YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

THE LIBRARY OF THE
DIVINITY SCHOOL

TAUNTON :
GOODMAN AND SON, PRINTERS.

JEHOVISTIC & ELOHISTIC
THEORIES:
Their Origin and Value.

REV. JOHN URQUHART
BDltor ot XLbe IKlng's ©wn.

London :
John F. Shaw and Co., 48, Paternoster Row.

Vale Divinity Library
New Haven, Conn.

[XrGj

PREFACE.
The substance of the following pages appeared in The British
an,d Foreign EvangeUcal Revie^w, in April, 1881, and April, 1882.
As the adherents of the Critical Schools show as little disposition
now as then to investigate the statements of their "Authorities,"
and to prove whether the foundation upon which so much is
built and risked is of rock or sand, it has seemed to me that
there is still a call for the words which follow.
JOHN URQUHART.
March, 1891.

JEHOVISTIC & ELOHISTIC THEORIES
THEIR ORIGIN AND VALUE.

L
The Problem.
'T^HERE are iew critical questions that call so loudly for
inquiry as this which is indicated in our title. The
alternation of the Divine names, God and Lord, Elohim and
Jehovah, forms so remarkable a feature of the Old Testament
Scriptures that, as soon as attention is turned to it, there is an
instantaneous convidlion that it is not the result of accident,
and a desire is awakened for some explanation. For more
than a hundred years this desire has been mocked by one
great critical school, and it has been left praiftically unanswered
by the other. The variation in the names has been turned
into a foundation for the wildest theories of rationalism, and
has played its part in every modern attack upon the integrity
of the Pentateuch, and more especially of the Book of Genesis.
' On the other hand, we have almost the unanimous confession
of orthodox theologians that this variation has never yet
¦ found an adequate explanation. On the one side there is
confident assertion and the most determined persistence in
pushing so-called fadls to their furthest consequences ; on the

6 JEHOVISTIC AND ELOHISTIC THEORIES.
other, while there is success in the criticism of hostile theories,
there is, in the attempt to, explain the phenomenon, only
manifest failure or unconcealed despair.
The Origin of the Theories.
/^NE of the earliest "discoveries," which the higher
^^^ criticism boasts, is that of the fragmentary characTter of
the book of Genesis. But, like almost all the rest of its
achievements, this has disdained to wear any permanent form.
To each investigator the subjedl seems to have worn a new
aspedt: and the story of the flux and reflux of opinion on
this point is not without instrudtion for the critics of to-day.
Vitringa had Suggested that Moses had made use of pre
existing documents in the composition of the book. The
suggestion seems harmless enough, but the seed dropped by
the great Dutch theologian fell at last into kindly soil, and
produced long afterwards unexpedled fruit. The most cursory
reader of Genesis must have been struck by the feature to
which we have just referred — the use in some sedtions of the
name God [Elohim), and in others of the name Lord {Jehovah).
Upon this fadl, Astruc, one of the most distinguished medical
men of the eighteenth century, and physician to Louis XV.,
founded the new theory in 1753. To him these names clearly
indicated that the book had been mainly compiled from two
original documents, and that the retention of the names, like
unobliterated private marks on lost or stolen goods, enabled
us to separate and apportion what had belonged to each. In
addition to the two main documents, Astruc believed there
had been other ten, and that the book, originally written in
twelve columns, was afterwards written out in continuous

THE ORIGIN OF THE THEORIES. 7
form by some transcriber. This last feature of the theory
proved to be very convenient, as some difficulties received a
short and easy explanation by supposing that the transcriber
had occasionally put the matter in the wrong place. In 1798
Ilgen went still further. He professed to have discovered
traces of no less than seventeen original documents, and
attempted to show what parts of the book pertained to each.
It was felt, however, that matters might be pushed too far, and
the theory has since been considerably modified. Though the
old orthodox position has not been resumed, it has certainly
been approached. De Wette believed Genesis to be mainly
one document, interspersed here and there with extradls from
others. Ewald began by maintaining the unity of the book,
and contended that the choice of the names Jehovah and
Elohim was determined by rules based upon the usages of the
Hebrew tongue. That explanation, as might have been
foreseen, broke down, .and his later opinion was that the names
indicate the additions made to the original text by various
editors. I need not weary the reader by giving even a bird's-eye
view of the ever-changing aspedl of critical conclusions with
regard to the composition of Genesis and the Pentateuch.
The following is Wellhausen's judgment of the work of
Knobel, one of the giants of criticism : —
He thinks that the Jehovist, in order to complete the fundamental
writing, used two documents, neither more nor less, the War-book and the
Law-book. One glance cast upon tlje list of fragments, which he believes
he has extrafted from these books, is sufificient to show, to anyone possessed
of any judgment, that these produftions never existed save in Knobel's
imagination. Experience has shown that his views on the composition of
The Hexateuch (the five books of Moses and the book of Joshua) have not

8 JEHOVISTIC AND ELOHISTIC THEORIES.
gained a single adherent. They are quoted, often with approbation, and
always with gratitude, for the extreme diligence with which he has analysed
each document ; we are benefited by his numerous remarks on grammar
and style ; but, as for his system, considered as a whole, it is as if it had
never been.
Wellhausen's own work awaits, in its turn, the judgment of
his successor. It would seem that in his case the pendulum
has swung out as far as it can possibly go. The Hexateuch is
the work of eight different writers. The greater part of the
events recorded in the Pentateuch are fidlions. There never
was any Tabernacle, nor Aaronic priesthood, nor Mosaic
ritual. The Ark was an idol, like the black stone worshipped
by the Arabs and still kissed by devout Mahommedans at
Mecca. It was probably box-shaped, and hence its name.
Even Jehovah was an idol, like Baal or Jupiter. He was not,
to begin with, the Creator of heaven and earth. He was the
God of the house of Israel, and only afterwards became the
•God of the Universe. What do the Theories rest upon ?
~V\J'E. turn from these reveries and blasphemies to what is
supposed to justify them all. That the alternation in
the Divine names proves diverse authorship is the constant
and ever-recurring feature in all these speculations. Whatever
is overturned or abandoned, that remains. It leads them to
conclusions which are in perpetual conflidt, but the wisdom of
following this canon of criticism is never questioned. It is
supposed to be as well-established and as unassailable as the
Theory of Gravitation. It is daily gaining acceptance among
ourselves. People talk about the Elohist and the Jehovist as if
these myths were the most substantial of existences. Let me

THE "TWO ACCOUNTS OF THE CREATION. 9
ask the reader, then, to pause for a moment or two, and
examine the foundation on which this law of the new criticism
is supposed tq rest.
"The Two Accounts of the Creation.'"
It must be admitted that in one place, at least, appearances
are greatly in favour of the theory. The story of the Creation
is carried on continuously throughout the whole of the first
chapter, and up to the fourth verse of the second. But there
the thread is suddenly broken. With the fourth verse another
beginning is made, and the story of the Creation is briefly
told again with new and striking details. Now this is, in
itself, quite enough to provoke enquiry and to suggest
hypotheses ; but, when it is observed that the sedtions differ
as to the name applied to God, Elohim being exclusively used
in the first (i. i — ii. 3), and Jehovah- Elohim in the second
(ii. 4-7), it would seem as if nothing more were needed to
prove them of diff'erent authorship. There can be little
doubt that this instance, and the alternation of the Divine
names in the account of the Deluge, have been the means of
securing almost all the adherence the theory hasreceived. There
is no denying the apparent strength of the proof. There seem
clearly to be two narratives, and each narrative seems to have
its own name for God. Is there nothing left us, then, but to
accept this theory with what resignation we can muster, and
to admit that Genesis is mosaic in quite another sense than
we have hitherto believed it to be ? Or have we here a fadl
which supports no such notion, but sheds a welcome light
upon the perfedl ujiity and dominating purpose of the book ?
Let us see.

10 JEHOVISTIC AND ELOHISTIC THEORIES.
The purpose of the book is to trace back all things to their
origin. It sheds light upon the darkness which even tradition
has not pretended to illumine, and shows us the places and
the homes whence the nations of the earth passed out upon
their primeval wanderings. It lifts the veil, too, from God's
connedlion with the universe, with man, and with the fortunes
of His people. We are first of all told how "in the beginning
God created the heavens and the earth," and then the book is
divided into sedlions, each containing a genealogy. We have,
to begin with, "the generations of the heavens and the
earth," which extends from the fourth verse of the second
chapter to the twenty-sixth of the fourth ; and then, in regular
succession, "the generations" of Adam, of Noah, of the sons
of Noah, of Shem, of Terah, of Abraham, the whole closing
with "the generations of Jacob," which brings down the story
to the settlement of the Israelites in Egypt, and the death of
Joseph. The branchings out of the human'family into races
and nations are carefully marked ; but the reader's attention
is, notwithstanding, kept firmly fixed upon that path of
history along which God's great purpose is steadily advancing
to its fulfilment. It will be seen, therefore, that there was in
the writer's mind a clearly conceived purpose, and one which
has been accomplished in a really masterly manner. If
anything, indeed, in plan and execution can prove oneness of
authorship, the integrity of Genesis will find its best defence
in the book itself.
But, when this division into genealogies is observed, the
repetition in the story of Creation is explained at once.
It belongs to the very plan of the book that there should be
repetitions. Generally the end of one genealogy is the

THE "two accounts" OF THE CREATION. II
beginning of that which follows; and the last link of the
former takes its place again as the first link of the latter.
The repeated matter belongs to both accounts ; it is the
natural ending of the first, and the equally natural beginning
of the second. We have been informed, for example, about
Isaac's birth, his early history, and even his marriage, in the
genealogy of Abraham. But in xxv. 19 we are told : " And
these are the generations of Isaac, Abraham's son; Abraham
begat Isaac. And Isaac was forty years old when he took
Rebekah to wife." The story of Isaac's earlier years is here
the common link, and, though given before, is briefly detailed
again in entering upon the following sedlion of the history.
We have another instance in the same chapter. Part of
Ishmael's story, like Isaac's, has been already narrated in "the
generations of Abraham;" but in verse 12 we read: "These
are the generations of Ishmael, Abraham's son, whom Hagar
the Egyptian, Sarah's handmaid, bare unto Abraham." Again,
"the generations of Shem " ends with the words : " And Terah
lived seventy years and begat Abram, Nahor, and Aaron"
(xi. 26) ; but, in the verse immediately following, a new starting-
point is reached in "the generations of Terah," and we are
told again that " Terah begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran." It is
the same with "the generations of Noah." His immediate
descendants and his finding favour with God have been
already recorded ; but these, with other details, are once more
narrated. In chap. v. i, 2, which begins "the book of the
generations of Adam," the creation of mankind is briefly
referred to, though it has been fully detailed in the previous
chapters. We have now only to observe that Genesis ii. 4
begins a new sedlion. It opens: "These are the generations

12 JEHOVISTIC AND ELOHISTIC THEORIES.
of the heavens and the earth," and proceeds with the story of
what this Creation led to. The sedlion extends to the end of
the fourth chapter, and embraces the story of God's care for
the man He had created, of the fall and its fruit in the loss of
Eden and the dark crime of Cain. The so-called second
account of Creation (which, it will be observed, is contained
within the small compass of four verses), is therefore only the
customary recapitulation at the opening of a new section, with
the addition of details which show how God had been prepar
ing the earth for the habitation of man, and which thus
admirably pave the way for the story that follows. So far,
then, from this being any proof of the fragmentary theory, it
is evidence rather that the opening chapters are from the same
hand as the rest of the book. Would it not have been strange
indeed had we missed there what is so marked a feature of
the book everywhere besides ?
The repetition in Gen. ii. 4-7, is only in keeping, therefore,
with the plan on which the book is construdled, and is, indeed,
one among many proofs of its unity. We now notice one or
two other fadls, alike fatal to the theory that we have here an
independent account of Creation, and therefore a proof that
the use of Jehovah-Elohim instead of Elohim, employed in the
previous chapter, marks the advent of a new author. It is quite
clear, for example, that the word Toledoth ("the generations")
does not refer io. origin, but rather to after-development and history.
The generations of Adam, of Noah, and of the sons of Noah,
are not the story of their origin, but of the families and races
which sprang from them. The very use, then, of the phrase,
"these are the generations of the heavens and the earth"
presupposes, if the account is to he complete, a previous sedlion in

THE "TWO accounts" OF THE CREATION. I3
which the origin of the heavens and the earth is related ; and
this opens, as we know, not with " These are the generations,"
but, " In the beginning." History could go no further back, —
" In the beginning Cod created the heavens and the earth." And
when we take up this so-called " second account," every state
ment bears out the truth of our contention. In addition to all
this, it may not be beneath a careful critic to notice a remarkable
change in the phraseology of Gen. ii. 4. The opening words
of the verse are, "These are the generations of the heavens
and of the earth ; " but at the close this order is reversed. We
read of "the earth and the heavens." The change is
significant. It indicates that upon the earth, the great purpose,
toward which God was reaching in the creation of the material
universe, is now to be manifested. Quite in accordance with
this, the second chapter has no further reference to the
heavens ; not a word is said as to the creation of sun, moon,
stars, or firmament. Is it possible for this silence to be
explained on the hypothesis that we have here "another
cosmogony,"! " a second account, "^ of Creation?
It will be further observed that the predominating idea ofthe
second chapter is Man, earth's lord and God's son. Everything
has relation to him. The earth is prepared for his abode. A
reference is made to the later creation of what was needed for
his sustenance, of the plant and herb of the field (not of the earth
at large, but of the field which man was to till). Then the
mode of man's creation is fully told, and the paradise
described in which God placed him. The animals, created
for man's use and enjoyment, are brought to their lord ; but,
in the midst of the joy and power of the world's king, the
1 Kalisch. 2 Alford.

