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25 chapters
I S R A E L.
I S R A E L.
1. The beginnings of the nation 2. The settlement in Palestine. 3. The foundation of the kingdom, and the first three kings 4. From Jeroboam I. to Jeroboam II. 5. God, the world, and the life of men in Old Israel 6. The fall of Samaria 7. The deliverance of Judah 8. The prophetic reformation . 9. Jeremiah and the destruction of Jerusalem . 10. The captivity and the restoration 11. Judaism and Christianity 12. The Hellenistic period 13. The Hasmonaeans 14. Herod and the Romans 15. The Rabbins 16.
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A. HISTORY OF THE ORDINANCES OF WORSHIP.
A. HISTORY OF THE ORDINANCES OF WORSHIP.
" Legem non habentes natura faciunt legis opera."—Romans ii. [ "(When Gentiles) who do not have the law, do instinctively what the law requires…." Romans 2:14 NRSV ]...
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CHAPTER I. THE PLACE OF WORSHIP.
CHAPTER I. THE PLACE OF WORSHIP.
As we learn from the New Testament, the Jews and the Samaritans in the days of Jesus were not agreed on the question which was the proper place of worship, but that there could be only one was taken to be as certain as the unity of God Himself. The Jews maintained that place to be the temple at Jerusalem, and when it was destroyed they ceased to sacrifice. But this oneness of the sanctuary in Israel was not originally recognised either in fact or in law; it was a slow growth of time. With the he
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CHAPTER II. SACRIFICE.
CHAPTER II. SACRIFICE.
With the Hebrews, as with the whole ancient world, sacrifice constituted the main part of worship. The question is whether their worship did not also in this most important respect pass through a history the stages of which are reflected in the Pentateuch. From the results already reached this must be regarded at the outset as probable, but the sources of information accessible to us seem hardly sufficient to enable us actually to follow the process, or even so much as definitely to fix its two
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II.II.
II.II.
At all times, then, the sacrificial worship of Israel existed, and had great importance attached to it, but in the earlier period it rested upon custom, inherited from the fathers, in the post-exilian on the law of Jehovah, given through Moses. At first it was naive, and what was chiefly considered was the quantity and quality of the gifts; afterwards it became legal,—the scrupulous fulfilment of the law, that is, of the prescribed ritual, was what was looked to before everything. Was there then
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II.III.
II.III.
The turning-point in the history of the sacrificial system was the reformation of Josiah; what we find in the Priestly Code is the matured result of that event. It is precisely in the distinctions that are characteristic of the sacrificial law as compared with the ancient sacrificial praxis that we have evidence of the fact that, if not all exactly occasioned by the centralisation of the worship, they were almost all somehow at least connected with that change. In the early days, worship arose o
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CHAPTER III. THE SACRED FEASTS.
CHAPTER III. THE SACRED FEASTS.
The feasts, strictly speaking, belong to the preceding chapter, for originally they were simply regularly recurring occasions for sacrifice. The results of the investigation there made accordingly repeat themselves here, but with such clearness and precision as make it worth while to give the subject a separate consideration. In the first place and chiefly, the history of the solar festivals, that of those festivals which follow the seasons of the year, claims our attention. III.I.1 In the Jehov
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III.III.
III.III.
In the Priestly Code the festal cycle is dealt with in two separate passages (Leviticus xxiii; Numbers xxviii., xxix.), of which the first contains a fragment (xxiii. 9-22, and partly also xxiii. 39-44) not quite homogeneous with the kernel of the document. In both these accounts also the three great feasts occur, but with considerable alteration of their essential character. III.III.1. The festal celebration, properly so called, is exhausted by a prescribed joint offering. There are offered (I.
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CHAPTER IV. THE PRIESTS AND THE LEVITES.
CHAPTER IV. THE PRIESTS AND THE LEVITES.
IV.I.1 The problem now to be dealt with is exhibited with peculiar distinctness in one pregnant case with which it will be well to set out. The Mosaic law, that is to say, the Priestly Code, distinguishes, as is well known, between the twelve secular tribes and Levi, and further within the spiritual tribe itself, between the sons of Aaron and the Levites, simply so called. The one distinction is made visible in the ordering of the camp in Numbers ii., where Levi forms around the sanctuary a cord
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IV.III.
