Topic: THE OLD TESTAMENT IN THE LIGHT OF THE ANCIENT EAST (sumer) II

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THE OLD TESTAMENT IN THE LIGHT OF THE ANCIENT EAST (sumer) II

https://archive.org/stream/oldtestamentinli2jere#page/n8/mode/1up starts with Abraham

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ABBREVIATIONS, ETC.
A.B.A., Das Alter der Babylonischen Astronomie; A. Jeremias. (Hinrichs, 1909.)
A.B., Assyriologische Bibliothek, by Delitzsch and Haupt, 1881 fif. (pub. by Hinrichs, Leipzig).
*   A.O., Der Alte Orient. Publication of the Vorderasiat. Gesellschaft.
(Hinrichs, 1899 ff.)
A.   O. I., Alter Orient, I. Jahrgang.
B.   A., Beitrage zur Assyriologie, by Delitzsch and Haupt. (Hinrichs,
1889 ff.)
B.   N.T., Babylonisches im Neuen Testament; A. Jeremias. (Hinrichs,
l9°5.)
C.   T., Cuneiform Texts from Babylonian Tablets in the Brit. Museum,
1896   ff.
Handw., Handworterbuch ; Delitzsch. (Hinrichs, 1896.)
G.   G.G., Grundrisz der Geographic und Geschichte des Alten Orient;
Hommel.
H.   C., Hammurabi Code.
I~N., Izdubar-Nimrod, eine altbabylonische Beschworungslegende;
A. Jeremias. (B. G. Teubner, 1891.)
K.A.T., Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament, 3rd ed., 1903;
Eberhard Schrader. (English translation 1885-1888.)
K.B., Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek; Eberhard Schrader. (Reuther, 1889.) K.T., Keilinschriftliches Textbuch zum Alten Testament; Winckler. (Hinrichs, 1903.)
Le:r., Lexikon der griech. und romischen Mythologie; Roscher. (Teubner.)
M.D.P. K, Mitteilungen des Deutschen Palastina-Vereins.
M.V.A.G., Mitteilungen der Vorderasiat. Gesellschaft. (Peiser, Berlin.)
O.   L.Z., Orientalistische Literaturzeitung. (Peiser, 1898 ff.)
P.   S.B.A., Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology.
R.P. Th., Realencyklopadie fur Prot. Theol. und Kirche, edited by Hauck. (Hinrichs, 1896 ff.)
V.A.B., Vorderasiatische Bibliothek. (Hinrichs, 1906.)
Winckler, F., Altorientalische Forschungen; H. Winckler. (Pfeiffer,
1897   ff.)
Z.A., Zeitschrift fur Assyriologie ; Bezold.
XI
ABBREVIATIONS
xii
Z.A.W., Zeitschrift fur Alttest. Wissenschaft; B. Stade.
Zimmern, Beit., Beitrage zur Kenntnis der Babyl. Religion \A.Bxii.]. (Hinrichs, 1901.)
Z.D.M.G., Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenlandischen Gesellschaft.
Z.P. VZeitschrift des Deutschen Palastina-Vereins.
I.   R. II. R. etc., Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia, Brit. Museum. Abh. phil.-hist. Cl. Konigl. Sachs. Gesell. der Wissenschaften=Abhand- lungen der philologisch-historischen Classe der Konigl. Sachsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften.
Genesis, Delitzsch = English, The Chaldean Account of Genesis, 1876. New ed., Sayce. (G. Smith.)
Astralmythen, Stucken = Astralmythen der Hebraer, Babylonier und Aegypter.
Holle u?id Paradies, English translation, The Babylonian Conception of Heaven and Hell. No. IV. of a series of short studies called the “Ancient East,” published by D. Nutt, Long Acre.
THE OLD TESTAMENT IN THE LIGHT OF THE ANCIENT EAST
CHAPTER XIV
ABRAHAM AS BABYLONIAN
THE stories in Genesis from chapter xi. 26 onwards give the tradition, founded upon various documentary sources, current in pious circles of Israel in regard to the primeval history of the nation. We may consider, besides Genesis, Joshua xxiv. 2; Isa. lxiii. 16, li. 1 f.; Jer. xxxiii. 26; and (in regard to Sodom and Gomorrah), Amos iv. 11, and Isa. i. 9.
In the form before us the histories of the Patriarchs are incomplete and idealised. We do not know how the documentary sources ran from which the stories are gathered, and how much else was verbally related. The author of the so-called Priestly Document had two sources before him, agreeing together in main facts. He made excerpts from them according to certain points of view, probably also adding, besides his genealogical sketch, something from other sources. But his excerpts are incomplete} From suppositions contained in the traditions of the Mosaic period, we should expect, for example, more vivid references to
1   We may surely supplement the tradition from legends of extra-Biblical and Islamic traditions. (Islamic religion is, like Biblical, founded upon Abraham.) In both spheres we find material independent of the Biblical sources, and which cannot have been simply invented. The New Testament writers also (for a summary of these passages, see B.JV.T., 112 ; comp, also Heb. xi. 21, p. 57) use for ancestral history sources which rank with the Bible and which have the same right to be observed as those portions of the tradition retained for us by the editor. It is, for example, not out of the question that in some cases they descend from portions of the sources which were dropped out in the editing; comp. Th.L.BL, 1906, pr. 348.
VOL. II.
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ABRAHAM AS BABYLONIAN
Arabia; we should especially expect records of a place of worship of the God of the Hebrews.1
That they had relations with the Arabian deserts is shown by the history of Lot, and the emigration of Abraham with Sarah in time of famine. The scene of the sacrifice of Isaac, Gen. xxii. 2, was probably, according to the original text, “ upon a mountain in the land of Muzri11 (the Mas. text writes it Moriah, see p. 48), upon Sinai-Horeb. But the tradition is vague.
Also about the rites of blood, which the Feast of the Passover, Exod. xii. 7, assumes as well known, nothing is said in the stories of the Patriarchs; it is, however, affirmed in a pre-Israelite age of Canaan by the discovery of the column in the houses (p. 344, i.) which were sprinkled with blood on the posts.
The stories of the Patriarchs bear signs of idealisation. Thus in P circumcision is introduced into the story in order to give these documents a specially sacred character, whilst at the same time it is expressly affirmed that Moses and his sons were uncircumcised.2 But just the fact that idealisation in itself is not made an object, answers for a historical nucleus to the story. An idealistic legend with no background of fact would certainly not have made the Patriarchs dwell as strangers in the land, obliged to bargain with barbarians for a burial- place. They would further have suppressed the marriage of Jacob to two sisters, forbidden in Lev. xviii. 18.3 Also many strong human features, showing as blemishes in the brilliant popular heroes, would be inexplicable in the composition of fables of popular ideal characters. But, above all, the correctness of milieu testifies we are dealing with tradition, not with poetry. The background of contemporary history and the details of manners and customs agree with those we find recorded upon the monuments of these periods, and answer for it that the Biblical tradition was drawn from good sources.
1   See Exod. iii. 18, x. 3, 9 ; comp. I Kings xix. 8, where the forty days is not in reference to the map of the country (see p. 94, i.); Deut. xxxii. 2; Judges v. 4.
2   Exod. iv. 24 ff. This contradiction between tradition and the law was once
used in a remarkable way by Jesus in controversy with the Pharisees; see John vii. 22.   3 Comp. p. 37.
ABRAHAM AS BABYLONIAN
3
The objection has been raised that it is not possible for such a tradition to have been transmitted through centuries. In proof, it has been tried how far back war traditions and such like can be traced amongst the peasantry.
Neither the objection nor the proof holds good. The isolated memories of the present cannot be compared to the popular memory of decisive, or even supposed, religious events. The Odenwald, for instance, is to the present day full of ancient Germanic remembrances. But we must have lived amongst the people (perhaps as pastor) for many years to gain the confidence of these old peasants of the Odenwald, who still love to name their sons Siegfried, before they will tell secretly what they have learnt from their forefathers. And in the Wendei or East Prussia may still be found “witch” women who, at the “witches’ sabbath” or night of the solstice, offer the old heathen sacrifices, and guard secrets they have inherited from their mothers of ancient times. We must remember that three generations are always living together, and that amongst hardy tribes there would not be so veiy many generations to the thousand years. And in addition, we have to do here with the Oriental memory. Anyone reading the Thousand and One Nights, with some knowledge of the Ancient East, sees with amazement the strength of the tradition in the East. Besides this, we may assume that the sources of the Elohist and Yahvist were not only verbal, but that also written traditions1 were available, like the stories which in the modern Babylonian period gave records of the heroes of the Hammurabi age, being themselves transcripts or newly composed poems from ancient documents; comp. pp. 232, i. ff.2
1   Compare now Erbt, Die Ebrdery pp. 61 ff. : “Abraham appears in the flesh in the Hammurabi age,” Erbt thinks that historical documents existed from the Canaanite age. The sanctuaries of Penuel-Mahanaim and Sichem may have had archives with records from the Hammurabi age. Also in Jerusalem written traditions may have been preserved (comp. Melchizedek in Ps. cx. : see p. 29).
2   According to the law of ethnographical research, family history cannot be the starting-point for a national history. Nations and tribes arise by the amalgamation of families and houses, not by multiplication and division of families. But, “also families did not drop out of the heavens ” (Nikel, Genesis, and K.F., 2ll). The names of most of the tribes of Israel were originally personal nouns (Hommel, G. G. G., pp. 185 f.). In Arabia at the present day many tribes descend from one ancestor (comp. Cornill, Geschichie des Vi. 37 f., where Turkish statistics upon Bedouin tribes of the Jaulan and Hauran are pointed out, and Z.D.P.V., xxiii. 58). Besides, the laws of ethnography would not in any case prevent us taking the descent of Israel as from one family, but the tradition itself does not assert the autochthonistic descent of the Children of Israel.
The same laws shut out the descent of man from one pair, which from the Christian point of view we hold fast. Laws are categories of human thought. In the history of Israel there is much for which there is no analogy in history or religion. We might quite well allow the origin of the nation to be an exception, if we recognise the special part given to Israel in the history of the education of
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ABRAHAM AS BABYLONIAN
Abraham appears in the presentment before us as 44 Father of the family.” It is characteristic of all ancient history that the tribe, like the race, appears as a family, tracing back its descent from one forefather. But in this tradition itself we may see that the family is not meant to be understood as an ethnological division.
It is historical only in so far as the family design retains the traditions of prominent leaders of the u Children of Israel,” amongst whom there was also a Jacob, with twelve sons. The genealogical tables have been artificially composed later. Everyone wished to be descended from primeval aristocracy. Further upon this subject, see pp. 42 ff.
Abraham was not father of the family in an ethnological, but in a spiritual sense :   44 Father of the faithful.” When he
is 44 to become a great nation,” it must be understood of a religious community, as in Numb. xiv. 12, where Moses is to be the father of a new people, since the old must be rooted out.
The ethnographical misunderstanding, e lumbis Abrahce, has been the misfortune of the Jews. John the Baptist and Jesus had to combat it. All the more emphatically do we emphasise the religious signification of the descent from Abraham. Israelite religion, which later assembled itself round the name miT, does not begin first with Moses. It is founded upon revelation. Moses was in a special sense a bearer of this revelation, but the revelation itself had stages in the pre-Mosaic age. And in those stages also it could only work through individuals. The leading religious individualities and bearers of revelation in the primitive ages of Israel are the Patriarchs.
We may gather from the Biblical tradition that the beginning of the religious community, known later as the 44 Children of Israel,” took its rise in a migration1 out of Babylonia, therefore
the human race. Upon the ground of axioms, according to which the problem of the origin of man is held unsolvable, it is customary, certainly, to brand such deductions as a priori unscientific. Some day this may be changed. But, as has been said, the assertion of an autochthonic descent of the “Children of Israel” does not agree with the sense of the tradition.
1   Klostermann, in his Geschichte Israels, 31, holds a similar view in regard to the migration of Abraham being an historical migration of a tribe. We have
ABRAHAM “ FATHER OF THE FAITHFUL” 5
a kind of religious hegira. Abraham was the leader, like a Mahdi. “ The people that they had won in Haran ” may be quite well taken to mean adherents.1 In that case, we see how he could equip 318 people ; also the story of the separation from Lot (Gen. xiii. 6 ff.) shows that it is a question of still larger bands. Later we find recorded reinforcements from Egypt, that is to say, Muzri (Gen. xii. 15 f. and xx.), and from Gerar.2 (Gen. xx. 14). Even though these were primarily slaves (Hagar, Gen. xvi. 1, and Ishmael’s wife, Gen. xxi. 21, belonged to them) still they could be included in the religious community, and later in the national community, then called “ Children of Israel.” Also in Gen. xxxii. 4 f. there is explicitly another reinforcement from Haran.
According to other Oriental occurrences of the like type (Mohammed), we must take the march of Abraham to have been, even though in the mildest form, a march to make conquest. In idealising the Biblical records this has been veiled. The Oriental tradition outside the Bible, according to which “ Abraham (whose father was a Babylonian General) overthrew the army of Nimrod, and seized upon the land of Canaan for himself,” is certainly not pure invention.3 Gen. xxi. 22 pre
arrived at the same conclusion by different ways. Klostermann has won much honour by a new critical examination- of the histories of the Patriarchs. At pp. 42 ff. his traces are followed.
1   In Gen. xii. 5 it is hannephesh (Kautzsch, like Luther, translates this as souls).
According to Ezek. xxvii. 13, nephesh may mean “ slaves ” (here, however, it is nephesh-adam), and is then equivalent to the Babylonian napishtu, which, so far as I am aware, has not been observed. The translation “ slaves which they had bought”   is very questionable. And why is it nephesh here, which
designates man as a spiritual being (in special antithesis to the beasts) ? In other places the slave is called lebed. Why should not nephesh, if it should be called “slave,” be reckoned before the other possessions, or, as elsewhere (comp. p. 264, n. 3), be included in possession (rekush) as real property? The mysterious hanikim, moreover, argues for the meaning being “adherents,” Gen. xiv. 14; see p. 27.
2   That these were “ Philistines” (Gen. xxvi. 1), is founded upon a later misunderstanding. The Philistines (remnants of the seafaring tribes) had not yet entered the country. Upon the inclusion of such Jewish traditions, see p. I, n. I ; 11, n. I ; B.N.T., p. 65, n. 2, and p. 67 ; also Boeklen, Archiv f. Rel. Wiss., vi. p. 6.
3   See Beer, Leben Mosis naeh Auffassung der jiidischen Sage, p. 40, and his Leben Abrahams, p. 1.
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ABRAHAM AS BABYLONIAN
supposes the ability of Abraham to make war, and the episode in Gen. xiv. clearly describes him as a leader in battle, exactly like the Egyptian fugitive Sinuhe, who (about 2000 B.C.) was a leader in Syria of the tribes in their wars. In Sichem Abraham joined an alliance of the tribes (called ba<‘ale-berit\ see p. 30. Perhaps the change of name to Abraham “ Father of tumult11 ( = Sin qarid ilani, war-hero of the gods), may be interpreted in this sense.1
MIGRATION OF THE PEOPLE OF ABRAHAM
In Gen. xi. 28 Ur Kasdim (Ur of the Chaldees) is named in P1 2 as the original starting-point of the migration.3 The Sibylline books speak of the land of Ur of the Chaldees (Kautzsch, Pseudepigr., 189). This is Uru of the cuneiform writings; the name includes both city and country.
After the patesi of Lagash, the best-known being Gudea, “ kings of Ur ” held supremacy in Babylonia in the first half of the third millennium. They call themselves also kings of Kingi and Urtu.4 The most ancient king known to us of a kingdom in Ur is Ur-Gur. He built and renewed many temples. Though up to the present inscriptions relating to him are only known in South Babylonia, undoubtedly his kingdom also included North Babylonia. His son Dungi, who reigned for over fifty years, calls himself “ King of the four quarters of the earth.” His followers (the so-called “ second dynasty of Ur ” must be abandoned) have Semitic names. After
1   Hommel, Anc. Heb. Trad., takes D.VQK to be an older orthographical form. But the double name of both the Patriarchs Abram-Abraham and Jacob-Israel must certainly have some special meaning.
2   Gen. xi. 28 is held to be a gloss from the P. The descent, according to Elohist sources, has been lost. According to later hints the starting-point was in the neighbourhood on the right of the Euphrates. The Yahvist makes the migration start from Harran. All three points are upon the road leading from Babylonia to Canaan. The uniformity of the tradition is shown by Ur and Harran belonging together as the two places of moon-worship ; see pp. 9 f.
3   Many legends of Abraham are also connected with Urfa. This naturally should not mislead into looking for the cities of Ur there (Rassam, Joh. Lepsius). Another tradition names Arpakshad as the original home. Those would be the consonants for Urfa Kasdim ; but Urfa is probably only a modern name (according to Hommel, G.G.G., 193, n. 3, to be separated formally from Orrhoe ; Syrian Urhoi, 'imiN ; Arabic Ruha = Edessa ; ‘Urfa = nsny, ridge of land).
4   In political geography, that is, like Sumer and Akkad, South and North Babylonia. According to the vocabularies, Kingi specially is = Sumer and Urtu = Akkad.
MIGRATION OF THE PEOPLE OF ABRAHAM 7
the dynasty of Ur follows a dynasty of Isin (to this belongs Ishme- Dagan with the Canaanite name), then one of Larsa, which under Rim-Sin was overthrown by Hammurabi, who says of himself upon one of his stele of laws: “who makes Sin, who makes Ur rich, who brings the kingdom to Gish-shir-gal (temple of the moon in Ur).” The city of Ur has been rediscovered in the ruins of El- Mugayyar (el-Mugheir) in South Babylonia, upon the right bank of the Euphrates. Here Royal seals with the name Uru have been found, inscriptions of Dungi, Kudur-Mabug, Ishme-Dagan, but also more of Nabonidus. The city was chief place of worship of the South Babylonian moon cult.1
Gen. xi. 31 : The people of Abraham journey towards Harran the northern moon city, chief place of Mesopotamia proper.2
 
FIG. 120.—Ruins of El-mugayyar (Ur Kasdim of the Bible, Abraham’s home).
Should their goal have been even then Canaan, this was the usual caravan route out of Babylonia, in spite of the enormous detour.3
1   Eupolemos (about 160 B.c.), in Eusebius, Prcep. evang., ix. 7 (Muller, Fragm., iii. 211 f.), says that Abraham was born in the Babylonian city Kamarine, which many call Ovp'nj. Kamarine, probably to be interpreted by the Arabian Kamar moon, is also to be read in the Sibylline books (Kautzsch, Pseudepr., 189) as name of a city “in the land of Ur.”
2   It is from the old point of view of the primitive life in the desert of Israel when Gupkel {Genesis, 150) says that, according to Gen. xii. I, Abraham’s forefathers were not thought of as dwellers in cities when they were described as going out from Harran. But when Guthe, Geschichte Israels, 10, says : “ they or their fathers turned their backs upon civilisation for the sake of the freedom of the desert,” this is, in fact, contradicted not only by the circumstances of the Israelite primitive age, but it contains in general an impossibility in the history of civilisation.
3   The migration of Esau, which is related in the same words as that of Abraham (Gen. xxxvi. 6, comp. xii. 5), has another motif, but it was also viewed as the migration of a community, as Klostermann has seen, Geschichte Israels, 30.
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ABRAHAM AS BABYLONIAN
The special name of the Moon-god here, side by side with Sin, was Bel-IJarran, and as such he exercised a strong influence upon Syria.1 The reforms of Islam are largely connected with Harran. Right into the Middle Ages traces of moon-worship were retained amongst the Sabaeans of Harran, in this stronghold of heathenism.
From Harran the road led by Biredjik over the Euphrates. Sachau found traces of the old road. In the Thousand and One Nights an interesting journey is related from Harran to Samaria. The way of the people of Abraham was by the primeval caravan and military road connecting Egypt with Babylonia. Damascus might be expected as chief halting- place.1 2 In fact, Gen. xv. 2 does hint a connection between the Biblical stories of the Patriarchs and Damascus. The tradition still lives in Damascus.3 Berossus records, according to Josephus, Ant., i. 7, that in his time the name of Abram was still celebrated in the land of the Damascenes, and Josephus quotes from the fourth book of the Histories of Nicholas of Damascus the following story :
In Damascus reigned Abram, who came there with an army from the land of the Chaldees,4 bordering on the upper half of Babylon. And not long after he moved out again from there with his people towards Canaan, which is now called Judea, where he greatly increased.
1   A relief from Zenjirli in Syria gives evidence of the civilisation of that country. In Nerab near Aleppo two gravestones were found, erected for priests of the Moon-god of Harran. In a treaty between Mati-ilu, Prince of Arpad (see p. 49), and the Assyrian king Ashurmirari, Sin of IJarran is invoked in the first passage.
2   Assyrian Dimashqi, Timasqi in the lists of Thothmes from the sixteenth century (comp. pp. 328, i. f.).
3   The Jebel Qasyun rising above Damascus is held sacred by the Moslems. It was here that Abraham reached the knowledge of the unity of God ; see Baedeker.
4   This is certainly a later addition, which confounds Harran with Ur, or reckons Ur with Chaldea. Otherwise Lepsius, who holds Urfa for the home, might have appealed to it.
CHAPTER XV
ABRAHAM AS CANAANITE
THE RELIGION OF THE PEOPLE OF ABRAHAM
THE Yahveh religion of the Mosaic period has, according to the Biblical tradition, previous stages in the religion of the Patriarchs (comp. Exod. iii. 16). We are of opinion that this tradition corresponds to a fact of religious history. Abraham’s migration brought the tradition into connection with the two great intellectual cities of the Moon-god (Sin of Ur and Bel-^arran). The tradition of Josephus, xxiv. 2, says of Abraham’s forefathers that beyond the Euphrates they served “ other gods,” 1 therefore the gods of the Babylonian astral religion. We have seen the monotheistic undercurrent which for initiates underlay this astral religion. These undercurrents must have become particularly strong in the regions of moon-worship before the age of Hammurabi. Moon-worship ruled the age till the worship of Marduk of Babylon brought solar phenomena to the fore.2 That the moon should be held as summus deus (that is to say, by initiates: it is the abstract of all divine power) followed naturally in more than one respect from the system (see my article on “Sin” in Roscher’s Lexicon der Mythologie). Beneath the heaven of the seven planets, that of the moon formed the topmost stage, leading into the heaven of Anu. Therefore Sin = Anu as “ father of the gods ” and “ king of the gods,” p. 109, i. In the trinitarian conception of
1   Comp. Sura vi. 76 : “Say : Truly my Lord hath led me in the right way, to the faith of the orthodox Abraham, who was no idolater.” Islamism is the religion of Abraham.
2   P. 86, i. Comp, further, Monotheist. Stromungen innerhalb der baby Ion. Religion, Leipzig, 1904 ; and Baentsch, Altorientalischer und israelitischer Monotheismus, Tubingen, 1906.
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ABRAHAM AS CANAANITE
the divine power which we may gather from the zodiac, the moon was held as father.1 The conception Ab, that is “ (divine) father,” in the name Ab-ram bears reference to the moon, (comp. p. 16). We possess a hymn to Sin of Ur which praises the moon as “ merciful father.” We reproduce here a passage of this magnificent hymn :2
Mighty Guide, whose deep mind no god may penetrate;
Swift One, whose knee wearieth not, who openeth the way of the gods, his brothers.
Who moveth glittering from the foundation of the heavens to the height of the heavens,
who openeth there the gates of the heavens, bestowing light upon all mankind;
Father, begetter of all, who looketh upon all things living, .... who upon .... thinketh
Lord, who holdeth the fate of heaven and earth, whose command none (changeth);
who holdeth fire and water, who guideth all things living, what god is like unto thee ?
Who in heaven is exalted ?   Thou, thou only art exalted !
Who upon earth is exalted ?   Thou, thou only art exalted !
At thy word, thine, when it resounds in heaven, the Igigi cast themselves upon their faces ;
at thy word, thine, when it resounds upon earth, the Anunnaki kiss the ground.
At thy word, thine, when it goeth forth above like the tempest, prosper food and drink;
at thy word, thine, when it cometh down upon the earth, the green things arise.
Thy word, thine, maketh fat both stall and herd, increaseth all things living;
thy word, thine, maketh truth and justice to arise, so that men speak truth.
thy word, thine, is like unto the distant heavens, the hidden underworld, which none may penetrate ; thy word, thine, who may understand it, who is like unto it ?
O   Lord, in dominion in the heavens, in rule upon earth, amongst the gods thy brothers, hast thou no rivals;
King of Kings, Mighty One, whose command none may dispute, there is no god like unto thee.
We can naturally only conjecture the religious motives which led to the migration of Abraham. By analogy with other phenomena of religious history in the Ancient-East, we may
1 P. 109, i.   2 Zimmern, A.O., vii. 3, 13; comp, also p. 17*
RELIGION OF THE PEOPLE OF ABRAHAM 11
take it that it had to do with a movement of reform, protesting against the religious degeneration of the ruling classes.1 According to circumstances, it may either have been against degeneration in moon-worship, or it may have been a protest against the cult of the new astronomical age (worship of Marduk, see p. 73, i.),1 2 introduced by the Hammurabi dynasty. In neither case would it have to do with a total denial of the astral system in question, but only with a protest against the polytheistic worship founded upon the system. The teaching itself was well known to the holders of the Yahveh religion in the patriarchal age, just as it was at later stages (in Mosaic and prophetic religion). This shows itself in the astral-mythological motifs,3 so far as they are made use of; and more than all, as we shall see later, in the symbolism of the worship, in which the elements of the astral system were retained.4
In Abraham, therefore, we see a Mahdi. The march out from Babylonia appears to us a hegira. The religious movement under Mohammed offers in many points an historical analogy. Like the religion of Mohammed, so that of Abraham is a reforming advance upon the current intellectual ideas.5
1   Jewish and Islamic legends make Abraham a martyr under Nimrod. We are of opinion here also that it is not treating of phantoms and mere speculations, but of a truth of religious history brought forward in legendary form and endowed with mythological motifs.
2   Thus now Winckler, Abraham als Babylonier, pp. 24 ff. ; the Laws of Hammurabi, p. xxxi.
3   Upon the traditions of Abraham, see pp. 16 ff. Baentsch, loc. cit., p. 60, overestimates, in our opinion, the religious meaning of these poetic motifs, when he assumes that they are a sign that the patriarchal religion was unwilling as yet to indicate any break in principle with the astral religion, though it presented a step beyond the Ancient-Babylonian religion.
4   We shall include in this symbolism the meaning of the mountain of divine revelation, Sinai, which, according to Exod. iii. (it is here called Horeb), was already held as a place of worship in the patriarchal age.
5   Acts vii. 2 seem to refer to a tradition according to which Abraham had already carried on a religious propaganda from Ur into Mesopotamia. The passage states that Abraham received the command to migrate “in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Haran.”
The most perverted use of the name Mesopotamia could not allow of Haran, chief city of Mesopotamia, as its antithesis. The apocalyptical history of Abraham does, in fact, seem to be aware of an earlier journey to Fandana, i.e. Padan Aram (see “ Apok. Abrahams” in Siudien zur Geschichte der Theologie und Kirche, i. 1st ed., Bonwetsch); comp, article on Mesopotamia in Hauck, R.B.Tk., 3rd ed.
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ABRAHAM AS CANAANITE
The tradition tells of visionary events in Ur (Neh. ix. 7) as in Haran (Gen. xii. 1). Following the divine command, he led his people towards the Westland; towards, as it appears, the region lying beyond the realm of Babylonian dominion. His whole life in Canaan is characterised by visionary and ecstatic events: Gen. xii. 17; xiii. 14; xv. 1 ff. ; xvii. 1 IF. ; particularly xv. 12 ff.
Now appears a fact in full force, which can neither be proved nor refuted by means of historical-critical investigation. Abraham recognised, in his own life and in the education of the human race, the power of the living God.1 God revealed His way to Abraham and the working of His power to the people of Abraham. He showed Himself as the merciful God who hears prayer and forgives sins. This was the beginning of “ revelation ” in the Biblical sense, which finds its goal in Christianity, and which, in its beginnings and development, could always only work through individuals. Only religious experience can unravel the mystery of the method. But one law of this revelation we do know. It never falls direct from heaven, but is always closely joined on to what has been already given, and works by refining upon a gradual religious and moral development. We can only offer conjectures as to other detail.
The next question that presents itself is, whether the traditions that have come down to us permit of a conclusion (Rilck- schluss) upon the nature of the religion of Abraham’s time.
Characteristic names for God are in the traditions of the Patriarchs, which cannot be set down to later revision.2 The
1 The critic naturally says this must be taken in the sense meant in later religion of the prophets. But that is petitio principii. Besides, if God revealed Himself to the prophets, why should He have been silent in the beginning of the Israelite religion? If it is asked : Where, then, was His revelation before Abraham ? we reply with Acts xiv. 16 : “He sufifereth all nations to go their own way,” but in the same sense as in Rom. i. 19 ff., where the author included the KadopacrSat ra aijpara, that is to say, the Swap.is KCU 6IT6TTIS of God in nature. With the “Father of the Faithful” began the new era, a revelation tending towards a dispensation of salvation.
2   Baentsch, loc. cit., 56: “They would scarcely have invented an 'El shaddai or an abstract Elohim specially for Abraham. It is precisely this point, therefore, in which we must see an ancient, truly historic tradition, not to be lightly set aside, and a theology which so intentionally marks itself as being one of religious history should be very scrupulously valued.”
RELIGION OF THE PEOPLE OF ABRAHAM 13
God of Abraham was called VZ (Gen. xxi. 33) at the sanctuary of Beer-sheba,1 VZ 4olam—is it possible that in this ancient name 4olam,44 world ” is denoted, as later in the Jewish ? Space and time are identical to the Oriental mind—“God from Everlasting,” and W shaddai (Gen. xvii. 1, Exod. vi. 3; comp. Gen. xlix. 25 f.), for which no satisfactory interpretation has yet been found. The divine designation ilu does not in itself mean anything more than a general conception of God. Besides, the same divine name is also often to be found evidencing a monotheistic tendency upon Babylonian and Canaanite ground;2 the plural ’elohim is found also in the Amarna Letters, ii., as designation for God in majesty plmralis (ilani).
Possibly a hint as to the nature of their conception of divinity is given in the epithet VZ 4olam applied by Abraham to his god when making his alliance with Abimelech.3 ’El 4olam may mean 44 God from Everlasting,” or 44 God of the World ” ([‘olam used for time and space), as specially the divinity who (as summits deus) is enthroned at the north point of the universe.4 The meeting with Melchizedek is also characteristic. Melchizedek, priest of Jerusalem (for the historical view of this character, see pp. 27 ff.), names the God of Abraham VZ 6elyon, Creator (imp,5 not Sift) of heaven and earth (Gen. xiv. 19). Abraham makes use of the same name in speaking with the King of Sodom. It is therefore the name by which the God of Abraham was worshipped in Sichem; see Gen. xiv. 22.
In regard to the name Yahveh in the history of Abraham. From the form of the tradition we may naturally quite justifi-
1   Well of the “seven,” i.e. the Pleiades, which represent the powers of the Underworld.
2   Delitzsch, B.B.I., 4thed., 75 : Ilu-amranni, “ Uu, look upon me” ; Uu-turam, “ Ilu, turn thou again” ; Ilu-ittia, “ Ilu with me” ; Ilu amtahar, “I cry unto Uu ” ; Uu-abi, “Ilu is my father”; Iluma-ili, “Ilu is god”; Shuma-ilu-la-ilia, “If Ilu were not god, ” and so on. On the Amarna tablets there are names like Shabi-ilu, Milki-ilu, Ili-Milku, Yabni-ilu; with this comp. Homme], Altisr. Uberl., chap. iii.; and now, above all, Ranke, Early Babylonian Personal Names, Philadelphia, 1905.
3   See Klostermann, Gesck.-lsr., p. 35, where he rightly contradicts the conjecture of aViy in p,(?y, and supposes the name shows a recognition of the eternal god of all.
4   'Olam, antithesis to Qedem as south point (primeval ocean from which the world proceeded); see Winckler, F., iii. 305 f. (also upon time = space). This is also the meaning of ‘olam in Ps. xxiv. 7.
5   Compare the name El-kana, and the fact of the name of God, by which Elieser must swear, Gen. xxiv. 3. Or nip = owner. It is a motif word,
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ABRAHAM AS CANAANITE
ably refer it back to an original scripture. At the same time it must be allowed that in Babylonian nomenclature a corresponding name also existed, in the form Ya’u.1 In passages like Exod. xv. 2 (“ my father’s God is Jah ! ”), Isa. xii. 2 (Jah together with Yahveh), in the cry hallelu-jah, in personal nouns joined on to liT, this Babylonian form of the name of God seems to present itself.1 2 But even if the designation for God existed previously in the patriarchal age, that would give no evidence about the conception of God in the primitive period of Israel.
Besides, “What’s in a name?” The name gives no clue to the idea contained in the conception.3 Chief emphasis is laid by the tradition upon the moral relation to divinity, indicating an absolutely new position, in opposition to polytheism and astral religion. “ Walk before me, and be thou perfect,” Gen. xvii. 1; “ Yahveh, before whom I walk,” Gen. xxiv. 40. In every part of the tradition the story gives prominence to the way in which Abraham’s circumstances made him the friend of God and imparter of blessings to the future.
Now in what way did Abraham carry out his propaganda P Surely it would be in the same manner as St Paul in Athens, or the Christian missionaries in heathen Germany. He joined it on to existing sanctuaries and cults, having a special preference for the “ sacred trees” (pp. 207, i. ff.).4 The oracle tree of Moreh, Gen. xii. 6, in the neighbourhood of the Canaanite holy cities of Shechem, and the oracle tree of Mamre in Hebron, Gen. xiii. 18, represent the Tree of the World.5 Here
1   See Delitzsch, B.B., i. 74 £ j comp. Kampf um Babel und Bibel, 4th ed., p. 20.
2   In the tetragrammaton nin’ we see a ceremonious differentiation from the ‘ ‘ heathen ” name, which was the signal for a religious concentration at Sinai. See Kampf um Babel und Bibel, 4th ed., p. 20 ; Hommel, Die altor. Denkmaler und das Alte Testament supplement.
3   Our word “god ” also comes down from heathendom, just as does the Beds of the New Testament; compare with this now also Erbt, Hebraer, p. 39.
4   Gen. xxi. 33 : “He planted a tamarisk tree in Beer-sheba, and called there on the name Yahveh as 'el ‘olam.”
5   According to Winckler, F., iii. 406, these two are identical: Moreh = Mamre, the one belonging to the tradition which made Abraham dwell in the south (Hebron), the other to the tradition which placed his history in the north (Sichem) ; comp, also p. 26. The tree of Moreh (miD = instruction, like Thora) corresponds to the tree of knowledge ; see pp. 207, i. f.
RELIGION OF THE PEOPLE OF ABRAHAM 15
he gathered together believers. According to this sense Luther’s translation gives the correct meaning: “ He preached the name of the Lord.1'’
Jewish legends amplify this. We draw attention here to a fable which strikingly recalls the milieu of the Sinuhe story:—
Abraham next founded a refuge for homeless wanderers 1 and entertained them. Instead of receiving any recompense or thanks, he referred them to the master of the house. “ Where shall we find this gracious Being ? ” asked the wanderers. “ He is the God Who has made heaven and earth.” And when they desired to know how to pray to that Almighty Being, he taught them the words (still used as the opening formula of the Jewish prayer at meals when three or more men eat together) : “ Praised be the Everlasting, the ever Blessed; praised be the God of the Universe, from Whose bounties we have eaten ” (comp. Beer, Leben Abrahams, lvi. 174).
It goes without saying we do not assume that the religion of Israel only hangs on “ thin threads from the long past ages.” Just as the history of morality unfolded itself, so also did religion in Israel. Only here also we must think of the development not as a straight line, but as an undulating curve.1 2 * * 5
The conception sketched here of the religion of Abraham is in opposition to the conception of the so-called “historical school,” which, parallel with its construction of the history, distinguishes a progressive development in the religion of Israel: (1) Bedouin religion ; (2) Peasant religion; (3) Religion of the prophets. Though we also recognise as relatively correct that Israel passed through a nomadic and an agricultural period, yet this “development” had nothing to do with the Biblical religion. We distinguish absolutely between Yahveh religion and Israelite popular religion.
The popular religion of Israel was pagan, and even in circles
1   Comp. p. 56, the founding of a refuge by Jacob.
2   On the other hand, we cannot break the links of the chain by which, according to tradition, the history Of the religious community, later known as a nation
under the name of “Children of Israel,” is bound to Abraham as founder of its
religion (“Father of the Faithful”), even if not in an ethnological sense (see p.
5 and comp. pp. 42 ff.). Baentsch, loc, cit., still holds firmly to the opinion which looks upon Abraham as a Canaanite character, holding that the Israelite tradition took the Canaanite tradition of Abram and put Abram into the place of honour amongst the Patriarchs of Israel.
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ABRAHAM AS CANAANITE
where Yahveh was included in the religious conception as 44 God of Gods,” it still remained a Yahveh-popular religion, saturated with pagan conceptions (for an example, see p. 48). Pure Yahveh religion was the ideal, fostered by the religious leaders and by religiously stimulated circles. From the first there was a 44 spiritual Israel.11 But only at critical points of their historical development were the people seized by an impulse of the pure religion. For this reason their condition was rightly held to be one of 44 revolt.11 The prophets called to them to 44 return.11 A development, in the sense held by the “historical school,11 holds good only of certain phenomena of the popular religion, which stood in opposition to the Yahveh religion.1
^ Astral Mythological Motifs
The stories of Abram are endowed with special astral motifs, because Abram (with Lot) is the founder of a new era, as the blessing in Gen. xii. 3 f. expressly says.
Oriental historical stories always endow the bringer of a new era with the motifs of the astral figure who represents the beginning of the age.* Abram lived in the Marduk age ; see pp. 73, i. f. The religious movement, into which he entered, would be directed against the ruling cult. The preceding age was that of the Moon, or of the Twins, as has been shown at pp. 71, i. ff. In speaking about Abram, ancient Canaanite records would be induced, for this reason, to let traces of the corresponding motifs of those ages show in the presentment. It is to be observed here that the critical point, giving the motifs, did not, as in the Marduk age, lie in the spring point, but in the solstice (see pp. 34, i. f. and fig. 14).
Whether the author of our text still understood the allusions is another question. Possibly many such features were lost in his work of recapitulation. Later Judaism, again, learnt to know the
1 And also this development is differently formed throughout, as the predominating view presupposes, which starts from low forms of animism and totemism, etc. The popular religion was astral religion with phenomena in nature emphasised which move in parallel course to the star cycle. Comp. A. Jeremias, Der Ein- Jluss Babyloniens auf das Verstandnis des Alten Testaments, 1906, and Winckler’s
work named in note, p. 16. The deductions given above are taken from a presentment of the “ connection of Babylonian religion with Israelite religion” which the author laid before the theological conference at Eisenach, Whitsuntide 1906. At the same time appeared Winckler’s work, Religionsgeschichtler und geschicht- licher Orient, an examination of the suppositions in the “considerations of religious history” of the Old Testament and the school of Wellhausen, and Baentsch, Allorient. und israelit. Monotheismus: Ein Wort zur Revision der entwickelungsgeschichtlichen Aujfassung der israelitischen Religionsgeschichte.
NAMES OF THE PEOPLE OF ABRAHAM 17
motifs and revivified the teaching, as is shown by the construction of the pseud-epigraphical writings and the Rabbinical fables.
1.   The Astral Character of the Name.—Ab-ram is a pure Babylonian name.1 It signifies "the (divine) father is sublime”; comp. Ab-ner, "the (divine) father is the light.” They had a special preference for designating the Moon-god as "father” (Sin abu il&ni, comp. p. 109, i-); for example, in the hymn to the Moon- god Sin of Ur, the home of Terah, IV. R. 9, he is called upon nine times as " father,” and it is said amongst other things :1 2
Merciful, gracious Father, in whose hand lies the life of the whole land,
Lord, thy divinity is like the far heaven, like the wide sea, filling with awe, ....
Father, begetter of gods and men, who establisheth dwellings, ordaineth sacrifice,
Who calleth to the kingdom, lendeth the sceptre, who ordaineth Fate to distant days.
Compare also 1 Kings xvi. 34 : Abiram with the name Abram.
In South Arabian inscriptions the theophorous names with Ab = Moon-god bear evidence of being specially priests’ names. Comp. Ab as designation of priest in Judges xvii. 9; Elisha is so called by the king. The name therefore points perhaps to a priestly character of Abraham. The other name, Ab-raham, introduced in P (Gen. xvii. 5) as a re-naming, and signifying "Father of Tumult,” would correspond to Sin as Qarid ilani, "War hero of the Gods”; see p. 6.
Sarai’s 3 name corresponds to the designation of the Moon-goddess of Harran: Nikkal-sharratu (sharratu = queen); and the name of Abraham’s sister-in-law, Milka, fits together with Malkatu, an epithet applied to Ishtar.4 She appears as the beautiful sister-wife of Abraham and receives the veil. Gen. xx. 6.
In the name of Abram’s father, Terah, possibly the name for the moon* Yerah, may be veiled; the name might be intentionally
1   The much-quoted name upon a contract tablet of King Apil-Sin (grandfather of Hammurabi) should not be read Abi-ramu, but (with Ranke) Abi-eraji, “ the moon is my father.” But the Assyrian eponym of the year 677-76 (see K.B., i. 207 ; comp. Zimmern, K.A.T., 3rd ed., 482), bore the same name: Abi-rama likewise, the sister of Esarhaddon’s mother; see Johns, Deeds No. 70, Rev. vi. Ranke, in Personal Names, records (p. 86), as variant for Hammurabi, Ha-am- mi-ra-am, which means "my (divine) uncle is sublime.” By this, therefore, according to the meaning, Hammurabi had the same name as his contemporary (pp. 23 f.) Abraham. Compare again Hommel in P.S.B.A., May 1894, and Anc. Heb. Trad.
2   Zimmern, K.A.T., 3rd ed., 607 ff. A.O., vii. 3. For another passage from this hymn, see pp. 10 f.
3   Sa-ra-ai, name in a cuneiform letter, K 1274, Obv. 2. nib', 'Zappa, is the Canaanite form ; njp, Sa-ra-ai, Arabic Aramaic feminine form (Hommel, G.G.G., p. 186, 3rd ed.).
4   See Zimmern, K.A.T., 3rd ed., 364 f. For the divine name, contained in Nahor,[see ibid. 477 f.
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ABRAHAM AS CANAANITE
mutilated, as was often done with the theophorous names of “ pagan ” characters.1
The name Laban denotes the moon (Hebrew poetry, lebana, Song of Songs, vi. 9 ; Isa. xxiv. 23, xxx. 26, and in the Jewish planetary days of the week the name for Monday).1 2
2.   Moon-Motifs in the Stories of Abraham.3
(a) The number 318 in Gen. xiv. 14, which is, however, certainly not historic. It is the number of warriors given in stories of fights embellished with mythological motifs. It is the number of days in the lunar year when the moon is visible (354 days less 12x3 days of dark moon = 318 days). In Abraham’s warfare with enemies, 318 companions support him, as the moon in warfare against the darkness has light 318 days.4 They are for this reason mysteriously named in Gen. xiv. 14 hanikim, the meaning of which is people of the sun ; see p. 239, i-, and p. 32. If the cabalistic sign for the name of Eliezer, Abraham’s servant, is equivalent to the number 318, that would show that late Judaism knew astral symbolism thoroughly. In Christian symbolism the number 318 is often met with right into the Middle Ages.
(5) The number 13 for the beginning of action, Gen. xiv. 4 : “Twelve years they served Chedorlaomer, and in the thirteenth year they rebelled.” This is distinctly a lunar number. The lunar year (354) requires twelve additional days for equalisation with the solar year. These twelve days are current as lying “between the years,” like the five epagomenae in the equalisation of 360 and 365, new year festival days. We know them as the twelve days with fateful nights at the turn of the year, ending in England with Twelfth Night. With the thirteenth day the new year begins. This is why Mohammed, the Moon-worshipper, was born, according to the legends (Ibn Hisham, 102), on the thirteenth of Rebi‘ I, and on a Monday.5
(c) The moon is “the Wanderer.” Possibly this motif also was in the mind of the chronicler in naming the chief halting-places
1   Winckler, Gesch. Is., ii. 23, spoke in this connection of Abraham as a “heroic precipitation of the Moon-god,” and of “the figure of Abraham as emanation of the Moon-god.” Stucken forms the same opinion in his astral myths. But later Winckler escaped this sophism. The opinion of Procksch, Nordhebr. Sagenbuch, p. 332, on “the celestial historical astrology which looks for the terrestrial patriarchs in the wrong places,” and which for this reason “ need not be taken into consideration,” does not fall in with the interpretation of either Winckler or myself.
2   Has the divine name Ilu La-ban, III. R. 66, 6b, to do with this ? It follows Nebo, and it precedes Shamash and Bel labiru, therefore probably Sin (see Hommel, Assyrian Notes, 50, where the list III. R. 66 is transcribed).
3   Baentsch, Altorient. und israel. Monotheismus, sees in the moon motifs with
which the tradition of Abram is endowed an indication that the religion of Abram does not yet mean any break in principle with that religion. In my opinion this is an overestimation of the motifs.   4 See Baentsch, loc. cit., pp. 61 f.
5   Comp. Winckler, F., ii. 350, 266. For another example, see p. 86.
ASTRAL MOTIFS IN THE STORY OF ABRAHAM 19
of the march. Abraham moved from east to west, like the moon. Harran, the city of Bel-Harran, means “way”; Gerar, where Abraham dwelt as a stranger, contains a play of words on girru, “path.” In Gen. xiii. 3 Abraham went “unto the place where his tent had been at the beginning,” VJJDDS, like the moon, as has been observed by Winckler, F., iii. 407.
We find the same motif again in the migration to Sinai. The word only appears among the halting-places of the journey through the wilderness ; see p. 106.
3.   Twin (Dioscuri) Motif.—This motif, which places moon and sun in opposition,1 is shown in the story of Abram and Lot. They represent the new age. Therefore their history is endowed with Dioscuri motifs.1 2 If the summer solstice is taken as the beginning of the new age, then one of the Twins bears lunar motifs at the apogee (see fig. 14, p. 35); the other bears, in opposition, motifs of the sun, in the Underworld.3 The Twins are the parted, that is to say, the hostile brothers. This is the motif in Gen. xiii. 9:
“If thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou wilt go to the right hand, then I will go to the left.”
Further, the motif of hospitality,4 belongs to the Dioscuri. Abram and Lot entertain celestial visitors; Gen. xviii. 3 ff. and xix. 3. Further, the rnotif of support. Hygin’s account of the chivalrous support given to Castor by Pollux (fab. lxxx.) shows numerous motifs related to the allusive stories in Gen. xiv. Finally, the motif of renouncement of reward.
The Babylonian teaching shows us (pp. 35, i. f., 125) that the moon as well as the sun (likewise the third great star Venus) may appear in the figure of Tammuz, in so far as they all sink into the Underworld and rise again. Legends outside the Bible are fond of attaching Tammuz motifs to the figure of Abraham. Abram, cast into the fiery furnace by Nimrod,5 and rescued from it, corresponds
1   Twins = sun and moon, or the growing and waning moon (two faces, comp. Janus as Moon-god, p. 72, i.); or, in the fixed-star heaven, which is a commentary upon the planetary heaven, Castor and Pollux.
2   P.17, comp. pp. 76, i. ff. Moses has the motifs of the later, Taurus (Marduk) age; see Exod. ii. Lot takes the place of the dead father.
3   m1? means “veiling.” Here also there is a play upon the words. The old astral mythological interpretations (Dupuis, Nork) already kept this in mind: “ Abraham from Ur (city of light) and Lot (darkness) could not live together.”
4   “Dioscuri maxime hospitales sese prsebent” ; see Jos. Schmeitz, De Dioscuris Grcecorum diis, cap. 5, quotation p. 39. Quoted according to Stucken, Astral- mythen, pp. 82 f.; also to be compared with the following: “It goes without saying that such assonances might be accidental. But the acceptance of such accident is no longer justifiable when the small, seemingly unimportant analogies multiply and link together.”
5   Quoted passages in Beer’s Leben Abrahams.

