Prolegomena to the History of Israel Part 21

From the exodus from Egypt to the beginning of the building of the temple was a period of 430 years; and from the latter to the destruction of Jerusalem, a period, according to the numbers of the kings of Judah, of 430 years, or reckoning the exile, of 480 years, as before. In Chronicles, the succession from Azariah ben Ahimaaz, who was, according to the correct reading, the first to officiate in the temple of Solomon, to Jozadak, who was carried away in the captivity, consists of eleven high priests; thus, reckoning the exile, we have again twelve generations of 40 years each. The detailed figures which compose the total are here more complicated, which is no doubt partly due to the fact that some of them are dates which the reviser found given. Yet in this instance also the number 40 is the basis of calculation, as we see in the reigns of the kings of Judah. From the division of the kingdom to the destruction of Samaria in the 6th year of Hezekiah, the numbers are as follows: Rehoboam and Abijam, 20; Asa, 41; Jehoshaphat, Joram, Ahaziah, Athaliah, 40; Joash, 40; Amaziah and Uzziah, 81; Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, 38. From the destruction of Samaria to the last date in Kings (2Kings xxv. 27), Hezekiah, Mana.s.seh, Amon, have 80; Josiah, Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, 79 1/4. Let him believe who can that it is a mere chance that the figures 41 + 81 + 38 make up exactly 40 + 80 + 40.

The series of the kings of Israel is in point of chronology dependent on the series of Judah. According to the numbers of the latter, 393 years elapsed from the division of the kingdom to the Babylonian captivity; and if we a.s.sume with Ezekiel (iv. 4) that Samaria fell 150 years earlier than Judah, 243 years remain for the duration of the northern kingdom. The figures given amount in fact to 242 years. These 150 Israelite years, from the destruction of Samaria to the destruction of Jerusalem, exceed, it is true, by 17 the sum of the parallel years of Judah; and the Israelite years from 1 Jeroboam to 9 Hosea fall short of the years in Judah from 1 Rehoboam to 6 Hezekiah by about the same number.

This shows that no effort was made at first to synchronise the individual reigns in the two series. The 242 years of the northern kingdom are divided, by the epoch of 1 Jehu, into 98 and 144. If we take them at 240, the half of 480, the 98 must be changed into 96, which then agree with the contemporary 96 Jewish years. The deduction must be made at the reign of Baasha. Then we get the following play of figures: Jeroboam 22, Nadab 2, Baasha 22, Elah 2, Omri 12, Ahab 22, Ahaziah 2, Joram 12. That is to say, the eight kings have together 96 years, the first four and the last four 48 each. Two have the average number 12; the other 6 consists of three pairs of father and son; and the twice 12 years belonging to each pair are divided so that the father gets 12 + 10, and the son 12 - 10, obviously because the father was considered much more important than the son. /1/

1. Numbers of the kings of Judah from Solomon : 37+ 17+ 3 + 41 + 25 + 8 + 1 + 6 + 40 + 29 + 52 + 16 + 29 + 55 + 2 + 31 + 11 + 11=430 years.

Jehoahaz and Jechoiachin are not counted; if they are included and a year allowed for them, we must say 36 for Solomon. Numbers of the kings of Israel from 1 Jeroboam: 22 + 2 + 24 +2+ 12 + 22 + 2+ 12 + 28 + 17 + 16 + 41 + 1 + 10 + 2 + 20 + 9. The artificial relations of the numbers, as explained above, were communicated to me by Ernst Krey.

On the point that the synchronisms do not belong to the original arrangement, see Jahrb. fur Deutsche Theol., 1875, p. 607 seq.