IV.III.
IV.III.1. On the whole it is easy here to bring the successive strata of the Pentateuch into co-ordination with the recognisable steps of the historical development. In the Jehovistic legislation there is no word of priests (Exodus xx.-xxiii., xxxiv.), and even such precepts as "Thou shalt not go up by steps unto mine altar, that thy nakedness be not discovered thereon " (Exodus xx. 26) are directed to the general "thou," that is, to the people. With this corresponds the fact that in the solemn
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CHAPTER V. THE ENDOWMENT OF THE CLERGY.
CHAPTER V. THE ENDOWMENT OF THE CLERGY.
The power and independence of the clergy run parallel with its material endowment, which accordingly passes through the same course of development. Its successive steps are reflected even in the language that is employed, in the gradual loss of point sustained by the phrase "to fill the hand," at all times used to denote ordination. Originally it cannot have had any other meaning than that of filling the hand with money or its equivalent; we have seen that at one time the priest was appointed by
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CHAPTER VI. CHRONICLES
CHAPTER VI. CHRONICLES
Under the influence of the spirit of each successive age, traditions originally derived from one source were very variously apprehended and shaped; one way in the ninth and eighth centuries, another way in the seventh and sixth, and yet another in the fifth and fourth. Now, the strata of the tradition show the same arrangement as do those of the legislation. And here it makes no difference whether the tradition be legendary or historical, whether it relates to pre-historic or to historic times;
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CHAPTER IX. CONCLUSION OF THE CRITICISM OF THE LAW.
CHAPTER IX. CONCLUSION OF THE CRITICISM OF THE LAW.
Objections have been made to the general style of the proof on which Graf's hypothesis is based. It is said to be an illicit argument ex silentio to conclude from the fact that the priestly legislation is latent in Ezekiel, where it should be in operation, unknown where it should be known, that in his time it had not yet come into existence. But what would the objectors have? Do they expect to find positive statements of the non-existence of what had not yet come into being? Is it more rational,
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I S R A E L.
I S R A E L.
According to the Book of Genesis, Israel was the brother of Edom, and the cousin of Moab and Ammon. These four petty peoples, which may be classed together as the Hebrew group, must at one time have formed some sort of a unity and have passed through a common history which resulted in their settlement in south-eastern Palestine. The Israelites, or rather that section of the Hebrew group which afterwards developed into Israel, appear at first to have been the immediate neighbours of Edom, and to
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5. GOD, THE WORLD, AND THE LIFE OF MEN IN OLD ISRAEL.
5. GOD, THE WORLD, AND THE LIFE OF MEN IN OLD ISRAEL.
Before proceeding to consider the rise of those prophets who were the makers of the new Israel, it will not be out of place here to cast a glance backwards upon the old order of things which perished with the kingdom of Samaria. With reference to any period earlier than the century 850-750 B.C., we can hardly be said to possess any statistics. For, while the facts of history admit of being handed down with tolerable accuracy through a considerable time, a contemporary literature is indispensable
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6. THE FALL OF SAMARIA.
6. THE FALL OF SAMARIA.
Under King Jeroboam II., two years before a great earthquake that served ever after for a date to all who had experienced it, there occurred at Bethel, the greatest and most conspicuous sanctuary of Jehovah in Israel, a scene full of significance. The multitude were assembled there with gifts and offerings for the observance of a festival, when there stepped forward a man whose grim seriousness interrupted the joy of the feast. It was a Judaean, Amos of Tekoa, a shepherd from the wilderness bord
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7. THE DELIVERANCE OF JUDAH.
7. THE DELIVERANCE OF JUDAH.
Hitherto the small kingdom of Judah had stood in the background. Its political history had been determined almost exclusively by its relation to Israel. Under the dynasty of Omri the original enmity had been changed into a close but perhaps not quite voluntary friendship. Judah found itself drawn completely into the train of the more powerful neighbouring state, and seems even to have rendered it military service. The fall of the house of Omri was an ominous event for Judah as well as Israel; Je
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8. THE PROPHETIC REFORMATION.