14 JEHOVISTIC AND ELOHISTIC THEORIES.
sense of a mighty need deepens evermore: the need ot one
who can share the wonder and the joy, the need of another
human heart to beat in sympathy with his own on this great
and glorious earth. And then we are told how woman, the
best of all God's earthly gifts, was given. Blot out all this ;
call it merely a repetition ; let there be np second chapter in
the Book of Genesis; and will there be no link wanting in the
story which neither the first chapter nor the third, nor any
other in the book, will be able to supply ? Keep it where we
find it, and do we not mark in these opening chapters simply
the onward flow of a continuous story ? To rest the theory,
that the change ofthe divine names marks the introdudlion of
another hand in the narrative, upon the supposed independence
of chapter ii. 4-25, is not to build upon a foundation even of
sand — sand has a palpable existence: this has none.
The " Two Accounts" of the Deluge.
'npHE "proof," based upon the account of the Deluge,
is really unworthy of sober discussion. Its strength
lies in the alleged contradidlion between the first diredlion to
take the animals into the ark by pairs, and the sjibsequent
commandtotake the cleananimals by seven pairs. Theexplana-
tion is as patent and as old as the difficulty ; and the alleged
discrepancy -rnight now be supposed to be beyond the range
of serious consideration. But what the objedlion lacks in
breadth and weight is made up by what truth compels us to
characterise as reckless mis-statement. Bleek, for example
says: —
The faft is this. In ch. vi. 14, up to the end of the chapter, it is related
that God (Elohim) gave a command to Noah to build the ark, and to go into

THE "two accounts OF THE DELUGE. I5
it with his family, and with beasts of every kind ; and that he should take
a pair, a male and female, of each sort, and that Noah followed this com
mand of God. Then, in ch, vii. i ff., it is again related that Jehovah
commanded Noah to go into the ark with his family, and with the living
things ; but he tells him that he is to take with him one pair of all unclean
beasts, but of clean beasts seven pairs. ^
Now, to clothe "the fadl" with some importance, it is
necessary to show that there is a repetition as well as a
variation, and this is accomplished by representing the
command to go into the ark as given twice. But in the sixth
chapter there is no command to go into the ark, and therefore
it is not "again related that Jehovah commanded" him to go
into it ; ch. vi. 14 is merely an intimation that the ark he is to
build will be a refuge for him and his ; "and thou wilt come
into the ark." In the seventh chapter we are told that after
Noah had done "according to all that God had commanded
him," in construdliiig the ark and storing the necessary food, —
the animals he was not to gather, they were to come to him
(vi. 20), — and the eventful day at last drew nigh, then, and not
till then, the command was given: "Come thou and all thy
house into the ark." Here, again, there is every mark of a
continuous narrative, and even the variation in the diredlions
as to the saving of the animals is quite in harmony with this
continuity. The first command was very much an intimation
of God's purpose, which enabled Noah to co-operate intelli
gently in the fulfilment of that purpose. It was not intended
to be adled upon till the last moment: but meanwhile ¦ it
revealed to Noah much that else must have remained dark to
him in the diredlions regarding the dimensions and arrange
ments of the ark, and the storing of the food. But, when the
1 Introduction to Old Testament.

l6 JEHOVISTIC AND ELOHISTIC THEORIES.
moment had come for adlion, the diredlions were again given,
gnd given with the necessary minuteness.
But Bleek's attempt to make two commands to go into the
ark, where the Scripture knows only of one, is a small matter
when compared with other endeavours to construdl an
argument for the theories out of the story of the Deluge. By
the most arbitrary methods, and at the expense of the utter
dislocation of the careful reckoning of time, which marks the
narrative as it stands, two accounts are made out of one.
"These two accounts," says Dr. Robertson, Smith, "are
plainly independent, and each is complete in itself. It is
impossible that the work of one author could so divide itself (!)
into two narratives, and have for each narrative a different
name of God." ^ Now this calm statement of the case is much
too modest. It does real injustice to the critics. It gives no
idea of the toil and sweat which they have undergone to make
up the two narratives, and quite generously attributes the result
to a spontaneous bisedtion of the account in Genesis. And yet
the whole of the latter part of what is called the Jehovistic
narrative" (ch. viii. 6-i2),2 is torn away from the very heart
of an Elohistic sedlion (viii. i-ig), and has no name of God in it
at all. But, nevertheless, in the face of all this, the statement
is made that the Scripture account divides "itself" into two
narratives, and has " for each narrative a different name of God " .'
The Use of the Divine Names.
¦yy E now turn to the argument for the theory of diverse
authorship, which is based upon the use of the Divine
names. In the opening account of Creation Elohim alone
1 The Old Testament in the Jewish Church, p. 328. 2 Ibid. p. 433.

THE USE OF THE DIVINE NAMES. 17
occurs. Throughout the second sedlion, on the other hand, it
is Jehovah-Elohim (the LoRD-God), and the whole book is
charadlerised by the alternation of these names Elohim and
Jehovah.^ Few indeed will be satisfied with the explanation
that the change is made on merely rhetorical grounds, and is
nothing more than a device to avoid the too frequent repetition
of the same word. In the opening sedlion (i. i- — ii. 3), Elohim
occurs thirty-five times, and in the beginning of the second
sedlion (ii. 4-iii. i), Jehovah-Elohim eleven times, without the
slightest variation in either case. It is clear, therefore, that
the change is made from some other cause than a fear of
repetition. But what are we to think of a "Criticism" that
rushes to the conclusion that this cause can only be a difference
in authorship, and which begins forthwith to speak of " the
Elohist" and " the Jehovist " ? Opening the first volume of
Disraeli's Charles I., at page 444, I find "Charles" twice in
succession, and immediately afterwards, upon the same page,
that monarch is referred to three times in succession as "the
king." Elsewhere in the volume he is spoken of as " Charles
the first," and probably also as " King Charles the first."
Suppose now that the book survives a thousand years, and
that Lord Macaulay's New-Zealander unearths and deciphers
a copy. It might show the acuteness of the higher criticism
of that time to mark the alternation of the names, but what
would be said of its wisdom in concluding that their use
pointed to different authors or editors, and that, say, the more
familiar epithet pf "Charles" clearly indicated one of
Republican sympathies ?
1 The reader of the English Version may he reminded that Jehovah is rendered by
" Lord " (in capitals), and Elohim by " God."

l8 JEHOVISTIC AND ELOHISTIC THEORIES.
If critics should then have leisure to speculate and read, the
theory might be further elaborated. The phrase " the king "
might be set down with the greatest certainty as the indication
of a thoroughly Monarchist hand ; and, as it is exceedingly
probable that the biography sprang out of veneration for
Charles's memory, his part of the work may be regarded as
the grund-schrift, or original writing. It might be called the
work of the Monarchist and be conveniently designated by the
formula M. Next in order would come the Republican editor,
or Reda(2eur, whose interpolations may be first of all tracked by
the name " Charles," and then, as the critics warm to their
work, by anything that one or another may regard as marked
by a Republican tone. The formula R. R. would designate
him. Then the full significance of the phrase " King Charles"
would, some day burst upon the mind of the future Well
hausen, and place him for ever upon a pedestal of greatness.
For here we clearly discern the hand of a second editor or
RedaiSteur who must have had both documents before him,
and who set himself to mediate between the two tendencies !
He combines both names, setting aside, on the one hand, the
Quaker-like baldness of "Charles," and, on the other, the
over-veneration of "the king." He might be distinguished as
R2, or second editor ; or, better still, as M. M., the Modified
Monarchist. And so poor Disraeli's whole work might at last
be summed up as M + R-i-MM, and the author himself be
relegated to the realm of medieval myths ! It would certainly
show truer wisdom to inquire whether the change in the name
was not, after all, consistent with oneness of authorship, and was
not occasioned, sometimes at least, by the matter with which
the writer was dealing. In the criticism of such a book I do

FOUNDED UPON MISTAKE. ig
not know that anything would be put in peril save the critic's
reputation. The decision would change little in heaven or
earth for any one. But, if patient inquiry would be demanded
there, how much more loudly is it called for here, where
rashness and self-sufficiency may rob thousands of peace and
hope and spiritual power !
The Theories Founded upon Mistake.
TT AS this care, then, been exercised ? Is it only after results
have been painfully reached^ and scrupulously tested,
that men declare that they are no longer able to believe with
their fathers ? So far from thjs being so, it would appear
that it is still necessary to ascertain the very elements of this
problem. Two writers on the Psalms, to whom the English
pubhc owe a debt of gratitude, give currency, for example,
to the assertion that in the first forty-one Psalms, Jkhovah
occurs 272 times and Elohim only fifteen times. 1 The former
statement is nearly corredl, but the latter gives less than a
third of the real number. Elohim occurs, in fadl, no fewer
than forty-eight times. But the imphcit faith reposed in the
results published by Delitzsch has led to a more astounding
statement. Perowne says: "From Psalm Ixxxv. to the end
of the Psalter the name Jehovah again becomes prevalent,
and, to such an, extent, that in Books iv. and v. (Psalm xc. —
Psalm cl.) it occurs 339 times, and Elohim, of the true God
but once (cxliv. 9)." Binnie gives the same figures, but with
the important modification that Elohim occurs occasionally
"in a composite form," though "in its simple forrti" it is but
once met with as applied to the true God. "These curious
1 Perowne, The Book of Psalms, i. 75 ; Binnie, The Psalms, etc., 128. The correct
figures are Jehovah 274 times, El and Elohim 65 times, Adonai 14 times.

20 JEHOVISTIC'AND ELOHISTIC THEORIES.
fadls," he adds, "were first coUedled by Dr. Delitzsch in a
work published twenty-four years ago. Their importance has
been universally recognized." It is an unpleasant task to
point out mistakes in works otherwise so painstaking and
admirable; but it is hard to imagine how so unfounded a
statement ever came to be made. In Psalm cviii. alone
Elohim is found six times in its simple form ; and for Books iv.
and v. of the Psalter the true figures are — Jehovah 379,
Elohim 45. Hengstenberg has allowed himself to be misled in
the same way. " In the whole fourth book " he says, "Elohim
does not occur once, in the fifth only seven times, while
Jehovah, accprding to Delitzch, occurs 236 times." It will
hardly be credited, in the face of these statements, made by
one writer and adopted by another, both of European fame,
that in the seventeen Psalms which form the fourth book (Psalms
XC. — evi.), Elohim occurs eighteen times, and in the fifth
(Psalms cvii.^cl.) twenty-seven and not seven times! The
full figures are — Jehovah 384, El and Elohim sixty-seven,
Adonai twelve.
But this absence of careful inquiry is as painfully conspicu
ous in many of the theories. Colenso maintains that Elohim
was the older name, and was gradually supplanted by Jehovah.
Dr. Robertson Smith beheves, on the contrary, that Jehovah,
being regarded in later times as too sacred a name for use, was
discontinued, and that Elohim was not only used instead, but
was even substituted for Jehovah in writings of an older date.
Now, the slightest glance at the names in the books of the Old
Testament is, as we shall afterwards see, ahke destrudlive of
the one theory and the other. Hengstenberg asserts, with
quite as little foundation, that, while " Elohim had become so

FOUNDED UPON MISTAKE. 21
strange in later times that only the J ehovah-V s&lms of David
were taken for insertion into the later cycles," yet, at some
earlier period, Jehovah had been so abused that it was discon
tinued in favour of Elohim, and that Elohim by itself is to be
taken as equivalent to Jehovah-Elohim ! The opinion expressed
by Delitzsch is exceedingly curious. He holds that the names
neither indicate different authors, nor is the choice of them
determined in any way by the subjedl with which the author
deals. It was merely an attempt to honour God by using now
the one name, now the other. " One and the same author at
one time pleased himselfin the use of the Divine name Elohim,
and at another time in the use of the Divine name Jehovah ! "
With Lange, Kalisch, and others, Elohim is the name of God
in his relation to mankind at large, and Jehovah His name as
Israel's God ; and yet we find Jehovah in places where no
reference to Israel is possible, and even in the lips of the
heathen. Quite as little importance seems to be attached to
consistency as to inquiry. Colenso strenuously contends that
the use of the names is an undeniable mark of different
authorship. And yet he not only admits that both were used
alike by the Elohist and by the Jehovist, but he is at pains to
show that they are not synonymous, and that each writer was
occasionally compelled by his subjedl-matter to use the name
which is said to charadlerise the produdlions of the other. ^
What possible basis can be left for the rationalistic theory
after such an admission as that ? The same confession is made
even more fully by Bleek. Not only does he admit that the
names are not synonymous ; he contends that there are cases
where Jehovah and Elohim could not be ex.changed. What
1 The Pentateuch, etc.. Critically Examined, p. 257, etc.

