Part 5
On the other hand we are not warranted in passing this relatively favourable judgment upon the people as a whole. From Josh. 24:14 and Ezek. 23:8, 19, 21, we learn that Israel served idols in Egypt. The history of the wilderness journey with its repeated apostasies, such as the worship of the golden calf, becomes unintelligible, unless we may assume that the people had left Egypt in a corrupt state religiously. Perhaps also the worship of the calf-image, and the demon-worship related in Lev. 17:7, might be interpreted as of Egyptian origin. As will be later shown, however, there is no evidence that the ritual law was a mere accommodation to the corrupt tendencies of the people. But it remains true that there must have existed enough of religious decline and corruption among them to make their deliverance from Egypt more than a mere external national benefit to them without deeper spiritual significance.
It should be remembered that in the history of God's people external bondage is frequently a concomitant of spiritual unfaithfulness to Jehovah. We need not deny, of course, that the secondary causes of Israel's oppression lay in political considerations and racial antipathies. Only, political developments never furnish a sufficient explanation of what happens in Sacred History. The Egyptians were but instruments in carrying out the designs of God. That God had ordered the bondage beforehand for a specific purpose is made probable by its having been foretold to Abraham on the occasion of the making of the Berith [Gen. 15:13].
A DISPLAY OF DIVINE OMNIPOTENCE
Next we observe, in regard to the method of the deliverance, the emphasis throughout thrown on the divine omnipotence for bringing it about. Above all else Jehovah's might is celebrated in the account. This furnishes the keynote to the song of Ex. 15, a profound poetical interpretation of the exodus from this point of view [vss. 6, 7, 11]. As remarked above, there is a unique accumulation of miracles in this part of the history. The number of the plagues is ten, the Scriptural number of completeness. The dividing of the waters of the sea is the culminating act in the great drama of redemption. The sacred poetry of later times was fond of celebrating these acts of God and basing on them the assured hope of future similar deliverances. Jehovah's omnipotence and the exodus remain from this time onward associated in the tradition of Israel.
With this emphasis on the element of power, it is no wonder that everything in the history is carefully arranged to place it in the proper relief. When Moses in his own strength sought to deliver the people, the result was a failure. When, after an interval of forty years and actually commissioned by Jehovah to guide and effect the redemption, he assumes the task in the totally opposite spirit of absolute dependence upon God, thoroughly recognizing his own unfitness, God promises that He will smite Egypt with all His wonders [Ex. 3:20]. He puts His wonders into the hand of Moses
[4:21]. He proceeds to redeem Israel with a stretched-out arm and great judgments [6:6]. The hardening of Pharaoh's heart, while intended to make him a pronounced exponent of evil, had also the further intention of prolonging the process of deliverance, thus creating room for the fullest display of miraculous power. This is said in so many words: 'I will harden Pharaoh's heart. and multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt' [7:3]. The task had to be made more difficult in order that the omnipotence effecting it might be the more apparent. Nay, Pharaoh's whole existence and personality and conduct seem to have been shaped with this in view. In Ex. 9:16, Jehovah declares: 'But in very deed for this cause have I made thee to stand, for to show thee my power, and that my name may be declared through all the earth'. Even if the words 'made thee to stand' mean 'kept thee standing longer on the stage of history, whereas under ordinary circumstances thou wouldst have fallen before', they bear out the view in question. Still more is this the case, if the stronger rendering be adopted: 'I have caused thee to stand upon the scene', i.e., have called thee into being [cp. Rom. 9:17]. Finally the conflict between the works wrought by Moses and the signs of the Egyptian magicians show that a transaction in the sphere of power is described.
A DEMONSTRATION OF SOVEREIGN GRACE
Again, the deliverance from Egypt was a signal demonstration of the sovereign grace of God. The Egyptians were judged with respect to their idolatry, and the Israelites were rescued and spared, in spite of having become associated with their oppressors in idolatrous practices. It is plain that the principle of sovereign grace alone will account for such facts. This is called 'putting a difference between Israelites and Egyptians' [Ex. 8:23; 11:7]. In harmony with this it is repeatedly stated in the Pentateuch, that the source of Israel's privilege lies exclusively in free divine grace, not in any good qualities possessed by the people from themselves [Deut. 7:7; 9:4–6]. True, God's love for the Mosaic Israel is traced back to His love for the fathers. This carries the relationship of free choice one step
further back, but does not in substance alter its nature, for the fathers too were chosen in the sovereign love of God.
The idea of sonship, here for the first time emerging [cp. Gen. 6:2], belongs to the same train of thought [Ex. 4:22; Deut. 32:6]. Sonship is from the nature of the case unmeritorious. We also meet again the peculiar affectionate use of the verb 'to know', previously met with in regard to Abraham [Ex. 2:24, 25]. Also the verb 'to choose' is used. This is peculiar to Deuteronomy [7:6, 7; 14:2]. Finally, the term 'redemption' enters into religious use here. Its specific meaning (different from such general terms as 'to rescue', 'to deliver') lies precisely in this, that it describes the loving reacquisition of something formerly possessed. There is not yet in the Old Testament any reflection on that element so easily associated with the conception, viz., that a redemptionprice is paid. Only by way of metaphor this thought emerges in an isolated instance [Isa. 43:3]. The sense is in the Pentateuchal passages simply that of attachment shown in the renewal of the ancient ownership. Hence in the later chapters of the prophecy of Isaiah, where the background is that of deliverance from exile, the term attains to great frequency. The passages in the Pentateuch are: Ex. 6:6; 15:13; Deut. 7:8; 9:26; 13:5; 21:8.
THE NAME 'JEHOVAH'
With this feature of the sovereignty shown in redemption is connected the specifically Mosaic name of God, Jehovah. This form is a pronunciation in which the vowels of Adonai were given to the consonants of the name in question. The writing of these vowels sprang originally from the Jewish scrupulousness refraining from the utterance of this most sacred name altogether. Because Adonai was always read in place of it, therefore, when vowels were added, for convenience' sake the vowels required for the reading of Adonai were simply attached. It was, of course, never contemplated at that time that the consonants standing in the text, and which it would have been the height of impiety to remove, should have in pronunciation
joined to them these alien vowels. This was first done in Christian reading, when the old Jewish scrupulosity was no longer felt, and thus the hybrid form Jehovah arose. It has been in use since the sixteenth century. Unfortunately, the renderings of the Bible into the various vernaculars continued the Jewish practice of reading Adonai, and so put 'Lord' or its equivalent in the other languages, for Jehovah. Modern scholarship thinks it has discovered the original pronunciation of the name, customary up to the time when Jewish superstition abolished it, and it is now commonly found in critical books in the form 'Jahveh'. Certain, however, this sounding of the word is not. Even if certainty could be obtained in this respect, it would scarcely be advisable to introduce 'Jahveh' into the reading of Scripture, especially not for liturgical purposes. Still it is a step in the right direction that the American Revision has restored Jehovah. When the suspicious critical flavour of 'Jahveh' shall have somewhat evaporated, and stronger new evidence for the correctness of 'Jahveh' shall have been obtained, the latter will perhaps come to its rights again. Meanwhile, there is no excuse for continuing the total non-use of the sacred name, now that 'Jehovah' has, through the American Revision, made its reappearance in our Bible.
