GIFT OF 
 
 SEELEY W. MUDD 
 
 and 
 
 GEORGE I. COCHRAN MEYER ELSASSER 
 
 DR. JOHN R. HAYNES WILLIAM L. HONNOLD 
 
 JAMES R. MARTIN MRS. JOSEPH F. SARTORI 
 
 lo tht 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 SOUTHERN BRANCH 
 
 JOHN FISKE
 
 i? 
 
 
 ^''^L^ 
 
 ^u 
 
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 ►

 
 EWALDS 
 
 HISTOEY or ISRAEL 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 LONDON : PRINTED BY 
 
 SrOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE, 
 
 AND PARLIAMENT STREET
 
 THE 
 
 HISTORY OF ISRAEL. 
 
 HEINRICH EWALD, 
 
 Professor of the University of Göttingen. 
 TIt.A.]srSXi.A.TEX> FI2,OIVl THE OEünVC^lT. 
 
 Edited, avitu a Pbeface akd Appendix, by 
 
 RUSSELL M A R T I N E A U, M. A. 
 
 Professor of Hebrew in Manchester New College, London. 
 
 ' The Old Testament will still be a New Testament to him who comes with a fresh 
 detire of information' Fuller. 
 
 SECOND EDITION, 
 
 HEVISED AND CONTINUED TO THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE MONARCHY. 
 
 Vol. I. 
 Introduction and Preliminary History. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 
 
 1869. 
 
 Ob i -JK)
 
 \v\ 
 
 E_9f EL 
 
 v. 
 
 ^ PREFACE. 
 
 ' On being asked to write a Preface to this Translation of 
 a portion of Professor Ewald's ' Gescliiclite des Volkes 
 Israel,' my first impulse was to reply that such a work 
 needed none — that the author is known to be one of the 
 most intellectually powerful, as well as most learned and 
 accurate of the Hebraists and Biblical scholars of the day ; 
 that his History of Israel, his largest, and perhaps his 
 
 J" greatest work, is acknowledged by both friends and foes 
 to be striking, original, and ingenious; and that, being 
 already not merely known by name, but read and studied 
 
 j^at our Universities, it has gained a standing among us 
 
 g^ which could not be made securer by any words of mine. 
 
 •"^ In the latter opinion I was confirmed by many expres- 
 
 i) sions in Dean Stanley's widely-read works ; especially the 
 
 M following : — 
 
 •r-' 
 
 ^ It is now twenty-seven years since Arnold wrote to Bunsen 
 ' What Wolf and Niebuhr have done for Greece and Eome, 
 seems sadly wanted for Judea.' The wish thus boldly expressed 
 for a critical and historical investigation of the Jewish history 
 was, in fact, already on the eve of accomplishment. At that 
 time Ewald was only known as one of the chief Orientalists of 
 Germany. He had not yet proved himself to be the first Biblical 
 scholar in Europe. But year by year he was advancing towards 
 his grand object. To his i)rofound knowledge of the Hebrew 
 language he added, step by step, a knowledge of each stage of 
 the Hebrew literature. These labours on the Prophetic and 
 Poetic books of the ancient Scriptures culminated in his noble 
 work on the History of the People of Israel — as powerful in its
 
 VI PREFACE. 
 
 general conception as it is saturated with learning down to its 
 minutest details. It would be presumptuous in me either to 
 defend or to attack the critical analysis, which to most English 
 readers savours of arbitrary dogmatism, with which he assigns 
 special dates and authors to the manifold constituent parts of 
 the several books of the Old Testament : and from many of his 
 general statements I should venture to express my disagree- 
 ment, were this the place to do so. But the intimate ac- 
 quaintance which he exhibits with every portion of the sacred 
 writings, combmed as it is with a loving and reverential 
 appreciation of each individual character, and of the whole 
 spmt and purpose of the Israelitish history, has won the 
 respect even of those who differ widely from his conclusions. 
 How vast its silent effect? has been, may be seen from the re- 
 cognition of its value, not only in its author's own coimtry, but 
 in France and in England also. One instance may suffice — 
 the constant reference to his writings throughout the new 
 ' Dictionary of the Bible,' to which I have myself so often 
 referred with advantage, and which, more than any other single 
 English work, is intended to represent the knowledge and 
 meet the wants of the rising generation. [Jewish Church, pt. i. 
 Preface.) 
 
 and the references on almost every page to chapter and 
 verse of Ewald's books, containing occasionally such 
 emphatic declarations as this:^ 
 
 Strange that it should have been reserved for Ewald to have 
 first dwelt on this remarkable fact. In Avhat follows I am 
 indebted to him at every turn. (Pt. ii. p. 117.) 
 
 Moreover Dean Stanley does not stand alone; Dr. 
 Rowland Williams speaks of Ewald, 
 
 whose facidty of divination, compounded of spiritual insight 
 and of immense learning, I only do not praise, because praise 
 from me would be presumption. [Hebrew Prophets, i. Preface.) 
 
 And lu-nest Renan, tracing the history of Semitic 
 philology, says: 
 
 « I am requested by Dean Stanley tu as in the first, and greater than the brief 
 
 state in this second edition, tliat his obli- acknowledgement in the preface might be 
 
 gations to Ewald in the second volume of taken to imply, 
 his Jewish Church were at least as great
 
 PREFACE. Vll 
 
 Des lors la connaissance de I'hebreu rentra dans le domaine 
 general de la pliilologie, et participa a tons les progres de la 
 critique par les ecrits des deux Michaelis, de Simonis, Storr, 
 Eichhorn, Vater, Jahn, Rosenmüller, Bauer, Paulus, de Wette, 
 Winer, et surtout par les admirables travaux de Gesenius et 
 d'Ewald, apres lesquels on pourrait croire qu'il ne reste plus 
 rien ä faire dans le champ special de la litterature hebraique. 
 [Histoire des Langues Semitiques, liv. i. eh. 1, end.) 
 
 And on Ewald's merits in the elucidation of particular 
 books, Dr. Ginsburg testifies thus of his treatment of 
 Ecclesiastes : 
 
 After tracing- these ingenious conceits, it is cheering to 
 come to Ewald, whose /our pages on Coheleth, subjoined to his 
 work on the Song of Solomon, contain more critical acumen, 
 and a clearer view of the true design of this book, than many a 
 bulky volume noticed in this sketch. {Coheleth, p. 205.) 
 
 And Renan thus of his labours on Job : 
 
 II serait injuste d'oublier qu'apres Schultens, c'est M. Ewald 
 qui a le plus contribue aux progres de I'exegese du livi'e de Job. 
 {Livre de Job, p. viii.) 
 
 But further consideration convinced me that a few 
 words of introduction would not be out of place, and 
 were in fact necessary, to indicate to the general reader 
 the point of view from which the book must be judged, 
 to prevent his approaching it with false expectations, and 
 then feeling disappointment or vexation ; and desirable, 
 for the purpose of explaining peculiarities and apologising 
 for weaknesses and errors in the translation. 
 
 The term ' History ' has a very wide scope — embracing 
 (apart from significations which have become obsolete 
 except in particular connections, such as Natural History) 
 all that can be told or known respecting the Past. Its 
 application varies according as the historian thinks this or 
 that series of facts best worth recording. We thus have 
 histories of kings and courts, of battles and sieges, of 
 treaties and le<2:islation, of civilisation and the arts. All
 
 viii PREFACE. 
 
 these and many more a]'e perfiectly legitimate subjects ol" 
 history, since the only point on which all are agreed seems 
 to be that its subject must be something deserving serious 
 enquiry : we speak of the dignity of history. The manner 
 may be varied nearly as much as the matter. This is 
 inevitable, from the various conditions under which the 
 historian works. When recounting an event of yesterday, 
 of which he himself and a thousand other living men were 
 eye-witnesses, he needs only to recount the event itself in 
 the clearest language. When recording an event of a 
 hundred years ago, of which there are abundant contem- 
 porary accounts extant, his duty is diiferent : he must sift 
 these accounts, and prepare his story from the most trust- 
 worthy. When speaking of what happened a thousand 
 years ago, the paucity or the discrepancy in the notices he 
 finds of the event may be so serious as to make it impos- 
 sible to give a connected narrative at all ; and his history 
 will consist of fragmentary pieces from various chroniclers, 
 fitted together by an avowedly conjectural combination 
 of his own. Let the subject-matter be from an immea- 
 surably older period, of which contemporary records are 
 impossible, and the history will then be almost entirely an 
 endeavour to penetrate by critical skill to the core hidden 
 beneath the overgrowth of tradition and fanciful stories, 
 which in prehistoric times inevitably embellish and ulti- 
 mately utterly conceal the facts round which they cluster. 
 Here the object is still the same — t\\ii. knowledge of the 
 facts of the past ; and the name History therefore still 
 properly describes a work of this character. No one would 
 deny to the ' Histories of Hellenic Tribes and Cities ' (the 
 Dorians, the Minyans, &c.) of Otfried Müller, nor to the 
 opening part of Niebuhr's ' History of Rome,' the name 
 History. And for the same reason the present work, 
 even in its introductory portion, claims to be a History 
 of Israel ; although no such lucid and connected narrative 
 will be found in it as is generally associated with that term.
 
 PREFACE. ix 
 
 It must also be borne in mind, that the nature of the 
 History is affected not only by differences in the age 
 described, but also by the distinctive views of the his- 
 torian. Look to the older histories — for exam23le, Mitford 
 for Greece and Goldsmith for Rome — and you will find 
 the earlier ages portrayed m the same vivid colours, their 
 events succeeding each other with the same order, as the 
 later and latest. Consult Otfried Miiller and Niebuhr, 
 and you will find this all changed — names of individuals 
 assumed to be designations of nations, single battles trans- 
 fer ned into long internecine contests, days treated as 
 ag/is — and as the net result, a picture grander and vaster, 
 bi/(t dim and hazy, and wanting all the sharp lines and 
 lyrilliant colouring which alone satisfy the mind craving 
 ftxact knowledge. Yet Miiller and Niebuhr are historians, 
 /equally with Mitford and Goldsmith — indeed more so; 
 /for they have felt that human nature bemg essentially the 
 / same in all ages, any story which contradicts the j^hysical 
 / or moral possibilities of that nature, stands self-con- 
 / demned; and must either be purely fictitious, or so 
 / altered by transmission as to have lost its original mean- 
 ing, which may be recoverable by careful study of the 
 liabilities (to exaggeration, generalisation, personifica- 
 tion, &c.) of ancient legends. The result may be a mis- 
 taken view, but it will be at least possible, conformable 
 to human nature, and therefore potentially historical; 
 whereas the older view is by hypothesis none of these. 
 
 The same difference of treatment is found also in the 
 ancient Hebrew history. We read the books of Genesis 
 and Exodus, and find a narrative of events, as clear, vivid, 
 and apparently connected as if it dealt with the ages 
 nearest to our o^vn; and the various modern Biblical his- 
 . tories which are merely abstracts of those books, of course 
 leave much the same impression on our minds. We read 
 Ewald, page after page, and seem to come across no clear 
 and distinct event; and in our disappointment perhaps we
 
 X PREFACE. 
 
 say, ' This is no advance but a retreat ; we knew more 
 and better than this before.' Yet if 0. Müller and Nie- 
 buhr are historians, Ewald, who has done on the field 
 of Hebrew history what they have on that of Greek and 
 Roman, is so also. 
 
 The difference, then, is not between history and no -his- 
 tory, but between varying opinions upon history. Müller, 
 Niebuhr, and Ewald do not believe the history as it had 
 been told : they tell it as they believe. But opinion, to a 
 conscientious historical investigator, is not a tiling wliich 
 he can choose for himself. To be worth anything, it 
 must be the conclusion reached by his mind, it may be 
 against prepossessions and expectations, after full investi- 
 gation of all available data. He is constrained by the 
 higher power of Truth over him. The question is not 
 which makes the best story, but which is the Truth. No 
 one ouD'ht to need to be told that all else must be sacrificed 
 to Truth ; and that whoever, whether as writer or reader, 
 hesitates to sacrifice even the most cherished and beau- 
 tiful stories on the altar of historic truth, or shrinks from 
 submitting such to an impartial and rigorous examination, 
 forfeits all claim to be regarded as historian or student of 
 history. These modern historians have subjected their 
 various histories to such examination, and have arrived in 
 every case at analogous conclusions. The earliest period 
 of the life of the Greeks, Romans, and Hebrews, is now 
 called Mythical, and shrouded in mist where all appeared 
 clear before. The same is found to be the case with all 
 other nations whose history we have adequate means to 
 trace. It is not pleasanter ; we should not choose to live 
 in a mist, nor wish to see the clouds gathering round and 
 obBcuring our favourite scenes ; but the previous clearness 
 being discovered to have been not the clearness of nature, 
 but a mere daubed picture drawn by imaginative artists, 
 we cannot keep it longer standing between ourselves and 
 the truth.
 
 PREFACE. xi 
 
 When we have advanced thus far, we find immediate 
 comfort and compensation for what we have sacrificed, not 
 only in the feeling that, after all, there is no real beauty 
 but in truth, but also in the new light in which we now 
 see history. Mythical is not synonymous with fictitious;^ 
 the myth covers an event, or a thought, generally grander 
 than itself. Dorus and Aeolus were not sinirle men, but 
 represent the whole nations of Dorians and Aeolians ; Shem 
 and Ham, the whole known populations of their respective 
 regions, the south-west of Asia and the north of Africa. 
 So when Ewald shows us Abraham as a ' representative 
 man,' and his wanderings as those of a large tribe, and the 
 quarrels between Jacob and Esau as great international 
 struggles between the Hebrew and the Arabian tribes, rather 
 than the petty strife of a few herdsmen, the history assumes 
 a grander scale than we had any idea of before ; and we 
 look with heightened eagerness for what more it may dis- 
 close. Stories which before amused us with their pretti- 
 ness now tell of the fates of empires and the development 
 of nations ; and we see why they have been preserved from 
 an antiquity so high that the deeds of individuals have 
 long been obliterated. The mythical system, therefore, as 
 understood and wielded by its chief masters, is anything 
 but destructive of history : it rather makes a history where 
 before there was none. But it is not a key which must 
 be used everywhere alike. Of course there is a point 
 where history begins to be literally and not allegorically 
 true, where persons are individual men and not nations 
 in disguise. Even before this point some few literal facts 
 may be found ; after it some few mythical conceptions may 
 remain. The tact of the historian is shown in discrimi- 
 nating these. The mythical system must not be brought 
 down into historical times, nor the mythical fancies of the 
 early ages be presented with the vivid colouring of literal 
 
 ' The word has indeed been used, with history and of writing, of which tlie literal 
 very questionable propriety, by Strauss truth is not guaranteed, and which may 
 and others, of stories spread in an age of turn out to be fictitious.
 
 XI 1 PREFACE. 
 
 history. The mythical system is not a new sort of his- 
 tory that is everywhere to supplant the old, l)nt a process 
 by which a large field of mere fable is recovered to his- 
 tory, and made to yield its hidden stores. Its general spirit 
 is therefore not destructive, but constructive ; through it 
 we have more, not less history, than we had before : and 
 this character is not vitiated by the fact that some unskil- 
 ful applications of the system have been made. 
 
 These remarks will be found to have an important 
 bearing on the present work. The portion here trans- 
 lated includes the prehistoric and earliest historic age — 
 the age of myth and fable, where the method just de- 
 scribed may elicit some important historic facts. The 
 reader will find many such, which will probably be new 
 to him; and if he is at first inclined to rebel and reject 
 them as far-fetched and over-ingenious, he may after 
 lono-er dio;estion of them come to think that after all 
 there is something in them. This is my own, and I be- 
 lieve many others', experience of many of Ewald's most 
 original ideas. 
 
 I cannot help thinking that these considerations have 
 not been sufficiently present to some of the reviewers of 
 the first edition, who have spoken of ' tradition ' as if it 
 were an active force in itself which produced stories, and 
 as if it were something new invented by Ewald. Now, 
 EAV^ald discriminates the ' tradition ' from the event it re- 
 cords simply as the word differs from the act ; and applies 
 it to the story told from one generation to another of the 
 same event, and hence to the process of transmission of 
 the story wliich must take place whatever the original 
 event maj'' have been, whether a real or an imagined, a 
 divinely-inspired or a human act- The tradition is so far 
 from standing in the place of the event recorded, that it 
 acknowledges in terms the existence of a something to 
 be recorded. No one would endorse more heartily than 
 Ewald liiniself, no one has said more distinctly than Ewald
 
 PKEFACR. Xlll 
 
 in this very book, tlie words in which the Record thinks it 
 sets up the truth as against the bugbear Tradition : 
 
 We sincerely trust that the English mind will long re- 
 cognise the true grandeur of early Hebrew history to consist 
 not in the wanderings and squabbles of various Arab tribes, 
 but in the presence of the living God, forming for himself that 
 people through which all nations of the earth are blessed. 
 
 I cannot forbear to remark that much injustice is done 
 to the subject and to Ewald himself, by this translation of 
 a mere fragment of his work. The history extends to the 
 destruction of Jerusalem, and comprises the whole period 
 of the existence of the Hebrews as a nation. Only at the 
 Exodus did their national existence in the fullest sense 
 commence ; of the many ensuing centuries till the time of 
 Samuel we have only very meagre records ; and only with 
 the Monarchy is the history full and distinct. This trans- 
 lation ends before the establishment of the monarchy, and 
 can therefore hardly be taken as a specimen of the general 
 character of the work. The prehistoric age with which it 
 largely deals, is absolutely exceptional; the mythical 
 treatment there required is equally exceptional. However 
 convinced we may be of the soundness of the mythical prin- 
 ciple for the interpretation of the primeval times, we shall 
 never find the history of those times a very attractive 
 study — at least until our minds are specially trained to 
 enjoy it. The stories were attractive and beautiful — only 
 we now see they could not be literally true ; the interpre- 
 tation put upon them may be true — but it wants the beauty 
 and attractiveness which belongs to stories of individuals 
 only. Hence most minds experience disappointment till 
 they reach the period of literal undoubted history. But 
 just when they are beginning to enjoy the steady approach 
 to this in the time of Samuel, the translation breaks off! * 
 
 ' This second edition however is enlarged by the addition of the whole period 
 from Moses' death to Samuel.
 
 XIV PREFACE. 
 
 Of course there were good reasons which induced the Trans- 
 hitor to act with such apparent perverseness. The question 
 was not simply which part of the book was most attractive ; 
 but primarily which was most required. And no one will 
 surely question that the ideas of a great scholar and origi- 
 nal thinker on the facts concealed beneath obscure myths 
 of the earliest age, on the gradual formation of the nation, 
 on its sudden adoption of its new and lofty religion, and on 
 the composition of the ancient books to which almost ex- 
 clusively we are indebted for our knowledge of these things, 
 are likely to be of higher value to us than his description 
 of purely historical times, on which less difference of opinion 
 is possible. Besides, Ewald's most pecuHar talents appear 
 in greatest force here — tact not only to detect the mythical 
 but to discover its interpretation; and what is styled by 
 Dean Stanley a ' loving and reverential appreciation of each 
 individual character,' and by Rowland Williams his 'faculty 
 of divination,' which leads to such noble conceptions as we 
 here find of the character and history of Abraham. 
 
 The accusation of excessive dogmatism has been so fre- 
 quently made against Ewald that it perhaps calls for a re- 
 mark in reply. It would be wearisome to the reader to find 
 every original version of an event attended by such phrases 
 as 'with due deference to the opinions of older writers,' 
 'as it seems to me,' ' though others have come to a different 
 conclusion.' He leaves these things to be understood, and 
 himself tells the story plainly and simply according to his 
 own version, supporting it with a sufficient array of refer- 
 ences to authorities, and leaving it then to his readers' 
 judgment. So far, there is surely no intentional dog- 
 matism ; and even a reader who thinks the authorities 
 cited insufficient to support the assertion in the text, 
 ought to hesitate before he pronounces the dogmatism to 
 be all on the side of the historian. 
 
 The fragmentary nature of the portion translated gives 
 to this book a peculiar appearance as regards the ar-
 
 PREFACE. XV 
 
 rangement. An Introduction of 250 pages is out of all 
 proper proportion to a work of only 850 in all. But it 
 must be remembered that the Introduction was prefixed to 
 a history in seven volumes ; and that it discusses and dis- 
 criminates not the sources of the Premosaic and Mosaic 
 history only, but those of the whole Hebrew history down 
 to the times of Ezra and Nehemiah. 
 
 In another sense also this part of the history appeared 
 to be most required. It had suddenly attracted universal 
 attention in this country. After the publication of Bishop 
 Colenso's book, every one rushed into print on the Exodus. 
 Publications of every size, every temper, and every amount 
 of learning (except perhaps the highest), succeeded each 
 other rapidly, and appeared to be read with avidity. The 
 opinions of eminent foreign theologians were quoted on both 
 sides ; but without much effect, since quotations taken out 
 of their context might be made to mean many things. It 
 appeared to the Translator, who had long cherished the 
 hope of publishing this book, that now had really come the 
 time when it would do certain good ; when it would answer 
 many questions that were daily asked, and solve many dif- 
 ficulties ; when the opinions of one of the chief authorities 
 on the subject, presented entire and not in quotations only, 
 would be studied by the many who were seeking light and 
 not disposed to shirk the labour of finding it. The first 
 excitement of that time has passed — an excitement roused 
 however more by Bishop Colenso's position in the church, 
 and his presumed obligation to teach one prescribed form 
 of doctrme, than by the nature of his inductions, and his 
 system of interpretation. But the Biblical question never 
 can be settled to the satisfaction of men who think for 
 themselves until it is dissociated from the Ecclesiastical 
 question — that is, until it can be approached by both 
 writers and readers with the same freedom which is the 
 acknowledged essential condition of all true science, and 
 therefore liberated from pains and penalties attending cer-
 
 XVI PREFACE. 
 
 tain conclusions. It is therefore well that this book should 
 not have appeared till a time Avhen it will come before tem- 
 pers less heated, and minds more clear and collected, yet 
 still interested. Let me add, that neither the Translator 
 nor I expect from our readers any general or enthusiastic 
 adoption of our author's views. No book which propounds 
 half the new ideas which will be found here can receive 
 such immediate homage from persons who think for them- 
 selves. It is a book whose influence must be silent and 
 slow; and those only will do justice to it who study it 
 long and quietly before venturing to express a confident 
 opinion upon it. 
 
 A few biographical data respecting the author may be 
 interesting to his English readers. Georg Heinrich August 
 von Ewald was born at Göttingen, Nov. 16, 1803. Little 
 is known of his origin, which was not illustrious; the 
 'personal nobility' indicated by the von prefixed to his 
 surname was conferred on him in 1841 by the King 
 of Würtemberg, but is now seldom if ever assumed. 
 He was educated at the Gymnasium of his native 
 town, whence he proceeded at Easter 1820 to the Uni- 
 versity of the same place. In 1823, on leaving the Uni- 
 versity, he took a situation as teacher at the Gymnasium 
 of Wolfenbüttel ; and in the same year gave good proof of 
 his diligence and the depth of his Hebrew studies by the 
 publication of his first work, ' Die Komposition der Genesis 
 kritisch untersucht ' (the Composition of Genesis critically 
 examined) — which, though written as a warning against 
 the overhasty assignment of that book to various writers 
 on the ground of the various names of God — the then 
 newly-discovered principle — is still far from obsolete. At 
 Easter 1824, however, he returned to Göttingen on re- 
 ceiving, through the instrumentality of Eichhorn his for- 
 mer teacher, a licence to lecture at the university as tutor 
 {repetent) in the faculty of Theology. Promotion followed 
 faster than usual; for in 1827 he became Extraordinary,
 
 PREFACE. XVll 
 
 and in 1831 Ordinary, Professor in the Philosophical 
 Faculty; and in 1835 specially Professor of the Oriental 
 Languages. After Eichhorn's death in 1827, he lectured 
 on Old Testament Exegesis. During this period (in 1826, 
 1829 and 1836), he travelled to consult various Oriental 
 manuscrij)ts, to Berlin, Paris, and Italy ; and published 
 the following works on Oriental literature : ' De metris 
 carminum Arabicorum libri duo,' Brunswick 1825; 'Ueber 
 einige ältere Sanskrit- Metra,' Göttingen 1827; 'Liber 
 Wakedi de Mesopotaniige expugnatse historia e cod. Arab. 
 editus,' Göttingen 1827; ' Grammatica critica lingusö 
 Arabic«,' 2 vols. Leipsic 1831-33; 'Abhandlungen zur bib- 
 lischen und orientalischen Literatur,' Göttingen 1832. On 
 Biblical subjects he also published : 'Das Hohelied Salomo's 
 übersetzt mit Einleitung, &;c.' (The Song of Solomon trans- 
 lated, &c.), Göttingen 1826; ' Commentarius in Apocalyp- 
 sm/ Göttingen 1828; 'Die poetischen Bücher des Alten 
 Bundes ' [called in the second edition ' Die Dichter des 
 Alten Bundes,' the Poets of the Old Testament], 4 vols. 
 Göttingen 1835-39; 2nd edition 1840-67; being a trans- 
 lation of Psalms, Lamentations, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, 
 Song of Solomon and Job. On Hebrew grammar he pub- 
 lished : ' Kritische Grammatik der Hebräischen Sprache 
 ausführlich bearbeitet,' Leipsic 1827; 'Grammatik der 
 Hebräischen Sprache des Alten Testaments,' 2nd edition 
 (essentially a new work), Leipsic 1835, and greatly 
 enlarged in successive editions up to the seventh, entitled 
 ' Ausführliches Lehrbuch der Hebräischen Sprache des 
 Alten Bundes,' Göttmgen 1863; and a smaller grammar 
 for schools, ' Grammatik der Hebräischen Sprache in 
 vollständiger Kürze,' Leipsic 1828, the later editions of 
 which are known as ' Hebräische Sprachlehre für Anfänger.' 
 In 1837 he founded (with the cooperation of other Ori- 
 entalists) the valuable periodical ' Zeitschrift für die Kunde 
 des Morgenlandes,' which prepared the way for the for- 
 mation in 1845 of the German Oriental Society, which 
 VOL. I. a
 
 XVlll PKEFACE. 
 
 publishes a ' Zeitschrift ' four times a year. In the year 
 1837 trouble came upon Hanover, and specially upon the 
 University of Göttingen, on the accession of the Duke of 
 Cumberland to the throne. His very first act was the 
 arbitrary abolition of the Hanoverian ' Staatsgrundgesetz ' 
 or Constitution; and this encountered among the pro- 
 fessors a spirit unfortunately not common enough in 
 Germany. Seven of the most eminent — the two Grimms, 
 Gervinus, Yv^ilhelm AYeber, W. E. Albrecht, Dahlmann, 
 and Ewald — entered a solemn protest ; and when that was 
 of no avail, resigned their professorships, and left the 
 King to enjoy the desert he had made — for the seven 
 professors ivere the University, and when they were gone it 
 rapidly declined, till eleven years after even a Guelph could 
 admit his folly and invite the professors back again on 
 honourable conditions. But the fifteen hundred students 
 whom men now living remember to have seen there could 
 never be recalled ; and the university can even now count 
 only its six or seven hundred. Ewald then left Göt- 
 tingen, Dec. 12, 1837, and came to England; but in the 
 following year he received and accepted a call to the Uni- 
 versity of Tubingen, to be Ordinary Professor of Theology. 
 This position he held till his recall to Göttingen in 1848, 
 which he, alone of the seven, accepted. During his resi- 
 dence at Tübingen (besides preparing new and enlarged 
 editions of works already mentioned) Ewald published his 
 translation of the Prophets, ' Die Propheten des Alten 
 Bundes erklärt,' 2 vols. Stuttgart, 1840-41, and com- 
 menced this History. The first edition of the first, second, 
 and third volumes was published in 1843, 1845, and 1847 ; 
 and a supplementary volume on Hebrew Antiquities was 
 added, ' Die Alterthiimer des Volkes Israel.' After his re- 
 turn to Göttingen, and up to the present time, the following 
 are his chief literary labours ; ' Jahrbücher der biblischen 
 Wissenschaft,' a journal which he established in 1849, and 
 to which he was the chief, indeed generally the only con-
 
 TREFACE. XIX 
 
 tributor; twelve volumes were published, from 1849 to 
 1865, after which it was given up; many valuable inves- 
 tigations of special subjects of Biblical history and criti- 
 cism were carried on in it, and are referred to in this 
 work. But his chief labour of this period was expended 
 on this History, to which the fourth, fifth, sixth, and 
 seventh volumes were added in the years 1852, 1855, 
 1858, and 1859 ; a second and enlarged edition of the 
 first three volumes was prepared in 1851 and 1853; and a 
 third of vols, i.-iv. in 18G4-66. The fifth volume of the 
 history, entitled ' Geschichte Christus und semer Zeit,' is 
 the only part of the work which has been translated into 
 English; it was published as ' The Life of Christ by H. 
 Ewald, translated and edited by Octavius Glover,' Cam- 
 bridge 1865. Ewald was also engaged in the study of 
 the New Testament, and published ' Die drei ersten 
 Evangelien übersetzt und erklärt' (the First Three Gos- 
 pels translated and expounded), Göttingen 1850; ' Die 
 Sendschreiben den Apostels Paulus übersetzt und erklärt' 
 (the Epistles of St. Paul translated and expounded), 
 Göttingen 1857 ; ' Die Johamieischen Schriften übersetzt 
 und erklärt' (the Johannine Writings translated and ex- 
 pounded), 2 vols. Göttingen 1861. Many disquisitions, 
 some of considerable importance, chiefly on Phenician 
 inscriptions, on the Ethiopic Book of Enoch, and on the 
 Sybilhne Books, were contributed by him to the Trans- 
 actions of the Royal Society of Sciences at Göttingen and 
 to the ' Göttinger Gelehrte Anzeigen,' and are also to 
 be had separately. I have omitted small pamphlets, and 
 even larger works, whose interest is merely ephemeral- 
 local, controversial, or political. 
 
 It remains to speak of the translation. My constant 
 endeavour in revising it has been to make it self-con- 
 sistent and uniform — which qualities it could otherwise 
 hardly have possessed, as the principal translator has had 
 several coadjutors. In the orthography of personal names 
 
 a 2
 
 XX PREFACE. 
 
 names Ewald, consistently with his constant spirit of de- 
 pendence on the original sources alone, and carelessness 
 about what has been spoken or written since, follows the 
 Hebrew strictly; and it is quite intelligible that a scholar 
 who lives his whole life among the old Hebrew books may 
 be unable to force his lips to such barbarisms as the 
 modern pronunciation of Isaac, Jacob, &c. But the trans- 
 lation will fall into the hands of persons who know the 
 Patriarchs already under their modern names, and as we 
 wish to speak to them of their old friends, we take the 
 liberty of still calling them by the familiar names. To 
 this there is one important exception. The Divine name, 
 usually written Jehovah, is by Ewald written Jalive^ and 
 we have adopted this" form, with the addition of a final /<, 
 which makes it an exact transcript of the Hebrew letters, 
 and does not affect the pronunciation. The case is a 
 peculiar and difficult one. Jehovah is so manifestly and 
 demonstrably wrong, and is a monument of such utter mis- 
 understanding, that I feel the greatest repugnance in ever 
 writing it myself, and could not for shame allow it to 
 appear in a book of Ewald's, whose ear would be offended 
 by it as a musician's by a note out of tune. I append a 
 short Essay on the subject, for which I am solely respon- 
 sible, intended to explain the nature of the question to 
 readers to whom Ewald's remarks at vol. ii. pp. 155-58 
 are insufficient. 
 
 The division of the Old Testament into chapters and 
 verses sometimes differs in the Greek, Latin, and modern 
 versions, from that adopted in the printed Hebrew Bibles. 
 Ewald always quotes from the Hebrew ; but for the sake 
 of non-Hebraist readers we have in these cases of discre- 
 pancy always given the other numbers (which are those 
 of the English Bible) in brackets: thus, Num. xvii. 3 
 [xvi. 38]; Ps. xL 4 [8]. 
 
 In order to render the divisions and subdivisions of the 
 work more easily intelligible, I have prefixed a Table of
 
 PREFACE. XXI 
 
 Contents far more detailed than that in the orioinal work. 
 The titles given to the smaller sections — all, that is, which 
 do not occur as headmgs in the work itself — are added by 
 me, and must be regarded as only approximate hints of 
 what will be found in the sections in question. The diffi- 
 culty of indicating in half-a-dozen words the contents of a 
 section, should be considered in my defence by any who 
 find these descriptions misleading. Imperfect though they 
 are, they appeared to me at least harmless, and more satis- 
 factory than a mere blank. 
 
 The Translator wishes me gratefully to acknowledge 
 assistance and counsel received from Dr. John Nicholson, 
 of Penrith, the pupil and friend of Ewald, and translator 
 of his Hebrew Grammar. Dr. Nicholson had himself 
 translated a considerable portion of the period comprised 
 in the first volume, and kindly handed over his work to 
 be incorporated -with the rest. It should also be noted 
 that the translation was undertaken with the full sanction 
 of the author. 
 
 Russell Martineau. 
 
 London : Nov, 1868.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 OF 
 
 THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Section I. Design of this History i 
 
 Section II. Sources op the Early History ii 
 
 A. The Story and its Foundation. Tradition . . .13 
 
 I. Natube of Nationax Tbadition 14 
 
 1. Its Subject-matter . . . . . . .15 
 
 1 ) Its Eetention by the Memory . . , .15 
 
 2) Aids to the Memory . . . . . .16 
 
 a.) Sougs; Proverbs; Proper Names . . .17 
 b.) Visible Monuments . . . . .20 
 
 c.) Institutions ....... 21 
 
 3) Tendency to fill up Gaps 22 
 
 a.) Names of Persons 23 
 
 b.) Periods 25 
 
 c.) Grouping in Eound Numbers . . . .26 
 
 2. Its Spirit 26 
 
 3. Its Limitation to a Narrow Circle ..... 28 
 II. FuRTiiEK Progress of Tradition . , . . .31 
 
 1. Its Original Style 32 
 
 2. Its Purification 35 
 
 3. Expansion of its Province 38 
 
 III. Treatment of Tradition by Historians . . . .41 
 
 B. Commencement of Hebrew Historical Composition. 
 
 Writing 45 
 
 I. Writing not practised in the Patriarchal Age . . 47 
 II. Use of Writing in the Time of Moses . . . .49 
 
 III. Origin of Semitic Writing 51 
 
 Grandeur of the Subject of the Historical Books . . 53 
 Anonjnnous Character of the Historical Books, and Art of 
 Historical Composition .56 
 
 C. History of Hebrew Historical Composition . . . ci 
 
 I. The Great Book of Origins (Pentateuch and Book of 
 
 Joshua) 63 
 
 3.. The oldest Historical Works 64 
 
 1) Book of the Wars of Jahveh . . . .66 
 
 2) BlOGBAl'HY OF MoSES 68 
 
 3) Book of Covenants 68
 
 XXIV , CONTENTS OF 
 
 Section II. Sources of the Early History — continued. ^^^^ 
 
 2. The Book of Origins and its Sources . . .74 
 
 1) Its Date 74 
 
 2) Its Aims 78 
 
 a.) General History from the Israelite Point 
 
 of View .78 
 
 b.) Legislation ....... 82 
 
 {i) The Sanctuary 87 
 
 (n) Sacrifices 87 
 
 (iii) The Clean and Unclean . . . .88 
 
 (z«) The Sabbath . . . . . .88 
 
 (v) The Community . . • . . 89 
 
 c.) Its Conclusion 91 
 
 3. Its Author 92 
 
 3. The Prophetical Narratohs of the Primitive Histories 96 
 
 1) The Third Narrator of the Primitive History . 97 
 
 2) The Fourth Narrator of the Primitive History . 100 
 
 a.) Character . . . . . . .100 
 
 b.) Aims 104 
 
 c.) Individuality . . . . . . .105 
 
 3) The Fifth Narrator of the Primitive History . 106 
 
 a.) Character and Age 106 
 
 b.) Method Ill 
 
 c.) Range ........ 114 
 
 4. The Deuteronomist : last Modification of the Book of 
 
 Primitive History . . . . . .115 
 
 1) Lev. xxvi. 3-45 116 
 
 2) Deuteronomy . 117 
 
 a.) Its Character and Aim . . . . .117 
 
 (i) Deut. i. 1-iv. 43 120 
 
 (w) Deut. iv. 44-xxvi. . . . . .120 
 
 (Hi) Deut. xxvii.-end ..... 121 
 
 b.) Its Sources , 125 
 
 c.) Its Age 127 
 
 3) Blessing of Moses, Deut. xxxiii 128 
 
 4) Incorporation with previous Histories . . . 129 
 II. The Great Book of the Kings (Judges, Ruth, Samuel, 
 
 and Kings) . 133 
 
 1. First History of the Kings : the State-annals . .136 
 
 1) Historical Passages belonging to it . . . 136 
 
 2) Prophetic Passages . . . . . .138 
 
 2. General History of the Ages of the Judges an» 
 
 the Kings: the Prophetic Hook of Kint/s . .139 
 
 1) First History 140 
 
 2) Prophetic Book of Kings 141 
 
 a.) On Samuel's Age 142 
 
 b.) On the Times after Samuel . , . .145 
 
 (i) 1 Sam. i-vii 146 
 
 (Ü) 1 Sam. viii-xiv. . . . . .147 
 
 {Hi) 1 Sam. xv-2 Sam. end . . . .147 
 
 a) 2 Sam. i-vii. ..... 148 
 
 b) 2 Sam. viii-xxi, xxiii. 8-xxiv. . .148 
 
 c) 2 Sam. xx. 26, 26, xxii, xxiii. 1-7 . 149 
 (iv) Solomon, &c 149 
 
 c) Style and Treatment 150 
 
 3) Later fragments % .151
 
 THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 XXV 
 
 0^ 
 
 Section II. Sources of the Early History — continued. 
 
 3. Looser Troiitment of this Period 
 
 1 ) Saul and David .... 
 
 2) Elijali and Eiisliah . 
 
 3) Ruth 
 
 4. Latest Form of these Books 
 
 1) Last Editor but one 
 
 a.) Introduction of Deuteronomie Id 
 b.) Collection of older Elements 
 c.) More detailed Description of Hi 
 
 2) Last Editor .... 
 
 a.) Judges .... 
 (i) Judges i-ii. 5 
 (ii) Judges ii. 6-xvi. 
 (Hi) Judges xvii-xxi. . 
 b.) Origin of the Monarchy 
 c.) Solomon and Later Kings . 
 
 III. Latest Book of Geneeai, History (Chronicles 
 Nehemiah) 
 
 1. Aim and Authorship . 
 
 2. Divisions . 
 
 1)1 Chron. i-x. 
 
 2) 1 Chron. xi-2 Chron. 
 
 3) Ezra and Nehemiah 
 
 3. Autliorities 
 
 1) Named 
 
 2) Unnamed 
 
 a.) Ezra ii, iv. 8-vi. 
 b.) Ezra vii-x. . 
 c.) Nehemiah . 
 
 3) Credibility of the Book 
 
 4. Admission into the Canon 
 
 Book of Esther . 
 
 Views of Later Times regarding Antiquity 
 
 Section III. Chronology of the Ancient History 
 
 1. As computed by the Priests . 
 
 2. Corrected by Contact with other -Nations 
 
 3. Other Supports to Chronology 
 
 4. Difficulty of establishing a General System 
 
 Section IV. Territory of this History . 
 
 Ezra 
 
 I. Physical Aspect . 
 
 1. Invigorating Influences 
 
 2. Relaxing Influences 
 
 3. Plagues and Devastation 
 
 II. 
 
 III. 
 
 Relations towards other Countries 
 
 1. Attraction of Northern Nations toward 
 
 2. Attraction of its Inhabitants towards 
 
 3. Palestine a Meeting-place of various N 
 
 Palestine 
 
 ypt • 
 
 it ions 
 
 Egy 
 
 Mixed Nationality of Oldest Inhabitants 
 1. Aborigines 
 
 1) Horites 
 
 2) Rephaim: ..... 
 
 3) Amalekites ; Gkshue . 
 
 PACK 
 
 . 152 
 . 153 
 . 153 
 . 153 
 . 156 
 . 157 
 . 157 
 . 158 
 imes 159 
 . 159 
 . 161 
 . 16i 
 . 162 
 . 16J 
 . 164 
 . 165 
 
 and 
 
 . 169 
 . 173 
 . 178 
 . 178 
 . 181 
 . 181 
 . 181 
 . 182 
 . 188 
 . 189 
 . 191 
 . 192 
 . 194 
 . 196 
 . 196 
 . 197 
 
 . 204 
 
 . 205 
 
 . 207 
 
 . 209 
 
 . 211 
 
 . 214 
 
 . 214 
 . 215 
 . 216 
 
 . 217 
 
 . 219 
 . 220 
 . 221 
 . 222 
 
 . 224 
 . 224 
 . 226 
 . 227 
 . 230
 
 XXvi CONTENTS OF 
 
 Section IV. Tereitokt of this History — continued. page 
 
 2. Semitic Invaders . 232 
 
 1) Canaanites 232 
 
 a.) Amorites 234 
 
 b.) HiTTiTES ....... 235 
 
 c.) Canaanites 236 
 
 d.) HiwiTES 237 
 
 2) Philistines 242 
 
 3) Amalekites and others 249 
 
 3. Hebrews 254 
 
 HISTORY OF ISRAEL. 
 BOOK I. 
 
 PBELIMINARY HISTORY OF ISRAEL. 
 Section I. Israel before the Migration to Egypt . . . .256 
 
 A. General Notions 256 
 
 B. The First Two Ages 261 
 
 I. Eirst Four Fathers of each Age .... 264 
 II. Five following Fathers 265 
 
 III. Tenth (Noah, Terah) 269 
 
 IV. Grouping and Computation ..... 274 
 V. Origin and Immigration of the Hebre-ws . . 277 
 
 1. Origin 277 
 
 2. Migi-ation 282 
 
 3. Continued Migration 287 
 
 C. The Third Age 288 
 
 I. The Three Patriarchs of the Nation .... 288 
 II. The Cycle of the Twelve Types 290 
 
 1. Of the Father 291 
 
 2. Of the Wife 292 
 
 3. Of the Child 293 
 
 4. Of Marriage 293 
 
 5. OiFolygamy 293 
 
 6. Of the Nurse . , 293 
 
 7. Of the Servant 294 
 
 III. History of the Three Patriarchs ..... 300 
 1. Abraham ......... 307 
 
 1) As Immigrant and Father of Nations . . . 307 
 
 a.) Nahoreans ....... 310 
 
 b.) Damascus 311 
 
 c.) Ammon and Moab 312 
 
 d.) Ketnroans ....... 314 
 
 e.) Southern Canaan 316 
 
 2) As a Man of God 317
 
 THE FIRST VOLU^IE. 
 
 XXVI 1 
 
 Section I. Ist?ael before itie Migration to Egypt — continued, pagr 
 
 3) As exhibited Ly the existing Narratives . . . 323 
 
 a.) Before the Trial of his Faith . . . .327 
 
 b.) The Trial, with the Obstacles . . .328 
 
 {i) Sarah's Impatience .... 330 
 
 {ii) Renewed Promise .... 330 
 
 (ia) Sodom and Lot ..... 330 
 
 {iv) Sarah at Abimelech's Court . . .331 
 
 {v) Bii-th of Isaac 331 
 
 {vi) League with Abimelech . . . 331 
 
 {vii) Sacrifice of Isaac ..... 332 
 
 c.) His later Life ...... 333 
 
 4) According to Later Books ..... 333 
 
 2. Isaac; Esau 338 
 
 3. Jacob-Israel ........ 341 
 
 1) His Representative Character .... 343 
 
 2) Account in the Book of Origins .... 348 
 
 3) Life by the Foiirth Narrator 351 
 
 a.) The Birthright 352 
 
 b.) Emigration ....... 353 
 
 c.) Return 359 
 
 4) Extra-Biblical Accounts of him .... 360 
 IV. Twelve Sons and Tribes of Jacob ..... 362 
 
 1. The number Twelve ....... 363 
 
 2. Mutual Relations of the Twelve 371 
 
 3. Different Stories in Later Times ..... 376 
 V. Beginning of the Nation 381 
 
 Section II. Migration of Israel to Egypt 386 
 
 A. General Notions "-^ . 386 
 
 I. The Hyksos and the Hebrews ...... 388 
 
 II. Chronology of Israelite Migration 400 
 
 III. Concluding Inferences . . . . • • • 404 
 
 B. Joseph according to the Israelite Tradition . . . 407 
 
 I. Earliest Narrator and Book of Origins . . .412 
 
 II. Third Narrator 416 
 
 III. Fourth and Fifth Narrators 419 
 
 C. Joseph as the First-born of Israel 422
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 dN^o 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 DESIGN OF THIS HISTORY. 
 
 The history of the ancient peoj)le of Israel lies far behind us, 
 a concluded period of human events. Its last page was written 
 eighteen centuries ago ; and no one able to read it, or even to 
 decipher a few of its hardly legible characters, will expect from 
 the future a new page to complete this chapter of the world's 
 history. This is the basis of its first utility for us. For those 
 portions of universal history whose varying fortunes reach down 
 into the conflicts of the present, are in themselves more difficult 
 to survey and to describe correctly : and, even when described 
 by a historian of profound insight and impartial judgment, are 
 unwelcome to the many, whose eye is dazzled by the illusions, 
 and whose sympathies are bound up with the chances of the 
 day. Any one who should now write the history of Hanover 
 since the year 1830, might be doing a work which would benefit 
 an unprejudiced posterity; but at present, though he spoke 
 with the tongues of angels, he would speak to the winds. But 
 even when the history is further removed as to time, the truth 
 is less likely to find a fruitful soil, if the people or the constitu- 
 tion which it concerns is the same. Thus many very learned 
 Germans are incapable of understanding even the Middle Ages, 
 or the time of the Reformation — periods which are yet far re- 
 moved from our present position and requirements. The case is 
 entirely different with those portions of history which we not 
 only find completely finished and irreversibly sentenced, but 
 which do not immediately concern our country and people, or 
 our constitution and religion. There every passion and strife is 
 for ever hushed for us ; we are no longer fellow-actors on that 
 stage, compelled by the inevitable arrangements of the play to 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 2 DESIGN OF THIS HISTORY. 
 
 represent our respective i^arts only : but we stand afar off as 
 mere spectators, and tranquilly let the whole great drama pass 
 before us, through all its perplexities and denouements, down 
 to its final close. There the manifest results of the once varied 
 and complicated play have long ago written down its great 
 moral, in generally intelligible and eternal characters, which no 
 one can refuse to study ; so that, though the successful investi- 
 gation of histories thus remote may cost more trouble than the 
 ■writing of the history of our own time, its utility for the present 
 may be so much the greater. For though the study of these 
 remote histories is in the first instance only an exercise of the 
 eye and the judgment, which strengthens the better disposed, 
 and directs others to surprising truths which they will not see in 
 the present ; yet this silent influence will go deeper, and affect 
 decisions and acts also — and the past, with its struggles and its 
 lessons, will not have been in vain for us. The most evident 
 and certain truths of history are found here in abundance, and 
 above all dispute. 
 
 This history is, moreover, that of an original people, whose 
 best age belongs to remote antiquity, and which, though con- 
 stantly in close contact with many other peoples, followed out, 
 with the strictest independence and the noblest effort, a pecu- 
 liar problem of the human mind to its highest j)oint, and did 
 not perish until that was attained. The history of the an- 
 tiquity of all nations that have in anywise raised themselves 
 to a lofty stage of human effort, in general not only shows us 
 the rudiments of the same mental powers and arts which 
 still exist, more or less pursued and developed, among our- 
 selves ; but also leads us, tlrrough more perfect knowledge 
 of their origin and formation, to a nearer view into their 
 necessity and their eternal conditions. For it will always be 
 instructive to discern how polity, laws, poetry, literature, and 
 similar intellectual possessions, have developed themselves in 
 a nation, when they spring from no idle imitation and half- 
 repetition, but from impulses and powers inherent in the nation, 
 and therefore with all freshness and energy. Nay, such study 
 is indispensable, to preserve us from being overwhelmed or 
 confused by the great wealth, or endless wilderness, of tra- 
 ditionary thoughts and secondhand cleverness, with which 
 later times are inundated, and to elevate us again to what is 
 original, independent, and necessary. Now ancient nations are 
 generally distinguished by a greater restriction as to sj}ace and 
 place, by a narrow attachment to their own sanctuary and 
 country, by a shy fear of what is strange, and a strict scpa-
 
 DE^IGX OF THIS HISTORY. 3 
 
 ration according to religions, customs, and views :' for tlie rapid 
 communication of distant lands with eacli other, and the fre- 
 quent interchange of opinions, doctrines, and worships, date, 
 with trivial exceptions, from the latest centuries of antiquity, 
 which altogether display a great resemblance to what we call 
 modern times. One consequence of this excessive self-enclosure 
 of each nation, with its inherited possessions and its favourite 
 views, was that each more easily adopted its own characteristic 
 aim and activity. For as, in consequence of this very isolation, 
 tlie religions and gods were infinitely various, and every ener- 
 getic j)eople conceived itself to dwell in the centre of the earth, 
 and regarded the world only from its own point of view f so it 
 formed its peculiar estimate of the prizes of life, and pursued 
 what appeared to it the highest aims in its own special way. 
 Everything was on this account more domestic, more hearty, 
 more limited — and therefore also more varied and manifold. And 
 as the intellectual aims, contests, and victories possible to the 
 mind are numerous and diverse, we see that every nation that 
 pursued a lofty career in the open arena of such aspirations, 
 chose one special high aim, which became the pivot of everything 
 in it, and which, even under frequent intercourse with foreigners, 
 was never relinquished. But because every nobler nation, to 
 which the happiness of thus aspiring was early allotted, then 
 devoted the whole youthful energy of its intellectual eiforts to 
 the attainment of this one aim, and ]_3ursued that sole good which 
 was its chief end with courageous pertinacity to the uttermost — 
 nay often at hrst with truly Titanic efforts : those wonderful 
 results were produced — those finished works of some nations of 
 antiquity, of which history tells, and the effects of which still 
 endure. Thus Babylonians, Indians, Chinese, Egyptians, Phe- 
 uicians, Greeks, and Komans, each under favourable circum- 
 stances, pursued one particular aim — to a height which in some 
 respects no subsequent nations have ever again reached. And 
 even when each nation reached its highest ascent, and its day 
 began to decline, it was still occupied in the exclusive pursuit, 
 as if all its energies had just sufficed to reach that one height. 
 The problems of the human mind, moreover, which these ancient 
 nations have severally solved with wonderful independence and 
 consistency have borne infinite fruits for all subsequent times, 
 and for the most different and distant peoples. This whole truth 
 especially applies to that ancient nation whose histor}^ is to be 
 
 ' Observe how Amos (vii. 17), Ilosea regard sojoiu-n in foreign connlries. (See 
 
 (ix. 3), and other similar prophets call Ewald's I'sabnen, 2nd ed. pp. 183 et seq.) 
 every foreign land polluted or nnholy ; - Ci)mi>aro Ezek. v. ö ; the Koran, Sur. 
 
 and how tlio poets of the seventh century ii. 137. 
 
 B 2
 
 4 DESIGN OF THIS HISTORY. 
 
 explained here : for the most sublime and gigantic achievements 
 of Israel as a nation especially belong to those primitive times, 
 which also hold in their obscurity all that the Babylonians, 
 Egyptians, and Phenicians attained. 
 
 The ancient people of Israel had, indeed, times in which it 
 appeared disposed to prosecute similar aims to those pursued 
 by other nations. Under David and Solomon it laid a firm 
 basis for external dominion over the nations of the earth, out of 
 which an Assyrian or a Roman Empire might perhaps have 
 grown : in the vigour of its temporal power, it attempted to 
 rival the Phenicians in commerce and navigation ; and by its 
 own energies it advanced quite as far as the Greeks before 
 Socrates towards producing an independent science or philo- 
 soj)hy.' But all such aims, by which other nations of antiquity 
 became great, in this people only started up to yield at once to 
 the pursuit of another aim, which it had beheld so distinctly fi-om 
 the commencement of its historical consciousness, and toiled 
 after so strenuously, that permanently to abandon it was im- 
 possible ; which, therefore, after every momentary cessation, it 
 always resumed with fresh pertinacity. This aim is Perfect Ee- 
 ligion — a good which all aspiring nations of antiquity made a 
 commencement, and an attempt, to attain ; which some, the 
 Indians and Persians for example, really laboured to achieve 
 v/ith admirable devotion of noble energies ;^ but which this 
 people alone clearly discerned from the beginning, and then 
 pursued for many centuries through all difl&culties, and with the 
 utmost firmness and consistency, until they attained it, so far as, 
 among men and in ancient times, attainment was possible. The 
 beginning and end of the history of this people turn on this one 
 high aim ; and the manifold changes, and even confusions and 
 perversities, which manifest themselves in the long course of the 
 threads of its history, always ultimately tend to the solution of 
 this great problem, which the human mind was to work out 
 here. The aim was lofty enough to concentrate the highest 
 eflPorts of a whole people for more than a thousand years, and 
 to be reached at length as the prize of the noblest struggles. 
 And as, however the mode of the pursuit might vary, it was this 
 single object that was always pursued, till finally attained only 
 with the political death of the nation, there is hardly any his- 
 
 ' Concerning tho latter, sco the third " To prove tliis more at length docs not 
 
 volume of this work, and the Essay ' On fall within the province of the present 
 
 Israel's Civil and Intellectual Li])erty in work — at any rate, does not belong to its 
 
 the time of tho Great Prophets,' in Ewald's commencement. I shall, however, touch 
 
 Jahrbuch dir Biblischen Wissenschaft, holuw on some part of the subject. 
 1818, pp. 95 et seq.
 
 DESIGN OF THIS IIISTORV. 5 
 
 tory of equal compass that possesses, in all its phases and varia- 
 tions, so much intrinsic unity, and is so closely bound to a 
 single thought pertinaciously held, but always developing- itself 
 to higher purity. The history of this ancient peoj^le is in reality 
 the history of the growth of true religion, rising through all 
 stages to perfection ; pressing on through all conflicts to the 
 highest victory, and finally revealing itself in full glory and 
 power, in order to spread irresistibly from this centre, never 
 again to be lost, but to become the eternal possession and bless- 
 ing of all nations. 
 
 The quest of the true religion was without doubt the task of 
 all the nations of antiquity at the commencement, no less than 
 during the course, of their progressive civilisation. But this 
 peoj)le is the only one which from the very first plays its part 
 on the grand stage of national movements, simply in consequence 
 of its daring to find its earthly existence and honour only in 
 true religion as the rule and law of its life. And although, 
 through the discreetness and humility of its religion, it never 
 regarded itself as one of the oldest and inightiest nations U2:)on 
 earth, but always remained conscious of its historical position 
 among far earlier and greater nations ; yet the true commence- 
 ment of its importance in the world's history, compared with 
 that of most other distinguished nations, goes back to a 
 relatively very early period. But, even in that early age, its 
 religion could be formed only in close contact with a very 
 difitrent people, possessing not only a higher antiquity and 
 importance, but also a very early adoption of the refinements of 
 civilisation. Still, since the people of the present history 
 had received its most precious and important though scattered 
 recollections from that early time of its origin, long before it 
 became, through the bold conception of true religion, really 
 a people of historical significance, this history stretches back 
 in its first threads even to those primeval times when, like 
 every other human aim, religion itself was less unfolded, 
 and heathenism had not so far degenerated, and when in 
 consequence the rudiments of true religion could acquire an 
 easier and a firmer basis. But, as is well known, this people 
 separated at a very early period from the Egyptians, the then 
 representatives of higher human civilisation ; and through the 
 conception of true religion not only conquered at once a problem 
 new in antiquity, affecting its inner life and continuous existence 
 on the earth, but obtained a beautiful country as its home, and 
 a voice among the nations. Still, after that, it remained in 
 constant and close communion with the most intellectually dis-
 
 6 DESIGN OF THIS HISTORY. 
 
 tinguislied and stirring nations of the western lialf of tlie civi- 
 lised world, and even exerted an influence upon tliem, and was 
 stimulated and guided in return. And if tliis people — which, 
 the lonofer it remained true to its religion in the midst of the 
 nations, could not but become the more peculiar and strange — 
 never for any long period maintained a superiority over others 
 in arms, arts, or commerce, yet it preserved itself through 
 all the earlier centuries in honourable independence and free 
 progressive development, through the power of its true reli- 
 gion, Avhich gained strength with age. And, finally, in that 
 which was from the first at once the most strange and the rarest 
 thing in antiquity, it acquired sufficient strength to preserve 
 itself when its material powers were shattered in this thousand 
 years' struggle, and to enter through dire national ruins, new- 
 born with the true religion into those last centuries of antiquity, 
 when all the western nations came into closest contact with 
 almost all the eastern, even the most remote. Even then, in 
 the closing scene of all antiquity, it still maintained its place, 
 reacting ujDon the world through its spiritual power, and thus 
 gaining the only end then conceivable. 
 
 The ultimate attainment of perfect true religion was at once 
 the highest and noblest aspiration of antiquity, and a goal in 
 striving to reach which most lost their way far too early ; others, 
 who had descried the mark more clearly, eventually lost it 
 altogether from their sight ; and this one people alone, at the 
 end of a two-thousand years' struggle, actually attained it. 
 But as this mark was from the very first held out before the 
 whole of antiquity as the noblest aim, apparently by clear 
 Divine predestination, and yet was attainable only by a single 
 path ; so the historj^ of this people, so far as it had this aim 
 from the first, and coming gradually nearer, ultimately attained 
 it, always seems to proceed in a straight line through the 
 Avhole of antiquity, though distracted by constant contact with 
 other and highly civilised nations. Thus its history stretches 
 from the very commencement of the scarcely discernible dawn 
 of antiquity, shares the full noonday beam Avhich lights up the 
 history of a few of the most prominent ancient nations, and 
 ceases only with the termination of the long day of ancient 
 history, to give place to the coming of a new day of the world's 
 history. The history of no other ancient people is therefore, 
 with all its internal movements, so closely interwoven with the 
 loftiest spiritual endeavours of other highly civilised nations, or 
 so necessarily passes into universal history ; or while preserving 
 its form, internal unity, and consistency, undergoes such variety
 
 DESIGN OF THIS lIlSTÜRV. 7 
 
 and such complete alteration of external form. No nation lias 
 so significantly kept on its course througli the three vast epochs 
 of the past, radiating out ever, in the course of two thousand 
 years, from the smallest and most insignificant into ever-widen- 
 ing circles, and closing the day of antiquity with a sunset which 
 is itself the earnest of the uj)springing of a new and still loftier 
 life. Issuing from the same source as that of other nations 
 near it both in position and in blood, this histor}^, as regards its 
 inner significance, separates itself in progress of time more and 
 more from them, and develops itself into a peculiar form, which 
 enables it at last to irrigate them with ever ampler and purer 
 streams. 
 
 To describe this history, therefore, as far as it can be known 
 in all its discoverable remains and traces, is the design of this 
 work ; and its best commendation will be, that it describes it 
 •with the greatest fidelity as it really was. It needs no em- 
 bellishment or exaggeration : its subject is sublime enough in 
 itself ; and its chief glory lies in the fact, that posterity feel its 
 last influences and fruits, even when they know or acknowledge 
 it least. But just as little cause has it to dread the strictest 
 investigation of all its parts ; since the profoundest examina- 
 tion — even though it should destroy ever so many later errone- 
 ous views about particular subjects of this history — will enable 
 us to discern, with greater and greater distinctness and cer- 
 tainty, its actual course from beginning to end, the vital 
 coherence of its parts, and, in them, its true and unrivalled 
 greatness. To examine a projiosed historical theme without 
 any foolish fear, but with a hearty love of the subject, and the 
 single assumption that everything, when correctly understood, 
 has its reason and its value ; with no inflexible ulterior precon- 
 ceptions, but a generous appreciation and joyful welcome for 
 all true and great results — this is tlie universal law of every 
 historian. Conscientiousness demands that this principle should 
 be observed here too, and that nothing foreign should intrude 
 from any quarter whatever. Even the few remarks just made 
 on the unparalleled importance of this history, are to be re- 
 garded here, at the outset, only as a conclusion, the proofs of 
 which will be adduced in the investigation of the facts them- 
 selves. But the reader's own ex^^erience ought to teach him 
 that the appreciation which this history meets with is high and 
 cordial in proportion as the knowledge of its original features 
 is minute and exact. Those who do not investigate it, or who 
 examine it in the wrong way, or in auywise imperfectly, are in 
 the end its worst enemies.
 
 8 DESIGN OF THIS HISTORY. 
 
 Like every history wliicli readies back into remote antiquity, 
 this especially lies before ns only in scattered notices and 
 monuments — here in faint hardly discernible traces, there in 
 simple lofty ruins, which stand out amidst the desolation, and 
 strike every eye ; and the farther back its beginnings ascend 
 into the primitive times, the more does every sure trace seem 
 to vanish. The common view overlooks those unobtrusive 
 traces on the ground, and clings only to the smooth sides of 
 the huge blocks of stone, which rise in bold relief in this region. 
 Many enquirers of modern times, however, who give themselves 
 the air of being very wise and circumspect, not only scorn to 
 j)ursue the modest traces on the ground — preferring the mazes 
 of their own invention — but will surrender even such a lofty 
 and conspicuous j)ei'Sonage as Moses the Man of God, and in 
 cowardly indolence retire altogether from the examination of 
 these scattered monuments. But it is not thus that this history 
 can become alive again among us as it ought, and can yield us 
 its proper fruit : in this way any great single phenomena that 
 are fortunate enough to be noticed at all, are left as isolated 
 and obscure as undeciphered hieroglyphics. It is only when the 
 investigation indefatigably pursues with equal zeal everything 
 that has been preserved and can be understood, and cheerfully 
 follows out the faint and hidden traces also, that what is dead 
 is recalled to life, and what is isolated enters into its necessary 
 coherence. Even what appears the most inconsiderable ftict in 
 itself, may become an important or indispensable link in the 
 chain ; and a spark which lies unnoticed in the way, often 
 serves, when raised up and properly directed, to illuminate a 
 confused mass lying round about. 
 
 Nor should the difficulties which meet us here in extra- 
 ordinary force, to say nothing of the more easily discarded mass 
 of errors created in modern times, deter us from such investi- 
 gation. There are many portions of this long and diversified 
 history for which we possess but few sources : the farther back 
 we trace its most remarkable original features and fundamental 
 impulses, the more scanty is their stream ; for large portions 
 of it we find only brief notices and secondary authorities ; and 
 even the sources which are now accessible, are often hard to 
 understand and to apply to their proper use. But even these 
 scanty means, well applied and carefully used, are able to 
 accomplish more than from a superficial estimate would be 
 supposed. One sure step, once taken, of itself leads us on ftirther 
 and fartlier ; the sparks set in motion on all sides, and flying 
 together, kindle an unexpected light. And while no great
 
 DESIGN OF THIS HISTORY. 9 
 
 obscurity can thus rest over main points, it is a gain if tliose 
 portions which remain obscure are only marked out more dis- 
 tinctly for future research and ilhistration, shouki such be 
 possible. As the linguist, from a few specimens of an ancient 
 or modern dialect, settles its position in the great chart of the 
 languages of the earth ; as the naturalist, from a few distiuct 
 Ijhenomena, forms a conclusion as to the whole, — so too the 
 historian must exercise the art of correctly arranging, and 
 laying in their proper sequence, all the infinitely scattered and 
 various traditions from remote antiquity, and then proceed to 
 form further deductions from a few certain traces and testi- 
 monies, so as to piece together again the scattered and decayed 
 members of the ruined whole into greater completeness and 
 distinctness. To overlook and despise this history altogether, 
 to avoid all questions or opinions about it, is surely impossible ; 
 and in modern times every one is proud of any sort of investi- 
 gation into the antiquity which has become so obscure to us 
 now : why then should we not endeavour, one after another, 
 boldly to conquer all the difficulties, and to recognise every 
 truth as perfectly and as surely as is now possible ? 
 
 There are especially two means which, proj)erly applied, may 
 happily complete the imperfect notices of many periods : the 
 uniform use of all sorts of sources accessible to us, and the 
 constant attention to all, even the most diverse, phenomena in 
 the varying conditions of the people. As long as we use only 
 the historical portions of the Old Testament, but lack the 
 skill to employ the infinitely rich and (if judiciously used) ex- 
 tremely reliable and distinct prophetical and poetical portions, 
 much must be utterly lost to the substance as well as to the 
 elucidation of this history, which, if adroitly fitted into the 
 other notices and indications, would often fill up perceptible 
 gaps in a surprising manner. It may rather, indeed, be laid 
 down as an axiom, that these sources, hitherto almost totally 
 neglected, universally deserve the first rank ; because they 
 speak most directly the feelings of their age, and show us in 
 the clearest mirror the genuine living traits of the events to 
 which they allude. In fact, the historians of the Old Testa- 
 ment themselves acknowledge the high value of these sources, 
 since they, like the Arabian annalists, frequently cite songs, and 
 have adopted much from the prophetical books into their works. 
 Moreover, so long as the historian devotes his chief attention 
 to the conspicuous affairs of state and war, and neglects to 
 investigate those branches of the activity and aspiration of the 
 nation which flourish in modest obscurity, as well as all its
 
 10 DESIGN OF THIS HISTORY. 
 
 changing circumstances in their chronological succession, he 
 will never comprehend the history in its full truth ,and im- 
 jDortance. It is only when we draw into this circle, not only 
 the history of the religion, literature, and arts of the people, 
 but also all the most important parts of what is called archeo- 
 logy, and attempt, from all discoverable traces and testimonies, 
 to discern the true life and character of each period, that we 
 can hope to draw a not altogether unsatisfactory picture of this 
 great and comprehensive history. 
 
 The series of these narratives cannot indeed be related as 
 smoothly as a European history of the last few centuries. The 
 various sources of this history are as yet too little estimated 
 according to their respective value, for this ; much also stands 
 too isolated in the wide circle to be unhesitatingly admitted, 
 without an exposition of the reasons for a decided opinion 
 about it : all of which chiefly aj^plies to the older j)eriods, which 
 yet in many respects contain the sublimest and most peculiar 
 elements of the history. Although there is much which, having 
 been already sufficiently discussed elsewhere, I shall admit 
 without further disquisition, and much which I shall notice 
 as briefly as possible, nevertheless a large portion of this work 
 will necessarily consist of a general and particular investigation 
 into the sources. But such enquiries are most advantageously 
 interwoven where an attempt is made at the same time, to 
 reconstruct a whole province of history by a correct valuation 
 of the sources : and to know the rig^ht reasons for fixino- the 
 events and epochs of remote histories, is to comprehend the 
 histories themselves. 
 
 Further, there is no need, on the threshold of this work, 
 to state at length that the true commencement of this history, 
 which comes to its close with Christ, begins with Moses 
 (although the mighty advance achieved in the time of Moses, 
 which is the basis of all subsequent developments, presujjposes 
 the sojourn of Israel in Egypt as the first step in this direction) ; 
 nor to show that this history passes through three great 
 successive periods from its commencement, until its course is 
 run and its final close attained — externally indicated by the 
 successive names of Hebrews, Israelites, and Jews, the people 
 itself being a different one in each of these periods ; nor, further, 
 that what precedes the sojourn in Egyj)t, as being foreign to 
 this domain, belongs to the preliminary history of the nation, 
 and might be called its primitive history. All this could not 
 now be briefly explained with sufficient clearness, but wiU dis- 
 tinctly apx^ear in the course of the history itself.
 
 SOURCES OF THE EARLY HISTORY. ^ 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 SOUECES OF THE EAELY HISTORY. 
 
 As Israel at length loses its separate national existence in 
 that of other nations, and disappears as a j)eople, the facts of 
 its later history are derived in increasing copiousness from the 
 history of those foreign nations. This is not the place to enter 
 beforehand into a general description of these sources of the 
 later history, whether derived from heathen or other writers. 
 The general A^aluation of such sources, inasmuch as they only 
 occasionally concern our subject, belongs elsewhere ; and their 
 peculiar character, in so far as they give more precise views 
 about Israel and its history, cannot be shown until we treat 
 this later history itself. We shall then see how, on the gradual 
 absorption of Israel into other nations, the heathen came to 
 think of Israel, and Israel of them. It is also to be remem- 
 bered, that, on account of the greater proximity and abundance 
 of sources, the later passages of this history are much easier to 
 understand than the earlier. It is the most ancient portions 
 ■ — the most important for the correct understanding of the 
 whole — which are the obscurest : not only because the early 
 stages of everything historical are to an ordinary eye dark in 
 proportion as the original forces mysteriously working there 
 are powerful, but also because the sources of information are 
 there scantier and obscurer. 
 
 Nor can I here discuss what the monuments and writings of 
 foreign nations offer incidentally for the elucidation of portions 
 of the ancient history of Israel. Important and instructive as 
 much of it is, it always concerns separate passages only of this 
 history, and will therefore be best appreciated where these 
 occur. It docs not, indeed, belong to this place to substantiate 
 coiTect notions about these foreign sources at all. 
 
 What the soil of the Holy Land displays on its present 
 surface, has been examined with growing diligence, though by 
 no means adequately, in modern times. But that which is 
 buried in it, beneath the rubbish of thousands of years, and 
 which is possibly of great value for history, is yet unexplored ;
 
 12 SOURCES OF THE EARLY HISTORY. 
 
 and cannot well be otherwise, so long as the great Christian 
 States pursue their present various but equally mistaken policies 
 towards Islam, and only foster the great injustice and unjust 
 pre;iudices from which it sprang. 
 
 Prodiofious and numerous relics of g-ig-antic architecture and 
 other handicrafts, such as we possess in the monuments of the 
 Egyptians and of some other ancient nations, w^e shall look for 
 in vain in the territory of Israel, either below or above ground ; 
 because their external power and glory was never of long dura- 
 tion nor of any considerable extent, and moreover in course of 
 time became rarer and rarer. Another characteristic feature 
 of this nation is that the most important evidences of its 
 history are not found engraved on the rocks, as in the case of 
 the Egyptians, Assyrians, and Persians. 
 
 The most important sources, thei-efore, which the peoj^le 
 itself furnishes for its early history, are its written documents, 
 and these are the most considerable that can be found for the 
 history of any ancient people. It is only in cases in which 
 something like a complete and varied literature of an ancient 
 nation has been preserved, that we are able to attain a reliable 
 and perfect knowledge of the depths of its intellectual life. 
 The Bible, however, with its uncanonical appendages, preserves 
 to us in small compass very various and important portions of 
 such a literature ; and thus affords for this history an abundance 
 of wellsprings, with which no other equally ancient nation of 
 high cultivation can vie. It could not, indeed, well have been 
 otherwise, if the highest power that moved in the history of 
 this people and made it immortal, was true religion itself; for 
 this is a force which alwaj^s acts on both literature and art, 
 and can only easily perpetuate itself in such written monuments 
 of eternal meaning. I have elsewhere shown how the propheti- 
 cal and poetical parts of this literature are to be regarded, in an 
 historical point of view ; ^ but the historical books, which sujjply 
 almost the only materials for many periods, must here be sub- 
 mitted to a special enquiry, which must be exhaustive in itself, 
 and the results of which will always be assumed throughout 
 the sequel. These historical books, at the same time, most 
 distinctly show us in what relation the ancient j)eople stood 
 to the art and appreciation of history generally ; and on what 
 level all historical composition originally commenced among 
 them, and then continued to advance. Here therefore, before 
 
 ' In Die Propheten des Alten Bundes 183.5-39, 4 vols. 8vo.), some volumes of 
 (Stuttgardt, 1840, 2 vols. 8vo.) and Die which have subsequently gone through a 
 Poetischen Bücher des A. B. (Göttingen, second and a third edition. — Transl.
 
 THE STORY AND ITS FOUNDATION. 13 
 
 we can trace even the rudiments of historical Avriting in Israel, 
 we must set out from a consideration of the ultimate basis 
 which it found preexistent — nay, which every historical writin«]^ 
 even now really finds already there, before it begins its busi- 
 ness. It is by the accurate discrimination of tradition and 
 history, first of all, and then by the distinct appreciation of the 
 relation which the historical books of the Old Testament bear 
 to both, that we must gain the first step towards any sure 
 treatment of a great portion of the history itself, as well as 
 towards a just estimate of the historical books which have been 
 preserved. 
 
 A. THE STORY AND ITS FOUNDATION. TRADITION. 
 
 One of the primary duties of every historical enquiry, and of 
 every historical composition springing therefrom, is to distin- 
 guish the story from its foundation, or from that which has 
 occasioned it, and thus to discover the truth of what actually 
 occurred. Our ultimate aim is the knowledge of what really 
 happened — not what was only related and handed down by 
 tradition, but what was actual fact. Such a fact, however, if 
 it is anything really worthy of history, will always, however 
 wonderful it may be, form a link in a larger chain of events, 
 and, in its effects at least, leave unmistakeable traces behind 
 it ; and when all that surprises us, or appears at first sight im- 
 possible, can thus be known and proved from independent testi- 
 mony, the doubts about it disappear, and it becomes in a strict 
 sense an historical possession. 
 
 A momentous event is very independent of the story about it, 
 which only arises as a faint counterpart, and propagates itself 
 as a variable shadow of it — an image that we must do all we 
 can to warm into life, if we wish to approach the event with a 
 vivid sense of the reality. Even when we receive an account 
 from an eyewitness, we must test it by itself, and by other 
 stories about tlife same occurrence which may be in circulation, 
 in order to obtain a correct picture : how much more necessary 
 must it be then, to discriminate between the story and its 
 foundation, when the narrative has passed through several 
 hands or periods, or we find several discrepant accounts of the 
 same event ! At any rate, we of later times, who receive such 
 various stories and from such distant ages and countries, cannot, 
 for the sake of our main object — namely, instruction for our 
 guidance in life from the light of history — elude a labour which
 
 14 THE STORY AXD ITS FOUXDATIOX. 
 
 dispels only the caricatures of liistorj^, and restores its living 
 features with greater vividness and perfection. 
 
 Now we apply the name Tradition {^Sage) to the story as it 
 primarily arises and subsists without foreign aid, before the 
 birth of the doubting or enquiring spu'it. As such, it is the 
 commencement and the native soil of all narrative and all his- 
 tory, just as a deep religious feelmg is always the germ and basis 
 of all high conception of history. For that reason, it possesses 
 a peculiar character and a life of its own, which develops itself 
 the more freely the less its opposite, critical history, is mani- 
 fested ; and therefore it made the greatest progress, and became 
 most independent, in the early antiquity of all nations. We 
 cannot be too mindful of the fact that, in contrast to our 
 modern time, tradition is, as to origin, spirit, impulse, and con- 
 tents, a thing per se, which may indeed — in its simplest shape 
 at least — under similar conditions, be formed in any place and 
 time, but which (like so much else) only once developed itself in 
 all its capabilities— namely, at the beginning of all history, and 
 in nations which early aspired to high culture. To these it was 
 a rich treasury of memories, and an inexhaustible source of 
 amusement and insti'uction. In our brief account of it here, 
 however, we always specially refer to the form in which it 
 appears in the Old Testament. 
 
 I. Tradition is formed by the cooperation of two powers of 
 the mind — Memory and Imagination. But the circle where its 
 play is most vivid, and its preservation most faithful, is at first 
 very narrow, and may easily remain so even down to a later 
 period. This circle is the home, the family, the throng of like- 
 minded men, or in its greatest extent, in antiquity es]3ecially, 
 one single nation. When therefore, in the remote past, nation 
 was very sharply separated from nation, each had its peculiar 
 traditions, and each developed any given tradition in its peculiar 
 way ; and the shaping due to national character must therefore 
 be admitted as an essential feature in all these traditions. And 
 since the older and more peculiar a people is, the more its 
 religion influences its national character, one can easily under- 
 stand how powerfully the true religion of the people of Israel 
 must have preserved their traditions from degenerating into 
 falsehood and exaggeration. Yet even this religion could not 
 change the very nature and purport of the traditions ; indeed, 
 generally speaking, tradition possesses too great inherent power 
 to be thus constrained ; and its power had moreover gained the 
 upper hand in the nation long before the higher religion arose 
 and began to take root. Accordingly it is needful, even in tlie
 
 TRADJTIOX. 15 
 
 present instance, to pursue this subject further, that we may 
 obtain a deeper insight into the extent to which tradition in- 
 fluenced preeminently the early history of Israel. 
 
 1. An event, whether experienced or heard by report, makes 
 a first powerful impression on the imagination. This is often 
 the truest impression that it can produce ; but so long as the story 
 remains stationary there, in the mere imagination, it is still 
 only tradition. It commonly remains a considerable time at 
 that stage, however, without being fixed by writing; nay, it 
 may even continue to develop itself for a time in spite of 
 Avriting ; for in ancient times, when the abundance and anima- 
 tion of tradition were great, writing had not so rapid an effect ; 
 indeed even now there are conditions in which its influence is 
 small. Wlien an event is very far removed as to time, the 
 imagination forms only an indistinct idea of it, even though it 
 have passed into written record, or live in accredited history. 
 Thus the imagiiiation is an agent in the formation of tradition, 
 and the latter has its most fruitful soil where the former 
 predominates. But the substance of tradition finds its store- 
 house in the memory alone for a longer or shorter time. The 
 memory, however, as the only treasury of tradition, labours 
 under many weaknesses ; but easily discerns them, and more or 
 less consciously employs several auxiliaries to remove them. 
 
 1) The memory will indeed faithfullj^ receive and retain the 
 striking incidents that have passed through not more than two 
 or three hands, but as the tradition advances the minuter cir- 
 cumstances must be gradually obliterated. It is difiicult to form 
 a correct idea of the circumstances under which a great event 
 budded and reached maturity, since the eye is more attracted 
 by the beaming light than the dark ground from which it shot 
 forth : but when the first vivid impression has faded away and 
 gone for ever, the bright centre of a great event will still more 
 throw its outer sides into shade. The memory of a very signal 
 event would at last survive only in a very barren and scanty 
 form, if no reaction subsequently arose. 
 
 But this reaction is not always wanting. For the imperfect 
 dress in which an important event is handed down cannot 
 satisfy every one and for ever ; and the lively imagination of 
 the relator and auditor, rather than leave it so bare, will 
 endeavour to supply the missing details. But when it is no 
 longer possible to complete the story by referring to the original 
 authority, it is left to the imagination of the relator to fill in 
 the attendant circumstances ; and this is one main source of 
 that discrepancy which is a characteristic of tradition. Trivial
 
 16 THE STORY AXD ITS FOUNDATION. 
 
 variations of tliis sort are easily found tlirongliout the tradi- 
 tional portions of the Bible ; but nothing- so well shows the 
 extent to which they may run, as the fact that a story, essen- 
 tially the same and sprung- from one occurrence, is multiplied, 
 by successive changes in the details, into two or more discordant 
 narratives, which, being produced in different places and then 
 subsequently brought together, finally appear as so many dif- 
 ferent events, and as such are placed beside one another in a 
 book. This happened oftenest, of course, in such stories as 
 were most frequently repeated on account of their popular 
 subject ; as in a beautiful tradition of David's youth (1 Sam. 
 xxiv. and xxvi.), and still more markedly in a favourite tradi- 
 tion of the Patriarchal time, which is now preserved in three 
 forms (Gen. xii. 10-20, xx. and xxvi. 7-11). The same thing 
 is also met with under similar circumstances in far later times. ^ 
 
 But the spirit of the event — the imperishable and permanent 
 truth contained in it which sinks deeper into the mind the more 
 frequently it is repeated, and, through countless variations in 
 its reproductions, always beams forth like a bright ray — that 
 spirit gains even greater purity and freedom, like the sun rising 
 out of the mists of the morning. We m-ay indeed say that in 
 this respect tradition, dropping or holding loosely the more 
 evanescent parts, but preserving the permanent basis of the 
 story the more tenaciously, performs in its sphere the same 
 purification which time works on all earthly things ; and the 
 venerable forms of history, so far from being disfigured or de- 
 faced by tradition, come forth from its laboratory born again in 
 a purer light. 
 
 2) The memory, however, always tries to lighten its labour. 
 Therefore when, in the constant progress of events, new stories, 
 more important than all that went before, come crowding on 
 out of the recent present, the circle of the older traditions 
 gradually contracts, and if the accumulation of later matter is 
 very great, contracts so as at length to leave hardly anything 
 of the remoter times but isolated and scanty reminiscences. 
 Thus tradition has also a tendency to suffer the mass of its 
 records to be more and more compressed and melted away, 
 obscured and lost. This may be traced throughout the Old 
 Testament ; the Hebrew tradition about the earliest times — the 
 main features of which, as we have it, were fixed in the interval 
 
 ' Tho two nan-atives in Acts v. 19-26 of the sun standing still is made to occur 
 
 and xii. 4-11 have such a rcscmlihinco. twice, and is expressly empjiasised as 
 
 In tlio Samarifav Chronicle (chap. xx. having so occiirrod. 
 and foll.,cf. xxix. p. 118, Msc.) the miracle
 
 TRADITION. 17 
 
 from the fourth to the sixth century after Moses — still has a 
 great deal to tell about Moses and his contemporaries ; much 
 less about the long sojourn in Egy|)t, and the three Patriarchs ; 
 and almost nothing special about the primitive times which 
 preceded these Patriarchs, when neither the nation, nor even 
 its ' fathers,' were yet in Canaan. So, too, the Books of Samuel 
 relate many particvilars of David's later life j)ä.ssed in the 
 splendour of royalty, but less about his youth before he was 
 king. And everything might be thus traced by stages. 
 
 But because this tendency of tradition would in the course of 
 centuries produce its total dissipation, perhaps with the excep- 
 tion of an obscure memory of some very signal events, therefore 
 it all the more seeks some external support to sustain and 
 perpetuate itself. The most natural aids of the memory in all 
 ages, are signs ; even our letters of the alphabet and books 
 are originally nothing more, and it is only subsequently that 
 they became, by a new art, the means of speaking to those at 
 a distance. But whereas in later times, when writing has got 
 into daily use, this single means becomes universally available, 
 and makes all other auxiliaries less necessary, we have here to 
 conceive times in which writing was used but little or not at all 
 ■ — in which therefore tradition, if once subjected to this tendency 
 to lose its records, fades away more and more irresistibly, and 
 is obliged to have recourse to all j)ossible aids to preserve itself 
 from destruction. Of these aids in general there are three 
 kinds, in the following order : 
 
 a.) There are recollections which, on account of their peculiar 
 form or power, serve as supports of tradition, and which, 
 although themselves propagated by the memory, afford the 
 memory an abiding aid for preserving history. Songs have 
 this capability in a preeminent degree ; and while the charm of 
 their diction secures their own more lasting transmission, the 
 artistic fetters of their form preserve their contents more unal- 
 terably than prose can do. But great events beget a multi- 
 tude of songs, since the elevation of mind which they produce 
 awakens poets, or calls forth an emulation to celebrate memo- 
 rable incidents ; and the earliest kind of poetry, the lyrical, 
 springs so immediately from the events and thoughts which 
 agitate an age, that it reproduces the freshest and triiest 
 pictures of them. Moreover, the Hebrews and Arabs were just 
 the peoples among whom every important event and every time 
 of excitement at once generated a multitude of songs, and who 
 retained a preference for this simple kind of poetry in the later 
 stages of their civilisation. Songs therefore became a chief 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 18 THE STORY AND ITS FOUNDATION. 
 
 support of tradition ; tbey preserved many historical traits, 
 wliicli otherwise would liave been lost ; just as, conversely, the 
 historical allusions, of which sont^s are full, subsequently de- 
 manded explanation when the favourite verses were separated. 
 The propagation of songs and traditions thus went hand-in- 
 hand, and each could reciprocally illustrate the other ; but at 
 every step tradition felt that the best vouchers it could produce 
 were citations from songs. How very much this applies not 
 only to Arabian, but also to Hebrew tradition, this work will so 
 frequently prove, especially in its earlier parts, that it is super- 
 fluous to cite particular illustrations here ; but how decidedly 
 antiquity, down to the time of David, regarded songs as one of 
 the best auxiliaries of the memory, is shown by the story of 
 David's providing for the publication and transmission of his 
 dirge on Saul and Jonathan, by causing the sons of Judah to 
 learn it correctly by heart,' which would be equivalent to sending 
 it to the press in our days. 
 
 Proverbs which have an historical origin afford a similar sup- 
 port to tradition. For genuine jjopular proverbs, wliicli have 
 sprung from memorable events, do not always contain proposi- 
 tions of naked truth, but often allude to the incident which gave 
 them birth; and as they thus require bistory for their own 
 intelligibility, they preserve many historical reminiscences which 
 would otherwise be lost. That Hebrew tradition — in this resjject 
 also like that of the Arabs — leans especially on these supports, 
 is evident from cases like Gen. x. 9 and 1 Sam.x. 11. (cf. xix. 24), 
 where the proverb is cited. Some cases of this sort, however, 
 require close observation to detect them in the present form of 
 the narrative : thus the stories of Gideon and Jephthah (Judges 
 vi.-viii., xii.) would not by any means have been preserved so 
 completely, if they had not been sustained by a number of 
 proverbs. Occasionally even a new story has been formed, by 
 later development, out of a proverbial phrase about a remark- 
 able incident of antiquity ; of which the passage in Judges vi. 
 36-40 is a striking example. 
 
 To these we must add many i^roper names of ancient persons 
 and places, the meaning and interpretation of which serve as a 
 
 ' This appears to bo the meaning of scription must belong to the original 
 
 nt<*p.> 2 Sam. i. 18; for that it means Davidie portion of this Psalm. The ex- 
 
 • bow,' .and thus bcciimc a casual name of pressions in Deut. xxxi. 19 it scq. are, on 
 
 the song, is liighly improb.able from the the other hand, coloured by the Deutero- 
 
 mero connection in which it occurs; it "omist's special object, but may still 
 
 must stand for the Aramaic t^j^^p, and sig- e^i^^e the value attached in antiquity to 
 
 nify ' rightly, correctly.' There is similar ln^torical popular songs, 
 evidence in Ps. Lx. 1 [title], which super-
 
 TRADITION. 19 
 
 support of tradition. For it cannot be doubted tliat proper 
 names liad their ultimate origin in actual experience of the 
 thing stated, and therefore often changed and multiplied with 
 new experiences : whereas in later times, which stand further 
 from the living formation of language, and exercise their in- 
 tellect in other directions, they lose their original signification 
 more and more, and are propagated by mere repetition. Now 
 the times in which tradition develops itself freely, border on the 
 period of the living formation of language, and the flames of 
 things have not yet become mere external means of mutual in- 
 telligence (as they have amongst us) ; on the contrary, they 
 still mean something of themselves, and have some life of their 
 own, an intrinsic connection between the sense and the thing 
 signified being felt or assumed. Thus, then, the whole historical 
 significance of a hero lives on in tradition together with his 
 name, and with the name of an ancient place is associated the 
 memory of its origin or history. And as all names, especially 
 those from remote times, aj)peal to tradition for their interpre- 
 tation, they preserve many recollections connected with them. 
 The memory of Isaac, for instance, is in part preserved by his 
 being the ' laugher,' or the ' gentle,' as his name imports, or his 
 having something to do with laughter ; Jacob ' the cunning,' and 
 Israel ' the wrestler with God,' also appear so characterised in 
 tradition, and all books which describe the period before the 
 Kings are full of such explanations of names. On the other 
 hand, the four Books of the Kings explain many names of places,' 
 as these might more easily be given afresh in later times ; but 
 only a single personal name, that of Samuel, at the beginning 
 of the history, where the style is antique.^ In the Books of 
 Ezra and Nehemiah nothing of the kind an}- longer occurs. 
 
 But all these supports, which after all are themselves sup- 
 ported only by the memory, only avail up to a certain j)oint. 
 For the ancient songs may perish, and the historical allusions 
 which they contain become obscure, when far removed from the 
 present, and when new songs and stories have become popular. 
 The exact import of an event which gave birth to a proverb 
 may be forgotten, so that later times may explain the origin 
 of the proverb in diverse ways.^ Proper names also are capable 
 of so many meanings as to the mere literal sense, that, as soon 
 
 ' 1 Sam. vii. 12; 2 Sam. v. 20; cf. 2 24 shows; likewise the frequent disputes 
 
 Chron.xx.26, from thetimeof Jehoshaphat. of the Arabian traditionists and comnn-n- 
 
 - 1 Sam. i. 20 ; cf. 28. tators about the meaning of their cxceod- 
 
 ' As the proverb in 1 Sam. x. 11 and xix. ingly numerous ancient proverbs. 
 
 c 2
 
 20 THE STORY AND ITS FOUNDATIOX. 
 
 as the historical memoi'y grows faint, tradition may treat them 
 very variously.' The early Hebrew tradition is, indeed, parti- 
 cularly fond of explaining proper names ; but this — as will be 
 subsequently shown — is to be ascribed to a later desire to in- 
 vestigate the origins of things. It is not surprising, therefore, 
 that this artificial explanation of names becomes prevalent in 
 the later historical writings f but as the scientific explanation 
 of words was unknown to the whole of antiquity, tradition 
 always had the freest play in this respect. 
 
 How much such simple supports can achieve, even unaided by 
 others, is shown by Arabian tradition, which as that of a nomad 
 people, knows hardly any others. It is wonderful to see what 
 enormous masses of ancient songs, proverbs, genealogies, and 
 histories, gifted Arabs repeated from memory in the first 
 period after Mohammed ; ^ for the memory, Avhen left to its own 
 unaided resources, often develops an astonishing power. But 
 immense as was the mass of these reminiscences, and often 
 painted in the truest and most living colours, when they began 
 to attract the notice of Chalifs and Emirs, and to be written 
 down, they evidently reached back only a few centuries before 
 Mohammed ; any older ones that were preserved among them 
 were very fragmentary, and devoid of all exact estimate of 
 chronology. No record, therefore, that is entrusted to the mere 
 memory, embraces more than a limited period : this cannot be 
 more forcibly evinced than by the example of the Arabs, who 
 were second to no people in pride and passion for glory, and 
 probably surpassed most in strength of memory. 
 
 b.) Tradition derives another kind of support from the visible 
 •monuments of ancient history, such as altars, temples, and 
 similar memorials, which, although not designed for that 
 end, become witnesses to posterity of former great events and 
 thoughts ; or such as are purposely erected for memorials, as 
 columns and other such works, often on a gigantic scale, of times 
 destitute of heroic songs or other refined means of perpetuating 
 memory. Now it is undeniable that, when tradition developed 
 itself to its present forms, such monuments existed in Palestine, 
 
 ' The various explanations of the name ^ This is thoronglily confirmed by the 
 
 of /Ärtfvc suffice to prove this. Kifäh aJaghäni; we need not go beyond 
 
 '^ Namely in the prophetic narrators of the portions already printed, especially the 
 
 the early history, as I call them. Here, section about the traditionist Hanwiäd. 
 
 liowever, certain prophets of very early The Arabs, about whom we possess such 
 
 date had preceded them with vivid allu- minute and reliable information, may be 
 
 sions to the meaning of proper names, regarded as model illustrations of this 
 
 as that old prophet whose words Isaiah point, 
 repeats (Is. xv. 8 it seq.), and Hosea xii. 
 4, 12 [3, 11].
 
 TRADITION. 21 
 
 and, altlioiigli not so great and durable as those of Egypt, 
 were by no means few. Even in times belong-ing to the broad 
 day of history, we read of monuments erected as memorials for 
 posterity ; and of some, in the erection of which those who had 
 no historical claims to them had a pride.' We likewise read of 
 altars, or similar objects, serving as memorials of their builders 
 or the first inhabitants.^ Beyond doubt, similar things happened 
 in the time of the Patriarchs : whenever the narrative refers to 
 altars or other monuments erected by them, a real monument 
 was extant, which either actually belonged to the primitive time, 
 or to which some definite memory was attached. Some of these, 
 as the sepulchral cavern of Abraham at Hebron, Jacob's stone 
 at Bethel, and the boundary-stone erected by him and Laban at 
 Gilead,^ are of such importance that a great portion of the 
 tradition turns on them. 
 
 These external supports are of course much more durable 
 than those first described ; and there is no doubt that whenever 
 Hebrew tradition has preserved any considerable reminiscences 
 of times several centuries anterior, it has mainly been owing to 
 the erection of monuments, the history of which was treasured 
 in the memory of a proud posterity. Later ages even were 
 proud to show extraordinary relics of conquered foes.* In a 
 country, indeed, and at a period when such monuments were 
 left without inscriptions (as we shall show to have been the 
 case constantly, at least in the Patriarchal times), even these 
 supports are not always adequate, as the stories to which they 
 relate may gradually become obscure, although the same nation 
 remains in the land ; but they secure tradition from this danger 
 much longer than the first kind of supports. 
 
 c.) The firmest support of tradition, beyond doubt, is a great 
 institution, which has sprung from an historical event, and has 
 fixed itself in the whole people : such as an annually recurring 
 festival, which cannot pass without recalling the great inci- 
 
 ' Samuel commemorates the great vie- under the pretence of making himself a 
 
 tory over the Philistines, which was fol- name to supply • the place of cliildren 
 
 lowed by a long and honourable peace, by (2 8ara. xviii. 18). Such a monument is 
 
 a monum.ent on the field of battle, called called Q^, or specially ^♦, 'hand;' that 
 
 ' the Stone of Help '—that is, of victory— jg_ .^^ elevated index to attract the atten- 
 
 and from which the neighbouring country ^.j^^,^ ^f jj^^ passers-by. (Is. Ivi. 5, xix. 19, 
 
 derived its name (1 Sam. vii. 12; cf. iv. 1). . ^zek. xxi. 24 [19].) 
 
 So Saul, on his return from a victory , ^ ^.^^_ ^,- ^^ . ^ Sam. xxiv. 18, sqq.; 
 
 over Amalek, near Carmel, on the west of ^f Judges, vi. 2-1 sqq., xxi. 4. 
 
 the Dead Sea, erects a monument which "s q^^ ^^^j ^^ '' 
 
 detains iiira there some time (1 Sam. xv. , Like the iron 'bed of the ancient giant 
 
 12); so also David after his victory over ^- -^^ j^^^^ ^j^^ j^^^ ^^ Ammon. 
 
 the Syrians (2 Sam. viii. 13). Absalom /jjj^^ iii. 11.) 
 also prematurely desires this honour
 
 22 THE STORY AND ITS FOUNDATION. 
 
 dent to wliicli it owes either its origin, or at least some of its 
 attendant ceremonies. Nothing perhaps so fixed the memory 
 of the deliverance from Egypt in the popular mind, as the fact 
 that the Passover served as a commemoration of that event ; 
 and certain expressions distinctly indicate how the memory of 
 it was at this festival handed down from father to son.^ To 
 a still greater degree was the memory of the institution of the 
 community and of the encampment at Sinai sustained by the 
 permanence of the community itself and the consciousness of 
 its nature. Obliterated as the details may be, the essence and 
 basis of historical recollections such as these can perish only 
 with the institutions that have sprung from them : and nations 
 that have early had lofty aims, and achieved much, never entirely 
 lose that higher historical consciousness on which much of their 
 best strength is founded. 
 
 8) Now however many subjects the memory be supposed to 
 retain, and however faithfully their particulars be preserved, 
 yet it cannot possibly hold this huge mass in exact historical 
 connection, having already enough to do with mastering the 
 multifarious contents of the stories, and being moreover called 
 upon only when an occasion demands the repetition of a parti- 
 cular tradition out of the immense store. Tradition, therefore, 
 will retain the original historical connection and order of the 
 incidents only so long and so far as it can do so easily ; but is 
 prone to let the materials fall asunder, and so become confused 
 and intermixed. This affects first the particulars of one circle 
 of stories of the same period, then the different circles, and so 
 on ; until at length nothing remains of distant times but single 
 great ruins, which stand out on a plain of desolation, and resist 
 decay. And because tradition is careless of the close cohe- 
 rence of its materials, its circle is always open to the intrusion 
 of foreign elements. 
 
 This very tendency, however, provokes a counteraction : for 
 if tradition were alwaj'S to suffer its records to become obscure 
 and fragmentary, it would at length have great difficulty in 
 performing its own proper function. As the mind cannot be 
 satisfied with what is unconnected and obscure, tradition also 
 endeavours at length to repair and complete whatever has 
 become too isolated and obscure in its province ; and just where 
 it has been most lacerated and obscured, it makes the greatest 
 
 ' What is incidentally mentioned in Deuteronomy enforces this direction much 
 
 Exod. xiii. 8-10, 14-16, as a direction for more frequently and pointedly, as if it had 
 
 the future, was undoubtetUy something been necessary, in the time of its compo- 
 
 moro than that in the time of the author, sition, to resist a growing indiflfercnee.
 
 TRADITIOX. 23 
 
 efforts to close up tlie rents and round itself off, or even to fill 
 up the gaps from conjecture, inasmuch as it always aims at 
 being the counterpart of real history. This effort, indeed, also 
 affects the naiTation of events, since it v^ill not hesitate to fill 
 up a gap with any such transition, or minor interpolation, as 
 the context may seem to require. This prevails most in cases 
 in which the necessity is urgent ; especially : 
 
 a.) In the lists of the names of persons. For later times may, 
 indeed, preserve but few of the most important names of the 
 many heroes which were the theme of young tradition ; but 
 these, from the indispensable necessity of genealogical lists, are 
 maintained all the more firmly. Among nations which pay the 
 most zealous regard to the purity and glory of every family, 
 like the Hebrews and Arabs, the exactest and most compre- 
 hensive genealogies constitute one of the chief elements of tra- 
 dition. And though after Moses the individuality and special 
 j)rominence of families in Israel was subordinate to the higher 
 whole, yet on the other hand the importance of the hereditary 
 estates and privileges apj)ertaining to families formed an addi- 
 tional motive for still considering exact genealogical lists indis- 
 pensable.' But it was evidently too difiicult to preserve all 
 names in the lists referring to remote times ; and when, in the 
 further development of tradition, an attempt was made to carry 
 back the series of generations in the ascending line to the first 
 generations of the earth, many names were undoubtedly found 
 standing very isolated. We are still able to discern the means 
 that Hebrew tradition adopted in order to bring the disjointed 
 parts into closer coherence, and to control such large masses 
 of names. For the times from the Patriarchs down to Moses, 
 or even to David, tradition was satisfied with one member of 
 the genealogical series for a whole century, even though in 
 so doing many less celebrated names of the chain were irre- 
 parably lost. Thus the sojourn in Egypt, which is reckoned 
 at 430 years, has the four or five members of the tribe of 
 Levi (Levi, Kohath, Amram, Aaron (Moses), and Eleazar) to 
 correspond to it ; ^ and the five members of the tribe of Judah ' 
 (Pharez, Hezron, Ram, Amminadab, and Nahshon). Of kindred 
 
 ' Compare Ezra ii. 62, Neh. vii. 64, as And it was the same with the ancient 
 
 evidence of the latest times. The ancient Indians : see Max Mü/Ier's History of 
 
 AraVjs, down even to the first times of Anc. Sanskr. Lit. p. 378, et sqq. 
 Islam, had experienced and renowned ^ Exod. vi. 16-25. 
 
 ^ Ruth iv. 18-20, compared with Num. 
 
 genealogists, .,»jL.^'\ (^awi«««, p. 123), i. 7. The correct explanation of this is 
 
 from whose recollections a special branch f^imd in Gen. xv. 16, compared with verso 
 
 of literature, pedigree-tracing, grew up. 13.
 
 24 ' THE STORY AXD ITS FOUNDATION. 
 
 nature to tliis is tlie tendency wliicli tradition has to fix npon 
 a definite round number of members of a genealogical series 
 for a long period, in order to prevent one of the scattered 
 names from being lost. Ten members, each corresponding to 
 about a century, are thus reckoned for the long interval from 
 the Patriarchs to David — the ten parting in the middle into two 
 equal halves, at the great era of Moses ; ' whereas we are able, 
 from other sources, to show that more than twice as many 
 members were formerly reckoned for this very period.^ But as 
 ten generations were gradually assumed as an adequate round 
 number for the period from Jacob's twelve sons to David, so 
 likewise tradition used the same number to fill up the interval 
 from Noah's sons to Abraham's father, and, farther back still, 
 that from Noah to Adam ; ^ although this assumption required 
 more than a century to correspond to a single member. Further, 
 the remoter the times are, the more does tradition confine itself 
 to the exact coherence of the series of the chief families, and 
 neglect all but the indispensable part of the others. But when- 
 ever a knot occurs in the line — the commencement of a new 
 epoch, whence diverge a multitude of new celebrated families 
 or nations — tradition was prone to set up three equally pri- 
 vileged brothers instead of the usual single members. Thus 
 three sons, Gershom, Kohath, and Merari, proceed from Levi; 
 three, Abraham, Nahor, and Haran, from Terah, who concludes 
 the decad ; and three, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, from Noah, 
 the tenth forefather. The pattern of this, however, has not 
 been derived from the three great families of Levi, as will be 
 shown below. Further, after the knot, the line of the chief 
 family is carried on in the firstborn in the case of Noah and of 
 Terah, but not in that of Levi, where Aaron descends from the 
 second of the three ; for as individuals, the descendants of Levi 
 are much more strictly historical personages than those of Terah 
 and Noah. 
 
 The case is the same with regard to numbers, which tradition 
 is least of all able to hand down with exactness. Here also, 
 as it is always the counterpart of real history, it endeavours to 
 fill up gaps by definite assertions ; and in so doing does not 
 
 ' Ruth iv. 18-22. tho number 10 was roducod to 7 is shown 
 
 ^ We lind, namely, in 1 Chron. vi. 7-13 not only by the case of Gen. c. iv. com- 
 
 [22-28] and 18-23 [33-38], two evidently pared with v., but also by that of a still 
 
 very old traditions, according to which later period in Neh. xii. 35 compared with 
 
 there were twenty-two generations between 1 Chron. xxv. 2, where from the time of 
 
 Levi and David. Asaph to that of Nehemiah there appear 
 
 ^ Gen. xi. 10-26, and v., concerning only 7. 
 which we sliall speak subsequently. That
 
 TRADITION, 25 
 
 necessarily go far wi'ong", provided it still retains a glimmering 
 conscionsncss of the distinctions of thinofs and times. For, 
 whether a state lasted a short or a long- time, whether a hero 
 died in youth or old age, whether many or few fell in a memo- 
 rable battle, are points on which tradition easily retains some 
 consciousness. All that tradition does, then, is, that instead of 
 vague statements, it gives a roughly estimated definite number, 
 since its inmost imj)ulse forbids it to give up the distinctness 
 of actual life. It is thus that Hebrew tradition has certain 
 favourite round numbers (as 3, 7, 10, 40), of which it makes the 
 freest use, either in these original forms, or else reduced, in- 
 creased, or even multiplied, as the case requires. How far tra- 
 dition succeeds in thus restoring a coherent chronology in the 
 main, may be best shown further on from the BooJc of Judges, 
 and still more distinctly and comprehensively from the Book of 
 Origins. Ancient Hebrew tradition, however, in accordance 
 with the religious sobriety of the nation, has always been much 
 more temperate in this use of numbers than that of the Indians, 
 which makes them the sport of the freest fancy. 
 
 b.) Tradition is less liable to confuse different periods, as a 
 certain feeling of the wide separation of the ancient from the 
 more recent, as also of the essential character of long periods, 
 generally becomes so firmly fixed as rather to modify the stories 
 of individuals in distant times in conformity to the general 
 view of the whole epoch than vice versa. If tradition desires 
 to arrange and classify the immense mass of reminiscences 
 and stories of distant times, it fixes on a suitable number and 
 scale of divisions and periods, with their distinctions, according 
 to which it disposes them all. Thus it assumes the scheme of 
 four great ages, embracing all generations of men and events 
 on earth, from the creation to the present ; which exhibits a 
 remarkable accordance with the four Yugas of the Indians, 
 and is to be ascribed to. many other conspiring causes besides 
 the mere power of tradition. 
 
 Nevertheless, such means cannot always secure the recollec- 
 tions of different cycles and ages from being gradually inter- 
 mixed and confused. Thus, for example, some achievements 
 are ascribed to Samson, as the later and better-known hero, 
 the comj)lexion of which sends us back to the Patriarchal time.^ 
 Still more easily does the imagination of tradition combine later 
 incidents with earlier, when they seem to have some intrinsic 
 
 • Judges XV. 17-19.
 
 26 THE STORY AND ITS FOUNDATION. 
 
 connection, and the more recent appears to explain tlie older 
 and obscurer.^ 
 
 c.) If witli tlie desire to collect tlie scattered legends a kind 
 of artistic skill is combined, then certain favourite modes of 
 piecing together and classifying the manifold and scattered 
 materials are developed — arts hardly known, however, to the 
 simplest forms of tradition, such as those of the ancient Arabs. 
 One of the first of these means is the accumulation of kindred 
 materials, and the combination of several stories of cognate 
 import.^ Next, tradition tries to gather the loose mass of 
 scattered stories, and group them in a round number around 
 the chief subject, so as to have them all together in one series 
 and under control. As the Greek tradition reduced the labours 
 of Hercules to a definite round number, so that of the Hebrews 
 arranges the whole story of Samson in round proportions. In 
 like manner the Fourth Narrator of the Pentateuch disposes the 
 Egyj^tian plagues, and reduces them to the number ten. To 
 this head also belongs the apt disposition of diverse legendary 
 materials, so as to correspond to an internal sequence : thus 
 the legend of Jonah consists of three or four short stories, in 
 harmonious sequence and bringing the story to a natural close.^ 
 This last mode of combining traditional elements is very inge- 
 nious, and borders on the more artificial modes of restoring 
 history, which we need not here describe. 
 
 Z. As to its spirit or inner life, however, tradition rests less 
 in the understanding than in the imagination and feeling. An 
 extraordinary event affects the imagination so strongly that the 
 latter forms as extraordinary an image of it. This image may 
 be very true and striking, and at first, so long as the event 
 remains fresh in the memory, is exposed to no great abuse ; 
 but subsequently, when separated from its living reference, and 
 j)reserved as to its extraordinary outside only, may become the 
 fruitful source of misapprehensions ; of which we shall adduce 
 several examples farther on. Tradition, thus filling the imagi- 
 nation, penetrates very deeply into the mind, and occupies the 
 whole feeling, but remains stationary there without examin- 
 ing its own contents to their foundation, and expects, just as it 
 is, to sufiice for the instruction of the hearer, who receives it 
 in its simple meaning. It is at the same time possible that the 
 person who collects many traditions, may prefer those which 
 
 ' As in the case of Josh. vi. 26, 1 Kings the explanations in the Jahrbuch der 
 xvi. 34. Bibl. Wissenschaft, 1848, p. 128, sqq. 
 
 * On this and other kindred topics, see ' Die Propheten des A. B., vol. ii. p. 557,
 
 TRADITION. 27 
 
 are more agreeable or profitable in his own estimation, and thus 
 exercise a certain judgment on their contents. But so long as 
 the judgment does not embrace the whole subject, and seek 
 proofs extrinsic to all traditions, the peculiar power of tradition 
 still maintains its rights and its continuance. 
 
 This life of tradition produces special advantages. Taking 
 root in the narrow but deep realm of feeling, and never sustained 
 by the mere memory, but always by the sympathies of every 
 hearer, tradition becomes one of the most intellectual and in- 
 fluential possessions of man. Its lore, as yet undisturbed by 
 doubt, acts on the mind with so much greater force. A_nd 
 to any one who can fathom its whole meaning, and master it by 
 the right art, it offers an abundance of prophetical and poetical 
 materials ; since the world of feeling is also that of poetry, and 
 the doctrines which tradition may enshrine may, to the mind of 
 antiquity, be emphatically of the prophetic kind. The materials 
 of tradition, moreover, notwithstanding a certain uniformity, 
 are nevertheless so fluctuating (according to page 16 sq.), and 
 therefore so plastic, that the poet's art is little impeded by them ; 
 and the farther a cycle of tradition has advanced, up to a certain 
 stage, the more easily does it admit poetic treatment. And a 
 poetic breath does sensibly pervade the traditions of the Old 
 Testament ; and if, notwithstanding this, epic poetry has never 
 flourished on this field, this must be ascribed to special causes, 
 which lie beyond our province.' 
 
 But what lives chiefly in the feeling, shares its defects also. 
 Feeling is exceedingly difierent in individuals ; and therefore 
 the inner life of tradition assumes different forms with individual 
 relators, since their whole mental idiosyncrasies pass unobserved 
 into it. And as no great and permanent unity is ever produced 
 by the mere feeling, the historical import of tradition passes 
 through incalculable changes, and never attains a settled form. 
 These fluctuations will not indeed much affect the essential 
 spirit of a tradition, as described at page 16 sq., and for the 
 reason there indicated ; but may produce great varieties in the 
 conception of the same event. 
 
 Moreover, when, with altered times and circumstances, the 
 general views and opinions, which always exercise a great 
 influence on the feelings, have undergone a great change, then 
 tradition, laying aside more and more of its ancient dress, con- 
 forms itself to the later ideas, and displays even greater diversity 
 of conception than before. We can trace this in the Old 
 
 ' See the Dichter des A. B., vol. i. p. 14, sq., 50, sqq.
 
 28 THE STORV AND ITS FOUNDATIOX, 
 
 Testament, if we observe tlie diiferent forms wliicli the same 
 tradition assumes as it passes through different times and 
 countries. WHiereas, for instance, the two oldest Narrators of 
 the times before Moses in the Pentateuch have a distinct con- 
 sciousness of the difference of the state of things anterior and 
 subsequent to Moses, the later Narrators infuse into their de- 
 scription of the earlier times, a strong mixture of Mosaic ideas, 
 which in their time had penetrated much deeper into the 
 j)Oj)nlar mmd, whilst the exact recollection of the Premosaic 
 age and its different character began to grow dim. The intel- 
 lectual significance of the subject — that which interests the 
 feeling — is the element which least of all can be secured by 
 those aids and supports of tradition described at page 15 sqq. 
 
 3. But the final and crowning property of tradition is still 
 to be mentioned — that tradition only develops and fixes itself 
 originally in a narrow domestic circle. At any rate, the circle 
 of those who feel a lively interest in an event strongly affecting 
 the imagination, and also are zealous to preserve it by tradition, 
 will always be a narrow one at first. But in remote antiquity 
 every people really moved in such a narrow circle of life and 
 aim. We may therefore say that nationality is a last and very 
 important property of tradition. Like all possessions of a nation 
 on such a stage of civilisation, like its religion, its law, and its 
 view of the world, tradition is embraced by the strongest bonds 
 of nationality, and grows up with the people itself, with its 
 heroes and their antagonists, its joys and sorrows, its destinies 
 and experiences. For as a nation holds fast in tradition and 
 incorporates with its own spirit onlj- what appears worthy of 
 perpetual memory from its accordance with its own peculiar 
 life and aim, the best part of its knowledge of itself and of its 
 early-appointed destiny lives in tradition ; and as, in such 
 times, the religion of each people belongs to its nationality, 
 so their tradition is full of the meaning and life of their pe- 
 culiar religion. To this cause tradition owes its chief import- 
 ance : it is one of the most sacred and domestic possessions 
 of every people, its pride and its discijDline, an inexhaustible 
 source of instruction and admonition for every succeeding gene- 
 ration. 
 
 Now a noble people which has already passed through a 
 history pervaded by a certain elevation of j^urpose, will, by the 
 purifying influence of tradition (described at page 16), have 
 presented to it the great personages to whom it owes its eleva- 
 tion under even purer and more brilliant aspects, and find them 
 a source of perpetual delight. But in eases where the memory
 
 TRADITION. 
 
 29 
 
 of such lofty examples has, by the lapse of centuries and in- 
 ternal changes, lost much of its original circumstantiality, and 
 distinctness, and only survives in a few grand isolated traits 
 this memory w^iJl generally become all the more plastic, assimi- 
 lating to itself the new great thoughts which now constitute 
 the aspiring people's aim, and, when thus ingeniously modified 
 through their influence, be born again into the beauty of a new 
 life. For we are also to take into account, that no aspirins peoijle 
 can dispense with ideals surj)assing the most favourable imao-e 
 of its actual life, in which it beholds the realisation of that 
 better state which it has in part achieved, in part has jet to 
 accomplish, and in which it sees its better self. And as the eye 
 that seeks that ideal, and finds it not in the present, sometimes 
 looks forward into the future, sometimes backward into the past, 
 some prophets will sternly rouse the people to a sense of their 
 shortcomings, and to the need of futm-e perfection ; but others 
 will look back with fervent longing to the solemn forms of anti- 
 quity, to strengthen themselves by their model greatness, and 
 to imagine how they would now act. Should one of the latter, 
 however, be versed in the old traditions, and filled with the 
 poetry that pervades them, he will easily remodel one of the 
 heroic forms of ancient time, and shape it to the advanced 
 higher requirements of his own age. When thus presented 
 anew in eloquent language, eager ears will listen to the story 
 and treasure up its beauties. Thus it is really the aspirins 
 national spirit which by these means preserves, secures, and 
 glorifies the old heroic traditions ; and accordingly even such 
 renovated traditions will be distinctl}" impressed with the pecu- 
 liar spirit of the nation : — of all of which we have the most 
 instructive examples in the Patriarchs. 
 
 Such excellent results are attainable when an enlightened 
 and com-ageous nation is steadily advancmg in everything good. 
 But when, on the other hand, depressing times supervene, in 
 which the nation retrogrades as much as it might have advanced, 
 the intellectual conception of its tradition also suffers, the jiro- 
 gress of its purification is interrupted, and its tone bears traces 
 of the disturbance of the national spirit. Even the glorious 
 forms which once elevated the heart are no longer compre- 
 hended in their pure majesty, but are misunderstood, or de- 
 graded to lower standards, or even forgotten.^ In the actual 
 
 ' Let the reader only remember what have blindly followed him in this, have 
 
 the Talmud, for example, often makes of afterwards made of them, partly from want 
 
 the traditions of the Old Testament, or of comprehension, but still more from 
 
 what Mohammed and the Muslim, who hauteur or indolence. A main cause of
 
 30 THE STORY AND ITS FOUNDATION. 
 
 life of a nation, indeed, there rarely is either pure advance or 
 pure retrogression of all the better powers and aspirations : a 
 people may advance in some directions, and lag behind in others. 
 Thus with the Fifth Author of the Pentateuch : while the image 
 of the Patriarchs and Moses is prophetically exalted, his view 
 of the national enemies betrays many signs of that ill-humour 
 which gradually arose as the relation between Israel and its 
 neighbours grew worse. 
 
 Always, then, and in ever}- way, tradition remains deeply 
 impressed and firmly held by the nationality, depends on it and 
 changes with it. It does not yet soar above its native earth 
 into the pure heaven of the universal history of all nations, 
 emancipated from the narrowness of a particular people. It is 
 evident, therefore, how useful it is to compare the stories of 
 different nations about the same event, especially when a tradi- 
 tion has passed through many stages in a nation. The com- 
 parison of different traditions preserved about an event in the 
 same people, however, often ensures a similar advantage, since 
 different portions of the nation may easily take different views 
 of the same thing. 
 
 Should foreign traditions, however, intrude into the circle of 
 a very extensive system of national tradition, they will never 
 acquire a firm position and life there, unless they adapt them- 
 selves to its dominant spirit, and are filled by its peculiar 
 manner; of which also we have a few examj)les in the Old 
 Testament. Nationality embraces and limits even the widest 
 circle of traditions, and cherishes nothing in its fostering bosom 
 but what proceeds from or assimilates with itself. 
 
 But if the case stands thus with the nationality of tradition, 
 and if the people of Israel acquired their peculiar position 
 among the other nations through nothing so much as tlu-ough 
 the circumstance that true religion got rooted in it with a 
 power and distinctness nowhere else beheld — one can under- 
 stand how it must have become in external form and dress, no 
 less than in substance and soul, something quite different to 
 what it became among the heathen. True religion, during the 
 whole course of its struggle for ascendancy, perpetually moulded 
 this people according to its own inner impulse and inextin- 
 guishable light. Accordingly tradition, already existent or 
 
 the internal rottenness of Isldin is the mudic stories inocuhited it, and that it is 
 
 fact that it has never been able to oman- doomed by its very origin to remain uii- 
 
 cipatc itself from the lifek-ss and perverse historical for ever, 
 view of antiquity with which such Tal-
 
 TOADITION. 31 
 
 newly -bom, was shaped pliantly and obediently by tlie peculiar 
 spirit of the religion ; the result of which is that no other na- 
 tional and antique traditions ever dived so deep into the life of 
 true religion as these. As already remarked on i^age 14, the 
 Hebrew tradition possesses a vivid sense for truth and fidelity, 
 for sobriety and modesty, and an aversion to everything immo- 
 derate, vain, and frivolous, by virtue of which it may be re- 
 garded as the diametrical opposite of all heathen, and especially 
 of the Egyptian and Indian traditions. Of course, even among 
 this people, it shaped itself very differently, according to 
 varieties of time and place. Where, in the many centuries of 
 this nation's history, the true religion raises itself highest and 
 most freely, there we constantly see tradition produce a glorious 
 reflected image of the religion, though varying according as tra- 
 dition has more or less power, and clothed in the most diverse 
 colours. And tradition is indeed constantly working, even 
 down into the New Testament history ; and with what sublime 
 simplicity and trueheartedness, conjoined with what faithfulness 
 and love of truth ! But when the true religion is seriously or 
 lastingly obscured, as in the historj^ of the kingdom of the Ten 
 Tribes, or later among the Hellenists, then the tradition also 
 becomes more fragmentary, obscure, monstrous, and wild. But 
 amongst the people of Israel the substance of tradition must 
 continually overflow, not only with the general spirit, but also 
 with the most distinct concej)tions and views of true religion. 
 Many of the profoundest reminiscences of the events and 
 thoughts in which the true religion was revealed, are preserved 
 by it most faithfully and imperishably. But also not a few of 
 the subhmest thoughts, which could only arise from the actually 
 experienced and completed life of distinct ages of the true reli- 
 gion, were transformed into stories of a lofty kind, through the 
 endeavour to retain these thoughts by giving them a lively 
 historical form ; and thus, by passing from mouth to mouth, 
 they became one of the richest and most varied elements of 
 tradition. Of such importance, even to religion itself, was 
 tradition in this nation. 
 
 II. If this is indeed the essence of tradition, then one can 
 readily understand further, that when once arisen, and become 
 so im^jortant a part of the entire mental treasures of a people, 
 it should also have a life and significance of its own, and may 
 even go through a series of various stages of development. 
 Even when it issues immediately from simi)le narrative, it 
 passes incessantly through infinite changes, but never returns
 
 32 THE STORY AXD ITS FOUXDATIOX. 
 
 to its own foundation. Tlie best way of surveying the modes 
 of its changes, and the other impulses and mental capabilities 
 which at length associate themselves with it, is to observe the 
 three stages of its j^ossible progress. 
 
 1. Every great event soon finds a suitable style of narrative 
 to perpetuate itself in. The first vagueness of the impressions 
 disappears, the recollection grows distinct, and an accordant 
 and prevalent mode of relating the event begins to be formed. 
 Now as the story thus arises from the immediate experience of 
 a memorable event, it was quite as possible in those ancient 
 times as in ours, for it to be the most graphic and vivid coun- 
 terpai-t of the event ; indeed this was more possible then than 
 now, since antiquity had a youthful susceptibility for strong 
 and true impressions. The Old Testament contains passages 
 which evidently come very near this primitive style of narra- 
 tive. Accounts like that in Judges ix., or those about the 
 great scene in David's life in 2 Sam. xiii.-xx., present such 
 graphic pictures of that period, drawn on so real a backgi'ound, 
 that we can completely transport ourselves to the times in all 
 their circumstances, without feeling anything worth notice to 
 mar our vivid sense of the actual events. Graphic simplicity of 
 relation is a characteristic excellence of antiquity, which narra- 
 tive, even after it has passed through the stages we are about to 
 describe, gladly reassumes. For when the whole national life 
 was more compact, and in its naiTOw^er circle more hearty, the 
 observation and narration of the smallest circumstance had its 
 value and its charm. And as nothing but the complete picture 
 of the entire background and concomitant circumstances of 
 an event can represent its whole truth, narrative develops 
 that lifelike picturesqueness and that naive and enchanting 
 simplicity which later ages either reject, because their style 
 only gives prominence to the main features, and therefore has 
 less life and soul, or are only able to produce by new poetic 
 art and imitation. The Old Testament has a wealth of sucli 
 narratives, which, without pretending to be so, are artistic in 
 the best sense of the term, and, like the verses of the Iliad, 
 have the stamp of eternal grace and life. Without looking 
 further for examples, we may refer to the Booh of Origin«, 
 which clothes its driest subjects with unsurpassable grace, and 
 makes of the smallest story a living picture. And after this 
 ancient mode of simple faithful story had become typical 
 through the Pentateuch and other sacred wi'itings, how won- 
 derfully it was renewed in a late age in the First Book of 
 Maccabees, and finally, growing wondrously with the unrivalled
 
 TRADITIOX. 33 
 
 sublimity of the subject itself, in the first three Gospels, and a 
 g-ren-t portion of the Acts of the Apostles ! 
 
 Tradition is most beantifully developed in this simple style, 
 when the eminent person or period which forms its subject, 
 though already removed to some distance, so that the purifica- 
 tion above described has commenced, and the subject already 
 begun to display its true greatness more freely, is still regarded 
 with undiminished interest as one of the last grand incidents 
 of a past era, and is therefore still preserved more completely. 
 As the heroic deeds of the Samnite and still more of the Punic 
 wars, although then remote, could still be brought to life again 
 in all Roman hearts at the time of Livy; so likewise when the 
 Books of Samuel (or rather the ancient Book of Kings) were 
 written, the majestic forms of Samuel and David were not too 
 far removed, but were only just raised above the misappre- 
 ciation of their own time, and sustained by tradition in the 
 pure light that belonged to them. Hence no portion of the 
 history of the Old Testament produces comparatively so satis- 
 factory an effect on the historical encj[uirer as this does ; for 
 here we see the whole reality and truth of a great human scene 
 peep out behind the tradition, and discern historical greatness 
 surrounded by all the fetters and limitations of its temporal 
 conditions. 
 
 This first and simplest stage is that at which the ancient 
 Arabian tradition has, in the main, remained stationary, and 
 Avhich we can therefore most thoroughly comprehend by stud}'- 
 ing it on Arabian ground. When it attracted the attention of 
 the great, and the best traditionists, sought out from all parts 
 and honoured, revived the enormous mass of reminiscences 
 which writing soon attempted to perpetuate, the best achieve- 
 ments of Islam were already done ; but they had roused the 
 national consciousness, and" excited all the greater desire to 
 look back into the antiquity that was daily growing more dim. 
 We know cei^fcainly that they did not set to work in this with- 
 out foresight. The most talented and reliable relators were 
 preferred, who appealed, on events of which they were not them- 
 selves eyewitnesses, to others as authorities, often adducing a 
 long series of them. And as the field of the traditions was 
 immense, and those who wished to hear them, or to have them 
 written down, generally lived very far from the interior of 
 Arabia, in consequence of the wide diffusion of Islam, this 
 citation of the authorities was transferred in all its prolixity 
 into the oldest historical books. Now although Hebrew history 
 does not adopt this custom of textually incorporating these 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 THE STORY AND ITS FOUNDATION. 
 
 autliorities for the oral tradition, • yet there can be no doubt tliat 
 the Hebrews paid great attention to the question whether a 
 tradition was derived from a good authority or not ; for though 
 tradition never examines its own foundation, it may neverthe- 
 less discriminate very well within its own limits, and be on its 
 guard against too gross misrepresentations. 
 
 But if the effort to collect and survey tradition gains ascen- 
 dancy at a period, and in a people, disposed to poetic art, then 
 that poetic and prophetic spirit will manifest itself, which, we 
 said above (p. 27), is latent in tradition, and therefore only 
 waits for the most favourable opportunity to start forth. There 
 must indeed first be a narrator who is capable of thus treating 
 traditionary materials, and whose example may teach others. 
 Should there be such a one, he may cast a seasonable glance 
 from above downward, and, while speaking of an early time, 
 refer prophetically to a later one, the results of which he intends 
 to explain, and thereby link the different materials so much 
 the more closely together. In this case there must of course be 
 an intrinsic connection between the things themselves ; and the 
 traditionist, gifted with proplietic insight, then only combines 
 matters which, although separated by wide intervals, have an 
 internal nexus. But tradition, when, under the hand of a skilful 
 master, it assumes this higher form and order, ^^asses unmis- 
 takably into a new semi-artificial stage ; and we must regard 
 this as the germ of epic poetry. The fulfilment of that which, 
 in the prophetic survey, had been briefly foreshadowed at the 
 beginning, must at length come ; and a period full of prophetic 
 truths may most easily inspire into the dead bones of ancient 
 tradition this breath of prophetically poetic art. Ancient 
 Hebrew tradition remained stationar}»^ at this strictly j)rophetic 
 rudiment of a certain kind of epic poetry. A signal specimen 
 of it is found in Genesis xvii., where the description of a 
 solemn moment in the life of Abraham foreshadows the whole 
 history of Moses and David. 
 
 When this superadded artistic tendency is further developed, 
 the traditionist will often try — quite in dramatic fashion — to tie 
 a knot at the commencement, and then to unloose it pleasurably 
 
 ' The Asänicl (in the siiiguhir, Isnad), v,-\de dispersion of the fii-st Muslims. 
 
 ■which occupy such a hirge space in the While their achievements extended over 
 
 oldest historical books, and which only the whole world, and generated an infinite 
 
 later writers venture gradually to omit, supply of matter for narration, the num- 
 
 The cause why the Arabs stand alone ber of talented relators was so much i-e- 
 
 in this respect is to be sought (without duced by their bloody wars, that a stricter 
 
 excluding tlieir general sobriety of mind, attention was very early paid to the per- 
 
 cxisfing by the side of a tendency to occa- sonal guarantees of a story, 
 sional cxiiggcralion) in the enormously
 
 TRADITION. sr» 
 
 antl satisfactorily in following the course of tlie narrative. For 
 Avlien the nan-ator is about to relate a long series of stories 
 concerning an eventful time, their varied and scattered images 
 ürst come before him condensed into one thought, and he is 
 prone, as he surveys the entire sequel in his mind, to let that 
 thought start forth at the very beginning, which all the sub- 
 sequent stories as they are unfolded will thoroughly confirm. 
 Such a mysterious beginning, by giving a brief summary and 
 presentiment of the grand result, rivets the attention more 
 forcibly, and forms a frame in which all the subsequent scenes, 
 down to the foreknown necessary catastrophe, can be tranquilly 
 exhibited. The present books are full of such genuine epic 
 plots ^ — more, indeed, in the later and more artificial literature 
 than in the older, but in both manifestly prompted by the mode 
 in which the oral tradition itself was delivered by a series of 
 slcilful narrators. 
 
 In these sometimes poetical, sometimes prophetical, attempts 
 to round off and skilfully dispose a series of connected traditions, 
 the freedom required to treat the traditionary material is so 
 variously developed, that we may justly regard it as forming a 
 transition to the next great change in this province. 
 
 2. For as soon as new and yet already concluded events of 
 surprising greatness, and stories that rival antiquity attract the 
 most attention, or the ancient traditions are thrown aside merely 
 from lapse of time and change of the nation's condition or abode — 
 then this first, and, in its degree, very finished form of the simple 
 tradition inevitably changes. The overflowing abundance of the 
 old stories, with the exact memory of the temporal and local con- 
 ditions of the ancient events, will be more and more washed away 
 by the stream of new ones. And if even at an earlier stage the 
 simple tradition carried on its function of purification and elimi- 
 nation in a quiet way, now a severer struggle arises between 
 the cycle of ancient stories and that of the more attractive new 
 ones, in which the purification and classification of tradition 
 spoken of above (pp. 16, 28) is carried on by the strongest means 
 to its extreme limits. Whatever comes off victorious out of 
 this struggle must, first, have been so ineffaceably ingrained 
 in the mind of the people that it never can be lost again : some 
 imperishable truth or elevating recollection must have been 
 attached to it, which cannot now be permanently divorced from 
 it, and the province of tradition must therefore have in some 
 
 ' Like 1 Sam. ii. 27-86; Gon. xv. 13- 1-12. From still later times we have 
 16 ; Ex. iii. 12-22. There is niueh rosem- 1 Kings xiii. and other passages, of which 
 Llance also in the passage in 1 Sam. xvi. we will speak further on. 
 
 D 2
 
 36 THE STORY AND ITS FOUNDATION. 
 
 resj)ects already become arclietypal and sacred. Secondly, it 
 may be tliat tliese few iudestruetibie reminiscences are saved 
 out of tliat severe clearance, as sublimated images of a miglity 
 past — a few names, and the events connected with them standing 
 out in these different later times as Avitnesses of a hoary an- 
 tiquity, like solitary granite rocks on a wide plain : but the 
 extreme rarity and dilapidation of these few great remains of 
 earlier tradition render it especially difficult to tell the stories 
 over again, since tradition, so long as any real life remains in it, 
 cannot long rest satisfied with such meagre and dry materials, 
 but will again try to put ncAV life into them. 
 
 A new phenomenon may then possibly arise to overcome this 
 difficulty. After the storms of time have passed over such a 
 field of tradition, and it may have long lain forgotten and deso- 
 late in the period of transition, the nation is awakened to a 
 sense of the majesty and sanctity of its ancestors ; and the relics 
 of the early tradition are in a manner resuscitated, the old tra- 
 dition comes out of the grave with new and more splendid 
 power, the simple tradition is horn again and remodelled by 
 art. It is not in general difficult to discern how this remodel- 
 ling proceeds. The principal thought itself, which was preserved 
 as the indestructible ground of a province of tradition, or as its 
 permanent idea, is now used to cement together all the still 
 extant parts. Whatever they contain that does not harmonise 
 with it, is neglected and rejected in proportion as the fragments 
 are reunited in a firm and beautiful body. Tradition, when 
 gathering up scattered stories into a comprehensive system, is 
 prone (according to p. 34) to seize upon one prominent truth, 
 and to find that truth in all particulars. The same is only 
 more necessary here. And the delineation of all the particulars, 
 which has now to be adopted, naturally takes the same tone as 
 the tradition itself (according to p. 82), and may therefore easily 
 be as graphic and charming as the latter. But because this 
 reanimation of the whole and of the parts proceeds from a 
 narrator and remodeller, whose warmest sympathies are for his 
 own time, and who revives the old tradition mainly for the sake 
 of his own time ; later ideas are sure to mix themselves, more 
 or less unobserved, in the description, and the peculiar spirit of 
 the age and religion of such a remodeller can never be dis- 
 sembled. Thus a multitude of genuine Mosaic ideas and truths 
 have penetrated into the Hebrew tradition about the primeval 
 age, and sometimes even look quite natural there. 
 
 For tradition is essentially a very plastic material, every one 
 conceiving and representing it in his ovvai fashion : a gifted
 
 TRADITrOX. 37 
 
 person, therefore, can with freedom reproduce it with mnch 
 more beavity than he received it, without much altering its 
 basis. But it is most plastic when it has reached the advanced 
 stage of which we here speak : when it has gradually laid aside 
 all temporal fetters, and in its ruins only hands down a few 
 lofty images of antiquity as so many pure thoughts, then it not 
 only requires the most artistic and poetical narrators to reani- 
 mate it (ordinary ones being then inadecpiate to this work), but 
 it must allow them much greater freedom than is permitted in 
 the first stage, since without that the very object of reanimation 
 would not be attained. Here, therefore, tradition allies itself 
 almost necessarily with new powers and mental endowments, 
 and produces creations of which the first stage hardly dia- 
 plaj-ed the faintest rudiments. If it here observes what is 
 congruous and true, it becomes, by setting out from the funda- 
 mendal thought of a whole province of tradition, and reviving 
 all fragments through that thought, the genuine restorer and 
 new-creator of forgotten stories, and delineates — with other 
 colours indeed than those of the common story and history, but 
 with no less truth and with greater splendour — the eternal 
 element of antiquity afresh in the pages of the transitory 
 present. And because it sets out from the pin-e and heaven - 
 directed thoughts of an ancient cycle of tradition, and more- 
 over moves in a province sacred to the national feeling, it can 
 introduce the immediate action of Gods and Angels, and depict 
 the living commerce of heaven and earth exactly as the religion 
 of the nation on the whole conceives it, and as the special sig- 
 nificance of the fundamental thought of the tradition requires. 
 We are here, therefore, close on the confines of epic poetry with 
 its mythological machinery ; and if the Mosaic religion were 
 not rigidly opposed to the development of a regular mythology, 
 Hebrew tradition also might undoubtedly have easily passed on 
 from this stage into epic poetry — whereas it now displays a 
 leaning towards it, and occasionally thoroughly epic descrip- 
 tion,^ but nowhere real epic poetry. Nevertheless, the Hebrews 
 advanced so far on this stage that late writers even attempt 
 to remodel ancient tradition with new thoughts, and care less 
 for the tradition than for its new application and conception. 
 This transition to the greatest freedom of representation, of 
 course, almost destroys this stage of tradition, and rather sur- 
 renders the ground to mere poetry.'^ 
 
 ' A beautiful example of whicli is found Fourtli and Fifth Narrators in the Penta- 
 in Gen. xviii.-xix. '28. teuch, as will be shown further on. 
 
 - Tlic chief examples of wliioli are the 
 
 s 6 n) ti
 
 38 THE STORY AN"D ITS FOUNDATION. 
 
 There are, however, innuuierable transitions from the simple 
 tradition to this its later revival on more or less sacred ground. 
 Whereas the life of David given in the Books of Samuel only 
 at its commencement takes one little flight towards a compre- 
 hensive survey from a superhuman point of view,^ hut only once 
 introduces an angel, and then in no important matter ; ^ in the 
 life of Moses, as we now have it, the renovation of tradition is 
 very marked, and in that of the Patriarchs it prevails almost 
 exclusively. This anticipatory remark may here sufl&ce : it gives 
 a tolerably distinct notion of the manner in which this kind 
 of tradition advances. Subsequently indeed, when the more 
 natural and living conception of antiquity gradually gave place 
 to a cold reverence for what was old as being in itself sacred, 
 an utterly different kind of clearing out of tradition was intro- 
 duced : the Books of Chronicles, which elevate the life of David 
 and Solomon to the same stage on which the older books place 
 that of Moses, simply omit everything in their lives that did not 
 accord with the notion of sanctity. 
 
 3. If we take all this into account, and consider from how 
 many different ages and provinces traditions of most varied 
 character come down to us, this alone will suffice to prove how 
 wide the province of tradition may be. The thorough know- 
 ledge of it, in the times when it flourishes, forms the special 
 business and pride of those who have a talent for it,^ just as 
 in other periods the study of real history ; and then the tra- 
 ditionists do not merely minister to the amusement and instruc- 
 tion of curious hearers, but are consulted as authorities in 
 questions of usage or law. 
 
 But such a great circle, once formed, will inevitably continue 
 to expand, and take up a multitude of materials that are at 
 first foreign to it in their origin and purport. If favourable 
 circumstances occur, which unite portions hitherto separated of 
 the same country, the various local traditions come into contact 
 and are interchanged. If, in addition, a jDCople is in frequent 
 intercourse with foreigners, their foreign traditions are adopted 
 and mixed with their own. We are able with tolerable distinct- 
 ness to survey in the Greek, but still more in the Indian tradi- 
 tion, the enormous wealth of the circle when thus expanded ; 
 
 ' I refer to the passage 1 Sam. xvi. 1-12. such ideas and expressions are not gone- 
 
 ^ In the pestilence, namely, 2 Sam.xxiw rated by the tradition. 
 16. But the people of tliat period felt ^ There is no doubt that the ancient 
 
 the angel of death to be then personally Hebrews had such persons as the Indians 
 
 active among them, just as they recognised call Panmamdas, and the Arabs call 
 
 the presence of an angel in tlio conduct of Jinn, although we do not now know their 
 
 the army and in battle (Judg. v. 23) ; and desigaatiou.
 
 TRADITION. 39 
 
 but among the Hebrews also, not only were the traditions of 
 different tribes brought together after the union of the nation 
 luider the Kings — as the story of Jephthah, from the Trans- 
 jordanic land ; that of Samson from the tribe of Dan ; that of 
 Elijah and Elisha from the northern kingdom — but others also, 
 the matter and even the manner of which proves their foreign 
 origin, were admitted.^ All these, however, were recast by the 
 Mosaic religion before they were incorporated. 
 
 Questions about the origiyis of things — among nations, at 
 least, that are sufficiently elevated to propoimd such, and to 
 find ingenious solutions of them — are especially prone to crowd 
 into this circle. For tradition embraces, from the outset, the 
 whole wealth of the genealogical stories, and therefore legends 
 or opinions about the origin of the progenitors, which it en- 
 deavours to reach by tracing them back in a line to a point 
 beyond which there is no advance — nay, even to the gods. Now 
 when tradition has already become accustomed to that poetic 
 remodelling of the subject which we described at pp. 36 sqq., 
 it will gladly receive into its own account of origins, the answers 
 which the enquiring mind gives to the questions about the 
 origin of the universe, clothe them in similar forms, or weave 
 them as well as it can into combination with its own fixed 
 circle. Such are the questions about the origin of the other 
 nations, or of celebrated families of obscure descent — of the 
 many wonderful phenomena which have attracted notice of in- 
 ventions and arts, of earth and heaven, or of the gods themselves 
 — subjects Avliich are enigmas for the intelligence of the most 
 ambitious times. Their solution requires powers utterly un- 
 known to the primitive simple tradition : knowledge of foreign 
 countries, mastery of political affairs, imagination, religion ; for 
 the question about the origin of the visible world, for instance, 
 as propounded by antiquity, belongs essentially to the province 
 of religion. These are only admitted in so far as they are 
 answered in the same popular manner that characterises tra- 
 dition, and are thus interwoven with an existing tissue of ideas. 
 Nevertheless, a people is most prone to form such traditions 
 about origins at a period when it is still contented with a 
 
 ^ We sboiild be able to decide this with essential features are derived from foreign 
 
 much greater precision if we possessed the sources. The basis of the story in Gen. ii. 
 
 ancient cycles of tradition of the Phe- 5-iii., indeed must have wandered through 
 
 nicians and other heathens in Palestine, many foreign nations before it received its 
 
 and of the Egyptians, Babylonians, and Mosaic costume. As matters now stand, 
 
 others. Such traditions, however, as those the Maliabharata and the Puranas (which 
 
 which we must ascribe to the Fourth are daily becoming more accessible to lis) 
 
 Narrator (Gen. ii. 5-iii., vi 1 4, xi 1-9), furnish most instructive comparisons for 
 
 present indisputable indications that their tl'.o Ilebrew tradition.
 
 40 THE STORY AND ITS FOUNDATION. 
 
 poetical conception of tilings ; or, if any pnrely philosojjliical 
 element should obtrude into this circle — as has happened among 
 the Indians in their Puraiias, the simple style of which rather 
 stamps them as popular wiiting — -it is first obliged to assume the 
 easy and naive garb of the popular tradition. Many specimens 
 of this popular development of tradition have been admitted 
 even by the Hebrews ; but these are neither so varied nor so 
 bold as in heathen mythologies ; for the sober and strict unity 
 of God necessarily rendered impossible many questions — such 
 as that about the origin of the gods — which the- heathen views 
 of God and the world vainly attempted to solve. 
 
 It is on this last stage, and in order by such means to explain 
 the obscure origin of things, that tradition even creates new 
 persons under suitable names, which, from their very novelty, 
 are not hard to interpret. It represents the obscure beginning 
 of a nation under the notion of a single progenitor, whom, in 
 the absence of a traditional name, it calls after the people or 
 the country itself: thus Eber (Gen. x. 24) becomes the ancestor 
 of the Hebrews, Edom (or Esau) that of the Idumeans, Canaan 
 that of all the Phenician tribes. Earther, it makes progenitors 
 of entire quarters of the globe, as Ham and Japheth ; or of the 
 whole race, either of one definite period, or of the earliest con- 
 ceivable time — as Noah, the fVither of the renovated race, Adam, 
 that of primitive humanity. 
 
 Its transition into myth — that is, legendary lore about the gods 
 — must in like manner be most prevalent here. Eor the farther 
 it is removed from ocular testimony or the reality of events it 
 has itself experienced, the more freely can it explain isolated 
 and obscure facts by introducing the immediate agency aud in- 
 carnation of the Deity. The ambition to animate such remote 
 and essentially lifeless subjects leads it naturally to this boldness 
 of introducing the unveiled presence of Deity into history, and 
 thus lifting that veil which so covers ordinary events that the 
 common eye does not even discern the mediate operation of the 
 Deity in them. On the first stage, it barely ventures even to 
 begin to introduce the Deity just here and there, as if ten- 
 tatively (cf. p. 38) ; on the second, Hebrew tradition is bolder 
 and freer in representing the appearance of God or angels on 
 the earth (cf. p. 37) ; but on this third stage, it makes the Divine 
 agency, without any further limitation, the exclusive subject of 
 history, so that hardly a distinct trace of independent human 
 action manifests itself, and the history of the Elood, for example, 
 becomes uot so much a history of Noah as of God liimself. 
 
 But on whatever stai2-c Hebrew tradition thus introduces the
 
 TRADITION. 41 
 
 Deity actmg and incavnating itself in liistorj, it nndoiibtedly 
 is always mythic on those occasions — taking that word in its 
 larg'cst acceptation; and it is of no use to deny that iji this 
 it approaches the style and nature of heatlien mythologies. 
 But it is just as certain, nevertheless, that it could never become 
 an actual heatlien mythology. Pure religion imparts to it a 
 sensitive dread of false, or even too gross, views of the Deity, as 
 well as of dangerous confusion of the divine and human, and — 
 even where it makes these attempts to introduce the immediate 
 agency of the Deity — inspires it with that beautiful oonsiderate- 
 ness and reserve which are perhaps nowhere so necessary as 
 here. As it thus preserves the true dignity of the Divinity 
 through all these perilous attempts, its choicest productions may 
 serve us as a model, and afford a standard to determine how far 
 a pure religion may venture to make sensuous representations 
 of the Deity. And because the Greek term myth is inseparably 
 connected with the whole system of heathenism, and means not 
 story about God, but story ahoni the gods, therefore we avoid it 
 in Biblical subjects, and rather speak, when we must, of sacred 
 or, better, of divine tradition. 
 
 On this last stage, whicli embraces the widest compass of 
 traditions flowing from the most diverse sources, is also lastly 
 developed that easy artistic style of combining any mass of 
 traditions by intercalation. Here art allies itself with mere 
 convenience, and thereby loses its limits and its beauty. This 
 mode of combination, however, (whicli among the Indians begins 
 to develop itself fully even in the Mahabharata, and early passed 
 from them to the Persians and Arabs,) is wholly foreign to 
 Hebrew tradition, although its commencements can be plainly 
 discerned in Homer. 
 
 III. Now the earliest historians found tradition in this con- 
 dition — a fluctuating and plastic material, but also a mass of 
 unlimited extent. They evidently could not do much more than 
 is open to any talented narrator : each selected such and so 
 many subjects as his special object required, and settled the 
 uncertainties and smoothed away the discrepancies as the con- 
 nection in which he viewed the whole appeared to demand. 
 But, inasmuch as writing allowed all this to be effected with 
 greater deliberation and on a larger scale, it all necessarily took 
 a more definite form and observed more fixed limits under the 
 writer's hand than was possible in oral delivery. In this respect 
 the written record, which is moreover more durable, undoubtedly 
 produces the first reaction against the unrestrained power of 
 tradition ; and in the Old Testament, the earliest historical
 
 42 THE STOEY AND ITS FOUNDATIOX. 
 
 ■writings of which important remains have been preserved, the 
 Book of Origins and, in a degree, the ancient Book of Kings, also 
 disphiy instructive examples of this earliest kind of historical 
 composition. 
 
 If, however, such beginnings produce a national historical 
 composition, it may, like every other special intellectual activity, 
 develop itself independently in the course of centuries, and thus 
 gradually unfold the germs of beautiful representation and 
 peculiar art which originally were only latent in it. Tradition, 
 according to what we said above, contains much that demands 
 a reanimating style of representation, a free combination of 
 scattered reminiscences, and an explanation of hidden causes 
 from a higher point of view. All these are so many germs of 
 artistic representation : and historical composition, having once 
 entered on its career of progress, may easily take possession of 
 these germs, in order to develop them, and so acquire a higher art. 
 Now this has palpably occurred in the second period of Hebrew 
 historical composition. The Book of Origins, and the still older 
 work, represent tradition very simply, and even in cases where 
 they venture on a lofty style (as in Gen. xvii., Exod. xix.), it ap- 
 pears quite cramped by the strict spirit of the Mosaic religion, 
 like the Egyptian or early Greek statues, which look as if 
 chained motionless to the ground. This is not the case with 
 the Book of Kings, the Fourth Narrator of the primitive history, 
 and other later historians. In these the representation has 
 acquired much greater freedom, and the old limits of the sacred 
 tradition are more and more obliterated. These writers are the 
 first that treat long series of traditions with the great art 
 described above (p. 35 sq.) ; and the Prologue to the Book of 
 Job, which is at least as late as the beginning of the seventh 
 century, shows to what height of beautiful free art this tendency 
 may at length attain. Another example of the increasing art 
 of this advanced literature has been explained above (p. 20) ; 
 and others will be particularly noticed below. 
 
 When, in the midst of a general advance in the intellectual 
 view and activity of a nation, historical composition adopts this 
 tendency, it is evident that it then plays into the hands of tra- 
 dition itself, and produces no strong reaction against its in- 
 fluence. The first powerful agent against that influence is the 
 removal of the narrow bounds that limit the original nationality ; 
 for when a people, during the period of its own advancing cul- 
 ture, spreads itself, as the Greeks did, over many other nations, 
 and curiously compares their discordant traditions with its oavu, 
 it will hardly adhere so exclusively to its own hereditary tradi-
 
 TRADITION". 43 
 
 tions as before, but will adopt other views of their importance. 
 Moreover, if the simi^le influence of the imagination and the 
 sentiment g-radually y-ives place to the enquiring* and sceptical 
 understanding (and this restless critical spirit is promoted by 
 frequent intercourse with distant countries), then the second 
 power of tradition, the predominance of the imagination and 
 the feeling, is lost in the process. Then the sober judgment gains 
 courage to sift it, the more so as it has been already resigned 
 to the above-mentioned poetical freedom. Lastly, the collation 
 of many writings, in which it has been recorded with variations, 
 may often help to display its fluctuating character; and the 
 more the immediate history of a time is written down, or the 
 heroes of it commit their own memoirs to writing, the more 
 swiftly does the first power of tradition, the memory and the 
 mere transmission, lose its power. 
 
 How long soever, then, the period may be during which tra- 
 dition, oral and written, may develop itself in compass, and un- 
 fold many a bright flower on its course, it is nevertheless doomed 
 to perish. For it is only a peculiar mode of viewmg events, 
 which necessarily arises under certain situations and temjjoral 
 conditions, and must vanish as soon as these are completely 
 changed, but yet does not entirely lose its power until history, 
 as such, is investigated as to its own foundations. But as 
 these its indispensable conditions are not abrogated among all 
 peoples at once, its power lasts, after it has ceased to flourish, 
 longer in one people than in another. The Hindus, so highly 
 cultivated a people in other respects, have in the main never 
 been entirely emancipated from its influence, as is evinced by 
 the fact that Puranic literature continues to flourish down to the 
 end of the Middle Ages, nay down to our own day, and that 
 historical literature, strictly speaking, has not been developed. 
 The ancient Hebrews also disappeared from the theatre of the 
 world's history before this transformation, which began among 
 them, was completed. It is true, the very oldest historical 
 works, the Book of Origins and others, though exhibitmg some 
 dependence on tradition, display, in accordance with the Mosaic 
 religion, so sound a judgment in the conception and delineation 
 of historical events, that in process of time a genuine historical 
 literature might have been developed out of them. But the 
 decay of the entire ancient nation, consequent on the division of 
 the Davidic kingdom — in which only religion and, along with it, 
 j)oetry and a kind of philosophy developed themselves for a time 
 unchecked — gradually caused historical composition to degene- 
 rate more and more from these glorious beo-innino-s. To what
 
 44 THE STORY AXD ITS FOUXDATIOX. 
 
 extent tlie power of tradition kept its gronnd in certain favonraMe 
 provinces, even long- after writing liad become a substitute for 
 the memory, and a kind of contemporary history had begun to 
 be formed, is shown by the history of Samson in the Book of 
 Judges, and by that of Ehjah and Elisha in the Book of Kings. 
 At last, in the third period of historical composition, when the 
 heroes of history at once wrote down their memoirs in full, the 
 writings of Ezra and Nehemiah about their own achievements, 
 and the Book of Esther, which shows to what result the unre- 
 strained power of tradition may lead, stand irreconcilably side 
 by side. 
 
 We cannot doubt, however, how we are to treat the tradition 
 of the Old Testament in our investigations of history. When 
 an account is called tradition, the name does not determine 
 from what sources the story may be derived, nor what founda- 
 tion it may have. Historical research is to supply this defi- 
 ciency. Tradition has its roots in actual facts ; yet it is not 
 absolutely history, but has a peculiar character and a value of 
 its own. Hebrew tradition possesses all the charms that belong- 
 to that of the other aspiring nations of antiquity, and, in 
 addition, the altogether peculiar excellence of being filled a,nd 
 sustained by the spirit of a higher religion — nay, of even having 
 become in part the vehicle for its great truths. We must 
 acknowledge and appreciate this excellence in itself, but we 
 cannot use it for strict history without investigating its historical 
 significance. It is absurd entirely to neglect its use for his- 
 torical purposes, and to consider the duty of science to be to 
 express sad doubts of its truth ; thereby depriving ourselves, out 
 of mere folly, of the most comprehensive means of searching out 
 a great portion of history. It is rather our duty to take tradition 
 just as it expects to be taken — to use it only as a means for 
 discovering what the real facts once were. To this we are, even 
 unwillingly, compelled by the different versions of the same 
 incident which we not unfrequently encounter. We must first 
 endeavour to recognise every historian as exactly as possible by 
 his peculiar style, in order to see how he treats traditions ; and 
 only then, and by these means chiefly, the traditions themselves. 
 It is most fortunate when we find several traditions about the 
 same thing by dififerent narrators, or (what is still more instruc- 
 tive) from widely distant periods. Thus the single passage in 
 Genesis xiv. throws a new light on all the other stories of the 
 Patriarchal world ; and many other equally surprising cases of 
 the same kind will meet us further on. When we find only 
 one account of an event, and that one has perchance passed
 
 TRADITJOX. 45 
 
 through many haiitls and modifications, our task is indeed in- 
 evitably much harder : but even then we cannot be entirely in 
 the dark, if we rig-htly interpret the passage itself, compare it 
 with similar ones, accurately weigh all possibilities, and the 
 general character of tradition, and keep in mind all that we 
 know from other sources about the period in which the event 
 falls. And the thorough understanding of one sing-le portion of 
 ancient history alwaj^s leads to a surer insight into others. 
 
 We shall thus be enabled to attain our main object — to distin- 
 guish between the story and its foundation, and exclusively to 
 seek the latter with all diligence. It is not the great and the 
 wonderful in history of which we ought to feel a vague terror, 
 or which we would rather reject and deny. We know that 
 history has its mountains and plains, no less than the earth 
 has ; and hovf delighted we are to climb the former, without 
 despising the latter ! But we have to discover what the heights 
 of history really are, and to what elevation they rise above the 
 plains ; and the more accurately we estimate their relative pro- 
 portion, the more purely shall we appreciate and admire those 
 Alpine peaks, which not we but Another has raised. 
 
 B. COMMENCEMENT OF HEBREW HISTORICAL COjMPOSI- 
 TION. AVRITING. 
 
 The first historians of a people, as we have said, always find 
 some cycle of traditions ready to their hand ; and it is especially 
 the primary characteristics of tradition — tlie unforced freshness 
 and animation of the story, as well as the general charm of 
 beautiful oral description — that are transferred unchanged into 
 the earliest attempts to fetter tradition by writing. The only 
 things in these rudiments of historical composition, that distin- 
 guish the writer from the mere narrator, are the more compre- 
 hensive collection and combination of the traditions themselves, 
 and the wider or perhaps exacter survey of the entire province 
 of history which he purposes to describe in conformity with tra- 
 dition. If this first attempt to fetter the fluctuating tradition 
 should display too many variations and discrepancies between 
 the separate stories, the wiiter either places them entirely un- 
 altered beside each other (as the oldest historians of the Arabs 
 do, accurately exhibiting the true picture of all the confusion 
 and variation of tradition, and adducing their several authori- 
 ties) ; or he tacitly selects what appears to him the most reliable. 
 He may, however, also incorporate in his work two traditions 
 which have been developed out of one incident (accordhig
 
 4l3 COMMENCEMENT OF HEBREW IIISTORICAL COMrOSITIOX. 
 
 to p. 16), if to liim they appear to refer to two distincts ev^ents : 
 thus what is related of Sarah in Genesis xii. 9-20, and what 
 is recorded of Rebekah in Genesis xxvi. 7-11, are both inserted 
 by the same author.' Yet, as the first writer who attempts this 
 collection of traditions cannot possibly accomplish the whole 
 task, such essays and commencements of historical writing are 
 repeated until the work is more fully done. 
 
 This is in the main the picture which the Arabs give us of 
 the first attempts at historical composition ; and as such com- 
 mencements of an entirely novel literature, among the Hebrews 
 as among other nations of antiquity, have suffered much from 
 the encroachment of later thoroughly different kinds of writing, 
 and as, especially in the Old Testament, they have nowhere 
 been preserved in their genuine pristine state throughout a 
 whole book, a cautious appeal to the example of the Arabs in 
 this cannot be otherwise than very instructive.^ 
 
 It is not, however, merely a given abundance of traditions, 
 and the stimulus of important materials, that of themselves 
 beget such attempts at history ; for in that case the Arabs — to 
 cite this most instructive example again — might have had a 
 history long before Islam. The actual rise of independent his- 
 torical composition presupposes, especially in a primitive people, 
 two other conditions — the occunrence of an extraordinary time 
 by which a people feels itself elevated, and the existence and 
 current use of the art of writing. 
 
 As soon as a people is roused from its torpor by such a 
 happy time, which raises it powerfully and lastingly to a 
 higher stage, and inspires it with a far prouder consciousness 
 among the surrounding nations, it also looks farther round about 
 itself in history, and regards with very different eyes the tra- 
 ditions of its own early times. It was not until Islam made 
 the Arabs conscious of their position in the scale of nations 
 that the wi-iting of history commenced among them, setting 
 out from recently revived traditions about their ancient times, 
 and then soon taking up the narration of events subsequent 
 to the origin of Islam. If we apply this to the Hebrews, 
 we are not to imagine that the activity of this people on the 
 great theatre of nations dates its commencement from Moses. 
 Even before Moses, as we shall show, Israel achieved a glory, 
 and advanced to a height among the neighbouring nations, 
 
 ' Both these pnspnpos (hut not Gen. xx.) Gattingcr Gelehrte Anzeigrjj, 1832, p. 610. 
 
 belong to the Fourtli Narrator of the Pen- More recently this sulijcct has been dis- 
 
 tatcuch. cussed by Sprenger in his Life of Mo- 
 
 ^ Sec al)Ove, p. 33 ; ZeiUcJir'ift f. d. hummed. 
 Morgenland, bd. i. 95; iii. 228, 330, sq.,
 
 TRADITION. 47 
 
 wliich were sufficient to awaken in it the germs of historical 
 composition. Nevertheless, it is difficult to prove, from the Old 
 Testament itself,' that the rudiments of history were formed 
 before Moses; and at any rate those commencements cannot 
 have been very important. But, as will be proved in the 
 sequel, there is no doubt that the Mosaic times were extraor- 
 dinary enough to develop these germs. 
 
 We must therefore pay all the greater regard to the second 
 condition, the existence of an already common wiittcn cha- 
 racter ; in which respect the question takes this form : Did 
 such a thing exist in the time of Joseph, or even Abraham, or 
 at any rate in that of Moses ? And as we possess no evidence 
 that summarily decides this point — since every investigation 
 into the antiquity and use of writing among the primitive 
 nations is obliged to go back into the mists of the remotest 
 times — nought remains for us but, first to note attentively 
 every mention of writing and its use, and then to search out 
 the oldest documents which necessarily presuppose writing; 
 always keeping in mind the peculiarity of the Hebrew characters, 
 and their ancient connection with other kinds of writing. 
 
 I. The accounts of the Patriarchal time contain no sure 
 traces of the use of writing in that early age. The Book of 
 Origins is so far from alluding in its minutest delineations to 
 such a use, that it gives distinct glimpses of the contrar}^ 
 According to it, not only Divine covenants with man (Gen. i., 
 ix., xvii.) are concluded without written documents — whereas 
 we see, from the example of Ex. xxiv., that such documents, 
 when conceivable, were not omitted in such descriptions — but 
 also human compacts of the most decisive importance for pos- 
 terity are, in Gen. xxiii., ratified in a form which never could 
 be adopted when there was a possibility of using written docu- 
 ments. To appreciate the cogency of this argument, we have 
 only to observe how differently the ratification of much more 
 trivial compacts is subsequently described.^ The Fourth Nar- 
 rator, who deals with the Patriarchal story subsequently to the 
 date of the Book of Origins, does indeed once mention a seal- 
 ring of Jacob's son Judah,^ and such a ring necessarily implies 
 
 ' We must not appeal to Gen. xlix. or the time that they sojourned in Egypt, a 
 
 to Gen. iv. 23 sq., as if these passages must country which enjoyed the use of writing 
 
 have heen written before Moses. It might from a much earlier date, as will be shown 
 
 be more seriously asked, whether such no- when we treat of the Hyksos. Only, what 
 
 tices derived from the primitive history of was then written in Israel cannot have 
 
 the tribes as 1 Chron. vii. 20-27, viii. 1.3 been very important — iit any rate, we have 
 
 (see about them below, in the account of no traces of it. 
 
 the origin of the nation), were not written ' Jer. x.xxii. 
 
 down before Moses. It cannot be doubted ' Gen. x.xxviii. 18, 25. 
 that the Israelites coidd write during
 
 48 COMMEXCEMEXT OF IIECREW IIISTOPJCAL COMPOSITIOX. 
 
 tlie use of writing" ; nevertlieless, this single exception, occurring 
 in this late author, and emplo5^ed as a mere embellishment of 
 the tradition, has no weight of proof against all the other evi- 
 dences ; although there is no doubt that seals were known in 
 the nation in the time of Moses.' Considering, then, that the 
 accounts of the Mosaic times follow a thoroughly diiferent type 
 in this matter, we must admit that that primitive time, even as 
 impressed on the memory of later ages, did not possess the art 
 of writing. And this is one of the many instances that prove 
 that tradition itself may preserve a correct memory of the dif- 
 ference of periods. 
 
 For as to the Mosaic time, the most various, and even the 
 earliest reminiscences concur in representing it to have pos- 
 sessed the familiar use of writing. The two stone tables of the 
 law (as we shall show further on) are, according to all evidences 
 and arguments, to be ascribed to Moses : but as the art of writ- 
 ing certainly cannot have commenced with the hardest writing- 
 materials, nor its use been restricted to a few words on one single 
 occasion, the unquestionable historical existence of these 
 tables necessarily implies a diffusion of the knowledge of >vi'iting 
 among the more cultivated portion of the people. Wliile the 
 oldest historian expressly states that Moses wrote down the Ten 
 Commandments, and an entire small book of laws besides,^ the 
 Book of Origins not only assigns to him the ancient list of the 
 stations of the people in the desert,^ but also, in the description 
 of the Mosaic laws, constantly presupposes the frequent use of 
 writing.'' 
 
 The not unfrequent occurrence of writing in the succeeding 
 centuries from Moses to David, which the documents attest in 
 the most credible manner, is in perfect harmony with this. 
 Writing was already a usual auxiliary in common life,''' and was 
 likewise employed in recording new laws, which were deposited 
 with the older statutes in the sanctuary.*^ It is evident that 
 these troublous times down to David merely continued what had 
 been introduced in the time of Moses. 
 