22 JEHOVISTIC AND ELOHISTIC THEORIES.
place is left then, the reader asks, for the theory which Bleek,
like the rest of his school, supports ? The reply is ingenious.
Where either name may be employed so far as the context is
concerned, you may then discover in their use the marks of
diverse authorship. ^ But even under this form of the theory
it is impossible for him to remain consistent. He goes right
in the teeth of his own canon in his view of Joh^ maintaining
the entire unity of the book in the face of the most marked
diversity in the use of the names that is to be found in the
whole of the Old Testament.
Other assertions, equally baseless, are made with all the
assurance that could possibly accompany the announcement
of the most undeniable fadls. It is said that the Elphist
speaks of God occasionally as £/ Shaddai (the Almighty),' but
that this name is never used by the Jehovist. Now the truth
is, that the name is first of all met with in- a Jehovistic
passage: — "Jehovah appeared unto Abraham, and said unto
him, I am El Shaddai" (Gen. xvii. i). Ih Exodus vi. 3,
Ruth i. 20, 21, Job xl. 2, Psalm xci. i, etc., it also occurs in
Jehovistic passages. The purpose of such a statement is as
patent as its inaccuracy; but it displays an eagerness to
uphold a theory which has proved too much either for the critic's
carefulness or for his honesty. "Again," says Colenso, "the
Elohist uses Israel as a personal name for Jacob — the Jehovist
never."3 The value of this will be understood when the two
following fadls are mentioned. First, in the Elohistic seflions
Jacob is not only used as well as Israel, but more than twice as
often. Secondly, the only Jehovistic sedlions which are met

1 Introduction to Old Testament, vol. i, pp. 268, 269. 2 Ibid, vol. ii. p.
3 The Pentateuch, etc., p. 176.

CRITICAL JUGGLERY. 23
with in Genesis, after the change is made in the Patriarch's
name, are chapters xxxviii. and xxxix. ; and there Jacob is
not once referred to, and, as a matter of course, neither name is
used. A distindlion is thus professedly drawn between the
Jehovistic and the Elohistic sedlions of Genesis in regard to
the names of Jacob, when the Jehovistic has no occasion to
employ the one or the other, and the use of both is confined
to the Elohistic ! It may be safely said that few controversies
have been marked by more daring misrepresentations of fadls.
Critical Jugglery.
"DUT we have now to mention an alleged distindlion
between the sedlions, which presents the strongest
appearance of all. It is said that each has its own name for
the mountainous distridl tothe north of Mesopotamia. "The
Elohist uses always Padan, or Padan-Aram, . . whereas the
]eho'vist Vises Aram-Nahar aim." ^ This statement is imposing.
That each class of passages should have its own name for the
same distridl, and should keep to it throughout, is almost
sufficient in itself to settle the question of separate author
ship. And the statement is put forth with a full consciousness
of its decisive charadler. The existence of the distindlion
begets such gratitude in Bishop Colenso's breast that, for the
moment, he is tempted to believe that its presence is due to
a special providence. "This circumstance," he says, "that
such unmistakeable" (let the reader mark the term) — "such
unmistakeable differences of expression distinguish, throughout
the book of Genesis, the parts which are due to these separate
writers, may almost, with reference to the momentous issues
1 The Pentateuch, etc., p. 176.

24 JEHOVISTIC AND ELOHISTIC THEORIES.
involved, be called providential, since it enables us to speak
positively on some points which might otherwise have been
still subjedl to doubt. "^ These distindlive marks are indeed a
vital part of the critic's case ; and this is beyond doubt the
most important of them all. It might be permitted, perhaps,
to raise the enquiry whether it is quite certain that the names
are applied to the same place ; whether, for' example, Aram-
N aharaim (translated Mesopotamia m our English version), "the
highlands of the two rivers," may not be the name of a wide
distridl, and Padan-Aram, "the cultivated land of the high
lands," the name'of a particular part of it. But surely, in the
face of even such semi-pious exultation as this, it could never
be tolerated to hint a suspicion of the fadls ! Whether there
is ground for hinting a suspicion of them we shall now let the
reader judge. Aram-Naharaim occurs only once in the whole of
Genesis, and then, too, as the name for a wide distridl:
Abraham's servant " arose and went to Mesopotamia (Aram-
Naharaim), unto the city of Nahor " (xxiv. lo). It occurs
only once besides in the whole of the Pentateuch, and again as
the general name of a distridl (Deut. xxiii. 4). We do not
insist on this evident use of Aram-Naharaim as a general
name. We ask attention to the fadl that the word occurs but
twice in the whole of the Pentateuch and only once in Genesis.
Is not this a perilously narrow base for so mighty an
indudlion ? And does it not require a peculiar moral build
to make so confident a statement, knowing that there was only
this behind it? But all is not yet told. The very first
mention of Padan-Aram, the alleged distindlive name of the
Elohist, occurs in a Jehovistic seaion (Gen. xxv. 20). This was
1 Ibid. p. 177. " '

an ASTOUNDING BLUNDER. 25
not at first noticed, but, when attention was diredled to it,
what was proposed ? To alter the theory to suit the fadl ?
Little does he know of critical courage and resource who
would think so! No; it was proposed tp claim that verse as
Elohistic for the sole reason that it had Padan-Aram in it!
" Fadls are against you " was once objedled to a perfervid
orator. " So much the worse for the fadls " was the ready
reply ; and so here the fadl was extinguished that the theory
might be saved. We might charadlerise such procedure.
When it marks the trade, the commercial speculations, or
even the politics of the day, we know what terms spring
unbidden to our lips. But it may be enough to say that,
in pursuing it, the critics, whatever the temporary effedl of
their work may be, are not sapping the foundations of faith
in the integrity of the Scriptures ; they are only digging the
grave of their own reputation.
An Astounding Blunder.
(~\P all the mistakes, however, which have helped to form
these theories, that which I am about to mention is
the worst. It is taken for granted that the names are
interchangeable. This has been accepted from the first as a
fundamental axiom, the absolute truth of which no critic
seems ever to have questioned. It is taken for granted that
Jehovah and Elohim are so perfedlly synonymous that editors
could have substituted one for the other, and that the only
reason for the use of either was some prediledlion of the
writer or some fashion of the period. This supposition is the
only basis upon which the theories can possibly stand.
Remove it, and the entire fabric falls in hopeless ruin. And

26 JEHOVISTIC AND ELOHISTIC THEORIES.
yet nothing less than this will have to be removed. The names
never were interchangeable. They are not interchangeable noiD.
There are scores and scores of passages in which no critic will
dare to substitute Jehovah for Elohim. Everyone acquainted
with Hebrew is aware of the fadl that Jehovah: never has the
article. You find the phrase the Elohim, but never, at any
period or in any book, the Jehovah. It is alsowell known that
it never has a pronominal suffix. We meet again and again
with the phrases my Elohim, our Elohim, your Elohim, etc., but
never with my Jehovah, our Jehovah, -etc. This' fadl is quite
capable, I believe, of explanation. ¦ There was that- in this
name, as we shall immediately see, which ' awed the heart
with the shadow of judgment. It is this feeling which
has deprived us of all certain knowledge of the ¦ true
pronunciation of the name. The- pointing is that' of Adonai
and sometimes of Elohim, which words were substituted for
Jehovah in public and private reading. But, whatever the ex
planation may be, it is certain that the meaning of the names
was never lost sight of by the writers of Scripture, and
there was that in their signification which led tp such a use of
Elohim, and forbade it in the case of Jehovah: • 'But,' Whether
it can be explained or not, the fadl is undeniable that this
distindlion is observed from Genesis to Malachi. The namfes
were not interchangeable, and the theory which is based Upon
their supposed interchangeability must be abandoned by every
man who desires to deal truly with fadls.
What the Books of the Old Testament say.
JN taking leave of the critical theories, we submit what
seems to us sufficient iri itself for their refutation— a

WHAT THE BOOKS SAY.

27

table of the Jehovistic and Elohistic elements contained in
¦ the Old Testament. Opposite the name of each book will be
found, in parallel columns, the number of times Jehovah and
Elohim are found in it, — the divine names El and Eloah, also
attributed to the Elohist, being included in the latter : —

Jehovah.

Elohim.

Jehovah.

Elohim.

¦ Genesis

162

228

Ecclesiastes

0

40

E]fodus

397

118

Song of Solomon

I*

0

Leviticus

311

52

' Isaiah

448

IOI

Numbers

395

38

Jeremiahf .

725

115

Deuteronomy

550

352

Lamentations

32

I

Joshua

222

70

Ezekiel

435

40

Judges .

, 174

52, ¦

Daniel

8

57

Ruth

18

3

Hosea

46

25 '

I. Samuel

320

94 .

Joel

33

II

II. Samuel

151

63

Amos

81

II

I. Kings

258

92

Obadiah

7

0

., II. Ki;igs ,.

¦ 277

79

Jonah

26

15

I. Chronicles

174

114

. Micah

40

II

11, •Chtonicles

384

185

Nahum

13

I

,Ezra . ..

37

97

Habakkuk

13

5

Neheiniah ' ' .

17

74

Zephaniah .

35

4

Esther .

0

0

Haggai

35

3

Job

32

113

Zechariah

133

12

Psalms- .

737

410

Malachi

47

8

Proverbs,

87,

6

*,Ch. viii. 6, "A flame, of Jehovah," translated in E.V., " a most vehement flame."
+ The E.V. renders Adonai-Jehovah by Lord-God.
A glance at these results will at once dispose of various
contentions which have given colour and consistency to the
theories. An essential element, common to all of them, has
been the postulate that the prevalent use of the one name and
of the other is to be taken as marking different periods.
Sometimes, as with Colenso, Elohim is declared to be the older,
and Jehovah the later name. At other times the exclusive use
28 JEHOVISTIC AND ELOHISTIC THEORIES.
of Elohim is said to be charadleristic of a very late period.
This last, as was observed before, is the position of Dr.
Robertson Smith. The awe, it is said, with which the later
Jews regarded the sacred name Jehovah, led not only to its
disuse in later writings, but also to its removal from some of
an earlier date. We shall look in vain, among the results
tabulated above, for confirmation either of the one theory or
of the other. Dr. Smith's hypothesis is contradidled by his
own contention that Chronicles "was written long after the
reformation by Ezra." i The Jehovistic charadler of Chronicles
is as marked as that of any other book in the Old Testament
canon. Either, then, the age assigned to the book must be wrong,
or the exclusive use of Elohim was not a charadleristic of that
time. The same thing is true of his statement that "the
colledlions. Psalms xc. — cl., and even the origin of many of
the pieces it contains," belong " to a date subsequent to the
re-organization of the Theocracy by Ezra and Nehemiah." ^
There is only one psalm (Ps. cxiv.) in the whole coUedlion
that has not the name Jehovah in it, and the entire
sedlion is the most Jehovistic in the Psalter. It will be
observed that the books present a remarkable uniformity from
first to last, almost all of them showing a marked preponder
ance of the name Jehovah. Ezra, Nehemiah, and Daniel, are
exceptions, but no conclusions can be drawn from these as to
the tendencies of the age, for in Haggai, Zechariah, and
Malachi we have the same preponderance of Jehovah which
marks the other books. The only other exceptions are Job and
1 The Old Testament in the Jewish Church, p. 218.
2 The Old Testament in the Jewish Church, p. 192.

