(b) The tribal names Gad and Asher are suggestive of the worship of a deity of fortune (Gad) and of the male counterpart of the goddess, Ashērah. Under the name Shaddai (which Nöldeke suggests[2] was originally Shēdī “my demon”) it is possible to discern the name of a deity who in later times came to be identified with Yahweh. On the other hand, the connexion of the name Samson with sun-worship throws light on the period of the Hebrew settlement in Canaan and not on pre-Mosaic times. Nor is it possible to agree with Baudissin (Studien zur semit. Religionsgesch. i. 55) that Elōhīm as a plural form for the name of the Hebrew deity “can hardly be understood otherwise than as a comprehensive expression for the multitude of gods embraced in the One God of Old Testament religion,” in other words that it presupposes an original polytheism. For (1) Elōhīm is also applied in Judges xi. 24 to the Moabite Chemosh (Kemōsh); in 1 Sam. v. 7 to Dagon; in 1 Kings xi. 5 to Ashtoreth; in 2 Kings i. 2, iii. 6, 16 to Ba‘al Zebūl of Ekron. (2) It is merely a plural of dignity (pluralis majestatis) parallel to adōnīm (applied to a king in 1 Kings xviii. 8, whereas in the previous verse the singular form adōni is applied to the prophet Elijah). (3) The Tell el-Amarna inscriptions indicate that the term Elōhīm might even be applied in abject homage to an Egyptian monarch as the use of the term ilāni in this connexion obviously implies.[3]
The religion of the Arabian tribes in the days of Mahomet, of which a picture is presented to us by Wellhausen in his Remains of Arabic Heathendom, furnishes some suggestive indications of the religion that prevailed in nomadic Israel before as well as during the lifetime of Moses. It is true that Arabian polytheism in the time of Mahomet was in a state of decay. Nevertheless the life of the desert changes but slowly. We may therefore infer that ancient Israel during the period when they inhabited the negebh (S. of Canaan) stood in awe of the demons (Jinn) of the desert, just as the Arabs at the present day described in Doughty’s Arabia deserta. We know that diseases were attributed by the Israelites to malignant demons which they, like the Arabs, identified with serpents. The counterspell took the form of a bronze image of the serpent-demon; see Frazer, Golden Bough, ii. 426; and I Sam. v. 6, vi. 4, 5 (LXX. and Heb.) as well as Buchanan Gray’s instructive note in Numbers, p. 276. The slaughter of a lamb at the Passover or Easter season, whose blood was smeared on the door-post, as described in Ex. xii. 21-23, probably points back to an immemorial custom. In this case the counterspell assumed a different form. Westermarck has shown from his observations in Morocco that the blood of the victim was considered to visit a curse upon the object to whom the sacrifice is offered and thereby the latter is made amenable to the sacrificer.[4] It is hardly possible to doubt that in the original form of the rite described in Exodus the blood offering was made to the plague demon (“the destroyer”) and possessed over him a magic power of arrest.
