Owen Charles Whitehouse

“ Thus Isaiah became in that troubled age the true founder of Messianic prophecy. The strange contrast between the succession of dynasties and kings cut off by assassination in the northern kingdom, ending in the tragic overthrow of 721 B.C., and the persistent succession through three centuries of the seed of David on the throne of Jerusalem, as well as the marvellous escape of Jerusalem in 701 B.C. from the fate of Samaria, must have invested the seed of David in the eyes of all thoughtful observers with a mysterious and divine significance. ”

“ If Jerusalem has been chosen as His sanctuary and Israel as His own people, it is only that Israel may diffuse God’s blessings in the world even at the cost of Israel’s own humiliation, exile and dispersion.
The Deutero-Isaiah closes a great prophetic succession, which begins with Amos, continues in Isaiah in even greater splendour with the added elements of hope and Messianic expectation, and receives further accession in Jeremiah with his special teaching on inward spiritual and personal religion which constituted the new covenant of divine grace. ”

“ The external bases of Israel’s religion had been swept away, and in exchange for these Jeremiah had led his countrymen to the more permanent internal grounds of a spiritual renewal. But a religion could not permanently subsist in this world of space and time without some external concrete embodiment. It was the task of Ezekiel to take up once more the broken threads of Israel’s religious traditions, and weave them anew into statelier forms of ritual and national polity. The priest-prophet’s keen eye for detail, manifested in the elaborate vision of the wheels and living creatures (Ezek. i.) ”

“ Probably in our modern construction of ancient Hebrew history sufficient consideration has not been given to the inevitable coexistence of different types and planes of thought, each evolved from earlier and more primordial forms. In other words we have to deal not with one evolution but with evolutions.
The existence of the purer and larger conception of Yahweh’s character and power before the advent of Amos indicates that the transition from the past was not so sudden as Wellhausen’s graphic portrayal in the 9th edition of this Encyclopaedia (art. Israel) would have led us to suppose. ”

“ This problem of religion was solved by Amos and by the prophets who succeeded him through a more exalted conception of Yahweh and His sphere of working, which tended to detach Him from His limited realm as a national deity. Amos exhibited Him to his countrymen as lord of the universe, who made the seven stars and Orion and turns the deep midnight darkness into morning. He calls to the waters of the sea and pours them on the earth’s surface (chap. v. 8) . Such a universal God of the world would hardly make Israel His exclusive concern. ”

“ Again, the conception of Yahweh suffered modification. In the desert he was worshipped as an atmospheric deity, who manifested himself in thunder and lightning, whose abode was in the sky, whose sanctuary was on the mountain summit of Horeb-Sinai, and whose movable palladium was the ark of the covenant. But when the nomadic clans of Israel came to occupy the settled abodes of the agricultural Canaanites who had a stake in the soil which they cultivated, these conditions evidently reacted on their religion. ”

“ Though Yahweh’s chastisements on Ephraim and Judah would continue to fall till scarcely a remnant was left (Isa. vi. 13, LXX.) , yet all was not to be lost. A remnant of the people was to return, i.e. be converted to Yahweh. The name given to an infant child—Immanuel—was to become the mystic symbol of a growing hope. God’s presence was to abide in Jerusalem, and, as the century drew near its close, “Immanuel” became the watchword and talisman of a strong faith that God would never permit Jerusalem to be captured by the Assyrians. ”

“ The Prophets.—The rise of the order of prophets, who gradually emerged out of and became distinct from the old Hebrew “seer” or augur (1 Sam. ix. 9) , [20] marks a new epoch in the religious development of the Hebrews. Over the successive stages of this growth we pass lightly (see Prophet) . The life-and-death struggle between Israel and the Philistines in the reign of Saul called forth under Samuel’s leadership a new order of “men of God,” who were called “prophets” or divinely inspired speakers. ”