TESTIMONY OF THE PSALMS. 2g
Ecclesiastes: from them no argument can be drawn as to
the tendencies of any age in regard to the use of the names.
But, on the other hand, these five books tell heavily against
the theory that the names were ' altered in the course of
editorial supervision. If Jehovah was changed to Elohim in
these, why was the change not made elsewhere ? Why were
these taken and the others left ? And if, in the other books,
Elohim was exchanged for Jehovah, how was it that these five
were overlooked ? These exceptions put it beyond a doubt
that the uniformity which marks the other books is not due to
editorial changes, but belongs to their original form. We
have the most perfedl demonstration, therefore, both in the
historical books from Genesis to Nehemiah, and, in the pro
phetical, from Isaiah to Malachi, that there was no period
wh6n one name or the other was in disuse. There was
no Elohistic and no Jehovistic age. Both names, from the
beginning of the era of the sacred literature to its close, were
known, and were constantly employed ; and, whatever the
explanation of their use may be, this, that it was due merely
to the fashion of the time or the prediledlion of the writer,
must be discarded by every theory which seeks to refledl and
to explain the fadls. The Testimony of the Psalms.
npHAT the same conclusion is forced upon us by the book of
Psalms will be evident from a reference to Colenso's
tables. 1 He gives the number of times Jehovah, Elohim, and
Adonai (Lord) appear in each Psalm, including, under Elohim,
as we have already done. El and Eloah. An analysis of the
1 The Pentateuch, etc.. Part ll., p. 310.

30 JEHOVISTIC AND ELOHISTIC THEORIES.
figures given by Colenso might beget many theories. There
is, for example, a preponderance of Jehovah running through
the whole of Book i., and of Elohim in Book ii.,. while Books
III. and IV. are similarly distinguished. Now, an ardent fancy
might rush to the conclusion that it had discovered here the
principle of arrangement, and that the bopks have been
arranged in pairs. The danger of such hasty theorising is
seen, not, only in in. and iv. (Elohistic and Jehovistic) being
in reverse order to i. and ii. (Jehovistic and Elohistic), but
also in the presence of Psalms Ixxxv., Ixxxvii., Ixxxviii., and
Ixxxix., in which Jehova,h, predominates, being found in an
Elohistic book. Conclusions, however,, may be drawn of a
more sober kind. It is admitted that the colledlions which
form the books were the work of various periods ; and it is
maintained by many that they bear, if not in authorship, yet
at least in seledlion, the impress of the ages in which they
were made. If this be granted, we shall find that the con
clusion, drawn frorn the former table, is abundantly confirmed
by these, for they put it beypnd doubt that the use of both. names
marks every period represented by the Psalter.. In Book i., out of
41 Psalms, 27 coTita,m , Jehovah and Elohim. In Book 11. (31
Psalms) 16 have both names; in Book iii. (17 Psalms) 16;
Book IV. (17 Psalms) 12 ; and Book v. (44 Psalms) 21. That
is, the use of both names is largely charadleristic of all the
Books, and is found in 92 Psalms out of 150. The theory,
therefore, that one name or the other was in abeyance: during
certain periods, is as fully disproved by the Psalms as by the
other books of the Old Testament. 1

NAME-CONSCIOUSNESS. 31

II.
Have the Names Distinct Significations ?
"DUT itis possible to raise this question to a level where
such a hypothesis will be judged unworthy of a moment's
thought, and where a purpose may be traced in the seledlion
bf the names in keeping with the freest and grandest litera
ture of all time. It must be acknowledged that the names
are not synonymous. It must be further admitted, not
only that the names might be used with discrimination, but
that the theory which maintains that in their alternation we
catch the refledlion of the writer's -changing thought and
feeling, has, to start with, every probability in its favour.
E'Vferything now' depends, however, upon the -fidelity with
which this principle is followed.' We may abandon the clue
it affords, and try to discover here and there the traces of
technical rules, and, as the result of our labour, leave the
convidlion in every honest mind that no explanation of the use
of the names is possible. Our explanation begins and ends
with this — the names are words with distinct and separate meanings,
and they-are always used accordingly.
A Name-Consciousness in Scripture.
T T will be acknowledged that the explanation may he in the
diredlion now indicated, and that, to begin with, this theory
has reason on its side. ,We ourselves apply epithets and
phrases to express the special aspedl of the Divine jiature to
which our attention is for the time diredled. We sometimes

32 JEHOVISTIC AND ELOHISTIC THEORIES.
so discriminate in our use of the Saxon terms Lord and God.
Should we speak of Him as our highest good, we should use
the latter of the two ; and, if of His right to our life's devotion
and service, we should feel that the former was more appro
priately applied. It is evident, however, that the distindlion
we make in the use of the names will depend upon our
perception of their meaning ; for, just as the signification, of
each is clear and distindl, it will be correspondingly impossible
to apply them recklessly. Now, it is of the utmost moment
in any right consideration of this question that one fadl should
be fully noticed. It is that a clear perception of the meaning
of names, what indeed we may call a name-consciousness, is one
of the most marked charadleristics of the book of Genesis.
Scarcely a name is introduced without its meaning being given,
and the circumstances narrated in which it was first bestowed.
Attention is diredled, for example, to the meaning of the names
Eve, Cain, Seth, Noah, Peleg, Abram and Abraham, Sarai and
Sarah, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob and Israel, Esau and Edom,
Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher,
Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph, Benoni and Benjamin, Pharez,
Manasseh, and Ephraim. A similar list might be made of the
names of places, the meaning of which is also given. But
there is another fadl which has a still closer bearing upon our
argument. I refer to the change of names. Abram's name
is changed to Abraham, Sarai's to Sarah, Jacob's to Israel. In
the first two instances the change is made once for all ; the
old name is dropped, the new alone retained. But in Jacob's
case both names continue to be used.
Now here we have a parallel to the use of the Divine names
Jehovah and Elohim; and, in one instance at least, it must be

NAME-CONSCIOUSNESS. 33
acknowledged that they are used with discrimination. Jacob's
sons have returned a second time from Egypt. Joseph has
at last revealed himself to them, and they have come back
with the great tidings that their father's favoured son "is yet
alive, and is governor over all the land of Egypt." The
historian continues : " And JacoVs heart fainted, for he believed
them not. And they told him all the words of Joseph, which
he had said unto them : and when he saw the waggons which
Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit of Jacob their father
revived, and Israel said. It is enough, Joseph my son is yet
alive : I wiU go and see him before I die " (Gen. xiv. 26-28).
The sudden transition from "Jacob " to " Israel " will be noted.
Is it possible to believe that the change is made without a
purpose ? Can its significance be missed if it be remembered
that the name "Israel" was bestowed when, after the long
night-wrestling with the angel, he at last prevailed, and the
assurance of God's favour broke like sunshine upon his inner
darkness ? It was his name of triumph ; and in that very
hour another long-protradled struggle had come to an end.
He had refused to take the heavy judgments which fell upon
him as proofs of God's final rejedlion of him. In his deepest
darkness he clung to God, and refused to let Him go till He
should bless him. With strong crying and tears he had doubt
less sought for some token of God's returning favour, and
once more he had prevailed. In the unlooked-for tidings of
Joseph's well-being, the day broke upon him, and God's blessing
crowned him. "yacoi's heart had fainted," but "Israel said.
It is enough ; Joseph my son is yet alive : I will go and see
him before I die."

34 JEHOVISTIC AND ELOHISTIC THEORIES.
The Meaning of Elohim.
T HAVE no wish to build upon the fadls more than they will
ear. Still clearer evidence will be adduced that the Divine
names are used with as'evident discrimination, but meanwhile
I ask that this only be admitted : that, so far is this supposi
tion from being a violent one, there is already a strong
presumption' in its favour. Two questions now remain — (i)
Is there any broad distindlion in the meaning of the words?
and' (2) Can it be shown that this distindlion has guided the
writer in the use he made of them ? The first question admits
of but one reply. Of Elohim, the plural of Eloah, the
Scriptures contain no definition, and two different opinions
have been held as tb its derivation. Eloah is the infinitive of
either of two unused verbs : alah, to fear, or alah, to be strong.
Used as a verbal noun with the usual abstradl signification,
Eloah would mean in the one case fear, in the other strength.
Now, though the Scripture has no definition of Eloah, it places
it beyond doubt that the latter derivation is the only admissible
one. This is .clearly shown by the references in the following
note from Gesenius : " There is a proverbial expression
(Habakkuk i. 11) of an obstinate, self-confident man, 'whose
own strength is as his God,' that is, who despises every God,
and confides in his own strong hand and sword. Comp. Job
xii. 6, ' who bears his God in his hand.' 1 Arms are intended."
Here it is plain that the former interpretation must be
abandoned. Can ithe said that his- own strength is to the
self-confident man an objedl of fear ? Does he stand in awe
of his own might? Accept the latter derivation, and the
phrase is at once intelligible. He so exaggerates his strength,
1 The rendering of the English Version is, " Into wiiose handGod bringeth."

MEANING OF "JEHOVAH." 35
that it seems to him there is no resistance which it cannot
overcome, and no hmit to what it may accomphsh ; in a word,
it is to him wha.t Eloah, the Divine Strength, alone, should be.
It is gratifying to find that Ewald's great authority (as a
Hebraist) can be quoted in support of this contention. He
speaks of Enosh (man) and Eloah as " the expression of the
two contrasted ideas — of Cod as the absolutely powerful, and of
man, matched with God, as the absolutely weak."''- In reference
to the plural form, Elohim, his words are well worth quoting :
"The formation of these plural words for God and Lord
leads us back into that far-off time when the conception of
majesty and power seemed to be exalted by those of multitude
and universality." '¦* We have, therefore, three cognate names
of God, which express in various ways the same attribute of
power. There is, first of all. El, mighty one ; then the abstradl
term Eloah, strength (compare our terms, " Lordship,"
" Grace," " Majesty"), a name in which the soul's reverence
is expressed as well as the Divine attribute of might ; and
.lastly, the plural form Elohim, in which both God's almighti
ness and man's adoration find a fuller utterance. Elohim, in
short, expresses what is occasionally rendered more emphati
cally by the two words El Shaddai, God Almighty.
The Meaning of Jehovah.
npO the meaning of Jehovah the attention of Moses had been
called by God Himself : "God spake unto Moses and said
unto him, I am Jehovah, and I appeared unto Abraham, unto
Isaac, and unto Jacob by the name of God Almighty {El
Shaddai), but by my name Jehovah was I not known to them "
1 Hist, of Israel, vol. i., p. 264. 2 Ibid. vol. i. p. 319.

36 JEHOVISTIC AND ELOHISTIC THEORIES.
(Exod. vi. 2, 3). This might mean that the word had not be
longed to their vocabulary as a name of God, and that it was
now so applied for the first time. Even on this supposition its
appearance in Genesis would generally be intelligible enough.
It would be put wherever the writer felt that God had already
been proving Himself to be Jehovah. But the words are
capable of yielding quite another sense. It will be observed
that God speaks of Himself as having the two names (" my name
Jehovah") ; but asserts that, while the fathers had known the
import of one, that of the other had been hid from them.
How had they known the meaning of the first but by the
revelation He had given of His power in the world around thera,
and in the mighty help they had ever found in Him ? And if
Jehovah had already been applied as a name of God, Would
not the intimation to Moses that it had never yet been under
stood, be all the more significant, and give birth to the
expedlation that God was about to do a new thing in the
earth ? There cannot iiideed be the slightest doubt that the use
of the word as a Divine name is much earlier than Moses.
Moses changed the name of his successor from Oshea
(salvation) to Joshua (whose salvation is Jehovah). But in
this he was simply following an early custom ; for the same
Divine name appears in that of his own mother Jochebed
(whose glory is Jehovah). Quite as decisive a proof of its
still earlier use is the name which Abraham gave to the place
where the ram was caught in the thicket : he called it Jehovah-
jireh (Jehovah will see). The words are to be understood, then,
in a still richer sense than that God was to take to Himself an
absolutely new name. They mean rather that He was to
justify an old name, and fih it so fuU of significance that its

MEANING OF "JEHOVAH." 37
future would be to its past what the mid-day splendour is to
the early dawn. One who had seen the first grey light break
upon the eastern sky, may have had his heart touched and
thrilled, and have hailed the vanquisher of night by the name
" Day ; '' but if he had seen no more than that, though he had
used the name, he did not know what "Day" meant.
The revelation which God was now about to give of Himself,
not only eclipsed all that had been given in the past — it stood
alone in its splendour throughout all that dispensation. When
the Israelite would know what this name Jehovah covered,
he looked back, not to the times of patriarchs or of kings, but
to the days of Moses, when Egypt's yoke was broken, and
"Jehovah brought " His people "forth out of Egypt with a
mighty hand, and with an out-stretched arm, and with great
terribleness, and with signs, and with wonders." Of those
days all the institutions of Israel were the continued com
memoration. God had announced Himself to Abraham and
Isaac, and Jacob, as El Shaddai, the Almighty : for men were
to know Him first of all as the living God, able to do
exceeding abundantly above ah that they asked or thought.
They had called upon Him also as Jehovah, for they had
learned something besides God's powerfulness. But in
announcing Himself to Moses, not as El Shaddai, but as Jehovah,
God intimated that He should now do a new thing in the
earth. What men had already dimly discerned and owned,
was to be brought out into- the light and made manifest for
ever — and whether a new thing was done the story of those
wonders will declare.
What, then, did the name Jehovah mean ? The word was
already in the time of Moses an ancient form of part of the

38 JEHOVISTIC AND ELOHISTIC THEORIES.
Hebrew verb havah, an older form of hayah, to be. It is
evidently the third singular future of the Hiphil, or causative
conjugation, and means " he will cause (it) to be," an opinion
with which we are glad to notice Dr. Robertson Smith is
fully in accord. 1 This agrees fully with the interpretation
given in Exod. iii. 14. Moses had represented the people as
likely to ask him the name of the God whose message he
conveyed to them ; and God said unto Moses : "I am that
(or what) I am." This reply threw Israel back upon the
promises which had been handed down from sire to son. It
quickened, if anything might quicken, their slumbering faith.
The words, " I am what I am " are not rightly interpreted by
saying they mean "the Existent," or "the Self-existent
One." They point rather to unbroken continuity of character and
of purpose, to unvarying constancy, to unswerving faithfulness.
The words told them that the promises of God were not
forgotten, that His design was not laid aside, and that they
had not, in short, in any sense a different God from Him who
had spoken to their fathers. What He had been in the past,
the present and the future would still reveal Him to be.
His deeds write all along the ages : " I am what I am." He is
the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever," "the Father of
lights . . . with whom there is no variableness, neither
shadow of turning." It may be remarked, that the paraphrase
which the Targums give of this passage affords a striking
confirmation of the causative sense here claimed for Jehovah.
They simply import into their explanation a literal rendering
of the Divine name. The Targum Jonathan says, " He who
spoke and the world was ; He who spoke and the universe
1 The Old Testament, etc., p. 423.

