we know because they soon disappear from history, and yet must once have been an important nation. But even at the time of the Book of Origins the Ishmaelites were far more powerful than they, as is clear from the distinction with which this book treats them and their progenitor.' Still later they take the place of the former in ordinary language. These also seem long to have been stedfast to their league of twelve. Kedar, in the Book of Origins the second of the twelve branches, becomes prominent in somewhat later times as the most powerful,3 and the Nabateans (Nebajoth), who take the first place there, constitute at a still more recent period a great kingdom overshadowing the ancient league. 4 e.) As settling down in Canaan, and there becoming the father of Isaac by Sarah, Abraham is represented in the old tradition as established only in certain definite localities of the southern country and it has been shown in p. 305 sq. that in this must lie the undimmed memory of a fact. But his stock immediately spreads abroad in three branches, Isaac, Ishmael and the sons of Keturah; and this continues down into historical times, and gave the first occasion to the custom of genealogical series mentioned on p. 24. These then are the kindred nations, whose memory clung so closely to the name of the ancient Hero; who must all have looked to him with high regard, and many of whom, with others somewhat younger, who appear as his grandsons (Esau and the twelve sons of Jacob), always revered him as their father, so that in the history he is celebrated as the Father of Nations 5 -not the least of the lofty titles which preserve his memory. And although in after times the nation of Israel made a special boast of him as their first father, it could never be forgotten even in their sacred traditions that he originally stood in much wider national relations, and rather deserved the name of Father of many Nations. How it came to pass afterwards that the single nation of Israel could appropriate him as in a special sense their first and highest father, will 1 Gen. xvii. 18, 20, xxv. 12-18. 2 Ishmaelite is a more general term for Midianite, Gen. xxxvii. 25, 27, 28, 36, xxxix. 1; Judges vii. 12, viii. 22, 24. Isaiah xxi. 16, 17 and subsequently. Compare Quatremère in the Journal asiatique, 1833. The ancient capital Nabata on the Red Sea is now rediscovered in the Οι Λευκὴ κώμη; see Bulletin de la Soc. de géographie, 1849, Nov. Dec. Josephus (Ant. i. 15, ii. 9. 3) حواري ruins of become clear only when we consider the other respects in which he became a yet mightier influence in the world's history. 2) Abraham as a Man of God. For had Abraham been nothing more than even the greatest of the leaders in that national migration, his name would at most have been handed down as bare and lifeless as those of other once renowned heroes of those times. But assuredly there began with him a new and great epoch in the history of the development of religion: he first domesticated in his house and race the worship of that God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,' who, as personating the fundamental idea of a true God, was never forgotten even after the lapse of centuries, until by the prophetic spirit of Moses he was placed in a yet higher light, and became the eternal light of all true religion. To apprehend even the historical possibility of this we must carefully bring together the scanty accounts which have been preserved from those times with all the scattered traces that history affords. And this presents in brief somewhat the following conception. It was not only the ordinary necessities of life, nor even mere desire of conquest which caused that mighty national migration of the Hebrews from the north-east. Other and nobler impulses also ruled them. Already even among those hitherto uncorrupted northern nations, simple religion was falling more and more into a false and artificial state, and superstitions of all kinds became prevalent. But in the very strife against this corruption there arose in many of the Hebrews a new and powerful tendency towards the true religion; and no few would flee from the ferment of strife in the north, because they were attracted by the southern lands, where, although the moral corruption was vastly greater, there flourished also an insight and wisdom which had even then become widely renowned. Among all who thus migrated from the north there can have been none who felt more deeply the spiritual needs of the time, or who had early been called upon to strive harder for the knowledge and veneration of the true God hereby happily learning how to strive and live-than Abraham. When he trod the soil of Canaan he was according See further the treatment of this subject in the Jahrb. der Bibl. Wiss. x. p. 1-28. W. Pleyte's La Religion des PréIsraelites (Utrecht, 1862) is reviewed in the Gött. Gel. Anz. 1862, p. 1822-28. Considering how difficult it now is to re cognise any of the mental characteristics of those early ages, we ought to beware of hasty and unfounded judgment upon them, and collect most carefully any real atoms of reliable knowledge of them that are still to be found. to all reliable traditions already advanced in years, and matured in the service of a God truly known; but we can scarcely conceive what conflicts he must even then have endured and from what mortal dangers been rescued. Assuredly he had learned in the severest life-battles what the true God was, even as he was destined to learn still more of that truth on the soil of his new fatherland. But his real greatness is this, that he not only stedfastly maintained the knowledge of the true God in his own practice and life, but knew how to make it lasting in his house and race. And in nothing is the memory of the reality and grandeur of his God-fearing and God-blessed life more evidently preserved than in this, that powerful and devout men even among foreign nations were compelled to confess that 'God was with him;' and eagerly sought his friendship and blessing.2 It is true that while the national relations at least in their main features have been preserved in tolerably sure remembrance, a comprehension of the more delicate and mutable essence of the religion of those times is much more difficult. The Book of Origins, indeed, represents the same God who revealed himself from Moses onward, as revealing himself also to the three Patriarchs, though not by the name Jahve, but by that of El-Shaddai;3 but as surely as these names were not changed by mere accident, and a new name always indicates a new conception, these words do imply a remembrance of the difference between the religion of the times before and after Moses. Only the Fourth and Fifth Narrators on the one hand transfer the name and conception of Jahve completely and without distinction to the primeval period (p. 103, 114 sq.), and on the other represent Moses as speaking of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,' or more briefly the God of the Fathers," as of the same meaning with Jahve; and in this the Deuterono We here leave out of sight the later narratives which will be subsequently discussed; but one little word in Isaiah xxix. 22, that Jehovah redeemed Abraham,' points with sufficient clearness to great battles and dangers of which our present narratives, beginning at ch. xii., furnish no hint, but which, we have every reason to expect, would occur before Abraham entered Canaan. Isaiah must undoubtedly have had before him many earlier and fuller stories of Abraham. 