Prolegomena to the History of Israel

by Julius Wellhausen

In short, what is usually given out as the peculiar theocratic element in the history of Israel is the element which has been introduced by the redaction. There sin and grace are introduced as forces into the order of events in the most mechanical way, the course of events is systematically withdrawn from all analogy, miracles are nothing extraordinary, but are the regular form in which things occur, are matters of course, and produce absolutely no impression. This pedantic supra-naturalism, "sacred history" according to the approved recipe, is not to be found in the original accounts. In these Israel is a people just like other people, nor is even his relationship to Jehovah otherwise conceived of than is for example that of Moab to Chemosh (chap. xi. 24). Of theophanies and manifestations of the Godhead there is no lack, but the wonders are such as to make one really wonder. Once and again they interrupt the earthly nexus, but at the same time they form no connected system; they are poetry, not prose and dogma. But on the whole the process of history, although to appearance rougher and more perplexed, is nevertheless in reality much more intelligible, and though seemingly more broken up, actually advances more continuously. There is an ascent upward to the monarchy, not a descent from the splendid times of Moses and Joshua (Judges i. 28-35, xiii. 5, xviii. 1).

One narrative, it is true, apart from that relating to Othniel, which is not to be reckoned here, is exactly what sacred history ought to be in order to fit into the theoretical scheme,—I mean Judges xix.-xxi. To appreciate it rightly it will be well first of all to cast a glance upon the preceding narrative relating to the migration of the tribe of Dan to the north. The Danites, 600 strong, fall upon the Canaanite town of Laish not because it lies within the limits assigned to the people of God, and because its conquest is a duty—though they inquire of the oracle, they are nevertheless far from relying on the divine right so plainly made known in the Book of Joshua—but because it is inhabited by a peaceable and unsuspecting people, which is quite defenceless against such a band of desperadoes; and they have as little scruple in practicing the same treachery to Israelites such as Micah. They take it that might is right, and recognise no restraining consideration; their conduct is natural to the verge of absolute shamelessness. And yet they are pious in their way; how highly they value Jehovah they show by this, that they steal His image out of the house of God, and the priest who keeps it into the bargain. As for the religious usages mentioned in the two chapters, hardly an abomination forbidden by the Law is wanting: the private sanctuary in the possession of the Ephraimite Micah, the grandson of Moses as priest in his service and pay, ephod and teraphim as the requisite necessaries in the worship of Jehovah; and yet all this is so recounted by the narrator as if it were all quite regular and void of offence, although his purpose in doing so is not to narrate temporary departures from rule, but the origin of permanent institutions at a chief sanctuary of ancient Israel. One is translated into another world on passing from this to the narrative immediately following, about the shameful deed of the Benjamites and their exemplary punishment; a greater or more instructive contrast as regards religious history is hardly to be found in all the Old Testament. In Judges xx.-xxi. it is not as invariably elsewhere the individual tribes which act, not even the people Israel, but the congregation of the covenant, which has its basis in the unity of worship. The occasion of their action is a sin committed in their midst which must be done away; it is the sanctity of the theocracy which brings these 400,000 men to arms and fills them at once with unction and with sanguinary zeal. The clerical instincts have entirely taken possession of this uniform mass, have passed into their flesh and blood, and moulded them into a single automaton, so that all that takes place is invariably done by all at once. No individuals come to the front, not even by name, still less by deeds of velour; the moral tone is anything but heroic. When the godless reprobates of Gibeah seek to assail the person of the Levite who is passing the night there, he hands over to them his wife in order to save himself, and all Israel finds nothing objectionable in this revolting act of cowardice, the opinion probably being that by his conduct the holy man had kept the sinners from still graver guilt.

"Of the Mosaic law not a word is said in these chapters, but who could fail to perceive that the spirit which finds its expression in the law pervaded the community which acted thus? Had we more narratives of similar contents we should be able to solve many a riddle of the Pentateuch. Where under the monarchy could we find an Israel so united, vigorous, earnest, so willing to enter upon the severest conflict for the sake of the highest ends? "Thus Bertheau, rightly feeling that this story has a quite exceptional position, and contradicts all that we learn from other quarters of the period of the judges or even the kings. Only we cannot reckon it a proof of the historic value of the story, that it gives the lie to the rest of the tradition in the Books of Judges, Samuel, and Kings, and is homogeneous not with these books but with the Law. On the other hand, the writer betrays himself with a self-contradiction, when, unconsciously remembering the preceding chapters, he laments the disorganisation of the time he is dealing with (xix. 1, xxi. 25), and yet describes Israel to us as existing in a religious centralisation, such as demonstrably was never attained in the earlier life of the nation, but only came about as a consequence of the exile, and is the distinctive mark of Judaism.

As this narrative is not one of those included in the Deuteronomistic scheme of the Book of Judges, there may be a question whether it presupposes the Deuteronomic law only, or the priestly law as well. Its language has most points of contact with Deuteronomy; but one extremely important expression and notion, that of "the congregation of the children of Israel," points rather to the Priestly Code. The same may be said of Phinehas ben Eleazar ben Aaron (xx. 28). The latter, however, occurs but once, and that in a gloss which forms a very awkward interruption between "and the children of Israel inquired of Jehovah," and the word "saying" which belongs to that phrase. We have also to remark that there is no mention of the tabernacle, for which there is no room in addition to Mizpeh (p. 256), so that the principal mark of the Priestly Code is wanting. It is only in preparation, it has not yet appeared: we are still standing on the ground of Deuteronomy, but the way is being prepared for the transition.

