W. E. Orchard

“ We should learn to be thankful for Moses, for he was faithful as far as he knew; if we were as faithful in proportion to the fuller light which has come to us, religion would be a very real and inclusive thing. We should also learn to take heart, if from these beginnings such mighty movements have sprung. The mistakes inevitable to the human mind do not destroy the possibility of revelation, the error cannot everlastingly obscure the truth, nor in the long run will evil triumph over good. ”

“ There is no word here of the mantic fury of the early prophets; although in Gad, who makes known the best way to escape the anger of an offended Deity, we have a survival of the ancient seer; but in Nathan we have a truly noble example of one who, although he may have been dependent on David for his daily bread, yet faced him with the unsparing denunciation of his sin. Here is a man who regards right in Israel more than the smile of princes, and who has a higher conception of his office than that of a convenient manipulator of oracles for the flattering of a King. ”

“ In all the stages through which the Old Testament religion passed there seems to have existed a consciousness of their imperfection, and this produced a tendency to gaze into the future, in which it was thought the ideal religion would exist, and where could be descried the perfect realisation of God's dwelling among men. It is natural that this characteristic should find its clearest expression in the Prophets. When their eyes are upon the present, they condemn; when they look to the immediate future, they utter grave warning and the shadows deepen upon their faces ”

“ But sixty years have to pass, and Northern Palestine awakens to the echoes of a new voice, and listens to the new message of the first of that prophetic band who have enriched literature while they have exalted religion—Amos the herdman of Tekoa.
Where elsewhere in history has there been a religion that, starting in comparative heathenism, almost lost in conflict with a fully-developed paganism, has yet moved steadily upward, breaking away from its origins, shedding the false charms of magic and sorcery, and rising by gradual ascent into fellowship with the Will of God? ”

“ If the Psalms claim to rival them it is to be remembered that the Psalms are probably to be traced to the Prophetic teaching. The Prophets themselves begin a new era; they are creative and owe but little to their past. That for so long a period, in unbroken continuity, there should emerge from a tiny nation a succession of men of differing temperament, training, and social position, who should with remarkable unity voice truths of religion not only hitherto unrecognised but rarely surpassed or apprehended in subsequent history, is in itself a unique phenomenon in comparative religion. ”

“ The animal and natural creation will share in this beneficent order: the lion shall lie down with the lamb, and the wilderness shall blossom like the rose; the veil shall be torn from men's vision, all tears shall be wiped away, and death shall be swallowed up in victory.
When they come to depict the subjects of this kingdom they fail to attain to the inner and ethical requirements enunciated by Jesus, for national hopes and ambitions still cloud their outlook. ”

“ It was possible in that far off age, it was possible in all ages, it is possible now, for a mind still far from the true conception of the ultimate nature of God to yet grasp something, and by a supreme faith in the leading of a Mighty Power to lift a whole nation, and through it the world, one stage further on in goodness and truth. ”

“ This conception could only have arisen after the founding of the monarchy and only when the real David had faded far enough into the past to be idealised. It was in their experience of the imperfection of the Kings of Israel and Judah that the Prophets saw the need for a true kingly head; and in the oppression of military kingdoms, the need for a mighty warrior. And yet it is not a king who fills the picture of the future, so much as a kingdom. ”

“ There is nothing here of the prophetic claim to speak in the name of God; in the Psalms God does not speak to men, men speak to God, but it is just because of this that the revelation in the Psalms reaches so far beyond the limits of Old Testament religion and seems to grasp that religion which was to be personified in the consciousness of Jesus. We are compelled to recognise that men's prayers are themselves a revelation of God, and that when men seek to voice their highest aspiration we catch the sound of a deep undertone, the supplication of the Spirit that intercedes within. ”

“ Still more dangerous is the localisation of the god as the peculiar patron of the land, which justifies many unholy wars and makes such a thing as a national repentance almost impossible. There is a god of the British Empire who is remarkably like the Jehovah-Baal of the old syncretised religion that ruled in the period which we have been studying, and whose worship begets equal indifference to the claims of true religion, and equally cruel treatment for the prophet who strives to call men to a purer faith. ”

“ Israel had suffered for her sins of presumption and disobedience; but were the nations who punished her any more righteous? Moreover, many of those who sat down by the waters of Babylon and wept when they remembered Zion must have been pious and righteous, and innocent of the causes of their nation's calamities. As the prophet broods over the meaning of the Exile, as it affected the godly remnant, he begins to see that this suffering, undeserved though it might be in particular cases, would become a supreme lesson in righteousness to the world. ”

“ Now, with these conditions existing, was it impossible for God to speak to men through their conceptions of history, or had He to wait until the historical spirit prevailed? Could He not use the early legends which they believed, and through them bring the truth to men? ”

“ When we remember the thunderstorms at Sinai, and the common belief that thunder was a special theophany of Jehovah, these ideas are not to be hastily dismissed as altogether incredible. Nor should we be prevented from considering such an idea from the prejudice that it would make the origin of the religion of Israel a piece of Nature-worship and superstition. God has taken man where He has found him, and none can dare to define the limits of childish and crude conceptions within which the Spirit of God can begin His work in man's mind. ”

“ We have already had occasion to notice that it is not pure Monotheism. Jehovah is not the only God; He is the only God for Israel. The heathen deities are still regarded as having a real existence. Neither can it be called a purely spiritual religion, for Jehovah is rather said to have a spirit than to be a spirit; He has a form which, though terrible in its effect on the beholder, by reason of its glory, can nevertheless be seen; He inhabits a special place, which is His sacred territory, and on this Moses stumbles all unwittingly in Midian. ”

