The great epic of Israel; the web of myth, legend, history, law, oracle, wisdom and poetry of the ancient Hebrews

Front matter

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Preface

It is the purpose of this volume to encourage a revival of the reading or study of the ancient Scriptures of the Jews, not by scholars or those who make a professional use of them, but by the people at large. To this generation they have as a whole become unattractive and fallen into neglect, except for a conventional and enforced respect, on account of the false light in which they have been left for so many centuries. The present object is to put them in their true light and give them a new interest for the modern man.

The common intelligence will no longer accept the dogma that they are divine revelation, except as divine revelation is to be traced in all human development; or that they are the specially inspired word of God and contain in all parts infallible truth, to be unquestioningly accepted, for the common intelligence has come to know better. It has been taught to discriminate and to apply reason, and its liberty is not to be excluded from this one field. All truth may be accounted divine, all great thoughts and noble sentiments may be regarded as Inspired, but no more in this literature than in others, ancient and modern. The

vii viii PREFACE

voice of God did not vociferate in one small country for a few centuries and then fall into silence. The spirit of God did not inform men in that one place and time and then withdraw itself to the remote bounds of the universe. It was and is and will be from everlasting to everlasting and forever the same, in all time and place, and it pervades all life.

The author pretends to no new discovery. What he has to say is derived from the researches of many scholars who have wrought with growing assiduity and with increasing light during the greater part of the past century. The results are known to teachers and preachers, who still shrink from teaching and preaching the truth freely and candidly, as some at least of them know it to be. Current theology and divinity are too much under the duress of old dogma to speak out. The lore of scholars is open to those who choose to study it, but for the most part it is too detailed, too argumentative, too heavy or too dry, for the common reader, and it works slowly through a reluctant clergy and an unlearned laity.

The present writer is under no bonds. He has no fear or shrinking. He loves the truth and desires to spread it abroad, knowing that only good can come of the light, while darkness harbors much that is evil. It is not originality that he professes, but independence, not special ability, but the dower of common sense and a capacity

PREFACE IX

for setting forth clearly what he learns and thinks, to be *' understanded of the people." It is from interest that he has studied this subject, and he writes in the hope of exciting Interest in others and contributing to the spread of knowledge of the truth as it is revealed through human experience. He does not encumber his pages by citing authorities or dealing with controversy, having only room to give results as sifted and judged by himself. But the fruits of long and varied research and all the references that may be desired, to a recent date, are stored In the " Encyclopaedia Biblica," to which all are directed for details, reasons and conclusions. Comparatively little has been added since Its publication.

Nothing could be farther from the writer's wish than to impair or undermine the foundations of religious faith. To be abiding these must be of truth and they must rest upon knowledge and reason, as they are revealed to man in his progress onward and upward. Unlike material piling they must be kept sound not by being buried in darkness and dampness, but by being exposed to light and air. Judaism, like other religions, consecrated its Scriptures. Christianity borrowed from both Judaism and heathenism in framing Its dogmas, and it accepted the consecration of the Jewish Scriptures for the sake of these. But Judaism has advanced, and Christianity has advanced, in spite of clinging to outworn dogmas

X PREFACE

and the consecration of councils in dark ages. The church still needs to advance and to preserve all that is sacred in Its literature; but illumination is the test of sanctity. No mass bound up In past ages is all sacred nor can It contain all that is sacred. It should be tried and that which is good should be held fast.

The consecrated writings of the Jews are here treated as an epic of the people of Israel in their great days. Such in effect they really are, and they are so presented in the order of their development for better understanding and greater interest. The chief claim to originality In this work lies in so presenting them. The author hopes it will serve its desired end of making them more read, better understood and more profitable to the soul of man.

Contents

PAGE I

II Literary Development of Israel i6

III The Making of the Epic 29

II Literary Development Of Israel

What may properly be called literary development did not begin among the people of Israel until after the victories of David had established the kingdom, and it made little progress before the prosperous reign of Solomon was over. It gained its first real impetus in the Northern Kingdom after the division into two rival realms, of which that was at first the more powerful and flourishing, and the more progressive. Though Solomon had established a relation of amity with Egypt and taken a daughter of the reigning Pharaoh as one of his many wives, when Jeroboam headed a revolt against the King's oppressive treatment of the people of the proud tribe of Ephraim he fled to that country and was evidently treated with consideration by its ruler. It Is probable that he brought back much of the tradition and the lore which were afterwards used in the early literature of his kingdom. He or some companion of his may have been the real person most versed In the " learning of the Egyptians " at that time.

