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THE HISTORICAL POETRY

ANCIENT HEBREWS.

Til Id

HISTORICAL POETRY

ANCIENT HEBREWS,

TRANSLATED AND CRITICALLY EXAMINED

MICHAEL HEILPRIN.

Volume II.

NEW YORK :
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY,
1 and 3 bond street.
London : 16 Little Bkitain.
1880.

Copyright, 18S0, by M. Hhilpbin.

All right* reserved.

rAix 3<?0

The Historical Poetry
OF THE
ANCIENT HEBEEWS.

XXII.
Mentions of King David abound in Scriptural
poetry. No other mortal's name is similarly glori
fied in it. Yet even Ms occurs only incidentally.
At some length, he is spoken of in two psalms of
late origin, the eighty-ninth and one-hundred-thirty-
second ; but he is the real subject of neither. The
theme of the former is the threatening or accom
plished downfall of the Judsean throne, involving the
tragic fate of one of David's descendants — perhaps
Josiah or Zedekiah, more probably Jeconiah ; and
of the latter, Zion arising from her ruin, and her
sacred claim to become again the seat of a power
ful Davidic dynasty. In both, the retrospect forms
a contrast with the present of the nation, and is to
show that the divine blessings vouchsafed Israel in
connection with the son of Jesse are still held in
abeyance. Both reecho popular traditions already

2 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
embodied in history. The former song paraphrases
a part of II. Samuel vii. in the following lines, which
are loosely attached to an invocation of the God of
Hosts, descriptive of his power, justice, and truth :
(Psalm LXXXIX.)
(20 [19]) Once thou spokest in a vision to thy saint,1
thus : ' I bestow help' upon a hero,
I exalt a youth out of the people.
I have found David, my servant ;
with my holy oil I anoint liim.
My hand shall be firm on him,
my arm shall give him strength.
No enemy shall exact of him,
no son of wickedness oppress him.
I will crush his foes before him,
I will rout his assailants.
(25 [24]) My truth, my mercy, shall be with him ;
in my name shall his horn be exalted.
Upon the sea I lay his hand,
his right arm upon the streams.3
He calls me: " Thou art my father,
my God, the rock of my salvation."
1 thy saint] The prophet Nathan is probably meant; see II. Sam.
vii., and compare the word 'hiziaybn, vision, used there (verse 17) with
"lwzcm in the verse before us.
2 help] Heb. 'ever, which, as has been presumed, stands perhaps
for nezer, a crown; cf. nizro, his crown, in verse 40 of our psalm and
in Ps. cxxxii. 18, and II. Kings xi. 12.
8 tlie streams] ' In the first line, the Euphrates and its canals '
(Olshausen).

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 3
And I make him my firstborn,
the highest of the kings of the earth.
I keep my mercy for him eternally,
my covenant remains true to him.
(30 [29]) I make his posterity to endure for ever,
his throne as the days of heaven.
If his children forsake my law,
and walk not in my judgments ;
if they trample upon my statutes,
and keep not my commandments —
I will punish their transgression with the rod,
their iniquity with inflictions ;
but my mercy for him I waste not,
I repudiate not my fidelity ;
(35 [34]) I break not my covenant,
nor alter the utterance of my lips.
I have sworn it once in my holy abode — *
surely I deceive not David!
His posterity shall endure for ever,
his throne as the sun before me —
firm as the moon for evermore,
that steadfast witness in heaven.' i
* in my holy abode] Cf. Ps. Ix. 8 (6). Others render, by my holiness.
"firm . . heaven] According to the Masoretic text. The
words -)jn and pfl$2 are. however, very probably corruptions of
"ijjl (Olshausen) and pnt£>3> the correct sentence running thus:
]»X3 pn$3 ~I3£J. D^ij? ]13? PO^S, Arm as the moon for ever and
ever, unshaken as heaven. Cf. ' as the days of heaven,' above. Com
pare also this conclusion with the concluding sentences of Nathan's
communication to David (II. Sam. vii. 16), which contain the per
fectly corresponding words 1J3NJ and 113>

4 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
The other song, which extols David's zeal in estab
lishing the ark of Jehovah in Zion, and emphasizes
the sacredness of both his seat and dynasty, can be
given here entire : (Psalm CXXXII.)
(1) Remember, 0 Jehovah, to David
all his pains ;
how he swore to Jehovah,
vowed to Jacob's mighty one :
' Surely I will not enter my dwelling-tent,
nor ascend the bed, my couch,
nor give sleep to my eyes,
nor slumber to my eyelids,
(5) until I find a placs for Jehovah,
a habitation for Jacob's mighty one.'
' Lo, we heard of it at Ephratah,
we found it in the forest-fields.6
Let us go to his habitation,
let us worship at his footstool.
Arise, 0 Jehovah, to thy resting-place ;
thou, with the ark of thy majesty.
• Lo . . forest-jklds] ' David's words after he had so far
attained his wish that the ark had been brought up to Zion. When
we were at Ephratah (the old name for Bethlehem) — i.e., in David's
youth — we knew of the ark only by hearsay: . . . it was neg
lected and never visited.' (Pausset.) ' Forest-fields ' probably desig
nates the territory of Kirjath-Jearim (forest-city), where the ark was
kept after its restoration by the Philistines (I. Sam. vii. 1, 2). There
are, however, various other — though hardly any more acceptable 
explanations of this verse, based on different meanings applied to the
name Ephratah and the term ' forest-fields.'

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 5
Let thy priests be robed with salvation,
and thy devout men shout for joy —
(10) for the sake of David, thy servant ;
turn not away the face of thy anointed.'
Jehovah has sworn to David
a true word, from which he turns not back :
' Of the fruit of thy body will I set upon thy throne.
If thy sons will observe my covenant,
and the testimony I teach them,
their sons, too, for ever,
shall sit upon thy throne.'
For Jehovah has chosen Zion,
has lovingly made it his abode :
' This is my resting-place for evermore,
here will I dwell, for I love her.
(15) Her provision I will richly bless,
her needy I will satiate with bread ;
her priests I will robe with victory,
her devout men shall shout and shout for joy.
There I will cause David's horn to bud,
there I erect a lamp for my anointed.
His enemies I will clothe with shame,
but on him his crown shall flourish.'
The four lines of this psalm beginning with ' Arise,
O Jehovah' are also contained, almost literally,' in
the sixth chapter of II. Chronicles, ' where they form
the concluding portion of Solomon's prayer at the
consecration of the temple ; and, according to those
' Verses 41, 42.

6 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
critics who" regard the song as a later production
even than Chronicles, they may have been bor
rowed from that book, and quoted as the invocation
of David' s successor, who executed what his father
intended, but was not allowed, to do. But as these
words do not appear in the identical Solomonic
prayer as given in the much older book of Kings,9
they were probably original with the psalmist, and
from him cleverly appropriated by the chronicler, a
writer of exceedingly lax historical principles, as has
been abundantly proved.10
The psalmist evidently had the narratives of the
second book of Samuel" before him, and him, as a
poet, we may, perhaps, excuse for the license with
which he made use of his sources. For his picture
of David is widely different from the picture ex
hibited in that history. According to the psalmist,
the great king' s first care was the establishment of
a sanctuary for Jehovah ; before achieving that pur
pose he would not enjoy the innocent comforts of a

8 Like Olshausen.
' I. Kings viii.
10 Lastly, and probably most fully, by Wellhausen, in his • Geschichte
Israels.' The borrowed words serve as a substitute for the conclud
ing sentences of the prayer as given in I. Kings viii., which Chronicles
omits, apparently—as Wellhausen (ibid, vol. i. p. 198) sagaciously re
marks—in order to get rid of a verse (50) containing an allusion to the
captivity, and thus betraying the late manufacture of the whole
prayer. 11 Compare chapters vi. and vii.

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 7
tent or of a bed. The historian1" relates the first
doings of David, after his election as king over all
Israel, in this order : he conquered Zion ; he had a
palace built to himself ; he ' took more concubines
and wives.'
While David is thus more favorably treated in
poetry than even in history, his son Solomon is a
great national hero in the historical narratives of
Scripture — besides figuring as an author in spurious
superscriptions — but the prophets and psalmists
whose writings we possess have not a word to say
about him. The halo of wisdom and magnificence
which surrounded his name seems to have been less
dazzling to the eyes of the pious men of Israel than
the stories of his profligacy, tyranny, and idolatrous
practices were shocking to their moral instincts.
David had toiled, struggled, and conquered, and
created a powerf ul throne and nation : Solomon had
only enjoyed and squandered the resources accumu
lated by his father ; his long and peaceful reign had
led to the nation's division.- It is true, he had
built the temple of Zion for Jehovah : but had he
not also erected seats of worship ' for Chemosh, the
abomination of Moab, on the hill before Jerusalem,
and for Molech, the abomination of the children of
Ammon,' and gone 'after Ashtoreth, the goddess of
the Zidonians, and after Milcom, the abomination of
the Ammonites ' ?IS Wise sayings, teaching frugal ab-
" H. Sam. v. 1-14.
18 1. Kings xi. 5-7.

8 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
stinence, industry, and prudence, were current among
the people under the name of 'proverbs of Solo
mon' : but had not his own life been one grand ex
hibition of unbridled extravagance and lust, of
recklessness and folly ? Men of the stamp of Amos,
Micah, or Isaiah may not have believed, what popu
lar stories related, that Solomon' s court tables con
sumed daily ' ten fat oxen, and twenty oxen out of
the pastures, and a hundred sheep, besides harts,
and gazelles, and fallow-deer, and fatted fowl';"
that, in times of profound peace, he had thousands
of stalls of horses for his chariots ;15 or that ' he
had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three
hundred concubines'16 — but neither did such men
believe in his much -vaunted wisdom and justice,
or in the equally vaunted felicity of the people
under his sceptre.
A purely worldly — we might say, an epicurean —
Solomon is introduced in the Song of Songs, that
charming pastoral drama or collection of idyls the
authorship and composition of which have been sub
jected to so many and so diverse efforts of investiga
tion. We see there a king in his circle, and near
his throne a damsel as beautiful as his curtains, as
14 1. Kings v. 2 (iv. 23).
16 1. Kings v. 6 (iv. 25) has 'forty thousand'; II. Chr. ix. 25, ' four
thousand.' The larger number is probably a clerical error, judging
by I. Kings x. 26 and the corresponding statement in II. Chr. i. 14,
which accord with the smaller number.
19 I. Kings xi. 3.

OFTHE ANCIENT HEBREWS. Q
the mare harnessed to his Pharaonic chariot, " but
as pure and chaste as are not his sixty queens, eighty
concubines, and maidens without number.18 Then —
• Behold, Solomon's palanquin!
Sixty heroes surround it,
of Israel's heroes ;
all armed with swords,
skilled in warfare ;
each has his sword on his thigh,
from fear in the night.
A litter King Solomon has made for himself
of Lebanon's wood.
Its pillars he made of silver,
its support of gold,
its seat of purple ;
its midst is strewn with love
won from Jerusalem's daughters.
Come out, and gaze,
ye daughters of Zion,
at Solomon, the king —
crowned as his mother crowned him
on the day of his nuptials,
the day of his heart's delight.' ig
The king possesses a precious vineyard in Baal-
Hamon,"0 and we read of three of his towers : a
" Cant. i. 5, 9, 12.
18 Cant. vi. 8, 9.
19 Cant. iii. 7-11.
*> For this unknown name (Cant. viii. 11) Graetz substitutes Baal-
Hermon.

10 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
tower of ivory," a tower of Lebanon, looking toward
Damascus,39 and
' the tower of David,
built for trophies ;"
a thousand bucklers are hung on it,
the shields of the heroes all.' "
This last fragment might, perhaps, be deemed a
historical reminiscence of King David's reign — if
the Song of Songs contained anything really histori
cal. The fact is, this gem of pastoral poetry is as
fanciful throughout as it is fascinating in almost all
its parts.
Of Solomon' s successors in the two kingdoms into
which his realm was rent on his death, none of the
first five who reigned in either — Rehoboam, Abijah,
Asa, Jehoshaphat, Jehoram, of Judah ; Jeroboam
I., Nadab, Baasha, Elah, Zimri, of Israel — is men
tioned by name in a single poetical line of Scripture ;
unless Joel's 'valley of Jehoshaphat,' in which
Jehovah judges {shdphaf) all nations/5 is not a
visionary spot of prophecy, but a real one, called
after the king of the same name.
21 Cant. vii. 5 (4).
22 Ibid.
23 trophies] Heb. talpiyyuth, an imitation of the Gr. rponaia. (See
note A, at the end of the volume.)
24 Cant. iv. 4.
25 Joel iv. (iii.) 2, 12.

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. \\

XXIIL
The first rulers of the ten tribes mentioned in a
prophetical book are the two next successors of
Zirori, Omri and Ahab, father and son, the latter of
whom, according to Biblical chronology, ended his
career about 900 B.C.1 They are very severely ad
verted to in the prophecies ascribed to Micah of
Moresheth,2 who announced visions 'concerning
Samaria and Jerusalem ' ' in the days of Jotham,
Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah,' all of whom
reigned in the latter half of the eighth century B.C.
The record of Omri in the book of Kings is brief :
He was proclaimed king against the usurper Zimri
by the army besieging Gibbethon, and speedily
overthrew him, as well as a rival pretender to the
throne, Tibni. He built Samaria, and made it the
capital instead of Tirzah. In each of these cities he
reigned six years. To this is added : ' But Omri did
what was evil in the eyes of Jehovah ; he did worse
than anyone before him. For he walked in all the
way of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, and in his sin,
wherewith he made Israel to sin ' etc.3 This sum-

1 According to Oppert (' Salomon et ses successeurs '), in 900. See
note B, at the end of the volume.
5 Mic. i. 1, vi. 16.
5 I. Kings xvi. 15-28.

12 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
mary statement of the evil done by Omri gives us
no insight into the character of his reign, for a more
or less identical reference to the practice of idolatry,
as sanctioned by Jeroboam — or rather of the wor
ship of Jehovah under the symbol of a bull — is at
tached by the author or by a redactor of Kings to the
record of every successor of Jeroboam, with one or
two hardly noticeable exceptions.4 To the pious
Judsean who wrote these uniform statements the
wickedness of all the kings of the ten tribes was
apparent from their failing to suppress what the
more enlightened Israelitish spirit of his own time
branded as idolatry, and also from the terrible fate
which had befallen their throne and people. When
he wrote, Israel was lost completely ; Judah was
still capable of resurrection. Besides, had not all
the kings of Israel been guilty as usurpers ? Had
not their power originated in criminal secession from
Judah, in rebellion against the divinely ordained
throne of David V The general stigma of wicked
ness is thus applied to each monarch separately, not
excepting such successful princes as Omri, Joash,
or Jeroboam II. That Omri receives even more
blame than others may be owing to his having
founded a dynasty of which Ahab was the most
conspicuous representative. Unfortunately, how-
4 Shallum, who reigned only one month, forms one exception (II.
Kings xv. 10-1.5); Hoshea's evil-doing is mildly extenuated (II.
Kings xvii. 2).
6 A full exposition of these views is given in II. Kings xvii. 7-23.

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 13
ever, the condemnation of Omri is justified by
Micah, and that of Jeroboam II. by Amos, a con
temporary.8 The sketch of Ahab in Kings is the fullest allotted
to any successor of Solomon in either kingdom.
And, entwined as it is with the legends of the
prophet Elijah the Tishbite, it forms one of the most
interesting narratives of the Scriptures. It is the
history of a reign, in wrhich three leading characters
are depicted with almost equal distinctness: the
king, his Phoenician queen, and the prophet. The
grand figure of Elijah is drawn in mythical traits,
but Ahab and Jezebel, in spite of their connection
with him, appear always in a perfectly natural
aspect : the king always inclined to magnanimity,
but again and again criminal from weakness ; the
queen remorselessly despotic, cruelly fanatical, and
haughty to the bitter end. A portion of their his
tory must be reproduced here, in an abridged form.
Ahab, having married Jezebel, the daughter of a
Phoenician king, introduced the worship of the
Phoenician Baal, building for him a temple in
Samaria, and soon allowed his consort to suppress
the worship, and almost entirely to exterminate the
prophets, of Jehovah. Among the few who escaped
her sword was Elijah, and he profited by a terrible
drought, in which the king could not but see a
divine infliction, to induce him to change his policy.
6 See Am. vii.

14 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
A miracle convinced the people that Jehovah was
the God, and Baal a powerless idol, and Elijah was
allowed to slaughter the prophets who sided with
the queen. But the latter vowed bloody vengeance,
and Elijah again became a fugitive.'
About this time Ben-Hadad, king of Damas
cene Syria, marched a powerful army against Ahab,
and besieged him in Samaria. He demanded shame
ful submission, and Ahab resisted. The Syrian
made preparations for storming the city. Now an
unnamed prophet approached Ahab, and in Je
hovah's name predicted the total discomfiture of
the Syrian army. ' By whom % ' asked Ahab. ' By
the young men of the governors of the districts,'
was the answer. The king asked again, ' Who shall
direct the battle?' 'Thou,' replied the prophet.
Ahab numbered the young men, as advised: they
were two hundred and thirty two ; and, to follow
them, he numbered' all the people, all the children
of Israel, seven thousand men.1 A sortie was made
at noon, when Ben-Hadad and the vassal kings who
commanded his troops were drinking themselves
drunk in their tents. The sudden attack by the
vanguard completely succeeded, and Ben-Hadad
fled ; ' and the king of Israel went out, and routed
the horses and chariots, and inflicted great slaughter
on the Syrians.' In the following year Ben-Hadad
again invaded Ahab's kingdom, but, although his
7 1. Kings xvi. -xix.

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 15
men filled the land, and the children of Israel
'pitched before them like two little flocks of kids,'
this invasion, too, ended most disastrously, and the
king of Syria owed his life to the generosity of his
enemy.8 After these events the following took place:
Naboth of Jezreel had a vineyard in that town, hard
by the royal palace. The king offered to buy it for
a vegetable garden, promising to give for it a better
vineyard or its value in money, if desired. But
Naboth refused to barter away the inheritance of
his fathers. This terribly grieved Ahab ; returning
to the. palace, he lay down on his bed, and turned
away his face, and would take no food. Jezebel
asked what distracted him, and he told her how he
had been mortified. The queen exclaimed, 'Well
dost thou bear royal sway over Israel ! Get up and
eat, and be of good cheer : I will give thee the vine
yard of Naboth, the Jezreelite.' She now wrote
letters in Ahab's name, sealing them with his seal,
to the elders and nobles of Jezreel, and ordered them
to assemble the people, and have Naboth falsely
accused of blasphemy against God and the king,
and stoned to death. The order was executed to
the letter, and Jezebel told Ahab that the vineyard
which Naboth had refused to give him for money
was now king's property. When he went down to
take possession of it, Elijah the Tishbite suddenly
8 1. Kings xx.

16 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
appeared before him, and said, 'Thus thou mur-
derest, and also take.st possession '( Thus says Je
hovah, "At the spot where dogs licked the blood of
Naboth dogs shall lick thy blood, too." And he
added, ' Concerning Jezebel, too, Jehovah has spoken
thus : ' ' The dogs shall eat Jezebel on the wall-
ground9 of Jezreel." ' On hearing these words
Ahab rent his garments, and fasted, and lay in sack
cloth, humbling himself before Jehovah. 10
After three years of peace between Syria and
Israel Ahab bethought himself that Ramoth-in-
Gilead had not been retaken from the Syrians, and
proposed an offensive alliance against them to
Jehoshaphat, who had come to see him. The king
of Judah cordially declared his readiness to muster
his foot and horse, but was anxious to hear the word
of Jehovah about the enterprise. Ahab thereupon
assembled the prophets, about four hundred men,
and inquired whether he should march on Ramoth,
or not. Their answer was unanimous : ' March on
ward ! the Lord will give it into the hand of the
king.' This answer in the name of 'the Lord'11 —
by which Baal was perhaps meant — did not satisfy
Jehoshaphat, and he asked, ' Is not there a prophet
of Jehovah, besides, of whom we might inquire I
"wall-ground] Or glarix. Heb. 'h-i'l ; this, however, as has been
remarked, evidently stands, by mistake, for 'heleq, field-portion. See
II. Kings ix. 36, and below.
10 1. Kings xxi.
11 See the Hebrew text of the narrative

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 17
Ahab said, ' There is yet one man through whom we
may inquire of Jehovah, but I hate him ; for he
prophesies no good concerning me, but evil: it is
Micaiah, the son of Imlah.' Yet Jehoshaphat
wished to hear him, and he was brought before the
two kings, who received him sitting on thrones in
the entrance of the gate of Samaria, and surrounded
by the prophets. Of these, Zedekiah, the son of Che-
naanah, had come with a pair of iron horns, saying, in
the name of Jehovah, ' With these thou shalt thrust
the Syrians, until thou destroyest them.' And all
the others chimed in : ' March on Ramoth-in-Gilead,
and succeed ! Jehovah will give it into the hand of
the king.' Addressed by Ahab, Micaiah ironically
repeated the encouraging words of the other prophets,
but when pressed for a solemn answer, he said, ' I
saw all Israel scattered on the hills, like sheep that
have no shepherd; and Jehovah said, "These have
no master: let them return each to his house in
peace." ' And he added, 'Hear the word of Jeho
vah : I saw Jehovah sitting oh his throne, and all
the host of heaven standing by him, on his right
hand and on his left. And Jehovah said, "Who
will persuade Ahab, that he may march onward and
fall at Ramoth-in-Gilead?" And one said thus, and
another so. Then the spirit12 stepped forward, and
stood before Jehovah, and said, "i" will persuade
him." And Jehovah said to him, "Wherewith?"
12 the spirit] Heb. hdrua'h, with the definite article; the spirit of
prophecy (Kimhi, Keil, Thenius, and others).

18 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
And he said, ' ' I will go forth and be a spirit of false
hood in the mouth of all his prophets." And the
reply was, "Thou shalt persuade him, and prevail:
go forth and do so." Now behold, Jehovah has
put a spirit of falsehood into the mouth of all thy
prophets here, and Jehovah has decreed evil con
cerning thee.' Here Zedekiah, the son of Chenaanah,
approached Micaiah, and struck him on the cheek,
saying, 'Which way did Jehovah's spirit go over
from me to speak to thee ? ' And Micaiah answered,
' Thou shalt see it in that day when thou wilt go
into the innermost chamber to hide thyself.' Ahab
now ordered the keeping of Micaiah in prison till
his own return in peace, whereupon the prophet
said, ' If thou returnest in peace at all, Jehovah has
not spoken through me.' And he added, 'Hear, ye
peoples13 all.' All this notwithstanding, the march
on Ramoth was undertaken by both kings. In the
battle which ensued Ahab was wounded, and with
drew to the rear, but remained standing in his
chariot, facing the enemy, while his blood flowed
from his wound, until, in the evening, he expired.
His men now returned to their homes. "
Of Ahab' s two sons and successors, Ahaziah died
13 peoples] Or, tribes. The word can be explained as addressed
to Israel and Judah, whose kings were present, and to all other
nations, or merely to the tribes of Israel. The rendering of the pi.
'amvinn by people (Ger. Leute), which the Authorized Version adopts
both here and in the identical phrase in Micah (i. 2), and Thenius
here, after Ilit/.i^ on Joel ii. 6, is not well supported.
14 1. Kings xxii.

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 19
of a fall through the lattice of his upper chamber,
and Joram was overthrown by his own general
Jehu. The latter had been secretly anointed king
against him by an emissary of the prophet Elisha,
upon whom the mantle of Elijah had fallen. He
rode with a troop from Ramoth-in-Gilead, where he
was one of the commanders against Hazael of Syria,
to Jezreel, whither Joram had retired to be healed
of wounds received in the war. Joram, surprised
by his sudden approach, went out in his chariot to
meet him. They met in Naboth's field - portion.
Joram exclaimed, ' Is peace with thee, Jehu ? '
Jehu answered, ' What peace, with the whoredom
of Jezebel, thy mother, and her many sorceries?'
Joram cried, ' Treachery ! ' and turned to flee, but
it was too late : he was pierced by an arrow from
Jehu's own bow. The dead body was cast down
upon the field, the regicide three times sententiously
alluding to that fatal 'portion.'16 He now entered
Jezreel. When the news reached the old queen,
Jezebel, she painted her eyelids, tired her head, and,
looking out at the window, cried out to Jehu, as he
entered, 'Hail, thou Zimri," murderer of his ma-s^
ter ! ' At his order, she was thrown down ; her
blood bespattered the wall and the horses, and she
was trampled upon. And the dogs devouredrlher
flesh in the field-portion of Jezreel.17
15 See his words in the Hebrew text.
16 Zimri, like Jehu, obtained the throne by assassinating his king,
whose general he was.
17 II. Kings ix.

20 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
We are not told what became of the prophet
Micaiah, who, alone, so boldly opposed the wish and
clamor, and so calmly braved the fury, of so many
around him ? Did he, in his prison, live to see the
day when ' the peoples all ' saw that he alone had
spoken the truth ? Did he live to see the downfall
of the house of Omri? Have any of his written
prophecies been preserved, if he ever wrote any?
There are indications apt to lead to affirmative
answers to these questions.
Critical expounders have found many striking
points of contact between the narratives of I. Kings
abridged above and the book of Micah : The names
of the prophet who warned Ahab and of the pro
phet whose written denunciations of Samaria and
Jerusalem we possess are identical, though slightly
varied in the termination.18 The last words of
Micaiah, the son of Imlah, are : ' Hear, ye peoples
all!' — the book of Micah opens with these very
words.19 The son of Imlah addressed the son of
Omri : the book of Micah is the only prophetical
writing which mentions Omri and Ahab.30 The son
of Imlah contends alone against a host of false
18 The Ephraimite to whose history the seventeenth chapter of
Judges is devoted is, in verses 1 and 4, called Micaiah (in the Hebrew
text; in the fullest form, Mlkhay'hu) and in the rest of the narrative
Micah. In the k'tfiib form of Jer. xxvi. 18 Micah of Moresheth is
also called Micaiah.
19 Without the least alteration, in the original.
w vi. 16.

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 21
prophets, who predict success to their king: the
third chapter of Micah" announces woe to the
prophets who seduce the people and cry, 'Peace,'
while they prepare war against him who does not
satisfy them. The son of Imlah told Ahab how he
was deceived by a spirit of falsehood (rua'h sheqer) :
in Micah22 the false prophets are stigmatized as
going after wind and falsehood (rua'h vas7ieqer).
The son of Imlah was struck on the cheek by Zede-
kiah : in Micah" we read, ' With a rod they strike
on the cheek the guide of Israel.' Zedekiah had
made himself iron horns : in Micah" we read, ' I
make thy horn iron.' Even an exceptional verbal
form has been noticed which occurs only in the
narrative of Ahab and Naboth and in Micah.25
These coincidences are not accidental. But whence
do they spring %
This question can be answered in various ways :
Micah of Moresheth, the contemporary of Isaiah,
had the history of Ahab as given in Kings before
him, and, attracted by the account concerning his
earlier namesake, made distinct allusions to men
and things of that remote time : this is the view of
Hitzig, among others. Or, Micah of Moresheth con-
21 5-8.
22 ii. 11.
23 iv. 14 (v. 1).
24 iv. 13.
25 i^k for J^2N» I. Kings xxi. 29 and Mic. i. 15. (See note C, at
the end of the volume.)

22 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
sidered and presented himself as the continuator of
the activity of his namesake : so thinks Keil. Or —
if we go a step further — he possessed fragments of
the addresses of the son of Imlah, and applied
them, perhaps with alterations, to affairs of his own
time : this view finds support in his embodying in
his prophecies26 a string of sentences elsewhere*7
distinctly credited to Isaiah, which either he bor
rowed from that great contemporary, or both equally
from an earlier prophet — for Isaiah can hardly be
presumed to have repeated the utterances of a man
of his time. A fourth supposition, namely, that
writings and fragments of writings belonging to the
two Micaiahs, or Micahs, have been mixed up by
the collectors of the Scriptures, requires too many
violations of the text as it stands to be critically
established. In any case, however, we have in the
book of Micah clear references to conditions which
existed, or greatly resembled those which existed,
in the times of Ahab and the son of Imlah.
On the supposition that Micah of Moresheth in
corporated or worked up in his book pieces belong
ing to the son of Imlah, the latter could thus be
reconstructed as a distinct prophet out of fragments
of that little work :
The wickedness of the powerful men in Samaria
and Jezreel, the oppressors of the people, elicits
from him this bitter rebuke :
26 Mic. iv. 1-3.
27 Is. ii.2-4.

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 23
(Micah III. 1-4.)
0 hear, ye heads of Jacob,
rulers of the house of Israel :
is it not for you to know the right ?
0 ye haters of the good, and lovers of evil,
who rob men28 of their skin,
and tear the flesh from their bones ;
who eat my people's flesh,
and strip the skin from them,
and break their bones ;
and chop all as for a pot,29
as meat for a caldron ! —
Once they will cry to Jehovah,
and he will not answer,
but hide his face from them at that time,
in response to their evil doings.
In the following we have before us Ahab coveting
the vineyard of Naboth, brooding in his bed, and
murdering and taking possession :
(II. 1-3.)
Woe to them who devise iniquity,
and frame evil, on their beds,
and do it when the morning dawns —
for it is in the power of their hand !
28 men] Literally, tlism, that is, the people of Israel, as generally
explained. n as for a pot] Literally, as what is (~]tyjo) in the pot; *1E;XD>
however, as the Septuagint and the Syriac version indicate, may be
a corruption of "lNtl^Si as flesh. See the context in the original.

24 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
They covet fields, and seize them ;
and houses, and take them ;
oppress the man and his house,
the man and his heritage.
Therefore, thus says Jehovah:
' Behold, I devise evil against this race,
from which ye shall not withdraw your necks ;
nor walk ye haughtily,
for it is an evil time.'
The phrase rendered nor walk ye haughtily in
cludes the word romdh, occurring nowhere else, and
understood to mean on high or in haughtiness ;
and may thus contain an allusion to the march on
Ramoth (heights). s°— The rebuke is continued thus :
(II. 4, 5.)
In that day
men take up a taunt against you,
and wail a wail of woe,
saying, ' we are wasted, wasted !
my people's portion he gives away !
how he withdraws it from me ! S1
to the faithless he portions out our fields ! '
Thus thou shalt have none
to cast a cord of division
in Jehovah's community.
30 non "c6n obi Deing almost the equivalent of niai "6yn mb)-
Ramoth was also called Ram ah in the singular; see H. Kings viii.
29, and Josh. xiii. 26.
" UTE^, ^e withdraws, stands perhaps, by mistake, for "}jji (ef. the
preceding "i">a% an^ v "HIP "IDHi Ruth i. 20), in which case the
translation of the lino would be : lww lie, afflict* me !

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 25
Here we are forcibly reminded of the 'portion'
so many times spoken of in the account of Ahab's
outrage and its fatal consequence, the extirpation
of his race from Jehovah's community. It is, how
ever, hard to determine whether the wail is over
the tyrant's wasting, robbing, and portioning out
to godless accomplices the substance of the people,
or over Jehovah' s retaliation for such crimes, which
surrenders his people's heritage to the plundering
heathen. The true prophet warns Israel and its rulers, but
he is insulted and condemned to silence by the false
preachers and their followers :
(II. 6-8.)
'Preach not,' they preach ;
' they shall not preach to these —
lest they reach32 disgrace. '
Thou who art called house of Jacob,
is Jehovah impatient ?
are his doings such ?
' Will my words do no good
to him who walks uprightly ?
' Yet yesterday
my people rose as a foe ; 3S
32 reach] After Rashi, Aben Ezra, and Kimhi. Cf. Prov. ix. 7:
' He who reproves a scorner gets shame. '
33 yesterday— foe] According to the Masoretic text, which is hardly
correct. Arnheim (in Zunz's Bible) renders, the defender my people
sets up as a foe, reading instead of ethmiil, yesterday, eth mul, and
apparently taking mul to designate him who is ?TpNil 7lO CJ?/

26 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
from the robeless
ye tear off the mantle ; 34
from tranquil passers-by,
men averse from war.'
The homeless widows and orphans of the mur
dered and dispossessed are thus remembered :
(II. 9, 10.)
' The women of my people ye expel
from the houses of their delight ;
from their infants
ye take my ornaments, for ever.'
Eise, and go ;
for this is no resting-place —
because of defilement,
which destroys, with terrible destruction.
The prophets to wdiom the people would listen
are men of a different stamp :
(II. 11.)
If a man who walks after wind and falsehood
should lyingly say,
' I will preach to thee of wine and mead,'
he would be this people's preacher.
(Ex. xviii. 19), perhaps as ad latus has become an adlatus. In the
following mill salmdh b'i'Q is a participle as in Jer. ix. 24 and Josh.
v. 5; the meaning is : cut (shorn) of robe, robeless.
34 mantle] Heb. eder, the same as the adderctli of the prophets
(I. Kings xix. 13, 19; II. Kings ii. 8, 13, 14; Zech. xiii. 4). They
probably wore no robe under it.

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 27
But false prophets like Zedekiah are doomed
eventually to hide themselves in shame:
(III. 5-8.)
Thus says Jehovah concerning the prophets
' who lead my people astray,
who, when biting with their teeth, cry, " Peace !"
and when one puts nothing on their mouth,
prepare war against him :
Therefore, night upon you ! — not to see visions ;
darkness upon you ! — not to divine ;
the sun shall go down over the prophets,
and the day be black over them ;
the seers shall be ashamed,
the diviners shall blush,
and all cover their lips —
for there is no answer of God.'
But I, I am full of strength —
by the spirit of Jehovah —
and of judgment and courage,
to declare to Jacob his transgression,
to Israel his sin.
And the man of courage is rudely tried :
(IV. 14 [V. 1].)
With a rod they strike on the cheek
the guide of Israel.
But his supporter is on high ; him he calls to
witness to the truth of his words :

28 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
(I. 2.)
Hear, ye peoples all ;
listen, 0 earth, and all that is therein ;
and let the Lord Jehovah be witness against yon,
the Lord from his holy temple.36
Persecuted, imprisoned, in darkness and solitude,
the preacher of righteousness mourns over the
perverseness of his time and his own fate, but waits
with resignation for the day which is to justify and
avenge him : (VII.)
(1) Woe is me !
for I am as in the gathering of summer-fruit,
as in the gleaning of the vintage :
there is not a cluster to eat ;
not an early fig, which I long for.
The last good man is gone from the earth,
no upright mortal exists ;
all lie in wait for blood,
brother hunts brother with a net.
The evil-doer has but hands to soften ; "
a This verse is, in meaning, unconnected with the rest of the chap
ter. The preceding quotation is an equally unconnected fragment.
86 to soften] Literally, to make good or pleasant. He disarms the
hands of justice by bribes. Cf. Is. xxxiii. 15: 'who shakes his
hands from grasping bribes,' and Ps. xxvi. 10: 'their right hand
is full of bribes;' and compare 3"'t0,n^ • • • y~in bv with
wb "by\ (IL Sam. xviii. Il), and ^tOTI.' COD with qijq y^-v
(Prov. xv. 13).

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 29
the governor asks,
the judge judges for reward,
and the great man speaks out his soul's lust —
and they twist the thing together.
The best of them is like a brier,
the most upright sharper than a thorn-hedge.
The day of thy watchmen,37
of thy visitation, is coming ;
men's confusion approaches.
(5) Trust ye not in a friend,
confide not in the most intimate ;
from her who rests on thy bosom
keep the doors of thy mouth.
For the son is vile toward his father,
the daughter rises against her mother,
the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law ;
a man's enemies are the men of his own house.
But I, I look to Jehovah,
I wait for the God of my salvation ;
my God will hear me.
Eejoice not over me, 0 woman that hatest me :"
if I am fallen, I rise again ;
if I sit in darkness,
Jehovah is light to me.
Jehovah's wrath I will bear,
for I have sinned against him —
until he pleads my cause,
and secures my right ;
*' The day predicted by prophets.
38 woman that hatest me] Heb. oyabtl = inimiea mea (Vulgate),
meine Feindin. In the Authorized Version the gender is lost.

30 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
he will bring me forth to light,
I shall behold his victory.39
(10) She who hates me will see it,
and be covered with shame ;
she who says to me,
' Where is he — Jehovah, thy God ? '
My eyes will gaze at her ;
now she will be trampled upon
as mire in the streets.
The female enemy here addressed and spoken of
is generally explained to be a personified, though
unmentioned, hostile power — Assyria — and the ulti
mately triumphant sufferer to represent Zion ;*" but,
on the supposition that the sufferer sitting in dark
ness is the son of Imlah in prison, the enemy is none
other but Jezebel herself, the deadly foe of the
prophets of Jehovah, and the last lines may be con
sidered an addition to the meditation — if the whole
is not a retrospect — made when the corpse of the
proud queen had actually been trampled upon in
the streets of Jezreel.
But if the victim of Jezebel' s persecution lived to
see her downfall and the havoc which the sword of
Jehu made among the followers of Baal, he soon dis
covered that the regulations of Omri and the prac
tices of the house of Ahab survived the revolution,
39 his i>ictory] See vol. i. , note G.
40 Starting from this view, the Masorites, by their vowel-points,
gave a feminine termination to "pn^Ni tuy God.

