ggggJSra "Y^LE«¥MWEI&SinrY- Gift of Mrs. Charles H. Merrill 1924 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT By GEORGE ADAM SMITH D.D., LL.D. The Book of Isaiah. 2 vols. Vol. I., Chapters l.-XXXIX. Vol. II., Chapters XL.-LXVI. Per volume, Si. 50. The Book of the Twelve Prophets Com monly Called The Minor. Vol. I., Amos, Hosea, and Micali. Vol. II., Zeph- aniah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Obadiah, Haggai, Zecha riah I.-VIII., Malachi, Joel, Zechariah IX.-XIV., and Jonah. Per volume, #1.50. Tlie above four volumes are contained in the " Ex positor's Bible. ." The Historical Geography of the Holy Land. Especially in relation to the History of Israel and of the Early Church. With Scripture index and 6 colored maps, specially prepared. Octavo, cloth, 720 pages, $4.50. A. C. ARMSTRONG .& SON NEW YORK MODERN CRITICISM AND THE PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT Eight Lectures on the Lyman Beecher Foundation, Tale University BY GEORGE ADAM SMITH, D.D., LL.D. PROFESSOR OF OLD TESTAMENT LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE UNITED FREE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND GLASGOW COLLEGE SECOND EDITION NEW YORK A. C. ARMSTRONG AND SON 3 & 5 West i8'h Street, near 5th Avenue MCMI Copyright, ff the general course of Biblical Criticism during the last century. The best way of doing this will be by the examination of certain charges which have recently been made against the general methods of Criticism. In discussing these, I fear that I must describe a number of things which have been often de scribed, and are well known to many of you ; but the ignorance of them, which is still shown PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 31 in some quarters, makes their repetition, however trite, an inevitable duty. The charges made against modern criticism may be summed up under three heads. First, that the modern criticism of the Old Testament is a movement of recent growth, and that its results are, therefore, precarious. Second, that Old Testament criticism proceeds only on linguistic and literary evidence, which, being estimated by modern tastes and standards, must be largely subjective and uncertain. Third, that critics ignore the evidence of archaeology, geography and the allied sciences ; and that this is hostile to their conclusions. I. The General Course of Modern Criticism. Many of the opponents of Old Testament criticism have represented the movement as if it were but the growth of yesterday, with results so hastily and arbitrarily reached that they are certain to be reversed by the discoveries and debates of to-morrow — like Jonah's gourd, the son of a night, in a night they shall perish ! If this were so we might at once abandon the task we have set ourselves. It would not be worth our attention to examine the effect of a move ment so sudden and precarious upon the Church's age-long attitude to the greater part of her sacred writings. But the science of Old Testament 32 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE criticism is not the thing of yesterday which its assailants pretend. Even within its modern development — which is all we have got to do with just now — it covers a period of more than two hundred years. It has achieved a career, that is to say, as long as those of many of the historical and physical sciences. Nor, within the last century at least, has it been served by a less constant succession of able experts; while its methods have been equally without dogmatic bias, and so far as their materials go, as trust worthy and exact. Consequently the progress of the science has resembled that of every other intellectual movement of our time which has issued in generally accepted results. It has been slow, gradual and severely contested. It has suffered from digressions, pedantries, extrava gancies. It has been forced to abandon some positions which it had previously occupied with confidence: and upon innumerable details it still exhibits among its supporters difference of opinion. But -with few or no preconceptions, it has started from facts easily ascertained within the sacred text itself; each step forward which it has taken has been planted on other facts in the same field or upon reasonable inferences from these. It has suffered from, and has benefited by, the personal jealousies and ambitions of its agents, who have left few fresh proposals or dis coveries undisputed : and it has issued in a large PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 33 and increasing agreement upon certain main lines of conclusion. Let us look for a little at the details.1 The modern criticism of the Old Testament may be said to have begun in 1680. In that year a French priest called Simon drew attention to the fact that within the Book of Genesis the same event is often described in different words. He emphasised especially the two accounts of the Creation, which lie side by side in the opening chapters, and the two accounts of the Flood which are fused together in chapters vi-ix. For these Simon suggested different authors, whose writings Moses had put together. Such was the beginning of the criticism of the Pen tateuch. You will observe not only how simple it is and how easily verified, but that also, so far from its motive being a prejudice against the Mosaic authorship of the first Book of the Bible, it took this for granted. Notice particularly that it starts from the fact of two accounts of the same events. It is on the presence of many such ' doublets ' in the Hexateuch and historical books that the modern criticism of the Old Testament is based. Seventy years after Simon another Frenchman, 1 The English reader will find full accounts of these in Cheyne's Founders of Old Testament Criticism, or in a more summary form so far as Hexateuchal criticism is concerned in the introductions to Addis's Documents of the Hexateuch : Nutt, London, vol. i. 1892, vol. ii. 1898. C 34 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE Astruc, published his Conjectures on the Original Memoirs of which it appears Moses made use in composing the Book of Genesis?- That is the full title of his work, and it also proves how in dependent was the literary criticism of Genesis of any desire to deny the Mosaic, or ancient origin of the Book. After dividing the two narratives of the Creation as Simon had done, Astruc pointed out that each of them had a distinguishing mark. The first, Genesis i.-ii. 4a always speaks of the Creator as Elohim, the Hebrew term for God; the second, Genesis ii. 4^-iii. calls Him Jahweh or Jahweh-Elohim, the name of Israel's national deity. Again we have a simple fact which any reader can test for himself. Had this difference between the Divine Names stood by itself, its discovery would have led to nothing but confusion ; because the texts have often been copied, and, as any one may see from a comparison of the most ancient versions with the Hebrew, the copying scribes sometimes substituted the one Divine Name for the other. Besides, there were occasions in the course of the narrative, which usually employs the national name Jahweh, to substitute for this the more general title Elohim, as for instance when the writer is treating of the essential character of God or is introducing the statements of persons 1 Brussels, 1753 : x. and 525 pages i2mo. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 35 who were not Israelites and who did not know God as Jahweh. The distinction, therefore, be tween the Divine Names is too precarious to determine a distinction of authorship. But shortly before 1780 Eichhorn, a German Hebraist, who had arrived independently at Astruc's con clusion, confirmed and corrected its results by another discovery. He showed that the difference in the name of the Deity was accompanied by several other linguistic variations. The passages which use Elohim speak of Him as creating the world, and talk of the beasts of the earth ; the passages which usually employ the name Jahweh speak of Him as making or forming the world, and talk of the beasts of the field. These are but two instances out of many : Eichhorn had struck a line of differences too numerous and too dis tinctive to prove fallacious. This, however, was not final : a few years later, in 1798, Ilgen, an other German, observed that within those parts of Genesis in which Elohim was used there are also double accounts of the same event, which can be distinguished from each other by differences of style and vocabulary. Ilgen is therefore called the discoverer of the Second Elohist. Now it was natural that since the main dis tinction among these documents lay in the name of the Deity used by each, that distinction should not at first have been explored beyond the sixth chapter of Exodus where God reveals Himself 36 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE under the name Jahweh, for up to this point there is an obvious reason why the Elohist documents should refrain from using the name Jahweh. But another and independent line of criticism had already been started which was carrying the dis crimination of the documents farther on. One of the representatives of this — perhaps the originator — was a Roman Catholic priest, a Scotsman, called Geddes.1 That remarkable man did not work on the lines laid down by the critics I have mentioned. Where they, struck by the different names for Deity, dis tinguished two or three documents, Geddes, confused by the presence of a large variety of differences and discrepancies, which he did not stop to classify, rushed to the conclusion that these were proofs of a great number of in dependent sources. This Fragmentary Hy pothesis, as it was called, was taken up in Germany by Vater. So far as it affirmed the presence of many documents it did not at the time contribute to the progress of criticism in that direction,2 but because the boldness of its authors did not confine it to Genesis and the first six chapters of Exodus it opened the way 1 See his Life, etc., by John Mason Good ; London, 1863. His O. T. work is entitled The Holy Bible . . . faithfully translated from corrected texts of the originals, with various Readings, Notes, and Critical Remarks ; two vols., London, 1792-97. Critical Re marks on the Hebrew Scriptures : vol. i., Pentateuch, 1800. 2 Yet the justness of much of the reasoning connected with this hypothesis has been proved by more recent scholars ; see below. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 37 to the analysis of the rest of the Pentateuch and even of Joshua.1 From 1805 onwards De Wette demonstrated the singularity of Deuteronomy both as regards its doctrine and its style; a singularity so con spicuous even to the tyro in Hebrew that the absence of an earlier discovery of it now seems astonishing. Not only the favourite phrases and formulas, the favourite interests and ideals, of this Book, but its treatment of the same events, and its laws for the same matters are so different from those of preceding parts of the Pentateuch,2 as to prove beyond all doubt difference of author ship and date. Here, then, is a fourth document. Next, Bleek, who had been partly anticipated by Geddes, proved that the Book of Joshua forms an indispensable supplement to the Pentateuch by carrying on the history and enforcing the legislation of the latter — not on one line but to different degrees on all the lines, sometimes con flicting, of the four documents. Then from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Joshua the attempt was made to disentangle these docu ments by Ewald. And ultimately — to pass over several intermediate confirmations of the main 1 For Geddes's share in extending the process to Joshua, see article 'Joshua' by the present writer in Hastings's Bible Dictionary. 2 For details I must refer the reader to the introduction to Driver's Commentary ; Moore's article in the Encyclopedia Bib- lica ; and Ryle's in Hastings's Bible Dictionary. 38 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE lines of analysis — Hupfeld J arrived independently at Ilgen's conclusions about the two Elohists, and established them upon a sounder basis. He took, for instance, the well-known double accounts of the origin of the names Bethel and Israel. One of these (Gen. xxxv. 9-15) relates that Elohim appeared to Jacob as he came out of Padan-aram, and that, therefore, Jacob called the name of the place Beth-el or house of God; but the other (Gen. xxviii. 10-22) relates that God appeared to Jacob at the same place on his departure for Padan-aram, and that it was at this earlier time that the place was named Bethel : in conformity with which God, when He appears to Jacob in Padan-aram, calls Himself the God of Bethel (Gen. xxxi. 13). Again, ac cording to Genesis xxxii. 23-33, the name Israel was first given to Jacob when he wrestled with the Unknown on the banks of Jabbok; and it was then said : thou shalt no more be called Jacob? But in Genesis xxxv. 9-15 the origin of the name Israel is dated at Bethel on Jacob's return from Padan-aram. These are only two of several variations, not only of style but of substance, which prove the presence in the story of Jacob 1 In The Sources of Genesis (Die Quellen d. Genesis), 1850. 2 It is not quite certain whether this narrative is from the Elohist or the Jahwist. The divine name is Elohim, but there are other parts in the style which lead many to attribute it to the Jahwist. See below on the acknowledged impossibility of always discriminating between the Jahwist and Elohist. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 39 of two documents both using the name Elohim. Hupfeld made an even more important observa tion. He remarked that these two Elohist docu ments are not so closely related to each other as one of them is to the Jahwist. This one, which he calls the Second Elohist, differs from the Jahwist generally only in details — though also in certain conceptions of the Deity — and is so inter woven with the latter that the two are often indistinguishable and were evidently combined before being attached either to the First Elohist or to the Deuteronomic writer. The First Elohist, on the other hand, has a character all its own. Of the bulk of the Hexateuch it supplies by far the greater part ; of the plan which runs through the Hexateuch1 it is the upholding frame. Hence it has been called the Grundschrift or Basal Document; but because it contains the larger part of the legislation, and that part is distinguished from the rest by an elaboration of laws concerning the priesthood and ritual, it is now more usually called the Priestly, while the name Elohist is reserved for Hupfeld's Second Elohist. Before the middle of the century, then, the main lines of the analysis of the Hexateuch were laid down, and all the effect of subsequent criti cism has been to confirm and develop them. The evidence that there are four main documents 1 This is more true of Genesis to Deuteronomy than of Joshua. 40 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE has been revised and the conclusion corroborated by a large number of independent scholars in several countries and schools of Christendom. Kuenen and others in Holland ; Graf, Well- hausen, Noldeke, Dillmann, Kautzsch, Stade, Budde, Holzinger and others in Germany ; West- phal and others in France; Robertson Smith, Cheyne, Driver, Addis, Bennett, Ball, Ryle, Estlin Carpenter and Harford-Battersby in Great Britain ; Briggs and Bacon in America, have all made detailed analyses of the whole or of parts of the Hexateuch ; and their conclusions have been adopted, or independently verified, by others who have not published detailed analyses but have studied and written on the subjects contained in the Hexateuch : as for instance a large band of contributors to Hastings's Bible Dictionary * and to the Encyclopedia Biblica. It cannot be of chance nor by arbitrariness that among so large a majority of experts, working independently of each other, and in face of continual criticism from scholars* on the other side, there should result an agreement of opinion so strong, so surely growing, and so widely based on the phenomena of the sacred text itself. Every position asserted has in turn been contested : in every case the evidence has been several times analysed ; and one by one conservative scholars like Delitzsch, who had at first resisted 1 See especially the article ' Hexateuch ' by F. H. Woods. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 41 the conclusions, have in the end expressed their adherence to them. From the nature of the materials much uncertainty, of course, must pre vail. Purely philological evidence, where it alone is available, is often ambiguous : but as we shall see in the next section of this Lecture, the philo logical is only one department of the evidence. Difference of style or of language is in most cases accompanied by difference of substance, and the judgements which arise on the latter cannot be due to modern literary tastes or standards. We have seen x that the theory of the composi tion of the Hexateuch from four documents had one rival, the theory of composition from many fragments. There was also another theory, that of expansion; or the enlargement of a small kernel of tradition by successive additions and revisions from later stages of the national memory and religious development. Both of these theories have received some justification from the more recent elaboration of the documentary theory. For within each of the four documents further examination has discovered certain smaller varia tions of language, but still more of substance, which make it probable that the documents con tain later additions in the style characteristic of each, and that thus they represent not the work of the same author so much as that of the same 1 Above, p. 36. 42 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE school of tradition and religious conception.1 Then, as there are four documents, and as it is evident that two of them, the Jahwist and Elohist, were combined before the others were added, this implies more than one editor, whose additions and modifications are to be expected and, where possible, distinguished. Of the presence of such minor distinctions, the present state of the text affords many clear signs ; and that the process of revising and adding continued a very long time is proved by a comparison of the Hebrew with the oldest versions into other languages. Here the work of the critic is necessarily ex tremely delicate, and the results are often un- 1 To go into the details of this more delicate and therefore pre carious criticism of recent years is impossible in the limits of a single lecture. But some particulars may be given in a note. For fuller details the English reader may be referred to the article ' Hexateuch ' in Hastings's Bible Dictionary; and, so far as Deuter onomy is concerned, to Driver's introduction to his Commentary and to the forthcoming edition by the present writer of the text and translation of that book in Haupt's Sacred Books of the Old Testa ment. In the Jahwist document the stories of early humanity and the growth of civilisation contain some discrepancies which betray different sources. — In Deuteronomy therehas long been adivision of opinion as to how much, if any, of the prefatory introductions, i-i i, belong to the same author as that of the legal codes ; and within the latter parallel and slightly differing laws are found on the same subject. In the year 1894 the analysis of Deuteronomy took a new direction on the publication of Stark's and Steuerna- gel's investigations into the use of the singular and plural forms of address in that Book. In some passages Israel is addressed as thou, in some as you. The data are extremely puzzling because the text is often uncertain where those pronouns occur, and be cause the Hebrew idiom permits the same writer or speaker to pass from the one to the other. But where the change coincides with PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 43 certain. But the uncertainties do not involve more than the fringes of the four main documents and their principal constituents. Upon these, by facts which are obvious to every student, by methods that are thorough and exact, through much debate and jealous revision, there has gradually been produced among critics a most remarkable unanimity. So much for the analysis of the first six Books of the Old Testament. The Historical Books stand next in order. Some of them, for example the Books of Kings, explicitly assert that they have been composed from several sources ; all of them present on the surface the same features as other changes in the style or religious conception, there is mani festly a strong reason for supposing a difference of author. Not only is such coincidence frequent in Deuteronomy both in the hortatory sections and the laws, but while both the passages in the singular address and those in the plural have terms and con ceptions in common, they have some consistently different term for the same event or object, and each in addition has a list of words peculiar to itself and a list of favourite interests different from that of the other. It seems to me, therefore, that the case for two sources in Deuteronomy, thus distinguished, is, if not proved, very probable ; and that it will supplant the older distinction between the hortatory and legal sections on which critics were always divided. But Stark and Steuernagel, while striking on a true distinction, have not corrected their analysis of it in Deuteronomy by comparison with its appearance in the contemporary Jeremiah and other writers. The same objection seems to me to be valid against Mitchell's simpler analysis in the American fournal of Biblical Literature for 1899. — In the Priestly Legislation, Lev. i. 17-26 has long been regarded by critics as distinct in character and style from the rest of the code. (See Driver, Lntrod. to Lit. of Old Testament, 49 ff .) : and in the latter many obviously later additions appear. 44 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE the Hexateuch : that is to say, not only differ ences of style but the presence of double accounts of the same event. In the Books of Samuel this latter feature is present to a still greater degree than in the narratives of the Hexateuch ; but it is not so possible to discern in the Books of Samuel all the main documents which run through the history from beginning to end. What is clear is, that the historical Books contain many records and traditions, some of them treating the same events with differences both of style and substance.1 Equally evident is the hand of the editor or editors who compiled them, and who not only added various statistics and recurrent formulas designed to frame them into a continuous history, but placed the whole of that history under a certain moral judgement, to which expression is given in language distinct from that of the materials he employed.2 And again, as in the case of the Hexateuch, these conclusions have been reached only as the result of long research and debate by many critics, who, differing in details, have gradually approached unanimity upon the main lines just indicated. The analysis of the prophetical and of the poetical Books presents us with greater diffi culties. The process is not so old nor quite so 1 E.g. the accounts of the institution of the Kingdom, of the meeting of Saul and David, and of the end of Saul. 2 See further below, pp. 65 f. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 45 thorough as in the case of the Hexateuch, and upon some of the results there is a still wider divergence of opinion. Within the last ten years the dissection of several prophetical books has been carried to an extent which represents rather the in genuity of a few critics than the settled consensus of the majority. But, excepting these latest pro posals as still under judgement, we observe the same tendency in criticism as we have already noted: the steady approximation to the belief that many of the larger books of prophecy are compilations from several sources. For this the evidence is partly that of language and style — it has become very clear that many terms and grammatical forms were not in use till towards the Exile — but the most cogent proofs are drawn from the expression of opposite religious tempers. Both in the larger and smaller prophecies there are obvious interpolations. Generations sub sequent to the original prophet made qualifica tions of, or additions to, his oracles, in order to adapt them to the changed circumstances or altered tempers of the people, and so to per petuate their religious significance. To this subject we shall return in a later Lecture. The critical analysis of the Old Testament is therefore not only a movement of considerable age, and pursued by a long and varied succession of experts ; but by rational methods and upon 46 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE intelligible evidence, derived from the sacred text, it has produced certain large results on which the vast majority of critics are more and more approaching to unanimity. There is, there fore, no ground either for those who attack the science of Old Testament criticism as hasty and its conclusions as raw; or for those who predict a reaction from the conclusions as certain as the reaction which arose in New Testament criticism against the theories of the extreme Tubingen school. The Tubingen theories were largely deductions from the prin ciples of a certain philosophy of history. But the proofs of Old Testament criticism are not d priori : the argument is inductive and the facts are furnished by the Old Testament itself.1 II. The Criticism of the Old Testament mainly Historical. The criticism of the Old Testament, however, is not merely literary ; and here we have to meet the second charge which its opponents have preferred against it.2 In their recent writings Professors Sayce and Hommel have, with con- 1 It is indeed striking that the attempt to prove the late date of the Levitical legislation from principles of the Hegelian philoso phy, which Vatke made in 1833, should have been ignored in the history of criticism; and that that late date should not have been accepted till Graf and others proved it by inductive evidence in 1866 and following years. 2 See above, p. 31. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 47 siderable persistence, represented the Higher Criticism as if it were only the analysis of the text of the Old Testament into different docu ments upon the evidence of language and style. And they assert that the evidence alleged cannot but be precarious, because estimated by scholars with very different tastes and standards from those of the people among whom the Old Testa ment arose. Nothing could be further from the truth. Look at what we have already seen with regard to the discrimination of the documents. We have seen that this depends not only upon differences of vocabulary, phrase and idiom, but still more upon differences of fact and substance in narratives which relate the same events. Take the different stories of the origin of the name of Bethel.1 It is impossible to believe that these came from the same hand. Or take the Book of Joshua. Throughout its chapters there are visible two differing accounts of the conquest of Western Palestine by the Israelites. One of them represents the conquest and division of the land to have been thorough and effected in one generation by the whole people acting to gether; the other represents it as the work of the tribes acting separately, and as being far from complete. Here are differences of fact, which are not dependent for their distinction upon differences of phrase and idiom ; yet are corro- 1 See above, p. 38. 48 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE borated by these, for the parts of the Book which represent the Conquest as complete under Joshua are composed in the language of the Deuterono- mic and Priestly writers,1 while those who report it to have been incomplete are written in the style of the Jahwist.2 But that is not all. I have already said that a linguistic analysis is often unable to distinguish between the Jahwist and the Elohist, and this is especially the case in the Book of Joshua. All the more striking therefore are certain differences of fact in this double docu ment. For instance, in the story of the crossing of the Jordan, as told in Joshua iii. and iv., there are two accounts of the monument set up to commemorate the passage. One of them builds it at Gilgal on the west bank with stones taken from the river-bed by the people;3 the other builds it in the bed of the river with twelve stones set there by Joshua.4 Similarly, in chap ter vi. two stories have been interwoven, but are still distinguishable : one which relates how Israel marched round Jericho on seven successive days, the first six they marched in silence, but on the seventh they shouted at the word of 1 E.g. a. 28-43, xi- 2» 3) 6> 9~I2> r4-23> xii- xiii. 2-12, 14, xxi. 43-45, xxii. 1-15, xxiii. — Deuteronomic : and xiv. 1-5, xv. (except 13-19 and 63), xvi. 4-8, xvii. la, 3-7, 9 (partly), 10, xviii. ii«, 12-28, xix. 1-46, 48, 51 — Priestly. 2 xv. 63, xvi. 10, xvii. 11-18, with which agrees the account of a partial conquest in Judges i. 3 iv. 1-8, 20. 4 iv. 9. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 49 Joshua and the walls fell ; 1 and another which relates that a portion of the armed men marched round the city seven times on the same day, having in their midst the ark, and that on the seventh round the people shouted at the signal of the trumpets and the walls fell.2 Similarly in chapter viii. we find two accounts of the ambush against Ai, according to one of which the ambush consisted of 30,000 men and was despatched to its position by Joshua either from Gilgal or soon after the main army left Gilgal; while according to the other the ambush con sisted of 5000 men and was not detached from the army till the latter had arrived in the neigh bourhood of Ai.3 The existence of all these ' doublets ' is not, I repeat, proved by differences of vocabulary or of style, for we are generally unable to say which is from the Jahwist and which from the Elohist ; it is proved by difference of facts in the substance of the narrative. Hitherto I have dealt only with the proofs of the presence of different documents in the 1 Verses 3, 7a, 10, 11 (partly), 14, 15a, and it came to pass . . . manner, \^,b, 20, and the people shouted. 2 Verses 4 (partly), 5, yb, 8, 9, parts of 13 and 15, 16a, 20b. Cf. especially verses 16 and 20 : in the latter the people shout both before and after the trumpets, though verse 16 enjoins on them not to shout till the trumpets give the signal. Wellhausen was the first to point out the distinction. 8 The first account can be traced in verses 3-9 ; the second in verses 10-14. For the analysis of the two accounts through the rest of the chapter, see Bennett's 'Joshua 'in Haupt's Sacred Books of the Old Testament. D So MODERN CRITICISM AND THE Hexateuch. But now let us look at the problem of the dates of these documents. Here again the evidence for the critical solution is not alto gether that of language and style. On the con trary, historical evidence has been predominant at every step of the argument : and in particular has decided almost by itself the principal change of opinion which criticism has made on this subject. At first the Jahwist-Elohist and the Deuteronomic documents were assigned, on ac count of their historical allusions, to a date after the beginning of the Monarchy ; but the Priestly Document, which has many archaic features and which betrays no allusion to the later history, was considered the earliest of the four. It was the introduction of other phenomena, historical in character, which forced critics to abandon this opinion and to seek for the Priestly Document a much later date. The change came about upon two lines of reasoning. The first was this. When the collections of laws which the documents contain were compared, it was seen that they exhibited different stages of what was fundamentally the same legislation ; the simplest of these stages is found in the Jahwist-Elohist,1 the next in Deuteronomy,2 the most complex and elaborate in the Priestly Writing.3 Or, as this way of putting the matter does scant justice 1 Ex. xx.-xxii., xxxiv., 14-26. 2 Deut. xii.-xxvi. 3 Ex. xxv.-xxxi., Levit., Num. i.-xix. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 51 to the differences, we may say that while the legislation in the Jahwist-Elohist is suited to a purely agricultural people, the Deuteronomic meets the necessities of a community more highly organised and equipped, with foreign relations and subject to religious temptations to which in the clays of the early kings Israel was not exposed ; while, besides, there is in Deuteronomy's modi fication of the Jahwist-Elohist laws evidence of the influence of the eighth-century prophets. The Priestly Legislation on the other hand cannot be understood in many of its provisions except in the light of the Exile, and of the greater influence which the priesthood assumed in Israel after the return from Babylon. On the subjects of sacrifice, the priesthood, the gifts due to the priests and kindred matters, there is an almost perfectly consistent increase of elaboration and rigour from the laws of the Jahwist-Elohist, through those of Deuteronomy to those of the Priestly Legislation.1 I am not now defending the conclusion to which most critics adhere, that therefore the Jahwist-Elohist is the earliest of the Documents, and the Priestly the latest, Deuteronomy coming in between: I am only showing that critics reached that conclusion on historical evidence. Again, critics remarked the 1 For details see Driver's Commentary on Deuteronomy, chaps, xii.-xxvi. ; or the present writer's notes to the same chapters in Haupt's Sacred Books of the Old Testament. 52 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE fact that the early history of Israel exhibited no traces of the influence or existence of any of the three legal codes, but that, on the contrary, the religious leaders of Israel from Gideon to Elisha behaved as if there were no such laws in existence as those (at least) of Deuteronomy and the Priestly code. Again I have no room to go into the detailed proof,1 and my purpose is simply to point out the character of the evidence of which it consists. On both these lines of proof for the date of the documents, the evidence, therefore, is his torical and is supplied by the Old Testament itself. It is, of course, supported by philological evidence. The language and the style of the Jahwist-Elohist are earlier than that of Deutero nomy; and both the ordinary vocabulary and the lists of proper names in the Priestly Writing exhibit many traces of a late date.2 But all this is only corroboratory of a conclusion reached independently and upon the evidence of the sacred history itself. Let me repeat, this prin cipal conclusion of modern criticism, — that the written Law of Israel, in the three forms in which we possess it, cannot have been the work of Moses or of the Mosaic, or immediately post- Mosaic, age, but must be assigned to a much 1 See the introductions to Driver's Commentary on Deutero nomy, and to Addis's Documents of the Hexateuch. 2 G. B. Gray, Studies in Hebrew Proper Names: London, 1896. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 53 later date, — has been reached not by the methods of literary analysis, but on lines of historical evi dence furnished by the earlier chronicles of Israel themselves. Let us now take a similar instance from the prophets. The opponents of criticism have often alleged that the conclusion, by which Isaiah xl. and following chapters are taken from Isaiah himself and assigned to a prophet on the eve of the Return from Exile, is due to a dogmatic prejudice against the capacity of Isaiah himself to predict events so far beyond his own time, and is supported mainly upon grounds of language and style. Neither of these allegations is correct. What has compelled critics to date Isaiah xl. and following chapters from the close of the Baby lonian Captivity has been the historical evidence furnished by the chapters themselves. These chapters nowhere claim to be by Isaiah, and do not present a single reflection of his time. But they plainly set forth, as having already taken place, certain events which happened from a century to a century and a half after Isaiah had passed away : the Babylonian Exile and Cap tivity, the ruin of Jerusalem and the devastation of the Holy Land. Israel is addressed as having exhausted the time of her penalty, and is ex horted to leave Babylon, because the door of her deliverance is immediately to open, and as if her return to the Holy Land depended now upon 54 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE herself. Cyrus is named as her deliverer, and is described as already called upon his career and blessed with victory by Jahweh. Nor is all this predicted as if from the standpoint of a previous century ; but it is taken for granted as the very basis of the prophet's argument. Cyrus him self is not merely represented to be above the horizon and upon the flowing tide of victory, as a prophet might possibly realise him to be before he actually appeared. But he and his victories are appealed to as the unmistakeable proof that former prophecies of Israel's deliverance from Babylon are at last being fulfilled. Would it have been possible for the prophet to make such an appeal, either to Israel or to the heathen, un less Cyrus had been within the ken of them both? Unless Cyrus and his early victories were already historical facts, the whole argument in Isaiah xl.- xlviii. is unintelligible. You observe, then, that all this criticism which assigns these chapters to the eve of the Return from Exile is historical, and is independent of the literary analysis of the text, which, however, greatly corroborates it. Moreover, except for the date of Cyrus, which is determined by the cuneiform inscriptions, the historical evidence in question is drawn entirely from the Bible itself. Let us take from the historical books one other example of the same method. There is no Book in the Old Testament, whose place in the Canon PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 55 and whose value as a record of historical fact have been rendered more precarious by criticism than the Books of Chronicles. These two books, which are really one, include the same period, whose history is related in the Books of Samuel and of Kings. They treat many of the same episodes and of the same personalities. But they treat these with a great difference. For the details I must refer you to the article by Professor Francis Brown in Hastings's Bible Dictionary} For our present purpose it is sufficient to point out that, when the parallel narratives in Samuel-Kings and in Chronicles are compared, it is found that the Chronicler has increased the numbers of the troops en gaged in the campaigns described, of the men slain, and of the slaves, the cattle and the objects of value taken captive or brought as tribute to the victors; that he has enhanced the characters of some of the leading person alities, like David and Solomon; and that he has imputed to the period of the Monarchy the establishment and elaboration of all the ritual and the law enforced by the Priestly Document. This comparison with Samuel-Kings makes it at once evident that we cannot accept the Chronicler as an authority for the pre-exilic history of Israel, but must consider his Book 1 See also the article in the Encyc. Biblica ; and Robertson Smith, The Old Testament in the fewish Church, pp. 140 ff. 56 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE as a homiletic treatment of that history from the standpoint of generations after the Exile, when the Priestly Legislation had so long been in force that it was impossible to imagine any part of Israel's history as without it.1 These are such fundamental and such obvious instances of the results of modern criticism upon the Old Testament that I am almost ashamed to bring them before you. But the repetition of them is rendered necessary, not only by the common opinion of a large portion of the Church, but by the assertions of scholars I have named and of a number of other writers, that modern criticism is mainly dependent upon the preca rious methods of literary analysis. How amply the instances quoted disprove this, and how fully they discover the main conclusions of critics to be based upon historical evidence derived from the Old Testament itself, I do not require further to demonstrate. III. Criticism and Archaeology, Hitherto we have looked only at the evidence which criticism finds within the sacred records of Israel. But our century has been one not only of Biblical research, but of the discovery and exami nation of the histories and religions of the peoples who surrounded Palestine and who were one 1 Cf. Robertson Smith, op. cit., p. 140. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 57 with ancient Israel in blood, custom and mental equipment. Sixty or seventy years ago almost our sole record for the history of the world, of which the kingdom of Israel formed a small province, was the Old Testament. But now — in Babylonia, Egypt and Phoenicia ; in Bashan, Moab, Edom and Sinai ; in Central and Southern Arabia — there have been unearthed and de ciphered a vast multitude of monuments which not only afford us the most ample material for testing the chronology of the Old Testament, and defining the exact nature of many of the historical events in it, but which have uncovered to us the civilisation and religion of the tribes who were Israel's neighbours and Israel's kinsmen according to the flesh. With all this evidence we can compare, in Arabia and Syria, the still current life of tribes of the same race in the same natural environment. It will be obvious how all this archaeology and ethnology must enable criticism to attack the chief of the problems bequeathed by the New Testament: the problem of tracing throughout the Old Testament a progressive re velation. That, however, forms the subject of another lecture; and I will now consider only the general attitude of recent criticism to all the historical and archaeological evidence which has been gathered from fields outside the Old Testa ment. Of recent years the conclusions of the Higher 58 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE Criticism have been attacked in the name of archaeology, and by none with more persistence than the two eminent scholars I have named: Professor Sayce and Professor Hommel. They have asserted that ' archaeology is on the side of tradition and not of the critics,' 1 upon the cardinal question of the Old Testament : the dates and composition of the Hexateuch. And, as proof of this, they have alleged what they call ' the re luctance of the critics to accept the discoveries of the archaeologists.' Let us inquire what grounds there are for these charges. Criticism, as we have seen, has discovered four main documents in the Hexateuch, which it has assigned to various dates from the ninth or eighth to the sixth or fifth centuries before Christ. Professor Sayce's argument appears to be that this conclusion is largely due to the critics' belief that the art of writing was not practised in Israel till about David's time, or the end of the eleventh century before Christ, and that till then legisla tion and tradition were only oral. In disproof of such a belief Professor Sayce appeals to the so-called Tell el Amarna letters. These clay tablets, which date from about 1400 B.C., or more than a century before the commonly received date of the Exodus, represent a frequent and detailed correspondence between the court ot Egypt on the one hand and its representatives 1 Sayce, Cont. Rev., vol. Ixx., 1896, p. 730. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 59 in Palestine and the rulers of the kingdoms of Mesopotamia on the other. The writing is in the cuneiform character, and the language that of Babylonia. The tablets, therefore, prove that some of the culture of Babylonia, perhaps even including its literature, had spread across the whole of Western Asia, at least a century before the Exodus. From this Professor Sayce infers that the Israelites, when in the land of Goshen and upon their wanderings through the Desert, must have known how to read and write, must have been acquainted with Babylonian literature, and must have been able to appreciate and make use of Babylonian documents, the translation of some of which he thinks can be identified in portions of the Book of Genesis. Now, in the first place, it is necessary to note that the Tell el Amarna letters are only the docu ments of high Egyptian or Mesopotamian officials, and of chiefs of settled tribes in Palestine ; and that to argue from their habits to those of a semi-nomadic race, such as Israel were still in Goshen and the Desert, is not very safe.1 But 1 As has often been pointed out, the tribes which live to-day on the borders of Egypt and Canaan, half-settled and half-nomadic, do not, for all their contact with the civilised and half-civilised populations of these lands, learn to read and write. Reading and writing are arts, of which the Bedawee tribes do not see the need, and frequently despise. From the culture and habits of corre spondence of the court of Egypt and its representatives in Canaan, it is very little less difficult to infer that the Israelite shepherds could write, than to employ the existence of the postal system 60 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE suppose we admit that the chiefs of Israel were in official contact with the Egyptian authorities during Israel's residence in Goshen, and that they did learn from their employment in the building operations of Pharaoh the arts of reading and writing which were so highly developed in Egypt. Suppose that we grant (and I for one am not inclined to deny this) that there were leaders in Israel at the time of the Exodus who could write, or have writings made for them, just as Abd-hiba of Jerusalem and other petty chieftains of Palestine did. We have not, therefore, proved that the docu ments which compose the Pentateuch were written in the time of Moses. We have not secured one iota of evidence to counterbalance the proofs, derived from the history of Israel itself, that the Pentateuchal legislation was not in existence in the time of the Judges or of the earlier Kings. Few critics have committed themselves to the absolute negative, that early Israel did not know how to write ; nor do any of the arguments for the late date of the Hexateuch rest upon a reason which, even if it were probable, is so impossible to prove. The other discoveries of archaeologists which have to do with the Pentateuch are the Baby lonian tablets — with stories of the Creation and and telegraph in the Turkish Empire and the dominions of the Khedive to illustrate the culture of the nomads in the deserts which lie on their borders. