13

the universe', the altar would be the all-devouring power or "Saturn" residing in it. Atonement was made to it by unction and blood13 as to Jehovah himself; the expressions "before the ark," "before the altar," and "before the Lord," are used synonymously, the altar being the general manifestation of Jehovah to which atonement was offered daily, while the Jehovah of the holy of holies required it only once a year. Isaiah addresses David's city as "Ariel," i. e. "God's hearth" or sacrificial metropolis, menacingly pointing it out as the appointed "Tophet' "15 for the immolation of the heathen. As all flesh is consumed within Jehovah's true furnace-symbol-the universe, so the flesh of victims was burnt within its representative, the altar. It was probably a brazen machine of this kind, uniting the conception of altar and god, before which Solomon spread forth his hands at the consecration of the temple, addressing it as Jehovah". The chronicler blends two seemingly conflicting conceptions; that of a heavenly God 18 and that of the hideous idolatry ascribed to Solomon, and which here with tolerable distinctness assumes its proper position in his history, not as the imbecility of his old age, but as part of Jehovah's usual service. The eternal fire of the altar was the true image of the living God, the devourer of countless offerings, the God who showed himself as a "smoking furnace" and flame of fire." The altar was therefore most holy;" no unclean or unholy person could touch it under pain of death. Every sacrificial fire was to be taken from its undying flame, "strange fire" being usurpation. The priest could not touch the altar without washing, and the Levite was prohibited altogether; yet in Exod. xxix. 37, the common man who should touch the altar is made by the very act of violation

12 Isa. xl. 22. Acts vii. 48; comp. xliv. Heb. ix. 11, &c. 18 Exod. xxix. 36.

15 Isa. xxx. 33; comp. xxix. 7; xxxi. 9.

66

14 Isa. xxix. 1.

16 Exod. xix. 18. Isa. xl. 6, 7; li. 6. Zullig to Rev. vi. 9.

17 2 Chron. vi. 12, 13.

19 Exod. xxix. 27; xxx. 21.

18 Verse 18.

to "become holy," and as it would seem, to be not only blameless but benefited by the act. But the inconsistency is only apparent. The being "holy" is equivalent to being "devoted" as sacrifice, or consecrated to the sacred fire 20. If the Levite who touched the altar was to die, much more the common man. The words are a commination of death under the unpitying hands of the priesthood, the fate awaiting all other devoted or consecrated things". The neighbourhood of the altar was as formidable to life as that of the flaming mountain made by the divine presence to smoke as a furnace," and so converted into a gigantic Moloch image, which to approach or touch was death". If superstition may be said to have reached its climax when overcoming the most powerful of human feelings it brought the infatuated parent to kiss the bull-headed instrument of infanticide", it is not astonishing that one despairing Hebrew mother should have ventured to strike the guilty altar with her slipper, saying, "Wolf! how long wilt thou continue to devour the treasure of Israel's children."

66

"24

§ 10.

THE CHEREM.

Jehovah's aspect was death; his pass-word "destruction;"1 his breath the consuming fire of Tophet'; he had the attribute by some thought to have been the original meaning of that "fearful name" which armed the avenging angel, sometimes

20 The Latin "Sacer." Comp. Ewald, Geschicht. Anhang, u. s. p. 85. Exod. xxii. 20.

21 Exod. xiii. 13; xxix. 34.

22 Comp. Josh. iii. 4. Exod. xix. 18. 21. 24. Numb. viii. 19. Deut. iv. 11.

23 Hos. xiii. 2. 1 Kings xix. 8.

24 Ghillany, p. 312.

3

'Deut. xxxiii. 27.

2 Isa. xxx. 33; xl. 7.

. Comp. Deut. iv. 24; vi. 15; ix. 3; x. 17; xxviii. 58. Ewald, Geschicht. ii. 147, n. 4.

the champion of Israel, sometimes their adversary. He was emphatically the terrific god, nay Terror personified". No one but the priest dared to approach within 2000 cubits of the place of his fancied presence. His fire was always threatening to "break out" and to devour; and so blind was its fury that the very coffer supposed to contain the written command to "do no murder," sacrificed friends and foes indiscriminately. The men of Bethshemesh, of whom an extravagant number are said to have fallen for looking into the ark, wisely declined the responsibility of again handling it; but the unfortunate Uzzah was instantly destroyed for preventing its being upset'. Distrusting his own power of self-control, Jehovah substituted an Angel lest he should yield to his desire to consume the people. He had the double aspect of all nature-gods, exhibiting a bright and a dark side, holding the balance of life and death", and often as profuse and partial in favours as at other times reckless and indiscriminate in destruction. Yet even kindness is fearful when irregular and incomprehensible; "he will have mercy on whom he will have mercy," but is as often inexplicably severe and unjust. He puts a lying spirit into the mouth of his prophets, and so lays a trap for his people which they could not escape. He gives quails to destroy them, and appoints statutes which were not good" in order to cause them to pass their first-born through the fire, and for the express purpose of making them desolate. The notion of

4 Exod. xxiii. 21, 22. Numb. xxii. 22.

Josh. v. 13. Judg. v. 23; vi. 14. 5 Gen. xxxi. 53; xxxv. 5. Isa. viii. 13. Job xviii. 14.

