Israel Sentence Examples

This happened when Israel Putnam was a young man.

He was the foremost Jewish figure of the 18th century, and to him is attributable the renaissance of the House of Israel.

All access to the Deity is restricted to the one priesthood and to the one sanctuary at Jerusalem; the worshipping subject is the nation of Israel as a unity, and the function of worship is discharged on its behalf by divinely chosen priests.

In fact, while Robertson Smith (in Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia, as well as his Religion of the Semites, followed by Stade and Benzinger) strongly advocated the view that clear traces of totemism can be found in early Israel, later writers, such as Marti, Gesch.

Religion, 4th ed., p. 24, Kautzsch in his Religion of Israel already cited, p. 613, and recently Addis in his Hebrew Religion, p. 33 foll., have abandoned the theory as applied to Israel. ?

While the ark carried with Israel's host symbolized His presence in their midst, He was also known to be present in the cloud which hovered before the host and in the lightning ('esh Yahweh or " fire of Yahweh ") and the thunder (kol Yahweh or " voice of Yahweh ") which played around Mount Sinai.

Another special characteristic of Israel's religion in Canaan was the considerable increase of sacrificial offerings.

But when the nomadic clans of Israel came to occupy the settled abodes of the agricultural Canaanites who had a stake in the soil which they cultivated, these conditions evidently reacted on their religion.

Yahweh ceased to be exclusively regarded as god of the atmosphere, worshipped in a distant mountain, Horeb-Sinai, situated in the south country (negebh),and moving in the clouds of heaven before the Israelites in the desert, but he came to be associated with Israel's life in Canaan.

Yahweh was god only of Israel and of Israel's land.

At first the Romans paid little attention to the insurgents, who were able to strike coins in the name of Simeon, prince of Israel, and Eleazar the priest, and to persecute the Christians, who refused to join the revolt.

In this way Yahweh came to be called the Baal or " lord " of any sacred place where the armies of Israel by their victories attested " his mighty hand and outstretched arm."

For when Yahweh gradually became Israel's local Baal he became worshipped like the old Canaanite deity, and all the sensuous accompaniments of Kedeshoth,' as well as the presence of the asherah or sacred pole, became attached to his cult.

Similarly in the earlier pre-exilian period of Israel's occupation of Canaanite territory the Hebrews were always subject to this tendency to worship the old Baal or `Ashtoreth (the goddess who made the cattle and flocks prolific).3 A few years of drought or of bad seasons would make a Hebrew settler betake himself to the old Canaanite gods.

Israel) the corn, the new wine and the oil, and have bestowed on her silver and gold in abundance which they have wrought into a Baal image " (Hos.

External danger from a foreign foe, such as Midian or the Philistines, at once brought into prominence the claim and power of Yahweh, Israel's national war-god since the great days of the exodus.

Times of peace meant national disintegration and the lapse of Israel into the Canaanite local cults, which is interpreted by the redactor as the prophets of the 8th century would have interpreted it, viz.

It was the religious expression of the unity of Israel which the life and death struggle with the Philistines had gradually wrought out.

An invasion of foreign territory would bring Israel under the power of its patron-deity.

It is probable that necromancy, like the worship of Asherah and `Ashtoreth, as well as the cult of graven images, was a Canaanite importation into Israel's religious practices.

The lifeand-death struggle between Israel and the Philistines in the reign of Saul called forth under Samuel's leadership a new order of " men of God," who were called " prophets " or divinely inspired speakers.'

This is due to the fact that it for the first time unfolded the true character of Yahweh, implicit in the old Mosaic religion and submerged in the subsequent centuries of Israel's life in Canaan, but now at length made clear and explicit to the mind of the 1 In Isa.

Yahweh was Israel's wargod.

That larger conceptions prevailed in some of the loftier minds of Israel, and may be held to have existed even as far back as the age of Moses, is a fact which the Yahwistic cosmogony in Gen.

If Assyria finally overthrew Israel and carried off Yahweh's shrine, Assur (Asur), the tutelary deity of Assyria, was mightier than Yahweh.

This was precisely what was happening among the northern states, and Amos foresaw that this might eventually be Israel's doom.

Palestinian states on the other, and that they could scarcely have escaped the all-pervading Babylonian influences of 2000-1400 B.C. It is now becoming clearer every day, especially since the discovery of the laws of Khammurabi, that, if we are to think sanely about Hebrew history before as well as after the exile, we can only think of Israel as part of the great complex of Semitic and especially Canaanite humanity that lived its life in western Asia between 2060 and 600 B.C.; and that while the Hebrew race maintained by the aid of prophetism its own individual and exalted place, it was not less susceptible then, than it has been since, to the moulding influences of great adjacent civilizations and ideas.

Such a universal God of the world would hardly make Israel His exclusive concern.

The prophet also emphasized with passionate earnestness that Yahweh was a God whose character was righteous, and God's demand upon His people Israel was not for sacrifices but for righteous conduct.

In the younger contemporary prophet of Ephraim, Hosea, the stress is laid on the relation of love (hesed) between Yahweh, the divine husband, and Israel, the faithless spouse.

Israel's faithlessness is shown in idolatry and the prevailing corruption of the high places in which the old Canaanite Baal was worshipped instead of Yahweh.

Compacts with a powerful foreign state, under whose aegis Israel was glad to shelter, involved covenants sealed by sacrificial rites in which the deity or deities of the foreign state were involved as well as Yahweh, the god of the weaker.

While these aspects of Israel's relation to Yahweh are emphasized by the Ephraimite prophet, the larger conceptions of Yahweh's character as universal Lord and the God of righteousness, whose government of the world is ethical, emphasized by the prophet of Tekoah, are scarcely presented.

In Isaiah both aspects - divine universal sovereignty and justice, taught by Amos, and divine loving-kindness to Israel and God's claims on His people's allegiance, taught by Hosea - are fully expressed.

And so the old limitations of Israel's popular religion, - the same limitations that encumbered also the religions of all the neighbouring races that succumbed in turn to Assyria's invincible progress, - now began to disappear.

Therefore, while every other religion which was purely national was extinguished in the nation's overthrow, the religion of Israel survived even amid exile and dispersion.

Of far more vital importance is the conception of Israel as God's suffering servant.

This is not the place to enter into the prolonged controversy as to the real significance of this term, whether it signifies the nation Israel or the righteous community only, or finally an idealized prophetic individual who, like the prophet Jeremiah, was destined to suffer for the well-being of his people.

It probably arose from the fact that the calamities from which Israel had suffered both before and during the exile had drawn the reflective minds of the race to the contemplation of the problem of suffering.

In the Deutero-Isaiah the meaning of Israel's sufferings is exhibited as vicarious.

Israel is suffering for a great end.

