IDOLATRY AMONG THE ANCIENT ISRAELITES. N the early days of Rationalism Israelitish Idolatry was a very famous votes many pages to the refutation of the portentous inferences which the Rationalists of those days, dealing there in particular with de Wette, drew from the fact that the Israelites for so long a time after their settlement in the Holy Land, continued to be so desperately prone to idolatry. They assumed that the Israelites generally were simple idolaters, like all other nations in the old world, and therefore could not have had among them a legislative work like the Pentateuch which so strenuously forbids all idolatry; and so concluded, that the Pentateuch was not composed till some centuries after the time of Moses, different writers of the Rationalistic school propounding different theories both as to the time, or times, and the way in which the Pentateuch was put together, and eventually assumed its complete form. Hengstenberg's best argument on this head is, that some of the very forms of the idolatry among the ancient Israelites prove the existence of the Pentateuch at the time, for those forms were in many instances a mere imitation of Mosaic institutions, referring for illustrations to what is recorded in the 17th chapter of the book of Judges; to Jeroboam's instituting a feast like unto one enjoined in the Law of Moses, only in a different month (1 Kings xii. 32), &c. We need not examine the cogency of this argument, as we have a much more satisfactory one to produce. But it is worth pointing out that it is not merely in order to refute Rationalists in the inferences they would draw from Israelitish idolatry, as to the age of the Pentateuch, that the subject requires to be properly, but quite impartially, investigated; this is equally necessary for other reasons, especially these two: first, that it would be contrary to the Divine justice that the Almighty should have chosen for His “peculiar people one idolatrous nation out of a number of other idolatrous nations, when all in reality stood upon the same level in a moral and religious point of view. The Calvinistic hypothesis we may here disregard, as the conclusion we shall come to will sufficiently exhibit the substantial justice of the Divine election independent of all theory, and to Calvinistic texts we can oppose enough of anti-calvinistic ones, but note in particular, Amos iii. 2,†-we, of course, not for a moment supposing that one Scripture really ever contradicts another. Secondly, we cannot allow absolute, unmitigated idolatry to have prevailed among the ancient Israelites generally, as it did prevail among other nations, for this reason, that if the Israelites really possessed a divine revelation, they ought to have been the better for so precious a treasure, and ought not to have been as bad as those who had forfeited that high privilege, originally common to the whole human race, as St. Paul (Rom. i.), and true philosophy, teaches. *Vol. ii. p. 96, seqq. † [But what are we to do with the Pauline hypothesis, Rom. ix. Surely the writer of the Epistle to the Romans cannot be supposed to have been ignorant of Amos iii. 2.- Editor of H. C. W. and P. I.] But let us be understood, we do not deny that the ancient Israelites were the kind of idolaters that has commonly been assumed, because this would lead to ugly results; truth must be acknowledged at all costs, and at all hazards; we deny that idolatry because the only authority that is, or that can be, alleged for it, wholly refutes it. The first striking fact that we have to point out is that, of all the false gods that the Israelites ever worshipped, not one was indigenous amongst them, peculiarly their own, such as all heathen nations ever had. To the Israelites, all false gods were "strange gods;" in Egypt, they were Egyptian; in Canaan, Canaanitish, or we read of gods which their fathers worshipped "on the other side of the flood," the Euphrates, Assyrian gods (Josh. xxiv. 15). And we can afford to treat with contempt the profane notion of the worst sort of Rationalists, as if the Israelites had no higher idea of their JEHOVAH than Moabites had of their Chemosh, or Amorites of their Molech, &c. The true Israelitish idea of their God is conveyed in the words of king Hezekiah, "Of a truth, LORD, the kings of Assyria have destroyed the nations, and their lands,* and have cast their gods into the fire; for they were no gods, but the work of man's hands, wood and stone; therefore, (rather, and so,) they have destroyed them. Now, therefore, O LORD our God, I beseech Thee, save Thou us out of his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that Thou LORD alone art God," as it is in 2 Kings xix. 17, 18. And this language reminds us at the same time of the vast distinction that, while heathen nations had each their separate different gods, the "God of Israel," called "of Israel" only because Israel alone worshipped Him, is throughout the whole of the Old Testament spoken of, and in acts represented, as the "God of all the earth,” “of all the kingdoms of the earth," and in other similar language, and compare Jer. x. 11, the only verse in the Old Testament outside Daniel and Ezra, which is Chaldee, as has been shrewdly conjectured, that the Jews, about to go to the land of the Chaldees, might have a Chaldee answer ready to give to those who might tempt them to the Chaldean idolatry. Unbelievers sometimes make much of the anthropomorphic and anthropopathic language found in the Old Testament, God's arm, the eyes of the Lord, and ears; that God is angry, or well pleased, or repents. Without such language, the ideas intended to be conveyed could not be made intelligible to man. But no man could read the Old Testament generally, and carry away the impression that the God of this book has any thing in common with any created being. (Compare Ps. cxxxix. 