The correct view of Ezekiel iv. was first published by Bernhard Duhm (Theol. dir Proph., p. 253). The number 390, given in the Ma.s.soretic text in verse 5 for the duration of the captivity of the northern Israelites, is impossible. For Ezekiel cannot mean that they have been 350 years in exile already, and on the other hand he cannot reckon the remaining period of their punishment at more than 40 years, because 40 years is his calculation of the period of exile of Judah, and the rest.i.tution of Israel and that of Judah are in his view to take place at the same time; and indeed that of Egypt as well, obviously because brought about by the same cause (xxix. 1 1-16), the fall of the Chaldeans, which may be expected to take place in 40 years. The number 390 has got into verse 5 by mistake from verse 9, where it is used of a quite different subject, not the years of the exile, but the days of the last siege of Jerusalem. The gloss verse 13 rests on a similar confusion. The Septuagint correctly gives for the Israelite exile the number of 150 years, or 190, according as the last 40 years in which their punishment continued, along with that of Judah, were included or omitted. It may be remarked that 390 = 240 + 150. Compare further Robertson Smith, in the Journal of Philologie, vol x., p. 209-213.

The great period thus marked off and artificially divided into subperiods, is surveyed and appraised at every important epoch in sermon-like discourses. These are much more frequent in Kings than in Judges and Samuel. It makes no difference whether the writer speaks in his own person, or by the mouth of another; in reviews of the past he speaks himself, 2Kings xvii.; in antic.i.p.ations of the future he makes another speak (1Kings viii.

ix.). A few examples must be cited to show what we mean.

The great epoch of the work is the building of the temple. On this occasion Solomon makes a great dedicatory oration, in which he entreats Jehovah to hear from heaven the prayer of those who shall seek Him in this place. He concludes as follows: "If they sin against Thee (for there is no man that sinneth not) and Thou be angry with them and deliver them to be carried away captive into the land of the enemy, far or near, if they then bethink themselves and make supplication to Thee, saying, We have sinned and have done perversely and are guilty, and so return unto Thee with all their heart and all their soul in the land of the enemies which led them away captive, and pray unto Thee toward their land which Thou gavest unto their fathers, the city which Thou hast chosen, and the house which Thou hast built for Thy name, then hear Thou in heaven their prayer and their supplication, and maintain their cause, and forgive thy people their unfaithfulness, and give them compa.s.sion before them that carried them away captive, that they may have compa.s.sion upon them. For they be Thy people and Thine inheritance, which Thou broughtest forth out of Egypt from the midst of the furnace of iron, and didst separate them to Thyself from among all the people of the earth, as Thou spakest by Moses thy servant."

What Jehovah answered to this we learn in chapter ix.

"I have heard thy prayer and thy supplication which thou hast made before me; I have hallowed this house, to put my name there for ever, and mine eyes and my heart shall be there perpetually. If thou wilt walk before me, as did David thy father, in integrity of heart and in uprightness, to do all that I have commanded thee, and wilt keep my statutes and my judgments, I will establish the throne of thy kingdom upon Israel for ever, as I promised to David thy father, saying, There shall not fail thee a man upon the throne of Israel.

But if YE or YOUR CHILDREN turn away from me, and will not keep my statutes and my judgments which I have set before you, but wors.h.i.+p other G.o.ds, then will I cut off Israel out of the land which I have given them, and this house which I have hallowed for my name I will cast out of my sight, and Israel shall be a proverb and a byword among all people, and this house a ruin.

And when they ask: Why hath Jehovah done thus to this land and to this house? the answer shall be: Because they forsook Jehovah their G.o.d, who brought forth their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and have taken hold upon other G.o.ds, and have wors.h.i.+pped them and served them."

The division of the kingdom is also a very marked era in the history. It is introduced by a prophecy of Abijah to the first Jeroboam.

"Behold, I rend the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon, and will give ten tribes to thee; but he shall have one tribe for my servant David's sake, and for Jerusalem's sake, the city which I have chosen; because he has forsaken me, and wors.h.i.+pped Astarte of Sidon, and Chemosh of Moab, and Milcom of Ammon, and has not walked in my ways to do that which is right in my eyes, my statutes, and my judgments, like David his father. And it shall be, if thou wilt hearken unto all that I command thee, and wilt walk in my ways, and do what is right in my sight, to keep my statutes and my commandments as David my servant did, that I will be with thee and build thee a sure house as I built for David, and will give Israel unto thee. And I will for this afflict the seed of David, but not for ever."