VII.I.3. Going a step further back from the last revision we meet with an earlier effort in the same direction, which, however, is less systematically worked out, in certain supplements and emendations, which have here and there been patched on to the original narratives. These may be due in part to the mere love of amplification or of talking for talking's sake, and in so far we have no further business with them here. But they originated partly in the difficulty felt by a later age in sympathising with the religious usages and ideas of older times. Two instances of this kind occur in the history of Gideon. We read (vi. 25-32), that in the night after his call Gideon destroyed, at the commandment of Jehovah, the altar of Baal in Ophra, his native town, as well as the Ashera which stood beside it; and that in place of it he built an altar to Jehovah, and burned on it a yearling bullock, with the wood of the Ashera for fuel. The next morning the people of Ophra were full of indignation, and demanded that the author of the outrage should be given up to them to be put to death; his father, however, withstood them, saying, "Will ye contend for Baal? Will ye save him? If he be a god, let Baal contend (Heb. Jareb Baal) for himself." In consequence of this speech Gideon received his second name of Jerubbaal. This conflicts with what is said in an earlier part of the chapter. There Gideon has already made an altar of the great stone under the oak of Ophra, where he saw Jehovah sitting, and has offered upon it the first sacrifice, which was devoured by flames breaking out of themselves, the Deity Himself ascending in the flames to heaven. Why the two altars and the two stories of their inauguration, both tracing their origin to the patron of Ophra? They do not agree together, and the reason is plain why the second was added. The altar of a single stone, the flames bursting out of it, the evergreen tree, the very name of which, Ela, seems to indicate a natural connection with El, /1/—all this was in the eyes of a later

— Footnote 1. )LH, )LWN, in Aramaic simply tree, in Hebrew the evergreen, and in general the holy tree (Isaiah i. 29 seq.) mostly without distinguishing the species. Not only are oaks and terebinths included, but also palms. For the )LWN DBWRH at Bethel is elsewhere called TMR; Elim derives its names from the 70 palms, and the same may be the case with Elath on the Red sea. — Footnote

generation far from correct, indeed it was Baal-work. A desire that the piety of Gideon should be above suspicion gave rise to the second story, in which he erects an altar of Jehovah in place of the former altar of Baal. How far this desire attained its end we may best judge from the kindred effort to remove another ground of offence, which lies in the name Jerubbaal. In accordance with the occasion out of which the name is said to have arisen it is said to mean, "Let Baal contend." Etymologically this derivation is extremely far-fetched, and from every point of view impossible: the name of a god is only assumed by those who are his worshippers. In Hebrew antiquity Baal and El are interchangeable and used indifferently; Jehovah Himself is spoken of up to the times of the prophet Hosea as the Baal, i.e., the lord. This is distinctly proved by a series of proper names in the families of Saul and David, Ishbaal, Meribaal, Baaljada, to which we may now add the name Jerubbaal given to the conqueror of Midian. If then even in the time of the kings Baal was by no means simply the antipode of Jehovah, whence the hostile relation of the two deities, which Jerubbaal displays by the acts he does, although he praises the great Baal by wearing his name? The view, also, that the Ashera was incompatible with the worship of Jehovah, does not agree with the belief of the earlier age; according to Deuteronomy xvi. 21, these artificial trees must have stood often enough beside the altars of Jehovah. The inserted passage itself betrays in a remarkable manner that its writer felt this sort of zeal for the legitimate worship to be above the level of the age in question. We receive the impression that the inhabitants of Ophra do not know their worship of Baal to be illegitimate, that Gideon also had taken part in it in good faith, and that there had never been an altar of Jehovah in the place before.

Of a somewhat different form is a correction which is to be found at the close of the history of Gideon (viii. 22 seq.). After the victory over the Midianites the Israelites are said to have asked Gideon to be king over them. This he declined out of regard to Jehovah the sole ruler of Israel, but he asked for the gold nose-rings which had been taken from the enemy, and made of them an image of Jehovah, an ephod, which he set up in Ophra to be worshipped. "And all Israel went thither a-whoring after it, and it became a snare to Gideon and to his house." Now the way in which such a man acts in such a moment is good authority for the state of the worship of Israel at the time, and not only so, but we cannot impute it to the original narrator that he chose to represent his hero as showing his thankfulness to the Deity by the most gratuitous declension from His worship, as in fact crowning His victory with an act of idolatry. This is seen to be the more impossible when we consider that according to the testimony of Hosea, Isaiah, and Micah, such images were even in the Assyrian period a regular part of the belongings of the "houses of God" not only in Samaria but in Judah as well. We have also to remember that the contradiction between a human kingship and the kingship of Jehovah, such as is spoken of in these verses, rests upon theories which arose later, and of which we shall have more to say. /1/ Studer will thus be correct in his assertion that the

— Footnote 1. "The words of Gideon are only intelligible on the presupposition that the rule of Jehovah had a visible representative prophet or priest. But this was not the case in the period of the judges, as Gideon's own history shows us." Vatke, p. 263. We see besides from ix. 1 seq. that Gideon really was the ruler of Ephraim and Manasseh. — Footnote

old tradition could not see anything in Gideon's refusing the gold for himself and dedicating it to God but a fine proof of his unselfishness and piety, and that in viii. 22-27 we have a secondary product, in which the original features of the story are distorted so as to make them suit later tastes. The second hand has unfortunately supplanted in this instance the work of the first. The older narrative breaks off (viii. 21) with the words: "Gideon took away the ornaments that were on the necks of the camels of the kings." What he did with them we do not learn, but naturally we must suppose that it was of them that he made the ephod. According to the secondary passage, which begins immediately after viii. 21, he used for this purpose the nose-rings which the whole of Israel had taken from all the Midianites, amounting in weight to 1700 shekels, besides the ornaments of the kings and of their camels. The proportion is similar to that between the 600 Danites in chap. xviii. and the 25,700 Benjamites in chap. xx., or between the 40,000 men of Israel in v. 8, and the 400,000 in xx. 2.