This noble conception of Israel's great destiny is conveyed in Isa.

If Jerusalem has been chosen as His sanctuary and Israel as His own people, it is only that Israel may diffuse God's blessings in the world even at the cost of Israel's own humiliation, exile and dispersion.

Finally the Deutero-Isaiah conveyed to captive Israel the message of Yahweh's unceasing love and care, and the certainty of their return to Judaea and the restoration of the national prosperity which Ezekiel had already announced in the earlier period of the exile.

To this is united the noble ideal of the suffering servant, which serves both as a contribution to the great problem of suffering as purifying and vicarious and as the interpretation to the mind of the nation itself of that nation's true function in the future, a lesson which the actual future showed that Israel was slow to receive.

But the prevalence of the worship of " other gods " and of graven images in these " high places," and the moral debasement of life which accompanied these cults, made it clear that the " high places " were sources of grave injury to Israel's social life.

The external bases of Israel's religion had been swept away, and in exchange for these Jeremiah had led his countrymen to the more permanent internal grounds of a spiritual renewal.

It was the task of Ezekiel to take up once more the broken threads of Israel's religious traditions, and weave them anew into statelier forms of ritual and national polity.

We are here moving in a realm of ideas prevailing in ancient Israel respecting holiness, uncleanness and sin, which are ceremonial and not ethical; see especially Robertson Smith's Religion of the Semites, 2nd ed., p. 446 foll.

We also know that from earliest times Israel believed in the evil as well as good spirits.

And thus Israel's old prophetic Torah was at length to achieve its victory, for after Jesus came St Paul.

Duhm's Theologie der Propheten and Robertson Smith's Prophets of Israel should also be consulted.

Budde's Die Religion des Volkes Israel bis zur Verbannung, as well as Addis's recent Hebrew Religion (1906), is a most careful and scholarly compendium.

The traditions which prevailed among the Hebrews concerning their origin belong to a time when Judah and Israel were regarded as a unit.

Twelve divisions or tribes, of which Judah was one, held together by a traditional sentiment, were traced back to the sons of Jacob (otherwise known as Israel), the son of Isaac and grandson of Abraham.

It is on this occasion that Jacob's name is changed to Israel.

The story of the settlement of the national and tribal ancestors in Palestine is interrupted by an account of the southward movement of Jacob (or Israel) and his sons into a district under the immediate influence of the kings of Egypt.

No longer individual sons of Jacob or Israel, united tribes were led out by Moses and Aaron; and, after a series of incidents extending over forty years, the " children of Israel " invaded the land in which their ancestors had lived.

The story of the " exodus " is that of the religious birth of " Israel," joined by covenant with the national god Yahweh' whose aid in times of peril and need ' On the name see Jehovah, Tetragrammaton.

In Moses (q.v.) was seen the founder of Israel's religion and laws; in Aaron (q.v.) the prototype of the Israelite priesthood.

The other, part of the religious history of " Israel," is essentially bound up with the religious genius of the people, and is partly connected with clans from the south of Palestine whose influence appears in later times.

He himself held supreme sway over all Israel as the last of the " judges " until compelled to accede to the popular demand for a king.

Both Israel and Judah had their own annals, brief excerpts from which appear in the books of Samuel, Kings and Chronicles, and they are supplemented by fuller narratives of distinct and more popular origin.

After being the popular favourite of Israel in the little district of Benjamin, he was driven away by the jealousy and animosity of Saul.

Gradually strengthening his position by alliance with Judaean clans, he became king at Hebron at the time when Israel suffered defeat in the north.

Yet again, Saul had been chosen by Yahweh to free his people from the Philistines; he had been rejected for his sins, and had suffered continuously from this enemy; Israel at his death was left in the unhappy state in which he had found it; it was the Judaean David, the faithful servant of Yahweh, who was now chosen to deliver Israel, and to the last the people gratefully remembered their debt.

Judah and Israel dwelt at ease, or held the superior position of military officials, while the earlier inhabitants of the land were put to forced labour.

The Edomites, who had been almost extirpated by David in the valley of Salt, south of the Dead Sea, were now strong enough to seek revenge; and the powerful kingdom of Damascus, whose foundation is ascribed to this period, began to threaten Israel on the north and north-east.

These words were calculated to inflame a people whom history proves to have been haughty and high-spirited, and the great Israel renounced its union with the small district of Judah.

On the one hand, a sweeping invasion of all the tribes of Israel moved by a common zeal may, like the conquests of Islam, have produced permanent results.

This inquiry is further complicated by (c), where the history of Israel and Judah, as related in Judges and I Samuel, has caused endless perplexity.

The traditions of the Ephraimite Joshua and of Saul the first king of (north) Israel virtually treat Judah as part of Israel and are related to the underlying representations in (a).

The Rival Kingdoms. - The Palestine of the Hebrews was but part of a great area breathing the same atmosphere, and there was little to distinguish Judah from Israel except when they were distinct political entities.

The kingdom of Israel lasts exactly half the time.

Next, the Judaean compiler regularly finds in Israel's troubles the punishment for its schismatic idolatry; nor does he spare Judah, but judges its kings by a standard which agrees with the standpoint of Deuteronomy and is scarcely earlier than the end of the 7th century B.C. (§§ 16, 20).

But the history of (north) Israel had naturally its own independent political backgrounds and the literary sources contain the same internal features as the annals and prophetic narratives which are already met with in 1 Samuel.

Israel, on the other hand, had signed its death-warrant by the institution of calf-cult, a cult which, however, was scarcely recognized as contrary to the worship of Yahweh before the denunciations of Hosea.

Judah had natural connexions with Edom and southern Palestine; Israel was more closely associated with Gilead and the Aramaeans of the north.

That Israel was the stronger may be suggested by the acquiescence of Judah in the new situation.

On the contrary, the statement that there was continual warfare is supplemented in Chronicles by the story of a victory over Israel by Abijah the son of Rehoboam.

These sent troops to harry north Israel, and Baasha was compelled to retire.

Israel was divided into two camps, until, on the death of Tibni and his brother Joram, Omri became sole king (c. 887 B.C.).

The discovery of the inscription of a later king of Moab (q.v.) has proved that the east-Jordanic tribes were no uncivilized or barbaric folk; material wealth, a considerable religious and political organization, and the cultivation of letters (as exemplified in the style of the inscription) portray conditions which allow us to form some conception of life in Israel itself.

Tribute was received from Tyre and Sidon; and Jehu, who was now king of Israel, sent his gifts of gold, silver, &c., to the conqueror.

The value of this external evidence for the history of Israel is enhanced by the fact that biblical tradition associates the changes in the thrones of Israel and Damascus with the work of the prophets Elijah and Elisha, but handles the period without a single reference to the Assyrian Empire.

