Prolegomena to the History of Israel Part 27

the Israelites did not go to Jehovah to Sinai, but the converse; He came to them from Sinai to Kadesh: "Jehovah came from Sinai and shone from Seir unto them; He lightened from Mount Paran and came to Meribath Kadesh." /1/

1. We do not know where Sinai was situated, and the Bible is scarcely at one on the subject. Only dilettanti care much for controversy on the matter. The Midian of Exodus ii. tells us most: it is probably Madian on the Arabic sh.o.r.e of the Ked sea.

In our pa.s.sage Sinai seems to be S.E. of Edom; the way from Sinai to Kadesh is by Seir and Paran.

But it is not difficult to see how it came to be thought more seemly that the Israelites should undertake the journey to Jehovah. This was at first put in the form that they appeared there before the face of Jehovah to wors.h.i.+p Him and offer Him a sacrifice (Exodus iii. 12), and at their departure they received the ark instead of Jehovah Himself, who continued to dwell on Sinai (Exodus x.x.xiii.); for the ark represents Jehovah, that const.i.tutes its significance, and not the tables of the law, which were not in it at first. It was a further step to make Sinai the scene of the solemn inauguration of the historical relation between Jehovah and Israel. This was done under the poetic impulse to represent the const.i.tuting of the people of Jehovah as a dramatic act on an exalted stage. What in the older tradition was a process which went on quietly and slowly, occupied completely the whole period of Moses, and was at the beginning just such as it still continued to be, was now, for the sake of solemnity and vividness, compressed into a striking scene of inauguration. If this were done, the covenant between Jehovah and Israel must receive a positive (as well as a negative) character, that is to say, Jehovah Himself must announce to the people the basis and the conditions of it. Thus the necessity arose to communicate in this place the contents of the fundamental laws, and so the matter of the legislation made its way into the historical narrative.

But that it did not belong originally to this place we see from the confusion which obtains even in the Jehovistic Sinai section (Exodus xix.-xxiv., x.x.xii.-x.x.xiv.). The small bodies of laws which are here communicated may in themselves be old enough, but they are forced into the narrative. It is only of what is relatively the most recent corpus, the Decalogue (in E), that this cannot be a.s.serted.

As the Jehovistic work was originally a pure history-book, so Deuteronomy, when it was first discovered, was a pure law-book.

/1/

1. Chapters xii.-xxvii. The two historical introductions, chapter i.-iv. and chapter v.-xi. were added later, as well as the appendices, chapter xxviii. seq.

These two works, the historical and legal, were at first quite independent of each other; only afterwards were they conjoined, perhaps that the new law might share in the popularity of the old people's book, and at the same time infuse into it its own spirit.

It made it the easier to do this, that, as we have just seen, a piece of law had already been taken up into the Jehovistic history-book. To the Decalogue, at the beginning of the period of the forty years, was now added Deuteronomy at the close of that period. The situation--of which the law itself knows nothing--is very well chosen, not only because Moses is ent.i.tled when making his testament to antic.i.p.ate the future and make a law for the time to come, but also because, the law being placed at the close of his life, the thread of the narrative is not further interrupted, the law being simply inserted between the Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua. This combination of Deuteronomy with the Jehovist was the beginning of the combination of narrative and law; and the fact that this precedent was before the author of the Priestly Code explains how, though his concern was with the Torah alone, he yet went to work from the very outset and comprised in his work the history of the creation, as if it also belonged to the Torah.

This manner of setting forth the Torah in the form of a history book is not in the least involved in the nature of the case; on the contrary, it introduces the greatest amount of awkwardness.

How it came about can only be explained in the way above described; an antecedent process of the same nature in literary history led the way and made the suggestion. /2/

2. That the author of the Priestly Code had before him the combination of the Sinai legislation of the Jehovist and Deuteronomy is shown further by the circ.u.mstance that he has both a legislation at Mount Sinai and a legislation in the Arboth Moah, and in addition to these one in the wilderness of Sinai.

