[345] If we compare the morality of this Hebrew Decalogue with that of the Egyptian Negative Confession, we shall find it to belong to about the same stage of ethical development.
[346] In the Book of Judges are preserved some traditions which are illustrative of the moral state of society at this time; for though all the details of these stories may not be historical, still they doubtless reflect the general condition of things during this period. There is a striking similarity between these traditions of gross and incredible crimes and the traditions of the atrocious immoralities of the Merovingian Age in European history.
[347] The kingdom of Israel was destroyed by the Assyrian power 722 B.C.; the kingdom of Judah fell before Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, 586 B.C.
[348] Cf. Kuenen, The Prophets and Prophecy in Israel.
[349] The Prophets and Prophecy in Israel (1877), p. 344.
[350] Cf. 1 Kings xxi—the story of Naboth’s vineyard.
[351] “The life-work of Elijah was a turning-point in the history of the religion of Israel, similar in its consequences to those which followed the appearance of Zarathustra in Iran.... It was the ethical idea of God matured in the soul of the prophet by the need of his time which broke through with irresistible power to the demand for a final choice between Jehovah, the holy God, and the unholy nature gods of the heathen.”—Pfleiderer, Religions and Historic Faiths (1907), pp. 225 f.
[352] History of the People of Israel (1892), vol. ii, p. 275.
[353] Calamities were at this time befalling Israel. “The national distress served to awaken Israel’s conscience. The obligation covenanted at Sinai knocked again at the door of their hearts” (Budde, Religion of Israel to the Exile (1899), p. 93).
[354] Amos iii. 10.