of munitions of war, appeals for confidence in Yahweh, and at the crisis of Sennacherib's invasion is justified in his sublime impracticableness.

But at every turn the social and political interests pass into the moral and religious, or rather are animated and controlled by them. What had been long implicit in the higher Yahwism, now begins to receive noble expression, and is applied with fearless and penetrating power. On the one hand are the ancient sanctuaries where the worship of the local Baals had often been so strangely blended with that of Yahweh himself. These are Israel's 'lovers,' wooing her with wealth of corn and wine, of wool and flax. From these the guilty nation must be withdrawn; the festal days must cease; and in solitude and suffering she must learn once more reverence and loyalty to her true Lord. But there is also a wrong worship of Yahweh. There is the impotence of the image, for what wood or stone will avail to help in Yahweh's great day? And there is the immoral confidence of the formalist, who thinks that punctual dues and stated attendance will satisfy the claims of the heavenly justice and the lovingkindness of Yahweh. In both kingdoms piety was assiduous, and crowds trod the temple courts. Assured of the divine favour through the outward tokens of prosperity, they could not understand that there was anything amiss. They look for a day' of triumph, it will prove a day of doom; they expect Yahweh in a blaze of glory, it will turn into blackest night. That connexion with Yahweh of which they

boasted, led straight not to national exaltation but to national judgment.

This was the fundamental difference between the

1

prophetic and the popular view. The unspiritual nationalism argued much as Jephthah had argued with the Ammonites: You hold what your god Chemosh can keep for you; we hold what our god Yahweh secures for us.' The successes of Jeroboam II., which again extended the boundary of the Northern Kingdom, were the mark of Yahweh's good-will; if wealth poured into Judah, Yahweh was satisfied with his people. Why, then, should they not go on as they were? Was he not with them visibly, Amos 514? It is probable that many of the lower-minded prophets nourished themselves on this belief. The tie which Yahweh had himself formed with Israel, he was, in this aspect, pledged to maintain. Its continued safety was essential to his own good name. This singular conception of a kind of reciprocity between a people and its god, which lies in the background of more than one passage in the traditions of the Mosaic days, the higher prophecy flung scornfully to the winds. Far above Israel and its neighbour peoples rises the sublime figure of Yahweh, transcending earth and sky with illimitable power. No mountain-glade or oceandeep can hide the fugitives from him. From the top of heaven to the lowest pit of Sheol his hand can always reach them. This is the majestic being who says to Israel, 'You only have I known of all the

1

Judges 1124. 2 Exod. 3212, Num. 1413, Deut. 928.

families of the earth,' and draws the terrible and unlooked-for inference, 'therefore I will visit upon you all your iniquities,' Amos, 32; so that 'captivity beyond Damascus' awaits the self-confident in their pride, 5. Hosea interprets the disastrous ruin of his married life as a symbol of Israel's faithlessness to her exalted spouse. Through his own poignant sorrow he comprehends Yahweh's yearning over his people. In the stages of fall and discipline, of recovery and forgiveness, he sees the assurance of a divine love which can never rest until redemption is complete. A new betrothal shall take place, between the nation and its Lord. The earth shall respond to the wedding gifts of corn and wine and oil, and sky shall answer the appeal of earth, and Yahweh himself shall respond to the skies; in righteousness and judgment, in loving-kindness and in mercies, the union of people and God shall be for ever; and the book closes with a vision of Israel like a forest tree quickened into might and beauty with new life.

Here, then, are the beginnings of the great ideas which the people of Yahweh were to carry forth to the world. They are declared in figure and vision, not in terms of abstract thought; they are uttered in the language of poetry instead of philosophy; they are sometimes entangled in the swift movement of events; but the majestic conceptions of Yahweh's creative might, his universal sovereignty, his rule of righteousness, his providential purpose, his inevitable judgment, his purifying love, illumine

these pages with unfading glow. The great critic and historian Kuenen summed up the contribution of eighth century prophecy to the faith of Israel in two words, 'Ethical Monotheism.' How far that description can be said to be exhaustive, we may presently enquire.

VI.

The reaction of prophetic thought on the national traditions has been already indicated. Again and again, it would seem, did later hands, in enthusiastic devotion to the sublime authority of Yahweh, enrich the ancient story with touches prompted by the rising conceptions of his majesty. After Yahweh and his two angels have shared Abraham's hospitality, and Yahweh, questioning within himself whether he should disclose to the patriarch the purpose of his intended visit of inspection to Sodom and Gomorrah, Gen. 1817-21, follows the solemn interview when Abraham intercedes for the doomed city,-'Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?' The plea is inconsistent with the older and ruder representation, and belongs to the wider view which is escaping from its earlier limitations. So does the description of the passing of Yahweh before Moses on the mount, Exod. 346-7, with its enumeration of the divine attributes, cited again in Num. 1417-18 1 Most striking among such

1 On other passages in the struggle between Moses and Pharaoh, see The Hexateuch, ii., Ex. 810 note; or The Composition of the Hexateuch, 198a,

additions, in the belief of a large company of modern critics, is the brief group of the 'Ten Words' in Exod. 20. Unlike other divine instructions to Moses, these are represented as having been actually uttered by Deity from the sacred mount. In this summary of religious and moral duty, 'ethical monotheism' receives its most condensed expression.1 It was certainly thrown into its present shape (apart from certain details) before the compilation of the Deuteronomic homilies; and it is probably to be regarded as the outcome, in the form of law, of the prophetic conception of the demands of Yahweh on the personal devotion and social life of Israel.2 In thus concentrating attention on fundamental obligations of pious worship and family sanctity, without reference to ritual observance (save in the keeping of the sabbath), the Decalogue is true to the spirit of the higher prophecy, and rises above the earlier 'Words' of the older document J in Exod. 3410-27.

(

That the order of history now places the Prophets' before 'the Law,' was shown in the last lecture. The full meaning of this inversion of the traditional formula only now, however, comes into view. For it was prophecy which gave to Israel's religion the strength needful to endure the tremendous catastrophes which befel it; and it did.

1 See The Hexateuch, ii, on Exod. 20; or The Composition of the Hexateuch, pp. 223-6. Cp. the article Decalogue,' by the Rev. W. E Addis, in Encycl. Bibl.

2 Compare the precepts ascribed to Triptolemus, a mythical king of Eleusis before the Athenian state was established, who was taught the famous rites by Demeter, 'worship the gods,'' honour your parents,' and 'hurt not animals.'