IS THE DISTINCTION OBSERVED ? 39
was ; " and the Targum Jerusalem, " He who said to the
world Exist ! and it was, and who will say to it Exist ! and it
win be." Jehovah is He who shall cause it to be, and whose
every word shall be fulfilled. In these two names, therefore, of
of Elohim and Jehovah, we have a twofold representation of God
as the Almighty and the Changeless, the infinitely strong and
the ever faithful One. They conveyed the twofold assurance
that God can help and that He will. Other distindlions have
been drawn between the words. It has been said, for example,
that Jehovah is used in passages which speak of God's cove
nant relation to His people, and Elohim where His relation to
the race is referred to. So narrow and mechanical a view
must inevitably break down in the most cursory reading of
Genesis. The covenant relation was certainly the greatest
exhibition of God's oneness of purpose, but there were other
exhibitions of it as well ; it comes under the broad meaning
of the word, but does not exhaust it.
Is the Distinction observed?
npHERE is, then, a broad and clear distindlion in the meaning
of the words. They express two of the most important
attributes of God — attributes the recognition of which lies at
the root of all reverence and trust. God might be all-powerful
and yet not changeless : what was His earnest purpose in one
age might be modified or abandoned in the next. Or, He
might be constant in purpose and endeavour, but not almighty:
there might be opposition and difficulties, which even His
power could not overcome. In either case the calm assurance
of trust would be broken ; but these names Elohim, Jehovah^
were the soul's answer to the one fear and the other. He was

40 JEHOVISTIC AND ELOHISTIC THEORIES.
almighty and He was changeless. Our first question is
therefore answered : there is a distindlion in the meaning of
the words. It now only remains that we look at the second :
is the distindlion observed in the Scripture, or is it a mere
etymological fancy ? To this question the following will be a
sufficient reply.
The faithfulness of God has terror as well as joy in it ; for
it speaks of judgment as well as of mercy. In Genesis xx.
Jehovah occurs once only, but then as the sender of judgment
upon the house of Abimelech (ver. i8). The following chapter
would be pronounced Elohistic, but in the opening verse
Jehovah occurs twice, just where emphasis is laid upon His
having remembered and fulfilled a promise : " and Jehovah
visited Sarah as He had said, and Jehovah did unto Sarah as
He had spoken." It is Jehovah who punishes Er and Onan
(xxxviii. 7-10), and who is with Joseph in the house of bondage,
"who made all that he did to prosper in his hand^'
(xxxix. 2, 3), and who showed him mercy in the prison
(xxxix. 21, 23). In chapter xxxi. Elohim is used sixteen times
and Jehovah twice only, but in both instances emphasis is laid
upon God's faithfulness : it is Jehovah who calls back Jacob to
the land of his fathers, giving him the assurance "I will be
with thee " (ver. 3) ; and again it is Jehovah (who remembers
and avenges) whom Laban invokes at the heap of witness
(ver. 49). The same predominance of Elohim marks chapter
xxxii. Jehovah is employed once only, but then in a way which
of itself would go far to establish this distindlion. Dreading
the meeting with Esau upon the morrow, " Jacob said, O
God of my father Abraham, and God of my father Isaac,
Jehovah who saidst unto me. Return unto thy country and to

IS THE DISTINCTION OBSERVED ? 4I
thy kindred, and I will deal weh with thee" (xxxii. 9).
The force of the plea embodied in the name Jehovah will be
felt at once. He casts himself upon the Divine faithfulness.
God was not only the Elohim, the mighty helper of his fathers,
but also the Faithful One, whose promise had brought him
hither, and who would not fail or deceive him now.
The almost exclusive use of Jehovah in the account of the
calling and the early wanderings of Abraham (xii. -xvi.) is very
marked, and little refledlion is needed to find an explanation.
Not only was the separating of Abraham the first great step
which had been taken towards the fulfilling of the promise of
the world's salvation ; but Abraham, while resigning country,
possessions, kindred, had only promises given him, and this
attribute of God's faithfulness was therefore that on which
Abraham's trust specially rested. In the blessing which Noah
pronounced upon his sons we have a remarkable illustration
of the discrimination which was made in the use of the names.
"And he said, 'Blessed be the LoRD-God [Jehovah-Elohim) of
Shem. . . . God {Elohim) shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall
dwell in the tents of Shem ' " (ix. 26, 27). God, both in His
faithfulness and in His might, is to be revealed to the race of
Shem as to no other. The nations shall know Him as the
Jehovah-Elohim, the ever faithful almighty one, of Shem. God
will enlarge Japheth, so that he shall spread over and possess
the earth, but for the better than the earthly portion he must
seek to the tabernacles of his brother. Before referring to the
accounts of the deluge and the Creation, we notice one or two
other passages. In chapter v. God is spoken of as Elohim,
except in one instance — that, namely, in which Lamech speaks
of " the ground which Jehovah had cursed " (29). The reason

42 JEHOVISTIC AND ELOHISTIC THEORIES.
of this deviation is evident. The land is cursed because God
said it should be on account of man's sin. It is the adi of
Jehovah, all whose threatenings find their fulfilment. In iv. i.
Eve exclaims, " I have gotten a man from Jehovah," and here
God's faithfulness in the supposed gift of the promised seed
explains the choice ofthe name. It is to Jehovah again, who
in His faithfulness has given fruitfulness to the soil, and
increase to the flock, that Cain and Abel bring their sacrifices
(iv. 3, 4) ; and it is Jehovah also who inquires into and avenges
the shedding of Abel's blood (iv. 9-15).
In the account of the deluge we meet with simply this same
variation in the use of the Divine names. In chapter vi.,
wherever the coming judgment is indicated, the historian
passes from the name Elohim to that of Jehovah: "Jehovah
said. My spirit shall not always strive with man . . . and
Elohim saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth
. . . and it repented Jehovah that he had made man on the
earth " (verses 3, 5-7). In the rest of the chapter, in which
God diredls Noah in regard to the building of the ark and the
preserving of animal life, Elohim is used, but when the long
interval of warning and preparation had come to an end, and
promise and threatening were at last to be fulfilled, Elohim is
exchanged for Jehovah: "and Jehovah said unto Noah, Come
thou, and aU thy house, into the ark " (vii. i); "and they
went in unto Noali into the ark, two and two, of aU flesh
wherein is the breath of life. And they that went in, went in
male and female of all flesh, as God had commanded him:
and the Lord shut him in " (verses 15, 16). Noah had done
all he was able to do in making the ark a secure refuge for the
hfe of which, during those terrible coming days, it was to be

IS THE DISTINCTION OBSERVED ? 43
the sole hope ; and God, in His faithfulness, now completed the
work : Noah did " as Elohim had commanded him, and Jehovah
shut him in." Could a stronger proof of the distindlion
between the names be desired than this? In viii. i, 2, we
read : "Elohim remembered Noah, and every living thing, and
all the cattle that was with him in the ark, and Elohim made
a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters assuaged, the
fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were
stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained." God's
power in curbing the forces of nature and sweeping back the
deluge from the earth is here minutely, dwelt upon, and the
appropriateness of Elohim is abundantly evident. On the
other hand, when Noah builds his altar and offers sacrifice, it
is to Jehovah. The promise of safety and the threatenings
of judgment had alike been marvellously fulfilled. In the so-
called second account of Creation we have only an additional
proof of this discrimination in the use of the Divine names.
In the first adls of Creation, God is displayed in the fulness
of His power, and Elohim is therefore used throughout
(i. i-ii. 3). But in the following sedlion (ii. 4, etc.), which not
only recounts the creation of man, but relates also how God
dealt with him in judgment and mercy, there is not only a
continued display of the Divine might, but also a revelation of
the Divine faithfulness, and there the name is used which
denotes both, Jehovah-Elohim. There is one exception to this,
but it is an exception to which we would point as one of the
most signal proofs of the corredlness of the view now main
tained. When the serpent speaks with the woman, God's
faithfulpess is kept out of sight ; he is only Elohim. But when
the sinful are again with God He is Jehovah-Elohim, the

44 JEHOVISTIC AND ELOHISTIC THEORIES.
Mighty One, at the remembrance of whose faithfulness the
sinful are afraid, and hide themselves.
It might now be shown how this distindlion in meaning
becomes apparent again and again throughout the Old Testa
ment Scriptures ; but we propose, ere we conclude, to submit
our contention to a test, which we trust will result in trans
ferring it from the realm of theory to that of fadl. Meanwhile,
one or two other proofs may be noticed. That Jehovah ex
presses God's faithfulness is abundantly evident, for example,
from the oft-repeated phrase, " Thus saith the Lord." It
introduces commandment, threatening, promise, and upon all
it sets the stamp of eternal truth. It is the solemn intimation
that all these are the words of Him who is faithful. Threat
enings and promises are frequently concluded also by the
brief emphatic sentence, " I am Jehovah" (Exod. vi. 8, etc.).
The very name is an argument to dispel fear and to deepen trust.
Tlie peculiar significance of the name is even more apparent
in the following passages : " I Jehovah, have said ; I will surely
do it," etc. (Num. xiv. 35) ; " Jehovah that is faithful " (Isaiah
xhx. 7) ; " For I am Jehovah, I change not ".(Malachi ih. 6).
That the three other names of God were ever felt to bear a
different meaning is quite clear, as I have already indicated,
from the fadl that while the possessives " my," " thy," " his,"
etc., are frequently used in conjundlion with them, they are
never employed with Jehovah. The reader of the Old Testament
win seek in vain for such a phrase as "my Lord." That from
first to last there should be such a marked difference in the
use of the nam'es is in itself a convincing proof that the distinc
tion in their meaning was ever felt to be deep and wide. It is
easy to understand how the attribute of strength, expressed

IS THE DISTINCTION OBSERVED? 45
alike by El, Eloah, and Elohim, lent itself with peculiar readi
ness to such a use. By these names faith laid hold of God as
the Almighty Helper. With that cry, " my Elohim," the soul
linked itself with, and clung to, the everlasting strength. We
have said the Old Testament contains no definition of Elohim ;
but there are passages which almost amount to a definition.
For example, in Geh. xvii. 7, God promises to be an Elohim to
Abraham, and to his seed after him. Can this possibly mean
that God is to be " an objedl of fear " to them, and that He is
to demand something from them ? Is it not written upon, the
very face of the promise that God is giving, not demanding,
and that He will provide for them in the infinite strength a
never-failing help and refuge ? This reference is even plainer
in Deut. xxix. 13, where Moses calls upon Israel to enter into
covenant with Jehovah, " that He may be unto thee an
Elohim, as He hath said unto thee." This covenant-relation
ship was the necessary condition of God's appearing in His
might, and performing for them all that He had promised.
The same book supplies us with two other examples. Israel
forsaken by the Lord, trampled upon and devoured by enemies,
"will say in that day. Are not these evils come upon us,
because our Elohim is not among us?" (xxxi. 17). The
shield of the Infinite Might had clearly been removed, or these
ills could never have come nigh them. Among the last words
of " the man of God " were these : " There is none like unto
the El of Jeshurun, who rideth upon the heaven in thy help,
and in His excehency on the sky. The Elohim of Eternity is
thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms; and He
shall thrust out the enemy from before thee, and shall say,
Destroy them " (xxxiu. 26, 27). It is clear that the idea of

46 JEHOVISTIC AND ELOHISTIC THEORIES.
Strength is expressed by Elohim as well as by El, and that, in
the glowing language of the Prophet, an advance is niade
from the weaker to the stronger and grander name of God,
in His unbounded and undying might.
The Distinction was always felt.
T)EFORE applying our test, it may be well to obtain some
¦^ answer to a question of the utmost moment. We con
tend that the words are not synonymous ; that, though both
apply to the Divine Being, they are the exprfession of
perfedlly distindl attributes. Now, if this be true, the con
sciousness of this difference in meaning must, one would think,
have left its impress. Is there any indication, then, that the
names were thus regarded ? We have already seen that, in
the fadl that possessives are frequently joined with Elohim
and never with Jehovah, we have clear traces of a recognised
distindlion between the names common to every age of the
inspired Hebrew literature. We have other proofs which
place it beyond doubt that the distindlion between the names
was deeply felt, and that they were not interchangeable,
except in connection with a change in the writer's point of
view. We have two versions, for example, of Psalm xviii.,
which in minor points present a very considerable divergence.
" Between Psalm xviii. and 11. Samuel xxii. there are," says
Dr. Smith, " some seventy variations not merely orthographi
cal."^ Now, in the face of the comparative freedom thus shown
in the versions, is it not astonishing that we should have the,
Divine names in both versions exadlly the same ? In Samuel,
the first verse forms an introdudlion which is omitted in the
1 The Old Testament in the Jewish Church, p. 182.