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. SI
and that Samaria and Jezreel continued to be as
deserving of chastisement as ever :
(VI.)
(9) Jehovah's voice calls to the city —
and wisdom minds thy name.
Hear ye the rod,
hear who appoints it.
(10) Are there yet in the house of the wicked
treasures of wickedness,
and the lean, accursed bushel ?
Can 1 41 be pure with wicked scales ?
with a bag of deceitful weights ?
Her rich men are gorged with plunder,
her denizens speak falsehood ;
their tongue in their mouth is deceit.
' Therefore I make thee sick with my blows,
desolating thee for thy sins.
Thou eatest, and art not satisfied,
thy emptiness remaining in thee ;
thou snatchest, but savest not,
and what thou savest I give to the sword ;
(15) thou sowest, but reapest not ;
thou treadest olives, but hast no oil for ointment ;
treadest grapes, but drinkest no wine.
Omri's statutes are kept,
and all the practices of Ahab's house,
and after their counsels ye walk.
41 Can I . . . ?] Can I? can anyone?

32 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
Lo,I make thee42 a desolation,
and her inhabitants a hissing,
and ye bear my people's43 reproach.'
There are a few more lines which, on the basis of
the same hypothesis, might be regarded as belonging
to the son of Imlah, and as referring to that better
time of Ahab's reign, previous to the murder of
Naboth, when prophets of Jehovah still approached
the king with true predictions of victory. In the
following we have, perhaps, a reference to Ben-
Hadad' s siege of Samaria: (IV.14[V. 1].)
Now band thyself in bands,
0 daughter of bands —
he lays siege upon us.
The c daughter of bands,' — oath g'dud — is a fitting
term for Ben-Hadad' s kingdom, Syria, of whose
raiding bands— <?' dudlm — we repeatedly read in the
accounts of the time ; " and the term may even
allude, both in meaning and sound, to the name of
that Syrian king, 'the son of Hadad.' This little

So according to the Masoretic text, but "lpiXi thee, stands
evidently, by mistake, for -nj-}N, thy land, to which the following
'her' refers; 'the land,' 'a desolation,' and 'her inhabitants' are
exactly so connected in verse 13 of the following chapter.
43 my people's] Heb. 'tnmm ; Graetz (' Geschichte der Juden,' vol.
i. part i. p. 156) converts this into 'ammlm, the peoples'. Cf. Neh.
v. 9, and Ezek. xxxvi. 1 fi.
44 II. Kings v. 2. vi. 23.

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 33
fragment is unconnected in the text, though joined
in one verse to an equally small fragment, already
quoted. Equally unconnected are the following
lines, which describe, perhaps, the successful sortie
against Ben-Hadad' s camp, at the time when 'all
the people,' the remnant of Israel, mustered by
Ahab, must have been, compared with the hosts of
the Syrians, like 'little flocks of kids,' as in the
succeeding year : (II. 12, 13.)
' I do collect, 0 Jacob, all of thee ;
I gather together the remnant of Israel ;
I put them together as sheep in a fold ;
like a flock's, in the midst of its pasture,
is the hum of men.'
The breaker-through marches before them,
they break through and pass —
through the gate, and out by it ;
the king passes before them,
Jehovah at their head.

34 THE HISTORICAL POETRY

XXIV.
The hostility between the Israelites and Damas
cene Syria was of old standing. When David
warred with Hadadezer, king of Zobah in the Eu
phrates regions, the Syrians of Damascus came to
succor the latter, but were totally vanquished, and
subjected to the Hebrew kingdom. Subsequently,
however, a leader of a band, Rezon, made himself
master of Damascus, reigned as king, and was an
adversary to Israel all the days of Solomon. One of
his successors, Ben-Hadad I. — in Biblical order —
was bribed by Asa, king of Judah, to break his
peace with Baasha of Israel, and made a powerful
invasion into the northern territories of the ten
tribes. Ben-Hadad II. fought against Ahab. He
also made war on Joram, Ahab's son, and again
vainly besieged Samaria. His murderer and suc
cessor, Hazael, not only successfully resisted an
alliance of Joram with Ahaziah of Judah, but, con
tinuing his hostilities against the successors of both
Hebrew kings, conquered all Transjordanic Pales
tine from Jehu, threatened Jerusalem and extorted
a heavy ransom from Ahaziah' s son Joash, and
brought the kingdom of the ten tribes, under Je-
hoahaz, the son of Jehu, to the very verge of de
struction. Joash, the son of Jehoahaz, however,
three times defeated Hazael' s son Ben-Hadad III.,

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 35
and recovered a portion of the Israelitish territory,
and his son Jeroboam II. reconquered the rest, tri
umphantly extending his power to the north and
east. Some of these wars and invasions were earned
on with utmost fierceness. ¦
Equally tierce were, during the same centuries,
the contests between the Israelites and the Ammon
ites, Moabites, and Edomites. David terribly chas
tised Rabbah and the other cities of Ammon for an
offense of their king Hanun, but the country seems
not to have been held in subjection for any length of
time. After the division of the Hebrew kingdom the
Ammonites made inroads into the territories both
of Judah and Israel.2 Moab was almost annihilated
by David, and in later times paid an enormous
tribute to the kingdom of the ten tribes ; but on the
death of Ahab it revolted under King Mesha, and
desperately defended itself against Joram and his
ally, the king of Judah. In the time of Joash, the
son of Jehoahaz, the Moabites made yearly incur
sions into Israelitish territory." Against Edom, too,
David carried on a war of extermination. He com
pletely subdued it, and though Hadad, an Edomite
prince who escaped to Egypt, raised a revolt on the
death of the conqueror, which annoyed Solomon, the
1 II. Sam. viii. 5, 6 ; I. Kings xi. 23-25, xv. 19, 20, xx., xxii. ; II.
Kings vi. 24^-vii. 7, viii. 25-29, x. 32, 33, xii. 18, 19 (17, 18), xiii. 3-7,
22-25, xiv. 23-29.
2 II. Sam. x., xii. 26-31, II. Chr. xx. 1, Am. i. 13.
3 II. Sam. viii. 2, II. Kings iii., xiii. 20.

36 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
Judseans remained masters in Seir, holding it in sub
jection or vassalage till the reign of Jehoshaphat' s
son Jehoram, when the foreign yoke was broken,
and an independent native throne established. But
some sixty years later Amaziah began the recon-
quest of Edom, and his son Uzziah continued it. '
Amaziah' s exploit is thus told in the second book
of Kings : ' He defeated the Edomites in the Salt
Valley, slaying ten thousand, and reduced Sela [that
is, Petra] by fighting.' Not satisfied with this vic
tory and capture achieved by the king of Judah.
the author of Chronicles makes, in his version, a
characteristic application of the meaning of the
name Sela (rock ; with the definite article, as in the
narrative of Kings, the rock)." He relates:6 'And
Amaziah, mustering strength, led his people, and
marched to the Salt Valley, and defeated the chil
dren of Seir, slaying ten thousand. Other ten
thousand the children of Judah captured alive, and
took them to the top of the rock, and dashed them
down from the top of the rock, so that all were
broken in pieces.' Thus the glory of dashing to
pieces ten thousand Edomite captives is substituted
4 II. Sam. viii. 13, 14 ; I. Kings xi. 14-22, xxii. 48 (47); II. Kings
viii. 20-22, xiv. 7, 22.
6 This is also the meaning, both in Greek and Latin, of Petra, the
classical name of the Idumasan stronghold. According to Wetzstein
(in a dissertation supplementary to Delitzsch's ' Commentary on
Isaiah,' third edition) the name was originally the Bozrah of the Sela,
signifying the fortress cf the cleft in the rocks.
'¦ II. Chr. xxv. 11.

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 37
for the capture of a rock fastness and capital deemed
impregnable, probably the grandest feat in the mili
tary history of the Hebrews. The same author'
makes David take out the inhabitants of all the
towns of Ammon and saw them with saws or destroy
them with other iron implements ; while the cor
responding statement in the second book of Samuel8
— unless violently twisted, as it commonly is, after
Chronicles — indicates an incomparably milder treat
ment of the conquered populations.9 David may
charitably be presumed to be as guiltless of the
monstrous atrocity attributed to him, even if it be
attributed to him by both historians, as Amaziah
probably was of the spectacular execution of the ten
thousand at Petra ; and it is quite a superfluous
labor — though often undertaken — to search for
' I. Chr. xx. 3.
8 xii. 31.
9 The words in the two texts are obscure, but unless the Chroni
cler's tayydsar, and sawed, is substituted for vayyasem, and placed,
in Samuel, the meaning of the older text can be no other than that
David carried off the Ammonites and made them work in his saw
mills, iron mines, and brick-kilns, or in'similar establishments. (See,
among others, Graetz, 'Geschichte der Juden, ' vol. i. p. 256.) But
the mere change of the word does not make the commonly adopted
rendering acceptable, for the verb ' sawed ' is applicable only to the
first of the murderous instruments believed to be mentioned, unless
saws and iron saws are separately spoken of ; nor is it clear why the
Ammonites had to be taken out of their cities, or why they had to
be carried through brick-kilns in order to be burned. (Graetz
strengthens his rendering by substituting ~iDJ?mj and made [them]
work, for "p;;j?ffl> an(^ made [them] pass.)

38 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
benevolent reasons which might have induced the
model king to commit his people-sawings. If it
was his object, as some suggest, to teach the Am
monites, by impressive examples, what they ought
not to practise, lessons on a smaller scale, applied to
the leaders instead of to whole populations, would
have sufficed. For many a deed which makes the
readers of history shudder the narrator alone is
responsible. The wars between the Hebrews and the Philistines
are entirely free from such revolting features, and
in some instances they even present traits of con
tention in a chivalrous spirit. David repeatedly
vanquished the Philistines, but did not subdue
them.10 Solomon's empire extended from the Eu
phrates ' to the land of the Philistines, and to the
border of Egypt,'11 but it included neither of these
countries. During his reign we find a king of
Gath,12 while neither the conquest nor the revolt of
any other Philistine city is related in the history of
those times. " And shortly after the division of the
10 II. Sam. v. 17-25, viii.l, xxi. 15-22. II. Sam. viii. 1, as its conclud
ing part shows, states a decisive victory over them, but not their
subjection. 11 I." Kings v. 1 (iv. 21).
12 1. Kings ii. 39.
13 Gath, however, is stated in I. Chronicles (xviii. 1) to have been
taken by David; but the statement is totally invalidated by the cor
responding sentence in II. Samuel (viii. 1). Equally inauthentic is
probably the mention of Gath, in II. Chronicles (xi. 8), among the
cities fortified Iry Rehoboam, after which it next appears in the same

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 39
Hebrew kingdom, we see the Philistines holding a
fortified town, Gibbethon, in the territory of the ten
tribes, and defending it against Nadab and his
successors.14 Weakened by the sword of David,
and probably harassed by the Egyptian navy, the
Philistines no longer thought of renewing their
supremacy over the interior of Palestine, and the
Hebrews, divided among themselves, made no vigor
ous effort to conquer the Philistine coastland. This
state of affairs, however, would not prevent occa
sional border warfare and predatory incursions.
Between the cities of the Phoenician coastland —
Sidon, Tyre, Aradus, Byblus — and the Hebrew
states peace and commercial intercourse were per
manent. Of the contests between Mesha, king of Moab,
and his Hebrew neighbors there is an account by
himself, in an inscription on a monumental stone
discovered at Diban15 in 1868, and deciphered from
impressions — for the stone was broken before it
could be acquired — by a number of investigators,
French, German, and English. The inscription
was apparently engraved shortly after the Moab-
ite king had shaken off the yoke of the kingdom
of Israel, on Ahab's fall at Ramoth. The deci
pherment is incomplete, as the impressions were,
book (xxvi. 6) as a city warred against and conquered by another
king of Judah, and in Amos (vi. 2) as a city of the Philistines.
14 1. Kings xv. 27, xvi. 15.
16 The Scriptural Dibon ; see vol. i. p. 75.

40 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
and in many points conjectural and doubtful.
The following sentences and parts of sentences are
the principal ones on which three, at least, out of
four of the ablest expounders — Schlottmann, Nol
deke, Kaempf, and M. A. Levy — are fully in ac
cord:16 'I, Mesha, son of .... king of Moab, the Dibonite:
My father reigned over Moab thirty years, and I reigned
after my father. And I have made this high-place to
Chemosh,17 . . . for he saved me from all. . . .
' Omri, king of Israel, oppressed Moab many days, for
Chemosh was wroth against his land. His son succeeded
him, and he, too, said, " I will oppress Moab." . . .
But I had my sight in him and his house, and Israel
perishes for ever.
'Omri conquered . . . Medeba,18 and dwelt in
it, he and his son, forty years. But Che
mosh ... in my days. . . .
'I built up Baal-Meon,19 . . . and . . . Kir-
16 Of other writers on the subject may be mentioned: Clermont-
Ganneau — of the French consulate at Jerusalem, who procured the
impressions, the stone having been discovered by the missionary
Klein — the Count de Vogue, Capt. Warren, Derenbourg, A. Geiger,
G. Rawlinson, Neubauer, Oppert, Renan, Schrader, Hitzig, Gins-
burg, Harkavy, and Graetz. The genuineness of the inscription is
all but universally conceded.
11 Clinnosh] The god; see vol. i. p. 74.
16 See vol. i. p. 75.
18 Baal-Meon] Or Beth-Meon, fully Beth- Baal-Meon, a town near
Medeba, vast ruins of which are at Main, on a height north of the
Wady Zerka Main. (See Tristram ' The Land of Moab,' eh. xvi.)

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 4]
jathaim.30 The men of Gad (lived) in the district . . .
from the days of old. . . . And I fought against
. . . . and captured it, and slew all . . . , a de
lightful sight to Chemosh and Moab. . . .
' Chemosh said to me, ' ' Go, and take Nebo " from
Israel." I went in the night, and fought against it from
dawn to mid-day, and captured it, and slew all, seven
thousand ; . for it was doomed to Ashtor-Che-
mosh." . . . And I took from there the vessels of
Jehovah, and laid them before Chemosh.
'And the king of Israel built up Jahaz,23 and dwelt in it,
while warring against me ; but Chemosh drove him out
before me. I took from Moab two hundred men, all chiefs,
and led them against Jahaz, and captured it, in addition to
Dibon. ' I built up Qorhah,21 the wall of the forest region, and
the wall. . . . And I built its gates, and I built its
20 A town identified by Porter and others with the ruins at the
present Kureiyat, south of Jebel Attarus, south by west of Main.
Tristram doubts whether Kureiyat answers to Kirjathaim or to
Kerioth, Kureitun near Kerak, as he believes, answering to one of
these towns.
21 There was, according to Eusebius and Jerome, a town Nebo —
distinct and distant from the mountain of the same name (see vol. i.
p. 73) — eight miles south of Heshbon (see vol. i. p. 74). It is the
Kebo of Num. xxxii. 38, and of I. Chr. v. 8.
22 The surname Ashtor characterizes Chemosh as the god of war
(Schlottmann). 23 See vol. i. p. 73.
24 Qprhah] According to various expositions, either another name
for Dibon or the name of a suburb of it, or of one of the plains of
Moab.

42 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
towers, and I built its royal palace, and I erected the water-
reservoirs in the midst of the city. There was no cistern
within the city in Qorhah ; so I said to all the people,
" Make each of you a cistern in his house." . . .
' I built up Aroer,2" and I constructed the road on the
Arnon. I rebuilt Beth-Bamoth,26 for it was destroyed. I
built up Bezer." ... I built up . . . Beth-Dib-
lathaim28 and Beth-Baal-Meon. . .
' Chemosh said to me, " Go, and make war on Horo-
naim."29 . . . And I. . . . Chemosh in my
days. . . .'
Thus boasted the king of Moab, before the inde
pendence of his country was fully secured. The
history of the severest struggle which he had to go
through is given in the following Israelitish ac
count30 — here abridged — in which real facts and a
popular story of a prophet are blended together in
the fascinating way so characteristic of the book of
Kings :
Mesha, king of Moab, was a sheep-master, and
26 A town near the north bank of the Arnon (see vol. i. p. 70), ruins
of which are at Arair, or Araar (Tristram), south of Diban.
26 Supposed to be identical with the Scriptural Bamoth ; see vol. i.
p. 73.
27 A place north of the Arnon, identified by recent travellers with
the present Kesur el-Besheir, south-west of Diban.
28 Probably identical with Almon-Diblathaim (Num. xxxiii. 46), a
place north of the Arnon.
20 A town of southern Moab. (See Is. xv. 5, and Jer. xlviii. 34.)
30 II. Kings iii.

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 43
rendered to the king of Israel a hundred thousand
fattened lambs, and a hundred thousand rams with
the wool. But on Ahab' s death he rebelled. Joram
thereupon went out of Samaria, and mustered all
Israel. But he also sent this message to Jehosha
phat : ' The king of Moab has rebelled against me :
wilt thou march with me against Moab, to war?'
The king of Judah answered : L I will march ; it is
all the same : I or thou ; my people or thine ; my
horses or thine.' Joram asked, 'Which way shall
we march i ' And Jehoshaphat replied, ' By the
way of the wilderness of Edom.' So the kings of
Israel and Judah, and with them the king of Edom,
started, and marched seven days, by a circuitous
route, but then found no water for either men or
beasts. The king of Israel despaired, but Jehosha
phat asked for a prophet by whom to inquire of
Jehovah. Elisha, the disciple of Elijah, was found,
and the three kings went to see him. The prophet,
after rudely addressing the king of Israel, and ex
pressing his regard for Jehoshaphat, said, 'Bring
me a minstrel,' and when the minstrel played the
power of Jehovah was upon him. And he said,
'Thus says Jehovah: "Make this valley full of
cisterns." For thus says Jehovah : "Ye shall see
neither wind nor rain, yet this valley shall be filled
with water, that ye may drink — ye, your cattle, and
your beasts." And this is but a light thing in
Jehovah' s sight : he will also deliver the Moabites
into your hand. And ye shall smite every fortified

44 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
city, and every choice city, and fell every fine tree,
and stop all wells of water, and mar every good
piece of land with stones.' Whereupon, in the
morning, there came water from the side of Edom,
and the country was filled with it. ISTow the Moab
ites, having collected as one man on hearing of the
approach of the kings to tight against them, stood
there on the border, and when they rose, early in
the morning, the sun shining upon the water, the
water, at a distance, appeared to them as red as
blood. And they said, ' This is blood ! surely, the
kings are destroyed ; they have beaten each other :
now for the booty, O Moab ! ' And they came to
the camp of Israel ; but then the Israelites rose and
beat the Moabites, so that they tied before them,
and they went on beating them. And the cities
they pulled down, and upon every good field each
cast a stone, so that they covered it ; and every well
of water they stopped, and every fine tree they
felled ; and thus only the stones in Kir-Hareseth
were left, but even that the slingers surrounded and
smote. And when the king of Moab saw that the
battle was too heavy for him, he took with him
seven hundred men, armed with drawn swords, to
break through to the king of Edom ; but they could
not. 'Then he took his eldest son, who was to
reign in his stead, and offered him as a burnt-offer
ing on the wall ; whereupon there was great exas
peration against Israel, and they departed from him,
and returned home.1

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 45
The purely historical import of the narrative
seems to be this : The kings of Israel and Judah
marched to the southern shore of the Dead Sea,
where the king of Edom — a vassal, or rather royal
lieutenant, of Jehoshaphat31 — joined them with his
force. Thence they advanced to the border of
Moab unopposed, but, after a long march through a
country scorched by unusual heat, they found King
Mesha occupying a strong position on hills lining a
deep dried-up wady, and, unable to force him to
accept battle, they saw their supplies melting away,
and their men and beasts perishing with thirst.
Joram, despairing of success, was ready to with
draw, but Jehoshaphat, perhaps really encouraged
by Elisha, persevered, and the rashness of the
enemy justified his course. For the Moabites
abandoned their defensive attitude, and at day
break descended to the bottom of the valley to
assail the camp of the invaders. They possibly
reckoned on dissensions, reported by deserters, be
tween the three kings, and on the treachery of the
Edomites. The assault, as natural under the circum
stances, considering position and numbers, proved a
disastrous failure. The remnants of Mesha' s army
fled in every direction, and the invaders spread over
the uncovered country, destroying and ravaging.
Kir-Hareseth alone — a fortress generally identified
both with the Scriptural Kir- Moab and the present
31 1. Kings xxii. 48 (47) says in reference to the reign of Jehosha
phat, ' There was then no king in Edom: a prefect was king.'

46 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
Kerak, in the extreme south of ancient Moab — was
enabled by its position and strong walls to offer
a protracted resistance. But this stronghold was
commanded by heights, from which the slingers of
the besiegers hurled destructive volleys upon the
defenders. Only the stones of Kir-Hareseth were
left. Mesha made a desperate attempt to break
through, with a chosen band, on the side of the
Edomites, perhaps with the hope that their king
might still betray the cause of the hated Hebrews.
Baffled in this sally, he returned to the city, and, in
his agony, sacrificed to his god Chemosh ' his eldest
son' — his own, or, as some explain the text, the
king of Edom's, captured during the struggle.32
This deed of savage bigotry or revenge exasperated
the Moabites to fury, or the Edomites to disaffec
tion, and the siege was abandoned.
These events, whatever their precise character
may have been, are probably the theme of the elegy
on Moab contained in the fifteenth and sixteenth
chapters of Isaiah, to which the prophet of that
name added a short epilogue,33 beginning thus :
'This is the word which Jehovah spoke against
Moab long ago, and now Jehovah speaks this.'
That Isaiah himself was not the author of the elegy
has been fully, and easily, established, chiefly by
the archaic and otherwise peculiar forms of expres-
32 This view is based on Amos's execrating Moab ' for burning the
bones of Edom's king ' (Am. ii. 1).
33 xvi. 13, 14.

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 47
sion in which it abounds ; so that Knobel, after
exhibiting its various features,34 justly remarks,
' In a word, the piece is so peculiar, through and
through, that nothing else in the Old Testament
can be the production of the same author. . . .
Its whole character is antique.' And it cannot be
explained as lamenting, with more or less unmixed
irony, the sufferings of Moab when Hazael of Syria
conquered the lands north of the Arnon ; 35 for it
begins with bewailing Ar-Moab and Kir-Moab, cities
situated south of that river, and, besides, that was
an occasion to weep for Israel, not for Moab. Nor
can its theme be — as many expounders maintain —
the fall of Moab when Jeroboam II. reconquered
from the Syrians the lands east of the Jordan ; S6 for
his reconquest extended only 'to the Sea of the
Steppe' (the Dead Sea),3' and, had he conquered
34 See note D, at the end of the volume.
35 II. Kings x. 32, 33.
36 II. Kings xiv. 25.
31 On this point Schlottmann (article ' Moab ' in Riehm's ' Hand-
worterbuch des Biblischen Altertums') remarks: 'Die gewohnliche
Ansicht . . . , dass er Moab wieder unterworfen habe, durfte
auf unzureichenden Schliissen beruhen. Als die siidlichste der von
ihm hergestellten Grenzen wird das Meer der Araba, . . . d. i.
das Todte Meer genannt. Dem entspricht Am. 6, 14 der Bach der
Araba . . . , den manche mit dem Bach 'ardbhim identificiren,
wogegen aber Gesenius (thes. 1065 b) mit Recht geltend gemacht hat,
dass an jenen beiden Stellen die Nordseite des Todten Meeres als
Grenze bezeichnet sein muss. Dort ist auch der Bach der Araba zu
suchen (viell. der Wadi Chasbdn oder W. es-Suweime). Die alte
Grenze des ostjordanischen Israel war der Arnon : wenn der 2. Kon.

48 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
Moab, too, he could not have begun his work at the
wrong end of the country, leaving Dibon, and Nebo,
and Medeba, near his border, to pray and cry on
heights, streets, and house-tops, as we read. Nor
can it be explained by an Assyrian invasion, for no
such invasion is anywhere recorded, and not the
faintest allusion to Assyria is discoverable in the
piece ; nor by a sudden irruption of desert tribes,
for such invaders would never have achieved the
great things lamented over, and laid the proudest
cities of Moab low 'in a night.' On the other
hand, not much critical license is required to ex
plain away all that seemingly opposes our reading
the elegy by the light of the historical narratives
given above, while, striking coincidences in names,
expressions, and circumstances strongly plead for
such a proceeding. Let us assume that the elegy
was composed — in parts, as its form shows — by a
prophet of Jehovah, Elisha or another, who accom
panied the camp of the invaders, and whose sympa
thies were all on the side of the king of Judah ;
and that it was completed shortly after Mesha' s
useless sally, when the Moabite cause was the most
desperate. And let us image to ourselves, as
we reasonably may, the condition of Moab after
13, 20 [14, 25 ?] nicht genannt wird, so weist dies darauf hin, dass
Jeroboam II. den Moabitern ihr nordlich vom Arnon erobertes Land
lassenmusste.' In any case, all that is claimed for Jeroboam II. is
that ho ' restored ' the ancient border of Israel, not that he achieved
conquests beyond it, south of the Arnon.

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 49
Mesha' s first defeat to have been as follows : The
news of that terrible defeat, running like wild-fire
over all the land, at a moment when the people
confidently expected an announcement of the sur
render of the starved invaders on the banks of the
border wady, everywhere spread consternation and
dismay. Moab was ruined by a single disaster,
which it rushed into ' in a night ' of hope, followed
by a fatal daybreak. The wady, parched up the
evening before, was at sunrise flooded with the
best blood of the country's defenders. The rest of
'Moab's armed men' were scattered to all the
winds, terror-stricken and shrieking. The open
towns and villages, the unwalled suburbs of the
fortresses, were at the mercy of pillagers. The king
was shut up in a solitary stronghold. In the cities
of the north, more remote from the scene of the
disaster, the people cried and prayed in bewilder
ment. The unprotected people of the south sought
refuge in caverns and among rocks on the border of
the desert, or among the reedy marshes and cane-
brakes of the shores of the Dead Sea. The banks of
the Arnon swarmed with fugitives. The best - shel
tered wadys were encumbered with goods carried
off in the flight. The consequences of the drought
to which the invaders had nearly succumbed added
to the horrors of the homeless. Some of these
would even cross the Dead Sea, and implore the pro
tection of Zion against the king of Samaria, extol
ling the mercy of Jehoshaphat, and renouncing

50 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
allegiance to their tyrant Mesha and his cruel god.
Mourning, instead of the former mirth, reigned in
all the cities, in the fields and vineyards, of Moab,
from Horonaim and Kir-Hareseth in the south to
Heshbon and Elealeh in the furthest north. Kir-
Hareseth still held out, but Mesha' s strength was
ebbing away, and his last hope was Chemosh.
Such ought to have been the condition of Moab
in those days according to the narrative in Kings,
and such a picture is reflected in the elegy repro
duced and supplemented by Isaiah, a poem of great
strength and vividness, and abounding in allusions
and plays upon words, some pronounced and
marked, and others almost hidden.38
Here follows its first section :
(Isaiah XV.)
(1) Yea, Ar-Moab39 made desolate in a night,
struck dumb !
yea, Kir-Moab" made desolate in a night,
struck dumb !
38 Naturally only a few can be rendered in the translation without
sacrificing sense to sound. Thus in the original the syllables la,
lorn, bd, be, bo, bit, and db are grouped in half a verse (xv. 2), and
egl, yil, el, and yil in another half-verse (xv. 8). Pew sentences, if
any, have suffered by this or a similarly playful grouping of sounds
or words. It would be useless to point out every play of words in a
note. 39 The ancient capital of Moab ; see vol. i. p. 71.
40 ' The fortress of Moab,' as in the Chaldee version: K'rakhl
d'modb — in Moabitish perhaps 'the city of Moab,' as appears from

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. P,\
Bajith41 and Dibon ascend the high-places to weep ;
on Nebo's heights," on Medeba's, Moab wails ;
on all heads baldness,43
Mesha's inscription — the present Kerak, the capital of the district of
the same name, less than ten miles from the south-east shore of the
Dead Sea. It is even now a remarkable stronghold. ' Its position,'
says Tristram, ' is so strong by nature that it would be seized upon
as a fortress from the very earliest times. A lofty brow pushes
forward to the west with a flattened space on its crest, a sort of head,
behind which the neck at the south-east contracts, and gives it
the form of a peninsula, at the same time that the isthmus, if I may
so call it, rapidly slopes down before rising to reunite to its shoulder
the yet loftier hill to the east. The platform of Kerak stands 3, 720
feet above the sea level; yet on all sides it is commanded, some of
the neighboring heights being over 4,050 feet (barometric). It is,
however, severed everywhere, excepting at the neck, and also in a
less degree at the north-west angle, from the encircling range. Two
deep wadys, from 1,000 to 1,350 feet deep, with steeply scarped or
else rugged sides, flank it north and south, the "Wady Hammad to
the south, and Wady Kerak to the north, which unite about a mile
to the west of the city. . . . The escarpment of the third side of
the triangle is formed by the Wady Kobeisheh, which, starting from
the depression which I have called the neck, rapidly descends to the
Wady Kerak. '
41 In Hebrew, with the article, habbayith, the house, place, or
temple, probably the foremost of the various places in Moab of the
names of which bayith (beth) formed the first part ; presumably Beth-
Baal-Meon, called also Beth-Meon and Baal-Meon (see above, note
19) — which, as the name indicates, contained a sanctuary of Baal — or
Beth-Bamoth, ' the place of heights,' which Mesha rebuilt, according
to his inscription.
42 In the original, on Nebo ; the town, not the mountain, of that
name seems to be meant, as the following, ' on Medeba,' indicates.
43 baldness] Heb. qor'hdh. Nagelsbach finds in this word a de
risive allusion to the Qorhah (HITlp) of the Moabite stone, in

52 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
every beard is cut ;
in the streets they wear sackcloth,
on house-tops and broad places the whole people wails,
melting away in tears.
Heshbon cries out, and Elealeh ;44
as far as Jahaz their howling is heard.
And Moab's armed men shriek,
his soul shrinks.
(5) My heart cries out for Moab,
whose fugitives flee as far as Zoar45 —
that three-year-old heifer.45
For the slope of Luhitli"
they ascend with weeping ;
which King Mesha appears to have had a royal residence : ' if all
heads are bald, then, of course, baldness (nmp) reigns over Moab.'
t ;!t
44 A place situated a little more than a mile north by east of Hesh
bon ; its extensive ruins bear the name of El- AM.
45 Flee to the very shores of the Dead Sea. There is, perhaps, an
allusion here to the flight of Lot, the ancestor of Moab, to Zoar,
when the surrounding country suffered total destruction (Gen. xix).
46 This term ' is either in apposition to Zoar or to Moab. In the
former case it is a distinguishing epithet. ' Either ' Moab is called
jumnca tertii anni, h.e., indomita jugogue nonassueta. as a nation that
was still in fhe vigor of youth, and if it had hitherto borne the yoke,
had always shaken it off again,' or ' Zoar, the fine, strong, and
hitherto unconquered city, is now the destination of a most wild
flight before the foe ' (Delitzsch). Gesenius — who favors the former
view — quotes from Pliny, ' Domitura bourn in trimatu, postea sera,
antea praematura.'
41 A place known to Eusebius and Jerome, between Ar-Moab and
Zoar. Whether the name Luhith — in Heb., with the article,
haM'hlth — be derived from lua'h, tablet, or from lea'h, moisture,
freshness (cf. the Talmudical li'hlu'lnth), there seems to be in 'weep-

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 53
for on the road to Horonaim48
they raise a cry of disaster ;
for the Waters of Nimrim49
are now desolate ;
for the grass is dried up,
the young herb has vanished,
the green is no more.
Therefore the remnant saved, their stores,
they carry to the Willow-Brook. M
For the cry goes around
all the border of Moab ;
as far as Eglaim" the wailing goes,
as far as Beer-Elim" the wailing.
ing ' an allusion to the meaning of its root, which, signifying ' to be
fresh, to be moist, . . . properly to shine, . . .'is used in
Arabic also ' of the dripping of tears ' (Mtthlau and Volck's Gesenius,
s. v. Id'ha'h).
48 A descending road (see Jer. xlviii. 5), probably in opposite
direction to the road ascending to Luhith.
49 Identified by Palmer and Tristram with the Wady Nemeirah,
flowing into the Dead Sea through the south-west portion of Moab.
60 Heb. na'hal hd'ardbim, identified by Delitzsch with the Wady
Safsaf (Willow Brook), the northern branch of the Wady Kerak, on
which Kir-Moab was situated. That wady was noted by Irby and
Mangles, and also pointed out to Tristram. As to the identification
of the na'hal hd'ardbim with the na'hal ha'&rdbdh of Am. vi. 14,
see above, note 37.
" Heb. eglayim, perhaps identical with En-Eglaim ('en 'eglayim), at
the south end of the Dead Sea (Ezek. xlvii. 10), ' or more probably
with the 'AyaXXel/i of Eusebius, which he locates eight Roman
miles south of Areopolis,' or Ar-Moab (Gesenius), or with both
(Delitzsch). 52 Probably the Beer of Num. xxi. 16-18 (see vol. i. pp. 71, 72), a

54 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
For Pinion's flow53 is a flood of blood:
I make additions to Dimon.
A lion upon the survivors of Moab,
upon the remnant of the land !
The second section introduces the fugitives, pray
ing for protection, and offering submission to the
throne of Judah, an offer which is contemptuously
refused :

locality in the north-east of Moab, perhaps at a point diametrically
opposite to Eglaim in the extreme south-west.
63 Heb. me dimon, the waters of Dimon, probably a brook which
flowed past Madmen, a Moabite town mentioned in Jer. xlviii. 2,
and alluded to in Is. xxv. 10, if not mentioned there too in the
original b'me madmendh, which the Masorites have changed into b'mo
madmendh. Madmen answers, perhaps, to mi dimon, as Medeba to
me d'bd ('tranquil waters,' Gesenius). The name Dimon, formed
like Dibon (from dab. not from dCiban), and in the verse before us
brought into a play upon words with ddm, blood (cf. dimkhem, your
blood), may have been given the wady on account of the reddish color
of its bottom, which gave a bloody appearance to its waters; and if
the fighting between Mesha and the three kings took place on that
wady, the story of II. Kings iii. about the fatal delusion of the
Moabites could be explained either as founded on a fact or as evolved,
in a poetical legend, out of a natural possibility. It also deserves
notice that at the end of our verse there is in iiddniOih a playful allusion
to red, blood, and Dimon (adorn, dilm, dimon), and, perhaps, another
allusion to the bloody Dimon and the additions of blood to it, at the
very beginning of the elegy, in the twice given nidmdh, 'struck
dumb,' a word kindred in its root to dam. The choice of iiddmdh,
where we should look for lul'dm, or, at least, for hddreU (Nagelsbach),
was undoubtedly determined by the sound.

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 55
(XVI.)
(1) Send ye the fattened lamb" of the ruler of the land"
from a rock" by the desert,"
54 fattened lamb] Heb. kar, the same word which we find (in the
pi. kdrim) in the statement of Mesha's tribute to the king of Israel
(II. Kings iii. 4).
55 Due, as tribute, to the Hebrew suzerain, the real ruler.
66 From a rock] Not from Sela (Petra), the Hebrew name of that
Idumsean rock-fastness being hassela', the rock (II. Kings xiv. 7, and,
perhaps, Judg. i. 36). The meaning of the verse is: Send now tribute,
not from your capital, but from your places of refuge among rocks
by the desert. The author of Jer. xlviii., an amplification of our
elegy, therefore turned the verses before us into ' Abandon the cities,
and dwell in the rock, O inhabitants of Moab ; and be like a dove
that has her nest in the sides of the mouth of a cave ' (verse 28 ; cf.
II. Sam. xvii. 9, where pa'hath, cave, appears as a hiding-place). The
confounding of sela' with hassela' has served as a support for the no
tion that a flight from the north to the south and to Edom is described
in Is. xv., a notion which cannot stand a close examination of the
text. (Cf. Wetzstein's dissertation on Sela and Bozrah in Delitzsch's
'Commentary on Isaiah,' third edition: 'Alle Erklarungsversuche,
wie die Moabiter dazu kommen, die landesherrlichen Lammer aus
dem edomitischen Sela' zu holen, sind unbef riedigend. ')
51 by the desert] Literally, at tlie desert, or toward the desert, Heb.
midbdrdh, with the dh locale in its softened meaning (' in etwas abge-
schwachter Bedeutung, um einen Ort zu bezeichnen, wo sich etwas
befindet,' Kautzsch's 'Gesenius' Hebraische Grammatik,' § 90; cf.
Rodiger's edition, § 88, and Ewald's 'Lehrbuch,' § 216), as in
nn"ona x-jrp mrnx (i. Kings iv. 14), -pm^x noun (Jer.
xviii. 2), nail? "PlOp "WK CH- Kings xxiii. 8), and, according to
Rodiger and Ewald, in n^3D D^NSi !TiT 13^> WOT) (Jer- xxix-
15) and n^2T "70V PIT tfatt' (Hab. iii. 11); or in its commoner
meaning as in H233 (Ex. xxvi. 18, Josh, xviii. 15), pimia> Pia1
ruim num naip-

56 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
to daughter Zion's mount.
Like birds fluttering about,
like scattered nestlings,
Moab's daughters will be,
at Arnon's fords.
' Give counsel,
frame a decision ;58
make thy shade like night
in the midst of noontide ;
hide the fugitives,
betray not the homeless ;
let my fugitives sojourn with thee,
to Moab be a shelter"
from the spoiler.
Yea, the oppressor is no more,
violence is past,
the trampler has vanished60 from the land ;
(5) but on mercy a throne is established,
and enthroned on it is in truth —
in David's tent —
58 Give counsel, frame a decision] The Hebrew imperatives in the
following lines (and here as corrected by the Masorites) are in the
sing. fern. The prayer is thus addressed, by fugitives, to ' daughter
Zion.' 59 Let . . . shelter] The substitution of ^fl"]} for ">pn}) m
accordance with the Alexandrian, Chaldee, and Syriac versions,
changes the rendering of the two lines into the following: Let Moab's
fugitives sojourn with tliee, be a shelter to tltem.
60 tlie trampler lias vanislied] In the original the noun is in the
sing., and the verb in the pi., which, if correct, would require ina
literal translation a rendering like every trampler has vanished ; but
the correctness of the verb may be doubted.