 But in the time after Solomon there is so much writing that 
 ten thousand divine written laws are spoken of," and the great 
 
 ' Ex. xxxix. 30. 27, sq. (cf. also Num. xi. 2G), and the 
 
 - Ex. xxix. 4, 7. Tliero is a pussngo Dcutürunomi.st, always assurae the exist- 
 
 frora a very ancient work in Lfv. xix. 20, cnce of writing; -at that period. 
 
 which presupposes writing. ^ Judges viii. 14; 2 yam. xi. 14 sq. 
 
 ^ Num. xxxiii. 2. « Tliis is manifestly deducible from the 
 
 ^ Num. V. 23; xvii. 17 sqq. [2 sqq.]; manner in which the origin of the law 
 
 Ex. xxxix. 30; Jos. xviii. 6 sqq. As a about the king is mentioned in 1 Sam. 
 
 matter of course, the Fourth Narrator, x. 2/). 
 
 Ex. xvii. 14, xxiv. 12, xxxii. 32, xxxiv. ' Hos. viii. 12 {Kclib); in agrecuieut
 
 WRITING. 49 
 
 prophets are ready at any moment to write down their most 
 important declarations as perpetual memorials for ]30sterity ; ' 
 in conformity with this, the fourth biographer of Moses repre- 
 sents that hero as likewise writing down an utterance made at 
 a decisive moment.^ Nay, we even read both of ready writers, 
 who must have written quite differently to the primitive way,^ 
 and also of a twofold character ; for that intended for the com- 
 mon people,"* which probably retained more faithfully the simple 
 antique forms of the letters, necessarily implies the existence 
 of another kind, which we may reasonably conceive to have been 
 the abbreviated and less legible tachygraphic character. 
 
 II. But even independently of all outward testimonies as to 
 the use of writing, it is indisputable, from the written docu- 
 ments which we can show once existed, that writing was 
 employed as far back as those testimonies reach. It cannot be 
 proved that any written documents of ihe Patriarchal times 
 came down to posterity ; ^ we are likewise unable to show, at 
 any rate from our present sources, that any large historical work 
 was written immediately after the liberation of the people, and 
 while they were still in the desert." But the two Tables of the 
 Law are an incontrovertible proof that there was writing in the 
 age of Moses ; and, when writing once existed, the greatness 
 of the Mosaic age was exciting enough speedily to develop the 
 germs of historical composition. On the same spot, there- 
 fore, in the history of Israel, on which the foundation for the 
 whole of its subsequent development was laid, we also find the 
 concurrence of those two conditions from which a national 
 historiography may arise. Passages like the list of stations in 
 the desert from Egypt to the frontiers of Canaan (Num. xxxiii.), 
 the census of the congregation (JSTum. i. sqq. xxvi.), and others 
 which will be noticed further on, must, according to all indi- 
 cations, have been written early, and may be regarded as his- 
 torical documents. The ' Book of the Wars of Jahveh ' (Num. 
 
 ■with this, wo find similes derived from matter, although we may possibly yet find 
 writing used in Is. x. 19, xxix. 11 sq.; actual specimens of these different charac- 
 Ps. xlv. 2 [1] ; for similes can only be ters only buried under the soil, 
 taken from phenomena known to every * The Song of the Sword, Gen. iv. 23 sq., 
 one. is indeed very ancient, and must, from its 
 ' Is. viii. 1, 16, XXX. 8; Hab. ii. 2. entire contents, belong to a time anterior 
 ^ Ex. xvii. 14; the mode of delineation to JMoses; but its apophthegmatical con- 
 is all that is new here; the narrator ciseness makes it probable that it was long 
 doubtless found the declai-ation itself of preserved in the memory merely, 
 which we speak in some ancient book, " Tliis will be manifest from the obser- 
 which he might ascribe to Moses. rations which we shall make on all the 
 
 * Ps. xlv. 2 [1]. historical books, and on the Mosaic history 
 
 * Is. viii. 1; Hab. ii. 2. I have no itself, 
 doubt that we must take this view of this 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 COMMENCEMENT OP IIEBEEW HISTOKICAL COMPOSITION. 
 
 xxi. 14), whicli, as may be inferred from tlie citations from it, 
 and other indications, must be very ancient, is by its very title 
 declared to be historical. Thus there was, after the age of 
 Moses, a sufficiently broad and solid basis for the development 
 of historical composition. 
 
 We might here further enquire whether the Hebrew alpha- 
 betical character was invented by Moses or any of his con- 
 temporaries, or whence did the people get its alphabet. To 
 imagine that Moses, or even Israel at all, invented the Hebrew 
 character (as many did in the latest age of antiquity),^ is to 
 involve oneself in many difficulties. This view is not supported 
 by a single ancient reminiscence, nor in the remotest way by 
 any tradition of Biblical antiquity; and yet the invention of 
 an art like writing is something of which a peoj)le may be j)roud, 
 and of which all civilised nations have from time immemorial 
 been proud. And although the need of a means like writing, 
 for the purpose of fixing the new laws that are to bind the 
 community, may be ever so sensibly felt at the juncture when a 
 new state is founded, as it was in the time of Moses, alphabetical 
 writing is, nevertheless, too artificial a thing to have been dis- 
 covered all at once and so easily. Moreover, facts themselves 
 contradict this view in many ways. The Hebrew character 
 is a link in the larger chain of Semitic and other cognate 
 alphabets ; '^ but it is highly improbable in itself that a people 
 like the Hebrews, which in early antiquity never spread itself 
 widely, nor had much intercourse with foreigners, should ac- 
 tually have communicated the art of writing to such nations as 
 unquestionably excelled it in antiquity of civilisation, in the 
 arts of life, and in extent of commerce, such as were the 
 Arameans, the Phenicians, and others. The converse of this 
 is evinced by the nature of things. Further, an investigation 
 into the Semitic languages shows that the Asiatic members at 
 least all express the simplest notions relating to this art in the 
 same way,^ whereas later improvements of it are denoted by each 
 
 ' Eupolemus (a writer who, according to cuneiform characters on the coiitraiy were 
 
 Eusebius, Prceparat. Evmigel. ix. 17, is probably derived from the precisely oppo- 
 
 referred to by Alexander Polyhistor in the site quarter, namely from the North and 
 
 time of Sulla, and who is also known to northern nations. See Cfutt. Gel. Änz., 
 
 Jost'phus, Againut Apion i. 23) makes him 18.')9, p. 170. 
 
 the inventorof the Hebrew alphabet (Euse- ^ Notonly is 3ri3, to write, together with 
 
 bius 1. e. ix. 26) ; and Artapauus (Eiiseb. its many derivatives, common to all the 
 
 Pr. Ev. ix. 27) makes him the inventor of Sendtic languages (with the sole excep- 
 
 even the Eg}-ptian characters. AVe shall tion, perhaps, of the Ethiopic and Soiith 
 
 show further on what credit these writers Arabic, in which FiPIV is the connnonest 
 
 deserve. M'ord for it), but also ISp. ^>ook (properly 
 
 ^ See also my Ausführliches Lehrbuch „ „7 n 1 i^^ ■ ; '■' '"r -, ■ .1 
 
 , ., , „ •' ■ / „,, -, rpi scale), and iitr t/i/,- are founil m them. 
 
 der Hehr. Spr., p. 41 sqq. 7th ed. The ■" ' ' '
 
 WßlTING. 51 
 
 in different manners.' This phenomenon cannot be accounted 
 for except by assuming that this character, in its simplest use, 
 was first employed by an unknown primitive Semitic people, 
 from which all the Semitic nations which appear in history 
 received it along- with the most indispensable designations of 
 the subject ; as surely as the fact that Eloak, the name for God, 
 is common to all Semitic nations, proves that the primitive people 
 from which they all proceeded, designated God by that term ; 
 and just as, in following out such traces generally, we are led 
 to the most surprising truths about the remotest periods in the 
 history of nations. The proper place, however, to pursue this 
 subject will be in the history of the Hebrews in Egypt. 
 
 III. We see then here also how surely every enquiry into the 
 origin of writing among the primitive peoples of antiquity, 
 loses itself in a distant mist, which all our present means are 
 inadequate to explore. Writing is still found to have existed 
 among these peoples before we can historically trace it ; for, like 
 every primitive art, it has always surely sprung from the pressing 
 needs of life, and probably been soonest developed by some 
 nation possessing extended power and commerce. The appli- 
 cation of it to write history, or even to fix laws, was then mani- 
 festly still far off. Whatever the Semitic people may be to 
 which half the civilised world owes this invaluable invention,^ 
 so much is incontrovertible, that it appears in history as a 
 possession of the Semitic nations long before Moses ; and we 
 need not scruple to assume that Israel knew and used it in 
 
 Only the pen, or instrument of ■n-riting, determine what people invented this new 
 
 must have early changed, as t^y and üin irt ; in this, too, the Hebrews doubtless 
 
 ' '■'■ only followed the example set by others, 
 
 (unless U< . may possibly be related to just as in the Babylonian empire they 
 
 both) are very isolated, the Syrians using adopted the there prevalent custom of 
 
 n3p, and the Arabs and Ethiopians, with ^^I'ltiug on bricks Ezek. iv. 1. 
 
 •••'t . ^ 2 -\Yj^g jt the Phemcians, or not ? ihis 
 
 the later Jews, even employing «aAa^oy. question, as also the kindred one, whether 
 
 This IS shown by the evidently later ^j^^^.^ j^ ^^^ possible connection between 
 
 appearance of the art of making a volume, ^^-^ character and the still older Egyptian, 
 
 a roll. This does not occur among the He- ^^^■^^^. belongs to the history of the Hyk- 
 
 brews untü the seventh century b.c., and g^^_ ^^j^j^j^ ^^ sh^^U ^^^^^^ ^f ^^^^^^ Even 
 
 its complete designation is ISO npiD, should the Semitic writing (as is certainly 
 
 Ps. xl. 8 [7], Ezek. ii. 9 sqq.; its shorter conceivable) have borrowed from the 
 
 one, n^Jn, Jer. xxxVi. 14 sqq., Zech. v. Egyptian the one of its main principles 
 
 T- : ^^ namely, that of making the letter represent 
 
 1 sq., Ezra vi. 2. But the Arameans use jj^g ^^.g^ go^j^ of the name of the object 
 
 instead "lü;^ (Assam. Biblioth. i. 26, 34, depicted by it, yet its other main prin- 
 
 » ciple, that of always representing the same 
 
 "Wiseman, Horae Syriacae, p. 297) and the sound by one and the same sign, raises 
 
 Arabs ji^, or even A ^A,, as the Ethio- it infinitely above the Egyptian, and is the 
 
 • J J very thing that actually makes it, in spite 
 
 pians do (this last from the diminutive of its conciseness, an adequate represcnta- 
 
 -rojxipiov). We will not here attempt to tion of vocal sound?. 
 
 E 2
 
 52 COMMENCEMEXT OF IIEBKEW HISTORICAL COiMPOSITIGN. 
 
 Egypt before Moses. For tliat Israel did not adopt the Egyptian 
 character (which is moreover hardly transferable to a language 
 not Egjrptian), but that of the nations cognate to itself, is 
 in perfect accordance with the state of things in the period 
 anterior to Moses. 
 
 It is probable that the cognate nations possessed not only 
 the art of writing but an historical literature also before Israel 
 did ; as Israel, according to all indications, was one of the 
 smpJlest andlatest in the series of great and early civilised 
 sister nations. When we reflect that such definite and minute 
 accounts as we find about Edom in Gen. xxxvi. have all the 
 air of being copied into the Book of Origins from the older 
 documents of that people itself — since the traditions of the 
 wisdom of the Edomites must have some foundation : ^ when 
 we consider the ancient narrative contained in Gen. xiv., so 
 strikingly different from all other accounts, in which Abraham 
 is described as an almost alien ' Hebrew,' much as a Canaanite 
 historian might have spoken of him ; ^ and observe further, that 
 the incidental notice which we obtain from the Book of Origins 
 (Num. xiii. 22), about the date of the building of the ancient 
 towns Hebron in Canaan, and Tanis in Egypt, has all the ap- 
 pearance of being a fragment of a Phenician or other foreign 
 work upon an historical province entirely alien to the Hebrew 
 works known to us ; then it cannot but appear very probable, 
 or rather certain, that the earliest historians of Israel found 
 many historical works already existing in -the cognate nations. 
 That the Tyrians possessed accurate histories with an exact 
 chronology, we know for a fact, from the fragments of the 
 works of Dius and Menander of Ephesus, who worked up their 
 contents for Greek readers.^ 
 
 The more surely, therefore, might historical comjiosition in 
 Israel — even if certain crude attempts at it had not been made 
 before — have been rapidly developed after the great days of 
 
 • Much antique wisdom is ascribed to the later name Ban in place of the ancient 
 Edom, although in somewhat later works, Laish. 
 
 Job, Jer. xlix. 7, Obad. 8. » See Josephus, Ant. viii. 5, 3; 13, 2 ; 
 
 * Verse 13. All indications tend to show ix. 14, 2; Against Apion, \. 17 sq. These 
 that this whole piece, Gen. xiv., was fragments, indeed, relate only to the time 
 written prior to Moses. Only the mention from David onwards; but as their eon- 
 of Dan as a north-eastern town (verse 14) tents and style are strictly historical, 
 is surprising, when we compare Judges we cannot conclude from that circum- 
 xvii. SCI. ! ^^ wherever in this piece the stance that the Phenician histories may 
 modern name of a place is placed beside not have also described much more ancient 
 an ancient one, it is always only by way of times. See also my Abh. über dicl'himik- 
 oxplanation. However, as the later author üchen Ansichten von der Wdtschopfung 
 who inserts tliis piece evidently writes itiid den geschichtlichen Wcrth Sanchuni- 
 with greater freedom towards the end, we aihon's. Gott. 1851. 
 
 may suppose that in verse 14 also he put
 
 GRANDEUR OF THE SUBJECT OF THE HISTORICAL BOOKS. 53 
 
 Moses and Josliua ; and it is incontrovertible that after Moses 
 a Hebrew liistoriog-rapliy of momentous import both could, and 
 actually did, develoj) itself. How it advanced, however, and 
 what phases it passed through in the course of centuries, is 
 in the main only to be gathered from an investigation of the 
 documents themselves. For the accurate appreciation of this 
 portion of Hebrew literature shows indeed that its history is 
 most closely connected with that of the general development 
 of the nation, and that the image of the progress of all national 
 efforts and conditions is clearly reflected in this special product 
 of its mind. But as it is very difficult to form a correct appre- 
 ciation of the date and primitive character of the historical 
 books in the shape in which we find them, we must not shrink 
 from a connected examination of them all, and here at the 
 outset at least establish as much as is necessary to the general 
 aim and conduct of the following work. Special remarks on 
 the historical sources available for particular periods and events 
 can only be introduced in the body of the work itself. 
 
 Grandeur of the Suhject of the Historical BooTcs. 
 
 A correct appreciation of this entire province of literature 
 teaches us, it is true, that an uncommon activity and assiduity 
 of the better mind of the old nation was therein displayed, 
 taking a higher flight, indeed, at one time than at another, but 
 yet never giving up through fatigue, but, in spite of every 
 difference in part, maintaining on the whole so even a tenor 
 that the Gospels themselves, the youngest products of the true 
 spirit of this national literature, bear in their most important 
 characters almost involuntarily the greatest likeness to the 
 oldest. But as this branch of literature developed itself more 
 and more, it was soon obliged to climb the special height and 
 assume the peculiar direction which fell to its lot as an im- 
 portant member of the entire national literature. It served, 
 indeed, also the common lower aims of all historical writing, 
 registered the wars and conquests of the nation, the deeds of the 
 rulers, the genealogical tables, and the like. But if (according 
 to p. 15, 31 sq.), as tradition became a national treasui'e of Israel 
 it was affected by the nature of the dominant religion, much 
 more must this have been the case with history, its full-grown 
 and independent daughter. Where had religion, with its fun- 
 damental claims and directions, stood in such intimate relation- 
 ship with the whole people, whether they would or no, as here ? 
 and where the conception of the spiritual God, as constantly
 
 54 GKANDEUR OF THE SUBJECT 
 
 watcliing beliind all liiiinan tliought and action, was so power- 
 fully active, there all historical observation and description of 
 things and events must also easily draw the narrator up to 
 God. This easy sensibility and excitability for everji^hing truly 
 Divine, this assiduous listening for the voice, the will, and the 
 almightiness of God in human affairs, this keen perception of 
 Divine justice, and all the wonderful disposition of Divine power, 
 and lastly this open eye for all human perversities and pre- 
 sumption, constantly exhibited by the great prophets, could not 
 indeed but pass over with ever-growing strength to the historians, 
 appear continually in their modes of conceiving and presenting 
 events, lend the brightest colours to their style, and even pene- 
 trate the simj^le narrative in no few instances. 
 
 But narration did not need to remain always so simple. 
 Historians who had to survey and describe whole periods, or 
 who undertook to embrace all preceding history, might often 
 design their works from the height of those sublime thoughts 
 which the remembrance of the relation of the true God to 
 human history must always excite. Where true religion has 
 been long active, it generally tenders its profoundest views and 
 truths on occasion of vivid contemplation of the whole past or 
 future, or of great sections of history lying before the thinker 
 as a reliable and completed experience. Such deep glances into 
 the Divine relations of all human history might have been 
 given in their first outlines long before a narrator sufficient for 
 their height and their truth arose to exhibit them with distinct 
 clearness in a large historical work. If now the period which 
 such an historian wished to embrace receded into a long-con- 
 cluded past, and therefore the Divine element in the history 
 could be easily surveyed in its dense and brilliant rays, then 
 there would be found under the hand of the finest historians such 
 works as the Book of Origins, to be mentioned further on — ■ 
 works in which the highest sublimity of historical contempla- 
 tion is balanced by the exactest and soberest description of 
 human events and affairs, and in which one seems to behold a 
 living account of the working of the true God throughout all 
 human history, without on that account losing a correct and 
 (so far as the means afforded) faithful historical picture of man 
 and his deeds. 
 
 Moreover, many of the best Prophets gradually came to 
 record so many of the most important occurrences of their own 
 time, and experiences of their own activity, as might jDass 
 with posterity for the most reliable and authentic contributions 
 to history. They laid great stress, indeed, upon the Divine
 
 OF THE HISTORICAL BOOKS. 55 
 
 element in liistorj, without in the least marring its human 
 truthfulness, and in this way gave striking- hints for the por- 
 traying- of long periods in accordance with such higher per- 
 ceptions and views, and for the discrimination in narrative of 
 what was really Divine in human events, and in the fates of 
 emj)ires and dominions. And this contributed most of all to 
 give to Hebrew historiography its peculiar expression. 
 
 Now all this taten together created the true greatness of these 
 historical books. Historical writing among this people became 
 childlike, simple-hearted, and filled with the pure love of truth; 
 not indulging in that vain and lawless phantasy and desire for 
 fame, which easily destroys all earnest truth, but brief and terse 
 in delineating the true, yet at the same time always living 
 and stimulating. When, however, these specialities spring from 
 the predominant control of true religion, then she imparts to 
 historiography her own height of thought, and aversion to all 
 that is frivolous, vain, and emj)ty in narrative, such as cha- 
 racterises more especially the Buddhistic, but in a measure also 
 the entire historical literature of Heathenism, This grandeur 
 of material, and this simple force of representation, becomes 
 therefore more and more the most significant peculiarity of 
 Hebrew historiography, and that by which it is so sharply 
 distinguished from that of Heathenism. Certainly it suffers 
 palpably enough during retrograde times, and the Books of 
 Chronicles do not attain the height and splendour of the older 
 books, the Book of Esther even becoming, when regarded from 
 this point of view, its precise antithesis. But on this soil its 
 special impulses and preferences easily reassumed their power 
 at every favourable period ; and when we find in the Gospels 
 that the more original they are, the more these reappear in 
 a new form, this is by no means to be ascribed to mere 
 imitation. 
 
 But the height of the subject and treatment in consequence 
 of which Hebrew historiography stands so alone in antiquit}", 
 and serves for us too as a perpetual model, remained the sole 
 highest point which it both strove after and attained. This 
 forms at once its genuine glory and its immortal meaning, 
 which one should never ignore : but as it lays claim to no 
 more, it would be folly to bestow upon it any other. That it 
 sought out and faithfully used the most reliable sources, is a 
 matter of course, a consequence of its universal tendency to 
 plain truth and Divine earnestness : but to what may be called 
 in a strict sense erudition it never raised itself.
 
 56 ANONYMOUS CHARACTER OF THE HISTORICAL BOOKS, 
 
 The Anonymous character of the Historical BooTcs, and the 
 Art of Historical Gonvpilation. 
 
 There is a general criterion by which, in spite of its apparent 
 insignificance, the whole peculiarity of Hebrew historical com- 
 position in relation to proper historiography can be very plainly 
 discerned at once. This is the Anonjonous character of the his- 
 torical books. Neither the historians were wont to name them- 
 selves as authors, nor the readers to be curious about their names. 
 This custom is universal at first, and only gradually relaxes in 
 the last centuries, as may be inferred from the Books of Ezra and 
 Nehemiah, and from the fact that the Books of Chronicles are 
 the fii'st to make exact enquiry as to the names of the authors 
 of ancient historical works. Even such names as 'Books of 
 Moses,' 'Books of Samuel,' first came into vogue in these later 
 ages of the ancient peoj)le ; as will be explained further on. We 
 must believe that the anonymous character of the historical 
 works was the established rule from the beginning, was preserved 
 unaltered even in the most flourishing times of their historical 
 literature, and recurred even in the last genuine descendants 
 of this primitive style. For whilst the Second Book of Macca- 
 bees by naming an author betrays itself to have sprung from a 
 completely Hellenistic mind, the First Book remains nameless, 
 as do all the Gospels ; and the fact that not even the Gospel of 
 John bears its author's name on its front is explained b}' this 
 old and consecrated custom. This very thing forms a constant 
 distinction between Hebrew historical composition and that of 
 the Greeks as well as the Arabs (or Mohammedans generally), 
 and is a defect from which it never entirely freed itself even in 
 later times. It is here almost as it is among the Hindus, where 
 from ancient times no great enquiry was ever made about the 
 author of a Purdna, and where the author was never wont to 
 name himself. 
 
 It is a matter of very little importance indeed, when looked at 
 from the simplest point of view, who is the first to write down 
 a well-known story or tradition. The minute diversities, too, 
 which the written picture produces, are easily kept in check 
 by the great events themselves, so long as these exercise a 
 lively influence on the mind of the nation ; and the stories 
 which the narrator essays to embody in wi'iting appear to him 
 so grand and so permanent that his own personality becomes 
 subordinate and vanishes before them. On this account all 
 historical composition, so long as it remains in this perfectly
 
 AND ART OF HISTORICAL COMPILATION. 57 
 
 simple stage of development in a nation, will long continue to 
 be anon^auous. If the ancient Arabian history forms an ex- 
 ception to this, that is to be attributed to special causes (see 
 p. 33). The case is quite different with the Prophets : their 
 name, nay, their life, must at once guarantee their word. 
 Hence there is no portion of the Bible in which the names of 
 the authors have, on the whole, been so faithfully preserved. 
 The fame of poetry also, as soon as it has attained any eleva- 
 tion, is easil}^ reflected on the poets. Hence the names of 
 the authors are frequently mentioned in the poetical parts of 
 the Old Testament, whenever it was possible to do so. But no 
 single name of the author of a narrative work has been pre- 
 served, so inviolate was the ancient custom, even in the most 
 flourishing periods of their historical literature, and so much 
 more highly did the people esteem the history itself in its 
 grandeur and truth than the person who related it. When one 
 reflects, moreover, that the higher a narrator soared (p. 53 sqq.) 
 the more was he compelled to let his own personality disap]3ear 
 behind the grand Divine story he had to tell, it cannot be a 
 matter of surprise that the names even of the greatest historians 
 of the Old Testament are lost to us. Their contemporaries 
 could doubtless always have learnt their names, if they had 
 troubled themselves about it ; but it was not the custom to in- 
 scribe them in the books themselves, so that we should never 
 have known the authors' names even of our five New Testament 
 histories, had not special causes operated in the case of the 
 Gospels to prevent their names being lost. 
 
 But, in fact, this also shows that the zealous search after that 
 truth was not then understood to be the hard but necessary toil 
 of individuals. As soon as ever it becomes very difficult to 
 search out the whole historical truth, and there is a deeper 
 appreciation of that difficulty, then individuals must devote 
 themselves specially to that investigation ; and the historical 
 view which thus proceeds from a person who has examined the 
 whole subject, is necessarily referred to him, and to the autho- 
 rity of his name. Works of history will not then be often pro- 
 duced anonymously and circulated without a name. We may 
 in this respect affirm that the non-namelessness of the his- 
 torian is the beginning of historical science. 
 
 Now the ancient people of Israel passed the most glorious 
 time of its history in such a happy domestic seclusion that, on 
 that very account, the truth of its own history could not be much 
 obscured and perverted in its memory ; and it had no cause to 
 be very curious about foreign histories. The great sobriety of
 
 Ö8 ANONYMOUS CIIARACTEE OF THE HISTORICAL BOOKS, 
 
 its religion further preserved it from too gross corruption of the 
 historical consciousness. In this simplicity of life and thought, 
 and during the very time that its peculiar spirit was in its most 
 fruitful develoi^ment, it felt little necessity for critically investi- 
 gating its ancient history ; and though a science of history 
 might have commenced in the joeriod after David and Solomon, 
 yet it was choked by the troubles of the succeeding times. The 
 impulses and germs of a stricter investigation of antiquity were 
 indeed then busy ; this we must discern and admit : ' but before 
 they could gain strength to develop themselves fairly, they were 
 suppressed. Thus the nation at length disappeared from the 
 theatre of the world's history without having attained an exact 
 knowledge of either its own ancient history or that of other 
 nations. The old Hebrew historical works supply us with the 
 most reliable, and relatively speaking the most abundant, mate- 
 rials for the investigation of the whole of that national history 
 which is in itself at the same time the history of the develop- 
 ment of the only eternally true religion. They are also filled 
 and sustained, in their most essential spirit, by the inmost 
 springs of that religion, and could not be otherwise ; yet we 
 must not demand from them what they do not possess and 
 cannot give, and we ought to acknowledge a defect which we 
 cannot gainsay. Here, as in every other case, it will be enough 
 if we find the real merits of the cause. 
 
 Now as the historians had not so much as the habit of desig- 
 nating their works by their names, later writers found it much 
 easier to copy the works of their predecessors, more or less 
 literally, and to digest and use their materials in the most 
 various ways. So long as the simjple style of historical com- 
 position prevails, historical works are very liable to this treat- 
 ment, even when the authors name themselves — as so many 
 Arabian histories show ; how much more easily then when they 
 are entirely anonymous. In fact, every strict examination of 
 the historical works now contained in the Canon of the Old 
 Testament, shows incontestably that the late authors often 
 copied the older works very literally, fused together the accounts 
 and notices given by various and sometimes discordant authori- 
 ties, and placed them in new combinations, and thus were rather 
 collectors and digesters of older historical materials, than really 
 
 ' Lot the reader only consider such of which rest on trustworthy recollection 
 
 passages as 1 Sam. xxvii. 8; Num. xxiv. and investigation; and the general style 
 
 20; 1 Chr. vii. 21, where we may read of treatment to which the Deuteronomist 
 
 thi'ce different independent opinions on sulijcets the ancient history, 
 the primitive inhabitants of Palestine, all
 
 AND ART OF HISTORICAL COMPILATION. 59 
 
 original authors.' In the earlier times, so long as historical 
 composition, with literature in general, was still flourishing, 
 the amalgamation and fusion of the various written documents 
 was effected more easily and gracefully than in the later. And 
 it is in accordance with this that the reference to written 
 authorities is in earlier times very rare, and only adopted in 
 indispensable cases, but in later ages becomes more frequent 
 and regular. 
 
 But here we arrive at one of the most memorable phenomena 
 in the entire ancient Hebrew literature, which extends far be- 
 yond the range of the historical books, and hitherto has been but 
 little regarded. In order to appreciate it in a manner propor- 
 tioned to its importance, we must think ourselves back into 
 the times when there was a great mass of scattered anonymous 
 writings on the same subject in circulation, and when it was no 
 easy task even to bring them together, and still less so to con- 
 nect them properly. If several different wi'itings on the same 
 subject lay scattered in disorder, it was clearly in itself an 
 advantage to select the best of them and combine these more 
 closely one with another ; and if the writings were anony- 
 mous, it was so much the more easy to combine them agreeably 
 to some special aim. But tolerably early the skilful com- 
 pounding of many such works into one new one must have 
 been raised into a special art ; for in fact there needed not simply 
 the will, but also considerable ability and dexterity, to effect 
 such a compilation ; skilfully to work over materials, to weigh 
 the mutually contradictory, and by the aid of possibly numerous 
 omissions and some connectmg or explanatory additions, to 
 blend the whole as far as possible, and to build up a new whole 
 whose origination from previous documents only a practised eye 
 can discover. But this special art of ho ok- compounding must 
 have been much practised in the nation of Israel as early as 
 the tenth century b.c. It extends down to very late times, 
 flourishing more in prosperous periods than in others, and had 
 manifestly the greatest influence on the whole outward form 
 of a large portion of the literature. It might, besides, take 
 many various forms. The book-compounder might add more 
 or less of his own, might work over all his materials with 
 more or less freedom. By nothing so much as by the activity 
 of this art can one gauge the degree of perfection to which 
 
 • In the midst of all other points of p. ci. sq. There is also much resemblance 
 
 disagreement, there is much resemhlancc in the manner in which lamhliehus' ' Vita 
 
 to this in the origin of many of the Pura- Pythagorse' has been made up from older 
 
 nas. See the remarks in Eurnouf s Pre- Greek works, 
 face to the ' Ehagavata Purtina,' vol. iii.
 
 60 ANONYMOUS CHARACTER OF THE HISTORICAL BOOKS. 
 
 the entire literature of Israel thus early raised itself. It 
 trenches upon the entire literary field. The Book of Enoch 
 as we now have it owes its origin to this art.' Both the 
 Canonical and the Apocryphal Proverbs,^ no less than the 
 Psalter and the Book of Job, have passed through these finish- 
 ing workshops, notwithstanding the authors' names which are 
 here and there interwoven. Even the collection of the Sibyl- 
 line Books has arisen in a similar manner.^ Chief of all, how- 
 ever, did this art find its employment in the historical works ; 
 nor can anything be conceived more elegant and perfect than 
 the compilation of almost the whole of the Old Testament 
 books of narrative. For it is certain, on closer investigation, 
 that not merely the Pentateuch or Genesis, but almost the 
 whole of the historical books, are traceable to distinct and still 
 recognisable sources, though in most the combination has been 
 so cleverly executed that one frequently experiences a difficulty 
 in recognising the rivetings. Moreover this art is exhibited in 
 the three first Gospels and the Acts ; and in the ten books of 
 the History of the Apostles referred to Abdias, the various layers 
 of earlier written narratives of which they are composed are 
 clearly to be made out. Of such importance is it to understand 
 rightly this particular art, and so surely do we encounter here 
 the traces of a forgotten but once very eager literary activity. 
 
 There are few historical books, therefore, now in the Old 
 Testament, which have been preserved perfectly as they were 
 first composed. The latest of all, the Book of Esther, is the 
 onl}»^ one that we can claim as wholly such ; in the little Book of 
 Ruth we observe, at the end at least (iv. 18-22), a literal copy 
 of older writings. It therefore must certainly cost no little 
 trouble to discover and clearly discriminate the original works 
 in the present ones. All that has been preserved of them is 
 more or less fragmentary and confused, and it is often hard 
 enough even to find these fragments correctly. The necessity 
 of such researches, however, spontaneously forces itself on us at 
 every attentive perusal of the books : and, on the other hand, 
 we may be even glad that the late works have preserved so 
 many portions of the original ones, and that we are still en- 
 abled, by the careful study of so many fragments of the most 
 
 ' See my Ahh. über des Aeik. B. HenoM 1858. That such works as the Talmud, 
 
 Entstehung, Sinn mid Zusammensctstmg. the C. J., the BaLylonian-Arabiau and 
 
 Gott. 1854. the Greek Gcoponica must have arisen in 
 
 ■■^ See the Jahrbücher der Biblischen this way, is self-evident ; only in them 
 
 Wiss., iii. and xi. the names of the reputed or actual authors 
 
 ' See my Abh. über Entstehung, Inhalt, of the original writings are often pre- 
 
 und Werth der Sibyllischen Bücher. Gott, served.
 
 HISTORY OF IIEBKEW HISTORICAL COMPOSITION. GI 
 
 clifFerent kinds and ages, to obtain a more complete survey of 
 the whole ancient Hebrew historical composition.^ We now 
 proceed to particulars. 
 
 C. HISTORY OF HEBREW HISTORICAL COMPOSITION. 
 
 The historical works contained in the Old Testament, which 
 must be the chief sources of this history, are divided, both as to 
 their character and their external order and arrangement, into 
 three parts : I. The books which are devoted to the description 
 of the Antiquity of the nation, or the period down to the time 
 of the Judges : viz. the Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua ; 
 which, however, properly only form one work, and which (if we 
 wished to give them a collective name) might be called the G-reat 
 Booh of Origins,^ or of the Primitive History. II. The books 
 which describe the time of the Judges and Kings, down to the 
 first destruction of Jerusalem : viz. the Book of Judges and the 
 four Books of Kings {i.e. the two of Samuel and the two of 
 Kings), to which we must add the Book of Ruth, which acci- 
 dentally has received a place in the Hebrew Bible among the 
 Hagiographa ; all these likewise, on their last redaction, only 
 formed one work, which might be appropriately called the Great 
 Booh of Kings. Each of these two great works, therefore, not 
 only embraces a separate province, but, by a surprising coinci- 
 dence, at the same time comprises one of the three great 
 periods into which the entire histor}^ of the nation is divided 
 by intrinsic character ; and all critical investigation brings us 
 to the conclusion that neither of them, in the state in which 
 we find them, is a single work in the strict sense, but is to be 
 regarded as a book in which a number of kindred accounts and 
 
 ' When these investigations began to once [namely, in the Theologische Studien 
 
 be zealously pursued in Germany, more nnd Kritiken for the year 1831, p. 595 
 
 than seventy years ago, very much perver- sqq., and in the March number of the 
 
 sity of attempt and aim mingled in them. Berliner Jahrbücher for the same year.] 
 
 Scholars were too easily satisfied with The necessity of strict investigation in 
 
 hunting out mere contradictions in the this province is evident to everyone who 
 
 books, detecting want of coherence in is not wilfully blind ; and all we have to 
 
 the stories, and resolving eveiything into be concerned aboiit is, that our knowledge 
 
 ' fragments ' ; whereas they had not yet and discernment should be thoroughly 
 
 foimd any largo firm basis, and were there- reliable and profound. No conscientious 
 
 fore unable to distinguish a real incon- man ought any longer to pav the least 
 
 gruity from a merely apparent discre- attention to the stupidity of those scholars 
 
 pancy. I do not now regret having who even in our day condemn all inves- 
 
 cast my first youthful work of the year tigations of this sort in the lump. 
 1823 [die Komposition der Genesis] into ^ Not to be confounded with that which 
 
 that wild ferment: I still maintain large I usually call the Book of Origins. This 
 
 and important portions of it. I have, latter is the older book, and one basis of 
 
 however, already spoken of it more than the present one.
 
 G2 lllSTOEY OF IIEBIIEW HISTOKICAL COMPOSITION. 
 
 representations of the same period liave gathered round one 
 central work, or rather, have attached themselves to it as closely 
 as j)ossible — just as, in the Psalter and the Proverbs, a quantity 
 of kindred matter has gradually gathered round the nucleus 
 furnished by David's songs and Solomon's proverbs. To these 
 are to be added : III. Those much later works which are placed 
 together in the Hagiographa, namely, the Great Book of Uni- 
 versal History down to the Greek times (the Chronicles with the 
 Books of Ezra and Nehemiah), and the little Book of Esther. 
 These are the three strata of historical books in the Old Tes- 
 tament, which moreover were completed and received into the 
 Canon in the same order of time. And as each of the three 
 great works sprang, both as to origin and present shape, from 
 peculiar and independent tendencies of historical view and de- 
 scription, we find in them, when taken together and thoroughly 
 appreciated in all their minutest parts, the exactest possible 
 history of the fates and modifications of Hebrew historical com- 
 j)osition, from its rudiments, down through its fullest and ripest 
 development to its complete decay.
 
 HISTORY OF IIEBHEW HISTOEICAL COMPOSITION. C3 
 
 I. THE GEEAT BOOK OF OEIGINS. 
 
 PENTATEUCH AND BOOK OF JOSHUA. 
 
 This work on tlie history of the ancient period of the nation is, 
 as to its origin and the greater part of its contents, considerably 
 older than the second of the three books above mentioned, and 
 has therefore experienced far greater transformations, before it 
 emerged ont of the flood of similar books, as the only one which 
 posterity thought worth preservation. Before it received its 
 last modifications, earlier historical works and documents of the 
 most various kind were gathered into its bosom, as rivers into 
 a sea; and the discovery and discrimination of these oldest 
 component parts is the problem, the right solution of which is 
 indispensable for the use of the various materials, and includes 
 in itself the relics of a history of the oldest Hebrew historical 
 composition. 
 
 Without doubt, the utmost foresight is the first condition of 
 sound discernment in this field. For Avhen we have to deal 
 with books which are no longer in their original state, and 
 which we only know at second or third hand, by isolated cri- 
 teria, it necessarily follows that the oldest are the most difficult 
 to discover, because repeated redactions may have so much 
 shortened, or transformed and amalgamated them with later ma- 
 terial, that it requires the utmost effort to collect the fragments 
 of a work from their dispersion and confusion, and to form from 
 them a correct notion of the whole work. As it is impossible, 
 however, any longer to evade ail researches of this kind — unless 
 we are ready beforehand to renounce every sound view about 
 the whole of the oldest history — everything dejDends on our 
 research being profound enough to exhaust all the evidences 
 that the present documents offer. It is surprising to see how 
 the varied phenomena of this province, as soon as we only make 
 a right beginning of comprehending them, contribute so much 
 light to explain each other, as to make it possible to establish 
 the most important certainties on what at first sight seemed 
 such slippery ground.' 
 
 ' After I had giiined some insight into Buchs von Mose, Halle, 1798], the only 
 
 the leading necessities that govern this scholar of older date, who, after the phy- 
 
 ■whole subject, I was curious to see whether sician Astruc and Eichhorn, carefully ex- 
 
 K. D. Ilgen [^Dic Urkunden des ersten aminod the Book of Genesis with refer-
 
 C4 lIISTOIiY OF HEBREW IIISTOEICAL COMPOSITION. 
 
 1. The oldest Historical Worhs. 
 
 There are writings which have every appearance of great anti- 
 quity, but which do not particularly claim our notice here, be- 
 cause they cannot be reckoned to belong to narrative literature. 
 Thus, as we shall frequently remark further on, many short 
 codes of laws were wi-itten down at a very early date, and on 
 repeated occasions ; nevertheless, in so far as these were written 
 down by themselves, they do not belong here. It is not so easy 
 to conceive that such a passage as the list of the stations 
 (Num. xxxiii. 1-49), which must have been written early, and 
 which is even ascribed to Moses himself (v. 2), can ever have been 
 written down by itself, without belonging to a regular historical 
 work. If, then, we look for traces of strictly historical works, 
 such as we should expect to find in Israel, a close scrutiny 
 certainly does discover comparatively many and distinct ves- 
 tiges of this kind. In a general way, we include among them 
 all the passages which, according to all appearances, must 
 have already stood in some historical book or other before the 
 date of the Book of Origins, which we shall soon describe, and 
 other later works. We find such fragments of the oldest his- 
 torical works scattered about from the Book of Genesis down to 
 that of Judges ; and, as far as it can be concisely done thus 
 early, we will indicat^e them in the note below.' 
 
 ence to its sources — had discovered the 7, 22, xlix. 1-28. — In the Book of Exo- 
 triie state of the case in this book, at any dus : iv. 18, 24-27, xiii. 17-18; much 
 rate. But ahis ! I found that, though in xiv. ; then xv. almost entirely ; xviii., 
 he occasionally takes a step on the right xix. 3-xxiv. 11, a lai-ge main-piece, al- 
 road, he always loses it again. As for though the Fourth Narrator must hare en- 
 later times, I may refer to what I have larged something in xix. — In the Book of 
 myself said in the Tlieologische Studien Numbers : xi. 4-9, xii. 1, 3, xx. 14-21, 
 und Kritiken for the year 1831, p. 590- xxi. 1-9, 12-35, xxxii. 33-42, very im- 
 G08 ; and to Tuch's Kommentar über die portant passages. — In the Book of Joshua : 
 Genesis, 1838. On the more recent un- v. 2-12, as to its basis ; much in x.-xii., 
 satisfactory and often perverse works of especially the list in xii. 9-24 ; in xiii. 
 Hupf(4d and KnoV)cl I have written at 2-6, 13, xv. 13-19, 45-47, xvi. 10, 
 length in the Jahrbücher der Biblischen xvii. 11-18, xix. 47. — In the Book of 
 Wiss.v. p. 239-44, and Glitt. Gel. Anz., Judges: the whole chapter i. to ii. 5, little 
 1862, p. 17-31. The opinions of such as altered ; but also the passage in x. 8, and 
 Hengstenberg, Delitzsch, Keil, Kurtz, much in ix., have all the air of being 
 stand Ijelow and outside of all science, derived from very old documents. Many 
 See also p. 61 above. portions of these works are, without 
 ' In the Book of Genesis : some ancient doubt, scattered about in other places, 
 elemerts in xi. 29 sq., xv. 2, xx., xxi. freely treated by later writers, and tho- 
 6-32, xxvi. 13-33, xxix. -xxxiii. 15; more roughly changed in the redaction. Where 
 connectedly and very little changed, xxxv. such materials are to be looked for, the 
 l_4j 6-8, 16-22; much in xxxvii., xl., consideration of the following works will 
 eqq., may be derived from this source, teach. It was liardly possible to explain 
 especially as to what regards purely Egyp- here, with all necessary detail, the grounds 
 tian topics ; but we do not discover the for ascribing the above-cited passages to 
 unadulterated original again till xlviii. one or more ancient historical works. "Wo
 
 THE OLDEST IIISTOEICAL WORKS. 65 
 
 If we compare these fragments with the subsequent works, 
 which we shall soon describe, we at once discern a marked 
 difference between their mode of treating the history itself. 
 The subsequent works delineate, indeed, many incidents of the 
 age of Moses and Joshua with great minuteness of detail ; but 
 m that case they pursue more definite aims, legislative and 
 prophetical, and each of them, as we shall show, does so in its 
 own peculiar style. But these fragments have no such limited 
 scope in their account of these times ; moreover, the matter 
 which they record may be recognised as the most strictly his- 
 torical, and the picture which they present as the most antique. 
 Few as may be the comparative number of the accounts which 
 are now preserved in these fragments, they afford us the 
 clearest insight into those times, and with all their conciseness 
 contain an abundance of graphic and truly historical views, 
 which afford us the readiest key to the understanding of all 
 later works. We will show further on, by many examples, how 
 much they surpass even their immediate successor, the highly 
 important .BooÄ; of Origins, in simplicity and exactness, as well 
 as in fulness and variety of record, and to what extent it is true 
 that we possess no more reliable accounts of the events and 
 peculiarities of early times than they contain. There is hardly 
 anything which the historian has more to regret than the fact 
 that only so few of these fragments have been preserved. 
 
 These fragments also display many both rare and archaic 
 peculiarities in the usage of words ; ^ and much that is very 
 
 shall speak more intelligibly, and at the being read, only recurs thrice in Deute- 
 
 sanie time more concisely, on these points ronomy with the same idea, and in a 
 
 further on, in the special portions of the different connection in Chronicles and 
 
 history itself, and in part in the following Ecclesiastes. Among the remarkable for- 
 
 cxplanation of the separate historical mations are the strange infinitive •inb'U» 
 
 works. j^jj x^jji_ 2g^ ^^^ (.j-^g sufjix ''\^—, not in 
 ' Confining ourselves to the passages , , , • , , ^ '' , • 
 
 which have been little changed, and which ^^^'«'^ (though certainly lofty prophetic 
 
 are at the same time not poetical, we find Miction), xxiu. 31. We might enumerate 
 
 here, in proportion to the trifling bulk of niany peculiar expressions, as. Kings 
 
 the passages, a great number of words ''^«^ (f'^^ ^«"^'l i° Amh^vic jancgns 
 
 which are either entirely unknown else- mangad, ^ccovA. to Isenbergs Dictionary, 
 
 where, or are not usual in prose. Thus, p. 33, 102 ; "-p^ -|-n, Mischna San- 
 
 nx Ex. xxiv. 6 ; ^''^^'X v. 11 ; -)J|3y Josh. , , . ... u \ u . c ^ 
 
 ^'- ' '' ?^? ' Hj> hedrin, ii. 4; AbLJl <__',J Seetzen s 
 
 V. 11 ; rCDn XV. 18, Judges i. 14; ^J^^ , '^ ■ ^ 
 
 Te, • - -.-.,«_,.. ■ , ■ t\ i' i" Beisen, i. p. 61, 132; and Sultana, in 
 
 JNum. XXI. ; flDDDX xi. 4 ; in the whole -o u- > r> ? j- ••■•■<, a tit 
 
 t'T:--: Kobinson s Prtfes;'(«e, 111. 141, Amra. Marc. 
 
 Pentateuch, and throughout the entire 23, 3, 1), for broad high-road, Num. xx. 
 
 Old Testament, except the passages that 17, xxi. 22; djoh- said'of the divine, i.e. 
 
 adopt tlie word from the Pentateuch (Lam. irresistible discomfiture of an enemy, Ex. 
 
 iii. 5; Mai. i. 13; Neh. ix. 32), HX^Fl is xiv. 24, xxiii. 27, Josh. x. 10: -12"^ pX 
 
 only found in Ex. xvJii. 8 and Num. XX. 14; without trouble. Num. xx. 19; iq';) 
 
 and rhryO only in Ex. xiii. 26, xxiii. ^^^^ according to the edge of the stcord, 
 
 25; the word n^;p, in tlio remarkable i.t";.ithoutmercy,Num. xxi. 24 ; Josh.viii. 
 
 passage Ex. xix. 5, which v.as constantly 24, x. 28, 30, 32, 3ö, 37, 39, xi. 11 sq. 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 66 IIISTOllY OF IIEBEEW IIISTOrJCAL COMrOSITION. 
 
 isolated and obscure in later works lias certainly been borrowed 
 from these remains of early history, or fr'om similar sources.^ 
 
 If we are asked, however, whether these fragments belong to 
 a single historical work which originally embraced them all, we 
 must answer in the negative. Although all the difficulties of 
 such researches are centered here, we are nevertheless able, 
 by gathering together into as lifelike a combination as possible 
 all that bears signs of having once been full of life, to discern 
 in these fragments several historical works from which they 
 must be derived. As far as we can distinguish these as to the 
 dates of their origin, they succeeded each other in this order : 
 
 1) The account of an important speech of Joshua's (Josh. xvii. 
 14-18) is evidently one of the most remarkable relics of the 
 oldest historical composition ; and none among all the above- 
 mentioned fragments is so strange as this, in purely linguistic 
 and artistic respects. The narration here almost stammers, as 
 if it had yet to learn an easy flow. This prose is as rough and 
 hard as a stone ; and if there is any passage in the Old Testa- 
 ment which proves that common — that is, not poetical — diction 
 (although, of course, it always existed along with poetical 
 diction, just as night beside day) is at first but little fit to be 
 written down, and only gradually and laboriously attains the 
 roundness which suits writing (which verse originally possesses 
 of itself), this passage is the one.^ Besides, we are to take into 
 
 14 sq., xix. 47; Jdgs. i. 8, 15, an ex- xix. 3, 17, 19, xx. 1, 19 sq. Peculiar 
 
 prossion which indeed often reciirs in expressions and views, when they are at 
 
 other later books after this model, bnt the same time important for the history, 
 
 which is foreign to the Book of Origins will be explained below in their places, 
 (concerning Gen. xxxiv. 26, see further ' It has hitherto been little noticed that 
 
 on). The case is the same with the ex- obscure words and sentences which, ac- 
 
 pression 'inti' \\) n*^^K'n ah ^e ^eß not cording to all appearance, must be based 
 
 one that escaped, Num. xxi. 35, Josh. x. ?° ancient tradition, and which yet occur 
 
 28, 30, 33, 37, 39 sq., xi. 8 (cf. viii. 22) ; ^'} ^^'^^ "^i^st of easy and flo^nng descrip- 
 
 nox maul, for r\n^^, is likewise foreign t'ons, are derived from such primitive 
 
 ' T ''.- : sources, and are evidently only repeated 
 
 to the Book of Origins, compare Oen. xx. y^^ subsequent writers for the sake of the 
 
 17; XXI. 10-12; xxx. 3 ; xxxi. 33 ; Ji-x. ancient tradition. A convincing example 
 
 xxi 7,^20, 26 sq., 30 ; xxni. 12 (xx. 10), ^^^. ^^^ found in the obscure passage Gen. 
 
 with Gen. xvi. 1-8; xxv. 12; xxxv. 2o xx. 16, which, from the mere resemblance 
 
 s<l- ; nhiX 71? 071 account of, is at least of verse 17 with Ex. xv. 26, Num. xxi. 7, 
 
 nowhere so frequent a characteristic as in '"^f ^^ taken from one of these ancient 
 
 these fragments. Gen. xxi. 11, 25, xxvi. ^o^^^'^' There is a similar case in the 
 
 32 ; Ex. xviii. 8 ; Num. xii. 1 . It accords ^^"^'' ' ^^^ Dff <i of Isaac for Isaac s God, 
 
 well with all these criteria that these ^F"^- ^^"^^ ^\ 53, which must have an 
 
 fragments do not, as the Book of Origins ^"f «rical foundation 
 dots, introduce the name Juhveh at Ex. \ ^^^ repetition of the explanatory ^3, 
 
 vi. 2, but besides that name, constantly whichisnowhereelsesofrequentasin Josh. 
 
 use the common one Elohim, even in the xvii. IS, appears in somewhat the samo 
 
 Mililimest moments of revelation, in a way in Ex. xxiii. 33, which is likewise an 
 
 manner whicli we sliould neither expect to ancient passage ; nevertheless, it does not 
 
 find, nor actually do find, in llie Book of recur there so frequently as in the former ; 
 
 Origins, Ex. xiii. 17 sq., xviii. 1 sqq., and the passages of this 27,1/«^ Narrator
 
 BOOK OF THE AVAKS OF JAIIVEII. 67 
 
 account tlie tlioronglily antique and almost unexampled histo- 
 rical contents of this passage : so that there can be no doubt 
 that it was written down soon after Joshua's death. 
 
 From the nature of its contents, however, this account would 
 originally have only formed a small section of a larger wort. 
 What then was the historical work to which it belono-ed — 
 perhaps the very oldest in Israel after Moses and Joshua ? We 
 once find a Booh of the Wars of Jaliveh specially cited as a 
 Avritten document, by a later but comparatively very ancient 
 historian ; ^ and if we consider both what he cites from this 
 source, and the name he assigns to it, it will lead us to im- 
 portant conclusions. Verse 14 cites from this ancient book a 
 thoroughly unconnected sentence, which begins and ends with 
 accusatives, and cites it merely as a further testimony to the 
 position of Israel's encampment : 
 
 [We took] 
 
 Walieb in Sufa, and the valleys of Arnon, 
 
 and the slope of the valleys that reaches to where Ar lies, 
 
 and leans upon the bordei* of Moab. 
 
 Verse 20 cites another passage for the description of a station : ^ 
 
 [the dale] 
 that is in the field of Moab, at the head of Pisgah, and looks out over 
 the wilderness. 
 
 The structure of the members, and the very rare diction,^ as 
 well as the style of local description, which is by no means that 
 usual in prose, show that these are fragments of songs, of songs 
 of victory beyond doubt, which celebrated the conquests of the 
 nation — the possible compass of which we may estimate by the 
 similar song in Judges v. The name Booh of the Wars of 
 Jahveh,* indicates a book which, to judge by its title, certainly 
 
 ah'cady possess a much more flowing style ' Let the reader only consider the 
 generally. Besides, almost everything in very peculiar iisage of *1^K for fic- 
 tile language of the passage in Josh. xvii. divitf/, of DQK' for place, oi't^st-^ before 
 is strange. ^, „" '" . ■, . ^ 
 
 ' Num. xxi. 14. To be siu-e, the LXX. ^^l ^'™^ °^ •? ^1'?'*' and even serving to 
 
 translate here 5.« rodro X^y.rai 4v ß^ßKl^- define the situation of the place, llie 
 
 n6Mt,o, To-v Kvplov rV Zcobß icpAöyta,, but expression in Deut xxxiv. 1 is probibly 
 
 manifestly from a variety of misunder- only dern^d from the last phrase. How 
 
 standings ; and it is almost incompre- "/^^ l^^ "^l }'' ""■ ? ''' ''^'^''*'"''. '^ '° ?T 
 
 hensible how in the Zdf^ch. d. Beut. Mar- ^^^^^ f'^'^^ !'^^'t a m-.t« many centuries later 
 
 gml. Gcs. 1860, p. 316 sq. this utterly ff'^"^ >* 1^"^« differently. Num. xxxni. 
 
 perverse interiiretation of the words can 1 mi ^ • i i • . 
 
 be approved, and the existence of a Book ^hat is, holy wars, wars against op- 
 
 of the Wars of Jahveh A.mod. ^ve^^xxe heathens, said with the same 
 
 ^ The formula of citation is indeed ab- ^P^'S''' ''' '"• \'^"'- ^'''"- ^^ ' ^''''- ^^' 
 sent here, but it occurs just before, and 
 the style of the diction indicates the same 
 source. 
 
 cf. 2 Sam. xxiii. 11. 
 
 F 2
 
 68 HISTOKY OF HEBREW HISTOEICAL COMPOSITION. 
 
 did not contain only sucli songs, but a collection of all such 
 reminiscences of the victorious campaigns of Moses and Joshua. 
 We must therefore consider this to be one of the earliest his- 
 torical works, which also contained simple naiTatives. We 
 may assume, then, that the above-mentioned passage of Joshua 
 originally belonged to it. Another very important passage that 
 probably belonged to it, is the great Passover- song in Ex. xv. 
 1—18 ; for this has in v. 19 a brief explanatory appendix, which 
 the next early historian (the author of the Book of Cove- 
 nants), of whom we shall soon speak, must have found already 
 annexed to it. The work may also have contained a list of 
 the sites of Israel's encampment in the desert, which this same 
 author of the Book of Covenants used. And if the author of 
 the Book of Origins found Israel's stations in the desert 
 already recorded in this oldest historical work, we can readily 
 understand how he came to ascribe such a list to Moses him- 
 self, since it may at least at bottom be actually traceable to 
 him.* 
 
 2) According to all indications, we may refer to a second 
 historical work some passages which — in direct contrast to the 
 preceding unpractised attempts — display a hand more skilled 
 in narrative composition, so that we may on that account con- 
 sider this work somewhat later than the preceding ; but which, 
 as to contents, ascend back to very early times, and may very 
 well have been written in the first century after Moses. We 
 find no indication that this work contained more than the life 
 of Moses himself, and, in the absence of the original designation, 
 we may reasonably call it the Biography of Moses. But even the 
 fact of its proposing to itself so limited a subject, is (as will 
 appear further on) an evidence for its early date. Moses him- 
 self and his time are here presented to us on all sides in the 
 clearest light. No other work known to us describes that 
 great time more minutely and- familiarly, and at the same time 
 in such delicate and transparent language, as we discern in 
 these fragments. They also manifest most unmistakable simi- 
 larity in the external j)ro]3erties of the diction. But alas ! they 
 are only a very few fragments.^ 
 
 3) Of a third work, many more fragments have been preserved. 
 And when we compare the contents of the most important 
 
 • Num. xxxiii. 2 ; on this two-fold list dently assign to it ; bnt vithout doubt 
 of the encaniping-plaees of Moses, SCO what many other records were ultimately de- 
 is said further on, of the march through rived from this work, especially that list 
 the desert. of the eanip-stations of Israeli under 
 
 2 Namely, E.^. iv. IS, and the whole Moses, which disagrees with the one above 
 
 chapter xviii. arc all that we can confi- referred to.
 
 BOOK OF COVENANTS. 69 
 
 among tliem, tliey at once display a striking- common character 
 in one particular : they are mainly intent on showing how the 
 ancient compacts and covenants arose, and describe with especial 
 minuteness all that concerns these. It is as if people were then 
 in an unquiet time, in which everyone tried to secure himself 
 by oral or written agreements with friends, and by binding 
 compacts ; * such importance is here attached to covenants in 
 all relations of life. As a covenant is made between Israel and 
 Elohim in the sublimest passage of the history, ^ so, according 
 to this work, there is one between Jacob and Laban, Isaac 
 and Abimelech, Abraham and Abimelech ; ^ and there is the 
 greatest resemblance in the descriptions of the ratifications of 
 all these covenants.* This work is so peculiar in this respect, 
 and all equally important accounts about the Patriarchal world 
 contained in later works are so evidently a mere development 
 of the principle here laid down, ^ that I do not see how, if we 
 will give this work a name (its ancient name being lost), any 
 better designation can be found for it than that of Book of 
 Covenants. 
 
 If we seek the date of this work, all discoverable traces show 
 that, though it cannot be earlier than the second half of the 
 period of the Judges, or, more definitely, the beginning of Sam- 
 son's jurisdiction, it certainly cannot be later. If the passage 
 in Judges x. 8 is from this work, as I believe it is, that would 
 bring its to the times after Gideon ; and it is evident from 
 Num. xxxii. 34-42 and from the above-mentioned passages 
 from the present books of Joshua and Judges, that the first 
 times after Moses and Joshua had long become a matter of 
 history. Jacob's Blessing (Gen. xlix.), which has every sign of 
 having been borrowed from this book, brings us still nearer to 
 the determination of its date. For it is entirely based on an 
 actual view of the scattered manner in which the twelve tribes 
 dwelt in Canaan in the period of the Judges. The very different 
 conditions of the various tribes, such as must be the case 
 when there is no strict national unity, and was the case just 
 then among them, could not be more faithfully described than 
 
 ' See the clear account s^i^'f^ii iii auotlier with such minuteness, yet never mentions 
 
 very aucient documeut, Gen. xiv. 13, and the 'aalt of the covenant,' as the Book of 
 
 the manner in which our work speaks of Origins does. Lev. ii. 13 ; Num. xviii. 19 ;' 
 
 its own time, Ex. xxiii. 32. of. 2 Chron. xiii. 5. 
 
 ^ Ex. xxiv. * What the Book of Origins says about 
 
 ^ Gen. xxi. 22-32, xxvi. 28-31, xxxi. the Divine Covenant with Abraham, Gen. 
 
 44-54. xvii., and even with Noah, Gen. ix., lies 
 
 * To see this more distinctly, we must so far removed from all historical expe- 
 
 take into account that this work, although rience, that the prototype of it can only 
 
 it describes the ratification of covenants bo sought in Ex. xxiv.
 
 70 HISTORY OF HEBREW HISTORICAL COMrOSITION. 
 
 tliey are in this song ; and it is as cei-tain tliat Jacob's Bless- 
 ing was composed in the period of the Judges as it is that 
 the Song of Deborah belongs to the same date. How certain it 
 is that it was not produced in the time of the Kings, is further 
 evident from the fact that the imitation of it, Moses's Blessing, 
 in Deut. xxxiii., was really composed for the j)urpose of sup- 
 plying its deficiencies, which were subsequently very sensibly 
 felt. For when Israel felt itself united and happy under kingly 
 rule, then — to say nothing of other changes which time had 
 wroiTght — it could no longer be contented with a benediction 
 which nowhere regarded the nation as a whole, and which, 
 with respect to some tribes, rather went off into curses, or at 
 any rate into bitter reproaches ; and we comprehend how a poet 
 might conceive the idea of remodelling it in such a way as we 
 see in Deut. xxxiii. Another indication tliat Jacob's Blessing 
 belongs to the later half of the period of the Judges is found 
 in the remarkable fact that Deborah's song was present to his 
 mind as a model ; and though it possesses much poetical beauty, 
 yet it is very far from having the original poetic vigour that 
 Deborah's song has. But the clearest indication for us is its 
 declaration about Dan, v. 16-18 : 
 
 Dun [judge] shall judge his people, 
 
 as any tribe of Israel. 
 Let Dan be a serpent in the "way, 
 
 a basilisk in the path, 
 That bites the horses' heels, 
 
 so that his rider fall backwards.' 
 — I hope for thy help, oh Jahveh ! 
 
 This distinctly refers to Samson's time and judicial office, 
 when even the small tribe of Dan was as fortunate as any other 
 great one in seeing, in the person of Samson, a successful 
 judge and hero arise in its midst of whom it could be jjroud, 
 and under whom, although small and oi)pressed, it rose boldly 
 against the Philistine supremacy, like a serpent which, though 
 trodden to the earth, attacks the valiant rider behind.'^ And 
 it being certain that this position of the tribe under Samson 
 soon passed away without abiding consequences, such declaration 
 must surely have been written down during Samson's brief and 
 
 ' Cf. tlie way in wliicli among the an- liow immediately and how fervently those 
 
 cicnt Arabs also the image of a warrior as then living hoped for Dan's, that is Sam- 
 
 a serpent is worked out, Hamäsa, p. 784 son's, victory. The interjection here be- 
 
 sq- ^ . longs to the original text just as much as 
 
 * Even the ejaculation in v. 18 is cha- that in Is. xlvii. 4. 
 racteristic, inasmuch as it distinctly shows
 
 BOOK OF COVENANTS. 71 
 
 successful resistance ; from which we inay form a correct iii- 
 fereuce as to the date of the whole historical work of which 
 we speak, inasmuch as all the other indications point to the 
 same period. 
 
 This work, therefore, had its origm in a time which (as we 
 shall show in its place) rose with new zeal ag-ainst the great 
 dangers and corruptions which multiplied in the first careless 
 centuries after Moses ; a zeal which, after repeated kindlings, 
 at last j)i"oduced a really great deliverance under Samuel and 
 the first king. In this new popular fervour it might have been 
 considered advisable to survey the past history of the nation, 
 to describe its ancient victories and its destiny, its laws and its 
 covenants, and to remark by way of contrast how low it had 
 fallen in recent times, and how much of the Holy Land it had 
 still left in the hands of the heathen (Judges i.). Thus the 
 plan and nature of the work, as far as we can discover them 
 from its fragments, may be clearly inferred from the period of 
 its origin. The state of things in the time of the author, as 
 to the intermixture of the people with the heathen, and the 
 position of many unconquered heathen towns in the midst of 
 Israel, was evidently similar to that described in the memorable 
 passage in Judges i. ; a state of things that had so entirely 
 changed even under the first kings that the ' Book of Origins ' 
 presents quite a different picture. It is evident that the tra- 
 ditions about the days of Moses and Joshua were then very 
 abundant and pure, as is to be expected, seeing that no new 
 and more important period could have obscured their memory. 
 Traditions of the Patriarchal time were also incorporated, 
 manifestly with great fulness and detail, and with reminis- 
 cences whose completeness gradually diminishes afterwards ; ^ 
 we have no evidence, at least, that the work ventured on the 
 primitive times before Abraham. The time of the author was, 
 however, already so remote from the Patriarchal age, that it 
 was possible to use a poetic license, and venture on one bold 
 imaginative picture of that age. Sorrowfull}^ surveying the 
 condition of the scattered tribes, and compelled to pronounce 
 praise on some of them, and ' j)oignant blame on others, he 
 fled in spirit to the memory of the Patriarch Jacob, in whom 
 the idea of the unity of the nation alwaj^s centered, and from 
 whom every member of the community might exj)ect an en- 
 
 ' As, for example, Phichol as general, were merely casually preserved out of a 
 
 and Ahuzzatli as friend (minister) of Abi- cycle of much more circumstantial tra- 
 
 melech, who stand now very isolated (Gen. ditions. 
 xxi. 22, xxvi. 26), and look as if tlu'y
 
 72 HISTORY OF HEBREW HISTORICAL COMPOSITION. 
 
 during' fatlieHy interest in the fortunes of liis posterity.^ All 
 antiquity entertained the notion that dying persons have mo- 
 ments of illumination, and especially that a dying Patriarch 
 could foresee the destinies of his posterity.^ Thus he ventured 
 to make the dying- Jacob the mouthpiece of all the pure truths 
 to be pronounced about all the tribes.^ This is the earliest 
 attempt of the kind known to us ; later writers have evidently 
 only copied the example here set."* 
 
 Even the tribe in which the author composed his work may 
 in some degree be determined. He certainly did not belong to 
 the tribe of Levi ; he makes no allusions to its privileges and 
 honours, nay hardly mentions it, as this tribe had fallen very 
 low in the time of the Judges before Eli ; and in the only 
 place in which he is obliged to mention it in the series of 
 the tribes,'"' he coldly degrades it to a level on which it could 
 be placed only by a stranger, and only at that period. In like 
 manner, he rises with noble pride against the northern tribes, 
 w'hich were more intermixed with heathen.^ He praises the 
 tribe of Joseph indeed, as he could not then help doing ; ^ but 
 there is no indication that he belonged to it. On the other 
 hand, he everywhere exalts the tribe of Judah so markedly,^ that 
 we cannot shut our eyes to the special interest which draws 
 him towards it. And that he dwelt in the south, and regarded 
 the relative positions of the inhabitants from that point of 
 view, is deducible from his special notice of the Amorites,*^ and 
 from the custom thence arising of using the name of Amorites 
 in a general sense, instead of that of Canaanites'° — a pecu- 
 
 ' That in early times a reciprocal rola- contrast to this, Moses' Blessing gives 
 
 tion was always assumed to exist between exclusive prominence to the opposite side 
 
 tlio Patriarchs and their descendants, is of Levi, Deut. xxxiii. 8-11. 
 
 clearly seen in the language of the Pro- ^ Gen. xlix. 14; Judges i. 
 
 phets : as Hosea xii. 4 sqq. [3 sqq.] ' Gen. xlix. 22-26. 
 
 '^ Ilomer, II. xxii. 365-360, and the * Gen. xlix. 8-12, where he is almost 
 
 commentators ad loc. declari'd the first-Lorn, and at any rate 
 
 ' That the author docs not so much made equal to the princely tribe of Joseph 
 
 mean the sons of Jacob as the tribes in (Judges i. 2 sqq.); compare moreover tlie 
 
 Gen. xlix. 1-27, ho himself explains at very minute remarks about events belong- 
 
 the end, v. 28; and this gives us a clear ing to Judali's territory. Judges i. 12-15 
 
 hint how the whole is meant to be taken, (Josli. xv. 16-19); v. 16; Num. xxi. 1-3. 
 
 and that the speaker himself may be un- ^ Judges i. 36, where there is a very pre- 
 
 derstood to be identical with the poet, eise definition of the southern border of 
 
 The special blessing on Joseph (verses the Amorites, which is nowhere else vv.- 
 
 22-26), however, is ancient, preserved fei-rcd to. 
 
 from times long before Moses; on this '" Gen. xlviii. 22 (see on the contrary 
 
 matter see below, on Joseph. xxxiv. 2) ; Num. xxi. 13, 21 sqq., xxxii. 
 
 < Not only Moses' Elessing, Deut. 39 ; Judges i. 34 sq., x. 8. Other writers 
 
 xxxiii., but also such declarations as Gen. belonging to Judah speak in the same 
 
 xlviii. 15-19, xxvii. 27-29, 39 sq. ; Num. manner, Amos ii. 9, 10, the author of tlio 
 
 xxiii. sq., are entirely formed upon tliat ancient Book of Kings, 1 Sam. vii. 7, 14; 
 
 nio(hd. 2 Sam. xxi. 2 (see on tlio contrary Josh. ix. 
 
 * Güü, xlix. 5-7— cf. »xxxiv. 25. In 3 sqq.), and the Fifth Narrator, Gen. xv.
 
 BOOK OF COVENANTS. 73 
 
 liarity wliicli markedly distinguishes these fragments from 
 others. 
 
 If we look more into the intrinsic character of this narrator, 
 however, we almost always find him animated, in the midst of 
 his representations of antiquity, by a strong affl,atus of the 
 prophetic spirit — a point that also distinguishes him from the 
 preceding narrators. Even that Blessing of Jacob could only 
 have been imagined by a genuine prophetic spirit ; in the de- 
 scription of the covenant between God and Israel the same 
 spirit displays itself in a glorious Divine declaration ; ' and in 
 other places also, and throughout, we discern its traces as a fire 
 constantly glowing under the ashes. Nevertheless, the nan-ator 
 adheres very closely to the simplicity of the ancient tradition, 
 and thereby differs sensibly enough from the later regular pro- 
 phetic narrators. 
 
 For this very reason we discern in him the rudiments of a 
 higher art of historical description. This shows itself also in 
 the fact that he is the first (as far as we know) who united the 
 remote period of the three Patriarchs with the Mosaic history 
 into one great work ; by which it became possible (as will soon 
 appear from the Book of Origins) for this history to be gradu- 
 ally enlarged into a universal history of the world. We have 
 the less reason to be surprised that this historian used older 
 written documents. He inserted the Decalogue (Ex. xx. 1-17);^ 
 he incorporated songs which have all the signs of great anti- 
 quity, and which must have been written down previously.' 
 For such and other historical purposes, he made use of the 
 above-mentioned Book of the Wars of Jahveh, and probably other 
 written sources also. He appealed to popular songs of the 
 Mosaic time, of which the same may be said ;^ he even inserted 
 a rather minute summary of the Mosaic laws, or ' ordinances,' 
 which he must have received from an earlier time, as he repre- 
 
 16, to say nothing of such late wi'iters as Both are introduced with exactly the same 
 
 Josh. xxiv. 8-15 ; Judges vi. 10; x. 11 ; 1 formula, and the only easy way of ac- 
 
 Kings xxi. 26; 2 Kings xxi. 11. The counting for the historical remark ap- 
 
 author does indeed also use the name pended to the first (Ex. xv. 19), the pur- 
 
 Canaanites ; but in Ex. xxiii. 23 at least port of which is already expressed in 
 
 places the Amorites first in the series of ciiapter xiv., is by assuming that tlie 
 
 nations. autlior of this work found it already 
 
 ' Ex. xxiii. 20-33. written in an ancient work, in which the 
 
 - But without the addition about the songs were accompanied by short historical 
 
 seventh day of rest after the creation, in illustrations. On the other hand, it is 
 
 the fourth commandment, verses 9-11, inconceivable that such verses as those in 
 
 which is as certainly an interpolation by Jacob's Blessing (Gen. xlix.) could be pro- 
 
 the Book of Origins, as it is certain that duced in any other way than by purely 
 
 the Decalogue in Deuteronomy shows signs literary art. 
 
 of the Deuteronomist's hand. * Num. xxi. 27-30, about wliich wo 
 
 ^ Ek. XV. 1-19, and Num. xxi. 17 sq. speak further ou.
 
 74 HISTORY OF HEBREW HISTORICAL COMPOSITION". 
 
 sents God to liave communicated it to Moses after the promul- 
 gation of tlie Decalogue, in order that he might lay it before 
 the people ; and we cannot imagine it to have come down to 
 him in any other way than by writing.^ This work, therefore, 
 presuj^poses a tolerably wide literature, and wears even a some- 
 what learned air, by its formula of citation, ' wherefore it is 
 said,' &c.^ 
 
 According to all indications the Book of the Upright was 
 written hardly perhaps in the time of David, but certainly soon 
 after, under Solomon. This, as its name and its extant frag- 
 ments ^ show, was chiefly composed to show, by historical songs, 
 how an upright man in Israel, a Joshua or a Jonathan, should 
 live, what glorious victories he could achieve, and what glory 
 he would gain. Thus it was an historical manual of instruc- 
 tion, without connected narrative. But its collection of genuine 
 historical songs of ancient and recent times supplied most ex- 
 cellent materials to subsequent historians. 
 
 2. TJie Booh of Origins and its Sources. 
 
 We come next to the important work whose appellation as 
 the Booh of Origins we have revived, for reasons to be pre- 
 sently explained. Of this work there are fortunately longer 
 and more numerous fragments preserved than of that described 
 above, which it certainly exceeded also in its original extent. 
 The present work (on the discovery of whose age and author all 
 correct views of its entire nature must depend) , belongs to the 
 period of the early monarchy, and is therefore considerably 
 later than the other. 
 
 1) That it belongs to this period rather than to an earlier 
 one, is most immediately evident in general from the glances 
 
 ' This is the notalile p.assage, Ex. xxi. air. But the Book of Origins, to say 
 
 2-xxiii. 19 cf. xxiv. 3. The special nothing of its utterly different authorship, 
 
 name of this section, ' ordinances,' is fixed is intended to be rather a book of laws 
 
 by xxi. 1, and xxiv. 3; but that, according than a strictly historical work, as will be 
 
 to the historian's meaning, Moses did not shown below. The resemblance to Gen. 
 
 write down tliese ' ordinances,' but merely ii. 24, x. 9, xxii. 14, might tempt us to 
 
 ' the words of Jahveli,' i.e. the Decalogue, think that the cpiotations in Num. xxi. 
 
 follows from a comparison of xxiv. 4 with 14, 27 had been introduced by the Fourth 
 
 verse 3, and xx. i. We might tliercfore or Fifth Narrator; yet their hand cannot 
 
 even fancy that the historian had himself be distinctly recognised in Num. xxi. 
 composed this summary of laws, were it * Josh. x. 13; 2 Sara. i. 18, This ex- 
 
 iiot that the stylo of its composition and planation of the name and object of this 
 
 the plan of its present arrangement indi- book is the most probable one that can bo 
 
 cate a different conclusion. given. It was preeminently David that 
 
 * Num. xxi. 14, 27. It might surprise rendered the name and notion of tlic 'up- 
 
 118 that the ]>ook of Origins, although a right' glorious in Israel. Sec my Pmlvicn, 
 
 later work, has notliing of this learned 2nd ed., p. 4.
 
 THE BOOK OF ORIGINS. 75 
 
 tliat it casts upon its own times in the midst of an exhibition of 
 the Patriarchal world. For it is bolder in such attempts at 
 exalted general views of times and things than the historical 
 work characterised above (see above, p. 34, sqq.). Whereas the 
 latter, so far as we see in its fragments, only once makes the 
 dying Jacob cast his gaze upon the extreme future, and therein 
 deliver exalted truths about the overclouded present of the 
 writer; in the Book of Origins on the contrary, the voice of 
 God appearing to the Patriarchs often abounds with cheering 
 addresses and joyous promises even for the ' seed ' or later pos- 
 terity ; as though the writer's present (to which such declara- 
 tions are properly to be referred), were one of those rare ages 
 that feel themselves exalted by a flood of prosperity, and anti- 
 cii)ate yet greater for the future. And here it is said among 
 other things that Abraham, and likewise that Sarah and Jacob, 
 shall 'become a multitude of nations, and that kings shall 
 come out of them.^ Now why should the blessing be so de- 
 fined, and limited to something so special and seemingly casual, 
 as that kings should descend from the Patriarchs ? and how is 
 it that such a conception of the Divine blessing is found only in 
 the demonstrable fragments of this book and in no other ? This 
 question can never be answered but by maintaining that the work 
 belongs to the first period of the rismg monarchy, which ad- 
 vanced the true prosperity of Israel, when in the full sense of the 
 words a ' multitude of nations ' assembled round the throne of 
 the far-ruling King of Israel, and Israel, after the dismal days of 
 dissolution and weakness, could boast with a new pride that it 
 too possessed kings. And as this generally acknowledged dignity 
 of the monarchy of Israel begins with David, we are thus pre- 
 cluded from thinking of the times of Saul. But it is no less 
 self-evident, on the other hand, that such declarations cannot 
 apply to the times of the decay of the monarchy, which com- 
 menced after Solomon ; and this receives distinct confirmation 
 from the very different tone of the later works. These decla- 
 rations could originate only at a time when the monarchy was 
 Israel's latest and as yet unmixed blessing. And, moreover, 
 there is not heard throughout the whole work a sound of 
 uneasiness occasioned by troubles of the times ; but we rather 
 seem to be breathing the quiet untroubled serenity of a happy 
 Sabbath-tide of the national life. 
 
 We are brought nearer to a result by a passage on the kings 
 of Edom in Gen. xxxvi., closely connected with the above- 
 
 ' Gen. xvii. 5 sq. 16, xxxv. 11. The declaration about Isaac, which is now 
 work appears to have contained a similar lost.
 
 76 HISTORY OF HEBREW HISTORICAL COMPOSITION. 
 
 mentioned declarations. When about to enumerate the series 
 of kings of Edom, the author finds occasion to add, that they 
 ' reigned before there reigned any king over the children of 
 Israel ' (v. 31). There was then already a king in Israel at the 
 time that he wrote thus ; and the words excite in us the feeling 
 that he half envied Edom for having enjoyed far sooner than 
 Israel the blessings of a united and well-regulated kingdom. 
 But further, not only is the last- enumerated king in this series, 
 Hadad, described as if the narrator had kno^vn him as exactly 
 as one of the kings of Israel,' but the enumeration of the kings 
 is followed (verses 40-43) by that of the chieftains of Edom, as 
 if after the monarchy the country had returned to the rule of 
 chiefs ; this sounds quite as if David had already vanquished 
 the last king of Edom and put the country again under mere 
 chieftains. The Hadad, descended from the blood of the kings 
 of Edom, who at David's conquest fled, very young, to Egypt,* 
 may have been a grandson of Hadad the last king, as the 
 grandson frequently bears the grandfather's name. 
 
 But the exactest indication of the period of composition of this 
 work is to be sought in the account of the dedication of the 
 Temple of Solomon, 1 Kings viii. 1-11. This account, as we now 
 have it, has indeed indubitably passed through the hands of a 
 subsequent reviser, who must have altered or added much of it ; ^ 
 but yet it preserves the clearest traces of having been originally 
 composed by the historian whose work we are here consider- 
 ing ; * so that we cannot but allow that the author must have 
 finished his work after the great event of the dedication of the 
 Temple of Solomon. But on the other hand, the work cannot 
 
 ' That this king was still alive at the gins as the name of the month in v. 2, as 
 
 time when the work was compüsed (al- wo shall show further on. There are also 
 
 though such a thing is possible), cannot occasional differences of style, and the 
 
 bo positively inferred from the fact that whole v. 9. must he an addition by a later 
 
 his death is not mentioned in v. 39, siuce writer, on accoimt of the usage of pT 
 
 the only reason why riD»! is constantly ^^^[ of aiR as well as the general tone 
 
 added to the notice of all the preceding ^f ^j^q lano-uao-e 
 
 kings, is in order to form a transition to 4 The main proofs of this assertion are: 
 
 tlie next king ol Edom. th^ use of the word x>t"^ v. 1, and of the 
 
 ^ 1 Kings XI. 14-22. An accurate com- . t ' '/ t 
 
 parison of the two accounts proves the expression y^y n\ym ^SX'> niVb^^ 
 
 Hadad here mentioned to be a different Y- ^' ^^''"^1^ !'".^'*^ '^1' "i'' V^^]:^'-^^ 'I'l' '»^ t'le 
 
 person from the one spoken of in Gen. ^^'>^ «t Origins ; the perfect harmony of 
 
 xxxvi. 39. The Hadad that fled to Egypt ^'- ^ «q- with Lx. xxv. 13 sqq 20 ; xxxvii. 
 
 had evidontlv never been king at all, and ^ ' ^'^"'- ^^'- ^ ^^^■' ="^'^' °" '^'^^ contrary, 
 
 liad quite a different consort. *'"' discrepancy between these descriptions 
 
 » Even the transition with r« in v. 1 '^"'^ ^ Kings vi. 23-27 ; lastly, the remark- 
 
 , ,^ . ,. , , , '^ „ able agreement of v. 10 sq. with Ex. xl. 
 
 and U 1« entirely opposed to the usage of 34 t,,^. ^^j j.^ ^f ^i,;,!, cannot be made 
 
 the Book of Origins; the word D>:pT, apparent till wo treat of the Mosaic time. 
 
 V. 1, 3, is us foreign to the Book of Ori- Of the passages that describe the building
 
 BOOK OF ORIGINS. 77 
 
 have been composed much hiter than the time of this dedication, 
 which falls in the eleventh year of the long- reign of Solomon ; ' 
 for it must belong-, as we have said, to the first glorious period 
 of the monarchy. And the great fact of the building and dedi- 
 cation of this temple might serve the historian as a fitting con- 
 clusion to his work, which might even close with the noble words, 
 ' The glory of Jahveh filled the house of Jahveli' (1 Kings viii. 10). 
 At least we may assume that it was completed in the first third 
 of Solomon's forty years' reign. 
 
 In fact no time could be more fiivourable than this to the 
 undertaking of an extensive historical work ; when the nation, 
 lately victorious over all the neighbouring tribes, delighted in 
 the memory of its own antiquity, and had latterly gained during 
 years of peace sufiicient leisure for a survey of the history and 
 relations of all nations of the earth. It was a grand time, such 
 as never returned again, with its quiet dignity and its manifold 
 artistic productivity. An historical work possessing a scope, 
 an arrangement, and an art fully worthy of the age, is the 
 Book of Origins, which has- not its equal for artistic beauty and 
 lofty historical feeling in the whole domain of Hebrew history, 
 and in almost every respect deserves to be called the finest 
 historical work of that ancient nation. As among the Greeks 
 the times immediately succeeding the victories over the Persians 
 produced an Herodotus and a Thucydides, so among the HebrcAvs 
 the first days of quiet after David's great victories are observed 
 to occasion a higher craving for historical survey and enlighten- 
 ment, which puts forth its fairest blossoms in this finest of aU 
 Hebrew histories. 
 
 If we seek a more exact knowledge of the writer's descent and 
 position, we do indeed find that he takes pleasure in giving pre- 
 cedence to the tribe of Judah in the narration of national 
 affairs,^ not without intending, in this as in all such descrip- 
 tions of ancient institutions, to present at the same time a 
 pattern of correct conduct for his own times. Yet it need not 
 be inferred from this that he belonged to that tribe, but at most 
 only that it was the leading one in his day (which we already 
 
 and dedication of Solomon's temple, the the later l)Ook,s, and on the other hand 
 
 following also were derived from the Book accords perfectly with the exact chrono- 
 
 of Origins: 1 Kings vii. 13-47, viii. 62- logy of the Book of Origins. 
 
 66. ■" In Num. ii. 3 sqq., vii. 12 sqq. This 
 
 ' 1 Kings vi. 37 sq. It is probable that is indeed contrary to i. 5 sqq., xiii. 4 sqq., 
 
 the last reviser borrowed this date, together xxvi. 5 sqq., but is to be ascribed to a 
 
 with the other more important one, v. I, special cause, to bo explained below. But 
 
 from tlie Book of Origins, with his accus- Josh. xiv. and xv. arc decisive, as also Gen. 
 
 tomed modifications, especially as the xlvi. 28 sqq. 
 important date in v. 1 stands alone in all
 
 78 HISTORY OF IIEBFxEW IIISTOKICAL COMrOSITlON. 
 
 know from independent soiu'ces). On the other hand, he so 
 evidently assiduously gives prominence to everything concerning- 
 the tribe of Levi, and everywhere takes such especial notice of 
 its pri\aleges, duties, and functions, that we must at least at- 
 ti'ibute to him the exactest knowledge of all the concerns of 
 the sacerdotal tribe. But who could even possess such know- 
 ledge in those times, and who, moreover, portray with such 
 warmth even the minutest feature of the sacerdotal system, but 
 an actual member of the priesthood ? Particular passages of 
 the work are written expressly and exclusively for the priests, 
 to serve them as a rule in their sacerdotal functions ; the book 
 itself expressly making this distinction. ^ As surely as the 
 author of the former work was no Levite (p. 72), we must 
 allow the author of the present to be one ; and only by sup- 
 posing him to have been a Levite of the brilliant age of Solo- 
 mon, shall we correctly apprehend the peculiar aims as well 
 as the true disposition and arrangement of a large portion of 
 this work. 
 
 2) For, as touching the aims of the work, 
 
 a) The chief aim was unmistakably to survey from the 
 resting-place which that epoch had reached, the entire mass of 
 historical matter in its greatest extent, and to trace it back up 
 to the ultimate commencement of all creation. As the Greeks 
 after the Persian war embraced with fresh delight the history of 
 all nations and ages, and in a short time immensely extended 
 their historical survey, so this work endeavours to conceive of 
 history in its widest extent, as certainly no earlier work had 
 conceived of it. The work does, to be sure, take the nation of 
 Israel at once as the grand centre of all nations, and as the 
 great final purpose of all history ; but from that centre it over- 
 looks the wide circle of all nations, and from this final purpose 
 it boldly rises to the earliest conceivable beginning of all history. 
 Both elements unite in the idea of portraying the Origins — the 
 origins of all historical things that admit of it, of the nation of 
 Israel as of its individual tribes and families, of the heroes of 
 Israel as well as of all its institutions and laws, of all nations 
 of the earth as well as of the earth and heaven themselves. 
 And whatever the writer has to treat at ever so great length, 
 he must always start with the description of these origins, and 
 fit everything in succession into the frame thereby given. Such 
 a cliildlilco conception of all history, under the influence of 
 the first attempts to span fully its wide domain, and to con- 
 
 ' Lev. vi. sq., xxi. sq.
 
 BOOK OF ORIGIXS. 79 
 
 struct it according to a fixed principle, is undoubtedly very 
 natural at a certain stage of every nation's culture. The Indian 
 Purdnas have most faithfully j^reserved this stage of historical 
 instruction and easy survey ; ' and I have no hesitation in 
 saying that this Hebrew work in its fundamental arrangement 
 may be compared to such a Purdna? With this conception 
 are connected all the writer's views as to the con-ect division 
 of the wide subject-matter. For, with the attempt to survey 
 the history of the human race from the actual state of nations 
 back to the farthest antiquity, was easily combined the theory 
 of four gTeat Ages of mankind, in which the human race ex- 
 panded outwardly and advanced higher and higher in the arts, 
 but inwardly wore itself out in a constantly accelerating ratio ; 
 and in the last of which — the then present — the life of humanity 
 was felt to be dying out. This idea pervades the antiquity of 
 many cultivated nations,^ and may have come to the Hebrews 
 from older tribes ; but the form it then took among them 
 caused the entire period since the Patriarchs to be conceived as 
 the latest age, that of the Patriarchs as the last but one, and all 
 the remaining immeasurable primitive times up to the beg-inuing 
 of the human race as divided by the Deluge into two halves, the 
 first and the second age, and human life as gradually and con- 
 stantly degenerating in these various periods. Now as these four 
 ages must be conceived of as gradually progressing in the variety 
 and development of life, so that the latest was the most varied, 
 we have lesser periods comprised in the last age but one and the 
 beginning of the last, formed by the life of each of the three 
 Patriarchs, by the abode in Egypt, the life of Moses, of 
 Joshua, and of each of his successors. But along with this idea 
 the nation had yet, through its earlier fortunes, retained a clear 
 consciousness that it was comparatively recent and outwardly 
 inconsiderable auiong the nations of the earth. Accordingly 
 the task of a Hebrew historian being to show from the store 
 of ancient tradition how Israel, although so recent a com- 
 munity, had 3'et been separated from all other nations, and 
 
 ' To Avliich the Mahä-Bhärata also be- a practice which in itself, indeed, is xery 
 
 longs, according to its own statements in proper (for a narrative only possesses its 
 
 the preface ; it is only one of the oldest complete meaning and scope in a certain 
 
 and best Purdnas, which opens its arms place and on a certain occasion), but 
 
 very widely for the reception of all pos- which easily becomes very seductive, on 
 
 sible legends. account of the facilities it affords for wrap- 
 
 ■■' Of course this is said without taking ping up one story within another. See 
 
 into account the dissimilarities, such as aljove, p. 43. 
 
 principally the less developed genius for ' Cf. Vishnu-Puräna, p. 13 sqq., and 
 
 history in the Hindu works, and their more on this subject further on in this 
 
 custom of connecting the whole story history, 
 with some definite occasion in antiquity,
 
 80 HISTORY OF HEBRE^7 HISTORICAL COMPOSITION, 
 
 become dominant over many in fulfilment of its liigli destiny, 
 his principle of airangement of the details of every period of 
 the primeval history was, always first to dispose of those 
 nations or families that do not lead down direct to Israel, that 
 Israel may then at length come out as a special people, and 
 the narrative there gain its highest attraction and greatest 
 breadth. This fundamental arrangement, consistently carried 
 out in the smallest details, pervades the entire structure of the 
 great work. Thus (1), after the Noachic deluge (where our 
 author fixes the origins of existing nations), he separates off all 
 the numerous nations not belonging to the race that leads 
 down to Israel, Gen. x., and even arranges these in such a 
 manner as to come in order from the most distant (Japhet) to 
 the nearer (Ham), and the nearest (Shem). Not till then follows 
 the series of generations leading down to Terah and Abraham 
 (Gen. xi. 10-26), to which is attached the detailed history of 
 Abraham. In like manner (2), he first separates off all Terah's 
 and Abraham's descendants who do not lead down to Isaac's 
 family, especially Ishmael (xxv. 12-18) ; and not till then does the 
 history of Isaac and his sons appear on its own account (xxv. 19 
 sqq.). (3) Thirdly, and lastly, he separates off Esau (xxxvi.), so 
 that at last Israel is left quite alone as father of the race, with 
 his sons representing the people, — the single great subject of 
 the narrative (xxxvii. 2 sqq.). Now, wherever a section of this 
 or any other kind begins with the explanation of the origin of 
 an important tribe or family, the author always puts as a kind 
 of title the words, ' These are the Origins of . . . ; ' ' and where 
 the family of the first man, and consequently the proper com- 
 mencement of this whole work on the history of mankind begins, 
 it is said. This is the Booh of the Origins of Mail (v. 1). And in 
 fact it can hardly be doubted that, in accordance with this super- 
 scription, the work bore the short title Booh of Origins. It is 
 true, indeed, that the narrative boldly rises yet higher, and 
 seeks to explain in a history of creation the origins of all visible 
 things (i. 1 — ii. 3) ; but this is to be regarded only as a kind of 
 introduction to the actual work beginning at chap. v. 1 ; for 
 wliich reason the introduction is also distinguished in a peculiar 
 manner by a concluding inscription (ii. 4). Counting up the 
 
 ' The v'onl 'Origins' is adopted hero name of a tliino; (as in Gen. ii. 4) ; before 
 
 for eonciseness merely, and because it is the name of a person it properly denotes 
 
 suitabh; for the name of a book (the elder ihe hirths, that is, the posterity, of that 
 
 (^ato also wrote his Koman history under man, and the history of him and his 
 
 the title Origine.s) ■ although nn^h cor- descendants, 
 responds to our word only 1)efore the
 
 BOOK OF OlllGINS. 81 
 
 sections resulting from all these considerations, we find that the 
 phrase, ' these are the origins of . . .,' is employed exactly ten 
 times to indicate a real section or essential division of the 
 book,' like the similar practice in Arabic books. The same 
 title may have been repeated in the accounts of the individual 
 tribes of Israel ; ^ but most of these parts of the work are now 
 lost.3 
 
 But precisely because the work thus treated history from the 
 Israelite point of view, perhaps for the first time m its widest 
 extent, it sought to combine all the closer, and to discriminate 
 all the finer, all its details. Accordingly, treating as it does 
 of the great unwieldy mass of historical families, nations, or 
 single persons, with reference to their rise and progress, it 
 A^entures to unite them all in a single great infinitely ramified 
 j)edigree, which has its root in the first man, a second progenitor 
 after the Deluge in Noah, and its youngest branches in the 
 great contemporaries of the author and their families. The 
 straight trunk, starting from Adam and again from Noah, 
 must have been treated as leading directly to the three Patri- 
 archs, and through them to the twelve tribes, all else being- 
 collateral ; and then among the twelve tribes themselves, Levi 
 probably served as a direct continuation of the pedigree."* This 
 is the first work known to us that seeks to arrange infinitesi- 
 mal details of origin in one comprehensive genealogy, although 
 such an arrangement is a very obvious one to nations like the 
 Hebrews and Arabs, who lay great stress upon purity of blood 
 and family ; but it became later the most popular form of his- 
 torical arrangement with the Semites. But the work attempts 
 also ver}'^ accurate time-distinctions, and herein especially dis- 
 j)lays a genuine historical spirit, opposed to the method of the 
 Indian Puranas. At least the members of the main direct line 
 of the tribe, and occasionally important collateral members also, 
 
 ' [i.e. Gen. ii. 4 ; v. 1 ; vi. 9 ; x. 1 ; xi. may he preserved in the Clironicles, as in 
 
 10, 27; XXV. 12, 19; xxxvi. 1 (in xxxvi. the passages 1 Chron. ii. 42-49, öO-öö, 
 
 9 it appears to be repeated by way of re- and especially xxiii. 24-xxiv. 31. 
 suming the subject after the interruption * Because in this tribe the chronology 
 
 at verse 2) ; xxxvii. 2.] is carried on uninterriq-itedly, at least 
 
 - As Num. iii. 1, compared with Ruth according to the sure indications in Ex. 
 
 iv. 18, shows. vi. 16-20; and further, b'^cause in the 
 
 ' For the passage in Ex. vi. 14-27 is time of the Judges the Iligh-Priests alone 
 
 merely intended to attract attention to the exhibit a kind of unbroken succession, and 
 
 descent of Moses and Aaron at the outset, not strictly speaking the Judges, as we 
 
 and is therefore designedly incomplete, might be disposed to believe from Judges 
 
 The enumeration of the series of all the iii.-xvi. ; lastly, because, as we shall show 
 
 families of Israel, which is here beg^m further on, the sacerdotal tribe is the one 
 
 but not finished, must have bepn subse- that the author renders most promineut 
 
 quently completed somewhere or other in in all other historical matters also, 
 the work, and undoubtedly much of it 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 82 HISTOKY OF HEBREW HISTORICAL COMPOSITION. 
 
 are all described by the number of years of tbeir life ; ^ and as 
 moreover it is invariably mentioned at whsit age of each re- 
 sj)ective member the son who propagated the tribe further was 
 born to him, and as larger chronological limits also are not 
 wanting for greater divisions of time (Exod. xii. 40 ; 1 Kings 
 vi. 1), the work gives at the same time a single concatenated 
 chronology, and exhibits the most ancient attempt to reduce 
 the infinitely scattered events of history to precise dates.^ This 
 evident careful consideration everywhere bestowed upon the 
 connection of families, and upon chronology, affords one of the 
 main criteria for the recognition of the fragments of this work, 
 which indeed has not its equal on this subject, on the entire 
 field of ancient history until Moses and Joshua or indeed until 
 David, and appears to be only copied by the later works on 
 these times. 
 
 In consideration of the great internal diversity of the ages 
 comprised in this work, we shall do better to investigate below, 
 under the special divisions of the history itself, the questions, 
 how our author established this close connection of families 
 and times, what traditions he had received on the subject, and 
 on what principles he acted. It suffices here to establish the 
 point, that he was the first who essayed to carry out this bold 
 scheme. 
 
 b.) If we are led by the order and the chronology observed so 
 exactly throughout so wide a range, to an author whose mind 
 takes a pleasure, uncommon among the historians of those old 
 times, in method and precision^ still more must we admire this 
 spirit when we perceive what end he has in view in now expand- 
 ing and now confining within narrow limits his narration of 
 real events. For we then discover the remarkable fact, that the 
 author's most heartfelt sympathy and greatest fulness of narra- 
 tion are called forth only when he is treating a question of 
 legislation, and can fill the frame of his narrative with elucida- 
 tions of such judicial or moral sanctions as have their origin in 
 antiquity. Wherever, in his reminiscences of antiquity, he can 
 explain legal institutions in all their relations and applications, 
 or where, in the course of historical exposition, he can indicate 
 the great truths of the right government and conduct of the 
 
 ' As Ishmaol, Gen. xxv. 17 ; Joshua, and if wo now give up all of it that is not 
 
 Jos. xxiv. 29. derived from history in a strict sense, yet 
 
 2 In tliis respect the work became the we never should forget that the mere at- 
 
 basis of all general chronology, from the tempt to give such a survey of all historical 
 
 chronicles of Julius Africanus and Eusobius chronology was in itself an advance en- 
 
 do-uni to the middle ages, and even almost tirely unknown to some other cultivated 
 
 to the beginning of the present century; nations, as for example the Hindus.
 
 J500K OF ORIGINS. 83 
 
 nation, his language is poured forth with esjDecial freedom, and 
 under the inspiration of the lofty subject becomes perfected in 
 sharpness as well as in concinnity and beauty. There is a 
 peculiar charm in many of these pictures ; every reader of feel- 
 ing imbibes from them the purifying and invigorating spirit 
 of an eminently lofty mind, which lived through its own times 
 in warmest sympathy with them and with a treasure of truly 
 royal ideas, and by this light could understand the very highest 
 elements of antiquity, and with masterhand bring out promi- 
 nently, and portray gracefully, whatever in it was improving 
 to posterity. Even what in itself might readily have proved 
 very dry — such as the lengthy account of the furniture of the 
 sanctuary, and that of many laws on things of common life — 
 in his hand becouies invested with the utmost possible grace. 
 We should more readily feel the attractive beauty of this work, 
 and how far it surpasses in intrinsic force and simple art the 
 ordinary Indian Puranas and Mann's Book of Laws, if it had 
 been preserved entire and well-arranged, and could be read 
 connectedly, like Herodotus or the best extant parts of Livy. 
 
 So limited an aim for an historical composition, which more- 
 over here becomes the real principal aim, is to be explained 
 only from the necessities of a particular period ; but the above 
 indicated age of the work may serve for the elucidation of this 
 peculiarity also. For in that brilliant time of peace, which 
 produced the wisdom and the art of Solomon so well known to 
 tradition, the nation, victorious abroad and conscious of its 
 powers, could turn its energies inwards, and contemplate its 
 own constitutional history, as it had been gradually unfolded 
 since the obscurest antiquity and then existed, but had surely 
 never till then been fully treated in writing. Now, even inde- 
 pendently of the Decalogue, attempts had indeed been made 
 in earlier time to group shortly together the most important 
 popular laws, and many of these may have been long written 
 down ; for example, the former work contained the earliest 
 attempt known to us of a tolerably comprehensive codex legum 
 (Ex. xxi. 2, or rather^ xx. 28, to xxiii. 19), and this very Book of 
 Origins works up into itself small series of long-existing laws. 
 But we have no indication, and it is in itself improbable, that 
 the entire mass of imaginable legal ordinances and sacred in- 
 stitutions had at any earlier period been committed to writing. 
 
 However, it was not only the prosperous peace of that age 
 which exhorted the people to turn their attention to their 
 
 ' For the words in Ex. xx. 23-26 form the true beginning of tliis vrry mutilated 
 legal work.
 
 84 niSTOKY OF HEBREW HISTORICAL COMPOSITION. 
 
 ancient condition and laws : they were impelled thereto also by 
 causes nearer at hand. Ages in which the entire hereditary 
 constitution of the nation undergoes a fundamental transforma- 
 tion, and social life receives a new organisation, may introduce 
 into the literature of the nation, as well as into its legislative 
 art and activity, the most violent shocks. With the Greeks and 
 Romans it was the ages of transition from the antiquated 
 monarchical constitutions to the republican, that most strongly 
 excited legislative activity in real life as well as in literature ; 
 and it was in these that the controversy as to what was to be 
 retained from the past, and what relinquished, found its way 
 also frequently into the Greek world of letters. Our Hebrew 
 epoch was, similarly, one of sensible transition from institutions 
 existing for centuries into a new life for the whole nation ; and 
 we can understand how its literature, the foundations of which 
 had long been laid, could not be uninfluenced by the move- 
 ment taking place in its life. But beyond this its position was 
 precisely the reverse ; for here an ancient religion had to 
 defend itself against the possible encroachments of the new 
 monarchical power. And we have the clear testimony of Hosea 
 viii. 12^ for the assertion that from this time onwards a branch 
 of literature was formed in the nation which flourished for 
 several centuries, and aimed at collecting and elucidating the 
 old hallowed laws, often in direct opposition to modern deterio- 
 rations. This assertion of Hosea shows at the same time that 
 such writings originally enjoyed no public acknowledgment at 
 all, but were current in the nation for centuries as free crea- 
 tions of literature, until this or that part of them chanced to 
 gain a higher authority and become sacred. And this is 
 evidently the origin that we must conceive for the Book of 
 Origins.^ If we remember, moreover, that in the time of David, 
 and up to the completion of the Temple of Solomon, the affairs 
 of the sacerdotal tribe and the institutions of religion had 
 experienced extensive changes, but yet were steadily flourishing, 
 and that the old religion and sacerdotal constitution just then 
 enjoyed an extraordinary magnificence from the building of a 
 new and splendid Temple, we can understand well enough why, 
 among all the origins of things described by this work, those of 
 
 ' This passage presupposes that a num- which time itself was constantly rediic- 
 
 ber of books of the same kind as the ing ; they were evidently not very ancient 
 
 Bock of Origins, some of wliich were writings. 
 
 highly esieomed, were in circulation in ^ ljJjq ^i^g origin of tlie Indian Tura- 
 
 thc northern kingdom in the time of nas, which also contain a great deal of 
 
 Hosea, thotigh entirely disregarded by the religions or legal matter ; and even of 
 
 authorities. Such myriads of written laws Manu's Code of Laws, which was subsc- 
 
 cannot refer to a very ancient literature, quently so venerated.
 
 BOOK OF ORIGINS. 85 
 
 the Mosaic sacraments and institutions, as well as of the 
 functions and privileges of-the sacerdotal tribe, are pre-eminently 
 ex2)lained. And we may see also how such legal forms and such 
 rights as are said to have originated in the primitive ages are 
 presented with the greatest diligence and copiousness, mainly 
 to the end that they may serve as a model and norm for the 
 writer's age also. This resembles the way in which in the 
 Mdnava-Dharmagdstra even those laws which are to be ob- 
 served in the writer's age are explained to Manu in the primitive 
 ages. The main part of the Book of Origins explains the 
 origin of whatever arose in Israel on the field of law, but pre- 
 eminently in relation to religion and the priesthood. 
 
 But it is curious to see how the author's spirit, mainly 
 directed to the divinely right and lawful, has penetrated the 
 whole work, even where he cannot yet speak of Israel at all. 
 As the time of Moses and Joshua was known as the great epoch 
 of the birth of legal institutions, and as the earlier historian 
 had started from the idea of the covenant concluded with God 
 on Sinai, so the Book of Origins undertakes to show what 
 divine laws and covenants had arisen even in the beo-inning of 
 the three previous ages of the world, under Abraham, Noah, and 
 Adam, and how the laws and precepts, starting like the human 
 race itself from the simplest beginnings, had been constantly 
 expanding and more full}^ developing themselves. • And so there 
 is only a single ground-thought which determines the inner 
 structure of the work (its intellectual tone and bearing), in 
 addition to those which, according to p. 78, sustain its external 
 fabric. This ground- thought, in conformity with the supreme 
 aim of the work, deals solely with the twofold question : 
 What is Law and Right to man in general? and. What is 
 Law and Eight for Israel in particular ? Right and law are 
 not the same at all times ; they change especially with all the 
 great vicissitudes and revolutions of history. And yet every 
 valid law is to preside over man and bind him as a Divine 
 command ; as if it existed through a covenant between God and 
 humanity, in which the former maintains his law and the latter 
 expects protection and blessing from him if it is faithful to it. 
 Thus all laws and constitutions, or covenants, which humanity 
 concludes with God, are barriers imposed by the latter for it, 
 within which it is to move. But every restraint thus imposed 
 on man is directed against his freedom, which soon chafes 
 ao-ainst it, and finally perhaps whoUy breaks through its barriers, 
 partly through the power of mere self-will and sinfulness, partly 
 
 " Gen. xvii. ; ix. 1-17 ; i. 27-30.
 
 86 HISTORY OF HEBREW HISTORICAL COMPOSITION. 
 
 because man lias a presentiment that there is a higher freedom 
 than that imposed by this present limit. But every transgres- 
 sion of the law must be punished. And thus when humanity 
 continues its efibrts to breah through the existing Divine law, 
 the greatest ruin, and finally the most complete dissolution 
 of the age, is sure to follow, until perchance, under a new 
 great Man of God, a new disclosure of the eternal Divine Right 
 is established for humanity with fresh freedom, and at the 
 same time with fresh limitations and new laws. Thus applying 
 the above fundamental thought to the succession of the Four 
 Ages of the world (p. 79), and explaining by its light how the 
 Mosaic law, that of the last age, arose, and what significance it 
 possesses, the author of the Book of Origins spun the fine strong 
 thread which holds the entire work most closely together, and 
 gives it at the same time its deepest and loftiest interest.' 
 
 The book attempts, indeed, an explanation of the laws exist- 
 ing in the Mosaic community on every occasion which the 
 narrative offers for its insertion ; and accordingly, as the 
 author's historical feeling taught him that many laws which 
 were in force in the community had their origin in the ancient 
 times before Moses, he attaches his account of the rights and 
 usages of circumcision to suitable occasions in the Patriarchal 
 age ; ^ and again refers to the time of Joshua his explanation of 
 many laws and precedents of the community, and with justice 
 regards the entire age of Joshua as one of continual creation of 
 important social institutions. Within the limits of the personal 
 history of Moses also, he seizes every opportunity to insert 
 matters of law : on occasion of the flight out of Egypt he 
 explains at great length the laws of the Passover and of the 
 Pirst-born, and on occasion of the war against Midian near the 
 end of Moses' life, those of booty and war.^ The majority of 
 the Mosaic institutions and laws, however, especially those 
 concerning the sanctuary and the sacerdotal tribe, which in 
 accordance with the special tendency of the work are treated 
 most fully, are referred to the brief period of the peoj^le's halt 
 at Mount Sinai, and the true establishment of their community ; 
 partly because, according to definite ancient tradition, the 
 community was really formed there anew by the conclusion of 
 the last great Covenant of Man with God, partly from the 
 suitability of that resting-place for the explanation of a series 
 of institutions and laws. 
 
 • See further on this suljject what is ob- ^ Num. xxxi. Altogether different from 
 served in my AUcrtMlntcr, p. 117 sqq. the law uf war hiid down in Deut. xx. 
 
 * Gen. XV ii. and xxxiv.
 
 BOOK OF ORIOIXS. 87 
 
 For as the j)rivileges, laws, and ordinances of the sanctuary, 
 in the widest sense of the word, appear to our author as the 
 highest of all laws, so in his work this hallowed period of the 
 people's rest at Sinai, where their permanent sanctuary was 
 formally instituted, becomes a resting-place also for the narra- 
 tive, and occasions him to make his longest pause here, to eluci- 
 date the most important laws relating to the sanctuary, and, in so 
 doing, the majority of all the laws of Israel. Now the sacred 
 Tabernacle of Moses had long been recognised as the great 
 central point of the religion and constitution of the people, and 
 the Ark of the Covenant had just received an accession of glory 
 by its reception in Solomon's Temple, built after the model 
 of the Tabernacle ; and therefore 
 
 (i) The author starts fi'om that visible sanctuary, and de- 
 scribes hoAv it Avas executed, with all its contents and appur- 
 tenances, after the divine model shown to Moses by Jahveh (Ex. 
 xxv.-xxxi.), and was so built by human hands upon earth that 
 it might be entered by the priests in their robes of office, or by 
 Moses, and the sacred rites be j^erformed in it (Ex, xxxv.-xl.).^ 
 When the locality and external forms of the sacred rites have 
 been thus laid down, 
 
 (m) The nan-ative advances another stage towards its main 
 object, and regards exclusively the sacrifices and the manner of 
 
 ' This twofold description of these com- do not hesitate about assigning them, as 
 plicated matters, notwithstanding some far as is possible, to their right positions 
 diversity (in part intentional) in the order again. It is of no use to argue with one 
 of the account of the execution, is never- who maintains, without even examining 
 theless correct on the whole, and planned the question, that such total disruptions 
 with great judgment. I can only hint of coherence are original and sacred. But 
 at this result of my researches here, as the Book of Origins, above all other books, 
 an explicit statement would become too displays so grand a fixed arrangement, 
 digressive. But so much the more im- and so masterty a disposition of the im- 
 peratively must the fragment in Lev. mense subject, that it is in truth only 
 xxiv. 1-9, which has no connection what- due to the spirit of the author that we 
 ever there, be transferred to its original should restore the few dislocated portions 
 position after Ex. xxvii. .20 sq. since v. of his beautiful work to their right places. 
 20 sq. actually contain the commence- Moreover it is by no means difficult to 
 ment of the very same fragment. See conceive how such a displacement of some 
 Ex. XXV. 6, XXXV. 14, and especially xl. 4, portions of the ancient work might arise 
 22 sq. ; for the short preliminary notice in later times, if we only consider the 
 about shew-bread in xxv. 30 could not demonstrable great alterations which this 
 suffice. In like manner the disconnected work (as we shall soon explain) has 
 verse in Num. vii. 89 must be reinstated undergone from its later revisers. And 
 in its original place after Ex. xl. 38, and even though the LXX. and all the other 
 the rather because Ex. xxv. 22 refers to ancient versions received the text with 
 its contents; and the injunctinn that fol- these violent dislocations, and, fortunately, 
 lows it, about the right position of the did not again arbitrarily alter it, yet how 
 seven lamps on the candlestick. Num. viii. recent is this text when compared with 
 1-2, most siurely belongs after Ex. xxxix. the true age of the work! I •will adduce 
 31. other arguments below in the section on 
 
 I shall soon cite other and stronger cases the reviser. See however, on some points 
 
 of the displacement of the original com- treated of above, what is observed in the 
 
 poneut parts of the Book of Origins, and Gott. Gel. Anz. 1862, p. 368-75.
 
 88 HISTORY OF HEBREW HISTORICAL COMPOSITION. 
 
 offering them at the sanctuary, and elucidates fully the various 
 kinds of sacrifices, their purposes, and the observances attached 
 to them. The passage that does this in an easily apprehensible 
 order, extends properly only from Lev. i. to Lev. v. and from 
 Num. V. 5 to Num. vi. ; ' then the main subject is re^^eated, 
 condensed for the special use of the ^Driest into the briefer and 
 more technical language of regular legislation (Lev. vi. sqq.). 
 Whereas the priests are now enabled to offer the right sacrifices, 
 and do actually offer them in the presence of the whole people 
 after their consecration, the story of Nadab and Abihu teaches 
 how rigorously and with what severe chastisement the sanc- 
 tuary visits those who fail to treat it in a becoming manner 
 (Lev. viii.-x.). 
 
 {Hi) But now that Jahveh's sanctuary and sacrifices are estab- 
 lished in presence of the whole people, the narrative attains its 
 full dignity, and undertakes regularly to teach what rules must 
 guide the conduct of men in this community, or (to speak more 
 in the spirit of the work) what is holy or unholy, clean or 
 unclean, to the God indwelling in it. The passage that teaches 
 this properly extends from Lev. xi. to xx., but with the insertion 
 of Num. xix. after Lev. xvi. The arrangement is the simple one, 
 that the description ascends from the lower to the higher, and 
 consequently fi.rst shows what is clean or unclean, and how the 
 unclean is to be removed, and then, beginning from chapter 
 xviii., rises to the idea of the holy, and explains in loftier 
 language '^ and frequently incorporating short series of ancient 
 laws, the stern exactions of the holy upon man. The declarations 
 of Lev. xvii. stand in the middle between these two halves ; and 
 the conclusion of the whole plainly does not come till Lev. xx. 
 24-27. Then comes a short supplement intended specially for 
 the Priests on clean and unclean animals (Lev. xxi. sq.). 
 
 {iv) But as the Sabbath is the first and the last among the 
 duties of the Mosaic community, and had enjoyed a corre- 
 sponding preeminence also in the description of the Mosaic laws 
 
 ' That the passages in Num. v. ö-vi. to have preceded the short narrative in 
 
 belong to this place is evident, first, from Lev. ix. 22, in the same way as tlio nar- 
 
 tho contents of the first three. Num. ratives in Ex. xxxv.-xl. constantly pre- 
 
 V. ö-vi. 21, which really only describe suppose the Divine commands in Ex. 
 
 new kinds of sacrifice, all of which, to xxv.-xxxi. 
 
 judge from their very similar beginning, ^ Especially in the expression, 'I am 
 
 arc perf -ctly suitable continuations of Jahveh,' which now first begins to recur 
 
 Lev. v.; secondly, from the blessing which frequently, and which, like so much else 
 
 follows them in Num. vi. 22-27, which in Lev. xviii.-xx., indicates that the 
 
 is prcsupi osed in Lev. ix. 22, and which, author makes a greater use of old sources 
 
 fi'om the general character and plan of here than in any other i^lace. 
 the Book of Origins, we must imagine
 
 BOOK OF ORIGINS. 89 
 
 contained in tliis work,' so the author ultimately restricts himself 
 to it and all connected with it. The voice of living- law declares 
 the series of annual festivals as well as the jenv of Sabbath and 
 Jubilee (Lev. xxiii. xxv. 1-xxvi. 2, 46) ; and describes yet more 
 fully the duration and period of recurrence of the sacrifices of 
 the whole community to Jahveh (Num. xxviii, 1-xxx. 1). And 
 as vows also are to be redeemed at the sanctuary at definite 
 times, the laws on this subject now follow (Num. xxx. 2-17; 
 Lev. xxvii.). Last of all come some sacrificial laws adapted 
 not for the wilderness but only for the Holy Land, and which 
 could not on that account well be placed in Lev. i.-vii. ; with a 
 general conclusion (Num. xv.).^ 
 
 {v) Nothing then remains to be done but that the community 
 be described on its popular side, with reference to the arrange- 
 ment and division of its tribes, and the order of its journeys 
 and campaigns. This gives at the same time the best transition 
 to the removal from Sinai and the conclusion of that long 
 period of sacred rest, and forms also the winding-up of this 
 longest and most important portion of the Book of Origins 
 (Num. i.-v. 4; vii. 1 88 ; viii. 5-10, 36). 
 
 Such is the simple and historical arrangement of the section 
 of this work devoted to the explanation of the main contents 
 of the Mosaic law. Although we cannot vouch for the complete 
 preservation of all its original chapters, yet the main part 
 has evidently been preserved remarkably free from obscu- 
 ration and alteration ; and we gain a clear insight into the 
 plan and execution of this most important section, as soon 
 as we decide to remove to their right position again the few 
 passages that have been displaced and put too far on towards 
 the end.^ 
 
 ' Compare Ex. xxxi. 13-17, concluding three middle portions closes with the 
 
 the commandments delivered to Moses, always apt narration of an example of 
 
 and inversely Ex. xxxv. 1-3 commencing needful punishment on account of the vio- 
 
 bis publication of them to the people, lation of the previously expounded laws, 
 
 ■with Lev. xxiii. 2 sq. xxvi. 2, Num. xv. Lev. viii.-x., Lev. xxiv. 10-23, Num. xv. 
 
 32-36. 32-36, and all five parts then terminate 
 
 2 The reader must consider that accord- in narration. In like manner a special 
 
 ing to the whole character of the Book of supplement of peculiar directions for the 
 
 Origins, the omitted promulgation of laws priests is always placed before this nar- 
 
 may indeed be repaired in any place, but rative conclusion, Lev. vi. sq., xxi. sq., 
 
 then the occasion of their enactment must Num. xv. Moreover, whatever laws or 
 
 be recounted (as in Num. xvii. sq. xxxi. legal devices are transferred to tlie suc- 
 
 xxxvi.) ; but that, on the other hand, it is ceeding portion of the lifo of Moses, 
 
 impossible to repair the omission with Num. xxvi., xxvii., xxxi. sqq., belong, 
 
 such an utterly bald inscription as Num. as to their dress and contents, to the 
 
 XV., xix., xxviii., xxx. 2 [1]. post-Sinaitic time ; which furnishes a new 
 
 * Lastly, in all probability, the placing and important reason for the correctness 
 
 of the historical piece, Lev. xxiv. 10-23, of the above-required transpositions, 
 after xxii. is required, for then each rf the
 
 90 HISTORY OF HEBREW HISTORICAL COMPOSITION. 
 
 If we consider now the author's system of inserting accounts 
 of Mosaic laws into an historical narrative, there cannot be the 
 least doubt that his only reason for representing them as com- 
 municated by Jahveh to Moses, and through the latter to the 
 people or (when strictly sacerdotal in their contents) to Aaron ' 
 and the j)riests, is, that in his days they had long been regarded 
 as sacred, and an historian therefore could not but give them 
 an antiquity equal to that of the community itself. The sacred 
 Tabernacle, which the author describes as if all its smallest 
 parts were the direct result of Divine precept, and which had 
 just recently been magnified and glorified by its transformation 
 into the Temple of Solomon, had evidently gained its sacred- 
 ness in the course of centuries. The sacrifices, the sacred 
 rites, and the sacerdotal functions, which our author represents 
 with all their minutise as Divine commands, had undoubtedly 
 been long practised, and they also owed their high authority to 
 their antiquity. Of established usages the author could mani- 
 festly only select the best and give them a^more definite form. 
 As, however, the established usages of any given time are 
 natui-ally treated as an indissoluble whole, although they may 
 have developed themselves gradually from a certain original 
 groundwork, it was at this early period peculiarly hard, in all 
 cases of the kind, to distinguish the time of origin as exactly 
 as we now do, or at least desire. In so far, the numerous legal 
 sanctions here delivered certainly have direct historical signi- 
 ficance only for the age of the author. And as the author 
 cannot have lived later — e.g. at a time when the Mosaic Taber- 
 nacle had long disappeared — our task is that of investigating 
 which of these are referable to the time and legislation of 
 Moses, and what has been added by degrees from other causes ; 
 an investigation, the results of which cannot be stated here. 
 But (and this may be at once carefully noted in this place) the 
 author never makes any pretence of being taken for Moses 
 himself;^ indeed we should do great wrong to the simple 
 narrator were we to suppose this ; for he even describes equally 
 innocently and on the same plan, the rise of legal institutions 
 under Joshua, and closes his work with the erection of the 
 Temple of Solomon ; and where a precept is inserted for the 
 
 ' It is only an abltreviated expression, long past (Num. xv. 22 sq., xxviii. 6), or 
 
 ■whenever the word of Jahveh is said to when the address suddenly becomes like 
 
 pass directly to Aaron, Lev. x. 8, JSTum. that of a priest to the asseuiLled congrega- 
 
 xviii. 20. tion. Num. xv. 15, 29; in historical nar- 
 
 - Rather does he forget now and then rations he speaks, moreover, like one 
 
 his assumed garb, when ho speaks of dwelling in the Holy Land, Josh. \. 6. 
 Moses and 8inai as of matters of history
 
 BOOK OF ORIGINS. 91 
 
 connection's sake, which is to be applied only in the Holy 
 Land, not in the Avilderness, the author sometimes makes 
 Moses himself announce it only by way of prophecy, with the 
 addition ' when ye come into the Holy Land.'* 
 
 The Book of Origins, in thus pursuing in the above-described 
 main section and elsewhere its own special aim of explaining 
 legal matters, is indeed further removed than the previous 
 historical work from the mere repetition of tradition, and is 
 already engaged in that transition to a freer treatment of the 
 history of antiquity, the further consequences of which will 
 appear below. From a very rich body of separate ancient tra- 
 ditionary histories our author manifestly selects those only, in 
 themselves it may be not remarkably important ones, on which 
 could be hung an exhibition of laws or of principles of wise 
 government and sacerdotal administration. The appended sub- 
 ject itself is always treated with great freedom and at great 
 length, as if the narrative itself were really subordinate to the 
 lesson it conveyed ; and the most beautiful and elevating parts 
 of the work are produced by this art of shaking off a bondage 
 to the unmixed influence of tradition. Nevertheless the work 
 still cleaves faithfully and scrupulously to the fundamental 
 matter of the traditions ; it starts with a clear discrimination 
 of times, and does not intermingle later ideas with its pictures 
 of antiquity so carelessly as the books presently to be described. 
 And if it impai-ts a new life to the representation of antiquity 
 mainly by means of legislative matter, and sees in Moses and 
 Joshua ideals of popular leaders, this was just the side upon 
 which those ancient times were great and productive. This 
 revival of the ancient stories, proceeding from a writer who in 
 every part of his work shows himself inspired by the genuine 
 wisdom of a leader of the people, was that most in harmony 
 with the epoch of the composition of the work ; and from the 
 happy concurrence of the spirit of this revival with the nature 
 and greatness of the times portrayed, resulted the admirable 
 truth and the irresistible charm of this work. 
 
 c.) If we enquire, lastly, into the conclusion of the whole 
 work, a slight difficulty here oj)poses our speculation. For 
 with the description of the times of Moses and Joshua, the 
 explanation of all legal matters ought manifestly to cease. 
 This is most distinctly proved by the way in which the legal 
 distribution of the land among the twelve tribes is unreservedly 
 referred to Joshua's words and commands, although historically 
 
 ' Ex. xii. L'ü ; Lev. xiv. 34, xix. 23, xxiii. 10, xxv. 2 ; Num. xv. 2; cf. Lev. xviii. 3.
 
 92 HISTOEY OF HEBREW HISTORICAL COMPOSITION. 
 
 many of these claims may liave originated after Joshua's death, 
 and at bottom the narrator does not deny this.' The assump- 
 tion that all the legal forms in Israel which could claim any 
 antiquity had been concluded in Moses' and Joshua's time, and 
 that these two heroes had been the last great instruments of 
 the word and deeds of Jaliveh, forms the entire foundation of 
 the work in so far as it describes legal matters ; and one cannot 
 form even the most distant idea of what the author would be 
 able or willing to describe on this field in the times after 
 Joshua. Nevertheless, the work further contains, as we saw 
 on pages 76 sq,, the description of the dedication of the Temple 
 of Solomon, with which it certainly concluded ; the rise of 
 monarchy in Israel, for which the author had early prepared 
 the reader, as we saw page 75 sq., required to be narrated at 
 the end at least in brief; and one sees no reason why, after 
 his explanation of the laws, he should not have pursued the 
 mere history still further than the death of Joshua. We may 
 therefore with justice conjecture that in a now lost passage 
 he brought the history down from the death of Joshua and 
 of the high priest Eleazar to the building of the Temple of 
 Solomon, though with great brevity, so that this section 
 did not satisfy his successors, and might easily be lost. The 
 lawless times of the Judges must have been diametrically op- 
 posed to all the ideas of the author, who would certainly 
 content himself with continuing the list of high-priests after 
 Eleazar. 
 
 But on the other hand there are unmistakable signs that 
 the work became very full again just about its close, when it 
 describes the sunny days of David. There was indeed here 
 no exhaustive narrative, but full accounts there were of some 
 sino'le events that seemed to the writer especially important. 
 With these we class the fragments to be described below (see 
 below, on the official Journals of the Kings), besides that noticed 
 on i)age 76 note. And we may say that this work, beginning 
 with the Creation and treating by preference the most beautiful 
 j)ortions of antiquity, nevertheless stood quite upon the footing 
 of its age, and, like a true time-book (or chronicle), terminated 
 with the description of the most recent great deeds and ac- 
 quisitions of its nation. 
 
 3) As in its aims, so also in its language, this work mani- 
 fests as much peculiarity as perfection and beauty. The style 
 possesses a luxurious fulness overflowing with the warmth of 
 
 ' Josh. XA^iii. sc^.
 
 BOOK OF ORIGINS. 
 
 94 
 
 S3'mpatlij, a lucidity and quiet trans23arcncy Avliich is not afraid 
 of sliglit repetitions conducing to represent the thought per- 
 fectly in all its bearings, nor shrinks from an almost poetic 
 symmetry of clauses, removed alike from the old-fasliioned 
 stiiFness and hardness of such narrations as Josh. xvii. 14-18, 
 and from the cold tranquillity and studied description that 
 became usual in later times. The matter as well as the lan- 
 guage and picturesque representation of this work breathes 
 a peculiar fresh poetic air ; more rounded and graceful, more 
 instinct with a light poetic charm, no prose can well be than 
 that of this work, which also from its florid style of description 
 belongs to the finest period of Hebrew literature andnational life. 
 Its language at least shows itself such wherever its fragments 
 are preserved unaltered ; and the very first passag-e. Gen. i.-ii. 4, 
 may serve as a clear specimen of all subsequent ones. In 
 details the author may be distinguished by a great multitude 
 of expressions either quite peculiar to him, or on the other 
 hand quite foreign to him.' And as he displays in all things a 
 highly exact spirit of order, this accuracy extends in a remark- 
 able way even to proper names. For he is fond of explaining 
 in the history the rise of new personal names beside the old 
 ones ; and he then discriminates the two with constant accuracy 
 
 ' It would carry us here too far to ex- 
 plain in full tlie linguistic peculiarities of 
 the Book of Origins; here are a few points 
 which can be briefly stated. Peculiar to 
 the work are : the name D''S''C'5 ^ov the 
 Considerable, Noble among the people, 
 by the side of D''JpT "^'ery rare, and in 
 some places perhaps only through later 
 revision, Ex. xii. 21, Lev. iv. lö, ix. 1, 
 Num. xvi. 26, Josh. vii. 6, xx. 4 ; but 
 C^pb* nowhere occurs : the name jilSt 
 
 nny'ri for the ark; (nnsH 'X or niil^'S 
 
 is found only after Deut. x. 8, cf. xxxi. 9, 
 25 sq., 1 Kings viii. 1, 4, 6, perhaps 
 through remodelling by later writers 
 who called it so ; L^nj^n K is found 
 only in 2 Chr. xxxr. 3) ; the expression 
 n-TnS? ior possession, not nC^l''; lill for 
 garment, never n?Dp'; PIV"! ^or /lill, 
 always discriminated from i'\n, murder; 
 DJ-) often with the addition D*JDN3 for 
 to sfone, not h\^Ö> the very favourite ex- 
 prnssions D"'"!.3p for vagrant life, n^DU 
 for neighbour (elsewhere only in Zecii. 
 xiii. 7, and even there in an entirely 
 different connection) ; TPi^V. ^^^ service. 
 
 which in this sense only the latest writings 
 imitate ; the sole use of -nx for only, 
 whilst the pieces of other authors have 
 rather p-) &c. ; on the other hand, the 
 entire absence of such words as ]^fQ^ in 
 all significations, H-irtB youth, warrior, 
 "1^'iS treasure, which is found frequently 
 in Joel, Amos, and Hosea, as well as in 
 Josh. vi. 19, 24, and Deut., ü."|^; /«»•;', like- 
 wise in Joel. Many other peculiarities 
 are elsewhere illustrated in their proper 
 places in this work. The use or avoidance 
 of many words in this work has also a 
 great significance for the history of the 
 people itself. Thus the author chooses or 
 avoids certain words with manifest inten- 
 tion, that lie may depict antiquity with 
 correcter colours, and not intermingle 
 more modern ideas in opposition to liis 
 own historical feeling. For example, he 
 is certainly acquainted with the metal 
 iro7i, and once names it in a law. Num. 
 XXXV. 16, because it was there unavoid- 
 able, but elsewhere he always speaks of 
 brass as being usually employed in the 
 Mosaic period ; just as brass is said by 
 the Greek and Roman writers to have been 
 more abundant in earlier antiquity.
 
 94 HISTORY OF HEBREW HISTORICAL COMPOSITION. 
 
 according to tlie principle once assumed. As he explains the 
 origin of the name Joshua subsisting along with Hoshea, and 
 would certainly never employ this appellation before the proper 
 time,' so he begins only at Gen. xvii. 5, 15, to call Abraham 
 and Sarah by these names instead of Ahram and Sarai ; and as 
 he explains at Ex. vi. 2 sqq., that Jahveh had not jet revealed 
 himself to the Patriarchs under this name, he avoids before this 
 passage the use of the name Jahveh, which thenceforward is 
 constantly recurring in the history of Moses, and previously 
 always calls the true God El-Shaddai on the few solemn occa- 
 sions of his manifestation, and elsewhere by the common name 
 Elohim.^ The name Jacob is indeed not always avoided in 
 passages subsequent to Gen. xxxv. 10, despite the declaration 
 there given ; but inasmuch as this name was always maintained 
 along with the other, Israel, in the real life of the j)eople, its 
 employment stands on a different footing from that of those 
 just mentioned. 
 
 If we combine all the distinctive marks of the Book of 
 Origins, it will appear that no document whose original form 
 has been destroyed could well be so easily and certainl}^ recog- 
 nised in its smallest fragments as this, because certainly no 
 other document of an historical character has been composed 
 with so high an individuality and intellectual peculiarity. And 
 this is just what is important for the question as to the literary 
 sources that may have been used by our author. For though 
 the author never refers in express words to any authorities, 
 whether written or oral, yet he incorporates the old catalogue 
 of the stations in Num. xxxiii.^ in his work, with the preliminary 
 remark that Moses wrote it (see above, p. 68). And many of 
 his historical remarks must, to judge by their contents, be refer- 
 able to very ancient records (the proof of which, however, be- 
 longs more suitably to the history itself further on) ; and the 
 change in the use of language, too, shows that he here and 
 there is dependent upon written authorities. In the passage 
 of Leviticus (xviii.-xx.) alluded to above (page 88), we remark 
 as much on the one hand peculiar to our author, as on the 
 other quite foreign to him ; and it appears from the peculiar 
 
 ' Num. xiii. 8, 16. of language with the fine distinction be- 
 
 ^ The Book of Origins always uses this twoen deos and 6 6e6s, which Greek and 
 
 name without the article (on the few ex- Hebrew can alike express, we are nnfor- 
 
 ceptions .see my Hebr. Gr. p. 680, 7th tunately unable to reproduce in our God. 
 
 ed.) ; whilst others, as the later writers ^ That the hand of the author of the 
 
 to be mentioned below, often use DM^XH Book of Origins is here discernible, follows 
 
 also, as if tlic true God ought to be dis- f'"«^"" DnX^V^ ■^'- ^' ^^ ^«"^^ »^ from the 
 
 tinguishcd by the article. This freedom reasons to be adduced further on.
 
 BOOK OF ORIGINS. 95 
 
 colour of the language,' as well as from other iudications,^ that 
 he here incorporates in his work short series of laws that had 
 long been in existence. And he doubtless incorporated much 
 from the earlier historical work, or recast it in his own fashion. 
 The revelation on Mount Sinai, already described incomparably 
 in that work, as well as the Decalogue (where the words in 
 Ex. XX. 9-11 are an addition by himself), he incorporated the 
 rather, as the Decalogue was indispensable. How he recasts 
 historical accounts, is seen from Gen. xxxiii. 18-xxxiv. ; 
 Josh. V. 2-12. On the contrary, there is no indication that 
 he adopted from the Book of Covenants or elsewhere the older 
 legal work contained in Ex. xx. 23-xxiii. 19. Certainly one 
 might regard it as probable, because this legal work touches 
 upon many relations, especially of civil life, which, as being 
 foreign to his main subject, our author little regarded. Yet 
 it cannot be proved that he intended to embody all legal deter- 
 minations of the kind. 
 
 The name of the author will probably be veiled from us in 
 eternal obscurity. We read, indeed, of men highly renowned 
 for wisdom, who flourished just about the period required,^ and 
 we may readily imagine one of these to be the author of this 
 glorious work. No time, too, was probably so productive as 
 that of great men of the kind that we must imagine our 
 author. But further we are unable to prosecute the enquiry. 
 If, however, we regard, as we ought, mainly the mysterious 
 internal spirit and the general meaning of the author, as 
 laid down unmistakably to attentive readers (and no mode- 
 rately independent historian can always entirely conceal, even 
 in the mere narrative style, the nature and working of his 
 own mind) — then we must confess that rarely has so great a 
 mind devoted itself to the composition of history. It is true 
 
 ' n^T Lev. xviii. 17, xix. 29, xx. 14, * From the special form of these laws; 
 
 occurs'elsewhere (besides the poets) only 5'"°™ the circumstance that the author, 
 
 in Judges xx. 6 ; and how the Book of ^"^ ,^'^- ^3 on, himself adds a kind of 
 
 Origins, per se, would speak in such a case Firaphra,se, &e. On the older little 
 
 is shown by Gen. xxxiv. 7 ; the image ™^' ^»mnciorum, simply inserted in 
 
 of the Canaanites being vomited from *e Book of Origins, Lev. i.-vii., see my 
 
 their own land. Lev. xviii. 24-28, xx. 22, Alkrthumer, p. 52. 
 
 is not elsewhere current with the author, ^ 1 Kings v. 11 [iv. 31]: Ethan, Ho- 
 
 and the language of the original gives man, Chalcol, and Darda, whom Solomon 
 
 even the notion of their being already surpa.sscd in wisdom, must accordingly be 
 
 expelled ; Qip'^^X in Lev. xix. 4 and xxvi. regarded as somewhat prior to Solomon, 
 
 1, old echoes of the Decalogue; "nn in and else^yhere the first two are placed in 
 
 Lev. xix. 15, cf. v. 32, elsewhere \inusual -L>'i^'"\« f""«?- One might, moreover, men- 
 
 to the author ; the whole sentence strongly ^lon Nathan the prophet ; but the question 
 
 reminds ns of older passages, as Ex. xxiii. ''^'^'^^^^ "^ t'^e case of all those whether 
 
 3 ; the beautiful thought in xix. 34, har- they were Levites or not (cf. 1 Chr. ii. 6, 
 
 monizes only with Ex. xxii. 20 [21], ^^)' ^ question which can only be au- 
 
 xxiü, 9, swered further on.
 
 96 HISTORY OF HEBREW HISTORICAL COMPOSITION. 
 
 he does not belie Lis character as a priest, an hereditary and 
 influential one too : the visible sanctuary in Israel had at that 
 time been for centuries gaining a high consideration of a 
 peculiar kind, and the hierarchy was in the ascendant in con- 
 sequence of the rule of David and the building of the Temple. 
 The author of this work appears, according to the true mean- 
 ing of several passages,' very anxious to secure that no im- 
 proper, i.e. heathen sacrifices, nor improper priests — that is 
 aliens to the house of Aaron — shall approach the Mosaic sanc- 
 tuary ; and this also he attempts to pronounce and to establish 
 in the form of laws. But far higher than the priest stands in 
 his estimation the wise legislator and true leader of the people ; 
 full of that truly kingly spirit which always forms salutary 
 decisions and issues irresistible commands with ease, and 
 which even in the greatest perplexities and revolutions never 
 loses for long its coolness and intrepidity. Such a one, too, if 
 he ever is forced to administer a severe correction, does it not 
 without the most considerate sympathy,^ and his quiet strength 
 silences all contradiction, and smooths all waves to peace.^ 
 And as the age of David and Solomon was the fairest reflex of 
 the Mosaic, though far below it in creative power, the glory 
 of the Mosaic age could be recalled and portrayed by no other 
 historian so adequately as by one who had felt the influence of 
 David's kingly spirit, and who was himself an actor in the best 
 part of this most hopeful age of Israelitish dominion. 
 
 Lofty spirit ! thou whose work has for centuries not h-ra- 
 tionally had the fortune of being taken for that of th}^ great 
 hero Moses himself, I know not thy name, and divine only from 
 thy vestiges when thou didst live, and what thou didst achieve : 
 but if these thy traces incontrovertibly forbid me to identify 
 thee with him who was greater than thou, and whom thou 
 thyself only desiredst to magnify according to his deserts, then 
 see that there is no guile in me, nor any pleasure in knowing 
 thee not absolutely as thou wert ! 
 
 3. The Prophetic Narrators of the Primitive Histories. 
 
 The Book of Origins was surpassed on the domain of ancient 
 history by no subsequent work. Yet later writers did not 
 
 ' Let any ono read with attention pas- comparably beautiful and yet simple turn 
 
 sages Uke Num. xvii. 1-5 [xvi. 36-4 i], of the sentiment wherewith three quota- 
 
 xviii. 3 sq. 7, 32, Lev. x. 2 sqq., Ex. tions close, Lev. x., Num. xii. and xvii. 
 XXX. 9, which explain one another, and ^ This is the impi'ession made upon the 
 
 compare therewith such tales from Eli's sympathising reader, especially by the glo- 
 
 and David's time as 1 8am. v., vi, 2 rious pictures of Closes" life in the Book of 
 
 Sam. vi. Numbers, to wliicli I shall return in tho 
 
 * Let any one read attentively the in- course of the history.
 
 BOOK OF ORIGINS. C7 
 
 want for occasions for new essays upon tliis same field of 
 nan-ative. The fund of ancient legends was certainly not ex- 
 liausted by the Book of Origins and its precursors ; much 
 may have been told differently in different districts of the 
 country ; other things could be more fully and clearly described. 
 Moreover, time itself as it advances develops new ideas and 
 stories on the domain of ancient popular tradition ; and with 
 the brisker intercourse with foreign and distant nations, which 
 after Solomon was never quite broken off again, new subjects 
 of story and legend might easily enter from foreign parts, and 
 seek a combination with the older series. But more powerful 
 than anything else was the prophetic conception and treatment 
 of history through the entire course of those ages ; and as this 
 prophetic conception has greater freedom to mould the subject- 
 matter to its will, the further the field of the narrative is removed 
 from the present time, and the more it has thereby become 
 already the subject of a higher kind of contemplation, it 
 found in the primitive history the most impressible soil on 
 which it could combine with historical comT)osition. This is 
 the main cause of the great freedom of repeated narration, 
 which so remarkably distinguishes the works of this age from 
 the Book of Origins and the still older book ; for all legend- 
 ary literature will endeavour the more to break through old 
 restraints, and will move Avith the greater freedom, the oftener 
 it treats the same subject-matter ; but here it was especially 
 the grandeur of prophetic truths, that declared itself by means 
 of the freer exposition thus admitted. 
 
 The passages belongmg to this place are to be recognised 
 partly by the criteria resulting from their nature just explained, 
 partly by a tone of language and narration sensibly different 
 from that of the earlier works on the primitive history. The 
 correct discrimination of individuals among the narrators is 
 indeed more difiicult, as a more uniform and properly prose 
 style for narrative is now being gradually formed ; still on 
 accurate inspection tolerably distinct shades may always be 
 perceived in the various authors' mode of narration, which, when 
 they concur with other and more internal distinctionSj present 
 suf&ciently reliable data to the judgment. 
 
 1) The Third Narrator of the Primitive History. 
 
 As proceeding from a narrator who in the absence of any other 
 name is here denominated the third,^ we must discriminate a series 
 
 ' One might, according to the entire above, also call him the //VA narrator: Imt 
 number of historical works enumerated since it cannot be proved (and is, indeed, 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 HISTORY OF HEBREW HISTORICAL COMPOSITIOX. 
 
 of pieces which, though in number rather smaller, and in so far 
 more cliflSeult of recognition, yet from their entire manner and 
 colouring can belong neither to an older work nor to the following 
 fourth or still later nan-ators, and discover a certain similarity 
 among themselves. They are the stories of the Patriarchal times 
 in Gen. x. 25, xx., xxix.-xxxi., and especially much of the story 
 of Joseph, although older matter is frequently worked up into 
 these passages, and much has crept in from the hand of the 
 subsequent narrators. Of the Mosaic history the following 
 pieces belong to this work : the story of the youth of Moses, in 
 Ex. i. 15-ii. 22 ; that of the shining of Moses' face, and the 
 way in which he shoAved himself subsequently to the people, in 
 Ex. xxxiv. 30-35, a peculiar idea of the splendour of the great 
 prophet ; that of the seventy elders, and of Eldad and Medad 
 (Num. xi.), with its extraordinarily noble expressions about 
 prophecy and the working of the Divine spirit ; furthermore the 
 line description of the internal worth and nobleness of Moses 
 as a prophet (Num. xii. 6-8), for all its brevity the most 
 beautiful and excellent rej)resentation of Moses in the whole 
 Pentateuch. From the history of the Flood, the fragment 
 Gen. viii. 6-12 probably belongs to this narrator.^ To him we 
 are perhaps indebted^ also for the preservation of the 14th 
 chapter of Genesis, that curious relic of a work of the highest 
 antiquity, which (according to p. 52) may have even been 
 written among a non-Hebrew and probably Canaanitish people, 
 before the age of Moses. Our narrator, perhaps an inhabitant 
 of the North of Palestine adjacent to Phenicia, certainly in- 
 troduced the passage within the pale of Hebrew history, on 
 account of a casual mention of Abraham in it. There are many 
 indications that he made especial use of the writings of the 
 first narrator of the primitive history. 
 
 The narrative style of this author moves in very uniform lan- 
 guage and description, and keeps still more simply to the old 
 tradition. On such exalted topics as Num. xii. 6-8 he may be 
 carried away by the lofty flight of his language, and sometimes 
 pass into an easy verse,^ but he is far removed from the more 
 artistic portraiture and bolder painting of the Fourth Narrator, 
 
 altof^flluT iniproLaLlc from certain indica- * Tlic rare use of ^*iy73 u'ithoiit mc! 
 
 lions previously adduced) ti.at the authors -^ ^ y^^ ^^ f^^ f^.^,^^ ^^^ ; God forhid ! v. 24, 
 
 ot th... f.rst two Morks included in t .em ^^^^^^^ ^^^ q^^ ^jj ^^ ^,j^^, ,^^,^,^ 
 
 the i-nnntive Inslor.es properly so called, ^ 22, would be surprising for this nai-i-a- 
 
 ^•0 prefer the name in the text. ,„,. . ,,^,^ j,^^ Samarit. and the LXX. read 
 
 • Soo tho Jahrh. der Bihl. Wisa. vi. \k D\l'pi^n for it, according to some editions 
 
 18, vii. p. 16, ix. p. 7. Oöff. Gel. An::, and manuscripts. 
 
 1803, p. 751). » Gen. xiv. I'J sq., xlviii. 19.
 
 TIIIKD NARRATOR OF THE PRIMITIVE HISTORY. 99 
 
 next to be mentioned. But this narrator's peculiar pre-eminence 
 consists in his uncommonly high and distinct conception of the 
 working of the prophetic and the Divine spirit, which enters 
 more or less prominently into most of his descriptions, and 
 causes many of his expressions to class with the finest passages 
 of the Old Testament. This conception of the ancient history 
 comes out strongest in the life of Moses (Num. xi. sq.), but 
 the scheme of the life of Joseph also leads curiously to such 
 a x)roplietic truth (Gen. 1. 19, sq.) ; and the frequent introduc- 
 tion of the Dream, and its prophetic significance, by which 
 he is perceptibly distinguished from the other narrators,^ 
 harmonises well with this prophetic theory of his that pervades 
 his whole history. As narrator of the primitive history, he 
 is the best prophet, as the author of the Book of Origins 
 was the best legislator and national leader. Now as this 
 narrator must from all indications have written considerably 
 earlier than the Fourth, we may assume him to have lived 
 in the tenth or ninth century, while such great prophets as 
 Elijah and Joel were still active ; for his history is like a re- 
 flex of the high prophetic activity of their times. Although 
 passages like Num. xi. sq. quite remmd us of Joel, we prefer 
 to assign to the northern kingdom a narrator who makes the 
 life of Joseph the most brilliant period of the Patriarchal 
 history, so that his work would have been to the kingdom of 
 Israel very much what the Book of Origins was to that of 
 Judah. We shall say more on this subject in the history of 
 Joseph. 
 
 The diction of these fragments, notwithstanding a not incon- 
 siderable number of peculiarities,^ exhibits far more analogy 
 with those of the Book of Origins than that of the Fourth Nar- 
 rator does : ^ another proof that this work was written tolerably 
 
 ' Gen. XX. xxxi. xxxvii. xl. sq. A iii. 4-15. It is quite in harmony with tJiis 
 
 narrativo style which loves to bring into view that in the Third Narrator Moses 
 
 prominence this intellectual domain is by alone is regarded as standing far above 
 
 no means common. It is quile foreign to dreams and the like (Num. xii. 6-8). 
 
 the Book of Origins. The story in Gon. ^ As nj'^ grow, Gen. xlviii. 16, in a 
 
 xxviii. 10-22, to the very groundwork of thought which the Book of Origins and 
 
 which the dream belongs, forms no paral- ^j^^ ^^^^,^^1^ barrator express each verv 
 
 lei. The Fifth ^arrator in imitating such aiiftreutly ; r\^ü12, cover, Ex. xxxiv. 33 
 
 pictures expresses himseii cpiite ditter- •••: - 
 
 cntly. Gen. xv. 1, xlvi. 2. And wherever sq. ; NVO, suffice,' Num. xi. 22, elsewhere 
 
 beyond the primitive history anything of „^ly Judges xxi. U, Ps. xxxii. 6, and in 
 
 the kind occurs it can hardly be nnm- i,„p(.rf, Jsijih. Josh. xvii. 16, Zech. x. 10. 
 
 fluonced by the descriptions in this ^ The author calls God in the Premosaic 
 
 work: Judges vii. 13 sqq. (where l^f:» time E'/^^/nw, like the Book of Origins, and 
 
 for "ins interpretation of dreams) 1 Kings uses, like the latter, the word n*iyn foi" the
 
 100 HISTORY OF HEBREW HISTORICAL COMrOSITION. 
 
 soon after the Book of Orig-ins, from which it is mainl}- dis- 
 tinguished by its prophetic treatment and glorification of the 
 ancient history. 
 
 2) The Fourth Narrator of the Priifnitive History. 
 
 To another entirely indej)endent work must be referred es- 
 pecially several moderately long pieces which on close inspec- 
 tion betray some strongly marked peculiarities ; whereas many 
 shorter fragments and remains of it are preserved closely inter- 
 woven with the words of the succeeding author. 
 
 a.) The fragments of this nari-ator exhibit a culmination and 
 mature development of all the intellectual powers and capacities 
 of the ancient nation, which can hardly be surpassed. It may 
 be with justice maintained that this work exhibits the progress 
 in the treatment of primitive history to the extreme of freedom 
 in conception and delineation, beyond which nothing more is 
 possible but the artistic conformation and poetical employment 
 of its legends. And we may perceive clearly enough, in the 
 j)icture of the national life of the time that meets our eye, the 
 commencing relaxation of the old bonds of the Mosaic religion, 
 and the irresistible rise of a multitude of new thoughts and 
 aims.' We can here only shew this by a few of the more im- 
 portant phenomena. 
 
 The prophetic theory, which entered deep even into the 
 former work, expands itself in this with full force, and becomes 
 the supporter of the entire historical narrative. This work, 
 especially when taken together with the succeeding one, gives 
 a full reflection of the great prophetic power and activity that 
 was developed in the centuries after David. This prophetic 
 poAver, that had long become great in life and in literature, and 
 was constantly overflowing its immediate bounds, now quite 
 occupies the primitive history too, and remodels it with the 
 greatest freedom into new and fairer forms. If the few relics 
 of the previous work permit us to institute a comparison, that 
 
 Comnnmily, Ex. xxxir. 31 ; also D''K"'K'3 'writers frcslicncd up tlio nionior}' of the 
 
 for the heads or elders of the ponnnunity ^i''^* plori.nis days of Islam under the 
 
 recurs Ex. xxxiv. :n, although in Num. xi. *^lieltenng name of the ancient narrator 
 
 in our i-rescnt text Q^jpt «Lands constantly '^«'y«^^', 'in'' pi-o(lueed the many Histories 
 
 f,jp )(•_ ' ot Wä(|idi, -which have never been estimated 
 
 ' As a somewhat analogous case in a iit their true value till our day. It is how- 
 
 kindred pe.iple, may be cited the semi- o^''^'' li>ir<ll.V necessary to observe, that the 
 
 j,o.tieal transformailon of the old Ara- f^pinl which revived the primitive histories 
 
 bic historical literature which followed of Islam was very different from that which 
 
 tho timcb of the Crusades, wlieu modern i'^i""Jclled those of the Hebrews.
 
 FOURTH NAKRATOR OP THE rRIMITIVE HISTORY. 101 
 
 still kept pretty close to tradition witli its prophetic truths, 
 and was the same from a prophetic point of view as the Book of 
 Origins from a legislative ; whereas in this work the prophetic 
 idea rather sways history as its domain, and treats it from 
 the first with all possible freedom. Now every prophetic truth 
 seeks and easily finds in some part of the primitive history a 
 fitting support, whence it expands itself freely and exhibits 
 itself in its full extent. The support for the furthest existing 
 prophetic outlook, namely the Messianic exj)ectations which 
 must m the time of the writer have long been developed nearly 
 as we see them in the greater Prophets, was most naturally 
 found at the historical comniencement of all higher life in the 
 Patriarchs, according to the law that in moral and divine things 
 the extreme end must coiTespond to the extreme beginning, and 
 all intermediate matter contains only the process of develop- 
 ment.^ And were it not that these insertions of a higher 
 kind of history into tlie primitive times must, from their very 
 position, be told in the shortest form, few finer presentiments 
 would be found to be declared even by the real great prophets 
 of the ninth and eighth centuries. The truth that every unrigh- 
 teous rule, be it never so powerful, must necessarily fall before a 
 higher disposing power, and that the Divine deliverance comes 
 surely, finds its right place in the Egyptian-Hebrew history : 
 the opposite truth, how the delivered and exalted people sinks 
 down again through its own guilt from the height attained, and 
 is only rescued from total ruin by the untiring self-devotion of 
 such great minds as Moses, easily attaches itself to certain re- 
 miniscences from the desert (Ex. xxxii.-xxxiv.). And wherever 
 the prophetic treatment finds such an opportunity, it distinctly 
 unfolds all the art of unfettered description and brings forward 
 its innermost thoughts. Hence these passages have a high 
 degree of importance as regards prophetic truth ; and it were 
 difficult to decide between this and the former prophetic 
 historian, which yields to the other in depth and originality 
 of thought, did not the subject of these thoughts concern a 
 distinct side of ])rophetic truth in each. 
 
 If we then regard closer the truths which are here forced 
 upon us, we shall have to confess that they flow from a height 
 of prophetic activity and advanced national culture totally 
 foreign to the Book of Origins. The developed Messianic 
 expectations, the truth of the infinite all-surpassing gTace of 
 Jahveh beside the deep sinfulness and coiTuption of the earthly 
 
 ' Geu. xii. 1-3, xviii. 18 sq.. xxii. 16-18, xxvi. 4 sq., xxvili. 14.
 
 102 niSTORY OF IIEEREW lilSTORICAL COMPOSITIOX. 
 
 (or natural) man,^ the similar trutlis of the non-casual origin 
 of the svicked principle in nian,^ — these are such illustrious 
 thoughts, which the sun of these ages was the first to elicit 
 from the sacred soil. 
 
 The language is essentially the fully developed prose style ; 
 but from the author's intellectual peculiarity in the treatment 
 of history it always inclines towards a prophetic loftiness of 
 description, wherever the subject will at all allow of a more 
 soaring flight, as at the call of Abraham and the other 
 periods of this great hero's life, at the call of Moses and his 
 deeds in Egypt. But from this prevailingly prophetic tenor 
 of the discourse it is, on every favourable occasion, only one 
 step to the poetic ; and this natural transition mto purely poetic 
 matter, or to an actual verse, of which we had the bare rudi- 
 ments in the Third Narrator (p. 98), proves to be an important 
 criterion of this and still more of the following narrator.^ For 
 though the passage Gen. xlix., spoken of on page 69, might, 
 and obviously did, from a precedent here, yet so constant an 
 intermingling of the poetic as this work displays, is a new 
 f)henomenon only to be explamed from the species of historical 
 composition that was now gaining ground.'' Even where the 
 author is not exactly revealing the highest prophetic truths, 
 he likes to intermingle poetic colours of language, and follows 
 a more artistic plan. But how a true poetic air may be spread 
 over the narration when at the same time the former strictness 
 of the Mosaic account of God (Mythology) was being relaxed, 
 and greater freedom on this subject also was making way, is 
 clearly shown by such glorious examples as Gen. xviii.-xix. 28, 
 and xxiv., w^hich have a truly epic plan, and the last of which 
 is quite comparable to an idyl. The mere narration with old- 
 fashioned brevity or with the terseness demanded by the nature 
 of the sources, never distinguishes this narrator, who delibe- 
 rately prefers a beautiful and bold revivification of antiquity. 
 
 One consequence of this great freedom of descrijjtion is, 
 finally, that the historical distinctions of the various ages are 
 more and more dropped in narration, and the ideas and colours 
 
 * Gon. iii., xviii. 1-xix. 28, xxxii. 11 p. 49, note. 
 
 sq., Ex. xxxii. -xxxiv. cf. Gen. via. 21 ■* InasiniilaiMvay in the Arabic histories 
 
 sq. incntioued on p. 100, tlio lan;^uago passes 
 
 ' Gen. iii. cf. ^^ii. 21 of same narrator, easily into verse, whorever a fitting op- 
 
 * Gen. ii. 23, xxiv. 60; in the Fifth Nar- portimity occurs to insert it: cf. Zcit- 
 rator, Gen. ix. 2Ö-27, xxv. 23, xxvii. 27- schrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes, 
 _29, 39 sq. ; Num. xxiii. 7-xxiv. Gen. vol. i. p. 95 sq., 101 sq. In still later 
 iv. 23 sq. is of a cliftercnt kind, as ono times this freedom penetrates into tho 
 may see from the liistorical references \)VO]<\\ti^\Q. s\y\c, sue Die rmphcten des A.B. 
 llici'oin coiitaiiii'd, whicli rould not possibly vol. ii. p. 332, 392. 
 
 have .«(prung from the author himself; cf.
 
 FOURTH NARRATOR OF THE PRIMITIVE HISTORY. 103 
 
 of language current in. the author's age are without much cere- 
 mony transferred to the primitive times. We saw (p. 91) how 
 the Book of Origins preserves a strong consciousness of these 
 distmctions, and prefers to portray the Premosaic antiquity 
 after its own fashion; but this narrator, and the next even 
 more, feel no scruple about transferring purely Mosaic ideas and 
 phrases to that age. This certainly at the same time proves 
 how firmly Mosaic notions had now long been rooted in the 
 nation, and in how great a degree, precisely from this cause, the 
 clear consciousness of previous totally different circumstances 
 was fading away. Thus not only in the history of ISToah (Gen. 
 viii. 20-22), but even in that of Abel and Cain (Gen. iv.), regular 
 Mosaic sacrifices are described, without any cautious enquiry 
 whether they have any place at the gate of Paradise. In the same 
 way we must understand the fact that our narrator, overleaping 
 the limit observed by the Book of Origins (p.84), and also by the 
 previous narrator (according to p. 89, note), calls God from the 
 first JaJiveh, and is always glad to employ this peculiarly pro- 
 phetic name wherever possible.^ Some little reserve and avoid- 
 ance of too modern phrases, however, might well consist with 
 the tendency alluded to, and is indeed clearly discernible ; as 
 for example it is not accident that the expression, so frequent 
 in later times, Neum-Jcüiveh (i.e. ' — is Jahveh's saying '), with 
 which the Prophets of the times after David introduced or con- 
 cluded their words, though first transfen-ed to the primitive age 
 by our narrator, yet even by him is used only once, and therefore 
 seems to have crept in by an oversight.^ 
 
 That the author wrote as late as the age of the o-reater 
 Prophets, may be equally clearly inferred from other considera- 
 tions also. The tranquillity and polish of the narrative manner 
 of these passages fully answers our expectations of the poetry 
 of the eighth century. But besides, the narrative of the great 
 
 ' He intentionally avoids it from reve- the following narrator acts quite differently 
 
 rence, e.g. in speeches addressed to hea- in this matter: see Jahrbücher der Bib- 
 
 thens or among heathens, Gen. xxxix. 9; lischen Wissenschaft, \\. p. 18. This va- 
 
 and of this kind is the instance in Gen. riety of di\'ine names, therefore, in the 
 
 iii. 3-Ö. With this view', that the name primeval history, is not without weight 
 
 Jahveh is identical with God, another for the discrimination of its elements ; but 
 
 view is certainly closely connected, viz. it presents only a single token, which 
 
 that being in itself conditioned by the must everywhere be judiciously interpreted 
 
 opposite idea of frail humanity, it must and brought into harmony with all other 
 
 have arisen in the primeval age, together indications; for when adopted and insisted 
 
 with the name of the forefather Enos on without such careful judgment, it leads 
 
 (E?iosh), i.e. man. This beautiful eon- into great errors. Moreover, it is obvious 
 
 ception, mentioned only too shortly by that different histories require the applica- 
 
 the Third Narrator in Gen. iv. 26, ap- tion of different laws, 
 
 parently emanates from that narrator '^ Gen. xxii. 16. In the whole primeval 
 
 himself, the eai'liest who would make so history it is only used on one other occa- 
 
 bold a use of the name Jahveh, whereas sion, Num. xiv. 28.
 
 101 IIISTOEY OF HEBREW HISTORICAL COMrOSITIOX. 
 
 abomination at Gibeah in Judges xix. is by all indications tlie 
 prototype of that about Sodom (Gen. xix.) ; for the one cannot 
 have originated independently of the other, and it is more natu- 
 ral to sui^pose that to a narrator like ours the historical story 
 served the purpose of dressing up short legends of antiquity, 
 than the reverse. Moreover Hosea^ quotes the abomination at 
 Gibeah -certainly from that source, and yet does not, like our 
 narrator,^ limit the moral degradation of the early times to the 
 two cities of Sodom and Gomorrah only. But since Amos^ had 
 begun to employ these tvro cities alone by way of example for 
 purposes of instruction, our narrator confines himself to them, 
 even when speaking at length. But, on the other hand, this 
 narrator must have written at a tolerably long interval before 
 the succeeding one. We shall probably err but little, therefore, 
 in fixing him at the end of the ninth or commencement of the 
 eighth century. 
 
 b.) If we enquire about the ends that the narrator in this age 
 kept before his eyes, we shall j)erhaps find the truth nowhere 
 so evidently confirmed as here, that throughout the whole lifa 
 of an ancient nation like Israel the -writing of history always 
 follows other efforts and tendencies that have already gained 
 strength, and hence changes with them ; and that it is not, like 
 poetry, prophecy, and religion, something original and anterior. 
 Pro^Dhetic activity attained at that time its culminating point 
 inJudah, and had already produced a multitude of lofty and 
 eternally true thoughts. Now as these forced their way even 
 into the contemplation of history, and sought admission into 
 the yielding domain of the primitive history, the old conceptions 
 of it were evidently no longer universally sufficient, and new 
 ones arose imperceptibly. The Divine blessing awarded to the 
 Patriarchs was now no longer confined as in the Book of Origins 
 (p. 75) to the single nation of Israel, but extended, according 
 to the true Messianic view, over all nations of the earth : ■* and 
 that everything ultimately depends upon faith and the proof 
 of faith, was now the great jn-ophetic dogma, Avhich was soon 
 to transform the primitive history into accordance with itself.^ 
 The poetical and prophetical literature had at this time at- 
 tained a similar height ; they now exerted a sensible influence on 
 historical writijig also, esjoecially on the history of the earliest 
 times, so that the artistic arrangement and glowing descriiDtions 
 
 » Hos. ix. 9, X. 9. ■• Gen. xii. 2, 3, xviii. 18, xxii. 18, 
 
 * Gen. xiii. 13, xix., xx. ; sec liow- xxvl. 4. 
 ever X. 19; Hos. xi. 8. * Slill more is tin's tiio cusp with tlie 
 
 ' Anio^ iv. 11; ami lik.j\viscls;iiali i. 9, fullouing uarratur: Gen. xv. xxii.; Ex. 
 
 10. iv. 5.
 
 FOUKTII NARRATOR OF THE PRIMITIVE HISTORY. 105 
 
 that we missed in the older works, made rapid way in tlie miore 
 recent. Here we discover the two objects that this work, by its 
 peculiar treatment of the subject was chiefly intended to secure. 
 It almost seems not to be the matter, as such, of the primitive 
 history, which is the main thing, but the mode of conception 
 and delineation — that is, the clothing* of a frequently-treated 
 subject-matter in a beautiful or at least a new dress. Many an 
 old reminiscence of antiquity that would else easily pass away 
 is refreshed by this spirit of the new age into more pleasing 
 and attractive forms. And if it be true that the history of a 
 nation's antiquity only after such a regeneration becomes its 
 inalienable possession (page 36), we shall be forced to admit 
 that, whilst much matter has been destroyed or rendered difficult 
 of recognition by modification, and much quite thrown away as 
 insignificant, at least as much has been by this means preserved 
 which would perhaps also have been entirely lost. 
 
