The explanation which has seemed to make clear the unique development of the Hebrew above other Semitics, is this one—only recently offered. It is well-known that the Israelites were originally henotheists—that is, they believed in many gods—believed that many divinities were powerful, but they gave allegiance to one, the god of their tribe. This god belonged to their tribe, and shared its successes and failures. Now when Moses accepted Jahweh, God of the Midianites, he persuaded the Israelites to forsake the gods they were worshipping and give their homage to Jahweh. At the foot of Sinai he caused them to make a covenant with Jahweh: the God was to give them protection, and they were to worship him alone. Because he was an adopted God and not a member of their tribe, he was bound to protect them only when they served him faithfully. The adopted God could cast off his adopted people if they failed to fulfill their part of the contract. The Hebrews always said that they were a peculiar people. They repeatedly referred to the fact that God could cast them off if they were unloyal to him. Such a thing is unknown among other nations. No other God could cast off his people; he was one of them. This explains also why the Hebrews were always so ready to abandon their God and take on the gods of their neighbors.
"In any case it is clear that Jahweh was not originally the god of Israel, but only became such in consequence of the work of Moses and of the events of the exodus....
"Israel's relation to Jahweh was unique.... He was not an ancestral god who stood in a natural and necessary relation to his people, like the gods of other Semitic tribes; but he was the god of Sinai and of Midian, who had come into connection with Israel only through his own free, moral choice. Israel belonged to him, not by birth, but by election. Its existence and its continuance were dependent upon his sovereign good pleasure, and he might cast it off as easily as he had adopted it. Under these circumstances he had the right to make conditions upon which his favour should depend such as other gods could not make. This fact does not explain the ethical character of the Mosaic religion; it explains only why an ethical religion was promulgated at this particular time."[4]
It is the custom of all primitive people to ascribe their early laws and government to divine origin. This rule is seldom varied, and was adhered to by the ancient Hebrews. Instead of conceiving the God-Spirit as having endowed Moses with true insight, wise judgments, and high ideals, the Israelites believed that their Covenant had been dictated, word by word, by Jahweh, while it was further claimed that tablets with words inscribed upon them were given Moses by God himself. As a matter of fact, the earliest decalogue differed widely from the one best known. The commandments first given the people after they were led forth from Egypt were probably the ones recorded in the twenty-fourth chapter of Exodus, and were something like these:
1. Thou shalt worship no other god.
2. Thou shalt make thee no molten gods.
3. The feast of unleaven bread shalt thou keep.
4. Every firstling is mine.
5. Thou shalt keep the feast of the weeks.
6. Thou shalt keep the feast of the ingathering at the end of the year.
7. Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven.
8. The fat of my feast shall not be left over until the morning.
9. Thou shalt bring the best of the first fruits of thy land to the house of Jehovah thy God.
10. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk.
Because Moses was known to the Israelites as a law-giver, laws passed long after his death were attributed to him, quite as laws which came into being years after the death of Hammurabit in Babylon were probably attributed to this great national law-giver.
A company of slaves, escaping from servitude after serving for two or three generations, and having possessed but a crude civilization previous to that experience, would require only the simplest laws, and any one reading the various rules and regulations attributed to this period will easily see how crude was the stage of development which made such instruction necessary. As time went on, and the people advanced and became more enlightened, new laws were possible. These continued to be known as the "Laws of Moses," as laws in all early countries have been attributed to some renowned personage, to give them added force.
In these early periods which we have been studying, the religion of the Hebrews possessed many features in common with those of surrounding nations. We read that the "Children of Israel walked through the fire," which means that they sacrificed their first-born in flames as offerings to their God. Jahweh was believed to be a jealous God, vindictive, demanding cruel treatment of captives, and fierce and relentless in battle. A man cannot get a higher ideal of God than that of a perfect human being, and this was an age when all ideas and ideals were crude.
When the Hebrews settled Canaan, they learned much from the earlier inhabitants of the land. Becoming farmers, they quite naturally fell into the way of worshipping the god of harvests, and other agricultural deities of the Canaanites. The "high places" are repeatedly spoken of, these being places where other gods were worshipped. When roused by danger, they renewed their covenant with Jahweh and returned to more careful performance of their part of the early agreement.
The system of polygamy was well established. Several of the patriarchs took two or more wives. If a man died childless, it was not only customary but a duty that the next in line should marry the widow and raise up seed to his memory. This is expressly shown by the story of Ruth, most attractive in its early simplicity. We learn more of the every day life of the Israelites in the period following Hebrew occupancy of Canaan from this little idyl than from any other source, or from all other sources combined.