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 61 Flood, or with annals which cover the events described in Genesis xiv. — and the Egyptian monuments which depict the conditions of life reflected in the story of Joseph. We have not now to consider how far the evidence furnished by all these proves the historical value of the Pentateuch. That question will come up in next Lecture. Our present inquiry is, how far the Babylonian and Egyptian monuments affect the conclusions of critics with regard to the dates of the Pentateuchal documents. The Babylonian stories of the Creation and Flood were probably in existence by a very early date.1 At the Oriental Congress in Paris in 1897 it was announced that Father Scheil had discovered on a tablet from Sippara of date about 2250 b.c. a recension of the Babylonian story of the Flood. This has evidently been copied from a still older tablet, for here and there the scribe has inserted the word 'lacuna.' The story of the Flood may, therefore, be carried back as far as 3000 b.c. But however early be its date or the dates of the various versions of the Creation-Epos, it is evident that they can 1 In the British Museum we find them on tablets from the Royal Library at Nineveh of the eighth and seventh centuries B.C. See the newly issued Guide to the Babylonian and Assyrian Collec tions (1900), pp. 36 ff. For translations see Records of the Past, new series, vol. i. 122 ff., by Prof. Sayce; Gunkel's Schopfung u. Chaos, pp. 401 ff. by Zimmern; and Authority and Archceology, ed. by D. G. Hogarth (London, 1899), pp. 10 ff. 62 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE have no bearing on the question of the dates of the Hebrew documents, — whether the Jahwist- Elohist or the Priestly, — which contain accounts of the Creation and Flood founded on the Baby lonian. We are ignorant of the time at which the Hebrews received these stories; while in their Biblical form they exhibit so many differences from the Babylonian as to make it probable that the materials were used by the writers of the Pentateuchal documents only after long tradition within a Hebrew atmosphere. Nor in the light which the monuments throw upon Genesis xiv. is there any evidence as to when that chapter was written. We are still with out the proof that its accounts of Babylonian campaigns are confirmed by Babylonian annals dealing with the same events; and even if we had this proof, there would remain the possi bility, for which there is some evidence, that Genesis xiv. is a Hebrew fragment from the Exile based on Babylonian materials. In any case this chapter cannot be used in the discussion of the critical conclusions as to the date of the four main constituents of the Hexateuch, for it lies outside them all.1 Again, the portrait of Egyptian life presented by the story of Joseph in the Jahwist-Elohist 1 Full statements and discussions of the Babylonian evidence as to the names, etc., in Gen. xiv. will be found in Driver's Authority and Archceology, pp. 39 ff., and in article ' Chedorlaomer ' in the Encyclopaedia Biblica. See below, p. 100. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 63 document has been appealed to, as proof that the writer lived at a time when Israel, from their long residence in Goshen, were still familiar with Egypt. But the life, which the story of Joseph portrays, was the life of Egypt not only in Joseph's time. In the same moulds it persisted for centuries after the Exodus, and under the Monarchy Israel had many opportunities of be coming acquainted with it. So that the vivid and accurate descriptions of Egypt, which surround the figure of Pharaoh's Hebrew vizier, are no conclusive proof of the ancient origin of the document which tells the story. On the contrary, the only Egyptian data in that story to which archaeologists can attach an approximate age, appear to offer some confirmation of the late period to which critics have assigned the Jahwist-Elohist document. The Egyptian names Zaphenath-Pa'aneah, Potipherah, and Asenath belong to types of names which do not appear, or are not frequent, on the Egyptian monu ments till some centuries after the Exodus.1 1 The type to which Zaphenath-Pa'aneah belongs occurs first under the Twentieth Dynasty in the thirteenth century B.C., and is frequent only under the Twenty-second in the tenth century. The type to which Potipherah belongs appears in one instance under the Eighteenth Dynasty, though not then attached to a native Egyptian, and otherwise occurs first under the Twenty- second Dynasty, but is not frequent till the Twenty-sixth, 664-525 B.C. The type to which Asenath belongs has a few early in stances, but is frequent only under the Twenty-first Dynasty, in the eleventh century and later. 64 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE From these facts, reached in complete indepen dence of criticism, the Egyptologists ' Steindorff, Brugsch, and Ebers all agree in inferring that the names in question did not originate before the Ninth Century b.c' * But if this be so, the only archaeological evidence which proves anything with regard to the dates of the Hexateuchal documents points in the same direction as the critical arguments which assign the Jahwist-Elohist to the ninth or the eighth century. Before we leave the Hexateuch let me call your attention to the fact that the critical theory of its compilation from several sources receives one strong confirmation from the archaeological side. Professor Sayce himself admits that such a compilation is ' fully in accordance with the teachings of Oriental archaeology,' which has shown us that the ancient writings of the neigh bours and kinsfolk of Israel were also of a com posite character. Let me quote his own words : ' The composite character of the Pentateuch, therefore, is only what a study of similar con temporaneous literature brought to light by modern research would lead us to expect.' 2 And it is remarkable that Professor Sayce, who has so strenuously assailed the conclusions of critics with regard to the Pentateuch, should admit that Driver, article 'Joseph' in Hastings's Bible Dictionary, ii. 775. Monuments, pp. 31, 34 ; cf. History of the Hebrews, p. 129. 1 Driver 2 PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 65 the Book of Joshua, the supplement and appendix of the Pentateuch, is a composite document with conflicting accounts of the conquest and settle ment of Canaan.1 Beyond the Hexateuch there is little necessity to follow the critics in their attitude to archce ology. The critics cannot be charged with neglecting the long series of Assyrian annals which bear upon the history of the Kings of Israel and Judah, from Omri to Zedekiah. I need only point out how far these annals confirm the critical estimate of the Books of Kings. The earliest Hebrews named on the Assyrian monuments are Omri and Ahab; from them onwards we have among others the names of Ben-hadad, Ahab's Syrian contemporary, of Jehu, Hazael, Pekah, Ahaz and Hezekiah. Pestilences and eclipses are recorded, the tremors of which vibrate through the early prophetical books. We have an account of the invasion of Palestine by Tiglath Peleser, when he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, by the way of the sea across Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles ; the overthrow of Samaria by Sargon ; Sennacherib's invasion of Syria, his appearances before Jerusalem, the tribute he exacted, and his disappearance north wards. But criticism has never doubted those 1 History of the Hebrews, ch. iv. ; see above in this Lecture, pp. 47 f. E 66 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE names or these facts. It has recognised that the Books of Kings were compiled from true and in many cases contemporaneous annals. What critics have judged to be late and pro bably of less historic value has been certain narratives, for which archaeology has no evidence to offer, as well as the framework, in which the editor has bound the whole history and supplied, out of a general scheme, a chrono logy, and, from the standpoint of a later age, a religious sentence on each monarch's reign.1 Now, remarkably enough, archaeology has con firmed this judgement of criticism on the Books of Kings, so far as regards the chronology. For while testifying to the reality of Omri, Ahab, Jehu, and some of their successors, as well as of the leading events of the history, it has shown from the contemporary Assyrian data that the chronology, approximately correct so far as the distance of one man or event from another is concerned, has, been placed by the editor from one dozen to twenty years too early — obviously in order to fit it into the general system, adopted by the Hebrew editors, of reckoning the years from the Exodus to the fall of the first Temple and the Return from Exile.2 1 For this chronology see next Lecture. The moral and religious judgements of each reign are from the standpoint of Deuteronomy, which, as we have seen, did not come into force in Israel till 621 B.C. under King Josiah. 2 See Kampfhausen, Chronologic der hebraischen Konige, 1883; Robertson Smith, Prophets, pp. 144 ff. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 67 So much for archaeology and its relations to criticism. ' The fact is,' as Professor Driver says,1 ' the antagonism which some writers have sought to establish between criticism and archceology is wholly factitious and unreal. Criticism and archaeology deal with antiquity from different points of view, and mutually supplement one another. Each in turn supplies what the other lacks; and it is only by an entire misunder standing of the scope and limits of both that they can be brought into antagonism with one another. What is called " the witness of the monuments " is often strangely misunderstood. The monuments witness to nothing which any reasonable critic has ever doubted. ... A great deal of the illustration afforded by the monu ments relates to facts of language, to ideas, institutions, and localities ; but these as a rule are of a permanent nature; and until they can be proved to be limited to a particular age their occurrence, or mention, in a given narrative is not evidence that it possesses the value of con temporary testimony.' The alleged refutation of criticism by archaeo logy may therefore be dismissed, and we pass to another which has been drawn from the sphere of geography. It is often maintained that the accuracy of the topographical data on the Book of Genesis is proof of the truthfulness of the 1 Authority and Archceology, p. 150 f. 68 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE narratives in which they appear. ' But,' as I have said elsewhere,1 ' that a story accurately reflects geography does not necessarily mean that it is a real transcript of history — else were the Book of Judith the truest man ever wrote instead of being, what it is, a pretty piece of fiction. Many legends are wonderful photographs of scenery, and there fore let us at once admit that while we may have other reasons for the historical truth of the patri archal narratives, we cannot prove this on the ground that their itineraries and place-names are correct.' On the other hand, for the same reason — that the topography of Palestine changed so little during the course of the history of Israel — it will be obvious that geography cannot be of much use in the support of the critical conclusions as to the dates of the documents. The only cases in which it can afford any evidence of these, are where documents, judged by critics to be late on other grounds, contain geographical names, or applications of geographical names, which are themselves of a late origin. For instance, the mountains of Moab are called in the Priestly Document, which recent critics date after the Exile, the mountains of the Abarim. Abarim means ' the men or things on the other side,' and there is some evidence that before the Exile the name was applied to the whole mountain-range 1 Historical Geography of the Holy Land, p. 108. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 69 east of Jordan.1 But the post-Exilic writer limited it to the mountains of Moab, because in his day these were the only part of the eastern range which was opposite the shrunken territory of his people. Again, it appears that the name Euphrates occurs first in the writings of Jere miah ; 2 in the historical and prophetical books before his time we hear only of ' the River.' 3 Now look at the documents of the Hexateuch. In the Jahwist and Elohist, which critics date before Jeremiah, the stream is called ' the River ' ; in Deuteronomy (from Jeremiah's time) and in the Priestly Writing4 (from the time of the Exile) it is called Euphrates. Such is the kind of small symptoms, which geography supplies, of the truth of the critical conclusions as to the date of the Hexateuchal documents. With regard to the literary analysis of these documents, the geographical evidence, though still not large, is quite as decisive. The same localities are called in the different documents by different names, 1 Jer. xxii. 20, R. V. ; Ezek. xxxix. 11 (reading with Hitzig and others ' Abarim ' for ' Oberim '). See further article ' Abarim ' by the present writer in the Encyclopedia Biblica. 2 Jeremiah xiii. 4-7. 8 2 Sam. viii. 3 (Kethibh), a. 16 ; 1 Kings iv. 21, 24 (Heb. v. 1, 4), xiv. 15; Isa. vii. 20; and even Jer. ii. 18, and Micah vii. 12. 4 ' The River,' Gen. xxxi. 21 (J. E.); Exod. xxiii. 31 ; Num. xxii. 5 ; Josh. xxiv. 2 f. (all E.). ' The great River, the River Euphrates,' Gen. xv. iS (D.) (Red, according to Ball) ; Deut. i. 7 ; Josh. i. 4 (D.) ; cf. Deut. xi. 24 ; ' Euphrates,' Gen. ii. 14 (P.) ; cf. Jer. xlvi. 2, 6, 10, li. 63 ; 2 Kings xxiii. 29, xxiv. 7 ; the gloss to 2 Sam. viii. 3 ; and in Chronicles and Apocrypha. 70 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE and this with a remarkable consistence to which there are but one or two exceptions.1 The geographical evidence, then, so far as it goes, does not contradict but supports the critical analysis of the documents and the critical conclusions as to their dates. We have now examined the various charges made against the modern criticism of the Old Testament and have found them baseless. That criticism does not depend mainly on linguistic analysis, but still more on historical evidence furnished by the Old Testament itself: the con- 1 E.g. for instance in the Jahwist and Priestly Documents the mountain of the Law is always Sinai, but in the Elohist and Deuteronomist always Horeb, as it is also in a narrative of i Kings, ch. xix., which is from the northern -kingdom like the Elohist; and in Mai. iv. 2, in which prophet the influence of Deuteronomy is often felt. Notice that Deuteronomy xxxiii. 2, in which Sinai occurs, is assigned on other grounds to the Jahwist. Again, the mountain which Moses ascended in Moab is called Pisgah by the Elohist (Num. xxi. 20, xxiii. 14), and by the Deu teronomist (Deut. iii. 17, 27, iv. 49, xxxiv. 1 (?), Josh. xii. 3). Once perhaps the Priestly Writer uses the name (Josh. xiii. 20), but this instance may be Deuteronomic. The Priestly Writer names it Nebo. Again, the glen beneath Pisgah, in which Israel camped, before descending into the valley of the Jordan, is called the glen that is in the field of Moab by the Elohist (Num. xxi. 20), but in the Deuteronomist the glen that is opposite Beth. peor (Deut. iii. 29, iv. 46, xxxiv. 6). The Elohist calls the site of Israel's camp before crossing the Jordan the field ox territory of Moab (Num. xxi. 20), but the Priestly Writer always speaks of it as the plains or steppes of Moab. Again, the Elohist gives one list of stations on Israel's route through Moab (Num. xxi. 13-20), the Priestly Writer gives another (Num. xxxiii. 44-49). PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 71 elusions are not refuted, but to a remarkable extent corroborated, by the evidence of archae ology and geography. We have examined the methods and the general course of criticism. We have seen how thoroughly tested and how firmly based are its main results. But in truth no general account of the critical movement can do justice to its argument. In the case of the Hexateuch we must take the text itself and prove the critical analysis verse by verse. If we do so, we shall often indeed be puzzled by details, for which there is no complete explana tion on any theory whatsoever. But gradually the characteristic phraseology, favourite interests, religious conceptions and historical traditions of four main documents will fall apart, all the more distinct that they often present the same sub jects or events in different ways; and we shall be convinced that we are in touch, not with phantasms of modern scholarship, but with an cient realities — the original constituents of our curiously composite Scriptures. Discrepancies, fatal to the traditional theory, will explain them selves : the history, instead of being full of con tradictions, will fall into the lines of a reasonable development, and the Divine education of Israel become more apparent than ever. The other subject of criticism — the exact dates of the different documents, in the form in which we have them — may not be so clear to us : we will 72 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE sympathise with the difference of opinion about these that exists among critics themselves; and we will even keep in mind what some critics forget, that having fastened the present form of a document to an approximate date, we have not therefore prejudiced the question of the earlier origin of some of its contents. Reviewing the whole of this Lecture, we may say that Modern Criticism has won its war against the Traditional Theories. It only remains to fix the amount of the indemnity. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 73 LECTURE III THE HISTORICAL BASIS IN THE OLD TESTAMENT In last Lecture I said that the battle of modern criticism with the traditional theories of the Old Testament had been fought and won; and that it only remains to discuss the indemnity. What do the results of criticism cost? To this question we must now address ourselves. We have admitted the liberty and duty of criticism. We have found its methods reasonable and carefully wrought. We have seen that its main conclusions rest upon literary and historical facts furnished by the Old Testament itself, and are supported by the evidences of archaeology and geography, so far as these go : that, in short, they are as solid as the results can be of a science at work upon so remote a period of history. We have now to ask, what does criticism leave to us in the Old Testament : how much true history and how much Divine Revelation ? Of these two questions the chief, of course, is the latter, but as the answer to it partly depends on 74 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE the answer to the former we must take that first: how much true history has criticism left to us in the Old Testament ? Though this is actually the less important of the two questions (for Revelation is not coincident with actual history1), I suspect that it is the one which the preacher or teacher of to-day finds the more urgent and embarrassing. He remembers how through the Old Testament our fathers pursued their expositions and homilies, un hampered by any doubt of the events or per sonalities which they encountered. To them men behaved and spoke exactly as the sacred text describes. And hence, he will say, sprang not only the dramatic power of the best preaching from the Old Testament, but the greater part of its spiritual influence. Let us put aside in the meantime the cardinal facts of Israel's national history, whether what we call miraculous or not, for on these the greatest Christian preachers did not linger, and let us take the inimitable por traiture which the Old Testament contains. From the time of the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews onwards to the generation before our own, it has been among the personal characters of Israel's history that the greatest preachers in the English language have found much of their richest material and strongest inspiration. Men of such various schools as Sterne — for the author 1 See below, p. 89, and in Lecture vin. on Job. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 75 of Tristram Shandy was also among the pro phets — Butler, Foster, Maurice, Kingsley, New man, Robertson of Brighton, Candlish, Arnot, Spurgeon, and Beecher, have all used the Old Testament chiefly for its characters. Who does not remember how searching Butler is upon Balaam, and how impressive Newman is upon Saul ! Some of Sterne's sermons, which he characteristically offers to his fashionable sub scribers as a few reflections on the present state of society — and, by the way, Sterne's sermons are worth reading for their unconventional style and frequent fitness of phrase — are clever ex posures of the weaknesses of that human nature which patriarchs, prophets and kings shared with ourselves. Robertson of Brighton, whose strong moral sense and power of analysis found full scope in the Old Testament, was busy with its dramas of character to trace the endlessness of sin and to illustrate how the Divine forgiveness does not necessarily remove the earthly conse quences of human crime. So with a host of other men. It was, I say, not the miracles of Old Testament history nor the national events, upon which the preaching of our fathers fed and grew strong, but the personal elements; the development of character, the moral struggles, checks, catastrophes and recoveries, in which so many Books of the Old Testament are so very rich. 76 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE ' But we,' the modern preacher may say ; ' how are we to imitate our predecessors? The strong, confident preaching you describe was all achieved before the influence of modern criticism had reached the pulpit. With perhaps some slight exceptions in the case of Maurice, who felt the issues raised by Colenso but was not greatly affected by them, none of the preachers you have named can be examples to us in the altered conditions of Old Testament study. We know that doubt has been cast by criticism upon large portions of the history to which these moral dramas have been assigned by the Old Testa ment records. We have heard that some of the stories are as legendary as those of Prometheus and Hercules, and that many of the characters portrayed are but the personifications of the genius and temper of the tribes of which they are represented as the ancestors.' It is not too much to say that such considerations have led to a kind of panic among preachers; and that some have abandoned incontinently whole pro vinces of their subject, in which in days gone by the Christian pulpit found many of its noblest themes and strongest motives. In this somewhat disorderly retreat from the great sources of our art, the first thing to rally our minds is to remember how small a portion, after all, of the Old Testament has been affected. I shall be careful in the following estimate to go PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 77 not merely to the limit of my own opinion of what actual history has been left to us, but as far as the majority of advanced critics have ventured within the last ten years ; because it is needful that the possible worst should be clearly defined. Even then the amount of the history and narra tive, which criticism has rendered uncertain, is by no means so great as is usually feared. Let us leave the Pentateuch till afterwards, and begin now from the settlement in Canaan. There are few critics who doubt the authenticity of Deborah's song, and none who refuse to take it as a reliable account of the events which it cele brates. So will the main facts of Gideon's career, for the account of which more than one story has been used ; 1 the story of Abimelech ; 2 the occupation of Laish by Dan,3 and part of the tragedy in Benjamin.4 Except some eccentric and unfollowed critics, no one doubts that with the time of Samuel we at last enter real and indubit able history. This very great man's influence on Israel ; his genius in swaying the new prophetic movement, so strange to the sober traditions of his own office, in selecting Saul and in launching the large but sluggish powers of the son of Kish upon so powerful a movement, are not only facts, but facts of obvious value to the preacher. It is quite true (as I said in last Lecture) that the 1 Judg. vi-ix. 2 Judg. ix. 3 Judg. xviii. i Judg. xix-xxi. 78 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE Books of Samuel and Kings are composed of narratives of very various, worth. Some are plainly of an age long subsequent to the events they describe; there has been time for later conceptions to mingle with the facts on which they are based. But others are contemporary, or nearly contemporary, documents, and in select ing these, as any modern translation or commen tary will enable him to do,1 and in employing them, the preacher may be as sure that he is dealing with facts as his predecessors of a less critical age. Nay more, he will find that criticism has brought him a certain amount of relief from difficulties which embarrassed his fathers in their study and presentation of the sacred history. That relief is of two kinds, both of which I may illustrate from the story of David. We who have reached middle life can remem ber what time and anxiety the pastors of our boyhood used to expend upon the double and sometimes contradictory stories of David's life ; for instance, the two very different accounts of his first introduction to Saul. Their attempts to reconcile these involved — even when one thought that they succeeded — so much intricate explanation as to distract them from the clear 1 Like Kautzsch's German translation, for instance, or those in English, edited by Haupt in the Sacred Books of the Old Testa ment ; or the volumes of the International Critical Commentary, by Professor H. P. Smith on Samuel, and by Professor Francis Brown on Kings (the latter not yet published). PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 79 presentation of the moral issues, which it was their first duty as preachers to present and enforce to their people. But they did not succeed. The stories are irreconcileable. What an advantage, then, has the preacher of to-day who can frankly say : ' These are two different traditions of the same event,' and confine himself to the rich ma terial and moral issues of the one or the other ! Or take an instance where the relief afforded by criticism to the preacher is of a moral rather than of an intellectual kind. The character of David was one of the most complex ever pos sessed by man. His temper was not only ambitious and cruel. It was disfigured by some of the most ferocious traits which are charac teristic of his race ; for ferocity the Semites have always been notorious. But in the large heart of David there also stirred emotions of an opposite quality : the feeling for greatness in others, even when they hunted him as did Saul, whom he spared, and on whom, though Saul had been his persecutor and implacable foe, he wrote the greatest of all elegies ; 1 his generosity and quick ness to forgive, as in Saul's case and Shimei's ; his noble penitence when his sin was brought home to him ; the carriage of his soul in the days of disaster; his chivalry towards the captains who brought him water from the well of Beth lehem at the risk of their lives. Criticism finds no 1 See Lecture V. on ' The Spirit of Christ in the Old Testament.' 80 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE objection to many of the priceless narratives which have rendered such virtues immortal. Moreover, it has cleared the old age of David from a blot by which, if you adhere, with tradition, to the truth of every part of his biography, all these victories of his character are robbed of their splendour.1 You remember the second chapter of First Kings, and David's charge to Solomon, when the days drew nigh that he should die : how he, a dying man, commanded his son not to let the hoar head of Joab, his lifelong comrade and lieu tenant, go down to the grave in peace ; and, in spite of the oath by which he had generously for given Shimei, to slay that spiteful and cowardly per son. Behold there is with thee Shimei son of Gera, the Benjamite of Bahurim, who cursed me with a grievous curse in the day when I went to Maha- naim; but he came down to meet me at Jordan and I sware to him by Jahiveh, saying, I will not put thee to death with the sword. Now therefore hold him not guiltless, for thou art a wise man : and thou wilt know what thou oughtest to do with him — thou shalt bring his hoar head down to the grave with blood. And David slept with his fathers, and was buried in the city of David. These are horrible words to be the last of such a life : horrible words clothing a horrible spirit. But this is just one of the passages in David's 1 i Kings ii. esp. 2-9: cf. Cheyne, Aids to Devout Study of Criticism, 63 ff . PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 81 biography, which, upon linguistic and other grounds, criticism has taught us to doubt. It is a late passage; it betrays the temper as well as the dialect of a legal school in Israel, which enforced the extermination of the enemies of the pious.1 We have much reason, therefore, to let it go, and letting it go we remove, from the most interesting of Old Testament stories of character, a termination which saddens every charm and blights every promise revealed by its previous progress. These instances must suffice for the reigns of Saul, David and Solomon, as recounted in the Books of Samuel and Kings.2 I have already shown that criticism accepts the official annals of their successors, but that personal narratives have mingled with these, and that the religious judgement passed on each reign has been entered by an editor writing from the later standpoint of Deuteronomy.3 Among the personal narratives which thus mingle with the official annals, the greatest are those of Elijah and Elisha. The story of Elijah (i Kings xvii.-xix., xxi., 1 Verses 2-4 are plainly, from their language, by a Deutero- nomic Redactor, therefore later than the seventh century. The king, as pictured in verses 5-9, is quite incompatible with the picture of him given in the previous chapter ; and the author of the rest of the chapter, verses 13-46, could not have known of verses 5-9, for he gives other grounds for the slaughter of Joab. 2 The late and less trustworthy accounts in Chronicles have already been treated. See Lecture 11., pp. 55 f. 3 See pp. 65 f. F 82 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE and 2 Kings i., ii.), cannot be much later than a century after Elijah himself.1 If some of the colossal elements of this prophet's fame be of posthumous growth, they not only prove how immense the man and his work must have been, but they reveal one of its chief qualities and they do not disguise the rest. The God of Elijah appears in overwhelming physical manifestations — as the Lord of drought and famine, of the cloud, the rain and the fire. He calls his prophet from the solitudes of nature and His hand makes His servant run and leap before the King's chariot across the whole length of Esdraelon. Such elements in the prophet's sympathy are conspicuous in other Semitic religions and are those on which the popular imagination would most naturally fasten. But they do not submerge other and higher religious interests. Elijah's jealousy for his God is not accounted for by explaining the contest of his time as one between the nearly equal religions of two Semitic tribes. Elijah's zeal is inexplicable unless it was inspired by a conviction of the unique character of Jahweh ; his intolerance of foreign deities must have had ethical reasons. Such a conclusion is not only 1 For the Northern Kingdom from which it sprang — (notice especially how Elijah goes to seek Jahweh not where the Judaean Amos hears his voice in Jerusalem, but at Horeb) — came to an end in 721, and was in dire trouble by 735. Elijah flourished c. 860. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 83 in line with the general development of Israel's religion1 and supported by all we know of the rival Semitic faiths, but sustained by the story itself. According to this, Elijah enforced the claims of Jahweh in independence of the nation ; not only against the deities of Phoenicia but against Ahab and Israel themselves. He pre dicted the employment of a foreign nation by Jahweh to punish FJis own people. Finally, he defended the rights of the common man against the avarice of the king. The religious interest of the narrative is of supreme significance. It is the emphasis, by one who felt all the physical wonder and force of the deity, of the indis pensable ethical in religion. The former was common to all the Semitic religions ; the latter was the character of Israel's God alone. No one therefore can doubt the historical reality of Elijah or the quality of that service which stamped him as the greatest prophet since Moses. Elijah was great enough to combine the physical and ethical significance of the Godhead. But he is represented as arriving only gradually at the full meaning of his mes sage, and learning, through doubt and pain, that the ethical is the greater.2 From this, too, we may infer the essentially historical value of his story : it is further supported by the saying attributed to him, How long will 1 See next Lecture. 2 Chap. xix. 84 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE ye limp between two opinions, and his sarcasms upon the Phoenician myths of Baal.1 We would be foolish, indeed, to doubt the originality of these. For the rest, there is not a single feature in the story which can be identified as late, or which does not reflect, in some way, the re ligious conditions of Elijah's time. No school of criticism denies the reality of Elisha, or of his services to Israel in the disastrous days of the border wars with the Arameans and their raids up to the very walls of the capital. It was his ceaseless vigilance upon the enemy, his unbroken hope for his people through their worst defeats, which won for the aged prophet from his king the high name of the Chariot of Israel and the Horsemen thereof? But it would be equally impossible to prove the historical reality of the series of curious marvels attributed to Elisha from sources outside the annals of the Kings of Israel. These, however, are practically of no importance to the Christian preacher. Such instances must suffice for the period of Israel's history from Samuel to the eve of the great prophets of the eighth century. From this onwards, the student of Scripture traverses 1 xviii. 27. 2 2 Kings xiii. 14. Some critics have suggested that the name is a mere imitation of that already bestowed upon Elijah; but Elisha's services were such that more probably it was original in his case. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 85 ground still more certain. The exceptions are trifling so long as we keep to the Books of Kings and the Prophets. Consider how all else lies before us unquestioned by criticism. Un questioned ? I should rather say fortified, ex plored, illuminated, made habitable for modern men. The labours of the prophets, the doom and fall of Northern Israel, the carriage of Jeru salem through her awful crisis upon the solitary faith of Isaiah; his victory; the reaction under Manasseh, and the recrudescence of heathen ism ; the discovery of Deuteronomy and the reforms of Josiah ; 1 the confidence of the people in an external righteousness and their disillusion ment by Josiah's tragic death at Megiddo; the second reaction to heathenism under Jehoiakim ; the story of Judah's decline and fall; the story of the Exile and of the Return ; 2 the brilliant hopes and their disappointment ; the struggle, with foreign tyrants and native traitors, for the nation's purity and loyalty to God; the growth of legalism and of the sweet personal piety which grew behind the Law like a garden of lilies within a hedge of thorns; the story of the Diaspora and of contact with alien systems of culture and religion; the story of righteous 1 On the exact amount of these consult a good commentary on Kings. 2 On the exact nature of this and the questions which still divide critics, see Book of the Twelve Prophets, vol. ii. chap. xvi. 86 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE suffering in meditation upon its meaning; the rise of speculation and of the schools of teachers, who applied the fear of Jahweh and the wisdom which springs from it to the everyday life of men. No historical criticism can take away these fields from the preacher of to-day. Across them he may move with all the confidence and boldness of the fathers — nay, with more fresh ness, more insight, more agility, for the text is clearer, the discrepancies explained, the allusions better understood, and all the old life re- quickened out of which those prophets and reformers, those psalmists and wise men, with all their literature, originally sprang. Before we go back to the Hexateuch there are two questions about the historical character of portions of the literature which we have been surveying that demand some special notice — the authorship of the Psalms and the character bf the Book of Jonah. On the for.mer of these this is not the place to go into details. But I may say summarily, that while it is impossible to conceive of so mobile and vibrant a heart as David's, so bold and musical a skill, as never stirred to the praise of his nation's God in an age when the secular and the religious were one; and while the King's fame as the father of sacred min strelsy appears inexplicable unless he actually composed some hymns ; yet recent criticism has PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 87 tended to confirm the impossibility of proving any given psalm in our Psalter to have been by David.1 'The Psalter is the hymn-book of the second Temple ' at least five hundred years after David passed away. No reliance can be placed upon the titles which its editors have prefixed to individual psalms.2 And although it is possible, and I think on the whole certain, that the Psalter contains pre-Exilic elements — for it is hardly conceivable that lyrical expres sions of the teaching of the great prophets were not preserved in Israel — yet, like all other religious poetry, that of Israel suffered such changes in its tradition and in its adaptation to use in public worship, that we\ cannot with any certainty trace its various constituents to their personal origins. But if such conclusions be inevitable, does the religious value of the Psalter suffer from them? I venture, from practical experience, to think that it does not. The criticism of the Psalms may rob the preacher of the right to use many of the 1 See Robertson Smith, Old Testament in thefewish Churchpm. 2 Some of them, like that of the 52nd, are so plainly unsuit able to the verses below them as to throw discredit on the rest; and as a matter of fact we know, from the titles given to the con cluding Psalms in the Greek version but not found in the Hebrew, that the manufacture of titles was a process always going on, even after the Hebrew Canon closed, and based on pure conjecture. For a discussion of the whole subject see Robertson Smith, op. cit.; Cheyne, The Origin of the Psalter ; Driver's Introduction^ chap. vii. ; and on the other side Robertson's Poetry and Religion of the Psalms: Edinburgh, 1898. 88 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE incidents and personal experiences which have lent picturesqueness to his preaching. But, after all, much of this is the mere confectionery of the pulpit, fit only to spoil the appetite of the hearers for the sincere milk of the word. No denial of Psalms to David or to Moses can diminish their spiritual value as authentic expressions of the human spirit on every level and under every shadow of the Church's experience. The detach ment of the Psalms from this or that famous figure in Israel's history will only leave us the more free to appreciate their essential and un mitigated humanity, under the influence of God's Spirit. This is true even of such a Psalm as the Fifty-first. There is every reason to believe the Psalm to be Exilic.1 Further, it is not the acknowledgment by a single individual of an extraordinary and revolting crime against some fellow-creature, but the confession, on behalf of the whole Church, of her inherent sinfulness before God, and of her neglect of her mission to the world.2 I do not ask you to accept this view 1 The last two verses plainly fix the composition of the Psalm in the days before sacrifices had been resumed on the Temple altar and the walls of Jerusalem were still unbuilt. For the proof that these verses are from the same author as those which precede them see Cheyne, Origin of the Psalter ; Robertson Smith, The Old Testament in the fewish Church, pp. 440 ff. ; and compare The Book of the Twelve Prophets, pp. 276 ff. 2 Verse 4, ' Against Thee, Thee only have I sinned and done this einl in Thy sight' could hardly be said by David of his crime against his fellow-man and woman (cf . also verse 3). It is suitable to the lips of the Exilic Church, who were suffering in Babylon PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 89 of the authorship and meaning of the Psalm. I only desire you to perceive that it does not lessen the religious value of the Psalm to the preacher or to his people. The Book of Jonah raises a larger question than those of its own interpretation, but this is an swered for us by Christ Himself. I said above that Revelation is not coincident with actual history. Christ has shown this by His parables ; and the only view of the story of Jonah, which does justice to its teaching and explains its place in a Book of prophetic discourses, is that which treats it not as real history but as a sermon, in the form of a parable, upon the great evangelical truth, that God has granted to the. Gentiles also repentance unto life. This I have elsewhere sufficiently proved and illustrated.1 There still remains the most difficult part of our present task — the Hexateuch. We all know that, from the time of the Epistle to the Hebrews to the present day, the strong preaching from the Old Testament, of which I have spoken, has understood the narratives of the Pentateuch as actual history. How has criticism affected our materials here ? not because of their sins against that Empire, but because of their sins against God. For the use of verse 5 by the Church, and not by an individual, cf. Isaiah Ixiii. 16 and John viii. 33 ff. For the meaning of bloodguiltiness in verse 14a see its contrast in 13, 14^ and 15, the Church's duty of declaring God to sinners; and cf. Ezekiel iii. 18 ff. 1 Book of the Twelve Prophets, vol. ii., chaps, xxxiv.-xxxviii. go MODERN CRITICISM AND THE I propose to take the Book of Genesis, and to examine first the part which opens with the Creation and Fall of Man in the second chapter and closes in the eleventh just before the call of Abraham. Here it is obvious that we do not have a tran script of actual history, in the narrower sense of that word. This need scarcely be argued, but we may take two points in illustration of it. The Book of Genesis, by a careful chronology, carries the human family back by named generations to the creation of the first man, in 4219 B.C., or — according to the Greek version which makes the ages of the Patriarchs much greater at the birth of their sons than the Hebrew does — to 5408. But recent discoveries, in Babylonia and Egypt — the first of which we owe to American and the second to British labours — prove that in both of these great river-valleys man lived and had already developed considerable culture at a date long anterior to that assigned to his creation by the Book of Genesis.1 Again, the Book of 1 The antiquity of human civilisation may not be so great as some Assyriologists calculate, but on the very lowest reckoning it preceded both of the Biblical dates for the Creation. An inscrip tion of the Babylonian King Nabonidus, <.. 550 B.C., states that he restored the temple of Naram-Sin, built 3200 years previously, which would fix the date of Naram-Sin at 3750 B.C., and this is generally accepted by Assyriologists, who have not only found in scriptions of Sargon I., father of Naram-Sin, but inscriptions of his predecessors who, from the more primitive character of their writ ings, must have reigned about 500 years earlier, or say 4200, and who had even then reached a stage of civilisation requiring many PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 91 Genesis fixes the building of the Tower of Babel in 2564 b.c, or, if we take the Greek data, in 3 166, and asserts that till then the whole earth was of one language and of one speech. Yet we have discovered inscriptions in three languages, of different families, Sumerian, Babylonian and Egyptian, which are all earlier than either of these dates.1 Clearly then, on this ground of chronology alone, we cannot regard the early chapters of Genesis as actual history. In support of this conclusion, archaeology pro vides us with further evidence. In Babylonian literature there are traditions of the origin of man, of Paradise and of the Flood, which bear, even in their details, a remarkable resemblance to the account of the same subjects in Genesis i.-ix. Critics are now generally agreed that the traditions reached Israel at an early age, and that, previous centuries for its development. The ' 3200 years,' how ever, of Nabonidus' inscription is a suspiciously ' round ' number. It is a multiple of forty, a usual Semitic reckoning for a genera tion ; eighty forties. If we take it as eighty generations and adopt the juster calculation of thirty-three years for a generation, this would give us instead of 3200 years only 2640; which would fix Naram-Sin's date, instead of at 3750, at 3190 B.C. Now, no Baby lonian sovereigns have yet been discovered between 2900 and the relics of Naram-Sin. The later date for him is therefore not im probable. But even if we accept it, the beginnings of civilisation in Mesopotamia can hardly be placed after either of the Biblical dates of the Creation. — The inscription of Nabonidus is in the British Museum, No. 91, 109; see Guide to the Bab. and Assyr. Room, pp. 171 f. and PI. xxx. Further see The Babyl. Expedition of the Univ. of Pennsylvania (1893, etc.), ed. by Hilprecht. 1 See more fully Driver, Authority etc., p. 34. 92 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE along with other elements of Babylonian legend and mythology, they underwent considerable modification and gradually became, when perhaps all memory of their true origin was lost, part of the folk-lore of Canaan. The process probably extended . through many centuries before the authors of these chapters of Genesis used them for a higher purpose. But this absence of his tory from the chapters, this fact that their frame work is woven from the raw material of myth and legend, cannot discredit the profound moral and religious truths with which they are charged, any more than the cosmogony of his time, which Milton employs, impairs by one whit our spiritual indebtedness to Paradise Lost. Nor (it is hardly necessary to add) does the legendary character of these stories altogether destroy their historical value. Anthropologists are of opinion that many of the legends and superstitions of a people spring from recollec tions of tribes who preceded them in the occupa tion of the land, and who either disappeared in some great catastrophe, or, before dying out, struggled for a time furtively and mysteriously in wilder parts of their ancient domain. Such recollections of early races appear to underlie the genealogies and primitive civilisations de scribed in the first eleven chapters of Genesis; and they are still more apparent in 'the rest of the Hexateuch: in Israel's traditions of the PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 93 aboriginal tribes of Canaan and of the earliest adventures of the families of Jacob. Whatever may have been the historical and literary origins of the narratives in Genesis of primaeval man, their ethical value to the preacher is beyond all question. Look at the grandness of the conception which dominates and employs them. The Epic of Humanity in which they are arranged begins with a vision of creation. It traces the Divine purpose from the making of man. It follows man from the dawn of the moral sense through the elementary conflict of passion with conscience, the growth of knowledge, the necessity of labour, the beginnings of crime, the rise of civilisation, the separation of the peoples, the emergence at last of a chosen people— chosen, be it observed, not for their own salvation or their own glory but, as the epic affirms, in order that in them all families of mankind may be blessed. Nor is this great epic only thus colossal in conception. In insight it is equally profound. I need not speak of the absence of national narrowness from its account of the origin of the race. Man is treated as man ; the great human experiences of temptation and guilt, of desire and labour and death, are brought before us with a simplicity which too often hides from us the depth and volume of their truth. Take the prose poem of the Fall of Man in Paradise. It is usual 94 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE to call the morality of early Israel a purely tribal morality like that of all their Semitic kinsfolk. But the nation which produced this story almost certainly before 700 B.C., had already within it minds far advanced beyond the stage of a tribal morality.1 The man who composed the third chapter of Genesis was not the simple scribe of some early traditions at which, in our superior wisdom, we can smile as at a story for children. He was the acute and faithful reader of his own heart, and, from whatever source you believe his inspiration to have been derived, you cannot gainsay the essential truthfulness of his account. He had grasped the relation of God to the indi vidual, he was expert in the heart's experience of temptation : the mysterious connection between knowledge and the boldness to sin ; the workings of conscience; the relation of guilt, if not to death, yet to the terror and curse of death. After all the centuries of man's acquaintance with himself, after all the analyses of philosophy and ethics, we have hardly reached deeper than this ancient examination of the mysteries and complications of the human heart. But go a little further in this epic and you discover traces of a remarkable conception of history. Evil is followed out of the individual heart to its effects on the family, on the state and on civilisation. The Fall of the Man in the 1 See below, next Lecture, pp. 133 ff. