towards the period of the destruction of the ancient kingdom did the growing needs and privations of the time secure a place in the legislation itself for the expression and impulse of so strong an aversion towards certain nations and inhabitants. In this respect, too, it is a new feature to which Deuteronomy introduces us. We have already seen this in regard to intermarriage with heathen women; and it is very characteristic of Deuteronomy to find it concluding a long series of commands respecting relations towards human beings with the stringent order to extirpate Amalek.2

1

When the class denoted by the word stranger, as would often be the case, coincided with the poor and helpless, then neither the later nor the earlier legislation made the smallest distinction between countrymen and strangers. On the contrary, it is Deuteronomy which repeats with the greatest em- 252 phasis and frequency the principle which had already found utterance in the earliest times, that the helpless of every kind and every race, widows, orphans, strangers-i.e. those who were not Hebrews-should meet with kind and gracious treatment. The most intrinsic impulse of Jahveism had a most powerful influence in arousing such kindness towards the poor and a readiness to assist them. This impulse exerted itself everywhere, and operated vigorously at every period; but it manifested itself most on the surface in the requirement that the poor in particular should partake in the joys of the sacrifice; for no joys could rival the elevation and comfort of these.

3

The particular relations of strangers and their customs and institutions in regard to the civil and religious community of Israel and the extent to which they were allowed the right of citizens in it, can only be explained below in another connection.

second member, Lev. xix. 18 (comp. verr. 16-18) is to be supplemented from

ver. 34.

1 P. 194.

2 Deut. xxv. 17, 19; but here we also see very plainly how what had occurred earlier merely in history, and is narrated as such in Ex. xvii. 14, may at last pass

into the legislation in almost identical words.

3 Deut. x. 18 sq.: comp. xiv. 29; xvi. 11; xxiv. 19, 21; xxvi. 12 sq.; xxvii. 19; all these are after Ex. xxii. 20 sq.; Lev. xix, 33 sq.

1 P. 212, 52.

III. THE SANCTITY OF JAHVEH AND OF HIS KINGDOM.

1. THE SANCTITY OF JAHVEH AND VENERATION FOR HIM.

The Sanctity of Truth in the Kingdom.

Over the sanctity alike of nature and of humanity stands that of the true God, as human beings in Israel learned to know him. It is he alone in the last instance who is absolutely holy, who is the sole ruler and the only one to be feared, who is perpetually giving his community fresh means to recognise him and reasons to fear him. He also it is through whom all that is sacred in man and nature first receives its sanctity.

He is accordingly the sole person who shall be deemed absolutely holy even in speaking and words, the sole name which is not to be defamed even to the most trifling extent, for otherwise in him the existence also of all law and order would be called in question, and at the same time that which was dearest to every pious heart would be polluted. That the glory of the 253 true God really stands too high to suffer defamation at the lips of a man, even in an exalted community, was an idea too hard to be grasped at that time. The knowledge of this God and the founding of his community were then too recent, the worship of him too much restricted to this one people, and the reverence towards him easily became over-anxious. He alone, according to the ancient constitution, was king of Israel, so that the crime of high-treason could only be committed in respect to him, and as the Ten Commandments would lead us to expect, the penalty for blaspheming his name was death.' The Book of Origins accordingly relates how on one occasion a semi-Israelite, son of an Israelitish woman and an Egyptian father, in a brawl with the rest of the people, reviled and cursed the Name (that above all names, therefore the glory, majesty), how the community, shocked at the unlooked-for event, sought counsel of the oracle, and how this commanded the man to be stoned. A reminiscence of such a case had doubtless been preserved out of Moses's time, although the Book of Origins, according to its wont, only avails itself of this narrative in order to explain, from its own point of view, the most fundamental principles of the criminal code valid in the community. That a nation might not publicly defame, at any rate, its

1 Hist. ii. 161.

2 The word in the narrative Lev. xxiv. 10-23 is distinguished from bp, ver. 11, 14-16, only as 'verwün

schen (revile) is from fluchen' (curse). The latter is a more independent conception, and also a worse one.

chief god, by whom public and binding oaths were sworn, was, it is true, established as a custom also among the heathen.' But the far greater truth and depth of Jahveism caused the sanctity of the name of Jahveh to be regarded with much greater seriousness, and expressed itself in far more decided consequences, than did similar phenomena among the heathen. It is true that in ancient Israel we have no sign of the excessive servile scrupulosity in regard to the use of the name of Jahveh, which attained full development towards the end of its whole 254 history. But we have clear indications in the history that the healthy tone prevalent during the fairest period of the nation's life counselled an avoidance of the most sacred name in certain forms of speech,3 and that the pious felt a delicate dread of even using the name of God openly at all in connection with captious thoughts. Here, then, we see the first beginnings of the latter scrupulousness in regard to the use of the name,' the exaggerations of which, however, gave rise to new manifestations which are altogether repugnant to the ancient usages.

6

Next after the majesty of Jahveh himself, comes that of the sacraments already described. So high did they stand as the symbols mediating between Jahveh and his community that the conduct of those who maliciously injured them seemed as intolerable to their co-religionists as that of warriors who railed at or abandoned their colours would to an army. He who injured these seemed in most cases truly to wish to injure and drive away that which lay concealed behind them-the sway of the true religion and its laws. Capital punishment in these cases was undoubtedly always inflicted with the utmost promptness.