In Ex. 6:3 we read that the revelation of the name belongs to, and is characteristic of the Mosaic period. Proceeding on the inference that the writer of this passage could not possibly have regarded it as known in older times, the divisive criticism has laid this passage at the basis of the distinction between Elohistic and Jahvistic documents. There are, however, strong objections to this literalistic exegesis of the passage. It is a priori improbable that Moses should have been sent to his brethren, whom he had to recall from forgetfulness of the God of their forefathers, with a new, formerly unknown, name of this God upon his lips. Then there is the fact that Moses' mother bears a name compounded with Jehovah, in its abbreviated form Jo, viz., Jokhebed. And this name occurs in the very same document to which Ex. 6:3, belongs, so that the additional assumption, unfavoured by aught else, of an interpolation of the name Jokhebed in this document is required. Closely looked at, Ex.
6:3 does not require the absolute previous unknownness of the word. The statement need mean nothing more than that the patriarchs did not as yet possess the practical knowledge and experience of that side of the divine character which finds expression in the name. 'To know' in the Hebrew conception, and the same word in our everyday parlance, are two quite different things. The context of Ex. 6:3 even renders probable that a practical, experiential knowledge is referred to. In vss. 6, 7 we read: 'I will redeem you with a stretched-out arm— and I will take you to me for a people, and I will be to you a God, and ye shall know that I am Jehovah your God'. Through the redemption they will learn, not that there is a Jehovah, but what Jehovah means to them, that Jehovah is their God, or that their God is Jehovah.
Of course, the assumption of a pre-Mosaic existence of the name does not imply that it existed as early as the narrator in Genesis, speaking for his own person, introduces it. How much older than the exodus it is we cannot tell. A priori the hypothesis cannot be excluded that in earlier times it may have had other associations. The name may have been current in small circles; a different etymology from that of Ex. 3 may have been ascribed to it. It may even have come from an extra-Hebrew source. The views, however, proposed in this last-named direction are some of them impossible, all of them highly problematical. An Egyptian origin has been assumed by Voltaire, Schiller, Comte, and others. This is out of the question, because the deliverance from Egypt is represented as involving a conflict between Jehovah and the gods of the Egyptians.
According to Colenso, Land, and others, the name is North-Shemitic, and designated in its former environment the god of heaven, the giver of fruitfulness, in whose honour the orgiastic worship of Syria was practised. There is what purports to be an ancient oracle, in which the name Iao is identified with Dionysos, so that Jehovah would be the Canaanitish Dionysos. At first a relatively high antiquity was ascribed to this piece, so as to render the explanation possible that the Syrian form Iao was the original, from which then the Hebrews would have borrowed their Jehovah. This, of course,
became impossible when the late date became apparent, for at so late a date the Israelites had been long in possession of the name Jehovah. The likelihood on that supposition would be that the Syrian worshippers of such an Iao had borrowed the name of their deity from the well-known name of the God of Israel.
More recently it has been thought that the name was discovered in early Egyptian lists of Canaanitish places, such as Baitiyah, Babiyah. It has also been found in the name of a king of Hamath reading Yaubidi in Assyrian inscriptions. A hypothesis much in vogue among the Wellhausenians is that Jehovah was a god of the Kenites, a tribe in the district of Sinai, to whom the father-in-law of Moses belonged, which would explain Jehovah's association with that mountain. Then there is still the hypothesis that Jehovah is identical with the form Yahu, or Yah, occurring in Assyrio-Babylonian proper names, which the Hebrew priests would have changed into Jahveh, in order to suggest derivation from hayah, 'to be'.
Equally futile as most of these theories of provenience are some of the etymologies, largely naturalistic, proposed in explanation of the original sense of the word itself. It has been connected with hawah, 'to fall', on the view of its meaning 'he who rushes, crashes down', a storm-god, or, even more primitively, a meteoric stone fallen from heaven. Or hawah has been compared in the sense of 'to blow', which it has in Arabic. Wellhausen observes: 'the etymology is quite obvious; he rides through the air, he blows'. Again the sense of 'falling' has been introduced after this fashion; Jahveh is a Hiphil form, which yields 'he who causes to fall', i.e., the rain-, the stormgod. Thus Robertson Smith, Stade and others. Far less naturalistic is the derivation, likewise from the Hiphil, proposed by Kuenen, 'he who causes to be', i.e., the Creator, or, with a more historic turn, 'he who causes his promises to be', that is, fulfils them.
All these derivations are purely conjectural. It is obvious that, whatever the original meaning lying behind the Old Testament usage, if such there was, the authoritative sense for the religion of
Israel has been fixed through the revelation of Ex. 3, and with this alone we have here to deal. God says to Moses: Ehyeh asher Ehyeh. Then this is abbreviated to Ehyeh, and finally turned from the first into the third person Yehweh. The solution of the mystery must lie in the fuller form.
What can such a sentence mean? Here again, where the inquiry is into the intent of the writer exclusively, opinions of expositors vary widely. There is at the start the issue of construction. We may read the sentence straight down from the beginning: 'I am what I am', and attach our interpretation, whatever it is, directly to this. Or, and this is syntactically just as possible in the Hebrew, we may start to read from the middle, placing the first word at the end, which would yield: 'I, who am, truly am'. Further into the question of rendering there enters the analogy of the similarly constructed sentence, Ex. 33:19, which, since it is likewise associated with the name Jehovah, must needs be regulative, at least as to construction, for the formula of Ex. 3. If there we read: 'I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious', we are bound to read here: 'I am what I am'. On the other hand, if there we construe: 'to whom I will be gracious I will be (truly) gracious', we cannot very well do otherwise here in Ex. 3:14: 'I, who am, (truly) am'.
Keeping this in mind, let us now briefly review the solutions offered. One is that the sentence expresses the inscrutability of God: 'I am what I am; what I am is not to be curiously enquired into; my being cannot be expressed by any name'. Against this weighs the fact that all the other divine names are expressive of something. A name to express namelessness, i.e., unknowableness, would be under the circumstances quite out of place. It was at this juncture of supreme importance that God should in some striking manner reveal Himself, so as to emphasize and define some aspect of His character, needful for the people to know. On this view, of course, the construction is the one straight down from the beginning.