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 95 garden is not the only Fall in the Book of Genesis, and every one of the others is traced to a similar source : the increase of knowledge and of power unaccompanied by reverence ; the opening of the eyes to the desirable things of life which gradually come within reach of us all as the apple came within the reach of Eve. We have this presented to us in the form of several laborious cycles of progress, each ending in a colossal catastrophe. One of them relates the increase of mankind in numbers, their progress in intellectual and national power, their stagnancy in hate and the desire for vengeance.1 Another tells us how men multiplied, how the pride and beauty of the race wedded with the sons of God, and wicked ness became so great that God resolved to destroy man from the face of the earth.2 Another describes the rise of architecture. Men settle in Shinar, they build cities, their art and their power increase, but their pride and impiety also, till God comes down and confounds the colossal and irreverent ambition of their works.3 All three stories contain much legendary material from several different sources. Their authors have also been unable to throw off that fear of God, which is cast out only by the perfect love taught by Christ, and under which Pagan races have ever imagined the Deity to be jealous of the intellectual and material achievements of His 1 Gen. iv. 2 Gen. vi. ff. 8 Gen. xi. 96 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE creatures. Yet in all the greater relief that they lie beneath so sombre a heaven, the noble and permanent lessons of the inspired author stand forth: that human genius and human wealth, if not accompanied by faith and obedience to God, mean the development of a fatal pride, whose end is the destruction of many individuals and the retardation of all human progress. Has this no inspiration for the modern preacher? Does it not present a truth conspicuously absent from some theories of evolution which inspire so much of the hopefulness and the pride of modern man ? — the truth, namely, that no evolution is stable which neglects the moral factor, or seeks to shake itself free from the eternal duties of obedience and of faith. Take the story which ends in the Song of Lamech in the fourth chapter. Cain has gone forth from the presence of God to the Land of Nod. F"rom this first emigrant spring the civilisations. His eldest son founds a city. A later descendant, Lamech, has two wives, Adah and Zillah, names which probably mean Light and Shadow, and from them are born Jabal, the father of all who dwell in tents ; Jubal, the father of such as handle harp and pipe; and Tubal-Qain, the wi elder or forger of all instru ments of copper and iron. And these three, the father of the Pastoral Life, the Maker of Music, and the Forger of Weapons, have a sister Na'amah, gracious or beautiful, whom later Jewish legend calls the mother of singing. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 97 Now, how does the Song of Lamech greet all this progress of the equipment and adorning of human life? With an outburst of praise to God, the giver? With some apostrophe to man's power and skill? With thankful notes for the peace of the pastoral life defended by weapons from its foes? With none of these; but with a savage exultation in the fresh power of venge ance which all the novel instruments have placed in their inventors' hands. Then said Lamech to his wives Adah and Zillah, Hearken to my voice, Give ear to my saying : I have slain a man for the hurt done me, And a young man for the wound of me. If seven times Qain be avenged, Lamech shall be seventy times seven. How weird is this : how terrible ! The first results of civilisation are to equip hatred and render revenge more deadly. And all the more weird is the little fragment, that out of those far-off days it seems to mock us with some grotesque reflection of our own time. Civilisa tion finding its apotheosis in enormous arma ments ; wealth and prosperity leading people to an arrogant clamour for war.1 These instances, from that part of the Old 1 On Gen. i.-xi., see Ryle, Early Narratives of Genesis; Marcus Dods, Genesis (Expos. Bible) ; Budde, Urgeschichte. Against the above view of Lamech's song, see Cheyne, ' Cainites,' Encyc. Bibl. G 98 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE Testament in which we can be least sure that we are treading historical ground, are surely enough to show you how independent of historical certainty (in the narrower sense of the term) are the materials and inspiration which the preacher may draw for his own times from the ancient Scriptures of his Church. Let us take the rest of Genesis in illustration of the same truth. With the close of the eleventh chapter we pass from humanity in general to the call of one family and the career of its individual heroes, whose characters have been so largely the source of the confident preaching I have described. After the criticism of the past century, how does it stand with the historical quality of the narratives from Abraham to Joseph? And if that quality be impaired, what is their value for the preacher? As we saw in last Lecture, the documents in which the narratives are presented to us are of various dates, from the ninth or eighth to the sixth or fifth centuries before Christ. The earliest of them, the Jahwist and Elohist, to which the bulk of the narratives belong, may be approximately assigned to the eighth century, and of the same age are the earliest prophetic references to the Patriarchs ; ' they agree with, 1 Hosea's to Jacob, xii. 3-5 (Heb. 2-4), 12, 13 (Heb. 11, 12). Cf. the references by Amos to the conquest of Palestine and dis possession of the Amorite by Israel on their coming forth from Egypt (ii. 9, ix. 7, and by Hosea ii. 15 and xi. 1). PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 99 and are probably drawn from, the Jahwist- Elohist. But this means that the literature upon which we are dependent for our know ledge of the history of the Hebrews from Abraham to Joseph, is of a date from nine to eleven hundred years later than the personages and events which it describes. Nor can archaeology furnish us with con temporary evidence of the Patriarchs and their careers. Archaeology has indeed restored much of the life to which they belonged. It has shown us that in the time of Abraham, whom the docu ments assert to have come out of Mesopotamia into Palestine, there was constant traffic between these countries. The city, to which the early home of his family is assigned, has been identi fied and explored. Ur of the Chaldees lies on the borders of Arabia and Babylonia.1 The settlement there of a nomadic Arabian tribe, such as the earliest records of Israel prove them to have been in genius and temperament; their contact for a time with civilisation; their half-weaning from the desert, and subsequent migration northwards along the Euphrates to 1 Ur is the modern Mukayyar on the S. bank of the Euphrates, nearly 90 miles (as the crow flies) from the present junction of that river with the Tigris. Harran lay about 550 miles to the NW. of Ur, about 80 miles N. of the Euphrates at Tiphsah or Thapsacus, the ancient 'passage' towards Canaan; and between the Euphrates and the Habur (mod. Khabur), probably the ' two rivers ' of the name Aram-Naharaim, given by Gen. xxiv. 10 as the region in which Harran lay. too MODERN CRITICISM AND THE Harran and then south into Canaan, are all illustrated not only by archaeology but by the drift of Arabian tribes upon Mesopotamia and Syria within historical times. These last also make possible the wanderings of such a half- settled family as Abraham's upon the desert borders of Southern Palestine and Egypt. The four Mesopotamian kings, of whose invasion of Canaan and pursuit by Abraham we are told in Genesis xiv., ' were really contemporaries ; and at least three of them ruled over the countries which they are said in Genesis xiv. to have ruled ' ; and their invasion of Palestine was 'in the abstract, within the military possi bilities of the age.'1 The existence of the names Jacob and Joseph has been discovered in Palestine at an earlier age than the Exodus; 2 the name ' Israel,' as of a people, in touch with Egypt, has been deciphered upon a stel6 of the Pharaoh under whom the Exodus probably took place.3 And nqt only does the story of Joseph reflect the social customs, the economic processes, and the official etiquette of the kingdom of the Pharaohs ; 4 but the settlement of a semi-nomad tribe in Goshen,5 at first in favour with the court of 1 Driver, Authority and Archeology, p. 44. 2 In the lists of cities conquered in Palestine by Thothmes in. of the fifteenth century, cf. W. M. Miiller, Asien u. Europa, 162 ff. 8 Merenptah ; cf. Steindorff, ZA TW, xvi. 330 f. * See above, pp. 62 ff. 5 This name is apparently identical with Kesem, the twentieth PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 101 Egypt and then, on the succession of another dyn asty, oppressed and enslaved, has also been proved to be perfectly possible in the history of Egypt between the eighteenth and fourteenth centuries. But, just as we have seen, that in all this archaeological evidence there is nothing to prove the early date of the documents which contain the stories of the Patriarchs, but on the contrary even a little which strengthens the critical theory of their late date,1 so now we must admit that while archaeology has richly illustrated the possi bility of the main outlines of the Book of Genesis from Abraham to Joseph, it has not one whit of proof to offer for the personal existence or characters of the Patriarchs themselves. Where formerly the figures of the ' Father of the Faith ful ' and his caravans moved solemnly in high out line through an almost empty world, we see (by the aid of the monuments) embassies, armies and long lines of traders crossing, by paths still used, the narrow bridge which Palestine forms between the two great centres of early civilisation ; the constant drift of desert tribes upon the fertile land, and within the latter the frequent villages and their busy fields, the mountain-keeps with their Egyptian garrisons, and the cities on their mounds walled with broad bulwarks of brick and stone. But amidst all that crowded life we nome of Lower Egypt. But see Griffith's ' Goshen,' Hastings's Bible Dictionary. 1 See above, pp. 62 ff. ioz MODERN CRITICISM AND THE peer in vain for any trace of the fathers of the Hebrews; we listen in vain for any mention of their names. This is the whole change archaeology has wrought : it has given us a background and an atmosphere for the stories of Genesis ; it is unable to recall or to certify their heroes. With, therefore, nothing more from archaeology than the sense of the possibility of the main events of these stories, we return to the stories themselves ; and here we meet with not a little that confirms the scepticism engendered by their late date. We perceive, first, that many of the personal names are names of tribes as well; second, that the characters described in the in dividuals are the characters developed in history by the corresponding tribes; and third, that the transactions between individuals, who bear tribal names, may often be most naturally ex plained as transactions between tribes. It is hardly necessary to give instances of the first of these facts:, the recollection of the sons of Noah, of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob is enough. But take a few illustrations of the second and third. The characters of Ishmael, of Jacob and of Esau were the characters of the historical tribes Ishmael, Israel and Edom. Jacob is the essential Israel; in economy, shepherds settling down to agriculture; in religion, worshippers of Jahweh by descent and covenant, meeting Him at certain famous PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 103 shrines, but carrying about with them domestic gods, as we see even in the family, of David ; in temperament and genius, astute, persistent, unbroken by disappointment or hope deferred, capable of excelling their neighbours in the Semitic craft and fraud, but capable too of vision and of struggling with the Unseen. Esau, on the other hand, is the essential Edomite, as we see him in Scripture, as we realise him on his proudly isolated territory, as we touch him to the last in Antipater and the Herods * — a hunter, a man of the field or wild uncultivated lands, a man with gods but no religiousness ;2 profane, impulsive, careless, easily wearied. Similarly, Ishmael with his hand against every man, Moab with his drunken and incestuous origin, and Reuben with his unchastity, are reflections of the qualities which the tribes called by the same names appear to have developed in history. Or take the transactions imputed to individuals with tribal names. When Jacob marries the daughters of the Aramean Laban, and after a long and cruel struggle, which proves that son and father-in-law cannot share the same lands, fixes a boundary with Laban that neither shall pass, ' they plainly represent two peoples ' 3 at one 1 See Book of the Twelve Prophets, vol. ii. chap. xiv. 2 Cf. the curious absence of any influence from the Edomite religion on Israel in the midst of constant influences from the religions of all the other neighbours of Israel. 8 Driver, Hastings's Bible Dictionary, ii. 535a. 104 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE time related, as philology and ethnology alike prove the Bible to be right in stating, but later in history divided — and this on the very line on which Jacob and Laban are said to have set up their landmark. Similarly, when Judah is represented as going down from his brethren a to Adullam and begetting children by a Canaanite woman, we are not compelled to read that as the story of a scandalous adventure by the son of Jacob. We may much more naturally interpret the tale as an account of the irregular marriages which members of the tribe of Judah, situated within historical times on the Central Range of Palestine, contracted with the Canaanites on the Shephelah below them. The numerous facts, of which these are sufficient instances, prove that we have in the stories of the Hebrew Patriarchs just what their late date would lead us to expect: efforts to account for the geographical distribution of neigh bouring nation*, for their affinities, contrasts, and mutual antipathies, and in particular for the composite character of Israel. Perhaps such efforts become most transparent in the derivations offered for geographical names, and the origins claimed for customs and institutions extant in the writers' own day. Finally, this view is confirmed by the undoubtedly late features which can be recognised in the stories, and by 1 Genesis xxxviii, PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 105 the different accounts of the same subject in the different documents according to the char acteristic spirit of each. The Blessing of his sons attributed to Jacob in Genesis xlix. not only describes the geographical disposition of the Twelve Tribes after their settlement in Palestine; but, in verses 22-26, reflects the ex periences of Northern Israel during the Aramean wars of the ninth century; another edition of the same Blessing is attributed to Moses in Deuteronomy xxxiii. In the Jahwist, or Judaean Document, Judah is the chief of his brethren ; but in the Elohist, Reuben.1 On the whole, the religious atmosphere of the Jahwist and Elohist stories throughout Genesis is that of the early kingdom of Israel.2 The Patriarchs sacrifice in many places, like Elijah and Elisha, but chiefly at the shrines to which in the eighth century, as Amos and Hosea tell us, the Israelites resorted : Beer-sheba, Bethel, Gilgal by Shechem — the terebinth of More h — and Mizpeh of Gilead. In the eighth century there was yet no Deuteronomic veto on sacrifice at places other than the one, where Jahweh should set His name. The Priestly Writers, on the other hand, with their strict views 1 For this and other differences in the combined narratives in Genesis xxxvii. see the analysis by Addis, Documents of the Hexateuch, i. 70 ff. 2 See Robertson Smith's trenchant review of Renan's History of Israel, vol. i., in the English Historical Review, vol. iii. (1888), pp. 128 f. 106 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE of the confinement of ritual to the central sanc tuary, never make any allusion to the licence of sacrifice which the Jahwist and Elohist impute to the Patriarchs, and do not localise the appear ances of the Deity to Abraham or to Jacob at any of the shrines famous in the eighth century.1 Surely this clinches the proof that the stories of the Patriarchs have reached us, as told by later generations, who reflected upon them their own conditions, experiences and beliefs. It is extremely probable, however, though impossible of proof, that the stories of the Patriarchs, thus replete with the circumstances and conceptions of a later age, have at the heart of them historical elements. The oldest literary portions of the documents are songs and poems, some of which, although (as we have seen in the case of Genesis xlix.) they also bear late marks, may have grown round a contemporary kernel, while a few others may be altogether from the age to which they are assigned. A more signifi cant symptom is the presence in the names, characters and deeds of the Patriarchs of much which cannot be interpreted racially, but which is distinctly individual. It is always possible, of course, to regard this as the addition of an age, in which the tribal meaning of the stories had been forgotten, and they were conceived as purely 1 See the Priestly Document as separately set forth in Addis's Documents of the Hexateuch, vol. ii. pp. 207 ff. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 107 personal narratives. But it is equally just to take some of the individual elements to have existed in the tradition from the beginning, and to this we are further moved by two considera tions : first, that it is impossible to attach any tribal quality to some of the names, like Abraham ; and second, that a great religious advance such as Abraham is said to have made has always an individual character and experience as its start ing-point. With critics there has been a distinct reaction of late in favour of admitting the per sonal reality of Abraham ; 1 no one has ever doubted that of Moses ; while Joshua's person ality rests to-day on surer grounds than in the earlier stages of criticism.2 With regard to the more difficult cases of Jacob and Joseph, the sane and expert arguments of Canon Driver in his articles in Hastings's Bible Dictionary will be felt to be conclusive by all who have not in continently abandoned the task of tracing Israel's history behind the Exodus. Such is the case for the narratives of the Patriarchs. On the present evidence, it is impos sible to be sure of more than that they contain a substratum of actual personal history. But who wants to be sure of more ? Who needs to be sure of more ? If there be a preacher who 1 Cf. Cornill, Geschichte des israelit. Prophetismus. 2 See article ' Joshua ' by the present writer in Hastings's Bible Dictionary, ii. 786 f. 108 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE thinks that the priceless value of these narratives to his work depends on the belief that they are all literal history, let him hold that belief if he can, and confidently use them. Or if he cannot believe that Genesis is literal history, and yet thinks it must needs be, in order to be used as God's Word, let him seek his texts elsewhere: his field is wide and inexhaustible. Than these extremes there is, however, a nobler way: and the honest student who is ready to accept the evidence and example of Scripture itself will surely find this. He will see that the sacred writers aimed at something higher than the bare reproduction of primitive history — in itself an impossible task; that, possessed by the experience of God and the human heart, which subsequent ages of the Divine education had delivered to them, they read all that into the traditions of the remote past; and so achieved the creation of types of character essentially historical, not only in this, that they portray with wonderful fidelity the tempers, aspirations and experiences of Israel and her neighbours, but because they discover human nature, as it is in every race of mankind, and clearly tell of the reality of God, as they them selves had been inspired by His Spirit to find Him. To the sacred authors of these stories we cannot refuse a licence of dramatic and ethical expansion which we, more consciously, permit PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 109 in our own preaching, and which every powerful preacher of the traditional school has fearlessly employed. As preachers, we cannot refuse to follow the narratives of Genesis till we refuse to follow the parables of Jesus.1 If criticism, with the help of archaeology, has failed to establish the literal truth of these stories as- personal biogra phies, it has on the other hand displayed their utter fidelity to the characters of the peoples they reflect, and to the facts of the world and the Divine guidance in which these peoples de veloped. The power of the Patriarchal narra tives on the heart, the imagination, the faith of men can never die : it is immortal with truth fulness to the realities of human nature and of God's education of mankind. 1 See below, on Job, in Lecture viii. no MODERN CRITICISM AND THE LECTURE IV THE PROOF OF A DIVINE REVELATION IN THE OLD TESTAMENT We have now reached the most important of the questions with which these Lectures have to deal. Does the criticism — whose.historical results are estimated in last Lecture — leave to us unimpaired our belief in the Old Testament as the record of a Divine Revelation? It is true that, if this question had to be answered in the negative, there would still remain in the Hebrew Scriptures matter of extraordinary value to him who seeks to lead his fellow-men to the knowledge of God. Some contain parts of the argument which we call Natural Theology ; others illustrate how belief in God is consonant with experience and indispensable to conduct; others test the former of these conclusions amid the apparently hostile facts of life : while all exemplify the truth that whatsoever religious beliefs be shaken, faith in God and His goodness are the invariable starting- point and inevitable return of the far-travelling PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT in hearts of men.1 Yet precious as such human argument and experience by itself would be, it is all of less interest to us than the question whether Israel's knowledge of God was due to the au thentic, personal action of God Himself. This is the testimony of the writers of the Old Testa ment, and it is confirmed by our Lord. Here, then, we touch the very crisis of our inquiry. Before we examine what effect modern criti cism has had on the answer to the question of Revelation, we must see whether we understand the statement of the question, or in other words what are the exact claims to Divine inspiration which the Old Testament makes for itself. These have been strangely misunderstood both by their assailants and by most of their defenders. In the first place the Hebrew Scriptures — in contrast to the timidity of many of their apolo- 1 ' As Scripture nowhere contemplates men as ignorant of the existence of God, it nowhere depicts the rise or dawn of the idea of His existence in men's minds. The Hebrew came down from his thought of God upon the world, he did not rise from the world up to his thought of God. . . . His contemplation of nature and providence and the life of man was never of the nature of a search after God whom he did not know, but always of the nature of a. recognition of God whom he knew. . . . The singer of Ps. xix. only saw repeated on the heavens what he already carried in his own heart.' . . . Isa. xl. 25 ff. ' teaches nothing new or un known, it recalls what is known, reburnishing the consciousness of it, in order to sustain the faith and the hopes of the people. There is, however, in one or two passages an approximation to some of the arguments of Natural Theology,' e.g. Ps. xciv. 5 ff. — Dr. A. B. Davidson, article ' God ' (in Old Testament), Hastings's Bible Dictionary, ii. 196. 112 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE gists — emphasise the origin of human valour and justice, skill, art, and wisdom — all common virtue and common knowledge J — as by the inspiration of Almighty God. This is irrespective of the use of these qualities in the service of Israel. The earth is Jahweh' sand the fulness thereof ; the spirit of man is the candle of Jahweh. By Him kings reign and princes decree justice. Have we not all one Father, hath not one God created us? Of course men have imaginations and thoughts which are not God's thoughts. But courage, wisdom, justice, wherever found, are of His Spirit. Even upon civilisations alien to Israel and doomed to destruction, like those of Egypt and Phoenicia, Isaiah pours his regrets and his hopes,2 as if their powers were divine and might yet serve the purpose of Jahweh. But the writers of the Old Testament give even more practical proof of this generous belief by their adoption from sources beyond Israel of cosmogonies, traditions, legends and even conceptions of Deity. In our present inquiry, therefore, we need not encumber our- 1 See especially Isaiah xxviii. 6, 23-29, and Robertson Smith's remarks in Old Test, and few. Church"1; p. 340: 'According to Isaiah xxviii. 23 ff. the rules of good husbandry are a " judge ment " taught to the ploughmen by Jehovah, and part of Jehovah's Torah (verse 26). The piety of Israel recognised every sound and wholesome ordinance of daily and social life as a direct gift of Je hovah's wisdom. Accordingly Jehovah's law contains, not only institutes of direct revelation in our limited sense of that word, but old consuetudinary usages, which had become sacred by being taken up into the God-given polity of Israel and worked into har mony with the very present reality of His redeeming sovereignty.' 2 Isa. xix. and xxiii. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 113 selves with the question of the inspiration of other literatures than that of Israel. Whatsoever things are true, honest, just, pure, lovely and of good report, are of God. His providence, too, is universal. Are ye not as the children of the Ethiopians unto me, O children of Israel ? saith Jahweh. Have I not brought up Israel out of the land of Egypt and the Philistines from Kaphtor and the Syrians from Kir? But, in the second place, the Hebrew writers claim for Israel a special choice and providence by God in order that He may make known to them, as He directly does to no other people of mankind, Himself: that is to say not in Flis meta physical substance, for of this there is no defini tion in the Old Testament, but in His character and in His ethical purposes for all mankind. In contrast to some modern theories, which regard Revelation as the communication by supernatural means of many kinds of truth — which, as we have just seen, Israel did not hesitate to borrow from the traditions of other peoples — Revelation by the Hebrew writers is limited to the Revelation of God Himself: and that not of the fact of His existence, which the Old Testament takes for granted, but of His ethical character and will for men. This Revelation they represent as unique to Israel, and with equal emphasis assert that it has not been discovered by human efforts unaided, but that God Himself has ' taken H ii4 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE the initiative,' 1 and made Himself known to Israel. In the light of these two aspects of Old Testament doctrine of the Knowledge of God, our question as to its Revelation is not therefore primarily one as to its origins, but one as to its contents. Are these unique ? Do we have in the Old Testament a true knowledge of the character and ethical purpose of God which we do not find original to any race except Israel ? But then, secondly, is this knowledge all ex plicable as impressions of God received through the people's physical environment, or by their merely intellectual inferences from the facts of their history, or by their remarkable combina tion of the conceptions of God which they received from nations with whom they came into contact ? 2 Or, while all these may have been used, does the evidence justify the claim of Israel that God in His Love and Holiness drew near to this people and impressed Him self personally upon them through the events of their history and through the consciousness of their great men ? I think it can be shown that criticism, so far from throwing doubts either upon the uniqueness 1 A. B. Davidson, op. cit., p. 197. * It is one of the great services of Budde's Religion of Israel before the Exile to show how much Israel benefited religiously during that period from her contact with other Semitic peoples. See especially p. 71 (but cf. below, p. 132 of this Lecture). PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 115 of Israel's true knowledge of God, or upon the personal influence of God as producing this, certainly proves the former, and leaves us with the latter as its most natural and scientific explanation. Or to put this otherwise — ¦ the most advanced modern criticism provides grounds for the proof of a Divine Revelation in the Old Testament at least more firm than those on which the older apologetic used to rely.1 Modern research has achieved this service for us, first by changing the whole arena upon which the question of the uniqueness of Israel's religion 1 It would be very easy to prove the compatibility of belief in Revelation in the Old Testament with the results of modern criticism by simply citing the personal dicta of some of the most eminent critics. There is an idea abroad among Christians that the whole critical school are hostile to belief in Revelation. For this some critics, who avoid the question of Revelation even when their discoveries lead them to the verge of it, are partly to blame ; but it would be readily dispelled by the explicit confessions of such a belief by other critics, and these among the most able and advanced. Kuenen in his collected Essays approaches the question of Revelation in the Old Testament, yet never addresses himself to it. I stated this in a review of the German translation of the Essays (Kuenen's Gesammelte Abhaendlungen, 1894) in the Expositor (July-Dec. 1895), and the translator, Professor Budde, a pupil of Kuenen, and one of the most eminent of German critics, wrote me that the observation was right, but that as for himself his belief in 'a genuine revelation of God in the Old Testament remains rock-fast.' That belief has been shared and stated by a number of advanced critics. The late Professor Robertson Smith affirmed again and again his belief in the Divine Origin of the Old Testament, and in the last of his Burnett Lectures (unfortun ately unpublished), proved 'the uniqueness of Hebrew prophecy and the impossibility of accounting for it by natural or historical reasons ' (from an MS. report of the last Burnett Lecture). Cf. also The Old Testament in the fewish Church 2, p. 297. 116 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE has to be fought out. Fifty years ago the apologist for the Old Testament could determine the char acter of its religion only by comparison with those of the nations of classical antiquity. But there was always something unsatisfactory, something impossible, in this comparison. The Greeks and the Romans were Aryans, Israel was Semitic ; there did not appear to be any ground common to them all from which you could start the con trast of their respective developments. The older apologetic for the Old Testament was, therefore, more or less unreal. But this has been changed by the researches of the past fifty years. The discovery of the monuments of Babylonia, Syria and Arabia, the study of the pre-Mohammedan literature of the Arabs, the observation of current life in the Arabian deserts, have disclosed to us the ritual, the institutions, the conceptions of God and the world, which prevailed in the race from which Israel sprang. We are able to contrast the religion of Israel with those of peoples who were of the same stock, who inhabited similar geographical conditions, who were modified by the same political forces, who exhibited the same genius and temperament, and who exercised strong religious influences upon Israel at various periods in her history. At first it appeared as if this recovery of the Semitic race as a whole were to result in the proof of a physical origin for the religion of Israel. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 117 From their native deserts the race seem to have derived a capacity for detachment from the things of sense, and a capacity of vision. In what we may call the religious temperament, and in the qualities required for the propagation of religion : the powers of intuition, of introspection, of self- denial, of patience under hope deferred, of zeal even to the pitch of fanaticism, the Semite in history has been supreme. Under the fascina tion of the unfolding of the complete picture of the race, derived from so many periods and areas, it was asserted that the religion of Israel was simply the flower of the natural religiousness of the Semitic peoples. Others went further. Besides deriving the religious temper of the Hebrew from his racial origin, they essayed to trace his religious creed to the same source. The hypothesis naturally started from the fact that the three great forms of mono theism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, have all sprung from Semitic peoples. Does this prove, in the Semites, or in the history of the world they inhabited, a native tendency to such a form of faith ? In saying that religion is a quality of the Semitic temper, are we able to narrow our terms and assert that monotheism was a necessary notion of the Semitic mind ? You can see of what importance the question is at the point which we have reached. On the answer to it depends the answer to our question about a real 118 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE revelation in the Old Testament. It requires, therefore, a detailed examination. The thesis, that monotheism was native to the Semitic mind, has been chiefly maintained by Renan. More than forty years ago he asserted that ' monotheism summed up and explained all the characteristics of the race.' The origin of this he found in the desert, the birthplace and, to a large extent, the home of the Semites. ' Nature,' he says, ' plays a small part in the Semitic religion, because she plays a small part in the Semitic world.' ' The desert is monotheist : sublime in its immense uniformity it has revealed to man the idea of the infinite; but not the sense of that life incessantly creative which a more fertile nature has inspired in other races.' And from this ' austere, grandiose influence ' he deduces, upon the lines of natural development, all the contents of Israel's monotheism.1 I do not propose to spend much time in proving to you, in contradiction of these statements, that all Semitic tribes were originally polytheists, for we have more important matters in hand than the proof of so certain a fact. Since Renan formed his confident opinions, a large number of monu ments have been discovered, not only in Babylonia 1 See ' De la part des peuples Semitiques ' in the Journal Asiatique, 1859 : VHistoire Ginirale des Langues Simitiques, 1863 (third edition), pp. 5 ff. ; and the more modified statements in the Histoire du Peuple d 'Israel, i. pp. 8 ff. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 119 and Phoenicia (whose nations he always asserted to be exceptions to the Semitic rule), but in the territories of the Arameans, Moabites, Edomites, and even in Central Arabia, which bear witness that polytheism was the religion of every one of these tribes. Sinai and Mecca, from which two of the great monotheisms took their rise, were both of them desert sanctuaries, and both of them were pantheons. We do not see anything different when we shift our gaze from Mecca and Sinai to Jerusalem. Palestine repeats the re ligious record of Hauran, Moab and Arabia. As was to be expected where nature is lavish, agri culture the staple, and men drink wine; where the land is broken up into well-defined provinces, and cities multiply, and the political side of religion is developed with its differentiation of many deities — where, in fact, on the seaboard of the Mediterranean we find physical and poli tical conditions similar to those of Greece — the polytheism of the Semite becomes luxurious and rank. Baalim abound everywhere : Baalim of the underground waters, and Baalim of the waters above; Baalim of the mountains and Baalim of the plains ; Baalim of the sun and Baalim of the stars; Baalim of the cities and Baalim of the tribes. Every nation has its own god, and believes in the reality of the gods of its neigh bours. Every power in nature is worshipped, till altars rise on every high hill and under every 120 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE green tree, with a mythology which is not only almost as elaborate as the Greek, but many of the grossest forms of which the Semitic peoples of Canaan are justly supposed to have conveyed in early times to the Hellenic world. Such was the race to whose natural tendencies and geographical environment Renan traced the origins of Israel's monotheism. They were poly theists, and nowhere did their polytheism become more rank than in the very province in which Israel's monotheism culminated. Before, however, we can dismiss Renan's asser tions, we have to ask whether Semitic polytheism contains anything which points either to a primi tive monotheism or to an ultimate monotheism. Do we find in it any recollections of a habit of regarding the Deity apart from the various gods, or can we trace in the Semitic world, outside Israel, Christianity and Islam, any signs of a development towards monotheism? Of the former of these the evidence is extremely meagre. Virtually it consists only in the posses sion by all Semitic peoples of a common word for God, 'el, which proves that the Semites were able to form the abstract conception of Deity, but does not prove that outside Israel any of them had ever regarded a single deity as univer sally sovereign, or comprising in Himself the functions and attributes of the various local gods, On the other hand, Professor Robertson PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 121 Smith has shown how the basis of all Semitic faiths, as we find them in history, appears to be the physical kinship of gods and men. According to that notion each tribe of men was descended from a divine father, whose blood flowed in their veins, and who was lord and ruler of the tribe alone.1 There are no clearer facts about Semitic religion than these two : that every tribe had its own god, and that between a tribe and its god there existed a congenital solidarity, so to speak, which could never be dissolved, nor have substituted for it a solidarity between the tribe and any other deity. This does not look like a religion which has descended from a primitive monotheism. Turning to our second question — was there in the Semitic form of religion any tendency towards monotheism ? We cannot deny that in the singu lar relation between each tribe and its deity there lay what we may call a great opportunity for monotheism. To have one God singled out for the tribe as supreme ; to believe that no other was his equal within a certain territory and for a certain number of men — this surely gave room and time for a purer faith to develop. It meant a habit and direction of the mind which might be employed in the interests of unity. But in itself it was no more than this ; and we can see that unless there were present in that space, from 1 Religion of the Semites, p. 31. 122 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE which the supremacy (if not the reality) of other gods was excluded, and at work upon that habit of worshipping one as the governor of life, some influence superior to limits of space and capable of employing that habit for a spiritual end, the opportunity would be lost and the habit rendered barren. Such an influence, not only capable of sustain ing the habit of worshipping one god within the territory of the tribe, amid all temptations to divide his worship with that of others, but strong enough to extend this habit wherever the tribe travelled or the thoughts of the tribe travelled, might be one of three kinds — intellectual, political, or moral. Of the intellectual forces which make for monotheism, the two most powerful are the ability, by comparing several gods, to form an abstract conception of the deity common to them all; and the conclusion from the observation of the course of -nature, that this is a harmonious and consistent whole, derivable from a single cause. Both of these powers are found among the Semites ; but, outside the influence of Israel, neither of them led to monotheism. Of the former we have a proof in the possession, already noticed, by all the Semites of a common name for God — 'el. But 'el, if ever used as a proper name, appears to have been regarded as that merely of one other god, in addition to the PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 123 national and local deities. Again, some of the Semites developed a cosmogony, but outside the Old Testament this appears never to have been accompanied by, or to have led to, monotheism. Gods in the plural and of both sexes assisted at every stage of it. Of more probable influence for monotheism than these intellectual tendencies were the political forces of the Semitic world. In the growth of a single tribe to power over its neigh bours there lay the possibility of its deity being raised to a higher rank than all their deities. Did experiences of this kind never develop sthat opportunity to monotheism which we have found inherent in the characteristic form of Semitic religion ? The answer is that minor conquests within the Semitic world, so far from always extending the conqueror's notion of the power of his god, constantly brought him under the temptation of adding to his worship of the latter the worship of the gods of the land which he had taken and occupied. An instance of this is found in the history of Israel, who, after the settlement of Canaan, frequently fell under the fascination of the local Baalim, with their supposed patronage of the fertility of the soil. No general conquest by one tribe of all the others took place before the great advance of the Assyrian Empire in the eighth century before Christ. This discredited, as we see from 124 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE the prophecies of Isaiah, a number of the local and tribal deities in the Semitic world, who did not enable their worshippers to resist it. It helped to shatter, as Robertson Smith has pointed out, the tribal limits of religion, and so far was undeniably a new opportunity for the develop ment of monotheism. Yet, in the long-run, the Assyrian conquests only substituted among the Semites a small number of new gods for the crowd of discredited deities ; and by divorcing religion from the local interests and everyday life of the tribesmen and throwing it back into association with the forces of nature, those conquests did religion more harm than good.1 This brings us to the last of the possible forces which make for monotheism — the ethical. In the fragmentary condition of the monuments and traditions, upon which we depend for our know ledge of the pagan Semitic religions, it is diffi cult for us to appreciate the ethical contents of the latter. This, however, is certain. The fact that the gods were tribal brought religion into touch with the practical conduct of life, with the discharge of justice, and with public emergencies. But there the ethical virtue of it appears to have ceased. The duty of the god, the help he could afford, were identified with the selfish interests of the tribe. Not justice nor mercy was the supreme care of the deity, but the victory and 1 See Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites, pp, 35, 65. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 125 prosperity of his people. On the one hand, there can have been no idea of humanity as a whole ; on the other, little sense of the value of the individual in himself.1 The awe and sanction of religion kept a man in his place as part of the tribal organism ; but ethically it did not develop his individuality beyond his public duties of courage, and devotion to the interests of the tribe. The god, who (as several scholars have pointed out) was simply the glorified sheikh of the tribe, had a moral interest only in the fulfilment of the individual's social obligations and due per formance of the ritual, but had no concern with his spiritual character. In short, it may be said, reversing the well-known words about Jahweh, that the Semitic god saw as man seeth ; he looked not upon the heart. Wellhausen says of the heathen Arabs, even after some influences of Judaism and Christianity had come upon them, that religion did not work with any energy upon the thinking or doing of the individual. No doubt the individual was affected by the fear of God. But even in the days when, under foreign influ ence, the heathen Arabs had slightly anticipated Mohammed in the conception of one God, He affected them only in one way. The highest moral name they gave Him was El-Waz', the Restrainer.2 That is to say, the thought of God 1 This is very apparent from the early religion of Israel. 2 Wellhausen, Reste arabischen Heidentumes, p. 191. 