16. About 600 A.D.
17. 2 Maccabees ii. 13.
18. The Dial: October, 1840.
19. Ewald: History of Israel, i. 4.
20. Esther is the most notable apparent exception, but this it only apparent.
21. In speaking of the book of Esther, Dean Stanley observes that "it never names the name of God from first to last," and remarks "It is necessary for us that in the rest of the sacred volume the name of God should constantly be brought before us, to show that He is all in all to our moral perfection. But it is expedient for us no less that there should be one book which omits it altogether, to prevent us from attaching to the mere name a reverence which belongs only to the reality.... The name of God is not there, but the work of God is.... When Esther nerved herself to enter, at the risk of her life, the presence of Ahasuerus—'I will go in unto the king, and if I perish I perish'—when her patriotic feeling vented itself in that noble cry, 'How can I endure to see the evil that shall come unto my people? or can I endure to see the destruction of my kindred?'—she expressed, although she never named the name of God, a religious devotion as acceptable to Him as that of Moses and David, who, no less sincerely, had the sacred name always on their lips."—History of the Jewish Church, iii. 301.
22. Ewald: History of Israel, i. 4.
23. The Old Testament is a record of the growth of human intelligence in relation to the Deity—of the revelation made by Spirit to spirit. When therefore God is described as speaking to man, he does so in the only way in which He who is a Spirit can speak to one encompassed with flesh and blood; not to the outward organs of sensation, but to that intelligence which is kindred to Himself the great Fountain of knowledge.—Davidson: Introduction to the Old Testament, i. 233.
24. Emerson: Miscellanies, p. 200.
25. "To hear people speak," said Goethe, "one would almost believe that they were of opinion that God had withdrawn into silence since those old times, and that man was now placed quite upon his own feet, and had to see how he could get on without God and his daily invisible breath."—Conversations, March 11, 1832.