Another solution is, that God here asseverates the reality of His being. For this the construction will have to set in at the middle: 'I, who am, (truly) am'. In its more philosophic form this may be called the ontological view. It would approach what the schoolmen have tried to express in the doctrine that God is pure being. But this is far too abstract an idea to be suitable here. It would bear no direct application to the need of the Israelites at this juncture. They, surely, had something else and more urgent to do than to lose themselves in speculations anent the mode of God's existence. Feeling this, some, while retaining the idea, have endeavoured to give it a more practical turn. Jehovah is called the Being One par excellence, because He attests His being by acting. To the instinct of our modern language such an association is not unfamiliar. We say a thing is 'actual', meaning it is 'real', although 'actual' etymologically means 'that which acts'. But that this was as familiar to the Hebrew instinct of language formation would be difficult to prove. It is rather an abstract idea, and no traces of it in Hebrew idiom have been discovered.
A third effort to put meaning into the phrase is that of Robertson Smith. He calls attention to Ex. 3:12, where God says to Moses: 'Certainly I shall be with thee', and considers the clause 'I shall be' an abbreviation for 'I shall be with you'. This understanding again requires the reading of the sentence to start from the middle: 'I, who will be with you, surely will be with you'. There are two objections to this. For one thing it changes the singular 'thee' addressed to Moses to the plural 'you' addressed to the Israelites. Besides this, it assumes that in such a statement the really important part of the import could be left to be supplied. The 'with you' is actually the core of the whole promise, and this would have remained unexpressed.
Less open to objection than all these offered solutions is the old view, according to which, reading the clause straight from beginning to end, it gives expression to the self-determination, the independence of God, that which, especially in soteric associations, we are accustomed to call His sovereignty. Considerable support this
receives from the analogously-phrased sentence in Ex. 33:19, where the context seems to call rather for an affirmation of the sovereignty of God in bestowing the favour of vision of Himself than for an assurance to the effect that, promising to be gracious, He will be truly gracious. Thus taken, the name Jehovah signifies primarily that in all God does for His people, He is from-within-determined, not moved upon by outside influences.
But from this there issues immediately another thought, quite inseparable from it, viz., that being determined from within, and not subject to change within, He is not subject to change at all, particularly not subject to it in relation to His people. Thus understood, the name fits admirably into the situation of its revealing. Jehovah, the absolute God, acting with unfettered liberty, was the very God to help them in their unworthiness as regards themselves, and in their impotence as regards the Egyptians. That sovereignty underlies God's giving Himself to Israel is stated in so many words: 'I will take you to me for a people, and I will be to you a God, and ye shall know that I am Jehovah, your God' [Ex. 6:7]. But the other element, that of faithfulness, is equally much emphasized from the beginning: 'Jehovah, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations' [Ex. 3:15]. 'I have remembered my covenant. Wherefore say unto the children of Israel, I am Jehovah' [Ex. 6:5, 6, 8], In Ex. 33:19, where God gives a disclosure of His sovereignty to Moses, this is brought into connection with the name Jehovah. In the later Scriptures the second element, that of faithfulness, is especially associated with the name [Deut. 7:9; Isa. 26:4; Hos. 2:20; Mal. 3:6].
THE PASSOVER
The last prominent feature in the Exodus redemption is the expiatory strand running through it. This consists in the Passover. Notwithstanding its sovereignty, grace could not be exercised without an accompanying atonement. In virtue of this rite the Slayer
passed over the houses of the Israelites. In fact the name Pasach is derived from this. The verb means first 'to leap', then 'to jump over', then 'to spare'. Both Ex. 12:13 and 27 explain the etymology in this way [cp. also Isa. 31:5]. To be sure, as in the case of Jehovah, so here, other naturalistic explanations have been proposed. The word has been derived from the triumphant passage of the sun through the equinoctial point into the sign of the Ram; Passover would then originally have been the spring-festival of the Equinox. The name has also been explained from the ritual dancing performed at the spring festival.
According to the account the blood put upon the houses was not a mere signal by which the dwellings of the Hebrews could be recognized. It may have been this too, but its real efficacy was derived from its sacrificial character. This is affirmed explicitly, Ex. 12:27: 'It is the sacrifice of Jehovah's Passover, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt' [cp. Ex. 34:25; Num. 9:7– 10; 1 Cor. 5:7]. Notwithstanding these unequivocal statements most of the old Protestant theologians denied the sacrificial character of the Passover. This was from reaction to the Romish doctrine of the mass. In support of this doctrine the Romanists appealed to the Passover as the corresponding typical sacrifice of the Old Testament. It was in order to deprive them of this argument that Protestants went to the length of denying that the Passover had been a sacrifice.
Now, if it was a sacrifice, the question next arises, to what class of sacrifices it belongs. Some features it had peculiar to itself, but on the whole it will have to be classified with the peace-offerings. Notwithstanding the emphasis thrown on the expiatory element, it cannot be subsumed under the sin-offerings, for of these the offerer was not allowed to eat, whereas it was obligatory to eat the Passover. The idea prominent in every peace-offering was that of berithfellowship with God. The meal was an exponent of the state of peace and blessedness enjoyed. But precisely because this meal followed the sacrifice proper, there must be recognized in it a reminder of the necessary dependence of such a state of privilege on antecedent
expiation. It is a mistake to think that, in the sin-offerings only, expiation was afforded. Wherever there is slaying and manipulation of blood there is expiation, and both these were present in the Passover. The element of purification, closely connected with that of expiation, is separately symbolized in that the application of the blood had to be made by a bunch of hyssop. Hyssop figures everywhere as an instrument of purification. From the ordinary peace-offerings, later regulated by the law, the Passover had the following points of difference: it had and retained the historical background; through the bitter herbs eaten with it the bitterness of the Egyptian bondage was kept alive in the memory of Israel. Further, it was distinctly a national feast, whereas the ordinary peace-offerings were of a private character. Hence it was celebrated, not on a private, but on a family basis. None of the meat was to be taken out of the house. If one family was not able to consume it, two families had to join. Not a bone of the lamb was to be broken, and for this reason it was roasted in fire, not boiled in water. This close connection with the national life of Israel explains why the Passover was not instituted until the organization of Israel as a nation had come near. Circumcision dates from Abraham, the Passover from Moses.
Modern criticism on the whole denies the historical-commemorative origin of the Passover. Its connection with the exodus was an afterthought. Like the other feasts, it was in existence first as a nature-feast of nomadic or agricultural significance. It is assumed by most writers of this class, that the Passover was originally the feast of the sacrifice of the first-born; so Wellhausen, Robertson Smith and others. This first-born sacrifice is usually understood on the principle of a tribute-payment to the deity. Robertson Smith, however, would exclude this whole idea of tribute-payment from the primitive religion of Israel. He explains the surrender of the first-born from the taboo-character of every first birth. There are some critics who do not favour the connection of the rite with the gift of the first-born to the deity at all. Benzinger (see article in Encyclopaedia Biblica) considers the Passover an ancient blood-rite, by which in times of
pestilence and other occasions of danger, protection was sought from the Destroyer. This comes nearer again, at least in its general conception, to the account of Exodus. There is no need of being overmuch exercised on account of these various theories. They do in no way discredit the Biblical representation. In analogy with what we know of circumcision, the observance of the Passover among Israel might have been placed on an antecedent basis, although undoubtedly it was invested with new meaning. That the Hebrews had been previously accustomed to observe a religious festival in the Spring, we know from their request to Pharaoh [Ex. 8:1, 27]. This may have been a feast of the sacrifice of the first-born. As to the theory of an ancient blood-rite, this likewise God may have incorporated into the historically-instituted feast.