126 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE kept them from sin, but was powerless to inspire them to new ideals of virtue. For the rest, the Deity moved above the individual, an inscrutable yet easily irritated Fate : God that was force and not character. This has been' a somewhat long survey, but your attention will not have been wasted if it has led you to understand that, while there existed in the fundamental form of Semitic religion and at various crises in Semitic history certain oppor tunities for the development of monotheism, and also some influences which make for monotheism, yet outside Israel those influences were not power ful enough to make use of the opportunities. How, then, was it that monotheism appeared in Israel alone of all ancient Semitic nations ? How was this member of the race alone able to take advantage of opportunities which all the others shared with her ; and in a physical environ ment, very fertile in polytheism, not merely to rise above this to a stage of religion subordinate only to the Christianity of Christ, but to exhibit throughout her whole history a religious progress which Christ affirmed to be the gradual prepara tion for Himself? To this unique exception in the history of Semitic religion it is my firm belief that only one cause can be assigned, and that is, that in the religion of Israel, as recorded in the Old Testament, there was an authentic revelation of PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 127 the One True God: of which thesis the rest of this Lecture is offered as a proof on the lines of modern criticism. And as the proof is most difficult with regard to the earlier stages of Israel's history in which we see their religion not yet far removed from the ordinary Semitic levels, I propose to limit the inquiry to the period before the greatest prophets. If we can prove the possibility of revelation among the religious conditions which then existed, the pure mono theism of the prophets which followed, and the culmination of the whole process in Christ, will complete and vindicate our argument. There is no necessity to prove in detail the Semitic origins of the Hebrews and their religion.1 The traditions of the people affirm not only these but the close kinship of Israel to certain tribes of the race which still clung to the ancestral desert, or had not drifted beyond its borders : Ishmael, Ammon, Moab and Edom. Israel were at first a loose confederacy of clans descended from a common ancestor, and cursed with theincoherency of all Semitic society. They came out of the desert into Palestine, and through the formative period of their history not only were affected by the neighbourhood of the desert to their territory ; but portions of them intermarried with 1 I have given detailed proofs in the first of the Jowett Lectures on the Religion of Israel in the Eighth and Seventh Centuries, which I hope soon to publish. 128 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE desert tribes or continued in close alliance with these. Their fathers had been nomads ; and the characters of their typical men, as for instance Jacob, are essentially, in their good and bad elements, the characters of the desert herdsmen. It is in their religion, however, that their Semitic origin is most apparent. The god of early Israel was a tribal god ; and His relation to His people is described in the same way as Israel's neighbours describe the relation of their gods to themselves. Israel looked to Jahweh as the Moabites looked to Chemosh, for leadership in war, for decisions upon justice — including the detection of criminals and lost property and the settlement of questions of inheritance — and for direction as to the ritual of worship. They prayed to him to let them see their desire on their enemies, ascribed their victories to His love for them, their defeats to His anger, and they devoted to Him in slaughter their prisoners of war, and fhe animals they captured from their foes ; all exactly as their Moabite neighbours are reported, in very much the same language,1 to have done to Chemosh, the god of Moab. Moreover, they regarded the power of Jahweh as limited to their own territory, and His worship as invalid beyond it.2 Though, like all Semites, they felt their duty to one God as the supreme Lord of themselves, they did not deny the reality 1 The Moabite Stone. 2 i Sam. xxvi. 19. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 129 of other gods.1 Again, like other Semites, early Israel associated their God with certain physical forces. The manifestations of Jahweh took place in the rain, the thunderstorm, the lightning and the fire ; His voice was heard in the stir of the trees before the wind.2 Again, the ritual of Israel is full of exact analogies to the ritual of Semitic sanctuaries from Cyprus to Southern Arabia. The sacrifice of certain animals at certain seasons of the year ; the smearing of lintels and other objects with blood ; the anointing of pillars in honour of the Deity ; the presence of human sacrifices with as much infrequency and sense of the awful crisis that demands them as elsewhere in the Semitic world ; the worship of images by Jacob's family, by David, and at the sanctuaries of the Northern Kingdom ; the discovery of the Deity's will through dreams, in ecstasy or by lot; the attestation of the Divine word by physical signs accompanying it ; circumcision ; 1 Not even by the Second Commandment, which is not a declaration of monotheism, but only the obligation to have Jahweh, of all the gods, as their sole god. It is difficult to say when the sense of the reality of other gods died out in Israel. It is confessed by David : it is implicit in the absence of all missionary effort in pre-prophetic times, and the remembrance of it lingers even in so monotheistic a Book as Deuteronomy ; one of the verses in which, iv. 17, is a curious compromise between the belief in the reality of the heathen gods and that in the divine sovereignty of Jahweh. Not till Jeremiah and the second Isaiah do we find language used of the idols which expresses unam biguously the writer's belief in their nothingness. 2 Genesis iii. 8 ; 2 Sam. v. 23 ff. I 1 30 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE the law of blood-revenge and its mitigation by the rights of sanctuary ; the sacrifice of spoil of war to the Deity : all these things have not only for the most part the same names as in other Semitic languages, but — except for a higher moral character which, however, only sometimes distinguishes them — they are the same as among other Semites, in intention and details of execu tion. And finally (as we shall see in another Lecture, so that we need not go into detail upon the subject now), early Israel had as little re ligious interest as other Semites in a future life. Except in the case of one or two heroes1 this was not connected with the Deity : if men inquired of it they did so not by religion but by magic and necromancy. The reason of such a separation between religion and the future life was precisely that which accounts for it elsewhere in the Semitic world. The unit of religion was the living tribe : they were the interest and care of the Deity ;#with whom the individual had no part or portion except in his place as a living member of the tribe. It is plain, then, that to whatever heights the religion of Israel afterwards rose, it remained before the age of the great prophets not only similar to, but in all respects above-mentioned identical with, the general Semitic religion ; which was not a monotheism, but a polytheism with an 1 Enoch and Elijah. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 131 opportunity for monotheism at the heart of it — each tribe being attached to one god, as to their particular Lord and Father. Our next question is whether any of the forces which could take advantage of this opportunity for monotheism x were present in Israel to a greater degree than we have found them among the other Semites. To begin with the political, — we find that up to the eighth century the history of Israel was largely one of conquest. In the belief of the people this history had been started by the victories of their God over one of the great empires of the world. Jahweh had brought His people out of Egypt, divided the sea, led them through the desert and dispossessed the nations of Canaan before them. These experiences must have lifted Israel's ideas of Jahweh very much above the level of the respect entertained for their deities by nations who remembered nothing of their own history except as transacted within the narrow bounds of their territories. We have more than one proof that the faltering faith of early Israel in the power of Jahweh was wont to refresh itself by the memory of those great events. This, however, as we have seen, did not cure even the leaders of the people of their belief in the reality of other gods ; and indeed the settlement in Canaan, so far from extending, 1 See above, p. 122. 132 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE in their regard, Jahweh of Sinai's power over that land, brought them under the fascination of its native gods, the patrons of its agriculture. With such experiences others conspired, especially when, under Solomon and Ahab, Israel entered into commerce with foreign peoples and con cluded political alliances ; for such relations in volved the. erection of shrines to alien gods side by side with the altars of Jahweh. It is certain, then, that without the presence of other influences, Israel's political history would have been powerless to produce her monotheism.1 Nor can we describe these influences as in tellectual. Early Israel does not seem to have had more of the power of sustained speculation than her Semitic neighbours. As we have seen, there is little argument in the Old Testament for the being, and none for the unity, of God. The cosmogony of the first chapter of Genesis belongs to the youngest of the Pentateuchal documents, and_ is of date subsequent to that at which the ethical foundations of monotheism 1 Professor Budde has acutely remarked in his recent lectures on The Religion of Israel before the Exile, (p. 71), that the con tact with other gods did not altogether mean religious loss for Israel. They probably learned in Canaan to associate the more beneficent forces of nature with the Deity, as they saw them exemplified in the native gods, and they transferred the attributes of these to Him. This is true, but the transference would not have taken place, or at least would not have been unaccompanied by the grosser features of those gods, unless from other sources Israel had been convinced of the higher ethical character of Jahweh. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 133 were already laid by the prophets. The eighth chapter of the Book of Proverbs, sometimes called ' the only metaphysic in the Bible,' is probably of a still later origin. And whatever the date of the Book of Job may be, its argu ments on God are not those of the head, but those of the heart and conscience. We turn, therefore, to Israel's ethical attain ments before the eighth century, and here, in the opinion of all critics, we at last find proofs of the distinction of her religion from that of other Semites, and the sources of the mono theism which culminated in her prophetical writings. By the beginning of the pre-prophetic period the Jahwist and Elohist documents1 were extant in Israel. We have already seen the high conceptions which govern the Jahwist's account of the origin and early civilisation of man. In the stories of Jacob and Joseph we are presented with portraits of character which display great powers of ethical reflection, and in the story of Joseph reveal the purest and most tender of moral ideals. The responsibility of the individual to God in matters deeper than those of a tribal morality is taken for granted. How can I do this great wickedness and sin against Jahweh ? says Joseph in answer to _ the chief 1 With the exception of some later strata, which I shall avoid in the following ethical estimate of the documents. 134 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE temptation of his life ; x and again he explains the motive of his treatment of his brethren in the words, for I fear God? Throughout these early documents God's care of the individual is beautifully illustrated. Now it may be, as some critics hold, that these documents, in the form in which we possess them, were composed after the teaching of the eighth-century prophets had begun to work in Israel. Yet even allowing this, we must assign to the processes of ethical reflection which blossomed in them a considerably earlier date. The possibility is confirmed by those stories of David which cannot be much later than David's own time. In those we have already found 3 the records of a character whose essentially Semitic features do not show more real to nature than the higher qualities which dramati cally mingle with them. This lofty ethic appears in connection with the national God. David's sin is discovered to him by a prophet of Jahweh : it is before Jahweh that the guilty king repents and humbles himself. A century and a half later we have confirmatory evidence of the morale of Israel's religious leaders. Micaiah ben Imlah breaks from the racial idea, that the tribal God must necessarily give his tribe the victory, and at the risk of martyrdom proclaims 1 Gen. xxxix. 9. 2 Gen. xiii. 18. 8 See Lecture in., pp. 79 ft. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 135 from Jahweh Ahab's defeat.1 As we saw in last Lecture,2 the zeal of Elijah for Jahweh is inex plicable except on the belief that Jahweh's character is absolutely different from that of other deities. The prophet's intolerance of the latter must have had ethical reasons; and this view is confirmed by the manner in which Elijah enforces Jahweh's claims, not only against the Phoenician deities but, in the teeth of Ahab and Israel themselves; predicts the employment of a foreign nation by Jahweh to punish Israel ; and champions against the injustice of the king the rights of the subject in the case of Naboth and his vineyard. We see, then, that before the eighth century the ethics of Israel had already burst the bonds of a tribal morality within which other Semitic religions were still confined. This is what we should have expected from the appearance of so largely developed an ethical monotheism in the prophets of the eighth cen tury. It would be unscientific to wholly doubt their testimony that the principles they enforce were not new in Israel. A religion such as theirs is no isolated creation. We have now to ask, what were the sources of those ethical features in the religion of early Israel, which so largely prepared the way for the monotheism of the prophets and helped to 1 : Kings xxii. 2 Pp. 82 f. 136 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE render the creed of Israel so conspicuous an exception in the religion of the Semites ? Among modern critics there is virtual unani mity in carrying back the origin of Israel's ethical distinction to the time of Moses, and in regarding him as its instrument. Kuenen, for instance, who is so careful to claim the prophets as the creators of ethical monotheism, admits that, though Jahweh of early Israel and Chemosh of Moab (for example) were branches of the same stock, ' sons of the same house,' there must have been in the Jahweh religion from the very begin ning the germs of that development which it afterwards achieved in such marvellous distinction from all the other faiths from whose level it had started. But though the origins of Israel's distinction are thus generally assigned to the Mosaic period, there is some difference of opinion as to what was their exact cause. Israel in the time of Moses enjoyed the same motives to ethical development as we have seen existing in other Semitic tribes. The close association of the deity with the tribal morals and public justice presented many opportunities of reflection on his character, which the honest and able minds among his accredited representatives can scarcely have failed to employ, with the result of raising the tribal conception of the divine commands, and the ethical ideal generally. How did Israel alone succeed in taking advantage of PREACHING OF THE OLD * TESTAMENT 137 such opportunities? It is not enough to answer that her intellect must have been quicker and more reflective than that of other Semites ; nor, as we have seen, that Israel's political history, which so powerfully assisted her religious de velopment, was itself the cause of that. A more probable origin for the ethical superi ority of Israel has been sought in another direction. Historians of the world's faiths have learned to distinguish between nature religions and historical religions ; between those which represent the original connection of a deity with his worshippers as physical, and those which describe the deity as drawing near to his people and becoming known to them through events in their history. The faith of Israel was of the latter kind. The people's memory traced their relations with Jahweh to what their earliest historians call a covenant between Him and them. Their prophets appeal to what has evidently been a long-established belief among the people, that Jahweh had not always been the god of Israel, but that He found them at a crisis in their history, and offered His help in return for their obedience. He had chosen them, and they had taken Him as their lord and god. The true metaphor for this relation was not paternal but conjugal : it rested on a contract. In Israel's belief in this transaction some historians of her early religion find the 138 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE germs of her rapid ethical development.1 It does not seem to me, however, to exhaust the secret of which we are in search. For Israel alone did not recognise reciprocal duties between them selves and their God ; other peoples, however physical they conceived the origin of their relations with their deities to be, interpreted these relations as involving mutual responsi bilities between each god and his nation. Their histories gave them also opportunities of reflect ing on the meaning of their god's anger with them as experienced in their defeats and the devastation of their lands. Nevertheless, they were not thereby inspired to the ethical develop ment which we see in Israel. Or look within Israel. The popular religion which the prophets 1 Professor Budde has given a very able and reasonable state ment of this hypothesis in the first of his American Lectures on The Religion of Israel up to the Exile. 'Israel accepted Jahve's offer to be its god; and relying on his promise through Moses to deliver it found he kept his word and felt that it owed him gratitude and fidelity in return for the boon.' ' He was unknown to it before. It knew, however, this much from experience, that he was a great and powerful god who could help if he would. It could adopt his worship only with fear and dread, always in doubt whether it had fathomed the depths of his nature, whether its actions found favour with Jahve and would be regarded as sufficient proof of fidelity. Whenever things went badly with the people, it was far from thinking that Jahve had not power to help. On the contrary, its conscience awaked each time to the questions : " Wherein have I deserved the displeasure of Jaljve ? What must I do to ensure his favour?" Thus arose a really living force whose operation tended to the ethical development of Israel's religion. . . . The germ of this whole development took place at Sinai. . . .' PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 139 attacked, itself contained the idea of a con tract between the nation and Jahweh, and was conscious that His fulfilment of that contract demanded obedience and gratitude from His people.1 Yet the popular religion of Israel did not therefore become ethical: on the contrary, the prophet's charge against it was that it was devoid of morality, and was inspired only by formal and superstitious notions of what Jahweh required of the people. Hence the prophets who combat the popular religion of Israel declare that the people must form new notions of the terms on which Jahweh made His covenant, or, which comes to the same thing, that they must form new notions of Jahweh Himself. The prophets constantly complain of the people's ignorance, and urge them to know Jahweh Himself. If we believe the prophets, as everybody does believe them, when they say that Israel's relation to her God was based not on physical connection with Him, but upon a his torical covenant, we ought not to refuse their further testimony that this covenanting Deity had from the first revealed His moral attributes. This is confirmed by all we can gather from the genuine records of Israel's history before the prophets. Although we are uncertain whether any written law has reached us from 1 This is plain from the account which Amos gives of the zeal of the popular religion in his day. 140 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE Moses himself, we cannot but believe, on the evidence at our disposal, in the existence in Israel from his time onwards of what was a more powerful factor of ethical development than any written code could have been : a con sciousness of the character of the Deity such as no other Semitic people possessed. In other words, the covenant itself was not the factor which told in early Israel's ethical develop ment, but knowledge of the God behind the covenant, and appreciation of His moral attri butes. It is true that early Israel's view of the Divine character is limited and disturbed by those ancestral conceptions of Deity which were common to themselves and their Semitic kins folk. The first beginnings of the higher faith had to express themselves in the language, through the symbols, and even in the intellectual conceptions, with which the men to whom they came were alceady familiar in connection with religion. The development, therefore, of what ever new ethical principles or influences met Israel in the time of Moses could only be gradual. And thus the Jahweh of early Israel shared much of the same character, and was believed to reveal Himself in many of the same forms which the other Semites associated with their gods. Yet from the first Israel must have seen in Jahweh attributes of a higher kind PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 141 than any of their neighbours attributed to the Divine character. We must observe, too, this remarkable fact : that the rapid moral growth of early Israel never runs away from the character of the national God. Other ancient nations achieved ethical progress at the expense of their religion. Their gods were left behind and laughed at as the conscience of the worshippers developed. But Jahweh was never found wanting by Israel, and never discredited by any new conception of truth or by any strange experience in their history. Every fresh moral ideal is confessed by the people as the impression of His character and will; and for each new problem raised by their contact with the world their faith in Him is found sufficient. Such are the facts of the early religion of Israel which the critical 1 study of it, in com parison with other Semitic religions, presents in answer to our question about the Old Testament as the record of a Divine Revelation. Are they sufficient to prove the claims of Israel, that God Himself spoke directly to this people in the events of their national history from the begin- 1 That is, based only on such parts of the Old Testament as are admitted by the textual and historical criticism of the Old Testament to be evidence of the pre-prophetic religion of Israel. 142 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE ning, and by the mouths of their leaders from Moses to Elijah ? We have seen how thoroughly Semitic the religion of early Israel was in frame and fibre ; and not less how in it alone of all Semitic faiths there dwelt an ethical spirit — the only promise in all that Semitic world of a true monotheism, and a promise which was ac tually fulfilled by the great Hebrew prophets. We have seen how all attempts to account for this religious uniqueness of Israel by their physical or historical conditions have failed, because these conditions were equally shared by Israel's Semitic kinsfolk. We have seen that the gradual ethical development, which thus differentiated Israel from her neighbours, appears to have begun with the introduction to the nation of Jahweh as their God ; and that every stage of its progress was achieved in connection with some impression of His character. It seems tp me that there are here the lines of an apologetic, for a Divine Revelation through early Israel, more sure and clear than any which the traditional interpretation of the Old Testa ment ever attempted to lay down. That is all I seek to prove. There are those who refuse altogether to believe in the possibility of the Christian idea of Revelation ; and with them other arguments must be employed. But if we are Christians, and hold that man's education in the knowledge of God is not exclusively a PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 143 human process, that the Mind which our minds, and the Heart which our hearts, seek behind the phenomena of nature and history, cannot be less urgent or forward than our own in the desire and effort to meet, then we cannot doubt that the history of early Israel, as critically interpreted, was an authentic and a unique stage in the process of Revelation — that Israel were receiving through their national God real impressions of the character and mind of the Deity. Obviously this could not flash upon them all at once. The Revelation of the Unity of God and of His perfect Holiness, as we know it, would have been no real revelation to a people on the level of Israel from the fourteenth to the ninth centuries before Christ. It would have hovered in the air, out of reach of their primitive con ceptions and undeveloped conscience : impalpable, impossible. Had one dreamed it, there was no language capable of its tradition. The character of God had to be proved upon the only floor on which men then expected to see the interest of the Deity in morals : that is to say, within the narrow limits of the tribal life and through the tribal institutions. The will of God, in order to be understood, had to be expressed, not merely in the spoken dialect of the people, but in the dearer language of religious symbol and sacrament, already consecrated by the use of many generations. The mind of God had to make its way to the mind of man through 144 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE older intellectual conceptions of the Deity, which, as we have seen, clung about the people's notions of Jahweh for centuries after Moses. But just because of its adoption of the practical realities and religious symbols of the life on which it descended, the new Spirit secured a habitation in the mind of the people and the means of tradition and development. Among all the errors and limitations which the past had bequeathed, the impressions of the righteous char acter of God worked as a leaven. They elevated gradually the great body of unwritten custom and legislation which Israel had derived from their Semitic fathers ; they moulded the nation in discipline and taught them gratitude and loyalty to their Head ; they proved themselves active beyond the tribal territory and life; they helped the mind of Israel to rise to every problem which its widening horizon presented. But the divinity of the process is vindicated beyond itself. It carried Israel through the crises of the eighth century, when every god of their neighbours was discredited, but Jahweh by the moral character, slowly revealed as His through the previous ages, was trusted by His people as the wielder of the world's forces. It produced the monotheism of the Prophets. And finally Christ confirmed it as the gradual preparation by God for the full revelation of Himself in the life and death of His Son. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 143 LECTURE V THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST IN THE OLD TESTAMENT The older theologies approached our present subject in a way different from that which I ask you to follow. Of Christ in the Old Testament they have mainly treated under the heads of Typology and Messianic Prophecy. These are departments of Biblical Doctrine for which we have the warrant of the New Testament. As usually treated, however, they are either too wide or too narrow for the illustration of the Spirit of Christ under the Old Covenant. Too wide — for to the preacher, as the history of the Christian pulpit has painfully proved, their vagueness has been a constant temptation to overdo them. In their elastic range, and the ambiguous quality of many of their details, the spoiled children of the pulpit have taken a larger licence than even among the predictions and apocalypse of the New Testament. Venturing beyond the furthest hint of the Apostolic writers, preachers have spun their allegories of Christ out of every plausible character and trans action in Old Testament history and poetry; or 146 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE have assiduously polished each rite and institution of the Jewish Law in the attempt to make it a mirror of our Lord and His Sacrifice. It would not be unjust to call those mere flatterers of their Lord, who, without moral insight or real devotion, have heaped upon Him indiscriminately all the titles of Old Testament History, and symbolised every detail of Jewish worship as if it were the ingenuity of their efforts and the quantity of their results which were well-pleasing to Him, or capable of convincing the doubter of His Divinity. The fancy, that to discover some type or predic tion of Christ where nobody else had seen one before was to honour Christ and confound His enemies, has been the besetting sin both of mediaeval and of Protestant styles of exegesis; and nothing has been more guilty of rendering sermons on the Old Testament artificial and un real. How different is the liberal and patient temper of Calvin ! He examines every alleged type and prediction. He says this is ' too forced ' ; that ' too fine.' ' In these things we require not cleverness but quid solidum,' some thing reliable, something sane. And therefore, when he does admit a type or prophecy of Christ, he makes us sure of it. We know that he seeks to learn what God means rather than to find what his own ingenuity can prove. He is jealous to serve his Lord with truth.1 1 The same spirit, struggling with far heavier difficulties, is seen PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 147 But if Typology and Messianic Prophecy are in some directions too vague to show us Christ aright in the Old Testament, in others they are too narrow. There are many passages which breathe His Spirit, and which have never been included among ' the types ' or Messianic pre dictions. I do not suppose, for instance, that under one or other of these heads either the Song of Deborah or the Elegy upon Saul and Jonathan was ever gathered by a theologian ; and indeed Matthew Henry, on the ground that the Elegy does not name the Name of God, calls it ' a humane composure,' a piece of non-religious literature. I hope to show that both of those early poems breathe the Spirit of Christ, and that this Spirit is shared by many other passages, which no system of Typology or Prophecy has ventured to include. Again, every one, who is familiar with the efforts of Christian preaching to illustrate or explain the Sacrifice of Christ from the Old Testament, is aware how the emphasis of the argument is almost always laid upon the animal sacrifices of the Levitical legislation, and how the human sacrifices of Old Testament history — the sufferings of the righteous and the vicarious strife and agony of the heroes of Israel — are in Theodore of Mopsuestia (d. 429 a.d.), the greatest Old Testa ment exegete among the early fathers : cf. the just title accorded him in Sieffert's work, Theod. Mopsuestenus Vet. Test, sobrie interpretandi Vindex (1827). See below, Lecture VII. 148 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE either forgotten or used only for the peroration. An equal error has been made in the Old Testa ment argument for our Lord's Divinity: the proofs have been sought in strained interpreta tions of the essentially human attributes and offices of the Messianic King, instead of in those affections and struggles for the salvation of men which the Old Testament imputes to God Himself. The following Lecture is the attempt to place the whole subject of the prophecy of Christ in the Old Testament and the presence of His Spirit in the history of Israel upon historical and ethical lines, in place of those so largely followed by theologians and preachers in treating of Typo logy, Messianic Prophecy and the Argument from the Old Testament for our Lord's Divinity and His Sacrifice. I. From the Earliest Times to David. We will most suitably start upon our task from the point which was reached in the close of last Lecture. We saw that the main factor in the development of the religion of Israel was the impression upon the people, through the events of their history and the consciousness of their greatest men, of the character of God. This it was which separated the people from the heathen around them, quickened within them a new moral PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 149 sense, sifted and qualified the mass of custom and unwritten law which they had inherited as children of the great Semitic family, and finally produced both prophecy and the legal codes, in which the principles of prophecy and the hereditary practice of the nation were together precipitated. But we must not suppose that this revelation of the character of God was confined to His righteousness, or was even predominantly that of His righteousness. That is one of the most widespread fallacies about the Old Testament. Mr. Matthew Arnold, who is almost as brilliant an instance of the method of writing history by intuition as Renan himself, never made more manifest the perils of such a method than when he defined the essence of Israel's religion as a tendency or force, not ourselves, which makes for righteousness. More patient workers in the field have fallen into the same error. Nothing is more certain about the object of Israel's faith than first, that it was a Person ; and second, that the character of this Person was by no means only or predominantly righteousness. Jahweh is as effectively a God of grace as He is a God of justice ; and although our meagre information requires us to speak with caution of the earliest period of Israel's religion, it is sufficiently well- established that during that period His grace was (to say the least) as manifest to His people's hearts, and as operative in their lives, as His iSo MODERN CRITICISM AND THE Justice : for the full expression of which we have to wait till the prophets. In this con nection criticism has done no disservice to the Christian preacher by removing from the pre- prophetic stage of the religion the vast bulk of the Law; for it has thereby left him the more free to appreciate throughout these long cen turies the love and faithfulness of Israel's God. Our information, as I have said, is meagre, but it is enough. We cannot doubt the servitude of Israel in Egypt, nor their deliverance under Moses, in obedience as they believed to the impulse of Jahweh ; nor their sojourn in the Desert, when, as water is spilled upon the sand, so Israel's distinctive character might have passed from them, and except for the patience and watchfulness of their God they might have sunk back into the nomadic life from which their fathers had sprung. No one doubts their arrival in a land, where again their unity might have been dissipated amidst the geographical con ditions, but a national career and destiny became possible by their trust that Jahweh, in spite of their frequent unfaithfulness to Him, continued to preserve and to lead them. The notes of grace — of Divine redemption and guidance — were thus in the religion of Israel from the very first. We may not have many, or any, authentic expressions of this from the period itself; but after it, in a number of the most ancient frag- PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 151 ments of the Old Testament, the remembrance appears. In Deborah's song Jahweh's people are his lovers} The good-will of Jahweh to help His nation against their foes comes as an inspiration to Gideon.2 In the movement of ecstatic prophecy which broke out in Israel under Samuel, we see the power of the sense of the ' Ruah ' or Spirit of Jahweh, — His personal energy — granted to His people to inspire them to victory over their Philistine oppressors. The movement is the passion of a people for their God, who affects them not only by His righteousness, the full force of which they obviously did not yet comprehend, but by His redemption of them from servitude, His patience with their disloyalties, His faith fulness to them in face of their foes. It is the early Jahwist (or Elohist) who gives the proclama tion to Moses : Jahweh, Jahweh a compassionate and gracious God slow to anger and plenteous in mercy and truth? Such words may be a more explicit sense of the Divine Law than the Mosaic Age in Israel had achieved; but in any case the germs of the higher consciousness of God, which, as Kuenen admits, were present in the Mosaic Age, were germs of the consciousness not of His justice merely but still more of His 1 Judges v. 3KZ. E. Meier, Winter and Budde reckon this verse to be a later addition to the Song of Deborah : ' in the style of the Psalms ' (Budde) ; but, in my opinion, on insufficient grounds. 2 Judges vi. 11 ff. 3 Ex. xxxiv. 6. 152 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE mercy and faithfulness. The long poem in the thirty-second chapter of Deuteronomy, which is probably not later than the eighth century, and which so accurately represents the passage of early Israel from the nomadic life of the desert to the agriculture of Canaan,1 as beautifully ascribes it to Jahweh's fatherly providence of the nation when In a wilderness land He found him, In the waste and the howling desert ; He encompassed him, yea kept His eye upon him As the apple of His eye, so He watched him. As an eagle which stirreth his nest, And flutter eth over his young, And spreadeth his wings to catch them, And beareth them up on his pinions, fahwih alone was his leader, And never a strange God was with him. The prophets of the eighth century are full of wonder at Jahweh's love for Israel and His choice of them to be His people ; at His long patience with them and constant forgiveness of their rebellion and sin. The elements of this wonder cannot be wholly from the prophetic age; the same sense, however dim, must have stirred Israel from the first. So at least we seem to see in the very early Song of Deborah. The attraction of such a God, 1 See Historical Geography of the Holy Land, pp. 85-90. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 153 and the loyalty which His loyalty calls forth, are there represented as the factors of the national unity. These dozen desert tribes, cursed with the incoherence of Semitic life, were brought together and kept together by their common trust in their Deity. When, after the settle ment in Palestine, among the diverse oppor tunities which the broken geography of the land so remarkably affords, they were tempted to separate from their common interests upon widely divergent lines of culture,1 it was, as the Book of Judges testifies, not by a return to the Law that they were united but by the recollec tion of their debt to Jahweh. In Deborah's as in Gideon's case, memory was the nurse to faith, and the conviction of His unfaltering desire to help them rallied the people against their foreign tyrants. The opening verse of Deborah's Song gives us the whole secret of the national inspira tion in a tribute of glory to Jahweh : For that the leaders took the lead in Israel, For that the people offered themselves willingly? Praise ye Jahweh ! In the end of the Song which thus grandly opens, we are repelled by the savage exultation of a woman over the treacherous murder of a defeated foe. And rightly ; for Christ has given 1 Judges iv. 15^-17. 2 The exact meaning of these two lines is obscure ; but their intention is plain. iS4 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE us the right to judge. But do we pay as much attention to the virtues which are manifest in the Song? Nowhere do we find a more scathing exposure of those who prefer the material ambi tions of life, however legitimate, to the call of national need in the name of the religious ideal ; J and nowhere is self-sacrifice more finely celebrated. Zebulun was a people that jeoparded their lives to the death, And Naphtali on the high places of the field? Whatever views we have of war — and we are those who themselves owe their religious liberty to the virtues of the battlefield — let us remember what war did for Israel. By war, says Jahweh elsewhere, I took you? and we may extend the meaning of these words beyond the mere fact that so He helped them to freedom, to the moral assurance that by the call to fight He redeemed them from selfishness, from servitude to material aims, from schism and disloyalty to Himself. The battlefield was the Golgotha of early Israel. It was there that Zebulun and Naphtali laid down their Hves for the brethren ; and there that the Spirit of Christ which was in Israel from the beginning won its earliest triumphs. When we hear a Psalmist sing (in a Psalm for which there are more reasons for 1 Judges iv. 15^-17. 2 Verse 18. a Deut. iv. 34. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 155 a pre-exilic date than for any other in the Psalter) — By thee do I break through a fence, And by my God do I leap over a wall — He maketh my feet like hinds' feet He teacheth my hands to war, So that a steel bar is broken by my arms. Thou hast enlarged my steps under me So that my ancles swerve not 1 — we ought to remember the issues at stake in Israel's wars, and the virtues which these evoked. In the next verse the Psalmist gives the secret of it all : Thy gentleness hath made me great? The heroism, the self-sacrifice, the loyalty to the nation and to Jahweh were the warrior's devotion to the tender and faithful character of his God. The poem next earliest to Deborah's Song, David's Dirge upon Saul and Jonathan, is another illustration of the same Spirit. It is all the more valuable to our present purpose that it is one of the few specimens of the popular poetry of early Israel. The Dirge is not religious in the narrower sense of the term. It is without the name of God : it says no word of the service of the dead, whom it praises, to the religion of their nation. And above all, it does not commit their spirits to God, nor express any hope of a future life.3 On these grounds the great Puritan commentator, 1 Psalm xviii. 29, 33, 34. 2 Verse 35. 8 This will be dealt with in the next Lecture. 156 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE Matthew Henry — a man of firm belief in the inspiration of the Bible and of rare insight into its meaning — has called the Dirge, as I have already said, ' a humane composure,' an extract from a. book of popular ballads with the author ship of which the Holy Spirit has had nothing to do. But Christ has said, Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord; and again, By their fruits shall ye know them. Judged by that standard, the absence of the Divine Name from this poem will not prevent us from appreciating its truly Christian spirit. The Dirge is by a man upon his dead enemy and his dead friend. But for the former there is no word save of generosity and admiration. Saul had relentlessly hunted David, and upon more than one occasion had attempted his life. Latterly he had been a bad king to Israel, and his death, with the defeat it brought upon the nation, had been due to his own errors. David is not only silent upon these, but remembers nothing of the persecutions to which Saul had subjected him. That the poem is animated, not merely by a poet's heart for the virtues of a great man, but by the spirit of personal forgiveness for very cruel wrongs, is proved by the whole attitude of David to the living Saul and his house. David spared his hunter's life, and showed kindness to his children. Criticism has no doubt to cast upon the story, according to which the service of David's youth PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 157 had been the attempt to win the king from his evil moods by skilful playing on the harp. Here was the secret of David's attitude to Saul through the persecution which he suffered from him. The life of his tormentor, which he spared when he had the power to take it, and which he praised when the king by his own error lay dead on Gilboa, had once been intrusted to him by Jahweh to redeem from the powers of evil for the service of God and the people. But this is the Spirit of Christ. Though the Dirge upon Saul finds no place in any theologian's system of ' types,' it is yet one of the most beautiful anticipations which the Old Testament has to offer us of Christ's teaching : But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you. These instances from the early history of Israel are enough to prove to you and me, as preachers of the Gospel, that, accepting the results of modern criticism, we shall yet be sure of finding across that whole stretch of the Old Testament — upon which its effects have been most feared, and where we must confess the life to be very rude, the ethics to be primitive, and monotheism itself to be undeveloped — the presence of Divine Grace, of the Spirit of Christ, and of the virtues of for- givingness and self-sacrifice which these call forth in men. 158 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE II. The Prophets. The teaching of the Eighth-Century Prophets foreshadows the gospel of Jesus upon its great texts of Forgiveness ; Repentance ; the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand ; and the coming of the Perfect King or Messiah. Upon the two first of these themes Hosea has all the essence of the evangel ; which indeed quotes his great saying : I will have mercy and not sacrifice. Through terrible personal suffering inflicted by one whom he loved, Hosea was led to understand how men's sins cost God more pain than anger.1 From that moment the Gospel of Divine Forgiveness was assured. And just because she, whom the prophet was himself moved to forgive and redeem, was an individual, we may believe that, while the nation still con tinued with Hosea to be the unit of religion, he planted in Israel's faith the seeds which Jeremiah developed of the confidence that God too in forgiveness deals with the single souls of men. Upon Repentance Hosea's teaching is startlingly evangelical. The care with which he follows every symptom of it in his people ; 2 the ethical sternness with which he repels their easy optimism regarding it ; 3 the labour he takes to distinguish its true character from the sorrow of this world,4 1 Chaps, i.-iii. 2 v. 15, vii. 1, xi. 7 ff., xii. 6, xiii. 7, xiv. 1. 8 Ch. v. 15-vi. 6. 4 Ibid, and vii. 14. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 159 and founds it on a new Knowledge of God and of His love,1 in short, on a real change of mind — all this anticipates in a wonderful way the Metanoia of the Gospels and Epistles.2 Unlike his younger contemporary, Amos cannot be called an evangelical prophet : it is Law rather than Love in the Divine Nature on which he dwells ; yet he too had his part in the evangelical preparation. That passage, which least of all Old Testament literature looks like Gospel, the first and second chapters of Amos, is a real intimation that the Kingdom is at hand. It is the proclamation of the truth that all men are morally equal, and that to the righteousness of Jahweh not only Israel, but every one of her heathen neighbours, is responsible. Such is the necessary ethical basis for the preaching of repentance and forgiveness to the Gentiles. The missionary spirit of Israel will take centuries yet to awaken ; but this is its womb : this sense, for the first time expressed in the Old Testament, of the moral equality of all men before God. In Isaiah's prophecies we meet with the first of those descriptions of the coming King which Christian theology regards as direct predictions of Christ. The Greek version of the very difficult prophecy of Immanuel is quoted by St. Matthew 1 iv. 6, vi. 6, xi. 3-4, xiii. 4. 2 A full exposition of Hosea's teaching on forgiveness and Repentance will be found in The Book of the Twelve Prophets, i. chaps, xxi. -xxiii. 