 But though the majority of the fragments of this narrator 
 thus present nothing but old matter newly worked up after the 
 literary fashion demanded by the best prophecy and religion 
 then in vogue, nevertheless the creative power of the nation, 
 as applied to their old legends, was by no means exhausted ; 
 and many legends which had assumed an entirely new form 
 may now have found their way into the history. Let us here 
 only call attention to the story in Gen. xxxviii. of the circle 
 of the ancestors of David's house, which, without naming 
 David, can hardly have originated without a tacit reference 
 to the royal line of Judah. But especially, a flood of foreign 
 legends of a mythological character had poured in upon Judah 
 through the nation's freer and wider commerce since the time 
 of Solomon ; these our narrator received into the circle of the 
 early history, modified as far as possible through the spirit 
 of the Jahveistic religion. These are the important fragments 
 briefly indicated above (page 39), and to be further discussed 
 in their historical context ; which are peculiar in being perhaps 
 all referable to this narrator. 
 
 c.) At all events, however, this work was quite an independent 
 one, as much so as any of the foregoing. Indeed, in a literary 
 point of view, there could hardly be another work so new and 
 independent as this, because beautiful and copious delineation 
 is a main point with it.' So far as we are able to observe, the 
 
 ' This furnishes also a weiglity ground clear, pure, and powerful a flow of speech, 
 
 for completely separating this narrator as to render it impossible even on this 
 
 from the following one. Passages, for account, to refer them to the same author 
 
 instance, such as Gen. xviii. 1-xix. 28, as Gen, xv. 
 from a literary point of view, exhibit so
 
 106 HISTORY OF HEBREW HISTORICAL COMPOSITION. 
 
 narratives of this new work did not even rest upon fragments 
 of older ones ; its peculiar genius being for actual creation. 
 
 3) The Fifth Narrator of the Primitive History. 
 
 It is quite otherwise with the work of the Fifth Narrator. As 
 such we are to understand the author from whose hand proceeded 
 the first great collection and working up of all previous sources 
 of the primitive history, to whom therefore is to be referred the 
 whole existing Pentateuch together with the Book of Joshua, 
 with the exception of three kinds of additions which (as is soon 
 to be elucidated) were intercalated still later.' 
 
 a.) At the time of this author the literature of the primi- 
 tive history had long swelled out to an extraordinary bidk. 
 Most various works of various ages and from various districts 
 were then by all indications extant in considerable numbers ; 
 the age had been growing constantly more learned, and the 
 very multitude of works in this, as also simultaneously in other 
 branches of literatui-e,^ excited the demand for finer sifting and 
 new combinations. Accordingly we have here a narrator who, 
 though he delineates some points anew with his own hand and 
 after his own taste according to the demands of his age, yet 
 generally only either repeats word for word from older books, or 
 slightly modifies the accounts of others, and who was on the 
 whole rather a collector and worker-up than an independent 
 author and original narrator of history. 
 
 But if we enquire in what is this narrator still independent, 
 we find it first of all in the j)artiality for a prophetic bearing 
 and loftiness of thought. Here indeed he only carries further 
 what had already appeared in the previous narrators, espe- 
 cially in the last; but it is characteristic of him that he 
 brings out Messianic ideas less prominently,-* and with great 
 
 ' It mi^^ht indeed bo supposed that 26, x. 21, must bo tlio same who wroto 
 
 the ImMi Narrator was as independent a such narratives as Gen. ix. 18-27, xv. ; 
 
 writer as his predecessors, and that we scoi Jahrbücher der Biblischen Wissenschaft, 
 
 owed to him only long passages such as vi. p. 9 sqq. 16, 17, vii. p. 25 sqq. ix. p. 
 
 Gen. XV., Num. xxii.-xxiv. ; while a sub- 19 sqq. With this may be compared the 
 
 sequent author used all these works, and way in whicli the latest propliets, though 
 
 thusliocami^, in the sense already explained, acting as collectors and compilers of pro- 
 
 the latest autlior. This view, moreover, phetical works, always mado independent 
 
 might be recommended by the considera- additions of their own. See my Pro2>heten 
 
 tion that tlie task of a compiler of books des Alten Bundes, i. p. 59, 60. 
 
 or history may bo quite distinct from « See my Dichter des Alten Bundes, vol. 
 
 that of an historian, and is in itself i. p. 31-44. 
 
 enough for one man. But I could not ^ Especially, lie dwells only upon the 
 adopt this opinion here, because it is eternal possession of the land as pro- 
 obvious that tlic last narrator, whose miscd to the Patriarchs, Gen. xv., xlvi. 4, 
 hand is seen in passages like Gen. xi. 25, Num. xxii.-xxiv. How far Messianic liopes
 
 FIFTH NARRATOR OF THE FRIMITIVE HISTORY. 107 
 
 einpliasis inculcates the truth that that faith which stands the 
 test of trial is the true crown of life.' But whereas the boldness 
 of employing- the histories of the earliest times for instruction 
 and for a mirror of the existing times increases, and whereas 
 the descriptions are often more splendid and buoyant than 
 those of the previous narrator, still this writer's style has 
 already lost much of the former tranquil beauty and perfection. 
 
 Whilst prophetic thoughts and descriptions were raised to 
 so high a pitch in those ages, the popular element (as will be 
 further elucidated below) felt itself increasingly restricted, re- 
 pelled, and depressed ; which was followed in the literature by 
 a gradual decline from the beautiful perfection of style and 
 description, and in the disposition towards other nations by 
 a certain sourness of tone and embittered enmity. Both these 
 characteristics are unmistakably present in this historian. The 
 sharper-impressed nationality and sorer tone towards other na- 
 tions, especially kindred or neighbouring ones, are testified by 
 passages such as Gen. ix. 20-27, xix. 31-38, xxvii. 1 sqq. ; 
 Num. xxii.-xxiv., all of which sharply distinguish this historian 
 from the older writers on the primitive history, and breathe 
 almost the same spirit that declares itself in the exj^ressions of 
 Joel and later prophets about foreign nations. And as in 
 eneral the separation of opinions and tend encies may become 
 more and more trenchant in the progress of time (until 
 some happy fate brings about a higher reconciliation of oppo- 
 site views), and as just in that age a sharper partition was 
 growing up between the friends and the foes of spiritual religion, 
 this historian remarkably completes the ideas of the Book of 
 Origins by establishing a contrast of salvation and destruction, 
 of good and bad, even in the earliest stage before the Flood 
 (Gen. iv. ; compare above, p. 80, 102), whereas the former 
 author had already pursued the origin of evil further, to the 
 first man, and there discussed it likewise in a prophetic spirit 
 (Gen. iii,). 
 
 The true age of the work can be most certainly discovered by 
 considering more closely those relations in which, according 
 to evident indications in this work itself, Israel then stood to 
 foreign nations. It was especially Edom, Moab, and Amnion 
 who were again powerful and active at that time, and on whom 
 accordingly the narrator, who treats the history in general with 
 great freedom, bestows so much attention even in the earliest 
 times. Now of Edom it is indicated (Gen. xxvii. 39 sq.) that 
 
 are contained even in this narrative, is schaß, viii. p. 22 sqq. 
 
 shoyiam Jahrbücher der Biblischen Wissiii- ' Geu. xv. 6, xxii. ; Ex. iv. 5,
 
 108 HISTORY OF HEBREW HISTORICAL COiirOSITIOX. 
 
 tliis wild warlike tribe, tliougli subservient to its brother Jacob, 
 should deliver itself from his yoke, if it would only earnestly 
 strive for that end.' Thus the happy deliverance after earnest 
 resolution is put as the latest in time ; and the narrative of Gen. 
 xxvii. is planned so as to lead to the result, that Edom does after 
 all finally gain a blessing from his father, a very restricted one 
 though it be : his land shall be less fruitful than Jacob's, but his 
 earnest wrestling to throw off Jacob's yoke shall not be without 
 result. So the whole kingdom of Judah, to which our author 
 may belong, was then manifestly excited by the contest with 
 Edom and the successful revolt of the latter. And this consi- 
 deration of itself leads to a time not far distant from the 
 prophecies of Joel ; that we may regard as the extreme limit, 
 before which the narrator cannot have written.^ A similar 
 indication, but when closer examined, far more distinct, is 
 given by the conclusion of the extensive prophetic passages in 
 Num. xxii.— xxiv., although for several reasons this is difficult for 
 us to understand with perfect security. The prophecy put in 
 Balaam's mouth comes, towards the conclusion, to speak of a 
 star that should rise out of Israel, not in the age immediately 
 succeeding Balaam, but rather at a distant future time, to 
 chastise and crush Moab, Edom, and all similar proud tribes 
 (Num. xxiv. 17-19) : 
 
 I see him, but not now, 
 
 I behold him, but not near : 
 A star appears out of Jacob, 
 
 And a sceptre arises out of Israel ; 
 Smites both the temples of Moab 
 
 And the crown of the head of all the sons of pride, 
 So that Edom becomes a possession. 
 
 And Seir becomes a possession — his [Israel's] enemies, 
 While Israel puts forth valour.^ 
 
 It is not possible to see in the illustrious king from whom 
 this picture is boiTowed any later one than David. Moab, in- 
 
 ' T'ln in Iliphil, luis undoubtedly the afford no sense unless 7 be prefixed to it ; 
 
 moaning o{ wresUiiig, striuhig, desiring, but tliis only appears so. [It is horc taken 
 
 as an apposition to Edom and Seir: J<>doni 
 like the common Arabic word ^\J^ in and Seir, Israel's enemies ; like viV in 
 
 which, however, the meaning is »till further ''• ^'^ ^" ^- ^^' '^"^^''^^^'^' W' i-e- HX^, is 
 
 weakened. midoubtedly the proper reading; so also 
 
 * My Propheten des Alten Bundes, vol. '^^ '^\>'\?^ according to Jer. xlviii. 45 : for 
 
 '• P-^.^- , , the image of thetwütcmplcs.rightandleft, 
 
 _ The structure of the passage v. 17-19 is just completed by that of the crown of 
 
 IS somewhat confused. In v. 19 the first the head; and, conversely, the haughtily 
 
 nienUer IS evi.jently too short and seems raised vortex Imrinoniscs very well Milh 
 
 mutilated, lu v. 18 V2*N appears to the sous of pride.
 
 FIFTH NAßRATOE OF THE rRBriTIVE HISTORY. 109 
 
 deed, again fell off from tlie nortliern monarchy under Aluib's 
 son, and Jeroboam II. subjugated it anew after a long intervpJ 
 (2 Kings i. 1, xiv. 25, compare Is. xv. sq.) ; but neither this 
 Jeroboam nor any other king after David conquered both Moab 
 and Edom so completely at the same time. But this shining star 
 is not the latest thing that Balaam knows of. Of the further 
 destinies of Moab, indeed, he says no more ; and an inhabitant 
 of Judah like the author could have no reason for particularly 
 desiring its reconquest by Samaria. But Avhilst Balaam's eye 
 wanders at last with single, disjointed, ghostlike glances, over 
 his remotest future (which however is the actual present of the 
 author, and filled with all his living experiences and desires), he 
 declares concerning Amalek (verse 20) : 
 
 Amalek is an old primitive people ; 
 
 Nevertheless, his end hastens to the nether world ; 
 
 and concerning Ken (the Kenites) (verse 21 sq.) : 
 
 Thy dwelling is a rock, 
 
 Thy nest is fixed on a clifF: 
 Yet Ken will have to burn ; 
 
 How long — ere Asshur carries thee away captive ? 
 
 Now at the first glance, indeed, it is obscure how these tribes 
 come to stand in this connection ; for both the 'primitive people' 
 Amalek and the Kenites evidently disappear gradually from 
 history in the times after Solomon ; and yet here, in a connection 
 where we expect allusions to events or aspirations of these ages, 
 they appear sufiiciently important to be sjjecially noticed. As 
 to the Kenites, however, we are fully entitled (from 1 Sam. xv. 
 6) to bring them into so close a connection with the Amalekites 
 that, if we succeeded in discovering the latter in any suitable his- 
 torical position, there can be no further doubt about the former. 
 Now as the previous declaration concludes strongly and signifi- 
 cantly enough with the relation of Edom to Israel, the conjecture 
 forces itself upon us that Amalek, a part of which was at that 
 time fused with Edom, according to Gen. xxxvi. 12, 16, is here 
 mentioned because of its intimate connection with Edom, — 
 perhaps because in some war between the Idumeans and the 
 Israelites it had indulged anew its old national hatred against 
 the latter. And, fortunately, this more definite account has been 
 preserved by Josephus : • that in the war waged by Amaziah ^ 
 against Edom, the Amalekites and Geballtes fought on the side 
 of the Idumeans. Now we may confidently assume that they did 
 
 ' Joacp'.uiB, Aut. ix. 9. 1, 2. '^2 Kings xiv. 7.
 
 no HISTORY OF HEBREW HISTORICAL COMPOSITION. 
 
 not remain inactive under Uzziali wlien the same contest was 
 renewed.' For even by Uzziali Edom was not completely and 
 permanently subjugated. The declaration about Dumah (Is. xxi. 
 11 sq.) is easily reconcilable with the sense of our passage. And 
 if the Amalekites and Kenites, so often subjugated before, still 
 maintained themselves erect in Edom as though in defiance of 
 Israel, then it is explained how a prophetic voice of the first half 
 of the eighth century could announce to them a chastisement by 
 the Assyrians. For the Assyrians were then evidently already 
 menacing the more southern tribes, but under Uzziah or Jotliam 
 they must have been regarded in the kingdom of Judah rather 
 as friends and welcome deliverers from the oppressions of the 
 neighbouring tribes. Upon this foundation the declaration 
 about Japhet which our author puts into the mouth of Noah,^ 
 receives a remarkable interpretation. But finally the seer con- 
 cealed beneath the name of Balaam lifts the veil yet higher : 
 Balaam's concluding words, in which he appears once more 
 to wake up like a spirit, and then to become mute for ever 
 (v. 23 sq.) : 
 
 Alas ! who shall live after God has done this ? 
 And ships from the coast of the Chittites, 
 
 They shall then afflict Asshur and afflict Eber : 
 Nevertheless, they too hasten to the nether world 
 
 — undoubtedly allude, from their position, to an event which must 
 then have been the most recent historical fact, the mention of 
 which was obviously intended to give the distinctest intimation 
 of the actual present. A pirate fleet coming from the Chittim, 
 i.e. the Phenician Cyprians, must, a short time before, have 
 harassed the Hebrew, i.e. Canaanitish and Phenician coasts, 
 as well as the Assyrian, i.e. Syrian, farther north. We have 
 no other distinct account of this event, the consequences of 
 wliich cannot have been very lasting. But as, according to the 
 Tyrian Annals of Menander,^ the Tyrian king Elulaius van- 
 quished the revolted Chittim, and Salmanassar, then iu his war 
 iigainst Tyre, desired to use this discord for his own ends, evi- 
 dently implying that this revolt had been a considerable one, we 
 are justified in assuming that the revolt of the Chittim had lasted 
 a long time before it was quelled by Elula)us. We should, 
 
 ' 2 Chron. xxvi. 2. palpable addition, which could only origi- 
 
 * Gen. ix. 27 ; a scntoucc wliicli derives nate with one of these two narrators : see 
 
 its significance only from the peculiar cir- Jahrhilchcr der Biblischen Wissenschaft, 
 
 cunistances of the time. How completely ix. p. 7, x. p. 51. 
 
 Assyria and its history at that time filled ' See Josephus, Antiquities, ix. 14, 2; 
 
 every 7iioufh, is fieen from the immediately Isaiah xxiii. 12 (comp. 10) obviously 
 
 following interpolation of the whole pas- alludes to the possibility of such rel)elliun 
 
 sage about Ninirod, Gen. x. 8-12; a very among the Chittites.
 
 FIFTH NARRATOR OF THE PRIMITIVE HISTORY. Ill 
 
 therefore, by no means necessarily come down to tlie times of 
 Salmanassar, when Judah's relation and disposition towards 
 Assyria was totally altered. 
 
 The supposition that the author wrote in the kingdom of 
 Judah is most strong-ly favoured by the arrangement of the 
 words of Balaam, which concern especially the relation of Edoni 
 to Israel ; for not Moab or Ammon, but Edom, always re- 
 mained in the closest connection with Judah in the times after 
 Solomon. To the temple-hill Moriah, moreover, we are directed 
 by the form that the ancient legend of the sacrifice of Isaac 
 here assumes (Gen. xxii. 1-14).' The story inserted as an epi- 
 sode in Gen. xxxviii. does not, indeed originate in a very favour- 
 able disposition towards the house of David and its progenitors ; 
 but at times sentiments might be formed which diverged to 
 some extent from the ordinary opinions — sentiments which 
 could expand themselves nowhere more readily and innocently 
 than in the domain of the primitive history by a semi-facetious 
 treatment of an ancient legend. 
 
 b.) The author certainly used for his great elaboration of 
 the primitive history all the sources that passed in his time for 
 authorities. These were in the main the above-described works, 
 and perhaps a few others besides, that we can trace with less 
 distinctness.^ He especially bases his history upon the Book of 
 Origins, beginning with its noble introduction (Gen. i. 1-ii. 4), 
 and confining himself throughout the whole history to the frame 
 supplied by that work to chronology. He mostly only works up 
 the older sources into one another, without adding much new 
 matter of his own. But in the first place, the flow of his own 
 exposition naturally expands more freely where he finds a fitting 
 occasion to pursue the ideas which were characterised above as 
 peculiar to him. And secondly, having thus brought together 
 such various matter from the most manifold literary sources, he 
 endeavours at the same time to give it a more living connection 
 and more comprehensive arrangement by throwing in a dash of 
 stronger light on certain passages. An accurate observation of 
 the manner in which he conducts this introduces us to the actual 
 workshop of his labours. It may be remarked that at the 
 commencement of a new section he likes to exhaust in a single 
 great picture all the great things that can be said or thought 
 about a hero or any considerable phenomenon in history, thus 
 
 ■ See the recent remarks on this point der Bihlischen Wissen »chaff, xi. p. 202. 
 
 in the Giittinger Gelehrte Anzeigen for 2 ^g ^^ instance, what is said in Gen. 
 
 1863, p. 637 sqq. That in Num. xxiv 19, 5;;^ 20, iv. 1, about Eve, may have been 
 
 the -|>y {city) mnst be Jerusalem, I have ^^^^^^ f^om some work unknown to us ; see 
 
 already shown elsewhere ; see Jahrbücher Jahrbücher der Wissenschaft, ii. pi 165.
 
 112 HISTORY OF IIEBEEW IIISTOEICAL COMPOSITION. 
 
 leading, by a brilliant introduction in a prophetic spirit, into 
 further details. In tliis, according- to some indications, tlie 
 previous narrator had prepared the way for him; but he carries 
 this mode of description further and with superior art. So in 
 Abraham's life he exhibits a striking prophetic picture at the 
 head of each of its three sections (Gen. xii. 1-3, xv. and xxii. 
 1-19) ; similarly Isaac's life is reached by a descent from an 
 elevation (Gen. xxvi. 1, 5) ; the same thing is done for Jacob's 
 life by the prophetic hue of the story of his dream (Gen. xxviii. 
 10-22) ; and in the case of Moses similarly an exceedingly 
 brilliant introduction leads on to his prophetic appearance 
 (Exod. iii. sq.). Now many things that this narrator puts in 
 this prominent position had been mentioned in the earlier 
 chronicles at a later occasion, as for example the covenant with 
 Abraham, which is described in chap. xv. in the most brilliant 
 colours, but which, according to the ancient arrangement, did 
 not occur till chap, xvii., where it is fortunately retained by the 
 last narrator. Accordingl}^ this peculiarity in the narrator is 
 intimately connected with another : filled as he is by the contents 
 of the history of a given period, he generally likes to bring in all 
 the most important circumstances as near to the beginning as 
 possible, and sometimes at the commencement of a new section 
 knits a regular epic or, to speak more correctly, prophetic knot ; 
 but afterwards lets the older sources of history speak for them- 
 selves, in so far as he accepts them. This peculiarity may be 
 traced into the utmost details ; it is repeated on the small as on 
 the large scale. As he first describes the corruptness of the 
 earth (Gen. vi. 1-8), intending to return thence by a fitting 
 transition to his ancient historical authority, and as after the 
 Flood he gives a short preliminary description after his own 
 fashion (Gen. viii. 20-22) of the renewed blessedness of Noah 
 (Gen. ix.), so he inserts some notices of Ishmael's history, which 
 occurs in chap. xxi. and xxv. 18, at the earliest possible occasion 
 in chap. xvi. 7-14 ; and by an epic artifice indicates the 
 main point of the dispute between Esau and Jacob as early 
 as XXV. 22-84, and gives the explanation of the name Jaliveh 
 (Ex. vi. 2 sq.), according to his fashion, preliminarily in Ex. iii. 
 13-16. Such transpositions, rendered possible by the fluctuating 
 nature of legend, occurred occasionally even in the cai'lier 
 writers. The later narrators generally transposed an event from 
 a later to an earlier position : but details will be better discussed 
 in their place in the history. Similarly in Joshua's life the nar- 
 rator only gives a few lengthy descriptions at the outset, espe- 
 cially in Josh, ii., iii. sq., v. lo-vi., and viii.
 
 FIFTH NARRATOR OF THE PRIMITIVE HISTORY. 113 
 
 If we consider this our narrator's peculiar method of treating 
 his subject, we shall find it to be probable that the transpositions 
 in the Book of Origins, mentioned on page 87 sq., are due to 
 him. Whilst elaborating that ancient work in the manner 
 described into a new one, and leaving out or transposing much 
 of it (which will be shown more fully below), he may at first 
 have determined on leaving out various passages of the Book of 
 Origins, but subsequently have fortunately supplied the omission 
 at a later place. And the circumstance that these transposed 
 passages are always transposed to a later, not to an earlier 
 position, leads necessarily to the assumption that we have here 
 not the effect of chance or a multitude of hands, but the habit 
 of a single reviser. On a smaller scale we see the same thing 
 in the old Book of Kings, or the present Books of Samuel. 
 
 The author has evidently entirely omitted much from the 
 authorities that lay before him. This is self-evident upon a 
 closer understanding of the relics of ancient works received by 
 him ; occasionally a great abridgment of the fuller narrations of 
 earlier works is very perceptible in such fragmentary recapitu- 
 lating sentences as those about the Titans of the original world 
 in Gen. vi. 1-4 ; other omissions and contractions can be with 
 certainty discovered only by a sharper insight into the subject 
 and the origin of the extant narratives. • For the very reason 
 that the author wished to condense so many and such various 
 sources into a single readable work, he had to leave out much 
 in order to avoid having too many repetitions and too evident 
 contrasts. 
 
 Although this compiler unmistakably worked up and blended 
 together the very various matter which he held worthy of in- 
 sertion, yet it is equally certain that he did not deem perfect 
 uniformity necessary in the matter he inserted. He was evi- 
 dently determined mainly by the importance of a passage from 
 the earlier books whether to insert or to omit it, or to abridge 
 it more or less. Of slight repetitions and unprominent con- 
 tradictions in the contents of the narrative he was but little 
 afraid ; still less of variety in the mere use of language. He 
 preserves accordingly in the passages which he repeats from 
 older books the diversity of the names of God, Elohini and 
 Jahveh, in the main quite as from the above remarks he must 
 have received it, though, agreeably to the progress of his time, 
 he himself calls God Jahveh by preference. Only here and 
 there, especially on occasion of transitions, as in Gen. ii. 4, 
 
 ' As I have lately shown in Jahrhiwher der Biblifichcn Wi!<sen schaff, ii. p. 163, 
 164, by an instructive example. 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 HISTORY OF HEBREW HISTORICAL COMPOSITIOX. 
 
 xvii. 1, lie puts the name Jaliveli in the midst of the words of an 
 old work. But it seems as if, through the constant compilation 
 of passages in which the names for God varied, the employ- 
 ment of these names themselves had imperceptibly grown more 
 familiar to the author. He does not call God Jahveh so exclu- 
 sively as the Foiu'th Narrator ; and in the history of Moses he 
 prepares the way for the explanation of the name Jahveh by a 
 sort of emulation of the Book of Origins. He therefore calls 
 God Elohim for a time, until the decisive moment (Ex. iii. 4-15, 
 18); and, as if he would bring prominently forward at the out- 
 set of the whole work that the two names in theii' ultimate sig- 
 nificance are intrinsically but one, and that Jahveh is only more 
 definite than Elohim, he of himself adds to the one name Jahveh 
 the other Elohim, in the -first passage which he bon-ows from 
 the Fourth NaiTator, Gen. ii. 5-iii.,' but abolishes tliis cumbrous 
 reduplication of appellations from the commencement of the 
 new fragment Gen. iv,, and thenceforward calls God always by 
 a single name. He especially likes to call God by the lower 
 name when speaking of mere manifestation by dreams,^ as if 
 any divine agency were adequate to produce the effect ; but m 
 other connections also, as in Gen. iv. 25, &c. 
 
 c.) As regards the extent of the works of this narrator (not 
 including the Third and Fourth Narrators), he cannot be proved 
 to have brought down the history beyond the death of Joshua ;^ 
 on the contrary, everything goes to prove that that event formed 
 his conclusion.^ For though the oldest book of history, described 
 on p. 68 sqq., had embraced also the times of the Judges, and 
 the Book of Origins, according to p. 76 sqq., had narrated 
 some facts down to the first age of the monarchy, yet the last 
 chapters of these books might easily have been severed from 
 
 ' A special proof of this is given just dependent and nowise necessary addition, 
 
 before, in Gen. ii. 4, where he similarly In 1 Kings xvi. 34, also, the mention of 
 
 appends Jahveh to Elohim ; see Jahr- the event is equally brief and isolated ; 
 
 b'tirhcr, ii. p. 164. but from tliis only follows that these two 
 
 '•' Gen. xxii. 1-3, xlvi. 2; Num. xxii. 9 last narrators, the liistorian of the primeval 
 
 sqq., compared witii 8. iiistory and that of the monarcliy, took 
 
 ^ At the utmost it might be objected this event out of an earlier writing, where 
 
 that in Josh. vi. 26 th-cre was a direct it was undoul)ted]y presented in its entire 
 
 allusion to an event which took place freshness and completeness. The event 
 
 under king Ahab, the fulfilment of wliich itself, liowovor, is too incidental and in- 
 
 is given in 1 Kings xvi. 34: and tlierefore significaTit to servo in any way as a con- 
 
 lliat tlic author intended here at once to necting link between the primeval history 
 
 write down its fultilmcnt also, and conso- and that of the monarcliy. 
 
 quontly to carry down the history to Ahab's ■* Tlie last author, according to Dent, 
 
 time. IJut rather it only follows from xxxi. 16-22, only mentioned at the close 
 
 this that the Third or Fourth Narrator that after the age of Joshua Israel fell 
 
 found a narrative existing similar to that away from Jahveh ; but this may lu^vo 
 
 in 1 Kings xvi. 34, and could therefore been briefly observed; and wo now actually 
 
 allude to it in the life of Joslma: in fact, find in Josh. xxiv. 31 some words which 
 
 the short notice in Jü.sh. vi. 26 is an in- may have suggested the remark.
 
 DEUTEEOXO.MIST : LAST MODIFICATION OF THE COOK. 11Ö 
 
 the rest and elaborated into later books treating only of tlie 
 history after Moses and Joshua. For, as Moses and Joslma 
 had concluded the greatest epoch of the early history, their 
 death was certainly more and more regarded during the pro- 
 gress of the monarchical period, as the great boundarj^-line 
 of the ancient and the modern age. Agreeably to this, as will 
 soon appear more clearly, a very different style of historical 
 composition was developed for each of these two all-com- 
 prehending periods. 
 
 4. The Deuteronomist : last modification of the Book of 
 Primitive History. 
 
 However freely the above-described Fourth Narrator treats 
 the primitive history, he nowhere betrays a legislative aim ; for, 
 on the one occasion when he delivers laws (Ex. xxxiv. 10-26), he 
 does so only in his habitual emulation of older works, to expound 
 the Decalogue and its origin after his own fashion. Equally far 
 removed is the last of the just-described prophetic narrators 
 from any peculiar legislative aim : but later ages are the more 
 indebted to him for having preserved the important legislative 
 portion of the Book of Origins almost uncurtailed, and thus, by 
 admission into his work, having perhaps saved it from total 
 oblivion. He is, indeed, very fond of introducing prophetic 
 words, but in a purely poetic garb and always in the midst of 
 circumstantial narration. 
 
 But this literary employment upon the primitive history, 
 which had been kept up so long, and yet had never led to real 
 historical investigation, at length bursts its last bounds and 
 advances a step further. It begins to regard the consecrated 
 ground of this history as merely matter for prof)hetic and legis- 
 lative purposes ; and herein it was evidently confirmed by the 
 other tendencies of the age. For not only did the power of 
 prophecy approach its slow but irrepressible fall at the end cf 
 the eighth century, but the later ages, weighed down by the 
 aggravated burden of circumstances, felt themselves more and 
 more impotent to carry out any serious imjjrovement of the 
 national life. But as literary activity was still constantly pro- 
 gressing, and taking a hold upon the prophetic and legislative 
 subject-matter, which was constant in proportion as the outward 
 national life was estranged from such subjects, this literary 
 activity attached itself most readily to the consecrated domain 
 of the primitive history ; Moses and his age being regarded as 
 the great originators of both tendencies, so that every passage 
 about him in the old books might excite in the writer literary 
 
 I 2
 
 116 HISTORY OF HEBREW HISTORICAL COMPOSITION. 
 
 fancies and the desire of speaking- on prophetic and legislative 
 topics, and might be expected to be received by the reader in 
 the most favourable frame of mind. 
 
 1) The earliest discoverable commencement of this method 
 of treating, or rather of only using, the Mosaic history, is dis- 
 played by the inserted passage, Lev. xxvi. 3-45. This gives a 
 prophetic promise and menace which, though formed upon the 
 type of Ex. xxiii. 22 sq., is not only much more copious and 
 rhetorical, but holds out far more extended threatenings ; 
 so that it may be remarked that the early and better times of 
 the nation were gone and the full flood of national ills been 
 poured forth over the land. This passage has been purposely 
 tacked on to this part of the Book of Origins, because the con- 
 clusion of the description of so many laws, especially the con- 
 cluding ones about the festivals and the year of Jubilee (Lev. 
 xxiii. 25-xxvi. 2), goes off into generalities, opening the way 
 most natm-ally for a prophetic modification of general promises 
 or menaces ; and the recurring allusion to the sabbaths and 
 years of jubilee in verse 34 sq. and verse 43 (compare v. 5) 
 shows that it was originally intended to be annexed at this place. 
 Now, although in such passages as verse 9, 12 sq., 45, it dis- 
 tinctly imitates the language of the Book of Origins, yet it 
 shows prevailingly so peculiar a shade of words and phrases ^ 
 that we must necessarily ascribe it to a writer of whom there is 
 nothing else extant. If we observe accurately how it not only 
 takes for granted at least a complete disruption of the one 
 kingdom, but also (in verses 36-40) describes in the liveliest 
 colours the sorrowful feelings of the descendants of persons 
 thus scattered among foreign lands, we cannot doubt but that 
 a descendant of the exiles of the northern kingdom indited 
 these strong prophetic terms, with the intention of showing 
 emphatically in the domain of the primitive history, what were 
 the general consequences of disobedience towards Jahveh, and 
 of thereby calling men to repentance. Accordingly this in- 
 sertion cannot have been written before the end of the eighth 
 century or the beginning of the seventh ; but to this period 
 
 ' To instance only a few examples : the expression >"|~)]] to denote an idol, v. 30 
 
 words and phrases np '^v. 21, 23, 24, 27, / , ^'^ „ , i L. , 
 
 ^ ■': (properly a horror, Irom a verb 7^13 10 
 
 40, 41, nvopp V. 13, ^nb v. 36, 3 yny' . .^, . . . , ;■ . ^ 
 
 L ,o ■,,,>, r.^ , • ■ •. .1 mec^ «urn SCO;-», connected With 7yv nr.st 
 
 orSy-vv. 18, 21, 24, 28, were not imitated , ■, . t^ . • ,^ r,-n j .1 
 
 repeated in Ueut. xxix. 16 [l/J, and the 
 
 l)y later writers from our author. On the expression of the increase of the land, w. 
 
 other hand latorwnters have often imitated 4^ ^O (compare Dent. xi. 17; Kzek. xxxiv. 
 
 some words wliieh appeared m no widely- v^ . j.^_ j^vü. 7 [6], Lxxxv. 13 [12], with 
 
 read book before this; such arc ^JJJ io which compare Isxviii. 16 [4.3]). 
 spurn, vv. 11, 15, 30, 43, 44, the strong
 
 DEUTEROXOMIST : LAST MODIFK'ATIOX OF THE BOOK. 117 
 
 points the relation in wliicli it stands to tlie other books of the 
 Old Testament. Whilst the resemblance to sayino-s of the 
 projjhets of the eighth or earlier centuries ' rather testifies a 
 dependence of this author uj)on them, we find this passao-e 
 quoted at no earlier date than Deuteronomy,^ as well as in the 
 writings of Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and others of the same character, 
 but very distinctly and considerably used by them. 
 
 2) The last expounded tendency of literary activity broke 
 forth most thoroughly in those passages of the present fifth 
 book of the Pentateuch and of the Book of Joshua which are 
 inserted from the work of an author whom we may briefly call 
 *the Deuteronomist.' ^ At a time when, after the downfall of 
 the northern kingdom and the death of the good king Hezekiah, 
 the southern kingdom also was in the greatest danger of suc- 
 cumbing to lawlessness and other internal maladies, a member 
 of this kingdom living in foreign parts attempted most rigorously 
 and emphatically to recommend the old law, altered and reno- 
 vated in such a manner as to suit his times, and to employ all 
 the force of prophetic discourse in representing it as the sole 
 salvation of the kiiigdom. This he does, it is true, on the 
 domain of the primitive history, and therefore in the Mosaic 
 manner and style, but yet treating the subject-matter with the 
 greatest freedom. As to the external form he keeps quite close 
 to the ancient history, by the loftiness of which he feels himself 
 exalted in his unhappy times, and from whose pure strength 
 alone any hope was to be drawn for his times : but the narrative 
 quite recedes with him into the background, and serves only 
 either to introduce discourses and exhortations or for some 
 special literary purpose ; and therefore is generally limited to 
 a few words or sentences thrown shortly off. 
 
 a.) It is not my present business to expound the entire 
 significance of the work of the Deuteronomist, or prophetic 
 renovator and perfecter of the old law — a book which is in 
 many respects to the Old Testament what the Gospel of John is 
 to the New, and which, though wearing an historical dress, still 
 is widely removed from the circle of historical books. The sole 
 
 ' The model to verse 5 is r.ather to be ' The name Dniteronomy may be re- 
 foiuicl in Amos ix. 13 sqq., that to verse 8 tained as perfectly appropriate, although 
 in Isaiah sxx. 17 (compare Deut. xxxii. in those passages where it is first foimd 
 30); and that to the often-recuiTing phrase in tlie LXX., Deut. xvii. 18 ; Josh. viii. 32, 
 T'lriD TNI ^'- 6 in Micah iv. 4 (that is it rests primarily upon an incorrect trans- 
 Joel) or even Isaiah xvii. 2. lation ; for HJii'D here is obviously in- 
 ^ Besides this, compare verse 16 with ^^^^^^ ^^ denote' only a co«y. It is only 
 Deut. xxvni. 22 ; tlie whole long chapter ^^^ ^^.^^1 ^^^-^ ^|^-^i^ -^^^^ ^^^ L^X. 
 xxvni. of Deuteronomy is only a heighten- ^^^^ ^.^ ^.^^ recognise as correct, 
 ing of this passage.
 
 lis HISTORY OF HEBREW HISTORICAL COMPOSITION. 
 
 eminent significance possessed by this work when its true con- 
 tents and aim are regarded, as well as the great historical results 
 soon produced by it, will be more suitably described in the his- 
 tory itself. But we must here consider more closely, how the 
 author carried out this historical investment of his subject, 
 how he interwove his own words into the primitive history, 
 and in how far he possibly even modified the latter. And we 
 must observe at the outset that the historical dress freely chosen 
 by the author, and in those times undoubtedly the best for his 
 purjDose, is kept up very consistently and in accordance with 
 its intention.- For he desired most emphatically to recommend 
 the essential and eternal contents of the old law, renovated and 
 transformed by the new prophetic truths now gained, and to 
 do this as the conditions of that advanced age and the desire of 
 thereby working for the improvement of the existing kingdom 
 of David demanded. And so he introduced the only hero of an- 
 tiquity, Avho could serve as the right instrument for this end, 
 namely Moses himself, as speaking and acting a short time 
 before his death in this sphit. But he not only desired to pre- 
 scribe and recommend the right, he also wrestled with all the 
 powers of his mind to see it realised, and destined his work to 
 contribute towards this end likewise. He therefore needed a 
 second hero, who, as soon as ever Moses had published this last 
 bequest of his love to the people and died, should enter into it 
 as a popular leader and realise it all as the dying Moses had 
 wished and ardently striven for. Here Joshua naturally occurred 
 to him, the faithful follower of Moses and realiser of his plans, 
 according to the definite recollections of antiquity. As the 
 author hides himself with his words of prophetic improvement 
 under the high shield of Moses the great Proj)het, so under the 
 portraiture of Joshua he conceals the ideal King of his own times 
 such as he would have him, a realiser of what is essentially 
 better. And as the prophetic author endeavours to bring about 
 a complete renovation of the people and kingdom on the basis 
 of the laws here expounded, or, in other words, a new covenant 
 between the people and Jahveh, so far as this was possible in 
 writing, he causes Moses to declare to the people before his death 
 a new and better covenant (Deut. xxvii.-xxx.), and Joshua to act 
 quite in accordance with it. Thus then all that he had to repre- 
 sent fell into two halves, divided according to the lives of Moses 
 and of Joshua. But as the exposition of the contents of the 
 new covenant that he desired for his times necessarily took up 
 the most room, and as moreover the most powerful effect of the 
 work would proceed from the living words of Moses himself.
 
 DEÜTEROXOMIST: LAST MODIFICATIOX OF TUE BOOK. 119 
 
 these two lialvcs could not but be vcrj unequally divided. 
 Where the author introduces Moses speaking^ and actin^-, the 
 bounds of the work are expanded to their utmost extent, and 
 there he puts down the varied and important matter he is about 
 to say, according to a large plan and tolerably strictly carried- 
 out arrangement. 
 
 The author desired, then, to introduce Moses as a popular 
 orator, speaking pretty much as the prophets of that age used 
 to speak before the assembled thousands. Though, however, 
 even the later prophets are here and there carried away by 
 the old prophetic style of speech, in which the Divine Ego 
 issued directly from the oracle and the human Ego of the 
 prophet vanishes before it, yet here the discourse freely breaks 
 through this conventional barrier of the prophetic style. As if 
 he who desires to preach spii-itual love as the highest good 
 ought to speak in a new way, more as a friend than as a prophet 
 in the old sense of the word, the author most successfully 
 ventures on this innovation, thereby infusing a hitherto un- 
 known charm into these purely human discourses of the great 
 hero. ■ Thus indeed is produced a great difference between 
 these speeches and the manner in which the Book of Origins, 
 for instance, constantly makes Jahveh first speak to Moses and 
 then Moses declare in the same form to the people all that he 
 has heard from Jahveh. Here are for the first time speeches 
 direct to the people on the highest topics according to a con- 
 sistent plan, the orator alwaj^s speaking out from himself to the 
 multitude — the prevailing plan in the New Testament as opposed 
 to the Old. And this innovation is the hapjjiest that the later 
 writer could have hit uj)on, if he really wished to bring the full 
 life of antiquity before the eyes of the after-world, and not to 
 resuscitate the great prophet and popular leader in vain. And, 
 desiring to introduce Moses renovating the old law by new 
 truths and repeatedly urging its acceptance with hearty zeal, 
 nay, even with threatening warnings, he selected the last two 
 months of his life as the most fitting occasion for this. For then 
 under the feeling of approaching death the Man of God, look- 
 ing back upon the experiences of the last forty years, could still 
 urge his loving heart to make a last exertion, but would be forced 
 to leave to his successors the execution of all that under the 
 influence of the glorified vision and aspiration of departing life 
 he had desired.' These are the preliminary calculations of the 
 inventive mind of the author. 
 
 ' A similar case occurs two or tliree ' Ecclesiastes ' introduces Solomon as 
 hundred years later, when the poet of pouring forth his serious and instructive
 
 1-20 IIISTORV OF HEBREW HISTORICAL COMPOSITIOX. 
 
 {{) After a sliort introductory narrative, or ratlier a longish 
 heading (Deut. v. 1-5), Moses is made to deliver an introductory 
 speech consistent with such a purpose, looking backwards upon 
 the time since the ratification of the first covenant on Sinai and 
 forwards ui3on the uncertain fntiu-e impendmg. And hence it 
 appears how qualified the speaker is to inculcate the whole law 
 anew, and to desire a second covenant that the people shall not 
 transgress as they had the first (Deut. i. C-iv. 40). As, however, 
 it was scarcely conceivable that Moses should have held all the 
 speeches of this book without any intermission, the author fills 
 up the pause after the first sjjeech (chap. iv. 41-43) by an act 
 of Moses, the essence of which he certainly took from the Book 
 of Origins, — an act which he may very well have performed 
 just before his death, but which that old book did not ascribe 
 so definitely to him.' 
 
 (^^) After another long heading (ch. iv. 44-v. 1), follows the 
 second and principal speech of this book, as if the speaker had 
 sj)oken the entire compass of the words from v. 1 to xxvi. in one 
 strain. This is the place at which the law in the form which it 
 is to assume for the future, is really solemnly laid before the 
 assembled people, and at the end a declaration given whether 
 they will accept it or not. And as its contents, so difiicult to 
 be embraced at a glance, were to be exhausted here, the whole 
 is classified according to its main divisions, the author starting 
 from the Decalogue and its renewed inculcation in v. 1-vi. 3, 
 and then with a fresh beginning (vi. 4) undertaking to discuss 
 the great subject in his own way, in all its bearings and in 
 the greatest detail. The classification adopted descends con- 
 stantly from the higher and more general to the lower and 
 more special. The author (1) begins with Jahveli as the single 
 great object of love, and makes every efibrt to commend love of 
 him alone and complete avoidance of all other gods (vi. 4-xiii.). 
 He thence (2) turns to what is most closely connected with that 
 subject, viz. to the special things and acts which are or ought 
 to be esteemed holy, and then enters more into detail, giving 
 a number of special commandments (xiv.-xvi. 17). Passing 
 now from what intimately concerns religion in the narrower 
 sense of the word to the outward realm and its arrangement, 
 he (3) discusses public rights, both the Laws of Persons — the 
 duties and functions of j)ublic persons, namely, the supreme 
 magistrates (judges and kings), priests and prophets — and the 
 
 thouglits in bis old age ; but tlie persona- we admire in Deuteronomy. 
 lion in this later work, notwithstanding ' As is clear from Num. xxxv. 14, corn- 
 its jioetie Ibrm, is not maintained with pared with Josh. xx. 8. 
 anything liko the ease and fiqnuess which
 
 DEUTERONOMIST: LAST MODIFICATION OF TUE BOOK. 12l 
 
 public Laws of Things (xvi. 18-xxi. 14). To this is appended 
 subsequently (4) what we should call Private Law, which from 
 its infinite extent is all treated here mostly in very short clauses 
 without any discoverable sure arrangement of details. How- 
 ever, the section begins with household matters at xxi. 15 ; and 
 after a return, by way of example, to the sacred acts to be 
 performed by the individual (xxv. 17-xxvi. 15), the entire long 
 speech is wound up by a short and powerful recurrence to its 
 commencement (xxvi. 16-19). 
 
 (m) In the concluding speech would be expected the recipro- 
 cal obligation to the covenant whose contents have now been 
 expounded, on the part of the people, and on that of the speaker 
 as agent of Jahveh. But here another consideration interferes. 
 The covenant containing all this was surely not really concluded 
 by the people at that time, for where were the pledges and docu- 
 ments of it from the country beyond the Jordan P Rather it 
 was intended for the people only after they had settled in 
 Canaan ; indeed, strictly speaking only for those who lived in 
 Jerusalem at the time of the writer. On this account there fol- 
 lows a more intricate threefold concluding speech ; (1) the com- 
 mand is given, only in future to erect on one oftwo holy mounts 
 on the nearer side of the Jordan memorial-stones as records, 
 and from this sanctuary to bind the people to the new law. This 
 has its foundation, as will be explained, in a real reminiscence 
 of the ancient holiness of the mountains round Shechem (chajD. 
 xxvii.). Then, as if perceiving that this better law will yet not 
 be kept for centuries in the land on this side of the Jordan, the 
 writer (2) exerts his prophetic powers to the utmost, to bring 
 home to his readers the twofold possible consequences of their 
 conduct towards it — what blessings it will bring, and what a 
 curse the neglect of it will draw down. But it is the latter that is 
 chiefly depicted, in the liveliest colours and utmost range ; and 
 it seems as if the speaker here, overpassing the course of cen- 
 turies, borrowed the hues of his delineation direct from the 
 terrible calamities which had already come upon the people, 
 which indeed were oppressing them even at the time of the 
 author, and the removal of which he expected only through 
 their acceptance of that amendment which is here enjoined ; or 
 as if the foreboding spirit of the noble speaker of antiquity 
 exactly touched that putrefying sore, well known to the real con- 
 temporaries, from which, except through a total change and cure, 
 utter destruction was inevitable (xxvii. 9 sq. and xxviii. 1-68). ' 
 
 ' The verses xxvii. 9, 10 are wrongly give the proper meaning, and indeed are 
 placed here, but before ch. xxviii. they necessary there. In the work of tiio
 
 122 HISTORY OF HEBREW HISTORICAL COMPOSITION. 
 
 Only after these premisses follows (3) tlie real conclusion — wliicli 
 alike in tenderness and impressive force, and in profound and 
 eternal thoughts, constitutes the true crown of the whole (xxviii. 
 69-xxx.). 
 
 With this comes to its close that which, in the sense of the 
 author, may be rightly called ' the Second Law ' or ' the New 
 Covenant;' and if he then, as desiring to complete that chain of 
 special events with which this law is hedged round, describes 
 Moses (xxxi.-xxxii. 47) as writing it down at a higher command, 
 and depositing it beside the Ark of the Covenant, and therein 
 accomplishing his last earthly work, with a few heartfelt part- 
 ing-words, directed especially to Joshua, we can but say that in 
 giving this turn to the narrative he is true to himself and to his 
 artistic point of view. Assuredly this is a vast stride in the art 
 of historical representation, and exhibits a freedom of treatment 
 which we should seek in vain in earlier times. The Book of 
 Origins represents Moses as receiving the stone tables of the 
 Decalogue, written by the finger of God, and as seeing in the 
 heavens the archetype of the sanctuaries which it describes (p. 
 87) ; but it nowhere gives the least intimation that it was itself 
 written by him. Rather, by stating in exceptional cases that 
 the names of the encampments were written down by Moses, ^ it 
 implies the contrary. The Fourth Narrator indeed shows some- 
 what more boldness in assuming the use of writings from the 
 hand of Moses : he represents Moses as breaking the original 
 tables of stone, and restoring them with his own hand ;^ and 
 relates that at the command of God he wrote down a Divine an- 
 nouncement that would reveal its full meaning only after a long 
 interval.^ This latter event is described just as it certainly often 
 occurred in reality among the prophets of the 9th and 8th cen- 
 turies,^ and the narrator here also does but follow his own strictly 
 prophetical method ; but even in this latter case it is evident 
 that he had before him an ancient document, and one which 
 he had found in a book of very great age, which he may have 
 verily believed had been written by Moses. But the Deu- 
 teronomist ventures to ascribe to a record from the hand of 
 Moses the entire book of Deuteronom}^, though he himself was 
 the first to put it forth in this form, just as he states (cli. xxvii. 
 Josh. viii. 82) that the memorial-stones on Mount Ebal had 
 contained, by Moses' appointment, the more strictly legislative 
 
 Dcutcronomist, also, there are misplace- ' Num. xxxiii. 1,2; see above, p. 68. 
 
 ments, but of a different kind from tliose * Ex. xxxiv. 27, 28. 
 
 observed (p. 87) in the Book of Origins; » Ex. xvii. 14-16. 
 
 and it would carry us too far to disi.'us.s * Isaiah viii. 16, xxx. 8. 
 
 them all here.
 
 DEUTERONOMIST: LAST MODIFICATION OF TUE BOOK. 123 
 
 part of it from ch. v. to xxvi. And tliis g-reat boldness of histo- 
 rical assumption is emphatically one of the many signs of the 
 later age of this author ; an age which precisely because it felt 
 itself so far removed from that of Moses allowed the utmost 
 licence to the historical contemplation and treatment of it. For 
 although in Deviteronomy the author derived many laws and 
 other matter from old manuscripts which in his time might 
 already be reckoned, in the most general sense of the word, 
 Mosaic, and in so far might regard his new production as a 
 Mosaic work, because written in the spirit and to a great extent 
 in the words of Moses, yet the history itself shows that this 
 extreme licence in authorship was very gradually developed. 
 
 But if the author in this way wrote the chief portion of his 
 work (Deut. i.-xxx.) quite independently, the case becomes 
 different from the moment at which the words of Moses come 
 to an end, and the events themselves are further described. 
 Here he visibly takes as a basis the original history, in the 
 same manner as in the previously described work of the Fifth 
 Narrator, and up to the death of Joshua adds only what his 
 purpose requires. How from this point he manijjulates that 
 work we may at once see by the following example. It is 
 very remarkable that in the midst of the portion, Deut. xxxi. 
 14-22, in which the Deuteronomist repeats words which are 
 by unmistakable signs recognised as written by the Fifth Nar- 
 rator,^ a song is put forth which Moses and Joshua were said 
 to write and teach to the community for an everlasting testi- 
 mony to the mercy of Jaliveh, which even after their backslidings 
 always sought them again ; and, fi*equently as the exj)ressions of 
 this second document may run counter to those of the former, 
 still the Deuteronomist makes distinct reference to this song as 
 delivered by Moses before the assembled people (xxxi. 27-30, 
 xxxii. 44) . From this it would seem as if the great song in ch. 
 xxxii. had been first introduced, not by the Deuteronomist, but 
 by the previous narrator in his history of Moses ; which makes 
 a great difference in respect to the question of its age and 
 origin. The form and contents of this song, indeed, prove 
 that it must have been composed in an age subsequent to 
 the time of Solomon ; ^ but it comes from a poet otherwise 
 
 ' This appears from the conception of as they are habitual to the Fifth Narra- 
 
 the pillar of cloud, which is peculiar to this tor ; and from other indications, 
 narrator, V. 15; from the expressions "iQn - The period depicted by the poet as 
 
 n^-|3 to break the Covenant, v^j for Antiquity, is, according to vv. 7-18, no 
 
 , ■:. „, , 1 ^, 1 1 Other than the age of Moses; and his 
 
 despise, T^S v. 21 (on both the word present, a generation which had already 
 
 and the sense, see Gen. vi. 5, viii. 21), fallen far from the loyalty and happiness 
 
 which are as foreign to the Deuteronomist of the Mosaic age and the first period after
 
 124 
 
 HISTORY OF HEBREW HISTORICAL COMPOSITION. 
 
 nnknown/ who embodied in it some of tlie weig-htiest prophetic 
 truths of his time, and can have originated neither from the 
 Deuteronomist, who nowhere shows himself a poet, and from 
 whose mode of expression it widely departs ; nor from the 
 previous Narrator, who indeed (according to p. 102) freely in- 
 troduces his own songs, but whose poetic manner and diction 
 are diiferent. The narrator who inserted it here must have met 
 vvdth it as an anonymous song, perhaps not more than fifty or 
 a hundred years old, and have judged it in power and sentiment 
 to be worthy of the dying Moses. ^ And since, according to all 
 indications, it must have originated about the last quarter of the 
 eighth century^ (but in this case cannot have been inserted by the 
 previous narrator), it must in all probability have been intro- 
 
 the conquest, and had become efifeminate 
 and presumptuous, and was then greatly 
 afflicted by cniel foes and other e-\-ils, and 
 inclined on that very account to murmur 
 even against Jahveh. Now the poet on 
 his side ought strictly to speak words of 
 the severest denunciation against this un- 
 thankful race ; but he controls himself, 
 and prefers to begin in gentle tones to 
 sing the praise of Jahveh's faithfulness : 
 he is, however, carried away in the midst 
 of his song b}' his wrath against the un- 
 grateful people, and summons them to 
 listen to the teaching of antiquity (vv. 1-7). 
 Here Jahveh appears as the kind Father 
 and Benefactor of the people (vv. 8-14) ; 
 but, through the very excess of their 
 happiness in the beautiful lands of the 
 conquest, they suffered themselves to be 
 seduced into rebellion against him, so 
 that he in his turn is now compelled to 
 turn against them (vv. 15-21). This is 
 the central point and pause of the song, 
 "which on close inspection is seen to 
 consist of six equal strophes. Advancing 
 from this point to the prophetical end, 
 the thouglit is carried on, in the follow- 
 ing manner: Great indeed are the 
 pi'esent chastisements, and were it not 
 that the enemy would grow too over- 
 weening, Jahveh would indict the merited 
 final destruction (vv. 22-27). Would 
 that Israel could understand that it is the 
 heathen who must fall, not those who have 
 a better foundation (vv. 28-35) ; and as- 
 suredly the true Messianic hope shall yet 
 be fulfilled (vv. 36-43). Hence it is clear 
 that liiis ])oem is one of those — and they 
 wore not few — which arose from the ovi'r- 
 ilowing of prophetical thoughts and Mes- 
 sianic hopes into song ; and that for this 
 rea.son, if for no other, it cannot be believed 
 to have existed before the beginning of 
 the eighth century. The diction, although 
 
 here and there very strained and abrupt, 
 is on the whole rather expanded and elabo- 
 rate than terse and reall}- antique. But 
 it is equally clear from the contents, that 
 it does not in the least profess to have 
 been composed in the name of Moses. 
 
 On this song see also my Jahrbücher der 
 Biblischen Wissenschaft, viii. pp. 41-65 ; 
 and Göttinger Gelehrte Anzeiffen for 1862, 
 pp. 375-383. 
 
 ' This might easily be shown from its 
 very peculiar diction. 
 
 ^ Other phenomena of a like kind are 
 met with. Confining ourselves to the 
 historical books we may recall the Song 
 of Hannah, 1 Sam. ii. 
 
 ^ The ' people that is not a people ' (v. 
 21) who so long plagued the Israelites, is 
 unquestionably the Assyrians, at about 
 that stage of their dominion which is de- 
 scribed by Isaiah ch. xxxiii., if not at a 
 still later. Imitations of the words and 
 ideas of this song are not met with till 
 aftt-r the diffiision of Deuteronomy ; thus, 
 
 for instance, }."l"ip''' is appropriate as an 
 
 expression of fondness, and certainly ori- 
 ginal in V. 15; but in Dent, xxxiii. 5, 26, 
 and Isaiah xliv. 2, is merely copied from 
 
 thence: further, the word p^n in v. 21, 
 
 for idol ; the great calamities in vv. 24, 
 25 (compare Ezek. xiv. 21 ; 2 Kings xvii. 
 26, and elsewhere) ; v. 35 (compare with 
 Hab. ii. 2); and in v. 36, the proverbial 
 expression ^.ITUI 1-1 VW ^he close a7id the 
 loose, that is everything (as we say with a 
 simihir alliteration of initials, ' through 
 thick and tiiiii.') which plirase is frequently 
 repeated by the last author of the Books 
 of Kings. The same age is indicated by 
 
 such words as npil V'. 2, n"l7if? v. 15, and 
 others.
 
 DEUTERONOMIST : LAST MODIFICATIOX OF THE BOOK. 125 
 
 duced by the Deuteronomist in tlie place of another, as seeming 
 to liim more suitable.' Fmally he concludes the life of Moses 
 with the remark that no prophet so great had ever again arisen 
 (Deut. xxxiv. 10-1 2), ^ which entirely agrees with the expression 
 in ch. xviii. 15-18, and in connection with this proves that 
 he designed the ' New Law ' to endure for the whole future, or, 
 according to another view, till the advent of the Messiah.^ 
 
 But the views of the Deuteronomist are not fully satisfied until 
 he can set forth in conclusion how Joshua, as the true leader and 
 the successor of Moses, strengthened and encouraged by Jahveh, 
 zealously and with the happiest results entered into this higher 
 law, and concluded with the people the new covenant desired 
 by Moses. Thus many passages in the present Book of Joshua 
 were first brought into their existing form by the Deuteronomist. 
 The mention also of the memorials of the new covenant at 
 Shechem, and the statement that Joshua himself wrote every- 
 thing,* rej)eat in trivial things that which had been said re- 
 specting Moses in great ones, and must be judged in the same 
 way. To suppose, however, that he introduced everything that 
 the present Book of Joshua contains is incompatible with the 
 whole character and object of the work. But certain as it is 
 that this life of Joshua was made public by the author at 
 the same time with the new-moulded life of Moses, it is also 
 evident that his object as a vn-iter was thereby fully attained ; 
 and it is neither capable of proof nor even credible that he 
 treated in his peculiar manner the history of any later period. 
 
 b.) That the Deuteronomist had read and made use of the 
 historical work to which the Fifth Narrator gave its latest form, 
 is certain, not only from what has been adduced above, but also 
 from other indications.-^ But a closer examination of his words 
 shows that, besides this, he also drew largely upon many docu- 
 ments, both of a narrative and of a legislative character, which 
 are now entirely lost : ^ for the age had long been devoted to 
 
 ' The words of ch. xxxi. 28 do really vince and his object. To what extent, 
 
 allude very manifestly to this song ; but however, his words nevertheless stand in 
 
 not so those of ch. xxxi. 21. some relation with that idea, may be seen 
 
 - From the complexion of the words and in Götünger Gelehrte Anzeigen for 1861, 
 
 ideas, also, these three verses can only p. 1414-16, and for 1862, p. 1194. 
 
 belong to the Deuteronomist. Compare ■• Josh. xxiv. 26. 
 
 V. 12 with iv. 34, xx\n. 8, &e. * Not only is the narrative of Ex. xxxii.- 
 
 =• In itself and in the mind of the Deu- xxxiv. repeated step by step in Deut. x., 
 
 terouomist, the passage Deut. xviii. 15-19 but also that of Numb, xxii.-xxiv. is cer- 
 
 is by no means Messianic; but it readily tainly presupposed both by Josh. xxiv. 9 
 
 obtained at a later period, especially through and by Mic. vi. 5; and further proofs of 
 
 the allusion toch.xxxiv.lO-12,aMessianic the same might be given, 
 
 application. The Deuteronomist, on the ® When, for example, he says (xvii. 16 
 
 contrary, considered the full treatment of and xxviii. 68) that Jahveh had before 
 
 the Messianic idea to lie beyond his pro- commanded the people never to return
 
 12G HISTORY OF HEBREW HISTORICAL COMPOSITION. 
 
 learning, and the collection of ancient works on history had 
 doubtless become an established custom, as we know on docu- 
 mentary evidence was the case with other branches of literature.* 
 Much has been thus preserved by him fi'om these sources, which 
 would otherwise have been lost. Moreover, having amassed 
 a comparatively rich store of authorities upon antiquity, he 
 takes a manifest pleasure in pouring forth at suitable places 
 an abundance of curious historical lore,'^ to give to his work 
 a fittinof breadth of historical clothinjy. Even in the middle 
 of a speech of Moses appear some historical notes taken from 
 old books, as though even then the learned author was invo- 
 luntarily more prominent than Moses who was introduced as 
 speaking.' All this expenditure of antiquarian learning, how- 
 ever, is incurred, assuredly not in order to help on the history 
 or narrative itself, but simply to aid the legislative and pro- 
 phetical aim of the writer, and accordingly the historical ob- 
 servations, lavishly poured forth in some places, are generally 
 broken ofi' suddenly so as not to encroach upon that which 
 interests the author more than the history itself. The narrator 
 last described deserves the name of narrator, since the repre- 
 sentations of antiquity and the delineation of certain inherited 
 traditions are the objects aimed at by him ; but here we no 
 longer find a naiTator, but a speaker with the pen, who uses 
 history only as a dress, and rarely narrates anything at length. 
 With this is also connected the peculiar nature of the diction 
 of this author. This not only (as may be easily perceived) 
 differs much in single words and phrases from that of all the 
 other portions of the Pentateuch and of the Book of Joshua, 
 
 again to Egypt, we naturally expect to these remarks, which contain much that 
 
 find some law respecting this in the older is not foiind in other sources, merely serve 
 
 Looks; for it is the characteristic habit of the purpose of descrihing the position of 
 
 the Deuteronomist, when referringto earlier Moses in the last month before his death, 
 
 works of this character, always to have his ' It may, indeed, be fairly doubted 
 
 eye upon some one previous declaration whether the passages hero alluded to 
 
 by Jahveh. But no such declaration is (Dent. ii. 10-12, 20-23, iii. 9, 11, 13 (last 
 
 to lie found in the older books extant, half) and 14, x. 6-9) actually belong to 
 
 since the words in Ex. xiii. 17, being tlio speeches, from the tone of wliich they 
 
 spoken only with reference to one special entirely and witliout any visible reason 
 
 and temporary object, cannot be meant, depart. I hold them rather to be marginal 
 
 Therefore the Deuteronomist must liave annotations, which have hero crept into 
 
 liad before? him an ancient passage which tlie text ; and the position, barety capable 
 
 is lost to us, in accordance with which of yielding any .sense at all, which Iho 
 
 these woi-ds are to bo taken, somewhat passage x. 6-9 now occupies, affords strong 
 
 like those noticed below, p. 130, note. confirmation of this view. We should thus 
 
 ' See my Dichter des Alten Bundis, vol. have here in tlie Old Testament a MS. with 
 
 IV. pp. 36-44. marginal annotations from the hand of its 
 
 2 This is shown by the whole opening author; and such a fact would sufficiently 
 
 speech, with its hi.storical introduction, show how firmly established erudition in 
 
 Deut. i. I-iv. 40._ Examples of this occur tlie strict sense had already become, 
 at the very beginning, in i. 1, 2, since
 
 DEUTERONOMIST: LAST MODIFICATION OF TUE BOOK. 127 
 
 and never approaches near to tliat of the Book of Origins 
 except where the author repeats old laws almost verbatim ; 
 but exhibits in general a colouring and a method which cannot 
 be conceived to have existed till about the seventh century. 
 The differences extend even into the minutest points.* But, 
 broadly considered, the essence of the diction is pure rhetoric, 
 and this in an advanced development which suggests approach- 
 ing decay. By the great Proj)hets of the ninth and eighth 
 centuries the rhetorical capabilities of the language had been 
 developed as far as was possible in the public life of those times, 
 and the influence which this development gradually exerted 
 upon the narrative style is shown by the two last-mentioned 
 revisers of the primeval history. Prophetic orators, indeed, still 
 existed even in the seventh century, as we know from the life 
 of Jeremiah ; but as the bloom of prophetic power and activity 
 faded, oratory also lost its inward vigour and terseness, and fell 
 into a laxity which repudiated those just restraints by which 
 alone beauty and force can be united. And in the Deateronomist 
 we see rhetoric already succumbing to this relaxation ; only in 
 certain places, as for instance in the impressive conclusion (ch. 
 XXX.) does he attain terseness of style, and a vigorous and facile 
 grasp of his materials. The fact that rhetoric absolutely pre- 
 dominates in the work would itself suflSce to show that it 
 certainly cannot have been written before the age of the great 
 Prophets of the ninth and eighth centuries ; the fact that the 
 rhetoric itself exhibits cei-tain sig-ns of decay guides us to an 
 even lower antiquity. 
 
 c.) It would lead us too far, here to show from the various 
 other indications discoverable, that the author wrote about the 
 latter half of the reign of King Manasseh, and in Egypt. 
 As the proof cannot be given briefly, and this work is closely 
 connected with a large portion of the history of the seventh 
 century, this point can be better treated of hereafter. But its 
 relations to the other books of the Old Testament also lead to 
 the same result. Whereas even in singie words and detached 
 thoughts it presupposes the existence of the older books, and 
 even of the Book of Job,^ it was itself much read and imitated 
 
 ' As, for example, the combination ^ Even if we do not ficcoiint for the pas- 
 
 -"ijQa in certain cases for the older ""»JÖ^. ^^S^ ^ent. iv. 32 by the influence of Job 
 
 befhre: Beut. vii. 24, xi. 25; Josh, x/s, ^"\^' ^'L^^'l ^^1' """"'^ thoughts of 
 
 xxi. 42, xxiii. 9; these passages are imi- ?'" , ^""^^i' ^' .3"' ^'^.'. P»'"^' necessarily 
 
 i i 1 • -17 4.1, ■ <■> rri 5 i. _..^ to Job T. 14, XXXI. 10, n. 7 ; and tluis we 
 
 tated m Esth. ix. 2. The entire root ny3 , ■ 1 j_ ^ /• 
 
 '-^-r possess at once a very important testimony 
 
 or t'Vp> otherwise foreign to the language to the age of the older portions of the 
 
 of the Pentateuch, has through the gi-eat I>ook of Job. Dent, xxviii. 49 sqq. is 
 
 poem Deut. ch. xxxii. been rendered fa- derived from Isaiah v. 20 sqq. and xxxiii. 
 
 miliar to the Deuteronomist also. 19, finc^ in gi'eat part from the previous
 
 128 IIISTOllY OF HEBREW HISTORICAL COMPOSITION. 
 
 as early as tlie age of Jeremiali ; and, as might easily be proved, 
 no book exerted a stronger influence both on the life of the 
 people and on their literature than this, when in the seventh 
 century peculiar circumstances rendered it the authoritative 
 basis of the Reformation under king Josiah.' 
 
 3) During the last gleam of happiness which once more 
 shone upon Judali after the national Reformation under Josiah 
 effected through Deuteronomy, and consequently while Josiah was 
 still reigning, the Blessing of Moses, which has been preserved 
 as an interpolation in the book of history and law recast by the 
 Deuteronomist (Deut, xxxiii.), was probably written. For this 
 imitation of the blessing of Jacob (Gen. xlix.) presupposes 
 a very happy internal condition of the country, or at least a 
 very satisfactory position of the ancient religion, such as we 
 must believe to have existed exactly at that time, when, after 
 the internal reformation a bright hope for the future would 
 naturally spring up and find poetical expression. Here, then, 
 it might seeui suitable to put the old blessing of Jacob as anew 
 blessing into the mouth of the dying Moses. For the love of 
 Moses embraced not the mere separate tribes but the whole 
 community, and regarded the tribes only as the units of which 
 that was compounded. He, therefore, could only desire un- 
 mitigated blessing for them all, and the separate tribes here 
 appear subordinated to the higher unity of the Community of 
 Jahveh. From this conception the speaker sets out in -verses 
 2-6, and in this he concludes in verses 26-29 ; and as for the 
 whole, so for each single tribe according to its special position, 
 a blessing is implored. We may thus regard this even as an 
 improved recasting of the old blessing. The desire expressed 
 in verse 7, that Judah should come to his people, that is, that 
 the dynasty of David might again rule over the whole people of 
 all the tribes, is one of the most significant j)oints of detail, 
 and moreover completely in accord with the history of this time. 
 Equally characteristic is also the designation of Levi as the 
 honourable Priest- tribe (verses 8-11) and of Jerusalem as the 
 place of the Temple (verse 12), as also the fact that the Northern 
 tribes are blessed for turning towards the Mount of the Temple 
 in Jerusalem ; "^ for Galilee appears early to have turned towards 
 
 Fourth Narrator. Besides Jeremiali, (he Iiave shown up the utter perversity of a 
 
 passages Isaiah Ivii. 5 (compare Deut. xii. recent very prolix work of this kind in tlio 
 
 2) and Zf'ph. iii. 19, 20 (coniparo Jor. xiii. Jahrbücher der Biblischen Wissenschaft, 
 
 11, and Deut. xxvi. 19) stand nearest to x. pp. 183-189: see also ibid. vii. p. 
 
 Deuteronomy. 212. 
 
 ' It is unnecessai-y here to speak farther - For it eannot be doubted that by the 
 
 of the views held upon Deuteronomy in Mountain in v. 19, wliieh these tribes in- 
 
 tliis day by those wlio ignore history. 1 voko, and on which they offer sacrifices of
 
 DEÜTEROXOMIST : LAST MODIFICATIOX OF TUE BOOK. 129 
 
 Jerusalem. Against this no argument can be founded on tlie 
 fact tliat the old blessing pronounced upon Joseph, though no 
 longer quite suitable in this age, is sinij)lj repeated, in verses 
 13-17, from an older work consisting likewise of blessings. To 
 judge from the language, the song proceeds from an otherwise 
 unknown j)oet of the age of Jeremiah ; in respect to its position, 
 it is merely interpolated loosely where it stands, and not {as the 
 poem in Deut. xxxii.) adopted by the narrator as part of his own 
 work. The greatest error of all would be to suppose that the 
 Deuteronomist had inserted it; for with his spirit it has no 
 affinity, and his language finds no echo in it. But, taken together 
 with the case of the Deuteronomist, it serves to show how indus- 
 triously the most different authors of the seventh century sought 
 to give form and authority to their thoughts by transplanting 
 them into the Mosaic world. 
 
 4) Now it is true, the work of the Deuteronomist originally 
 appeared by itself: it represents itself everywhere as a work 
 that stands and has meaning by itself : and as such, too, we are 
 able to trace it in history at its first appearance ; moreover, the 
 beginning of the work, with its detailed description of the place 
 and circumstances in which Moses began to speak (i. 1-5) sounds 
 quite like the introduction of a new book. Nevertheless the 
 real author, in whose times there already existed a great abun- 
 dance of ancient historical and legislative works, some un- 
 doubtedly held in high honour and much used, had certainly 
 no intention of supplanting these, since his manifest design is 
 only to produce a sort of final completion of all the most valuable 
 materials that then existed. It is for one special object, rather 
 than with the view of gathering together everything that since 
 the time of Moses had become law among the people, that he re- 
 opens, as it were, the mouth of the great Lawgiver. But in fact 
 we see that he sometimes makes Moses in his speech refer back 
 to some historical fact which could only be understood if there 
 were earlier narratives containing a fuller account of it ;' and 
 in the case of the laws respecting lej^rosy, which for his purpose 
 he wished scarcely to touch and yet not entirely to ];)ass by, 
 the speaker refers with sufficient distinctness to the priestly 
 directions concerning it contained in the Book of Origins.^ 
 
 righteousness (i.e. those referred to in Exodus, which are taken from the oldest 
 
 w. 8-11), Zion is to be understood. and simplest narrative. But the Deutero- 
 
 ' As, in particular, the words of Deut. V. nomist may have found such a narrative 
 
 25-28 [28-31], xviii. 16-19, which refer in some other early book; perhaps in a 
 
 back to the narrative in Ex. XX. lt:'-2 1 ; but passage of tlie Fourth Narrator's. See 
 
 they certainly imply the existence of amuch p. 126. 
 
 more detailed and vivid account of the '' Deut. xxiv. 8. See my Alterthümcr, 
 
 events than is contained in the words of p. 180. 
 VOL. I. K
 
 ll'O HISTORY OF HEBREW HISTORICAL COMrOSlTlOX. 
 
 Now, altliougli under Josiali this Book of Deuteronomy was 
 publicly recognised as tlie great and fundamental law-book of 
 the kingdom of Judali, yet of course, along with this, the earlier 
 works, which were already much used, especially for certain 
 purposes, and by the priests, might still be largely read, and 
 employed according to their contents. Such prophets and 
 authors as Jereuiiah and Ezekiel, therefore, had recourse to 
 similar works of an older stock besides Deuteronomy, Avliich 
 either stand in the present Pentateuch, or were lost at a 
 later period.^ But it was inevitable that the same art of book- 
 making, which was so active among the ancient people (see pp. 
 59 sqq.), and had been long practised esj^ecially on this domain 
 of primeval history, should again be tried. It was held good to 
 work-in the book of the Deuteronomist into one of the earlier 
 works, or (what might appear equally important) to enrich the 
 latter with the former, so as to bring together all that was 
 valuable respecting the ancient history. Any further additions 
 from other sources could then be easily appended. And cer- 
 tainly, among all the greater works with which that of the 
 Deuteronomist might have been conjoined, the choice fell most 
 happily upon that of the Fifth Narrator. We can also clearly 
 recognise the manner in which this last compiler, the true editor 
 of the great historical book as it has reached us, proceeded. 
 He left the work of the Fifth Narrator exactly as he found it, 
 up to the section, shortly before the death of Moses, to which 
 the chief portion of the Deuteronomist's work could suitably be 
 attached. But since the latter (as before observed) had written 
 the life of Joshua very briefly, the editor proceeded, after the 
 death of Moses, on a freer plan, uniting the more detailed 
 narrative given by the older work with the essential contents of 
 the Deuteronomist's, and so blendiug the two works completely 
 into one. It was certainly this last editor who inserted the 
 Blessing of Moses (Deut. xxxiii.) ; a passage which even yet 
 stands quite disconnected. In this (v. 1) Moses is called for 
 the first time ' the Man of God.' This name, in the two only 
 passages of this great book where it occurs (here and in Josh, 
 xiv. 6), indicates a different hand from that of the Deuterono- 
 mist. The very fact of the insertion of this passage enables 
 us to recognise most distinctly a last editor, who, however, 
 must have lived before the end of the seventh century, or at all 
 events before the destruction of Jerusalem, and brought the 
 work into its present and final forni.^ For there is no single 
 indication to lead us to any lower antiquity. 
 
 ' On tliis point SCO what I said iu 1859 • * It might indeed be presumed that 
 in vul. vii. (Germ, cd.) pp. 412 sqq. this last editor was a'so the last modifier
 
 EUTERONOMIST: LAST MOÜIFICATION OF TUE BOOK. 131 
 
 In conclusion, we can now understand what extraordinary 
 fortunes this great work underwent, before it attained its 
 present form — how from a small beg-inning it was enlarged and 
 modified at every important epoch of Hebrew literature till the 
 end of the seventh or the beginning of the sixth century, and 
 concentrated within its limits the most beautiful and lasting 
 literary achievements of a long series of centuries ; on a similar 
 system to that which, in other fields of literature, may be 
 observed in the collection of the Prophets, the Psalter, and the 
 Book of Proverbs ; with two exceptions — (1) that in the region 
 of history it never became customary to give the names of the 
 narrators as vouchers for their statements, nor to mention those 
 of the compilers, and (2) that this work came to a comparatively 
 early close, because it was commenced the soonest, and its 
 subject, as being purely historical, was necessarily the soonest 
 exhausted. In the course of the modifications and transforma- 
 tions which the work underwent, much of it gradually lost its 
 original clearness and its peculiar character. The Deuterono- 
 mist gives to his work which is included in the book as it 
 now stands, the name (which indeed the whole volume might 
 well bear) of Book of the Law of God,^ or Book of the Law oj 
 Moses ;^ by which however is strictly meant only the chief 
 portion of the book, excluding the present book of Joshua. 
 Sometimes he calls it more briefly the Book of the Laiv,^ since 
 the legislative portion seemed to him the most important ; and 
 thus the older names — Book of Origins, and the rest — were 
 thrown into the background. Thus, too, the ancient divisions 
 of the Book of Origins are very much obscured by later trans- 
 formations and additions ; and the whole work in its latest 
 form is partitioned, we know not by whom, into six large sec- 
 tions,* which by the Hellenists in Egypt and elsewhere were 
 
 of the whole ; and that thus the first four ' In Josli. xxiv. 26 ; likewise 2 Kings 
 
 books of the Pentateuch were cast into x. 31 ; in Chronicles, Ezra, and Neheniiah. 
 
 their present foi'm by him, and that, for * In Josh, xxiii. 6; the same name ap- 
 
 instance, the abridgments which have pears elsewhere afrer that time, 1 Kings 
 
 evidently been made in Gen. iv. and vi. ii. 3 ; 2 Kings xiv. 6, xxiii. 25, and in 
 
 (see p. 113) proceeded from him. But Chronicles and similar writings. In Deu- 
 
 on further consideration I find this view teronomy, as well as in Josh. viii. 31, 32, 
 
 not tenalile, if only because there is no- only Deuteronomy itself is to l)e undcr- 
 
 where the least trace of the spirit of the stood by the term ; but from its intimate 
 
 Deuteronomist before the first verse of connection with the older work, the wider 
 
 the Book of Deuteronomy. Such passages, use of the name must have been from the 
 
 on the other hand, as Deut. v. 25-28 [28- first possil)le. 
 
 31] and xviii. 16-19 yield no sufficient ' Deut. xxii. 46 ; compare 2 Kings xxii. 
 
 proof that the Deutercnomist in a previous 8, 11, and elsewhere. With this name 
 
 portionof his work had described the whole that of Book of the Covenant, 2 Kings 
 
 history of Moses, since what has been xxiii. 21, is interchangeable. 
 
 already said is a sufficient explanation of ^ The only natural divisions wliich tlie 
 
 these. subject-matter itself creates in the great 
 
 k2
 
 132 HISTORY OF HEBREW HISTORICAL COMPOSITION. 
 
 called tlie Pentateucli (of Moses) and the Book of Joshua. But 
 from amid tlie wreck of the oldest writings and the multitude 
 of later additions, there still shines forth very much that is 
 original : nor have any of the later transformations been able 
 entirely to obscure either the grand remains of the earliest times 
 or the whole history of the gradual creation of the work itself ; at 
 least in the presence of that exact research, which alone is both 
 suited to the importance of the subject and fruitful of results. 
 
 work aro the following: — 1. Genesis; 2. books — Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers — 
 
 Thehistoryof MosesasfarasDeuteronomy; agrees only remotely with the original 
 
 3. Deuteronomy; 4. The time of Joshua, divisions of tlie Book of Origins (p. 86). 
 
 But the second of these parts must, on The sixth of these parts might then the 
 
 account of its gi-eat extent, have been very more readily be further separated and 
 
 early broken up into three portions, such treated as a distinct book, and entitled the 
 
 that the whole work fell into six nearly Book of Josliua. 
 equal parts : but this partition into three
 
 GREAT BOOK OF THE KINGS. 
 
 133 
 
 II. THE GEEAT BOOK OF THE KINGS. 
 
 BOOKS OP JUDGES, RUTH, SAMUEL, AND KINGS. 
 
 The first phenomenon that strikes the observer here is the 
 marked difference in the language of this great Book of Kings, 
 in comparison with that of the preceding great book of the primi- 
 tive history. Although both are equally made up of passages by 
 the most diverse writers, yet on the whole each is distinguished 
 by a pecviliar cast of language. Many fresh words and expres- 
 sions become favourites here, and supplant their equivalents in 
 the primitive history ; ' others that are thoroughly in vogue 
 here, are designedly avoided in the primitive history, and evi- 
 dently from a historical consciousness that they were not in use 
 in the earliest times ; ^ but the most remarkable and pervading 
 characteristic is, that words of common life, which never occur 
 to the pen of any single relator of the primitive history, find 
 an unquestioned recej)tion here. ^ I have no hesitation in 
 
 ' Such as T>33 prince, instead of {<"'t^3 
 
 mentioued at p. 93 (it is also peculiar to 
 the Chronicles in places -whicli are wanting 
 in the four books of Kings, I Chron. v. 2, 
 ix. 11, 20, xiii. 1, xxvi. 24, xxvii. 4, 16, 
 sxviii. 4, xxix. 22 ; 2 Chron. vi. 5. xi. 11, 
 22, xix. 11, xxviii. 7, xxxi. 12 sq., xxxii. 
 21, XXXV. 8); ")y3 in the signification to 
 
 sweep awat/ (not to bitim ; Deuteronomy is 
 the first that obliterates the distinction); 
 t^^t^'P in the sense oi p)revalent custom; 
 
 "•JTX Twii for to revca\ 1 Sam. ix. 15, xx. 
 
 2, xxii. 8, twice ; 2 Sam. vii. 27 ; Ruth iv. 
 4. Thei-e are quite new words, such as 
 riD-IXO anytJdng (which only occurs in 
 the Fourth Narrator) ; yj^ in derivatives, 
 with the signification of to sithdue, to 
 humble; 1-")"Iil troop, 1 Sam. xxx. 8, 15, 
 
 23 ; 2 Sam. iii. 22, iv. 2 ; 1 Kings xi. 24 ; 
 2 Kings V. 2, xiii. 20 sq. ; also nC'nn to 
 he silent (which sense is expressed by 
 many other words) first appears in prose 
 in Judges xviii. 9; 1 Kings xxii. 3; 2 
 Kings ii. 3, 5, vii. 9, and only in later 
 times in poetry, except Ps. xxxix. 3 [2]. 
 
 ^ This is especially shown by the name 
 niX2V n.l.nV l Sam. i. 3, 11, iv. 4. xv. 2, 
 xvii. 45 ; 2'Sam. v. 10, vi. 2, 18, vii. 7, 26 
 sq.; 1 Kings xviii. 15, xix. 10, 14; 2 
 Kings iii. 14. On the other hand, the 
 Books of Chronicles are again sparing in 
 its use, and only use it in the life of David ; 
 it is entirely unknown to the Pentateuch, 
 Joshua, and Judges. 
 
 ^ Such as py^iS which was really first 
 
 introduced into the -written language by 
 David (cf. Psalmen, sec. ed., p. 4) ; 1 Sam. 
 i. 16, ii. 12, X. 27, xxv. 17, 25, xxx. 22; 
 2 Sam. xvi. 7, xx. 1 ; 1 Kings xxi. 10, 13 ; 
 Judges xix. 22, xx. 13, w]uch,in the other 
 province, has only penetrated into Deut. 
 xiii. 14 [13], XV. 9; the oath i^ nb'U'' HB 
 131 D'nPSt which is also put into the mouth 
 of heathen, the verb in that case being 
 made plural, 1 Sam. iii. 17, xiv. 44, xx. 
 13. XXV. 22; 2 Sam. iii. 9, 35, xix. 14 [13]; 
 1 Kings ii. 23, xix. 2, xx. 10 ; 2 Kings vi. 
 31 ; Ruth i. 17 ; the similar oath of com- 
 mon life, whicli however can only bo 
 used by Hebrew.s, "^l^'Q^ >r]) niil.* ^n 1 
 Sam. XX. 3, xxv. 26, 2 Sam. xi. 11 (with
 
 134 HISTORY OF HEBREW HISTORICAL COMrOSlTION. 
 
 saying tliat the establislied usage of centuries must liave sanc- 
 tioned for the primitive history a style of nari'ative and a cast 
 of language utterly different from those customary in the 
 history of the Kings ; just as the style of the regular historians 
 of the Greeks differs from that of the so called logographers, 
 and — to cite a nearer example — as the Arabian naiTators of 
 easy style, the authors of Wakidi's books, of the Thousand 
 and one Nights, and others, select a form of language different 
 from that of the older historians. 
 
 This remarkable phenomenon — quite worthy of minute in- 
 vestigation, and sufficient to rouse us to profound meditation on 
 the great changes Hebrew historical composition has undergone 
 — necessarily leads us to assume that when historians began to 
 treat of the period of the Kings, the mode of delineation of the 
 stories of antiquity had long since adopted its established tone 
 and style, seeing that the above-described Book of Origins 
 (pp. 74 sqq.) does not indicate the commencement, but the 
 highest perfection, and in a certain sense the consummation, 
 of the development of the primitive history. When therefore 
 a new branch of literature, describing the history of the Kings, 
 was originated, doubtless by different writers at first, it 
 natui'ally created for itself a new style of narrative and of 
 language, and thus two species of historical composition, dif- 
 fering in many respects, were established : the long developed 
 style of the primitive history, which occupied a province more 
 or less sacred ; and the new style of the history of the Kings, 
 whose province was that of common life and daily progressing 
 events. 
 
 some variation), xv. 21 ; 2 Kings ii. 2, 4, which only occurs in Jos. xxii. 29 ; and the 
 
 6, iv. 30 : and in a shorter form 1 Sam. exclamation to secure a favourable hearing 
 
 i 26 xyii. 55; 2 Sam. xiv. 19. To this ^^^^ ^ -^^^ • ^^ s^^„^_ ;_ 2^ , 
 
 class belong also ti>e common proverb of ■ -. ■ ^ 
 
 the dead dog, or d<äg's head, 2 Sam. iii. 8, Kings ili. 17, 26; Judges vi. 13, 15, xiii. 
 
 ix. 8, xvi. 9 ; 1 Sara. xxiv. 15 [14], further 8), which, though used by the later nar- 
 
 shortened in xvii, 43; 2 Kincs viii. 13; rators of the primitive history, Gen. xliu. 
 
 as also the two phrases T-pa J'-nL**!?, 1 -0, xliv. 18; Ex.iv. 10, 13, to whom Num. 
 
 c r>.-. r.i ■■ rr- ■',:.' ■ xii. 11 may also belong, in the l?ook of 
 
 Sam. XXV. 22, 34 ;1 Kings xiv. 10, xvi. q^- -^^^ ^^ ^^^j -^^ j^^ ^.j; g -^ -^ 
 
 11, XXI. 21; 2 Kings IX. 8, and n-l^ is the original reading there. The mean- 
 
 a-ltyi, 1 Kings xiv. 10, xxi. 21 ; 2 Kings ing of tiie latter expression is hardly to bo 
 
 ix. 8,' xiv. 26 (which occurs nowhere else explained by such longer phrases as that 
 
 but in the song Dout. xxxii. 36, where i" 1 ^^^^- ^^- ^* > ^^ might rather as- 
 
 it is most likely to bo original); with sume that ^3 was an abbreviation of }^3 
 this distinction only, that we discern a ,_ \ ,• oo i *- *i V 
 
 „ „f :„ i;«- „ „„. 1 * 11 1 1 X compare 13 Jcr. xlix. 23: but tlio most 
 
 certain (ImtTcnce between ohler and later ^^ i ^ -^ ' 
 
 writings of this province in the use of the probable explanation is, that 13 is shortened 
 
 latter. f^.^,^^ ,_ ^^ /j^^ xxxiv. 36 ; 1 Sam. xxiv 
 
 (Some words of the same species are at ' 
 
 any rate very rare or doubtful in the liuok 12 [11] into a mere interjection: see my 
 
 ofOrigins; aa the term of execration n'p^Vn I^^'^trhuch, 7th edition, p. 258,
 
 GREAT BOOK OF THE KIXGS. 135 
 
 • The history of the Kings followed the events themselves much 
 sooner and more immediately, before centuries had separated the 
 sacred from the secular elements in them ; nay, it began with 
 the most documentary registrations and minutest descriptions 
 of memorable events. Springing from the immediate life of 
 the time, and presenting a more exact picture of the day, it 
 was also more ready to take the colour of the language of the 
 day, and less fastidious in the employment of phrases of com- 
 mon life. In conformity with this, it did not enter, while it 
 retained this simple form, on those wide surveys and lofty 
 generalisations which are inseparable from the primitive history, 
 and which, on account of their sublime import, demand a higher 
 language. 
 
 The difference between the two styles is most sensible when 
 the late historical composition is new. How far, for example, 
 is the Book of Origins removed as to character from the 
 earliest book of the Kings, although as to date separated by 
 scarcely a century ! This diversity indeed gradually decreases; 
 the later revisers of the primitive history occasionally introduce 
 a word hitherto foreign to that sphere ; and on the other hand 
 the later writers of the history of the Kings attempt grander 
 descriptions after the fashion of the primitive history. Neverthe- 
 less, the diversity never entirely disappeared down to the end 
 of David's reign ; and even the latest redactors of the primitive 
 history retain certain characteristics of the ancient language 
 with great consistency.^ This is essentially the same feeling as 
 that which prompts the author of the Book of Job to preserve the 
 air of antiquity in his representation of the affairs and persons 
 of the primitive time ; for we are by no means to fancy 
 Hebrew literature in the period of its fullest development and 
 art to have remained quite unlearned and simple. 
 
 The style in which the period of the Judges is described, like 
 the period itself, stands in the middle, and has less distinctive 
 character. Treated in the earlier portions like an appendix to 
 the primitive history, and written in a similar tone accordingly, 
 it subsequently, as the diversity of the two styles develops itself, 
 assumes the type of the history of the Kings ; and the later 
 writers properly treated the period as only a preparation for 
 the history of the Kings. 
 
 The most copious source left to iis for the recognition of the 
 
 ' In this class we include X-IH fo"" N^■^ ^'s found in Dent. xxii. 19, and j^tn in Lev. 
 
 and "lyj for ^\'^]3^_ '•^^'^ ^^1 other archaisms xvi. 31 (where the Samaritan, however, 
 
 that pervade all portions of the Penta- has Kin), Num. v. 13; see Lehrbuch, 
 
 teueh, even Deuteronomy. Yet niy3 P- -iSo, 479.
 
 136 HISTORY OF HEBREW HISTORICAL COMrOSITIOX. 
 
 general character and sj)ecific modifications of historical com- 
 position, is found in those narratives which have been inserted 
 in the Great Book of King-s — that is, what the LXX. call the 
 four Books of Kings (the two Books of Samuel and the two 
 of Kings), and the Books of Judges and Ruth, which belong 
 to them. But the Chronicles also serve to supplement these 
 sources, and often in important matters. Tracing the develop- 
 ment of this kind of writing, as deducible from all these indica- 
 tions and testimonies, we obtain the following picture of it. 
 
 1. First Jiistory of the Kings. 
 
 It is evident that the great events and successes of David's 
 time stimulated many to attempt to preserve, at first only in 
 outline, written records of what was most memorable. More- 
 over, after the fashion of the great monarchies of adjacent 
 countries, the new office of Court Historian had been instituted 
 under David. ^ It was the duty of that official to register an 
 authentic account of the events of his own time ; and we are 
 doubtless indebted to him for many very exact notices of the 
 history of the Kings, that have been preserved.^ 
 
 The first attempts at histories of the Kings were in general 
 of that twofold chai'acter that we should expect from the two- 
 fold tendency that pervaded those times, and also contiiiued 
 throughout the duration of the monarchy. They either set out 
 from a simple observation of occurrences, and made the mere 
 history of the king and the state their staple — a kind of work 
 that doubtless grew into the Diaries of the Kings, or State-annals, 
 the only origmal portions of which may be supposed to have been 
 those finished immediately on the death of each king ; or they set 
 out from a prophetical view of events, and mainly represented the 
 operation of prophetic energies in Israel. 
 
 1) We still possess some very instructive pieces of the first 
 class, which aU indications justify us in reckoning under this 
 head : (1) the long list of David's great warriors who sustained 
 his throne, 1 Chr. xi. 10-47, with some remarks on the achieve- 
 ments and qualities of the most important of them ; a list 
 which is now also found in 2 Sam. xxiii. 8-39, but with the 
 
 • This custom was rotainod to the last, as mother also, and the accounts of their 
 
 wo see from 1 Mace. xri. 23, 24, and also buildings and other undertakings, show 
 
 Joscphus, Ant. xvi. 6, 3, wliero the Greek what care must have then been bestowed 
 
 name ra viTOfxviifj.a.Ta tuv ßao'iXfwi 'HpcoSou \ipon many points of contemporary history, 
 
 first appears. jmd on how uniform a plan the domestic 
 
 - The notices given in Kings and Chro- and state records of the kings must have 
 
 nicies of the children and wives of the been kept, 
 ■various kings, and in Judah of the king's
 
 FIRST HISTORY OF THE KIXGS. 137 
 
 omission of some of the names at the end ; (2) the list of the 
 warriors who went over to David in SauFs lifetime, 1 Chr. xii. 
 1-22 ; (8) the list of the captains and their suite who met to- 
 gether in Hebron to elect David king over all Israel, 1 Chr. 
 xii. 23-40, with some historical remarks ; (4) an enumeration 
 of David's later wars against the Philistines, with a minute 
 account of the achievements of some of his warriors, 2 Sam. 
 xxi. 15-22, of which the later half only is repeated in 1 Chr. 
 XX. 4-8 ; (5) a survey of the state of the kingdom at the end 
 of David's reign, 1 Chr. xxvii.^ These passages, with some 
 similar registers of the tribe of Levi, only relate to the general 
 affairs of the state, the king, and the people, and are free fi-om 
 all special reference to a prophetic or sacerdotal view of history. 
 They contain indeed the richest treasure of purely historical 
 records, which, notwithstanding the greatness of the events, 
 have remained entirely uninfluenced by the power of tradition, 
 and give them quite rough and hard, without the round- 
 ness and circumstantiality of detailed description, and without 
 any real flow of narrative. It is as if it were still sufiicient to 
 register the mere names of the great worthies and events, Avith 
 a few remarks ; whereas later times feel the great number of 
 such names, and the mere documentary minuteness of such 
 descriptions burdensome. In addition, the language of some 
 of these pieces displays so great an aflinity with that of the 
 Book of Origins,^ that we must infer that they had a similar 
 source, or at least contemporary sources, which, according- to 
 pp. 76, 82, there could be no difficulty in admitting-. And it 
 is expressly stated that the State-annals, which appeared after 
 the death of each king,^ and after the death of several, were 
 united in a larger work, contained such detailed lists of the 
 families of the officials and worthies.^ 
 
 In like manner some coherent remnants of the State-annals 
 
 ' But verses 23, 24 must be later ad- Clirouicles and other late writings do often 
 
 ditions hy the Chronicler, deemed neces- imitate the style of the Book of Origins 
 
 sary on account of the previous naiTative and other parts of the Pentateuch, this 
 
 in chap. xxi. is proved Ly the concurrence of all the 
 
 ■■^ The expressions X3V ''V""1^0' ^ ^'^^'' indications to be no mere imitation, 
 xii. 23, 24, and X^V ^x'^*^ ver. "33 (com- ' That this was always done at the ex- 
 
 \; ■■ • . .. press command of the tollowing king (a 
 
 pare v. 18, vii. 1 1 ; ^um. xxxi. 5, xxxii. 27 ; thing probable in itself), is evident from 
 
 Josh. IV. 13 ; Num. i. 3, 20, 22, sqq., xxvi. ^]^^ f^..^, ^hat the life of the last king of 
 
 2, sqq.) ; niDK'? ■Ui'?? 1 Chr. xn. 31 (com- ^..^jj kingdom is wanting in the official 
 
 pare Num. i. 17); rh'shib' 1 Chr. xxiii. annals of both. 2 Kings xvii. 1-6, xxiv. 
 
 24 (compare Ex. xvi. IG, xxxviii. 26; ^^T'^^- ... ^ , , 
 
 Num i. 2, 18, 20, 22, iii. 47) and others, ^\ ^'ll afterwards be made evident 
 
 as well as the general method and arrange- fat the Chronicler had good reason for 
 
 ment of the long taxing-rolls, &c., leave thus referring to the .State-annals; 1 Chr. 
 
 no doubt on this point. Although the -^^'^'"- --^ compared with ix. 1.
 
 138 HISTORY OF HEBREW HISTORICAL COMPOSITIOX. 
 
 liave been preserved, whicli must liave been written down 
 immediately after the death of Solomon. I mean the passage 
 in 1 Kings iv. 1-19, to which the remarks that follow in v. 2 
 [iv. 22] sq. vi.-viii. belong. These remnants, which the Book 
 of Chronicles does not repeat, as if they were too insignificant 
 for the histor}^, furnish a view of Solomon's household with 
 such minute details as could not have been obtained except 
 immediately after the king's death. The minute account of 
 Solomon's buildings must also have been written down soon 
 after his death. 
 
 Here then we recognise, by distinct remains, the origin and 
 character of the State-annals, and even though there were no 
 such great achievements and events to record under the kings 
 after Solomon, yet it is certain that the custom introduced 
 after the death of David and Solomon was never relinquished, 
 and that many genuine historical notices which are scattered 
 about our present Books of Kings must be derived from such 
 sources. With regard to their general contents, however, we 
 must above all bear in mind that they were written by royal 
 command, and therefore admitted only public, not purely do- 
 mestic topics : wherefore such accounts as those about David's 
 household, 2 Sam. x. sqq., or Jehu's violent conduct, 2 Kings 
 ix. sqq., can hardly have found a place in them. 
 
 2) How events were described from the prophetical point of 
 view, however, is; shown by the passage about the first wars 
 against the Philistines after David was anointed, 2 Sam. v. 17-25. 
 We here find a description of several successive battles, which, 
 in local knowledge and graphic delineation, is quite on a par 
 with the passage in 2 Sam. xxi. 15-22, noticed at p. 137, but 
 which is prominently distinguished from it by the circumstance 
 that it views the whole with reference to the question how far 
 the result corresponded to the oracle which David had each 
 time consulted. And when we consider how great the influence 
 of the oracle was in those times, and what a share prophets 
 had in fashioning events, we shall see that every great event 
 might be described either poj)ularly or prophetically, as the 
 ^vi-iter regarded the one side or the other. To this class belongs 
 a portion of the original account of Nathan's speeches about 
 building the Temple, 2 Sam. vii. ; and many other stories, or at 
 least their first radiments, as 1 Sam. xiv. 18 sqq., xxii. 5, xxiii. 
 1-14, xxx. 7 sqq. ; 2 Sam. ii. 1 : whereas throughout the whole 
 of Absalom's rebellion, for instance, there is no mention of a 
 single oracle, or of the oracle being consulted. 
 
 We arc naturally led to suj^pose that this continued to be the
 
 PROPHETIC BOOK OF KINGS. 139 
 
 condition of things after David also. And in fact, besides tlie 
 fragments preserved in Chronicles, we possess one great instance 
 of this, belonging to later times, in the history of Hezekiah and 
 his age. This narrative, contained in 2 Kings xviii. 13-xx. 
 and Isaiah xxxv-xxxix, must, if only from its peculiar style, be 
 regarded as borrov^ed from a special vs^ork, which was most 
 likely composed soon after the king's death, and probably by a 
 scholar of Isaiah, sls its sentiments are truly prophetic, and it 
 contains some of Isaiah's declarations, evidently derived from 
 accurate tradition. In the Northern Kingdom, also, we might 
 have expected to find similar records equally partaking of the 
 historical and the prophetical character. But no such clear 
 traces of these have come down to us : although the history of 
 Ahijah, 1 Kings xi. 26 sqq., xiv. 1-18, and stiU more that of 
 Elijah and Elisha, 1 Kings xvii-2 Kings xiii, show how power- 
 ful, even here, was the influence of the prophet's activity upon 
 the treatment of history, and how it tended to drive into the 
 background all other departments of history. And strictly 
 prophetical books always contained some historical remarks 
 and explanations.^ 
 
 2. General history of the ages of the Judges and the Kings. The 
 Prophetic Book of Kings. 
 
 But the history of the monarchy could not always remain 
 enclosed within these original limits ; its facts, drawn from the 
 most various sources, had by degrees to be amalgamated and 
 harmonised together. Later readers may have felt increased 
 dissatisfaction with the crude disconnected sketchy narratives, 
 with their thousands of numbers, and their unexplained names, 
 often left as they stood in the State-annals, — all presenting 
 broad masses of undigested materials. Moreover, no grand 
 survey of a period and selection of its events, such as is de- 
 manded from the historian, is generally j^ossible until the period 
 itself has retired in some degree into the background. 
 
 But as this interest in a general survey of the history of 
 the Kmgs gathered strength, it was attended by a desire to 
 study also the long antecedent period of the Judges, as forming 
 a fitting introduction to the history of the earliest kings. No 
 doubt much that took place during the period of the Judges 
 might more truly be viewed as a continuation of the primeval 
 history, and in fact (as already stated, pp. 69 sqq.) was long so 
 treated. But with the prolonged duration of the monarchy, 
 
 ' See my Propheten des Alten Bundes, here, possesses especial imj^ortance in re- 
 rol. i. pp. 44, 45. The question alluded to, forence to the authorities of the Clironicles.
 
 140 HISTORY OF HEBREW HISTORICAL COMPOSITIOX. 
 
 men became accustomed to contemplate tlie transitional period 
 of tlie Judges from their own later point of view, and thus to 
 unite its history, in some form or other, with that of the origin 
 and progress of the monarchy. 
 
 Many clear indications prove that this method of historical 
 comj^osition bore sway with little interi'uption durmg a con- 
 siderable period, and attained a glorious maturity. And exactly 
 from this period of highest bloom, there are preserved the 
 remains of man}^ works which fully attest the high degree of 
 excellence which this historical method had attained, and its 
 paramount influence in this region. Since these remains are 
 discoverable only as incorj^orated in later works, (and in fact 
 only in one later work in any considerable measure,) and since 
 moreover a more uniform narrative style prevailed from this 
 time onwards, it is very difficult to discriminate them. How- 
 ever, by following such indications as rise clearly into view, we 
 are able to discriminate the following Avorks. 
 
 1) We must here distinguish, in the first instance, a work 
 which, by its happy example, appears to have laid the founda- 
 tion of this new method of writing history, though, as the 
 oldest discoverable by us, it is naturally preserved with the least 
 completeness. This work still held a place far removed from 
 every higher, i.e. prophetic survey of history ; it recorded the 
 events separately and with the utmost simplicity, and only in 
 occasional scattered remarks gave hints of the differences as 
 well as the progress observable in the great periods of history. 
 Its sole adornment was gracefulness and poetic animation 
 in the narrative ; and it desci-ibed nothing else with the same 
 completeness as it did the history of wars. This is the work 
 from which are preserved important fragments of the history 
 of Saul, 1 Sam. xiii., xiv., and which fully described both the 
 earlier and later wars of David ; and it is very possible that 
 the author of the next following work had this one before 
 him when he wrote his survey of the campaigns of David, 1 
 Sam. XXX. 26-31 and 2 Sam. viii. But to these narrative por- 
 tions, the two which close the present Book of Judges xvii — 
 xviii., xix-xxi. bear so decided a resemblance in their extreme 
 historical clearness and antiqueness, as well as in the colouring 
 of the separate expressions,^ that we may derive them from the 
 
 ' In prose, the jiliniso Qyn n'US is xviii. 19), 1 Sum. xiv. 37, is liore cliarac- 
 
 foiind only in Judges xx. 2 and 1 Sam. xiv. t'^istic, as being foreign to tlic Book of 
 
 38; the repeated mention of the priestly Origins and other books, even where this 
 
 oracle under the stereotyped phrase ^X{^> very sul.jeet is specially treated of, Num. 
 
 112 Jntlg. i. 1, XX. 18, 23, 27 (compare
 
 PROPHETIC BOOK OF KINGS. 141 
 
 same source. And thus we obtain an insight into the imme- 
 diate objects of this work. 
 
 The author may have lived soon after Solomon, perhaps under 
 the prosperous reign of Asa : the latest traceable portion of his 
 work guides us to about this time/ and we have no reason to place 
 him later. In fact the division of the kingdom of David had 
 introduced so radical a change, and turned men's thoughts so 
 decidedly upon the earlier history of the monarchy, that the 
 historian must have felt himself thereby stimulated to greater 
 activity ; and we can readily understand how an important work 
 coiüd be produced, whose main object was to give the first 
 connected narrative of the late glorious age, and the unhappy 
 division which had now taken its place. Besides, when this 
 author wrote, the monarchy excited almost the same feeling of 
 universal respect that it did at the time of the Book of Origins, 
 according to pp. 75 sqq., and the people still felt vividly enough 
 the social advantages secured by it. One main object there- 
 fore with the author was to display, through the narrative of pre- 
 ceding events, the misfortunes of the times before the monarchy, 
 when caprice and lawlessness were unchecked, and to contrast 
 with this the happiness of the kingly age ; and he enforces this 
 point as far as possible throughout his narrative. ^ This work 
 appears not to have contained any enumeration of the Judges 
 and their deeds, but, in its description of times anterior to the 
 monarchy, rather to have taken its stand upon the abstract 
 idea of the Community of Jahveh, and of the High Priest 
 as the representative of its unity at all events in a legal 
 sense. In order therefore to have a fixed starting-point, the 
 author commenced with the period succeeding Joshua's death, 
 and took as his basis the ancient Book of Covenants already de- 
 scribed, pp. 68 sqq.^ But though he nia,y perhaps have described 
 more than these two events belonging to the period of the Judges, 
 yet he certainly did not dwell very long upon this period, as he 
 used it merely as an introduction to the history of the monarchy. 
 
 • For in the account of the revolt from before Jehoshaphat, when the northern 
 
 t)avid's house, the description of the kingdom was regarded as simply rebellious 
 
 national assembly in 1 Kings xii.. espe- against Judah. 
 
 cially verse 20, corresponds exactly with ^ Ji^idg. xvii. 6, xxi. 25 ; compare xviii. 
 
 the earlier one in Judg. xx. 1 (compare on 1, xix. 1. 
 
 the other hand 2 Sam. ii. 4, v. 1 ) ; also the ' Besides what has been already men- 
 
 expression i^>p^, 1 Kings xi. 34 (in which ^.^^^^^^^ ^^^^^ .^ ^^^^ ^^^^^^ ^^^ ^^^ ^^ 
 
 as in D31> xii. 18, this book accords with ^ j, i- ^ i, t V ■ "o 
 
 - T set on fire, for to burn tq), Judg. i. 8, xx. 
 
 the Book of Origins) was probably adopted 43 (elsewhere found only 2 Kings viii. 12, 
 
 from this work into the later one ; and ^nd, from imitation, Ps. Ixxiv. 4), used 
 
 the phrase ' I.^rael rebelled against the . . , . 
 
 house of David unto this day' (1 Kings ''^^''^y of ^'ties, for 3 ^IXS which occurs 
 
 xii. 19) points to a writer who lived in Judges xviii. 27.
 
 142 HISTORY OF HEBREW HISTORICAL COMPOSITION. 
 
 2) But of another work wliicli sprang from tlie same tendency, 
 there have come down to us such extensive and connected remams 
 (many passages being preserved to us in their original fuhiess 
 and almost unchanged), that Ave are able fully to survey its 
 scope and extent and the division of its parts. This is the work 
 whose remains extend from the beginning of the Books of Samuel 
 into the Books of Kings, and which cannot be briefly designated 
 more appropriately than as the Prophetic Book of Kings. Next 
 to the Book of Origins, but embracing a different sphere, this is 
 the most agreeable and influential of the historical books. But 
 the peculiar charm of this work is mainly derived from the fact, 
 that it is the first upon the field of history which is entirely per- 
 vaded by the prophetic spirit ; and indeed without this no writing 
 among the ancient people of Israel could become highly attrac- 
 tive. This narrator may be distinguished among the historians of 
 the monarchy as emphatically the Prophetic historian. On this 
 account his preference for a larger survey and closer combination 
 of the expanding historical materials ought not to surprise us 
 at that early date, since no one would be so ready to present 
 these as a Prophet from his higher point of view. 
 
 a.) From the existing remains of this book it is easier to 
 discover its commencement than its close. For we cannot 
 doubt that this work, like our present Books of Samuel, began 
 with Samuel's birth and career. In this case nothing is pre- 
 supposed which must necessarily have preceded it, and been 
 elsewhere more fully treated ; for a new epoch obviously opens 
 with the life and activity of Samuel, from which all that follows 
 is developed ; and whatever is mentioned of a prior period 
 respecting Eli and his sons, really serves only as a counterpart 
 to the history of Samuel.* The narrator's main subject, to 
 which he is evidently hastening on, is indeed the monarchy ; 
 but the foundation of this was so indissolubly bound up with 
 the entire career of Samuel, that he could only obtain a firm 
 foundation by giving an account of that prophet's life. 
 
 The close of the work seems more difficult to discover, owing 
 to the loss of the original words, but indications are not wanting 
 
 ' Except that the fact that on Eli's M'hich lie could not Init mention, add tho 
 
 death tho length of his judgeship is also oustoniary notice of tlielengtii of iiisjudge- 
 
 given, 1 Sam. iv. 18 (compare vii. IS), ship. A similar view must be taken of 
 
 miglit be taken as a proof that the narrator the appeal made to the history of Abimo- 
 
 had conimcnc(<d his work with a general lech, tlie son of Gideon, 2 Sam. xi. 21 ; 
 
 liistory of tliu .ludges. But if at the time for although this is a diiferent thing from 
 
 of the narrator the commencement of a a reference to the saci'ed liistory known 
 
 history of the .Judges had been already to every one (1 Sam. iv. 8), tho author 
 
 made (and this cannot be disproved), he might assume that tliat also was known 
 
 might consider his work as a continuation from older books on tho period of the 
 
 of tliat, and ou occasion of Eli's death, Judges.
 
 PROPHETIC BOOK OF KlXtiS. 143 
 
 which, enable us to determme the epoch to which the author 
 must have brought down his history. With the least attention, 
 it might have been seen long ago, that this work did not close 
 with the present Books of Samuel, for (passing by for the 
 present all other signs) the first two chapters of the First Book 
 of Kings continue the narrative so exactly in the same style and 
 colouring, that we cannot discover the slightest trace of another 
 hand. But these two chapters, which carry on the thread of 
 the narrative of the Books of Samuel, are by no means a mere 
 supplement describing the death of David, since they carry on 
 the narrative further, and describe also the earliest actions of 
 Solomon as king in such form and with so little apparent close 
 as to arouse our curiosity, if we had not felt it before, to know 
 more of the deeds of this king ; so that we regret to see the thread 
 of the narrative then suddenly cut short. There is however 
 one especial passage at the very beginning, which gives us the 
 clearest insight into the actual age of the writer. The author 
 pauses here to survey the great whole which he is about to de- 
 scribe, 1 Sam. ii. 27-36 (and the same is repeated in essence but 
 more briefly, 1 Sam. iii. 11-14), and thus skilfully ensures the 
 attention of the student from the beginning to the close. Since 
 Eli is here threatened in prophecy with a time when he and his 
 father's house (i.e. the whole sacerdotal house of Ithamar), amid 
 the utmost national prosperity, would come to extreme want, 
 and his dignity be taken from him, and given to another priest 
 (and his house), and when, especially, all the grown members of 
 his house would fall, and the younger ones beg priests' bread 
 from the High Priest of the other house,' it is perfectly obvious 
 that the author hereby indicates a time when the house of 
 Ithamar was in disgrace, a time, too, which he had himself 
 passed through, and which he intended to describe fully in the 
 course, or rather at the close, of his work. When we consider 
 the importance of the sacerdotal house in those earlier times, 
 and reflect that, next to the king, it possessed the highest 
 hereditary authority in the state, we can understand how a 
 narrator, himself probably a Levite, while writing the history 
 of the monarchy, could use the fortunes of this house as a sort 
 of prophetical frame for his work. In fact, through all events, 
 whether of war or peace, the narrator holds fast the thread he 
 had tied at the very outset by constantly referring to the fate 
 of the heads of the Priesthood, and remarks significantly 
 that on occasion of David's flight from Jerusalem in Absalom's 
 
 ' The siime thing occurs on a smaller scale in the case of Joab, 2 Sam. iii. 28, 
 29 ; compare 1 Kings ii. 28 sqq.
 
 144 HISTORY OF HEBREW HISTORICAL COMPOSITIOX. 
 
 rebellion, the greatest delay was made hj Abiathar the descend- 
 ant of Eli.^ On the other hand, the prophecy in question cannot 
 have been written long after the fall of the house of Eli, since 
 the circumstances of that event appear to the narrator quite 
 vivid and undimmed by time ; besides that this house must 
 have afterwards in some degree recovered from this fall, as will 
 be shown further on. If we ask, then, at what time the various 
 heavy misfortunes of this house, which the work at its com- 
 mencement promised to reveal, actually came to pass, and in 
 what part of the work they are narrated, we find it indeed 
 announced, with an express appeal to the prophecy made to 
 Eli,^ that Solomon immediately after his accession degraded 
 Abiathar from his of&ce, and exiled him to his own estate. But 
 this cannot possibly be the complete fulfilment of that prophecy : 
 moreover the narrator here ascribes to Solomon the very signi- 
 ficant declaration ' that he would not now put him to death,' as 
 if he intended on a later occasion to describe far heavier mis- 
 fortunes that fell upon him and his whole house. Inde'ed, from 
 the declaration at the very commencement^ that the expected 
 faithful High Priest ' should for ever go in and out before the 
 anointed of Jahveh,' it undoubtedly follows that at the time of 
 the writer the rejection of the house of Eli had long taken 
 place. Moreover this anointed one can be identified only with 
 Solomon (or possibly his successor), but certainly not with 
 David. This fact, as well as the general tone of the passage, 
 naturally carries us beyond the death of Solomon, and we must 
 regret the loss of those passages of the work in which the 
 complete and final fulfilment of the prophecy was given. 
 
 But the clearest indication of the age of the author is found 
 in the fact that the same hand which begins the account of the 
 life of Solomon in 1 Kings i. sq., is frequently visible also in the 
 succeeding narratives in the Books of Kings, where it may be 
 infallibly distinguished from all other documents by its extreme 
 individuality, until it appears for the last time in the account of 
 the elevation of king Jehu, 2 Kings ix. 1-x. 27. On a nearer 
 view it is impossible to doubt that the same prophetic narrator 
 who related the raising of Saul to the throne in 1 Sam. ix. sq., 
 sketched also this vivid picture of Jehu's elevation ; for even 
 the separate phrases display the greatest similarity without any 
 appearance of imitation. It was consequently during the ex- 
 cited period which followed Jehu's elevation that this work 
 Avas composed ; and everything indicates that the author Avas a 
 prophet belonging not to the northern, but to the southern 
 
 ' 2 Sam. XV. 24. = 1 Kings ii. 26, 27. * 1 Sam. ii. 35.
 
 PROPHETIC BOOK OF KINGS. 145 
 
 kingdom : but that exaltation had afiected both kingdoms at 
 once, and was like the last flashing up of the flame of ins^^ira- 
 tion of the old prophets. Through this great king, the last who 
 was ui'ged on and raised to the throne through prophetical 
 activity, the recollection of the harmonious cooperation of 
 Prophets and Kings as it existed in the early times from the 
 days of Samuel, must have been vividly recalled. And thus this 
 history has no other object than to display this very cooperation 
 from the time of Samuel and Saul down to that of Elisha and 
 Jehu, and to derive the fortunes which befell the monarchy 
 in Israel from a prophetic source. Consequently, no other his- 
 torical work contributes more information than this on the earlier 
 Prophets of Israel. 
 
 b.) At the same time the author also desired to present a 
 general history of the times after Samuel. He obviously em- 
 ployed for this purpose the best written and oral authorities, — 
 amongst others the songs of David, derived from a trustworthy 
 source,^ and of which he introduced as many as appeared 
 desirable. Yet the stream of his discourse is most copious and 
 eloquent wherever he approaches the main object of his narra- 
 tive : on other occasions he cuts it very short, especially in the 
 military portion, as is most distinctly seen in 1 Sam. xiv. 47, 48. 
 But as the time was now come to attempt to understand the 
 hidden forces engaged iu the development of those events, and 
 especially of the more remote among them, in the conception 
 and presentation of his subject the author occasionally rises far 
 beyond the merely material, in order to place clearly before the 
 eye the prophetical truths involved in the external events. 
 And this prophetic view and treatment being especially familiar 
 to him, we may justly assume that he was himself a Prophet ; 
 and from the careful attention which amid so many other 
 more weighty events he bestows uj)on the fortunes of the Ark, 
 as well as the Priests and Levites, and from his apparent gTeat 
 acquaintance with everything pertaining to them, it seems 
 equally certain that he was also a Levite. The prophetic 
 survey of events, however, which is this author's most cha- 
 racteristic contribution to historical knowledge, and the trans- 
 formation of the earlier portions of the history hence arising, 
 breaks forth far more freely in the case of Eli and his sons, 
 and of Samuel and Saul, than in that of David, where we 
 scarcely find even a commencing trace of it. In general, it 
 
 ' The tone of the expressions, 2 Sam. such songs ; on the first occasion of doing 
 i. 17, iii. 33, xxii. 1, xxiii. 1, leaves no this, 2 Sam. i. 18, he names his authority, 
 doubt that this writer himself interpolated 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 HISTORY OF HEBREW HISTORICAL COMPOSITIOX. 
 
 first appears onlj as a light veil tlirown in certain places over 
 simple historical recollections. But it is precisely this conjunc- 
 tion of the two unanialgamated factors of the narrative (the 
 power of an almost perfect recollection of the whole particulars 
 of the history, as they formerly appeared to, and were under- 
 stood hy, contemporaries, and the new power contained in 
 the higher survey of the history as a whole, at first however 
 influencing onl}^ isolated particulars), which constitutes the 
 most remarkable, and likewise the most instructive speciality of 
 this work. 
 
 But with regard to the arrangement and distribution of these 
 extensive historical materials, it is remarkable how this work, 
 which is preserved to us nearly complete, already displays the 
 very same plan and method which is observed in even the 
 latest Semitic works of a similar character, especially in the 
 Arabic Annals of the Chalifs and other rulers.^ It thus ap- 
 pears as if it were an ancient usage of all Semitic historians, 
 to which the old Hebrew writers were also glad to conform. ^ 
 I allude to the prevalent custom in these works to reserve all 
 general information about a ruler — the account of his house 
 and establishment, his wives and children, his habits and 
 customs of every kind — to the close of the record of his life. If 
 however the arrangements of a ruler had undergone numerous 
 modifications during the course of a long and changeful career, 
 as was in fact the case with David, the historian could then 
 select some convenient pause even in the middle of the ruler's 
 life, at which such general observations might be introduced. 
 Through the combination and reconciliation of this custom 
 with the pro2)lietical treatment of the subject, the following 
 arrangement and division into sections arose : ^ 
 
 i.) As already stated, it is the life of Samuel as ruler, 1 Sam. 
 i.-vii., which lays the foundation for this history of the Monarchy 
 (which if it must have a general title ought undoubtedly to be 
 called the Book of Kings) . This, as is required by the general 
 plan of the work, is closed by general observations respecting 
 Samuel, vii. 15-17. But although Samuel still survives, and 
 even after the section of his life here described takes part in 
 public affairs, still the grand division relating to him must close 
 here, inasmuch as here the account of his sovereign rule as 
 
 ' E.g. Alnilfida's Chronicles of Mam. We find, however, something very similar 
 
 ' Hence it makes no diiForonce to the in T.aoitus, Ann. vi. 51. 
 
 exposition of I Sam. vii., whether the * We leave for the present unnoticed 
 
 ■words ai'c referred lo this or to the follow- the later additions which it received, as 
 
 ing narrator. Josephus retains this usage well as the minor curtailments to which 
 
 in h\s An/i(ji<i/i'',i: although 1 Maccabees the separate parts wore subjected, 
 shows that it miglit be gradually relaxed.
 
 PKOPHETIC ßOOX OF KINGS. 147 
 
 judge comes to an end, and the history henceforth moves 
 onward towards another ruler. This phenomenon, surprising- at 
 the first glance, repeats itself in a case in which on a superficial 
 survey it is easier to overlook it : for 
 
 n.) When the narrative passes over to the choice of the first 
 king and his government, 1 Sam. viii-xiv, the history of Saul's 
 reign might appear to be closed too early with the requisite 
 general observations respecting him, xiv. 47-52, since his death 
 does not occur until chapter xxxi. Yet it is after all quite 
 correct that the special history of Saul as reigning sovereign, 
 as understood by the author, would close with chapter xiv. For 
 with chapter xv. commences at once the account of the Divine 
 rejection of Saul, and, closely connected with this, that of 
 David's Divine election, thereby occasioned and rendered impe- 
 rative : according to the prophetical sentiment of the writer, 
 therefore, Saul ceases at chapter xiv. to be the true king, and 
 'the history both of the people and the monarchy begins to move 
 on towards David as the grand centre of the work. 
 
 iii.) With the life of David we reach the fullest and richest 
 portion of the work; for the lives of the following kings, of which 
 only scanty remains have been preserved, could scarcely have 
 presented such a long and constantly attractive series of varied 
 incidents and extraordinary vicissitudes. It is not surprising 
 therefore that this great section was subdivided into several dis- 
 tinct portions, corresponding with an equal number of parts of 
 David's life. Thus we have first the account of the rise of David 
 brought down to the death of Saul, in which the two heroes move 
 near each other, like rising and setting stars, until finall}^ the 
 one is completely set, and the other ascends towards the zenith, 
 1 Sam. xv-xxxi. But here as elsewhere the original work is 
 no longer found pure and complete, and still less does the 
 succeeding history of the reign of David in 2 Sam. i. sqq. present 
 the appearance of a satisfactory order in its extant form ; but 
 this must be referred to a later compiler, respecting whom more 
 hereafter. What the original form was, however, can be at 
 least approximately discovered, if we attend to all the scattered 
 indications of it. Here we have in the first place to consider 
 that a work which deals with its materials in so independent, 
 so peculiar, and moreover so agreeable a manner as this, 
 cannot well be supposed to have given such long and weari- 
 some lists as that of David's warriors, 2 Sam. xxiii. 8-39, comp. 
 1 Chron. xi. They may perhaps have been merely copied out 
 of earlier works, or with equal possibility be due to the hand 
 of a later collector and reviser. And since the work of this 
 
 L 2
 
 l48 HISTORY OF HEBREW HISTORICAL COMPOSITION. 
 
 reviser is discoverable bj other signs also we must abide in the 
 belief that such passages as are most evidently heterogeneous 
 did not belong to the work. The comparison of 1 Chron. xi- 
 xxix. is instructive on this point. The original form of the 
 biography of David as king, which we elicit from these and 
 other indications, appears to have divided this portion of his 
 history, in conformity with its subject-matter, into the three 
 following sections : 
 
 a) The life of David after the death of Saul, until as king 
 over all Israel he had gained a firm position in Jerusalem ; a 
 period of uninterrupted prosperity, during which the highest 
 possible fortune seemed destined to fall unmixed to his share. 
 The extant j)ortions of this section are discovered in 2 Sam. 
 i-vii, and it undoubtedly finds a suitable close in the nar- 
 rative of the exertions made by David, when himself firmly 
 established in Jerusalem, to provide an equally permanent abode 
 for the sanctuary also, 2 Sam., vi, closing with the great pro- 
 phetical passage 2 Sam. vii. Here a pause is even still per- 
 ceptible in the history. 
 
 h) The central portion of David's reign in Jerusalem. Here 
 the work obviously compressed into the smallest space the most 
 heterogeneous materials. As might indeed be expected from the 
 VvTiter as a prophetic historian, he first treats with the greatest 
 possible succinctness of the foreign wars and victories of David, 
 2 Sam. viii. 1-14 (as he had previously done those of Saul, in 
 1 Sam. xiv. 47, 48, only that in the case of Saul still greater 
 conciseness was possible), apparently epitomising the earlier 
 history of the wars already described, p. 140 ; ' then passing over 
 to internal affairs, he gives only a very scanty account of the 
 internal arrangements of the kingdom at the commencement of 
 this period, 2 Sam. viii. 15-18 ; then, however, he describes 
 at great length the moral behaviour of David towards the pos- 
 terity of Saul, 2 Sam. ix, and towards his own house, x-xx. 22, 
 and closes with an account of two plagues which clearly did 
 not occur until his later years, xxi. 1-14, xxiv. The passage 
 respecting later wars with the Philistines which placed David's 
 life once more in utmost jeopardy, xxi. 15-24, must, originally 
 at all events, have proceeded from another hand. We discover 
 the same arrangement in 1 Chron. xviii-xxii. (excepting some 
 omissions to be hereafter explahied) ; and it cannot be denied 
 
 ' Tliiit tlio notices of the wars in cliap. with which the war with Ammon, x, xii. 
 viii. have been much abridged, may also 20-31, is presented, on account of its con- 
 bo inferred from the ftdness (prolxibly nection with the history of Uriah. 
 equalling that of the authority consulted)
 
 PROrilETlC BOOK OF KINGS. 149 
 
 tliat after tlius cutting out the disconnected portions,^ we obtain 
 as the result a simple and appropriate arrangement. 
 
 c) To the last division, the commencement of which is indi- 
 cated in express terms in 1 Chron. xxiii. 1, would belong-, 
 according- to the above-explained plan and the corresponding 
 example in 1 Chron. xxiii-xxix, more general surveys of David's 
 position and his connections especially towards the end of 
 his life. We no longer know how much the work originally 
 contained on this point, since the Chronicles here follow other 
 authorities : but of the extant portions, the following pieces 
 belong to this place : a second brief table of the internal 
 arrangements of the kingdom, 2 Sam. xx. 25, 2G (wanting in the 
 Chronicles) ; David's magnificent song of victory, composed in 
 his latter years, ch. xxii, and the ' Last Words of David,' xxiii. 
 1-7. With these the entire section was suitably closed ; ^ for 
 nothing then could well be added excepting his death, and that 
 is more appropriately taken into connection with the account of 
 Solomon's accession. 
 
 iv.) The account of the reigns of Solomon and his successors, 
 down to the limit already indicated, followed next. We have 
 indeed to regret that just at this part the work has come down 
 to us very imperfect. Yet even here many of its narratives are 
 preserved almost without change. Thus the notices of Solo- 
 mon's enemies, xi. 11-40,^ quite take us back to this work by 
 their peculiar style ; and in the narrative of the division of the 
 kingdom, 1 Kings xii, many ideas and phrases recall this work ; ■* 
 but these details can be better discussed hereafter, when we are 
 treating of this period of the history. 
 
 ' Namely, the passage 2 Sam. xx. 23- almost word for word with 2 Sam. xx. 1. 
 
 26, which will soon be cousidered, and Again, the formation n3l'?0 for Jcmg)>hip 
 
 two others, xxi. 15-22 and xxiii. 8-39, of . i- , t^- ^- X-, 
 
 , • , 1 1 1 , lor. IS peculiar; 1 Kings xii. 21, compare i. 
 
 whicn we have already spoken, pp. 136 sq. ^ !.._ ^^ ^- ^ ^ 
 
 Anyone capable o fa^icying and dog- ^5 ^;. 14, xi^ 47, x;iii. 8 ; 2 Sam. xii. 26 
 
 gedly maintaining that alter David s iyösc '. „ / ^ i i 1 • ,^ tr- 
 
 ijr 1 • n a ••• i 1 t XVI. 8; but elsewhere only in 2 Kings 
 
 yVords 111 2 bam. xxiii. 1, when we natu- ' , ^v • o i.i i 
 
 1, . , 1 • ^ i- n 1 t (-1 XXV. 25, and Dan. i. 6, apparently by way 
 
 rally expect nothing to iollow but the n • •, ,• -r, i '.. • , i -^i 
 
 4. f u- 1 *r ti i 11 ot imitation, liarely it uiterchanges with 
 
 account or his death, the narrator coukl , j t- 
 
 tell the story of the pestilence, ch. x.N:i v., niSpD 1 Sam. xx. 21; 1 Kings ii. 12, 
 must have the meanest opinion of the and riO^OIO 1 Sam. xv. 28; 2 Sam. xvi. 
 
 writers of the best period of antiquity. „. i „,. J\'' ■\,^^ „ „ „. n „„ »«L.«.« ^ 
 „ ^ xi • ^ ^1 i li "^S iJut the latter, as well as n3?0D 1 
 
 nut everything goes to prove that those it: - 
 
 writers were not so thoughtless and un- Sam. xiii. 13, 14, xxvii. 5; 2 Sam. iii. 10, 
 
 methodical; and we have already seen in v. 12 (which is, indeed, necessary where 
 
 the Book of Origins how passages were it denotes a ' kingdom,' and which alone 
 
 torn by later hands from their original admits of a plural), seems to have got into 
 
 connection and transplanted elsewhere. the text only on a later revision; compare 
 
 ' Excepting several words and phrases, 1 Sam. xxiv.21 [20], xxviii. 17 ; 2 Sam. vii. 
 
 especially in vv. 32-34. 12, 13, 16; 1 Kings v. 1 [iv. 21], ix. 5, 
 
 * The description of the Revolt in verse xi. 11, 13, 31, xii. 26, xiv. 8, xviii. 10; 
 
 16 bears the colour of the time, and agrees 2 Kings xi. 1, xiv. 5, xv. 19.
 
 150 HISTORY OF HEBREW HISTORICAL COMPOSITION. 
 
 c.) Not only tlie plan and subject-matter of this work as above 
 described, but also its style and phraseology, exhibit a perfect 
 unity in so far as its language is original, and not due to mere 
 verbal quotation of earlier authorities. The description is not 
 so luxuriant and gushing as in the Book of Origins, but yet 
 full of internal jDOwer and external beauty, sensibly flowing from 
 a national life still sound and strong on the whole, and sustained 
 throughout by a charming simplicity and life. Since the work 
 was once undoubtedly very popular, its diction served as a 
 model to later authors ; and it is therefore difficult to descend 
 to details, and discover many words and expressions strictly 
 peculiar to it : yet a closer examination shows that such are not 
 wanting, ^ and brings us to the conviction that it must have 
 had somewhere about the extent already indicated. 
 
 Since, then, all indications show that this work remained the 
 fixed basis of all popular histories of the monarchy, it was after- 
 wards naturally often retouched, and in this process lengthened 
 in some parts but in others still more seriously shortened. The 
 extensive remains of this and the former work contained in the 
 Books of Samuel and Kings, exhibit traces of very considerable 
 abridgment, not onl}^ at the end, but in the middle also. This 
 is especially seen in the fact that in these fragments an un- 
 expected allusion is often made to subjects which ought to have 
 been explained before, but are now left wholly unexplained. 
 Thus Jonathan appears quite unexpectedly in the account of 
 a military expedition, 1 Sam. xiii. 2, without being described 
 either previously or here as Saul's son. In 1 Kings i. 8, Shi- 
 mei and Eei appear among the firmest supi)orters of the throne 
 
 'Besidestheexamplesalreadyfurnislied, tnie of n~l3 ^o cat, 2 Sam. iii. 35, xii. 17, 
 
 VC may observe, for instance, that the ^iü. 5 «q^/^The particle -nX ««/v, though 
 ordinary expression lor the Lommunitv in 1- '^ ° 
 
 the Book of Origins, niUH, is wholly "ot used hero, as in the Book of Origins 
 
 fe ii^j/M, J ^Q ^j^g exclusion of pT (1 Sam. 1. 13, v. 
 
 wanting in this work, which employs the ,. , . , .it- ^ 
 
 periphrasis " DV i^eoi^^e of Jahveh, 4), certainly greatly predomina es. On 
 
 ^ ^ ..-'■' . . thi>othpr hand, many words elsewhere very 
 
 instead, 1 Sam. ii. 24; 2 Sam. i. 12, vi. common, never occur here ; as t^'n'in de- 
 21,xiv. 13; 2 Kings ix. 5; an expression .. , , , r ^i -o ^ e k ■ ■ 
 
 used in the Book of Origins, Num. xvii. 6 °?*'°f. l*! '"'"'^ ""' Q" *'^^, ^"^ of Origins 
 
 [xvi. 41], only with especial emphasis, ^l*^" ^f^« us«l); »pnp to assemble with 
 
 and very rar.ly elsewhere (Num. xi. 29 ; ^^} its (lerivatives (sue . passages as 1 Sam. 
 
 and somewhat different! V, Judges xx. 2). f >^- ^^ I 2 Sam. xx^ 1 4, point at all events 
 
 The analogous phrase, 'also, the herUage ^o a somewhat different root); n)21 to 
 
 of Jahveh, 1 Sam. x. 1 ; 2 Sam. xiv. ^' 5«'^^! V^l to break up an tncamp- 
 
 16, XX. 19, xxi. 3, appears to have passed wen/, the plural of pn and npH- There are 
 
 first from this into other historical works, also expressions which at least prove tlio 
 
 1 Sam. XXVI. 19. Another favourite similarity of several portions, as tD::'3 in 
 phrase of this book, accnrdmci to thy 3 ■ ^ ^ ^ 
 
 hearCs desire (an idea which admits of » warlike sense (not soused inthePenta- 
 
 very various renderings), 1 Sam. ii. 16 touch and Joshua), 1 Sam. xxui. 27, xxvii. 
 
 (xxiii. 20); 2 Sam. iii. 21 ; 1 Kings xi. ^O, xxx. 1, 14 (xxxi. 8); Judges xx. 37, 
 
 37, is unusual elsewhere; whieli is also ^^- 33, 44; "Vp for «Tl a'-row.
 
 PROPHETIC BOOK OF KIXGS. 151 
 
 of the young Solomon, without our Laving the slightest prior 
 intimation of the importance attaching to these two men. In 
 1 Sam. XXX. 26-31, a passage remarkable in many respects, a 
 number of cities in the tribe of Jutlah are carefully enumerated, 
 to which David sent booty from the Philistine city of Ziklag as 
 a present to his old friends, because he had formerly rested there 
 with his army. From this we naturally expect that David's 
 expeditions towards this region must have been already men- 
 tioned in the proper place, since the reference is otherwise 
 unintelligible ; but we now search in vain for the passages to 
 which reference must be here made. How much then must 
 have been lost between 1 Sam. xxiii and xxx, while later hands 
 inserted chapters xxiv and xxvi ! 
 
 3) With the passages from this and the former work are 
 variously interwoven those of another which must have described 
 very nearly the same period. For these fragments are very 
 similar to the former ones, and in any case not written much 
 later ; yet the delineation is thinner and more ftided than in the 
 two prior works. It also aj^pears that in this the prophetical 
 element did not so decidedly predominate as in those. A refer- 
 ence to 1 Sam. v-viii. or chapter xxxi. with their surroundings 
 will enable us sufficiently to appreciate the somewhat impalpable 
 differences between this work and the two former ones, both in 
 the phraseology and in the subject-matter. 
 
 It is however probable that this is the very writer who prefixed 
 to his history of the Kings a history of the Judges, of which 
 a considerable portion is still extant. By this v^e mean 
 the book from which a still later author took the separate 
 histories of the Judges, now found Judges iii. 7-xvi., to be 
 then modified or rewritten after his fashion. This narrator 
 described that long period with reference not to the High 
 Priests as his predecessor had done (p. 141), but to the Judges. 
 Of these he counted up the round number of twelve, and gave 
 careful statements, at least from Gideon onwards, respecting the 
 length of their tenure of office and their place of burial. 
 The constancy of this habit of itself points to an author 
 possessing great individuality. Moreover his judgment upon 
 the monarchy (Judges viii. 22-24) differed gi-eatly from 
 that of the previous writer, but was in perfect agreement 
 with the passage already noticed, 1 Sam. viii. 5-18 ; compare 
 X. 18, 19. Since moreover he also directed his attention to 
 the almost constant wars which the people had then to 
 bear, he seems to have arranged his work especially with 
 reference to the duration of these wars and of the intervening
 
 152 IIISTOEY OF HEBKEW HISTORICAL COMPOSITIO^'. 
 
 years of peace. On suitable occasions, it is liis custom to 
 mention in set phrase, botli tlie fact and tlie length of the rest 
 secured to the land after each great commotion.^ And since 
 this characteristic habit ^ is repeated in some of the fragments 
 preserved by the Boole of Chronicles from the history of the 
 kings of Judah immediately succeeding Solomon,^ and appear- 
 ing from other indications also to contain ancient remains,'* we 
 have every reason to assume that this work brought down the 
 history in like style and arrangement to more than a hundred 
 years after Solomon. The delineation in such passages as 
 Judg. iii. 7 sqq. is quite in accordance with that already de- 
 scribed m the earlier histories of the Kings, and especially in 
 the passages of this thii-d work. But the author here obviously 
 makes use of very varied and very ancient sources in impor- 
 tant sections, as in Judges vi-viii. of a history of Gideon which 
 must have been written in the north country,^ and in other 
 passages the earliest historical work, described p. 68 sqq.^ 
 Side by side with these more important works, there un- 
 doubtedly existed many smaller ones devoted to the history 
 of individual heroes. Thus the history of Samson was the 
 subject of a special composition of a very peculiar character, as 
 we can still see from its remains preserved in Judges xiv-xvi. 
 
 3a Looser treatment of this period of history. 
 
 Thus did this branch of historical composition reach its high- 
 est bloom at a comparatively early period, and it is really 
 surprising how much we feel the want of such beautiful histo- 
 rical fragments in the Second Book of Kings after the limit 
 assigned to them above (viz. 2 Kings x.). It seems as if the 
 succeeding age had lost the power of producing works so grand 
 
 ' Judg. iii. 11, 30, v. 31, viii. 28: this authority is also marked by the phrase 
 
 phrase was probably withdrawn by a later ' the spirit of Jahveh moved him,' Judg. 
 
 compiler from the accounts of the next vi. 34, elsewhere found only in tlie aiiriuut 
 
 following Judges. fragments 1 Clir. xii. 18 and '1 Clir. xxiv. 
 
 " For the expression in Josh. xi. 23, 20, for our present author liiinself employs 
 
 xiv. 15, is similar, but not identical, and ß, much simpler one (^y HM) Judgi-s iii. 
 
 the number of years is not given there. 10, xi. 29, compare 2 Chr. xv. 1, xx. 14. 
 
 * 2 Chr. xiii. 23 [xiv. 1]; xiv. 4, 5 In Judg. xiv. 19, xv. 14, on Samson's life, 
 [0, 6]. there is a ditferent ]>hraso again with the 
 
 '' 1 Chr. xiii. 4-7, 19-21, exhibits a same meaning (^y nSv)- '^^''''^'^ '^''<'^^'"^ iiO" 
 
 more antique style, but, the other verses wiiere else except in the prophetical Book 
 
 tlie ordinary style and views of the Chroni- of Kings already described, 
 
 cler ; note especially the words ~'y*75 1^3 " Judg. ix. and x. 8 present glimpses of 
 
 xiii. 7 (p. 133) and n^O n^s' xiii. 5 a very ancient work both in the subject- 
 
 / /^«s mi ,1 '■'• /■• , ^ matter and in certain words, as »nS v. 4, 
 
 (p. 69). The matter contained in each of •• 
 
 the two narratives is equally distinctive. '«''"'^1' recalls Gen. xlix. 4. 
 
 * Compare my Hohes Lied, p. 20. This
 
 LOOSER TREATMENT OF THIS HISTORY. 153 
 
 and yet so pleasing. The events of the day were now noted 
 down with increasing promptness, but historical composition on 
 a grand scale gradually degenerated with the entire national 
 life, until in the end the events recorded of the latest kings took 
 a form curiously resembling those of the primeval history. 
 
 This last point is of great importance here. For we cannot 
 fail to observe, that in the earlier portions of this great division, 
 as they faded away into the distance, the same kind of loose 
 paraphrase as we have already seen upon the primeval histories 
 gained a footing, though here necessarily restrained by the 
 greater accuracy of memory. We may observe this to take 
 place in very various ways. 
 
 1) A distinct example is presented by the history of Saul and 
 David. For as this is now put together in 1 Samuel by an 
 author whom we shall soon have occasion to characterise, it also 
 contains in chapters xii, xv-xvii, xxiv, xxvi, xxviii, fragments 
 from two or three later works, in which only recollections of 
 the most striking portions of the history are narrated with so 
 much freedom as to make them appear as if newly produced, 
 and a special effort is made to present them with suitable 
 dignity, and, where possible, with the elevation of prophetic 
 speech. The traces of a work which narrated the life of 
 Solomon in its greatness, with strict concentration and pro- 
 phetic severity, has also been preserved in 1 Kings. But these 
 paiiiculars, which could not be discussed without entering into 
 considerable detail, must be reserved to a future occasion. 
 
 2) The history of Elijah and Elisha, the greatest Prophets of 
 the Northern Kingdom, as we now have it embodied in 1 Kings 
 xvii-2 Kings xiii, mixed with other materials, and abridged by 
 the loss of its commencement and in various other ways, clearly 
 imderwent many modifications, not merely orally, but also in 
 writing, before it reached the highest possible point of exaltation. 
 We possess in this the most striking example of the develop- 
 ment of the history of the Prophets during successive centuries ; 
 and, on a close survey of the extant portions of this special divi- 
 sion of historical literature, we are able to recognise the very 
 various elements of its composition, its earlier and its later points 
 of view, the original materials furnished by actual memory and 
 their gradual transformation, also the unmistakable colouring of 
 different authors, wherein however the peculiar prophetic terse- 
 ness and keenness of speech is never forgotten. 
 
 3) Another different and very instructive example of the grea,t 
 freedom with which subjects belonging to this department were 
 gradually treated is furnished by the story of Kuth. This story,
 
 15-t HISTORY OF HEBREW HISTORICAL COMPOSITIOX. 
 
 the historical substance of which cannot be discussed here, 
 belongs essentially, in design as well as in arrangement (iv. 
 17-22), to the circle of Davidical histories, although it contains 
 only one single event taken from the domestic life of David's 
 ancestors. We no longer have the means of tracing the story 
 through its earlier stages, but the fragment of it presented in 
 the Book of Ruth is sustained in existence not so much by its 
 absolute historical value as by the preeminent beauty of its 
 pictures and descriptions. Upon the primeval history it has 
 been several times observed that in proportion as it was more 
 treated by later Avriters the freer treatment gradually prevailed, 
 and mere description was increasingly admitted into the place 
 formerly occupied by narratives more strictly bound to the re- 
 petition of the original facts ; but here we find something quite 
 new and peculiar added. On carefully examining the kind of 
 description prevailing here, we find not merely a very soft and 
 lovely painting of Hebrew domestic life, which, as we may 
 hence infer, must have assumed a beautiful form in many places 
 where it needed not to trouble itself about the great world, 
 but also a truly artistic and learned as well as faultless 
 and pleasing treatment of the subject. This blending of 
 learning and art for the j^roduction of a beautiful narrative 
 is the feature most characteristic of this small historical work. 
 Without anxiously concealing by his language all traces of 
 the later age in which he wrote, the author had obviously read 
 himself into the sj^irit of the ancient works both of history and 
 of poetry, and thus produces a very striking imitation of the 
 older work on the Kings (see p. 142 sqq.). From his investiga- 
 tions of the antiquity of his people, he (in iv. 7) describes obsolete 
 national usages, with the careful discrimination of a scholar. 
 But again, antiquarian lore does not alone interest him ; he 
 employs it merely as a medium through which, with artistic 
 skill and a true feeling for moral beauty, he may present a 
 charming picture of antiquity, and wake anew a nearly forgot- 
 ten tradition from the early age of David's house. A gentle 
 and gracious as well as poetical spirit animates this little histo- 
 rical picture, and the stjle itself often insensibly passes into 
 actual poetry, as when Naomi (i.e. the joyous one in name as 
 well as in fact) exclaims (i. 20, 21) : 
 
 JRather call me the ' Trovhhd one^'' 
 
 For the ÄJmighti/ has greuthj tvonhlcd me ; 
 
 liich in llesst'iifjs I departed, yet poor has Jahveli led me home : 
 
 How then call ye me the ' Joyous owe,' 
 
 For Jahveh has bowed me down, and the Almighty has brought upon me evil !
 
 LOOSER TREATMENT OF THIS HISTORY. 155 
 
 In this we distinctly hear an echo from the Book of Job, not 
 merely in the general style, but even in some single words and 
 phrases.^ 
 
 This story undoubtedly stands isolated among the many 
 historical books of the Old Testament, and we shall search in 
 vain for an historian otherwise known to us to whom we may 
 ascribe it. We must admit that we have here a narrator of a 
 perfectly individual character, whom it will be most correct to 
 regard as having lived during the Captivity ; for though con- 
 sidered by itself (as the similar cases Gen. xxxviii. and the Song 
 of Solomon show), such a narrative respecting a female ancestor 
 might readily have originated during the rule of David's house, 
 yet the whole literary treatment of this passage, and especially 
 the way in which it is mentioned (iv. 7) that a custom existed 
 ' in Israel ' formerly (which could only cease with the national 
 existence) points clearly to a later time — to an age which found 
 one of its noblest literary occujjations in reviving the glorious 
 traditions of early times, and especially those relating to David's 
 house. ^ 
 
 But it is inconceivable ä priori that an historian of that age 
 should have wi-itten and made public such a small piece by it- 
 self alone. Therefore here, as in the similar case of Jonah,^ we 
 are led to conclude that this story of Ruth is only one taken 
 from a larger series of similar pieces by the same author, and 
 that through mere chance this is the only one preserved. And 
 it certainly owes its preservation to the fact that the latest 
 editor of the Great Book of Kings, of which we shall treat im- 
 mediately, inserted it in that work at its proper place. Of this 
 we can at once produce a clear proof. For it cannot but strike 
 the reader as very curious, that the Books of Samuel never 
 describe David's family and lineage, neither where the first 
 mention of him occurs, nor elsewhere ; but on the contrary his 
 father, ] Sam. xvi. 1, enters upon the scene quite isolated and 
 without introduction. This is by no means the general style 
 of that work. David's family and lineage ought even more than 
 Samuel's (1 Sam. i. 1), or Saul's (1 Sam. ix. 1), to have been 
 explained, since David is obviously far more than either Samuel 
 or Saul the hero of the book. We may therefore justly suppose 
 
 ' See especially Job xxvii. 2. This Lut iinliickily that is only one isolated 
 freer use of the simple name ntJ' as an ancient verse. See besides Num. xxiv. 
 
 abbreviation for HK' 7X liei'e '"^"d in Ps. ' • 
 
 xci. 1, was evidently rendered possible ..' '^^^^l'^" the Jahrb. der Bihl. Wiss. 
 
 only through the grand example of the ^'^'- P- l-'jG-ö'. 
 
 Eook of Job. Possibly the first instance ' My Propheten des Alien Bundes, vol. 
 
 of this shorter form is Ps. Ixviii. 15 [14] ; ii. pp. 556-59.
 
 156 HISTORY OF HEBREW HISTORICAL COMPOSITION. 
 
 tliat tliis statement was removed from it by a later hand : but 
 tlien the conviction irresistibly forces itself upon us, that no one 
 else was so likely to do this as the author who inserted this story 
 of Ruth into the larger work, because its occurrence there ren- 
 dered the former account needless and disturbing. On this view 
 the LXX., who append this narrative without special title to the 
 Book of Judges, and place it before 1 Samuel, were quite correct ; 
 for the latest writer, seeking a fitting place for this piece, could 
 find none more suitable than this, to which it belongs according 
 to date, causing no interruption, and at the same time preparing 
 us for the immediately following history of David. And the 
 fact that in the modern Hebrew Bibles this piece is treated as 
 an independent work, and forms one of the five Megilloth, is 
 known to have its foundation only in a later collection of books 
 used in public festivals. 
 
 4. TJielatest form of these BooJcs. 
 
 Lastly, when we examine the latest form which the histor}^ of 
 the Kings assumed, the first thing which we ought to consider 
 is perhaps the remarkable influence of the Deuteronomic ideas 
 upon this field. For after the Reformation by Josiah, these 
 ideas, the age of which has been already approximately deter- 
 mined, p. 117 sqq., evidently penetrated deeper and deeper into 
 every department of life and literature. Thus they produced a 
 new mode of regarding the period of the Judges and the Kings, 
 which could not be long without influencing its treatment by 
 historians. We are still able to trace the steps by which these 
 ideas gradually gained possession of this region, and ultimately 
 quite transformed it, and produced their own peculiar aspect of 
 liistor}^ 
 
 But in the meantime books of narrative were growing more 
 and more numerous, whilst the times which they had to describe 
 were lengthening and becoming more difficult to survey. Hence 
 here as in the primeval history, the desire naturally arose to 
 fuse into one narrative, by proper selection and abridgment, 
 the rich but not always self-consistent materials which this 
 diffuse literature had produced. And the more completely the 
 Deuteronomic ideas took possession of the extensive field of 
 the history of the Judges and the Kings, and strove to illumi- 
 nate and recast its more important features, the easier did it 
 become to omit from the fuller earlier works much which under 
 this new light seemed to have lost its importance.
 
 LAST EDITOR BUT ONE. 157 
 
 1) The last Editor hut one. 
 
 a.) The beginning of tliis change niaj be very clearly dis- 
 cerned in a remodelling of the old work on the Kings described 
 p. 142 sqq., to which a large part of it as preserved to us has been 
 subjected. We here find on the one hand the freest impress of 
 the Deuteronomist, and recognise even the peculiar colours of his 
 style,' but on the other we perceive that the Deuteronomic ideas 
 are as yet very far from entirely penetrating and remodelling that 
 early work, and indeed that they only very rarely at favourable 
 opportunities here and there gained admission, as if cautiously 
 feeling their way. These two facts taken together lead to the 
 supposition that this is the first instance of an old historical 
 work being remodelled according to Deuteronomic ideas, and 
 we shall soon discover a still later labourer upon this same 
 work, already adjusted to Deuteronomic ideas. We cannot, 
 indeed, determine to a single year the time when this author 
 wrote, but all the traces which we can here observe and collect 
 lead clearly to the conclusion, that he did not compose his work 
 later than towards the close of the j^rosperous reign of Josiah. 
 
 The passages which were ■ then introduced by him into the 
 older narratives may be easily recognised, in part by their 
 Deuteronomic sentiments and peculiarities of style, and in part 
 also by the circumstance that they add nothing to the historic 
 contents of the narrative, but only present reflections, or carry 
 somewhat further a subject already given. We thus perceive 
 that it is not the history in itself, but an idea, that guided the 
 author to such expositions as seemed most wanted by his con- 
 temporaries. Besides, the words of this writer show us an age 
 in which, although the nation was much weakened, yet the 
 kingdom of David and the Temple still existed, and the hope of 
 their permanency still lingered.^ This could be no other than 
 the earliest time after the Reformation by Josiah, when the 
 declining kingdom appeared to be rising into new and glorious 
 life, and especially Jerusalem and its Temj)le to have triumphed 
 for ever over the darts of misfortune. 
 
 ' A marked instance of this is furnished 25. A characteristic expression of similar 
 
 by the highly characteristic expression meaning is ' his heart was not perfect with 
 
 'with all thy heart,' originally employed Jahveh,' 1 Kings viii. 61, xi. 4, xv. 3, 14; 
 
 by Joel ii. 12, but first made current by 2 Kings xx. 3. This is not to be attributed 
 
 tiie Deutcronomist's discourse on all mat- to the Denteronomist, as is evident from 
 
 ters of religion ; it reappears here as a pet the consideration that neither this writer 
 
 phrase, 1 Sam. vii. 3, xii. 20, 24 ; 1 Kings nor the next speaks of that love towards 
 
 ii. 4, viii. 23, 48, xiv. 8; 2 Kings x. 31. Jahveh, the urging of whicli is th(! most 
 
 But the following writer, although quite striki ng feature of the Deuteronomist ; see 
 
 Deuteronomic in his views, uses this phrase also Josh. xxii. 5, xxiii. 11. 
 much less frequently; see 2 Kings xxiii. ^ As is seen in 1 Kings viii. ix.
 
 158 HISTORY OF HEBREW HISTORICAL COMPOSITION. 
 
 "When we survey all these passages,* it becomes clear how 
 similar tliey all are in every respect, and how completely they 
 differ from the older work into which they are inserted, as 
 well as from all the earlier works already brought under con- 
 sideration. 
 
 b.) But this compiler was certainly the first who collected and 
 skilfully blended those materials of the older works which 
 appeared to him the most important ; of which the clearest 
 example is found in the long section, 1 Sam. i-1 Kings ii. Here 
 the different masses and strata of the narrative lie before us, so 
 unmixed and distinct as to be readily recognised on close in- 
 spection, and separated into their original elements ; whereas 
 from 1 Kings iii, where the great curtailment effected at a later 
 time begins, they are far more difficult to trace. It is obvious 
 that this compiler took as his basis the work of the Prophetical 
 NaiTator, the most beautiful of those ah-eady described, and 
 blended into one narrative with it all the materials he wished 
 to take from other works, as well as additions of his own. But 
 he everywhere used his own judgment in the selection of his 
 materials, and often placed them near together, with but little 
 attempt at amalgamation. The principal work also which he 
 employed as his basis he by no means gave without curtailment. 
 
 Among the additions which are not Deuteronomic, but intro- 
 duced by the compilers, we may with great probability reckon 
 the Song of Hannah, which is inserted at 1 Sam. ii. 1-20, inter- 
 
 ' These are as folloM-s : 1 Sam. vii. 3, curtailment, should now all at once adopt 
 
 4 (which two A-erses, moi-eover, disturb an opposite course. Since, on the other 
 
 the context) ; parts of 1 Sam. xii. (a narra- hand, in the subsequent history we still 
 
 tive introduced in its present form solely occasionally find indubitable traces of his 
 
 for the gake of tlae warnings attributed to liand, we must .'suppose that he treated in 
 
 Samuel, and presenting great discrepancies the same way tlie further portions of the 
 
 in its incidental historical allusions) ; 1 history of the Kings up to the reformation 
 
 Kings ii. 2-4 (where, on occasion of under Josiah, using at the same time as 
 
 David's last injunctions to Solomon, in- his basis earlier works upon the monarch)', 
 
 stead of such words as may have originally The tone and position of the words in 
 
 stood there, we now read exhortations 1 Kings iii. 14, vi. 11-13, and ix. 6-9, also 
 
 which in every particle and pliase of direct us to the same writer ; and his style 
 
 thought clearly bear a Deuteronomic iscloarlydiscerniblethroughout Solomon's 
 
 colouring. These three interpola. ions are long prayer at tlie dedication of the Temple 
 
 all that are found between 1 Sam. i. and in 1 Kings viii. 22-61, which, from its 
 
 the beginning of 1 Kings iii., — the very whole tone, and especially from verses 
 
 place in the ancient Eook of the Kings 41-43, must have lieen written before the 
 
 where the great abridgments begin, of destruction of the Temple. The favourite 
 
 which we shall soon have to spieak. Per- phrases describing David's race as a light 
 
 haps, then, this compiler himself effected set up by Jahveh in Jerusalem (1 Kings 
 
 these abridgments commencing from this xi. 36, xv. 4 ; 2 Kings viii. 19), and Jeru- 
 
 veiy passage? But the question is no salem as the chosen city of Jahveh (1 
 
 sooner asked than it must be answered in Kings viii. 29, 44. 48, ix. 3, xiv. 21; 2 
 
 llie negative ; for no reascm can be adduced Kings xxi. 4) could at no other time have 
 
 wliy a writer who up to this point had been so readily adopted by tlie historian 
 
 only made occiisional suitable additions, as during the latter part of Josiah's nign. 
 and certainly had never made any great
 
 LAST EDITOR. 159 
 
 rupting the original narrative. This poem was then undoubt- 
 edly taken from an older collection of songs, in Avhicli it stood 
 without a name, whence it was possible to have regard only in 
 the most general way to the nature of its contents, and to apply 
 it to a different age and person from the one originally intended. 
 It does not seem to have been composed by David himself 
 when he was already king, but was undoubtedly written by one 
 of the earliest kings of Judah.' 
 
 c.) Many indications show that as the author in narrating the 
 events of successive centuries approached his own times, his 
 work became more detailed, and he introduced many consider- 
 able passages of his own composition. In the story of the 
 founding of Solomon's Temple, 1 Kings ix. 6-9, he already 
 cast a true prophet's glance forward at its possible destruction, 
 just as was done by Jeremiah at that very time ; and doubtless 
 he also is the author who, in a narrative clothed in prophetic 
 form of the life of the first king of the ten tribes, 1 Kings xiii. 
 1—32, alludes to Josiah, the king of his own day, and his great 
 work ; ^ thus enabling us from the beginning of the history to 
 infer its close, and likewise approving himself as a j)rophetic 
 narrator. The work thus became truly proj^hetic not merely 
 in form but also in fact, insomuch as it contained predictions ; 
 for, though the author certainly witnessed the influence of the 
 pious king Josiah, he did not live to see the destruction of the 
 Temple, of which he only gave prophetic hints in the course of 
 his narrative. To this writer we are also undoubtedly indebted 
 for the extremely accurate and instructive account of the in- 
 ternal condition of the Samaritans toAvards the close of the reign 
 of King Josiah, 2 Kings xvii. 24-41. 
 
 2) The last Editor of the History of the Kings. 
 
 The history as it proceeded from the hand of this first Deu- 
 teronomic editor was, from all these indications, very compre- 
 hensive ; but this very extent may soon have become somewhat 
 burdensome to later readers. Besides, this work did not extend 
 to the close of the history of the Kings : hence another editor 
 might soon become necessary, who would not only shorten many 
 parts, but also add to it much that was of importance. 
 
 That one final author and collector edited the present Books of 
 Judges, Ruth, Samuel, and Kings as a whole, is to be concluded 
 
 ' Com\y,\ve my Dichter des Altc/i Bu7ichs, ^ Compare 2 Kings xxiii. 1Ö-18; if m 
 
 i. pp. 111-113; a similar instance, and verse 18 Samaria is the correct i-eading, 
 
 not far removed from this in time, has it porliaps furnishes a clue to the earlier 
 
 already Ken clucidateil (p. 123). form of the story in 1 Kings xiii. 1-32.
 
 iro HISTORY OF IlEBEEW HISTORICAL COMPOSITIOX. 
 
 from many signs, of wliicli one has been already mentioned, 
 and others will be noticed presently. This last author of the 
 present Great Book of Kings, enlarged b}" the history of the 
 Judges as an introduction, cannot have written before the 
 second half of the Babylonian Captivity, when King Jehoiachin, 
 who had been carried off very young to Babylon eleven years 
 before the destruction of Jerusalem, had been taken into favour 
 at court by one of Nebuchadnezzar's successors, and was already 
 dead.' The year of his death is not known ; but it was certainly 
 under the Chaldean rule, since his honourable restoration at the 
 Chaldean court is the last historical event the author has it in his 
 power to record of him. After the close of the Hebrew monarchy 
 history passed a very distinct verdict upon the ages succeeding 
 Moses and Joshua. The various princiiDles which had acted and 
 reacted upon each other while the great waves of that history 
 were still surging, separated themselves in the calm which suc- 
 ceeded the dissolution, and the great earnest question of the age. 
 Whence came so much misery upon the people ? not only invaded 
 the dominion of history, but even sought preeminentl}'- there 
 for its calmest answer. The true Prophets had indeed long since 
 given a general answer to such questions, and since the history' 
 had now on the whole substantiated the anxious forebodings of 
 the earlier prophets, the historian, even in that age, could not 
 well have done otherwise than enter into their truths ; but now 
 the narrator's most urgent duty was to prove the presence of 
 these truths throughout the various events of history. 
 
 But it was impossible to an age so deeply wounded in its pa- 
 triotic feelings to examine dispassionately and describe at length 
 the history of the many centuries between Joshua and the de- 
 struction of Jerusalem ; the national grief was too severe, and 
 the national inind too intent upon deriving consolation and in- 
 struction from the history, to be able to examine it impartially. 
 Hence the projihetic truths expressed in the Deuteronomic treat- 
 ment of the history which had commenced long before, became 
 yet more fully the light and life of the views now taken of 
 history. Wherever the history as a whole confirmed them, they 
 were brought prominently forward, and were used chiefly to raise 
 the student above the interminable details of history and give 
 a more lifelike view of its principles. He then who looked 
 through this long period to find an answer to the question, 
 
 _' 2 Kings XXV. 27-30; Unit tho lasl fioribes the Holy L;md as lyinq: on tho 
 
 kingr, the still older /edekiah, was already other side of the Euphrates, 1 Kings v. 4 
 
 dead, follows from .Ter. lii. 11. This last [iv. 24] (twice) ; compare Ezra iv. 10 sqq. 
 
 narrator certainly wrote in tho ncighlKHir- and a full exposition of this suhjeet ia 
 
 hofxl of the Chaldean court ; and tiiorefore the Ja/trhiuhcr der BibUschm Wissenschaft, 
 
 when he speaks in his own person he dc- vii p. 212.
 
