 
 nothing but exponents of mighty currents and ten- 
 dencies of their time. In this thought lies a certain 
 truth, in so far as great men do not fall from heaven 
 but require some connecting links : the time must be 
 ripe for them, must to some extent have need of 
 them, and on closer inspection we will usually dis- 
 cover that the currents and tendencies of their con- 
 temporaries have met them half way. But that 
 these currents attained their aim, that these tenden- 
 cies were actualized, is due solely and simply to the 
 merit of the great men themselves, and therefore 
 has earned for them the gratitude of humanity and 
 of history which associates these events with their 
 names. 
 
 What is thus true in general of all great men and 
 significant human affairs is also very especially true 
 of religion. For religion is life, the most personal
 
 MOSES. 39 
 
 life. It lives only in personalities and through per- 
 sonalities. All great and important events in the 
 history of religion are ineradicably connected with 
 the names of particularly favored personages who 
 appeared to their contemporaries as prophets and 
 apostles of God, who had himself taken possession 
 of them and had become a living power within 
 them. 
 
 Among these the founders of religion naturally 
 stand in the first rank. They created something en- 
 tirely new and consciously strove to lead their con- 
 temporaries on new religious paths and to bring 
 them a divine truth which had previously been hid- 
 den from them. And as founders of world religions, 
 Moses, Buddha, Mohammed and Jesus stand in the 
 first rank. 
 
 The earliest of these is Moses. To him we stand 
 in a very different relation from that in which we 
 stand to Buddha or Mohammed. The latter men 
 do not concern us directly and at best can have for 
 us only a scientific objective interest. We are much 
 more likely to see in them enemies and opponents of 
 our Christian religion, its most dangerous rivals in 
 the competition for the spiritual dominion of the 
 world, while Moses and Jesus are in our minds in- 
 separably connected. In Moses we see a direct pred- 
 ecessor of Jesus, the point of departure of the great 
 religious movement which has found its historical 
 conclusion and spiritual perfection in Jesus. Suffi- 
 cient reason to devote to this man our particular 
 attention, and indeed our task of sketching him
 
 40 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 and his work is an especially fascinating and allur- 
 ing one which will yield a rich reward. 
 
 Unfortunately, however, the undertaking is at the 
 same time a very difficult one, and I must express 
 myself with regard to it openly and without reser- 
 vation. The difficulty lies in the nature of the 
 sources at our command. Buddha and Mohammed 
 stand before us in the full light of history in spite 
 of the great amount of legendary material which 
 attaches to their personalities. We can not say the 
 same of Moses. But have we not the five books of 
 Moses? Could we wish more or better material? 
 It is only the German Bible that knows anything 
 of the "Five Books of Moses." The Hebrew, Greek, 
 Latin and even the English Bibles do not ascribe 
 these books expressly and directly to Moses. And 
 in the last century and a half, science has worked 
 so vigorously and persistently on just this so-called 
 Pentateuch, that we are justified in speaking here of 
 positive results. 
 
 The Pentateuch originated from the combination 
 of various documents, the oldest of which is perhaps 
 half a millennium later than Moses, so that accord- 
 ingly the earliest narratives of Moses and accounts 
 of his work which have come down to us are further 
 removed from him in time than we to-day are from 
 Luther. But the Pentateuch, to be sure, contains 
 not only narratives, but laws as well. Is it not 
 possible that one or another of these legal constitu- 
 ents proceeded from Moses himself? In historical 
 tradition he is, of course, the law-giver par excel-
 
 MOSES. 41 
 
 lence\ When it comes to an estimate of Moses's 
 value for the history of religion, I must express 
 myself frankly and honestly and must also substan- 
 tiate statements which will probably seem most sur- 
 prising to many of my readers. 
 
 It is my firm conviction that the science of Old 
 Testament criticism of the last generation not only 
 asserts but proves proves positively that the 
 great coherent priestly code of the Pentateuch as it 
 has found its characteristic stamp in the code of the 
 tabernacle and in the so-called third book of Moses 
 (Leviticus), is quite late, and does not belong at 
 the beginning of the development as its foundation, 
 but at the end as its culmination. That the coherent 
 code presented in the so-called fifth book of Moses 
 (Deuteronomy) originated in the seventh century 
 was proved by De Wette as early as 1805, and this 
 knowledge has become the common property of Old 
 Testament science. We may leave out of considera- 
 tion the three poetical pieces ascribed to Moses, his 
 Song (Deut. xxxii. 1-43), his Blessing (Deut. 
 xxxiii), and his Prayer (Psalm xc). Hence there 
 are only a few pieces of legal import which come 
 seriously into question. These are the so-called 
 Book of the Covenant (Ex. xxi-xxiii) and the Deca- 
 logue, or Decalogues, and both are to be found in 
 the earliest original documents. 
 
 The Book of the Covenant is old beyond any 
 doubt. It is the earliest attempt in Israel at a de- 
 tailed formulation of law, and it has acquired a 
 particular significance by the fact that it is this very
 
 42 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 code which shows most striking parallels to the fa- 
 mous codex, found in 1902, of the Babylonian king 
 Hammurabi who dates back almost a thousand years 
 earlier than Moses. But each closer investigation 
 of the book of the Covenant makes it more im- 
 possible to assume that Moses himself was its author. 
 The work and legislation of Moses were intended 
 for nomadic hordes which were yet to become a 
 nation for the first time, and in whom we may not 
 assume a settled state of civilization founded on 
 agriculture. The whole legislation of the Cov- 
 enant, however, is calculated for a settled agri- 
 cultural population, to some extent also engaged in 
 commerce and living under a sort of juridical ad- 
 ministration. In the first place, the very detailed 
 regulations about goring cattle are significant. In 
 the Semitic Orient, cattle never and nowhere be- 
 long to nomad tribes but are exclusively domestic 
 and farm animals ; Semitic nomads raise only sheep 
 and goats. Laws like those regarding injuries to field 
 and vineyards from unrestrained cattle or the rav- 
 ages of fire, or requiring that fields, vineyards and 
 olive groves should not be tilled the seventh year 
 but should be left to the poor, have not Sinai for a 
 background or the deserts of Kadesh, but the fertile 
 land of Palestine. Then, too, when a regulation re- 
 quires that the doer of a bodily injury which does 
 not prove fatal must pay the injured one for the 
 time he is bedridden, and also the cost of his re- 
 covery, we have a condition of society in which the 
 daily wage can be calculated in money, and in which
 
 MOSES. 43 
 
 professional physicians practise for money, which 
 could never be the social condition of a nomad people 
 even if it were no longer purely nomad but had al- 
 ready advanced to the most primitive agricultural 
 stages. The book of the Covenant was certainly 
 drawn up at a comparatively early date. In it we 
 can see the codification of customs in practice in 
 the time of the earliest kings in the manner of the 
 oldest German W 'eisthumer ; but Moses can not have 
 given his contemporaries such a legislation. 
 
 We now come to the Decalogue, the Ten Com- 
 mandments, in which we see the work which belongs 
 peculiarly to Moses, and which occurs first to our 
 minds when the name of Moses is mentioned. Be- 
 cause of the importance of the matter, I must here 
 enter more into detail. It is first of all noteworthy 
 that this Decalogue has left behind no traces what- 
 ever in the early and oldest literature. The earliest 
 passage to be taken into account is in Hosea who 
 says of his contemporaries that they swear, lie, 
 kill, steal and commit adultery (Hosea iv. 2). But 
 the prophet uses other words than those in the Deca- 
 logue, and furthermore the order of the sins is en- 
 tirely different, so that this passage at least need 
 not have reference to the Decalogue. 
 
 Moreover, it is well known that the Decalogue 
 occurs twice in the Pentateuch in different forms 
 (Exodus xx and Deut. v). The first, for instance, 
 alleges as a reason for resting on the Sabbath, the 
 rest of God on the seventh day after the six days 
 employed in creating the world ; the other, consid-
 
 44 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 eration for servants, in order that thy manservant 
 and thy maidservant may rest as well as thou (Deut. 
 v. 14). Of course this difficulty is not insurmount- 
 able, for on two stone tablets we must think of the 
 ten commandments as formulated in lapidary brief- 
 ness, perhaps as follows : 
 
 "Thou shalt have none other gods before me. 
 
 "Thou shalt not make thee any image or any 
 likeness. 
 
 "Thou shalt not misuse the name of God. 
 
 "Thou shalt keep the Sabbath holy. 
 
 "Thou shalt honor father and mother." 
 
 But the gravest essential considerations arise 
 against the possibility that even such a nucleus has 
 come down directly from Moses. The Sabbath 
 command and the image prohibition contain insur- 
 mountable difficulties. The biblical celebration of 
 the Sabbath consists everywhere in rest and cessa- 
 tion from labor. It has therefore been designated 
 as a rest offering. But as a matter of fact, such a 
 cessation from work is actually possible only for 
 agriculturists and never for nomads; for the work 
 which the nomad has to perform can not be set aside 
 at will. The flocks must be fed and watered, gath- 
 ered together and milked on Sunday or holiday as 
 well as on a workday. To attest this fact I will call 
 no less a witness than Jesus, who says in the Gospel 
 of Luke (xiii. 15) : "Thou hypocrite, doth not each 
 one of you on the sabbath loose his ox or his ass 
 from the stall, and lead him away to watering?" in 
 which the impossibility of carrying out the Sabbath
 
 MOSES. 45 
 
 command for the stock raiser is directly admitted. 
 It is indirectly admitted in the fact that Moham- 
 med, who otherwise borrowed everything from Ju- 
 daism, did not adopt the Sabbath, because, oppor- 
 tunist as he was, he said to himself that the insti- 
 tution was not suited to his Arabians. In its biblical 
 sense the Sabbath command is absolutely impossible 
 as a fundamental law of a nomadic people. At the 
 most Moses may have arranged some sort of a re- 
 ligious celebration for every seventh day. The sug- 
 gestion which has been lately raised that the Sab- 
 bath in ancient Israel did not mean the seventh day 
 and a rest day for every week, but the full moon in 
 opposition to the new moon would overcome this 
 objection, but its foundation is very insecure and its 
 maintenance would develop immense difficulties. 
 
 In the same way, facts undeniable historical 
 facts make it impossible to adhere to the image 
 prohibition as Mosaic and as a fundamental com- 
 mand of the religion of Israel. In Dan, where calf 
 worship was carried on officially as in Bethel, which 
 the prophets later struggled against and denounced, 
 a race of priests officiated which were descended 
 from a grandson of the founder Moses; hence a 
 direct descendant of Moses became the official priest 
 of the Golden Calf! How could that be possible 
 when every child of Israel (modernly speaking) 
 in the Sunday school must know that Moses pro- 
 nounced as his second commandment for Israel, 
 "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image 
 or any likeness"? Yes, a notorious idol has even
 
 46 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 been traced back in all naivete to Moses himself. In 
 the temple at Jerusalem at the time of the prophet 
 Isaiah there was still a brazen serpent to which the 
 Children of Israel offered sacrifices. Therefore it 
 was not merely an historical relic from the years in 
 the wilderness, but a representation of deity, which 
 Moses was said to have wrought, and which King 
 Hezekiah caused to be broken in pieces (2 Kings 
 xviii. 4). These are undeniable facts reported in 
 the Old Testament itself. 
 
 Further we must consider that we have no po- 
 lemic from Elijah and Elisha against the calves of 
 Dan and Bethel. If they showed zeal for the God 
 of Israel against the Tyrian Baal, they also showed 
 zeal for the golden calves as the official form at 
 that time of the worship of God in the kingdom of 
 Israel. Even the prophet Amos who appeared in 
 the midst of Bethel and occupied himself in great 
 detail with the cult there, finds no word of complaint 
 for the Golden Calf there. Hosea who stigmatized 
 that ancient and revered symbol by the disrespectful 
 expression, "calf," was the first to engage in polem- 
 ics against this and every image and symbolical kind 
 of worship, but simply from reasons of good sense, 
 and without any implication that it was a great sin 
 which Moses had already forbidden. All of this 
 would be absolutely impossible if the Decalogue of 
 Exodus xx had been known to every Israelite as 
 a fundamental command of the religion of Moses 
 and was generally current as such. But if two of
 
 MOSES. 47 
 
 the ten commandments are essentially untenable then 
 the whole becomes untenable. 
 
 And to make the question still more involved, we 
 have a second Decalogue in Exodus, an entirely 
 different one which likewise was given to Moses on 
 Sinai and reads as follows: (Ex. xxxiv. 14-26) : 
 
 "Thou shalt worship no other god .... 
 
 "Thou shalt make thee no molten gods. 
 
 "The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep.... 
 
 "Every firstling is mine. . . . 
 
 "Thou shalt observe the feast of weeks .... 
 
 "Thou shalt observe the feast of ingathering. . . . 
 
 "Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice 
 with leaven; 
 
 "The fat of my sacrifice shall not remain until 
 the morning. 
 
 "The first of the firstfruits of thy land thou shalt 
 bring. . . . 
 
 "Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's 
 milk." 
 
 These are the ten commandments on the basis 
 of which, according to the oldest narrators, the so- 
 called Yahvists, the covenant on Sinai was con- 
 firmed. In spite of the fact that the two first com- 
 mandments are essentially identical, it is quite im- 
 possible to refer both Decalogues to one original 
 form. This Decalogue of the Yahvist redaction 
 characteristically contains no ethical prescriptions 
 whatever except such as pertain to the religious 
 service; and accordingly it finds the essence of re- 
 ligion in worship. Our own familiar Decalogue
 
 48 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 bears the relation to this one that Amos bears to his 
 contemporaries. 
 
 We must also grant that the tradition that Moses 
 had made the covenant of Sinai on the basis of ten 
 commandments is very old, but the commandments 
 themselves are missing; for even the Decalogue of 
 Exodus xxxiv can not have been formulated by 
 Moses since it also rests upon the assumption of 
 agriculture and festivals founded upon agricultural 
 customs, and if we are honest Moses loses nothing 
 by our refusing to ascribe to him this Decalogue. 
 If he had actually established the religion of Israel 
 upon this foundation he would not belong to the 
 greatest religious heroes of mankind. 
 
 Accordingly, then, the result of our investigation, 
 which may perhaps seem destructive, is that we have 
 no documents or authentic sayings of Moses, like- 
 wise no accounts of him which are even approxi- 
 mately contemporary. Under such circumstances 
 can we dare after all to give a history of Moses and 
 his work? But softly! If we have no historical 
 documents in the usual sense we still have docu- 
 ments from Moses in a higher sense, not written on 
 crumbling stone or moldering parchment, but in liv- 
 ing men, as we might say with the Apostle Paul 
 (2 Cor. iii. 3), "Not with ink, but with the Spirit 
 of the living God ; not in tables of stone but in fleshy 
 tables of the heart." 
 
 Upon the character and history of the people of 
 Israel the work of Moses has left such lasting and 
 unmistakable traces, and tradition has retained for
 
 MOSES. 49 
 
 us such a great number of highly significant un- 
 impeachable facts that we need be in no doubt. To 
 be sure, documents of this kind, not written with 
 ink, are not always easy to read, and I shall surely 
 not be misunderstood if I often express myself with 
 a certain hesitation ; but we shall and can enter upon 
 our task comforted, yes, I flatter myself, that my 
 readers will feel even especial confidence in a repre- 
 sentation of the work of Moses given from a stand- 
 point which they will probably consider very radical, 
 because they have the impression that the author 
 has carefully guarded himself from every incidental 
 illusion and has avoided every possible source of 
 error in every way practicable. 
 
 There is an additional point which lightens our 
 task with regard to Moses. This is the peculiar 
 double position which he shares with Mohammed 
 only of all the great founders of religions : namely, 
 that his is a personality belonging to profane history 
 as well as to the history of religion. He not only 
 founded the Israelitic religion but he also created 
 the Israelitic nation. In his own mind the two 
 sides of his work could not be separated, for in the 
 role of prophet he exercised his political activity, 
 as we would call it, in the name of his God, as His 
 representative with a definite mission. Of this 
 fact tradition leaves us in no doubt, and in this 
 particular it has certainly drawn his likeness with 
 great accuracy. But we can consider historical facts 
 apart from their religious character and motives, 
 and it is easier to gain a picture of historical than
 
 50 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 of religious facts. For instance, we can establish 
 the historical facts of the crusades without regard 
 to the religious character and the religious roots of 
 the movement. If we do so we shall obtain only 
 a one-sided picture of them, nor can we have a 
 complete and accurate picture until we have estab- 
 lished these historical facts objectively. According 
 to my firm conviction it is also possible to establish 
 the historical facts of the life and work of Moses 
 objectively, and this must be our first task. 
 
 In the pages of profane history Moses stands be- 
 fore our eyes as the liberator of his people from 
 Egyptian bondage, arid as their leader and ruler in 
 peace and war. The biblical accounts with regard 
 to the fate of the fathers of Israel in pre-Mosaic 
 times permit of the sharpest critique and become the 
 more brilliantly verified according as they are the 
 more exactly investigated and observed. I consider 
 it as proven that Ramses II, the Sesostris of the 
 Greeks, whose mummy was found a number of 
 years ago, was the Pharaoh of the oppression, and 
 his son and successor, Merenptah, the Pharaoh of 
 the exodus. In Moses, the hero and leader of this 
 expedition, tradition sees a Hebrew of the tribe of 
 Levi. And just this fact is unquestionable because 
 it alone offers us the key to one of the must puzzling 
 phenomena in the history of Israel. 
 
 It is remarkable that the tribe of Levi appears in 
 two forms which have nothing in common except the 
 name. The earliest tradition describes it as a ruth- 
 less and violent secular tribe, who were cursed and
 
 MOSES. 51 
 
 condemned to destruction by the patriarch because 
 of a bloody crime, and were actually destroyed. 
 In the later tradition the Levites appear as a purely 
 spiritual race of priests, who from the beginning 
 were set aside for the service of God. The event 
 which resulted in the overthrow of the secular tribe 
 of Levi can have taken place only when Israel came 
 into possession of Palestine, that is to say, in the 
 time after Moses. This event was the treacherous 
 and barbarous capture of the city of Shechem, 
 which brought no blessing to the wicked tribe and 
 its accomplice, Simeon. They succumbed to the 
 revenge of the Canaanites when Israel solemnly 
 separated from them and left them to expiate their 
 burden of sin alone. That tradition should of its 
 own accord have made Moses out to be a member 
 of this cursed tribe is simply unthinkable, whereas 
 if he were really a Levite the riddle is easily solved. 
 Those portions of the tribe of Levi which belonged 
 to the family of Moses and which were very closely 
 connected with him and had placed themselves at 
 his disposal, took of course no part in the criminal 
 undertaking of the rest and so were not entangled in 
 the catastrophe in which it resulted. Thus it hap- 
 pened in fact that only the priestly families re- 
 mained, and these could hardly have the ambition 
 to reestablish themselves as a secular tribe. 
 
 This Hebrew of the tribe of Levi, however, found 
 access by a happy chance to the civilization and 
 culture of Egypt, and was educated entirely as 
 an Egyptian. It is certain that his name cannot be
 
 52 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 accounted for by Semitic derivation, whereas in the 
 form Mesu it was a purely Egyptian name, which 
 can be authentically proved to have been generally 
 current at that time. Then too, Pinehas, a tradi- 
 tional name in the family of Moses, which we can 
 not trace back to any Semitic root, is a purely Egyp- 
 tian Penehesu which likewise may be authentically 
 proved. According to the biblical narrative, Pha- 
 raoh's daughter found the child Moses in the Nile 
 under circumstances familiar to us all, and adopted 
 him as her son. The non-biblical accounts give her 
 name as Termuthis, or Merris, and in fact we can 
 point out the two names Tmer-en-mut and Meri 
 among the the female members of the family of 
 Ramses II. 
 
 The biblical account touches but lightly on the 
 childhood and youth of Moses. It presents him to 
 us at the first as a man and the champion of his 
 people. This deficiency too has been supplied for 
 us by non-biblical literature. According to Josephus 
 the Egyptian priests demanded his death when he 
 was first brought before Pharaoh, because a proph- 
 ecy said that this boy would one day bring great 
 evil to Egypt; but his foster mother protected him 
 and bestowed upon him a careful education. 
 
 When Moses grew up, Egypt was invaded by the 
 Ethiopians, whom no one had been able to with- 
 stand. Then according to the instruction of an 
 oracle Moses was placed at the head of an Egyptian 
 army and performed his task with wonderful intelli- 
 gence and power, won victory after victory, and
 
 MOSES. 53 
 
 finally besieged the Ethiopians in their capital city, 
 Meroe. There the Ethiopian princess, Tharbis, fell 
 in love with him and on his promise to marry her 
 surrendered to him the capital of the enemy, where- 
 upon he returned in triumph to Egypt. We smile 
 over such stories, but the fact remains authentically 
 established that at the end of the reign of Ramses 
 II and at the beginning of that of Merenptah a 
 certain Mesu was the Egyptian viceroy of Ethiopia, 
 "Prince of Kush," as he was officially styled. Even 
 in the Bible itself we have a very remarkable and 
 puzzling passage where Miriam and Aaron make 
 accusations against Moses on account of an Ethio- 
 pian wife he had taken (Num. xii. 1). In any 
 case the peculiar double position of Moses, Hebrew 
 by birth but Egyptian by education, is to be looked 
 upon as historical, and in this respect we are invol- 
 untarily reminded of Arminius, the Teutonic Her- 
 mann the Cheruscan, who likewise entered into 
 Roman service and arose to the dignity of a Roman 
 knight, but only in order to learn from the Romans 
 how he might free his people from their yoke. The 
 inclination of his heart led Moses likewise to his 
 people; he would rather be the brother of these 
 despised slaves than live in the enjoyment of Egyp- 
 tian luxury and splendor. 
 
 If Moses had been born an Egyptian what could 
 have induced him to place himself at the head of the 
 Israelites with whom he could not even make him- 
 self understood because of the essential difference 
 between their languages? Perhaps pity for the op-
 
 54 THE CULTURE OF ANCINT ISRAEL. 
 
 pressed, who according to the Egyptian view were 
 no better than the cattle which they herded? Or 
 injured ambition because he did not rise rapidly 
 enough in his career and so would rather be the first 
 among the despised foreigners than to be second 
 among the Egyptians? Neither can Moses have 
 been a member of the Semitic tribes who led a 
 nomad life around Sinai and with whom tradition 
 has brought him in closest connection. The desert 
 is egoistic. To but few does it give a scanty sus- 
 tenance, so that every tribe would think well before 
 inviting strangers to the table at which they them- 
 selves could hardly be satisfied even if they would 
 have won additional strength and influence by such 
 an increase in their numbers. In this point too the 
 tradition holds its own and every attempt to depart 
 from it causes only entanglement in unsolvable diffi- 
 culties. 
 
 But Moses was above all a founder of religion, 
 and therefore it becomes of very particular interest 
 and the highest possible value for us to familiarize 
 ourselves with the religious environment in which he 
 developed. That the careful Egyptian education 
 which fell to his lot was also a religious education, 
 may be taken for granted. And the esoteric religion 
 at least of the Egypt of that day stood upon a very 
 high plane. Its belief was centered in a life be- 
 yond. The most important witness of the religious 
 literature of Egypt is the so-called Book of the 
 Dead which treats of the fate of the soul after 
 death. When the soul escapes the fetters of the
 
 MOSES. 55 
 
 body it comes before the judgment of the dead 
 where forty-two judges examine its conduct, each 
 with regard to some one particular sin. If these 
 judges declare the soul to be pure it enters into the 
 realm of light, it becomes God once more and re- 
 turns to God from whom it came. Especially have 
 the mysteries of Osiris this cycle for their object, 
 and we know definitely that in the bosom of the 
 Egyptian priesthood monotheistic speculations were 
 customary, or those with a tendency towards mono- 
 theism. To be sure these speculations never led to 
 a practical religious monotheism but at most to a 
 philosophical pantheism. Heliopolis, the biblical On, 
 had always been one of the main centers of the mys- 
 teries of Osiris; and yet it must arouse our atten- 
 tion when an Egyptian tradition, handed down to 
 us from Manethos, says that Moses came from the 
 circle of the Heliopolitan priesthood of Osiris, and 
 when biblical tradition places Joseph in direct con- 
 nection with them, since Pharaoh gives him to wife 
 Asenath, the daughter of Poti-phera priest of On 
 (Gen. xli. 45). 
 