[Prometheus]

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to Tammuz sinking into death at the heat point and rising again. Tammuz is also, as is known, a hunter.1 In the fables of Og it
says :
“ bold and zealous, like unto the huntsman armed with his weapons, is this Abraham.” 1 2
The Arabs also recognise the Tammuz character of Abraham. The river Adonis, rising in Lebanon and having at its source sanctuaries of Ishtar and Tammuz (p. 99 f-, fig. 31), is called in Arabic Nahr-Ibrahim.
But our Biblical story also recognises the Tammuz-Ishtar motif. The journey of Abraham with his sister and wife (!) Sarah, to Egypt 3 is presented there as a descent into, and a rescue from, the Underworld. As south, Egypt is the Underworld; see p. 30, i. When Ishtar, the primeval Mother, descends into the Underworld all fertility ceases, as the well-known Babylonian text of the “ descent into hell of Ishtar ” dramatically represents. The chronicler hints this, Gen. xii. 17 : the house of Pharaoh was “ plagued ” because of Sarah. What was the plague? The duplicate passage (Gen. xx. 17 f.)4 says : sterility had come upon the women. No one could take this to be historical even in the mind of the chronicler. The story refines upon the motif. According to Gen. xx. 17, Abime- lech falls ill as punishment, not the women. Also in the unfruitfulness of Sarah, changed into fruitfulness, the Ishtar character is indicated by the stress laid upon the word mpy.5 Finally, the motif of deliverance out of the Underworld lies in the story of the rescue of Lot. Lot is in Sodom = Underworld. As he has the sun motif (with Abraham as Moon Dioscurus), his partner (Lot’s wife), has lunar character. Sun and moon desert the Underworld. The astronomical picture (fig. 15), shows the appertaining motifs. The moon rises. So soon as he turns round, he falls again into the Underworld. Lot’s wife turns round and dies. In the heavens the constellation Orion corresponds to Tammuz, rising in the
1   The moon also is hunter, in so far as he bears the Tammuz character; see
P- 35, 1*
2   Beer, loc. citp. 29.
3   That is to say, Muzri, which, however, in cosmic as also in physical geography, was reckoned as Egypt (pp. 286, i. f.).
4   It is to be noted that Abimelech wishes really to marry Sarai, Gen. xx. 2 : then Abimelech sent and took Sarah (naw np^> = Assyrian ahdzu ashshata, here in the sense of marriage). By a dream in the night Yahveh prevents him, as Asmodai does the husbands of Sarah, daughter of Reguel, Tobit iii. 8 ; see Winckler, F., iii. 414, who explains the “covering of the eyes” (Gen. xx. 16) also surely correctly as veil (chief part of the rich dowry given by Abimelech to Sarah) : an allusion to the veiled Ishtar, comp. Gen. xxiv. 65.
5   mpy is everywhere motif word in this sense : Gen. xi. 30 (Sarah), xxv. 21 (Rebekah) xxix. 31 (Leah and Rachel); Judges xiii. 2 f. (the wife of Manoah !); Ex. xxiii. 26; Deut. vii. 14; I Sam. ii. 5; Isa. liv. 1 ; Ps. cxiii. 9, in describing the blessed age ; likewise Job xxiv. 21. These are complete passages.
THE CAMPAIGN OF ABRAHAM
21
summer solstice and setting in the winter solstice.1 Therefore in the journey to Egypt of Abraham we may equally well see Osiris- Sirius (feminine Sothis) as the wedded brother and sister Tammuz- Ishtar. The story of Jacob (see Gen. xxxii. 10), where we find Orion motifs (see pp. 57 f.), shows that Stucken is not in error with this idea. And Jacob is a character who, as bringer of a new epoch (pp. 51 ff.), corresponds to Abraham. ^ See Appendix.
THE CAMPAIGN OF ABRAHAM1 2
In Gen. xiv. Abraham “the Hebrew” appears as leader and adviser of the Canaanite (Amorite) tribes against the “kings of the nations,” just as the Egyptians relate of their Sinuhe (pp. 326, i. ff.) about 2000 B.C. This story belongs to a class of writing which is unique in the range of Old Testament literature; also in the range of cuneiform writing it cannot up to the present be located, but it is found in Egyptian writings.
In 1869 Th. Noeldeke explained the chapter as being an invention with a purpose, of a later time, and Wellhausen takes this decision to be “ irrefutable and incontrovertible.” Ed. Meyer, Gesckickte des Altertums, i., holds, with Stade, that Gen. xiv. is the latest passage of the Pentateuch, and gives the following opinion: “ It seems that the Jew, w'ho introduced the story in Gen. xiv., must have learnt in Babylon very exact detail of the most ancient history of the land, and, impelled by some motive unknown to us, he put Abraham into the history of Kudurlagamar (i.e. Chedorlaomer); for the rest, he then elaborated his story according to the Jewish view of ancient times.” 3 Against this Gunkel4 has lately recognised in his Genesis that
1   The summer solstice is first of all death-point of Tammuz-Orion. But- the death and resurrection are celebrated in cult close after each other: after three days by lunar calculation (see pp. 35, i. f.). Firmicus Maternus says in de errore prof, rel., “quern paulo ante sepelierant, revixisse jactant.” The rising of Orion in the summer solstice corresponds to the new moon. In the fourfold division of the year the corresponding festival quarter is the new moon (that is to say, full moon), before the beginning of spring. The companion picture to Orion as bringer of a new age in the summer solstice (Dragon-slayer, for which reason Nimrod = Orion, see p. 290, i. ; Osiris = Orion, Hercules = Orion, see Gen. xxxii. 10) is the savage Orion, the drunken, brawling giant, whose motifs are sounded in the stories of Goliath and Nabal.
2   Comp. Clemens Alex., Adrnon. ad gent., p. 16.
3   That these pictures are “ entirely unhistoric,” as Ed. Meyer says, the author would not himself be prepared to assert, after the discovery of the Hammurabi Code (comp. pp. 34 ff., legal customs of the tribe of Abraham).
4   The remark in the first edition, A. T.A.O., that Gunkel was the first to take the monumental researches into serious consideration from the theological side,
ABRAHAM AS CANAANITE
the story contains ancient, certain historical facts, above all in regard to the historical setting of the story. But, on the other hand, he judges, with Noeldeke, that it contains impossibilities— as in the military achievement of Abraham, and in the supposition of the existence of the yet to come Sodom and Gomorrha. The story contains therefore, in glaring contrast, things well authenticated and utter impossibilities. H. Winckler, Geschichte Israels, ii. 26 If. (then still under strong influence of the literary critical methods), analyses the tradition given in Gen. xiv. in three parts:—
1.   An Israelite chronicler whose literary education was founded upon the cuneiform tablet writings, and who possibly had charge of the correspondence between the Israelite and Babylonian courts, learnt to know hymns upon Chedorlaomer and Tidal,1 in which historical events of campaigns towards the “ Westland,” and of a fight in the vale of Siddim, were glorified in mythological form.
2.   The Elohist took their account over on to his own ground, and identified the Habiri Sheikh, who conquered the kings, with Abram.
3.   The Yahvist added passages about Sodom and Lot and about Melchizedek, and so on, to it. In his work Abraham als Babylonier Winckler lays stress upon “ the fact of the historical background in the stories of the Patriarchs” ; it is not likely that the other orally transmitted stories would throw no light on the personal history of Abraham, but probably the intention of the tradition was to show the great world-wide political background of the age, and to place the land Abraham sought in connection with the questions which were agitating the East of that day. Winckler also holds to the opinion that from the tradition in Gen. xiv. 1 Abraham must be taken to be a contemporary of Hammurabi, and that his migration intimates an opposition to the religious upheaval by which the dominion of the first dynasty of Babylon was marked, putting the worship of Marduk, the saving spring god, in place of the ancient moon-worship. Fr. Hommel, Altis. Uberlieferung, 153, holds the entire chapter to be very old; that the probably Babylonian original composition was saved in a Hebrew translation in the archives of the temple at Jerusalem, from the archives of the pre-Israelite kings of Salem.2 Erbt, Die
has been called a “ crying injustice ” by some interested parties. Certainly Budde (from whom, however, the objection did not come) in his book Die biblische Urgeschichte shows already a decided step in this respect. Later Budde left the track here indicated.
1   Such poems have, in fact, been found in modern Babylonian transcriptions. There are names in them which correspond to Tid'al (Tudhulu), and possibly to Chedorlaomer ; see p. 23.
2   Dillmann had already expressed the view that the author of Gen. xiv. drew from a Canaanite tradition.
THE CAMPAIGN OF ABRAHAM
Hebraer, pp. 6l ff. combats the "analysing of the Book of Genesis into fables ” by Gunkel, and seeks to prove that there is an unbroken chain of tradition linking the stories of the Patriarchs with the later time.
Gen. xiv. 1 ff. relates:
“ And it came to pass in the days of Amraph(el)s,x when Jrioch ruled over Shinar (Babylon), king of Ellasar (Larsa), that Chedorlaomer, king of Elam, and Tidal, king of Goiim, made war
against Bera\ king of Sodom, Birshai, king of Gomorrha, Shinab, king of Admah, Shemeber, king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela (that is, Zoar):
all these assembled themselves in the vale of Siddim (that is, the Salt Sea).
Twelve years they served Chedorlaomer; and in the thirteenth year 2 they rebelled.
But in the fourteenth year came Chedorlaomer, and the kings that were with him.'1''
The Mahdi Abraham came to the help of his comrade Lot, who was in danger. The political statements agree with history. “In the days of Hammurabi,” whose contemporary Abraham is said to be, in the first place there reigned over Shinar ( = Sumer—South Babylonia?) a king of Larsa, whose name (Rim-Sin, or Arad Sin) might read in Sumerian as Eri-Aku. It is recorded that the tribes of Canaan paid tribute for twelve years (possibly since a triumphant Elamite campaign against the “Westland”), and in the thirteenth year they rebelled, i.e., refused to pay tribute. For this they had to be punished. The objection: “ How can the small tribal kings of the valley of Siddim be brought into connection with the powerful
1   According to Hiising, the /-at the end of the name Amraphel should belong to
the following word: li-melok; compare with it the dating on the inscription of Eshmunazar (Lidzbarski, Handbuch der nordsemit. Epigraphik, 417 ; comp. Landau, Beitr. zur Altertumskunde des A.O., ii., 5. 1, 6 1): ijta   But the
interpretation remains grammatically difficult and without analogy in the Hebrew. Possibly the / may be explained more simply from the attested reading of Hammu rabili (Johns, P.S.B.A. xxix. 177-184, Rev. 30 : Ha-m-mu-ra-bi-ih). This rabih is synonym for rapashtu, rapaltu "far off.” Possibly the Hebrew paraphrase involves the form rapaltu.
2   Upon the motif 12/13, see pp. 18 f. Another example, p. 86.
24
ABRAHAM AS CANAANITE
empire of the world ? ” is answered. The story also by no means requires the assumption that King Chedorlaomer and his allies went in person against them. The kings of the empire of the world did not personally mount the war chariot, when it was a question of punishing tribute-failing vassals. But it is part of the ceremonious style of annal-writing to name the king as representative of his army, even if he were not personally with it. The numbers would not be very enormous upon either side; Abraham’s 318 hanikim would not in itself give occasion for hesitation, even if this number of mythological motif (p. 18) were the round number meaning a small number. The Canaanite kings and governors in the Amama Letters beg for comparatively small bands for rescue from enemies.1
The defenders of the historical accuracy of Gen. xiv. in the last few years laid great value on the proof that the names of the Babylonian Elamite kings are identical with certain names in Babylonian cuneiform records. They are Babylonian heroic songs, which describe the wars of independence against Elam. Fr. Hommel in particular has, in his Ancient Hebrew Tradition, given much attention to it, and has also presented for the first time a translation of part of the texts discovered by Pinches. But the joy in the discovery was soon silenced. There came a doubt about the identity of the names. Proper names have always been the crux of Assyriology. They are mostly written in ideograms bearing several meanings. The uncertainty of their reading has, besides, roused in many minds the wholly unjustifiable suspicion that the deciphering of the rest of the text also is unreliable. That Amrapli(el) and Hammurabi2 are equivalent seems to us certain, and the identity of Ellasar with Larsa, the ruins of which lie hidden under the mound of Senkereh, south-east of Uruk (Erech), and probably the identification of the Biblical Arioch with Rim-Sin or Arad-Sin, whose name in “ Sumerian ” is written Eri-Aku ; see p. 321, i.
The leader is Chedorlaomer. This name is pure Elamite. It signifies servant (?) of the Elamite goddess Lagamar, of whom there are also earlier traces.
A supposed discovery by P. Scheil, who thought he had found the name again in cuneiform, in one of the letters of
1   Gunkel says : “ What can we think of a chronicler who records such things,” and quotes Noeldeke : “If that is possible, then everything is possible.” See Winckler, Hammurabi, p. xxxi. n. 2.
2   See p. 23, n. 1.
THE CAMPAIGN OF ABRAHAM
25
Hammurabi, in the form Kudur-Nuhgamar, led Hommel astray into taking this name as equivalent to Chedorlaomer. The reading has been proved to be erroneous by more accurate study of the letter in Constantinople, and with the reading some of Hommel’s deductions also fall.1
But even if the names were identical with those of the heroes of the above-mentioned Babylonian epic of the Elamite war, it would be of no help to those who try to prove the authenticity of Gen. xiv. upon such grounds, because the poems are only known to us in the transcripts of the age of the Achaemenidse. From the time of Nabonidus they loved bringing out the Ancient-Babylonian names and praising Ancient-Babylonian heroes. Now, since it was the Jews in exile and after the exile who were witnesses of this Babylonian antiquarianism, it was not an unlikely thing to reverse it, and to say: Gen. xiv. is a poem with a purpose, which brings the ideal character of one Abraham into connection with the greatest number possible of ancient names; the story is the work 44 of a Jew working with archives of Babylonian Palestine and of the Temple.”1 2
That a literary criticism of this kind is untenable will be allowed by everyone who has begun to look at the Old Testament in the light of the ancient East. The Biblical writers, whose works are edited in our Bible, were at least quite as well able to draw from Babylonian tradition in the time of the kings as in the post-exilic period.   Facts of
history and the knowledge of historical personalities lie at the root of Gen. xiv. Those transcripts from the age of the Achaemenidae show how vivid the remembrance was in the Near East of events in Ancient-Babylonia. And the Israelites were at all times well informed of current events in the great empires of the world. We find this illustrated in the time of
1   Erbt, Ebrder, p. 67, suggests, and Hommel had already conjectured (Gesch. Bab. u. Ass., 366), an identification of Kedorla‘omer with Kudurmabuk (founded on a wrong reading of the cuneiform original), father of Rim-Sin, ad-da of Emut- baba, who allowed his son to reign in Larsa.
2   The explanation as a “ Midrash ” (by Kautzsch amongst others) does not at all fit the peculiarity of the tale, even if we allow that a “ Midrash” need not be an entirely made-up story.
26
ABRAHAM AS CANAANITE
the kings. It is only a question as to whether the appearance of Abraham is historic, or whether the stories of the victory over the four kings have simply been foisted upon him. For those who abolish the existence of Abraham the question is settled. But the stories contain very weighty material for the defence of the personality of Abraham. He was also looked upon as a commander-in-chief (see pp. 5 f.). The appearance of the 44 Hebrew ” Abraham entirely corresponds to the circumstances of that age, as shown us, for instance, in the Sinuhe stories. The reason of his appearance, not taking into account the circumstances of the relationship with Lot, was that the campaign threatened a part of his people with deportation (Gen. xiv. 12), so that the religious movement was endangered.
Gen. xiv. 8: 44 Four kings against five.” Five is the number of the Dragon combat, and is for that reason specially emphasised; see pp. 78, i., 93, i., 42, n. 1. Five kings assemble in the Vale of Siddim, that is, in the Vale of Demons (shedim) ; by this mythic geographical name they are denoted as Powers of the Underworld.
Gen. xiv. 10 f.: The kings of Sodom and Gomorrha fell into pits (m»n, bor) in the vale of demons. The later tradition has, with the fate of Sodom and the character of the neighbourhood of the Dead Sea in mind, made bitumen pits (non man) of it.
Gen. xiv. 13 ff.: Abram, the Hebrew (!) comes to the rescue. Abram dwelt in Shechem by the Tree of the World Moreh,1 see p. 14 (Gen. xiii. 18: Mamre in Hebron transports the scene of the story to the south; see p. 14), with three confederates.1 2 To rescue Lot Abram 46 counted ”3
1   Gen. xii. 6 ; comp. Deut. xi. 29 f., in the neighbourhood of Gerizim and Ebal.
2   Mamre, ’Eshkol and ‘Aner (‘Enak?). In ba'ale berith lies an echo of the Ba'al berith in Shechem, Judges viii. 33 ; ix. 4 (place of worship upon Gerizim or Ebal). Isaac also allies himself with three men by an oath (berith): Abimelech, Ahuzzath, and Phicol, Gen. xxvi. ff. He entertains them as Abraham did the three men who visited him (Gen. xviii. 2 ff.), and then is granted the fulfilment of a wish : his people find water.
3   For the variants see Kittel, Bibiia ; Sept, iipldfitjae.
THE CAMPAIGN OF ABRAHAM   27
“ his 318 hanikim,1 born in his house, and pursued as far as Dan.11
“ Then he divided himself over them (against them) by night, he and his servants, and smote them.11
The division into three parts belongs to the motifs of the moon-combat,1 2 and corresponds to the three watches of the moon, for which reason the night watches are strikingly emphasised. We find the same thing in the fights, endowed with moon-combat motifs, of Jacob against Laban, Gen. xxxiii., and of Gideon against the Midianites,
Judges vii. 16; of Saul against the Amonites, 1 Sam. xi. 11 ; and in the battles at Gibeah and Michmash.3
Gen. xiv. 18: “ And Malki- zedek, king of Salem, brought forth bread and wine; he was a priest of the El^elyon.
Salem, at least in the later
conception (comp. Psi lxxvi. 3),
was the poetic name for Jerusalem;
comp. Joshua x. 1: Adonizedek, i • j? v A i IA   FIG. 121.—Letter of Abdihiba from
king of Yerushalem.   Jerusalem to Amenophis IV.
In the Amarna Letters we meet
with many letters from Urusalim (see fig. 121) which correspond
 
1   Only used in this passage. It is an astral motif word which must belong to the myth of the rescue of the sun from the Underworld (Lot) by the moon : the 318 nights when the moon is visible help in the combat of the moon against the powers of the Southland (sun). We may remember the sun character of Hanok (Enoch), who was 365 years old, and the tyanfika festival of the solstice ; see p. 239, i., n. 8, and Winckler, Knt. Sc hr., iv. 64, and F., iii. 407. The hanikim was a consecrated band from amongst the Shechem allies, like the chosen youths in Judges vii. 1 ff. ; see Erbt, Ebrder, pp. 76 f.
2   Winckler, loc. cit., 407. The division belongs to the “night watches”; Kautzsch, Gunkel, and others translate this inaccurately.
3   See Winckler, Gesch. Isr., lxxxviii. 139, 157. Also in Job i. 17 we find the stratagem ; it seems to have become a standing motif in stories of battles.
28
ABRAHAM AS CANAANITE
to the Hebraic Yerushalem.1 The meaning as a City of Peace” is later popular etymology. The king and governor Abdihiba of Urusalim says of himself:
Behold, what concerns me (what concerns the region of this city Urusalim), not my father, not my mother established me (gave it me), but the arm of the mighty king allowed me to enter into the house of my forefathers (has given it to me). K.B., v. 102, 9 ff., 103, 25 ft.; see Hommel, Ancient Hebrew Tradition, 155.
The expression “ not my father, not my mother, but the divine call to the throne may I glory in,” belongs to the mythological necessity of the call to the king. It is the motif of the mystery of secret birth; see for detail upon this, pp. 90 ff., under “ Birth of Moses.” The king represents himself thus as the bringer of a new age, as a deliverer.
A number of examples are given in B.N.T., pp. 29 f.; others will be adduced under Exod. ii. 2. According to Deut. xxxiii. 9 ff. (see upon this passage pp. 59 and 91) Moses was endowed with the same motif: “ Who says of his father, and to his mother : I have not seen them [and who does not acknowledge his brother and who does not know his son].” 1 2 It is the same when Gudea says to the Queen of Heaven : “ I have no mother, thou art my mother ; I have no father, thou art my father. ”
The Epistle to the Hebrews applies the same motif to Melchizedek, King of Salem, Heb. vii. 3: Melchizedek was airdraip, ayeveaXoyrjTos, “ without father, without mother, without genealogy.”
The “ mighty king ” in the passage mentioned is, in the first instance, Amenophis IV. (Chuenaten), a religious reformer, who introduced a singular form of sun-worship in place of all other Egyptian cults, and built as sacred place for this cult, that city which lies under the ruins of Amarna. Whilst other Pharaohs were content to compare themselves with the Sun-god, Chuenaten wished to be exalted as incarnation of a great god. The governors of Canaan naturally obediently fell in with the requisition. They assure the king: “ Behold, the king has laid his name upon Jerusalem for ever, therefore can he never forsake the land of Jerusalem.” But behind this bending before Pharaoh there was certainly hidden a loftier insight, which may
1   “ City of Shalem”? Shalem, Assyrian Shulman, is possibly a designation of Ninib. The Amarna Letters mention a district Bit-Ninib in the neighbourhood of Urusalimmu ; see Zimmern, K.A,T.y 3rd ed., 475 f.
2   The bracketed sentence is possibly the gloss of an editor who no longer knew the motif of secret birth.
ABRAHAM AND MELCHIZEDEK
29
be at least related to the religion of Abraham. Between Abraham's religion and the religion of the priest-king Mel- chizedek there exists in any case a connection of religious history upon which the last word has not yet been said. The more or less clearly recognisable worship of “ God most High " links Abraham the Babylonian with the pious king of the Canaanites.   —
The connection with Jerusalem belongs to a later interpretation. The scene is laid, according to the original copy, in Shechem ; see p. 26. The priest bringing his benediction must come to meet Abraham out of Shechem (comp. Erbt, Ebraer, pp. 74 ff.). Salem is a variant of Shechem.1 Gen. xxxiii. 18 is an evidence of this: “ Jacob came to Shalem, the city of Shechem." 1 2 El-Elyon, the God of Melchizedek, is then identical with the El-berit worshipped (upon Ebal or Gerizim) in Shechem (thus in Judges ix. 46 instead of Ba-al-berit in Gen. ix. 4; comp. p. 27).
The blessing of Melchizedek runs (Gen. xiv. 19 f.) :
“ Blessed be Abram of El-Elyon possessor of heaven and earth.
And blessed be El-Elyon
who hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand."
It recalls the blessings in the cuneiform writings; comp, p. 106, i.
Gunkel, Genesis, 26l, is inclined to hold Melchizedek as an historical personage, and draws some far-reaching conclusions from it: Jerusalem was probably in a pre-Israelite period the centre of an important confederation of cities, as indeed in Joshua x. the king of Jerusalem appears to be chief of a Canaanite confederation ; later Judaism joined itself on to this tradition much as if the German Kaiser were to appear as successor to the Roman Caesars, and Ps. cx. gives evidence of the great value laid by the court tradition at Jerusalem upon the king of Jerusalem being the
1   See now Winckler, F, iii. 441 (also upon the following) against the earlier opinion in K:A.T,3rd ed., 424.
2   The old translations were right in reading it so, not as “safe.” Gen. xxxiv. 21, the people of Jacob were received in Shechem : “they shall be shelemim with us ” ; even if that also means “ dwell with us in peace,” still the motif of the name is purposely woven into it.
30
ABRAHAM AS CANAANITE
successor of Melchizedek.1 The step from the recognition of the priest-king, Melchizedek of Jerusalem, as an historical character, to the recognition of the Hebrew Abraham of Hebron, as historical, is not very far.
Gen. xiv. 3, 8, 10: Instead of D^to, siddim, it should be read Shedim.2 We may compare the Rephaim (properly speaking, spirits of the dead), which appear as a mythical tribe of demons ; Deut. ii. 11, 20 ; Judges xii. 4, etc.
Gen. xiv. 20; pD is a poetic motif word for 44 give,11 as in Hosea xi. 8, which represents the full motif; comp. Eccles.
iv.   9, by this the lexicographic difficulty is explained. In the same way Gen. xv. 1 should read 441 will give thee thy reward11 (not,441 am thy shield11).3 Besides which, Abraham does not give to Melchizedek, but, contrariwise, Melchizedek gives the Temple tax (satukku) to Abraham.4
Gen. xiv. 21 ff. : The King of Sodom 5 wishes to give the whole booty to Abraham, who will only accept what the people have taken for themselves in the loot.6 Besides this he will accept
1   We interpret this “priesthood after the order of Melchizedek ” not politically but religiously. The large-hearted, priestly poet (“thou art a priest after the order of Melchizedek”) laid great value upon the tradition of the pious priest-king of the Canaanites, who blessed Abraham, and through whom all heathen people should be blessed (Ps. Ixxii. 17). Erbt’s hypothesis (.Ebr'der, 74 fif.) is very noteworthy, seeing in Ps. cx. a liturgy upon Yahveh and Zion composed anew at the enthronement of the priest-king of Shechem. Upon the change from Shechem to Jerusalem, see p. 29.
2   So already said by Renan ; see Deut. xxxii. 17; Ps. cvi. 37. In both these
last-named passages the sacrifices are made to demons. The adoration of demons, guardian divinities of the house or temple must be criticised like the “devil- worship ” round about the Tigris at the present day. Offerings are made to them to avert evil; comp. Lev. xvii. 7. It has not been proved that “sacrifice to demons in Babylonia was only made in so far as it deals with spirits of the dead.” The word is of Babylonian origin. Babylonian demonology differentiates between an evil and a gracious shedu. Hitzig and Wellhausen also prefer in Hosea xii. 12 shedim instead of   and Hoffmann in Phoniz. Inschriften, p. 53, reads in
Job v. 21 shed instead of (see Zimmern, K.A. T., 3rd ed., p. 461).
3   Winckler, F, iii. 411.
4   The text is corrupt; see Siever’s Metrische Studien, 273.
5   According to v. 10 he is dead. Two versions of the story are run together.
6   Assyrian akdlu (Id. Fu), already upon the vulture stele of E-an-na-tum, Vorders., vi. 15 (Thureau Dangin, V.A.B., i. 13), where the Patesi of Gish-hu with his people by command of his god “devours” the beloved district of Ningirsu. That the interpretation as “what they have eaten” is impossible, Winckler has shown Fiii. 410 f. The meaning “ what they have devoured (comp. Arabian
FURTHER GLOSSES TO HISTORY OF ABRAHAM 31
nothing, 44 from a thread to the sole of the shoe.” This is one of the motif figures of speech, signifying the whole (milk and honey, vine and fig-tree, upper and under, elish and shaplish, in cosmic sense Upperworld and Underworld).
Winckler has perceived that in thread and shoe latchet there lies the same antithesis denoted by upper and under in the microcosmos, and contained in every microcosmos which reflects the whole. In fairy tales we know the opposition of tailor and cobbler, where the tailor is always good and the cobbler bad, corresponding to moon and sun in opposition, Overworld and Underworld (see p. 36, i., the Dioscuri as hostile brothers). The tailor corresponds to the thread, the cobbler to the sole of the shoe. Compare the Mohammedan legend Ibn Hisham, 765, where the antithesis is still better shown by garment and sandal.
Gen. xv. 1 and 12 ff. : (Ecstasy), see p. 12 ; under Gen. xv. 1 (pD not shield), see p. 30.
Gen. xv. 2 f.: The text is corrupt.
44 Lord Yahveh, what canst thou give me, since I am childless, and the son of Meshek of my house (ben-meshek heti, a gloss playing on the word, adds : that is, a dammeshek).1 Eliezer (and Abram said: To me thou hast given no descendants, behold a son of my house)2 will be my heir. Eliezer may 3 perhaps be therefore taken to be actually mushkenu (it must then be read []]ptt>D) as Winckler takes it, that is, according to the H.C., a 44 freed man,” a degree lower than Ishmael, whose position will be treated p. 34,4 presumably therefore a son of Abraham by a
’akal) of the plunder ” is in our opinion preferable to “have stolen,” in spite of the tempting motif. Plunder is the law of war, not theft. Gen. xxxi. 15 f , akdl has the same meaning: Laban “ devoured ” the tirhatu (see p. 37) paid for his daughters.
1   The glossator plays upon the connection of the tradition with Damascus, of which he was aware (see p. as was already conjectured in A.T.A.O., 1st ed., p. 184. Add to this, perhaps, that ben-mesheq and dam-mesheq should be looked upon as variants of a play upon words ; as ben — son, so according to II. R. 36. 57 at bottom also dam = son (II. R. 36. 57 da-mu = maru, to which Hommel has drawn our attention).
2   ben beti, the fatal mesheq is suppressed in the duplicate.
3   The writing with “q”is not absolutely against it, yet requires careful consideration.
4   Comp. Stucken, Astralmythen, 117, where in Isaac, Ishmael, and Elieser the three ranks are recognised (therefore a Semitic Rigsmal) and now Winckler, F., iii. 412. The three descendants correspond to the three prophecies of posterity. There is, then, an analogy in the three visits of Heimdal, with result of a birth from each; first the slave, then the bondsman, and last the free-born lord.
32
ABRAHAM AS CANAANITE
slave, and born during the sojourn of the people of Abraham in Damascus.
Gen. xv. 6: “ Abram believed, and God counted it to him for righteousness?   (amen, he'emm) and shedakak are terms
expressing expectation of a deliverer. They belong to Abraham as prophet of the new age (nabi, Gen. xx. 7; see pp. 90 f.) and bringer of the new epoch. The Mohammedan religion is the religion of Abraham, as is emphatically shown by the Koran, Sura vi. 76 (see p. 9, n. 1). Ibn Hisham, 150, names, as the three duties of Mohammed and all earlier prophets, that he must be towards Allah : dmana (in Arabic likewise the causative case), tsaddaqa and natsr.
The third motif hereafter is the nzr motif. Winckler, F., iii. 412 f., comp. Ex or. lux, ii. 2, p. 59, thinks that this, which he takes to be the motif of deliverance,” is specially Babylonian (Marduk with the Kibla to the east) and is found again amongst the Nozairians and amongst the Christians (Nazarenes). It is missing in the Old Testament religion, because Abraham stood in opposition to Babylon; comp. p. 10. This is not the place to discuss the motifs of deliverance. We will only remark that, in our opinion, the nezer motif is much more the motif of the spring of the universe, which the deliverer brings (Isa. xi. 1 ; Dan. xi. 7 ; Matt. ii. 23; comp. B.N.T. 46; it is =zemah), and that we cannot agree with Winckler’s conclusions in regard to the absence of this motif in our passage.
Gen. xv. 8-11. The symbols of the conclusion of the agreement are highly interesting : a three-year-old cow, a three-year- old goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtle dove and a young pigeon are divided into halves, and the halves (the birds undivided) laid over against each other. A half belongs to each of the parties to the bargain. The form of the agreement between Yahveh and Abraham is one used when the two sides were men.1 In any case, the contractors passed between the pieces, as it is said the fiery appearances did (v. 17), and it is described in Jer. xxxiv. 18. As they passed the words of the treaty were spoken. There came birds of prey. Abram “ drove them away ”? Should this be read, with Winckler, as *1£Z)V),
1   What the division meant is not clear. We have cuneiform texts where the parts of the body of the sacrificial victim mean the parts of the body of the contractors of the bargain ; see pp. 49 f. upon-Gen. xxii. 13.
FURTHER GLOSSES TO HISTORY OF ABRAHAM 33
44 Abraham saw them” and the birds of omen be thought of, as in the story of Romulus, where the one who first saw the birds was the one to whom good fortune would come ?1 In the night a fiery appearance passed between, whilst Abram lay in a trance. The fiery appearance is part of the endowment of the summits deus2 (north point of the heaven = fire; see p. 31, i.). Yahveh at Horeb also appeared in a flame of fire; Exod. iii. 4. At the sacrifice of Manoah (Judges xiii. 20), the angel of Yahveh ascended in the flame of the altar.
Gen. xvii. Abimelech, see p. 20; Gen. xvii. 1, see pp. 12, 14.
Gen. xviii. 2 ; comp, xix 1: The ceremonious salutation of laying the face in the dust, is in the East used only before divinity and before royal personages; comp. 1 Sam. xx. 21 ;
xxiv.   9. It is still used in Arabian ceremonials of prayer.
In the Amarna Letters the salutation runs : “ Seven times I fall upon my back, seven times I fall upon my belly.” We may compare with this Gen. xxxiii. 3 : Jacob bows himself to the earth seven times before Esau. The Oriental of to-day ceremoniously salutes by touching with his right hand first the earth, then his heart, and his forehead.
Gen. xviii. 4 : Abraham's guests .... taking food. The verb, properly speaking, means 44 to lean against.” It does not say that to eat they 44 reclined.”3 Gunkel founds his assumption upon an error when he takes it that it is a custom of the Bedouins. Reclining upon pillows is a luxurious habit in palaces; comp. Amos vi. 4. There is evidence from the most ancient times of the custom of sitting upon chairs in the civilised lands; compare the ancient seals, for example, figs. 37, 68, 70, the reliefs from Kouyunjik in Botta, the well-known picture of Assurbanipal and his wife in the vine arbour, where the king is reclining and his wife sits.
sfc Gen. xviii. 12-15 : Upon this motif of laughter, see Appendix. As a reward for the entertainment of the celestial visitors the host is granted a wish (compare the three wishes in the fairy stories).
1   Possibly still more is veiled in it. Stucken, Astralmythen, p. 4, already recalled that an ancient divinity of Mecca (Hobal, identical with Abraham) was the “bird-feeder” : mut'im al-tair (Wellhausen, Skizzen, iii. 73, recalls in regard to it our passage, Gen. xv. II).
2   Comp. Rev. i. xiv. f.
3   The Bedouins sit upon their heels to eat,
VOL. II,   3
34
ABRAHAM AS CANAANITE
We have already noted the same motif, p. 26, n. 2. The antithesis is the plague as punishment for violated right of hospitality, comp, p. 40.*
LEGAL CUSTOMS OF THE ABRAHAM PERIOD
Gen. xvi. 1 ff.: Sarai, because she has no children, gives Abraham her handmaid Hagar as “ concubine. ”   This same
custom, of which there is no trace to be found in later Israel, is repeated in Gen. xxx. 1 if., where Rachel gives Jacob her maid Bilhah.
In the Code of Hammurabi, who according to Gen. xiv. 1, p. 23, appears to have been contemporary of the “ Babylonian ” Abraham, it is said i7.C., 146:
When a man takes a wife, and she gives a maid (as wife) to her husband, and she (the maid) bears him children, then if this maid makes herself equal to her mistress, because she has borne children: her mistress shall not sell her for money, she shall put the slave’s mark upon her,1 and count her amongst the servants.
This exactly corresponds to the case of Abraham with Hagar.1 2 Hagar was given as wife to Abraham.3 As soon as she had good hope of a child, “ her mistress was despised in her eyes.” Sarai spoke to Abraham, Gen. xvi. 5: 66 Yahveh be judge
1   Abuttam ishshakanshi.
2   The following deeds of contract from the time of the first (Canaanite) dynasty of Babylon serve for further illustration. Bu. 91-5-9, 374 (CM;?. Inscr., viii.), it is said : Bunini-abi and Beli-shunu (his wife !) bought Shamash-nur, daughter of Ibi-Sha-a-an, from Ibi-Sha a-an her father, as wife for Bunini-abi, as maid for Beli-shunu. If Shamash-nur should say to Beli-shunu, her mistress : “ Thou art not my mistress, then she shall shave her and sell her for money, etc. By the laws of Hammurabi.” Bu. 91-5-9, 2176 A. {Cun. Inscr., ii.) refers to the same circumstances : “ Arad-Shamash has taken Taram-Sagila and Iltani, the daughter (daughters) of Taram-Sagila as wife. If Taram-Sagila should say to Arad-Shamash, her husband : Thou art not my husband, then shall they cast her forth from the .... If Arad-Shamash should say to Taram-Sagila, his wife: Thou art not my wife, then she shall leave the house and household. Iltani shall wash the feet of Taram-Sagila and carry her in her chair to her temple, and he shall sit in the shadow of Taram-Sagila, and enjoy her peace (but) not open her seal.” See Winckler, Gesch. Isr., ii. 58.
3   According to a Talmudic tradition (Feuchtwang, Z.A., vi. 441), Hagar was a
nnst?, a maid whose labour belonged to the husband as usufruct. Since muldgu means “dower” in Assyrian, the Talmud therefore assumes that she was given to Abraham from the first. Therefore like the second of the examples cited in n. 3.
LEGAL CUSTOMS OF THE ABRAHAM PERIOD 35
between me and thee.11 She claimed the right sanctioned by Yahveh. In Babylonia the plaintiff would have called upon Shamash, that is to say, upon the code containing the laws for “judging disputed points,11 and in the conclusion of which it says: “ The oppressed party, who has a claim, shall come before my statue as king of justice, and my inscription shall justify his claim, he shall have his rights and his heart shall be glad.11
Sarai’s words, “ Yahveh be judge,11 correspond to the continually used expression mahar Him, “ before the Divinity,11 in the H.C. “Before the Divinity11 legal decisions are settled. Abraham acknowledged the point of law. He allowed the claim, and actually again in the sense of the law as held in the
H.C., when he said, Gen. xvi. 6: “ Thy maid is in thy power : deal with her as seems good to thee.11 Hagar had, therefore, forfeited the privileges which belonged to her and her children through her advancement to being her master’s concubine (comp. H.C., 146, 171), and her mistress could treat her as a slave. Sarah took harsh advantage of the right; thereupon Hagar fled (Gen. xvi. 6).1
The laws of Hammurabi draw a sharp distinction between the “ concubine,11 the slave who might be given to the man for the purpose of getting children, and the secondary wife, of much higher social standing, who could only be taken by the man together with the legitimate wife, if he had not already accepted a concubine.
H.C., 144 : When a man takes a wife, and that wife (because she has no children, comp. 145) gives a maid to her husband, and this maid has children, should the man, however, propose taking (besides the maid) a secondary wife, this shall not be allowed, and he shall not take a secondary wife.
H.C., 145 : When a man takes a wife, and she bears him no children, and he purposes taking a secondary wife, he may take the secondary wife, and bring her into his house ; this secondary wife, however, shall not be equal to his first wife.
1   Edm. Jeremias (student of law) directs attention to the fact that this appeal
by Sarah to the law presupposes in the mind of the chronicler that the idea of the family had developed from the social ranks amongst the people of Abraham. We must notice too that in this presupposed community the wife had a separate right. To her belongs the execution of the judgment; Gen. xvi. 6, as in H.C., 146. In this lies a confirmation of our view of the “ history of the Patriarchs,” p. 4.
36
ABRAHAM AS CANAANITE
So it is distinctly stated that also this secondary wife may not be equal with the chief wife. Only here there is no special punishment incurred in the event of her boasting over the other in pride of her motherhood.
The story in Gen. xxi. 9 If., which is drawn from another source, seems to say that Hagar was not a slave, but secondary wife. It says nothing about any claim made by Sarah or any degradation of Hagar. Abraham sends her away to end the quarrel. That she is looked upon here as secondary wife is perhaps shown by the mention of the rights of inheritance of Hagar’s son. After the birth of her own son Isaac, Sarah becomes jealous of Hagar’s son, because he should “ be heir with her son.”1 The secondary wife, however, according to the H.C., though not equal to the chief wife, is protected by the laws of marriage in regard to the laws of separation and property;2 comp. H.C., 137, from which it may be concluded that the secondary wife is considered as a free woman. From this it follows, as at least very probable, that the child of the second wife would be legitimate, and therefore have rights of inheritance. If, notwithstanding, we take it that Hagar, according to Gen. xxi. 9 ff also, is represented as a slave, even in that case the supposition of Sarai’s jealousy fits the sense of the laws of Hammurabi. Only it must then be presupposed that Abraham had said to Ishmael, “ Thou art my son,” i.e. that he had adopted him.
f/.C., 170: When a man has had children borne to him by his wife, and by his maid, and the father says, during his lifetime, to the children borne to him by his maid, “ My children” (this betokens the legal formula for adoption),3 and includes them amongst the children by his wife ; then when the father dies, the children of the wife and of the maid shall divide their father’s possessions equally between them. The wife’s child shall divide it and shall have the choice.
1   Gen. xxi. 9, “because he was a scoffer” has been interpolated afterwards by an interpreter who did not understand the situation, see Gunkel, Genesis, loc. cit. pnHD, “to jest,” is explained in Exod. xxxii. 6 as idolatry. It has also an obscene meaning besides.
2   See Kohler and Peiser, Der Codex Hammurabi, p. 221.
3   The proper formula was in any case fuller and more ceremonious ; possibly in Ps. ii. 7 there is again an echo of the formula : “ Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee” ; see Kohler and Peiser, loc. cit.} p. 123.
LEGAL CUSTOMS OF THE ABRAHAM PERIOD 37
It is remarkable that here there should be children by the maid together with children by the wife. Perhaps it was only in such case that adoption was necessary, whereas in the case of the maid having been given for the purpose of propagatio by the childless wife, the full rights of the son of the maid would naturally follow from the purpose of the institution; this would explain why there is no mention of an adoption of Ishmael. The maid was often included in the sale of a wife, and H.C., 170, probably bears reference to such a case.
Gen. xxix. ff. reports that Jacob, during the lifetime of his wife, married her sister also. In later law (Lev. xviii. 18) this was accounted as incest; comp. p. 2. We know from the reports upon Ancient-Babylonian civil law that the two wives of one man were sometimes called ahatu, “ sisters.” I therefore assumed earlier (A.T.A.O., 2nd German ed., p. 358) that it was dealing with a similar case of marriage law as in Gen. xxix. Br. Meissner calls to my attention that the two women who are called ahatu may in these cases also stand in the relationship of mistress and maid. A poet of later time writing legends would certainly, in the interests of the authority of the current law, have avoided reverting to such ancient rules.
At contraction of a marriage the bridegroom paid (besides the other presents) the price of a woman (mohar) to the woman’s father (Gen. xxxi. 15; xxxiv. 12; Exod. xxii. 16; Deut. xxii. 19), which in the case of Jacob and Laban was paid in service. Gen. xxiv. 53, Eliezer paid such a marriage portion to the brother and* to the mother of Rebecca. In the same way the H.C. shows a price for a woman (tirtyatu) which, according to H.C., 139, amounts to a mine and more, and this even together with a sheriktu (present, dowry to her family; for example, § 137), but which may also be omitted;1 finally, the nudunnii, the husband’s u Morgengabe,” * for example, H.C., 172a.
We add to these two cases of law, which may be taken as weighty evidence for the authenticity of the milieu of the history of Abraham, mention of other legal customs which are not especially Ancient-Babylonian but also correspond to later, that is to say, inter-tribal laws upon which, however, at least partially, an interesting light is thrown by the H.C.
1   See Kohler and Peiser, loc. cit., p. 118. Jacob pays to Laban such a tirjidtu (paid in labour) j Gen. xxxi. 15 f.
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ABRAHAM AS CANAANITE
Gen. xx. 16: The violation of a married woman was atoned for by a fine paid to the husband (Gen. xx. 14); upon the “ covering of the eyes” (accentuation of the veil), which consists in a bridal dowry to the injured woman, see p. 20, n. 5.
Gen. xxiv. 4 : The father chooses a bride for the son. Likewise in Babylonia, according to H.C. ^155 f.: “When a man betroths a maid (hallatu) to his son.” In the H.C., the bride is bought by the man; comp. Gen. xxiv. 51 ; xxxi. 15 (Rachel and Leah: “Our father hath sold us”). H.C., 159 ff‘., presupposes that the maiden as bride (kallat; but this, de facto, has the same meaning as wife) will remain in her father’s house, and that the son-in-law may live there, as Jacob did with Laban and Moses with Jethro.1
The marriage portion was brought to the father-in-law’s house, H.C., 159-161 ; it was thus in the wooing of Rebecca, Gen. xxiv. 10, 53.
Gen. xxxi. 32 presupposes a theft of sacred things, punishable with death:
H.C,, 6 : 2 If a man steals the property of God (temple) or court (king),3 he shall be killed
Gen. xxxi. 39 presupposes that the hired shepherd was required to make good any loss to the herd only when it had occurred by his neglect:
H.C., 267 : If the shepherd neglects something, and a loss occurs to the herd, then the shepherd shall replace the loss.
THE PATRIARCHS AS POSSESSORS OF FLOCKS AND HERDS
The Bedouin theory mentioned at p. 15 held good in support of the idea that the primitive “ Patriarchs ” appear to be shepherds so long as the records of the Ancient-East were unknown. It was not taken into consideration that the part of the Near East which was the scene of the story was in those
1   Winckler, A.O., iv. 43, 26. The peculiar situations of Jacob and Moses are not sufficient explanation.
2   Upon this and the following, see J. Jeremias, Moses und Hammurabi, 2nd ed., p. 44.
3   Compare H. C., 8, and compare with this the pretended theft by Joseph’s brother from the Egyptian court; Gen. xliv. 9. Upon the death penalty for other serious theft, see p. 110.
SODOM AND GOMORRHA
39
days in a much higher state of civilisation than it is now, and that the Bedouins also of those days were in close intercourse with the great civilisations.1 The owners of flocks and herds were connected with the rulers of the lands, as is illustrated by the story of Sinuhe. They were princely rulers, who hired out their flocks and their shepherds, and ruled over their properties. The H.C. presupposes a relation between owner and tenant, and regulates the respective duties and rights.
Gen. xviii. 22 ff.: “ Abraham stood before God” The presentment of a petitioner, who stands before the Divinity, also fits with the Babylonian religion. We often find it illustrated on seal cylinders; see figs. 35 and 70.1 2
Abraham entertained celestial visitors, then he might express a wish.3 He prays for the rescue of Sodom. Abraham speaks of from fifty righteous men (zedek, one who has fulfilled his duty to the Divinity) down to ten. This motif of bargaining is found also in the Arabian legend as an intentional counterpart to this story of Abraham, in the journey of Mohammed through the seven heavens, which exactly corresponds to the Ancient-Oriental presentment of the seven stages described at p. 16, i. f. Allah requires fifty prayers from Mohammed, which, however, are lessened to five upon Abraham’s intercession.
SODOM AND GOMORRHA AND THE FIRE-FLOOD
The whole story of the judgment of Sodom and Gomorrha, as we have it, presents the motifs of the fire-flood. Like the Deluge, the fire-flood intimates a return to original conditions. Therefore in Gen. xix. 31 the whole race of mankind is assumed to be annihilated, except Lot and his daughters. With the
1   See upon the following, Winckler, Altor. Geschichtsauffassung, 16 ff. {Ex or. lux, ii. 2).
2   In interviews with the king, the “ minister ” is the intercessor {nazdzu inapdni, “ stand before,” is the technical expression). The king was not addressed personally. For this reason the king praying is accompanied by a priest who takes him by the hand {sabit kdt).
3   His first wish is for the birth of a child (comp. p. 33). We would expect to find three wishes. Compare with this and the following, Winckler, M. V.A.G., 1901, 353 ^
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ABRAHAM AS CANAANITE
fire-flood begins a new world.1 Biblical history endows the story of the destruction of Sodom with the motifs of the fire- flood in order to indicate the inauguration of a new age—the Canaanite period.1 2 The historian avails himself of the ages of the universe motifs. The district where the scene is laid is a universe in miniature. The source of the material appears to be from an Ammorite Moabite primitive story about Paradise, the Fall, and the Deluge (fire-flood). Gen. xviii. 25 ff., in addition, shows that Jewish historians took this view, looking upon the fire-flood of Sodom in particular as the antithesis to the Deluge, and as a tragedy of the universe. The cause of the flood is violation of the rights of hospitality.
Judges 19 f. is a counterpart to the fiery judgment upon Sodom and Gomorrha.3 In Gibeah the rights of hospitality were violated in the same way as in Sodom and Gomorrha. Violence is done to the guests (comp. Gen. xix. 8 f. with Judges
xix.   23 f.; certain forms of expression are exactly the same). The punishment for the violated guest-rights was the destruction by fire of the city of Benjamin ; Judges xx. 40, 48. Only six hundred men save themselves on the rock of Rimmon (!), like Lot with his people upon a mountain; Gen. xix. 17.
A Buddhist story shows the same motifs :4—
The Buddhist pilgrim Hiouen Thsang from China (seventh century A.D.) tells of a city Halaolokia which was rich, but heretical. Once when an Arhat came to the city they gave him no food, but pelted him with earth and sand. Only one man took pity upon him and gave him food. Then the Arhat said to him : “ Save thyself; in seven days there will fall a rain of earth and sand and will smother the city, not one man shall escape—and only because they have pelted me with earth.” The man went into the city, and told his relations, but no one would believe it, and they mocked at it. But the tempest came, the city fell, and only the man rescued himself by an undergound passage.
1   Comp. pp. 70, i. f., 268, i., 270, i. In the Jalkut Rubeni the tower was to protect from the fire-flood (IPN biff ^UD). Upon the fire-flood of Sodom, compare also Jastrow, Rel. of Bab., 507, and Z.A., xiii. 288 ff. The burning of Troy also has the motifs of the fire-flood, as the embellishing myths show.
2   Comp. Erbt, Ebraer, p. 70.
3   Compare also the fire-flood which falls upon Babylon; Rev. xviii. 8, 18 ; xix. 3.
* P. Cassel, Mischle Sindbad’ p. 1, noted the echo of the Lot story (quoted
according to Stucken, Astralmythen, 115).
SODOM AND GOMORRHA
41
The Phrygian fable of Philemon and Baucis (Ovid, Met., vi. 616 ff.) deals with a deluge. Zeus and Hermes find no hospitality. The two old people take them in. For punishment comes a deluge, from which the two are rescued. There the apotheosis1 consists in (a) their house is changed into a Temple in which they rule as priests, (b) that at the end of their lives they are changed into trees (Philemon into an oak, Baucis into a lime tree).
The following motifs are to be noted in the story of Sodom and Gomorrha.
1.   Destruction falls upon Sodom and Gomorrha, which once resembled Paradise (Gen. xiii. 10, “like a garden of God,” see p. 206, i.; “like the land of Egypt” is a gloss), because of the wickedness of men.
2.   One righteous man with his family is rescued.
3.   As place of refuge a mountain is indicated, Gen. xix. 17 ; that is to say, the city of Zoar.2
4.   Those selected for rescue are mocked; Gen. xix. 14.
5.   It is represented to the divine judge that only the wicked should be overwhelmed by the judgment; Gen. xviii. 25.
6.   The new epoch and the new generation are begun by the action of Lot’s daughters and by Lot’s drunkenness.3
Instead of the fire-flood, sometimes a rain of stones appears, which one must take to be fiery stones; comp. Rev. xvi. 21. This is also motif of re-creation of the world, and is in fact in the summer solstice of the universe. It is at the time of the solstice that meteors fall. We find such a rain of stones falling from heaven, as an event at the beginning of a new epoch, in Joshua x. 11, after the defeat of Adoni-zedek of Jerusalem by
1   Compare the apotheosis of the Babylonian Noah and his wife, pp. 240, i., 246, i., 252, i. Stucken, to whom we are indebted for the reference to the analogy,, incorrectly thinks of Lot’s wife in connection with the transformation into trees.
2   Gunkel has, in reference to this and otherwise, pointed out the wealth of play upon words which belongs to the art of Oriental story-telling. More important, however, is the recognition of their mythological meaning, as indicated by Stucken and Winckler. A dictionary of motifs is much to be desired for the future.
3   Travesties : 1. The new generation travestied as in Ham’s conduct in the
Deluge story; see p. 272, i., n. 3, and comp. B.N. T., 120. Compare with this the Nyctimene with her drunken father Nycteus ; Ovid, Met., ii. 589 ff., and Myth. Vat., ii. 39.   2. The vine as symbol of the new age by the intoxication of Lot
(comp. Noah, p. 272, i.).   3. Drunkenness as motif of the new year (compare the
epic Enuma elish and the conduct of the gods at the renewal of the world).
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ABRAHAM AS CANAANITE
Joshua. According to the coherence it is treating of the defeat of the “ five kings,” who represent the combined inimical power of Canaan, in the same way as does the Dragon of Winter, and as formerly Egypt, appearing as the defeated Dragon.1 The five kings creep into the cave (“ and they are there unto this day, ” Joshua x. 27).1 2
In the campaign of Abraham against Mecca (Ibn Hisham) there comes, in the same way, a rain of stones to his help. Mighty birds bring stones in their beaks and their claws and kill the enemy.
Eire and brimstone as a means of destruction has become a stereotyped figure of speech ; comp. Job xviii. 5 : brimstone is to fall upon his dwelling; Ps. xi. 6: “ fire and brimstone”; comp, further, Luke ix. 54, Rev. xx. 9. The destruction of a district with salt (brimstone ?) agrees equally with the motif. In Judges ix. 45 the custom is found. Likewise on the Assyrian inscriptions. Tiglath-Pileser I. strewed salt over 9anusa? and Assurbanipal over Susa.3 Unfruitful land is called meleha (salt land), Job xxxix. 6; Ps. cvii. 34; Jer. xvii. 6.
THE DETAILS OF THE STORIES OF THE PATRIARCHS AND THE SCHEME OF THE TWELVE TRIBES
The story of the Patriarchs is in the form of the history of a family, from which the twelve tribes are descended, who then became known as the “ Children of Israel.” The aim of the tradition in this is to indicate that the people of Israel show an unbroken course of development. The historians found in the traditions of certain places clear landmarks showing the coherence of the ancient stories. Later, the descent from one fore-
1   Motif of the expulsion of the tyrants. Winter, which is driven away, appears in the calendar myth as concentrated in the five additional days at the end of the year (before the beginning of spring), or as a giant (fall of Orion) who is conquered, or as a water dragon. When the motif is applied to historical events, the enemy appears as five in number, or embodied as a giant, who then takes the number five, or five and a half (see the sons of Goliath). Comp. p. 93, i.
2   A variant upon this is the myth of the seven sleepers. The seven sleepers, who enter the cave in the time of Decius, wake to the new age.
3   Tigl. Pil. Pr.t vi. 14 (see Hommel, G. G, G., 602, n. l); Assurb. Pr.y vi. 79 (salt and shifylu herb).
THE TWELVE TRIBES
43
father took the form of a religious dogma: “ When he was but one, I called him,’1 Isa. li. 2 —a fatal dogma, leading to a particularism, which was energetically combated in the preaching both of John the Baptist and of Jesus.1
The family history is certainly not pure invention. The tradition was probably quite correct in looking upon Isaac and Jacob-Israel as the most prominent wandering sheikhs of the primitive epoch, who could be held to be legitimate descendants of Abraham. But this family history has become the foundation scheme for the ancient history of Israel, and it certainly does just extend over the 215 years of the patriarchal period.1 2 Jacob was also certainly an historical personage, a religious leader of past ages.3
“ Shaddai hath made of the strong (that is to say, bull) Jacob a shepherd for the foundation stone of Israel ” (Gen. xlix. 23 f.).4 He apparently also had about twelve sons,5 whose destiny brought them for the most part into Egypt, with the neighbouring Arabian districts of which country they had long had active business relations.
Isolated records and genealogies of later times are for the purpose of identifying certain tribes, or social corporations of the community,6 with the ancient families (Gen. xxx., xxxv. 25 ff.;
1   Already Isa. li. I, “ Abraham, the rock whence ye were hewn,” emphasises the religious side ; likewise Ezek. xvi. 33, comp, xxxiii. 24. Isa. lxiii. 16 is also to be understood so. Neither here nor anywhere else (Duhm upon Jer. xxxi. 15) is there any trace of a “cult of Abraham.”
2   Klostermann, p. 18.
3   There is more difficulty about Isaac. His life is filled up here and there with shadowy pictures from the story of Abraham. Gen. xxvi. 1 ff. = xii. ; with x. ff. comp. xxix. 2 ff. ; xxvi. 5 ff. comp. xxi. 25 ; xxvi. ff=xxi. 22 ff.
4   We read thus with Klostermann, p. 19 :   (“ in that he placed”).
5   The number twelve does not agree ; out of regard for the scheme it has been made to fit—the division of Joseph into Ephraim and Manasseh is clear evidence of this. There seems to have been a tradition according to which Jacob had three children (Simeon and Levi who avenge their injured sister Dinah). In itself the number twelve might also be historic. History builds a scheme thus :—the German Kaiser Wilhelm has six sons and one daughter ; the seven planets including Venus. The later speculation according to which Jacob had seventy sons is also interesting. Midrash Schem. Rabba upon Exod. i. 7 says : “They swarmed. Many say there were twelve at a birth ; many say every woman bore sixty at a birth. It would be no marvel, the scorpion bears seventy.”
6   Klostermann, p. 30.
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ABRAHAM AS CANAANITE
Gen. xlvi. 8-27) which lived through the Exodus, or specially with Dinah,1 or with the family of Nahor (Gen. xxxv. 23 ft.). Each one of the 44 twelve tribes ”—which, however, speaking exactly, never actually existed contemporaneously—had one of the Patriarchs given as 44 forefather.'12 The traditions of isolated clans were woven into the family history of the sons of Jacob.
The numbers used in the scheme are those of the astral system, twelve and seventy, seventy-two, according to whether it is lunar or solar system. The table, Gen. xvii. 20 ; xlvi. 8-27, is constructed according to both reckonings. As there are counted twelve tribes of Israel, so according to Gen. xxv. 13 ff. there were twelve tribes of Ishmael; and in Gen. xxv. 2 ff., according to the original text, there were twelve sons of Abraham and Keturah.3 That the idea of the zodiac lies at the root of the number twelve goes without saying in the Ancient-East.
It is abundantly proved by Jacob’s blessing, which alludes to the zodiacal signs; see pp. 77 ff. Abulfaraj, Hist. Dyn., 101, says the Arabs hold themselves to be descended from twelve tribes, and each of the twelve tribes is under a zodiacal sign.4
According to traces found in the Biblical tradition, we may gather the following historical particulars :—The nucleus of the religious community grouping itself round Abraham settled in South Canaan, in Negeb, in the neighbourhood of Arabia Petraea, and from thence came repeatedly into connection with the districts which were under the rule of Egyptian viceroys (Pharaohs). The southern settlements are distinguished in the religion of later times by the (originally seven) wells of Jacob, and by the sanctuaries consecrated by Jacob at Mizpah, Gilead, Penuel, and Mahanaim. Then this community, which had gathered together under the influence of a religious idea, spread
1   Gen. xlvi. 15 ; see Klostermann, p. 30.
2   The derivation of the Moabites and Ammonites, who settled in the country to the east of Jordan and the neighbourhood of the Dead Sea, likewise of the Edomites and Arabian tribes who by circumcision and other elements of worship later approached the family of Abraham, rests, like the genealogical tables, upon “ scientific investigation,” not upon tradition.
3   Klostermann. Gen. x. had originally probably also twelve sons of Joktan (Hommel, Aufs. u. Abh., 316, n. 6).
4   Jalkut Rubeni, 171, says the twelve tribes correspond to the twelve temples (that is, “ houses,” p. n) of the zodiac. Steinschneider (Z.D.M.G., iv. (1880), 145 ff. ; xxvii. (1903), 474 ff.) has collected numerous examples of the system of twelve which could be added to at pleasure ; comp, also Krauss, Z.A.T. W., xx. 38 ff. ; Kampers, Alex, der Grosse, pp. 107 f., and above, pp. 67, i. ff.
THE TWELVE TRIBES
45
further abroad. A large part of it was forced towards the Egyptian frontier by famine.1 Here also tradition links itself on to a marked personality—that of Joseph. Then the religious community received a new and mighty impulse through Moses. It moved victoriously out and collected together the scattered parts of the ancient community.
At Sinai the community represented by Jethro, which was in possession of the ancient place of worship, united itself with them ; clans came from the frontier districts of Negeb, reminded of their religious relationship by the old places of worship and by the “ Hebrew ” migration from Egypt.2
We have shown how the milieu of the stories of the Patriarchs agrees in every detail with the circumstances of Ancient-Oriental civilisation of the period in question, as borne witness to by the monuments. The actual existence of Abraham is not historically proved by them. It might be objected: it is included in the picture. In any case, it must be allowed, the tradition is ancient. It cannot possibly be a poem with a purpose of later time. In view of the situations described, we might say the story could more easily have been composed by an intellectual writer of the twentieth century after Christ, kno