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 57
a judge zealous for right,
and ready for justice.' —
' We have heard of Moab's haughtiness,
the very lofty ;
of his pride, and haughtiness, and insolence —
and the falsehood of his talk ! '
A few of the preceding lines, in the original,
almost unmistakably contain a succession of allu
sions, in sound and meaning, to names most con
spicuous in the history of Mesha. The ' oppressor '
(Heb. meg) is Mesha himself (mesha\ k the savior') ;
the 'trampler' (rdmes) is the trampling and sub
duing god Chemosh ; 61 the judge (shdphet) zealous
for right (mishpdt) is Jehoshaphat, through whom
' Jehovah judges ' (shdphat). And the Hebrew
words used here for ' oppressor ' °2 and ' trampler '
occur, in these forms, nowhere else in the Bible.
61 Chemosh] In reference to the etymology of this name, Schlott-
mann (in Riehm's Bible Dictionary, art. 'Chamos') says: 'Uns ist
am w ahrschei n 1 ichsten die von Gesenius vertheidigte, wonach das
Wort (von der Wurzel Kdmasch = Kdbhascli) den Gott als den be-
zeichnet, welcher die feindlichen Gewalten niedertritt und bandigt.
Es passt das gut zu seiner Auffassung als Ares. Und es spricht
dafiir das fast gleichlautende syrische Wort Kemusch = Alp, incubus,
ephialtes.' Gesenius (s. v. kdmasli) compares, besides, A.r. kdbus, Syr.
kamshuna, skins of pressed grapes (' vom Zertreten '). Miihlau and
Volck, in their edition of Gesenius, cling to the same view, which is
also that of Movers and Keil.
62 ' oppressor '] More strictly, perhaps, blood-sucker or marrow-
sucker.

58 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
The last section resumes the purely elegiac,
though ironic, tone: (XVI.)
(7) Therefore Moab wails for Moab,
all of him wails.
For the grape-cakes of Kir-Hareseth63
ye moan, utterly undone.
Heshbon's fruit-fields are withered,
Sibmah's64 vine is,
whose choice plants crushed lords of nations,65
touched Jazer,66 spreading,
trailed through the desert ;
its shoots wandered far,
crossed the sea.
63 Vitringa was the first to identify Kir-Hareseth, or Kir-Heres,
with Kir-Moab (see above, note 40), and his view has been adopted
by the best critical commentators with rare unanimity. Kir-Moab
may have been the Hebrew name of the town, designating it as the
principal fortress of the land, and Kir-Hareseth the Moabitish,
marking it as 'brick-town' or 'pottery-town' (cf. Heb. f^il an(J
rVDin) — on account of its fortifications or manufactures — or, what
Palmer deduces from a local Arabic word, as ' hill-town. '
64 Sibmali] Or Sebam (in the Authorized Version, inaccurately,
Shebam; if. Num. xxxii. 3, 38), a town located by Jerome at a dis
tance of hardly five hundred paces from Heshbon.
65 Broke them down with intoxication ; compare Heb. hdl'mu,
crushed, with lmlinne ynyin, crushed with wine (Is. xxviii. 1). The
verse is thus explained by Coccejus, Vitringa, Hitzig, Knobel, and
others, against whom Roscnmluler, Gesenius, Ewald, and Nagelsbach
uphold the older rendering, lords of nations crushed its choice plants.
66 In the north, between Heshbon and Ramoth-in-Gilead, according
to Eusebius and Jerome.

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 59
Therefore I weep
with weeping Jazer
for Sibmah's vine ;
I water thee with tears,
0 Heshbon, with Elealeh.
For upon thy fruit-harvest,
upon thy vintage,67
the war-shout has fallen.
(10) And joy is cut off,
and exultation, from the garden-land ;
in the vineyards there is no singing,
no huzzaing ;
no wine, in the presses,
is pressed by the treaders,
'the wine-shout I have abolished.'
Therefore my bosom's strings
for Moab like a harp are stirred,
my inward parts for Kir-Heres.
And now, when it appears
that Moab's strength expires
on the height68 —
he goes into his sanctuary to pray,
but he is powerless.
67 vintage] In the original, kdcir, instead of bdcir, on account of
alliteration with the preceding kayic (Delitzsch), the word is thus
used in Is. xviii. 5 (Knobel). In Jer. xlviii. 32 the usual bdcir is
substituted. 68 the height] The high battling-ground; cf. bbr\ TnifiD by irOTP
<ii. Sam. i. 25), ¦OTBIT TY1B3 by) (Ps. xviii. 34), i^T "WIM by)
(Hab. iii. 19), n-nr> ¦'ana by "6nD31 (J"d. v. 18).

60 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
In regard to the connection, here sought to be
established, between the Scriptural narrative of
Mesha' s war60 and the elegy reproduced by Isaiah,
the following points may still be noticed as sig
nificant. Kir-Hareseth, or Kir-Heres, occurs only in
these two pieces and in Jeremiah's amplification of
the latter. In both pieces that town appears (or
reappears) at the end : in the narrative as the last
stronghold defended by the Moabites, and in the
elegy as the city representing all Moab in its last
agony.70 Its mention is directly followed in the
narrative by a verse beginning, ' And when the king
of Moab saw that the battle was too heavy for him,'
and ending, ' but they were powerless ; ' 71 and in the
elegy by one beginning, 'And now, when it appears
that Moab's strength expires on the height,' and
ending, ' but he is powerless.' ™ The narrative ends
with Mesha' s sacrifice of a royal son, and a mysteri
ous hint at indirect guilt in the monstrous deed:
the poet breaks off abruptly at Moab's entering the
sanctuary, as if shrinking in horror from the con
tinuation. A similar horror seems to have pre
vented the narrator of the story of Jephthah's
daughter from distinctly stating what was the fate

69 II. Kings iii.
™ Mark the parallelism, ' for Moab . . . for Kir-Heres.'
" Or, ' but they could not ' (Heb. v'lo ydklwlu).
72 Or, ' but he cannot ' (v'l<> yuklml).

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. ¦ 61
of that victim ; ™ and a kindred sentiment caused a
Greek artist who painted Agamemnon and Iphi-
genia at the altar to veil the face of the father.
13 ' He did with her according to his vow which he had vowed,' is
the writer's circumlocution (Judg. xi. 39).

G2 THE HISTORICAL POETRY

XXV.
Such had been the relations of the Israelites with
their neighbors all around when Amos of Tekoa, in
the time of Uzziah of Judah and Jeroboam II. of
Israel, about 800 b.c, 'two years before the earth
quake,' launched his denunciations of wickedness,
and prophetic announcements of divine vengeance,
against all those neighboring peoples, and against
Judah and Israel themselves. He had come from
Judah to preach righteousness in Israel, but began
with a rapid introductory survey of all the sur
rounding ground, as if to show that no special
hatred inspired his words, and that his predictions
of woe flowed from an all-embracing sacred convic
tion, which admitted of no exception : Jehovah was
pure and just ; the nations were sinful — Jehovah's
justice demanded their downfall. Their crimes
were many, but one would suffice to illustrate those
of each nation. Jehovah had decreed their doom,
and he would not reverse his decree. Amos' s utter
ances were brief, oracular, poetical :
(Amos I.)
(3) Thus says Jehovah:
' For three crimes of [Damascus,

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 63
and for a fourth,1 I reverse it not:
for threshing Gilead with iron rollers."
So I send fire into Hazael's house,
and it devours the palaces of Ben-Hadad. 3
(5) I break the bar of Damascus,
cut off the see-holder from the vale of Aven,*
the sceptre-holder from Beth-Eden, *
and Syria's people is driven away to Kir ' " —
says Jehovah.
Thus says Jehovah :
' For three crimes of Gaza,
1 for a fourth] In the original, for four; the fourth is specified.
For a similar use of ' three ' and * four ' in addition, where only four
are meant altogether, see Prov. xxx. 15, 18, 21, 29.
2 This is probably a figurative allusion to the cruelties perpetrated
by Hazael of Syria at his conquest of Gilead and all the rest of Trans-
jordanic Palestine, during the reign of Jehu (II. Kings x. 32, 33). Of
the atrocities then committed we have a telling picture in II. Kings
viii. 12.
3 of Ben-Hadad] Of Ben-Hadad HI., Hazael's son, or, more prob
ably, of the kings of that name in general.
4 vale of Aven] Valley of nothingness, or of idols, an unidentified
place (Gesenius, Keil); or valley of On, that is of Heliopolis (Baal
bek) in Coele-Syria (Ewald, Hitzig, Miihlau and Volck's Gesenius;
see note B at the end of vol. i.).
6 Beth-Eden] Abode of delight, probably a summer residence of the
Syrian kings. Ewald, Keil, and others identify Beth-Eden, after
Grotius, with the Paradisus of Ptolemy, in the district of Laodicea,
the site of which is marked, according to Robinson, by the ruins of
Old Jusieh, near the north end of the elevated plain of Coele-Syria.
Various other identifications have been attempted.
6 Kir] The country from which it originally came (Am. ix. 7);
see note E, at the end of the volume.

64 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
and for a fourth, I reverse it not:
for driving off a full host of captives,
to deliver them to Edom.'
So I send fire into Gaza's wall,
and it devours her palaces ;
I cut off the see-holder from Ashdod,
the sceptre-holder from Ashkelon,
and turn my hand against Ekron,
and the remnant of the Philistines perishes ' —
says the Lord Jehovah.
Thus says Jehovah:
' For three crimes of Tyre,
and for a fourth, I reverse it not:
for delivering a full host of captives to Edom,
and forgetting the brotherly covenant.8
''for driving . . to Edom] For carrying off entire popula
tions of Israelitish villages surprised in hostile inroads, and selling
them as slaves to the Edomites, the inveterate enemies of their
Hebrew kindred. Gaza is here spoken of as the representative city
of Philistia, or as the state whose hostility was principally conspicu
ous. Of the four other leading Philistine cities Gath alone is
omitted — as it also is in Zech. ix. 5, 6, and in Zeph. ii. 4 — owing
probably to comparative insignificance after its conquest by Hazael
(II. Kings xii. 18 [17]).
8 The Tyrians, in delivering Israelites— bought, probably, from
Syrian captors, and carried through Philistia — to the Edomites, set
aside the friendly alliance which prevailed between the Phoenicians
and the people of Israel from the times of Hiram, king of Tyre, who
' was ever a loving friend of David ' (I. Kings v. 15 [1]), and ' con
cluded a covenant ' with Solomon (ibid 26 [12]), whom he called his
' brother ' (I. Kings ix. 13). Thus the text before us is explained by
Rashi, but Aben Ezra and Kimhi find the Tyrians guilty of for
getting the brotherly ties which united the Edomites, to whom they

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 65
(10) So I send fire into Tyre's wall,
and it devours her palaces. '
Thus says Jehovah:
' For three crimes of Edom,
and for a fourth, I reverse it not:
for pursuing his brother with the sword,
and stifling his compassion,
so that his wrath preys9 for ever,
and he keeps his fury eternally.
So I send fire into Teman,10
and it devours the palaces of Bozrah.' "
Thus says Jehovah:
' For three crimes of the Ammonites,
and for a fourth, I reverse it not:
for ripping up the pregnant women of Gilead,"
delivered the captives, with the Israelites, as Esau-Edom was the
brother of Jacob-Israel. The former view is adopted by Hitzig and
Keil, and the latter by Ewald.
9 his wrath preys] Heb. "\Q$ rptpi, as in Job xvi. 9: H"y3 iQNi
but it has been suggested that FnjO"' stands by mistake for -i^he
guards, which would give us he guards his wrath for ever in the same
parallelism with the following ' he keeps his fury eternally ' which
we find in Jer. iii. 5 (' Will he guard his anger for ever ? will he
keep it eternally ? '), and in Ps. ciii. 9 (' He will not chide eternally,
nor guard his anger for ever ').
10 A southern region of Edom.
11 According to the prevalent view, an important town of Edom,
in the mountains, between the Dead Sea and Petra, the extensive
ruins of which, at the modern village of El-Busaireh, have been
described by Burckhardt. Wetzstein contends for the identity of
Bozrah and Petra ; see above, p. 36.
12 The same barbarity is foretold in II. Kings viii. 12 of Hazael,
who conquered Gilead, ' presumably ex eventu : it is, therefore, not

66 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
to extend their border !
So I kindle fire in Kabbah's13 wall,
and it devours her palaces —
amid war-shouts on a day of battle,
in a storm on a day of tempest ;
(15) and their king goes into exile,
he with his princes all ' —
says Jehovah. (II.)
(1) Thus says Jehovah:
' For three crimes of Moab,
and for a fourth, I reverse it not:
for burning the bones of Edom's king into lime."
So I send fire into Moab,
and it devours the palaces of Kerioth ; 16

improbable that the Syrians and Ammonites joined hands on that
occasion ' (Hitzig).
13 Rabbah, or Rabbah of the Ammonites, had its name (the great)
probably from its being the capital (the great city) of that people.
Ptolemy Philadelphus named it Philadelphia. Polybius knew it as
Rabbatamana (the Rabbah of Ammon), and Abulfeda as Amman.
The place where its ruins were discovered by Burckhardt still bears
the latter name. It lay south-east of Ramoth-in-Gilead.
14 This act is generally referred by commentators to the war of
the triple alliance against Mesha, who, on the retreat of the allies,
is presumed by some to have overtaken and slain the king of Edom,
while others see in the ' burning of the bones of the king of Edom
the sacrificing of the (Edomite) crown-prince by the Moabite king,
'as a burnt-offering.' (See above.)
16 Kerioth] In the Authorized Version here Kirioth, a town of
Moab mentioned twice in Jer. xlviii., and identified by Hitzig and
others with Kureiyat (see above XXIV., note 20), but by Ewald,

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 67
and Moab perishes in tumult,16
amid war-shouts and trumpet-blasts ;
and I cut off the judge from the land,"
and all its princes I slay with him' —
says Jehovah.
Thus says Jehovah:
' For three crimes of Judah,
and for a fourth, I reverse it not:
for scorning Jehovah's instruction,
and disregarding his laws ;
when they were led astray by their deceits,
after which their fathers had walked.16
(5) So I send fire into Judah,
and it devours the palaces of Jerusalem.'
MQhlau and Volck, and others deemed identical with Ar-Moab, the
ancient capital of the country.
16 An allusion to the appellation ' sons of tumult ' (men of tumult)
by which the Moabites were popularly or poetically designated ; see
Jer. xlviii. 45, and cf. Num. xxiv. 17, in the original.
"from the land] Literally, from her (its, Moab's) midst.
18 Wellhausen (' Geschichte Israels,' vol. i. p. 59) suspects this
general reproach cast upon Judah, so different from the preceding
specifications of crime, to be spurious.

THE HISTORICAL POETRY

XXVI.
Having thus cast rapid glances over all the
nations around, and announced a tempest which
was to lay low their pride, Amos turned his eye
upon the kingdom of Israel before him, and there,
too, saw crimes which prevented the reversal of Je
hovah' s decree. But there, whither he had gone to
act, his gaze remained fixed upon the spectacle
before him, his indignation overpowered him, and,
even before finishing his regular utterance of doom,
he plunged into a bitter harangue. Such is the im
pression which the first words of Amos against
Israel produce upon our mind. We can almost
image to ourselves the plain poor man froni Tekoa
— for he was one of the shepherds of that little
town1 who tended their flocks on the borders of the
wilderness of Judah — standing before a concourse
of people at the public place of Beth-El or Samaria,
reading from a scroll brought with him the last of
a string of direful prophetic utterances, and sud
denly breaking off at the fresh remembrance of
shocking experiences, and wildly pouring forth
against his hearers accusations, reproaches, and
imprecations. It was heartless oppression of the
1 Am. i. 1, vii. 14, 15. This last verse proves that he tended flocks,
not herds.

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 69
poor by the rich and the guardians of justice, and
shameless licentiousness, fed by extortion, which
wrung from him this outburst of wrath :
(Amos II.)
(6) Thus says Jehovah:
' For three crimes of Israel,
and for a fourth, I reverse it not:
for selling the innocent man for money,
and the needy on account of a pair of shoes.3
They pant after dust of the earth on the head of the
poor,6
and pervert the way of the meek ;
son and father go to the same damsel,
to desecrate my holy name ;
on pawned clothes they stretch themselves
by every altar,
and wine of the mulcted4 they drink
in the house of their God.
' And yet, I destroyed the Amorite before them,
him who was as high as cedars,
2 Selling him as a slave to his creditor for money lent him, or
even for the paltry price of a pair of shoes which he is unable to
pay. The parallel sentence in Am. viii. 6 shows that ' for money '
does not mean for a bribe. As to the practice, in the kingdom of the
ten tribes, of enslaving debtors, and even their children, see II.
Kings iv. 1.
3 They long to see the poor leaving the seat of justice as con
demned criminals, with dust strewn upon their heads (Ewald).
4 wine of the mulcted] Or, mulct wine (paid with extorted fines),
'anushim being, perhaps, a noun pi. like 'ushugim, used by the same
prophet (Am. iii. 9).

70 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
and as strong as oaks ;
I destroyed his fruit above,
and his roots beneath.
(10) / brought you up from the land of Egypt,
and led you through the wilderness, forty years,
to take possession of the Amorite's land.
' And I raised up some of your sons to be prophets,
and some of your youths to be Nazarites5 —
Is not this so, 0 sons of Israel ? ' —
Jehovah's utterance. —
' But ye made the Nazarites drink wine,
and commanded the prophets thus:
" Ye shall not prophesy."
' Behold, I press you down,"
as the wain presses when full of sheaves.
And the swift loses his flight,
the stanch strengthens not his force,
the hero saves not his life,
(15) the wielder of the bow stands not,
the light-footed escapes7 not,
the rider of the horse saves not his life,
6 The Nazarites, men consecrated by their own or their parents'
vow to a life of abstinence, and wearing in their unshorn locks the
outward sign of their consecration, were living embodiments of the
moral principle as opposed to luxury and self-indulgence. In the
period of the judges, in which Samson and Samuel appear as
Kazarites, they may have exercised as popular leaders an influence
akin to that of the prophets of the same or later times.
• down] Heb. ta'htekhem, as ta'htdm is used in Job xl. 12 (Gese
nius). 1 escapes] Supply naphsho after y' mallet (as in Job xx. 20), or read,
with Hitzig, i/immdlet.

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 71
and the most brave-hearted of heroes flees naked,
in that day' —
Jehovah's utterance.
After this we hear Amos more calmly and col
lectedly address the people of the northern king
dom, telling them that their selection by Jehovah
is far from giving them an immunity for sin and
wrong, explaining what forces him to announce
peril, and pointing out the manifold sources of
corruption from which woe must spring. He seems
to speak in the capital of the kingdom, Samaria :
her palaces, gorgeous with the spoils conquered by
Joash and Jeroboam II. , stand before him, and her
luxury and sinfulness, fostered by wealth and suc
cess, glaringly strike his eyes. He speaks at first
to all the people : (III.)
(1) Hear this word,
which Jehovah speaks about you,
0 sons of Israel —
' about the whole race
which I brought up from the land of Egypt,
saying, "You alone I have noticed of all the races of the
earth:
therefore I will punish all your iniquities." '
Do two walk together
without joining each other ?

72 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
Does a lion roar in the forest,
and have no prey?
Does a young lion cry from his den
unless he seizes ?
(5) Does a bird fall into a net below,
and there is no springe for him ?
Does a net rise from the ground,
and nothing is caught ?
Is the trumpet blown in a city,
and the people are not alarmed ?
Or does a calamity befall a city,
and Jehovah has not done it ?
Surely the Lord Jehovah does naught
without revealing his secret to the prophets, his ser
vants :
A lion has roared — who should not fear ?
The Lord Jehovah has spoken — who should not
prophesy ?
Let a voice resound over Ashdod's palaces,
and over the palaces in the land of Egypt ;
calling, ' Assemble on Samaria's hills,
and see the many tumults within her,
the oppression in her midst.' '
(10) ' They know not to do right ' —
Jehovah's utterance —
' they who hoard in their palaces rapine and prey.'
He then apostrophizes Samaria :
(III. 11.)
Therefore thus says the Lord Jehovah:
' A foe — all around tbo land !

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 73
And he brings down thy strength" from thee,
and thy palaces are plundered.'
Jeroboam II. had probably at that time humbled
Israel' s most dreaded enemy, Damascus, reconquer
ing the Israelitish territories from the neighborhood
of Hamath, far in the north, to the Dead Sea,° and
again opening the proud metropolis of Syria to the
wealthy merchants of Samaria, to whom, a century
earlier, Ben-Hadad II. had surrendered separate
streets in his capital. 10 But the real danger to the
kingdom of the ten tribes had long ceased to lurk
in that neighboring quarter. It was the great
power beyond the Euphrates which threatened
destruction, and both Samaria and Damascus were
to be its victims : (III. 12-15.)
Thus says Jehovah:
' As the shepherd snatches from a lion's mouth
a pair of shanks or a piece of an ear,
so shall the sons of Israel escape:
they who dwell in Samaria with11 a corner of a bed,
6 strength] Fortifications ; 'oz, perhaps for migdal 'oz (Aben Ezra).
9 II. Kings xiv. 25.
10 1. Kings xx. 34. — That Jeroboam conquered Damascus itself is
also by some accepted as a fact, after II. Kings xiv. 28; but that
verse is very obscurely worded, and admits of a different explanation.
See Thenius, in loco.
11 with] 2> after )b)Z}\ as in D^3tf HiiQttO t0^t33> escaped
with eight men (Jer. xii. 15), ^Vf "nl?D HlO^BniOf and I escape

74 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
and they in Damascus with that of a couch. ia
'Hear ye, and testify to the house of Jacob:' —
utterance of the Lord Jehovah, the God of Hosts —
' In the day when I visit Israel's crimes upon him,
I will visit the altars of Beth-El ;13
and the altar-horns shall be struck off,
and fall to the ground.
And I smite winter-palace and summer-palace,"
and the ivory houses perish,
and many mansions disappear ' —
Jehovah's utterance.

These luxurious mansions of the magnates are
the abodes of effeminacy and expensive profligacy.
The caprices of wanton women, who rule the men,
must be satisfied at any price, however ill-gotten.
These women are thus adverted to :

with the skin of my teeth (Job. xix, 20), and tO^Qi $& Vr)Qi"0> ne
escapes not with what he loves (Job. xx. 20); cf. also ">n"Qy "vpoD
(Gen. xxxii. 11), and T)Z'b)S D"HD3 • • • "in^JO (I- Sam- *• 24)-
12 In the original, elliptically, and in Damascus of a couclu See
note F, at the end of the volume. — The meaning of the verse is that
those escaping before the enemy will barely be able to save slight
fragments of their costly furniture, fragments as worthless as are to
the shepherd a few torn limbs of his lamb, the body of which the
lion devours.
13 Beth-El] The principal seat of the Jehovistic image worship, as
organized by Jeroboam I., according to I. Kings xii. 26-33.
14 Probably royal palaces in Samaria. A winter palace of one of
the kings of Judah is mentioned in Jer. xxxvi. 22.

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 75
(IV. 1-4.)
Hear this word,
ye Bashan-cows,16
on Samaria's hill ;
ye who extort from the poor,
and crush the needy;
who say to your lords,
' Bring, that we may feast:'
The Lord Jehovah swears by his holiness,
' Behold, days are coming upon you,
when they will drag you away with hooks,
and your remnant with fisher's thorns ;
and across breached walls ye leave,
each by herself,
and ye rush16 into Harmon ' 17 —
Jehovah's utterance.
15 Fat and wanton cows, like those raised on the rich pastures of
Bashan, east of the Jordan.
16 ye rush] Hitzig finds a similar use of hishlikh in II. Kings x. 25
and Job xxvii. 22; but a slight change in the form used would
change the rendering into ye are hurled.
" Harmon] Perhaps another form, peculiar with Amos, for
Hermon, just as he has pniy1 (vii. 9, 16) for pnjTi FpDfi (vi. 10)
for Fp^Q, and 2KIT1J3 C^- 8) f°r 2J7n52- Tne Chaldee renders
harmdn by Armenia, and others, considering the word equivalent to
armon, translate, into the castle. — The meaning of the whole predic
tion, probably, is that many of the voluptuous women, at the sack
of the capital, will be rudely dragged away as captives, as cows are
driven from Bashan with hooks in their nostrils (cf. Is. xxxvii. 29:
' I put my hook into thy nose, and my bridle into thy lips '), while
others will try to save themselves by flight, each creeping through a
hole in the wall.

7G THE HISTORICAL POETRY
The prophet then turns again to the mass of the
people, and after ironically telling them to go on in
turns sinning and atoning by sacrifices — at idola
trous, or semi-idolatrous, national altars — depicts
their chastisement in the past, and the power of
him who will still chastise them :
(IV.)
(4) 'Go ye to Beth-El, and transgress ;
to Gilgal,16 and heap crime upon crime ;
bring your sacrifices every morning,
every third day19 your tithes,
(5) and offer thank-offerings with incense and leaven,
18 A place at which also according to Hosea (xii. 12 [11] ; cf. iv. 15
and ix. 15) sacrifices took place. It is either the Gilgal in the
Jordan valley east of Jericho, at which holy practices took place in
the time of Joshua (Josh. v. 3, 9, Id), and burnt-offerings and peace-
offerings were offered before Jehovah in the time of Samuel (I. Sam.
x. 8, xi. 15, xiii. 8-10, xv. 21), or the Gilgal which received a degree
of sanctity from the sojourn there of Elijah and Elisha (II. Kings
ii. 1), and from a school of prophets presided over by the latter (II.
Kings iv. 38). That the two places are not identical is proved by
the circumstance that Elijah and Elisha descended from their Gilgal
to Beth-El (II. Kings ii. 2), which lay more than a thousand feet
above the altitude of Gilgal in the Jordan valley. The Gilgal of
Elijah and Elisha — and probably of Amos and Hosea — is best
identified with the present village of Jiljiheh, situated at an altitude
of upward of three thousand feet, south-west of Seilun (Shiloh), and
half way between Jerusalem and Nablus, though Jiljulieh between
Nablus and Joppa may also be compared.
" every third day] The Authorized Version's 'after three years ' is
an unnecessarily forced rendering of the plain words of the original.

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 77
and proclaim freewill-offerings aloud;
for thus ye like it, sons of Israel ' —
the Lord Jehovah's utterance.
' And i" also have given you
cleanness of teeth in all your towns,
and want of bread in all your places:
yet ye have not returned to me ' —
Jehovah's utterance.
L I also withheld the rain from you,
three months before the harvest ;
and caused it to rain upon one town,
and not to rain upon another ;
one field was rained upon,
and another, not rained upon, withered;
so two, three towns would wander to one
to drink water, but would not be satisfied:
yet ye returned not to me ' —
Jehovah's utterance.
' I smote you with blight and mildew;
your many gardens and vineyards,
fig-trees and olive-trees,
the locust devoured:
yet ye returned not to me ' —
Jehovah's utterance.
(10) 'I sent pestilence among you,
in the Egyptian manner ;
I slew with the sword your youths,
together with your captured steeds,30
20 Heb. Q31D1D "OW Cy, probably, by mistake, for 133 rjj)
D^DIDi with tlle flower of your steeds. Cf. p,D7BQ "QiJ (Is-
xiii. 19).

78 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
and made the stench of your camp ascend, .
even into your nostrils:
yet ye returned not to me ' —
Jehovah's utterance.
' I wrought destruction among you,
like the divine overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrha,
and you were like a brand plucked out of the fire:
yet ye returned not to me ' —
Jehovah's utterance.
' Therefore, thus will I do to thee, 0 Israel —
Because I will do this to thee,
prepare to meet thy God, 0 Israel.'
For here is he who shaped the mountains,
and created the wind,
and can tell man what his" thought is ;
who turns dawn into darkness,
and marches over the heights of the earth —
Jehovah, God of Hosts, is his name —
(V. 8, 9.)22
who made the seven-stars and Orion,
turns death-shades into morning,
and darkens day into night ;
who summons the waters of the sea,
and pours them over the surface of the earth —
Jehovah is his name —

21 his] Man's.
22 That these two verses are the continuation of the preceding, and
entirely out of place where we find them in the book, is obvious.
Ewald also connects the two fragments, but at the wrong place.

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 79
who flashes desolation upon the strong, "
and desolation bursts upon the stronghold.
Then follow announcements of impending ruin,
fresh denunciations of the iniquities of the powerful
and the rich, and exhortations to repentance :
(V.)
(1) Hear this word,
which I take up against you, as a dirge,
0 house of Israel:
Fallen, never to rise,
is the virgin Israel !
prostrate on her soil,
with none to lift her up !
For thus says the Lord Jehovah:
' The city which marches out by a thousand
shall retain a hundred,
and that which marches out by a hundred
shall retain ten,
for the house of Israel.'24
Thus says Jehovah to the house of Israel:
' Seek me, and live ;
(5) but seek not Beth-El,
repair not to Gilgal.
23 the strong] Heb. )y, perhaps, by mistake, for fjj, in the sense of
)y bl^Ot tower, citadel (see above, note 8), and in parallelism with
-I5J3J3, stronghold, fortress.
"/or the house of Israel] Words contained in the following line
(see the original), and perhaps wrongly inserted here.

80 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
and go not over to Beer-Sheba."
For Gilgal glides into gloomy exile,26
and God's-House2' is to be Nought's.28
Seek Jehovah, and live ;
lest he break as fire into the house of Joseph,
and it devour, and none quench it for Beth-El.'
They change right into wormwood,
and cast righteousness to the ground.29
(10) They hate the admonisher at the gate,30
and abhor him who speaks in innocence.
' Now, because ye trample upon the poor man,
and extort from him a tribute of corn:
in the houses of squared stone ye have built
ye shall not dwell ;
of the delicious vineyards ye have planted
ye shall not drink the wine.
I know, many are your crimes,
and mighty your sins. —
Foes of the innocent,
25 Make no pilgrimages across the Judsean border. In regard to
the sanctity of Beer-Sheba, see above, IV. (vol. i).
26 A free imitation of the play upon words in the original.
21 God's-House] The translation of Beth-El.
28 Heb. IInS ^or PK fV2 .?• Nought's-House, the name into which
Hosea repeatedly changes that of Beth-El. (See note F, at the end
of the volume.) — Beer-Sheba's downfall is not predicted, for that
town did not belong to ' the house of Israel ' in the narrower sense,
which is addressed here.
59 The two verses following in the text are given above. (See
note 22.)
30 at the gate] At the public place adjoining the city gate, used for
judicial sittings and popular gatherings.

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 81
takers of ransom,
they bow down the needy at the gate.'
Now, he who reflects in this time is silent,
for it is an evil time.
Seek the good, and not evil,
that ye may live ;
and may Jehovah, the God of Hosts,
be so with you as ye say.
(15) Hate evil, and love the good,
and set up justice at the gate :
Jehovah, the God of Hosts, might then become
gracious
to the remnant of Joseph.
Now, thus says Jehovah, the God of Hosts, the
Lord:
' At all the wide places wailing !
in all the streets men shall cry, ' Alas, alas ! '
They call the husbandman to mourning,
announce wailing to those skilled in lamentation.
In all the vineyards wailing !
for I pass through thy midst ' —
says Jehovah.
Woe to you who long for Jehovah's day ! "
What good is Jehovah's day to you ?
it is darkness, not light.
So a man flees before a lion,
and is met by a bear ;
he enters the house
and rests his hand on the wall,
and is bitten by a snake.
31 A day of divine judgment, in which Israel would be exalted.

82 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
(20) Yea, Jehovah's day is darkness, not light;
gloom without a ray.
' I hate, I detest, your feasts,
I enjoy not your holy gatherings.
If ye bring me burnt-offerings,
or your flour-offerings — I dislike them;
at your peace-fatlings I look not.
Remove thou from me the noise of thy songs,
thy harp-music let me not hear;
but let justice flow as waters,
and righteousness as a perennial stream.
(25) Did ye bring me sacrifices or offerings
in the wilderness, in those forty years,
0 house of Israel ?
Ye bore the image of your king,
the figure of your idols,
of your star, the god,
whom ye made to yourselves.52
I will drive you away beyond Damascus ' —
says Jehovah, whose name is God of Hosts.
(VI.)
(1) Woe to the men without care in Zion,3"
to the undisturbed on Samaria's hill,
the chief men of the foremost among nations,
to whom the house of Israel flocks !
Go ye over to Calneh," and see ;
s2 See note G, at the end of the volume.
83 This side-glance cast upon Zion, the holy city of the prophet's
own land, seems to spring from a sudden remembrance, which, for »
moment, he is unable to suppress.
84 A city ' in the land of Shinar ' (Gen. x. 10), identified by two

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 83
and proceed thence to Hamath, the great/*
and go down to Philistine Gath:
are they fairer than these kingdoms ? 3°
is then- border larger than yours ?
IMen who put37 far off the evil day,
and bring near and seat oppression;
who lie on ivory beds,
and stretch themselves on their couches ;
who eat lambs from the flock,
and calves from the fattening-stall;

Targums, Eusebius, Jerome, and Ephraem Syrus with the classical
Ctesiphon on the Tigris, opposite Seleucia, and by George Rawlin
son, after the Talmud, with the present Niffer in the marshes on the
left bank of the Euphrates, about sixty miles south-east of the ruins
of Babylon. The former identification is strengthened by the cir
cumstance that Pliny, though he alone, locates Ctesiphon in an
Assyrian province called Chalonitis (Gesenius, 'Thesaurus,' p. 691),
while Rawlinson's conjecture is all but refuted by the highly prob
able identity of Niffer with the Nipur of the cuneiform inscriptions
(see Schrader, 'Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament,' p. 19).
Cf. George Smith, ' History of Babylonia, ' p. 61 : ' Calneh, which the
Talmud identifies with Nipur or Niffer, more probably lay
near the Tigris.' Menant in his ' Annales des rois d'Assyrie'
(p 18) followed Oppert in identifying Calneh with Mugheir, but in
' Babylone et la Chaldee,' published a year later (1875), stated (p. 93),
'la trace de Chalaneh est encore a decouvrir.'
35 Hamath, on the Orontes, the present Hamah, was in the ninth
century B.C. the capital of the most powerful kingdom in northern
Syria, as numerous Assyrian cuneiform inscriptions testify.
36 these kingdoms] Israel and Judah.
37 Men who put] In the original these men are adverted to first in
the second person, but immediately after, and then constantly, in the
third.