 The attempt had even been made in Egypt once 
 before to establish monotheism practically not 
 through the priests, it must be noted, but on the part 
 of the state. Amenhotep IV, the last direct scion 
 of the renowned 18th dynasty, the so-called "heretic 
 king," undertook to establish by the power of gov- 
 ernment the worship of one God whom he saw 
 incarnate in the solar disk aten, hence a solar mono- 
 theism, beside which all other cults were to be pro-
 
 56 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 hibited. That this remarkable man (who also took 
 a fancy to have himself and his family portrayed in 
 a repulsively ugly fashion), did not attain his pur- 
 pose, and that the heresy of the heretic king died 
 with him, may be taken for granted. Posterity has 
 condemned him to non-existence, and his name was 
 effaced from all inscriptions, but his attempt re- 
 mains noteworthy for the history of religion, and 
 there is no doubt that Moses knew of these things 
 which took place perhaps a hundred years before 
 his time. Thus by no means did he lack religious 
 stimulation in Egypt. 
 
 Furthermore his must have been a pronouncedly 
 religious nature, an innate religious genius, and with 
 regard to this we must take into consideration cer- 
 tain influences of his own people. According to 
 biblical tradition the work of Moses did not fall 
 from heaven but had its point of contact in his own 
 nation and found a prepared ground; neither did 
 the religious history of Israel originate with Moses, 
 but had its beginnings in an earlier time, closely 
 connected with the person of the patriarch Abra- 
 ham. In this important point too, it is my firm 
 conviction that the biblical tradition is perfectly 
 correct ; namely, that we must assume the patriarchs 
 of the people of Israel to have had before Moses 
 a pronounced religious character which raised them 
 above related tribes and which was a spiritual power 
 ever against the Egyptians. 
 
 The decisive moment in Moses's entire life was 
 during his sojourn among the Midianites in the wil-
 
 MOSES. 57 
 
 derness of Sinai. There he had become the son-in- 
 law of a Midianite priest to whom even the Israelitic 
 tradition assigns a certain share in the work of 
 Moses. Even the natives of this Sinai neighbor- 
 hood we must not imagine as entirely, or even 
 half, wild bushmen. On the contrary, Arabia was 
 the center of an ancient and high civilization, al- 
 though whether it really reached back to the times 
 of Moses may well be questioned. But at least the 
 Arabian borderlands were under the influence of 
 Egyptian and Babylonian civilization and religious 
 movements, since it is well known that Sinai bears 
 the name of the ancient Babylonian moon-god, Sin. 
 Accordingly here the religious soil is not fallow land. 
 The biblical tradition itself says distinctly that the 
 new name Yahveh, by which Moses designated the 
 God of their fathers, originated from Sinai and was 
 derived from there, that even before Moses a god 
 Yahveh was worshiped on Sinai. 
 
 Here on Sinai took place the event which was 
 for Moses what John's baptism in the Jordan was 
 for Jesus, and the day of Damascus for the Apostle 
 Paul ; the biblical account describes it as the theoph- 
 any of the burning bush (Ex. iii.). We can not ex- 
 plain or analyze it but must accept it as a fact as the 
 phenomena of the religious life do not upon the whole 
 admit of demonstration and mock every rational 
 explanation, but nevertheless are realities. Here 
 God himself laid hold upon him and took possession 
 of him. From this moment he knew himself to be 
 called of God as the saviour of his people and that
 
 58 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 he must plan his entire future life in the service of 
 this God. He hastened to Egypt in order to call his 
 people to freedom in the name of the God of their 
 fathers who had appeared to him on Sinai. And 
 here too the religious motive glimmers plainly 
 through the oldest account, for they are to travel 
 in the wilderness in order to celebrate there a great 
 festival for their God. And the bold enterprise suc- 
 ceeded. Even in the most supreme extremity and in 
 the greatest dangers in the face of the despairing 
 and discouraged people Moses clung to the God 
 who had called him, and his faith was not to be 
 shaken. There, as the biblical account states briefly 
 and strikingly, Israel saw the powerful hand of 
 Yahveh which he had shown to the Egyptians. 
 Then the people feared the Lord and believed the 
 Lord and his servant Moses (Ex. xiv. 31). This 
 triumphant moment made Israel into a nation and 
 Israel never forgot it. Here Israel recognized the 
 God of their fathers who with a strong hand and an 
 outstretched arm had delivered his people and had 
 led them forth out of the house of bondage, out 
 of the land of Egypt. Here too we have a matter 
 of fact to recognize ; the deliverance from Egyptian 
 bondage must have been effected by an extraordi- 
 nary event in which those who experienced it could 
 see nothing but the direct personal intervention of 
 God himself. 
 
 At this point, very involved questions begin to 
 arise for the historian which I will at least indicate 
 briefly. It is well known that the mountain where
 
 MOSES. 59 
 
 the law was given to Moses is sometimes called 
 Sinai and sometimes Horeb. Are these only two 
 different names or do they indicate two different 
 mountains? And where may this Sinai, or Horeb, 
 be found ? Besides it is still maintained on reasons 
 not to be despised, that the oldest narrative makes 
 no mention whatever of this digression by way of 
 Sinai, but had the people of Israel from the be- 
 ginning wander directly to Kadesh. These are ques- 
 tions which may never be answered with certainty 
 and which need not occupy us here any further. 
 With Kadesh, surnamed Kadesh Barnea in distinc- 
 tion from other places of the same name and to-day 
 the oasis Ain Qudes at the southwest extremity of 
 the Plateau of Azazime, we have absolutely firm 
 ground beneath our feet. Kadesh is pointed out by 
 tradition so consistently and so positively as the 
 stopping-place of Israel after the exodus and as the 
 scene of Moses's organizing and administrative ac- 
 tivity, that any doubt of this fact would only draw 
 a smile from a methodically trained historian. Now 
 we shall advance to the investigation of his work. 
 However, there are two methodological consid- 
 erations to be disposed of first. The man who 
 wishes to influence his times and to direct them into 
 new paths, must stand above them. Therefore even 
 when we have become acquainted with the religious 
 plane of his time we have not yet familiarized our- 
 selves with his personal religious consciousness, for 
 genius is an absolutely incommensurable quantity, 
 and so likewise is religious genius. Furthermore it
 
 60 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 is a matter of experience that after religious move- 
 ments have entered into life they usually forfeit 
 their original freshness and purity so that they be- 
 come secularized and ossified. Supposing that we 
 did not have the four gospels, or that Luther's 
 writings were lost, who would be able to construct 
 the Gospel of Jesus in its entire purity and splendor 
 from the faith and life of the Christian communi- 
 ties of the middle of the fifth century ? Or who, by 
 considering the condition of the Lutheran church 
 at the time of the Protestant scholasticism or the 
 writings of Calovius and Quenstedt, could imagine 
 that Luther had composed such a precious booklet 
 as his "Freedom of the Christian" ? This privilege, 
 however, we must grant also to Moses, and the more 
 since we possess actually no documents by him or 
 about him. Yes, even the fact that we can not 
 positively prove the existence of definite laws or 
 even positively prove their non-existence proves 
 nothing against Moses. As Jesus said to his dis- 
 ciples (John xvi. 12) : "I have yet many things to 
 say unto you, but you can not bear them now," so 
 Moses too may have thought, and I am firmly con- 
 vinced that such is the fact. I might make the 
 statement that Moses shows himself to be a genius 
 in pedagogy since he would not take the second step 
 before the first, and promoted his work most em- 
 phatically by that which he did not give his people. 
 He gave them no superfluous ballast but only what 
 they could grasp and what they needed ; not philo-
 
 MOSES. 61 
 
 sophical speculations, nor dogmatic instruction, but 
 life, the most vital life, religious life, moral life. 
 
 I will select two important points for the ex- 
 planation of what I mean by the two methodological 
 considerations. It may have offended many of my 
 readers when I was obliged to declare that Moses 
 could not have enacted a law prohibiting images 
 and have made it a foundation stone of his religion ; 
 but does this prove, or do I mean by it to say, that 
 Moses was a worshiper of images and thought it 
 right and praiseworthy to worship God in images? 
 The only object relating to worship which we can 
 refer back to him with certainty is the holy Ark, 
 a pure symbol which never misled the people to any 
 idolatrous misuse; and at the same time the tribes 
 and races in the midst of which Israel lived at the 
 time of Moses were not idol worshipers in this 
 sense, but they too had only religious symbols; so 
 that Moses had no practical occasion for such a com- 
 mand, whereas he himself acted according to this 
 knowledge, and his work lay entirely in this direc- 
 tion. 
 
 Now for the chief central question with regard to 
 monotheism. That Israel did not possess a pure, 
 clearly conceived monotheism for centuries after 
 Moses, that in the eyes of Israel Yahveh was not the 
 one God in heaven and upon earth, but that they saw 
 realities also in the other gods, is absolutely certain. 
 But what does this prove in regard to Moses? Can 
 not Moses personally have held to a pure mono- 
 theism ? Who will decide a priori the point beyond
 
 62 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 which genius may not pass ? Must Moses have con- 
 fessed a religious perception inferior to that of the 
 author of the ancient narrative of paradise and the 
 fall of man, whose monotheism indeed leaves noth- 
 ing to be desired? Could not Moses be content 
 with what he actually accomplished, to bid Israel 
 to worship its own God only and to forbid it to 
 serve any other gods besides? If Israel was actually 
 convinced that it had only its one God to serve, who 
 laid claim upon it as his possession alone, and wished 
 to be everything to it, that would be practically much 
 more valuable than any theoretical doctrine about 
 the nature of God, and Moses could confidently 
 leave the rest to God and time. 
 
 So much is made nowadays of monotheistic cur- 
 rents in the religions of ancient civilizations. But 
 however great we may assume the influence of the 
 Egyptian esoteric doctrine upon Moses to have been, 
 even if a pure monotheism was taught in these 
 mysteries, still to Moses belongs the enormous merit 
 that what was whispered about among the initiated 
 in Egypt was now preached from the house tops 
 and made more useful to humanity, and especially 
 that he had drawn the religious consequences there- 
 from. These same Egyptian priests who in their 
 esoteric teachings gave themselves up to the most 
 profound speculations, prayed in public with the 
 most earnest air of solemnity to cats and ibises, 
 crocodiles and the "holy ox" as Theodore Momm- 
 sen translates the "Apis," and rendered to them di- 
 vine honors; but a purely theoretical monotheism
 
 MOSES. 63 
 
 which exists in a brotherly fashion side by side with 
 the grossest practical idolatry, is religiously not 
 worth a farthing. In this respect Moses accom- 
 plished a sweeping reform and performed a com- 
 plete task: such a double entry method of book- 
 keeping was impossible in the religion of Moses. 
 In all religions there have been monotheistic tenden- 
 cies, currents and attempts, but only in the religion 
 of Israel had monotheism become a power, and 
 indeed a power determining the entire religion ; and 
 this is the work and merit of Moses. Nor did he 
 hesitate to shed blood, as is shown by that remark- 
 able story attested by the oldest tradition, in which 
 he enlisted the tribe of Levi to aid in putting down 
 a religious rebellion (Ex. xxxii. 26 fr*., compare 
 Deut. xxxiii. 8 f . ) . When Saul caused all the wiz- 
 ards and those who had familiar spirits to be hunted 
 out and executed (1 Sam. xxviii. 3 and 9), he pro- 
 ceeded entirely in the spirit of the zealous God of 
 Moses who permitted none other to rule beside him- 
 self. And this enormous energy which supplanted 
 all rivals making it impossible for them to exist 
 side by side with himself, the God of Moses mani- 
 fested also in the spiritual realm. Israel is the only 
 nation of which we have knowledge, that has never 
 had a mythology, that never differentiated divinity 
 according to sex the concept "goddess" is so ab- 
 solutely inconceivable to the Israelites that the He- 
 brew language never attempted to form the word 
 "goddess." This is a miracle performed by Moses 
 which is greater and more incomprehensible than
 
 64 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 the greatest and most incomprehensible which tra- 
 dition has ascribed to him. A man who has exer- 
 cised such an enormous influence on the entire 
 thought and sensibility of his people and has mod- 
 elled it so completely according to his own personal 
 higher knowledge, such a one truly belongs to the 
 greatest spiritual heroes of humanity. 
 
 We have repeatedly called attention to the fact 
 that Moses aimed first of all to awaken religious life. 
 Especially significant for this and of definitive im- 
 portance for all later time is the form of his religious 
 foundation. Yahveh alone Israel's God, and Israel 
 Yahveh's people, this is perhaps the shortest for- 
 mula to which we can reduce the fundamental idea 
 of Moses. But how came this relation to exist? 
 All tradition united in agreeing that in its form 
 the peculiar establishment of the religion of Israel 
 consisted of a covenant between Yahveh and Israel, 
 made through the intervention of Moses. By this 
 means alone was this relation lifted out of the realm 
 of nature into that of the moral decision of the will. 
 This covenant was grounded upon experience of the 
 power of Yahveh. He had made real that which 
 appeared impossible, had freed Israel from the bond- 
 age of Egypt, had therefore shown himself more 
 mighty than even powerful Egypt with all its many 
 gods, and had also given further proof of his 
 power to help. So the God to whom Israel in this 
 covenant had vowed herself by a free act of will, 
 was not an abstraction, not an unyielding destiny 
 but the personal living God of history; the relation
 
 MOSES. 65 
 
 to him was a personal ethical relation which as it 
 was entered upon voluntarily could also voluntarily 
 be broken. Whether Moses himself had already 
 drawn this conclusion, and had it in mind, we know 
 not. Later it gave the prophets a basis for their 
 ethical preaching and their deepening of the relig- 
 ious relation. 
 
 That this relation of Israel to Yahveh was not 
 purely theoretical but also manifested itself in a 
 practical manner may be taken for granted. Its 
 official manifestation, so to speak, was to be found 
 in the religious worship. That Moses had regulated 
 the religious service and standards for the worship 
 of Yahveh is a matter of course. To be sure we 
 can not reconstruct exactly this Mosaic order of 
 service in detail, but we must assume that Moses 
 inspired a new spirit into the worship which made 
 it possible for it to keep the most important heathen 
 abominations at a distance. Among the nations in 
 the vicinity of Israel the customs of infant sacrifice 
 and religious unchastity prevailed. These were pro- 
 scribed by the religion of Israel and wherever they 
 crept in were recognized at once as poison drops 
 foreign to its blood. 
 
 Furthermore, the relation of Israel to Yahveh 
 manifested itself in a moral life, according to the 
 requirements of this God. Here we have the pecu- 
 liar center of the activity of Moses whom tradition 
 describes before all as the judge and organizer of 
 his people. And right here has the consequence of 
 his activity been visible and significant. In fact
 
 66 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 Israel stood far higher morally than the neighboring 
 peoples. It must have had a particularly pronounced 
 notion of right and wrong, and the sphere of morals 
 in a most special sense was peculiarly Israel's honor 
 and renown. From the beginning Israel had ab- 
 horred unchastity in a manner that we do not find 
 to be the case with other Semites. All of this is 
 due to Moses, who silently and unobtrusively or- 
 ganized his people in Kadesh, moralizing, guiding, 
 and sowing noble seeds, and who educated them 
 religiously in the sense and spirit of the Decalogue, 
 even if he did not himself formulate it, and so made 
 it possible for them to become the nation of religion 
 and in time to bring forth the greatest of all. 
 
 It is most probable that Moses also died in Ka- 
 desh. According to all indications Israel's stop 
 there must have been a pretty long one, and it is 
 an essential feature of the Israelitic tradition that 
 neither Moses nor any of those who came out of 
 Egypt was permitted to tread the promised land; 
 and this is of greater significance if we consider 
 that we are dealing with a distance which under nor- 
 mal conditions could have been easily passed in a 
 fortnight. Of special importance for this question, 
 however, is the explicit statement that nobody knows 
 where Moses's grave is "unto this day" (Deut. 
 xxxiv. 6). When we consider what an important 
 part the grave, and especially the grave of a hero, 
 played in the conception of ancient Israel, we must 
 declare it to be absolutely unthinkable that the grave 
 of Moses should have remained unknown if he had
 
 MOSES. 67 
 
 died and had found his last resting place in a spot 
 which Israel considered as belonging to its domain. 
 But we must look upon this circumstance too as 
 providential, for if the grave of Moses had been 
 known, there is no doubt but a personal cult would 
 have been connected with it which might have had 
 evil consequences for the religion he founded. This 
 was not to be. He was to live on only in his work. 
 There is a beautiful Jewish legend about the death 
 of Moses. It is possible to translate the fifth verse 
 in the last chapter of Deuteronomy relating to his 
 death, "So Moses, the servant of the Lord, died 
 there at the mouth of Yahveh." Therefore the 
 Jewish legend tells how in the last hour of Moses's 
 life God fulfilled his ardent wish to behold His 
 face, which in life He was obliged to refuse him 
 (Ex. xxxiii. 18-23) and so Moses died at the mouth 
 of God who by a kiss took to Himself the soul of 
 his faithful and trusted servant. A deep meaning 
 lies in this story, for verily did Moses receive the 
 consecration kiss of deity. Whoso recognizes in 
 Jesus Christ the end and turning point in the history 
 of humanity must also confess that before him no 
 greater mortal trod this earth, and that to no second 
 mortal does humanity owe more than to Moses, the 
 man of God. The foundation of what in Jesus 
 Christ has found its conclusion and its perfection, 
 was laid by Moses, since he was the first to give to 
 the world clearly and consciously as the foundation 
 and basic principle of all religious life, the faith in 
 the one, living, personal, holy God.
 
 THE EDUCATION OF CHILDREN IN AN- 
 CIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 FROM the point of view of race psychology 
 there is scarcely a more interesting or more 
 profitable study than the examination of the way 
 in which the various nations educate their children. 
 Since education aims at the development of children 
 into useful and independent members of human 
 society and at giving them whatever they may some- 
 time need in order to fill their place in life and to 
 meet its demands, we can derive from the nature of 
 their system of education perfectly reliable infer- 
 ences regarding the views of life cherished by the 
 educators and the ideal of man that hovered before 
 them. And so from the beginning special interest 
 is assured for the question, what a people of such 
 importance for mankind as ancient Israel thought 
 about the education of children and how they ap- 
 plied it. 
 
 True, what the Old Testament has to say directly 
 about education is very scanty, but the subject itself 
 is enough to spur us to further investigation. For 
 in order to understand rightly and to estimate prop- 
 erly those scant direct utterances about children and
 
 THE EDUCATION OF CHILDREN IN ISRAEL. 69 
 
 education, one must needs have a clear conception 
 of the views of ancient Israel regarding the family 
 and family life, and accordingly we must include 
 also the main points of this latter important subject 
 within the scope of our immediate consideration. 
 In this study I shall restrict myself to the canonical 
 books of the Old Testament, claiming outside that 
 sphere only the right to be permitted to examine 
 and use Jesus Sirach (Ecclesiasticus). For although 
 the Jews never included Jesus Sirach among the 
 canonical books for reasons which it would lead 
 too far to explain: not indeed from lack of appre- 
 ciation or because it was considered unworthy of 
 such an honor yet it belongs in the period of the 
 Old Testament literature. It was composed fully a 
 generation earlier than the book of Daniel, which 
 has been accepted into the canon, and is for us the 
 most classic witness concerning the opinions of 
 Judaism in the year 200 B. C. I shall also take 
 the liberty of referring on occasion to the book of 
 Tobias, which was written about the same time as 
 the book of Esther. 
 
 Matrimony and family life are regarded in an- 
 cient Israel as unqualifiedly the normal, divinely 
 established and prescribed state. On the other hand, 
 to estimate voluntary abstinence from matrimony as 
 an especial merit, and to ascribe to it a higher degree 
 of divine perfection and even of holiness, was far 
 from the thought of any one in ancient Israel. The 
 saying : "The Israelite who does not take a wife is not 
 to be regarded as a man," is indeed found only in
 
 70 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 the Talmud, but certainly expresses the views of 
 ancient Israel. "He who has found a wife has 
 found a treasure and won favor from God," and 
 "House and havings are inherited from one's par- 
 ents, but a loving wife comes from God," are two 
 among the Proverbs of Solomon, xviii. 22; xix. 14. 
 Since matrimony is instituted in Paradise by God 
 himself, it assumes a decidedly religious value. 
 "God himself was the witness of the vows between 
 thee and the wife of thy youth," says the prophet 
 Malachi with touching beauty, ii. 14; and the faith- 
 less wife is branded, according to Proverbs ii. 17, 
 as one who has "forgotten her vow to the Lord." 
 In the Proverbs of Rabbi Eliezer this thought is 
 expressed very ingeniously and drastically in that 
 fashion so popular with Orientals, a play upon words 
 and letters. Man is in Hebrew E^N (w/&), while 
 woman is HEX (ishshdh). Now these two words 
 have two consonants in common x and v, to which 
 there is added in the word for man a , and in the 
 word for woman a n; but these two letters taken 
 together jv constitute the shortest form of the 
 most holy name of God which it was forbidden to 
 utter, while the two common consonants written 
 and read together give the word rx (esh), meaning 
 fire. Now the Proverbs of Rabbi Eliezer have it: 
 God himself has placed his name in the midst of 
 the names of man and wife; if they hold fast to 
 him he will himself dwell in the midst of them, but 
 if they lose his most holy name there is left only fire ; 
 that is, a marriage where God is a party to the union
 
 THE EDUCATION OF CHILDREN IN ISRAEL. 71 
 
 is heaven on earth, but a marriage where God is not, 
 which is not entered upon in his name and has not the 
 religious basis, is a hell on earth. One can scarcely 
 imagine a more poetical and winning characteriza- 
 tion of such a marriage formed with the blessing 
 of God than that given in the 128th Psalm : "Blessed 
 is every man that feareth the Lord, that walketh in 
 his ways. Thou shalt eat from the labor of thine 
 hands. Happy shalt thou be and it shall be well 
 with thee ! Thy wife shall be a fruitful vine in the 
 innermost parts of thine house; they children like 
 young olive plants round about thy table. Behold, 
 thus shall the man be blest that feareth the Lord !" 
 (Ps. cxxviii. 1-4.) 
 
 Let us now consider how such a marriage was 
 brought about in ancient Israel. First of all we 
 have to prove that opportunity was given the young 
 people to get acquainted and to found a union upon 
 personal attraction and mutual love, for even girls 
 moved with freedom in public life. Indeed they 
 were entrusted with all sorts of tasks which neces- 
 sarily brought them into contact with young men: 
 they had to fetch water, pasture the herds, and 
 guard the vineyards; furthermore it is known that 
 they went out to meet the returning victors in war 
 and welcomed them with dance and song. 
 
 As to the circle from which the Israelite selected 
 his life's companion nothing is definitely prescribed. 
 In the older times at least the choice is regarded as 
 unrestricted. Esau brings home to his parents highly 
 unwelcome daughters-in-law from a foreign race,
 
 72 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 and when Samson proposes to marry a Philistine 
 woman his parents are not exactly pleased with the 
 plan, but they do not regard it as anything wrong 
 and they themselves conduct the suit for the hand of 
 their son's chosen bride when they find that he in- 
 sists on his desire. But this was not indeed the 
 rule; on the contrary, a man sought his wife by 
 preference in his immediate circle, that is, in his 
 own family. Thus Laban says plainly to his nephew 
 Jacob, when the latter asks for Rachel to wife : "It 
 is better that I give her to thee than to a stranger/' 
 Gen. xxix. 19. And when Samson wishes to marry 
 the Philistine woman, his father says to him: "Is 
 there forsooth among the daughters of our kin folk 
 and in our own family no woman, that thou wilt 
 take the Philistine woman to wife?" (Judg. xiv. 3). 
 Cousins of opposite sex seem especially to have 
 been regarded as predestined to betrothal, since the 
 language calls them expressly "lover" and "sweet- 
 heart," TH and nm 
 
 This is based upon the old notions which regarded 
 the family distinctly as an ecclesiastical and legal 
 unit, especially in matters of the law of property. 
 From this point of view, therefore, the contraction 
 of the marriage bond was not the establishment of 
 a new family, but the expansion and perpetuation 
 of the family of the father, for which reason it was 
 the rule that the married son remained in the house- 
 hold of his father. If a young man had deter- 
 mined to enter into matrimony and made his choice 
 either at the dictate of his affections or in accord-
 
 THE EDUCATION OF CHILDREN IN ISRAEL. 73 
 
 ance with the wish of his father, or on some one's 
 recommendation, then his father or some confiden- 
 tial friend sued for the maiden at the hand of her 
 father or her brother : it was not customary for the 
 wooer to conduct his suit in person. 
 