116; Job xxiii. 8, 9, &c. &c.) While no man can read Homer's Iliad, or Virgil's Eneid, or any similar Hindu work, or any heathen mythology, without having the impression left on his mind, that the gods spoken of in these works are, or were, by their worshippers regarded only as very much stronger, bigger, but otherwise just like, and no way better than, ordinary mortals. And, in the same way does the worship differ which has ever been rendered to the One God, from that which has, at least "And their land," literally, which may mean their own land, according to Isa. xiv. 20, with which compare Hos. x. 14, where most likely the Assyrian Arbela is meant, and not the Galilean, as some would have it, which Shalmaneser in fury destroyed before he became king, when he was not yet Shalmaneser but only Shalman. within historic times, everywhere been rendered, and was by the heathen in Scripture spoken of in pre-historic times rendered, to the many gods. Or shall we pause to answer the infidel, who would infer from the Divine command to Abraham to sacrifice his only son Isaac, that Israelites might legitimately have offered human sacrifices to their God?—a mere piece of malice. Abraham's faith was tried, whether he would do for his God, what so many others did for their gods. And his willingness shown, his hand is stayed, as if for the very purpose of showing that in the eyes of the true God such an act was abominable. Let us now come to some particulars. In the book of Joshua, xxiv., after a call upon the people to choose whether they would serve the LORD, or "whether the gods which their fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land they now dwelt," we read that "the people answered and said, God forbid that we should forsake the LORD, to serve other gods," &c. And upon Joshua's reminding them of the holiness of God, and the entire selfsurrender He requires, they persist, "Nay, but we will serve the LORD." And then "Joshua said unto the people, ye are witnesses against yourselves (□). ... . And they said, Witnesses. Now, therefore," Joshua continues, "put away the strange gods which are among you," &c. Now, is this language that could have been addressed to mere idolaters ? strange gods they had among them (all ?), but they shrank with horror from the idea of forsaking the LORD! And this while still only on the threshold of the Land of Promise, fresh from the wilderness. In like language, does Samuel (b. 1, c. viii.) in his day address them, when after twenty years of backsliding "all the house of Israel began to sigh, languish (1) after the Lord :" "And Samuel spake unto all the house of Israel, saying, If ye will return unto the LORD with all your hearts, then put away the strange gods, and the Ashtartes from among you, and prepare your hearts unto the LORD, and serve Him only," &c., where the whole stress lies upon the " with all your hearts," and " Him only," the unholy combination of the worship of the true God with the veneration of idols, and Teraphim, being all that had need to be checked. And when in the "Ten commandments" it is, "Thou shalt have no other Gods before me (coram me)," the sense can only be the same, and is paraphrased Deut. xxvii. 15, "Cursed be the man that maketh any graven or molten image . . . and putteth it in a secret place," the public, professed worship being that of Johovah. And so when Amos (v. 26) charges Israel with having in the wilderness carried about with them the tabernacle of Moloch,† (a small object, no doubt), and certain other idolatrous objects, this too could have been done only in secret, as that Moses who dealt so summarily with the golden calf, and which he could not have done had the people not known and felt their illicit superstition to be something only to be ashamed of, and in which a part of the people only, a mob who had for the * With Dean Stanley's notion (Lectures on the Jewish Church), as if the Jewish Jehovah's priests were merely his Janissaries, and His temple nothing but a slaughter-house, we shall deal in another paper. † Moloch, as often Baal, here used as a generic, for any idol, as Moloch was not likely to be known to the Israelites at that time. Upon Remphan (Acts vii. 43) see Ges. Thesaur. p. 669b f., though the Hebrew word so rendered is, no doubt, intended for the same kind of device as in Jer. vii. 18, and xliv. 19. time got the upper hand, could have been concerned, as in Num. xxv. 3-5, though not, as the Jews would have it, the "mixed multitude" only, that Moses would surely not have dealt more tenderly with any other idol, if seen in public. Note carefully 1 Cor. x. 7. But let us come to the kingdom of the Ten tribes, where idolatry was legally established. Of what sort was it, and how did it prevail ? Hengstenberg, as referred to before, justly remarks: What a very different aspect the kingdom of the Ten tribes would have presented had the "Law of Moses" not been universally known and accepted in Israel long before the time of Solomon! But Jeroboam succeeded in establishing his calves, as a Versinnlichung, to use a German word, a sensibelizing, of the unseen God, the calves themselves never being called by the Divine name; mad political passion reconciling the people to the abomination; though not only Priests and Levites then forsaking the country, but such large numbers also "of all the tribes of Israel, such as set their heart to seek the LORD God of Israel," emigrated to the land of Judah, as sensibly to strengthen this kingdom.