A massacre ensued in which the royal families of Israel and Judah perished.

The descendants of the detested Phoenician marriage were rooted out, and unless the close intercourse between Israel and Judah had been suddenly broken, it would be supposed that the new king at least laid claim to the south.

It is a natural assumption that Damascus could still count upon Israel as an ally in 842; not until the withdrawal of Assyria and the accession of Jehu did the situation change.

It has been assumed that Israel had withdrawn from the great coalition, that Jehu sent tribute to Shalmaneser to obtain that monarch's recognition, and that Hazael consequently seized the first opportunity to retaliate.

Certain traditions, it is true, indicate that Israel had been at war with the Aramaeans from before 854 to 842, and that Hazael was attacking Gilead at the time when Jehu revolted; but in the midst of these are other traditions of the close and friendly relations between Israel and Damascus !

Moreover, the account of the joint undertaking by Judah (under Jehoshaphat) and Israel against Syria at Ramoth-Gilead at the time of Ahab's death, and again (under Ahaziah) when Jehoram was wounded, shortly before the accession of Jehu, are historical doublets, and they can hardly be harmonized either with the known events of 854 and 842 or with the course of the intervening years.

It is a new source which is here suddenly introduced, belonging apparently to a history of the Temple; it throws no light upon the relations between Judah with its priests and Israel with its prophets, the circumstances of the regency under the priest Jehoiada are ignored, and the Temple reforms occupy the first place in the compiler's interest.

The Judaean narratives do not allow us to fill the gap or to determine whether Judaean policy under the regent Jehoiada would be friendly or hostile to Israel, or whether Judaean nobles may have severed the earlier bond of union.

Israel, on the other hand, was almost annihilated.

Thrice Joash smote the Syrians - in accordance with the last words of the dying prophet - and Aphek in the Sharon plain, famous in history for Israel's disasters, now witnessed three victories.

Those in Israel who remembered the previous war between 1 Careful examination shows that no a priori distinction can be drawn between " trustworthy " books of Kings and " untrustworthy books " of Chronicles.

It is interesting to find that Hadad-nirari claims tribute from Tyre, Sidon and Beth-Omri (Israel), also from Edom and Palastu (Philistia).

There are no signs of an extensive coalition as in the days of Shalmaneser; Ammon is probably included under Damascus; the position of Moab - which had freed itself from Jehoram of Israel - can hardly be calculated.

The importance of the historical questions regarding relations between Damascus, Israel and Judah is clear.

The defeat of Syria by Joash (of Israel) was not final.

In particular, the overthrow of Israel as foreshadowed in I Kings xxii.

For the understanding of these great wars between Syria and Israel (which the traditional chronology spreads over eighty years), for the significance of the crushing defeats and inspiring victories, and for the alternations of despair and hope, a careful study of all the records of relations between Israel and the north is at least instructive, and it is important to remember that, although the present historical outlines are scanty and incomplete, some - if not all - of the analogous descriptions in their present form are certainly later than the second half of the 9th century B.C., the period in which these great events fa11.4 13.

All that can be recognized from the biblical records, however, is the period of internal prosperity which Israel and Judah enjoyed under Jeroboam and Uzziah (qq.v.) respectively.

Its monarchy traced its origin to Hebron in the south, and its growth is contemporary with a decline in Israel (§ 7).

It is at least probable that when Israel was supreme an independent Judah would centre around a more southerly site than Jerusalem.

The Hebrews of Israel and Judah were, political history apart, men of the same general stamp, with the same cult and custom; for the study of religion and social usages, therefore, they can be treated as a single people.

This was Israel's fate.

Yahwism presents itself under a variety of aspects, and the history of Israel's relations to the God Yahweh (whose name is not necessarily of Israelite origin) can hardly be disentangled amid the complicated threads of the earlier history.

Israel was once more in league with Damascus and Phoenicia, and the biblical records must be read in the light of political history.

Israel was punished by the ravaging of the northern districts, and the king claims to have carried away the people of " the house of Omri."

Assyrian officers were placed in the land and Judah thus gained its deliverance at the expense of Israel.

When at length Tiglathpileser died, in 7 27, the slumbering revolt became general; Israel refused the usual tribute to its overlord, and definitely threw in its lot with " Egypt."

The fall of Samaria, Sennacherib's devastation of Judah, and the growth of Jerusalem as the capital, had tended to raise the position of the Temple, although Israel itself, as also Judah, had famous sanctuaries of its own.

The scantiness of historical tradition makes a final solution impossible, but the study of these years has an important bearing on the history of the later Judaean state, which has been characteristically treated from the standpoint of exiles who returned from Babylonia and regard them selves as the kernel of " Israel."

The agriculturists and herdsmen who had been left in Palestine formed, as always, the staple population, and it is impossible to imagine either Judah or Israel as denuded of its inhabitants.

It had scarcely been otherwise in Israel.

But Israel after the fall of Samaria is artificially excluded from the Judaean horizon, and lies as a foreign land, although Judah itself had suffered from the intrusion of foreigners in the preceding centuries of war and turmoil, and strangers had settled in her midst, had formed part of the royal guard, or had even served as janissaries (§ 15, end).

In Israel as in Judah the political disasters not only meant a shifting of population, they also brought into prominence the old popular and non-official religion, the character of which is not to be condemned because of the attitude of lofty prophets in advance of their age.

It is true that the situation in Israel or Samaria continues obscure, but a careful study of literary productions, evidently not earlier than the 7th century B.C., reveals a particular loftiness of conception and a tendency which finds its parallels in Hosea and approximates the peculiar characteristics of the Deuteronomic school of thought.

Settled in and around Jerusalem, they look upon themselves as the sole community, the true Israel, even as it was believed that once before Israel entered and developed independently in the land of its ancestors.

His main object is to make the new Israel, the post-exilic community at Jerusalem, continuous, as a society, with the old Israel.'

Toffteen, In either case the history of separate sections of people may have been extended to Israel as a whole, but there is no evidence for any adequate reconstruction.

The true seed of Israel separated themselves from all foreigners (not, however, without some opposition) and formed an exclusively religious body or " congregation."

Dreams of political freedom gave place to hopes of religious independence, and " Israel " became a church, the foundation of which it sought in the desert of Sinai a thousand years before.

Bibilical history ends with the triumph of the Judaean community, the true " Israel," the right to which title is found in the distant past.

It is from this narrower standpoint of an exclusive and confined Judah (and Benjamin) that the traditions as incorporated in the late recensions gain fresh force, and in Israel's renunciation of the Judaean yoke the later hostility between the two may be read between the lines.

This is especially true of the history of the exilic and post-exilic periods, where the effort is made to preserve the continuity of Israel and the Israelite community (Chronicles - Ezra - Nehemiah).

