We have to assign its authorship to Moses, because of the difficulty of otherwise accounting for it. That it was a spontaneous decree of the people, produced by their confidence in the national god after their victory over the Egyptians, is very improbable. Many reasons, however, can be given for its having been decreed by Moses. The explanation just mentioned is more probable when applied to him. He may, as Professor Kuenen conjectures,[5] have regarded the national success as a proof of the greatness of the national god, and so have vowed the people to his exclusive service. The connection between this hypothesis and the idea of a covenant between Jahveh and Israel, to be referred to presently, is in its favour. But a stronger reason for believing the commandment to be due to Moses might be found in his desire to secure the national unity. The Israelites had grown so numerous as to be divided into separate tribes. If the people had more gods than one, the old process would be repeated, each tribe choosing a different god for its tribal deity; and thus their religion would help the tendency towards disunion. We know how the unity of Greece was anything like a reality only when it was based on the worship of Apollo at Delphi, Apollo becoming practically the national god of the Hellenes.[6] If no rivals of Apollo had existed, how much more effective his worship would have been! In general it may be said that, in an early stage of political development, national unity can be secured against tribal separation only by basing it on religion. A close union was specially necessary to the Israelites at this time, when they had to struggle against so many peoples in order to obtain a home. Recognizing the impossibility of otherwise securing this union, Moses may well have framed the first commandment in order to give the tribes at least one bond of union in the exclusive worship of Jahveh, their national god.
We may conclude, then, that from the Mosaic age it was part of the Israelitic religion that the tribal, or national, god should be worshipped exclusively. The people, whatever might be their practice, had accepted the principle. The second and third commandments, which prohibit idolatry and the misuse of Jahveh’s name, are evidently meant to be supports of the first, by demanding reverence for Jahveh and by abolishing the records of his rivals. The next two are merely local. But the last five, the second table of the law, are the basis of a feature of the Jewish religion even more important than its monotheism.
That the morality of the time, so far as it existed, should have been based on religion is natural enough; and, accordingly, at first sight, there seems to be nothing remarkable about the five moral commandments. When examined closely they are found more curious. The first four, though simple rules which tribal experience might have shown to be necessary, are still exceptional as the laws of a half-civilized people. The last takes us into a region of morality with which it is impossible that the Israelites could then have been acquainted. Only a highly civilized mind could have conceived the precept, “Thou shalt not covet.” Here again we are driven for explanation to the personality of Moses.
These commandments are inexplicable as the product of a low civilization, but they are very natural if a high civilization be assumed as their basis. Egypt was at this time highly civilized, and, as we know from the “Book of the Dead,” had developed a pure morality, with which the last commandment would be thoroughly in harmony. If we could assume that Moses once belonged to the inner circle of Egyptian civilization, the peculiarities of Judaism would be fully explained. The early traditions represent him as brought up in the king’s household, and, accordingly, in a position to be acquainted with the best philosophy of the age. A later tradition says he was “instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.”[7] And probabilities are distinctly in favour of this. The power and authority he exercised over the Israelites could be readily accounted for if he was a member of their tribe who had received the highest education of the time. Such a training must have developed his faculties, and marked him out as the leader of his countrymen, ensuring their reverence for him, and trust in his ability to rule them.
In a region of historical inquiry like that in which we are now moving, we must be content to be guided by conjecture. When a conjecture asserts what is intrinsically probable, and at the same time explains a complex series of phenomena, we may fairly consider it to be accurate. The conjecture that Moses drew his inspiration from the higher culture of Egypt is of this kind.[8] There was nothing strange in his stamping the principles of that culture, if he was acquainted with it, on his Israelitic legislation. He had an unequalled opportunity of realizing the ideals of conduct. Political circumstances had placed the destinies of his people in his hands. Commands coming from him had an authority only possible at the beginning of national life. It is thoroughly in accordance with probability that he should have seized the occasion offered him, and imposed laws on the nation he ruled which, unless they passed utterly out of remembrance, would ensure it a noble development.
From the evidence of the ten commandments it is thus almost certain that the Israelitic religion was, even at its beginning, peculiarly moral. The people were commanded to worship Jahveh exclusively, and also to practise a severe morality. From this connection between Jahvism and morality important consequences were bound to follow.
All ancient religions were more or less marked in practice by a sacrificial system. The idea at the bottom of the custom of offering sacrifices is very simple. Men, as a proof of their devotion, give to their gods some of their possessions. The immediate object may be either to win the divine favour or to avert the divine wrath. When a religion is harsh and severe, the latter is likely to be the more frequent sacrificial motive. Accordingly, when the Israelites sacrificed to Jahveh, it was probably for the most part to remove Jahveh’s anger, to obtain forgiveness for their sins against him. Now exactly in proportion to the closeness of the connection between Jahvism and morality would be the tendency of these sins to be real sins. When sins are included among offences against a religious code, they are pretty sure to be the offences most frequently committed. Hence it follows that the early sacrificial system of the orthodox Israelites must have been largely directed to the atonement of sin.
If, then, we could accept the accounts in the Pentateuch as an accurate description of the sacrificial customs of the Mosaic age,[9] with external evidence corroborating internal probability, we might regard our conclusion as proved. But, as Professor Kuenen has shown, the whole system of the Jewish ceremonial law described in the Pentateuch was, in at least its final and consolidated form, the result of the labours of the period of Ezra and Nehemiah. It thus becomes a question of great difficulty to determine what portion of the law, if any, existed in early times. A few statements of the prophets seem to imply that in the Mosaic age no sacrifices at all were offered to Jahveh.[10] But the prophets cannot be considered trustworthy authorities for the early history of Israel. They wrote under the pressure of immediate circumstances, and with a very definite purpose. This purpose, as will afterwards be shown, required them to cast discredit on sacrifices. In doing so, their repeated references are evidence that a full sacrificial system in connection with the worship of Jahveh was established in their time.[11] Here their testimony is irrefragable, and it proves that such a system must have begun before their age. No period was so likely to have originated it as the earliest, when the foundations of the national life were laid.