Long before, no doubt, there had been an oral literature In the customary form of songs and

i6 chants, of legends and mythical tales, and many of these were first reduced to writing in the time of David and Solomon. Two collections are referred to by the titles, the '* Book of the Wars of Yahweh " and the " Book of the Upright," and some scraps from each were preserved, with indications that they furnished the groundwork of later narratives. David's lament over the death of Saul and Jonathan is said to have been taught to the people and afterwards enbalmed in the '* Book of the Upright," which indicates that the written form was later than David's time. Solomon's speech at the dedication of the temple is believed by some to have found a place in the same repository. Hebrew poetry, of which the chief rhythmical characteristic was a repetition or variation of expression called " parallelism," had evidently a considerable development before it was ever reduced to writing. The " Song of Deborah " at the victory over Sisera is the earliest example preserved and though sadly mutilated in the process it is a veritable antique gem. What is called the " Blessing of Jacob " near the end of the Book of Genesis, which sets forth the characteristics of the tribes under personal names, in the semblance of what is not altogether a ** blessing," had its origin before the division of the Kingdom, but not earlier than the peaceful reign of Solomon. The discourses of Balaam in the Book of Numbers, which have a similar character, must have originated at about the same time. Whatever the occasion or the original authorship of these productions, they were quite independent of the setting in which they are now found.

The first writers had not only the advantage of a rich heritage of oral literature, but they undoubtedly had considerable knowledge of the learning of Egypt, the art of Phoenicia and the wisdom of the East. Communication by caravan between the Euphrates region and that of the Nile through Syria, Israel and Philistia was much more common than we have been accustomed to suppose, and in the long interval of peace in which Israel and Judah were left untroubled, except by the petty nations close about them, there was ample opportunity for an Interchange of Influences, The earliest Hebrew writings which were preserved in something of their original form in the final Scripture of the Jews, were the stories of the heroes of the period between the partial conquest of Canaan and the founding of the kingdom, familiar to us by the title of '* Judges." These tales were freely handled by the later writers who made use of them and set them In a framework of their own, but they retain much of the pristine flavour. Appended to these In the last chapters of the Book of Judges are some later narratives relating to the same period which afford a vivid picture of life in the primitive days when the

" Judges " were supposed to have " judged." A natural sequence to the hero stories were the first accounts of the making of the kings, Saul and David, which form distinct parts of the books bearing the name of Samuel, intermingled with other material of later date.

It was about the middle of the Ninth Century B. C, after the reign of Ahab in the Northern Kingdom, with his alliance with Phcenicia and his conflicts with Syria, in which the weird figures of the prophets Elijah and Elisha appear, and when Jehoshaphat of Judah was a vassal of that kingdom, that the first attempt was made to form a narrative of the events which preceded the conquest of Canaan, covering the escape from Egypt, the struggle through the deserts and the battles by which land was won first east of the Jordan and then between it and the Philistines, extending north to the Phcenician and Syrian borders. Preliminary to this was the effort, common to all ancient peoples in beginning a relation of their history, to account for their origin, which was usually attributed to a mythical ancestry, and even to account for the existence of mankind in general and of the earth itself. Between four and five centuries had then passed since the deliverance from Egypt. There could have been no record of the events, but the space was filled with traditions and memories, some of them embodied by that time In written material. How the people had come into Egypt and what their previous history had been was probably unknown even then, though there may have been traditions and tales, extending far back to pastoral days before the dark period of servitude. Of the origin of the world and of the human race there could be only mythical accounts, which had to be either borrowed or invented. Of knowledge there was certainly none, and of revelation the only source was the human imagination ungulded by science.

What material existed In the form of stories of the patriarchs and myths of the creation and primitive man, and what legends of Moses and Joshua may have been already written down is only a matter of conjecture, but It Is well established that a narrative appeared not earlier than the middle of the Ninth Century B. C, which constituted one of the main sources of the books of the Pentateuch and Joshua, and Is known to scholars as the YahwIstIc source, on account of Its common use of the name Yahweh for the deity. This was afterwards retrenched and modified and blended with another document of like character which appeared about a century later, known as the " Elohistic '^ source, because of Its general use of Elohim to designate the deity. The record of which these form the main material underwent expansion and modification afterward, and one of the latest of Its parts Is the Impressive chapter with which it begins giving an account of the creation,