[2] The 'Berith' made between Jehovah and Israel
The Making of the Berith between Jehovah and Israel is the next subject for consideration under the head of the Content of the Mosaic Revelation. This memorable event is described in Ex. 24. Some preparations for the promulgation of the Decalogue should be read together with this chapter, Ex. 19. It should be noticed, that here the berith appears for the first time as a two-sided arrangement, although that is by no means the reason of its being called a berith. This reason lies entirely in the ceremony of ratification. As to the arrangement itself, great emphasis is placed on the voluntary acceptance of the berith by the people. It is true, the initiative in designing the terms is strictly vindicated for Jehovah. No parleying, no co-operation between God and man in determining the nature and content are from the standpoint of the narrative conceivable. It is Jehovah's covenant exclusively in that respect. Still, the berith is placed before the people, and their assent required [Ex. 19:5, 8; 24:3].
It is precisely this emphasis thrown on the voluntariness of the union, that leads the critics to deny the historicity of the event. Previously to the great prophets the religion of Israel did not possess
such a voluntary nature. If here it is represented as bearing that character, the reason can, on the critical premises, only be, that this part of the documents stands under the influence of the prophetic ideas, and does not reflect history. By the prophets the thought was first developed that Jehovah and Israel are bound together in a free and ethical relationship. But even the earliest of these prophets do not yet so represent it, as if a berith existed underlying the religion of Israel. First in the Deuteronomic law-book, written (according to the critical scheme) in the latter half of the seventh century, does this formula appear. Its sudden emergence at that point is supposed to be due to what 2 Kings 22 relates as having happened, viz., the entering upon a solemn league on the part of the people to observe these Deuteronomic ordinances. Now, since for greater impressiveness and effectiveness it had been thought best to derive this newly produced and newly quasi-discovered law-book from Moses, and since the intention was to bind the people to it by a berith, necessity arose and consistency required that the matter be represented as a procedure followed in Moses' time, all that was now required of the people being simply a reaffirmation of the earlier berith-acceptance of the Mosaic date. In this manner, according to these writers, the berith conception made its entrance into the historiography of the Old Testament religion; it was subsequently introduced, according to them, into all the older documents in which previously it had not occurred.
The weakness of this critical construction lies in two points. Altogether too much importance is ascribed by it to the presence or absence or frequency of the term berith to determine the essential character of the Old Testament religion. The term does not of itself denote either two-sidedness or one-sidedness, voluntariness or necessity, and is not fit to serve as an indicator of the inner nature of the religion itself. A religion might have a berith connected with it, into which nevertheless very little of mutual free choice entered. The critics at this point are still under the spell of the dogmatic preconception that berith is a synonym for 'compact' or 'agreement'. Besides, the narrative of 2 Kings 22 in no wise clears up the origin of
the berith-religion-concept as alleged by the critics. What is described in this chapter is not a berith between Jehovah and the people, but between the king and the people in the presence of Jehovah.
As to the proceedings described in Ex. 24, we notice that they are made up of the same two elements that entered into the Passover transaction. In fact, the latter might properly be called an anticipation of the berith-making at Sinai. There was first the sacrificial expiation or purification. This was followed by the partaking of the sacrificial meal. We find the combination of these two likewise on the present occasion. That the meal upon the mountain represents the goal and consummation of the berith may be inferred from the fact that the account opens with the injunction concerning it, although this could not be executed until all the intervening things were done.
From the circumstances of this separation by seven verses between the injunction and its fulfilment, the inference has been drawn that two different accounts of the berith-making are woven together here, one according to which it was made by the ceremony of eating with Jehovah upon the mount [vss. 1, 2, 9–11], and the other according to which it was made by the sacrifices [vss. 3–8]. This dissection is not only unnecessary, but impossible. The sacrifices consisted in part of peace-offerings, and no peace-offering is complete without a meal. On the other hand, the meal described in vss. 9–11 is so unmistakably a sacrificial meal as to become unintelligible without the preceding account of the sacrifice. The sacrifice includes the element of expiation. For the fundamental berith-making this was indispensable; every one entering upon a union of this kind would first purify himself through sacrifice or otherwise. Already before the giving of the Decalogue the people had been enjoined to sanctify themselves and wash their garments, particularly the priests [Ex. 19:10, 22]. Yet this assumption, so natural in itself, has been rejected by recent writers in favour of a modern theory as to the significance of blood in sacrifice. According to them the function of blood is not
(at least not until comparatively late times) to expiate, but to effect a sacramental union, the parties partaking in the blood of a common life. This would in itself yield a quite suitable meaning here, as the berith might easily be conceived of as a life-union between Jehovah and Israel. While the idea is attractive, there are scarcely points of contact in the Old Testament for such a conception of the berith. The berith lies not in the sphere of mystical life; it belongs to the sphere of conscious assurance. Besides, the division of the blood into two parts and the separated use made of each does not readily lend itself to this theory, since on the basis of it, it would have been appropriate rather to unite most closely the application of the blood to Jehovah on the altar [vs. 6] and its application to the people [vs. 8]. The natural view to take of it is, that before the blood could act for the benefit of the people it had to do its work with reference to Jehovah, and this could scarcely consist in aught else than to make the prerequisite expiation.
The book which Moses wrote, and with reference to which the berith was made, contained all the words of Jehovah, or as vs. 3 expresses it, 'the words and the judgments'. Some say the words are the Decalogue and the judgments all that follows, up to the close of chap. 23. This is a possible interpretation, although it might be objected to it, that the Decalogue had been addressed to the people by Jehovah's own mouth. In favour of it speaks the difficulty of understanding 'the words' of 20:22–26, in case they are not understood of the Decalogue.
The berith had, of course, a national reference to Israel as a whole. This is implied in the summons to ascend addressed to the representatives of the people [vs. 1], and also by the twelve pillars built together with the altar [vs. 4].
Finally, the meeting with Jehovah at the conclusion of the ceremony must be understood in closest connection with the relation that had been established. The phrase 'the God of Israel' is highly significant here. Through the berith-making, Jehovah had become 'the God of
Israel' in this new profound sense. The vision spoken of is not an ordinary vision to impart knowledge. It is the fulfilment of sacramental approach to and unusual union with Jehovah. How different it was from the ordinary vision of the Deity is indicated by the words: 'And upon the nobles of the children of Israel, He laid not his hand'. Ordinarily it is considered dangerous or even fatal to get sight of the Deity. Through the berith this had now been changed. An anticipation of this we met before in the history of Jacob [Gen. 32:30]. That the vision had its limitations is implied in vs. 10b.