It is therefore certain that belief in demons and magic spells prevailed in pre-Mosaic times[5] among the Israelite clans. And it is also probable that certain persons combined in their own individuality the functions of magician and sacrificer as well as soothsayer. For we know that in Arabic the Kāhin, or soothsayer, is the same participial form that we meet with in the Hebrew Kōhēn, or priest, and in the early period of Hebrew history (e.g. in the days of Saul and David) it was the priest with the ephod or image of Yahweh who gave answers to those who consulted him. How far totemism, or belief in deified animal ancestors, existed in prehistoric Israel, as evidenced by the tribal names Simeon (hyena, wolf), Caleb (dog), Ḥamor (ass), Raḥel (ewe) and Leah (wild cow), &c.,[6] as well as by the laws respecting clean and unclean animals, is too intricate and speculative a problem to be discussed here. That the food-taboo against eating the flesh of a particular animal would prevail in the clan of which that animal was the deified totem-ancestor is obvious, and it would be a plausible theory to hold that the laws in question arose when the Israelite tribes were to be consolidated into a national unity (i.e. in the time of David and Solomon), but the application of this theory to the list of unclean foods in Deut. xiv. (Lev. xi.) seems to present insuperable difficulties. In fact, while Robertson Smith (in Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia, as well as his Religion of the Semites, followed by Stade and Benzinger) strongly advocated the view that clear traces of totemism can be found in early Israel, later writers, such as Marti, Gesch. der israelit. Religion, 4th ed., p. 24, Kautzsch in his Religion of Israel already cited, p. 613, and recently Addis in his Hebrew Religion, p. 33 foll., have abandoned the theory as applied to Israel.[7] On the other hand, the evidence for the existence of ancestor-worship in primitive Israel cannot be so easily disposed of as Kautzsch (ibid. p. 615) appears to think. We have examples (1 Sam. xxviii. 13) in which Elōhīm is the term which is applied to departed spirits. Oracles were received from them (Isa. viii. 19, xxviii. 15, 18; Deut. xviii. 10 foll.). At the graves of national heroes or ancestors worship was paid. In Gen. xxxv. 20 we read that a maṣṣēbah or sacred pillar was erected at Raḥel’s tomb. That the Terāphīm, which we know to have resembled the human form (1 Sam. xix. 13, 16), were ancestral images is a reasonable theory. That they were employed in divination is consonant with the facts already noted. Lastly, the rite of circumcision (q.v.), which the Hebrews practised in common with their Semitic neighbours as well as the Egyptians, belonged to ages long anterior to the time of Moses. This is a fact which has long been recognized: cf. Gen. xvii. 10 foll., Herod. ii. 104, and Barton, Semitic Origins, pp. 98-100. Probably the custom was of African origin, and came from eastern Africa along with the Semitic race. Respecting Arabia, see Doughty, Arabia deserta, i. 340 foll.
It is necessary here to advert to a subject much debated during recent years, viz. the effects of Babylonian culture in western Asia on Israel and Israel’s religion in early times even preceding the advent of Moses. The great influence exercised by Babylonian culture over Palestine between 2000 and 1400 B.C. (circa), which has been clearly revealed to us since 1887 by the discovery of the Tell el Amarna tablets, is now universally acknowledged. The subsequent discovery of a document written in Babylonian cuneiform at Lachish (Tell el Hesy), and more recently still of another in the excavations at Ta’annek, have established the fact beyond all dispute. The last discovery had tended to confirm the views of Fried. Delitzsch, Jeremias (Monotheistische Strömungen) and Baentsch, that monotheistic tendencies are to be found in the midst of Babylonian polytheism. Page Renouf, in his Hibbert lectures, Origin and Growth of Religion as illustrated by that of Ancient Egypt (1879), p. 89 foll., pointed out this monotheistic tendency in Egyptian religion, as did de Rougé before him. Baentsch draws attention to this feature in his monograph Altorientalischer u. israelitischer Monotheismus (1906). This tendency, however, he, unlike the earlier conservative writers, rightly considers to have emerged out of polytheism. He ventures into a more disputable region when he penetrates into the obscure realm of the Abrahamic migration and finds in the Abrahamic traditions of Genesis the higher Canaanite monotheistic tendencies evolved out of Babylonian astral religion, and reflected in the name El ‘Elyon (Gen. xiv. 18, 22). Further discoveries like Sellin’s find at Ta’annek may elucidate the problem. See Baudissin in Theolog. lit. Zeitung (27th October 1906).