* Some seventy-five years now pass from this to the time of Elijah; and what is his language to the people of the Ten tribes, on the occasion of his great trial and triumph? And be it remembered that, during all this time the court did its utmost to encourage every kind of idolatry, and at this very time wicked Jezebel reigned, the frenzied worshipper of Baal, and the relentless persecutor of the worshippers of Jehovah: "How long halt ye between two opinions?" opinions being only a rough guess at the meaning of the original word, but analogy requiring us to understand here, not a doubt which of two views be the right one, but of a combination of two which are irreconcilable; "If the LORD be God, follow Him (alone): but if Baal, then follow Him." Had the people so addressed forgotten their own God, or utterly abandoned His worship? But we come down some ninety years later still, when the Prophet Amos, in the midst of the prosperous reign of Jeroboam II., foretells the utter subversion of the kingdom; and what do we learn from him? First, that the Israelites of the ten tribes, at this late period, still scrupulously observed the new moons and Sabbaths ordained by Moses, only anxious that the sacred day might pass for them to engage in their trading operations. But secondly, what is much more remarkable, they "desired," and it means, very earnestly desired, "the day of the LORD." And what did they desire in this day of the Lord? Certainly, no other desire than that which Malachi, much later, speaks of: "And the Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come to His temple, even the Messenger of the covenant whom ye desire," || but who was to come as a Judge, as a Purifier, a Refiner. As in the time of Malachi in Judah, so already in the time of Amos in Israel, the people desired the day of the Lord without knowing what it would turn out to be; they desired the promised restoration of prosperity, and final, permanent security, * 2 Chron. xi. 13-17. For comparative numbers previously see 1 Sam. xi. 8; 2 Sam. xxiv. 9, to be corrected by 1 Chron. xxi. 5. † 1 Kings xviii. 21, Baal in this verse, as Baals, in the plural, in v. 18, for any idol; cf. Hos. ii. passim; xi. 2; xiii. 1; Zeph. i. 4. || Mal. iii, 1. Amos viii, 5, and comp. v. 21-23. § Amos v. 18. under Him who "was for to come," the so long looked for Son of David, the Redeemer, the Saviour, the Messiah, without knowing, alas! that they would only crucify Him, and so that day of the Lord would, indeed, be to them only, what in the event it proved, "a day of darkness, and not light!" Were, then, the people even in the idolatrous kingdom of Israel simple idolaters, no longer caring at all for, no longer at all worshipping, the God of Israel? With the exception therefore, may be of the priests of the Baals, and some of the most debased of the people, the Israelites at large, all and always, professed to be worshippers of the true God, notwithstanding that they for the most part were given at the same time also to every variety of idolatrous venerations and worships. In fact, what the milder sorts of superstition, such as about witches, charms, ghosts, fortune-telling, are at this very day, even in England, to say nothing of saint worship and relics in other countries, that idolatry was among the ancient Israelites,-both alike departures from God-both alike proof of a defective faith, and want of entire trust in God, but neither resulting from an utter ignorance, or actual deliberate forsaking, of God. The degrees may be different, the principle is the same. Every now and then when the papers report a gross case of pretended witchcraft, or fortune-telling imposture, they add the remark: "This shows what an amount of superstition still lingers among the lower orders of the county of N.," but which, in the course of a few years, is said of not a few. What wonder then, that three thousand years ago something even worse should have prevailed among the Israelites! But though there never was a time when the Israelites could, in the ordinary sense of the words, be called a nation of idolaters, the prophets of God never would countenance the least taint of idolatry, and denounced and condemned every connexion with idols, though combined with the worship of the one true God, simply as unmitigated idolatry, and as an utter forsaking of God, because God can agree to no compromise, will accept no half heart, and we may well doubt whether in times when they even practised idolatry, such as theirs usually was, they were not nearer to God, than in the time of our Lord, when every trace of idolatry was banished from amongst them, when that Lord said to their teachers, "Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith;" for if not, why did then such terrible judgments overtake them? While even of their wilderness life, notwithstanding the golden calf, and all their murmurings, God could say, "I remember thee, the kindness (tenderness, the original a very strong word) of thy youth, the love of thine espousals (bridehood), when thou wentest after me in *The notion that Scripture encourages faith in witches, is simply absurd. Persons professing witchcraft, making a trade of it, were to be put to death, not persons suspected of witchcraft, while they disavow it. On the Witch of Endor (1 Sam. xxviii.) commentators differ. We agree with those who regard the woman as a mere impostor. Saul never sees Samuel, and we doubt not but the words given as those of Samuel are those only of the woman herself, a ventriloquist, and the fate of Saul she could easily know; and what would she have lost if her prediction had failed? † Matt. xxiii, 23. |