Israel can no longer be isolated from the politics, culture, folk-lore, thought and religion of western Asia and Egypt.

And out of one of them came forth a little horn (Antiochus Epiphanes) which waxed exceeding great towards the south (Egypt) and towards the East (Babylon) and towards the beauteous land (the land of Israel)."

At a time when men were attracted by the wisdom and science of the Greeks, he taught that all wisdom came from Yahweh who had chosen Israel to receive it in trust.

The race survives - " the days of Israel are unnumbered."

Every member of the congregation of Israel must labour, as God has appointed, at some handicraft or profession to provide for his home.

The centre of the life of Israel was the Temple, over which the high priest presided and which was inhabited by Yahweh, the God of Israel.

In 158 Jonathan began to rule as a judge in Michmash and he destroyed the godless out of Israel - so far, that is, as his power extended.

In the hundred and seventieth year (142 B.C.) the yoke of the heathen was taken away from Israel and the people began to date their legal documents "in the first year of Simon the great high priest and commander and leader of the Jews."

Israel had retired to their tents to study their Bible.

In 259 Odenathus, the Palmyrene adventurer whose memory has been eclipsed by that of his wife Zenobia, laid Nehardea waste for the time being, and in its neighbourhood arose the academy of Pumbedita (Pombeditha) which became a new focus for the intellectual life of Israel in Babylonia.

At the time, Menasseh ben Israel was in London, on a mission to Cromwell.

At the moment when Spinoza was publishing a system which is still a dominating note of modern philosophy, this other son of Israel was capturing the very heart of Jewry.

Recently a mission has been sent to the Falashas of Abyssinia, and much interest has been felt in such outlying branches of the Jewish people as the Black Jews of Cochin and the Bene Israel community of Bombay.

Most Jews not only confidently believe that their own future lies in progressive development within the various nationalities of the world, but they also hope that a similar consummation is in store for the as yet unemancipated branches of Israel.

Shalmanezer destroyed the northern kingdom or Israel in 720, and following the practice of the times deported the majority of the population, whose traces became lost to history.

There is no reason why their descendants should not be found to-day in various tribes, but the physical type commonly called Jewish is characteristic not so much of Israel as of western Asia generally.

Meantime Saul had fallen in battle, and northern Israel was in a state of chaos.

Ishbaal lost hope, and after he had been foully assassinated by two of his own followers, all Israel sought David as king.

The biblical narrative is admittedly not so constructed as to enable us to describe in chronological order the thirty-three years of David's reign over all Israel.

It is questionable whether David could have become king over all Israel immediately after the death of Ishbaal.

But notwithstanding this, the relation is broken off, and years elapse before David gains hold upon the Hebrews of north Israel, the weakness of the union being proved by the ease with which it was subsequently broken after Solomon's death.

To the north-west Israel bordered upon Tyre, with whom its relations were friendly.

The main problem is whether the account of David's rule has been exaggerated, or whether the attempt has been made to throw back to the time of the first king of all Israel later political conditions.

Thus it was quite in keeping with the romantic attachment between David and Saul's son Jonathan that when he became king of Israel he took Jonathan's son Meribbaal under his care (ix.).

According to the prevailing traditions, Saul at his death had left North Israel disunited and humiliated.

And meanwhile the religious convictions of the highest minds in Israel were undergoing a marked change.

See Cheyne, Traditions and Beliefs of Anc. Israel, on Gen.

The Armenian synaxarium, called the synaxarium of Ter Israel was published at Constantinople in 1834.

A great part was played in the history of Israel by the state of Aram Dammesek, i.e.

There is strong evidence at all events that many of the conceptions are contrary to historical fact, and the points of similarity between native Canaanite cult and Israelite worship are so striking that only the persistent traditions of Israel's origin and of the work of Moses compel the conclusion that the germs of specific Yahweh worship existed from his day.

In May 1 775 a British schooner in the Mystic defended by a force of marines was taken by colonial militia under General John Stark and Israel Putnam, - one of the first conflicts of the War of Independence.

The external law given, as was believed, by the God of Israel, was held to be the sufficient guide of life, and everything that looked like reliance on human wisdom was regarded as disloyalty to the Divine Lawgiver.

This view claims to determine the respective ages and relative chronological position of the various passages in which the Passover is referred to in the Pentateuch, and assumes that each successive stratum represents the practice in ancient Israel at the time of composition, laying great stress upon omissions as implying non-existence.

Moses summons the elders of Israel and orders them to kill the Passover and besprinkle the lintel and sideposts with a bunch of hyssop dipped in blood so that the Lord will pass over the door.

The scene of his revolt was Tirzah, the old seat of the kings of Israel between Jeroboam I.

According to the Old Testament account the Assyrian king even advanced against Israel, and only withdrew in consideration of a tribute amounting to about f400,000.

After a great defeat of Israel by the Philistines it was brought into the field, but was captured by the enemy.

A critical examination of the history of the Israelite ark renders it far from certain that the object was originally the peculiar possession of all Israel.

Heathens felt in the religion of Israel an escape from their growing scepticism, and a solution to the problem of life.

Some rabbis interpreted Israel's dispersion as divinely designed for the very purpose of proselytizing (Pesahim 87b.).

If the worldpowers were hard as flint in their dealings with Israel, the people of God were steeled to such moral endurance that each clash of their successive onsets kindled some new flame of devotion.

This is the great problem of Israel, finding its supreme expression for all time in the book of Job.

As the chronicler rewrote the history of Israel and Judah from the basis of the Priests' Code, so our author re-edited from the Pharisaic standpoint of his time the book of Genesis and the early chapters of Exodus.

The most remarkable part of the book is the eschatological picture with which it closes; and the way in which the plague of locusts appears to be taken as foreshadowing the final judgment - the great day or assize of Yahweh, in which Israel's enemies are destroyed - is so unique as greatly to complicate the exegetical problem.

In Joel the enemies of Israel are the nations collectively, and among those specified by name neither Assyria nor Chaldaea finds a place.

The absence of all mention of one great oppressing world-power seems most natural before the westward march of Assyria involved Israel in the general politics of Asia.

To Joel Judah and the people of Yahweh are synonyms; northern Israel has disappeared.

Now, both the Korahite and Asaphic groups of psalms are remarkable that they hardly contain any recognition of present sin on the part of the community of Jewish faith - though they do confess the sin of Israel in the past - but are exercised with the observation that prosperity does not follow righteousness either in the case of the individual (xlix., lxxiii.) or in that of the nation, which suffers notwithstanding its loyalty to God, or even on account thereof (xliv., lxxix.).