We pa.s.s over a series of prophecies in a similar strain which occur regularly at the changes of dynasty in the northern kingdom, and cite only the concluding words which accompany the fall of the kingdom of the ten tribes (2Kings xvii.). This fall came about "because the children of Israel sinned against Jehovah their G.o.d, which brought them up out of the land of Egypt, and feared other G.o.ds, and walked in the statutes of the heathen whom they had driven out, and in the innovations of the kings of Israel; and because the children of Israel imputed to Jehovah their G.o.d things which are not so, and built them high places in all their cities, from the tower of the watchman to the fenced city; and they set up pillars and Asheras on every high hill and under every green tree, and there they sacrificed in all the high places, as did the people whom Jehovah had driven out before them: and wrought wicked things to provoke Jehovah to anger, and served the abominations which Jehovah had forbidden. Yet Jehovah testified to them by all the prophets and seers, saying, Turn ye from your evil ways, and keep my commandments and my statutes according to all the torah which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent unto you by my servants the prophets; but they would not hear, but hardened their necks like their fathers, that they did not believe in Jehovah their G.o.d; and they rejected His statutes and His covenant that He made with their fathers, and His testimonies with which He warned them, and they followed vanity and became vain, and went after the heathen that were round about them, concerning whom Jehovah had charged them that they should not do like them. And they left all the commandments of Jehovah their G.o.d, and made them molten images and an Asherah, and wors.h.i.+pped the whole host of heaven, and served Baal; and they caused their children to pa.s.s through the fire, and used divination and enchantments, and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of Jehovah, to provoke Him to anger. And Jehovah was very wroth with Israel, and removed them out of His sight; there was none left but the men of Judah only.

But they of Judah also kept not the commandment of their G.o.d, but walked in the manner of Israel: and Jehovah rejected the whole race of Israel, and humbled them, and delivered them unto the hand of spoilers, until He had cast them out of His sight."

No special concluding discourse is given for Judah, but that for Israel applies to Judah as well. This we see both directly from the last words of the pa.s.sage cited, and from the circ.u.mstance that two very characteristic abominations in the foregoing catalogue, the wors.h.i.+p of the host of heaven and the sacrifice of children, were introduced, according to the testimony of the prophets, which alone can determine the point, not in the eighth but only in the seventh century, under Mana.s.seh, and accordingly are not chargeable on Israel, but only on Judah.

The water acc.u.mulates, so to speak, at these gathering places of the more important historical epochs: but from these reservoirs it finds its way in smaller channels on all sides. /1/ The first

1. Such additions as MCWT YHWH, 1Kings xviii. 18 [LXX has correctly YHWH, without MCWT] (ZBW BRYTK [LXX correctly (ZBW without BRYTK] and more extensive ones, as 1Kings xviii. 31, 32a; 2Samuel vii. 2b [)#R NQR) WGW''] ) I do not reckon because they proceed from various periods, and are mostly younger than the Deuteronomic revision, and belong rather to textual than to literary criticism. It is certainly in itself very important to detect and remove these re-touchings. The whole old tradition is covered with them.

question asked with regard to each ruler is, what position he took up to the pure religion--whether he did what was right or what was evil in the sight of Jehovah. Even in the case of those who only reigned a week, this question receives an answer. In general it has to be stated that they did evil. All except David and Hezekiah and Josiah, were defective, says Jesus Sirach (xlix. 4),--not quite accurately perhaps, but yet truly in so far as there is always some objection even to the good kings. But the sin here reproved is no longer, at least not princ.i.p.ally, the wors.h.i.+p of strange G.o.ds; it is the perverted wors.h.i.+p of Jehovah. A more special standard, and therefore a stricter one, is now employed, and we know the reason of this: the temple having once been built in the place which Jehovah has chosen for Himself, the kindly naturalness. .h.i.therto belonging to His wors.h.i.+p comes to an end (Deuteronomy xii. 8): and in particular the prohibition of the bamoth comes into force (1Kings iii. 2).

