death."" Through this procedure cruelty became a sacred duty; and zealots were allowed in an outburst of enthusiasm to defy every civil or moral tie. Free scope was given to private enmity and to public aggression; and as under a perpetual reign of terror, any one might denounce his enemy or rival. War was carried on in Jehovah's name with relentless ferocity; it was an acceptable sacrifice, and hence the exultation with which the Hebrew annalist describes the utter annihilation of the conquered and "accursed" cities", including everything that breathed 24, man and beast, old and young, male and female. After the age of David this fearful practice is said to have become less frequent 25; but the feeling on which it was founded left an indelible impression on language, a thing devoted, or as it was technically called "holy," being synonymous with the "accursed" and doomed to utter destruction". And when there was no longer any immediate prospect of gratifying fanatical animosity, imagination revelled in a future renewal of the old scenes of carnage to inaugurate the Messianic kingdom, which like the first territorial establishment of

22 Michaelis, Mosaiches Recht, iii. s. 145, p. 8; and v. s. 246, p. 84, admits that a devoted city destroyed by fire and sword according to Deut. xiii. 15; see Exod. xxii. 20, was a sacrifice to Jehovah. The words of the law confirm, if confirmation be needed, the account of Jephthah's daughter being really put to death. (Judg. xi. 39. Winer, R. W. s. voc. i. 541. It was so universally understood by tradition. "Ovras any waida wλoxavτwasy" (Joseph. Ant. v. 7. 10), that is, he performed what he had vowed.

23 Josh. vi. 17. 21.

24 Josh. x. 32. 37. 40. The crime of releasing the devoted could only be atoned for by the life of the too merciful offender. Comp. 1 Sam xv. and xxviii. 18. 1 Kings xx. 42.

25 Ewald, Geschicht. iii. p. 209.

Josh. vii. 12. 15.

of death were one. There is a curious re

26 The Latin "sacer." Ewald, Anhang, v. supr. 84, 85. The sight of God was death, because Jehovah and the angel (Exod. xii. 12, 13; xxiii. 21. 23. Judg. vi. 14; xiii. 22.) mark in the Sohar (to Genes. 98a), that no one dies without seeing the Schekinah, since the "day of the Lord" to every one is the day of death. Three angels of the presence bring the Schekinah and carry away the dying spirit, according to Gen. xviii. 1;—"The Lord appeared to him in the heat of the day," that is, the heated furnace of the judgment-day.

VOL. II.

F F

the Hebrews was to be preceded by a "great day of the Lord", in other words, a great sacrificial massacre", a repetition of the eventful day of Midian 29. "This, this is the day of the Lord God," exclaims Jeremiah 30, "a day of vengeance, that he may avenge him of his adversaries; and the sword shall devour and shall be satiate and made drunk with their blood; for the Lord God of Hosts hath a sacrifice in the north country by the river Euphrates." "Jehovah's sword is filled with blood, and fed with fatness, with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams; for the Lord hath a sacrifice in Bozrah, a great slaughter in the land of Idumea". "And thou son of man," saith the Lord, "speak to every bird, and to every beast of the field, Assemble yourselves and come! Gather yourselves on every side to the sacrifice I prepare for you, a great sacrifice on the mountains of Israel, that ye may eat flesh and drink blood." It was such anticipations repeated from age to age 3, and even fixing the very spot where the corpses of the heathen were to taint the air", that excited the Jews to the frantic violence which afterwards recoiled so heavily on themselves.

32

34

§ 11.

ANTIQUITY OF THE LEVITICAL LAW.

The same law, it is said, which prescribes the Cherem prohibits Moloch worship. This objection, if it were not selfcontradictory, might be met by proof that the Hebrew law is not the well-reflected work of a single mind, but a digest of

27 Joel ii. 11; iii. 13.

28 Mic. iv. 13. Ezek. xxxix. 9. 17.

29 Numb. xxxi. 3. 17. 23. Isa. ix. 4. Zech. xiv. 11. 30 Jer. xlvi. 10.

32 Ezek. xxxix. 17. Comp. Rev. xix. 17.

31 Isa. xxxiv. 6.

33 Comp. Gfrörer, Urchrist. ii. 232. 234. 256 sq.

34 Comp. Ezek. xxxix. 11. 2 Chron. xx. 24. Targum Jerus. to Deut. xxxiv. 2, 3, The great war (Rev. xx. 8) was to take place in the valley of Jericho.