THE DUPLICATE PSALMS. 47
Psalter, and the first verse of the Psalm does not appear in Samuel.
In Samuel again Jehovah occurs twice in ver. 29 : " For thou art
my lamp, O Lord, and the Lord wih hghten my darkness ; "
while the corresponding passage in the Psalm (ver. 28), reads :
" The Lord my God wih lighten my darkness." With this
slight exception, although the names occur twenty-six times in
all (16 times Jehovah, and 10 times Elohim), they are never once
interchanged; the same name occurs always in the same
context. The same feature is found in the versions of Psalm
CV. 1-15, and Psalm xcvi. 2-13, contained in the i Chron, xvi.
8-33. In the midst of some marked variations, not one
occurs in the omission, addition, or substitution of these
names of God. The Names in the Duplicate Psalms.
nPHESE fadls do not seem to have been much noticed by
the critics ; but their importance in the present inquiry
will be felt by all. A glance at the parallel passages in
Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles, might convey the impression
that the names were interchangeable, as we frequently raeet
with Elohim in the one account, where Jehovah appears in the
other. It must be remerabered, however, that in this case
we are not dealing with versions, but with independent works,
in which the writers, though deriving their matter frora the
sarae sources, were led, by the circurastances of their time and
other causes, to occupy different standpoints. But it has been
supposed that in what have been called "duplicate," bul what
we should prefer to name "adapted" Psalms, we have a
clear proof that the names were interchangeable. It is well
known that in the Psalter itself certain Psalras appear in two

48 JEHOVISTIC AND ELOHISTIC THEORIES.
versions, which sometimes differ considerably in regard to
these names of God. It, cannot for a moment be supposed
that the change was due to mere caprice, and it is necessary
not only to notice, but also to atterapt some explanation of
the fadl. Dr. Smith supposes that the Jehovistic version is
the older, and that the Elohistic is due to the exertions of an
editor, who, in order to adapt them to an age in which Jehovah
had ceased to be used, set himself to substitute Elohim where-
ever the former name occurred. The explanation, if striking,
is also exceedingly simple ; but like some other ventures in
the higher criticism, it shows considerable independence in
regard to fadls. Psalm xl. 13-17 re-appears as Psalra Ixx.,
when, says Dr. Smith, Jehovah is six' times changed into
Elohim, "and only one converse change" is made. ^ That is, so
determined an effort was made to expunge Jehovah, that it
was six times replaced by Elohim, and yet where Elohim was
already in the older copy, by some strange freak, and in entire
forgetfulness of the one purpose for which the revision was
being made, this was put aside, and Jehovah, the name which
could not then be used, was put in its stead ! Is it possible to
maintain such a theory, and continue to believe in that
reviser's sanity? The fadl is, that both naraes appear in
Ps. Ixx. It would seem, indeed, that the Psalm was adapted
to circumstances in which need had arisen for the immediate
aid of the Almighty Helper, and that the Psalmist was led to
appeal to God in His might, as well as in His faithfulness.
Ps. xl. 13, "Be pleased, Jehovah to dehver me; O Jehovah,

1 This number evidently includes also the changes made in transforming Ps. xiv. into Ps.
liii.; in Ps. Ixx. Jehovah is only twice exchanged for Elohim.
2 The Old Testament in the Jewish Church, p. 187.

THE DUPLICATE PSALMS. 49
make haste to help me," becomes therefore in Ps. Ixx. i,
" Make haste, O Elohim, to deliver me ; make haste to help
me, O Jehovah." The proof, which Dr. Sraith beheves he
discovers in Ps. 1. 7, of the tendency to substitute Elohim for
Jehovah, is quite as imaginary. So determined was the
atterapt, he believes, to suppress the latter narae that the
phrase, " I am Jehovah thy God," is said to appear there as
" I am God, thy God," notwithstanding its awkwardness.
And yet Jehovah, the name which was being suppressed with
such effort and at such sacrifices, appears among the very
first words of the Psalra ! How did it happen that the scruples
against the use of Jehovah — scruples so great as to lead to
the alleged raisquotation of one of the best -known phrases in
Israel — did not raake theraselves felt in verse i, and only devel
oped their force when verse 7 was reached ? Such a theory is
scarcely to be credited with an honest attempt to grasp the
fadls with which it professes to deal. The peculiarity of the
phrase, " I ara God, thy God," is explained by the opening
words of the Psalm : " The mighty God, even Jehovah, hath
5poken." These words strike the key-note of the Psalm. It
sets forth God in the terribleness of His power, and hence the
Elohistic charadler which it presents throughout.
But to return to the duplicate Psalms. Ps. liii. is an adap
tation of Ps. xiv., and the change here is very marked. In
the earlier Psalm Jehovah occurs four tiraes, Elohim thrice : in
the later version we have seven times Elohim instead. But,
concurrently with this, there is another notable difference.
In the place of " Elohim is in the generation of the righteous "
(xiv. 5), we read, " Elohim hath scattered the bones of him
that encampeth against thee" (liu. 5). The one variation

50 jehovistic AND ELOHISTIC THEORIES.
explains the other. The Psalm was evidently adapted to
celebrate some deliverance in which God had appeared, or
will appear, in His might, and hence its purely Elohistic
charadler. Ps. cviii. emhodies Ps. Ivii. 7-1 1, but here there
is only one change in the Divine naraes : Jehovah is once
substituted for Adonai. With this exception, the names
appear the same number of times and in the same order.
The conclusion (of Ps. cviii.) is made up of Ps. Ix. 5-12, in
which there is not the slightest change in the Divine name.
This, along with the other instances already referred to,
proves abundantly that, without some good reason for change,
the names of God were scrupulously preserved. The many,
and not always unimportant, changes in the versions of
Psalras xviii., cv., and xcvi., show conclusively that the
uniforraity in the names was not due to a slavish or supersti
tious regard for literal exadlness. To what, then, can we
attribute it, if not to a sense of the fitness of each name for
the place it held ? When the aspedl of the Divine nature,
celebrated or appealed to, remained the same, they were left
unaltered ; when that was changed, they too were changed.
And thus, though these fadls alone were before us, the con
clusion would be inevitable, that the law which governs the
use of these two names of God is simply their meaning as
Hebrew words. To the Law and to the Testimony !
A^7"E shall now submit our contention, that Elohim is the
name of God in His raight, and Jehovah in His faith
fulness, to one of the raost thorough tests to which such a
theory can be subjedted. The variation in the names is raore

THE ELOHISTIC PSALMS. 5I
marked in the Psalms than in any other book of the Old
Testament. This, it raay be observed in passing, is quite in
keeping with our explanation ; for, if the names are used in
accordance with their raeaning, the variation must present a
more decided feature where so many different experiences and
emotions find expression, and where thought and feeling are
deepest and most intense. But this feature has naturally made
the Psalms the chosen battle-field of the theories, and we now
accept the implied challenge to decide the raatter there. A
glance at Colenso's tables will show that some of the Psalras
are purely Elohistic, and others purely Jehovistic ; that is, the
only Divine name in the forraer is Elohim, in the latter Jehovah.
Now, if our explanation is corredl, the latter must deal with
God's faithfulness, the former with His raight. If the theory
is not true, no speedier or more effedlive method could be
found for its refutation than to test it by these two classes of
Psalms. But, if in these Psalms we find only a fresh array
of witnesses to its truth, the convidlion will be irresistible that
this is not the result of chance, and that the theory must be
accepted as proved. What say the Elohistic Psalms ?
TX /E now proceed with our test. There are only eleven
Psalms wholly Elohistic, ten in Book ii., and one in
Book III. This last is the 82nd. God is naraed twice, and on
both occasions Elohim is used. The opening words have all
the force of a demonstration : " Elohim standeth in the
congregation of the mighty." The vision of that assembly, in
which might is wedded to unrighteousness, begets in the
Psalmist's breast neither despair nor alarra ; for among them

52 JEHOVISTIC AND ELOHISTIC THEORIES.
there is a mightier than they. This very narae of God, Elohim,
the Almighty, is here the expression of the calmest trust, the
most assured hope. In the end of the Psalm, where the narae
occurs again, we once raore find the sarae contrast between
the weakness of the raighty and the strength of God : "I have
said. Ye are gods {Elohim, raighty ones), and all of you are
children of the most High ; but ye shall die like men, and fall
like one of the princes. Arise, O Elohim," — an appeal to
God to appear in His raight,^" judge the earth; for Thou
shalt inherit all nations." The key-note of this Elohistic
Psalm is undoubtedly, therefore, the omnipotence of God.
The 43rd Psalra is the first raet with in Book 11., and is also
an appeal to God in His power. An entire people is arrayed
against the Psalraist : He has but one Helper. " Judge rae, O
Elohim, and plead my cause against an ungodly nation : O
deliver me frora the deceitful and unjust man. For thou art
the Elohim of my strength" (verses i, 2). The reader will
observe the iraportance of this last clause. It is impossible
to deny to Elohim here a reference to the power of God.
Elohim, the Almighty, is his fortress, his strong defence.
With Hira upon his side there is no room for despair, or even
for fear, and he concludes with the expostulation : " Why art
thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted
within me? I Hope in Elohim; for I shah yet praise Him who
is the health of ray countenance, and ray Elohim" (verse 5).
With that cry of faith, " my Elohim," " my Almighty One,"
the soul rose, as on eagle's wings, beyond the turmoil and the
darkness, into light and peace.
We come next to the 45th. Elohim occurs solely in the
beginning of the Psalm, which portrays the triumphant

THE ELOHISTIC PSALMS. 53
progress of the great Hero- King, the only world conqueror,
whose after-rest and joy are celebrated in the concluding por
tion. It is thoroughly in harmony, therefore, with the purport
of the Psalm that God, who has anointed and equipped Him
for, the war, and from whom both His authority and might
have been received, should be named by this name of power.
But we have another proof in the application of the name to
the King Himself. Verses 3-6 are a prolonged description of
the Hero in His might. " Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, 0
{most) mighty, with thy glory and thy raajesty. And in thy
ihajesty ride prosperously, because of truth, and meekness,
and righteousness ; and thy right hand shall teach thee terrible
things. Thine arrows are sharp in the heart of the king's
eneraies ; whereby the people fall under thee. Thy throne,
O Elohim, is for ever and ever ; the sceptre of thy kingdom
is a right sceptre." In this narae Elohim, the description
reaches its climax. It needed but this, the ascription of
infinite and enduring might, to perfedl it.
In the 49th, we find Elohim twice. The Psalm is a contrast
between the trust that is placed on wealth, and that which
rests on the Almighty. We give the passages in which
Elohim appears. " They that trust in their wealth, and
boast themselves in the multitude of their riches ; none of
thera can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to
Elohim a ransom for him . . . that he should still live for
ever, and not see corruption" (verses 6, 7, 9). Here, opposite
to the seeming might, is set the only real might, whose grasp
holds, whose word alone can free, in whose hand our breath
is, and " the keys of death and of Hades." In the second
instance, the appropriateness of Elohim is apparent at the