As from the literary point of view, so also from the historical, the Moses of the Jehovist appears more original than the Moses of the Priestly Code. To prove this is, it is true, the aim of the entire present work: yet it will not on that account be thought out of place if we take advantage of this convenient opportunity for a brief sketch and criticism of the conflicting historical views of Moses and his work in the two main sources of the Pentateuch.

According to the Priestly Code Moses is a religious founder and legislator, as we are accustomed to think of him. He receives and promulgates the Torah, /1/ perhaps not as a book--though, when we

1. The law might accordingly be called Moses, as with the Ethiopians the Psalter is called David, **************************************

come to think of it, we can hardly represent the transaction to ourselves in any other way--but certainly fixed and finished as an elaborate and minutely organised system, which comprises the sacred const.i.tution of the congregation for all time to come.

The whole significance of Moses consists in the office of messenger which he holds as mediator of the law; what else he does is of no importance. That the law is given once for all is the great event of the time, not that the people of Israel begins to appear on the stage of the world. The people is there for the sake of the law, not the law for the sake of the people. With the Jehovist, on the contrary, Moses' work consists in this, that he delivers his people from the Egyptians and cares for it in every way in the wilderness. In the prelude scene from his youth, when he smites the Egyptian and seeks to adjust the dispute of his brethren (Exodus ii. 11 seq.), his whole history is prefigured. His care for the Israelites embraces both catering for their sustenance, and making and preserving peace and order among them (Numbers xi.).

The Torah is but a part of his activity, and proceeds from his more general office as the guardian of the young people, who has, as it were, to teach the fledgling to fly (Numbers xi. xii.).

According to Exodus xviii. his Torah is nothing but a giving of counsel, a finding the way out of complications and difficulties which had actually arisen. Individuals bring their different cases before him; he p.r.o.nounces judgment or gives advice, and in so doing teaches the people the way they should go. Thus he is the beginner of the teaching of Jehovah which lives on after him in priest and prophet. Here all is life and movement: as Jehovah Himself, so the man of G.o.d, is working in a medium which is alive; is working practically, by no means theoretically, in history, not in literature. His work and activity may be told in a narrative, but the contents of it are more than a system, and are not to be reduced to a compendium; it is not done and finished off, it is the beginning of a series of infinite activities. In the Priestly Code the work of Moses lies before us clearly defined and rounded off; one living a thousand years after knows it as well as one who saw it with his eyes. It is detached from its originator and from his age: lifeless itself, it has driven the life out of Moses and out of the people, nay, out of the very Deity. This precipitate of history, appearing as law at the beginning of the history, stifles and kills the history itself.

Which of the two views is the more historical, we can accordingly be at no loss to decide. It may be added that in the older Hebrew literature the founding of the nation and not the giving of the law is regarded as the theocratic creative act of Jehovah. The very notion of the law is absent: only covenants are spoken of, in which the representatives of the people undertake solemn obligations to do or leave undone something which is described in general terms.

Another point of difference must be mentioned here, though indeed it is a matter which has been before us more than once already.

That which is in the Priestly Code the subject-matter of the Torah of Moses, namely, the inst.i.tution of the cultus, the Jehovist traces to the practice of the patriarchs--one more result of the difference between law and legend. The Moses of the Priestly Code conflicts not only with the future, but with the past; he comes into collision with history on every side. That view is manifestly the only natural one according to which the wors.h.i.+p is not specifically Israelite, not a thing inst.i.tuted by Moses in obedience to a sudden command of the Deity, but an ancestral tradition. But at the time when the Priestly Code was drawn up the wors.h.i.+p was certainly the one thing that made Israel Israel. In it the church, the one congregation of wors.h.i.+p, takes the place of the people even in the Mosaic age--sorely against history, but characteristically for the author's point of view.