160 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE as the statement of the Birth of Jesus from the Virgin •? Behold the Virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel. The Hebrew original 2 is indefinite, and means some marriageable woman. Isaiah meant no more than that some one should be born whose character and hopes should be proof that God was with His people. Whether the promised Unborn was an individual, or a future generation of Israel, it is difficult to make out ; but probably the latter is what Isaiah intends. This would not impair the legitimacy of Matthew's reference of the prophecy to Jesus, to whom prophetic descriptions of the people of Jahweh are equally transferred with the predictions of their coming King.3 Against the authenticity of other Messianic passages, of the Prince with the Four Names and the Ideal Ruler, strong reasons have been adduced4; but these cannot be regarded as conclusive. The premises of the passages -*- the firm hold which the Davidic dynasty had secured in Judah, the memory of David himself as an ideal king, the need in the time of King Ahaz for a monarch strong, just and loyal to Jahweh — were all present in Isaiah's day. The tasks assigned by the 1 Matt. i. 22, 23. 2 Isaiah vii. 14. 8 Cf. Matthew's application (ii. 15) to Jesus of Hosea's descrip tion of Israel's call out of Egypt (xi. 1). i Isaiah ix. 6 f. ; xi. 1-5. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 161 passages to the victorious Prince and righteous Judge are exactly those on which the whole ministry of Isaiah was bent, while they are not such as were necessary in the Exilic Age to which the passages have been relegated by some critics.1 In any case the application of these prophecies to Jesus Christ must be made with discrimina tion. They have been too hastily used as predictions of the Godhead of the Messiah. But not even do the names in Chapter ix. 6 f. imply Deity; while all the functions attributed to the Promised King are human. Isaiah's Messiah is an earthly monarch, of the stock of David, and with offices that are political, both military and judicial. He is not the mediator of spiritual gifts to his people : forgiveness, a new knowledge of God, and the like. It is only in this, that he saves the people of God from destruction and reigns over them with justice and in the fear of God, that he can be regarded as a type of Jesus Christ.2 1 Against the authenticity of Isaiah ix. 6 f. and xi. 1-5, see Hackmann, Die Zukunftserwartung des fesaia, 1893 ; Cheyne, Introduction to the Book of Isaiah, 1895 ; and for the historical theory which relegates all predictions of the Messiah to the Exilic Age, cf. Marti, Geschichte der Israel. Religion, p. 190 ; and Paul Volz, Die vorexil. Prophetic u. der Messias, 1897. On the other hand, Driver, Kirkpatrick, Duhm, Skinner, Budde and a majority of critics leave the passages in question with Isaiah. For the arguments on both sides, and the conclusion that those for the authenticity are the stronger, see the present writer's article on ' Isaiah ' in Hastings's Bible Dictionary, ii. pp. 487 ff. 2 So the present writer in Hastings's Bible Dictionary ; ii. 491. L 162 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE In the belief that chapters xl.-lxvi. of the Book of Isaiah were from himself, Isaiah has been called by Christians the Evangelical Prophet. These chapters, however, we now know to be by the great evangelist of the Exile.1 To a gospel for the spiritual life of the individual, Hosea makes a far closer approach than his greater contemporary ; yet even in the genuine work of Isaiah we find the elements of the doctrines of Grace. Jahweh forgives sins, even the most heinous and defiling.2 His love and pity never fail His people's penitence.3 He is their well- beloved, and constantly cares for them.4 It is His passion for them which is the spring and assur ance of all their deliverance.5 Of these truths Isaiah became himself convinced through his in dividual experience of pardon and of cleansing.6 Isaiah, however, was too much engaged with the fate of his nation to become the preacher of that personal religion, of which the proofs were given him in his inaugural vision. Even in the following century, in the great Law book which codifies the teaching of the eighth century prophets, the unit of religion is still Israel as a whole. Deuteronomy is the most perfect example the world has seen of a sys tem of national religion, but it addresses itself 1 See above, pp. 53 f. 2 Isa. i. 18. 8 Isa. xiv. 32 ; xxxvi.-xxxvii. * Isa. v. 1 ff. 6 Isa. ix. 7, etc. 6 Isa. vi. 5 ff. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 163 to the nation. The individual is treated only as a member of the nation, and there is no promise for humanity beyond, nor conscience of Israel's ' missionary ' duty except to the strangers who settle in the land. Yet the high monotheism of the Book, along with its tenderness and humanity; its enforcement (in dependence on Hosea) of the love of God, based on a true knowledge of His character, and its care for the education of the young, secure for Deuteronomy a place in the evangelical preparation. Its influence on the domestic and personal religion of Israel in all ages has never been exceeded by that of any other Book in the Canon. Our Lord not only quoted from it the expression of the essence of the Law,1 but sustained upon its words His own soul in the conflict with Temptation.2 There are few books in the Old Testament, the regular exposition of which will more profit a Christian preacher and his people. This brings us to Jeremiah, who, beyond every other in the old dispensation, was the forerunner of Jesus Christ : and that both in his teaching and in his personal experience.3 Jeremiah began his career as a prophet about 627, before the discovery of Deuteronomy in the 1 Matt. xxii. 37 f . ; Mark xii. 29 f. ; Luke x. 27. 2 Matt. iv. 4 and 7 ; Luke iv. 4, 8 ; cf. Deut. viii. 3 ; vi. 13, 16; A. 20. 8 He was expected by the Jews of our Lord's day to return to earth : cf. Matt. xvi. 14, some say . . . feremias. 1 64 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE Temple, and he watched the progress of the re forms which it inspired under the reign of Josiah. With many of these he must have sympathised; and he frequently quotes from the letter of the Book. But besides his hostility to the formal obedience which his contemporaries showed to the Law, Jeremiah's ideal of religion was in advance of that of Deuteronomy. His monotheism was more free of the older conceptions of the Deity : to him at last the idols are vanities or nothing nesses, empty of reality: in Deuteronomy they are still subordinate deities whom Jahweh has assigned to all the nations under heaven} We have evidence also of another attitude than that of the Deuteronomist to sacrifices and burnt- offerings. Jahweh, according to Jeremiah, gave no commands to the fathers of Israel concerning these; His commands were ethical only.2 We have here a more explicit repetition of Hosea's text quoted by Christ: / will have mercy and not sacrifice. Hence it does not surprise us that before the end of his ministry Jeremiah pro claimed a New Covenant (the Deuteronomic being the old), in which there is no word of ritual or sacrifice, but man's communion with God, and God's forgiveness of man, depend on the inward knowledge, and acceptance, of God's ethical revelation. This is the Covenant which Christ said was sealed in His blood.3 1 Deut. iv. 19. 2 Jer. vii. 22. 8 Luke xxii. 20. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 165 It is, however, in his experience of the relation of the individual to God and to the community, that this greatest of the prophets becomes likest to Christ. The experience came to Jeremiah from the earliest moments of his career; but it was developed by antipathy to the people's formal fulfilment of the Deuteronomic ideals of national religion; it was confirmed by the collapse of these with the death of Josiah ; and it was slowly articulated in the gradual decay of the nation and in the cruelties which the lonely prophet suffered under Jehoiakim and Zedekiah. The community, which Isaiah had described as inviolable, upon its historical site of Zion and in its political form as the king dom of the house of David, was about to be broken up. The individual was being left to his own resources : there was a call to each man to save himself. The monarchy, the nation, the ritual, the Temple, were certain of destruction : Jeremiah could promise to his disciples only their bare lives.1 And to a man like Jeremiah, such leadings of Providence were enforced by a number of religious considerations. As almost none be fore him had felt, Jeremiah knew how God can single out the individual and deal with him apart from his family, his citizenship, or his priesthood : Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee, and before thou camest forth of the womb I consecrated 1 Jer. xiv. 5 ; cf. xxi. 9; xxxviii. 2 ; xxxix. 18. 166 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE thee} By temper the man was solitary, intro spective, greatly concerned about himself. His nation, too, deserved nothing of him ; they had betrayed his God, they refused to listen to his word, and they cast him off. What a conspiracy of temptation was here to break away from the community, to assert a purely individual religion, to save one's own soul out of so manifestly doomed a dispensation ! Jeremiah tells us how he felt the strain. At one time he prayed for some far-off caravanserai of wayfaring men, where he could be separate from his own people and no longer responsible for their life.2 At another, his countrymen put him in prison lest he should desert to the Babylonians ; 3 and at another the Babylonians offered him a place among them selves.4 But God kept Jeremiah to a more excellent way, and he had scarcely found his position before God as an individual, independent of every rite and relation, or realised his opportuni ties as an individual, when there descended upon him a sense of his oneness with his people far more stringent than ever prophet had felt it before — a sympathy with their sufferings which breaks out in the most pathetic cries in all literature; and a conscience of their sins, which astounds and perplexes him beyond the power of articulate expression, fahweh, thou hast beguiled me and 1 Jer. i. 5. 2 Jer. ix. 2. 8 Jer. xxxvii. 13 ff. 4 Jer. xl. 4 ff. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 167 / am beguiled: thou art stronger than I. Why is my pain perpetual and my wound incurable ? Art thou altogether become to me as a liar, and as waters that fail? x His perplexity is his personal experience of the sufferings of the righteous through the wrongdoing of the wicked. Only let me put before Thee certain questions of justice : Why is the way of the ivicked fortunate, and how are they happy who deal treacherously ? Thou plantest them : they take root and flourish and bring forth fruit. Thou art familiar in their mouths, but very far from their reins. Yet Thou, O Jahweh, knowest me: Thou seest me and triest my heart towards Thyself? It is a darker, a more bewildered heart in Gethsemane : though it says Thy will be done in its own way, Thou hast right, 0 Jahweh? it does not understand the meaning of its burden and its cross. A later generation, however, awoke to the virtue of Jeremiah's pain. Whether the figure of the Suffering Servant in the fifty-third of Isaiah be intended by the writer as an individual (as it seems to me we ought to conclude),4 or (in the opinion of most modern critics) as a personifica tion of the righteous and suffering remnant of Israel, there is no doubt that the vision is partly inspired by the nation's appreciation of the 1 Jer. xx. 7; xv. 18. a xii. 1-3. 8 xii. 1. 4 Both from the grammar and by the fact that Jeremiah's in dividual experience is reflected in it. 168 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE meaning of Jeremiah's life. They had awakened to this through their own experience. God's doom had fallen on a generation not more guilty than their fathers ; it had covered the righteous as well as the sinners. Innocent children had been born into it, and a whole generation had grown up in exile under a curse which they had not earned. Our fathers have sinned and are not, And we have borne their iniquities} It was out of this actual experience of the reality of vicarious suffering as part of life and of the providence of God, that the great evangelical truths of the fifty-third of Isaiah were developed. The Exile had brought Israel face to face with the heathen world, and while they received chastisement from their tyrants they were conscious of their religious superiority to these. In their despair before the world, there gradually awoke the sense of a capacity to serve it; there was aroused a new appreciation of an old call. Israel was Jahweh's Servant and Messenger to mankind. His exile was the punishment of his refusal of this mission.2 But it was also a new opportunity for obedi ence ; and in so far as those upon whom the exile had fallen were, as individuals, innocent, could it not be said that the pains of the Exile 1 Lam. v. 7. 2 Which thought is developed by the later Book of Jonah. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 169 fulfilled some higher religious end than the pun ishment of Israel, and were themselves part of Israel's work for the world ? Israel had been blind and deaf,1 and therefore Jahweh had given him to the spoilers. But now my Servant is wise : he understands his mission and the mean ing of his sufferings, and (so the pregnant phrase implies) shall succeed.2 Thus in the meeting of the old memory of a call to the service of Jahweh, and the fresh experience of the suffer ings of the righteous, there was born that con ception of One sent from God, righteous and blameless; misunderstood by the world and deemed to be lying under God's displeasure; by whose sufferings sinful men are redeemed, and by whose stripes they are healed. Side by side with these beliefs in the efficacy of vicarious suffering, which were derived by Israel from her experience of life, there grew up a reconstruction of the ritual and the priest hood, in which the ideas of atonement and cleansing for sin replaced to a large degree those more peaceful and joyous feelings of communion with God which govern the conception of sacri fice in Israel's earlier codes. The fifty-third of Isaiah speaks of the human Servant of Jahweh as bearing the sins of the people, efficaciously removing them, and so giving his life a guilt- offering for many. This guilt-offering was the 1 Isaiah xiii. 19. 2 Isaiah Hi. 13. 170 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE central rite of the new system of ritual : in which sin was said to be borne and expiated by the death of beasts representative of those who offered them. It has been argued by some J that there is no idea of substitution in the animal sacrifices of the Levitical Law, but that their offering is simply an act of penitence. The argument is far from conclusive, and its authors have to admit, both that the human conscience has else where (though not universally) associated substi tution with animal sacrifice, and that there are at least echoes of this in the Jewish system. Nevertheless, there is a truth underlying the opinion. The idea of vicarious suffering and substitution of the innocent for the guilty, whereby the guilty are redeemed from their sin, is to be traced not to those animal sacrifices of the Levitical ritual, but rather to the nobler source of human vicariousness and its virtue, as learned byTsrael from their own experience, and idealised in the Suffering Servant of Jah weh, whose prototypes are Jeremiah and the righteous remnant. In such human instances we get the ethical truth of vicariousness : red with the blood of real life. In the animal sacrifices the expression of the idea is largely mechanical. Unfortunately, both in Jewish and in Christian theology, it has been the sacrificial animals and not 1 E.g. Schultz, Old Testament Theology. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 171 the human Servant, Law and not Prophecy, which have governed, the conceptions of atonement for sin. Symbol and ritual were among ancient people the best vehicle for the tradition of ideas, and therefore we can understand why, till our Lord's time, the truths we are treating should find their favourite popular expression in the forms of animal sacrifice, and why Christ Him self should associate His supreme Self-Sacrifice with the Paschal Lamb. But even the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, who dwells more than any other New Testament writer upon the Levitical antitypes of Christ, shows their in sufficiency, and precedes his exposition of them by majestic emphasis on the humanity of Christ — as distinct from an official priesthood — and by illustration of this from those human aspects of vicarious service in the Old Testament which fill his opening chapters. This example, unfor tunately for Christianity, has been misunderstood — not by the greatest theologians but by the smaller ones, and by generation after generation of popular preachers. It is because Christian divines have dwelt too much on the Old Testa ment system of sacrifices and too little upon the figures of Jeremiah, the suffering remnant and the Servant of the Lord: too much upon the animal types of the Cross and too little upon the human forerunners of Christ : that their explanations of the vicarious character of the 1 72 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE passion and death of the Redeemer have so often been mechanical and repulsive. Certainly in our day, when animal sacrifices have so long ceased to speak to the imagination and con science of men, it is the direst blunder a preacher may commit to dwell upon them except for the barest of exegetical purposes. If we are to get our fellows to believe in the redemptive virtue of Christ's Cross, it will be by proving to them that vicarious suffering and its ethical virtue are no arbitrary enactments of God, but natural to life and inevitable wherever sin and holiness, guilt and love, encounter and contend. ' Non est dolor nisi de amore amisso, quanto profundior erat amor tanto altius tangit dolor.' 1 And in this we shall succeed most readily by proving, as we can do from the history which we have been traversing, that the figure of a Sufferer, holy and undefiled, by whose stripes we are healed, by whose bearing of our iniquities we are justified, was desired and confidently expected by men, not because Heaven had arbitrarily proclaimed it, but out of their own experiences of life and death, the very elements of which provided them with their marvellous picture of Him. The Levitical system, however, was not wholly animal or mechanical. The head and centre of it was human, the Great or High Priest who first 1 Hugo St. Victor, on Gen. vi. 6. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 173 appears in Hebrew history with the Return from the Exile. In the visions of Zechariah,1 he car ries the guilt of the whole people before God and receives their pardon ; in the Levitical Law he enters within the veil as their representative on the Day of Atonement.2 At first of equal rank with the native governor of Israel,3 the High Priest assumed gradually much of the civil and judicial power, till he became King as well as Priest, and thus besides gathering upon his person the virtue of the sacrificial system, represented also the political Messiah of the earlier prophets. It is unnecessary to follow in detail the influence of this Figure upon the theology of the New Testament and the constitution of the Christian Church. We shall see in a later Lecture, how a merely official and unhistorical interpretation of the double office was employed to defend the temporal government of the Popes.4 How in finitely different is the human and ethical High Priesthood claimed for Jesus by the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews ! Here there is nothing official, nothing of a secular sovereignty. Jesus, though the Son of God and natural head of mankind, enters upon His priesthood through the voluntary assumption of human nature and fellowship with all its suffering and temptation. The name of His great office is borrowed from 1 Ch. iii. 2 Levit. xvi. 8 So in Haggai and Zechariah. 4 See Lecture VII. 174 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE the Law ; but its character and virtue are drawn from the prophet's picture of the suffering servant of the Lord. But the Spirit of Christ in the Old Testament is not exhausted even in its greatest human figures ; whether the Messiah of the earlier pro phets, the Suffering Servant of the later, or the High Priest of the Levitical system. We must seek another line than these supply for the full prophecy of the Incarnation. Parallel to that prospect of the blessed future, which finds its goal in the appearance of a human Saviour now reign ing over His people and now suffering with them and bearing their sins, there runs through all the Prophets another line of vision the end of which is the appearance of God Himself and Alone — either undertaking His people's deliverance from their enemies or reigning over them in visible majesty. The human Messiah, whom the earlier prophecies of Isaiah predict, disappears from the later and Go,d is all in all.1 In Jeremiah, Jahweh Himself is His people's Righteousness? that is their full and manifest vindication in history. In the prophecy which most critics assign to some disciple of Isaiah Jahweh will be for us in majesty. For Jahweh is our Judge, our Lawgiver, our King : He will save us? At each great crisis in Israel's history, the Eternal will appear, as for 1 See article ' Isaiah ' in Hastings's Bible Dictionary, vol. ii. 2 Jer. xxxiii. 16. 8 Isa. xxxiii. 21, 22. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 175 instance He is pictured in an exilic or post-exilic vision1 treading the wine-press of battle, and the blood of His people's foes stains all His rai ment. With such theophanies we may take the very numerous passages of the Old Testament which attribute to the Deity effort and passion of the most violent kind, describe Him in the similitude of a man of war, Israel's champion and protagonist, and do not even hesitate, as in one instance,2 to picture Him as a woman in travail. All these anthropomorphisms, as they are called, are not to be interpreted as the mere effort of their writers' art to make the unseen vivid to the imagination of a rude people. We are to see in them the expression of what all the Prophets felt to be the essence of the Divine : the truth that God makes His people's salvation His own concern and effort, and accomplishes this not in power only but in pain and self-sacrifice. The sins and sorrows of men are not only set in the light of His countenance, but He bears them upon His heart.3 His righteousness is not only regnant but militant. He rises and comes down, entering His people's war with their enemies on a level of struggle equal with themselves. His love is not only complacent but sympathetic, passionate, self-sacrificing : in all their affliction 1 Isa. lxiii. 1-6. 2 Isa. xiii. 13, 14. 8 Isa. xl.-lxvi. uses the same verb ^35 to bear, meaning to bear with pain and difficulty of God and of the Servant of God. 176 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE He is afflicted. He pleads for their loyalty; reasons with them in their sins ; travails for their new birth and their growth in holiness; and is longsuffering with their sinfulness and their ignorance.1 It is very evident, therefore, that the essence of the truth about God's love and the perfection of that love in suffering, which Christ manifested and which is the glory of the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation, was already conceived and expressed by the Prophets. The Spirit of Christ in the Old Testament is not confined to its human heroes and ideals : the length and the breadth, the height and the depth of it belong to the Old Testament's revelation of God Himself. 1 The substance of this passage will be found in an article by the present writer on 'The Messianic Prophecies ' in a little volume of aids to Bible teachers, published by Messrs. Collins of Glasgow. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 177 LECTURE VI THE HOPE OF IMMORTALITY IN THE OLD TESTAMENT We now turn to as fascinating, and at first sight as perplexing, an aspect of our subject as we have yet encountered : the attitude of Israel and their Scriptures to a future life. Every one knows, at least in outline, what that attitude is. For the most part the writers of the Old Testament display towards the future of the individual beyond the grave a steady indifference; which is the more striking that it persists among lavish and brilliant hopes for the earthly future of the nation. The references to a personal immortality in the presence of God are exceptional. In the historical Books they are limited to two heroes of the nation ; in the pro phets they do not occur; in the Psalms and the Book of Job they consist of a few cries of con fidence that the believer in God can never be separated from Him. Otherwise, the life be yond the grave is pictured as a cheerless, dusty, underground reflection of the mere surface of M 178 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE human existence, but without God or hope ; from the ultimate certainty of which the believer seeks a respite by prayers for a long earthly life, and the fulness of God's favour so long as this lasts. Such is the impression which the Old Testa ment makes upon those who search it for a gospel of immortality. It is our first duty to discover, by an examination of the details, whether this impression is a just one. If we prove it so, we have next to inquire what are the historical reasons for so singular an attitude towards the life to come. And finally we must determine the practical value of Israel's faith in this matter to the preacher of to-day. I. The Old Testament Data. In the historical portions of the Pentateuch — which it is not necessary to separate into their various strata, for towards this subject their atti tude is remarkably alike — death is as busy as elsewhere in the world, and men are as busy caring for their dead. When Sarah dies Abraham buys a sepulchre of the sons of Heth, and in time is himself buried there with Isaac his son. Jacob loses Rachel by the way, and by the way lays her to rest as thou comest to Ephrath. His own body is embalmed in Egypt and buried in Macpelah. Joseph's body is embalmed and carried by Israel all over the wilderness that it PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 179 too may lie in the Promised Land. Aaron and Moses come to the end of their long years and are laid, the one in a known, the other in an unknown, sepulchre. These are the great per sonalities, yet neither for all their greatness do they project themselves beyond death, nor for all their closeness here to God do they crave from Him another life, nor in spite of the affec tion and reverence which surround them to the last, and the scrupulous care which is taken for their proper burial, is there any hope expressed of their continued existence. Abraham, when God promises to be his great reward, is anxious only for an heir of his own body ; * and when his wife dies is busy only to procure her a grave in the soil promised to his descendants.2 A living seed and a land for them to dwell in — - that is all that Abraham's story contains of gospel for the future. Similarly, the last words imputed to Jacob are fraught with hope only for the tribes which have sprung from him, and for their settle ment in Canaan : Lo, I am dying, but God will be with you and bring you back to the land of your fathers? For himself there is the prospect of Sheol ; he is eager that he be not brought down there in grief. The inference is that the state in which a man enters Sheol is his state for ever- 1 Gen. xv. 1 ff. 2 Gen. xxiii. ; see especially verse 8 : to bury my dead out of my sight. 8 Gen. xlviii. 21 ; cf. xlix. 180 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE more.1 For Joseph the last hope is a grave with his people in Canaan,2 and for Moses a prospect of Canaan on the eve of the nation's occupation.3 Even though God Himself prepares a sepulchre for the body of the friend who spake with Him face to face,4 nothing is said of a future for Moses with God. All men, small and great, loved or hated, come under the curse upon their first parents : dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return? There is but one exception, the mysteri ous story of Enoch,6 which, however, describes not life after death, but a translation without death to the presence of God.7 1 Gen. xxxvii. 35; xiii. 38; xliv. 31. 2 Gen. 1. 24-26. 8 Deut. xxxii. 52. 4 Ex. xxxiii. 11. 6 Gen. iii. 19. 6 Gen. v. 23 f. 7 I have said above that it is not necessary in this review of the historical portions of the Pentateuch to distinguish between the strata from different periods, for the testimony of all is alike. Here, however, are the exact references. It is the Jahwist and Elohist who give us the confinement of Abraham's hopes to descendants from his own body (Gen. xv. 1 ff.) ; the death of Rachel (xxxv. 19) ; Jacob's dread of Sheol (xxxvii. 35, xiii. 38, xliv. 31), and his hopes for his descendants (xlviii. 21; cf. xlix.) ; the burial of Jacob (1. 1 ff.), and Joseph's last charge (1. 24) ; the death of Moses: the time draws near that thou must die (Deut. xxxi. 14) : thou shalt sleep with thy fathers (ver. 16) : this is the land, to thy seed will I give it, but thou shalt not pass over thither. So Moses died (xxxiv. 4, 5) ; Joshua's death and Joseph's burial (Josh. xxiv. 29 f.). The Deuteronomists add few details relevant to our subject : Moses must not enter Canaan (Deut. iii. 23 ff., iv. 22) ; his death and burial (xxxiv. 5 f.) (it is doubtful whether Jahweh is described as Himself burying his servant : see Dillmann and Driver on the passage). The Priestly Writers give us the story of Enoch (Gen. v. 23, 24) ; of Macpelah (xxiii.) ; the death of Abraham (xxv. 7 f.) ; of Ishmael (ver. 17); of Isaac (xxxv. 29) ; of Jacob (xlix. 33) ; his PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 181 So, too, in the historical books which follow the Hexateuch. Soldiers on the battlefield, kings in the midtime of their career, the innocent child, the only son of his mother, the friend whose love was wonderful passing the love of women, the righteous man, the faithful prophet, the martyr — they are mourned and bewept, but never a word of hope is spoken regarding them. As in the Pentateuch, there are traces of a popular belief in an underground abode of the dead, where these preserve the characters they bore in life and whence they may be summoned to speak to the living. But that world is outside of religion ; the traffickers with it are wizards and necromancers, whom the servants of Jahweh seek to drive from the land.1 There is again as in the Pentateuch, a single hero, who escapes this subterranean fate by escaping death, and is translated to Heaven:2 but Elijah in his fiery chariot is no revelation of a future with God for the common man. Some women receive their dead raised to life again. There are stories of prophets who bring back the breath to the bodies burial (1. 12, 13). Nadaband Abihu die before Jahweh (Lev.x. 2); death of Aaron on the top of the mountain (Num. xx. 22 ff.) ; death of Moses (Deut. xxxii. 48 ff.) (with the reason why Moses died in Moab before the entry into Canaan), xxxiv. lb, 2, Ja, 8. It is the Priestly Writer who uses the phrases gathered to his people (Gen. xxv. 7 f. 17, xxxv. 29, xlix. 33) ; to the men of his people (Num. xx. 24) ; to thy people (Deut. xxxii. 50). 1 1 Sam. xxviii. 7 ff. 2 2 Kings ii. 11. 182 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE of those who have expired.1 But even the faith that Jahweh's love and omnipotence can work such miracles provokes no single expression of hope that He will redeem the dead to eternal life in His presence. The darkness is nowhere more impressive than over the Dirge of David upon Saul. The verses of this noble elegy throb with the joy of life : the flash of the sword, the glint of gold, the sheen of scarlet, and the beauty and strength of men. They praise the services of the dead to the country and nation. They are inspired, as we have seen,2 with the feeling for greatness and the spirit of generous forgiveness. But none of these light one spark of the life to come. The poetry, the reverence, the love of the elegy are perfect; but it breathes no hope. We recognise, of course, that the soul has her hours sacred to grief; when even God in His great patience stands aside and leaves the broken heart alone with its dead. Yet this can hardly be the explanation of the absence from David's song of the name of God and of every hint of another life ; for nowhere else in all the story that surrounds«-the song do we find any promise, or even instinct, of immortality for man. When Abigail says to David : May the life of my lord be bound up in the bundle of life with Jahweh God, it is of this life she is talking, for she has 1 I Kings xvii. 17 ff. ; 2 Kings iv. 32 ff. 2 Above, pp. 155 ff. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 183 just said, Should a man rise up to hunt thee and seek thy life, and she immediately adds, but the lives of thine enemies may He sling them out as from the middle of a sling} Life was here, for Jahweh was here. When men died they were gathered to their fathers? It is a sweet phrase ; but it had no religious hope till Christ put this into it.3 Sheol was the abode of the dead, not of God, and as in the Pentateuch, so in these historical books, men went down into Sheol with such sorrow or blood, as fell upon the end of their lives, irremovable from them.4 Before we pass from the historical books, one bit of evidence for belief in the continued existence of the dead must be noted. It has been thought by critics that Scripture contains proofs of the existence, in the earlier history of Israel, of the worship of the dead. Both in the Elohist's story of Jacob, and in the life of David, mention is made of certain Teraphim or images of gods, and these are elsewhere described in connection with oracles.6 They were probably family gods ; 6 the inference that they were the ancestors of the 1 1 Sam. xxv. 29. 2 And, as in David's case, to the child that preceded him (2 Sam. xii. 23). 3 Cf. Ps. xlix. 2 with Matt. xxii. 32 ; Mark xii. 27 ; Lukexx. 38. i Gen. xxxvii. 35, xiii. 38; 2 Sam. xii. 23. 6 Jud. xvii. 5, xviii. 14; Hos. iii. 4: cf. Zech. a. 2; Ezek. xxi. 21. 6 Cf. Laban's statement (Gen. xxxi. 30), and Micah's (Jud. xviii. 24). 1 84 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE family is not unnatural, and is supported by traces of a habit of sacrificing to the dead which appear in mourning customs forbidden to Israel by the later law as alien to the religion of Jahweh.1 The evidence is not conclusive, though sufficient for more than probability.2 But in any case it points to a popular belief in the continued existence of souls after death. These were 1 Deut. xiv. I ; xxvi. 14 ; Lev. xxi. 5. 2 See Stade, Gesch. des Volkes Isr., i. 467 ; Schwally, Leben nach dem Tode, 35 ff . in support of the proof of an ancestor cult. For reasonable doubts of it cf. Davidson, art. ' God,' Hastings's Bible Dictionary, ii. 200 f. ; and for a full argument against it, Frey, Tod, Seelenglaube itnd Seelenkult im Alten Israel, 1898. It seems to me, in spite of what Professors Davidson and Frey ad duce, that whether the teraphim were understood to be the images of ancestors or not, the practice of the worship of ancestors in Israel is proved by the laws in Deut. xiv. 1 and xxvi. 14, taken along with the fact that sacrifices to the dead survived in historical times in other ancient religions, and also among the Semites : cf. Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites, p. 217. The shade of Samuel is called a god (1 Sam. xxviii. 13). The same preposition is used in Deuteronomy between such sacrifices and the dead, as between the legal sacrifices and Jahweh. Those are to the dead; these are to fahweh. When among the Adwan in Moab in 1891, I questioned them concerning their sacrifices. It was hard for an ear unaccustomed to the Bedawee pronunciation to catch many details. But this was clear. They distinguished certain spring sacrifices, which they make within their camps as minshan el-mawat ' for the sake of the dead,' from those in Mecca at the Great Bairam, which they described as minshan Allah, ' for the sake of God.' — The whole question has been fully argued by Charles, A Critical History of the Doctrine of the Future Life, 1899, pp. 20 ff. While I cannot agree with all his inferences from the texts he cites (e.g. Ex. xxi. 2-6; 1 Sam. xxviii. 13, 16) his argument as a whole appears to me to be successful for the existence of ancestor-worship in Israel. — Other instances of sacrifices to the dead, in Doughty, Arabia Deserta, i. 241, 450. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 185 called by the later literature Repha'im, probably ' the flaccid ones,' but earlier names for them, when they spoke through a necromancer, are 'obhoth; 2 and yiddVonim, perhaps ' knowing ones,' 2 and are proofs of a belief in their knowledge of, and their influence upon, human life.8 Still it is to be noted that they are not represented in any association with the Deity, and that the religion of Jahweh from a very early time regarded traffic with the dead as incompatible with loyalty to Jahweh Himself. When we pass to the prophets we find no relief from the prevailing silence as to Jahweh's relation to the dead. The prophets have sovereign beliefs in God's faithfulness and omnipotence, and sovereign hopes for the future of Israel upon earth ; but one and all ignore the fate of the individual man. Some of them have left us the stories of their personal origins, they have emphasised their individual relations to the Deity; but not one 1 According to 1 Sam. xxviii. 7, the necromancer was called the possessor of an '6bh ; according to Lev. xx. 27 the 'obh was in the necromancer. 2 In Lev. xx. 27 parallel to 'obh and in the man or woman who mediated between the spirit and the inquirer. Cf. 1 Sam. xxviii. 3.9- 8 Dr. A. B. Davidson thinks that the name Rephaim ' and the fact that the 'obs twittered and muttered and spoke low out of the ground (Isa. viii. 19, xxix. 4) indicate that they were regarded as anything but powerful "gods " ' (Hastings's Bible Dictionary, ii. 201). Still they had superhuman knowledge ; and at least the whole prevalence of this necromancy proves a popular belief in the real existence of the dead. 186 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE has betrayed his feelings about his death or bequeathed any hope which strengthened him in face of it. The great passages on resurrection and the Divine conquest of death which we read in Hosea 1 and in Ezekiel,2 describe the revival of the nation from disaster and exile. In one very late prophecy3 there is a cry that the national recovery from exile shall not be enough ; those, who have died before it comes, must rise from their graves to share it. But obviously this is not the hope of a life with God beyond the grave. Another cry,4 which rises with this, is of confidence that God will abolish death. But that confidence sinks again, and the brightest picture of the subject which later prophets leave us is of this life: a Jerusalem from which premature and violent death has been banished, and the city is full of men and women who have reached a quiet old age.6 Turning now to the Psalms, we must put aside, as we have done in the case of the Prophets, all expressions of immortality which are manifest metaphors of the revival of the nation, and merely affirm its reconstruction and perpetuity upon earth. After these have been disposed of, there remain very few Psalms which illuminate the destiny of the individual beyond the grave; nor is any of them a reasoned confidence in a future 1 Hos. vi. i f., xiii. 14. 2 Ezek. xxxvii, 8 Isaiah xxvi. 19. * xxv. 8. 6 Zech. viii. 4. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 187 for him with God. At the best they are but cries flung out in revolt from the thought of a future without Him, or in passionate confidence that in death He cannot desert the soul He has favoured with His grace. Some critics have denied an individual reference to the Sixteenth Psalm, and have interpreted its verses of Israel as a whole ; and this is not an impossible inter pretation. Yet it seems to me that the ninth and tenth verses are most naturally understood of the individual, or at least of his generation ; it was the living generation and not the nation, actual or ideal, who feared Sheol.1 And the indi vidual character of the confidence of the Seventy- third Psalm is still more clear : Nevertheless I am continually with Thee ; Thou hast holden me with Thy right hand Thou shalt guide me with Thy counsel, And afterward receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but Thee ? And there is none upon earth I desire besides Thee. My flesh and my heart fail; But God is the strength of my heart, And my portion for ever? Yet such faith did not always succeed in break ing away from the prospect of that fate for 1 The reference of the Psalm to individuals is further con firmed if we read thy pious ones (or leal or loving ones) as some codd. do instead of the singular. 2 Ps. lxxiii. 23-26. 188 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE individuals which we have already seen accepted by the earlier books, and which is now described with more explicitness. In Psalms, if not of the individual yet of the living generation of Jahweh's people, before whom death looms inevitable, there are cries that the suppliants may be allowed to continue the praise of God in the land of the living : For in death there is no remembrance of Thee : In the grave who shall give Thee thanks? The dead praise not Jahweh, Neither any that go down into silence} Another Psalmist describes himself, or his own generation, as the temporary guest of God, who must soon depart from His house and go away : Hear my prayer, 0 Jahweh, And give ear unto my cry ; Hold not Thy peace at my tears : For I am but a guest with Thee, And a sojourner, as all my fathers were. O spare me, that I may recover brightness, Before I go hence, and be no more? This is not a prayer for immortality, but for a little more patience from God, a little more warming of the hands at the fire of this life before the door opens and the guest is dismissed into the night. From such depression caused by the shortness of life other Psalms recover hope ; 1 Ps. vi. 5, cxv. 17 ; cf. xxx. 9, lxxxviii. 11. 2 Ps. xxxix. 12 f. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 189 but they do not recover by taking hold of the hope of eternity. The Ninetieth, for instance, which of all others most pathetically illustrates the transitoriness of man's existence upon earth, gives him no expectation of another, but asks for gladness through the days that remain, some little recompense for the evil of the past, some re flection of God's beauty, and the establishment of the work of His servants' hands. Even Job, when every other door of righteousness is closed to him, bursts for only a few moments into the possibility of another life, of the vision of God and the experience of His justice beyond the grave ; 2 but then, as if the thought were strange and too daring, he falls back from it upon other lines of search, and the Book closes with the manifestation of God's power on this earth, and the recovery of His servant to an earthly pro sperity. The rest of the literature gives us no relief. The wisdom of the Book of Proverbs is for this life alone ; and Eeclesiastes, which ends with a funeral, finds the only profit man can have in the enjoyment, under the fear of God, of the fleeting opportunities of life while they last ; for they are soon gone, and all things, youth and love, knowledge and effort, are vanity — that is, not worthless while they last, but lasting so little — a breath, a pulse which soon expires. In the very late Book of Daniel,2 we find, however, one 1 Job xix. 25 ff. 2 Circa 165 B. c. 190 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE explicit prediction of the resurrection of many of them who sleep in the dust of the earth, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt, and they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament ; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever} This prediction stands in very definite con trast to all that we have elsewhere found. We may recognise in it a more confident develop ment of the faith, which has already broken forth in some Psalms, of the impossibility that God should relinquish to the grave those who have trusted in Him. But we must remember that there had come in, between them and its particular notes of resurrection and judgement, certain popular views and imaginations of the future beyond the grave which do not receive any other expression in the Old Testament. These, then, are the essential lines in the atti tude of the Old Testament writers to the life beyond the grave. They reveal the existence of a popular belief in a state after death, which the earlier religion, apparently taking it for granted, left alone as outside its interests ; but which the later faced and fought, and to some extent rose above, in the strength of faith in the God of Israel. Our next duty is to inquire what were the his torical reasons for this popular belief in the state of the dead, as well as for the various phases of 1 Dan. xii. 2, 3. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 191 the attitude which the religion of Israel assumed towards it. I believe that, instead of being chilled by the whole subject as so many are, a preacher will find it, when historically explained, one of the most fruitful sources of material and inspira tion which the Old Testament has to offer him. II. The Historical Explanation. We are all probably acquainted with the curious reason which used to be offered for the silence of the earlier Hebrew writings with regard to another life. By Warburton, in his Divine Legation of Moses} it was imputed to a design on the part of the great lawgiver to withdraw the mind of his people from the overpowering effect of the elaborate visions of the other world which they had encountered on the monuments of Egypt. No nation has developed ' other-worldliness ' more than have the builders of the Pyramids and vast mausoleums of Memphis, Abydos and Thebes. According to Warburton, Moses intended to purge the mind of Israel of all the morbid influences of this ' other-worldliness,' and so he carefully excluded from his legislation every hint of the life to come. The explanation is ingeni ous, but it is artificial. It is also inadequate in light of the critical reconstruction of the history. And there is another and more natural reason for the phenomenon which it seeks to explain. 1 1738-1741- 192 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE We find this in one of the characteristics of the race to which Israel belonged. The Semites, or, to be accurate, those nomadic Semites with whom Israel was more closely connected, have never been conspicuous for their interest in, or their imagination of, a future life. The Arabs, whom early Israel so largely resembled, J remem ber their dead ; and as they pass their graves will call upon them by name and pour libations of water on the sandy mounds ; 2 as we have seen,3 they also sacrifice to them. Yet this is all. They have not, and never seem to have had, either dogma of another life, or any vision of such, un less their beliefs in subterranean jins or spirits spring from their imagination of the dead in the grave. In Arabic poetry before Mohammed's time the few sparks of the hope of immortality are, according to Wellhausen, due to Jewish or Christian influence.4 When Mohammed himself, borrowing from the same sources, preached the resurrection, his countrymen mocked it as in credible; and even now, after twelve centuries of the prevalence of his religion in the Arabian Peninsula, the Arabs, by the witness of several 1 See above, p. 127. 2 Wellhausen, Reste arab. Heidentumes, p. 161 ; Doughty, Arabia Deserta, i. p. 241, 448. I have heard my Bedawee guides in Moab and south of Engedi hail by name the occupants of un titled graves which we passed on our way : ' Ya Ahmed I ' ' Ya Dhiab.' Conder (Heth and Moab, new ed. p. 318) states that the Adwan remember nine generations of ancestors. 