The earlier of the two main documents referred to above contained the first nucleus of the written law of Israel, which was afterwards developed to constitute one of the main elements of the great epic that was to be completed centuries later- It was a brief codification of what had apparently become the customary requirements and prohibitions of a primitive state of society. It was called the ** Book of the Covenant," and was said to have been read by Moses ** in the audience of the people " at Mount Sinai, and to have been communicated to him by Yahweh himself on the top of the mountain. More than two centuries after this was embodied In the " Yahwistic source," in the time of the prophet Jeremiah and the reign of Josiah of Judah, nearly a century after the destruction of the Northern Kingdom by Assyria, an event occurred which not only gave a new development to the law, but a new color to all the quasi-historical material in the great epic. That was the discovery in the temple at Jerusalem of a *' book of the law," which aimed at a suppression of heathen practices in the worship of Yahweh and the concentration of that worship at the temple in Jerusalem, to counteract the tendency to lapse into " heathenism " which beset the people. It was intended to support the doctrine of the theocracy as

Z2 THE GREAT EPIC OF ISRAEL

that had already been developed by the prophets. The substance of this with later additions is contained In the book known as Deuteronomy.

The highest development of the genius of Israel was reached In the prophets, under the stimulus of events which preceded and followed the destruction of Samaria by the Assyrians, B. C. 722, and those which similarly attended the destruction of Jerusalem, 586, B. C, by the Babylonians under Nebuchadrezzar, and the exile of the leading spirits of the Kingdom of Judah to the land of the conquerors. These prophets were the great champions and orators of the theocracy. Some of their productions were undoubtedly delivered orally and addressed to the kings and rulers or to assemblies of the people, and afterwards written down and elaborated by themselves or others. Some were labored compositions, containing highly wrought rhythmical passages and poetical imagery. In their final collection some of them were ill-arranged and sadly marred by excision and Interpolation. They contained predictions and warnings, such as other political orators of antiquity were wont to utter, some of which were justified by events while others were not. They are not wholly free from evidence of having been made by copyists and editors to conform to events after these had happened.

The earliest of the Hebrew prophets whose impressive oracles are preserved in the Great Epic was Amos, that Judahite herdsman who was impelled to go into the Northern Kingdom in the time of Jeroboam II, about 760 B. C, to denounce the iniquities which threatened to bring the wrath of Yahweh upon that land, doomed to destruction less than forty years later. The greatest was Isaiah, who rose at Jerusalem when Samaria was undergoing its final agony and Zion itself was menaced by an Assyrian army under Sennacherib. Other voices were raised during the same period, but under the long reign of Manasseh there was a reaction against the stern theocracy of the prophets, and comparative silence. Then, under Josiah and his successors, when Judah's life was again threatened from the East, appeared Jeremiah to revive with fierce ardour the preaching of submission to the God of Israel and reliance upon his power for the salvation of the nation. But the doom of Judah was not averted. In the exile itself the voice of prophecy was raised by the rivers of Babylon in the oracles of Ezekiel. He spoke in the name of Yahweh but used much imagery and symbolism borrowed from the heathen land. Finally, when Cyrus of Persia vanquished Babylon and permitted the captive Jews to return to their beloved Zion there was an outburst of jubilation from an unknown prophet whose utterances with others of equally unknown origin, became attached to those of Isaiah in the book bearing his name.

There were *' minor prophets " contemporary with these and others of a later date, but this pecuhar development of the literary genius of Israel reached its height in these, and overshadowed every other form of expression for more than two centuries. The epic owes more of its greatness to this than to any of its other elements. But other elements were in the making at the same time. The ancient documents relating to the mythical and legendary period before the Kingdom was established were worked over with some infusion of the spirit of the prophets and of the law as it found expression in the Deuteronomic Code. This was the spirit of theocracy, which taught that all trouble or disaster of the nation or the tribes was due to the sins of the people or their rulers in worshipping false gods, or to their neglect of the worship of Yahweh and failure to obey his commands. It is evident that the chief literary treasures of the Northern Kingdom were transferred to Jerusalem on the destruction of Samaria and were there blended with those of Judah in the revision of ancient narratives, including those relating to the period of the Judges and of the first Kings Saul and David.