Now even such authorities as Bleek, Hupfeld, and k.n.o.bel have been misled by the appearance of historical reality which the Priestly Code creates by its learned art here as well as in the history of the patriarchs. They have regarded the multiplicity of numbers and names, the minute technical descriptions, the strict keeping up of the scenery of camp-life, as so many signs of authentic objectivity. Noldeke made an end of this critical position once for all, but Colenso is properly ent.i.tled to the credit of having first torn the web asunder. /1/

1. See Kuenen in the Theol. Tijdschrift, 1870, p. 393-401.

The boldness with which numbers and names are stated, and the preciseness of the details about indifferent matters of furniture, do not prove them to be reliable: they are not drawn from contemporary records, but are the fruit solely of late Jewish fancy, a fancy which, it is well known, does not design nor sketch, but counts and constructs, and produces nothing more than barren plans. Without repeating the description of the tabernacle in Exodus xxv. word for word, it is difficult to give an idea how circ.u.mstantial it is; we must go to the source to satisfy ourselves what the narrator can do in this line. One would imagine that he was giving specifications to measurers for estimates, or that he was writing for carpet-makers and upholsterers; but they could not proceed upon his information, for the incredibly matter- of-fact statements are fancy all the same, as was shown in chapter i. The description of the tabernacle is supplemented in the Book of Numbers by that of the camp; the former being the centre, this is the circle drawn about it, and consists of an outer ring, the twelve secular tribes, a middle ring, the Levites, and an innermost one, the sons of Aaron: a mathematical demonstration of the theocracy in the wilderness. The two first chapters contain the census of the twelve tribes, and their allocation in four quarters, nothing but names and numbers. To this first census chapter x.x.xiv.

adds another at the close of the forty years, in which the various detailed figures are different, but the total is about the same.

This total, 600,000 warriors, comes from the older tradition, but is proved to be quite worthless by the fact that in a really authentic doc.u.ment the levy of Israel in the time of Deborah is stated to be 40,000 strong. Still, the Priestly Code is ent.i.tled to the credit of having made the total a little less round, and of having broken it up into artificial component parts. The muster of the people is followed in Numbers iii. iv. by the dedication of the tribe of Levi to the sanctuary, in compensation for the firstborn males of the Israelites who up to that time had not been sacrificed nor yet redeemed. There are 22,273 firstborn males to be provided for, and there are 22,000 male Levites above a month old. The 273 extra firstborn males are specially redeemed at five shekels a head. What accuracy! But what of the fact that a people of at least two millions has only 22,273 firstborn males, or say 50,000 firstborn of both s.e.xes? This gives an average of forty children to every woman, for the firstborn in the sense of the law is that which first opens the womb. The continuation of Numbers iii.

iv. is in chapter viii. As the Levites are an offering of firstlings to the sanctuary on the part of the people, which, however, is not to be sacrificed but made over to the priests, the characteristic rite of this sort of sacred due has to be gone through with them, namely, an act imitating that of throwing into the flame of the altar (Aristeas 31,1. 5). To think of Moses and Aaron heaving the 22,000 men! Not less striking as an example of this kind of fiction is the story of Numbers x.x.xi. Twelve thousand Israelites, a thousand from each tribe, take the field against Midian, extirpate without any fighting--at least nothing is anywhere said of this important point--the whole people, slay all the men and a part of the women, take captive the unmarried girls, and suffer themselves no loss whatever. The latter point is a.s.serted very definitely.

"The captains of thousands and the captains of hundreds came to Moses, and said to him, Thy servants have taken the sum of the men of war which are under our charge, and there lacketh not one of us."

Of the immeasurable booty of men and cattle Jehovah a.s.signs half to those who took the field and took part in the battle, the other half to the congregation; and the former are to give the 500th part to the priests, the latter the 50th part to the Levites. The execution of this order is especially reported as follows: "The booty which the men of war had taken was 675,000 sheep, 72,000 beeves, 61,000 a.s.ses, and 32,000 women that had not lain by man.

And the half which was the portion of them that went out to war was 337,500 sheep, and Jehovah's tribute of the sheep was 675; 36,000 beeves, tribute to Jehovah 72; 30,500 a.s.ses, tribute to Jehovah 61; 16,000 persons, tribute to Jehovah 32. And Moses gave the tribute to Jehovah to Eleazar the priest. But the other half, which Moses divided to the children of Israel, the half due to the congregation, was 337,500 sheep, 36,000 beeves, 30,500 a.s.ses, 16,000 persons, and of the children of Israel's half Moses took one of fifty and gave them to the Levites."