8 P. 184, note 2. i Reste arab. Heidentumes, p. 164. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 193 travellers,1 have not formed any clear notion of a future world. The reasons for all this are not far to seek. One of them may be the notorious incapacity of the Semite, when uninfluenced by foreign civilisa tions, for sustained speculation. Others are un doubtedly found in the migratory habits of the desert life. The shifting camps, the easily obli terated graves, the want of written monuments and records, impress the imagination rather with the transiency than with the permanence of man.2 It takes the long occupation of one site, the building of cities, the raising of monuments, the capacity for history, to sustain the memory of the dead and to hand on the tradition of another life. In the poetry of the Bible, the tent, easily folded and carried away, is the type of man's transient life; but eternity is figured in the city which hath foundations. Even Job's daring hope of his vindication in a life to come is uttered along with the passionate cry for the inscription of his cause on some monument or book. O that my words were now written ! 0 that they were recorded in a book : that they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever ! 3 1 E.g. Doughty, Arabia Deserta, i. pp. 240 f., 445 f. 2 ' In the border Semitic countries is a long superstition of the grave ; here (i.e. at Hayil in Central Arabia) is but the simple nomad guise, without other last loving care or adornment.' — Doughty, Arabia Deserta, i. p. 618. 8 xix. 23 f. N 194 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE When Semites settled down and built them selves cities, and in consequence sepulchres,1 they either developed or, as is probable in Babylonia, partly borrowed from the race which preceded them, a certain imagination of life in the grave. The pictures of man's future home which are characteristic of Babylonian literature are con ceived in the likeness of one of the caves or underground structures in which the dead were laid for burial. The house of darkness . . . The house men enter, but cannot depart from. The road men go but cannot return. The house from whose dwellers the light is with drawn. The place where dust is their food, their nourish ment clay. The light they behold not ; in darkness they dwell. They are clothed like birds, all fluttering wings. On the door and the gateposts the dust Heth deep? This was the universal resort of men and their everlasting home. The exceptions to the hopeless, passionless fate which it contains are few. So far as Babylonian records have been deciphered, they amount to one or two — as many as Enoch 1 See p. 193, note 2. 2 From the Assyrian Descent of Ishtar to Hades (German trans, by Jeremias, Die Bab. Assyr. Vorstellungen vom Leben uacli dem Tode, p. 1 1 ; Eng. in Records of the Past, i. 145. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 195 and Elijah in the early history of Israel — who were taken to the abode of the gods and enjoyed immortal life in their presence.1 For the common man the underworld is inevitable, with its dust, its joyless existence, its silence broken only by the peeping and chirping of ghosts — a concep tion derived, as all who have explored Eastern sepulchres must admit, from the noises of the bats which throng the sepulchres. The Babyloni ans called the realm of the dead Aralu ; it lay beneath a great mountain of the same name. Some scholars assert that it was also known to the Babylonians as Sheol ; 2 others, however, doubt this.3 Aralu had divine guardians, but lay outside the jurisdiction of the gods of the upper world.4 It was entered only through the gates of the grave.5 Whether the Hebrews borrowed their concep tion of Sheol from that of the Babylonians, or whether both came from a common source, is uncertain. The latter is the more probable theory.6 It is, as we have seen, in the later writings that the Hebrew conception of Sheol 1 Jastrow, Religion of Babylonia, etc. 576 f. 2 Jastrow, op. cit. pp. 558 ff. ; American foui'nal oj 'Semitic Lan guages, xiv. ; Jeremias, op. cit. p. 109. 3 Jensen, Kosmologie der Babylonier, pp. 22 ff., and Zimmem, quoted by Charles, op. cit. p. 34, n. 2. 4 Jastrow, p, 582. 6 Ibid. p. 586. 6 There are slight differences in the two conceptions. The confirmation of the evidence that the name Sheol occurs in Babylonian would, however, strongly support the first theory. 196 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE becomes most developed ; and though original to early Israel, the conception may have been elab orated through Israel's Babylonian connections in the seventh and subsequent centuries. In the Book of Job, Sheol is behind bars where men rest in the dust, and spread their couch in the darkness} There the wicked cease from troubling; And there the weary be at rest. The prisoners are at ease together, They hear not the voice of the driver, The small and the great are there ; And the slave is free from his master? When, then, the nomad Semite became civil ised, this is all that his inscribed sepulchres and monuments, keeping the dead in remembrance, brought to him. Of immortality in the true sense of the word — with God and in full enjoy ment of life — the Hebrew had no inherent con ception. Even nature appears to have made to him no such suggestions of resurrection as in Babylonia inspired hope for a heroic individual or two,3 but were not extended to the common man. The want of hope among the Semites must not, however, be altogether charged upon their physical environment : the main cause was the conception of the individual which prevailed in Semitic religion. To the ancient Semite, as we 1 xvii. 12-16. 2 iii. 17-19. 8 Epic of Ishtar; see Jeremias, op. cit. p. 119, n. 2. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 197 saw in last Lecture, God did not deal with the individual, but with the tribe as a whole. It was the tribal existence which the divine honour was obliged to maintain : so long as that was preserved on earth, the fate of the individual, after he fulfilled his length of days, mattered little. In Old Testament language, the leaves or the branches might perish, if only the stock and stump remained. In another sense than that in which Christ used the words, the gods of the ancient Semites were not the gods of the dead, but of the living. The necessities of a life of almost constant warfare confirmed the tribes men in these beliefs, and the dead were forgotten in the stress of defending the living. There was no time to brood on the past, and even in the sacred duty of blood-revenge, which other wise might have been supposed to preserve the memory of the fallen, the responsibility was mainly felt to the tribe whose blood had been spilt, and it crowded out the memory of the individuals for whom the vengeance was piously performed. The same ideas prevailed in early Israel. Up to Jeremiah's time the religious unit was almost ex clusively the nation, and the religious problem — not as in Christianity the salvation of the indivi dual — was the perpetuation upon earth of a people of Jahweh, to serve, praise and bear witness for Him. You remember how we saw that the great 198 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE ideas of redemption and providence came into the theology of Israel by the redemption of the nation from Egyptian servitude, and by the guid ance of the nation through the wilderness. The idea that God cared for and dealt directly with individuals could not, of course, be utterly absent, and we see it illustrated in a great many of the early narratives of Israel.1 But it is significant that some even of those apparent individuals are, as we learned, personifications of tribes and clans; and at least even the most personal of them all are represented as departing this life with hopes, not for themselves, but for the future of their families. It is not otherwise when we come to the prophets. In spite of their own individual experiences of religion, in spite of Hosea's sense of love for the outcast wife, and Isaiah's assurance of his own cleansing and call by God, the interest of the prophets in the fate of the nation as a whole is too overwhelming to allow them to# develop the elements of their con sciousness of a personal relation to the Deity. As Isaiah puts it, the great problem of religion, the one end upon which he and his fellows see concentrated the omnipotence and righteousness of Jahweh, is the preservation of a Remnant of Israel; for if Israel utterly perish, none will be left on earth to represent Jahweh, and the know ledge of the true God must disappear. To save 1 Above, pp. io6 f. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 199 and to purify the Remnant is the whole interest and warfare of religion, to which not only must all others be postponed, but beside the crisis and the glory of which they lose their reality. The future of the nation on which the early prophets dwell with such power and beauty is — till we reach the faint beginnings of apocalypse in Zephaniah — reached along the lines of history and upon the surface of this earth. The early prophets do not think of another world, but of this one, as the scene of Israel's ceaseless life with Jahweh — this world better indeed, freed from war, famine, storm, and lust, but still this world — and they do not always promise that the death of individuals shall be absent from it. With such national hopes drawing them on, the prophets do not stop to think — at least, they do not stop to speak — of what becomes of individual Israelites. If one genera tion fall, God will raise another to take its place. The indifference of the prophet to the indi vidual is, however, not the most interesting thing : from the Psalms we learn that the individual himself appears to have acquiesced in it. Between his feet and the golden future of his people there lay his own grave : the black, inevitable door to Sheol. Jahweh would con tinue to guide the nation, but at that point Jahweh ceased to guide him. He fell to the 200 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE dead, and Jahweh and Israel left him behind. Thus, while to us death means to go to God, to the Israelite death was to leave God. God was with Israel and in Israel : but with the dead Jahweh had as little to do as had the Babylonian gods of the upper world. We have already seen some proofs that even the pious adherent of Jahweh accepted this view,1 and from the Psalms they might be multi plied. Their date is quite uncertain ; if, as is probable, they are late, their testimony is all the more remarkable. They prove that at the very heart of Israel's religion there were pious men who cried out against death as the dissolu tion of their communion with Jahweh, but who regarded that dissolution as the inevitable end and prayed only for a reprieve till their years should be full : Sheol cannot praise Thee. Death cannot celebrate Thee. They thai are gone down unto the pit cannot hope for Thy truth? I am a guest with Thee, And a sojourner as all my fathers were. O spare me, that I may recover brightness, Before I go hence, and be no more? But to these acceptances of the popular belief, which are acceptances of despair, and which we 1 See above, p. 88. 2 Hezekiah's Psalm; Isa. xxxviii. 18. 8 Ps. xxxix. 12, 13. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 201 can hardly read without a shudder, individuals (or generations) in Israel sometimes added others that are full of inspiration to ourselves. The Ninetieth Psalm is, even in the Old Testament, the most pathetic description of the drift of the generations of men into darkness. Jahweh, Israel's dwelling-place in all generations, alone is eternal. Thou turnest man into crumbling, And sayest: Return, ye children of men. Thou carriest them off as with a flood. They become like a dream. In the morning they are like grass which groweth up; In the morning it flourisheth and groweth up, In the evening it is cut down and withereth. For we are consumed by Thine anger, And by Thy wrath are we troubled. The reason for this death is the same as that to which the Jahwist assigns it in his story of the origins of man. Thou hast set our iniquities before Thee, Our secret sins in the light of Thy countenance. Who knoweth the power of Thine anger, Or Thy wrath as befitteth the fear of Thee ? Against the universal fate which men expect, thus explained and confirmed as it is by the stern ethical principles of Jahweh's religion, the Psalmist fortifies himself and his generation, 202 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE not by the hope of a life to come, not by a gospel which explicitly gets rid of death as well as sin ; but by his faith that Jahweh is the home of all the living generations of His people : by beseeching Him to turn their hearts to the value of the days which they are still to have with Him ; by a prayer that what remains of these days for himself and his contemporaries may be filled with gladness, according to the days wherein they have been afflicted ; and that whatsoever their hands have found to do may be confirmed by Him. What a noble resolution to turn from the con templation of death to work and worship ! To us it is inexpressibly precious as the proof that Israel's faith, before any hope of a future life broke upon it, had by its native ethical principles and experience of God, conquered the paralysing influences of that intellectual conception of death, which it had inherited as a part of the Semitic race. The time came, however, when, as we have seen, even so bright and so ethical a faith as that of the Ninetieth Psalm was insufficient, and the individual, who found no victory and no glad ness in this life, dared to hope for something beyond. When exactly such a hope emerged we cannot determine ; but our ignorance of the date is of little moment beside the fact that we know how the change was caused. As we saw PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 203 in last Lecture,1 there began to brighten, about the end of the seventh century, the vision of the religious worth of the individual. The reasons for this were many and complex. The nation was breaking up, and the individual was being bidden to think of himself. New ethical con victions of personal responsibility were born ; both Jeremiah and Ezekiel give expression to them. But more than all there was the spiritual originality, the independent experience, the unique relation to God, of Jeremiah himself. I cannot but think that his example did more than anything else to develop in Israel the consciousness of the spiritual duties and rights of the individual. At least it must have con tributed powerful aid to the other tendencies I have mentioned ; and we find it expressed in Jeremiah's conception of the New Covenant. In the time of the Exile, when the political and religious institutions of Israel disappeared, the greater stress was laid upon personal qualities as the means and highest possibilities of religion : Thus saith the High and Lofty One who inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy. I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and a humble spirit to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones? The precious fruit of so much sorrow was not lost when the nation and its ritual were restored. 1 Pp. 165 ff. 2 Isa. lvii. 15. 204 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE It is the witness of all historians of the post- exilic period, that within the strong nationalism and legalism of the Jews there flourished the most beautiful personal piety; souls feeling, as Jeremiah felt it, their individual relation to God. It would appear to be from such convictions of the individual's relation to God that the few hopes of immortality spring which emerge in the Old Testament. They start from a revolt of the individual believer in God either against the horrible conditions of Sheol, the expectation of which he had intellectually inherited; or against the injustice, which God's providence of this life does not redress, and so forces the con science to appeal to His judgement hereafter. We have seen how, even when he had no hope, the pious Israelite shrank from the future which gaped for him in Sheol. It was the utter anti thesis of his experience here : it was silence, it was powerlessness, it was devoid of the presence of God. But God loved him, and had made him His own: and God was omnipotent and eternal. God could not have been to the pious what He had been, and made them what they were only to abandon them in death. / have set Jahweh always before me. Because He is at my right hand I shall not be moved, Therefore my heart is glad, PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 205 And my . . } rejoicetk. Even my flesh dwelleth in safety, For Thou wilt not abandon my life to Sheol, Neither wilt thou suffer thy pious ones to see the pit. Thou wilt make me to know the path of life : In Thy presence is fulness of joy, At Thy right hand are pleasures evermore? The other two instances of hope for the in dividual after death spring from more purely ethical reasons. The writer of the Seventy-third Psalm found his faith going when he observed the prosperity of the wicked. As for me, my feet were almost gone, My steps had well nigh slipped? He heard how many of God's people, led away by the security and arrogance of sinners, doubted if God knew, and felt as if their own righteous ness were in vain.4 From such a confession the Psalmist himself had been saved by fears of disloyalty to the generation of God's children. 1 The meaning is uncertain. 2 Ps. xvi. 8-1 1. As remarked above, this Psalm cannot be fairly interpreted of the revival of the earthly Israel from disaster and exile. It is death, Sheol, the grave, which the writer fears either for himself or for the living generation of Israel. Of course, it is possible to read the words of the hope by which he rises superior to death, as if they merely meant a deliverance for a time from impending death. But it is more natural to take them as the assurance of immortality in spite of death. And at least they contain the feelings by which such a survival of actual death became sure to individual Israelites. 8 Verse 3. i Verses 4-14. 206 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE But the pressure of his doubts was too great for him until he entered into the mysteries of God and considered the latter end of the wicked} Probably by the mysteries, literally, the holy things, of God? he means the ultimate deeds of God in the full character of His holiness. The certain end of the wicked is destruction, and the conscience of the Psalmist tells him he should have known this, instead of being un reasonably embittered.3 For himself, here and afterwards, in life as in death, the presence, the counsel, the power of God are sure. Flesh and heart may fail : God is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever. The Psalmist does not tell us how he shall rise, or that he shall rise at all. But the promises of all future doctrines of immortality and resurrection are here — in the faithfulness and power of the Deity, to whom His follower has committed himself. That it is the next life, to which he looks for the action *of these divine attributes, is clear from the despair of his vision of this one, no less than from the terms in which his new hope is expressed. 1 Verse 17. 2 ?N" 'BJIpfa ! some take the expression to imply esoteric doctrines of iife and judgement after death which were coming into expression in Israel at the time the Psalm was written. But the above seems, from the parallelism of the verse and its context, to be the more natural rendering. 8 Verses 18-22. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 207 In the case of Job the hope of a personal life after death * is the demand of the man's con science. He is dying unvindicated : here God will not appear to him nor examine his plea. Therefore he knows he shall see God after death. The individual consciousness for and in itself : innocence in her own strength ; the ethical necessities of an unfinished cause — all demand a life to come. Our survey has made it clear that whatever hopes of immortality arose in Israel, arose by development from the native principles of Israel's religion. The development may have been as sisted by the influence of foreign faiths with which the nation came into contact, but of such we know little or nothing. Whatever were the climates which helped to ripen the germs, the germs were Israel's own. Stage by stage we discern a change of attitude on the part of Israel's faith to that view of the state of the dead which the nation received from their an cestors and their kinsfolk. The change appears to be coincident with the general ethical progress of the religion. So long as the interest of the Deity was supposed to be confined to the national interests, the future state was ignored as outside Jahweh's providence. But when the religion of Israel burst its merely national embodiment, and just in proportion as the individual realised his 1 Job xix. 25-27. 208 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE own spiritual life and direct relation to God, Sheol had to be faced, and was faced. So fixed on the mental horizon of Israel had this gloomy prospect become, that many pious Israelites knew to pray for no more than a respite from it. These may be the earlier revolts against Sheol, and those others may be later which, as we have seen, expressed convictions of the impossibility of so dark a fate for the believer in Jahweh, and uttered hopes of his redemption from it. But the question of date is extremely difficult; and we must be content to note that the few late hopes of immortality in the Old Testament broke away, when they did, on the strength of a de veloped consciousness of the individual's union with Jahweh, and on those ethical principles of Jahweh's religion, which as the wrongs and tyrannies of this life accumulated, had no appeal except to a future judgement. To follow these hopes further, to trace their essential identity through that new scenery of the next life which was developed in the apocryphal literature, and to find that what gives them their strength in the Old Testament — the permanence of individual character, the need of a future judgement, the faithfulness and omnipotence of God — is what also inspires the New Testament gospel of immortality : all this would be instruc tive, but it would carry us beyond our proper limits. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 209 III. The Use to Our Own Day. But you may say that all this is a matter of ancient history and its interest only scientific: ' What use is it to us preachers dealing with the religion of to-day ? ' I do not forget that these lectures are primarily intended for preachers. It is because I believe in the practical value to such of the history of the Old Testament hope of immortality that I have traced this history through so much detail. Nay more : I believe that the practical value does not begin where at last the individual's assurance in his future with God breaks away from the visions of Sheol ; but that as pastors and teachers you will find in every previous and inferior stage of the development something parallel to, something illustrative of, something charged with consolation for, the experience of the men and women of your own generation. In the first place, we shall scarcely find to-day any parish or congregation of educated people, in which are not some almost as devoid of hope for the future as the most despairing Psalmist in the Psalter. In the thinking of civilised men there has been for years a steady ebb from the shores of another life. The causes of this are very dis cernible. There was bound to be a reaction from the excessive ' other-worldliness ' of the first half of the century : men had grown sick of its glare. 0 210 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE Their hearts easily yielded to new tendencies, drawing with irresistible force the conscience and the reverence of men upon the present and visible environment of their lives. Science claimed our wonder and expectation for the opening secrets of the material universe ; and not only the individual's future, but his present, which is the one measure and warrant of his future, shrank to nothing before the vastness of forces which rolled on their way indifferent to him and his fate. For a time the great social movements of the age seemed to come to the rescue of the individual, with a gospel of duties and hopes above the material course of nature. Yet the duties were in a present, among whose crowds he felt his littleness still; and the hopes, like those of early Israel, were for a future which his race, but not he, would share. With such tendencies religion herself largely conspired, emphasising with the absorption of a novice the wonder and sacredness of this life, and turn ing with the zeal of a penitent to those duties of to-day which she had too long neglected. Such influences were felt, and expressed in literature, long ago; now they have penetrated humanity. Common men and women encounter them, not upon the heights, where even the darkest mists sometimes break and roll past, but amid the never-settling dust of life, and with hearts which petty trouble has worn bare of all PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 211 capacity for hope and vision. Such are the drifted souls to whom we have to preach. They are largely unconscious of their exile, but some have God, all have love. When their experience of Him falls beneath the imminence of their own death, or when their love proves her weakness in the death of others, then they are stung by the sense of their hopelessness : far out to sea, not by their own wilfulness but on the intellectual tides of the age, whose progress they had either never observed, or had only rejoiced in the stir and the motion of it. When you find such men and women, you will understand that the Psalms of Israel are not, like the fossils of our great museums, proofs of the stages which our life has passed through and left behind, but are the eternal cries of the human heart. And you will tell your people that such Psalms have been left in God's Word, for proof of how His Spirit — which is elsewhere described as making interces sion for us with groanings that cannot be uttered — sympathises with those frequent, perhaps in evitable, experiences of humanity, and presents them to God Himself ; that they are here preserved in order that all such forwandered souls may see that they have not lost the road, but that others of God's own people passed through these very shades ; and lo ! the end was not only a far-off sight of the Father, but the end of the agony and strife, to which 212 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE they contributed their portion, was Christ Himself. But again, the Old Testament hope of a national immortality, of a widening and ever more glorious future for the race, which absorbed the individual and gave him power to forget his own fate, has its counterpart in our day in the strong enthusiasm and unselfish service which the idea of ' a corporate immortality ' has roused in numbers of the best men and women, irrespective of their own salvation. Such a belief is not incompatible — as we see both from the Old Testament forms of it and in many of its modern representatives — with a strong and even a personal faith in God. But to-day it probably attracts most of its votaries, not because it is His promise, but by the grand, confident notes of progress on the visible world, which, by the help of science, it reiterates, as well as by the unselfish and heroic tones in which the devotion of individuals to it is capable of being pitched. Not only have some of the finest poems of the century been inspired by faith in the glorious future of the race and the subordination to it of the individual, but many men and women of high character and full sur render to the service of their kind have been content to find in such a future all their aims and reward, without any expectation of a per sonal immortality. Life and labour in such PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 213 a faith have not unplausibly been celebrated as more heroic than that of the Christian, who has worn out his strength for others, or has suffered martyrdom, in the hope of everlasting life for himself with God. Nevertheless we cannot allow, what many assert, that the belief in a 'corporate immor tality' is an advance upon that which it has recently seemed to displace. On the contrary the belief is one which has been already tried and found wanting. As our survey of the Old Testament has shown us, it is not a hope with which human hearts remained satisfied, even when it was presented to them with all the sanctions of an ethical religion, and was loyally accepted by pious men. We cannot wonder, if the moral worth and charm of ' corporate immor tality ' should from time to time revive their sway over the best and even the most religious of human minds. Yet wherever religion assumes its highest form in the relation of the individual man to God, his Father and Lord, there, as the experience of Israel proves to us, the assurance of personal immortality must sooner or later emerge. And there will conspire with it the strongest instincts of the love of the individual for those who are dearest to him. Yet while this is true, it is well for us all sometimes to pitch our religious life in terms which do not include the hope of a future. 214 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE Most of the crises of religious experience may be achieved, as some of the grandest Psalms fulfil their music, without the echo of one of the far-off bells of heaven. A man may pass through the evangelical experiences of con version, regeneration and redemption, without thinking any more of the future than the little child thinks, but only sure and glad that his Father is with him. The Old Testament is of use in reminding us that the hope of im mortality is one of the secondary and inferential elements of religious experience. Has not Christ Himself summed up the teaching of the Ninetieth Psalm ? Work while it is called to-day, for the night cometh in which no man can work. The great thing is to be sure of our individual relation to God. In teaching man that life is in Him and in nothing else, and that the term of our days here has been given us to find Him, the Old Testament has done more for the assur ance of immortality than if it had explored the life awaiting us, or had endowed us with strong intellectual conceptions of its reality. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 215 LECTURE VII THE PROPHETS AS PREACHERS TO THEIR OWN TIMES: WITH THEIR INFLUENCE ON THE SOCIAL ETHICS OF CHRISTENDOM In the previous Lectures of this course we have had occasion to consider several elements in the teaching of the Prophets ; but there are others, as relevant to our present task, which we have hardly touched. Of these the principal are the qualities of patriotism which the Prophets illustrate, their travail for their own people and their judge ments upon them, their conception of national religion, with the place which they find in that for the individual, and their doctrine of social and civic duties — in a word, the ministry of the Prophets to their own times. But this cannot be adequately treated without an account of the growth in the Christian Church of the historical interpretation of the Prophets (as distinguished from the dogmatic and allegorical), and of what has always been the immediate consequence of that interpretation, the influence of the Prophets upon the social ethics of Christendom. In other 216 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE words, it is impossible to do justice to the preach ing of the Prophets to their own time without some appreciation of their message to all times and of its results in Christian civilisation. I hope to attempt this in a manner which shall be no digression from, but a real contribution to, our practical aim in these studies as preachers to our own generation. But besides the civic elements in prophecy there are others, which we have not yet examined. We ought to realise the conception by the Prophets of what we call Law both in nature and in history ; and their attitude to miracle. Nor would a course of lectures upon the preacher's use of the Old Testament be com plete without some impressions of the general style and genius of those great exemplars of his art. All these things I propose to take in this Lecture; the influence of the Prophets on the Christian Church in the first part ; the qualities of their patriotic ministry in the second part; and in the third the other features of their preaching. I. The Influence of the Prophets on the Christian Church and Civilisation. It is pertinent to our purpose to remind our selves once more that there is no part of the Old Testament upon which Modern Criticism has been so constructive as within the prophetical writings. I do not forget that Criticism has PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 217 already removed from many of the Prophets large portions of the Books which bear their names ; nor that we have entered upon a more thorough analysis of these Books,1 which may issue in further subtractions of the same kind.2 But whether a Book be authentic, in the technical meaning of the word, is of small interest com pared with its authenticity as vision, as truth and as the revelation of God. To vindicate the authorship of this or that chapter by the man whose name it bears is but a poor service com pared with the proof that it rises from real life, that it is the message of a true prophet to living men, and that it deals with the essential problems of human society.3 In all these high respects the constructive character of Modern Criticism may be fearlessly asserted. The great principle, that a prophet, however far his visions may roam, always starts from the facts of his own day and speaks first to his contemporaries, was revived 4 by Criticism in time for the results of Archas- 1 See above, pp. 44 f. 2 No doubt critical ambition has in certain directions of this analysis gone too far for certainty ; and we must not anticipate the final consensus of criticism by the acceptance of the ingenious but often arbitrary adventures of individual critics. 8 Even so uncompromising an opponent of Criticism as the late Mr. D. L. Moody came to see this. He said to me, and I believe wrote also to a friend, that ' it is not the authorship of the Books of the Bible that matters, but the contents.' 4 The first exegete who had any real instinct of this principle was Theodore of Mopsuestia. For his teaching and other in stances of the revival of this principle see below, pp. 227 ff. 218 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE ology to be used in its illustration ; and nowhere has Archaeology done more for the history of Israel, or Criticism more fully employed archaeo logical evidence than throughout the prophetic period. The Hebrew Prophets were contempo raneous with the Empires of Assyria, Babylonia and Persia; and the monuments of these Empires confirm and illustrate the history which the Prophets reflect. The whole world of thought and action from which the prophetical literature springs, and upon which it reacts, is almost as clear and vivid to our eyes as the world of Shakespeare and his dramas. The consequence of this exegetical principle and of its illustration by Archaeology has been a decided revival of the use of the Prophets by the Christian pulpit. Thirty years ago in Great Britain some observers of our literature and politics alleged a considerable decrease in the influence of the Old Testament.1 Quotations from it, and allusions to its characters and events were said to be growing less frequent in the speeches and writings of public men. In the pulpit of the same period the uses of the Old Testament were confined to the dogmatic, the apologetic, and the individually ethical. Prophecy 1 I suppose that John Bright was at that time the one states' man of the highest rank whose style of speaking showed any influence of the Old Testament ; and Mr. Gladstone and Lord Shaftesbury the only two others who seriously studied it. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 219 was employed for the illustration of dogma, the proof of the Divinity of Christ, and the example of personal religion ; but except for the enforce ment of Sabbath observance — which, besides, was based on the Law and not on the Prophets — the use made of the social and civic teaching of the Old Testament was very infrequent. The noble examples of the preaching of social duties which were afforded by Kingsley and Maurice 2 bore little fruit, largely I believe because they were not sustained upon a thorough historical criticism of the Prophets.2 The real recovery of the historical preaching of the Old Testament may be said to have started from the publication of Dean Stanley's Lectures on the Jewish Church, and Stanley, while he owed much to his own vision of the Holy Land and to his superb gift of historical painting, was in his views of the re ligious development of Israel a pupil of Ewald. I need hardly remind you of how the combination of a historical and a practical treatment of the 1 See below, at the close of this section. 2 Now that we have this we can admire still more than their contemporaries did, the moral sympathy and intuition which enable both these preachers, and especially Maurice (Prophets and Kings of the Old Testament), to grasp so firmly the essence of the Prophets' messages to their own day, and to apply it so powerfully to the nineteenth century. Nor need we hesitate to give some of the same praise to Pusey, who, although his interest as a com mentator is mainly in the dogmatic and predictive value of the Prophets (Minor Prophets), knew, as his University Sermons prove, how to enforce from the pulpit, with great power, their ethical teaching. 220 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE Old Testament has progressed in England, upon that reconstruction of Israel's history which suc ceeded Ewald's,1 under the powerful leadership of the Old Testament scholars of Oxford and Cambridge; or how it has spread through the Nonconformist ministry upon the impulse of teachers who are equally loyal to the principles of historical criticism. Let me give but one instance of the combination of the methods of modern criticism with fervid and practical preach ing from the Prophets — one proof of how false it is to suppose that the adoption of critical results impairs a preacher's power in applying the Old Testament to his own generation. Dr. Farrar accepts the legitimacy of the critical methods, he accepts not a few of their results ; 2 yet his preaching has always been warmly ethical and directly applied to the social problems and vices of our day. In my own country and Church the similar revival of ethical preaching from the Old Testa ment was due in the first place to the teaching of Professor A. B. Davidson, in its powerful union of spiritual insight with fidelity to the historical situations of Israel, and sympathy with them ; and in the second place to the long trial of his pupil, Professor William Robertson Smith, 1 See above, Lecture n., Section I. 2 Lives and Times of the Minor Prophets, pp. 19, 20 ; The Second Book of Kings and Daniel (Expositor's Bible ), passim. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 221 for the critical opinions which he published in the Encyclopaedia Britannica} The official result was Professor Smith's re moval from his chair, by what many of us still think to have been an arbitrary use of eccle siastical power on the part of a majority of the Free Church General Assembly of 1881. But the critical principles for which he fought were never condemned, and his trial — carried from one Church Court to another and debated in almost every Free Church Presbytery in the country — turned out to have been the education of large numbers of men in the meaning of criticism and its effects upon Scripture. Professor Smith ap pealed from the Church Courts to the people in two series of lectures : one of which, upon The Prophets of Israel, was published at a time auspicious to its subject for another reason. In Scottish preaching the broad influence of Thomas Chalmers had almost disappeared ; 2 social sub jects were infrequently treated by the pulpit, and the Gospel was preached with but little 1 Ninth ed., articles ' Angels,' ' Bible,' ' Chronicles,' ' Deutero nomy,' etc. 2 There were of course several notable services to social ethics rendered by Scottish ministers : Dr. Begg's, on behalf of farm- servants ; Dr. Guthrie's, for city children ; and Dr. Blaikie's work, Better Days for Working People. But these and other social efforts were for the most part pursued outside the pulpit. One still useful series of sermons on the Old Testament are those of William Arnot on the Book of Proverbs, Laws from Heaven for Life on Earth. 222 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE reference to the social and economic duties of Christians. Then came Socialism upon us, with all its trumpets sounding; and although this movement has converted but few to its dogmas, it has assisted to rouse the civic conscience in the Church, and to awaken everywhere a new interest in social questions. Coincident with the beginnings of this interest was the publication of The Prophets of Israel ; and from the co incidence we may venture to date a revival of the Prophets in the Scottish pulpit. Every department of religious activity felt its effects. Sermons became more ethical; the studies of Bible-classes in the Old Testament, instead of being confined to the historical Books, were extended to the prophetical ; and a considerable body of popular literature has appeared, which expounds the teaching of the Prophets and in many cases applies it to modern life.1 The effect, then, in Britain of the modern criticism of the Prophets may be reckoned as constructive and practical in the highest degree. 1 I am unaware how far this latter phenomenon has appeared in other lands. But in Holland there was the work of J. J. P. Valeton, jun., Amos en Hosea, 1894, which contains this passage : ' These prophecies have a word of God, as for all times, so especially for our own. Before all it is relevant to " the social question " of our day, to the relation of religion and morality. . . . Often it has been hard for me to refrain from expressly pointing out the agreement between Then and To-day.' And in Germany there was Cornill's Frankfort lectures to educated laymen, Der Israelitische Prophetismus (1894). Both of these are by advanced critics of the first rank. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 223 I have thus begun with our own times, because they are naturally of most religious interest to us. But I now ask you to go back with me upon that survey which I promised of the influ ence of the Old Testament, and in particular of the Prophets, upon the social ethics of Chris tendom from the earliest times to the age before our own. We shall see how strangely diverse the character of that influence has been. The candid student, who carefully traces its effects upon European civilisation, is still left to question whether the cruelties and superstitions which were sanctioned by an appeal to Hebrew example, or the legislation and struggles for reform which were inspired by the Law and the Prophets, have been the more conspicuous and influential. Yet of this there can be no doubt, that where a his torical criticism of the Old Testament, however imperfect, was cultivated, there the immediate effect upon Christian preaching from the Old Testament was sound and practical to a very high degree. Even before the establishment of Christianity as the religion of the Roman Empire the political influence of the Old Testament began to be pervasive and conspicuous. No one can examine early Christian inscriptions without being struck by the fact that the quotations from Scripture which they contain are almost all drawn from the Books of the Old Testament, but are often modi- 224 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE fied so as to give them a Christian significance.1 The application of the Old Testament to domestic life must have been nearly universal in early Christianity. The sense of the Divine protec tion of the home, and the influence of those examples of family virtue which the Hebrew Scriptures record, are frequently expressed ; nor can such teaching as that of Deuteronomy and the Proverbs have failed to permeate the private life of the Church. Besides these there were the more formal and public results. Excluded from the society of the world in which she existed, the primitive Church had to legislate not only for the worship, but for the social life and dis cipline of her members. In her circumstances, she could organise only upon a theocratic basis, and such was found already developed and de tailed within her Old Testament Canon. It is easy to perceive how, in the government of the Church — especially in her hierarchy and in her judgement of heretics — there came to be sanc tioned, by appeal to the letter of the Hebrew Scriptures,2 principles and tempers which were 1 I was very much impressed by this when reading the early Christian inscriptions still extant on the hard basalt of Hauran and other regions east of the Jordan ; and the impression was confirmed by a study of Le Bas and Waddington's collection of Greek inscriptions. On lintels of houses and tombstones the lxx. version is frequently quoted, with the substitution of Xpitrrds for Kiptos or ®c6s (cf. Historical Geography of the Holy Land, p. 634). 2 Especially in the Apostolic Constitutions, and by Cyprian. Cf. Diestel, Gesch. des Alten Testaments in der Christlichen PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 225 hostile to Christ's teaching, and which in their subsequent development have engendered the rankest tyranny and superstition. On this I dwelt sufficiently in the first Lecture. While these evils were aggravated through the adoption of Christianity by the Imperial power, we perceive from this event onwards another effect of the Old Testament of a more wholesome quality. The influence of the Jewish codes upon the legislation and public morals of the Empire from Constantine to Justinian has never been critically treated ; but this is certain, that ' the laws of Moses were received as the divine original of justice';1 and that it was their example which braced Roman legislators to put down the bestial sins, and to treat all sexual vice with more severity than the Imperial authorities had pre viously attempted.2 Following the example of the Apostles, the preachers of the early Church, whether in argu ment or homily, made continual use of the Old Testament. The prevailing method of inter- Kirche, pp. 141 ff. ; Gibbon, Decline and Fall, ch. xxviii., end of first paragraph. 1 Gibbon, ch. xliv. -. vol. v. p. 322 in Smith's edition. 2 Ibid. 322 ff. Diestel (Gesch. des A. T., 151 f.) mentions the Lex Dei: sive Mosaicarum et Romanarum legum collatio, by Licinius Rufinus, towards the end of the fifth century. It is a list of parallels between the Mosaic and Roman Laws : it is im portant in so far as it proves the high value which was accorded to the Mosaic Law in that period, but it ' does not prove a direct influence ' of that law on the Imperial legislation. P 226 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE pretation was the allegorical. This arbitrary and dangerous habit arose very naturally in the ordinary employment of the Bible for purposes of edification; and it was confirmed, partly by the Church's efforts to explain away the moral and other difficulties of Old Testament history, and partly by the exigencies of her polemic against the Jews. In hostility to the applica tion of Prophecy to Christ, Jewish writers insisted upon the literal sense of the prophetic word, and confined its significance to the history of Israel. The Church replied by allegorising as much of the Word as it could. Individual morals were, of course, directly enforced from Hebrew ex amples ; x but the early fathers were interested in the Old Testament mainly for its types and predictions of Christ. The allegorical became the orthodox exegesis, and was at last reduced to a theory by Origen,2 and elaborated into a system by the school which he founded. The effort to distinguish the primary sense of the text was indeed not wholly abandoned; but the healthy instinct which led to it was too bare of knowledge and of insight to ren der the result consistent or fertile. When the heretics began to outdo the orthodox in alle gorical exposition, the latter awoke to the dan gers of the habit they had fostered and loudly 1 E.g. by Clement of Rome, Epistle to the Corinthians. 