[Prometheus]

wing Oriental antiquity by means of the excavations, rather than by a contemporary of Hezekiah, who would have used the civilisation of his own time in descriptions, and certainly would not have any excavated antiquities. Wellhausen worked out from the opinion that the stories of the Patriarchs are historically impossible. It is now proved that they are possible. If Abraham lived at all, it could only have been in surroundings and under conditions such as the Bible describes. Historical research must be content with this. And Wellhausen may be reminded of his own words (Komposition des Hexateuch 346) : “ If it (the Israelite tradition) were only possible, it would be folly to prefer any other possibility.”
1   The Amarna Letters repeatedly mention such events ; see pp. 71 f. and 74.
2   Exod. xxi. 1 and 1 Sam. xiv. 21 speak of “ Hebrews” who also after the conquest of the land were not politically connected with the Children of Israel, yet with whom the Israelites felt themselves to be related. We may perhaps recognise in them descendants of the religious community of the patriarchal period.
CHAPTER XVI
FURTHER GLOSSES UPON THE HISTORIES OF THE PATRIARCHS
GEN. xix. 37:   The Moabites. This tribe, which gradually
developed itself into a nation by the annexation of related elements, pressed, like the Israelite tribes, conquering into the country east of Jordan. According to the Biblical tradition the Moabites were already in the land when the Israelites settled there, and friendly relations arose between Moab and Israel (Deut. ii. 18 ff.). Against this, in the pre-Israelite Canaanite traditions known to us, they are not mentioned, also the situation of their dwelling-place, close to the desert, points to the probability that they first moved in when Israel was already in possession of some stronghold.1
Gen. xix. 38 : The Ammonites, in cuneiform writing Ammanu,1 2 were a tribe on the boundary of the Israelites, only partially living in the desert as nomads, recognised for the most part in the Bible from earliest times as a civilised state under the governorship of a king. Their chief city, Rabbah,3 lies under the
1   Winckler, Gesch. Isr.t i. 189 ff., therefore assumes that a reminiscence of the first development of the Moabite power presents itself in Judges iii. 15 ff., and that the Moabites in the story of Balaam (comp. Numb. xxii. 4, where it says “ chief of the Midianites ” ) are confused with the Midianites who came in later. See 2 Kings iii. for further history of the Moabites.
2   The cuneiform writings name, under Shalmaneser II., Baesa ben Rejiob, the Ammonite (mat A-ma-na-ai), with a thousand people, together with Ahab of Israel (with ten thousand people), amongst the vassals of Damascus, who were defeated at Qarqar {K.T., 16). Under Sennacherib, 701, Pudu-ilu of Ammon (bit Am- ma-na-ai) pays homage and Esarhaddon names the same Pudu-ilu as a contemporary of Manasseh amongst the vassals who were forced to labour with basket and hod in building the arsenal at Nineveh {K.T.> 44, 52). Upon forced labour, comp. p. 83, and fig. 127 f.
3   Rabbath Ammon, situated on the upper Jabbok, the present Wadi ‘Amman.
46
MOABITES—AMMONITES
47
ruins of ‘Amman of to-day, the magnificent ruins of which, however, mostly date from Roman times.1
Saul won his fame in the wars against the Ammonites (1 Sam. xi.; comp. xiv. 47). He relieved the city of Gilead, Jabesh, besieged by King Nahash. Amongst the plunder was the royal crown (2 Sam. xii. 30, it is correctly translated by Luther), and he had a diadem made for himself from it. Under Solomon, in whose time objects of the cult (“abomination of Moab,” like the statue of Chemosh of Moab, see 2 Kings xxiii.) were misused in idolatry, the Ammonites were still tributary; he had Ammonite women, the mother of Rehoboam amongst them, in* his harem. According to 2 Chr. xx. 1 the Ammonites later supported King Mesa against Israel-Judah and invaded Judah. The record is not an invention, and must not be judged as a “midrash,” rather it entirely corresponds with the situation described in 2 Kings iii.; only the campaign of Jehoshaphat appears here as an independent one, whereas he must be considered as amongst the followers of Jehoram. Amos i. 13 ff. shows that later the Ammonites remained bitter enemies to Israel.
What the Baal of Ammon was called we do not know. The name Pudu-ilu contains the divine name Ilu = El. The name Milcom is possibly an early misunderstanding of 2 Sam. xii. 30. Erbt, Hebrder, 235, explains the abomination (2 Kings xxiii. 13, td‘eba) of the Ammonites ’ “ Milcom ” as malkd-milka (Ashera as Queen of Heaven). Hommel, Aufs. und Abh., 155, compares with the name bene Ammon the designation of the Catabanians as walad Amm—that is, ‘Amm children, and explains it as worshippers of Amm. ‘Amm signifies “uncle,” and appears in Babylonian names in the same way as Ab, “father,” and Ah, “brother,” as designation of the divinity, and really ‘ Amm (ammu; hammu, for example, in Hammurabi) is not essentially Babylonian, but is a “ West Semitic ” foreign word (see K.A.T., 3rd ed., 480). According to Hommel, G. G. G., p. 85, Amm denotes the Moon-god ; compare the name Amm-ner, " Amm is the giver of light,” Lc., p. 9 But the Arabian divine names claimed by Hommel for the lunar cult may, in the same way as Ah, chiefly bear much more Tammuz character (cycle with emphasis of Moon motif). Whether the appearances of Tammuz bear solar or lunar character depends upon the stamp of the cult at the particular time ; see pp. 86, i., 125, i. Hence the discord in them. The epithet of the Catabanians as walad Amm may, like bene Ammon, denote the original ancestor.
Gen. xx. (Sarah and Abimelech), see p. 20. Gen. xxi. 9 ff. (Hagar and Ishmael), see pp. 34 ff. Gen. xxi. 23 (El ‘olam), see p. 13.
1   See Guthe, Bibelworterbuch, 533. The pilgrims’ road to Mecca now passes over the ruins.
48 GLOSSES ON HISTORIES OF THE PATRIARCHS
The Sacrifice of Isaac
Gen. xxii.: The sacrifice is only from the Elohist source. It is also the only thing about Isaac taken from this source. From Beer-sheba4 he is to go into the country .... and upon a mountain, shown to him by God, he is to sacrifice his son. The holy mountain of the Elohists is Horeb, where God appears to Moses and to which Elias journeyed.1 This mountain lies in the district of the Arabian Muzri. Therefore we read it, with Cheyne, 44 to the land of Muzri.r> 2 The later stories of the Y and E presuppose such a place of worship of the 44 God of the Hebrews'” in this neighbourhood.1 2 3 4 * 6
The father sacrifices the son,4 but a substitute is provided. 1 Sam. xiv. 36 ff. offers a parallel to this. The divine judgment, brought about by the help of Urim and Thummim, must have led to the death of Jonathan, which, according to the whole circumstances, would be, in the sense of the popular Yahveh religion,5 a sacrifice before Yahveh. “ So the people ransomed Jonathan, that he died not” (1 Sam. xiv. 45). What was the substitute ?
An analogy to religious history is offered by the sacrifice of Agamemnon, //., viii. 245 ff. Like the ram for Isaac, so the deer stood in place of Agamemnon’s daughter.
1   Identical with the Sinai of the Song of Deborah, Judges v. ; comp, further, Deut. xxxiii. 2 ; Ps. lxviii. 9 ; comp. Heb. iii. 3.
2   The reading Moriah is from the hand of an adapter who looks upon Zion- Moriah instead of Sinai-Iioreb as the Mountain of God and centre of gravity of the universe (comp. p. 24, i.). The interpretation of the place by the play of words HXT m,T is from the same hand. With this the usual conjectures settle themselves. The Samaritan tradition removes the scene, according to their habit, to Gerizim ; see Z.D.P.V., vi. 198; vii. 132 f. Pesh reads nicxn, “ land of the Amorites.”
3   Comp. pp. 2, 98 ff.
4   Should the rejection of Ishmael, Gen. 14 ff., pass as a counterpart? That might be accepted, without agreeing with Stucken’s deductions. Hagar, so it is said, “ cannot look upon the death of the boy.” An angel appears : “ Go, lift up the (dead?) lad and take him by the hand. I will make him a great nation.” A
similar promise was certainly contained also in the Elohist story of Isaac.
6 We have here an illustration of the cult of the popular religion, which approaches very near heathenism, whilst the story of the sacrifice, Gen. xxii., shows the spirit of the ideal religion, which we have already taken for granted in the patriarchal age ; see p. 15.
SUBSTITUTION IN THE SACRIFICE
49
The thought that at the altar the sacrifice of an animal takes the place of a human being,1 is at the root of the sin-offering throughout the whole of the antique world. Smith-Stiibe, Religion der Semiten, p. 279, gives examples, amongst others, of the Egyptians, where the sacrifice was dressed with a seal which bore the picture of a bound man, with the sword at his throat. Zimmern, K.A. T., 3rd ed., 597, quotes, amongst others, the Babylonian religious text IV. R. 26, No. 6:
“The lamb, the substitute for man, the lamb, he gives for their life.
He gives the head of the lamb for the head of man,
the neck of the lamb for the neck of man,
the breast of the lamb he gives for the breast of man.” 1 2
In another text (Zimmern, Keilinschriften und Bibel, p. 27) it is said:
“Give a sucking-pig as substitute for him (the sick man), the flesh instead of his flesh, give the blood instead of his blood, and the gods may accept it.”   f
Further, the idea of substitution is found in the contract between Assurnirari and Mati’-ilu,3 in ratification of which a sheep is sacrificed, and the animal and its parts represent symbolically the breaker of the contract and the parts of his body :
“This head is not the head of the goat .... it is the head of Mati’-ilu. ... If Mati’-ilu [breaks] this oath, as the head of this goat is cut off .... so shall the head of Mati’-ilu be cut off. . . . This loin is not the loin of the goat, it is the loin of Mati’-ilu,” and so on.
Gen. xxiii*: Purchase of the cave from the native inhabitants ; the Hittites are owners of the land; comp. p. 340, i. It is treating of a sepulchral cave artificially hewn in the rock, which is to serve as burying-place for Abraham ; comp. v. 4. The form of purchase is exactly the same to the present day in the East; see Baedeker, Palestine, 1904.
Gen. xxiii. 16: “ He weighed the money there—four hundred shekels, keseph,—current coin” Stamped coins were only known to the East after the Persian age. But from ancient times they already had weighed pieces of metal, which were weighed in pur-
1   Comp. Gen. xxii. : the ram in place of Isaac. Compare further the above- mentioned deer in place of Agamemnon’s daughter.
2   Compare herewith the principles of the ius talionis in H. C. and in the Thora : “eye for eye, tooth for tooth,” etc.
3   Peiser in M. V.A.G., T898, 228 ff. ; see Lev. xvi. 8.
VOL. II.
4
50 GLOSSES ON HISTORIES OF THE PATRIARCHS
chasing.1 The word for weighing is the same here as in the A ssyrian: shaqalu. Keseph (Assyrian kaspu) are the current pieces of metal; shiqlu Tcaspi is the usual unit in the cuneiform contracts.2 When in one of the Amarna Letters Janhamu of Milkiel (in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem) takes “ several thousand gun (jbiltu) for ransom/’ it can only mean copper, on account of the quantity. That would show that “ copper ’* was the only coin in Canaan (a poor land ?). In Babylon silver was the foundation of the monetary system, for kaspu means simply “ money.” In Egypt, land of the sun, gold must have been the measure of value. In so far as it was silver, it shows the influence of Babylon. Also the stress laid upon one or other of the metals originally depended upon the influence of the astral religion. Each of the planets has a metal, as the cult of Mithra shows with particular clearness. Silver is the metal of the moon, gold of the sun,3 copper is the metal of Ishtar.4 That might correspond (in the age which emphasised the cult of the moon)5 with Babylon (moon), Egypt (sun), Canaan (Ashera-Ishtar).
1   This is done, for example, with ducats to the present day
2   In Assyrian “ copper” is without any explanatory addition — biltu (pronunciation?) ; “silver” without addition = manu ; “gold” without addition = shiqlu.
3   Comp. III. R. 55, 6o: A disc of gold was consecrated to the Sun-god. Compare with this fact, Winckler, K.A. T., 3rd ed., 340 f. To the Western Asiatic fabulous treasures of gold were hidden in Egypt, as land of the sun (Underworld). For gold and the Underworld, see p. 234, i., n. 2. In the Amarna Letters they were thirsting for gold from Egypt. It is emphasised that Abraham and Isaac came back from the Southland rich.
4   Hommel suggests the resemblance between nehoshet (copper), and (nuhshu) (vulva). Was the coin of Ishtar the stater ?
5   Comp. Winckler, F., ii. 394 f. ; C. F. Lehmann, Babyloniens Kullurmission, p. 41. The cycle of the moon and the sun are in the proportion of 27 : 360 =
1 : 13^. This is the proportion of value between silver and gold which was always held by antiquity. Copper stands to silver as 1 : 60 or as I : 72. Silver and gold are as the month to the year ; copper represents a division of the year into sixty “ weeks ” of six days each (only to be concluded theoretically and by calculation), or into seventy-two weeks of five days each (which is attested). We are accustomed to look upon the estimation as the standard of value. If this held good in antiquity the value must have fluctuated with the rarity. And why did they take silver and gold for standard of value ? There were more precious things. The suitability for coins does not come into consideration, for they only weighed the metal. But even if some practical considerations bore upon it, a theological consideration, in the Ancient-Oriental sense, such as was spoken of at pp. 4, i., 66, i. ff., became the standard which has dominated the whole world (with the exception of some remote parts of the South Sea and of Africa) right on into the modern age.
REBEKAH AND HER SONS
51
Gen xxiv. 3, see pp. 77 and 121, i., n. 2; xxiv. 4, see p. 36; xxiv. 40, see p. 14.
* Gen. xxiv. 65, etc. (Rebekah). Rebekah is, like Sarah, endowed with motifs of Ishtar. At the meeting with Isaac, xxiv. 65, she “took her veil1 and covered herself”; comp. p. 62. She appears in Gerar as sister and wife of Isaac, in the same role as Sarah; see p. 20. The barren1 2 becomes fruitful. The sons struggling within the mother (exactly as with Tamar-Ishtar, xxxviii. 28 ff.)3 bears the motif of the two halves of the world, that is to say, of the cycle of the universe : the ruddy, hairy Esau, and Jacob, who holds on to his heel.4 The oracle of Yahveh, xxv. 23 ff. (comp, xxvii. 28 ff.; Hosea xii.), speaks of the strife between the two in this sense. Edom and Se‘ir are motif words in regard to Esau. Esau dwells in SeTr, the Southland (xxxii. 3 ; comp, xxxiii. 14, xxxvi. , and is father of the Edomites.
The Southland is the land of the sun ; see p. 30. In mythological language the rays of the sun are spoken of as hair—red hair is sun rays; white hair, moon rays. The hairy Esau, Gen. xxvii. 21-23, is called Edom. Edom means not only red, but also hairy. Already at birth, Gen. xxv. 25, he came out admorii—that is, hairy and red at the same time. Also in the geographical name Se‘ir the hair motif sounds. Esau corresponds to the dark Underworld half, Jacob to the fighting and conquering Overworld half—that is to say, moon and sun, or light moon and dark moon. It is the Dioscuri as inimical brothers, like Cain and Abel. The motif runs all through. It is preferably veiled in the opposition of the occupations. Jacob “dwells in tents” (shepherd, like Abel), Esau is the “ man of the field ” (agriculturalist, like Cain). The moon is shepherd, the sun is agriculturalist (the field is the kingdom of the Underworld, all chthonistic gods are gods of the grain). Another opposition of occupations = Overworld and Underworld is singer and smith (Jabal the musician, and Tubal the smith; Abel and [Tubal] Cain ; see p. 239., i.).5 According to xxv. 28, Isaac loved Esau, because tsayid was in his mouth. That can scarcely mean anything else than song; see Winckler, /.c., 422, who mentions the goddess Zidon in Philo, who “invented song, because she had a beautiful voice,” and Esau = Secir = Pan, skilled in music, singer in the Underworld, comp. Orpheus; the designation as ”>W, “goat,” by the Rabbis agrees with this. The opposing smith
1   motif word, only again recurring in the Tamar-Ishtar story, Gen. xxxviii. 14 and 19.
2   mpy as Ishtar motif; see p. 20, n. 5.
3   The red thread here symbolises, as the red colour of Esau, the dark half of the world (the Dragon, the power of the Underworld is red, see p. 152, i.); B.N.T., 42 ; Rev. xii. 3, xvii. 3 ; compare also the colour symbolism in Isa. i. 18. Upon the strife of Esau and Jacob in the mother’s womb, compare also Hosea xii. 3.
4   Motif of the cycle ; see p. 31, i., n. 2 ; 234, i.
5   Tailor and cobbler = Over world and Underworld ; see p. 31.
52 GLOSSES ON HISTORIES OF THE PATRIARCHS
may be found in the halting Jacob (Hephaestos). Esau as “man of tsayid ” is, further, a hunter. The opposition is Jacob as tarn; xxv. 27. As in the foregoing case, the motifs here rest upon the familiar reversal. Like the singer, the hunter would correspond to the moon (Overworld), the tdm motif (Urim = light, Thummim = darkness as opposition to Urim ; nay and yea, death and life) to the sun (Underworld),1 so here we have the reversal, Esau as man of tsayid corresponds to the power of the Underworld, as in Arabian ibn tsayydd is the devil; Jacob as tdm is the man of the light half.1 2
Another opposition of motifs is sa(ir (hairy) and halak (smooth), xxvii. 11 ; compare the cosmic geographical names in Joshua xi. 17 and xii. 7. ^
Gen. xxv. 13 : Nebaioth. This is the Nabayati of Assurbanipal; here, as in Isa. lx. 7, named along with the Kedar, that is, the Arabians (Kidri), who settled under Assurbanipal. They have nothing to do with the Nabataeans (contrary to K.A.T., 2nd ed., 147). In Neh. vi. 2 (see K.A.T., 3rd ed., 151, 296) Gashmu, the Arabian, is a prince of the Nebaioth. Adbeel is the Dibi’ilu, that is, Idiba’il of the annals of Tiglathpileser III. Mishma*, comp. Isamme’ of Assurbanipal (K.B., ii. 220) = guardian of a sanctuary of Attar- samain, similar to the Korrishites. The Assyrian name has nothing to do with Ishmael (contrary to K.A.T., 2nd ed., 148). Massa, compare the Mas’ai of Tiglathpileser, and Assurbanipal, also in evidence in a letter, a North Babylonian tribe. Teima, compare the Temai brought forward along with the Mas’ai. It is the present Teima, in North Arabia, where lately several Aramaic inscriptions were found, upon the largest one of which the name of the city Teima is repeatedly mentioned.
Gen. xxv. 18: “where thou goest towards Asshur.”   Possibly
the Arabian country is meant, see Glaser, Skizze, ii. 433 ff. ; Hommel, Altis. Uberl., p. 240.
Gen. xxvi. 1 ff. (Isaac and Rebecca in Gerar); comp. p. 20 with Gen. xii. and xx. Gen. xxvi. 34 f. ; see pp. 339, i- f.
Gen. xxvii. 21-23: The deception takes place through the hair of the kids of the goats (comp. 1 Sam. xix. 13). Isaac feels him and is deceived. The result of the deception is that Esau must serve Jacob.
Stucken, Astralmythen, iv. 342 ff., points out the same motif in the fable of Polyphemus 3 throughout Western Asia and Europe,
1   That is to say, light moon and dark moon.
2   The connection of the tdm motif with the motif tau by Winckler, loc. at., p. 420, appears to me scarcely acceptable.
3   See Wilhelm Grimm, “ Die Sage von Polyphem,” Abh. der KgL Akad. der Wissenschaften, Berlin, 1857.
JACOB’S DREAM
53
where the blind cyclops is deceived by a ram’s fleece which he feels, and the related motif in the fable of Kronos (Hesiod, Theog., 467 ff.) : Rhea wraps a stone in the fleece of a ram; Kronos feels it, and takes it for his son ; the result of this deception is the change of rule. Zeus attains the lordship over the world ; the Titans (the "inimical brothers ”) become subject to him. Finally, Paulus Diaconus, i. 8, transmits a variant of the Grimnismal Saga (Edda, Gering, pp. 68 ff.) according to which Frigga makes the hairless son hairy and thereby causes her husband to bless her favourite.
Gen. xxvii. 27 : Isaac smells the smell of the garments. “ The smell of the field” is the fragrance of flowers (comp. 2 Kings xix. 26). It is referring to festival garments (ver. 15), which amongst Orientals are scented. “The smell of field labour would be something abominable to the Oriental.”1
The Dream of the Celestial Ladder
Gen. xxviii. Two stories are interwoven. Yahveh himself appears in the dream in the Yahvist story. In the Elohist it is the angels of God (maVakim). As Gen. xxxii. 2 and other passages show, the angels are in the train of Yahveh for the Elohist. The Yahvist only knows one angel of Yahveh; it appears as though the mention of angels seemed to him to have a heathen flavour, and to be a depreciation of the maiesty of Yahveh.2
On the ground of the religious truths set forth in the Christian conception and in review of the gospel records of the life of Jesus, we recognise realities of the transcendental world in the angelology of the Ancient-Israelite religion. “ God made the winds his messengers, and flames of fire his ministers,” 3 but He . has also other “ministering spirits” (Heb. i. 14), to do His will
1   Winckler, F, iii. 426.
2   Comp. p. 194, i., n. 2. Contrary to Holzinger, loc. cit.t who construes it the contrary way. Zimmern, K.A.T., 3rded., 456 f. (comp. Gunkel, 280), sees in the Biblical angels traces of “ dispossessed gods,” conformably with his fundamental view which sees in the Israelite (and finally also in the Christian) religion a refined mythology.
3   Ps. civ. 4, comp. Ps. cxlviii. 8. It is remarkable that Luther translates in the opposite way : "Thou makest thine angels wind, and thy servants flames of fire.” If we were to take this literally and not as only a poetic figure of speech making use of mythology, we should come back to " Babylonian ” conceptions ; compare the messenger of the gods Nusku-Gibil, that is, Fire.
54 GLOSSES ON HISTORIES OF THE PATRIARCHS
amongst men. And when the cuneiform texts speak of the divine 44 messengers of grace ” {°-melu apil shipri sha dunku) who accompany the king in his campaign (K 523), or of the 44guardian of health and life who stands at the king’s side”
(K 948),1 they are presenting a religious truth.
In the Old Testament we must distinguish between :
1.   The mal’ak Yahveh ( = pene Yahveh), which represents the visible appearance of the divinity, in place of which in the period of the Temple we have the appearance of God in the holy of holies.
2.   The presentment of messengers of God, which the Yahveh religion has in common with the esoteric religions of the extra-Biblical world; for example, Isa. lxiii. 9.
3.   The cosmological angelology, which looks upon the stars as communicators of the will of God, and as the armies of God (Yahveh Sabaoth, Yahveh enthroned above the cherubim). In pure Yahveh religion this presentment has only a symbolic, that is to say, a poetic meaning ; for example, Isa. xxiv. 21, where the enemies of Yahveh appear as “hosts of the height,” as the heathen astral gods whose dominion Yahveh takes away.2 In the Yahveh popular religion the presentments are more concrete, as in the Song of Deborah, where the fighting of the stars in their courses against Sisera is not meant to be taken only as poetry. The angels in Jacob’s dream are, to a certain extent, a midway stage, in so far as the dream presents the cosmic Temple, the stairs up to which are represented by the stages of the planet cycles.
4.   The angelology of the post-Biblical Jewish literature, which is influenced by Babylonian mythology, and which con-
 
FIG. 122.—Assyrian guardian angel from Nimrud (Ashur- nazir-pal).
1   See Delitzsch, B.B., i. 4th ed., 71, and compare our figs. 67 f. and 122.
2   See p. 195, i.
JACOB’S DREAM
55
tradicts the spirit of the Yahveh religion, and, on the contrary, is nearly related to the heathen popular religion of the pre- exilic   period.1 The   post-exilic Jewish   theology as   already
showing itself in the Apocryphal books has here appropriated anew elements from the Babylonian and the Babylonianised Parsee religion, which retained the simple presentment of angels like caricatures. The “ deposed gods 11 may be looked for here. 2 According to E (Gen. xxviii. 13-16), what Jacob sees is the celestial palace, the prototype of all Western Asiatic temple buildings: “ This is the divine palace ! this is the gate of heaven.11 In his dream the place appears to him as the celestial point (pole) of the earth.3 From here was the ascent to be made. Here,   therefore, was   the entrance to   the heavenly   palace.
Comp.   Gen. xxxv. 7:   “there God.was   revealed unto him.11
Steps lead upwards: in the conception of the universe the seven stages   of the planet   heavens leading to the highest   heaven
correspond to the sullam.4 The “ gate of heaven11 is in Baby-
1   Upon the difference between Yahveh religion, Yahveh popular religion, and (heathen) popular religion, see p. 15.
2   Upon the angelology of the New Testament, see B.N.T., 85 f. The appearances of angels in the gospels and epistles correspond to the appearances in the Biblical Old Testament writings distinguished under heads 1 and 2 above; in the 7rA7j0os orpaTias obpaviov, Luke ii. 13, and in passages like Matt. xxvi. 53, Rom. viii. 38, Col. i. 16, Rev. i. 20, and others the physical background distinguished under 3 shows. The Pauline Epistles and the Epistle to the Hebrews (comp, also Rev. xix. 9, xxii. 8 ff.) protest against Jewish angelology. Passages like Jude vi., 2 Pet. ii. 4, and, on the other hand, Jude ix. (comp. Rev. xii. 7 ff ), are not in the same category with the Jewish Persian angelology. They are the result of the same Oriental teaching as the Jewish, but they are not purely mythological as that is, but represent religious realities.
3   Comp. p. 54, i., and now Winckler, F., iii. 427 ; Babylonian markas shatn^ and irtsitim, the point where heaven and earth meet (Nibiru point, pp. 21, i. f.). In Sohar, aware of the ancient view (see B.N.T., 65), it is said (Sulzb. Ausg., fol. 124, col. 492): “ Upon that stone the world is founded, but it is its centre, in it is the holy of holies, the stone which the builders rejected.” It is the p.z<ro/ji<pa\ia 70177s of the Greeks (Delphi); Gunkel, Genesis, 1st ed., p. 29. In the second edition Gunkel has omitted the passage which looks upon Bethel as the pole of the earth (why ?).
4   See pp. 15, i. ff. The steps are called sullam. Compare Phcen. DID^D, possibly stairway. Winckler’s conception as “bow,” M. V A. G., 1901, 352 f., thinks with P. Rost of the bow-shaped zodiac and of the sillu in inscriptions on buildings, the arch of the gateway with ascending and descending genii, see fig. 6. When popular pictures paint the ladder as a bow other mythologies (see, for example, p. 167, i., and the ancient Germanic celestial bridge) are certainly mixed up with it.
56 GLOSSES ON HISTORIES OF THE PATRIARCHS
Ionian bab-ili (thus the name Babilu is indicated as centre of the world), the 44 high door.” The other name, Luz (Gen. xxviii. 19 ; comp. xxxv. 6, xlviii. 3), has the same cosmic importance. Luz is “ refuge ” (Arabic, laud), the holy of holies in the Temple, seat of the summus deus in the universe.1
The dream-picture, therefore, corresponds to the 4‘ Babylonian ” picture of the world. And it could not be otherwise. It corresponds to the world as the fancy of the primitive age of Israel was familiar with it. If God were going to give comfort to a man in a dream to-day, the dream would take a European form, not Chinese.
In the Mithra cult, in place of the seven planet stages leading up to the tower, and each one of a different colour, we find a ladder of seven different metals (compare the #cA.tfia£ kirTcarv\o<i of Origen’s Contra Celsum, vi.), by which souls ascend and descend, and the gates of which correspond to the “houses” of the seven planets; the eighth gate leads to the highest heaven (comp. Cumont, Die Mysterien des Mithra, 108, but in addition Dieterich, Mithrasliturgie, 89). A similar presentment is also recorded amongst the Egyptians: at the west of the horizon stands a heavenly ladder, guarded by Hathor, by which the souls of the dead ascend to heaven.2
Gen. xxix., see p. 37; xxix. 27, see p. 198, i.; xxx. 1 ff, see p. 34.
Gen. xxx. 14 ff. (Love apples), see p. 209, i., n. 2. Bereshit Rabba interprets as 44 plant of love ”; in Babylonian that would be the 44 plant of birth ” (shammu sha aladi).
Gen. xxxi. 19, 33-35 : Rachel stole her father's teraphim,3 and hid them in the saddle of the camel. It was an article of
1 Winckler, F1, iii. 423 f., conjectures that ’uldm belongs to Luz (“ hall of refuge”); in that case certainly also the assonance with ‘oldm (north point, in opposition to Qedem) may be intended. The Jewish fable, according to which Abraham built a refuge, has been mentioned p. 15. That is certainly not without foundation. The chronicler is aware of the importance of the refuge (Winckler, Gesch. Isr., ii. 66, recalls the founding of the refuge by Romulus, Liv. i. . Israelite Canaan has six cities of refuge ; Gen. xxxi. 49 records the building of such an one (Ramoth Gilead = Ramath Mizpeh, according to Joshua xiii. 26): “so that one man may protect ["ino, as in Ps. xxvii. 5, where it is speaking of the heavenly refuge] himself from another.”
2   Gunkel, 2nd ed., p. 280, shares with Prof. K. Sethe the assertion, according to which the ladder was set up by Osiris by a magic charm, therefore, probably, was not there permanently. But even then also the same conception lies at the root.
3   Plur. inajest., like elohim ; see pp. 13 f.
JACOB’S STAFF
57
worship in the popular religion of Rachel’s home. Possibly the image of an idol, as was usual in Khorsabad for domestic worship (see fig.
123). Also in Israel teraphim belonged to the popular religion. 1 Sam. xix.
12-16: Michal laid the teraphim in the bed and disguised the statue with a goat’s skin and garments to look like the figure of a man. In both cases the statue may be held to have been an amulet to protect the husband from hostile snares.1
Gen. xxxi. 32 f., see p. 38; xxxi. 33, see p. 38.
Jacob's Staff
Gen. xxxii. 10: 441 had nothing but this staff1” This staff of Jacob’s, which is quite unimportant to the coherence of the story, represents a distinct motif. In the tradition which is the foundation of Heb. xi. 21, special importance is attached to it.
^ Jacob, like Abraham, is founder of a family. His story would therefore be endowed with the same motifs. The emphasis
of the “ staff” corresponds to a moon motif   123-“Assyrian idol
.1   . i   i j x .   , i   for household use, from
—the moon on the one hand being the   Khorsabad (Louvre),
wanderer and magician (magic staff, see
p. 114, i.), and on the other hand being snmmus deus, the “ shepherd ” who guards the sheep. The staff of Janus is of the same importance.1 2 Upon the other hand, however, the staff belongs to Orion. The knowledge of this is still existent. The brightest stars in Orion, now called “the belt of Orion,” were called the staff. The naming of them as Jacob’s staff shows the connection of Jacob- Orion. Orion is, on one side, dragon-slayer, corresponding therefore
1   Hommel thinks of the quiver-like shaped vessel upon the Assyrian reliefs, with a sort of head for cover, that looked like a doll, and probably contained the arrows for soothsaying; comp. G. Rawlinson, Five Great Monarchies, 4thed.,i. 453. We cannot accept Stucken’s deductions, which look upon the teraphim motif as motif of the dragon combat (Astralmylhen, pp. 158 f.).
2   Ovid, Fast,, i. 99 : “ille tenens baculum dextra clavemque sinistra.” For Janus-moon see Kampf um Babel u. Bibel, 4th ed., pp. 44 ff.
 
58 GLOSSES ON HISTORIES OF THE PATRIARCHS
to Tammuz, Osiris, Nimrod-Gilgamesh, and the Greek Heracles. The kerykion in the hand of Orion in the Egyptian representations corresponds to the staff;1 the sceptre belongs to Osiris- Orion, who as divinity of resurrection bears lunar character and corresponds to Orion as constellation of resurrection in the solar myth. ^
The fables spin out the story into that of a magic staff. Joseph possesses the staff. He makes a present of it to Jethro- Reguel. It was made of sapphire, and the unnamable name of God was written upon it. The staff* reappears as the magic staff* of Moses and the blossoming rod of Aaron; see Beer, Leben Mosis, p. 56.
Jacob's Combat
Gen. xxxii. 15-32 :   This combat is, in the mind of the
chronicler, an actual physical occurrence, for Jacob, ver. 32, really limped after it. Originally it would have been a dream (like Jacob’s ladder) which is connected with the religious presentment of a fervent wrestling in prayer.2
Behind this story of a dream, however, are hidden the motifs of a cosmic myth, which are bestowed upon Jacob as the bringer of a new age. Jacob wrestles “ with someone ” (xxxii. 24, the chronicler dare not say that it was Yahveh Himself) and conquers.3 The object of the combat and reward of victory is the secret name, which guarantees to Jacob power and sovereignty
1   For Orion-Tammuz as star of resurrection see the astral motifs in the story of Abraham, p. 21. Upon Gilgamesh-Heracles compare Izdubar-Nimrod, pp. 70 ff. Upon the following compare Boll, Sphcera, 167, and to that Winckler, O.L.Z., 1904, pr. 101, previously Gesch. Isr., ii. 82, 92. On Germanic ground the change of the royal sceptre from the long staff ( = shepherd’s staff) to the kerykion (short sceptre) is likewise to be noted. It corresponds to the Oriental conception that the king is “shepherd ” {ri'u); he is thus named in Babylonian as in Biblical texts.
2   W. H. Roscher, “ Ephialtes,” Abk. der Kgl. Sachs. Gesellschaft der Wissen- schaften, phil. hist. Kl., xx., has pointed out that the dream bears all the signs of nightmare : the wrestling by night till the break of day, the refusal of the name, the shrinking (laming) of the sinew of the thigh, the promised blessing (according to Deut. vii. 13 f. it consisted in fruitfulness, wealth, health, and victory). Besides, a nightmare is often so vivid that it is confused with waking events. Modern examples are known to every doctor. Ancient examples are given by Roscher, l.c., pp. 40, 45 f.
3   “And yet escaped with his life” is an addition of the chronicler, who no longer understood the meaning. Comp. Hosea xii. 4 ff., where the original meaning is certainly that “he fought against the angel and prevailed; he (the angel) wept and prayed for mercy.” Thus also Ed. Meyer, see n. 5, p. 59.
JACOB’S COMBAT
59
in the new age.1 The place of combat is the ford, which corresponds cosmically to the decisive Nibiru point, to the victory point of the warrior Ninib (see p. 22, i.).1 2 In ver. 30 the combat for the name is still clearly recognisable. Jacob demands the name, and the opponent answers evasively. Already our chronicler suggests the ingenious change of meaning which gives Jacob the new name3 and blesses him. A companion passage to this is the combat of Moses, recorded by the ancient passage in Deut. xxxiii. 8 IF., where the meaning is still more clearly to be seen. Moses strove at Kadesh with God, and prevailed.4 The object of the combat and victory are here the Urim and Thummim, which are, according to the sense, identical with the “ name.” Both give power over Fate, rulership of the world.5 Jacob conquered eloMm and ’anashim, gods and men ; Gen. xxxii. 29. He is like to a shar ilani, a rrmshteshir tenisheti and mushteshir ilani, like the victorious Shamash.6 7
Gen. xxxiii. 3 : Jacob bows himself seven times, acknowledging him as lord ; see p. 33.7
1   Upon the name as reward of victory, see B.N. 71., 106 f.
2   The myth of the Sphinx has the same meaning, the meeting of the demon in the mid-day heat, who asks the fatal question, the forest woman of the Lithuanian myths, etc. The yet unexplained motif of lameness belongs to the Ninib point; see pp. 23, i., 31, i. Lameness probably symbolises the solstices.
s Upon the import of the renaming, see B.N. 71, JO6.
4   He is endowed here also with the motif of secret birth (without father, without mother); see pp. 28 and 91.
5   Ed. Meyer, Die Israeliten und ihre Nachbarstamme, likewise puts the- two combats together, without seeing the mythological connection. E. Meyer adds yet a third parallel, Exod. iv. 24-26. Here the myth takes the robust form of the Yahveh popular religion. It is Yahveh who is hit by Zipporah’s throw. The Biblical chronicler has touched up the occurrence. Compare now my essay, “Urim and Thummim,” in Hilprecht’s anniversary volume, pp. 223 ff.
6   There are other analogies to be noted, like the battle between gods and heroes in Homer, Iliad> iii. 125 ff., v. 308 ff., 330; similarly the fable of Hercules as in Nunnus, Dionysiaca, x. 376, where Hercules fights with Jupiter, who cannot overcome him and finally makes himself known ; or in Pausanias, iii. 9, 7, where Hercules is wounded in the thigh in the fight with Hippocoon (Movers, Phonizien, i- 433 f* )?
7   Gunkel, l.c.% finds it comic. “We must laugh” (likewise at 25a). Gunkel’s idea of the story of Jacob being a collection of broad and comfortable humorous tales (“thefable laughs at the stupid Esau, and rejoices over the wise Jacob,” etc.) would be changed by the recognition of the embellishing motifs.
60 GLOSSES ON HISTORIES OF THE PATRIARCHS
* Gen. xxxiv. 25-31. In the relationship of Dinah to the twins (see Gen. xlix), Simeon and Levi, who avenged the wronged sister, sounds the motif of the Dioscuri.1 As it appears, there seems to have been a tradition in which Jacob had these three children only. It would then, in its original form, have shown the motif clearest, but it is doubtful whether the editor of the story before us still knew it. In this motif Helena, sister of Castor and Pollux, corresponds to Dinah. As these rescued their sister out of the stronghold of Aphidna, so Simeon and Levi revenge the rape and humiliation of Dinah.1 2 *
Gen. xxxv. 23 ; see p. 44.
Gen. xxxvi. 1 ff. : Edom, Esau, dwelt in Se‘ir, the hill country southward from Judah (xxxii. 3, comp, xxxvi. , and is held as father of the Edomite tribes; see p. 51.
The Edomites,3 Assyrian Udumu, in historical times have their seat in the mountains of Sefir, from whence, according to Gen. xxxvi. 20, they drove out the original inhabitants. SeTrites were mentioned under Rameses III.
Gen. xxxvi. 31 ff. names a list of eight kings who had lived before Israel became a kingdom. 1 Kings xi. 14 ff. records the victory of David over the “ Edomite ” king Hadad in the valley of Salt (comp. Ps. lx.), who is also named in the list of kings,4 and the
1 To sun and moon (Dioscuri) Venus is added as third star. They are the rulers of the zodiac and as such represent the new age. The Queen of Heaven, who bears the child of the sun (Rev. xii.), is therefore clothed with the sun and has the moon under her feet ; upon the triad, see pp. 86, i. ff. The new age is inaugurated with the motif of the ravished and humiliated sister. This strife has the same meaning as the battle of the giants, and the battle against five kings (Epagomens), it is the battle of the new age with winter ; see pp. 94, i., 42, n. 1. The best-known examples of this inauguration motif are Valerius and Horatius and Virginia (Virgo, maiden motif in the name), and Harmodios and Aristogeiton with their sister (see Miicke, Vom Euphrat zum Tiber, p. 5). Another example p. 63.
a See Stucken, Astralmythen, 75, n. 2, 144 f. Sichem and Chemor correspond to the ravishers. Stucken has shown in a surprising way how the whole story is permeated with the motifs. Theseus, who corresponds to Sichem, is dragon- slayer. The maiden (the allotted daughter of the king, see B.N.T., 38) is promised to the dragon-slayer. A condition is the showing parts of the members cut off (this is, requisition of circumcision). The maiden is then still denied. The dragon- slayer takes his reward by force. It might also be said here that it was accidental. But the art of the chronicler lies in indicating how everything agrees.
3   See the exhaustive treatment in Buhl, Edomiter, Leipzig, 1893 ; Baudissin, R.P.Th., 3rd ed. ; Winckler, Gesck. Isr., i. 189 ff. ; Noeldeke in Ency. Bibl.
4   1 Sam. xiv. 47 should be read Aram instead of Edom; see Winckler, Z-C; I43> 193-
THE EDOMITES
61
massacre of “ all the males in Edom.” Solomon also had Edom in his power (1 Kings ix. 26), and for two hundred years it was a province of Judah. It was from a religious point of view also an important possession, for Sinai was situated in the territory of Edom; see p. 98. Under Joram, about 850, Edom became again, according to 2 Kings viii. 20, an independent kingdom. Tiglathpileser III. names in 733, upon the clay tablets of Nimrod, a prince Qaush- malak of Edom together with Ahaz of Judah. Amos tells of the enmity of Edom to Judah. Later, as the power of Judah waned, this enmity became fatal. In the year 701 Sennacherib names amongst the tributaries in his campaign against Jerusalem, Ai-rammu, king of Edom (K.T., p. 44).
Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal name, together with Manasseh of Judah, Qaush-gabri of Edom amongst the twenty-two princes of the Westland who were forced to supply men and give compulsory work in the Egyptian campaigns.
In the campaign of Nebuchadnezzar against Jerusalem, Edom, like Moab and Ammon, joined the Babylonians, and revenged itself upon Judah (comp. Ezek. xxv. 13 ff., Ps. cxxxvii. ; see Obadiah’s “ flying leaf against Edom”). The further fate of the Edomites is still dark. In any case, they were absorbed by Arabian powers (kingdom of the Nabataeans).
Of the civilisation of the Edomites we know IG\i[24‘T/, sft!ar but little. 1 hey ranked amongst the wise (Obad. goddess. Dis- viii.; Jer. xlix. 7 ; Ba. iii. 22 f.). In order to judge covered in Baby- of the religion of the Edomites we may refer to l°n; (Layard, the theophoric names. The names Hadad and Ai ^ab ^on)1 agree with the “ Canaanite ” religion sketched pp.   ^8 ; comp.
4, i. and 124, i. Josephus, A?it., xv. 7, 9, names Ko£e Jer. vii. 18. or Ko)£ai as god of the Edomites. The Storm-god Qosh (bow) or Quzah was certainly their national divinity; see K.A.T., 3rd ed., 472 f. Hommel, G.G.G., pp. 89 and 165, holds this god to be also a “ moon-god.” We may rather think of a form of the Storm-god Adad, who, however, naturally may equally bear lunar character (specially the waning moon; see Hommel, l.c., n. l).
^ Gen. xxxviii. 14 ff.:1 Tamar acts as a harlot. Consciously or unconsciously the expressions and the customs are taken from the Oriental cult of Ishtar.1 2 Tamar is called Qedesha (Assyrian
1   Judah gives ring and staff as hostage. These are the tokens of lordship of the man. Many Babylonian statues of gods (for example, fig. 132) show the ring and staff. The shepherd’s staff {shibiru) belongs to the Royal insignia, which lie ready with Anu for the future king (myth of Etana).
2   Upon the Ishtar-Ashera cult in Canaan, see pp. 344, i., 349, i. f.; upon the Babylonian Ishtar cult, pp. 117, i. ff. Upon the veil of Ishtar, seep. 12T, i., n. 1. Fig. 41
 