That these continued to exist is the special sin of the period, a sin widespread and persistent. It is aggravated by the fact, that with the bamoth all kinds of unlawful abuses crept into the wors.h.i.+p of Jehovah, Maccebas and Asheras, evergreen trees, and prost.i.tutes of both s.e.xes. Israel, continually compared with Judah in the matter, is further charged with a second great sin, the sin of Jeroboam, i.e., the golden calves at Bethel and at Dan. The religious estimate combines with the chronological facts to form that scheme in which every single reign of the kings of Israel and Judah is uniformly framed. Sometimes the frame is well filled in with interesting matter, but in not a few cases historical matter is almost entirely absent. The scheme appears most nakedly in such chapters as 1Kings xv. xvi., 2Kings xiii. xiv. xv.

That this redaction of our book is essentially uniform with that of the two historical books which precede it, requires no proof.

Only it has here a warmer and more lively tone, and a much closer relation to the facts. In consequence of this we find it much easier to determine the point of view from which it proceeds.

The mere fact that the narrative extends to the destruction of Jerusalem, nay, to the death of the captive king Jehoiachin, shows that we must place the date of the work not earlier than the Babylonian exile, and, indeed, the second part of the exile.

The chronology reckons the exile in the period of 480 years, giving 50 years to it; and this would bring us still lower down; but it is open to us to a.s.sume that this is a later modification, which has not further affected the general character of the work. /1/

1. Krey surmises that the last date mentioned, the liberation from prison of, Jehoiachin in the 37th year after his accession to the throne, was originally intended to form the lower limit of the chronology, especially as the periods of 40 years under which, as we have seen, the Jewish figures naturally fall, come exactly to this date. But if this be the case, we cannot regard the 4th or 5th year of Solomon as the era started from, for then there is no room for the 36 or 37 remaining years of Solomon's reign. But such a starting-point is entirely unnatural; Solomon's 40 years cannot be torn up in this way: if we are to make a division at all in that period, it must be at the disruption of the monarchy, the natural point of departure for the series of kings of Israel and of Judah. It deserves remark, that the 37 years of Jehoiachin, at the close of the older mode of calculation, which perhaps only tried to bring out generations of 40 years, but also perhaps a period of 500 years from David (40+40+20+ 41+40+40+81 + 38+ 80 + 79 1/4), answer to the 37 years of Solomon at the beginning of the method now carried through. That a process of alteration and improvement of the chronology was busily carried on in later times, we see from the added svnchronisms of the kings of Israel and Judah, from the uncertain statements in the Book of Judges, some of them parallel with each other (e.g., the interregna and minor judges, and the threefold counting of the time of the Philistines) and even from the variants of the LXX.

The writer looks back on the time of the kings as a period past and closed, on which judgment has already been declared. Even at the consecration of the temple the thought of its destruction is not to be restrained; and throughout the book the ruin of the nation and its two kingdoms is present to the writer's mind. This is the light in which the work is to be read; it shows why the catastrophe was unavoidable. It was so because of unfaithfulness to Jehovah, because of the utterly perverted tendency obstinately followed by the people in spite of the Torah of Jehovah and His prophets.

The narrative becomes, as it were, a great confession--of sins of the exiled nation looking back on its history. Not only the existing generation, but the whole previous historical development is condemned--a fas.h.i.+on which we meet with first in Jeremiah (ii.