 LAST EDITOK. 161 
 
 through what cause had the kingdom fallen, or when and how 
 had it been most flourishing, could evidently not contemplate 
 any age except that of David with unmixed pleasure, and must 
 have regarded with sorroAv the centuries which preceded, as 
 well as those which followed, this sublime historical point, 
 because they repeatedly mdicated a dissolution of the unity and 
 stability of the kingdom as well as of the true religion. But it 
 w^as especially easy to attach to his remarks on these less perfect 
 times the historical lesson and warning which was then most 
 needed, and which the author inculcates in an important pas- 
 sage repeated almost word for word in both places.' Therefore 
 while it would appear desirable to give the beautiful middle 
 portion of the history with all the detail which the records per- 
 mitted, enough might seem to be done for the two long side- 
 pieces, the earlier and the later history, with their many painful 
 occurrences, by rendering the narrative as concise as possible, 
 so as to bring j^rominently forward only the general lesson of 
 the history. In accordance with all this the whole history 
 must have been divided by this last compiler into the three fol- 
 lowing main sections : 
 
 a.) He placed first the present Book of Judges as an intro- 
 duction to the history of the Monarchy. For this book, in its 
 present form, was attached to the present Books of Samuel 
 with the single object of having here the history of the Judges 
 and the Kings, i. e. of the whole period after Joshua, brought 
 together. This is made clear by a peculiar expression of the last 
 author respecting Samson, namely, that he had begun to deliver 
 Israel from the power of the Philistines.^ But if Samson only 
 began this deliverance, then the reader naturally expects to be 
 told of its further ]3rosecution by others after his death. Thus 
 a hint is already furnished by anticipation of the history of Eli, 
 Samuel, and David, and it cannot therefore be afiu-med that the 
 conclusion of the present Book of Judges closes the history and 
 
 ' Tho passages meant are Judges ii. 6- inhabitants of the kingdom of Judah. Bnt 
 
 23 and 2 Kings xvii. 7-23, which both in on carefid consideration the former as- 
 
 thougiit and in expression so closely re- sumption appears not only probable but 
 
 semlde each other (see especially '^>2 103 absolutely certain, from the relative posi- 
 
 D'Db' Judg. ii. 14, 16: 2 Kings ^xvü. tion as well as from the stjde of tho two 
 
 • ^ passages : see Jahrb. der ßibl. \y it!S. x. 
 
 20, a phrase very unusual in prose) that ^ n,, j^ jg ^\^^ specially noteworthy 
 
 we cannot well help attributing both to jj^.^^^ -^^ ^ Kings xiii. 4, 5, xiv. 26,27, the 
 
 the same writer. Otherwise we must sup- i.^^^st witer views and describes the rais- 
 
 pose that the last compder, having received ; j^^, ^,p ^f Jehoahaz precisely as in Judg. 
 
 from previous ages the Book of Judges in ij_ 54 j,qq_ jj^ ^^^^ ^jo^g tlj.^^ ^f the Judges, 
 its present form, imitated It as an antique ■, judges xiii. 5; this is the obvious 
 
 work; and certainly the 'driving out of meaning of this passage, confirmed also 
 
 the land' mentioned in Judges xviii. 30, | . y^-^^^ 25. 
 need not include also the captivity of the 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 1G2 IIISTOEY OF HEBREW HISTORICAL COMPOSITION. 
 
 renders tliat book independent of what follows. In truth, the 
 conclusion of the series of Judges formed by Samson's tragical 
 fate is so unsatisfactory as to be to the reader the first strong- 
 stimulus to know the further course of the Hebrew-Philistine 
 history. But the last author seems to have wanted either the 
 materials or the inclination to fill up the short interval between 
 the death of Samson and the middle of the rule of the already 
 aged Eli ; and he had only (as already shown, p. 155 sq.) the 
 story of Euth to fill up this gap. 
 
 The last author then did nothing with reference to the strictly 
 historical matter beyond combining the two earlier works on the 
 age of the Judges, the very diverse character of which has been 
 already explained p. 140 sq., p. 151, and working them up in 
 Deuteronomic fashion, to use a brief expression. Here again 
 we find the essential feature of the work to be, not the actual 
 narrative and history of earlier times, but the way in which the 
 history is treated and used for the deduction of moral lessons. 
 
 (i) The author began with a general introduction taken from 
 the ancient Avork, which, according to p. 141, viewed this period 
 without regard to the military leaders of the people ; and he 
 there described how the tribes had not conquered the whole 
 country, and had in so far failed to accomplish the Divine plan, 
 Judges i-ii. 5 ; a passage which seems to be greatly curtailed, 
 and would be much more intelligible if we had the original at 
 full length before us. 
 
 (m) Then the author, passing from the death of Joshua to the 
 description of the Judges, and following the other authorities 
 already noticed (p. 151 sq.), first presents a general survey of 
 the entire period of these Judges and of their position while it 
 lasted, ii. 6-iii. 4. And this point of the history gives to the 
 Deuteronomic ideas and doctrine an opportunity of their freest 
 and fullest expression. Sins against Jahveh, repentance, and 
 amendment, are the three pivots on which the Deuteronomic 
 scheme turns. The nation which during that age, after each 
 effort at amendment and the successive raising-up of each great 
 deliverer or judge relapsed again into unfaithfulness and then 
 into misfortune, furnishes at once the example and the lesson, 
 how faithless behaviour towards Jahveh always punishes itself, 
 and the greatest national sufferings then become necessary for 
 tlie moral probation and purification of the nation. In order 
 to establish the truth of this doctrine in each individual case 
 occurring from iii. 7 to xvi, the writer commences his account of 
 the first Judges, and then of each of the five others of whom 
 there was much to tell, with a previous falling-away from
 
 LAST EDITOR. 1Ö3 
 
 Jaliveh, and misery consequent thereupon, the pressure of 
 which brought the people back again to Jahveh, who then 
 raised up the true deliverer. In the few principal actions of 
 the j)eriod more life is occasionally infused into this monoto- 
 nous narrative by a beautiful description of a Proj^het in times 
 of miser)' raising his voice in sorrow or in anger to declare the 
 truth to the people, vi. 7-10, x. 10-16. In these descriptions 
 the author unquestionably had in his thoughts the older 
 passage, ii. 1-5, which sounds more historical, besides such 
 passages as 1 Sam. ii. 27 sqq. In the actual history of the 
 Judges the author generally adopts the narrative of the earlier 
 authority almost verbally. But in the case of Samson, the last 
 of these Judges, whose life was also given by the compiler by 
 abridgment from a special work (see p. 152), and served as a 
 fitting occasion to explain the nature and origin of Nazaritism, 
 this lofty introduction exjjands into a grand picture of Divine 
 manifestation and annunciation, xiii. 1-24, such as the Fourth 
 Narrator of the primeval history loves, according to p. Ill sq. 
 This however comprises almost all that the last author has 
 added of his own, for elsewhere he has merely shortened or 
 slightly altered the wording of his authority, but added nothing 
 of importance to the history itself. And if we reflect that he 
 nowhere distinctly describes the evil to which, after each 
 amendment of their conduct, the people constantly recurred 
 during that age of vicissitudes (for such names as Baal and 
 Astarte are used quite loosely according to the custom of after- 
 times, and assert nothing distinctly but the relaj^se from 
 Jahveh), there can be no doubt that the description of in- 
 dividual events was coloured by his general conception of the 
 period ; just as the same author in the Books of Kings calls 
 each individual king of the Northern Kingdom wicked without 
 any qualification, because to his peculiar conception that king- 
 dom was intrinsically corrupt. 
 
 (Hi) The whole is closed (ch. xvii-xxi) with fragments from 
 the very different ancient authority mentioned p. 140, which 
 described two remarkable events of that age external to the 
 circle of the Judges. Here the last compiler is still further 
 from adding or changing anything ; for nothing even of a 
 Deuteronomic tendency is given. But if we ask wherefore this 
 compiler (or possibly even the former one) inserted only these 
 two stories, since he doubtless found many similar ones in the 
 document whence they were taken, the most obvious reply is, 
 that both relate to Levites, and moreover to Levites from Beth- 
 lehem (xvii. 7, xix. 1), and thus possessed an especial interest
 
 1G4 HISTOra' OF HEBREW HISTORICAL COMrOSITION. 
 
 for an autlior wlio iiiidoiibtedl}' sprang- from Juclali, and was 
 probably a Levite.' 
 
 The time at wliicli tliis book thus received its present form 
 cannot in general be matter of doubt, owing to its Deuteronomic 
 principles ; there are also found distinct traces of dependence 
 on the Book of the Law in its latest development. The wordy 
 description (xiii.) of the angel's appearance to Samson's parents 
 obviously imitates many shorter delineations of similar events 
 which the author found in the older books of law and history f 
 and the phrase ' they turned quickly out of the way which their 
 fathers walked in,' ii. 17, is both here and in Dent. ix. 16 taken 
 from a story given by the Fourth Narrator in the Book of the 
 Law, Ex. xxxii. 8, where it is undoubtedly far more genuine 
 and perfectly approj^riate. It is also a very decisive circum- 
 stance that where the author begins to sj^eak freely from 
 himself, ii. 6-10, he takes up the thread from the last words of 
 the present Book of Joshua xxiv. 28-33. ISTow here words are 
 found which cannot have been inserted by any earlier writer 
 than the Deuteronomist. ^ It would be incorrect to conclude 
 from this that the author wished to combine the history of the 
 Judges into one whole with the Book of Joshua and the Pen- 
 tateuch ; for he merely joins on at the end of Joshua for the 
 sake of a suitable commencement, and it cannot be jjroved that 
 in early times these books were ever united (see p. 114 sq.). But 
 it does follow from the above fact that, at the time of the author, 
 the Deuteronomist had long completed his work. 
 
 b.) The history of the Origin of the Monarchy until the acces- 
 sion of Solomon is given by the latest author entirel}^ or almost 
 entirely, unchanged from the previous compilation. For it was 
 not till after Solomon's time that the lesson that the kingdom 
 had fallen because the greater number of its princes had fostered 
 the repression of the higher and purer religion, assumed pro- 
 minence in the history. And as David had in fact remained 
 very true to the ancient religion, and in the later times was 
 moreover looked upon as the single perfect example in that long 
 list of kings, of a good ruler and faithful worshipper of Jahveh, 
 
 ' The fact tliat tlie Book of Kuth is preceding Deuteronomic narrative ; and 
 
 concerned witli Bethlelieni has no con- verse 31 must be by the Deuteronomist, 
 
 nection with this, as has been pointed out on account of the phrases cp^ 'n''")!Sn 
 
 P-;^^^ ^'l- Dcut. iv. 26, 40, V. (16) 30 [SS],\-l €x\. 
 
 "The principal passages whicli the 0, xvii. 20, xxii. 7, xxv. 15, xxx. 18, xxxii. 
 
 author liad in view in chap. xiii. are Gen. 47, and niH'' nL*'])?3 Deut. iii. 24, xi. 3, 
 
 xvi and XXV. 21, also Judges vi. 17 sq.; 7. MoreoV«-, aecönling to p. 114. some- 
 
 wc hnd likewiKC, 1 /, 18, an amphhcahon „.i^g ,;„,;,,,, f,.^,^ tlie hand of the l<ifth 
 
 ot theshorternnagcGen.xxxu. 3()|20]. Narmtor of the primeval history must 
 
 '■> Josh. xxiv. 28 is connected with Ihc have originally stood here.
 
 LAST EDITOR. 165 
 
 it was believed to be not from David's reign, but only from that 
 of his successor, until the first overthrow of the kingdom, that 
 the introduction of foreign religions and the dissolution of the 
 ancient order had been dragging the state down into corruj)tion 
 and inevitable ultimate destruction. The history of the mon- 
 archy therefore was divided by this author into two halves, 
 separated b}^ David's death : on the first of these, which was 
 almost entirely filled by the personality of David, the thought 
 and hope of the writer's age dwelt with evident joy and exulta- 
 tion ; and as moreover David's idealised image had become 
 an inexhaustible source of consolation and instruction for the 
 Messianic hopes, the author j^ublished this first half, up to the 
 accession of Solomon, in its original fulness, without any notice- 
 able omission or addition. 
 
 But apparently it was this last editor who finally added some 
 fragments of David's biography which he had at first designed 
 to omit ; at all events this is the simplest exj)lanation of the 
 order in which the fragments in 2 Sam. xxi-xxiv. now stand 
 (see above, p. 148). We may also plausibly assume that the 
 Chronicler had here before him the compilation of the previous 
 Deuteronomic editor : he read the passage 2 Sam. xxiv. in 
 another order (see p. 148 sq.) ; and he found the long list of 
 David's heroes which is given in 2 Sam. xxiii. 8-39, and is pro- 
 bably extracted from the State-annals, standing after 2 Sam. v. 
 10 (see 1 Chron. xi. 10-47) and in a more complete state. 
 
 c.) From Solomon's time, however, he gives only extracts 
 from this and olher earlier records, as if this long period of 
 ever-increasing dulness and darkness required only the briefest 
 description. But he begins here again to treat the history in 
 his independent way, to make it the medium for his own views, 
 and to add to the older book whatever he thought suitable. It 
 may therefore be said that the first half of the earlier great 
 work on the kings, which reaches to 1 Kings ii, was only re- 
 edited by the later writer, but that the latter half, from 1 Kings 
 iii, may be justl}^ considered as his own work. It might there- 
 fore have been divided into two parts more correctly than has 
 been done : — 1. the history of the Kings until Solomon's ac- 
 cession to the throne (the present Books of Samuel and 1 Kings 
 i. ii.) ; 2. the Kings from Solomon to the Captivity (the present 
 Books of Kings from 1 Kings iii.). The LXX., who enumerate 
 2 (4) Books of Kings after the Book of Judges, show at all 
 events more perception of the original connection of this great 
 work. And to discriminate the first from the second half, the 
 name of Book or Books of Samuel, on account of that hero's
 
 166 HISTORY OF HEBREW HISTORICAL COMPOSITION. 
 
 importance, would not be wholly inappropriate to the former, 
 only that the first two chapters of the Book of Kings ought to 
 be added to it. 
 
 The author himself indicates the chief extracts he has made 
 from other works, by referring* at the close of Solomon's life to 
 the Book of the Acts of Solomon (1 Kings xi. 41), and at the 
 close of the life of each king of both kingdoms to the State- 
 annals of one or the other kingdom, as the place where more of 
 the history might be found. An exception to this is made only 
 by the last king of each kingdom (which curious fact has been 
 already noticed, p. 137 note), and by the two kings Jehoahaz 
 and Jehoiachin,^ each of whom reigned only three months, so 
 that the State-annals probably did not contain much more than 
 is here narrated of them. In the life of David and Saul, on the 
 other hand, such references are evidently wanting only because 
 the last editor does not much curtail his principal document 
 before 1 Kings iii. The ' Life of Solomon ' also, to which the 
 author refers, was probably not a separate work, but only a part 
 or one volume of his chief authority. This previous compiler 
 may have constantly referred to the State-annals ; but we have 
 no reason for doubting that the last editor also consulted them. 
 From the method of quotation however thus much is certain, 
 that the author either wholly omitted, or greatly shortened, 
 most of the particulars given in these authorities respecting the 
 wars, the buildings (if not ecclesiastical), and other secular en- 
 terprises of the kings, as also their mere personal affahs ; but 
 on the other hand retained in fall whatever referred to religion 
 and especially to the Temple. In this he was governed by 
 certain fixed principles ; for instance, although elsewhere not 
 telling much of the j)ersonality of the kings, yet in the case of 
 each king of Judah, he mentions his mother's name, evidently 
 on account of the important part generally taken by the queen- 
 mother in the government, especially when the king was a 
 minor. ^ But that he abridged the narrative of his authorities 
 even when he aimed at completeness is seen by a comparison of 
 2 Kings xviii. 9-xx. with Isaiah xxxvi-xxxix, where he omits 
 song of Hezekiah. 
 
 The most important element added by the author, the pro- 
 phetic lesson of the long history commencing with Solomon, is 
 expounded most openly at the point where he speaks of the 
 
 ' 2 Kiiif^.s xxiii. 31-35, xxiv. 8-17. It it miglit for tliat very reason not be re- 
 is true tliat an account of the reign of the ceived into the State-annals of Judah. 
 last king of Judah was prepared very ^ See 1 Kings xv. 13, which is here 
 early (see p. 167, note) ; but as tliis could decisive ; also ii. 19. 
 receive no authentication from a successor.
 
 LAST EDITOR. 167 
 
 overtlirow of the Northern Kingdom, indicates its canses, and 
 at the same time casts a glance upon the coming similar over- 
 throw of the Southern Kingdom, 2 Kings xvii. 7-23 ; but, even 
 in the middle of Solomon's life, the author takes a suitable 
 opportunity to introduce the same truth in the words of the 
 previous compiler, 1 Kings ix. 6 9; and thus, though less for- 
 cibly than in earlier writings (p. 159), is reproduced the pro- 
 phetic treatment of the history, since its entire course from 
 Solomon corroborates the warning revealed to him in a dream 
 at its commencement. And as the early fall of the yet guiltier 
 Northern Kingdom is the centre of the evil elements of this 
 history, so do its good elements centre round the pious king 
 Josiah, who radically extirpated the worship on high places, 
 and carried out a national reformation with equal sincerity and 
 power, 2 Kings xxii. sqq. And as our author, in agreement 
 with the previous compiler (compare p. 159) and many of the 
 Prophets, ascribes the ruin of the kingdom of Judah especially 
 to this worship on high places, he takes care to observe at the 
 very outset of his own writing (1 Kings iii. 2 : comp. xi. 7-10) 
 that they existed even in Solomon's time ; and adds to his 
 account of even each good king of this kingdom, that in pro- 
 tecting them he did what he ought not to have done. The fact 
 that he calls every king of the Northern Kingdom without ex- 
 ception an evil-doer in the sight of Jahveh, arises from his 
 general view of the origin and nature of that kingdom ; but he 
 thus designates all those kings of the Southern Kingdom also 
 who had favoured idolatry. It is especially these standing 
 judgments pronounced upon each ruler Avhich impress upon the 
 work the stamp of that melancholy desolation which at the 
 time of its composition weighed heavily upon the dispersed 
 nation. Thus also in the general treatment of this part the 
 same method is discernible which characterises the present 
 Book of Judges (p. 162 sq.). 
 
 We here see in brief which of our author's editions were 
 most specially his own ; but besides these it is obvious that he 
 also wrote and appended the life of the last king Zedekiah, 
 which was not yet inscribed in the history of the kingdom,' as 
 also the still later narratives. The later portions of the stories 
 of Elisha may have been introduced by him, as they appear to 
 
 ' It is clear that the writer had access appended to the Book of Jeremiah the 
 
 to WTitten authorities, from 2 Kings xxv. whole of chap. Iii. from the same source, 
 
 22-26, which is derived fi-omJer. xl-xliii ; omitting however the narrative 2 Kings 
 
 on the other hand Jer. xxxix. received xxv. 22-26, because he knew that it had 
 
 many additions from this end of the been already given in Jer. xl-xliii. 
 Books of Kings, and a still later compiler
 
 168 
 
 HISTORY OF HEBREW HISTORICAL COMPOSITION. 
 
 be merely further developments of old materials,' and witli 
 respect to their contents, which are far removed fe-om the fulness 
 and substance of the older histories, stand upon the same level 
 as the story in 1 Kings xiii. 1-32. 
 
 The hand of this latest author is recognisable besides, not 
 only in certain favourite phrases,^ but also in a great infusion 
 of later and foreign elements of speech, of a kind which we 
 have not as yet seen in any historian from Judah. This in- 
 fusion however appears only occasionally, and is far from per- 
 meating the whole work. Many of these foreign words, too, 
 may be attributable to the authorities employed by the author.^ 
 
 ' Even from very different regions : 2 
 Kings iv. 14-16 springs from Gen. xviii. 
 9-11, and 2 Kings vi. 17-20 from Gen. 
 xix. 11. It is often very characteristic of 
 such imitations that they flow copiously 
 from one single passage, as if it alone had 
 been in the mind of the later wTiter. 
 
 - We may here class ii "|J^J;3 y-in HCJ'y 
 which is as frequent in Deuteronomy, 
 Judges, and 1 Kings iii. sq. as it is else- 
 where rare (Num. xxxii. 13 ; 1 Sam. xv. 
 
 19 ; 2 Sam. xii. 9). ")3iprin in 2 Kings 
 xvii. 17, imitating 1 Kings xxi. 20, 25 ; 
 the use of pi for only, and the constant 
 use of IX ihm, in the loose transitions, 
 which occur especially frequently in abridg- 
 ments of liistories ; 1 Kings iii. 16, viii. 
 1, 12, ix. (11) 24, xi. 7, xvi. 21, xxii. 50 
 
 [49] ; 2 Kings viii. 22, xii. 18 [17], xiv. 
 8, XV. 16, xvi. 5 ; also the use of *y~lK in 
 
 narrative, 1 Kings iii. 10, but not the 
 
 frequent employment of DTIPX in the same 
 (iii. 5, 11, 28, V. 9 [iv. 29], x. 24, xi. 23, 
 xii. 22), as this may be derived from the 
 original authority. 
 
 ^ As, for instance, we may notice that 
 the strongly Aramaic form nVSJO (hun- 
 dreds), is found only in 2 Kings xi. a few 
 times, and even there is avoided in verse 
 19 ; and that ^"iTl is found only in 1 Kings 
 xxi. 8, 11; rii3''"ip only in 1 Kings xx. 
 14 sqq.; niPID only in 1 Kings x. 15, xx. 
 24 ; 2 Kings xviii. 24, and an Aramaic 
 infinitive only in 2 Kings v. 18. Tlio 
 occurrence of the relative — .^\ 2 Kings 
 
 vi. 11 depends on a doubtful reading (see 
 my Sprachlehre, seventh ed. p. 474).
 
 LATEST BOOK (CHRONICLES, ETC.). 169 
 
 III. THE LATEST BOOK OF GENEEAL HISTOEY. 
 
 CHRONICLES, WITH THE BOOKS OF EZRA AND NEHEMIAH.' 
 
 The trial-days of the Captivity, and the commencement of 
 the restoration of Jerusalem, were succeeded by centuries which 
 in many respects niig-ht be expected to be peculiarly favourable 
 to the composition of history. The close connection into 
 which the history of the Hebrews now entered with that of the 
 Persians and many other heathen nations, might render their 
 historical view wider, and their historical perception more 
 delicate. Literary activity now penetrating- deeper and deeper 
 into all classes, even the non-prophetical and non-sacerdotal, 
 was enabled to follow closer and more fully upon the events, 
 and thus to produce a profusion of most various works respect- 
 ing contemporary history itself. And in fact this good fortune 
 was not wanting. A new phenomenon in historical literature 
 is presented by the memorabilia of contemporaries, in which lay- 
 men and others note down with fresh feeling, and from accurate 
 personal recollection, what seems to them worthy of record for 
 the instruction of postei'ity, or perhaps even more for their own 
 satisfaction. Biographical memoirs of this kind, written by 
 men who influence their time through their own force of cha- 
 racter, or even are its chief support and leaders, can scarcely 
 arise earlier than the final margin of a long series of historical 
 literature. Though often presenting rather the warm feelings 
 of an individual than a calm consideration and short survey 
 of more weighty matters, these memoirs, as a glass truly re- 
 flecting the special history of the time, occupy a very different 
 rank from all ordinary historical works. "We find the most 
 distinct example of this in the somewhat comprehensive frag- 
 ments of a book by Nehemiah himself, incorporated in the 
 existing Book of Nehemiah. Other examples, which are scat- 
 tered more widely throughout the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah, 
 and therefore more difficult to discover, will be better treated 
 afterwards. As Nehemiah was a layman in high office, who 
 clearly did not aspire to the name and fame of a scholar or 
 ' See Göit. Gel Anz., 1864, pp. 1205-80.
 
 170 HISTORY OF HEBREW HISTORICAL COMPOSITION. 
 
 writer (for thus he exhibits himself in his memoir), we must 
 infer from his exam^^le that this kind of occasional authorship 
 was very frequent in those days. 
 
 But in other respects these ages took a form less and less 
 favourable to the writing- of history, as is sulhciently proved by 
 such strictly historical works as have come down to us from 
 them. When the general national life was sinking deeper and 
 deeper into confusion and weakness, away from the bold eleva- 
 tion which in the beginning of the restoration of Jerusalem it 
 seemed about to attain, how then should the historic art alone 
 have progressed and flourished, or even saved itself from the 
 insidious decay which the nation generally could not escape ? 
 The chronicler of a people submitting unwillingly to foreign 
 or to tyrannical rule, as was then the fate of Israel, is not 
 in a position to look straight at things ; nor has he scope 
 to look freely around him either, when his nation, driven into 
 the utmost straits, falls more and more under the influence 
 of vague and faithless fears. This decline in the character of 
 the historical works, being an inherent necessity, could not fail 
 to appear in that age of Hebrew history ; indeed its primary 
 origin has already been observed in the last works of the preced- 
 ing period. The fresh wants and tastes of a later age demanded 
 fresh histories ; and there are many indications that if possible 
 even more was now written in this department than in earlier 
 days. The spirit of the old religion, which animated the earlier 
 histories, could not at once be wholly lost or changed in the 
 new works ; although after a considerable lapse of time such a 
 change is undoubtedly very observable, manifesting itself first 
 only in certain peculiar books. But in general, the image pre- 
 sented to us in the historical works of those times, even where 
 they describe antiquity and the better days of old, is yet only 
 that of a community, subjected to many forms of internal re- 
 pression, but all the more proud of its ancient blessings, and 
 therefore increasingly anxious to retain these, and priding itself 
 only in tlie cause of the ancient religion and its glorification. 
 
 In the Books of Chronicles, and those of Ezra and Nehemiah, 
 which (as I shall hereafter j)rove) originally belonged to them,' 
 we possess the most comprehensive and marked work of this 
 
 ' The unity of these books has also sion of this kind is not difficult to reach ; 
 
 heenrecognhed ])y Zwnz (Gottcsdicnstliehe Imt the important and fruitful question 
 
 Vorträge der Juden, Berlin, 1832, p. 21). for us is, how the hypotlicsis of the unity 
 
 In ignorance of the views there advocated, of Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah is to 
 
 I liad been brought by independent in- be followed up and maintained in connec- 
 
 vestigation to the same result. Richard tion with a correct appreciation of the 
 
 Simon also attributes Ezra i-vi. to the writer and his work, 
 author of Chronicles. A general conclu-
 
 LATEST BOOK (CHRONICLES, ETC.). 171 
 
 age. For tlie more perfect understanding of this work in its 
 entire bearing, it is desirable first to ascertain its age with all 
 possible certainty and accuracy. One way to this is already 
 opened in the statement just made res2)ecting the connection 
 existing between the Books of Ezra and Neliemiah and the 
 Chronicles ; for the essential question then is, what was the 
 earliest period at which these books, which carry down the 
 history to the furthest point, could have been written. With- 
 out attempting to exhaust this question here, we may at once 
 assume as evident, that the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah 
 cannot have received their present form prior to the fourth 
 century before Christ, because in some passages they sj)eak 
 of Ezra and Nehemiah as men who in a past age acted to- 
 gether for the benefit of the community,' and even look back 
 with scarcely concealed regret to the days of Zerubbabel and 
 Nehemiah, as to a better age in which excellent arrangeinents 
 with regard to the offerings due to the priesthood were es- 
 tablished and observed.^ 
 
 But besides all this, more definite signs are found in some 
 genealogies which the author introduces. Among the numerous 
 catalogues of families and comj^anies which the work presents 
 in eveiy part, we find two families which the author evidently 
 regards as preeminent in nobility and dignity, and whose 
 lineage he therefore describes in greater detail, and carries for- 
 ward to a lower point than that of any other. The first of these 
 is the royal family of David, as it had descended from the latest 
 kings of Judall ; which though not possessed of actual authority 
 was certainly still looked upon by many with a certam prefer- 
 ence and reverence, so that it was never forgotten which mem- 
 ber of the family would have been ruler if external circum- 
 stances had been favourable.^ The second is the High-priest's 
 family,* which did then actually exercise a sort of authority, and 
 whose living representative must have been well known to all 
 contemporaries. The author needs no justification for sedu- 
 lously distinguishing these two families, and these alone, by 
 tracing their genealogy with gi-eater detail and carrying it down 
 to a lower point. But it is equally clear that he carried it 
 
 ' Neh. viii. 2, 9, xii. 26. and iu vii. 13 add several additional 
 
 - This is qnito the tone of Neh. xii. 47; generations to the series, are probably 
 
 while there is no doubt that it was written based only on a misunderstanding of the 
 
 by the same -vvTiter. writer's mode of exhibiting the line. 
 
 * 1 Chr. iii. 1 7-24, where the chronolo- ■• Neh. xii. 10, 1 1 , compare verse 22 ; the 
 
 gical series, whii-h is somewhat difficult to series of High-priests do^^^l to Jesliua the 
 
 make out, is as follows : 1, Zerubbabel ; 2, first priest of the New Temple was already 
 
 Hananiah ; 3, iShechaniah ; 4, Shemaiah ; given in 1 Chr. v. 29-41 [vi. 3-1.5]; eom- 
 
 5, Neariah ; G, Eliocnai ; 7, Hodaiah. The pare Ezra iii. 2. 
 various readings of the LXX. , which here
 
 172 HISTORY OF HEBREW HISTORICAL COMPOSITIOX. 
 
 doAvn exactly as far as events permitted, so tliat the last name 
 in each genealogy was that of the then living head of the 
 family ; the contrary supposition is untenable, because there is 
 no reason apparent why these genealogies, so exceptionally 
 carried down many generations beyond the Babylonish Captivity, 
 should close earlier than with the last known member. When 
 we have thus determined the lowest point reached by this his- 
 tory, the problem then is to calculate correctly this series of 
 generations, and to discover the same names, in case they are 
 found to occur in the history which is known to us from other 
 sources. The first point that here strikes us as important is 
 that the royal line from Zerubbabel, that is from the time after 
 the Captivity, is brought down through six members, and that of 
 the High-priests from Joshua, the contemporary of Zerubbabel, 
 thi-ough five. This slight variation may be regarded as tending 
 to prove that both series were actually brought down to the 
 author's time. If therefore we reckon thirty years to a genera- 
 tion, these five or six generations after Zerubbabel and Joshua 
 bring us 1 50 or 200 years further down, so that we find our- 
 selves in the latest years of the Persian, or at the utmost in the 
 earliest years of the Greek dominion, and hence we may safely 
 conclude that this work could not have been written before, but 
 also certainly not after this point of time. To this may be 
 added as decisive, the testimony furnished elsewhere, that 
 Jaddua the last High-priest here mentioned, lived until the 
 commencement of the Greek rule.' 
 
 In the absence however of any distinct date, the question is 
 still open, whether the work was written in the last period of 
 the Persian rule, or at the commencement or even at a somewhat 
 later period of the Greek. But on a close examination, we do 
 not merely fail to discover in it any token however slight which 
 might point to a lengthened duration of the Greek rule, but it 
 may be shown that every probability is in favour of the contrary 
 supposition. Por the two genealogies just named, which are 
 brought down to the writer's age, stand in this respect quite 
 alone ; the real history closes with the days of Ezra and Nehe- 
 miah, beyond which we only find these two genealogies, extend- 
 ing to a later period ; that of the royal house being given at 
 the beginning of the work, and the later portion of that of the 
 High-priest being interwoven with the history of Ezra and 
 Nehemiah. This peculiarity of the work is easily accounted 
 
 ' Josephus, Antiquities, xi. cap. vii. 2, sents cannot be discussed here. But the 
 
 cap. viii., according to which he -was High- tone of Nch. xii. 22 shows that he had 
 
 priest already under the Persian ride, long been High-priest when the book was 
 
 Other difficulties which this passage pro- written.
 
 LATEST BOOK (CHRONICLES, ETC.). 173 
 
 for. It is always difficult, and often unpleasant, for a writer to 
 bring the general history of his country down to his own times, 
 and therefore many writers intentionally avoid doing so. Most 
 historians, whose subject is not limited to remote antiquity or 
 to some definite i^eriod, would content themselves with carrying 
 down the thread of the narrative only to the most recent pros- 
 perous or momentous events, and mention the affairs of their 
 own day only incidentally and for special reasons. Now it ad- 
 mits of easy explanation why a writer, living during the latest 
 period of the Persian or the earliest of the Greek rule, should 
 have broken off the thread of the history with the last glorious 
 days of Jerusalem under Ezi-a and Nehemiah : the following 
 decads of years brought with them nothing grand or cheering 
 to reward the trouble of describing them ; and this work gene- 
 rally seems to take pleasure in describing only the prosperous 
 side of the history of Jerusalem. If, on the other hand, the 
 Greek rulers had then already made friendly advances towards 
 the people, and Greek freedom had already produced favourable 
 results even to Jerusalem, it would be inconceivable that a 
 general history, such as this work aspires to be, could leave 
 wholly unnoticed this last revolution of events, and the advan- 
 tages hence accruing to the Holy City. A comparison with the 
 example of the Book of Kings (p. 159 sq.) will make the truth 
 of this observation apparent. Now the way in which Cyrus 
 and his successors are constantly mentioned as Persian kings,* 
 proves that the Greek rule had already commenced ; but it cer- 
 tainly had not lasted long, and we may regard the work as 
 having been written somewhere about the time of the death of 
 Alexander. 
 
 1. If this be the age of the work, we can thence infer its 
 immediate object. It is intended to be a universal history, 
 arranged moreover on the same system as is adopted by the 
 Arabs in their ordinary works of this kind, in which the narra- 
 tive sets out from the creation of mankind and a multitude of 
 nations, but from this extensive field soon contracts itself to 
 the narrow limits of the one nation for which it was written. 
 But the people for which the chronicle under consideration was 
 written, was so inferior, in extent of territory and in greatness 
 and power, to the ancient nation, that it could not be properly 
 regarded as the same. In Samaria, the centre of the old He- 
 brew territory, a people was now established of whose affinity 
 vritli themselves the lords in Jerusalem would know nothing ; 
 
 ' Ezra i. 1 ('1 Clir. xxxvi. 2'2), iv. r», 24, liiinrl ITagsai and Zrcli. i-viii., Ezra iv. 7, 
 vii. 1, Nell. xil. 22; compare on the other vi. 1, Nch. i. 11, ii. 1 !-q'^.
 
 174 HISTOEY OF HEBREW HISTORICAL COMPOSITION. 
 
 and from wliicli they felt themselves for ever separated by the 
 bitterest of all enmities, religious repugnance. And as little re- 
 mained of the ancient possessions of the people but its religion, 
 and that conceived in the form of the then rising hierarchy, the 
 religion itself had in Jerusalem alone its narrow circle and 
 fixed abode. Hence this general history, from its object and 
 its plan, was enabled to draw its circle much narrower than 
 similar works written at an earlier time, and necessarily became 
 very different from them in its spirit and tone. 
 
 As to the country and the nation of which this work treats, 
 we find it to be preeminently a history of Jerusalem only. To 
 this single city the narrative hastens on as soon as possible, 
 from the vast compass embraced by it at its commencement, 
 and then remains fixed there up to its close. The shortest and 
 at the same time most accurate name for the work would be 
 ' Chronicle of Jerusalem,' especially if this name were under- 
 stood in the rather wider sense in which the name of the 
 kingdom of Jerusalem was employed during the middle ages. 
 Everything relating to this city and the surrounding country 
 is treated with the greatest interest ; even the nature of the 
 city population, composed of very various fragments of tribes, 
 appeared to the author impoi"tant enough to deserve a careful 
 description, both as it was before the destruction, 1 Chron. ix. 
 1-34, and also as it was reestablished after the restoration of 
 the city, Neli. xi-xii ; but in this catalogue little notice is 
 taken of the inhabitants of the surrounding country. And the 
 author not only entirely passes over the history of the rival 
 city of Samaria, when describing the new Jerusalem, but in 
 the earlier period, before the destruction of the city, omits the 
 history of the Northern Kingdom almost totally, although his 
 constant citation of ' the History of the Kings of Judah and 
 Israel ' proves him to have had before him a work similar in 
 character to our present Books of Kings. And indeed, at that 
 time, the origin of Jerusalem reached so far back into the 
 memory of a remote antiquity, and the city, having long re- 
 covered from its overthrow, seemed to have been so sj)ecially 
 destined from the earliest times to become an imperishable 
 sanctuary, that it is easy to understand how it could be made 
 the pivot upon which to hang a universal history.^ 
 
 Thus restricted almost to a history of Jerusalem, the work 
 further becomes a history esj)ecially of the religion of that city, 
 
 ' The determination of the writer to tlie holy city, is especially observable in an 
 leave unnoticed the period of the Judges, alteration which he makes in 2 Chr. xxxv. 
 bocause then Jerusalem had not yet become 18 compared with 2 Kings xxiii. 22.
 
 LATEST BOOK (CHRONICLES, ETC.). 175 
 
 as tlio single mip^lity power wliicli still subsisted tliere in its 
 pristine force. Not that the author looked back without ad- 
 miration and regret upon the times when Jerusalem enjoyed 
 also the secular sway of the kingdom of David ; the very 
 carrying down of David's race from Zerubbabel to the author's 
 own age, of which notice has been already taken, p. 172 sq., 
 is a speaking testimony to the contrary. But the fact re- 
 mained, that in the new Jerusalem, as it had existed for the 
 last two hundred years, the ancient religion only had proved 
 itself imperishable, and thereby obtained individual sway over 
 many hearts, so that it was even then putting forth a new 
 life in many of its branches. It is this interest m religion as 
 it then existed and was understood, which induced the author 
 throughout the course of this long history to dwell so much 
 upon Priests of every kind, upon the Temple and its institu- 
 tions, and upon all other religious usages, as well as to set 
 forth with obvious sympathy and in full detail the merits of 
 those kings and great men who had gained a name in the 
 history of religion. This is the precise point upon which this 
 work differs most from the present Books of Kings, even in 
 those passages in which it would otherwise have fully coincided 
 with them, for it enlarges upon much that in them was either 
 entirely passed over or very shortly touched u]3on. And as 
 according to p. 160 sqq., the Books of Kings treat the history so 
 entirely in agreement with prophetical truths that they might 
 be named a History of the Prophets, so this work bears a strong 
 indication of the altered age in which it was written, in the 
 circumstance that it might almost be viewed as a History of 
 the Priesthood. If, besides, the comT)osition of this work took 
 place at the commencement of the Greek rule, the glorious 
 acts of the ancient kings for Jerusalem and its religion, and 
 even the favours shown by the Persian kings to the Temple 
 and its servants, can scarcely have been described without a 
 desire to receive similar favour from the new rulers. 
 
 Now here a way is opened to us to discover more nearly the 
 position and occupation of the author of this work. That he 
 was a Levite of some sort is clear from the whole tenor of his 
 work, and from the extremely accurate notice he takes of the 
 different sections of Levites. Now if on further examination 
 we find that throughout the work one branch of the Levites is 
 described with greater care than all the rest, and its functions 
 brought into the foreground on every possible occasion, then we 
 cannot doubt that he w^as a member of this very one. Now an 
 attentive reader of the entire work cannot fail to notice that no
 
 176 HISTORY OF HEBREAV niSTORlCAL COMPOSITIOX. 
 
 section of the Levites is made so prominent as tlie musicians, 
 Avitli tlieir subdivisions, their manifold emploj'uients, and their 
 public appearances.' With this is closely connected the special 
 interest with which the author everywhere describes sacred 
 festivals and solemn processions ; since on such occasions 
 musicians could not fail to be present, and indeed are not un- 
 frequently expressly mentioned.^ Neither the officiating Priests, 
 however high their position might be, nor those Levites who 
 w^ere ordained instructors and judges of the people, and conse- 
 quently dispersed over the country, are mentioned with equal 
 interest. Indeed the notice of the latter is remarkably brief 
 and hasty ;^ and the narrator in preference takes cognisance of 
 all kinds of what we may call the Lower Clergy, among which 
 the musicians were reckoned. Under these circumstances it does 
 not admit of doubt that the author behmged to the corporate 
 body of musicians resident at the sanctuary at Jerusalem ; nor 
 need we be surj^rised to find that some of these included author- 
 ship in their devotion to the arts, and were men of learning 
 more frequently than the priests themselves. But finally, it is 
 not the history of Jerusalem alone, nor even the special history 
 of its religious system alone, that moved the author to compose 
 his work. As m that age the nation as a whole lived upon the 
 memory of the earlier glory and power of its religion, so the 
 individual historian dwells with marked exultation and scarcely 
 concealed regret on the glories of the earlier ages only of the 
 Holy City, on those kings and heroes whose acts on behalf 
 of the Temple and its ordinances, as well as on behalf of the 
 ordination and elevation of the Levites, had been conspicuously 
 meritorious, and on such historical events as appeared to 
 teach the power and inviolability of the sanctuary at Jerusalem. 
 Wherever anything of this kind enters into the narrative, the 
 historian's heart expands with joy, and he retains unabridged 
 
 ' To adduce only a few passages : 1 Clir. ' leader of song, weaver of glowing prayer.' 
 
 vi. lG-33 [31—18], XV. 16-24, 28, xvi. 4- The rhyme must here not be pas.'^ed over 
 
 42, xxiii. 5 (where the narrative is inter- unnoticed, as at this late age it may not be 
 
 ruptcd by a fragmentary quotation from an entirely due to chance. We have cjiangi^d 
 
 ancient poet who, speaking in the name ^Lj^^ /,„.j.„ -.^^ inappropriate) info 
 
 of Jahveh, cliaracterises the musicians as ^ • : ^ 
 
 ' those wliom I have formed to sing my n^nijl- The words n^SD^ miiT' "»'st 
 
 praise:' tlie LXX. however alter this un- -^ •/■ < ^i • j- ■ i ,i 
 
 '^ , ' ,, ,. „ , . „ ,,, signify 'the singer of praises at Iho 
 
 usual collocation of words) ; xxv. ; 2 Chr. 'i- i -i Ü i i .• 
 
 V. 12, 13, vii. 6, viii. 14, XX 19-21, xxiii. ^'''''^'''' If" ''y^ '^'^'•'^'f congregation 
 
 13. xxix. 25-30 xxxi. 2 xxxiv. 12, xxxv. f''^'- ^""^ 'I'' ^"f TJ,?" f ^^'^ '""" 
 
 1- r. ••• in 11 XT 1 •• n V,. ,- tcnco St e my Lekrhuck, §, 3i-)l,b. 
 
 l.j; hzra 111. 10, 11; Neh. xii. 8. 24. 4o, 2 i> • i .i ^ 
 
 ,., * 1 „ .-.f- r- r. . ■, ■ JH'sidis II10 nuniorous passages in 
 
 47. A description of a son of Asaph in ^i • 1 v ••• 1 % 
 
 V 1. ,.: i-r . 1 1 . .1 • , ' Chronicles, compare hzra 111. I-7, vi. 
 
 Isili. XI. 17 IS here also to the iwint . , „ .10 x^ 1 •• --> 
 
 , ' 19-22; iSeh. vii. /3 sqq. 
 
 npnnn t^'X'l ' Compare 1 Chr. xxiii. 5 wiili 4, and 
 
 XXV. Willi x.Kvi. 29-3-'. 
 
 n?Dn? r^'^^r\''
 
 LATEST BOOK (CIIEOXICLES, ETC.). 177 
 
 the fullest details oriven by liis authorities ; and where even 
 these appear to him not to do justice to the subject, he has no 
 scruple in introducing a more vivid colouring to testify to his 
 warmer sjTnpathy with the narrative, in variously expanding 
 the descrijitions, and interpolating songs, speeches, and similar 
 additions. Especially the times of David, Asa, and Jehoshaphat, 
 Hezekiah and Josiah, and finally Ezra and Nehemiah, are thus 
 made luminous spots in the history of Jerusalem, and there, under 
 the cover of narrative, he permits his OAvn sentiments to emerge 
 most distinctly. But then as one portion of the history cannot 
 readily receive such marked prominence and distinction with- 
 out a corresponding depression in another, we see that the 
 author in his account entirely passed over much that he found 
 in his authorities, which was unconnected with his special 
 subject, and could present little comfort and encouragement 
 to his contemporaries, or at all events obtain little sympathy 
 from them, or which seemed actually to contradict that image 
 of the heroes of antiquity which was endeared to the poj^ular 
 mind of the age. Thus when the author passes over the entire 
 history of David's youth, and the building of Solomon's palaces, 
 1 Kings vii. 1-12 — facts described by the authorities which we 
 know to have lain before him — and repeats only the account of 
 the building of Solomon's Temple, he omits onl}'- what seemed 
 to him of little importance ; whereas Solomon's idolatry and 
 other national calamities recorded in 1 Kings xi, and the inci- 
 dents reported in 2 Sam. xi-xx, of Bathsheba and of David's 
 children, are evidently omitted for another reason — because 
 David and Solomon were in his day so generally regarded as 
 ideal heroes of antiquity, that stories of the dark side of their 
 lives could not meet with much acceptance. 
 
 Bringing together then these three special objects which the 
 author undoubtedly had in view, we have every reason to believe 
 that in his day there existed no work upon history in general 
 l^repared in accordance with them, and that this book was com- 
 piled to meet an actual exigency of the time. As we have 
 already pointed out, the earlier histories preserved in the Old 
 Testament were written with Avidely different aims, and it is at 
 all events very unlikely that during the interval which separates 
 this book from the Book of Kings any work appeared having a 
 similar design and extent. But to understand fullv the erround 
 occupied by this work, we must take a farther step in advance. 
 It is everywhere most conspicuous that the author regarded the 
 Pentateuch with the Book of Joshua as a, sacred book, i.e. as 
 one imiversally recognised as a Book of Eeligion. The titles 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 173 HISTORY OF HEBREW HISTORICAL COMPOSITION. 
 
 "b}^ ■\\-liicli he frequently quotes it (see p. 131), the account of 
 Ezra reading * the Book of the Law of God ' at the festival 
 to the assembled peojjle, Neh. viii. 1-18, and other similar 
 grounds, fully demonstrate this ; and the fact that the author 
 took nothing from it beyond the most indispensable genealogies 
 shows with equal certainty that from its sacred character he 
 could assume a knowledge of it to be possessed by his readers.' 
 On the other hand, all the indications we possess contradict the 
 notion that the Books of Judges and of Kings, described p. 159, 
 were by the author or his contemporaries already looked upon 
 as equally sacred. He does indeed use these books (as will be 
 further explained afterwards), but treats them quite as an 
 ordinary authority ; and the great variations from them which 
 he introduces into his work seem rather to show that he desired 
 to present the history in many respects quite differently from 
 the picture there given. This Book of Chronicles, then, was 
 intended to be a universal history, which, acknowledging the 
 sacred character of the Book of the Law, adopted its historical 
 data without question, and could omit the full exposition of 
 whatever was already adequately told there. 
 
 2. Accordingly this work fell naturally into three parts of 
 unequal extent : 
 
 1) The Primeval History as far as David the founder of the 
 'power of Jerusalem,, 1 Chron. i-x. — This part is treated most 
 briefly, both because the narrator is hastening onward to David 
 and his kingdom, and because he assumes his reader's acquaint- 
 ance with the Pentateuch and Book of Joshua ; so that his own 
 additions appear chiefly in the light of a supplement to that 
 history. Since however the work from its universal character 
 ought to embrace the entire sphere of history, he here (1) places 
 together in cli. i. the generations from Adam down to the 
 twelve tribes of Jacob, as found in Genesis ; and (2) then gives a 
 careful survey of the genealog}^ of the twelve tribes, interspersed 
 with brief remarks respecting some of them, ii-vii ; and then (3) 
 immediately retreats from this great circle of all the tribes to 
 the two (namely Benjamin and Judah), who were united into 
 one kingdom through their metropolis Jerusalem ; and these he 
 
 ' Whether exactly our present Pent;i- tlio free infrorliiction of Jerusalem in 
 touch is here meant might seem doubtful verso 15, that tlie quotation does not 
 from the passage Neh. viii. 14, 15, as the profess to be verbally exact, but takes its 
 words thoro quoted do not agree exactly colouring from tho Clironicles. Ezra ix. 
 •with Lev. xxiii. 40-43. Eut the ancients 11, 12, and Neh. i. 8, 9, present similar 
 eeldom quote prose passages with verbal cases: here, among other changes of minor 
 accuracy, andtlie essential meaning of tho importance, we find the Prophets generally 
 two passages is the same. This suffices to named instead of Moses— a very remark- 
 remove the doubt. It is also obvious from able circumstance.
 
 LATEST BOOK (CHRONICLES, ETC.). 179 
 
 describes reversely, according to their cities (the genealogy- 
 passing into topography), althongh these descriptions are far 
 from exhaustive, viii. 1-ix. 34. Finally, by attaching to this 
 the description of a single house — that of Saul of Gibeon (or 
 Gibeah) in Benjamin ix. 35-44,' he makes a transition to the 
 death of Saul, and consequently to the elevation of David, who 
 soon removed the seat of government to Jerusalem, and thus is 
 enabled to commence the last portion at once with David's 
 kingdom, and Jerusalem as its metropolis, chap. x. (taken from 
 1 Sam. xxxi.). 
 
 The two last of these three divisions contain a number of 
 statements which although very short are of extreme value, 
 since most of them are found nowhere else in the Old Testa- 
 ment ; which, moreover, being derived from early authorities, 
 often happily supplement for us traditions known from other 
 sources. The historian, who in every case links his narrative 
 to the events of primeval times, here descends far beyond the 
 age of David ; the genealogies according to the twelve tribes are 
 described in ii-vii. as they existed up to the commencement of 
 the Assyrian and the Babylonian captivity ; that of David only 
 being in iii. 10-24 (exceptionally, according to p. 171 sq.) carried 
 down to the author's own time. But this anticipation of time 
 was here necessary, because the narrator in the second part, 
 when he passes to the history of Jerusalem after David, has no 
 lonofer room to mention the histories of the other tribes ; so that 
 what he desired to say resj^ecting them could only be intro- 
 duced here, before he passed from the wide circle to the narrower 
 one.^ The descriptioiis of places, viii, ix, also carry us to the age 
 immediately preceding the Captivity,-' since, standing in contrast 
 to the local conditions of the new Jerusalem described in the 
 
 ' It is remarkable that this very passage concluding words as inappropriate there, 
 
 occurs again just before, in A-iii. 29-40, and A similar insfcmce of repetition is found 
 
 ■with two additional verses. We might in 2 Clir. i. 14-17, ix. 2Ö-28. It is one 
 
 fancj' (although the LXX. have the same of the signs of the decline of literature. 
 
 text) that it had lieen foisted into one of ^ Just as in Gen. xxxvi. much is iu- 
 
 these two passages by a later copj-ist. But serted concerning Edom which, taken 
 
 it is indispensable, both in ch. viii, where chronologicalh', ought to be reserved to a 
 
 the Bcnjamites of Gibeon are in verses much later period. 
 
 28 and 29 contrasted with others, espe- ^ Tlie particulars of this are seen with 
 
 cially those of Jerusalem, and the full list tolerable eertninty by a comparison of ix. 
 
 of places inhabited by Benjamites is not 11 with v. 40, 41 [vi. 14, 15], which 
 
 complete without the general summary in makes it clear that at all events the ge- 
 
 V. 40, and in ch. ix, where it forms the nealogical and family notices of the 
 
 transition to the history of Saul and David, southern kingdom were taken down about 
 
 The truth then seems to be that the writer thirt}- years befure its overthrow; those 
 
 himself adopted it in the first passage of the northern kingdom are carried down 
 
 from his authority, and afterwards repeated by the account in v. 22-26 to the Assp-ian 
 
 it in the second, omitting, however, the captivity. 
 
 N 2
 
 lt;0 IIISTOKY OF IIHBREW HISTORICAL COMFOSITION. 
 
 third part, they describe the old city as it Avas during- the 
 government of the Davidical kings. But as they obviously 
 could not be conveniently introduced into the continuous his- 
 tory of this kingdom, as given in the second part, they find 
 their right place here, in continuation of the genealog'ies. 
 
 The numerous genealogical notices contained in this book are 
 expressed very tersely, indeed with artificial brevity, by the 
 habitual use of technical expressions and liberties of speech, by 
 which the greatest number of names can be crowded into the 
 narrowest space.' These abbreviations, though frequently lead- 
 ing to fresh mistakes and omissions, rendering the text un- 
 reliable, often putting serious difficulties in the way of under- 
 standing it rightly at the present day, and requiring a special 
 study in order to j^enetrate into their meaning, must neverthe- 
 less in the writer's age have been in frequent use, and not 
 therefore either Avholly new or strange. What a wide difference 
 Ave here behold between the ancient method adopted by the 
 Book of Origins, the fulness and clearness of which brings a 
 certain charm even into such parts of the history as of them- 
 selves might seem empty and tedious, and the many technical 
 abbreviations of this work ! and how certainly may we infer from 
 this very difference that the interval between that early and 
 this late book was filled by the development of a rich and varied 
 genealogical literature ! ^ But it has so happened that Ave noAV 
 possess in the Old Testament scarcely any other genealogies 
 but those of these two books. Further, it is unmistakable that 
 the author passes somewhat hastily over the genealogical series 
 of the earlier period, and that his authorities here afforded him 
 far richer materials than he found good to employ ; this appears 
 even in his arrangement and mode of describing the generations 
 according to the twelve tribes. He gives in considerable detail 
 the genealogies of those three tribes only Avhich the general 
 plan of his work proves to have been the nearest to him : first, 
 JtidaJi {ii-iv. 23), Avhere he particularl}' distinguishes the posterity 
 of David (iii.) ; to Judah the mention of Simeon is naturally at- 
 tached (iv. 24—43), and then follow (not to drop entirely the old 
 
 ■ Omitting tlio -words father and son, tliat v,c find ii'n''nn "scd in the sense of 
 
 or in loss familiar instances very briefly fnrolUvq oncselTaccordhw tohmi^e,Unmqr, 
 
 designating the family relations &c. ^ ^^-^ ■ ■ ^^ ^ ^,^^^„^ cvvohias, 
 
 ^ The Arabs, as already stated, p. 23, ^ -\- vP- 
 
 also possess a similar literature. The 'is the LXX. have it, i.e. book of genealo- 
 
 zeal with which this study of genealogies, gies, Neh. vii. 5. The etymology of the 
 
 census-rolls, and similar documents was word is obscure (see my AUcrihilmcr, p. 
 
 incessantly pursui'd, as well as the remark- 313). The earlier name for it is nnVlD 'D 
 
 able stages through which it passed, may , „„^ „ 1 ■ 1 • V • 1 
 
 1 I- * ,1 V »I 4. u • 1 1 (see page 80) from which is dorivutl 
 
 be estimated by tlie new technical terms ^ ^ ^ ' 
 
 gradually broiiglit into use. It is not iV^Jin (Numb. i. 18). 
 until the Chronicles, but then constantly,
 
 LATEST COOK (CIIROMCLES, ETC.). 181 
 
 ai-rangement according to primogeniture) Reuben and the other 
 tribes beyond the Jordan (v. 1-26) ; secondly, Levi (v. 27-vi. 
 06), to which are then attached much shorter notices of all the 
 remaining tribes (vii.) ; only that among these, according to 
 page 179, thirdly, special prominence is given to Benjamin (viii. 
 sq.) But, evident as it is that much is here compressed into a 
 narrower space than it occupied in the authorities consulted by 
 our author, it is very strange to find that the tribes of Zebulon 
 and Dan are whoU}^ passed over, and that of Naphtali (vii. 13) 
 disproportionately little is said : and since no kind of reason can 
 be found for this omission, we must consider it a mutilation of 
 the work by a later copyist (although the ancient translations 
 agree with the Masoretic text), unless we are inclined either to 
 accuse the author himself of this obvious departure from his own 
 plan, or else to conjecture. that he left his work incomplete.^ 
 
 2) The continuous History of Jerusalem under David and his 
 successors until the Babylonian Captivity, 1 Chron. xi.— 2 Chron. 
 xxxvi. — Here the three last Books of Kings run parallel with 
 this work, but if it is occasionally shorter than these, it has on 
 the other hand a considerable number of additions of greater or 
 less extent. The author's arrangement of the events of David's 
 life (1 Chron. xi.-xxix.) has ah-eady been exhibited with suffi- 
 cient clearness (pp. 164, 165) ; in the life of Solomon his jjlan 
 inclines to yet greater brevity. 
 
 3) The History of the new Jerusalerii in the BooTcs of Ezra and 
 Nehetniah. — This third part joins on closely to the second, as 
 far as the story is concerned ; but like the first part contains 
 a great many genealogical tables, and lists of the inhabitants 
 of the new Jerusalem, serving as a supplement to the first. 
 The somewhat singular mode of composition and arrangement 
 adopted in this last part can however be understood only from 
 a correct knowledge of the authorities used in it. 
 
 3. Now the question of the authorities used by this author 
 throughout his work, and the manner in which he employed 
 them, is indeed thorny and difficult, like all such enquiries 
 into authorities, and is still further perplexed by the author fol- 
 lowing the custom of many late writers in reviving the literary 
 use of ancient words, as for instance some from the Book of 
 
 ' As Dan -would unquestionaljly be himself. Dan is indeed carelessly passed 
 placed next to Naphtali, and at tiie end of over, also in vi. 46, 54 [61, 69] compared 
 
 verse 13 of eh. vii, the words HH^ ^33 ^'^^ "^"■'''- ^\ ^.' '^\'^^' ^'}f \^¥^ ^]^ 
 
 T : ■ •• : name was not designedlv avoided here is 
 
 which are now meaningless, must refer to ^1^,,^,^ bv ii. 1, 2. See,'on this and other 
 
 Dan, as in Gen. xlvi. 24, 25. This is too ^^^^^^ relating to Chronicles, the Jahrlu 
 
 palpably a thoughtless onnssiün to be £^«5 ^/R ^«ss. vi. pp. 99, 100. 
 lightly put to the account of the writer
 
 182 HISTORY OF HEBREW HISTORICAL COMPOSITION. 
 
 Origins.' But partly in tlie author's express citations and re- 
 ferences, partly in the above-described method of the work, and 
 in other indications, we find various means of proof through 
 which we are not left quite in the dark. 
 
 1) In considering the authorities named or at all events indi- 
 cated by the author, we have to discriminate two distinct kinds. 
 We may in the first place justly assume, that the authorities 
 for the numerous genealogical and topographical notices — a 
 prominent and valuable feature of the work — form a distinct 
 class ; indeed this is made evident from the mode in which 
 they are mentioned. For besides that it is probable in itself 
 that these accurate accounts were derived from taxing-rolls, 
 the idea is supported by the not unfrequent notices of the time 
 and method in Avhich actual taxations occurred ; ^ and we thus 
 become certain that at all events after the establishment of the 
 monarchy such taxations frequently took place, and muster- 
 rolls relating to them were preserved. The actual documents, 
 indeed, can hardly have been in the possession of our author ; 
 and we find clear indications,^ and even express testimony,^ to 
 the efii'ect that the accounts received by him had already passed 
 into various historical works and were only taken by him from 
 these. But their ultimate source cannot be doubtful ; we have 
 every reason to ascribe them in their earliest form to public 
 records, the most reliable source possible.^ 
 
 The author may, however, very possibly, except in the passage 
 Neh. xii. 23, have found the more imj)ortant references to these 
 authorities in the older books from which he makes his extracts. 
 The case is quite different with the second class of authorities, 
 which consists of books referred to at the close of the biography 
 of each king of Jerusalem from the time of David, in which more 
 could be found respecting him. Here therefore he refers to 
 documents which, as we must conclude from the simple meaning 
 
 ' As n-TnX' m'ny» N"''K'J, l Cln-. v. G, pjlvon twleo, already insortocl in each of 
 
 vii 40- seep Os'^note ' the two earlier works wliieh he here em- 
 
 •' The exaetest report is that in 1 Chr. Pl-'-V« '''"^ often quotes verbally. 
 xxiv. 6, where the officers appointed to ' ^ V xr" ,'''"'•'• '^' ' ^^'"^ ''^^'^- ^^' ^^^'• 
 
 conduct the census and taxation are men- 2-t, and Nch. xii 23, according to which 
 
 tioned by name. These taxations are *l\«^ö taxing-rolls were inserted in the 
 
 accurately dated by the reigns of the ' '^^^'''"^^ "^^ ^^^^' ti"]?^' '•^- ^^e Chronicles, 
 
 various kings, 1 Clir. v. 17, vii. 2, xxiii. 3, ^^' fetatp-annals. In the last-named pas- 
 
 27, xxvi. 31, xxvii. 23, 2-1; Neli. xii. 23; sage it is impossible to suppose our present 
 
 800 also 2 Sam. xxiv ; Ezra ii. 62 ; Neh. l^^o^s of Chronicles, so called, to be 
 
 vii. 5, 64 : in accordance with which such I'^f'^iTcd to, because the author could not 
 
 slight notices as 1 Chr. ix. 1 are to be in- '^P'''^'^ '" ''"^ '^'^y "*' '"'^ '•'^^■" ^^'°'''^'- 
 terprctcd. See above p. 137; and my ' ^^^' '"«tance, the phraseology of 1 
 
 Altn-tkümcr, p. 319 .sqq. Chr. iv. 38, v. 18, vii. 11 (see above, pp. 
 
 ' According to Neh. vii. 5, and Ezra ii., ^^\ l^^ ^^0 ^'^''^''^^ ^^ ^^'-'^ ^o the Book of 
 
 the writer found the list which is here Origins.
 
 LATEST BOOK (CHRONICLES, ETC.). 183 
 
 of his words, were actually before liim, but which he did not 
 wish to repeat with the same fulness. Now the external dif- 
 ferences in the mode of citation of these books prove them to 
 consist of two widely divergent kinds : 
 
 On the one hand the author quotes certain titles of historical 
 works, viz. (to present in the first instance all these forms of 
 name) most frequently the ' Book of the Kings of Judali and 
 Israel,' 2 Chr. xvi. 11, xxv. 26, xxviii. 26 ; compare xxxii. 32, or 
 else in the reversed order, ' of Israel and Judah,' 2 Chr. xxvii. 7, 
 XXXV. 27, xxxviii. 6 ; less frequently the ' Acts of the Kings of 
 Israel,' 2 Chr. xxxiii. 18, or v/liat is obviously the same, the 
 ' Book of the Kings of Israel,' xx. 34 {Israel being used in the 
 larger sense, including Judah ; since Manasseh is the King for 
 whom this book is quoted in the former passage) ; and once with 
 the title shortened at the close, but at the beginning expressed 
 with greater fulness and distinctness, the ' Story of the Book of 
 the Kings,' 2 Chr. xsiv. 27.' The probability is, however, that 
 the same work is meant throughout, especially as the second 
 and third names may be mere varieties of the first formed by 
 abbreviation at the end. For in no instance are two such 
 names quoted together as those of different works ; and since at 
 the close of the history of each king, the author only names 
 one such work as his authority, no reason appears why in one 
 case it should be one work, and in another a different one : the 
 work quoted being always a ' Book of Kings ' which might con- 
 tain the lives of all the kings. And when we ask what was this 
 ' Book of the Kings of Israel and Judah,' it is in the first place 
 certain, that we must grant the author's acquaintance with the 
 canonical Books of Kings in their present form as described 
 on pp. 159 sqq., because many traces of the peculiar style of the 
 latest author of that book in narrative and description recur 
 here, as may easily be seen by a comparison of the two works 
 from 1 Kings iii. and 2 Chr. i. ; ^ indeed the author obviously 
 
 ' The compound terra "i-iD ü'llO in writing, and is in fact a new word for -|öp ; 
 
 this passage might be supposed to bo not and the LXX. have hero only ßißxiov, and 
 
 very different in meaning from the simple even for the compound term in xxiv. 27 
 
 "lÖDi somewhat in the same way as about only ypacpr]. T3ut it seems a more proba- 
 
 this' period we find niOTD 1^:^^ in the We conjecture that the Chronicler has here 
 
 : • • given in luil the earner part at least of tho 
 
 titles to some of the Psalms (see my title of the book. Wo shall find that this 
 
 Dichter des Alten Bundes, i. p. 210) ; the agrees with its nature and contents, so far 
 
 later name ^-TMH signifying ' Study, i.e. ^s we are acquainted with them ; for it 
 
 learned work, treatise, commentary,' being ^„..fc \,^y^ l^oen a late and very compre- 
 
 merely added on to the other to render its hensive work. 
 
 meaning more definite. In 2 Chr. xiii. 22 2 Compare" especially tlio close of 2 Chr. 
 
 (compare xsvi. 22), tlie oidy other passage ^xxvi. witli the corresponding passage in 
 
 where the word is found before the Rabbi- j-j^g Socoud B;jok of Kin&s 
 nical ago, it clearly moans only a treatise,
 
 184 HISTORY OF HEBREW HISTORICAL COMPOSITION. 
 
 used that worlc as the foundation of his history of the monarchy, 
 enlarf^ing- or altering it onl}^ where it seemed to him best so to 
 do. But to eonchide from this that the author in those refer- 
 ences had only the canonical Books of Kings before him, would 
 be a great error, because it would clearly be absurd to refer to a 
 book which often contains less information upon the kings of 
 Jerusalem, and from the days of Solomon seldom gives any 
 accounts which are not recorded in the new book also — as if it 
 were a fuller record. Equally erroneous would be the idea that 
 the State-annals which formed the basis of the canonical Book 
 of Kings were the book referred to. These constantly bear 
 another name, both in the Book of Kings ' and elsewhere ; '^ and 
 the evident discrimination of title forces us to conclude that the 
 object of the author's reference was not the State-annals, but 
 some other work. 
 
 On the other hand the author refers also to the words and 
 writings of individual prophets, relating to the life of some one 
 king. These, from their narrow range, and also apparently 
 from their prophetical character, may be regarded as forming a 
 contrast to the former kind of authorities. These references 
 are as follows : in David's life, to the ' Words of Samuel the 
 Seer, of Nathan the Prophet, and of Gad the Seer ' (1 Chr. xxix. 
 29, 30); in Solomon's life, to the ' Words of Nathan the Prophet, 
 and the Prophecy of Ah ij ah the Shilonite, and the Vision of Iddo 
 the Seer concerning Jeroboam the son of Nebat ' (2 Chr. ix. 29) ; 
 and in ßehoboam's life, to the ' Words of Shemaiah the Prophet 
 and Iddo the Seer ' (xii. 15) ; in Abijah's life, to the ' Writing of 
 the Prophet Iddo ' (xiii. 22) ; in Jehoshaphat's life, to the ' Dis- 
 courses of Jehu son of Hanani ' (xx. 34) ; in the lives of Uzziali 
 and Hezekiah, to the ' Propliecy of Isaiah ' (xxvi. 22, xxxii. 32) ; 
 and finally in Manasseh's life to the ' Words of Hozai ' (xxxiii. 
 19) .^ But it strikes us at once as curious that, according to 2 Chr. 
 XX. 34, the words of Jehu the son of Hanani just mentioned had 
 been transferred to the 'Book of the Kings of Israel and Judah,'^ 
 and that similarly, according to xxxii. 32, Isaiah's prophecy 
 was to be found in the ' Book of the Kings of Israel and Judah.'* 
 
 ' Namely '^5707 D''?D*n ''"l?"^ i'l every thoiijih not incorrect, was perfectly arhi- 
 ■ "■ '^ ■( trarv, as the different name nap«\ei7r<)^€r/a 
 
 passage without exception ; 'i^^pro •<'-\^'r\_ in ^^^^^^^ foj. ^^^^^ ^^ ji^^ lxX. proves. 
 
 2 Chr. xxxiii. 18 can scarcely be regarded ^ Exceptionally, he is not designated 
 
 as an abbreviation of it. a prophet ; the LXX. understand it 
 
 ■^ The other passages (1 Chr. xxvii. 24 ; ol bpHivTis, but that would be D^f'nn, 
 
 Neh. xii. 23; Esth. ii. 23, vi. 1, x. 2), in v. 18. 
 
 whicii the title Q^O^n ""in occurs, may * The LXX. read these Mords quite dif- 
 
 be considered al.'^u to refer to tiie State- ferently, ^x Kartypa'^i ßißKiov ßacnKiuiv ; 
 
 annals. The application of this name by but their error is obvious, 
 
 later writers to the liooks of Chronicles, * Here also the LXX. misundorstnnd
 
 LATEST BOOK (CHRONICLES, ETC.). 185 
 
 These two, tlieii, of tlie prophetical passages named were not 
 separate books which the xiuthor had lighted upon, but parts 
 of the same work, which he elsewhere cites by its general name. 
 But if this is true of these two cases, the doubt naturally arises 
 whether the other prophetical passages were not also taken from 
 the same work. And many indications seem to favour this idea. 
 For the passages in question are, in every instance but one, 
 found at the end of the life of each king, the more comprehen- 
 sive work on the kings being never named at the same time 5 
 whereas if they were completel}^ separate (as for instance the 
 Book of Jeremiah), they would certainly have only served to 
 supplement the narrative of the principal history. Either the 
 general title of the large work, or these special titles, are given 
 at the close of each king's life ; which looks as if these latter 
 were intended to take the place of the more comprehensive and 
 therefore less definite title. Moreover we are equally perplexed 
 by the indications of the contents of these apparently separate 
 works, if we suppose them to be prophetical books, such as 
 those of Jeremiah, Ezekiel, or even Isaiah ; for they even con- 
 tained pure genealogies,' which seem very foreign to the 
 character of such works. The conclusion, however, which we 
 have drawn from the position of these prophetical references is 
 by no means everywhere certain ; for on one occasion (2 Chr. 
 xxxiii. 19) the author refers to a prophetic passage as well as to 
 the large work ; and it might fairly be argued that on some of 
 the kings it was sufficient to quote the special work only, with- 
 out mentioning the larger one : moreover Isaiah's work men- 
 tioned in xxvi. 32, on the earlier and later events of Uzziah's 
 reign, can hardly be understood of a merely prophetical portion 
 of the large work, as Isaiah did not appear as a prophet until the 
 last year of that king's reign. It must therefore be admitted 
 that besides the large history the author seems to have had 
 smaller prophetical books before him ; but these cannot have 
 been similar to our canonical Books of Jeremiah, Isaiah, &c., 
 because from Samuel and other such very ancient prophets 
 large works of the kind are hardly to be expected. They may 
 have been in part prophetical records of early date, and of the 
 kind described pp. 138-151 ; and in part perhaps recent works 
 composed in the manner of the old prophets : a free kind of 
 literature which had then been long in vogue ; see pp. 152 sqq. 
 To this last division perhaps belonged the words of Hozai in 
 
 the words, inserting a Ka\ before -)2p ?!?; ^y ^^^^ general manner of the book. 
 which is refuted not only by the change of ' The word CTlTin? i" 2 Chron. xii. 15, 
 the prepositions 3 and ^J?, but still more "«'^"^'^ however the LXX. misunderstood.
 
 186 HISTORY OF HEBREW HISTORICAL COMPOSITIOX. 
 
 2 Clir. xxxiii. 19, of wliicli the Prayer of Manasseh in our Greek 
 Apocrypha may probably be considered an extant fragment. In 
 this case the book must have had a great resemblance to the 
 Book of Daniel. The character of these special prophetical 
 passages must then be determined by special investigation of 
 the case of each king upon whom they are cited as authorities. 
 
 The next weighty question is, what was the form of that 
 large comprehensive work to which some at least of these re- 
 ferences point ? And here, as already shown, it would be a very 
 great error to imagine that the writer meant those State-annals 
 which were ei:)itomised in the canonical Book of Kings, and 
 that he, having read them again in the original form, now used 
 them in his peculiar way. Many of the detailed narratives 
 given in those State-annals may have passed immediately into 
 the large work which our author used — indeed there are many 
 reasons' for regarding this as almost certain ; but the old State- 
 anuals themselves cannot, for the reasons already given, have 
 been used by our author. But we must suppose the work to 
 have been a very detailed and comprehensive one. On the 
 other hand it contained the fullest accounts of the words and 
 deeds of the great Prophets, so that its principal divisions could 
 be even directly named from them, and sef»arated as special 
 works : indeed we may unhesitatingly assume that it was pub- 
 lished in many volumes, and that, as in the case of other lengthy 
 works of the ancients, its sections were gradually more and 
 more separated and regarded as distinct works. On the 
 other hand it did not refuse admission even to a multitude of 
 genealogical and topographical notices.^ Even the peculiar 
 jihrase repeated in all the references, that ' the other deeds, both 
 earlier and later, of this king,' may be found in this book, suf- 
 ficiently shows with what fulness and accurate attention to 
 dates the life of each king was treated there. In the life of 
 David, which the author treats most in detail, he several times 
 refers to subdivisions of the biography which he had used as 
 his authority.^ Where, on the other hand, that authority 
 may have yielded little more than he himself gave, as in the 
 case of the two years' reign of Amon (2 Chr. xxxiii. 21-25), 
 he does not refer to it all.'' When we reflect, finally, that the 
 
 ' See pp. 136 sq., 182 sq. ^ The words 'in the later events of 
 
 * As we must conchide partly from the David's reign' (1 Chr. xxiii. 27), or, as if 
 
 express reference in 2 Chr. xxiv. 27, partly in explanation of this, ' in tho lOth y.ar of 
 
 from the many genealogical notices derived David's reign' (xxvi. 31), only contain a 
 
 »■ven from th<i houses of individual kings, reference to the latter portion of the au- 
 
 uiiknown to the canonical Book of Kings, thority used for the history of David. 
 
 as 2 Chr. xi. 18-23. * Jleferences are al.'io wanting in the 
 
 I
 
 LATEST BOOK (CHRONICLES, ETC.). 187" 
 
 real full name, * Book of the Kings of Israel and Judah,' indicates 
 a blending of the history of the two kingdoms, which was 
 probably first completely carried through by the last compiler 
 but one of the canonical Book of Kings, and further that stories 
 of the prophets clearly occupied the chief place in the work, 
 more especially in the age of the earlier kings (and our author 
 refers far oftener in the case of the earlier than in that of the 
 later kings to those seemingly separate prophetical works), we 
 might fancy that it was the very work from which, according to 
 pp. 164 sqq., the canonical Book of Kings was extracted. But, 
 although the author undoubtedly made use of that work, as fol- 
 lows from pp. 164 sq., and although the supposition that he used 
 it only indirectly, as quoted in a later large work, is refuted by 
 the discovery that (according to p. 184) he sometimes quotes it 
 by its proper title as his direct authority, the life of David shows 
 that besides this he must also have used a far more extensive 
 work. We must therefore conclude that the largest book which 
 he had was a work in which, on the plan of the canonical Book of 
 Kings (pp. 146 sqq.), the history of both kingdoms was treated 
 from the prophetic point of view, and in which liberties were 
 taken in reviving the prophetic traditions, similar to those in 
 the canonical Book of Kings, the origin of which we have ah*eady 
 traced (p. 167) ; a work, however, differing in design from the 
 latter in that it was not an historical epitome, but presented 
 the history in its fullest extent, taking in all the ancient 
 records. 
 
 Thus the author must have used three works : the canonical 
 Book of Kings, an earher compilation from the State-annals 
 and other sources, and a larger but later work; borrowing 
 from them only the history of the kings of Jndah, and repro- 
 ducing it in his own way, and referring for other matters which 
 he did not care to give, not to the canonical book (which so far 
 as the kings of Judah were concerned he had almost bodily 
 inserted), but to the later work which was not admitted into 
 the canon. But then we can hardly stop short of the conjec- 
 ture that (according to p. 183) we possess the exact name of this 
 great work, Midrash sepher liannfyi'lachim,. The extensive gene- 
 alogical notices must have been drawn chiefly from the work 
 which he once ' calls Sefer clibre hajjamim, i. e. Book of Daily 
 Events, or Chronicle ; a name which (according to p. 182, note 4) 
 originally designated the official calendar, but which an author 
 
 three successire short reigns of Johoram, Jehoiachin, and Zedekiah, for the reasons 
 Ahaziah, and Athaliah, 2 Chr. xxi.-xxiii. : already given p. 166. 
 elsewhere only in the reigns of Jehoahaz, ' Neh. xii. 23.
 
 188 HISTORY OF HEBREW HISTORICAL COMPOSITIOX. 
 
 might easily appropriate to his own or any other work founded 
 upon it. 
 
 The writing- of Elijah the Prophet, mentioned 2 Chr. xxi. 12, 
 cannot belong here, being only mentioned in narrative, and 
 evidently quoted from the authorities already described. The 
 'Book of Lamentations,' mentioned 2 Chr. xxxv. 25, though now 
 lost, may be confidently affirmed not to have been a history.^ 
 
 2) Thus much may be said of the authorities directly or 
 indirectly named by the author. But the author may very 
 possibly have also used other authorities without such reference, 
 the employment of which may be distinctly traced b}^ certain 
 indications. The authorities expressly named by him were too 
 voluminous to be taken at all completely into his work ; and 
 it may be on this account that he refers to them. But other 
 records may have been bodily incorporated, or so completely 
 worked into the substance of his new work as not to require 
 any reference. And this is distinctly the case especially with 
 some valuable authorities used in the last part of the work now 
 known under the name of the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah. 
 
 For it cannot escape the notice of any tolerably attentive 
 reader, that this part of the work, separated though it has been 
 for thousands of years from the remainder, really belongs to it, 
 and received its present form from the same author. Some 
 grounds for this conclusion have been already given above ; but 
 the very complexion of the language affords sufficient proof of 
 it. Although, from the author's practice of literal citation 
 from his authorities, the language of the book is in general 
 rather patchy and varied than uniform and sustained, and often, 
 especially in the first and third parts, and in the life of David 
 (for the remainder of the second jjart is written more uniforml}'^, 
 like a short abstract), contains isolated anomalous expressions 
 which can only have been retained from the older books ; yet 
 no sooner do we fully apprehend the real nature of the work 
 than we discover passages the substance and style of which both 
 prove them to be distinctively the author's own ; and in these 
 a peculiar phraseology is observed, found nowhere but in this 
 work, though pervading every part of it.^ 
 
 But certain as it is from all these indications that this last 
 
 ' Soe more on this point in the new 16; Ezra i. 6, ii. 68, iii. 5, vii. 13, 15, 
 
 edition of my Dichter des Alten Bandes, 16 (Uic-e) ; Neh. xi. 2), a word fonud no- 
 
 vol. i. wlicre eise ('X(!ppt twice in Judg. v. and 
 
 2 To present here a few exinnph's : peeu- *'^^'''^ '" '"• different sense ; further iniC'D 
 
 liar to this writer is the use of 3"ljrin in singer, and many other words connected 
 
 the sense of volmiian/ offerhu/s to the with his profession and cherished opinions; 
 
 ic.iiph (1 Chr. xxix. 6" sqq. ; 2 'Clir. xvii. 731? ''' ''^'^ «''^^ (^ Chr. xii. 18, xxi. 11 ;
 
 LATEST BOOK (CHRONICLES, ETC.). 
 
 189 
 
 part was written by the hand of the same author, yet it also 
 exhibits conspicuous fragments of earlier works, which he must 
 have employed without making any express reference to them. 
 The difficult task of correctly picking out these fragments is 
 aggravated by the fact that the author does not use them like 
 official documents, and cite them entire and apart, but — some- 
 times even after he has begun to quote them literally^ — inter- 
 mixes words or thoughts of his own, and passages of other 
 writers, and thus presents a nearly insoluble medley. We can, 
 however, clearly recognise the three following different kinds of 
 authorities. 
 
 a.) Concerning the first years of the New Jerusalem up to the 
 completion of the Temple, the author found two written docu- 
 ments : — first, the fall and accurate catalogue in Ezra ii. of 
 those who returned from the Captivity (this, however, for various 
 reasons,' must have been inserted into an earlier history, from 
 which it is here repeated) ; and secondly, the official documents 
 
 2 Chr. xxix. 16, 22 ; Ezra viii. 30), found 
 prior to this only in a few poetical pass- 
 ages, and later in Esther ; the phrase QV 
 D'VSj supported by the authority of such 
 earlier passages as Lev. xxiii. 37. DV 
 IDV? is nowhere else so frequent as here 
 
 (1 Chr. xii. 22; 2 Chr. TÜi. 13, xxiv. 
 11, XXX. 21 ; Ezra iii. 4, vi. 9 ; Neh. viii. 
 18, xi. 23 ; compare earlier 1 Kings x. 25, 
 repeated 2 Chr. ix. 24) ; there are other 
 favourite expressions, such as the verb ppn 
 
 the phrase i?3y niH^ and the plural DI^IX 
 (not in general use till after Ezekiel), em- 
 ployed in every possible connection, as in 
 
 the phrase ni^"li<n n'"l3^piO (compare 
 1 Chr. xiii. 2, xiv. 17, xxii. 5, xxix. 30 ; 
 Ezra iii. 3, ix. 1, 2, 7, H ; Neh. ix. 30, x. 
 29 [28] with Ezra x. 11 ; Neh. x. 31, 32 
 [30, 31], where the singular interchanges 
 ■with it. The construction exhibits, on the 
 one hand, a laboured condensation never 
 before used in prose, e.g. in the use of 
 
 the infinitive with p (as 1 Chr. xv. 2 and 
 
 elsewhere), and especially in the relative 
 clause (as 1 Chr. xv. 12, compare v. 3) ; 
 and, on the other, great laxity, as in the 
 very loose employment of the article 
 before the sfafiis constructus. The writer 
 also affects a certain elegance of speech and 
 fastidious choice of words, which leads 
 him, for instance, to avoid the I'epetition 
 ' of the same epithet by saying ' Samuel the 
 seer, Nathan the projjhei, and Gad the 
 viewer ; ' for these words are not intended 
 to convey different ideas, as is clear from 
 
 2 Chr. xii. 15, xiii. 22. He also affects 
 an antique style by the use of obsolete ex- 
 pressions, as, for instance, in sedulously 
 avoiding (with very few exceptions, as 
 1 Clir. V. 20, xxvii. 27, Ezra viii. 20) -^y 
 the abbreviated form of "IC^X. though un- 
 doubtedly the prevalent form in his age. 
 In other points, however, as for instance, 
 
 the continual use of QTl^X for niH"', he 
 cannot disown the character of his ago. 
 Occasionally he manifestly imitates Ezra's 
 style. 
 
 ' In Ezraii. 63-iii. 1 and Neh. vii. 65-73 
 an historical narrative was appended to 
 this list before it was used by Nehemiah 
 and oiir author. Both of these found the 
 same narrative so appended ; but our 
 author abridged it more, and piit in more 
 of his own (313nn Ezi-a ii. 68) : a striking 
 example of the way in which such docu- 
 ments were treated in that age. The LXX. 
 present the same variations as the Maso- 
 retic text. The original independence of 
 this passage is moreover proved by the 
 word nj'''ip Ezra ii. 1 ; Neh. vii. 6, which 
 is as foreign to our author as it is current 
 with other later writers, since in Neh. i. 3, 
 xi. 3, it belongs to Nehemiah's own work ; 
 and by the word I'lDS^'l (only found here), 
 which in this fuller form corresponds 
 exactly with opaxtJ-V, /*^ '<^, and for which 
 
 1 Clir. xxix. 7, and Ezra viii. 27, have the 
 shorter form j'lS'llX- (See Gottivger 
 Gelehrte Anzeigen, 1855, p. 1392, S(|q., 
 1856, p. 798.)
 
 190 
 
 IlISTOKY OF HEBREW HISTORICAL COMPOSITION. 
 
 on the interruption and resumption of the building of the 
 Temjjle, in Ezra iv. 8-\d. That these, together with the royal 
 decrees here given, had come down to the author, admits of no 
 doubt;' but it is equally evident that he found them in an 
 earlier historical work ; ^ which consequently ma}' be regarded 
 as the ultimate foundation of the remaining accounts of that 
 period, and may have been the same in which the catalogue in 
 Ezra ii. was preserved from destraction. It is very difficult^ to 
 identify this earlier work in detail, partly from the fi-eedom with 
 which the author adds from his own stores,"* and partly from the 
 great curtailments to which the histories have here evidently 
 been subjected.'' That it was written in Aramaic from the fii-st, 
 may be inferred from the way in which that language is intro- 
 duced by the latest author in Ezra iv. 8. It is indeed true 
 that the latest author wrote as easily, nay more so, in Aramaic 
 than in the ancient Hebrew, which was then dying out ; for even 
 after the decrees of the Persian kings and the representations 
 made to them, are ended, he continues to use this language in 
 mere narrative, Ezra vi. 13, and reverts to Hebrew in Ezra 
 vi. 20, only when compelled to it by the consideration that the 
 work had been commenced in Hebrew ; and we discover more- 
 over here and there in this Aramaic passage unmistakable 
 traces of his peculiar thoughts and exjDressions.^ But the 
 way in which the Aramaic enters at first in Ezra iv. 8 proves 
 
 ' The exactness of the names given by 
 tlie last compiler in Ezra iv. 7 shows that 
 the document used by him must have told 
 everything more fully and thoroughly 
 than we are now able to do even conjec- 
 turally by the lielp of the detached notices 
 •\vhirh he has left us. 
 
 - One proof of this is found in the fact 
 that tlio Aa-amaic letter which the last 
 compiler announces in Ezra iv. 7 does not 
 innnediately follow in v. 8, but not till 
 T'Tiy in '^'- 11> ^^'^ the intornicdiato 
 verses must have formed an introduction 
 to the letter in the history from wliich lie 
 quotes, V. 8 being only a title to the 
 following (])erlmps written with larger 
 or different characters in the original), and 
 the narrative commencing with v. 9. The 
 want of any clear transition between v. 7 
 and V. 8 proves this ; and there is a similar 
 case in v. G,7; see also vii. 12. Moreover 
 our author himself never prefixes any such 
 titles. 
 
 ^ In Ezra t. 4 the writer uses we as if' 
 lie had witnessed it all. The use of the 
 first person ])lural in Neh. x. 1, 31-40 [ix. 
 38, X. 30-39] does not disprove this ; for 
 that passage also is based upon a con- 
 temporary document wliicli the last com- 
 
 piler quotes •with gi-eater freedom only 
 towards the close. Not only in the Latin 
 Chronicles of the middle ages, but also in 
 the Oriental histories, a similar wc or / is 
 found retained very curiously from the 
 book quoted ; see Land on the Syrian 
 Chronicle, of John of Kphesus, p. 38. We 
 must not here appeal to the iv in 2 Macc_ 
 i. 20, 3 Mace. v. 43. The reading t«J"10N| 
 
 however, cannot originally have stood iu 
 this connection, but must have been trans- 
 posed here from vv. 9, 10 ; and we must 
 with the LXX. read -IIDX i" its phice. 
 (See Göltivqcr Gelehrte An~ei(jni, 1851, 
 p. 874,870.) 
 
 ■* Observe 3"l3nn. Ezra ii. 68 (which 
 reappears in his Aramaic, Ezra vii. 13, 15, 
 IG), the ClV3 DV in Aramaic vi. 6; the 
 entire description of the sacrificial offer- 
 ings, vi. 9, 17, 18, which in any passage of 
 this whole history woidd direct us to this 
 author; again D"]3 IjSo. iv. 7, 24, as com- 
 pared with verses 8, 11. 
 
 ' E.g. the extriine brevity of Ezra iv. 6 
 and 7. 
 
 " See the last note but one.
 
 LATEST BOOK (CHRONICLES, ETC.). 191 
 
 for certain tliat it was the language of liis authority, and not 
 merely introduced by the last author in the description of these 
 transactions with the Persian court and accompanying events.' 
 
 b.) From Ezra vii. the narrative, passing over a considerable 
 space of time, probably from a deficiency of materials, reaches 
 Ezra's exertions for the new Jerusalem, relating his journey 
 from Persia to the Holy City, ch. vii, and from ch. ix. what he 
 there accomplished. But here it strikes one as very strano-e 
 that the account of his activity in Jerusalem apparently closed 
 with ch. X. (the end of the present Book of Ezra), where we are 
 far from anticipating any such termination ; since after the 
 preparations described x. 16 sqq. our curiosity is roused to know 
 how Ezra will end the war against mixed marriages, in which 
 he had only just begun to attain any success, but is doomed to 
 disappointment. But in fact the thread of this narrative runs 
 on until it is satisfactorily wound up at Neh. i-vii. We must 
 therefore suppose that the long passage treating of Nehemiah 
 (Neh. i-vii.), which will soon be shown to be derived from a 
 memoir of Nehemiah's on his own life, was inserted here by 
 the latest author.^ And it is not difficult to discover the reason 
 of this insertion. For since the narrative of the termination 
 of Ezra's undertaking could not fail to mention Nehemiah's co- 
 operation (Neh. viii. 9, x. 2 [1]), the latest author might deem 
 it suitable to give a preliminary view from another source, of 
 Nehemiah's journey to Jerusalem and mode of action there. 
 
 Now let us bring together again the disunited passages, Ezra 
 vii-x. and Neh. viii-x, and examine into their origin. The 
 most characteristic thoughts and expressions of the latest 
 author are here crowded together as if he spoke entirely from 
 himself. Even the decree of the Persian king addressed to Ezra 
 (Ezra vii. 12-26), in the Ai-amaic dialect, exhibits occasional 
 points of phraseology so perfectly characteristic of the latest 
 author ^ as to drive us to the assumption that it was he who put 
 it into its present form, with a license of historical description 
 not exceeding that which the Arabian historians often em2jloy.'' 
 
 ' Because the last compiler docs not. the description of the temple-offerings in 
 
 as Ezra vii. 12, commence using the Ara- verse 17, and other descriptions of them 
 
 maic with the document qiioted. given Ly our author himself; and that in 
 
 - It might be fancied that the author verse 24 the office-bearers of the temple 
 
 of the apocryphal Third Book of Ezra, who are divided into classes which no one but 
 
 at ix. 37 skips at once from Ezra x. 44 to our author consistently distinguishes thus. 
 Keh. vii. 73, had before him a book with- ^ This will be allowed by every one 
 
 out this interpolation; but in that case he' accpiainted with the Arabic historians; 
 
 must have passed at once to Neli. viii. 1, even in works professing to give true 
 
 and not to Neh. vii. 73, a verse quite un- history any commands which it is known 
 
 suitable to the context. from other sources that a prince must 
 
 ^ Not to mention again ül^nn. ■^■- 13, have issued, are often dressed up by the 
 
 15, 16, note the perfect similarity b'.twcen writer in the form of a regailar edict.
 
 ii)2 uisTüiiY VF iii:];k]:av iiistokical compoöitiox. 
 
 Oll closer examination, liOTvever, we discover grounds for 
 assuming' the employment of a memoir written by Ezra himself 
 on his acts. For Ezra, throughout the j)assage Ezraviii. 27-ix, 
 is mentioned in the first person, and the use of the first person 
 plural in Neli. x. is connected with this phenomenon. Now we 
 have every reason to see in this the trace of an actual memoir 
 of Ezra's on his own life. For boldness like that of the Book 
 of Daniel, which allows any ancient hero to enter speaking of 
 himself in the first person, is foreign to a work like this of 
 purely historical purpose, and is in fact found nowhere else in it 
 — not even where there was a strong temptation to it, as in the 
 case of David ; but rather, as the numerous passages which 
 speak of Nehemiah in the first person are undoubtedly drawn 
 from his memoir, so by parity of reasoning these passages must 
 be derived from a similar memoir of Ezra's. Moreover, the 
 j)assages Ezra vii-x. and Neh. viii-x. contain such a number of 
 minute circumstances and careful enumeration that we are 
 here forced to assume as the foundation of the present nar- 
 rative the work of a contemporary who took an active part in 
 the establishment of the religion, from a consideration of the 
 number of names of unknown individuals brought together 
 here as if quoted from official documents, Ezra viii. 1-14, x. 
 18-44 ; Neh. x. Finally, variations in style are not wanting 
 here ; ' and in them too we recognise traces of an original 
 document not wholly effaced by the revision of the last author. 
 And as Nehemiah, after the pieces to be presently exhibited, in- 
 serted in his memoir some earlier records also, so from many 
 traces may we infer that Ezra did, and thus laid the foundation 
 of chapters i-vi. of the book now called by his name. 
 
 c.) Nehemiah's memoir, being less altered by the latest author, 
 is more readily recognisable. In style, subject-matter, and 
 plan it is quite peculiar, a personal memoir in the true sense of 
 the Avord, exhibiting with matchless truth the innermost nature 
 of the man. The exposition of this point, however, must be 
 reserved for the history of the time.^ Here we have chiefly to 
 
 ' The phrase nyi]in"''33> Ezra vi. 19, 8, 18, showing a cuincidonocLctwoen tlicsc 
 
 20, viii. 35, X. 16 (compare iv.l), and the contemporaries in the nso of a phra.se 
 
 , . , . 1 /. • elsewlierc niK'dnimon. 
 
 employment of the article instead of IfJ'i^ . nj, peculiarities of stylo are therefore 
 
 before the verb {Lehrbuch, § 331, b), Ezra easily discriminated; they are also seen 
 
 viii. 25, X. 14, 17 (compared with v. 18, in the abrupt pause before a merely ex- 
 
 where -)t>>N takes its place), are nowhere planatory clause, as vi. 19, where nbs"? 
 else so common. The pious phrase "113 ■■■ r 1 1 <• • • V ' 
 
 ^ ^ -: or xm. 5, where "iK'X before Qt^ is de- 
 
 Din* "sed in various connections (Ezra . ^^ ^ j.^ ^ mi ^ ^ -,1 
 
 •':- ... ^ signedly left out. The most tangible 
 
 vii. 6, 9, 28, viii. 18. 22, 31) is charae- p,.n,]iaVity i.s his use of the name Jew, as 
 
 teristic; it occurs again in Neluniiah ii. if he did not count himsidf one of them.
 
 LATEST BOOK (CHKONICLES, ETC.). 193 
 
 explain tlie manner in which the latest author used it, and must 
 primarily notice that, as the memoir of the ' Priest ' Ezra, 
 according- to extant traces, regarded exclusively the state of 
 rclig-ion and of the Temple of Jerusalem, so that of the Layman 
 and Governor Nehemiali, on the other hand, is chiefly occupied 
 with the condition of the city and the social welfare of its in- 
 habitants ; though Nehemiah, following the tendency of his 
 age, often, and with a certain partiality, does notice religious 
 matters also. Therefore (1) he describes with pleased prolixity, 
 Neh. i-vii. 4, how he travelled to the Holy City, restored order 
 there, and built up her walls. (2) He very properly pauses here 
 in order to present the statistics of the city and her territory, i.e. 
 the list of the inhabitants —both the names of those who dwelt 
 there on the first return from the Captivity, and their distribution 
 under his new arrangements. This is the passage, Neh. vii. 
 5-69, xi. 3-xii. 26. But the latest author, while evidently 
 taking the previous part almost without change, makes in this 
 several important alterations, adding for instance much respect- 
 ing the Priesthood in xii, especially after v. 10, and giving to the 
 passage a new conclusion in his own manner. He had, moreover, 
 to resume the fallen thread of the history, and of Ezra's journal 
 on the most" fitting occasion without necessarily waiting till the 
 close of Nehemiah's memoir. Consequently, after repeating 
 in ch. vii. 6-69 from Nehemiah the old list of the first-returned 
 captives, which Nehemiah himself states (vii. 5) he had found, 
 and with which he must also have appropriated the narrative in 
 w. 70-73 (although the list in question had already been given 
 in Ezra ii. from the same source whence Nehemiah took it), he 
 inserts the remainder of Ezra's history (Neh. viii.-x.), to which 
 the transition might seem prescribed by the subject itself, as 
 the one history (xii. 73) breaks off at a seventh month, and the 
 other (viii. 2) continues the narrative of the earlier events in 
 Ezra ii. 68-iii. 1, also from the beginning of a seventh month.^ 
 (3) After this pause, ISTehemiah's memoir turned to describe the 
 dedication-festival for the new walls of Jerusalem, Neh. xii. 27- 
 xiii. 3 ; and here a^ain the latest author adds something of his 
 own, especially towards the end of the twelfth chapter. The 
 memoir finally closed (xiii. 4-31) with short and disconnected 
 enumerations of other services rendered by the author to 
 Jerusalem ; leaving the impression that in the end Nehemiah 
 did not care to describe all that remained in his memory as fully 
 
 ' Tlie reiteration in the same work doubtedly an historian of a better age 
 arising hence really differ-i only in extent would have managed to avoid such pal- 
 from that described p. 179 sq.-; but un- pable repetitions. 
 VOL. I. .
 
 194 HISTORY OF HEBREW HISTORICAL COMPOSITIOX. 
 
 as he could have done. It Avould be impossible to characterise 
 more accurately than in these words, the nature of a personal 
 memoir such as we suppose Nehemiah's work to be. The latest 
 author has made no alteration either here or in the simple 
 superscription, Neh. i. 1, which may be due to Nehemiah's own 
 hand. Nehemiah's memoir, then, unquestionably ended here ; 
 and we have every reason to believe that the latest author also 
 designedly chose the same point for the conclusion of his ^eat 
 work, inasmuch as whatever was to be said about still later times 
 had been already mentioned on suitable occasions. 
 
 3) After this exposition of the sources of this work, we need 
 no further proof of the richness of its stores of information 
 both from ancient and from recent times ; and we also discover 
 that the judgments of some modern German writers respecting 
 it are either based uj)on misconception, or else very unjust. 
 Undoubtedly the writer assumes very great historical licence in 
 his endeavour to revivify many periods, esj^ecially that of ancient 
 Jerusalem ; yet even there he restrains himself within certain 
 bounds. So, for instance, when he introduces songs at tlie 
 time of David, he onl}^ employs the present collection of Psalms, 
 which even then was regarded as chiefly by David. The manner 
 in which he deals with his sources may, however, easily lead 
 to misunderstanding ; and of course a work so far removed 
 from the early history, and describing it only through the 
 medium of derived authorities, must be employed for historical 
 purposes with very great caution. Still, by accurately observing 
 what is the author's own in thought, word, and description, and 
 what he must have derived at all events in its ultimate basis 
 from his authorities, and thus distinguishing the fundamental 
 elements of the work, we shall be enabled to use it confidently 
 and with much advantage even for the earlier history, and glean 
 from it many important and genuine accounts, which we should 
 elsewhere seek in vain ; indeed we may discover surprising 
 relics of the earliest historical works, preserved in it through 
 the medium of later books, which are here quoted literally. This 
 has been already incidentally shown in some instances, and for 
 the rest it will be better shown hereafter in the cases in point. 
 We now require only a few words more on two important facts 
 connected with the same subject. 
 
 For David's life the author made use of the present canonical 
 Book of Kings as his chief authority, but in a form differing in 
 many important points (as we saw on p. 187) from the present 
 one, and possessing the advantage of greater authenticity. But 
 along with this he also presents much other matter — long lists 
 
 I
 
 LATEST BOOK (CHRONICLES, ETC.) 195 
 
 of names and families, most of whicli I have grouped together 
 above (p. 136 sq.), as well as long speeches and exhortations. 
 Now whence are these additions derived '? In the speeches and 
 exhortations, indeed, a slight acquaintance with the peculiarities 
 of the writer will allow us to see nothing more than the histori- 
 cal licence with which he endeavours wherever possible to 
 reanimate David's age. But whence can those long dry lists 
 be derived ? Certainly not from the work of the prophetic 
 historian of the Kings — the basis of the canonical Book of 
 Kings ; for that is an independent work, formed as it were at a 
 single casting, aiming at a rich, flowing, and elegant manner 
 of descrijition, and intentionally avoiding everything dry and 
 fragmentary, such as these lists and enumerations; and the two 
 passages which are appended to the extracts taken from it, 
 2 Sam. xxi. 15 sqq., xxiii. 8 sqq., are certainly (for the reasons 
 adduced on p. 148) placed there quite out of their connection, 
 having been inserted by later hands. The assumption forced 
 upon us by this reasoning, that such passages were derived 
 from some other source, is also corroborated by other considera- 
 tions. We read in 1 Chr. xxii. an account, wanting in 2 Sam., 
 of no small preparations made by David for building the Temple. 
 This narrative is the natural continuation of chap, xxi., and 
 certainly not essentially unhistorical, so far as its ultimate basis 
 is concerned ; es23ecially as it does not accord with the propheti- 
 cal description in 2 Sam. vii. ; comp. xxiv. Since therefore an 
 independent work such as the prophetic History of the Kings 
 could not have comprised these contradictions withm itself, 
 these divergent accounts must be derived from other, and in 
 the present case even from earlier, sources. And thus we should 
 deprive ourselves of one of the richest and oldest sources of the 
 Davidical history, if we failed to do justice to the very remark- 
 able remains of the State-annals fortunately preserved to us in 
 the Book of Chronicles. 
 
 On another period, which is treated with extreme brevity in 
 the canonical Book of Kings — that of David's successors in 
 Judah down to Hezekiah — this work, when rightly understood 
 and applied, not only yields very valuable supplements to the 
 history of the monarchy, the foundation of which undoubtedly 
 rested on the original State-annals,^ but also tells us of many 
 Prophets, of whose very names we should have otherwise been 
 wholly ignorant.^ Indeed it is clear from p. 184 sq. that the 
 
 ' E.g. sueli passages as 2 Chron. ii. 17 xxiii. 1, xxiv. 3 (compare ver. 27), &e. 
 [18] (compare ver. 1 [2]), iv. 7-10, xi. - Observe such instances as ' the vision 
 6-12, 18-23, xiii. 4-7, 19-21, xxi. 2, 3, of Iddo the seer against Jeroboam' in 2 
 
 o 2
 
 196 HISTORY OF HEBREW HISTORICAL COMPOSITION. 
 
 uucanonical great work which it used as its authority con- 
 tained very detailed notices of such prophets, and may conse- 
 quently be supposed to have drawn its information from actual 
 projjhetical books of history (pp. 138 sq.). And thus the historian 
 who can carefully sift the author's various accounts, and extract 
 from them the precious g-rains of truth, will even here reap a 
 harvest as the reward of his labours. 
 
 4. Of this great work, only the third pai"t, already described 
 p. 182, was probably at first admitted into the Canon, under the 
 name of the Book of Ezra (subsequently also called the Books 
 of Ezra and Nehemiah) ; because we find this part separated 
 ofi" as an independent Avork, not only in the Masoretic text, but 
 also in the LXX.' The history of the new Jerusalem, which 
 would naturally appear especially important in after-times, 
 might easily be at first admitted alone into the Canon, especially 
 as the Books of Samuel and Kings, if alread}' admitted, woidd 
 apj)ear sufficient for the chief part of the history of old Jerusa- 
 lem. Fortunately, however, for the fuller historical knowledge 
 of antiquity', the two earlier divisions of the work also were sub- 
 sequently received into the Canon. But apparently because the 
 history of the new Jerusalem already existed in another canoni- 
 cal book, only the earlier portion of this history was copied 
 in its original context on occasion of this admission into the 
 Canon ; and in token that the rest was to be found elsewhere, 
 the narrative was broken ofi* in the middle of a sentence, 2 Chr. 
 xxxvi. 22 sq. (comp. Ezra i. 1, 2) ; a remarkable phenomenon, 
 which however appears also in the LXX., and seems to admit 
 of no other explanation. 
 
 The Boole of Esther. 
 
 The Book of Esther, which was admitted among the canoni- 
 cal books of the Old Testament solely for its account of the 
 feast of Purim, was certainly written somewhat later than the 
 book we have just been considering. In its mode of treating 
 an historical subject, also, it closes the cycle of old Hebrew 
 history, and is already subject to the influence of an utterly 
 different mode of regarding and treating history. We have 
 indeed already seen how historical writing gradually burst its 
 old bounds and took an artist's licence to reanimate its subject- 
 matter by means of a new thought. But the animating thought 
 
 Chr. ix. 29, of whicli unfurtunatoly only tlic ' I)iit pcrbaiis not so early as the author 
 
 title aiul lint the contents are f^iveii ; tho of tlio Apocryphal 3 Ezra, who at ii. 1 
 
 projijiet Mdo in xii. I.'), xiii. 22; and passes at oneo from 2 Chr. xxxvi. 21 to 
 
 llanani llie prophet und. r king Asa in thu Book of Ezra, 
 xvi. 7-10.
 
 THE BOOK OF ESTIIEE. 197 
 
 wliicli then converted old fading traditions into pleasing new 
 stories, sprang at all events from tlie living well of tlie old 
 religion, and miglit therefore in favourable cases conjure up 
 figures both beautiful and truly Hebrew. But the Book of 
 Esther shows, for the first time, that even this well is beginning 
 to dry up and be lost to the historian. Its story, though ren- 
 dered attractive through art, highly cultivated of its kind, 
 knows nothing of high and pure truths, but allows low calcula- 
 tions of expediency, the force of blind faith, and the caprice of 
 passion, to reign supreme. We fall here as if from heaven to 
 earth ; and looking among the new forms surrounding us, we 
 seem to behold the Jews, or indeed the small men of the present 
 day in general, acting just as they now do. Moreover through 
 the entire narrative the author avoids, as if by design, mention- 
 ing the name of God ; either because the story was addressed 
 to minds unwilling to be reminded of higher names and things, 
 or rather that he himself remains to the end true to the same 
 low view of things in which the general plan and spirit of this 
 festal story took its rise ; a model narrator, at least for uni- 
 formity and consistency. But this, perfect and attractive as it 
 may be of its kind, and in this case actually is, mvist neverthe- 
 less be regarded as the true termination of the Hebrew histori- 
 cal literature, or perhaps in some respects even as diametrically 
 opposed to the true Hebrew conception of history. The fact 
 that this book, which gave the best exposition of the meaning 
 of the Purim feast, so higlily esteemed in recent times, was 
 therefore deemed worthy of a place beside the older books of the 
 Canon, must not blind us to its real nature and wide diversity 
 from all other historical books of the Old Testament, nor to the 
 fact that it was written at a time already far removed from the 
 spirit of the old religion. 
 
 The history of the proper historical literature of the Hebrews 
 being now concluded, this and all later books will be more 
 suitably considered as historical authorities, when we are 
 engaged upon the latest epoch of the nation. 
 
 Conclusion. — Views of later times regardi^ig Antiquity. 
 
 Looking back now at the close over the ground traversed, 
 we can form some idea from this one example of historical 
 development in the nation, hoAv great that development must 
 have been in other directions also. All possible species of his- 
 toric writing, with the single exception of the purely critical, 
 have been observed ; the youthful kind making the first trial of
 
 I9S HISTORY OF HEBREW HISTORICAL COMPOSITION. 
 
 its powers, the mature and cultivated, and the artificial in many 
 gradations ; that of the State-annals with their lapidar j style, 
 and that which teems with graceful description ; the legal, 
 the priestly, and the popular ; that which simply narrated, that 
 which is lifted by prophetic thoughts to a poetical elevation, 
 and that which reanimates its characters by freely putting 
 speeches into their mouths ; the almost purposeless, and that 
 which has the most definite aims ; the heavenly, and the utterly 
 earthly. Historical composition attained its highest bloom 
 under the first Kings, and retained this position for several cen- 
 turies ; but its beginnings go back even to the age of Moses, 
 and comprise certain extraneous pieces which appear to be of 
 still earlier date. It passed through vicissitudes equal to those 
 to which Arabic historic writing down to the time of Abulma- 
 hasin, Malaisi and Ibn-Chaldun was exposed, and showed itself 
 more varied and plastic in its course, more rich and compre- 
 hensive in its acquired materials, than that. Here, therefore, 
 standmg at the very threshold of the history of the people, we 
 have every reason to suppose that the nation also must have 
 passed through many similar vicissitudes and stages of high 
 cultivation ; for this it is which in every age is reflected in the 
 working of the intellect in historical literature. 
 
 But at any rate, up to the time of the formation of the Old 
 Testament Canon, historic writing did not reach a stage which 
 in any strict sense deserves the name of a philosophic treat- 
 ment of history. No complete discrimination between historic 
 fact and mere tradition, which would lead to an undivided search 
 after the former, had been effected, because the necessity of such 
 distinction had never been deeply felt. And this defect, having 
 subsisted during the most flourishing period of the People of 
 Israel, was still less likely to be removed in the age of their 
 final and utter decay, as will be further shown in the course of 
 the history itself. 
 
 But wherever historic insight is not constantly gaining in 
 systematic strictness, clearness, and rich variety, and preserved 
 in all its purity, it must lose more and more of its transparency, 
 certainty, and fulness, in direct proportion to the distance to 
 which the period in question is removed from the present either 
 in time or in vital interest. Hence the ideas held in later times 
 on the ancient history of Israel, especially on the very earliest 
 epoch, became increasingly vague and defective, and equally so 
 among people of the most diverse faiths — among Jews, Samari- 
 tans, and Christians alike. It is true that the great events 
 and deep experiences of any later age may throw back an un-
 
 VIEWS OF LATER TIMES REGARDING ANTIQUITY. 199 
 
 expected lig-lit over wide spaces of ancient history. And no 
 sooner liad Christianity appeared than many phases of concen- 
 trated antiquity shone with a warm glow never seen before. But 
 still these are only occasional, if powerful streams of light, 
 which pour over the surface, but cannot reach and brighten 
 every j)art. 
 
 But yet the ancient history was of necessity brought into 
 more constant and general use with the closer and closer attach- 
 ment to the religion which it taught, and the wider extension 
 which it thenceforth experienced through its own completion 
 in Christianity. Consequently as the study of the history in- 
 creased, the caprice with which it was used increased also : for it 
 is only in the use of certain and clearly defined knowledge, that 
 consistency and freedom from caprice can always be maintained. 
 And again, all parties and schools, however in other respects they 
 differed among themselves, could not but agree in this free and 
 capricious use of history ; since the first Christians did not under- 
 stand the j)roj)er application of the few but penetrating sayings 
 of Christ himself which condemned this arbitrary method. 
 
 The application of the ancient sacred history was demanded 
 by the feelings and wants of that age, far more than its correct 
 description. It was applied in all imaginable ways, — in oral 
 instruction at every step ; in proof of all possible truths ; in 
 writings of the most various kinds, for warning, for reproof, for 
 consolation ; in books clothed in a prophetic dress, or in j)urely 
 poetic ones ; in forms moulded in imitation of the old Hebrew 
 literature, or in such as were animated by the freer breath of 
 the new age and especially by Greek art. Such writings 
 issued mainly from the most active and impetuous tendencies 
 of the time, — among the Jews from the Hellenists and other 
 separatists, among the Christians from the Gnostics and other 
 sects ; but here and there they are also found among the es- 
 tablished communities. An instance of this is furnished by the 
 large work, the ' Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs,' ' written 
 by a genuine Pauline Christian, towards the beginning of the 
 second century ; filled with a powerful and noble spirit, it imi- 
 tates Jacob's Blesjing, mentioned on pp. 69 sq., in taking as 
 its text the sacred memories of the lives and characters of each 
 of the twelve sons of Jacob. 
 
 ' The reprint of this work in the Codex sons as speakers, was doubtless the eir- 
 
 PseMdcjiitjr. V.T. of J. A. Fabricius, i. pp. cumstance that St. Paul was of the tribe 
 
 496-759, scarcely does more than repro- of Benjamin ; the introduction of Benja- 
 
 duce the earlier edition of Grabe, without min thus pennitting a natural allusion to 
 
 rendering it superfluous. One cause which the high historical importance of his great 
 
 led the author to introduce Jacob's twelve descendant.
 
 200 HISTORY OF IIEBEEW HISTORICAL COMPOSITIOX. 
 
 But along with tlie flood of sucli writings, others also arose, 
 which, with whatever motive undertaken, were intended to 
 describe the ancient history simply as it was, and to make it 
 known to contemporaries. The only comprehensive work of 
 this kind preserved entire from the Grecian age, tlieAntiquities 
 of Flavins Josephus, though admirable in language and style, is 
 destitute of all high and just views of history, and addicted to 
 abusing any occasional freedom of treatment by the introduction 
 of distasteful conceits, far-fetched and infelicitous conjectures, 
 which betray only too clearly the Pharisee of that age.^ On the 
 earlier ages of the history it is difficult to discover in this 
 work a sin^^le fjenuine grain of ancient tradition which was not 
 already present in the canonical books of the Old Testament ; 
 and it is therefore most fortunate that the numerous attacks to 
 Avhich the work was exposed subsequently induced the author 
 to write the defence known as the Two Boohs against Apion, in 
 which he gives valuable extracts on the ancient history from 
 books otherwise lost ; for in the larger work he had given but 
 few such. It is for the later period only that the works of Jose- . 
 phus are important. On the earlier times his extracts from 
 older works are almost the only useful element in them. One 
 book, the Seder Olam (rabha) has been preserved, which for the 
 first time treated the chronology of the whole Old Testament 
 history as a subject worth knowing for its own sake ; it dates 
 at the earliest from the middle or close of the second century 
 after Christ.^ This work, which in language and spirit may be 
 compared with the best passages of the Mislma, was written in 
 an age when Judaism, already tota^Uy dissevered from Chris- 
 tianity, was also separating itself from all Greek culture, in 
 order to fall back rigidly upon the letter of the Old Testament. 
 Though it does not exactly treat the historical contents of 
 the Old Testament more arbitrarily than the Christians of the 
 first two centuries did, and even carefully brings together 
 all passages of those Scriptures which appear to possess any 
 importance to the establishment of a single continuous chrono- 
 logy, yet through the utter caprice of its arrangement it clearly 
 proves that no certainty can be attained by this method alone. 
 And even its frequent ingenuity and its attempts to reduce all 
 the facts of history to round and definite numbers, as well as 
 to exhibit surprising analogies, must have often distorted the 
 
 ' For iiibtaiico, Ant. vi. 12. 8, where date, and a vrry ample but unsatisfactory 
 
 he expresses himself strongly against commentary by Johann Meyer. On the 
 
 monarchy. age of the work, see Zunz, Gotlcffdicnst- 
 
 " J'rinted at Amsterdam IG'JO, together luhe Vortriujc da- Judai, p. 85, 138. 
 with the Stdcr Oluiii Zuttu of much later
 
 VIEWS OF LATER TIMES REGARDING ANTIQUITY. 201 
 
 truth. A similar judgment must bo passed upon that part of 
 the Mishna which relates to this subject. Let it not be thought 
 that the Talmud contains none but true recollections of early 
 times : for even in the Mishna we meet with a mode of refinine: 
 upon difficult points of antiquity quite analogous to the so-called 
 Rationalism of modern times.' 
 
 But there were other works also which united the two pur- 
 poses of historical description and moral exhortation. Such a 
 work is the Booh of Jubilees, written by a Jewish hand, about the 
 first century before Christ,^ and much read by Christians after- 
 wards. In modern times it was suj^posed to be irrecoverably 
 lost, until the recent discovery of an Ethiopic translation.^ The 
 evident design of its strict exhortations is to recommend the 
 accurate observance of the Sabbath with all the festal arrange- 
 ments of the Old Testament ; but it also explains from history 
 the meaning of all the sacred divisions of time, especially the 
 Jubilees ; to this end breaking up the entire history of the 
 world down to the giving of the law at Sinai into small periods,"* 
 everywhere half fancy and half truth. 
 
 Thus during the few centuries before and after Christ arose, 
 even within the bounds of the ancient community, an extremely 
 extensive and varied literature on the subject of the ancient 
 history.^ Very few of these works, however, have come down 
 to us complete ; many are as yet only very imperfectly known ; 
 and the very existence of many once popular works can only 
 be inferred from certain indications, which do not even enable 
 us to give their names or trace them with any certainty. This 
 truth must be steadily borne in mind in reading the works 
 which have come down to us : or else we shall miss the true 
 
 ' See for instance tlie trifling exjilana- * Hence seems to have arisen its other 
 
 tion of the lifting of Moses' hands in Ex. name, signifying in effect t« AeTrra (sul)ti- 
 
 xvii., and of the serpent in Numb, xxi., lia, minuta) ttjs Viveaeois (comp. Kara. t5 
 
 which is given by the njt-M C'X"! ch. iii. X^Tr-rhv ^L-nyuaQai and Äen-ToAoyelv in 
 
 end. Even the Arabian Rabbis, as Epiph. Hcer. (li. 10. 12 sq. 30), and still 
 
 Saadia, Tanchum, are often only triflers in further abbreviated 'H Aeirr)) rivea-is, Parva 
 
 Biblical exegesis: Ewald, Ucber die Ar a- (jc??cs2s; which name, however, is ill-suited 
 
 hischgeschriebenenWerke Jüdischer Sprach- to a work of such extent. See G'6tting(r 
 
 ffelch'r fen, Stuttgart, 1841, p. 7; and in the Gelehrte Anzeigen, 18G0, p. 404 sq., and 
 
 Tübingen Theologische Jahrbücher, 1845, D'Abbadie's Catal. Codd. Aethiop. p. 133. 
 
 p. 574 sq. The Ethiopians generally name the book 
 
 ■■^ The first certain allusion to this book KufCdcB. See also Jahrb. d. Bib. Wiss. 
 
 occurs as early as 4 Ezra xiv. 4-6. iv. 79. 
 
 ^ Translated by Dillmann, with a disser- ^ Philo, at the commencement of his 
 
 tation on its age, in the Jahrhü-her der Life of Moses, refers to many highly- 
 
 Biblischen Wissenschaft, ii. p. 230 sqq. and esteemed historical works, on Moses for 
 
 iii. It was published in Ethiopic, also instance, written by Jews, but not included 
 
 edited by Dillniann, at Kiel, 1859. On a among the sacred writings; but his own 
 
 recently discovered ancient Latin version, works show how little of any importance 
 
 see Göttinger Gelehrte Anzeigen, 1862, p. respecting the ancient history coxüd bo 
 
 2 sq. gleaned from them.
 
 202 HISTORY OF HEBREW HISTORICAL COMPOSITION. 
 
 meaning- and importance of miicli wliicli even tliey contain.^ 
 Moreover it is very possible, indeed often obvious, that many, 
 and especially the earlier of these authors, made use of written 
 records not admitted among the canonical books. We must 
 not overlook even such authorities ; thoug-h the most careful 
 search will be rewarded with but few grains of gold in this in- 
 creasingly desolate expanse. For it is most melancholy to per- 
 ceive, that with the advance of time the correct understanding 
 of the distinctive features and even of the sublimity of antiquity 
 retrogrades. Of this many instances will come before us as we 
 advance. 
 
 Before the expedition of Alexander, no Greek observer had 
 specially noticed the peculiar manners and history of this 
 recluse people ; they were at that time confounded with the 
 Sp'ians, Phenicians, and Palestinians (or properly Philistines) : 
 even Herodotus neither visited their country nor learned any- 
 thing definite about the people or their name, except that they 
 were circumcised.^ But as the Jews, and subsequently the 
 Christians, became better known to the Greeks and Romans, 
 some few writers among the latter gradually began to take some 
 interest in the ancient history and peculiar customs of the 
 Israelites. Pew of these however were so free from preposses- 
 sion against them as Aristotle'^ or Hecateeus of Abdera ; * the 
 greater number were hindered by the strong wall of existing 
 prejudices against the nation from gaining any profound or 
 comprehensive view of their history, as will be further shown in 
 its proper place. A fresh impetus, both stronger and purer, to the 
 study of this history, was felt by early Christianity. No sooner 
 had the Christian Church gained a firm and peaceful footing in 
 the world, than such men asOrigen, Eusebius, and Jerome turned 
 their fresh energies to this sphere. Here we see the first serious 
 preparation and prelude to a j)hilosophic treatment of the Old 
 
 ' Vory little has as yet been con-ertly been early reduced to writing. In the same 
 
 observed on the question how many and May no one (as far as I know) has yet 
 
 what uncanoiiical books are referred to pointed out that in the Mishna we occa- 
 
 in the New Testament ; but it ought at sionally find passages of a much earlier 
 
 length to be seen that much that is date: as tor instnuce \n Pir/icA/Mth, n. I, 
 
 alluded to in the historical books and in 2, some sayings which from their tone and 
 
 the Epistles, especially that to the He- style must bo very ancient, possibl}' even 
 
 brews, must necessarily come from writings derived from some early prophetic work, 
 which have not become canonical. It is '^ See my Altcrthümer, p. 103. 
 usual to assume an oral tj-adition as the ' According to Clearchus, in Josephus* 
 
 !)asis of such stories, without considering Against Apion, i. 22. This entire dis- 
 
 the utter impossibility of this assumption qiiisition in Josephus is of importance, 
 in the greater number of cases ; for even if * In Josephus, Against Apion, i. 22 ; 
 
 any view not found in the canonical books Eusebius, Prap. Evangclica, ix. 4 ; and 
 
 had been first formed in a school (which Diod. Sic. i. 40, according to Photius. 
 Philo assumes, ii. p. 81), yet it must have
 
 VIEWS OF LATER TIMES REGARDING ANTIQUITY. 203 
 
 Testament history. But it is notorious that all such efforts 
 were then left incomplete, and that a long night of increasing 
 darkness soon supervened. Through Islam this darkness be- 
 came even denser ; smce, with all its eagerness to catch up and 
 remodel any traditions of Biblical antiquity which came in its 
 way, it took them only from the mouth of the then living Jews 
 and Christians, and not even from the best extant sources.* 
 Owing its own birth to a neglect of history, Islam has never given 
 birth to any true history. 
 
 We have now in the broad light of day to complete (what the 
 best Fathers of the Church began) a philosophic history, the 
 certainty and truth of which shall ultimately attract all alike — 
 Jews and Mohammedans as well as Christians, scholars as well 
 as soldiers and kings. 
 
 ' These traditions are found collected Sibliftokc Lec/etidender Musebnänner,'[8i!), 
 
 in the great Islamite Chronicles, beginning and my own remarks in the Tübingen 
 
 with that of Tabari, or as an introduction TlieoJogisdiC Jahrbücher, 1845, p. 571 sqq. 
 to the history of Muharamed ; see Weil,
 
 204 
 
 SECTION III. 
 
 CHEONOLOGY OF THE ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 The chronology of the history of an ancient nation, whether in 
 its larger divisions, or in its entire extent, can never be secure 
 and readily available as exact science, unless it is proved that 
 during its national existence it employed a continuous and 
 fixed computation of years (or Era) in specifying the order of 
 events. Yet how long it is before a nation reaches this point 
 at all! and how few of the nations of antiquity, despite their 
 high culture in many other respects, ever understood the neces- 
 sity of this art, simple and all-sufiicient as it is ! The great 
 historical phenomena and events themselves may so entirely 
 absorb the thoughts of a nation or other community, that for a 
 long time they hardly find it necessary to look any further and 
 enquire to what definite period of time they belonged. In 
 Israel this deep interest in the internal life, and childlike 
 disregard of the outside of history, was of long duration, in- 
 duced and cherished as it was by historical position. Even in 
 the New Testament age, the narratives of the Gospel-history long 
 remained at this first stage of self-sufficing and homelike seclu- 
 sion, until at length Luke began to find its place for it in the 
 chronology of the great world. And ancient Israel rejoiced for 
 centuries in its deliverance from Egypt and the bondage of 
 Pharaoh, without even seriously asking the name of the Pharaoh 
 under whom Moses rose up, or caring much in what year or even 
 century he reigned. Wliere in the ordinary transactions of 
 life a date could not be dispensed with, as in deeds concerning 
 transfers of property, the ancient Israelites probably found it 
 sufficient to count time by the years of their ruler. No such 
 Israelitish document has indeed as yet been discovered; but 
 this system was in use among the Egyptians, even as late as the 
 age of the Ptolemies.^ Before the Monarchy, one sort of supreme 
 power in Israel possessed the requisite permanency to serve as 
 a reference in counting the course of years — the High-priest's 
 
 ' Many Egyptian records of tlic kind interpreted, at least as far as tlie nuinljers 
 have already been diacovc^red and reliably are concerned.
 
 CHRONOLOGY OF THE ANCIENT IIISTOEY. 205 
 
 office ; and tliis it could do even when greatly reduced in power.' 
 But wlien in inucli Liter times documents such as these were 
 appealed to, it would be necessary in the first instance to 
 obtain from some master of the science a determination of the 
 time when any <^iven ruler lived ; and thus a system seeming-ly 
 simple proved itself in the end particularly technical and com- 
 plicated. Extraordinary events also, whether joyous or grievous, 
 not unfrequently served as chronological landmarks, as we 
 clearly see in some examples taken from common life.^ But 
 no one such date remained long enough in the national memory 
 to become j)ermanent. Thus during the whole period in which 
 Israel flourished as a nation, no one era ever came into conti- 
 nuous and general use. 
 
 1. But it would be a mistake to infer from this that the ancient 
 Israelites possessed no means of counting the course of years. 
 They were assuredly not so barbarous as this ; and in every 
 civilised state the necessity of a continuous survey of the years 
 is felt at every step. Computations of years, reaching back 
 very far, were especially required for the settlement of the 
 annual festivals and the entire calendar.^ In the ancient world 
 generally, and in Egypt especially, this work was the duty of 
 the Priesthood ; * and so it doubtless was in Israel. Moreover 
 the Sabbatical and Jubilee years of the Israelites, Avliich were 
 undoubtedly faithfully observed in the earliest ages, introduced 
 the further necessity of computing long series of years (Cycles). 
 As the Priests thus had to compute ver^^ various and sometimes 
 extensive periods, we can see no reason Avhy they should not 
 have possessed a j^ermanent chronology.-' 
 
 The mode in which the Book of Origins marks time furnishes 
 
 ' The groat excitement occat^ioncd in important description in Clemens Alexan- 
 
 oarly times by tlie death of a High-priest driniis, Sf7-om. vi. 4. 
 
 and the consequent inauguration of a sue- ^ The ealculation of centuries would he 
 
 cessor, and the marked epoch formed by much easier if the fiftieth year were always 
 
 these events, may 1)0 imagined from the the year of Jubilee; see ray Altcrihihmr 
 
 indications explained in my Altcrihiiiner p. 415 sq. The later Jewish scholars 
 
 des Volkes Lrael, p. 197, 425. See lists generally fixed the fiftieth, and not tlie 
 
 of priests with their years, e.g. in C. I. forty-ninth as the Jubilee year ; as we see 
 
 Gr. ii. p. 449. plainly by the Seder Olmn rahha, c. xi. ; 
 
 ° Amos i. 1 ; comp. Zech. xiv. T) ; the Philo's Qurestiones in Gefiesin xvii. 1 seq. 
 
 case briefly mentioned aljovo (p. ;J2') may apud Auciier, ii. p. 209 ; Coisii/utiones 
 
 have T)een a similar one in primi'val times ; A/>o,'<(oltc(P, vii. 36, and other authorities- 
 
 a third instance is that of Ezekiel's reck- sec my Alter' hiliner, p. 419. The I'ook of 
 
 oning from the captivity of King Jelioia- Jubilees, however, reckons by jubilees of 
 
 chin, i. 2, &c. precisely seven weeks, i.e. of fort^'-nine 
 
 * Especially as distinct traces are per- yc.irs ; but thi.s is only a learned fancy of 
 ceptible of two beginnings to a year; one treating and reckoning the whole ancient 
 of which at b'ust (that maintained by the history as sacred, as if some siiecial sanc- 
 Pricsts) required a scientific calculation, tity lay in the constantly-z'ccurring number 
 See my Altcrthümer, p. 394 sq. seven. 
 
 * Of the Egyptian priests we have the
 
 206 CHRONOLOGY 
 
 a clear proof of the possibility of a continuoTis clironology 
 among- tlie Israelites, and of its applicability to tbe description 
 of their own history. For it gives to the events following the 
 Exodvis from Egypt a distinct chronology dating from that very 
 Exodus, and reckoning the beginning of each year by the first 
 day of the Paschal month. This system runs through all 
 the extant fragments of that great work, and it would be 
 absurd to suppose it simply invented by that writer himself. 
 In fact, in the whole history of Israel, no event was fitter than 
 this to serve as the commencement of a chronologic era. The 
 Romans counted their years from the expulsion of the Tarquins, 
 long before the building of the city was adopted as the com- 
 mencement of their era. With even greater justice might the 
 Israelites adopt their great deliverance from Egypt, the origin 
 of all the higher elements of their life, as the first year of their 
 era. At least when the laws of the Sabbatical and Jubilee 
 years were actually carried out (and this certainly occurred 
 immediately upon the conquest of the countrj^), a fixed chrono- 
 logy must have been established ; and at that time the year of 
 the Exodus may very probably have been taken as the com- 
 mencement of an era. Now (as already mentioned, p. 82), the 
 Book of Origins, in 1 Kings vi. 1, names 480 years as the time 
 which elapsed between the Exodus and the building of the 
 Temple in the fourth year of Solomon's reign. We cannot now 
 feel any doubt as to the basis on which this calculation rests, 
 especially when we remember that (according to j). 78) the 
 author was a Levite ; since as such he would naturally have 
 access to the most accurate chronology then attainable. But 
 the same author (according to p. 82), also in Ex. xii. 40, de- 
 termines the length of the sojourn in Egypt in years ; and 
 though the Israelites had not then the inducement of the Sab- 
 batical and Jubilee years to carry on a continuous clironology, 
 yet it must be remembered that they were then living in so 
 close contact with the Egyptians, old masters of the science, 
 that they could easily obtain the best instruction. It must also 
 be added, that the Book of Origins (according to the fragment 
 explained p. 52) gave notices of the times of the building of 
 ancient cities both in Egypt and Canaan. Taking all these 
 facts into consideration, we can no longer doubt that through- 
 out the best ages of the nation, the Priests jDaid great attention 
 to chronology, and possessed a continuous chronologic reckoning 
 dating from the great Israelite event, the first year of the 
 Exodus. 
 
 But yet this method of computation obtained little favour for
 
 OF THE ANCIENT HISTORY. 207 
 
 the ordinary purposes of common life. It was not employed in 
 civil documents ; at least we do not find the slightest trace of 
 such a use. In ordinary books of narrative too, written on a 
 less grand scale, and by authors less acquainted with all ages 
 of history than the priestly author of the Book of Origins, it 
 was not used ; since in these some simpler and more obvious 
 system of reckoning, e.g. by the year of the reigning prince, 
 Avas thought sufficient. Hence many points connected with the 
 Old Testament chronology are really more or less uncertain, 
 and an air of micertainty is thus easily thrown over the whole. 
 For the whole early history, in many resj^ects the most impor- 
 tant of all, the numbers given in the Book of Origins — the 
 480 years after, and 430 years before the Exodus — form the 
 axis upon which everything turns, and upon the reliability of 
 which everything hangs. And precisely because these two high 
 numbers now stand alone in the Old Testament, and at first 
 sight appear incompatible with other recorded facts, it is easy 
 to raise doubts respecting their credibility ; and in fact objec- 
 tions on various grounds have been urged against it. We must 
 reserve proofs of the groundlessness of all such objections to the 
 parts which treat of the settlement in and the Exodus from 
 Egypt. 
 
 2. When the chronology of a history presents itself in the 
 state just described, the most obvious means either to establish 
 or to correct it, is to compare it, at all points of contact, with 
 the contemporary portion of the history of some other nation. 
 But Israel, during the whole period of its independent national 
 life, was too proud to aiTange and carry on its chronology on 
 the system of any other nation, whether Phenician, Egyptian, 
 or Babylonian ; and its literary culture was too rudimentary to 
 induce even a collateral mention of the corresponding chrono- 
 logy of foreign nations. Even after the division of the kingdom 
 which ensued after Solomon's death, the chronology of each 
 kingdom, so far as we can see, was dated solely by the years of 
 the king reigning there, without any reference to the other. 
 In the superscriptions of some prophetical books,' indeed, we 
 now read the names of the contemporary kings of both king- 
 doms, given for the sake of greater definiteness ; and in the 
 existing Books of Kings, the histories of the two kingdoms are 
 skilfully interwoven on the principle of associating together the 
 contemporary kings of both ; by which means the separate com- 
 putations are more readily made to correspond with and verify 
 
 ' Amos i. 1, Hosea i. 1, added by tlic hand of the last collector; see my Prophctoi, 
 des Alten Hundes, i. p. 61.
 
 208 CHROXOLOGY 
 
 each otlier. But in both these cases of parallelisms we trace a 
 later hand ; and those so-called synchronisms appear from all 
 available indications to have been only imported bj the learned 
 into the history after the total destruction of the Northern 
 King-dom. The earliest Hebrew writer known to have emj)loyed 
 a foreig-n (i.e. non-Israelite) chronology is Ezekiel, living in the 
 middle of the Babylonian captivity ; yet even he scarcely ven- 
 tures to put the foreign beside the native chronology at the 
 very front of his worh.^ 
 
 It is therefore only where a foreign history or chronology 
 comes into some contact with the history of Israel that any 
 comi)arison can be instituted. Every combination of the kind 
 that can be safely made, cannot but be extremely welcome and 
 useful here. For the later half of the history we have at 
 command many points of comparison with the history of the 
 Phenicians, the Assyrians, the Chaldeans, and the Greeks, 
 which help to clear up many obscurities. But for the first 
 half of this history, i.e. the period before David and Solomon, 
 these sources, so far as we yet know them, fail us almost 
 totally.^ At present therefore the Egyptian chronology alone 
 possesses for both divisions of the history considerable, and for 
 the earlier unrivalled, importance. Manetho's numbers as yet 
 stand alone to vouch for the whole early history of Egypt and 
 the countries of Western Asia ; and from the close connection 
 existing at many important points between the histories of 
 Israel and of Egypt, they will be found of the greatest use to 
 us. Lately too, the secrets of the ancient Egyptian inscriptions 
 and pap^^i have been disclosed in increasing numbers and 
 accuracy ; and it is generally names a,nd dates upon these 
 which can be deciphered with the greatest certainty. Never- 
 theless we must beware of incautious or excessive reliance upon 
 this authoritj^, so far as it is yet accessible and appears uncor- 
 rupt. For though the Egyptians from the earliest times 
 displayed the greatest capacity for numbers and calculations, 
 and loved the abstruse arts of that department, yet even they 
 employed as yet no permanent chronological era in common 
 life. Eor ordinary purposes they reckoned time by the years of 
 the reigniTig king ; and the larger numbers preserved from their 
 schools contain only the frequently ingenious computations of 
 the learned.^ 
 
 ' Soc my rrophclni, ii. p. 214. lorjic th-r jEg;/}r!rr, vol. i.. Berlin, 18 19 ; to 
 
 ^ The whole fourth vohime of Bun.^cn's this still iiieoiiiplete work, liis Konigslmch 
 
 yT-dJ/plciiK S/dlc in der IVcK/jcschich/civiL'rs der alten ^gi/ptcr, Berlin, 1858, also on a 
 
 to this suhject. very largo scale, serves as a supploniont. 
 
 ^ Sec Lepsius'b great work iJlc Clirono- Büekh, in Munctlio und die Hundsstern-
 
 OF THE ANCIENT HISTORY. 209 
 
 3. But beyond tlie mere numbers of years there liave come 
 down to us, amid the mass of historical materials, various other 
 supports for the chronology which are deserving of attention. 
 
 Such a support would have been furnished by the mention of 
 the observance of the Sabbatical, and yet more of the Jubilee 
 years, if such mention were frequent, or indeed occurred at all. 
 These Sabbatical and Jubilee years were unquestionably actually 
 observed by the nation, during at least the first few centuries 
 of their possession of Canaan.' If therefore one or more of 
 these years were noticed in the history, and the date of the 
 commencement of the series were also known, we should 
 possess some fixed supports for the chronology. And in fact 
 something of this kind was assumed by the learned Jews of 
 later times who examined the ancient chronology as a Avhole. 
 The author of the Seder Olam Babha (p. 200) teaches that the 
 residence of Israel in Canaan prior to the first expulsion 
 amounted to exactly seventeen Jubilees, or 850 years ; and in 
 accordance with this general assumption all special details were 
 computed. It was taught, for instance, that the building of 
 Solomon's Temple occurred exactly in the middle of a Jubilee- 
 period, the finding and publication of the law of Moses under 
 Josiah at the very commencement of the last, and the deporta- 
 tion of king Jehoiachin exactly in the middle of this last Jubi- 
 lee-period.^ But it justly excites our surprise to find these late 
 writers speaking so exactly of things never mentioned with 
 these details in the old historical Avorks, nor even by Josephus. 
 We need not indeed be much surprised to find no notice taken 
 by the historical reporters of these great epochs in the earliest 
 ages when they were undoubtedly observed, inasmuch as the 
 accounts preserved of those early times are throughout ex- 
 tremely brief. But if during the more fully described periods 
 of history (viz. the times of the Kings) all these years of rest 
 were really observed with the accuracy which these later 
 writers pretend, it cannot but appear strange that no single 
 observance of them, either din-ing the building of the Temple 
 or on any other occasion, is recorded. In the time of the new 
 
 j-)cr}o(U (Berlin, 1845), attempted to extend ' See my Alterfhitmer, p. 41 1 sqq. 
 
 this theory of artificially devised numbers, - See Seder Olam R. c. xi. 15, 23, 24, 25. 
 
 so far as to show the entire history of Egypt The time of the siege of Jerusalem Ly 
 
 Tip to Meucs to be arranged according to Sennacherib is placed by this work (ch. 
 
 the Sothiac cycle ; this is very properly dis- xxiii.) in tlie 1 1th year of a Jubilee-cycle, 
 
 puted by Lepsius. See also the critiques thercforenot immediatelj'beforeaSabbath- 
 
 on the works of Lepsius and others on this year, with an explanation of the words of 
 
 sidiject, in the Guttivger Gelehrte Anse'xjen, Isaiah xxxvii. 30, which expressly avoids 
 
 1850, pt. 83; 1851, p. 425 sqq.; 1S52, p. referring these to a Sabbath or Jubiloe- 
 
 1153 sqq.; 1858, p. 1441 sqq. year. 
 
 VOL. I. P
 
 210 CHRONOLOGY 
 
 Jerusalem on tlie contrary, when at least the Sabbatical year 
 was actually observed, Josephus mentions it quite naturally 
 wherever it had any influence on the course of history ;' for 
 the seventh year's fallow, observed as strictly as it seems to 
 have been from about the time of Ezra and the Maccabees, had 
 a remarkable influence upon many social arrangements, occa- 
 sioning especially the demand to omit the land-tax for that 
 year. Now it may possibly be of some use to note one of the 
 years of this period which was kept as a sabbath, as by reck- 
 oning from thence backward and again backward, we may be 
 enabled to draw some sort of conclusion respecting earlier times 
 also. If however, in the later age, the seventh year only was 
 observed, and no notice was taken of the Jubilee and the fifty 
 years' cycle, the calculation thence deduced would not without 
 modification admit of apjjlication to the early times. More- 
 over we are ignorant of many preliminary points essential for 
 carrying through such a calculation with any great degree of 
 certainty. As to- the Rabbinical assumptions mentioned above, 
 we can only suppose that they sprang from the well-known 
 mode of dealing with the Old Testament adopted by the Rabbis ; 
 who hunted up supports, actual or apparent, furnished by iso- 
 lated sentences of Holy Writ, in order to establish their precon- 
 ceived opinion, and were thus, through assumptions more witty 
 than truthful, betrayed further and further into error. ^ To gain 
 firm ground here, independent of Rabbinical subtleties, we should 
 require at the outset very different authorities and auxiliaries 
 from those now at our command. 
 
 The numerous genealogical tables, of greater or less extent, 
 scattered throughout the Old Testament, and in part elsewhere,^ 
 furnish another sujjport to the chronology. For by takmg twenty- 
 
 * Josephus, Jewish War,\. 2. 4; Anfi- Dukeof Manchester (in his work 77/c T/wics 
 
 quities, xiii. 8. 1, xiv. 10. 6, 16. 2, xv. 1. 2. of Daniel, London, 1815), has recently at- 
 
 See Tac. IJist.v. i. tempted to support a similar assumption 
 
 2 It is clear from the above-cited pas- by tlie passages Jcr. xxviii. 1, 3, xxxiv. 8- 
 
 sages of the Seder Olam R., that the t\yo 11, as if these numbers and words applied 
 
 passages in Ezekiel i. 1, 2 and xl. 1 served necessarily to Sabbatical years, but with- 
 
 as starting-points: the expression t^'X") out at all proving that they really have the 
 
 n3C^n (xl. 1), was explained as the com- signification which he attaches to them, 
 
 niencement of a Jubilee-cycle (but it can We know besides from other sources, that 
 
 signify only the beginning of a single year, in the learned schools of the early Eabbis 
 
 tliough certainly in a somewhat extended a great desire prevailed to reduce the 
 
 sense, and not to be restricted to the first entire ancient chronology to Jubilee-cycles. 
 
 day or first hour only) ; then the thirtieth Tl\\q Book o/"J'?fW/e(?s, mentioned p. 201, only 
 
 year mentioned in i. 1, was intei'preted of endeavours to carry out for the entire Pre- 
 
 tho thirtieth year of the preceding cycle mosaic period what others had attempted 
 
 (which is nowhere even remotely indicated), for the Postmosaic. 
 
 and so the conclusion was arrived at, that ^ See how in a later age the Profev. 
 
 the year of the llestoration of the Law t7«co/^/, c. 1, and Eusebius's l?«'^. i/ifs^o;-^, i. 
 
 by Josiah was the first year of the last 7, speak on this subject. 
 Jubilee-cycle before the Captivity. The
 
 OF THE AxXClEXT IIISTORV. 211 
 
 five to thirty years as the average length of a generation in ordi- 
 nary historical times, we can fill up many gaps in the chronology. 
 And there is no doubt that such genealogies were very con- 
 stuiitly kcj)t, at least in periods of settled government. We 
 are not, indeed, distinctl}' informed, whether all new-born 
 children were at once registered by the Priests ; but we know 
 that lists were kept of the houses of the priests and of others 
 of about equal rank through both parents ; ' and that of all the 
 mcQibers of the community without exception accurate census 
 and muster rolls were taken.^ But great havoc may very likely 
 have been made in these registers from time to time, through 
 political commotions and the dispersion of the people ;^ and the 
 tables in the Books of Chronicles, with all their richness, are 
 transmitted to us with abbreviations so serious as often to 
 occasion obscurity (see pp. 180 sqq.). Here then great caution 
 is requisite throughout. Moreover the genealogies for long 
 periods are very likely(according to pp. 24 sq.) reduced to round 
 numbers, which demand still greater caution. Abbreviations 
 of this kind are found down even to quite late times.'* Never- 
 theless a complete and accurate comparison of all such tables 
 may very possibly yield some results even to the chronology. 
 
 4. All these circumstances unite to prove the great diificulty 
 of establishing a chronology which shall embrace the whole 
 history of the nation, a difiiculty which is especially felt in the 
 earlier period. To these considerations must be added the 
 especial liability of numbers to be mistaken and changed by 
 the transcriber.® The antiquity of the Hebrew nation passed 
 away without leaving any satisfactory answer to the historian's 
 questions on these points ; and although the Book of Origins 
 presents a general view of the chronology very admirable for 
 the early age of which it treats, yet in the following centuries 
 the decay of the historic spirit manifested itself in a want of 
 accurate attention to the chronology also. In the age of the 
 
 ' Comp. Josephus, Oh 7»'s On'« Z;7"c,ch. 1, * As in 4 Ezra i. 1-3 only just twenty- 
 cud ; Af/ainsf, Apion, ii. 7. The small generations are reckoned from Aaron to 
 I'^DPlV "iSDi or Book of Generations (this Ezra; and as Ibn-Chaldun mentions from 
 common Ilal^lnnical title answers to the his own experience a reduction of about 
 i.vri'' mentioned above, p. 180 nolc, and is twenty generations to ten; Journ. Asiat. 
 found as early as the M. Jebamoth, iv. 13), 1847, i. p. 444 ; ii. p. 403. 
 given by Josephus of himself, contains '^ It is a theory incapable of proof, that 
 something singular. in ancient MSS. the numbers were ex- 
 2 Comp, my Altcrthümer, p. 350 sq. pressed only l)y letters of the alphabet, 
 ^ Comp. Ezra ii. G2 ; Neh.vii.64; (;ven and therefore so frequently interchano-ed • 
 if wliat Africanus says (apud Ensebium, but no other words are in themselves so 
 Hist. Eccl. i. 7) of a burning of the gene- liable to interchange in writing as the 
 alogies by Herod is not to be taken lite- names of numbers. 
 rally. 
 
 P 2
 
 ül2 CIIEONOLOGY 
 
 Greek and Oriental supremacy, indeed, there early arose in the 
 learned schools of Alexandria an energetic desii'e to regard 
 with a more strictly philosophical eye the whole history, and 
 with it the chronology also, of the Eastern nations ; and as this 
 zeal S23read to the Hellenists also, a certain Demetrius, pro- 
 bably either a Jew or a Samaritan living in Egypt as early as 
 the reign of Ptolemy Philopator, about b.c. 210, atttempted to 
 form a more accurate chronology of the ancient history of 
 Israel.* But such attempts were too isolated to lead to any 
 permanent results. This is very distinctly seen in Fl. Jose- 
 plius, who, while displaying less aptitude for chronology than 
 for any other branch of historical investigation, understands 
 its importance as well as the Greek historians, and yet 
 is nowhere guided by any fir ml}^ -grounded view on the sub- 
 ject, and consequently sways to and fro in utter indecision.^ 
 Still less certainty, however, is exhibited by the Rabbis of a still 
 later time (see pp. 200 sq.). Christian scholars of the second, 
 third, and foui-th centuries were the first to take up these studies 
 anew. The subject of chronology was first briefly touched 
 upon by Tatian, a disciple of Justin Martyr, in his Oration to 
 the Greeks, and then more definitely by Theophilus of Antioch, 
 in the second, and yet more in the third book addressed to 
 Autolycus ; in which, however, he does not adopt any really 
 philosophic method, to bring the various dates into harmony, 
 but rather aims merely to show the great antiquity of the Old 
 Testament books and history. But Africanus and Eusebius of 
 Caesarea, who followed next, strove with philosophic earnest- 
 ness to bring the Biblical chronology into accordance with that 
 of other nations, and Africanus especially brought to this task 
 remarkable diligence and acuteness. But this, like all other 
 philosophic enquiries respecting the Bible, remained at that 
 time incomplete. The writers of the Middle Ages j)aid still 
 less attention to chronology ; Syrian and some other writers, 
 however, have preserved many isolated dates, transmitted from 
 ancient authorities.^ At last in modern times the investigation 
 of the entire subject was again resumed, and pursued anew from 
 the very beginning. 
 
 The later scholars of antiquity were least successful in their 
 
 ' Sre the extracts from liis work pre- tionally, liy later readers, and not make 
 
 served by Alexander Polyhistor in Eusebii him personally responsible for all contra- 
 
 rrff-2}.Eimiff.\-K.. 21, 29, and m Chmentis dictions; though even then a suiRcieut 
 
 Sirom. i. 21. nnmber remain unexcnscd. 
 
 » We ought certainly, in the writings of • As in Lagardc's A7ial. Syr. (1858), 
 
 Josephus, to make allowance for many p. 120, 18 sqq. 
 alterations of the text made, often inten-
 
 OF TIIK ANCIEXT niSTORY. 213 
 
 attempts to establisli a general chronology embracing all 
 ancient history, frequently as such attempts were made, for 
 various reasons. Fl. Josephus was of opinion that more than 
 5,000 years had elapsed from the Creation to his own day : 
 others reckoned exactly 5,500 years between Adam and Christ ; • 
 but none of these views originate in any accurate philosophic 
 investigation of the subject. In the Bible itself, the remains of 
 the Book of Origins certainly present a continuous chronology 
 down to the building of Solomon's Temple, according to p. 82. 
 But even respecting some portions of that period there are 
 other Biblical accounts at variance with its computations ; and 
 for the entire period following the building of the Temple the 
 canonical books contain no comjjutation of a chronological total 
 at all. The Bible itself therefore, with its many various parts 
 lying before us, rather incites to such a calculation than accom- 
 plishes it for us. We must be satisfied, if only from the actual 
 commencement of the history of Israel as a nation, we can lay 
 down a chronology correct in all its general features. 
 
 ' Thus, according to an ancient Apo- xsviii. end. Those who reckoned by 
 cr3-phon and with a discrimination of the Jubilees hiid down the whole history dif- 
 separute periods, in Evang. Nicodemi, ch. ferently by their peculiar art.
 
 214 
 
 SECTION IV. 
 
 TEERITORY OF THIS HISTOEY. 
 
 I. PHYSICAL ASPECT. 
 
 Many writers have tried to persuade themselves and others 
 that the soil makes the people : that the Bavarians or the 
 Saxons were destined by their soil to become what they now 
 are ; that Protestant Christianity does not suit the warm south, 
 nor Roman Catholicism the northern latitudes, and much more 
 to this effect. Such scholars as interpret history only by their 
 own scanty knowledge, or even by their narrow minds and 
 bleared sight, would try to convince us, too, that the nation 
 of this history must have possessed some attribute or other, 
 rightly or wrongly assumed to belong to it, because it inhabited 
 Palestine, and not India or Greece. But if such reasoners 
 would consider that in antiquity this very soil maintained 
 nations, religions, and civilisations of the greatest imagin- 
 able diversity in the narrowest comjjass, and that between 
 every one of its ancient and its present populations the differ- 
 ence is infinite, although the soil has remained the same, they 
 would see how little it is the ground alone that creates a nation 
 and a distinctive stage of civilisation. In every land, except 
 perhaps a Greenland or a Terra del Fuego, powers springing 
 from a different source elevate a people to that stage in which 
 the nobler forces of its mind have free play ; and when these 
 have once begun to act, then, if not afterwards utterly stifled, 
 they free the nations more and more from the bonds of the soil, 
 and work out everywhere results similar in the main. The dif- 
 ferences which remain after all, and must be ascribed to the 
 special influence of each country, only resemble the different 
 colours in the honey gathered by the bees from the different 
 flowers of various lands. But these powers, even when pre- 
 cluded from free development, act upon the nation in their very 
 perversion and obscuration far more forcibly than the position 
 and properties of its clod of earth ever can, as is proved in the 
 history of both ancient and modern nations. Only at the very 
 beginning possibly, and in the lower spheres of his existence, is 
 man fully exposed to the influences of the soil.
 
 TERKITOIIY: PHYSICAL ASPKCT. 21.^ 
 
 But of course a favouring soil can do much to raise a nation 
 speedily and easily by internal energies above the first difficul- 
 ties of its existence to a stage in which its higher powers have 
 free play. In later times, when the intellectual forces, having 
 once been excited and openly exerted, pass from land to land, 
 and can never more be utterly annihilated or repudiated, the 
 soil is so inoperative upon the status of a nation that these 
 forces often attain their highest perfection even in countries 
 least befriended by nature. But before such powers were 
 matured and diffused, the case must have been very different. 
 It may be truly said that in the earliest ages of human history 
 certain lands seem predestined by their advantageous position 
 to elevate their inhabitants speedily, without foreign impulse or 
 aid, to the higher stage of intellectual life, and to prefigure in 
 miniature, in bold attempts and the play of youthful power, the 
 career to be afterwards more slowly and deliberatel}^ run on a 
 larger scale by the human race in general. And among those 
 few lands upon which the morning star of creation shone 
 brightest, Palestine must certainly be included, and indeed ad- 
 mitted to possess some peculiar advantages over all the rest. 
 
 1. This is not the place to describe the earth and sky of this 
 strip of land, or their joint influence upon the products of the 
 soil, the animal creation, or the mere physical conditions of 
 human life connected with the bodily constitution, the habita- 
 tion, and clothing of man. These things are in many respects 
 the easiest to understand, and some of them have been already 
 treated of. To turn, then, to their influence upon the intellec- 
 tual life of man : the warm climate of the country, the exuber- 
 ant fertility of its soil, which did not even, like that of Egypt, 
 require the expenditure of much laborious art,' and its proximity 
 to lands the wealth and various treasures of which could readily 
 supply any deficiencies of its own, must here, earlier than in 
 .many other parts, have raised man above the first hard struggle 
 for the necessaries of life, set his mind free from bondage to 
 the earth, and given him leisure for higher efforts. But this 
 fruitful land is really only a broad strip of sea-coast,^ bounded 
 on every side by the wide and terrible deserts of Arabia, with 
 which its inhabitants were therefore always well acquainted 
 either by j)ersonal experience or description. Here, as in the 
 analogous case of Egypt, this position, keeping always before 
 
 ^ This is noticed in Deuteronomy xi. sense, i.e. to the Jordan, is often in ele- 
 
 10-12, as an advantage possessed by tlie rated writing called '>{<n ''^'c coast, Isaiah 
 
 Holy Land even over Esypt, productive ^^^ i i h ^ 
 
 as that had been rendered by human skill. ^^- ^ "' ^i^e J^^l^^ for instance, in the 
 
 "^ Therefore Palest ine in the narrower histories of the Crusades.
 
 216 TEKKITORY. 
 
 their eyes tlie contrast of want and superfluity, of deatli and 
 life, must early have roused men's minds to reflect upon the 
 hidden powers of life, and to feel deeper gratitude to the gods.^ 
 Thus even the most opposite forces here cooperated to elevate 
 men early to a beginning of free thought and life. How 
 powerfully men's minds were filled and moulde*!, especially in 
 this early age, by their exj)erience of the Deity, as alternately 
 giving and withholding, and yet in the end wonderfully de- 
 livering, is still clearly seen in the story of that Patriarch who 
 typifies the goodness of ordinary people. Isaac having even as 
 a child with difficulty escaped a violent death,^ settles as a man 
 on the borders of the desert, and has to maintain a long strife 
 for the possession of some hardly-gotten wells,^ but is re- 
 warded in the end by the distinguished favour of heaven, exhi- 
 bited in the hundredfold increase of his corn,'' Of similar 
 import are the touching stories of Hagar and Ishmael in the 
 desert : they seem hopelessly crushed by the inexorable hand 
 of famine, but yet at the last moment are reached by the good 
 providence of that God whose bounty fails not even in the 
 barren desert.^ 
 
 At the very dawn of history Palestine and Egypt always 
 stand up clear out of the mists of earliest memories as civilised 
 lands. When Abraham first entered the Holy Land,^ so says 
 tradition, the Canaanites already dwelt there. Now these very 
 Canaanites appear at once, even in this earliest twilight of his- 
 tory, as fully civilised tribes, dwelling in cities and villages ; a 
 sign that the Hebrew tradition itself could not remember a 
 time when Palestine was not a civilised country, though the 
 Israelite Patriarchs were invariably pictured as not having yet 
 attained the blessing of any fixed abode there. Homer also 
 unmistatably regards the Sidonians and Egyptians as nations 
 of a very peculiar and advanced culture, which the Greeks 
 could then rather admire at a distance than emulate.'^ 
 
 2i, But in close proximity with this rapid elevation to a finer 
 culture, we early perceive also a dangerous over-culture and 
 
 ' It is sufficient liere to recall the sig- approachetl l)j' an Arabian one from the 
 iiific-ance which was attached to Manna first century of the Hegira ; Ham. p. lo- 
 in the earliest Mosaic religion, as will be 17, comp, with the songs of similar moan- 
 explained farther on; and to note that ing in the same work, p. 122, 4 sqq. from 
 many of the oldest and finest Suras of the below, 292 v. 2 sqq. 
 Koran are full of profound utterances on '' Gen.xxvi. 12-33. 
 this subject, and that nothing in the Koran * Gen. xxi. 14-19, xvi. 7-14. 
 is described with so much truth as the " Gen. xii. 6, xiii. 7. 
 gratitude; owed by necessitous man to the ' Iliad, vi. 290-2, xxiii. 742-5; Odyssey, 
 Deity. xiii. 28-5, xv. 414 sqq. ; Iliad, ix. 381 sqq. ; 
 
 2 Gen. xxii. Od. iv. 125 sqq. 351 sqq. 
 
 " The Biblical story lure is most closily
 
 PHYSICAL ASPECT. 217 
 
 over-refinement, a rapid degeneracy and deep moral corruption. 
 If it is a universal law that the fall into corruption is deep in 
 proportion as the stage previously reached in civilisation and 
 art was high, because the arts of refinement themselves become 
 ministers of vice, then we may infer from the early traces of 
 great moral perversion cleaving to this land as an hereditary 
 disease, the high stage of culture which it must have attained 
 in the earliest times. It is true, the stories in Genesis of the 
 sins of Sodom, and the impudence of Canaan the son of Ham, 
 and the hateful origin of Moab and Amnion,^ form a series of 
 intimately connected ideas of primeval history, familiar only to 
 the Fourth and Fifth Narrators : and the strong pictures given by 
 the Prophets of the sins of Sodom certainly belong to no earlier 
 age.'^ But the strictest history must, for reasons afterwards ex- 
 plained, alloAV that long before the time of Moses the Canaanites 
 were very corrupt. The indigenous Canaanite human sacrifice, 
 which was transplanted by the Phenicians to Carthage, and 
 there kept up to the latest times, was no sign of the barbarity 
 common to uncultivated warlike tribes, but of the artificial 
 cruelty often arising from excessive polish and over-indulgence. 
 
 Amid all the changes of time the moral corruption generated 
 by the seductive charms of such a culture is with difl&culty lost 
 in the land of its birth. As in the Middle Ages complaints 
 were early rife of the perilous degeneracy of the Crusaders in 
 the land they had subjugated, so we here see that the Hebrews, 
 the earliest known conquerors of the same land, were not unaf- 
 fected by its influences. An efieminacy and depravity of life, not 
 unlike that of the Canaanites, and doubtless promoted in part by 
 the remnant of the early inhabitants, spread to a people which, 
 through their entire nature and laws, ought to have been most 
 j)roof against it, — at first indeed only partially and occasionally,^ 
 but subsequently more generally and irresistibly. The Prophets 
 of the Post-davidical age bewail this much ; but nowhere is a 
 more striking picture given of this spreading depravity and its 
 causes than in the song in Deut. xxxii. 
 
 3. But if in other equally favoui'ed lands, as for instance 
 Egypt, such inversions of civilisation may possibly for ages 
 scatter their poison undisturbed, eating into the very vitals of 
 the nation, Palestine has always from the first had numerous 
 
 ' Gen. xviii., ix. 20-27, xix. 30-38. great example of sin in ancient days; ix. 
 
 ^ The first prophet who thus speaks of 9, x. 9 ; comp. p. 103 sq. 
 it is Isaiah; for Amos iv. 11, and Ilosea ' That this is the only proper way of 
 
 xi. 8, had mostly in view only the destruc- viewing Gibeah's infamous crime (Judges 
 
 tion of the cities in the Jordan circle ; and xix.) will bo made clear afterwards. 
 by Hosea, Gibeah was regarded as tht;
 
 218 • TERRITORY. 
 
 and still more powerful antidotes in tlie desolations by physical 
 agencies, to which this land is exposed with a frequency and 
 severity perhaps unknown to any similar country. Among 
 these are to be named, primarily, destructive earthquakes, to 
 which it has at all times been exposed,^ from its position on 
 the track of this mysterious power from the Caspian Sea to 
 Sicily; frequent and most ruinous inundations;^ the unchecked 
 rage of desolating storms and dreadful hot winds from the 
 Arabian desert ; ^ a temperature not calm and equable like that 
 of Egypt, but liable to violent shocks and dangerous changes, 
 producing incalculable mischief and long-continued unfruitful- 
 ness of the soil ; "* the plague of locusts, and ravages occasioned 
 by the dreadful increase of scorpions and similar creatures ;'^ 
 numerous diseases, some destroying life quickly, like the 
 plague,*" and others appalling through their slow but sure deve- 
 lopment, like the various species of leprosy ;^ and lastly, the 
 extreme instability of property and life, in consequence, as we 
 shall explain hereafter, of the incessant incursions of enemies. 
 These and other hardships of this land acted as inexorable 
 disturbers of the growing effeminacy. In them the inhabitants 
 might not unreasonably see pressing divine warnings and ex- 
 hortations to turn from all the errors of their ways. This 
 influence was naturally strongest in the earliest ages, before 
 men had gradually learned to overcome, whether by art or by 
 religion, the terrors of nature.^ 
 
 This, however, gives no more than the mere possibility of 
 
 * This is of course often alluded to in stand rightly the Book of Joel. Spots 
 the Bible ; but while within the circle of ahnost uninhabitable on account of scor- 
 tradition it is mentioned only in connec- pions are still found in those parts ; see 
 tion with Sodom, and perhaps with simi- Ainsworth's Travels in Asia Minor, ii. p. 
 lar intention on occasion of the sin of 354. 
 
 Korah in Numbers xvi. 32-34, and his- " For although a ' plague like the 
 torically only in Amos i. 1, where Amos plagues of Egypt' is a proverb in Pales- 
 speaks of a gi'cat earthquake under King tine (Amos iv. 10), yet we know from both 
 Uzziah (the same to which a later pi'opliet ancient and modern history, how much 
 once pedantically refers back, Zi-ch. xiv. reason Palestine has to dread these very 
 5), we know from the experience both of plagues. 
 
 the Middle Ages and of modern times, ' On this see the history itself, and for 
 
 that the Biblical descriptions certainly the laws respecting leprosy, see my Alter- 
 
 flowedfrom living experiences. thilmcr, p. 179 sq. 
 