[3] The organization of Israel: the theocracy
Next we must consider the general organization of Israel that originated in this berith. This is usually designated as 'the theocracy'. This name for it is not found in the Scriptures, although it admirably describes what the Biblical account represents Israel's constitution to have been. Probably the term was coined by Josephus. He observes in regard to the governments of other nations, that some of these were monarchies, others oligarchies, still others democracies; what God set up among Israel was a theocracy. Obviously Josephus finds in this something distinctive and unique. This is correct as far as the great systems of civilization of that day were concerned. But it is not quite correct, if Israel be compared with other Shemitic tribes. The theocratic principle, i.e., the principle of the deity being the supreme authority and power in national life, seems to have been not uncommon among the Shemites. We may infer as much from the observation that Melekh, 'King', is a frequent Shemitic name for the deity. But while under ordinary circumstances this was a mere belief, it proved among Israel an undoubted reality. The laws under which Israel lived not merely had the divine sanction behind them in the general sense in which all law and order ultimately derives from God through general revelation by way of the conscience, but in the specific sense, that Jehovah had directly revealed the law. In other words Jehovah in person performed the task usually falling to a human king. And in the sequel also, Jehovah by supernatural interposition, when necessary, continued to act the role of King of
the nation. This fact was so deeply embedded in the consciousness of the leaders of Israel that still in the time of Gideon and Samuel it was felt to forbid the setting up of a purely human kingdom. The union of the religious lordship and the national kingship in the one Person of Jehovah involved that among Israel civil and religious life were inextricably interwoven. If the union had happened to exist in any other person but God, a division of the two spheres of relationship might have been conceivable. The bond to God is so one and indivisible that no separation of the one from the other can be conceived. Hence the later prophetic condemnation of politics, not merely wicked politics, but politics per se, as derogatory to the royal prerogative of Jehovah.
Further it ought to be noticed that between these two concentric spheres the religious one has the pre-eminence. It is that for the sake of which the other exists. For our system of political government such an interrelation would, of course, seen a serious, intolerable defect. Not so among Israel. The chief end for which Israel had been created was not to teach the world lessons in political economy, but in the midst of a world of paganism to teach true religion, even at the sacrifice of much secular propaganda and advantage.
Nor was it merely a question of teaching religion for the present world. A missionary institution the theocracy never was intended to be in its Old Testament state. The significance of the unique organization of Israel can be rightly measured only by remembering that the theocracy typified nothing short of the perfected kingdom of God, the consummate state of Heaven. In this ideal state there will be no longer any place for the distinction between church and state. The former will have absorbed the latter. In a rough way the principle involved was already apprehended by Josephus. In the passage introducing the word 'theocracy' he observes that Moses, by giving such a constitution to the Israelites, did not make religion a part of virtue, but made all other virtues to be a part of religion. The fusion between the two spheres of secular and religious life is strikingly expressed by the divine promise that Israel will be made 'a
kingdom of priests and an holy nation' [Ex. 19:6]. As priests they are in, nay, constitute the kingdom.
THE FUNCTION OF LAW
From the nature of the theocracy thus defined we may learn what was the function of the law in which it received its provisional embodiment. It is of the utmost importance carefully to distinguish between the purpose for which the law was professedly given to Israel at the time, and the various purposes it actually came to serve in the subsequent course of history. These other ends lay, of course, from the outset in the mind of God. From the theistic standpoint there can be no outcome in history that is not the unfolding of the profound purpose of God. In this sense Paul has been the great teacher of the philosophy of law in the economy of redemption. Most of the Pauline formulas bear a negative character. The law chiefly operated towards bringing about and revealing the failure of certain methods and endeavours. It served as a pedagogue unto Christ, shut up the people under sin, was not given unto life, was weak through the flesh, worked condemnation, brings under a curse, is a powerless ministry of the letter. These statements of Paul were made under the stress of a totally different philosophy of the law-purpose, which he felt to be inconsistent with the principles of redemption and grace.
This Pharisaic philosophy asserted that the law was intended, on the principle of merit, to enable Israel to earn the blessedness of the world to come. It was an eschatological and therefore most comprehensive interpretation. But in its comprehensiveness it could not fail being comprehensively wrong, if it should prove wrong. Paul's philosophy, though a partial one, and worked out from a retrospective standpoint, had the advantage of being correct within the limited sphere in which he propounded it. It is true, certain of the statements of the Pentateuch and of the Old Testament in general may on the surface seem to favour the Judaistic position. That the law cannot be kept is nowhere stated in so many words. And not only this, that the keeping of the law will be rewarded is stated once and
again. Israel's retention of the privileges of the berith is made dependent on obedience. It is promised that he who shall do the commandments shall find life through them. Consequently writers have not been lacking who declared that, from a historical point of view, their sympathies went with the Judaizers, and not with Paul.
Only a moment's reflection is necessary to prove that this in untenable, and that precisely from a broad historical standpoint Paul had far more accurately grasped the purport of the law than his opponents. The law was given after the redemption from Egypt had been accomplished, and the people had already entered upon the enjoyment of many of the blessings of the berith. Particularly their taking possession of the promised land could not have been made dependent on previous observance of the law, for during their journey in the wilderness many of its prescripts could not be observed. It is plain, then, that law-keeping did not figure at that juncture as the meritorious ground of life-inheritance. The latter is based on grace alone, no less emphatically than Paul himself places salvation on that ground. But, while this is so, it might still be objected, that law-observance, if not the ground for receiving, is yet made the ground for retention of the privileges inherited. Here it can not, of course, be denied that a real connection exists. But the Judaizers went wrong in inferring that the connection must be meritorious, that, if Israel keeps the cherished gifts of Jehovah through observance of His law, this must be so, because in strict justice they had earned them. The connection is of a totally different kind. It belongs not to the legal sphere of merit, but to the symbolicotypical sphere of appropriateness of expression.
As stated above, the abode of Israel in Canaan typified the heavenly, perfected state of God's people. Under these circumstances the ideal of absolute conformity to God's law of legal holiness had to be upheld. Even though they were not able to keep this law in the Pauline, spiritual sense, yea, even though they were unable to keep it externally and ritually, the requirement could not be lowered. When apostasy on a general scale took place, they could not remain in the
promised land. When they disqualified themselves for typifying the state of holiness, they ipso facto disqualified themselves for typifying that of blessedness, and had to go into captivity. This did not mean that every individual Israelite, in every detail of his life, had to be perfect, and that on this was suspended the continuance of God's favour. Jehovah dealt primarily with the nation and through the nation with the individual, as even now in the covenant of grace He deals with believers and their children in the continuity of generations. There is solidarity among the members of the people of God, but this same principle also works for the neutralizing of the effect of individual sin, so long as the nation remains faithful. The attitude observed by the nation and its representative leaders was the decisive factor. Although the demands of the law were at various times imperfectly complied with, nevertheless for a long time Israel remained in possession of the favour of God. And, even when the people as a whole become apostate, and go into exile, Jehovah does not on that account suffer the berith to fail. After due chastisement and repentance He takes Israel back into favour.