84 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
(5) who prattle to the tunes of the lyre,
and invent vocal instruments like David;
who drink wine in bowls,
and anoint themselves with the best of oils,
and pine not over Joseph's woe —
these, now, will be driven at the head of the captives,
and the shouting of the couching38 will cease.
The Lord Jehovah swears by his self —
utterance of Jehovah, the God of Hosts :
' I abhor the pride of Jacob,39
and hate his palaces ;
and I will deliver up the city, and all in it.
Then, if ten remain in one house, they shall die ;
(10) and a relative and corpse-burner lifts one up,
to carry the bones out of the house;
and when he says to the man in the innermost part
of the house,
" Are there with thee more . . . ?"
that one answers, " None,''
and says, " Hush!
it is not to be mentioned — by Jehovah's name !" ' "
36 'S'ru'him . . points back to verse 4, "they who are
stretched on their couches " — that is, the revellers ; and it forms a
play upon words with mirza'h ' (Keil, after others).
39 the pride of Jacob] Samaria, which Isaiah, in a similar harangue
(Is. xxviii. 1), calls 'the proud crown,' or ' the crown and pride,' 'of
Ephraim's drunkards.' Zion is designated 'the pride of Jacob' in
Ps. xlvii. 5 (4), and Babylon, in Is. xiii. 19, ' the proud glory,' or ' the
glory and pride,' ' of the Chaldees.' ' The city and all in it,' which
follows, is thus in perfect parallelism with ' the pride of Jacob ' and
'his palaces.'
40 This rendering, for which the translator is indebted to Dr. Samuel

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 85
For, behold, Jehovah commands,
and the large house is smitten into fragments,
and the small house into shivers.
Do horses run upon a rock,
or does one plow it with oxen,41
that ye turn right into poison,
and the fruit of righteousness into wormwood ? —
Ye rejoice in a thing of nought,
and say, ' Have we not by our own strength
acquired our horns ?'
' Behold, I raise against you, 0 house of Israel ' —
utterance of Jehovah, the God of Hosts —
' a nation, that will oppress you
from Hamath's region to the Brook of the Steppe.' "
Adler, of New Vork, is made plain by the alteration, in the preceding
text, of inn EV23 int0 "I~N rP33. and of "INtWI int0 ^XIWV
The sense then is: Ten, in the Iwuse of one, die (himself surviving).
A relative is requested to burn the bones. When he asks, • Are there
more ' . . . , the survivor, crouching in a corner, begs him (from
dread and superstition) not to pronounce (the word dead).
41 Heb. 0"HpD2 E>1"irP CK- Hitzig, after J. D. Michaelis, divides
the last word into qi "ip22, and obtains ' or does one plow the sea
with oxen ? ' ' The ccporrji jiv/xaroi . . plows not with oxen, and
Vitus arare bubus proverbially denotes perverted actions.' In any case
it may be presumed that instead of xflin"1 (tL>"irP) there was origi
nally iJHrp- The meaning of the question is: Can things be turned
upside down without becoming ridiculous or destructive 1
42 of the Steppe] Literally, of tlie Arabah, a word presumed to
correspond to the modern Ghor, the great valley or depression of
Palestine and Edom, the southern portion of which, ' lying beyond
the cliffs on the south of the Dead Sea, is called by the Arabs Wady
el-' Arabah' (Robinson, 'Later Biblical Researches,' p. 334). Which

86 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
brook is meant cannot be determined (see above, XXIV. note 37),
but it probably marked the southern point of Jeroboam Il.'srecon-
quests, which, according to II. Kings xiv. 25, extended to ' the Sea of
the Steppe,' while in the north his power reached the vicinity of
Hamath. Amos means to say, All this power of which ye boast,
which ye have evinced in your contests with Syria, will soon prove
of no avail, when a much mightier enemy will assail you.

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 87

XXVII.
The nation in which Amos saw the future chas-
tiser of the kingdom of Israel, if not of all Israel,
can be no other but Assyria. That power had, in
the ninth century B.C., repeatedly loomed up on
the northern horizon of Palestine, invading Syria.
Already in the earlier part of that century — accord
ing to most Assyriologists — the Assyrian king
Assurnazirpal boasted in a famous cuneiform in
scription of having crossed the Euphrates, imposed
a tribute on King Lubarna of Syria, marched across
the Orontes, occupied the slopes of Lebanon, ad
vanced to the Mediterranean, and received the trib
ute of Tyre, Sidon, and other cities of Phoenicia.1
Assurnazirpal' s son and successor Shalmaneser II. ,
' the conqueror of all the lands,' tells the following
of a campaign in the sixth year of his reign, in the
black obelisk inscription discovered by Layard at
Nimrud :2
' The Euphrates in its upper part I crossed.
The tribute of the kings of the Hittites,3
¦See Menant, 'Annates des rois d'Assyrie,' pp. 87-89, and
Schrader, 'Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament,' pp. 66, 67.
2 The rendering of this inscription here adopted is Sayce's
('Records of the Past,' vol. v.).
3 In northern Syria (Hatti, 'ha,tti).

88 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
all of them, I received. In those days Rimmon-idri4
of Damascus, Irkhulina of Hamath, and the kings
of the Hittites and of the sea-coasts to the forces of
each other
trusted, and to make war and battle
against me came. By the command of Assur, the great
Lord, my Lord,
with them I fought. A destruction of them I made.
Their chariots, their war-carriages, their war-material 1
took from them.
20,500 of their fighting men with arrows I slew.'
In his inscription on the monolith found at
Kurkh, near Diarbekir, the same king enumerates
the forces of the Syrian confederacy arrayed against
him in that campaign, and among them he mentions
ten thousand men of Ahaabbu Sirlaai, in whom
Oppert, Norris, Schrader, and other Assyriologists
recognize Ahab of Israel. Of Shalmaneser' s cam
paigns in his tenth, eleventh, and fourteenth years
the black obelisk speaks thus :
' In my tenth year for the eighth time the Euphrates I
crossed. The cities of Sangara of the city of the Car-
chemishians I captured.
To the cities of Arame I approached. Arne, his royal
city, with 100 of his (other) towns I captured.
In my eleventh year for the ninth time the Euphrates I
4 ' This is the Ben-hadad of Scripture, whose personal name seems
to have been Rimmon-idri ' (Sayce). Schrader and Menant read
Bin-idri or Bin-hidri. George Smith (' The Assyrian Eponym
Canon') substitutes Ben-hadar.

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 89
crossed. Cities to a countless number I captured. To
the cities of the Hittites
of the land of the Hamathites I went down. Eighty-
nine cities I took. Rimmon-idri of Damascus (and)
twelve of the kings of the Hittites
with one another's forces strengthened themselves. A
destruction of them I made. . . .
. . . In my fourteenth year the country I assembled ;
the Euphrates I crossed. Twelve kings against me had
come. I fought. A destruction of them I made.'
Of the two last-mentioned campaigns Shalman-
eser's ' bull inscription' gives fuller accounts, boast
ful of destruction, carnage, and captures ; and of a
later expedition its relation5 is this :
'In my eighteenth year the sixteenth time the river
Euphrates
I crossed. Hazael of Syria'
to the might of his warriors
trusted, and his warriors
in numbers he gathered.
Saniru, a peak of the mountains
which are in front of Lebanon, as his stronghold
he made. With him I fought,
his overthrow I accomplished. 16,000'
men of his army with weapons
I destroyed, 1,121 of his chariots,
6 As rendered by George Smith in his ' Eponym Canon.'
6 Substituted for Hazailu of Imirisu (Schrader).
7 According to Schrader and Menant ; Smith has ' 18,000.'

90 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
410" of his carriages, with his camp
I took from him. To save
his life he fled. After him I pursued,
in Damascus, his royal city, I besieged him,
his plantations I cut down, to the mountains
of Hauran I went, cities
without number I pulled down, destroyed,
in the fire I burned, their spoil
without number I carried off.
To the mountains of Bahlirahsi,
which are at the head of the sea, I went. An image
of my majesty
in the midst I made. In those days
the tribute of Tyre
and Zidon, of Jehu,
son of Omri, I received.'
Jehu, son of Omri — in the inscriptions, ya-hu-a
Tiabal ihu-um-ri-i — is believed by many Assyri-
ologists to designate Jehu of Israel, not the son
but the exterminator of the house of Omri.9 The
Assyrians, it is supposed, were led to this erroneous
appellation by the fame which Omri enjoyed among
them, and which also induced them to call the
kingdom of Israel, even in later times, the land of
Omri — mat i7tu-um-ri-i or mat bit iJiu-um-ri-i.
8 So in Schroder's text and translation ; Smith has '470,' Menant
'460.' 9 King Jehu was the son of Jehoshaphat, the son of Nimshi (II.
Kings ix. 2), but he is generally called in the Scriptures the son of
Nimshi.

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 91
The black obelisk inscription specifies Jehu's
tribute as consisting of ' silver, gold, bowls of gold,
vessels of gold, goblets of gold, pitchers of gold,'
and similar things. The same inscription describes
Shalmaneser's twenty-first campaign :
' ... To the cities
of Hazael of Damascus10 1 went. Four of his fortresses
I took. The tribute of the Tyrians,
the Zidonians, (and) the Gebalites11 I received.'
There is undoubtedly a great deal of empty brag,
and perhaps of direct lying, in these Assyrian
monumental relations of slaughter and rapine.
Many a predatory incursion is there probably mag
nified into a grand campaign, and ransom received
from open towns belonging to Phoenicia into tribute
paid by the powerful, unconquered and unbesieged,
cities of Tyre and Sidon — cities which were tri
umphantly to resist greater conquerors than Assur
nazirpal and Shalmaneser II. Nor did the latter
king, after all his boasted victories over the Syrians,
ever enter the city of Damascus. Why he with
drew from before its besieged walls he wisely omits
to tell. What his ' cities without number, pulled
down, destroyed, burned,' may have amounted to
is, perhaps, to be judged by a similar claim to glory
of his son Samas-Rimmon, Samsi-Bin, or Samsi-
10 According to Sayce and Menant ; Smith has ' Syria.'
11 The people of Byblus in Phoenicia.

92 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
Vul,12 who, in a great inscription,13 speaks of him
self, or is made to speak, as
' . . . the mighty king, king of multitudes
unequalled, . . . the bearer of the sceptre
of the shrines, the descender into all lands, . . .
. . . the trampler on the world, . . .
the receiver of the tribute
and the riches of all regions.'
In that inscription he tells us, that in an expedition
against the Matai — the Medes, before they formed
a power, and perhaps before they possessed a city
deserving the name — he destroyed and burned ' as
many as 1,200 cities' belonging to one chief or
capital city alone.14 And he tells us many things
equally or almost equally false.
His son Rimmon - Mrari, Bin-Mrari, or Yul-
Nirari, a contemporary of Jeroboam II. and Amos,
among other achievements boasts of the following :"
' From over the river Euphrates, Syria, and Phoenicia, the
whole of it,
Tyre, Zidon, Omri,16 Edom, and Philistia,
to over against the great sea of the setting sun, to
my feet
12 According to Saycc, Schrader, and George Smith, respectively.
13 See Sayce's rendering in Records of the Past,' vol. i. (second
edition). 14 Compare 'Records of the Past,' vol. i. p. 18, with Menant,
' Annates des rois d'Assyrie,' p. 122.
16 See George Smith's ¦ Assyrian Eponym Canon,' pp. 115, 116.
16 ' Mat'IIuumrii,' or Israel.

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 93
I have subjugated, taxes and tribute over them I
fixed. To
Syria I went. Mariha, king of Syria,
in Damascus, his royal city, I besieged him ;
fear and terror of Assur, his lord, overwhelmed him and
my yoke he took,
submission he made, 2,300 talents of silver, 20 talents of
gold, . . .
. . . in Damascus, his royal city, in his palace, I
received.'
Whatever of this is true, and was a fact or an
imminent event when Amos announced ruin to
Tyre, to Israel, to Edom, to Philistia," serves to ex
plain the simultaneous victories of Jeroboam II.
over Syria — achieved, perhaps, at the price of
a voluntary tribute to the Assyrian king — the
prophet's disgust at the undisturbed tranquillity
of the people of Zion and Samaria while a storm
was approaching from the north, and his prediction
that what had been gained 'from Hamath to the
Brook of the Steppe' was going to be lost, and
much more with it. It appears, however, that he
spoke at a time when the peril was still distant, and
discernible only by the eye of the wise — that is,
before Assyria had made Damascus to bend before
her ; for he only threatens Damascus, and speaks of
Assyria, without ever naming her, as ' a nation ' that
is still to be brought on by Jehovah, for the chas-
" See above.

94 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
tisement of his people. When Hosea, Amos' s
younger contemporary, harangued the people of
Samaria, the connection between that capital and
the conquering rulers of Assyria had long been
established. He, as we shall see, repeatedly alludes
to Assyria, as a ruling power.

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 95

XXVIII.
The last three chapters of the book of Amos
are different in character from the first six. The
prophet relates visions :
(Amos VII.)
(1) This the Lord Jehovah showed me:
behold, he formed locusts,
when the second crop began to spring up;
and lo, there was a second crop after the king's
mowing,
and when they had wholly eaten up the herbage of
the land,
I said, ' 0 Lord Jehovah, forgive, I pray;
how can Jacob stand ? — he is so small.'
Jehovah repented of this;
' Be it not,' said Jehovah.
This the Lord Jehovah showed me:
behold, he summoned the fire to chastise1 —
he, the Lord Jehovah —
and it devoured the great deep,
and it devoured the field.
(5) And I said, ' 0 Lord Jehovah, leavB off, I pray;
how can Jacob stand ? — he is so small.'
Jehovah repented of this;
1 Literally, perhaps, ' he summoned (the fire) to chastise with fire
(Keil).

96 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
' Even this be not,' said the Lord Jehovah.
This he showed me:
behold, the Lord stood on a wall made with a plumb-
line,
holding a plumb-line in his hand.
And Jehovah said to me,
' What seest thou, Amos ? '
I answered, ' A plumb-line ;'
and the Lord said,
' Behold, I place a plumb-line
in the midst of Israel, my people;
I will not pass by it any more.
Isaac's high-places shall be laid waste,
and Israel's sanctuaries destroyed,
and against Jeroboam's house I will rise with the
sword.'
Such language was too strong for the authorities
to listen to with patience. Amaziah, therefore, the
priest of Beth-El, where Amos declared his vision,
sent this message to King Jeroboam : ' Amos con
spires against thee in the midst of the house of
Israel; the land is unable to bear all his words.
For thus says Amos: "Jeroboam will die by the
sword, and Israel will be driven from his land into
captivity." ' And to Amos he said, 'Seer, go and
flee to the land of Judah, and there eat bread, and
there prophesy ; but prophesy no more at Beth-El,
for it is a royal sanctuary, and a seat of royalty.'
But Amos answered, 'I am no prophet, nor a
prophet' s son ; for I am a shepherd, and a plucker

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 97
of sycamore-fruit. But Jehovah took me as I fol
lowed the flock, and Jehovah told me, " Go, and
prophesy to Israel, my people." And now, hear
Jehovah's word : (VII. 16, 17.)
Thou sayest, ' Prophesy not against Israel,
and preach not against the house of Isaac:'
therefore thus says Jehovah:
' Thy wife shall be a harlot in the city,
thy sons and daughters shall fall by the sword,
thy land shall be divided by the line,
thyself shalt die on impure earth,
and Israel shall be driven from his land into captivity.'
If the vision given above and the interesting his
torical episode attached to it are at their right place
in the book — and there is no reason to assume the
contrary — neither Amaziah nor Jeroboam was pro
voked by these extraordinary onslaughts to lay a
sacrilegious hand upon the man of God from Judah.
On the contrary, it seems probable that he was
allowed to go on with his fiery preaching in the
northern kingdom ; for against the latter he con
tinues to inveigh, and no change of tone or topic,
such as would result from a change of place or audi
ence, is perceptible in his words, as the following
will show : (VIII.)
(1) This the Lord Jehovah showed me:
behold, a basket of ripe fruit.

98 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
He said, ' What seest thou, Amos ? '
I answered, ' A basket of ripe fruit.'
And Jehovah said to me,
' Bipe is the end for Israel, my people;
I will not pass by it any more.
The palace songs shall be wails in that day' —
the Lord Jehovah's utterance —
' plenty of carcasses,
thrown out everywhere, in silence ! '
Hear, ye who pant for the needy,
pant to destroy the meek of the earth;
(5) who say, ' When will the new moon be over,
that we may sell grain?
the sabbath, that we may bring out corn ? ' —
making the ephah small, and the shekel large,
and falser still the scales of deceit,
so as to buy the poor for money,
and the needy for a pair of shoes2 —
' the refuse of corn we will sell.'
Jehovah swears by Jacob's glory: 3
' If I ever forget any of their deeds. . . .'
Shall not the land tremble for this,
and every dweller on it mourn,
and all of it swell like the Xile,
and heave and sink like Egypt's stream ?
' In that day '—
the Lord Jehovah's utterance —
' I make the sun go down at noon,
2 See above, XXVI., note 2.
3 by Jacob's glory] By himself ; cf. ' Israel's power ' (I. Sam. xv. 29),
and Am. iv. 2, vi. 8.

OF THE ANCLENT HEBREWS. 99
and I darken the earth in the bright day;
(10) and turn your feasts into mourning,
and all your songs into dirges;
and put sack-cloth upon all loins,
and baldness upon every head;
and make it like mourning for an only one,
and the end of it like the bitter day.-'
' Behold, days are coming '—
the Lord Jehovah's utterance —
' when I send a famine into the land:
not a famine for bread,
nor a thirst for water,
but for hearing the words of Jehovah;
and men wander from sea to sea,
and from the north to the east,
roaming about in search of Jehovah's word,
but find it not. '
In that day
the fair maidens and the youths will faint for thirst.
They who swear by Samaria's guilt,4
and say, ' As thy God lives, 0 Dan, . . . ' *
' As there exists a way to Beer-Sheba, . . . '6
they will fall, never to rise again.
4 by Samaria's guilt] By the idols of the kings of Samaria. If a
special idol is meant, it is either the golden calf at Beth-El — the
principal seat of worship in the south of the kingdom, as Dan, on the
Phoenician border, was in the north (I. Kings xii. 28, 29) — or Asherah,
whose image stood in Samaria, even after the reign of Jehu (II. Kings
xiii. 6). Ashmah, 'guilt,' as has been remarked, may thus allude to
Asherah. 6 See the preceding note.
6 ¦ As . . Beer-Sheba '] According to the Masoretic text — the

100 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
The visions of Amos are probably of a date later by
some years than the date of the oracles with which
he started 'two years before the earthquake,' for
they seem repeatedly to allude to that event, the
terrors of which, perhaps augmented by volcanic
eruptions, were long remembered.7 Such allusions
can be discovered above in the pictures of the fire
summoned to chastise and devouring the great deep,
of the land trembling and heaving and sinking, and
of the sun going down at noon and the earth darken
ing in bright day; and at least equally distinct
allusions are noticeable in the following :
(IX.)
(1) I saw the Lord standing by the altar;
he said, ' Strike the column-top,
so that the thresholds shake,
and smash them over the heads of all —
the remaining I will slay with the sword;
not a fugitive shall flee away,
phrase alluding to the pilgrimages to Beer-Sheba already spoken of
(v. 5). The words -p^ i|-| are, however, probably a corruption of
T31K Ti> or °f T3~l Tli perhaps a popular phrase, in which the
K °f T31N was swallowed as the i is in -|jo (for "WO) an(l tne y
in plpttOI (for PlJ?ptWl) in verse 8 of tlie same chapter. (Cf. 13C0N
and <|2n3i 133, for «Qj!3, Mic. i. 10; o^inn, for CTlDNHi Eccl.
iv. 14; C"i)Q-in> for D^ND) II- Chr. xxii. 5; and -|n> f°r HnKi
Ezek. xxxiii. 30.) Our verse will thus have contained this perfect
parallelism: 'As thy God lives, 0 Dan, . . . ,"As thy Lord
lives, Beer-Sheba, . . .' (The Sept. has twice, 6$eoS tiov.)
' See Zech. xiv. 5.

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 101
not a survivor escape.
If they dig into hell,
thence my hand takes them;
if they climb up to heaven,
thence I bring them down;
if they conceal themselves on Carmel's head,8
I search, and take them thence ;
if they hide from my sight on the floor of the sea,
thence I command the serpent to bite them;
and if they go into captivity before their foes,
thence I command the sword to slay them —
I set my eye upon them for evil,
not for good.'
(5) And that is the Lord Jehovah of Hosts,
at whose touch the earth melts,
and all who dwell on it mourn,
and all of it swells like the Nile,
and it sinks like Egypt's stream;
who builds his roof-chambers in heaven,
and has founded his vault over the earth;
who summons the waters of the sea,
and pours them over the surface of the earth —
Jehovah is his name.
' Are ye not as the sons of the Ethiopians to me,
ye sons of Israel ? ' —
Jehovah's utterance —
'Hdve I not brought up Israel from the land of
Egypt,
and the Philistines from Caphtor,"
8 Which juts out into the sea, south of Acre.
'According to most modern commentators, Crete; according to

102 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
and the Syrians from Kir ? 10
Behold, the eyes of the Lord Jehovah
are upon this sinful kingdom,
and I will destroy it from off the face of the earth,
but I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob ' —
Jehovah's utterance.
' For, behold, I command,
and the house of Israel is shaken among all nations,
as shaldng is done with a sieve,
so that not a grain falls to the earth;
by the sword shall die all the sinners of my people,
they who say, " The evil will not overtake us or get
before us." '
To these prophetic threatenings are attached, as
consolatory words at the conclusion of the book, a
few verses composed in a spirit and a style widely
different from the spirit and style of Amos, and ex
pressive of conditions and hopes little in accord
with what we know of the circumstances of Judah
and Israel in the times of Uzziah and Jeroboam II.
Those verses bear a strong resemblance to the con
cluding portions both of Joel and Zephaniah, and
especially to that of the former book, a somewhat
different duplicate of a verse of which is also to be
found, entirely unconnected, at the very head of the
Ebers and Dietrich, a region of northern Egypt. Sec note H, at the
end of the volume.
10 See note E, at the end of the volume. — The meaning of the verse
seems to be: The exodus from Egypt proves no special privilege;
other nations, and Cushites (' Ethiopians ') among them, like the
Philistines, have achieved similar migrations under divine guidance.

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 103
book of Amos." It is barely possible that a differ
ent version of the verse in Joel was originally at
tached to the end of that book as a note, and was
thence transferred by mistake to the head of the
first page of Amos, which follows in the collection ;
but it is probable that the consolatory portion
added to the stern prophecies of the shepherd from
Tekoa was intentionally placed there by one of the
collectors of the Minor Prophets, in order to wind
up the book with predictions of lasting prosperity
and peace. Somewhat similar insertions have been
made at the end of various books of the Scriptures.12
In this case a preceding piece of Joel, perhaps also
a duplicate, seems to have been made use of by the
collector, who possibly doubted its authorship.
" Compare Joel iv. 16 (iii. 16) with Am. i. 2.
12 See note I, at the end of the volume.

104 THE HISTORICAL POETRY

XXIX.
The shepherd from Judah who came to Beth-El
in Israel, in the reign of Jeroboam II. , and revealed
a vision in which Jehovah commanded the break
ing of the great altar of that royal city, was, some
two centuries later, transformed in a legend for the
people into an unnamed prophet from Judah who
made a similar announcement, at the same place,
under Jeroboam I.1 — that is, about a century and a
half before Amos. The story" runs thus : Jeroboam
ordained a feast in the eighth month, on the fifteenth
day of the month, like the feast that was celebrated
in Judah, and himself officiated at the altar in
Beth-El, sacrificing to one of the calves that he had
made. Now, as he had ascended the steps of the
altar, to burn incense, there suddenly came a man
of God from Judah, by the word of Jehovah, and
cried against the altar, 'O altar, altar, thus says
Jehovah, "Behold, a child shall be born to the
house of David, Josiah by name, and he shall offer
on thee the priests of the high-places who burn
incense on thee ; and men' s bones shall be burnt on
thee." ' And he also gave a sign, saying, 'This is
1 See E. Meier, ' Geschichte der poetischen National-Literatur der
HebrOer,' pp. 274, 275.
2 1. Kings xii. 32-xiii. 6.

OF THE ANCIEXT HEBREWS. 105
the sign that it is Jehovah's word:3 behold, the
altar will be rent, and the ashes which are on it will
be poured out.' When King Jeroboam heard this
he stretched out his hand, exclaiming, ' Seize him ! '
But the hand became stiff, so that he could not take
it back. And the altar was rent, and the ashes were
poured out, and the king's hand was restored to
him only at the prophet' s intercession with Jehovah.
This legend of the transformed Amos is supple
mented4 by a very strange story of the end of the
unnamed prophet, which reveals the narrator's ex
ceedingly crude notions of the workings of the
spirit of Jehovah, and, at the conclusion, also his
ignorance of history, inasmuch as he makes one
of the actors in his tale speak of Samaria, a city
which was built in the fourth reign after Jero
boam.'' That mythical man of God from Judah is as un
like the shepherd from Tekoa as the prophets of
the historical books of the Bible, from Joshua to
Chronicles, generally are unlike the prophets whose
writings have been preserved. Miracle-working
and miraculously precise revelations of the future
form the main element in the stories : the work
of the Canonical prophets is exhortation, warn
ing, and comforting, based on universal principles
3 Literally, that Jehovah lias spoken (De Wette, Thenius), not which
Jehovah has spoken.
4 I. Kings xiii. 7-32.
1 See I. Kings xvi. 23, 24.

106 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
and vaguely adapted to the present and future."
There are exceptions on the one side and on the
other, but they are insignificant, and the distinctive
features are as striking as possible. Amos, though
probably the oldest, and surely one of the oldest, of
the prophets who left us more than a fragment or a
piece of uncertain date,7 is an admirable specimen
of the Canonical class. He does not, like Samuel,
address his sinful audience thus : ' Now stand and
see this great thing, which Jehovah does before
your eyes : is it not wheat harvest to-day ? I will
call to Jehovah, and he will send thunder and rain ;
that ye may perceive and see that your wickedness
is great.' e He does not, like Elijah, step before the
king of Samaria with such words : ' As Jehovah,
the God of Israel, lives, before whom I stand, there
shall be no dew nor rain these years, except accord
ing to my word ;' ° nor does he, like him, challenge
the prophets of Baal to a contest of prayer in which
fire from heaven is to decide whether that god of the
Phoenicians or Jehovah is the God.10 He does not
claim the power, which Elisha exercised, of divid
ing a river, healing unwholesome water and deadly
8 For full light on the subject, see chapters iii., iv., ix., x., xi., and
xii. of Kuenen's ' Prophets and Prophecy in Israel.'
1 Some critics consider Joel, and others Obadiah, the oldest of the
Canonical prophets.
8 1. Sam. xii. 16, 17.
9 1. Kings xvii. 1.
,0 1. Kings xviii.

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 107
pottage, calling out bears for vengeance, raising the
dead, curing and inflicting leprosy, or smiting with
blindness." He makes no allusion whatever to any
miraculous power imparted to man. All that he
claims for himself and other prophets, as a distinc
tion, is the power and the readiness to hear and
understand when Jehovah speaks. ' The Lord Je
hovah does naught without revealing his secret to
the prophets, his servants. . . . The Lord Jeho
vah has spoken — who should not prophesy % ' Nay,
he even protests against the appellation ' prophet '
as personally applicable to him. He is ' neither a
prophet nor a prophet's son' — that is, neither a
member nor a young associate of a prophetic guild.
He has nothing in common with prophets by trade.
He announces Jehovah' s words with the fullest of
convictions ; but it is not an angel that has brought
it to him, nor has the Lord spoken to him mouth to
mouth. Has he heard Jehovah's voice in a state of
ecstasy, in a trance ? He believes it perhaps, he
does not state it. The visions which he relates are
mere figures, symbolic expressions of natural con
ceptions. He knows the word of God, for he knows
what God, by his very essence, is bound to speak.
When great national crimes strike his eyes, he
hears a divine voice crying, 'Woe to the nation,'
and he announces woe. ' The Lord Jehovah swears
by his holiness' — the destruction of the wicked and
11 II. Kings ii., iv.-vi.

108 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
arrogant is vouchsafed by his holiness. It is an
evil time, but some reflect in silence, and the people
may repent: Amos hears Jehovah saying to the
house of Israel, ' Seek me, and live.' The powerful
go on oppressing and extorting: 'shall not the
land tremble for this, and every dweller on it
mourn?' And there is no escape from the ven
geance of the Lord : his omnipotence dominates the
bottom of the sea, heaven, and hell ; the earth melts
at his touch. But though his eyes are on the sinful
kingdom for destruction, the just — this is Jehovah's
utterance, it must be this — the just shall escape ;
not a good grain shall fall to the ground when the
house of Israel is shaken in the sieve. When is
destruction to come, and salvation when ? Unlike
the men whose false pictures credulity or pious
deception wrote into the books of Israelitish his
tory — distorting it to the confusion of the human
mind — Amos predicts no precise dates, has no vision
of a name — Josiah or other — has no definite future ;
his vague outlines agree with his image of God, and
he has no other revelations to make. If he alludes
to Assyria, that power stands menacing beyond the
border. If he threatens deportation beyond Damas
cus, it is a thing that is naturally to be expected.
If he predicts a dire fate to the priest Amaziah and
his household, it is an outburst of indignation in
the figurative form of a curse. Was the prediction
fulfilled ? Evidently not ; but neither was it meant
to be fulfilled. What Amos expressed by it was

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 1Q9
that Amaziah, by serving the tyrant of Samaria and
the idol of Beth-El, deserved such a fate. Truly,
were all the rest of the Old Testament lost, our idea
of Hebrew prophecy, drawn from the little book of
Amos alone, would be much higher than the idea of
it which we receive from the whole of the Scrip
tures, in which, side by side with the sublime ad
dresses of Amos, and Hosea, and Micah, and Isaiah,
and kindred men, so much room has been given to
popular stories of an opposite character.
And what a historical revelation would that little
book alone be to us, if all the rest of Hebrew
literature were lost ! It carries us back to the be
ginning of the eighth century B.C., into a south
western corner of Asia. At that time, as we know
from other sources, the divinities of Asia Minor,
like those of the neighboring Hellas, were num
berless, and the wisest men, perhaps, in those coun
tries believed the highest of their gods and god
desses to be manlike beings, ruled by passions and
whims, by lust, envy, and hatred. Egypt swarmed
with horrid personifications of deified powers of
nature, and her abominations were countless. Two
rulers of the then most powerful Semitic nation, the
Assyrian kings Shalmaneser II. and his son — called
Samas - Rimmon or otherwise — had but recently
erected monuments in the inscriptions of which the
former invoked Assur, ' king of all the assembly of
the great gods ' ; Anu, ' king of the spirits of heaven
and earth ' ; Bel, ' the father of the gods, the deter-

110 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
miner of destinies'; Hea, 'king of the abyss of
chaos'; the Sun-God, 'the judge of mankind'; and
Istar, ' the queen of war and battle ' ;12 and the latter
a god,13 'first-born of Bel,' 'offspring of the sanctu
ary,' and 'receiver of the instructions of Anu and
the Great Goddess.' " The altars of Sidon and
Tyre, erected to similar divinities, reeked with
human blood. In the land of the Hebrews them
selves the Phoenician Baal and the Phoenician
Asherah had fanatical votaries. And in the midst
of such surroundings that little book shows us
a man addressing an assemblage in a royal city
of the small kingdom of Israel, and exhorting it
to repentance and abhorrence of evil in the name
of a God whose attributes are omnipotence and
holiness — Jehovah is his name. That God has
no associates, works not through spirits or angels,
and demands no temple or altar. He abhors the
people's feasts and holy gatherings, their burnt-
offerings and flour-offerings, their songs and harp-
music. All he asks of them is to 'let justice
flow as waters, and righteousness as a perennial
stream; to hate evil and love the good.' He
detests iniquity and profligacy, avenges the meek
and down-trodden, and will destroy the wielders
of power who 'turn right into poison, and the
18 'Records of the Past,' vol. iii. p. 83.
13 His name is variously read as Adar, Kin-ip, Bar, and Ussur
(Sayce). 14 'Records of the Past,' vol. i. pp. 11, 12.

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. m
fruit of righteousness into wormwood.' He rules
all the nations, and decrees the doom of Moab for
an inhuman crime against Edom ; and if Israel is
his chosen people, it is not a favorite enjoying privi
leges, but a follower bound to stricter observance of
duty, and subject to sterner reprobation and pun
ishment. The man who speaks in his name — often
rendering his words as if the speaker were merely
an instrument — appeals to no other title but his
inner light and feeling; he relies for protection
neither on heavenly miracles nor on earthly favor ;
in his denunciations he assails the highest most
fiercely; he promises no paradise, and threatens
with no hell ; his only weapon is the awe which the
image of his God is apt to inspire ; his means of
persuasion, the touching of the conscience with the
burning word of truth ; if priests and princes
frown, he is ready to seal his word with his blood.
But he is spared martyrdom. The people and their
rulers are evidently better than he paints them in
his holy passion.
When did this high idealism of the Hebrew mind
begin to germinate ? How was it nurtured, and how
did it grow ? Was it a shoot on which exceptional
intellects bestowed an exceptional power of expan
sion? Or was it the slow product of a tribal in
stinct, sharpened by antagonism ? We search in
vain for answers in the prophetic literature of the
people, for that opens with the ideal development
in its culmination. Amos is in purity of faith and

112 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
strength of sentiment, as in boldness of expression
and clearness of diction, the equal of Isaiah, though
surpassed by him in breadth of view, vivacity of
spirit, and poetical loftiness. Hosea and Micah are
between them in time, but one century embraces
them all. Nor are the historical books of the
Hebrews apt to satisfy our curiosity, for they, as we
have them, are of later origin, and thoroughly per
vaded by a superstitious belief in the past which
mocks at all inquiry about ethical or religious
development. According to them the Hebrews of
the remotest age were the models of the purest vir
tue, and the receivers of divine revelation, and the
history of revelation reaches its culminating point
in Moses, ' like whom there arose not since a prophet
in Israel.' There are, of course, both in the pro
phetical and the historical books, single rays of light
facilitating rational speculation on the subject ; but
to collect them into a focus, systematize the inquiry,
and present the results is more than falls within the
scope of this book. It belongs to the wider sphere
of general Israelitish history, or to a special branch
of it.

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 113

XXX.
Amos speaks as a man who announces the word
of God: the prophet is not lost in the sender,
though the utterances of the one and the other are
often blended together without a distinguishing
mark. Amos' s contemporary, Hosea, the son of
Beeri, gives us only some introductory narratives as
his own words : the rest is ' the word of Jehovah '
in all but unbroken streams, the prophet disappear
ing almost completely. The visions of Amos are
openly figurative presentations of prophetic thought
and abstraction, poetical images apt to enlighten as
symbols, and totally unapt to create an illusion of
reality. Hosea' s parabolical introductions are narra
tives of common life, bearing a deceptive semblance
of truth. These characteristics tend to show that
the younger prophet was as such less natural than
the older, or, which is more probable, that in the
writings of the former we have elaborations in
tended to be read — in public — and in the work of
the latter mostly half-improvised addresses, subse
quently condensed and cast into a more or less
poetical shape. What is certain is that Hosea
fully equals Amos in genuineness and intensity of
feeling, that he surpasses him in expressions of
sympathy and tenderness, and that his abhorrence
of falsehood and hypocrisy is a burning passion.

114 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
In Amos, though the man speaks, we always hear
the judging God, ready to avenge the sufferings
inflicted on the meek and lowly, as infractions of
his grand universal system of justice : in Hosea,
through whom God alone speaks, the divine rigor
is tempered by the human warmth of love and com
passion. Both prophets address their words chiefly
to the people of the northern Hebrew kingdom, but
Amos sees it before him in the time of its greatest
strength and prosperity, and Hosea in its beginning
and gradually advancing decay. The former was a
Judsean, as he himself tells us ; the latter was most
probably a man of the northern kingdom, as his
allusions to things and localities amply indicate.
The first verse of the book of Hosea is this : ' The
word of Jehovah that came to Hosea, the son of
Beeri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham. Ahaz, and
Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jero
boam, the son of Joash, king of Israel.' The
superscription may be the prophet' s own, but the
chronological addition to it is probably the inser
tion of a late collector, and hardly accurate. The
latter is already somewhat suspicious on the ground
of its being, as far as the kings of Judah are con
cerned, literally identical with the chronological
statement prefixed to the prophecies of Isaiah,1
and, besides, incomplete in its synchronism, for the
reign of Jeroboam coincides only with that of
' Is. i. 1.

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 115
Uzziah. But a stronger argument against its au
thenticity is found by critics in the contents of the
book, which do not indicate an extension of Hosea' s
activity into the latest period of the history of the
kingdom of Israel, during which Ahaz and Hezekiah
reigned in Judah. Certainty, however, on this
point cannot be attained, as Hosea' s allusions to
political events and conditions, though numerous,
are mostly obscure, as is also to a great extent his
diction in the main portions of his book. That he
began to utter his oracles as early as the reign of
Jeroboam II., as stated, is almost evident from the
opening chapters, in which a very flourishing con
dition of the kingdom is allegorically depicted as
waning or soon to wane, such as it never enjoyed
after the death of that monarch. That the latter
chapters reflect the history of a long, subsequent
period of distraction and disasters is undeniable.
We shall, therefore, hardly go amiss if we assume
that the time on which Hosea reflected from his
own observation embraced, chiefly or exclusively,
some three or four of the early and middle decades
of the eighth century B.C., according to Biblical
chronology. The history of that time, in the wider
extent, is as follows :
The last years of the long reign of Jeroboam II.
may be presumed to have been years of enervating
prosperity, such as continues to flow from the
achievements of an earlier, more vigorous genera
tion, and is destined to be gradually exhausted by

116 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
excess or suddenly destroyed by unexpected re
verses. Such a presumption can rationally be based
on the previous conditions, the king's declining age,
and the disastrous events which followed his death.
Many expositors, founding their opinion on a chro
nological discrepancy in the Biblical statements,"
believe that Jeroboam' s power was not directly in
herited by his son Zachariah, and that an anarchical
interregnum of eleven or twelve years preceded the
latter' s accession to the throne. This may or may
not have been the case, but all that we are told3 of
the following period is a story of bloody convul
sions, which rapidly precipitated the state toward
the verge of ruin. Zachariah, after a reign of only
2 ' The statements that Jeroboam II. reigned 41 years (2 K. xiv. 23)
after the 15th year of Amaziah, who reigned 29 years, and that
Jeroboam's son Zachariah came to the throne in the 38th year of
Uzziah (2 K. xv. 8), cannot be reconciled without supposing that
there was an interregnum of 11 years between Jeroboam and his son
Zachariah. And almost all chronologists accept this as a fact,
although it is not mentioned in the Bible. Some chronologists, who
regard an interregnum as intrinsically improbable after the prosper
ous reign of Jeroboam, prefer the supposition that the number 41
in 2 K. xiv. 23 ought to be changed to 51, and that the number 27 in
xv. 1 should be changed to 14, and that a few other corresponding
alterations should be made.' (Smith's ' Dictionary of the Bible,' art.
'Israel, Kingdom of.') Oppert defends the correctness of the con
flicting numbers on the supposition of a twelve years' interruption in
Jeroboam's reign, caused by foreign invasion, and supports his view
by an ingenious conjecture respecting Is. vii. 8. (See his ' Salomon
et ses successeurs, ' pp. 32-37.)
" II. Kings xv.