 And here we must admit that of the various forms 
 of marriage contract enumerated and classified by 
 ethnographists there existed in ancient Israel only 
 the form of the so-called marriage sale. If the 
 father of the maiden had given his general con- 
 sent, it then became necessary to agree on the pur- 
 chase price which was known by the distinctive 
 name mohar ; we have no direct account of the maxi- 
 mum value of this mohar, but from a comparison 
 of Deuteronomy xxii. 29 and Exodus xxii. 15 we 
 can infer that in the time of Deuteronomy, that is, 
 toward the close of the kingdom of Judah, the 
 average amount of the mohar was 50 shekels of 
 silver. Since we have shekels still preserved, we 
 can at least fix precisely the value of the metal in 
 the same. The shekel of ancient Israel weighed 14.5 
 gr. : according to the present standard value of sil- 
 ver 14.5 gr. of pure silver would be worth $0.635, 
 and accordingly the normal price for a wife would 
 have been $31 . 75. And from the moment when the 
 mohar was paid down and accepted, the marriage 
 was regarded as legally concluded even when it was 
 not yet accomplished in fact. But it is clearly to 
 be inferred from the very vivid account of Eliezer's 
 suit for the hand of Rebecca (Gen. xxiv.) that the 
 maiden was not bartered like an article of com-
 
 74 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 merce, but that her consent was necessary, and like- 
 wise that the father on the other hand could refuse 
 to give his consent to a union. The first mention 
 of the composition of a written marriage contract is 
 found in Tobias vii. 13, and here the circumstance 
 is involved of sending the daughter far away from 
 home to a foreign country. 
 
 Legally considered, the wife was the property of 
 her husband. The husband indeed bears the very 
 name of "owner," ba'al, and the married woman is 
 called ish-shdh be'ulath ba'al, "a woman who has 
 become the property of an owner." But the ulti- 
 mate reason for this phenomenon we have not to 
 seek in the fact that the woman was regarded as 
 merely a thing, but in olden times the whole house- 
 work and all the domestic industries rested upon 
 the shoulders of the feminine members of the fam- 
 ily. A daughter, therefore, was a valuable laboring- 
 factor in the father's house, of which he was de- 
 prived, and accordingly it was proper that he should 
 be recompensed and that the family of the bride- 
 groom should pay something in return for the new 
 additional laborer. Accordingly the mohar is not 
 much higher than the average price of a slave, 
 which was, according to Exodus xxi. 32, about $19. 
 And thus also we explain the fact that the bridegroom 
 can offer his own personal services instead of the 
 mohar. If he is unable to raise the amount of the 
 mohar, he becomes the slave of his father-in-law 
 and thus works it out. Thus, as is well known, 
 Jacob, who as an orphan and a fugitive was of
 
 THE EDUCATION OF CHILDREN IN ISRAEL. 75 
 
 course unable to offer a mohar, served his father- 
 in-law seven years for his wife, and I must not 
 neglect to note expressly, if we propose to regard 
 the marriage contract as really a commercial affair, 
 that it was solely the labor of the bride which was 
 the object of purchase. Marriage was never a spec- 
 ulation in ancient Israel, and there was no such thing 
 as marriage for money, for the bridegroom had 
 not only the mohar to pay, but had also to meet the 
 entire expense of the wedding festivities from his 
 own means. The bride received no money, neither 
 a dowry for her matrimonial estate nor any outlook 
 for the inheritance after the death of the parents, 
 for according to the notions of ancient Israel the 
 woman is never a claimant of rights but only the 
 object of legal claims, and has accordingly no right 
 of inheritance. What is regarded as a matter of 
 course among us, that the widow shall be the heir 
 of her husband and that the estate of the parents 
 shall be divided equally between the sons and the 
 daughters, the Israelite of old would not have under- 
 stood at all, but would simply have regarded as 
 demented any one who said and claimed such things. 
 Neither the widows nor the daughters received any- 
 thing, but on the death of the father the estate was 
 divided among his sons, the first-born receiving 
 double the share of the others, but to offset this he 
 had to assume the obligation of caring for and sup- 
 porting his mother and his sisters. 
 
 Hence the Israelite maiden never had ground 
 for suspecting, when she entered upon matrimony.
 
 76 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 that she was being married on account of her money, 
 as a perhaps unwelcome appendage to her property, 
 and thus one of the chief causes of unhappy mar- 
 riages was removed. 
 
 But the question will be asked: What if there 
 were no sons, but only daughters, or perhaps no 
 children at all, and only a widow? In such cases, 
 indeed, the widow and the daughters received the 
 estate, but in this case they had not the free disposal 
 of their own hand. The widow had to marry the 
 brother or the nearest elder kinsman of her de- 
 ceased husband, and the daughter some member of 
 the father's family, so that the property always re- 
 mained with his line. 
 
 Now, if the negotiations had reached a successful 
 termination, so that nothing more stood in the way 
 of the union of the couple, the marriage feast was 
 celebrated. And here again a very surprising but 
 unquestionable fact is to be recorded. Despite the 
 thoroughly religious character of ancient Israel, de- 
 spite all the recognition of the religious character 
 and the religious foundation of matrimony, the Old 
 Testament does not contain a hint of any religious 
 consecration of the matrimonial tie, or in modern 
 phraseology, of any ecclesiastical ceremony. And 
 so at the time of the establishment of the civil 
 statutes when the clerical party especially protested 
 so vigorously against the recognition of civil mar- 
 riage, while the Catholic church even to this day re- 
 fuses to recognize the civil wedding alone as a valid 
 marriage, they have the direct testimony of at least
 
 THE EDUCATION OF CHILDREN IN ISRAEL. 77 
 
 the older portion of the Bible against them. Ancient 
 Israel recognized only the civil marriage, and in- 
 deed, strictly speaking, not even this; for the state, 
 so far as we may speak at all of a state within the 
 borders of ancient Israel, paid absolutely no atten- 
 tion to the matrimonial relations of its subjects. The 
 marriage contract was purely a family affair, in- 
 volving only private rights. Corresponding to the 
 decisive factor from the point of view of private 
 rights that the bride was transferred from the fam- 
 ily of her father to that of the bridegroom, the 
 essential part of the marriage ceremony was the 
 fetching and the solemn home-bringing of the bride 
 from the house of her father to that of her future 
 husband. This home-bringing was accompanied by 
 songs and ceremonies of all sorts, but by nothing in 
 the nature of religious rites. The wedding festiv- 
 ities lasted seven days and were at the expense of 
 the bridegroom : in the book of Tobias the wedding 
 celebration at the house of the father-in-law in 
 Ecbatana lasts fourteen days (viii. 18), and after 
 the arrival of the young couple in Nineveh a further 
 celebration of seven days takes place in the house of 
 the father (xi. 17). 
 
 To have children was regarded among the ancient 
 Israelites as the greatest good fortune that God can 
 grant to men ; this view is probably expressed most 
 concisely in the beautiful saying, "Behold, sons are 
 a gift of God, and children are the reward of grace" 
 (Psalms cxxvii. 3). On the other hand, childless- 
 ness was regarded as a punishment from God, and
 
 78 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 a reproach in the eyes of men. There is no indica- 
 tion in the Old Testament that any sort of symbol- 
 ical ceremony was necessary on the part of the 
 father whereby he recognized and accepted the new- 
 born child as his own, as we know to have been the 
 fact among the Romans and the early Germans, 
 not even in Job iii. 12. 
 
 If the wife herself is regarded in law as the prop- 
 erty of her husband, the same is still more the case 
 with the children. In law the relation of wife and 
 children to the husband and father is the same as 
 that of slaves, and accordingly the apostle Paul is 
 thinking and speaking in strictly Israelitic spirit 
 when he says in the familiar passage of Galatians 
 (iv. 1) : "So long as the heir is a child, he differeth 
 nothing from a bondservant, although he shall one 
 day be the master of all." So the father had the 
 right to sell the children, under the single limitation 
 that it be not to tribal aliens. And so also he had 
 the right to dispose at will of the right of primo- 
 geniture, that is, to divert the right of the first-born 
 to one who was not actually the first-born; at least 
 this prerogative is expressly abolished by Deuteron- 
 omy xxi. 15-17. Indeed the father had the right 
 of life and death in connection with the child, that 
 is, he could punish the child, and under certain 
 circumstances (Gen. xxxviii. 24) the daughter-in- 
 law, with death, of course in cases prescribed by 
 custom. 
 
 The way in which the book of Deuteronomy 
 disposes of these paternal rights is very character-
 
 THE EDUCATION OF CHILDREN IN ISRAEL. 79 
 
 istic. We read there (xxi. 18-21) : "If a man have 
 a stubborn and rebellious son, who will not obey the 
 voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and 
 will not hearken unto them though they chasten 
 him; then shall his father and his mother lay hold 
 on him, and bring him out unto the gate of his 
 place to the elders of his city, and shall say to them : 
 This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not 
 obey our voice, he is a riotous liver and a drunkard. 
 And all the men of the city shall stone him to death ; 
 so shalt thou put away evil from the midst of thee ; 
 and all hear it and fear." We do not find that the 
 parents first accuse the son, and that afterwards the 
 elders investigate the case and then punish him. 
 No, the parents are both accusers and judges : only 
 the execution is withheld from them. At their re- 
 quest and upon their simple notification the inhabi- 
 tants of the city must execute the penalty of death 
 against the rebellious son. This is a consistent de- 
 velopment of paternal authority similar to that which 
 we see executed by Roman law. 
 
 The first care of the new-born child seems not, 
 or at least not always, to have been performed by 
 the parents. But as the Greeks had a paidagogos, 
 that is exactly, a children's guide, a slave who was 
 charged with the special attendance and care of the 
 child, so in ancient Israel we hear of something 
 similar. Here too we are told repeatedly of atten- 
 dants and nurses, male or female as the case may 
 be, who looked after the care of the child. They 
 carried the child especially in their bosom, that is
 
 80 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 in the folds of the garment over the breast and 
 above the girdle, and later probably taught the child 
 to walk. In the case of royal children they probably 
 remained about the young princes as tutors (2 Kings 
 x. i ff. ) . Thus in a familiar passage Moses says to 
 God : "Am I then the mother of this whole people, 
 that thou sayest to me, Bear it in thy bosom, as a 
 nursing father bears his nurseling, into the land 
 which thou hast promised unto their fathers !" (Num. 
 xi. 12.) And in the book of Isaiah, the future glory 
 of the people of Israel is depicted in the words: 
 "And kings shall be thy nursing-fathers" (xlix. 23). 
 And so, when the son of Jonathan was made lame 
 by the carelessness of his nurse, who at the news 
 of the defeat in battle at Mt. Gilboa, let the five-year- 
 old boy fall in her hasty flight (2 Sam. xlix. 23), 
 as well as in the book of Ruth, which is so full of 
 charming and poetic touches, where we read that 
 Ruth's mother-in-law, Naomi, nursed the son of her 
 daughter and Boaz (iv. 16). And on the subject 
 of learning to walk also we have a picturesque verse. 
 In one of the most touching passages of the book 
 of the prophet Hosea we read : "When Israel was 
 a child, then I loved him and called my son out of 
 Egypt. Yet I taught Ephraim to go; I took them 
 on my arms" (xi. 1-3). 
 
 But in order to enjoy children as a gift of God, 
 they must turn out well and be well trained. "A 
 wise son maketh a glad father, but a foolish son is 
 the heaviness of his mother;" "The father of the 
 righteous may greatly rejoice, and he that hath a
 
 THE EDUCATION OF CHILDREN IN ISRAEL. 81 
 
 wise child may have joy of him;" "He that hath a 
 fool for a son, the same hath sorrow, and the 
 father of a fool hath no joy;" "A foolish son is a 
 grief to his father, and bitterness to her that bare 
 him," thus speak the Proverbs of Solomon, x. 1 ; 
 xxiii. 24; xvii. 21 and 25. And: "A reproach to a 
 father is an ill-bred son, and such a daughter is to 
 him a great evil" ; "Cherish no longing for a multi- 
 tude of useless children, and take no pleasure in 
 godless sons; for one is better than a thousand, 
 and better it is to die childless than to have impious 
 sons," says Jesus Sirach, xxii. 3; xvi. 1-3. From 
 such utterances we may fairly conclude that the 
 training of children was regarded as something very 
 important in Israel and that great value was laid 
 upon it. It was expected to begin at a very early 
 age, for "What's bred in youth is done in age" was 
 surely a principle known in ancient Israel as well as 
 elsewhere. "Train the child at the very beginning 
 of his ways, and when he is old he will not depart 
 therefrom," we read in Proverbs, xxiii. 6, and "If 
 thou hast children then train them from their in- 
 fancy," says Jesus Sirach, vii. 23. 
 
 Now the first thing that was demanded of the 
 child was absolute respect for its parents. "Honor 
 thy father and thy mother," appears already in the 
 Ten Commandments, and in Leviticus, xix. 3, and 
 xx. 9 : "Ye shall fear every man his mother and his 
 father, for I am the Lord your God ;" and "Every 
 one that curseth his father or his mother shall be put 
 to death." The Prophet Malachi says : "A son hon-
 
 82 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 oreth his father, and a slave his master" (i. 6). "Be 
 obedient to thy father and despise not thy mother 
 when they have become old"; "A generation that 
 curseth its father and blesseth not its mother, 
 an eye that mocketh at its father and that despiseth 
 to obey its mother, the ravens by the brook shall 
 pick it out and the young eagles shall eat it," are 
 utterances of Proverbs, xxiii. 22; and xxx. 11 and 
 17. And on this very point there are some beautiful 
 passages in Jesus Sirach: "Honor thy father with 
 thy whole heart, and never forget what thy mother 
 had to suffer for thee. Forget not that thou owest to 
 them thy life, and how canst thou repay them for 
 what they have done for thee?" (vii. 27-28). "Hear, 
 O children, the commandments of your father, and 
 walk therein, that ye may prosper. For the Lord 
 has made honor of the father a duty of the chil- 
 dren, and the commandments of the mother hath 
 he made a law for her sons. He who honoreth his 
 father maketh atonement for sins, and he who hon- 
 oreth his mother gathereth a good treasure. He 
 who honoreth his father will have joy of his own 
 children, and when he prays his prayers will be 
 heard. He who esteemeth his father will enjoy long 
 life, and he who obeyed the Lord will be a comfort 
 to his mother. He who feareth the Lord will honor 
 his father and will serve his parents as though they 
 were rulers. Honor thy father both in word and in 
 deed, that a blessing may come upon thee from 
 them. For the father's blessing buildeth houses for 
 the children, but the curse of the mother destroveth
 
 THE EDUCATION OF CHILDREN IN ISRAEL. 83 
 
 them. Seek not thy glory in the dishonor of thy 
 father, for his dishonor can never be a glory to 
 thee. For the glory of a man is the honor of his 
 father, and a mother dishonored is a reproach to 
 her children. My son, care for thy father in his 
 age, and grieve him not so long as he liveth. And 
 though he become childish, have consideration for 
 him and despise him not when thou art in thy full 
 strength. For compassion upon thy father will 
 not be forgotten, and instead of the punishment of 
 sins thou buildest thine house. In the day of need 
 thou shalt not be forgotten, and like ice before the 
 sun thy sins shall melt away. He who leaveth his 
 father in need is no better than a blasphemer, and 
 he who grieveth his mother is accursed of God" 
 (iii. 1-16). 
 
 One particular sort of respect is especially com- 
 mended. It seems to have been customary among 
 the ancient Israelites also that the parents withdrew 
 to the old folks' apartments and lived on an allow- 
 ance. Jesus Sirach gives a most energetic warning 
 against this : "Give not to thy son, thy wife, thy 
 brother or thy friend power over thee so long as 
 thou livest. As long as a breath of life is in thee 
 leave not thy place to another and surrender not thy 
 money to another, lest thou be compelled to beg for 
 it of another. For it is better that the children beg 
 of thee than that thou be compelled to look into the 
 hand of thy son" (xxx. 28-30). In the same cat- 
 egory belong two sayings in Proverbs : "He that 
 wasteth his father and chaseth away his mother, is
 
 84 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 a son that causeth shame and bringeth reproach" 
 (xix. 26), and "Whoso robbeth his father and his 
 mother, and saith, It is no transgression, the same 
 is among the worst criminals" (xxviii. 24). As a 
 matter of course, along with respect for parents the 
 child was trained to all other moral obligations and 
 virtues. 
 
 And what sort of pedagogical principles did they 
 have in ancient Israel ? That can be told in a single 
 word : the rod. Discipline was indeed very severe. 
 to our modern humanitarian views absolutely 
 tyrannical. The foremost demand of our theory, 
 that the individuality of the child must be allowed 
 to develop, would have been as incomprehensible to 
 the ancient Israelite as would have been the claim 
 of woman to be an agent of the law. Obedience was 
 the end and all. And since this is not apt to come 
 of itself, it was necessary to resort to drastic meas- 
 ures. When we hear the proverb, "My son, despise 
 not the chastening of the Lord; neither be weary 
 of his reproof; for whom the Lord loveth he re- 
 proveth, he chasteneth the son in whom he hath 
 delight" (iii. 11-12), we need not wonder if the 
 earthly father also lays ungentle hands upon his 
 child for his own good. For "he that hath been 
 delicately brought up from childhood will become 
 a servant and end in misery," say Proverbs xxix. 21. 
 (Such is probably the sense of the corrupt and diffi- 
 cult passage.) On this particular point the book 
 of Proverbs and Jesus Sirach express themselves 
 with all desirable distinctness. "He that spareth
 
 THE EDUCATION OF CHILDREN IN ISRAEL. 85 
 
 the rod hateth his son ; but he that loveth him chas- 
 teneth him betimes." "Foolishness is bound up in 
 the heart of a child ; but the rod of correction shall 
 drive it far from him." "The rod and reproof give 
 wisdom; but a child left to himself causeth shame 
 to his mother." "Correct thy son and he shall give 
 thee rest; yea, he shall give delight unto thy soul" 
 (Prov. xiii. 24; xxii. 15; xxix. 15, 17). "As is 
 music in the midst of mourning so is a reproof out 
 of place; but chastisements are always proper in 
 discipline" (Jesus Sirach xxii. 6). But here again 
 the most characteristic expression is an extended 
 disquisition in Jesus Sirach: "He who loveth his 
 son letteth him taste the rod continually that he may 
 have pleasure in his conduct thereafter. He who 
 chasteneth his son will have pleasure in him, neither 
 will he be ashamed of him before his friends. He 
 who instructeth his son, giveth offence to his enemy, 
 and will rejoice over him in the presence of his 
 friends. And if his father die, it is as though he 
 had not died, for he leaveth his like behind him in 
 his place. So long as he liveth he has his pleasure 
 in him, and when he cometh to die he is untroubled. 
 He leaveth behind him an avenger against his ene- 
 mies, and to his friends one who will remember their 
 kindnesses. But he will spoil his son who takes 
 every blow to heart and who is distressed whenever 
 he weepeth. As an untamed horse is rebellious, so 
 a spoiled son is uncurbed. Treat thy son with 
 delicacy and thou wilt afterwards fear him; play 
 with him and he will afterwards grieve thee. Jest
 
 86 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 with him and he will cause thee trouble and thou 
 shalt be called to account for his evil deeds. Give 
 him not much freedom in his youth and excuse not 
 his follies. Bend his neck the while he is young 
 and bruise his back while he is small, that he may 
 not become stubborn and disobedient to thee and 
 thou have sorrow because of him. Bring up thy 
 son to labor, lest he give offence and become a dis- 
 grace to thee" (xxx. 1-13). 
 
 But the strongest, and absolutely shocking for our 
 present feeling, are two sayings from the Book of 
 Proverbs, which for this reason I have saved to the 
 last: "Chasten thy son, seeing there is hope; thou 
 wilt not beat him quite to death" (xix. 18), and 
 "Withhold not correction from the child ; for though 
 thou beat him with the rod yet will he not die of it. 
 Thou shalt beat him with the rod and thus deliver 
 his soul from hell" (xxiii. 13-14). For easily con- 
 ceivable reasons the attempt has been made to elim- 
 inate this unmerciful beating from the text by in- 
 genious interpretation of the death as a spiritual 
 death : Chastise thy son, seeing there is hope, lest 
 thou be guilty of his death, inasmuch as he would 
 become the prey of death if he grow up without 
 virtue ; or again : Withhold not correction from the 
 child; if thou strike it with the rod it will not die 
 but through severe discipline will become a pious 
 man who will escape the judgment for sin. But 
 this seems to me to be wholly contrary to the sense 
 and spirit of the book of Proverbs. In fact, that 
 which Luther so aptly translated from Jesus Sirach
 
 THE EDUCATION OF CHILDREN IN ISRAEL. 87 
 
 as "beat his back blue" is literally : "break his ribs." 
 The Oriental is fond of drastic and hyperbolical ex- 
 pressions, which of course must not be glossed over. 
 That the Old Testament does not regard the father 
 exclusively as the tyrannical administrator of chas- 
 tisement is sufficiently proven by the familiar pas- 
 sage of Psalms : "Like as a father pitieth his chil- 
 dren, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him" (ciii. 
 13), and that the rod was only the last resort, and 
 that they could get along very well without it, is 
 sufficiently shown by the Proverb: "A rebuke en- 
 tereth deeper into one that hath understanding than 
 a hundred stripes into a fool" (xvii. 10). But all 
 the preceding evidence shows us clearly this: That 
 the family according to ancient Israelitic notions 
 was an absolute monarchy, with the father as ab- 
 solute monarch at the head. Authority and obe- 
 dience are its foundation-stones. 
 
 But while what we have thus far been considering 
 constitutes what may be called moral education, we 
 must now proceed to inquire regarding intellectual 
 education. What did the child have to learn in 
 ancient Israel? Jesus Sirach speaks, xxx. 3, of in- 
 struction given to the son : what may have been the 
 topics of this instruction ? Here too the Old Testa- 
 ment leaves no room for doubt on the point that 
 the first and most important thing that the father 
 had to teach his son was religion, that religious in- 
 struction was the basis and the starting-point of 
 education. "Abraham will command his children 
 and his household after him that they may keep
 
 88 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 the way of the Lord to do justice and judgment, 
 that the blessing may come upon them" (Gen. xviii. 
 19). "They shall learn to fear me all the days 
 that they live upon the earth, and that they may 
 also, teach it to their children" (Deut. iv. 10). "And 
 these words which I command thee this day, thou 
 shalt take to heart, and thou shalt teach them dili- 
 gently to thy children" (Deut. vi. 6-7). The father 
 is directed to use every opportunity in order to give 
 his son religious instruction. On the occasion of 
 the feasts especially the opportunity presented itself 
 as a matter of course. "And when at the feast of 
 the Passover thy son shall ask thee, What mean ye 
 by this service? ye shall say, It is the sacrifice of 
 the Lord's Passover, who passed over the houses of 
 the children of Israel in Egypt, when he smote the 
 Egyptians, and delivered our houses. And thou 
 shalt tell thy son in that day: Thus did the Lord 
 deal with me when I came up out of Egypt" (Exod. 
 xii. 26-27, xiii. 8). The same directions are given 
 in connection with the pillars of stone that were 
 set up at Gilgal in memory of the miraculous pas- 
 sage of the Jordan. "When your children shall ask 
 their fathers in time to come, What mean these 
 stones? then ye shall let your children know, say- 
 ing, Israel came over this Jordan on dry land" 
 (Josh iv. 21-22). 
 
 A classic testimonial of this religious chain of in- 
 struction as the center of all domestic training and 
 instruction in Israel is the beginning of the 78th 
 Psalm : "I will proclaim to you the mysteries of old,
 
 V* / 
 
 THE EDUCATION OF CHILDREN IN ISRAEL. 89^ / 
 
 ,\ 
 
 which we have heard and learned, and what our 6 
 fathers have told us. Their children did not hide 
 it, but told to the generations to come the great 
 deeds of Yahveh and the wonders that he did for 
 Israel; how he commanded our fathers to instruct 
 their children in the same, that the generation to 
 come might know it, even the children which were 
 yet to be born and these in turn be zealous to tell 
 it to their children, that they might set their trust 
 in God and not forget the mighty deeds of the 
 Lord" (Ixxviii. 2-7). It is the first and most essen- 
 tial element of the instruction to train the children 
 to be pious, orthodox and well-grounded Israelites, 
 and to this end is employed first of all instruction 
 in Bible history. According to a familiar passage 
 in the "Sayings of the Patriarchs" the instruction 
 in Bible history was to begin in the child's fifth 
 year. 
 
