The Evolution of Old Testament Religion

by W. E. Orchard

We are now free to investigate what the character of the religion introduced by Moses actually was.

(1) General Character. A careful examination of its character shows that while it is by no means identical with the religion taught by the Prophets, and while it retained many heathen ideas and customs, yet it contained within itself the promise and guarantee of development. We have already had occasion to notice that it is not pure Monotheism. Jehovah is not the only God; He is the only God for Israel. The heathen deities are still regarded as having a real existence. Neither can it be called a purely spiritual religion, for Jehovah is rather said to have a spirit than to be a spirit; He has a form which, though terrible in its effect on the beholder, by reason of its glory, can nevertheless be seen; He inhabits a special place, which is His sacred territory, and on this Moses stumbles all unwittingly in Midian.

Still more emphatically against the idea of a purely spiritual religion is the fact—which the editors have done their best to hide, but not successfully—that images of some kind were allowed, or existed unreproved. The Ephod, of which we hear so often, was evidently at one time an idol. The meaning of the word is of something "covered," as may be seen from Isa. xxx. 22, where the feminine form of the word (aphuddah) is used of the gold plating of images; but according to a later idea (Exod. xxviii. 6–14), the Ephod formed part of the dress of the High Priest, and was a kind of embroidered waistcoat. This explanation, however, does violence to a number of passages where the Ephod is mentioned. Gideon expended seventeen hundred shekels of gold on an Ephod which he "set up" in Ophrah (Jud. viii. 26 f.); this cannot be a waistcoat. Only the explanation that the Ephod was an image can do justice to the reference in Judges xvii. 5, and it suits the passage in 1 Sam. xxi. 9, if we think of the sword hanging behind an image. If the ephod was nothing more than a waistcoat by which lots were determined, we have to explain why it is so sharply condemned in Judges viii. 27, and why the text of 1 Sam. xiv. 18, which in the Septuagint reads "ephod," in the Hebrew text has been altered to read "ark"; an alteration which is quite impossible here, as the ark was at this time in Kirjath Jearim, and, moreover, was never used for the purpose of obtaining oracles. (The only explanation is that some scribe has made this alteration because he knew that there was something idolatrous about the ephod.) Even as late as Hosea (iii. 4) we find the ephod mentioned in a connection where it can only stand for an object of idolatrous worship. It is certainly strange that the same name should be in use for an image, and then later for a garment of the high-priest; but the likely explanation of this is that the image was at one time clothed with a dress, as was usual (Jer. x. 9), and that in the pockets of this the lots were kept. When the use of the image became offensive the garment was retained as part of the high-priest's dress. The transition is made more natural if we can suppose that the Priest of the Oracle, in the early days, was accustomed to put on the garment of the image, under the customary idea that thus the divine knowledge of the idol would be communicated to him. In 2 Kings xviii. 4, we read of Nehushtan, the brazen serpent which Moses had made, being used idolatrously; but perhaps this has been wrongly ascribed to Moses. From the intimate connection of bull-worship with the worship of Jehovah, it would seem that the bull was regarded as a symbol of Jehovah; a similar idea may have instituted Aaron's golden calf. While admitting the force of this evidence, we must still keep open the possibility that the religion instituted by Moses was of a purer type, but was never strong enough to drive out the remnants of heathen practice.

More indisputable evidence of the materialistic conception of the Person of Jehovah is found in the reverence paid to what is known as "the ark of Jehovah," the making of which is certainly ascribed to Moses. The name "the ark of the covenant," was not the original name given to the ark, but is taken from the incident recorded in Deut. x. 1–5. The idea that the ark was built to contain the tables of the Law does not appear until the time of Deuteronomy, and is quite unknown to the older strata of the Pentateuch. In these older strata all mention of the actual making of the ark is omitted, although there is evidence that they did contain an account of its preparation and meaning. Enough, however, is told us of the reverential treatment of it, to show that it was a symbol of higher sanctity than a mere receptacle for the stones of the law would be likely to be. It is certainly very closely identified with Jehovah Himself, as may be seen from Num. x. 35. (This is in poetic form, and is therefore likely to be a very early fragment. It should be noticed that the ark apparently starts of itself.) Its presence in the battlefield ensures victory, while its absence brings about defeat (Num. xiv. 42–45; 1 Sam. iv. 3–7; v. 1 ff.). It can hardly be that the ark was taken for Jehovah Himself, but it must have contained something that was closely identified with Jehovah; a box is not built except with the idea of holding something. We have seen that it is unlikely that that something was originally the two tables of the law; was it something else of stone which made the transference to the tables of the law at once necessary and natural? Was it a stone image of Jehovah? It has been conjectured that it may have contained meteoritic stones, which would agree with the proposed derivation of "Jehovah" from the Storm God of Sinai. There is nothing in the Old Testament which gives any support to these conjectures, but in face of the fact that the original narrative of the making of the ark has been omitted, and in view of the ideas of religion which were common in that period, we cannot say that they are absolutely excluded from consideration. The ark was certainly bound up with the idea of war, and would seem to have been kept in a soldier's tent. It was transferred to the dark inner temple till 586 B.C., and from that date all trace of it is lost. The Priest's Code ("P") makes provision for it in the second temple, but we have unimpeachable Jewish testimony that the shrine of the inner temple was absolutely empty (Josephus, War of the Jews, v. v. § 5). Jeremiah may have been aware of the original significance of the ark as tending towards idolatry, and hence his words in Jer. iii. 16.