1 seq., iv. 3), who was actually confronted with the question as to the cause of the calamity. /2/

1. The fall of Samaria suggested similar reflections to the earlier prophets with reference to the northern kingdom, but their views are, as a rule (Amos v., Isaiah ix.), not nearly so radical nor so far-fetched. Hosea does certainly trace the guilt of the present up to the commencement, but he exemplifies the principle (like Micah, chapter vi.) chiefly from the early history of Jacob and Moses: as for the really historical period he belongs to it too much himself to survey it from so high a point of view. In this also he is a precursor of later writers, that he regards the human monarchy as one of the great evils of Israel: he certainly had very great occasion for this in the circ.u.mstances of the time he lived in.

Ezekiel carried out this negative criticism of the past to greater lengths, with particular reference to the abominations of the older wors.h.i.+p (chapter xvi., xx., xxiii.); and it is also to be found in Isaiah xl.-xlvi. (xlii. 24, xliii. 27), though here it is supplemented by a positive and greatly more suggestive view; we find it also in Deuteronomy xxviii.-x.x.x., and in Leviticus xxvi.

The whole of the past is regarded as one enormous sin, which is to be expiated in the exile (Jeremiah x.x.xii. 30; Ezekiel xviii. 2, x.x.xiii. 10; Isaiah xl. 1); the duration of the punishment is even calculated from that of the sin (Leviticus xxvi. 34). The same att.i.tude towards old times is continued after the return (Zechariah viii. 13 seq., ix. 7 seq.; Nehemiah ix. 7 seq.).

The treatment is naturally from a Judaean point of view. Outside of Jerusalem the wors.h.i.+p of Jehovah is heretical, so that the political revolt of the Northern Israelites was at the same time an ecclesiastical schism. Yet they are not excluded in consequence from community with the people of G.o.d, as in the Chronicles: the old traditions are not thrown so completely overboard as yet: only after the destruction of Samaria by the a.s.syrians does Judah continue the history alone. Almost the same reverence is paid to David and his house as to the city and the temple. His house has the promise of eternal continuance, with regard to which the writer likes to make use of the words of Jeremiah x.x.xiii. 17. The book closes, doubtless not by chance, with the liberation from prison of the Davidide Jehoiachin; this is the earnest of greater things yet in store. In the words of Abijah to Jeroboam, also, when he says that the humiliation of the house of David and the revolt from it of the ten tribes will not last for ever, we see the Messianic hope appear, which, as we learn from Haggai and Zechariah, largely occupied the minds of the Jews at the time of the exile and after it.

In the case of the books of Judges and Samuel it is not perhaps possible to decide with perfect certainty what was the norm applied by the last reviser in forming his estimates of the past.

In the Books of Kings there can be no doubt on this point. The writer deals not only in indefinite references to the will of Jehovah, which Israel ought to obey, but resists; he speaks now and again (1Kings ii. 3, 2Kings xiv. 6, xvii. 37) of the written Torah in which the judgments and statutes of Jehovah are contained, a difference which indicates, one must allow, a historical feeling.

Now the code which is implicitly regarded as the standard is that the discovery of which under Josiah is circ.u.mstantially narrated in 2Kings xxii. xxiii., viz., Deuteronomy. We are led to this conclusion, it is allowed on all hands, both by the phraseology of the reviser and by the spirit of his judgments. He condemns those sins specially against which Deuteronomy and the reformation of King Josiah were directed. And the one verbal quotation made from the book of the Torah is from Deuteronomy (2Kings xiv. 6; Deuteronomy xxiv. 16). On the other hand, there are clear signs that the author of the revision was not acquainted with the Priestly Code. Nowhere is any distinction drawn between priests and Levites; the sons of Aaron are never mentioned. The idea of a central sanctuary before Solomon is contradicted by 1Kings iii.

2. In one section only, a section which has been greatly exposed to corrections and interpolations of all kinds, namely, the description of the temple and its consecration, 1Kings vi.-viii., do we meet with signs of the influence of the Priestly Code, especially in the Ma.s.soretic text; in the Septuagint this is not so much the case. The most important example of this has already been investigated, p. 43, 44.

