Memphis for its black and white spots, and Mnevis, the sacred bull of Heliopolis, had nearly the same marks; but the Jews, in preparing their water of purification, were ordered to kill a red heifer without a spot. HISTORY OF EGYPT, pp. 33-35.

The return of the Israelites into the land of Canaan opens to our view a third period of their history, and, a third state of their religion. The priests and Levites play a conspicuous part every where among them, deriving their institution from Moses, but, singularly enough, not practising his precepts or preserving the purity of worship which he had taught them.

It would extend this work indefinitely to enter here into a full examination of this subject. I shall therefore name only one circumstance which implies that the people, returning to the country of their ancestors, resumed at least one custom which had existed in the times of the patriarchs. This was the practise of having household gods, exemplified in the history of Micah, JUDGES chap. xvii, 4.

And the nan Micah had an house of gods, and made an ephod, and teraphim, and consecrated one of his sons who became his priest.

This reminds us of the flight of Jacob from Padan-aram, when Rachel stole the images, (teraphim in the Hebrew) belonging to her father.

:

GENESIS XXXI, 19. And Laban went to shear his sheep and Rachel had stolen the images that were her father's.

Laban pursues Jacob in his flight towards Canaan, and in his expostulation, when he comes up with him, he uses these words:

And now, though thou wouldest be gone, because thou sore longedst after thy father's house; yet wherefore hast thou stolen my gods?

as

Bishop Patrick and Dr Stackhouse explain the teraphim

objects of worship or instruments of divination. It is supposed that

Rachel stole them; either because, having still a tincture of superstition, she feared Laban should enquire of them which way Jacob was gone; or because, having been brought off by Jacob from the false notions and bad customs of her country, she desired to convince her father of his superstition, by letting him see, that his gods (as he called them) could not preserve themselves, much less be of any service to him: or because she intended to give herself some portion of his goods which she thought justly belonged to her, and of which he had deprived her. It is supposed the images were made of gold or silver, or some other valuable substance.

Dr Lightfoot represents the teraphim in a different point of view :

The teraphim were probably the pictures or statues of some of Rachel's ancestors, and taken by her for the preservation of their memory, when she was about never to see her country and father's house again.

But it is in vain that the commentators essay to evade a fact which speaks in loud accents that idolatry was the religion of those times, not, possibly, primary idolatry, such as the statue of the Olympian Jove indicated among the Greeks, but an inferior species, by which even men, who recognize the power and majesty of the great God Almighty, as they are shewn in his magnificent works-the works of Nature—are yet prone to deal in inferior agencies, spirits, wizards, ghosts, charms, and amulets,-any thing, in short, which brings down the great idea of God to the low level of their own weak understandings.

A striking contrast to this image-worship is presented by the same people, when they came back from Babylon-no more teraphim, or household deities—no thing more is said of a plurality of deities-the gods of the mountains and the gods of the plains merge into the omnipotence of the one God, surrounded by the angels, archangels, and the whole army of Heaven. Conspicuous, however, above all his satellites is the Almighty Jehovah; his attributes are those, which, in the present day, are held in reverence by half the

world, and his religion assumes that shape which we find impressed upon the Gospel-histories of the New Covenant.

But this majestic scheme of an Almighty Creator and Preserver of the Universe surrounded by the Heavenly Host was contrasted, in the later theology of the Hebrews, with a corresponding picture of a rival agency, always engaged in counteracting the benevolent purposes of Jehovah. Satan was the name of this demon or hostile spirit; and under his commands were a legion of evil spirits, ever abiding his bidding and ready to do his will. This particular phase of the religious belief of the Jews is not recognised in their history before the return from the Babylonish Captivity: an 1 as the religion of the Persians is known to have turned upon the same peculiarities, it is a reasonable inference that the Jews first acquired these views during the seventy years which the principal men of their nation passed among the Chaldean, Babylonian and Persian philosophers, who followed the doctrines of Zoroaster.*