OF IHE AXCIENT HEBREWS. 117
six months, fell a victim of a conspiracy, and with
him the house of Jehu ended in blood, as it had
arisen. The head of the conspiracy, Shallum, was
raised to the throne, but kept it only one month.
Menahem, probably a commander of Zachariah' s
army, marched against him from Tirzah, victori
ously entered Samaria, slew the usurper, and made
himself king. A town4 near Tirzah, which refused
to open its gates to Menahem, was taken, and all its
inhabitants, and with them those of the surround
ing district, were put to the sword, amid horrible
atrocities. During this reign, which lasted a little
over ten years, the king of Assyria entered the
country, and received from Menahem a thousand
talents of silver, for which he promised to support
him on the throne, and soon withdrew. That im
mense ransom or bribe Menahem extorted from his
subjects by imposing a contribution of fifty silver
shekels upon every man of wealth — that is to say,
on sixty thousand people, for the talent contained
three thousand shekels. Menahem was succeeded
by Pekahiah, his son, who, after two years, was
murdered in his palace by his captain Pekah, the
son of Remaliah, and the murderer reigned in his
stead. There are indications in the partly ill-
worded — or, more probably, ill-preserved — narrative
of II. Kings, here abridged, that in all these violent
4 Instead of ' Tvphsah ' (nDDp)> which is the Hebrew name of
Thapsacus on the Euphrates, Thenius reads Tappuah (nVDO)-

118 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
changes a body-guard of Gileadites, men of the
valiant tribe of Gad, acted a very conspicuous part.6
That the kings of Samaria should have sought to
awe the proud Ephraimites into obedience by a
troop of well-paid mercenaries from beyond the
Jordan is but natural, and finally the time had
come for the Gileadite 'pretorians' to seize and
give away the crown. During all this time two
kings occupied the throne of Judah : Uzziah, or
Azariah, and his son Jotham, both of whom are
stated in Kings to have done ' what was right in the
sight of Jehovah, . . . save that the high-places
were not removed,' on which 'the people sacrificed
and burned incense,' in disregard of the claims of
the Solomonic temple to be the only legitimate
sacrificial spot — if such claims were, indeed, raised
by the priests of Jerusalem at so early a date.

6 The name of Shallum's father is Jabesh, which is also the name
of a town in Gilead, or else Shallum himself is designated by ' son of
Jabesh ' as a Jabeshite, though against all grammatical analogy in
the Scriptures (see note J, at the end of the volume). The name of
Menahem's father is Gadi (the Gadite), if ben-gadi, with which b'ne
gil'ddim in the same chapter (verse 25) is to be compared, does not
designate Menahem himself as a Gadite. Pekah, in attacking
Pekahiah, was accompanied by fifty Gileadites. The name of one
of the two men, probably officers of the royal guard, who are men
tioned as slain with Pekahiah is Argob, which is also the name of a
district adjoining Gilead. The name of the other is Arieh (the lion),
which reminds us of the Gadites who joined David, according to
I. Chron. xii. 8, 'valiant warriors . . . with faces of lions. (See
Hitzig on Hos. v. 8, and Thenius on II. Kings xv. 25.)

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 119
Uzziah' s reign lasted half a century, but part of the
time Jotham acted as regent for his father, who was
stricken with leprosy. The great earthquake men
tioned in Amos6 and Zechariah7 was probably the
most grievous calamity that befell Judah during
this period, which seems to have been the most
prosperous in the history of that kingdom, though
we may not accept as perfectly exact all that II.
Chronicles" tells us of Uzziah' s achievements in
war and peace. While Ephraim — as the northern
Hebrew kingdom was now frequently designated
from its leading tribe — was battling with the declin
ing power of Damascus, cringing before the Assyrian
conquerors, and writhing with intestine convulsions,
Judah wisely abstained from harassing the brother
state, was successful in petty contests with non-
Hebrew neighbors, and enjoyed the fruits of un
questioned dynastic legitimacy.
Hosea, in his first introductory narrative, speaks
of himself in the third person : Jehovah said to
him, ' Go, get thee a wife of whoredom and chil
dren of whoredom ; for the land runs away from
Jehovah in whoredom.' He went and took Gomer,
the daughter of Diblaim,9 and she bore him a son.
6i. l.
1 xiv. 5.
8 xxvi.
3 Gomer . . . Diblaim] Symbolical names, expressive of ripe
ness and sensuality. Hitzig's explanatory remarks are striking:
'Da ^£j mr Reife bringen. daher auch entwohnen erst aus ~|}3j

120 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
Jehovah then said to him, 'Name him Jezreel, for
yet a little while, and I wall avenge the blood of
Jezreel 10 on the house of Jehu, and put an end to
the kingdom of the house of Israel ; and in that
day I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of
Jezreel.' Gomer next bore a daughter, and Jehovah
said to Hosea, ' Name her Unpitied, for I will not
pity any more the house of Israel, so that I should
keep on forgiving them. But I will have mercy on
the house of Judah, and I will save them through
Jehovah, their God, and not save them through bow
and sword and battle, and horses and horsemen.'
Gomer bore another boy, and Jehovah said to
Hosea, 'Name him Not-my-People, for ye are not
my people, and I belong not to you.' Then follows
the application of the allegory to the apostate
nation, so foolishly enamored of strange gods :
¦oollenden sich abwandelt (Ps. 57, 3. vgl. 13. 6.): so scheint Kraft
der Verbindung mit ?"931 Gomer das Gegentheil von ~£3 (vgl
703 "IDS Jes- 18, 5.) zu sein. Mit -^j wilrde aber die reife, mann-
a >
bare Dime bezeichnet; gleichwie wJf' vom Kinde gesagt wird (s.
auch Hi. 15, 33.), und Cap. 3, 1. T)Wi$ <ten Verf. auf ntt^tp'N. bringt.
£1^21 • • scheint Kraft des Numerus und der Bedeutung von
j-n^T) ein Bild fur C^ltP zu sem> Wie Weinstock und Peigen-
baum beisammenstehn, so ftlhrte die Traube auf die Peigen ; und
wenn die C"1^! da und dort neben die C^DISlJ treten, so ist gerade
bei Hosea C^Ptpil em Attribut der Brilste Cap. 9, 14.'
10 The blood shed by Jehu r.t Jezreel, in exterminating the house of
Ahab.

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 121
(Hosea II.)
(4 [2]) ' Plead ye with your mother, plead;
for she is not my wife,
and I am not her husband:
let her put away her whoredom from her face,
and her adultery from between her breasts;
(5 [3]) lest I strip her naked,
set her as in the day of her birth,
put her11 as into a wilderness,12
place her as in a desert,
and let her die with thirst.
Xor have I mercy on her children,
for they are children of whoredom;
their mother practised harlotry,
she who bore them acted shamefully.
She said, " I will go after my lovers,
who give me my bread and my water,
my wool and flax,
my oil and drinks."
Therefore, behold, I hedge up thy way13 with
thorns —
"put her] Heb. iTn»ttn; <?¦ D1XH PX Ctt> CW) (Gen. ii. 8).
12 as into a wilderness] Heb. "13~Q3, for ^,3~!222i as m CD'v'H
"D^OO nicnrO CPS- cvi- 9). (See note K, at the end of the
volume.) The wilderness into which Israel, then a new-born nation,
was led by Moses is here alluded to ; cf. verse 17 (15)- 'as in the days
of her youth, as in the day when she came up from the land of
Egypt.' 13 thy way] Heb. "p"n, probably by mistake for j"lD"l"!> ^er way;
see the context.

122 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
I form a wall before her,
and she shall not find her paths.
She will run after her lovers,
but not overtake them;
seek them, but find not;
and then say, " Let me go and return
to my former husband,
for I was happier then than now."
(10 [8]) Nor does she know
that / gave her the corn, the must, and the oil;
and gave her plenty of silver,
and of gold, which they made into Baal.14
Therefore I will take back my corn in its time,
and my must in its season,
and snatch away my wool and my flax,
which covered her nakedness.
I then uncover her shame
in the sight of her lovers,
and none rescues her from my hand.
I put an end to all her revelry,
to her feasts, new-moons, and sabbaths,
and all her festive times.
I lay waste her vine and her fig-tree,
of which she said, " I hold these as rewards,
given me by my lovers;"
I turn them into a forest,
and the beasts of the field shall devour them.
(15 [13]) And I visit upon her the days of the Baals,
when she burned incense to them,
14 Baal] Here an expression for idols in general, including the
golden calves Oplitzig, Keil).

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 123
adorned herself with her ring and necklace,
walked after her lovers,
and forgot me ' —
Jehovah's utterance.
' Therefore, behold, I allure her,
and lead her into the wilderness,
and speak to her heart;
I give her her vineyards from thence,
and the Valley of Grief 16 for an entrance of
hope;16
and she responds there as in the days of her
youth,
as in the day when she came up from the land of
Egypt.'
' In that day ' —
Jehovah's utterance —
'thou wilt call, "My husband,"
and no more call to me, " My lord! " "
I remove from her mouth " the names of the
Baals —
never more to be mentioned by their name.
15 In the original, 'emek (valley of) 'dkhor, according to Josh. vii.
24-26 a valley near Jericho, which received its name from the stoning
there of Achan ('dkhdn), whose sacrilegious theft had brought grief
upon Israel.
16 A new beginning, under happier auspices,- is here promised to
the repentant nation : vineyards shall blossom on the very border of
the desert, and the Valley of Grief become a pleasant defile leading
to the land of bliss.
" Heb. ba'&U, which signifies both my (marital) lord and my Baal.
wfrom her mouth] Heb. iVDOi probably by mistake for "PQa,
from thy mouth.

124 THE inSTORICAL POETRY
(20 [18]) I make a covenant for the people,19 in that day,
with tho beasts of the field,
and the birds of heaven,
and the creeping creatures of the earth;
and bow and sword and battle
I crush out of the land,
and make men20 rest in security.
And I betroth thee to me for ever ;
I betroth thee in righteousness and justice,
in mercy and compassion;
I betroth thee in faithfulness,
and thou shalt recognize Jehovah.'
' In that day I respond ' —
Jehovah's utterance —
' I respond to heaven,
and it responds to the earth,
and the earth responds to corn, wine, and oil,
and these respond to Jezreel.21
(25 [23]) And I sow this22 for myself in the land,
and I pity Unpitied,
and say to Not-my-People,

19 for the people] Literally, for tliem.
20 men] Literally, them.
21 This is a picture of cosmic harmony. The valley of Jezreel asks
its seeds and plants to germinate and bud ; they call to the earth for
its juices ; the earth implores heaven for dew and rain ; heaven
prays to God for the word which unlocks its bounties ; and God
responds in mercy.
22 this] Literally, her, Jezreel, here representing the nation ; the
meaning of the fertile valley's name, God sows, is here beautifully
alluded to (Hitzig).

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 125
" My people thou art,"
and he says, " My God." '
And to this closely attaches itself the following,
which is obviously misplaced in the book, and is a
fit conclusion to the narrative and prophecy, wind
ing them up, as it does, with a promise of divine
forgiveness and blessing and of happy reunion
under one legitimate head, and with a laconically
powerful call to the people of Judah to receive the
returning tribes of Israel with, genuine brotherly
love: (II. 1-3 [I. 10, 11, II. 1].)
' Then the multitude of the sons of Israel
shall be as the sand of the sea,
which cannot be measured nor counted;
and then, instead of their being told,
"Ye are not my people,"
this stall be said to them:
"Sons of the living God."23
And the sons of Judah and the sons of Israel
shall gather together,
and appoint themselves one head,
23 the living God] Heb. ">ri"^K, for which, however, ipi^Xi my
God, ought apparently to be substituted, the meaning of the sen
tence being: Judah, who formerly spurned the seceded ten tribes as
not belonging to his people, will now recognize them as the children
of his own God, and therefore brethren in the best sense. Compare
iqj; and "*rj7X at tne end °f ca- "•

126 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
and march onward from the land; "
for great is the day of Jezreel. —
Say ye to your brothers, " My people;"
and to your sisters, "Pitied." '
But that great day, in which the bow of Israel
was to be broken for the benefit of Judah, who was
then to clasp to his bosom the brothers who had
gone astray, never dawned. The house of Jehu
may possibly have fallen by blows struck in the
valley of Jezreel, but it was a conspirator who
reaped the fruits of the victory, and the bow of
Israel was broken much later, and for ever, by the
Assyrian : the reunion of Judah and Israel remained
an unfulfilled dream. Hosea probably cherished
that dream — to him an expectation based on the
love of Jehovah to his people — to the end of his
days ; the last chapter of his book is radiant with
tender hope for Ephraim. But the latter parts of
the book show that he long survived the day which
was to restore the throne of David, both for Judah
and Israel, on the ruins of the house of Jehu,
crumbled at Jezreel. And if he himself, as is
24 To the conquest of the lands of their hostile neighbors, their own
being insufficient for their prodigiously increased multitudes. Ewald
compares Is. xi. 13, 14, and Mic. ii. 12, 13. ^yy\ in the verse before
us, is used, like p^jj in Mic. ii. 13, in the sense of marching up to
battle, without regard to geographical altitude; -|-p, in the sense of
descending to battle, equally disregards the location of the battle-field;
in I. Sam. xxix., therefore, nor6a3 13DJJ "TT tO (verse 4) and
Mon^DD 13QJJ Tlby tO (verse 9) are interchangeable expressions.

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 127
generally and reasonably assumed, formed his col
lection of prophecies into a whole, the fact that he
left the unfulfilled prediction of the day of Jezreel
unrevised is an illustration — among many others
— of the manner in which the prophets viewed
their foretellings in the name of Jehovah: The
details of prophecy were not meant to be under
stood in their literal sense ; only a general idea was
inculcated, and a vague vista exhibited, in holy
earnest. The 'word of God,' as we find it in the
prophetic canon, was an announcement inspired by
the prophet's conceptions of God and the divine
fitness of things ; but only what was general in it
was uttered as irresistibly true : the particulars were
consequences, drawn from fundamental tenets and
special circumstances, but drawn with the license
of an orator or a poet. To err in particulars was
neither to be deceived nor to deceive ; it shook
neither the prophet's convictions nor the people's
confidence in his mission. Allegorical images and
poetical diction well suited such unveilings of the
future. In the second narrative, which forms the third
chapter, Hosea speaks in the first person: 'Jeho
vah said to me, "Go yet, love a woman beloved of
her friend, yet an adulteress ; as Jehovah loves the
children of Israel, while they turn to other gods,
and delight in grape-cakes." 26 And I acquired her
25 grape-cakes] Heb. C^DjI? ,tf",Ti'K> wflteh is, however, an obvi
ous corruption of E^J? ''tEPttM love-cakes (Dr. S. Adler).

128 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
for fifty pieces of silver and a homer and a lethekh26
of barley. And I said to her, "A long time thou
must sit for me : not act the harlot, nor belong to a
man ; and so I will be to thee." For the children of
Israel will sit a long time without king and prince,
without sacrifice27 and statue, without ephod28 and
teraphim :29 afterward the children of Israel will
return, and seek Jehovah, their God, and David,
their king ; and they will flock trembling to Jeho
vah, and to his bliss in the latter days.'
This narrative may be the allegorical picture of
the interregnum after the death of Jeroboam II. , if
such an interregnum there was. It may, less liter
ally, describe the period of the successive king-
murders and usurpations, during which no king or
prince or priest was deemed legitimate, and the last
hope of the true friends of the people was in a
reunion with Judah — a hope, however, the realiza
tion of which now appeared remote, a bliss of late
days. Those who favor the former view naturally
see in the narrative an epilogue to the first two
chapters, which form, perhaps, a little work in
26 Measures.
2' Graetz ('Geschichte der Juden,' vol. ii. part i. p. 96) substitutes
FD10; altar' f°r i"01> sacrifice.
28 ephod] A sacred vestment worn by priests when delivering
oracles. In the priestly service as prescribed in Exodus it was a
shoulder-dress of the high-priest, to which was attached the breast
plate with the Urim and Tummim.
29 teraphim] Household idols, formed in human shape, and wor
shipped as oracular deities.

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 129
themselves, widely different in style from the larger
half of the book ; for this larger division does not re
flect a state of anarchy 'without a king and prince,'
but lawlessness under successive usurpers, under
kings and princes not deserving recognition. But
if the theory of an interregnum is discarded as con
trary to the plain, though chronologically incorrect,
account of II. Kings, the second narrative appears
a fit introduction to the long string of prophetic re
bukes, exhortations, and elegiac effusions which
follows, just as the first narrative introduces the
rebuke beginning, 'Plead ye with your mother.'
Like this piece, the opening exhortation of the
larger division begins with a controversy with the
nation, and, like it, too, the last ends with promises
of divine mercy and blessings. The external ar
rangements of the two unequal parts would thus
be perfectly analogous. Nor are the differences in
style and extent, and partly also in tenor, inex
plicable. For in the first part we probably possess
a comparatively youthful and fugitive composition,
treating of one subject — apostasy — in a hopeful tone
and therefore smooth language ; and in the latter, a
collection of pages, of perhaps well-arranged pages,
on which are written all the emotions of a loving
and sensitive soul, tortured by an endless succession
of sights of evil, and yet unsubdued in its faith
and hope — written in burning words, in an abrupt,
rugged, and incisive manner.
Critics, and among them Ewald and Hitzig, have

130 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
made vigorous efforts to establish perfect harmony
between the connected elegiac outpourings of Hosea
and the scanty lines on the history of the time in
II. Kings ; to point out and explain his allusions to
men, crimes, and catastrophes ; to elaborate, so to
say, the chronology of his sighs and imprecations.
But the attempts are more ingenious than con
vincing. Idolatry and tyranny, regicide and law
lessness, national decline and a fatal wavering
between opposite foreign policies — that is, between
virtual submission to Assyria or to Egypt — are
characteristic of the whole period, or of most of it ;
and we know too little of the single acts and actors
to discover the precise meanings of poetically veiled
allusions to them. There is no reason to doubt the
chronological correctness of the order in which the
contents of chapters iv.-xiv. lie before us, and the
flow of the prophet's grief and indignation prob
ably followed in its embodiments the course of the
sinking nation' s history ; but it is impossible to
determine at which stages of the history its poetical
reflection begins, lingers, and ends. All we know
is that it does not reach the point in the nation's
decay which marks the beginning of the end : the
conquest of Gilead and other parts by Tiglath-
Pileser of Assyria during the reign of Pekah ; for
Gilead is spoken of throughout as an actual part of
the Ephraimitish kingdom. And thus the bulk of
the book must be given here without special intro
ductions, and almost undivided, as follows :

OF THE ANCIENT. HEBREWS. 131
(IV.)
(1) 'Hear Jehovah?s words, ye sons of Israel;
for Jehovah has a controversy with the dwellers in
the land:
There is no truth, no love, no knowledge of God, in
the land;
swearing, lying, murder, theft, adultery —
men riot, and blood touches blood.
Therefore the land mourns,
and every dweller in it wastes away:
beasts of the field, and birds of heaven;
even the fishes of the sea perish.
' Yet, let no man30 accuse,
and no man reprove —
thy people 3Iare accusers of the priest.
30 man] Heb. tf^x> in antithesis to God (^x)i Wflo speaks; as in
WK i<b) ¦QJN bit ^D (Hos. xi. 9), ^y, bii WN id (Num. xxiii.
19), and ttP{0& IjDT ^K (Jod xxxii. 13).
31 thy people] ' O priest ' must be supplied, if the Hebrew text be
correct — a priest being addressed as the representative of his order.
But the transposition of a single letter allows us to change the
meaning of the last line into ' thy people are like their accusers, O
priest ' (i;"|D VO'HOD "TOJ?)- The tetter may have been wrongly
transferred from the margin, where it indicated the correction, here
suggested, of lyiQ^ into VS^OD- Wellhausen, by a somewhat
bolder emendation, changes the meaning of the first two Hebrew
words into ' my people are like their priests ' (V"1MD iJ3J> ; cf.
liTJD DJJD i11 verse 9 of the same chapter, and VIODl 10J? in x. 5).
His introductory remarks ('Geschichte Israels,' vol. i. p. 141) are
well worth quoting: 'ImEingang wird das Volk aufgefordert zu
hOren, worilber Jahve es anklage ; die Siinde herrsche derart, dass

132 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
(5) Therefore thou stumblest32 by day,3'
and the prophet, too, stumbles with thee by night,"
and I destroy thy mother.36
My people is destroyed for lack of knowledge —
as knowledge thou hast rejected,38
so I reject thee as priest to me;
thou hast forgotten thy God's instruction,
der vollige Untergang des Landes nicht ausbleiben kSnne v. 1-3.
Mit dem D o c h an der Spitze des volgenden Verses andert der
Prophet seine Gedankenrichtung, vom Volke geht er liber zu den
Priestern: die Wurzel des allgemeinen Verderbens sei der Mangel
der Gotterkenntniss (nemlich: Liebe will ich und nicht Opfer)und
daran seien die Priester Schuld, die die Aufgabe hatten "die Kennt-
niss'' zu verbreiten, statt dessen aber in selbstsuchtigem Interesse
dem Hange des Yolkes, durch Opfer statt durch Gerechtigkeit
Jahve's Gnade zu erlangen, Vorschub leisten. . . . Hosea briclit
von dem vorherigen Schelten gegen das Yolk ab: doch schelte
und tadle nur niemand; warum nicht, das milssen die f ol-
genden Worte besagen. Es muss in v. 4b ein Umstand genannt
werden, der das Volk entschuldigt und zugleich den Zorn auf die
Priester ableitet, die im Folgenden daran kommen. Der zu erwar-
tende Gedanke ist durch diese Erwagungen ganz notwendig bestimmt,
nemlich : denn das Volk folgt nur seinen Priestern."
32 thou stumblest] O priest.
33 by day] Heb. C1TT tuus ' :m account of the antithesis pp "r>,
as in Neh. iv. 16' (Keil).
34 Cf. Is. xxviii. 7: 'Priest and prophet reel,' etc., and Jer. xxiii.
11 : ' Both prophet and priest are faithless.'
8B thy mother] The nation, as generally explained; cf. ii. 4 (2), and
the here following words: ' My people is destroyed.' But a different
explanation is possible ; see below.
36 Thou hast spurned the priest's duty of teaching the people what
God demands of them, and therefore ' there is no knowledge of God
in the land.'

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 133
and I, thy sons I forget.
As they grew37 so they sinned against me:
so their glory into shame I change.
They eat my people's sin,
and lift up its soul to their guilt,38
and the people and the priest become alike.
So I will visit its ways upon him,
and requite him for its doings.
(10) They39 shall eat, and not be satisfied;
they practise whoredom, yet shall not increase —
for they have left off serving- Jehovah.
Whoring, wine, and must take away the heart.40
My people goes for oracles to its wood,
and its stick declares to it."
For the spirit of whoredom leads astray,"
and they run away whoring from their God.
They43 sacrifice on mountain-tops,
37 As the priests grew in numbers and power.
38 They live on the people's sinful worship, fostering the lust after
their own guilty practices. 'Ephraim has multiplied altars for
sinning, his altars are for sinning,' says Hosea elsewhere (viii. 11),
and immediately afterward (13) stigmatizes their sacrifices as 'guilt'
and ' sins. ' ' Die Siinde und die Verschuldung ist der Opferdienst
uberhaupt wie er vom Volke getrieben wird ' (Wellhausen).
39 Tliey] Who ' eat my people's sin. '
* They render the priests soulless and stupid. ' Heart, ' in the
language of Scripture, denotes the intellect as well as the emotions.
41 The priest is applied to for oracles, but, soulless as he has become
by debauchery, it is his wooden teraphim and his divining-staves
from which the answers are obtained.
44 The rottenness of the priesthood infects the people.
43 Tliey] The priests, in order to make their religious practices
seductive.

134 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
burn incense on hills;
under oak and poplar and terebinth,
the shade of which is pleasant.
Therefore" your daughters practise whoredom,
and your daughters-in-law adultery.
I will not punish your daughters for whoring,
nor your daughters-in-law for adultery;
for they" seclude themselves48 with harlots,
and sacrifice with temple-girls—
and the unreflecting people should perish ! "
44 Tlierefore] Thus beguiled by sensual allurements and lascivious
rites. 45 they] The priests.
46 seclude themselves] Heb. II'ID"' (m parallelism with IPOT1. they
sacrifice), perhaps by mistake for TH0p\ they burn incense ; cf.
verse 13.
41 In pursuing this arraignment of the priesthood of his time,
Hosea, who, of all the older prophets, is the most familiar with the tra
ditions of early Israelitish history, evidently had before his mind the
story of the priestly house of Eli, of its excesses and rejection. The
picture before us fully adapts itself in its delineations to the facts
narrated in I. Sam. ii— iv. , the main portions of which chapters may
have existed in their present form in the time of our prophet, if they
were not then composed, as many critics presume. The sons of Eli,
destined to sacrifice, burn incense, and deliver oracles before Jeho
vah (I. Sam. ii. 28), became wretches who knew not God (ii. 12), and
arrogant priests greedily feeding on the sacrifices of the people
(ii. 13-17), and shamelessly abusing their position at the sanctuary
for the seduction of superstitious women congregating there (ii. 22).
Therefore they were rejected as priests, and doomed to shame for
their insolence, to partial extinction, and to endless craving for
something to eat (ii. 30-36). They are thus the prototypes of Hosea's
priests, who officiate and declare oracles without the knowledge of

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 135
(15) ' If thou practisest whoredom, 0 Israel,
let not Judah become guilty;
God, eat the people's sin, and sacrifice with temple-girls, and are
therefore rejected as priests, and doomed to eat and not be satisfied,
and, though practising whoredom, not to increase. In ' their glory
into shame I change ' ("PEN ] vp3 CT23> verse 7 of our chapter)
there are allusions to the name of Eli's grandson, I-Chabod ("1133 ^Xi
no glory; I. Sam. iv. 21) and to the words ' they who contemn me shall
be despised ' (l^p1 113, ii. 30). (Compare our prophet's ' for its glory,
that is departed from it,' x. 5, with the explanation of the name
I-Chabod: 'tlie glory is departed from Israel.') A distinct imitation
of a verse of I. Samuel is contained in verse 6 of our chapter : ' As
knowledge thou hast rejected, so I reject thee as priest to me ' is
modelled on Samuel's words addressed to Saul, in the story of Agag
(I. Sam. xv. 23): ' Because thou hast rejected the word of Jehovah,
he rejects thee as king.' (Compare especially "9 IpDO ""INDNDXi
with "poo "lONO"1!-) The preceding words of Samuel are ¦ ' Has
Jehovah as much delight in burnt-offerings and sacrifices as in
obeying Jehovah's voice ? Behold, to obey is better than a sacrifice,
to hearken than the fat of rams. ' These Hosea condenses elsewhere
(vi. 6) thus: 'Goodness I desire, not sacrifice; knowledge of God
more than burnt-offerings.' (Compare Vi^On with V^nrii PDt
with n2Jp> and DT?yo ^^ HvJ?D-) The preceding verse in
Hosea has 'I hew by the prophets' (Q^DSD VOSrDi which
reminds us of the expression ' and Samuel hewed Agag ' (nottTl
JlfTHN ^WOtf) in the same narrative of the prophet and the
Amalekite chief (xv. 33). And having thus discovered in Hosea
frequent verbal reminiscences of the story of Agag, we shall not
transcend the bounds of legitimate criticism in conjecturing that ' I
destroy thy mother ' ("1QX TPQlli verse 5 of our chapter) is, in
plain meaning, a parallel to the words ' childless be . . . thy
mother' ("ION • • ^DlfH) I- Sam. xv- ^3), addressed to
Agag by Samuel. (Compare also 7^31 . . . rvttOI with
^DttTI • T)bjlt/i m tue respective verses.) 'My people is

136 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
repair ye not to Gilgal,"
nor go up to Beth-Aven,"
and swear not, " As Jehovah lives, . . "M
Like an unbroken heifer
has Israel become intractable:
now Jehovah should feed them
as a lamb in a wide pasture !
Ephraim is wound up with idols — let it" alone !
Their drink is rank,
they whore and whore,
they love "0 give"52—
destroyed,' which closely follows ' I destroy thy mother,' seemingly
speaks against this conjecture, but ' thy sons I forget,' in the same
verse, speaks for it. And 'thy sons,' between 'I reject thee as
priest,' and 'their glory into shame I change,' again reminds us of
Eli and his sons.
48 Gilgal] See above, p. 76.
«> Beth- Aven] Beth-El; see above, p. 80.
60 Hosea here condenses two verses of his older contemporary:
' Seek not Beth-El, repair not to Gilgal, and go not over to Beer-
Sheba,' etc. (Am. v. 5), and 'They who swear by Samaria's guilt,
and say, "As thy God lives, O Dan, . . ."; "As there exists a
way to Beer Sheba, . . . ,"etc.' (viii. 14), at the same time
adopting Amos's change of the name Beth-El into Beth-Aven. As
Beer-Sheba is mentioned in each of those passages, it is probable
that the verse before us, too, originally included that name, perhaps
in a line like this: 'and swear not, "As thy Lord lives, O Beer-
Sheba" ' (See above, pp. 99, 100.) ' Swearing ' is naturally connected
with Beer-Sheba, a name signifying well of swearing (Gen. xxi. 31).
If the text be correct, its meaning must be : Swear not by Jehovah at
those seats of public idolatry, Gilgal and Beth-El.
01 it] In the original him, which is, however, followed by the pos
sessive Iter.
M Heb. 13H, literally, give ye, as in the Authorized Version. The

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 137
its shields53 are a disgrace.
The wind binds it up in its wings;
they shall blush for their sacrificings. M
(V.)
(1) ' Hear this, ye priests;
attend, 0 house of Israel;
listen, house of the king.
For against you65 is the pleading,
since ye are a snare at Mizpah,"
and a net, spread, on Tabor.
They stretch faithlessness deeply,57
word is expressive of greedy asking for gifts, and of insatiableness.
' Give - give ' (3D 3n) characterizes the first two insatiables of
Aluqah's proverb (Prov. xxx. 15; see note L, at the end of the
volume). A confirmation of the Authorized Version's rendering of
¦qj-j cax>- De found in Isaiah. (See note M.) In the same way Hosea
(viii. 13) speaks of the ' sacrifices of my Give-gives ' (">3ri3n TOI)
— that is, of Jehovah's priests after the fashion of the sons of Eli,
who, 'when any man offered a sacrifice,* 'even before the fat was
burned,' would send a servant with these words: 'Give flesh to
roast for the priest,' and would insist on its being given ' raw,' ' im
mediately ' (I. Sam. ii. 12-16; cf. ;-rj["|, give, and lpp, thou shalt
give, to which 3^) 3n corresponds).
63 Ephraim's defenders and rulers are a disgrace. So according to
the Masoretic text; but if instead of n^SJa we read rPSJO (see note
M), the Heb. words must be rendered, shame for its gardens/
64 sacrificings] Heb. z'ba'hoth, the pi. of zib'hdh, which corresponds
to zeba'h as tib'hdh does to teba'h. The Septuagint, however, read
instead of CnrQlDi f°r their sacrificings, CPn310Q> f°r their
altars. 65 you] Priests and court.
56 Presumably Mizpah-in-Gilead.
57 Tliey . . . deeply] A conjectural rendering of ntOflttn

138 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
but I am a chastisement to them all.
I know Ephraim,
Israel is not hid from me.
Thou art lewd now, 0 Ephraim;
Israel is defiled.
Their doings allow them not
to return to their God;
for the spirit of whoredom is within them,
and Jehovah they know not.
(5) The glory of Israel68 testifies to his face;
Israel and Ephraim stumble in their guilt;
Judah, too, stumbles with them.
With their sheep and cattle
they go to seek Jehovah,
but find him not;
he has withdrawn from them.
They have been faithless to Jehovah,
begetting strange offspring:
now a month shall consume them,
with their portions.
' Blow ye the horn at Gibeah,

"lp"'fiyn CtOlf- Various corrections of these words have, however,
been suggested: Graetz ('Geschichte der Juden,' vol. ii. part i. p. 212)
reads, instead of nBHttH. ilDDEfi ("/• i"l03tt> lnST. Hos- vi- 9)>
connecting 'Shechem' with 'Mizpah' and 'Tabor;' A. Krochmal
(cited by Schorr), . . . n ni~U£H> adding 'pit' to 'snare' and
'net;' and Schorr ('He'halQg' i. 114, x. 78), nni"H&1> comparing
inHTi* Ip^QJTI (Hos. ix. 9). To these conjectures one more may be
added: r?<w XVDTW) stands for crittH V\TW) (c/ I*3- xxxv- ?)•
"Jehovah. Dr. S. Adler, reading n3S?1 f»r PI3JJ1- translates,
Israel's pride is humbled . . .

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 139
the trumpet at Banian,"
shout at Beth-Aven,
" Behind thee,8" 0 Benjamin !"
" Ephraim shall be laid waste
in the day of chastisement,"
against Israel's tribes
I announced as sure.
(10) Judah's princes have become
removers of landmarks:
over them I shall pour out
my wrath hke 'water.
Ephraim is oppressed,
law-crushed;for he wiUingly
follows the statute.
And thus I am like a moth to Ephraim,
like a germ of decay to Judah.
Ephraim sees his disease,
and Judah his wound;
and Ephraim goes to Assyria,
sends to the grand-king. 81

69 Gibeah . . Ramah] Towns situated on eminences of
northern Benjamin, and belonging to the kingdom of Judah, which
is thus to be warned of the danger coming from the invaded north.
60 Behind thee] It is (is the invasion announced by the signal).
61 grand-king] Melekh ydreb, seems to be an imitation of the self-
glorifying epithets adopted by the Assyrian kings: saru rabu, great
king, and saru dannu, mighty king; the word ydreb being possibly
chosen as combining, in the double sense of yireb, becomes great, and
ydrib, contends, pleads, both Assyrian epithets in their Hebrew signi
fications (rob, great, and dan, judge, pleader). Sennacherib is desig-

140 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
But he cannot heal you,
nor remove your wound;
for I am like a lion to Ephraim,
like a young lion to the house of Judah;
I tear, and go;
I carry off, and none delivers.
(15) I go, and return to my place,
and wait till they feel their guilt,
and seek my countenance:
in their distress they will early come to me.
(VI.)
(1) ' " Come, let us return to Jehovah;
for he has torn, and will heal us;
has smitten, and will bind us up.
He will revive us after two days,
in the third he will raise us up —
that we may live before him.
So let us know, eagerly hasten to know, Jehovah:
like the dawn's his rise is sure;
as rain he will come upon us,
as the earth-refreshing latter rain.11
' What shall I do to thee, 0 Ephraim ?
nated in II. Kings xviii. 19, 28 as hammelekh liaggddol melekh aslishur,
the great king, the king of Assyria, and in his inscriptions he terms
himself saru rabu saru dannu saru assuri. (See George Smith's
' History of Sennacherib,' p. 1.) Schrader (' Die Keilinschriften und
das Alte Testament,' p. 281) translates melekh ydreb, King Warlike
(properly lung Contender), and thinks Hosea referred to King Assur-
danilu (771-754 B.C.). Ydreb (= yah rob, Jehovah contends) may
thus be the equivalent of the Assyrian dan ilu in the Hebrew sense
(dan el, God contends, defends). As such it was the more easilycho-
sen as 'King Jareb' resembled the then familiar 'King Jeroboam.'

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 141
what to thee, 0 Judah ?
your goodness is as the morning-cloud,
as the early, vanishing dew.
(5) ' Therefore I hew by the prophets,01
slay them with the words of my mouth,
and judgment shines forth as light.03
For goodness I desire, not sacrifice;
knowledge of God more than burnt-offerings.
' Yet they, like men,64 transgressed the covenant;
there85 they acted faithlessly against me.
62 See above, note 47.
63 In the Masoretic text, K5T "11X *Vt2Dtt'i3l> an(i thy judgments
light shines forth (sic), which is evidently a corruption of ">tODl£>Dl
j^xji ""fliO an(l my judgment as light shines forth, as the Septuagint,
the Chaldee paraphrast, and the Syriac version have it.
64 like men] In the original, k'dddm, like man, or like Adam, which
some prefer; Adam, however, is a name unknown to the prophets.
The suggestion has been made (by Luzzato ?) that k'dddm stands, by
mistake, for b'dddm, in Adam, meaning the town of that name men
tioned in Josh. iii. 16. This conjecture deserves the more attention
as it can be extended to explain the whole verse. Adam was the
place near which the Israelites, according to Josh, iii., crossed the
Jordan ; near it Achan committed the sacrilegious crime which drew
the wrath of Jehovah upon the people, the first crime committed by
Israel in the Holy Land proper (Josh. vii.). The meaning of our
verse would thus be : They transgressed my covenant at the first spot
they touched in the land which I gave them; there they acted faith
lessly against me. Achan's guilt is stigmatized, as one incurred by
the whole nation, almost in the very words used here by Hosea:
' The children of Israel acted faithlessly ' (ibid, verse 1 ; the identical
meaning of bvo an(l 1)3 *s Dest proved by ?">Wo an(i "03) ; ' Israel
has sinned, and they have also transgressed my covenant ' (ibid, 11).
66 there] Explained by some as meaning therein.