This is the most convincing proof that law-observance is not the meritorious ground of blessedness. God in such cases simply repeats what He did at the beginning, viz., receive Israel into favour on the principle of free grace. It is in agreement with this, when the law is represented in the Old Testament, not as the burden and yoke which it later came to be in the religious experience of the Jews, but as one of the greatest blessings and distinctions that Jehovah had conferred upon his people [Deut. 4:7, 8; Psa. 147:19, 20; cp. even Paul, Rom. 9:4, 5]. And in Paul's teaching the strand that corresponds to this Old Testament doctrine of holiness as the indispensable (though not meritorious) condition of receiving the inheritance is still distinctly traceable.
From the above it will be seen how distorted and misleading it would be to identify the Old Testament with law, negatively considered, and the New Testament with gospel. This would mean that there was no gospel under the old dispensation at all. The Pauline statements are
sometimes apt to lead into this error. But they are not meant by the Apostle in this absolute, mutually exclusive sense. An illuminating analogy in this respect is furnished by the way in which Paul speaks of faith and its relation to the two dispensations. In Gal. 3:23, 25, he speaks of the 'coming' of faith, as though there had never been any faith before. And yet the same Paul in Rom. 4:16ff., speaks at length of the role played by faith in the life of Abraham, and how it virtually dominated the entire Old Testament system.
It is evident that there are two distinct points of view from which the content of the old dispensation can be regarded. When considered in comparison with the final unfolding and rearranged structure of the New Testament, negative judgments are in place. When, on the other hand, the Old Testament is taken as an entity by itself and as rounded off provisionally in itself, and looked at, as it were, with the eyes of the Old Testament itself, we find it necessary to take into account the positive elements by which it prefigured and anticipated typically the New Testament. And thus we find that there was real gospel under the theocracy. The people of God of those days did not live and die under an unworkable, unredemptive system of religion, that could not give real access to and spiritual contact with God. Nor was this gospel-element contained exclusively in the revelation that preceded, accompanied, and followed the law; it is found in the law itself. That which we call 'the legal system' is shot through with strands of gospel and grace and faith. Especially the ritual law is rich in them. Every sacrifice and every lustration proclaimed the principle of grace. Had it been otherwise, then the idea of positive, vital continuity would have to be abandoned. There would be conflict and opposition instead. Such is the Gnostic position, but it is not the view either of the Old Testament itself, or of Paul, or of the Church theology.
And yet again, we must not forget that this revelation and promulgation of the gospel in the Mosaic institutions bore, as to its form, a legal character, and differs, in this respect, from the form it exhibits at the present time. For even these gospel-carrying
institutions were part of a great system of ordinances, whose observance had been made obligatory for the people. Hence there was a lack of freedom even in the presentation of and attendance to the gospel. The gospel was preached under the constraint of law and received under the same. It was not permitted to rise superior to the legal environment in which it had been placed. Only the New Testament has brought the full liberty in this respect.
[4] The Decalogue
The Decalogue strikingly illustrates the redemptive structure of the theocracy as a whole. It is introduced by the summing up of what Jehovah has done for Israel in delivering them from the house of bondage. Considering the time of its promulgation, we might even call it a brief résumé in advance of the whole system regulated subsequently in the detailed laws. But this would overlook the fact that one component element of the law, and that one much in evidence elsewhere, is absent from the Decalogue. It contains no ceremonial commandments. In a sense, therefore, it not so much anticipates as condenses, and in condensing eliminates and idealizes. It joins together the beginning and the end of the entire theocratic movement, the redeeming act of God, and the resultant state of holiness and conformity to the nature and will of God into which the theocracy is designed to issue. At the same time it gives these elements in a form that is adjusted to the practical needs and limitations of the people. Like the theocracy in general it hovers above the life of the people as an ideal never realizable, nor realizable at the then existing stage; and at the same time it descends into and condescends to the abnormalities of Israel.
This in some sense ideal and idealizing character of the Decalogue has not failed of observation by the evolutionary critics, and given rise to the opinion that it could not possibly be a product of the Mosaic age, which, as shown above, is assigned and must be assigned, from the critical premises, to a low plane of religious development. The historico-critical treatment of the Decalogue in
recent times is interesting and instructive in the extreme. There was a time, when even advanced critics were inclined to make an exception for the Decalogue in the midst of their comprehensive denial of the Mosaic origin of the other Pentateuchal laws. It is true, this was conceded with certain qualifications. The second word, forbidding the making and worship of images, could not be Mosaic, because image-worship was considered inoffensive for a long time after the Mosaic age. And of the other words not the present extended form was derived from Moses, but a more simple and compact form containing the gist of the injunction.
The Wellhausen school has swept away even this modest remnant of conservatism. The main ground on which this revision of the view of the older critics is based lies in the ethical character of the Decalogue. Ethical ideas did not become central in the religion of Israel until the time of the prophets. Before their age (middle of the eighth century B.C.) the popular religion was centred in the cult, and of this the Decalologue contains nothing. Hence the present critical view that the Decalogue is the precipitate of the ethical movement of prophecy, possibly not composed earlier than the seventh century, perhaps during the reign of Manasseh.
It must be urged against this that the main burden of the prophetic preaching of ethics keeps in much closer contact with contemporary developments than the Decalogue. The prophetic message revolves round such things as the oppression of the poor by the rich, the corruptness of the administration of justice. These are things not even alluded to in the Decalogue. The situation to which the prophets address themselves, therefore, is much more concrete and complex than that contemplated in the Decalogue. And even if it were true that the Israelites of the pre-prophetic period did not look upon ethical things as the centre of their religion, it would by no means follow from this, that revelation could not have long before singled out the ethical as of supreme importance and in immediate need of attention. The Decalogue, on our view at least, was not the product of the religion of the people, but the revelation of God. The critical
contention, here as in so many other points, holds good only when the philosophy of evolution is made the silent premise of the argument. More recently still, critical writers have begun to see again that the Decalogue breathes a different and more primitive spirit than the preaching of the prophets. It is proposed to return to the view of Mosaic origin, but in a modified form. Moses, it is now alleged, wrote seven of these ten commandments. The three denied him are the first, the second and the fourth. Only, it was not the lawgiver's intention to forbid the things mentioned in the other seven absolutely. He meant to forbid them within the limits of Israel. Outside of that circle the otherwise prohibited things were permitted. In answer to this it may be observed, that, while the words are primarily addressed to Israel, this was due entirely to the circumstance of the historical situation, and can never prove the existence in the mind of the legislator of a double standard, rendering a thing sinful when done to a fellow-Israelite, and condonable when done to non-Israelites.