54 JEHOVISTIC AND ELOHISTIC THEORIES.
first glance. " But Elohim will redeera my soul from the
power of the grave" (verse 15). Here, the contrast is at
once evident between the power of God and the hand, or
strength, of the grave.
The 52nd is not less eraphatic in its testiraony. How plain
the reference here is to the omnipotence of God, is seen in
the adrairable sumraary of its contents by Perowne : —
This Psalm is not a prayer or complaint addressed to God against the
wicked ; it is a stern upbraiding addressed to the man -who, unscrupulous
in the exercise of his power, and proud of his -wealth, finds his delight in
all the arts of the praiftised liar. It is a, lofty challenge, a defiance
conceived in the spirit of David -when he went forth to meet the
champion of Gath. The calm courage of faith breathes in every word.
There is no fear, no trembling, no doubt as to the end -which -will come
upon the tyrant. How vain is his boast in presence of the loving-kindness
of God, which protefts his people, in presence of the poiver of God
which uproots the oppressor ! Such is briefly the purport of the Psalm.
To begin with, the mighty man is contrasted with the
mightier than he : " Why boastest thou thyself in mischief,
0 mighty man ? The goodness of Elohim endureth continu
ally." The latter clause raay have one of two explanations:
it is either a rebuke or a defiance. It may mean : " the might
of God is for ever linked to loving-kindness, why not thine ? "
or, "the loving-kindness of the Almighty will defeat thy malice,
notwithstanding all thy power." But in neither the one
explanation nor the other can the reference of Elohim to the
power of God be overlooked. It is plain, also, from the
following, that the might of God is the aspedl of the Divine
nature more prominently before the Psalmist's thought : — "El
shall likewise destroy thee for ever. He shall take thee away
and pluck thee out of thy dweUing-place, and root thee out of

THE ELOHISTIC PSALMS. 55
the land of the living. . . . Lo, this is the raan that raade not
Elohim his strength, but trusted in the abundance ofhis riches,
and strengthened hiraself in his wickedness " (verses 5-7).
The 53rd has already been dealt with in our reraarks on the
duplicate Psalras, and we pass on to the 60th, the next in order.
Here God is spoken of as the Mighty One, from whora alone
disaster and help alike can corae : " O Elohim, thou hast cast
us off, thou has scattered us. . . . Thou hast made the earth
to tremble, thou hast broken it. Heal the breaches thereof,
for it shaketh. . . . Who will bring me into the strong city ?
who will lead me into Edom ? Wilt not thou, O Elohim, who
hadst cast us off? and thou, O Elohim, who didst not go out
with our armies ? . . Through Elohim we shall do valiantly,
for he it is that shall tread down our enemies " (verses i, 2, 9,
10,12). Substitue for £/.oM»j its rendering " The Almighty,"
or rather " Almightiness," and the appropriateness of the narae
will be seen at a glance.
President Porter, of Belfast, has a remarkable note on this
Psalm, withput the reraotest reference to the name of God
employed in it : —
Edom was a natural fortress. Its chasms and rugged mountains, and
rocks all pierced with the cave-dwellings of a wild people, seemed to
bid defiance to every invader. Its ancient capital, perched on the summit
of a crag, was aptly called Bozrah, the strpng. How appropriate, then,
the language of the Psalmist, when appeaUng to tht Almight^ji for help
against the Edomites and others in a time of national peril ! ' Who
will bring me into the strong city ? [Bozrah] . Who will lead me into
Edom ? Wilt not thou, O God ? ' The natural strength of the capital,
and the difificulty of penetrating the country, are here brought out with
much force.
What President Porter discovers in the Psalm frora a

56 jehovistic and elohistic theories.
knowledge of the country of Edom, is indicated in the very
narae which the Psalraist applies to God.
Psalra Ixi. is a cry of distress, and Elohim is used
throughout with distindl reference t'o God's strength : " Hear
ray cry, O Elohim . . . For thou hast been a shelter for
me, and a strong tower from the eneray. I will abide in my
tabernacle for ever ; I will trust in the covert of thy wings "
(verses i, 3, 4). — Psalm Ixii. presents the same features: "O
Elohim, thou art ray El : early will I seek thee. My soul
thirsteth for thee ... to see thy power and thy glory "
(verses i, 2). The only other mention of Elohim is in the
last verse. David's enemies, in their inability to save even
themselves, are contrasted with God in His might : " Those
that seek my soul to destroy it shall, go into the lower parts
of the earth ; they shall fall by the sword ; they shall be a
portion for foxes ; but the king shall rejoice in Elohim "
(verses 9-1 1).
In the opening words of the 65th Psalm (" Praise waiteth
for thee, O Elohim, in Zion "), there is nothing to show
what special aspedl of the Divine nature is before the
Psalmist's thought ; but, when we come to the next mention
of the Divine name, the significance of Elohim is at once
apparent. " By terrible things in righteousness wilt thou
answer us, O Elohim of our salvation ; who art the confidenpe
of aU the ends of the earth, and of thera that are afar off
upon the sea : who by his strength setteth fast the mountains ;
heing girded with power " (verses 5,6). The Psalm is a hymn
to the Almighty, "the celebration," says Perowne, "of the
mighty adls of Jehovah, both in the world of nature and also
araong the nations." The last on the hst is Psalm Ixvii., in

the jehovistic psalms. 57
which the reason for the employment of Elohim, though not
so strikingly manifest as in some other instances, is yet
evident enough. The, last verse (verse 7) reads: "Elohim
shall bless us, and all the ends of the earth shall fear him."
How shall the blessing of Israel bow the hearts of all nations
in fear, if the might of God is not revealed therein ? The
Psalm is, in brief, a prayer to God to manifest Hiraself on
behalf of His people, to show Himself the alone living and
true God, and so bring the nations into allegiance to Him
"Let the peoples praise thee, O Elohim, let all the peoples
praise thee; O let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for
thou shalt judge the peoples righteously, and govern the
nations upon earth" (verses 3, 4).
The Testimony of the Jehovistic Psalms.
T ET us now glance at the Jehovistic Psalms, of which
¦^ there are in all thirty-four. Twelve of these raay be
disposed of by one remark. They belong to the Psalras of
Degrees. The fifteen Psalms so entitled (Pss. cxx-cxxxiv.)
are all Jehovistic with three slight exceptions. Psalms cxxii.
and cxxiii. have each Elohim once, both tiraes in the name
"Jehovah our Elohim;" and Psalm cxxx. has Adonai thrice.
That all these Psalms deal with the Divine faithfulness
might be argued from the fadl that they were the pilgrim
songs of God's people as they went up to the Holy City, a
place that spoke so loudly to the pious heart of God's promises
and the purposes which He had still to accomplish ; but we
content ourselves with quoting the unbiassed 'testimony of
Lampe: "The general argument of these Psalras is the
celebration of the faithfulness and the constancy of God in pre-

58 jehovistic and elohistic theories.
serving His Church in the midst of all the billows of tempta
tion in the sea of this world." The twenty-two Jehovistic
Psalras which remain are too numerous to admit of our
examining them all ; but to avoid the suspicion of taking such
only as best sUit our theory, let us confine ourselves to the
eleven contained in the first book. Psalm i. presents a totally
different charadler frora that of any of the Elohistic Psalms.
God is now the God of the law, faithful in blessing and in
¦judgment. It is the beatitude of the Old Testaraent. The
raan who keeps God's covenant "shall be like a tree planted
by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his
season; his leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he
doeth shall prosper. The ungodly are not so, but are like
the chaff which the wind driveth away" (verses 3, 4).
Jehovah occurs twice, first in the phrase "the law of Jehovah," '
where this very narae Jehovah, the Faithful One, invests the
Law with new grace and terribleness — it is the law of Hira
not one of whose words shall fail. It is raet again in the
words, "For Jehovah knoweth the way of the righteous."
On the word " knoweth " Perowne has the note — "regards
with watchful care and love. The participle denotes that this is
the charaaer of Jehovah." Frora first to last the Psalraist's
eye is resting upon the Divine faithfulness.
In Psalm vi. the same view of God prevails. The Psalmist
is in great trouble ; but in it ah he discerns the Divine chas
tisement : "Jehovah, rebuke rae not in thine anger, neither
chasten me in thy hot displeasure " (verse i). The Psalm is
a cry to the avenger of broken law, whose anger burns fiercely
against sin. But there is mercy with God as weU as wrath ;
He is the author of promise as weh as threatening; and

the jehovistic psalms. 59
the afflidled one hfts the cry: " Have mercy upon me, Jehovah.
. . . Return, Jehovah, deliver ray soul ; O save rae for
thy raercies' sake." He receives the assurance that his
prayer is heard, and he knows that the Faithful One will now
coraraand deliverance : " Depart frora me, all ye workers of
iniquity [i.e., it is in vairj ye now plot and assemble), for
Jehovah hath heard ray supplication, Jehovah will receive my
prayer." The very mume Jehovah, "He will cause it to be,"
is now consolation and strength, and hence its reiteration.
Psalm xi. affords a still clearer proof. In verses 1-3 he
recounts the advice given by well meaning, but timid friends,
to seek safety in swift and far-off flight. They reply, by
anticipation, to his protest that he is innocent, and has,
therefore, nothing to fear, by reminding hira that the admin
istrators of law and justice are those who seek his life: " If
the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do ? "
The Psalmist answers : " In Jehovah have I put ray trust.
How say ye to my soul," he asks in astonishraent, "Flee, O
bird, to your raountain " (verse i) ? His reply to what they
urge as to there being no law to protedl the innocent is this :
"Jehovah is in His holy teraple, Jehovah's throne is in
heaven." The foundations stiU abide ; the Faithful One
ruleth over all.
The twelfth Psalm affords one of the finest possible exposi
tions of this great name of God. It begins : " Help, Jehovah;
for the godly raan ceaseth ; for the faithful fail from among
the children of raen. They speak vanity every one with his
neighbour ; with flattering lips and with a double heart do
they speak" (verses i, 2). Does it not shed a welcome light
upon these words to note that, wearied with " the falseness

6o jehovistic and elohistic theories.
and hypocrisy of the time," the Psalmist calls upon God by
the name which speaks His eternal truth ? And that the
narae is used with this significance is clear from the closing
verses: "The words oi Jehovah are pure words, as silver
tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Thou shalt
keep them (the poor and needy), O Jehovah, Thou shalt
preserve them from this generation for ever." No word of
the Faithful One shall fail, and none shall trust Him in vain.
Psalm XV. contains Jehovah twice. It is an inquiry as to
who shall be the honoured guest and trusted servant of God ;
in other words, what is demanded by Him who keepeth
covenant: "Jehovah, who shall abide in thy tabernacle?
who shall dwell in thy holy hill ? He that walketh uprightly,
and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his
heart," etc. (verses i, 2). The second mention of the name
is raade in the latter part of the description : " In whose eyes
a vile person is conteraned, but he honoureth them that fear
Jehovah" (verse 4); that is, whose fear is not simply awe of
God in His might, but the enlightened fear of His people, the
fear of Him who has declared His law, and who will fulfil
His every threatening and promise.
Expositors have felt that between Psalms xx. and xxi. there
exists a very close connedlion. In the twentieth, success is
implored and confidently expedled; the twenty-first tells that
the cry has been answered, the expectation fulfilled. This
explains why the twenty-first, the next on our list, is Jehovistic.
The theme is stiU the same, the Divine faithfulness. It begins :
" The king shall joy in thy strength, O Jehovah." Now here, in
ordinary circumstances, seeing that the strength of God is spoken
of, we should have expedled Elohim. But listen to the explana-

THE JEHOVISTIC PSALMS. 6l
tion which imraediately follows : " Thou hast given him his
heart's desire, and hast not withholden the'request of his lips"
(verse 2). This is the key-note of the Psalm. There is a
loftier thought than even that of the strength of God ; behind
His power there is the glory of His unfailing truth. Jehovah
is the hearer of prayer, the fulfiller of His proraises.
In the twenty-third Psalra, which celebrates God's Shep
herd faithfulness, little need be said to prove the appropriate
ness of the grandest of the Old Testament names of God.
It occurs twice; it is the first word of the Psalm, and it is
found again among the very last, and thus, this sweetest of
all Psalms is bound up with the name that tells of God's
faithfulness. It is first of all an argument: "Jehovah is my
Shepherd ; I shall not want." Why is it that He will not
suffer want ? What is the ground of this bold assurance ?
May not the Shepherd forget His charge ? or grow weary, and
abandon it ? The answer is there in the word that first
meets the eye ; this Shepherd is Jehovah. It is, in closing, a
hope and a consolation : "Surely goodness and mercy shall
follow rae all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the
house of Jehovah for ever." What he will find there he does
not say, nor does he tell why this was to him the crown of all
his hopes. Nor did he need to do so. All is already expressed
in that one word ; it is the house of Jehovah, the Faithful
One. If the way has been so full of goodness and raercy,
what will the home itself be, the goal towards which, from
the first, Jehovah has been guiding, and for which, in
chastening and in blessing. He has ever been preparing us?
The heading to Psalm xxvi. in the E. V. is: "David
resorteth unto God in confidence of his integrity." But there