142 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
Gilead88 is a city of evil-doers,
stamped87 with blood.
66 Gilead] Stands for Mizpah-in-Gilead (which is most probably
identical with Ramoth-in-Gilead). The transition from ' Adam, the
town ' — if that is meant by dddm in the preceding verse (see note 64)
— to Mizpah is quite natural, as the former was ' beside Zarthan '
(Josh. iii. 16; 'Zarethan' in the Authorized Version is an error), a
place situated near Succoth (see I. Kings vii. 46), and must conse
quently have been almost opposite the mountain town of Gilead.
The prophet thus goes back from Joshua's Adam to Jacob's Gilead.
67 stamped] Heb. 'aqubbdh, a denominative of 'aqeb, heel, footstep
(Gesenius). As Gilead, according to Gen. xxxi., received its name
from Jacob (ya'dqbb), whose own is derived from 'aqeb, heel (Gen.
xxv. 26), we may see in the derivative before us, coupled with Gilead,
an allusion to the story of the patriarch : The place where Jacob
spilt the blood of sacrifices (Gen. xxxi. 54) is now marked by the
bloody footprints of murderers; or rather, Gilead falsely boasts of
Jacob's sacrifices: it is but a city notorious for the slaughter of
human victims. To the derivation of the name Jacob, as given in
Genesis, Hosea has a more distinct allusion in xii. 4: 'In the womb
he grasped the heel ('dqab) of his brother.' He also repeatedly
alludes to the stone-heap (b)) on Mount Gilead, as having served
Jacob in lieu of an altar, and to the stone monument (n3SD)
which he erected there (Gen. xxxi. 44-54). In connection with Gilead
and Jacob's Mesopotamian adventures (xii. 12, 13) Hosea says of
Israel, ' Their altars, too, are like stone-heaps (Cvj) in the furrows
of the field;' and elsewhere (x. 1-3), ' As his fruit increases, so he in
creases his altars; as his land improves, so they improve the statues
(rV13y B) • ' That stone-heap and that monument were to commemorate
the friendly talk of Jacob and Laban, the Mesopotamian, their
covenant (Gen. xxxi. 44) and their oath (verse 53); and to these
Hosea seems to allude when he adds (x. 4), ' They talk words, swear
falsely, make covenants, and justice springs up like a poison-weed
in the furrows of the field.' And the sequel (as well as xii. 2) shows

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 143
And, lurking like the man of bands,
a gang of priests
murder along the road to Shechem —
for they do infamous things.88
(10) In the house of Israel I have seen horrors:
there is Ephraim's harlotry,
Israel is defiled.89

that the covenant-making refers to a treaty with Assyria, then the
great Mesopotamian power.
68 From Gilead Hosea goes over to Shechem, following the route of
Jacob in his mind (see Gen. xxxi.-xxxiv). In comparing the assassi
nations committed by priests near that city — probably facts notorious
in his time — to the murderous 'lurking of a man of bands,' he per
haps thought of the story of Abimelech, the son of Gideon (Judg.
ix.), who made himself master of Shechem with the help of ' reckless
vagabonds ' hired for the purpose, and, when the people revolted
against him, ' laid wait against Shechem in four companies,' slew
many of the revolters, even before the gate of the city, and shortly
after repeated this lying in wait with murderous effect. — ' For they do
infamous things,' Heb. l^y J-JOT 'Oj again carries us back to Jacob,
while reminding us of the infamous deed of an ancient Schechemite
(TWy PI73J "Oi Gen- xxxiv. 7). Cf. Gesenius's ' Thesaurus ' under
HOI (' scelus ') and i"! /3J (' scelus nefandum '), and HOI "Wy "O
rfa:"! (Judg. xx. 6).
69 ' The house of Israel ' seems here to imply the meaning of
Jacob's house — that is, Jacob's household; Hosea, who is full of remi
niscences of the legend of Jacob (see ch. xii.), knows the identity of
the two names, and also their derivations (xii. 4). He thus, rather
cruelly, reproaches Ephraim with the defilement of Jacob's daughter,
Dinah, in Shechem, and the disgrace it brought on the patriarch's
house (^frOCO TWy n^>33 ^D)> *iae harlotry of the nation which de
scended from him beginning there. Compare with niOt an(l NOtOl
in the verse before us the words of Dinah's avengers : ' Shall he deal

144 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
In thee too, 0 Judah,
a cion" he" has set.
' When I restore my people, n
(VII.)
(1) when I heal Israel,
Ephraim's guilt reveals itself,"
Samaria's wickedness all.
For they practise deceit,
thieves enter,
a band makes raids without.
' And let them not say in their heart
I keep in memory all their wickedness:
their deeds are around them now,
they are before my face.
With their wickedness they delight the king,
and princes with their lies.
They are all adulterers;
with our sister as with a harlot (HJIO) ? ' (Gen. xxxiv. 31), and the
verb NQTOi to defile, occurring three times in the story (verses 5,
13, 27).
10 A graft of his impurity (Ewald) ; qdcvr, here, having the mean
ing, not of harvest, but of twig or cion, as in Is. xxvii. 11, Ps. lxxx.
12, and Job. xiv. 9.
" Israel.
" So according to the Hebrew text ; but iqj? P13tt' "'Dltt'D may
be a clerical corruption of iqj; J"n321tt?3> in the wantonness of my
people, or of ioy ry"1Tl5?tt>3> m the horridness of my people (cf.
tVTDyUl m tne preceding verse). These words would attach them
selves to the preceding line, and conclude the section. (See note N,
at the end of the volume.)
'3 When I try to remove his disease (see v. 12, 13), all his rottenness
shows itself.

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 145
they resemble an oven heated by the baker,74
who leaves off stirring
from the kneading of the dough until it is leavened.
(5) On ''our king's day"
the princes are sick from the heat of wine;
he joins hands with buffoons.
For they fill their heart like an oven in their lurk
ing;75
all night their baker sleeps,
in the morning it76 blazes like flaming fire.
They all glow like an oven,
and they consume their judges77 —
all their kings have fallen;
none of them calls to me.
' Ephraim mixes himself with the nations —
Ephraim is a cake not turned;78
strangers have eaten up his strength,
14 the baker] The king, who heats and stirs their passions, sharing
their excesses, and profiting by them, until he falls himself a victim
of private passion or popular frenzy.
15 Heb. Q31K3 ry£> TUPD 131p "O, which is, however, most
probably a corruption of C3 -\yi C3^> TOrD D2"lp "D> for their
bosom is like an oven, their heart burns within them, as has been
pointed out by Schorr ('He'haluc,' i. 114, x. 78). This emendation
disposes of the speculations about the regicidal lurking of the
princes, in which, among others, Hitzig indulged with great inge
nuity. ,6 it] The oven, again.
17 their judges] Heb. CiTJODttf) probably by mistake for niTON;
their bakers.
78 A cake on hot ashes, not turned, and therefore half burned,
half raw.

146 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
and he knows it not;
also gray hair is sprinkled upon him,
and he knows it not.
(10) The glory of Israel'9 testifies to his face,
but they return not to Jehovah, their God,
and seek him not, for all this.
Ephraim has become like a silly, senseless dove;
Egypt they call, to Assyria they go.
As they go, I spread my net for them;
like birds of heaven I bring them down;
I chastise them, as was announced to their crowd.
Woe to them ! — for fleeing from me;
havoc on them ! — for revolting against me.
And I would redeem them —
but they speak lies against me,
and cry not to me in their heart,
while they wail on their couches.
For corn and wine they band together,
rebelling against me.
(15) I strung, strengthened their arms;
yet to me they impute evil.
They turn, not upward;
they have become like a treacherous bow.
Their princes shall fall by the sword,
for the rage of their tongue —
which makes them a derision in the land of Egypt.
(VIII.)
(1) 'A trumpet to thy mouth:
"Like an eagle upon the house of Jehovah !" —
because they have transgressed my covenant,
79 See above, note 58.

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 147
revolted against my teaching.
To me they cry,
"We know thee, my God; we, Israel."
But Israel has spurned the good,
and the foe pursues him.
They have set up kings, not from me;
have set up princes, and I know them not;
their silver, their gold, they make into idols —
that it may be cut off.
(5) Loathsome is thy calf, 0 Samaria80 —
my anger is kindled against them:
how long will they be incapable of guiltlessness ?
For from Israel it is,81
A workman made it:
it is no deity —
yea, Samaria's calf will become shivers.
For wind they sow,
and the tempest they reap;
no stalks come from it,
the shoot yields no fruit;
should it yield,
strangers would swallow it.
'Israel is swallowed;
they are now among the nations —
like a vessel which nobody wants.
80 The golden calf of Beth-El, worshipped by the kings of Samaria
(Rashi, Kimhi).
81 Heb. xim ^KlttTD "0> instead of which Schorr ('He lvalue,'
x. 94) suggests xin b)JS "1D113 "0> for it; is the worship of fools,
comparing Jer. x. 8: Kin W wblT) 1D1B. which is followed by
t£HI"l ntfyfii ^ the phrase here is by inifj? t£HlT

148 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
For they go up to Asshurj
to the lonely wild-ass
Ephraim offers gifts for love.82
(10) Though they offer gifts among the nations,
I gather them now,
and they writhe83 but little
under the burden of the king of princes. 84
' For Ephraim has multiplied altars for sinning,
the altars are to him for sinning.
I may write for him piles of teachings:
a strange thing they are deemed.
The sacrifices of my Give-gives ! —
they sacrifice them as flesh to eat, bi
Jehovah accepts them not.
He now remembers their guilt,
and punishes their sins;
88 Connect ^ with C^IDX; ete- — Ephraim, the 'unbroken heifer'
(Hos. iv. 16) runs after the Assyrian wild-ass, that wants no com
panion. 83 they writhe] See Miihlau and Volck's Gesenius, under 'Ml and
'hdlal, and Wilnsche, in loco.
84 tlie king of princes] The grand-king of Assyria. Sennacherib,
in his inscription on ' the Bellino Cylinder,' styles himself asariMan
malki, the head of princes. (George Smith's rendering, ' head over
kings' — 'History of Sennacherib,' p. 2 — and Talbot's, 'the first of
all kings' — 'Records of the Past,' vol. i. — are less exact.) As, sar
and melekh, the Hebrew words for prince and king, have the reverse
meanings in Assyrian (see Schrader, ' Die Keilinschriften und das
Alte Testament,' p. 4), the question which Isaiah puts into Sen
nacherib's mouth, ' Are not all my princes kings? ' (Is. x. 8), is doubly
felicitous: each of the princes was thus in power and name a king.
86 Sec above, note 52. Dr. S. Adler, reading >63K'I1.. translates,
let them slaughter (them as) flesh, and eat. Cf. Hos. ix 4.

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 149
they — they return to Egypt.
Israel forgot his Maker,
and built grand edifices;
Judah multiplied fortified towns.
I send fire into his towns,
and it devours the80 palaces.'
(IX.)
(1) Bejoice not, 0 Israel,
exulting like the nations;
for thou hast gone a-whoring from thy God,
lovest harlot's wages on all corn-floors. 87
But threshing-floor and press will not feed them,
the new wine deceives.
They remain not in Jehovah's land:
Ephraim returns to Egypt,
they eat unclean things in Assyria.
They pour not wine for Jehovah,
their sacrifices please him not;
these are like mourners' food with them,
all who eat of it are polluted;
their food is for themselves:
it should not come into Jehovah's house.
(5) What will ye do in the festive day,
in the day of Jehovah's feast ?
For, lo, because of havoc they go;
Egypt collects them,
Memphis buries them;
86 the] In the original, her, which is referred by various expositors
to various nouns.
87 That is, thou delightest in the plenty of corn as in a gift of the
Baals (Kimlii); cf. Hos. ii. 7, 14.

150 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
their precious things of silver
nettles inherit,
briers are in their tents.
The days of punishment are come,
the days of retribution come;
Israel sees it,
' the prophet is a fool,
the man of the spirit crazy.'
So great is thy guilt,
so great the treachery.
Ephraim is a spy toward my God;88
to the prophet, a fowler's snare on all his ways;
treachery is in the house of his God. 89
Their corruption is deep,
as in the days of Gibeah;90
he remembers their guilt,
punishes their sins.
(10) ' Like grapes in the wilderness
I found Israel;
like the fig-tree's first-ripe, in the first shooting,
I descried your fathers.
But they — they went to Baal-Peor,91
88 That is, he is bent on espying the errors of the man of God. —
Instead of evpheh, a spy, we ought perhaps to read cddeh, a trapper,
in accordance with the following.
89 At Beth-El (God's-House), where, though under idolatrous sym
bols, Jehovah was worshipped.
90 The days of the atrocious crimes committed by the Benjamites
in Gibeah, which brought about the almost complete destruction of
that tribe; see Judg. xix., xx.
91 to Baal-Peor] The Hebrew construction shows that not the

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 151
and devoted themselves to the Shame,92
and became abominations like their lover.93
' Ephraim's power flies away like a bird,
from the birth, from the womb, from the concep
tion.
Even if they bring up their sons,
I bereave them of men —
for woe to them when I turn away84 from them !
Ephraim like a stately tree95 1 found, of Tyre's,
planted in a pasture —
yet Ephraim must lead out his sons to the slayer.'
Give them, 0 Jehovah —
what shalt thou give ? —
give them a barren womb
and shrivelled breasts.
(15) 'All their wickedness is in Gilgal;
yea, there I hate them;
for the evil of their doings
I drive them out of my house;
I will love them no more —
Moabitish idol itself (see vol. i. p. 63), but the place of its worship is
meant. 92 the Shame] Heb. bbsheth, a contemptuous equivalent for Baal;
see vol. i. p. 195.
93 lover] Properly, love, object of love, that is, Baai-Peor; see
Gesenius s.v. bhab.
94 when I turn away] This is the meaning of the text, whether
we read, instead of i-flito, "H1D3> when I depart (Schorr), or
i-fl$3, when I look (away; Ewald, Hitzig). Schorr ('He'haluc,'
x. 106) also suggests the reading of the word gam after the first ki in
the verse, instead of after the second ; cf. verse 16.
95 like a stately free] See note O, at the end of the volume.

152 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
all their princes are rebellious.
'Ephraim is smitten:
their root is dried up,
they bear no fruit96 —
and should they bring forth,
I would slay the precious fruit of their womb.'
My God rejects them,
for they hearken not to him:
they will be fugitives among the nations.
(X.)
(1) ' Israel is a running vine:
he yields his fruit. "7
As his fruit increases,
so he increases his altars;
as his land improves,
so they improve the statues.98
Their heart is divided:
now they shall atone;
this99 breaks down their altars,
destroys their statues.
For now they say,
"We have no king:
for Jehovah we have not feared,
and the king — what can he do for us ?"
They talk words,
m fruit] Heb. p'rl, which plays upon Ephraim.
"fruit) An allusion to Ephraim, the favorite grandson, and
adopted son, of Jacob-Israel; see the preceding note.
98 See above, note 67.
99 Heb. Kin. as in W^y P1D3 ~f? Kin n^n (Gen. xx. 16) and
iP^n Nin 13 (Eccl. v. 17). Cf. Rashi: -Q-|n sin-

OF THE ANCLENT HEBREWS. 153
swear falsely,
make covenants,
and justice springs up like a poison-weed
in the furrows of the field.100
(5) For the she- calves101 of Beth- Aven102
Samaria's inhabitants tremble;
its103 people mourn over it,
its priests writhe —
over its glory, that is departed from it. 101
It,105 too, is carried to Assyria,
a present for the grand-king.106
Ephraim shall earn disgrace,
Israel blush for his device.
Samaria's king is undone,
a chip upon the water.
Aven's107 high-places shall be destroyed,
Israel's sin;
thorn and thistle shall ascend their altars.
And they shall say to the mountains,
" Cover us;"
100 See above, note 67
101 she-calves] Wanton young women; cf. Amos's (iv. 1) 'Bashan-
cows.' The expression is derisively chosen with regard to the
golden he-calf.
108 Beth-El; see above, p. 80.
103 its] Beth-Aven's (Beth-El's).
104 Over the carrying off of its golden calf, which was Beth-El's
glory, just as the ark of the covenant which was carried off by the
Philistines was the glory of ancient Israel. (See above, note 47.)
105 Beth-El's glory, the golden calf.
108 See above, note 61.
107 Aven's] Beth-Aven's (Beth-El's).

154 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
and to the hills,
"Fall upon us."
'From the days of Gibeah
hast thou sinned, 0 Israel.
Had they remained there,
no war would have befallen them, at Gibeah,
with the sons of Alvah. 108
(10) But I, desiring it, chastised them,
and tribes gathered against them,
while they were yoked to their double guilt. !°9
' Ephraim is a trained heifer,
who loves to thresh,
and I pass over her fair neck;
I yoke Ephraim,
Judah must plow,
Jacob must harrow.
Sow ye for righteousness,
reap according to love,
break up your fallow ground;
it is time to seek Jehovah,
till he come,
and rain righteousness upon you.'
Ye have plowed wickedness,
have reaped iniquity,
and eaten the fruit of lying.
108 The crime committed at Gibeah (see Judg. xix. xx.) caused the
destruction of the tribe of Benjamin, the depopulation of the dis
trict, and, in consequence, the aggressive boldness of adjoining non-
Hebrew tribes. (See note P, at the end of the volume.)
109 To the consequences of the ravishment and murder committed
at Gibeah.

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 155
For thou hast trusted in thy way,110
in the multitude of thy valiant men.
But tumult arises among thy tribes,
and all thy strongholds are laid waste,
as Shalman laid waste Beth-Arbel
in the day of battle;
mother and children were dashed to pieces.111
(15) Thus Beth-El does to you,
through your utter wickedness —
at dawn Israel's king perishes, perishes.
(XI.)
(1) ' When Israel was young,
then I loved him;
out of Egypt I called my son.
Men called them,111
and they turned away from them;
they sacrifice to the Baals,
burn incense to graven images.
And yet, I taught Ephraim to walk ' —
he took them in his arms —
' and they know not that I healed them.
With men's cords I drew them,113
with bands of love;
I was to them
a lifter up of the yoke on their jaws,

Heb. "QT12, for which Ewald and others sub
stitute *p3~i3, in thy chariots, after the Septuagint; cf. Is. xxxi. 1.
111 See note Q, at the end of the volume.
112 They were called by prophets.
113 That is, I treated Ephraim, the heifer (see above), like a human
creature, tenderly.

156 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
and gave them food to eat.
(5) He shall not return to Egypt,
but the Assyrian is his king —
because they refuse to turn around.
And the sword shall whirl down upon his cities,
and destroy his bars, and consume —
because of their devices.
My people is bent on turning away from me;
when called upward,
it rises not at all.
' How could I give thee up, 0 Ephraim?
surrender thee, 0 Israel?
how give thee up like Admah,
make thee like Zeboim?114
My heart turns within me,
all my compassion is kindled.
I will not execute my burning wrath,
I will not turn to destroy Ephraim;
for I am God — not a man —
holy in thy midst;
I come not with fury.
(10) ' After Jehovah shall they go,
who roars like a lion.
For he will roar,
and the children shall come trembling from the sea;
trembling like a bird, from Egypt;
like a dove, from Asshur's land;
114 Admah . . Zeboim] Towns believed by the Hebrews to
have been destroyed simultaneously with Sodom and Gomorrha
(Deut. xxix. 22; cf. Jer. xlix. 18, and compare Gen. xiv. 2 with
xix. 20 et seq.).

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 157
and I will settle them in their abodes ' —
Jehovah's utterance. (XII. [XL])
(1 [12]) 'Ephraim surrounds me with falsehood,
Israel's house with deceit,
and Judah is still wayward toward God,
toward the faithful Holy One.
(XII.)
(2 [1]) Ephraim feeds on wind,
runs after the east-blast;
all day he heaps up lies and violence,116
They conclude a covenant with Assyria,
and oil is carried to Egypt.' —
And Jehovah has a controversy with Judah,
he will punish Jacob according to his ways,
he will repay him his doings.
In the womb he grasped the heel116 of his
brother,117
and in his manly vigor he grappled with God;118
(5 [4]) he victoriously grappled with an angel,118
who wept 'and begged him;120

115 violence] Heb. "jiy, instead of which the Septuagint had Kltf?
falsehood. 116 grasped the heel] Heb. 'dqab, whence his name Jacob, the
grasper by the heel (Gen. xxv. 26), or supplanter (Gen. xxvii. 36; cf.
Jer. ix. 3).
117 his brother] Esau.
118 Whence his name Israel; see Gen. xxxii.
119 This is an explanation of the preceding; in Zech. xii. 8, too,
' angel of Jehovah ' explains ' God.' (Cf. Gen. xvi. 10, 13.)
', him] To release him.

158 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
at Beth-El he finds him again,121
and there he speaks to us.122
Yet Jehovah is the God of Hosts, .
' Jehovah ' is his memorial.
And thou — to thy God turn,
keep love and right,
and constantly trust in thy God.
' In Canaan's hands are scales of deceit,
he loves to extort;123
and Ephraim says,
" I have only grown rich,
have earned wealth:
all my labors earn me no guilt
that would be a crime."
(10 [9]) Yet Jam Jehovah, thy God,
from the land of Egypt;
I will still make thee dwell in tents,
as in the days of the feast. 124
And I have spoken through the prophets,
have multiplied visions,
and through prophets talked parables.
' If Gilead is a fraud,
they are but deceit.
181 Cf. Gen. xxxv. 9 et seq., where the story is completed.
122 Hosea apparently turns the whole narrative into ridicule: all
the sanctity of Beth-El rests on the foolish belief of God's wrestling
with a man, succumbing to him, imploring to be released, and show
ing his gratitude by calling his victor Israel, and taking up his abode
at the place where he meets him again.
183 Ephraim has not only inherited the evil propensities of Jacob,
but also those of the former owner of his land, the Canaanite.
124 the feast] Of tabernacles.

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 159
In Gilgal they sacrifice bullocks —
all their altars are like stone-heaps
in the furrows of the field.128
Jacob ran away to the plain of Aram;128
Israel served for a wife,
and for a wife he was a keeper.
So Jehovah, through a prophet,
brought Israel up from Egypt,
and by a prophet he was kept.
(15 [14]) Ephraim has aroused most bitter wrath:
so the blood he sheds shall be thrown upon him,
and his shame turned against him, by his Lord.
(XIII.)
(1) ' When Ephraim spoke, there was terror;
he exalted himself in Israel,
but offended through Baal, and died.127
Now they add to their sins,
making for themselves molten images of their silver,
idols according to their skill,
the work of artists throughout;
185 Gilead, the heap (gal) that was to be witness ('ed) of oaths of
friendships confirmed by sacrifices, has proved a fraud, and Gilgal's
altars, too, are but heaps (gal-gal) of stone, and everything in the
land is deceit. (See above, note 67.)
186 Jacob fled before his brother Esau, whom he had defrauded, to
Aram-Naharaim, or Mesopotamia, where he served Laban twice seven
years, tending his flocks, for the sake of his daughter Rachel (Gen.
xxviii., xxix).
127 and died] In Heb. nB^) probably by mistake for ~\W\ and re
belled; cf. nn*!t3 "O m verse 1 of the following chapter, and
Dorian (a word of a kindred stem) in the last verse of the pre
ceding.

160 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
of them, it can be said,
" Human sacrificers128
kissing calves !"
Therefore they shall be
as the morning cloud,
as the early, vanishing dew,
as chaff whirled out of the threshing-floor,
or smoke out of a window.
Yet I am Jehovah, thy God,
from the land of Egypt,
and no deity but me shalt thou know;
there is no savior besides me.
(5) I knew thee in the wilderness,
in the land of burning heats.
According to their pasture, they became satisfied;
they became satisfied, and their heart was uplifted;
thereupon they forgot me.
And I became like a lion to them,
like a leopard I lurk in the way;
I attack them like a bereaved bear,
rend the enclosure of their heart,
and prey on them there like a lioness;
the beast of the field tears them in pieces.

188 After Kimhi, Ewald, and others. Wellhausen (' Geschichte
Israels,' vol. i. p. 91), contending against the notion that Hosea here
ridicules the practice of human sacrifices, of which there is no trace
in the Israelitish records of those times, well remarks, ' Menschenopfer
wttrde der Prophet schwerlich nur so beilaufig, mehr in Spott als in
der Entrilstung, tadeln; er wilrde das Emporende, Scheussliche der
Tat viel mehr hervorheben als das Widersinnige. Also bedeutet
0"IK ^rOl wol: Opfernde aus dem Genus Mensch.'

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 161
It destroys thee, 0 Israel,
that thou art against me, thy help. "*
(10) Where is thy king then,
that he may help thee in all thy cities?
where are thy governors, about whom thou saidst,
" Give me a king and princes"?
I give thee kings in my anger,
and take them away in my wrath.
' Ephraim's guilt is bound up,
his sin is stored away.
A mother's throes have come for him,
but he is an unwise son:
at the time, he appears not
where babes break through.
From the power of hell shall I ransom them?
from death redeem them?
Where are thy plagues, 0 death?
where is thy havoc, 0 hell?
regret shall be hid from my eyes.
(15) Though, among the brethren, he130 grow luxuriantly,
there comes the east-blast —
Jehovah's wind,
rising from the desert —
and his fountain parches away,
his spring dries up.

129 that . . help] Heb. "pty3 vj "O, instead of which
Schorr (' HeTialuc,' x. 94) reads "|1TJ?3 "'O "O, for who is thy help?
Cf. the following, 'Where is thy king then?'
130 he] Ephraim, a name played upon in the following verb (of the
original).

162 THE HISTORICAL POETRY
'That one131 robs the treasury
of all precious things. (XIV. [XIII.])
(1 [16]) Samaria shall atone,
for she has rebelled against her God.
By the sword they shall fall,
their infants shall be dashed to pieces,
their pregnant women ripped up.' 132
(xrv.)
(2 [1]) Beturn, 0 Israel,
to Jehovah, thy God:
thou hast stumbled through thy guilt.
Take words with you,
and turn to Jehovah;
say to him,
'Forgive all guilt,
and accept the good;
we will pay, as if with bullocks, with our lips. '
Assyria cannot save us,
steeds we will not mount,
nor say " our God " to the work of our hands-
while with thee the orphan finds compassion.'—
(5 [4]) 'I will heal their defection,

131 That east-blast — that is, the foe from the east, the Assyrian.
138 This is predicted, perhaps, as a retribution for atrocities com
mitted by King Menahem, and related in the same words (II. Kings
xv. 16). There seems, in fact, to be a verbal allusion to m'na'hem in
nd'ham (verse 14 of the preceding chapter in our book), and there is,
perhaps, another in ben a'him (verse 15), replacing min a'him.
133 The substitution of i"iDa for D"HD, after the Septuagint,
changes the rendering into we will pay of the fruit of our lips.

OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS. 163
will love them from generosity —
for my anger has turned away from him.
I will be as dew to Israel:
he shall bloom as the lily,
and strike his roots as Lebanon;
his shoots shall spread,
and his beauty be like the olive-tree's,
and his fragrance like Lebanon's.'
Once more they who dwell in his134 shade
will call corn to life,
will bloom like a vine
renowned like the wine of Lebanon.
Ephraim: ' What care I for idols any more?' —
' I answer, I look at him:
I am like a verdant cypress —
in me thy fruit is found.' —
(10 [9]) Who is wise, to understand all this?
who intelligent, to discern it all?
Yea, Jehovah's ways are straight;
in them the righteous walk,
and the rebellious stumble.135
134 his] God's, who has spoken.
135 The last lines axe an epilogue to the whole book.

NOTES.

A.
(See above, p. 10.)
Concerning the occurrence of Greek words in Can
ticles the following from Graetz's ' Schir ha-Schirim '
(p. 54) is worth quoting : ' Zum grossten Verdruss der
Ausleger, welche das H. L. alt machen, kommt darin das
Wort ll'HDK vor, und die griechische Version giebt es mit
cpopelov Sanfte, Tragsessel, Tragbett wieder.
Der Kirchenvater Hierohymus, obwohl kein besonders
philologisch geschulter Exeget, erkannte ebenfalls in ll'HDK
das griechische <popsiov. In der neuhebr. Literatur wird
) YHDK ohne weiteres als Sanfte gebraucht. . . . H a r t-
mann bezeichnet daher dieses Wort als Merkmal der
Jugend des H. L. . . . : " Was liegt Unwahrscheinliches
darin, dass wahrend der selucidischen Periode, in welche
das H. L. fruhestens gesetzt werden kann, das Wort
rpopsiov, womit die Juden zuerst in Syrien bekannt wur-
den, . . . in die hebr. Sprache eingebiirgert wurde ?"
Magnus erkannte ebenfalls den griechischen Ursprung
des Wortes 1VHDK an, nur meinte er (S. 156), es konnte
erst spater fiir ein hebraisches substituirt worden sein.'
Even Delitzsch, who labors hard, and as unsatisfacto
rily as Ewald, Hitzig, and others did before him, to find
a non -Greek derivation for appiryon, cannot suppress
these remarks : ' The sound of the word, the connection,
and the description led the Greek translators the (LXX.,

166 NOTES.
Venet., and perhaps also others) to render lii"iDK by
cpopeiov, litter, palanquin (Vulg. ferculum). The ap
piryon here described has a silver pedestal and purple
cushion — just as we read in Athenseus v. 13 . . . that
the philosopher and tyrant Athenion showed himself " on
a silver-legged cpopeiov, with purple coverlet." .
The Mishna, Sota ix. 14, uses appirydn in the sense of
phoreion: "In the last war (that of Hadrian) it was de
creed that a bride should not pass through the town in an
appiryon." ... In the Midrash also — Bammidbar
rabba, c. 12, and elsewhere — the appiryon of the passage
before us is taken in all sorts of allegorical significations, in
most of which the identity of the word with cpopeiov is
supposed.' He also adds: 'While Schlotten is inclined to
take appiryon, in the sense of a litter, as a word borrowed
from the Greek, . . . Gesen. in his Thes. seeks to
derive it, thus understood, from n")9i ctto ferri, currere;
but this signification of the verb is imaginary.' (On Cant.
iii. 9; Easton's translation.) But to Delitzsch — as it was
to Ewald — ' a Greek word in the Song is in itself so im
probable ' that he supposed appiryon to be * an originally
Semitic word, which the Greek language adopted at the
time when the Oriental and GrEeco-Koman customs began
to be amalgamated.' It is, however, a very strange philo
logical proceeding to derive a Greek word with the plainest
of Greek derivations (cpopeiov, portable chair, litter, from
cpipGD, to carry) from a Biblical entaB, Xey6p.evov, for
which a plausible derivation from a Semitic root is vainly
sought. In the same way we might derive sv^icpoavia
from sumponydh in Dan. iii. 5. And to find 'a Greek
word in the Song improbable ' requires a faith in the an-

NOTES. 167
tiquity of the book not to be shaken by linguistic evi
dence. The word kopher, which occurs twice in the Song
(i. 14, iv. 13) and nowhere else in the Bible, Delitzsch
himself identifies with ntntpoi, a shrub 'abundant in
Cyprus' (Passow s. v.), and though the island of Cyprus
may have received its name from its cypress trees, and the
cypress its own from a Semitic word identical with Heb.
gopher (see Vanicek, ' Fremdworter im Griechischen und
Lateinisehen,' p. 29), the name of the shrub in Greek is
evidently derived from the name of the island, while in
Hebrew it, too, is without a plausible Semitic derivation.
Graetz is probably right also in regard to mezeg (Cant.
vii. 3), which he derives from jxi6yoo ; and if the Hebrew
verb mdsakh, as in -Qty *TEC>b (Is. v. 22), has the meaning
of mixing, which he denies, the use in Canticles of mezeg
(as it is used in post-Biblical Hebrew), instead of mesekh,
is only another proof that the book is a product of a time in
which Greek words of similar sound, and perhaps kindred
origin, began to be substituted for older, purely vernacular
terms. Graetz's conjecture as to 00131 ~|"0 CHIi CJJ C1D3
(Cant. iv. 13, 14), where he substitutes the post-Biblical
C~m (= poSa, JEol. fipoSa, roses) for D"H13, nards, be
cause the poet would not have repeated the word nard, is
even by Delitzsch acknowledged to be 'beautiful,' though
he feels bound to add, 'but for us, who believe the poem
to be Solomonic, it is inconsistent with the history of
roses.' Those who are not fettered by such a belief will
find it strikingly correct. A perhaps unnecessary support
for it can also be found in the Talmud, 'Niddah' 8a,
where v'rdd (or vdrdd) and kopher (poSov and Kvnpoi,
which remind us of 'Podoi and KvTtpoi) appear connected

168 NOTES.
as Graetz's emendation connects them in the Song. Of
course, the Hebrews might have received their name for
rose more or less directly from the Iranians, from whom
the Greeks received both their rose and its name (Vanicek,
I. c, p. 45); but the 'history of roses,' the name of which
occurs nowhere else in the Old Testament; — the Authorized
Version's ' rose ' is incorrect — the frequent use of v'rdd in
the Talmud; and the form of this word itself are sufficient
evidence of a very late incorporation of the term. That
Graetz easily recognized in talpiyyoth (Cant. iv. 4) a non-
Hebrew word is but natural, but that he did not discover
in it an imitation of the Greek rponaia, trophies, which
the context so obviously shows it to be, is surprising. We
read of ' a tower of David, built for talpiyyoth,7 on which
are hung ' the shields of the gibborim': no other word will
answer here to talpiyyoth so well as rponala, both in
sound and meaning. And there is apparently in the verse
an allusion to ' the golden shields ' of Hadadezer's officers
which ' David brought to Jerusalem ' (II. Sam. viii. 7) —
trophies won by his famous gibborim. Whether in giving
the Greek word a Semitic form the Hebrews thought of
making it a compound implying tdldh, to hang up, and
piyyoth, edges, in the sense of 'hereb piyyoth, a two-edged
sword (Prov. v. 4), may be left undecided. (Cf., however,
Ezek. xxvii. 10, 11.) That the r sound was changed into
I cannot surprise us, if we compare the Talmudical
marg'lithd with fiapyaphtj?, Talm. palhedrin and par-
hedrin with napedpoi, Talm. 'hard'lith with xaP^9ai
Lat. lilium with Xeipiov — not to speak of Heb. mazzdroth
and mazzdloth, Heb. sharsh'rdh and Chald. sharsh'lah,
Heb. almdndh and Chald. arm'ld, or similar interchanges

NOTES. 169
of the liquids in Semitic tongues. And that the Hebrews
changed into n not only the 5 of the Greeks (as Geiger
asserts in his ' Lehrbuch zur Sprache der Mischnah,' p.
20), but also their r, is sufficiently proved by pirODD (for
cpaXr-qpiov) in Dan. iii. 5, 7, 15. It is, perhaps, needless
to add that the Greek word for trophy is as genuinely
Hellenic as the Greek word for symphony, and can as
little as the latter be derived from a word in the Old
Testament. — Of course, a few derivations from the Greek
of words in Canticles would not sufficiently support each
other, if there were no other proofs to convince us that
the book is a product of a period as late as the time of
the Seleucidse and Ptolemies. Such proofs, however, have
been accumulated by Graetz, after A. T. Hartmann, in the
utmost abundance. In fact, it requires little more than
the unprejudiced reading of the first chapter of the
Song (with its wnwn "OriDlttM. "6tt* ,mo, hdW, -y
l^oritt'. njnn no^x for njnn now. n;tpj?,* n;jn. ctnn,
CTnlO. etc. , etc. ) to convince us that we have before us a
poet whose diction reflects the transition from pure Old
*Like n^JHi msy is an irregular fern, derivative, designating
the female ^qijj, vulture (or bird of prey, generally; here perhaps
eagle, like afro?, poet. atero'S). Canticles is particularly fond
of such feminines; cf. the immediately following HDD. mare, and
JT12. she-kid, which, like n^S. she-gazelle (iv 5, vii. 4), and
HIKOS ("- 1> *"• 5)> appear in no other book. The sense thus ob
tained for verse 7 is excellent: The shepherdess begs her friend to
tell her where he feeds, where his flock rests at noon : why, in
searching for him, should she hover about the flocks of his com
panions, like a she-vulture hovering above feeding lambs, and
craving to descend upon one, unobserved by the shepherds?

170

NOTES.

Hebrew to the language of the Mishnah almost as strongly
as it is reflected in the poorer prose of the author of
Ecclesiastes, ' one of the most recent of the books of the
0. T.' even according to Delitzsch ('Introduction' to his
' Ecclesiastes '). It is surely not necessary to adopt all of
Graetz's emendations and historico-critical conjectures —
ranging through various degrees of plausibility — to find
his principal conclusion firmly established.

B.
(See p. 11.)
The following is the chronology of the successors of
Solomon according to Oppert:

Kings of Judah.
978 Rehoboam I.
960 Abijah.
958 Asa.