Malachi, Ezra and Nehemiah, like Haggai and Zechariah, are still very far from holding that the sin of Israel lies all in the past.

In some of the following psalms there are still references to deeds of oppression and violence, but more generally Israel appears as happy under the law.

From the time of Hyrcanus downwards the ideal of the princely high priests became more and more divergent from the ideal of the pious in Israel, and in the Psalter of Solomon we see religious poetry turned against the lords of the Temple and its worship.

And it is not too much to say that that view - which to some extent appears in the historical psalms of the Ehohistic Psalter - implies absolute incapacity to understand the difference between old Israel and later Judaism, and makes almost anything possible in the way of the ascription of comparatively modern pieces to ancient authors.

But he would be a bold man who would profess to give trustworthy dates either for the kings of Israel or for the prophetic writers.

I-II ought undoubtedly to be read in immediate connexion with chap. vii.; it presupposes the alliance of Syria and northern Israel, whose destruction it predicts, though opening a door of hope for a remnant of Israel.

Then another mysterious form appears on the scene, bearing the honourable title of "Servant of Yahweh," through whom God's gracious purposes for Israel and the world are to be realized.

These two oracles agree in the elaborateness of their description of the fearful fate of the enemies of Yahweh (Babylon and Edom are merely representatives of a class), and also in their view of the deliverance and restoration of Israel as an epoch for the whole human race.

And the Lord said to him, Ye shall be sitting on twelve thrones and judging the tribes of Israel.

These were "lost sheep of the house of Israel"; but Christ's freedom from Jewish exclusiveness is also brought out (I) as regards Samaritans, by the rebuke administered to the disciples at ix.52 sqq., the parable in x.

So far as the Old Testament goes, therefore, we gather that the Hittites were a considerable people, widely spread in Syria, in part subdued and to some extent assimilated by Israel, but in part out of reach.

From this point (c. 1150 B.C.) - the point at which (roughly) the monarchic history of Israel in Palestine opens - Egyptian records cease to mention Kheta; and as we know from other sources that the latter continued powerful in Carchemish for some centuries to come, we must presume that the rise of the Israelite state interposed an effective political barrier.

This is essentially the apocalyptic conception of history, and Ezekiel may be justly represented as in certain essential aspects its founder in Israel.

The judgments predicted by the pre-exilic prophets had indeed been executed to the letter, but where were the promised glories of the renewed kingdom and Israel's unquestioned sovereignty over the nations of the earth ?

Each fresh apocalypse would in the eyes of its writer be in some degree but a fresh edition of the traditions naturally attaching themselves to great names in Israel's past, and thus the books named respectively Enoch, Noah, Ezra would to some slight extent be not pseudonymous.

Thus, whereas prophecy had to deal with temporary reverses at the hands of some heathen power, apocalyptic arose at a time when Israel had been subject for generations to the sway of one or other of the great worldpowers.

Hence to harmonize such difficulties with belief in God's righteousness, it had to take account of the role of such empires in the counsels of God, the rise; duration and downfall of each in turn, till finally the lordship of the world passed into the hands of Israel, or the final judgment arrived.

The book treats of the Messiah and the Messianic kingdom, the woes of Israel in the past and the destruction of Jerusalem in the present, as well as of theological questions relating to original sin, free will, works, &c. The views expressed on several of these subjects are often conflicting.

On the old post-road in Greenwich is the inn, built about 1729, at which Israel Putnam was surprised in February 1779 by a force under General Tryon; according to tradition he escaped by riding down a flight of steep stone steps.

It is usual to regard Abimelech's reign as the first attempt to establish a monarchy in Israel, but the story is mainly that of the rivalries of a half-developed petty state, and of the ingratitude of a community towards the descendants of its deliverer.

When Manasseh ben Israel in 1655 petitioned for the return of the Jews who had been expelled by Edward I., Carvajal took part in the agitation and boldly avowed his Judaism.

He did this, as he himself said, not for his own honour nor for that of his family, but in order that disunion should not prevail in Israel.

His Geschichte des Volkes Israel, the result of thirty years' labour, was epoch-making in that branch of research.

Taking up the idea of a divine education of the human race, which Lessing and Herder had made so familiar to the modern mind, and firmly believing that to each of the leading nations of antiquity a special task had been providentially assigned, Ewald felt no difficulty about Israel's place in universal history, or about the problem which that race had been called upon to solve.

The history of Israel, according to him, is simply the history of the manner in which the one true religion really and truly came into the possession of mankind.

Other nations, indeed, had attempted the highest problems in religion; but Israel alone, in the providence of God, had succeeded, for Israel alone had been inspired.

Four horns, representing the hostile world-power that oppresses Israel and Jerusalem, are cast down by four smiths.

It appears, therefore, that in the tradition followed by the Israelite historian the tribes within whose pasture lands the mountain of God stood were worshippers of Yahweh before the time of Moses; and the surmise that the name Yahweh belongs to their speech, rather than to that of Israel, has considerable probability.

We should thus have in the tablets evidence of the worship of Yahweh among the Western Semites at a time long before the rise of Israel.

Yahweh leads Israel through the desert in a pillar of cloud and fire; he kindles Elijah's altar by lightning, and translates the prophet in a chariot of fire.

As the God of Israel Yahweh becomes its leader and champion in war; he is a warrior, mighty in battle; but he is not a god of war in the specific sense.

After a period of oppression, Samuel suddenly reappears as a great religious leader of Israel, summons the people to return to Yahweh, and convenes a national assembly at Mizpah.

Despite the straitened circumstances of Israel, an army is mustered, a sudden blow is struck at the Philistines, and, as before, supernatural assistance is at hand.

But neither Elijah nor Elisha raised a voice against the cult; then, as later, in the time of Amos, it was nominally Yahweh-worship, and Hosea is the first to regard it as the fundamental cause of Israel's misery.

In the rejuvenescence of the nation the old stays of that oppressive kingship which began with Solomon, the strongholds, the fortified cities, the chariots and horses so foreign to the life of ancient Israel, are no more known; they disappear together with the divinations, the soothsayers, the idols, the mazzebah and asherah of the high places.

Then Yahweh shall arise mindful of His oath to the fathers, Israel shall be forgiven and restored, and the heathen humbled.

His son, Lord Lincoln, had heard Gladstone's speech against the Reform Bill delivered in the Oxford Union, and had written home that " a man had uprisen in Israel."

Dayton's site was purchased in 1795 from John Cleves Symmes by a party of Revolutionary soldiers, and it was laid out as a town in 1796 by Israel Ludlow (one of the owners), by whom it was named in honour of Jonathan Dayton (1760-1824), a soldier in the War of Independence, a member of Congress from New Jersey in 1791- ' 799, and a United States senator in 1799-1805.