If, accordingly, we are fully justified in calling the revision Deuteronomistic, this means no more than that it came into existence under the influence of Deuteronomy, which pervaded the whole century of the exile. The difference between Deuteronomistic and Deuteronomic is one not of time only but of matter as well: /1/ Deuteronomy itself has not yet come to regard

1. Post-deuteronomic, but still from the time of the kings, are 1Samuel ii. 27 seq.; 2Samuel vii, 1 seq.; 2Kings xviii. 13, 17 seq., xix. 1 seq.; chaps. xi. xii. xxi. xxiii.

the cultus in this way as the chief end of Israel, and is much closer to the realism of the actual life of the people. A difference in detail which allows of easy demonstration is connected with the mode of dating. The last reviser distinguishes the months not by their old Hebrew names, Zif, Bul, Ethanim, but by numbers, commencing with spring as the beginning of the year.

In this he differs not only from his older sources (1Kings vi.

37, 38, viii. 2), but also from Deuteronomy.

VII.III.2. This revision is, as we expect to find, alien to the materials it found to work on, so that it does violence to them.

They have been altered in particular by a very one-sided selection, which is determined by certain religious views. In these views an interest in the prophets mingles with the interest in wors.h.i.+p. It is not meant that the selection is due entirely to the last reviser, though it is thoroughly according to his taste; others had probably worked before him in this direction. But for us it is neither possible nor important to distinguish the different steps in the process of sifting through which the traditions of the time of the kings had to pa.s.s.

The culminating point of the whole book is the building of the temple; almost all that is told about Solomon has reference to it. This at once indicates to us the point of view; it is one which dominates all Judaistic history: the history is that of the temple rather than of the kingdom. The fortunes of the sanctuary and its treasures, the inst.i.tution and arrangements of the kings with reference to wors.h.i.+p--we are kept _au courant_ about these, but about hardly anything else. The few detailed narratives given (2Kings xi seq. xvi. xxii. seq.) have the temple for their scene, and turn on the temple. Only in <2kings?> xviii. seq. does the prophetical interest predominate.

As for the kingdom of Israel, the statements about the cultus of that state are very scanty and for the most part rather vague.

Here the prophetical narratives come to the front, generally such as are told from the prophetic point of view, or at least tell of the public appearances and acts of the prophets. Here and there we are told of occasions on which the Northern kingdom came in contact with Judah; here the Jewish feeling appears which dictated the selection. What is merely historical, purely secular, is communicated only in the scantiest measure: often there is nothing but the names and succession of the kings. We learn hardly anything about King Omri, the founder of the town of Samaria and re-founder of the kingdom, who seems to have reduced Judah also to the position of a dependent ally, nor do we learn more about Jeroboam II., the last great ruler of Israel; while the conflict with the a.s.syrians and the fall of Samaria are despatched in a couple of verses which tell us scarcely anything at all. Sometimes a brilliant breaks in on the surrounding night (2Kings ix. x.), but after it we grope in the dark again. Only so much of the old tradition has been preserved as those of a later age held to be of religious value: it has lost its original centre of gravity, and a.s.sumed an att.i.tude which it certainly had not at first. It may have been the case in Judah that the temple was of more importance than the kingdom, but there can be no doubt that the history of Israel was not entirely, not even princ.i.p.ally, the history of prophecy. The losses we have to deplore must have affected the Israelitish tradition most seriously.

The damage done by the revision by its _positive_ meddling with the materials as found in the sources, is not so irreparable; yet it is considerable enough. The change of colour which was effected may be best seen and characterised in the far-reaching observations which introduce the Israelite series of kings; "Jeroboam said in his heart, Now shall the kingdom return to the house of David; if this people go up to do sacrifice in the house of Jehovah at Jerusalem, then shall the heart of this people turn again to their rightful lord, and they will kill me, and become subject again to Rehoboam king of Judah. Whereupon the king took counsel and made two calves of gold, and said unto them, Cease to go up to Jerusalem; behold thy G.o.ds, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. And he set the one in Bethel and the other in Dan. And this thing became a sin; for the people went as one man, even unto Dan. And he made temples of high places, and took priests from the midst of the people which were not of the house of Levi; whomsoever he would he installed as priest of the high places " (1Kings xii. 26-30, xiii. 33).