Kings of Israel.
977 Jeroboam.

956 Nadab.
955 Baasha.
932 Elah.
931 Omri with Tibni.
927 Omri alone.
920 Ahab.

917 Jehoshaphat.

900 Ahaziah.
899 Joram.
895 Jehoshaphat with Jehoram.
892 Jehoram alone.
888 Ahaziah.

NOTES.

171

Kings of Judah,
887 Athaliah.
881 Joash.

840 Amaziah.
811 Uzziah.

758 Jotham.
743 Ahaz.

727 Hezekiah.

Kings of Israel.
887 Jehu.
859 Jehoahaz.
842 Joash.
825 Jeroboam II.
798-787 Foreign domination.
787 Jeroboam again.
773 Zachariah.
772 Shallum.
" Menahem I.
762 Pekahiah.
759 Pekah.

742 Menahem II.
733 Pekah again.
730 Hoshea.
721 Capture of Samaria.

698 Manasseh.
642 Arnon.
640 Josiah.
609 Jehoahaz.
608 Jehoiakim.
598 Jehoiachin.
" Zedekiah.
587 Destruction of Jerusalem.
This list, though a work of recent date (first published
in the Annates de philosophic chretienne of 1876), and of a

172 NOTES.
famous Assyriologist, differs but little from the correspond
ing chronologies of Clinton ('Fasti Hellenici,' 1824r-1834)
and Zunz (' Zeittafel ' to his Bible, 1837), published before
Assyriology began to affect Biblical criticism. Some of
the more interesting dates according to these scholars may
be compared: Jeroboam I., 976 (Clinton), 978 (Zunz);
Ahab, 919 (C), 920 (Z.); Jehu, 883 (O), 885 (Z.); Jero
boam IL, 823 (O), 824 (Z.); Zachariah, after an inter
regnum, 771 (O), 772 (Z.); Shallum, 770 (C), 772 (Z.);
Menahem, 770 (O), 772 (Z.); Pekahiah, 759 (C), 760 (Z.);
Pekah, 757 (C), 758 (Z.); Hoshea, after an interregnum,
730 (C), 729 (Z.); capture of Samaria, 721 (C), 720 (Z.);
Manasseh, 697 (C), 696 (Z.); Zedekiah, 598 (O), 597 (Z.);
destruction of Jerusalem, 587 (C), 586 (Z.). It is, how
ever, a conjecture of his own, of earlier date than the
table given above, which makes it possible for Oppert to
save the chronology of the Bible without disregarding the
records of the Assyrian monuments. That conjecture
supposes a break in the Assyrian 'Canon of Eponyms,'
a list corresponding to the lists of eponymal archons in
Athens, and in parts containing a mention of the principal
events which took place during the annual terms of the
eponyms. Other Assyriologists, less anxious to harmonize
the Scriptural statements with the results obtained from
the decipherment of cuneiform inscriptions, reject the
former as founded on less authentic tradition. Foremost
among the upholders of the monumental dates against the
texts of I. and II. Kings is Schrader, who exhibits the
discrepancies between parts of the Assyrian and Hebrew
chronologies in the following table (' Die Keilinschriften
und das Alte Testament,' 1872, p. 299), here abridged:

NOTES. 173
On the monuments. In the Bible
Ahab, 854 (at the battle of Qarqar). 918-896 (reign).
Jehu, 842 (pays tribute). 884-857 "
Azariah (Uzziah), 745-739 (in conflict
with Tiglath-Pileser). 809-759 "
Menahem, 738 (pays tribute). 771-761 "
Pekah, 734 (vanquished by Tiglath-
Pileser). 758-738 "
Hezekiah, 701 (threatened by Sen- 714 (Sennacherib's
nacherib's invasion). .invasion).
George Smith, in his 'Assyrian Eponym Canon' (p.
153), says: ' The first point of contact in the period of
the canon, between the Assyrian and Hebrew histories,
occurs in the eponymy of Dayan-assur, b.c. 854, when the
annals of Shalmaneser mention a prince named Ahab,
. . . and as the date of this event is more than forty
years after the date of the death of Ahab king of Israel,
according to the Bible chronology, this has given rise to
several attempts to adjust the two histories so as to make
them agree. One of the first in the field in this direction
was Professor Oppert, who holds the opinion that there is
a break of forty-seven years in the eponym canon, between
the eponym Nergal-nazir, B.C. 746, and the accession of
Tiglath-Pileser, which he lowers to B.C. 744. He thus
lowers all the later Assyrian dates one year, and raises the
earlier ones forty-six years, identifying the eclipse in the
eponymy of Esdusarabe, B.C. 763, with one which hap
pened B.C. 809. ... I have given my reasons for not
agreeing with this theory, and for similar reasons I have
objected to the proposed gaps in the canon.' And after

174

NOTES.

expressing his faith in the accuracy both of the Assyrian
canon and the Biblical chronology of the successors of
Solomon, which prevents him from following either Oppert
and Haigh (1871), who variously alter the Assyrian dates,
or Ernst von Bunsen (1874) and Professor Brandes (1874),
who reduce the Biblical ones by over forty years, he adds:
' I would suggest, instead of these chronological altera
tions, that some of the Biblical names in the Assyrian
annals on which they are based either do not refer to the
kings supposed, or are errors on the part of the Assyrians.
If we allow that the Ahab and Jehu mentioned in the
Assyrian records may not be the Ahab and Jehu of the
Bible, we are not under the necessity of altering the
chronology of either nation in order to make the Assyrian
notices fit the time of the Hebrew monarchs.' He then
gives his own views of the dates of the accession of the
Hebrew kings according to the Bible in a table 'which
varies very little from the chronology of Ussher,' and of
which the following embraces the most important points:

Judah.

Israel.

981 Rehoboam,

Jeroboam.

921 .

Ahab.

899 .

Ahaziah.

885 Athaliah,

Jehu.

824 .

Jeroboam.

773 .

Zachariah

772 .

Menahem.

761 .

Pekahiah.

759 .

Pekah.

729 .

Hoshea.

726 Hezekiah.

720 .

Capture o

NOTES. 175
An entirely new reconstruction of the chronology of the
Bible, as well as of that of Assyria and Egypt, has been
attempted, with an immense display of research, by Johann
Raska (' Die Chronologie der Bibel im Einklange mit der
Zeitrechnung der Egypter und Assyrier,' 1878). He en
deavors to harmonize the Bible with the monuments by
arduous computations and bold rectifications, and obtains
dates as startling as the following: Jeroboam I., 990; Ahab,
934; Jehu, 895; Jeroboam II. , 842; Hezekiah, 746; Ma-
nasseh, 717 — with the corresponding changes in the dates
of the Shalmanesers, Tiglath-Pileser, Sargon, Sennacherib,
etc. Schrader, followed by Duncker, Sayce, Maspero, and
others, and attacked by Gutschmid (most heavily in ' Neue
Beitrage zur Geschichte des alten Orients,' 1876) and by
Wellhausen, has defended his Assyriological faith, against
the authority of the texts of the Bible as we have them, in
an extensive work, ' Kedinschriften und Geschichtsfor-
schung' (1878). In reviewing this book in the 'Zeitschrift
der Deutschen Morgenlandischen Gesellschaft ' (1879),
JNoldeke makes this cautious remark respecting the main
points which interest us here: ' Dass Konig Ahab von Israel
auf einer assyrischen Inschrift vorkommt, macht Schrader
jetzt ziemlich wahrscheinlich. Doch bleibt immer noch
bedenklich, 1) dass auch nach seinen Erorterungen die Le-
sungdes ersten Zeichens von Sir-a-la-ai (=1?K1t£'"1) nicht
ganz sicher ist, 2) dass eben der Konig, welcher ein Sohn
des Omri ist, nicht als solcher bezeichnet ware, wohl aber
Jehu, welcher gerade durch eine hochst blutige Um-
walzung Omri's Haus gesturzt hatte. Und dass Konig
Azarja von Juda inschriftlich beglaubigt ware, will mir
auch jetzt noch nicht einleuchten; Wellhausen's und

176 NOTES.
Gutschmid's Einwiirfe sind von Schrader nicht wirklich
widerlegt. ' Decades may still elapse before a more posi
tive decision in these matters will be agreed upon by
Assyriologists and by Biblical critics uninitiated into the
cuneiform mysteries. For our purposes here it is not
needed. (Cf. above, p. 87 et seq.)
C.
(See p. 21.)
In the same narrative in I. Kings occurs also ,3a
(k'thib) for K"DD (xxi. 21: "p^K "OD ^T)), which is also
to be found in II. Sam. v. 2 (^KIW nK "Onm), Jer. xix.
15 (Tyn ^K "On "Oin), and Jer. xxxix. 16 (p« "'On "OUn
"HOl), always in k'thib form. It is worth noticing that in
each of these cases the x is dropped before another k; in #b
Win ^DK (also k'thib, I. Kings xxi. 29) it is before a T\. In
mirTTIN ^nn )yzb (Jer. xxxii. 35) and njpH r?0 (Ezek.
xii. 8) the case is similar; ^ntonn (Gen. xx. 6) happens to
correspond to -p ¦'OK in Mic. i. 15. DJDT lO^l (I. Kings
xii. 12) may be a clerical error, like which there are two
others in the same chapter (3, 21).— Compare such regular
forms as ink, IPN- or bmi; and the exceptional cniDO
(for Q^llDKn- Eccl. iv. 14) and cnin (for D^INDl, H-
Chr. xxii. 5). D.
(See p. 47.)
The following is a part of Knobel's remarks in his
introduction to Is. xv., xvi. (including a few words of his
editor, Diestel): 'Dass der Epilog 16, 13. 14., worin fast
jedes Wort jesajanischer Sprachgebrauch ist, von Jesaia

NOTES. 177
herriihre, die voranstehende Prophetie 15-16, 12. aber
einem altern Propheten angehore, ist von den meisten
neueren Exegeten richtig angenommen worden (Gesen. de
Wette, Rosenm. Hits. Maur. Etc. Umlr. Meier, Cheyne),
wogegen man friiher die Aechtheit unangetastet liess, zum
Theil auch noch in der neuern Zeit (Eichh. Credner,
Hdwk. Drechsl. Del.). Fur die Unachtheit
entscheidet: a) die weichherzige Theilnahme gegen ein
sonst verhasstes auswartiges Volk . . . , die man bei
Jesaia nicht findet, obschon dieser kein Fanatiker ist; b)
eine Anzahl eigenthiimlicher, zum Theil seltsamer Ge-
danken und Wendungen, welche ohne Parallelen sind,
z. B. dass man auf der Strasse Trauerkleider anzieht,
Geschrei das Land umkreiset, Sibma's Weinstock sich
fiber ganze Gebiete erstreckt, seine Ranken berauschen,
das Herz urn Moab schreit und wie die Cither rauschet,
die Thranen des Verf. Hesbon und Eleale benetzen u. a.
. . . ; c) eine Anzahl ahnlicher beispielloser Phrasen
und Ausdrricke z. B. "003 "il"1 heftig weinen, T)py) 1JHJ7
ein Geschrei erregen, Pinion C^n Wasser sind Wiisten,
COiyn b~l Bach der Ebenen, TOJ? K"On Rath bringen,
Tb"bQ T)Vy Entscheidung machen, b)i P^E* Schatten setzen,
^03 ITn tier Schlachtruf fdllt . . . ; d) eine Anzahl
Worter und Formen, Bedeutungen und Beziehungen,
welche ebenfalls nur dem Verf. eigen sind, z. B. K3
stolz, n^lpyn OH am Flusse, ni|P9 Kostbarkeit, iTn ein
Ruf nur noch bei Jer., plDDii additamenta, yn Bedriicker,
Dni Niedertreter d. i. Unterdriicker, TliS^ sich muhen
vom Beten, ijjy erregen, das Pi. TJl?T1^ ¦ • • > wozu
noch die Haufung des 15 denn . . . und ]0 by darum
. . . kommt. Kurz, das Stuck ist durch und durch

178 NOTES.
so eigenthumlich, dass nichts weiter im A. T. von dem-
selben Verf. herruhren kann. Bestatigt wird dies Alles
noch e) durch die Haltung der Reden im Ganzen. Die
Darstellung ist ziemlich ungelenk, unbeholfen und schwer-
fiillig; sie ermangelt eines kraftigen Schwunges und
raschen, gefalligen Flusses; die Aufzahlung der Orts-
namen ist trocken und nicht mit 10, 28 ff. zu vergleichen-
ihr ganzer Character ist alterthumlich.' E.
(See p. 63.)
Kik is coupled by Isaiah (xxii. 6) with Elam, or Susiana.
The original home of the Syrians (Aram) according to
Amos (ix. 7), it was also, as stated in II. Kings xvi. 9, the
land to which Tiglath-Pileser removed the people of
Damascus. ' These notices, and the word itself,' says
George Rawlinson (Smith's 'Dictionary of the Bible,'
s. v.), * are all the data we possess for determining the site.
A variety of conjectures have been offered on this point,
grounded on some similarity of name. Rennell suggested
ATwrdistan . . . ; Vitringa, Carine, a town of Media;
Bochart . . . , Cur ena or Cwrna, likewise in Media.
But the common opinion among recent commentators has
been that a tract on the river Kur or Cyrus (Kvpoi) is
intended. This is the view of Rosenmuller, Michaelis,
and Gesenius. Winer sensibly remarks that the tract to
which these writers refer "never belonged to Assyria,"
and so cannot possibly have been the country whereto
Tiglath-Pileser transported his captives.' Ewald, Fiirst,
and Delitzsch share the common opinion; the last-named

NOTES. I79
(on Is. xxii. 6) does it, however, with some reserve, re
marking, ' Jedoch hat -\y vorn k und im Inlaut i, wahrend
jener (mit dem Araxes sich vereinigende und ins caspische
Meer miindende) Fluss Kur lautet und im Persischen
(entspr. dem Armen. und Altpers., wo Kuru = Kvpos) mit
*s geschrieben wird.' Schrader (in Riehm's ' Handworter-
buch des Biblischen Altertums,' s. v.) shares both this and
Winer's objection to the common identification: It cannot
be proved that the region on the Kur in Georgia belonged
to the dominion of Tiglath-Pileser II. and Sennacherib.
' Dazu ist der lautliche Wechsel von Kir und (al) Kurru
(q und k) bedenklich.' He adds that the parallel Elam
and Media in Is. xxi. 2, compared with Elam and Kir
in Is. xxii. 6, most naturally suggests a Median, or even
a Babylonian, territory; he knows, however, no satisfac
tory identification. Nor does he, in ' Die Keihnschrif ten
nnd das Alte Testament,' make any attempt to explain
the Biblical Kir (qir) by comparing' similarly sounding
names in the Assyrian inscriptions. What prevents him
from doing it is probably the non-interchangeability
of q and k in Semitic words. This is, however, far from
being absolute. ' Caph,' says Gesenius (' Thesaurus,' s. v.),
' permutatur . . . maxime cum p ;' he compares
Heb. koba1, with qoba', ddkhakh with ddqaq, rdkhakh with
rdqaq, kdphal with Chald. qappel, karsem with Chald.
qarsem, etc., and refers to ' alia multa in linguis cognatis.'
Schrader himself identifies or compares Assyrian kappi
with qappi ('Die Hollenfahrt der Istar,' pp. 131,139),
kuradi with qardu, qitri with kitirri (Heb. kether), kasritu
with qasritu (Heb. qesher), and Assyr. kirib, etc., with Heb.
qerel ('Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament,' pp.

180 NOTES.
350, 351, 366). Sayce ('Lectures upon the Assyrian Lan
guage,' pp. 19, 146) shows that in borrowing Turanian
words, and subjecting them to such modifications as were
needed to make them ' conform to the structure and gram
mar of the Semitic tongues,' the Assyrians changed the
'Accadian' 'muk' (muq) into ' muccu' (mukku); and
that ' urik ' (uriq, Heb. ydrdk) appears as the ' Accadian '
equivalent of the Assyrian ' urcitu ' (urkitu). Such being
the relation between k and q in the Assyrian and other
Semitic languages, it appears very probable that the Biblical
Kir (qir) corresponds to the Kir 'hi or the Kirruri of the
Assyrian inscriptions — names, perhaps, altered from Tura
nian ones, beginning with Qir — or to both, if those neigh
boring countries were ethnically connected. In regard to
their location, Schrader says, speaking of Assurnazirpal
(' Keilinschriften und Geschichtsforschung,' p. 146) :
'Von Kirruri aus zieht er in das Land Kirchi . . .
Aus der Monolithinschrift desselben Konigs col. Ill, 96 ff.
ergiebt sich .... dass dasselbe nach dem Euphrat
zu belegen war, dass dasselbe "dem Lande Chatti" d. i.
Syrien gegeniiber lag, und dass dasselbe auch nicht allzu-
weit von dem bekannten Amidi (Diarbekr) am oberen
Tigris muss zu suchen sein. ... Da ... die
Grenze von Kirchi im Westen durch die Euphratge-
birge . . . hinlanglich finirt ist, die ostliche Grenze
uns bis nach Kirruri (am Urmiasee . . . ) weist,
so werden wir das Gebiet von Kirchi zuversichtlich
im Siiden des Arsanias, in dem gebirgigen Landstrich
von den Quellen des Tigris in der Richtung nach dem
Urmiasee zu bis zum oberen Zab hin . . . zu suchen
haben.' Kir'hi, ' opposite Syria,' may properly be deemed

NOTES. 181
the Kir from which the Syrians sprang, while the connec
tion of Kirruri, on the border of Media, with Elam appears
equally natural; if the Hebrew name covers both, the har
mony between the various Biblical references to Kir is
perfect. For Kir 'hi speaks also the connection of qir with
shoa' in Is. xxii. 5, in the former of which words already
Ewald recognized the Kir of the following verse, and in
the latter a people mentioned by Ezekiel (xxiii. 23) in
connection with the Chaldees and Assyrians, and with
p'qod and qoa' (^0 JJlpl JWI TlpD ClttO ^01 ^00 ^0
CP1K HtfK "U3 ; Sept. : viovS BafivXdovoS Hal navrai
tov? XaXSaiov?, 4>axovK nai 2ove xai 'Txove, noil
navrai viovS 'Affffvpiaav pier' avrdbv). Of these, p'qod
is proved to be a geographical designation by the words
yosh'be p'qod, inhabitants of P'qod, in Jer. 1. 21. This
' n. p. of the whole land of Chaldea or a part of it,' is here, as
Fiirst properly remarks (s. v.), selected to form an assonance
with pdqad and p'qudddh, designating punishment, in
verses 18, 27, 31 of the same chapter.' Fiirst also remarks
that in the Talmud a Babylonian city N'har-P'qod is
mentioned, which contained a high -school in Talmudic
times. All the curious philology, however, which has
been expended by other expounders on converting shoa',
p'qod, and qoa' (as well as the qir of Is. xxii. 5) into
common nouns ought to vanish in the light of the Assyrian
inscriptions, which show us that among the conquests oi
the Assyrian kings were territories called Su'hi (or Shua),
Puqud, and Qui (or Qaui). The location of the first-named
land is clear from the great inscription of Assurnazirpal,
a portion of which George Smith (' History of Babylonia,'
edited by Sayce, p. 101) epitomizes thus: 'When in B.C.

182 NOTES.
879 Assur-nazir-pal determined to attack the Suhi or
Shuites, and Sadadu, prince of Shua, sent to Babylon for
aid, ... a Babylonian force marched to the aid of
the Shuites, who lived along the river Euphrates, below its
junction with the Khabur.' Puqud is repeatedly spoken
of in the inscriptions of Tiglath-Pileser II. in connection
with Aramean tribes living to the south-east of that junc
tion, and Qui appears again and again side by side with
Gargamis (Carchemish), and with Syrian localities north
west of the mouth of the Khabur, as far as the Amanus.
(See Schrader, 1. c, pp. 108-113, and 121, 122, 202, 236
et seq.)Concerning Amos's prediction as to the deportation of
the Syrians to Kir, Kuenen remarks ('The Prophets and
Prophecy in Israel,' translated by Milroy, pp. 283-285 — a
work not often enough, perhaps, referred to in this volume) :
' The writer of Kings tells us that Tiglath-Pileser heark
ened to the request of Ahaz, " went up against Damascus,
subdued it, and carried it (i. e., carried the inhabitants) to
Kir, and put Rezin to death." Not only the captivity of
the Damascenes, but the district into which the Assyrian
transported them, is thus so long before pointed out by
the prophet. . . . Nevertheless we see again in this
case also how easily we may allow ourselves to be deceived
by appearances. For it is plain that Amos really intended
something else than to point out the place in which the
Arameans would have to settle. In the last page of his
book we find a sentence which is evidently connected with
his prophecy against Damascus. He is there combating
the Israelites who, on the fact of Yahveh having redeemed
them from Egypt, built the hope that he would perma-

NOTES. 183
nently help them, and permit them to continue in the land
which he had bestowed upon them. " Are ye not as the
sons of the Cushites unto me? Have I not brought up the
sons of Israel out of Egypt, and (i.e., but likewise) the
Philistines out of Caphtor, and the Arameans out of
Kir?" When, therefore, the deportation of the Arameans
to Kir is announced in the prophecy previously discussed,
the meaning of this phrase is, in other words: their rule
in the country which they at present possess shall come to
an end; they shall return to the land from which they had
originally come. In the mind of Amos, therefore, Kir is
something different from the accidental destination of the
Aramean prisoners; their deportation thither is, according
to him, determined by their previous history. . . .
Further, if the Arameans actually came from Kir, in that
case their transportation thither could no longer be re
garded as a mere arbitrary procedure on the part of
Tiglath-Pileser; the Assyrian monarch had then a specific
reason for transferring them to Kir, and nowhere else.
. . . But enough has not yet been said. It is, to say
the least, uncertain whether the inhabitants of Damascus
were actually transported to Kir. The mention, in the
narrative which I have just now quoted from the second
book of Kings, of the place to which the Damascenes were
carried away, so far from being necessary, is in some
degree perplexing. Nobody would imagine that anything
was wanting though the passage ran thus: "And he
(Tiglath-Pileser) went up against Damascus, and took and
depopulated it, and put Rezin to death." The question
thus arises whether the single word Kirah (to Kir) was
originally a marginal note, taken from Amos i. 5, and

184 NOTES.
afterward inserted in the text. I would not, however,
have proposed this question, obvious as it really is, if the
word referred to had not been wanting in the Greek ver
sion of the Old Testament, at least in the oldest and best
manuscripts. Can this omission be regarded as accidental ?
Is it not rather highly probable that this version has pre
served to us the most ancient reading ? ' ' The conjecture
of Rowland Williams,' Kuenen adds, 'that "to Kir," in
Amos i. 5, is an addition made by a later editor of the
prophecies of Amos, in conformity with the result, lacks
the support which my supposition derives from the Greek
text of 2 Kings xvi. 9, and does not do justice to Amos
ix. 7.' F.
(See p. 14.)
The original sentence, niOn PKDO jlinttO COtt^n
vny ptr>moi (= cowm nan pndo parco c^oi^n
1£>1J? PKOO pltfniO), has its parallels in the following :
[]1K P^ =] ])i6 nTF bK P"01 Am. v. 5 (cf. Hos. iv. 15,
v. 8, x. 5); [T^np ]yvb) -] Tibnni ^dk -pixx -"ow ]ynb
-\b ctonx (is- xiviii. 9); nn^oi nwn copco pip
op^n i:t> [nzbi nnni=] is. ixi. 7); ct: ikuo nbm bi
o^o inTi ct: titr: iwx] cnn wi nmo: (Ezra x. 44);
im1 )b pob lonp1 idn bmw ^0 Tip W nmip ^01
Vn"1 )b ITip PN [2-y 1WKJ ttf'Xl (Num. v. 9, 10);
idid inT D^rb nix haw] (Prov. x. 17); [ynTl con ]o
H1W ynitf i6 yb) OK IDin (Prov. xiii. 1). In Gen. iv. 22
^1101 Ptt>n: Win ^0 W®b is not elliptical, but a phrase
corrupted by the accidental omission of the word "OK>
which we find in the corresponding two sentences (verses
20, 21).

NOTES. 185
C.
(See p. 82.)
Amos's P10P (v. 26), a ana% \ey6fisvov, can most
plainly be derived from *pD. Of the root of this stem,
"TO, Muhlau and Volck's Gesenius says, ' Diese Wz. gehort
zu einer grossen Familie verwandter Wzz., . . . welche
sammtlich die G.B. des Stechens, Schneidens, Spaltens
u. s. w. haben.' Among the derivations from this large
group of roots are Arab shagg, to split; Heb. PJto, Chald.
TOD, Arab, sikkin, knife; Heb. 1t>, Chald. KOQ, Arab.
shok, thorn, spine ; Heb. nott', pointed weapon, dart.
COO^n P10D would thus be, the carved image of your
king, or of your Moloch. The kindred P'Otl'a is generally
rendered image, thus: ' Ez. 8, 12: P'Otj'n "'111 Gemacher,
deren Wande mit Figuren bemalt sind, oder in welchen
Bilder aufgestellt sind, die zum Gegenstande abgottischer
Verehrung dienen; ' ' photon )0K 3 M. 26, 1, und pvofca
4 M. 33, 52 Steine mit abgottischen Figuren; ' ' Spr. 25,
11: P]CO P'i'OiJ'nO Onj Ty\BB goldene Aepf el mit silbernen
Figuren' (Gesenius). It also occurs in the sense of
imagination (Ps. lxxiii. 7, Prov. xviii. 11), and rroip and
"*)3W (however explained) have a clearly cognate meaning.
These meanings are, it seems, unnecessarily derived from
noitf in its secondary sense of seeing, gazing at, by Fiirst
and by Muhlau and Volck, who consider the primary
signification of that verb to be cutting. To derive seeing,
in these formations, from imaging, imagining, and image
and imaging from cutting, carving, appears to be a more
rational proceeding. Cf. Ger. lilden, Gebilde, Bild, Ein-
lildung, Einbildungskraft ; i*p_ (' Bildung,' 'Gebilde,'

186 NOTES.
'Bildwerk,' 'Gotzenstatue,' 'trop. das Sinnen, Dichten ' —
Gesenius — from "yp ('bilden, finger e'); and also K10
(' schneiden, zuschneiden . . . , dann bilden, zurecht-
machen, und daher schaffen, hervorbringen ' — Muhlau and
Volck). And as P13Q so the parallel iyg (the Chiun of the
Authorized Version) can be understood to signify image or
figure — a collective figure, or collection of figures, if the
pi. CO^n^a be correct. The 0\312 of Jer. vii. 18, xii v. 19,
like 1V0 from vq (113), Chald. ]13, to prepare, to fashion,
is perfectly analogous. These kavvdnim, made in honor of
the queen of heaven, were, it is true, formed out of dough
(Jer. vii. 18), but they were probably shaped to represent
her image (nO^ynb, Jer. xii v. 19; cf. COSJ?)- Kohler
('Der Segen Jacob's,' p. 14) conjectures that the words
CO^a^S and 0010, in the text of Amos before us, were
originally glosses explanatory of CO^n^K and |V0, respec
tively, and for evidence he appeals to the readings of the
Septuagint and the Syriac version, which differ from the
Hebrew text. He therefore translates, ' Ihr habt das Bild
Eures Konigs und die Gestalt Eures Gottes, die ihr Euch
verfertigt habt, getragen.' We can presume the explana
tion of 1V0 by 0010 to have been owing to the reading of
1VD as 1V3, corresponding to Kewdn, one of the Arabic
names for Saturn (Kaivdn also in Assyrian, according to
Oppert and Schrader). This name of Saturn, the wor
shipped star, is substituted in the Syriac version for our
IV?, and the Septuagint's equivalent, 'Paicpav, is believed
to be a corruption of Kaicpav, for ]V3. In both these ver
sions ' your king ' (' your melekh') has also easily been turned
into ' your Moloch.' The correctness of their explanations
is assumed in the Authorized Version, ll^o is also identi-

NOTES. 187
fied with the Arabic ('and Persian') Kewdn, or Saturn,
by Aben Ezra, and Rashi goes a step further, declaring
both P10D and ivo to be the names of idols. Kimhi com
pares ]V0 both with 0,:i3 and Kewdn, without deciding.
Gesenius, after following Aben Ezra in his ' Commentary
on Isaiah' (vol. ii. p. 344) and in his 'Lexicon' ('Name
einer Gottheit, . . . der Stern Saturn '), reversed his
decision in his ' Thesaurus ' (pp. 669, 670), expressing a
decided preference for rendering CO^n^ ]1"0 by statuam
(or statuas) idolojrum vestrorum (lyo from the pi'el of po
in the sense of erecting, and not of fashioning, which
seems to be implied in the 'imaginem idolorum vestro
rum ' of the Vulgate). Plop he renders, like nOD> by taber-
naculum. Ewald, Hitzig, and Keil also consider both
P10O and ]YO as appellatives, variously explaining them.
Kuenen, 'after long hesitation,' 'because the reading and
position of the following words are so exceedingly uncer
tain,' thinks he must give the preference to the identifica
tion of ]V0 with Kewdn, ' chiefly because it is recommended
by exegetic tradition' ('The Religion of Israel,' translated
by May, vol. i. p. 266). Fiirst is more positive in explain
ing the word in the same sense, and Schrader (in his article
' Chiun ' in Riehm's Bible Dictionary, and elsewhere) not
only unhesitatingly identifies ]TO with the Kaivan of the
Assyrians, but also P10D with their Sakkut. It is, how
ever, unfortunate for this combination that Sakkut, like
Kaivan, is an appellation for Saturn, while Amos says,
'YeborePlOD . . • and ypy . . .'

188 NOTES. H.
(See pp. 101, 102.)
The arguments in favor of the identification of Caphtor
with Crete, which was advocated, among others, by Hitzig,
Bertheau, Ewald, and Knobel, are strongly put forth by
Fiirst, and thus all but literally reproduced in the follow
ing : ' Kaphtor, the name of the island of Crete, which is
termed I-Khaftor [island or coastland of Kaphtor] in Jer.
xlvii. 4, the native land of a race of Philistines, the Kaph
torim. As a race named P'lishtim came out of Kasloa'h
[Gen. x. 14], so a race of Kaphtorim immigrated from
Crete, or Kaphtor, into the coast-territory of Palestine on
the Mediterranean Sea, reaching from Joppa to the bound
ary of Egypt (Am. ix. 7). Accordingly Scripture recog
nizes the immigration of two races of the Phihstines, from
two directions. The Kaphtorim destroyed the primitive
inhabitants, the 'Avvim, who dwelt in villages as far as
Gaza (Deut. ii. 23 ; I. Chr. i. 12). As the name K'rethi,
pi. K'rethim, meaning Cretan, Cretans, also appears for
the Philistines in I. Sam. xxx. 14, as well as in Zeph. ii. 5
and Ezek. xxv. 16 (where P'lishtim stands in the parallel
member of the sentence), if Kaphtor be not identified with
Crete (K'reth), we must still assume a third immigration.
On the other hand it must appear strange that the He
brews should have had two names (Kaphtor, K'reth) for
Crete. But since it cannot be doubted that the Cretans
(K'rethim) formed a principal race of the Philistine popu
lation in the south of Philistia (see Ezek., I. c, and Zeph.,
1. c, in the Septuagint), and that David's body-guard con
sisted of them under the name of hak-K'rethi (the Cre
tans), along with Philistines (hap-P'lethi, made from hap-

NOTES. 189
P'lishti for the sake of assonance to hak-K'rethi, II. Sam.
viii. 18) ; as the southernmost part of Philistia was called
because of this very race the southland of the K'rethi (I.
Sam. xxx. 14, where it is plain from xxx. 16 that Philis
tines are meant) ; as, according to an account in Tacitus
(' Hist.' v. 2), the inhabitants of Palestine (meaning Phi
listia, as he also identifies the Jews and Philistines) immi
grated into it from Crete ; and as the Philistine city of
Gaza, according to Stephanus Byzantinus (s. v.) was early
called Minoa, after Minos — the opinion already put forth
by Lakemacher, Calmet, and Rosenmuller that the island
Kaphtor, the home of the Philistines, can only be Crete,
ought to be retained. The Hyksos-race of the Kaphtorim
which emigrated from Egypt at a very early period and
went to Crete (Gen., I. c), gave the name Island of Kaph
tor to Crete, among the Hebrews ; Carian, Phoenician,
semi-Semitic barbarian peoples mentioned by classical
writers, the Eteocretes and Cydonians, who are said to
have inhabited the island before the Hellenes, may have
been the Egyptian immigrant Kaphtorim.' It is, how
ever, not unavoidably necessary to assume, with Fiirst, two
immigrations of Philistines : one from the land of the
Casluhim, according to Gen. x. 14, and another from the
island of Caphtor, according to Am. ix. 7, Deut. ii. 23,
and Jer. xlvii. 4 ; for the immigration of the Cretan Phi
listines, or Caphtorim, may have been indirect, through the
land of the Casluhim, which is now generally identified
with the Casiotis of Ptolemy, an arid district, named from
Mount Casius, between the Pelusiac mouth of the Nile and
the south-west extremity of Philistia. This hypothesis
may find some support in a tradition of the ancients thus

190 NOTES.
stated by Tacitus (I. c.) : ' Judeeos, Creta insula profugos,
novissima Libyae insedisse memorant.' There are also
writers who believe that in the text of Gen. x. 14 the words
' and the Casluhim, out of whom came the Philistines, and
the Caphtorim,' though literally so given also in I. Chr. i.
12, ought to be transposed into and the Casluhim, and the
Caphtorim, out of whom came the Philistines, in conformity
with the other texts referring to the origin of the last-
named people. — With the now generally abandoned identi
fication of the Casluhim with the Colchians, whom Herod
otus and other ancient writers considered a colony of the
Egyptians, the only support (outside of resemblance in
sound) of the rendering Cappadocia, which is that of all
the ancient versions for Kaphtor, is also lost. This simi
larity of names, which probably originated the rendering,
is insufficient to counterbalance the objection to the latter
arising from the term i, island or coast, attached to Caph-
tor in Jeremiah (I. c. ) ; for Cappadocia, even if we extend
its northern borders to the Euxine, could surely not appear
to the Hebrews as a maritime country. The identification
of Caphtor with Cyprus — also on account of the resem
blance of the names — is just as easily disproved by Chittim
being the common Biblical designation of that island.
Carpathus again, adjoining Crete, is too insignificant an
island to be deemed the Caphtor of the Hebrews, the
original home of the Philistines.
Of Ebers's extensive argument for identifying Caphtor
with the Delta of Egypt ('Aegypten und die Biicher
Mose's,' pp. 127-237), the following are some of the main
points : The tablet of Canopus shows that Kaft was the
Egyptian name for Phoenicia. The northern, or maritime,

NOTES. 191
part of the Delta was from times immemorial inhabited by
Phoenicians. That maritime district may be supposed to
have been called Ai-kaft, the coastland Kaft, or more
probably Kaft-ur, Great-Kaft, for ur in Egyptian means
great. The name Kaft was derived from the Phoenicians
themselves, who designated the shore of the Delta as the
bent coastland, ai-kabt or similarly — from ^K, Eg. aa, isl
and or coast, and POO or opj? and kindred Egyptian words,
kab, gab, kaf, akdb, all signifying to bend, to be round.
In the ethnic appellation the word ai was naturally dropped,
and the Phoenician colonists were thus called by the Egyp
tians Kaftu. These Phoenicians were the first to make the
Greeks acquainted with Egypt, and first of all with its
northern insular part, the native name of which, Ai-Kaft,
was changed by the strangers into Aiyvnto?, which be
came the designation both of the whole land and its river.
The Egyptians, on their part, applied the name Kaft to all
the divisions of the nation with which they had first be
come familiar in its colonies between the mouths of the
NUe, and, in contradistinction to the islands and the
Syrian coast occupied by the Phoenicians, they called their
Nile territory Kaft-ur (Magna Phoenicia). This maritime,
almost insular, Kaftur, is the I-Caphtor of Jeremiah (I. c),
the land of the Caphtorim — neighbors of the Casluhim —
who migrated into Philistia, and wrested it from the
Awim. — What mainly strengthens the argument is that,
according to Gen. x. 13, 14, the Caphtorim, like the Caslu
him, were descendants of Mizraim (Egypt), and that all the
other descendants of the same Hamite progenitor enumer
ated with them are easily identified as inhabitants or
neighbors of Egypt. (See, among others, Dillmann in

192 NOTES.
loco, and Ebers, 1. c, pp. 91-127.) The Caphtorim, before
their emigration, thus appear in their right sphere, and
need not have detached themselves from their Egyptian
kindred to migrate first to Crete, and thence, as Chereth-
ites (K'rethim, Cretans), to the shores which they ruled
under the name of Philistines. On the other hand, this
very identity of Philistines and Cherethites — so distinctly
attested by Ezekiel and Zephaniah, and elsewhere (see
above) — remains to be explained ; and it is this difficulty,
chiefly, which makes Dillmann, G. Baur (art. ' Caphthor '
in Riehm's Bible Dictionary), and lastly Kiepert (in his
'Lehrbuch der alten Geographie,' pp. 171, 172, 248) cling
to the old view, while Muhlau and Volck's Gesenius favors
that of Ebers. Thus Kiepert sees in the Cherethites im
migrants from Caphtor, which is almost indubitably Crete,
and in the Pelethites Pelasgians (or P'lishtim, from
pdlash to wander, 'Peldschi " Auswanderer," griechisch
umgesetzt in nekaayo?') assimilated with the former, the
forced emigration of the Pelasgians from the Hellenic
countries, chronologically coinciding with the appearance
of the Philistines as conquerors on the southern shores of
Syria. The proximity of Crete to the coast of Libya — the land
of the Ludim or of the Lehabim, or of both peoples, both
descendants of Mizraim — easily furnishes the explanation,
needed for this view, of the connection established between
the Caphtorim and the Egyptian branch of the Hamites in
the ethnological table of Genesis (x.). And that the Phi
listines, in spite of the Semitism which clearly characterizes
almost all their historical, mythological, and geographical
names, are in that table classified among the Hamites — a

NOTES. 193
fact, however, not more surprising than that Canaan, the
ancestor of the Zidonian and other Phoenicians, whose
whole language was purely Semitic, appears there as the
son of Ham, and brother of Mizraim — is a difficulty which
the defenders of both views must meet. If the Caphtorim —
that is, the people afterward so called as natives of Caphtor
— detaching themselves from their Libyan and Egyptian
brethren, emigrated from Africa into Crete, they were
there to a degree Semitized before they left that island as
Cherethites, or with Cherethites (Cretans proper), to estab
lish themselves on Syrian lands conquered from the Avvim,
side by side with Pelasgic Pelethites (perhaps P'lishtim
proper). Crete, in hoary antiquity, was full of Semitic
populations, and dotted with Phoenician settlements. The
Phoenicians long ruled this and all the neighboring islands.
'Diese Periode semitischer Herrschaft fiber das ganze
Inselmeer,' says Kiepert (I. c, pp. 247, 248), 'mit Karern
und Lelegern als Untertanen und dem Sitze in Kreta ist
in dem mythischen Seeherrscher und Gesetzgeber Minos
(vgl. Minoa als haufigen phonikischen Ortsnamen) zusam-
mengefasst, den schon friih die Griechen, speciell die
dorischen Eroberer von Kreta, in ihre nationale Tradition
heriibergenommen haben. . . . Semitische Ortsnamen
sind z. B. Kaeratos, der angeblich altere Name der Stadt
Knosos = pip " Stadt" . . . , Hellotis, der friihere
Name von Gortyn = pi^K " Palmen- oder Terebinthen-
Hain," deren Hafenstadt Leben = n:o^> " weiss," Itanos
an der Ostkuste = ]p*>K "bestandig, dauernd" (von Wasser-
laufen gebraucht — wenn nicht vom Cultus des Ba'al-It&n),
das auf hoher Felsterrasse im W. der Insel gelegene
ArdSn = UK "Zuflucht." ' Europa, too, the name of the

194 NOTES.
Phoenician princess whom Zeus carried off to Crete, as
well as of the north-western division of the ancient world,
is generally derived from yyy, evening, west, and the name
of Jardanus, a river of north-western Crete, compared with
that of the Syrian Jordan. To which may be added that
Gortyn, Gortys, or Gortyna — Homer's Toprvv reixioesaa,
walled-in Gortyn (II. ii. 646) — probably owed this name to
its fortifications, which made it an urbs munita, pip (see
' Thesaurus,' pp. 1236, 1237), or a double city, like Kartan,
in Naphtali, near the Phoenician border, or Cartenna in
Mauritania (Gesenius, 'Phoenicise Monumenta,' p. 421);
that Strabo's (x. 475) 'little town of Prasus,' ndkixviov
LTpaffo?, east of Gortyn, was so called because it was
unwalled — cf. Heb. ]111D> P111D; that Gnosus, or Cnosus,
the great seat of the legends of Zeus, in the neighborhood
of which were the cavern where he was hid as a child, his
tomb, and the much fabled-about Cretan labyrinth, was
originally called ti:j pip (Caeratus-Gnosus), City of the
Hidden One — that is, of the Libyan and Egyptian Zeus,
Ammon or Amen-Ra, whose name signified the hidden
(Ebers, Poole, etc.), and who, as Diodorus (iii. 71) tells us,
fled from Libya to Crete, and reigned there; and that the
Semitic Cretans, or a portion of them, may have called
themselves C^PIO as a people cut off from the mainland,
and their country nPIO, Creta, in the sense of island, just
as the Arabs call an island (and Mesopotamia) gezlreh —
that is, terra abscissa (= niU t>1K or nPIO t>1K in
Hebrew). The various myths attaching themselves to the Cretan
Zeus and his son Minos are thus reflected upon by Duncker
('History of Antiquity,' translated by E. Abbott, vol. ii.