The first kingdom was established about 1020 B. C. David became King of Judah at Hebron about 1000 B. C, probably as a vassal of the Philistines, and a few years later established him- .self as the monarch of all Israel at the old Jebusite stronghold on Mount Zion, emancipated himself from Philistine subjection and extended the borders of his kingdom by subduing the hostile forces that surrounded it, maintaining amicable relations all the while with Phoenicia. He was succeeded by Solomon about 970 B. C, at the end of whose reign, in 933, the division of the kingdom came. An independent account of Solomon and his reign appeared not long after his death, which became the groundwork of the chapters of the first Book of Kings relating to him. There were annals or *' chronicles " of the other kings of both kingdoms, which some believe to have been combined into one great book after the destruction of Samaria and not long before the siege and capture of Jerusalem. This, with the end of the David stories, the account of Solomon's reign and some legends of the prophets Elijah and Elisha, constituted the chief material of the two books of Kings as they were embalmed in the Epic. These were compiled in their earliest form before the fall of Jerusalem and revised during the exile. There was much literary activity among the Jews in that fifty years of expatriation at Babylon, which was regarded as the penalty for recreancy to their God.

Literary activity continued after the return frona exile (especially In elaborating and putting in finaJ form what hgd been ^produced .before. This conjcerned itself largely witb what w^s called ".the law," which was still attributed to the direct commands of Israel's God through Moses in the wilderness of Sinai. Ezekiel, who was originally a priest, had In his latest oracles, written after the return to Jerusalem was assured, outlined the future state to be established, with Mount Zion and a new temple as its centre, and within this outline was wrought what is designated by scholars as the Law of Holiness. Ezra, another priest, who conducted one of the bodies of returning exiles and took part in re-establishing the worship and settling the ecclesiastical polity at Jerusalem, also drew up a book of the *' Law of Moses " which was- read to the people. Afterwards, in the priestly circles remaining at Babylon, the body of Levltlcal law was fully developed, with a quasi-historical framework of Its own, and was finally blended with other material In the redaction of the Pentateuch, or five '* books of Moses," and the Book of Joshua. This latest code furnished the impressive first chapter of all and supplied modifying traces In Genesis, considerable passages In Exodus, practically all of Leviticus and passages in Numbers. There is little of it In Deuteronomy, but It reappears In material passages in Joshua. Another example of post-exilic literary activity Is the entire recasting of past history In the priestly spirit as It appears In the book of Chronicles, divided In modern times, like the Book of Kings, Into two.

What may be called the framework of the great epic was wrought out in progressive fashion during a period of five centuries. It presents more clearly than any formal and systematic history the experience and the polity of the peculiar people during a thousand years, escaping as a horde of fugitives from the confines of Egypt, struggling with privation and manifold difficulty through long stretches of desert under a religious leader, fighting or eluding hostile tribes on the way, gaining a foothold on one side of the Jordan and gradually conquering a goodly realm on the other, establishing a kingdom which split asunder, falling under the crushing power of the empires of the east, but clinging to its faith and its traditions until a remnant of exiles restored the ancient fane and built on the ruins of their " sacred nation " a priestly community which Imposed its authority and its system of faith upon a large part of the world for many centuries.

Welded upon this framework were varied products of the genius of this people, illustrating its life, illuminating its experience and perpetuating its thought and sentiment. There were proverbs and wise sayings, collected from time to time in the later days and massed in a '* book " of such, which has no parallel of its kind. There were hymns and sacred songs, produced at different periods and under varied circumstances of which there is no record, but finally developed and applied in the ritual and ceremonial of the temple of Zion. These, gathered in a '* book of psalms," are without rival in human literature. There were products of deep meditation upon problems of existence in the sublime poetry of Job and the sombre brooding of Ecclesiastes, or the preacher. There were idyls and stories impressing some lesson of Jewish experience and faith, and when at last the hope of material greatness faded, there were apocalyptic visions of its revival in God's own time, for had he not made a covenant with Israel, the breaking of which was inconceiveable to the devout mind of Hebrew seers? With these the massive epic was bound up and sealed as divine by all the authority that could be invoked for it by men who assumed to speak for the dread ruler of the universe, and who persuaded themselves and the world that their voice was his.

Ill

As already stated, it was after the middle of the ninth century B. C, in the Northern Kingdom, that the narrative appeared known to scholars as the Yahwist Source of the Pentateuch and Joshua, and it had a truly Homeric character. The Elohist source of perhaps a century later used much of the same traditional material; but, so far as preserved, It appears to have begun with the story of Abraham and not of the creation. When the two were blended into one at Jerusalem after the destruction of Samaria, parts of both were sacrificed to the union, but here and there we find parallel and somewhat inconsistent accounts of the same circumstances; and in many places seams and sutures of mixed material are apparent. In the copying and editing that took place after the promulgation, In the latter half of the seventh century B. C, of the law which constituted the original substance of the book that came to be known as Deuteronomy, some touches of the theocratic doctrine then developed by the prophets were impressed upon the narratives.