62 GLOSSES ON HISTORIES OF THE PATRIARCHS
Qadishtu); that is, properly speaking, “the consecrated,” the temple prostitute, then whore. The corresponding masculine figure is, for example, 1 Kings xiv. 24. The names Qadesh and Qedesh (sanctuary ?) may be held as evidence of the similar Oriental cult in Canaan in the pre-Israelite period.1 In Babylonian qadishtu, like shamfydtu, harimiu (“ the ensnared ” ?) also chiefly means “consecrated to the service of Ishtar” (also Ishtaritum with divine determinative IV. R. 50, 44a) ; secondarily it means the street women. The symbol of Ishtar is the veil. It belongs, therefore, to the cult and to maidenhood, since in the East everything was brought into relationship to religion.2 The divine sea-maiden Sabitu in the epic of Gilgamesh is also a veiled Ishtar. Rebekah wrapped herself in her veil, when the bridegroom approached; Gen. xxiv. 65, see p. 51. Ruth veiled herself when she wrent to Boaz. This did not mean in order that she should not be seen; for that it would have been sufficient that she went by night.3 Stucken, Astralmythen, 16, draws attention to a further very remarkable reminiscence of the Ishtar myth in the story of Tamar; Gen. xxxviii. 14 ff. It is said of Ishtar that she destroyed her
shows the Ashera statue discovered by Oppenheim at the Well of Chabur, which represents a marble column ending in a veiled head of Ishtar. This is the solution of the riddle why Ashera sometimes appears as a post and then again as a goddess. Fig. 124 is an Ishtar type discovered in Babylon, like fig. 38, p. 118.
1   Comp. Ashtoroth-‘Ashtarte (1 Kings xi. 5 and 33 ; comp. 2 Kings xxiii. 13) of the Phoenicians, like 1 Sam. xxxi. 10 of the Philistines. Zimmern, K.A.T., 3rd ed., 437, comp. 436, speaks of “eventual Babylonian origin.” This illustrates the difference of our views. The worship of Ishtar was cultivated throughout the entire Ancient-East. Only the forms of the cult varied. In our case, we would rather take it the contrary way, that in Babylonia a “Canaanite” Ishtar cult (see p. 120, i., n. 1), emphasising the double character (life and death), influenced an originally otherwise formed proto-Babylonian Ishtar cult.
2   Megilla, iob, says : Tamar was always veiled in the house of her father-in-law. Beresh. R. 38. 14: Two women wrapped themselves in veils and bore twins: Rebekah and Tamar (the addition: “if she were a prostitute, then she would cover her face,” is a Bowdlerism). Sota, ioa-b : She was looked upon as a prostitute, because she veiled her face in the house of her father-in-law.
3   Unveiling signifies marriage (motif of knowing), but “knowing” and marriage is the death motif. We may realise this from fig. 14 f. The unveiling of the statue at Sais brings death. Ishtar, descending into the Underworld, lays aside her garments. Haggag, the conqueror of Mecca, who defeats the anti-king of the Omayyads, has himself praised as “Son of the break of day” (Tammuz, masculine correspondence to Ishtar), and says: “ When I raise the veil, ye will know me” (Winckler, M.V.A.G., 1901, 303 f.). In Islamic fables the “man who makes veils” {dh&-l-fyim&r), also plays a part. Also the hiding of the face of Moses (unveiling would have meant death), Exod. xxxiv. 33 ff., belongs in this connection. When, besides, the Vulgate translates cornuius (the “horned Moses” of Michael Angelo), another “mythological” feature is brought into the presentment: the translator Hieronymus must have known that the ‘ ‘ horns ” are the Ancient-Oriental symbol of divinity. See further, Exod. xxxiv. 33 and 35.
MOTIFS IN THE STORY OF TAMAR
63
lovers (epic of Nimrod, Vlth tablet).1 Tamar’s love lost the lives of two brothers, Er and Onan. The father-in-law will not give the third “lest he also die like his brethren.” Also Dinah, sister of the “ Dioscuri ” Simeon and Levi (Gen. xxxiv., see p. 60), brings death to her husband. With this compare Tobit iii. 8, where Sarah (sharratu; that is, Ishtar!), Raguel’s daughter, is taunted: “Thou art she that killeth her husbands ! ” 1 2
Also the other Tamar, whose relations with her brother are told, 2 Sam. xiii., is endowed by the chronicler with the features of Ishtar. Her brothers are Amnon and Absalom. The wronged sister is revenged by one of them. The motif of the Dioscuri who avenge their sister, as we found in the Simeon-Levi-Dinah story (p. 60), is here mixed with the other motif of the slaying of one Dioscuros by the other (inimical brothers). The “ wise man ” (hakarn) Jonadab, who appears as adviser, and advised Amnon, “ who made himself sick because of his sister Tamar (she was f virgin,’ virgo; see p. 60),” to feign himself sick, in order to see the sister alone, is the physician (hakim) in the corresponding Arabian tale. Winckler, Ex or. Lux, i., has shown how the stories in their motifs agree feature for feature with the love-story of Antiochus and his stepmother Stratonice ( = Ishtar, p. 96). As food the well-known mythological cakes are chosen, the cakes of Ishtar.3 A later editor has not understood that, or has suppressed it. In the passages vv. 8 and 10 the text is mutilated. The chronicler has secreted another “hint” in the garment, ver. 18 : she wore a ketonet passim.4 This is the expression that is only used for the garment of Joseph (Gen. xxxvii.; see p. 66), whose story is interwoven with the features of Tammuz. In the composition before us the end of the story is missing: i.e. the secret birth of the child. ^
1   Compare the legend of Semiramis, further of Roxana, Rhea, and Zenobia. The knight Bluebeard is the masculine correspondence.
2   Here Asmodaeus works the charm. The Rabbinical fable makes Raguel, the father-in-law of Moses, into a Bluebeard, who tries all the wooers at a tree and devours them (see Beer, Leben Mosis).
3   See Jer. vii. 18, comp. xliv. 19 : the cakes for the Queen of Heaven, i.e. Ishtar.
4   An antiquarian gloss adds to this: this was “from of old” the maiden garment of princesses. Comp. Song of Solomon v. 3, the garment of the beloved (“I have put off my garment, shall I put it on again?”—Ishtar motif). Also this garment is certainly to be understood as a veil-like cloak.
CHAPTER XVII
THE STORY OF JOSEPH
(Gen. xxxvii-1)
^ THE TAMMUZ MOTIF IN THE STORY OF JOSEPH
DESTINY takes Joseph into Egypt, therefore into cosmic Underworld geography (see p. 30, i.; 20). In the Southland he is thrown into the pit, in Egypt into prison. Thence he rises as benefactor of his people. His deliverance appears as a rescue out of the Underworld, as later the deliverance out of Egypt by Moses appears as a strife with and victory over the power of the Underworld (dragon, Rahab !). The story of Joseph is for this reason endowed with the motifs of the myth of Tammuz, who descends into the Underworld, then to ascend again as Bringer of the New Age.1 Play of words and emphasis of certain features and events all allude to Tammuz. We find such allusions in the following features :1 2—
1.   To Joseph’s first dream, corresponding to the occupation of the brothers (Gen. xxxvii. 6 ff., E : the sheaves of the brothers bow themselves before Joseph’s sheaf), is added a mystic star dream : sun, moon, and eleven kokabim (the eleven constellations of the zodiac3) bow before him. Tammuz is the representative of the complete, ever-rolling cycle of the zodiac. Before him the sun, moon, and other eleven bow themselves. Nork in his Elias, 47 f., has already noted the connection.4
1   Comp. pp. ioo, i.; 20 ff. We shall speak later of the idea of the deliverer, which is connected with this, at p. 67.
2   See Winckler, Gesch. Isr., ii. 67 ff. The reader will note where we differ, and our supplements.
3   Are there eleven, because the twelfth hides itself behind the sun ? Or did they only reckon eleven (Sagittarius and Scorpio are one; see Izdubar-Nimrod, 52, and compare the picture, fig. 2, second row from the bottom) ? Marduk has the number eleven as conqueror of Tiamat and her eleven helpers. The eleven monsters of chaos of the ancient system are the eleven signs of the zodiac of the new system ruled by Marduk. Compare with this also Hommel, Aufs. u. Abb., 406, n. 1.
4   A later critic remarks ironically: “Since, however, Tammuz is supposed to be the sun, he bows, therefore, before himself.” Tammuz is not the sun. As
64
ASTRAL MOTIFS IN THE STORY OF JOSEPH 65
2.   Joseph is thrown into the pit (xxxvii. 24 ff., E). The pit was held to be the entrance to the Underworld. Comp. Ps. lxix. 16; Rev. ix. 1 ff., where the figure of speech is particularly clearly used of the star falling into the pit of the abyss (Attar-Tammuz as evening star). With bor = Underworld compare also Erubim 19«, and the corresponding feature in fairy stories of Eastern origin: the well leading into the Underworld.1 The Testaments of the Patriarchs recognise the Tammuz motif. When Test. Seb. says that Joseph was three days in the pit, it corresponds to the Tammuz moon-motif (three days in the power of the Underworld in the lunar cycle, then ascending again, see pp. 35, i. f.). What three days signify in the lunar cycle, is in the solar cycle three months and five days (winter quarter including the five epagomens, bringing up 360 to 365), # see pp. 42, n. 1; 60, n. 1; 93, i. This motif is recognised in Test. Jos. ii., which says that Joseph was three months and five days with the slave-dealers. The sojourn with the slave-dealers (imprisonment, see following point) is held to be a tarrying in the Underworld.2
3.   Joseph is imprisoned, xxxix. 20 ff. The prison is likewise the Underworld. In the Assyrian penitential psalms prison is the figure for the anguish of death (see for example p. 229, i.) ; the one released from prison rose by the scent of the plant of life out of the Underworld (see for example p. 215, i.). Rev. xx. 7, comp. ver. 3, the abyss is equivalent to prison, and in 1 Pet. iii. 19 Christ descends into “prison” to preach to the dead. But the course of the story shows yet further resemblances.
The two fellow-prisoners, the chief baker and the chief butler, of whom one is good and one is evil, also belong to Tammuz in the Underworld. -They correspond to the two ministers of Marduk- Adapa (“ What does my Lord eat ? ” “ What does my Lord drink ? ” see pp. 60, i.; 183, i.), and, in the mocking of the king of the year, to the two malefactors hanged with him, see B.N.T., 20 f.
representative of the cycle he bears either sun, moon, or Ishtar character ; see pp. 86, i.; 125, i. Without a knowledge of the Ancient-Oriental teaching criticism is fatal. The elimination of the sun in Winckler, loc. cit., 70 (because of the night) is unnecessary.
J Compare also Gunkel, Schopfung und Chaos, 214, n. I. A variant o* the well is the pits, in which, for example, the five kings fall, in the vale of demons (Gen. xiv. 10 f. ; seep. 26). In the Egyptian Book of the Dead (see Erman, Ag. Re/., ii.), the dead, the inhabitants of the caves (!) greet Osiris upon his nightly journey (Osiris as the “ Man in the Moon”).
2   Other evidences that late Judaism still knew the motifs are to be found in Rosh ha-shanah, iob: Joseph’s birth is announced to Rachel on New Year’s Day; Jubil. xxviii. 2, the 1st of Tammuz is the birthday of Joseph. Also the blessing in Deut. xxxiii. is full of mythological allusions. In the Testament of the twelve Patriarchs it is said in Naphtali (Kautzsch, p. 487) that Joseph ascended on high upon a winged bull (comp. Deut. xxxiii. 17). Is this an allusion to Marduk- Tammuz? We may compare the bull as symbol of Osiris-Tammuz.
VOL. II.
5

[Prometheus]

66
THE STORY OF JOSEPH
4.   The “gay coat” of Joseph (Gen. xxxvii. 3, 23, 32 ff.) is designated by the motif word ketonet passim, which only once again in 2 Sam. xiii. 18 f. appears as designation of the garment of Tamar, who bears the Ishtar character; see p. 63 and n. 4. The brothers conspire together (xxxvii. 20): “ we will say, An evil beast hath devoured him.” They dip the coat in blood and send it to their father. Jacob cries : “ A wild beast hath devoured him; yea, yea, Joseph is torn in pieces.” The rhythmic words emphasised correspond to the lament over Tammuz, slain by the boar.1 Joseph is teripka, that is the expression for the boar sacred to Tammuz and therefore (!) forbidden as food. Ver. 35 : Jacob would descend into the Underworld to his son. According to Jubil. xxxiv. 12 ff., on the tenth day of the seventh month (month of Tammuz) a yearly lamentation is celebrated for him.
5.   The beautiful youth Joseph (comp. Jubil. xxxix. 5) is tempted by Potiphar’s wife (xxxix. 6 ff., E). She retains the garment in her hand, when Joseph refuses to yield to her wishes, and revenges herself for her rejected love.1 2 The story contains motifs which characterise Joseph as Tammuz : the beauty of the hero (ver. 7) and the chastity. Tammuz was desired by Ishtar, and she “ prepares for him weeping,” because he rejects her wooing. And the hero Gilgamesh who rejects her love, is complained of to her father Anu (tablet of Gilgamesh, VI.). The complaint would be the same as that of Potiphar’s wife : he has forced me. Ishtar revenges herself for the slight done to her.
6.   In Egypt Joseph weds the daughter of the sun-priest of On-Heliopolis (xli. 45, E). This must have seemed as a culminating seal to the chronicler who wove the Tammuz motifs into the story. Wedding of Tammuz with the daughter of the sun as reward for his services.
7.   The Taurus-Marduk motif in the blessing of Joseph, Gen. xlix.; see p. 81.
8.   Joseph and Benjamin are to each other as Tammuz and Gishzida. Benjamin is, according to the name, the man “ on the right,” like Gishzida; comp. pp. 126, i., n. 1; 157, i., n. 2. The twelve sons correspond to the twelve signs of the zodiac; that is to say, to the months of the year,3 and Benjamin is the twelfth.
1   Comp. pp. 96, i.; 125, i. f.; 141, i. The following analogies should be noted : —Amongst the Siamese a giant changed into a boar kills the god of day. In the Scandinavian fable Odin is wounded by a boar : from the drops of blood grow the spring flowers.
2   Ver. 6 belongs to the Yahvist tale. Potiphar has gone upon a journey (ver. 16) and has only taken with him the necessaries of life. The verse says this. It is during his absence that the events of the story occur. We may find countless analogies in the Thousand and One Nights.
3   The journeys of the brothers to Egypt are presented as the descent of the signs of the zodiac into the Underworld, comp. pp. 24, i., n. 2; 30, i., 67 ff. Each time Joseph detains one with him. When he detains the youngest, the cycle is
ASTRAL MOTIFS IN THE STORY OF JOSEPH 67
To him therefore the five epagomenae belong. For this reason he receives the five garments of honour (xlv. 22) and receives five times as much to eat as his brothers (xliii. 34),
9.   It corresponds to the Tammuz motifs in the figure of Joseph, that his two sons are endowed with the motifs of the two halves of the cycle. This is shown in the Yahvist story of the exchange. Jacob crosses his arms and places his right hand upon the youngest and his left upon the eldest; Gen. xlviii. 17 ff. What this symbolises is shown by the exchange of the Marduk and Nebo points (spring new year and autumn new year), pp. 26, i.; 29, i.
The connection of Joseph with the Tammuz motifs has yet another special meaning. It characterises Joseph as representative of the expectation of the Deliverer. We may note as follows :—
Joseph’s home is Sichem, the “ Medina ” of Jacob’s companions in exile, xxxiv. 10 ff.; Hebron corresponds to Mecca. Baal berit (El-berit) of Sichem (see p. 26) is a figure of Tammuz, therefore representative of the Oriental expectation of the Deliverer. The name Shalem ( = Sichem, see pp. 26, 29) agrees with this. A connection has existed at all times between the Ancient-Oriental expectation of a Deliverer and the expected Deliverer of the Yahveh religion.1 This throws a light from religious history upon the fact that in Judges vi. 24 Gideon calls the altar Yahveh-Shalem (see Winckler, F., iii. 441). And that thoughts of Tammuz in the sense of the expected Deliverer were connected with the person of Joseph is shown by his burial. They put him in a coffin, 1. 26 (’ard?i; note that the ark is called by the same word; it also bears Tammuz-Osiris connections).- Moses then takes the coffin with the bones of Joseph (Exod. xiii. 19) that they may be placed in the Land of Promise. Joshua xxiv, 32 relates the burial in Sichem. Joseph is an Israelite figure of the Deliverer—a type of Tammuz, expressed by the Ancient-Orient; a type of Christ, expressed by the Christian.2 We find the same phenomenon in Joshua, who likewise appears as a saviour, and who is still held as such in Jewish theology. In Joshua viii. 10 ff. (Deut. xi. 29; comp, xxvii. 11 ff.) he accomplished upon the mountains of Ebal and Gerizim a symbolic action which corresponds to the characteristic thoughts of the figure of Tammuz : six tribes stood upon Mount Gerizim, six upon Ebal. One half represented the light half of the cycle of the universe (blessing), the other the dark half (curse), which must suggest that the twelve tribes were consciously connected wTith the twelve signs of the zodiac; see Gen. xlix., pp. 77 ff. But the Elohist places the cul-
at an end; see Winckler, Gesch. Isr., ii. 62 f. This would, therefore, mean a carrying on still further the motif announced by Joseph’s dream. Note also that Joseph has seventy-two successors, descended from five women. Leah has seven children, Bilhah and Zilpah, the secondary wives, have five sons.
1   In Egypt also; see pp. 89, n. 2, 100.
2   This is the explanation of the Jewish Messiah ben Joseph, in opposition to
the Messiah ben David. See upon this previously,   39 ff., 92.
68
THE STORY OF JOSEPH
urinating point of his actions in Sichem; Joshua xxiv. In Sichem Joshua places all the tribes “before God” and gives them “law and justice.” Then he erects a stone as a memorial “ under the oak that was by the sanctuary of Yahveh ” (in Sichem !).
THE HEBREW JOSEPH IN EGYPT
The stories of Joseph and of the Exodus show pure Egyptian colouring and prove that the writer drew from good traditions.
George Ebers, in Agypten und die Bucher Mosis (1868), says: “The whole story of Joseph must be designated as corresponding throughout to the true circumstances of ancient Egypt.”
J.   Marquart, Philologus, vii. p. 689, concludes : “ The story of Joseph in its original form is to me a new and brilliant proof of the extreme age of the chronicle of the older Elohists.”
Joseph, like Abraham, is called (Gen. xiv. 13) “the Hebrew” (xl. 15; xli. 12). This is not a “ naive anachronism,” but in the mouth of the Egyptian it was the designation for the outlanders, the Asiatic Bedouins, corresponding to the JTabiri of the Amarna Letters ; see p. 339, i.
Gen. xxxvii. 28 : “ But there passed bp Midianites, merchantmen ; and they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit, and led him to Egypt.” Thus the Elohist. The other source says: “ Ishmaelites from Gilead ”; that is, a general term for the Bedouins from the adjoining lands east of Jordan. The Elohist calls the merchants Midianites.1
The Midianites dwelt in Tihama in the north, and at the period about 2000-600 B.C. they were the channel for trade between North Arabia and Palestine. Midianite appears to have been a general term for merchant. But we also know that Midian would not have been sharply distinguished from the adjoining Maon. The tribes of Maon grew out of trade colonies of the South Arabian kingdom of Maon. An exchange of Midian and Maon lies for instance in Judges x. 12, where the Ma‘onites (Minaeans) are counted amongst the tribes pressing upon
1   Budinger, De coloniarum Phceniciarum primordiis, 1892, sees in the story a reminiscence of the captivity of the tribes of Joseph, which was brought about with the help of the Midianites, who were referred to as allies of Egypt.
GLOSSES TO THE STORY OF JOSEPH 69
Israel, for which then in the Sept, we read Madiam (Midian).1 These “ Midianites ” brought upon camels by the commercial road leading over Gaza, nelidt (gum ? Aquila, arvpa£) and zeri (incense ?) and lot (ladanum ?) to Egypt.1 2
GLOSSES TO THE STORY OF JOSEPH
Gen. xxxix. 6 ff.: Joseph and Potiphar’s wife, see p. 66. The d’Orbiney papyrus from the nineteenth dynasty “ about the two brothers ” relates a similar story.3
Gen. xxxix. 20:   Joseph in prison. He is put into the
bet-hasohar, the king’s prison-house. Since he was not taken in flagranti, his life is spared, but he becomes the king’s slave (arad sharri).4 Thus the Yahvist. The other source (Elohist) has not the story of the temptation.5 Here Joseph is servant in the house of the sar-tabbafyhn and is in charge of the political prisoners.
Gen. xl.: Joseph becomes celebrated by interpretation of dreams. He was in fact already, according to Gen. xxxvii. 19, the batal halomot. Interpretation of dreams was in Babylonia (Gudea, Nabonidus !), as in Egypt, of highest importance.6 The Chaldaeans and Egyptians are the interpreters of dreams (astro-
1   See Hommel, Altsir. Uberl., 271 ; Weber in M. V.A.G., 1901, 28; Hubert Grimme, Muhatnmed, p. 14.
2   Glaser explains ladanum as myrrh. Compare with the wares of Pliny, xii. 54.
3   Translated, for example, in Erman, Agypten und dgyptisches Leben im Altertum, pp. 505 f. ; comp. Stucken, Astralmythen, 128, 159 fif. Note the mythological conclusion, which surely gives the key to the whole, and ought not to be put aside as a recondite fancy, as happens in Erman. It is related here (according to a translation given by G. Steindorff), that the fugitive met the gods, who sympathised with him. “ The Sun-god said to Khnum : ‘ Make a wife for Bata, that he may not be alone.’ Khnum made him a companion, whose body was more beautiful than all the women in the whole land ; every god was in her. The seven Hathor goddesses [comp, with this Erman, Ag. Rel., p. 82] came to look upon her. They said with one mouth : ‘ She shall die a violent death.’ He loved her entirely, she dwelt in his house,” and so on. The story of the flight contains the motifs of the three hindrances which detain the pursuer, and which Stucken has identified in all parts of the world.
4   Comp. H.C., 129-132. Winckler, loc. cit., points out, § 129: “If the husband spares his wife, the king shall also give the slave his life ; but he is henceforth the king’s slave.” Comp. p. no.
5   The Yahvist has added the anecdote for the sake of the motif.
6   See Ebers, Agypten und die Bucher Mosist pp. 321 f.
70
THE STORY OF JOSEPH
logers) of antiquity. Tacitus says that the Egyptian priests were interpreters of dreams, and Herodotus relates a dream of the priest Ptah which foretold the dominion of Rameses II. An inscription at Karnak records that Merneptah I. had a dream in which he saw a statue of Ptah. The statue stood in his way and prevented him from going with his army against the enemy, which were pressing into Egypt from the Mediterranean.
The dream-books of German fairs and markets witness to the present day that interpretations of dreams was specially held to be “Egyptian wisdom.” Lane, Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians, ii., pp. 81 f., says: “The Egyptian has great faith in dreams, and often is guided by them in the most important events in life. They possess two large and important works upon the interpretation of dreams. These books are consulted with absolute faith even by many intellectual men.” The “Court Philosopher” sent by the Khedive in compliment to the German Kaiser, together with his collection of weapons, in 1896, to the Industrial Exhibition in Berlin, was chiefly an interpreter of dreams.
The colour of the story of the dream is Egyptian. Ahu, “ reed- grass,” Gen. xli. 2, is an Egyptian naturalised foreign word.1 When the Nile (designated as Yeor, river = Assyrian Ya’uru; the Semitic designation is probably chosen because it sounded something like one of the Egyptian names for the Nile) 1 2 is the source of the first dream, it is presupposed that the readers know that in that almost rainless country the Nile with its inundations is like the bearer of fertility. “ O that the Nile may give me meat, food, every plant in its season,” says an ancient text. “ It is the Nile which supports all mankind with food and nourishment” (Erman, Agypten, p. 566). The “ seven kine ” belong to mythology. According to Diodorus Siculus, i. 51, the heifer is the symbol of the Nile, and is sacred to Osiris, inventor of agriculture (comp. ib., i. 21); comp. fig. 154 with Exod. 32 f. The bull Osiris often appears in company with seven cows, for example, upon the vignettes of the 110 chapters of the old and the new Book of the Dead. The passages in the text belonging to them pray Osiris that either he or the seven cows with the bull, whose name he knows, may nourish the suppliant in death. But Osiris corresponds to Marduk. Seven ears of corn which grow upon one stalk are representable by the Egyptian wheat (triticum compositum). The East wind, which blasts the ears, corresponds to the dreaded khamsin, coming from the deserts of the south-east, and to the present day threatens vegetation from February to June. With the cows and ears of Pharaoh’s dream, compare also fig. 154, p. 148.
1   See Ebers, loc. cit., 338 f.
2   See Frdr. Delitzsch, Hebrew Language, p. 25, note.
GLOSSES TO THE STORY OF JOSEPH
71
“ Butler and chief baker ” appear as high officials. Egyptian literature repeatedly names amongst the higher officials of the Royal household the “ sideboard writer11 and the “ preparer of sweets.” In the grave of Raineses III. was found upon the wall a representation of a complete Royal bakery,1 also in the excavations by the German Orientgesellschaft (see the bakery in the museum of the Leipzig University). The earthly corresponds to the heavenly court, and these two correspond to the heavenly baker and cup-bearer; see pp. 60, i., 183, i. We spoke at p. 65 of the mythological symbolism here woven into the story.
Gen. xli. 14: Joseph shaved himself, and changed his raiment, and came in unto Pharaoh. Shaving, that is to say, of the head, is Egyptian etiquette, but is also borne witness to amongst the Ancient-Babylonians by the heads found at Telloh (see fig. 84). It is possible that the Assyrian hair arrangements were only wigs. The Oriental of to-day also shaves his head.1 2 The story leaves the impression that divine honours were given to the Pharaoh.
Gen. xli. 29 ff:   The granaries in Egypt for the time of
famine. Similar events are recorded in Egyptian literature in the following passages :—
1.   On the slopes of Beni Hassan is found in the inscriptions which Ameni, an official of the Pharaoh Usertesen I., had engraved during his lifetime on the entrance to his tomb, the following record :3
There came years of famine. Then I ploughed all the acres of the “ goat-province ” (possession of the Ameni) from its southernmost to its northernmost border. I nourished his (Usertesen’s) dependents, I looked after their food, so that there was none hungry amongst them. I gave to the widow the same as to her who had no husband, I gave no preference to the great ones over the lesser, in what I gave .... When, however, great floods of
1   Reproduced, for example, in Erman, loc. cit., p. 269.
2   The Egyptian monuments show representations of a highly developed barber craft. A very ancient poem names the barber, who goes from street to street, gathering news, as amongst the independent crafts, not as a bondman, and not in the service of the State. In the museums we may see razor-blades very artistically decorated.
3   Published in Egyptian Exploration Fund, i. 8.
7£
THE STORY OF JOSEPH
the Nile came which bring grain and chaff and all possible other things, then I did not take the arrears from the husbandman.1
% The inscriptions on a tomb in El-Kab, which concern a certain Baba (published by Lepsius in his Denkmaler), say:
I collected the harvest as a friend of the god of harvest. I was watchful in the time of sowing. When, however, years of famine came, I distributed provision to the city in each year of want.
3.   An Egyptian famine in the beginning of the thirteenth century A.D. is described by Abdallatif (de Sacy, Abdallatif\ pp. 360 ff.) in all its horror. A seven-year famine is for the last time recorded in the years 1064 to 1071 of our calendar, during the caliphat of El-Mustanzir Billah.1 2
Further examples are mentioned pp. 74 f.
JOSEPH = YANHAMU ?
If, as in the late Egyptian tradition, Joseph belongs to the time of Amenophis IV. (compare the exchange, spoken of at pp. 88 f., which brings Osarsiph-Joseph together with Moses), the part played by Heliopolis (On) in the Biblical story is explained. According to Gen. xli. 45, Joseph was son-in-law of the high priest of On. But Heliopolis-On, the place where the Sun-god Ra was worshipped, under the form of the sun’s disc (iaten), was certainly the starting-point of the monotheistic reform. The name Potiphar (“gift of the Sun-god Ra”) which the high priest bears, in common with Joseph’s buyer, also may be explained by the aten cult.
But most chiefly one figure then becomes of great importance, which is very prominent in the tablets of Tell-el-Amarna as a ruler. This is Yanhamu, governor of Yarimuta. According to the name, he was Semitic. In cosmopolitan new kingdoms it is nothing unusual for an outlander to attain to high honour. Even if this man is not identical with the Joseph of tradition, as has been surmised, still he offers an important illustration for the Biblical presentment of the Egyptian
1   That is to say, I did not demand the rent in arrears in the years of famine.
2   See Sayce, Alte Denkmaler, 6o.
YANHAMU   73
Joseph, and proves that the milieu of the story is purely Egyptian.1
In the letters of Rib-Addi of Gebal this Yanhamu ruled over the land Yarimuta, which at that time was the graingrowing district for the coasts of the Eastern Mediterranean. According to the letters, the land could be reached from the port of Gebal, and it was necessary to touch upon it in going to the chief city Chut-Aten ; therefore it must have been in the Delta.1 2 It is possibly identical with the land of Goshen ;3 in any case, it was in that neighbourhood. Yanhamu is a Semitic name. He was aware of events in Canaan : the governor of Jerusalem once begs that Yanhamu may be sent there, to put things in order. In the kingdom of Egypt he ruled, as the king’s deputy, with unlimited power. It depended upon him whether the granaries should be opened. Silver and wood, and youths and maidens too.* must be sent, if provisions were desired from Yarimuta. We give a few passages from the letters, which concern Yanhamu and the grain-chambers of Yarimuta :
In No. 69 (Winckler, Keilinschrift. Biblioth., v.) it says : “ Yanhamu . . . . took their sons for silver .... to the land of Yarimuta.” And previously: “ What shall I give my peasants to eat ? Their sons are gone, their daughters and the woodwork of their houses, because we were forced to give them to Yarimuta for our life’s necessities. Further, let the king hear the words of his faithful servants, and send provisions in ships for the support of his servants and his city.” No. 74:   ... all has been given away to
Yarimuta for my life’s necessities.” No. 79 (comp. No. 69) : “ Gone are youths and maidens, and the wood of the houses, because they
1   Marquart, loc. cit., p. 680, first emphatically drew attention to this. It is true he draws deductions which do not leave much remaining for the historic core of the Biblical tradition. See further, Winckler, K.A.T., 3rd ed., p. 211, and Abraham als Babylonier, Josef als Agypter.
2   C. Niebuhr, M. V.A.G., 1896, pp. 208 ff., decided the importance of Yarimuta: he identified it with the whole Delta, which view must naturally be given up.
3   Winckler, Fiii. 215, has made it probable that the Biblical tradition knew this. Joshua x. 4i = xii. 11 names “the whole land of Goshen” amongst the conquests of Joshua. That is naturally an interpolation. But how did it arise ? Since in chap. x. the conquest of Yarmuth is related, this might give occasion to a reader, knowing the importance of the name Yarimuta = Goshen, to make the addition.
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THE STORY OF JOSEPH
were given to Yarimuta for food (No. 69: for the support of life).”
In No. 6l it is told that a hostage sent by Rib-Addi of Gebal to the Pharaoh was detained in the house of the powerful Yanhamu.
The features of the story of Joseph which tell of the brothers detained as hostages, and the anxiety on account of the boy Benjamin, agree with the contents of this letter. Gen. xlvii.
13 ff., the agrarian policy of Joseph is described, which strikingly recalls that of Yanhamu.
The investiture of Joseph, Gen. xli. 42 ff., like the table customs described in Gen. xliii. 32, is specially Egyptian; see Gunkel, l.c., Holzinger, l.c. The names in Gen. xli. 45, TOS   and nJpp,
are both pure Egyptian. The first signifies, according to Steindorff,
“ God speaks and he lives ” ; the other signifies Ns-nt, that is, those belonging to the goddess Neit (local goddess of Sais). According to Spiegelberg, l.c., 53, the names Potiphar and   are not
in evidence before the twentieth dynasty (1200 B.C.), but certainly the name rupK is so.
Gen. xliv. 2, 5, 15 : Joseph’s cup appears as a magic cup.1 It is his usual drinking-cup, but by xliv. 15 it is presupposed that he deals in the black art.2
THE SONS OF JACOB IN EGYPT
We have spoken at p. 324, i. of the lively intercourse between Syria and Egypt. 44The Princes’ wall” served to keep off uninvited guests.3 That in times of famine Asiatics sought and found help in Egypt is not seldom recorded in the texts of the new kingdom :4
1.   In the texts of Tell-el-Amarna, Egyptian granaries are repeatedly mentioned, from which Canaanite people fetched / stores; see above, p. 71. Comp. Gen. xli. 54: 44There was . famine in all lands, but in all the land of Egypt there was bread.”
1   See Dillmann, loc. cit., and comp. Hunger, “ Becherwahrsagung bei den Babyloniern,” in Leipz. Semit. Studien, i. 1, p. 4. The Gnostic Naassenes bring the cup of Anacreon into connection with Joseph’s cup ; see Muller, System der Kosmologie, 211.
2   Comp. Winckler, Abraham als Babylonier undJosef als Agypter, who, from the presentment of Joseph as an Egyptian, draws far-reaching deductions upon the meaning of the story.
3   See above, p. 324, i. Comp. Muller, A sien und Euro pa, 102 ; Z.D.P. V., viii. 217. Brugsch, Die biblischen sieben Jahre der Hunger snot, thinks that the “ desert-wall ” (midbar-sdr) in Exod. xv. 22 was named after this wall.
4   Upon the famines of Egypt, see p. 72.
THE SONS OF JACOB IN EGYPT
75
2.   In a fragment of an address by a high official under Kharemkheb (about 1360 B.C.), it is speaking of barbarians, “ who know not how to live ”; they are given over to the under-officials with the notification that they are not to be allowed out of certain districts.
3.   In the Anastasi Papyrus, vi. 4, 14 ft!, an Egyptian official records: “We have allowed the Bedouin tribes of Edom to pass the fortress of Merneptah to the pools of Merneptah, in order to support themselves and their cattle upon the great meadow-land of Pharaoh, the lovely sun of all lands.”1
4.   After the conclusion of the political treaty between Rameses II. and the Hittites (p. 329, i.), Rameses sends ships to them during a calamity with corn {Mar. Karn., 24 ; see Erman, Agypten, p. 707).
Gen. xlvi. 34; see p. 87, n. 3.
Gen. xlvii. 7 f. The country given to the Syrian shepherds was called, according to the Yahvist source, Goshen. It lay in the Delta. It was fruitful meadow-land (xlvii. 6), well suited to the Hebrew sheep-breeders (xlvi. 34). In two passages of the Yahvist .record the Sept, says, instead of Goshen, “district of the city of Goshen in Arabia” (Gen. xlv. 10, xlvi. 34). This city of Goshen has been certainly identified, through the excavations of Naville, with the Egyptian city of Gsm on the site of the present Saft el Henneh, eastward from the branch of the Nile Bubastis, chief city of the Egyptian “ province of Arabia,” which bears the religious name “ province of the god Spt, he who slays the inhabitants of Sinai.”1 2
It is, indeed, not possible to prove that the Goshen of the Yahvists is identical with the Egyptian Gsm. But the coherence of the Yahvist records points to the same neighbourhood: a country in the east of the kingdom, this side of the boundary fortresses situated on the isthmus of Suez; on the further side of them is unfertile desert.3 When the P calls the neighbourhood
1   See Spiegel berg, Der Aufenthalt Israels in Agypten, pp. 24 f. After a gap there follow “the other names of the tribes, which passed the stronghold of Merneptah.”
2   The name preserved in the modern Saft ; see article on Goshen in R.P. Th.t 3rd ed.
3   See under Yarimuta = Goshen, p. 73.
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THE STORY OF JOSEPH
the “land of Rameses” (Gen. xlvii. 11), that must be considered like the statement of the Greek and Memphite translation of Gen. xlvi. 28 : Pethom, a city in the land of Rameses. These are names from the sphere of later events (the oppressed Hebrews built Pithom under Rameses) brought into the record later. The Sept, names also the meeting-place there, where the Hebrew text of the Yahvist simply says Goshen, Gen. xlvi. 28: “near the city of Heroon in the land of Rameses ” ; whilst the Memphite
 
FIG. 125.—Store chamber from Pithom. (From Spiegelberg’s
Aufenthalt Israels in Agypten.)
translation says: “ to Pithom, the city in the land of Rameses/’ and in v. 29, “in the neighbourhood of the city Pethom.” By the excavations of Ed. Naville1 in Tell el Maskhuta (1883), it has been proved that these ruined cities situated near the isthmus of Suez, in Wadi Tumilat, show the position of a city which bore the religious name Pr-’tm (vocalised by SteindorfF as something like Pi-Atom, “ House of the God Atom ”), and which is plainly identical with the city Pithom built by the oppressed Hebrews (Exod. i. 11). Since this Pithom is to be sought in the neighbourhood of Hero,1 2 this statement of the Sept, agrees with the Yahvist on the whole, and the meeting-place of the Sept.
1   Comp. Naville, The Store City of Pithom and the Route of Exodus, London, 1888 ; SteindorfF, article on Goshen in R.P. Th.t 3rd ed.
2   J. Dillmann, “ Pithom, Hero, Klysma,” in the Records of the Royal Academy of Science, 1885, xxxix.
SIGNS OF THE ZODIAC IN JACOB'S BLESSING 77
lies in the district, or in the neighbourhood, of the country of Goshen, eastward of the arm of the Nile Bubastis.
Gen. xlvii. 13 ff.; see pp. 74, 75.
Gen. xlvii. 29: Joseph swears, placing his hand upon the organs of generation, as Eliezer does with Abraham.
Gen. xxiv. 2 f.: This form of oath is to be found amongst Arabian tribes to the present day.1 In this lies an evidence of the sacredness of propagation spoken of p. 121, i., n. 2.
% THE SIGNS OF THE ZODIAC IN JACOB’S BLESSING Gen. xlix
Scholars like Athanasius Kircher1 2 have already recognised that the sentences of the blessing play upon the twelve signs of the zodiac. The present text, whose editor no longer understood the meaning, does not show the motifs clearly all through. The facts themselves agree with the astral mythological motifs we have already found. In Joseph’s dream (p. 64) the eleven brothers already appeared as the zodiacal signs, who, with sun and moon, bowed themselves before Joseph (Tammuz), representing the cycle and the dawning new age. Also the journey of the sons into Egypt showed the motif of the moving of the twelve signs through the region of the Underworld (p. 66, n. 3). In the following we place the traces of the zodiacal motifs together, as we find them in the blessings of Jacob. Others may find other traces. The tradition of the text being bad, it is very easily probable that the text before us mixes various “theories.” Others may therefore perhaps find the motifs in a different order.
(11) REUBEN
AQUARIUS.
He is called four times “the first,” and the rights of the first-born are taken from him. According to another tradition, he must have had the leadership role of Judah (Dillmann, Genesis, p. 457). As Aquarius he would correspond to Ea, or much more, in a previous aeon redeemed
1   Example in Nork, Mythologies i. 154. Upon the oath by the “phallus of Allah,” see Curtiss, loc. cit., 118 f. Also the phallus in antique industrial art and as amulets for women, still worn to the present day in Naples (compare the wax figures of Priapus at the festival of Damian, abolished in 1781), originally were not in any way connected with “ prostitution,” see p. 121, i., n. 2.
2   (Edipus ALgyptiacuss 1654 ; for example, ii. 1, p. 21. In modern literature compare (besides Dupuis and Nork, passim) Stucken, Astralmythens M. V.A.G., 1902, 166 ff.; Zimmern, Z.A., 1892, 161 ff. ; PC.A.T., 3rd ed. ; J. Lepsius, Reich Christi, vi. 375 f. ; Winckler, F., iii. 464 ff. j Hommel in Hilprecht’s Anniversary Volume, 270 ff.
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THE STORY OF JOSEPH
. by Ea, to Mummu (for Mummu = Ea, that | is to say, in the next seon = Marduk- , Adapa, the son of Ea; see pp. 6, i. f., 10, i.).
The new age arises by generation between | mother and son. Reuben “defileth the bed of his father.”1
From the standpoint of the new age the representative of the old age is (Kingu, Mummu) the water-dragon. This motif also is found in the blessing of Reuben. It speaks of ins- Already Dill- J mann, in Genesis, p. 458, translates that as “overflow of the waters” (Sept. i£v(3pv(n<s a)? vSo)/>). In any case a phenomenon of outpouring of water is, according to this, brought into connection with Reuben.
The hippopotamus at once occurs to one as being, according to Job xl. 14 ff., like behemoth, the primeval dragon of chaos. According to Job xl. 19, behemoth is “the first,” like Reuben, “first of the ways of God,” Lord of the past aeon.
I Plutarch, De Is. et Os., xxxii., says : “ The j Egyptians ascribe shamelessness to the hippopotamus ; for he kills his father, and by force lies with his mother.” 1 2 Reuben, therefore, corresponds to a zodiacal sign i in the water region, which stood in the place of our Aquarius, and was represented as a hippopotamus or something of that description.
(3) SIMEON AND LEVI
GEMINI.
They are united in one passage, and are specially designated as “brothers,” together with four other brothers, born of the same mother.
1   Bilhah (probably put in the place of Leah) bears features of Ishtar-Aphrodite, wife of the halting Ninib-Mars-Hephaestos. Reuben resorts to her; “ Underworld’^ “ Ocean,” see pp. 8, i. and 15, i., the scene being at the south point, instead of at the north point (note that in Gen. xlix. 4 it is nby, not IT), Ninib = Nergal, p. 26, i,
2   Whether, as Stucken will have it, a double meaning is intended in the second half (“ thou wast violated,” instead of “ thou hast committed violation”), so that the other motif of the primeval age, the motif of castration (Rahab, Ps. Ixxxix. io, was castrated), is alluded to, we cannot undertake to decide.
SIGNS OF THE ZODIAC IN JACOB’S BLESSING 79
We have already found them as Dioscuri in the revenge of the violation of their sister Dinah (motif of the new age; see p. 60); they slew the man in their wrath (slaying of the tyrant ?) and spoiled the beasts, as the Dioscuri Gilgamesh and Eabani1 in the epic of Gilgamesh (where the twelve songs equally correspond to
 
FIG. 126.—Horoscope of Antiochus I. of Commagene (about 70 B.c.) from the western terrace of the Nimrud-Dagh. (Put of Humann- Puchstein’s Reise in Kleinasien und Nordsyrieri).
(5) JUDAH
[ the zodiac) spoil the celestial beast after having slain the tyrant (IjJumbaba).
LEO.
Judah is glorified as a lion (comp. Rev.
v.   5) with shebet (sceptre, parallel term : mehoqeq at his feet).1 2 In the constella- ! tion Leo, Regulus, the “royal star,” is between the feet. Amongst the Babylonians Regulus was already called the royal star. In the astrological horoscopes anyone born at the rising of Regulus would become king. Fig. 126 shows
1   See Zimmern, loc, cit., 162. But we do not find in this a “reminiscence of Gilgamesh and Eabani,” but rather in both cases the same cosmic mythological motif. Upon Gilgamesh and the zodiac, see Izdubar-Nimrod, pp. 66 ff.
2   Naturally only one attribute is meant j upon mehoqeq, comp. Numb. xxi. 18.
80
THE STORY OF JOSEPH
(10) ZEBULON
(4) ISSACHAR
(7) DAN
(9) GAD
(12) ASHER
(l) NAPHTALI
such a horoscope.1 This is the “ruler’s staff between the feet of the lion of Judah.” Shiloh is a motif of the expectation of the Deliverer, which baffles interpretation, in spite of recent hypotheses.2
CAPRICORN.
Zebulon dwelt by the sea. The water region begins at Capricorn. He is close to the “hunter” (play of word upon Zidon by the sea; zaid, “hunt”), to Arcitenens.
CANCER.
Issachar is likened to an ass. The ass (aselli) and his crib are in the constellation Cancer. •
LIBRA.
Dan brought judgment. Hence the symbol of the scales. And he is “ a serpent in the way.” Serpens is close to Libra.
SAGITTARIUS.
Gad defends himself (as archer) when the marauding bands (Bedouins) shoot at him with arrows.
PISCES.
Asher yields royal dainties. In Oriental myths (comp, the stories in the Thousand and One Nights, and the ring of Polycrates) fish is the royal dainty.
ARIES.
Instead of ayyala it may be read ayil, “ ram.” “ From him come goodly words.”
1   It is the horoscope of Antiochus of Commagene. The three great stars of sixteen rays upon the back have the annotation: Ilvprfets 'HpafcAfeousJ 'Zrlh&wv ’AirdWwvos, and Qaedcov At<h = Mars, Mercury, Jupiter. It is the constellation Leo (also to be found upon coins of Antiochus). Nineteen of the stars agree with the star catalogue of Eratosthenes. Antiochus calls himself 6ebs SIKCUOS and eirupavijs.
2   The addition to the Syrian translation of I Chr. v. 1-2, quoted by Kittel in the commentary is important: “From Judah shall come forth the king, the Messiah.” The interpretations have been collected, from Gen. xlix. io, to the end of the Middle Ages, by Posnanski, in Schilo, Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Messiaslehre, 1904. Upon Shiloh = She’61, see p. 81, n. 4.
SIGNS OF THE ZODIAC IN JACOB’S BLESSING 81
Since we have already found Egyptian colour in Reuben, so we may recall the words oj the “ ram ” which announce the new age under King Bokchoris in the prophecies of the sage Amenophis.1
TAURUS.
In the blessing of Moses, Deut. xxxiii.
17, Joseph is compared to a bull (wild ox). Gen. xlix. 22 probably bears the same sense. “Joseph is a bullock, a bullock, an ‘All- . . . . ;1 2 my late born son is an fAli-bull.” The bringer of the new age 1 is designated by the bull; see pp. 73, i. f. The conquering bow of Joseph touches a corresponding motif. We may think of the bow of IMarduk (Babylonian = “ star of the bow ”) or of the bow of Orion (Orion = Marduk-Tammuz; see pp. 57 f.).3 In the pseud-Aristotelian ^Economic (see Kurt Riezler, Finanzpolitik und Monopole in den griechiscken Staaten) there is a similar character to Joseph and Janhamu.
SCORPIO.
Benjamin is described as a wolf. The I wolf (Lupus) is situated south of Scorpio ;
' opposite to the bull (Joseph) (for Joseph - Benjamin as opposite poles, see p. 66). In myths the wolf is a seducer. In Judges xxi., the wolf Benjamin ravishes | the women of Shiloh,4 as the young wolf Romulus did the Sabines, and as Wolunder, Slagfidr, and Egil, who lived in the Valley of Wolves, ravished the women who bathed in the Lake of the Wolf (see Stucken,
|   Astralmythen, 101 ; M.V.A.G., 1902, 43).
1   Comp. p. 76, i. (the tradition according to Manetho in Krall, Vom KonigBokchoris in den Festgaben fur Budinger, 1898), and upon the sage Amenophis, p. 89.
2   The parallel sentences must signify bull. The text is mutilated. Zimmern compares for ’^>y the celestial beast alii in the epic of Gilgamesh, and having regard to Deut. xxxiii. 17 and to the parallel sentence "in?, requires, instead of py, a word like nxn (Babylonian rimu.), bull.
3   The comparison of the “ bow of Joseph” with Orion in Bereshit rabba may be mentioned not only “for the curiosity’s sake” (Zimmern) ; it proves that the Jews understood the motifs.
4   This is certainly an allusion to She’61, Shilan, “ Underworld.” Zimmern, Z.A., vii. 163 f., looks for the same meaning in Gen. xlix. 10. The women are kidnapped from the Underworld.
VOL. II.
(2) JOSEPH
( BENJAMIN
6
82
THE STORY OF JOSEPH
VIRGO.
The zodiac has one feminine sign, the maiden, like the planetary order of the days of the week. Only Dinah, as the daughter of Leah, can come into consideration. At p. 60 we have noted her importance together with the Dioscuri Simeon and Levi. Her Ishtar-character shows in Gen. xxxiv., in her bringing death to her husband; see p. 63. In Jacob’s blessings she is not mentioned, unless, as Hommel has conjectured, of the double blessing given for Dan, one half belongs to Dinah.
The order of the enumeration corresponds in the present text to the genealogies (according to the mothers) and to the geographical situation. Originally it would have followed the order of the zodiacal signs. The editor did not understand the motifs. Winckler’s attempts, F.} iii. 465 ff., to explain the present order by the order of the gods of the months, corresponding to the zodiacal signs (“angels of the zodiac”; see Enoch lxxxii.; Rev. xxi. 12), do not appear to us to be happy. ^
Gen. xlix. 23 f., see p. 43; xlix. 25, see p. 191, i.
* Gen. 1. The funeral procession corresponds to a burial of Tammuz. The dead is to return. In Gen. xlix. 18,1 Jacob has said: “I wait upon thy salvation, Yahveh.11 In Gen. 1. 10 f., instead of TtoNn pi, we suggest it should read *7111 pi, “the threshing-floor of Hadad” (wilful corruption of the heathen name). It is a Tammuz-Osiris lamentation, lasting seven days, like the mourning for Josiah, Zech. xii. 11 (comp. Chron. xxxv. 24 f.), whose return as Deliverer was expected. For Egyptian mourning, see p. 90. *
Gen. 1. 26; see p. 67.
1 In the middle of the zodiacal motifs. This should be seriously noted. The zodiac represents the cycle which brings the spring of the universe ; see pp. 25, i. ; 30, i. ; 66, n. 3 ; 77.
(6) DINAH
CHAPTER XVIII
THE EXODUS
As the story of Abraham is connected with Babylonia, so that of Joseph is connected with Egypt. According to the relation in Exod. i., nomadic Hebrews in Goshen, in the Delta, had always been a danger for Egypt, as later the nomadic Aramaeans and Chaldaeans were for Assyria.1 For this reason one of the Pharaohs placed the able-bodied Hebrews of the frontier under strict supervision,1 2 and used them for forced labour, as we often learn was done by the Assyrian kings (comp. figs. 127 and 128). Exod. 1 ff. now relates how the Hebrews, under the leadership of Moses, accomplished by force the “ Exodus from Egypt” and shook off the yoke. The Egyptian monuments record nothing of the sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt nor of the Exodus.3 Stade says: “ We shall learn more of the liberation of Israel only if the stones of Egypt would speak further.” The fact is that, in the region in question, very few monuments have, up to the present, come to light. But even if we had contemporary records from the Delta, judging from all we know of the available records of the Ancient-East, it is very unlikely that we should find an event like the Exodus
1   Contrary to the incomprehensible opinion of Stade, there would have been as little room for a strange nomad tribe, with its flocks and herds, in the thickly colonised Egypt as there would be in the ‘ ‘ German empire ” ; see Winckler, Krit. Schr., i. pp. 28 f.
2   See p. 75, No. 2 ; 90. Upon forced labour, comp. p. 46, n. 2.
3   The splendidly printed book of a certain Forster, who makes the discovery of depositions about Moses and the Children of Israel during their sojourn in the desert in the Nabataean inscriptions, forms an almost incredible example of puffing apologetics, through which monumental investigation is brought into disrepute.
83

[Prometheus]

84
THE EXODUS
recorded.1 Egyptian historians carefully avoid recording events which are humiliating to Egypt. Even the violent death of Pharaoh (which, besides, by no means follows from the story)1 2
 
FIG, 127.—Assyrian forced labour, transporting a colossal bull. Relief from Khorsabad.
 