The calculation of the contribution to Jehovah was quite easy for Moses, as the 500th part of the half is equivalent to the 1000th part of the whole; he had only to leave off the thousands from the first totals. In conclusion, the captains brought offerings to Jehovah of golden dishes, chains, bracelets, rings, and earrings, altogether 16,750 shekels weight, as atonement for their souls "But that was only the gold which the captains had taken as booty, for the men of war had taken spoil, every man for himself."

We may perhaps be allowed to speculate as to the relation between these 16,750 shekels which in this pa.s.sage the captains alone offer to the tabernacle OF THE GOLD ORNAMENTS OF THE MIDIANITES, and the 1700 shekels which in Judges viii. the whole people dedicate OF THE GOLD ORNAMENTS OF THE MIDIANITES to set up an image in Ophra.

It is less easy to account on the theory of pure fiction for the numerous names sometimes arranged together like a catalogue than for reported circ.u.mstances and numbers. There can certainly be no doubt that the forty places which are mentioned in the list of encampments in the wanderings, really existed in the region the Israelites are reported to have traversed. But he who is satisfied with this as evidence that we have before us here a historical doc.u.ment of primitive antiquity, will never be disturbed by criticism. Was it such a difficult matter to find out forty definite stations in the wilderness for the forty years of the wanderings? Even if the elements of the composition are not fict.i.tious, that is far from proving the composition itself to be authentic. And in the case of lists of the names of persons, the elements are often of an extremely doubtful nature; and here it is well to keep in view the principle of Vatke (op.

cit. p. 675) that no confidence is to be placed in subjects devoid of predicates, and that persons are not to be taken for real who have nothing to do. The dozens of names in Numbers i. vii. x.

are almost all made to the same pattern, and have no similarity whatever to the names genuinely old. The fact that the name of Jehovah does not enter into their composition only shows that the composer was not forgetful of his religio-historical theory.

By its taste for barren names and numbers and technical descriptions, the Priestly Code comes to stand on the same line with the Chronicles and the other literature of Judaism which labours at an artificial revival of the old tradition [VI.I.2 VI.III.2., VI.III.3. ad fin.]. Of a piece with this tendency is an indescribable pedantry, belonging to the very being of the author of the Priestly Code. He has a very pa.s.sion for cla.s.sifying and drawing plans; if he has once dissected a genus into different species, we get all the species named to us one by one every time he has occasion to mention the genus. The subsuming use of the prepositions Lamed and Beth is characteristic of him. He selects a long-drawn expression wherever he can; he does not weary of repeating for the hundredth time what is a matter of course (Numbers viii.), he hates p.r.o.nouns and all abbreviating subst.i.tutes.

What is interesting is pa.s.sed over, what is of no importance is described with minuteness, his exhaustive clearness is such as with its numerous details to confuse our apprehension of what is in itself perfectly clear. This is what used to be described in the phraseology of historical criticism as epic breadth. /1/

1. Riehm, p. 292. "The style is quiet, simple, free from all rhetorical and poetical ornament, and the expression in speaking of similar objects has an epic uniformity. Impressive as many pieces are, just from their una.s.suming simplicity and objectivity, there is nowhere any apparent effort to produce effect or to raise the interest of the reader by the resources of literary art." For an opposite opinion compare Lichtenberg, Werke, ii. 162.

VIII.III.2. Having thus attempted to describe the general contrast of the Priestly Code and the Jehovist in the Mosaic period, it remains for us to compare the several stories in the two works.

The Exodus from Egypt is everywhere regarded as the commencement of Israelite history. In the Priestly Code it is made the epoch of an era (Exodus xii. 2), which is afterwards dated from, not only in years but even in months and days. It is unquestionable that this precise style of dating only came into use among the Hebrews at a very late period. *We find in the historical books only one statement of the month in which an event took place (1Kings vi.

