Prolegomena to the History of Israel

by Julius Wellhausen

— Footnote 1. Comp. Zech. xiv. 16 seq. All that are left of the nations which came against Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship Jehovah of hosts and to keep the feast of tabernacles. And whoso of the families of the earth shall not come up unto Jerusalem to worship Jehovah of hosts, UPON THEM SHALL BE NO RAIN,. But for the Egyptians—who on account of the Nile are independent of rain—another punishment is threatened if they do not come to keep the feast of tabernacles. — Footnote

It has for its basis no historical acts of salvation, but nature simply, which, however, is regarded only as God's domain and as man's field of labour, and is in no manner itself deified. The land is Jehovah's house (viii. 1, ix. 15), wherein He lodges and entertains the nation; in the land and through the land it is that Israel first becomes the people of Jehovah, just as a marriage is constituted by the wife's reception into the house of the husband, and her maintenance there. And as divorce consists in the wife's dismissal from the house, so is Jehovah's relation to His people dissolved by His making the land into a wilderness, or as in the last resort by His actually driving them forth into the wilderness; He restores it again by "sowing the nation into the land" anew, causing the heavens to give rain and the earth to bear, and thereby bringing into honour the name of "God sown" for Israel (ii. 25 [23]). In accordance with this' worship consists simply of the thanksgiving due for the gifts of the soil, the vassalage payable to the superior who has given the land and its fruits. It ipso facto ceases when the corn and wine cease; in the wilderness it cannot be thought of, for if God bestows nothing then man cannot rejoice, and religious worship is simply rejoicing over blessings bestowed. It has, therefore, invariably and throughout the character given in the Jehovistic legislation to the feasts, in which also, according to Hosea's description, it culminates and is brought to a focus. For the days of the false gods, on which people adorned themselves and sacrificed, are just the feasts, and in fact the feasts of Jehovah, whom however the people worshipped by images, which the prophet regards as absolutely heathenish.

Equally instructive is the second passage (ix. 1-6).

"Rejoice not too loudly, O Israel, like the heathen, that thou hast gone a whoring from thy God, and lovest the harlot's hire upon every threshing-floor. The floor and the wine-press shall not feed them, and the new wine shall fail them. They shall not dwell in Jehovah's land; Ephraim must return to Egypt, and eat what is unclean in Assyria. Then shall they no more pour out wine to Jehovah, or set in order sacrifices to Him; like bread of mourners is their bread, /1/ all that eat thereof become unclean, for

— Footnote
1. For Y(RBW (ix. 4) read Y(RKW, and LXMM for LXM. See Kuenen,
National Religions and Universal Religions (1882), p. 312 seq.
— Footnote

their bread shall only be for their hunger, it shall not come into the house of the Lord. What will ye do in the day of festival and in the day of the feast of the Lord? For lo, after they have gone away from among the ruins, Egypt shall keep hold of them, Memphis shall bury them; their pleasant things of silver shall nettles possess, the thornbush shall be in their tents."

It need not surprise us that here again the prophet places the worship which in intention is obviously meant for Jehovah on the same footing with the heathen worship which actually has little to distinguish it externally therefrom, being constrained to regard the "pleasant things of silver" in the tents in the high places not as symbols of Jehovah, but as idols, and their worship as whoredom. Enough that once more we have a clear view of the character of the popular worship in Israel at that period. Threshing-floor and wine-press, corn and wine, are its motives,—vociferous joy, merry shoutings, its expression. All the pleasure of life is concentrated in the house of Jehovah at the joyous banquets held to celebrate the coming of the gifts of His mild beneficence; no more dreadful thought than that a man must eat his bread like unclean food, like bread of mourners, without having offered the aparchai at the festival. /2/ It is this

— Footnote 2. Times of mourning are, so to speak, times of interdict, during which intercourse between God and man is suspended. Further, nothing at all was ever eaten except that of which God had in the first instance received His share;—not only no flesh but also no vegetable food, for the "first-fruits" of corn and wine represented the produce of the year and sanctified the whole. All else was unclean. Comp. Ezekiel iv. 13. — Footnote

thought which gives its sting to the threatened exile; for sacrifice and feast are dependent upon the land, which is the nursing-mother and the settled home of the nation, the foundation of its existence and of its worship.

The complete harmony of this with the essential character of the worship and of the festivals in the Book of the Covenant, in the law of the Two Tables, and in Deuteronomy, is clear in itself, but becomes still more evident by a comparison with the Priestly Code, to which we now proceed.