 ^ See Amos via. 8, ix. 5, and the dc- ^ The earliest prophets, Joel and Amos, 
 
 scriptions of modern travellers ; it is no speak on this point as if wholly carried 
 
 mere eluince that among the plagues of away by natural terror, and always just 
 
 Egypt neither earthquake nor inundation as immediate experience prompted ; even 
 
 is named. Isaiah speaks only what time and place 
 
 ^ Job i. 18; Zech. ix. 14; Ps. xi. 6; necessarily suggested; long and terrific 
 
 Ezck. xvii. 10, xix. 12. descriptions of all possible plagiies, wrought 
 
 * Consider only the vivid descriptions in one grand picture, as if one or few were 
 in Amos iv. 6-11 ; Jer. xiv., and the tra- insufficient, are first found in Levit. xxvi. 
 ditions of Patriarchal times in Gen. xii. 14-45 (see p. 116 sq.) and in Deut. xxviii. 
 10, xx\i. 1, xl. sqq. l;5-58, 
 
 * On this point it is sufficient to under-
 
 RKLATIONS TOWARDS OTIIKR COUNTRIES. 219 
 
 receiving a warning from the voice of the Invisible and Divine 
 Being who permits no mockery of himself; and these voices, 
 like all others, may be unheeded when there exists no firm 
 basis of tinith, nor aspiration towards it. The Canaanites did 
 not long- allow these voices to terrify them out of their moral 
 supineness and low views of life ; and even Israel at the later 
 period of its culture received no benefit from them. But when 
 a nation, such as Israel was during the first period of its settle- 
 ment in Canaan — already planted on an indestructible basis of 
 spiritual truth, and as yet essentially uncorrupted and suscep- 
 tible of all pure impressions, had before its eyes such incessant 
 terrific warnings, we can well understand how powerfully these 
 might tend to preserve the people from the entrance of the dis- 
 solving and corroding influences, and to give to its character 
 that firmness in meeting danger, that readiness of apj)rehension 
 and teachableness of spirit, the combination of which is the 
 condition of all healthy progress. 
 
 II. RELATIONS TOWARDS OTHER COUNTRIES. 
 
 When we look round from the land itself to the position its 
 population occupies relative to other lands more or less closely 
 surrounding it, we must not fall into the error of imagining 
 that its position in ancient times was the same as in these 
 modern times, when the land, apparently for ever desolate and 
 depopulated, attracts no eye beyond that of the distant pilgrim, 
 or the booty-loving Bedouin, who soon hastens back to his 
 desert, or of the Egyptian neighbour, scarcely less greedy for 
 mere booty and for a good boundary ; when, moreover, it has 
 become a mere cypher in the system of large empires, and has 
 long ceased to be a prize vigorously fought for and obstinately 
 defended for its own sake. The land for which Israel journeyed 
 and fought during forty years, and which the Decalogue, the 
 earliest document of that time of wandering, exalts as the land 
 of every hope, and the most beautiful into which Jahveh will lead 
 his people ; ^ that too in which, after Moses, it was the constant 
 desire of the people and the blessing promised from above that 
 they might settle and dwell in jieace ; - that land must then have 
 been not only far more cultivated and fruitful, but also more 
 difiicult to conquer and to hold, than it now is. The question 
 then is, what causes combined to render this land so desirable 
 
 ' Ex. XX. 12: Deut. V. 16. i. 19; Jer. xxv. 5, xxxv. 15 ; Ps. xxxvii. 
 
 2 Gen. xvii. 8, &e. ; Prov. x. 30; Isiiiiili 3 sq.
 
 220 TERRITORY. 
 
 and so admired ; for it may be assmned tliat Israel was not tlie 
 only one of its numerous populations which felt so towards it. 
 
 1. The first reason is doubtless that the whole broad southern 
 sloj)e of Lebanon is a district blessed with a fertility extraordi- 
 nary of its kind. Between Egypt and the northern declivity of 
 Lebanon, between the wide deserts to the south and east, and the 
 * unfruitful salt wave ' (in the lang-uage of Homer) on the west, 
 there is no spot which could so excite the lust of conquest as 
 these mountains and valleys of inexhaustible fertility and spon- 
 taneous productiveness ; while these very mountains, together 
 with the local position of the country, made its defence easy in 
 those early days. But the rush of nations eager for the j)OS- 
 session of such cynosures of the earth, circumscribed in size 
 but inestimable in value, must have been greatest during the 
 earliest asres. As the German nations of old no sooner heard 
 distinct reports of the charms of the South than they steadily 
 turned their eyes and desires thither, so in much earlier times 
 the Semitic nations far and wide learned to look to this land as 
 a garden planted on earth by heaven. The early Arabian his- 
 tory is full of stories of fierce and bloody contests urged for the 
 possession of the smallest oasis, of a stream, or even of a well : 
 but here was an extensive garden of earth opened to the 
 contest of mighty nations. Possibly also seafarers from the 
 opposite European islands might assail the alluring land from 
 the coast, and partially occupy it. 
 
 For besides the mere fruitfulness of its soil, this land affords 
 other especial advantages to those who once obtain possession 
 of the whole, or even of some portion of it. But these will be 
 so often alluded to in various portions of the history, especially 
 that of the conquest of Canaan, that a short notice of them will 
 suffice here. The mountains, defiles, ravines, and caves in 
 which the country abounds, afford the inhabitants excellent and 
 various means of defence, so that a nation well prepared to 
 employ such advantages may feel firm and secure in possession. 
 While Egypt and other fruitful plains beside great rivers readily 
 become the prey of every conqueror, the gracious deities who 
 endowed this land with rich abundance, also appeared like fierce 
 mountain gods guarding their heights with utmost jealousy, 
 and beating back with fury the invading foe.' The inhabitants 
 probably seldom grew so effeminate throughout the land as not 
 to hold themselves constantly in an attitude of military defence 
 at many points especially favourable to warlike oj)erations, or 
 at least easily to resume warlike habits. Whereas Egypt was 
 
 ' 1 Kiiiffs XX. 23-28. 
 
 I
 
 RELATIONS TOWARDS OTHER COUNTRIES. 221 
 
 of old and is now a land of slaves, Lebanon, together with 
 its southern slope, seems, desj^ite of all other changes which 
 time has wrought, still to produce the same indomitable lovers 
 of freedom as it did thousands of years ago. Moreover a nation 
 which kept strictly to the western side of the Jordan could 
 secure its frontiers with tolerable efiiciency, by defending the 
 northern aj)proaches and guarding the few fords of the Jordan, 
 since in the south the desert afforded protection against an 
 enemy. 
 
 2i. But although sej>arated from Egypt by an extensive desert, 
 yet from the general position of surrounding nations, Canaan 
 stands towards that country in a relation which has from the 
 earliest times drawn upon it the weightiest consequences. For 
 Egypt, an extraordinarily cultivated and highly fertile land, ex- 
 ercised upon the northern tribes a power of attraction greater, 
 if possible, than that of Canaan, and, though the most distant, 
 was the most alluring link in the chain of southern lands that 
 attracted this migration. In prehistoric times a stream of na- 
 tions poured down from the north upon Egypt, like those of 
 Assyrians, Chaldeans, Persians, Greeks, and Turks, who in later 
 times approached it by the same route, and either tried to sub- 
 jugate it, or actually did subjugate it. This is proved in the 
 prehistoric history of all these nations and languages,' and will 
 jjresently be illustrated by an important instance occurring 
 in the Premosaic age. Palestine here lies in the way ; and 
 it is possible that many a tribe, intending to go to Egypt, may 
 have remained in Palestine (as is said of Abraham, Gen. 
 XX.), or may have been afterwards driven back upon Pales- 
 tine (as happened to the Hyksos, and subsequently to Israel 
 under Moses). As Palestine thus became the key of Egypt, 
 it very early became necessary to the latter to keep her 
 eyes on the former, and carefully watch her condition. A 
 strong and united power in Palestine formed the best barrier 
 between Egypt and the northern nations, and its friendshi}) 
 upon equal terms would be courted by Egypt, as actually took 
 place during the reigns of David and Solomon. But when 
 Palestine was weakened by internal discord, Egypt might for 
 her own security begin to think of conquering either the whole 
 of Palestine as far as Lebanon, or at least the fortresses and 
 seaports on the south-west. This last case would especially 
 occur when the ruling power in Egypt had its seat in the north 
 of that country and practised navigation, as under Psammeti- 
 
 ' See tlic second of my Sjiradnc'.iiscnfchafilidic AUuuidii'vgcn (Göttingen, 18G2), 
 p. 74 b<i. .
 
 2-22 TERKITORY. 
 
 elms and liis successors, under the Tulunites, the Fatemites, 
 Ajjubites, and the Mamelukes. Thus Palestme is always in 
 some degree fettered to the foi-tunes of Egypt, and although 
 Israel cherished against Egypt at times a deadly hatred, com- 
 parable only to the rancour of brother against brother, yet the 
 inevitable tendencies of nations have always brought them back 
 into a very intimate mutual relation. But when great empires 
 •were formed, too large to have their centre of gravity on this 
 strip of coast, and obliged to fix it either in Africa or further 
 towards the interior of Asia, Palestine was never able to main- 
 tain herself as a strong independent kingdom, and became a 
 constant apple of discord between Asia and Africa. 
 
 3. It appears from all this, how by a combination of most 
 various causes, this strip of coast became from the earliest 
 times a meeting-place for the most diverse nationalities, and 
 how one nation here pressed incessantly upon another, and not 
 one, however small its territory might be, could long enjoy its 
 j)ower in peace. Let it not be supposed that this constant jost- 
 ling of nations in and around Canaan ceased with the Israelite 
 conquest, or even with the establishment of David's government. 
 No doubt it was greater in the earlier times ; but it continued 
 after David, whenever the power of the dominant people was at 
 all relaxed, and is traced down even into the Mohammedan 
 times. The land also, notwithstanding its small extent, pos- 
 sesses such great diversities of aspect and site, and offers such 
 numerous and manifold means of defence, that no one nation 
 could ever easily root out all the others, as might happen in the 
 valley of the Nile, or even reduce them to permanent subjection. 
 Indeed the truth of this can be actually verified from observation 
 of the perplexed relations of the different nationalities and 
 faiths living there side by side at the present day. Any nation, 
 therefore, which, amid this confusion within and danger with- 
 out, tried to maintain its position with vigour, and compete 
 with other civilised nations, would require the constant straining 
 of all its resources both physical and mental, and even after its 
 first victorious entrance into the land, would still have to pass 
 through many various stages of development and elevation. 
 Nowhere perhaps is the exhortation to constant watchfulness 
 and improvement so powerfully prompted as here by the inexo- 
 rable pressure of absolute want in the midst of abundance ; 
 and indeed the Prophets never hold out warnings of physical 
 ills only, but of war and conquest too. ' 
 
 In this respect Palestine might indeed bo compared Avitli the 
 
 ' i-\)V tlic CI18C uf David also, 2 Sam. xxiv. 13.
 
 RELATIONS TOWARDS OTHER COUNTRIES. 223 
 
 Caucasus (also a continental region), -where the narrow space 
 is not less crowded with a medley of nations ; and as in the 
 earliest times the Caucasus must have been the meeting-place 
 especially of the various Aryan nations, so Palestine was the 
 great crossing-point for those of the Semitic stock. But in 
 reference to civilisation Palestine was incomparably more 
 favourably placed than the Caucasus, inasmuch as it lay on the 
 coast of that sea on whose innumerable promontories and 
 islands all the higher and freer forms of the life of the western 
 nations had from early times manifested themselves, as those 
 of the east upon the Ganges. It is an absurd idea that the 
 Hebrews from living in Palestine were cut off from all brisk 
 intercourse with distant nations. Any inclination to keep 
 aloof from such intercourse, which might be observed in them 
 in early times, sprang rather from the nature of their religion 
 than from deliberate intention, and it was only because the 
 Phenicians had anticipated them that they long kept aloof 
 from the coasting trade of the Mediterranean. Either with or 
 agamst their own wish, they must inevitably have been drawn 
 into the busy whirl of life surging around the Mediterranean 
 Sea, especially in its eastern division. We can measure the 
 extent of the knowledge of the position of other nations, early 
 gained in this centre of three continents, by the short sketch 
 of them given in Gen. x. And diu-ing the later ages of anti- 
 quity, when nations from the most distant parts of the earth, 
 from Persia and India, from Greece and Egj^pt, exchanged 
 their respective arts and culture, Palestine still formed the 
 central pomt of transition and communication. 
 
 To sum up : we now understand the possibility of the form- 
 ation of nations forced by close contact with others, whether 
 near or distant, constantly to carry on their own further 
 development, and either soon to disappear, or else to conquer 
 and perpetuate themselves. Such nations were not on this 
 account necessarily remarkable for numbers. Even in our 
 times multitude does not do so much as some fancy; but the 
 earliest period of antiquity was an age when nations were not 
 crowded together in such large loose masses, but lived one 
 beside the other, like so many families, each retaining its own 
 sharply defined character and distinct culture ; and when even 
 the smallest tribe shut itself up in its own individuality, and 
 relied solely on its own resources to attain whatever appeared to 
 be its highest good. In this respect the petty nations of ancient 
 Palestine exactly resemble the ancient states of Greece and 
 Italy, and the modern ones of Switzerland and the Netherlands;
 
 224 TKRKITOEY. 
 
 and just as Atliens and Eome, witli the smallest possible terri- 
 tory, could gain a place in the history of the world, so also 
 could a nation of Palestine. Now two nations of Palestine, we 
 know, above all others that met there, bore away this palm, — 
 two nations so different that it is hard to imajjine a strong^er 
 contrast, and even acting upon each other in virtue of this very 
 contrast to intensify their divergence, yet both of them so con- 
 stituted that the results of their endeavours became permanent, 
 and among the most conspicuous fruits of the world's history. 
 
 III. MIXED NATIONALITY OF OLDEST INHABITANTS. 
 
 We must therefore now view the land in reference to its 
 earliest medley of inhabitants living there before, and con- 
 tinuing there during the period immediately following the 
 immigration of Israel. The inherent difficulty of surveying 
 such remote events is, indeed, here increased by the fact that 
 we are restricted to very few and scattered notices of them in 
 the Old Testament and elsewhere, and possess scarcely any 
 writings of the Premosaic age, with the exception of the pas- 
 sage Gen. xiv., the original form of which has been shown to 
 have probably belonged to that age (see p. 52). But at all 
 events these notices are from very different and in part ex- 
 tremely early, ages ; and besides, as the very essence of such 
 great national relations is to change only by slow degrees, we 
 may be justified in drawing from the conditions continuing at 
 a later period certain conclusions respecting remote times. ^ 
 
 1. In cases like this, the first enquiry naturally refers to the 
 Aborigines, tribes of whose immigration the later inhabitants 
 retained neither proof nor even the faintest recollection. Be- 
 fore their subjugation or expulsion by other victorious invaders, 
 these Aborigines may have passed through many stages of 
 fortune, forgotten as layer after layer of po23ulation flowed over 
 this lowest and broadest stratum. Total expulsion, however, 
 can rarely have befallen the original inhabitants : upon a strip 
 of coast like Palestine, — the exit from whence was not easy to 
 
 ' The difficailtips of this enlire qiKstion plction of tho excavations now begun, 
 
 arc not removed by the method adopted since investigations on every spot promise 
 
 by Movers (Das Phönikische Älterthum, i. greater thorougliness and certainty. 8eo 
 
 p. 1-82, 1849), as will -1)0 hereafter pointed my FrJdärmig der grossen Phünikischcn 
 
 out in some important instances; see also Inschrift von Sidon, Gotfingen, 1856; 
 
 Ja/irh. der IHM. JVi.is. ii. p. ,37 sqq. For and the results of E. Eenan's Plienician 
 
 a more accurate en<iniry into the state of Journey of Discovery, which are gradually 
 
 the C;inaanitcs and other early races of being made public. 
 tlie same region, we must await tho com-
 
 MIXED XATIOXALITIES. 225 
 
 a settled population, whether on account of the great attractions 
 of its soil, or because its boundaries were formed by deserts, 
 seas, the easily defended fords of the Jordan, and the mountain- 
 glens of the nortli„ We are therefore justified in assuming that 
 many relics of the primitive inhabitants must have been spared, 
 consisting not merely in enslaved persons, but also in manners 
 and traditions. For us, indeed, all such traces are almost 
 erased, because the Israelitish invasion (as will soon be shown) 
 belonged to a later time, when the earlier strata of population 
 were so intermixed that it was no longer easy always to discri- 
 minate the earlier and the later inhabitants. 
 
 That in the very earliest age, long before the ancient migra- 
 tions into Egypt (i.e. long before the time of the Hyksos), a 
 more homogeneous group of nations established themselves in 
 this land, is not only probable from the general relations among 
 nations, but to be inferred also from more definite indications. 
 A change in the name of a country, such as Seir, Edom or 
 Esau, itself points to the successive rule of three distinct 
 nations, whose chronological sequence we can in this case dis- 
 tinguish with certainty, as w^ill soon be shown. What these 
 names prove to have happened to the land on the south-eastern 
 border of the Holy Land, and is most easy of demonstration in 
 that instance, is evidently true of other cases occui'ring within 
 the land itself. Further, all the nations which were settled in 
 the land in historical times, some of which are known even from 
 Biblical testimony to have come in from foreign parts, though 
 difi'ering widel}" in other respects, possessed a Semitic language, 
 of which amid considerable dialectic varieties the fundamental 
 elements were closely related. Now this is not conceivable, 
 unless one original nation, possessing a distinctly marked 
 character, had lived there, perhaps for a thousand years before 
 the immigration of others, to whose language after-comers had 
 more or less to conform. This original nation, moreover, 
 doubtless already had its peculiar ideas, religious ceremonies, 
 and customs, which more or less powerfully influenced subse- 
 quent immigrants ; as the worship of the horned Astarte is 
 known to have existed here from the earliest ages, and quite 
 independently of the later Phenicians.^ All these points will 
 however be more fully discussed as we proceed. 
 
 At the time of the Israelite occupation these Aborigines had 
 for many centuries been so completely subjugated, dispersed, 
 and ground down, that but few remains of them were still 
 
 ' Ashtcroth Karnaim, Gen. xiv. 5. 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 226 TERRITORY. 
 
 visible. But then the immigrants were so various, so divided, 
 and in some points even so weak, that it must have been very 
 difficult to comprise such numerous and disconnected nations 
 under any one fitting appellation. The Israelites called them 
 Canaanites, Amorites, or otherwise, according as one or the 
 other of them seemed the more important at the time, or they 
 preferred to name several together. When a nation had been 
 long resident in the land, no one thought of investigating the 
 antiquity of its settlement there. So much the more remark- 
 able is it that some few tribes are nevertheless described in the 
 Old Testament as 'ancient inhabitants of the land.'^ This 
 declaration is the more impartial and weighty because quite 
 incidental. The nations thus described are very small and 
 scattered tribes, but on this account the more likely to be the 
 remains of the aboriginal inhabitants. We are hereby entitled 
 to prosecute further this question of the Aborigines. 
 
 1) In the northern and more fruitful portions of the land on 
 this side Jordan the Aboeigines must have been very early 
 completely subjugated by the Canaanites and blended with 
 them, as not even a distant allusion to them is anywhere to 
 be found. The case is different with the country beyond the 
 Jordan, especially towards the south. Here we come upon the 
 traces of a people, strangers alike to the Hebrews with their 
 cognate tribes, and to the Canaanites, who maintained some 
 degree of independence until after the Mosaic age : the Horites 
 (LXX. Xopptiloi, i.e. dwellers in caves. Troglodytes) in the 
 cavernous land of Edom or Seir. The writer of the Book of 
 Origins himself calls them ' the dwellers in the land,' as dis- 
 tinguished from the later immigrants, Israel, Esau, and Edom.^ 
 In that waiter's time this people, though subjugated for centuries 
 by Edom, must still have formed separate communities ; since 
 he thinks it worth while to enumerate their seven principal and 
 subordinate tribes with their seven heads.^ In the earliest 
 narrative. Gen. xiv. 6, they appear in Abraham's time as still 
 
 ' Namely, Amalek, 1 Sam. xxvii. 8, tlie soutli-wost of the tribe of Jiulali. some 
 
 Num. xxiv. 20 ; and in its neighbourhood, singular subterranean work.s have been 
 
 the inhabitants of Gath, 1 Chron. vii. 21 ; recently discovered; see Key's Kinde his- 
 
 as also Geshur, 1 Sam. xxvii. 8. lor the iorique ct topoqraphique de la Trihu dc 
 
 last passage the LXX. have a somewhat Juda, Paris, 1863. As these cannot well 
 
 different reading, and translate very un- be referred either to Hebrevcs or to Ca- 
 
 intelligibly, as they generally do such naanites, they must be supposed to exhibit 
 
 passages as refer to the ancient Canaanite traces of tho aboriginal inliabitants, or 
 
 history ; but tho true reading has un- Horites ; and the wonder is that the 
 
 doubt edly been preserved in the Helirew. Horites should have settled so far to tlie 
 
 See above, p. 58. south-west. 
 
 '_Gen.xxxvi.20. Among the ruins of the =" Gen. xxxvi. 20-30. 
 ancient Bait-Gihriv or Elmthrropolis, in
 
 MIXED XATIUXALITIES. 227 
 
 independent ; and from this passage, as well as from the Book 
 of Origins, we see that the name Seir, for the mountain-range 
 occupied by them, was peculiar to them. The Deuteronomist 
 evidently follows an ancient authority in saying that they were 
 expelled by Esau (or Edoni).' It further appears from the 
 careful distinction made in the Book of Origins between them 
 and the Canaanitish tribes, that they were not of Canaani- 
 tish blood, although the Amorites, also dwelling far to the 
 south, were. It happens very fortunately, in fine, that we gain 
 some knowledge of the subsequent fate of these Aborigines from 
 a wholly different source, the Book of Job,^ which pictures 
 vividly the pitiable condition to which they were reduced in the 
 writer's age (the eighth or seventh century). Then, houseless 
 and outlawed, they were thrust forth by their conquerors into 
 dreary and barren wildernesses, in which they dragged out in 
 misery a feeble existence, despised and abhorred by all, but 
 ready on occasion of any disaster happening to their old op- 
 pressors to burst suddenly forth from their miserable hiding- 
 places,^ full of pent-up bitterness and destructiveness, and thus 
 even in their ruin to remind their conquerors that they had 
 once been masters of the land. This reads like a scene in the 
 history of the Coolies or other aboriginal tribes of India, or (to 
 take au instance nearer home), of the Irish peasantry not more 
 than thirty years ago ; but we must remember that the He- 
 brews do not seem anywhere to have treated their subject tribes 
 for centuries with such severity as the Edomites treated theirs. 
 2) So melancholy an end is inevitable when victorious inva- 
 ders permanently withhold equal rights from the subjugated 
 people, and keep them apart and in bondage. Very different, 
 however, was the position these Aborigines, whom we have 
 just seen sunk so low, once held : as appears fi'om the following 
 important fact. At the time of the Israelitish conquest, as we 
 learn from some perfectly reliable accounts, there still existed 
 many remains of the Aborigines scattered through the land. 
 They were then ordinarily designated by a name which suggests 
 very difierent ideas — Rephaim, or Giants.'' Indeed primitive 
 
 ' Deut. ii. 12, 22; comp, above, p. 126 were not wholly in error on the meaning 
 
 sq. of f^ome passages in ch. x?:s., I still think 
 
 - Job xvii. 6, xxiv. 5-8, xxx. 1-10. that I lu.ve understood all these passages 
 
 The zeal and fulness with which in 1836 and the history tlicrewitli connected more 
 
 I gave a public interpretation of these accurately than they. 
 
 }>assages in Job, prove that I then believed ^ Alluded to also in Deuteronomy, whose 
 
 I had found in them a new fragment of author is well acquainted with all these 
 
 historical truth, as it is not my habit to circumstances ; vii. 20. 
 
 give voluminous explanations of things * In this general sense the name is used 
 
 already disposed of. Even now, though I not unfrequently ; 2 Sam. xxi. 16-22; 
 
 .-ee that Isaac Vo.ssius and J.D. Michaelis from the State-annals, Deut. ii. 11, 20, iii. 
 
 Q 2
 
 228 TEKRITÜKY. 
 
 tribes remaining' near to a state of nature, appear to possess 
 gigantic stature more frequently than the more advanced and 
 versatile nations. The latter appear to lose from the body 
 what the}' gain in the mind ; and so the Hebrews at the time of 
 Moses ' must have possessed very much the same short slender 
 stature which is now characteristic of the hardy and adroit 
 Arab. It might indeed be argued from certain indications that 
 only the ruling families of the Aborigines are here described.^ 
 If, as appears in various descriptions, especially of the early times, 
 the ruling families were gorged with the fat of the land,^ it is 
 conceivable that the savage and warlike lords of a nation itself 
 of high stature would appear absolutely gigantic in the eyes of 
 the Canaanites and Hebrews. We should then have to suppose 
 that a rough robber-clan of immense stature, belonging to the 
 Aborigines, still maintained its power here and there, and that 
 the Aborigines were compelled by necessity to become subject 
 to them, in order to obtain their protection against invaders ; 
 much as in Europe, the aid of the last robber-knights was 
 sought. The last king of this race was Og of Bashan, and his 
 enormous iron sarcophagus served as a memento to after-times,'' 
 like the heavy coats of mail of the Middle Ages to ourselves. 
 But this view, true as it is of the ages betAveen Moses and 
 David, is untrue of earlier times ; for in perfectly reliable 
 
 11 ; and the name may be thus explained had long served as a briilge over a river 
 from its root, since ND"l = nQ"1» stretched, {Journal Adafiqite,J\\\\o \%i\,Tp.&'id-%\); 
 may very well be equiValent' to lovq, tall. °^'\"' Mühammedan writers relate that he 
 like the German re^kc. The Hebrews ap- t°°^ "". ^'^^ .l"st fresh from the sea, and 
 plied the same name to the shadows of burnt it to ashes in the smi s rays ; Tabari 
 Hades ; literally the stretched out, i.e. the ^''^^ '" '"^ prehmmary history a long pas- 
 nerveless, prostrate, dead. It is evident f?^ respecting him (see Chroniquc de la- 
 that the language of a nation which ap- ^"'''' ^''«^«"^ ^" Persan par Dubeux, i.p. 48 
 plied this name to the giants, though also sq.; also, Qaznm, t, ^.,'l.^l.t p. 449, 7 
 Semitic, must have been originally very gqq. (,d. Wüstenfeld; Petei'n.ann's i?«"««/, 
 dittorent. .. ii. p. 106 sqq.). But all these traditions 
 ^um. xiii. 27-33. .^^.^ probably based on such Kabbinieal 
 Because in the passag. s quoted thoy j^^p^.i, ^^ t^oso in the IJhcr de morte 
 appear as quite exceptional in.stances, just 3/,,.,,-,,^ 34 Gaulmw ; in Ben-Uziel on 
 as tlie three at Hebron Numxiii. 22; and Num. xxi. 33 sqq ; and in the Midra^h 
 as Og of Bashan is called the last of his j^,,^j-^f^ f„, 14 . ^„„i ^1,^,,, ,,„,;„ ^^ ,.,„ 
 race, Deiit 111. 11 : see 1. 4. Apocryphal book upo.i Og. which appears 
 ' ^' J"dfresiii. 29, and ,n David s song j.^ 1^,.,^.^^ g^i,^,;j \.; 13 „„j^,. ^ 1^,,^^,^, 
 I am. 1. / . recognisable name. Here the few notices 
 - Dent. 111. 11 ; without doubt a j.iece ,,f i,;,,, ;„ ^^^ old Testament were inter- 
 of genuuio history, f.,r the spot whore the ^^.^^.^^ ,,.;„, ^i^.^rg giant-stories and the 
 memorial was to be se.n is accurately do- strangest fancies ; as that he saved him- 
 rr '^?"i li^*" T"""* surprising that even in ^,,]f t,„.y^ ]^ ^he Deluge l>v holding on to 
 the Middle Ages such strange stones Noah's ark; that he lived with Abraham, 
 Hlioula be stil related of this old ciant- 1 r ,.\ 11 .1 \ it-. 
 ,. , ^ , . ' '-H10 uui f^irtiu und so forth. He was thus brought into 
 
 k.ng, who stands ,so isolated in the Old eonnoction with Gen. vi. 4; and it was 
 
 resUiment: for instance, a Persian Mo- t,j„ .j^f satisfactory tlius to recover the 
 hammenan relates that a sinele bone of e c ^\ ■ 1 • ^ ..i 
 
 b^ uuiio ui name of one of the primeval giants there 
 
 the gigantic body of the "J^- , ^ - mentioned. 
 
 U-^- (J- 
 
 t:_ -'
 
 MIXMl) XATIOXALITIKS. 229 
 
 reports, such as Gen. xiv. 5, Deut. iii. 13, the whole of Bashan is 
 called the ' land of the Kephaim,' and they appear as an unmixed 
 race. It may indeed be said that on such points the Deutero- 
 nomist only speaks rhetorically and with a purpose, to magnify 
 the conquest effected by Israel under a leader like Moses, over 
 such powerful and terrific giant races. But even the Deuterono- 
 mist cannot be supposed to speak without some historical basis ; 
 and quite independently of him, we see from a very ancient 
 passage. Gen. xiv. 5, that the name ' ßephaim ' was originally 
 borne only by a small people in Bashan beyond Jordan, having 
 a capital Ashteroth Karnaim (a name which proves that thus 
 early the horned Astarte was worshipped). But we may assume 
 that at the time of Abraham nations of the same race ruled 
 over extensive territories eastward of the Jordan ; ' in Moab they 
 were specially designated Emim,^ and in Ammon Zamzummim.^ 
 On the west of the Jordan, in the central districts, they lived 
 at the time of Moses in more scattered settlements, — in parts 
 of the later tribe of Joseph (as we learn from a very ancient 
 record"*), and near Jerusalem, where a valley was named after 
 them as late as the eighth century ; '' but in the southern parts 
 near Hebron (which must have been their old capital), and from 
 thence towards the sea, they were more concentrated and 
 powerful ; and here in the south they bore the name of Sons of 
 Anak,*' with the mythological epithet of Giants' sons, given to 
 them by their terrified enemies.^ That Hebron was the 'ancient 
 
 ' We learn this most distinctly from * Josh. xvii. 15; comp, ahove, p. 66 sq. 
 
 the invaluable aecoinits in Gen. xiv., where * Josh. xv. 8, xviii. 16; 2 Sam. v. 18, 
 
 places and names are given which are 22, xxiii. 13; Isaiah xvii 5. 
 
 otherwise wholly unknown. * Num. xiii. 22, 23 ; Josh. xi. 21 sq., 
 
 ^ Deut. ii. 11, and Gen. xiv. 5 ; compare xiv. 12, 15; comp. Deut. ii. 10 .sq.; and 
 
 Hemam [Eng. version wrongly Hnna)i\ of the merely rhetorical allusion to them, ix. 
 
 similar sound among the Horites, Gen. 1 sq. 
 
 xxx\'i. 22. ' That this is the meaning of the names 
 
 ä Since the ancient accounts used by the Qi^DJ and D'??? ''J2. Num. xiii. 33, ap- 
 Deuteronomist in the former case agree pg^^s also from Geil. vi. 4. Movers, by 
 with Gen. xiv., we may conclude that QH» taking tlicsc expressions of tlie Book of 
 Gen. xiv. 5, is the same as Qn, i.e. nOy, Origins and others of the kind, in a per- 
 ' '. fectlv literal sense, as ii the Anakim, 
 andQ^nr thesameasn^DrnT,D^'Ut. 11. 19 Rephaim, &c., were actually mythical 
 sq. Beyond this we have no means of Giants and Titans, mistakes the real mean- 
 explaining the Dame.i Emim and Zam- ing of all these passages of the Bible ; as 
 zummim, since they do not, like the name much so as he would in treating the Cimbri 
 Rephaim, occur in any more general sense, and Teutons, nay, even the Mecklenburgh- 
 nor are made intelligible by any clear ers of the present day, as mythical person- 
 context, and we therefore are wholly igno- ages. It is the Deuteronomi.st who, by 
 rant what associations were connected with his rhetorical descriptions, first somewhat 
 the words; the merely rhetorical use of loosened the historical ground ; but it was 
 the appellation Sons of Avak in Deuter- not till much later, when actual historical 
 onomy does not warrant any such assump- names were looked for in Gen. vi. 4, that 
 tion respecting even these. The name Og (mentioned p. 228) could be imagined 
 Rephaim alone came gradually to be used to be a Titan, and even identified with the 
 in a wider sense. Greek Ogyges.
 
 230 TERKITORY. 
 
 seat of their kings, appears not merely from the permanent im- 
 portance of that city to the entire south, but also from know- 
 ledge that we have of a considerable portion of the history of 
 the dynasty ruling there. This dynasty boasted of an ancient 
 heroArba,' as founder of their city, hence called by them City 
 of Arba (and the time of its building was still well known, see 
 p. 52), and also as founder of their dynasty, and therefore 
 entitled Father of Anak.^ But at the time of the Israelite con- 
 'quest their power must have been divided, and thereby weak- 
 ened, since three sons of Anak — Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai 
 — are mentioned,^ 
 
 But a part of the population which from its locality can 
 hardly be anything else than the Rephaim, is very curiously 
 also called by a perfectly distinct name, Amoeites. Amos 
 speaks of the gigantic stature of the Amorites, just as other 
 writers of the Eephaim ; ■* and the Book of Origins itself calls 
 both the above-mentioned king Og and a similar king Silion 
 Amorites.^ But the diversity of name is at once explained, 
 when Ave discover that Amorite only means mountaineer, and 
 is therefore originally a topographical, not an ethnological or 
 national designation. How these Amorites could be brought 
 into a certain connection even with the Canaanites will be con- 
 sidered presently. 
 
 3) Again in the south-west of the land we find more traces 
 of the Aborigines. On one occasion in the life of David it is 
 stated by an ancient narrator, in order to explain how David, 
 then a vassal of the Philistines, could be constantly engaged in 
 expeditions against the south-west country, without attacking 
 Israel, that the objects of their hostilities were ' the ancient 
 inhabitants of the land,' whom, it appears, neither a Philistine 
 nor an Israelite leader would think it necessary to spare.^ 
 
 ' Wherever this name occurs — Gen. possess this reading, is indeed doubtful, 
 
 xxiii. 2; Josh. xir. 15, xr. 13, 54, xx. 7, because they have here 'AvaKljx and not 
 
 xxi.ll; Judges i. 10 — the LXX. pronounce 'AvaK; but the later periphi'asis is a fact, 
 
 the last syllable somewhat harder, 'ApÖ(Jk. and has nothing in common with the 
 
 But Movers' idea that tlie name answers Kabbalistic Adam qadinon which Movers 
 
 to the Greek "Ap/SrjXos, and is in fact iden- chooses to see here. Nor can Onka, the 
 
 tieal with the Bnliylonic B(i,\s without name of the Phenician Athene (see Steph. 
 
 foundation. The article (ySISH) i^ only Byz. s.v.) be brought into connection with 
 
 found attached to it later, Neh. xi. 25 ; Anak, at least until we know how it was 
 
 but in the older writers the article is found written in Phenician. 
 
 with pjyn- * Judges i. 1Ü; Numb. xiii. 22. 
 
 2 T^oi, ^„ TO -11 m 1. • ■* Amos ii. 9. 
 
 Josn. XV. 13; xxi. 11; 'that is s t i -in i ^ t> t • ^t 
 
 ihr. r»^nnf ,v,o„ ™ 4.1 A 1 ' ' • Joshua IX. 10; sec later JJeut. iv. 47; 
 
 tlio great man among the Anakim, in • , ' 
 
 xiv. 15, is plainlv only a periphrasis ^^e^'i- ' .1 • • ., * ■ c 
 
 hazarded by some later reader or copyist. „ ^"''' /^^"^, '% *''" /^'"^ Tiiean.ng of 
 
 Whether the LXX., who in all these pas- ^^"^ ^''^'^^ '^'^'^'^'^-^ ''^^T'^ ^"^ ^ ^^'"• 
 
 sages transhite by /xTirp^TroAn, did not 'f^^'"- ^- ^^^ words Dpiy??-''3 form a
 
 yUXKD NATIONALITIES. 231 
 
 Two such aboriginal kingdoms are mentioned here. The first 
 is that of the Amalekites. These apj:)ear from other indications 
 also to have been such, and indeed originally to have oversj^read 
 the whole land ; so that no name was found more fitting than 
 theirs to become the common designation of all the Abori- 
 gines ; as will be further explained hereafter. Besides this 
 small kingdom, which then still existed in the far south, there 
 was another, occuj)ying a uarroAv strip extending westwards 
 from Judall about to Joppa ; this was called from its chief city 
 Geshur, with which Gezar seems to be synonymous. This king- 
 dom, though sorely harassed by both Philistines and Israelites, 
 maintained its existence until the reign of Solomon. From the 
 special tribe which occupied this district from primeval times, 
 the land was called the land of the Avvites or Avvim ; ' but from 
 what has been said above, it need not surprise us that this name 
 is sometimes exchanged for that of Amorites. But in David's 
 reign there was another small kingdom of the same name 
 Geshur, at the very opposite point, on the north-east, on the 
 other side Jordan, and distinguished by the epithet Äramean, 
 as being surrounded by tribes speaking Aramaic.^ As such 
 identity of name cannot be accidental, we must regard it as a 
 displaced member of the same original people, the main part of 
 which was driven to the extreme south and south-west. The 
 personal name Talmai already noticed, p. 230, recurs again 
 here,^ although it is quite foreign to ancient Israel, and only 
 appears as an Israelitish name in the New Testament in the 
 form Bartholomew. 
 
 It is clear from all these signs that there was here a 
 primitive people which once extended over the whole land of 
 the Jordan to the left, and to the Euphrates on the right, 
 and to the Red Sea on the south ; and that, as in many 
 districts it was still disputing dominion with the Canaanites, 
 it was completely subjugated only by the fresh incursion 
 of the Hebrews under Moses. Whether they were of Semitic 
 race hardly admits of doubt even on a first glance. The few 
 names preserved ' have a Semitic form and complexion ; and 
 
 paronthetic clauso, and those following ing to Deut. ii. 23 they dwelt even unto 
 
 describe merely how far David ranged A^^ah [Gaza] ; that is (the speaker being 
 
 southwards (even to Egypt). We might north of Gaza), that Gaza was the most 
 
 conjecture n^^lHD for o'piyO- ^om 1 Sam. southerly region to which they ever ex- 
 
 XV. 7 ; but I consider every change of the tended. 
 
 Hebrew construction as unnecessary, or ^ According to 2 Sam. xv. 8 ; Josh. xii. 
 
 rather false. 5, xiii. 13 ; 1 Chron. ii. 23. 
 
 ' From Jush. xiii. 3. compared with verse 3 2 Sam. iii. 3, xiii. 37. 
 
 2, it appears that the Geshuri and the Av- , ^hese are the five names of chiefs 
 
 vir*s[D\'iy;^i;i;«or.4«;i;;eisthereloremcor- already mentioned, and some names of 
 
 root] are one and the same people ; accord- tribes and places ; such as the above
 
 232 TERRITORY. 
 
 when we consider that the chiefs who would not become sub- 
 ject to the Hebrews, at last retreated to the coast-towns of 
 the Philistines,' and that in later times the Philistines led the 
 descendants of these terrible giants into battle,^ and that from 
 the earliest period Semites were settled on many of the neigh- 
 bouring islands and coasts of the MediteiTanean Sea (as will 
 soon be shown in the case of the Philistines), we may assume 
 it to be highly probable that this entire stratum of nations was 
 connected with the Semitic peoples who were driven still further 
 westward beyond the sea.^ 
 
 2. The land occupied by these Aborigines was both long 
 before and long after the Hebrew conquest, invaded by various 
 widely differing Semitic nations, who wholly subdued some por- 
 tions and obtained partial possession of others. 
 
 1) Of these the Canaanites must be regarded as the most 
 important. At first sight it seems doubtful whether they were 
 invaders or not. Fortunately, however, we possess in a passage 
 of the Book of Origins, Gen. x. 15-20, a record by means of 
 which we can measure with great accuracy the extent of the 
 early dominion of this important people, and without which 
 many perplexed points of the history of these ancient tribes 
 would be far more difficult to unravel. Here the separate 
 tribes of the Canaanites are enumerated as sons of Canaan, 
 and the boundaries of the territory of each described. Their 
 number is eleven. Sidon is mentioned as the first-born ; which 
 means that Sidon had from time immemorial been the greatest 
 Canaanitish power. Next come three nations living towards 
 the south, Heth, the Jebusites, and the Amorites ; then two in 
 the most northerly country conquered by Israel, the Girgashites "* 
 and the Hivvites ; then four in Phenicia, and lastly the most 
 northern of all, the well-known kingdom of Hamath on the 
 Orontes. The description then given of the Canaanite boun- 
 daries makes it still more evident that the writer here intends 
 to describe their territories as they were prior to the Israelitish 
 conquest. They embrace the entire land, as far as Gaza on the 
 south-west ; so that the Aborigines still existing there (the 
 
 quoted Dn Gen. xiv. ö ; and ly Dout. ii. dan. I'ut since Tipyeaa. known from Matt. 
 
 23 ^ viii. 28, was, accordin<jj to Euseb. Ono,n., 
 
 1 Jqjj]^ xi 22 '^ place on a hill on the shores of the 8ea 
 
 '^ 2 S;im. xxi 16-22- 1 Sam xvii "^ Galilee, the name probably designated 
 
 » For the proof that' the whole country ^^^^ ^^»'e Canaanite kingdom which is 
 
 here was inhabited by Semites, see also named m Josh. xi. Hazor {•i\^n, Jortress, 
 
 the Jahrh. ihr liiLl. IVisx. vi. p. 88. castle) ; corresponding in so far wilh the 
 
 * Their locality is nowhere defined in name Jcbu.site, of which sonietiiiug similar 
 
 the Old Testament, except that in Josh, may be said. 
 
 xxir. 11. they arc placi d on this side Jor- 
 
 I
 
 MIXED NATIOXALITIKS. 283 
 
 Philistines were not then yet in the same force on that coast 
 as later) must have been regarded as a protected and subject 
 population. 
 
 But this story of the eleven sons of Canaan implies no more 
 than a clear recollection that at some time, it might be even 
 centuries before the Israelitish conquest, a dominant people 
 named Canaan created and preserved some degree of unity 
 among the various tribes. The question of the age of each 
 separate tribe, whether they were all aboriginal or not, did not 
 come under consideration here : we only learn that the influ- 
 ence of the Canaanites had been firmly established in the land 
 long before the time of Moses. But as these Canaanites appear 
 in so many passages as only one among many ancient nations 
 inhabiting this land, there is no intrinsic absurdity in supposing 
 that even if their immigration had preceded that of Moses by 
 more than five centuries, they were distinct from the Abori- 
 gines already mentioned. In fact it is nowhere said in the Old 
 Testament that they were aborigines ; for the Fourth Narrator 
 of the primeval history, in saying incidentally that the 
 Canaanites were in the land before Abraham,' only means 
 that the land was even then already thickly peopled, and 
 names the Canaanites simply as the best known inhabitants. 
 And when we further reflect how very widely they must 
 have difi:ered both in mental and in j^hysical culture from 
 the Aborigines already described, and how utterly shattered 
 and dis]3ersed these Aborigines were even before Moses, a 
 later immigration appears on these grounds also the more pro- 
 bable. Many signs conspire to prove that a powerful invasion 
 must at a very early time have everywhere split up the first 
 deep stratum of population, an older and very difierent invasion 
 from those of the Philistines and the Hebrews, which will 
 afterwards come under consideration ; and we can imagine no 
 other such than this of the Canaanites. 
 
 So far we are guided by the Old Testament accounts of the 
 Canaanites. But other indej)endent traditions of the immi- 
 gration of the Phenicians reached Herodotus and other Greek 
 writers. Lidependent again of these is the genuine Phenician 
 tradition given by Sanchoniathon^ of the constant enmity 
 between the two Tyrian brothers Hypsuranius and Usous. The 
 
 ' Gen. xii. 6, xiii. 7 ; and sec also such ^ In Orclli's edition p. 16 sq. ; see 
 
 passages as Num. xxii. 4. The later de- also on this legend my Ahhavdlung über 
 
 scriptions by the Fathers of the Church, die Phöiii/iischcn Ansichten von der Welt- 
 
 as collected by Moses Chorenensis {Hist. Schöpfung und Sanchuniathon (Göttingen, 
 
 i. 5), appear to be derived from the Book 1851), p. 44 sq. 
 of Jubilees and similar works.
 
 •234 TERRITOin'. 
 
 first, as his name indicates, is the heavenly progenitor of the 
 Phenicians ; the other a wild hunter, a savage ' hair}- ' man (as 
 his name exjjresses), and the true tj'pe of the earliest inhabitants. 
 Indeed the name Uso, bj the Phenician phonetic laws, is 
 actually identical with the Hebrew Esau: ' not that the Tyrian 
 Uso derived his name from that nation Avhich the Hebrews named 
 Esau, but that the contrast expressed in the Phenician tradition 
 between two related tribes of which the younger formed a later 
 immigration into the land, is repeated in the history of Israel. 
 
 At the time of Moses, indeed, the immigration of the Canaan- 
 ites was so completely a bygone event, and had given rise to so 
 many new arrangements and changes, that the very name of the 
 principal nation, the Canaanitos, is only to be explained from 
 these. For on reviewing the names of the eleven tribes and of 
 others elsewhere named as connected with them, we find some 
 to be derived from corresponding cities or kingdoms ; namely, 
 the Phenician nations and Hamatli ; the Jebusites, so called 
 from Jebus an ancient name of Jerusalem, evidently because 
 the}'" preserved their independence and a considerable terri- 
 tory long after the Israelite invasion ; ^ and the Girgashites, 
 already mentioned, p. 2o2. These small kingdoms, seven in all, 
 maintained their existence with firmness generally till long 
 after Moses. But the case is very different with the four or 
 five names remaining. None of the nations bearing these can 
 be so called from a city or kingdom ; and four of them are 
 besides mentioned with such disproj^ortionate frequency, and 
 as spreading over such an extent of country, as is incompatible 
 with the idea that they constituted compact and localised king- 
 doms. Many indications show that these names describe the 
 inhabitants by certain differences of locality and occupation in 
 the different parts of the country.^ 
 
 a.) The Amoeites. These were Highlanders, as their name "• 
 
 ' As tho Plicnieian OvKwfxos answers people (see Allgemeine Zeituvfj, Juno 22, 
 
 to the Helirow Q^lj; so OHeuos to a llebr. 1839, p. 1337) ; as among the Northern 
 
 ..;..;.. 1 f fi,- \ t ^- \ i. T * iShvvonians, the Pnlanians take their name 
 
 VJ^iy '•'"t this last might, according to -- ,i ^ 1 1 ^i t-, • • j- ,i 
 
 T '•*'_' " " irom the held, the Drevianians from the 
 
 my Lehrbuch, § 108 c, easily pass into wood, the Livonians from the sand (Scha- 
 
 V^V- farik, Slans-he Alterlhümer, i. p. 199) ; 
 
 "^ That they had at first a wider territory <i"^l '-^^ i" Attica there wore tlu^ 'TTrepavpioi, 
 
 appears not "only from Josh. x. but from ne5ie?s and nipaXoi; and still in Uri a 
 
 tho added clause ' in the mountains,' Josh. vaJlnj- and a mountain- Ammann are 
 
 xi. 3 ; ii this is not transposed from Num. dislinguished. 
 xiii. 29. * Tiiis is chiefly seen from tlie passage 
 
 * As now in tlio Soudan the population ^'^- ^^'''- ■'> where there is an hi.^torical 
 
 is divided into the towns- -j,],, tlic ''^'"''*'" ^"^ "^"^^ '""""'' ' ^^'^^ Canaanite 
 
 ^ • ' language must have employed this word 
 
 desert- ^jjj and the hill- \^->- not merely of the top of trees, but also of
 
 MIXED XATIO.VALITIES. 235 
 
 indicates, and as the chief passage about them, Num. xiii. 29 
 (belonging to the Book of Origins), shows. Whenever any indi- 
 cation is given of their locality, they always apjiear as dwelling 
 upon or ruling from high places.' It is, however, expressly 
 stated by the earliest narrator, that they dwelt originally beyond 
 the Scorpion-Range^ ('the going up to Akrabbim'), on the 
 southern boundary of the subsequent Judah, and further still to 
 the south-east as far as the Rock-city (Petra) of Idumea ; and 
 even as late as the Israelite conquest they must have held ex- 
 tensive sway throughout the southern regions on this side of 
 the Jordan ; besides this they occupied wide regions on the 
 other side, and had made fresh conquest there just before the 
 arrival of Moses. ^ Hence the earliest narrator not unnaturally 
 applies the name Amorite to all the ancient settlers in the south, 
 on the western, as well as to the entire population on the eastern 
 side of the Jordan ; and other writers in Judah also employ the 
 name in this larger sense."* But we have seen already, p. 230, 
 that these very Amorites, described as warlike and savage, 
 were mainly relics of the aboriginal population ; and their con- 
 nection with the Canaanites, strictly so called, must therefore 
 have been very loose. In fact, in careful delineations they Avere 
 clearly distinguished from these, and only gradually and in 
 later times thrown into the same category with them.^ We 
 possess also one jDroof that the language of the Amorites was by 
 no means identical with that of the Canaanites.^ 
 
 b.) The contrast to these Highlanders with their strong 
 castles is famished by the Hittites,^ as dwellers in the valley, 
 
 that of mountains with their castles. In Origins, however, used tlie name Canaan- 
 1840 I published this remark on Is. xvii. ite in a wider sense, is plain from Num. xiv. 
 9. InSyriacLjQiDi still signifies Aero; 43-45 (Judges i. 17), compart d with Deut.i. 
 
 ^r ■■ nu ^ Ol o J- II TA So also the narrator of 2 Sam. sxi. 2, puts 
 
 Knop. Chrest. p. 31. 3 from below, 70. ^ y „ ^ ^i i ^i n i /. 
 
 , ^, . -r> o *u 1 t • w Amantes for those whom the Book of 
 
 last but one, / 9, 2 ; the last passage might n»:„;„o/:„ t.^ i • \ in n- -^ 
 
 ,,,;.'',, • • 1 • Originsfin Josh.ix.) properlycallsÄtv7;^f*. 
 
 suggest il/fffi««« as the original meaning, ... , „ 
 
 . , . . . ,, , ,,» ' As in the often retouched i.assage, 
 
 since these are in Armenian called Ulr//^, j^^gp, ;. compare Terse 10 with Josh. 
 
 Mar; and Amurin occurs as a local name, xv. 13 sq., xi. 21 sq. 
 
 ibid. 31. 3 fr. bei. « In the remarkable passage Deut. iii. 9. 
 
 ' Gen. XIV. 7, of the district near Jericho , r^u u i i o r rr ,. 
 
 1 * • T . »u . Ti .. • They are called also Sons of Heth, 
 
 where mountains lie to the west ; Deut. i. r. i-, i i .i . .i ■ •' 
 
 - on 1 . J- 11 »1 ■.• T 1 fi"»™ which we learn only that their terri- 
 
 7, 29 sq. 44, irom old authorities ; Josh. X. . e i i tx • i • 
 
 c V ■• • I i? Ii • ^ tory was lormerly larger. It is an obvious 
 
 5 sq., where mention IS made of their tive •'• . ., , .• ^ ^ ,, -r., . - 
 
 1- ' L 1 1 tu . ^u- •] conjecture that the name of the Phenician 
 
 kings who ruled the country on this side. -l'-u- ■ n ■ ^ . ^ . .^ , 
 
 „''t 1 or T u ••• . iv KiHion m Cyprus is related to the word 
 
 - Judges 1. 36, see Josh. xiu. 4 ; on the ^_ ., f'-».-^ • i i , 
 
 o • T) 1 • 1 I ^ I J i- .u nn ! these Kittites were indeed always 
 
 Scorpion-Kange, which stretched from the •; _ axnojo 
 
 southern end of the Dead Sea to the south- written in Hebrew, and almost alwa3-s in 
 
 west, see Num. xxxiv. 4, Josh. xv. 3. Phenician, with -[, never with pI ; yet there 
 
 ' As we are told not rnly by the earliest are found coins with the inscription ol eV 
 
 narrator, but b}- national songs : Num. 'S.i^wvi KtTTieTs, so that at least in Sidon 
 
 xxi. 29, comp.Gen. xiv. 5; according towhich Heth seems to be employed in the sense 
 
 the Amorites were here not aboriginal. of Canaan ; see the Jahrii'üihcr dir Bib' 
 
 * See above, p. 72. That the Book of liscken Wissenschaff, iii. p. 209. On the
 
 156 TERRITORY. 
 
 wlio had different employments and manners, and lived, wherever 
 possible, in distinct and independent communities. We are 
 not therefore surprised to find them living near the mountains 
 wherever they could find room, as for instance in the south 
 near Hebron, and extending from thence as far as Bethel ' in 
 the centre of the land. They nowhere appear as warlike as the 
 Aniorites, but rather (according to the noteworthy description 
 of them in the Book of Origins),^ lovers of refinement at an 
 early period, and living in well-ordered communities possessing 
 national assemblies. Abraham's allies in war are Amorites ; ^ 
 but when he desires to obtain a possession peaceably he turns to 
 the Hittites.* More in the middle of the land on the western side 
 of the Jordan, the name Hittite seems to have been exchanged 
 for one of similar import, namely Perizzite : ^ for this also desig- 
 nates dwellers in an open country, containing villages rather than 
 fortresses.'' Upon the supposition that this name is synonymous 
 with, and only dialectically different from, the other, its omission 
 from the list of tribes given in Gen. x. is easily explained. 
 
 c.) Yery little difference exists between these dwellers in the 
 valley and the peoj)le originally called Canaanite. The latter, 
 however, according to the earliest and most reliable accounts,^ 
 inhabited the littoral regions, which lie still lower, and possess 
 a totally different character from the valleys just desci'ibed ; viz. 
 the western bank of the sultry and teeming valley of the Jordan, 
 probably as high up as the sea of Galilee, and likewise the coast 
 of the Mediterranean Sea. As possessors of these choicest parts 
 of the country, and especially as masters of the sea, successful 
 
 Egyptian monuments ÄJjiar and Chef a fre- * This name first appears Josh. xvii. 15 ; 
 
 quently appear as names of nations, tlie together ^Yith the Canaanites, as if those 
 
 latter especially ; and its relation to the districts liad heen then under subjection 
 
 Eiblical name is pointed out in Eunsen's to the latter people. Judges i. 4 sq. ; 
 
 JEcfypien i. p. 480 ; Rouge's Pocmc (Je Gen. xxxiv. 30, xiii. 7, comp. xii. 6. 
 Penfa-oicr in the Heme Contenvp. 1856, " As is clear from the similar Hebrew 
 
 p. 391 sq. ; Brugsch's Gcoffraphische word in 1 Sam. vi. 18, and from tlie re- 
 
 In-^chriflen alt ägyptischer Denkmäler ii. marks in Deut. iii. 5 ; Ezek. xxxviii. 11 ; 
 
 p. 20 sq., iii. p. 73. On the Egyptian Zech. ii. 8. HD is properly npen. 
 Chetse see also linvve Archkol. 1864, p. 333- ' In the Book of Origins. Num. xiii. 29, 
 
 49 Champollion considered tlie Chetse to xiv. 25; and in Josh. xi. 13, probably 
 
 be Scythians. But, according to the Assy- from the same .source ; on tlie othir hand, 
 
 rian cuneiform inscriptions, tiicChatti must they are already restricted to tlio sea-coast 
 
 lisouglit much farther to the north ; see in Josh. v.l. The name Jyj^ undoubtedly 
 
 Eawlinsons Inscription of TiglathPUeser ^. -^^^ ^^^;^,,^; ^^^^ ^,^^ ^^^^ antithesis to 
 
 ^London, 18o7), p. 46 .^q.. 54 sq. The Xer- ^^% -^ „^^ ^^^^^^^ -^ ^^.^^^ ,,^,^ ^^^j,^^,^. -^ ^^^ 
 
 ra^a «c^m» m Africa, mentioned ,n Ptolemy, ^^j^,,^ „^,„,,^ ^,,,^ ^^.j^i^ ;„ „^j^ ,^^„^^ .^^_ 
 
 (jcoqr. IV. 0, can have been at most only -kt t ^-n i\ .i i- re i i ^t 
 
 •^ 1 ,,, . ,..i- "V JSot till atter 1 he time ot bolomon does the 
 
 a very early settlement of this people. „ n -4. • ^i /-m ] rn ^ 
 
 , A ' ... . „, .. '" ^T , name Canaanite assume in the Old Testa- 
 
 ' ben. xxiii., xxvi. 34, xxvii. 46 ; Juderes ^ ,.\ c c t^jj j 
 
 . „fi .< . ^" , «uu^jco njeut; the force of merchant, trader, and 
 
 ' , ^ ••• even then not in common parlance. This 
 
 vjcn will 
 
 1 \ I- \^ n ■ ,n C'lii by no means hare been the original 
 • According to Gen. xiv. 13. • r xi j 
 
 4 r, ■■■ meaning of the word. 
 
 ' Gen. xxin. °
 
 MIXED .NATIONALITIES 237 
 
 navigators, and founders of colonies both near and distant, thej 
 early obtained such a preeminence above all other nations of the 
 land, that their name as the most widely known easily came to 
 be used as a comi^endious desi<j;-nation of the entire country. 
 Where the various parts of the country were to be distinguished, 
 the name was extended so as in the first instance to embrace 
 all the northern tribes only, and then by dei^rees to include 
 all the southern ones also; althoug'h the southern inhabit- 
 ants themselves generally employed the name Amorite in this 
 general sense. When the north coast alone remained unsubdued 
 by Israel, the name Canaan was ultimately more and more 
 restricted to that. It was not unknown to the Greeks as sy- 
 nonymous with Phenician ; ' and the Hebrews possessed no 
 other general name for the open land on the sea-coast, unless 
 it be ' Sidonia.' 
 
 d.) Lastly, different from all the above were the Hivvites or 
 Midlanders, who dwelt in the true middle of the land, havin«- 
 on the east and west the Lowlanders, on the south the High- 
 landers and valley-dwellers, and on the north the borderers of 
 Hamath.^ They, like the Canaanites, loved peaceful occupations 
 and trading pursuits in well-ordered communities and fortified 
 cities, and located themselves principally in districts the most 
 suitable for peaceful civil life, which from the earliest times 
 possessed the most flourishing inland cities. One of these was 
 Gibeon ; this important central city was the earliest to submit 
 to Israel, to secure the peace which an inland mercantile city 
 especially requires.^ 
 
 The Hebrews became acquainted with the numerous tribes of 
 various nationality that occupied the land, at a time when they 
 were living quite isolated from each other, and becoming in- 
 creasingly so. This explains why they often mentioned several 
 conquered nations together as a periphrasis for the entire land. 
 With rhetorical amj)lification the earliest nari'ator names six,^ 
 
 ' On Xv« lis synonymous with 4>oin|, clifFcrent ^~|'ri- I'l Josh. ix. 7 this mistake 
 
 see Sanchoniathon, ed Orelli. p. 40 ; and j.^^ ^j. ,(. i„to almost all the MSS. of the 
 
 even Hecataus of Miletus, aecord.ng to j^xX. ; and in Gen. xxvi. 2, even into the 
 
 JE\. Herodian. ir,,\ ^ounp Kel., i. p. 8: present H.^brew text. [The name is properly 
 
 comp. Chocrobosrus in I.t-kkeri A'tea . //j,,y^7g „ot Hivite, Heb. 1.^.1 
 p. 1181; and Steplianus Byz. on the word; 
 
 comp. Buttmann's Mythologus, i. p. 233. ' Jo^^'i- '^- 11' 19- '-^''^e »'»™e H-IH may 
 
 have signified in the Canaanite language 
 
 ' At the time of the Judges they were ^^^ j,^,,^ (literally that which withdraws 
 
 driven back from Antihbanon to Hamath, jtsgifs . ^ ^,^^^^,^1 derivatives from 
 
 that IS, quite to the north-east (Judges 
 
 iii. 3 ; Josh. xi. 3 ; 2 Sam. xxiv. 7) ; but <J^^- ^"^^ OJiT may perhaps have 
 
 earlier we find them settled in tiie centre signified fhe community, in which case the 
 
 of theland(Gen. xxxiv. 2 ; Jcsh. ix.). We Hivvites meant those who lived in free 
 
 must observe, however, that the ancient communities (republics), 
 copyists often mistook >in f'^i" the cntiroly * Ex. xxiii. 23.
 
 23« TERRITORY. 
 
 and ag-aiii, more briefly but without any change of meaning, only 
 three,' and even one only (according to p. 72). The Book of 
 Origins sometimes mentions five,* but generally Canaan only. 
 The Fourth and Fifth Narrators choose the same six nations 
 which the earliest narrator had selected.^ The Deuteronomist, 
 by adding the Girgashites from Gen. x., brings the number up to 
 the favourite round number seven.* In one important passage, 
 where the largest extent of the land was to be indicated ^ the 
 Fifth Narrator counts up as many as ten nations, by adding a few 
 fresh ones, of which we shall speak presently. Bat in most 
 cases where a shorter description suffices, either two names are 
 given, as Canaanite and Perizzite, or still more frequently one 
 only, and then the name Canaanite is preferred, although some- 
 times exchanged for Amorite (see p. 235), and far less frequently 
 for Hittite."^ 
 
 If the name Canaanite thus designates originally only one 
 nation, dwelling apart from the others, it is possible that the 
 Canaanites belonged to the same immigration with the Hivvites' 
 and Hittites, who most resembled them in their form of civilisa- 
 tion ; but this does not enable us to discover the name by which 
 they called themselves at the time of their migration. But 
 there is no reason to doubt that all these immigrations belonged 
 to the primeval race which the Israelites called Ham. Of this 
 we shall have to speak further hereafter ; for the present it 
 suffices to notice that Canaan always appears as a son of Ham, 
 and that according to the ancient Hebrew conception, the two 
 names were interchangeable terms. ^ 
 
 Observing on the one hand that the Aborigines maintained 
 their position in the south more than in the north, and on the 
 other that Sidon, even in Premosaic times, was the principal 
 seat of the world-renowned Canaanites, we might imagine that 
 the latter had burst into the land from the north-east, and 
 driven back the Aborigines eastwards over the Jordan as well 
 as to the south, taking a similar direction to Abraham's migra- 
 
 ' V. 28. _ some .special cause. I3ut in Josli. i. 4, a 
 
 '^ Ex. xiii. 5; in most MSS. of the LXX. rhetorical passage, very luuisually, the 
 
 the Pcrizzitts are added at the end of the Hitlites alone are mentioned in a more 
 
 list; but this very position at tlie end is general sonst;; and the LXX. omit the 
 
 opposed to ordinary custom. , .•„ „ ».v-.__ .,.«... L« t r j-u 
 
 3 -c •■■ o 1-r ■a • 11 ('"tire passage □''nnn inX ?3- In Judith 
 
 ^ Ex. 111. 8, 17, xxxiii. 2, xxxiv. 11, ^^ ,, "^. '-' •• '' "' l ' Z*^ ^, , 
 
 comn Josh xii 8 '^'' ^^' f"ll'^^''°ff tjen. xxxiv., bliechem is 
 
 ' Deut. vi'i. 1 (XX. 17 according to the '•<fl>on«^ especially among the Canaanite 
 
 LXX.), Josli. iii. 10, xxiv. 11 ; comp, "'itions ; hat this is explicahle by the 
 
 Acts xiii 19 special object and age ot the book. 
 
 * Gen. XV. 19-21. ' As we see from the entire complexion 
 
 « This is found only in 1 Kings x. 29 of the narrative in Gen. ix. 18-27. 
 
 and 2 Kings vii. 0. and here probably from
 
 MIXED NATIONALITIES. 239 
 
 tion. But according to the earliest narrative this people were 
 originally settled much further to the south, as far as Petra,' at 
 least when mingled with the Amorites ; and their entire history, 
 so far as it is known to us, shows that they were driven from 
 the south and east further and farther towards the north-west 
 and the sea, where for the first time they concentrated their 
 strength in impregnable seaports. For the hypothesis that 
 they had pushed forwards from the south, like Israel at the 
 Exodus, speaks their derivation from Ham in the Book of Origins, 
 Gen. X. 6, and the tradition preserved by Greek writers of their 
 immigration from the Red Sea.^ They are therefore to be 
 reckoned among those Arabian nations which, accordino- to Gen. 
 X. 7, were also derived from Ham, some of which even in very 
 earl}-- times were no less devoted to mercantile pursuits. 
 
 To the fact of a cognate people living far to the south we also 
 possess another remarkable testimony, which when correctly 
 understood perfectly agrees with the statement of the earliest 
 narrator. There now exist somewhat to the east of Petra, ruins 
 of an ancient city called Maan, which the Israelites would have 
 pronounced Ma'on : here the Maonites must have had their seat, 
 who in Postmosaic or rather Postdavidical times appear on 
 the stage of history as widely spread in the south of Palestuie 
 and endeavouring occasionally, in conjunction with Arabian and 
 other nations, to enter the Holy Land from the south. ^ From 
 the accounts preserved 1 Chron. iv. 31-41, we learn that being- 
 
 ' Judges i. 36 ; but the Book of Origins take no immediate notice of the accounts 
 
 already takes another view, Gen. x. 19, respecting thoCanaanites in the Nabathean 
 
 and fixes the boundary at the southern books : comp. Chwolson's Ucberrcste der 
 
 extremity of the Dead Sea. AUhahijlonischcn Literatur, p. 49 sqq. and 
 
 "^ Herodotus, i. 1, vii. 89 ; the Eed Sea the Glitt. Gelehrt. An::., 18Ö9, p. 1121 sq. 
 is here to be understood in the wider sense ' 1 Chron. iv. 39-41 : 2 Chron. xxvi. 7 • 
 
 •which Herodotus himself assigns to it, in both passages the LXX. have Vlivaioi 
 
 ii. 11. According to JusMn xviii. 2, on a pronunciation also found in the Chetib 
 
 abandoning their own country they first 1 Chron. iv. 41, and which forms the 
 
 settled down on the shore of the Assyrian transition to the Massoretic punctuation 
 
 (Syrian) lake, by which we must under- ^Jiyp (which is to be understood acconling 
 
 stand the Sea of Tiberias (the Dead Sea . ' r i i i o .^^ , >. -,,, 
 
 being expressly distinguished from this, *° ^^^y JMi,ch § 36, b.c.). In both pas- 
 
 xxxvi. 3) Movers explains these Greek ^'»^f »'j^ '^'f '' I' ^"^"»T is spoken of; even 
 
 accounts contrary to their simple and 'f '^"^ ^""f h'^^f f the period of the Judges 
 obvious sense, because he wishes to prove '^ P'^'Pl" ^'^^ ^^ mentioned once under 
 
 that the Canaanites were not immigrants, '»^^ "^™'' ^^ p"' ""■ ■ r l^ r ^'''''' ""^ 
 
 but had always dwelt on the coast of the ^^""' ^° ^^'^^ ^i«''*^- ^^'t'l ^he LXX. pno 
 
 Mediterranean. But in the first place, for \''']3^- On the other hand, in 2 Chron. 
 
 this hypothesis is entirely opposed to the ^_^. i^ Q,j.^j^j2n i^ evidently to be read for 
 senseof the Old lestament. ihe tradition . ■ '• 
 
 respecting their derivation from the shore CJI^VH according to the LXX. (who also 
 
 of the Persian Gulf sounds too indefinite interchange these words in 2 Chron. xxvi. 
 
 in Strabo, Geoy. xvi. 3 ; yet the doubts of 8) ; whence follows, that the nation was 
 
 Quatrem^re {Mtmoires dc VAcadeunc des already in existence in the time of Jeho- 
 
 Inscriptions, xv. 2, 1845, p. 364 sqq.) are shaphat. 
 nevertheless very unfounded. We here
 
 240 TERRITORY. 
 
 descended from Ham, tliey were really quiet and peaceable inhab- 
 itants of the land ; but towards the close of the eighth century 
 some Israelites of the tribe of Simeon made an incursion into the 
 rich pasture lands of Gerar^ occupied b}*^ them and slau filtered 
 the inhabitants. The characteristics ascribed to this people 
 point to a connection with the Canaanites. The quiet j)eaceable 
 life is peculiar to the Canaanites ; and the description of its 
 occurrence here amid the restless tribes of the south sounds 
 identical with what is said in Judges xviii. 7 of the northern 
 Canaanites. The fact of their descent from Ham raises to a 
 certainty the probable conjecture that they were a species of 
 Canaanites. We must accordingly regard them as a remnant 
 of the Amorites, which in later times under the name Maonites 
 spread to the west of Petra ; and this view is also favoured by 
 the words of Joshua xiii. 4. 
 
 It is a peculiar trait of the early civilisation of this people 
 that they were in a constant state of disintegration, produced by 
 the pride which led every city of any importance to assert its 
 independence and set up a separate kiilg or legislature of its 
 own ; whilst federal unions among those communities were 
 never more than transient. The eleven sons of Canaan, whose 
 names the Book of Origins collects together, clearly designate 
 only the principal historical groups still discernible after the 
 long-continued breaking up of the great mass ; for during the 
 wars with Israel, the various separate kingdoms of the Amorites, 
 
 ' For -)n5 1 Chron. iv. 39, we should, Josh. xv. ö8. But Gedor, according to 
 
 T /' t-L T^'\' „„,1 •-.. . or,rl Robinson's Map. lies still more to the 
 accordinsr to the LXA., read 113 ana j. i • vl,, ix^ « i ti • i ** 
 
 •= T-; ' north of this little Maon ; and this latter 
 
 thus we should have here the pasture-land certainly did not in the eighth centui-y con- 
 to the extreme south known from the gtitute a separate state, nor does it answer 
 Patriarchal history. Gerar is, however, ^^ ^he description in 1 Chron. iv. 39-41. 
 elsewhere called Philistine, and this may jj^öq ^as rather a genuine Canaanite 
 he quite true before the eighth century; „^^le for a city, given to many cities 
 for it is clear that the Israelites did not inhahited by that people ; as for instance a 
 possess it at that time, as it is not men- ^y^^ l,^^ or VyO n^5 is met with even on 
 tioned in the register in Josh. XV.; nor can ' ■ " . n t" i t i ••■ i - 
 ,1 . , T . ] 1 o oi,_ „ ^\.r 10 the iurther side oi Jordan, J osli. xiu. 1/. 
 this be disproved bv 2 Lliron. xiv. IJ, mi ,. - »» - i i <. j 
 , , „, 1, i • i.1 ■ 1 .1 1 ti T\,T The Meivatoi or Mivaioi. celebrated as 
 
 131. Eut in the eighth century the Mao- ^ , . . i i/ / t ^ 
 
 L., J 1 t 1 -i. -p /i -Di,;!:» dealers in incense, dwelt (according to 
 
 nites may liave taken it from the Philis- . . '. j • m 
 
 rr, T n 1- ^A i^,.i „.. Strabo XVI. 4 beginning and middle, comp. 
 
 lines. The reading Crw/or would lead us i • i v ^ i ^ i «i 
 
 ^ ,, .^„^ / ..." -.1 ,N „,i T„i, Agatharchid. xliv.) s-omcwhcre towards the 
 
 to the "ins (written with 1). named Josh. „ , c i .^ ., c .i * i <-i 
 
 " 'r ^ ' Red Sea, but too far south to be the same 
 XV. 58 ; and then under the Maonites .jg ti,osc mentioned above. The repetition 
 we must understand, not the inhabitants of the same national name indifferent parts 
 of the large and important city near Petra, ^f ., ].„.ge country like Arabia might how- 
 but the small town (mentimied Josh. xv. ^.^.g^ be viewed in the same light as in the 
 5.5), in the mountains of Judali, not far case of the more familiar names Saba and 
 south of Hebron and Carmel ; whose in- DcdAn ; (on which see Tuch's Kommcn- 
 liabitaiits, however, were so truly Jewish, i,,,. ,;;/,,,;. ^[ß Genesis, p. 225 sq.), only we 
 tliat their ancestor was entered in the should have to suppose the southern Mi- 
 pedigree of Judah :is father of the neigh- „g.^ns to be a colony from the northern 
 l)ouring 13.'th-zur, which according to this ,^j^tJQ„ mentioned in the Chronicles, 
 was' subject to il, 1 CJiroii. ii. t.') ; comp.
 
 MIXED NATIOxVALITIES. 241 
 
 Hittites, and others b}- no means form a complete whole. It is 
 also to be taken into account, that through these divisions into 
 separate nations and kingdoms, their modes of life and govern- 
 ment must have become increasingly dissimilar. Of this we 
 have one very good example. Many of the Hivvite states, not 
 unlike the German Free Cities, must early have adopted a pure 
 republican constitution without a king. This was the case with 
 the inventive but timid Gibeonites, who are so graphically de- 
 scribed in the Book of Origins ; their elders and burghers decide 
 every thing,' and no king of Gibeon is mentioned in the cata- 
 logue of the thirty -one conquered kings of Canaan, Josh. xii. 9- 
 24 : yet Gibeon was a powerful city, having three subject-towns 
 in its territory,^ and able to decide on peace and war. Similar 
 to this must have been the condition of the quiet, industrious 
 city of Laish or Leshem, which was surprised by a party of 
 Danites.^ The influence which such precursors necessarily 
 exerted upon the Israelites when they were once firmly estab- 
 lished in the land, will be noticed in the history of the Judges. 
 The high degree of civilisation attained by this race in 
 primeval times is attested by the whole following course of 
 history, even where fortune did not favour them.'' In the 
 interior, where they succumbed to the youthful force of the 
 Israelites, the spirit of the conquered was avenged by the extent 
 to which their civilisation and social habits passed over to the 
 conquerors, as will be shown presently. What they achieved on 
 the sea under the name Phenicians, is known to alb the world. 
 From the often-quoted document Gen. xiv. we are justified in 
 inferring that in the earliest times, when the Canaanites them- 
 selves were new to the land and the Aborigines hardly subdued, 
 a purer religion was still preserved amongst them, so that even 
 Abraham could implore a blessing from one of their Priest-kings. 
 But at the time of Moses this energetic and skilful people had 
 obviously reached a sort of over-ripeness in their beautiful land, 
 which may probably have been largely due to their never-ceasing 
 
 ' Josh. ix. 11. afterwards, Ezek. xxvii. 9), might admit of 
 
 ■• nu 1,- T, -R n „A T.^;,.;,fi, ,-„.. much better proof than that adduced by 
 
 - Chenhirah, Beeroth, and Kir atn-iea- -r, , , , ^ i „f..+ „^ 
 
 J ] ■ in Bochart and .some modern commentators, 
 
 nm ; jObU. ix. i/. ^^^^^_^ ^^ ^1^^ ^_^^^^ ^.^^^^ ^^ ^ ^j^^ j^^ ^j^^ 
 
 ' Judges xviii. 7, 10, 27, 28; Josh. xix. rnountain-region of Judah (which moreover 
 
 47, the customs of tlie city were only li/:e .if]„iif.s, „f various interpretations) : n^-)f? 
 
 those of Sidon ; it therefore by no means t> t -j t i • 1 1 i^M 
 
 belonged to the Sidonians. We must con- 15p' Book-aiM, Judges i- H sq-, Josh, 
 
 sequently look upon it as a city of the xv. 15 sq. It is however m verse 49 
 
 Hivvites. exchanged for n3p n.^lpi which has been 
 
 ■• Whether the Premosaic Canaanites exjilaincd by the Arabic word sunna, as 
 
 had already a University ciiy (celebrated 'City of the" Law.' The LXX. however 
 
 somewhat in the same way as Byblos was writs for both names T6Kis ypa^ß<i.Toiv. 
 
 VOL. I. R
 
 242 TEEEITORY. 
 
 divisions, througli wMch every petty town could manufacture 
 its own laws — tlie worse the better. The earliest accounts show 
 a mass of moral depravity and unnatural crimes raising its 
 head among them ; ^ and the grosser pictures of the same drawn 
 by the later tradition on occasion of the destruction of Sodom,^ 
 must rest on such a basis, and in so far be not destitute of 
 historical truth. Thus then, despite all the misery it poured 
 upon the people, the Israelitish conquest, which was rendered 
 possible by this moral rottenness and national disunion, proved 
 an excellent means of purification, in that the nobler part of the 
 nation, unable longer to maintain themselves in the interior, 
 gathered their forces together on the northern sea-coast for a 
 new and more vigorous life, and thus the regenerated remnant 
 of the people gained for themselves an honourable place in the 
 history of the world. 
 
 2) The Canaanites, if immigrants, had entered the land at so 
 early a period that the Old Testament records tell us nothing 
 exact on the subject. Very different is the case of the Philis- 
 tines. These must have entered at a much later period, since 
 a most distinct recollection of their immigration is everywhere 
 preserved. This broad fact is elicited with perfect certainty 
 from many brief traditions ^ which have come down to us ; yet 
 the details of the question present much that is obscure and 
 difficult to understand. 
 
 The name of the original inhabitants of the south-west corner 
 of the Jordan-land has come down to us.'' It was the Awim that 
 dwelt there as far as Gaza, i.e. nearly as far as the Egyptian 
 frontier ; living, however, not in fortified cities, but, as is ex- 
 pressly added, in villages, i.e. by agriculture. They were 
 expelled by the Philistines, who came from Caphtor. Now 
 nothing: is so characteristic of the Philistines as their dwelling 
 in fortified coast-cities. The agricultural habits of the Abori- 
 gines, therefore, show them to be jDerfectly different from the 
 Philistines, and more resembling the inland tribes. Though 
 said in the above-quoted passage to have been annihilated or 
 expelled by the Philistines, they cannot have been at once 
 wholly exterminated. An ancient tradition ^ shows that for a 
 considerable period they asserted a certain degree of indepen- 
 dence alongside of the five ruling Philistine cities, being 
 
 ' As Levit. xviii. 3-30. latter, and we have no reason to doubt tho 
 
 ' On the passages Gen. xiii. 13, xviii. fact, 
 
 and xix. we have already spoken p. 10-1. ^ Gen. x. 14 (1 Chron. i. 12); Amos 
 
 and elsewliere. Genesis xiv. leaves it ix. 7 ; Deut. ii. 23 ; comp. Roug^ in the 
 
 uncertain whether they were Aborigines Athen. Fr. 1855, p. 958. 
 
 or Canaanites ; but the mode of expros- •* Through the Deuteronomist, ii. 23. 
 
 sion in Gen. x. 20 distinctly implies the * Josh. xiii. 3.
 
 MIXED NATIONALITIES. Ui 
 
 doubtless reduced to a kind of vassalage. Indeed, vague ex- 
 pressions such as we often find, of the annihilation and expulsion 
 of one people through the victorious invasion of another, ought 
 never without further evidence to be taken so literally as to 
 exclude the idea of any remnant of the vanquished being left, 
 especially in a state of vassalage. 
 
 This land, then, must originally have been called Awim from 
 these its early inhabitants ; yet as early as the time of the 
 Judges it was always called Philistia. When occurred the 
 Philistine invasion which produced this change of name ? Here 
 we must regret the short and fragmentary form in which the 
 ancient accounts of the migration of the Philistines have come 
 down to us ; for the passages just quoted show that the ancients 
 knew far more of this and other migrations not too remote in 
 antiquity than they happen to have incidentally expressed there. 
 We must therefore give careful attention to all extant traces of 
 the tradition, if we wish to obtain any degree of certainty upon 
 this question. 
 
 Whether the Philistines were already in possession of the land 
 during the Patriarchal age might, from the nature of the 
 extant stories concerning that age, be considered very doubtful. 
 Por the expressions there met with describe nothing character- 
 istic of this people, as known to us from other sources and 
 especially during the period of its highest power; and we 
 might fancy that the narrators had transferred the name of 
 a Philistine king and people of a later time into the very 
 earliest age,^ merely to give its usual designation to the south- 
 west country. Indeed, many still more weighty reasons might 
 be found even against the idea that the Philistines occupied a 
 part of the land at the time of the Israelite conquest. For 
 throughout all the descriptions of assaults upon the country and 
 conquests of parts of it, the Philistines are never mentioned, 
 which would appear impossible if they already possessed a part 
 of it. According to the very remarkable statement of the Book 
 of Covenants "^ (which will be further discussed hereafter), Israel 
 during the earliest period of the invasion conquered the three 
 cities Gaza, Askelon, and Ekron, of which, however, it cannot 
 long have retained possession. But though these cities were 
 soon lost again, yet the whole land as far as the Egyptian 
 
 ' Abimelech, king of Gerar, is not called been introduced by a later hand. Else- 
 king of the Philistines either in Gen. xx. where the expression is found only applied 
 or xxi. 22-34, but only in xxvi. As this to the country, xxi. 32, and to the people 
 last chapter has throughout beeu more dwelling there, xxvi. 
 entirely recast than the others, it is not * Judges i. 18. 
 improbable that this change may have
 
 244 TERRITOKY. 
 
 boundary was constantly claimed by the Israelites as their pos- 
 session. As, according to the most trustworthy traditions, the 
 Canaanites had formerly extended their dominion thus far,' and 
 as down to the latest period the name Canaan still comprised 
 the entire extent of country as far as Egypt, thus including the 
 Philistine territory ; ^ therefore these five chief cities of the 
 Philistines were always to be considered as belonging to Canaan, 
 and therefore properly speaking subject to Israel.^ Nor is it 
 at all necessary to suppose that these five cities — Gaza, Ashdod, 
 Askelon, Gath, and Ekron (as enumerated Josh. xiii. 3) — were 
 built by the Philistines, but rather the contrary, as in other 
 parts of the country the name Gath is given to genuine Canaan- 
 ite cities, which cannot have been founded by the Philistines, '* 
 
 Hence it might seem that the Philistines cannot have come 
 to this coast as conquerors and subjugated the original inhabi- 
 tants till after the Israelitish conquest. In fact, they do not 
 appear as active agents on the theatre of this history until about 
 the latter half of the period of the Judges ; but they then ex- 
 hibit such youthful force, and despite all obstacles maintain 
 unbroken for centuries such national energy, as proves them, in 
 contradistinction to the Canaanites, to retain all their pristine 
 vigour, and not to have reached the period of degeneracy. 
 
 But there are clear indications that the name Philistia was 
 very early given to the sea-coast north-east of Egypt, and was 
 in common use long before the latter -half of the j^eriod of the 
 Judges. According to the oldest and most reliable records it 
 was so called at the time of the Exodus, and had even then 
 strong fortresses and warlike inhabitants.^ Some immigration 
 of Philistines therefore must after all have occurred before 
 the time of Moses. And, dissimilar as the Philistines of the 
 Patriarchal age are to those of the time of the Judges, yet one 
 unmistakable bond of union is found in the similarity of their 
 proper names. ^ 
 
 ' As 'unto Gaza,' Gen. x. 19. well as from tlio ancient Pnf-chal song Ex. 
 
 * Zeph. ii. 5. The general name of xv. 14. 
 
 Canaan must obviously be defined by " Besides the well-known ^/;HHe/fcÄ, the 
 the addition of an epithet wherevtr with- foUowinj^examplesoccur: J-i-TPINl Gen. xxvi. 
 out, it the sense is not quite dear, as in the 26, formed as to its termination like the 
 passape Is. XIX. 18. familiar name Goliath (but there is al.so 
 
 « Ihis is the sense of the passage J( sh ■Qc„ftbat. of the Idumeans in 1 Kings xi. 
 Xiii. 3. L- ^ • • 
 
 * AsGath-HepherinthetribeofZebu- 20); 'p^^a Gen. xxi. 22, xxvi. 26; 
 Ion on ihennnh,imd Gitta or Gifimi'mthe t^'i^x 1 Stmi- xxi. 11 [10], xxvii. 2, 
 central portion of the land. How it Mas ^ j^- - 39 • j g^„^_ ^^^i;_ g ; 
 that the Hellenists could also sav Gef//, ^ > ^ 'r 
 
 Git/a, is shown in my Lr/,r/ji/c//, §"33 b. ^RX 2 Sam. xv. 19, 22, xviii. 2 (though 
 
 ^ This follows namely ft'om the words of this name is also given to an Israelite in 
 
 the earliest narrator, Ex. xiii. 17, 18; as 2 Sam. xxiii. 29, 1 Chron. xi. 31); 5jp'
 
 MIXED NATIONALITIES. '245 
 
 We must therefore conceive the primeval history of this 
 I^eojDle to have been as follows : — The same aboriginal people 
 which formerly covered the whole Lebanon and Jordan valley, 
 spread also, as many traces show, over some distant coast-lands 
 of the Mediterranean, as for instance Crete,' where there was in 
 the earliest times a tribe of Philistines. From thence, unques- 
 tionably as early as the Patriarchal age, they invaded the coast 
 which has ever since borne their name. The cause and mode 
 of their invasion we can never know, but may perhaps conjec- 
 ture that in the first instance they were called in to the assist- 
 ance of the Aborigines against an invasion of the Canaanites, 
 or migration of the Hyksos. They then (as it seems) spread 
 out mainly towards the extreme south, where lies Gerar, a place 
 of note in the history of Abraham and Isaac, which, so far as 
 we know, they never held after the Mosaic age. But just 
 before the time of Moses and Joshua they must have submitted 
 to the rule of the Canaanites,^ if only as allies (see on this 
 point p. 243). Conquered together with their Canaanite allies, 
 and for a while held in subjection by the Israelites, they seem 
 next to have sought help from their old home in Crete. This 
 second and greater immigration it was which made them a 
 nation, and gave them those characteristics which we know 
 through the Old Testament. 
 
 This view also accords with the mutual relation of the two or 
 three names by which the nation is known in the Old Testa- 
 ment. It was the generally-received opinion ^ that the Philis- 
 tines came from CiqjJitor. This now obsolete name probably 
 designated either the whole or a j)art of the island of Crete.* 
 For we find the name Cretan altematinp- with Philistine in the 
 
 2 vSam. xxi. 18 (in 1 MS. of the LXX. founded Ashdod, according to an ancient 
 
 Se^xi) for which occurs the possibly older tradition handed down, with an attempt 
 
 forna iQQ 1 Chron. xx. 4 (the LXX. partly at exjilaining the meaning of the name of 
 
 2e0<^r, partly :$a<poir). AH these are pe- ^e city und.r its Greek form "ACctos, l.y 
 
 culiar, partly because not easily found in j^" «^^^ antiquarian in Stephanus Byz. s.v. 
 other Canaanite languages, partly on ac- ,Z°^'r^ ,t i m . 
 
 count of the uniform and remarkable for- I«, ^en. x. 14 even Vater and Tuch 
 
 mation of men's names in a/h. correctly assumed a transposition of the 
 
 » It is for instance remarkable, tliat the ■^^oi"^'*;- 
 name of the river Jordan, •'lapSavos, re- L ndoubtedly the sound of the word it- 
 appears in Crete, Horn. Od. iii. 292 ; also ^^^^ 1^"'''' ^" ^^^ ^^^^ '^^•** C;iphtor might 
 in Lydia, Herod, i. 7 ; and even in Greece, ^^ "^^ '-^''*"^' "f Cyprus ; but nothing else 
 Horn. II. vii. 135; Apollodorus, ii. 6, 3. '^'^^ ^^ adduced to decide us in favour of 
 Phereeydes in the Scholia to II. vii. 135. ""^ opinion. C'oyj;jfr was first named from 
 Pausanias' I'lricq. v. 5. 5, 18. 2. A ^^^ island, not i-icc vcr.<<a ; and the island 
 Lvdian noble Ja'rdanus is mentioned by itself was probably so called from the plant 
 Nieolaus of Damascus, in C. Miiller's ">53 (t^'« Alhenna of the Arabs), which 
 Fragm. Hist. Crrtsc. iii. p. 372. grows there, and was much used by the 
 
 * At this time 'one of the fugitives from ancients, 
 the Red Sea,' i.e. a Phenician, may have 
 
 I
 
 246 TERRITORY. 
 
 parallelism of the poetic verse,' and even sometimes in common 
 discourse, as for instance in the mouth of one who is neither 
 Israelite nor Philistine ; ^ and in speaking of the mercenary 
 soldiers maintained by the kings after David, Philistines and 
 Cretans are mentioned together.^ Now as the Philistines are 
 said to have come from Caphtor, we may assume that they had 
 already borne the same name in Crete. And in fact the names 
 of some of the Cretan cities * show that a Philistine nation may 
 formerly have dwelt there, of which the later Greeks knew 
 nothing, because after those primeval times, as Homer says,* 
 very various tribes jostled each other in that island, but the 
 Greek elements ultimately preponderated. Moreover they can 
 only have been one of the smaller nations in Crete, since the 
 land Caphtor whence they came, and from which they were 
 sometimes ^ called Caphtorim, must have been larger than their 
 own special territory ; and this Caphtor can scarcely be identi- 
 fied with any other part of Crete but that called by the Greeks 
 Cydonia, inasmuch as the name exhibits some similarity,^ and 
 the Cydonians were neither aboriginal inhabitants of Crete 
 {'\irsüKpi]Tcs), nor of the Greek race.* But the names Philistine 
 and Caphtor are evidently extremely ancient, and appear so 
 throughout the Old Testament, whereas the name Cretan as 
 applied to the same people does not appear of equal antiquity 
 or dignity. Moreover the combination ' Cerethites and Pele- 
 thites' of itself leads us to assume several kinds of inhabitants, 
 
 ' Zeph. ii. 5; Ezek. xxv. 16. where else could Herodotus have heard 
 
 * 1 Sam. XXX. 14. it? In the later-translated books the name 
 ä In the well-known conjunction Crethi is very singularly rendered by 'A\\6(pu\oi, 
 
 and l'lcthi,retAmed hy Luther. That here i.e. Barbarians, Foreigners ; perhaps only 
 
 .n"?3 is shortened from .nCi'^Q merely for ^y an easy, half-jest.ng play upon that 
 
 • '•• : J 1^ ^-1 same vvKkttkijx, induced by early hatred, 
 
 the rhyme, was as far as I know first as- y^Xn^^h survived even the Captivity. But 
 
 serted in ray Kritische G-rammatik, p. 297. modern writers who quote the Ethiopia 
 
 But others have since observed, what was word ,/a/rtsa, to migrate, as furnishing the 
 
 not known to me, that Lakemacher had explanation, are certainly cleverer than 
 
 conjectured something similar; but his these translators were, 
 
 view had remained completely iinnoticed. s Och/n.xix. 17Ö. 
 
 * Tä ^oAa/wa in Strabo x. 4. beg. ; * Dcut. ii. 23 ; Jer. xlvii. 4. 
 
 }) ^aKaffäpvi] ibid., middle. Stephanus ' The Greek abbreviation KvZwv from 
 
 Byzantiiius distinguishes from the latter Kaftor is not mucli greater than that of 
 
 two cities of Crete called *aAawa and KoAx'ioi from Kasluch (Gen. x. 14), in a 
 
 ^aXivvixla. Such traces are sufficient, so perfectly analogous case, 
 
 long as we are unable to explain a proper •* Hom. Ot?. xix. 173-177 ; comp. Strabo 
 
 Dame exactly by its meaning in the x. 4. But the question how Ca])]itor came 
 
 native langunge. The LXX. translate to be entitled a son of Egypt in Gen. x. 14 
 
 the word first, in the Pentateuch and isnot clo.selyconnectedwiththatrespecting 
 
 the Book of Joshua, by «ti/AicTTuijU, keep- the Philistines, but ought to be answered 
 
 ing strictly to the Ilebrew pronuncia- from the earliest history of Egypt. Roug4 
 
 lion, though from Herod, i. 105, vii. 89 lielieves he finds the name in Egyptian as 
 
 it is evident that in Egypt the name had Keflu [Bevue Archiologique, 1Ö41, ii. p. 
 
 long been pronounced Palacstina; fur 218).
 
 MIXED NATIONALITIES. 247 
 
 earlier and later settlers ; in David's time the Cretans and Phi- 
 listines were perfectly distinguishable, and the name Cretans 
 may have been given to those who still continued to arrive from 
 the Greek islands. Thus all these circumstances point to a 
 twofold immigration. 
 
 Of the causes which induced the Philistines first to migrate 
 to the coast destined to perpetuate their name, we know 
 nothing from actual tradition; of their second immigration, 
 too, we learn nothing directly from the ancient authorities. 
 But the causes of this second can be approximately conjectured 
 from other facts of history which are clear to us. The Phi- 
 listines, so far as we can follow them historically as masters 
 of a part of Canaan, exhibit two very different phases of 
 activity and power ; and if it is ever permissible to draw in- 
 ferences from the gradually developed system of the present 
 respecting its hidden source in the past, this ought certainly to be 
 conceded to us here. On the one hand, the Philistines were very 
 warlike and valiant,' incomparably more expert than the Israel- 
 ites in the arts of war, and the only inhabitants of Canaan who 
 oj)posed any eff'ectual resistance to them, and for many centuries 
 contested with them the dominion of the entire land. The 
 difference from the Canaanites which they exliibit under this 
 aspect is apparent also in their language, which although Semitic 
 varied much from that spoken in Canaan generally. ^ On the 
 other hand they resemble the Canaanite settlers on the coast 
 in making seaports the strongholds of their power, and not 
 only holding the strongest of these, but cari-jing on from them 
 a lucrative foreign commerce, which indeed furnishes the only 
 satisfactory explanation of the greatness and power of their 
 cities.^ But the union of such violent antitheses of character 
 
 ' The Targiim 2 Sam. xx. 7, gives for tlie Pliilistines identifie.s them with the 
 
 the above Crethi and Picthi — archern and Pelasgi, and that their hmguage was 
 
 s//»yfr« ; which agrees with tiie Greek tra- not Semitic, but Indo- Germanic; bnt 
 
 dilion of Rhadamanthys and Minos as the argument seems to me not correetly 
 
 inventors of the bow. conducted, even supposing it to be an 
 
 - no is undoubtedly a genuine Phih's- open question. Equally unfounded is Qua- 
 
 '•■•■• , p -^ • ., • ^ .1 • tremere's opinion that the Pliilistines 
 
 tmeword,foritisthenameg,ventothm- ^,^^^ Berbers (comp, also the JaMü- 
 
 fivepnnces. It IS interchanged w,th the ,^,^ ^,, Biblischen Wissenschaft, v. p. 
 
 synonymous Hebrew -^^ (1 Sam. vi. 4, 16, 326 sq.). The light colour of ih^ir skin 
 
 17, comp, with xviii. 30, xxix. 2-9), and on the Egyptian monuments (in Brugsch, 
 
 is certainly derived from the .^ame root, as Geographische Inschriften, ii. p. 85 sqq.j 
 
 an abbreviation from Sarrän ; but how deserves attention ; tliis suits well their 
 
 much shortened, and how peculiar a form ! connection with Crete and Caria. 
 See also p. 245 note. ll\Xz\fr {Urgeschichte » Askelon had much intercourse with 
 
 vnd Mythologie der PhUistäer, Leipzig, Cyprus, and possessed the oldest and 
 
 1845. and Zeitschrift der Deutschen Mor- rirhe.'-t temple of the Oüpoua 'AcppnUit), 
 
 genliindischen Gesellschaft, 1848, p. 359) Herod, i. 105 ; Strabo (xvi. 2) calls Gaza 
 
 endeavours to prove that the very name of (vBo^65 Trore. Medieval as well as modern
 
 248 TERRITORY. 
 
 is inconceivable in one undivided small people, and in so early 
 an ag-e. The Avvim whom the Philistines dispossessed were 
 tillers of the soil and unwarlike. The Israelites were both 
 tillers and warlike, for the union of the two is perfectly con- 
 ceivable. The Canaanites, who even thus early were distin- 
 guished for their handicrafts, trades, and all the higher arts, 
 including especially marvellous architectural skill, • were by no 
 means fond of war for war's sake, nor pertinacious in self- 
 defence, any more than the Carthaginians at a later period and 
 on a larger field, when abandoned by the succour or the fortune 
 of their mercenaries. We are led by these considerations to 
 expect in the five small Philistine kingdoms which here took 
 root and flourished for centuries, a confluence of very various 
 elements of nationality and culture. And the possibility of such 
 confluence appears at once as the conclusion to which the histori- 
 cal consideration of the prevailing circumstances naturally tends. 
 We may assume (according to p. 243 sq.), that at the time of the 
 Israelitish conquest of Canaan, the Philistines of the first immi- 
 gration were greatly reduced in power, and their chief cities 
 already held by the commercial Canaanites, whilst the Avvim 
 maintained a still higher degree of independence ; and that then, 
 delivered by the Israelitish invasion from the Canaanite yoke, 
 but at the same time hard-pressed and partially conquered by the 
 Israelites themselves, they probably sought assistance from the 
 only quarter where it was to be had, namely from the Semites of 
 the seaboard, as for instance of Crete ; an application which was 
 often repeated in later times. We find both the Cretans and 
 their relatives the Carians ^ (the similarity of whose names is not 
 accidental) very often taken into pay by the ancient Asiatic 
 and African kings, as brave soldiers and body-guards, and their 
 remarkable fitness and desire for such service must have been 
 generally known ; ^ even David formed his body-guard of the 
 so called Cerethites and Pelethites. But if once a body of these 
 mercenaries seeking employment had gone to these maritime 
 cities, a stronger body may then once or more have repeated the 
 venture, and made themselves masters of the whole coast, j^ro- 
 tecting the commerce and trades already settled there, and sub- 
 jugating the agriculturalAvvim. One of the forces that drove 
 
 writers speak of the magnificent ruins of i-j^j^ (2 Kings xi. 4, 19) is interchanged 
 
 these citiesL r. z • > t^ with the in"l3 mentioned above as the 
 
 ' See for instance Gu6rm s /- oyage '■ •'•: 
 
 ArchloJofiiquc (Paris, 1862) ii. p. 226 sq. "ame for the body-guard. 
 
 ■■' Their actual connection is shown by ^ As early as Homer the Cretans served 
 
 Herodotus, i. 171-173 ; Thucydidcs, i. 8 ; thus ; as to later times see Herodotus, ii. 
 
 Strabo xiv. 2 , in the Old Testament also, 152.
 
 MIXED XATIOXALITIRS. 249 
 
 them to emigrate may perhaps have been a famine such as some- 
 times occm-red in the much-divided Crete, — for example during 
 the internal strife of the different nationalities of the island at 
 the time of Minos, the mythical organiser of the kingdom.' It is 
 certain that the surviving Rephaim mingled with the Philistines 
 and made common cause with them against Israel (p. 24G sqq.) ; 
 that the Amorites during the period of the Judges fought with 
 them against Israel ; ^ and that the help of these warriors was 
 sought by the Sidonians in far later times f while the Askelonian 
 king, who is said to have conquered the Sidonians, and induced 
 them to found the new city of T}Te,'* a year before the fall of 
 Troy, may very probably have been a Philistine. 
 
 Lastly, though for ever driven back by Israel upon a narrow 
 strip of sea-coast, the Philistines nevertheless, through their 
 fortified cities on the confines of Africa, always possessed such 
 importance in the eyes of the Egyptians that the latter called 
 the whole land of Canaan from them Palestine ; ^ and this desig- 
 nation gradually superseded the older name Canaan, and became 
 prevalent everywhere, through the spread of Hellenic culture 
 under the successors of Alexander. 
 
 3) We have yet to notice the incursions of wandering tribes 
 living in tents on the southern and eastern borders — the Arabian 
 tribes, as they may conveniently be called. Their incursions 
 must have been quite as frequent in the Premosaic age as in 
 that of the Judges and subsequently, in which we can trace their 
 recurrence in greater or less force. None of these attacks made 
 by tent-tribes uj)on tribes long domiciled in the land ever had 
 any great or enduring result. The new genius of Mohammed was 
 required to make of them anything more than freebooting ex- 
 peditions, followed by occasional settlements. Still at times they 
 exerted so much influence over the country, and left such evi- 
 dences of their occurrence scattered about, that we must here 
 briefly review those of the Premosaic period, 
 
 ' According to Stephanus Byzantinus, ' Jer. xlvii. 5. 
 
 under rd(a, this city was once named ■* Justin, xviii. 3, 5. 
 
 Mii'wa, as if 3Iinos himself, wilh JSacns * In Philo, Opira, ii. p. 20, where, ac- 
 
 and Rhadamanthys, had founded it. To cording to the present reading, the name 
 
 this time may belong that migration from Palestine is derived from the Syrians, we 
 
 Crete spoken of by Tacitus, Hist. v. 2, nnist read according to one MS. 'S.vpiav for 
 
 mixing up the Jews with the ancient 2wfo«. In our own day the conjectiu'e has 
 
 Idaeans of Crete ; because it is generally been hazarded, that the name of the city 
 
 assigned to the per od of the downfall Pelusium is identical with Pliilistine ; but 
 
 of Kronos and the commencement of this is improbable in itself (Pelusium being 
 
 the reign of Zeus; i.e. the beginning of only the Greek name of the city), and can- 
 
 the historical age associated with the not be proved from the words of Plutarch, 
 
 name of Minos. TlaKaiarivhv ^ XiriKovawv (de Is. et Os. ch. 
 
 ^ This is the meaning of the passage xvii.). 
 1 Sam. vii. 14.
 
 •250 TERRITORY. 
 
 The Amalekites, in primeval times, must have been one of 
 the strongest and most warlike nations of north-western Arabia. 
 They endeavoured repeatedly to force their way into Canaan from 
 the south, and form a settlement there. Erom the fact that 
 they are not mentioned in the list of nations in Gen. x., no more 
 can be inferred than that at the time of the composition of the 
 Book of Origins they had already lost their ancient importance. 
 In the earliest age known to us, according to a story of extreme 
 antiquity,^ they possessed the entire tract stretching southwards 
 from Canaan to Egypt ; but before this they must have been 
 settled actually in the middle of Canaan, where a ' Mountain of 
 the Amalekites ' in Ephraim long preserved their name -^ indeed 
 we have good reason (from p. 231 sq.) to suppose that it was 
 chiefly they who constituted the aboriginal poj^ulation of the 
 entire valley of the Jordan.^ They may, moreover, formerly 
 have really been a settled people. The Kenites, their allies in 
 Moses's time and subsequently, were indeed a nomadic race, and 
 the Amalekites themselves, when finally expelled into the desert, 
 would of necessity adopt more and more the nomadic tent-life. 
 Nevertheless, their appearance in historical times is exactly 
 that of a nation which, having been driven back into the desert 
 successively by Canaanites, Philistines, and Israelites, could 
 never forget that it had for centuries possessed the beautiful 
 land of Canaan and been its first colonists, and which therefore 
 repeatedly made the greatest exertions to regain its former pos- 
 session. At the time of Moses and afterwards they still held many 
 posts in the extreme south, remnants of their ancient power, 
 and in conjunction with the Canaanites often defended them 
 bravely against Israel.* Indeed the hostility which they mani- 
 fested towards the Israelites at the Exodus — in harassing them 
 on the march and cutting off the lagging, weak, or weary, in 
 true Bedouin fashion'^ — was quite pertinacious and bitter enough 
 to account for the strong national animosity which existed for 
 centuries between Amalek and Israel. It was the hatred of two 
 
 ' Gen. xiv. 7 ; comp. 1 Sam. xxvii. 8. tlio Amalekites ; -whence it would follow 
 * The fuller name of the mountain is that in tiie north-east of tiie land a rem- 
 found Judf!es xii. 15; the shorter Amalek nant of this nation liad maintained itself 
 in poetic language, Judges V. 14 ; and it up to the time of David. It should bo ob- 
 is clear from both passages that a region served that this smali territory of Maacali 
 of great extent must have been intended ; appears always closely bound up with 
 possibly thecentreof the mountain strong- Geshur, ali-eady mentioued p. 231. 
 holds of Ephraim, where first Amalek and ■" Book of Origins ; Numb. xiii. 29 ; xiv. 
 afterwards Ephraim dwelt in largo iium- 25, 43, 45. 
 
 bcrs, and licld their national assembUiges. ' The clearer and earlier tradition on 
 
 " Very curiously the LXX. (at least ac- tliispointisfoundinDeut. xxv. 17, 18. The 
 
 cording to most MSS.) treat tho king Fourth Narrator treats this reminiscence 
 
 of Maacah in 2 Sam. x. 6, 8 as a king of after his own fashion, Ex. xvii. 8-16.
 
 MIXED NATIONALITIES. 251 
 
 rivals disputing a splendid prize which the one had previously 
 possessed and still partially possessed, and the other was trying 
 to get for himself by ousting him ; and to this was added the an- 
 tipathy constantly existing between nomadic and settled nations, 
 to which latter class Israel even at this early period belonged. 
 One short saying ^ preserved from that primeval time shows 
 very distinctly how deeply-rooted was this aversion in Israel ; 
 it ascribes to Moses these words, 
 
 ' Yea, the hand to tliG tin-one of Jah : ^ 
 Jahveh makes war against Auialek 
 From generation to generation ! ' 
 
 And in fact the eternal war against Amalek and his gods, 
 vowed by Israel in these words of glowing indignation, must 
 have contributed much to the gradual complete dissolution and 
 annihilation of this once-powerful people. The commencement 
 of this decline is visible even before the Mosaic age. Firstly, 
 we are informed of the important fact that the Kenites, named 
 Gen. XV. 19, many of whom accompanied the Israelites to Canaan, 
 originally constituted a sub- tribe of Amalek,^ from which how- 
 ever the greater part seceded at the time of Moses and joined the 
 Israelites; but this stands in too close connection with the history 
 of Israel under Moses to be fittingly discussed here. Secondly, 
 the Kenizzites, who in Gen. xv. 19 are near to the Kenites, 
 must, according to all indications, have occupied a similar 
 position. At the time when the Israelites conquered Canaan 
 some of these Kenizzites, doubtless consisting of a few ruling 
 families, were dispersed over the 'and at the extreme south. 
 Othniel, Caleb's younger brother and likewise son-in-law, is 
 called a son of Kenaz,"* and Caleb himself, the son of Jephunneh, 
 has the appellation Kenizzite.^ The original meaning of Keniz- 
 
 ' Ex. xvii. 16. whether any or what kind of connection 
 
 * i.e. 'I swear, raising my hand existed between the ancient and the modern 
 
 heavenwards,' Gen. xiv. 22. Tlie great tribe. We must not be misled by mere 
 
 antiquity of this saying is seen also from simihirity of name, without further indi- 
 
 its peculiar language; neither the expres- cation of relationship, on the extensive 
 
 sion about the hand, nor Q2, which must subject of the affinities of primeval tribes ; 
 
 be a dialectic variety of Spp.being found ^^^^^ we might think, for example, that the 
 
 elsewhere. locality ,,Ui,0^ in Upper Egypt {Bescrip- 
 
 3 1 Sam. XV. 6 ; the account in 1 Sam. ^-^^^ ^^ VEgypte. Etat Moderne, xviii. 3, 
 
 XXX. 29. IS not opposf-d to tins. The name ^g ^^ ^^^^ '^^^.^^ ^j^^ j^^^^j^.,.,^ p^l^j^. ^2, ,7^,^^. 
 
 ot such a desert tribe has been preserved ,i,rj)e„t. Morgen. Ges. 1857, p. 59), had 
 
 .-o- 
 
 ^„ . ,. , . .1 , , 1 some connection with the Canaanites. 
 down to Christian times: ^cli shortened 
 
 C*^ • •* Judges i. 13, iii. 9; Josh. xv. 17; 
 
 from X\ »-; Ham. p. 228, 3, 8; 263, 9 1 Chron. iv. 13 ; the LXX. indeed inter- 
 
 „ .11 rn , • • «.. 1 . 1 L pret the three first passages as if Kenaz 
 
 sq. &c., ^,\\ laban 1. p. 82 last but one, t^^^^ ^.^j^^,,^ ^.^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^ 
 
 comp.also clJJ^ in Mohammed's history: 5 InXhe Book of Origins, Num. xxxii. 
 
 it is however hardly possible to ascertain 12 ; Josh. xiv. 6, 14 ; comp, verse 13.
 
 252 TERRITORY. 
 
 zite being fully established, this can evidently only mean that 
 Caleb and his adherents had connected themselves vrith the 
 Kenizzites dwelling in southern Canaan, and were acknowledged 
 by them as possessing all the privileges of their tribe. When 
 at a later time these Kenizzites were forced into a j)osition of 
 dependence upon Caleb's posterity, Kenaz might be called his 
 grandson.^ Another section dwelt in Edoni, and appears there 
 as one of Esau's grandsons through Eliphaz.^ This therefore 
 must, through a sacrifice of perfect independence, have entered 
 into the union of the Edomite tribes, exactly as Caleb and his 
 confederates into that of the Israelites. Now since Amalek 
 and Kenaz are both described as grandsons of Edom through 
 Eliphaz, but the former was the son of a concubine, which marks 
 him as a subordinate or servile member of the kingdom,^ it is 
 evident that the Edomites, though making no difficulty (as the 
 Israelites did) about receiving Amalekitesinto their confederacy, 
 yet held the Kenizzites, who must before this time have re- 
 nounced their connection with the Amalekites, in far higher 
 esteem, as did the Israelites also. 
 
 But for many centuries after Moses this indomitable people 
 continued its struggle for independence as oj)portunity offered. 
 Their enmity towards Israel remained unchanged ; and when 
 they could do nothing greater, they could at least make plun- 
 dering expeditions ^ in company with other tribes who made 
 incursions from the south-east ; for which they were repeatedly 
 made to feel the vengeance of Israel.^ After the severe casti- 
 gations they received from Saul and David,'' they disappear for 
 a time from history, but are mentioned as late as the second 
 half of the eighth century (p. 109 sq.), and again towards 
 its close, when 500 Simeonites, as if to revive the old ani- 
 mosity, hunted up in the mountains of Edom their old prey, 
 Hhe rest of the Amalekites who were escaped,' and exter- 
 minated them and occupied their territory.^ 
 
 ' As is found in 1 Cliron. iv. 15 ; un- * As is exprossly stated 1 Sam. xiv. 48. 
 
 doubtedlyfromagenuineanciontauthority. * Judges iii. 13, vi. 3, 33; see x. 12, and 
 
 ^ In the J5ook of Origins, Gen. xxxvi. abort», p. 109 sq. 
 
 11, 15, 42. 6 1 Sam. xiv. 48 ; xv. 27, 8; comp. xxx. 
 
 ä In the Eook of Origins, Gen. xxxvi. 12, 13 ; 2 Sam. i. 8. 
 
 IG ; therefore lie is elosely connected witli ^ 1 Chron. iv. 42, 43. The subsequent 
 
 thellorites, i. e. the Aborigines (comp. Gen. poetic mention of tliis nation in Ps. Ixxxiii. 
 
 xxxvi. 12 with 22). Curiously he is not among many others with which Israel had 
 
 named in vv. 40-43, but, perhaps this to contend from a very early period, has 
 
 admits of explanation ; for if the meaning hardly any more historical signiticanco 
 
 of vv. 40-43 has been correctly given on than that Haman is called in the Book of 
 
 p. 76, it is intelligible why the Hebrews Esther an Agagite, i.e. (see 1 Sam. xv.). 
 
 here also did not liku to rocogniso the sove- a chief of the original enemies (the'Ama- 
 
 reignty of Amalek. lekites) ; so at least Josephus explains.
 
 MIXED NATION ALITIES. 
 
 253 
 
 The position assigned in the Old Testament records to this 
 once widespread and powerful people ought especially to be 
 studied by any one who wishes to form a correct judgment 
 upon the later accounts of them given by Arabic writers. • 
 
 As the Amalekites in historical times made inroads from the 
 south, so did the Kadmonites, who are mentioned next to them in 
 Gen. XV. 19, from the east. These are undoubtedly what their 
 name expresses, Orientals, Saracens,^ otherwise B'ne Kedem, or 
 Sons of the East ; a name restricted in practice to the east con- 
 tiguous to Palestine, and comprising only the Arabian nations 
 dwelling between Palestine and the Euj^hrates. Amono- these 
 the Midianites alone gained historical celebrity, as a powerful 
 conquering nation,-^ the others being in fact mentioned only 
 
 ' Among the numerous accounts of this 
 people, th'TC is much which has originated 
 in a careless intermingling of Biblical 
 stories (see the Introduction to the 
 ancient work of Abdalhakam iipon Egypt 
 [which I possess in manuscript, see Zeifsch. 
 für d. Morgenland, iii. 3], now edited by 
 Karle, Göttingen, 1856; Masudi's Golden 
 Meadoivs, London, 1841, i. pp. 76, 93, 94, 
 97, 98; de Sacy's Abdollatif, p. 519; the 
 Kita/) Alaghäni in the Jour. As. 1838, ii. 
 p. 206 f^q. ; Tabari edited by Dubeux, 
 i. p. 47-55 (but comp. pp. US," 121), 209, 
 210, 261, 262; also Ibn-Chaldim in the 
 Jour. As. 1844, i. p. 306) ; but they cannot 
 all have had such an origin. These ac- 
 counts assert in substance: 1. that Am- 
 lak or Amlik (both derived from Amlik) 
 was neither allied to Ishmael nor to Kach- 
 tan (Joktan) ; i.e. was one of the few 
 aboriginal Arabian tribes which dwelt 
 first in Yemen, and then spread by way of 
 Mecca and Medina to Syria, where it had 
 powerful rulers (Abultida's PrcB-Islamitc 
 
 Annals, ]pTp. 16,178; the proverb of <__;»• .c 
 in de Sacy's Hariri, p. 139 sq.) ; this can- 
 not rest merely on Num. xxiv. 20 ; on the 
 contrary, Amaiek is thereby placed in a 
 list of Arabian tribes (named in Gen. x. 7) 
 which stand in no sort of connection with 
 Abraham. 2. That it at one time gave 
 kings to Egypt; on which point more will 
 be said afterwards in the history of Joseph. 
 3. That even as late as the kingdom of 
 Alhira it had powerful princes, whoso sub- 
 jects had peculiar ol>ligations. Hamasa, p. 
 253, V. 1 and 254, el Belcri in WUstenfekVs 
 Genealoffi.scJ/e TnheUrn der Amber Beg. 
 p. 405 ; Abulfida, p. 122. In the ancient 
 
 work j,s^x,^ (Cod. Mcdiol. Ambros. 100 
 
 according to Hammer), which also else- 
 where mentions frequent invasions of Syria 
 and Palestine by the ancient Arabs, there 
 
 is a notice of mighty kings of Amaiek at 
 the time of Nebuchadnezzar, and of their 
 invasion of Syria (according to an abstract 
 kindly communicated to me by Earl Mun- 
 ster and Dr. Sprenger in their journey 
 through Tübingen, in the autumn of 1841). 
 In many cases the name Amalekite may 
 have signified among the later Arabs 
 merely an aboriginal race ; as in the case 
 of the oblong Amalekite tombs similar in 
 form to those of the ancient Egyptians, 
 which Captain Newbold found near Jeru- 
 salem in 1846, and described in the Trans. 
 As. Sac. London. But the pronunciation 
 pbJ2V is quite Hebrew, according to my 
 Lehrbuch, 87 d. 
 
 It is clear from these and similar pas- 
 sages, that I nowhere overestimate the 
 Moslim tales of the Amalekites and other 
 nations of antiquity, or draw conclusions 
 from them alone as reliable sources. But 
 besides the Bedouin, Arabia had in certain 
 parts settled races, among whom writing 
 and literature, though gradually degene- 
 rating, flourished from the earliest times 
 (for it is not true that these were first 
 introduced by Mohammed). Moreover, 
 the early Moslim, as has been siiown in 
 Fihrist, had at their command a mass of 
 works since wholly lost. These considera- 
 tions are not sufficiently kept in view by 
 Th. Nöldeke in his treatise lieber die 
 Anudekitrr nnd einige andere Kachbarvöl- 
 ker der L^raditen, Göttingen, 1864. 
 
 ^ 5 .wH st^'ll designates among the Mo- 
 hammedans chiefly the districts to the 
 east of Palestine, on the Euphrates (as in 
 Freytag's Chrestomathi/, s.\. KemCdcddin, 
 p. 119, 17), and the name Saraceni was 
 in use among the Romans long before 
 Islam, apparently from the time of Trajan's 
 and Hadrian's wars. 
 
 ' Num. XXV. sqq.; Judges vi.-viii.
 
 254 TERRITORY. 
 
 in connection with them.' But as the Book of Origins "^ de- 
 scribes them as Abraham's descendants, they find their proper 
 place in the primeval history of the Hebrews, as is also the case 
 with the Edomites, Moabites, and Ammonites, who settled near, 
 or else in the very midst of the Hebrews. Of the Hebrews, then, 
 we now propose to give a connected account. 
 
 3. A strong contrast to all the migrations already noticed 
 is furnished by that of the Hebrews, of whom the Israelites ori- 
 ginally formed but one small branch. Here we have a people 
 which, according to its own clear memories, had entered the 
 land from the north-east — the quarter whence, on prehistoric, 
 i.e. philological and physical grounds, perhaps all the nations 
 already described may be thought to have originally come, al- 
 though in every case in which we can trace their steps back- 
 ward in actual history, we always find that they had already been 
 either settled down or leading a wandering life somewhere else 
 first. From the same quarter other nations were in later ages 
 seen to issue — Assyrians, Scythians, Turks, and Mongols, whose 
 advance was chiefly marked by the use of mere physical force, 
 coming and going without leaving any intellectual creation to 
 witness of its existence. The Ancient Hebrews, on the contrary, 
 effected a revolution in these favoured lands, the force of which 
 was felt for centuries by the nations previously settled there, and 
 generated a new spiritual life, whose noblest fruit still remained, 
 nay rather first became truly known and valued, as the nation 
 itself perished. We here enter upon a fresh region, of which 
 we could never have had the faintest idea from any of the na- 
 tions already described. This it is which constitutes the proper 
 subject of the present history. 
 
 The memory of this Hebrew immigration, however, as pre- 
 served in the historical books written after the establishment of 
 the Mosaic religion, is so closely bound up with the whole history 
 of primeval times preserved by Israel, that it will be best treated 
 of in that connection. 
 
 An ancient nation, which had already played some part and 
 reaped some laurels on the great theatre of nations, on gazing 
 backwards, inspired by a new desire to form a clear picture of its 
 own remote antiquity, would discover very various but scattered 
 and indistinct remembrances, which ultimately lost themselves 
 in an obscurity impenetrable to memory alone. But where 
 memory fails, hypothesis always steps in ; and m. the varied 
 
 ' Judges vi. 3; comp. Isaiah xi. 14; assigned to Dip, v. 6, deserves especial at- 
 Jcr. xlix. 28. tention. 
 
 ^ Gen. XXV. 1-G, whore the prominence
 
 MIXED NATIONALITIES. 255 
 
 mass of traditionary matter preserved by an imaginative people, 
 much is always to be found tliat springs from mere hypothesis 
 and a busy fancy. The combination of these two essentially 
 different elements may then continue for a further period, even 
 after the awakening of the desire to look back into the distant 
 past and gain a clearer conception of it.' These mixed memories 
 of its primitive state, which each nation thus forms and pre- 
 serves in a manner characteristic of its intellectual stage, we 
 here designate its Preliminary History. A complete separa- 
 tion is thereby effected between the Preliminary and the pro- 
 perly so called National History. Indeed the mere aspect of the 
 subject constrains us to admit that the history of the Israelites 
 as a nation can only properly commence with the Twelve Tribes ; 
 and that whatever is told of the Patriarchs and of still earlier 
 times, belongs to an essentially different region of history. 
 
 ' As shown more fully pp. 26 sqq.
 
 HISTORY OF ISRAEL. 
 
 BOOK I 
 PRELIMINARY HISTORY OF ISRAEL. 
 
 SECTION I. 
 ISKAEL BEFORE THE MIGRATION TO EGYPT. 
 
 A. GENERAL NOTIONS. 
 
 This Preliminary History embraces partly liistorical matter 
 concerning the earliest times, treasured in the memory of the 
 people at a later day, or received by them into their traditions 
 from other nations ; but partly also their own ideas and imagin- 
 ings respecting those primeval ages, their connection with the 
 other nations of the earth, with the first members of the human 
 race and Avith God Himself. It is evident therefore that, as- 
 cending from the period which I call here the historical, the 
 accounts which we possess divide themselves into various stages 
 which were clearly enough distinguished in the national con- 
 sciousness. On the lowest stage, nearest to the historical period, 
 stand the traditions of the abode of the people when but little 
 civilised, in Canaan, of their emigration thither from the north- 
 east, and of the grand forms of the Fathers, alike of the people 
 of Israel and of the other kindred Hebrew tribes. The dim re- 
 membrance of this migration which the Hebrew race preserved 
 in their later position far to the south-west, together with their 
 tradition of an original connection with other nations dwelling 
 in the north and east, forms the boundary-line of this stage of 
 the preliminary history. But behind this there arises a remoter 
 question which no cultivated people can forbear to ask : in what 
 relation they stand not only towards a few kindred nations, but 
 towards all the peoples of the earth : a question the answer to 
 which goes beyond the traditions of all existing nations, and 
 leads into a cloud-land which can be reached only by means of 
 linguistic and physical investigations, or (where these are un- 
 tried or incomplete) by imagination merely, and never embraces
 
 GENERAL NOTIOXS. C57 
 
 more than tlio origin of the existing nations and men. Bnt his- 
 torical qnestions and imag-inings logically stretch beyond these ; 
 nor can the ascending movement, once excited, again be laid 
 to rest before, upon the third and last stage, and apart from all 
 existing nations and living men, it has brought into view under 
 an historical form the original condition of humanity, and the 
 connection of mankind, and of the whole creation with the 
 Creator ; establishing on this subject a truth from which as from 
 a first cause every further impulse of human history — that is of 
 man's development — may be traced at leisure. 
 
 These ore the three stages of primeval history, which the Book 
 of Origins distinguishes by the Creation, the Renovation of the 
 human race after the great Flood, and Abraham's entrance into 
 Canaan, as the commencement of so many great turning-points 
 (or epochs), describing each characteristically and in detail 
 with equal simplicity and precision ; while the later narrators 
 introduce from other sources many fuller or varying accounts. 
 When to this we add, that the time after the close of the Patri- 
 archal world is in the Book of Origins regarded as the properly 
 historical age, continuing little changed in character, in com- 
 parison with the primeval age, to the author's own day, then 
 we see here before us four great Ages, into which the author re- 
 garded the entire domain of the world's history as falling, and 
 according to the succession of which he arranged his work, as has 
 been further explained above, p. 79 sq. But the Book of Origins 
 evidently did not originate this conception of Four Ages of the 
 world, since it does not explain the ground on which it rests, 
 but rather tells its whole story briefly according to that idea, as 
 if it were already long established and well known. 
 
 Unquestionably, then, we must recognise here the same Four 
 Ages of the world of which the old legends both of the Greeks 
 and of the Hindus speak. Nor is it the number four alone in 
 which a strikinof ajjreement is found amonj:^ the Hebrews, 
 Greeks, and Hindus — nations widely separated in character as 
 in locality : they have all likewise worked out the conception 
 of a gradual decline of the human race from the primitive per- 
 fection of the first age to the second, third, and fourth. These 
 facts force us to recognise the traces of a primary tradition 
 which was given before the separate existence of such nations 
 as the Hebrews, Greeks, and Hindus, and from which they all 
 drank in common. We may be certain also that with the tradi- 
 tion of the four gradually declining ages were handed down 
 various particulars concerning them : for example, one account 
 of the Creation of the visible world in all its parts, and another of 
 
 VOL. I. S
 
 258 I'RELIMIXARY HISTORY. 
 
 the great Flood at tlie end of the first age : partly because tlie 
 conception of the Four Ages could become clear and fixed only 
 by means of such minute details respecting the commencement, 
 course, and nature of each ; and partly also because the accounts 
 of the Creation and the Flood given in the Book of Origins re- 
 cur among the Greeks, Hindus, and some other nations of an- 
 tiquity, with so close a resemblance in essential portions, that 
 we must assume for them also a common original source. 
 
 Much indeed of that which the later narrators add to the re- 
 presentations of the Book of Origins respecting the first two 
 Ages (see p. 38 sq.), appears on a closer examination to have been 
 first impoi-ted from Eastern Asia through the brisker intercourse 
 Avith foreign countries which especially marked the period after 
 the tenth century ; and then to have been so penetrated and 
 leavened with the spirit of the Mosaic religion that it could 
 find a place amid the ancient sacred traditions and ideas. But 
 the case is quite different with those narratives of the Book of 
 Origins which in their essential basis are found also among 
 foreign and remote nations. Their importation can in no way be 
 proved or rendered probable ; yet while they manifest in every 
 feature an extreme simplicity and primitive purity, though 
 ah-eady tinged by the spirit of the Mosaic religion, we find them 
 again not only in Eastern Asia but also in ancient Europe. 
 Moreover, the composition of the Book of Origins dates from a 
 time when the great influx of fresh stories and ideas from the 
 east had not begun, and the people of Israel retained essentially 
 their ancient condition. Their source must therefore reach 
 back beyond the histories of the separate nations then existing 
 into that obscure primeval period of the existence of one un- 
 known, but early civilised nation, which was afterwards dissolved 
 into the nations of that day, but left many wonderful relics as 
 traces of its former existence. One such relic of the culture of 
 this prehistoric people is the language of the historical nations, 
 which clearly points to a common basis ; and the Semitic group 
 of languages is connected, at least remotely, with the Mediter- 
 ranean or Aryan group,' Another relic of this primeval nation 
 are these old traditions : for where a cultivated language is 
 found, there must be also a groundwork of peculiar institu- 
 tions, traditions, and historical ideas ; and if nations, while di- 
 verging widely from their original unity, preserve the essential 
 elements of the primeval language, each in its own way, and 
 according to its special development, we can see no reason why 
 
 • Tliis sulrcct is trcatod in detail in Sprachlehre, and more at length in tlio 
 the various editions of my Hehräischc ivto Sprachwissenschaftliche Abhandlungen.
 
 GENERAL NOTIONS. 259 
 
 they slioulcT not similarly have retained from the same period a 
 common basis of traditions, laws, and customs.' 
 
 But a comparison of the different forms which this primeval 
 tradition of the Four Ages has assumed among each of these 
 nations according to its peculiar history and culture, brings as 
 to the conclusion that the Hebrew story presents the most con- 
 spicuous fragments of it, and lends us the most aid in inferring 
 its original shape. For the Greek tradition, even in its oldest 
 extant version,^ only presents conceptions beautiful as poetry, 
 but utterly barren of historical matter and tone, and not even 
 conveying an idea of the reason for this division of all past time 
 into four ages : for it would be manifestly absurd to suppose the 
 reason for a four-fold division to have been that only four metals 
 — gold, silver, brass, and iron — were known, and so only four 
 ages corresponding to these could be affirmed. Clearly the 
 thought of comparing the constant degeneration of the four 
 ages with four metals similarly sinking in value is simply the 
 Greek addition ; but the fact that this merely poetical thought 
 was required to revive and recast the whole idea of the four 
 ages, proves satisfactorily that the original conceptions of the 
 details were already lost. 
 
 In the Hindu accounts the original form of the tradition is 
 much more clearly recognisable ; especially if we compare the 
 various modifications of the story presented by different writers, 
 and draw our picture of the original from them all combined.^ 
 Some points are then even more plainly to be recognised in 
 these than in the Hebrew tradition, of which indeed we have 
 only the one single version given in the Book of Origins. For 
 
 ' While I have been careful to avoid graduated according to the four elements. 
 
 combining what is really heterogeneous, Even among the Arabs was preserved a 
 
 or making any unwarrantable assumption, tradition (according to Sur. vi. G ; com- 
 
 I have always in this sense maintained ■, ,\ jy ■ r I ^^\ 
 
 ,, -u-iv c t- ■ •„•!•• pare x. 14) of a series of ages •• 1 
 
 the possibility of a certain original simi- i' ' \ •ir'/ 
 
 lai-ity among all the above-mentioned commencing with one supremely blest. 
 
 nations, not merely in language, but in s A number of ancient Hindu traditions 
 
 myths and customs also. (See Gott. Gel. are given very briefly by Manu, i. 68-86 ; 
 
 An:r. 1831, pp. 1012-13.) K. 0. 3Iiiller, j^ter and more highly developed ones arc 
 
 in the introduction to liis History of Greek founfj i,i Wilson's Vishnu-Pumna, p. 23- 
 
 Litcrature, made a similar admission. 26, 2.j9-271 ; compare p. 622. The 
 
 - In Hcsiod's Works and Days, \. 103- Bliagavata Parana, iii. 11. 18 sqq», fui-^ 
 
 199: Hesiod's introduction of the Heroic nishes little that is characteristic. The 
 
 Age (making really five ages) is oln-iously Buddhist notion, given by S.-hiefner in 
 
 his own innovation; and an attentive the St. 'Pctemhurg Bunetin de rAaidemic, 
 
 perusal makes it evident that he had 193, is peculiar but not very ancient. In 
 
 received the series of four ages only, cor- the Veda no detailed account of the Yout 
 
 responding to the four metals, with a few Ages of the world has as yet been found ; 
 
 uncertain fragmentary details, and that but this docs not prove that the whole 
 
 his own imagination added all the rest, conception was unknown among the Hindus 
 
 In Mexico, the four ages of the world wei-e till a late period. 
 
 S 2
 
 260 PRELIMIXARY HISTORY. 
 
 example, it is certain from them that tlie original idea of the Four 
 Ages was formed by looking from below upwards, or in other 
 words by looking from thei^resent further and further back into 
 the distant strata of primeval time, somewhat as conjectured 
 above, see p. 256 sq.' The regular proportion which was con- 
 ceived to subsist among the Four Ages and to be expressed in 
 numbers is another instance : for though it might indeed be 
 presumed, that in the endeavour to form anything like a com- 
 plete conception of these Four Ages the scanty historical reminis- 
 cences of primeval times would be eked out by the assumption 
 of mutual numerical relations yielding four terms of a propor- 
 tion, yet this is first visibly confirmed by the Hindu traditions.^ 
 The Hebrew tradition, on the other hand, possesses high ex- 
 cellence, in that it accurately distinguishes and bounds the. four 
 ages according to their intrinsic nature, so that we see clearly 
 vvdiy four — neither more or less — are assumed, how each of them 
 differs intrinsically from the rest, and has its meaning only in 
 its own place and order. Their succession is not determined by 
 a mere change in general mutual relations— each containing 
 merely its definite space, its numbers and its greater or less de- 
 gree of virtue : but each possesses, independently of its relation 
 to the others, an external boundary and an internal life and 
 character of its own, which make its existence in this particu- 
 lar form possible only this once ; and together they include the 
 whole domain of historical traditions. The non- Hebrew legends, 
 by tearing the Great Flood away from its original position in 
 the series of these Four Ages and setting it up as an independent 
 event, have lost one clear distinction between the first two ages. 
 And the Greek legend, by not assigning even to the third age 
 any of the famous heroic names which approach the domain of 
 strict history, fails to make anj adequate distinction between 
 the two middle ages.^ 
 
 ' The proof of this is furnished by the beings; thus arose the Eg;y'ptian conccp- 
 
 names : KaH-juga is the fourth age, the tion (one simihir to which is still prevalent 
 
 sorro-wful present; B>'äpara-jugn,ihe\\\\v'\, in Japan\ half apparent even in Ilosiod, 
 
 has its name derived from the number two, of the suocessive rule of Gocls, Demigods, 
 
 as if counted from below; Treta-jvga, the Man .s, and Moi. 
 
 second, from the number three ; but lioth * The progression of the Four Ages is 
 of these, now that the names and traditions exactly in the proportion of the numbers 
 are more minutely worked out, contain at 1, 2, 3, 4 ; but after starting with the 
 the same time an allusion to the gradual simple conception that the lenglh of 
 decrease of the four pips on the dice, in human life was in the first age 400 years, 
 the game of dice. This artificial, and, in the second 300, in the third 200, and in 
 therefore, probably modern, image being the fourth 100 (Manu, i. 83), they after- 
 once introduced, the Krita- or Safja-juga, wards multiplied these numbers pre- 
 t ho first age, signifying that of Perfection or posterously; the original numbers, how- 
 Truth, is represented by the four pips, tho ever, being still discernible, 
 best throw of the dice. Other figures were ' I have gone at length into the subject 
 suggested by the various kinds of living of Primeval Eiblical History in tho Jahrb.
 
 THE FIRST TWO AGES. 261 
 
 B. THE FIRST TWO AGES. 
 
 Looking closer, after these general remarks, into each of the 
 three ages of the primeval history, we see at once that the first 
 two ages, as described in the Book of Origins, present a certain 
 mutual resemblance, and consequent common contrast to the 
 following age. It is true, indeed, that each is essentially suffi- 
 ciently distinguished from the other : the first shows what man 
 was at his creation, and how even in this primeval state the 
 race sank gradually lower and lower, until the Flood swept them 
 away ; the second, how the new human race, starting from that 
 terrible time of purification and new-birth, developed itself into 
 the great and wide-sjjread nations now existing. But at the 
 time when the idea of the Four Ages was established, it was not 
 possible to recall the memory of any individuals who had actually 
 lived in the two first ages, as it was of those who had lived in 
 the following third or fourth age. In this respect, these two 
 ages, as representing only the great events of the Creation, the 
 Flood, and the development of the existing nations, but void of 
 other interest, and lacking the history of individual men, neces- 
 sarily formed a contrast to the two following, which are rich in 
 contents, and present an ample supply of tradition respecting 
 individual heroes of the older times. 
 
 But again even from the first there was something so repug- 
 nant to natural feeling in this emptiness of an entire age,' that 
 tradition early sought to fill up the gaps as satisfactorily as 
 possible. A continuous series of men and races must surely 
 have lived even then (so it might fairly be argued), and occu- 
 pied these wide spaces : and when the inclination of tradition 
 to fill up the gaps was once aroused, material enough was soon 
 presented to satisfy the demand. For tradition has in its 
 boundless store no lack of names available to fill these voids. 
 Some of these names originally expressed mere ideas, exhibiting 
 the first man, and similar founders of new races or nationalities 
 as conceived by the ancients, in the concrete form of individuals ; 
 as for instance among the Hindus, to whom Manu (or Man) is 
 the first man, and the creator of all other beings. Other names 
 
 der Bihl. Wiss. vol. i.-ix. ; and tliorcfure vividiuKs ; as has Leen dono above in the 
 
 need not. rein at here much which is said case of the Four Ages. 
 
 there. Compare here also Lasscn's/wf/'/irZic ' The Hindu tradition in the Pvrhias 
 
 AUerthumnkunde, i. p. 499 sqq. Kothing accordingly specifies the seven Eishis and 
 
 is so convenient, hut at the same time so otlier necessary personages, not only for 
 
 perverse, as to assume a mere casual coin- all tlie past six Manvanfaras (creations), 
 
 cidence, even in cases where it is possible but even for the seven that are yet to coniQ 
 
 to pursue the scattered traces till we can {J'is/inu-Pitr. 259-271). 
 reproduce the lost whole in its original
 
 2G2 PRELIMINARY HISTORY. 
 
 denoted gods wlio had been formerly venerated, but were then 
 reo-arded, not as utterly gone, but only as become x^owerless and 
 lifeless and withdrawn into obscurity, and who therefore must 
 have appeared especially suited to people the empty spaces of 
 the remotest ages. Others, finally, were the surviving names 
 of ancient heroes which, no longer possessing any real meaning 
 among the living nations, were readily thrown back into the 
 remote regions of the primeval times. 
 
 But tradition, in filling uj) the sj^ace of an entire age out of 
 such materials, could not accept at random an unlimited num- 
 ber of names, because the very conception of a long past age, 
 although allowing a certain necessary fulness, demanded limits 
 and moderation in resiDect to numbers. Accordingly we find 
 round numbers always employed; the more because names, 
 wiiich, being handed down from the remotest times, might 
 easily be lost, tend to group themselves in round numbers (see 
 p. 26 sq.). Among these numbers, seven and ten perpetually 
 recur : the Hindus speak of the seven Maharshis (great saints) 
 of the primeval period,^ and of seven Prajapatis (ancestors).^ 
 But even more than the number seven, the number ten ^ ap- 
 pears so constantly in the traditions of ancient nations respect- 
 ing the x)i"imeval world, that we cannot but regard this sacred 
 number of ancestors as an element of the one common original 
 tradition. And if in the transmitted forms of this common 
 tradition groups of seven or ten names were always assigned to 
 fill up the sj)ace of that age, we must in this respect also hold 
 the special form of the Hebrew tradition as the clearest and 
 most ancient. For while the traditions of the other nations 
 merely place seven or ten names as those of the Forefathers at 
 the head of all history, and confine them to the first age,"* the 
 Hebrew tradition repeats the series in both the first two ages ; 
 it makes of the individual names in each a symmetrical series, 
 
 ' Thus in the Mahuhharata {Matsjo- sqq. ; Moses Choren. Hist. i. 3 ; among 
 
 ^;«A7yawaOT, V. 30), iind numerous Pz<rrt««s, the Assyrians, ten kings from Ham to 
 
 compare "Wilson's Vühnu-Fur. p. 23 sq., Ninyas, and ten from Japhet to Aram, 
 
 270, and the ol>servations on pp. 49, 50. Moses Chor. i. 4, according to Abydenos ; 
 
 '■^ The appellation Frajapati is often among the Egyptians, thirty Memphitie 
 
 interchanged with il/«A«r«/<i; but properly and ten Thinitic kings, -who according to 
 
 speaking there is a difference between Manetho folloM-ed Mcncs. Even among 
 
 tliem. the ancient Mongols similar round niim- 
 
 ' Among the Hindus ten is the ruling bers are found connected with national 
 
 number; Manu, i. 34 sq. Vis?mu-P7!r. traditions of this character; see Journal 
 
 p. 49 sq. Bhägavata-Puräna, iii. 12. 21, Asiat. 1842, i. p. 90-92; 1859, ii. p. 520. 
 sqq., 20. 9 sqq., ix. 1. 12 sqq.; comp. ■* The Hindus, however, reckon twenty- 
 
 also the statements in Kleuker's Zendav. one Prajapatis, i.e. seven, multiplied by 
 
 i. 20, iii. 117; among the Babylonians the three Rgea {Mahatiharala/i.^Z). The 
 
 there are ten kings, reckoned from Aldrcs Babylonians appear also to have counted 
 
 to Xisiithros, the hero of the Deluge, ten generations after as well as before 
 
 Berosus, ed. Richter (Leipsic, 1825), p. 52 the Deluge. Berosus, ed. Richter, p. 68.
 
 TUR FIRST TWO AGES. 263 
 
 following each other from father to son like the members of a 
 sovereign house. In lilce manner the close of each of these two 
 ages, at which the tranquil succession of time ceases, and a 
 broader development suddenly begins, is indicated by a device 
 which might be compared to a knot in the thread — namely, 
 by giving to every tenth Forefather three sons instead of one, 
 who separate and found the new world, each in his own way. 
 Here we see a complete system of ideas, as antique in its sim- 
 plicity as it is well connected in itself, of which the other 
 nations have preserved mere fragments. There can be no 
 question that we are approaching the origin of the tradition, 
 when we discover the natural unfolding of a fundamental con- 
 ception unabridged and unconfused in all its parts. This is 
 especially the case here, inasmuch as it will soon appear that 
 the materials of the fiUing-up reach far back before the time of 
 Moses. 
 
 It nowhere appears, however, on closer investigation, that 
 with these round numbers the primeval tradition transmitted 
 definite names of persons, which might recur in recognisable 
 varieties of the same sound in the traditions peculiar to each of 
 these ancient nations. We find, on the contrary, that each 
 nation which preserved that base of primeval tradition, had 
 already arrived at a stage when its own memories of old times 
 could furnish the names required by those round numbers. In 
 the case of the Hebrew tradition, this leads directly to some 
 very remarkable results. In the twenty names which come first 
 in the narrative, we discover the relics of a cycle of traditions, 
 which have indeed a Semitic colouring, but date from a primeval 
 Premosaic age ; and we thus gain admission to a region which 
 except at this point is virtually entirely lost to us. Elsewhere 
 the Mosaic religion unsparingly destroyed the older religion 
 with all its traditions which happened not to relate to the three 
 Patriarchs ; and even here these twenty names stand bare and 
 lifeless, scarcely anything distinctive being recorded of any of 
 them ; and it is a happy chance that the somewhat later nar- 
 rator of Gen. iv. has rescued in a cycle of seven Forefathers a 
 few more complete but deviating traditions from the same 
 region. But when we regard these bare names somewhat more 
 narrowly, a large part of the original Hebrew tiuditional history 
 seems to revive before us from a sleep of thousands of years. 
 Respecting times of what it might well seem presumptuous to 
 expect any accurate information, we thus gain a considerable 
 portion of assured knowledge, sufficient at least to give us a 
 tolerably reliable insight into the most ancient religion and the
 
 2G4 PKELIMINARY HISTORY. 
 
 earliest dwelling-places of the Hebrews. And for this reanima- 
 tion of the twenty Forefathers mentioned in the Book of Origins 
 (Gen. V. and xi. 10-26), the diverging account by the later writer 
 of Gen. iv. concerning seven of the Forefathers before the Flood 
 is of great service, since we are prepared, after the foregoing 
 remarks on the Hindu Fathers, to recognise in the number 
 seven only an ancient substitute for the ten. 
 
 I. The names of the four earliest of the ten Forefathers who 
 lived before the Flood, must be first examined. They are in 
 part easily intelligible, and really express only the ideas of 
 ' man ' and ' child ' twice following in this order. The first 
 name, Adam, and the third, Enos, are universally admitted to 
 denote ' man.' The second name, Seth, the son of Adam, which 
 properly signifies scion or gertn, as well as the fourth, Cainan, 
 which sio-nifies a created thing, a creature,^ yield the idea of a 
 young man. The evidence for the later case is strengthened by 
 the fact that Cain, a shortened form of Cainan, appears in the 
 other version (Gen. iv.) as the son of Adam himself. Thus we 
 have here a combination of two expressions only for the first 
 men — as father and son — as the old and the ever-young human- 
 ity. These double forms may perhaps at first have been only 
 dialectic varieties,^ until they were brought side by side by the 
 necessity of making up a series of ten. 
 
 We must now compare with these the fom- earliest of the ten 
 Forefathers after the Flood. The names of the first two distinctly 
 designate the special race which claimed them as its progenitors. 
 Sliem is itself the honourable designation of this race, and Ar- 
 pliaxad the name of one of its original seats. But the fourth 
 name, Salah, again, plainly signifies nothing but infant, child, 
 
 * That J-|L'* <^an have the signifieation contrasted ideas — of 6W as the absohitely 
 
 , ■". . o 1 - ., , powerful, and of 7nan, matched with God, 
 
 given above, IS interred Irom its own moan- ■',.•,, .1 11-1^ ^ 
 
 ^ ' L . , as the absohitely wr«/r/ It can scarcelv 
 
 lüg, and tliat of the cognate ^rv^, and j^^^^ ^^^^^^ i^^^^-y^ because jyij« became 
 
 also indicated by the Fourth Narrator in a almost obsolete in Hebrew, as also in 
 
 happy play upon the word in Gen. iv. 25. Arabic. The history of tlicse two words, 
 
 |'>p might be a dialectic variety of n3p> therefore, takes us to a primeval people 
 
 and thence mean to create, as the Fourth far to tiie north. Tlie writer of Gen. iv. 
 
 Narrator again seems to intimate by hitting 26 retained a correct feeling of the origin 
 
 lipon the signitieation child, obtained by a of these ideas. It is to be hoped that no 
 
 play on words in iv. 1. one will fancy a connection between Sdh 
 
 '^ As is known to be the case with Q'lX and the Egyptian Seih for Typhun. (But 
 
 and C'lJ«. According to my Sprachlehre, ^liis has since actually occurivd ; Bun.sen 
 
 % 153 d, this word is formed in inten- '^^d tlic Dutch scholar A\ Pleyto have 
 
 . , .,. ^ -L . y'. 7 -i. really attempted this combination; the 
 
 tional opposition to iqi'p.^, God, as its ^,^,^J^ j^ ^j^^^^^ j^^ ^j^^ ^...^^ Gel. Anz. 
 
 contrasted idea. Both words have been 1802, ])p. 2022-28. But see also Sujuthi's 
 
 preserved in the most various Semitic / U I- • •„ i^ t ' rt ■ 1 1 
 
 y * »C -. ,n ,U-«.,< in Dr. Lees Vrunial 
 
 languages (ihougii singularly enoni^h not (*_j>^-ä^'" J v-\ä>-h 
 
 in the Ethiopic). AVIiat iSumitic nation Manuacripts, p. 16.) 
 
 originated this e-xiuvssiun of tlic two
 
 THE FIEST TWO ACJKS. 2ö5 
 
 youth;' and tlie tliird, Ciiiian,^ is actually identical with the 
 fourth of the first series, Thus this group is laid out upon 
 essentially the same plan as the former, — the only difference 
 being that instead of the more general names, Adam and Enos, 
 those peculiar to the Semites are here chosen, and are both pro- 
 moted into the first two places. 
 
 II. As the first four of each series, and in analogy with these 
 the first two of the shorter series of seven, stand in close con- 
 nection together, and constitute a special portion of the original 
 Semitic tradition, so also the five following of each series form 
 another similar group, naturally sej^arated through their close 
 mutual connection from the former. But the first grouj) of five, 
 chosen for the first age, is derived from quite a different sphere 
 from the second, appropriated to the second age. 
 
 With the five names which the Book of Origins placed in the 
 first series (Gen. v. 15-28) the five names adduced by the sub- 
 sequent narrator (Gen. iv. 17-24) essentially agree, as even a 
 slight comparison shows. Their arrangement is but little dif- 
 ferent ; and with res]>ect to the variation in the spelling of three 
 of them, it should be borne in mind that the later writer ob- 
 tained the names by a comparatively learned method, probably 
 after they had passed through a long series of transcriptions ;^ 
 for according to every indication the original sounds are those 
 given in the Book of Origins. This being presupposed, the 
 first and most evident result at which we arrive from indications 
 scattered through both books, is that in the original tradition 
 Enoch and Lamech must have figured as demigods or even as 
 
 • roi^, as in Solomon's Song iv. 13 and genuine are too numerous to be slighted. 
 
 Is. xvi'^'s: from whieh passages we infer ^I'« l^^f "^<i Demetrius in his work on 
 
 that the word bore this signification Chronology found the name in this series 
 
 especially in northern Palestine. AVe aiecord.ng to Eusebms, /V^^. £^»9. i^^^ 
 
 might fancy Shelah to be identical with ^l), as also the an hor of the Book of 
 
 the ancient Arabian prophet Ssalieh (see ^noch, but not Josephus. 
 
 Tabari, according to Dul)eux, p. 121-127 ; * The reading ^X^inO for ps'pSnö 'las 
 
 Journal Asiatique, 1845, ii. p. 532). But exactly the appearance of originating in 
 
 his history is so essentially Arabian, with careless reading or writing of the text ; 
 
 only the faintest tinge of Biblical colour- ^xti'inO also, for nbc'inO. may have 
 
 ing, that no such coinbin:ttlon can bo ^n-ij^eu from a similar oversight; only 
 
 entertained ; as I have already shown m -^-^y f^p •^y may pass as a real change 
 
 the Tübingen Theoloq. JaJirh. 18i5, p. 572 / . "'" a ^ ^^i.■^ 1 i 
 
 ^ ". J T, -^ V • * of pronunciation, and would then (accord- 
 
 SÜ. Caussin de Perceval s views respect- . ' ^ „ 77 7 , a a^ \ • * i. 
 
 ^ , . . ing to my Sprachlehre, § 53 a) point to 
 
 ing this ^Jl^, in his Essai snr l' Hisloire .j,j y^j^i- f^pi^ TT-. The pronunciation 
 
 des Arahcs', i. p. 25, 26, are quite iuad- Methcsalem, which must also have been 
 
 missible. ' fuvjid, though rarely, in ancient documents 
 
 ^ I assume that the LXX. have assigned (coniinire Taluiri ed. Diibeux, i. p. 91), is 
 
 to this name its proper place; although referable on the other hand to the phouftic 
 
 it is somewhat singular that Selah has law explained in the Lihrhiwh, •£. 11, ^ji 
 
 just tlie same number ot years, 130 and 7th ed. 
 'öoü, yet the reasons for regarding it as
 
 266 PRELIMIXARY niSTORY. 
 
 gods. The former ai)pears from his name to be the Inaugura- 
 tor, the Beginner, and thence a good spirit, who, like the Latin 
 Janus and the Hindu Ganeca,' was invoked on any new or diffi- 
 cult undertaking. Thence, probably, he became the god of the 
 new year, which recurs every 3G5 days, and for this reason 
 the existing tradition, Glen, v., assigns to him a lifetime of 365 
 years. If he was regarded as preeminently, and more than all 
 others a good spirit, this fact serves to explain how tradition, 
 which, being tinged with the Mosaic feeling, could recognise in 
 him only a man, was induced to depict him as realising the 
 ideal of goodness of life, in the beautiful words of Gen. v. 21-24. 
 His name is also the only one of which, apart from the Old Tes- 
 tament, a dim remembrance seems to have been preserved to 
 later times. In the apocryphal book which bears his name,^ he 
 appears as a Prophet ; but this may be only an inference from 
 his position as great grandfather of Noah, and from his having 
 been distinguished as the last pious man before the Flood (Gen.v.). 
 That the later writers praise him as a patron of knowledge 
 and as the inventor of writing, agrees well with his character ; 
 and Stephanus of Byzantium,^ in naming Iconium on Mount 
 Taurus as the seat of his worship, and making this consist in 
 lamentation for his death as that of the good spirit (as is also 
 said of the worship of the Syrian Adonis), unquestionably quotes 
 a genuine historical tradition. By the ancient city named after 
 Enoch (Gen. iv, 17) this very city, Iconium in Phrygia, may be 
 meant. 
 
 To this good spirit, Lamecli,'' who concludes the grouj), 
 
 * Or Ganajpatis, which I note here to 'hvvaK6s, -which can hardly have had any 
 
 prevent a precipitate comparison between Lut a Biblical origin; as that he livtd 
 
 tlio Hindu and Hebrew n;inies. above 300 years, and that the Deluge, 
 
 ■^ Quoted in the Epistle of Jude 14, predicted by an oracle, followed his deatii. 
 
 15; eojnpare also on this suly'eet my It accords well with this, that Anak was 
 
 large Abhandlung ülier des Aethio2nschen a man's name among the Pagan Arnu- 
 
 Buches Henokh, Enistdmvg, Sinn und nians; see Moses Chor. Hist. ii. 71. 
 
 Ziisa7nmensetzunff Gott. 1854, and the ^ 1 ^_j. is still found among the Arabs as a 
 
 Jahrh. der BihI.Wtss.y\.X). \ snn. 1 ]ust , 4- • , tt 
 
 remark in passing that the Persian goddess P'-oper name (Wetzstein s Hauran, pp 23, 
 
 ^wa/»-^, whoso name the Greeks modi- 40, 42, 70) as hkewise T]i:q among Abra- 
 
 fied into Nancea, is merely the feminine ham's descendants, Gen. xxv. 4, xlvi. 9. 
 
 counterpart of this primitive Anak. In However, in the Sibylline books, i. 19G, 
 
 Zend literature the Anähita has an in- Phrygia must from ver. 260 sq. be iden- 
 
 flexion which seems to show that in Zend tical with Ararat. 
 
 its original meaning was the Innr.acu- ■* Possibly in the original tradition Enoch 
 
 laic; but there seems to bo no corresjiond- stood first, as in Gen. iv. ; certainly the 
 
 ing goddess in the Veda ; and her worship contrast between the two could not be 
 
 api)eurs first in history as an extraneous more sharply marked. Having thus re- 
 
 elcnient interwoven with the Zarathustrian covered tlie city, we next recognise in the 
 
 (Zoroastrian) religion. land of Nod, o]iposite Eden, v. 16, whither 
 
 ^ Under tlie head 'IkJ^ioc, wlicrc« much Cain goes, and where his posterity must 
 
 is al.so related of the pia-ton lure named be souglit for, the Lnd mentioned Gen.
 
 THE FIRST TWO AGES. -267 
 
 evidently forms the counterpart. His very name may denote 
 a predatory savage ;' and so, according to Gen. iv. 19-24, he 
 was taken as the gloomy symbol of a race degenerated into 
 savage selfishness, the accepted type of the heroes of a revenge- 
 ful age. For in joy over the sword invented by one of his sons, 
 he exclaims in the old song : 
 
 Adah and Zillali, liear my voice ! 
 
 Ye wives of Lamech, hearken to my speech ! 
 For the man I slew for my own wound, 
 
 The child I struck dead on account of my own hurt ! 
 Was Cain avenged seven times ? ^ 
 
 Lamech will be seven and seventy times ! 
 
 In this song the names of two demigoddesses, also of this group, 
 are accidentally preserv^ed.^ 
 
 If then these two out of the five names have certainly had 
 the significance of typical beings, the three others also must 
 have had the same. And Methuselah, who stands imme- 
 diately before Lamech, is evidently, as his name implies, the 
 Warrior who stands nearest to the implacable avenger Death 
 — a sort of Mars : Mahalal-el is the god of Light — a Sun- 
 god, like Apollo ; and Jared, who stands by his side, on the 
 other hand, is the god of the Lowland or the Water.* And 
 when we consider that the number five is the simplest of the 
 round and sacred numbers, we may well suppose that we have 
 here a complete group of ancient Gods and Demigods, who 
 were banished into this distant age, only because (like Kronos 
 and Saturn with their fellows, in the European legends) they 
 were suj)planted by other deities. 
 
 X. 22 — Lydia in the extensive sense in ' The names not only of the five heroes 
 
 which it was probahly understood by the but also of these two women, belong clearly 
 
 Hebrews. The proverb (v. 12) may very to a very early Premosaic age; and it is 
 
 possibly have had an influence in changing obvious that these verses furnish tlie real 
 
 the I into n. n!D*7p ht-re and ii. 14, as in basis of the whole narrative. Gen. iv. ; fur 
 
 1 Sam. xiii. 5, can hardly have any other ^-^''^t 1« ^'^"*^ jf''^":^ «f Cain's vengeance, 
 
 _ '_j vi'Y. 13-16, evidently rests upon this song, 
 
 T«««,,;»,^ fV,ov. ,,r.„^<.,-y/. Of \ ■; ver. 24. And as this kind of wild revenge 
 
 meaning ttian onpontc, as Aij_i ^t ■ ^- ^^ at ■ i • i- . i 
 
 " I C IS essentially un-Mosaic, being directed 
 
 towards; the LXX. give Gen. ii. 14, cor- against personal enemies only, not against 
 
 rectly Karfvavri ^hcravpiicv, as is also ihe the enemies of Jahveh and his people, it 
 
 reading of Theophilus, to ^(^J'o/?/«^«, ii. 30. follows from every indication that this 
 
 ' The root ixh, though obsolete, must song must be actually Premosaic, and 
 
 ^ th'Tefore the most ancient contained in the 
 
 bo connecte d withU! ^^ll ^^?- ^^'] T^'^t'''™^"^:, . . ^. ^ . ^, 
 
 ' T ' ' ' < Compare nii, i.e. new, which might 
 
 all which express the idea of snatching or , .i x i- \^' tvt i- i- 
 
 .111 »iiuii lApic p. be the Indian Varuna. Masudi, according 
 
 robbintr. The proper name Aouavoy cer- „ ■ >n i t - i ■ 
 
 iuL>i.iii^. a.iic 1^ 1 t~^ ,„,.•„„ to Sprenger i. p. 71, always says Lud iii- 
 
 taiiiv existed m Attica (Kangabes W»aoi<. . i c r j i n i ^i ^ 
 
 ,, •■■ '.r.,\ , ^ ^u- ^ „„„_„„i„v^ stead of Jcrfö, probably only through a 
 Hdl. 11. p. 8G4); but this can scarcely be ^ r j j a 
 
 a contraction of Aao>axoy. false reading, "^J for t^..- 
 
 '■* Compare also my Lehrbuch, § 3G2 b.
 
 26S 
 
 TRELIMINARY HISTORY. 
 
 Among the corresponding names in the second series Eber 
 stands at the head, — a sign that from this point the thread of 
 the genealogy is to be carried on only in respect to the Hebrews, 
 one branch of the Semites. The four following, in all probability, 
 refer to cities situated at various points, from the sources of the 
 Euphrates and Tigris to the southern part of Mesojiotamia. Till 
 something more certain is discovered, Peleg may be identified 
 with Palu, or rather Palude, high up near the source of the 
 Euphrates,' Reu ^ with Arghana, somewhat more to the south 
 near the source of the Tigris ; ^ — places which have long since 
 smik into insignificance, only sharing the fate of many other 
 almost extinct cities of those parts whose former greatness 
 can be more clearly proved. Serug * is the city between Bira 
 on the Eujihrates, Haran and Edessa, which was well known 
 as late as the Middle Ages. Lastly, Nahor seems still to at- 
 test his ancient power in many local names in those regions, 
 as for example, to the south, below Ana, in Haditha (i.e. New 
 City) which bears the epithet Elnaura, probably a remnant of 
 the ancient name;^ to the north in el-Na'iira, whose name 
 has undergone an Arabic transformation ; ^ and in various 
 others.'' In these five names we evidently do not meet with 
 
 ' The place is found for instance in AV&- 
 kidi's Conquest of Mesopotamia, last edited 
 by Mordtmaun after Niebuhr, Hamburg, 
 1847; and in the Armenian History of 
 Mattliias of Edessa, p. 234 in Dulaurier. 
 A cuneiform inscription has now been dis- 
 covered there ; see Layai'd's A'iiiereJi, ii. 
 p. 1 72. On the other hand, the 'PäKya of 
 Stephanus Byz. seems to have lain too far 
 west, Paphlagonia (as also Phryges, 
 Bebrykes) too far north ; but possibly 
 the Paghesh {i. e. Palesh), Journ. Asiat. 
 1855, p. 234, maybe what we seek. 
 
 2 Thus the LXX. ho-yav for the Maso- 
 retic .ly"). It is scarcely necessary to 
 say, that the play upon words in the ex- 
 planation of the name Peleg, Gen. x. 25 
 (which moreover is an interpolation by 
 th(? Fifth Narrator), need not jirevent our 
 regarding it as the name of a place, and 
 seeking fur it accordingly. 
 
 * See Berghaus's ma}), and Ainsworth's 
 Travels in Asia Minor, ii. p. 362 ; this 
 name Arghana is doubtless connected 
 with that of the mountain-range running 
 to tlie north of it from the Argajus (now 
 Arjiscli), in Cajipadocia (Strabo, xii. 2. 8), 
 to the Ai-ghi range on the south of Ararat, 
 and extending to liie \\\Vv of Urumia : 
 (see Aiuswortii, ii. p. 292 ; ]5adgcr's Nesto- 
 rinns, i. \>. 35 s(j.) 
 
 * Aitliougll bulll til.' LXX. :u:d th- 
 
 Masora pronounce it "X^polx, we may 
 yet return to the true pronunciation. 
 Some modern travellers, however, write 
 Seruj (see Ainsworth, i. p. 306, 310, ii. 
 p. 102-103). 
 
 * Abulfida's GcograpJiy, the Arabic 
 text, Paris, 1840, p. 2S7, 3. The name 
 Kausa in Büsching, p. 234, seems a false 
 
 reading of ittl\ Eeiske read nur a, and 
 translated it lime ; but d'Anville inter- 
 prets it as the city Nahardea. The posi- 
 tion of the city on an island in the 
 Euphrates accords well with the descrip- 
 tion of the Nahoreans, inasmuch as they 
 spread themselves out on both sides of the 
 Euphrates, Gen. xxii. 20-24. But com- 
 pare also the Itfii-ptun in Chamchean, 
 i. 3. 
 
 " Kemdleldin's ///.s^ry f/i/a/f/; (Alep- 
 po), ed. Freytag, p. 8 and 13, Arab. 
 