38), and in that case the day is not given. To the prophetic writers dates were of some importance, and the growth of the practice may to some extent be traced with them. Amos first came forward "two years before the earthquake." /2/

2. Agh. xv. 11, 17: when al-Walid b. al-Mughira was dead, the Arabs dated after his death to the year of the elephant, which thereafter was made an epoch. According to others they reckoned nine years after the death of Hisham b. al-Mughira, to the time when they built the Caaba, and then they dated from the building of the Caaba. Comp. the 'Am al Ramada and the 'Am al Ru'af.

The most precise date in Isaiah is "the year in which king Uzziah died." Numbers of years are first found in Jeremiah, "the thirteenth year of king Josiah," and a few more instances. All at once there was a change: Haggai and Zechariah, prophets who grew up in the Babylonian exile, always give dates, not only the year and month, but the day of the month as well. In the Priestly Code this precise reckoning, which the Jews obviously learned from the Chaldeans, is in use from the age of Moses onwards.

In the Jehovist the ostensible occasion of the Exodus is a festival which the children of Israel desire to hold in honour of their G.o.d in the wilderness. In the Priestly Code this occasion disappears; there can be no pre-Mosaic festivals. But with this the reason falls away for which Jehovah kills the firstborn of the Egyptians, He does it because the king of Egypt is keeping from Him the firstborn of the Israelites, which ought to be offered to Him at the festival; for the celebration in question is the sacrificial festival of the first-fruits of cattle in spring. In the older tradition the festival is the first thing; it explains the circ.u.mstances of the Exodus and the time of year at which it took place: in the later one the relation is reversed--the killing of the firstborn of the Egyptians leads to the sacrifice of the firstborn of Israel, the Exodus in spring is followed by the festival in spring as its consequence. The Priestly Code follows this younger tradition, and deviates from the original account still more widely in the view it gives of the pa.s.sover. It obliterates completely the connection between the pa.s.sover and the sacrifice of the firstborn, and represents it not as a giving of thanks to Jehovah for having slain the firstborn of Egypt, but as inst.i.tuted at the moment of the Exodus to induce Jehovah to spare the firstborn of Israel. How all this is to be understood and judged of we have discussed more at large in the chapter on the festivals (III.I.1., III.III.1.).

As to the accounts given in the two sources of the crossing of the Red Sea, all we can say is that that of the Jehovist (J) is the more complicated. According to him the sea is dried up by a strong wind, and the Egyptians succeed at first in crossing it, and encounter the Hebrews on the eastern sh.o.r.e during he night.

"But in the morning watch Jehovah turned, in the pillar of fire and of the cloud, against the host of the Egyptian, and overthrew the host of the Egyptian, and hindered the wheels of his chariot and caused him to drive heavily. Then the Egyptian said: I will flee before Israel, for Jehovah fighteth for them against Egypt.

But the sea turned back towards morning to its ordinary level, and the Egyptians fled against it, and Jehovah shook them into the midst of the sea" (Exodus xiv. 24, 25, 27).

According to the Priestly Code /1/ the waves meet over the pursuers,

1. And the younger tradition generally: also according to the song Exodus xv., which apart from the beginning, which is old, is a psalm in the manner of the Psalms and has no similarity with the historical songs, Judges v., 2Samuel i., Numbers xxi.

before they reach the further sh.o.r.e; the idea is much simpler, but poorer in incidental features.

The miracle of the manna (Exodus xvi.) is taken advantage of in the Priestly Code as a very suitable occasion for urging on the people a strict sanctification of the Sabbath: none falls on the seventh day, but what is gathered on the sixth keeps two days, while at other times it requires to be eaten quite fresh.

This pursuit of a legal object destroys the story and obscures its original meaning, as no one can help seeing. Nor is it any sign of originality, rather of senility, that in the Priestly Code the manna is not eaten raw, but boiled and baked.

At Mount Sinai Moses receives, according to the Priestly Code, the revelation of--the model of the tabernacle, and he follows the pattern thus presented to him in the construction, down below, of the real tabernacle. All further revelation takes place, even in Moses' time, as far as possible in the tabernacle (Exodus xxv.

22). Even Sinai must not stand any longer than necessary by the side of the one legitimate seat of Deity. /1/

1. Compare, however, Jahrbb.fur Deutsche Theologie, 1877, p. 453, note 1.