62 JEHOVISTIC AND ELOHISTIC THEORIES.
was also another ground for his confidence, — Jehovah is a
God who keepeth covenant; and thus the Psalm, while it
asserts the writer's innocence, is throughout an appeal to the
Divine faithfulness : "Judge me, Jehovah, ioi I have walked
in mine integrity. I have trusted also in Jehovah, therefore
I shaU not shde. Examine me, Jehovah, and prove rae. . .
I have walked in thy truth. I have not sat with vain
persons, neither wih I go in with dissemblers" (verses 1-4).
The leading thought of Psalm xxviu. is the same. Heng
stenberg, speaking simply as an expositor and without the
remotest reference to the Divine naraes, says : — "The situation
and the fundamental thought in both (Psalms xxvi. and
xxviii.) are, that God cannot bind up together in similarity of
outward fate those who inwardly are different, and that the
lot of the wicked cannot be the same as that of the righteous."
Is not all this expressed when we say that both are Jehovistic
Psalms, appealing to, or celebrating the Lord's faithfulness ?
In tliis Psalm we have both : " Unto thee will I cry, Jehovah,
my rock; be not silent to me. . . Hear the voice of
my supplications. . . Draw rae not away with the wicked
and with the workers of iniquity. . . Blessed be Jehovah,
because he hath heard the voice of my supplications.
Jehovah is my strength and my shield ; my heart trusted in
him, and I am helped ; therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth,
and with my song will I praise him" (verses 1-3, 6, 7). '
The reraaining Jehovistic Psalms of the first book are the
thirty-second and the thirty fourth. The former is generally
believed to have been written by David on receiving forgive
ness of his great sin. He tells how he had sought to obtain
peace by banishing all thought of his crime, and stifling his

THE JEHOVISTIC PSALMS. 63
soul's cry. But the cry would not be stifled : "When I kept
silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all day long ;
for day and night thy hand was heavy upon me ; my raoisture
is turned into the drought of summer " (verses 3, 4). And at
last he took the path which God had from of old declared
could alone lead to mercy and rest, and he found mercy and
rest. The reference of Jehovah to God's faithfulness is touch
ingly indicated in verse 5; "I said, I will confess my
transgressions unto Jehovah, and thou forgavest the iniquity
of ray sin." In that one word Jehovah, there lay a world of
promise and of hope for the broken heart. It whispered in
the ear of repentant grief: "If we Confess our sins. He is
faithful and just to forgive usour sins." The name drew him
to the feet of God, and the Psalm tells how the proraise was
kept, and is full of the praise of the Faithful One, who
keepeth truth for ever: "And Thou forgavest the iniquity of
my sin. For this shall every one that is godly pray unto
thee in a time when thou mayest be found ; surely in the
floods of great waters they shalt not corae nigh unto hira.
Thou art ray hiding-place, thou shalt preserve me frora
trouble, thou shalt corapass rae about with songs of deliver
ance " (verses 5-7.)
But, in connedlion with this Psalm, a special difficulty
arises. The fifty-first is generally believed to be David's
prayer for the mercy which is here celebrated, and, if our
theory is true, the fifty-first ought to be as Jehovistic, as the
thirty-fourth. In that Psalm, however, Jehovah does not once
appear ; Adonai occurs once, otherwise Psalm li. is purely
Elohistic. Does not this railitate against our theory ? In
his prayer for mercy, could the Psalmist shut out from his

64 JEHOVISTIC AND. ELOHISTIC THEORIES.
mind God's faithfulness, or fail to use the name which put
God in remembrance, so to speak, of His promises ? Now, if
we turn to the Psalm itself, we shall see that to mark its
Elohistic charadler, is to find the key to its interpretation.
It is not a cry for mercy only, but for renewal. David, like
raany another, had fancied hiraself to be raore righteous than
he really was ; sin was slumbering, and he supposed it did
not exist. But the flood of light which burst upon the
repentant heart had undeceived him. His need could not be
met by blotting out the guilt of that one sin, nor of all that
he had ever done. If God did no more than this, the future
would merely repeat the past ; for the pollution of sin befouled
every fibre of his being. "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity,
and in sin did my mother conceive me." The cry for forgive
ness becarae a cry for the new birth, for re-creation ; and
therefore, frora first to last, the appeal is made to God in His
might. It was a task which Almighty power alone could
accoraplish. "Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
wash rae, and I shall be whiter than show. . . Create in
rae a clean heart, O Elohim, and renew a right spirit within
me" (verses 7, 10).
In Psalm xxxiv. "Jehovah occurs no fewer than sixteen times.
The reiteration of the narae would lead us to expedl that the
Psalra would keep the Divine faithfulness very prorainently
before us : and that it does so, the slightest inspedlion will
convince us. It opens, "I wiU bless Jehovah at all times.
His praise shall continually be in my raouth. My soul shall
make her boast in Jehovah, the humble shah hear thereof and
be glad. O magnify Jehovah with me, and let us exalt His
name together" (verses 1-3). Now, what has excited the

OTHER PROOFS. 65
Psalmist to this burst of praise ? Why are we called upon to
unite with him in exalting the name of Jehovah ? The next
words tell us: "I sought Jehovah and he heard rae, and
delivered rae frora all ray fears" (verse 4); that is, Jehovah
has fulfilled the promise of His name. And, as we proceed,
the therae is still God's faithfulness: "This poor man cried,
and Jehovah heard him, and saved hira out of all his troubles.
The angel of Jehovah encarapeth round about those that fear
him, and delivereth them. . . . O fear Jehovah, ye his
saints : there is no want to thera that fear him. The young
lions do lack and suffer hunger, but they that seek Jehovah
shall not want any good thing" (verses 6-10). In the second
part of the Psalm (verses 11-22), the same aspedl of the
Divine charadler is presented in another way. God's faith
fulness implies conditions. If we fulfil our part of the
covenant, He will not fail to perform His. " Come, ye children,
hearken unto me : I will teach you the fear of Jehovah. . .
The eyes of Jehovah are upon the righteous. . . . The
face of Jehovah is against them that do evil. . . . Evil
shall slay the wicked, and they that hate the righteous shall
be desolate ; Jehovah redeeraeth the soul of his servants, and
none of thera that trust in hira shall be desolate."
Other Proofs.
"NT O theory, we believe, could be put to a severer test than
¦^ ^ this. I have not cited parts of Scripture which bear
out my contention, and passed by those whose evidence
might be against me. I have taken all the purely Elohistic
Psalms, and the whole of the purely Jehovistic, contained in
the first book ; and, without exception, the Elohistic speak
more or less plainly of God's might and the Jehovistic of His

66 JEHOVISTIC AND ELOHISTIC THEORIES.
faithfulness. I submit that, while no other theory accords with,
the fadls, this does ; I would also express my convidlion that it
presents us with a valuable exegetical help. The very name
applied to God sets us at once at the writer's standpoint. In
Exodus xiii. 17-19, there is a sudden break in the almost uniform
use of Jehovah, which charadlerises both the preceding and the
subsequent parts of the narrative. In these three verses Elohim
alone is eraployed. Alford, in his posthumous Commentary,
says: "This seerasto indicate distindlness of origin for this
incorporated fragment. Even those who are fondest of finding
subjedlive reasons for the change of the Divine names have,
as far as I have seen, abstained here. Seeing that Israel was
especially the people of Jehovah, and is here spoken of as
under His special guidance, we raight expedl to find that His
special narae here, if anywhere." Now give to Elohim its
raeaning as to every other word in the passage — and not only
does the difficulty disappear — the words are even s6t in a new
and welcorae light. "And it came to pass, when Pharaoh
had let the people go, that Elohim led them, not through the
way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near,
for Elohim said. Lest peradventure the people repent when
they see war, and they return to Egypt ; but Elohim led the
people about," etc. The change of the Divine name from
Jehovah to Elohim quietly, but most effedlively, emphasises the
truth that this was done, not because God's arm was not
strong enough to smite their foes; the cause was Israel's
faithlessness, not God's weakness. What a comment upon
unbehef, that the Almighty had to change Israel's path and
lead them "about through the way of the wilderness" ! The
change in the name indicates the lesson of the story.

OTHER PROOFS. 67
There are minor points, too, which, in this light, acquire a
new significance. It may appear, for example, that Gideon's
battle-cry, "The sword ofthe Lord and of Gideon," savours
soraewhat of presuraption. He seems to raake hiraself God's
ally. It is not God alone, but God and Gideon, by whora the
vidlory is to be achieved. The difficulty disappears when it
is observed that Gideon speaks of Jehovah. He is clairaing
the fulfilment of a promise. "The Lord (had) said unto hira,
Surely I will be with thee, and thou shalt smite the Midianites
as one man" (Judges vi. i6). Gideon's cry is simply the
expression of his trust in the Divine faithfulness. There is
another, though an unseen, sword by the side of his — the
sword of Him who keepeth truth and executeth vengeance —
the sword of Jehovah. Even in passages where it may seem
that our explanation fails, it will be found that there is a
depth of meaning in the naraes, which has long lain concealed.
For example, Balaam says to Balak, "God is not a raan that
he should lie, neither the son of man that he should repent.
Hath he said, and shall he not do it ? or hath he spoken, and
shall he not make it good?" (Numbers xxiii. 19.) All this is
simply a prolonged representation of God's unchangeableness :
why then is not Jehovah used — the name of God in His faith
fulness rather than the name of God in His might ? The next
words indicate the answer: "Behold, I have received com
mandment to bless; and He hath blessed, and / cannot reverse
it" (verse 20). There was no more effedlive way of impressing
upon Balak the vanity of contending with God than to narae
Him here by His narae of power. God's unchangeableness
would have raeant little had it not been for the Alraighty
strength behind it. But, in the, face of the infinite raight

68 JEHOVISTIC AND ELOHISTIC THEORIES.
indicated solely hy the name, and the unalterable purpose dwelt
upon in the description, what availed all Balaam's arts and
all Balak's sacrifices?
I may add that, to notice the significance of the names
lends no mean aid in dealing with the books of the Old
Testament. There are two which have presented the greatest
difficulty to students of Scripture; and, in each case, the
Divine name gives us the key to the interpretation. Widely
different opinions have been expressed as to the purport of
Ecclesiastes. To some it has seemed the outpouring of a
repentant spirit, to others the bitterness and scepticism of a
sated voluptary. The true view of the book has been well
expressed by Bleek: "The whole course of the argument is
based everywhere upon the consciousness expressed in the
most distindl way, that God is the Almighty, from -whom
everything proceeds, who gives life, wisdom, and all good
things to men, whose working is for everlasting.'' But it
needs no deep study to discover this. To notice the fadl that
the hook is purely Elohistic, that, in other words, the only name .
of God used throughout is that which designates Him as the
infinite in power, is to discover the purpose of the book
at the very outset. Ecclesiastes is a call to submission and
joyous trust. We cannot take our lives out of God's hand.
We may dash ourselves against His arrangements to our own
undoing, or fret under them and fill our lives with raisery, but
we cannot overthrow or change them. He with whom we
have to do is the Alraighty. " I know that whatsoever Elohim
doeth shall be for ever ; nothing can be put to it, nor anything
taken from it ; and Elohim doeth it that men may fear before
him" (iu. 14). "Behold what I have seen to be good; it is

CONCLUSION OF THE MATTER. 69
pleasant for one to eat and drink and to enjoy the good of all
his labour that he taketh under the sun all the days of his
life which Elohim giveth him, for it is his portion" (ver. i8).
In the two first and five last chapters of Joh, both names
appear. The rest of the book, with one solitary exception,
(xii. 9), is wholly Elohistic. Now this very fadl sheds a flood
of light upon its dark places. It is solely in this Elohistic
portion, containing the speeches of Job and of his friends, that
the difficulty occurs ; and the name they apply to God shows
us where they alike erred. Both shut out of view God's
faithfulness. Job's "miserable comforters" see nothing of the
loving care and infinite purpose of good manifested in the
troubles of the righteous ; they do not know that God, just
because He will give his people an everlasting inheritance,
raust lead them through the ocean depths and by the wilder
ness paths. Job, on the other hand, sees nothing beyond the
duty of submission to the Alraighty, and the eventual justifi
cation of the righteous. The Conclusion of the Matter.
T might add to these instances, but I forbear. I am
convinced that to understand these names of God
is to find new light upon every page of the Old Testaraent
Scriptures. The words are not meaningless. They were not
taken at random, nor chosen in accordance with arbitrary and
mechanical rules. They are laden with thought and feeling ;
they are full even to-day of that light from the Divine glory
which beamed upon each writer's soul ; and thus, setting us at
his own standpoint, they help us to grasp more clearly the
message which he brings.

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