 ' As J .^v' Nachrcin, near Maredin, 
 
 (tliough fartlier to the east) in Wäkidi's 
 Conquest of Mesopotamia, cd. Mordtmann, 
 ]). 175. "We might be tempted to identify 
 the name n^ti' (already otherwise ex- 
 plained at p. 2Ü4 sq.) withSalacli in Adia- 
 bene, often incidentally mentioned by 
 Assemani {Silici in Pliny, JJist. Nat. vi. 
 30). ]5ut in the first place it is too far 
 to tlie cast for the other pl:iccs niontijned
 
 TIIK FIRST TWO AGES. 2G9 
 
 references to gods or heroes, as in those of the first series. 
 If here any firm ground is to be reached, it must be that 
 of locality ; and tlie fact that these four cities lie not fiir 
 from one another gives us a presumption that they have been 
 truly identified. If we add to this that they stretch down in 
 the same order from the north-east towards the south-west 
 into the fruitful lands of Mesopotamia, we may perhaps discern 
 in them four kingdoms which the Hebrews founded in suc- 
 cession as they pressed forward towards the south, or four 
 capitals from which they may have exercised dominion in the 
 remotest times. And the fact that Nahor, who here appears 
 first as the grandfather of Abraham, is again introduced as his 
 brother, is another proof that these names, so far from owing 
 their origin to chance or caj)rice, are probably the designations 
 of ancient Hebrew kingdoms, of which Nah or maintained itself 
 longer than the rest. In the existing form of the narrative 
 they have become mere lifeless designations of ancestors or 
 forefathers, of whom however nothing characteristic is reported 
 except the name ; but through them we are visibly brought 
 into contact with definite regions and epochs. 
 
 III. But the case is very difFerent with the tenth name, with 
 which each of the two series closes. Noah,' both in name and 
 in fact, is the impersonation of the idea of a renovated and 
 better world. For all the more aspiring nations of antiquity, 
 in spite of their conception of a decline in the duration and 
 external hapi)iness of human life, cherished also the opposite 
 sentiment, that a multitude of old and pernicious errors were 
 discovered and destroyed, and that then upon the ruins of a 
 fearful depravity a new purer and wiser life was built. These 
 
 •with it, being on the farther bank of the brew ; but thi,s only entitles us to suppose 
 
 Tigris, and in the second, the orthography the name to belong to the primeval ago of 
 
 opposes it ; for Assemaui, though writing the Semites. It must have had the mean- 
 
 rho in the Bibl. Orient. T. ii. p. 115, sub- '"g '"«'^ /»-^sh, to judge from the cognate 
 
 sequently, at T. iii. p. ii. p. 709, 710, 777, roots X3, Ex. xii. 9, and D^ Num. vi. 3. 
 
 evidently corrects himself and writes "^pD Even in the existing narrative as given in 
 
 (see Ainsworth, ii. p. 241). He is also in the Book of Origins, it was after the lapse 
 
 error in supposing the name to be derived of one year, and at the beginning of a new 
 
 n o 7 ■ ..u- • /-» \ «N TO- one, that Nonh left the ark. The oxplana- 
 {rom Seleueia : this is > n > N£P, differ- .•'.., , ,, r^-j,., ^^ i ■•" <- 
 
 ' tion ot tlie name by the Infth Narrator in 
 
 ent from j^QACD A. '^ , Assemani, iii. Gen. v. 29 hits the sense correctly, at least 
 
 i. p. 391 sqq., and Badger's Nestorians. i. >» «o f'^i" ^s it represents Noah as the in- 
 
 p jr,g_ augu'-ator of abetter age; following this 
 
 ' ' It" is to be observed that only later '',1'^='' t'l^ later^ writers generally explain 
 
 the name by araTroucty, as Theoph. Ant. 
 writers write _ »J in imitation of the Ad Aufo/>/c.\ü. ch. 18. The name of the 
 
 „, , ~ . ^ .. iu i. n ni I rp ^ city Nc/ch, south-east of Miish, and west 
 
 Old Testament, yet that the Old Testa- „|- \7«„ /Aj^^^^^fU ;: qqa\ i 
 
 ^ -^ ,r , ■ T • 1- T n\ \ ot \ an (Ainsworth, ii. p. 380), perliaps 
 
 ment itself (even in Isaiah liv. 9) has • r f , *i <. m i . H 
 
 , • ^1 • 1 ■ ^ ,. i _ indicates that rNoah was once actvally 
 
 always n\ which points to a root n3- u.v, „^ • n, „ * i ■ i 
 
 •' ' '-•" ^ ' - wursnippod in those parts as a demigod. 
 
 This root is not found in ordinary lie-
 
 270 
 
 rUELLMIXARY HISTORY 
 
 are tlie two contrasted feelings wliicli constantly penetrate and 
 nioiild the better life of every nation, and of wliicli the one 
 generates the other ; youthful and aspiring nations, as the 
 Hebrews and others of antiquity, could feel them more vividly 
 and pursue them farther than others. When therefore there 
 came before such nations dim pictures and traditions of a 
 mio-hty flood, which had once covered the earth and destroyed 
 all life,* this naturally generated the idea that its purpose must 
 have been to wash clean the sin-stained world, to sweep away 
 the first hopelessly degraded race of men, and produce upon a 
 purified and renovated earth a new race, stimulated by that 
 warning voice to become both jDurer and wiser. This alone is 
 the essential and necessar}^ element in the conception of the 
 Flood, more or less discernible through all varieties in the story.^ 
 The comparison afterwards made in the first ages of Christianity 
 between Noah's Flood and Baptism exactly and happily re- 
 called the original meaning of the story. In Noah, as the 
 new Adam, the initiator of the still existing race of men, 
 Hebrew antiquity embodied this truth. The ascription of the 
 first culture of the vine to Noah onl}' expresses the honour paid 
 to him as the introducer of a joyous age, since the growth of 
 the vine was justly esteemed the sign of a higher civilisation, 
 with arts and cares, but also with joys of its own.^ And the 
 
 ' These widely scattered traditions have 
 not as yet been accurately examined and 
 explained. The most remarkable fact in 
 them is perhaps that the Egyptians, at 
 least according to Manetho, had no tra- 
 dition of a primeval Flood, althongh (or 
 rather because) they were so accustomed to 
 yearly inundations — for those spoken of so 
 late as the 17th and 18th dynasties (Eu- 
 sebius, Chron. Arm. ii. p. 85 ; Georgias 
 Syncellus, Chron. p. 118, 119, 130-132, 
 liind.) were only inserted by the Fathers 
 of the Church, and those mentioned by 
 Origen, Against CeLsus, i. 20 (iv. 2), are 
 only what Egyptian philosophers spoke of. 
 How much earlier the notion of such a 
 deluge prevaik'd tlironghout Syria, is evi- 
 dent even from Eucian's book on the God- 
 dess of Hierapolis. Hut, as remarked in 
 the Jahrb. der Bihl. Wits. vii. p. 2, sqq., 
 the very language of the oldest nations 
 points to such primeval traditions (com- 
 pare also the Ethiopic ^^'^ Enoch 
 
 Ixxxix. 23 sq. with i^J^\ Sur. 1. 13. 
 
 ^O^ is related to ^^"i, HQ^« and G'flP 
 
 Jsnocli Ixxxix. ß). 
 
 2 The Mfifujojia/ih/chioin of the Muhä- 
 blidrata, which howovor introduces much 
 
 extraneous matter, and touches too briefly 
 on what is essential, speaks nevertheless 
 of the ' Washing period' of the worlds ; 
 9I. 28. The Hindus niDreover have many 
 accounts of floods, both in ancient (in the 
 Veda) and in more recent times (Wilson's 
 Pref. to the VMnu-Turana, p. li. ; Bhä- 
 gaeata-Purann, i. 3. 15). Buruouf indeed 
 doubted (in the preface to vol. iii. of tlio 
 Bhagavata-l'urana, Paris, 1818, p. xxxiv. 
 sqq.) the mention of the Deluge in the Veda, 
 and consequently questioned the antiquity 
 of tliis tradition among the Hindus gene- 
 rally ; and Fel. Neve agreed with liim in 
 tlie Annates de la Philosophie chreiicnne, 
 18 19, April, May; but that it is really Tncn- 
 tiinicd in tlie Veda has now been distinctly 
 shown by R. Roth, in the^Vlunicii Gelehrte 
 Anzeigen, 1849, pt. 26 sq. and 1850, pt. 72, 
 and by Albert Weber, in his hulische 
 Studien, No. 2. See Ja/irb. der Bibl. Wiss. 
 iv. p. 227. 
 
 ' Tlio fact that only the later narrator 
 of Gen. ix. 18-29 mentions Noah as a vine- 
 grower, does not prove tlie tradition itself 
 to bo of later origin, especially as it is 
 noticed only incidentally and with refer- 
 ence to another object. And without 
 wisliing to ignore tlie difference between 
 Noah and Dionysus the son of Zeus, we
 
 THE FIRST TWO AGES. 271 
 
 fact that lie was regarded as an instrument chosen by God to 
 rescue the human race for a new and better development explains 
 why the writer of the Book of Origins should depict him as in 
 every respect a man after God's own heart, and on this basis 
 design his picture of that wonderful revolution of humanity. In 
 that picture, moreover, under all the complication of details, 
 the few and simple ground-strokes of the original concejition are 
 still clearly discernible. The fact that Mount Ararat is the 
 locality assigned to Noah's ark also proves a close connection 
 of his story with those of Enoch (see above, ]). 2GG sq.) and of 
 other similar personages. 
 
 If any doubt should still b3 felt whether the personality of 
 Noah as the Adam of the new and historical epoch ' had this 
 origin, another proof of it might be adduced from the varying 
 representation of the seven antediluvian Forefathers put forward 
 by the later narrator. In this shorter series not Noah but 
 Lamecli is evidently intended to close the first age : first on 
 the general ground that he is the seventh, secondly (according 
 to p. 267) as being the symbol of the degeneration of men into 
 gross sensuality, which culminates in him and becomes ripe 
 for destruction and death ; and lastly, as the father of three 
 sons, who here exhibit a knot in the continuous line of the race 
 and a subsequent new commencement, precisely analogous to 
 those exhibited by the three sons of Noah and the three of 
 Terah in the Book of Origins. This last fact is very important 
 and decisive. As in the case of the twenty Forefathers in the 
 Book of Origins only the father and the eldest son are named, 
 and a plurality of sons only in the case of the tenth and 
 twentieth, when their number is three ; so with these seven 
 Forefathers the line continues direct and simple until the seventh 
 who has three sons. The appearance of Abel, who passes away 
 like a breath,^ alongside of Cain, although one of the most 
 
 may yet convince ourselves that among languages; as in modern Persian mni 
 
 the Greeks in like manner Dionysus marks ^f^^^ ,„^^^) ^^^ j^ ^^..^^.j^ ^ (literally 
 the commencement of a new era of civih- J 
 
 sation. This idea, moreover, admirably '"^" jcrmented). 
 
 suits Noah descending from Ararat ; even ' ^^ in the Hindu accounts of the 
 
 now th.^ vine grows wild in Eastern Pon- Deluge, Manu (i.e. Adam) himself reap- 
 
 tus and other parts of Armenia more lux- P^-'^rs under a special appellation as son of 
 
 uriantlyand ineradicably than anywhere Vivasvan (the Sun); and for a similai- 
 
 else. That it was n.jt the wild produce ^fasou they reckon tour Manus, obvKnisly 
 
 only, but the proper art of vine-growing ^'^ correspond with the Four Ages of the 
 
 that was originated by a primeval race, is ^''"■'I'i' Bhagamd-GUa, x. 6. 
 shown by the remarkable circumstance * But that this allusion to a word p^n. 
 
 that the word w/??^ \>\ Ethiopic mi«, Ar- meaning breath, does not belong to the 
 
 menian gini, is common to very distant original story is shown in the Jahrb. der 
 
 Semitic and Aryan languages, and is lost Bibl. Wifs. vi. p. 7 sq^. 
 only in coinparativily recent or remote
 
 o7_) rRElJMlNAKY HISTORY. 
 
 beautiful features of the storj, is certainly its latest transfor- 
 mation, efPoeted at the time of the Foiirth Narrator, when the 
 seven anteclih^vian Forefathers were coming to he regarded as 
 altogether evil, and Cainan or Cain, esj)eciallj, to be held as 
 the type of wicked men ; ' for when this was the case it was 
 necessary (since evil always draws out its opposite) to place by 
 the side of this Father, who as the son of Adam was the 
 type of the wicked child, a good brother, towards whom Cain 
 showed himself in the same character as, according to the 
 same narrator, the elder brother-nations, Edom, Moab, and 
 Ammon, did towards the good but small nation of Israel.^ 
 But the three sons of Lamech, with all their difference from 
 the three sons of Noah, have still one great intrinsic point of 
 resemblance to them. All three bear names formed from one 
 root, which may have originally denoted Sons of that Father, 
 or children of the new age.^ In olden times brothers or sisters 
 of one house often bore names differing only by minor varia- 
 tions in meaning or formation;* and so here the same funda- 
 mental woi'd, when used as a personal name, was broken up 
 into the three forms, Jabal, Jubal, and Tubal. But the three 
 sons of Lamech were also to be regarded as founders of the 
 new age of civilisation, and therefore were required to express 
 tlie three great classes into which every civilised nation of that 
 age was divided. Thus Jabal (whose name also may signify 
 the produce which the soil yields to manual laboui-) became the 
 ancestor of the third class — the Vi9as as the Hindus would 
 say — except that the Israelitish tradition, following the example 
 of the Hebrew Patriarchs, prefers to speak of pastoral nomads 
 rather than of tillers of the soil. Jubal (whose name readily 
 suggests Johel or Juhel, i.e. loud crashing music) became pro- 
 genitor of musicians, or even (through the natural connection 
 of all the fine arts) of artists and the learned class (the Brah- 
 mans) in general. Lastly, Tubal, the son of another mother, 
 formed a contrast to both the former, and became progenitor of 
 
 ' Some traco of a similar Ijclicf inay iiiiincd Ä//rcWf?'/ and .y//r''f/?(/ (sno l)aiillia\i 
 
 prrhaps be di.seovcre.l among tiio Cartha- ^^^ ^y,. j^^^-,^ ,-). ;,, .j,^ k^,.^„ I ^ 
 
 j^inians; see Ziitsrh. fur das Morgenland, »---v 
 
 vol. iv. p. 410; vol.vii. p. 82. and ,,,\« are associated to<;i'llicr; and 
 
 ^ The early pas^sa^e, Gen iy. 21, repards ^^^^_^ "^l^ ^^^^ ^^^^^^^j^ ^ain is chan^.-d into 
 
 Cam only as the first son of Adam in con- ^^^^.^ ^^ j.^^.,^^ ,^ counterpart to his broti.er 
 
 trast to Lamecli as hiter horn; and the *• . . , x i-. i •• 
 
 idea expressed in iv. 1.3-1Ö, may hnvo -^^"'"'^ ! J"«t as <i^\> {\ Enoch xxii. 7. In 
 
 only been suj,'fj;i'sted in connci'tion with ancient Hindu tradition also similar phe- 
 
 tliat ancient saying. nomena are found, as appears from 
 
 ' Literally, production, J'riiil, as >')2'> I'urnoufs Introduction a I lUsloiri'. dii 
 
 * 1.1 VyA^-k. xxiii. 2. So in the Mncient ^^""'WA/smc, i. p. 360, and many other 
 
 Arabian legend the two sons of 'Ad arc r''""*-'^-
 
 THE FI U.ST TWO AGES. 273 
 
 the arm-bearer or warrior-class (the Kshatriyas) ; retaining', how- 
 ever, the full name Tubal-Cain,' which, as Cain in one dialect 
 may denote a spear,^ would sig-nify Son of a Spear, or Warrior. 
 As therefore in the Book of Origins the three sons of Noah 
 designate the new world with reference to the broad distinc- 
 tions of nationality still existing, so these sons of Lamech 
 describe it with reference to the three classes into which the 
 nations were divided at their more advanced stage of deve- 
 lopment. The threefold partition therefore must in this case, 
 as in that of Noah and Terah, manifestly have a meaning that 
 shall embrace the whole of the new age : and brief as is the 
 existing account (Gen. iv. 20-22) this meaning visibly shines 
 through it. That these traditions were once much richer and 
 more detailed Ave see also from the bare mention made of the 
 sister of this Tubal-Cain, Naamah, who, as her name Grace 
 justifies us in presuming, may originally have held a place 
 beside that rough warrior similar to that of the Greek Aj^liro- 
 dite as the beloved of Ares.^ 
 
 Of Terah, who concludes the second series, the Book of 
 Origins (apart from the years of his life, which will be spoken 
 of presently) really tells us nothing except that he had three 
 sons, Abram, Nahor, and Haran,* and that while journeying 
 with them from the land of the Chaldeans, he died on his 
 road at Harran'^ in Mesopotamia; and the later narrators had 
 nothing to add to this. Now as this can only be intended to in- 
 dicate such ancient national migrations as had been retained in 
 memory, we have every reason to regard the name of this con- 
 cluder of the second age also as originally figurative. The 
 three childi^en of this twentieth Forefather refer to the histori- 
 cally known nations of the Third Age, and specially to Abraham 
 as the historic hero of the period ; he himself floats over them 
 
 ' Some connection with Caiu or Cainan ai-t/s/m in general (Lat.fabcr), Zohair M. 
 
 must originally have existed here, since he v. 1.5, and entirely different from tlio 
 
 helongs evidently to the same group, and former. 
 
 Tubai-Cain may have oi-iginally signified * It has been preserved as Nemc in 
 
 'Cain's descendant.' Perhaps the name the Punic (see Göft. Gelehr. Anz. 1860, 
 
 of the nomad tribe Cain (Kenites), which p. 1369) ; as also the proper names La- 
 
 after the time of Moses played a part in mcch and Adah in Asia Minor (see the 
 
 the history of Israel (see above, p. 251), Jahrb. der Bihl. Wins. vi. p. 2; Strabo's 
 
 caused the early contraction of Cainan into Gcoyrafhy, xiv. 2, 17; C. .Schmidt, Z?<>- 
 
 Cain; and may have even contributed to Geschichte Kariens (Göttingen, 1861, p. 
 
 the impression of Cain's restless wander- 1 3). See also Hesychius, Lex., according 
 
 ings ; Gen. iv. 13-15. to whom Adah is the Babylonian Hera. 
 
 ■' Jll? as spear is clearly only another 4 pp, q.^^ ^i. 26 sq. 
 
 form of nji? cwtKa = /w.v/'«, "{..„LrjKnös, s |-,|-, Qen. xi. 31 sq. Lat. Carrac; 
 
 '^, 'ii'i'o spelt Harran, to distinguish it from 
 
 Chrcst. p. 23, Ö; ,^ on tlie contrary is tiie a1jove-named Jin- 
 
 W" I T T 
 
 VOL. I. T
 
 274 PRELIM I. VARY HISTORY. 
 
 as the personification of the National Migration,' from the hip of 
 •which issued the luminous forms of the following age ; and as 
 iill the nations of the modem earth discovered their original unity 
 in Noah, so the Hebrews who had moved towards the south-west 
 found in him a unity demanded alike by tradition and im agination. 
 
 IV. The two series of ten Forefathers are therefore each made 
 up of three smaller groups of four, five and one individuals. 
 Each of these groups has a distinct meaning of its own. Every 
 name which enters into them certainly existed with a living 
 meaning long before they were thus ranked together ; but in 
 this very grouping, so as twice to make up the number ten, 
 they betray the same arranging hand. We know not whose 
 hand this was ; it is only manifest that he lived long before the 
 writer of the Book of Origins. 
 
 These tAvice ten names, hoAvever, were made to extend over the 
 space of two ages, much in the same manner as more recent and 
 better known ages were described by the succession and pedi- 
 gree of those rulers who had held the chief power in them. 
 And since, in times when chronology had attained the import- 
 ance which we know was the case among the most ancient 
 Egyptians and Phenicians, it was always endeavoured to append 
 to such historical lists of rulers the number of years that each had 
 lived or reigned (as e.g. Manetho's Egyptian dynasties show), 
 it was but natural that here also a definite number of years 
 should be assigned to each Father. Another essential feature 
 of the idea of the Four Ages (see p. 250 sqq.) was, that they ex- 
 hibited a continuous lapse from an original condition richer in 
 divine blessings. But this lapse may also be conceived as re- 
 feiTing to length of life ; since the more complex and bewilder- 
 ing the higher strivings of a nation become, the more rapidly 
 does the life of the individual threaten to be worn out, and the 
 transient life of the men of the eager hurrying modern age might 
 well be regarded as progressively diminished from an original 
 duration of far greater length. And thus in ancient Israel the 
 idea became prevalent, that the duration of hunum life had 
 <liminislied step by step through the great periods of the jjast.^ 
 
 The form into Avhicli the details were cast by the force of 
 general assumj)tions such as these is even now very clearly dis- 
 
 ' It is quite as natural to suppose niH terms in tlie words assigned to the Pa- 
 
 I'onnscted with niX to wander, \.o journey, triarch Jacob himself in the Book of Ori- 
 
 !^s"lDn with -)f2X : which last analogy was gins, Gen.xlvii.8, 9, and poetie;illy in those 
 
 for the first time asserted in 182G, in my put into the mouth of a contemporary of 
 
 .S'rt«r/ nf Solomon, iii. 6. Itseoms, however, the Patriarclis, in Job viii. 8, 9 ; compared 
 
 that in the present instance, T\ is radical, with xlii. 16. Hence tlio Messianic hope 
 
 X softened from it. expressed in Isaiuh Ixv. 20. 
 
 * This feeling is expressed in general
 
 THE FIRST TWO AGES. 275 
 
 cernible iu tlie main. On looking tlirong-h tlie data concernino- 
 the lives of persons in tlie Four Ages down to the time of Moses 
 and the Conquest, we discover the prevailing view to be that 
 which assumes from 120 to 140 years as the extreme ]imit of 
 human life in the existing epoch ; for just as the men of the 
 Third Age were conceived as far outliving that term, in the 
 Fourth Joseph dies at 110, Levi at 137, Kehath at 133, Amram 
 at 137, his sons Aaron and Moses at 120, Joshua, like his pro- 
 genitor Joseph, somewhat below the Levites, at 110;' with other 
 indications of the same view.^ Now from this Fourth Age to 
 determine bj successive proportionate augmentation the pos- 
 sible years of human life in the earlier ages, the number 125 
 was evidently taken as the basis of the Fourth, from which by 
 repeatedly doubling the number 1000 was reached as the ulti- 
 mate limit: 125, 250, 500, 1000. Thus was prescribed to everv 
 historical j)ersonage, according to the age in which he lived, a 
 maximum length of life which might not be exceeded. If the 
 Hebrew conception went in this assumption somewhat beyond 
 the most ancient Hindu, which (see p. 260) adopted the propor- 
 tion 100, 200, 300, 400, on the other hand it always remained 
 free from those extravagant extensions of these numbers into 
 which the later Hindu traditions fell. 
 
 It would be expected then, from such a beginning, that the 
 length of life of individuals also would be made greater or less 
 on similar principles, tradition simply working out and develop- 
 ing any assumption that had once been accepted. Even at the 
 commencement of the Fourth Age, the lives of the just-named 
 heroes, though of different length, are manifestly determined 
 on general principles; for the 120, 133, and 137 years of the 
 Levite chiefs are really made up of mere round numbers, and 
 exhibit, when contrasted with the 110 of the non-Levitical chiefs, 
 an increase indicative of the higher dignity of Levi. Much 
 more will this be the case with the twenty names of the first 
 
 ' According to the passages, Gen. 1. 26 ; age (see Gen. xi. 1-9) ; but still we can 
 
 Ex. vi. 16-20 ; Deut, xxxiv. 7 ; Josh. xxiv. discern plainly the original meaning of the 
 
 29 ; all derived from the Book of Origins, words to be, that the period of 120 years 
 
 - These refer especially to the 120 years as the limit of human life was appointed 
 
 mentioned in Gen. vi. 3. These words are by way of punishment for a new genera- 
 
 indeed obscure, inasmuch as they are put tion. With this is imdoubtedly connected 
 
 here out of the proper context, evidently the ancient sanctity of the number 60 
 
 because in this entire passage (Gen. vi. 1-4) among certain nations : among tlie Hindus, 
 
 the Fifth Narrator gives only very brief who call the 60 years' cycle Vrihaspali- 
 
 extract.s from some written authority which (^akra ; the Chinese, who still reckon time 
 
 he had before him. Nor does the term of by this number ; the Babylonians, who ' 
 
 120 years for the life of man belong fitly made it the standard number of their 
 
 to this passage, where the coming age is chronology, both j^ractical and theoretical 
 
 not the fourth, but the second; and the (Bcrosus, in Richter, p. 53); and the 
 
 original tradition may very probably have Latins. See also the Q'rq Vecir, p. 60, 2. 
 assigned those giants to the second or third
 
 27Ü FRELLMIXARV IIISTOKV. 
 
 two ages. Ill fact these general principles are clearl}' discernible 
 in many of the statements given in the Book of Origins respect- 
 iiiff the acre of each Forefather before and after the birth of the 
 first son. In these the length of life, at least on the whole, 
 diminishes by degrees: the 130 years of Adam before, and the 
 800 after, the bii'th of Seth are as transparent as Noah's 500 
 3'ears before the birth of his three sons, and his subsequent 100 
 years before and 350 years after the Flood ; or as the 500 years 
 that Shem lived after the Flood (as if for a sign that the second 
 age v^^ith its limit of 500 years had begun) ; or as the 70 years 
 of Terah before and his 135 years after the birth of his three 
 sons. In the case of Enoch we may besides (see p. 26G) justly 
 presume that his number 365 (which the Book of Origins di- 
 vides into 65 and 300) had been fixed by earlier legends, which 
 made it impossible to adopt a higher ; the effect being, that in 
 comparison to others of the same age, his death is made to ap- 
 pear an early one. If some points in these numbers are more 
 obsciu'e, it is to be considered first that the store of tradition 
 on these earliest times, originally abundant and varied, has come 
 down to us in too scanty measure to give us even an approxi- 
 mate insight into all the grounds which influenced the arrangers 
 of the numbers ; and secondly, that out of the many original!}^ 
 existing versions of the traditions respecting the ages of the 
 twenty Forefathers, only the single version followed by the Book 
 of Origins has been preserved to us. Moreover, the great 
 variations of the Seventy and the Samaritan text, both from the 
 Masoretic text and between themselves, and even among various 
 manuscripts of the same text, show that, as soon as ever we 
 descend from the fixed bomids of an age to examine the numbers 
 assigned to individuals within that age, the whole ground be- 
 comes unsteady beneath our feet.^ 
 
 ' Ancient and modern critics h:\ve so Mohnike, in Illgcn's Zeitschrift für his- 
 
 fuUy discussed tlieso variations that I deem torischc Thcolorjic, vi. 2), which niaki's great 
 
 it unnecessary hero to treat the subject pretensions to judgment and caution, yot 
 
 fully, although I consider the Masoretic displays hardly any of either ; see also 
 
 text Ity no means everywhere and withoxit Lesucur's Chrnnoloi/ie des Eois d. Egypte, 
 
 exception entitled to the preference which p. 300 sqq. The subject is followed up, in 
 
 is now again accorded to it by most of the an article by Bertheau, in the Jahrcshericht 
 
 moderns. To take a striking instance, it der Deutschen Morcjenl. Gcsellsch. Leipsic, 
 
 shortens by one hundred years the ago of 1846. To state briefly my own decided 
 
 each father between Shem and Terah be- opinion, I consider that the first founders 
 
 fore the birth of his eldest son. The great of these chronologies proceeded very sys- 
 
 importance formerly attached to every tematically, taking (according to p. 27a), 
 
 statement which had a bearing on the as the duration of each generation in the 
 
 general chronology of ancient history, is four successive ages of the world, 30, 60, 
 
 very properly diminished in modern esti- 120, 240 years respectively, which would 
 
 mation ; yet it is to be regretted that even give for the two first 240 x 10 = 2400 and 
 
 Oriental scholars can still produce trea- 120x10 = 1200 years respectively, em- 
 
 tises such as that of Kask (translated by bracing together the whole period from
 
 THE FIRST TWO AGES. 277 
 
 In tlie history of the Flood, where the chronology goes still 
 more into details, the working of the same general principles is 
 easily recognisable, and the particular determinations flow very 
 naturally from the assumption of one solar year as the duration 
 of the Flood.' 
 
 V. The Origin and Immigration of the Hebrews. 
 
 But the most imj)ortant result of the examination of these 
 traditions respecting the remotest times will after all lie in their 
 disclosures of the earliest fortunes of the Hebrew race ; and in 
 this respect it can scarcely be said how much valuable historical 
 material still lies hidden here. 
 
 1. The Hebrews preserve, according to these traditions, the 
 consciousness of an original connection with other nations, some 
 of whom, speaking in relation to the higher antiquity, dwelt 
 far removed from them. Their special ancestor Eber descends 
 through Arphaxad from Shem, the father of Elam, Asshur, 
 Arphaxad, Lud, and Aram (Gen. x. 22). Now the five nations 
 who collectively laid claim to the lofty name of Shem ai'e not 
 only perfectly historic, but also exactly defined in respect 
 to their position. The circle began with Elam (Elymais) 
 beyond the Tigris towards the south-east on the Persian gulf: 
 proceeded northward to the Tigris with Asshur (the Assyrians) ; 
 turned to the north-west with Arphaxad ; stretched far westward 
 to the Semitic nations of Asia Minor with Lud (the Lydians) ; 
 and finally returned from thence in a south-easterly direction to 
 the Euphrates with Aram. If now we ask why the Hebrews 
 classed themselves with this circle of nations, the reason cannot 
 lie simply in connection of language : for all the very various 
 nations which (according to p. 224 sqq.) came into contact 
 with Palestine in the earliest times — original inhabitants and 
 migrating tribes alike — spoke the Semitic tongue, and in re- 
 spect to language stood as close as possible to the Hebrews, 
 and yet were never regarded as akin to them. As little could 
 it be found in national partiality or aversion, since most of these 
 nations, in the oldest times known to us, were quite estranged 
 from them, and the Hebrews properly speaking are like a single 
 branch pushed forward to an extreme distance on the south-west. 
 
 Adam to the Deluge, and thence to Abra- Nahor at the birth of the eldest son of 
 
 ham's entrance into Canaan. For both each, 2(58, 288, and 129 years respectively, 
 
 these periods it is the LXX. ■^hich ap- The A-ariations of the Samaritan and tlie 
 
 proaches most nearly to the numbers just Hebrew text are thus generally arbitrary, 
 
 given, and which I therefore regard as the ' See more on this subject in the Jahrb. 
 
 most authentic now existing : we only re- do- Bill. Wiss. vii. 8 sqq. 
 quire to assign to Adam, Lamech, and
 
 •278 ]'REL1M1XAKY IIISTOKV. 
 
 We must therefore assume that a primitive national conscious- 
 ness preserved in the memory of the Hebrews their relationship 
 with these distant northern and eastern nations. But if we 
 inquire further what could have led the Hebrews to conceive 
 those live remote nations, with whom they felt themselves to be 
 related through one of their number, as having originally been 
 brethren and sons of Shem, we are compelled to assume that 
 a closer connection formerly united them to each other, a 
 connection however which rested neither on contiguity of 
 their external boundaries (for this palpably did not exist) nor 
 merely upon their possession of a common language (for, as 
 we have seen, the so-called Semitic language extended much 
 further), but upon firmer foundations. The bond which united 
 these nations might possibly have been simply identity of 
 religion ; even as the Hindus, notwithstanding their division 
 into an innumerable multitude of particular kingdoms, always 
 conceived themselves as dwelling together in the Jambudvipa, 
 the great centre of the earth, as then* permanent home. But as 
 it is certain that the Hindu religion proceeded ultimately from 
 the Brahmans and the compact nucleiis of a once ruling- 
 nation, so also the connection of those Semitic nations in the 
 primeval ages when a religion did not extend itself, as now, by 
 its own power, is to be traced to a nation that once ruled over 
 all those countries. This nation afterwards parted into the five 
 distinct nations which referred to Shem as their father; and 
 to it the Hebrews, though dwelling so far to the south-west, 
 always claimed to have belonged. The accounts contamed in 
 the primitive fragment (Gen. xiv.) concerning mighty con- 
 federate kings beyond the Euphrates, the traditions respecting 
 a primeval Assyrian kingdom in Ctesias and others, the deri- 
 vation of the most ancient Lydian dynasty from Ninus and 
 Belus,' the claim of such cities as Damascus and Askelon to 
 Semiramis as their original Queen,^ these and other like indi- 
 cations refer in all probability to this original nation and the 
 power that it once possessed. Indeed it may be unhesitatingly 
 assumed that the renowned name of Semiramis, which occurs as 
 a personal name even among the Hebrews,^ stands in con- 
 
 ' Herod, i. 7. Thecity of Askolon also, 93 sq., 97 sq.; see above, p. 245). Wo 
 
 according to the Lydian Xantluis and have already (p. 267) hazarded the con- 
 
 Nicolaus of Damascus, was founded by a ^^^turr that l-l^, Gen. x. 22, is probably 
 
 Lydian, as is stated by Stephamis Byz. idmtical with nij. Gen. iv. 16. 
 
 s.v. AtTKaW; and with this would curiously 2 jj,,fi,, ^,^^,.1 9, l ; Diodorus Sieulus, 
 
 accord the derivation of Anialck, from j; ., . see Lurian, 7A' Ä« <%m, c. xiv. or 
 
 J ^', in Arabic accounts {Luhevx's Tabari, p. 1061 Eourd. 
 
 i. 209; Abulfida's Ami. Anhid. pp. 76, ' ^hc niinio niDn^D^' i-^ an early form,
 
 THE FIRST TWO AGES. 279 
 
 nection witli Slieni as the name of tliis original nation and its 
 hero. 
 
 The same thing appears in another way if we consider the 
 name Sheni in its relations to the two other sons of Noah. 
 Whatever the three names, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, may have 
 originally signified, it is at least evident, that the primeval 
 nation which divided all the nations of the earth into three 
 groups, and took to itself as one of these three the name of 
 Shem, deemed itself established in a commanding position in a 
 conspicuous centre of the world, and thence named all the alien 
 nations northwards Japheth, and southwards Ham. The feeling 
 that lay at the root of this idea we can easily conjecture from 
 the subsequent description of such a ' Navel of the earth,' 
 Ezek. V. But how should this name have come into use in 
 Palestine, where the Hebrews found themselves dwelling in the 
 midst of the Hamites, on the south-westerly border of the circle 
 which included the Semitic nations ? The name must rather 
 have originated in a northern table-land, which was in fact 
 situated in the middle of the five nations mentioned above, 
 e.g. in Arphaxad. The three names also certainly descended 
 together from the remotest antiquity, and were only traditionally 
 known to the Hebrews ; they are scarcely met with in their 
 ordinary speech or narrative ;' they have in Hebrew no manifest 
 meaning,^ and might seem, like many of the names of the twenty 
 Forefathers, to have their source in the traditions of the primitive 
 nation in the north. As the Hindus apportion the south to 
 Yama (the god of Death), and the north to Kuvera (the god of 
 Treasure^), so here the former might be assigned to Ham, the 
 latter to Japheth ; and the fact that in the Greek mythology 
 also there is an lapetus,* although little more than a mere 
 name, derived probably from Asia Mmor, where from the 
 
 belonging to the time of David (1 Cliron. quite obscure, since the play upon words 
 
 XV. 18, 20, xvi. 5; 2 Chron. xvii. 8); in Gen. ix. 27 comes from the Fifth Nar- 
 
 formed like D~l"iyT^5 (1 Kings iv. 6), and rator only, 
 
 probably of sim'ilar'moaning. ,, ' ^^'l /»^ ,^^^J."- 22, and Alex, von 
 
 ' It is only once (1 Chron. iv. 40) that Humboldt m the T lertdjahrsscknjt, 1838, 
 
 the name Ham appears in the narrative. P ', "; • i, ^, 
 
 The song in Gen. ix. 25-29, with the nar- , He^^o^ f J^ff.'^^"^' 134, 507-511 ; 
 
 rative to which it belongs, is derived from Apollodorus^^i/. i.^l 3, and ,. 2, S; 
 
 the Fifth Narrator; see above, p. 107, and fetephanus Eyz. s v. A5am and 'I/cJ.w ; 
 
 elsewhere ^^^' '^^'^'^ Bochart s Geographia, p. 2, 13, 
 
 ■' Dt^^ in Hebrew would signify name, f° ^'^° ^^"'"^^ «^ Aristophanes (v. 98;,) 
 
 . •■ o ./ jjg appears as an aged divinity, an easy 
 
 Jame, which m itself gives here no appro- object of ridicule ; see also the inscriptions 
 
 priate meaning, and though on (for which in A. Conze's Beisc auf die hiscln des 
 
 Eupolemus in Enscbii Prcq). Evang. \x. 7'äwÄ7scäctz i^/pcrfs (Hanover, 1860), p. 91. 
 
 17 reads XouV) may, in the sense of hot, The phrase, the boundaries of Japhet 
 
 be an intelligible designation of the south, (Judith ii. 15), probably refers to those 
 
 yet ]-|2i, in our present Hebrew, remains on the north.
 
 2S0 I'RRLLMIXARY HISTORY. 
 
 earliest times Greek and Semitic nations inter ming-led, might 
 favour this origin of the name. 
 
 The Liter idea finds strong support in a northern legend 
 which some Armenian authors have j)reserved for us. We must 
 in these researches generally look to the old traditions of more 
 northern nations, because the oldest reminiscences of the people 
 of Israel themselves carry us into these regions ; and hitherto, in 
 the absence of any copious supply of Assyrian or Babylonian 
 documents, we possess no other aids so near at hand and so 
 ancient as the Armenian writers, who often used much older 
 books. Now according to this legend, Xisuthros (who among 
 them answers to Noah among the Hebrews) had three sons who 
 ruled over all mankind, each in his own domain ; — Zervan, 
 Titan and Japetosthe.' These three were regarded as gods, as 
 the two latter were among the Greeks also. Zervan, so cele- 
 brated in the Zoroastrian religion,'^ was compared to the Greek 
 Kronos. To Titan, as god of the Lower World,' the dominion 
 of the South might be assigned, and to Japetosthe as god of 
 Heaven, that of the North.* From this conception the Hebrew 
 tradition has manifestly retained the idea of Japheth as ruler 
 of the North ; but it also lends force to the idea that Ham and 
 Shem also were formerly regarded as gods. According to the 
 Armenian authors, there was not only a hero (or god) Sim, son of 
 Xisuthros,'^ but also a mountain bearing his name, near Taurus ;^ 
 and this may have been regarded by the primitive Hebrews as 
 the seat of a mighty dominion and religion — the sacred centre 
 of a kingdom which included in itself all those five nations and 
 countries. The name Ham remains hitherto the obscurest of 
 those belonging to this period, and cannot yet be accurately 
 traced.^ We may however at least afiirm that the combination 
 
 ' IMoscs of Chorene {History, i. ö) gives contnist to light and heaven is equally 
 
 this account, following a work based on Cüntiiined in them all. 
 
 Berosus, ancl again {ib. eh. 8) following ■* Very curiously, even the Samaritan 
 
 Mar-Iba Catinas ; he also refers to some Chronicle (ed. Juynboll, p. 271) attributes 
 
 early Armenian popular songs. (he lightning to his son. 
 
 " See Elisseus, History of Vardan, ch. * Tl"' words of Moses Chor., i. 5, who 
 
 ii. ; Eznik, Against Heresies, ii. 1. The on this point follows Olympiodorus, do not 
 
 latter explains zervan as ' fate,' but says sound as if they were only borrowed from 
 
 it might also mean ' brilliancy.' The Si- tl»' I^ihle. 
 
 bylline versos (iii. 110 Fr.) render it by ' Moses Chor. i. 5, end ; i. 22, ii. 7, 81, 
 
 Kii6vos. No one surely will seriously This tempts us to conjecture tiiat the ori- 
 
 maintain that the Armenian Iupet(,s/he ori- gin^l meaning of the word DtT was ' height.' 
 
 ginated in a misunderstanding of 'loTreTtSy ' There is no reason for connecting him 
 
 Te,foundintheGreekverses just alluded to. with the Egyptian god Anion or llammon. 
 
 => On the assumption, namely, that the According to AVilkinson {Mtmiiers and 
 
 Titans are in origin the same as the Hindu Customs, iv. p. 203) there was in Egypt 
 
 JJiiitja and Asura. These, ind(>ed, have an ancient god Khem, subsequently com - 
 
 their name from Ditis (i.e. Ttj^i^?), the pared with Pan: and could it l>e shown 
 
 opposite of Adiiis and AdiIJa ; but the that his worship existe<l in primitive times
 
 THE PIUST TWO AGES. 281 
 
 of the tliree names Sliem, Ham and Jai^lietli among tlie Hebrews 
 differs only by age and more primitive form from that of Zervan, 
 Titan, and Japetosthe. 
 
 Other scattered traces of the sacred traditions of the primitive 
 nation also lead us back to those northern regions. We met 
 with Enoch at Iconium on Taurus, imder the name of Annakos 
 (p. 266) ; and the well-known coins of the neighbouring Apamea 
 Kibotos, with the Ark and other signs of the Flood, such as 
 the name Nli,' though dating only from the time of the CaBsars 
 and the first half of the third centur}^ after Christ, can hardly 
 have borrowed these signs exclusively from the Old Testament, 
 since they represent one pair only as rescued, and not, like 
 the Old Testament, the Father's sons and sons' wives as well. 
 The tradition of the Flood in the Book of Origins (Gen. viii. 4) 
 points definitely to Ararat : there, according to this mythology, 
 was the hallowed starting-point and centre of all the nations, 
 but especially of that group of them which dwelt nearest to it, 
 and called themselves Shem. And although the conception of 
 the four Rivers of Paradise which the Fourth Narrator intro- 
 duces (Gren. ii. 10-14), seems to have its ultimate source in the 
 remotest east, and after many transformations to have reached 
 Palestine only in the time of the Kings,^ yet even in its present 
 
 in Canaan, we should here stand on firmer Q, the name in question may have ori. 
 
 ground. Ancient writers speak also of a ^^^^^ ^^^^^ j^^^^ ^ ^^^ ^^^-^^ ^^.j^j^^ 
 
 certain Chom or Chon and Chons, also ^^Ug^i itself Shem to the entire south, and 
 
 Sera, i.e. XOX8. or X6A8., as the Egyp- subsequently been restricted to Egypt, as 
 
 tian Herakles (Jablonskii Ojmscula, ed. te the most important southern kiuydom. 
 
 Water, ii. p. 195 sqq. ; E. Eochette in the See below, on Edom. 
 
 Memoires de T Acadhnie des Inscriptions, ' Eckhel, Boctrina Kununonim, toI. iii, 
 
 xvii. 2, p. 324 sqq. ; compare 'Xnixfpov p. 132-139, treats this subject in detail, 
 
 Kparris, Eratosthenes ap. Syncellum, i. p. and shows a third letter to be wanting 
 
 205). after Nn. Undoubtedly the diffusion of 
 
 More important to the present subject the LXX. and the Old Testament histories 
 
 is the fact that the Egyptians called their in that age contributed much to bring such 
 
 own country Xtj^io, or in another dialect, Itcal traditions to hght : one decisive in- 
 
 Käme X'^iULH i.e. black, as was fa^ce of this, from about this time, is 
 
 "^^ ' ... found in the notice in the Sibylline Books, 
 
 noticed by Plutarch, i>e 7s. c;; Osm xxxm. ;_ 268 sq. From Moses of Chorene, 
 
 But by the Hebrews, especially m tlie Öeo^w^uff, xliii., we learn how constantly 
 
 earliest times, the term Ham was not ^i^^ ^j.], was located in Phrygia. Prom 
 
 applied to Egypt exclusively ; and it only ^^.^ce may probably have sprung Herodo- 
 
 begins to be poetically so called in some of tus' well-known story of the origin of man- 
 
 the latest of the Psalms (Ixxviii. cv. cvi.) y^\j^(\ i^ Phrygia. 
 
 If however, as Eupolemus, p. 400, says, 2 The origin of the story of Paradise, 
 
 the name Ham was interchangeable with Gen. ii. 5 sqq., is a question reserved for 
 
 Asbolos (i.e. soot), this must refer to another place ; but here I must observe 
 
 the dark complexion of the Egyptians, that I do not believe the original form of 
 
 who were in Greek also designated (ueAa^- th.,t description of Paradise will be ever 
 
 Xpofs and fj.e\dfnro5is (see the common- f^^\]y understood, or the four rivers be 
 
 tators on Apollod. Bibl. ii. 1, 4). As the properly interpreted, till some of the 
 
 Egyptian meaning Wrtc/t is thus uhimately „ames of rivers are allowed to have 
 
 connected with that of the Hebrew D-IH, been changed during the migration of the
 
 28-2 PRn:LI>nXARY HISTORY. 
 
 form it elearl}^ shows us the locality in which the Hebrews 
 from early reminiscences imag-iued their Eden (a pure Semitic 
 word). For as the Hebrews could only appropriate this tradi- 
 tion by making- the Tigris and the Euplirates two of the rivers 
 of Paradise, it is evident that Eden was supposed to have lain 
 at the very sources of these streams, in the sacred neighbour- 
 hood of Ararat. 
 
 It has been customary in Germany during the last fifty years 
 to call Semitic all the nations who spoke a language kindred 
 with the Hebrew, and this usage may be maintained, in default 
 of a better. But in the language of antiquity the Semites in- 
 cluded only a portion of these nations ; and although nations such 
 as the Phenicians, Philistines, &c., related in speech, but other- 
 wise alien to the ancient Semites, may probably at an incal- 
 culably remote period have issued from the same northern 
 birth-place, the Hebrews in Palestine no longer felt themselves 
 akin, but entirely foreign to them. Thus it is certain that the 
 Hebrews belonged to quite another order of nations, and kept up 
 a lively remembrance of the north as the land of their descent.' 
 
 2. As the oldest reminiscences of the people refer to a mother 
 country wdiose sanctuary was very different from that which they 
 developed for themselves in Palestine, so also we find traces of 
 a remembrance of the migration which brought them gradually 
 nearer to the country which afterwards became their holy land. 
 It is certainly no unimportant historical ftict that the Hebrew 
 nation does not claim an extreme antiquity. Their ancestor 
 Eber descends from Shem through Arphaxad (for Canaan and 
 Salah may be passed by, see p. 264). Now Arphaxad is 
 without doubt the most northern country of Assyria, on the 
 southern border of Armenia, which Ptolemy^ alone among all 
 the Greek and Poman authors mentions under the correspond- 
 ing name of Arrapachitis, and describes, so insignificant had 
 this once important and powerful land become. There lies, 
 liowever, in the name itself a farther witness as to its situation 
 and inhabitants ; Arphaxad appears to denote ' Stronghold of 
 the Chaldeans,' ^ and was perhaps at first used of the chief city 
 
 lopjend. In my opinion tho Pison and the eially Shem ; some of the most recent are 
 
 Gihon are the Indus and the Ganges; to noticed in the Jahrb. der BihI. Wiss. m. 
 
 these were originally added two others p. 208 sq., xi. p. 181 sq. It deserves 
 
 liehjnging to the same region ; hut when notice, however, that Cappadocia is con- 
 
 the legend passed to the HcLrews in Pa- nected with Canaan and Ham in Tcsta- 
 
 lestine, the latter were exclianged for the nnintum Bimonis, vi. and in Cliamchean's 
 
 familiar Tigris and E^uphrales. Armmian History, i. 3. Docs this date 
 
 ' It seems supcrfiuoiis after these ex- from Herod's nigii ? 
 planations to refute in d<tail the opinions - Gcograjjhij, vi. 1. 
 
 of others on N.,alfs three son.s, and espe- 3 ^^.^j^ ,„j ^^ \ ^ .,, ,,,.11 .,, ^^\^
 
 THE FIRST TWO AGES. 
 
 283 
 
 of the country ; and Ur of the Chaldees, whence according to 
 the very ancient author of Gen. xi. 28, 31, Abraham journeyed 
 to Palestine, is probably only the name used of the same country 
 in the time of that writer.' The Chaldeans, in name originally 
 identical with the nation in this day called the Kurds, were even 
 at a very early period widely scattered,^ as the Kurds are now f 
 but we have every reason to believe their original seat to be the 
 mountain country called Arrax^achitis. After the seventh century 
 before Christ, indeed, a new no n- Semitic nation — essentially the 
 same that has ever since retained the name Kurds — appears 
 under this name. This is explained by the hypothesis that a 
 northern people who had conquered the land gradually assumed 
 its ancient name, as the Saxons beyond the sea appropriated 
 the name of Britons. 
 
 signifies fo bind, to make fast. Now as 
 Arrapa (Ptolemy's Geog. vi. 1), was the 
 name of a city in Arrapaehitis still exist- 
 ing under the form 1 y/y nujL {Jahrb. der 
 Bibl. Wiss. X. p. 169), and as several 
 cities, and especially the Mell-knowu Ar- 
 bela, which is not too far distant, are 
 named PXSIN, probably signifying ' God's 
 stronghold,' and as also 21N alone is the 
 name of some cities (see Josh. xv. 52, 1 
 
 jy" 
 
 a name given by Abdolhakara to th® 
 
 Kings iv. 10; and the -well-known 
 
 ^J 
 
 u 
 
 in Yemen), this name had probably the 
 meaning of fortress. The use of ^ mili- 
 tates but little against the word being 
 compounded with the name of the Chal- 
 deans, because elsewhere this is written 
 with \^,\ but never with Q. And we know 
 from the general laws of sound that the 
 Hebrew pronunciation Chasd is the earlier 
 one, from which sprang Chard or Kurd 
 (Gord), and then Chald. 
 
 ' That Ur-Ch/zsd im WHS not regarded as 
 a city, but as a coimtry, is shown by the 
 wliole meaning and context of the passage 
 in Gen. xi. 28 sqq., and the LXX. are 
 correct in rendering it by ri x'^P°- '^'^^ 
 XaXSaiwu. A Zendic origin for the word 
 1-1i{ can hardly be sought in an age preced- 
 ing the seventh and eighth centuries. But 
 
 a comparison with ^.'j ^^csjj' i^\\ 
 gives us at once the meaning, ' residence,' 
 'i-egion.' Curiously, however, in Arme- 
 nian, nuii^iun^ {gavar or Jcavar) de- 
 notes x'^P"- (Faustus Byz. v. 7), and 
 with tliis accords not only jJCLO (Bar- 
 hebr. p. 105) but also i",^^ (sometimes 
 
 Egyptian Nomes). Compare also Jusin 
 vair, denoting place. Ur as a city has 
 however been sought for in many places, 
 both in ancient and modern times : Jose- 
 phus {Ant. i. 6. 5) says that the grave of 
 Terah was still shown in Ure the town of 
 the Chaldees, but he does not define its 
 exact position ; many of the Fathers took it 
 for Edessa, because the proper name of this 
 city was Urhoi (originally, however, Osroi, 
 now Orfa). Later writers have often 
 thought of the Castellum Ur mentioned 
 by Amm. Marc. xxv. 8. Eupolemus in 
 Eusebii Prcep. Evang. ix. 17, imagined 
 it to be Uric, also called Camerine, be- 
 tween Babylon and Bosra. Just now, 
 English travellers are identifying Abra- 
 ham's Ur with a place there called Varka, 
 where extensive ruins have been lately 
 found and excavated, and cuneiform in- 
 scriptions have be«n discovered (see 
 Loftus, Travels and Researches in Chul- 
 dea and Susiana, London, 1867, pp. 131, 
 161, 162); but this place is much too far 
 to the south. (See more on tliis suljject in 
 tlie Göttinger Gel. Am. 1858, p. 182 sqq.) 
 Still stranger is the notion prevalent 
 among the Moslim, that Abraham mi- 
 grated from Kutha ^".C or \\X in Southern 
 
 Babylonia (see the Marassid, ii. p. 519; 
 Jelaloddin's History of the Temple at 
 Jfrw.sy/^f/rt, translated byEeynolds from the 
 Arabic into English, 1836, pp. 16,333, 427; 
 Chwolson's SsaUer, ii. p. 452 sqq.), wliich 
 was probably derived from the Samaritans. 
 
 ^ As is proved by the reception of one 
 Chesedamongthe Nahorites inGcn.xxii.22 
 
 ^ See Eödiger in the Zeitschrift für das 
 Morgenland, iii. p. 3 sq.
 
 284 PRELBFINARY HISTORY. 
 
 That Eber is called a son of iliis AipLaxad means simply that 
 the Hebrews remembered that they had in their earliest ages 
 lived in this land, and from thence had journeyed to the sontli. 
 Be^'ond this remembrance they manifestly I'etained nothing- ; 
 but that their small nation had once dwelt in that great home 
 of their race was still clear to them. Nothing is hereby really 
 determined respecting the origin and connection of this name, 
 Hebrew, which fills so eminent a place in history ; we are 
 at liberty to snpply the void as we best can. It would be 
 entirely erroneous to assume that the name was given to them 
 only by foreigners after they had passed over the Euphrates, and 
 that it originally signified the people of the farther side, that is, 
 who had come from the farther side. This idea can hardly lie 
 even in the name ; ^ and while there is nothing to show that 
 the name emanated from strangers, nothing is more manifest 
 than that the nation called themselves by it and had done so as 
 long as memory conld reach ; indeed this is the only one of 
 their names that appears to have been current in the earliest 
 times. The history of this name shows that it must have been 
 most frequently used in the ancient times, before that branch of 
 the Hebrews which took the name of Israel became dominant, 
 but that after the time of the Kings it entirely disappeared from 
 ordinary speech,^ and was only revived in the period immediately 
 before Christ, like many other names of the primeval times, 
 through the prevalence of a learned mode of regarding anti- 
 quity, when it came afresh into esteem through the reverence 
 then felt for Abraham.^ 
 
 Of the three great epochs into which the history of this nation 
 
 ' As the region beyond the Euphrates Hebrew is found in the ancient fragment 
 
 is always called "insn "iSy. and never Gen. xiv. ; it is used also by the Earliest 
 
 -iny simply, we sho;id have to assume an Historian, Ex xxi. 2, and by the Third 
 
 'Av ^ •' iSarrator of the primeval history (ben. 
 
 abbreviation found nowhere else, and de- ^j jg^ xjijj^ 32^ probably also Ex. v. 3), 
 
 void of intrinsic probability. The LXX. ^^^ j^ ^he ancient Book of Kings in the 
 
 in translating n3yn. Gen. xiv. 13, by earlier period preceding the death of 
 
 6 Treparns may indeed have had some such Saul, 1 Sam. iv. 9, xiii. 3, 7, xiv. 21 ; 
 
 idea. The sense of any such designation hence it would seem to have been avoided 
 
 is however sli(jwn to be absolutely un- in the Book of Origins, and already for- 
 
 certain by the Euthers of tlie Church, who gotten in the time of the great Prophets, 
 
 know not what to make of it ; as we see Perhaps, however, a trace of this ancient 
 
 from Origen on Numb. xxiv. 24, Matt, national name is preserved in the coni- 
 
 xiv. 22. See also Gott. Gel. Am. 1837, pound word 'Aioßper in Sam-hoviallnm, 
 
 p. 9.59, sq. The doubts which in 1826 I p. 42 (Orelli), if we may alter the reading 
 
 threw out in my Kritbchc. Grammaiik to 'Aj^e/SpeV, and interpret it as ri"'"lDy pj?. 
 
 against this derivation, were only too well Hebn w fountain, i.e. Nymph. 
 founded, though at the time misunderstood ^ As we find for instance in the New 
 
 by many. Testament; John i. 9 is a mere imitation 
 
 ^ Tliis was likewise noticed in my from Gen. xl. From such late writers as 
 
 KritiKche Grammatik of 1826, but it can these is derived tlie modern designation 
 
 be now defined more exactly. The name of the language of Canaan as Hebrew,
 
 THE FIKST TWO AGES. 285 
 
 falls, the name Hebrew strictly denotes tlie earliest, in wliich 
 Israel with great toil strugg-led out as an independent nation 
 from amid the crowd of kindred and alien peoj^les. In the 
 second epoch, in which after the establishment of the kingly 
 rule its native power reached the mightiest development, its 
 name Israel became as sublime and glorious as the nation itself, 
 and su2)planted the older more general name. And as no notable 
 period need want for a suitable sign and name, the third and 
 last epoch of the history is distinguished by the name Jew, 
 together with a resuscitation of the old name Hebrew. In like 
 manner, in the sichere of religion these three epochs, which 
 embrace the whole history, are distinguished by a change in the 
 mode of speaking the Divine name Jahveh (Jahveli alone, Jahveh 
 Sabaoth, Jahveh suppressed) ; for thus great national changes 
 and revolutions generally leave their mark on words and names 
 in daily use. Thus then the national name Hebrew, even 
 more than the Divine name Jahveh, reaches up into the earliest 
 times ; and the people, seeing in it nothing less than the token 
 of their own origin, called their progenitor Eber. 
 
 But since Eber (as before observed) was conceived only as one 
 son of Arphaxad, we are entitled to ask further whether these 
 Hebrews, who could have inhabited but a small portion of the 
 ancient land of the Chaldeans, had not a connection with any 
 more distant region. And here the name of the Iberians, who 
 dwelt somewhat farther to the north, forces itself upon us 
 involuntarily, so that we can hardly help thinking of some 
 connection with them. What language among the hundreds 
 spoken in that medley of races in the Caucasus ^ that of the 
 Iberians was, it is not possible for us to unriddle from the 
 short description which Strabo gives of them ; ^ but there is 
 nothing to oppose the possibility that they and their language 
 were originally of the Semitic stock. Up to this great parting 
 of the nations we should then be enabled to trace back the 
 stream of their national life to its source, though of the primary 
 signification of their name it is as difficult to speak as of the 
 
 ' Strabo, xi. 2, 16. The original meaning of the name He- 
 
 = Strabo, xi. 3. That the Iberians a ^^^^^ '* of course not determined thereby; 
 
 the otlier end of the ancient world, in and we may therefore conjecture that it is 
 
 Spain, were related to them, was only a connected with the root ^z to explain, to 
 
 conjecture of some ancient writi'rs; whicli -^' 
 
 S. F. W. Hoflfmann (Die Iberer im Osten ^1'^'^^ P^«"»- ''^ expound, and thus desig- 
 
 und im Westen, Lpz. 1838) supports, but nates the nation which was separated by 
 
 with ineffectual arguments. The Arme- it« language from all non-Hebrews, and 
 
 niah pronunciation, J^era, shows that the -^ ' ^ 
 
 long vowel of the Greek form was not contrast« them with the tyi"? or ,^- 
 
 essential, (Welsh, Barbarians). ^
 
 286 PRELLMIXARY HISTORY. 
 
 names of the Arameans (except that this name seems to have 
 been originally identical with that of the Armenians), or of the 
 Assji-ians, Chaldeans, Ljdians, and Elameans. And how easily 
 a section of a nation mig-lit migrate southwards from the 
 Caucasian Iberia, and then grow into historical greatness, is 
 shown by the very similar case which Amos ' briefly mentions. 
 It was well known in the time of Amos that the Arameans 
 (here used in the narrower sense of the Damascenes ^) had 
 emigrated from the Cyrus, the same river that, according to 
 Strabo, flows through Iberia also ; although Amos by a strange 
 sport of destiny was conii^elled to threaten them with banish- 
 ment to this same northern river, which had then become 
 Assyrian.^ 
 
 That the name of Hebrews originally included more nations 
 than Israel alone follows not only from the position Avhich the 
 ancient tradition gives to Eber, but also from other indications. 
 When the ancient fragment, Gen. xiv. 13, gives the epithet 
 ' the Hebrew ' to Abraham (though his name in itself by no 
 means suggests the word Hebrew^), it evidently ascribes to the 
 name Hebrew a much wider extension, and speaks just as 
 we might expect from the primitive views of national rela- 
 tionships contained in the genealogical tables of the Book of 
 Origins. In like manner the Fifth Narrator, who had several 
 very old accounts before his eyes, speaks of ' all the sons of 
 Eber,' in a place where he must have had in view many more 
 nations than the one people of Israel.^ The name Hebrew, 
 indeed, belongs to all the nations who came over the Euplirates 
 with Abraham. So also long before Abraham, according to 
 ancient tradition, a powerful branch of the Hebrews, under the 
 name Joktan,^ had migrated into the south of Arabia and there 
 founded flourishing kingdoms ; for nothing else can be meant 
 when Joktan (Gen. x. 25-30) is made the second son of Eber. 
 And since in northern Arabia many tribes are placed in a close 
 relation to Abraham, the name Hebrew might well be very pre- 
 dominant throughout the whole length of that country. But 
 
 ' Amos ix. 7. more Ihiui tlic whole land of Canaan. 
 - According to Amos i. 5. " Tlie name pp''- LXX. 'UicTav, as also 
 
 ' Amos i. 5. - o^ J o- 
 
 ■• Although Artapanus, in Eusebii P/Y(?/5. '-^r*-', his son k,,^,'?^.!^', and all the 
 
 Kranff Ax. 18, derives the name Hebrew names" with s prefixed present a eliarae- 
 
 from Abraham. ^^^y^^^^^ f„rmatiün of the aneient Hebrew 
 
 Because Gen. x. 21, a verse inserted (see Lehrbuch, § ir)2a), which probably 
 
 by the Fifth Narrator, speaks in the style distinguished it from all other branches of 
 
 of the genealogies. The same narrator the Semitic stock ; the pronunciation of 
 
 liowcver in Numb. xxiv. 24 (where the ^, , , , , n •• i 
 
 context is very different), understands the ^'^^ ^''^'"' '^'''^^''^ ^^-^'' '^'""•' ^^' ^""'" 
 
 name Eber, as used in poetry, to mean no parison therewith tu be Arabised.
 
 THE FIRST TWO AGES. 28T 
 
 we mnst beware of fancying tliat the name Arab, whicb was 
 gradually extended to all the nations of that immense country 
 only after the setenth century before Christ, was produced only 
 by a slight modification of the older name Hebrew.^ 
 
 The people who remained in the north on the far side of the 
 Euphrates seem then to have founded several small kingdoms, 
 the memory of which (see p. 268) has probably been retained in 
 the names of the four direct descendants of Eber, and among 
 whom the Nahoreans, who lived in Harran, have been some- 
 what more fully described for us because of Jacob's close con- 
 nection with them. That Nahor is the name both of the 
 father and of the second of the three sons of Terah (seep. 273), 
 agrees well with this supposition; and the name of Haran, 
 the third of the three sons of Terah and the father of Lot, 
 is probably still preserved in that of a northern country, the 
 situation of which agrees not ill with the idea.^ 
 
 3. Accordingly, in the migration from Ur-Chasdim dis- 
 tinguished by the name of Abraham and his companions, as 
 well as in the subsequent one of Jacob, who took the same 
 direction from the more southerly Harran, we see only con- 
 tinuations of the migratory movements of this primitive 
 people, which, after having struck out probably in many direc- 
 tions, now took its farthest course towards the south-west, and 
 thus found its last goal in Egypt. But this leads us into a new 
 region. Here rises into view the land which Avas destined to 
 be to the children of Israel, when arrived at maturity and com- 
 peting for the good places of the earth, infinitely more sacred 
 than ever the fatherland of their childhood had been ; and on 
 which the plot was laid of all the rich history that follows. Yet 
 so long as the migration reaches only the fore-land of Egypt, 
 Canaan, and not that great centre and point of attraction 
 of ancient civilisation itself, we remain gtill only in the Pri- 
 meval History. 
 
 ' This name xiudoubtedly may be traced Arabia, since 2"iy resembles the Hebrew 
 back to the signification 21V Sfej>pc ^^^-jy, but is foreign to ordinary Arabic. 
 (Isaiah xxi. 13), as also according to the 
 
 Moslira only the i^\^z\ are genuine ' .J^J^ °'' <^'.^^J whose capital is Ber- 
 
 Bedouins, and these two names are inter- daa. See Kcmaleldln in Freytag's Chres- 
 
 changeable(Hamäsa,p. 294r,v. 2);butthese tomathy,^. 138,8; Abnlfida's Geography, 
 
 very words of Isaiah (xxi. 13) show that in p. 386 sq. ed. Reinaiid ; and Journal 
 
 the ninth or eighth century it was not yet Aüatique, 18i7, i. p. 444 ; ii. p. 4'>3 ; in 
 
 in use; aud according to Jer. iii. 2, Ezek. Armenian probably Harkh (which is only 
 
 xxvii. 21, and Isaiah xiii. 20, it was not a plural form); in Moses Chor. History, 
 
 current till the seventh century, when the i. 9, 10, Geography, Ixix. On another 
 
 name Hebrew had been long obsolete. But Ai-ran beyond the Tigris in Media, see 
 
 the iisage of language shows that this Rawlinson in Journal of the Boyal Gco- 
 
 ua'ue originated in Northern not Central graphical Society, x. 81 sq. 139 sq.
 
 288 IMIELLMLXAEY IIISTOKY. 
 
 C. THE TIIIED AGE. 
 
 1. The Three Patriarchs of the Nation. 
 
 The Third Age is properly (according to p. 275 sqq.) that of 
 the Heroes.^ Those only are strictly Heroes, whom every nation 
 boasts of possessing in the time of its fresh energy and youth, 
 and of whom the earliest and most powerful serves as the founder 
 or father of the nation itself. For the conception of such pre- 
 historic heroes afterwards spreads further, and the like grand 
 forms are finally transferred even into the preceding ages ; so 
 that their collective image is constantly being removed farther 
 and higher (of which we had an example at p. 275) ; but their 
 proper place is unquestionably in this Third Age, immediately 
 before the historic period. And they may be conceived as 
 entirely filling the space of this age, the Book of Origins even 
 jjlacing the last remnants of the Hero-race in the earliest part 
 of the age of Moses as enemies of Israel.^ But since in the case 
 of Israel their Egyptian period makes the boundary between 
 the two last ages, all the persons who in the strict sense may 
 be called their fathers fall before this time, especially those 
 whom in the spirit of the tradition itself we must distinguish 
 under the name of the three Patriarchs. 
 
 The region of these three Patriarchs is thus sharply defined 
 on both sides. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob-Israel are, accord- 
 ing to the trae national feeling, the great names of the three 
 sole founders and types of the Canaan ite-Hebrew nation ; the 
 addition of Joseph to the number belongs to a much later 
 view.^ In the old tradition concerning them their sphere is 
 separated from that which precedes it by the fact that they 
 first tread the holy ground, and thus Avith them the narra- 
 tive first acquires the true Mosaic expansion and warmth of 
 tone. From the following it is separated by the fact that even 
 Joseph's life sinks into the scale usiial in the later age, while 
 the three others all remain upon the higher scale of the as yet 
 little enfeebled hero-life. 
 
 The exact investigation of this region is rendered difficult, 
 
 ' D''~l'3-l. oi", necordiiif:; to tlic earlier ^ Numb. xiii. 22, 28, 33. 
 mor.. mythical appellation, Q-^'.^J. See ' It is clear from the affeof the passap;cs 
 
 ^ ', , J,.,, „r ■■ \' Ps. Ixxvii. IG I lö|, Ixxx. 2 [lJ,L\xxi. 6 [Öl. 
 i\K Jahrb. der Jhhl. Jf !.v,s. vu. j.. 18 s(]. "- ' ^ ^ '- -"
 
 TU I Kb AUE. 28Ü 
 
 bocanse (witli a very few exceptions to be mentioned sliortlj) wc 
 liave knowledge of it only from Biblical sonrces, since these three 
 Patriarchs could not possibly be to other nations what they were 
 to the Hebrews after Moses. But there is some compensation 
 in the greater fulness and variety that are here to be observed 
 for the first time in the specially Hebrew accounts. If we 
 recognise in this far-off cloud-land comparatively little real 
 history with the desirable certainty and completeness, we wel- 
 come the more gladly some important truths which are in the 
 strictest sense historical, as soon as we are prepared to see 
 them, aright. 
 
 But the more narrowly we reinvestigate the multitude of 
 primitive traditions and reminiscences here united, which upon 
 a closer view appear remarkably rich and varied, the more 
 manifest it becomes that even in those ancient times when their 
 foundation was laid there were two veins from which, by a kind 
 of intermingling, they grew into their present form. One half 
 only, though indeed by far the most important one, is so to 
 speak purely Hebrew ; and this carries us easily and securely 
 back to the basis of the true history of that primeval period when 
 the nation of Israel and those immediately related to it were 
 formed. Of another kind are single scattered traditions, which 
 in their essential substance and general bearing reciu' also 
 among other ancient nations belonging to the same sphere of 
 high civilisation, different as they may at the first glance ap- 
 pear in the naines of places and of persons. The carrying off 
 of Sarah and of E-ebekah by a foreign king has unmistakable 
 resemblance to the Greek legend of Helen and the Hindu story 
 of Sita ; and in the original meaning of these traditions unques- 
 tionably it was the honour and beauty of the kingdom itself of 
 whose protection and recovery they spoke. In like manner, as 
 will be shown below, many things narrated of Isaac and Jacob 
 recur in the traditions of the most ancient neighbouring nations.* 
 In fact, we have here only fragments of a primitive body of 
 tradition existing in these regions long before the time of these 
 Patriarchs, which early mingled itself with the remembrance of 
 the grand patriarchal days, and adorned that with many flowers 
 which then, bedewed by the spirit of the religion of Israel, 
 shone again with a double radiance. How this might happen 
 is shown by the case explained above Q). 275 sqq.), as well 
 
 ' It is perfectly obvious that this ex- covery of wine. Athen. Dcipn. xv. 6, 8, 
 
 tends much further, to later as well as to Hygin. Fah. 130. See also vol. 2 on 
 
 earlier times. loarius, like Noah in Gen. Jephthah and Samson, 
 ix. 21, meets with disaster through his dis- 
 
 VOL. I. U
 
 2C0 TRELIMIXAEY HISTORY. 
 
 as by many otliers ; and nothing else so clearly indicates the 
 antiquity of all these traditions respecting the Patriarchs as 
 the fact that through them we can look back farther into a 
 still remoter sphere. A third soiu-ce of these traditions is found 
 in the peculiar legends of the Canaanites ; that of Sodom, for 
 example, Gen. xviii. xix. is unquestionably purely Canaanitic. 
 
 That which may still be recognised as belonging to the an- 
 cient accounts of the time of these Patriarchs, will be here 
 explained with a careful distinction of its sources. At a later 
 period the history of the Patriarchs, in common with the whole 
 of the primeval history and even that of Moses, gradually be- 
 came a field for arbitrary invention, as may be seen in the ex- 
 tant fragments of that literature : • but upon these no close 
 attention need be bestowed. 
 
 II. The Cycle of the T\\^elve Types. 
 
 If we look simply at the prevailing character of the narra- 
 tives and representations of this period given in the most an- 
 cient sources, we shall find little that is really historical to say 
 of the three Patriarchs. For on a close view it is obvious that 
 to the nation as we see it in the time of Moses they had not 
 only long served as types, and therefore receded more and more 
 into a prehistoric region, but also that they were members of 
 a very large circle of national types. 
 
 When an ancient people occupied a jjosition from which it 
 could look back upon a previous period of grandeur and re- 
 nown, in which its own foundations had been laid and its 
 organisation advanced, the few indestructible personages of that 
 past, its true Heroes, naturally formed in the imagination a 
 circle, and were treated as so many members of a typical house. 
 For the distinction of a Hero, as contrasted with a God, so long 
 at least as they are not confounded with each other (Avliich 
 generally took place in the more refined heathen religions), is 
 this : that the God is the type of all men, but the Hero of one 
 special order, correspondent to his own character; the Hero 
 being always conceived as the man of his age, stamped with all 
 its peculiarities. Thus a limited type is involved in the very 
 
 ' ^Vii instance of this soi-t of Egyptian- fictition.s early histor}' on Slicm and liis 
 
 Abraliamic history, witli a king Nokao, age. But the iise of Aln-aham's and 
 
 with Jcrusah'm, &c., is given by Josophns Isaac's names in adjuration by the Egyp- 
 
 in liis JfVfi.sh Wars, v. 9, 4, but not re- tians and others, aflRrmed hy Origen, 
 
 pealed in his AnilquitlrK. In an addcn- Contra Cclstnn, i. 5. 1, ir. 4. 3 sq., can 
 
 dum, given liy a Gre('k codex to Barnabas f)nly be referred to a hitcr confusion of. 
 
 .\ii. ed. Dress., may Ite seen a piece of religions.
 
 THIRD AGE. 291 
 
 conception of tlie Hero. And since the family, especially in the 
 wide sense of the Patriarchal world, is the primary sphere of 
 the manifold interests and activities of man, and in antiqnity, 
 much more than at the present day, even a considerable nation 
 considered itself to be living together in the domestic circle of 
 a house,^ we cannot wonder that a national hero was always re- 
 garded not as an individual only, but as a member of a typical 
 house, who is distinctly remembered mainly by virtue of the 
 definite position he held in it. The distant period when 
 these Heroes lived is the sacred time, past but never to be 
 forgotten and in spirit ever present, in which the nation as a 
 house or family first gained the true feeling of a home. Around 
 its hearth are ranged the historic forms to which the nation 
 looks up as types of all the various members of its lower present 
 house, while many subordinate persons of the same circle owe 
 the vivid impression they have left merely to their connection 
 with the rest. Heroes of every possible complexion are gene- 
 rally embraced in a certain definite circle ; around one or two 
 chief heroes others are ranked as counterj)arts, and fill their 
 necessary place. If the Hiad, however, owing to special causes 
 represents a scene of camps and battles, the Odyssey, like the 
 Ramayanaand Mahäbharata, exhibits the domestic life of Heroes 
 and Heroines, and this view will ever tend to become the domi- 
 nant one. Even when under peculiar circumstances the grouj^s 
 of Heroes and of Gods are intermingled, and produce that 
 elaborate heathen mythology which we see in its completest form 
 among the Greeks and the Hindus, the very heavens become 
 the seat of a typical house, and Indra or Zeus is but the pre- 
 eminent father and ruler of the organised circle of gods of the 
 most varied qualities who surround him. 
 
 Although the typical house of the people of Israel has come 
 down to us incomplete in some of its members, we may by some 
 attention see that it embraced a circle of exactly twelve mem- 
 bers, who were again distributed according to the seven funda- 
 mental relations possible to an ancient Patriarchal house. At 
 the head stand — 
 
 1. The three Patriarchs themselves as the Fathers and most 
 prominent forms of this typical house. The combination 
 of these three may be compared with that of Agamemnon, 
 Achilles and Ulysses, around whom the whole Iliad ranges 
 
 ' It is not poots only who still porpctn- Josh. xxi. -l.l ; 1 Sam. vii. 1 sriq. ; 2 Sani; 
 
 ally speak of the house of Jacob (Isaiah i. 12, ii. 4-11, v. 6, 1.5, xii. S, xv. 3; 
 
 xxix. 22 ; Amos v. 1, 5, vi. 11), but also 1 Kings xii. 21, 23, xx. 31). 
 historians (Ex. xvi. 31, xl. 38 ; Lev. x. G ;
 
 292 PRELIMINARY HISTORY. 
 
 itself, or with Aiicliises, ^neas, and Ascanius in the Trojan 
 legends : what follows agrees still more exactly. In the Hindu 
 legends, with the chief hero there is generally ranked a secon- 
 dary one, who reflects in a lower degree his exalted character, 
 as if from an appi^ehension of the truth that an ideal type 
 can only be seen in its right light by means of an inferior yet 
 asj^iring copy of itself, and from the desire to place before 
 ordinary men wdio could not rise to the level of the ideal a 
 lower yet still admirable model. In these legends the secon- 
 dary hero appears as a younger brother of the chief : as Rama 
 and Lakshmana, Krishna and Bala. And in the Mahabharata, 
 where the idea of the chief hero assumes a threefold form in the 
 persons of Judhishthira, Bhima, and Arjuna as representatives 
 of the three kingly virtues of justice, valour, and wisdom,' there 
 stand beside these three elder brothers at least two younger, bear- 
 ing a like significance. So Isaac stands beside Abraham, lower, 
 but resembling him, nnder the conception of a son who in all 
 things faithfully follows his father. Jacob is then introduced 
 as the third of this series, though in a dijfferent character. He 
 also, as father of the nation, is a type, but under quite another 
 aspect : so little can even the combination of the three Fathers 
 in a tyj)ical house conceal the fact that the house on which in 
 after years the nation looked back with pride as the home 
 of its childhood, really grew out of two different houses ; some- 
 what as in the heroic legends of Rome Numa was put beside 
 Romulus and Remus ^ as worthy of no less reverence ; or as in 
 the Greek myth, Hercules was at length received into the house 
 of Olympus. Standing side by side each has an equal claim to 
 the honour of being a father in the typical house ; yet with 
 this equality a certain diversity of character may be perceived, 
 even as the linman relationships, whose types they are, amid a 
 common excellence exhibit great variety. The nature of this 
 variety will be more suitably explained hereafter : it is evident 
 that the paternal, as the first of the seven fundamental relations 
 of every house, admits most obviously of this internal variety, 
 here presented in a threefold form. 
 
 2^. As the type of the Wife there appears Sai^ah, as that of 
 the Concubine Hagar, both standing by the side of the first of 
 the three Fathers, and partaking of his higher dignity. Con- 
 sidering Sarah under this aspect, we can apprehend the full sig- 
 
 ' Eut in Ibis instance it is characteris- ^ These two, curiously, form a similar 
 
 fieally Hindu, that Arjuna, as the type of pair to Kama and Lakshmana in the Hindu 
 
 wisdom, has at least a spiritual supremacy tradition; altlioufjjh Romulus, who from 
 
 over his two brothers, and accomplishes his name ought to be the younger, conquers 
 
 more tlxan tliey. Remus.
 
 THIRD AGE, 293 
 
 nificance of tlie story, undoubtedly popular in antiquity, of lier 
 rescue from the hands of a lascivious prince. This narrative as it 
 stands in Gen. xx. is Canaanitic and ijrimeval ; with some mo- 
 difications it is transferred by the Fourth Narrator to Egypt, 
 Gen. xii. 10-20; and in Gen. xxvi. 7-11 is applied by others 
 to Rebekah also. Like Sarah, her type, every chaste matron in 
 times when wanton hands were everjrwhere, hoped to live in 
 honour ; and in so far nothing can be objected against the his- 
 torical signification of the narrative. But the fact that it was 
 deemed important to associate with the wife the concubine as 
 her inferior counterpart, and to jAnce them in mutual relation, 
 proves, quite as strongly as the marriage of two sisters at once 
 to the same husband (to be presently mentioned),^ that this con- 
 ception of the Twelve Types had its origin before the time of 
 Moses. 
 
 3- As type of the Child there appears Isaac ; exhibiting 
 the same quiet and cheerful spirit also as father by the side of 
 Abraham. As type of the true child, he serves in the Mosaic 
 community as an example of circumcision. Gen. xxi. 4. How 
 old the origin of this view is, is clear from the fact that all 
 the existing stories of their long and anxious waiting for him, 
 of his choice as the heir, of his childlike obedience and his 
 trustful journey even to sacrifice at his father's will, refer essen- 
 tially to this his typical significance. 
 
 4. The same Isaac in union with Rebekah stands as the type 
 of true Betrothal and Marriage, represented in a charming idyl 
 of unsurpassable beauty and true Mosaic spirit in the fragment 
 Gen. xxiv, emanating from the Fourth Narrator. 
 
 5. But because the marriage-bond did not always retain this 
 true and simple character, least of all in the early times, Leah 
 and Rachel were admitted into the circle, as types of the posi- 
 tion of one wife towards another equally legitimate, but less 
 beloved : a fi-equent case, especially in the primitive times.^ 
 But, the frequency of this relation being presupposed, the type 
 demanded an exactly equal original title on the part of each 
 without favour or disfavour, and only in this sense can they (like 
 the two knights of the Hindu and Greek mythology), be inse- 
 parably ranged together m the typical house. 
 
 6. To complete the number of female members of the typi- 
 cal household, we have Deborah, Rebekah's nui-se, as type of 
 the Nurse of Heroes, to whom is assigned an elevated position 
 
 ' Contrary to Lev. xviii. 18. See my Academy's Mooiaishcricldc, 18.59, p. 340. 
 AJtcHhiuiicr, p. 227, and similar instances ^ j)j,^,t xxi. 10-17, 
 from Iliiidu antiqiiily in the Berlin
 
 294 PK 1 11. 1. MIX A UV IIISTOUV. 
 
 in the traditions of other nations also.^ Much more mention must 
 have been made of her orig-inallj, and her memory is almost lost 
 in the existing traditions, which are. certainly in part greatly 
 curtailed. In Gen. xxiv. 59 she is meant, though not expressly 
 named ; but the few words respecting her death and the tree 
 held sacred to her memory in Gen. xxxv. 8 sufficiently testify to 
 the spirit of the earlier story. And the fact that the later judge 
 of the same name (Judges iv. v.) , who was also a kind of hero- 
 nui'se, had her seat under this same tree at Bethel,^ is a fresh 
 proof of the ancient spread of the tradition respecting her. 
 
 7. Finally, to close the circle, is added as the twelfth t3^pe 
 Abraham's upper Servcmt and steward,^ whose position accord- 
 ing to the whole constitution of the ancient house is so far 
 honourable and important that he could no more be omitted 
 in the series of types, than in Olympus the doorkeeper and 
 messenger. It is true his memory has suffered in what has 
 come down to us, and only casually, in an antique phrase in 
 Gen. XV. 2, has his name Eliezer of Damascus been preserved : 
 but how dignified a part he played in the tradition in its living 
 freshness may be plainly seen in the beautiful description of his 
 service Gen. xxiv., where he is unquestionably intended, though 
 not named. 
 
 In this manner we can still, on the whole with great certainty, 
 understand this cycle of types of the national life, and see how 
 complete it was.^ The best proof of it is, farther, that all the tra- 
 ditions which do not rest upon one of these twelve types, or upon 
 Lot, Ishmael or Esau, who are brought into prominence as con- 
 trasts to the three chief heroes, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, have 
 become quite lifeless and empty. The Nahoreans, Gen. xxii. 
 20-24, and the Ketureans or Saracens, Gen. xxv. 1-4, were 
 related nations once as important as the others ; but since they 
 
 ' Comp, the Tmmlua of riautiis ; A^ir- ' It is well known that the Greeks also 
 gil's JlCnciJ, iv. 634, vii. 1 sqq. had a cycU' of twelve pods, or in some dis- 
 ^ As the same topographical position is tricts of eight (see Jihihiisches Ulusdn/i, 
 assigned in eitlier case, the discrepancy in 1843, p. 489). In al! ancient nations we find 
 the name of the tree, which in Gen. xxxv. a tendency to the repetition of similar coni- 
 8 is called the oa/c of lamc^nlation, and in hiuations and round nnmbers : as among 
 Judges iv. 5 11 pah/i, is not of essential the Egyptians, who grouped tlieir deities 
 importance. as father, mother, and child (Wilkinson's 
 " In order to pi'cvent the dispersion of Maimers and Customs, iv. 231), and re- 
 tho family properly in default of a male cognised eight great divinities (Lepsius, 
 lieir, such a one was often adopted as a Chrovologie, i. 2ö3). Let it not, however, 
 son, or married to his master's daugliter; he supposed that the above idea of an an- 
 as is also seen in the story of the powerful cient Hebrew cycle of twelve prototypes was 
 Jiirha, in 1 C'lir. ii. 34 sq. The Tvsta- suggested to me by these examples. On the 
 menlinn Levi, eh. vi., calls this Eliezer contrary, it was forced upon me from the 
 by the name Jiblai, and contains a separate simple investigation of the subject, and I 
 tradition respecting him. w:;s myself .surprisid at the rcsidt.
 
 TUIUT) AGE. 295 
 
 had no place in that ch'cle, their mere names were handed down, 
 and no reminiscence is linked with them. 
 
 As to the age in which this circle of types became fixed in 
 the mind of the people, every indication besides those already 
 mentioned points to the last few centuries before Moses. For 
 true as it may be that these types were among- the wants of every 
 aspiring nation (see pp. 29 sq.), still they generally sprang up 
 to satisfy a felt need, which could only arise while such a 
 nation moved in a very narrow and homelike sphere, and could 
 picture to itself all that was lofty and noble only by looking 
 back to its own past, to the exalted house from which it had 
 issued. It is essentially the domestic and homely spirit that 
 enfolds itself in this circle of paternal types ; in later times as 
 the nation enters into a wider sphere and attains a larger his- 
 tory, an infinite number of new types opens out before it. This 
 consideration leads us to the Premosaic time when Israel dwelt 
 in Egypt, externally ojDpressed and without internal movement, 
 yet with an elevating remembrance of its nobler j)ast. This 
 idea is further fortified by the consideration that the conception 
 of such Heroes is opposed to the strict Mosaic religion, and at 
 least could not have issued from it. For in the sense of an- 
 tiquity the true Hero is a being intermediate between God and 
 man, who, long after he has left the earth, retains a sort of 
 mystic bond with later generations, knows those who look to 
 him, regards them with deep sympathy, and even as a mediator 
 hears their prayers. Thus he becomes the recipient of a kind 
 of worship, which according to strict monotheism is due to One 
 alone ; and thus it is quite fitting that among the Prophets (at 
 a time when the Mosaic doctrine was beginning with greatest 
 vigour to unfold all the consequences involved in it) the Great 
 Unnamed One, although speaking as usual of Abraham and 
 Sarah as the venei-able jiarents of the nation,' is yet driven to 
 the new declaration that the peoj)le of Jahveh must not regard 
 Abraham and Israel as their fathers and protectors, nor address 
 prayers to them, but that Jahveh alone was their Father and 
 Redeemer.^ In this the Mosaic doctrine does but utter that 
 which from the first lay within it, and which must logically 
 sooner or later have come clearly into view. 
 
 But in the first centuries of the Mosaic religion all that cha- 
 racterised the Israelitish nationality in contrast to the other 
 nations was too eagerly grasped to suffer this typical circle to 
 lose much of its value, to the popular heart. If the Mosaic 
 
 ' Itaiali li. 1, 2; ccmp. xlviii. 1. ^ Ifaiah ]xiii. 16; cciiip. Ixiv. 7 [8].
 
 or,G PRELIMINARY HISTORY. 
 
 religion absolutely forbade tlie dedication of a true worship (a 
 cultas) to tlieir persons, their memory, cherisbed above that 
 of all other men, could cleave to sacred places, as the many 
 traditions respecting the three Patriarchs, the pillar at Rachel's 
 grave, Gen. xxxv. 20, and the mourning oak for Deborah (p. 294) 
 show. And to how great an extent, at least in the height of 
 poetical feeling, an enduring reciprocal action between them and 
 the existing nation was affirmed, is shown not only by Jacob's 
 Blessing (Gen. xlix. comp. pp. 69 sq.) but by such extraordi- 
 nary expressions as Jer. xxxi. 15.^ 
 
 We may indeed easily understand that the need of such 
 t^-pes would be felt afresh with every new direction of the 
 national life ; and accordingly later times set up Moses as the 
 type for prophetical gifts, Samson for the Nazarite life, Joseph, 
 Joshua, and David for leadership and rule in different aspects, 
 David for lyrical poetry, and Solomon for wisdom and poetic 
 a,rt. We have also an example which shows how types were set 
 up for individual occupations, and which in age and form closely 
 approaches the great typical circle of the Twelve, in the two 
 Hebrew midwives whom Pharaoh could not induce by his tlireats 
 to destroy the male infants, and of whom the Third I^Tarrator 
 says : ' because they feared God rather than Pharaoh, they were 
 blessed also by God in house and in possessions.' ^ The typical 
 significance of these two midwives is indicated partly by the 
 style of this short narrative, and partly by the fact that there are 
 but two of them, like the two j)hysicians of the Hindu heaven 
 (A9vinau), since this number must have been practically quite 
 insTifficient. Even their names are probably only metaphorical.^ 
 But notwithstanding all this, the twelve primitive types main- 
 tained their preeminence during the centuries which succeeded 
 Moses, the most brilliant period of the nation's history, nor could 
 any other type force itself into equally high and general esteem. 
 
 In this mean between a vivid feeling of their continued 
 spiritual activity, and the avoidance of any act of worship to- 
 wards them, these sacred types of the spirit and the power of 
 the higher religion gained an increasing hold upon the national 
 
 ' Hosea xii. 4 sqq. expresses ver^' dis- xvi. 22. With this was in fact connected 
 
 linctly the feeling of such a living com- the belief in a kind of continuous con- 
 
 niunion between the ancestral father and sciousness on the part of every deceased 
 
 his people. The words in Isaiah xxix. father of a tribe : I Sam. ii. 33 ; 2 Sara. 
 
 22 sqf]., when closely examined, also ad- vii. 16 (according to the common reading), 
 
 mit of a signification whicli is ai)i)ropriate * Ex. i. I.5-2I. 
 
 here (ver. 23, ' when ho sees his sons, as the ' DIQ'J' ni'ij ^o connected with nT*3t^'D 
 
 work of mine hands in him,' i.e. according (gg^p 'j^ös. xiii. 13 ; Is. xxxvii. 3, Ixvi. 9) ; 
 
 to XIX. 25, ' when he sees them amended ^nd ny-IS which has the same sense as 
 
 and blessed [he will see how] they hallow , , ^ . , , , , r ^, 
 
 my name') : similarly, Luke i, r,J, .'-,.5. 72, »''^ l=^'f'>'-. ^''^1' V-13' ^^^ '" ^"•''"^'- f"^^^'-
 
 TIIIKD AGE. 297 
 
 mind, and grew into those beautiful fonns wliicli again became 
 their most eloquent interpreters. Such a revival all those noble 
 forms, so far as they hold an important place in the existing 
 traditions, have visibly experienced ; but especially those which 
 stand highest and gather the others round themselves, the three 
 Patriarchs. As the conception of their spiritual character is 
 developed in the Book of Origins and still more by the Third and 
 Fourth Narrators, they give the pattern of a life which through 
 ceaseless and triumphant aspiring to God receives from him its 
 true streng*th and aid, and thus advances from blessing to 
 blessing. There the heart meets those j)ure and noble forms 
 on which it would gladly repose its faitli, but which it cannot 
 find in the present. In those bright regions it beholds, with a 
 clearness nowhere else to be attained, the true God, whose 
 mighty hand it seeks in vain beneath the veil of the real and 
 the tediousness of daily life, condescending to those who walk 
 worthy of him. And since the Divine blessing on the life of the 
 Patriarchs had been long inly felt by those who looked to them 
 as their types, contemplation, looking back to the primeval 
 time when the foundation of all these blessings was laid, now 
 took a higher flight, and ventured to regard in the reverse 
 order the whole coiu-se of the past and present history, tracing 
 it according to its Divine necessity.^ 
 
 In this res23ect the three Patriarchs are entirely alike : they 
 are all types of an exalted life, and instruments of the Divine 
 blessing for illimitable time. But besides this, which is common 
 to all three, each j)ossesses a very marked character ; for even 
 the absolutely good when embodied in jDersonal life must express 
 itself in diverse modes, without thereby ceasing to be good, and 
 the Patriarchs being thus different are the more fit types of 
 life in its many-coloured reality. It is at the outset desirable 
 and possible that the Mosaic life should be exhibited in an 
 individual person perfect in power and in act ; and of this the 
 first Patriarch Abraham is the type. Initiating as father, 
 founder, and ruler a new era, and deriving neither his know- 
 ledge nor his power from another, he unites the most absolute 
 dominion and original power of soul with the utmost purity, 
 j)eacefulness, and energy of action ; perfectly irrej^roachable, 
 and yet at the same time ruling and conquering by his own 
 
 ' Gen. xvii. 2-8 ; xxxv. 11, 12, from the thoy were written, not only pride, Imt also 
 
 Book of Origins; xii. 2, 3, 7, xiii. 14-17, eagerness to live not unworthily of .sucii 
 
 XV. 18 Sqq.. xxii. 17, 18, xxvi. 4, xxviii. ancestors, and are therefore to be regardi'J 
 
 14, by the Fourth and Fifth Narrators, as only theoretical and conditional, is seen 
 
 Uut that such glorious words were intended from one clear and admirable hint, thrown 
 
 to excite in tiiose of later days for whom out in Gen. xviii. lo, 19.
 
 298 Pili: LIM 1 NARY HISTORY. 
 
 godlike power, comparable at most to a* ' Prince of God ' (Gen. 
 xxiii. 6 : comp. xxi. 22), or to a ' Prophet ' (Gen. xx. 7), and as 
 the most generally perfect placed at the head of the triad. 
 But there are not many who can equal or approach such a type. 
 And after such an example has once been given, it is more 
 than mere duty, it is excellence rather, not to fall behind him 
 but to tread faithfully in his footsteps and inherit his bless- 
 ing ; a life less highly pitched may also be a good one, and 
 may be crowned with a blessing not inferior. Of this life the 
 type is Isaac, living from his birth in possession of high 
 wordly endowments, not of lofty independent power, but faitli- 
 ful, kind, and gentle, preserving that which was already given, 
 and thus at last blest like Abraham. And if few can emulate 
 Abraham, it may be hoped that many or even all might be like 
 this second Patriarch. But experience shows how few there 
 are among the multitude even of those peaceful and upright 
 souls whose type Isaac is ; uncertainty of will and its conse- 
 quences, crafty designs or passion-guided actions, carry away 
 so many even amid the light of truth. And the issue of such 
 deviations must be a terrible strife, in which the struggler may 
 indeed be finally victorious and return to the good, but only 
 through long suffering and by the strenuous exertion of all his 
 noblest powers, often bearing too for the rest of his life an out- 
 ward mark as a memento of his perilous encounter. The tjqje 
 of this life, good and blest in the end but conquering only after 
 severe strife and deserved sorrow, is Jacob-Israel, who for this 
 very reason stands last and lowest in the series and bears a 
 twofold name, Jacob, ' the crafty,' in his lower human aspect ; 
 ' Israel,' ' the God-striver,' after his last divine victory ; though 
 even then he remains at least in body ' the halting,' Gen. 
 xxxii. 32 [31]. In this victorious end he stands as a type; 
 but it is manifestly in that double- sidedness that he corre- 
 sponds most perfectly with the actual nation which also revered 
 in him its immediate father. Among the three he was evi- 
 dently the hero best known and most beloved in later ages ; 
 and many traditions from the sphere of the lower life (which 
 would not have accorded with the elevation and dignity of 
 Abraham) have been retained in the series of legends, here 
 very differently coloured, given by our chief narrator. Tra- 
 ditions such as that he lifted with ease a well-stone which 
 all the other shepherds together could scarcely raise (Gen. 
 xxix. 10) ; that he discovered the art of producing particular 
 colours in lambs not yet born (xxx. 37 sqq.) ; even that he 
 wrestled till morning witli a spirit of the night that attacked
 
 THIRD ACE. 299 
 
 him (xxxii. 25 [24]), go back into the region of the primitive 
 Palestinian traditions, and belong in their origin and natnre 
 to the same rank with those related of Ulysses, Apollo, or 
 Krishna.^ 
 
 But in every complete tradition, which exhibits an Heroic 
 Pantheon, as the Iliad or the Mahabharata for example, the 
 most i^rominent personages and tyi)es are confronted by an 
 eqnal number of counterparts, as enemies : and here Lot, Ish- 
 mael, and Esau appear as the three counter-heroes. To furnish 
 these contrasts, the traditions which were developed among the 
 kindred nations around were unquestionably early blended with 
 those of the Israelites. For although at the present day all 
 indej)endent accounts of the traditions of these nations are lost, 
 we can plainly trace the intermixture. There can be no more 
 genuinely Arabian tradition than that in which Hagar in the 
 midst of the desert and utterly despairing of life suddenly dis- 
 covers a well till then unknown, and meets as it were a visible 
 messenger from heaven.^ And as the Arabs who trace their de- 
 scent from Ishmael were certainly at all times a far more nume- 
 rous people than the Israelites, and the Idumeans much earlier 
 civilised, the existing traditions speak of Ishmael and Esau as 
 by nature the first-born, giving them in this respect the same 
 place as they held in the foreign traditions. But since the 
 Israelites at the time of the chief narrator had become con- 
 scious of their intellectual if not political superiority over these 
 kindred nations, these foreign traditions had already been trans- 
 formed by them: the three ancestors of the other nations, though 
 still eminent of their kind, and serving as types for lower classes 
 of persons and spheres of life, being regarded as not reaching 
 the same height of spiritual cajDacity and dignity as the three 
 Israelite types, and therefore as quitting the Holy Land. They 
 correspond also in the successive lowering of the three types, 
 the most admirable counterpart being opposed to the sublimest 
 type. The relation of Abraham to his nej)hew Lot (Moab- 
 Ammon) is the delightful and reciprocally beneficent relation 
 of a superior who rules solely by personal loftiness of character 
 towards an inferior who freely yields to it and is protected by 
 it ; a pattern of peaceful agreement and mutual blessing between 
 two neighbouring persons or nations. Ishmael, Avho with his 
 mother Hagar presents the image of the proud intractable 
 
 ' I licro lay especial stress on this point, nearest to tlie later nation, and never in 
 
 with reference to ■what has Leen already connection with Abraham. Yet it does 
 
 stated, p. 289. It is equally remarkable with Sarah, according to p. 292, coni- 
 
 that nothing of this sort is found except pared with p. 289. 
 in connection with this Putriareli, the - Gen. xxi. 1ü-19; comp. xvi. 7, II.
 
 300 PEELTMINARY HISTORY. 
 
 temper of tlio Arab of tlie desert, departs from Canaan not so 
 easily and willing-ly as Lot indeed, but still without strife with 
 the mild and loving- Isaac; and he always holds his place as the 
 first-born of Abraham, and is highly honoured in the tradition 
 as the representative of a great and powerful nation, though 
 descended from Abraham only as the son of a concubine. Esau, 
 on the other hand, rightly the first-born, also loses at length 
 his birthright, because he sinks back into barbarism from a 
 state of culture previously attained, but only after a long and 
 not inglorious struggle with Jacob, an adversary inferior in 
 external strength but superior in craft and art : the true type 
 of a nation which (like the Idumeans, the next of kin to the 
 Hebrews) fails to maintain faithfully and carefully the blessings 
 it once possessed, and so, notwithstanding considerable external 
 power and more truthful natural feeling, succumbs at last to 
 the arts of a persevering and more highly aspiring brother- 
 nation ; ' and also the representative of the historical struggles 
 of the Postmosaic nations. In this manner the three counter- 
 parts of the genuine Hebrew heroes also form a complete circle ; 
 so that when the primitive tradition had to tell of other related 
 nations and ancestors, e.g. of the Nahoreans (Gen. xxii. 20-24) 
 and the sons of Ketui-ah (Gen. xxv. 1-4), these have maintained 
 no vital connection with the already perfect story, but lie dead 
 beside it, the demand for counterparts to the thi-ee great forms 
 of the primeval Hebrew times having exhausted itself in these 
 three foreign ancestors. 
 
 III. The History of the Three Patriarchs. 
 
 If nothing more than the typical signification of each form in 
 this Hero-Pantheon had been handed down to us, we might 
 with justice insist that the three Patriarchs must at least have 
 lived and performed extraordinary deeds, because otherwise 
 there would be no accounting for the rise of the existing tradi- 
 tions respecting them ; but we should be obliged to forego any 
 inquiry into their significance as historical persons. The type, 
 once set up with such decision, is with difficulty defined in the 
 conception of those who cleave to it with their whole soul, 
 except in so far as it defines itself by contact with its fellow 
 types ; and the endeavour to apprehend it introduces other 
 views, which are incapable of strict historical proof, but without 
 which it is supposed impossible to conceive it. 
 
 But happily there is open to us, at least in respect to Abra- 
 
 " In the siimo way as thn 'honest,' fore the Frciu'hinau — deservedly, bocauso 
 (Jeiiiiaii has always had to give w;iy bo- tlirougli lii.s own t'lidt.
 
 THE THREE PATEIARCHS. 301 
 
 liam, a source of another kind liitlierto little regarded by recent 
 scliolars, wliicli at once introduces us into a very different region 
 of historical contemplation, and affords us the clearest view 
 into tlie Ideality of his history. This is the fragment in Gen. xiv, 
 of small extent but inestimable value to the historian, of the 
 general nature and significance of which we have sj)oken in 
 pp. 52 sq.^ Here we see Abraham in real life, often very 
 different from the Abraham of the other writers. He wages 
 war, of which, as not very befitting to a Prophet and Saint 
 in the Mosaic senscj the other accounts nowhere give the 
 remotest indication. With the Canaanites Aner, Eshcol and 
 Mamre (of whom we have not the most distant knowledge from 
 other sources, and whose names have a thoroughly historical 
 sound) he stands in a mutual league which pledges them to 
 help one another in war ; he thus, exactly like them, looks 
 like the head of a powerful house in Canaan. He receives 
 a blessing from the Canaanite priest-king Melchizedek, and 
 renders homage to him as it can be rendered only to a priest of 
 high antiquity. Bat while all this, diverge as it may from the 
 other representations, is historically so lucid and self-evident as 
 to entitle us to say that here we have the true picture of the 
 highest antiquity, and so Abraham must have acted in real life, 
 he is at the same time endowed with so simple yet so exalted a 
 greatness, so sympathetic in Lot's fate, so devoted and free 
 from all self-seeking, nay, so nobly indignant at the very ap- 
 pearance of it (ver. 21-24), and so venerated by his contem- 
 poraries, that we can well comprehend how from such an 
 Abraham of real life the Abraham of tradition could arise. 
 Also in respect to his external condition and abode this primi- 
 tive narration (ver. 18) agrees with the main contents of the 
 prevailing tradition. To this it may be added, that in this 
 fragment Abraham is touched upon not deliberately, but rather 
 incidentally, since its aim is evidently a much more general one 
 than to describe the history of Abraham. And thus nothing 
 remains for us, but to rejoice in the rare good fortune which 
 has preserved to us this single instructive fragment : for he 
 who after a carefal study of it could still doubt the reality of 
 the lives of Abraham and Lot, can scarcely be even beginning 
 to see anything with certainty in this field of history. 
 
 Further, there glimmer also out of the prevalent traditions 
 not a few scintillations of reality. Especially peculiar to 
 
 ' I drew attention as o.irly as 1831 to tioncil, seo a full disquisition, by Tueli, in 
 the extreme importance of the passajre, the Z'itsch. der D cut. Morcjcnl. Gcs. 1847, 
 Goa. xiv. On the localities there mju- p. 161-194.
 
 302 PRELIMINARY HISTORY. 
 
 the author of the Book of Origins is a very clear and firmly 
 held conception of the difference between the primitive Patri- 
 archal and the Mosaic times ; and to one who in our day 
 studies the history of that primeval period it gives a true 
 pleasure to observe how simple and pure the fragmentary remi- 
 niscences of it, reduced in number as they even then were, re- 
 mained. He has a clear consciousness that the art of writing, 
 with all its conseqiTcnces, was wanting in the Patriarchal times, 
 as is further explained in p. 47. He well knows also the dis- 
 tinction of the Patriarchal religion, not only in respect to names 
 (carefully avoiding for example, for those times, the name Jahveh) 
 but also in what relates to its objects. Thus, e.g. he never repre- 
 sents the Patriarchs as bringing the sacrifices which later became 
 customary, but ascribes to them simple usages which were after- 
 wards entirely lost. In this appreciation of the religion of 
 antiquity, the Fourth and Fifth Narrators are very difi'erent 
 (compare pp. 103 sq.) ; but all the narrators agree in describing 
 the external life of the Patriarchs in Canaan as totally difi'erent 
 from that which those who lived after Moses had before their 
 eyes ; not as settled and peacefully developed, but as somewhat 
 unstable and migratory, without the restraints but also without 
 the advantages of a well-ordered social system, which how- 
 ever, according to the same traditions, existed around them 
 among the Canaanites. In this peculiar and fixed conception 
 must surely be embodied a true remembrance of the general 
 character of the period. The conception of this distinctive 
 character is so strong in the author of the Book of Origins, that 
 he constantly describes the life of the Patriarchs in Canaan as 
 a, pilgrimage.^ 
 
 And there remained not only a consciousness of the difference 
 of the periods : when the author of the Book of Origins wrote, 
 there were still preserved a multitude of verbal traditions as w^ell 
 as of external objects and memorials, which pointed to an earlier 
 and much simpler time. There were sacred trees and groves 
 with which notable remembrances were linked ; for the most 
 i:)art, solitary trees of centuries of growth, the terebinth-tree of 
 Mamre (a Canaanite who must have first possesssed the spot on 
 which it stood), ^ the terebinth-tree of Moreh, so called for a 
 
 ' D'*")3??) fjcn. xvii. 8, xxviii. t, xxxvi. Lut this caniiol havo been the original 
 
 7, xxxvi'i! 1, xlvii. 9 ; Ex. vi. 4. The meaning. 
 
 liigluT application of this idea to the ' ^^en. xiii. 18, xiv. 13, xviii. 1 ; comp, 
 transitory natnre of luimnn life in general ^'^'- ^4. Joscplius {A>ifiq. i. 10. 4 ; comp. 
 (Hob. vi.' 13; 1 Pet. i. 1, ii. 11; Ephes. ^«'ji>A War, iv. 9. 7), in calling such a 
 ii. 19) is indeed already apparent in treo 0//.yr/?rt», means only wry t)W, accord- 
 such poetical words as Ps. x.xxix. 13 [12] ; '"S to a well known Greek phrase.
 
 Till-: TIIRKH TATRl ARCUS. 303 
 
 similar reason,^ the tamarisk at Beerslieba,'^ tlie oak of mourn- 
 ing- at Bethel ; * places which in the period after Moses pos- 
 sessed in popular belief a deep-rooted sanctity. There were 
 besides primeval altars, which were in later times open to the 
 public gaze, standing free beneath the heavens, as the sim- 
 plicitj of the earliest times had erected them.'' And the fact 
 that, according to the short narratives given respecting them, 
 many of these altars and other holy places received at their 
 origin particular names (brief and manifestly historical as ' God 
 of Bethel,' like our church names St. James's, St. Mary's, and so 
 on),^ is but another proof for us that the circle of a definite and 
 peculiar religion was formerly drawn around each such place : 
 for the religions of these primitive times are even locally as 
 various and manifold as is always found to be the case with 
 natural religions. Still older and simpler, if possible, are the 
 pillars or stone-memorials, which from the general tenor of the 
 legends must be supposed to be set up without any inscrip- 
 tion, without even the Egyptian picture-writing, some in com- 
 memoration of holy places or of covenants ; ^ some as boundary- 
 marks near which on account of their sacredness an altar mio-ht 
 be frequently erected ; ^ some as grave-stones, like those of 
 Egypt and Phenicia, of which many (though always provided 
 with written characters) have been discovered.* 
 
 By such objects, which from their character or the descrip- 
 tions given of them must have belonged to an early period, 
 the contemporaries of Saul and David were largely surrounded ; 
 and we can easily conceive how firmly and permanently they 
 maintained a vivid memory of that primitive time and of its 
 difierence from later days. The Patriarchal age had been 
 entirely without writing or written records (p. 47) ; yet these 
 permanent and visible remains were for the subsequent genera- 
 tions like a great natural book, in which to read the existence 
 of the ancestors of whom early tradition spoke. 
 
 It is indeed possible that the remembrance Avliich was sus- 
 tained by such tokens had not remained correct in every detail ; 
 as for example, the sacred tree and altar at Shechem is attri- 
 buted to Abraham by the Fourth Narrator of the Primitive 
 history,^ but not by the older ones. It is further possible, from 
 
 ' Gen. xii. 6 ; comp. Dout. xi. 30. " Gen. xxxv. 11, lö ; eump. Ex. xxiv. -1 ; 
 
 ^ Gon. xxi. 33. Josh. xxiv. 27. 
 
 ' Gen. XXXV. 8. ' Geii. xxxi. 40-')! ; comp. Isaiah xix. 
 
 ■• Gen. XXXV. 1, 3, 7 ; comp. xii. 7, xiii. 19. 
 
 18, xxvi. 20, xxxiii. 20. >* Gen. xxxv. 20. 
 
 * Gen. xxxv. 7, xxxiii. 20, xxi. 33 ; " Gen. xii. G, 7. 
 comp. Ex. xvii. 1.5.
 
 304 rREUMIXARY HISTORY. 
 
 the close contact of the Hebrews and the Canaanit<^s at an 
 early period, that the sacredness of a place that had first been 
 deemed holy by the Canaanites, and afterwards by the Hebrews, 
 mio-ht at the time of David be referred immediately to a 
 Patriarch. This is very probable with respect to Bethel. For 
 according to the oldest existing account (Gen. xxxv.) two an- 
 cient sanctuaries existed there, one of which, the memorial- 
 stone erected in the open country remote from the city, appears 
 to be the jDroperly Hebrew one approx^riated to Jacob and bear- 
 ing the sj)ecial name of Bethel ; ' while the other, the altar, is 
 not only expressly distinguished from the former, but also held 
 somewhat lower, and referred strictly to the ancient Canaanite 
 city of Luz.^ From this tone of the oldest tradition known 
 to us, and from the statement that Luz was the older name, 
 we may be disposed to recognise in Luz the more ancient 
 Canaanite, and in Bethel the properly Hebrew sanctuar}^ of the 
 same place ; but since in David's time the Canaanites had 
 long been driven out of Luz, both the holy places could then 
 be referred to Jacob, although a great difference was still made 
 between them. 
 
 In fine, it is plain, on a closer examination, that even in 
 David's time, and yet more in the following centuries, there 
 was a tendency to represent every place which had been deemed 
 holy for an immemorial time, as having been hallowed by one 
 of the three Patriarchs. At the time of the chief narrators the 
 prevailing view was, at least where possible, that a Patriarch 
 had dwelt there, or visited the spot in passing, or consecrated 
 it on account of a manifestation of Deity there vouchsafed to 
 hiin ; and in the very considerable series of holy places, the 
 order of the encampments in which the Patriarchs on their 
 journeyings tarried for a longer or shorter time, and where 
 the gods (that is, God and angels, or angels alone) descended 
 and took up their abode, seems to have been laid down. For 
 among all the places at which, according to the existing naiTa- 
 tives, the Patriarchs dwelt, scarcely one is to be found which, in 
 the popular belief of David's time and subsequent!}", had not 
 possessed an acknowledged and j)rimcval sanctity.^ And on the 
 
 ' Gen. XXXV. 9-1 Ö ; comp, xxviii. lU-'2'2. been accidcntnll}- preserved, lluTe would 
 
 ^ Gen. XXXV. 1-7; comp. Josli. xviil. 13; liave been a total absence of proof, even 
 
 Judges i. 22, 23. lor Gen. xxxii. 2, 3 [1, 2]. The only local- 
 
 ^ Thougli no other direct proof should ities, however, which are not elsowlicrc 
 
 exist of llie sanctity of such a place, yet referred to, are: 1. Peniel (literally, 'Face 
 
 taking into consideration the paucity of of God'), Gen. xxxii. 31, 32 [30, 31], and 
 
 our records, this must not lead us at Becr-laJiai-roi (literally, 'Well of the 
 
 once to doubt the fact. Had not the hint Living One who sees mo,' i.e. 'overlooks me 
 
 in the Hong of Solomon (vii. 1 [vi. 13]) not, even in the desert'), Gen. xvi. H, 15,
 
 Till-: THREE PATRIARCHS. 3ü', 
 
 other hand, several places are drawn only casually or tenta- 
 tively into this circle ; the city of Mahanaim for example 
 (properly double cam]?), on the further side of Jordan, is linked 
 to Jacob's history by no stronger bond than the story that there 
 a whole cncmnjnnent of angels appeared to him;' and the 
 Temple-hill, Moriah, which appears by every indication to have 
 been consecrated only by David and Solomon, is dragged into 
 the history of Abraham — in only one story hoAvever, and that 
 by the Fourth Narrator.^ 
 
 But to go further and say boldly that all the places in Canaan 
 in which the tradition places the three Patriarchs were only 
 borrowed from the histor}^ of the Postmosaic period, and that 
 therefore we know nothing of their historical existence and re- 
 sidence in Canaan, would be quite opposed to wisdom and truth ; 
 for a rigorous scrutiny discovers after all a solid background of 
 fact to these primitive histories. A careful examination proves 
 that Abraham is described by the oldest tradition as travelling 
 about in southern Canaan only, and dwelling here or there for 
 a longer time. Gen. xii. 9 tells of his journey into that region ; 
 the terebinth tree of Mamre, not far from Hebron, Gen. xiii- 
 xix, Hebron itself, the place of Sarah's death, ch. xxiii, then 
 Gerar still farther to the south, ch. xx, and Beersheba, ch. xxi- 
 xxii, all belong to this part of Canaan ; and it is only the Fourth 
 Narrator who represents him as passing quickly by Shechem and 
 Bethel in the middle of the country, Gen. xii. 6-8. Still more 
 limited according to the most authentic tradition are Isaac's 
 journeys on the most southern and least fruitful border of 
 the Holy Land, where only occasional oases stand out from 
 vast deserts, especially at Beer-Lahai-roi and Beersheba, Gen. 
 xxiv. 62, XXV. 11, xxvi. 1-33.^ Jacob, on the other hand, besides 
 southern abodes, is placed also in the middle part of Canaan, 
 which is the sj^ecial region of his activity and power, Shechem 
 and Bethel especially appearing'* to have been the true seats of 
 his greatness as well as of his religion. Now how can it be ac- 
 cidental that not the whole Holy Land, nor even the same part 
 of it, but a diöerent and limited space in it, is assigned to each 
 
 iu which rases the name itself liospeaks Dothain, mentioned in eh. xxxvii., to She- 
 
 the historic sanctity. 2. Succoth, Gen. ehem. The name Pcnid or Phanuel was 
 
 xxxiii. 17, and in Abraham's }n.storv, also Plienician, and is rendered in Greek 
 
 Gerar, Gen. xx. 1 (comi"i. xxvi. 1, 17), by SeoG ■Kp6ffanrov in .Strabo xxi. 2. 6, 16. 
 cities of whose history we know nothing, ' Gen. xxxii. 2, 3 [1, 2]. 
 
 though in an ancient hymn, Ps. Jx. 8, ' Gen. xxii. 2-4. 
 
 Succoth is mentioned with Shechem. The * For xxxv. 27-29, according to which 
 
 ancient sanctity of Hebron is for us a Isaac dies at Hebron, ought rather to bo 
 
 matter of course. The wells named in compared with ch. xxiii. 
 xxvi. obviousl}- belonged, by some old al- ■* From ch. xxviii. — xxxvii. 
 loiment, to Beersheba, in the same way as 
 VOL. I. X
 
 306 PRELIMINARY HISTORY. 
 
 Patriarcli as the cliiof locality of his life ? Aiid why are Abra- 
 ham and Isaac banished into the most barren steppes on the 
 southern border of Canaan ? Why is Jacob alone assigned even 
 to its central part? Surely, unless we here choose darkness 
 instead of light, we must confess that at the time of the chief 
 narrators, the tradition preserved, at least in its main outlines, 
 some clear reminiscences of the life and abode of all the three 
 Patriarchs, and of each individually as distinguished from the 
 others. 
 
 This general result is confirmed by some especially conspi- 
 cuous phenomena. In the case of Abraham, who is always 
 placed in the southern country only, the family sepulchre and 
 the grove of Mamre ^ near Hebron, are made prominent as his 
 only permanent possessions even in this region. On this, how- 
 ever, the Book of Origins, at the death of Sarah and that of all 
 the Patriarchs (though not of Joseph), lays so extraordinary a 
 weight, and it is described in Gen. xxiii. and elsewhere so fully 
 and explicitly in respect to its position and its oldest possessors, 
 that we cannot doubt it was the primeval family-grave of the 
 national chiefs, and was traced back as an established possession 
 of the house to the Patriarchal times.' Besides this in Abra- 
 ham's and Isaac's life weight is laid only on Beersheba as 
 actually possessed by them by treaty.^ 
 
 In the centre of Canaan Jacob holds a similar position. Here 
 the city of Shechem is the only one which the oldest tradition 
 known to us recognises as acquired by him ; acquired however 
 in quite a different way, by right of war, and by means of. the 
 tribes of Simeon and Levi, which long before Moses must have 
 been much stronger and more warlike than later.'* After the 
 conquest of the whole land the tribe of Ephraim always possessed 
 this city ; and therefore in the tradition it is given by Jacob, as 
 his own city, out of special affection to his beloved Joseph.* 
 Thus it must have been a much older reminiscence that Simeon 
 and Levi conquered it. And then Bethelj which lay not far 
 
 ' So named from the Canaanitc possos- But this city cortainly dates from tlie very 
 
 sor Mamre ; see also Josephus, Jewish earliest times, as is proved l>y its very 
 
 War, iv. 9. 7. name, whicli is identical with that of quo 
 
 "^ But whether the great edifices at of equal antiquity still existing in Ilauran 
 
 Hebron now shown as the Patriarchs' ^ . gg^ Journal of the Eoml Geo- 
 
 Tombs (and called also b^' the Moslim i^J^~\ , „ . „ ^ tt , 
 
 , • ,, , 1. T-i- H7- ' graimteal Society, 18oo, p. 245. Hebron 
 
 J-W 1 c:-^lj see the Jihan Numa, ^^^^ j^ ^^^ ^f t,^g f^,^ ^j^jgg^ ^^^ ^^^^^ of 
 
 "Wilson's 7yrt«r7s o/MöjBiWe, i. p. 363-366) whoso foundation was always accurately 
 
 are really so anci<'nt, has now become more remembered in later times: see p. 52. 
 
 than doubtful, after the more careful in- ' Gen. xxi. 22-34, xxvi. 2G-33. 
 
 vestigation of them wliich was commenced * Gen. xxxiii. 18 — xxxiv, xxxvii. 12 sqq., 
 
 only last year (see the Gott. Gel. Anz. xlix. 5-7. 
 
 1863, p. 636, on Dean Stanley's researches). » Gen. xlviii. 21, 22.
 
 ABRAHAM. 307 
 
 from thence, receives in Jacob's history snch prominence as a 
 stone-sanctuary, as can be explained only on the supposition 
 that in that earlier time a peculiar development of the Canaan- 
 ite religion must have been connected with it. 
 
 Finally, if we consult the history of the Israelites after they 
 had reconquered the Holy Land under Joshua, we see other 
 sanctuaries rising up at Gilg-al, at Sliiloh, and elsewhere, which 
 in the time of the Judges were the most important, but are 
 never mixed up with the Patriarchal history. In this there 
 lies accordingly a new and weighty proof that the tradition ac- 
 curately distmguished, at least in the main, the Premosaic and 
 the Postmosaic sanctuaries of the nation, one of the chief 
 elements of the history of each period : and we shall be still 
 less disposed to find in the existing accounts of the Patriarchal 
 world nothing but unhistorical invention. 
 
 Thus, the historical basis of this period in general being now 
 made good, we can attempt to advance further into details, 
 and seek to discover with all attainable certainty, how much in 
 the various traditions which are connected more or less closely 
 with each of the three Patriarchs may be recognised as real 
 history. 
 
 1. Abraham. 
 
 1) Abraham, as Immigrant and Father of Nations. 
 
 In the oldest extant record respecting Abraham, Gen. xiv, we 
 see him in the clear light of history, the separate rays of which 
 were nearly all gathered into a focus in pp. 301 sq. ; and we 
 have only to lament that its brevity does not allow us to collect 
 many more such rays and from them to form a connected his- 
 tory of this hero of the remotest past. We see him acting as a 
 powerful domestic prince, among many similar jjrinces, who like 
 him held Canaan in possession ; not calling himself King, like 
 Melchizedek the priest-king of Salem, ^ because he was the 
 father and protector of his house, living with his family and 
 bondmen in the open country, yet equal in jjower to the petty 
 Canaanite kings ; placing in the field at his first nod 318 chosen 
 servants, and second to none in military experience ; yet leagued 
 for mutual aid with the three Canaanite potentates, Mamre (on 
 
 ' The position hero indicated shows at on this point my Johnnneische Schriften, 
 
 once that it cannot liave been Jenisaloni ; i. p. 171), hut a (hffcrcnt place (sec the 
 
 it was clearly a city on the other side Jor- Gott. Gel. Anz. 18G3, p. 1630-7, and the 
 
 dan, which must be traversed on the return somewhat earlier Jahrb. der Bibl. Wiss. 
 
 route from Damascus to Sodom : certainly vol. v. p. 23-1-5. 
 not the Salem meutioucd John iii. 23 (see 
 
 X 2
 
 308 PRELIMINARY HISTORY. 
 
 whose domain lie chvells, we know not exact!}- liow), Eslicol and 
 Aner ; somevvliat as in Joshua's days the small princes of that 
 land could not dispense Avith mutual leagues in time of danger.' 
 He is however sufficiently distinguished from his Canaanite allies 
 as a ' Hebrew' (ver. 13) and as the avenger of Lot his 'brother,' 
 who is thereby also made a Hebrew. But the question forces 
 itself the more strongly upon us, how he could be leagued with 
 Oanaanites and with them pursue the four northei'ii kings who 
 had invaded the land ? We must confess our inability, with 
 the scanty sources as yet accessible, fully to solve this riddle. 
 The short account in Gen. xiv. sounds thoroughly historical. 
 The names of the north-eastern kings and countries must be 
 derived from a high antiquity, since those of two of the countries 
 nowhere appear again and seem in later ages to have vanished.^ 
 The kings of the five cities sunk in the Dead Sea have in like 
 manner truly historical names ;^ indeed the whole fragment is 
 full of primeval and almost obsolete names, which the Third 
 Narrator felt called upon to explain by appending the names 
 usual in his time. The fact that the chiefs of the other nations 
 conquered by the four confederate kings of the north-east 
 (ver. 0-7) are not given with equal accuracy, may be explained 
 by the supposition that the Third ISTarrator, being interested only 
 in the histories of Abraham and Lot, preferred to shorten the 
 remaining description of this otherwise fully detailed expedition; 
 for the Mdiole narrative looks like a fragment torn from a more 
 general history of Western Asia, merely on account of the men- 
 tion of Abraham contained in it. But detached as this account 
 may be, it is at least evident from it that the Canaanites were 
 at that time highly civilised, since they had a Priest-king like 
 Melchizedek, whom Abraham held in honour, but that they 
 were even then so weakened by endless divisions and b}^ the 
 emasculating influence of that culture itself, as either to jDay 
 tribute to the warlike nations of the north-east (as the five 
 kings of the cities of the Dead Sea had done for twelve years 
 before they rebelled, ver. 4), or to seek for some valiant descen- 
 dants of the northern lands living in their midst, who in return 
 for certain concessions and services promised them protection 
 
 ' Seewh.it is said further on of Josli. x. * Tlio name nf the fifth king — ver. 2 — 
 
 und Baal-L'cri/7/. is possilily only oniittod Ly accident ; at 
 
 '^ Namely EUasar and Goyim, with the least all (he others have quite historical- 
 well-known countries Shinar or Babylonia sonnding najnes. It was however snp- 
 and Elam on the oast, whose king Che- plied sis follows, according to Tlieopli. 
 dorlaomer is called the chief commander. Ant. y/(/ Auiol. ii. 4;j ; BaKax ßacnXfvs 
 On the historical significance of this mili- 27)7<ii/3 t^s BaAoK KeK\i]fxivris ; both from 
 tary movement of the north-eastern nations yL_ 
 Hcc below where the Ilyksds are treated of. " '•*
 
 ABRAlLUr. 309 
 
 and defence. Abraliam dwells among tlie terebinths of Mamre 
 Ills ally ; this appears as if the latter had ceded that dwelling 
 to him in retnrn for his reception into the league ; and all his 
 three Canaanite allies seem to have more need of him than he 
 of them (compare ver. 24). The covenant of Abraham and Isaac 
 with Abimelech the king of Gerar, which is spoken of in ancient 
 soui'ces,^ is made, according to the extant accounts, on the ex- 
 press ground that the native ruler thinks that he cannot safely 
 dispense with the foreign princes ; and thus these stories, 
 though derived from very diiferent sources, and notwithstand- 
 ing their very dissimilar tone, agree with the most ancient 
 account in Gen. xiv. 
 
 In fact this idea furnishes the only tenable historical view of 
 the migration of Abraham and his kindred. They did not con- 
 quer the land, nor at first hold it by mere force of arms, like the 
 four north-eastern kings from whose hand Abraham delivered 
 Lot, Gen. xiv. They advanced as leaders of small bands with 
 their fencible servants and the herds, at first rather sought or 
 even invited by the old inhabitants of the land, as good war- 
 riors and serviceable allies, than forcing themselves upon them. 
 Thus they took up their abode and obtained possessions among 
 them, but were always wishing to migrate farther, even into 
 Egypt. This desire was naturally strengthened in proportion 
 as the need which the Canaanite princes had of their alliance 
 was weakened. This is especially shown by the narrative of 
 Isaac's fortunes after the death of his dreaded father. Gen. 
 XXV. 15 sqq. Little as we are able to prove all the details of 
 that migration from the north towards Egypt, which probably 
 continued for centuries, it may with great certainty be con- 
 ceived as on the whole similar to the gradual advance of many 
 other northern nations ; as of the Germans towards Rome, and 
 of the Turks in these same regions in the Middle Ages, who 
 also were often sought as allies or otherwise in one way or an- 
 other as brave protectors. And if later the peaceable and mu- 
 tually beneficial community of such various nationalities issued 
 sometimes in strife and bloodshed (of which the narrative in 
 Gen. xxxiv. contains one of the clearest reminiscences), it was 
 only what in similar circumstances has always occurred to 
 other nations too. 
 
 If this then was the true character of these migrations, we 
 can see that they might last for centuries, and that nothing 
 less than the forcible rearrangement of the political relations of 
 Canaan through the Mosaic kingdom of Israel put a final stop 
 
 ' Gen. xxi. 22-34; xxvi. 1Ö-33.
 
 310 rRELDlIXARY HISTORY. 
 
 to the clepenclence of Canaan on the influences of tlie north-east ; 
 for Chushan-Kishathahn, who shortly after Joshua, issuing- from 
 Mesopotamia, subdued Canaan,^ is the last ruler of this kind for 
 many centuries. Further, we now understand that Abraham's 
 name can designate only one of the most important and oldest 
 of the Hebrew immigrations. But since Abraham had so early 
 attained a name glorious among the Hebrews advancing towards 
 the south, and since he was everything especially to the nation of 
 Israel which arose out of this immigration, and to their nearest 
 kindred, his name came to be the grand centre and rallying- 
 poiut of all the memory of those times — primarily with reference 
 to nationality only ; so that at the time when the nations 
 thought the most of affinity of race as affecting their relations 
 towards their neighbours, he was placed in a strict domestic rela- 
 tion to all the diä:'erent nations of this great popular migration. 
 Thus among the people of Israel a clear remembrance con- 
 nected those immigrations which subsequently became the most 
 important, and fi-om Avhich national territories and governments 
 had been formed, with the pedigree of Abraham, since the chiefs 
 of the early developed kindred nationalities of this kind were 
 ranked in a definite relationship aromid this greatest of their 
 heroes. In this pedigree of Abraham given by the Book of 
 Origins there lies concealed indisputably a great amount of an- 
 cient memories of those national relations : indeed we can see in 
 it an illustration of the great progress and extent of the Hebrew 
 migration. For, 
 
 a.) That portion of the Hebrews wh^ch remained in the north 
 by the Euphrates, the Nahoreans, are represented as springing 
 from one of the two brothers of Abraham. These may have 
 dwelt first on the farther side of the Euphrates, since they had 
 their ancient sanctuary in the Mesopotamian Harran ; ^ but 
 the twelve tribes into which they were divided appear to have 
 spread themselves out also on this side of the Euphrates as far 
 as the eastern boundary of Palestine, and southwards to the 
 Red Sea.^ Their chief importance in this history is in connec- 
 tion with Jacob. Unquestionably they once constituted a king- 
 dom as powerful as that of Israel, but they must early have been 
 
 ' Jiitlgos iii. 8-11. xxli. 21-24, three uncloiihtedly belong to 
 
 ^ Not merely docs Jacob come thenco, this side of the Euphrates: Uz (Eng. 
 
 but tlie l^irofiitlicr Terah, according to an version here oul}' Hue, and Iiero tlio LXX. 
 
 early tradition in Gen. xi. 32, is mentioned pronounce it not kös but Oü^), I5uz, and 
 
 as finally resting tliero ; so that it must Maacliah, which last is synonymous witli 
 
 have been at one time the seat of some the Hci-mon district; Aram, in ver. 21, is 
 
 eanctuary arouud which the whole nation iindouljtedly identical willi Kam in Job 
 
 gatliercil. xxxii. 2. 
 " Of the twelve names mentioned in Gen.
 
 ABKAHAM. 311 
 
 broken up and dispersed, since in the later history tlie very 
 nanie of Nahor dies out. At one time even Chaldeans be- 
 longed to their kingdom (see pp. 283 sq.), the chief tribe 
 however, called Uz, or Hellenistically Aus (Ausitis),^ extending 
 on this side of the Euphrates far towards the south, and immor- 
 talised by the history of Job, at the time of its highest power 
 certainly formed by itself a mighty kingdom ; but long before 
 the Mosaic age was so compressed by advancing Arameans that 
 it came to be reckoned among the immediate sons of Aram,^ 
 and appears in historic times only as a small portion of Edom, 
 by which it must have been afterwards subdued.^ 
 
 b.) On the direct route from the Euphrates to Palestine lay 
 the ancient Damascus ; and that this city was brought into 
 connection with Abraham by the most ancient tradition is 
 proved by the primitive j)i'Overbial expression preserved in Gen. 
 XV. 2,* in which Damascus, as the fatherland of Eliezer, Abra- 
 ham's steward, makes a claim on his whole inheritance. For 
 by vu'tue of the intimate relation of the head-slave to the house, 
 he being often regarded in the absence of children as heir to 
 the whole property,-' when Damascus is called the city of Eliezer 
 it implies almost as much as if it had been called the city of a 
 son of Abraham ; except that the bond which thus connects it 
 with Abraham is described as a very remote and loose one. 
 But that the Israelite tradition had lost almost all memory of 
 this j)rimitive connection of Damascus with Abraham is ex- 
 plained by the fact that this city, probably in the age shortly 
 before Moses, was entirely estranged from the Hebrew nation- 
 ality, by a change which happily we can still demonstrate. 
 In the interval it was unquestionably possessed by a new and 
 powerful emigration, namely by Arameans from the river Cyrus 
 in Armenia (mentioned by Amos, ix. 9).*" It is indeed commonly 
 termed an Aramean city, and as the nearest to the Hebrews was 
 by them often called simply Aram. This immigration, being 
 so well known in the time of Amos, must, even if it happened 
 
 ' See also Ptolemy's GeograpJ/i/, and belongs to the proverb, yet the origin of 
 
 the remarks in tlie Gütt. Gel. Anz. 1863, the proverb clearly lies in the local and 
 
 p. 200. the personal name, and therefore in an 
 
 ^2 Gen. X. 22, 23; comp. xxii. 21. ancient story. In the closely conjoined 
 
 ä Gen. xxxvi. 28, Dent. iv. 21, Lam. iv. -nords of the proverb, ' Dama.scus of 
 
 21 (see my t/o/^, p. 20, 21, 343-4, 2nd ed.). Eliezer' (i.e. Eliezer's city, according to 
 
 Josephus indeed {Ant. i. 6. 4) reckons my ieÄr/>McÄ, § 286 c), the name of the city 
 
 Trachonitis and Damascus as belonging is intentionally made to precede, as being 
 
 to Uz, but as usual without giving any more important to the sense than the indi- 
 
 rcason vidual Eliezer. 
 
 ' The Fifth Narrator himself is obliged * On this see above, p. 294. 
 to explain it by a parnphi-ase in his own " That by Aram Amos really meant Da- 
 words in vor. 3 ; and though the play on mascus is evident also from i. 5; comp, 
 words in pt'tDT and pCD ""Q undoubtedly Is. vii., xvii. 3.
 
 312 PRELIMINARY HISTORY. 
 
 before the conquest of Canaan by Joshua (iu which Damascus, 
 as not inhabited by the Canaanite race, had no part), have 
 taken phice not earUer than the period succeeding Abraham 
 and Jacob; and the similar case rehited above (pp. oil sq.), 
 respectmg Uz and the rest of the Nahoreans greatly aids this 
 conception. Now it is remarkable that in the Greek and Arabian 
 times the Damascenes boasted of their descent from Abraham, 
 and showed 'a dwelling of Abraham' as a memorial of him among 
 thom.* Whether this view had first been developed b}- Christi- 
 anity, or somewhat earlier, through the Greek translation of the 
 Old Testament, merely on the basis of the incidental expression 
 Gen. XV. 2, may Avell be doubted. A dim remembrance of the 
 same fact in long distant ages, which among the Hebrews had 
 linked itself with the expression in Gen. xv. 2, may have been 
 more strongly preserved at Damascus itself; and thus Damascus 
 Avould the more surely constitute a link in the chain of this 
 primeval Hebrew migration. 
 
 c.) Directl}^ to the south of Damascus, on the eastern side of 
 the Jordan, dwelt the two nations Amnion and Moab, which 
 traced their descent from Lot the nephew of Abraham. Since 
 Lot is mentioned only in the traditionary history, and in ordi- 
 nary life onl}^ Moab or Amnion were sjDoken of,^ it might be 
 imaofined that he never had a true historical existence, did not 
 the ancient fragment Gen. xiv. beforehand condemn that as- 
 sumption. Here we see him described quite historically as 
 ' brother ' (i.e. near relative) of Abraham,^ living in Sodom, as if 
 
 ' In the first plaoo, Nicolaiis of Damas- Adores, by a common abbreviation ('Ader 
 
 ens, a witness of the highest anthority, in or 'Ador being also a dialectic varia- 
 
 the fonrth book of his history, spoke of tion for 'Ezer), may be latent the very 
 
 Abraham's ancient renown in Damascus Eliezer of whom we have lately spoken, 
 
 and in a village which still continued to The Arabian historians vary: soellerbelot, 
 
 bear his name (see Josephus, Ant. i. 7. 2 ; s.v. Ahraham, Ibn-Batuta, ed. Lee, p. 28, 
 
 repeated by Eusebius, 7'r(i?/x£'i'««^. ix. 16). 29; Jehileddin, History of Jirusalcm,-^. 
 
 In the second place, apparently cjui to in- 400,406, Reyn.; StephanusByz. s.v. Aa^uao-- 
 
 depcndent of this arc the accounts jiiven k6s has nothing to the point; see also 
 
 iu abstract by Justin {Ilistoria, xxxvi. 2), Petorniann's lü'lscn, i. p. 307. 
 
 according to which Damascus, Azehis, '■' For the very late Psalm Ixxxiii. 7-9, 
 
 Adores, and then Abraham and Israel, certainly obtained the appellation Sons of 
 
 were the ancient kings of the city; even Lot only from a learned study of the pri- 
 
 supposing the two middle names to be de- mcval history. 
 
 rived from the Ilazael and Ben-H:ul:id ^ The term /'n'/Z/i-r in vcr. 14, 16 (a very 
 
 frequently named in the Books of Kings, ancient document) may be understood in 
 
 and consequently to belong to a much later the same sense as it is used of Jacob in 
 
 age, yet the tradition of Abraham and Gen. xxxi. 23, 25, 46, 54 (also a very an- 
 
 Israel would remain ; and the Dama-scencs cient passage) ; the more distinctive name 
 
 arc said by Justin to refer the origin of is however used in ver. 12. Philo, On, 
 
 the whole Jewish people to themselves and AJiraham, xxxvii, speaks far too coutemp- 
 
 their city. But wo have no valid reason tuonsly of Lot, from mere rhetorical one- 
 
 to doubt the existence of an ancient Ilazael ^idt'dnc-s ; but speaks ditferently in his 
 
 as Prince of Damascus, whose name may Life of Moses, ii. 10. 
 have been taken by later princes; and in
 
 ABRAHAM. 313 
 
 among the old inliabitaiits of the farther side of Jordan he 
 played much the same part as Abraham on this ; and though in 
 Gen. xiv. 5 the same countries are spoken of which were after- 
 wards called Ammon and Moab, no mention is made of these 
 names. It is remarkable besides how, without reference to any 
 other narratives, a Lotan (i.e. perhaps one, or a -part, of Lot) 
 stands first among all the old races of Seir (see pp. 226 sq.),' and 
 must have formerlj^ been very important in their history. In 
 this there is evidently a remnant of a primeval tradition of an 
 intermingling- of the original inhabitants with a conquering 
 nation called Lot. On the other hand, the name of Lot's father 
 Haran, who died in Ur Chasdim (pp. 283 sq.), before his son 
 emigrated thence with Abraham, strongly suggests the la,nd of 
 Arrän near Armenia (p. 287). But the Iscah, whose name is pre- 
 served only in a fragment of the oldest historical work, was pro- 
 bably regarded as the ancestress of the two nations who trace 
 their descent from Lot, as Sarah and Milcah were treated as 
 foremothers of the descendants of Abraham and Nahor.^ 
 
 The greatness and power of a nation called by the name of 
 Lot, at least in the two halves into which it must have been 
 divided long before the time of Moses, descend much lower into 
 the region of known history than do those of the two former 
 nations. Not without reason was Lot in the old national tradi- 
 tions placed in so close a relation to Abraham : the clear later 
 history of Israel from Moses onwards also witnesses that this 
 Hebrew people must formerly have had an intimate share in all 
 the greatness and glory which is attached to Abraham's name. 
 
 But the notion that this pair of nations, Moab and Ammon, 
 were once more flourishing, may be confirmed also by special 
 testimony. The tradition of the destruction of the four Canaan- 
 itish cities, Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboim (p. 10-i and 
 242), is certainly very old ; and that volcanic convulsion was the 
 agent in it is not only suggested by the oldest and most signi- 
 ficant figures employed in this tradition,^ but also confirmed in 
 
 ' Gen. xxxvi. 20, 22, 29. historical work. Iscah would thus appear 
 
 ^ If we must find some significant re- as both sister and wife to Lot ; and 8arah 
 
 ferenee for the name Iscah, which now was nearly related to Abraham, according 
 
 stands quite isolated in Gen. xi. 29, it can to Gen. xx. 12; and Milcah to Nahor, 
 
 be no other than this ; and like all other according to Gen. xi. 29. 
 
 names of similar rank in the primeval * These are now interwoven with the 
 
 genealogies, it must have been significant, words of Gen. xix. 24-29, but are still re- 
 
 But besides this detached notice of Iscah, cognisable. It was probably throuah read- 
 
 the passage Gen. xi. 29, 30, exhibits in ing the Septuagint that the attention of 
 
 n^l a form so antiquated and so unlike tlie Greeks was directed to this alteration 
 
 /^T> 1 ff /-v • • ,1 ^ 1 T 1 of the surface. See Strabo, xvi. 2. -tl, 
 
 the Book oi Origins, that we are obliged rv -^ tt- t - ^ ^ -n i i 
 
 . . .^ ^' ^ i. ,1 I- ^ lacitus, Hist. V. / ; Sol. roliik. xxxvi. 
 
 to recognise in it a tragraent ot the earliest
 
 314 PRELIMINARY HISTORY. 
 
 our own days b}' a close examination of tlie -wliole bed of tlie 
 Jordan and the Dead Sea.' We can now, indeed, in consequence 
 of tills careful examination of the ground, better understand 
 many aspects and details of the tradition itself. The engulfed 
 cities must have been in the southern half of the Dead Sea. 
 This half has a strikingly shallow bottom, and undoubtedly only 
 the larger northern part with its far greater depth existed 
 before the last great change in the ground : oral tradition also 
 places the ancient Sodom on the south-west shore. There, 
 not far from the margin, still appears the strange cone of salt 
 standing like a pillar, in which the ancient tradition so easily 
 found a petrified human being (Lot's wife) ; and we see noAV 
 that it was not without reason that Josephus testified that 
 this pUlar of salt existed to his day, and that he himself 
 had seen it.^ And if the city of Zoar,^ by itself, or even with 
 its province, lay in the peninsula which cuts deeply into the 
 southern half of the Sea of Salt, and looks like a portion of 
 land that escaped the general overthrow, the tradition might 
 easily take the form that it had belonged as a fifth to the four 
 cities, and been spared by special grace.'* But in this tradi- 
 dition the glory originally fell on Lot alone ; it was his race 
 only that had boasted of a higher degree of the divine favoiu' 
 than the Canaanites could claim ; and it is evidently only 
 the later Israelitish modification of the legend that connected 
 Abraham with it. 
 
 d.) Farther in the wilderness two nations claimed origin from 
 Abraham : a smaller one of six branches which descended from 
 the mere concubine Keturah, dwelling for the most part east 
 
 ' "W. F. Lynch, Narrative of the United by Ambiaii writers (as Edrisi, p. 337 sq. 
 Statcfi Eajocdiiion to the River Jordan and Kazvini, ii. p. 61 ; ALiilfida, Gcvyraphy, 
 
 the Bcml Sea London, 1850: Jahrb der p. 228), at the present timo tlioWadi.^c ,uS 
 
 BM. Wifs. 111. p. 190; and on Sanlcys , . . ^ ^ ,. , "^-J 
 
 views, ibid. Ti. p. 80 sqq. It deserves no- ^''"^«'« '^^ name from tins phice, even if 
 
 tico that -qsn (0 overthrow, the constant thi« is not also the case with the existing 
 
 expression iVancientHL-brewfor the earth- village.aj:^^, whoseappellationsignifying 
 
 ^ seedfichl lias in modern times become com- 
 
 quako at Sodom, reappears in the ..Ixij'«^ mon for small places in that region. The 
 
 Snr. liii. 5-1, and is well explained ^by ^"'■'" *« ^'^'^ ^°*'^' ^^'''''^i Eertou and Saulcy 
 
 "1.. . I T .11 • Q- iM-n , [Athen, franc. 18;34, p. 902) identified 
 
 ^.y^^ U^y, Isstakhri, p. 3o. Moll. A ^,.;iii ^1,1^, ,.;,y_ \,^^ nothing to do with it ; 
 
 similar lake Jammune, in northern Le- and whether the low hill near Hebron, 
 
 iTaT^'if'Tsif ^f^^'''''^^^plT' ^hich is now called ^ (see the JiÄa«- 
 1. Ziy, 6()Z, 11. 66V>). C omparo also Phie- _ > 
 
 gracpedion, in Aristophanes' Birds, 822. N^lmä s. v.), is the ancient one is doubtful. 
 
 '^ Ant. i. 11. 4. See also the Zeitsch. der Diut. Morg. Ges. 
 
 ' The LXX. preserve the harder pro- 1847, p. 190 sqq. ; Ritters i'.Vv/ArArZimi'y?/;/^/, 
 
 nunciation 2r)7cup. xiv. 108 sqq., xv. r)87, 8. On Sodom, the 
 
 * Gen. xix. 19-22. Wliil,- Hr. citv -• ^^"^^^ '''"•' - 'i"'l '/m^^v^, see also Tristram's 
 
 ' '•' f- ' Land oj Israel, p. 319-29, 332-3, 350-53, 
 
 (also \ zj *'"*^^jm) 't^ 'Jft^'» mentioned ^03.
 
 ABRAHAM. 
 
 '.15 
 
 from Palestine, and so coming under tlie conception of Bne- 
 Kedem (Sons of the East) or Saracens^ (the later term wMch had 
 the same meaning) ; and a greater one of twelve branches, all 
 of which descended through Ishmael from Hagar,^ the higher- 
 standing concubine, which spread first over Northern Arabia to 
 the south of Palestine,^ but afterwards also far to the east. As 
 these nations in the Israelitish tradition appeared as sons of 
 Abraham by concubines, that is, as of lower standing and half- 
 degenerate, so also in history they probably yielded themselves 
 up very early to the Arabian desert life, spread themselves over 
 the wide plains, and were thus severed from the other nation- 
 alities of kindred blood who addicted themselves rather to the 
 culture of the soil. But one at least of these eighteen nations, 
 the Midianites, was an exception to this rule : they were very 
 early settled partly on the Arabian coast opposite the peninsula 
 of Sinai, distinguished themselves by commerce and other arts 
 of civilised life, and in early times came repeatedly into close 
 contact with Israel, but in the end receded in cultm-e and power, 
 as Israel advanced. In the earliest period the Ketureans, of 
 
 ' See above, p. 253. Zimran, who stands 
 at the head of the six chief tribes men- 
 tioned in Gen. xxv. 6, probably reappears 
 but once, in Jer. xxv. 25, and Cushan 
 (probably the same as Jokshan) only in 
 Hab. iii. 7, and Shuah only in Job ii. 
 11. The Shebaites and Dedaneans, men- 
 tioned in Gen. xxv. 3, as subordinate 
 tribes of Jokshan, arc obviously only iso- 
 lated families of these old Arabian tribes, 
 ■nhich are well known to us from other 
 
 sources (compare JJ in Tarafa's Moall. 
 V. 3) ; but this very circumstance confirms 
 our assertion that the Ketureans were 
 immigrants into Arabia. The notices given 
 by Islamite Arabs of the twelve sons of 
 Ishmael, with Qaidir and NcVnt at their 
 head, seem to have a Biblical origin ; but 
 the Journal asiafique, Aug. 1838, p. 197- 
 216, contains a remarkable account de- 
 rived from the Kitäb alaghäni of a tribe 
 Qatura or Qatur. Compare Caussin de 
 Perceval, Essai sur VHistoire des Arabes, i. 
 p. 20-23, 168, 176, sq. Fresnel attempts 
 the difficiiit comparison of the early He- 
 brew and the Arabian accounts in the Jotir. 
 asiatique, Aug. 1838, p. 217-221, Sept. 
 1840, p. 177-202, 1853, i. p. 43 sqq., but 
 with as little success as crowned Caussin 
 de Perceval's work in 1847. Considering 
 how great the interval of time which has 
 elapsed, we cannot expect to recover more 
 than a few traces of these ancient tribes, 
 as the primeval combinations of tribes in 
 
 Arabia were evidently very early dissolved. 
 We oiight, however, to observe that 
 Burckhardt, in his Notes on the Bedouins 
 (London, 1830), claims to have discovered 
 the remains of a primitive religion and 
 usage which formerly embraced the whole 
 of Arabia. 
 
 ^ That Hagar was with them a national 
 name, and not a mere invention of Israel- 
 ite tradition, appears also from the men- 
 tion of a nation of Hagarites, 1 Chron. v. 10, 
 19, 20, whose name is in Ps. Ixxxiii. 7 [6] 
 put in poetic parallelism with Ishmaelite. 
 Strabo, x\'j. 4. 2, joins them with the Na- 
 bateans and Chauloteaus ; 'Aypaioi or 
 'Aypees appear likewise in I)iony.sius 
 Pericg. v. 956 and in Steph. Byz. On 
 Hagar as identical with Bahrain, see the 
 Marasid in the Mushtarik, p. 438. How 
 Paul (Gal. iv. 24 sq.) could interpret the 
 name Hagar by ' Mount Sinai,' whether 
 
 from the name of a city. 
 
 ^r?>^ 
 
 ill Hijr 
 
 (Masudi, i. p. 76 ; Abulf. p. 88), or on 
 some other ground, is discussed in my 
 Sc7idschreibcn des Ap. Paulus, p. 493 sqq. 
 Jahrb. der Bibl. Wiss. viii. p. 200. 
 
 ^ Tliis is deduced from the way in which 
 the ancient tradition always puts Ishmael 
 and Hagar in the desert leading to Egypt, 
 or even connects them with Egypt itself, 
 Gen. xxi. 21, xvi. 7, compare xxv. 18: 
 on the other hand, somo of the twc-lve 
 tribes or sons of Islmiaei, mentioned in 
 XXV. 13-15, certainly lived on the east of 
 Palestine.
 
 316 PRELnriNARY IIISTOKV. 
 
 whom tliese Midiauites were a branch, were very powerful ; this 
 we know because thej soon disappear from history, and yet must 
 once have been an important nation. But even at the time of 
 the Book of Origins the Ishmaelites were far more jDOwerful 
 than they, as is clear from the distinction with which this book 
 treats them and their progenitor.' Still later they take the place 
 of the former in ordinary language.^ These also seem long to 
 have been steadfast to their league of twelve. Kedar, in the 
 Book of Origins the second of the twelve branches, becomes 
 prominent in somewhat later times as the most powerful,^ and 
 the Nabateans (Nebajoth), who take the first place there, con- 
 stitute at a still more recent period a great kingdom over- 
 shadowing the ancient league."* 
 
 e.) As settling down in Canaan, and there becoming the father 
 of Isaac by Sarah, Abraham is represented in the old tradition 
 as established only in certain definite localities of the southern 
 country : and it has been shown in p. '305 sq. that in this must 
 lie the undimmed memory of a fact. But his stock immediately 
 spreads, abroad in three branches, Isaac, Ishmael and the sons 
 of Keturah ; and this continues down into historical times, and 
 gives the first occasion to the custom of genealogical series 
 mentioned on p. 24. 
 
 These then are the kindred nations, whose memory clung so 
 closely to the name of the ancient Hero ; who must all have 
 looked to him with high regard, and many of whom, with others 
 somewhat younger, who appear as his grandsons (Esau and 
 the twelve sons of Jacob), always revered him as their father, 
 so that in the history he is celebrated as the Father of Nations^ 
 — not the least of the lofty titles which preserve his memory. 
 And although in after-times the nation of Israel made a 
 special boast of him as their first father, it could never be 
 forgotten even in their sacred traditions that he originally 
 stood in much wider national relations, and rather deserved 
 the name of Father of many Nations.^ How it camo to pass 
 
 ' Gen. xvii. 18, 20, xxv. 12-18. received with great caution. Jusepbus 
 
 '•^ Isiimaelite is a more general term for {Ant. \. 1.5, ii. 9. 3) gives only a very 
 
 Midianito, Gen. xxxvii. 25, 27, 28, 36, general conjocttire as to the position of 
 
 xxxix. 1 ; Judges vii. 12, viii. 22, 24. the Ketureans, in assigning to tliem Trog- 
 
 ^ Isaiah xxi. 16, 17, and subsequently. lodytis and the regions on the Ked Sea, 
 
 * Compare Quatromere in the Journal and was perhaps led to this by the position 
 
 asiutique, 1833. Tiio ancient capital Nn/ntta of anciontMidian. Long Ix'fore .Joscplms, 
 
 on the Red Sea is now rediscovered in the however, other Ilelenists had found Aftr 
 
 ruins of ^,W,'>r Aewr), kcÄmi ; see and Africa in ^Qy, Gen. xxv. 4, possibly 
 
 UuHclm dc la Hoc. dc Gloriraphie, Nov. Dec. ^^^^Y" ''l'^ ^'^^- '^'^'^P^*^'^ ^^^^ P^ouncia- 
 
 1819. On the Aeufc/j KtÄyÜTj see the rciiiarks ^\on K<pnp. 
 
 in Maltzan's WuUfahrt nach Melclca, i. p. * ^^■"- ^^'\\- *' •'• 
 
 9,5, 96, 114 sqq., which must however l-o " ^en. xvii. 4, o ; compare ver. 16.
 
 ABRAHAM. 317 
 
 afterwards that the single nation of Israel could appropriate 
 • him as in a special sense their first and highest father, will 
 become clear only when we consider the other respects in which 
 he became a yet mightier influence in the world's history. 
 
 2) Ahrahavt as a Man of God. 
 
 For had Abraham been nothing more than even the greatest 
 of the leaders in that national migration, his name would at 
 most have been handed down as bare and lifeless as those of other 
 once renowned heroes of those times. But assuredly there 
 began with him a new and great epoch in the history of the 
 development of religion : he first domesticated in his house and 
 race the worship of that ' God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,' 
 who, as personating the fundamental idea of a true God, was 
 never forgotten even after the laj)se of centuries, until by the 
 prophetic spirit of Moses he was placed in a yet higher light, and 
 became the eternal light of all true religion.' To apprehend 
 even the historical possibility of this we must carefully bring 
 together the scanty accounts which have been preserved from 
 those times with all the scattered traces that history aflbrds. 
 And this presents in brief somewhat the following concej)tion. 
 
 It was not only the ordinary necessities of life, nor even mere 
 desire of conquest, which caused that mighty national migration 
 of the Hebrews from the north-east. Other and nobler impulses 
 also ruled them. Already even among those hitherto uncorrupted 
 northern nations, simple religion was falling more and more into 
 a false and artificial state, and superstitions of all kinds became 
 23revalent. But in the very strife against this corruption there 
 arose in many of the Hebrews a new and powerful tendency to- 
 wards the true religion ; and no few would flee from the ferment 
 of strife in the north, because they were attracted by the southern 
 lands, where, although the moral corruption was vastly greater, 
 there flourished also an insight and wisdom which had even then 
 become widely renowned. Among all who thus migrated from 
 the north there can have been none who felt more deeply the 
 spiritual needs of the time, or who had early been called upon 
 to strive harder for the knowledge and veneration of the true 
 God— hereby happily learning how to strive and live — than 
 Abraham. When he trod the soil of Canaan he was accordino- 
 
 o 
 
 ' See further the treatment of this sub- cognise any of the mental characteristics 
 
 ject in the Jahrh. der Bihl. Wiss. x. p. of those early ages, we ought to beware 
 
 1-28. W. Pleyte's La Religion des Pre- of hasty and unfounded judgment upon 
 
 Tsraelitcs (Utrecht, 1862) is reviewed in them, and collect most carefully any real 
 
 the Giitt. Gel. An-. 1862, p. 1822-28. atoms of reliable knowledge of "them that 
 
 Considering how difficult it now is to re- arc still to be found.
 
 318 PRELIMINARY HISTORY. 
 
 to all reliable traditions already advanced in years, and matured 
 in the service of a God truly known ; but we can scarcely 
 conceive what conflicts be must even then have endured, and 
 from what mortal dangers been rescued.' Assuredly be bad 
 learned in tbe severest life-battles wdiat tbe true God -was, even 
 as be was destined to learn still more of tbat trutb on tbe soil 
 of bis new fatberland. But bis real greatness is tbis, tbat be 
 not only steadfastly maintained tbe knowledge of tbe true God 
 in bis own practice and life, but knew bow to make it lasting 
 in bis bouse and race. And in notbing is tbe memory of tbe 
 reality and grandeur of bis God-fearing and God-blessed life 
 more evidently preserved tlian in tbis, tbat powerful and devout 
 men even among foreign nations were compelled to confess tbat 
 ' God was witb bim ;' and eagerly sougbt bis friendsbip and 
 blessing.^ 
 
 It is true tbat wbile tbe national relations, at least in tbeir 
 main features, bave been preserved in tolerably sure remem- 
 brance, a comprebension of tbe more delicate and mutable 
 essence of tbe religion of tbose times is mucb more difficult. 
 Tbe Book of Origins, indeed, represents tbe same God wbo re- 
 vealed bimself from Moses onward, as revealing bimself also 
 to tbe tliree Patriarcbs, tbougb not by tbe name Jabveli, but 
 by tbat of El-Sbaddai ;^ but as siu-ely as tbese names were not 
 cbanged by mere accident, and a new name always indicates 
 a new conception, tbese words do imply tbe remembrance of a 
 difference between tbe religion of tbe times before and after 
 Moses. Only tbe Fourth and Fiftb Narrators on tbe one band 
 transfer tbe name and conception of Jabveb completely and with- 
 out distinction to tbe primeval period (p. 103, 114 sq.), and on 
 tbe other represent Moses as speaking of ' the God of Abraham, 
 Isaac and Jacob,' or more briefly tbe ' God of tbe Fathers,'^ as 
 of the same meaning with Jabveb ; and in this the Deuterono- 
 
 ' Wc hero leave out of siglit the later the key to those popular stories in wliioh 
 
 narratives which will bo subsequently dis- the memory of Abraham's superhuman 
 
 cussed; but one little word in Isaiah xxix. greatness has fastened on certain sharply 
 
 22, that ' Jalivoh redeemed Abraham,' defined crises of his history, and often been 
 
 points with sufficient clearness to great M'ittily compressed into a few pithy w^ords, 
 
 battles and dangers of which our present as Gen. xx. ITj-lT ; xii. 10-20. On the 
 
 naiTativcs, beginning at ch. xii., furnish puzzling woitls, xx. 16, see my Lehrbuch, 
 
 110 hint, but which, we have every reason p. 327, 7th ed. It is very important hero 
 
 to expect, would occur before Abraliam eu- to recognise aright the great antiquity of 
 
 tcred Canaan. Isaiah must undoulitcdly such passages, and to observe how the 
 
 have had before him many earlier and striking old words and recollections were 
 
 fuller stx)ries of Abraham. by degrees softened down into such later 
 
 ^ As appears from the very old narra- descriptions as xii. 10-20. 
 five in Gen. XXI. 22-34, and the yet earlier ^ I'^x. vi. 3; Gen. xvii. 1. 
 out in xiv. 18-20. Such passages furnish * Ex. iii. G, 13, 15, 16, iv. 5.
 
 ABRAHAM. 319 
 
 mist follows them.' Even the oldest sources indeed, in tlie 
 simple but peculiar expression ' the God of my father,' ^ imply a 
 certain connection between the Premosaic and the Postmosaic 
 God, even as Moses himself adopted as his foundation all that 
 was truly good in the older popular religion ; but this is only a 
 denial of the importation of foreign elements, and not an as- 
 sertion which would have been contradicted by history, that 
 it had not been internally reformed and more firmly defined by 
 Moses. 
 
 We must, therefore, look for other and, if possible, stronger 
 proofs. And here we may start from the use of the name of 
 God himself, which we observe in this nation in the mist of the 
 remotest antiquity. We saw (p. 264) that the common name 
 for God Eloah, among the Hebrews as among all the Semites, 
 goes back into the earliest times ; and it is remarkable that this 
 word for God, as also those bearing the cognate meaning of 
 Lord, are always employed in the special Hebrew tongue, from 
 those early times, in the plural number.^ We might easily 
 suppose this to be a Hebrew peculiarity, were it not unquestion- 
 ably very ancient ; for the later poets, especially after the end 
 of the eighth century before Christ, began to substitute for 
 Eloliim the singular Eloah, which prevails in Arabic and 
 Aramaic. The original plural meaning being then virtually 
 lost, poets at least were able to make the innovation. The for- 
 mation of these plural words for God and Lord leads us back 
 into that far-off time when the conception of majesty and power 
 seemed to be exalted by those of multitude and universality.'* 
 It was effected, however, without so formal a change of the 
 whole sentence as is involved in the so-called plural of Royalty 
 in our speech, but simply by a slight modification of the word 
 God or Lord.^ But the origination of a plural word for God 
 implies that even in that early age when this word was developed, 
 the idea of many gods existed. The conception of God, indeed, 
 
 ' Deut. i. 11, 21, iv. 1, vi. 3, xil. 1, Egyptian Londago, as I hare read that 
 xxvi. 7, xxvii. 3. The words |n3 "iCi'S fit the present day a fellah addresses his 
 
 -s-,« f^-,U T^oV, ^„;;,- 1 :„ t.u;„ ^ „ master as «rM^^ (see also Briice's Travels, 
 
 riin^ UJ? Josh. xvni. 3, in this oonnec- ■ % i . ^i i • . j^ ^^ ^ 
 
 tion appear like an addition from the ';^' but the histm-y of the langimge seems 
 
 hand of the Douteronomist. ^° '"^ ° P^^'" ^^^^'^ the use ot the plural 
 
 '■i F '2 x%'iii 4 ^^ much older. 
 
 3 Am, th^ Etiiiopic word for God, / Analogo^^? ^ /!"/ i« the Hebi-ew use 
 
 rr. 1 .1 1 n, • ^„ I ..1 or the plural in the tormation oi abstract 
 
 affords the only other instance where there f t i i ? e i-rv n ^/';^''" 
 
 ,. • • 1, (-U •*. • ■ nouns (see my Leiirlmch, «1/9 a), and the 
 
 is room tor inquiry whether it was origi- .\ s> ■ ■ • ii • * 
 
 11 1 1 tv,t.„^u ;^ „„w.,;., „ „„„^<--„ „ use of the teminine, especially in Aramaic, 
 
 nail V plural, though in certain connections . . i • ^ i t ■ , 
 
 1 V 1-1 , Z■,^„,,^.,^ to give emphasis to names of dignity (see 
 used quite like a singular. t i i i s ^','^ e\ J \ " 
 
 ^ The question might arise whether the '">' ^''"•^"''A § 177 i). 
 nation did not adopt this usage during the
 
 3-20 rilKLnilXARY IIISTOKY. 
 
 appeared to the most ancient world boundlessly extensible, and 
 inlinitel}' divisible ; and thus in this jDlural word polytheism 
 mi'-ht easily have found its firmest prop,' It is the more sui-- 
 jirisinc^ therefore, secondly, that we find this jilural word 
 Elohim employed by the people of Israel Avith the greatest 
 regularity and strictness, always in the purest monotheistic 
 sense : so that it is grammatically treated as a real plural only 
 when it is designed to speak expressly of many gods ; for ex- 
 ample, in the heathen sense, in conversation with the heathen, 
 or other exceptional cases. ^ When, then, did so marked and so 
 fixed a distinction in the use of this word begin ? Is its strictly 
 monotheistic employment due to Moses ? It appears not ; but 
 that it was firmly established before his day. There is no indi- 
 cation that it was first introduced by him : he rather makes use 
 of the new name Jahveh. Or was it introduced in the time 
 immediately preceding Moses, when Israel, in strife with the 
 Eg3'ptians, gained a great elevation of their life ? Of this, too, 
 we have no trace. 
 