2 185-254 A. D. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 227 proclaimed the need of sobriety and reason in the pursuit of it. But the historical sense of the age was small, and till the close of the fourth century no exegete succeeded in finding his feet upon a sound historical basis. Thus allegory, prompted now by dogmatic audacity and now by apologetic tearfulness, exercised, with almost no restraint, its confusing and evaporating influence upon the preaching of the Christian pulpit. To the school of Antioch belongs the fame of training the Church in sounder principles of exegesis, and, as their immediate consequence, in a more practical application of the Old Testament to the life of the day. Theodore, afterwards of Mopsuestia, was the greatest repre sentative of the former; John, surnamed Chrysos- tom, the most illustrious example of the latter.1 Both were pupils of Diodorus of Tarsus, who, though his works have perished and his fame has disappeared behind that of his successors, must have been — by the characteristics these possessed in common and probably derived from him, as well as by the few reports of his principles which have reached us — a teacher of unusual originality and impressiveness.2 Theodore of Mopsuestia has been justly styled, ' Veteris Testamenti sobrie 1 Theodore, c. 350-429 : Chrysostom, 347-407. 2 Caten. Niceph. i. 524, according to which he declared that he much preferred the historical, to the allegorical, exegesis. 228 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE interpretandi vindex';1 he may even be hailed as the father of historical exegesis. He did not use the Hebrew original, and had to work with the Greek versions ; but he was the first to break with any power from the speculative methods which the school of Origen had fastened upon the Church's interpretation of Scripture; and the first to follow with some consistency the lines of a historical interpretation. To Theodore the prophecies and types of the Old Testament had, besides their references to the future, a prior value in themselves and for the age to which they were delivered. Considering the traditions which encumbered his generation and the know ledge of ancient history at his disposal, Theodore's vision of the intrinsic worth and contemporary reference of the prophetical writings was only less wonderful than the courage with which he asserted the consequences of this principle in his criticism of the Psalms and other Scriptures.2 • 1 By Sieffert in the title of his work Theodorus Mopsuestenus, 1827. See also, Theod. v. Mops. u. funilius Africanus, by Kihn, 1880. 2 The only Old Testament work of Theodore's which is extant is that on The Twelve Prophets : A. Mai, Nova Patr. Bibl. vii. 1854 ; Migne, Patrologia Grcsca, vol. lxvi. His historical expla nations of the Old Testament do not of course preclude typical references to the New. Old and New are part of the same economy of Divine grace. We hear from others that he denied value to the titles of the Psalms ; that he referred the Messianic Psalms to Hezekiah and Zerubbabel, leaving only three with a reference to Jesus Christ; that he denied prophetic inspiration to Job and the Solomonic literature; and rejected Chronicles with Ezra and Nehemiah. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 229 His pupils, especially Theodoret, afterwards Bishop of Kyros,1 carried on the example of their master. Chrysostom began to write probably as early as Theodbre. His first work on the Old Testa ment was, like that of the latter, exegetical : a ' Hermeneia ' or ' Interpretation ' of the Prophet Isaiah,2 but he never finished it. Drawn by his superb gifts to the pulpit, he delivered to the Church the rest of his Old Testament studies in the form of Homilies, of which six, still ex tant, expand and apply his views — already given in the ' Interpretation ' — of the first verse of Isaiah's vision and of the Seraphs.3 1 Theodoret, d. 457. His works were edited in four folio volumes in 1642 by Sirmond. The first two volumes contain those on the Old Testament : vol. i. 'Epa-r^a-eir or Questiones to the Octateuch, Kings and Chronicles, with a 'Epprivela or Inter pretation of the Psalms and Canticles ; vol. ii. Interpretations of Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel and the Twelve Prophets, and an epitome of his Interpretation of Isaiah. An adequate sketch of his teaching on the Old Testament is given by Diestel, Gesch. des A. T. in der Christl. Kirche, pp. 133 ff . : 'Dass Typus und " Wahrheit " oft noch neben einander, nicht in einander stehen, und dem 7] phv l&ropta 4SiSa^€V ein r)p.z?s 5e pavd&vopev gegenii- bertritt ; dass die Schrift des A. T.'s so zu verstehen ist wie sie den Juden selbst hat niitzen konnen (cf. interrog. 52 in Genesim).' 2 Vol. vi. of the standard edition of his works by de Montfau- con (Paris 1835). The editor quotes with approval Tillemont's opinion that this unfinished work was not later than 377 A.D. 8 Ibid. : besides there are Homilies and Sermons from Chry sostom on Genesis and on David and Saul (vol. iv.) ; on the Psalms (vol. v.), on several Old Testament texts, and two on ' the Obscurity of the Prophetic Writings,' with others, and a 'Hermeneia' of Daniel (all of these in vol. vi.), and on the Books of the Maccabees (vol. ii.). 230 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE The introduction to his ' Hermeneia ' of Isaiah defines the principles of the new exegesis. The ministry of the Prophets to their own generation has never been more finely described — as a ministry not only of judgement but of love and fellow-suffering. ' Now of all the prophets and saints this was the spirit : in disposition towards them over whom they were set they excelled the tender affection of fathers, and by a long way outdid the sovereignty of nature ... for there is no qualification for office so important as a soul that loves wisdom and knows how to suffer with others.' 1 It is the picture of the Prophets by one who was himself a prophet; we will not marvel that the man who so intuitively understood his great forerunners was impelled to leave his study for the imitation of them among his own people. Chrysostom's homilies on the Old Testament are not a little engaged with argument against the Jews, and in defence of predictions, of Christ ; to that extent they are less direct than his magnificent preaching on the Gospels and Epistles. But from the first he endeavours to keep allegorising in a secondary place. He reckons historical explanation to be 1 Kal irdvTiav 5e tS>v irpo(pr]TQJy Kal rap ayltav toiovtov to %6os • irartpav tpiKoo'Topylav t# rrepl rovs dpxop.€Vovs aireKpvtyav 5iad/<7£t, Kal rr)y ttjs (pvireus rvpavviSa e/c ttoWov rov irepioyros inrep7]K6y- Tiffav . . . Kal yap ovSey oVtws £mTf)b'eiov els apxvs dlpsffiv as tyvxb vi". l9> 20- PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 271 own day. Is our office servile to the pride and material interests of our nation? Or do we feel with trembling that the ethical element in patriotism is, in the strong tumult of all the others, the most easily neglected, and therefore the most in need of emphasis by a people's prophets. For its sake and God's the true patriot must sometimes run counter to the currents of popular enthusiasm, and be willing to incur the charges of treason to the com monwealth, and of cowardice in face of the national destiny. We have nothing to dread from that fear of kings which once made so many prophets false ; but we have all the more to watch that we do not become flatterers of the common people. If we are to defend their rights, we must be brave to declare their sins; the offices of the Prophet and of the Dema gogue are absolutely irreconcileable. To most preachers, however, such temptations as I de scribe arise not from the nation as a whole, but from the religious section of it to which they belong. There is danger that a man grow silent upon social ethics out of regard either to the ecclesiastical policy of his denomi nation, or to its financial interests. In all these forms the temptation to become a popular or fashionable preacher — whether the fashion be one of religious temper or of political opinion — is so subtle," and so many succumb to it, that, 272 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE as we value the honour of our calling and are jealous of our loyalty to God, we ought persist ently to steep ourselves in the just and stern spirit of our great forerunners. To go into detail upon the subjects of the civic preaching of the Prophets would amount to an exposition of the larger part of the Books of Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Micah and Jeremiah. Let these four general statements suffice. First, the careers of the Prophets were contemporaneous with the development of Hebrew society from an agricultural to a commercial condition, and with the rise of the City. The social evils, therefore, with which the Prophets deal, are those still urgent among ourselves.1 Second, the Prophets, while inculcating, from God's treatment of the nation, tenderness and pity in the nation's treat ment of their poor and enslaved, dwell with still greater emphasis upon the need of justice and equity. We enjoy a legal freedom and justice far beyond those of the Oriental society which the Prophets addressed ; but no man can deny the frequent want of honour and equity among us in such social relations as are outside of the laws. Third, the Prophets, when enforcing reli gious observances and institutions, do so most frequently for social ends, or with regard to the interests of the poorer classes of the community.2 1 See The Book of the Twelve Prophets,!, ch. iii. 2 E.g. The Sabbath : Amos viii. 5 ; Isa. lviii., cf. vv. 6 and 7 with 13 and 14. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 273 And fourth, there is the emancipation of the individual from a merely national religion : the soul awaking to feel its solitary relation to God and its independence of the community only to discover a new duty and loyalty to the latter, that extends to the sharing of their sorrows and bearing of their sins — all the higher sense of in dividuality resulting in a truer altruism as we have already seen instanced in Jeremiah.1 There could not be preaching more relevant to the conditions and temptations of our own life.2 All these features except the last might be illus trated from the works of almost every Prophet, and they are equally conspicuous in the codification of prophetic teaching, which we find in Deuter onomy. In this great system of national religion the domestic and the civic duties are enforced in no legal spirit ; but with the high morality and full tenderness of the prophetic temper. There are few of the rites and institutions of a nation — the Sabbath, Sacrifice, Prophecy, the 1 Above, pp. 165 ff. 2 There is a fine passage by the great philanthropist Lord Shaftesbury on the civic teaching of Jeremiah (Life by Hodder, iii. 454) : ' If for political and public purposes there can be in the Bible one book more valuable than another to throw light on the days we live, it is Jeremiah. He was not always " looking to the sun," but he was looking to the earth, entreating, preaching, warning, threatening, promising ; and he was in consequence regarded as a bore and a blunderer. Yet if he had been attended to, Jerusalem might have survived for many centuries ; and cer tainly she would have been spared the indescribable sufferings of soul and body that followed her destruction by Nebuchadnezzar.' 274 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE sustenance of the Priesthood, Justice, the Mon archy, War, Agriculture, Trade, and Money — which are not defined by Deuteronomy with special- regard for the poor among thy brethren : the widow, the orphan, the slave and the stranger within thy gates. And the sum of the whole is not love to God alone, but love to God and man. Hear, O Israel, thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and all thy soul and all thy strength, and thy neighbour as thyself. III. Other Features of the Preaching of the Prophets. Passing now from the civic to other features of the Prophets' preaching to their own times, we must not omit to notice one, which is not only historically remarkable in the religious leaders of a Semitic people, but of some practical interest to ourselves. I mean the attitude of the Pro phets to what we call miracles. When St. Paul defined the contrast between the Greek and the Jewish minds in the words : the Jews require a sign : and the Greeks seek after wisdom} he struck a characteristic of the whole race to which the Jews belong. The Semites have always been notorious for unwillingness to receive moral truth upon its own evidence and without the attestation of some physical wonder — not necessarily of a kind akin to the truth which 1 I Cor. i. 22. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 275 it was supposed to confirm. Wellhausen has remarked this quality in the early stories of Pagan Arabs j1 and to this day ' miracles,' so far from being a difficulty to catechumens of the Christian religion in Damascus or Cairo, are regarded by them as indispensable concomitants of the Divine Word. We all know that it was not otherwise in Israel. The Old Testament contains a number of stories according to which the Word of God was accompanied with signs following, and these signs were not always like the bene ficent miracles of our Lord, consonant in character to the message with which they were associated.2 It was a recognised thing in Israel that when a prophet arose he should give the people a sign or wonder. And Christ Himself describes this attitude of the nation's mind in the words (not without reproach), Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe? All the more striking, therefore, is the absence from the teaching of the Prophets of the eighth and seventh centuries of all miracles in the technical sense of the word, and of all appeal to miracle.4 This absence is complete except for the single and very ambiguous offer by Isaiah of a sign to 1 Reste arab. Heidentumes, p. 131. 2 E.g. the signs which Moses gave on his first mission to Pharaoh in presence of the King. 8 John iv. 48. 4 I speak now of the discourses of the Prophets and not of the narratives appended to them. 276 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE the obdurate Ahaz.1 Now such a silence on ' miracles ' was not due to the Prophets' disbelief. The Prophets shared the faith of their time in the possibility of miracles, and in the stories of their ancient history which recorded ' miracles.' The true explanation is given in the Book, which is a summary of the prophetic doctrine on the rites and institutions of Israel. The thirteenth chapter of Deuteronomy takes for granted the power to give signs and wonders on the part of any prophet or dreamer of dreams. But it denies that signs and wonders, however real, can attest the prophet's message as the word of God. This message must be judged by its own character. If it tempts to idolatry, its prophet is a false prophet and must be put to death, notwithstand ing whatever miracles he may have worked. God can have permitted these, only to test His people's loyalty. This is the explanation of the abstinence from appeal to miracle which dis tinguishes the great writing prophets. They will have their message travel in the greatness of its own strength : prove itself Divine on the credit of the high religion and morality which are its substance, and be vindicated by the historical events which it brings to pass. Does it reveal the will of God ? Jahweh God does nothing, but He first revealeth His secret to His servants the prophets."2. Does the prophet's message of God 1 Isaiah vii. 2 Amos iii. 7. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 277 agree with God's revelation of Himself in history? Two men cannot come together except by pre vious appointment : 1 the harmony of the pro phetic word with the divine deed is the proof of a purpose common to both. Does the word pro duce and mould that which it predicts? Then it is divine : it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it? It is thus never to ' miracle,' in the narrow sense of that term, that the Prophet appeals as the proof of his message, but to history. Political facts now within his people's ken, or shortly to come to pass — by these he is content to be judged.3 He asserts his power of prediction : he makes pre dictions which are fulfilled. Yet he does so not through any magic vision of the future, but by inference from the religious principles with which God has inspired him, and by application of these to the political circumstances and probabilities of his own time. This I have elsewhere illustrated in detail by a review of Isaiah's predictions concerning the deliverance of Jerusalem.4 1 Amos v. 3. On this whole passage see Book of the Twelve Prophets, i. pp. 82, 89 f. 2 Isaiah lv. 11. 8 As for example, Isaiah when asserting the inviolableness of Jerusalem : or the great Prophet of the Exile when he proves the divine origin of earlier predictions of the end of the Exile by their fulfilment in the victorious progress of Cyrus against Babylon. i Isaiah i-xxxix. ch. xxiv. 278 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE To me this independence of ' signs and wonders,' when we place it in contrast to the universal custom of Semitic soothsayers and the common expectancy of all Israel, is but another proof of the divinity of the Prophets' teaching. Miracles, as Christ Himself has shown us, may be given to attest a Divine Revelation, but they are not nec essary to the highest faith; and in the case of the Prophets their absence is a stronger seal, than their presence would have been, of the Divine origin of prophecy. We have seen 1 that, in appealing to the pres ence of God in the history of their people, the prophets of the eighth and seventh centuries selected as its evidences not so much the record of physical marvels which it contained, as the clear lines of religious guidance, political growth and moral inspiration. In the same fashion they treated the history of their own times ; and saw the Divine not so evidently in its exceptions and catastrophes of natural order, as in its gradual development through political events and ethical issues to the manifest judgements of God. To them Jahweh is a God of law and order : and they delight, as Isaiah does, to reveal Him in the great commonplaces of experience and to illustrate the regularity of His methods in history by the regularity of His methods in nature.2 Thus, whether in the ethical or in the physical 1 Above, pp. 265 f. 2 See especially Isaiah xxviii. throughout. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 279 sphere, we find their conception of Him to be that of Mishpat ; according to Isaiah He is El Mishpat, the God who works by principle and law. And it is this, their instinct and conviction of seeing the Divine in process rather than in interruption, in law rather than in ' miracle,' in method rather than in catastrophe, which makes them appear so modern and which undoubtedly engages for them the intellectual as well as the moral sympathies of the present day. But it is time to pass from the doctrines of those preachers who are our own greatest standards and examples, and to consider the living aids which they contribute to the style and the temper of preaching. Schleiermacher is the only great preacher of the century who would have nothing to do with the Old Testa ment, judging it to stand to Christianity in the same relation as Paganism does. ' For our ethics,' he says, ' the Old Testament is entirely superfluous.' We perceive the historical in justice of such a view ; but Dr. John Ker has also remarked its evil effect upon Schleier macher himself as a preacher. ' One cannot but see that Schleiermacher's style has suffered from his neglect of the Old Testament.' How much of force and charm, of passion and of poetry, have all other great preachers derived from the Hebrew Scriptures ! An old German writer has said that ' Holy Writ should be our 280 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE grammar and our dictionary, out of which all the moods of Christian speech should grow.' The advice is sound, if we fulfil it not in the pedantry of the letter1 but in the spirit: not in the servile and barren repetition of Bible texts whether in preaching or praying ; but in the imitation of those tempers and affections which mould the style of the sacred writers, and of that labour which they put forth upon their art. What may our preaching not learn from the Prophets as to conciseness: as to the worth of phrase ; as to concreteness in our teaching ; as to the use of the circumstance and events of our or dinary life ; as to the use of nature and history ; as to the duty of calling things by their right names ; as to the effort to bring grace and music into what we say; as to the urgency which is upon all living truth and the passion to win men which is the heart of preaching. What preacher, who is a student of the Old Testament, can fail to be infected by the courage of the Prophets, and by their downright realism 2 — a courage and realism 1 As for instance Mohammedans base the sciences of Gram mar, Rhetoric, Logic and Poetry wholly upon the Koran. 2 ' Truth is what this people first require, and therefore the revelation of the Lord will in the first instance be the revealing of the truth. Men who will strip pretence off the reality of things ; men who will call things by their right names ; honest satirists and epigrammatists — these are the bearers of God's revelation. For it is one of the means of Divine salvation to call things by their right names, and even in God's revelation epigrams have their place.' — On Isaiah xxx. : p. 226 of Isaiah i-xxxix. (Exposi tor's Bible). PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 281 which are frequently disguised in our English version : but the careful student of the original discovers them, and they thrill him to the heart. Do not believe that the end of an accurate study of the Hebrew language is simply fami liarity with a number of grammatical forms more or less obscure. Painstaking students are other wise rewarded. It is they who lay their hands on the prophet's heart and feel it beat; it is they who across the ages see the very features of his face as he calls ; it is they into whom his style and his music pass. But the ultimate fountain of the prophetic preaching is the passion to win men. This is the secret both of the pathos and the splendours of its style. To the Prophets preaching was no mere display, but a sore battle with the hard hearts of their contemporaries, in which the messenger of the Lord worked with the pity of his weakness upon him, at a supreme cost to him self and conscious that he must summon to his desperate task every resource of feeling and of art. Go and tell this people : Hear ye indeed but understand not: and see ye indeed but perceive not. The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved. Is there no balm in Gilead and no physician there ? Why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered? Then I said, I will not make mention of Him nor speak any more in His Name. Yet it is in mine heart 282 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I weary myself to hold it in but cannot stay. Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God: speak upon the heart of ferusalem, and cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is par doned. The Voice said, Cry ; and I said, ' What shall I cry ? All flesh is grass and all the goodli- ness thereof is as the flowers of the field! The grass may wither, the flower fade, but the Word of our God shall stand for ever. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 283 LECTURE VIII THE CHRISTIAN PREACHER AND THE BOOKS OF WISDOM We have now reached the last department of our survey, that group of writings which are known as the Books of Wisdom — Job, Proverbs and Eeclesiastes. Here as elsewhere in the Old Testament, the Christian preacher has questions of historical criticism to encounter. But either the answers, which modern critics offer to these questions, are now generally accepted by the common sense of Christians, — as for instance the ideal interpretation of the Book of Job and the date of Eeclesiastes. Or else the questions themselves, where still unanswered, have little relevance to the practical use of the writings — as for example the integrity of the two Books just named. In the literature of Hebrew Wis dom, the difficulties of the preacher arise rather from problems that are religious. The pres ence in these Scriptures of doubt and specu lation, of revolt against views of Providence presented in other Scriptures; of indifference to those national aspects of Israel's religion, in 284 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE which the essence of Prophecy lies; and of an ethical teaching which is apparently utilitarian — such are the problems which beset a Chris tian's use of the Books of Wisdom. We shall best approach the solution through a study of the school of religious teachers out of which the Books took their rise. We have already seen that in the Providence of God a large part of the development of Israel's religion was achieved through the conflict and mutual reaction of two religious schools or tempers — the Prophetic and the Priestly. Now besides these two, which between them represent the growth of the national religion up to the Exile, there was a third class or guild, that of the Wise Men, definite enough, as early as Jeremiah's time, to be named along with the Priests and the Prophets.1 Before the Exile they are not mentioned so frequently as the latter, and Jeremiah appears to speak of them with impatience, and as if they were hostile to the prophetic word.2 Yet they worshipped Jahweh, and are described as claiming to have his Torah or Revelation with themselves. They are not charged with idolatry, nor with magic and soothsaying. The opinion is therefore pro bable, that they were men of influence who took no part in the strife between the Prophets and the rest of Israel, but who found their interests 1 Jer. xviii. 18. 2 Ibid. viii. 8; ix. 22; xviii. 18. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 285 and activities in the sphere of practical morals.1 By more than one modern they have been called the Humanists of Israel. Such men could bide their time. Whatever their attitude to the Pro phets had originally been, as the teaching of the latter survived the conflicts of the generations to whom it first appeared, and as its principles became an accepted part of the national religion, the Wise Men would assimilate from it those elements — and they were not few — which were most in harmony with their own religious temper : such as the main doctrines of monotheism, the ethical reasonableness of God's judgements, the immutableness of His laws both in nature and history. When the succession of the Prophets came to an end ; that is to say, when Israel ceased to enjoy the political freedom and respon sibility which were the indispensable occasion of the Prophet, and developed into a vehicle of religious truth through the centuries, then the Wise Men came to their kingdom. Their didactic temper, their instinct for handing down the experience of the past to the rising genera tion, found its opportunity. But they could not remain mere teachers and traditionalists. The body of religious experience and doctrine, which they accumulated, of itself raised questions, in face especially of the defeat and suffering which Israel's faith encountered from her Babylonian 1 Cf. Wildeboer, Lit. des A. T, p. 367. 286 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE and Persian lords. And as time went on there shot across it new lights from alien religions, with which the Jews in their great Diaspora came into contact. Breezes, not always the healthiest, blew upon Judaism from abroad. Doubt, question, research and even revolt became inevitable. The Wisdom of Israel grew speculative and even defiant, as well as didactic and traditional. We cannot state the development of Hebrew Wisdom in a form less vague; we are without the data for an exact history. It is possible to give the stages of the growth of the Law of Israel; it is not possible to give those of the growth of Israel's Wisdom. The mass of it seems to be post-exilic. Eeclesiastes is undoubt edly late,1 the Prologue to the Proverbs cannot be much earlier, and the Book of Job may spring from any date between the Exile and 300 b. c. Yet the last-named is at least founded on a pre- exilic tradition,2 it is possible that several of the collections of the Book of Proverbs were com plete before the Exile, and very probable that they contain sayings from the earlier life of the people.3 1 The language appears the latest of all the Old Testament while the political conditions which it reflects are those of the end of the Persian, or beginning of the Greek, Period. Eeclesiastes is now generally referred to the third century B. c. 2 Ezek. xiv. 14. 8 See A. B. Davidson, ' Proverbs ' in Encyclopedia Britannica, PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 287 The character of the teaching of the Wise may be more clearly defined in comparison and in contrast with that of the Prophets. I said that the Wise, whatever may have been their original attitude to the Prophets, assimilated in time the elements of the prophetic monotheism. But it is possible to say more than this, for in truth the origins of every tendency which Hebrew Wisdom developed after the Exile are to be found in Hebrew Prophecy before the Exile. Does the Book of Proverbs count knowledge as the essence of virtue ? Even in Hosea the Prophets had been laying emphasis upon the duty of knowing God in His character and pur poses for men ; x and knowledge forms one of the bases of the doctrine of Deuteronomy. Do the- authors of the Book of Proverbs enjoin and practise the systematic teaching of the young? The authors of Deuteronomy had already shown them the example. Moreover, some of the Pro phets, as for instance Isaiah in the close of Chapter xxviii., discourse in the very style of the Wise Men ; that is, by parable and epi gram, with shrewd and gnomic phrases; and seek to illustrate the wisdom of Providence by the wisdom of the Divine processes in nature. In ninth ed. ; but on the other side Toy's Introduction to Proverbs in the International Scientific Cotnmetitary. 1 This prophetic preparation for the Wise Men's theory of knowledge has been overlooked by Professor Toy ; see his Intro duction to Proverbs, p. xvi. 288 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE almost every prophet there is a sense of the unity of the Reason which pervades all things ; it becomes more and more articulate from Amos, through Isaiah, though the writer who added to the Book of Amos the famous apostrophes to the creative power of Jahweh,1 and through Jeremiah, to the great Prophet of the Exile. These, and no Greeks, were the teachers of him who wrote the great psalm of Wisdom in the Eighth of Proverbs. Even for the processes of speculation and of doubt which they carried to such daring degrees, the Wise found precedents in the experience of some of the most constructive of the Prophets. Job's challenges to the Almighty are partly anticipated by the bold questions of Jeremiah ; and in Habakkuk we perceive the beginnings of that scepticism of faith with its solution in patient endurance of wrong and loyalty to God — Watch for the Vision for it shall come and shall not tarry, now the just man shall live by his faithfulness — which we feel at the heart not only of Job, but of Eeclesiastes.2 In their interests and in their doctrines the Wise were the Prophets' heirs. And yet though they thus inherit from the Prophets many sympathies and even doctrines, the Wise Men differ from the Prophets in the style, temper and standpoint of their genius. The gift of the Prophet is vision, but the genius 1 Book of the Twelve Prophets, i. pp. 201 ff. ; ii. p. 8, n. 5. 2 Ibid. pp. 136, 140 ff. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 289 of the Wise Man is experience born of insight and observation. Both insist upon Law and declare what must be. But while the Prophets for the most part look forward and tell the people what shall come to pass because God has such a character and such a purpose, the Wise Men look back and tell what shall come to pass because under God it has always been. Both in sist upon righteousness. But while the Prophets look forward to those ideals of justice and mercy which have never yet been fulfilled on earth, the Wise Men feel beneath them the great commonplaces of moral reward and retri bution, which actually work themselves out in the experience of men. And so (as a rule) while the Prophet is passionate, the Wise Man is shrewd. While the Prophet calls to swift warfare for God, the Wise Man speaks of the slow discipline of life, with its results in wisdom, counsel and ' cunning.' There are, of course, exceptions. Many of the Prophets, as we have seen, illustrate the results of wisdom in the ordinary politics of their day, and sometimes employ the Wise Men's style of writing. Two at least of the Wise Men, the poet who composed the eighth chapter of Proverbs, and the religious genius who gave us the Book of Job, have all the Prophet's gift of vision. But in the main the two classes are distinct — as distinct as the temper of hope is from the temper of experience. 290 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE Again, the scope of their respective interests was not the same. The Prophets have set to them the task of winning Israel's faith for the unity of God ; but for the Wise that faith is won, and they take it for granted. The Prophets have to combat idolatry; but by the Wise the idols are ignored as if they had never existed. It is an agony to the Prophets to establish the righteousness and wisdom of God ; with the Wise Men these are an axiom. A great deal of this difference must have been a difference of epoch, and of the historical tasks lying re spectively to their minds. The passion of the Prophets arose from their being watchmen and even martyrs for truth not yet accepted by the conscience of the people ; the more quiet temper and methods of the Wise were due to the fact that the common sense of Israel acknowledged the principles from which they worked. The one class are a body of men wrestling with their contemporaries ; the other a body of teachers directing tHeir younger disciples. About the former is all the eagerness of the dawn; the latter have on them something of the placidity of the afternoon. Nay, round one at least of the Wise Men the twilight has already fallen ; and Eeclesiastes gropes among deeper shadows than those from which the morning star of prophecy at first arose. Yet to this distinction also there is an exception, for Job contends with his con- PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 291 temporaries as valiantly as Jeremiah. With him the Spirit of prophecy beats, and breaks away from the conventional religion of Israel as power fully as with Amos or Isaiah. It was a right instinct, therefore, which led the early Church to count Job among the Prophets. Again, the Prophets, as we have seen,1 were intensely national. You remember what patriots Isaiah and Jeremiah were; how in particular they loved their own Jerusalem; and how clear to us her aspect shines in many of their visions. We see her walls, her public places, her house tops. We are admitted to the intrigues of her political parties, her throne-chamber, her Temple. We can trace the march of foreign foes through the land, see the trails of fire and smoke they leave behind them, and hear them speaking across the walls of the capital with its timid defenders. And these are but instances of the particular and national temper of the Prophets. Throughout it is God's love for Israel and Israel's destiny in the world on which they delight to dwell. But all this patriotism and noise of running history are absent from the Books of Wisdom. It is probable indeed that the secular sorrows of Israel are reflected in the sufferings of Job.2 But neither there nor in the Book of Proverbs is Israel or Judah or Jerusalem once 1 Lecture vn. 2 Davidson's Introduction to Job, Cambridge Bible, p. xix. f. 292 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE mentioned. The author of Eeclesiastes takes Solomon, King in ferusalem, only as a type of the particular aspect of Wisdom, which he illustrates. Except in the titles of the Book of Proverbs no monarch is named, no country and no city. Politics are indeed discussed : the wilful ways of kings and the fickleness of the crowd. The Wise Man speaks everywhere from the midst of the people. There are descriptions of the life and scandals of a great city: its drunkards, its scorners, its simple youths and public temptresses : more vivid than in any pro phet. But all is human and universal. Those streets so full of temptations; those corners with their scoffers and sots ; those gamblers and wantons ; those oppressed poor whose oppression is their poverty — they are not only Jerusalem. To-day they are Vienna, and Paris and London and New York. Into his description of Job's disease the poet may have wrung the sufferings of Israel ; but what the patriarch deplores is the human commonness of his fate, and it is by the strength of a man's conscience that he throws out his challenges in the face of the Almighty. Thus the preacher may work through the Books of Wisdom, finding only the immutable elements of human experience in sin and sorrow, the brev ity of life and the certainty of death, the inevi tableness of doubt and the conflict of faith with stern facts. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 293 In dealing with the separate Books and their value to the Christian preacher, I have time only to make a few general statements concerning Job and Eeclesiastes, and then to give a summary of the teaching of the Book of Proverbs. There are three practical uses of the Book of Job which must be remembered in connection with the purpose of these lectures. (1) The Book is the supreme instance of the neglected truth that Revelation is not confined to literal history. (2) It is an illustration of the uses of religious doubt and revolt. And (3) it is a fine discipline for pastors in the treatment of hearts racked by experience, and by the inevitable conflict of faith with the facts of life. (1) The Book of Job is anonymous. The name of the hero, the fame of his piety, and per haps also the nature of his trials, are founded on tradition ; a but since Luther the growing and now accepted opinion of Protestant scholars2 is that the Book is not literal history — ' Job spake not in that sort as in the Book is written, for it is not easy [? possible] in tribulation and temptation to speak after that manner ' 3 — but is the ideal 1 Ezek. xiv. 14. 2 See any good introduction to the Book of Job, e.g. Professor Davidson's in the Cambridge Bible for Schools. The opinion that Job was not an actual man but ' a parable ' was held by early Jewish scholars. See the tradition of this in the Talmud, ' Baba Bathra,' 15. 3 Luther, Table Talk, chap, xxxi., Captain Henrie Bell's translation. 294 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE presentation, by one of the greatest poets whom the world has ever known, of the experience of innocent suffering, of the conflict of its con science with orthodox religious explanations, of the doubts and defiance which it excites, and of their only possible solution in personal trust and submission to God — ' he had by himself such cogitations: it fell out and happened so indeed as is written.'1 There is no Book of the Old Testament in which the ' minor authenticities ' 2 are of such little account in comparison with the magnificent genuineness of the experience which the Book contains. Is it silent about its author ? It holds itself almost equally aloof from all questions of its foundation on the facts of any single life. It deals with the perennial problem of Israel's faith, the suffering of the righteous. It exposes, explodes and dissipates the obdurate superstition (which even Christ had to combat3), that suffering and adversity always mean punishment, and that such an explanation of them is the only means of vin dicating God's righteousness. If for this the Book provides no substitute in a positive, ex plicit doctrine of suffering, it at least clears the ground for such a doctrine, as that appeared even under the Old Testament,4 and was consummated in the Cross of Christ. Meanwhile it supplies 1 Ibid. 2 Compare above, p. 172. 8 Luke xiii. 2; cf. John vii. * Isaiah xl-lv., Prov. iii. II, 12. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 295 in the most divine, because the most gentle and natural manner, new inspiration to patience, loyalty and hope, with the constant proof that suffering endured in these tempers lifts the mind to a stronger and more original hold upon God Himself. No man can deny that this is, in the truest sense of the word, a revelation, with its own indispensable function in the preparation for Christ. And it is presented in the form of a drama of religious experience, which, though in revolt against the orthodox dogmas of the day, is yet absolutely fair to these by drawing the characters of their representatives so as to bring out all the good that is in them ; and which in itself is wonderfully vivid, sincere and real. Before such divine doctrine and true human experience, questions about the ' literal ' history of the Book are felt to be impertinences ; and we acknowledge the truth — so significant for the interpretation of other Scriptures x — that Reve lation is not coincident with the bare letter of actual facts, but may be conveyed to us, in its highest substance, through the ideal presentation of these by an inspired artist or poet. (2) It has been a trouble to some that pro cesses and results, so full of the doubt and contradiction of principles affirmed by other Scriptures, should ever have been regarded as of equal divinity with these, and admitted into 1 See above, p. 74, 89, 107 f. 296 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE the Canon of the Jewish or of the Christian Church. Let me only point out that no narrow theories of inspiration can account for this — men are able to hold such theories only by ig noring it1 — but to an open mind it is the proof of guidance in the growth and selection of the Scriptures by a Spirit with standards and sympathies very much wider than the standards or sympathies of any single school of religious belief. In the Old Testament Books of specu lative and experimental Wisdom we see the same condescendence on the part of God as we see in the rudimentary stages of the history.2 His Spirit sympathises with His children's rude and painful struggles after light ; with their discon tent with the earlier achievements of religion, and with their revolts against ancient dogmas. Moreover, it rewards the rebel by the gift of new aspects of truth, and by guidance to firmer and more original faith in God. Therefore, so far from these passages of argument and of doubt, which the Scripture contains, being less evan gelical than the prophecy and history, they also are proofs of Grace : the seeking and the saving of them that have wandered or are lost. Let me 1 It is too little noticed that the advocates of a verbal inspira tion of Scripture (or of kindred theories) have to reckon not only with the discrepancies of fact in the Old Testament, but with the presence in it of opposite religious tempers ; and of the contradic tion by some Books of the teaching in others. 2 See above, p. 143 f. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 297 quote to you the fine words of one who has done more than any other teacher of our day for the spiritual understanding of the Book of Job : — ' The revealing Spirit was in a certain sense an indwelling Spirit, uniting Himself intimately with all the highest affections and noblest aspirations of the men whose mind he illuminated. And these men were not persons, who stood as mere objective instruments to be addressed; they were of the people. Every feeling of the people, every movement of life at its lowest stratum, sent its impulse up to them ; every hope or fear was reflected in their heart : and with all these move ments and reflected emotions . . . the Spirit of Revelation, which was not a Spirit of knowledge merely but of life, sympathised and, if the word can be used, coalesced. The people of Israel as the Church of God lived a profound life; in its outstanding men that life was at its profoundest and broadest; and as at the first the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters that covered the earth, so He moved upon that un quiet sea of the Church's mind, agitated with emotions, with presentiments, with fears, with speculations, and out of them all brought more perfect forms of truth.' 1 (3) The third lesson for the practical preacher, which I have promised to show in the Book of Job, concerns his attitude towards religious 1 A. B. Davidson. 298 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE doubt and revolt when these shall draw to him for counsel. The speeches of Job's friends ought to be studied by every man who pro poses to make the guidance and consolation of his fellow-men, in their religious interests, the duty of his life. For these speeches are, every one of them, lessons both in how, and how not, to discharge that delicate and responsible office. The writer of the Book of Job is thor oughly fair to the traditional views of which it is his aim to show the insufficiency. He re presents them by men of honesty, and even at first of courtesy, who take up their task in the sincere desire to help Job out of all his troubles. In particular we have much to learn from the approach of Eliphaz the Temanite to his afflicted friend. But the author shows how all the three comforters of Job misunderstand the heart; how little they have fathomed human experience; how easily worn out ,are their love and patience; how they prefer to vindicate their own views of God to saving the soul of their brother; and how above all they commit the sin of not per ceiving that God Himself may be working directly on that brother's heart, and purposes to teach them more than they can ever teach him. Love was what he looked for and trust: but they gave him argument which for a time PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 299 only drove him the further from God. You re member what he says : To him that is ready to faint kindness is due from his friend, Even to him that is forsaking the fear of the Almighty} There is doubt about the true reading ; but none can mistake the meaning. And yet [how ignored this great verse has been ! How different were the history of religion if men had kept it in mind ! How much sweeter and swifter would the progress of Christianity have proved ! The physicians of religious perplexity have too often been Job's comforters ; and the souls in doubt, who should have been gathered to the heart of the Church with as much pity and care as the penitent or the mourner, have been scorned or cursed, or banished or even put to death. But it must be evident to every reader that, freely as the Wise Men speculated, they never regarded speculation as an end in itself, or even as a means by itself. They held it impossible to separate thinking from the practice of life, and in a remarkable degree foreshadowed the statement of Christ: if any man will do His will he shall know of the doctrine. Practical life was not only their starting-point. It was the return and refuge of all their thought. If they 1 vi. 14. 