“ In Wellhausen’s words, each petty state “revolved on its own axis” of social-religious life till the armies of Tiglath-Pileser III. broke up the security within the Canaanite borders. According to the dominating popular conception, the destruction of the national power by a foreign army meant the overthrow of the prestige of the national deity by the foreign nation’s god. If Assyria finally overthrew Israel and carried off Yahweh’s shrine, Assur (Ašur) , the tutelary deity of Assyria, was mightier than Yahweh. ”

“ Prophetic personality now moved in a larger sphere than that of divination, important though that function be in the social life of the ancient state [22] as instrumental in declaring the will of the deity when any enterprise was on foot. For the prophet’s function became in an increasing degree a function of mind, and not merely of traditional routine or mechanical technique, like that of the diviner with his arrows or his lots which he cast in the presence of the ephod or plated Yahweh image. ”

“ This Messianic expectation had been a fermenting leaven since the great days of Judas Maccabaeus. The conceptions of Jesus of Nazareth, however, were not the Messianic conceptions of his fellow-countrymen, but of the spiritual “son of man” destined to found a kingdom of God which was righteousness and peace. The Tōrah of Jesus was essentially prophetic and in no sense priestly or legal. The arrested prophetic movement of Jeremiah and Deutero-Isaiah reappears in John the Baptist and Jesus after an interval of more than five centuries. ”

“ Despite the capture of the ark after the disastrous battle of Shiloh, Yahweh had in the end shown himself through a destructive plague superior in might to the Philistine Dagon. There are indeed abundant indications that prove that in the prevalent popular religion of the regal period monotheistic conceptions had no place. Yahweh was god only of Israel and of Israel’s land. An invasion of foreign territory would bring Israel under the power of its patron-deity. ”

“ Of this tradition the Naboth incident in the time of Ahab furnishes a clear example which brings to light the contrast between the Tyrian Baal-cult, which was scarcely ethical, and of which Jezebel and Ahab were devotees, and the moral requirements of the religion of Yahweh of which Elijah was the prophet and impassioned exponent. It was this definite basis of ethical Mosaic religion to which the prophets of the 8th century appealed, and apart from which their denunciations become meaningless. ”

“ The emergence of Satan as a definite supernatural personality, the head or prince of the world of evil spirits, is entirely a phenomenon of post-exilian Judaism. He is portrayed as the arch-adversary and accuser of man. It is impossible to deny Persian influence in the development of this conception, and that the Persian Ahriman (Angromainyu) , the evil personality opposed to the good, Ahura Mazda, moulded the Jewish counterpart, Satan. But in Judaism monotheistic conceptions reigned supreme, and the Satan of Jewish belief as opposed to God stops short of the dualism of Persian religion. ”

“ Jeremiah foresaw that there was now no possibility of recovery. The Hebrew state was doomed and even its temple was to be destroyed. This involved an entire reconstruction of theological ideas which went beyond even the reconstructions of Amos and Isaiah. In the old religion the race or clan was the unit of religion as well as of social life. Properly speaking, the individual was related to God only through the externalities of the clan or tribal life, its common temple and its common sacra. ”

“ In the Deutero-Isaiah (chaps. xl.-lv.) we have no longer a Jewish but a foreign messiah. The onward progress of the Persian Cyrus and his anticipated conquest of Babylonia marked him out as Yahweh’s anointed instrument for effecting the deliverance of exiled Israel and their restoration to their old home and city (Isa. xli. 2, xliv. 24, xlv.) . This was, however, but a subsidiary issue and possesses no permanent spiritual significance. Of far more vital importance is the conception of Israel as God’s suffering servant. ”

“ No heathen may tread the outer court, no layman the inner court, while the holiest of all may not be trodden even by the priest Ezekiel but only by the angel who accompanies him. “The temple-house has a graduated series of compartments increasing in sanctity inwards” (Davidson) . In the innermost the presence of Yahweh abides.
We are here moving in a realm of ideas prevailing in ancient Israel respecting holiness, uncleanness and sin, which are ceremonial and not ethical; see especially Robertson Smith’s Religion of the Semites, 2nd ed., p. ”

