Jephthah, who was inspired of God, and who sacrificed to him his daughter, says to the chief of the Amorites, “Wilt not thou possess that which Chemosh thy god giveth thee to possess? so whomsoever the Lord our God shall drive from before us, them will we possess.”[47] This declaration is express, and might be carried to a great length; however, it is at least an evident proof that God permitted the worship of Chemosh. For the words of the Holy Scripture are not “Thou thinkest thou hast a right to possess that which thy god Chemosh giveth thee to possess,” but expressly, “Thou hast a right to possess,” etc., for that is the true interpretation of the Hebrew words Otho thirasch.
The story of Micah and the Levite, related in the seventeenth and eighteenth chapters of the Book of Judges, is a still more incontestable proof of this extensive toleration and liberty of conscience allowed among the Jews. The mother of Micah having lost eleven hundred shekels of silver, and her son having restored them to her, she dedicated or vowed them unto the Lord, and made images with them, and she built a small chapel and hired a Levite to officiate therein for ten shekels of silver by the year, and a suit of apparel and his victuals. Then said Micah: “Now know I that the Lord will do me good, seeing that I have a Levite to be my priest.”[48]
In a short time after, six hundred men of the tribe of Dan, who were in search of some town which they might seize upon as an inheritance to dwell in, came to the house of Micah, where they found the Levite officiating; and having no priest of their own with them, and thinking that on that account God would not prosper their undertaking, they seized upon the carved image, the ephod, and the teraphim belonging to Micah, and also the Levite, whom they took with them in spite of all the remonstrances of the latter, and the outcries of Micah and his mother. After this, full of assurance of success, they went and fell upon the city of Laish, and smote all the inhabitants with the edge of the sword, and burnt the city to the ground, as was their usual custom; they then built them another city, and called its name Dan,[49] in remembrance of their victory; and they set up Micah’s graven image; and what is more remarkable, Jonathan, the grandson of Moses, was a priest of the temple, wherein the God of Israel and the idol of Micah were both worshipped at the same time.[50]
After the death of Gideon, the Israelites worshipped Baal-Perith for upwards of twenty years, and abandoned the worship of the true God, without any punishment being inflicted upon them for it, either by their chiefs, their judges, or their priests. This, I must confess, was a very heinous crime; but then, if even this idolatry was tolerated, how great must have been the differences of the true worship?
There are some persons, who, in support of non-toleration, bring us the authority of God Himself; who, having suffered His ark to fall into the hands of the Philistines in the day of battle, punished them only by afflicting them with an inward distemper, resembling the hæmorrhoids or piles, by breaking in pieces the statue of their god Dagon, and by sending a number of rats to devour the fruits of their lands. But when the Philistines, in order to appease his wrath, sent back the ark drawn by two cows that gave milk to their calves, and made an offering to the Lord of five golden rats, and the like number of golden hæmorrhoids, the Lord smote seventy of the Elders of Israel, and fifty thousand of the people, for having looked upon the ark. To this it may be answered, that the judgment of God was not, on this occasion, directed against any particular belief, any difference in worship, or idolatry.
If God had meant to punish idolatry, He would have destroyed all the Philistines who had attempted to seize upon His ark, and who were worshippers of the idol Dagon; whereas, we find Him smiting with death fifty thousand and seventy of His own people, for having looked upon His ark, which they ought not to have looked upon. So much did the laws and manners of those times and the Jewish dispensation differ from everything that we know, and so inscrutable are the ways of God to us! “The rigorous punishment,” says the learned Doctor Calmet, “inflicted on such a multitude of persons on this occasion, will appear excessive only to those who do not comprehend how greatly God would have Himself feared and respected among His chosen people, and who judge of the ways and designs of Providence only by the weak lights of their own reason.”
Here then God punished the Israelites, not for any strange worship, but for a profanation of His own; an indiscreet curiosity, a disobedience of His precepts, and perhaps an inward rebellious spirit. It is true, that such punishments appertain alone to the God of the Hebrews, and we cannot too often repeat, that those times and manners were altogether different from ours.
Again, we find, some ages after, when the idolatrous Naaman asked of Elijah if he might be allowed to follow his king up to the temple of Rimmon, and bow down himself there with him; this very Elijah,[51] who had before caused the little children to be devoured by bears only for mocking him, answered this idolater, “Go in peace.”
But this is not all; we find the Lord commanding Jeremiah to make him bonds and yokes, saying: “Put them upon thy neck,[52] and send them to the king of Edom, and to the king of Moab, and to the king of the Ammonites, and to the king of Tyrus, and to the king of Zidon,” and he did so, bidding the messenger say to them in the name of the Lord: “I have given all your lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, my servant.”[53] Here then we have God declaring an idolatrous prince his servant and favorite.
The same prophet having been cast into the dungeon by order of the Jewish king Zedekiah, and afterwards released by him, advises him in the name of God to submit himself to the king of Babylon, saying: “If thou wilt assuredly go forth unto the king of Babylon’s princes, thy soul shall live.” God therefore takes part with an idolatrous king, and delivers into his hands His holy ark, the looking upon which only had cost the lives of fifty thousand and seventy Jews; and not only so, but also delivers up to him the Holy of Holies, together with the rest of the temple, the building of which had cost a hundred and eight thousand talents of gold, one million seventeen thousand talents of silver, and ten thousand drachmas of gold, that had been left by David and his great officers for building the house of the Lord; which, exclusive of the sums expended for that purpose by King Solomon, amounts to the sum of nineteen milliards, sixty-two millions, or thereabouts, of the present currency. Never, surely, was idolatry so nobly rewarded. I am sensible that this account is exaggerated, and that it seems to be an error of the copyist. But if we reduce the sum to one half, to a fourth, or even to an eighth part, it will still be amazing. But Herodotus’s account of the treasures which he himself saw in the temple of Ephesus is not less surprising. In fine, all the riches of the earth are as nothing in the sight of God; and the title of my servant, with which he dignified Nebuchadnezzar, is the true and invaluable treasure.