“ THE RELIGION OF THE PSALMISTS
The principles of Biblical criticism have often been traced to a vigorous application of the theory of evolution to the growth of religious ideas. Such an application, if without the support of facts, would discredit all critical results; but as a matter of fact, the critical readjustment of the Old Testament does not give a perfect progression in religious development. Indeed, it leaves us with a perplexing story of decline from high attainment. The Law follows the Prophets, and no theory can recognise the Law as an advance upon prophetic teaching. ”

“ If the nation of Israel may be said to have been born in captivity, baptised in the Red Sea, and awakened to national consciousness at Mount Sinai, then the settlement in Canaan corresponds to the no less critical period of adolescence, when, training and tutelage being over, youth must choose its own path and fight its way in the world. Certain it is that the entrance into Canaan largely determined the future of this people, for it must have profoundly modified the national character, turning as it did nomadic tribes into a settled and civilised people ”

“ They picture a condition of human society which is best described in the phrase, "the kingdom of God"; for although such an expression never breaks forth from their lips, its contents are obviously in their minds. It is to be a community in which the will of God is perfectly realised, when religion shall no longer consist in statutes and commands, but in the recognition of an inner law. Absolute righteousness, individual and civil, will prevail, and the nations shall learn war no more. ”

“ To others it will perhaps come as a great relief to feel that the writer of some of the most spiritual utterances of personal religion need not be identified with the historical David. There are awful possibilities of failure in the most religious men, but the problem here is more difficult than that: it would compel us to think of David as displaying in public no hint of the secrets of his inner religious life, but very much that contradicts them. The traditional idea of the authorship of the Psalms has done grave injustice to the sincere if passionate character of the historical David. ”

“ It is somewhat surprising, in view of the subsequent development of these ideas under Christian thought, that the sphere of this tremendous change is conceived to be this present earth; and even when the necessity of a new earth and a new heaven is considered, it is still earth that is to be the chief theatre of events. Heaven is conceived of as the dwelling place of Jehovah, but there is no idea that this great change is to be postponed or relegated to some heavenly condition; heaven is to come down to earth and Jehovah is to dwell among His people and be their God. ”

“ Absolute Monotheism is insisted on with a fulness and repetition which shows that it is in some degree a new truth. There is none beside Jehovah; He is alone, unique; and description is exhausted in the endeavour to picture His glory and power. He is now constantly referred to as the Creator of the world, the framer of the stars on high, the maker of both darkness and light, both good and evil; so that no room is left for the dualism that the Prophet may have learned to despise in the Babylonian religion. ”

“ It is true that the contribution which the Old Testament makes to religion is estimated differently from what it was fifty years ago, and it must be allowed that this brings a charge of having misunderstood the Scriptures against generations of scholars and saints. But it is admitted that all matters of knowledge are open to misunderstanding. It is no argument against the conception that the earth moves round the sun, that the contrary idea was held in other ages. ”

“ This at first may seem terribly confusing to the bewildered student, and it is here that tired men reject criticism and all its works. To such the reminder cannot be spared that in any branch of Science the same conditions have to be overcome, and if he would understand the Old Testament and reap the magnificent reward that its earnest study gives, he must be prepared to face the facts and labour at their solution. ”

“ If we take the Bible as it stands, it presents us with the story of an early legislation given by Moses, neglected however by the entire people, including the Reformers and Prophets, until it suddenly appears after the Exile as the acknowledged code for the regulation of religion and common life. It would be quite possible to conceive that the shock of the Exile drove the Jews to examine the details of the neglected covenant of Jehovah and to restore the authority of the Law of Moses. ”

“ It may appear repulsive to those who have made up their minds as to the methods by which the Spirit of God can work to trace back the supreme genius, the impassioned ethical ideals, and the practical statesmanship of the great Prophets of Israel to movements bordering on insanity; yet it is from enthusiasm that most of the great saving movements of the world have come. Certainly the great religious revival which was soon to come in Israel owed almost as much of its success to these bands of enthusiasts as to the personality of Elijah. ”

“ The crudity of the worship may be seen in the frequent reference to the erection of pillars and stones, which, it will be seen later, have more than a merely memorial purpose. The ease with which we find idolatry always reappearing in later history points to some hereditary tendency at work among the mass of the people. If, however, we suppose that the primitive religion was entirely heathen we shall be faced with the problem of discovering some necessary point of departure to which the higher revelation could affix itself. ”

“ When the people failed to obey the Law, then the Prophet appeared, enforced its principles, and condemned the people's apostasy. If that message was rejected, as it often was, then nothing was left for the Prophet but the proclamation of vengeance, or the prediction of a time when the Law should be ideally fulfilled by the revelation of the Gospel. Between the Law and the Gospel, therefore, stood the Prophets, but they acted only as a bridge from the one to the other. The natural method of studying their writings was to search for the fulfilment of their predictions in history. ”

“ Protestantism has given birth to wider thoughts about God and deeper appreciations of the extent of His working, which are the logical outcome of Protestantism, and yet which are often repudiated by those whose Protestantism is of the aggressive type. A progressive movement of any kind always has these strifes. They are as constant in Science as in Religion, only in Science they are more easily overcome by the greater readiness to accept new revelation. ”