The ark or chest in which it was a very general practice to carry the arcana of religion was probably meant for the sarcophagus of the Nature-God (Ghillany, 353. 355. 529. Welcker, Trilogie, pp. 254. 272), whose relics were supposed, like those of Elisha (2 Kings xiii. 21), to have magical powers. Hence Jacob and Joseph attached special importance to the removal of their bones, and the Tyrians carried the remains of sacrificed children in a Moloch ark before their armies. These reliquary chests when examined often drove the gazer mad. Paus. vii. 19; viii. 5. 3; x. 2. Eurip. Ion. 276.

7 2 Sam. vi. 6.

* Exod. xv. 26; xxxiv. 6. Amos v. 17, 18. 10 Ezek. xx. 25.

• Exod. xxxiii. 3.

Psal. civ. 29, 30.

blinding or hardening the hearts of men in order to furnish a
conspicuous example of God's glory by punishing them is com-
mon throughout the O. T., and continues even in the New.
Pharaoh's heart is hardened for the purpose of displaying the
signs and wonders of an unknown God, and at the end of each
plague the same process is repeated in order to justify the in-
fliction of a new one. A capricious power is always terrific,
and terror produces the superstitious desperation which dis-
cards humanity and pity. The sanguinary principle sanctioned
by the example of Abraham extends through the whole of He-
brew ritual and practice. The often-recurring phrase, the
being hung or "dying before the Lord," evidently means a
sacrifice or religious act of atonement. The wholesale mur-
ders of Shittim and Gibeah" like the similar individual acts
performed not in reference to a foreign idol, but under the im-
mediate influence of the spirit of Jehovah 12, were strictly sacri-
fices to a Moloch whose plague ceased only on consummation
of the rite. The calf worship at Horeb is said to have been
signalized by a sacrificial massacre of three thousand people.
On this occasion the Levites were authorized to be execu-
tioners of a 66
Cherem," the form in which men were allowed
to sacrifice themselves or any member of their families by a
voluntary vow 13. "For Moses had said to the Levites, "Come
to-day with full hand" for Jehovah, and initiate yourselves (as
Levites) in your priestly office by slaying every man his son,
his brother, his companion, and his neighbour; and so earn a
blessing for yourselves this day." The slaughter represented
as punishment for worshipping the calf is more probably part
of the calf-worship, that is, a Moloch-offering; the act which
in Abraham's case was only purposed is here completed, and
the issue in both cases is explained to be a blessing propor-

11 Numb. xxv. 1. 8. 13; comp. xxi. 2. Josh. vii. 26. 2 Sam. xxi. 9.
12 Judg. xi. 29, 30.
13 Lev. xxvii. 28.

14 Comp. as to this phrase 1 Chron. xxix. 5. 2 Chron. xiii. 9; xxix. 31.
15 Exod. xxxii. 27, 29.

tioned to its importance 16. The practice here instanced was regularly authorized as law. "If," said the legislator, "thou hear say that certain men, children of Belial, are gone out and have withdrawn the inhabitants of their city, saying, Let us go serve other gods which thou hast not known; then thou shalt after inquiry smite that city with the edge of the sword, destroying it utterly; and thou shalt gather all the spoil of it into the midst of the street thereof, and shalt burn with fire both the city and the spoil for a burnt-offering to Jehovah, that the Lord may turn from the fierceness of his anger, and have compassion on thee, and multiply thee, as he sware unto thy fathers.'

"17

Ritual answers to theory, action to thought. To the double aspect of the deity corresponded his festivals of joy and fasts of grief, the address of alternate imprecation and praise, the thank and the sin-offering 18. The religious vow, too, had its dark and its bright side; there was the simple dedication, and the "cherem" or vow of extermination 19, through which Jephthah purchased victory by devoting to Jehovah (or to death), not whatsoever, but whosoever should first issue from the door of his house on his return 20. "No cherem," says the law", "which a man devotes as cherem to Jehovah of all which is his, either of man and beast, or of the field of his possession, shall be redeemed; every devoted thing is most holy to Jehovah. None devoted which shall be devoted by men shall be redeemed, but shall surely be put to

16 Comp. Gen. xxii. 17. been that of "making atonement” (Exod. xxxii. 26. 28. i. e. of "bearing iniquity." Exod. xviii. 28; xxx. 10. 17 Deut. xiii. 13.

The very essence of the office of priest appears to have
Numb. xvi. 5. 8. 10. 47) ;
Numb. xviii. 23. 32.
Ewald, as above, 58. 81.
Ewald, ib. p. 81, note.

18

19 Derived like the word avalua from avalua. 20 His words are a commentary on the law of the first-born in Exodus; the object he declares shall be Jehovah's, that is, he explains, I will offer it up for a burntoffering. It must at all events have been a domestic animal, otherwise it could not issue out of the house.

21 Lev. xxvii. 28. Comp. De Wette.