 We have therefore, in the primeval use of the word Elohim, 
 a memorable testimony that even the Patriarchs of the nation 
 thought and spoke monotheistically. But we j)ossess other 
 testimonies also from the same earliest period of a religion 
 correspondmg vv'ith the simplest faith in the Invisible God. 
 Nothing is more characteristic of the earliest worship of this 
 nation, as it existed even till the time of Moses, than the custom 
 of erecting everj^'here simple altars without images or temples 
 under the open sky.^ These suffice where men believe in an 
 invisible heavenly God ; and in their very simplicity they cor- 
 respond to the simplicity of a true religion. And all the stern 
 strife between Israel and the Egyptians, afterwards developed, 
 was essentially a religious strife, which could not well have 
 arisen until Israel possessed a basis of true religion, of which it 
 refused to be robbed by the Egyptian superstitions. 
 
 The history of the conflict between Monotheism and Poly- 
 theism is in the main that of the development of every higher 
 truth. Like every truth, monotheism in itself lies safe in the 
 liuman breast ; in the moment when man actually perceives the 
 living God he can perceive him only as one power ; he can feel 
 his spirit only in the presence of one God. But according to 
 time, place, and condition, man may perceive the Divine as 
 easily in infinitely varied and manifold ways : and here is the 
 source of Polytheism, which, like every error, having once arisen 
 
 ' As is evident from the plural, D^2~iri, ' ^^^'" "W Lchrlivch, § 308 a. 
 ^.cnaUs, ' ' " ' •'^^^' "'V Altirihiimcr., p. 133 «q.
 
 AI5KAHAM. 321 
 
 will long maintain itself. But it is also accordant with the 
 nature of all development that, as Polytheism assumed a settled 
 form, Monotheism struggled against it the more powerfnllj. 
 Even by the Patriarchs of Israel, according to every indication, 
 this struggle was maintained ; and we may well assume that the 
 Canaanites also were at that time so far cultivated, that amons^ 
 them also there were incipient and scattered monotheistic 
 movements ; indeed, the instance of Melchizedek gives sufficient 
 evidence of this. But that the faith of the Patriarchs of Israel 
 was entirely independent appears from their peculiar name for 
 the true God, El-Shaddai. 
 
 But although this was certainly a commencement of Mono- 
 theism, it was not quite the Mosaic form of it. It was only the 
 one supreme and almighty God, whom individual enlightened 
 spirits knew, and sought as far as possible to retain in their 
 own circle ; it was the one true God, whom the father of a 
 household, having clearly known him, elevated over all others 
 as the God at least of himself and his house, because in that 
 age the mere household of one powerful man was all-im- 
 portant, and no nation in the higher sense of the word had as 
 yet been developed at all. And in this sense each of the three 
 Patriarchs could hold the more firmly to one God, the more 
 purely domestic his own rule was ; their god continuing thus 
 to be an individual household God.' That they apprehended 
 this one God under a strict moral aspect, and in opposition 
 to many lower conceptions, is vouched by their whole life as 
 the founders of a new epoch, on which their posterity looked 
 back with pride. The Canaanite Priest-king also, when (ac- 
 cording to the ancient fragment, Gen. xiv. 20, comp. ver. 22) he 
 would bless Abraham, calls on ' the Supreme God, the Creator of 
 heaven and earth,' as the God whom he adores. But the god 
 of a household, however exalted he may be conceived to be, 
 still suffers other gods besides himself for other households and 
 other men, and thus is by no means a safeguard against poly- 
 theism, especially since these can easily be somehow associated 
 with him. And that the Divine Being in the Premosaic period 
 was apprehended with this idea of undefined extent and possible 
 divisibility, is proved by the most ancient tradition itself, in 
 which the god of Abraham and the god of Nahor are invoked by 
 oath as two different gods, and ' the God of the father of both ' 
 is placed above this duality, simply that the two gods may not 
 
 ' Even at a much later perind this was xxiv. 15 ; compare £x. xxxii. 10 ; 1 Cliron. 
 still laid down as a possibility, Josh. iv. 10. 
 
 VOL. I. T
 
 322 PRELIMINARY HISTORY. 
 
 aj^pear to have a separate existence and tlius contradict the 
 Mosaic religion.' It is also shown by plain indications (see 
 l>. 290 sqq.), that at least in the popular concejition a Hero- 
 Pantheon was superadded to the chief god and the house-god of 
 the ruler. Equally ineffective was this indefinite aj)prehension 
 of one god completely to suppress idolatry. How firmly rooted 
 this practice was, at least among the women and inferior do- 
 mestics, is evident from the obstinate retention of the Teraphim 
 (or Fcnates) many centuries after Moses, and in spite of the 
 commands of the higher religion. Tradition indeed does not 
 deny idolatry at least on the part of Rachel and Laban.^ Thus 
 there was wanting to the one God worshipped by the Patriarchs 
 all the distinctness and definiteness of the God of Moses. 
 
 But as in that early period mankind were strongly exposed 
 to the immediate influence of the visible, and everything sym- 
 bolical exerted over them a living power, some of the most 
 ancient sj^mbols of higher thoughts lasted from it even to the 
 later Mosaic times ; and these reveal most plainly an original 
 conn-ection of the Hebrews with the northern nations. The 
 Israelites under Moses would assuredl}^ have known nothing of 
 Cherubs or of Seraphim as heavenly animals, unless the memory 
 of these shapes of the older religious faith had been preseiTcd 
 from a higher antiquity ; ^ and with these are connected the 
 other sacred reminiscences which have been above related. 
 
 But if this was the state of the most ancient religion in the 
 Hebrew nation while yet they sojourned in their northern home, 
 it is evident how great a risk they ran of falling before the 
 allurements of a low sensuous ftiith and a dissolute ungodly life. 
 And this result must have really taken place in that nation 
 (who had otherwise remained so simple and robust) even before 
 Abraham : indeed Abraham must have had to combat most 
 strenuously among his nearest kindred and in his own house 
 with the seductions of the ripening heathenism, and men cor- 
 rupted by them. The Fifth Narrator has omitted to relate this 
 before the present brilliant oj)ening of the history of Abraham 
 
 ' In tlio iiiKloTiljtcdly ancient p^'rasc, scraplis of heaven were fho best watclicrs 
 
 Gen. xxxi. 53. and guardians of the heavenly throui^ The 
 
 ■^ Gen. xxxi. 19 sqq., xxxv. 2-4. gifrantic Chenil) was originally only one, 
 
 ' D-1"l3 points to an Aryan derivation wluTcas of the smaller and more fairy-like 
 
 (see my remarks on Ezekiel i.) : and seraphs there were ahvays many. The 
 
 nicy, despite the slight mutation of ^'"^^^ ^''''^ Sphinxes are unknown to the 
 
 ''',..,. , , , „ , . . most ancient sculpture and writing of 
 
 Bounds, IS nid.spu ably of the same origin jr ^. ^ .,„^| «nly app.ar there after the 
 
 as5p<£«a,.. As .sharp glowing eyes and H^-ksos period, i.s an additi<nial proof that 
 
 colours were regarded ,y the ancients as ^if g^^.j, .symbolical images had their origin 
 
 the chief features ol tins creature, so in „.^ • , -p^,.„f i,,,» ;„ f<„,,f,..,i \„;., 
 
 - ,, , ,, ' . , not in Ji<eypt L)ut in Central ^Lsia. 
 
 virtue of exactly fcuch eyes the winged ^'"-
 
 ABRAHAM. 323 
 
 (Gen. xii.), as if lie hastened past this dark picture to give 
 greater prominence to that noble introduction which had been 
 already delineated by the Fourth (Gen. xii. 1-3) ; but the re- 
 membrance of it has been elsewhere preserved.' The strife was 
 assuredly long and hard. But the highest and most peculiar 
 element iu his history, and that which has become most fruitful 
 for all future time, is, that he clung so firmly to his assurance 
 of the one true God, and recognised so clearly that true salva- 
 tion can come from him alone, that he chose rather to abandon 
 fatherland and relations than faith in the sole omnipotence and 
 helpfulness of this supersensuous, heavenly and only true God, 
 and resolved to make this confidence the root of his life and 
 influence. With this feeling he must first have acted as a 
 powerful prince towards his own extensive household, and after- 
 wards have persevered in the same course in Canaan and in 
 Egypt, among nations where he encountered a much higher 
 wisdom and more enlarged experience, but at the same time 
 much over-refinement and moral corruption. 
 
 3) Abraham as exhibited by the existing Narratives. 
 
 Although we may convince ourselves satisfactorily of the 
 truth of all that has hitherto been exj)lained of the actual 
 liistoiy of Abraham, it is not to be denied that in the Old 
 Testament but few and scattered passages concerning him from 
 the oldest writings have been preserved. What we now know 
 of him with any considerable coherence is due to no earlier 
 source than the Book of Origins ; but, unhappily, a large portion 
 of that which this book had originally told of this greatest of 
 the Patriarchs has been lost. As it, however (see p. 82 sqq.), 
 brings forward with the greatest interest all that relates to 
 law and rule, Abraham appears in it chiefly as the great 
 father and founder of the j)eople of Israel ; as the type of the 
 true ruler, in so far as he is a father of his house and 
 nation ; and as the first Hebrew mhabitant of the Holy Land 
 at the commencement of the Third Age of the world, and at 
 the same time as the noble prototype of all its later inhabitants. 
 
 ' Apart from tbo Dentcronomic and versal depravity of manners, from which 
 
 subsequent narratives wliieh will bo dis- Abraham alune, as the venerated founder 
 
 cuasod hereafter, it follows from the ar- of this Age, was by God himself preserved, 
 
 rangemeut of the Book of Origins itself, But then the Deuteronomist himself must 
 
 iiü displayed in my Altcrthilmer, p. 118, have derived from earlier records the in- 
 
 2nd ed., that its author must have de- formation respecting Abraham's relatives, 
 
 scribed, at the close of the second and which he introduces incidentally, Josh, 
 
 commencement of the Third Age, a uni- xxiv.
 
 324 PRELIMINARY HISTORY. 
 
 In tlie second place, so far as concerns law, tlie idea of a 
 covenant between God and man being tbe big-best point of view 
 taken in tbis book of every great crisis of bistory (see p. 85 
 sqq.), a new covenant of tbis kind serves also to express tbe 
 p-randeur of Abraham's wbole life, all tbat is eminent in it 
 being gathered together under tbis conception. Tbe Covenant 
 stipulates, on the part of man, first of all, the right regulation 
 and attitude of the spiritual life (Gen. xvii. 1, 2), and then de- 
 mands, as an outward sign of this moral purity and consecration 
 (a Sacrament), Circumcision (ver. 9-14). But immediately upon 
 tbat primary condition of inward consecration, there follows on 
 Elohim's side the promise of the highest blessing, as his part 
 of the Covenant ; and thus the sublimest divine words which 
 this narrator can conceive to have been addressed to Abraham 
 are accumulated at this point (ver. 4-8). Circumcision, as the 
 sign of this sublime Covenant, is enacted very beautifully exactly 
 at the time when the birth of Isaac is approaching ; so that this 
 first child of the community may at his very birth become the 
 type of all its true children, and enter through this sign into 
 the higher community now formed. Thus here also is placed 
 the sublime moment when, among other j)romises, is given that 
 of the approaching birth of Isaac, and through him the secure 
 continuance of tbis Covenant and its blessings for ever, and 
 when Abram and Sarai, as the first parents in this eternal 
 Covenant, receive the new names of Abraham and Sarah,' cor- 
 responding to their new higher dignity (ver. 5, 15-21). And 
 that this zenith of Abraham's life may be attained at tbe true 
 noon of the life of a Patriarch of this era (see pp. 275 sq.), the 
 sacred year of this Covenant and expectation of the genuine 
 child of the community is Abraham's 100th year (ver. 24, 
 xxi. 5) ; that is, in the original sense of the tradition, not much 
 beyond the golden middle of the Patriarch's life (compare 
 
 ' As, ho-wevor, the alteration of Loth (Jialunii) could be easily shortened into 
 
 these names only consists in a slight dif- Ql {Rum; see Lchrhich, § 72c). In 
 
 ference of ])ronunciation, we must suppose ^Y^e other case, however, the pronunciation 
 
 the story of the change of the name ,/ffco/> ,^j^ (Sarai) is certainly the older, and 
 
 into Is7-ae.l to be the earner, and this to bo . "' . . 
 
 formed from it. The ori<riiuil name does '^s original meaning the obscurer. But the 
 
 not seem to be Q-aX {Ahram, which might ^»"^''i' "'^e Ahruham,&s synonymous witli 
 
 ^ : ." Ab-Humon (father of a multitude), and 
 
 bo a similar formation to Dnpy- tlic name ^^^, {Sarah), as meaning Princess, ap- 
 
 of Moses' father), as this prounnciation pj^^ed to the narrator most suited to 
 
 would put the utmost difficulty mtlieway of ^ho higher dignity conferred upon them, 
 
 the interpretation given in Gen.xyii. 5, but Moreover, the giving of names stands in 
 
 nn'X^^(.AInaham),^hßro-2^{Äh)m:xyU connection with circumcision; see my 
 
 a dialectic abbreviation for "f^iiiAbi, father AltertMlmer, p. 110, 
 of; see my Lehrbuch, § 273 b), and QHT
 
 ABRAHAM. 325 
 
 ch. XXV. 7).' This opens large sections of Abraham's history 
 to further chronological arrangement. We necessarily expect 
 the birth of Isaac, and in connection with it the expulsion of 
 Ishmael, somewhat as they are described in Gen. xxi. 1-21. 
 The assumj)tion of the mid-life of the Patriarch reacts also on 
 the conception of his earlier history. For since at the intro- 
 duction of circumcision, according to old and well-foiuided 
 traditions, Ishmael was about 13 years old,^ Abraham must 
 at his birth have been 86 years old ; ^ while still further back, at 
 the time of his innnigration into Canaan, 75 years are assigned 
 to him, corresponding very well with this number 100.'' And 
 since the 175 years of his whole life evidently answer to these 
 75 and 100, all the years of Abraham's life are accounted for. 
 
 So far, therefore, we can securely trace the plan of the life of 
 Abraham given by this chief narrator. Many other passages 
 are to be referred, with more or less modification, to him and 
 the other ancient sources ; as the story of Sarah's fate in the 
 court of the Prince Abimelech, ch. xx. ; that of the legal 
 23rocedure for giving possession of Beersheba, ch. xxi. 22-82 
 (where the name of that prince's captain, Phichol, nowhere else 
 mentioned, must be derived from old tradition) ; that of the 
 family sepulchre, ch. xxiii, where in beautiful picturesque 
 language the Book of Origins again finely discloses its deep 
 sense of law. But on the whole, these remains of the ancient 
 sources are very scattered. 
 
 The Fourth and Fifth Narrators conceive the preeminence of 
 Abraham in a diflPerent manner, and thereby transform a chief 
 part of this history. In their time the lapse of centuries had 
 strengthened the nation's consciousness of the great blessing of 
 the true religion which flowed in upon them abundantly out of 
 the primeval period of their past ancestors. Thus they, even 
 more strongly than the Book of Origins, figured Abraham 
 chiefly as the type of the great and universal Divine blessing, 
 spreading from one saintly man to many, to all his nation, and 
 even to many nations ; the idea being then modified by the 
 
 ' Tradition similarly magnifies many * Gen. xii. 4 : the discrepancy between 
 other numbers belonging to the same this number and that assigned to Torah's 
 period : Ishmael is a child wlien fourteen life in xi. 26, 32, is to be explained (con- 
 years old. Gen. xxi. 14-16 ; the sacrificed trar}' to Acts vii. 4) by the assumption 
 lamb is three years old, xv. 9; and Isaac that Abraham departed from Harran before 
 and Esau were both married in their for- his fathers death ; for the numbers are 
 tieth year, xxv. 20, xxvi. 34. undoubtedly all taken from the Book of 
 
 2 ^QeZi'itschrift für das Morgenland, \\\. Origins, whose author, in his usual way, 
 
 p. 230; Zohar (i. p. 16öb, ed. Amstel.) finishedoiF with Terah only that he might 
 
 takes the twelfth year as the first of be able then to dwell on Abraham's history 
 
 puberty and accountability. alone. 
 
 ' Gen. xvi. 16.
 
 32G rRELIMINARY HISTOEY. 
 
 Messianic hope of tliat time. It is taken for granted tliat the 
 later nation, tatiglit bj its ancestor, wonld also always be 
 worthy of this blessing- ; ' and the aim of the particular de- 
 scriptions of these narrators was especially to show liotv Abra- 
 ham himself had become perfectly worthy of it. 
 
 But farther, that simple purity and sanctit}^ of life which, 
 according to the Book of Origins, was expected from Abraham 
 (Gen. xvii.) did not suffice for their own time, more advanced 
 as it was in prophetical culture (p. 104 sq.). For a life of piety 
 there was then demanded the maintenance of faith through 
 the longest trial and the severest temptations, — a momentous 
 progress, the historical causes and consequences of which can- 
 not here be discussed. Accordingly while the Book of Origins 
 sums up all that is highest in Abraham's character in the one 
 name of a ' Prince of God,' and most delights to depict men as 
 meeting him more and more with the spontaneous respect and 
 homage due to one enjoying that Divine protection,* by these 
 last narrators he is regarded rather as a Prophet, and is even 
 called by that name.^ But if the climax of his life is found here, 
 and Abraham serves as the sole perfect type of this character, it 
 is evident that he may be regarded also as the sole great hero of 
 the true faith, and of the Divine justification thereby attained, 
 and that a narrator of the traditions, filled with this thought, 
 might remould from his new point of view the scattered re- 
 miniscences respecting him. He met with much that might 
 lead him to this ; the tradition of the temptation to sacrifice 
 Isaac is, by many indications, old : ^ that of Sarah's danger (see 
 p. 293) was easily brought into connection with the same idea ; 
 and Abraham's receiving his promised heir only in his hundredth 
 year might be interpreted by a somewhat later age to imply that 
 the pledge had been fulfilled through a severe testing of the 
 parents, and after all expectation had been given up.'^ In this 
 
 ' According to the importaut passage, circumstances already explained, the Eook 
 
 Gen. xviii. 19. of Origins makes no difficulty in ascriliing 
 
 * Gen. xxiii. 6 ; compared with the to Abraham after Sarah's death another 
 fiarlier expression, xxi. 22, wife and many sons, xxv, 1—1. I view 
 
 ' Gen. XX. 7. the words in xvii. 17 beginning with pnV*! 
 
 * See my AltcrtMlmer, p. 79 sq., 261 sq. as an addition by the Fifth Narrator, and 
 Similar traditions among the Pheniciaus xxi. 6 sq. as added by the Third. Isaac 
 will be mentioned hereafter in treating of ^vas certainly always regarded as much 
 l''^'^'^^' younger than Ishmael, Gen. xi. 30, xxi. 
 
 * The description of Isaac as son of 2, 7 ; and in aid of the historical reasons 
 very aged parents, and of the laughter which may have induced the early tradi- 
 which accompanied his annunciation and tion to regard the tribes of Isaac and 
 birth, not only in eh. xviii, but also in Joseph as later, and therefore to make the 
 eh. xvii. and xxi, appears to me mere Patriarchs Isaac and Joseph younger sons 
 addition and amplification by later writers. in the pedigree, came the religious truth 
 Let it be rcmouibered that, besides the that as all the greatest blessings of life
 
 ABRAHAM. 327 
 
 manner, the tliouglit that even the perfectly irreproachable is 
 tried in the faith through all degrees even to the uttermost, 
 and only when completely approved can attain the highest and 
 most enduring Divine blessing, becomes the keystone of the 
 history of Abraham, and binds all the most prominent events of 
 his life into a new whole. That which precedes this series of 
 trials of his faith is but preparation for, and that which follows 
 to the end of his life is but the issue of, this intensest activity 
 in the grand middle period of his life. 
 
 a.) Thus, although Abraham is exhibited from the first as 
 the same perfect hero, all that is brought together by the last 
 narrator (Gen. xi. 27-xiv.) as far as the first trial of fiiith in 
 ch. XV, serves but as a preparation for the great development 
 in the middle of his life. According to this version Jahveli calls 
 Abraham into the Holy Land, and promises him beforehand all 
 the grand and unparalleled future of the history, ch. xii. 1-3 (for 
 this narrator delights in such sublime commencements in pre- 
 paration for what is to follow, p. Ill sq.) ; and then Abraham 
 willingly follows the call from above, and travels through the 
 Holy Land, building altars to his God, and receiving from him 
 gracious messages (xii. 4-9). Here already, in Abraham's 
 progress as far as Egypt, and the danger which befell Sarah at 
 the court of that country, it is shown what protection the holy 
 life of such a hero extends even to the farthest borders of his 
 house, and how little a woman like Sarah is liable to actual 
 wrong (xii. 10-20).' And in his behaviour towards Lot, Abraham 
 exhibits even in the casual disputes which may arise between 
 people of kindred race, that noble spirit of endurance and paci- 
 fication which turns all possible evil to good. Accordingly Lot 
 yields voluntarily, and removes eastwards into the very land 
 which in the subsequent history his descendants Moab and 
 Amnion possess ; and Jahveh blesses anew him who by such 
 conduct retains his abode in Canaan, ch. xiii. And as towards 
 Lot, so does he behave towards people and princes of foreign 
 race, even to the king of Sodom, rendering aid to others with 
 noble boldness and self-devotion, and is blessed for it even by 
 
 can be obtained only by slow and laborious ' The legend of Sarah's danger was 
 striving, so these exalted Fathers of the transplanted to Egypt by the Fourth Nar- 
 nation were born into the world only after rator, as appears from the style of treat- 
 lengthened expectation and anxiety. But nient: earlier narrators had related the 
 we see with equal distinctness that this same of a Canaanite court (Gen. xx.). 
 feature of the tradition was first eagerly Considering, however, that Isaac's power 
 prosecuted by later wi-iters, so that none is alway.s described as weaker than Abra- 
 earlier than the Fifth Narrator transfers ham's, it is natural to look for the original 
 it to the birth of Esau aud Jacob, Gen. scene of the story in his life; see Gen. 
 XXV. 21. xxvi. 7-11.
 
 328 I'RHLIMINARY HISTORY. 
 
 the foreign priest-king Melcliizedek ; ' as is stated in ch. xiv, 
 wliicli is inserted almost word for word from the primitive 
 history often referred to above. 
 
 In fact, after these trials and these proofs of an unsurpassable 
 elevation of life, it seems as if nothing further could be added 
 to him ; and yet all this is but the introduction to something 
 higher still, since hitherto everything has gone right with him 
 of itself, so to speak, and his own trust and endurance have not 
 yet been tried ; though this trial would seem to be nowhere so 
 necessary as in the case of one who occupies so exalted a sphere 
 of life. If much has been given to him and much is to be 
 expected from him, the mere accidental success of all his affairs 
 will in his case suffice less than in that of others : a deeper 
 probation of his inmost heart must be added, so that when he 
 has approved himself through a.11 the stages of that test, then 
 and then only he may attain those spiritual blessings which 
 surpass all casual and transient success. 
 
 b.) This trial turns at first, as it might seem to us later-born 
 and alien readers, upon an unimportant blessing — the advent of 
 a lawful heir, and the birth of Isaac. But, Avithout insisting 
 too strongly on the fiict that this is really a blessing, or that 
 in a trial the important element is not the inherent value of the 
 object, but the price at which it is held by him who is tried, 
 from his personal position and feeling, or even that the blessing 
 of bodily issue is immensely greater in those primitive times 
 when the very bases of the household, the nation, and the 
 kingdom are to be laid, than at a period when the first necessary 
 wants have long been supplied, and spiritual blessings therefore 
 can come more freely into view — it is to be remembered that in 
 the genuine meaning of the tradition this j)romised and eagerly 
 awaited son and heir is no common child, but as it were the 
 primitive child of the community, the type of its constant reno- 
 vation and continuance, without whose birth and preservation 
 the subsequent community could neither have arisen, nor have 
 felt itself endowed Avith permanence and perpetual youth. What 
 were Abraham as the origin and head of a national communit}^, 
 if that which he founded expired with him and were not secured 
 by the continuance of the same house filled with his spirit, since 
 
 ' It has been alread^^ noticed, however, to the nortli. Tlie Hebrew text of Gen. 
 
 in p. 307, that Salem, his metropolis, was xxxiii. 18 does not mention a city Salem, 
 
 not Jeriisalem ; the ' fortress Salam,' said thouij;li the LXX. do; but it is remarkable 
 
 to bo conquered by Rhamses (Brugsch, that the Book of Jubilees xxx. places it to 
 
 (icogr(t]>hlsche Inschriften, ii. p. 71 sq.; the east of Shechem, as if its position were 
 
 Histoire d'Egijpk; i. p. \^'>) may have been well known to the author. 
 either the city just named or one further
 
 ABRAHAM. 329 
 
 no strict severance of the domestic and national from the 
 spiritual could then exist ? 
 
 Moved by such reflections as these, the narrator naturally 
 exhibits the father and founder of the nation himself as ex- 
 pecting- with relig'ious eagerness the lawful heir, and, though 
 all his other wishes are fulfilled, painfully agitated at last by 
 longing for this latest blessing. Thus is prepared a trial fit for 
 a hero such as he. The divine certainty that this necessary 
 keystone shall not ultimately fail, is indeed easily reached by 
 one as blameless as Abraham ; but even when the time ap- 
 proaches, the realisation may be deferred and encounter mani- 
 fold hindrances. And when the long desired but much delayed 
 son is born, and the natural blessing gained, the further ques- 
 tion arises whether he, who thus far holds it only as an earthly 
 good, is able to guard and maintain it also as a spiritual and 
 permanent blessing. In this are contained a multitude of 
 possible degrees of trial for his faith, even to the utmost ; and 
 a way is opened for the great development of the middle period 
 of his life. 
 
 The narrator therefore, according to his custom (p. Ill), 
 commences in a strain befitting the loftiness of Abraham's 
 whole life, with a sublime i^evelation of the divine certainty 
 of the desired blessing, ch. xv. When, on another gracious ap- 
 pearance of Jahveh, Abraham ventures timidly to utter what he 
 longs for, the former, not merely in words (ver. 4) promises 
 him his desire, but also directs his gaze to the stars, which his 
 posterity shall equal in number (ver. 5). Finally, when Abraham, 
 having proved his faith in a region not reached by sense, seizes 
 a fiivourable opportunity to entreat yet more boldly for an out- 
 ward sign and pledge, Jahveh gives him his Covenant as such a 
 mutual pledge (ver. 9-20). This covenant-making is in the 
 main transferred hither by the later narrator from the older 
 tradition in ch. xvii ; but he very appropriately uses the occa- 
 sion of this description of the Covenant only to foreshadow 
 here (where for the first time posterity are seriously spoken of) 
 the whole future destiny of Israel (p. 35). Having put the 
 commencement of this revelation in the night and treated it as 
 a night-vision (ver. 1-9), he similarly embodies its conclusion 
 also in a night-scene. On the following day, Abraham, having 
 put everything in proper order for a sacrifice at a sanctuary, 
 and lain down to slee^) towards evening on the hallowed 
 ground,' expectant of what is to come, not only sees a fire 
 
 ' This is a distinct allusion to the rite p. 298. But even Marcus Aurelius in his 
 oi incubatio, on which see xay Alterthilmcr, Memorabilia, i. 17, says something similar
 
 330 PRELIiriNARY HISTORY. 
 
 passing between tlie pieces as a sign of the conclusion of tlie 
 covenant, (and how else but in such a fire-sign could Jahveh 
 show himself in the darkness of night P) but hears also in that 
 solemn moment a Divine voice foretell the fortunes of that 
 j)Osterity for whose sake this covenant is made (ver. 10-20). 
 And since this prophecy cannot give only joyful announcements 
 of Israel's lot (e.g. in Egypt), unfavourable prognostics pre- 
 cede : birds of prey, which try to seize the sacrificial pieces 
 when already placed,^ but are driven away in good time by 
 Abraham ; and then at sunset, or about the first sleep, the 
 irruption of a fearful darkness. 
 
 But in the agitation of real life this last express Divine 
 assurance is met by multitudes of obstacles and new trials. 
 
 (i) In the first place, Sarah becomes impatient of the delay, 
 and Abraham is obliged to submit to her wish to have a son, at 
 least indirectly by her maid ; Ishmael, although even before 
 his birth persecuted by Sarah, must be born in Abraham's 
 house (ch. xvi.). By the birth of this but half lawful son, the 
 advent of the true one, who alone can have been intended by 
 Jahveh as worthy, is evidently thrown back further into uncer- 
 tainty. 
 
 (m) But as, according to the older story, circumcision was 
 introduced thirteen years later as the sign of the covenant, and 
 the birth of Isaac then promised for the following year, the 
 later narrator uses this to set forth that the true son — • 
 although the announcement might be received with laughter 
 on account of the great age of the parents — will yet surely come 
 (ch. xvii.). 
 
 {Hi) At this moment of high-wrought expectation, the 
 interlude of the fate of Sodom and of Lot (ch. xviii, xix.) 
 is very effectively introduced by this narrator. "While Jahveh 
 is about to show favour to Sarah in giving her the expected 
 lawful son, he has also to come down to earth for a veiy 
 different reason, on account of Sodom. But whether he 
 descend to bless or to punish, neither blessing nor chastise- 
 ment can be found immutably necessary by Jahveh till after 
 a just examination. So at this moment critical to entire 
 nations on every side, there comes first examination, and 
 then, as its consequence, retribution. But the examination 
 begins with him who has alwa3^s stood the highest — Abra- 
 liam ; for, should ho be found guilty, the very severest 
 
 of liinisolf. Compare also licvue Archcolog. description very like this, only more elabo- 
 18G(), p. 11 G sc|(i. rated ; in which the mention of ara, v. 231, 
 
 ' Virgil {jEneid, iii. 225 sqq.) gives a deserves especial attention.
 
 ABRAHAM. 381 
 
 puiiislimont would await even him.' But when Iho Divine 
 Being approaches him in the illusive form of three strangers 
 seeking shelter, he hastens to meet them with the most real 
 and active kindness possible ; and then, as the Divinity is 
 gradually revealed to him as he deserves to know — first in a 
 renewed promise of the approaching birth of Isaac, notwith- 
 standing the laughter of Sarah, who thought herself unnoticed 
 in the background, and again in an intimation of ihe fate of 
 Sodom then to be decided, — he steps before the One, who has 
 already sent his two subordinates (messengers or angels) to 
 Sodom, and ventures even at the last hour to present an urgent 
 intercession for that city, flowing from the purest love (for he 
 would rescue all its inhabitants, not Lot alone), and persists 
 in it with desperate boldness, and to his own risk. But while 
 Abraham thus perfectly approves himself, and wins for those 
 over whom punishment has long impended, the very easiest 
 condition of forgiveness, it is proved in the self-same night 
 that even this condition is not fulfilled in Sodom. In the dark- 
 ness of this night, therefore, these two angels, quitting their 
 invisibility, complete their work of horror, scarcely rescuing 
 even the family of Lot. With an unsurpassable beauty, the nar- 
 rative concludes (xix. 27, 28) by returning again to Abraham, 
 whose first gaze and thought on the morrow turned towards 
 Sodom, but found only traces of its utter ruin. 
 
 (iv) In the same decisive year also occurs Sarah's danger at 
 the court of Abimelech; and how then could she become the 
 mother of the lawful son ? But, according to the older tradi- 
 tion, this danger also passes over, and brings an actual increase 
 of safety to Sarah and honoiu' to Abraham (ch. xx.). 
 
 (u) Finally, late indeed, but at the right time, comes the 
 Lawful Son, for whom Ishmael must soon make way (ch. xxi. 
 1-21). 
 
 (vi) To this is appended, almost unaltered from the older work, 
 though not strictly belonging to this connection, the account 
 of Beersheba (xxi. 22-34), the pith of which lies simply in the 
 thought that even in things of this world possession is per- 
 manent and legitimate only when it rests not on mere natural 
 taking and giving, but upon mutual agreement, upon a cove- 
 nant between Higher and Lower, and consequently upon oath. 
 King Abimelech seeks of his own free will to enter into a 
 peaceful league with Abraham; but the latter prudently ar- 
 ranges beforehand everything from which strife might arise 
 
 ' Comp:ire Jci'tmiali xxv. 29 , ! Peter iv. 1 7.
 
 382 TRELIMINAEY HISTORY. 
 
 between them, and binds the former, who in external position 
 is his superior, bj the acceptance of a gift in token of homage, 
 to the remembrance of his duty of protection.' But even Isaac, 
 when finally obtained, is as yet only a blessing of nature for 
 Abraham ; a son like any other son, though of the lawful 
 mother ; Abraham's son because born to Abraham, and nur- 
 tured in his house. True labour, the labour of a soul wi'estling 
 in faith, Abraham has never had for him since his birth ; and 
 yet that only is a spiritual, and therefore true and abiding 
 blessing, which we are able to make our own in the strife and 
 wrestling of a faithful spirit. 
 
 {vii) Therefore, just when the highest blessing is obtained 
 in Isaac, the highest trial of faith and obedience comes to 
 Abraham. That same Isaac, some Divine voice says to him in 
 the night, he must sacrifice at a fitting place. ^ Though he be 
 the highest and dearest of all external blessings, that on which 
 the father's whole life now turns, Abraham must be ready to 
 render him back to him from whom he has been received. And 
 behold, this hero of faith, following the Divine voice as he has 
 hitherto apprehended it, shrinks not nor tarries to offer even 
 this hardest sacrifice. With wonderful self-control and calm- 
 ness, he makes all needful preparations ; he even carries them 
 all out deliberately himself. But let it not be thought that, 
 having once believed the command to be from above, he fulfilled 
 it rigidly and blindly ; he enters upon it indeed with patience 
 and firmness — as a religious man he cannot do otherwise, so 
 long as by his best efforts he can discern no other decision from 
 above. But, though his devotedness is perfect, he does not carry 
 out the command as if nothing beside this hard necessity were 
 still conceivable and possible, — as if no other and higher truth 
 could be announced from heaven. When the son, the unconscious 
 victim, already bearing the wood for the offering, and willingly 
 following his father's every command, inquires for the victim, 
 ]ie does not suffer that heart-breaking question to divert him 
 from that which he has recognised as the will of Heaven, but 
 neither does he answer with unfeeling readiness, ' Thou art 
 he !' but in his anguish cries out as if involuntarily, and yet 
 inspired by a true prophetic impulse, ' God himself will provide 
 
 • Gen. xxxii. 14 [13] — xxxiii. 11. de- biit most .sifruificantly, transfer Abraham's 
 RCi'ibes siuiilarly the relation subsisting sacrifice to Jcru.salem, thou^^h very artfully 
 between Jacol) and Esau, undoubtedly in thoy rather indicate than name tJie spot. 
 imitation of this same earliest narrator. Thei-o is, however, no doubt that that is 
 
 * It is quite in keeping with the style the pbico meant, as has been quite recently 
 of the Fourtli and Fifth Narrators, that demonstrated in the Gott. Gd.Anz. 1863, 
 tJiey exceptionally (according to p. 30Ö), p. 637 sq.
 
 ABRAHAM. 333 
 
 the lamb.' From tliis liappy combination in Abraham, of roadi- 
 iiGss and devotedness of act, with the true readiness of thought, 
 of hope, and of believing expectation, arises the most glorious 
 and blessed of results. Already he has bound his son, already- 
 raised the knife, already all but sacrificed the innocent, obedient, 
 unresisting child, when at the last moment a A'oice from above 
 is heard again — not now like that dream- voice of the night, but 
 clear and loud in the full day, bidding him abstain from the 
 actual deed, now that his temper, his true faith, is proved; and 
 his eyes are ojiened to see beside him the victim which is 
 actually better pleasing to Jahveh. The highest trial of faith 
 thus ends with the gain of a new and great truth ; ^ and not 
 only is Isaac rescued for ever through this death-pang of his 
 father, but an indestructible foundation is laid for the com- 
 munity which was destined to be perpetuated for ever in every 
 form of blessing, 
 
 c.) Nothing higher can follow : the rest of Abraham's life 
 flows on undisturbed in that happy rej^ose which is the ideal 
 condition for old age, and the third part of the narrative is 
 occupied only with accounts of the various domestic concerns of 
 the hero and his kindred, of the acquisition of the family sepul- 
 chre, and of the arrangements for Isaac's happy marriage.^ 
 
 4) Abraham according to the later Boohs. 
 
 Thus it is only the finished art of the last narrator which 
 moulds the history of Abraham to that brilliant type of the 
 Mosaic religion which never afterwards grows pale ; anything 
 greater is not attempted in this region, and indeed were 
 scarcely to be conceived. For this very reason this conception 
 of the champion who stands at the head of all the heroes of the 
 faith in the Holy Land, when once powerfully aroused, could 
 not stand still ; and the Bible itself still shows certain indica- 
 tions how it progressed by the aid of tradition. For what causes 
 Abraham migrated from the north, the narrative as shaped by 
 the last author does not precisely indicate (p. 322 sq.), although 
 the oldest sources allowed the full historical facts to appear 
 more manifestly (p. 323 note). By these oldest authorities it 
 is simply mentioned that Terah, Abraham's father, desired to 
 
 ' Viz. the truth that Jahveh does not primeval time, through the experience of 
 
 desire human SMcrifices. There -^^-as cer- the greatest liero of the faith. The higher 
 
 tainly <i time when it was possible to meaning of this tradition is also indicated, 
 
 conceive, and therefore to attempt, the Heb. xi. 19, in the words eV Trapaj3oAj7. 
 contrary. But it was refuted even in that * Gen. xxii. 20 — xxv. 11.
 
 334 PRELIMINARY HISTORY. 
 
 journey with him and others to Canaan, but came with them only 
 as far as Harran in Mesopotamia, where they all settled provi- 
 sionally, and he afterwards died.^ The Fourth Narrator gives pro- 
 minence to the parting of Abraham from his home and country, 
 and takes occasion from it to expound the truth of the Divine 
 call to spirits of such innate power and such strength of faith, 
 somewhat in the same manner as was held of the Prophets, 
 and often preached in the eighth century ; ' but he asserts 
 nothing respecting the religion of his father. And the existing 
 Pentateuch merely says incidentally in one place in Deuteronomy 
 that on the farther side of the Euphrates Terah and the other 
 ancestors of the peojjle had served other gods ; ^ an assertion 
 not exhibiting merely a further development of tradition, 
 separating with increasing sharpness between the polytheism 
 external to Israel and the one God worshipped by them, but 
 (according to p. 323) really based upon older narratives which 
 were in later times more brought into notice. Now partly the 
 hiatus in the jjrevalent story, which must always have been 
 very apparent, partly the pleasure of reviving the Patriarchal 
 time in later days in new and vivid pictures, must have 
 tempted an author, who probably also used other ancient 
 stories, to sketch a striking picture, showing how much 
 Abraham, while yet m his father's house, had to suffer for 
 his worship of the true God ; and this work must have been 
 much read in the centuries immediately before Christ.'* This 
 narrative brought Nimrod, as the great heathen king and 
 persecutor of the pious, into contact with Abraham ; but in 
 doing so it certainly only started from the name ' land of the 
 Chaldeans ' as Abraham's northern fatherland (p. 282 sq.), and 
 thence concluded that Nimrod, as the single celebrated ancient 
 king of the Chaldeans, must have been his opponent; and when 
 
 ' Gen. xi. 31, 32. IIow diiferent is tlio and a number of other late j^assagcs. 
 later description in tlie Book of Juditli, * Yettlio phrase in Is. xxix. 22, ' Jahvoh 
 V. G-9 ! This and other similar deserip- redeemed Aliraliam,' is certainly ancient, 
 tions given in later times cannot possibly though very remarkable, and (as shown 
 bo all derived from the words in Gon. on p. 318) scarcely explicable from the 
 xi. 31 sqq. But it is certain on other narratives contained in our present Genesis 
 grounds that this passage has been much alone ; for it would imply that Abraham 
 curtailed (see Jahrb. der Bihl. Wiss. x. had been rescued out of some great bodily 
 p. 20 sqq.) ; and even if the discrepancy danger, and tlius brought to the know- 
 in the numbers found at Gen. xi. 26, xii. 4, ledge of the true God. At any rate, Uiero 
 can bo reconciled as shown at p. 32.5, yet were in Isaiah's time earlier stories of 
 ■we cannot shut our eyes to the fact that Abraham, and vciy distinct and detailed 
 Abraham's own history now commences ones too. But pictures of Abraham's early 
 most al)rui)tly, G«-n. xii. 1. history such as those found in Judith and 
 
 ^ Gen. xii. 1-4, compared with Is. vi., in Acts vii. 2-4 must be derived from 
 
 Amos vii. 15; also Jer. i. tome later source. 
 
 * Josh. xxiv. 2, 14 ; see Judith v. G-9,
 
 ABRAHAM. 335 
 
 the writer represented him as cast by the terrible Nimrod into 
 the furnace, the Book of Daniel was in his eye. But Abraham 
 became in later ages more and more the favourite object of 
 a thousand forms of pious expressions, poems and stories.' 
 Standing titles of honour were also being perpetually created 
 for him, to heighten the splendour which antiquity had already 
 lavished on him. Especially after the sixth century before 
 Christ, everything exalted which could then be possibly con- 
 ceived of Abraham was summed up in the new name ' Friend 
 of God.' 2 This name is still retained in the Islamite world as 
 the most suitable ; and there its abbreviation, ' The Friend ' 
 (El Chalil), is directly interchangeable with the name Ibrahim. 
 The immediate occasion for this name was furnished undoubtedly 
 by the beautiful narrative from the hand of the Fourth Narrator 
 Gen. xviii. 1-xix. 28. Simpler and yet accordant with the spirit 
 of true religion is the title ' Servant of Jahveh,' which he re- 
 ceived equally gradually ;^ as also that of ' The Faithful.''* The 
 Rabbis finally, who sought to round off everything, brought 
 "up the temptations of Abraham to the number ten.^ 
 
 The assumption of Josephus,^ that Berosus in his Chaldean 
 history made mention of Abraham, is shown by his own words 
 to be groundless ; for he could not find in Berosus even the 
 name of the ' great and just man, learned in astrology,' who 
 lived among the Chaldeans in the tenth generation after the 
 Flood, and therefore only assumed arbitrarily that Abraham 
 was intended. According to all that we now know, on the con- 
 trary, Abraham's memory was preserved only in the Israelitisli 
 history, till Asia was opened to the Greeks and Romans by 
 the Macedonian conquests, and the Greek translation of the old 
 Testament, as well as the spread of Judaism and Christianity, 
 excited a new curiosity respecting the history of this hero 
 of antiquity. But at that time the derivation of Abraham 
 from Ur-Chasdim (p. 283) misled the investigators in many 
 ways. Thinking that by the term Chaldeans could only be 
 
 ' AH the R.aljbinical stories about Alirn- give him the title 6 7rpefr/8i;T6po9, actually 
 
 ham are now collected and elucidated in B. according io the Holy Script iii-cs, ii. p. 46, 
 
 Beer's Lcbefi Abraham's nach Auffassung or ch. xxxix. of his long oration on Abra- 
 
 dcr Jüdischen Sage, Le\}pf<ic, 18Ö9. ham (which contains nothing else pecu- 
 
 2 Is. xli. 8 ; see 2 ChroD. xx. 7 ; James liar). On the other hand, the work on 
 
 ii. 23 ; Clemens Eomanus, Ep. ad Cor. Jonah ascribed to Philo (Anchor, ii. p. 
 
 X. 17; Homil. xviii. 13; Abdiae, Hist. 592) does certainly mention Patriarchs 
 
 Ajwst. iv. 5 ; and Melo ap. Euseb. Frap. who were thrown into the ßre by Baby- 
 
 Evang. ix. 19. Ionian tyrants. 
 
 ' See the addition of th.o LXX. to Gen. * P. Ahoth, v. 3. 
 xviii. 17. _ " >4wi'.i. 7; repeated by Eusebius, PrcF^j. 
 
 •' 6 inffrhs iirwvvfx'is, Philo, Op}'), i. Ev. ix. 16. 
 p. 259. Philo, more slrangely, wishes to
 
 336 I'KKLLMJ.VAKT HISTOKV. 
 
 denoted the liigUy civilised Chaldeans of Babylon ' at their o-svn 
 day, they conceived of Abraham and Joseph as Chaldeans dis- 
 tinguished respectively in astrology- and in weights and measures, 
 and said that they both had gone to Egypt to instruct the 
 Egyi^tians in these arts as well as in the true religion.'^ This 
 view is in so far true, that these arts really appear to have pro- 
 ceeded more from the Babylonians than from the Egyptians, 
 and that there is distinct evidence that weights were introduced 
 from Babylon into Egypt.^ But that Abraham and Joseph were 
 the means of introducing them is a mere conjecture of those 
 wi'iters. It is curious how fond the Greek writers were of this 
 jDarticular idea, which became familiar to them from the celebrity 
 of the Chaldeans. Not only writers of the character and age 
 of Justin Martyr constantly speak of Abraham and Lot as 
 Chaldeans, but even in the Orphic poems * the Chaldean sage is 
 undoubtedly meant for Abraham. 
 
 Among the ancient Arabs, far more than among the 
 Babylonians, we should expect to find independent traditions 
 of Abraham's early sovereignty and greatness. The fame of 
 Abraham was certainly wide-spread among the Arabs of the 
 interior long before Mohammed ; as their own ancestor and 
 hero, they transferred him, with Hagar and Tshmael, to Mecca, 
 regarded him as the builder of the far-famed sanctuary there, 
 the Kaaba ; and gloried in the possession of an image of him 
 there, and of his footprint on the black stone. And in confor- 
 mity with the Old Testament, they also distinguished as 
 Arahised, certain northern tribes supposed to be derived from 
 Ishmael, from the pure Arabs. We also possess some poetical 
 accounts from the pre-Islamite period, respecting Abraham, 
 as founder of the religious observances connected with the 
 Kaaba.'' 'But it is quite evident that at the institution of 
 Islam, very vague traditions alone remained concerning him, 
 and that these were eagerly pursued by Mohammed for his own 
 special object. For the name of Abraham, as an ancient Ara- 
 bian prophet, was for Mohammed a weapon against both Jew 
 
 ' There is an exact parallel to this ' See Böckh's Metrologische Uvtirmich- 
 
 p'cat transformation of the Chaldeans vvcfcn, Berlin, 1838. 
 
 in that of the Toltecs, the former con- ■* Quoted hy Aristolmlus, nnder Pto- 
 
 cjuerors of Mexico, into artists, after they lemy IV.. in the third century before 
 
 had lost the sovereignty. Christ, in Eiiseliius, Pro'p. Ev. xiii. 12, 
 
 '^ Josephus, Ai)t. i. 8. 2. Eusebius, p. 665 Vig. I do not here notice the 
 
 Prff'p. El.', ix. 16-19, 23. See also Fabri- Nabatean fragments respecting Ibrahim 
 
 cius in the Codex T.snidefiffr. Veteris 7'eM. the Cavaaiiitc from Kiiiha (see p. 283), 
 
 i. p. .'3")6, T);')?. According to Eusebius, published by Ch'wolson in 1859. 
 
 xvii., Kupolennis identifiid Ur-Chasdim * See the two lines in the Hamasa, p. 
 
 with a place in I'abylonia named Urie, 125, 3 sq. 
 Otherwise A'awmwc ; but see above, p. 283. 
 
 1
 
 ABRAHAM. 
 
 337 
 
 and Christian ; Mohammed therefore eagerlj caught up all 
 attainable stories about him, derived principally from the highly 
 coloured narratives of later writers, and afterwards worked them 
 uj) himself with great freedom.' But though his memory was 
 thus renewed in Islam, and certain scenes of his life depicted in 
 the most vivid colours, especially his contest with Nimrod and 
 the Babylonian idolators, among whom was his own father ; yet 
 all such narratives (except the truly Arabian idea of his having 
 lived and worked at Mecca) are very plainly derived from 
 Biblical sources : a single word of the Bible often servin«- as 
 the foundation of an entire history. Nothing distinct of what 
 the ancient Ishmaelites may have related, centuries before 
 Christ, of their progenitor, remained in these later times ; and 
 as the history of Job (Ayyub) was first known to the Arabs 
 in Christian times from the Old Testament,^ so Ibrahim'' s old 
 renown seems first to have been revived among them by the 
 Jews scattered through Arabia, and through the introduction 
 of Christianity.^ Only if it were possible to recover some far 
 earlier Arabian accounts, might we hope for much more impor- 
 tant aid to historical research."* And though the Sabians, from 
 mere similarity of sound, attempted to identify the name of 
 
 ' Keran, Siir. ii 118 sqq., 260 sqq., 
 iii. 89 sq., iv. 124, vi. 74 sqq., ix. 115, 
 xi. 72 sqq., xiv. 38 sqq., xxi. 52 sqq., 
 xxix. 15 sqq., xxxvii. Sl sqq., li. 24 sqq.. 
 Ix. 4 sqq. 
 
 2 Zeitsch.für d. Morg. iii. p. 234. 
 
 ^ The stories about Ibrahim collected 
 by Arabic historians are now found most 
 complete in Tabari's Chronicle ; in which, 
 however, as given by Dubeux, i. p. 127- 
 194, two or three sources must have been 
 brought togetherwith hardly any amalga- 
 mation. See also Jelaleddin's History of 
 Jerusalem, p. 320-377, ed. Eeyn. On care- 
 fully examining all this perplexed mass of 
 narratives, we find that 1. Some few are 
 genuine Arabic, relating to the Ca ahn; 
 2. The principal materials were derived 
 from the Koran, from other traditions 
 which had passed through the Rabbinical 
 sieve, and from the Old Testament itself. 
 But the combination of such heterogeneous 
 elements occasioned no small difficulty ; 
 as in the question whether Isaac, accord- 
 ing to the Old Testament, or Ishmael, 
 according to the genuine Arabic view, was 
 the first-born, whom his father was called 
 on to sacrifice ; and in that respecting the 
 
 name ^-«r, ,;^, given in the Koran to 
 
 Abraham's father, which seems to have 
 originated only in a false reading of the 
 VOL. I. 
 
 ©apa of the LXX. But along with these 
 we meet with some extremely nai've stories 
 springing indeed merely from the combi- 
 nation of Arabic and Biblical elements, 
 but animated by a highly poetic spirit. 
 Ibrahim repeatedly visits Ishmael from 
 Syria, and Elijah-like creates and jiresents 
 on these occasions all the several treasures 
 of Mecca, &c. &c. AVhat is reported on 
 the transference of the guardianship of 
 the Ca'aba from the Ishmaelites to the 
 genuine Arabic tribe Jorham (Abulfida's 
 Avn. Antdsl. p. 192 ; comp. Tabari, p. 152 
 sq.), may perhaps deserve investigation. 
 But this transference is thrown so far 
 Ijack, to the age of Näbit, or Kaidar (i.e. 
 theNabateansorKedarites(Gen.xxA'. 12\ 
 sons of Ishmael, that we can scarcely ex- 
 pect to find any former groimd there. 
 
 * A Chinese notice of Arabia has been 
 lately brought under discussion, in which 
 Ishmael, born at Mecca, but immediately 
 abandoned by his mother, digs in the soil 
 of the desert a deep well of healing water; 
 see Schott in the Berliner Akad. Monats- 
 berichte, 1849, p. 336 ; and compare Tabari, 
 p. 156. But this is not a primeval tradi- 
 tion independent of the Bible, if, as Schott 
 says in the Chinese S. L. p. 75, the notice 
 dates no farther back than Mohammedan 
 times.
 
 338 PRELIMIXARY HISTORY. 
 
 Abraham -with that of Brahma, ' the notion has not even the 
 remotest historical importance.^ 
 
 2. Isaac ; Esau. 
 
 With Isaac we arrive at the two youngest nations of this 
 great migration, the twelve tribes of Esan and the tAvelve 
 ti'ibes of Jacob, where the clear daylight of national history 
 first breaks upon us ; while Esau and Jacob, as the two sons of 
 Isaac, still elude our gaze amid the dim morning mists of his- 
 torical antiquity. There can indeed be no question that the 
 two nations, Esau or Edom, and Jacob, are really the youngest 
 of the whole circle. With regard to Israel, this is a matter of 
 course ; but also the nation of Edom, Israel's kindred race, 
 appears in the full light of history as a far fresher and more 
 vigorous peoj)le than Ammon or Moab, the next in affinity to 
 both. But it is also important to remember, that Esau is yet 
 the first-born son ; and that only the Mesopotamian mother has 
 a special attachment to the Mesopotamian Jacob. This nation 
 of Edom, which throughout its entire history was recognised 
 by Israel as a brother race, and must originally have formed 
 part of one and the same nation, is certainly the elder; and 
 in the olden time even j)redominated in power and prosperity. 
 This predominance was indeed attained during that period when 
 Israel was sinking deeper and deeper under Egyptian bondage ; 
 but even after the time of Moses, Edom long maintained its 
 position as an important and independent power, by the side 
 of the kindred race, notwithstanding the new and lofty aspira- 
 tions to which Israel had then aw^akened ; and in far later times 
 its ancient greatness and former precedence over Israel were 
 not easily forgotten. Its head-quarters were still the land of 
 mountain and cavern which stretches southwards from the Dead 
 Sea to the Red, where Abraham and Isaac had once pitched 
 their tents, according to id. 305 sqq. ; but its dominion must often 
 have extended far to the north, and have spread on the east 
 and west, over both sides of the Jordan valley. And we have 
 many indications that this rude and warlike mountain-race, 
 though always retaining that original type, were no strangers, 
 in their earlier and better days, to the arts of civilised life. 
 
 ' Pop Sliahrast&ni's Elmilal, p. 444 sq., repeated eren l)y Orientalists like Tiolilen, 
 
 anil Cliwolson's Ssahier, i. p. 226 sqq., ii. to derive Abraham from Brahma. aiKl 
 
 p. .503, 743. Sarali from Sarasvati. AVorst of all, Julius 
 
 * Quito inexcusable, therefore, is tho Hvaww { Stimmen der Z( it, '^\;\y,\m2), vn- 
 
 idoa sot up in our ovm times by tho deavours thus to prove all tlic Patriarclis 
 
 .Würzburg philosopher, J. .T.Wagner, and unliistorical personages.
 
 ISAAC ; ESAU. 339 
 
 The wisdom of Eclom long retained its repute ; and one gleam 
 of the departed glorj- is still reflected to us in the Book of Job. 
 Early traditions also of important discoveries were transmitted 
 bj Edom to the peojDle of Israel.' We shall explain further on 
 the causes of Edom's gradual decline after the time of Moses, 
 until it became wholly unable to cope successfully with Israel, 
 younger ' brother ' of the race. 
 
 The early glories of Edom are indeed reflected back upon 
 Isaac, the ancestor, and give to his history the most vivid 
 interest. The few accounts which we have of Isaac have evi- 
 dently been much tampered with by later narrators ; but we 
 have every reason to doubt whether the earlier ones can have 
 had much to tell of this Patriarch. If Isaac was in truth what 
 his name — ' the Laughing,' that is, the kind and gentle — im- 
 plies, — if he, among the three Patriarchs, passed preeminently 
 for the type of that kindly and quiet nature which guards 
 its possession of its allotted share of worldly good through un- 
 pretending goodness and unwavering fidelity (p. 298), the old 
 legends could hardly have anything very remarkable or varied 
 to relate of him. As rightful son and heir, he had no need by 
 great deeds or great qualities to win for himself what was already 
 his. His greatness and his duty consisted only in the faithful 
 maintenance of these spiritual and material possessions ; and 
 to this, a firm, unruffled, and virtuous nature, even if unaccom- 
 panied by extraordinary powers of mind, was fully equal. 
 
 Isaac thus typifies the true child of the community, who by 
 faithful obedience and self-sacrifice even unto death, rewards 
 his parents' hopes and longings, toil and care ;^ and thus earns 
 by merit a new title to what is already his by birth. In like 
 manner, his union with Pebekah is the prototype of every happy 
 marriage, approved by parents, and blessed by God, as appears 
 in the beautiful story in chap. xxiv. And where the preliminary 
 conditions which ought to precede every such undertaking are 
 of the kind here described — the design proceeding from a house- 
 hold animated by such paternal afi'ection as that of Abraham, 
 
 ' As the tradition in Geu. xxxvi. 24, of people the (for him) very long passage, 
 
 the discovery by herdsmen, following the Gen. xxxvi. 
 
 track of their asses, of the warm-baths ^ A Greek parallel to the tradition of 
 
 (elsewhere celebrated) of that region ; Isaac's deliverance from death at the altar, 
 
 -^ is the story of Phrixus son of Athamas, in 
 
 comp, the place ^ ■]] ^ and its origin ApoUodorus, i. 9. 1, embarrassed, however, 
 
 T X A 1 1 11 1 ' i- hy much extraneous matter. A Hindu 
 
 according to Abdalhakam s narrative n i • ^ ■ ^i, ^ ^ /-• i • 
 
 /■nr -I' ^ I- 7j 7 /^i ir ■ no-- parallel exists lu the storv ot Cunahsepa ; 
 
 {Wens CTescktchfe dtr Ckaitfen, I. T).2So). ^ -r> ^t ■ .-c t j- i c./ ?• ■• 
 
 tj. 1 1 .• .1 . .1 \i, e see Koth in the Indische btudien, ii. p. 
 
 It also deserves notice that the author of 11.7 . > i- 
 
 the Book of Origins thought it worth " ""' 
 
 while to devote to the history of this 
 
 Z 2
 
 340 PRELIMINARY HISTORY. 
 
 and such filial devotion as that of Isaac, and directed with such 
 purity of jiurpose towards so suitable an object — the journey 
 undertaken for its accomplishment will prove as prosperous 
 throug-hout its course as that of Abraham's messenger ; ' and 
 the bride, though like E-ebekah she may never have seen her 
 destined husband, will be guided by as correct a presentiment 
 of success ; "^ and the lovers, before unknown to each other, will 
 from the moment of their first unexpected meeting, feel a love 
 as true and lasting as Isaac and Rebekah,^ 
 
 Then, as himself the head of a household, Isaac treads in 
 Abraham's footsteps, like him serving Jahveh, and protected 
 by Jahveh, harassed perhaps awhile \>^ envious neighbours, 
 exposed by his gentle, peace-loving nature to many hostile 
 assaults ; yet in the end, by quiet persistency and the secret 
 working of the Divine blessing, gaining an honourable victory. 
 For what victory could there be more glorious than that his 
 very enemies sue for friendship and alliance with him as the 
 approved friend of God?* All the accounts, therefore, of this 
 successor of Abraham in his independent character,^ are but a 
 famter copy, often only slightly modified, of Abraham's words 
 and deeds ; differing principally in this, that Isaac appears 
 throughout a person of less povv^er and independence, and there- 
 fore more exposed to hostile attacks. But although so little 
 that is special or distinctive is found in our present accounts 
 of Isaac, this is no reason whatever for treating his history as 
 an unreality. Even the very peculiar locality in the Holy Land 
 which every tradition so distinctly assigns to him, according to 
 p. 305, proves upon what firm historic ground his memory was 
 indestructibly based. He sojourned only in scattered portions of 
 the parched-up southern land.^ These portions were his chiefly 
 as an inheritance from his father ; and even this heritage he 
 could not wholly maintain as his own ; though, according to the 
 
 ' Gen. xxiv. 1-Gl. clescribrd, especially by Vaiideveldo (Syjv'a 
 
 ^ vv. Ö7, Ö8. and Vulrstinc, ii. p. 136 sqq.). The name 
 
 ' XK. 62, 67; for tlio interpretation of probalily denoted originally Seven We/ls, 
 
 these words, so far as they present any notwitlisiandint; the more exalted a]iplica- 
 
 diffieulty, see my Alttrthihner, p. 232-3, tion given to it in tlio old narrative of 
 
 and what is said in my Lrhrhnch, p. 327, Gen. xxi. 28 sqq. Comjiare the place 
 
 on the corresponding words in Gen. xx. s- 
 
 16. Even at the present day, the unbe- , ^^ mentioned in Guerin's Voyage 
 
 trothed maidens of the Tiiarik wear no -V 7. i . • ^, mi i ■>• 
 
 veil; Bee Hanoteau, Gravimairc dc la Arckrologiqnc, x. i^. 2bQ. Through a dia- 
 
 Langne Tammlick, p. xix. 1^^*'^' difference, according to my Lehrbuch, 
 
 «Gen. xxvi. 12-33; comp. Job xlii. S, 280 d, the numeral might be placed last, 
 
 g J,« 1 he well Lahai-I\oi is perhaps identical 
 
 * Gen. xxvi. 1-33. ^\\\\ the Lckich, which in Vandcvelde's 
 
 • Beershcba, the most important of tliese '"'^P ^'^^ somewhat to the north of 
 places, has now been di.'?covered and I>eer.sheba.
 
 JACOB-ISEAEL. 341 
 
 tradition, fortune appears in the end to have become somewhat 
 more favourable to him. But it is phiin that from the earlj 
 records of other nations less definite information may be 
 looked for concerning Isaac than concerning either of the 
 other Patriarchs.^ 
 
 As Isaac is never mentioned but under one name, he appears 
 to us always under the same simple character : — a good, true- 
 hearted father ; a contented, inoffensive, pious man ; called to 
 no special career of ambition or duty, but attaining all the 
 more surely to quiet domestic happiness. Very different is the 
 hero of the double name, next to be described, whose twofold 
 appellation expresses in itself the two-sided aspect of his 
 nature and his fortimes. 
 
 3. Jacob-Israel. 
 
 With him must have begun a new and imj3ortant develop- 
 ment in the history of the ancient movements of the Hebrew 
 tribes towards the south. This lofty position is assigned to 
 him by the whole complexion of the popular tradition, as a 
 great hero, and as father of the special nation, Israel.^ As 
 we have already seen (p. 292), the position which he occupies 
 among the twelve prototypes, and especially among the three 
 Patriarchs, shows him to have been the last admitted into an 
 already existing cycle of typical personages. But it is not 
 finally the individual greatness of the hero which effects his 
 entrance into this sacred circle. His distinctive rank in tradi- 
 tion is always as Father of the House of Israel ; his name retains 
 its perennial significance only as the head of a new and mighty 
 people ; and thus his admission as third and youngest into the 
 typical cycle of Patriarchs, indicates that a new Hebrew race 
 of fresh vigour and sj^ecial endowments had sprung up on the 
 same soil where the Hebraic tribes rei)resented by Abraham 
 and Isaac had already won a place in history. It was only 
 this new race, which, mingling with parts of the older tribes, 
 and gaining strength thereby, was to become that peculiar 
 people of Canaan, now immortalised under the name of Israel. 
 
 • No one surely will thiuk of eounectiiig no more than the actual people of Israel, 
 
 our Isaac with the Egyptian 'l(raiK6s in and this only in poetry; Abruham being, 
 
 Plutai'ch's De hide et Osiri, xxix, uotwith- moreover, only found thus employed at a 
 
 standing that he is there classed with somewhat late period (tliough allusively 
 
 Typhon. in Is. xxix. 22, and also, at least after 
 
 ^ It is not to be overlooked, but indeed Jacob, in Micah vii. 20 ; comp. Is. xli. 8, 
 
 agrees perfectly with the previous ex- 9; 11. 1, 2 ; Ixi. 16); but Isaac somewhat 
 
 planation, that the names Isaac and earlier, especially in Amos. 
 Abraham in a national sense designate
 
 342 PRELIMINARY HISTORY. 
 
 Of the immediate occasion of this great movement in the 
 very middle of the Patriarchal period, and the exact manner in 
 ■which it was accomplished, only some few points can now be 
 ascertained, while the greater number remain quite obscure. 
 Yet to a keen explorer some significant traces are discoverable in 
 the darkness, and leave no doubt on the main point with which 
 we are here concerned. On the one hand, Jacob's kindred in 
 Mesopotamia are expressly styled ' Arameans ' in the Book of 
 Origins ; ^ and the special district of that wide region where 
 they dwelt is called the Aramean Yoke,^ being the plain around 
 Harran, midway betwixt the two mountain-ranges. Thence 
 sprang the mother, who of her two sons loves only Jacob, the 
 younger (p. 338) ; and even he might himself be called an Ara- 
 mean when any importance attached to his derivation from 
 that foreign land.^ But taking these very accounts in their 
 true sense, nothing is more certain or self-evident than that 
 neither Jacob himself nor any of his kindred beyond the 
 Euplu'ates were of Aramean blood ; consequently they can only 
 have been called Arameans, because the north-eastern land 
 where they had then dwelt was so inundated by Aramean 
 tribes, that the region itself, and even the Hebrews still linger- 
 ing there, might be commonly known as Aramean ; the countries 
 of the Arameans and of the Canaanites being generally opjDOsed 
 to each other in rough distinctions. On the other hand, we 
 have already in a diflerent connection observed of the Abori- 
 ginal Hebrew tribes of the Nahoreans and Damascenes, that 
 they must, after Abraham's time, have been more and more 
 broken up by the encroachments of the Arameans (p. 310 sqq.) ; 
 and even Abraham, according to p. 301 sqq., was compelled to 
 defend himself and the Canaanites against the repeated inroads 
 of these north-eastern nations. 
 
 Taking ail together, it is clear that during the period when 
 Jacob, the Mesopotamic-Hebrew chief, first shines forth from 
 the darkness, a great movement of the Arameans must have 
 taken place in the same region from which Abraham had been 
 
 ' Gen. XXV. 20, xxviii. 5 ; ami in like named from the city, if only because 
 
 manner in the Third Narrator, xxxi. 20. Ilo.sea (xii. 13), alluding to Jacob's history, 
 
 24. interprets that ancient name by the com- 
 
 ^ This is the literal meaning of the mon Hebrew, the Field of Aram. This 
 
 name Qix pQ (see Jahrb. der Bihl. name is now found only in the Book of 
 
 Wiss. iv. p"lö6), from nQ or nQ«, tohind ^'"«'."^ ' *'f l''^^'''' "fr'-^^'oi'« "'^l^^'iys men- 
 
 (to twist). Arabic geographers, indeed, tion instead the well-known city Harran 
 sp'-ak of a city in that district. Tell / I^<^"t- ^''^•'- 5; '« ;«w {hi. lost) 
 
 Fedduii, which inav liave thence derived ^' «»'«"' was w^ Jathr (a proposition of 
 
 its name ^Cliwolson's &«/.i>r, i. p. 304)- ^^""^"^^ Jacob s antecedents being here 
 
 but the land itself cannot have been ^''^^'"^^ °"^y °" ^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^'
 
 JACOB-ISRAEL. 343 
 
 driven by similar causes to emigrate. After Abraham's depar- 
 ture, the Hebrews in those hinds must have been more and 
 more harassed; till Jacob at length shook himself free, and 
 arrived safely with his people in Canaan, where he restored the 
 Hebrew power, somewhat fallen into decay after Abraham's 
 death ; a portion of the Hebrews in Canaan coalescing closely 
 with him and his followers. Through him much was doubtless 
 done to strengthen and maintain both the power of the Hebrews 
 in Canaan, and all such fitting obsei'vances in all departments 
 of their life, as had their origin in Abraham's household. Yet 
 in matters of religion it would seem as if this second stream of 
 Hebrew migration had also brought Avith it some admixture of 
 less pure elements from the north-east. The images of house- 
 hold gods [Teraplii'm) which maintained their place for ages 
 in many houses of Israel,^ are indeed spoken of as objects of 
 reverence only to Jacob's wives and their father Laban, not to 
 Jacob himself; but the consecration of a stone, as the firm 
 immovable object towards which the looks and words of the 
 worshipper must be directed, bears every indication of origina- 
 ting with the Shepherd- hero himself, and was on that ground 
 long retained among his posterity.^ ' The Shepherd of the Stone 
 of Israel ' became the most expressive title for the God of the 
 great Shepherd-hero.^ 
 
 1) This historical conception of Jacob is, moreover, confirmed 
 in detail by a multitude of remarkable reminiscences of him. 
 Of these the most important is that relating to the earliest 
 portion of his career, and thus bearing upon all the rest : — the 
 memory of his migration from Harran in Mesopotamia, with 
 wives and children, people and possessions. Nothing can more 
 plainly testify that under him a new and victorious portion of 
 the Hebrew race pushed forwards into Canaan from the lands 
 where they had been cradled, than this memory of his life, which 
 puts him in contrast with Isaac, Esau, and others, and on an 
 equality with Abraham ; more especially as we shall afterwards 
 see that by the twelve children whom he is rej^resented as 
 bringing with him from Harran, more is meant than twelve 
 individuals. That among the various Hebraic tribes which have 
 pushed forward towards the south-west, that which bears this 
 hero's name has displayed a most peculiar character, and played 
 a very special part in history ; and that although the youngest 
 and outwardly weakest, it was yet the subtlest, cunningest, and 
 
 ' See aLove, p. 322, and my AUcrthilmer, 17 sqq. 
 p. 256 sqq. ' According to the ancient testimony in 
 
 2 See the Jahrh. der Bibl. Wiss, x. p. the Blessing on Joseph, Gen. xlix. 24.
 
 34i PRELIMINARY HISTORY. 
 
 most pliable, and tlius eventually the conqueror of tliem all, is 
 plainly taught by the history of all ages, commencing with its 
 very first appearance. In many respects its original position 
 might be likened to that of the Franks among the German 
 nations b}' Avliom the Koman empire was crushed. But as these 
 had first to make a way for themselves over the strata of kindred 
 nations which were dominant before them, so the tradition of a 
 new Hebrew immigration under Jacob-Israel is certahaly a most 
 acciu-ate remembrance of the origin of the power wielded by 
 them in Canaan and Egypt. 
 
 Another ancient feature of the legend is this : — that the hero 
 enters Canaan as Jacob, but here gains for himself the ncAv 
 conqueror's title of Israel.^ Both names were indeed emj^loyed 
 almost without distinction in common speech, and even in the 
 hero's own liistor}' are not always kept so distinct as might have 
 been expected (compare p. 94). But in itself Israel — God's 
 Warrior — was indisputably the higher name, befitting a hero 
 who, strengthened by God, had endured the hardest conflicts, 
 and achieved godlike victories. Now it is certainly possible 
 that a great man may through his life and deeds have won for 
 himself in later years a new and higher name, which would be 
 used in addition to the first, or perhajDS entirely supersede it ; ^ 
 but it is never to be forgotten that the hero of whom we are 
 now speaking is also regarded as the father of the whole nation, 
 and therefore his names have also a sj^ecial importance as 
 national names. When a country, a nation, or even a single 
 city, bears several names, there is an antecedent probability 
 that these names preserve the memory of some great changes 
 in its rulers. As we know that the same city bore the Israelitish 
 name Bethel, but also the older Canaanite name of Luz (p. 304), 
 thus preserving its histor}'-, as inhabited first by Canaanites and 
 afterwards by HebrcAvs, so the names Kirjath-arba^ and Hebron, 
 Jebus and Jerusalem, were doubtless exchanged only because 
 these cities were governed at different periods by very difierent 
 nations. One of the best examples of the change in national 
 names lies close at hand, in Jacob-Israel's own brother : in the 
 three names Seir, Edom, Esau, we have a clear indication that 
 the Aboriginal race that called itself Seir was first subjugated 
 by Canaanites bearing the name Edom, and then (together with 
 
 ' Cit-n. XXXV. 10-15, according to tlic Solomon-J.diiliah, 2 Sam. xii. 34, 35. 
 
 Book of Origiii.s; xxxii. 23-33, according ' This might mean originally Four 
 
 to the Ttiird Narrator; who howovor, here Cities, as Eoersheba, according to p. 340, 
 
 as cIsewluTc, probably made use of the is Seven Wells ; and it is possil)le that the 
 
 First Narrator. dreaded chief Arba (p. 230) obtained his 
 
 ■■' As Giduou-Jeriibbaal, Judges vi-viii; name from it.
 
 JACOB-ISRAEL. 345 
 
 the latter) by Hebrews bearing the name Esau :^ the last name, 
 however, never entirely superseding the two first ; and that of 
 Edom in particular continuing to be very frequently used in com- 
 mon life. In like manner, the tribe which in the north beyond the 
 Euj)hrates had borne the name of Jacob, and immigrated under 
 that name into Canaan, doubtless took from its victorious leader 
 its new name Israel, only when by mixture with older Hebraic 
 tribes in that land it had there grown into a mighty peoj)le. And 
 while the memory of two great epochs of the early hijtory is 
 thus preserved, other traces are discovered in the very earliest 
 traditions, which tend in the same direction, indicating that 
 this 2)eople must have grown up in Canaan from a double stem. 
 Thus Jacob-Israel has two wives, of very different natures ; his 
 children are divided between two very dissimilar families, and 
 these again group themselves around Judah (Reuben) and 
 Joseph. Joseph and Benjamin are indeed the only two of the 
 later family, and Benjamin is even a child of Canaan ; while 
 Ephraim, who is closely connected with Joseph, indicates 
 an admixture of the Canaanite element. We shall afterwards 
 pursue this subject further ; but thus much is clear, that the 
 change of name recorded of Abraham and Sarah in the Book of 
 Origins (p. 324) can only be an imitation of the story of the 
 change of Jacob's name to Israel, because in this latter case 
 there is an important historical reason for the change, and the 
 two names are perfectly distinct from each other and both in 
 po23ular use ; whereas in the former, the reason assigned is 
 factitious ; and the change itself is only an ingenious and 
 scarcely perceptible modification of the same name. 
 
 But one constant feature appears in all the stories about 
 Jacob : he is always, as his name denotes, the Crafty. Whether 
 he crosses the Euphrates or the Jordan, he is the same. In the 
 whole Hebrew legend he plays much the same part (at least in 
 his lower or human character) as Ulysses in the Greek. It 
 
 ' Seir maybe nearly equivalent in force its inhabitants Edom has alwaj's been the 
 to Esau — hairy, rough; to be understood prevailing name (see xxxii. 4 | 3] ; xxxiii. 
 originally of tlie rough mountain-land; in 16). See also above, p. 234. The name of 
 history it appears as the land of the the neighbouring land Uz also (p. 311) 
 Horites (p. 226) ; and as the oldest name seems to be only an abbreviation from 
 (Gen. xxxvi. 20-30; comp. ver. 9), although Esau; and the later Arabs unite both in 
 the Last Narrator plays upon the name the name ^,\. Z.W\\son, \n Lands of 
 on occasion of Esau's birth, in Gen. xxv. , „.,, W •• ' „ y. i . ^ , 
 25. On tlie other hand, according to all ^^^^ .^'*^'; }■ P- ^32 sq., Imds traces of the 
 tradition, Esau is th. most receat and ancient Idumeans among the Fellahs of 
 the proper Hebrew name, and therefore Wädi-Müsa; i^t,:^^, however, is not 
 also the name of the ruler and the idling ^^^^ ^f Gen. xxxvi. 3 sqq., but pro- 
 race; interchanging with Edom (Gen. , ', ; '^.j ■ , • , -r. 
 xxxvi. 18, 19), but called also Father of ^^^^J identical with Batseba. 
 Edom (vv. 9, 43) ; for the country and
 
 346 rRELIMIXAFvY HISTORY. 
 
 might indeed be supposed that this feature in the portrait of 
 the Patriarch was only sublimated from the character of the 
 Mosaic people, and intended to typify an overdone intellectual 
 cleverness, often perhaps passing into really reprehensible de- 
 ception and unstraig'htforwarduess, which we observe in the 
 Hebrew people iu times nearer to our own. Indeed the Prophets ' 
 often typify such national sins in the person of this Patriarch, 
 who, as the nearest in time, is most truly the father of the na- 
 tion, and therefore, more appropriately than Abraham or Isaac, 
 is made to reflect both the characteristic virtues and the distinc- 
 tive failings of the nation. But we have evidence ver}^ remark- 
 able likewise in another point of view, that both the use and 
 the meaning of this word, which is obviously the more ancient 
 appellation, have come down to us from an age when there can 
 have been no thought of the future nation of which the prophets 
 were thinking. We possess a circumstantial account of decep- 
 tions practised between Jacob and Laban — a very cui-ious piece, 
 which might really be called the Hebrew Comedy of Errors, 
 planned with such evident art and so Avell worked out that we 
 may with justice suppose it to have been formerly represented 
 b}^ actors at popular festivals and thence afterwards transferred 
 to narrative.^ But the tale, when traced back to its original 
 idea, was obviously intended to represent the struggle between 
 the crafty Hebrews on the opposite banks of the Euj^hrates ; 
 showing how the southern Hebrews gained the upper hand in 
 the contest, and the northern were driven off with derision. In 
 such wise, probably for whole centuries, the two kindred tribes, 
 Nalior (or Laban) and Israel, on the Jiorthern boundary of 
 Palestine, may have wrangled together, now in sport, now in 
 sober earnest, with mutual taunts and attempts to overreach one 
 another. And since after the time of Moses no such connec- 
 tion any longer existed between them (unquestionably because, 
 according to p. 311 sq., the Arameans had thrown themselves 
 between them by occupying Damascus), we must admit this to 
 be a fragment of the primeval histor^^, which shows us in what 
 very early times Israel was already recognised as a people able 
 to hold its own against far greater nations. When we further 
 remark that, in close connection with the foregoing, the First 
 
 ' Hof^ea, xii. 4 eq. [3 sq.], speaks how- witli the general drift of the passage; we 
 
 over without any such insinuation; but must not iiere allow ourselves to be misled 
 
 utterances such as Is. xliii. 27, xlviii. 8, by the expression ;!% /rs;; /«('/(er, for this 
 
 eertaiiiiy are to the point. But in Is. me-dns no more than fonfat/ier. They are 
 
 xliii. 27, wn nuist understand Jacob only, all forefathers or patriarchs, but this one 
 
 and not Al^rahani, since tiie latter would only is the Forefaihrr of Israel. 
 
 neither make sense in itself, nor accord '■' Gen. xxix. 15-xxxii. 1 [xxxi. 55].
 
 JACOB-ISRAEL. 347 
 
 Narrator vividly describes the frontier-stones and covenantal 
 monuments erected between these two nations on Mount Gilead,' 
 and that this also g-uides us to a period far removed in cha- 
 racter and history from the Mosaic, we cannot doubt that we 
 here come upon vestiges of the actual primeval history of the 
 tribes of Israel, of similar character to others which we shall 
 notice in the sequel. This story of the boundary between the 
 northern and the southern Hebrews certainly presents very gro- 
 tesque images of the ancient chiefs Laban and Jacob. Laban 
 and his people, when about to conclude a treaty of peace, erected 
 a watch-tower {3Iizpah), as if for a watchman on the part of that 
 God who looks down from his height to keep watch ovei' oath and 
 covenant ; and Jacob not only erects a memorial column, but 
 causes his people to pile uj) a lofty mound of stones [Gileacl), 
 Avhich may serve at once as an altar of sacrifice and as a table 
 for the common repast which is to solemnise the covenant. 
 Laban then swears by the Mound and the Watch-tower, Jacob 
 by the Mound also and by the Column, and both parties thus 
 commemorate the solemn compact, which is to banish for all 
 future time every occasion of strife between the two kindred 
 houses and nations.^ Noav this column, no doubt, was once to 
 be seen as a landmark on Mount Gilead^ (p. 21, 303), and was 
 erected there by human hands; the watch-tower was the city and 
 fortress of Mizpah, on one of the heights of Gilead ; the mound 
 was the rocky mountain-range of Gilead itself. It thus seems 
 
 ' That the account in Gen. xsxi. ii-öi, remarks by the Last Narrator, who indeed 
 
 although it has passed through the hands must unquestionably have written them, 
 
 of the Third and Fifth NaiTators, is But nS^'SH is thus neither sufficiently 
 
 originally derivMl from the First Narrator, ^^^^^^, -^ \^^^ ^^^ ^f ^^^ sentence (for 
 
 IS shown not only by its general purport, ^ j^^ ^^ precede, as in verse 52), nor 
 
 but by the phraseology m the antique t •• 
 
 and unusual expression pn^"» nns, ver. f'^cn intelligible in itself; since, though 
 
 ,' 7 ■■■. ''' nn^'Sn m w. ÖI, 52 was explained m 
 
 53 (comp. ver. 42); and m that of the t •• - - ^ 
 
 brethnn of Jacob and of Labiin (see ver. 45, nSV^n was not. We should here 
 
 above, p. 312), by the description in vv. 46, reflect also how miich more suitable it is 
 
 54, of the covenant being concluded there that both parties should swear either by 
 
 and then at a repast (just as in xxvi. 30 ; something common to the two, as the 
 
 Ex. xxiv. 4-11), and by the mention of Cairn (a masculine noun), or each by 
 
 the covenant itself (see p. 69 sq.). something special to himself — the one by 
 
 2 It cannot be denied that the extant the Pillar, the other by the Watch-tower 
 
 text of w. 45-54 is very obscure, chiefly (both feminines ; for there is an obvious 
 
 because the mention of the Watch-tower, pm-poso even in the change of gender). 
 
 in ver. 49, is quite unexpected, and, placed "\Ve would, therefore, ratlier suppose that 
 
 where it is, even destroys the natural the Last Narrator, who in ver. 48 sq. adds 
 
 context of the speech. We might suppose explanatory remarks of his own, omitted 
 
 that only Laban pronounced the oath, and to mention the W:'.tch-tower after ver. 44, 
 
 that his speech, beginning v^'. 48-50, was as well as the word niy iu ver. 49 ; and in 
 
 merely resumed and completed in 51-53; ^, . j *i ^ rr 1 j 
 
 •' I ^ .' ver. 51 transposed the names of Laban and 
 
 then the words from J3 ^y, ver. 48,and again ^^^^-^ -^^^^ ^^^^^^ ^^ ^^^^^^ ^^ ^j^^ ^^^^ 
 
 from ItJ'X. ver. 49 tothe end (comp.xxii.l4), effect. 
 
 should' be omitted, as being merely two ' Judges x. 7, xi. 11, 34.
 
 348 PRELIMINARY HISTORY. 
 
 that tradition formerly spoke of the whole mountain as having 
 been piled up b}- Jacob and his followers in their border-strife 
 with Laban, Avhile the solitary fortress on its commanding emi- 
 nence was the work of Laban — much like the Phenician legend 
 of the Pillars of Hercules. But precisely this grotesque con- 
 ception of the underlying legend, so foreign to the spirit of the 
 Mosaic age, carries us back to a very early period, and shows us 
 traces of the very oldest narrator. 
 
 There yet remains one most distinctive feature of the legend : 
 Jacob appears throughout as the great 81ie'plierd of antiquity. 
 In this character he stands out distinct among the three Patri- 
 archs ; all the separate traditions respecting him seem to breathe 
 the same perfume of pastoral life. His badge is the shej)herd's 
 staff. But he is honoured not merely as the great inventor of 
 various pastoral arts, but also as one who, like a god, could 
 overcome all by strength of arm and fist. ' Even in this latter 
 character, many earlier myths have been unconsciously .trans- 
 ferred by the love and reverence of his descendants to him, the 
 last especial father of their race (p. 289 sq.) ; and for centuries 
 the people seem to have delighted in the thought that in him, 
 their veritable ancestor, they might boast of a rival to the heathen 
 Hercules or Apollo. Nor can it be denied that the memory of 
 this favourite hero long threw even that of Abraham into the 
 background, until after Moses' time it could be revived under 
 more propitious circumstances. But in all this lies a clear 
 consciousness that the Hebrews, as a roving pastoral people, 
 such as they became under Jacob, were in early times very 
 different from the Arameans and Canaanites. And with this 
 simple way of life that simple religious worship which, accord- 
 ing to p. 343, had a sacred stone as its central symbol, harmon- 
 ised most perfectly. 
 
 2) If such is clearly the foundation of Jacob's history, with 
 its manifold legends, it becomes at once evident that he was 
 originally designated as a son of Isaac only in the sense in 
 which such relationships are generally to be understood of 
 nations and tribes, as will be presently explained anew in refer- 
 ence to the sons of Jacob himself. By fusion of his own people 
 with Isaac's tribe, Jacob became son of him and twin-brother 
 of Esau ; and if Esau is invariably regarded as the elder brother, 
 this is only a fresh confirmation of the oj)inion that Jacob's 
 own arrival was of later date, and that only a portion of Isaac's 
 people and tribes became blended with the new immigrants 
 
 ' Besides Gen. xxix. 1-10, already mentionod, see espocially xxx. 31-43 ; xxxii. 
 2.')-33 [24-32].
 
 JACOB-ISRAEL. 349 
 
 who bore Jacob's name. It will be shown in the proper place 
 that, even as late as the time of Moses, Israel's 2)osition with 
 regard to Edom seems that of a kindred but weaker nation, 
 but that in the earliest times a close defensive alliance appears 
 to have subsisted between them. But even the account of 
 the meeting between the two brothers on Jacob's arrival from 
 Mesopotamia' bears still unmistakable traces of this old feel- 
 ing of Esau's preponderance and magnanimity. It represents 
 Esau as having always been dominant in Edom ; whereas, 
 accordi7ig to the Book of Origins, it was onl}- after Isaac's 
 death that the brothers separate, and Esau by an amicable 
 arrangement with his brother migrates into Edom.^ It depicts 
 very clearly the relative position of the two brothers, like that 
 in which the two brother-nations stood to each other in the 
 days of Moses and the Judges ; and although the Last Narrator 
 makes many additions, and freely recasts the whole, his ac- 
 count, both in its general substance and in various isolated 
 expressions,^ locia.j be traced back with certainty to the earliest 
 Narrator. 
 
 But when it had once become a settled idea, that in this 
 sense Jacob and Esau were brothers, and sons of Isaac, the 
 legend of Jacob's immigration into Canaan could then be most 
 easily maintained by considering it only a retuim to the land 
 of his father Isaac* And the Book of Origins, v/hich contains 
 the earliest demonstrable account preserved to us, assigns a 
 reason, quite in harmony with the spirit of the age, why Jacob, 
 born in Canaan, passed earl}^ over Jordan and Eu]3hrates — not 
 to return thence till he had become the true Jacoh-Israel, and got 
 wives and children, wealth and j)ower. For when this book was 
 written, au ever-widening breach had for generations divided 
 the two nations, formerly so closely leagued together, and Edom 
 had been actually subjugated by David (p. 75 sq.). Edom had 
 also visibly fallen away from the higher religion, and become 
 friendly to the practices of the Canaanites, in the same decree 
 as Israel had remained true to the former and receded from 
 the latter. This book,^ therefore, assigns Esau's Canaanite 
 marriages as the immediate cause of the brothers' separation, 
 
 * Gen. xxxii. 4 [3]-xxxiii. 17. ^ Just think how diiferently we should 
 
 * According to Gen. xxxv. 29 ; xxxvi. judge of Jacob's oriijin, hud \vc only the 
 6, 7 ; which is uotopposed to the statement brief notice in Deut. xxvi. 4, where, for a 
 in xxviii. 9 of the .same book. special object (to insi.'-t, namely, on his 
 
 * As JiÖ3. Gren. xxxii. 18 [17], xxxiii.8, original poverty and mean estate), he is 
 
 compared with Ex. iv. 24, 27 ; and on called— not entirely without historic truth 
 
 the other hand, yjn, Gen. xxviii. 11, xxxii. —^^ Aramean ! 
 
 , r • ---T T. '' o -,-x * ^•^"- ^^^'- 3^: 35, xxvii. 40-xxviii. 9. 
 
 1 [xxxi. OöJ ; ihx. V. 3, 20.
 
 350 PRELIMINARY HISTORY. 
 
 and of Jacob's jom-ney beyond the Eupbrates. As Isbmael, 
 according to the same narrator, bad by an Egyi^tian marriage 
 wholly separated himself from the pure blood of Abraham/ so 
 in like manner Esau, through his union with two Canaanite 
 women. This alienates his parents from him ; and Isaac, urged 
 by Eebekah, sends the second son, with his full blessing, to his 
 Iviudred beyond the Euphrates. It avails little that Esau then, 
 as if to amend his fault, takes another wife, who is at least 
 of the house of Ishmael. Jacob consequently was to find in 
 Laban the man on whom he might prove himself ' The Crafty,' 
 and whom he should overcome by well-devised artifice ; while 
 Esau, of whose expedition into Edom and settlement there 
 during Isaac's lifetime ^ the present work gives no explanation 
 or particulars whatever, comes to meet him on the frontier when 
 returning from Mesopotamia : an equivocal act, not prompted 
 by memory of the quarrels or deadly feuds of their youth, but 
 rather the self-assertion of one who has not yet finally relin- 
 quished his birthright claim upon Canaan, and waits first to 
 observe Jacob's behaviour. And indeed, throughout the whole 
 of the earlier narrative,^ no stress whatever is laid upon childish 
 quarrels or previous causes of offence : the actual battle-field 
 witnesses simply a trial of wits between the crafty Jacob and 
 the no less crafty Laban, wherein subtlety is fitly matched 
 against subtlety. 
 
 However, this true Hebrew Comedy of Errors, to which we 
 have alluded (p. 846) as adopted by the Last Narrator, is not 
 derived from the Book of Origins ; but, as now extant, bears 
 every trace, like much else relating to Jacob's life, of being by 
 the Third Narrator."* And although we receive it from the Last 
 Narrator abridged here and there and mutilated in the earlier 
 part,-^ 3^et the fine plan of the whole is still intelligible, and the 
 unique narrative breathes throughout a true poetic sj^irit, felt 
 by every susceptible reader ; so that we seem often to catch 
 
 ' Gen. xxi. 21. * At xxix. lö sqq., Laban is aliruptly 
 
 ^ Gen. xxxii. 4 [3]. deseribed as a crafty man, though not tho 
 
 ' Gen. xxxii. 4 [3] sqq. sliplitest hint had previously been given 
 
 * That this does not originate with tlio of liis cliaraeter. Tlien, some account of 
 
 Last Narrator, is ck>ar from the method Laban's further tricks in the compact 
 
 in ■which he treats the narrative beginning concerning the flocks, and his repeated 
 
 at Gen. xxix. 15; biit there is quite as though unavailing alterations of that com- 
 
 little trace of the Book of Origins, of pact, should manifestly have preceded ch. 
 
 which the style and manner appear only xxxi. 1 ; which is rendered certain by the 
 
 in the account of Jacob's removal from allusion to them in xxxi. 7-10. How much 
 
 IMesopotaniia in xxxi. 18; comp, xxxvi. G. the Last Narrator omitted and altered in 
 
 Some indications which point to the Third xxxi. 44-54, has been already explained 
 
 Narrator we have already mentioned at at p. 347. 
 
 p. 99.
 
 JACOB-ISRAEL. 351 
 
 the dance and music of actual verse.' Elsewhere also m the 
 writings of this author, similar outbursts of poetic feeling-, 
 though hardly actual verse, may be remarked. 
 
 3) It is then by the Fourth Narrator, and still more by the 
 Fifth, that the life of this Patriarch has been cast into the 
 shape Avhich has won for it an imperishable memory. In the 
 time of the latter especially, the breach between the two nations, 
 Israel and Edom, had been gradually widening into a deadly 
 feud, which endured for centuries, and determined in great part 
 the history of the kingdom of Judah (see p. 107 sqq.). The 
 image of this fearful struggle between the two nations and 
 religions naturally intrudes into the writer's conception of the 
 primeval history, and gives its prevailing tone to that. The 
 quarrel with Esau thus becomes the sole pivot on which revolves 
 the eventful life of Jacob, until, victorious over all opposition, 
 he appears in old age as the recognised successor of Abraham 
 and Isaac. Here again we find an exemplification of the prin- 
 ciple that any considerable transplanting of a whole department 
 of popular legends can only flow from a great change in the 
 fortunes of the peoples themselves. But it is equally noteworthy, 
 that the venerable legend of Jacob's life is now not merely 
 expanded in bulk, but imbued with a far deeper moral signifi- 
 cance, and reproduced in a new form of higher poetic beauty. 
 The sharp antithesis in Jacob's imier life is now for the first 
 time brought prominently forward. Jacob, by birth the younger, 
 and consequently the inferior, yet impelled by some mysterious 
 higher power to supreme rule, from his early years fights his 
 way up, contending with unwearied energy against Esau, and 
 even under the most unfavourable circumstances never shrinks 
 from beginning the struggle again — true type of the character 
 of the wrestler, never wholly subdued, with resources for every 
 exigency, and skill to meet every difficulty. But since in this 
 upward struggle against the savage but honest Esau, he had 
 at first made use of artifices prompted by the headstrong im- 
 pulse of the moment, but not sanctioned by duty or religion, 
 he deservedly brings on himself his brother's deadly persecu- 
 tion ; is compelled to wander forlorn and helpless far from the 
 laud of his fathers, and becomes involved in a long succession 
 of severe troubles and sufferings ; with the hope of at last 
 emerging from the severe ordeal as from a new birth — no 
 longer the crafty wrestler, but the real ' God-wrestler ; ' thus 
 consummating at last an enduring triumph over Esau. This 
 
 ' As in the 'winged words' between Gilead, xxxi. 26-30, 36-42; henee also 
 Laban and Jacob at their meeting in poetical expressions such as ''05311, v. 39.
 
 35-2 PRELIMINARY HISTORY. 
 
 is the new idea that here strives for expression, pervading and 
 animating all. 
 
 a.) In the very first mention of the brothers, even before 
 their birth, the narrator takes occasion to indicate beforehand 
 the inevitable final issne, already fore-ordained in the Divine 
 purj)ose. If Jacob, with God's help, is ultimately to triumph 
 over all, and to overcome Esau the elder-born, this can only 
 be thi'oug-h some special indwelling spiritual force, whose origin 
 can be referred to no definite epoch in his life : neither to his 
 advanced age, his youth, nor his birth.' The twins struggle 
 even in their mother's womb, thus foreshadowing the great 
 future struggle between the nations ; and an oracle declares 
 that the issue will be the triumph of the younger son (and 
 people). Thus also, in their very birth, the younger seizes the 
 elder by the heel, as if irresistibly impelled to pass him and 
 wrest from him his natural riglit — the first occasion on which 
 Jacob's name is interjjreted as the ' Heel-Grasper,' ' one who 
 tries to trip another up from behind,' the ' Crafty.' ^ 
 
 But this is only an attempt, after the manner of this narrator, 
 to foreshadow at a glance the leading interest of the whole 
 following history ; the actual career of the twins then proceeds 
 to its development, quite independently of this predestination ; 
 yet to this the ultimate issue at last returns. The opposite 
 natures of the two brothers are however early manifested (Gen. 
 XXV. 27-34). If Esau, the rough huntsman, earns our contempt 
 for the levity with which, in mere craving after momentary 
 gratification, he trifles away his birthright,^ the quiet home- 
 loving Jacob, who craftily Avorks on him to this end,^ certainly 
 merits no praise. But such boy's play furnishes a telling hint 
 of the future. 
 
 But the bold venture made in the ensuing narrative of Gen. 
 xxvii. 1-1-5, as to the anticipation of the birthright by Jacob, 
 was justified in the first place by the established notion of Jacob 
 as The Crafty : a characteristic easily transferred to the mother, 
 naturally partial to the weaker and gentler child ; especially as 
 from a higher point of view this bestowal of the parental blessing 
 on Jacob was considered justifiable. For, in the time of the 
 
 ' Cnnip. such expressions fis .Ter. i. T). liim in ITeh. xi. IG, 17, is so fnr not inap- 
 
 ' Gen XXV. 20-23, comp, xxvii. 3G ; propriate. 
 
 comp. IlosPii xii. 4. Similar conceptions * QJT), in Gen. xxv. 27, cannot, possilily 
 
 an<l stories mipliteasilv arise ; comp. Gen ^- -f^ /^hmelrss, hr^ncst ; since that idea 
 
 xxxvM, 28-.-5I): Apol o.lorus. ,.. 2 1 ; and x,,^y,r^on\sen neither with the context nor 
 
 str.kmply similar is tlu- story of the hirth ,,it,, ^,,, character of the Crafty ■ nor has 
 
 f)i (irmuzf and Ahriman, as told livJ'.znik, ii i ,i • ■ i • 
 
 ,..,,....,' J -•.-■.■iiiv, tlie word Uns meanin(r anywhere in prose, 
 
 ■ , mi • 1 , , exceiitinp; Job i, ii. Jt must here rather 
 
 " 1 lie severe ni(l;'inent pronounced on i . * i -.i _•_ i • t -j 
 
 •' '^ ' ^ hii connected with Q-q, and signify quiet.
 
 JACUli-lSRAEL. 353 
 
 later narrator, a higher destiny had long- subjected Edom to the 
 Hebrews, thus giving to the latter the birthright-blessing of the 
 elder race. But at the same time the difficulty had become ap- 
 parent of keeping so wild and warlike a people as Edom long- 
 in subjection (p. 107 sq.). Supposing such a struggle to have 
 been alieady of long duration, it might indeed be thought that 
 Isaac, beguiled at first by the arts of Jacob and his mother, 
 must yet in that solemn moment have been inspired by true 
 prophecy to bless the younger son instead of the elder ; ' but that 
 Esau did then arrive just in time to win by iirgent pleading 
 the one blessing, that by strenuous resistance he should be 
 able at last to break his brother's yoke. The narrator repre- 
 sents Isaac as having recourse ou this occasion to a more de- 
 licious repast, in order to rouse the prophetic faculty ; as all the 
 weaker forms of prophecy seize upon phj^sical irritants to their 
 exercise ; ^ a conception which accords well with the position 
 generally assigned by tradition to Isaac as the least spiritual of 
 the three Patriarchs. And though it is of the very essence of 
 the narrative that these j^rophetic declarations respecting the 
 position of the two brothers should be authoritative, yet the 
 narrator, far from approving Jacob's deception, represents him 
 as flying from Esau's merited hatred ; and skilfully leads back 
 the thread of the history to the earlier legend, where Jacob is 
 sent forth, with his father's blessing, to seek a fitting wife among 
 his kindred in the far north-east. 
 
 b.) It was this disastrous state, however, which first opened 
 to Jacob the possibility of true amendment and self-conquest, 
 wherein his heart should at last rise superior to its own guile. 
 Driven forth from the happy paternal hearth, and wandering 
 helpless in a strange land, he is forced to fix his hope more 
 steadfastly than ever on Jahveh, and, whatever his labour or 
 his subtlety, beware of encountering the Just One with deceit. 
 Thus was deliverance yet possible for him. And that Jahveh will 
 never abandon one who trusts in him, least of all when striving 
 darkly forward to a doubtful future, is beautifully indicated by 
 the Fourth Narrator, in that passage of rare grandeur, which he 
 places at the beginning of Jacob's history.^ Here the wanderer, 
 still but a few da^y's journey from the parental home, is com- 
 pelled to pass the night in the fields, his head resting on a hard 
 
 ' Following tlio similar but older story added that the D''Jti)n in Is. x\-ii. 8, as a 
 
 ill Gen. xlviii. 13-20. contraction of }n-|n = tbin. CHn be only 
 2 Proph. des A. B. i. 37, 39. .. , . ,.',-=-' . ' =■■ . . .• 
 
 » Gen.xxviii. 10-22; seep. 104 sq., 112, very slightly diiferent from mr33, since m 
 
 303 sq., and iny Alterthnmer, p. 260. To Levit. xxvi. 30 the two are conjoined, 
 this passage of the Altcrthiinur may be 
 
 VOL. I. A A
 
 354 TKELIMINARY HISTORY. 
 
 stone ; and just then, in this hardest and most forlorn pli<i:ht, 
 sees the heavens open and the Deity made g^raciouslj manifest ; 
 receives the snbHmest promises and encouragements, and vows 
 himself with fresh ardour, as one new-born, to the service of 
 Jahveh. A somewhat similar account seems indeed, according 
 to XXXV. 1-15, to have already occupied the same place in the 
 earlier historj^ ; but when we now read that Jacob at once set 
 up» the stone as a monument and anointed it (compare on the 
 other hand xxxv. 14), we perceive by this and other signs how 
 freely the later historian must have transformed this splendid 
 passage. 
 
 And Jacob does in fact arrive prosperously at Harran, * meets 
 happily with Rachel at the very first, and is then blessed with 
 wives and children, power and wealth, beyond his highest ex- 
 pectations. But he there also finds in Laban, with whom he 
 has to live perpetually in the closest contact, a father-in-law 
 no less crafty and alive to his own advantage than himself. 
 He thus finds himself for the first time in a regular school of 
 deceit, where craft is matched against craft : old Laban desires 
 to use the industrious and marvellously lucky shep)herd as 
 long as possible for his own benefit, and descends to any low 
 cunning which tends to this end, as for example repeated 
 arbitrary alteration in the conditions of service. ^ The indefa- 
 tigable servant cannot and will not always toil for others only, 
 and finds himself compelled to op>pose artifice to ai-tifice. The 
 advantage appears at first to be wholly with the crafty old 
 man, who has experience and paternal dignity on his side, 
 while Jacob has only his shepherd's staff and his force of will. 
 The contest is long and various, but the final turn of the scale 
 in such an encounter of craft with craft must plainly be deter- 
 mined only by the difference in the original motive ; since he 
 who without just cause first resorted to stratagem, cannot 
 be nerved through all ensuing complications by the same calm 
 strong consciousness of right as he who emjjloyed similar 
 weapons only on compulsion and in self-defence. And thus, 
 as is shown even as early as in the Third Narrator's account, 
 Jacob remains victor at last in this long and complicated game 
 of real life ; bafiling by his superior craft the unprovoked and 
 unwarranted acts of his opponent. Thus, 
 
 (1) Laban breaks faith with him respecting Rachel, under a 
 plausible pretext, but in reality that he may profit longer by his 
 services. But Jacob, who, like Apollo or Krishna, gives to men 
 
 ' Sec ahovo, p. 342. An ancient ./«co//,s called; see the doscription in Badger's 
 Well is still shown near tho city; Init it Nestorians, i. p. 344. 
 may fairly \)f asked, when it was first so * Gen. xxxi. 41 ; sec p. 350 jintc.
 
 JACOB-ISRAEL. 355 
 
 the example how the true hero ought sometimes to abase him- 
 self and serve, not only cheerfully accomplishes seven additional 
 years of service, but is rewarded beyond his expectations m 
 wives and children (xxix. 13-xxx. 24). 
 
 (2) When Jacob, at the expiration of this second term of 
 seven years (xxxi. 38, 41), very reasonably thinks of founding a 
 house of his own, and wishes to return home, Laban, instead of 
 releasing him honourably after his faithful service, endeavours 
 with artful selfishness to retain him by the offer of wages ; but 
 reluctant, from the same selfish spirit, to propose on his own 
 part any definite and handsome recompense, leaves it with feigned 
 magnanimity to his son-in-law to name his own conditions, in the 
 ill-disguised hope that he may be overawed to rate his services 
 far below their real value. And Jacob, thus forced to employ 
 similar craft on his own part, does indeed propose a new mode 
 of payment, which will apparently yield so little, that Laban 
 eagerly catches at it : that the particoloured lambs, hitherto a 
 very small proportion of the whole, are henceforth to be the pro- 
 perty of the shepherd. But the crafty Jacob, having the right 
 on his side, is favoured by the special aid of his Grod with a 
 new device for the artificial propagation of particoloured lambs. 
 Laban beholds with disma}^ the amazing increase of Jacob's 
 flocks through this very stipulation. Even when, at his desire, 
 a somewhat different variety of particolour is adopted as the 
 condition, fortune still remains wondrously on Jacob's side 
 (xxx. 25-43, supplemented by xxxi. 7-12).^ 
 
 (3) When Laban, though only taken in his own net, and with 
 no just cause of grievance, becomes at last so thoroughly ex- 
 asperated with his son-in-law that the latter has everything to 
 fear from his revenge, Jacob resolves, in concert with Laban 's 
 own daughters, and encouraged by supernatural visions and 
 promises, to seize the first opportunity of flight, carrying with 
 him the earnings of his twenty laborious years. He now takes 
 the initiative in those artifices which have hitherto always 
 originated with the morose old man ; he steals Laban's heart ; 
 that is, he goes off without giving Laban the slightest intima- 
 tion, or seeking in a7iy way to propitiate him; and escapes suc- 
 cessfully across the Euphrates (xxxi. 1-21). It is, however, a 
 striking feature in the legend, introducing a new complication 
 into this drama of complications, that Rachel herself, without 
 Jacob's complicity, steals from her self-seeking father his house- 
 
 •■ The story of the inventive genius of blcs that of Apollo Poimnios, as inventor 
 the great Shepherd-Chief no doubt existed of thecithara, &c. See further Björnstahl's 
 originally on its own account, and rescm- Reisen, vi. 2. p. 399. 
 
 A A 2
 
 r-56 PRELIMINARY HISTORY. 
 
 hold-gods ; ' as if tlierebj to appropriate and carry with them 
 into Canaan entire and undivided the good fortune of the 
 paternal house, all participation in which had been denied by 
 Laban to herself and her husband. 
 
 (4) Then, when Laban learns their flight and the loss of his 
 household-gods, and for the first time finds himself entirely the 
 injured party, he pursues the fugitive with armed force, and 
 comes up with him at Gilead, the north-eastern frontier of 
 Canaan, in the larger sense of the word ; and Jacob seems in 
 imminent peril of losing at one blow all that he bas painfully 
 and laboriously gained. 
 
 (5) But as if an evil conscience still preyed secretly on Laban, 
 he is warned by a supernatural voice in a dream, the evening 
 before the decisive encounter was expected, not to proceed too 
 violently against Jacob. But though his violence is thereby 
 somewhat mitigated, he considers that he has at least full 
 ground of complaint against him for the robbery of the house- 
 hold-gods. But as Jacob in good faith disclaims all knowledge 
 of the theft, Laban by this complaint only puts himself again 
 in the wrong. When Rachel then, with successful cunning, 
 manages to keep the household-gods hidden from his most dili- 
 gent search, he is completely humbled, and can scarcely main- 
 tain even the semblance of paternal dignity, and has to content 
 himself with concluding a treaty of peace and alliance with 
 Jacob (xxxi. 44-xxxii. 3), which happily winds up this long 
 game of well-matched wits, the true Hebrew Comedy of Errors.'* 
 That in the time of the earlier historian some such memorial of 
 these transactions as is described, xxxi. 45, 51, really stood on 
 Mount Gilead — that Gilead was once the mountain-frontier be- 
 tween the Aramean and Canaanite nations, the scene in former 
 ages of border struggles and treaties of peace like these ; such 
 is the basis of strict historic truth on which this series of stories 
 is built up (compare p. 346 sqq.). But it is fitly related in con- 
 clusion (xxxii. 2 [1] sq.), how Jacob, victor at last in the long 
 struggle, is met on his entrance into the Holy Land by a troop 
 of angels, as if to hail him conqueror, and conduct him from 
 the threshold to the very heart of the land. This storj', more- 
 over, serves also to explain the sanctity attached to the city 
 Mahanaim (alread}" mentioned, p. 305) between Gilead and the 
 Jordan ; and indeed would otherwise have been impossible. 
 
 ' In tlio siimo nortli-ofistorn district, - That this pioco falls naturally into fivo 
 
 but in tho first century af/er Christ, a divisions, like an actual drama, is shown 
 
 similar custom is mentioned by Joscphus, in a more comprehensive manner in the 
 
 A)it. xviii. 9. 5. Tübingen Theo'. Juhrh. 1815, p. 752 sq.
 
 JACOB-ISRAEL. 357 
 
 But scarce has lie thus crossed the threshold, arrd is delivered 
 from this great danger on the north-east, than he is threatened 
 with one yet more formidable on the south from Esau, who, 
 althoug-h already established in Edoni, has by no means relin- 
 quished his claim upon Canaan, and is now approaching with 
 an armed force. ^ His superior strength Jacob can neither dis- 
 regard nor resist ; he therefore has reconrse to the politic expe- 
 dient of sending an amicable message to announce his coming. 
 But the messengers bring back no further news than that Esau, 
 strongly armed, is already on the way. Jacob thus unexpectedly 
 finds himself involved afresh in extreme perplexity. Even here, 
 however, his presence of mind never fails him ; he promptly 
 decides on a measure frequently resorted to in military tactics : 
 dividing his people into two bodies, that if one half should 
 succumb to the attack, the other may meantime have a chance 
 of escape. He then concentrates all his powers in solemn and 
 urgent supplication to his God ; and finally selects from his 
 best possessions a choice present for Esau, which should be sent 
 forward to meet and surprise him on the way (xxxii. 4-22 [3-21] ) . 
 But when he has thus hurriedly done all which human sagacity 
 can devise to mitigate the approaching danger, is he thereby 
 really secured from it? May not one unfriendly glance, one 
 single assault from Esau, annihilate at one blow the fruits of so 
 many laborious years ? It is a happy conception of the later 
 historian, to introduce just at this moment of Jacob's most tor- 
 turing suspense, when his early treachery towards Esau returned 
 suddenly in fearful retribution upon his soul, his wrestling with 
 the Angel : the answer, as it were, to the prayer immediately 
 before. For nowhere else could Jacob have a more momentous 
 contest than at this crisis, when all that he has gained is at 
 stake, when the great question of the j)OSsession of Canaan is to 
 be decided, and in the jjersons of Esau and Jacob the destinies 
 of whole nations are suspended in the balance. Much, it is 
 true, Jacob has already gained ; yet precisely that which he 
 formerly gained from his brother he holds as yet on a merely 
 human tenure — the right of the cunningest and the strongest, 
 rather than by the divine right of pure aspiration and spiritual 
 conquest. And yet man knows no real or unalienable possession 
 but that which he has won rather from God than from man, 
 and has thus made a part of his very life and soul. The ordi- 
 nary struggles of youth, exciting rather than decisive, and 
 prompted for the most part by mere passion, are followed inevi- 
 
 ' Tliis description strikinfjly resembles more historic age; both are from the First 
 that given Num. xx. 20, belonging to a Karrator,
 
 358 PKELDIIXAIIY HISTORY. 
 
 tabl}' by the final and decisive struggle with the Gods them- 
 selves ; and he only who fails not in this can win for himself 
 the Divine blessing, which brings with it true possession and 
 enduring jjrosperity.' So in this critical night Jacob is met 
 unawares by a mighty wrestler, and forced to wrestle with the 
 unknown and mysterious visitor ; and the wrestling lasts without 
 interruption the whole night long. Jacob's courage never for 
 one moment fails ; only when with the break of day the hour 
 comes at which the Unknown must leave, he sprains Jacob's 
 hip, in order to end the contest with honour and free himself. 
 But Jacob, now first understanding with whom he has con- 
 tended, will not loose hold of his antagonist till the latter has 
 blessed him. For he is alone the true hero who holds on un- 
 flinching to the end, and suffers not the hardly-won victory to 
 be wrested from him after all. Now therefore the angel, 
 revealing himself fully at last, blesses him by the new name of 
 Israel — as one who has wrestled with both God and man. Now 
 is accomplished the true spiritual triumph of the great hero, 
 made a new man through such superhuman conflicts ; though, 
 as the legend finely concludes, he receives a lameness, a memento 
 of the mortal combat he has passed through, and a reminder of 
 past weakness ; as if the moral deformity of ' The Crafty ' had 
 jmssed into i\\e body, and were henceforth to attach to that 
 only.^ Many old materials, doubtless, have been worked up into 
 this conception : the popular belief in fearful nightly phantoms 
 vanishing with the dawn ; ^ the easy change of interpretation 
 given to the old name Israel (God's Wrestler), as denoting one 
 who had striven with, and therefore perhaps even against God ; 
 also, no doubt, some ancient notion of this Patriarch as Limping, 
 connected wdtli the idea of his craftiness and crookedness ; and 
 the localisation of the night-scene on the river Jabbok (as if this 
 
 ' The rirst Punic War was, on tlio prirt Dionys. x. 375-377 ; comp. R. Roclictte 
 
 of the Romans, a mere human struggle, in the Mem. de FAcad. des Inscr. xvii. 2, 
 
 unrlertaken reckk'ssly and without moral p. 102 sqq. A double meaning like that 
 
 justification ; successful indeed, yet bring- in the name Israel (p. 344) has been found 
 
 ing no abiding advantage ; the Second in Ignatius @fo(popr]T6s. 
 only Ijecame a divinely-ordered contest. ^ As tlie Hindu RÄkshasa ; compare 
 
 The same might be said of the first, also the destroying niglit-spirits in Soiiom, 
 
 second, and tiiird (tlie Seven Years') Sile- Gen. xix. 15. Here the other original 
 
 sian Wars of Frederick II. elements of the tradition are clearly dis- 
 
 ■'' Somewhat as the Apostle Paul speaks ceruiblo ; for this belief dates certainly 
 
 of himself in 2 Cor. xii. 7. There is much from Premosaic times. That much fuller 
 
 resemblance between this WTestling of and somewhat different versions onco 
 
 Jacob, and that of Arjuna with Civa, fully existed, is evident from Hosea xii. 4 sq. 
 
 described in the Muliuhharuta, iii. 11952 [3 sq.], accordingtowhicli the hard.strugglo 
 
 S(iq. ; and that of Zeus witli Athene and drew tears from the hero ; and only through 
 
 the great wrestler Hercules, in Greek weeping and urgent supplication was he 
 
 mythology, Paus. viii. 28, 53, Tzetz. on victorious at last, and gained the crowning 
 
 Lycophron, v. GG2 sq., and Nounus, blessing.
 
 JACOB-lSPtAEL. 359 
 
 name signified ' Eiver of Wrestling'), and near tlie place called 
 Peniel (p. 304 sq.) — all tliese are made to fit in well with these 
 stories, and the whole episode is then interwoven most harmo- 
 niously with Jacob's history. When he has indeed conquered 
 in this spiritual conflict, he beholds Esau on the morrow with 
 feelings quite different from the fears he had entertained on 
 the previous evening. Warmly and kindly Esau receives the 
 delicate honours and surprises prepared for him ; but when from 
 brotherly feeling he shrinks from accepting the gift intended 
 for him, prudent Jacob succeeds in pressing it on him, as if 
 thereby to jiurchase immunity from all possible future hostility. ' 
 Even Esau's offer of an escort is prudently declined, lest any 
 unforeseen occasion of dissension should arise ; and thus the 
 threatened danger passes happily over (xxxiii. 1-17). 
 
 c.) And as Jacob now advances farther into the Holy Land, 
 his progress is marked by that lofty secmity which springs 
 from internal peace and completeness. He remains long in 
 central Canaan, and takes the city of Shechem, not without 
 criminal treachery and cruelty ; but the wrong is done without 
 his complicity by his two sons, Simeon and Levi,^ who are 
 severely reproved by the father. So high still stands the 
 repute of his house, that he is most unexpectedly allowed 
 by the Canaanites to advance without disturbance ; as though 
 some supernatural awe deterred them from pursuing him 
 (xxxiii. 18-xxxv. 5). On arriving at Bethel, the central point 
 of his divine achievements and experiences, he erects an altar 
 and a pillar ; having first sternly enforced the removal of all 
 such idols as had been surreptitiously introduced into his 
 household — for instance the above-mentioned household-gods 
 carried off by Eachel. There, and not till then, according to 
 the Book of Origins, did his God appear to him to impart his 
 highest blessing, and bestow upon him the new name of Israel.^ 
 Thus he advances gradually to the farthest south, where his 
 aged father yet lives, ch. xxxv. 
 
 ' See something similar in Gen. xxi. signifying that he was henceforth no longer 
 
 28-30; and above, p. 331 sq. 'The Tricky,' but ' God's straightforward 
 
 - And, strictly speaking, it belongs nian,' 71^ "^ps. Only in this freer, but 
 
 rather to the shortly-following history of certainly later account, is the contrast 
 
 these tribes. sufficiently prominent ; and that such a 
 
 * The Last Narrator omits therefore story did once exist may be inferred from 
 
 in Gen. xxxv. 10, the explanation of the the mode of designating members of the 
 
 name Israel, because he has already given people Israel in the lofty style as Qi-lt^'', 
 
 it at xxxii. 29 from another source. But The Righteous (Num. xxiii. 10, Ps. xxxiii 
 
 as the ancients took great license in the 1, !).,„ ^i. 17) ; and from the new deriva- 
 
 explanation of proper names (see xxix- tive )>i-\^> {Lehrbuch, 8 167 a). Only from 
 
 xxxi.), we must suppose there to have 1 • '■ • 
 
 existed pretty early another account, by ^^^^^ ^^^ ^^'o™ QJ? (above, p. 352), do the 
 
 which God gave to Jacob the name Israel, words in John i. 48 become iatelligible.
 
 360 PRELIMINAllY HISTORY. 
 
 And still later, in the history of Joseph, he remains the 
 same — patient, long-enduring ; tried through long years by 
 deepest mental anguish, not wholly without blame on his own 
 part, through over-indulged partiality for the son of his too 
 early lost Rachel; yet again triumphing gloriously over all 
 contradictious of fate, and dying at last a prince revered alike 
 b}^ Hebrews and Egyptians, after having witnessed a fortune far 
 transcending in splendour and extent even that of Abraham ; ' 
 as the tradition itself confesses. Thus the tradition remains 
 self- consistent throughout. 
 
 We cannot, however, fail to observe, that the history of 
 Jacob gradually and almost imperceptibly passes into that of 
 the tribes (or sons), above whom hovers, vague and dim, the 
 awful form of Israel, the aged Patriarch.^ Especially fine is 
 the turn thus given to the history, w^hen called to relate the 
 evil deeds and wicked lusts of these sons ; and with the one 
 great exception of Joseph, what else is there to tell of them ? 
 In their collective history is vividly anticipated the future 
 history of the nation ; its many shortcomings, its manifold cor- 
 ruptions ; as if the guileful nature, wholly eiadcated at last in 
 the much-tried father, sprang up again and spread in rank 
 luxuriance among his descendants ; first in Simeon and Levi 
 (ch. xxxiv.), and still more in the history of Joseph. The old 
 father, who now, made perfect through suffering, appears like 
 some superior spirit watching over them, sternly rebukes all 
 these follies and misdeeds committed behind his back ; and 
 yet eventually he himself has to bear the burden of iniquities 
 planned without his knowledge. Thus Jacob is still, though 
 in a different sense, what he was entitled in his youth — the 
 laboriously striving, much-enduring man of God. Thus, even in 
 the Postmosaic period, the better spirit still hovers over the 
 nation, often obscured and almost despairing, yet abandoning 
 them never, and in the end really beholding with rapture a 
 great and glorious restoration of all the erring ones. 
 
 4) It is not surprising that of Jacob-Israel as representative 
 specially and exclusively of this people of Israel, less mention 
 should be made than of Abraham, in such extra Biblical records 
 as other nations have preserved to us. We have, however, 
 (p. -312), met with Israhel in the old legend of Damascus. And 
 under the name Isiris, or in a more strictly Greek form Isirios, 
 we probably meet him again in old Phenician tradition. Here 
 Isiris is described as ' brother of Chna, the first Phenician,' so 
 
 ' See on this point the very juiciont '■' As even the account given in the Book 
 words Gen. xlix. 26. of Origins in Gen. xxxiv. 7 admits.
 
 JACOB-ISRAEL. 361 
 
 called.' Now no one has a better right to the appellation, 
 ' brother of Canaan,' than he who bears the rather fuller form 
 of name, Israel. The Phenician tradition indeed calls him also 
 ' Discoverer of the Three Letters,' and ascribes to him a change 
 in the old Phenician theology, consisting in the discovery of 
 some new sacred word of three letters ; ^ in reference apparently 
 to some later school in Israel (that is, in the kingdom of the 
 Ten Tribes), which harmonised together the Phenician and 
 Israelite mythologies ; but that the ancestor of these tribes was 
 called a brother of Canaan may be connected with a primeval 
 historical reminiscence of Israel's first immigration and combi- 
 nation with Canaanites. Now if by Isiris the Phenicians meant 
 the ancient Israel, this will probably serve to explain another 
 singular passage in Sanchoniathon. Krouos, called also Israel 
 by the Phenicians (so it runs), had by the rustic nymph 
 Anobret an only son (see above, p. 284), named from that cir- 
 cumstance Jeud. When the country was involved in great 
 perils of war, he adorned this son with ro3"al jjomp, and 
 sacrificed him upon an altar erected for the purpose.^ This 
 story is said to come in the first instance from Sanchoniathon ; 
 but, as here told, is not derived from Philo of Byblus, but from 
 Porphyry's special work on the Jews. The first point here to 
 be remarked is, that Sanchoniathon elsewhere tells other similar 
 stories of Kronos. The sacrifice of children in its most corrupt 
 form was, especially among the Phenicians, an old custom 
 (according to p. 326) ; and as it was especially offered to 
 Kronos, he became so standing a representative of it, that 
 many stories of the kind were told of him, as we can still trace 
 distinctly in Philo's Sanchoniathon.'' But from these direct 
 extracts from Sanchoniathon we learn with certainty that Kronos 
 was named in Phenician El^ not Israel ; ^ consequently in the 
 
 ' Sanchoniathon, p. 40, 5 sq. Orelli; on lin". Gen. xxii. 2, 16); and indeed "i-in* 
 
 Chnä see above, p 236. Gaisford took is actually Aramean for the Hebrew n^Hs' 
 the reading Jmnos from Mhb., but it is -V 
 
 not the only form they give. and after the express and repeated ex- 
 
 - Which are the three letters here to be pl-insition appended in the Greek, we 
 
 nndersti)od, it is difficult or impossible o"g^t to doubt no longer. Yet Gais- 
 
 for us to specify. Can they be the three ford m the first passage reads on the 
 
 fundamental letters of Israel itself, -|C:^^ ? -luthority of MSS. 'leSouS, which could 
 
 since we perceive from the new form J-IX'^. °°^^' ^^ '^''X' ^'^^"^''^d; this, however, is 
 
 (p. 3/39), how busy people were at a later probably only an early conjecture, and 
 
 time in finding a mystic meaning for this incorrect as an emendation. At any rate, 
 
 name. 
 
 Judah is not to be thought of. 
 
 3 Sanchoniathon, p. 42 sq. ; repeated ' Sanchoniathon, p. xxxvi. 5, 6. Comp, 
 
 iv. 16. by Yig. p. 156; further, in the P- xxx. 1,2. 
 
 newly-recovered work of Eusebius, Theoph. * Sanchoniathon, p. xxvi. 1, xxviii. 16, 
 
 ii. 12, 54, 59. The 'leouS of the ear- xxxiv. 3 ; wliore Gaisford has throughout 
 
 lier editions would then be T-iri'' (comp, restored 'HAos for 'lAos.
 
 362 TRELIMIXARY HISTORY. 
 
 above passage, preserved tlirougli a secondary source, a cliange 
 of names must have taken place.' The apparent cause of this 
 is, that the author of the work on the Jews supposed Abra- 
 ham's sacrifice in Gen. xxii. to be identical with that related 
 by the Phenicians of Kronos, or rather derived from it ; and 
 that, as he found in Sanchouiathon nothing about Abraham, 
 he regarded the name Israel as compounded of El and the Isiris 
 already mentioned, and in Jeud perhaps recognised the name 
 Judah. Many of the later Greek writers indulged in arbitrary 
 conjectures and confusions of this kind, and we must be on our 
 guard against using any of them incautiously as historical 
 proofs.^ 
 
 Other stories about Jacob, given by later writers, are always 
 found to be essentially derived from the Old Testament records.^ 
 
 IV. The Twelve Sons and Tribes of Jacob.** 
 
 The Twelve Tribes thus enter into the history almost unno- 
 ticed with Jacob. While the Patriarch is spoken of in life, 
 these appear in the legend more or less as his sons ; but, after 
 his and Joseph's death, this mode of treatment is virtually 
 dropped, and Jacob's twelve sons are considered simply as 
 tribes. Yet even the early legend does not speak of them in 
 the lump merely as sons of Jacob, but even from their birth 
 makes distinctions among them, assigning some to one and 
 some to another mother, and ranging them in a fixed order of 
 seniority. The correct comprehension of this and other features 
 of the tradition, with constant reference to later situations more 
 nearly approaching to positive history, helps us to understand 
 an historic relation which, though founded in the depths of 
 the primeval age, interferes with great force in all critical mo- 
 ments of the later history. A correct conception of the nature 
 
 ' This is so obvious, that two MSS. stich shadows to flight, as has been ab-oady 
 (p. 42) and others besides (iv. 16) i-ead observed in the same conneetion, p. 338. 
 even''HAoj/for 'Iffpa-^A; but although Gais- With respect to the Nabateo-Arabic de- 
 ford has adopted this, it still appears to scriptions of primeval times, I here reaffirm 
 me to be only a later emendation, made what I have already said in the Jahrh, 
 because it was not understood how Israel der Bihl. W/.^s. x. p. 1 sq. 
 belono^cd to the context. See also on the ^ The comproliensivo scheme of the 
 piiteages of Sanchoniathon the Gotdncjer above (p. 212) mentioned learned chrono- 
 Gvl.Anz. 1859, p. 143 sq. legist i)e7netrius (in Eusebii Prcep.Evang. 
 
 ^ And yet some modern scholars (espe- ix. 21), though elaborately extending the 
 
 cially Volney, in his Bechcrchcs noi'.velles chronology further than it is given in the 
 
 stir rilistoirc ancicyinc, i. p. 148 sq.) have Bible (and by a different method from 
 
 built up on tliis and even weaker grounds that of the Book of Jubilees, mentioned 
 
 arguments for the unhistorical character p. 201), really agrees in substance with 
 
 of Israel, Abraham, and any or all ot'.ier tiie Old Testament. 
 
 persons and things belonging to the Pa- ■* See Gott. Gd. Am. 18G4, pp. 1260- 
 
 triarchal world. True knowledge puts all 80.
 
 THE TWELVE TRIBES. 363 
 
 of the Twelve Tribes, moreover, to start with, will preserve us 
 from many aberrations in our future progress. 
 
 It cannot certainly be doubted that we are here concerned, 
 not with the actual twelve sons of a single family, or with their 
 petty domestic transactions, but with historic relations, potent 
 for centuries in their influence on people and kingdom, and 
 working j)ersistently with incisive force deep in the national 
 life. In the earliest history of a nation or tribe we often find 
 some single name alone preserved as the hero and father of his 
 people ; and these single names are afterwards enrolled in 
 genealogical records, in such arrangement as may be gathered 
 from the memory yet remaining of their original connection ; 
 but there are unquestionable indications in primeval history 
 itself that the names of Abraham, Jacob, and his sons, were 
 from the first associated with the idea of corresponding nations 
 and tribes.^ Even those details respecting the wives and 
 children of Jacob, which now appear most trivial or gro- 
 tesque, must be regarded in fact as a deposit from some re- 
 mote region, some higher level of antiquity ; as when stray 
 raindrops a,t times descend transfigured into snow-flakes, sur- 
 prising the eye by their new aspect, but unable to retain for 
 long the form thus temporarily assumed. We can only endea- 
 vour to discern in the faint and disconnected indications still 
 left to us, such mutual relations of tribe and nation as were 
 important from their maintenance through many ag-es. But 
 the recognition of the special points, on which all depends, is 
 in this case peculiarly difficult. 
 
 1. We have to consider the fixed round number of the twelve 
 sons of Jacob ; and oiir inquiries can only properly begin with 
 the consideration of the fundamental meaning and application 
 of this number. It becomes evident, on closer investigation, 
 that this cannot be looked upon as an isolated historic fact, a 
 circumstance as casual as the number of children in this or that 
 private family. On the contrary, this number, only slightl}' 
 varied in its combinations, is repeated — both in the small circle 
 here constituted by it, and in other regions touching upon it 
 from without — so frequently and persistently, that it is imjjos- 
 sible not to suspect the influence of some more general law. 
 
 As Israel consists of twelve tribes, so the same principle, under 
 many forms, runs through the subdivisions of the separate tribes, 
 as if there were a desire to bring the whole national life under one 
 
 ' In reference to Abraham comp. Gen. of each (p. 312), using the expression (o 
 xiv. With regard to Jacob and Laban, designate members of one community ; as 
 the First Narrator speaks of thu ' Brethren' is slill done in 1 Chron. xxv. 7.
 
 Aaron 
 
 Shubael 
 
 Reliabiali 
 
 }Amram\^^ 
 
 Izhar 
 
 Hebron 
 
 Uzziel 
 
 i 
 
 Libni 
 
 Laaclan 
 
 Shimei 
 
 ) Gcrslion 
 
 Jaaziah 
 
 Mahli 
 
 Mushi 
 
 } Merari 
 
 364 PRELIMIXAUY HISTORY. 
 
 demiite and consistent form. If we take first tlie tribe of Levi, 
 "we cannot but perceive, on close inspection, that from the very 
 earliest times it was divided into twelve branches. The first 
 division was indeed into the three great branches, Kohath, 
 Gershon, Merari, which consequently appear always in gene- 
 alogies as his three sons.^ But we gather with certainty, 
 though not without considerable research,^ that these three 
 great branches divided again into twelve smaller, and these still 
 in such equal proportions, that six divisions fell to Kohath, three 
 to Gershon, and three to Merari ; so that the first was equal 
 in power and importance to the two latter. These subdivisions 
 stand as follows, according to the order which obtained from 
 the time of Moses — in which but one single innovation is dis- 
 cernible, namely, that the line of Aaron, as High Priest, is 
 placed first : — 
 
 Levi 
 
 The same principle is substantially carried out in the division 
 of the conquered land, when this tribe receives fortj'-eight (that 
 is, four times twelve) cities ; here again distributed in so nearly 
 equal a proportion, that Kohath receives thirteen, and afterwards 
 ten, Gershon thirteen, and Merari twelve.^ Again, on the as- 
 sembling of the Levites under David to the festival of carrying 
 up the Ark of the Covenant to Zion, there appear six heads of 
 the tribe, with their followers, obviously only by a different com- 
 2:)utation of the same fundamental number.^ Again, we observe 
 the same in David's arrangements for the sacred music, a special 
 department of Levitical service, by which all the musicians, 
 under the three leaders, Heman of Kohath, Asajih of Gershon, 
 and Ethan or Jeduthun of Merari, were divided into twenty- 
 
 ' Gen. xlvi. 1 1 ; Ex.vi. 16; Num.iii. 17, drawn from vfrv different sources — and 
 xxvi. 57 ; 1 Cliron. v. 27 [vi. 1], vi. 1 [16]. .siijiplementino; and eniendinfi; tlie one by 
 Accordingly, from the fact that in .strictly the other. AVc tliu-s find, for example, 
 genealogical accounts Gershon always that in xxiii. 7 ""JQ must have fallen out 
 stands first (tliough in all other.s Kohath |,gfoj.e jny"?, and that the words in vv. 
 a,s the more powerful occupies that posi- g and 9 have to be emended accordingly, 
 tion), we must infer that in the earliest r^^^^,^^ j^ „ocumentarv .vidence of a pro- 
 times Gershon possessed the higher dig- ^j^^.j^ ^-^^^-y^^. eonfusion in 1 Chron. i. 35- 
 mty and power. It is also recorded that 37^ compared ^nth Gen. xxxvi. 10-14. 
 Moses himself named his first-born Gor- 3 n^,,,,. ^xxv. 6, 7 ; Josh. xxi. 3-8. 
 shom: hx. xviii. 3, 11. 22 ; 1 Chron. xxui. 4 1 chron. xv. 5-10; Elizaphan here 
 ^^" obviously stands for Iziiar ; and the three 
 * The tnith can lie attained by com- — Kohalli, Merari, and Gerslion -are 
 paring together 1 Chron. xxiv. 20-31, evidently treated as three individuals 
 xxiii. 6-23 and vi. 1-3 [lC-18] — pas.sages standing beside throe other individuals.
 
 THE TWELVE TRIBES. 365 
 
 four bancTs (fourteen under Heman, four under Asaph, and six 
 under Ethan, each with its appointed leader), each band con- 
 sisting of twelve individuals, 288 altogether.' Again, an ar- 
 rangement exactly corresponding with this is observed in the 
 twenty-four higher sacerdotal orders, which were continued 
 down to the latest times. At other times the whole tribe was 
 indeed redistributed into smaller branches ; so that the Book of 
 Origins, in genealogies and assessments of the people, speaks 
 always of eight branches onlj^ ; "^ but it is evident that even here 
 it is the fundamental number, whether four or twelve, which 
 recurs in a new combination. 
 
 Or if we take the tribe of Judah, we have indeed to regret 
 that the Chronicles, although giving veiy detailed genealogical 
 notices in book 1, ch. ii-iv. 23, do not arrange them more 
 clearly, or present them more comprehensively and com- 
 pletely. Thus much, howevej-, ma}' be gathered, that these 
 particulars are derived from two different genealogies of the 
 tribe of Judah; since the account begins in one place, ch. ii, 
 iii, and there has regard principally to the house of David (ii. 
 9-17, iii.), but then in ch. iv. 1-23 begins quite afresh upon a 
 different plan. But the detail is in both too unmethodical and 
 incomplete to give us any confidence that we have all the data 
 under our eyes. If the ancient sources whence these chronicles 
 are derived had come down to us without curtailment or obscu- 
 ration, we should jjossess even in the dry catalogues of names a 
 valuable means towards identifying important portions of the 
 early history of this great tribe. For unquestionably, in many 
 of these sources, the proper family-history of the tribe was com- 
 bined with the history of the country as a whole, as well as of 
 the possessions and residences of the more powerful families ; 
 and we very plainly remark, that a city or district very generally 
 gave the name of Father to the chief who owned it, or by whose 
 family it was governed.^ Both these records, however, even in 
 the state in which they have come down to us, afford, when 
 closely examined, a confirmation of the above proposition. The 
 first, starting from Shelali, Pharez, and Zerali, as the thi-ee im- 
 mediate sons of Judah, derives through Hezron, the first-born 
 
 ' 1 Chron. xxt. compand with xv. 16- place of three individuals (as in 1 Chron. 
 
 24. XV. 5-10) ; and Korah is .siilistituted for 
 
 - Ex. vi. 17-19; Num. iii. 17-39; ac- Izhar, according to 1 Chron. ^-i. 7 [22], 
 
 cordingly we have here four of Kohath; and 22 [•'^7], ix. 19, xii. 6, xxvi. 1. 
 
 of Merari and Gershon, two each. It is ' As ' Shobal the father of Kirjath- 
 
 remarkable that in the later return, Num. jearim, Salma the father of Bethlehem, 
 
 xxvi. 57, 58, the same number of branches Jlareph the fatlier of Beth-gader' (all 
 
 appears, and divided in the same way ; well-known names of cities), 1 Chron. 
 
 but the three main brandies take the ii. 50, 51. See above, p. 345 note.
 
 3G6 
 
 PRELIMINARY HISTORY. 
 
 of Pliarez, precisely six families : Jerahmeel, Ram (whence 
 David) and Chelubai, Segub, Asliur, and Caleb ; ' and from 
 the first-born Jerahmeel exactly six families again.^ Now, 
 finding here so far the very same arrangement as occurred 
 before with respect to one of the sons of Levi, we have every 
 reason to suppose that the remaining six families were derived 
 from t]]e two other sons of Judah. These sons, who are jDassed 
 over in the extant Chronicle in almost perfect silence, cannot 
 possibly have stood at first so baldly in the genealogy ; for we 
 have elsewhere traces of their former importance ;' and the 
 Book of Origins, in deriving two families from Pharez, so as to 
 give to Judah altogether four lines,^ does what amounts sub- 
 stantially to the same thing. The other record, however, though 
 starting with a very different scheme of the main stems of Judah, 
 which made Pharez, Hezron, Shelali,^ Carmi, Hur and Sliobal, 
 his immediate sons," adds afterwards to these six principal lines 
 six others more loosely arranged, the Sons of Kenaz, Sons of 
 Caleb, Sons of Jehaleleel, Sons of Ezra, Sons of Shimon, and Sons 
 of Ishi ;" so that the number twelve is exactly completed. The 
 different distribution is sufficiently explained by the probability of 
 this record having been drawn up at a different time, after a new 
 assessment of the tribe. But we possess also from an entirely 
 
 ' RaiUjinii. 10-17 and ili., is placed first 
 by the Chronicle only on David's account ; 
 Segulj, ii. 21-23; Asluir, 24 (comp. iv. 
 5-7) ; Jerahmeel, ii. 25-41 ; Caleb seems 
 to be twice mentioned, ii. 18-20 and 42- 
 Ö5 ; but as there is not the slightest re- 
 semblance in the two descriptions, and as 
 Chelubai has been announced jxist before, 
 in ii. 9, the words in ii. 18-20 and 50-55, 
 must be understood of Chelubai, and those 
 in 42-49 of the Caleb known to us from 
 other sources. The confusion between the 
 two like-sounding names appears (as the 
 LXX. also prove) to have been made very 
 early. Cheliib in iv. 11 is again different. 
 
 ^ Five sons by one mother (ii. 25, 27) ; 
 the sixth by another (26, 28-41). 
 
 ' The Chronicle (ii. sq.) does not again 
 mention Shelah, and Zorali only in ii. 6, 7 ; 
 for it is clear from Josh. vii. 1, that 
 Carmi must be a son of Zimri, or accord- 
 ing to another reading of Zabdi ; but the 
 four names, Etham, Jleman, Caicol, and 
 Dara (more correctly Darda), are appa- 
 rently taken in this order from 1 Kings 
 V. 11 [iv. 31]; while before "I ij^.l, v. 7, several 
 words must have dropped oiit. They are, 
 however, often mentioned elsewhere : iv. 
 21-23, ix. 5, 6 ; Neh. xi. 5 ; Num. xxvi. 20. 
 
 * Num.. xxvi. 20-22; Gen. xlvi. 12. 
 
 '' The omission of Shelah is indeed re- 
 paired at the very end, iv. 21-23; but he 
 might obviously have been mentioned be- 
 fore in iv. 1. Pharez must then stand per- 
 haps for Ilamul, mentioned in ii. 5. 
 
 •> Carmi must here stand for Zerah, as 
 is clear from p. 366, note 4 ; Hur and 
 Shobal appear in the other document (ii. 
 19, 20, 50, 52) as connected with Che- 
 lubai. 
 
 ' On examining the entire document 
 iv. 1-23, now much abbreviated, we find 
 (1) tliat vv. 3, 4, as well as 8-12, belong 
 to Hur, nu^ntioned vcr. 1, since nniL^' (I'ead 
 nti'-in) ''1 ^'^^1'- 1 1 refers back to ver. 4 ; there- 
 foi'e also nt^'in is probably to be read in 
 ver. 8 for vv"5 ; and certainly something has 
 
 dropped out after nW ver. 3. (2) That the 
 
 words in iv. 5-7 (comp. ii. 24), belong 
 properly fo the genealogy of Hezron, ver. 1. 
 There then remain only the six already 
 mentioned, which cannot be traced back 
 to any other than Judah liimself, and 
 being always introduced by ija, obviously 
 
 represent so many independent families 
 in Judall. In vcr. 17, '')2) '« to be read for 
 |3-V On other connected points, see the 
 Ja/n-/>. cirr Bihl. JViss. vi. p. 98, 99.
 
 THE TWELVE TRIBES. 367 
 
 different quarter, tlio Book of Origins, another very exactly kept 
 record ; according- to which Jndah, considered as a district, and 
 without reference to the families by whom it was held, was di- 
 vided into ten parts or circles ; ' and Simeon, which had attached 
 itself to Judah, and almost coalesced with it, comprised two 
 similar circles ;^ thus we meet again the number kuelve, in a 
 new form. And even so late as under the Romans, Judea was 
 divided into ten Toparchies, with two supplementary ones formed 
 out of Galilee and Perea. ' 
 
 The genealogical accounts of the other tribes in the Books 
 of Chronicles are much shorter ; and in the case of two, they 
 are wholly wanting. Of Benjamin only, after the first short 
 account in book 1, vii. 6-1 2, a longer one is given in 
 ch. viii, which appears both from its language and its con- 
 tents to be derived from a diiferent source, and is concerned 
 more with the history of towns than with genealogy in the 
 strict sense ; but it shows sufficiently how diffei\^ntly, at dif- 
 ferent times and for different objects, the main and collateral 
 branches of a tribe were arranged. A comparison of the ac- 
 counts in Chronicles with those of the Book of Origins yields 
 the following results. Of the tribes of Reuben,'' Issachar,'' 
 Asher,^ and Naphtali,'^ each has four main branches — the 
 same fundamental division as we found virtually in Levi 
 and Judah. The same radical number is given to Ephraim 
 both by the Book of Origins and by Chronicles ; ^ to Gad by 
 
 ' Josli. XV. 21-62. It i.s evident that are always easily intei'changed : /,f//r/'/i</'Ä, 
 
 each of tlie cities which are euumeratcd § 167 a. 
 
 in this document constitiited a distinct * Gen. xlvi. 13 (where 2V\^'' is to he 
 
 department. On the other hand, the ^p.^^j fo^ ^V) ; Num. xxvi. 23-25 • 1 
 
 Philistine cities named in vv. 45-47 are Chron. vii. 1. ' ■ - — , 
 
 oln-iously foreign to the document, partly 6 Qg,, ^Ivi. 17; 1 Chron. vii 30-37- 
 
 because they are here reckoned on an ^fter vv. 38, 39 come two more standing 
 
 entirely different system, partly on histo- sing\y'. Num. xxvi. 44-47 gives only a 
 
 rical grounds, of which we shall speak in different distribution, as if Beriah took 
 
 the sequel. f]-,e place of two, as above in the case of 
 
 ■' Josh. xix. 1-9. Levi and .Tudah. 
 
 3 Phny, Hist. iW. v. 13 (15); comp. i q^j^ ^j^-i^ 27; Num. xxvi. 48, 49- 
 
 Josephus, Jrtcish War, iii. 3. 5. \ Chron. vii. 13. ' 
 
 < Gen. xlvi. 9; Ex. vi. 14; Num. xxvi. «Numbers xxvi. 35. 36. But hero 
 
 5, 6 ; 1 Chron. v. 3. The ancients often ^gaiii the first of the three is divided into 
 
 pronounced Ri(htl, a pronunciation very ^wo, and thus equivalent to two, as in the 
 
 wide-spread, particularly in the East, ^ase of Judah, Asher, and essentially of 
 
 Thus the last syllable of the name has the Lp^j ^^o. The name Shuthclah is also 
 
 same sound as in Israe', which inversely ^^^ ^^jj^ as first-born of Ephraim in 
 
 is often pronounced hraen (J. W ilson s 1 Qhvon. vii. 20-27, but three others with 
 
 Lands of the. Bihle, 1. p. 330); and m hi^, . y^j jn .such a way as to let us see 
 
 other words also the same change of a that the Tahan there named, who appears 
 
 final I and MIS found. plSn, however, in {„ 1 Chron. vii. 25 as grandson of a cer- 
 
 spite of the ingenious story in Gen. xxix. tain IJesheph, represents in fact a later 
 
 32, is probablj' originally a diminutive; generation. 
 and in that class of words these two sounds
 
 CG8 rRELI.MlXAKY HISTORY'. 
 
 Clironicles : ' of Simeon also the same may be proved ; - and the 
 three assigned to Zebuhm (who is wholly omitted in Chro- 
 nicles),^ if interpreted in the same way as in the case of Levi 
 and Judah, may be regarded as a factor of the original number. 
 To Benjamin^ and Manasseh,^ six is the number given; also to 
 the first-born of Judah-Pharez (see p. oOo sq.), and to the first- 
 born of Issachar.'' Accordingly the only instance of entire dis- 
 crepancy is afforded by Dan (omitted by Chronicles), of whom 
 the Book of Origins names only one main branch;^ but it is 
 self-evident that this peculiarity cannot be fundamental ; and 
 it may be inferred moreover, from other indications, that this 
 tribe early experienced greater vicissitudes than any other. 
 
 So great a uniformity can scarcely be attributed to chance. 
 How deep-rooted and sacred was the popular feeling for the 
 number twelve in all matters of public concern, appears not 
 only from the twelve Types exhibited above, but also from the 
 jjractice fidl}- described in one passage,^ adopted for the foun- 
 dation of a new colony ; the settlers being sent out under thir- 
 teen leaders, as if this constituted a whole nation on a small 
 scale. The number thirteen is to be interpreted by the analogy 
 of the twelve tribes, in which precedence was given to Joseph 
 or Levi, and the single tribe of Joseph was divided into the two 
 of Ephraim and Manasseh. 
 
 But does any one maintain that it all came thus only because 
 
 ' 1 Chron. T. 11, 12; fuUowcd, v. 13, tliose of tho Chronielos ; five with some 
 by seven others as their brethren, who, greater alterations of name appear also 
 however, as sons of Abihail, are traced in 1 Chron. viii. 1, 2; on the remarkably 
 back to a separate ancestor, Buz; doubt- large number ten given in Gen. xlvi. 21, 
 less because they were added only at the see below, under tlie Egyptian period, 
 time of the conquest of the land under * By counting Maciiir and Giiead in 
 Moses. The Book of Origins (Gfn. xlvi. Num. xxvi. 29-34, or better without them 
 1(5; Num. xxvi. 15-18) gives here quite in Josh. xvii. 1, 2; the accounts in 1 
 different names, but uniformly seven ; for Chron. v. 23, 24, vii. 14-19 are very con- 
 the slight discrepancies between tiiese _ fused. Compare the scheme given in Gen. 
 two passages are easily explained. The xlviii. 6, and what will hereafter be re- 
 name Joel, given in v. 12 to an actual son marked concerning those documents. But 
 of Gad, is certainly curious. even in the case of Manasseh, we can not 
 
 * The Shaul, mentioned as fifth and only see that the full number was twelve, 
 last in Num. xxvi. 12-14 and 1 Chron. but discover very instructividy how it was 
 iv. 24, is in Gen. xlvi. 10 and Ex. vi. 15 gained: to the six in Josli. xvii. 2, or 
 expressly distinguished and placed lower ratlier (one being subtracted in ver. 3) to 
 as ' son of the Canaanitish woman ;' in tho five, must be added the five less im- 
 both tho hitter passages, moreover, six portant (regarded as female lines), in ver. 3, 
 sons are mentioned, and "iflV instead of and then the two in ver. 5 (where ton is 
 mt- then correct), Giiead and Bashau. See 
 
 * Gen. xlvi. 14; Num. xxvi. 26, 27. also Num. xxxvi. 11. 
 
 * But 1 Chron. vii. 6-11, 12 di.stin- « 1 Chron. vii. 2. 
 
 puislies very clearly tliree jfrincij'al from ' Gen. xlvi. 23 ; Num. xxvi. 42, 43 ; 
 
 three subordinate branches; Nam. xxvi. see also on this point p. 181. 
 
 38-41, likewise reckons six (the first-bora ^ Of the tribe of Simeon, 1 Chron. iv. 
 
 being again split into two), under names 34-43. 
 
 wliich it is not difficult to recogni.se in
 
 Tllli; TWiaVE TKIBES. 3C9 
 
 Jacob liappencd by mere chance to have twelve sons born to 
 hhn'? A ghmce out beyond the immediate frontier of this 
 single people Israel ought to convince hira of his error. For 
 wherever we learn anything respecting the internal ramifica- 
 tions of any kindred people, we find the same fundamental 
 numbers and proportions occur. The Nalioreans in the north 
 (p. 310) were divided into twelve accurately cited tribes, again 
 subdivided into eight and four ; ' a circumstance particularly 
 striking, as the extant tradition generally cares but little about 
 this people. The Ishmaelites, in like manner, branched off into 
 twelve tribes under twelve heads, as the Book of Origins with 
 evident interest repeatedly mentions ; ^ but their subdivisions 
 have not been preserved. The Ketureans were also divided into 
 exactly six tribes^ (see p. Sli). The Idumeans, concerning 
 whom the Book of Origins gives most circumstantial informa- 
 tion (Gen. xxxvi, see p. 76), split indeed into three principal 
 branches, Eliphaz, Eeuel, and Aholibamah ; but it is probable 
 that six tribes belonged to the first, and six to the other two 
 together; to which, according to ver. 12, Amalek, originally a 
 quite foreign nation (p. 251), must at some j^articular time have 
 attached itself as a collateral tribe."* Asa territory also, Idumea 
 was divided into this same number of districts, both in the 
 earliest '^ and in later times, notwithstanding alterations in the 
 names of the districts, probably produced by changes of re- 
 sidence of the chiefs or subordinate governors, in consequence 
 of iiiternal revolutions.^ Of the divisions of the Moabites and 
 Ammonites we unfortunately know nothing. But neither the 
 
 • Book of Origins, Gon. xxii. 20-24. appear as grandsons of E>au. They re- 
 
 ^ Gen. xvii. 20, xxv. lo-lG. The words appear, however, somewhat altered, pos- 
 
 iu I lie middle of ver. 16 compared with ch. sibly from the Book of Origins having 
 
 xx.wi. cxhihit an omission. already made iise of viirious authorities. 
 
 ^ Tile name of Medan, one of diese six, But it is clear, from ver. 12 compared 
 
 is certalnlj-m^t, an abhrevi'ttionof ^Z/V//'«» ; with ver. 22, tliat Amalek must in some 
 
 the latter may be rather a dialectic dimi- way be excepted from the fourteen divi- 
 
 -^ sions mentioned in vv. 15-19, and Korah 
 
 imtive from the former (fcrnied like ..^.j- obviously cannot be intended to represent 
 
 " a double district, as might appear from 
 //i;»yrtr, pronounced with //a instead of the vv. 16, 18: perhaps as originally belong- 
 more usual «i, y.i'A/-/;«6-A, § 167 a), especially ing to Eliphaz, he is in his right place in 
 as it is placed after it in Gen. xxv. 2. ver. 16. 
 
 The single passage Gen. xxxvii. 36, as * Thus are the names in vv. lä-lO, to 
 compared with ver. 28, cannot, be appealed be understood, as is clear from the con- 
 to in support of the abbreviation ; for this trast in vv. 40-43 ; see above, p. 76. 
 could, according to my Lehrhurh, § 164 b, ° There are in fact only eleven heads of 
 affect only tlie derivative >j^"ip jV«//»«7Y<' ; tribes named vv. 40-43; but both here 
 
 if even the reading is certain.' ^"^^ ;." ^ ^'if""- !;. J*' "^«^«:;''l «f ^'f l.^^t" 
 
 ^ The heads of tribes named in Gen. ^^entioned, the LXX have Za<^cofr, derived 
 
 xxxvi. lö-ig, are obviously intended to fi-""ODynivv. 11, 15; this theretore must 
 
 rule over the samcdistricts or trib.'S which certainly have stood here originally as the 
 
 just before, in the genealogy in vv. 10-14, twelfth name. 
 
 VOL. I. B B
 
 370 PRELIMINARY HISTORY. 
 
 Canaanites (p. 232), nor tlie Aboriginal inhabitants (p. 226 sq.), 
 show anj trace of this arrangement in their national life. 
 
 Beinjjf thus led to recognise in this scheme an institution 
 which was firmly established among the Hebrews in the wider 
 sense of the term, even before the rise of Israel as a nation, 
 maintained among every Hebrew people through many cen- 
 turies unchanged, by the sanctity of ancient usage, and in this 
 particular nation carried out even in the ramifications of each 
 sepai'ate tribe, we are called upon to seek some sufficient cause 
 for a phenomenon so striking and so uniform in its manifesta- 
 tions. Nowhere can this be sought with so much probability 
 as in the plan of taking votes in the assembly, and of marshal- 
 ling the army in camp and on the field. For both purposes 
 a fixed order was required ; and as for the entire nation, so also 
 for each single tribe in the management of its own aS'airs, such 
 a system might be necessary. I shall revert later to the ancient 
 constitution of the Community ; for the present, the examples 
 in Numb, i, ii, vii. suffice to show that the subdivision in 
 question had really this purpose for war as well as for peace. 
 But the special selection of the number twelve for this end 
 is certainly peculiarly Hebrew, for this region at least,^ and 
 must have some remote cause fiir back in the dim antiquity of 
 these peoples.^ A nation without the blessing of an organised 
 community entitled to vote, requires no such fixed classifica- 
 tion ; and in fact no trace of such is to be discovered among 
 the Arabs of the Desert at the present day, either in present 
 usage or in the traditions of their race ; though, as we have 
 seen (p. 369), both Midianites and Ishmaelites certainly once 
 possessed it. But where these institutions do exist, the sej^a- 
 rate tribes and families in the meetings of the Community 
 feel as children and grandchildren in their father's home, 
 gathered around a fiither, whether visible or invisible ; for 
 above the visible head in their midst, the Divine and Invisible 
 would also be enthroned in memory. This alone could be the 
 
 ' A similar arranf^ement is, howevpr, originally divided into twelve communities, 
 
 found among the Etruscans, Livy, i. 8. And even the ancient kingdom of Bornu 
 
 We may also justly adduce the twelve in Africa -was divided into twelve military 
 
 princes of the Ph;eacians, the king forming contingents, each under its separate flag; 
 
 the thirteenth, in Odi/ssey, viii. 390 sq., see Kölle, African Native Literature, p. 
 
 and the similar ai'rangement among the 259 sq. See also G. Miillor's America- 
 
 Thracians, Uiad, x. 488-495. Even in nische Urrcligionen, pp. 91-94. 
 later times, the lonians and ^olians ^ The reason for this lies undoubtedly 
 
 divi<lcd themselves according to the sacred in the ancient sanctity of t!ie twelve 
 
 number of the mouths (HiTod. i. 14Ö, 140, months. See my Altcrthihncr, p. 38G sqq. 
 
 149); the Dorians used the number six Ordinary public duties, such, for instance, 
 
 (Lachmann, Spartanische Sfaaf.sverfas- as that of keeping watch, might naturcdly 
 
 sung, p. 84 ; comp. 259) ; and Attica was have a monthly rotation.
 
 THE TWELVE TRIBES. 371 
 
 abiding import of tlie name of the 'Twelve Children of Israel.' 
 It is, indeed, quite usual to speak of the chief, or the family, 
 or the people, by whom a district, city, or nation, was governed, 
 as its Father. Thus Esau is called the father of Edom (compare 
 p. 345 note, and p. 365) ; and the fact that Machir is called the 
 son, and Gilead the grandson, of Manasseh (p. 368) — Gilead 
 undoubtedlj' signifying originally only the well-known mountain 
 district of that name — can only have arisen from some special 
 relation Avhich Gilead and its inhabitants had formed with the 
 tribe of Manasseh, as their lord and father. But where several 
 tribes at once are called the sons of one father, we must infer 
 the existence of a community constituted and organised accord- 
 ing to some fixed number, probably venerable from old custom, 
 and thus enrolled around their head. 
 
 2. In this sense, all the twelve sons of Jacob stand upon au 
 equal footing ; all having equal claims on the favour and pro- 
 tection of the community. The legend, however, made abiding 
 and significant distinctions among them in saying that, first, 
 four are born of Leah; then, after a pause, two from each of 
 the handmaids ; and finally two more from Leah, and two 
 from Rachel. And thus, even among the six sons of Leah, the 
 first four are distinctly separated from the others. Now dis- 
 tinctions which even the legend has preserved, we are the more 
 called upon to follow up. And in fact it is manifest froiu 
 other indications also, that tradition has preserved in these 
 slight traits the memory of most important and long-enduring 
 relations among the tribes, and therein a valuable fragment of 
 early history. 
 
 For it is in the first place most significant that the tribes, 
 while all claiming one father, ranged themselves notwith- 
 standing under two mothers. Herein is conveyed the remem- 
 brance, confirmed, as we have seen (p. 345 sq.), by other indica- 
 tions, that this nation was composed of two difi'erent elements, 
 both indeed of Hebrew blood, but first united under the chief 
 Jacob-Israel, newly come to Canaan. Nothing can be more in 
 harmony with the ancient popular feeling, which regards the 
 community as a father's house, than this reverent recognition 
 of one father only, by a community united in one heroic career, 
 while the different component parts, not yet wholly fused to- 
 gether, but retaining traces of former independence or incon- 
 gruity, are fitly assigned to different mothers. So in the three 
 Koman tribes, Eamnes, Titles, Luceres, was commemorated the 
 origin of Home from three different populations; so Eomulus is
 
 372 rHELIMLVAKY HISTORY. 
 
 said to have named tlie thirty Curiae from thirty Sabine matrons ; ' 
 and so, to take the nearest example to our present subject, the 
 Idumeaus in their three tribes traced their descent from one 
 Ilittite, one Horite, and one Ishmaelite wife of Esau : ^ clearly 
 J) roving that the Hittite, Horite, and Ishmaelite elements of 
 their 2)0wer were still distinctly to be traced at the time of the 
 Book of Origins ; as indeed this book expressly states of the 
 Jlorites (p. 226). Many similar hints and glimpses are afforded 
 by the genealogies of the Old Testament. These dry names of 
 primeval history, if we can once awake them from their sleep, 
 are far from remaining dead and stiff; but restored to life impart 
 wondrous traditional lore respecting the original relations of 
 peoples and tribes ; as the strata and fossils of the earth, when 
 rightly questioned, relate the history of long-vanished ages. 
 
 Novf in the fact that Jacob's two wives, unlike the three or 
 four of Esau, are described by the legend not merely as Hebrew 
 women, but as sisters — and moreover so inseparable that their 
 father could substitute the one for the other— lies, doubtless, 
 the remembrance, that the two elements of which the nation 
 was composed were very early fused together in intimate union, 
 both being of true Hebrew blood to begin with, and then being 
 bound to each other by one great common object. Yet some 
 trace of this double origin runs through the whole subsequent 
 history of the nation, varjdng with time and circumstance, yet 
 never long lost sight of, and often breaking forth rudely in 
 violent hostility or long-continued alienation. Although, after 
 the times of Moses and of David, a number of new causes con- 
 tributed to widen this breach and render it at last incurable, it 
 evidently goes back to the obscure antecedents of the nation, 
 and had, doubtless, its primal origin in the two different elements 
 of which the entire people was constituted. Thus supposing, 
 
 ' Livy, i. 13. case might gradually pas« into 3. T';e 
 
 * Gen. xxxvi. 2 sq., where foi- vipi we name JlDb'B xxvi. 34, which in xxviii. 9 
 
 ought to read '»"in, as is clear from the must Le substituted fur the inappropriate 
 
 Horite names, Anah, Zibeon, sind Aholi- D^HQ. must howev r, according to xxxvi. 
 
 baniah in vv. 20, 24, 41, and still more so 2, 4, 10, be surely regardeil as arising 
 
 from ver. 2o ; these names are also inter- from a confusion with rilV- The Eook 
 
 changedbytheLXX. inJosh. ix. 7(p.237). of Origins evidently does'not contradict 
 
 On the other hand, it follows incontestably it^^lf in alluding no farther in ch. xxxvi. to 
 
 from Gen. xxvi. 34, 35, xxvii. 46, xxviii. the second Hittite wife, possibly because 
 
 9, that tradition originally named two ghe was supposed to be childless' On the 
 
 Hittite wives of Esau ; to whom was other hand several instances have already 
 
 afterwards added an Ishmaelite, and occurred in reference to the sons of Jacob, 
 
 finally a Honte wife. This also corre- in which the Book of Origins gives different 
 
 sponils exactly with M'hat has been already numbers in the later census-lists, from 
 
 often said of the employment of the funda- ti,o.se tulopted in family records of a more 
 
 mental number 4 x 3 = 12; and affimls liistorieal character. 
 a distinct e-^amplc, how a 4 in such a
 
 THE TWELVE TRIBES, 373 
 
 as we may with certainty assume, that the six tribes of Leah 
 form the one portion, and the two or three of Eachel the othei', 
 we may certainly proceed to regard those of Rachel as the di- 
 vision which accompanied Jacob on his retnrn to Canaan, thus 
 standing nearest to the common chief and father ; and those of 
 Leah as the descendants of Abraham and Isaac already settled 
 in Canaan. Not without meaning does the lerxend make all 
 Leah's sons the elder, and Eeuben the actual first-bom, but 
 Eachel and her children the especial favourites of the father. 
 Similarly Jacob himself, coming from another land to Canaan 
 and to the house of Isaac, is called the j'Ounger, and Esau the 
 elder, son of Isaac. And the impossibility that these two differ- 
 ent portions should exist side by side in the same national com- 
 munity, without the one exercising superior influence and taking 
 the lead over the other, suggests the historical meaning of the 
 old legend of Eeuben's loss of his birthright. Tradition has 
 many similar instances of the loss of this right ; and it is clear 
 that when nations, tribes, and families, rather than individuals, 
 are really intended, the memory of a struggle between two 
 powers, and the triumph of the one which was formerly the in- 
 ferior, forms the historical basis. Indeed it is only thus that 
 the importance attributed to such narratives can be explained ; 
 since even what in them appears sportive and jocose, as the 
 birth of Pharez and his twin brother, sons of Tamar and 
 Judah,' though prompted by popular humour, bore reference, 
 notwithstanding, to matters of grave import. How among 
 equals the higher position, and thus the rank of first-born, 
 was achieved, is in one instance distinctly explained — in the 
 genealogy of Aharhel, of the Judaic branch Ashur ; Jabez,'^ 
 as an old book related, became the 7nost honoured among his 
 brethren;^ and thus his house came to be regarded among 
 their kindred as that of the first-born. But while the circum- 
 stantial account of Jacob's repeated struggles with Esau for the 
 birthright is given by no earlier narrator than the Fourth and 
 Fifth, before whose mind doubtless floated older legends of the 
 same nature, and especially that respecting Ephraim and Ma- 
 rasseh (p. 352 sq.), the tradition of Eeuben is certainly one of 
 the oldest, and derived immediately from the Earliest Narralor.^ 
 That Eeuben was once the principal tribe, and took the lead 
 
 ' Gen. xxxviii. 28 sq. H^y must be taken as sjuouymoiis with 
 
 ^ Who has one of the cities of JiiJah L- • 7 77- 
 
 calhd l.y his name, 1 ChroD. ii. .55. ^/V ' '■''■ Jb>-jO ^cp-ce, rav/c. digmiy, 
 
 ^ 1 Chron. iv. 8-10. The pass^age mufc^t (Ezek. xl. 20), 'my couch of h'ylmess, dig' 
 
 from its pliraseoh)gy be very ancient. 'nifi/' according to my Lthrbiuh, § 287 c. 
 