FIG. 128.—Asiatic prisoners of war, to the right above sits the overseer. (From Spiegelberg’s Aufenthalt Israels in Agypten.)
1   “ The Assyrian records are much fuller, infinitely more exact in their statements about the political events of their time, but we could not expect anything of that sort there, much less in the bombastic phrases of the Egyptian annals. They only show what the event—always presupposing the historical quality in the form of the Exodus story—signifies for Egypt, or better, what it did not signify.” Winckler, Krit. Schr., i. 27.
2   At most there might be a question of it in the J. Exod. xv. 4 speaks for the contrary; Ps. cxxxvi. 15 proves nothing (see Hummelauer, Rev. des quest. hisl.t 1891, 358). Compare besides, p. 23, upon Gen. xiv.
LATER TRADITIONS OF THE EXODUS 85
would not be recorded.1 We seldom learn anything about the death of the Pharaohs.
But though Egyptian political documents give no information about the “Exodus,” yet legendary traditions retain a memory of the Hebrews in Egypt.
1. THE BANISHMENT OF LEPERS
Hecatseus of Abdera (contemporary of Alexander the Great) relates, according to Diodorus Siculus, xl. 3: “There dwelt many strangers amongst the Egyptians who served the gods in other ways than these. A plague, which afflicted the land, was a sign to the Egyptians that the gods were angered at the decline of the Egyptian worship. They therefore drove out all the strangers; a part of the last of them journeyed, under the leadership of Moses, to Judea and there founded the city of Jerusalem.”
Manetho, priest and scribe of the temple at Heliopolis in the time of the first Ptolemies, relates, according to Josephus, Contra Apionem, i. 26 f.:2 “ King Amenophis wished, like one of his forefathers named Horos, to share the good fortune of beholding the gods. A sage to whom he communicated his desire explained to him that his wash could only be granted if he were to free Egypt from all lepers and other unclean people. In consequence of this he caused all those affected with bodily ailments throughout the whole land to be gathered together, to the number of 80,000, and to be led away to the stone quarries east of the Nile, between the river and the Red Sea, where they were forced to severe labour. He granted them later, however, at their prayer, to go and settle in the city of Avaris, deserted by the Hyksos. Here then they made a former priest of Heliopolis, named Osarsiph, to be their leader, swearing unreserved obedience to him. The first care of Osarsiph, who had now changed his name to Moses, was directed to working against a possible new fusion of the lepers with the Egyptians. Therefore he made laws by which the lepers could have no companionship with anyone outside their own company, and could pray to no gods, nor keep any of the animals held sacred by the Egyptians, but were to slay or otherwise kill them. After he had strongly fortified the city of Avaris, he made all preparations for a w7ar against Amenophis, and allied himself for this purpose with the Hyksos in Jerusalem, from whence he was 1 2 *
1   We shall see that Merneptah II. comes into consideration. His grave was in Thebes, in Biban-el-Moluk, but had been already opened in the time of the Greeks ; see Miketta, Der Pharao des Auszuges, p. 45. The absence of the mummy proves nothing. According to a hymn to the Nile he died at a very old age ; see Wiedemann, Agypt. Gesch477.
2   According to i. 16 this story originates in unauthenticated traditions
(a5€<T7r<frcos ixvOoXoyov/xiva).
86
THE EXODUS
reinforced by an army of 200,000 men. Upon intelligence of this Amenophis sent his son Sethos, only seventeen years old, who was also called Rameses, to his ally the king of Ethiopia, to put him in safety, and then went himself at the head of 300,000 men against the rebels, but finally did not risk a battle, but retired first to Memphis, and then back to Ethiopia, Egypt thus fell a prize to the allied lepers and Hyksos, and these raged against all that was sacred to the Egyptians. After thirteen years (l),1 however, Amenophis returned to Egypt with his son Rameses at the head of two great armies, defeated the allies, and drove them to the borders of Syria.” These lepers, adds Josephus to this, Manetho held to be the forefathers of the Israelites. Lysimachus of Alexandria (about 70 B.C.) records, according to Josephus, Contra Apionem, i. 34 : “ In the time of King Bokchoris 1 2 the tribe of Jews, which was composed of lepers and scrofulous and other sorts of sick people, camped in the Egyptian temples and begged. By direction of the god Amon, Bokchoris drowned the lepers and the scrofulous in the sea, and drove the remainder into the desert. These last then withdrew under the leadership of Moses into Judea, and there founded the city of Jerusalem.”
2. THE BANISHMENT OF THE HYKSOS
Manetho relates, according to Josephus, Contra Apionem, i. 14 (comp Eusebius, Prcep. evang,, x. 13): “In the reign of the Egyptian king Timaos, strangers of an insignificant race, held by some to be Arabs, and who were in any case shepherds or nomads, invaded Egypt. They conquered the land, destroyed the temples, ill-treated the natives, and made one of themselves, by name Salatis, king. He chose Memphis as his residence, claimed tribute in Upper and Lower Egypt, and held the land in obedience by garrisons, stationed in the important places. He protected the eastern boundary of the land against possible incursions of the Assyrians, and made a city in the Saitic nome 3 upon the east side of the Bubastic arm of the Nile, which was called, according to an ancient fable of the gods, Avaris, into a very strong fortress, which he garrisoned with 240,000 men, and which seems to have formed the chief support of his power. These invading strangers were called Hyksos. After the Hyksos had ruled for 511 years, the native dynasties of the Thebans and other parts of the country revolted, and began a long and weary war against them. At length it came about that King Alisphragmuthosis (Misphragmu- thosis) defeated them, and shut them into a place called Avaris, which had a circumference of 10,000 days’ work. As they made Avaris into a strong fortress, they could not be driven out. It was
1   Upon the motif of the number 13, see p. 68, i.
2   See p. 89.
3   According to Julius Africanus and Eusebius in Sethroite nome.
LATER TRADITIONS OF THE EXODUS 87
only by persuasion that Thummosis (Tethmosis), the son of Alis- phragmuthosis, could incline them to move: 240,000 men strong, they withdrew with their possessions to the Assyrian desert, settled in the later Judea, and founded the city of Jerusalem.” Ptolemseus Mandesius (beginning of first century A.D.) says that Israel withdrew under the Pharaoh Amosis (Eusebius, Prcep. ev., x. 10, ll)1, and Apion in Josephus (Contra Apionem, ii. 2) bases upon this his assertion that in the first year of the seventh Olympiad, i.e. 750 B.C., Moses led 110,000 lepers, blind, lame, and other sick, out of Heliopolis to Judea within six days ; the people of this migration or expulsion were the Jews.
Chairemon of Naucratis (first century A.D.) records in his work Atyv7n-iaKa, according to Josephus, Contra Apionem, i. 32 : Ameno- phis drove out of Egypt 250,000 unclean and maimed. The expelled betook themselves, under ^the guidance of the skilful Tisiten, i.e. Moses and Peteseph, i.e. Josef, to Pelusium, they met there 380,000 people who were forbidden by Amenophis any further advance in Egypt, allied themselves with these, and compelled Amenophis to flee into Ethiopia. It was his son Rameses (another reading, Messenes), who was born just at the time of his father’s flight, who, when he had arrived at manhood, drove the Jews out of Egypt, 300,000 in number, and pursued them as far as Syria.
Diodorus Siculus, xxxiv. 1, has it that the Jews were driven from Egypt as accursed, and afflicted with leprosy and scurvy. Tacitus, Hist., v. 3-5, says this was the general view, and dates the expulsion in the time of King Bokchoris.
In this double chain of traditions there is hidden an historical reminiscence of events, which the Bible relates to us as the Exodus of the tribe of Joseph.2 Both records agree that a religious movement, which made itself felt in Egypt, against the polytheistic cult, was in sympathy with nomads who came from Palestine, and who finally returned thither. The adherents of this Egyptian movement were called, together with their Syrian allies, “ unclean11 and “ lepers11;3 this should not be
1   Georgius Syncellus names the Pharaoh of the Exodus “Amosis, who is also called Tethmosis.”
2   Spiegelberg, Der Aufenthalt der Israeliten in Agypten, p. 13, comp. p. 29, and O.L.Z., 1904, 130, places the Hyksos dynasty from 1700-1550. One of the Hyksos kings was named Ja‘kob-hel (but compare now Ed. Meyer, Israelundseine Nachbarstdmme, p. 282). Another bears a name which may be read as Simeon. With the tradition of Josephus compare also Lepsius, Chronologie der Agypter, 332. The immigration of the sons of Jacob may quite well coincide with the Hyksos period.
3   In the Sallier papyrus they are called “the fever people,” i.e. those who bring malaria from the swamps of the Delta ; see Marquart, p. 670. It is also to
88
THE EXODUS
taken literally, but as an expression of religious abhorrence. In both traditions the chief point of support of the movement is the city of Avaris. Popular etymology would have connected this with the Hebrews, since they were wandering Hebrew tribes who had their stronghold there, and who were applied to for help by the “ lepers ”; this is clearly seen to be the meaning of the later Egyptian tradition. The leader of these outland nomads is, according to Manetho, Osarsiph; according to Chairemon, Tisiten. Osar-siph is Jo-seph. The Egyptian tradition replaced the first part of the name, understood as a divine name (Jahu; comp. Ps. lxxxi. 5, the form of the name Jehoseph), by the Egyptian divine name Osiris. The name Tis-iten agrees with that, as we shall see later. Both traditions have confused the figure of Joseph with that of the later leader Moses : Manetho, in that he holds both to be identical; Chairemon, in that he names Moses, together with Joseph (Osarsiph), as leader. There must have been a monotheistic movement in Egypt to which the records of Manetho and Chairemon are linked. We instinctively think of the figure of Amenophis IV., who in 1380 built the city of Chut-Aten for his residence, who named himself Chu-en-Aten (that is, Resplendence of the Sun’s Disc), and who caused himself to be worshipped as the incarnation of the One God, the Sun-god. He is the Naphuriria (Naphururia) of the Amarna Letters. We know that after his death the reformation was again extirpated and Chut-Aten was violently destroyed. If the leader of the Syrian allies was called Tisiten, according to Chairemon, also called Osarsiph by Manetho, that would agree with the phenomenon of which we have also other evidence under Amenophis, that vassals were given names which glorified the new cult: iten is the disc of the sun. The assumption that Chuenaten is the Pharaoh of
be borne in mind in regard to it that the contempt of the Egyptians for shepherds as “unclean” gave occasion for the variation. Also the Egyptian designation of the Syrians as shasu may have helped ; see Marquart, loc. cit., p. 673. In Gen. xlvi. 34 the concluding words, “ every shepherd an abomination unto the Egyptians,” seem to contain a remembrance of the contempt for the “leprous” Asiatics. But the reason for them does not agree with that idea. The assertion that the people of Jacob are peaceful shepherds would probably be to quiet the suspicions of Pharaoh, not to waken his contempt.
EGYPTIAN EXPECTATION OF A REDEEMER 89
the Syrian Osarsiph allied to the “lepers'” also agrees fairly with the chronology given by Manetho. For the Pharaoh Amenophis, who here, from the Egyptian point of view, appears as the “pious” king, is clearly Amenophis III. During his reign there lived, in fact, that sage Amenophis, son of Paapis (IJapu), to whom, later, in the Ptolemaic period, sayings were ascribed which form an analogy to the sayings of the Seven Sages.
The Biblical chronology, which reckons 480 years from the Exodus from Egypt to the dedication of the Temple, leads to the time of Amenophis. This Amenophis is probably identical with that Bok- choris in whose time Amenophis
III.   lived, and in whose reign, according to Manetho, an apviov spoke (the zodiacal ram as for- teller of the new age).1 The motif is prophecy, as has been exemplified in the middle periods.
“ The continual scheme is, that a sage foretells the advent of great evils, the overthrow of all institutions, the conquest of Egypt by strange people, etc.; afterwards the rescue follows through a righteous king, beloved of the gods, who expels the strangers, restores order and civilisation, and has a long and blessed reign.”2 We may assume, therefore, that at the time
1   Like the apviov of the Apocalypse ; see p. 76, i., comp. B.N.T., 16 f.
2   Ed. Meyer, loc. cit., 452 fif. { — Ber. Kgl. Preuss. Akad. d. IViss., 1905, xxxi.), says the more he considers the problem the less he can accept the view that there is here an historical connection with the expectation of the Deliverer of the Israelite Prophets. Certainly! Only it is not a question of “adopting out of Egypt the purport of the predictions,” but of the unity of the religious conception in the Ancient-East. The same expectation of the Deliverer rules Babylon and Canaan ; see B.N.T , 8 ff. And when Ed. Meyer in this point opens the window upon the Ancient-East, we do not understand how, in loc. cit., p. I, he can assume of the fable of Romulus, which especially and characteristically shows the Ancient- Oriental motif of the new age (see the following), that it is borrowed from the tragedy of Sophocles. One may see in this also what a barrier the theory of borrowing raises.
 
FIG. 129.—Rameses II. (From Spiegelberg’s Aufenthalt Israels in A gyp ten.)
90
THE EXODUS
of the sojourn of Israel in Egypt, the Egyptian world also was filled with the expectation of the Deliverer. By this the “Egyptian mourning” for Jacob (Gen 1.) also acquires a deeper meaning. Latterly, Rameses II. (see figs. 129 and 130) has been held to be the Pharaoh of the oppression, in unexplained opposition, certainly, to the late Egyptian tradition spoken of above. An authority for this view is the late gloss DDDin to Pithom. In his time, certainly, the
 
FIG. 130.—Rameses II. Head of the mummy. (Spiegelberg, loc. cit.)
 
FIG. 131.—Merneptah. (From Spiegelberg, loc. cit.)
Asiatic nomads were a great danger, so that he had good cause to keep a sharp watch upon the Hebrews in Goshen. After his death Egypt was brought to the verge of destruction, under Merneptah, by Libyan and Nubian hordes. The tribes of Goshen may then have conspired with the related Bene-Israel in Canaan. The inscription of Merneptah, p. 332, i. (“ Israel is wasted ”), may agree with this. From Merneptah, then (about 1250, see fig. 131), the Exodus was extorted.
* STORY OF THE BIRTH OF MOSES
Like Jacob and Joseph, Moses is a deliverer. The rescue from Egypt holds the place, as we have seen, of the combat with and victory over the dragon. The Deliverer motifs, with which his figure is interwoven, entirely correspond to the late Jewish con-
STORY OF THE BIRTH OF MOSES
91
ception. Shemoth rabba records, about Exod. i. 22, that the astrologers (!) told Pharaoh that a woman was with child who should be the deliverer of Israel; and upon Exod. ii. 4 it is said Miriam prophesied: My mother shall bear a son, w ho will deliver Israel.
The bringer of the new age is endowed with certain motifs, which are either connected with the traditional events of his life, or are given as ornamental side-play in the story, or are veiled in the names, numbers, and play of words in it.
1.   In the first place, the hero of the new age is of mysterious birth. Even when the story knows the name of the father, he is designated as " fatherless.” It has long been noted that the relationship added from P 1 of Amram and Jochebed (Exod. vi. 20) do not agree. In the blessing of Moses the tradition has retained the fatherless birth:
Deut. xxxiii. 9‘: "Who said of his father, and of his mother, I have not seen them; who did not acknowledge his brethren, nor would he know anything of his own children.” Compare with this the a7rar<t)/o, a/x^rwp, ayeveaXoyrjTos of Melchizedek (Heb. vii. 3); further, Baruch 58a: Elias had neither father nor mother; and from the Babylonian material, Gudea Cyl., A ii. 28 IF., iii. 1 ff.: “ I have no mother, thou (the goddess) art my mother; I have no father, thou art my father .... in the holy place hast thou borne me” ; compare further Sargon’s descent from a vestal and a man of low birth.1 2 3
2.   The hero is persecuted by the dragon and saved in a chest. The place of the dragon is taken here by the Pharaoh of Egypt.8 The chest is called tebah, like the ark in which Noah, the bringer of the new age, was saved. After the mother had hidden the child for three months (!) (Exod. ii. 2) because she saw that he was "stately” (tob), she took for him4 a chest of reeds and daubed
1   Orelli, R.Pr.Th., 3rd ed., xiii. 487 : “Amram is, according to Numb. iii. 27 f., scarcely the actual father of Moses.” Exod. ii. 1, “ and he took the daughter of Levi ” (the Sept, corrects it to ra>v Ovyarpuv), cannot be understood historically ; the sojourn in Egypt lasted 430 years.
2   Pp» 93 f. We know the name of the royal father. The father “of low degree ” is a variant upon the fatherless birth. “ My father was a worthy man ” ; see p. 93, n. 2.
3   B.N.T., 46 ff., it is shown that Matthew knew the motifs, and takes pleasure in indicating how they agree also with the childhood of Jesus. The dragon here is Herod. The medieval plays still recognise the motif, in that they always represent Herod with a red beard (comp. p. 51, n. 3). In Rev. xii. 1 ft. we may see the motifs particularly clearly. The dragon would devour the child. It is rescued and sits upon the throne. The saving ark shows itself in Rev. xi. 19. It is the ark of the tabernacle in heaven, designated as KifioorSs. Tabernacle and throne are identical. This observation is decisive in the question of the original meaning of the tabernacle in religious history.
4   npS motif word of taking away ; see p. 240, i.
92
THE EXODUS
it with bitumen and with pitch (comp. Gen. vi. 14) and laid it, after she had put the child therein, in the reeds on the bank of the Nile. In the story of Sargon it is said : “ My mother laid me in a basket of shuru reed, ina idde babi-ia [note the expression bdbu, ‘ door,’ about a little chest] ipfyi, closed my door with pitch.”
3.   The Queen of Heaven takes the rescued one. Ishtar loves Tammuz. In the legend of Sargon it is a “ sister of Marduk,” a vestal, who takes the place of Ishtar (compare the myth of Romulus), the mother. Ishtar herself loves him, and bestows power and lordship upon him. In the myth of the new age mother and wife are one.1 The story of the childhood of Moses uses the tradition of his education at the royal court to emphasise this motif. The place of the Queen of Heaven, Ishtar, is taken by the royal princess. The same motif appears again in the education of Hadad (name = Tammuz !), 1 Kings xi. 14-25, who then marries the princess Tahpenes, who bore him his son Genubath.
4.   The puzzling name Mosheh also contains a motif. The name perhaps corresponds to the Egyptian personal name which signifies “son.” A divine name should be supplied (comp Thutmosis, “son of Thot”). But, in the abridged Hebraicised name, a motif is veiled. “Drawn out of the water” someone explains (Gen. ii. 10) who did not understand the motif. The name, from the Hebrew point of view, much more nearly means “the drawer.”1 2 In the story of Sargon the drawing of water means something decisive. It is repeated three times. Aqqi says: “ I have drawn water” ; ndq me is the drawer of water. The drawer of water is the gardener.3 Behind the deliverer is hidden Ea, the “drawer of water” and gardener of the universe (comp. Gen. iii., Yahveh as gardener). The variant is the agriculturalist. The rescued one receives the call from the divine Father. This also links the story to the motifs of the story of Sargon. Sargon ( = Marduk, son of Ea) is the gardener, or, what is the same thing, “peasant” (ikkaru of Babylon); compare with this pp. 59, i. f.; 74, i. This shows the meaning veiled in the story. Since the chronicler of Exod. ii. obviously knew the meaning of the motifs and specially the story of Sargon, it is very probable that in the name Mosheh the motif of the gardener (water-bearer 4) was in his mind.
1   Comp. pp. 6, i. fif. ; 119, i. f. The Queen of Heaven in Rev. xii. I is the mother of the conqueror, then bride of the conqueror, Rev. xxi. 9 f.
2   Thus already in A.T.A.O., 1st ed., 256, under the reference to Aqqt, the “ water-bearer,” in regard to Sargon ; see now Winckler, F1, iii. 468 f.
3   Not “as the wretched occupation of the daily labourer, who draws water with the shadduf in the field,” as Winckler, loc, cit.t 469 thinks. Incidentally we may remark that it is dealing in the Old Testament with the wretched occupation of the water-carriers in the passages 1 Kings xiv. 10; 1 Sam. xxv. 22, 34, where, therefore, Luther’s curious translation (“even to the boy, who pisseth against the wall,” like Kautzsch) explains itself.
4   Upon “gardener,” comp. p. 94, n. I.
ASTRAL MOTIFS IN THE STORY OF MOSES 93
We will here put together some further Marduk-Tammuz motifs of the story of Moses. Exod. vii. 1 : “ I make thee a god to Pharaoh, and Aaron shall be thy prophet.” Moses is Marduk and Aaron Nebo (nabi), as Barnabas and Paul, Acts xiv. 1 ff., seemed to the people of Lystra to be Jupiter and Mercury, bringing the new age. Comp, also p. 102 upon Exod. vii. 1.
The rescue from Egypt is victory over the dragon. The dividing of the sea (Exod. xiv. 21 f.), like the dividing of Jordan by Joshua, (Joshua iii. 16), recalls the dividing of the monsters of chaos.
Moses appears before the people veiled (Tammuz-Attar veil). His unveiling would signify death; see pp. 121, i.; 62, n. 8, and p. 139.
He bears the magic staff, which belongs to the attributes of Orion-Tammuz; see pp. 57 f. In death “his eye was not dim, his freshness not vanished,” Deut. xxxiv. 7. Comp. Enoch lxxii. 37 : “as he rises, so he sets” (the sun). Tammuz-Marduk descends into the Underworld in youthful vigour.
The Nebo motif of the story of the death corresponds to the Marduk motif of the story of the birth. Nebo is the dying Marduk; see p. 29, i. For this reason one of the sources names the mountain of death Nebo, Deut. xxxii. 49. According to xxxiv. 1 it was Pisgah in the Abarim-(Nibiru) mountains; see p. 151.
The mourning was for thirty days, “ and the Israelites wept for Moses thirty days ” (that is the time of mourning for Tammuz, the month of Tammuz); only then was the time of mourning for Moses ended, Deut. xxxiv. 8. The festival of Ramadhan has same length of mourning.1
Examples of Rescue in Chests
The story of the exposure of Sargon, founder of Babylon (about 2800 n.c.), runs : 2
“ Sargon, the mighty king of Agade, am I. My mother was a vestal,1 2 3 my father of low degree,4 whilst my father’s brother dwelt in the mountains. My city is Azupiranu, which lies upon the bank of the Euphrates. My vestal mother conceived me and I was bom in secret. She laid me in a chest of reeds, closed my door with pitch, and laid me in the river. . . . The river bore me down to Aqqi, the water-bearer.5 Aqqi, the water-bearer, drawing water
1   See Winckler, F., ii. 345 ; Gesch. Isr., ii. 89.
2   Text III. R. 4, No. 7 ; Pinches, P.B.A.S., xviii. 257; C.T., xiii. 42.
3   enitu is the “ divine sister ” of the Laws of Hammurabi.
4   ul idi, “unknown.” So with the names of witnesses in the Neo-Babylonian contracts in the case of citizens, in contradistinction to the citizens who can name father and grandfather, that is to say, ancestors ; see p. 153 and p. 91, n. 2.
5   See p. 94.
94
THE EXODUS
.... he drew me out; Aqqi, the water-bearer, reared me as his child ; Aqqi, the water-bearer, made me his gardener. As gardener1 Ishtar loved me .... for years I commanded .... for years I commanded the black-headed people and ruled them.” 1 2
According to the Jewish fable Abraham was persecuted after his birth, and saved in a cave; see Beer, Leben Abrahams.
The Egyptian divine mother Hathor fled, persecuted by Typhon, in a boat of papyrus, and upon a floating island bore Horus.
The Egyptian-Phcenician myth of Osiris-Adonis 3 relates : When Osiris was shut in the trunk 4 and thrown into the river, he floated to Phoenicia, where they called him Adonis. Isis searched for him; she came to Byblos, and sat in her sadness by a spring, where none spake to her, save the maids of the royal house, by whose means she found refuge with the queen (called Astarte !) and was appointed to watch over her son.
Zeus was born in the grotto of Ida, where his mother Rhea had fled from Kronos, who devoured his own children. The bees of the mountain and the goat Amalthea nourished the child with milk and honey (!), whilst the Centaurs covered the crying of the child by a dance with weapons (see fig. 63, p. 169, i.).
iElian, Hist Anim., xii. 21, relates of Gilgamos : When Sene- choros ruled over the Babylonians, the Chaldean soothsayers predicted that the son of the king’s daughter would take the kingdom from his grandfather; and this saying was a proverb amongst the Chaldeans. This alarmed the king, and he was for his daughter, to speak jestingly, a second Acrisius, for he guarded her with great strictness. But the daughter—for Fate was wiser than the Babylonians — secretly bore a child by an invisible husband. The guards, for fear of the king, threw the child from the acropolis; for it was here the royal daughter was imprisoned. The sharp eye of the eagle saw the fall of the boy, and, before he reached the earth, he took him upon his back, carried him to a garden, and set him down with great care. Now when the overseer of the place (gardener !) saw the beautiful boy, he loved him, and nourished
1   Abdalonymus of Sidon (excerpt from Justinus, 11 ; Curtius, iv. 3), see Winckler, F., ii. 168 note, was called from his garden to be king; the same motif in Gilgamesh, p. 94.
2   The Etana myth relates how the gods desired upon earth a suitable man to bear the insignia of the kingdom which were lying ready in heaven (see p. 59? !•)• Ishtar bestirs herself to find such an one. Then (after a gap in the fragmentary text) the birth of a child is described ; it can only be treating of the child, who is destined for the kingdom. The father, Etana, is obliged to seek the help of the gods. He yearns for the magic plant of birth. The eagle is to obtain it for him. But the “serpent of night” worries him because he has eaten her young. The eagle carries him up to the throne of Ishtar. Finally, the eagle and Etana fall to the earth. The fragments relate nothing about the fate of the child.
3 Plutarch, De Is. et Os., 13 fif., 39, 50; see Movers, Phonizier, i. 235 ff.
4   A “beautiful, gorgeously decorated chest” ; see Herodotus, ii. 86.
EXAMPLES OF RESCUE IN CHESTS
95
him; he received the name of Gilgamos, and became king of Babylon. Also the fragments of the Babylonian epic of Gilgamesh lay stress upon the mother of the hero.
Thoas was shut up at the time of the general massacre in a chest by his mother, and it floated to Scythia. iEgisthus, who ruled over the people of Agamemnon, was exposed by his mother, as a new-born child, and nourished with the milk of a goat.
Telephos of Auge, begotten by Heracles, was put in a trunk, together with his mother, by his grandfather, Aleos (whose eldest son was Lycurgus) and thrown into the sea.
In Pausanias, iii. 24, the birth of Bacchus is embellished by a fable bearing a strong resemblance to the story of Moses. He was born in Egypt, exposed in the Nile in a chest, in order that he might escape the persecution of the king of Egypt, and was, at three months old (!), rescued by a king’s daughter,
Diodorus, ii, 9* relates of Semiramis: Close to Ascalon, the Syrian goddess Derceto, who had the head of a woman, whilst the rest of her body was that of a fish, bore a daughter to a young Syrian. She killed the youth, and exposed the child upon the barren mountains. The child was nourished by doves, and later, was found by the shepherds, and brought up by the overseer of the royal herds, Simmas by name. Onnes, one of the king’s counsellors, married her. Later, the king himself, Ninus, took her to wife.
iElian, Hist. Anim., xii. 21, says that also Achsemenes, from whom the nobles of Persia are descended, was the nursling of an eagle.
Herodotus, i. 113, relates of Cyrus, founder of the kingdom of Persia, that by command of his grandfather, in consequence of a dream, he was exposed, but was rescued and nourished by a shepherd. Hiising, O.L.Z., 1903, 145 f., points out a variant to this fable of Cyrus,
Suidas, s.v, Aayos, records that Ptolemaios, son of Lagos and Arsinoe, was exposed as a child; an eagle protected him from sun and rain and birds of prey,
Herodotus, v. 92 ff., relates of Cypselos, the founder of a Corinthian dynasty, that he was born of the lame Labda, and hidden in a chest (play upon the name Cypselos!), because ten men sought his life, and later he ruled Corinth for thirty years,
Apollodorus, ii. 4, 1, relates of Perseus, son of Danse and the god Zeus, that he was placed, together with his mother, in a chest, by his grandfather Acrisius, and thrown into the sea. They landed on a strange coast, and the child was brought up by the strange ruler. He killed Medusa, rescued the Ethiopian king’s daughter, Andromeda, became king of Argos, then of Tiryns, and built Mycene,
Romulus and Remus, the fabulous founders of the Roman empire, were held to be sons of the vestal (!) Rhea Silvia and the god of war, Mars. Their mother was drowned on account of her broken vows. The children immediately after their birth were thrown in
96
THE EXODUS
a trough into the Tiber, by order of Emulius. The trough remained entangled in the roots of a fig-tree. Here they were found by a wolf. She nourished the children till they were discovered by the chief shepherd Faustulus.1
According to the Volsunger Saga, Sigurd, son of Siegmund, was exposed in the river, nourished by a hind, and found by Mime.2
An example of how such mythical motifs were quite intentionally linked on to historical personalities is offered by Stratonice, the rebuilder of the temple of Hierapolis, wife of Seleucus, and then of her stepson Antiochus. The story applies the features of Ishtar- Semiramis to the queen, and clearly also the name was meant to allude to Ishtar.3
Exod. ii. 15 : Moses fled into Midian. We have seen the true reason for the flight in the story of Sinuhe, p. 326, i. Moses was assuredly already a political personality ; comp. Exod. xi. 3. He came to Midian (see p. 68) to Jethro, who at Horeb carried on his office as kohen (= Arabian kahin) at a sanctuary, with an organisation which we may picture to ourselves as like that of the tribes of the Koreish at the sanctuary of Mecca. The story takes us into the Minaean civilisation, into a territory where later the Nabataean kingdom, and then the Roman province of Arabia Petraea, flourished. The cult in that district shows, as we shall see (p. 118), strong relationship to the later Israelite cult. It formed, possibly, the connecting link between the Hebrews in Canaan and the Hebrews in Goshen. In any case, as a third centre of civilisation, making its influence felt upon Israel, together with Babylonia and Egypt, we find Arabia.4
The north-west territory, including the peninsula of Sinai, which forms the scene of the Exodus story, was in those days at least as much ruled by Minaean civilisation as it is to-day by that of Islam. Till shortly before the Mosaic period it belonged to the Egyptian realm, as is shown by the inscriptions of
1   A lately discovered frescoe in Pompeii represents the myth.
2   Further examples in B.N.T.t 31. There also, pp. 28 f., examples of the motif of the nurture of the bringer of the new age by the Queen of Heaven are given.
3   See Winckler, Gesch. Isr., ii. 227 f. ; Kampfum BabelundBibel, 4th ed., p. 35.
4   To the following compare Nielsen, Altarabische Mondreligion, Strassburg, 1904. The book offers valuable material and contains many inspiring thoughts, but suffers from lack of historical criticism. The text of the tradition is taken without discrimination of source, and without criticism.
YOUTH OF MOSES
97
Meghara and Serabit el Khadem. The Egyptians brought malachite (mafkat) from there; and they called the people the Mentu. The most ancient Pharaohs known, like Snefru, Chufu (Cheops), further, Usertesen II. and Amenemhat III., already mention the district amongst their interests. At the time under our consideration the inscriptions are silent about this district, only Rameses II., in an inscription at Meghara, casually mentions it. When Moses went to Midian, he passed as a political fugitive out of the sphere of the power of the Pharaohs, as at one time Abraham (pp. 4 f.) passed the boundary of the realm of Hammurabi, when he journeyed into Canaan. The Egyptian rule was relieved by the influence of the South Arabian mercantile cities, which made their influence felt as far as the seaports of the Philistines. The alphabet of the so- called Harra inscription shows South Arabian influence, and the so-called Lihjan inscription gives evidence of South Arabian civilisation in North-West Arabia.1
There is hope that the inscriptions of Ma‘in, collected by Ed. Glaser, may throw some light for us upon those regions in the second millennium. Seventy small inscriptions which are in Minaean writing and language, found by Euting between Petra and Medina, date from the end of the second millennium B.C. They prove the political dependence upon the mother country, and the rule of Minaean civilisation and religion in North Arabia amongst the “Minaeans of Muzr’^Ma^n Muzran), as they are called in the South Arabian inscriptions. We may presuppose the same circumstances in regard to the connecting road between Egypt and Palestine.
Exod. iii. 1 (E): Moses kept the sheep of Jethro, priest of Midian. This refers to the sacrificial herds of the Minaean priest.1 2 He would then be the Temple shepherd. A hamah which is preserved in that neighbourhood is shown in fig. 150.
1   See Hommel, Aufs. u. Abk., 230 ff. ; Winckler, A, iii. 367 fif. ; Weber, M.V.A.G., 1901, 1 ff. The peninsula of Sinai was included in the geographical conception Meluhha (North and West Arabia, in antithesis to Magan, which denotes East and South Arabia).
2   Nielsen, loc. at., 132. This does not, however, follow from the pasture ground at Horeb. The story probably intends to say that Moses came inadvertently to the sacred place of worship of the Patriarchs.
VOL. II.
7
98
THE EXODUS
Horeb and Sinai as the Holy Mountain
The Mountain of God Qiar ha-elohim) is called Horeb by the E, Exod. iii. 1, xvii. 6, where, in a sort of gloss, the miraculous rock is called 44 the rock in Horeb.”1 In Deuteronomy, likewise, the name is Horeb (upon Deut. xxxiii. 2, see following).
The mountain is called Sinai in the old poetical passages in Deut. xxxiii. 2 (“Yahveh came from Sinai”; parallel, 44he shined forth from Seir”) and in Judges v. 4 f.: 44 When Yahveh went forth out of Seir [parallel, Edom, see p. 51] Sinai trembled before him.” Comp. Ps. lxviii. The J also calls the mountain Sinai (upon Sinai in P, see later); Exod. xix. 11,18 (Yahveh descends upon Sinai), xxxiv. 1 if. Where do these traditions look for the holy mountain ? Everything seems to us to point to the region of Kadesh-Barnea. This is the territory of Seir-Edom.1 2 The statement about the Midianite territory agrees with this (“DTon “UIN, Exod. iii. 1 ; Midian belonging to Muzr, see p. 96), and also the statement in Exod. iii. 18, 44 three days’ journey away,” where we must bear in mind a good army road.
Elijah’s journey to Horeb, the Mount of God, also offers no contradiction. The number forty is a motif number, and must be considered like the forty years in P. After the first day’s journey Elijah is tired to death. The old passages in Deut. xxxiii. 2 and Judges v. 2 ff, moreover, make it certain that Elijah was wandering in the district of Edom-Seir.
Only the latest sources of P speak of the 44 desert of Sinai.” Here the stations of the migration to the Mount of God are transferred to the further district, to the south of the peninsula of Sinai. Then the later traditions which designate Serbal
1   Exod. xxxiii. 6, “ from Mount Horeb onward ” certainly does not belong here. The conjecture which adds the words in xxxiii. 9 (“ whenever Moses entered into the tent, the pillar of cloud descended from Mount Horeb”) is frail, since these fragmentary passages originally did not belong at all to the story of Sinai; see pp. 129 f. We follow Klostermann’s conjecture, Pentateuch, \\. 448: Tjin inD: “ they tore their ornaments from off them, hurriedly stripping themselves.”
2   Judges i. 16 (iv. 11) speaks of the sons of the Kenite (tribe of Cain !), brother- in-law of Moses (Numb. x. 29, Hodab). The passage is attributed to J. In this case therefore the dwelling-place of Jethro-Reguel is also, according to J, to be looked for near the Israelite territory.
HOREB AND SINAI
99
(since Eusebius: the numerous inscriptions in this hill-country answer for the tradition being more ancient1) and Gebel Musa as Sinai link themselves to this. This transference to the more distant district agrees with the predilection of the later Utopian geography, which made of the nahal Muzri, the Nile, and of 4eber Hannahar, the Euphrates district.2
* The double name Sinai and Horeb may be referred back to a foundation in a cosmic idea. The Mount of God is the image of the heavenly throne of the divinity. And this Mount of God is, as we saw pp. 23, i. f., double-peaked. With Winckler, l.c., we would look for a cosmic meaning in the names: Sinai, corresponding to the moon (Underworld point, according to Egyptian reckoning), Horeb, the sun 3 (highest point of the cycle in the hot region).4 Ebal and Gerizim are of the same cosmic importance ; see p. 24, i. As soon as this cosmic view comes into force, the geographical situation is immaterial. Perhaps the double tradition may be explained by this. Ebal and Gerizim as the mountains of the revelation of God were not placed in Sichem by every chronicler, as Deut. xi. 30 shows, where they are sought at Gilgal-Bethel, therefore likewise another localisation of the throne of God; see pp. 55 f. *
The revelation at the burning thorn bush (Exod. iii. 2 ff.) is from both sources. In J the angel of the Lord announces that the people shall be delivered. In E, God calls from the burning bush. They are to worship Him in this mountain as the God of their fathers.
Exod. iii. 5 : “ Draiv not nearer hither! Take off thy shoes, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground” This corresponds not only to Arabian custom, prevalent to the present day in Islamic countries. Shemot Rabba in iii. 5 says :
1   M. A. Levy in Z.D.M.G., i860, 363 ff.; Lepsius, Denkmdler a. Agypten und Athiopien, vi., Bl. 14-26. The Insch. b. Euting, Sinai-Inschr., Berlin, 1891.
2   See upon this and also upon the following, Winckler, F., iii. 360 ff.
3   hrb, as in Gen. iii. 24 ; see p. 236, i. “ Flickering flame ” (at the north point of the universe); upon hrb, “ scorching heat,” compare passages like Gen. xxxi. 40. Upon the antithesis Horeb-Sinai, see also p. 24, n. 3. Or is Horeb to be taken as meaning “dry,” as the waning moon, in opposition to the growing moon? The two phases of the moon are stamped with the same antithesis as sun and moon in opposition.
4   Comp. p. 11, n. 4.
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THE EXODUS
Likewise the priests serve barefoot in the Temple. They have retained the custom to the present time at their penitential festivals.1
The thorn bush is the throne of God. It is not to be separated from the mountain of God. In Deut. xxxiii. 16 (the blessing of Moses) God dwells in the thorn bush. The blazing fire (labbat-esh mitok ha-sene) is the same as the flames of fire which in Gen. iii. 24 close the approach to the throne of God.1 2
The water of life in this Paradise 3 we find in the 44 miraculous rock at Horeb,” Exod. xvii. 6.
The revelation of the name of God designates Him as 441 will be, that I am”; i.e. what God is, shall be revealed in future events, principally in the sense of the deliverance here announced. 44 Thou shalt say to the Israelites : iTliT 4 hath sent me to you.”
The story of the origin of the oracle of Dodona after the flood of Deucalion offers to a certain extent an analogy. The priestesses of the dove say: 44 Zeus was, Zeus is, Zeus shall be, O thou great Zeus ” (Zeus rjv> Zeus ecrri, Zeus icrercu, w /xeyaAe Zeus), Paus., x. 12, 10. Likewise the superscription of the temple at Sais, transmitted by Plutarch, De Is. et Osir., c. 76 : ’Eyw ei/xi TO TTCLV TO yeyovos, KCU or, KCU €cro[ievov ; comp. Plato, Tim., i. 30.
Exod. iii. 16, see p. 9; iii. 18, see p. 2.
Exod. v. 5 : 44 They are many—and ye would make them rest.” Winckler, O.L.Z., 1901, 249, emends the text well by 44 the people are idle” (D'STO instead of D'O'n). Otherwise there would be no contrast. 44 By work, however, the people would not become less ; for no one in the East wrorks himself to death.”
Exod. iv. 2: The shepherd’s staff of Moses appears as a serpent rod (comp. Exod. vii. 15 ff). It is not the magic wand which Moses obtains, ver. 17, comp. 20 (the staff of God).
1   See Nathanael (Berl. Inst, jud., 1902, p. 79).
2   Perhaps we may think of the variant of Paradise lost as expressed in the fairy tale form of Sleeping Beauty.
3   Pp. 216, i. f.; compare the beginning of this section, pp. 98 f.
4   We agree with Wellhausen, who with Ibn Ezra reads m.T for rrnu (see Procksch, loc. at., p. 65). But it is not a grammatical form (nin; in the mouth of Moses and .T.IN in the mouth of God); it is much more probable the reading nnK and E originate from a time in which they already sought for a grammatical form in the name. There is an interesting analogy to the tetragram with forbidden pronunciation in the Pythagorean tetragram, the pronouncing of which was also forbidden; comp. Schultz in Keim’s Archivfur Geschichte der Philosophic, 1908, 240 ff.
THE REVELATION AT HOREB
101
Upon the latter, comp. p. 58. Here for the first time the symbol of the serpent shows itself, of which, as symbol of the divinity, there is evidence everywhere (compare the serpent monument of Petra, p. 145 ; the serpent raised up of Numb, xxi. 8 f.; nehusktan, 2 Kings xviii. 4). Does the change of the shepherd’s staff' signify inauguration ?
Exod. iv. 14 (E); Moses is given his brother Aaron, the Levite, as companion (comp. vii. 1 and iv. 16: Moses is God,1 and Aaron his prophet, see p. 93).   44 The Levite ” is here an
official name, and it should be specially noted that lawi’ denotes a Minasan priestly class (p. 118).   44Thy brother” (aMka) does
not necessarily mean physical relationship; in passages like Numb. viii. 26 it denotes the priestly colleagues. The supposition that Aaron was a Minasan priest who accompanied Moses cannot be proved,2 though the form of the name would agree with it.3 The supposition would have far-reaching consequences, and would support the hypothesis on which the whole sacrificial cult, the characteristics of which are given in Micah
vi.   8,4 refers back to Aaron, and primarily has nothing to do with the Thora of Moses.
Exod. iv. 24 ff.; see p. 2, n. 2.
Exod. v. 1 a, 3, comp. vii. 15 ff. (E) : Moses and Aaron present themselves before Pharaoh with the words of the 44 God of the Hebrews.” They wish to sacrifice to their god in the desert (three days’journey away, at Horeb ; see pp. 98 f.), in order that he may not fall upon them with pestilence or sword.5 Exod. viii. 25, Pharaoh makes the concession : sacrifice to your God in the land (in Egyptian territory). The antithesis is they wish to
1   This is of importance to the meaning of “God spake unto Moses.” The oracles of Moses are the words of God.
2   See Nielsen, p. 138, who is frankly not troubled by the sources. The sources used by the editor already mixed with it the other tradition, which is stamped by J, and which connected Moses and his family with the tribe of Levi, for which the genealogy in Exod. vi. 16 ff. was invented. The designation ah may have helped.
3   The name ‘Ahardn is with the determinative dn ( = an) specifically Minsean; comp. Salljan, ‘Alahan in the inscriptions : perhaps there is a direct translation in the inscription (Euting, 25) in the name Ahar6n (Hommel).
4   Erbt, Die Hebraer, p. 82.
5   Upon the punishments, comp. Ezek. xiv. 21.
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THE EXODUS
44 make a pilgrimage ” (yahoggu, Exod. v. 1) ;1 the word still lives in the Arabian word for a pilgrim festival (hagg); in Hebrew it is the designation for all three pilgrimage festivals. At this pilgrimage sacrifices and burnt-offerings were to be made ; Exod. x. 25.
Exod. vii. 1; see p. 93. Moses is silent, Aaron speaker, as amongst the Ismaelites every Mahdi is a zamit (silent) and has a natiq (speaker). Here also we have to do with the antitheses representing the Universe, as we found them, for example, at p. 51.2
The Feast of the Pesah
What was the festival they wished to celebrate in the desert at the Mountain of God ? It was certainly the feast of the Pesah, which was celebrated on the night of the exodus after the pilgrimage had been delayed by the refusal of the Pharaoh. The statements of time in Exod. xii. 1 ff., which belong in the present text to P, may also be taken as the record of E: at the day of the full moon of the first month of the year is the feast of the Pesah. Pesah means 44 Passover,” Babylonian nibiru. 44 Yahveh passes over.”3 The background of astral mythology4 may be derived either from the sun or from the moon (nibiru of the sun = summer solstice ; nibiru of the moon = full moon in the critical month of the solstice, or of the equinox, just as it may be; see pp. 37, i. f.). Here it has to do with the moon. The night of the full moon of the new year is 44 the night of the D'HDtD for Yahveh,” i.e. the night of observation of the moon (mazzatu).5   This night, according
1   J ? The conception agrees very well in this meaning with the account of E.
2   See Winckler, Ex or. lux, ii. i, p. 35.
3   The credit belongs to Nielsen of proving that the Mosaic religion formed itself in surroundings which had astral forms of worship, and, in fact, where the moon had predominance.
4   This does not preclude them from thinking also of a play of words upon pashahu, “to appease (the angry divinity)” ; see Zimmern, Beitr., 92.
5   Eclipse of the moon may occur upon the night of the full moon ; see upon this and upon Pesah, especially Winckler, Krit. Schr., iv. 65 ff. ; M. V.A.G., 1901, 206 ; and Nielsen, pp. 144 ff. The description of the festival in P is also, according to the lunar calendar: upon the tenth day (seven days after new moon) the choosing of the sacrifice; upon the evening of the fourteenth, the sacrifice, the
FEAST OF THE PASSOVER
103
to Babylonian view, is ruled by Ninib-Mars, to whom the Nibiru point belongs; he is called mushmlt bxili, 44 he who kills the cattle,” therefore they offered first-born cattle. The same idea lies at the root of the Pesah of the God of the Hebrews. Yahveh 44goes up” (yoze) over Egypt, culminates Qabarti), and slays the first-born (all first-born, see Exod. xiii. 12 f.), but the destroyer 44passes by” the houses of the Children of Israel. The punishment threatened for the omission of the sacrificial feast (Exod. v. 3b) falls upon the Egyptians.
The passing over of the destroyer is attained (Exod. xii. 7)
by putting blood upon the doorposts.
\
T1TD, doorposts, is the Assyrian manzazu. The word signifies “ standing place,” as doorposts, “standing place,” kat exochen, “standing place of the divinity.” The obelisks at the gate of the temple at Thebes are called in Assyrian manzazu; see p. 188, n. 1. What the pillars at the entrance are to the Temple (see l Kings vii. 15 ff., and compare Amos ix. 7, where pillars and threshold are brought into connection with the altar), the doorposts are to the private house. Therefore the gloss at Exod. xxi. 6, “ then his master shall bring him unto God,” has added, “ and shall bring him to the door, or unto the doorpost.” 1 When the Israelites brought something sacred to the entrance of the house (Exod. xii. 7 ; Gen. iv. 7 ; Deut. vi. 8 ; Isa. lvii. , the custom was upon the same line. The sacred HT-ITP of the later Jews, cases fastened to the doorposts containing the passage from Deut. vi. 4-9, written upon parchment, take their name from the (sacred) doorposts.2
According to the Arabian view the doorposts protect from hostile powers. To rebuke a child upon the threshold brings misfortune; M.D.P.V,1899, 10, No. 16. Comp. Trumbull, The Threshold Covenant. Upon the threshold as throne of divinity, see Joshua vi. 26. The horseshoe at the threshold of the door points to a related Germanic idea; the horseshoe is probably the sign of Wotan.
The striking of the doorposts with blood presupposes in the religion of the Patriarchs an acquaintance with a sin- offering,3 of which our sources of the Israelite primitive histories
night of the full moon, is the time of sacrifice (at morning, when the moon goes down, everything must be finished, Exod. xii 7 ff.) ; then seven days, from full moon to the last quarter, eating the unleavened bread. The day of full moon and the seventh day after are days of rest (Exod. xii. 14-20); see pp. 202, i. f.
1   See Winckler, 0.Z.Z., 1901, 250.
2   Upon the <f>v\a,KT-ffpia (protection against evil spirits ; the mezuza is also a <pv\a.KT’i]pov), see B.N. T., 102.
3   Din NSN miss pa, ‘ ‘ no atonement without blood,” Yoma 5a and others.
104
THE EXODUS
say nothing; see p. 2. But the asherim which were found in Canaan, and which also were stricken with blood, take the place of the doorposts, and give evidence of the rite in the pre-Israelite age of Canaan ; see pp. 344, i., 2. The destroying angel passes over—here in the sin-offering the bloody work is already accomplished ; this is the original meaning of it. Of the “ striking of the threshold with blood ” there is perhaps evidence also in the Babylonian Tables of Ritual. It is said there,1 No. 26. 3. 20:
“ The exorcist shall go out to ... . the gate, offer a sheep in the gate of the palace, with the blood of this lamb the lintels (?) . . . .” It may possibly be restored l-(DlB) = askuppatu.
W. R. Smithy Religion of the Semites, records the Arab custom of sprinkling their own blood upon the doorposts of the injured one. Trumbull, The Threshold Covenant, and Curtiss, Ursemitische Religion, bring authentic proofs from the customs of the people of the present-day East. In the neighbourhood of the Lake of Tiberias, according to the observations of Curtiss, each family offered a white sheep to their ancestors, and sprinkled with the blood the western wall of the Maqam (p. iv). Or they sprinkle the blood of the sacrifice upon the doorposts and threshold of the Maqam (p. 206), or they make a sign with the blood in form of a T (p. 217). In Irak they mark every door with sacrificial blood, and with the sign of the bleeding hand (p. 243); the natives explain that they wish to announce the sacrifice to the Holy One (p. 264). Curtiss rightly compares (p. 259) the rites recorded by Ezekiel, where the priest must sprinkle with the blood of the sin-offering the doorposts of the Temple, the four corners of the altar, and the posts of the door to the inner court.
Exod. xii. 2, see p. 46, i. ; Exod. xii. 3, see p. 198, i., n. 1 ; E xod. xii. 7, p. 2; Exod. xiv. 21 f., see pp. 195, i. f. and 93.
Exod. xiv. 24 : “ Yahveh arose in the pillar of fire and of cloud.'* When in Gen. xv. God passes as a smoking furnace and as a flaming fire through the portions of the sacrifice, the same idea lies at the root. The Assyrian king Esarhaddon receives the oracle: “ I, Ishtar of Arbela, will cause smoke to rise to left of thee and fire to right of thee.1’1 2 And the classical writers often say : per noctem flamma, per diem fumans significat sociis hostium adventum.
1   See Zimmern, loc. cit., p. 127 ; but comp. K.A.T., 3rd ed., 599.
2   Fig. 42, Ishtar represented as a Valkyre, may serve to supplement pp. 122, i. f.
PILGRIMAGE TO THE MOUNT OF GOD 105
Exod. xiv. 24 : When the morning watch came. Three lunar night-watches are counted; comp. Judges vii. 19, 1 Sam xi. 11, and see p. 27. They were retained in the Temple service until the Roman period. In the same way the Babylonians count three night-watches ; bar aritu, shad mushi, shad urri}
^ The sacred pilgrimage to the Mountain of God is accomplished in P according to calendar divisions, which agree step by step with the moon} This is the more noteworthy as, after the arrival at Sinai, these lunar datings totally disappear. The astral character of the Hebrew cult then continues to show itself only in the symbols. The statements of places in P deride geography. It is a celestial journey to the throne of God. The geographical names must contain motifs which up to the present we cannot explain. The calendar dating of Piharot, xiv. 20, has been lost. According to the remains of the text which we ascribe to P it seems as though it was light for the Israelites, whilst the darkness of the night hindered the Egyptians—therefore, time of the new moon. Upon the day after the night of the full moon of the second month they came to the wilderness of Sin (lunar name), which lies between Elim3 and Sinai. Exod. xvi. 9-10: Moses commands them “to appear before Yahveh ” ; they looked towards the wilderness (towards the East); the glory of Yahveh appeared in the heaven:4 the full moon rises ! Whoever has seen the full moon rise in the East understands how it can embody the “glory of the Lord.” Also here the day of rest (shabat of Yahveh)5 is strongly emphasised with the lunar festival, as at the Pesah festival of full moon (cli. xii.). Exod. xvii. 1 : the Israelites journey out of the wilderness of Sin “by stages ” : lemaseehem. The term is peculiar to the story of the migration as given in P (comp. Numb. x. 6, 12, 28; xxxiii. 1 £), and we have already found it in Gen. xiii. 3 in the motifs which mark the migration of Abraham as a lunar journey (p. 19); the “stages” must recall the lunar stages. Upon the day of the new moon of the third month they are (Exod. xix. 1; comp, xviii. 5) at the holy mountain. Three days it is dark moon. During these days they were to 1 2 3 4 5
1   See Delitzsch, Z.A., ii. 284; Schiaparelli, Astronomic, lxxxiv. 89; Matt. xxiv. 25. Against it, Berachoth, 3b : Our rabbis teach that the night is divided into four watches (solar reckoning).
2   Nielsen, loc. cit.
3   The motifs in the previous passages of the text before us are obscure : shnr, bitter water (Rev. viii. 10 f. offers a key to the riddle; compare also the bitter water in the journey of Alexander, Ps. Callisthenes, iii. 17), Massah and Meribah (here, according to Deut. xxxiii. 8, chief points of a story which has been lost must have lain), and Elim with twelve wells and seventy palms.
4   Nielsen, p. 151, py; compare the corresponding Arabian word.
5   As shabaton designated with the Minsean article, see Ahar6n, p. 101. The Priestly Code shows here also ancient ingredients.
106
THE EXODUS
prepare by ablutions for the appearance of God (xix. 10 fF in a connection which belongs to the previous JE text). Upon the third day (xix. 16), when the trumpet sounded, they were to go to the mountain. This third day, therefore, is the day of new moon. The trumpet (comp. Numb. x. 10 ; comp. Ps. lxxxi. 4) announces the new moon (Hilal; see p. 110, i., n. 3). Upon this day God reveals Himself. Now follows in P again a seven-day period, Exod. xxiv. 16 : “ The glory of Yahveh was enthroned upon Mount Sinai; but the cloud covered it six days long: upon the seventh, day he called to Moses out of the cloud.” The journey to the throne of God, clothed by P in the garment of the lunar month, is now ended. Lunar dates cease. The place of the revelation of God is, from Sinai onwards, in ’ohel mo'ed. %
Exod. xv. 2, see p. 14; Exod. xx. 4, see p. 8, i., n. 4; Exod. xxi. 6, see p. 103.
CHAPTER XIX
ISRAELITE AND BABYLONIAN LEGISLATION
THE characteristic of the Mosaic religion lies in the conception of God. God is the holy one, that is to say, the good in Himself. He is zealous for good, because any deviation brings destruction upon men, and upon the other hand He is the merciful. The religious community gathered together by Moses at Sinai was to reflect the nature of God and so to become the conscience of the people. The moving power was to be gratitude for deliverance, and hope of further deliverance.
We find amongst the Babylonians also a legislation attributed to the deity, graven in stone, in the code of laws of Hammurabi (fig. 132 f.).1 Joshua also appears to have founded his judgments upon codified laws engraven on stone ; Joshua viii. 32.1 2 The moral requirements set out in the Babylonian texts are contained in collective prohibitions, which include the second and third to tenth commandments. The second commandment even has its Babylonian counterpart; see pp. 227, i., n. 1 ; 228, i.
1   The block (fig. 133) is 2\ metres high. The five lower columns have been scratched out by the Elamites who captured the stele. The replacement by an Elamite inscription has been, for some unknown reason, left undone. The text can be partly supplemented from ancient transcripts. The block is in .the form of a phallus. We drew attention to the same custom with the boundary stones in Roscher, Lex., iii. pr. 66. The picture represents the investiture of Hammurabi with the ring and staff by the Sun-god; see p. 61, n. I. H. Winckler gives in Die Geietze Hammurabis, 1904, a handy edition of the text, with transcription and translation. Other works on the subject are also noted there. D. H. Muller’s hypothesis about a primeval law from which the H. C. as well as the civil legislation of the Israelites originates, is not ready for any judgment to be pronounced upon it.
2   It is otherwise in Joshua xxiv. 26 f., where the laws were written in a book ; only after that a stone was erected.
107
108 ISRAELITE AND BABYLONIAN LEGISLATION
We also find evidence of the consecration of feast-days by prayer and praise. It is true the motives are different to those of the Mosaic law. In Babylonia the appeal to religious experience is missing, of which the first principle is grateful worship of God. The pessimistic temper of the Babylonian poets (pp. 228, i. fE) laments the absence of such experience. And for the rest, the
 