Let us now collect specimens of the evidence for different varieties of cosmogony, ranging from those of the Red Indian tribes to that of the people of Israel.

Lebanon was included within the ideal boundaries of the land of Israel, and the whole region was well known to the Hebrews, by whose poets its many excellences are often praised.

In view of these conditions, the prophet's message is to reassert the true relation of Israel to Yahweh, and to call for a corresponding holiness, especially in regard to questions of ritual and of marriage.

Alte Test., 2nd ed., 262) suspects a reference to Israel's overlordship in Judah; Burney (Heb.

The story of Abraham is of greater value for the study of Old Testament theology than for the history of Israel.

From the time when he was bidden to leave his country to enter the unknown land, Yahweh was ever present to encourage him to trust in the future when his posterity should possess the land, and so, in its bitterest hours, Israel could turn for consolation to the promises of the past which enshrined in Abraham its hopes for the future.

It was thence that Jacob, the father of the tribes of Israel, came and the route to Shechem and Bethel is precisely the same in both.

The various literatures of these nations were locked from view for more than two thousand years, while the literature of Israel had not merely been preserved, but had come to be regarded as inspired and sacred among all the cultured nations of the Western world.

Finally, even if "the woman" who is the mother of Christ be taken to be the ideal Israel in the beginning of the chapter, at its close she is clearly the Christian community founded by Him.

Israel was a name borne by their ancestor Jacob the father of the twelve tribes.

The Talmud itself says that the judgment of capital cases was taken away from Israel forty years before the destruction of the Temple.

See on this question, HEBREW RELIGION, and Budde, Religion of Israel to the Exile, vol.

This sanctuary and camp of Israel held a high place in the national regard, and is often mentioned in Judges and Samuel.

It is difficult to date the alliance of Syria and Philistia against Israel in Isa.

This fluctuation, due partly to the different circles in which the biblical narratives took shape, and partly to definite reshaping of the traditions of the past, seriously complicates all attempts to combine the early history of Israel with the external evidence.

Israel had conquered two kings of eastern Palestine - Sihon, king of the Amorites, and Og, king of Bashan.

Balak, king of Moab, became alarmed, and sent for Balaam to curse Israel; Balaam came after some hesitation, but when he sought to curse Israel Yahweh compelled him to bless them.

Balak, king of Moab, alarmed at the Israelite conquests, sends elders of Moab and Midian to Balaam, son of Beor, to the land of Ammon, to induce him to come and curse Israel.

Balak meets Balaam and they go together [and offer sacrifices]; Balaam, however, blesses Israel by divine inspiration; Balak remonstrates, but Balaam reminds him of his message and again blesses Israel.

Balak, king of Moab, alarmed at the conquests of Israel, sends the princes of Moab to Balaam at Pethor on the Euphrates, that he may come and curse Israel.

Balak offers sacrifices, but Yahweh inspires Balaam with a blessing on Israel.

They try to get a more favourable result by sacrificing on a different spot, and by placing Balaam on the top of Pisgah to view Israel, but he is again compelled to bless Israel.

The Priestly Code 3 has a different story to Balaam, in which he advises the Midianites how they may bring disaster on Israel by seducing the people Quoted Neh.

The chief significance of the Balaam narratives for the history of the religion of Israel is the recognition by J and E of the genuine inspiration of a non-Hebrew prophet.

But the retention of the story without modification may imply a continuous recognition through some centuries of the idea that Yahweh revealed his will to nations other than Israel.

The following words show that a prophet in ancient Israel had the utmost freedom of speech.

And it is perhaps not arbitrary to suppose that the splendour of the ritual in Amos's time implies a tremulous anxiety that Israel's seeming prosperity under Jeroboam II.

For instance, how came Amos to transfer himself to northern Israel ?

And how came he by his wide knowledge of people outside the limits of Israel ?

Bib., " Amos," and the introduction to Robertson Smith's Prophets of Israel (2), though in some cases the final decision will have to be preceded by a more thorough examination of the traditional text.

Beyond reasonable doubt, however, the writer seeks to take out the sting of the preceding passage in which Israel is devoted to utter destruction.

The fighting strength of the children of Israel at the Exodus was ascertained by a count of all males of twenty years old and upwards, made by enumerators appointed for each clan.

It is probable that the " hosts " were also identified with the armies of Israel.

His subsequent works were dissertations on the origin of alphabetical writing (Die Erfindung der Buchstabenschrift, 1801), on the antiquity of the Codex Vaticanus (1810), and on ancient mythology (Ober den Mythos der alten Volker, 1812); a new interpretation of the Song of Solomon (Das hohe Lied in einer noch unversuchten Deutung, 1813), to the effect that the lover represents King Hezekiah, while by his beloved is intended the remnant left in Israel after the deportation of the ten tribes; and treatises on the indissoluble character of the matrimonial bond (De conjugii christiani vinculo indissolubili commentatio exegetica, 1816) and on the Alexandrian version of the Pentateuch (1818).

Here he wrote his Geschichte des Volkes Israel (1869-1870), in two parts, extending respectively to the end of the Persian domination and to the fall of Masada, A.D.

The tragic interest which distinguishes the annals of Israel from the forgotten history of Moab or Damascus lies wholly in that long contest.

After the return from the Exile it was impossible to write the history of Israel's fortunes otherwise than in a spirit of religious pragmatism.

The religious vocation of Israel was no longer national but ecclesiastical or municipal, and the historical continuity of the nation was vividly realized only within the walls of Jerusalem and the courts of the Temple, in the solemn assembly and stately ceremonial of a feast day.

From the standpoint of the post-exilic age, the older delineation of the history of Israel, especially in the books of Samuel and Kings, could not but appear to be deficient in some directions, while in other respects its narrative seemed superfluous or open toi misunderstanding, as for example by recording, and that without.

The two chief sources of the canonical book of Kings were entitled Annals (" events of the times") of the Kings of Israel and Judah respectively (see Kings).

The many floating and fragmentary notes of various dates that have found a place in the account of his reign in the book of Kings (q.v.) show how much Hebrew tradition was occupied with the monarch under whom the throne of Israel reached its highest glory; and that time only magnified in popular imagination the proportions of so striking a figure appears from the opinions entertained of him in subsequent writings.

In 734 B.C. he was called to the help of Yahu-khazi (Ahaz) of Judah, who had been attacked by Pekah of Israel and Rezon (Rasun) of Damascus.

Rejoining Washington's army, he served under General Israel Putnam in the battle of Long Island (August 27) and was taken prisoner.

The object of the observances was to cleanse the sanctuary, the priesthood and the people from all their sins, and to renew and maintain favourable relations between Yahweh and Israel.