 But what was the status of the proper topics of 
 education? Writing, reading, and arithmetic are 
 things which do not impart themselves, and yet they 
 are indispensable in daily life. Now we have defi- 
 nite evidence that reading and writing were widely 
 known in Israel even in the earliest times. Gideon 
 wishes to punish the elders of the city of Succoth 
 for their unpatriotic conduct. "And he caught a 
 young man," so the book of Judges tells us, "of 
 the men of Succoth, and he was compelled to write 
 down for him the chiefs and the elders of the city, 
 seventy and seven men" (viii. 14). This narrative 
 gives us, to be sure, no evidence regarding the time
 
 90 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 of Gideon, but it does for the time when it was 
 written : it is a part of the oldest historical tradition 
 of Israel, and in this it is taken as a matter of course 
 that the first comer picked up from the field can 
 write. Or, to take another case, David's captain 
 Joab was by no means what we would call an edu- 
 cated man, but yet he knew how to read and write, 
 as is shown clearly enough in the incident of the all 
 too famous Uriah letter (2 Sam. xi. 14). The same 
 is true in the time of Isaiah, as indicated in the pas- 
 sage, speaking of the condition of Assyria after the 
 divine judgment, "And the remnant of the glory of 
 Assyria shall be small, that a little child might record 
 it" (x. 19), that is, make a list, an inventory of it. 
 And the fact that the judicial procedure at the time 
 of this great prophet was documentary, as is the 
 case in the Orient at the present day, is proved by 
 the circumstance that Isaiah characterizes unjust 
 judges as "writers that write perverseness" (x. 1). 
 At a peculiarly important crisis of his prophetic 
 activity he is required to take a tablet before wit- 
 nesses, on which he is to write "with human pencil," 
 that is, in the common cursive hand, the mysterious 
 words "The spoil speedeth, the prey hasteth." And 
 along with this, the oldest monument of Hebrew 
 writing known to us, the Mesa stone of Dibon, 
 erected by a contemporary of the prophet Elijah, 
 exhibits so distinctly and perfectly the characteris- 
 tics of cursive script as to demonstrate the existence 
 in Israel of a long-practiced art of writing. 
 
 But the Old Testament nowhere gives the slightest
 
 THE EDUCATION OF CHILDREN IN ISRAEL. 91 
 
 hint of public schools or of professional teachers. 
 The attempt has been made to find in a very obscure 
 passage of Isaiah, xxviii. 9-13, an allusion to in- 
 struction in reading of written characters imparted 
 by a teacher. The defiant and conceited princes of 
 Jerusalem are not willing to be treated like school- 
 boys by Isaiah, as we would express the idea, but 
 Isaiah has nothing to say of a public school and of 
 methodical instruction in the reading of manuscript 
 imparted there. Hence we must assume, since the 
 art of writing was widely cultivated, that writing 
 reading, and reckoning were taught in ancient Israel 
 at home and by the father alone, that no school 
 interposed its disturbing and hostile influence be- 
 tween the child and its parental house; nevertheless 
 they thrived excellently without it, and it is easy to 
 imagine how such a close association of children 
 and parents, to whom the parental house was every- 
 thing, must needs bring to family life a warmth and 
 to the feeling of solidarity a permanence, of which 
 we people of modern times have as yet no notion, 
 for the dominant tendency of our time is to reduce 
 the sphere of home and family bit by bit and to 
 make of man nothing but a mere figure in the census 
 reports and the tax rolls. 
 
 And now I must give answers to two questions 
 which have perhaps been busying the attention of my 
 readers, and especially the ladies, for some time: 
 What of the mother and what of the daughters? 
 Hitherto only son and father have been spoken of. 
 What position in the education of the children and
 
 92 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 what influence upon it did Israel ascribe to the 
 mother ? And what did they think of the education 
 of girls? First of all we must frankly admit that 
 the mother appears in only a single, and that a very 
 obscure, passage as consciously participating in the 
 education of the children. In the Proverbs of Solo- 
 mon, there is to be found near the end of the book 
 a little collection of sayings, xxxi. 1-9, with the 
 special heading: The Words of Lemuel, the King 
 of Massa, Which his Mother Taught him. Other- 
 wise the mother is indeed mentioned along with the 
 father, but always in the second place. "Listen to 
 the commandment of thy father and despise not the 
 instruction of thy mother" (Prov. i. 8). And the 
 following passage in Proverbs is especially charac- 
 teristic : "When I was a son unto my father, tender 
 and only beloved in the charge of my mother, then 
 he taught me and said unto me" (iv. 3-4). Here, in 
 poetic parallelism, the mother is mentioned first, one 
 may say for propriety's sake, but after that she is 
 utterly ignored : it is the father alone who teaches and 
 educates. That this is nothing accidental is proved 
 by the comparison of two very similar poetical pas- 
 sages, one German, the other Israelitish. We have a 
 eulogy of the virtuous housewife in The Song of 
 the Bell, and we also have one in the Proverbs of 
 Solomon, xxxi. 10-31. Now in our Schiller we 
 find directly that 
 
 "She ruleth wisely 
 
 Her sphere of home, 
 
 The maidens training, 
 
 The boys restraining."
 
 THE EDUCATION OF CHILDREN IN ISRAEL. 93 
 
 In the much longer biblical eulogy of the virtuous 
 housewife we find no word of this: she is depicted 
 as one who takes excellent care of her husband and 
 his household and keeps everything in the best con- 
 dition, but of the children and of her domestic con- 
 trol as mother, not a word! Toward the end, in- 
 deed, there is found the very beautiful expression: 
 "She opens her mouth with wisdom and under- 
 standeth kindly instruction" (xxxi. 26), but this is 
 put in very general terms and comes in quite acci- 
 dentally. We meet here an undeniable and very 
 surprising fact. Not, indeed, that the Old Testa- 
 ment is altogether lacking in appreciation of mother 
 love. When, for instance, we read in the First Book 
 of Samuel how Hannah, the mother of the prophet 
 Samuel, visits her son, who is dedicated to the sanc- 
 tuary, once a year at the time of the harvest festival 
 in the temple at Shiloh, and brings to him a suit of 
 clothing made by herself, it moves our heart to its 
 depths. To express the highest degree of sadness 
 the Psalmist says (xxxv. 14) : "Like one who is 
 mourning for his mother." Repeatedly the love of 
 God is compared with the love of a mother, and 
 perhaps nothing more beautiful and touching was 
 ever written than the word of the prophet: "As a 
 man whom his mother comforteth" (Isaiah Ixvi. 
 13). It is not, "As a son whom his mother com- 
 forteth," but "As a man" For even a man, proud 
 and conscious of his strength, has moments when 
 only a mother can restore and comfort him. 
 
 If then, despite this warm appreciation of mother-
 
 94 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 love, the mother is slighted in comparison with the 
 father in the very realm which our modern notion 
 regards as her peculiar domain, we must assume 
 that it was a conscious purpose in Israel that placed 
 the education absolutely in the hands of the father, 
 and we can, moreover, recognize this purpose else- 
 where. It was desired that the training should be 
 serious and severe, not the coddling of a "mother's 
 pet," but a school for life, and this they felt could 
 be better given the child by the father who knew life 
 because he stood in the midst of it. 
 
 And certainly it would be very salutary for the 
 present day if fathers devoted themselves more to 
 their children and their children's education, and we 
 must surely hold to this as an ideal requirement. At 
 the same time we will not forget that such condi- 
 tions are possible only in a patriarchal state which 
 knows nothing of special callings and professional 
 work. It is a matter of course that we cannot de- 
 mand of a modern father who labors day after day 
 in his office or his counting-room all that was done 
 and could well be done by the father in ancient 
 Israel. 
 
 And what of the daughters? First of all I must 
 discuss some passages of Luther's Bible translation 
 where "daughters" are mentioned. In the so-called 
 Sayings of Jacob, Genesis xlix., where Luther trans- 
 lated in the sayings about Joseph, "His daughters go 
 about the management" (of the house?), ("Seine 
 Tochter treten einher im Regiment"), this is simply 
 a very queer misunderstanding of what is to be sure
 
 THE EDUCATION OF CHILDREN IN ISRAEL. 95 
 
 a very difficult passage, which is speaking of grape- 
 vines and not of daughters. And in the famous 
 parable of the Prophet Nathan regarding the one 
 lamb of the poor man, where it is said, "It did eat 
 of his own morsel and drink of his own cup and 
 slept in his bosom, and was unto him as a daughter" 
 (2 Sam. xii. 3), this gives us the impression that 
 it is intended to express a greater degree of tender- 
 ness than if it had said, "It was unto him as a son." 
 But the lamb is in Hebrew of the feminine gender : 
 the passage is strictly : "She was unto him," so that 
 there was nothing to do but to add, "a daughter." 
 For our sense of language the only correct transla- 
 tion would be, "And it was unto him as a child." 
 And when Luther translates in the eulogy of the 
 virtuous woman, Proverbs xxxi. 29, "Many daugh- 
 ters bring wealth," many a Bible reader with a wealth 
 of daughters may have shaken his head incredu- 
 lously over the passage and thought to himself : that 
 relentless realist Jesus Sirach certainly knew life 
 better. For in an exceedingly drastic disquisition, 
 much too drastic for our sensibilities, he shows 
 that a daughter is a very questionable treasure which 
 keeps the poor father awake of nights with anxiety 
 (xlii. 9-14). Now the passage in question in Prov- 
 erbs of the many daughters who bring wealth, 
 should read, "There are indeed many excellent 
 maidens." 
 
 As to the education of daughters, there is in the 
 entire Old Testament only a single utterance, and 
 that in Jesus Sirach, but a very striking one: "If
 
 96 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 thou hast daughters, train them to walk virtuously, 
 and regard them not too tenderly. If thou dispose 
 of a daughter in marriage, thou hast done a good 
 work, but give her to a man of understanding" (vii. 
 24-25 1 ). That is all that we have on the subject. 
 Of course the religious instruction was given to the 
 daughters also, yet in addition they received in- 
 struction in domestic work, which of course was 
 taught by the mother. 
 
 But as for education in the special sense of the 
 word, viz., writing, reading and arithmetic, we have 
 neither direct nor indirect information on the sub- 
 ject. For even though Queen Jezebel in the familiar 
 account of Naboth writes a letter to the elders of 
 Jezreel and seals it with the seal of King Ahab 
 (1 Kings xxi. 9), we cannot conclude from this 
 alone that girls in general could read and write. 
 And we have a classic illustration of the view of the 
 later Orient on this subject. An exceedingly popu- 
 lar variety of literature is what is known as the 
 literature of apothegms, in which are collected max- 
 ims, opinions, sententious sayings of famous men, 
 chiefly Greek philosophers. These apothegms are 
 found throughout the entire Orient in translations 
 and the greatest variety of versions, so that we may 
 fairly regard their contents as typical. And among 
 these apothegms the following story is told of the phi- 
 losopher Diogenes : One day seeing some one teaching 
 a girl to write, he said, They are dipping her arrows 
 in poison! That means a vigorous and thorough- 
 
 1 In Luther's Bible verses 26-27.
 
 THE EDUCATION OF CHILDREN IN ISRAEL. 97 
 
 going hostility to all feminine education, and this the 
 Oriental clearly regarded as wise and correct. For 
 the Oriental has never been able to rise to the recog- 
 nition of the equal rights of man and woman, or 
 even of an equal humanity in them. And in this 
 respect the Israelite is Oriental. In the Talmud we 
 find three times the saying: "Well for him whose 
 children are boys; woe to him whose children are 
 girls !" In the Old Testament there is indeed noth- 
 ing like this directly expressed, but without doubt 
 this is what the Israelite of old thought. 
 
 The Koran also furnishes instructive material on 
 this point. The heathen Arabs worshiped chiefly 
 three feminine divinities, who are called daughters 
 of Allah ; for they were fond of conceiving all 
 higher powers as feminine. Mohammed attacks 
 this habit of thought with the following drastic 
 argumentum ad hominem: "Is it not true that ye 
 wish to have sons ; and should God have daughters ? 
 And if the birth of a daughter is announced to one 
 of you, then his face is o'erclouded with trouble, 
 and he suppresses his desperation only with diffi- 
 culty, and hesitates to appear in public because of 
 the bad news that has come to him, and he is in 
 doubt whether to bring her up to his own disgrace 
 or rather to bury her in the earth!" (Surah 16, 
 verses 59-61 ). The exposure and murder of newly- 
 born girl children is of course a widespread custom, 
 of which the prophet Ezekiel must have known, for 
 in the famous sixteenth chapter of his book he 
 describes Jerusalem as a new-born, castaway Bed-
 
 98 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 ouin girl, that lies moaning and weltering in her own 
 blood by the wayside, where God finds her and takes 
 her up, and then tends lovingly and rears to maturity. 
 Not that Ezekiel meant to ascribe such an abomin- 
 able practice to the ancient Israelites, for he also 
 says expressly, "Thy father was an Amorite and thy 
 mother a Hittite." 
 
 But in the passage cited, Mohammed speaks of 
 burying in the earth, and on this point our informa- 
 tion about the ancient Arabs furnishes us a horrible 
 illustration, for there was among them a custom 
 which is even not lacking in a certain grim humor 
 and probably presents in its unqualified brutality 
 the most peculiar of all solutions of the woman ques- 
 tion. If casting away in infancy did not accomplish 
 the desired result, and if there were still too many 
 girls in the community, then the fathers took the 
 unmarried daughters, decked them as brides and 
 buried them alive. That is the Oriental concep- 
 tion of the inferiority of women, who were really 
 regarded merely as a necessary evil. And in this 
 point Israel did not wholly break down the Oriental 
 barrier, and indeed it did not actually accept the 
 complete religious equality of men and women. 
 
 Attention has often been called to the fact that 
 in the priestly regulations of Leviticus the priest is 
 forbidden to defile himself by contact with the corpse 
 of his wife; that is, to perform the funeral lament 
 for her; at least, in the evidently very accurate list 
 of the persons for whom he may perform this service 
 the wife is lacking (Lev. xxi. 2-3). Judaism also
 
 THE EDUCATION OF CHILDREN IN ISRAEL. 99 
 
 regarded the man as the sole bearer of religious 
 worship. The main space of the synagogue is used 
 exclusively by men, while the women, concealed in 
 the balconies are spectators rather than participants 
 in the worship. The obligation which rested upon 
 every mature male Israelite of reciting twice a day 
 the so-called schema, the elemental confession of 
 Judaism, is expressly designated as not valid for 
 women in a Mishnah of the treatise Berachoth, and 
 since the man thanks God expressly in the daily 
 prayer that he was created a man, of course man 
 and wife cannot even pray in concert. Hence we 
 need no longer be surprised if we find in the Old 
 Testament nothing of the education of girls. 
 
 Let me sum up. The ancient Israelite family 
 was an absolute monarchy based upon obedience, 
 and the father the absolute monarch in it. The 
 education of the children also lies entirely in his 
 hands. Training is strict, even harsh, the funda- 
 mental element of it being religion and its principal 
 aim the development of a religious personality. Even 
 the school instruction was given at home and by the 
 father ; whether the daughters received any share of 
 it we do not know. 
 
 These views precisely reverse everything that we 
 regard as natural and a matter of course. What 
 then shall we think of them? They are certainly 
 not the final word on the subject; the gospel of the 
 freedom of the children of God, in which there is 
 no distinction of male and female, is higher. But 
 let us not on that account despise them; for they
 
 100 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 served their purpose, they stood the fiery test in a 
 very literal sense. If Israel has successfully out- 
 lived all its persecutions and all the blows of fate, 
 this has been possible only because every individual 
 household constituted a compact unit, which might 
 be destroyed but not broken up. And although much 
 about this institution, even perhaps the whole of it, 
 fails to secure our approval, yet I would like to call 
 attention to one very cogent fact. Our kindred 
 nation in distant South Africa, whose heroic strug- 
 gle for its freedom and existence for nearly three 
 years kept the whole world that has any heart in 
 a fever of hopeless hope, is a shining illustration 
 of the Old Testament sort of education. The Boers, 
 with their childlike trust in God and their naive 
 belief in the Bible, with their patriarchal conditions 
 and their old-fashioned institutions, are in the very 
 depths of their nature Old Testament people. And 
 what applies to the Boers holds good for Israel. The 
 Old Testament sort of education trained men and 
 heroes, perhaps not always lovable and sympathetic, 
 but whole men, armed for the battle of life and 
 steeled for martyrdom, greater heroes perhaps in 
 suffering and enduring than in action. An educa- 
 tion that can show such results and upon which the 
 blessing of God rested evidently for so many thou- 
 sand years, may certainly command our admiration.
 
 MUSIC IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 MUSIC belongs to the inalienable rights of 
 man. It is the effort to make oneself in- 
 telligible to his fellow men by means of the stimu- 
 lation of sounds of all kinds. Music exists wher- 
 ever men are found upon the earth, and everywhere 
 they show a genuine refinement in the discovery 
 of means by which to originate sounds. There is 
 hardly anything which can not be brought into use 
 for its purposes. 
 
 We do not intend to lose ourselves here in specu- 
 lation upon the psychological reasons for this de- 
 monic impulse; we will be content simply to estab- 
 lish the fact and will not enter into it with regard 
 to humanity in general, but only in so far as the 
 people of Israel is concerned. Even with reference 
 to the Old Testament we will limit ourselves to what 
 the Old Testament itself can tell us about music and 
 musical things. 
 
 Many passages have proved very puzzling to 
 Bible readers. For instance when we read in the 
 heading of Psalm Ixxx, "To the chief Musician 
 upon Shoshannim-Eduth, A Psalm of Asaph"; or 
 in the heading of Psalm Ix, "To the chief Musician 
 upon Shushan-eduth, Michtam of David, to teach" ;
 
 102 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 or in the heading of Psalm Ivi, "To the chief Musi- 
 cian upon Jonath-elem-rechokim, Michtam of Da- 
 vid" ; or when Psalms viii, Ixxxi, and Ixxxiv, bear 
 the inscription, "To the chief Musician upon Git- 
 tith"; or the three, xxxix, Ixii, and Ixxvii "to 
 Jeduthun"; we may certainly assume that we have 
 an explanation for these hieroglyphics in consider- 
 ing that they possess some kind of a musical char- 
 acter. 1 Accordingly it will be our task to gather to- 
 gether and to sift out the information given by the 
 Old Testament itself upon music and musical mat- 
 ters and then to see whether we can unite and com- 
 bine these scattered and isolated features into one 
 comprehensive picture or at least into a compara- 
 tively clear idea. It is only scattered and isolated 
 features which the Old Testament offers us and not 
 very much of them nor very abundantly. Not per- 
 haps because music had played a subordinate and 
 inconspicuous part in the life of ancient Israel, on 
 the contrary they must have been a people of an 
 unusually musical temperament whose daily nour- 
 ishment was song and sound. On this point the 
 Old Testament itself leaves little room for doubt. 
 
 1 Luther in his translation makes an attempt to translate 
 these "hieroglyphics," but the above quoted meaningless com- 
 binations of letters from the King James version hardly convey 
 less significance to the reader of to-day than his sentences: 
 "Ein Psalm Assaphs von den Spanrosen, vorzusingen" (Ixxx) ; 
 "Ein gulden Kletnod Davids, vorzusingen, von einem guldenen 
 Rosenspan zu lehren" (Ix) ; etc. Professor Cornill considers 
 the English translation "To the chief Musician" as preferable 
 to Luther's vorzusingen. The Polychrome Bible translates this 
 word "For the Liturgy," and interprets the succeeding clauses 
 as "the catch-word of an older song, to the tune whereof this 
 Psalm was to be sung." Tr.
 
 MUSIC IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. 103 
 
 Everywhere and at all times were song and music 
 to be found in ancient Israel. Every festival occa- 
 sion, every climax of public or private life was cele- 
 brated with music and song. Just as Homer called 
 singing and string music "the consecration of the 
 meal," 2 so also in ancient Israel no ceremonial meal 
 could be thought of without its accompaniment of 
 either vocal or instrumental music. Marriage cere- 
 monies took place amid festive choruses with music 
 and dancing, and at the bier of the dead sounded 
 the wail of dirge and flute. The sheep were sheared 
 and the vintage gathered to songs of joy and dan- 
 cing and tambourine playing. The same was true 
 in public life. The election of a king or his corona- 
 tion or betrothal were celebrated with music; the 
 victorious warriors and generals were met upon 
 their return home by choruses of matrons and maid- 
 ens with dance and song. So Miriam spoke from 
 among the choruses of women who after the suc- 
 cessful passage through the Red Sea went out "with 
 timbrels and with dances" (Ex. xv. 20) ; in the 
 same way too, David was received by matrons and 
 maidens after his successful battle with the Philis- 
 tines (1 Sam. xviii. 6) ; and upon this custom is 
 founded the frightful tragedy of the story of Jeph- 
 thah, whose daughter hastened in the joy of her 
 heart to offer greeting and praise to her victorious 
 father, only to be met by death as the fulfilment of 
 his vow (Judges xi). 
 
 How great a place music occupied in the worship 
 
 datros.
 
 104 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 of ancient Israel is universally known. The entire 
 Psalter is nothing else than a collection of religious 
 songs which were sung in the temple worship where 
 the priests with their trumpets and the choruses of 
 music-making Levites stand before the eye of our 
 imagination. Especially by typical expressions do 
 we learn what a significance music had for the life 
 of the Israelitic nation. There is in Hebrew a 
 saying which characterizes what we would call be- 
 ing "common talk," "the object of gossip/' "on 
 everybody's tongue," in such a way as to indicate 
 ditties sung in ridicule. The Hebrew expression 
 neginah 3 means "string music," being derived from 
 the word nagan, 4 "to beat," "to touch," with special 
 reference to instruments, as in striking the chords. 
 In Psalm Ixix. 12, this word neginah is used in a 
 passage which literally reads : "I am the lute song 
 of drunkards." The Polychrome Bible translates 
 the passage: "I am the subject of wine bibbers' 
 ballads." In the same sense the word is used in 
 Job xxx. 9, with reference to the frightful fate that 
 had befallen him: "And now am I their song, yea 
 I am their byword." And in Lamentations we find 
 (iii. 14, 63), "I was a derision to all my people; 
 and their song all the day .... Behold their sitting 
 down, and their rising up; I am their music." Here 
 the word translated "song" and "music" is the 
 same in both instances. When Job's fortune changes 
 to evil he says (xxx. 31), "My harp also is turned 
 to mourning, and my organ into the voice of them
 
 MUSIC IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. 105 
 
 that weep." The dreadful desolation of Jerusalem 
 after its destruction is described in Lamentations 
 with the words: "The elders have ceased from the 
 gate, the young men from their music" (v. 14). 
 
 Ancient Israel must have been recognized among 
 outside nations as well, as a particularly musical 
 people whose accomplishments in the art comprised 
 a definite profession. For this view we have two 
 extremely characteristic sources of evidence, one 
 from Assyrian monuments and one from the Old 
 Testament. In his account of the unsuccessful siege 
 of Jerusalem by the Assyrians in the year 701 B. C. 
 Sanherib tells us, according to the translation of 
 Hugo Winckler, that Hezekiah, king of Judah, be- 
 sides all kinds of valuable articles sent also his 
 daughters and the women of his palace together 
 with men and women singers to the great king at 
 Nineveh, while in the touching Psalm cxxxvii we 
 learn that the Babylonian tyrant demanded songs 
 of the Jewish exiles, to cheer them up : "Sing to us 
 your beautiful songs of Zion." 
 
 Jewish tradition has given expression to the fact 
 that music belongs to the earliest benefits and gifts 
 of the culture of mankind by establishing Jubal as 
 the inventor of music and father of musicians as 
 early as the seventh generation after the creation 
 (Gen. iv. 21). An important influence on the hu- 
 man heart was ascribed to music and it was em- 
 ployed to drive away the evil spirit of melancholy 
 when David played before the sick King Saul (1 
 Sam. xvi. 23). It was also used as a spiritual
 
 106 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 stimulus by which to acquire prophetic inspiration. 
 In Samuel's time companies of prophets traversed 
 the land to the music of psalter and harp (1 Sam. 
 x. 5 ) , and so the Prophet Elisha to whom the Kings 
 Jehoshaphat and Jehoram applied for an oracle 
 from God, sent for a lute player, saying (2 Kings 
 iii. 15) : "But now bring me a minstrel. And it 
 came to pass, when the minstrel played, that the 
 hand of the Lord came upon him." 
 
 An art to which such a powerful influence was 
 attributed and to whose most famous masters the 
 greatest king of Israel belonged, must have been 
 zealously practised, and we will now undertake to 
 gain some idea of the cultivation of music in an- 
 cient Israel. To this end it will be most useful if 
 we will begin our investigation with what the Old 
 Testament says about musical instruments, of course 
 with express exception of the book of Daniel which 
 in its third chapter mentions a large number of 
 instruments, using their Greek names as naturalized 
 words; 5 for these prove absolutely nothing with 
 regard to ancient Hebrew music which at present is 
 our only consideration. 
 