FIG. 132.—Hammurabi receiving the laws from the Sun-god. Scene on the upper part of the block of diorite. Comp. fig. 133.
law of love to his neighbour and the control of envy and , selfishness are absent.1
In what character were the laws on the tables of stone written ? In Exod. xxxii. 16 (Elohist, the more ancient source): God himself engraved the writing; in Deut. xxvii. 8: Moses wrote the laws upon the the tables. According to the discoveries of the Amarna period it is to be assumed that Moses
1   But comp. p. 112, n. 2. Upon this subject, see J. Jeremias, Moses und Hammurabi, 2nd ed., 54. For corresponding laws in the Egyptian Book of the Dead, see Leist, Grdko-italische Rechtsgeschichte, pp. 758 fif.
THE CODE OF HAMMURABI
109
wrote in Babylonian cuneiform. When Isa. viii. 1 calls the Hebrew alphabetic writing “ the writing of a man11 in antithesis to the cuneiform,1 it shows that the cuneiform character was held to be hieratic in Isaiah^s time and was still in use. The expression in Exod. xxxii.
16 might then be a paraphrase for “cuneiform writing.”
THE ETHICS OF THE HAMMUIIAHI CODE 1 2
The foundation of political life is the family, the clan, with the father as head.
The family rests upon monogamy. The acceptance of a secondary wife and the allowance of concubines is legally regulated, see pp. 34 ff. That marriage between brother and sister was permitted may be concluded e silentio; marriages between parent and child, also with stepchildren and children- in-law, are strictly forbidden.
The marriage follows upon a contract of marriage through the buying of the bride, the bridegroom giving a present to the father, paying the price of a wife,3 and receiving the dowry. The wife is the property of the husband. He may sell her, or force her to work, for a fault. If the wife transgresses, she is sent away. Divorce is easy. It is enough for the man to say, “Thou art not my, wife.”4 If there are sufficient grounds for separation, the man says:   “I divorce
thee.” He need not then restore what she brought with her, he may even retain her as a servant (H.C., 141). The wife can also obtain separation on account of ill-natured neglect, and
 
FIG. 133.—Block of dio- rite containing the laws of Hammurabi.
1   Thus Winckler, F., iii. 164 ff. ; Krit. Shriften, ii. 116.
2   Agreeing essentially with J. Jeremias, Moses und Hammurabi, 2nd ed., Leipzig, J. C. Hinrichs, 1903. Here also the noticeable points of agreement in the book of the collection of laws (Exod. xxi.-xxiii.) with the H.C. are presented and elucidated. Compare further, Ottli, Has Gesetze Hammurabis und die Thora Israels, Leipzig, 1903 ; D. H. Muller, Die Gesetze Hammurabis, Vienna, 1903. For the complete understanding of the picture, in some passages the definitions of Ancient-Babylonian civil law, attested in other places, are given (see Meiszner, A.B., xi.).
3   tirhdtu, the mohar of the Ancient Israel law ; see p. 38.
4   See Kohler and Peiser, loc. cit., 120.
110 ISRAELITE AND BABYLONIAN LEGISLATION
on account of legally determined neglect (H.C., 142). Banishment of the man under some circumstances nullifies the marriage (H.C., 136). A wife’s adultery is punished by death by drowning of both parties; the husband may forgive the wife, the king may forgive the adulterer; comp. p. 69, n. 4.
About children’s education there are no legal regulations in the H. C. The regulations about adoption are very ample. It occurred not only in childless marriages, but often with the object of being taken into a certain guild of handicraft (H.C., 188 IF.). Transgression against the authority1 of the father was heavily punished. It was followed by expulsion of the child from the relationship, but, as in Deut. xxi. 18 f., only upon legal decision (H.C., 168).
Slavery follows upon capture in war, and through breach of civil law or by law of punishment. The law of slavery is stern and dreadful. The slave is a thing, and his lord has the power of life and death over him.1 2 Service for crime expired by the H.C. in four years (H.C. 117).3 The crime was then considered in all cases as worked out. Against personal injury the foreign slave, at any rate, was protected : injury to him meant injury to the laws of property;
As property, the law gave protection to goods, honour, and life ; sharraq iddak, “the thief shall be killed” (H.C., 7).4 Calumniators were punished. Anyone breaking a betrothal, by denunciation of the bridegroom, might not marry the maiden whose bridegroom he had vilified (H.C., l6l; what wisdom!). Special punishment is threatened for false witness before the judge (H.C., 3 f.; comp. Deut. xix. 15). Of capital crime only the instigation to husband murder is mentioned (H.C., 153).
The punishments are gruesome: death; the H.C. has ten variations of mutilation.5
T

[Prometheus]

alio (repayment) rules the laws of punishment in the H.C. In
1   Not because it was a breach of piety, as J. Jeremias takes it. The disobedient son has injured the rights of property of the father. The H.C. is silent about the mother. “Thou shalt know thy father and thy mother ” says the law of Moses. Making the mother equal illustrates the higher level, as does the promise of the blessing of continued inheritance.
2   Also in the book of laws the slave is keseph, but his life and health are protected.
3   Comp. Exod. xxi. 2 ; Lev. xxv. 40 ; Deut. xv. 12 ; and Jer. xxxiv. 8 ff. : six years, in any case only till the year of Jubilee. Upon the social progress shown here, see p. ill, n. 3.
4   Stern punishment, as in the Ancient-Germanic laws, passing on also into the “modern time” (for instance, under James I. in England). The shape of the number 7 of the law—so say the old popular preachers—shows the picture of the gallows. The thief was hanged.
5   The Thora only speaks once of cutting off the hand, in one special crime (Deut. xxv. 12); this is an accidentally retained remnant of ancient gruesome custom. Upon the loss of an eye for undutifulness in a son (H. C., 193), compare the figurative speech in Prov. xxx. 17,
ETHICS OF THE CODE OF HAMMURABI 111
the same words as in the H.C. (for example, 196 f., 200), we meet with talio in whole divisions of the Thora : an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a bone for a bone. But in every case there is here, with the single exception of the murder before mentioned, a compensation allowed, an abatement of the talio by penance or by fine.1 The law of Mishna is allowed by the change, often seen in the Thora also, of the retributory punishment into a fine, dictated by the injured party.
Vengeance for blood is already overcome in the H.C.,2 not however by moral, but by social progress;3 the political power safeguarded legal rights.
The measure of guilt is in the H.C. only the degree of injury to property.4 For an unsuccessful operation a doctor’s hand was cut off (H.C., 218). The injury arising from a breach of the law is called arnu, whilst the objective injury is called tyititu; see p. 225, i. But there is a disposition to a higher conception of law to be seen in the differentiation between wilful and unpremeditated physical injury, H.C., 206 (the same disposition in the law of the book of the covenant, Exod. xxi. 18 ff.).
As evidence they allowed, together with the word of witnesses and oath, the judgment of God. The defendant had to undergo the ordeal by water.5
1   Compare with this n. 3, below.
2   In the Thora revenge for bloodshed is still in evidence (see Judges viii. 18-21, and comp. 2 Sam. xxi. 1-4), but it is mitigated by the law of sanctuary (Joshua xx.) and by the religious fundamental law that Yahveh is the proper avenger. According to Deut. xxvii. 24, it appears to be a family matter to exercise the right of avenging bloodshed.
3   This social progress is shown also by the before-mentioned change of talio into penance. According to the ruling conception of justice, the idea of talio originates in a time before the State ruled over the family, and the court for broken laws was the family feud (comp, vengeance for bloodshed). The talio is, as E. Jeremias informs us, a first ingenious attempt to find a just measure of punishment, which we are still searching out to-day. In the same way the development of the law upon slavery mentioned at p. 110 is a step of social, but not necessarily moral, progress, in regard to which it must be borne in mind that (for instance, in Rome) the estate of slavery was not of political unimportance. The legal form on the monuments, slave = goods, does not preclude their otherwise good treatment in the patriarchal age. Wife, son, and daughter were also placed under the absolute power of the paterfamilias.
4   In the Thora the offence against the divinity decides the measure.
5   See Winckler, Cod. Hamm., p. 9, n. 4. Ordeal by water in cases of adultery also in H. C., 132 ; see id., p. 38, n. 2. The Israelite law recognised the judgment of God by the accursed water, Numb. v. 15 ff. (compare the Tractat Sotar, which treats of the ordeal of the bitter water for those suspected of adultery), and by judgment by lot, Exod. xxii. 8, and elsewhere. See Kohler and Peiser, loc. cit., 132. In Exod. xxxii. 20 the people were made to drink water mixed with metal dust (J) Whoever escaped with his life was held to be blameless. That is the meaning. The experience was different in the E. Exod. xxxii. 26 : Let those who
112 ISRAELITE AND BABYLONIAN LEGISLATION
Humane dispositions show in H.C., 32 : deliverance of a prisoner by his own people ; H.C., 48 : remittance of taxes in bad harvests ; H.C,, 116 : protection of life and limb to prisoners for debt.
For the rest an absence of ethics must be granted. There is no respect of individuals, except where the paterfamilias comes in question, whose property may not be injured. Together with this the tribal feeling is strongly marked.1
The essential differences2 to the Israelite Thora are the following:—
1.   There is no control of lust.
2.   There is no limitation of selfishness through altruism.
3.   There is nowhere to be found the postulate of charity.
4.   There is nowhere to be found the religious motif which recognises sin as the destruction of the people because it is in opposition to the fear of God.
In the H.C. every trace of religious thought is absent; behind the Israelite law stands everywhere the ruling will of a holy God, it bears throughout a religious character.
BIBLICAL-BABYLONIAN RELATIONSHIP IN THE SACRIFICIAL RITUAL3
Also in the phenomenon most peculiar to the religious life, in the essence of the sacrifice, parallel phenomena show themselves between the Babylonian and the Biblical Thora. But it is exactly in this point that it is shown that Israel followed its own and a higher way.
belong to God come unto me ! The others were slain. The Slavs also have fire and water ordeals ; see Grimm, Deutsche Rechtsaltertiimer, 933 ff. Amongst the Greeks we find passing through the flames and over red-hot iron ; Soph., Antiq., 264. There is the same judgment of God, for instance, amongst the Dshagga negroes. There is also evidence of it amongst many other people ; compare Wilutzky, Vorgeschichte des Rechts, 1903. Trial by ordeal also held good in tfie Christian era. In the Middle Ages it was sanctioned by the Church from the eighth century ; see Augusti, Denk7naler der Christl. Archaologie, 10.
1   Still so in the East. However much separate branches of a family may hate each other, in the family confederacy there is no breach of law.
2   In the 1 st edition we would have spoken of “ want of.” Justice demands
that it should be pointed out that the Thora presents both law and religious ethics in one ; the Decalogue, for example, contains rules, not criminal laws, whilst the H. C. deals only with legal directions.   ^
3   Comp. J. Jeremias, Die Kultustafel voti Sippar, Leipzig, 1889 (Dissert, with appendix), and article “ Ritual ” in Encycl. Bibl.; Ii. Zimmern, K. A. T., 3rd ed., 594 ff. ; P. Haupt, “Babylonian Elements in the Levitic Ritual, S.-A.,” from Journal of Biblical Literature, 1900.
SACRIFICIAL RITUAL
113
Biblical.
minhd, “gift.”
korbdn (P.C.), sacrificial gift (profane, alms; comp. Mark vii. 11). * tamid (offering bound as to time and duty).
nidaba.
nit, “offering”3 menakkit, offering cup, from np3, “ to be emptied.” rrirr*? ntos> to offer to Yahveh (properly speaking, “ to perform ”).
tabah.
’ /v
-IQ3, expiate, originally, to cleanse.
shelem.
1.   Names
Babylonian-Assyrian.
Corresponds to shurkinu, which possibly does not mean “altar,” but “donation.” 1
Identical with kirbannu; without further evidence it cannot be compared with kitrubu, but, on the contrary, with kurrubu, to present (offering).
Corresponds essentially to sattukku, properly speaking, “ the constant ” or ginu^ “ the privilege.” Both the expressions denote the yearly, monthly, seldom daily Temple gifts.
There is not a corresponding nindabu. The Assyrian nindabu, “ offering of bread,”2 must be kept apart etymologically.
zibu (seldom, for example, V. R. 3, 112).
naku, properly speaking, to outpour, to present a libation, but also used of the sacrifice, especially of the sheep.4
epeshu, to offer, properly speaking, to perform ; for example, epesh nikeia nadan zlbe-ia.
tabafru, “ to slay.”
kuppurn “ to cover,” then “ wipe off,” “refine,” “cleanse” (substantive tak- pirtu, technical term for the ritual of expiation).5
= shalamu, shalammu in the contracts.
1   Zimmern, HT.A.T., 3rd ed., 595, surely “oblation,” from sharaku, “to cover with ” (the censer).
2   The ideogram signifies “bread of Ishtar” ; see Jer. vii. 18.
3   The Assyrian bil niki, “ sacrifice^ ” corresponds word for word with the mrVjn upon the sacrificial tablet of Marseilles ; Corp. Inscr. Sem., i. 165.
4   Comp. 1 Sam. vii. 6, where the libation plays an important part; 2 Sam. xxiii. 13-17 ; 1 Chron. xi. 15-19. The Priestly Code does not recognise the libation.
5   Comp. Zimmern, Beitrage, 92 ; Hehn, B.A., vi. 373.
VOL. II.
8
114 ISRAELITE AND BABYLONIAN LEGISLATION
2.   Sacrificial Material
In Israel cattle and the produce of agriculture were offered, but in Babylonia also other vegetables,1 karanu, kurunnu, wine, must; shikaru, fermented wine (comp. Numb, xxviii. 7) prepared from corn, and dates, or honey and dates; dispu, honey;
hemetu, butter; shamnu, oil; suluppu, dates ; tabtu, salt (originally incense).
It is to be^ noted upon the twelve loaves of showbread that also, according to the Babylonian texts of ritual,1 2 twelve loaves, or 3x12 loaves, were laid before the deity, of which it is said that they must be made with fine flour, and that they must be akal mutki,
i.e. sweet.
As sac?ifice for blood lambs FIG. 134,-AUa^out of the palace   sheep (shuu, Hebrew Hip),
goats (Jbutyadu and others),bullocks (gumafyhu) and gazelles (sabitu) are named amongst the Babylonians. Of birds : doves, hens, and others.
Preferably yearlings were sacrificed : apif or marat shatti, as in the Priestly Code, rnttTp. Also two-, three-, and four-year- old animals. The sacrificial beast must be healthy, and without physical blemish: rabu, dushshu, maru. Above all, it must be “clean”: ettu, ebbu (Biblical D^pn). In the haruspicium the (not obligatory) choice of defective animals was not to influence the oracle,3 just as in the free-will offering of the Priestly Code (Lev. xxii. 23) defective animals were allowed.
As a rule the sacrifice was a male ; but there are examples of
1 Seldom in Israel: wine, Numb. xv. 5, xxviii. 7, 1 Sam. i. 24; oil, Gen. xxxv. 14, Mic. vi. 7. The sacrifice of incense (see Ezek. viii. 1 ff.) is only recognised in the P. Isaiah inveighs against it, and in Isa. lxv. 3 names Babylonia as its home ; its proper home, notwithstanding, is South Arabia.
2   Comp. Zimmern, Beitrage, 94 ff.
3   Comp. Knudtzon, Gebete an den Sonnengott; in addition, Zimmern, Beitrage ; index, see about shal&mu.
 
SACRIFICIAL RITUAL
115
feminine animals, for example, on the inscription of Sennacherib at Bavian, 33. In purification feminine animals were certainly always employed.1
The sacrifice was boiled (comp. 1 Sam. ii. 14) or burnt.2
3.   Place, Time, and Preparation of the Sacrifice The sacrifice was voluntary, chiefly on public occasions and at festivals. Tiglath-Pileser VII., 16, speaks of a yearly sacrifice, like 1 Sam. xx. 6. The contracts often speak of daily sacrifices. Upon the sacrifice on the seventh day (an example p. 200, i.), compare Exod. xxix. 38 fl*. In Babylon, at least in relatively late times, the preparation of the sacrifice was
 
FIG. 135. —Assyrian sacrificial scene on an obelisk, from Nimrud-Kalach (palace of Assurbanipal). To the left the court of justice in the gateway.
exclusively made by the priest. Even the king needed his mediation. In Assyria the king was high priest and sacrificer.3
Upon the priest’s portion compare J. Jeremias, Kultustafel von Sippar, pp. 19 f. Particulars as to the spotlessness of the priest (comp. Lev. xxi. 21) are given in the Enmeduranki text, Zimmern, Beitr., 116 ff., translated K.A.T., 3rd ed., 534.
4.   Idea of the Sacrifice
As the earth brings her tribute to her overlord (comp. IV. R. 20, Obv. 22 ff.), so the offerer brought his tribute. The divinity is represented as tasting the meat-offerings; comp. Deluge text,
1   Haupt, Nimr. Ep., xliv. 60. The introductions to sacrificial hymns often speak of a feminine animal {Id pitil). Compare with this Numb. xv. 27, where, as sin-offering for one person, a year-old she-goat is demanded.
2   The parts of the sacrifice are named in List II. R. 44, 1-5 ef\ 14-18 gh; comp. J. Jeremias, Die Kultustafel von Sippar.
3   Comp. p. 200, i., and the contracts, which often name the sacrifice by the kingland the crown prince.
116 ISRAELITE AND BABYLONIAN LEGISLATION
line 151 ;x in Gen. viii. 21 ; Deut. xxxiii. 10b there is still an echo of this presentment, see p. 267, i.
Near the sacrificer in the pictures stands the prayer-maker. The sacrifice is to incline the divinity in favour of the giver;
 
FIG. 136.—Assurbanipal makes an offering over slain lions. Relief from palace in Kouyunjik.
 
FIG. 137.—Drink-offering with music over slain lions. Relief from palace of Ashurnazirpal.
comp. 1 Sam. xiii. 12. “The gods rejoice over the repast” it is said in Esarhaddon’s inquiries of the Sun-god. Compare with this Deut. xii. 7.
But the thought of atonement is not absent. The technical term is kuppuru, “to expiate” (Hebrew “1B3 ; see p. 113). In
1   ‘ ‘ They smelled the sweet fragrance, and swarmed like flies round the sacrifices.”
SACRIFICIAL RITUAL
117
the New-Babylonian contracts alap taptiri is spoken of, “ bullock of unloosening (?)”; comp. Lev. iv. 3. Of DtDN and riNttn there is no trace in Babylonian. The conception of a religious community such as appears in the Israelite, and also in the ancient Arabian sacrifice, is unknown to the Babylonian.1
5.   Purifications
The thought at the root of purification is, that the thing that is pure has sympathetic power to communicate its own
 
FlO. 138.—Sacrificial scene, after Layard, Monuments of Nineveh.
quality. Together with water, there is cleansing power in wine, honey, butter, salt, cedar wood (IV. R. 16, 32; V. R. 51, 15; comp. Lev. xiv. 4), cypress wood, palm wood, and all kinds of frankincense. To the 11 ion inp of Jer. vi. 20 kanu tabu exactly corresponds. The “ scapegoat ” was sent into the wilderness; Lev. xvi. 8, comp. Enoch x. 4.2 In Babylonian the desert is called ashru ellu, uclean place”; IV. R. 8, 43b, and elsewhere. This may be understood euphemistically of the desert as the place of demons. In Jos., Ant., iii., 10. 3, the goat to be burned is sent ei$ KaSapwrarov.3 Contact with the dead and sexual
1   Upon the question of human sacrifices, see pp. 348, i., and 441.
2   See Lev. xvi. 8.
'3 The wilderness was also by the Jews thought the dwelling-place of the demons. In Tobit viii. 3 Asmodceus is sent into the wilderness (“to Egypt,” see p. 195, i.). Passages of authentic proof from the Talmud in Nork, Rabb. Quellen, lxxxiv. and 19. In Matt. iv. the desert is the dwelling-place of
118 ISRAELITE AND BABYLONIAN LEGISLATION
impurity was cleansed amongst the Babylonians as in Israel,
IV.   R. 26, No. 5.1
In food also there was clean and unclean. V. R. 48 f. forbids fish upon the 9th Ijjar, pork upon 30th Ab, pork and veal upon 27th Tishri, dates upon 10th Marheshvan, intercourse with women upon 25th Ijjar, 29th Kislev, and 6th Tebet.
In the Babylonian ritual texts IV. R. 4, 26; 59, No. 2, Rev.
xiv., uncleanness may be taken away by a bird; just as in Lev. xiv. 4. The regulations specified in Lev. xiv. in regard to cleansing of lepers, which are to be esteemed throughout as not religious, but civil, agree with the Babylonian ritual: cedar- wood, wool, and hyssop, likewise the sprinkling seven times, and the crowning point of the ceremonies in the offering of the lamb.
MINAEAN ELEMENTS IN THE MOSAIC RITUAL
We recognised in the prince of Midian, Jethro (Reguel),2 a “ Minaean from Muzri.”3 According to Exod. xviii. 19 ff. he took a decided part in the fundamental laws established by Moses.4 If we may assume that their cult at Sinai agrees in any way with that of the Israelites, then it is of importance that the Minaean and Sabaean inscriptions show a number of technical terms which recur in the Mosaic cult:—
(«) From the Minaean inscriptions, the Midian of the Bible (el Ola), we have :
Lawi'u and lawi at, priest and priestess. Note in regard to this that in Exod. iv. 14 Aaron, who receives the hereditary priesthood,
the devil. Compare also Luke iv. I f. : “ driven into the desert, tempted by the devil.” Mark i. 13 : “and was with the wild beasts,” by which perhaps is to be understood demoniacal monsters.
1   =Cun. Texts, xvii. 41 ; and see ibid., p. 38.
2   In the Jewish legends, Beer, Leben Mosis, p. 56, he has seven names. According to the inscriptions, Minaean priests repeatedly bear two names ; see Nielsen, Die altarabische Mondreligion. The Sabaeans, who must be held as heirs of the Minaean civilisation, use related names upon their inscriptions ; see pp. 286, i. f., Dim, and others.
3   The northern Minaeans are thus called by the South Arabian texts: Ma'an Muzran.
4   See M.VA.G., 1901, 29. It was already to be concluded from this that it could not be treating of a “Bedouin.” Moses would certainly not have allowed himself to be instructed by such an one. According to the Jewish fable (Beer, loc. cit., p. 60), Jethro had formerly been an expert in hieroglyphic writing and a counsellor at the Egyptian court. He was banished from the court like Sinuhe (p. 325, i.) and like Moses himself.
MINiEAN ELEMENTS IN THE MOSAIC RITUAL 119
is designated as Levite. The Ancient-Israel cult also certainly recognised women Levites, who were abolished later in consequence of improprieties: Sennacherib, amongst special gifts of tribute paid to him from Jerusalem, names musicians and women musicians; see p. 223. These must surely be musicians of the Temple,
Maslam altar = place of the Shalem sacrifice ?
Dedication of bashshala (that is to say, boiling the meat offering ?) ; see under Sabaean mabshal. The years are reckoned here, as occasionally with jthe Sabaeans, according to Kabiren (kabir), i.e. high priests.1
(b) From the Sabaean inscriptions in Harim, which belonged to the former Minaean Jowf:
Hal. 156, comp. 151, the Sun-goddess Dat-Himaj, i.e. “Mistress of the sacred enclosure” (Hommel, G.G.G., 144).
Bronze tablet Gl, 1054 (Vienna Hofmuseum): “because upon the third day of the feast, and in addition whilst she was unclean, a man had approached her” ; comp. Exod. xix. 15 (Hommel, G.G.G., 144, who in addition mentions the following parallels):
Tannahoja, “he brought thank-offering” (comp. Hebrew nmp ?); mabshal, sanctuary (that is to say, place, where the meat-offering was boiled ? comp. Ezek. xlvi. 23).
Ahdar, “ courts of sacrifice ” (comp. Hebrew haser, fore-court), makanat (sacrificial vessels) (fig. 178, p. 232, Hai. 485, Gl. 1076), the mekonah of 1 Kings vii. 27 ff.; Jer. lii, 17 ff.; comp, ken, Exod. xxx. 18, amongst others, the placing of the layer in the fore-court.
Ahlaj, probably the sweet-bread; Hebrew, halldt.
1 Compare with this, Grimme* Lit. Rundschau, 1904, 347,
/
CHAPTER XX
“THE TABERNACLE OF COVENANT” AND “ARK OF
THE COVENANT”1
(Exod. xxv.-xxxi.)
THE editor of the Pentateuch joins on to the events occurring at Sinai an account of the sanctuary founded at Sinai.2
1   We deal rather more fully with this than might appear to correspond to the design of the book, because the matter is a central point of interest. In opposition to the book by M. Dibelius, Die Lade Jahve's, 1906 (and the works quoted there), and the deductions agreeing with it, by Gunkel, Ztschr.f. Missionsw. und Religionsw., 1906, is Budde’s treatise in Theol. Stud. u. Kril., 1906, 489 ff., in which he rejects, in his clear and distinguished style, departures from the prevailing dogmas. Dibelius shows a sound sense of the ancient elements. But the school to which his method belongs uses provisionally only details of the uniform Ancient- Oriental conception. A review of the whole material would upset the method. The critical supposition of Dibelius differs, in so far as he reverts to the historical existence of the ark and the Tabernacle in Israel, from the prevailing judgment of Vatke in the year 1835 (later withdrawn by its author), that “we are justified in explaining the accounts of the Mosaic Tabernacle and ark as fiction, composed later, following the pattern of the Temple, the type of which they wished to derive from Moses, and from Jehovah Himself” {Religion des A.T., p. 333). But they are supposed to have nothing to do with the Mosaic cult. They were invented or adopted in Canaan. This at least breaks away from the view according to which the ark originally served a fetish-worshipping cult (p. 130, i.). The hypothesis of its being a fiction of the Priestly Code—against which, for example, Kittel also pronounced in his Geschichte der Hebrder, i. 216—must have been already confounded by the circumstance that the second Temple, which served for the new community, had no ark in the sanctuary, as also, according to Jer. iii. 16, there was no compensation provided for its absence in this sanctuary.
2   See upon the following, Klostermann’s critical examinations, Pentateuch, ii. 1906, 67 ff. Ib., p. 67 (comp. i. 15 ff., 1883, Gesch. Isr., 76): “ The Pentateuch, as the authoritative book of a community, has undergone various redactions, in the course of which obscure passages have been rewritten in an intelligible manner, and troublesome discrepancies have been reconciled.” Upon, the whole subject compare now my article on “Urim und Tummim ” in Hilprecht’s Anniversary Volume, 223 ff.
120
THE TENT OF MEETING
121
The “ God of their fathers,” to whose place of revelation on the mountain of God the Hebrews had journeyed, was next to be present with the people in a tent sanctuary, and to make His will known, after He had shown Himself as the God of Deliverance by the rescue from Egypt, and had established His divine rule over the people by codified laws upon tables of stone.   i
Moses learned the law of God in visionary events, upon the holy mountain of God, and saw in spirit the pattern for the sanctuary of the future sacramental presence of God. The revelation links itself on to a fundamental idea of the Oriental religious conception, according to which every sanctuary is a copy of the heavenly sanctuary. We spoke of this at pp. 57, i. ff.1 Moses was to build the sanctuary after the heavenly model. Exod. xxv. 9 : “ exactly according to the pattern JTDin of the dwelling, and all its furniture, that I shew thee (have shown), so shall ye make it ” ; comp. xxv. 40, referring to ark, table, lights, and altar of incense :2 “ see that thou make them after their pattern which hath been shewed thee.”
The divine address, Exod. xxv. 1 ff., which gives the instructions for carrying out the building, presupposes a relation of the corresponding vision on the mountain, which has been dropped out of the text before us. The carrying out of the building is entrusted to expert workmen, to whom Yahveh “bad given insight,” Exod. xxxi. 1 ff., xxxvi. 1. No word is to be overlooked as to the possibility of constructive building in Midian.3
The sanctuary was called ’ohel mo‘ed, “tent of meeting” (Sept. crKrjvr] TOV fJLapTvplov), and in general mrr ptDD,4 “dwelling-place of Yahveh.” These are two names for the same thing. The particular name ’ohel mo‘ed is established by
1   Comp. B.N. T62 ff.; further, Acts vii. 44.
2   Exod. xxv. 38 is, as Klostermann has proved, the remnant of the directions for. building the altar of incense. The sacrificial altar also corresponds to a heavenly pattern, previously shown upon the mountain ; Exod. xxvii. 8, comp, xxvi. 30.
3   Gunkel (loc. cit.) also holds, in opposition to Dibelius, the composition in the Mosaic period.
4   Compare also Joshua xviii. 1, xxii. 19. Both designations parallel, for example, Numb. iii. 38.
122 TABERNACLE AND ARK OF THE COVENANT
Moses, according to Exod. xxxiii. 7, because the oracle of Yahveh would be communicated therein: “ Everyone which sought to inquire of Yahveh, went out to the ’ohel mo‘ed without the camp.”
1Ohel mo^d means “ tent of meeting.” The Israelites may, in connection with this, have thought of the assembly of the people, as the great festivals were called D'HSD.1 But the
 
FIG. 139.—Seal cylinder, vessel of the gods showing the throne of God (Sun-god travelling over the sea ?).
historical origin of the name (likewise of har mo^d, Isa. xiv. 14 : Zion as earthly copy of the heavenly mountain) lies in the Oriental conception of the heavenly or earthly sanctuary in which the gods assemble for the purpose of the ordering of Fate: 1ohel mo^d is, properly speaking, “tent of meeting” (for the purpose of ordering Fate).
In the ’ohel mo^ed stood, according to P, in the first place (Exod. xxx. 26), the “ark ” mm rran fTlN (Sept. $ KIPOOTOS rou
1 Exod. xl. 34 explains the name : because God may be found here according to agreement.
THE ARK
m
/jLaprvplov1), made of acacia wood, “ the only wood for building that there was upon Sinai,”1 2 which, besides, was held to be “wood of life.”3 It contained the table of the covenant (rmn nrrfc, also called simply mn, “ covenant ”),4 Deut. x. 1 ff.5 We do not doubt that these assertions of the Pentateuch correspond to historical truth from Sinai onwards. The statutes of God, written upon the tables of stone, correspond to the Tables of Fate which were written at the Assembly of the Gods in the Babylonian dwelling of Fate.6 In the procession of Marduk, to whom the Tables of Fate (tup-shimdti) were lent, a sort of pix (parak shimati; comp, the casket, fig. % ff'.) was carried out from Dul-azagga in Esagila to the sacrificial or marriage house, in a sacred boat;7 Hommel conjectures that in this parak8 shimati the tup-shimdti (Tables of Fate as heavenly laws) were preserved, like the tables of the law in the ark. It seems to us as though our text betrays an ancient terminology, according to which the ark with the tables was also called in the Mosaic cult pamkku (pparoket), Is it possible that in Numb, xxxiv. 3 paroket ha-'eduth corresponds directly
1   2 Sam. vii. 2, vi. 7, according to which the ark was from the beginning in the tent, are not valid for argument, because they have been revised in accordance with Deuteronomy.
2   Upon the hypothesis of fiction this passes naturally as a refinement of the poem, like the circumstance that “ bronze ” is current in P instead of iron. That is a purely modern idea.
3   Sept. £i\ov &<nj7rTor, and Exod. xxvi. 32, etc., (TT6\OI &<rt}irToi, pillars of acaqia wood. According to Kircher, CEdip. ALgypt., iii. c. 2, it was sacred to the Sun-god in Egypt.
4   Comp. 1 Kings viii. 9, and see Klostermann’s commentary upon this passage.
5   The tables are also called “ tables of the 5eduth,” Exod. xxxii. 15 ( = tables of
the berith, Deut. ix. 15).   ’Eduth are the written established witnesses of the
divine will; in Joshua iv. 16 the ark as the chest built for the tables of stone is called “ ark of the   ’Eduth would convey to the people the same idea as
moled; see Klostermann, loc. cit., 69.
6   Comp. p. 50, i. For the present we conditionally withdraw the conjecture in connection with this, stated in A. T.A.O., 1st ed., pp. 262 f., upon the arrangement of the Decalogue according to the planets (joining with Winckler’s remarks, Krit. Schr., ii. 65), till a later clearer confirmation.
7   According to a communication of Hommel’s from an unprinted essay designed for the Expository Times, in which the relationship of the ark of the tables of the law with that of the tup-shimdti, probably containing the parak shimdti, will be pointed out.
8   Syrian, perakka, “ shrine for the idol.”
124 TABERNACLE AND ARK OF THE COVENANT
to the Babylonian parole shimati ? Then Exod. xxvii. 21 should be judged the same way. As in that case to the altar of incense,1 so in this the candlesticks would be placed near to the ark in the sanctuary.2 The ark, however, was not only the receptacle for the tables of stone, but it was held symbolic of the throne of Yahveh. This is shown quite clearly by Jer. iii. 16 f.: “In those days the ark with the law of Yahveh shall be no more remembered; much more at that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of Yahveh.” And this corresponds also to what we must expect from the Oriental conception in the midst of which the cult arose. It was therefore a religious vessel which represented a heavenly microcosmos (see pp. 49, i. If.). Klostermann has convinced us that in the symbolism of the cult, by the ark they were not, in the first place, treating of the throne itself, but of the footstool of the throne.3 In Exod. xxiv. 10 Moses and his companions behold the God of Israel upon his throne upon the mountain of God: 44 at his feet was a pavement of sapphire stone, and as it were the very heaven for clearness.” If the record of the vision were complete, we should have a description of the divine throne upon the mountain, corresponding to the throne in the 'ohel mo^ed. The kapporet of the ark corresponds to the footstool described. A corresponding religious vessel is the cover (raqia4) of the merkaba which comes out of the north as the chariot-throne of God in Ezekiel; comp. Ezek. i. 22: 44 Over the head of the creature was the likeness of a raqia4, gleaming like crystal.” It is, besides, to be carefully noted that in Chronicles the cherubim which cover
1   Which belongs to the fragments of the ancient cult of the ’ohel mo‘ed; see
p. 121.
2   In Exod. xxvi. 34 the Sept, has kapporet, the Hebrew text paroket. In Exod. xxx. 6 the Sept, says : “ before the paroket, which covers the ark.” The Hebrew text adds to it as duplicate : “ before the kapporet, which covers the ark.” Also here paroket (“curtain,” or the “dividing”) possibly denoted in the original text the sacred shrine. There exists an etymological, but possibly also religious, connection with parakku,
3   Klostermann, loc. cit., p. 73. Comp. Ps. cxxxii. 7:   “Let us go into his
dwelling-place, and fall before his footstool ; arise, Yahveh, into thy resting-place, thou and thy mighty ark.” Ezek. xliii. 7 : “ Hast thou seen the place of my throne, and the place of the soles of my feet?” 1 Chron. xxviii. 2, the ark appears as the “ footstool” of Yahveh (ver. 18 calls the cherubim, which cover the adyton in the Temple, merkaba, as the cherubim chariot throne in Ezek. i. is called).
THE ARK
125
the ark in the Temple are called The source of Chronicles recognised the connection between the throne of God, the ark, and the divine chariot-throne in Ezekiel.1 But even if the cover of the ark was held to be the step of the throne, yet that is only pars - pro toto. The decoration of the ark is that of the divine throne. And in Exod. xxv. 22 and Numb. vii. 89 the voice of God comes from the “ cover” between the cherubim. In Exod. xxv. 20 figures of cherubim are placed as throne-bearers upon the cover of the ark : “ They shall spread out their wings on high [over the cover], covering the roof, with their faces turned one to another
merkaba (1 Chron. xxviii. 18).
 
FIG. 140.—Sacred shrine from Egypt. Vessel of God (Ohnefalsch- Richter, Kypros, Bibel, und Homer, cxxxviii., No. 3).
: one toward the other1 2 shall
 
FIG. 141.—Cherubim in the zodiacal sanctuary of Dendera. Ohnefalsch-Richter, loc. cit., cxxxviii., No. 2. (Comp. p. 128, n. 1.)
1   The interesting passage from Shemot Rabba, quoted p. 139, n. f, proves that the Rabbis recognised the connection between the sacred throne of God on Sinai, the earthly copy of which, however, was the tent sanctuary, and the merkaba with the four beasts.
2   We have omitted ‘ ‘ towards the seat ” in the first part of the sentence. Thus the unnatural position (bent over the ark) vanishes. “ Towards the seat ” denotes, to our mind, only the position to the seat from the side ; comp. fig. 141.
126 TABERNACLE AND ARK OF THE COVENANT
the faces of the cherubim be turned.” The cherubim are thought of as throne-bearers, as are the merkaba of Ezekiel. Possibly also Klostermann is in the right with his assumption that the conception is that of four cherubim (two cherubim, each with a double face).
^ The ark as a chest, and the kapporet1 as throne, or footstool of the throne, have some logical connection which is no longer recognisable in the symbols of the Mosaic cult. Here the ark is the sacred shrine for the tables of the law. In so far as the ark has to do with the throne, it represented the chest in the Ancient- Oriental myth of the expectation of the .Deliverer (or ship, ship of Isis, ark of the Deluge), in which the future Deliverer is hidden. After the water (winter) is sailed through and the danger is overcome (see the examples, pp. 92 ff.), he enters upon the rulership. The Deliverer rises out of the chest, and the chest becomes the throne upon which the Bringer of the Spring of the Universe sits. We have already referred to Rev. xi. 19, xii. 1 ff. at p. 91 • The seer beholds the ark (KI/3<J)TO<S, as in the Sept, in Exod. xxvii. 21, xxxix. 35, etc.) in the sanctuary. Then he has a vision of the birth of the child of the sun, which is to be threatened by the dragon and hidden in the heavenly sanctuary. Is the throne upon which He sits, Rev. xii. 5, the ark shown in the heavenly sanctuary in Rev. xi. 19 ? The later sources would seem in that case again to show the connections more clearly than the ancient records. But the religious fancy of the old Biblical chronicler perhaps recognised the connections. The ark is called ’aron, like the chest in Gen. 1. 25, in which the body of Joseph was laid, whose figure was endowed with the motifs of the Deliverer myth (Tammuz-Osiris); see p. 67. And in the same way, surely, the body of Jacob, which was embalmed for forty days, and mourned for seventy days (Gen. 1. 2), and over which they held a seven-day-long “ Egyptian mourning ” upon the threshing-floor of Hadad (Gen. 1. 10 f.; see p. 82), would have been placed on the bier in the ’aron. ’Aron corresponds, therefore, to the ark of Tammuz-Osiris. The popular myth embodies the expectation of a Deliverer in Osiris and Tammuz. In this also lies the meaning of the Osiris-Tammuz-Marduk motifs which we found in the stories. We found most clearly the motif of the persecuted and hidden Deliverer in the stories of the childhood of Moses. Like the hidden child of the sun of Rev. xii., he appears after his rescue as dragon-slayer (deliverance out of Egypt; see p. 195., i.). But Moses is only a hero, who acts by the
1   The question would be of importance in regard to the relation of the ark to the throne as to whether the kapporet was held to be the cover of the ark or as an ornament upon the already closed ark. According to Exod. xxv. 17 ff. it formed a separate part, the addition of which was specially commanded. Exod. xxvi. 34, xxxi. 7, etc., it is also mentioned as something special.
THE ARK AS THE OSIRIS-TAMMUZ CHEST 127
commission of God. The Deliverer is God Himself. That He is the God of Deliverance is the meaning of the revelation at Horeb- Sinai. Therefore it is extremely likely that the symbolism of the cult at Sinai would link itself to the requisitions of the myth of the Deliverer. The artists gifted by God with divine insight (p. 121) would have thought of the Osiris-Tammuz chest when they put up the ark, the sacred shrine for the tables of stone. The presupposition of our view is, naturally, that Yahveh Himself bore the features of the heathen Osiris-Tammuz, for the Israelites. This is also very comprehensible; fot in the myths of Tammuz-Osiris a religious truth is hidden : expectation of a divine Deliverer. The people, it is true, would see grosser lines of connection. In pure Yahveh-
 
FIG. 142.—Ship of the sun, in the temple of Wadi Sebua (Lepsius, Denkmaler, iii. 181). Carried by bearers, for example, in the illustration in the atlas in Creuzer’s Symbolik.
religion only the symbol remained, which shows in fine outline the poetic forms of the myth.
We would, quite tentatively, suggest the question whether, in passages like Exod. xxxiv. 23,1 Mai. iii. 1, and Ps. cxiv. 7, ’Adon may not correspond directly to the Phoenician divine name Adonis ( = Tammuz). There is to be no lamentation for Jehoiakim (Jer. xxii. 18): hoy ’adon (Adonis gone down, whose resurrection and victory was awaited ; see pp, 91, i. ff.). On the contrary, Josiah was so lamented, for whom, as Deliverer, they mourned and longed ; see p. 100, i. It is quite conceivable that the divine Deliverer, who revealed Himself in the sanctuary, was called upon by the same name.
Amongst the sculpture from the Ancient-Oriental monuments that may be referred to on the question of the meaning of the ark, the vessels reproduced in figs. 37, 139, 140 come into special considera-
1   Samarit. has it ’ar6n Yahveh.
128 TABERNACLE AND ARK OF THE COVENANT
tion. Fig. 139 appears to us the most important.1 In this one there is a throne borne by figures of beasts on a ship, upon which the divinity sits.1 2 Fig. 143 shows a Babylonian portable throne in a procession of gods. Fig. 141 (cherubim, from Dendera) illustrates for us the position of the wings of the cherubim described in Exod. xxxvii. 9 (comp. pp. 125 f.). Fig. 142 shows an Egyptian sacred mystery casket, standing upon the ship. %
The building of the sanctuary indicates to a certain extent the ceremonial re-establishment on earth of the dwelling-place of God, which was erected when creation was completed and closed when man was driven out of Paradise. The appearance at Horeb showed Moses the throne of God hedged in with thorns and flames; see p. 99. Klostermann3 has shown how the redactor of the story, the author of the Pentateuch, has intended to refer to the connections. The time of building does not last seven years, like the temple of Solomon, nor seven days, like the creation, but seven months.4 The seven times repeated formula: 44as Yahveh commanded Moses,”5 corresponds to the seven acts of creation. The preparation of the materials (Exod. xxxix. 32) is accompanied by words which expressly recall Gen. ii. 1 f. And as God was pleased at the end of His work (Gen. i. 31) and blesses it (Gen. xxviii. 2, 3), so Moses (Exod. xxxix. 43) blesses the master workmen.
Gen. ii. If.: So the heaven and the earth were finished, with their whole host. And on the seventh day God finished his work which he had made.
Exod. xxxix. 32 :   Thus was
finished all the work for the ’ohel mo'ed, and the Israelites did according to all that Yahveh had commanded Moses —so did they.
1   Just this cherubim throne, placed upon a ship which we connected (A.T.A. 0., 1st ed.) with Ezek. i. (merkaba), has been overlooked by Dibelius, from whose book the connection of figs. 140-142, and the hint in fig. 37, were taken.
2   The Sun-god ? Comp. fig. 37.
3   Loc. cit., p. 93.
4   See Klostermann, i. 162 ff., ii. 93.
5   Exod. xl. 19, 21, 23, 25, 27, 29, 32. This seven times repeated form must have corresponded to a sevenfold divine commandment (comp. Exod. xxv. 1, xxx. 11, 17, 22, xxxi. 1, 12, xl. 1). In like manner seven parts in the priest’s garment. Seven parts in the relation of the consecration of the priest, and the first sacrificial acts of the priest; see Klostermann, loc. cit., ii. 95.
THE SANCTUARY AS DIVINE THRONE 129
Gen. i. 31, i. 28, ii. 3: And God saw that everything he had made was very good .... Then God blessed them, and said unto them .... And God blessed the seventh day.
Upon the relation of the Urim ai and the Tree of Knowledge, see p.
sod. xxxix. 43 : But now when Moses saw that they had done the whole work as Yahveh had commanded,, even so had they done it— then Moses blessed them.
Thummim to the Tree of Life
The ark with the cover of cherubim is therefore the place in the 1ohel mo^d where they thought Yahveh was present. When in 1 Sam. iv. 3 ff. the ark of the God of Sabaoth, who is enthroned upon cherubim, is brought into their camp, that was held to be the coming of God into the camp,1 and the story at the end of the chapter (Ichabod) shows that with the loss of the ark, the kabod, the glory of'Yahveh is taken away from Israel.2 The sacramental sanctuary is also called ttTTpn, because it is a place shut off from the rest of the tent. “ Before the tD7p ” is the same as u before the 1eduth ark,” or “ before the ’eduth.”8 The voice of God came from the throne of cherubim, when God revealed Himself and spoke with Moses. The way of approaching the oracle is described in Exod. xxxiii. 7-10, xxxiv. 33-35. The passages are fragments closely connected, which have been scattered. They give the following picture: Yahveh revealed Himself outside the camp. Whosoever would inquire of Yahveh went outside the tents of the camp, before the tent of revelation, and waited the answer. Approach to the oracle was through Moses. When he went out to the performance of religious ceremonies, all the people rose up within the camp and watched him with reverence. As soon as Moses entered the tent, the cloud which, according to Exod. xl. 34, since the completion of the building had covered
1   I Sam. iv. 7 (not a speech of the Philistines), comp. v. 3, where by a gloss the popular expression “our God” ( = ark; compare the verb “he shall go forth,’5 “ he shall save ”) has been obliterated ; see Klostermann in his commentary upon, the passage.
2   1 Sam. iv. 21. See Dibelius, loc cit., pp. 17 f.
3   Klostermann, ii. 72 : “ That this, however, is not the tables of stone, but the ark in its actual form, may be inferred from Exod. xxv. 22 and Numb. vii. 89, where the voice comes from between the cherubim.”
VOL. II.
9
130 TABERNACLE AND ARK OF THE COVENANT
the tent as a sign that Yahveh was to be found there, descended to the entrance of the tent. Within God conversed in person with Moses “ as a man speaketh with his friend.v> Then when Moses returned the Israelites saw “that the skin of Moses’ face shone.” So he covered his face with a veil1 every time he came out of the tent.
The sacred tent formed the templum of the Israelite camp. The camp itself was oriented according to the four points of direction. The ark, together with its dwelling-place, protected the camp, which, in its turn, formed the protection of the ark. As the sanctuary of the Kaaba in Mecca gives us an illustration of the Israelite sanctuary, so the discipline of a Mohammedan camp is still built upon the same fundamental laws. Also the parallel of the camp discipline of the Roman army, described by Polybius, which was probably of Etruscan and therefore of Oriental origin, may be rightly brought into comparison ;1 2 here the temple of the augur, by whose specifications the camp was measured out according to the four points of direction, corresponds to the ’ohel mcfed. The ark was made portable.3 The directions in Exod. xxv. 13 ff. are substantiated by the mention of the bearers in 2 Sam. vi. 13, xv. 24. But the instructions for the carrying of the ark relate only to the transport from the adyton to the chariot, and from the chariot to the adyton, and, in that case, to the use of the ark in processions, for example, as in going round the walls of Jericho (Josh, vi., see pp. 157 f.).4 In the migration from station to station a chariot drawn by oxen was used as means of transport. The draught animals and oxen served the same purpose as the
1   The connection in which the fragment (Exod. xxxiv. 33-35) now stands has led to the erroneous view that Moses ascended Mount Sinai every time, and that the veiling and unveiling were connected with these ascents of the mountain. See p. 62 upon the matter.
2   Klostermann, ii. 144 ; Nissen, Das templum.
3   Budde’s objection [Stud. u. Krit., 1906, 492) to the undignified position given to the enthroned Yahveh, if he sat sideways or even astride when the ark was carried, will be answered by a glance at fig. 143 (compare also fig. 7, p. 16, second god from the left). The throne when carried would be like these.
4   2 Chron. xxxv. 3 also probably refers to carrying in procession : “ Put the holy ark in the temple. ... You need no more carry it upon your shoulders.” It can scarcely be referring to a custom of war ; see Dibelius, loc. cit.t 44.