8. THE PROPHETIC REFORMATION.
Isaiah was so completely a prophet that even his wife was called the prophetess after him. No such title could have been bestowed on the wife of either Amos or Hosea. But what distinguished him more than anything else from those predecessors was that his position was not, like theirs, apart from the government; he sat close to the helm, and took a very real part in directing the course of the vessel. He was more positive and practical than they; he wished to make his influence felt, and when for
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9. JEREMIAH AND THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM.
9. JEREMIAH AND THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM.
Josiah lived for thirteen years after the accomplishment of his great work. It was a happy period of external and internal prosperity. The nation possessed the covenant, and kept it. It seemed as if the conditions had been attained on which, according to the prophets, the continuance of the theocracy depended; if their threatenings against Israel had been fulfilled, so now was Judah proving itself the heir of their promises. Already in Deuteronomy is the "extension of the frontier" taken into co
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10. THE CAPTIVITY AND THE RESTORATION
10. THE CAPTIVITY AND THE RESTORATION
The exiled Jews were not scattered all over Chaldaea, but were allowed to remain together in families and clans. Many of them, notwithstanding this circumstance, must have lapsed and become merged in the surrounding heathenism; but many also continued faithful to Jehovah and to Israel. They laboured under much depression and sadness, groaning under the wrath of Jehovah, who had rejected His people and cancelled His covenant. They were lying under a sort of vast interdict; they could not celebrat
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12. THE HELLENISTIC PERIOD.
12. THE HELLENISTIC PERIOD.
Palestine fell into Alexander's possession in 332; after his death it had an ample share of the troubles arising out of the partition of his inheritance. In 320 it was seized by Ptolemy I., who on a Sabbath-day took Jerusalem; but in 3I5 he had to give way before Antigonus. Even before the battle of Ipsus, however, he recovered possession once more, and for a century thereafter Southern Syria continued to belong to the Egyptian crown, although the Seleucidae more than once sought to wrench it aw
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13. THE HASMONAEANS.
13. THE HASMONAEANS.
At first there was no thought of meeting violence with violence; as the Book of Daniel shows, people consoled themselves with thoughts of the immediate intervention of God which would occur in due time. Quite casually, without either plan or concert, a warlike opposition arose. There was a certain priest Mattathias, of the family of the Hasmonaeans, a man far advanced in life, whose home was in Modein, a little country town to the west of Jerusalem. Hither also the Syrian soldiers came to put th
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14. HEROD AND THE ROMANS.
14. HEROD AND THE ROMANS.
Henceforward Roman intervention forms a constant disturbing factor in Jewish history. The struggle between the Pharisees and the Sadducees continued indeed to be carried on, but only because the momentum of their old feud was not yet exhausted. The Pharisees in a sense had been victorious. While the two brothers were pleading their rival claims before Pompey, ambassadors from the Pharisees had made their appearance in Damascus to petition for the abolition of the kingship; this object had now to
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I5. THE RABBINS.
I5. THE RABBINS.
Even now Palestine continued for a while to be the centre of Jewish life, but only in order to prepare the way for its transition into thoroughly cosmopolitan forms. The development of thought sustained no break on account of the sad events which had taken place, but was only directed once more in a consistent manner towards these objects which had been set before it from the time of the Babylonian exile. On the ruins of the city and of the temple the Pharisaic Judaism which rests upon the law a
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16. THE JEWISH DISPERSION.
16. THE JEWISH DISPERSION.
Something still remains to be said with reference to the diaspora. We have seen how it began; in spite of Josephus (Antiquities, xi. 5, 2), it is to be carried back not to the Assyrian but merely to the Babylonian captivity; it was not composed of Israelites, but solely of citizens of the southern kingdom. It received its greatest impulse from Alexander, and then afterwards from Caesar. In the Graeco-Roman period Jerusalem at the time of the great festival presented the appearance of a veritable
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