“ These views of Duhm, in which a severe distinction is thus drawn between the representation of Yahweh’s servant in the servant-passages, and that which meets us in the rest of the Deutero-Isaiah, have been challenged by a succession of critics. [25] It is only necessary for us to take note of the ideal in its general features. It probably arose from the fact that the calamities from which Israel had suffered both before and during the exile had drawn the reflective minds of the race to the contemplation of the problem of suffering. ”

“ Yahweh’s care for other peoples does not appear. The flesh of a dead (unslaughtered) beast is not to be eaten, but it may be given to the “stranger within the gates”! (Deut. xiv. 21) . [29] (c) Prophetic religion was a religion of the spirit which came to the messenger (Isa. lxi. 1) and expressed itself as a word of instruction of Yahweh (tōrah) ; see Isa. 1. 10. Now when the Hebrew religion was reduced to written form it began to be a book-religion, and since the book consisted of fixed rules and enactments, religion began to acquire a stereotyped character. ”

“ It is therefore certain that belief in demons and magic spells prevailed in pre-Mosaic times [5] among the Israelite clans. And it is also probable that certain persons combined in their own individuality the functions of magician and sacrificer as well as soothsayer. For we know that in Arabic the Kāhin, or soothsayer, is the same participial form that we meet with in the Hebrew Kōhēn, or priest, and in the early period of Hebrew history (e.g. in the days of Saul and David) it was the priest with the ephod or image of Yahweh who gave answers to those who consulted him. ”

“ Both Canaanite and Hebrew spoke a common language; (b) the name Baal is not in reality an individual proper name like Kemōsh (Chemosh) , Rammān or Hadad, but is, like Ēl (Ilu) “god,” an appellative meaning “lord,” “owner” or “husband.” The name Baal might therefore be used for any deity such as Milk (Milcom) or Shemesh (“sun”) who was the divine owner of the spot. It was simply a covering epithet, and like the word “god” could be transferred from one deity to another. ”

“ In the younger contemporary prophet of Ephraim, Hosea, the stress is laid on the relation of love (ḥesēd) between Yahweh, the divine husband, and Israel, the faithless spouse. Israel’s faithlessness is shown in idolatry and the prevailing corruption of the high places in which the old Canaanite Baal was worshipped instead of Yahweh. ”

“ In his earlier oracles (xxxiv. 23 foll.) we find one shepherd ruling over united Israel, viz. Yahweh’s servant David, whereas in the ideal scheme detailed in chap. xl. et seq. the rôle of the prince as a ruler is a very shadowy one. The prince, it is true, has a central domain, but his functions are ecclesiastical and subordinate and his powers strictly limited (xlvi. 3-8, 12, 16-18) .
Thus the exile period marks the parting of the ways in the development of Hebrew religion. In the Deutero-Isaiah we reach the highest point in the evolution of prophetism. ”

“ Doubtless such a reform met with strong resistance from the disestablished and vested interests, but it was firmly supported by royal influence and by the Jerusalem priesthood as well as by the true prophets of Yahweh who had protested against the idolatrous usages and corruptions of the high places.
The strong impress of Hebrew prophecy is to be found in the deeply marked ethical spirit of the Deuteronomic legislation. Love to God and love to man is stamped on a large number of its provisions. Love to God is emphasized in Deut. ”

“ Deuteronomic Legalism.—The book of Deuteronomy was the product of prophetic teaching operating on traditional custom, which was represented in its essential features by the two codes of legislation contained in Ex. xx. 24-xxiii. 19 (E) and Ex. xxxiv. 10-26 (J) , but had also become tainted and corrupted by centuries of Canaanite influence and practice which especially infected the cult of the high places. The existence of “high places” is pre-supposed in those two ancient codes and is also presumed in the narratives of the documents E and J which contain them. ”