Later Judaism emphasized the idea of vicarious atonement for Israel through the sufferings of the righteous, especially the martyrs; but it is very doubtful whether the idea of the atonement through the death of the Messiah is a pre-Christian Jewish doctrine."

For the Gentiles he had no message except as they might become members of the family of Israel, assuming the responsibilities and enjoying the privileges of proselytes.

The holiness of Israel centres in the sanctuary, and round the sanctuary stand the priests, who alone can approach the most holy things without profanation, and who are the guardians of Israel's sanctity, partly by protecting the one meeting-place of God and man from profane contact, and partly as the mediators of the continual atoning rites by which breaches of holiness are expiated.

All these things were unknown in old Israel.

So fundamental a change as lies between Hosea and the Priestly Code was only possible in the general dissolution of the old life of Israel produced by the Assyrians and by the prophets; and indeed the new order did not take shape as a system till the exile had made a great change in old institutions.

Now among the Jews, as we have seen, the hierarchy proper has for its necessary condition the destruction of the state and the bondage of Israel to a foreign prince, so that spiritual power is the only basis left for a national aristocracy.

Somewhat later than " J," another writer, commonly referred to as " E," from his preference for the name Elohim (" God ") rather than " Jehovah," living apparently in the northern kingdom, wrote down the traditions of the past as they were current in northern Israel, in a style resembling generally that of " J," but not quite as bright and vivid, and marked by small differences of expression and representation.

In impressive and persuasive oratory he sets before Israel, in a form adapted to the needs of the age in which he lived, the fundamental principles which Moses had taught.

Yahweh was Israel's only god, who tolerated no other god beside Himself, and who claimed to be the sole object of the Israelite's reverence.

They are to all appearance the work of a school of priests, who, after the destruction of the Temple in 586 B.C., began to write down and codify the ceremonial regulations of the pre-exilic times, combining them with an historical narrative extending from the Creation to the establishment of Israel in Canaan; and who completed their work during the century following the restoration in 537 B.C. The chief object of these sections is to describe in detail the leading institutions of the theocracy (Tabernacle, sacrifices, purifications, &c.), and to refer them to their traditional origin in the Mosaic age.

The legislation of " P," though written down in or after the exile, must not, however, be supposed to be the creation of that period; many elements in it can be shown from the older literature to have been of great antiquity in Israel; it is, in fact, based upon preexilic Temple usage, though in some respects it is a development of it, and exhibits the form which the older and simpler ceremonial institutions of Israel ultimately assumed.

But the chronological disorder of the book, and other indications, show that Baruch could not have been the compiler of the book, but that the prophecies and narratives contained in it were collected together gradually, and that it reached its present form by a succession of stages, which were not finally completed till long after Israel's return from Babylon.

The two earliest of the Minor Prophets, Amos and Hosea, prophesied in the northern kingdom, at about 760 and 740 B.C. respectively; both foresaw the approaching ruin of northern Israel at the hands of the Assyrians, which took place in fact when Sargon took Samaria in 722 B.C.; and both did their best to stir their people to better things.

Thus, though it is going too far to say that there are no pre-exilic psalms, the Psalter, as a whole, is the expression of the deeper spiritual feeling which marked the later stages of Israel's history.

Finally, by comparing the results of this criticism as a whole, we have to determine, by observing its growth and comparing it with others, the essential character of the religion of Israel.

The untrustworthiness of Chronicles - briefly admitted by Luther - he proved in detail, and so cleared the way for that truer view of the history and religion of Israel which the treatment of Chronicles as a trustworthy record of the past hopelessly obscured.

In the criticism of the Pentateuch his most influential and enduring contributions to criticism are his proof that Deuteronomy is a work of the 7th century B.C., and his insistence that the theory of the Mosaic origin of all the institutions described in the Pentateuch is incompatible with the history of Israel as described in the historical books, Judges, Samuel and Kings.

The fundamental peculiarity of the movement lies in the fact that it is a criticism of what is supreme in Israel - its religion, and that it has rendered possible a true appreciation of this by showing that, like all living and life-giving systems of thought, belief and practice, the religion of Israel was subject to development.

It seized on the prophetic element, and not the ceremonial, as containing what is essential and unique in the religion of Israel.

From 1875 onwards Smith contributed to the 9th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica a long series of important articles, which, together with the articles of Cheyne, Wellhausen and others, made that work an important factor in the change which was to pass over English thought in regard to the Bible; in 1878, by his pleadings in the trial for heresy brought against him on the ground of these articles, he turned a personal defeat in the immediate issue into a notable victory for the cause which led to his condemnation; and subsequently (in 1880), in two series of lectures, afterwards published 2 and widely read, he gave a brilliant, and, as it proved, to a rapidly increasing number a convincing exposition of the criticism of the literature, history and religion of Israel, which was already represented in Germany 2 The Old Testament in the Jewish Church (1881); The Prophets of Israel (1882).

But above all archaeology has immensely increased our knowledge of the nations among which Israel was placed, and of the political powers which from time to time held Palestine in subjection.

In this way archaeology has greatly helped to bring the history of Israel into relation with the history of the ancient East, and in so doing has raised important questions as to the origin of Hebrew culture.

This and similar questions, leading up to the ultimate and supreme question - Wherein does lie the uniqueness of Israel's religion?

The mention of Israel on the stele of Merenptah, discovered by Petrie in 1896 (" Israel [Ysirael] is desolated; its seed [or] is not "), is too vague and indefinite in its terms to throw any light on the question of the Exodus.

Here, in Judah, from the accession of Athaliah to the accession of Ahaz, tradition gives 143 years, whereas, in fact, there were but 196 years (842-736); and in Israel, from the death of Menahem to the fall of Samaria, it gives 31 years, whereas from 738 (assuming that Menahem died in that year) to 722 there are actually only 16 years.

They conclude (c) with Messianic or consolatory passages on the future glory of Israel.

But again this special type of nebhiim seems to have been a new thing in Israel in the days of Samuel.

It was perhaps only in time of war, when Israel felt himself to be fighting the battles of Yahweh, that the Hebrew was stirred to the depths of his nature by emotions of a religious colour.

In fact the presence of an orgiastic character is as marked a feature in Canaanite religion as the absence of it is in the oldest religion of Israel; but the new Hebrew enthusiasts had at least an external resemblance to the devotees of the Canaanite sanctuaries and this would be enough to determine the choice of a name which in the first instance seems hardly to have been a name of honour.

The worship of the local sanctuaries did nothing to promote the sense of the religious unity of Israel; Yahweh in the age of the Judges ran no small risk of being divided into a number of local Baals, givers of natural good things each to his own locality.

And so, though we cannot follow the steps of the process, we are not surprised to learn that they soon had an established footing in Israel, and that the prophets came to be recognized as a standing sacred element in society.