(2) Ordinances of Worship. It remains for us to enquire into the character of the religion founded by Moses by an examination of some of the outstanding ordinances that regulated the idea of worship.

Here the traditional ascription of the fully developed ritual of the Book of Leviticus to Moses has to be set aside, on the consideration that we have no record of its observance until late in the period of the monarchy, and from then it can be traced as a gradual growth of custom and ideal until its complete observance after the Exile.

There does not seem to have been any priesthood of the exclusive Levitical order founded by Moses. The story of the Levites in Exod. xxxii. can only be a late story, for there is no record of their monopoly of the ritual service until the Reform under Josiah: Joshua, an Ephraimite, is the "servant of the tent"; Samuel, also an Ephraimite, sleeps beside the ark (1 Sam. iii. 3); David and Solomon assume a kind of chief priesthood (2 Sam. vi. 13; 1 Kings viii. 5, 62 ff.), and of course neither of them were Levites. The story in Judges xvii. gives what is perhaps the true position of the Levites: anyone could be consecrated as a family priest, but the presence of a Levite was reckoned propitious. Down to a very late age sacrifice seems to have remained largely a tribal or family act, and although a descendant of Moses' tribe (Levi) was regarded as possessing special advantage, there was no law by which Levites alone were reckoned capable of discharging priestly functions.

In the matter of sacrifice, it would seem that Moses simply adopted what was a very ancient and common practice. In face of the evident neglect of the Levitical ritual in matters of sacrifice, both by the common people and by such great reformers as Samuel and Elijah, together with the fact that in the teaching of the prophets doubts are cast on its divine origin (Isa. i. 11; Amos v. 25; Micah vi. 6–8), we cannot infer that the detailed and explicit commands concerning sacrifice found in the Book of Leviticus are the work of Moses, or belong to an early age. To the Prophets, sacrifice is always reminiscent of paganism. The time when the change came in may be detected in the different value given to sacrifice by the post-exilic prophets (Mal. i. 13 f.), while the incompatibility of the two views, prophetic and priestly, can be seen from the addition which has been made to Ps. li., to bring it into accord with the later view.

Neither is it possible for us to believe that the elaborate shrine known as the Tabernacle owed its existence to Moses. The impossibility of transporting the cumbrous fixtures through the wilderness had been noticed before the modern era of critical study. A close examination of the details of construction shows that it is nothing more than an ideal projection from the mind of a priestly writer who believed that a tent-like counterpart of Ezekiel's temple was essential to Israel's worship in the wilderness. It is enough to recall that the tabernacle of the priestly writer's imagination is quite unknown to the historical books. In Exod. xxxiii. 7 ff., which may be seen to be only a fragment of an early document, since it starts abruptly by describing "the" tent, which is known as the Tent of Meeting, we have what has been taken to be the Tabernacle; but it is nothing more than a tent for keeping the ark in.

(3) Legislation. How much of the legislation of the Pentateuch is to be ascribed to Moses we cannot tell. Too many hands have been at work on it for the original to be discovered. A remarkable discovery was made in the year 1901 of some enormous steles, which bear in cuneiform characters what is now known as the Code of Hammurabi, the oldest code of laws in the world, the date of which is reckoned to be 2250 B.C. They presuppose an advanced state of civilisation and morality existing in the Euphrates valley at that period. The agreement between the Pentateuchal Code and the Code of Hammurabi argues dependence of the former on the latter to a very considerable extent, and supplies a still further testimony to the extent to which the religion of Israel is indebted to Babylon. The exact bearing of this discovery upon critical theories, and especially upon the date of the Pentateuch has perhaps hardly been estimated yet; it does not, however, refute the theory which denies that the Pentateuch as it stands is from the hand of Moses.