 We may with equal propriety exclude singing 
 from our investigation. Song is such an especially 
 instinctive and spontaneous expression of the human 
 soul that its presence is established a priori. In 
 this connection the question might be raised with 
 regard to the construction of the tone system, but 
 this can not be answered without knowledge of the 
 
 8 ffvptyt, ffa/t/3i5/ci7, Kidapts, if/aXrripiov,
 
 MUSIC IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. 107 
 
 instruments employed. Only I will not neglect to 
 mention that as early as in the time of David pro- 
 fessional male and female singers provided music 
 during mealtime. David wished to take with him 
 to Jerusalem as a reward for fidelity the faithful old 
 Barzillai who had protected him at the time of Ab- 
 salom's rebellion. There he would be the daily 
 guest of the king; but Barzillai answered (2 Sam. 
 xix. 35), "I am this day fourscore years old; and 
 can I discern between good and evil? Can thy 
 servant taste what I eat or what I drink? Can I 
 hear any more the voice of singing men and singing- 
 women? Wherefore then should thy servant be 
 yet a burden unto my lord the king?" Solomon, 
 the Preacher, also delighted in "men singers and 
 women singers and the delights of the sons of men, 
 as musical instruments and that of all sorts" (Eccl. 
 
 ii. 8). 
 
 * * * 
 
 Musical instruments are usually divided into three 
 classes, percussive instruments, stringed instruments 
 and wind instruments, and we shall also follow this 
 division. Of these three classes the percussive in- 
 struments are the most primitive. They can not be 
 said to possess any properly articulated tones but 
 sounds only, and their single artistic element is 
 rhythm, which however is certainly the foundation 
 and characteristic of music according to the witty 
 utterance of Hans von Biilow, "In the beginning 
 was the rhythm." 
 
 Among percussive instruments the one most fre-
 
 108 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 quently mentioned is the timbrel or tabret (in He- 
 brew toph 6 ) which corresponds exactly to our tam- 
 bourine. Often they were richly ornamented so 
 that they were frequently referred to as decorations. 
 In one of the most splendid passages of the prophet 
 Jeremiah we read : "Again I will build thee, and 
 thou shalt be built, O virgin of Israel; thou shalt 
 again be adorned with thy tabrets, and shalt go 
 forth in the dances of them that make merry" 
 ( Jer. xxxi. 4) . This passage is particularly character- 
 istic of the nature of the tabret in two respects ; first, 
 it usually appears in the hands of women (in all pas- 
 sages where tabret players are expressly mentioned 
 they are matrons and maidens) ; and secondly it 
 almost always appears in connection with the dance, 
 as being swung in the dance and marking its rhythm. 
 We can suppose it to have been undoubtedly played 
 by men only in connection with the music of the 
 companies of prophets in Samuel's time, for if we 
 read that these prophets came down from the sacred 
 highplace with a psaltery, and a tabret, and a pipe, 
 and a harp before them (1 Sam. x. 5), we would 
 hardly think of the musicians who accompanied 
 these wild men and played the tabrets before them, 
 as women. 
 
 The second percussive instrument is the familiar 
 cymbal, which comes next to our mind in thinking 
 of the music of the Old Testament. With regard to 
 the nature and character of this instrument we can 
 gather all that is essential from the Bible itself. In
 
 MUSIC IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. 109 
 
 the first place the cymbal must have been constructed 
 of brass, for in the familiar passage, 1 Cor. xiii, 1, 
 the Apostle Paul writes according to the Greek text, 
 "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of 
 angels, and have not charity I am become as sound- 
 ing brass, or a tinkling cymbal." The Hebrew root 
 tsalal, 7 from which both words for cymbal are de- 
 rived, means "clatter," to give forth a sharp pene- 
 trating sound; and the word most frequently used, 
 metsiltayim* is in the dual form which is never used 
 in the Hebrew language in its purely grammatical 
 sense, but only in the logical sense of things which 
 occur in nature only in pairs. Now since a penetra- 
 ting and loud tone is repeatedly attributed to the 
 cymbals we may consider them as two metal plates 
 to be struck together (Fig. 4) ; that is to say, they 
 are the instruments which we know as cymbals and 
 which are known in German as Becken and in Ital- 
 ian as piatti, and which are most familiar to us in 
 military music in combination with a bass drum. 
 
 Two other percussive instruments are mentioned 
 of which one is still doubtful. The one which is 
 undoubtedly certain, mena'an'im 9 (2 Sam. vi. 5) 
 evidently comes from the root nua', 10 "to shake," 
 and corresponds exactly to the Greek sistrum 11 con- 
 sisting of metal crossbars upon which hang metal 
 rings that are made to produce their tones by shak- 
 ing (Fig. 6). Accordingly in current language it 
 is the Turkish bell-tree, the cinelli, with which we 
 are familiar also through German military music. 
 
 10 yi:
 
 110 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 Then too an instrument called the shalish 12 is 
 mentioned in the hands of women together with 
 the tabret at the triumphal reception of David 
 upon his return from the conquest of the giant Go- 
 liath (1 Sam. xviii. 6). The word shalish being 
 derived from the same root as shalosh, the number 
 "three," we have been accustomed to identify it 
 with our modern triangle, but it is a question 
 whether we are justified in so doing. With this in- 
 strument we have exhausted the number of percus- 
 sive instruments mentioned in the Old Testament. 
 * * * 
 
 It might perhaps be more logical for us to follow 
 the percussive instruments at once with the wind 
 instruments, inasmuch as they are the most primi- 
 tive next to the percussive instruments because 
 horns of animals and reeds are nature's own gifts 
 to men, while strings made from catgut are a purely 
 artificial product. But as far as ancient Israel was 
 concerned the stringed instruments were by far the 
 most important. I will remind my readers once 
 more of the proverbial application of the word 
 string-music above mentioned. 
 
 Accordingly I will next consider the stringed 
 instruments, of which the Old Testament mentions 
 two, the kinnor, 13 and nebel. 14 That both were com- 
 posed of strings drawn across wood (Fig. 9) may 
 be proved, in so far as it needs proof, by the fact 
 that according to 1 Kings x. 12, Solomon ordered 
 certain instruments of this class intended for the
 
 MUSIC IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. Ill 
 
 temple service to be made out of sandal wood, which 
 he had obtained during his famous visits to Ophir. 
 Of these two instrument the kinnor is the most im- 
 portant, but I will begin with the nebel because we 
 have the more definite tradition with regard to it. 
 When Jerome tells us that the nebel, whose name 
 became nabla 1 * and nablium in Greek and Latin, 
 possessed the form of a Greek Delta A, we thus 
 have the triangular harp indicated as plainly as 
 possible (Fig. 1). The only objection that can be 
 brought against this view, namely that we repeatedly 
 meet this instrument in the hands of dancers and 
 pilgrims, is not sound. In representations of ancient 
 Egypt, we also have harps so small that they could 
 easily be carried (Fig. 2), and the best commen- 
 taries have lately shown us Assyrian representa- 
 tions where pointed harps with the points at the 
 top and fastened with a band were likewise carried 
 in the hands of dancing processions (Fig. 10). If 
 the points of these Assyrian harps were regularly 
 at the top, this will explain to us better St. Jerome's 
 comparison with the Greek Delta which of course 
 has the point at the top. 
 
 Especially noteworthy among others is an Assy- 
 rian representation (Fig. 15) in which three pris- 
 oners are being led into exile by an Assyrian king, 
 and all three are playing four-stringed harps on the 
 march, but the harps are so turned that the broad 
 side is on top. It is quite possible that these figures 
 may represent captive Israelites.
 
 112 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 There must have been several varieties of nebel 
 (e. g., Fig. 8). A harp of ten strings (dekachord) 
 is repeatedly mentioned 16 in clear distinction from 
 the usual ones which accordingly must have had 
 fewer than ten strings, perhaps four as in that As- 
 syrian sketch. An instrument of six strings is the 
 interpretation of many exegetists of the word shu- 
 shan 17 which Luther translates by Rosen in the 
 headings to Psalms xlv, Ix, Ixix and Ixxx. When 
 we read in Luther's Bible in the headings to Psalms 
 vi and xii, "to be rendered on eight strings," 18 this 
 is hardly an accurate translation of a musical term 
 with which we shall occupy ourselves later. 
 
 By far the most important stringed instrument, 
 on the other hand, is the kinnor. Its invention is 
 ascribed to Jubal, and we meet with it on every 
 hand in the most varied occasions. The exiles hung 
 them on the willows by the waters of Babylon (Ps. 
 cxxxvii. 2) and according to a passage in the book 
 of Isaiah, which to be sure comes from a much later 
 date, probably the Greek period, they are used by 
 harlots for the public allurement of men (Is. xxiii. 
 16). 
 
 For us the kinnor has indeed a conspicuous inter- 
 est and a particular significance in that it was the 
 instrument of King David, by which the son of 
 Jesse subdued the melancholy of King Saul, and 
 
 18 Ps. xxxiii. 2 ; xcii. 4 ; cxliv. 9. 
 
 "The Polychrome Bible here understands "in the eighth 
 [mode]" or key. The authorized version again resorts to a 
 transcription of the Hebrew, "On Neginoth upon Sheminith." 
 Dr. Cornill's view is given on page 123. Tr.
 
 MUSIC IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. 113 
 
 which he played when dancing before the ark. We 
 are particularly fortunate in possessing an authentic 
 copy of this instrument on an Egyptian monument. 
 On the tomb of Chnumhotep, the Prince of Middle 
 Egypt at Beni Hassan in the time of Pharaoh Usur- 
 tesen II of the 12th dynasty, which can not be 
 placed later than 2300 B. C, a procession of Semitic 
 nomads is represented which Chnumhotep is leading 
 into the presence of Pharaoh in order to obtain the 
 royal permission for a dwelling place in Egypt. In 
 this procession a man who comes immediately be- 
 hind the women and children is carrying by a leather 
 thong an instrument which we can not fail to recog- 
 nize as the kinnor (Fig. 3, cf. also Fig. 5). It is 
 a board with four rounded corners and with a 
 sounding hole in the upper part over which eight 
 strings are stretched. The man picks the strings 
 with the fingers of his left hand while he strikes 
 them with a so-called plectrum, 19 a small stick held 
 in his right hand. 
 
 That the Israelites also played their stringed in- 
 struments partly with their fingers and partly by 
 means of such a plectrum we might conclude from 
 the two characteristically different expressions for 
 playing on strings : zamar 20 "to pluck," and nagan, 21 
 " to strike." All antiquity was unacquainted with 
 the use of bows to produce sound from stringed 
 instruments of any kind. 
 
 Hence the kinnor may first of all be compared 
 to our zither, except that it apparently had no hollow
 
 114 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 space underneath and no special sounding board. 
 The stringed instruments as they are represented 
 in countless different varieties on Jewish coins 
 (Figs. 13 and 14) do not correspond either with 
 the nebel or the kinnor but much more closely re- 
 semble the Greek lyre 22 and therefore have little 
 value with reference to the Old Testament. 
 
 We might also consider the gittith a stringed in- 
 strument where the headings to Psalms viii, Ixxxi, 
 and Ixxxiv, read "upon Gittith." 23 But it is very 
 doubtful whether the word gittith 24 translates a 
 musical instrument and not rather a particular kind 
 of song or melody. In either case it will be better 
 not to confuse the temple orchestra of ancient Israel 
 
 with the gittith. 
 
 * # * 
 
 We have still to consider the wind instruments. 
 One of these whose invention is likewise ascribed to 
 Jubal is call the 'ugab. 25 Besides in Genesis iv. 21, 
 it is mentioned twice in the book of Job, and once 
 in Psalms cl, in which all instruments and every- 
 thing that hath breath are summoned to give praise 
 and thanksgiving to God (Ps. cl. 4; Job xxi. 12; 
 xxx. 31). This ( ugab has been regarded as a bag- 
 
 "Xfya. 
 
 "The Polychrome Bible comments: "We do not know 
 whether Gittith means 'belonging to the city of Gath/ which 
 probably had been destroyed before the Babylonian Exile, or 
 'belonging to a wine-press' (= Song for the Vintage?), or 
 whether it denotes a mode or key, or a musical instrument/' 
 Tr. 
 
 "rvro 
 
 25 DJiy It is translated in the authorized version by "organ," 
 but in Ps. cl. 4, in the margin, as "pipe." Tr.
 
 MUSIC IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. 115 
 
 pipe and we may be assured that it was a very primi- 
 tive instrument. It has been customary to translate 
 the word by "shawm"; Luther calls it "pipes" 
 (Pfeifen). But Mr. Phillips Barry 26 proves to my 
 satisfaction that the traditional rendering of 'ugab 
 as "bagpipe" rests upon an error. Just what the 
 'ugab is, however, Mr. Barry himself is not able 
 to say./ 
 
 The j most important reed instrument, the flute, 
 we find referred to as khalilf 7 only in five passages : 
 with the" thundering music of the prophets (1 Sam. 
 x. 5) ; at the proclamation of Solomon as the suc- 
 cessor of David (1 Kings i. 40) ; twice in the book 
 of Isaiah, in connection with the dinner music of 
 the rich gluttons and winebibbers at Jerusalem (v. 
 12), and also "when one goeth with the pipe to 
 come into the mountain of the Lord" (xxx. 29) ; 
 and finally once in the book of Jeremiah as the in- 
 strument of mourning and lamentation, where we 
 read (xlviii. 36), "Therefore mine heart shall sound 
 for Moab like pipes." In this connection we are 
 reminded to some extent of the awakening of Jai- 
 rus's little daughter. When Jesus reached the house 
 of mourning he found there before him flute play- 
 ers and weeping women 28 (Matt. ix. 23; Mark v. 
 38). 
 
 38 See his brief article entitled "The Bagpipe not a Hebrew 
 Instrument" in The Monist, XIX, July, 1909, pp. 459-461. 
 
 27 ^5>n Translated in the authorized version by "pipe." Tr. 
 
 28 The English version speaks simply of "minstrels and the 
 people making a noise," without translating the kind of instru- 
 ment used. Tr.
 
 116 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 Of the construction of these flutes the Old Testa- 
 ment tells us nothing and leaves nothing to be in- 
 ferred, and yet we imagine that the khalil was not 
 a transverse flute but probably a sort of beaked 
 flute, thus corresponding much more closely to our 
 clarinet. We find the transverse flutes only in very 
 isolated cases on Egyptian monuments, while on the 
 other hand we find the beaked flutes regularly in an 
 overwhelming majority with the Assyrians, and in- 
 deed often composed of two tubes as was the com- 
 mon form among the Greeks ( Fig. 11). But nearer 
 than this we can not affirm anything with regard 
 to their use in ancient Israel. 
 
 We find animal horns mentioned twice among 
 wind instruments, as ram's horns, once indeed in 
 connection with the theophany of Sinai (Ex. xix. 
 13) and once at the capture of Jericho (Josh. vi. 5). 
 The term "horn," qeren, 29 for a musical instrument 
 comes under Greek influence again in the book of 
 Daniel. On the other hand in Old Testament times 
 only the two forms shofar 30 and hatsotserah 31 were 
 in common use. On the triumphal arch of Titus 
 (Figs. 16 and 17) and on two Jewish coins (Fig. 
 18) we have esthetic representations of the hatsot- 
 serah which was peculiarly the instrument of wor- 
 ship and was blown by the priests. According to 
 Num. x, two hatsotseroth (the word always occurs 
 in the plural in the Hebrew with one exception) 
 were to be fashioned out of silver by skilful handi- 
 work and there the priests made use of them to call 
 29 HP
 
 MUSIC IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. 117 
 
 together the people and to announce the feasts and 
 new moons. That these instruments in the ancient 
 temple were indeed of silver we learn also from an 
 incidental notice in 2 Kings xii. 13, in the reign 
 of King Joash. According to many pictures they 
 are rather long and slender and perfectly straight, 
 widening gradually in front into a bell mouth, hence 
 the very instruments which the pictures of ancient 
 art used to place in the hands of angels, and which 
 may best be compared with the so-called clarion of 
 ancient music, a kind of clarinet made of metal. 
 
 The wind instrument which is second in impor- 
 tance, the shofar, still plays a part in the worship 
 of the synagogue, but in the Old Testament, as far 
 as religious use is concerned it is far behind the 
 hatsotserah. According to Jerome the horn of the 
 shofar is bent backward in contrast to the straight 
 horn of the hatsotserah. It is especially the instru- 
 ment for sounding signals of alarm, for which pur- 
 pose it was widely used. According to law this 
 trumpet was to be sounded on the day of atonement 
 every forty-ninth year, the year of jubilee (Lev. 
 xxv. 9). There is a noteworthy passage in the book 
 of Isaiah where it says that on that day at the sound- 
 ing of the great trumpet (shofar) all the Jews scat- 
 tered and exiled throughout the whole world shall 
 come back to worship in the holy mount at Jerusa- 
 lem (Is. xxvii. 13) ; and this eschatological and 
 apocalytical passage has also become significant with 
 regard to the New Testament, for from it the Apos- 
 tle Paul takes the trump of the last judgment by
 
 118 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 whose sound the dead will arise according to 1 Cor. 
 xv. 52, and 1 Thess. iv. 16. (Cf. also Matt. xxiv. 
 31.) According to the prophet Zechariah the Lord 
 of Sabaoth himself shall blow the trumpet (shofar) 
 at the last judgment (Zech. ix. 14). 
 
 Whether the ancient Israelites really played melo- 
 dies or signals in the natural tones of the bugle 
 or the signal trumpet we do not know. We have 
 only two characteristically different expressions for 
 the blowing on the shofar and hatsotserah, viz., 
 "blow" 32 on the instruments and "howl" 33 on them. 
 By the first word is meant to make a noise by short 
 sharp blasts and by the last, by long drawn out ring- 
 ing notes. This is what we learn from the Old 
 Testament about musical instruments of ancient Is- 
 rael and their use. 
 
 * * * 
 
 The character of the music of ancient Israel we 
 must consider in general as merry and gay, almost 
 boisterous, so that it seemed advisable to refrain 
 from music in the presence of men who were ill- 
 tempered or moody. In the Proverbs of Solomon 
 xxv. 20, we have the expressive simile, "as vinegar 
 upon nitre so is he that singeth songs to an heavy 
 heart." Music served most conspicuously and was 
 of first importance in the joys of life as, for in- 
 stance, dinner music, dance music, and feast music, 
 so that the prophet Jeremiah speaks of it as the 
 voice of mirth and the voice of gladness (Jer. vii. 
 34; xvi. 9; xxv. 10; xxxiii. 11). Even ritual music 
 taka' * nn herfa
 
 MUSIC IN THE OLD, TESTAMENT. 119 
 
 seems to have borne a worldly character in ancient 
 Israel, so that through the prophet Amos, God ad- 
 dresses the nation in words of wrath: "Take thou 
 away from me the noise of thy songs ; for I will not 
 hear the melody of thy viols" (v. 23). Amos uses 
 here exactly the same strong expression with which 
 Ezekiel (xxiii. 42) describes the singing of aban- 
 doned women in Bacchanalian orgies, and (xxvi. 
 13) the sound of harps in the luxurious commercial 
 center of Tyre. 
 
 Since in all ancient reports men and women sing- 
 ers are named together, it is therefore most prob- 
 able that women took part in the ritual service 
 of ancient Israel. A doubtful passage in Amos 
 should according to all probability be translated 
 "Then will the women singers in the temple howl" 
 (Amos viii. 3), and this circumstance may have es- 
 pecially aroused the anger of the puritanical and un- 
 taught herdsman of Tekoa. But that Amos may 
 have had a justifiable foundation for his repugnance 
 to the singing of women became clear to me when in 
 the spring of 1905 I attended the International Con- 
 gress of Orientalists at Algiers as official delegate 
 of the Prussian Government and had an opportunity 
 for the first time to hear modern Arabian music. 
 On the second evening of the Congress a lecture 
 was offered to us on "La musique arabe" illustrated 
 by concrete examples. At the left of the lecturer 
 was a group of male, and on the right a group of 
 female musicians, which at his signal performed 
 their corresponding parts. But since no provision
 
 120 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 was made for reserved seats, then or at any other 
 session of the Congress, there ensued a battle of el- 
 bows in open competition, and the hall was much 
 too small for all the members of the Congress, which 
 seemed to be the chronic state of things in Algiers. 
 Hence with my particular gift always and every- 
 where to get the worst place, I was pressed against 
 the farthest wall, where it was necessary in this 
 instance to stand for two good hours wedged in a 
 fearfully crowded corner, and so, greatly to my 
 sorrow, many occurrences escaped me. 
 
 Still the impression of the whole was decidedly 
 striking, presumably because of the difference be- 
 tween male and female singing. Never did both 
 groups perform together in a mixed chorus (just 
 as Orientals do not recognize a dance between men 
 and women) but each group sang by itself. The 
 song and music of the men was very solemn and 
 dignified, in slow time without a distinct rhythm 
 or melodious cadence, but in a sort of recitative 
 (Sprechgesang) which is now in vogue in the latest 
 music. The music of the women was very different. 
 In their performance all was fire and life. They 
 sang in pronounced melody with sharply accentu- 
 ated rhythm in a passionate tempo, and they treated 
 the instruments upon which they accompanied their 
 singing with incredible expression. Not only throat 
 and fingers but the whole person in all its members 
 was engaged in making music. If we may imagine 
 the women who sang in ancient Israel entirely or 
 approximately like their modern feminine counter-
 
 MUSIC IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. 121 
 
 parts, it is easy to understand how a man like the 
 prophet Amos at the outbreak of such a band in the 
 temple at Bethel might have received the impression 
 of a "variety show" in church. And another thing 
 occurred to me in connection with the songs of those 
 women, that according to the language of music 
 they are all composed in minor, and indeed only in 
 the two scales of D Minor and A Minor, which with 
 their characteristic intervals in the case of the so- 
 called "church" keys have been named Doric and 
 Aeolic, so then we see that just as a deep meaning 
 often lies in the games of children, the familiar 
 German pun that the trumpets of the Israelites be- 
 fore the walls of Jericho were blown in the key of 
 D Minor (D moll) because they demolished those 
 walls, was not made entirely out of whole cloth. 
 
 This brings us quite naturally to the question 
 whether or not the music of ancient Israel had a 
 tone system and a definite scale. When even on the 
 earliest Egyptian and Assyrian monuments the 
 pointed harps have strings of constantly diminish- 
 ing length and the flutes have soundholes where the 
 players manipulate their fingers, it is absolutely 
 necessary for us to investigate this question, for 
 these pictorial illustrations testify to definite tones 
 of varying pitch and in that case a fixed scale must 
 have previously existed. 
 
 To be sure I must at the outset abandon one 
 means of determining this scale, and that is accent. 
 Besides the vowel signs our Hebrew texts have also 
 so-called accents which perform a threefold func-
 
 122 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 tion; first as accent in its proper signification to 
 indicate the stress of voice, then as punctuation 
 marks, and finally as musical notation. This accent 
 also denotes a definite melisma, or a definite cadence 
 according to which the emphasized word in the in- 
 toned discourse of the synagogue (the so-called 
 niggun 34 ) was to be recited. The learned bishop 
 of the Moravian Brethren and counsellor of the 
 Brandenburg consistory, Daniel Ernst Jablonski, in 
 the preface to the Berlin edition of 1699 of the Old 
 Testament made under his patronage, undertook to 
 rewrite these accents according to the custom of the 
 Sefardim (that is, of the Spanish-Portuguese Jews) 
 in modern notes and has thus rewritten in notes one 
 long coherent passage in Genesis (xlviii. 15, 16), 
 which I sometimes have occasion to sing to my 
 students at college. But this niggun, as evidence 
 has lately been found to prove, is of Christian ori- 
 gin, an imitation of the so-called neumes, 35 used in 
 the Greco-Syrian communities of the Orient in re- 
 citing the Gospels, and accordingly has been handed 
 down from the church to the synagogue, and so for 
 ancient Israel and its music has no meaning; at 
 least directly, for the church was essentially under 
 Greek influence, and Greek music must not be identi- 
 fied with that of ancient Israel, nor must the latter 
 be constructed according to the former. The only 
 trace, although an uncertain one, in the Old Testa- 
 ment itself appears in the expression which I have 
 already mentioned, and which Luther translates "on 
 
 84 jj ** retf/uora.
 
