This symbolic bearing away of the sins of the people is somewhat analogous to that in Lev. xiv. 4 ff., where for the purification of the leper one bird is killed, and the other, charged with the disease, let loose in the open field. In Zech. v. 5 ff., Wickedness is carried away bodily into the land of Shinar.
The resemblance of this periodic offering[1054] and of many other Jewish institutions to those of Babylon is striking. The letting loose and driving away of the Mashhulduppu, or Scape-Goat, was similarly the occasion of an annual ceremony of imposing ritual. The first account of this appears in an inscription of the Cassite period, which avows itself merely a copy of an earlier record, the original of which may well have existed in the time of Hammurabi.
To fish figuring as symbolical bearers away of sins we have references, according to Pitra,[1055] in the Talmud, though not in the Bible. On New Year’s Day (about mid-September), when in the fulness of time God will judge mankind, it was the custom (based on Micah vii., “Thou wilt cast all their sins into the sea”) to assemble near some lake or stream. If goodly numbers of fish were spied, the omen of the expiation of human sins was accepted. Forthwith the crowd jumped for joy, and shed their garments, likewise their sins, on to the fishes, who swam away, heavily laden.
Religious customs in Israel and Assyria both correspond and differ. Thus the sacrifices of fish found in Assyria are absent in Israel, although we read passim of offerings of domestic animals, of wine, of pigeons, and of doves. The former (despite Sayce and Jastrow) were guiltless of human sacrifices, the latter “sacrificed their sons and their daughters” (even) “unto demons.”[1056]
From the words of Exod. xiii. 2, and Numbers xviii. 15 f., Mr. Campbell Thompson holds that the God of Israel plainly regarded the firstborn of men and the firstlings of animals as his own. The Israelites certainly offered up some of their children, generally the firstborn (cf. Isaac), either as a tribute regularly due to their Deity or to appease his anger at times of calamity or danger.[1057] Other writers disavow a general sacrificing of the firstborn as part of the religion of Israel; they attribute individual instances occurring towards the close of the monarchy to the influence of surrounding nations.[1058]
I have come across no counterpart to the Babylonian or Roman custom of taking auguries or making oracular responses from the movements, etc., of fish. If the Hebrews apparently lacked some modes of divining which were employed by the Greeks, Romans, Arabs, etc., such as observation of the flight and cries of birds, the movements of fish, the inspection of the entrails of animals (for it was a King of Babylon, not of Israel, who “looked in the liver”), the Bible reveals signs and omens resembling or identical with those in use elsewhere.
We read, for instance, of Rhabdomancy, or divination by rods, “my people asketh counsel at their stock, and their staff declareth unto them.”[1059] Drawing of Lots, probably by different coloured stones,[1060] Astrology,[1061] and Oneiromancy, or dream divination.[1062]
Strabo reports as attached to the Temple at Jerusalem a class of official dreamers, apparently for purposes of divination or prophetic deliverances. Of the important part played by dreams in both the Old and New Testaments, those of Jacob, Joseph, Solomon, and Joseph the husband of Mary, are inter alia evidence. In the Temple institution[1063] may possibly be detected the continuance of the Semitic pre-Mosaic custom of sleeping places before a temple (as at Serabīt-al-Khādim) for dreamers[1064] in quest of omens, although the references to it in the O.T. itself are very slight, and only occur in connection with Bethel stones and Seers.[1065]
The Seers were a recognised class of persons, who by an exceptional gift could disclose to inquirers secrets of the present and immediate future (1 Sam. ix. 6, and x. 2-6). Samuel himself belonged to the college or class of Seers. Like the diviners, they received fees; thus Saul’s servant suggests the giving to the Seer, whose words invariably come to pass, “a quarter of a shekel of silver.”
As regards the diviners, etc., we find in Isaiah ii. 6, “Thou hast forsaken thy people the house of Jacob, because they be filled with customs from the East and are soothsayers like the Philistines,” and in Deut. xviii. 10-12, “one that useth divination, or practiseth augury, or an enchanter, or a sorcerer, or a charmer, or a consulter with a familiar spirit, or a wizard, or a necromancer,” all these are abominations unto the Lord.[1066]