3. The Era of Moses.—We are now on safer ground though still obscure. Moses was the first historic individuality who can be said to have welded the Israelite clans into a whole. This could never have been accomplished without unity of worship. The object of this worship was Yahweh. As we have already indicated, the document J assumes that Yahweh was worshipped by the Hebrew race from the first. On the other hand, according to P (Ex. vi. 2), God spake to Moses and said to him: “I am Yahweh. But I appeared to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as El Shaddai and by my name Yahweh I did not make myself known to them.” According to this later tradition Yahweh was unknown till the days of Moses, and under the aegis of His power the Hebrew tribes were delivered from Egyptian thraldom. The truth probably lies somewhere between these two sharply contrasted traditions. So much is clear. Yahweh now becomes the supreme deity of the Hebrew people, and an ark analogous to the Egyptian and Babylonian arks portrayed on the monuments[8] was constructed as embodiment of the numen of Yahweh and was borne in front of the Hebrew army when it marched to war. It was the signal victory won by Moses at the exodus against the Egyptians and in the subsequent battle at Rephīdīm against ‘Amālēk (Ex. xvii.) that consolidated the prestige of Yahweh, Israel’s war-god. Indications in the Old Testament itself clearly point to the celestial or atmospheric character of the Yahweh of the Hebrews. The supposition that the name originally contained the notion of permanent or eternal being, and was derived from the verbal root signifying “to be,” involves too abstract a conception to be probable, though it is based on Ex. iii. 15 (E) representing a tradition which may have prevailed in the 8th century B.C. Kautzsch, however, supports it (Hastings’s D.B., extra vol. “Rel. of Isr.” p. 625 foll.) against the other derivations proposed by recent scholars (see [Jehovah]). That the name also prevailed as that of a god among other Semitic races (or even non-Semitic) is rendered certain by the proper names Jau-bi’-di (= Ilu-bi‘di) of Hamath in Sargon’s inscriptions, Aḥi-jawi (mi) in Sellin’s discovered tablet at Ta‘annek, to say nothing of those which have been found in the documents of Khammurabi’s reign. It has generally been held that Stade’s supposition has much to recommend it, that it was derived by Moses from the Kenites, and should be connected with the Sinai-Horeb region. The name Sinai suggests moon-worship and the moon-god Sin; and it also suggests Babylonian influence (cf. also Mount Nebo, which was a place-name both in Moab and in Judah, and naturally connects itself with the name of the Babylonian deity). Several indications favour the view of the connexion in the age of Moses between the Yahweh-cult at Sinai and the moon-worship of Babylonian origin to which the name Sinai points (Sin being the Babylonian moon-god). We note (a) that in the worship of Yahweh the sacred seasons of new moon and Sabbath are obviously lunar. Recent investigations have even been held to disclose the fact that the Sabbath coincided originally, i.e. in early pre-exilian days, with the full moon.[9] (b) It also accords with the name bestowed on Yahweh as “Lord of Hosts” (ṣebāōth) or stars, which were regarded as personified beings (Job xxxviii. 7) and attendants on the celestial Yahweh, constituting His retinue (1 Kings xxii. 19) which fought on high while the earthly armies of Israel, His people, contended below (Judges v. 20).
The atmospheric and celestial character which belonged from the first to the Hebrew conception of Yahweh explains to us the ease with which the idea of His universal sovereignty arose, which the Yahwistic creation account (belonging to the earlier stratum of J, Gen. ii. 4b foll.) presupposes. How this came to be overlaid by narrow local limitations of His power and province will be shown later. It is probable that Moses held the larger rather than the narrower conception of Yahweh’s sphere of influence. While the ark carried with Israel’s host symbolized His presence in their midst, He was also known to be present in the cloud which hovered before the host and in the lightning (’ēsh Yahweh or “fire of Yahweh”) and the thunder (kōl Yahweh or “voice of Yahweh”) which played around Mount Sinai. Moreover, it is hardly probable that a great leader like Moses remained unaffected by the higher conceptions tending towards monotheism which prevailed in the great empires on the Nile and on the Euphrates. In Egypt we know that Amenophis IV. came under this monotheistic movement, and attempted to suppress all other cults except that of the sun-deity, of which he was a devoted worshipper. We also know that between 2000 and 1400 B.C. the Babylonian language as well as Babylonian civilization and ideas spread over Palestine (as the Tell el Amarna tables clearly testify). The ancient Babylonian psalms clearly reveal that the highest minds were moving out of polytheism to a monotheistic identification of various deities as diverse phases of one underlying essence. A remarkable Babylonian tablet discovered by Dr Pinches represents Marduk, the god of light, as identified in his person with all the chief deities of Babylonia, who are evidently regarded as his varying manifestations.[10]
Through the influence of Mosaic teaching and law a definitely ethical character was ascribed to Yahweh. It was His “finger” that wrote the brief code which has come down to us in the decalogue. At first, as Erdmanns suggests, it may have consisted of only seven commands. So also Kautzsch, ibid. p. 634. The most strongly distinguishing feature of the code is the rigid exclusion of the worship of other gods than Yahweh. Moreover, the definitely ethical character of the religion of Yahweh established by Moses is exhibited in the strict exclusion of all sexual impurity in His worship. Unlike the Canaanite Baal, Yahweh has no female consort, and this remained throughout a distinguishing trait of the original and unadulterated Hebrew religion (see Bäthgen, Beiträge, p. 265). Indeed, Hebrew, unlike Assyrian or Phoenician, has no distinctive form for “goddess.” From first to last the true religion of Yahweh was pure of sexual taint. The kedēshīm and kedēshōth, the male and female priest attendants in the Baal and ‘Ashtoreth shrines (cf. the kadishtu of the temples of the Babylonian Ishtar) were foreign Canaanite elements which became imported into Hebrew worship during the period of the Hebrew settlement in Canaan.