[Prometheus]

THE ARK AS A DEFENCE
131
wheels of the merkaba in Ezekiel. The cherubim symbolise the throne-bearers, but they could not move.1 In Numb. vii. 3 it is explicitly recorded that the chief of the tribes had to supply oxen and carts for the service of the ’ohel mo^ed. That the transport upon ox-cart corresponded to sacred custom is shown by the treatment of the ark by the Philistines (1 Sam. vi. 7 ff.). They would certainly, in their own interests, have followed with exactitude the ceremonial due to the ark. In Numb. x. 33 it is assumed that the ark went three days’ journey in advance in the migration. Three days’ journey is probably a symbolical
 
FIG. 143.—Assyrian procession of idols. (From Layard, Monuments of Nineveh, i. 65.)
number. But the assumption that they trusted for guidance to the instinct of the animals, for instance, for finding water is very enlightening.1 2
In Numb. x. 35 ff. the liturgical formula is preserved which was/to be pronounced upon leaving for a new station and upon arrival at a new station :3
1   Noeldeke thinks that they thought of the cherubim flying through the air with the ark. This is only possible if the whole thing is taken as fiction.
2   Thus Klostermann; it is also taken thus by Holzinger in his Exodus. Parallel examples are given in Curtiss, Ursemitische Religion. The Weli are erected where the sheep destined for sacrifice lies down. Stucken, loc. cit., 18 f., reminds of the guiding cow of Cadmus, the guiding camels in the ancient Arabian myths (Wellhausen, Skizzen, iii. 147), and the guiding stag in German fables.
3   The technical terms are yoj and nu. Both are motif words. The meaning of yoj, as we have concluded (pp. 19 and 105) from the expression myoo, is decisive in the interpretation (stations, cosmic meaning : stations of the lunar or of the solar cycle).
132 TABERNACLE AND ARK OF THE COVENANT
When the ark set out (to seek a new station) Moses said:
Rise up, Yahveh, that thine enemies may scatter themselves, and they that hate thee may flee before thee.
And when they reached the camping ground he said:
Enclose1 again, Yahveh,
Surround the ten thousand times thousands of Israel.
The idea would be: in the migration the hidden presence of Yahveh in the ark is the protecting guide of the march; in the camp it forms the surrounding protection, as in Zech. ii. 5 f., the Lord “ surrounds Jerusalem like unto a holy wall.”
In the wars of Yahveh the ark was, in like manner, used as a symbol of war. That this was not the rule in ancient times is shown by 1 Sam. iv. 7, where bringing the ark was looked upon as something extraordinary. In 2 Sam xi. 11 this importance in war is presupposed in the wars of David.1 2
The conduct of David also shows that the statements about the tent and the ark in P correspond to historical facts of the past. When he completed the sanctification of Jerusalem by the erection of a sanctuary, he would, no doubt, have acted carefully according to the old traditions. How otherwise could the building of the sanctuary have made the desired impression upon the people ? Already in Samuel’s time the inclination seems to have existed to put a solid building in place of the tent. The sanctuary at Shiloh seems to have been really no longer a simple tent. David reverted to the old tradition, and gave up building a house. But it should be carefully noted that in the directions given by David to Solomon for the building of the temple (1 Chron. xxviii. 11 ff.), it speaks of a pattern (tabnit, see p. 121) which was given to the future builder. The tradition is noteworthy, and may very possibly belong to the good traditionary material of Chronicles.   David would
1   The Hebrew text has nmsy, variant nnty; see Kittel, Bibl. Hebr., upon the passage. The emendation nniity follows a supposition of Klostermann’s. The Sept, has eirio-Tpeij/e, and might therefore cover the reading nniity. In no case can (as in the translation of Dibelius, loc. cit., p. II) flinty be linked with the following personal accusative as goal of the local movement (“ Seat thyself upon,” “ Return home to,” etc.).
2   Klostermann’s commentary, ad loc,t inserts the words “the ark” both in x. 7 and 12.
YAHVEH SABAOTH
183
certainly have faithfully collected all the traditions about the ancient sanctuary.1
Now in the temple of Solomon, corresponding to the character of the solid building, the kibla of religious veneration, the sanctiiarlum, which hid the presence of Yahveh, was founded. The whole adyton was now the place of the enthroned majesty of Yahveh.1 2 Therefore figures of cherubim were placed which overshadowed with their wings the whole adyton.   The idea of the throne of Yahveh, which the
kapporet with the cherubim represented symbolically, is to a certain extent repeated in the great cherubim.
In the course of the story the divine names Yahveh Sabaoth and Yahveh, whose throne is upon cherubim, appear in closest connection with the ark. The sanctuary at Shiloh belonged to Yahveh Sabaoth, who sitteth upon the cherubim, see 1 Sam. iv. 4; 2 Sam. vi. 2 f. is especially characteristic: it is said of the ark of God, which was brought upon a new cart drawn by oxen from the mountain sanctuary of Abinadab to Zion: “the ark, over which is named a name, the name Yahveh Sabaoth, that sitteth upon the cherubim.” Also Isa. xxxvii. 14 ff. belongs here. Hezekiah spreads out a letter in the Temple “ before Yahveh Sabaoth, the God of Israel, that sitteth upon the cherubim ”; that certainly means, before the ark.3 Both names have the same cosmic meaning: Yahveh is Lord of the starry universe.4 The cherubim are representative
1   The prophet Gad, who in 2 Sam. xxiv. 18 ff. gives instructions for building
the altar, possibly played a special role in connection with it; see Klostermann, Gesck. Isr., 170 f., who in 1 Chron. xxviii. 19 reads : “ The whole is a writing of Gad (D to be blotted out as in Sept.) of the seer (nmn ia, as in 1 Chron. xxix. 30), to instruct him (read as in Sept, and Targ.,   upon the construction of the
pattern.”
2   It is improbable that the ark was carried with them any more into battle as a war sanctuary. The passage in 2 Chron. xxxv. 3 is not conclusive. The religious depth of feeling in the prophetic period could well renounce this material guarantee of Yahveh’s presence.
3   See Dibelius, loc. cit., p. 47. In the variant in 2 Kings, xix. Sabaoth is absent.
4   P. 181, i. The translations of the Hexapla have for Yahveh Sabaoth, together
with Kitpios   the names Kvpios ruv dvvdfietov, Kvpios ruv arpanSiv. Upon
the cosmic importance of 5wdfieis and arpaTid in the New Testament, see B.N. T., 85 f. The stars are the hosts of God, see Judges v. 20. The transference to hosts of Israel was very simple. Isa. xxiv. 21 ff. is specially characteristic of the relation
134 TABERNACLE AND ARK OF THE COVENANT
of the four corners of the world, likewise of the throne-bearers of God,1 ornamentally indicated in the ark of Yahveh, and afterwards in the adyton of the temple of Solomon.
The absence of the name in the Pentateuch is remarkable. If the ark was a historic fact in the Mosaic period, the names also must have been ancient.2 The practical motive of their absence from the present text, which represents the Pentateuch separated from the Book of, Joshua as the revised book of a community, was pointed out by Klostermann, and is referred to p. 120, n. 2. For a later age the names had a heathen sound. They substituted for them, as it seems : the ark of Yahveh, the Lord of the whole earth (adon kol ha-arez; Sept, icvpios Tra<Ttj$ TJ}? yi}?)- Thus in Joshua iii. 11, 13. The name adon Yahveh, Exod. xxiii. 17, xxxiv. 23 (Sept, ivcomov Kvplov TOV Oeov ’Lrpcu/A), is perhaps a remnant of this renaming.3 That they were in the spirit of the later age, is to be seen in Zech. iv. 14, where the two anointed ones who stand beside the candlestick are called servants of the adon kol ha-arez, whereas in this cosmic picture a name like Yahveh Sabaoth was to be expected.4
of the lordship of Yahveh to the starry worlds; see upon this passage and previously, p. 195, i. Compare further our deductions upon the popular conception of Yahveh with 2 Kings xxi. 5, xxiii. 5.
1   The four beasts of the Apocalypse.
2   Dibelius also contends for the at least relative antiquity of the name, loc. cit., p. 21 ; Budde, in Bucher Samuelis, also allows the name Yahveh Sabaoth to be valid as original.
3   Thus Klostermann, Gesch. Isr., p. 76.
4   Klostermann, loc. cit.t pp. 76 f., sees, according to this analogy, in the modern and abstract sounding name “Yahveh, God of the spirit of all flesh,” Numb. xvi. 22, xxvii. 16, a paraphrase of the name “ Yahveh, who sitteth upon the cherubim.” This appears to us very illuminating, since it is dealing with the difficult question of animals in connection with the glory of God. It should be noted that Ezekiel calls the beasts of the merkaba (chap, i.) only fyayySt, “living creatures,” and only later (chap, x.), after he has grasped the meaning, does he call them cherubim.
V
CHAPTER XXI
FURTHER GLOSSES UPON THE PENTATEUCH
Exon. xxv. 23 ff.: Twelve loaves of show-bread. There is a similar usage in the Babylonian ritual, see p. 114; compare also the “sweet-bread” (?), ahlaj in the Minaean inscriptions (p. 118). The “ bread of the countenance11 (“ presence-bread ”), refers to beholding God in the mysteries of the cult. Exod. xxiv. 11 : the elders, who ascended to the throne of God upon the mountain, “ beheld God, whilst they did eat and drink.” The eating of bread in the ’ohel mo^ed would have the same sacramental effect. Compare the religious figure of speech : u I shall be satisfied when I awake after thy likeness.” Like all religious symbols the twelve loaves of show-bread also have a cosmic meaning. Jos., Ant., iii. 7, 7, says:
The twelve loaves correspond to the twelve months of the year (or to the twelve constellations in the zodiac); the candlesticks of seventy parts mean the signs through which the planets go, and its seven lamps mean the planets themselves.
Exod. xxv. 31 :   The seven-branched candlestick. The table
of show-bread and the candlestick of the temple of Herod are represented upon the Arch of Titus in Rome. Philo1 also agrees upon the reference to the seven planets (Jos., Ant., see above). As the seven planets represent the complete revelation of the divine will, in Oriental mysticism, so the seven-branched candlestick concealed the presence of God. An interesting variant to this religious symbol is the “ seven eyes of God, which run to and fro through the whole earth ” ; see Zech. iii. 10.
Exod. xxviii. 6 ff., 31 ff. : The high priest’s garment. Here
1 Upon the parallels in Rev., see B.N. T,24 ff.
135
136 FURTHER GLOSSES UPON THE PENTATEUCH
also ancient elements are concealed behind the decorative presentment of P. The garment represents cosmic time and space.1 The high priest therefore, as substitute for God, wears it. This cosmic garment has been spoken of p. 177, i.2 The Jewish interpreters know the meaning. They say the number of the pomegranates was 12, or 72, or 365. Those are the numbers
 
FIG. 144.—Relief from the Arch of Titus, Rome.
of the cycle. Besides this, the pomegranates are to be thought of as bells.3
Exod. xxviii. 17 ff., comp, xxxix. 8 ff.: Urim and Thummim. The two articles that Aaron wore upon his breast in the oracle pocket. It is clearly to be seen from the old poem in Deut. xxxiii. 8 that in an ancient tradition the Urim and Thummim were ascribed to Moses also. He wrested them from God in combat,4 and we may assume that in the fragmentarily preserved
1   The prophet’s mantle is the same; see p. 190. Contrariwise the heaven is the garment of God ; Ps. civ. 2.
2   Josephus, iii. 7, 7, no longer rightly understood the meaning.
3   Upon the symbolism of numbers, comp. Jacob, Der Pentateuch, Leipzig, 1905.
4   Upon the meaning of this combat, which bears the same signification as Jacob’s combat, see pp. 58 f.
URIM AND THUMMIM
137
text of Exod. xxxiii. 8 ff., which recounted the oracular practices of Moses, the Urim and Thummim were spoken of. They were used in inquiry of the oracle. But the oracle revealed fate, and the bearer of the Urim and Thummim to a certain extent ruled over fate. Thus the Urim and Thummim worn upon the breast form an analogy to the Babylonian tables of fate (tup-shimati, see p. 50), which likewise were worn upon the breast. What do Urim and Thummim mean ? Clearly it is an antithesis. We know the stress laid upon the antithesis of the two halves of
 
FIG. 145.—Egyptian sacred bull. Museum at Gizeh.
the cycle: light and darkness, death and life. Urim and Thummim are life and death, yea and nay, light and darkness.1 In the sanctuary of the ’ohel mo^ed was thus therefore concealed in the symbol of the Urim and Thummim, the same meaning as in the trees of life and of knowledge (life and death, Selene and Helios) in Paradise.1 2
It is comprehensible that in the prophetic period the Urim and Thummim might appear comparatively heathen. For this reason also after the Exile they were to be used no more, though, according to Neh. vii. 65, the people might feel the want of them.
1   We would have given the same explanation earlier, without being able to explain Thummim philologically (Urim is clearly “ light”). The Tam motif presented by Winckler, F., iii. 420 f., gives a confirmation; see above, p. 52.
2   See p. 24, i. Upon Urim and Tummim and Ephod, see A. Jeremias in Hilprecht’s Anniversary Volume, pp. 223 ff.
138 FURTHER GLOSSES UPON THE PENTATEUCH
To the twelve precious stones upon the oracle pocket, compare the six precious stones upon the breast of the Babylonian king, IV. R. 18, No. 3, and see p. 213, i. The art of seal-engraving (Exod. xxviii. 11) was spread throughout the whole Western Asiatic world.
Exod. xxix. 38 ff.; see p. 115.
'A X   's >?   x   X »*•»:* sc jm
 
FIG. 146.—Sacred cow of the Egyptians. Tomb of Sethi I.
Exod. xxx. 13: Adults had to pay tribute, in so far as they “ had entered into the number of the initiated.”1
Exod. xxxii. 4: The golden calf. This affair remains obscure. Is it connected with the Egyptian bull ?2 But probably only a live bull would have been worshipped. There certainly is
1   Winckler, O.L.Z., 1901, 289; not “passeth over unto them that are numbered.” It is treating of a ceremonial act, corresponding to circumcision in the twelfth or thirteenth year amongst the Arabians, and to the putting on of the toga virilis amongst the Romans. Upon the mysteries, comp, above, pp. 83, i. f., and
106 f.
2   Comp. figs. 145 and 146. The second picture shows that the cult is of astral mythological origin ; the first picture shows the horns as the crescent of the moon particularly clearly. Fig. 154 is also instructive. Comp, further, p. 70.
THE VEIL OF MOSES
139
evidence of sculptured representations of the sacred cow, which represents Hathor—for example, in the recently discovered sanctuary of Osiris-Hathor; see p. 118, i., n. 3.
If the South Arabian bulls’ heads of the Vienna Museum (comp. Nielsen, l.c., p. 112) correspond to ancient Minaean patterns, « then Exod. xxxii. 4 may show an imitation of an Arabian cult. But in any case it deals with a cosmic astral cult, in the sense of Amos v. 26 (see p. 303); comp. Acts vii. 42 f. The bull would represent the Delivering God, who brings the spring (the Babylonians of that age called him Marduk).1 Previously the pictorial representation was by a dragon.2
^ Exod. xxxiv. 33 and 35 : Moses covered his face, see pp. 121, i. and 62, n. 3. With the “ horned Moses ” of the Vulgate compare further the play of words in v. 35: liy pp 'D. The dhti- l-himar, “ veiled man,” of the Islamic legends is besides made equivalent to the dhu- l-Karain, “ horned man.” 3 In the legends of Alexander which present him as the Deliverer, Alexander the Great says: “ I know that thou hast made the horns to grow upon my head, that I may crush the rich of the earth.” 4 The horns in the representation of Naramsin, fig. 88, p. 317, i., have the same meaning, and upon the seal-cylinder, fig. 69, p. 220, i., and upon the head of Hadad on the stele of Zenjirli (from Luschan, Ausgrabungen in Sendschirli, Table vi., original in the Berlin Museum). It is the badge of divine power. Whether the horns are meant for a definite divine phenomenon, lunar horns or horns of Hadad, must in each case be inquired into. In the popular presentment of Moses with the horns, it is most obvious to think of Hadad-Tammuz: on the one hand, because the presentment of Moses bears features of Hadad- Tammuz (see p. 93); and on the other hand, because Yahveh, whose substitute Moses is, appears in the popular religion endowed with features of the storm-god (see p. 125, i., n. 2). ^
Exod. xxxv. 25 f.: Spinning as woman’s work. Fig. 91,
1   Midrash Shemoth Rabba, par. iii. at 3. 8, says: “God says he will come with his four horses (merkaba) to Sinai, the Israelites will loosen one of the fyayydt (therefore the cherubim which the bull represents) and anger him: this is the golden calf.” The man who invented this knew the meaning. The passage is also interesting from the link it establishes between the throne of Yahveh upon Sinai, fragmentarily described in Exod. xxiv. 10, and the merkaba of Ezekiel, as we have already noted at p. 27, i.
2   “ Engraven,” is erroneous, socin in Kautzsch : “ manufactured it,” as Luther has it, is correct.
3   Comp. B. Beer, “ Welche Aufschliisse geben die judischen Quellen iiber den ‘ Zweihornigen’ des Koran,” Z.D.M.G., 1855, 791 ff.
4   See Kampers, Hist. Jahrb. der Gorresgesellsch., xix. 434 ff.
140 FURTHER GLOSSES UPON THE PENTATEUCH
p. 319, i., shows an ancient Babylonian spinner. The picture was found in Susa, is of Babylonian origin, and belongs to the age of Gudea, about 3000 B.C. The Tables of Ritual speak of witches with the spindle.
Lev. ii. 13: Salt at the meal offering. Salt was sacred to the ancients. Homer calls it Oeiov a\a; Plato, 6eo<j>i\eg; Tacitus bears witness of it amongst the Germanic people; amongst the Romans, reverence for the penates required that the salt-cellar should never fail to be upon the table. Mark ix. 49 f.: “ Every sacrifice shall be salted with salt.” In the burnt offerings in Ezek. xliii. 241 there may be sanitary grounds for it.1 2
Lev. iv. 3; see p. 117.
Lev. v. 16: A fifth part, i.e. 20 per cent., therefore, was to be paid as restitution for breach of contract. It was the same in Babylonia.3
Lev. xii. 8: Offering for purification: the rich, a sheep; the poor, two pigeons; comp. Luke ii. 24. In the Tables of Ritual the rubu, noble (full citizen), must bum a pigeon to ashes (?); the mushkenu, bondman, must burn the heart (?) of a sheep.4
Lev. xiv. 4; see p. 118.
Lev. xvi. 8, xvi. 26: Azazel (comp. p. 117), according to Enoch ix. 6 and others, stands for leader of the fallen angels. The name cannot at present be explained from the Babylonian. The ratification of the treaty between Assurnirari and Matfilu of Arpad5 brings to mind these ceremonies, where for the completion of the oath (not as a sacrifice) a goat was brought from the flock, and the limbs represent the parts of the bodies of Mati’ilu and his family. In Enoch x. 4 Azazel (who is
1   Likewise amongst the Babylonians, examples of it are found in the tables of ritual.
2   Yalkut Simeoni says (upon Numb. ii. 13, remarkably) that they took bituminous salt to accelerate the burning and to modify the bad smell. According to Menachoth 20a not only the gifts offered, but also the firewood at the sacrifice had to be salted. Comp, further Berachoth 5a (Winckler, Neue Beitragc, p. 39).
3   Authentic proof given by Kohler and Peiser, Bab. Vertrage.
4   K.A'T, 3rd ed., 598 f. Upon rank, see pp. 31 and 153.
5   Peiser in M. V.A.G., 1898, 228 ff. ; comp, above, p. 48.
MOLECIi
141
identical with the beast) is cast into a pit in the wilderness (bor=Underworld; see pp. 26, 65). The goat is, like Azazel, the power of the Underworld, the devil.1 He is driven into the wilderness, i.e. into the Underworld. Comp. Isa. xiii. 21.
 
Lev. xviii. 18; see pp. 2, 37.
Lev. xviii. 21 : Molech (Moloch); see p. 349, i., n. 2. In connection with the question of the existence of Molech in Babylonia, it is customary to discuss the question whether the Assyrio-Babylonian people used human sacrifice.1 2 There is no distinct trace to be found of human sacrifice amongst the Babylonians or on the inscriptions. Tide’s remark that perhaps on the inscriptions they intentionally concealed such things, cannot be proved without further material. Zimmern points out the following traces :—
In the text of an exorcism3 it appears to express the possibility of the sacrifice of a slave (ameluti), together with that of a calf or a sheep. In the legal texts,4 the burning of the eldest son or eldest daughter upon the altar of Sin and Belit-zeri is threatened in the event of a broken covenant. This perhaps veils the remembrance of ancient child-sacrifice. Possibly the same holds good of passages in the inscriptions of the kings, as those of Assur- banipal:5 “ Their boys and maidens I burned in the furnace.” Ceremonial slaughter of human beings is, at least, not an
FIG. 147.—Assyrian seal cylinder. Menant, Glypi. orient., fig. 95, Human sacrifice ?
1   The idea has already been met with, p. 51, of ^7;'= goat, in the motifs of the Esau-Jacob stories.
2   Sayce’s assertions in the essay “ On Human Sacrifice among the Babylonians ” (Transactions of the Soc. of Bibl. Arch., iv. 25 ; comp. Zeitschr. f. Keilschrift.,
ii.   282) rest upon a mischievous misunderstanding. The passage in question is not treating of human sacrifice (III. Rawl. 64), but of grain, which is scorched in the heat of the sun ; and the passage noted by Lenormant, Etudes accadiennes,
iii.   112, as a fragment upon sacrifice of children, resolves itself upon closer examination into the harmless exorcism of a magician, who brings the various parts of the human body into his priestly manipulations (IV. Rawl. 26).
3   Bu 88-5-12, 5, line 34 ; see Zimmern, K.A. T3rd ed., 599.
4   Johns, Assyr. Deeds.
5   K.B., i. 91.
142 FURTHER GLOSSES UPON THE PENTATEUCH
unheard-of thing amongst the Assyrians. Assurbanipal relates (V. R. 4, 70 ff.) that by the same colossal bull, near which his father Sennacherib was murdered, he slew Babylonian prisoners of war as a sacrifice to the dead.1 The seal cylinder reproduced in fig. 147 is, to our judgment, the only one amongst those known up to the present which might be taken into consideration on the question of representation of human sacrifice.1 2
 
FIG. 148.—Artificially enlarged volcanic chasm in the Roman Forum (Lacus Curtius, entrance to the Underworld). (From a photograph taken by the author.)
Lev. xxi.: Regulations upon the qualifications for the priesthood. On Babylonian territory we know of nearly related regulations about the soothsaying priest, but which would certainly also have been valid for other classes of priests; see 115, on the regulations about physical spotlessness (Lev. xxi. 21). The priesthood was hereditary. Only people of legitimate birth and without blemish were eligible. Even in form the
1   Massacre of prisoners is metonymically denoted in the Old Testament as
ruj, Isa. xxxiv. 6; comp. I Sam. xv. 33 and Judges ix. 5.
2   The studies of W. H. Ward’s “ Human Sacrifices on Babyl. Cylinders,” in the American Journal of Arch., v. I. 34-39, come to the same conclusion. Fig. 162 represents the destruction of an idol.

AARON
143
regulations agree in the main with those of P in the Old Testament: there is a preference for a use of the direct address, in the second person of the present tense, not in the imperative.1
Numb. v. 15 ff., see p. Ill, n. 5. Numb. x. 6, 12, 28 (stations), see p. 105. Numb. x. 35 if., see pp. 135 f. Numb. xii. 1 (Zipporah), see p. 285, i.
Numb. xvi. 30:   The earth swallows Korah’s band. The
earth is thought of as Underworld and Dragon ; see pp. 149, i., n. 7, and 195, i.
 
FIG. 149.—Boy wrestling with serpent. Relief from the ruined city of Petra. After an original photograph by Dr F. Jeremias.
The story of Aaron is embroidered with fable. There is the same fable motif in Plutarch, Parallel, hist. gr. et rom., v., according to which Anchuros, son of Midas, throws himself into a yawning chasm in order to stop a plague. The opening up of the volcanic Lacus, artificially covered with asphalt, in the Roman Forum2 (fig. 148), to which the well-known fable of Curtius Rufus has attached itself, shows how such fables link themselves on to natural phenomena. Comp, with this, Roscher, Lexikon, ii. 250 f. (Steuding).
Numb. xvii. 8 ff.: Aaron’s budding staff. In the same way a fable motif. It appears to have been to stop the plague. We recall the staff of Hermes, which awoke the dead (staff of
1 See upon this Zimmern, IC.A. T., 3rd ed., 589 ; Beitr., 81 ff.
'2 The chasm was artificially enlarged, as was usual in other places also with
chasms which were held to be the entrance to the Underworld.
0
144 FURTHER GLOSSES UPON THE PENTATEUCH
JEsculapius; see the Ancient-Babylonian prototype, p. 319, i., fig. 92), and the club of Heracles (Pausanias, ii. 31, 13), cut from an olive-tree, and which, leant against a column of Hermes, bore fresh shoots. According to Numb. xvii. 10, 28, rescue
 
FIG. 150.—High-place of Petra. After an original photograph by Dr F. Jeremias.
from death seems to have been attributed to Aaron’s staff. The motif of the budding staff (comp. Heb. ix. 4) belongs to the
 
FIG. 151.—Place for libation, Petra.
expectation of the Deliverer; it is related to the nezer-zematy motif (upon this see p. 32).
Numb. xx. 27 (ff.): Mount Hor, the death-place of Aaron. The neighbourhood of Edomite Petra is full of traditions of Moses and Aaron. In the Mosaic sources, it is from the rocks
AARON’S DEATH-PLACE
145
of Petra that the Mosaic stream was compelled; and the Jebel Nebi Harun, towering up out of the desert, contains the grave of Aaron, held in highv honour amongst the Moslems.1 There is no ground for doubting the identity of the Jebel Nebi Harun with the Mount Hor of the Bible. And though Petra is not mentioned in the Bible (Sela2 * 4, 2 Kings xiv. 7 ? and LXX. upon
 
FIG. 152.—Serpent monument (Petra). After an original photograph by Dr F. Jeremias.
2 Chron. xxvi. 7), and was not colonised in the oldest period, yet it was an ancient place of worship.
Two obelisks stand above the slopes where the most ancient Nabataean graves are found, landmarks of the gods of Petra— Dusares and Allat (i.e. Tammuz-moon and Ishtar-sun). The chief festival of the cult of Dusares was celebrated in the winter solstice. Under the ruins of the Roman town were found two
1 The following remarks are founded upon the travelling observations of Fr. Jeremias. Comp, also Brttnnow and Domaszewski, Die Provincia Arabia, vol. i.
VOL. II.   10
146 FURTHER GLOSSES UPON THE PENTATEUCH
reliefs of a child holding a rearing serpent in both hands, and whose body is also clawed at by the paws of two lions; see fig. 149.
Not far from the obelisk, upon an open place looking out towards Mount Hor, stands a double altar, the best-preserved distinct specimen of a bama. The chief altar (of Dusares) has a gallery round, hewn in the rock, and was used for burnt sacrifices. The secondary altar (of Allat) shows arrangements for sacrifices of libation. There is a large court hewn in the rock in front of the altars, with a stone plateau in the centre, and round the three open sides a place to sit, in the form of a triclinium ; see fig. 151.
Numb. xxi. 4 ff‘. In the south of Petra, on the way to Mount Hor, therefore in the neighbourhood where the story of the brazen serpent is laid, is one of the most remarkable monuments of Petra. Upon a massive cube base a giant serpent coils itself round a stone cone. The foundation contains a grave. Upon the serpent, see p. 100 and fig. 152.
Numb. xxii. 5:   Pethor, which is by the river (nahar\
Balaam’s home. With Marquart,1 we take it that by the river is to be understood the nahal Muzri, the southern boundary of Judea, which by a misunderstanding has become the “river of Egypt.” Pitru of the cuneiform writings, for example, under Shalmaneser II., K.B., i. 133, which was in Mesopotamia, upon the Sagur, a tributary of the Euphrates, cannot be held to be the home of Balaam.
BALAAM
This figure is of great importance in the inquiry into the relation between the heathen and the Israelite expectation of the Deliverer. His figure in the history of Israel has its analogy in the figure of Simon Magus, in the Acts.1 2 Jewish theology recognises the relationship; see Dillmann upon the passage. He was held to be one of the representatives of the inimical power (dark half of the world, Dragon) in the story of the deliverance from Egypt. Therefore, in the legends, Jannes and Jambres, Pharaoh’s magicians,
1   Fundamente dcr israelitischen und jiidiscken Gesckickte; comp. Winckler, K.A.T., 3rd ed., 148.
2   The patriotic writings emphasise the relationship to which Gfrorer in his book upon Primitive Christianity already drew attention.
BALAAM
147
are sons of Balaam (see 2 Tim. iii. .1 The Rabbis call them “the evil ones” (jJBnn); comp. 2 Pet. ii. 15, Jude 11, Rev. ii. 14 (comp, in 6 and 15 the translation NtKoAao?), where the tradition still clings in the nkmes. The figure of Armillus, also, is a repetition of Balaam,1 2 We draw attention further to the following characteristic features :—
Balaam is held to be a mystic, in the Oriental meaning, for whom not only is Yahveh the God of Israel, but who is an initiate into the secrets of divinity; Numb, xxiii. 3 ff., xxiii. 30.
Messengers with presents bring the celebrated magician from his home, xxii. 7. On the way he is met by the mnVak of Yahveh with the drawn sword, xxii. 23 ; compare with this p. 236, i., and Joshua v. 13 ff.3
Seven altars for the sacrifice of seven young bulls and seven rams were made ready : upon the number seven, see p. 66, i.
In an ecstatic state (xxiv. 16 f. shows how we may imagine the prophetic ecstasy) he receives vision and instructions.
 
The opposition of curse and blessing, xxii. 6, corresponds to the two halves of the cycle; compare the blessing and curse upon Gerizim and Ebal, p. 67, and the forms of blessing and curse in the Babylonian records, for instance at the end of the Hammurabi Code.
It agrees with the character of Balaam as representative of the power of the Underworld, and of the dark half of the cycle, that he should at the same time be foreteller of the new age.4 It is in the essence of these mythological figures of the Deliverer, who represent one-half of the cycle, that they should be at the same
1   He is also held to be identical with Laban, “whom Jacob would have destroyed,” in the Jer. Targ. upon Numb. xxxi. 8.
2   The Jewish Toledoth Jesu (see Krauss’ edition) makes Jesus into a caricature of the Messiah, with the same features attached as to Balaam in the Jer. Targum upon Numb. xxxi. 8 (journey through the air by means of black magic, etc.).
3   It is to be borne in mind, in regard to the speaking ass, that the ass is the beast of the peace-bringing Messiah, in opposition to the horse of the conqueror (for example, Alexander’s Bucephalus); comp. Zech. ix. 9. In thefestum asinorum of the Middle Ages the speaking ass proclaimed the Messiah.
4   According to one of the chief axioms of the Oriental conception, conversion into the contrary highest point of development, comp. pp. 26, i.
148 FURTHER GLOSSES UPON THE PENTATEUCH
time foretellers of the new age. According to the passage quoted from the Targum, which further amplifies the record about the prophecies of Balaam, he foretold all the fate of the expected Deliverer. The emblems of the Deliverer foretold by Balaam, Numb. xxiv. 17 (star and sceptre), designate him as a royal heavenly appearance, who would bring the Golden Age, in the same sense as
the “lion out of Judah, who has the ruler’s sceptre between his feet”; see pp. 41, i., n. 1, and 79, and note the constellation Leo, which has Regulus (royal star) between the feet.1 It seems to us not out of the question that the celebrated prophecy of Balaam forecasts the horoscope of the expected Deliverer by the rising of Regulus. In any case, the appearance of a star in the east must be thought of. The appearance of the Deliverer is announced in the east (ey dyaroAJy, Matt. ii. 2; see B.N.T., 50 ff.). Under Hadrian, Bar-Kochba (i.e. son of the star), protected for a while by the great Akiba, proclaimed himself2 star-king in the sense of the prophecy of Balaam ; see fig. 153, which is quite in the feeling of the Jewish expectation of the Deliverer.
Numb. xxii. 4 (Moabite instead of Midianite ?); see p. 46, n, 1.
 
FIG. 154.—Late Egyptian calendar picture. After Richter, Phantasien des Altertums, Taf. i.
Numb. xxiv. 22: “ Then Assyria shall carry thee away captiveIt does not mean Syrians. The deductions in K.A.T 2nd. ed., 156 f., are frail. It treats of a late passage and of a threat which might apply to any period.
Numb. xxv. 4 (hanging up before Yahveh in the face of the sun) ; see p. 159, n. 2. Numb. xxv. 43 with Joshua viii. 29.
Deut. iii. 9. Senir (Ezek. xxvii. 5, cypresses from Senir with cedars from Lebanon) is a name for Hermon, Assyrian Saniru.
1   The foes (powers of darkness) are in Numb. xxiv. 18 fixed historically as Moabites and btne-shet. Possibly the latter may mean the Suti mentioned at p. 271.
2   See Klostermann in R.Pr.Th,, 3rd’ed.
TRACES OF THE ETANA MYTH
149
Deut. iv. 19, see p. 181, i. Deut. vi. 4-9, see p. 103. Deut. vii. 14 f. (motifs of the blessed age), see pp. 20, n. 5, 58, n. 2. Deut. xvii. 3, see 2 Kings xxiii. 5. Deut. xi. 29, xxvii. 11 ff.; comp. Joshua viii. 30 IF. (the act of Worship on Ebal and Gerizim), see pp. 24, i, 67. Deut. xi. 30, see p. 99- Deut. xvii. 8 (gate as place of judgment), see fig. 135. Deut. xix. 15, see p. 110. Deut. xx. 19 (prohibition
 
FIG. 155.—Etana’s ascension. Cylinder 89,767, Brit. Museum.1
of cutting down trees), see p. 210, n. 5, and fig. 104. Deut. xxi. 18 f., see p. 110.
Deut. xxii. 5 (men in women’s clothes, women in men’s clothes) points to the customs of worship in the service of the hermaphro-
 
FIG. 156.—Seal cylinder, suggestive of Etana’s ascension.
dite Astarte ; see p. 123, i. At circumcision Moslem boys wear girls’ clothes.
Deut. xxv. 12, see p. 110, n. 5. Deut. xxvii. 24, see p. Ill, n. 2.
Deut. xxx. 12 presupposes an acquaintance with myths which tell of the desire for a longed-for good in heaven (Etana, Adapa), or beyond the sea (Gilgamesh); see Deut. xxxii. 11; thus Zimmem, K.A.T., 3rd. ed., 565 f.
1 Comp. O.L.Z., 1906, 479 f.
150 FURTHER GLOSSES UPON THE PENTATEUCH
 
Deut.xxxii. 11 (comp. Exod. xix. 4) shows the motif oftheEtana
myth.1 In the Assump- tio Mosis x. 8 it is said : “Thou shalt be happy, Israel, and rise (to the starry heaven) upon the wings of the eagle ” ; see fig. 155 f. and fig. 156, which represents the apotheosis of Titus in the roof of the Arch of Titus (comp. fig. 157); comp, further the passage from the Liturgy of Mithra reproduced p. 239, i., n. 8, and Isa. xiv. 12-15.
Deut. xxxii. 17; comp. Ps. cvi. 37, and p. 30. Shedim are demons (Sept Saifiovia). Here, as in Ps. cvi. 37 (“ they have offered their sons to the shedim11; comp, v. 38, “the idols ""of Canaan11), the word is used in a general sense for “ idols of the heathen ”; comp. LXX. of Ps. xcvi. 15: “all the gods of the heathen are demons.” The very
FIG. 157.—Apotheosis of Titus, in the vault of the triumphal arch, Rome.
 
IG. 158.—Ganymede carried by the eagle. Greek gem, after Richter, Phantasien des Altertums, Taf. vii.
pair of demons, shedu lemnu and shedu damqu (the evil and the good shedu), was not therefore the origin of the Biblical shedim.12. Like St Paul, 1 Cor. x., already in 1 2
1   See Stucken, loc. cit., 7 ; Winckler, O.L.Z., 1901, Sp. 387 = Krit. Sc hr., ii. 64.
2   Besides, if sacrifices were made to the Babylonian shedim, it does not follow from that that they were spirits of the dead, as Zimmern holds, K.A.T., 3rd ed., 461 f. The invocation is to be judged much more as being like the
MOSES’ DEATH-PLACE
151
Israel initiates were inclined to look for demoniacal powers behind the heathen idols.
Deut. xxxii. 49, x^xiv. 1. The name of the mountain upon which Moses died is, according to Deut. xxxiv. 1, Pisgah, in the Abarim Mountains. Another hand, xxxii. 49, giving preference to a cosmic mythological motif, names the mountain Nebo.1 Nebo signifies, in the cycle, the death-point of Tammuz, in opposition to the Marduk point; see p. 91, i. There is an echo of the motif in the name Abarim also. In the division into two of the cycle, Nibiru (Abarim) is the critical point, as Nebo is in division into four (comp. p. 74, i.). In the mythical geography of the expectation of the Deliverer, Egypt and the desert correspond to the dark world (corresponding to the winter half of the year). Moses beheld from hence the land “ where milk and honey flow,” i.e. the light-world (corresponding to the summer half of the year).2
Deut. xxxiii. 2, see p. 99- Deut. xxxiii. 8 (Moses fights for the Urim and Thummim), see pp. 59, 105, n. 3. Deut. xxxiii. 9 (motif of miraculous birth in regard to Moses), see p. 90. Deut. xxxiii. 15 (Mountain of the World), see p. 189, i- Deut. xxxiii. 16, see p. 99- Deut. xxxiv. 7 and xxxiv. 8, see p. 93.
present-day “devil-worship” in America: they sacrifice to them, in order to avert their evil influence.
1   See previously p. 93.
2   Comp. pp. 34, i. IF., 31, and others. In the journey of ^Eneas of Troy to Etruria the same motif comes in.
/
CHAPTER XXII
GLOSSES UPON THE BOOK OF JOSHUA
How is the colonisation of Canaan by the 44 Children of Israel11 to be looked upon according to Ancient-Oriental circumstances ? The land already possessed places of worship, which were at the same time centres of civilisation. Some of these places, like Hebron, Sichem, Beersheba, Peniel, and Mahanaim, show a connection with the primitive ages of the Children of Israel. The conquerors would have annexed these and introduced their religion into them,1 much in the same way as Christian churches were built upon pre-Christian Celtic, Germanic, and Slav places of worship. In this colonisation the ancient provinces were taken possession of by the family groups of the Israelite tribes. The ancient population, when not expelled and rooted out, became slaves and were gradually absorbed. But under the new groups the land asserted its civilisation. The family groups became provincial groups. Up to this time the various clans were held together by blood-relationship. The authority of the 44 elders11 rested simply upon familiar recognition. Now other powers began to work. It became necessary to hold the nearer and more distant provinces together by political authority. If the settlers in the district were farmers, then their head was the rosh, the “lord of the province.1'’ But if, however, a city formed the centre of the province, then there arose a municipal government; the leaders of the nobles, that is to say, the freemen and the artisans, formed the college of the 44 elders,11 zehenim.
1 Compare also the “altars of Isaac,” Amos vii. 9, 16. 152
ENTRY INTO CANAAN
153
Compare the quoting of names, specially the names of witnesses, in the New Babylonian contracts. It is either:
A, son of X, the son of Y (the grandfather is named : often it is the head of the tribe, not the man’s own grandfather)—the noble, or freeman, is named thus, or:
A, son of X, the son of the ul idi (i.e. son of the “unnamed ”) or Id manman—the freeman for some reason or other additionally recognised as such is thus named; perhaps this is the mushkenu (in opposition to the rubu; comp. pp. 31, 140), or:
A, son of X, the son of the nappafyu (“smith,” or some other handicraftsman)—the guild member was named thus.1
If, before the conquest, the city was the seat of a king, the next stage would follow naturally: a kingdom would arise. The Book of Judges reflects these circumstances. Jephthah, Judges xi., shows the primitive condition: he is rash; Abi- melech, Judges ix., is already king in the sense referred to.2
In itself the taking possession of the land of Canaan by the 44 Children of Israel11 may be considered as a gradual immigration or as a conquest. If we accept the gradual immigration, it would happen spasmodically, until, gradually, under the influence of the new circumstances, it attained to a political, that is to say, a religious, unity.3 But one thing is then impossible: no sort of political or—what is the same thing for the Ancient-East—religious bond could previously have linked together the various parts of the later 44 Children of Israel.” For any such bond must have been lost in the fitful migrations, and a separation must have arisen between the settled and the wandering. This, however, is contradicted by the fundamental
1   That this was exactly the same with the Israelites may be seen in the exiles : the rich and those who understood a craft (the artisans) were taken away. Upon the “unnamed,” comp. Paltiel of Gallim, son of La-ish {i.e. of nobody), i Sam. xxv. 44, and the old names of Dan, Judges xviii. 27 f., and Joshua xix. 47 : La-ish and La-shem (thus to be read, with Winckler, instead of D2>7), i.e. “nameless” = “ tion-existent” (to have a name = to exist, see pp. 145, i. and 274).
2 An opposition to (Vo is   tyrannus, Prov. x. 5.
3   Thus the prevalent view, advocated in particular by Stade, and which starts from the premise that originally Judah did not belong to Israel. We hold this premise to be false. H. Winckler has started from the same premise, but then draws the logical conclusion : If Yahveh was only the god of Judah, and that in the sense of the Ancient-Oriental teaching, he could not have been at the same time the god of Israel.
154 GLOSSES UPON THE BOOK OF JOSHUA
idea of all national Israelite tradition. And all modem representers are united in this (though, indeed, entirely in contradiction to their own premises), that at the Red Sea or near Kadesh Barnea some great event happened which served as a religious sign to all time, and that the Magna Charta was given at Sinai, which stands as the central point of the religion of the whole state of Israel Judah. The Biblical tradition, therefore, speaks consistently of a conquest of the land under a uniform leadership (Joshua) and under a uniform idea.1
There arises here only the question as to whether it is conceivable, under the supposition given to us by the knowledge of the Ancient-East, gathered from monuments and history, that a religious movement could be the banner under which such a conquest could accomplish itself. That this is possible is shown by the religions of the East to the present day. The most obvious example is the religious movement under Mohammed.
JOSHUA
Joshua is an Israelite figure of the Deliverer, like Moses. His share in the law-giving has been suppressed in the text before us, doubtless in favour of Moses. The passage through Jordan under Joshua corresponds to the passage through the Red Sea under Moses. The rescue from the power of Egypt corresponds to the conquest of the Canaanite kings. In both cases the strife and the victory are presented in the colour of the victory over the Dragon.
^ Astral Mythological Motifs
1.   His name denotes him as Deliverer.1 2 In Exod. xvii. 9 he appears as the helper of Moses, and in Exod. xxxiii. 11 he is called “ the son of Nun.” In these names the motifs are veiled. “The son of the Fish ” would, in Babylonian, signify either Ea himself (see pp. 47, i. f.; this might agree with Joshua as lawgiver), or Ea’s son,
1   It includes the country east of Jordan against the original design. The conquest of the land west of Jordan was the aim. Ezekiel confines the land of the future to the country west of Jordan.
2   At any rate in the popular etymology njJtihn and nyiBhrr ; comp. Sept., Iriaovs. In the Talmud Joshua is recognised as a Messiah type of the future.
JOSHUA’S CONQUESTS
155
Marduk.1 As such he is, on the one side, him to whom God reveals his wisdom (as in Exod. vii. 1 : " I make thee a god to Pharaoh, and Aaron shall be thy prophet ” ; see p. 93); and on the other side the Deliverer, who conquers the power of darkness and brings the new age.   N
2.   He passes over Jordan. In Joshua iii. 16 the waters stopped before the ark, and "stood upright like a wall.” In this is the standing typical motif of the disruption of the Dragon.1 2
3.   Twelve stones were erected "in Gilgal,” Exod. iv. 20, after the passage over Jordan (Gilgal itself signifies the sacred stone circle).3 After the passage through the waters, which has the same significance, in Joshua’s work, as the passage of the Red Sea under Moses, the new world was symbolically built by the erection of the twelve stones, corresponding to the twelve stations of the zodiac which the Conqueror of the Dragon erected in order to build the new world.4 The pesilim at Gilgal, Judges iii. 19, seem to indicate these stones.
4.   The conquest over the five kings at Gibeon, Joshua x., shows the motifs of the conquest over the power of darkness (winter). Hence the number five—see pp. 93, i., and 42, n. 1 (five kings, Gen. xiv. 9 ; Lev. xxxi. —corresponding to the five intercalary days, which fall before the beginning of spring and which represent the entire winter.5 Joshua x. 12 f.: Then spake Joshua :
" Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon,
And thou, moon, in the valley of Aijalon !
And the sun stood still and the moon stayed.”
1   Otherwise Winckler, O.L.Z., 1901, 357.
2   See p. 93 ; Winckler, Gesch. Isr., ii. 236 f. Stucken’s deductions, Astral- mythen, 164 ff., which, by connecting Joshua with the spies and with Achan, see in the Book of Joshua the whole complex of the Dragon-combat motifs, hang too much upon one point. The analogies of the Rig Veda (Stucken calls the Book of Joshua/the Semitic Rig Veda) are surprising.
3   The vague heaping of stones in Jordan (Joshua iv. 9) in the present text is something quite different, which belongs to another source. Winckler suggests, loc. cit., ii. 107, the remnants of a record of bridge-building.
4   Compare the twelve tower altars, which Alexander erected to Hyphasis on the boundary of his conquests, Arrian, v. 29 ; see Winckler, Gesch. Isr., ii. 107.
5   See p. 42, and n. 1. Accurately, the equalisation between the solar and lunar year amounts to 5J. The fraction appears in the myth also as motif of the Bringer of Spring (the "dwarf” who conquers the giant). But usually it is added to ‘the winter giant,' who is about five ells and a span high, or has six fingers and six toes (see upon the story of Goliath, pp. 180 f.). Another number, which represents the power of winter, is twelve (founded upon twelve epagomena, equalisation of 354 and 366 ; compare our Twelfth-night). This motif lies in Gen. xiv. 4 (pp. 19 f.), Joshua xxiv. 12, in the " twelve kings of the Amorites.” According to Acts xiii. 19, seven nations were driven out of Canaan j this likewise is a motif number.
156 GLOSSES UPON THE BOOK OF JOSHUA
In this passage, which is communicated explicitly as a poetic quotation, the characteristic of the stars as warriors should be borne in mind (comp. Judges v. 20 : “ The stars fought in their stations ” ; see p. 164, or fig. 159, where sun, moon, and Venus appear as onlookers to the fight, as is. indicated by their position at the head of every record). It seems, however, chiefly to be treating of an established motif of the Dragon combat. In the Rig Veda the Dragon-slayer Indra accomplishes the same miracle in the fight with the Devas. The issue of the battle hangs upon whether the day will be long enough. Then Indra drags off one wheel of the sun’s chariot, and thereby delays its course.1 But this would not exclude the other presentment, that sun and moon were called upon as lookers on. That this is correct is shown by figs. 159 and 160.
 
FIG. 159.—Hittite relief. Berlin Museum. Teshup fights the lion. Sun-god and Moon-god come to his help (so-called “ lion-hunt of Sakye-Gozu ”).2
Fig. 159 shows a Hittite relief where sun and moon help Teshup ( = Marduk; see p. 124, i.) in a fight with a lion. The sun stands with bow and arrow in the chariot, the moon bears the spear. The four rosettes indicate the missing four planets. Fig. 160 shows a sculpture from Sueda, in Hauran. Jupiter is here fighting against a monster hurling stones, with the body of a serpent and paws of a lion ; the sun is looker-on, but the moon is marked by a rosette.
Joshua x. 15 ff. The five kings hide themselves in the cave at Makkedah (cave = Underworld). Joshua has them dragged out and impaled, and at sunset their bodies thrown into the cave, which was closed with great stones. “ There they lie unto this very day.” 1 2
1   2 Chron. xxviii. 18 names Aijalon together with Beth-shemesh. The city appears to be connected with moon-worship. Gibeon was certainly a place of sun-worship in Canaan, before it was taken as a place of worship for Yahveh (1 Kings iii. 4; 1 Chron. xxi. 29); see p. 151.
2   According to Humann and Puchstein, Reisen in Kleitiasim und Nordsyrien, table xlvi.; comp. Winckler, Gesch. Isr., ii. 96 f.

JOSHUA’S CONQUESTS   157
See upon this and upon the variant of the myth, the Seven Sleepers, p. 42, i.
Also the “rain of stones” which, Joshua x. 11, comes to his aid, belongs to the typical phenomena of the Dragon combat. Comp, p. 42, i.; Winckler, F., iii. 207. Sura lxvii. 5 : “We have decorated the lower heaven with lights (meteorites) in order to stone Satan with them.”1 We must think of meteorites. Likewise in the fire-flood, Rev. xvi. 21.^
Joshua v. 13 ff. records a vision in which Joshua sees by Jericho the “leader of hosts of Yahveh11 with “drawn sword.1’ He is to take off his shoes, for he stands upon holy ground. This appearance is the same as in the story of Balaam, Lev. xxii. 23 (see pp. 236, i. and 147). It seems as though the entrance
 
FIG. I6O.—Sculpture from Sueda in Hauran. Published by Clermont-Ganneau, £tudes (Tarek, orient., i. 179.
to the throne of God was meant, as in the vision of Moses at Horeb, see p. 99. The angel with the drawn sword would then7 correspond to the presentments, spoken of p. 42, i., of Paradise barred. Compare also 1 Chron. xxi. 16, where in the variant upon 2 Sam. xxiv. the angel with the sword commands that the altar be built there, where, later, the earthly copy of the heavenly throne was to stand.
* Joshua vi. 1 ff.: The conquest of Jericho. Upon the procession with the ark, see p. 130. In Mecca the procession passes seven times round the Kaaba. Upon the number seven, pp. 66, i. f. Isolated motifs, like the scarlet thread, Joshua ii. 18 (compare the scarlet thread in the birth of Zerah, Gen. xxxviii. 28), in Rahab’s house, and in the conquest itself the blowing down of the walls, are not yet inter
1 Comp. Sura, xv. 5 ff. According to the Arabian fable they climbed up into
the zodiac, and shared with the sorcerers the secrets of the divine will.
158 GLOSSES UPON THE BOOK OF JOSHUA
preted. In popular etymology the name Jericho would probably be understood as " moon-city.” Since it incorporates here the inimical power, we must think of the motif of the battle against the dark moon (compare the blast upon the day of New Moon of the seventh month, Lev. xxiii. 24, and the jubilee after 7x7 years). The same motif (only an imitation ?) is shown in the story of the pseudo-Messiah, in Josephus, Ant., xx. 8, 6, who would destroy the walls of Jerusalem by his word from the Mount of Olives. Also the name Rahab (Dragon, see pp. 194, i. f.) seems to be a motif name. The scarlet thread|gives a hint of the Dragon motif (see pp. 152, i.; 51, n. 3), and reflects the turn of things again: with the conquest of Jericho the new age dawns. In the revolution of things Rahab is transported into the new age.1 ^
Joshua vi. 26: When he lays the foundation {of the city) it costs him his first-born, and when he sets up the gates thereof his youngest son. In this poetic passage (comp. 1 Kings xvi. 34) lies a remembrance of the building sacrifice.1 2 The religious ground of this is: the divinity dwells in the threshold (comp, p. 103).3 In Mutesellim (Megiddo) was found lately a skeleton built into the wall.
Joshua vii. 21 : The Babylonian mantle. Evidence of Babylonian civilisation in pre-Israelite Canaan. The usual explanation as Babylonian “ fashion ” does not agree with Oriental nature, at least in antiquity.
Achan appropriates to himself from the spoil consecrated to Yahveh, a Babylonian mantle, two hundred shekels of silver, and a i( gold wedge ” of fifty shekels weight. It is probably treating of a weighed piece of metal, in place of which stamped coins were used later, comp. p. 50.
Joshua vii. 26: The heaping up of stones is done to the present day in building a grave amongst the Arabs. The
1   The genealogy in Matt. i. lays equal stress upon her as upon Tamar and Ruth, which is very noteworthy. Kimchi communicates a tradition in the commentary to Joshua according to which she was Joshua’s wife; compare also the emphasising of “ Rahab the harlot,” Heb. xi. 31.
2   Compare upon the building sacrifice, Sartori, Zeitschr. f Ethnol., 1898, i. 53 ; upon the passage, Kuenen, Onderz., 2nd ed., 233; Winckler, Krit. Schriften, ii. 12 f.
3   Otherwise in Stucken, Astralmythen, 184 ; the corpse was to keep away the demon ; he sees that the work is already done here. We interpret thus also the blood upon the doorposts ; see pp. 103 f.