OF WORLD-WIDE APPLICATION
The primary application to Israel in no wise interferes with a worldwide application in all ethical relationships. The pronouns and pronominal suffixes are in the feminine singular, because they are addressed to the nation of Israel. Certain features at first sight would seem applicable to Israel alone, for instance what is said of the deliverance from the Egyptian bondage. But these features are rare, especially in the text of Exodus. There are more of them in Deuteronomy; compare the motivation of the fourth word. Deuteronomy repeats the Decalogue for a hortatory purpose, which brings it into closer contact with the momentary situation of Israel. And, apart from this, we must remember that the history of Israel was shaped by God intentionally so as to mirror all important situations befalling the people of God in all subsequent ages. When Jehovah appeals to the redemption from Egypt as a motive for obedience, He appeals to something that has its spiritual analogy in
the life of all believers. The historical adjustment does not detract from the universal application, but subserves it.
RELIGIOUS IN CHARACTER
The most striking feature of the Decalogue is its specifically religious character. It is not an ethical code in and by itself, resting, as it were, on the bare imperative of God. The preamble brings the affection to Jehovah, in view of what He has done redemptively for the people, to bear through a responsive affection upon their conduct. If we may apply the term 'Christian' thus retrospectively to the Decalogue, we should say, what it contains is not general but Christian ethics. Ethics is represented as the redemptive product; something else, lying behind, as the source. That there is implied, apart from this, a hegemony of religion over ethics, appears from the far greater volume of elaboration devoted to the four opening words, dealing with the specifically religious side. Our Lord recognized this, when distinguishing in the law between the first and second great commandment. In the light of this redemptive purport the negative form of most of the commandments likewise receives additional significance. Of course, this has a meaning in itself, altogether apart from redemption, in that it issues a protest against sin. But the very fact of God's issuing such a protest admits of the inference, that He will not leave sin in possession of the field.
It should be observed, however, that not all the words are clothed in this negative form of 'thou shalt not'. The fourth word, that relating to the Sabbath, has positive import. And the majestic appendix to the second word reaches down into the very depths of the love of God for His own, as well as of His jealousy towards them that disobey the law out of hatred of God. The charge, therefore, is not warranted that the Decalogue is a purely negativistic document, evincing no positive interest for what is good, merely opposing that which is evil. Our Lord implied that the law requires love towards God and man, and love is the most positive of all forces. The practical nature of the Decalogue, both on its religious and on its ethical side, is revealed in
the way it addresses itself to concrete external sins. But this again is not meant to deny the organic unity of sin in its root. On the contrary, this unity is distinctly recognized in tracing the transgression back to the hatred of God. It is likewise implied in the last word of the ten, where the overt sins of killing, stealing, committing adultery, bearing false witness, are reduced to their one source of coveting, evil lust having its seat in the heart.
THE TEN WORDS
As to the distribution of the text of the Decalogue over the ten words various views are held. The text informs us that there are ten, but does not number them singly, for the system of dividing the text of the Old Testament into verses is, of course, not original. The Greek Catholic and the Reformed Churches consider the preamble as standing outside of the circle of ten. The first word then applies to the prohibition of worshipping other gods, the second to the prohibition of images, and so on to the end in the manner familiar to us. This division is as old as the time of Philo and Josephus. The Roman Catholic and Lutheran Churches count as one what we reckon as the first and second words. Inasmuch as the number ten is required, this compels the dividing up of what we call the tenth commandment into the ninth ('thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house') and the tenth ('thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, etc.'). This is necessary because no other word lends itself to a similar division, except perhaps the fourth, and neither the Romanists, nor the Lutherans, want to count in the preamble. Still a third division, now common among the Jews, reckons the preamble as the first word. This would, of course, ordinarily yield eleven, but this result is avoided through taking the first and second together. The same numbering, with the preamble included was at one time resorted to by some critics, who had lost one word through assigning a later origin to the second word. Of these three plans the first deserves the preference.
The introduction cannot be strictly called a commandment. Still, this difficulty might be relieved by observing that the law does not speak of commandments but of words (Decalogue means 'ten words'). Probably however, 'word' is used in this connection for 'commandments', a meaning it not infrequently bears. The objection, therefore, remains. And it is strengthened by the fact that counting the preamble as one of the ten would cut its very vital relation to all the other words. Something can be said in favour of closely drawing together the first and the second words, as will be presently shown, but nothing speaks in favour of dividing the tenth word into two. It exposes, one might urge, to the objection of separating between house and wife as non-covetable objects, but this is more of an apparent than a real objection, because house here does not mean the mere building, but stands for the entire householdestablishment, including, of course, and that in the first place, the wife. Augustine was somewhat over gallant, when not perceiving this, he gave preference to the text of Deuteronomy, where the wife precedes the house. But, assuming that 'house' means 'household', no reason exists why this general term should receive for itself an entire separate word, and then in a next word the enumeration of its several constituent parts be made to follow. The structure of the Decalogue is not of that kind, as may be seen by comparison with the text of the fourth word. And Augustine has improved the matter only in a sentimental respect, for, with all due regard for the honoured position of the wife in the family, it would hardly be in keeping with the feeling of the Old Testament in such matters to give the wife a separate commandment all to herself, especially since her position in one respect had been already defined in the, on our reckoning, seventh commandment.
THE FIRST WORD
Our discussion of the several separate words confines itself to the first four. The following six, regulating the relation between man and man, belong to the department of Ethics. These first four words deal specifically with the relation of man to God. The first three form a
group by themselves, protesting as they do, against the three typical and fundamental sins of paganism, the sin of polylatry, that of idolatry, that of magic.
It will be observed, further, that the first word is not a theoretical denial of the existence of other gods besides Jehovah. Neither is it, of course, an affirmation, either directly or impliedly, of the existence of other divine beings. It leaves this whole question to one side, and confines itself to the injunction that Israel shall have only one object of worship: 'there shall be no other god (or gods) to thee before me'. But if this, theoretically or legislatively considered, falls short of the abstract enunciation of the principle of monotheism, and reaches, logically speaking, only up to monolatry, it were pedantic to seize upon it, lawyer-like, as evidence of the lawgiver's intent to leave polytheism untouched. And yet precisely this the critics have been doing, when building on this innocent form of expression the view that Moses had not yet reached the stage of monotheism. When afterwards the dating of the Decalogue came down to much later times this exegesis involved its adherents in a somewhat serious difficulty. It seemed difficult to assume that the prophetic spirits who produced the Decalogue at so advanced a juncture should not yet have reached the standpoint of monotheism. The critics save themselves out of this impasse by saying that, although monotheism had been in process of development since the times of Amos and Hosea, it had not been explicitly formulated until the age of (pseudo-) Deuteronomy and Jeremiah. As for Moses, it becomes doubtful, on this hypothesis, whether he had reached the standpoint of as much as monolatry in his day, for the testimony of the Decalogue to that effect has fallen away.