2 As appears from the very old narrative in Gen. xxi. 22-34, and the yet earlier one in xiv. 18-20. Such passages furnish the key to those popular stories in which the memory of Abraham's superhuman greatness has fastened on certain sharply defined crises of his history, and often been wittily compressed into a few pithy words, as Gen. xx. 15-17; xii. 10-20. On the puzzling words xx. 16, see my Lehrbuch, p. 327, 7th ed. It is very important here to recognise aright the great antiquity of such passages, and to observe how the striking old words and recollections were by degrees softened down into such later descriptions as xii. 10-20. 3 Ex. vi. 3; Gen. xvii. 1. 1 Ex. iii. 6, 13, 15, 16, iv. 5. 2 mist follows them. Even the oldest sources indeed in the simple but peculiar expression 'the God of my father," imply a certain connection between the pre-Mosaic and the post-Mosaic God, even as Moses himself adopted as his foundation all that was truly good in the older popular religion; but this is only a denial of the importation of foreign elements, and not an assertion which would have been contradicted by history, that it had not been internally reformed and more firmly defined by Moses. We must, therefore, look for other and, if possible, stronger proofs. And here we may start from the use of the name of God himself, which we observe in this nation in the mist of the remotest antiquity. We saw (p. 264) that the common name for God, Eloah, among the Hebrews as among all the Semites, goes back into the earliest times; and it is remarkable that this word for God, as also those bearing the cognate meaning of Lord, are always employed in the special Hebrew tongue, from those early times, in the plural number. We might easily suppose this to be a Hebrew peculiarity, were it not unquestionably very ancient; for the later poets, especially after the end of the eighth century before Christ, began to substitute for Elohim, the singular Eloah, which prevails in Arabic and Aramaic. The original plural meaning being then virtually lost, poets at least were able to make the innovation. The formation of these plural words for God and Lord leads us back into that far-off time when the conception of majesty and power seemed to be exalted by those of multitude and universality." It was effected, however, without so formal a change of the whole sentence as is involved in the so-called plural of Royalty in our speech, but simply by a slight modification of the word God or Lord. But the origination of a plural word for God implies that even in that early age when this word was developed, the idea of many Gods existed. The conception of God, indeed, 1 Deut. i. 11, 21, iv. 1, vi. 3, xii. 1, xxvi. 7, xxvii. 3. The words Josh. xviii. 3 in this connection appear like an addition from the hand of the Deuteronomist. 2 Ex. xv. 2, xvii. 4. Amluk, the Ethiopic word for God, affords the only other instance where there is room for inquiry whether it was originally plural, though in certain connections used quite like a singular. The question might arise whether the nation did not adopt this usage during the Egyptian bondage, as I have read that at the present day a fellâh addresses his master as arbâb (see also Bruce's Travels, i.); but the history of the language seems to me to prove that the use of the plural is much older. Analogous to this is the Hebrew use of the plural in the formation of abstract nouns (see my Lehrbuch, §179a), and the use of the feminine, especially in Aramaic, to give emphasis to names of dignity (see my Lehrbuch, § 177f). appeared to the most ancient world boundlessly extensible, and infinitely divisible; and thus in this plural word polytheism might easily have found its firmest prop.' It is the more surprising, therefore, secondly, that we find this plural word Elohim employed by the people of Israel with the greatest regularity and strictness, always in the purest monotheistic sense; so that it is grammatically treated as a real plural only when it is designed to speak expressly of many gods; for example, in the heathen sense, in conversation with the heathen, or other exceptional cases. When, then, did so marked and so fixed a distinction in the use of this word begin? Is its strictly monotheistic employment due to Moses? It appears not; but that it was firmly established before his day. There is no indication that it was first introduced by him: he rather makes use of the new name Jahve. Or was it introduced in the time immediately preceding Moses, when Israel, in strife with the Egyptians, gained a great elevation of their life? Of this, too, we have no trace. We have therefore, in the primeval use of the word Elohim, a memorable testimony that even the Patriarchs of the nation thought and spoke monotheistically. But we possess other testimonies also from the same earliest period of a religion. corresponding with the simplest faith in the Invisible God. Nothing is more characteristic of the earliest worship of this nation, as it existed even till the time of Moses, than the custom of erecting every where simple altars without images or temples under the open sky. These suffice where men believe in an invisible heavenly God; and in their very simplicity they correspond to the simplicity of a true religion. And all the stern strife between Israel and the Egyptians, afterwards developed, was essentially a religious strife, which could not well have arisen until Israel possessed a basis of true religion, of which it refused to be robbed by the Egyptian superstitions. The history of the conflict between Monotheism and Polytheism is in the main that of the development of every higher truth. Like every truth, monotheism in itself lies safe in the human breast; in the moment when man actually perceives the living God he can perceive him only as one power; he can feel his spirit only in the presence of one God. But according to time, place, and condition, man may perceive the Divine as easily in infinitely varied and manifold ways: and here is the source of Polytheism, which, like every error, having once arisen As is evident from the plural penates. 2 See my Lehrbuch, § 308 a. |