 * Gen. XXXV. 22 : xlix. :>, 4, where
 
 374 TRELIMINARY HISTORY. 
 
 of the rest, may be regarded as historic truth ; since the family 
 tradition uniformly assigns to him the highest place, and thus 
 preserves the memory of the esteem in which he was originally 
 held. That he insolently abused his superiority, and thus for- 
 feited his honourable j)Osition, may be signified in the legend, 
 given by the First Narrator, of his abusing his father's concu- 
 bine,^ and thus bringing on himself his father's cui-se. But it is 
 also plain that he must have lost his position in very early times, 
 since only such remote and obscure reminiscences of the fact 
 have been preserved. His place is taken, not by Judah (as the 
 Postmosaic history would lead us to expect), but by Joseph, as 
 we are assured by express statements,^ and by the result of all 
 enquiry into the history of the earliest times. But in the per- 
 son of Joseph the other and younger portion of the community 
 gained the ascendancy ; and we have here unquestionably a 
 fragment of primeval history respecting the internal divisions 
 and contests of the two portions out of which the community 
 grew. 
 
 Nor, secondly, can it be without significance, that of the 
 twelve sons of Jacob, some are derived from concubines, but 
 supposed to be adopted as children by the two real mothers of 
 the family ; that of these, two belong to Leah and two to 
 Eacliel; just as among the twelve tribes of Nahor precisely 
 four are attributed to a concubine.^ The same thing occurs 
 elsewhere in these ancient family and national histories. It 
 very frequently happens that one or more sons of an ancient 
 chief are not treated as children of the family-mother ; but 
 we generally find in such cases that the sons attributed to 
 concubines stand outside of the round number assumed,^ and 
 form a very small minority.^ As we have here essentially the 
 relations and distinctions actually subsisting between the several 
 sections of the community, there can be no doubt that in these 
 less distinguished sons we must recognise the rej^resentatives 
 of supplementary tribes, or, as the Romans called them, Gentes 
 Minores, which were received into the national bond, but with 
 certain limitations of privilege, either on points of mere liono- 
 
 ' This picture is oLvioxisly borrowed Gen. xxxvi. 12; comp. 22, 16, 40, and 
 
 from such historical incidents as that in above p. 252. Por Shaul as son of Simeon, 
 
 2 Sam. xvi. 21, 22. see p. 368. 
 
 ^ The statement in 1 Chron. v. 1, 2, is ^ As in the case of Nahor, Gen. xxii. 
 
 strictly historical ; the expression ' the 20-24, and Israel. In that of Caleb, 
 
 Crowned among his brethren' is indeed I Chron. ii. 42-49, the present text is 
 
 employed by poets (Gen. xlix. 26, Deut. obscure, as we do not see with what vv. 
 
 xxxiii. 16), but obviously not without his- 47 and 49 are connected; in that of 
 
 torieal significance, of those old times. Manasseh, 1 Chron. vii. 14, much has 
 
 Gen. xxn. 24. obviously been dropped out before "lü'J^^Ö 
 
 * As Aniakk in tlie case . of Edom,
 
 THE TWELVE TRIBES. 375 
 
 rary precedenco, or in weightier matters. Siicli a position, 
 however, could hardly have arisen except either by the reception 
 into the national league of fresh nations or families, in some in- 
 stances subjug-ated, but allowed to retain certain rights, and in 
 other cases voluntarily appealing for protection and adoption ; 
 or else by the declension of older members from their original 
 rank. As that portion of the Amalekites which was reckoned 
 as connected tlu'ough a Horite mother Timna, a concubine of 
 Esau, with the kingdom of Edom, ' formerly j)0ssessed fewer 
 privileges than the other twelve tribes ; so in Israel the four 
 tribes which could derive themselves from the two true mothers 
 of the nation only through Jacob's two concubines, enjoyed 
 from the first less j)Ower and consideration than the eight others, 
 though they had a share in the essential rights and benefits 
 possessed by the community. It will be explained further on 
 how this original relation was maintained even at the conquest 
 and partition of Canaan under Joshua ; and we possess herein a 
 surprising proof of the correctness of the legend. But even in 
 the legend these sons of Jacob are regarded as the rudest and 
 most cruel ; as is sufficiently shown by the account of Joseph's 
 connection with the sons of Zilpah and Bilhah, who had charge 
 of him in his childhood, and ill requited his innocent confi- 
 dence.^ And that Ishmael and the sons of Keturah are likewise 
 accounted only the ofi'spring of Abraham's concubines, is but a 
 farther application of this ancient mode of viewing national 
 relations. 
 
 That the meaning is similar when tradition derives only some 
 parts of a nation from one or more daughters of the common 
 ancestor, will be more particularly shown below. 
 
 Thirdl}^, after the above remarks, it is needless to explain 
 further, how it is anything but accidental that the legend re- 
 specting Jacob's sons divides them throughout into groups of 
 four — expressly stating that Leah, after bearing four, long re- 
 mained barren ; that then were bom the four sons of the 
 concubines, the two belonging to Eachel coming first ; and, 
 finally, after a long interval, the four others ; two of Leah, and 
 last of all, two of Rachel. Now, putting together all that has 
 been so far worked out, we discover beneath this legendary 
 veil the plainest memorials of the original relations between 
 the great national members of the Israelite community. The 
 
 ' Tliis portion of Anialck, then, had into tlio national federation ; the ITorites 
 
 tnrncd first to the Horites (to whom hc'mff then still independent in luloni (seo 
 
 indeed the Amalekites were related ; seo p. 226). 
 p. 225 «j(j.), and been liy lliem received - Gen. xxsvii. 2.
 
 370 PRELDIINARY HISTORY. 
 
 cliildren of Leah originally preponderated in strength and in 
 numbers, being as eight to four, or at least, as six to two and 
 to four. First Reuben, or afterwards Joseph — though even 
 when the latter had obtained the precedence, Reuben and his 
 three tribes voted first, and in other respects asserted their 
 dignity ; — then either the two other tribes of Leah and the 
 two of Zilpah, or the four inferior tribes together ; lastly, 
 the four remaining tribes, but so that Joseph and Benjamin 
 gave the casting vote : — this was probably the earliest order of 
 voting in the general assembly ; and all other national arrange- 
 ments would be formed on the same model. Later events may 
 have altered many of the details, as will be further shown 
 below ; but so firmly must this ancient constitution have en- 
 dui'ed for centuries, so deeply must it have impressed itself 
 on the whole life and feeling of the people, that even under 
 circumstances the most altered, twelve, as the sacred number of 
 the nation, w^as somehow maintained, and where it had been 
 lost restored if possible (as, for instance, by the division of 
 Joseph into Ephraim and Manasseh, after the withdrawal of 
 Levi as the priestly tribe), and in theory and hope at least never 
 abandoned. ' 
 
 3, Certainly in the period after Solomon such distinctions 
 between the twelve tribes, resting on early tradition, had long- 
 lost any actual meaning ; since, though the original number 
 was still held sacred in thought and hope, the reality had in 
 many respects greatly changed. All the more easily was this 
 old tradition seized upon by the new prophetic spii-it, whoso 
 230wer pervaded the centuries immediately after Solomon ; and 
 it is marvellous to see how a genealogical legend, apparently so 
 remote from the sphere of morality, received in the hands of 
 the Third and Fourth I^arrators^ a sense in complete harmony 
 with the spirit of a higher religion. The connecting thread is 
 not, however, difficult to trace. The two tribes of Rachel, and 
 especially Joseph-Ephraim, though originally last in order, 
 Avere yet regarded as the most highly privileged, and therefore 
 the best beloved sons of the common father, and their ances- 
 tress Rachel as his dearest wife. Yet, on the other hand, there 
 seemed no moral ground for the preference thus given to the 
 
 ' See my Commentar zi(,r Äfocahjpsc, original conception of tlic sultject as well 
 
 1828. p. 164 sq. as those put first, and appear exactly as if 
 
 '^ Tlie plan and substance of the enliro intended to point tiic significance of the 
 
 narrative of Gen. xxix. 16-xxx. 24 como names with more precision tlian had been 
 
 from the Third Narrator; the Fourth done Ly tiie Tliird Nai-rator. On the 
 
 ol)viously added the second explanation of other hand the name Jahirh in xxix. 31 - 
 
 the names ZeLulon and Jcseph in xxx. 35 may liavo been merely .substituted by 
 
 20, 24. Tliese do not liarinonise witlt the the Fourth Narrator for an original AYoa/w.
 
 TUR TWRLVH TT? in HS. 377 
 
 tribe of Epliraim, since the branch Josepli-Epliraim had as- 
 suredly not always maintained the lofty purity attributed by 
 the legend to its ancestor Joseph. Rachel, too, was esteemed 
 superior to her sister in beauty and fascination, but not in real 
 virtue. Under these circumstances the whole life of the two 
 mothers, and their relation to the common ancestor, might bo 
 regarded as a competition between external advantages and 
 pretensions and undeserved neglect— a competition whose issue, 
 under Divine guidance, can never be doubtful, if under so severe 
 a trial patience and virtue fail not; and thus is suggested a 
 principle of the higher religion, to w^hich every element of the 
 ancient legend most beautifully adapts itself. Jacob loves and 
 wishes to have the more beautiful sister only ; yet the elder, 
 whom it is unfair to set aside at once for her inferior charms, 
 not only becomes his wife, equal in rights and position to 
 Rachel, but is blessed before Rachel with four sons, thus gain- 
 ing honour among the people, and even securing the love of 
 her unwilling husband. But Rachel, now becoming impatient, 
 gets from Jacob, at least through her handmaid Bilhah, two 
 sons for herself. Yet even here Leah is not behindhand, and 
 by similar means also gets two sons for herself. At length 
 Rachel, reduced to extremit}^, tries to obtain the certainty of 
 offspring by bargaining with her sister for the mandrakes found 
 by Reuben, like a little Cuj)id. But on the contrary, as if in 
 punishment of Rachel's deed, Leah receives two more sons and 
 a davighter ; till at length Rachel, wholly abased and humbled, 
 is visited by a gleam of Divine favour, and she bears the son 
 who, both in loftiness of character and in influence with his 
 father, is soon to surpass all the others and become their prince; 
 and with whose birth, according to ancient tradition, the circle 
 of twelve seemed to be completed. But after the birth of this 
 peerless son, she is not long spared to enjoy her happiness, and at 
 Benjamin's bii'th she loses her life, when just entering Canaan.' 
 The interpretations given of the personal names of the sons 
 spring from no more ancient conception of the family history 
 than this. That personal names were originally significant, 
 was indeed the true feeling of antiquity (p. 19), and the twelve 
 heads of tribes were of sufficient historic importance to make 
 it necessary to give an exj^lanation of the full import of their 
 names with those of other heroes. But, on the other hand, the 
 names of these Patriarchs belonged to a period too remote for 
 
 ' It is perhaps only for Lrcviiy's sake born in Jlesopotamia, as vv. lG-22 appear 
 that in tlie Book of Origins, Gen. xxxv. from all indications to belong to the First 
 23-26, Benjamin is reckoned among thoso Narrator..
 
 378 TEELIMINARY HISTORY. 
 
 their origiual meaning to liave been retained witli certainty in 
 the tenth or ninth century before Christ. So in this as in 
 similar cases, the great freedom with which the living language 
 interj^reted its ancient words was called into play to hud in 
 thena a meaning corresponding to new ideas. 
 
 Another example of the mode in which such old family 
 legends were applied is afibrded by the Book of Origins, in the 
 case of Jacob's only daughter, Dinah, ' who stands singly beside 
 his twelve sons. That we are not to understand this daughter 
 literally as an individual, follows from the view we have 
 arrived at respecting the brothers, as well as from the meaning 
 in all similar cases. For though in early genealogies we occa- 
 sionally find a daughter expressly mentioned, such instances 
 are so rare and isolated,^ that it is impossible to believe them 
 intended for daughters in the mere literal sense ; and as all 
 domestic relations, in this connection, represent in fact the 
 movements of nations and tribes, the same rule must apply 
 here also ; for if the chief of a tribe or family had in any case a 
 daughter thus exceptionally mentioned, some important family 
 history must formerly have entwined itself around her name ; 
 as will be shown with regard to Caleb's daughter Achsa, of whom 
 we have so bald a mention in 1 Chron. ii. 49. Now if the son of 
 a concubine is meant to denote the father and representative of 
 some less privileged tribe or family, -which has come in from the 
 outside and attached itself to the main stem, so on the other 
 hand a daughter standing alone would betoken the passing 
 over of a portion of the nation, tribe, or family, with their pos- 
 sessions, to another nation, tribe, or family as the case may be. 
 So Caleb's daughter Achsa brings to Othniel great possessions ; 
 so Aholibamah and Tinnia denote the absorption of the Horites 
 into the Idumeans ; and so the marriage of Hezron, Judah's 
 grandson, to a daughter of Machir of Gilead,^ plainly indicates 
 a fusion of these two races, to form the so-called townships of 
 Jair,'* in the farthest east. So, also, the proposed marriage of 
 Jacob's daughter Dinah with Shechem, son of Hamor, must 
 indicate the commencement of an alliance of a part, or (which 
 
 ' Gen. xxxiii. 18-xxxiv; comp, with vii. 2i) ; Heman's three daughters, men- 
 
 xlvi. 15, XXX. 21. lioncd with his fourteen sons (1 Chron. 
 
 ^ The only other examples prior to Post- xxv. 5); Sheshan's daughters without 
 
 mosaic times are, Serah the daughter of hrothers (ii. 34); other cases in 1 Chron. 
 
 Asher (Gen. xlvi. 17, mentioned again iv. 3, vii. 32, and in like manner Zeloplic- 
 
 among matters merely special to the tribe, had's five daughters, under Manassdi ; 
 
 in Num. xxvi. 40, 1 Chron. vii. 30); concerning whom see above, p. 3ö8, and my 
 
 Aholibamah daugliter of Anah and Timna AUcriM'mcr, p. 204 sq. 
 
 among the Horites (Gen. xxxvi. 25, 22); ' 1 Chron. ii. 21-23. 
 
 .Slierah daugliter of Ephraim (1 Cliron. * Ilavoth-Jair.T'X'' Jl-in Num. xxxii.41.
 
 THE TWELVE TRIBES. 379 
 
 is tlie same thing) a tribe, of the community of Jacob with 
 Canaanites settled in the ancient city of Shecheni, under a Ca- 
 naanite dynasty bearing the name of Hamor. ' The Earliest Nar- 
 rator had already touched on this, ^ and blamed the cruelty with 
 which the tribes of Simeon and Levi had punished by fire and 
 sword the attempt of the Canaanites to ravish and subjugate a 
 portion of Jacob ; and the yery fact that Levi here appears in 
 a very different character from that which he bore after Moses' 
 time, shows this to be a relic of very ancient legend. But the 
 Book of Origins, after its manner, seizes the oj^portunity to 
 inculcate right conduct, and to show by this example in eloquent 
 language and the clear words of law, how Israel ought to act 
 when brought into close contact with strangers, and how inter- 
 marriage and family intercourse may be possible between Israel 
 and the heathen ; but represents the old father as observing an 
 ominous silence respecting the cruelty with which Dinah's two 
 brothers in this unusual case avenged her wrongs upon the 
 offender and his city. 
 
 Differently, again, does the Fourth Narrator treat the un- 
 dovibtedly very old family tradition^ of Judah's sons. This 
 legend essentially asserted two things. First, that two of 
 Judah's three eldest sons. Er and Onan, were lost sight of in 
 history, even before Israel came to Egypt. ^ But this we have 
 every reason to understand of some early catastrophe, which 
 swept away the two first families of the tribe of Judah so en- 
 tirely, that, though appearing in the genealogies in their due 
 place, they are described only as having died early. ^ Indeed, 
 every son's name which stands quite isolated and barren in these 
 ancient genealogies may similarly be held to denote a family 
 which has become extinct. But the do^vnfall of an older branch 
 generally causes the rise of a younger; and tribes and their 
 branches always tend toward the restitution of their original 
 numbers. And therefore, secondly, this tradition conveys the fact 
 that, in place of these two early-lost sons of Judah, two younger 
 branches, Zarah and Pharez, arose, of whom Pharez eventually 
 
 * From the fact that the name of the reckoning by ntO^b'P KrsUa, ' pieces of 
 very city (Shechem) where this event ^^ , ^^^ ^^^^ elsewhere except in 
 occurred, was homo by one of h,s sons j^,,, xxiv. 32 and Job xlii. 11 ; the Book 
 (comp Gen xxxn, 18), ,t can only be ,u- ^f Origins reckons money by shekels, 
 fcrred that this dominant family at one Qen. xxiii. 15-16 ; Ex. xxx. 15. 
 
 time ruled over more cities tlian this 3 q^.q xxxviii 
 
 ^^^- _ * As stated in the Book of Origins, 
 
 * This follows from Gen. xlix. 5-7 ; the Gen. xlvi. 12, Num. xxvi. 19. 
 beginning also of the narrative of xxxiii. * Among the families of Judah, how- 
 18-20, appears to be derived from the ever, a certain Er is mentioned in 1 Chron. 
 earliest book, if only on account of the iv. 21, as subordinate to Shclali.
 
 3^0 
 
 rriELonxARY ii ist(')ry. 
 
 oLtained tlie precedence (p. 373). Now tliere are two ways in 
 wliieli the fathers and representatives of younger branches thus 
 taking- the place of elder may consistently be treated in tradi- 
 tionary history. First, they may be described simply as later- 
 born sons of the same father. Of this kind is a very ancient 
 account of the sons of Ephraim/ apj)arently referring to early 
 strusfo-lcs between the Israelites and the aboriginal inhabitants 
 in the pre-Egyptian period, ^ and affording therefore the best 
 230ssible illustration of the present case. Ephraim (so it is said 
 in the Chronicles on unquestionably ancient authority) lost 
 two of his sons, Ezer and Elad, who, in some quarrel with the 
 native inhabitants, went to Galh^ to carry off cattle, but were 
 themselves slain. Whereupon their old father mourned many 
 days, visited and consoled by his brethren, like Job in his afflic- 
 tion, until his wife bore him" another son, Beriah, as well as 
 a daughter ; the son being the same from whom the great hero 
 Joshua descended in the tenth generation.'* Secondly, such 
 branches may be represented under the form of grandsons 
 adopted as children. Of this we have an instance in Joseph's 
 
 ' 1 Chron. vii. 20-23. Wo nmst liewnro 
 of regardiug the "ipij 1 Chron. vii. 21, as 
 
 identical with .( ; the latter has a 
 
 perfectly distinct etymology, and signifies 
 a stranger artificiaUy made into a son. 
 
 ^ This might appear doubtful, from the 
 circumstance that 1 Chron. viii. 13 actually 
 tells of one iioriah, who there ajipears as 
 substitute and also as avenger of tho.se 
 fallen in the war with Gath, how he with 
 his brother Shema expelled the inhabi- 
 tants from Gath. He is indeed said to 
 belong to the tribe of Benj:unin ; but from 
 the affinity between tiie tribes of Ephraim 
 and Benjamin, this difference is unim- 
 portant. But he is regarded as the head 
 of a family of Ajalon, a city close on the 
 Postniosaicp()s.«essions of Benjamin; hence 
 it might perhaps seem probable that the 
 contests in question belonged to the very 
 commencement of the Postmof-aie period. 
 But in fact these are not sufficient grounds 
 for doubting the pre-Egyptian existence 
 of this stiiry ; and thus wc have here a 
 remarkable tmdition of extremely ancient 
 occurrences. See my remarks \u Jahrb. der 
 Bihl. Wiss. vi. pp. 99-100. On the war- 
 like deeds of some of Jacob's sons and of 
 Jacob himself against the Canaan ites and 
 against Esau, as also on the fortunes of 
 Esau himself, we have fur'.her .stories in 
 the ' Testaments of the Twelve ratrinrchs,' 
 noticed on p 200, especially" Test. Jiid. eh. 
 
 iii-vii, ix. Teat. Bcnj. x end. Erom what 
 sources these accounts of the kings and 
 localities of the Patriarchal world wero 
 derived, may be inferred from the Book 
 of Jubilees, xxxiv, xxx^'ii. (comp, xxx.) 
 and similar books. Such works indeed 
 continued in constant use down to a much 
 later period (see Zunz, Gottesd. Vorträge, 
 p. 145 ; Jellinek's Jiet ha Midrusch, iii. pp. 
 1-5). The earliest work not in the Canon, 
 which our author seems from the 'J'eaf. 
 Naff. V. to have used, was one probably 
 written imder thc' Seleucid», which con- 
 tained information on the acts of Jacob 
 and his sons ; but whether its author had 
 access to any very ancient works, we have 
 no means of knowing. But it is impossible 
 to workout clear historic uotionsfrom such 
 late materials ; and the great freedom with 
 which earlier accounts have been hero 
 handled, is seen from the Te.st. Jad. viii. 
 compared with Gen. xxxviii. 1. 
 
 ' Tiie AvA-im before the Philist'nc con- 
 quest must therefore be here intended, as 
 is clear from p. 243. 
 
 * I regard this as the correct nie;ini)ig 
 of the words 1 Chron. vii. 20-27; 'he 
 arrangement of the words, taken strictly, 
 can yield no other sense ; for the ) before 
 
 D'liin V. 21, must designate the apodosis, 
 accorclingto my icÄJ'i. § 343 c. Shutheluh's 
 genealogy is then carried down in seven, 
 and Reshe])h"sin ten generations, as far as 
 Joshua, which is cpiite seJf-cousistenl.
 
 TilK BKGIXXIXG OF THE NATIOX. 381 
 
 two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim : tliey were received into the 
 rank and privileges of whole tribes, and are said by the Third 
 Narrator to have been blessed and adopted as children by the 
 dying Jacob. Midway between these two alternatives stands the 
 case of Zarah and Pharez. They are called children of Tamar, 
 Judah's daughter-in-law, yet at the same time his own sons. 
 This is brought about through a single j^et complicated crime, 
 in which nearly every member of the family had a share. After 
 the eldest son's death without issue, the widow's claim to mar- 
 riage was refused, first by the infamous second son and then by 
 the father. She at last avenges her wrong on the father himself, 
 and Judah unexpectedly finds himself the father of two sons, 
 who may be also denominated his grandsons, and for the shame 
 of whose birth he dared not execute fitting justice on the widow. 
 Once assume (as was so long assumed in Israel) the high mo- 
 rality and binding, because divinely-imposed, obligation of the 
 Icvirate marriage,' and we cannot refuse to see the point and 
 bearing of this half-comic dress, which covers the account of 
 very ancient relations of family and tribe. And even before the 
 Fourth Narrator had fully worked out the legend, it is very 
 likel}^ that popular wit in the ninth century may have taken 
 its revenge upon the reigning house of David, descended from 
 that very Pharez, for many harsh or unwarrantable acts, by 
 this satirical version of that house's origin, to which the Book of 
 Euth, probably with at least equal truth, affords the opposite. 
 
 Y. The Begiitning of the NatiojST. 
 
 After such historical traces, few but unmistakable, it is im- 
 possible to deny that the beginning of Israel as a nation dates 
 from pre-Egyptian times. 
 
 The great chief whom the Nation has always revered as its 
 father may probably have settled in Canaan with the germ of 
 the people, and consequently of the twelve tribes. His commu- 
 nity, whether large or small, must have been divided into twelve 
 branches. But in Canaan many other populations (out of whom 
 indeed the Twelve Tribes which obtained a name in history 
 originally proceeded) must have early attached themselves to 
 this nucleus ; consisting partly of Hebrew elements, already long- 
 existing in Canaan (whence Jacob was made the grandson of 
 Abraham), and partlj^ of foreign admixtures. The existence of 
 the latter cannot possibly be denied ; and how little the boast 
 
 ' Or iiKirriago willi ;i brutlicr-iu-l.iw, on wlik-h scu my AUcrth'dincr, p. 2o9 sq.
 
 382 TRELIMINARY HISTORY. 
 
 of tlie pure blood of Abraham and Jacob is worth is shown by 
 the whole histor}'- of the nation, from this its first beginning 
 down through all succeeding time. We must allow, indeed, 
 that the Book of Origins must have some historical foundation 
 when it lays such stress on the greater purity of Israel's Hebrew 
 blood ^ in the account of his and Esau's wives ; as also the later 
 historians who assert the same. Unquestionably the Israelites 
 did hold themselves more closely together, and could more 
 easily do so, being the nation latest settled in the land. But 
 that this boast is to be allowed only in comparison with other 
 Hebrew races who allied themselves more freely with alien blood, 
 is evident from a multitude of unequivocal signs ; and indeed 
 is not denied by the historians themselves, who unhesitatingly 
 admit even the very first sons of Jacob to have taken Canaanitish 
 wives.^ Even the examination of the names of tribes, fathers 
 of tribes, and sons of tribes (the latter representing the compo- 
 nent fiimilies) leads to the same results. To deny the existence 
 of such great men, such fathers and benefactors of the people 
 as Jacob and Joseph, would be pure folly ; but with regard to 
 many other names, the traces we can find only enable us to see 
 that before the time of Jacob they were fully formed tribes and 
 populations, which in smaller or larger proportions were ab- 
 sorbed into Jacob's community, and are here accordingly com- 
 memorated as sons or grandsons of that Patriarch. The six 
 families of Manasseh are derived from him only through Machir, 
 his son, and Gilead, his grandson. Here the name of the 
 mountain-land of Gilead was evidently introduced only because 
 after the time of Moses its ruling house became subject to the 
 tribe of Manasseh. In another case, the name of Ephrath for 
 Bethlehem is on the one hand very old, and unquestionably 
 Premosaic, yet on the other plainly connected with the name of 
 the tribe Ephraim ; ^ although after the conquest of the land 
 under Joshua the dominion of this tribe never extended so far 
 
 * Gon. xxvi. 34, 35, xxvii. 46-xxviii. 9, dcnce that Ephraim, in any strict sense of 
 
 xxxvi., Gen. xxiv. hy the Third Narrator: the words, cannot have been born in Egypt, 
 
 but from xxii. 20-1^4, we conchide that Aregion ^;Ara;!ff, famed for its fruitfulncss, 
 
 the Book of Origins had already mentioned is curiously found in the south-east of Abys- 
 
 Isaac's wife in a similar sense. sinia, and not far from it an Argobba also 
 
 2 Gen. xxxriii. 2, xlvi. 10. (compare a^lX in Bashan, Dent. iii. 4, 
 
 ^ Ephrathite is the form used for one 1 Kings iv. 13), see Harris's Highlands of 
 
 of the tribe Ephraim, 1 Sam. i. 1, 1 Kings Ethiopia, ii. p. 347 sqq., Isenberg und 
 
 xi. 26, as if the original word were Krapf's Journal (London 1843), p. 289; 
 
 Epliratli, and Ei)hr;iim a plural irrcgu- Ijudolf also names it, but very briefly, 
 
 larly formed from it ; see also 1 Chron. From the wide extent of the regions ovtr 
 
 ii. 24. Tlie story of the father Ephraim which these and many other Semitic names 
 
 mentioned p. 38(», if proved to be Pre- are dispersed, wo see how very old these 
 
 mosaic, would much strengthen the evi- local names must bo.
 
 THE BEGINNING OF THE NATION. 383 
 
 to the south. Hence there is every reason to consider Ephrath 
 an old branch of the Canaanites which, in combination witli a 
 more purely Hebrew family, known as Machir or Manasseli, 
 formed the tribe of Joseph. This also explains why Ephraim 
 was originally reckoned second to Manasseh, and not allowed to 
 rank as the first-born of Joseph.^ And if Esau, as we learn 
 from reliable authority,^ had really a Hittite wife named Judith, 
 the name Judah would also be old-Canaan ite. If, asrain, 
 Reuben and Simeon had each a son Carmi,^ Eeuben and Judah 
 a Hezron,^ Simeon and Judah a son Zerah,^ Ephraim and Ben- 
 jamin a Becher,'' Levi and Esau a Korah,^ Eeuben and Midian 
 a Hanoch^ (p. 315 sq.) ; these coincidences can scarcely be at- 
 tributed to chance, but may represent the breaking up of other 
 nationalities, of which part was absorbed into one tribe, part into 
 another. Of the similar, but to us more intelligible, case of the 
 Sons of Kenaz, in connection with Judah and Esau, we have 
 already spoken, p. 251. 
 
 Further testimony on the question, how deep the fusion of 
 Canaanite and Hebrew races went,^ and how long before the 
 Egyptian period Israel must have dwelt in Canaan, is afforded 
 by the language of the country ; on which, however, many 
 errors are now current. It has in our days been commonly 
 assumed, that the Hebrew was quite like the Phenician or 
 Punic ; the principal authority for this opinion being 
 the well-known expressions in St. Augustine's writings. But 
 this African bishop was not himself versed in languages, and 
 was only aware of a general similarity between the two, without 
 any definite knowledge. If these two languages were perfectly 
 alike, it is not easy to understand how the Israelite tradition, 
 examined above, could speak of so wide a separation between 
 the nations ; and the historical credit of the Biblical narratives 
 would suffer extremely in consequence. But the assumption 
 that the language of the Canaanites, although Semitic, was 
 originally identical with that of the Hebrews, or exhibited only 
 the very slightest differences from it, is not confirmed by the 
 
 ' Gen. xlriii. " Gen. xxv. 4, xlvi. 9, Niinil). xxvi. 5 ; 
 
 * Gon. xxvi. Si ; compare Jehiid in the l)ut this name is certainly derived from the 
 tribe Dan, Josh. xix. 4.5, and liiubcn iu divine personage mentioned at p. 265 sq., 
 the tribe Judah, xv. 6. and this furnishes a proof of the existence 
 
 ' 1 Chron. ii. 7, iv. 1, v. 3. of hi.s worship at this early ago. 
 
 * 1 Chron. v. 3, and above, p. 30.) .sq. " Yot special reasons, Ezekiel, xvi. 3, 45, 
 ' Numb. xxvi. 13; 1 Chrou. iv. 24, lays great stress upon this, speaking how- 
 
 ii. 6, ix. 6 ; see above, p. SGö sq. ever more as prophet than as liistorian. 
 
 ^ Gen. xlvi. 21; 1 Chron. vii. 6 ; Niuul). Similarly Moab and Amnion are con- 
 
 xxvi. 35. temptuously reckoned with the Canaanites 
 
 ' See above, p. 3G5 note, and Gen. xxxvi. in Judith v. 3 ; compare however v. 6. 
 5, xiv. 16.
 
 38 4 ril!::LlML\AHY IIISTOEV. 
 
 remains of tlie Plieuiciaii language, so far as is at present 
 known witli any certainty.' On the contrary the Old Testament 
 itself shows, by the many different names which it often gives 
 of the same country or the same city,'^ that in this land the 
 variety of languages (though all Semitic) was as great as that 
 of the peoples. These m.anifold languages, however, as far as 
 we have means to inspect them, had assuredly a certain marked 
 resemblance among themselves ; which can be explained only 
 by supposing that the original inhabitants, never utterly su])- 
 pressed, here founded a true national language, to which all 
 incomers, Canaanite as well as Hebrew and Philistine, inevitablj' 
 conformed; and which naturally coincides most with that of 
 the Canaanites, who mingled first and most freely with the 
 natives.' Now the Israelites, who, as we have seen, entered the 
 country in smaller bodies, must even before the Egyptian period 
 have so completely adopted this language, that even in Egypt 
 they took very little from the ii'gyptian ; and after the conquest 
 under Joshua, they seem to have yielded more and more to the 
 influence of its na.tive elements,** and were able to converse 
 easily with the Phenicians ; whereas the speech beyond Gilead 
 and Euphrates, being Aramean, was considered a foreign 
 tongue.'* This last circumstance is not surprising, if the con- 
 jecture respecting Damascus, p. 311 sq., be correct, that during 
 the sojourn of Israel in 'Egypt, the Aramean tribes had pushed 
 farther southward, cutting the Israelites off entirely from their 
 former kindred in the north. It is a great mistake in our day 
 to assume an Aramean origin for the Hebrews, or an}-- special 
 resemblance between the languages of the Ara,means and the 
 Hebrews.*^ 
 
 ' Tliis is a most important result of our tlie difforenco is expressly referred to 
 
 latest invesligations ; see my Ab/iandli/w/ tliree distinct natioualities, Hermon of tlio 
 
 il'ier das Phöni/iischc in the Zdfschrift für Hebrews being called Shenir by tho Amo- 
 
 das Morgenland, iv. s. 4ÜÜ-418, continued rites, and 8irion by the Sidunians. 
 vi. p. 288 sqq., vi i. p. 70 sqcj. ; also my ^ Ilenco Isaiah xix. 18 could, not ini- 
 
 Ahhandlnng über die Inschrift von Mar- properly, understand Hebrew to be in- 
 
 scille, Avhich appeared in the Jahrh. der c\ndod in the term lanffuac/c of Canaan, 
 liihl. Wiss. i., and is more correctly printed ■* This is one of the chief results esta- 
 
 iu tlie Ahhrmdhmyin der Göttmger Gesell, blished in tho above-named treatises on 
 
 der Wi.'^s. iv. ; and especially my Erk'ä- the Plienician. 
 
 rmig der grossen I'hönikiscfmn Inschrift von * Tlie two Ai-amaic words used as a 
 
 Sidon (Gott. 18.56), as well as many later transhition of Gikad, according to a pecu- 
 
 articles. liar interpretation of llie latter in Gen. 
 
 ^ 8cir, Edoin, Esau, see p. 34-1; Jerusa- xxxi. 47, may be ancient, as well ;is the 
 
 Icm and Jelnts, see below ; Liiz anil Bethel, entire verse ; they afford, as is well known, 
 
 the first the Canaanite, the second the the earliest testimony on the nature of 
 
 Hebrew name, see p. 304. K rjuth-Arha Aramaic as a distinct language. 
 and Hebron, p. '1?>Ü. Ephralh and Beth- ^ Two special causes hive contributed 
 
 leliem ; compare the very distinct tes- to this error. On the one hand, .Jacob 
 
 timony from tlio Mosaic ago in Numb, himself and his Mesopotamian connections 
 
 xxxii. 38. On one occasiüu, Deut. iii. 9, arc even in early writings often classed
 
 THE BEGLNWING OF THE XATIOX. 
 
 S85 
 
 In religion and manners, on the other hand, the IsraeUtes 
 certainly maintained far more individuality, as the whole fol- 
 lowing history shows. And the hero could give such unity 
 to a nation composed of these differing elements, that to bear 
 his double name was ever accounted its highest honour, must 
 in actual life have been so great, that in history proper he 
 would have shone as brightly as in legend, if of him as of 
 Abraham some great record had been preserved from far distant 
 days. As it is, we can only pronounce with certainty that his 
 individual deeds must have been worthy of a great historical 
 personage, but are forced to relinquish the attemj)t to gain any 
 close and connected idea of the details of his career ; content 
 to have brought together the scattered traces that remain to 
 testify to the actual beginnings of this national history. 
 
 ■with the Arameans : but in what sense 
 this is meant in the ancient narratives, 
 and even by the Deuteronomist, has been 
 already sufficiently explained, p. 342 sq. 
 Abraham himself was never called an 
 Aramean, and the Hebrews always knew 
 themselves to be very different from the 
 Arameans. On the other hand, it became 
 the fashion with Hellenistic writers in the 
 latest period of this history to call Abra- 
 ham, and even Moses (Philo's Life of 
 Moses, i. 2. 7), Chaldeans, and the Hebrew 
 language Chaldee (Philo especially does 
 
 so, ii p. 138-140, 412 sqq.; Aucher, ii. 
 p. 208). But this confusion sprang solely 
 from the causes already stated, p. 335 sq. 
 Rarely, however, did a writer go so far as 
 to call the Israelites, by way of praise, 
 'descendants of the Chaldeans,' as in 
 Judith V. 6-9, and Josephus, Against 
 Aplon, i. 13 ; but as the latter in ch. vi. 
 follows the custom of his age in using the 
 name Chaldean as equivalent to philo- 
 sopher, it is obvious why he and other 
 writers like him were glad to find a Chal- 
 dean origin for the Patriarchs. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 CC
 
 386 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 THE MIGRATION OP ISRAEL TO EGVPT. 
 
 A. GENEKAL NOTIONS. 
 
 The pre-Egyptiaii period of the liistory of Israel had, as we 
 have seen, a certain grandenr of its own, to which the nation, 
 even when transformed by the spirit of a higher religion, conld 
 look back with joy and pride ; and some of the fibres of the 
 purer religion and upright lofty tone of mind, which after 
 Moses Was inseparable from the national life as regulated by 
 law, may be traced back to the glorious heroes of that primitive 
 age. A mystic bond of uniformity of feeling and consistency 
 of aim often runs for centuries throug-h the fortunes of a nation 
 which preserves the best elements of its life from ruin. The 
 modern Germans may see in their national hero Arminias and 
 his Romanising brother Flavins only too true a prototype of 
 their own good and bad elements. In the same way, many a 
 characteristic of the people of Israel^ which developed its full 
 power only after the time of Moses, may have had its root in 
 that early age. 
 
 But it is (as Avas remarked on p. 287) in the Egyptian period 
 that we first perceive a distinct preparation for this nation's 
 especial mission. Egypt, both through her wealth and treasures, 
 and through her incomparably early and high culture, was in the 
 earliest times for the less civilised nations surrounding her, very 
 much what in later times Athens and Rome were for the northern 
 tribes : a magnet^ attracting or repelling, but from which all 
 departed other than they came ; a high school for all migrating 
 races, whether conquering or conquered. Much indeed both 
 of art and of practical experience she had to impart ; mingled 
 however, even thus early, with too much that was degraded and 
 repulsive ; and a simple primitive people, when submitted to her 
 strong and manifold influences, necessarily received an impress 
 varying in strength with its own native force of character. Even 
 after Egypt had for centuries lost both strength and indepen- 
 dence, and become the prey of invader after invader, it still re- 
 tained for the adjacent lands of Asia something of the magic
 
 MICilLVTIOX TO EliYlT. 3t<7 . 
 
 cliarm, wliicli ' the Thousand and One Nig-lits ' so vividly describe. 
 How mighty then, must the influence of Egypt have been, in 
 her first flush of prosperity and culture, to u.s well-nigh inex- 
 plicable, but attested by those wondrous monuments, the accu- 
 rate investigation of which has been reserved for our own days, 
 and for the hands of such scholars as Rosellini, Wilkinson, and 
 Lepsius. 
 
 But certain as it is that the intimate connection of Israel 
 with this earliest-civilised among the nations alone enabled him 
 to take the first step which introduced him into the great world- 
 history, it is equally evident on the other hand that the first 
 step in this change, the migration of Israel into Egypt, formed 
 only a transition-period between the preliminary and the proper 
 history of the nation. For as the narrative now stands in the 
 Old Testament, the history of this period is concerned with the 
 twelve tribes simply as individuals, sons of Jacob. And whilst 
 in the early traditions (see p. 288) even Joseph, incomparably 
 the most illustrious of those sons, is never placed on an equality 
 with the three great Patriarchs, but put as it were one step 
 below that Heroic age, yet his history almost coincides with the 
 closing portion of Jacob's ; and in death the two appear all but 
 equal. But important as are in themselves these opening scenes 
 of the Egyptian period, it is not there that we shall find the 
 germ of that great history which was to make Israel immortal. 
 This transition-epoch must therefore be regarded in close con- 
 nection with the prehistoric period, and kept distinct from the 
 subsequent history of the nation. 
 
 A close examination of this beginning of IsraePs life in Egypt 
 is indeed beset with serious difficulties : the age is still so 
 remote, the sources of information are so scanty. It is true 
 that the Biblical narratives, which appear copious rather from 
 their volume than from the amount of strictly historical infoi- 
 mation which they contain, receive here for the first time some- 
 thing like completion by contributions from without. While 
 Herodotus and Diodorus, in their accounts of Egyj)t, are almost 
 silent on this remote section of histor}-, it is fortunate that of a 
 work compiled from good native sources — that of Manetho on 
 the thirty-one Egyptian dynasties, from the first mortal sovereign 
 Menes down to Alexander and the Ptolemies — some extracts, 
 unfortunately scanty and corrupted, have been preserved in the 
 Chronicle of Eusebius, and others in Georgius Syncellus,' who 
 
 ' In several passages in the Chrono- mately derived from Manetlio. larflu r 
 graphy, Bonn edition ; especially pp. 99- references will bo given later, iu treating 
 146. Even such obscure notices as thcjso of the Exodus, 
 in Tac. Hist, v. 3, may probably bo ulti- 
 
 c c 2
 
 3S8 rRELIMlXARV HISTORY. 
 
 quotes from the History of Julius Afrieanus. Still more fortunate 
 is it that Flavius Josephus, who in this part of his Antiquities 
 adhered closely to Biblical and Jewish authorities,^ was induced 
 by the violent opposition of certain contemporar}^ writers to quote 
 at full leno^th, in his work against Apion, two long passages of 
 Manetho, whose work is unfortunately lost.'^ But in his appli- 
 cation of these passages of Manetho to the history of Israel, 
 Josephus himself falls into serious errors ; and it is difficult to 
 say how much mischief was done by premature attempts on the 
 part of Jewish and Christian scholars of that day to reconcile the 
 Biblical and the Egyptian accounts. To this cause may be princi- 
 pally attributed the confused state of the few remaining extracts 
 from Manetho. Nor have even the labours of modern scholars 
 in deciphering Egyptian inscriptions been rew^arded as yet by 
 much reliable information with respect to this particular portion 
 of early history. Moreover, some who undertook most confi- 
 dently to interpret the inscriptions, and whose services in deci- 
 phering have in some instances been most meritorious, have 
 been hitherto the least disposed to an impartial consideration 
 and comparison of the Biblical records. Besides which it must 
 be borne in mind that the number of monuments requiring 
 examination is constantly receiving accessions, and the deci- 
 phering of those already found is still far from complete. At 
 this very time, indeed, fresh discoveries are again looked for.^ 
 Under these circumstances, the following is pretty nearl}- all 
 that can be affirmed with certaint3^ 
 
 I. That the whole Hebrew movement from the north could 
 terminate only in rich and beautiful Egypt may be inferred, as 
 Ave have seen (p. 309 sqq.), from the general mutual relations of 
 the nations of those times. But we possess besides sufficient 
 
 ' Thai ho was awaro of the oxisteiioo lat Ion nf revolutidiis of Sirius, 1,101 years 
 of olln^r opini(jns is huwevcr evident from in length, does not appear to me sulH- 
 liis passing intimation, 'that Israel was ciontly proved. The great work of Lepsins, 
 flei-iveil nut from Hgypt, but from Meso- Chronologic der Arr/i/pfrr, the first vol. of 
 IH.tamia' {A?i/i(/. ii. 7.4); an assertion wliieh appeared iii Berlin, lS-19, is not 
 which in liis work Agriinsf. Apion he de- yot completed ; but an instalment of its 
 fends at length, against opponents wliom completion was furnished in 18Ö8, by his 
 he mentions byname. Indeed none but Boo/c of the Kiiu/s of Ancient FAjrjpt, con- 
 Pagans were then capable of such an error taining valuable documents. And in the 
 as to r«^fer the origin of Israel to Egypt last few years new excavations and inves- 
 and Africa. tigations have been earned out Ijy Ma- 
 - Ar/ainst Ajiion,\. 1 1-1(1 and 20-31. riette and others, in the north-east of 
 'Since this was written in 1842, Bun- P^jypt, the very district most important 
 .son's work on IOgyi>t appeared, the first to our present subject ; and from these 
 volume in 184;"», and the fifth and last in much new light niay be expected. See 
 1807; also B.iekh'.s Manetho und die Revue Archeolocfiquc, 1861, p. 249-50, 
 //«?tf/«/erMy)mw/r, whf)So assumption, that 3:58-40, 1862, "p. 297 sqq.; Chabas in 
 INIanetho's clironoiogy, commencing with Langioi.s' Nunm,nati(iue den Arahss, pp. 
 JMoncH, was based upon a scientific ealcu- 146-40.
 
 MIGRATION TO EGYPT. 389 
 
 evidence to prove that eve7i from tlie first this great migration, 
 esj^eciallj as connected with the name of Abraham, took this 
 direction. According to one account,^ no sooner is Abraham 
 settled in Canaan, than he journeys, though but for a short time, 
 into Egypt ; and, according to another,^ Isaac wa,s restrained 
 only by express Divine prohibition from carrying out a similar 
 jjurpose. It is true that these two accounts come to us in 
 their present form only from the Fourth Narrator ; and that in 
 both a famine in Canaan is assigned as the immediate motive 
 of the journey into Egypt; which looks as if the later great 
 migration of Israel through flimine floated before the narrator's 
 mind, and these two earlier Patriarchs were intended to present 
 a type of that later history. But unless some ancient and 
 already written legend of Abraham's journey into Egypt had 
 come down to the Fourth Narrator, he would not have ventured 
 so to relate it. Of this we are assured by a correct apprecia- 
 tion of his character. But this shows us at least how faint the 
 memory of those earlier migrations had become in his day. So 
 much the brighter and clearer appears in both earlier and later 
 records the migration brought about by Joseph. Yet even 
 here those distant times are regarded so exclusively from an 
 Israelitish point of view, and so little notice is taken of the 
 internal affaii's of Egypt, that we are only the more anxious to 
 compare the narrative with the accounts given of these great 
 events by the Egyptians themselves. 
 
 Now it is clear from the fragments of Manetho, that before 
 the Eighteenth Dynasty, whose great power and well-esta- 
 blished rule the monuments sufficiently attest, Egypt was the 
 scene of numerous and prolonged contests with the races 
 called by the stationary Egyptians Shej^herds (that is Nomads), 
 and towards whom, as even Hebrew tradition bears witness,^ 
 they cherished for centuries a deep-seated aversion. According 
 to the very scanty fi-agments quoted in Julius Africanus, and 
 again from him in Georgius Syncellus, the Fifteenth Dynasty con- 
 sisted of Phenician (that is Canaanite) foreigners, who reigned 
 284 years ; the Sixteenth of other ' Shepherds,' who reigned 518 
 years ; the Seventeenth of forty-three ' Shepherds ' and forty- 
 three Theban (that is, native) kings, reigning altogether 151 
 
 ' Gen. xii. 10-20. dotiis at le'ast (ii. 46-47, and compare 
 
 * Gen. xxvi. 1-6. 164) only the caste of s^wincliords was 
 
 ^ Gon. xlvi. 34, compared with xliii. rcfrardod by them as neoes.sarily nnelcan, 
 
 32. Jndping by the many expressive and all other herdsmen held a higher 
 
 representations on sepulehral monuments, position, we mnst limit the application of 
 
 the rich Egyptians took especial pleasure the Hebrew proverb to the free herdsmen, 
 
 in the possession of numerous flocks and and to very early times, shortly after the 
 
 shepherds. And as in the time of Hero- expulsion of the Hyksos.
 
 390 rUKLnilNAUY IlISTOllV. 
 
 years. According to the fragments in Ensebius and others, 
 however, the Seventeenth Dynasty consisted for 106 years of 
 Phenician Shepherd-Kings, whose personal names are given, 
 and who are the same that were assigned by other writers to the 
 Fifteenth. Confusions and inaccuracies, which we have not as 
 yet means to correct with any certainty, have evidently entered 
 here.^ But we may safely infer, in general terms, a long con- 
 tinuance of the supremacy of the Shepherd-Kings in Egypt. 
 Josephus, though leaving out of view the succession of dynasties, 
 gives a detailed account, of thoroughly Egyptian complexion, 
 concerning the Shepherd-Kings (who according to Manetho 
 were called in Egyptian Hyksos'^). Its chief points are as 
 follows :— The Shepherds, coming from the east, conquered the 
 country by a sudden blow, burnt down the cities, destroyed 
 the temples, and in general treated the inhabitants with the 
 greatest cruelty. The first king, Salatis by name,^ settled 
 himself in Memphis, but selected Avaris, a newly-built city in 
 the province of Sethros eastwards, on the Bubastic branch of 
 the Nile,'* as a strong place to be defended by a permanent force 
 of 240,000 men, and also as a summer residence for himself, 
 where he might annually review and reward the soldiers. He 
 also fortified strongly other positions towards the east, in fear of 
 an Assyrian invasion. This king, who reigned 19 years ; Baeon, 
 44 3^ears ; Apachnos, 36 years and 7 months ; Apophis or Apho- 
 phis, 61 years ; Janias, 50 years and 1 month ; and Assis,'' 49 
 years and 2 months ; were the first six sovereigns of the 
 Hyksos (as if another family, also of the Hyksos, had suc- 
 
 ' Ensebius, as we see in his Canon in the other abstracts tobe a corrnption of 
 
 {Chron. vol. ii. p. 78), supposed theappel- the same word. 
 
 lation Shepherd-Kings to refer to Joseph * This Avaris is evidently the city 
 
 and his brethren ; but was doubtless mis- alluded to by Georgius Synoellus, as built 
 
 led by the error on the part of Josephus, by the Hyksos in the Sethroitic Nomos ; 
 
 mentioned below. and this shows that Josephus M'rongly 
 
 * Many Egyptians, aceordingto Manetho, speaks of the Saitic Nomos, instead of the 
 
 preferred interpreting this name as CrtjJi'ive Sethroitic, which is on the south-west of 
 
 Shepherds. This perversion of the sense Pelusium. 
 
 is evidently only a bitter jest against the ^ Tiiis name is perhaps more correctly 
 
 former rulers of the land ; as in Rosellini's given in the other extracts as Archie),, 
 
 Mo7nim. Storici, plates xxvi-xxviii (com- although Assis, like Salatis, is good Se- 
 
 pnre Lepsius,Z>ßw,t-/««7tr, iii. 61 sq., 87 sq., mitic {VJV, 2^'^^'^"^"^^) J ^^^ ^^ -A^iz, king 
 
 109 128 sq., 139 sq.), the Shos are repre- ^f y^^^^^^' -^ „mentioned by Josephus, An- 
 
 sented upon the triumphal monuments in ^- -^-.^^ ^^ ^_ j„ the Jewid War, v. 
 
 chains; and I cannot understand how 9/4 Josephus incidentally calls the king 
 
 Itoselhni could sane ion an interpretation •„ 'u',;,,,^ Abv..hnn,\-i«;t,.1 V..J 
 
 .VU.CW..M ...U.U ^auc 10a an uiLei-preumon ;„ ^.j^^^^ ^-^^^ Abraham visited Egypt^ 
 
 so irreconcilable with history. Josephus, tvt„ i • t*. • •. ,. ■ 11 
 
 ^^ „„,,„.„ „,,•„! „ 1 -^ • ^ 1 iNecliao. It is quite uncertain whence he 
 
 ot course, seized eagerly upon it, in order ^ 1 »i • .■ 1 1 i 
 
 to make out that It referred to Joseph's took this name, whi^l^ -.„.. .t.,.„.l.o 
 
 captivity in l-^gypt. ^ ""^ '■"^7 ^" ''' "^i'^ 
 
 =• Tl.i's name is such good Semitic, and ?^'■V'S^ T/ 1"' r' 
 
 corresponds so strikingly^ith Gen. xl i. 6, " 'i^)/'^!'';^^!^« f'J'- 
 
 t hat we must suppose ,SV.;/..v, which occurs ''"' '^'^"^' ^'^"'^^-
 
 LI IG RATION TO EGYPT. 391 
 
 coeded them). At length, after 511 years, the kmgs of the 
 Thebais and the rest of Egypt conducted a long war against 
 them to a successful issue, and the king Misphragmuthosis, ' 
 shut them up in Avaris. There, however, they entrenched and 
 defended themselves so well that his son Tethmosis (also 
 called Tuthmosis, Thummosis, and Thmosis^) although be- 
 sieging them with 480,000 men, was forced to allow them to 
 leave the country. They accordingly marched out without 
 molestation, about 240,000 strong, and in fear of the Assyrians 
 (whose power was far to the north), immediately settled down 
 in Judea, and built Jerusalem. 
 
 This story bears, it is true, unmistakable signs of good 
 remembrance ; indeed the fragments of Manetho, even from 
 the history of Menes the first king downwards, generally testify 
 to a conception of occurrences very accurate for so remote a 
 period — a sign of the extraordinarily early cultivation of letters 
 and documentary science among the Egyptians. The great 
 city Avaris, on an eastern branch of the Nile, which was built 
 by the Hyksos as a great fortified camp, indicates from its 
 position the quarter from which they entered Egypt, offering 
 an exact parallel to Gilgal, the strong encampment of Israel on 
 the west of the Jordan, whence that people under Joshua and 
 his successors subdued Canaan. The names of Judea and Jeru- 
 salem may indeed have got into the narrative only through the 
 historical ideas about the south of Canaan current for several 
 centuries before Manetho ; for although the name Jerusalem 
 is old (older than David), yet to our modern knowledge its 
 combination here with that of Judea makes it very doubtful 
 whether this element of the story dates from sufficient antiquity. 
 But a welcome indication that the fear of the Assyrians (or 
 northern nations) felt by the Hyksos, was not withovit reason, 
 and a hint as to what nations are to be understood under the 
 term Assyrian, is presented in the often-quoted passage, Gen. 
 xiv. And this historical view is corroborated not only by Ctesias 
 in his account of an early Assyrian empire, but by many other 
 traditions, as will be further shown below. 
 
 But Flavins Josephus, in understanding by the Hyksos only 
 the Israelites during their settlement in Egypt, and identi- 
 
 ' In Josephus wrongly spelt 'AA(o-</)pa7/u. ; liorn of the god Taaut or Tot. The second 
 
 the A\ being evidently a niistnke for M, member is from the Coptic root ;«««, taking 
 
 since L occurs in old Egyptian (except in in the noun first a long ä, and then modi- 
 
 tlie Easmurian dialect) no more than in tying it into u. Moses, the great leader 
 
 Zend. of Israel, when grown up, probably pre- 
 
 ^ Tlie oldest pronunciation, however, ferred to call himself simply thus, and to 
 
 must have been Tötmose, i.e. son «f Tacmt, drop the Egyptian god from his name.
 
 ■3\)2 PRELIMINARY HISTORY. 
 
 fying the expulsion of these Sliepherd-Kings with the Exodus 
 of Israel under Moses, manifestly falls into f^reat error. Not 
 only is he thereby compelled Avithout any sufficient ground to 
 reject as fabulous a later account of Manetho's, but even this 
 first account contains no single proof that Israel, at least that 
 people alone, was understood by the name of Hj^ksos ; still less 
 does it refer to Moses, or to any circumstance of the Israelitish 
 Exodus under him. Such an assumption also confuses the 
 whole chronology. The statement in 1 Kings vi. 1, that 480 
 years elapsed between the Exodus from Egypt and the com- 
 mencement of the building of the Temple of Solomon, and the 
 corresponding statement in Ex. xii. 40, that Israel sojourned 
 430 years in Egypt, are derived in all probability (p. 76, 81 sq.) 
 from the Book of Origins, and consequently from very reliable 
 sources ; their accuracy is confirmed by every fresh investiga- 
 tion ; and they constitute the only two fixed points by which all 
 Hebrew chronology is held in place. Putting the foundation 
 of Solomon's Temple in one of the last decads of the eleventh 
 century before Christ, the Exodus will fall near the end of the 
 sixteenth century. Many of the learned, however, even before 
 Josephus, had, for reasons to be explained shortly, pushed the 
 date of the Exodus further back. And Josephus, whose object 
 in the books against Apion was to establish against pagan 
 writers of the day, the two propositions that Israel was not an 
 offshoot from Egypt, and that it was a very ancient nation, 
 seized wdth evident eagerness upon this story of Manetho's of 
 the settlement and subsequent expulsion of the Hyksos, be- 
 cause, once assuming the identity of these with Israel, he could 
 not only represent Israel as utterly distinct from the Egyjitians, 
 but push the date of Moses back to 2000 years before his own 
 time. ' Perhaps he might have attained all that he Avished to 
 prove in vindication of the good name of his nation, by another 
 and a safer way ; unable to find that course, he was seduced 
 into this bypath, which deprives the early history of Israel of all 
 its light, but secures to us some compensation in the important 
 extracts from Manetho. 
 
 Abandoning the view of Josephus on the subject, one might 
 suppose that the Phenician Shepherd-Kings of whom Eusebius 
 and Syncellus speak (and no doubt Manetho himself used this 
 name) were to be understood in the most obvious sense of the 
 
 ' Tliat. Moses lived 2,000 years Ijofore, to his Antiquities and his work Against 
 
 nnd that 5,000 liad elapsed since the Apion, \. 1,1 , d,,\Q. The present reading, 
 
 Creation, IS assumed hyJos.pInis throupjli- however, in ^«i'. viii. 3. 1, certaiiilj' docs 
 
 out all his writings; sec the inlroductioii not agree with these figures.
 
 MIGRATfnX TO FXIYIT. 393 
 
 words, of an immigration of Canaanites into Egypt, perhaps at 
 a time preceding the advance of the Hebrews into Canaan. 
 Many isolated facts might be adduced in favour of this view, 
 as for instance the great ethnological myth which puts Canaan, 
 as the son of Ham, into a very close connection with Egypt 
 (p. 239 sq.) ; and the ' T}T:ian Camp' at Memphis, in later 
 times, ^ which might perhaps be a relic left by a Canaanite j)opu- 
 lation in very early times. But Manetho's second story, of which 
 we shall speak presently, cannot be brought into accordance 
 with this view, and even in itself the hypothesis is beset with 
 improbabilities. The Canaanites, as far back as we can trace 
 them in history, were not shepherd-tribes at all, but had long 
 passed that stage of civilisation. Even such branches of them 
 as the Amorites, who were least given to the arts and trades of 
 cities (p. 234 sq.), never appear like nomads, or like the camf)S 
 of conquering hordes such as Manetho graphically describes the 
 Hyksos, Moreover, as ancient tradition (p. 239) brought them 
 into the land of the Jordan from quite a different quarter, so 
 also historical indications show their constant tendency to have 
 been still further to the west. Towards Egypt they turned 
 with eagerness only for the sake of trade, but ajjpear from 
 many indications^ to have always been well received there in 
 that capacity. But this would be scarcely credible, if they 
 were identical with the detested Shepherd-tribes. We pass 
 over other still less probable opinions respecting the Hyksos, 
 propounded by modern scholars.^ 
 
 I have always recognised that the Hyksos must stand in 
 some close relation to the Hebrews ; understanding this word, 
 however, not in its ordinary acceptation, but in the primitive 
 sense in which, as above explained, they first appear in the 
 land of the Jordan. Coming, according to Manetho, from the 
 east, the Hyksos established on the north-eastern boundary of 
 Egypt an entrenched camp, on which they could easily fall 
 back at any moment. They are even called, according to one 
 
 • Herod, ii. 112. pollion that the Shos of the hieroglypliics 
 
 * Seels, xxiii. 3,and Jos.y^^amsi^^^jw«, were identical with the ShctcB (Chetae) 
 i. 12, with reference to later times ; the and that these were Scythians (Momu 
 earlier intercourse between the nation.s is Sfor. i. 1, p. 173 sqq., ii. 1. p. 66-68). 
 attested by the frequent connection be- Latcsr, however, he gradually retracted this 
 tween the Egyptian and the Phonician ojjinion, but without arriving- difinitely 
 religious rites and usages of all kinds. A Jit anything better (ii. 1. p. 433-45, 2. p. 
 remembrance of it is even found in Greek 246-58). In fact the vanquished in the 
 mythology, Apollod. Bild. ii. 1, 4 (where illustrations (i. pi. xxvi.) look much more 
 'Eyxip^V probably arose from the river like people from the deserts adjoining 
 lirT'p')- Egypt ; they are bringing gazelles as their 
 
 ' Such as Rosellini's opinion th.it thoy tributary offering, 
 were Scythians. He believed with Cham-
 
 394 rili:LlJ[l?>ARY HISTORY. 
 
 reading, Phenician ShepJierds, wliicli, considering tliat the 
 Greeks called all the inhabitants of Canaan indiscriminately 
 Phenicians, or even Palestinians, is almost identical with 
 Hebrew Shepherds.^ The description of them as wandering 
 and encamping tribes, agrees exactly with the reminiscences 
 preserved in the Old Testament of the primitive Hebrew 
 race, gradually pushing forwards from the north- east, towards 
 the south and Egypt ; for it cannot surprise us that the Egyp- 
 tians should dwell chiefly upon the offensive characteristic of 
 the invaders, and the ravages committed by them. The six 
 kings' names which have been preserved, differ from all the 
 numerous names of Egyptian kings found in Manetho's long 
 list; and not only has the first king, Salatis (i.e. Lord), a 
 name easily recognised as Semitic, but even that of the great 
 camp, Avaris or Abaris,^ signifies in all probability the Hebrew 
 Camp.^ And they may very possibly have ruled in Egypt for 
 several centuries without serious injury to the higher culture 
 and science of Egyptian life. For even according to Manetho's 
 expressions quoted by Josephus, representing the Theban (or 
 Southern) and other Egyptian kings as in the end suddenly rising 
 up and expelling them, they can have been only suzerains of 
 the land, surrounded by their vassal-kings, and satisfied with a 
 mere recognition by these of their own supremacy. 
 
 This, however, does not decide what particular Hebrew tribes 
 are here to be understood. We must indeed at once recognise 
 the broad fact that this conquest of Egypt, placed by Manetho 
 (to speak in round numbers) considerably more than 2,000 
 }ears before Christ, must refer to the very earliest Hebrew 
 2nigration into Egypt of which any memory has remained. 
 
 ' The story of the shepherd Philitis, to phiis adds that, according to an old Tlieo- 
 
 whom (according to Herod, ii. 128) the logy (i.e. the Mythology), Abaris was 
 
 Egyptians ascribed the building of the called i he Ciü/ of T^jikon. This, however, 
 
 ])yraiiiids of Cheops and Chcphren, from was not intended as an explanation of the 
 
 hatred to those kings, because \mder them name Abaris, but only to show that the 
 
 he had kept sheep on that spot, would, Egyptians devoted this hated city to the 
 
 if his name is derivod from the Philis- Evil God. Very recently the name Ihnar 
 
 tines and the tradition embodies a re- has actually been found on Egyptian monu- 
 
 collection of the Ilyksos, still only indi- ments relating to the time of the Hjksos ; 
 
 cate the district from which tlie latter see De Roug^ in the Bevtcc Anh. 18C0, 
 
 originally came. The legend may perhaps p. 309 sq.; 1861, ii. p. 215; Brugsch's 
 
 account for the use in Ethiopic of the Gcograjih. Inschriften, i. p. 51. Eut the 
 
 ,,.^„,1 /O i>i\' '" t I 1 7 7 7\ t'Xii'Ct site of this Hyksös-city still remains 
 
 Mora /;^.r. I , raiyt (properly i«//«)//«y/) ,i i ^.f i -x t • i ^ d 
 
 f,.^ /„■/,«/ ;„ <i ^i 1 V 1,- 1 11 dcmbtful; it was certainly not the same 
 
 lor (jiant, in IJic liook of Enoch and else- rr • \\t\ ..i 4.1 i^ j 
 
 yf,\^^y.f, as Tanis. Whether the name was formed 
 
 from Egyptian elements may require 
 
 _ In both places where fliis city is men- further investigation ; but to suppose that 
 
 tioiied {Against Apiun), i. 11 and 26, the the Hebrews themselves had their name 
 
 reading varies between "Aßapis and from this Avaris (as Erugsch suggests, 
 
 ^^"P'^- Gcoq. Ins. i. 90), is flu. reverse <jf' any 
 
 •' In the second passage, indeed, Jose- possible historical truth.
 
 I\[1G KATION TO EGYl'T. 395 
 
 We cannot therefore refer it to tlio immigration of tlie People 
 of Israel into Egjpt ; since that appellation (see p. 341 sqq.) 
 implies a settlement of Hebrews in Canaan, which took place 
 later ; and the nation so called is represented in the Old Testa- 
 ment as moving from Canaan into Egypt only on the summons 
 of Joseph — a Hebrew who had already become powerful there, 
 when his father Israel was already old and grey. The Biblical 
 reminiscences of Abraham's and Isaac's connection with Egypt 
 are much more likely to be connected with the events in ques- 
 tion. In their present state, indeed, these reminiscences, as was 
 shown on p. 388 sq., retain only a faint outline, and have re- 
 ceived a strongly Mosaic colouring-, both moral and historical. 
 Moreover, the idea that the migration of the two Patriarchs was 
 occasioned by the same cause as the later national migration 
 to the same country, viz. a famine in Canaan, is very vague 
 and general, since Egypt must always have appeared to the 
 neighbouring nations a land of inexhaustible plenty. But 
 in these early legends the two elder Patriarchs evidently stand 
 in almost the same relation to Egypt as the third ; although 
 Abraham's brief visit, and Isaac's projected migration, . hin- 
 dered by express Divine prohibition, appear like types of Israel's 
 great migration to the same country, which also was not to 
 result in a permanent settlement.' Abraham's migration also 
 appears from the legend to have been from the far north to 
 Egypt; and both Patriarchs, according to the constant tenor 
 of this tradition, appear, even when in Canaan, to have alwaj^s 
 remained in the south, close upon the Egj^ptian frontier 
 (p. 305 sq.). On the other hand, it would be an equal violation 
 of history to understand Abraham and his family alone by this 
 Hyksos people. It is only in the extant Israelitish legend that 
 he appears as the great father of all the Hebrews far and wide 
 around Canaan. According to Genesis xiv. (p. 286 sq., 307 sq.), 
 he was originally a powerful individual Hebrew in Canaan, like 
 many others ; in accordance with which his visit to Egypt, 
 even in the extant legend, appears as of no great length or im- 
 portance ; and in the tradition which in many ways subordinates 
 Lot, Ishmael, and the sons of Keturah, to him, we are already 
 ])repared (by p. 309 sq.) to see nothing absolutely primitive. 
 It would therefore seem more connect to represent the Hyksos 
 as comprehending all those various tribes, some small and 
 some great, which were generally united only by their com- 
 mon Hebrew origin, and at that particular time also by a 
 
 ' Cnmpnre Gen. xlvi. 1-4 with xxvi. 1, passed under the hand of tlie Fourth 
 2. and xii. 10-20, passagcf^ which have Narratüi*.
 
 39G raELIMIXARY IIISTOKV. 
 
 common movement southward ; some of wliom pressed forward 
 into Egypt, otliers established themselves in Canaan and the ad- 
 jacent countries ; probably with many shiftings backward and 
 forward, of which now only some faint reminiscences can with 
 difficulty be traced; Abraham being only one among many leaders 
 of these tribes. This view is actually confirmed by other indica- 
 tions. The Midianites and the Kenites, from whom Moses (as will 
 be afterwards shown) received so much assistance in his exertions 
 for Israel, may themselves, according to Manetho's account, 
 have belonged to the Hyksos formerly expelled from Egypt, 
 and have assisted Moses the more zealously on this account. 
 It cannot be for nothing that the oldest tradition gives to Ish- 
 mael an Egyptian mother and an Egy^^tian wife,' and makes him 
 dwell on the very borders of Egypt.^ Lot, moreover, according 
 to the Fourth Narrator, accompanies Abraham into Egypt: 
 this, if not expressly stated in Gen. xii. 10-20, is made all the 
 more distinct in Gen. xiii. 1-18, where the old authorities have 
 probably been more strictly adhered to. 
 
 But we must here especially call to mind (from p. 253) that 
 Arabian tradition attributes to that people also an early conquest 
 of Egypt. Most writers fix upon the Amalekites as the parti- 
 cular Arab tribe who have a claim to this renown ; others the 
 'Adites,'^ also an aboriginal tribe, but not mentioned by the Bible. 
 Preserved as this tradition has been through Moslem writers, it 
 certainly comes before us adulterated by the learned with Biblical 
 ideas and incidents, which have evidently determined its special 
 character. The Pharaohs sprung from Arabian blood, are said 
 to have dwelt in the city Awar,"^ and to have reigned there under 
 Jacob and Joseph, and even under Moses ; the names of some 
 are very precisely given, and sound quite Arabic no doubt, but 
 with some foreign additions, clearly testifying to the fusion of 
 heterogeneous elements.^ It is impossible to doubt that all these 
 stories, as they at present stand, originated in a mere desire of 
 blending and enriching the legends of the Koran (especially 
 that of Joseph) with other well-known histories ; and this fresh 
 zeal may have been very active even in the first century of 
 
 ' Gen. xvi. 1, 7, 14, xxi. 9, 14, 21, * See the names in Wäkidi, Exjnign. 
 
 * Gen. xxi. 21, XXV. 18. Acfi. ed. Hamaker, p. 41, 60; Taliart, 
 ^ iSee the extracts (only too short) in Ciiron. i. p. 209, 210, 2G1, 262; Al.ulfid. 
 
 Caussin de Perceval's Ksaai sur I' Hisioirc ///.s/. ^w/rw/. p. 30, 70, 100 ; Abdalhakanii, 
 
 des Arahcs, vol. i. p. 7-13. Lih. de histona Aecjypti aniiquu, ed. Karle, 
 
 * Abbreviated from Avaris (p. 394). Gott. 185G. In any case they are the 
 Here we perceive most jdainly an infusion names of the Pharaohs in Joseph's and 
 of details from the Ilyksös story, such as a Moses' times only ; the name Arsliius, cor- 
 pcdant would attempt ; and it is actually niptcd in most manuscripts into Aräsha, 
 pretended that Awar stood on the site of points to the Arciiles of jVlaiulho. 
 
 the later Alexandria !
 
 MIGRATION TO EGYPT. 397 
 
 Islam. Yet it cannot be denied tliat some memory of a former 
 Arabian conquest and long dominion over Eg-ypt might remain 
 among tlie Arabians even in the time of Mohammed. Such 
 memories of former greatness do not easily pass away from a 
 nation's recollection. Upon this foundation the accounts of the 
 Hyksos, given by the learned in the early days of Islam, must 
 then have been piled, and gradually mingled with the national 
 reminiscences. It had indeed been mentioned even by Manetho, 
 that some thought the Hyksos were Arabs, • but important as 
 this short comment must seem to our view of the subject, it is 
 too incidental to have been the sole origin of the later Arabian 
 stories. The mere names, Amalek,^ and still more Ad, occurring- 
 in them may have been employed at a later time only as a 
 designation of extreme antiquity ; but they prove at the same 
 time that these stories were not originally derived from Josephus 
 and the Fathers of the Church. 
 
 We must therefore suppose that a great movement of nations 
 from the north to Egypt took place in the earliest times, and 
 carried the inhabitants of northern Arabia in multitudes thither : 
 a movement which we can describe by no other name but 
 Hebrew, and in which Abraham bore a part, although only as a 
 small prince. This actually throws the first ray of light on the 
 obscure relations of the early world. Internal dissensions, and 
 the first rise of the Assyrian or rather Aramean power in the 
 north, may have impelled the Hebrews southwards, and then 
 driven them, conjointly with the aboriginal tribes of Palestine 
 and northern Arabia, into Egypt, where they founded the d}^- 
 nasty of the Shepherd-Kings. Thus that early age may have 
 presented the first example of those persevering and varied 
 contests of the Asiatic nations with Egypt, which were repeated 
 under the later Assyrians, Chaldeans, and Persians, and again 
 under Islam by the Arabs, Persians, and Turks. 
 
 But if we consider farther, that Egyptian records always 
 
 ' Tir'tj Se Xijovffiv auTovs''Apaßas ehat, the Hyksos period, adopted both by the 
 
 JosQ\i\niH,Aijal7isiÄpion,i.l4:. Thti Greek Arabs and the Hebrews, though in each 
 
 myth also connects Arabia in ancient times case with some variation in the pronun- 
 
 very closely with Egypt ; xVpoUod. BifA. ciation. For this word accords with 
 
 ii. 1. 4, 5. irvpafxis, excepting that it is without the 
 
 ^ In Numb. xxiv. 20 the Amalekites Egyptian article ; and is certainly derived, 
 
 are expressly called aborigines : but it is ^j^j^ ^j^^ ^j^^, ^ ^. -^^^ ^^^^^^ ^ ^ 
 
 inconceivable that a passage like this, , •, ■ ,,, '",i ,' 
 
 little understood or noticed at a later age, f «''^^'ff^. a« the pyramids might be called, 
 
 alone induced Moslim scholars to regard being the most ancient of sanctuaries. At 
 
 this people as their ancestors. It seems '"^ "^"^^ ^''^er period, the same word with 
 
 more probable that in ^\^i, compared ^^^^ ^^^icle passed into Arabic, as Ij 
 
 with 3-\n (Job iii. 14), we possess a with the meaning of an ordinary sanctuary; 
 ^^ ^. 1 1 J. see Goft. Gel. An^. 1856, p. 1069 sq. 
 
 genuine Egyptian word preserved trom ' ^ ^
 
 398 rUELI.MlXARY IIISTOKV. 
 
 speak of several successive Hylcsos dynasties, and ascribe to 
 them all the same dread of the Assyrian power ; and again, 
 that the complication of nationalities in the adjacent country of 
 Canaan, ancient as it is, must have arisen about the time when 
 these different lines of Hylcsos bore sway in Egypt, implying 
 great and repeated revolutions in the possession of the two 
 neighbour-countries, we may hope to gain a still clearer un- 
 derstanding of these circumstances when we add all other testi- 
 monies and indications that meet us. Such details as we are 
 able to ascertain distinctly from the general history of so many 
 centuries may be stated somewhat as follows. 
 
 The settlement of the Canaanites in the land which ever after 
 retained their name occurred probably about tlie middle of the 
 third millennium before Christ ; when Abraham entered the land 
 they were believed to have been long settled there. ^ But the 
 original inhabitants, whose Semitic dialect (see p. 383 sq.) always 
 remained the basis of the language, may thus have been hard- 
 pressed, and have begun to throw themselves in full force into 
 Egypt, even before the outbreak of the struggle in the far north 
 between the Hebrews and the Arameans, which resulted in the 
 former pushing on farther and farther to the south-west, and 
 ultimately conquering Egypt. Their princes, the Hyksos, once 
 having forced the Egyptian power in many battles far back to the 
 south, could now hold their ground undisturbed for centuries in 
 northern and central Egypt ; and for a long time they no doubt 
 had more contests among themselves, and against repeated 
 assaults from Asia, than against the Egyptians. Thus they 
 assumed more and more of the brilliant and long-established 
 royal state of the old Egyptian Pharaohs ; thinking thus, j)ro- 
 bably, to add greater security to their empire, still threatened 
 on many sides ; just as in later times the Parthian kings seemed 
 to adopt all the refinements of Greek culture. Abraliam and 
 Joseph in the Pentateuch come to the courts of apj)arently 
 native Egyptian kings ; yet this semblance does not make it 
 iinpossible that the sovereigns then reigning in the north of 
 Egypt may have been Hyksos. For the reason just alleged, 
 some blending of the native Egyptian with the more Hebraic 
 
 ' The. words in G-en. xii. 6,xiii.7, cannot Hence there is a contrast here between 
 possibly mean to say tliat when Abraham those particuLir inliabitaiits, the Canaan- 
 entered the land it had never been nn- ites, and the earlier ones wlium we liavo 
 juopbd sinee the Delnge ; for by the described as Aljoriginos. And the forco 
 fuinlaniental idea of the ancient traditions of the remark lies in pointing ont that 
 this was a matter of course witli regard to those worst and most hostile tribes, the 
 the beginning of the Third Age of the Canaanites, were then already in jiosses- 
 world, and by Gen. xi. 1 it was only at sion. The contrast is tlien brought for- 
 Ihe commencement of the Second Age that ward more clearly in xiii. 13, xv. 10. 
 any such depopulation was conceivable.
 
 MIGRATIOX TO EGYPT. 399 
 
 Hyksos civilisation was unavoidable ; b^^t beyond tliat, tlieso 
 tribes evidently retained marked peculiarities in lang-uage, cus- 
 toms, and religion, distinguishing tliem from the Egyptians, and 
 bringing them nearer to the people of Israel, who were in many 
 respects their followers. In fact the peculiar culture of this 
 evidently very enlightened youthful race, perfected in the seat 
 of the old Egyptian philosophy and art, may be j)la.inly traced 
 far into succeeding centuries ; though we have to regret that so 
 little definite knowledge of them can now be recovered. From 
 them, for instance, was unquestionably derived the Semitic 
 name of Egypt, which must have spread from them to all other 
 nations of that race ; ^ and many similar instances will be here- 
 after noted. One thing is clear — that the city Zoan (or, as the 
 Greeks called it, Tanis), on that eastern branch of the Nile to 
 which it afterwards gave its name, was long their seat of empire, 
 and owed to them its greatness and its ancient renown. For 
 the foundation and early history of this city were long remem- 
 bered even in Israel ; ^ as if this were the only Egyptian city of 
 which the origin was so exactly known, and was preserved in as 
 vivid remembrance as that of the oldest and most celebrated 
 cities of Canaan. And whereas before the time of the Hyksos 
 this city had never been the residence of any Egyptian dynasty, 
 it became afterwards the seat of empire for several native 
 Egyptian dynasties, and notably so of the Twenty-first and 
 Twenty-third. The very name of the city,^ which in Semitic 
 signifies Wandering, seems at once to point it out as the ro^^al 
 seat of the Wandering Shepherds, or Hyksos. ■* 
 
 When later writers, on the other hand, speak of a powerful 
 
 > ilf2>ram, or according to a later abbre- present day in the uamo l As iu 
 
 viation Mizr : see the Jahrb. de?- Bihl. tu 
 
 Jl'm. X. p. 174. Whether any of the gods Coptic also the name is pronounced 
 
 common to tlie_ Phenicians and the 'X^^tiG or Z^ItH (wholly different 
 Egyptians, as for instance the Cabiri, can 
 
 be derived from the Hyksos period, is a ^om the 003 It!, of Upper Egypt, like- 
 subject deserving closer investigation ; wise named Tanis by the G-reeks), it bc- 
 compare Raoul-Rochette iu tiie Memoires comes yet more improbable that it is 
 de VAcad. des Insor. xvii. 2, p. 373 sq. identical with the Avnris noticed p. 394, 
 
 - ' Hebron was built seven years before as Brugsch ( Geographische Inschriften i. 
 
 tlie Egyptian Tanis,' Numb. xiii. 22, from p. 88 sq.) and de Rouge think, 
 tiio Book of Origins. ^ To tliis must now be added the im- 
 
 ^ The very designation ' the Eyypticm portant excavations on the ancient site of 
 
 Tanis,' in the Book of Origins, suggests Tanis just accomplished under Mariatte : 
 
 tlie existence of other cities of the same the peculiar character of the remains dis- 
 
 name beyond the Egyptian boundary ; covered there point to the Hyksos, and 
 
 and in fact jy'v is derived from tlie genuine afford additional proof of the fact, that 
 
 , , . , ' t . J 7 J ■ under them Egyptian art assumed a new 
 
 Arabic root -u, to wander, to lourncii ; „ , ''•'f , , ,i t» -j 
 
 (^-^■^ ' ^ ./ ' torm, and was loved by them. Besides 
 
 and this Arabic letter shows how easily tlie the references on p. 388 sq., see the Revuj 
 
 sibilant might be changed into t, though in de V Instruction 2>it'bliqu.", for April 1862, 
 
 tlio country itself it is preserved to the p. 25 sqq.
 
 400 rUKLlMINARY IIISTOKV. 
 
 Assyrian empire existing in the time of tlie Hyksos, and me- 
 nacing them, we may leave it doubtful whether the great 
 northern power was already known by the name of Assyria. 
 But certain it is (seep. 311 sq.) that the Arameans were then al- 
 ready advancing in great strength from the north-east towards 
 the south-west. The four allied kings, whom Abraham has to 
 combat (p. 301, 307 sq.), and whose speedy overthrow gained 
 liim gratitude even from the Canaanites, came from the north- 
 east,' and were doubtless bent upon a j^lundering incursion into 
 Egypt. Even tbe comjjaratively recent Armenians retain a dim 
 remembrance that their empire began towards the end of the 
 third millennium before Christ.* And we may fairly assume a 
 connection between this belief and the great movements of races 
 in those early times. 
 
 II. Under these circumstances it seems certainly at first sight 
 less difficult to understand how the Israelites, a Hebrew people, 
 could be transplanted to Egypt, especially if at the time of the 
 migration the Hyksos were reigning there ; but it becomes all 
 the harder to define accurately the external and internal condi- 
 tions of the times which witnessed the lasting removal of Israel 
 thither. There must have been something quite exceptional in 
 the circumstances affecting that one nation, if it were only from 
 the fact that they are known to have been able to remain long 
 after the expulsion of the other Hyksos ; inasmuch as not only 
 the decisive passage of Manetho (hereafter to be full}^ explained), 
 on the actual Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt, but also the 
 chronology of 1 Kings vi. 1 (discussed p. 76 sq.), together with 
 all other indications, prove that they left Egypt at a much later 
 time and virtually alone. But those circumstances are in truth 
 still involved in obscurity, which we have no present means of 
 efi'ectuall}^ dispelling by any simple and clear testimony. In 
 order, therefore, to work our way as near as possible to the 
 dark centre, we must begin with the remotest point which can 
 be ascertained with certainty, that is, with the exact chronology 
 of Israel's migration into Egypt. 
 
 The testimony of the Book of Origins (according to p. 81 sq.) 
 is that Israel dwelt 430 years in Egypt, Ex. xii. 40. This evi- 
 dence, reliable both from its antiquity and from its position, 
 fixes the period, if not exactly to a year, at least within a cen- 
 
 ' Furtlicr proof is needed wlietlici- tlio ' Compare St. Martin, Memoircs sur 
 
 posiliün of I'^llasar is correetly dctirminrd rArtnenie, i. p. 407 sq. Primeval rela- 
 
 in OppiTl's J'J.r/H'(/Uion sclent, en Me.so- lions of tliis kind must be Lhe foundation 
 
 po/tnnie, ii. p. 224. See the Persian opinion oftlie story given liy AlexandiTPoi yliistor, 
 
 on the question in ChwoLson's Ueherrestc that Judaea andldumaea were daugiiters of 
 
 der Allbahylonischeii Literatur,^. 19. .Seniiraniis. See Stepiianus %zant. s. vv.
 
 MIGKATION TO ECYi'T. 401 
 
 tury, or even ten years. It is true that a somewhat phiusible 
 objection may be urg-ed against its accnracy. Abraham comes 
 to Canaan in his 75th year, lives in all 175 years, and has 
 Isaac in his lOOtli; Isaac lives 180 years and has Jacob 
 in his 60th; and Jacob goes to Egypt in his 130th.' This 
 gives 215 years,^ exactly the half of the 430, as the period 
 assigned by the Book of Origins to the residence in Canaan. 
 This coincidence between 430 and 215 is the less likely to be 
 accidental, since all the chronology of the Patriarchal times is 
 evidently stated only in round numbers. But in the Alexandrian 
 translation, as well as in the Samaritan text, we find this 
 number 430, not bodily altered, but by an insertion in the text 
 made to bear a totally different meaning ; it being here said 
 that ' Israel abode 430 years in Egypt and in Canaan.'' The 
 lives of the three Patriarchs in Canaan are manifestly here 
 included, so that only just the half, 215 years, is left for the 
 residence in Egypt ; and thus it became the general custom 
 with those authors who adhered to the Pentateuch,^ to assign 
 only 215 years to the sojourn in Egypt. But this reading 
 betrays itself to be spurious, were it only through the occurrence 
 in it of the name Israel, which is out of place, since the resi- 
 dence of the first two Patriarchs in Canaan must be included in 
 the calculation ; on which account the Alexandrian Codex of 
 the Septuagint, with the Samaritan text (consistently enough), 
 inserts also the words ' and their fathers ' after Israel. We 
 can therefore regard this reading only as an attempt to provide 
 an easy solution of the difficulty which the chronology appeared 
 to present, similar to the numerous well-meant but mostly 
 unsuccessful attempts to remove certain difficulties from history, 
 of which the last few centuries before and the first four or five 
 after Christ are full. It is clear that the stumbling-block in 
 the present case '' was the impossibility of reconciling the state- 
 ments made in other passages of the Pentateuch'^ on the ages 
 of the four successive Patriarchs : — 
 
 Levi ...... 
 
 Kohath ..... 
 
 Am ram ..... 
 
 Moses at the Exodus . 
 
 487 „in all. 
 
 ' Gen. xii. 4, xxi. ö, xxv. 7, 26, xlvii. 9, for Israel's sojourn in Egypt ; and he speaks 
 
 compared with ver. 28. from an extensive survey of the ages. 
 2 100 f 60 + 130-75 = 215. •• This is also distinctly seen from the 
 
 ^ As the Apostle, in Gal. iii. 17. On the Srdir 01am R. ch. iii. 
 other hand, Theopliilus of Antioch {ad * Ex. vi. 16-20 and vii. 7 ; comp;ire 
 
 Aidohjc. iii. 9, 2-1) still counted 430 years Deut. xxxiv. 7 ; Nundi. xiv. 34. 
 
 VOL. I. DD 
 
 137 
 
 years 
 
 133 
 
 ?5 
 
 137 
 
 >5 
 
 80 
 
 5?
 
 402 PRELIMINARY HISTORY. 
 
 Avitli tliese 430 years, so as to allow for the birth of Koliaih 
 before the mig-ration, ^ and for the necessary subtraction of the 
 uncertain number of years that Kohath may have lived after 
 the birth of Amram, and Amram after that of Moses. For if 
 the son was born in the father's I30th year, only 140 years will 
 be left for the whole period ; and even if the son was not born 
 till the father's 65th or 70th year, only 215 years will remain. 
 The discrepancy is all the more startling because it is the Book 
 of Origins itself that gives all these particular data side by side 
 with the general statement as to the 430 years. But no other 
 inference can really be drawn from this, than that the specifi- 
 cations of the age of each individual Patriarch must have been 
 derived from a source quite distinct from that of the general 
 statement as to the length of Israel's sojourn in Egypt ; and 
 while there is every sign (see p. 23 sq., 211) that the former have 
 passed through the stream of tradition, the latter may very 
 probably be drawn from some more exact chronological meniorj^, 
 such as might be preserved in the writings even of other na- 
 tions, Egyptians or Phenicians for example ; since the Book of 
 Origins knows the exact date of the building of very ancient 
 cities, such as Hebron, and Tanis in Egypt (p. 52) „ So that the 
 very contradiction between the two calculations affords strong 
 evidence in support of the 430 years.' We fall back, then, upon 
 the full 430. This number was undoubtedly found in this place 
 by the earliest reader whose existence we can detect with cer- 
 tainty, namely the Fifth Narrator, as we must conclude from his 
 rounding off the number to 400, according to proj^hetic usage, 
 in Gen. xv. 13. Besides, more complete genealogies have also 
 been preserved, which satisfactorily prove this number of years 
 to be the correct one.'^ 
 
 Here indeed we meet a new difficulty : that it is impossible 
 to suppose the number 215 of the years of the Patriarchs' 
 residence in Canaan to have arisen quite independently of this 
 430, its double. One might fancy the 430 to have originated 
 in an intentional doubling of the 215. But if artifice is to be 
 assumed on either side, the above remarks, as well as the pre- 
 
 ' See Gen. xlvi. 11, compared with verse rcquisito 430 years. TIio higli princely 
 
 2G. power of Josepli and Joshna accounts for 
 
 * Accordinf; to the true interpretation of the accuracy of tliis list. It was not until 
 
 1 Chron. vii. 20-27 there were exactly ten after the days of Mosesand Aaron that tlio 
 
 Bucccssive {jrencrations between Joseph and generations of Levi were noted with equal 
 
 tlie grandfather of .Joshua, granting that minuteness. A similar instance of the co- 
 
 oncc, in ver. 25, after t0y ij^ is omitted existence of a brief and a full genealogical 
 
 (eompare Numb. ii. 18)'; even if the tabic for the same period has been already 
 
 average length of each generation be re- "oticcd, p. 24 sq. 
 ducod under foHy years, we j-et obtain I lie
 
 MIGRATION TO EGYPT. 403 
 
 vious investigation of the Patriarclial age, leave little doubt, 
 that the length of the three Patriarchs' joint lives in Canaan is 
 uinch more probably determined from the 430 than vice versa, 
 through bisection of them, because the half of that period 
 seemed to allow suitable and sufficient scope for the lives in 
 question (see p. 324 sq.). 
 
 Assuming then the accuracy of the 430 years as the time of 
 Israel's stay in Egyjjt, the Egypto- Israelite chronology appears 
 to be somewhat as follows. According to Manetho's narrative 
 (hereafter to be noticed) the Exodus of Israel took j)lace under 
 a king Amenophis. Now if we compare the 480 years that 
 intervened between the commencement of Solomon's Temple 
 and the Exodus with the Egyptian chronology according to 
 Manetho, we find that this interval just allows for the three 
 dynasties which reigned before King Sesonchis, the founder of 
 the Twenty-second or Bubastic dynasty (known to us by the 
 later history of Solomon and of ßehoboam) ' ; since 
 
 According to Africanus. According to Eiisebius. 
 
 the 19th dynasty reigned 209 years 
 the 20th „ „ 135 „ 
 
 the 21st „ „ 130 „ 
 
 194 
 
 years 
 
 172 
 
 5J 
 
 130 
 
 5J 
 
 being altogether'^ 474 „ 496 „ 
 
 the smaller number of years assigned by Africanus to the 
 Twentieth dynasty (in which the length of the separate reigns is 
 omitted by both writers) being in some measure compensated by 
 the smaller number given by Eusebius to the Nineteenth. Even if 
 we accej^t the larger total, 496 years, as the basis of our calcula- 
 tions, we shall not exceed the limit ; since the building of the 
 Temple was begun in the fourth year of Solomon, and Sesonchis, 
 who only reigned twenty-one years, certainly coincides with 
 Solomon's advanced age. Now the famous Eighteenth Egyptian 
 dynasty, the longest and most flourishing of which we have any 
 definite knowledge, is said by all authorities to have ended its 
 line of sixteen or seventeen kings with Amenophis, who reigned 
 according to Eusebius forty years, according to Africanus 
 nineteen ; a discrepancy which may be safely attributed to the 
 transcribers only ; but whatever was the length of his reign, the 
 Israelitish Exodus can be brought within it ; and we have thus 
 a very important instance of agreement between the accounts 
 
 ' 1 Kings xi. 40, compared with verse Twenty-first dynast}'. I do not here discuss 
 
 18, xir. 2.5 sqrj. the point, which has no great importance 
 
 - Böckh (pp. 262, ßl3) proposes to road for our present subject. 
 114 instead of 130 in Africanus for the
 
 404 rßELLMlXAKY lUSTOIlV. 
 
 of Manetho and those of the Old Testament ; which elsewhere, 
 as will be presently shown, appear to differ widely from each 
 other. Now since the Eighteenth dynasty lasted, according to 
 Eusebius 348, according to Africanus^ 263 years, the migration 
 of Israel into Egypt will fall in the very middle of the Hyksos 
 period; unless we follow Eusebius in reducing this to 106 years, 
 which would certainly be too short a period, being in direct 
 contradiction to Josephus as well as to Africanus. 
 
 This is fully confirmed by such faint indications as are con- 
 tained in the early Israelite history. Israel there appears as a 
 younger branch of the Hebraic race, making its first southward 
 movement later than the rest, just as it afterwards entered 
 Egypt later ; and it always remained one of the principal fea- 
 tures in the legend that Josej)h had gone first to Egypt, and 
 become the ruler of the country, before he sent for his brethren 
 and assigned them a habitation there. In this picture of the 
 powerful brother who prepared the way into Egypt for the 
 Twelve Tribes, has been preserved no very obscure remembrance 
 of the historical relation subsisting between Israel and the other 
 Hyksos, Avhich we must interpret by the fuller information de- 
 rived from Egyptian sources. 
 
 III. The only point, therefore, of these histories, now almost 
 faded from the knowledge of posterity, which still remains ob- 
 scure, is the question how Israel, after having entered Egypt 
 under the protection of the kindred power of the Hyksos, es- 
 caped the expulsion from the enchanting Nile valley which these 
 suffered, and on the contrary was able to remain in Egypt 
 during nearly the whole period of the powerful Eighteenth dy- 
 nasty, the conquerors of the Hyksos? This problem is not 
 solved by assuming that Israel was simply subdued by the new 
 conquerors, and preferred remaining in Egypjb as a subject 
 people, while their kindred tribes preferred entire expulsion, or, 
 if we choose so to consider it, a return to their former seats in 
 the east. For although the Israelitish history says much of 
 Egyptian bondage, yet it speaks not as if this had subsisted and 
 been legally recognised for centuries, but as if it were a ca- 
 
 ' Here, however, he is certiiinly mis- Kg3'pt till 1300, and that the time of 
 
 taken. On tlie arguments whieli have been Israel's abudo in Kgypt did not exceed 
 
 recently revived against tiie numliers 430 about 100 years; but I lind it weak and 
 
 and 480, I have spoken in the G-ott. (id. tmsatisfactory. Recently, however, Vic. 
 
 An::. 18.')0, p. 817 sqq.; 1851, p. 42Ö sqq., de Rouge and Brugsch have adopted the 
 
 1858, p. 1448 sqq. Äluch woiglit has l)een opinion of Bunsen and Lepsius, that tho 
 
 fiivon to tlie work of Engelstoft {Hisforia E.\odus occurred in tho year 1314 b.c., 
 
 J'ojjuU Judaici BUil'wa usque ad occupa- which wouhl thi'ow tlie comineucoment of 
 
 timciii PidiKst'mce a<l relatioiies jiercijrinas the entire Hyksos period much later; but 
 
 rxaiiiinata ct dujista. Havn. 1832) as positive proof of this is still wanting. See 
 
 having proved that Mo.sos did not leave Gott. Gel. Am. 1858, p. 1448 sc^q.
 
 MIGRATIOX TO EGYPT. 40.5 
 
 pricious innovation on the part of ' a king who knew not Joseph,' 
 and against which Israel rose at last in indignant resistance. 
 And the actual Exodus of Israel is represented — especially, be it 
 noted, bj the oldest narrator • — as effected by a fully equipped 
 and disciplined army. But how could a nation which had been 
 thoroughly enslaved for more than three centuries march out 
 all at once in jDerfect martial array ? in Egypt, too, whose de- 
 fenceless inhabitants have never risen with any success against 
 a power holding the whole countr}-, except under favour of great 
 internal dissensions ? Moreover, the Israelitish traditions make 
 not the slightest allusion to any breach among the Hebraic races 
 in Egypt, through which, whether by coercion or by a volun- 
 tary act, Israel alone among these might have been brought to 
 side with the Egyptians. The essence of the Israelites' tra- 
 dition on the commencement of their conrection with Eg373t is 
 simply that Joseph, already settled with his sons in Egypt, in 
 the service of a royal house whose manners at least were strictly 
 Egyptian,^ calls the rest of his kinsfolk out of Canaan, to esta- 
 blish themselves honourably in Goshen, the easternmost pro- 
 vince of Egypt. 
 
 If we try to combine all this into a consistent scheme, the 
 following is almost the only conception which, in the absence of 
 further direct testimony, we can form of these occurrences. The 
 smaller part of the Israelite nation, distinguished in the extant 
 tradition by the name and fame of Josej^h, and consisting essen- 
 tially of the two tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, afterwards 
 separated, migrated to Egypt first, under the rule of the Hyksos, 
 and the 430 years of the residence in Egypt may be supposed 
 to 2*o back to this commencement of the Israelitish mioration. 
 Perhaps it may also be assumed as certain that the tribe of 
 Benjamin took 23art in this first migration, partly because this 
 seems obscurely indicated by one incident of the existing narra- 
 tive,^ and partly because the tribe of Benjamin was especially in 
 the very earliest times closely connected with Joseph. Joseph 
 indisputably did much for the education and elevation of his 
 peox^le, and was also a real potentate in Egypt; as is implied by his 
 very name, the original meaning of which answers exactly to the 
 Latin Augustus.^ Not for nothing did his j^eople at the Exodus 
 
 ' Ex. xiii. 18. against the Shephords, xlvi. 34. 
 
 * Even if we attach no weight to such ^ Gen. xlii. 15 sqq. 
 
 isohited indications as the Egy[ tian word ' ExjJained independently of the two 
 
 in the royal command in Gon. xli. 43, the interpretations given in Gen. xxx. 23, 24; 
 
 ■whole tone of the narrative would lead to which are merely deduced from the general 
 
 the same conclusion ; especially the anti- spirit and connected meaning of the exist- 
 
 pathy then entertained by the Egyptians ing story, as shown above, p. 377 sq.
 
 406 I'llELLMlXARY HISTORY. 
 
 cany his mummy with them as a sacred relic, and carefully pre- 
 serve it, until after the conquest of Canaan it could be inten-ed 
 at Shecheni,' which was for centuries a gathering-place of the 
 cong-regation. But his position as the father and onl}^ hero of 
 a tribe most important in early times may have been determined 
 later, on accovmt of his historical greatness, and the benefits 
 conferred by him on the nation generally and his own tribe in 
 particular (see p. 382 sq.). What adventures befell him in Egypt, 
 before he became ruler there and drew all Israel after him, will 
 probably never be determined by strict history. The wrong 
 which he is said in the legend to have endured there, the impri- 
 sonment from which he was summoned to Pharaoh, may very 
 possibly have been due to some other cause than the enmity of 
 Potiphar's wife, which we shall see to have been woven into 
 the history only by the Fourth Narrator. For the assumption, 
 which naturally results from the historical relations of parties 
 as explained above, that this smaller part of the Israelite nation 
 became involved in serious contests with the kindred Hyksos, 
 resulting in danger and distress to themselves, would at once 
 exjjlain how, on the expulsion of the Hyksos, they would side 
 with the king of Egypt, and their leader Joseph confer the 
 greatest benefits upon Pharaoh and the country, and yet not 
 consider that he had put the crowning stroke to his work, till 
 he had attracted the remaining and stronger portion of his own 
 people to the eastern frontier of Egypt. As the Romans during 
 their career of victory and defeat gladly employed Germans 
 against Glermans, so to the new Egyptian dynasty nothing could 
 well have been more welcome, on the expulsion of the Hyksos, 
 than to have one vigorous uncorrupted Hebrew tribe to use 
 against the others. The Hyksos, who had fled back to the east, 
 doubtless still hovered long on the frontiers, only biding their 
 time to renew their incursions ; and the nature of the situation, 
 as well as the frequent allusions to such battles discovered on 
 the Egyptian monuments, make it certain that the struggle was 
 very prolonged. Joseph may then, with the sanction of the 
 king of Egypt, have adopted a measure identical with that of 
 the modern Military Frontier, which proved the only efiicient 
 defence to the civilisation of Europe against the Turks — sum- 
 moning Israel in a body out of Canaan, and establishing them in 
 Goshen as a frontier-guard of the kingdom against any new 
 attacks of the Hyksos. 
 
 This view is favoured by all the historical indications, and 
 
 ' According to the earliest hibtorical work: Gen. 1. 2P>; Ex. xiii. 19; Josh. xxiv. 32 ; 
 compand with Geu. xlviii. 22.
 
 ISRAELITE TRADITION OF JOSEril. 407 
 
 opposed by none. The land of Goslien may certainly, as is said 
 in the extant stories, be a very suitable part of Egypt for a pas- 
 toral people ;' but it was evidently chosen for Israel as being the 
 frontier province towards the east, and an advanced post on the 
 side of the Arabian desert, whence the Hyksos might easily 
 renew their incursions. It has been already shown (p. 379) that 
 the Israelites were in early times very warlike and powerful ; 
 and so when making their final Exodus from Egypt they appear 
 well eqviipped for war (p. 405). It will soon be apparent that 
 the whole course and close of the history of Israel in Egypt can 
 be satisfactorily understood in no other way. 
 
 B. JOSEPH ACCORDING TO THE ISRAELITE TRADITION. 
 
 The Israelite tradition, however, now lies before us in a 
 highly elaborated form, which does not connect the migration 
 to Egypt with the affairs of the great world, as was probably 
 done by those who lived nearer the time. During the best ages 
 of the religious life and thought of Israel, a deep mystical idea 
 gradually connected itself with the memory ofthat extraordinary 
 son of Jacob, and transfigured his history into the form in which 
 we have it. One characteristic impulse of the true religion, 
 which in Israel gradually penetrated the life and spirit of the 
 people, was to foster the feeling for domestic afiection and 
 virtvie. In the light of that religion, the domestic instincts of 
 every home became glorified. So also the warm sense of 
 mutual relationship in the larger home of the community and 
 the nation naturally assumed in this people a strength propor- 
 tioned to their religious isolation. To the Israelite, therefore 
 (see p. 290 sqq.), the world of the Patriarchs became a sort of 
 grand ancestral hall, in which he sought and found the best 
 types of all forms of domestic virtue. But there the brightest 
 types are generally the fathers and mothers. Not till Joseph 
 was the type of the best of brothers and the closest fraternal 
 union found : — standing, however, near enough to the age of the 
 Patriarchs (see p. 387) to be similarly glorified by the light of 
 their religion. At the call of the one brother who has risen to 
 high station in Egypt, his ten or eleven brothers come with 
 their families to the fertile land of Goshen, under the protec- 
 tion of Pharaoh : — this is the simple fundamental idea, the 
 memory of which has been always preserved. The fortunate 
 exchange of a region so uncertain in its produce as Canaan 
 
 ' Littlo more than this is implied by tlic expressions iu Gen. xlv. 18, 20, xlvii. G, 11, 
 compaved with xlv. 10, xlvi. 28, xlvii. 1—1.
 
 408 PRELIMINARY HISTORY. 
 
 for one of so mucli more constant fertility as Egypt ; the invi- 
 tation of the powerful Eg-^^rptian brother, joyfully obeyed by all; 
 the hapj)y re-union in Egypt ; — these simple ideas are the most 
 prominent features of a tradition, which manifestly originated 
 not with the Egyj)tians nor with Joseph, but in the midst of 
 1 he great multitude, first settled by Joseph in Egypt, and after- 
 wards trained under a higher religion : for theirs are the feelings 
 which it reflects. It is true, some more immediate cause of 
 this migration of an entire nation into Egypt is still required ; 
 and this is found in an emergency which might occur not once 
 only but very often. Since Egypt is known far and wide through 
 all surrounding countries as a land of exuberant fertility and 
 resources which no famine could ever utterly exhaust, and since 
 in those early times, as in later years, its garners doubtless 
 often averted famine from the neighbouring countries, it was 
 natural to think of Jose^^h, the Egyptian minister, as a careful 
 manager, providing for the wants of many lands, and calling 
 his own peojple into Egyj^t during a long-continued famine ; as 
 if thus to secvire them for all future time against any possible 
 recurrence of such scarcity. This plainly shows with w'hat 
 feelings the dwellers in Canaan from the very earliest times 
 regarded the rich corn-fields of Egypt ; and it is quite in ac- 
 cordance with this feeling, but at the same time most charac- 
 teristic of the Mosaic religion, that the Fourth Narrator has 
 transferred this same innocent motive to Abraham's and Isaac's 
 exjjeditions into Egypt also (p. 389). 
 
 It is curious to observe what capabilities of expansion were 
 latent in this simple basis of old tradition ; and still more so to 
 see into what grand proportions this tradition at length unfolded 
 itself in the warm sunshine of such a religion as the Mosaic. 
 Since the heads of the twelve tribes are to be regarded as 
 brothers, whereas Joseph must be thought of as far surj^assing 
 the others, it may easily be conceived what tempting ojDpor- 
 tunities were here offered for working up the old legend of the 
 migration of the tribes at Joseph's bidding into a j)icture of 
 fraternal and domestic life. And any established notions of the 
 mutual relations of the tribes, which were formed in the Post- 
 mosaic times, might naturally contribute to give a definite out- 
 line and life-like colouring to the old tradition of Joseph; just as 
 Jacob and Esau are depicted in the legend with the characteristic 
 traits of the races which they severally represent (p. 800 sqq.). 
 And so it is most instructive to observe, through what successive 
 stages the history of Joseph must have passed before attaining 
 the matured and attractive form in A\hicli it has become an 
 heirloom of the liuintm race, and mav serve both as a beautiful
 
 ISRAELITE TRADITION OF JOSKriI. 409 
 
 monument of antiquity and as a testimony to the old Hebrew 
 genius. 
 
 But as witli regard to Abraham (p. 301 sqq.) we found one 
 ancient fragment preserved which throws a clear light on the 
 real nature of his history, so respecting Joseph we have in the 
 Blessing of Jacob (Gen. xlix. 22-26), at least one poetical passage 
 which seems to speak to us from a far more distant time : — 
 Joseph is son of a fruitful vine, 
 
 Son of a fruitful vine by a well, 
 With exuberant branches upon the wall.' 
 Then they envied him, and shot, 
 
 And assaulted him, the men of arrows : 
 But his bow abode in strength. 
 
 And the arms of his hands were kept nimble, 
 Erom the hands of the Mighty Ojie of Jacob, 
 
 From there where is the Shepherd of the Stone of Israel,'-* 
 From the God of thy father — may he help thee, 
 
 And from the Almighty — may he bless thee, 
 With blessings of the heaven above. 
 
 Blessings of the deep that lieth below, 
 Blessings of breast and w^omb ! ^ 
 Thy father's blessings overtopped the summit of the everlasting 
 mountains. 
 The bounds of the ancient hills : 
 May they come upon Joseph's head, 
 
 Upon the head of the Crowned among his brethren I* 
 
 The diction of these lines certainly bears the stamp of extreme 
 antiquity. The language itself here moves laboriously, and is 
 
 ' The fruitful vim alludes not to ^ I.e. blessings of fruit fiihiess in every 
 
 Kiicliel, but to Ephraim, as is evident quarter — on the soil through rain and 
 
 from the general spirit of this blessing; dew and springs of water, auil on animal 
 
 we must moreover decide to read niJ? nature, both man and beast. All this lies 
 
 mvv daughters, i.e. branches, shoots of concentrated in the words of these three 
 
 ■■•;, c ■• m Httle lines. Equally pregnant with blessiugr 
 
 growth, of exuberance. The very com- j^ t^^ ^^^^^^^ g^^ech 
 
 mencement thus transports us only nito , 4, jf ji^j^ i^i^.^j ^^ fruitfulness 
 
 he landscape of greatest fertility, the „ j^ ^ were still inadequate, ti.e 
 
 land ot Ephraim; thi.sluxur.ant soil drew i„tinite blessing bestowed upon Jacob 
 
 upon hira the envy of his most powerful ,ii,„,,if j, fi^^n^ j,^^^!,^,, ,,/j,i,,^ ^,^^^,^ 
 
 brothers t u .x ^^^^ ^•^"- The second n2-«2 "'lust be com- 
 
 ^ I.e. from heaven, from whence the 
 
 Shepherd's God, adored at the sacred stone bined with 4_lj itiipyos, and is chosen 
 
 (p. 343, 3Ö4), stretched down his mighty ^ ' 
 
 hands to uphold the hands of Joseph in only for the play upon the word. Moreover, 
 
 battle. See also Ex. xvii. 12; rS here is the '^V. "Tl'in i^ ^^ ^^ read, and niXn to be 
 
 antithesis of T33 there, and would not be derived from nXH (see my Lehrbuch, 7th 
 
 so suitably combined etymologically with ed. p. 481). The words might imleed be 
 
 V\»j^=^T1Il iron. The same phase of supposed susceptible of the following 
 
 "~"^ ■•■•" meaning :—' The blessings of thy f.ither 
 
 thought continues in verse 25, and then surpass the blessings of the eternal moun- 
 
 breaks suddenly into a distinct prophecy tains, the jot] (according to the meaning 
 
 ot luturo blessing. l'rohal>ly instead of elsewhere borne by mSFl) ''/' the ever- 
 
 nC nX we ought to read with the Sa- ;,„^;„^ ,^jif^, -^ perhaps"; "all ihe fruitful- 
 
 maritan text ''C ^^. mss of mountains and hills; and a still
 
 410 PKELIMINARY HISTORY. 
 
 weighed down as it were with redundance, to a degree which 
 we find in no other of the oldest lyric fragments extant ; and 
 the words are stranger, the images bolder and sharper, than we 
 meet with elsewhere. The complexion of the language and 
 poetry thus transports us into the remotest antiquity, and assures 
 us that these lines, if not literally spoken by the dying Patriarch, 
 but by the usual poetic artifice put into his mouth by another, 
 must yet proceed from some poet of the time before Moses. * 
 And the substance of the lines takes us back into the immediate 
 presence of those early days. We here observe at the very 
 outset that Joseph is put into the closest connection with the 
 ancient tribe of Ephraim, but in a sense quite different from 
 that afterwards received (p. 382 sq.) ; while the concluding words 
 bring Jacob before us as a prince possessing a power and dignity 
 of which the ordinary histories woidd never allow us to suspect 
 the existence. Also what is said of God, as the ' Shepherd of 
 the Stone of Jacob,' breathes the spirit of Premosaic times. 
 But the most remarkable part is the clear and circumstantial 
 declaration about Joseph himself. As Joseph had been from 
 the first the most highly blest, and subsequently enabled by 
 Divine helj) to triumph over the assaults of enemies whom that 
 very prosperity embittered against him, the Patriarch wishes for 
 him not only all earthly blessing, but the continuance of those 
 far higher spiritual gifts which he had himself enjoyed ; in 
 token of which he calls him the Oroumed atnong his brethren, 
 thereby designating him as his own successor. Such is the 
 simple meaning of these words, which have been often considered 
 obscure. But in this exaltation of Joseph above his brethren, 
 it is of course implied that the powerful warlike antagonists 
 over whom he triumphed at length, were no others than his 
 brethren.^ The contests must therefore have been very different 
 
 closer connection might be thus imagined p. 69 sqq.) from the age of Samson, and is 
 
 between the blessings in verse 25, and therefore comparatively verj^ ancient ; but 
 
 tiioso in verse 26. But the play on the the special declaration about Joseph is so 
 
 word woidd then be very obscure; and obviously distinct in its whole tone and 
 
 a word such as niXn dcshv, joy, cannot be manner from all the otiiors, that wo must 
 
 nuirely identical with fruitfulness of soil ; consider it much older than they, and even 
 
 and it would also be unsuitable to speak as the UKjdel anil earliest known example 
 
 of the blessings possessed or dispensed (if of this species of poetry. Similarly in 
 
 we were so to understand the word) by the the Blessing of Moses in Deut. xxxiii. 
 
 father, as surpassing those mentioned in also, it is the passage about .Toso])h 
 
 verse 2.'), -which proceeded directly from (versos 13-17) which must evidently have 
 
 God. Very pointed, however, is the inti- been borrowed by the poet of that song 
 
 mation conveyed in these final words, of from some composition of earlier date, 
 
 the extraordinary dignity and power for- though less ancient than that which wo 
 
 merly ])ossessed by Jacob, and wiiich was are now considering. See the Gott. Gel. 
 
 jiow to descend to Joseph. Anz. 1862, p. 1192 sq. 
 
 ' Tlie whole Blessing of Jacob, as given - This must not be referred to the 
 
 in Gen. xlix, dates indeed (according to struggles between tho tribes in the time
 
 ISRAELITE TRADITION OF JOSEPH. 411 
 
 from tliat spiteful boys' play among the brothers of which we 
 hear in the history of Joseph's boyhood ; and these ancient 
 words transport us into the midst of the most ancient contests 
 among the tribes of Israel, in their harsh undisguised realit3^ 
 And it is just possible that we may trace here some foundation 
 for the notion which seems to have held its ground as late as 
 the time of Artapanus,^ that Joseph, being oppressed by his 
 brethren, himself implored some neighbouring Arab tribes to 
 take him with them into Egypt. This is the simplest possible 
 version of the story ; it is one which indicates most plainly a 
 connection between Joseph and the Hyksos ; and is the easiest 
 to harmonise with the account given by the Third Narrator of 
 the Midianite merchants, who carried Joseph into Egypt. And 
 thus, as the Third Narrator often follows the earliest, it may 
 possibly be derived from the very oldest authority. 
 
 But the poetical passage in question, above all others, here 
 deserves our closest attention. In these lines and in Lamech's 
 song (mentioned p. 267) we possess the only existing relics of 
 the Hebrew poetry of the Premosaic period, and may see from 
 them how very early the art originated in that race. Their 
 poetry was even then essentially the same as regards mere 
 form, that we find it from the times of Moses and David ; but 
 how different the spirit which pervades it ! especially in La- 
 mech's song, which dates perhaps from a time before Abraham, 
 and may be a genuine popular song, brought by the race from 
 their last dwelling-place in the north. But even in Jacob's words 
 we meet at every step a sj)irit which transports us into the life 
 of the old Premosaic age, and can even obtain a near view 
 with our own eyes of the possibility of the formation of such 
 oracles. That the spirit of a great father hovered invisible over 
 his children after death with a power as indestructible as had 
 been his influence during life, and that the three Patriarchs 
 especially were still very near to their people, held by the mystic 
 bond of a glorified fellow-life and sympathy, — was a faith which, 
 as we have seen (p. 29C), was long and firmly held by the nation, 
 even after the transformation of their ideas by Moses. But this 
 faith must have possessed the greatest force in the early ao-es, 
 before either the mind of the individual or the soul of the 
 nation had raised and concentrated itself upon the full reality 
 and glory of the God who not till later, through Moses, became 
 the one great possession of Israel. Among the Egyptians, a 
 
 of the Judges; this would only be possible far earlior ago. 
 
 if the poet were the same who wrote the ^ Eusobius, P/YSjj. E"«'. ix. 23 ; sec below, 
 
 blessings on the other tribes in Geu. xlix, II. p. 89. 
 
 but not if these lines are derived from a
 
 412 PRELIMIXARY HISTORY. 
 
 similar belief in the unquenchable vitality of the sj^irits of tbe 
 inig-hty Dead, led early to the Oracle of the Dead ; which from 
 all indications appears to have attained its earliest and fullest 
 development in that land of magic, and to have propagated 
 thence its elaborate arts, and of course also its early degenerate 
 superstitions, over the adjacent countries. It is a sign of the 
 higher religion aspired after in Israel from the time of Abraham, 
 that among them in Egypt itself we find, instead of those vulgar 
 oracles, this eagerness to hear the voice of the resuscitated 
 Patriarch, which was most to be expected when the weal or woe 
 of the whole people was at stake. So it was in the earliest 
 ages that such words of Jacob would most naturally be ex- 
 pected. All the various declarations in a similar sense put by 
 later poets and poetical narrators into the mouth of Jacob and 
 other Patriarchs,' are only imitations, Avhich were continued 
 through many centuries, until in yet later times such revelations 
 were daringly attributed to Moses,^ and to other saints of still 
 more recent date.^ 
 
 But the words of Jacob which we have just been considering, 
 bear witness in this connection to the greatness attributed to 
 this Patriarch also. For when it is here said in antique words 
 and figures that the divine blessings granted him were ' high 
 as the hills,' we gain an idea such as is now attainable nowhere 
 else, of the historical importance and power of this Patriarch ; 
 and this most ancient and independent testimony adds no little 
 weight to the series of evidence already brought forward (p. 342 
 sqq.) upon his history. 
 
 Keturning now to the ordinary history of Joseph in order to in- 
 vestigate its component parts, we discover the following facts : — 
 
 I. Of the Earliest Narrator's history of Joseph only some 
 fragments remain ; ■* and these relate only to the issue of the 
 
 ' Gen. xlix. 1-21,27 ; thon p.-issagos such press rcforenco to those words, speaks of 
 
 as Gen. xii. 1-3 by the Fourth, and xxvii. tlie twelve Tribes, as if in explanation of 
 
 27-29, 39, 40 by the Fifth Narrator of the liis own more elevated language, Gen. 
 
 primeval liistory ; as has been already fully xlix. 28. 
 explained, p. 104 sqq. ■* They are here interwoven with the 
 
 ■■^ Deut. xxxiii, comp. p. 128 sq. words of the Book of Origins ; Gen. xlvi. 
 
 ' In Daniel. All this constituted a 28-30, xlviii. 7, 22,1. 24-26; sentences 
 
 special branch of poetical and tinally of the whole phraseology of which is quite 
 
 literary art among the people of Israel, antique, and perfectly different from that 
 
 That these outpourings, as conceived by of the Book of Origins. Conipai-c also Ex. 
 
 their own authors, are not to bo under- xiv. 6, with Gen. xlvi. 29; Ex. xiii. 19 
 
 stood in a coarse literal sense, is shown (a s;^ntence connected with verses 17, 18) 
 
 by the fact that such a writer does not with Gen. 1. 24-26. The same eai-ly docu- 
 
 scrnple at times to abandon the poetic ment is also occasionally recognisable in 
 
 stylo, and s|)cak in plain prose. Thus single words; in 313^10 Gen. xlvii. 5, 11 
 
 this very Earliest Narrator of the primeval (,^,,„,eas nvj in xlv. 18, 20), compared 
 history, after giving Jacobs words on his . „ 
 
 twelve suns, immcdiatelv, and with ox- Mith Ex.xxn. 4 [0] /;/.s ; an 1 m nnyiD-t^f^'i'-
 
 ISRAELITE TllAÜITIÜX OF JOSI^TII. 413 
 
 stoiy, and give us no information liow Joseph first came into 
 Egypt, or sent for liis brothers thither. Tlie most important fact 
 concerning this history is the statement that Jacob sent Judah 
 on before, to show him the way to Goshen ; ' which is difficult 
 to reconcile with the account given by the Thhd and Fourth 
 Narrators, of Joseph's sending chariots to meet him, since if 
 these were sent the precaution of sending Judah on before was 
 unnecessary. But the First Narrator's account certainly does 
 not require the assumption of a previous journey into Egypt on 
 the part of all the brothers. We are told by this author that 
 Joseph had disappeared from Canaan, and that his aged fatlier 
 never saw him again till he met him in Egypt.^ But how any 
 tidings of him first reached his kindred in Canaan, or why he 
 summoned them into Egj'pt, the writer does not inform us. 
 
 From the Book of Origins, indeed, several rather long fra«-- 
 ments of this history have been preserved ; ^ and here we find 
 the migration of all the tribes of Israel attributed to a protracted 
 famine under which both Canaan and Egypt suffered.'* And 
 here the peculiar characteristics of this author are plainly 
 visible : with his keen eye for the affairs of empires and 
 nationalities and his admiration for legislative wisdom in their 
 rulers, he makes Joseph his ideal statesman, careful at once for 
 the weal of populous nations, and for the consolidation and 
 increase of the royal authority, and winning his best victories 
 through the combmation of these seemingly opposite aims. 
 By providently storing up in his garners supplies of corn 
 su.fficient for many years of possible scarcity, Joseph was enabled 
 not only to secure to the people the present means of existence 
 and the possibility of better times in future, but to establish a 
 more solid organisation of government, such as a nation is 
 very loth to accede to except in a time of overmastering neces- 
 sity. The character of Egyptian government from early times 
 had its origin in the j)eculiarity of the soil itself, which renders 
 
 ^jfards very frequent, but foreign to the li.aving partially rewritten some sentences. 
 Book of Origins, Gen. xlvi. 34 ; see Levit. * Wliether any certain notice of this 
 xviii. and supra, p. 94 sq. famine and of the Israelite immigration 
 ' Gen. xlvi. 28. The LXX. felt the willever be reoovcredintheearly Egyptian 
 difficulty here, and endeavoured to over- literature, it is difficult to sa}-. But some- 
 come it by a transposition of words and thing bearing the same general character 
 a freer translation. has been already discovered : see Brugsch, 
 2 Gen. xlvi. 29, 30. Hi.-itoired: Egypte,\.^. 56, 63; SamuelBirch 
 » Gen. xlvi. 5-xlvii. 26, xlviii. 3-7, "^ Heidenlieim's Bout. Vi rtdjahrsschrift 
 xlviii. 22-xi;x, I. 12, 13, 22-26; these J'^r Enyl.thcol.ForscJmng,\m\,^:liö-2i:l ; 
 passao-es being understood with the limi- -'I'l^^ '"'»"J expressions of opinion by De 
 tation explained above. The words XH ^^.''"Se, as in the Bcime archcol. 1860, p. 91. 
 
 , .. „„ 1 1 ■■ oo o/- • " l lie seven years' famine in E„^ypt through 
 
 xlvn. 23 and p., xlvu. 22, 26, surprise us ^^^^,^^ ^^^^-^^^ mentioned in Ovid's Art of 
 
 in the Book of Origins ; and the hitter may Love, i. 617 sq. are certainly derived from 
 perhaps point to the Litest Narrator as the Bilde.
 
 414 PRELIMINARY HISTORY. 
 
 it necessary for the ruling power to take into its O'svn hands the 
 charge of irrigation and other fertilising measures, in order 
 to win from it a gi-eater productiveness than is possible to the 
 limited means and capricious treatment of individual cultivators. 
 The latter thus become peculiarly dependent on the government, 
 and may then be regarded almost as mere hereditary tenants of 
 their lands, which they hold on consideration of constant and 
 heavy dues paid to the state; but at the same time their own best 
 interests are evidently thus promoted, as the same plan has been 
 maintained in Egypt under every change of dynasty. And this 
 was indeed only the earliest establishment of a system the essen- 
 tial principle of which is eventually adopted in ever}^ organised 
 state : the only difference being whether alongside of this grow- 
 ing dependency of the individual upon the ruling power, which 
 inevitably accomj^anies the growing power of the nation, the 
 constitutional freedom of the community and the individual is 
 or is not carefully preserved and exercised. The Book of Origins, 
 therefore, in relating how Joseph took advantage of the pressure 
 of famine to offer great relief in the terms of tenure, and as an 
 equivalent therefor to persuade the Egyptians to dwell in or- 
 ganised town-communities, and to bring them into the position 
 of tenants, holding their land and other possessions from the 
 king, and paying him yearly the fifth of the produce, the land of 
 the priests (which was regarded as holy, that is, immediately de- 
 rived as a s])ecial gift from the gods) being alone excepted,^ says 
 essentially the same as is reported at a much later date by the 
 Greeks ;^ only that these exempt the lands of the warrior-caste 
 also from this law, and refer the authorship of the law itself not 
 to Joseph, but to no less a name than the celebrated ancient king 
 Sesostris. As to the latter point, however, there seems at present 
 no reason to give up the tradition contained in the Book of 
 Origins in favour of this far more modern Greek version of the 
 story. It is very probable that this new constitution of the king- 
 dom took place immediately after the expulsion of the Hyksos. 
 And the wisdom for which Joseph was celebrated is not likely 
 to have consisted only in his having induced the Israelites to 
 settle in the country ; such an enterprise as the peaceful settle- 
 ment of a foreign race among the Egyptians implies in itself a 
 long preceding series of well-considered measures for the benefit 
 of the kingdom ; and perhaps the Israelites were stationed on 
 the eastern frontier quite as much as a protection against any 
 possible internal disturbances as against the expelled Hyksos. 
 But to accuse Joseph of promoting by this means the establish- 
 
 ' God. xlvii. 13-'26. = ITotolI. ii. 168; Diod. i. 73.
 
 ISRAELITE TRADITION OF JOSEPH. 415 
 
 ment of an arbitrary and cruel system of government is a follj' 
 which, has been already sufficiently disposed of.' 
 
 This historian, however, gives no particulars as to the duration 
 of the famine in Egjq^t, but relates the great change effected 
 by Joseph in the internal administration of the kingdom, with 
 as much minuteness as if nothing had been previously said of 
 the seven years. On occasion of the settlement of Israel in 
 Egypt likewise, no mention is made of the seven years of famine. 
 On Joseph's call the twelve tribes came to the eastern frontier ; 
 then only does he inform the king of them, of their ways of life, 
 and the advantage which he may derive from their services, as 
 good shepherds and guardians of the royal flocks ; ^ and not till 
 this moment do they receive the royal sanction to their settle- 
 ment ; all which looks as if what is said in xlv. 1 7 sqq. had not 
 been said at all. Moreover they come not solely on account of 
 the famine, but with a definite and permanent position and 
 occupation in view. Since all this is tolerably sufficient to 
 render the whole story intelligible, it is probable that neither 
 the Book of Origins, nor the yet older historian whom it here 
 evidently closely follows, had described the commencement of 
 Joseph's history with anything like the minute and graphic 
 detail which our extant account possesses ; and it is certainly 
 not the result of chance that the oldest notices of Joseph con- 
 tained in the long piece of naiTative now extant are introduced 
 towards the end. 
 
 The ' seventy souls,' who according to the Book of Origins 
 went with Jacob into Egypt, may probably be understood to 
 have originally signified the number of the heads of the assembled 
 peox)le. The number seventy or seventy-two naturally suggests 
 this.^ But this book, dealing with the whole subject of the 
 
 ' The Hebrew historian has oLvioixsIy is curious what internal contradictions 
 
 no partiality for this heavy Egyptian land- hare crept into an enumeration evidently 
 
 tax, nor for the Egyptians themselves, calculated at first with great exactness, 
 
 who submitted to it l3ecause they had no Gen. xlvi. 8-27. There ought to he 70 
 
 means of helping themselves. But as the souls; hut in verse 15 we should have to 
 
 nation, so is the ruler ; and where the take 33 to be a slip of the pen for 32 ; 
 
 nation is helpless, it must be content with since to add the father Jacob to these 32 
 
 whatever help the nücr will give. In contradicts the di.stinet words of verse 1Ö, 
 
 Israel itself, the administration and taxa- according to which only the sons and 
 
 tion were quite different ; and the Book of daughters (that is, all the chikben) of 
 
 Origins here only intends once more to Leah are intended to be comprised here, 
 
 explain a curious origin. The reckoning is also unnecessarily per- 
 
 2 That this post was very important, plexed by a second mention of Joseph's 
 
 and might be regarded as one of the places sons in verse 27 after that in verses 19- 
 
 about court, is evident from the general 22 ; for we see from the number 66 given 
 
 character of the coiu-ts of ancient kings, in verse 26, that Joseph himself ought 
 
 Compare 1 Chron. xxvii. 20-31 with Gen. also to be omitted from the previous cnu- 
 
 xlvii. 6. meration. We must, therefore, suppose 
 
 ' See the Alterthiimcr, p. 284 sqq. It that the calculation was made originally
 
 416 PRELIMINARY HISTORY. 
 
 migration merely as a passage of early Israelitisli history, and 
 with reference only to the progenitors of the futnre nation, 
 enumerates exactly as many names of Jacob's children and 
 grandchildren as will, with Jacob's own, make np this round 
 number. For this purpose the author doubtless employed the 
 ancient family-pedigrees, admitting, however, in order to pro- 
 duce the round number, many a name which in his own time 
 had become obsolete. This at least would fully explain the 
 discrepancies between this as an antiquarian account of the 
 ramifications of the tribes ^ and the legal enumeration elsewhere 
 given in the Book of Origins,^ and especially how to Benjamin 
 ten families are assigned in the former and only six in the 
 latter (see p. 368). 
 
 II. It seems from all indications to have been the Third 
 Narrator whose lofty prophetic genius first threw the history of 
 Joseph into that attractive spiritualised form, which made it 
 the never-failing delight of later readers, and led to various 
 attempts to elaborate it still further in the same style. 
 
 That Joseph, either as a tribe or as the father of a tribe, very 
 early disappeared from Canaan, and then in Egypt unexpectedly 
 rose to great power, which turned to the advantage of all the 
 tribes of Israel, had been, as we have shown, a long-established 
 tradition. Yaiious replies may perhaps have been given to the 
 question, how and why he vanished from Canaan ; but none 
 would appear to the notions of that day so satisfactory as tha.t 
 which found the reason in the quarrels of jealous brothers ; since 
 the internecine feuds of the tribes had never within the memory 
 of man been quite laid to rest, and burst out with especial fury 
 just after the time of Solomon. We seem here to recognise the 
 expression of a feeling which agitated the better heart of the 
 Northern Kingdom, — a lament for the lot of Joseph, their hero ; 
 who, despite of the preeminence which was his by birth and 
 gifts, was pursued by the jealousy of his brethren, and by their 
 treachery driven into banishment, to the inexpressible grief of 
 his aged father. The narrator himself probably belonged to 
 the northern kingdom ; as may be inferred, not only from the 
 great elaboration and peculiar distinctness given to this par- 
 ticular legend of Joseph the hero of that kingdom, but also from 
 the circumstance, that among the other brothers he assigns the 
 principal part not, like the other narrators, to Judah, but to 
 
 somewhat dilTcrcntly, und that the total and daiightrrs, of Jacob ; and with Jacob 
 
 ouf;ht properly to be 72. Supposing the and Leah, 72. 
 
 right niinil)er in ver. 15 to be 33, and ' Gen. xlvi. 8-27 ; comp. Ex. i 1-5, vi. 
 
 consequently one of Leah's offspring to be 14-27 (p. 81 s(j.). 
 
 omitted, wc hare exactly 70 children, sons ^ Numb. xxvi.
 
 ISRAELITE TRADITIOX OF JOSEPH. 417 
 
 Reuben.' The conception which this writer formed of the 
 brothers' treachery seems from all intelligible indications to 
 have been as follov/s. The brothers, among whom the sons of 
 the father's concnbmes bore a peculiar hatred towards the nobler 
 born son, were going to kill him, but at the suggestion of Reuben, 
 who hoped secretly to rescue him, only threw him into a pit. 
 When they were gone, some trading Midianites (from the other 
 side of the Jordan) heard his cries, pulled him out of the pit, and 
 carried him secretly into Egypt to sell him as a slave. ^ This 
 must have been the simplest form of the conception of Joseph's 
 history which we are considering ; leading at once to the story 
 of Joseph's unlooked-for elevation from a servile condition to a 
 position of high authority in Egj^t ; and we have every reason 
 to consider this Egyptian legend of Joseph's servitude as the 
 oldest basis of his story (p. 406 sq.). And in this version the 
 thread of the narrative runs on naturally, telling how it hap- 
 pened that Joseph was sold to the Captain of the Executioners, 
 who as such was governor of the State Prison, and how for his 
 remarkable talents Joseph himself was by him put in charge of 
 the prison, and from thence summoned before the king. 
 
 With the idea that Joseph's servitude had commenced even 
 before he left Canaan, it was quite consistent to suppose him still 
 very young when the great experiences of life came upon him. 
 He was seventeen years old when made captive in Canaan, thirty 
 when he became Pharaoh's servant, says the Third Narrator.-'' 
 How far this chronology accords with that of the Book of Origins, 
 cannot now be discovered with certainty, since Jacob's age at 
 the time of his marriage, which this book in its original form 
 proba,bly gave, as it gave Isaac's and Esau's,^ is omitted in the 
 extant narrative. If however we may assume, as most consistent 
 with the extant portions of the book,'^ that the writer supposed 
 Jacob's marriage to have taken place, not in his seventieth year 
 (which would follow from the first assumption), but soon after 
 his fortieth, he must then have placed Joseph's birth, which 
 was believed in ancient tradition to have happened twenty years 
 after the marriage,^ between Jacob's sixtieth and seventieth 
 
 ' Gen. xxxvii. 21-24, 29, xlii. 22, 37, tainly earlier than that of the Ishmaelites, 
 
 38 ; on the other hand xlvi. 48 in the because the latter name is more general 
 
 First Narrator, and xxxvii. 25-28, xliii. and recent, the former much more definite 
 
 3-10, xliv. 18-34 in the Fourth. This and ancient, seep. 315. 
 
 change is especially perceptible, and in ^ Gen. xxxvii. 2, xli. 46. 
 
 itself inexplicable between xlii and xliii. * Gen. xxv. 20, comp. 26, xxvi. 34. 
 
 sq. * Compare Gen. xxvi. 34 with xxvii. 
 
 * Comp. Gen. xl. 15 with xxxvii. 28, 36. 46-xxviii. 9. 
 
 The insertion of the Midianites is cer- " Gen. xxxi. 38, 41 ; comp. xxx. 25. 
 
 VOL. I. E E
 
 418 rRELTMINARY HISTORY. 
 
 years ; wliereas according to the Third Narrator it must liave 
 occurred in his ninetieth, if we assume that Jacob, as is stated 
 in the Book of Origins,' was one hundred and thirty years old 
 when he came to Egypt, and that only the Third and Fourth 
 Narrators' seven years of plenty and two of famine intervene 
 between Joseph's elevation and Jacob's arrival.^ The irrecon- 
 cilableness of these numbers is in truth a proof of the different 
 origin of the narratives themselves. 
 
 The disjointed fragments of popular versions such as these of 
 the story of Joseph now receive a new life worthy of the gi*eat 
 subject, through one grand idea inspired by a narrator, who 
 deserves to be distinguished from all others by the epithet of 
 the prophetic. Through jealousy and folly the brothers would 
 fain annihilate one whose goodness is inconvenient to themselves ; 
 but he, by remaining always true to himself even in the depths 
 of misery, becomes the unconscious instrument of a great de- 
 liverance Avhich triumphs over all ills, and spreads its blessings 
 upon all : — a glorious proof, that good, whether as the Divine 
 will, or as the highest force of the human, is always mightier 
 than its op^josite. ^ To a God who thus always works out good, 
 Joseph becomes the great instrument for good. He is therefore 
 here not merely the great sage and the wise statesman as in the 
 Book of Origins, but a hero of pure devoted love, and of untiring 
 activity for the good of all. While love in its purity is thus the 
 very essence of his own being, his severest trials are brought 
 about by its two opposites — by the false love of his too doting 
 fa,ther, and by the hatred of his brethren. But, remaining ever 
 true to himself, indefatigable for good even in an Egyptian 
 prison, he becomes finally the benefactor, not only of those who 
 had injured him, but even of a multitude of nations. But those 
 who have offended against perfect love, whether by false love 
 or by hatred, cannot be restored without first passing- through 
 a severe trial. The aged father had been already sufficiently 
 punished by the long and woeful loss of his too fondly loved 
 son. A more humiliating expiation awaits the brothers : he 
 who in his own life realises the true love and wisdom himself 
 becomes the instrument of their expiation. To him, without 
 knowing him, they must have recourse in their own time of 
 need, and to him must pray for inercy even when they have 
 recognised him.'' But he, with painful self-constraint and the 
 semblance of cruelty, will not show them all his love, till he 
 
 ' Gen. xlvii. 9. conclusion (Gen. ]. 20), very clearly reveals 
 
 - Gen. xlv. 6. ilie principle of liis entire narrative. 
 
 ' Tiiis narrator himself imlced, af tlie ■* Gen xiii, 1. ir^-'^l.
 
 ISRAELITE TKADITIOX OF JOSEPH. 419 
 
 lias repeatedly probed tliem to tlie quick, brought tbeiu to a 
 voluntary confession of their sin, and made new and better men 
 of them.' 
 
 The general conception being thus maintained at the true 
 prophetic elevation, the separate images and incidents also are 
 here of a prophetic character. The dream, as a prophetic 
 power, is the mainspring which brings about the events. In a 
 dream the boy with innocent surprise first divines his future 
 greatness ; ^ a dream occurs twice in the Egyptian prison and 
 forms the turning point of his destiny ; ^ in a dream, lastly, the 
 whole future fate of Egypt is locked up from the king, and the 
 interpretation of that dream opens Joseph's path to great- 
 ness.'* The prominence given to this agency is, as Ave saw at 
 p. 99, characteristic of the narrator ; but it is also peculiarly 
 appropriate in a picture of Egyptian life, the belief in dreams 
 having been from the earliest times very strong among that 
 people.^ 
 
 III. This narrative, already worked up so elaborately and 
 attractively by the Third Narrator, was again amplified by the 
 Fourth, who, as if fascinated by its beauty, drew out some of 
 its threads to greater length and inserted new ones. He also 
 introduces darker colours, as when at the very outset'' he 
 represents the brothers as deliberately selling their brother. 
 From him proceeds a new trial which Joseph has to undergo, 
 from false love of another kind, on the part of Potiphar's wife.^ 
 To insert this conveniently it was necessary to bring Joseph 
 first into Potiphar's house, and from thence into the prison. 
 This looks very much as if the governor of the prison whose 
 favour Joseph enjoyed were not Potiphar but some one else. 
 To this author is also due the prolonged suspense of the final 
 trial of Joseph's brethren on their second journey.^ Joseph's 
 divining-cup also,^ though apparently harmonising with the 
 prophetic colouring of the Third Narrator, really belongs to the 
 Fourth ; and is found on consideration to represent a mode 
 of proj^hecy very different from the dreams of the former writer. 
 
 ' Gen. xlii, xlv. Narrators. See de Eouge, in the Eevue 
 
 2 Gen. xxxvii. Archeol. 1862, ii. p. 389. A similar story 
 
 ^ Gen. xl. is given by Nicoiaiis of Damascus ; see 
 
 * Gen. xli. C. Miiller's Fragmenta Hist. Gr. iii. p. 
 
 ^ That narrator depicts Egyptian cus- 389 (ö6). Moreover, nothing can be more 
 
 toms throughout witli great truth of siniihir tlian the legend of Sijavusli in the 
 
 colouring ; but this the Book of Origins Shahname. 
 
 had already done in its own way (according " Gen. xxxvii. 2Ö sqq. 
 
 to p. 413 sq.) ; and the intercourse between ' Gen. xxxix. 
 
 Egyjit and Israel was very considerable ^ Gen. xliii, xli v. 
 
 througliout the lifetime of all these four '■' Gen. xliv. 2, 5.
 
 4-20 PRELIMINARY HISTORY. 
 
 It was the Fifth Narrator by wliom all these various elements 
 were wrought into a single narrative.' 
 
 But eA'en under the hands of these later authors the history 
 of Joseph in one respect faithfully retains its original character, 
 — in so far as it remains perfectly distinct in character from 
 the stories of the Patriarchal age. Joseph's blameless character 
 has indeed much of the Patriarchal type ; being in fact much 
 sujjerior to Jacob's, and notably distinguished from Moses and 
 Aaron, the greatest of his successors. But in other respects he 
 and his brothers move within the limits of ordinary life, without 
 any of those revelations from above which were granted to the 
 three Patriarchs. It was reserved for far later writers in the 
 Old Testament to ignore this distinction, and to place Joseph on 
 a perfect equality with the Patriarchs (p. 288). 
 
 In Greek and Latin authors, with the single exception of the 
 passage mentioned at p. 411, we find nothing respecting Josej^h, 
 but what has been either derived immediately from the Old 
 Testament records, or naturally inferred from them.^ Por the 
 invention of weights and measures, referred by Artapanus^ to 
 Joseph, is perhaps only inferred from the wise division of land 
 and produce which as we have seen was attributed to him, 
 although it is possible that the Egyjptians may have first 
 received a system of weights and measures fi-om the Babylonians 
 or some other Semitic people (p. 336). And it is onl}^ from his 
 repute as the fertiliser of Egyj)t, that some old Arabic wi-iters, 
 expressing evidently the po^^ular notion then existing in Egypt 
 itself, refer to him the formation of the great water-works and 
 canals at Fayyum.'* 
 
 But the history of Joseph, when once recorded for everlasting 
 remembrance in the Pentateuch, ought not to have been so 
 wonderfully attractive, if it were not to tempt early writers of 
 the Hellenistic age to expand it still fui-ther in the style ap- 
 proved by the taste of that age. At least in the last century 
 before Christ this history must have famished the subject for 
 a new ornate and imaginative treatment, on a large scale, 
 
 ' From chapter xlvi. the Last Narrator anything new. 
 
 repeats the woi-ds of the Book of Origins, ' In Eusebius, rr(pp. En. ix. 23. Jose- 
 
 with slight alterations and additions ; but phus in like manner ascribes to Abraham 
 
 the passages xlviii. 9-21, 1. 1-11, 14-21, the invention of geometry among the 
 
 are again by the Third Narrator, and Egyptians (p. 336) ; nay, he even derives 
 
 prove that ho also described the deliver- it ultimately from Cain, as the earliest 
 
 anco out of Egypt. tiller of the ground: Ant. i. 2. 
 
 '■^ Artapanus and the poet Philo, in * Abdalhakam's Hist. Aegypt. ed. Karle 
 
 Eusebius, Prcpp. Ev. ix. 23 sq.; Justin p. 4. 11-14. But many otlier ancient 
 
 xxxvi. 2, 7-10 ; where Moses even becomes l)uildings were also ascribed to him : see 
 
 .To.seph's son ; Josephus, Ant. ii. 2-8. Nor Carmoly's Ituieraircs, p. 530. 
 does the Tp.siamentum Sim, ii-v contain
 
 ISKAELITE TRADITION OF JOSEril, 421 
 
 originating- just where a writer might feel impelled thereto, in 
 Egypt. This work has not yet been recovered ; but Fl. Josephus 
 quotes from it a trait which pleased him/ though without saying 
 or apj)arently remembering whence he had derived it. And it 
 was perhaps this book which made the characteristic Egyptian 
 comparison of Joseph with Sarapis,^ a demigod who only appears 
 in the Ptolemaic age, who was described as a beautiful youth 
 who, having been through the infernal regions, imparts to men 
 in this upper world various gifts of healing, and also plenteous 
 harvests, — in token of which latter character he bore on his 
 head a corn measure and a yard measure. Other authors, 
 misled by the similarity of name, identified Joseph the sage 
 with ^sop.^ The twelfth Sura of the Koran,'* remarkable on 
 many accounts, contains a poetical enlargement of the legend 
 founded primarily upon embellished versions of history, such as 
 we find in Fl. Josephus ; and this again Avas afterwards worked up 
 more highly by Mohammedan writers, in their poems of ' Yusuf 
 and Zalikha (Zulaikha).' These however differ so widely from 
 the original legend in tone and feeling, that they have no claim 
 to be regarded as true offshoots from the grand old stem,'^ But 
 in later times they even showed Joseph's tomb beside the Nile,** 
 though (according to p. 406) it must from the time of Moses 
 have been only an empty sepulchre. 
 
 ' Ant. ii. 4. 3-5. It deserves to be in- it passed into Egypt, such a name might 
 
 vestigated whether tlie Syrian work treat- he indigenous. 
 
 ing of Joseph's history, in a Nitrian ^ See Ebedjesu in Assemani's Biblioth. 
 
 Codex in the British Miisenm, be an old Oritnt. iii. 1. p. 74 sq. ; Eeiske in Lessing's 
 
 translation of tliis which was in use in the IVcrke, vol. xxn. p. 355 ; J. Zündel, 
 
 time of Josephus. And the same work Eaojx etait-il Juif ou Ef/ypticn '! Rcvuc 
 
 may probably be intended by the title, AnJieol. 1861, i. p. 354-69. 
 
 The Words of Joseph the Just, in tlie ■• See further remarks on this in tlie 
 
 Ascensio Jesaiae, iv. 22 ; or by tliatof The G'ott. Gel. Anz. 1360, p. 1452 sqq. 
 
 Book of Asenath, so called from Joseph's * On the other hand, Philo describes 
 
 wife mentioned in Gen. xli. 45, xlvi. 20 ; this son of Jacob, speaking the sense of 
 
 the commencement of whicli is given in the later legend, as the Elxt Yount/ (i. 
 
 Greek in the Codex Pscudepigraphus of p. 309), but in his little work On Joseph, 
 
 Fabricius ii. p. 85-102; and which ac- he gives as usual only a lengthy and rhe- 
 
 cording to Dillmann's Catcd. Codd. Aeth. torical, often bad and offensive paraphrase 
 
 Musei Britann. p. 4 is found complete in of tlie Bible narrative, and yet gives an 
 
 the Ethiopic Canon. allegorical interpretation of the first 
 
 * According to Melito in Cureton's half. On principle he follows no other 
 Spic. Ayr. p. 24, 6; and something similar authorities; but yet he sometimes deviates, 
 even in the Gerndra, at ty üi- 3 ; and and makes in ch. xx. a remarkable addi- 
 also in Suidas, under Sapairts. On Sa- tion. To make the narrative consistent, 
 rapis see Taciti Hist. iv. 81-84 ; Plutarch he also leaves out some facts entirely, e.g. 
 On Isis and Osiris, xx\-iii. sq. If he was the preparatory mission of Judah, men- 
 distinguished, as Plutarch says, by the tionedp. 413. 
 
 sign of the Cerberus and Bragon, the " See Abdalliakam's //ü'ät'. ^r^/y^;;". p. 15, 
 
 question arises whether liis name is not and the Rabbinical passages in Hciden- 
 
 identical with fj"ib> (p. 322) ; Egyptian it lioim's Bent. Viertcljahrsschrift für Engl, 
 
 evidently cannot be ; and in Pontus, whence ''''^ '''• t'orschuvg, 1861. p. 248 sqq.
 
 4J2 PRELIMINARY HISTORY. 
 
 C. JOSEPH AS THE FIKST-BOKN OF ISEAEL. CONCLUSION OF 
 THE PRELIMINARY HISTORY. 
 
 The memory of that great change ^vllich took place in Israel 
 some 430 years before Moses, took a form quite in the spirit of 
 prehistoric tradition, in the brief and sig'nificant title given to 
 Joseph, The First-Born of Israel.' ' Tlie Crowned among his 
 Brethren,' he had been also named in Jacob's ancient Blessing 
 (p. 409) ; yet well as this expresses the ancient preeminence of 
 that one tribe, a still deeper meaning is conveyed in the words, 
 First-Born of Israel. Tradition, seeking a new and htting 
 name and idea to express every important relation among men, 
 could here find no image so happy as the conception that Reuben 
 originally held precedence in Israel, and Joseph afterwards 
 came into his place — that what the former forfeited for his 
 an'Ogance (p. 373 sq.) the latter gained by wisdom and faith- 
 fulness. Nor let it be understood as referring only to the mortal 
 individual Joseph ; for it is the tribe of Joseph which remained 
 the leading race, from the Egyptian period until many centuries 
 after the time of Moses, and whose preeminence, gained in those 
 early days, became so completely incorporated with the national 
 life, as to give its peculiar impress to the later history. When 
 Judah rose in later times to such importance among the twelve 
 tribes as might have entitled him equally to the designation 
 First-Born, the primitive modes of thought and expression had 
 so far passed away, that such a title was scarcely likely to be 
 applied to him.^ 
 
 Eeuben, the natural First-Born of Israel, whose right, even 
 when he had trifled it away, could not be forgotten ; Joseph, 
 whose exalted virtues won for him the forfeited place ; Judah, 
 to whom in fact though not in name the honour finally fell : 
 these three figures may be regarded as typifying three great 
 I^eriods of Israelite history, the tAvo first of Avhich belong to the 
 dim twilight of the prehistoric age. And how long must even 
 the first of these national conditions have endured, to impress 
 its remembrance on the national mind, indelible through all the 
 changes and convulsions of later years ! 
 
 At the close of the prehistoric period of Israel, we may con- 
 sider that this much at least has been made evident — that if 
 
 ' This is referred to as early as in the bullock. See also 1 Chron. v. 1, 2. 
 
 very ancient passage, Gen. xlviii. 22 ; but '•' As is in fact expressly stated in 
 
 also in the often retrtuchcd Blessing of 1 Chron. v. 2, compared with 2 8am. 
 
 Jacob, in Deut. xxxiii. 17, "we find an xix. -14, according to the reading of the 
 
 allusion to it in tin' ]ihrabc, a JirsUinfj LXX.
 
 JOSEPH AS TIIH FIRST-BORN OF ISRAEL. 423 
 
 Olli}' we diligently seek and riglitl}- apply all tlie means at our 
 command, many most important historic truths may be recovered 
 even from that distant age. We have not telescopes of sufficient 
 power to discern and describe each single star among the 
 glittering multitude of that distant heaven; yet some single 
 stars begin to shine with greater brilliancy, if we will but 
 refrain from gratuitously throwing dust into our eyes. And it 
 is not impossible that we may yet discover still more as^ we 
 gain by degrees more efficient means of observation. 
 
 Nor is our view wholly limited to Israel as one of the nations 
 of the earth, — to an acquaintance with some of its early habits 
 and institutions. Imperishable fragments of Israelite Poetry 
 and Prophecy have been borne to us safely on the waves of 
 the far-ofP ocean of primeval history ; thus revealing to us 
 the antiquity of the origin of those two influential arts, 
 which especially in that nation were to become so wonderful 
 a power. 
 
 ]:nd of the first a^olume. 
 
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 INDEX 
 
 AciON's Modern Cookery 20 
 
 Alcock's Residence in Japan 16 
 
 Allies on Formation of Christianity 15 
 
 Alpine Guide (Tlie) 16 
 
 Alvensleben's Maximilian in Mexico 4 
 
 Apjohn's Manual of the Metalloids 9 
 
 Aenold's Manual of English Literature .. 5 
 
 Aenott's Elements of Physics 8 
 
 Arundines Cami 18 
 
 Autumn Holidays of a Country Parson 6 
 
 Ayee's Treasury of Bible Knowledge 11 
 
 Bacon's Essays by Wiiately 5 
 
 Life and Letters, by Spedding . . 3 
 
 Works 4 
 
 Bain on the Emotions and Will 7 
 
 on the Senses and Intellect 7 
 
 on the Study of Character 7 
 
 Ball's Guide to the Central Alps lO 
 
 • Guide to the Western Alps l(i 
 
 Guide to the Eastern Alps 16 
 
 Baenaed's Drawing from Nature 1-1 
 
 Bayldon's Rents and Tillages 13 
 
 Beaten Tracks 16 
 
 Beckee's Charides and Gallus 17 
 
 Beethoven's Letters 4 
 
 Benfey's Sanskrit-English Dictionary 6 
 
 Beery's Journals 3 
 
 Black's Treatise on Brewing 20 
 
 Blackley and Friedlandee's German 
 
 and English Dictionary G 
 
 Blaine's Rural b-ports 19 
 
 • Veterinary Art 19 
 
 Blight's Week at the Land's End 17 
 
 Booth's Epigrams G 
 
 BouENE on Screw Propeller 13 
 
 's Catechism of the Steam Engine . . 13 
 
 Handbook of Steam Engine 13 
 
 Treatise on the Steam Engine 13 
 
 Bowdlee's Family Siiaksfeare 18 
 
 Beamley-Mooee's Six Sisters of theValleys 17 
 Beande's Dictionary of Science, Litei-ature, 
 
 and Art 10 
 
 Brat's (C.) Education of the Feelings 7 
 
 • Philosi iphy of Necessity 7 
 
 On Force 7 
 
 Beinton on Food and Digestion 20 
 
 Beistow's Glossary of Mineralogy 8 
 
 Brodie's Constitutional Histoi-y 1 
 
 (Sir C. B.) Works 11 
 
 Browne's Exposition 39 Articles 14 
 
 Buckle's History of Civilisation 2 
 
 Bull's Hints to Motliers 20 
 
 Maternal Management of Children . . 20 
 
 Bunsen's Ancient Egypt 3 
 
 God in History 3 
 
 Memoirs 3 
 
 BuNSEN (E. De) on Apocrypha 15 
 
 — '3 Keys of St. Peter 15 
 
 Bueke's Vicissitudes of Families 4 
 
 Burton's Christian Church 3 
 
 Cabinet Lawyer 20 
 
 Calvert's Wife's Manual 15 
 
 Gates's Biographical Dictionary 3 
 
 Cats and Farlie's Moral Emblems 12 
 
 Chorale Book for England II 
 
 Christian Schools and Scholars 6 
 
 Clough's Lives from Plutarch 2 
 
 CoLENSO (Bishop) on Pentateuch and Book 
 
 of Joshua 15 
 
 CoLLlNS's Horse Traimr's Guide 19 
 
 Commonplace Philosopher in Town and 
 
 Country c 
 
 Conington's Chemical Analysis 10 
 
 ■ Translation of Virgil's Jilneid 18 
 
 CoNTANSEAu's Two French and English 
 
 Dictionaries 6 
 
 CoNTBEAEE and HowsoN'sLife and Epistles 
 
 of St. Paul 11 
 
 Cook's Acts of the Apostles 14 
 
 CoPL.iND's Dictionai-y of Practical Medicine 11 
 
 Coulthaet's Decimal Interest Tables 20 
 
 Cox's Manual of Mythology 17 
 
 Talcs of the Great Persian War 2 
 
 Tales from Greek Mythology 17 
 
 Tales of the Gods and Heroes 17 
 
 Tales of Thebes and Argos 17 
 
 Ceawley's Billiard Book 20 
 
 Ceesy's Encyclopaidia of Civil Engineering 13 
 
 Critical Essays of a Country Parson 6 
 
 Ceowe's History of France 2 
 
 Crump on Banking, &c 19 
 
 CussANS's Graraiiiar of Heraldry 12 
 
 Dart's Iliad of Homer 18 
 
 D'Aubigne's History of the Reformation in 
 
 the time of Calvin 2 
 
 Davidson's Introduction to New Testament 14 
 
 Dayman's Dante's Divina Commedia 18 
 
 De.id Shot (The), by Marksman 19 
 
 De Burgh's Maritime International Law.. 20 
 
 De la Rive's Treatise on Electricity 8 
 
 De Moegan on ^Matter and Spirit 7 
 
 De Tocqueville's Democracy in America . 2 
 
 Diseaeli's Speeches on Reform 5 
 
 DoBSON on the Ox 19 
 
 Dove on Storms 8 
 
 Dyer's City of Rome 2 
 
 Eastlake's Hints on Household Taste .... 12 
 
 Edwards's Shipmaster's Guide 20 
 
 Elements of Botany 9
 
 22 
 
 NEW WORKS PUBUSHED by LONGMANS and CO. 
 
 Ellicott's Commentary on Ephesians .... 14 
 
 Destiny of tlie Creature 14 
 
 Lectures on Life of Christ .... 14 
 
 Commentary on Galatians .... 14 
 
 • Pastoral Epist. 14 
 
 riiilippians,&c. 14 
 
 Thessaloniaus 14 
 
 Engel's Introduction to National Music . . 11 
 
 Essays and Reviews 15 
 
 on Rclipion and Literature, edited by 
 
 Manning, First and Second Series . . 15 
 
 Ewald's History of Israel 14 
 
 Faiebairn's Application of Cast and 
 
 Wrought Ii-on to Building 13 
 
 Information for Engineers .... 13 
 
 Treatise on Mills and Millwork 13 
 
 Fairbairn on Iron Shipbuilding 13 
 
 Farkar's Chapters on Language 5 
 
 Fei.kin on Hosiery & Lace Manufactures. . 13 
 
 Ffoitlkes"s Christendom's Divisions 15 
 
 Fliedner's (Pastor) Life 4 
 
 FKANCls'b Fishing Book 19 
 
 (Sir P.) Memoir and Journal .... 3 
 
 FEorrE's History of England 1 
 
 Short Studies G 
 
 Ganot's Elementary Physics 8 
 
 GiLBER^r and Churchill's Dolomite Moun- 
 tains 16 
 
 Gjll's Papal Drama 2 
 
 GiLLT's Shipwrecks of the Navy 17 
 
 Goodeve's Elements of Mechanism 13 
 
 Gorle's Questions on Browne's Exposition 
 
 of the 39 Articles 14 
 
 Grant's Ethics of Aristotle 4 
 
 Graver Thoughts of a Country Parson 6 
 
 Gray's Anatomy 11 
 
 Greene's Corals and Sea Jellies '? 9 
 
 Sponges and Animalculae 9 
 
 Grove on Correlation of Physical Forces . . 8 
 
 Gwilt's Encyclopredia of Architecture .... 12 
 
 Handbook of Angling, by Ephemera 19 
 
 Hare on Election of Representatives 5 
 
 HARLETand Brown's Histological Demon- 
 strations 11 
 
 Hartwig'« Harmonies of Nature 9 
 
 Polar World 9 
 
 ■ Sea and its Living Wonders — 9 
 
 Tropical World 9 
 
 Havghton's Manual of Geology 8 
 
 Hawker's Instructions to Young Sports- 
 men 19 
 
 Hearn's Plutology 2 
 
 on English Government 2 
 
 Helps's Spanish Conquest in America — 2 
 
 Henderson's Folk-Lore C 
 
 Heeschel's Essays from Reviews 10 
 
 ■ Outlines of Astronomy 7 
 
 Preliminary Discourse on the 
 
 Study of Natural Philosophy 8 
 
 Hewitt on the Diseases of Women 10 
 
 Hodgson's Time and Space 7 
 
 Holmes's System of Surgery 10 
 
 Hooker and Walkkr-Arnott's British 
 
 Flora 9 
 
 Hopkins's Hawaii 8 
 
 Hokne"8 Introduction to tlic Scriptures .. 14 
 Compendium of tlie Scriptures .. 14 
 
 Hoes let's Manual of Poisons 9 
 
 HoSKYNS's Occasional Essays 7 
 
 How we Spent the Summer 16 
 
 Howard's Gymnastic Exercises 11 
 
 Howitt's Australian Discovery IG 
 
 Rural Life of England 17 
 
 Visits to Remarkable Places 17 
 
 Hudson's Executor's Guide 20 
 
 Hughes's Garden Architecture 13 
 
 (W.) Jfanual of Geogra])hy 7 
 
 Hullah's History of Modern Music 11 
 
 Transition Musical Lectures — 11 
 
 Sacred Music 11 
 
 Humphreys's Sentiments of Shakspearc .. 12 
 
 Button's Studies in Parliament 6 
 
 Hymns from Liji-a Germanica 14 
 
 Ingelow's Poems 18 
 
 Story of Doom 18 
 
 Icelandic Legends, Second Series 17 
 
 Jameson's Legends of the Saints and Mar- 
 
 tjTS 12 
 
 Legends of the ^Madonna 12 
 
 Legends of the Monastic Orders 12 
 
 Jameson and Eastlake's History of Our 
 
 Lord 12 
 
 Jenner's Holy Child 18 
 
 Johnston's Gazettc-r, or General Geo- 
 
 gi-aphical Dictionary 7 
 
 Kalisch's Commentary on the Bible 5 
 
 Hebrew Gi ammar 5 
 
 Keith on Destiny of the World 14 
 
 I'ulfilment of Prophecy 14 
 
 Keller's Lake Dwellings of Switzci'land . . 9 
 
 Kesteven's Domestic Medicine 11 
 
 KiRBY anil Spence's Entomology 9 
 
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