The perversion is scarcely so great as in Chronicles, but the anachronism is sufficiently glaring in the mode of view discernible in these reflections of Jeroboam, who appears to feel that the Ephraimite kingdom was illegitimate in its origin and could only be kept separate from the south by artificial means.

The blessing of Jacob and the blessing of Moses show us what the sentiment of Northern Israel actually was. In the former Joseph is called the crowned of his brethren, in the second we read "His first-born bullock, full of majesty (the king), has the horns of a buffalo, with which he thrusts down the peoples; these are the ten thousands of Ephraim and the thousands of Mana.s.seh."

Whence came the charm of the name of Ephraim but from its being the royal tribe, and the most distinguished representative of the proud name of Israel? Of Judah we read in the same chapter, "Hear, Jehovah, the voice of Judah, and bring him back to his people."

There can be no doubt what the people is to which Judah belongs: we cannot but agree with Graf, that this tribe is here regarded as the alienated member, and its reunion with the greater kingdom spoken of as the desire of Judah itself, and this is not so remarkable when we reflect that the part belongs to the whole and not the whole to the part. Only by long experience did Judah learn the blessing of a settled dynasty, and Ephraim the curse of perpetual changes on the throne.

Judah's power of attraction for the inhabitants of the Northern Kingdom is thought to lie in the cultus of the Solomonic temple; and Jeroboam is said to have tried to meet this by creating new sanctuaries, a new form of the wors.h.i.+p of Jehovah, and a new order of priesthood. The features in which the Samaritan wors.h.i.+p differed from the Jewish pattern are represented as intentional innovations of the first king, in whose sin posterity persisted.

But in making Bethel and Dan temples of the kingdom--that he set up high places, is a statement which need not be considered--Jeroboam did nothing more than Solomon had done before him; only he had firmer ground under his feet than Solomon, Bethel and Dan being old sanctuaries, which Jerusalem was not. The golden calves, again, which he set up, differed in their gold but not in their object from the ephods and idols of other kinds which were everywhere to be found in the older "houses of G.o.d"; e.g. from the brazen serpent at Jerusalem. /l/

1. "Although Jeroboam had lived in Egypt, it would he wrong to say that he brought animal wors.h.i.+p with him from that country, as wrong as to regard Aaron's golden calf as a copy of Apis. The peculiarity of the animal-wors.h.i.+p of Egypt, and of its bull-wors.h.i.+p in particular, was that sanct.i.ty was attributed to _living_ animals." Vatke, p. 398. Egyptian G.o.ds cannot help against Egypt, Exodus x.x.xii. 4; 1Kings xii. 28.

Even Eichhorn remarked with force and point, that though Elijah and Elisha protested against the imported wors.h.i.+p of Baal of Tyre, they were the actual champions of the Jehovah of Bethel and Dan, and did not think of protesting against His pictorial representation; even Amos makes no such protest, Hosea is the first who does so. As for the non-Levitical priests whom the king is said to have installed, all that is necessary has been said on this subject above (p. 138 seq.).

A remarkable criticism on this estimate of the Samaritan wors.h.i.+p follows immediately afterwards in the avowal that that of Judah was not different at the time, at any rate not better. In the report of Rehoboam's reign we read (1Kings xiv. 22 seq.): "They of Judah also set up high places and pillars on every high hill, and under every green tree, and wh.o.r.edom at sacred places was practiced in the land."

This state of things continued to exist, with some fluctuations, till near the time of the exile. If then the standard according to which Samaria is judged never attained to reality in Judah either, it never existed in ancient Israel at all. We know the standard is the book of the law of Josiah: but we see how the facts were not merely judged, but also framed, in accordance with it.