Stanley Arthur Cook

“ The numerous emblems of nature-worship and the mother-goddess, especially at Gezer, raise the presumption that the deities of the place were powers of fertility and generation; and, just as the shrines of saints to-day are visited by would-be mothers who hope for offspring, it is not improbable that in olden times those who had been prematurely cut off from the living were interred in sacred sites venerated by the women. ”

“ No nation willingly changes its god (Jer. ii. 11) , and there are means whereby the follower of Yahweh may continue his worship even when outside Yahweh’s land (2 Kings v. 17) . When a people migrate they may take with them their god, and if they conceive him to be a spiritual being who cannot be represented by an image, they may desire a symbolical expression of or, rather, a substitute for his presence. Accordingly the conception of the ark must be based in the first instance upon the beliefs of the particular clans or tribes whose sacred object it was. ”

“ They point in fact to a specific redaction, and thus it would seem that the editor who treated the foundation of the Temple, the central event of Solomon’s life, as a religious epoch of the first importance, regarded this as the beginning of a new era—the history of Israel under the one sanctuary.
When we assume that the book of Kings was thrown into its present form by a Deuteronomistic redactor we do not affirm that he was the first who digested the sources of the history into a continuous work, nor must we ascribe absolute finality to his work. ”

“ The locality of the land of Cush has long been a much-vexed question. Bochart maintained that it was exclusively in Arabia; Schulthess and Gesenius held that it should be sought for nowhere but in Africa (see Ethiopia) . Others again, like Michaelis and Rosenmüller, have supposed that the name Cush was applied to tracts of country both in Arabia and in Africa, but the defective condition of the ancient knowledge of countries and peoples, as also the probability of early migrations of “Cushite” tribes (carrying with them their name) , will account for the main facts. ”

“ MANASSEH (apparently Hebrew for “he who causes to forget,” but see H. W. Hogg, Encyc. Bib., s.v.) ; in the Bible, a tribe of Israel, the elder but less important of the “sons” of Joseph. Its seat lay to the north of Ephraim, but its boundaries can scarcely be defined. ”

“ But Israel remained a great power in religious history while Moab disappeared. It is true that Moab was continuously hard pressed by desert hordes; the exposed condition of the land is emphasized by the chains of ruined forts and castles which even the Romans were compelled to construct. The explanation of the comparative insignificance of Moab, however, is not to be found in purely topographical considerations. Nor can it be sought in political history, since Israel and Judah suffered as much from external movements as Moab itself. ”

“ The elaborate account of the exodus gives the prevailing views which supersede other traditions of the origin both of the Israelites and of the worship of Yahweh (Gen. iv. 26) . Several motives have influenced its growth, [6] and the kernel—the revelation of Yahweh to Moses—has been developed until all the tribes of Israel are included and their history as a people now begins. The old traditions of conquest in central Palestine have similarly been extended, and have been adapted to the now familiar view of Israelite origins. ”

“ The elders of a city entreat: 'May the king our lord hearken to the words of his true servants, and give a present to his servants, while our enemies look on and eat the dust; let not the king's breath depart from us.' The king is the breath of his vassals' lives; they rejoice when it reaches them, for without it they cannot live. ”

“ Moreover, we do not encounter tree-cults at their rise: in every case we arrest the evidence at a certain stage of development. It is often impossible to determine why certain trees are sacred; sometimes it may be that the solitary tree is the survivor of a forest or grove, or it has attracted attention from its curious or uncanny form, or again it stands on a spot which has an immemorial reputation for sanctity. The persistence of sacred localities is often to be observed in the East, where more rudimentary forms of tree-cults stand by the side of or outlive higher types of religion. ”

“ ABRAHAM, or Abram (Hebrew for “father is high”) , the ancestor of the Israelites, the first of the great Biblical patriarchs. His life as narrated in the book of Genesis reflects the traditions of different ages. It is the latest writer (P) who mentions Abram (the original form of the name) , Nahor and Ḥaran, sons of Terah, at the close of a genealogy of the sons of Shem, which includes among its members Eber the eponym of the Hebrews. Terah is said to have come from Ur of the Chaldees, usually identified with Mukayyar in south Babylonia. ”

“ Proceeding upon such lines as these, the Jews wove together their Midrashic homilies or sermons where, though we may find much that seems commonplace, there are illuminating parables and proverbs, metaphors and similes, the whole affording admirable examples of the contemporary thought and culture, both of the writers and—what is often overlooked—the level of their hearers or readers. Like many less ancient discourses, the Midrashim are apt to suffer when read in cold print, and they are sometimes judged from a standpoint which would be prejudicial to the Old Testament itself. ”

“ Although Palestine reappears as only a small fraction of the area dominated by the ancient empires of Egypt and Western Asia, the uniqueness of its experiences can be more vividly realised. If it is found to share many forms of religious belief and custom with its neighbours, one is better able to sever the features which were by no means the exclusive possession of Israel from those which were due to specific influences shaping them to definite ends, and the importance of the little land in the history of humanity can thereby be more truly and permanently estimated. ”

“ The double name Abram-Abraham has even suggested that two personages have been combined in the Biblical narrative; although this does not explain the change from Sarai to Sarah. [8] But it is important to remember that the narratives are not contemporary, and that the interesting discovery of the name Abi-ramu (Abram) on Babylonian contracts of about 2000 B.C. does not prove the Abram of the Old Testament to be an historical person, even as the fact that there were “Amorites” in Babylonia at the same period does not make it certain that the patriarch was one of their number. ”

“ It is impossible not to be struck with the growing development of the Israelite tribes after the invasion of Palestine, their strong position under David, the sudden expansion of the Hebrew monarchy under Solomon, and the subsequent slow decay, and this, indeed, is the picture as it presented itself to the last writers who found in the glories of the past both consolation for the present and grounds for future hopes. ”

“ The religious life of the peasants is bound up with the shrines and saints. There they appeal for offspring, healing, and good harvests; there they dedicate the first-fruits, firstlings, and their children, and in their neighbourhood they prefer to be buried. No stranger may intrude heedlessly within the sacred precincts, and one may see the worshipper enter barefooted praying for permission as he carefully steps over the threshold. The saint by supernatural means is able to protect everything deposited in the vicinity of the tomb, which can thus serve as a store or treasure-house. ”

“ Ikhnaton's deity {104} was the sole god, beside whom there was no other; the beginning of life, the creator of 'the countries of Syria, Nubia, the land of Egypt'; the maker of all mankind diverse in speech, and of all that is upon the earth and on high. It was a despotic and ill-timed monotheism. It introduced a cult which was too far from ordinary worship, one which threatened to overthrow the old-established deities. What was probably more important was the fact that the deity had not the forceful and dominating attributes of the old sun-god. ”