300 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE were baffled in their search for knowledge that did not paralyse their wills. Duty was plain. The difference between right and wrong was plain. God Himself was past doubt in His character of Lawgiver and Judge. Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: fear God and keep His com mandments, for this is the duty of every man} But that brings us to the Book in which the practical and didactic Wisdom of the Old Testa ment is most fully set forth. The Book of Proverbs. Mr. Ruskin tells us that in the Bible of his boyhood he preserved till old age the list of chapters which his mother gave him to commit to memory. ' With this list thus learned, she established my soul in life. And truly, though I have picked up the elements of a little further knowledge in mathematics and meteorology and the like in after life, and owe not a little to the teaching ofmany people, this maternal installa tion of my mind in that property of chapters, I count very confidently the most precious and on the whole the one essential part of all my education.'2 In the inventory of a property so splendidly appraised we find four chapters of the Book of Proverbs — the second, third, eighth and 1 Eeclesiastes xii. 13. 2 Praeterita, i. 57. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 301 twelfth. And I suppose that to the generation of Ruskin's father and to his own generation, the Book of Proverbs proved a necessary part of a religious education. That they are cast in the oldest and most simple form of tradition — for, as the Easterns say, some are born and some die, and the old tell the young what they know; that they are addressed from a serene age to youth which has not lost its faith or its absoluteness ; that they say nothing of the intricacies or the qualifications of middle man hood ; that they echo almost no accents and re flect few lights of any particular period of history ; that their instances are drawn from the essential human experiences and their humour and wit are those of the common people — it is this which has given the Proverbs of Israel their wide popularity and caused their employment in the education of so many races. But of late years the Book of Proverbs appears to have become neglected in the education of the young. It may be that in the more spiritual temper which religion has assumed in our time and in our quickened, because better informed, love of the historical and prophetical Scriptures — the one with its romance, the other with its lofty ideals — there has been a tendency to revolt against the alleged Utilitarianism of the Proverbs ; just as there has been a revolt against the legalism of other Scriptures which used to play 302 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE a greater part in education than they now do, I had believed this feeling to be more an instinct than an articulate conviction, till the other day, when the leading English weekly gave to it a very definite expression. The article I speak of described the temper of the Book of Proverbs to be one which not only does not commend itself to the mind of youth ; but which it is our duty to keep away from the young, as a prudential and a sordid temper, laying stress upon the con sequences of character rather than upon its essential Tightness and beauty, enforcing virtue more because of the rewards she can bestow than for her own authority. This charge may be confidently met by two assertions. In the first place it is impossible to teach the folly of evil without pointing to its consequences; and secondly, the Book of Proverbs does not limit itself to this primary stage of morality but, as we shall presently see, enforces Virtue for her own sake, paints Wisdom with an essential worth and beauty, and appeals quite as much to the generous affections and enthusiasm of youth as to their prudence and common sense. The Book consists of eight unequal parts — a Prologue on the whole subject of Wisdom : one continuous and rhythmical address occupying the first nine chapters ; then from Chapters x. to xxix. four collections, great and small, of proverbs proper, popular sayings lying loose, PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 303 for the most part, without arrangement as to subject or style; then in Chapter xxx. a number of enigmatic or numerical proverbs in a more or less artificial form ; then the warning of a mother to her son against women and wine ; and finally the incomparable eulogy of the Virtuous Woman, in which virtuous is to be taken in its older and nobler sense of strength and bravery; but strength and bravery exercised within the home. Now with regard to the collections of Pro verbs proper, the bulk of the Book, it has been one great drawback to their use that for the most part they were not gathered by their ancient editors into groups corresponding to their subjects. The first duty of the reader or teacher who would feel the full volume of their wisdom, and all its various shrewdness, is to make such a grouping for himself.1 Education, Friendship, Marriage, Religion ; God the Maker of all; Morality and Religion as one ; God's interest in 1 An admirable arrangement of the Proverbs under their proper subjects has been made by Professor Foster Kent of Brown University, Rhode Island: The Wise Men of Ancient Israel and their Proverbs, New York, etc., 1895 (a capital handbook); but every teacher, who wishes to grasp the Book, should first make such an arrangement for himself, and then test and correct it by Professor Kent's. Besides Professor Toy's (of Harvard) Com mentary on Proverbs in the International Critical Commentary, the teacher or student will find useful the late Rev. W. Arnot's Laws from Heaven for Life on Earth, and Dr. Horton's volume in the Expositor's Bible. See, too, Dr. Davidson's art. 'Pro verbs,' in the Encyclopedia Britannica, ninth ed. 304 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE the little things of conduct ; God as the searcher of hearts, and the rewarder of virtue ; God and the King; God and the Poor; Equality of all men before God ; or Sin : its deceitfulness and its ruin of the character, of the joy and of the free dom of life; or such subjects as the giving and taking of reproof, sins of the tongue; idleness, anger, poverty and riches, the value of substance in life, sorrow and comfort — gather the Proverbs under these and other heads, and for the first time you will appreciate the resource, the sanity, the humour, the occasional brilliance, the frequent grotesqueness of the popular wisdom of Israel. If before I pass to the sublimer teaching of the Prologue I may select for illustration one of the more persistent lessons of this scattered wisdom, I will choose that upon the giving and taking of reproof. Both the Prologue and the Proverbs themselves insist with a very em phatic frequency upon this difficult and painful duty. Almost to weariness they reiterate that in education %nd morality mere abstract teaching of the truth is not enough ; and that personal dis cipline, criticism and even sore and humbling blame are necessary, not only for the young from the old, but for all men and women from their friends and contemporaries. You will find the words rebuke, reproof, discipline and correction in every few verses of the strenuous and unsparing doctrine of the Wise. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 305 Now it may be objected that criticism so persistent and articulate defeats its own ends ; and that we live under the more powerful Example of One who came not to judge the world but that the world through Him might be saved. In the things to which Christ cleared our dim eyes; in the wonderful patience of our God to which we waken every morning ; in His fatherly trust of our foolish and wayward souls ; in the sunshine, the fresh air, the sweet love and confidence of our fellow-men His children, all that goodness of God which by a thousand gentle touches leads us to repentance ; or again in the compassionate holiness of Christ's own life, the infinite obligations and ideals of our man hood which His character and service of men unfold ; or again in the holy lives about us which possess themselves silently in His Patience and reflect His Purity and Unselfishness — in all these we feel a divine judgement of our souls, beside which the criticisms even of the best and wisest of men sound petty and irrelevant. Yet on the other hand we cannot shut out the noisy facts of the world we dwell in ; and while we refuse to accept them as substitutes for that silent judgement of the Divine Love, which is the only sufficient rebuke and discipline of our souls, we must see that we use them, inevitable as they are, for its instruments and contributories. We live in a world that will not spare any man u 306 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE its criticisms. Some of them may be ignorant and cruel (I will deal with these in a little), but in many others we know that our consciences will not permit us to hear anything but an honest, and often a kindly, statement of what we really are or thoroughly deserve. Our own age has been very hungry for abstract and impersonal truth ; but by an exaggeration of the liberty and the rights of men, of which it is so proud, there has never been an age more impatient of personal criticism. And yet per sonal criticism, involving as it must strokes painful and humbling, is absolutely necessary for us all, not only from those whom we revere, or from those whom we love, but from those whom we dislike, or whom we know to dislike us. The only successful teaching of youth is that into which the element of personal criticism bravely enters, and is loyally accepted by its subject. Nor is there any friendship healthy which does not permit of the same strenuous duty among* its obligations. In their trials and misfortunes, still more in their errors and faults, men are constantly tempted to turn to their weakest friends for a sympathy which is often insincere and generally undeserved. Happy rather is the man who is strong enough and true enough to choose his friends not for their agree- ableness or their sympathy, but for their honesty and severe ideals, PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 307 Better is open rebuke than love that is masked. He that walketh with wise men shall be wise, But the companion of fools shall be broken for it} Yet even when criticism is stupid, irrelevant and cruel, it is, according to the Proverbs of Israel, a healthy and a stimulating discipline. Stripes that wound cleanse away evil, and strokes, things without sense and with only pain in them, the innermost parts of the belly? We all know how often a stinging judgement of us totally misses the mark for which it was intended ; charging us with a fault of which we know we are innocent. Yet it at least opens our close and sleepy hearts ; it lets in the air ; it compels us to examine. We may resent unjust criticism, but no wise man fails to profit by it. Did such criticism only drive us to prayer; did it only force us in self-defence to carry our hearts before the judgement of God: a resort to which we are not very prone and often require to be driven : surely it would do us good. But unjust criticism will effect more for us than this. Rising as it often does from the purely conventional standards of society, or from a formal and pragmatical conception of religion — under which we ourselves may have fallen — it compels us to question and explore, and so lifts us to fresh views of morality and 1 xxvii. 5; xiii. 20, 2 xx. 30. 308 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE new understanding of God. In this same litera ture of Israel's wisdom we can see how Job himself was, by the unjust criticism of his friends, stung to revolt against the formulas of the popular religion, and thereby rose to new research, with its end in larger views of truth, and a more original hold upon God. So much for the Proverbs of Reproof. A teacher or preacher who has made the classifica tion advised above, will find materials as sound and various under any of the other titles suggested. But it is time now to turn from these scattered couplets to the great poem with which the Book of Proverbs opens, Chapters i. to ix. This is remarkable not only for its very beautiful per sonification of Wisdom, but for the fact that it contains in Chapter viii. almost the only meta- physic to which the poetry of the Wise attained. And first I think you shall feel from it how very unjust^ is that charge of utilitarianism of which I spoke. For from the outset we learn that the Wisdom which the Wise ^inculcate is not the slow, prudent thrift of life, gathered by petty experiences, more or less sordid and selfish : but is the reverent and whole-hearted acceptance of great principles, such as capture the heart, stir us to enthusiasm, and lift us above ourselves. In contrast to the prophets who won their truth by vision, the wise men got theirs by experience. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 309 Yet do not understand by this that they would counsel their disciples to wait for their own experience — to gather wisdom merely by trying life as it came to them. They would have them begin with wisdom from the first, get hold of her principles, submit to her discipline, and then test her in all their daily fortunes and duties. We often hear the phrase : ' Experience teaches fools ' : but not so often its counterpart, the strength of the wise is their wisdom. Addressing those who stand on the borders of manhood, wistfully looking forward to that experience of life from which in their time most men have foolishly fancied that Wisdom is to be gained, the Wise Poet passionately reiterates that there is a Wisdom which comes before experience and without which experience itself is too often only the belated and melancholy recognition of what might have been. To the young and the simple he cries : I have something to give which life by itself can never give; but of which if you take it now you will find experience to be daily the stronger proof and richer reward. The beginning of wisdom, he says, is to get wisdom? Principles are absolutely necessary for all who begin the work of life : principles which we accept, accord ing to this Poet, partly on their own authority and partly upon their illustration in the lives we love and honour the most. Before all ex- 1 iv. 7. 310 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE perience are Conscience and the Fear of God ; obedience to those who are wiser and reverence for the accumulated wisdom of the nation. The Wise Men found their principles, as Mazzini put it, in the agreement of conscience and history : the harmony of the moral sense in a man himself with the best experience of his race. Hence on reverence, on meekness, on the native instinct for truth ; as on the self-evidencing character of truth and its beauty, the poem insists again and again. But this is all in a direction the very opposite of utilitarianism. The pursuit of Wisdom is another subject of the Poem : which regards it as a mutual and responsive process — we seeking Wisdom, but Wisdom also seeking us. By an age like our own, which has so much lost both the faculty of attention and of pro longed meditation — and which demands from its most voluminous teachers that its mental food shall be broken up for it and given under headlines and in paragraphs — by such an age the instruc tion of this Poem may well be taken to heart. I know no teachers who lay more stress upon the cultivation of the mental power of attention : that sure and expert grip of the mind without which both reason and faith are impossible and memory itself becomes a confused and inarticulate pain. They urge them to lay hold on wisdom, to purchase understanding, to hearken, to listen, to PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 311 fasten — so that thou incline thine ear unto wisdom and apply thine heart to understanding. Yea if thou seek her as silver and search for her as for hid treasures then shalt thou understand the fear of Jahweh and find the knowledge of God} These powers of attention and concentration the poem allies with purity of heart, illustrating the dis tractions and dissipation of impure or covetous thoughts. On the whole subject of the moral habits and the intellect, or the connection between purity of heart and the enthusiasm for hard work, there is no teaching in all literature more sane and more bracing. But to such strenuous endeavours the Poem tells us there is a liberal response from the very heart of the universe. Wisdom is not conceived after the fashion in which others have dreamt of her, as a slumbering deity difficult to rouse ; or as a jealous one awake only to guard her secrets from men and to baffle them in their pursuit of her — the path to her presence strewn with the bones of those who have sought her in vain. She is human and near and kind : a Woman clothed with beauty, visible to every eye and with de sire for all in whom the love of her beauty has been wakened : pitiful, solicitous, urgent, liberal, redemptive : / love them that love me And they that seek me early shall find me? 1 ii. 2-4. * viii. 17. 312 MODERN CRITICISM AND THE Like the highest wisdom of all the great races, this also is represented as popular. Though the fellow of God and the artificer of the Universe, her home is in the habitable parts of the earth, and her delights with the children of men. Like Socrates and like Jesus she is a street-preacher, a frequenter of markets and the assemblies of civic life : Wisdom crieth aloud in the street. She uttereth her voice in the broad places. She crieth in the chief place of concourse At the entering in of the gates. In the city she uttereth her words} But she is popular and public only for a higher end. In the secret of the Universe beats the desire to save men, and the Wisdom of God is at the heart of it redemptive : Unto you, O men, I call, And my voice is to the sons of men. 0 ye simple, understand wisdom, And ye fools, be of an understanding heart. For whoso findeth me findeth life, And he that misseth me wrongeth himself? Wisdom descending from God's right hand to plead with the man on the street ; the final passion and glory of all the forces and faculties of the Universe, to win the common and the simple from sin ! It is again the Spirit of Christ that we feel. 1 i. 20 f. 2 viii. 4 (., 35 f. PREACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 313 And hence we have those alternative pictures of Wisdom and Sensuality, whose realism is so striking. Why are both thus set side by side, as women of beauty and attraction, urgent enter tainers of mankind, but with the intention that the Wisdom of the higher life shall be made to appear as popular, pervasive and persistent as ever the cunning of the lower has proved itself to be ; that our hearts shall be driven to feel as hunted and haunted by temptations to a life of virtue and wisdom, as they ever were by the temptations of the flesh and the world ? That is a vision, which the preacher of to day must heartily welcome : when the oppor tunities to vice are on every side so open, so attractive, in many cases so apparently secure ; when on the other hand our unpurged eyes feel righteousness to be so abstract and so arduous. The vision of Wisdom would show us that this is not true. Righteousness is not abstract nor unreal ; not hard to find in the crowd about us, nor in her beginnings beyond the reach of any, however thronged or trampled by the world. Everywhere her gates are open, her presence manifest, her joys obvious and solid. She dwells with men. There is not an arena on which we are called to live, but is brilliant with the incarnate examples of righteousness and purity. She dwells with God, and was with Him when the world was made. The forces of the Universe are 314 MODERN CRITICISM on the side of the will that chooses virtue : and to the ignorant and the wandered, if they have but one spark of desire for what is pure and honest and lovely, the heart of God Himself comes forth with the desire to teach, to lift, to restore. This is the Spirit of Christ in Hebrew Wisdom, and with it we may suitably close our study of Wisdom's Books. INDEX Abarim, 69 «. Addis. Documents of the Hexa teuch, 33, 40, 52 «., 105 «., 106 n. Alexandria, School of, 226, 231. Allegorising interpretation of the Old Testament by the Christian Church, Lecture VII. passim. Ambrose, 231. America, criticism of the Hexa teuch, 40; Semitic scholarship in the seventeenth and eigh teenth centuries, 250. Anthropomorphisms in the Old Testament, 175. Antioch, School of, 227, 231. Apostolic Constitutions, 224 11. Aquinas, Thomas, 235. Arabs, pre-Mohammedan litera ture of, 116, 125. Archaeology and modern criticism, 31, 56 ff. ; archaeology and the Pentateuch, 58, 90 ff., 99 ff. ; and the Prophets, 65, 217 f. Arnold, Matthew, 149. Arnot, William, 75; Laws from Heaven for Life on Earth, 221 «•, 3°3 »¦ Assizes of Jerusalem, 253 n. Astruc, Conjectures, etc., 34, 248 n. Augustine, 6, 231 ff. ; works of, 232 n., 233 «. ; De Civitate Dei, 252 f. Authority and Archeology, 61 «., 67. Baalim, worship of, 119 f. Babel, Tower of, 91. Babylonia, discoveries in, 90 ; lit erature, 91; monuments, 116, 118; tablets, 60. Babyl. Expedition of the Univ. of Pennsylvania, 91 n. Bacon, Professor, 40. Ball, 40. Baumgartner, Professor, 240 n. Beecher, Henry Ward, 75. Beersheba, 105. Begg, Dr. James, 221 n. Bell, Capt. Henrie, 257 n., 293 n. Bennett, Prof., 40, 49 n. Bernard of Clairvaux, 235. Bethel, 47, 105 ; origin of name, 38' Bethpeor, 70 n. Beugnot, Le Comte, 253 «. Beza, 240 n. Bible Dictionary, Hastings', 37 n., 40, 42, 55, 64 »., 103 n., 107, 111, 161 »., 174 «., 184 «., 185, etc. Blaikie, Dr. W. G., 221 ». Bleek, 37. Bochart, Samuel, 249 «. Book of the Twelve Prophets (Ex positor's Bible), 85, 88 f., 103 n., 159 n. 316 INDEX Boston, Thomas, 250. Briggs, Professor, 40. Bright, John, 218 n. British Museum, Guide to the Babylonian and Assyrian Col lections, 61 n., 90 f. k. Brown, Professor Francis, 55. of Wamphray, 250. Brugsch, 64. Buchanan, George, 252, 260 f. Budde, Professor, 7 «., 40, 114 »., 115 k., 132 n., 138 «., 151 «., 161 n. ; Biblische Urgeschichte, 97 n. Butler, Bishop, 75. Buxtorf, 248 n. Calvin, 6; as exegete, 146; 240 ff. ; political use of Old Testament, 252, 258 ff. Candlish, Dr. Robert, 75. Canon of the New Testament, 5 ff. of the Old Testament, the history of its formation, 7 ff . ; in Christ's day, 10; the testimony of the Apostles, 16 f. Carlyle, Thomas, 267 ; Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, 244 n. Chalmers, Thomas, 221. Charles, Prof., Critical History of the Doctrine of the Future Life, 184 n. See also Preface. Chedorlaomer, 62 «., 100. Cheyne, Canon, 40, 80 n. ; Founders of Old Testament Criticism, 33 n. ; Origin of the Psaller, 87 «., 88 n. ; In troduction to the Book of Isaiah, 161 n. Christianity, Semitic source of, 117. Chronicles, Books of, their char acter, S3 f. Chronology, Babylonian, 90 f. «. ; Biblical, 66, 90 f . Chrysostom, 227 ff. Clement of Rome, Ep. to the Corinthians, 226 n. Coccejus, 243 11. Colenso, Bishop, 76. Collins, 248 n. Cornill, Der Israelitische Prophet- ismus, 107 «., 222 k. Council of Carthage, 5. Councils of the Church, 5, 8. Covenant, the Idea of, 137 ff., 245 ff. Creation, dates of, 90. Cunaus, 249 n. Cyprian, 224 n. Dante, De Monarchia, 236 n., 252, 234. David, his history, 78 ff. ; and the Psalms, 86 ff . ; his character, 155 ff . ; his Dirge upon Saul, 155 ff., 182 f. See also 256. Davidson, Professor A. B., m «,, 114 «., 184 «., 185 «., 220, 268 /<., 286, 291 n., 293 «., 297 «•, 3°3 »¦ Deborah, Song of, 142 ff. De Dieu, 248 n. Delitzsch, 40. De Montfaucon, 229 «., 230 n. Denney, Professor, 14. Deuteronomists, the, 37, 42 ;<.; their view of the conquest of Palestine, 47 f. ; their date, 50 f., 58 ff., 69 f. ; their references to death, 180 n. 7. Deuteronomy, 7 ; its use by our Lord, 11, 163; its place in the evangelical preparation, 162 f. ; its religion purely national, ib. ; its civic teaching, 273 f. ; its INDEX 3i7 influence on the Books of Wisdom, 287. De Wette, 37. Dickson (on the Psalms), 250 n. Didron, 256 n. Diestel, Geschichte des Allen Tes- tamentes in der Christlichen Kirche, 224 «., 225 «., 229 «., 231 »., 235, 240, 243, 253 n. Dillmann, 40, 180 ». Diodorus of Tarsus, 227. Dods, Marcus, Genesis (Exposi tor's Bible), 97 n. ' Doublets ' in the Old Testament histories, 33, 35, 38, 44, 47 ff., 78. Doubt and speculation in the Old Testament, 283, 295 f. Doughty, Arabia Deserta, 184 «., 192 «., 193 n. Driver, Canon, 37 «., 40, 43 n., 51 n., 52 «., 62 n., 64 n., 67, 87 «., 91 n., 100 «., 103 »., 107 «., 161 «., 180 n. Drummond, Prof. Henry, 27 f. Duhm, Professor, 161 n. Ebers, 64. Edom, 103. Edwards, Jonathan, 251 «. Egyptian discoveries, 61 ff., 90 f., 100. Eichhorn, 35. Eisenmenger, 249 n. Elohist Writers, the, 35, 38. See under Jahwist. Encyclopedia Biblica, 7 «., 17, 37, 40, 55 «., 62 «., 69 »., etc. Encyclopedia Britannica, 286 «., 3°3 »• Epic of Ishtar, 196 n. Erpenius, 248 n. Estlin Carpenter, 40. Euphrates, 69, 99. Eusebius, 6 «. Ewald, 37, 220. Expositor, 115 «., 242 «., 268 «. Farrar, Dean, 220, 220 n. Federal Theology, 245 ff. Filmer, Sir Robert, Patriarcha, 262. Findlay, Professor, Expositor's Greek Testament, 19 n. Foster, John, 75. ' Fragmentary Hypothesis,' 36. Free Church of Scotland (General Assembly of 1881), 221. Frey, 184 n. Future Life, attitude of Old Tes tament writers to, Lecture v., Sections 1. and II. The uses of their doctrine to our own day, Section in. Geddes, Father, 36 f. Gibbon, Decline and Fall, 225 n. Gilgal, 105. Gladstone, W. E., 218 «. Goldwin Smith, Professor, 25. Golius, 248 n. Goodwin (Moses and Aaron), 249 n. , Puritan preacher, 244. Goshen, 100. Graf, 40, 46 n. Gray, G. B., 52 «• Gregory, 6. Grotius, 248 11. Guide to the Bab. and Assyrian Room (British Museum), 61 »., 91 n. Gunkel, Schopfung und Chaos, 61 K. Guthrie, Dr., 221 n. 3*8 INDEX Hackmann, Zukunftserwartung des fesaia, 161 «. Harford-Battersby, 40. Harran, position of, 99 «. Hasselquist, 249 n. Haupt, Sacred Books of the Old Testament, 42, 49 «., 51 «., 78 n. Hebrew Proper Names, 52 ». Heine, 245 n. Henry, Matthew, 147, 156. Herzog, Real-Encyclopddie, 240 n. Hexateuch, composition of, chaps. 11. and in. High Priest, the, 172 ff. Hilary of Poitiers, 231 n. Hilprecht, 91 n. Histoire du Peuple d' Israel, 118 n. Histoire Generate des Langues Semitiqucs (Renan), 118 n. Historical Review, 105 «. Historical Geography of the Holy Land, 68, 1 52, 224 n. Historical Books of Old Testa ment, composition of, 43 f. Hitzig, 69 n. Hobbes, 248 n. Holzinger, 40. Hommel, Professor, 46, 58. Hooker, 262. Horeb, 70 n. Horton, Dr., 203 n. Hugo St. Victor, 172. Hupfeld, Sources of Genesis, 38. Hutchison (on Minor Prophets), 250 n. Ilgen, 35. Immortality, the Hope of, in the Old Testament, Lecture v. ; ¦the belief in, to-day, 209 ff . ; ' corporate immortality,' 212 ff. Incarnation, true prophecy of, 174 f. Inquisition, 24, 253. Islam, Semitic source of, 1 16. Israel. For a sketch of the early history of the religion : its Semitic origins, its contrast with other Semitic religions, its ethical uniqueness, and the factors of this, see Lecture iv. For the development of the Ideas of Grace, Service, Sacri fice, see Lecture v. ; national character, 102 f. Jahwist and Elohist Writers, the, 34, 39 ; their view of the conquest of Palestine, 48 ; their date, 50 f., 38 f., 62 f., 69 f., 105 ; their references to death and Sheol, 180 n. 7. James 1., 252, 262. Jamieson, 230. Jamnia, Synod of, 8. Jastrow, Religion of Babylonia, 195 n. Jeremias, Die Bab. Assyr. vom Leben nach dem Tode, 194 ff. Jerome, 234. Job, the Book of, Lecture viii. ; its attitude to a future life, 193, 207. Joshua, composition of Book of, 47- Judaism, Semitic source of, 116. Kautzsch, 40, 78 «. Kent, Professor Foster, 303 ». Ker, Dr. John, 279. Kingsley, Charles, 75, 219. Kirkpatrick, Professor, 161 n. Knox, 252, 260 f. Kostlin, 239. Kuenen, 40, 136, 151 ; Gesammelte Abhdndlungen, 115 n. INDEX 3i9 Lamech, Song of, 96 f. Le Bas and Waddington, 224 n. Licinius Rufinus, Lex Dei, 225 n. Lightfoot, 249 n. Lindsay, Prof. T. M., 242 n. Livingstone, John, 250. Locke, John, 262. Luther, 6, 237, 243; Table Talk, 237 rt. ; political use of Old Testament, 252, 257 f., 293 n. Mackintosh, Robert, Christ and the few ish Law, 14 u. Mai, A., Nova Patro. Bib!., 228 «. Marti, Geschichte der Israel. Re ligion, 161 11. Mather, Cotton, 251 n. Maundrell, 249 n. Maurice, F. D., 75, 219, 264. Mazzini, 267, 303. Meier, E., 151 «. Melanchthon, 237. Merenptah, 100 n. Messiah, the, 159 ff., 174 f. Messianic Prophecy, 146 f. Migne, Patrologia Greca, 228 n. Milton, 252, 262. Mitchell, Prof., 42 n. Mizpeh, 105. Moab, 70 «. Mohammed (on resurrection), 192. Monotheism among the Semites, 117 ff.; rise of, 131 ff., 143. Moody, D. L., 217 n. Moore, Professor G., 37, 40 ; on American Old Testament Scholarship in Zeitschrift fiir A. T. Wissenschaft, 250 n., 251. Moreh, terebinth of, 105. Miiller, W. M., Asien und Europa, 100 n. Nebo, 70 «. Nehemiah, 7. New England's First Fruits, 250 n. Newman, John Henry, 75 ; a letter on punishment of heretics, 24. Nikolaus of Lyra, 236 n. Noldeke, 40. Old Testament Criticism, history of, 33 ff- Oriental Congress (Paris 1897), 61. Origen, 226 ff., 231, 237 «. Patriarchal narratives: archaeo logical evidence, 99 ff. Pentateuch, composition of, 33 ff. ; date of its constituent docu ments, 50 ff . ; and archaeology, 58 ff., 68 ff . ; historical basis in, 90 if. ; attitude to a future life, 178 ff . ; Luther on its authorship, 238. Persecutions by the Church, 23 f. Pilgrim Fathers, scholarship of, 250. Pisgah, 70 n. Pococke, 249 n. Poetical Books of Old Testament, composition of, 44. Polytheism among the Semites, 119 ff.; in Israel, 129 n. Priestly Writers, the, 39; their view of the conquest of Pales tine, 47 f. ; their date, 50 ff., 58 ff., 69 f. ; their references to death, 180 n. 7. Prophetical Books of Old Testa ment, composition of, 44; effects of modern criticism upon, 45, 320 INDEX 53; archaeology and criticism, 65, 217 ff. Prophets, the, their preaching to their own times, with its influ ence on the social ethics of Christendom, Lecture viii. , their testimony to Israel's earlier history, 137, 265 ff , ; the Spirit of Christ in them, 158 ff. ; their attitude to a future life, 185 f., 197 ff., 202 ff. ; their revival in the modern pulpit, 218 ff. ; their ministry defined by Chrysostom, 230; neglected by the Medi aeval Church, 235 f. ; the Re formers' use of them, 237 ff. ; the use of them in the seven teenth and eighteenth centuries, 244 ff. ; their influence on the political ideals of Christendom, 252 ff. ; contrasted with the Apostles, 263 f. ; their double patriotism, 265 ff. ; four features of their civic teaching, 272 f . ; their attitude to miracles, 274 ff. ; their predictions, 277 ; their style, 279, and inspiration, 281 ; their influence on the Wise Men, 285, 287 ; contrasted with the Wise Men, 288 ff. Psalms, their titles, dates and historic circumstance, 86 f. ; their attitude to a future life, 186 ff., 199 ff., 204 ff. ; Macca bean Psalms, 9. Records of the Past, 61 11., 194. Reland, 249 «. Renan, 105 «., 118, 120, 149. Reproof and criticism, its uses according to Proverbs, 304 ff. Reuchlin, 236 n. Reuss, 6. Revelation, its meaning, 1 1 1 f . ; A. B. Davidson on, 11 1 «., 297 ; not coincident with history, 74. 89, 92, 108 f., 293 ff.; its conditions, 140, 143 f. See also Preface. in the Old Testament ; its proof, Lecture iv. ; the Old Testament teaching about it, m ff . ; the only explanation of theethical uniqueness of Israel's religion, 126 f. ; assured by modern criticism, 115 ff . ; con sistent with the tribal character of early Israel's God, 143 f. See also Lecture 1. : 2, 11, 15, 19. Robertson, Professor James, Poetry and Religion of the Psalms, 87 n. of Brighton, 73. Ruskin, John, Prceterita, 300. Rutherford, Samuel, 252, 260, 262. Ryle, Professor, 37 «., 40; Canon of the Old Testament, 7 «. ; Early Narratives of Genesis, 97 «. Sacrifice, Old Testament doc trine of, 169 ff. ; Levitical sacrifices, 170; their relation to Christ, 171 f. See also under Vicarious. Sacrifices to the dead, 183 ff. , places of, in the eighth cen tury, 105. Salmasius, 252, 262. Savonarola, 236. Sayce, Professor, 46, 58 f., 64 f. Scaliger, 249 n. Scheil, Father, 61. INDEX 321 Schleiermacher, 279. Schultens, 249 n. Schultz, Old Testament Theology, 170 K. Schwally, Leben nach dem Tode, 184 n. Selden, 249 n. Semitic Race, the, their religious qualities, 116 f . ; Renan's as sertion that they are naturally monotheists, 118; their poly theism, 118 f . ; the opportunity tor monotheism in their religion, 121 f. ; influences aiding this, 122 ff. ; Israel's exceptional monotheism, 126 ; Israel's Semitic character, 127 ff. ; their attitude to a future life, 192 ff. ; its reasons, 193 f. ; their de mand for physical signs in attestation of moral truth, 274 f. Scholarship in the eighteenth century, 248 ff. 'Septuagint,' 17 f. Shaftesbury, Lord, 218 «., 273 «. Sheol, 177; in the Pentateuch, 179 f. ; in the historical Books, 183 ; in Babylonian literature, 194 f. ; in the Psalms, 199 ff. Sieffert, 147 «., 228 n. ' Signs and wonders,' 274 ff. Simon (the critic of the Penta teuch), 33, 240 »., 248 n. Sinai, 70 n. Skinner, Professor, 161 n. Smith, Henry, 244. , Professor H. P., 78 n. , W. Robertson, 40 ; on Renan, 105 n. ; Old Testament and the fewish Church, 55 «., 56 n., 87 ?«., 88 «., 112 n., 115 «. ; Religion of the Semites, 121, 124, 184 ». ; Prophets of Israel 221 ; articles in Encyclopedia Britannica, 221 ; his trial and its results, 221. Social ethics of Christendom as affected by the Prophets, Lecture VII. Teaching of the Old Testa ment, Lecture VII. passim ; with Jeremiah, 166; in Proverbs, 302 ff. Spencer, J., 249 n. Spinoza, 248 n. Spirit, the Old Testament doctrine of the Divine, in ff., 255 f. of Christ in the Old Testa ment, Lecture v. Spurgeon, 75. St. Paul on the Old Testament, 15 «¦ Stade, 40 ; Geschichte des Volkes Isr., 184 «. Stanley, Dean, Lectures on the fewish Church, 219. Stark, 42 n. Steindorff, 64, 100 n. Sterne, 74, 75. Steuernagel, 42 n. Suffering and effort imputed to God, 174 f. Sufferings of the Righteous. See ' Vicarious suffering.' Tell-el-Amarna letters, 58. Teraphim, 183 f. Textual Criticism of the Old Testament : its problems in creased by Old Testament quotations in New Testament, 17, 21 f., 29. Theodore of Mopsuestia, 147 n., 2iy «. ; his critical theories, 227 f. Theodoret of Kyros, his works on 32 2 INDEX the Old Testament, and critical theories, 229. Tholuck, 240 n. Tillemont, 229 n. Toy, Professor, on Proverbs, 287, 3°3 »• Tubingen School of critics, 46. Typology, 145 ff. Ur of the Chaldees, position of, 99. Ussher, 249 ». Valeton, J. J. P., Amos en Hosea, 222 n. Vater, 36. Vatke, 46 «. Vicarious suffering in the Old Testament: with Jeremiah, 167 ; Isaiah lii.-liii., 167 ff. ; the truth of it, the fruit of ex perience, 168 f. ; the Suffering Servant of Jahweh and Christ, 171. Volz, Paul, Vorexil - Prophetic und der Messias , 161 n. Walker, Dr. James, Theology and Theologians of Scotland, 246 f. Warburton, Divine Legation op Moses, 191. Wellhausen, 40, 49 n. ; Reste arab^ Heidentumes, 125, 192, 275. Westphal, 40. Wildeboer, 285. Winter, 151 n. Wisdom, the Hebrew, and the Christian Preacher, Lecture viii. ; the figure of Wisdom in Proverbs and her character, 308 ff. , Books of, 283 ff . ; their practical uses, 293 ff. Wise Men, the, their history in Israel, 284 ff. ; what they owed to the Prophets, 287 f. ; con trasted with the Prophets, 289 ff. Woods, F. H., 40. Zimmern, 61 «. Zwingli, 6, 238. i. INDEX OF SCRIPTURE REFERENCES Genesis, Book of, io, 90 ff. Gen. i.-iii. 33; i.-xi. 97 n. ; ii. 14, 69 ». ; iii. 129 n. ; iii. 19, 180 n.\ iv. 10 «., 95 ft. ; v. 23, 24, 180 n. ; vi. ff., 33, 95 n. ; vi. 6, 172 n. ; xi. 95 n. ; xiv. 61 f., IOO ; xv. I ff., 179 «., 180 n. ; xv. 18, 69 ». ; xv. 4, 6, 15 n. ; xvii. 5, 15 n. ; xxiii. 180 ft. ; xxiii. 8, 179 «. ; xxiv. 10, 99; xxv. 7, 17, 180 «., 181 «. ; xxviii. 10- 22, 38; xxxi. 13, 38; xxxi. 21, 69 k. ; xxxi. 30, 183 «. ; xxxii. 23-33. 38 ; xxxv- 9-'S. 38 i xxxv. 19, 180 n. ; xxxv. 29, 180 «., 181 ft. ; xxxvii. 105 n. ; xxxvii. 35, 180 «., 183 «. ; xxxviii. 104 n. ; xxxix. 9, 134 ; xiii. 38, 180 n., 183 ft. ; xliii. 18, 134; xliv. 31, 180 «.; xlviii. 21, 179 ft., 180 ft. ; xlix. 105, 179 »., 180 «., 181 «. ; 1. 12, 13, 181 ft. ; I. 24, 180 «. ; 1. 24-26, 180 ft. ; li. 180 «. Exod. xx.-xxii. 50 «. ; xxi. 2-6, 184 «. ; xxiii. 31, 69 «. ; xxv.- xxxi. 50 «. ; xxxiii. 1 1, 180 n. ; xxxiii. 19, 15 «. ; xxxiv. 6, 151 ; xxxiv. 14-26, 50 «. Lev. 50 «. ; x. 2, 181 n. ; xx. 27, 185 ft. ; xxi. 5, 184 «. Num. i.-xix. 50 «. ; xx. 22 ff., 181 n. ; xx. 24, 181 ». ; xxi. 13-20, 70 ft. ; xxi. 20, 70 ft. ; xxii. 5, 69 ft.; xxiii. 14, 70 «. ; xxiii. 21, 248 ; xxxiii. 44-49, 70 ft. Deuteronomy 7, 10, Lect, 11.; 163, 273- Deut. i. 7, 69 k. ; iii. 17, 27, 70 ft. ; iii. 23, 180 «. ; iii. 29, 70 «.; iv. 17, 129 «., 164 «.; iv. 22, 180 «. ; iv. 34, 154; iv. 46, 70 ft. ; iv. 49, 70 ft. ; vi. 13, 16, 163 ft. ; viii. 3, 163 «. ; x. 20, 163 «.; xi. 24, 69 «. ; xii.-xxvi , 50 ft. ; xiv., 184 ft. ; xxv. 4, 19 «. ; xxvi. 14, 184 «. ; xxxi. 14, 16, 180 ft. ; xxxii. 48, 181 «. ; xxxii. 50, 181 ft. ; xxxii. 52, 180 «. ; xxxiii., 105 ; xxxiii. 2, 70 ft. ; xxxiv., 181 «. ; xxxiv. i, 70 «.; xxxiv. 4, 5, 180 ft. ; xxxiv. 6, 70 ft. Joshua, Book of, 7 «., 37. Josh. i. 4, 69 ft. ; iii., iv., vi., viii.. 48 ; xii. 3, 70 «. ; xiii. 20, 70 ». ; xxiv. 2, 69 «¦ ; xxiv. 29 f., 180 ». Judges, Book of, 7 «. Judg. v. is<5-i8, 153, 154; v. 31a, 151 ; vi.-ix., 77 «. ; vi. 11, 151 ; ix., 77 «. ; xvii. 5, 183 «.; xix.-xxi., 77 ft. ; xviii., 77 «. ; xviii. 14, 183 «. Ruth, 7 «. Samuel, Books of, 7 «., 44 324 INDEX OF SCRIPTURE REFERENCES I Sam. xxv. 29, 183 «.; xxvi. 19, 128 ft. ; xxviii. 3, 9, 185 n. ; xxviii. 7 ff., 181 n. ; xxviii. 7, 185 n. ; xxviii. 13, 16, 184 «. 2 Sam. v. 23, 129 «. ; viii. 3, 69 ft.; x. 16, 69 ft.; xii. 23, 183 «. Kings, Books of, 7 «., 43. 1 Kings ii. 2-9, 80; iv. 21, 24, 69 «. ; xvii.-xix., 81; xvii. 17, 182 «, ; xviii. 27, 84 n. ; xix , 70 «., 83 « ; xxi., 81 ; xxii., 135 ; xxiii. 29 ; xxiv. 7, 69 /<. 2 Kings i. ii., 82; ii. 11, 181 n. ; iv. 32 ff., 182 «. ; xiii. 14, 84 «. Chronicles, Books of, 7 «., 55. 2 Chron. xxiv. 21, 10 «. Ezra, Book of, 7 «., 10. Nehemiah, Book of, 7 »., 10. Esther, 7 ft., 10. Job, Book of, 7 ft., 133, ch. viii. Job iii. 17-19, 196; xvii. 12-16, 196; xix. 23, 193; xix. 23 ff., 189 ; xix. 25-27, 207. Psalms, Book of, 7 ft., 86 ff. Ps. vi. 5, 188 «. ; xvi. 8-1 1, 205; xviii. 29, 33, 34, 35, 155 ; xix. HI; xxx. 9, 188; xxxix. 12, 188; xxxix. 12, 13, 200; li., 88 f. ; li. 4, 15 n. ; lxxiii., 187; lxxiii., 205 f . ; lxxxviii. n, 188 ; xc, 189, 200 ff., 214 ; xciv., 5 ff., hi; cxv. 17, 188. Proverbs, Book of, 7 n.; Lect. VIII. Prov. iii. II, 12, 294 n. ; viii., 133- Eeclesiastes, Book of, 7 «., 10; Lect. viii. Canticles, 7 «., 10. Isaiah, 7 «. ; i. 18, 162 n. ; v. I ff., 162 «., 266; vii. 276; vii. 14, 160 «. ; vii. 20, 69 n. ; ix. 7, 162 ft. ; xi. 1-5, 160 «., 161 n. ; vi. 1 ff., 162 n. ; viii. 19, 20, 185 «., 270; ix. 6 f., 160 «., 161 «. ; xiv. 32, 162 «. ; xix. 112; xxiii. 112; xxiv.-xxvii. 186 «. ; xxv. 8, 18 «. ; xxviii. 278; xxviii. 287; xxviii. 6, 23- 29, 112 ; xxix. 4, 185 ft. ; xxxiii. 21, 22, 174 «. ; xxxvi., 162 n. ; xxxvii., 162 «. ; xxxviii. 18, 200 ; xl.-xlviii., 53 f. ; xl.-lv. 294 «. ; xl.-lxvi., 175 «. ; xl. 25 ff., in ; xiii. 13-17, 175 «. ; xl. 13, 15 «. ; xiii. 6, 268 ; xiii. 19, 169 ». ; lxiii. 1-7, 175 ft. ; xiv. 9, 10, 15 «. ; Iii. 13, 169ft.; 'v- ". 277 ; lvii. 15, 203 ; lviii. 272 ; lxiii. 16, 89 «. Jeremiah, 7 ft. ; i. 5, 166 «. ; ii., 266 ; ii. 18, 69 ft. ; vii. 22, 164 ft. ; viii. 8, 284 ft. ; ix. 2, 166 «. j ix. 22, 284 ft. ; xii. 1-3, 167 ; xiii. 4-7, 69 ft. ; xv. 18, 167 ; xviii. 18, 284 «. ; xx. 7, 167; xxii. 20 (R. V.), 69 ft.; xxxiii. 16, 174 «. ; xxxvii. 13 ff., 166 «. ; xxxviii. 2, 164 ft.; xl. 4 ff., 166 «. ; xiv. 164 ft.; xlvi. 2, 6, 10, 69 «. ; li. 63, 69 «. Lamentations, 7 «., 10; v. 7, 168. Ezekiel, 7 n. ; iii. 18 ff., 89 «. ; xiv. 14, 286 ft., 293 «. ; xxi. 21, 183 ft. ; xxxvii. 186 «. ; xxxix. 11, 69 n. Daniel, 7 «. , 10 ; xii. 2, 3, 189. Hosea, Book of, 18; i.-iii. 158; ii. 8, 14 ff., 266; ii. 15 and xi. 1, 98 «. ; iii. 4, 183 ft. ; iv. 6, 159 «.; v. 15-vi. 6, 158ft.; vi., 269 ; vi. 1 f., 186 «. ; vi. 6, INDEX OF SCRIPTURE REFERENCES 325 159 ft.; vii. 1, 14, 158 «. ; xi. 1, 160 »., 266; xi. 3-4, 159 «. ; xi. 7 ff., 158 «. ; xii. 3-5, 98 «., 266; xii. 6, 158ft.; xii. 12, 13, 98 ft.; xiii. 4, 159 «.; xiii. 7, 158 «. ; xiii. 14, 186 ft.; xiv. 158 «. Amos ii. 9, 98 «. ; ii. 9-1 1, 266; iii. 7, 276 ; iv. 21, 266 ; v. 3, 277 ; v. 22-24, 270 ; viii. 5, 272 ; ix. 7, 98 «., 267. Jonah, Book of, 86, 89. Micah vii., 69 «. Haggai, 173. Zechariah iii. 173 ; viii. 4, 186 «., x. 2, 183 ft. Malachi iii. 20, 70 «. Matthew i. 22, 23, 160 ». ; ii. 15, 160 ». ; iv. 4, 7, 163 «. ; v. 17, 18, 12 «. ; v. 21 ff., 13 «. ; v. 31 ff., 13 ft. ; v. 38, 43, 13 «. ; vii. 12, 12 n. ; xi. 12 ff., 13 «. ; viii. 1-4, 13 «., 14 ft. ; xi. 12 ff., 13 «. ; xii. 1-2, 14 «. ; xvi. 13, 163 ft. ; xvii. 24-27, 13 n. ; xxii. 32, 183 ft. ; xxii. 40, 12 «. ; xxiii. 35, 10 ft. ; xxiv. 27, 13 ft.; xxvii. 9, 241. Mark vii. 19, 14 «. ; xii. 27, 183 n. Luke iv. 48, 163 ft. ; x. 7, 14 n. ; xi. 37, 14 «. ; xiii. 2, 294 «., 10-17, 14 »• ! xiv. 1-6, 14 ft.; xvi. 16, 13 «.; xx. 38, 183 «.; xxiv. 44, 10 ft. John iv. 48, 275; v. 1-17, 14 ft.; vii. 294 k. ; viii. 33 ff., 89 ft. Acts, Book of, 17 ; viii. 16, 241. Romans iii. 2, 15ft.; iii. 4, 15 ft. ; iv. 3, 17, 15 n.; ix. 4, 15, 17, 20, 15 «., ix.-xi., 15 ft.; xi. 34, 15ft.; xv. 4, 15ft. 1 Cor. i. 22, 274; ii. 9, 17 ft.; ii. 9, 18 «. ; ii. 16, 15 «. ; ix. 8, 241; ix. 9, 18 ft.; x. 11, 16 ft. ; xii. 9, 241 ; xiv. 6, 241 ; xv. 54, 55- 18 "• 2 Cor. iii. 13 ff., 19 ft. Gal. iv. 22 ff., 19 ft. Hebrews, Epistle to, 6 «., 15, 173 ; xi. 37, 17 «. James, 6. 2 Peter, 6 «. 2 John, 6 ft. 3 John, 6 ft. Jude, 6 «, ; ix. 14, 17 «. By GEORGE ADAM SMITH, D.D., LL.D. The Historical Geography of the Holy Land Seventh Edition. With Scripture Index and Six Colored Maps, specially prepared. 8vo, cloth, 730 pages, $4.50 . . . No one work has ever before embodied all this variety of material to illustrate the whole subject. His geographical statements are pen-pictures. We are made to see the scene. No important problem is untouched. With out question it will take its place at once as a standard work, indispensable to the thoroughgoing student of the Bible. — Sunday-School Times. ... An exhaustive collection of material lay outside the plan of the author. His intention is rather to show how the history of the land is conditioned by its physical structure. It is thus the idea of Karl Ritter which rules the treat ment and presentation. Very comprehensive sections are concerned, not with the history, but with the nature of the land. . . . The author pays special attention to the military operations. One could sometimes imagine that an officer is writing, who, above all, regards the land from the point of view of the military strategist. In this connection especially the history of Israel in its chief crises in Old Testament times receives striking illumination. Large pas sages are frequently quoted from the Old Testament in order to explain them by the exhibition of their geographical background. In addition the author has a special gift of vivid representation. He makes the history transact itself before the eye of the reader in dramatic form. One sees, everywhere, that the landscapes which he describes stand before his own eyes. Thus the book is an extremely valuable means of aid to the understanding of the history, espe cially of the Old Testament. — Prof. Schurer, of Kiel, in the Theol. Literar- tur-Zeitung. The book is too rich to summarize. . . . The language is particularly well chosen. Few pages are without some telling phrase happily constructed to attract attention and hold the memory, and we often feel that the wealth of imagery would be excessive for prose were it not that it is chosen with such appropriateness and scientific truth, . . . To the reader much of the pleasure of perusing the volume comes from its luxurious typography, and the exquisite series of orographical maps prepared by Mr. Bartholomew from the work of the Survey. These maps alone are more suggestive and enlightening than many treatises, and they are destined, we trust, to enliven many a sermon, and turn the monotony of the records of Israelitish wars into a thrilling romance. — Speaker. A. C. ARMSTRONG & SON 3 and 5 W. i 8th Street, New York By GEORGE ADAM SMITH, P.P., LL.D. The Book of Isaiah In Two Volumes. Crown 8vo, cloth, $1.50 each. Volume I. Chapters I.— XXXIX. Volume II. Chapters XL. — LXVI. This is a noble volume of a noble series. Isaiah will ever be the cream of the Old Testament evangelistic prophecy, and as the ages go on will supply seed-thought of the Holy Ghost which grow into flowers and fruits, vines and trees, of divine truth for the refreshment and nourishment of the intellect, heart, character, and life. How can any pastor or instructor of the public, young or old, afford to be •without such aids ? — Baltimore Methodist. Prof. George Adam Smith has such a mastery of the scholarship of his subject that it would be a sheer impertinence for most scholars, even though tolerable Hebraists, to criticise his translations ; and certainly it is not the intention of the present reviewer to attempt anything of tlie kind, to do which he is absolutely incompetent. All we desire is to let English readers know how very lucid, [impressive — and, indeed, how vivid — a study of Isaiah is within their.reach ; the fault of the book, if it has a fault, being rather that it finds too many points of connection between Isaiah and our modern world, than that it finds too few. In other words, no one can say that the book is not full of life. — Spectator. It would be difficult to say how highly we appreciate the work, or how useful we believe it will be. — Church Bells. He writes with great rhetorical power, and brings out into vivid reality the historical position of his author. — Saturday Review. Mr. Smith gives us models of expositions; expositions for cultivated con gregations, no doubt, but still expositions which may have been largely preached in church. They are full of matter, and show careful scholarship throughout. We can think of no commentary on Isaiah from which the preacher will obtain scholarly and trustworthy suggestions for his sermons so rapidly and so pleasantly as from this. — Record. The Book of the Twelve Prophets COMMONLY CALLED THE MINOR In Two Volumes. Crown 8vo, cloth, $1.50 each. Vol. I. — Amos, Hosea and Micah. Seventh Edition. Vol. II. — Zephaniah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Obadiah, Haggai, Zechariah I. — VIII., "Malachi," Joel, "Zechariah" IX.— XIV., and Jonah. Fourth Edition. In Dr. Smith'suvolumes we have much more than a popular exposition of the minor Prophets. We have that which will satisfy the scholar and the stu dent quite as much as the person who reads for pleasure and for edification. ... If the minor Prophets do not become popular reading it is not because anything more can be done to make them attractive. Dr. Smith's volumes present this part of Scripture in what is at once the most attractive and the most profitable form. — Dr. Marcus Dods,. in the British Weekly. Few interpreters of the Old Testament to-day rank higher than George Adam Smith. He is at home in criticism, in geographical and archaeological questions, and in philology. . . . Hardly any commentator of the present day is more successful than he in putting the student at once into the heart of an Old Testament problem. — S. S. Times. The above four volumes are contained in " The Expositor's Bible/* and, are subject to special sub scription rates in connection with that series. Descriptive circular on application. A. C. ARMSTRONG & SON 3 and 5 W. J8th Street, New York isB m