If, finally, even improper handling of the ark, or of any of the other articles deemed most holy, was punished with death, this is only to be explained historically from the whole position occupied by the external Sanctuary among the people, a topic which is dealt with further on.

-But again, of what avail is the sanctity of the true God and his worship in the realm, however watchfully it is protected by all its members, however sternly it is revenged when injured, unless truth itself as the bond of the very existence of all solidity and all real progress in this realm, is similarly protected as something equally inviolable? As with the individual man, so with the kingdom: it can only exist and hold its own

To which the Book of Origins itself refers in the narrative ver. 15 sq. how ver. 15 is to be understood.

2 Comp. Hist. v. 198.

This is

3 This was already explained in my pamphlet on Genesis, 1823. Such as Job iii, 20.

5 P. 108 sqq.

where truth, trustworthiness, and fidelity are everywhere required, everywhere protected, and everywhere honoured, along with all the means and institutions (such as the oath and adjuration) whereby this aim is advanced. But where, as in this case, the religion of a nation desires to be reared on what is the sole foundation of all truth, then nothing more is wanting to vindicate the authority of truth. Mere laws cannot achieve much in this matter; Jahveism gives no one single law against lying and to protect truth, although its whole spirit is far more born of truth and dependent on its might than Zarathustra's law of life. But in procuring admission to the stone tables of the primitive Ten Commandments for the duty not to bear false witness against a neighbour, thus placing it on a level with the few fundamental commands, it gave sufficient proof how it took truth under its protection, as the basis of the very existence of the realm and of the common well-being of all its members. That the infringement of this law was punished with death, requires no further proof;3 and if Jahveh was invariably thought of as being close to his people, and if his holy eyes grew angry at matters of far more trifling import, how was it possible to think of him in any way but as moved to the profoundest wrath in the presence of the false witness ?4

Opposition to every form of Heathen Idolatry.

The rigid exclusion of all worship of images and of heathenism was from the first most intimately associated with the requirements of Jahveism, i.e. of true religion, and we must remember that in this case it is ultimately the public regard for truth itself that is concerned. But the extraordinary difficulties which this religion began more and more to experience in maintaining its position intact in the midst of an 255 utterly different world, naturally gave rise as time went on to greater and greater strictness. The Book of Covenants already commands the violent destruction of all the manifold tokens of heathenism, while still earlier legislation was content with uttering warnings against the imitation of heathen religious practices, and even (as they were used to swear by) against speaking the names of heathen gods. The Book of Origins,

1 P. 16 sq.

2 See Hist. ii. 161 sqq.

The words in Deut. xix. 15-21 only express more distinctly what may have been said in Ex. xxiii. 1. Comp. for the rest p. 176.

Deut. xxiii. 15. [14].

5 Ex. xxii. 19 [20] (where

is to be inserted, as in the Sam. Pent.); xxiii. 13, 24: comp. the Ten Commandments and Lev. xix. 4; xxvi. 1. Then, again, the tone is similar in the Book of Origins, Num. xxxiii. 51-53.

written during the fairest period of Israel's nationality, contains special cautions against worshipping the spirits of the desert (Demons) given in connection with its description of Israel's sojourn in the desert,' and this connection is the reason why the ghost-like, mocking spirits of the desert are mentioned in the place of all other false gods. The Deuteronomist is the first to legislate more minutely in this field, and he is the first to give distinct directions that all apostasy from Jahveism, even if counselled by a prophet or anyone else, even if committed by a nearest relative or friend, whether it appeared in an individual or a whole community, should without pity be punished with death.2-An important difference, however, was made here between a strange worship which endeavoured to accommodate itself to Jahveism, and one which stood in hostile opposition.

1. Forms of worship which were in force and honour in Israel before the founding of Jahveism, sought for many centuries after that event to hold their position alongside of it and accommodate themselves to it, and this they did all the more in proportion to the difficulty which pure Jahveism, with all its simple grandeur and freedom from images, had in becoming a permanent possession of the community. Strictly speaking, 256 the law forbade even this accommodation, by which Jahveh was revered through an image and man sank again into heathenism; but in reality it was not till during the times of the kings that a stop could be put to this popular mingling of old and new. There are three different sides on which this tendency is specially manifested.

First and foremost it appears very strongly in connection with the images of the primitive Teraphim, or family divinities,3 of Israel. About these we know, comparatively speaking, a good deal, and yet far too little for us to frame a perfectly distinct representation of them. What, however, we can gather from the scattered notices concerning them may be represented as follows: An image of this sort did not consist of a single object, but of several distinct parts, at any rate when the owner cared to have one of the more fully adorned

4

1 Lev. xvii. 7. If the same are meant by the word D, Deut. xxxii. 17, the word is nevertheless employed in this song in a far less restricted meaning, just as, Satyrs, 2 Chron. xi. 15.

Deut. xii. 29-xiii. 19 [18]; xvii. 2-7. • The Svijakuladêvatâs in the Veda.

The clearest description of them is found only in the narrative, Jud. xvii. 4 sq.; xviii. 14, 17, 18, 20, 30; the words in xviii. 18 are to be restored according to the LXX. When the words are carefully considered, it will be seen that all four names signify only one image.