Lastly, the earliest codes of Hebrew legislation (Ex. xxi.-xxiii.) bear the distinct impress of the high ethical character of Yahweh’s requirements originally set forth by Moses. Of this tradition the Naboth incident in the time of Ahab furnishes a clear example which brings to light the contrast between the Tyrian Baal-cult, which was scarcely ethical, and of which Jezebel and Ahab were devotees, and the moral requirements of the religion of Yahweh of which Elijah was the prophet and impassioned exponent. It was this definite basis of ethical Mosaic religion to which the prophets of the 8th century appealed, and apart from which their denunciations become meaningless. To this early standard of life and practice Ephraim was faithless in the days of the prophet Hosea (see his oracles passim—especially chaps. i.-iv. and xiv.), and Judah in the time of Isaiah turned a deaf ear (Isa. i. 2-4, 21).
4. Influence of Canaan.—The entrance of Israel into Canaan marks the beginning of a new epoch in the development of Israel’s religious life. For it involved a transition from the simple nomadic relations to those of the agricultural and more highly civilized Canaanite life. This subject has been recently treated with admirable clearness by Marti in his useful treatise Die Religion des A.T. (1906), pp. 25-41.
It is in the festivals of the annual calendar that this agricultural impress is most fully manifested. To the original nomadic Pesaḥ (Passover)—sacrifice of a lamb—there was attached a distinct and agricultural festival of unleavened cakes (maṣṣōth) which marks the beginning of the corn harvest in the middle of the month Abīb (the name of which points to its Canaanite and agricultural origin). The close of the corn-harvest was marked by the festival Shabhūōth (weeks) or Ḳāṣīr (harvest) held seven weeks after maṣṣōth. The last and most characteristic festival of Canaanite life was that of Asīph or “ingathering” which after the Deuteronomic reformation (621 B.C.) had made a single sanctuary and therefore a considerable journey with a longer stay necessary, came to be called Succōth or booths. This was the autumn festival held at the close of September or beginning of October. It marked the close of the year’s agricultural operations when the olives and grapes had been gathered [Ex. xxiii. 14-17 (E), xxxiv. 18, 22, 23 (J)]; see [Feasts], [Passover], [Pentecost] and [Tabernacles]. Another special characteristic of Israel’s religion in Canaan was the considerable increase of sacrificial offerings. Animal sacrifices became much more frequent, and included not only the bloody sacrifice (Zebaḥ) but also burnt offerings (kālīl, ’ōlah) whereby the whole animal was consumed (see [Sacrifice]). But we have in addition to the animal sacrifices, vegetable offerings of meal, oil and cakes (maṣṣōth, ashīshah and kawwān, which last is specially connected with the ‘Ashtoreth cult: Jer. vii. 18, xliv. 19), as well as the “bread of the Presence” (leḥem happānīm), 1 Sam. xxi. 6. Whether the primitive rite of water-offerings (1 Sam. vii. 6; 2 Sam. xxiii. 16) belonged to early nomadic Israel (as seems probable) it is not possible to determine with any certainty.