various and often conflicting materials. Moses could hardly have prohibited a rite which, despite the compiler's caution, appears to have been resorted to by himself', as well as by Samuel and David. If David followed implicitly the statutes of Jehovah, he could not have read the law as we now find it; nor is it possible to believe that while the second command was yet echoing from Sinai, the High Priest of Jehovah should have ventured to become ringleader in the degrading worship of a calf. "The Lord," it is said, "plagued the people, because they made the calf which Aaron made;" but Aaron himself, the apostate priest and arch offender, escaped unpunished, or was himself executioner of the people he misled. It is truly said that the Bible was not meant for criticism but belief. If we look at it from any point but one, the desired effect is lost. To keep up the delusion the whole Scriptures must be treated as the Books of Enoch and Daniel, the one considered as written by the "seventh from Adam," the other by a courtier of King Nebuchadnezzar. Seeking exactness, we no longer ascribe all the Psalms to David, all the Proverbs to Solomon, or all the law to Moses. The Jews habitually ascribed their writings to celebrated men or heroes; but their Pirke Eliezer was not written by the Rabbi of that name, nor the Book "Jezirah" by Abraham. We know that much of the present Pentateuch was long extant only in tradition, a fact relied on by many of the later Jews to account for its obvious deviations from the rules of eternal justice. Many of its enactments can only be explained as a prospective provision for exigencies not existing at the date of its supposed origin. Neither Moses nor his Decalogue are quoted by the earlier prophets; the Books of Judges and Samuel betray no such acquaintance with his code as would seem to have been long before possessed by Abraham, but which suddenly and un

1 Exod. xxxii. 27. Numb. xvi. 41.

Comp. the expression, "all the Levites." Exod. xxxii. 26, with ch. iv. 14. 3 Judg. vi. 13. Psal. xliv. 1; lxxviii. 3. 6.

⚫ Schliemann, Die Clementinen, pp. 73. 196 sq. 499, &c.

accountably becomes extinct, and continues unknown in the Israelitish kingdom through all the centuries of its existence. The possessors of the tabernacle and its rites", that tabernacle which Amos declares to have been Moloch's, continued to worship Jehovah under his ancient symbol on the high places of Carmel, Gilgal, or Bethel, where Jacob built the altar of the fearful god El, and where the angel with the drawn sword" exacted bloodshed and death. No priest, no prophet censured these proceedings until they were denounced by missionaries from Jerusalem. Jerusalem doubtless became actually that source of law which, according to a celebrated prophecy, it was to be prospectively. But the rise of jurisprudence was gradual, and the law extant under the early kings was far from being the present Pentateuch. Juvenal might well call the Mosaic system a well-kept secret', and we may ask with King Ptolemy1 how it happened that if really it had been so long in operation neither poet nor historian knew of its existence ? Why if it existed was it so neglected? Why do we hear nothing more of the periodical observance of feasts, of the sabbatical year", or of the year of Jubilee? Why is there not only no avoidance of foreign marriages, but no apparent knowledge of the regulations as to marriage with near kindred? 12 How is it that Moses repeatedly violates his own laws 13, nay, that Jehovah himself infringes his humane provision not to inflict needless depredations on the country of an enemy1? The Levitical texts 15 forbidding Moloch worship assume the

7

1 Chron. xxi. 29. Jer. vii. 12.

1 Sam. xv. 33. Mic. vii. 14. Amos v. 5.

Comp. Josh. v. 2. 13. 1 Sam. xv. 33.

8 Mic. iv. 2. Isa. ii. 3.

10 Philadelphus. Joseph. Ant. xii. 2. 14.

9 Sat. xiv. 102. Strabo, xvi. 761.

11 Comp. Lev. xxvi. 35. 2 Chron. xxxvi. 21.

12 2 Sam. xiii. 13; xvi. 20. Lev. xviii. 11.

13

13 As in his marriages, his neglect of circumcision, his construction of an altar (Exod. xx. 24; xxvii. 1 sq.), his making a graven image, &c.

Comp. Deut. xx. 19 with 2 Kings iii. 25.

15 Lev. xviii. 21. 27, 28; xx. 2. 23.

Canaanites to have been long destroyed or expelled; whereas we know that despite the many injunctions to this effect they continued quietly settled among the Israelites 16, who, we are told, learned their vices by associating with them, differing from them chiefly in excess of wickedness. Yet we are to believe the prohibition of these malpractices to have been long anterior to their supposed commencement, and to have been written at a time when arts much more necessary and homely than that of writing were unknown". The people who under Moses have an elaborately-detailed code are lawless savages under the Judges; under Moses they had richly-appointed sacrifices and dresses, abundance of precious gums, skilful workmen in gold and silver; under Saul they have not even a common smith to make spear or sword 18. The token of circumcision ostensibly given to Abraham was neglected throughout the sojourn in the wilderness, and we hear no more of the feast of tabernacles until the time of Nehemiah. The better part, or at least, better application of the law 19 is admitted to have been a late discovery, originating doubtless in the civilizing influences operating under the Jewish kings. In order to convince himself of the authenticity of a certain newlyfound code or book, Josiah had recourse to an ancient prophetess, whose evidence however reveals no more than he already knew, except where it ventures on a prediction in regard to himself afterwards falsified by the event. The idolatrous rites which up to this time had passed current in the name of Jehovah are revealed to us in their full enormity for the first time when formally expelled his service 20; "Go ye,"

16 Exod. xxiii. 29. Judg. ii. 21; iii. 1. Psal. cvi. 34.

17 Ewald, Geschicht. i. 68. Ghillany, pp. 12. 14. De Wette, Einleitung A. T. i. s. 12, p. 15.

18 1 Sam. xiii. 19.

19 As distinguished from the "vain precepts" ridiculed by the prophets. Isa. xxix. 13. Jer. viii. 8.

20 2 Kings xxiii. 6 sq.