[833]. Judges XIII.
[834]. 1 Sam. I.
[835]. Num. VI. 1–21.
[836]. 1 Sam. I. 28.
[837]. 1 Sam. II. 11, 18, III. 3, I. 11.
[838]. Amos II. 11, 12.
[839]. Lev. X. 9.
[840]. Num. VI. 6, 7.
[841]. The circumstance that this was ‘of Jahveh’ (Judges XIV. 4) is a fiction interpolated into the legend by the systematising author.
[842]. It will be seen from the above, that I am far from subscribing to the judgment on the heathen religions which has in recent times been widely diffused among philosophers and philologians. I agree essentially with the judgment of the natural mind, which always sees delusion and superstition in heathendom. But it does not follow from this that the heathens were absolutely immoral: they invested with their own morality gods who were intrinsically representations of nature only.