 MUSIC IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. 123 
 
 eight strings" (auf acht Saiten). But in Hebrew 
 the word is sheminith,* 6 meaning "ordinal number" 
 so that we must not translate "on eight" but "on 
 (or after) the eighth" Accordingly a musician 
 can hardly do otherwise than insert this "eighth" 
 in the familiar octave, the foundation of our tone- 
 system, and assume that the ancient Israelites also 
 had a scale of seven intervals so that the eighth 
 becomes the same note but placed an octave higher. 
 And this interpretation has also a support in the Old 
 Testament. Our principal source for the music of 
 ancient Israel is the biblical book of Chronicles 
 which has evidently been written by a specialist, a 
 Levitical musician of the temple, who offers us a 
 complete series of technical statements with regard 
 to ancient musical culture. So we read in one of 
 the most important passages (1 Chron. xv. 20, 21) 
 that a circle of temple musicians played upon the 
 nebel, the harp, al alamoth 37 literally translated 
 "after the manner of maidens," and another on the 
 kinnor, the lute, al hashsheminith, 3 * literally, "after 
 the eighth." By the designation "after the manner 
 of maidens" can only be meant the high clear voices 
 of women, that is to say soprano, and then it is of 
 course natural to see in the "eighth" the deeper 
 voices of the men an octave lower. If this combina- 
 tion is correct, and it is at least very promising, we 
 see clearly proven in it the existence of a scale of 
 seven intervals, even if we know nothing about the 
 particular intervals and their relation to each other.
 
 124 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 Another characteristic of the music of ancient 
 Israel is that it does not take into account pure in- 
 strumental music, the so-called absolute music, but 
 on the contrary regards instruments simply as ac- 
 companiment for singing. The usage of the lan- 
 guage is significant with regard to this point. The He- 
 brew calls instruments kele hashshir, 39 "instruments 
 of song" and calls musicians simply "singers"; for 
 it has long been observed that in the passages which 
 treat of singers in the proper sense a particular form 
 of the participle is always found, the so-called Kal, 4 
 while another participial form of the same root, the 
 so-called Polel, 41 designates musicians in general. 
 Accordingly Israel considers the essential nature and 
 the foundation of all music to be in song, in Melos. 
 And what an ingenious instinct, what an artistic 
 delicacy of feeling is given utterance in this desig- 
 nation! The end pursued by modern music is to 
 compress the living human voice into a dead in- 
 strument, while the great musicians of all times 
 have considered it their task rather to let the in- 
 struments sing, to put a living human soul into 
 the dead wood, metal, or sheepgut. Such was the 
 case with the people of Israel. 
 
 Likewise the music of ancient Israel knew noth- 
 ing of polyphony which is an abomination to Orien- 
 tals in general. And to be sure must not polyphony 
 be designated as a two-edged sword ? For counter- 
 point is commonly understood to come in exactly at 
 the point when the musician lacks melody and con-
 
 MUSIC IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. 125 
 
 ception. And what is even the most artistic poly- 
 phony of a Richard Strauss or a Max Reger com- 
 pared to the heavenly melody of the larghetto in 
 Mozart's clarinet quintet! What the chronicler 
 considers an ideal performance is stated in a charac- 
 teristic passage : "It came even to pass, as the trum- 
 peters and singers were as one, to make one sound 
 to be heard in praising and thanking the Lord" 
 (2 Chron. v. 13). Hence a single powerful unisono 
 is the ideal of the music of ancient Israel. 
 * * * 
 
 The passage of Chronicles above quoted, leads us 
 to the dedication of Solomon's temple. And since 
 Israel is the nation of religion, and as we are more- 
 over best informed by the chronicler just about 
 temple music, we shall in conclusion make an at- 
 tempt to sketch a picture of the temple music of 
 ancient Israel. 
 
 With regard to the orchestra of the temple, the 
 lack of wood-wind instruments is noteworthy. Even 
 the flute is mentioned only once in connection with 
 a procession of pilgrims (Is. xxx. 29 ), 42 but never 
 in connection with the worship proper. 
 
 Since the trumpets were reserved for the use of 
 the priests in giving signals at certain definite places 
 in the ritual, the temple orchestra consisted only of 
 stringed instruments, harps and lutes, so that the 
 
 42 The Polychrome Bible reads "Joy of heart like his who 
 sets forth to the flute to go to the mountain of Yahveh," but 
 in the authorized version the instrument is called "pipe" and 
 not "flute." Tr.
 
 126 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 music of the temple is repeatedly called simply 
 "string-music," neginah. 43 
 
 And to these stringed instruments cymbals also 
 may be added. These three instruments, cymbals, 
 harps and lutes, are always mentioned in this order 
 as played by the Levites. 
 
 The Levites were again divided into three groups 
 after David's three singing masters, Asaph, Heman 
 and Jeduthun (sometimes Ethan). Since these 
 three names always occur in the same order we 
 are led to combine the corresponding systems and 
 to give to Asaph the cymbals, to Heman the harp, 
 and to Jeduthun the lute; and for the first and 
 third of these combinations we have corroborative 
 quotations : Once in 1 Chronicles xvi. 5, it is ex- 
 pressly mentioned as a function of Asaph, that he 
 "made a sound with cymbals"; and again in 1 
 Chronicles xxv. 3, Jeduthun is mentioned as he "who 
 prophesied with a lute." 44 This shows us how to 
 understand the heading of the three Psalms xxxix, 
 Ivii, and Ixxvii, "To Jeduthun." 45 These evidently 
 are to be accompanied only by Jeduthun with the 
 
 In the headings of Psalms iv, vi, liv, Iv, Ixi, Ixvii. 
 and Ixxvi. Cf. also Is. xxxviii. 20; and Hab. iii. 19. 
 
 44 The English version translates this also as "harp." Tr. 
 
 45 Wellhausen in his Notes to the Polychrome Edition of 
 The Book of Psalms thus explains the word which he trans- 
 lates as "for (or from) Jeduthun." Jeduthun like Korah 
 and Asaph, was the name of a post-Exilic guild of temple- 
 musicians. .. .Hence the Psalms may have been attributed to 
 them originally in just the same way that many German 
 hymns are attributed to the Moravian Brethren : they belonged 
 originally to a private collection, and subsequently found their 
 way into the common hymn-book." Tr.
 
 MUSIC IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. 127 
 
 lute, and this agrees with the grave and somber 
 character of the three psalms. 
 
 This indicates that even in the most primitive be- 
 ginnings there was an art of instrumentation which 
 took into consideration the timbre of the instru- 
 ments, and as a modern analogy we might point 
 out certain priestly passages in "The Magic Flute." 
 The wonderful effect of these passages rests on the 
 fact that Mozart neglected the common usage (which 
 would have combined two violins with a tenor and 
 bass viol in the string quartette) and left out the 
 violins, assigning the quartette exclusively to the 
 viols. But just here in this division of instruments 
 is a point expressly handed down by tradition, 
 which must appear strange to us: to Asaph who 
 is always mentioned in the first place and apparently 
 acts as the first orchestra leader, is assigned only 
 the ringing brass of the cymbals. But these cym- 
 bals apparently served the purpose of a baton in 
 the hand of a modern orchestra leader marking the 
 rhythm with their sharp penetrating tone and so 
 holding together the whole. The trumpets of the 
 priests were to serve the people as "a memorial 
 before God" (Numbers x. 9-10). Hence they are 
 in some measure a knocking at the door of God, 
 and apparently have the same function as the bell 
 at a Catholic mass in giving the people the signal 
 to fall upon their knees (2 Chron. xxix. 27-28). 
 The supposition has been expressed that the puzzling 
 selah in the Psalms, which undoubtedly had a mu- 
 sical liturgical sense and indicated an interruption
 
 128 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 of the singing by instruments, marked the places 
 where the priests blew their trumpets an assump- 
 tion which can be neither proved nor disproved. 
 
 What now is the case with regard to the temple 
 song which of course was the singing of psalms? 
 We learn from Chronicles that the later usage re- 
 moved women's voices from the service and recog- 
 nized only Levitical singers. In a remarkable pas- 
 sage (Ps. Ixviii. 25) which describes a procession 
 of the second temple the women still come into 
 prominence as "damsels playing with timbrels" but 
 ordinarily only male singers and lute players are 
 mentioned. But if Psalm xlvi, for instance, were 
 sung according to its inscription "after the manner 
 of maidens," 46 we must assume that the men sang 
 in falsetto, just as not so very long ago when 
 women's voices were in the same manner excluded 
 from the service of the Evangelical church, falsetto 
 was regularly practised and belonged to the art of 
 church music. 
 
 With regard to the melodies to which the Psalms 
 were sung, here again, as it seems, we have the same 
 process as in the German church songs. When we 
 find ascribed to the Psalms as melodies the words 
 "To the Tune of the Winepress," 47 Psalms viii, 
 Ixxxi, Ixxxiv; "To the Tune of Lilies," 48 Psalms 
 
 48 This part of the heading to Psalm xlvi, Luther translates, 
 "Von der Jugend, vorsusingen" ; the authorized English ver- 
 sion gives "a song upon Alamoth" ; and the Polychrome Bible 
 says "with Elamite instruments." Tr. 
 
 47 JVnafl ty if derived from f)3 winepress. 
 
 48 D wit? 5y
 
 MUSIC IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. 129 
 
 xlv, Ix, Ixix, Ixxx ; "To the Tune of The Hind of 
 the Dawn,"*> Psalm xxii; "To the Tune of The 
 Dove of Far-off Islands," 50 Psalm Ivi ; or according 
 to the somewhat doubtful interpretation, Psalm v, 
 "To the Tune of A Swarm of Bees/' 51 we can not 
 doubt that they originally were secular melodies, 
 folk-songs which found admittance into the wor- 
 ship of the people. 
 
 With regard to the arrangement of the temple or- 
 chestra the chronicler is again able to give us in- 
 formation. The singing Levites stood at the east end 
 of the bronze altar of burnt sacrifice (2 Chron. 
 v. 12) opposite the priests who sounded the trum- 
 pets (2 Chron. vii. 6) ; that is to say to the west of 
 them. This statement to be sure involves difficulties 
 since the whole temple was oriented from west to 
 east so that if the Levites stood before the altar 
 they must have obstructed the approach to its steps 
 and the priests were entirely concealed behind it. 
 But we must not on this account doubt the definite 
 statement of so competent an authority as the chron- 
 icler. 
 
 Of a musical liturgical service in the ancient tem- 
 ple we have two vivid descriptions : one from the 
 chronicler and one from Jesus Sirach. The chron- 
 icler gives us the following description of a Pass- 
 
 50 D^pm D$K njV y fa e D^>N being regarded as an error in 
 writing D^K
 
 130 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 over in the first year of the reign of King Hezekiah 
 (2 Chron. xxix. 26-30) : 
 
 "And the Levites stood with the instruments of 
 David and the priests with the trumpets. 
 
 "And Hezekiah commanded to offer the burnt 
 offering upon the altar. And when the burnt offer- 
 ing began, the song of the Lord began also with the 
 trumpets, and with the instruments ordained by 
 David king of Israel. 
 
 "And all the congregation worshiped, and the 
 singers sang, and the trumpeters sounded : and all 
 this continued until the burnt offering was finished. 
 
 "And when they had made an end of offering, the 
 king and all that were present with him bowed 
 themselves, and worshiped. 
 
 "Moreover Hezekiah the king and the princes 
 commanded the Levites to sing praise unto the Lord 
 with the words of David, and of Asaph the seer. 
 And they sang praises with gladness, and they 
 bowed their heads and worshiped." 
 
 And Jesus Sirach says in describing the installa- 
 tion of Simon, a contemporary, as high priest, 
 (Ecclesiasticus 1. 15-21) : 
 
 "He stretched out his hand to the cup, and poured 
 of the blood of the grape, he poured out at the foot 
 of the altar a sweet-smelling savor unto the most 
 high King of all. 
 
 "Then shouted the sons of Aaron, and sounded 
 the silver trumpets, and made a great noise to be 
 heard, for a remembrance before the most High. 
 
 "Then all the people together hasted, and fell
 
 MUSIC IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. 131 
 
 down to the earth upon their faces to worship their 
 Lord God Almighty, the most High. 
 
 "The singers also sang praises with their voices, 
 with great variety of sounds was there made sweet 
 melody. 
 
 "And the people besought the Lord, the most 
 High, by prayer before him that is merciful, till the 
 solemnity of the Lord was ended, and they had 
 finished the service. 
 
 "Then he went down, and lifted up his hands 
 over the whole congregation of the children of 
 Israel, to give the blessing of the Lord with his lips, 
 and to rejoice in his name. 
 
 "And they bowed themselves down to worship the 
 second time, that they might receive a blessing from 
 the most High." 
 
 Here we see art inserted organically in the whole 
 of the service; music too, like the swallow, had 
 found a nest on the altar of the Lord of Hosts 
 (Psalm Ixxxiv. 3). 
 
 From such descriptions we comprehend the en- 
 thusiastic love and devotion of the Israelite for his 
 temple where everything that was beautiful in his 
 eyes was consecrated and illumined by religion, 
 where he "might behold the beautiful worship of 
 the Lord," as Luther translates Psalm xxvii. 4, in- 
 correctly to be sure, but most comfortingly; 52 and 
 music has contributed the richest share in making 
 this "beautiful worship of the Lord." 
 
 "The authorized version has simply "the beauty of the 
 Lord." Tr.
 
 132 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 Both the secular and temple music of ancient 
 Israel have long since died out in silence. Not one 
 tone has remained alive, not one note of her melo- 
 dies do we hear, but not in vain did it resound in 
 days of old. Without temple music there would 
 be no temple song; without temple song, no Psalms. 
 The Psalms belong to the most precious treasures 
 among the spiritual possessions of mankind; these 
 we owe to the music of ancient Israel, and in them 
 the temple music of ancient Israel continues to live 
 to-day and will endure for all time.
 
 THE PSALMS IN UNIVERSAL LITERA- 
 TURE. 
 
 PSALMS and universal literature! 1 Two great 
 and significant expressions ! Two mighty and 
 heart-stirring facts! We Germans especially cannot 
 fail to feel pride and joy when we speak the phrase 
 "universal literature/' for the phrase and the idea 
 originated on German soil, are the fruit of the Ger- 
 man mind, j The phrase, as is known, comes from 
 Goethe, the most universal genius of Germany and 
 perhaps of mankind ; but the idea we owe to Herder. 
 Goethe himself frankly declared this in five fine stan- 
 zas composed in honor of Herder. I cannot forbear 
 quoting them because they are among the less fa- 
 miliar of Goethe's compositions, and because they 
 develop in a manner quite classic the idea of uni- 
 versal literature. In a masque for the 18th of De- 
 cember, 1818, the Ilm is represented as introducing 
 the four literary princes of Weimar : Wieland, Her- 
 der, Goethe, and Schiller, and characterizes Herder 
 as follows: 
 
 1 Weltliteratur. The translation is not quite adequate ; but 
 the German has the advantage of us with his beautiful words : 
 Weltgeschichte, Weltgerlcht, Weltliteratur.
 
 134 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 A noble man, and eager to discover 
 How everywhere the human spirit grows, 
 
 Harks for the word or tone the wide world over 
 That in its songs from countless sources flows, 
 
 Through earlier and through later ages wending, 
 
 His ear to every region's voices lending. 
 
 And thus he hears from nation sung to nation 
 What has touched each man in his native air, 
 
 And hears repeated in naive relation 
 What grandsires gave to sires of good and fair, 
 
 Amusement and instruction both revealing 
 
 As though 'twere all but one man's act and feeling. 
 
 Whate'er casts down the soul, whate'er upraises, 
 Quickly confused and carelessly combined, 
 
 One thought for each, a thousand words and phrases 
 From Eden to the present have defined. 
 
 Thus chants the bard, saga and song renew it, 
 
 We feel it all as though we had lived through it. 
 
 If the black cliffs and overclouded heaven 
 To pictures here of gloomy woe constrain, 
 
 The sun-kissed vault by jubilant songs is riven 
 Of rapt souls yonder on the open main; 
 
 Their will was good, what everywhere should woo man 
 
 They too desired : the universal human. . 
 
 Where'er concealed, his was the art that found it, 
 In serious guise, or masked for lightsome game, 
 
 Humanity,* in loftiest sense to ground it 
 For future times be our eternal aim ! 
 
 O would his spirit now might see them leave us, 
 
 Healed by humanity, the plagues that grieve us ! 
 
 [Ein edler Mann, begierig, zu ergriinden, 
 Wie uberall des Menschen Sinn erspriesst, 
 Horcht in die Welt, so Ton als Wort zu finden, 
 Das tausendquellig durch die Lander fliesst; 
 Die altesten, die neusten Regionen 
 Durchwandelt er und lauscht in alien Zonen. 
 
 8 Menschlichkeit assumes here, of course, much of the second 
 sense of humanity, i. e., humaneness.
 
 THE PSALMS IN UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. 135 
 
 Und so von Volk zu Volke hort er singen, 
 Was Jeden in der Mutterlust geruhrt, 
 Er hort erzahlen, was von guten Dingen 
 Urvaters Wort dem Vater zugefiihrt. 
 Das Alles war Ergetzlichkeit und Lehre, 
 Gefuhl und That, als wenn es eines ware. 
 
 Was Leiden bringen mag und was Geniige, 
 
 Behend verwirrt und ungehofft vereint, 
 
 Das haben tausend Sprach- und Redezuge 
 
 Vom Paradies bis heute gleich gemeint. 
 
 So singt der Barde, spricht Legend' und Sage; 
 
 Wir fiihlen mit, als waren's unsre Tage. 
 
 Wenn schwarz der Fels, umhangen Atmosphare 
 
 Zu Traumgebilden diistrer Klage zwingt, 
 
 Dort heiterm Sonnenglanz im offnen Meere 
 
 Das hohe Lied entziickter Seele klingt: 
 
 Sie meinen's gut und fromm im Grund, sie wollten 
 
 Nur Menschliches, was Alle wollen sollten. 
 
 Wo sich's versteckte, wusst' er's aufzufinden, 
 
 Ernsthaft verhiillt, verkleidet leicht als Spiel, 
 
 Im hochsten Sinn der Zukunft zu begriinden : 
 
 Humanitdt sei unser ewig Ziel. 
 
 O, warum schaut er nicht in diesen Tagen 
 
 Durch Menschlichkeit geheilt die schwersten Plagen!] 
 
 Herder, you know, was an East Prussian, and 
 since I have become acquainted with East Prussia 
 through my own observation, I am inclined to re- 
 gard it as not a mere matter of chance that it was 
 an East Prussian mind that first developed the idea 
 of universal literature. For East Prussia has pecu- 
 liar ethnographic conditions such as are found no- 
 where else in Germany. Here, among and along 
 with the Germans, dwell two other races of distinctly 
 marked individuality and of great poetic endow-
 
 136 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 ment, the Poles and the Lithuanians, and Herder's 
 native town, Mohrungen, is situated in close prox- 
 imity to the wholly Polish province of Ermland, 
 which in his day still belonged politically to the 
 kingdom of Poland. As a result of these early 
 impressions, and of the similar conditions in Riga, 
 where he spent the next five years after finishing 
 his studies at Konigsberg, his ear could not fail to 
 become sensitive to the peculiarities of national 
 tones, while his eye was opened to what was com- 
 mon in national characteristics, to the purely human. 
 Moreover, Herder had the gift of catching the 
 utterances of nations in their most individual and at 
 the same time most purely human manifestations, in 
 the spontaneous expressions of their racial peculiar- 
 ity. Herder has a marvelous eye and a unique sense 
 for racial peculiarities ; he is in truth the discoverer 
 of the race-soul. Whether dealing with Esthonians 
 or Persians, with Lithuanians or Spaniards, with 
 Scots or Israelites, with equal insight Herder recog- 
 nizes and understands their innermost emotions, and 
 finds in their popular literature their poetic echo 
 and their artistic self-revelation. All humankind is 
 to him a gigantic harp in the hand of God, each na- 
 tion constituting a string and producing a distinct 
 tone, and all together, when touched by the hand of 
 one divine master, joining in a jubilant accord of 
 everlasting harmonies; for the same God enables 
 them all to give utterance to their sorrows and their 
 joys. This is all that they say, each in the tone given 
 by God.
 
 THE PSALMS IN UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. 137 
 
 How Herder, through his way of looking at the 
 matter, made an epoch in the appreciation of the 
 sacred literature of Israel, I may assume to be gen- 
 erally known. While before it had been regarded 
 solely as the supernaturally revealed word of God, 
 the human factor wholly ignored, and while the 
 father of the historical treatment of the biblical 
 books, the aged Johann Salomon Semler in Halle, 
 could see in the Old Testament nothing but the un- 
 edifying literature of an untutored people, Herder 
 taught that it was the artistic product of the intellect 
 of the Hebrew nation and at the same time a relig- 
 ious monument, and thus in a certain sense he re- 
 discovered it for his contemporaries and for all suc- 
 ceeding generations and revealed its nobility. Who- 
 ever occupies himself to any extent with the sacred 
 literature of Israel, and whoever loves it, owes to no 
 one greater gratitude or sincerer admiration than 
 to Johann Gottfried Herder. 
 
 A providential dispensation brought this seer and 
 prophet into closest intimacy with Goethe at the 
 most critical and important period for the latter, 
 when the springtime of his life was expanding within 
 him, "and all the buds were swelling." As a matter 
 of course, in the case of Goethe's far richer and far 
 more comprehensive genius, such suggestions fell 
 upon fruitful ground. He could not fail to see in 
 the poetic activity of the various nations "a dance 
 of spheres, harmonious amid tumult," as he ex- 
 presses it in the poem entitled "Universal Litera- 
 ture." He found for the fact the expressive name
 
 138 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 "Universal Literature" (W ' eltliteratur) . Whatever 
 beautiful and permanent work a man or a nation 
 has achieved has been wrought not solely for this 
 man or that nation, but for humanity, for the whole 
 world. Before the universal power of poetry and 
 beauty all national barriers fall, the bounds of its 
 influence extend as far as poetry and beauty reach, 
 that is to say, wherever human hearts beat. 
 
 But this phrase coined by Goethe is used in a 
 double sense, both as the confirmation of a fact and 
 as a critical judgment. It is true that all the imag- 
 inative productions of mankind together constitute 
 universal literature as the imaginative manifestation 
 of the human mind. This imaginative manifestation 
 is innate to it, is part of its very nature, blows 
 whither it listeth, being restricted to neither nation- 
 ality nor race. Yet only a small number of poetic 
 geniuses, indeed, only certain of their works, may 
 be said in a special sense to belong to universal lit- 
 erature. 
 
 And what do we mean when we pronounce such 
 a judgment? 
 
 We mean that these works not only have a sig- 
 nificance for their nation, but that they belong to 
 the world. Of course these are only the most prom- 
 inent productions of the individual literatures, the 
 most immortal creations, in which poetic genius has, 
 so to speak, excelled itself, just as in a mountain 
 panorama to one standing at a distance the lower 
 mountains combine and blend into a compact and 
 formless mass, while plastic and individual effects
 
 THE PSALMS IN UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. 139 
 
 are produced only by the highest peaks, which tower 
 like monarchs and in solitary majesty into the bright 
 blue of the ether, kissed by the very first breath of 
 the dawn while night still spreads her dusky pinions 
 over hill and valley, and flushed by the last rays of 
 the setting sun while deep twilight has already set- 
 tled upon the earth. That is what we mean when 
 we speak of universal literature, when we ascribe 
 to a poetic product a place in universal literature. 
 
 And what are the claims that support this posi- 
 tion? 
 
 That such works must be finished works of art is 
 so much a matter of course that it need scarcely be 
 said ; for in every art only the finished has any claim 
 to permanence. The essential qualifications for a place 
 in universal literature have been shown plainly and 
 clearly by Goethe in the already quoted poem to 
 Herder, 
 
 "what everywhere should woo man 
 They too desired, the universal human." 
 
 The content of such works must be universally hu- 
 man. They must arouse in us feelings which apper- 
 tain to every human being as such, no matter in 
 what zone or among what people he was born ; they 
 must be international in the preeminent sense of the 
 word. But Goethe mentions a second essential requi- 
 site in the words they sing, 
 
 "What has touched each man in his native air." 
 
 Such works must also be national in the pre- 
 eminent sense of the word, must be characteristic
 
 140 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 of the nation which gave them birth, and must at 
 the same time be the highest and purest artistic self- 
 revelation of its special individuality. 
 