Still later, in the time of the exile and after the 29 return of the priests to the new temple at Jerusalem, where these narratives were made the framework of the fully developed law, further changes were made, chiefly by excision and interpolation, but here and there by modified statement to suit the final purpose of redaction. The original narratives ran through the conquest of Canaan, and passages from them appear in the Book of Joshua and the first chapter of Judges, with traces in the second chapter of the latter book; but the five books associated with the name of Moses and making the framework of the law were first consecrated as the true *' word of God," the Canon, or rule of life, for surviving Israel. It was that introductory section of the epic which was first translated into Greek at Alexandria in the Third Century, B. C, as the " Book of the Law," and formed the basis of what is called the Septuagint version of the Jewish Scriptures.

In the first of the five books and the first half of the second there is a rich vein of the work of the " Yahwist." It begins with the Adam and Eve and Garden of Eden myth in the second chapter of Genesis, which, with the story of the flood, was derived from Babylonian lore; and it puts in idyllic form stories of the " patriarchs," the putative ancestors of the tribes of Israel. In these we find the source of the doctrine that the possession of the land was derived from a compact between Yahweh and Abraham, and a promise renewed to

Jacob. The stories of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, of Ishmael as the ancestor of the kindred tribes of Arabia, of Esau as the progenitor of the nearer kin of Edom, and of the daughters of Laban representing the kinship of Syria, are told with a fascinating realism that makes them seem like matters of fact. The pride and glory of the Northern Kingdom to which the original authors of the material belonged, are celebrated in the story of Joseph, while the character of Judah is degraded in the account of his offspring.

Traces of the work of the Elohist do not appear until the fifteenth chapter of Genesis where the account is given of the covenant with Abraham, but from there on it mingles more or less freely with the earlier material and sometimes slightly confuses it. When the priests revised the work to suit their purpose after the exile, they supplied the opening Chapter which contains the impressive description of the creation in six days and the advanced conception of the creator. They interposed the genealogies before and after the flood, confused the account of the flood itself with their amendments, interpolated the covenant with Noah, made circumcision the seal of the covenant with Abraham, gave the ages of most of the characters and introduced numerous modifying passages. The whole first book and part of the second are a treasure house of ancient Hebrew myth, somewhat marred by writers who strove to make them serve a didactic purpose. The work of the Yahwist continues with a mixture of myth and historic legend in the account of Moses and the escape from Egypt. There is much mingling of the Elohist account in the effort to give it greater fulness, and the material is not always harmonious, but it is mostly vivid. The purpose of embodying the law of the Jews and giving it divine sanction increases in emphasis as the narrative proceeds. There was some nucleus of this in the early documents and Yahweh was represented as fulminating his commands to Moses in clouds and lightning on Mount Sinai, but this was greatly elaborated in the later time after the exile. What is known to the learned as the *' priests* code," completed after the exile and later than Ezra and Nehemiah, furnished several whole chapters of the latter part of Exodus, practically all of Leviticus, and considerable passages in Numbers and Joshua.

All laws wherever promulgated, and whatever their character, were put in the form of commands of Israel's God *' by the mouth of Moses." This began with the earliest brief code established in the time of the Yahwist and embodied in his narrative, was continued with that said to have been discovered in the temple under Josiah two centuries later, which was put in the form of regular discourses of Moses, and was made still more emphatic in the " priests' code " and the narratives that first accompanied it, which were welded into the Pentateuch In its final form.

After '* The Law," or the " Books of Moses," had been canonized and put beyond further change, another collection was consecrated and made the second great section of the epic under the name of the ** prophets." This included Joshua and Judges and the so-called historical books of Samuel and Kings, as well as the oracles known as prophecies which have personal names attached to them. This also was wrought over during the exile and put in final form after the return of the priests and scribes to Jerusalem. The material of Joshua was similar to that of the Pentateuch and it contains some of the oldest and some of the latest of Its elements. The basis of the Book of Judges, after the first two chapters, was the old hero stories, beginning with that of Ehud the Benjamite, who assassinated the fat king of Moab, and ending with Samson who brought the temple of Dagon down upon his own head in revenge upon the Philistines, with a later appendix on the migration of the Danites and the war of the other tribes upon Benjamin.