From the time that this new element entered into the religion of the Jews, a corresponding meaning is found attached to the word Satan, , which formerly signified

* Hyde and Prideaux, working up the Persian legends and their own conjectures into a very agreeable story, represent Zoroaster as a contemporary of Darius Hystaspes. But it is sufficient to observe, that the Greek writers, who lived almost in the age of Darius, agree in placing the æra of Zoroaster many hundred, or even thousand, years before their own time. The judicious criticism of Mr Moyle perceived, and maintained against his uncle Dr Prideaux, the antiquity of the Persian prophet. See his work, vol. ii. G18в. ch. viii, vol. i, p. 319. of the 12 vol. 8vo edition.

That ancient idiom [IN WHICH THE ZENDAVESTA WAS COMPOSED] was called the Zend. The language of the commentary, the Pehlvi, though much more modern, has ceased many ages ago to be a living tongue. This fact alone (if it is allowed as authentic) sufficiently warrants the antiquity of those writings, which d'Anquetil has brought into Europe, and translated into French. GIBB. ch. viii. vol. i, p. 319 of the 12 vol. 8vo edition.

nothing more than an enemy, or adversary, but now began to be the designation of the power of evil. Used in this sense, for the Devil, the word Satan occurs in only four passages of the old Testament; and even in one of these it is inaccurately so rendered in our English bible, for the word means nothing more than adversary in that verse also. The place where it is inaccurately rendered by the English word Satan, meaning the Devil, is in Psalm cix, verse 6:

Set thou a wicked man over him; and let Satan stand at his right hand.

Here there seems to be no necessity for understanding the word to have any other meaning than that of adversary, by which a very satisfactory sense for the passage is obtained.

But the other passages, in which the word Satan is found in its new sense, occur in books which were undoubtedly written after the return of the Jews from Babylon— written, i. e. wholly, and not compiled out of ancient originals, whose words have generally been preserved entire. They are the following:

I CHRON. XXVI, 1. And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel.

JOB i, 6. Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them. And the Lord said unto Satan &c. &c.

ZECHARIAH iii, 1-2. And he shewed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to resist him. And the Lord said unto Satan, "The Lord rebuke thee &c."

The books of Chronicles are universally admitted, as has been already often remarked in this work, to belong to the later period of the Jewish Commonwealth. Zechariah also is admitted to have written about the same time, and those who still blindly look upon the book of Job as a work of very remote antiquity, have to encounter and explain the

difficulties occasioned by the Greek terms Pleiades, Orion, and others, therein occurring, which were not known to the Jews until after their intercourse with the Greeks.

But the passage in Chronicles may be compared with the corresponding narrative in II SAM. xxiv, 1, where David's sin in numbering the people is described:

And again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them to say, Go, number Israel and Judah.

Here it is the anger of the Lord against Israel, which prompts David to commit an act that was disagreeable to God: but in Chronicles it is the enmity of the Devil or Evil Spirit, which impels the king to sin. The former account flowed naturally from the opinions which the ancient Israelites held concerning the anthropomorphism and, consequently, the human feelings of anger, friendship and revenge, which they ascribed to the Almighty. The latter narrative was written when the Jews had imbibed other notions of evil, which they were probably the more ready to adopt, because the character of the Deity was thereby relieved from the imputation of sometimes being the cause which impelled mankind to sin. The two antagonistic principles of the Persian or Chaldean theology easily caught the warm imaginations of the Jewish people, who did not perceive that the belief in a God of Evil narrowed the dominion of the God of Good, in the same proportion as it exalted his moral perfections.

Another word, which furnishes aid to our present subject, is the word Nabi "prophet," which, as already hinted in page 139, was either a new word, acquired by the Jews at Babylon, or was afterwards used in an altered sense in consequence of the arts of astrology, prophecy and divination, for which the Chaldees were famous, not only in the time of Cyrus, Ezra and Nehemiah, but 500 years afterwards, at Rome, Alexandria, and in almost every country of the known world.