All this is readily corrected by the simple reminder that the Decalogue, while law, is not law in the modern technical sense of that term. It takes no pains, by means of involved clauses and piled up qualifications, to stop up every loophole for misunderstanding or evasion. Moses was a lawgiver, not a scribe. The plane on which the matter is put by not raising the problem of abstract monotheism is in
reality a higher one than would have underlain the commandment otherwise. To say: there are no other gods in existence, therefore you are shut up to serving me alone, motivates the allegiance of Israel to Jehovah less worthily, than to say, as the Decalogue actually does, 'I am Jehovah, thy God, who has brought thee up out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me'. Besides the appeal to the sense of gratitude for deliverance received, there shines through also an allusion to the offended honour of Jehovah, in case other objects of worship should be placed by His side. The words 'before me' or 'beside me' express the indignity such transgression would offer to Him, subjectively.
THE SECOND WORD
There is some uncertainty in regard to the syntax of the second word. In the Authorized and Revised Versions the word 'likeness' is made dependent on 'thou shalt not make', and thus co-ordinated with the preceding object 'graven image'. The likeness, then, is something that can be made; it must be a manufactured object. Attention has, however, been called to the fact that the Hebrew word thus translated may also properly be rendered by 'shape', i.e., natural, non-manufactured shape, any one of the forms or likenesses nature offers. If this be adopted, and it seems to be favoured somewhat by the distinction of the 'shapes' in three groups—those in heaven above, those in the earth beneath, and those in the water under the earth—then plainly those shapes cannot be the object of the verb 'thou shalt not make', since they are not the product of human making.
Consequently the syntactical construction of the sentence must on this view be changed. It will have to read as follows: 'Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image, (and), as to the likeness of anything (prefixed accusative phrase of reference) that is in heaven above, etc … thou shalt not bow down thyself unto those, nor serve them, etc.' Two things are on this view forbidden: the worship of a graven image
(graven means 'made out of metal'), and the worship of any of the forms of nature.
It must be admitted that this new construction does not read very smoothly. On the other hand the usual interpretation labours under the difficulty of explaining satisfactorily why a 'graven' image should have appeared more objectionable than any other kind of made likeness. Still, it seems to be a fact attested also elsewhere in the Old Testament that graven images awakened a special aversion among the opponents of idolatry. Wellhausen thinks the difficulty can be removed by adopting as original the text of Deuteronomy which reads: 'Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image of any of the shapes, etc.' But even in Deuteronomy the Septuagint and Samaritan versions have the 'and' before 'likeness': 'image and all likeness'.
More interesting and important, however, is the enquiry into the ground on which idolatry is forbidden here. The traditional exegesis of the second commandment is wont to find the reason in the spiritual (non-corporeal) nature of God, which causes every bodily representation to be a misrepresentation, and one moreover to the disparagement of God, because in the scale of being the incorporeal ranks above the corporeal, the so-called 'flesh'. While acknowledging the truth of this idea in itself, we cannot regard it as a completely satisfactory exegesis of the second word. On such a view of the motive the appendix ought to read, 'for I, Jehovah thy God, have no body'. Instead of this it is the jealousy that is warningly referred to. And 'jealousy' cannot here have the general significance of 'fiery zeal' which it has sometimes elsewhere, for that would not have made the introduction of the idea more appropriate in this than in any other word of the Decalogue. There must be a special reason why the making or worship of images awakens the jealousy of Jehovah. The word means conjugal zeal specifically, jealousy in the married relation. It implies that, when images come into play, for the monogamic relation between Jehovah and Israel, a polygamous, or even meretricious bond with other religious lords has been substituted.
The question before us, therefore, is why and in what sense imagemaking detracts from the undivided devotion of Israel to God, and places other divine objects of devotion beside Him. Now it is plain that this cannot be satisfactorily explained on the basis of the image being a symbolic copy of the Deity, so that after all the latter would be but all the more worshipped through the image. For us who think in modern terms admiration or even worship bestowed upon one's photograph could scarcely excite jealousy. It would be much more apt to give rise to selfish satisfaction. We must set aside this whole modern way of thinking about the matter, and endeavour to reproduce for ourselves the feelings with which the ancient idolatrous mind regarded and employed the image it possessed of its god. This is a far more complex thing than the formula of reality and symbol is able to express. While not easily described in its true inwardness, we may perhaps define it by subsumption under the category of magic. Magic is that paganistic reversal of the process of religion, in which man, instead of letting himself be used by God for the divine purpose, drags down his god to the level of a tool, which he uses for his own selfish purpose. Magic is full of superstition, and, after a fashion, full of the quasi-supernatural, but it is void of true religion. Because it lacks the element of objective divine selfcommunication from above, it must needs create for itself material means of compulsion that will bring the deity to do its bidding. From the nature of the case these instruments of magical compulsion will indefinitely multiply. Taking these instruments for his practical use, man will further begin to feel that the powers habitually working through them are somehow subtracted from the deity and stored up in the forms of magic. Thus the magically manipulated image will inevitably tend to become a second god by the side of the original one, and will even tend to outgrow the latter in potency of usefulness. The image is not the symbol; it acts as the rival and substitute of the god. Thus the sensual representation of Jehovah by becoming mixed up with magic leads straightway to polytheism.
In so far, the Romanists and Lutherans correctly sensed that there existed an intimate connection between the first and the second
commandment. Jehovah's retention of the exclusive right to Israel's worship became endangered as soon as images were introduced. It is not impossible that the 'graven image' refers particularly to Jehovahimages, and that the 'likenesses' or 'shapes' refer to alien deities. The former no less than the latter excites the divine jealousy, and both are referred to in the commandment, no matter whether this suggestion in regard to 'graven image' be correct or not. The first commandment enjoins the having of one God; the second strikes at the chief source of danger for the observance of this. Even in the double-faced meaning of the word 'idolatry' this connection of the two things still reflects itself; it means partly the worship of other gods, partly the worship of images. These facts are sure.
THE THIRD WORD
The transition from the second to the third word is a natural one, for we are here still in the sphere of magic. This time it is word-magic that is forbidden. It is not sufficient to think of swearing and blasphemy in the present-day common sense of these terms. The word is one of the chief powers of pagan superstition, and the most potent form of word-magic is name-magic. It was believed that through the pronouncing of the name of some supernatural entity this can be compelled to do the bidding of the magic-user. The commandment applies the divine disapproval of such practices specifically to the name 'Jehovah'. 'To take up' means to pronounce. 'In vain' literally reads 'for vanity'. Vanity is a quite complex term in which the ideas of the unreal, the deceitful, the disappointing, the sinful, intermingle. It designates a large sphere of paganism, which must have occupied a place also in Israel's past, and must have continually threatened to encroach upon the true religion. The use of the name Jehovah for such a purpose was particularly dangerous, because it seemed to lend the protection of legitimacy.
Although the antique and the modern may in this matter appear to lie at a great distance from each other, nevertheless what we call swearing and blasphemy is not essentially different from this ancient