 There is scarcely anything on earth more sacred 
 and divine than the individuality of man or of na- 
 tion; it is the first and indispensable duty of either 
 to live out and develop it. Just as, in Ruckert's pro- 
 found saying, the rose adorns the garden by adorning 
 itself, even so with man. The individual and the 
 individual nation become valuable members of hu- 
 manity precisely in so far as they develop their own 
 distinct peculiarities, which could be developed in 
 just the same way by no other man and no other 
 people. 
 
 Accordingly the intellectual products that belong 
 to universal literature must be finished works of art, 
 representing in a specifically and distinctly national 
 form a purely and universal human content, so that 
 such a work could be produced in this manner only 
 by the very people from which it comes. 
 
 After thus surveying the ground let us approach 
 the treatment of our theme. This will develop in 
 two directions. We must ask (1) Do the Psalms 
 belong to universal literature at all in the preeminent 
 sense intended by us? And if we answer this ques- 
 tion affirmatively, then (2) What is the significance 
 of the Psalms in universal literature? 
 
 Pray do not consider it pedantry, or even quite 
 superfluous, if I ask first: Do the Psalms belong to 
 universal literature at all? Wide distribution alone 
 is no criterion. The Koran, for instance, can rival
 
 THE PSALMS IN UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. 141 
 
 the Bible in the matter of wide distribution, for it 
 is the bible of 200,000,000 human beings in Europe, 
 Asia, and Africa; yet for my part I would never 
 include the Koran in universal literature. True, it 
 is national in a preeminent sense, a most typical ex- 
 pression of the peculiar combination of dry, sober 
 reason and luxuriant, sensually glowing imagination 
 which constitutes the national character of the Arab. 
 But the Koran never got beyond the national, and 
 rises to the height neither of the purely human nor 
 of the finished work of art. The hopelessly dull 
 prose portions and the over-ornate poetic pieces are 
 unedifying to any but an Arab, unless he is con- 
 strained by religious considerations to regard this 
 book as a divine revelation. 
 
 But the case is different with the Psalms. True, 
 the one hundred and fifty different songs of which 
 the collection consists are not all of equal value and 
 significance. In the familiar expression of Horace, 
 even Homer sometimes nods, and thus a weak verse 
 or a dull episode creeps into his work. But we judge 
 and estimate a poet or a literature by its best, and 
 no competent critic who knows the Psalms will 
 deny that among them are a considerable number of 
 the finest and noblest things in all lyric poetry. 
 
 Moreover, almost any one will admit that the 
 Psalms are products of the specific Israelitic intel- 
 lect, and characteristic for the people of Israel. In 
 what other literature, indeed, have we anything like 
 them? True, poems have recently been found in 
 cuneiform literature which have an undeniable re-
 
 142 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 semblance to the Psalms. They are constructed 
 with that peculiar parallelism of members, that 
 thought-rhythm, which we know in Israelitic poetry, 
 and even in the phraseology there is much that in- 
 voluntarily suggests the language of the Psalms. 
 But any one who should even remotely match these 
 Assyrian and Babylonian psalms with the Hebrew, 
 or undertake a serious comparison of the two, would 
 thereby testify to his own literary incompetence. 
 The very similarity of form and superficial features 
 make us doubly conscious of the entire difference 
 in spirit and content, just as one becomes fully 
 aware of the whole greatness, nobility and incom- 
 parableness of Goethe's "Hermann und Dorothea" 
 only by a comparison with Voss's "Luise." 
 
 But do the Psalms rise to the height of the purely 
 human ? Or must we not finally on the most impor- 
 tant point judge them as we did the Koran? The 
 Psalms are religious poems, the classical expression 
 of the religion of Israel, and the question is finally 
 reduced to the more important and vital one : Is the 
 religion of Israel merely one conditioned and lim- 
 ited by its nationality, or has it a significance for the 
 world, for mankind? 
 
 There are not a few, especially in our day, who 
 unqualifiedly deny it this importance, and propose 
 at the best to let it stand as a more or less interesting 
 curiosity which belongs entirely to the field of his- 
 tory. And they offer reasons for this view. The 
 sacred literature of Israel is said to contain un- 
 worthy conceptions of God. Certain it is that the
 
 THE PSALMS IN UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. 143 
 
 Old Testament speaks of God in a very human 
 fashion, when it tells how God walked at eventide 
 in the Garden of Eden, how he closed the door of 
 Noah's ark with his own hands, how he visited 
 Abraham under the oaks of Mamre, and showed 
 only his back to Moses, since the sight of his face 
 is fatal to man. It attributes to God human form 
 and human emotions, and in one passage of the 
 Psalms we even read the unparalleled figure : "Then 
 the Lord awakened like one out of sleep, like a 
 mighty man that shouteth by reason of wine." 
 (Psalms Ixxviii. 65.) But one who takes offence 
 at such expressions and regards them as demeaning 
 to God only proves thereby that he lacks apprecia- 
 tion for religion and poetry. What appears to our 
 local prejudice a defect in the Old Testament is in 
 truth its chief strength and its highest claim to fame ; 
 for this is only a consequence of the fact that the 
 religion of Israel took seriously the fundamental 
 requisite of all religion the requisite of a personal 
 God. 
 
 Religion is the most personal matter in the uni- 
 verse, the surrender of one's own self to a higher 
 being, not in order to lose oneself, but to find one- 
 self, in order to receive oneself again from this 
 higher being in the transfigured and more perfect 
 form which an inner voice tells us corresponds to 
 the deepest and truest essence of our self. Such a 
 reciprocal giving and receiving, such a mutual re- 
 lationship, is possible only between persons. We 
 can just as little enter into a personal relation with
 
 144 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 a mere abstraction, a pure idea, as the feeling of love 
 in the highest sense, such as pervades a man with 
 irresistible power, lends wings to his soul and lifts 
 him out of himself, is conceivable toward a statue, 
 be it ever so true to life, or even much more beauti- 
 ful and noble than any earthly being of flesh and 
 blood. The famous phrase of the poet: 
 
 "And full of bliss or full of sorrow, 
 Each heart needs a companion heart," 
 
 applies not only to the relation of man to man, but 
 also to that of man to God. 
 
 Religion requires a God with whom man can enter 
 into a personal, loving relation of heart to heart, to 
 whom he can pour out his heart, to whom he can 
 pray. It is not merely accidental but very signifi- 
 cant, that David Friedrich Strauss, in his Old and 
 New Faith, having once surrendered the personality 
 of God, answers the second question, "Have we 
 still a religion ?" no longer unconditionally, but with 
 "That depends on how you understand it." The 
 center and soul of all religion, the belief in a per- 
 sonal God, is the pillar of the religion of Israel. 
 And it fathomed this truth with incomparable and 
 triumphant energy, and expressed it with incom- 
 parable poetic power. 
 
 But how is one to describe a personality or speak 
 of it otherwise than in the forms and according to 
 the manner of the only personality known to us, 
 the human? It is the wonderful secret of the Old 
 Testament, that, speaking in such a human fashion 
 of God, it simply brings him nearer to us without
 
 THE PSALMS IN UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. 145 
 
 detracting in the least from his divinity. One may 
 apply here the words of the poet : 
 
 " 'Tis bliss in his demesne to dwell 
 And every heart near him doth swell, 
 But loftiness and dignity 
 Forbid familiarity." 
 
 Yes, 'tis bliss in his demesne to dwell, and every 
 heart swells. He appears to us as a dear saviour 
 and helper, as a trusted friend and counsellor; but 
 familiarity, all irreverent approach is excluded, for 
 even in this dear and intimate form he remains 
 God, enthroned above this earthly sphere, to whom 
 its inhabitants are as grasshoppers, to whom the 
 nations are esteemed as a drop in the bucket and as 
 the fine dust of the balance. Thence it comes ac- 
 cordingly for me one of the strongest proofs of 
 the divinity of the religion of Israel that all who 
 have broken with the belief in a personal God honor 
 the Old Testament with their especial dislike, for 
 the God of Israel is not to be mocked; there is no 
 treating and bargaining with this mighty personal- 
 ity; he cannot be dissolved in any philosophic aqua 
 fortis or vaporized in any pantheistic retort; he is 
 the great I Am, the same yesterday, to-day and 
 forever, who speaks and it is done, who commands 
 and it comes to pass, who made the heavens by his 
 word and all the hosts thereof by the breath of his 
 mouth, who looketh on the earth and it trembleth, 
 who toucheth the hills and they smoke, who with- 
 draweth his breath and they perish and return to the 
 dust of which they were made.
 
 146 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 But does not the Old Testament represent its God 
 as too human ? Does it not ascribe to him unattrac- 
 tive human qualities ? For among them wrath plays 
 a part, and there has been a great deal said about the 
 wrathful God of the Jews, and this meets one con- 
 stantly where the purpose is to disparage and dis- 
 credit the religion and the sacred literature of Israel. 
 True, the Old Testament speaks much and often 
 and not infrequently in very strong terms of the 
 wrath of God. In one Psalm it is said : 
 
 "Then the earth shook and trembled, the foun- 
 dations also of the mountains moved and were 
 shaken because he was wroth. There went up 
 smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of his mouth 
 devoured : coals were kindled by it." (Psalms xviii. 
 7-8.) 
 
 This, to be sure, seems more like Moloch than 
 Yahveh. But let us look more closely. There is 
 nowhere such a multitude of errors as concerning 
 the wrath of God. What is wrath anyway? We 
 think we have an example of it when we see any one 
 scolding and ranting, railing and tearing, but such 
 a person is simply in a rage, and rage and wrath are 
 two different things. Genuine righteous wrath is 
 one of the divinest passions of which man is capable, 
 for it is the primal revolt of the divinity in man 
 against all that is low and mean, because in this it 
 perceives the degradation and desecration of his 
 true nature. It is well known that great and supe- 
 rior men never appear greater and more superior, 
 that their greatness and superiority never come more
 
 THE PSALMS IN UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. 147 
 
 directly in evidence than when they are wroth with 
 this genuine righteous wrath; how the figure seems 
 to tower, the eye flashes lightning to consume what 
 is mean with atoning and purifying flames, a spec- 
 tacle as grand and impressive as that of a thunder- 
 storm, in which man has always believed that he 
 heard most directly the voice of God. Wrath, in 
 fact, is one of the most essential qualities of the 
 divine image after which man was fashioned, and 
 can we expect it to be absent from the archetype? 
 The wrath of God is nothing else than the reaction 
 of the divine holiness against all that is unholy and 
 ungodly. For, as a passage of the Psalms has it: 
 "Thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wicked- 
 ness; the evil man shall not sojourn with thee." 
 (Psalms v. 4.) A God lacking in this trait would 
 be like a man lacking in conscience. And to ascer- 
 tain the true opinion of the Old Testament of the 
 relation of this one trait to the complete conception 
 of God, we need only to consider the verse of the 
 Psalm (xxx. 5) : "For his anger is but for a moment. 
 His favor is for a lifetime; weeping may come in 
 to lodge at even, but joy cometh in the morning." 
 Those that are so stirred up over the wrathful 
 God of the Jews either do not know, or forget, that 
 the divine wrath is not only a Jewish but also a 
 Christian doctrine, so that all the stripes and kicks 
 bestowed upon the Old Testament on this account 
 fall equally upon the New Testament. And when 
 those that fancy themselves to have a monopoly 
 of Teutonic race consciousness, who hold up Sieg-
 
 148 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 fried and Wotan against David and Yahveh, and, 
 impelled by their Teutonic race conscience and sen- 
 timent, testify against the wrathful God of the Jews, 
 we are really at a loss what to make of it. For the 
 wrath of God especially is a genuine and distinctly 
 Teutonic conception, for which the religion of the 
 Teutonic races coined a special word, calling the 
 wrath of the gods dsmodr (ass, a god, and modr, 
 wrath). The primitive Germans were far too keen 
 and vigorous in their feeling, too genuine and noble 
 children of nature not to conceive a militant and 
 triumphant idea of moral and ethical power. 
 
 When we read in the Edda how Thor, in order 
 to destroy the powers of darkness and give victory 
 to the good, 
 
 "When he saw the heavens with wickedness heavy, 
 Seldom he lingers when the like he looks on," 
 
 now, as the Voluspa says, seizes his fearful ham- 
 mer in godlike wrath (dsmodi) and bravely smites 
 the terrible dragon, no one will deny that these are 
 similar views to those in Isaiah, where we read: 
 "And the Lord saw it, and it displeased him that 
 there was no judgment. And he saw that there 
 was no man, and wondered that there was none to 
 interpose : therefore his own arm brought salvation 
 unto him, and his righteousness, it upheld him. And 
 he put on righteousness as a breastplate, and an 
 helmet of salvation upon his head; and he put on 
 garments of vengeance for clothing, and was clad 
 with zeal as a cloak. According to their deeds 
 accordingly he will repay, fury to his adversaries,
 
 THE PSALMS IN UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. 149 
 
 recompense to his enemies .... So shall they fear 
 the name of the Lord in the west and his glory from 
 the rising of the sun." (Isaiah lix. 15-19.) 
 
 This too shows what a decided kinship there is 
 between the feeling of the Teutonic soul and that 
 of Israel, a fact that was first pointed out, so far 
 as I know, by a man whose name no one can men- 
 tion any longer in certain quarters without danger 
 of being stoned, I mean Heinrich Heine, who, 
 however, was right in this as in many other things. 
 And if in spite of all this the enemies of the Old 
 Testament should insist upon their case for with 
 unreason and unfairness the gods themselves con- 
 tend in vain and grow indignant still in their Teu- 
 tonic race temper at the wrathful God of the Jews, 
 well, then I profess myself on this point frankly 
 and unreservedly a Jew, and dwell in the serene 
 confidence that I am no worse a German and no 
 worse a Christian for all that. 
 
 ii. 
 
 But the contemners of the Old Testament dis- 
 cover in Hebrew literature, and especially in the 
 Psalms, not only theological defects but profound 
 ethical faults. On the one hand, where Israel is 
 concerned, an arrogant, impious self -righteousness 
 which approaches the Lord and demands reward of 
 him, on the other hand, where non-Israelites are 
 concerned, an inhuman, bloodthirsty temper which 
 knows only feelings of hatred and revenge, and
 
 150 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 expects and even implores of God for this portion 
 of mankind only wrath and damnation. 
 
 First let me make a general prefatory remark: 
 that Israel also incurs the wrath of God and stands 
 in constant expectation of it, is expressed in the 
 Psalms themselves most clearly and most impres- 
 sively. And the judgments which the Psalmists hope 
 and expect are aimed in very considerable measure 
 not at the heathen, but at impious and apostate 
 Israelites. As for the undeniable expressions of 
 self -righteousness, if we are to judge justly we must 
 not forget that they are balanced by at least an 
 equal number of descriptions of the sinfulness and 
 corruption of the people, painted in the very highest 
 colors. So Israel did not flatter itself, nor try to 
 delude itself as to its own condition; indeed, we 
 cannot but admire its unsparing devotion to the 
 truth in this respect. And in this matter of self- 
 righteousness it should be observed further that 
 such expressions are not intended in a personal and 
 individual sense, but refer to Israel as a congrega- 
 tion, for the Psalms are the hymns of the congre- 
 gation, and the "I" which speaks in them is the 
 congregation. And was not Israel justified, when 
 it considered the night and darkness of the heathen- 
 ism round about it, in feeling a glad and grateful 
 consciousness of the gift of grace which it had re- 
 ceived in its revelation of God? Was it not ac- 
 tually justified, in view of the abominations of 
 heathendom, in speaking of its righteousness and 
 declaring that it had kept the commandments of the
 
 THE PSALMS IN UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. 151 
 
 Lord? Even the Christian church, in the so-called 
 Apostles' Creed, characterizes itself as the "Com- 
 munion of the Saints," and no Christian takes of- 
 fence at this, although he knows that this com- 
 munion by no means consists of saints alone, indeed 
 that there is not in it a single one who could be re- 
 garded as a saint when measured by the standard 
 of divine holiness. 
 
 Further there is absolutely no denying the ex- 
 pressions of unfriendliness toward others. For in- 
 stance, the sixty-ninth Psalm, and still more the 
 one hundred and ninth, contain a series of impreca- 
 tions upon the enemy which are surely not exem- 
 plary, and which we cannot wish to be the expres- 
 sions of the feelings of all men; and when at the 
 close of the one hundred and thirty-seventh Psalm, 
 which begins so nobly and very impressively, the 
 wish is expressed that the enemy may seize the 
 children of the Babylonians and dash them to pieces 
 on the stones, we must see in this an animosity 
 which no one will venture to defend or excuse. I 
 would gladly have my right hand cut off if this one 
 verse were not in the Psalter. Later prophetic lit- 
 erature, too, furnishes disagreeable things in this 
 respect, and even the Jews themselves have justly 
 taken serious exception to the Book of Esther. 
 
 But here too it is after all but a matter of isolated 
 instances and tendencies which are offset by equally 
 strong ones of the opposite sort. How many Psalms 
 speak of the godless and the enemy with solemn 
 ethical earnestness, but without passion and ani-
 
 152 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 mosity, wishing only that they may be confused 
 and brought to a recognition of their wickedness! 
 Indeed, can this unrighteous zeal for God be re- 
 buked better and more pointedly than in the precious 
 words of the thirty-seventh Psalm, which our glori- 
 ous Felix Mendelssohn used in his Elijah in order 
 to check the fiery zeal of Elijah by the mouth of an 
 angel : "Be still before the Lord and wait patiently 
 for him; and he shall give thee the desires of thy 
 heart. Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also 
 in him and he shall bring it to pass. Cease from 
 anger and forsake wrath : fret not thyself, it tendeth 
 only to evil-doing"? (Psalms xxxvii. 7, 4, 5, 8.) 
 Indeed, even those undeniably offensive and painful 
 expressions, examined in the right light, are only 
 the defects of virtues, excesses and excrescences of 
 qualities in which the strength of the religion of 
 Israel consists. This staking of the whole person 
 for the cause of God, this complete surrender to it, 
 is the mighty power of the religious sentiment. 
 
 The Israelite sees his God persecuted, hated, op- 
 pressed, assailed, when he himself thus suffers, and 
 sees in the success of the wicked the failure of the 
 sacred cause of his God. 
 
 "Should not I hate them that hate Thee, O Lord? 
 I hate them with perfect hatred: I count them my 
 enemies," the language of the one hundred and 
 thirty-ninth Psalm, must be taken as the motto of 
 all this sort of expressions. It is never a matter of 
 personal hostility, but of the holy cause of God, in the 
 feelings of these singers, and even the evils which
 
 THE PSALMS IN UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. 153 
 
 they call down upon the enemy are only his own 
 sins which God is asked to let fall back as mis- 
 fortunes upon his head. Even where this judgment 
 of God appears in the form of the victorious wars 
 of Israel, it is never their own glory or their own 
 honor which they seek : "Not unto us, Lord, not 
 unto us, but unto thy holy name give the glory*" 
 (Psalms cxv. 1.) "I will not trust in my bow, 
 neither shall my sword save me; but Thou savest 
 us from our adversaries and puttest to shame them 
 that hate us." (Psalms xliv. 6, 7.) And what the 
 singers have to suffer they are conscious of suffering 
 for the sake of God and their faith : "For thy sake 
 are we killed all the day long; we are counted as 
 sheep for the slaughter," laments the singer of the 
 forty- fourth Psalm (verse 22), and in the much- 
 quoted Psalm of vengeance, the sixty-ninth, we 
 read : "O God, thou knowest my foolishness, and 
 my sins are not hid from thee. Let not them that 
 wait on thee be ashamed through me, O Lord God 
 of hosts : let not those that seek thee be brought to 
 dishonor through me, O God of Israel! Because 
 for thy sake I have borne reproach; shame hath 
 covered my face. For the zeal of thine house hath 
 eaten me up; and the reproaches of them that re- 
 proach thee are fallen upon me" (verses 5-9). Their 
 cause is also God's cause, and their honor God's 
 honor. Were the heathen, then, to be suffered to 
 shout continually in mockery, "Where is then your 
 God?" Often the singers express most touchingly 
 how difficult it is to restrain themselves and keep
 
 154 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 still in the presence of this apparent defeat of the 
 cause of God, and amid the arrogant sneers of the 
 ungodly victors. 
 
 No, here too the root is not evil ; we have here only 
 the ferment of an unclarified vintage that has been 
 pressed from noble grapes. We all know that even 
 the sun has spots, and yet it is and always will be 
 to us the symbol of brightness and purity. So we 
 may admit that there are some dark spots in the 
 Psalms, and yet we may justly hold to their pre- 
 dominantly sunny quality; they offer us relatively 
 so much more that is purely and truly human that 
 even from this standpoint we need not feel com- 
 pelled to surrender their claim to a place in universal 
 literature. 
 
 But what, then, is their significance in universal 
 literature ? 
 
 They are for the world what they were for Israel, 
 the prayer-book and hymn-book. In fact we have 
 in the Psalms the purest expression of the religious 
 sentiment in the artistic form of the lyric, the crown 
 of sacred poetry. Their wealth, like life, is inex- 
 haustible; all the situations and events of life are 
 viewed in the light of godly meditation and con- 
 secrated and ennobled by piety, so that they are 
 transfigured into prayers and hymns. In them we 
 hear every chord struck, and all with equal purity 
 and strength : lamentation and mourning, confession 
 and penitence, prayer and praise, thanksgiving and 
 adoration. There is scarcely a situation or a mood
 
 THE PSALMS IN UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. 155 
 
 imaginable which has not found its classic expres- 
 sion in the Psalter. 
 
 John Calvin, probably the greatest of all commen- 
 tators upon the Psalms, calls the Psalter for this 
 reason an anatomy of the soul, saying that the 
 human soul knows no mood nor impulse that is not 
 mirrored in the Psalms. And Martin Luther, spir- 
 itually the most closely akin to the Psalmist, says in 
 his preface to the Psalter : "Thence too it comes that 
 the Psalter is the book of all the saints, and that 
 every one, whatever his business may be, finds in it 
 psalms and sayings which are adapted to his affairs 
 and fit him as if they had been composed expressly 
 on his account, such that he himself could neither 
 compose nor invent nor wish them better." Shall 
 we test this utterance of Luther? Certainly, for 
 after having said so much about the Psalms, we 
 surely shall wish to hear something from the Psalms 
 themselves. 
 
 Let us begin with pleasant pictures. "O taste 
 and see that the Lord is good" (Psalms xxxiv. 8), 
 thus the Psalmist himself invites us. "Oh how great 
 is thy goodness, which thou hast laid up for them 
 that fear thee, which thou hast wrought for them 
 that put their trust in thee before the sons of men !" 
 (Psalms xxxi. 19) thus another cries in adoration. 
 "The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; 
 yea, I have a goodly heritage" (Psalms xvi. 6), we 
 hear a third one sing. 
 
 "Thy loving kindness, O Lord, is in the heavens ; 
 thy faithfulness reacheth unto the skies. Thy right-
 
 156 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 eousness is like the mountains of God; thy judg- 
 ments are a great deep; Lord, thou preservest man 
 and beast. How precious is thy loving kindness, 
 O God ! And the children of men take refuge under 
 the shadow of thy wings. They shall be abun- 
 dantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house; and 
 thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleas- 
 ures. For with thee is the fountain of life; in thy 
 light shall we see light. O continue thy loving 
 kindness unto them that know thee, and thy right- 
 eousness to the upright in heart. (Psalms xxxvi. 
 5-10.) And this feeling has found its classic ex- 
 pression in the universally known twenty - third 
 Psalm, "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not 
 want," and whenever the heart feels constrained to 
 offer its gratitude to the giver of all these good gifts, 
 how can it be done more briefly, more simply, and 
 yet more expressively than in the words of the 
 Psalm, "Oh give thanks unto the Lord, for he is 
 good, and his mercy endureth forever"? (Psalms 
 cxviii. 1.) And where is the sacred duty of thanks- 
 giving brought home to the heart of every man 
 more touchingly and more impressively than in the 
 words of the Psalm: "Bless the Lord, O my soul, 
 and forget not all his benefits"? (Psalms ciii. 1-2.) 
 And where is there a more forcible expression of 
 the feeling of security in the strong hand of God 
 and of his mighty protection, than in the words of 
 the Psalm : "The Lord is my light and my salvation ; 
 whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold 
 of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?" (Psalms
 
 THE PSALMS IN UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. 157 
 
 xxvii. 1.) "The Lord of hosts is with us; the God 
 of Jacob is our refuge" (Psalms xlvi. 7) ; "God 
 grants that I praise his word ; in God have I put my 
 trust, I will not be afraid; what can flesh do unto 
 me?" And the repose and the peace which then 
 enter the heart are depicted in the saying : "My soul 
 waiteth in silence for God; from him cometh my 
 salvation. He is my rock and my salvation, he is 
 my high tower; I shall not be greatly moved." 
 (Psalms Ixii. 1-2.) And the mighty "Nevertheless" 
 of faith, which hopes even where it cannot see, 
 with what invincible power we hear it in the words : 
 "Nevertheless 3 God is good to Israel, even to such 
 as are pure in heart." For no one is disappointed 
 who waits upon God, and the faithfulness of God 
 is far above the faithfulness of the most faithful 
 men: "My father and my mother have forsaken 
 me, but the Lord will take me up." (Psalms xxvii. 
 10.) The sense of communion with God overcomes 
 all grief and sorrow; it outweighs a world, and 
 nothing can deprive us of this highest of possessions. 
 "If I have but thee I care for neither heaven nor 
 earth. Though my flesh and my heart fail, yet is 
 God the strength of my heart and my portion for- 
 ever." (Psalms Ixxiii. 25.) Where was ever the 
 longing for God expressed more powerfully and 
 more effectively than in the forty-second Psalm: 
 "As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so 
 panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth 
 for God, for the living God. When shall I come 
 8 The English version has here "Surely."
 