Yahweh's ever-present kingship in Israel, which was the chief religious idea brought into prominence by the national revival, demanded a more continuous manifestation of His revealing spirit than was given either by the priestly lot or by the rise of occasional seers; and where could this be sought except among the prophets?

Since the absorption of the aborigines in Israel Canaanite ideas had exercised great influence over the sanctuaries - so much so that the reforming prophets of the 8th century regarded the national religion as having become wholly heathenish; and this influence the ordinary prophets, whom a man like Micah regards as mere diviners, had certainly not escaped.

But henceforth there were two parties among the prophets of Yahweh themselves, the new prophets accusing the old of imposture and disloyalty to Yahweh, and these retaliating with charge of disloyalty to Israel.

The popular faith was full of heathenish superstition strangely blended with the higher ideas which were the inheritance left to Israel by men like Moses and Elijah; but the common prophets accepted all alike, and combined heathen arts of divination and practices of mere physical enthusiasm with a not altogether insincere pretension that through their professional oracles the ideal was being maintained of a continuous divine guidance of the people of Yahweh.

But in point of fact the function of the new prophecy was not to preserve but to destroy Israel, if Israel still meant the actual Hebrew nation, with its traditional national life.

Till Amos (with the solitary exception of Micaiah ben Imlah, in i Kings xxii.) prophecy was optimist - even Elijah, if he denounced the destruction of a dynasty and the annihilation of all who had bowed the knee to Baal, never doubted of the future of the nation when only the faithful remained; but the new prophecy is pessimist - it knows that Israel is rotten to the core, and that the whole fabric of society must be dissolved before reconstruction is possible.

It is sometimes proposed to view the canonical prophets as simple preachers of righteousness; their predictions of woe, we are told, are conditional, and tell what Israel must suffer if it does not repent.

But this is an incomplete view; the peculiarity of their position is that they know that Israel as it exists is beyond repentance.

That cannot be frustrated, and, as it includes the choice of Israel as His people, it is certain that, though the present commonwealth must perish, a new and better Israel will rise from its grave.

But in reality as has been shown in the article on Hebrew Religion, the prophets are older than the law, and the part of their work which was really epoch-making for Israel is just the part which is usually passed over as unimportant.

That that wrath must be followed by fresh mercies is not in itself a new thought, but only the necessary expression of the inherited conviction that Yahweh whom they preach as the judge of all the earth, is nevertheless, as past history has proved, the God who has chosen Israel as His people.

Thus even on this side there is no real bridge over the chasm that separates the total ruin impending over the Israel of the present from the glorious restoration of the Israel of the future.

Thus, with Isaiah in the days of Sennacherib's invasion, the prophetic word became again, as it had been in the days of the Syrian wars, "the chariots and horsemen of Israel," the stay and strength of all patriotic hope.

Zion is now not the centre of a mere national cult, but the centre of all true religion for the whole world; and more than once the prophet indicates not obscurely that the necessary issue of the great conflict between Yahweh and the gods of the heathen must be the conversion of all nations, the disappearance of every other religion before the faith of the God of Israel.

But this all-conquering religion is not the popular Yahweh worship; why then can the prophet still hold that the one true God is yet the God of Israel, and that the vindication of His Godhead involves the preservation of Israel?

Not because His providence is confined to Israel - it embraces all nations; not because He shows any favouritism to Israel - He judges all nations by the same strict rule.

If Israel alone among nations can meet the Assyrian with the boast "with us is God," the reason is that in Zion the true God is known' - not indeed to the mass, but to the prophet, and that the "holy seed" 2 or "remnant" (contained in the name Shear yashubh) which forms the salt of the nation.

It was therefore only as the God of Israel that the true God could be known within Israel; and so on the one hand the little society of faith - which had not in reality the least tinge of political coherence - is thought of as yet forming the true kernel of the nation qua nation, while on the other hand the state of Judah profits by the prophetic religion inasmuch as the nation must be saved from destruction in order that the prophetic faith - which is still bound up with the idea of the nation - may not be dissolved.

To him as a prophet the question was whether Israel as a nation could be saved.

And so the prophet was compelled to teach that the immediate future of Israel was a blank, that the state as a state was doomed.

Still indeed the New-Testament idea of a purely spiritual kingdom of God, in this world but not of it, is beyond the prophet's horizon, and he can think of no other vindication of the divine purpose than that the true Israel shall be gathered again from its dispersion.

The theodicea of the prophets is national; they see Yahweh's righteousness working itself out with unmistakable clearness in the present, and know that all that He brings upon Israel is manifestly just; but from the days of Jeremiah' the fortunes of Israel as a nation are no longer the one thing which religion has to explain; the greater question arises of a theory of the divine purpose which shall justify the ways of God with individual men or with His "righteous servant" - that is, with the ideal community of true faith as distinct from the natural Israel.

But the claim' to speak in the name of God is one which has often been made - and made sincerely - by others than the prophets of Israel, and which is susceptible of a great variety of meanings, according to the idea of God and His relation to man which is presupposed.

And so too with the following great prophets; the important thing in their work was not their moral earnestness and not their specific predictions of future events, but the clearness of spiritual insight with which they read the spiritual significance of the signs of the time and interpreted the movements of history as proofs of Yahweh's actual moral sovereignty exercised over Israel.

So long as the great problems of religion could be envisaged as problems of the relation of Yahweh to Israel as a nation the prophets continued to speak and to bring forth new truths; but the ultimate result was that it became apparent that the idea of moral government involved the destruction of Israel, and then the function of prophecy was gone because it was essentiall y national in its objects.

A less complete but yet most powerful vindication of the spiritual prophets was furnished by the course and event of Israel's history.

Thenceforth the religion of Yahweh and the religion of the prophets are synonymous; no other reading of Israel's past was possible, and in fact the whole history of the Hebrews in Canaan, as it was finally shaped in the exile, is written from this point of view, and has come down to us, along with the remains of actual prophetic books, under the collective title of "The Prophets."

By ignoring the free poetical form of prophecy, and still more by ignoring the fact that the prophetic pictures of the ideal future of Israel could not be literally fulfilled after the fall of the ancient state had entirely changed the sphere in which the problems of true religion had to be worked out, it was possible to find a great mass of unfulfilled prophecy which might form the basis of eschatological constructions.

While his system assigns the supremacy to Greek philosophy over the national religion of Israel, it exacts from the former, as a sort of tribute to the latter, the recognition of the elevation of God above the province of reason.

Even in the 10th century Lord Kingsborough spent a fortune in printing a magnificent compilation of Mexican picture-writings and documents in his Antiquities of Mexico to prove the theory advocated by Garcia a century earlier, that the Mexicans were the lost tribes of Israel.