Spinoza asserts plainly that he receives the Bible as an inspired book; in this he perhaps differs from some of our more recent exegetes who examine the Bible as any other literary work of history and morality.
Christians grow up in the truth that the Bible contains the Word of God, and they claim that their teaching has its basis in the Old Testament. But others have argued thus: What do these know of the history of the Hebrews? They do not understand the language of their writings, and they cannot say what caused those sublime teachers of the people, the prophets, to speak on such and such an occasion, in such and such a manner. Being ignorant on all these points it is possible that interpretations of the Old Testament may have led us into error.
The existence of what are now called the laws of nature being unknown in those far-off days, the Hebrews were unable to recognise secondary or mediate causes; the book of Job is an example of this. God intervenes personally on each occasion. Our attention is directed solely to two points: man who suffers, that is, who consents or is in revolt, and God who wills or wills not.
As everything without exception is placed in direct relationship with God in the Old Testament, all is said to emanate from God; the cedars of Lebanon are the cedars of God;[123] men of great stature, the giants, are called in Genesis sons of God; the knowledge of nature and of natural things which Solomon possessed is called the wisdom of God; the discretion of a judge and the gains of a merchant are the gifts of God; Assyria is the scourge of God, and the lightning His arrows. And Spinoza asks: why are the children of Israel called God’s chosen people? Because the Lord, having delivered them out of Pharaoh’s hands, led them into the land of Canaan, where they lived under the laws revealed to Moses, to which the surrounding nations were not subject. “I will be your God, and ye shall be My people,” Jehovah had said by the mouth of Moses. This was the covenant concluded on Mount Sinai between the Lord God and the Jewish nation. These laws, which were at the same time civil and religious, were included under the general term, the Law of the Lord, and the Book containing these precepts was called the Word of God.
According to an ancient tradition, God revealed to Noah seven precepts which corresponded to commandments given generally to all mankind without distinction of race; there was thus perhaps a revelation given at the beginning of time, even before the first and greatest of the prophets, Moses; and this revelation the patriarchs knew. The light which lightens every man born into the world impressed these first precepts on the human heart; to the Jewish race it seemed perhaps improbable that a divine law not promulgated by a human mouth nor delivered in the name of the God of Israel, could be imposed on man; as Moses was permitted to hear God’s voice amongst the lightnings and thunders, the Israelites considered themselves on a higher level than the rest of humanity, and held in less esteem eternal verities which were the possession of all mankind. Moses told them that after his death God would raise up a prophet amongst them on condition that they should keep His Covenant and His Commandments to do them, and he warned them of the consequences of breaking these: “I testify against you this day that ye shall surely perish.”
We find the second revelation in the books ascribed to Moses; written in our memory as distinctly as in the Bible; it has so entirely eclipsed the first that the greater number of us do not remember ever to have heard of the seven precepts of Noah.
After the death of Moses, prophets succeeded each other in Israel; all from the first to the last acknowledged that they received the revelation either by symbols or illustrations, or by the word; their eyes saw certain objects and their ears heard the explanation of what they saw. Ezekiel, like Moses, saw God under the appearance of a flaming fire; Daniel saw Him as the “Ancient of Days, whose garment was white as snow”; the disciples of Christ saw the Spirit of God under the form of a dove; the Apostles as tongues of fire; and Saul, at the moment of his conversion, recognised it in a bright light, and these visions were always accompanied by words.
The prophets rise above the level of other men by the intensity of their faith, and by their vivid imagination; but imagination is mobile, and their ecstatic conditions were not permanent; how could they feel assured of being in direct communication with the Lord Himself? They were so lacking in assurance that they often required some palpable sign, thus did Abraham, Moses, Gideon and many others. Each time the sign was granted to them; a fire descending from heaven to consume the offering; a rod changed into a serpent; a healthy hand instantly covered with leprosy; a fleece of wool remaining dry on ground that was wet with dew, and other miraculous signs.
According to Spinoza the gift of prophecy is on a lower level than that of ordinary intellectual knowledge which requires no outward sign of confirmation.
The nature of the revelation depended also upon the temperament of each prophet, on his education and his own personal opinions; the Magi who studied astronomy and astrology, seeing a star in the east, at once went in search of the expected child. But on one point all were agreed, they all said with Moses: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might, and thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” And they said with Isaiah: “Wash you, make you clean, put away the evil of your doings, cease to do evil, learn to do well, relieve the oppressed.”