 158 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 to appear before God?" (Psalms xlii. 1-2.) And 
 where shall we find expressed more concisely and 
 more movingly the anxious waiting upon God and 
 the longing watching for him amid feelings of tem- 
 porary desertion by him, than in that sighing as- 
 piration, only a breath as it were, of the sixth 
 Psalm : "My soul is sore vexed. And thou, O Lord, 
 how long?" or in the question filled with mortal 
 anguish, of the twenty-second Psalm: "My God, 
 my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" And just 
 here I must not fail to point out a characteristic 
 fact. It is well known that lamentation occupies 
 much space in the Psalter. But with the single ex- 
 ception of the eighty-eighth Psalm not one of these 
 hymns is all lamentation. They all overcome the 
 sorrow and grief and wrestle their way out to hope 
 and faith so that the lamentation finally ends with 
 praise and thanks. We find the most touching and 
 stirring example of this in the recurring verse of 
 the forty-second Psalm, where we can still see in 
 the confidently hopeful eye of the singer the gleam 
 of the tear which his grief has forced from him: 
 "Why art thou cast down, O my soul, and why art 
 thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God; 
 for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my 
 countenance and my God" (verse 5). That is the 
 manly and heroic trait in Israelitic piety, which is 
 one of its most precious treasures and a model to 
 the whole world, the "universal human, which every- 
 where should woo man." 
 
 And in the Psalter, too, as every one knows, we
 
 THE PSALMS IN UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. 159 
 
 find the profoundest and most heart-stirring tones 
 of sin and penitence, as well as the clearest and 
 most uplifting language of mercy and forgiveness. 
 "If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, 
 who shall stand?" (Psalms cxxx. 3.) "Mine iniqui- 
 ties are more than the hairs of my head, and my 
 heart hath failed me." (Psalms xl. 12.) "Who 
 can discern his errors ? cleanse thou me from secret 
 faults." (Psalms xix. 12.) And then: "He deal- 
 eth not with us after our sins nor rewardeth us after 
 our iniquities. For as the heaven is high above the 
 earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear 
 him. As far as the East is from the West so far 
 hath he removed our transgressions from us. Like 
 as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth 
 them that fear him." (Psalms ciii. 10-13.) And 
 lest in the light of the mercy of God the solemnity 
 of his holiness be forgotten, we read in the one 
 hundred and thirtieth Psalm the profound saying: 
 "For there is forgiveness with thee that thou mayest 
 be feared" (verse 4). 
 
 And now a few sayings of the Psalms for human 
 relationships. Can peace and harmony be com- 
 mended more simply and more urgently than in the 
 language of the singer of the one hundred and 
 thirty-third Psalm : "Behold how good and pleasant 
 it is for brethren to dwell together in unity !" And 
 can domestic happiness and the blessings of family 
 life be depicted more delightfully and in a way that 
 goes more to our hearts than in the language of the 
 singer of the one hundred and twenty-eighth Psalm :
 
 160 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 "Blessed is every one that feareth the Lord, that 
 walketh in his ways. For thou shalt eat the labor 
 of thine hands : happy shalt thou be, and it shall be 
 well with thee. Thy wife shall be a fruitful vine in 
 the innermost parts of thy house, thy sons like olive 
 plants around thy table. Behold, thus shall the man 
 be blessed that feareth the Lord." 
 
 And yet one more glance, this time at the nature 
 poetry in the Psalter, which was admired and praised 
 by no less a master than Alexander von Humboldt. 
 The earth is the Lord's and all that is therein, the 
 world and they that dwell thereon, and so the Is- 
 raelite sees God everywhere in nature; he does not 
 make nature God, but it is to him a revelation of 
 God. "Nature," says Humboldt, "is not described 
 as something existing independently and glorified 
 by its own beauty; it always presents itself to the 
 Hebrew singer as related to a higher, overruling 
 spiritual power. Nature is to him a work of orderly 
 creation, the living expression of the omnipresence 
 of God in the elements of the world of sense." 
 
 I will only refer to the splendid Psalm of thanks- 
 giving for harvest, the sixty-fifth : "Thou crownest 
 the year with thy goodness, and thy paths drop fat- 
 ness ;" to the magnificent twenty-ninth Psalm, which 
 depicts with sublime majesty the glory of God in the 
 thunder-storm, and above all to the one hundred and 
 fourth: "O Lord, how great and manifold are thy 
 works; in wisdom hast thou made them all: the 
 earth is full of thy goodness" a hymn which has 
 not its equal in all literature. "One is disposed to
 
 THE PSALMS IN UNIVERSAL LITERATURE. 161 
 
 say," as Humboldt puts it, "that the picture of the 
 whole cosmos is presented in this one psalm, the 
 
 one hundred and fourth We marvel at seeing 
 
 the universe, heaven and earth, depicted in a lyric 
 composition of such slight compass with a few great 
 touches. Contrasted with the animated primal life 
 of nature, we have here the noiseless, toilsome la- 
 bors of man from the rising of the sun to the close 
 of his day's work in the evening." And where else 
 is man more profoundly comprehended and depicted 
 as but a tiny atom in nature, and yet in accordance 
 with his royal mastery in it, than in the eighth 
 Psalm ? Where is the whole creation as a thousand- 
 voiced proclamation of the glory of its creator better 
 depicted than in the nineteenth Psalm, in which the 
 heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament 
 showeth his handiwork, the sun rises as a bride- 
 groom cometh forth out of his chamber and re- 
 joiceth as a strong man to run a race ! 
 
 And of still another sort of poetry, the didactic 
 aphorism, do we find in the Psalter matchless jewels. 
 A considerable number of the Psalms are like neck- 
 laces, where the most profound sentences, the most 
 glorious thoughts are strung pearl on pearl. Wher- 
 ever we turn our gaze, a rich canopy, star after 
 star, an inexhaustible treasury! 
 
 Permit me in closing to mention a recent personal 
 experience of mine, illustrating the manner in which 
 the Psalms give us the fitting word for every situa- 
 tion in life. One who for days and weeks has 
 watched in anguish over the life that is dearest to
 
 162 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 him on earth, when he has already prepared to sur- 
 render it, there comes a turn for the better, and the 
 angel of death who has already spread his dark 
 wings over the victim, departs, and life returns, 
 who could express what overwhelms his deeply 
 stirred heart in such a moment save in the words 
 of the Psalm: "God is unto us a God of deliver- 
 ances; and unto the Lord belongeth escape even 
 from death." (Psalms Ixviii. 20.) 
 
 The Psalms are the prayer-book and the hymn- 
 book of Israel ; and as Israel is preeminently the re- 
 ligious race, they are the prayer-book and the hymn- 
 book of the whole world, or at least deserve to be. 
 Of all the precious things which Israel has given 
 mankind they are perhaps the most precious. They 
 resound, and will continue to resound, as long as 
 there shall be men created in the image of God, in 
 whose hearts the sacred fire of religion shines and 
 glows; for they are religion itself put into speech. 
 To them applies what one of the noblest of them 
 says of the revelation of God in nature: "That is 
 neither speech nor language, the voice of which 
 would be unintelligible. Their line is gone out 
 through all the earth, and their words to the end 
 of the world." (Psalms xix. 4.) 
 
 Religion itself put into speech for all mankind, 
 that is the significance of the Psalms in universal 
 literature.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Aaron, 18. 
 
 Abimelech, 27. 
 
 Abraham, Migration of, 9; Re- 
 ligious history begins with, 56; 
 to David, Earliest tradition of, 
 3-4- 
 
 Accents in Hebrew, 121. 
 
 Agriculture, 22. 
 
 Algiers, 119-121. 
 
 Allah, Daughters of, 97. 
 
 Amenhotep IV, 55. 
 
 Amos, 46, 119. 
 
 Anarchy, 27-28. 
 
 Animosity in Psalms, 151. 
 
 Arminius, 53. 
 
 Asaph, 126, 130. 
 
 Assur Nasir-Pal, Plate XII. 
 
 Bagpipe, 115. 
 
 Barry, Phillips, 115. 
 
 Baton, 127. 
 
 Becken, 109. 
 
 Bell-tree, Turkish, 109. 
 
 Benjamin, Tribe of, 12. 
 
 Bilhah-tribes, 11-12, 13. 
 
 Blessing of Moses, 41. 
 
 Boers, 100. 
 
 Bows, 113. 
 
 Buddha, 40. 
 
 Bugle, 118. 
 
 Bulow, Hans von, 107. 
 
 Burying alive, 98. 
 
 Calvin, John, 155. 
 Canaan, Conquest of, 20-24. 
 Canaanites, Religion of, 10; trans- 
 formed into Israel, 22. 
 
 Childhood, 79. 
 
 Children, 77-79, 97; Education of, 
 
 68ff. 
 
 Chnumhotep, Tomb of, 1x3. 
 Chronicles written by a musical 
 
 Levite, 123. 
 Cinelli, 109. 
 Clarinet, 117. 
 Commandments, The ten, 17. See 
 
 also "Decalogue." 
 Counter-point, 124. 
 Covenant, Book of the, 41-43 . 
 Cymbalist, Assyrian, Plate II. 
 Cymbals, 108-109, 126. 
 
 Dagon, 29. 
 
 Dancing, 103. 
 
 Daniel, Instruments in the Book 
 of, 1 06. 
 
 Daughters in Israel, 94-97; of 
 Allah, 97- 
 
 David, 148; and Saul, 3of, 105, 112; 
 Character of, 31, 35-36; Polit- 
 ical consolidation due to, 31; 
 Reign of, 33-37; Singing mas- 
 ters of, 126. 
 
 Decalogue, 41, 43-48. 
 
 Deuteronomy, Date of, 41. 
 
 De Wette, 41. 
 
 Diogenes, 96. 
 
 Discipline, 84-87. 
 
 Education, Aim of, 68; of chil- 
 dren, 68ff; of girls, 92, 96-99; 
 Results of, 100. 
 
 Egypt, Israel in, 13-16; Mono- 
 theism in, 55, 62; Moses in, 
 52; Religion of, 54-56.
 
 164 
 
 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 Eighth, The, 112, 123. 
 
 Elisha, 1 06. 
 
 Esau, Marriage of, 71. 
 
 Esther, Book of, 151. 
 
 Ethics of Israel, 66; of the Psalms, 
 
 149-154. 
 
 Ewald, Heinrich, 3, u, 12. 
 Exodus, The, 15-16. 
 Ezekiel, 119, 
 
 Falsetto, 128. 
 
 Family a unit, 99-100. 
 
 Father a monarch, 87, 99; a 
 teacher, 91, 94, 99- 
 
 Flute, 115, 121-125; players, As- 
 syrian, Plate VII. 
 
 Founders of religion, 39. 
 
 Genesis contains primitive tradi- 
 tion, 4. 
 
 Gideon, Kingship of, 25-26. 
 
 Girls, Education of, 92, 96-99; in 
 the Orient, 96-99. 
 
 Gittith, 114. 
 
 God-conception of Israel, 143-149. 
 
 Goethe, 133, 139, 142. 
 
 Greek music, xa*. 
 
 Hammurabi, Code of, 42. 
 
 Hannah, 93. 
 
 Harps, 104, 106, 121, 123; Egyp- 
 tian, Plates I, II; Eleven- 
 stringed, Plate IV; Four- 
 stringed, in, Plate IX; Human- 
 ity a, 136; -players, Assyrian, 
 xii, Plates V, VII; Ten- 
 stringed, 112; Triangular, in, 
 Plate I. 
 
 Hatsotserah, 116-118, Plate X. 
 
 Headings of Psalms, 101-102, 112, 
 114, 128. 
 
 Heman, 126. 
 
 Herder, 133-137. 
 
 Hezekiah, 46, 105, 130. 
 
 History, Legend and, 6; Moses in 
 profane, 50; Tribal, 23. 
 
 Home of Israel, Primitive, 8. 
 
 Homer, 103, 141. 
 
 Horace, 141. 
 
 Horeb and Sinai, 59. 
 
 Hosea, 28, 43, 46. 
 Housewife, Virtuous, 93. 
 Human relationships, Psalms in, 
 
 159-160. 
 Humboldt, Alexander von, 160-161. 
 
 Image prohibition, 44, 45-46, 61. 
 
 Infant sacrifice, xo, 65. 
 
 Inheritance of property, 75. 
 
 Instruction in religion, 87-89. 
 
 Instruments, as accompaniment 
 for singing, 124; Classes of mu- 
 sical, 107. 
 
 Isaac, Sacrifice of, xo. 
 
 Israel, Canaanites transformed into 
 22; Ethics of, 66; Spirit pecu- 
 liar to, 1 6. 
 
 Jablonski, Daniel Ernst, 122. 
 Jacob, and Rachel, 72; Migration 
 
 of, 11-13. 
 
 Jairus's daughter, 115. 
 
 Jeduthun, 126. 
 
 Tephthah's daughter, 103. 
 
 Jericho, 116, 121. 
 
 Jerome, Saint, in. 
 
 Jerusalem, 97; Founding of, 34; 
 Siege of, 105. 
 
 Jesus and Moses, 37, 39, 67. 
 
 Jezebel, Queen, 96. 
 
 Jonathan, Son of, 80. 
 
 Joseph, and Asenath, 55; Tribe 
 of, 12, 13, 26. 
 
 Josephus on Moses, 52. 
 
 Joshua, Campaign of, 20; Na- 
 tional organization of, 22. 
 
 Jubal, inventor of music, 105, 112, 
 114. 
 
 Kadesh Barnea, 59; Sojourn in 
 
 1 8. 
 
 Khalil, 1 1 6. 
 
 Kinnor, 112-114, 123, Plate II. 
 Koran, 140-141. 
 Language of Israel, 7. 
 Leah-tribes, 11-12, 13. 
 Legend defined, 5-7. 
 Levi, Tribe of, 50. 
 Levite, Chronicles written by a 
 
 musical, 123; Moses a, 15, 51.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 165 
 
 Levites, Groups of, 126; Music of, 
 
 104; Singing, 129. 
 Leviticus, Date of, 41. 
 Lute, 123; -players, Assyrian, 
 
 Plate II. 
 Lutes on ancient coins, Plate 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Luther, 60, 155. 
 Lyres on ancient coins, Plate VIII. 
 
 Marriage ceremony, 76-77, 103; 
 contract, 73-76; of Esau, 71; 
 of Moses, 53, 57; of Samson, 
 72. 
 
 Matrimony in Israel, 69. 
 
 Melodies of Psalms, 128. 
 
 Mendelssohn, Felix, 152. 
 
 Merenptah, 50, 53. 
 
 Methodological considerations, 59- 
 61. 
 
 Midianites, Invasion of, as; Mo- 
 sea among the, 56. 
 
 Migration of Abraham, 9; of Ja- 
 cob, 11-13. 
 
 Miriam, 103. 
 
 Mohammed, 40, 45, 49, 98. 
 
 Moloch, 146. 
 
 Mommsen, Theodore, 62. 
 
 Monist, The, 115. 
 
 Monotheism in Egypt, 55, 62; of 
 Moses, 61-62. 
 
 Mosaic faith, 18. 
 
 Mother, Domestic control of, 93. 
 
 Moses a founder of religion, 16, 
 54; a genius in pedagogy, 60; 
 a Hebrew at heart, 15, 53; a 
 Levite, 15, 51; among the Mid- 
 ianites, 56; Death of, 18, 66- 
 67; in Egypt, 52; in profane 
 history, 50; Name of, 52; Na- 
 tional religion due to, 17; Na- 
 tional unity due to, 22; not the 
 author of Pentateuch, 5, 40; 
 Marriages of, 53, 57; No authen- 
 tic documents, of, 48; Our re- 
 lation to, 39; Religious organi- 
 zation under, 16; Work of, com- 
 pleted by David, 31; Writings 
 of, 41. 
 
 Mozart, 125, 127. 
 
 Music, Absolute, 124; Character 
 of, in Israel, 118-119; Definition 
 of, 10 1 ; Greek, 122; in life, 103- 
 105, 118; in worship, 103-105; 
 Jubal inventor of, 105; of Le- 
 vites, 104; of the temple, 125- 
 131; Modern Arabian, 119-121; 
 Unison the ideal of Hebrew, 
 125- 
 
 Mythology, Israel has no, 17, 63. 
 
 Naomi, 80. 
 
 Nathan's parable, 95. 
 
 National kingdom, Rise of the, a8; 
 
 organization under Joshua, 22; 
 
 principle, Yahveh, 23; religion 
 
 due to Moses, 17; unity due to 
 
 Moses, 22. 
 
 Nature in the Psalms, 160-161. 
 Nebel, 110-112, 114, 123. 
 Nomads, zo; Procession of, 113. 
 Nurses, 79. 
 
 Obedience, 84. 
 
 Obscenity, Religious, 10, 65. 
 
 Organ, ii4n. 
 
 Organization under Joshua, Na- 
 tional, 22; under Moses, Relig- 
 ious, 1 6. 
 
 Parents, Respect for, 81-84. 
 
 Pedagogical principles, 84. 
 
 Pedagogy, Moses a genius in, 60. 
 
 Penitence in the Psalms, 159. 
 
 Pentateuch, Authorship of, 5, 40. 
 
 Percussive instruments, 107-110. 
 
 Personality of God, 143-146. 
 
 Pharaoh of the Exodus, 50. 
 
 Pharaoh's daughter, 52. 
 
 Philistines, Conquered by, 28-29. 
 
 Piatti, 109. 
 
 Pipes, ii4n, 115, 12511. 
 
 Political consolidation due to Da- 
 vid, 31; leader, Moses a, 49. 
 
 Polychrome Bible, 102, 104, H4n, 
 i26n, i28n. 
 
 Polyphony, 124. 
 
 Prayer of Moses, 41. 
 
 Priesthood, Institution of, 18. 
 
 Priestly code, 41.
 
 166 
 
 THE CULTURE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. 
 
 Prussia, Ethnographic conditions 
 of East, 135. 
 
 Pealms, Authorship of, 126; Di- 
 dactic aphorisms in, 161; Ethics 
 of the, 149-154; Headings of, 
 xoif, 112, 114, 128; in human re- 
 lationships, 159-160; in univer- 
 sal literature ,i33ff ; Lyric beauty 
 of, 141; Nature in, 160-161; 
 Penitence in, 159; Pleasant pic- 
 tures in, 155-158; Significance 
 of, 154, 162; Without temple 
 music no, 132. 
 
 Race-soul, Herder the discoverer 
 of the, 136. 
 
 Rachel-tribes, 11-12. 
 
 Ramses II, 14, 50, 52, 53. 
 
 Reger, Max, 125. 
 
 Religion defined, 143; Founders of, 
 39; Instruction in, 87-89; Moses 
 a founder of, 16, 54; of Cana- 
 anites, 10; of Egypt, 54-56; of 
 Israel due to Moses, 17. 
 
 Religious history begins with 
 Abraham, 56. 
 
 Respect for parents, 81-84. 
 
 Rhythm, 107. 
 
 Ritual music, 118-119. 
 
 Ruckert, 140. 
 
 Sabbath, 43-45- 
 
 Saints, Communion of the, 151. 
 Samson, Marriage of, 72. 
 Samuel's time, Music in, 106. 
 Saul, David and, 30-31, 105, 112; 
 
 Reign of, 29-33. 
 Scale, Musical, 121-123. 
 Schiller, 92, 133. 
 Silah, 127. 
 
 Self-righteousness in Psalms, 150. 
 Semler, Johann Salomon, 137. 
 Serfdom in Egypt, 14. 
 Serpent, Brazen, 46. 
 Sesostris, 50. 
 Shawm, 115. 
 
 Shechem, 27; Capture of, 20, 51. 
 Shofar, 117. 
 Siegfried, 148. 
 Sihon, Kingdom of, 19. 
 
 Sinai, 16, 18; and Horeb, 59. 
 
 Singing, 106-107; Instruments as 
 accompaniment for, 124; of 
 psalms, 128; of women, 119, 123. 
 
 Sisera, 24. 
 
 Sistrum, 109, Plate III. 
 
 Solomon's temple, Dedication of, 
 125; Instruments for, iio-iu. 
 
 Song of Moses, 41; of Zion, 105. 
 
 Spirit peculiar to Israel, 16. 
 
 Strauss, David Friedrich, 144. 
 
 Strauss, Richard, 125. 
 
 String music, 104, no. 
 
 Stringed instruments, 110-114. 126. 
 
 Tabret, 108. 
 
 Tambourine, 103, 108. 
 
 Temple-musicians, Guild of, 126; 
 orchestra, 125; service, Descrip- 
 tion of, 129-131. 
 
 Theophany of the burning bush, 57. 
 
 Thor, 148. 
 
 Timbrels, 103, 108, 128. 
 
 Tone system, 121. 
 
 Triangle, no. 
 
 Trumpets, 104, 116-118, 125, Plates 
 X, XI. 
 
 Twelve tribes, n. 
 
 'Ugab, 114-115. 
 
 Universal literature, 137-138; The 
 
 Psalms in, 1335. 
 Usurtesen II, 113. 
 
 Voss, 142. 
 
 Wellhausen, i26n. 
 
 Wieland, 133. 
 
 Wife, Selection of a, 71. 
 
 Winckler, Hugo, 105. 
 
 Wind instruments, 114-118. 
 
 Winebibbers, 115; Ballads of, 114- 
 
 Women in worship, 99; Singing 
 
 of, 119, 123; Tabret played by, 
 
 108, no. See also "Daughters" 
 
 and "Girls." 
 
 Wood-wind instruments, 125. 
 Worship, Moses created a simple, 
 
 18, 65; Music in, 103-105; 
 
 Women in, 99.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 167 
 
 Wotan, 148. 
 
 Wrath of God, 146-148, 150. 
 
 Writing, Knowledge of, 89-90. 
 
 Yahveh, 146; Relation of Israel 
 to, 64-65; The name, 17, 57; the 
 national principle, 23. 
 
 Yahvist redaction, Decalogue of, 
 
 47- 
 
 Zilpah-tribes, 11-12. 
 Zion, Songs of, 105. 
 Zither, 113.
 
 PLATE I. 
 
 FIG. I. EGYPTIAN HARPS.
 
 PLATE II. 
 
 FIG. 2. EGYPTIAN HARP CARRIED FIG. 3. EGYPTIAN PICTURE OF 
 
 IN PROCESSION. A BEDOUIN WITH KINNOR. 
 
 FIG. 4. AN ASSYRIAN CYMBALIST. 
 
 FIG. 5. ASSYRIAN LUTE 
 PLAYERS.
 
 PLATE III.
 
 PLATE IV. 
 
 FIG. 7. RELIEF FROM SENDSCHIRLI IN NORTHERN SYRIA. 
 
 FIG. 8. AN ELEVEN STRINGED HARP OF ANCIENT BABYLON.
 
 PLATE V. 
 
 FIG. 9. ASSYRIAN HARPISTS. 
 (British Museum)
 
 PLATE VI.
 
 PLATE VII. 
 
 FIG. II. ASSYRIAN HARP AND FLUTE PLAYERS. 
 
 FIG. 12. ASSYRIAN QUARTETTE.
 
 PLATE VIII. 
 
 C/2 w 
 
 - <u 
 H
 
 PLATE IX.
 
 PLATE X. 
 
 E?
 
 PLATE XI. 
 
 FIG. 17. DETAIL FROM FIG. l6. 
 
 FIG. 1 8. TRUMPETS ON ANCIENT JEWISH COIN. 
 (After Madden)
 
 
 ' /a