NOTES. 195
p. 65 et seq.)'. 'A bull-god [the Beoravpo? of Moschus]
carries the daughter of Phoenix [Europa] over the sea to
Crete and begets Minos; a bull who rises out of the sea
begets with Pasiphae, i.e. the all-shining, the Minos-bull
[Minotaur], to which in case of blight and famine boys
and girls are sacrificed in the number sacred among the
Semites; Androgeos [Minos's son] succumbs to the heat
of the bull of Marathon, an iron man slays his victims by
pressing them to his glowing breast. These legends of the
Greeks are unmistakable evidence of the origin of the rites
observed in Crete from the coast of Syria, of the settlement
of Phoenicians in Crete. The bull-god may be the Baal
Samim or the Baal Moloch of the Phoenicians; Europa has
already revealed herself to us as the moon-goddess of the
Phoenicians; Pasiphae is only another name for the same
goddess, the lady of the nightly sky, the starry heaven.
We know that on occasions of blight human sacrifices were
offered to Baal Moloch, the fiery, consuming, angry sun-
god, and that these sacrifices were burnt. . . . Minos,
the son of the sky-god, the husband of the moon-goddess,
who from time to time receives revelations from heaven,
and even after his death is judge of the dead, is himself a
god; his proper name is Minotaur, a name taken from the
form of the bull's image and the bull's head. . . .
Coins of the Cretan cities Gortys and Phsestus exhibit a
bull or a bull-headed man as a stamp.' This nearly
coincides with the older view of Hock, who in his ' Kreta,'
the most extensive work on the subject, construed the
genealogy of Minos to denote a combination of the orgiastic
Zeus-worship which prevailed among the Eteocretes, the
autochthons of Crete, with the moon-worship imported from

196 NOTES.
Phoenicia. But whether the Zeus of the Cretans was an
indigenous god, or the horned Ammon of the Libyan oasis,
or the Amen-Ra of Egyptian Thebes — to whom the bull
Apis was sacred — or the Moloch of the Phoenicians, is of
no importance to us here: very likely most of these gods
existed first side by side in different parts of the island,
and were finally blended into one. The main fact remains
that Creta was the cradle, the nurse, and the tomb of Zeus
the bull-god (Seoravpoi), who brought Europa from
Phoenicia, and that the coast south of Gortyn was the spot
hallowed by the legends which celebrated that events —
legends which may or may not have had a precise historical
basis. That shore, on which stood the port-town of
Gortyn, Leben, more anciently Lebena (Heb. n:0?, white,
and also moon), ought thus to have been known to the
Phoenicians as the shore of the bull — that is, in their
Semitic language, as keph tor, for keph (see f^3 in Ge-
senius's ' Thesaurus,' in Muhlau and Volck's Gesenius, and
especially in Levy's ' Neuhebraisches und Chaldaisches
Worterbuch ') signifies shore in various Semitic languages,
and not only is tor the Chaldee word corresponding to
ravpos, taurus, bull, and to the Hebrew shor, ox, but we
have in Plutarch ('Sulla/ xvii.) a clear testimony for the
identity of the corresponding word in Phoenician (Qoop
yap 01 tPoivixeS rrjv fiovv xaXovffi). This being so,
nothing seems more plausible than the conjecture — which
the writer owes to a deceased friend, Meshullam Ehrlich,
a native of Lublin, in Poland — that this keph tor was the
origin of the name Caphtor; the whole island, sacred to
Zeus, being eventually so named by the Phoenicians from
the shore of the Seoravpo? and the Phoenician Europa.

NOTES. 197

(See p. 103.)
The book of Ecclesiastes ends with an epilogue by a col
lector — or by a body of collectors — intended partly to
counteract the thorough skepticism and partial Epicurean
ism of the work, and partly to excuse its reception in the
Canon, which, in fact, took place very late, and after
strenuous opposition. In addition, as the last word of this
epilogue happens to be ' evil,' the Masoretic copies, for
readings in the synagogue, repeat the preceding verse.
Similar repetitions, for similar reasons, are Masoretically
marked in at the end of Isaiah, of the Minor Prophets,
and of Lamentations. Each of the first four books of the
Psalter ends with a brief doxology, inserted in the text
(Ps. xii., lxxii., lxxxix., cvi.), while the last psalm of the
Psalter is wholly a doxology. The last verse of Micah,
too, is apparently an addition to the book, made to prevent
its ending with the word ' sins.' Of the last two verses of
Joel only the words ip-pi K^> COI TPp31, which play upon
the preceding K">p: DI, have a look of genuineness, while
the rest seems to be an addition, repeating part of verse 17,
and thus softening the prophet's conclusion. It may also
be doubted whether the epilogue of Hosea (see above,
p. 163), so much resembling in tenor that of Ecclesiastes,
is the prophet's own. J.
(See p 118.)
Already Aben Ezra (on Hos. i. 1) remarked that ben,
son of, or bath, daughter of, never designates a single
native or inhabitant of a city. Nor does it designate a

198 NOTES.
single member of a tribe or a people. We read of the sons
of Israel, of Ammon, of Edom, of Asshur, of Kedar, etc.,
and also of the daughter of Tyre, of Jerusalem, of Zion, of
Egypt, of Tarshish, etc.; but in all such instances the
people descended from one national or tribal progenitor or
the inhabitants of a city or country are meant, collectively
— the daughter of Tyre (12 po) is the maiden Tyre her
self, poetically so considered. The young women of a city
may also be spoken of collectively as its daughters, as are,
for instance, in Canticles, the maidens of Zion and Jeru
salem (]V2 Pi:0» C^ttOI1 Pi:o); but no single Zionitess
would be called in Biblical Hebrew a daughter of Zion.
A single member of the Israelitish nation is called an
Israelitish man (^Klty U^K)* a man of the sons of Israel
(^KIW1 MOa WK), or a man of the house of Israel (wk
buTW P"Oa), but never a son of Israel (^Niw~p).
^KIE^ tt^K is used only in one solitary verse of the Bible
(Num. xxv. 8) to designate a single Israelite, everywhere
else it signifies the Israelites, just as C1DK tl^K signifies
the Ephraimites, and niin"1 WK the men of Judah ; epk
thus corresponding, in prose, to the po of poetry. A
man of Gibeon was a "tfyoi ; of Ashdod, an intPK ; of
Jezreel, a "6KJ71V ; of Teman, a "^p ; of Gaza, an ipiy —
just as a descendant of Eber was an ">lojft of Dan, a "Oi ;
or of Zerah, a "'nil- Derivatives from geographical names
ending in n> "S or c1. were often formed with considerable
license. Thus we have from nj?TJ both ">pyi2 and 15712 ;
from n:an, "oap ; from n^T, \£t ; from ribi, M^: ;
from nn, iq ; and from c^lil, ^ih— just as "O^T, "oio,
and ijPlO were patronymics of n^T> DID. and njTIO
(Num. xxvi. 20, 23, 44). It was only in post-Biblical

NOTES. 199
times that the frequent irregularity of such forma
tions led to the adoption of ti^K* p> or io as a sub
stitute for the uncertain gentile termination. Thus we
find in the Mishnah 101D Vti (for ^lOlDD), riT]2 WK
(for ipiisn), C^TIT WK> NP1P10 WK, and n:01 WK
( ' Aboth ' i. 3, 4, 5 ; iii. 7, iv. 4 ) ; *b~\ rVO WK
(' Y'bamoth' xvi. 7, for "6in £"P0, like "b&Tl P'O, L Kings
xvi. 34), etc. ; and in the Gemara, among many similar
ly formed compounds, K^al ]0 (native of Gamala; see
Neubauer, ' La geographie du Talmud,' p. 240), KIDp 10
(see Neubauer, I. c, p. 277), Iiaj WK (facetiously turned
into It 01 tt^K; cf. II. Chr. xxviii. 18, Neubauer, I. c,
p. 98, and J. Levy, ' Neuhebraisches und Chaldaisches
Worterbuch,' s. v. Hpj), and nTPO )0 and PT'PO ^O
(natives of Bathyra; see Derenbourg, ' Essai sur l'histoire
et la geographie de la Palestine,' vol. i. p. 179). K0010 is
known as the Talmudical name of a place to both Neu
bauer (I. c, p. 269) and Levy (1. c, s. v.), and the former
says, ' Lieu natal de Dositai . . . ; ce nom etait tres
frequent; on ne saurait dire quel Kaukaba le Talmud
veut entendre.' It is surprising that both these Tal
mudical critics have failed to perceive that a K0313, per
haps one of the Kaukabas or Kaukabs described by modern
travellers — Robinson knows several of them — was also the
native place of the leader in the Jewish insurrection
against Adrian, who is called by Christian writers Bar-
Chochebas (see Schtirer, 'Lehrbuch der Neutestament-
lichen Zeitgeschichte,' p. 357), and in the Talmud Bar-
Chozeba. It was evidently in allusion to the meaning
of the name of that place (star) that Rabbi Akiba
applied to him the oracular words OpJTa 0013 "|11,

200 NOTES.
a star breaks forth from Jacob (Num. xxiv. 17), in
preference to so many other prophetic announcements
of Israel's ordained deliverer. And when the cham
pion failed in his role of Messiah, and perished, he
was cruelly surnamed K31i3~13 or K31i3"]3, man of
Chozeba (K^p m I- Chr. iv. 22, K0"m13 or nollO in the
Talmud), a place whose name implied deception. The
man of Cocheba, who had been hailed as the rising star of
Jacob, became a man of Chozeba, a deceiving son of Jacob
(OpJTa 0110), in his fall. (For the Talmudical references
to him, see Levy, I. c, s. v. no.113, and Derenbourg, I. c,
p. 423 et seq. ) K.
(See p. 121.)
With loiaO for lOiaOO compare the closely preceding
mhn OVO, which stands for ni^in CVOO- (Cf. also
10~nn n,P0^m, in verse 16 of the same chapter.) Ellipti
cal comparisons are very frequent in Hebrew. See Ps.
xcv. 8: [nO^lnOO] n3la3 C333^ TpP ^K ; Job. v. 14:
Q"nns2 Twa*1 tn^ooi] nWoi; is. lix. 10: 1:^3
1<T:00] F)^:3 C1TO3 ; Is. xxviii. 21 : C^ID LinOO] inO
til1 ]ij?o:o LpayooJ payo mn1 cip"1; Gen. xviii. 11
[CT:n pikoJ ct:o niK rrrb nvn^> ^in ; Ps. xch. 11
">:ip [C^KI ]1p0l CtflO C1P1 ; Prov. xix. 12, and xx. 2
[l-'OO OTOO] TDOO CTO ; Job. xv. 33: -1D20] idjs oan*1
ipv: [rvin ps:o] pio -|^ri nco []Din ; is. lxhi. 2:
p:o [-pi njoo] -pio 71:31; Jer. iv. 31: n^ino ^ip "O
[HTOon Piao] nToono ma ^pynw tn^in ^ipo]; II.
Sam. xxii. 34 and Ps. xviii. 34 : pi^KO ""bil HTa
tPl^K "6l10]; Esth. iii. 8: oy fo THa] ;>0a PIT CPTHi;

NOTES. 201
Dan. i. 10: CO^MO 1WK Wlb^T) frDo] )a CDyi DO^D;
II. Chr. xviii. 12: cnn hlK 10101 inKO "|101 SO Tf
(cf. I. Kings xxii. 13); Eccl. vi. 5: [m PTOa] Pia n^ PTO;
Prov. xxvi. 12: [lpippa] i:aa ^D0^5 PlpP ; Gen. xix. 9:
[cn^al cna ~\b yi: npy. For similar expressions in
Chaldee, see Dan. iv. 29, 30: pupo KOCJ?i llttOO P1JT)
and pDSO "TniDtOV L.
(See p. 137.)
'Aluqdh, in Prov. xxx. 15, signifies neither a 'leech' —
that ' has two daughters ' — nor a ' female blood-sucking
monster,' as some translate, nor any kind of animal or
demon. As explained to the writer, in his childhood, by
his revered father and teacher* — and as Arnheim, in Zunz's
Bible, has it — it is simply the name, whatever its linguistic
value may be, of the author of the parable-like sayings
which follow in the same chapter. These have — with two
exceptions, which can be accounted for — a peculiar form,
each grouping together four objects of a similar character.
The opening phrases, in three groups, run thus (verses
18, 21, 29) : ' Three things are too wonderful for me, four
I know not' (— and a fourth I know not; see above,
p. 63); 'Under three things the earth trembles, under
four it cannot bear up; ' ' Three things are graceful in
stepping, four graceful in walking.' A fourth group is
* Born in Lublin, in 1801 ; deceased in Washington, January 30,
1863. His name is erroneously entered as Heilpern (P. M. or P.) in
Furst's ' Bibliotheca Judaica ' and in Zunz's ' Die Monatstage des Ka-
lenderjahres, ein Andenken an Hingeschiedene.'as well as in the He
brew catalogues of the British Museum and of the Rosenthal Library.

202 NOTES.
introduced thus (verse 24): 'Four things there are. . . .'
The first group is contained in verses 15 and 16, the text
and common version of which (Conant's good phraseology
is here chosen) are as follows:
On OH P1:0 T\Ul\T)p)byb The leech has two daughters,
Give, Give.
n:jJ3tt>P N^ n:n tt>^T Three things there are that are
not satisfied;
]in liaiTK^ JOIN four say not, Enough!
01^ 13J?1 ^IKttf The underworld and the barren
womb;
Ca nj?3D"N.3 V1K the earth, that is not satisfied
with water,
)in maX"K^ WK1 and fire, that says not, Enough!
Extraordinary efforts have been made, but in vain, to put
sense into renderings like these, the fundamental error of
which is the mistaking of 'aluqdh for a common noun, and
of 'ocer for a derivative of 'dear in the sense of closing.
Now la'aluqah (Masoretically thus, | T)p)byb) stands here
exactly at the head of this division of the chapter, after
the proverbs of Agur, the son of Jakeh, as Vddvid (i 111^),
David's (or, by David), stands at the head of Ps. ciii., of
Ps. exxxviii., and of Ps. cxliv. ; and 'ocer, from 'acar
in the sense of ' coercere imperio ' (Gesenius), means
oppression or tyranny ('Druck, Bedruckung' — Gesenius).
(Cf. ^3 "W nt, I. Sam. ix. 17; ED^aai isim, Is.
liii. 8; ]in njJI 15$J7a, Ps. cvii. 39; and also isjj XD~N,
Judg. xviii. 7. ) C11 ~Viy, as meaning closing of the womb,
or barren womb, is an erroneous combination, which Gen.
xx. 18 easily explains — if cm is not altogether a gloss

NOTES. 203
attached to the misunderstood Tjy. Rightly explained,
the two verses have a simple and poetically beautiful
sense, and accord perfectly with all the other groups of
four, as the following will show (in which pi:o, maidens,
stands figuratively for persons, or objects; compare the
feminine forms in verse 21):
I Ppl^ Aluqah's:
OH OP Pi:0 ^tW Two maidens, Give-give;
n:j?0tt*P tib TIIT) tt>lir three there are, insatiable;
)in liaK"K^ yOlK four, never saying, Enough:
1^j?l ^lNiy Netherworld and tyranny;
Ca nj?0C"K^ V1K (oni) (the bosom of) earth, insatiable
of water;
]in niaK"K^ If Kl and fire, never saying, Enough.
Aluqah, it is true, is a name mentioned nowhere else,
but such is also that of Agur, whose sayings precede Alu
qah's. To judge by its feminine form — compare the names
nonj?. n^rr, nns. nnoi, na^nrsp, ni^n, etc.— it
ought to be the name of a woman, and it is but a legitimate
conjecture to identify the writer of the fine sayings before
us with King Lemuel's mother, whose poetic words of in
struction follow immediately in the collection. The con
cluding part of verse 19 is not unworthy of a didactic poetess,
for it refers to the mysterious transit (ill) of embryonic
man, a transit both wonderful and traceless, like the flight of
the eagle between the clouds, the gliding of a serpent over
rocks, or a ship's advance through the heart of the sea.
That verse 20 is a spurious addition, as has been conjectured
by Dathe, is evident; and just as clearly does verse 17
(2*6 iybr\ Vy, etc.) belong to Agur's piece beginning with

204 NOTES.
verse 11 (^pi vox HI, etc.), while T)Db T in verse 32
points to a connection between it and verses 8 and 9 of the
following chapter, both of which open with "po PPD.
M.
(See p. 137.)
Hosea's arraignment of the priests was, in its tenor and
language, before Isaiah's mind — whether he was conscious
of it or not — when he composed what is now the latter part
of his first chapter. Isaiah, having used (i. 10) the open
ing call, 'Hear Jehovah's word,' says (18), '"Come on,
let us argue," says Jehovah:' Hosea begins (iv. 1), 'Hear
Jehovah's word, ye sons of Israel; for Jehovah has a con
troversy with the dwellers in the land.' Isaiah's nnoi:!
(18) corresponds to Hosea's nOV ^Kl (4). Isaiah's
mournful exclamation (21) on contemplating the moral
fall of Judah's capital: 'How has she become a harlot
(n:il^ nP"in)> the faithful city ! ' alludes to Hosea's (15)
' If thou practisest whoredom (nPK n:il), 0 Israel, let not
Judah become guilty.' Isaiah says (22), • Thy drink
(1N0D) is diluted with water:' Hosea (18), 'Their drink
(CNOD) is rank.' Isaiah says (19), 'Thy rulers are un
ruly (Q1HD T"T)': Hosea (16), ' Like an unbroken heifer
(nilD niO) has Israel become intractable (^Kltt'"1 11D)-'
Isaiah adds (18), ' And associates of thieves (C0:J 13"),'
which is an imitation of Hosea's ' wound up with idols '
(CO!Jy lion, 17). Isaiah says (18), ' Each of them loves
bribes (in^OnK):' Hosea (18), 'They love "0 give
(lonionx)."' Isaiah predicts (29, 30) that the people
will blush (tc) for the large trees (c^K. T)b$) and the
gardens (pi::n) which they like so much: he evidently

NOTES. 205
speaks of the shady sacrificial places, contaminated by
lascivious practices, of which Hosea says, ' They sacrifice
. . . under oak (]1^k) and poplar and terebinth (p^N),
the shade of which is pleasant' (13), 'They shall blush
(TO1) for their sacrifices' (19), and — as Isaiah read the
words (18) — 'Shame for its gardens (iT^a P^p)'' A later
prophet's expressions, pi::o CP01 and CTIpPaP • • •
Pi::n ^>K, etc. (Is. lxv. 3, lxvi. 17), remind us of Isaiah's
Pi::na HOnni (i- 29) as well as of Hosea's TCtV PTIpP CJ71
(iv. 14) and CPnOla TOI (iv. 19).
N.
(See p. 144.)
Sh'buth and sh'bith are thus explained after Gesenius by
the last editors of his Lexicon, Muhlau and Volck: ' Gefan-
genschaft [from n3tt>] 4 M. 21, 29 . . . , und concr.
die Gefangenen (eines Volkes), pi3iy 3itir sie zuriick-
fiihren 5 M. 30, 3, . . . dann bildlich von der
Herstellung des Gliickes und Wohlstandes Hi. 42, 10 :
0i"K rrCT'PX Ol£> nln"1! nnd Jahve stellte den Wohl-
stand Hiobs wieder her.' They add, however: ' Freilich
lassen sich PlOtf' und P^Oty als st. cstr. (nur dieser kommt
vor, mit Ausnahme von 4 M. 21, 29 . . . ) auch von
einem st. absol. P10tt>> P'Ott; ableiten und auf OT • • •
zuriickfiihren, woftir zunachst spricht, dass P10tt> nnd
P">3$ ausschliesslich in der Phrase 'Q P13tt> 3T" vorkommen
(vgl. 'q o^i 311, 'J} Pap: Dp: n. a.), welche dann zu
fibers, ist: Wendung wenden (so Ewald . . . ) oder
besser: Herstellung herstellen (s. bes. Bottcher . . . ),
wie schon Symm. Hi. 42, 10: £7riffrperpe rr/v avast pocprjv
rov 'Igj/3 — eine Phrase, welche insbes. von der (schliess-

206 NOTES.
lichen) Herstellung des aus dem Exil zuriickgefuhrten
Volkes Israel gebraucht wird.' In the one form or the
other— and the Masorites have often changed each — the
word occurs in Scripture thirty-one times; the phrase,
in every instance but one (Job. xiii. 10), refers to the
restoration of a people, and in almost all instances to resto
ration after a national catastrophe — total overthrow or cap
tivity. Only in the solitary sentence in which it is found
in the st. absol. and unconnected with the verb 3T (Num.
xxi. 29), the word positively means captivity, or capture,
but there it stands perhaps, by mistake, for TT$yp, cap
ture, which is given in Jer. xlviii. 46, a paraphrase of that
sentence. (p^Oltf, on the other hand, ought probably to
be read for P3T — which elsewhere does not mean return —
in Ps. cxxvi. 1; cf. verse 4.) And it would be hard to decide
whether for N'yv 3T or P13tt> 3T the more applicable
rendering, in the majority of cases, would be to turn the
captivity (to bring back the captives) or to bring back the
prosperity (to bring a turn, to bring a restoration).
Neither is it certain that p"Ott> and Pl3tt> are not to be
taken as distinct words — though not exactly as the
Masorites distinguished them — P"Ol£>, from n3ttf, meaning
captivity, and P13^, from yw> a turn or restoration.
What is patent, however, is that the phrase, whether
meaning restoration from captivity, or restoration to
prosperity, public or individual, is of late date — that is,
a phrase made familiar by the frequent talk of Israel's
national restoration from captivity, just as the words revo
lution and restoration have in modern times become popu
lar in the figurative sense through the historical revolu
tions and restorations in England and France. The phrase

NOTES. 207
occurs once in the Pentateuch (Deut. xxx. 3), in a verse
referring to the dispersion of Israel through all the
nations, and written at the earliest in the time of Josiah,
a century after the beginning of the Assyrian captivity;
twice in Zephaniah (ii. 7, iii. 20), whose first chapter was
composed under Josiah; eleven times in Jeremiah: twice
in prophecies of uncertain but apparently late date (xlviii.
47, xlix. 6), and nine times in prophecies uttered after the
carrying off of Jeconiah into Babylonian captivity (xxix.
14, xxx. 3, xxx. 18, xxxi. 23, xxxii. 44, xxxiii. 7, xxxiii.
11, xxxiii. 26, xlix. 39); three times in Ezekiel, who
prophesied after that event (xxix. 14, xxxix. 25, and xvi.
53, where ^"'P'QE? P10W1 is a corruption of P10W1 "piOltfl
TPi:0, as the context, including verse 55, shows); once in
Lamentations (ii. 14), which bewails a later catastrophe;
once in Job (I. c. ), probably also a product of the Chaldean
period; and four times in psalms praying for restoration
which is to spring from Zion (Ps. xiv. 7, liii. 7) and for the re
vival of Israel (lxxxv. 2, cxxvi. 4). The only verses in all the
Bible in which the phrase appears as written before the As
syrian captivity are Am. ix. 14 and Hos. vi. 11, but it has been
shown above (pp. 102, 103, 144) that the former belongs to
a spurious piece, and that the latter is probably incorrect.
O.
(See p. 151.)
Ewald reads, instead of TPK1 1#X3> TPK1 1tt>N0, and,
identifying l$K with n"TX, which he renders by Hain,
grove, he translates here, ' Efraim gleicht mir lusthainen
von Tyriern in einer aue gepflanzt.' But that rendering of
nit^K, ph DlttW and P11UK, is impugned by I. Kings

208 NOTES.
xiv. 23, II. Kings xvii. 10, Jer. xvii. 2, Deut. xvi. 21, and
Judg. vi. 25, according to which PVTK were erected under
and by trees, and on or by altars. They are, therefore,
explained by other expounders as signifying symbolic
images of the goddess of happiness (Astarte), shaped like
trees. Such an i$k Hosea would surely not have intro
duced here. It is, therefore, plainer either to read ^T'K3,
like a tamarisk, or more or less closely to identify the
1tt>K before us (perhaps to be read 1#x) with the IT'NP of
Is. xii. 19, lx. 13, and Ezek. xxvii. 6 (where C1t?'X~P0
evidently stands for C1$XP3, as the Targum and Rashi
understood it), a tree of Lebanon and the eastern islands
of the Mediterranean, the name of which is derived from
IttfX (like ^3P from bb$, in reference to tallness and
straightness. That a tree is meant is apparent from the
following n^>iPtt> and ^31 CKTT C10K POn, etc. (Cf.
also verse 10: n:KP3 P11300 ^KIW ^PK^a lOiaO C0:j?3
C3*P13K TPK1 PPTK13, in which ip^KI . . . P11333
O0''P13K corresponds to ,p\si 1WK0 Q^IDK, as explained. )
P.
(See p. 154.)
The following, too, is derived from ' oral information
obtained many years ago from a Hebraist of Warsaw ' (see
vol. i. p. 237) — pleasantly remembered by the writer as
Abraham Moses (without the surname), a friend of the
mathematician Abraham Stern and the astronomer Slo-
nimski: Alvah (m?y) was an Edomite district, ruled by one of
those dukes of Esau who are recorded by the names of
their localities (CPatt>0 CPapa.-5), thus: duke of Teman

NOTES. 209
(the South), duke of Mibzar (the Fortress; Gen. xxxvi.
40, 42, I. Chr. i. 51, 53). This district corresponds to the
tribe of Alvan, which, like Manahath, was descended from
the Horite Shobal (pn:ai ]l^y ^>OT "OO; Gen. xxxvi. 23,
I. Chr. i. 40). Manahath was also the name of a place in
Benjamin, near Geba (cf. pn:a_^N Ol^l ]>3J "QWvb P10K
I. Chr. viii. 6), a town adjoining Gibeah. This Manahath
is identical with ni:a> whither the Benjamites, after their
terrible defeat, were pursued by their victors. (Judg. xx.
43: nj?o:n no: iy inzmin nni:a.) At the time of that
internecine contest various towns in Benjamin were in
habited by non-Hebrew tribes; for we read that the
Levite whose journey through that canton was the inno
cent cause of the war, said to the young man who accom
panied him, ' We will not turn into a city of strangers, one
of those that are not of the children of Israel (ltt>K
7)17) btiTWr- "OOa'K^); but we will pass over to Gibeah.'
Among these non-Hebrews were Horites, probably kindred
to both Alvan and Manahath, and the founders of Manahath
among other neighboring places, to whom Hosea (x. 9, 10)
alludes, remarking, that the double sin of Gibeah, which
caused the almost total extermination of the Benjamites,
so strengthened the foreigners around that city that the
Benjamite remnants had to defend themselves against
them: ' Had they (the Benjamites) remained there, no war
would have befallen them, at Gibeah, with the sons of
Alvah' (T)by "i:o); hut the Benjamites sinned and bled,
'and tribes (D^aj?) gathered against them.'

210 NOTES. Q-
(See p. 155.)
Neither Shalman nor Beth-Arbel is mentioned any
where else in Scripture. There was, however, an Arbela
in Galilee, mentioned in the first book of Maccabees and
in Josephus, and another east of the Jordan, known to
Eusebius and Jerome, besides the Arbela of Assyria, made
famous by the victory of Alexander the Great over Darius;
and each of these three places might possibly be the
Beth-Arbel of Hosea, while Shalman might be deemed an
abridged form of Shalmaneser. Of the Assyrian con
querors of that name, the one who warred against the last
king of Israel is too late a ruler to be considered here (see
above, p. 130 and elsewhere), and before him only one
made an expedition — against Damascus, about 773 B.C. —
in the course of which one of the Palestinian Arbelas (the
eastern) may have been stormed and sacked; whde a sack
ing of the Assyrian Arbela, a fact nowhere alluded to in
the inscriptions, and for which no motive is historically
apparent, would have been too remote an event to be
incidentally spoken of by an Israelitish prophet, as familiar
to his hearers or readers. Thus, if Shalman stands for
Shalmaneser, no other Assyrian king but the Shalmaneser
who reigned between 780 and 770 can be meant. There
is, however, a Salaman mentioned in the Assyrian records
with whom, as has been pointed out by Schrader ('Die
Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament,' pp. 283, 284),
the Shalman of the prophet can be more plainly identi
fied. Salaman is enumerated among many other princes
tributary to Tiglath-Pileser, as king of Moab. He was

NOTES. 211
thus a (probably younger) contemporary of Hosea. This
Salaman may in his earlier years, during the confusion
which reigned in the kingdom of Israel after the fall of the
house of Jehu, have ravaged the Israelitish territories bor
dering on Moab, and, in a ' day of battle,' ravaged Beth-
Arbel, the Transjordanic Arbela. This conjecture removes
a part of the argument on which Graetz ('Geschichte der
Juden,' vol. i. part i. pp. 99, 100) bases his substitution of
CJ-'OI1 P'O ClW 1to'3 for ^>K01K P^O ]abvf IttO, a
rather violent alteration, which is, however, not without
support. He says : ' Fur den dunklen Vers, Hosea 10, 14,
nanba cvo ^>xo-.x p*o )a.r iuo ~wv "pi^oa ^oi
nC'CI COO by OX hat die griechische Uebersetzung etwas
anderes, woraus hervorgeht, dass sie eine andere L.-A.
vor sich hatte: coi apxoov 2aXapiav ix rov oi'xov
'Iepofiodpi. Eine Variante hat 'lepofiaaX statt
'Iepofioapi, was gewiss ein Fehler ist. Diese L.-A. ist
alt, Hieronymus kannte sie schon, wenn er sie auch, als
nicht in seinen Kram passend, verwarf. So viel geht aus
dieser Uebersetzung hervor, dass sie den Eigennamen
ycbv nicht von einem assyrischen Konig, noch ^KOIK P'O
von einem Ortsnamen verstanden hat. Aehnlich lautet die
syrische Uebersetzung: ]a Ka^l KPIO fK ]JH3P:
K31pl KaV3 ^Nn,2' Auch diese hatte nicht die
L.-A. ]abtt> vor sich, sondern CI^T- Auch die chaldaische
Version las CvT- Ohnehin ist es bedenklieh anzunehmen,
dass Hosea von dem Wiithen eines assyrischen Konigs in
Arbela in der Tigrisgegend gesprochen haben soil. . . .
Zudem kommt noch, dass ein Konig Namens Salman in
der assyrischen Geschichte gar nicht untergebracht werden
kann. Man musste ihn denn als Abkiirzung von Sal-

212 NOTES.
manassar nehmen, was durchaus gezwungen ist. Die
richtige Erklarung drangt sich auf, wenn man Dr?tt> und
CJ73T1 P'O hest statt ^XOIX P"0 : "So wie Schallum in
dem Hause Jerobeams II. wiithete, Mutter und
Kinder wurden zerschmettert." Dieses Gleichniss war
verstandlich, es spielte auf eine Thatsache an, welche
dem Volke noch im Gedachtnisse war. Dass ny auch
" wuthen" bedeutet, braucht nicht bewiesen zu werden.'
This remark is correct, but the comparison, thus forced
upon the text, of wasted fortresses with the extermination
of a royal family is a very lame one. Nor are the readings
of the ancient versions of much value for a reconstruction
of the text, for they contradict each other, the Greek sub
stituting CJD1"1 or byy^1 for 'PXOIX, the Syriac rendering
the latter half of this word (^x), and the Chaldee the first
(by x:a3. the equivalent of 31X, ambush) — and the latter
two thus collectively confirming the reading ^XOIX, against
the Septuagint, which blundered also in reading lit;
(= apxwv) for -)iy', and altogether mistranslated the sen
tence. On the other hand, there seems to be strong support
for Schrader's view in the phraseology of Hosea in the verse
before us and the one immediately following. If we com
pare these with the opening verse of the ancient elegy on
Moab which Isaiah reproduced and supplemented (Is. xv.,
xvi.; see above, p. 46 et seq.), it becomes highly probable
that Hosea had it before him when speaking of the ravages
of Shalman at Beth-Arbel. Is. xv. 1 has twice ii$ and
twice pai: : Hosea has here it>o ltt»'V and nai: nb~: ;
there we read of destruction in the night (^3) : here, of
destruction at dawn (in$2); there we read of the desola-

NOTES. 213
tion of the fortresses of Moab, Ar-Moab and Kir-Moab:
here, of that of the fortresses of Israel. And the supposi
tion is natural that it was not an accidental reminiscence
which made Hosea repeat the words of an older prophet,
but some reflection connecting them with the terrible
events which he depicted. The identification of Shalman,
the destroyer of Beth-Arbel, with Salaman of Moab reveals
that reflection: Owing to the sins of the Israelites, that
which was formerly done by them to the cities of Moab is
now done to the cities of Israel by the Moabites; the de
struction is as sudden, as complete, and as merciless.

END OF VOL. II.

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