[Prometheus]

BETH-DAGON
159
supplementary increase of the heap was reputed to be an honour to the dead.1
Joshua viii. 18 and 26: The outstretched lance presents a Dragon- combat motif, and indeed a Moon-motif; see p. 114, i., and fig. l60.%
Joshua viii. 29; comp. x. 26 f.: The malefactor was hanged upon a tree until the going down of the sun. Crucifixion ? Sept. €7ri £v\ov SISU/ULOV. The hanged passed for a lustration before the divinity.2
Joshua viii. 30 ff.; see p. 67. Joshua viii. 32 (stone codes of law); seep. 118. Joshua viii. 33 (the placing of six tribes upon Ebal and six upon Gerizim); see p. 67. Joshua x. 1 (Adoni- zedek); see p. 41. Joshua x. 1 ff. (conquest of the five kings, rain of stones); see pp. 155 f. Joshua x. 26 f. (impaling); see upon viii. 29-   /
Joshua xiii. 3: Upon the seaport towns, see map, No. II., Canaan in the Amarna period.
Joshua xv. 41: Beth-dagon, the name of the city mentioned also by Sennacherib together with Joppa (Bit-Daganna, K.B.,
ii.   93), and probably identical -with the present Bethdegan, south-east from Joppa, contains the name of the Philistine god Dagon.3 Judges xvi. 23 mentions a sacrificial feast for Dagon in Gaza, xvi. 24, a song in praise of Dagon, and, according to 1 Sam. v. 1 ff., he has a temple in Ashdod. Since the name occurs also in the Amarna Letters,4 and, on the other hand, in South Babylonia in the name of the ancient king Ishme- Dagap, of the dynasty of Isin,5 it proves that it refers to a Canaanite divinity, whose name was met with by the Philistines after their immigration, and adopted as the name of one of their chief gods, just as for their feminine divinity they have
1   See Holzinger upon the passage ; Wellhausen, Reste arab. Heidentums, 80.
2   2 Sam. xxi. 6, to hang miv^, and Numb. xxv. 4,   wnwn in, “before
Yahveh in the face of the sun,” can only be understood as a rudimentary form of sun-offering. When the crucified must be taken down before sunset, in the historical case, the reason was in the festival law, but this explanation is at the root of it; see B.N. T.f 22 f.
3   Jensen, Kosmologie, 449 ff. ; Winckler, Gesch. Isr., i. 216 f.
4   Dagan-takala is the name of a scribe, K.B., v., No. 215 f. ; compare further, p. 350, i.
5   In the wall of the southern temple of Mukayyar, see K.B.y iii., 1st ed., p. 87 ; also in proper names upon the obelisk of Manishtusu.
160 GLOSSES UPON THE BOOK OF JOSHUA
the name ‘Ashtoreth, ‘Ashtarte, in common with the Phoenicians (1 Kings xi. 5; compare with 1 Sam. xxxi. 10). According to the H.C. (introduction 4, 28), Dagon was the god especially honoured by Hammurabi’s people or tribe ; Hammurabi says he has overthrown the dwelling-places at Ud-kib-nun-na of the dominion of Dagon, his father. Further upon Dagon, see 1 Sam. v. 1 ff. and p. 175.
The comparison with Ea-Oannes is probably rightly rejected by Zimmern, K.A.T., 3rd ed., 358. Yet the presentment of Dagon as a divinity of fish-form, which has been looked upon as a bold conclusion from the depraved text of 1 Sam. v. 4, remains probable. According to Kimchi, from the navel upwards he had the body of a man. If Abarbanel knew a tradition according to which Dagon also had the feet of a man, it should be noted that also Ea-Oannes had human feet under the fish’s tail; see fig. 32, p. 105 ; Joshua xvi. 6 f. (Janoah), see p. 334, i., n. 1 ; Joshua xix. 20 (Rabbith), see p. 342, i.
Joshua xix. 44: Eltekeh is mentioned by Sennacherib. He destroyed Tamna (Timnah in v. 43) and Eltekeh and then went to Ekron in order to reinstate the banished Padi.
•Joshua xx. (right of sanctuary); see p. Ill, n. 2, and p. 56. Joshua xxiv. 32; see p. 67.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE BOOK OF JUDGES
THE Israelites were ruled by shophetim1 before the institution of a kingdom. We have shown, pp. 152 ff., the state of things after they settled in the land, with differing laws according to whether it was a country district or- a city; it is not historical that the “ twelve tribes ” were under uniform leadership and administration by twelve judges. The form of the tradition as it lies before us also in no case asserts that the tribes were only united under one of the judges. Joshua xviii. 2 seems to recognise an organisation of five tribes. According to the word of command in Judges i. 2, “ Judah shall go before,” the leading place belonged to the tribe of Judah. The “judges” may be looked upon historically as heroic popular leaders, who led isolated tribes, or a group of tribes, into battle against the other nations, and who were authorities in the administration of justice7 (comp. Judges iv. 5, where Deborah gives judgment under the sacred tree). The number twelve, to which the twelve tribes are analogous, is an artificial scheme, laboriously constructed by including unimportant figures (five “ lesser judges,” Shamgar, iii. 31, is superfluous) out of the certainly rich traditionary material regarding the leaders of past ages.2
Religion in the so-called period of the judges was in a decadent stage, though pure Yahveh religion must have been alive even at this time in a small circle. The popular Yahveh
1   The Suffetes of the Carthaginians, who were chosen by them as holders of executive powers, have the same name; possibly also there exists an actual connection of fact. Organisation is in the East everywhere the outcome of the same teaching.
2   See Budde, Richter, p. x ; Winckler, Gesch. Isr.t ii. 115 ff.
VOL. IX.   161
11
162
THE BOOK OF JUDGES
religion (see p. 15), traces of which are shown in the tradition, was strongly impregnated with heathen elements.1 The worship was carried on in sanctuaries erected upon places connected with the primitive age, or over heathen places of worship, or at spots reminiscent of great events (see Judges vi. 25 If.). They were held as a kind of chapel of ease for the sanctuary at Shiloh (p. 343, i.). For we see, by the example in Judges xvii. 10, that unemployed Levites applied for the office of priest at such sanctuaries. Superstitious misuse, however, was made of the ephod and teraphim (Judges viii. 27; xvii. 3; xviii. 17 ff.; xviii. 31, comp, xviii. 24). The central point of religious thought, at this period also, was the expectation of the Deliverer. The Song of Deborah praises the delivering God who is to come from Sinai. In the stories of Gideon and Samson and others the most various motifs of the Deliverer, who conquers the power of darkness and brings the spring, are interwoven.
Judges i. 16; see p. 98, n. 1. Judges i. 27, comp. v. 19, Taanah ; see p. 342, i. ff.
Judges iii. 7 ff.: Othniel arises by the call of Yahveh as 44 deliverer ”   from the eight years’ tyranny of the king
of Aram Naharaim.1 2 After that the land had peace for forty years.3
Like all the following figures of the judges, Othniel is represented as a deliverer: 44 Yahveh raised up shophetim, which delivered Israel out of the hand of those that spoiled them,” Judges ii. 16—that is the theme of all the stories. The deliverers are endowed with certain motifs, which are taken from the properties of the Oriental myth. The motifs are interwoven with names and numbers, in which often coincidence may have come to their aid; above all, they are linked to features proper to the popular traditions. In every case there
1   Compare the laments in Hosea ix. io; x. I ; xi. I f. ; xiii. 5 f.
2   Syria, called after later circumstances of population, country of the Aramaeans. The river is the Euphrates. The district is called in Egyptian Naharna. See K. A. T., 3rd ed., 28 f.
3   J udges iii. 30 says eighty years (2x40); viii. 28 says forty years; xiii. 1 has the contrary idea, forty years’ famine : see upon this pp. 94, i. ; 100, i.
OTHNIEL—EHUD
163
would be a basis of historical fact, but how far the detail is historic cannot be decided.
In the fundamental deductions (pp. 80, i. ff.) upon the relation oi the mythological motifs to historical facts, the particularly difficult period before the kings is for the time being left out of consideration. Here in isolated cases: sub iudice lis. And the interpreter feels with Plutarch,1 who writes with delicate humour in the Theseus, to his friend Sossius Senecio:
“ It is indeed to be wished that the mythological might, with the help of criticism, be entirely eliminated, and might take the form of history. If, however, it wars against credibility, and cannot at all be reconciled with probability,1 2 I hope that the readers will be reasonable enough to be indulgent to the story of such remote occurrences.”
Judges iii. 12 ff.: Ehud appears as Deliverer (iii. 15), and slays the Moabite tyrant Eglon.
* Ehud is left-handed. He is a Benjamite (see Budde upon this passage). In Judges xx. 16 the seven hundred Benjamites M'ho carry out the rape of the women (see p. 81) are left-handed. This motif belongs to the dragon-combat (comp. Stucken, Astralmythen, 256, and Winckler, Gesch. Isr., ii. 121 f.), who link to this the left- handed Ziu-Tyr, who thrust his right hand in the throat of the wolf Fenri, and the left-handed Mucius Scaevola, who laid his right hand in the fire in order to save the city. Possibly also his name hints an astral-mythological motif; for A-hu-ud is in II. R. 47, 22c a pseudonym for Jupiter (Gudbir), or Mercury (see p. 18, i.). Ehud carries in his left hand the mythical two-edged sword (see p. 236, i.}, with which he kills the tyrant. Winckler now no longer holds ('contrary to his opinion in Gesch. Isr., ii. 121 f.) that the motifs take away from the historic probability of the figure of Ehud.
Judges iii. 31 : Shamgar, whose history was suppressed, doubtless with very good reason (compare the characteristics of his time, Judges v. 6 ff.), is superfluous in the scheme of twelve; see p. 161. Upon the ox-goad, see p. 171.
Judges iv. 1 ff. : Deborah3 destroys the Canaanite foe. A celestial combat and victory are described as prototype of the terrestrial victory.
1   Plutarch was a priest of Apollo and knew the meaning of the mythological motifs very well.
2   Compare the examples p. 171, n. 3.
3   Compare pp. 161 and 171.
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THE BOOK OF JUDGES
Motifs of the Dragon combat are hidden in the mysterious rD'Ipjp, Judges iv. 18, with which Deborah covers Sisera; it recalls the hunting net of Marduk-Orion for entangling Tiamat. The net motif is still clearer in the story of Judith, Judith xiii. 9, 15, and above all in xvi. 20, where the apparently harmless fly-net was hung up as a sacrificial offering; this is a good example of the linking of simple events with mythological motifs. A Dragon- combat motif lies further in the unusual weapon, the hammer, with which Deborah breaks Sisera’s head whilst he drinks1 (compare the name of the Deliverer Judas Maccabaeus, whose surname also gives the hammer as weapon of the hero; see fig. 159, the hammer in the Dragon combat, and compare the Teshup- Marduk hammer, p. 124, i.). The other weapon of the Dragon-slayer is lightning; Barak, who is named in the history as the captain of the army against Sisera, and wTho probably wTas the actual “ judge ” of that time, is called “the lightning” (Phoenician barkas; compare the surname of the Carthaginian hero Hamilcar Barca).1 2
Judges v. 4; see p. 2, n. 1.
Judges v. 20 : “ The stars fought from heaven ; the people of Sisera fought from their stations.”
The meaning should probably be taken thus, with Winckler, Gesch. Isr., ii. 131.   It means the opponents of Yahveh. As
Tiamat with her helpers, the zodiacal signs of the earlier aeons (p. 146, i., n. l), fought against Marduk, so here the stars in their stations (to be read ni^TD, see upon this pp. 248, 260), i.e. in the same way the zodiacal signs appear upon the side of the tyrant Sisera. For the further description of the fight and the victory of Yahveh as in Isa. xxiv. 21 ff., see pp. 195, i., 271.
Judges v. 28, 30, in the ancient song of the hero, in the harem of Sisera’s ancestral palace, gives a scene most interesting from the point of the history of civilisation. The verses are worthy of the Thousand and One Nights.
Judges vi. 11-viii. 35.: Gideon3 (Jerubba{al) from Ophrah in Manasseh.
* The introductory story, related to the story of the call to Samson (Judges xiii. 2 ff.), contains some of the motifs which we meet in the Ancient-Oriental myth of the call to the king and
1   See Budde upon this passage.
2   Upon Maccabseus and Barca, see Winckler, F., iii. 82; and Kampf um Babel und, Bibel, 4th ed., 32.
3   Gideon and Jerubba'al were originally probably two “judges,” possibly identified for the sake of the scheme of twelve. The differentiation of them in the sources (see chiefly Budde in the Commentary) does not come into consideration in the questions which interest us here.
GIDEON
165
Deliverer. Gideon pf humble birth, vi. 15 (comp. p. 91)- He is chosen of God and is called as “ brave warrior,” whom God Himself will lead to the battle (comp. vii. 18, "hither sword of Yahveh and of Gideon ”). The angel of Yahveh finds him on the threshing- floor of wheat, vi. 11, comp. 37 (variant upon the call from the plough, as in the case of Saul and Elisha, pp. 177, 235 ; for the meaning, comp. p. 59, i.). ^
Judges vi. 24 (altar of Yahveh-Shalem); see p. 67.
Judges vi. 25 ff. offers an example of the change of a heathen place of worship in Canaan into a place of worship of Yahveh.1 Gideon throws down the altar of Baal standing upon the hill and cuts down the ashera standing by it (see below), builds an altar to Yahveh, and offers upon it a seven-year-old bullock. Gideon’s father calms the wrath of the people: 44 If Baal be a God, let him fight for himself/’ In religious history the event may be compared with the cutting down of the oak of Wotan at Geismar by St Boniface (Winfrid). The heathen looked for the intervention of Wotan. A Lammas chapel was built with the wood of the oak. The behaviour of the people in regard to this action by Gideon is an additional illustration of the fact that the popular religion was thoroughly heathen.2
Pure Yahveh religion, in accordance with that of the Mosaic age, was probably to be found with the leading spirits of a very small circle, from amongst whom the nabi came who encouraged Gideon. The Yahveh religion of Gideon, as told us by one of the authorities, shows a robust form ; it offers an example of the popular Yahveh religion (p. 16). The sacrifice (minha) signifies to him an actual food for the divinity, Judges vi. 18 ff.; the vision of the angel of Yahveh, whose magic staff* sets fire to the offering and who seems to have ascended in the sacrificial flame, meant death. Yrahveh appears as wrathful God (vi. 39). Gideon in a spirit of syncretism names the altar of Yahveh
. 1 The idea that the, story was composed somewhat in the sense of a Deutero- nomical reform, in order to explain the name Jerubba'al, we hold to be excluded. The “colouring of time and locality” is genuine. See Budde, p. 56, who ascribes the passage to the Elohist (but why “no early stratum”?).
2 The story of the making of an “ephod” by Jerubba'al probably belongs to some other person. It is treating of a purely heathen effigy (ba'al in the name of the hero shows it); the present text seems to modify the fact, as though it treated of an effigy of Yahveh.
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THE BOOK OF JUDGES
Yahveh-Shalem (compare with this pp. 26 ff., 67); the inquiry of the oracle, of which vi. 36 if. gives a notable example (also
vi.   32 probably presupposes the oracle), lays great value on miracles.1
Judges vi. 28: The ashera hewn down by Gideon may be thought of as a wooden image like the marble statue reproduced fig. 41: a post with the head of the goddess at the upper end.
Judges vii. 2 ff.: Fitness to serve in the army (vi. 35) is established by a curious action. The story is laid in Sichem, like the exodus of Abraham. As with the fyanikim (p. 27) of Abraham, it is treating here of a selected band (zerufim, Judges
vii.   4).1 2 The 44 lapping water like a dog ” is analogous to a not clearly understood religious custom at the sacred waters of Sichem, a secret cult, by which those were known who would be worthy fellow-warriors with the Deliverer and Dragon-slayer Gideon.
^ Motifs of the myth, which conceives the combats as phenomena of the cycle, lie in Judges viii. 14, where 77, i.e. 72 + 5 (cycle = 27, in addition five epagomenae) people of Succoth are doomed to destruction. The number of the sons of Gideon has the same meaning : 70 (Judges viii. SO)+ 2 (Abimelech and Jotham); compare with the seventy sons of Ahab, 2 Kings x. 1 and 7.
The division of the army into three parts, Judges vii. 16, comp, ix. 43, on Abimelech, was spoken of at p. 26 as a motif of the moon combat. Moon motifs are futher shown in the dream of the cake of barley bread rolling into the enemy’s camp (interpreted as “ the sword of Gideon ”). It represents the moon. In war legends lunar phenomena often bring confusion into the camp (examples in the Oriental legends by Miicke, Vom Euphrat zum Tiber, p. 96). The trumpet blasts and noise of breaking pitchers, vii. 16 ff., bring the realisation of the dream on the following night. That also is a motif of moon combat (see Winckler, Gesch. Isr., ii. 139). The noise and the blasts may be considered like the blowing down of the walls of Jericho, see pp. 156 f. The meaning is: the Dragon, who is seen in lunar eclipse or in the three days’ dark moon, is driven away by noise and trumpet blasts.- In the stories of war the enemy
1   The position of the story in the religion of Israel must be considered somewhat like the Roman legend of Liberius and Johannes, who, according to a simultaneous dream, were to build the church of S. Maria Maggiore on the spot where, on the morning of the 4th August 352, they found newly fallen snow.
2   Thus, with Erbt, Die Hebrder, 76; compare previously Stucken, Astral- my then, 137.
SWORD OF GIDEON
167
is the moon-dragon. The sword of Gideon is like the sickle of Yahveh (Isa. xxvii. T, p. 194, i.), the conquering new moon, jjc
Judges vii. 19 (night watches) ; • see p. 105.
Judges viii. 18-21; comp. 2 Sam. xxi. 1-14: Here revenge for blood is presupposed, which is only overcome when political power protects property, so that its suppression is therefore less a matter of moral than of social progress 1 The civil life of the Israelites was religiously ordered by the fundamental maxim that God is the supreme avenger of blood (Ps. ix. 13; comp. Gen. ix. 5 f.; Lev. xxiv. 17; Numb. xxxv. 18 ff). It is on this account we find here no definite vengeance for blood. In any case it is limited by the right of sanctuary ; see above, p. 111. It does not seem to us that vengeance for blood is presupposed in Gen. xxvii. 45. In the laws of Hammurabi punishment is politically organised under the clearest' application of the iits talionis. As remnants of blood revenge we find here the remarkable regulations according to which, under certain circumstances, the act is atoned for by a member of the family as nearly as possible equal in value (son or daughter) ; compare with this p. 111.
Vengeance for blood comes, as the kabbala (Gen. iv. 10) says, from the idea that the blood of the slain rises up, so long as he does not rest under the earth, particularly when the murderer comes near; compare the popular idea according to which the wounds bleed again (Hagen by the body of Siegfried) and the spirit of the slain cannot rest till the murderer is brought to justice (Goel). For this reason also, according to the Talmud, he is to be buried on the spot of the deed in his clothes with the bloodstains “ for the sake of vengeance.”
Judges viii. 21: Moon amulets on the necks of the camels; see 2 Kings xxiii. 5 and fig. 36. Also in Canaan we find signs of an addiction to ornaments in ancient times. In a quite poor house Sellin found ten ornaments by the body of a woman.
Judges ix. 5: For seventy shekels out of the temple of Baal- berith in Shechem Abimelech hires a company and murders the seventy sons of Jerubba‘al upon one (sacrificial) stone. The slaughter bears a ritualistic character, but cannot be regarded
1   See p. ill, n. 2.
168
THE BOOK OF JUDGES
as human sacrifice, but may be considered as something like the record of Assurbanipal, mentioned p. 141, according to which people were slain as offerings to the dead.
Judges ix. 7 ff.:   The escaped Jotham tells the men of
Shechem the fable of the trees, who would choose themselves a king. Abimelech is king (see p. 153), not “judge.11 The fable is of popular origin.1 It is also common to the entire East. In the Babylonian epic poems of the hero Ninib,1 2 K 133,3 it is said:
He climbed a mountain and sowed seed far and wide.
With one voice the plants acclaimed his name as king,
In their midst like a great wild bull, he raised his horns.4
Judges ix. 13 : Wine, which cheereth God and man. This cannot be understood to mean the drink-offering (Budde, s.v.), but the mythological conception of the banquet of the gods, as in the epic Enuma elish; see p. 215, i.
Judges ix. 45 : He beat down the city and sowed it with salt (sulphur?); see p. 42. Judges ix. 46 (El-berith); see p. 29.
Judges xi. 30 ff.: The sacrifice of Jephthah’s daughter. The present text veils the fact in the tradition, according to which it treats of the sacrifice of the maiden. The Rabbinical explanation5 does not hesitate to recognise the fact. It places the sacrifice together with the sacrifice of Isaac, and even compares the sacrifice of the son of the heathen king, 2 Kings iii. 27.6
% The form of the sacrifice may be understood by the Tammuz- Ishtar cult. For two months Jephthah’s daughter mourns upon the mountains with her companions over her “ death in maidenhood.” That is a double month, corresponding to one of the six seasons of the year in the pre-Islamic calendar.7 The religious custom which ordained the yearly festival of four days as a memorial of Jephthah’s daughter (xi. 39 f.) sees in the offering the heavenly
1   See Budde, Richter, upon this passage. Another fable is told in 2 Kings xiv. 9.
2   He is called “Seed, I know not my father”; see upon the motif, pp. 28, 91 ff.
3   Hroszny in M. V.A.G., 1903, 198 ff.
4   It seems as though here also the plants should be regarded as men. The connection is obscure.
5   Comp. Thaannit, 3b.
6   It should then be concluded from Jer. xix. 5 that God did not accept the sacrifice.
7   P. 65, i. ; compare the six stages of age in the symbolism of our calendar.
SAMSON   169
virgin herself, who sinks into the realm of death (or daily as evening star, comp. p. 121, C), but also reascends (see p. 121, i.).
Epiphanius, Adv. hceres., iii. 2, 1055 (ed. Patavius) gives emphatic evidence of the worship of Jephthah’s daughter as Core ( = lshtar) amongst the Samaritans: “ In Shechem, the present Neapolis, the inhabitants sacrifice to the name of Core, clearly in connection with the daughter of Jephthah, who was once dedicated as a sacrifice to the divinity.” The four days explain themselves as 3 +1 : three days’ mourning, and on the fourth day the festival of joy in the “resurrection ”; see p. 37, i., fig. 15, and pp. 94, i. ff. *
Judges xii. 5 f.: Shibboleth as countersign.
This treats chiefly of the pronunciation of the sibilant as countersign, but possibly the word is not chosen arbitrarily, but is to be explained out of the Yahveh popular religion, which mingled heathen superstitions with the worship of Yahveh. It is possible that by shibboleth, “the ears,” Ishtar may be designated, the heavenly virgin with the ears of corn whose popular cult is attested by the above account of the festival of the sacrifice of Jephthah’s daughter.
Judges xii. 9 (thirty sons and thirty daughters); see p. 170.
Judges xiii. ff.: Samson. In the stories of Samson also it is certain that a specially notable figure of the period before the kings is at the root of the Israelite tradition. The stories of this deliverer from the Philistine oppression are especially richly endowed with motifs from the Oriental expectation of the Deliverer.1
1.   The father is called Manoah (motif name of the Deliverer, see pp. 265, i.; 271, i.). The wife was barren (rnj5$J, motif word, which is only used in connection with the expectation of the Deliverer; see pp. 20, n. 5 ; and 51, n. 2).
2: The miraculous birth from the barren mother is announced by a divine message. The new-born is to be from his mother’s womb a Nazarite, and as such he is to be a Deliverer QJ'tPirij motif word) of Israel.
3.   The astral-mythological motifs which are the mark of the Deliverer may be taken from solar or lunar cycle, or they may be Tammuz-Ishtar motifs (cycle), see p. 86, i. In this story solar motifs are emphasised. Shimshon is a word of endearment, and means “ little sun.” 1 2
4.   Samson marries a Philistine woman, Judges xiv. At the
1   The motifs are probably originally moon-motifs, partly changed in the Canaanite sphere into sun-motifs, see Schultz in Or. Lit. Ztg., October 1910.
2   The place Zor‘a, given as the birthplace, is in the neighbourhood of Beth- Shemesh. There the sun myths were well known. According to Winckler, Jf.B., v. 298, it is in the Zarha of the Amarna Letters.
170
THE BOOK' OF JUDGES
marriage,1 which lasted seven days (like the marriage of Jacob and Leah, see Gen. xxix. 27), Samson has thirty companions, and promises to the one who solves the riddle thirty under garments and thirty festal garments : he slays thirty men in Ashkelon and takes their garments to pay his debt. In the cycle, which the life of the hero reflects, the wedding point is the point of the summer solstice. To this belongs the motif of guessing the riddle.1 2 The wedding riddle of Samson (Judges xiv. 14) runs :
“ Out of the eater came forth meat,
And out of the strong came forth sweetness.”
The points fit just as little as the fable in Judges ix. 7 ff. It has been taken from the popular anecdotes, for the sake of the motifs,
 
FIG. 161.—Assurbanipal as lion-slayer. (Relief from Nineveh.)
and interpolated. The statement that they guessed vainly for three days and on the fourth day gave the answer (3 + 1, see p. 87, i.) hints that the story is treating of a motif of the sun-moon combat, which according to xiv. 5 ff. must lie at the root of the riddle. A fight with a lion gains him the love of the maiden. By the help of the spirit of Yahveh he slew him.3 In the carcase of the lion he then finds honey. The lion is representative of the celestial North Point (see p. 23, i.) in the zodiac, of the Solstitial point. Slaying the lion means winning the rulership of the world; the honey signifies the same. "Milk and honey” is one of the typical expressions for
1   In Timnath, where the Judah-Tamar story is also laid, Gen. xxxviii. 13 ff. Ishtar motif here also.
2   Riddle of the Sphinx, riddle in the Adonis cult. Upon riddles comp. Prov. vi. 16-19, xxx- 4» x5 I Eccledasticus xxv. 1 f.
8   The Deliverer is lion-slayer. This recurs in the story of David. Assurbanipal had himself represented in his palace as a hero, on foot, rending a lion; see fig. 161. Gilgamesh is lion-slayer ; see p. 290, i., fig. 78 and ff.
SAMSON
171
the recapitulation of the complete cosmos (like vine and fig tree, see p. 272, i., n. 3 ; one represents the upper, the other the under half of the world).1 The swarm of bees also belongs to the chain of motifs. It should be noted that Deborah, the Deliverer, who killed the tyrant, is called “bee” (motif name like Samson?). In any case the event, and the riddle connected with it, characterise Samson as tyrant expeller and lord of the world.1 2
5.   The story of Samson’s vengeance upon the Philistines, Judges
xv.   1 ff., may be held to be an example of the deeds of the delivering sun-man. We only partly understand the motifs.
Three hundred captured foxes3 are driven two by two with burning brands tied to them into the standing com in the fields of the Philistines. Is the story to be placed in the same category with the motif of the burning fields in the story of Absalom, 2 Sam. xiv. 30 f., which is altogether unintelligible ? The burning of the woman together with her father belongs to it. It appears to us like a fire-flood motif. In the story of Sodom and Gomorrha, and in its counterpart, Judges xix. f. (see pp. 40, if.), the motif of violated hospitality is also prominent, and the motif of sexual violence, as here, where Samson is denied admission, and his wife is given up to thirty companions.
The meaning then might be : Samson brings the fire-flood, the judgment of destruction, upon the Philistines. Three hundred (30 x 10) red foxes with fire-brands would then show the summer solstice of the universe.
Ovid, Fasti, vi. 68i ff. (i8th and 19th April), proves that it is treating of a well-known motif: foxes with burning brands upon their backs were driven through the fields, burning the green corn. Ovid remarks upon it that at the Feast of Ceres foxes were burnt. The Dog-star was represented as fox, and Robigo/ to whom is attributed the burning of the corn (Ovid, Fasti, iv. 911 ff.), is the Dogrstar.
6.   The heroic deed at Lehi, Judges xv. 8 ff. Samson is hidden in the cave. Three thousand men of Judah (motif number) come : they bind him with two new cords and bring him out of the cave to the top of the rock. He rends the cords and slays with the jaw-bone of an ass one thousand men. His thirst is then quenched by a miraculous drink out of the cloven jaw-bone, “so that his spirit of life came again and he revived.” The jaw-bone of the ass is counterpart to the ox staff with which Shamgar, Judges iii. 31, slew six hundred Philistines “and delivered Israel.” There is
1   Samson eats honey. Comp. Isa. vii. 15 (see upon the passage), motif of the expected Deliverer : “ milk and honey shall he eat.*
2   Interpreted otherwise by Winckler in D.Z.Z., pr. 490. The motifs may well bear several meanings.
8 It is perfectly obvious that the chronicler did not wish such a feat of hunting to be taken as historic. In the same way no one would seriously contend that bees, whose sense of smell is extremely sensitive, would build in the carcase of an animal.
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THE BOOK OF JUDGES
always a motif of the Deliverer in the weapon.1 The miraculous water is counterpart to the honey after the lion combat, xiv. 9- In both cases it is treating of the refreshment of the hero after the battle.1 2
7.   Samson with the harlot in Gaza, xvi. 1 ff. At midnight he takes the two doors of the gate of the city and carries them to the top of the hill. Here also is a motif of the conqueror of the tyrant. The tradition, according to which early mediaeval pictures represent the scene as a counterpart to the Goliath combat, recognised this motif. The two doors signify the same thing as the two pillars of the Temple in Ashdod. The hero as bringer of a new aeon lifts the world ruled by the tyrant from its angles (the two gates and the pillars correspond to east and west point of the world, like Jachim and Boaz).
8.   Samson and Delilah, xvi. 4 ff.3 The superhuman strength of the hero rends seven fresh withes that should bind him. In the same way he rends new ropes with which no work has ever been done ; he tears the weaving pin, to which his seven locks are bound, out of the earth. But when the seven locks are cut from his hair, he grows weaker and weaker. The Philistines put out his eyes and throw him into prison.
The Deliverer descending into the Underworld, before the new age dawns, shows here particularly clear sun motifs. Hair is analogous to rays of the sun (p. 51). Shorn hair and blindness and imprisonment (p. 65) characterise the winter sun, the dark half of the cycle. At the festival (sacrificial feast of Dagon, probably New Year’s festival, note the motif of drunkenness, xvi. 25) he is brought out of prison. He takes the two pillars of the Temple, “ one in his right hand, the other in his left hand,” and the Temple collapses. The hostile world is destroyed. Samson is buried in the grave of Manoah (see above, p. 169). We must supplement : but he will rise again and bring the new age.
The relationship of this story to that of Gilgamesh, the hero with seven locks, who kills the lion (see fig. 78 ff.) and comes to
1   Ox and ass represent the two halves of the world or of the cycle; so, for example, the opposite of the Osiris-Marduk bull is the ass-headed Typhon. Ox and ass at the crib of the Deliverer in the Christian legend are not sufficiently explicable by Isa. i. 3. The ass motif in the fragmentary stories of the judges, who are invariably held as deliverers, is very striking. It is said of Abdon, Judges xii. 13 ff. : he had forty sons and thirty nephews, who rode upon seventy ass colts. Jair, Judges x. 3 ff., had thirty sons, who rode upon thirty ass colts and possessed thirty cities.
2   For example, in the celebrated picture at the “Gasthof Stern” in Otz in the Tyrol, which was renovated in the fifteenth century.
3   The question whether the later insertion in Judges xv. 20 shows that there was another authority for this and the previous story is of no consequence. The stories collectively all originate from one source of tradition and all have one aim : to characterise Samson as the type of the expected Deliverer.
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misery through Isht^r, has been already emphasised in Izdubar- Nimrod (1891), p. 70. The relationship lies in the point that both are types of the Deliverer, and endowed with sun motifs. Heracles also is in this sense a related figure.1 Eusebius, very justifiably, held Heracles to be a "heathen imitation of Samson.” It is very probable that our Book of Judges drew from a tradition which recorded twelve deeds by Samson.
Judges xxi. 7 ff. (rape of the maidens in Shiloh); see p. 81.
1 In Izdubar-Nimrod, p. 70, in opposition to the judgment of Wilamowitz- Mollendorff(.Euripides, Nerakles), that “it is fruitless to seek for Heracles in the Ancient-Oriental fables,” we have shown that just the elements of the Heracles myth, which are looked upon as primeval elements, coincide with the Ancient- Oriental myth.
CHAPTER XXIV
SAMUEL, SAUL, DAVID, SOLOMON
Samuel
1   SAM. 1 ff.: % Samuel’s birth and calling. The story is introduced by the motif of the miraculous birth, like the stories of Samson, Judges xiii. 2 ff, and Gideon, Judges vi. 11 ff, see p. 164, who bring the new age. The mother is barren (upon this motif, which recurs in the Song ii. 5b, see pp. 20, 51).1 Their son is named by an oracle in Shiloh. The name Shemu’el, which, i. 20, like the name Saul (sha’ul), is interpreted as “ asked for,’’ although it actually signifies something else,2 indicates him not only as the asked-for child, but as the longed-for Deliverer. The child is brought to the sanctuaiy, being dedicated to God. “ So long as he lives, he shall be sha’ul of Yahveh,” iii. 21. “The child grew with Yahveh.” Sam. iii. 4 ff. tells how Yahveh himself called him,
iii.   19, “and Yahveh was with him.” “He grew with Yahveh.” A new age dawns (comp. iii. 1 with iii. 21). Samuel is therefore also a figure of the Deliverer. ^
The “ Song of Hannah ” treats of the expectation of the Deliverer. It is connected with Samuel, like the similar songs of expectation which are linked with the birth of John the Baptist and with the birth of Jesus. In the history of the expectation of salvation these songs are of great importance. The age of the songs can probably not be decided. The revision may naturally be newer than the forms and the thoughts. The motifs of “barrenness,” ii. 5 f., and of “Yahveh, “who killeth and maketh alive, who casts into the Underworld and raiseth up again,”3 sound ancient. When at the end it speaks of the anointed king (ii. 10) who brings deliverance in the name of Yahveh, wre must declare ourselves in principle against the assumption that such
1   Note the tender passage I Sam. i. 8, which illustrates the status of the wife. Elkanah says : “Am 1 not better to thee than ten sons?”
2   Properly speaking, a combination of at? and see K.A.T., 3rd ed., 225; upon sha’Hl, “ the examined,” see p. 177.
3   To prove the same idea as a picture of deliverance in the Babylonian, see pp. 206, i. f.
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SAMUEL
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words could only bp thought in Israel in the period after the kings. The expectation of the Deliverer might in the East in all ages be expressed as an expected king; also in ancient Israel they understood very well the meaning of the figure of a delivering king. The horn of the anointed is the symbol of divine power ; see p. 62, n. 3, comp. fig. 88, p. 317, i., and fig. 69, p. 220, i.
1 Sam. ii. 22 (women as serving in the Temple) ; see pp. 307 i. f.
1 Sam. iii. 2 ff. : The ark of Yahveh in the ’ohel moled, as a permanent building in Shiloh ; see p. 132.
1 Sam. iv. 13 (Eli upon a stool in the gate) ; see p. 115 , fig. 135.
1 Sam. iv. 19 (Ichabod); see p. 129.
 
FIG. 162.—Destruction of idols. Relief from Khorsabad ; Botta, ii. 114.
1 Sam. v. 1 ff.: The statue of Dagon is broken in pieces. Head and hands lie upon the steps of the pedestal which bore the statue of the god.1 The people may have looked upon this as a set battle between Yahveh and Dagon. Fig. 1622 illustrates the destruction of an idol. More detail was given upon Dagon and his cult at p. 159.
1   Upon the miftan, see Zech. i. 9, p. 309. Also 1 Sam. v. 5 treats of the steps of the adyton, where the priests might not go.
2   This plate was published in A.T.A.O., isted., erroneously, under “human sacrifice,” with a query ; comp. p. 141.
176 SAMUEL, SAUL, DAVID, SOLOMON
1 Sam. v. 5 (miftan, not threshold); see pp. 60, i.; 175, n. 1 ; 309.
1 Sam. vi. 4 ff.: Golden tumours and golden mice were laid before the altar as an offering. The tumours probably were placed there in effigy for the purpose of healing the sickness, as is shown by the well-known Roman Catholic custom of the present day, of dedicating waxen or silver members of the body before the miracle-working statue.1 The mice have the same meaning, as symbols of the plague. Ed. Glaser found a golden mouse, used as a dedicatory offering, in South Arabia; see Nielsen, Altarabische Mondreligion, p. 120.
1 Sam. vi. 7 ff. (the ark upon the chariot drawn by cows); see p. 130.
1 Sam. vii. 6: Drawing water and libation offering before Yahveh, see p. 113. The custom of worship2 speaks for the age of the “water drawing1’ at the autumn festival as set forth in Joshua vii. 37 f., probably also Isa. xii. 3, and described in Tractat Succa.3
Saul and David
1 Sam. viii. 11 ff. describes an Oriental tyrant. Amongst other things his sons were made to 66 run before his chariots,” literally trotting, as they do at the Selamlik at the present day. This is the picture we must conceive in the case of Ahaz when he was driven before the triumphal car of Pul in Damascus; see p. 217.
1 Sam. ix. 1 ff. : Saul, son of Kish.4 Yahveh anoints him as a prince, and he is to free Israel.5
1   The boils belong, according to Winckler, Gesch. Isr., ii. 152, to the Yahvist account, who changed the symbol (mice plague) into reality.
2   The passage is ascribed to the Deuteronomist. This may pass in regard to the revision. But probably here, as in the case of the “ boiled flesh for sacrifice ” (ii. 13 ff.), and of the women in the Temple (ii. 22), it is treating of customs of the ancient religion. 2 Sam. xxiii. 16 also gives evidence of libation to Yahveh.
3   See B.N. T., 75. Fig. 136 represents an Assyrian libation.
4   The name in Babylonian, Shaulanu, comes in A”.2?., iv. 100. Qi-i-shu is the name in the Assyrian eponym canons of the eponym of 755 (JF.B., i. 20, 4th ed.).
5   x. 1, according to Sept. (<rc6£<-ij/; Hebrew, jrrin); see Klostermann upon the passage.
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^ The description'accordingly introduces him with the motif of the Deliverer : he is tall and beautiful (bafyur, ?valobi ix. 2 ; comp. Gen. xxxix. 6 about Joseph, 1 Sam. xvi. 12 about David), the goodliest man in Israel, a head taller than any other (ix. 2 ; x. 23). God has chosen him, anointed and destined him to be Deliverer. The casting of the lot confirms the divine call. According to one source the chosen one “ searched for his father’s asses.” 1 According to another source he is fetched away from the plough to begin his work of deliverance (xi. 5 ; see pp. 59, i* fv 164) 1 2 in battle against the Ammonite Nahash, who is going to thrust out the right eye of the men of Jabesh. The name (certainly artificial) Nahash (i.e. serpent), xi. I,3 already shows the motif of the Dragon combat. After seven days’ respite the messengers find the deliverer Saul at the plough. He hews the oxen into twelve pieces and sends them as a menacing call to arms to the twelve tribes (an altogether inappropriate signal, clearly mythological). With an army of three companies 4 he defeats the Ammonites in the morning watch.
Like the Jabesh incident, so also the thoroughly historical war against the Philistines is astral-mythologically endowed. A “terror from God” is the cause of the confusion which causes the enemy to turn their weapons against each other. It is the same motif as in Gideon’s battle, Judges vii. 16 ff. (see p. l66),5 and at the conquest of Jericho (pp. 155 f.). The deliverer Saul bears moon motifs. Also here one may perhaps gather this from the name (sha’-ul, “ the asked,” the moon is lord of oracles). He has three sons, 1 Sam. xiv. 49 ; according to 2 Sam. xxi. 8, two sons and five nephews. The descent into the world of the dead agrees with the lunar character (1 Sam. xxix.; see p. 184). Also the death of Saul hints at this motif. Saul kills himself, after his three sons have fallen.6 He throws himself upon his spear.7 The Philistines
1   Is this also a motif of the fable of the call to the king ? The ass is the beast of the Messiah ; see p. 147, n. 3.
2   For an analysis of the authorities, see Winckler, Gesch. Isr.t iii. 153. We have three stories of the call.
3   Upon his father’s death the son of this Nahash caused the beard to be half sheared off, and the garments to be stripped to their waist, of David’s messengers, who went to condole. The beard is most sacred to the Oriental. Upon the other insult, see pp. 277 f.
4   Motif of the moon combat, see pp. 26, 166. Winckler, loc. cit., 155, is right in his conjecture that the groundless putting out of the eyes, which is used also in the legends of Alexander, is a moon motif. The historic background may be : that, like Philip of Macedon (the mythic arrow bears the inscription : “in Philip’s eye ”), the eye of Nahash had been shot out. He wishes to revenge himself.
5   See Winckler, loc. cit., 163.
6   Otherwise according to 2 Sam. i. 10.
7   Probably thus originally, as the record 2 Sam. i. 6 suggests. I Sam. xxxi. 4 has it “ sword.”
VOL. II.
12
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SAMUEL, SAUL, DAVID, SOLOMON
cut off the head from the body (xxxi. 9).1 The dark moon (i.e. the moon in death) is represented in the lunar myth as carrying the severed head in his arms. The spear, likewise, belongs to the moon. For the spear in the stories of Saul, compare 1 Sam. xviii. 10 f.; xix. 10 ; xx. 33; xxvi. 22 ; 2 Sam. i. 6.1 2
Coins from Laodicea, Tiberius, Scythopolis, Caesarea upon the Sea, Sebaste, and JElia Capitolina show the hermaphrodite divinity Onka-Mene of Phoenician Asia Minor, who everywhere symbolises the moon (Lunus and Luna), with the spear in one hand and in the other a man’s head.3 One of the places of these coins (Scythopolis, now Beshan or Beisan) is identical with the Biblical Beth-shean, where upon the city walls the bodies of Saul and his sons were hung (l Sam. xxxi. 8 if. ; 2 Sara. xxi. 12). In that district, therefore, popular religion knew the corresponding moon motifs. The severed head is also emphasised in the story of Goliath, see p, 183, and fig. l65.
Persian historical stories employ the same motifs according to Herodotus. Whilst Xenophon records that Cyrus fell peacefully to sleep upon his death-bed (Ktesias says he died of a wound, according to Diodorus he was crucified), Herodotus records, i. 214, that after the battle Thomyris, Queen of the Massagetae, beheaded the body of Cyrus, and threw the head into a cesspool filled with blood, and so dishonoured the body.
The emphasis upon the crown and bracelets of Saul is also striking (2 Sam. i. 10). There is a great predilection for describing the moon as holder of the crown (del age or shar age). The homed lunar disc was current as a crown. It is so in the conclusion of the lunar text, partly reproduced pp. Ill, i. f. The Omina speak of the moon’s crown at the appearance of the new moon, further of the "gigantic crown” which he wears for five days (till the half moon, comp. p. 113, i.). That this also plays upon one of the properties of the myth, is shown by the parallel in Plutarch, Artaxerxes, 17.
As in this story the Amalekite is condemned, who had taken the crown and bracelets, so there Parysatis condemns the eunuch Masabates, who had hewn off the head and right hand (the members which bear the royal insignia) of the usurper; see Paton in Z.N.W., 1901, 340, *
1   Sam. ix. 11 : The ascent to the city. We have to think of the ancient cities of Canaan as exactly like a modern Arabian town, with its narrow lanes of steps leading up to the citadel, Rome also in its most ancient time bore this “ Oriental ” appearance. The
1   1 Sam xxxi. 10, they hang his armour in the temple of Ishtar ; see p. 183.
2   See fig. 159 and p.115, i. ; comp, also Joshua viii. 18 and 26.
8   Movers, Phonizien, i. 649, according to Eckhel, Doctr. num. vetiii 336, 426, 431, 439 f., 442. Here according to Stucken, Astralmythen, 54 ; Winckler, Gesch. Isr.t ii. 169.
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sacrificial places are upon a bamah before the gates of the city (ix. 14; see figs. 150 and 151).
1 Sam. ix. 22 : The etiquette of the table, Saul and his servant at the head of the guests; comp. Luke xiv. 8 ff.
1 Sam. x. 1 : Anointing with oil in reception of the king. According to an Araama Letter (K.B., v. 37), Thothmes III. anointed the grandfather of the princes of Nahashshe to be king. The custom is therefore attested in the pre-Israelite kingdom in Canaan.
1 Sam. xiii. 19 ff*.: This relation throws light upon the unhappy circumstances of Israel during the period of the Judges, and it recalls the passage in the Song of Deborah, Judges v. 8: there was no shield nor spear seen in Israel.
1 Sam. xvi. 11: The call of David.1 David’s biography has to take into account that the story at present before us harmonises two traditions about the hero’s youth: the stories of David the shepherd boy and harpist, and the stories of David the youthful hero, who first comes to the court of Saul as conqueror of Goliath, record the fight with Goliath.1 2
 
FIG. 163.—Player and entranced listener. Relief on gate from Zenjirli in Syria.
Both the traditions I. and II.
1   We find the name Da-wi-da-nim three times in the Contracts of Hammurabi ; see Ranke, Personal Names, p. 78. The pretended name Daudu of an Ancient- Babylonian priest-king of the fourth millennium, which was brought to light in the excavations of the University of Chicago in Bismya, does not exist. We reproduce the statue, which, with its misleading explanation, went the round of the illustrated papers ; as an additional illustration to p. 315, i., see fig. 164 and p.181, n. 1.
2   For analysis of the authorities, see Klostermann, B. Samuelis, pp. 60 ff. The story of the youthful hero, who (xvii. 55 ff.) is still entirely unknown to Saul, begins xvii. 12.
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SAMUEL, SAUL, DAVID, SOLOMON
In story No. I. Jesse’s youngest boy is fetched from the fields in Bethlehem and anointed king.1 (Upon anointing, see p. 179,
xvi.   1 ff.) He has (xvi. 12, comp. 18) reddish hair,1 2 is beautiful to look upon, and of a well-formed figure (Tammuz motif; see pp. 66 and 177 upon Saul). He had been chosen by God from his youth (ff Yahveh was with him”), and already in his youth had accomplished heroic deeds (xvi. 18; more fully, xvii. 34 IF., where the lion- and the bear-fights are related, see p. 170). He is a harpist, poet, and singer,3 and as such controls evil spirits. By the victory over Goliath he proves himself to be the Deliverer.
From this time onwards Saul became jealous, for David was the darling of the people (xviii. 16). Once as he played in his presence, Saul, driven by the evil spirit, tried to nail him to the wall with his spear.4
In story No. II. about the warrior David, the fatal enmity of Saul is brought into connection with the king’s daughter, offered and refused, for the victory over Goliath (p. 60, n. 2). Saul is jealous of the warrior. Michal, the daughter of Saul, warns and rescues the hero.5
Winckler, Gesch. Isr., ii. 170 f., has referred to the story of the Indian King Sandracottus (Sandragupta, about 300 B.C., grandfather of Asska), who is of humble parentage, before King Nandra, who seeks his life; he flees, and, following the command of a dream, gathers together a band of robbers, and with them carries on the war for independence against Alexander’s lieutenant- governor, and so became king (Justin, xv. 4, 15 ff.); further, he draws attention to the legend, according to which Alexander in mad wrath seeks to transfix Kleitos with a spear6 (in jealous displeasure because Kleitos glorified the deeds of Philip). The points of contact are not accidental. We have seen already by many examples that Oriental stories show preference for emphasising the same motifs. But the fact is not that simple stories are made up with these motifs (“ that the chroniclers have all in the same way stolen from the Oriental legends,” as Winckler in one place expresses it, p. 139), but the traditionary material may very well be historical. If we take any historical episode whatever from antiquity which is told without artificial motifs, and try to ornament it by the help of known motifs, we shall find how the facts always lend themselves to it. Naturally there is the possibility in every case that the motifs have fitted with history. The literary critic should therefore beware of concluding solely from the application of mythological motifs that the story has no foundation in history.
1   Sam. xiv. 21 (Hebrews); see p. 45, n. 2.
1 Sam. xvii. 1 ff.: David and Goliath. In the war with the Philistines a champion offered himself to single combat. We often
1   T]j?p ; according to x. I, Saul is T:3, anointed.
2   To be read 'tonN ; see Klostermann upon the passage.
3   According to the Oriental idea, this all goes together, xvi. 16, Sept. elS6ra rpdWeiv. Upon the gates of Zenjirli (tablet xxviii. in the publication of the Berlin Museum) a player is pictured, to whom another is listening entranced ; see fig. 163.
4   Comp. Deut. xv. 17, and to that p. 103.
5   See Winckler, Gesch. Isr., ii. 170. Upon stories of rescue, see p. 57.
6   He flees, and then, when he turns round, is really pierced.
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hear of this in antique war stories—for example, in Homer. For the art purpose of the story, one person is made to include
 
FIG. 164.—E-SAR, the mighty1 king, King of Ud-NUNki (Adab). Discovered in the ruins of the temple of Bismya in Babylonia.
Comp. pp. 179 f., n. 1, and n. 1, below.
the entire hostile power. His figure is drawn with the features of the power of the Underworld, the winter side of the cycle,
1   D A-LU = dannui “ mighty,” as often found in the Babylonian royal inscriptions (we are indebted to H. Zimmern for the true interpretation); the Americans have read DA-UDU and interpreted it as “the Sumerian king David”! Inscription published in the American Journal Semitic Languages, 1904-5, p. 59*
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SAMUEL, SAUL, DAVID, SOLOMON
the dragon of chaos. The conqueror is given the features of the light year-god, of the Deliverer who brings the new age.1
^ 1. The name Goliath corresponds to the Babylonian gallitu (gallatu), which signifies “ sea.” Therefore we may perhaps in the name Goliath think of the dragon (= Tehom-Tiamat).1 2
2.   He drew near for forty days “ early and late,” xvii. 16. We know the forty days as an abstract of the winter-time before the beginning of the early year; see p. 68, i.
3.   In the statement of his height (six ells and one span) lies the other presentment of the winter-time. Instead of the forty days of equinoctial storm we have the 5J- epagomena which precede the winter-time, the new year, and which are often given in a round number as five, or six. The winter giant has the corresponding motif number (in his height, or as a man with six fingers and six toes: like the giant in 2 Sam. xxi. 20; see p. 183). The motif was no longer understood by the author of our story, and he corrects it to six ells and one span, instead of five and a span.3 Comp, also p. 155, n. 5.
4.   In drawing near he uses mocking words, xvii. 10, 23, 26, 36. This is the regular formality constantly recurring in the dragon- combat; comp. p. 149, i- (Tiamat mocks Marduk) and Dan. vii., pp. 300 f.
David opposes Goliath as dragon-slayer:4 5
1.   The king’s daughter is offered as wife to the conqueror, xvii. 25 (II). Motif of the king’s daughter in the dragon-combat; see p. 60, n 2.
2.   David boasts that he has already as a boy killed a lion and a bear. For the hero as lion-slayer, see p. 290, i. (fig. 78) and pp. 170 f. (fig. 161).
3.   The emphasis of David’s smallness,6 no armour fitting him,
xvii.   38 ffi, corresponds to the motif that we find clearest in the fairy story of Hop-o’-my-Thumb.6 In the myth of the year, the
1   Comp. Winckler, Gesck. Isr., ii. 172 ff., who has shown the motifs of the dragon combat in the story of Goliath.
2   Thus Peiser, M. V.A.G., 1901, 73 ; comp. Mar-galitu, “daughter of the sea ” = pearl.
3   The same motif in Strabo, xiii. 2 f., where Antemenidas frees the Babylonians from great distress, by slaying with his sword a gigantic warrior, who measured five royal ells less one span (the epagomena of the lunar year instead of the five of the solar-lunar year ?) In Herodotus, vii. 17, the builder of the canal of Athos, Artachsees, who is glorified as a hero, was “five ells less four fingers” high. Examples quoted according to Winckler, loc. cit.
4   Two types of the story denoted by I. and II. ; see p. 180.
5   Just as the “ little, active ” Alexander kills the giant Poros, Pseudo-Kallisthenes, iii. 4 (Winckler, Gesch. Isr., ii. 176).
6   It is not possible to deny that our fairy stories are full of astral-mythological motifs (upon Sleeping Beauty, see p. 100, Bluebeard, p. 63; and these are only
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giant who incorporates the five intercalary days before the beginning of spring is sometimes opposed by a little one, who corresponds to the fraction which is contained in the calculation of the equalised solar and lunar year : ^ in addition to five. The five smooth stones, xvii. 40, correspond besides equally to the winter giants.
4.   The victor steps upon (not “near,” as it is translated by Kautzsch) the slain giant, xvii. 51. This is a constant motif of the dragon-combat; see pp. 149, i.; 327, i.; 262 ; comp. figs. 83 and 47.
5.   He hangs the sword of Goliath as a trophy in the sanctuary; see p. 184.
6.   David cuts off the head of the giant (and bears it in triumph).1
7.   After the victory the Deliverer is glorified in a song of praise.
That this passage is referring to an established motif story, which naturally may have an actual event in David’s life as foundation, but may just as likely have been freely interpolated in the biography, is shown in 2 Sam. xxi. 19, where it is not David, but Elhanan, the son of Jair of Bethlehem, shaft of whose spear was like
 
FIG. 165.—Relief from the gate of Zenjirli.
“who slew Goliath and Gath, the weaver’s beam,” and xxi. 16, where Jonathan slays a giant who had six fingers and six toes, and who mocked Israel (comp, the variant 1 Chron. xxi. (xx.) 4 ffi); further, 2 Sam. xxiii. 21, where Benaiah is described as lion-slayer and conqueror of the giant: he went against the giant with a staff (like David, 1 Sam. xvii. 40, 43), wrested his spear from him,
casual examples). The agreement of many fairy stories with the Thousand and One Nights has long been observed. Much material came from the East at the time of the crusades and through the Arabs, who were the means of bringing culture into Europe.
1 The head severed from the body. Both the types of the story emphasise this (I. 17, 46, and 54 ; II. 17, 51, and 57 ; for analysis of sources of 17, 50, and 51, see Klostermann, p. 73); compare the relief from the gate of Zenjirli, fig. 165, which shows a conqueror with his enemy’s head. The severed head is motif of the moon combat, as was mentioned p. 178. Together with the motifs of the strife between the power of winter and the spring (compare above upon the forty days), that of the sun-moon combat is sounded. Goliath appears also as conquered dark- moon dragon or giant of winter. ^
184
SAMUEL, SAUL, DAVID, SOLOMON
and slew him with the spear.1 It is obvious that the same “ dragon-combat ” was attributed to every hero.
We have besides already met with the story in quite another direction, namely, in the history of Sinuhe, originating about 2000 B.C. (p. 326, i.), where the Egyptian hero in Canaan slays the gigantic foe in exactly related conditions.
1 Sam. xv. 3 ff: Carrying out the ban is indeed not exclusively a sacred process. It could only be so interpreted by a theocratic mind. We often find the infliction of the punishment as a severe custom of war in the Assyrian war annals.
1 Sam. xv. 32 ff.; comp. Judges viii. 21. Note the ancient scorn of death.
1 Sam. xvi. 14 ff.: Saul is 44 troubled by an evil spirit from Yahveh.” This may be understood as the result of the physician’s diagnosis; comp, also xviii. 10, xix. 9 in the sense of the conception which looked upon sickness as caused by demons.   2 Sam.   xxiv. 13 fF., the   “ pestilence ” is   an angel of
Yahveh.   Music   was used as   a   means of   cure   against the
demon of melancholy.
1 Sam.   xix. 12-16 (teraphim),   see p. 56.   1   Sam.   xix. 13, see
p. 52.   1   Sam. xx.   6, see p. 115.   1   Sam. xxvi.   19 f.   (odours), see
p. 267, i.

[Prometheus]

1 Sam. xxi. 9, the sword of Goliath wrapped in the garment is hung in the sanctuary as a trophy: the same is recorded in the epic of Gilgamesh: the trophies of victory are hung up in the sanctuary. In the same way the armour of Saul was hung in the temple of Ishtar by the Philistines, 1 Sam. xxxi. 10; see
p. 178.
1 Sam. xxviii. 7 ft*.: Saul with the witch1 2 of Endor. Babylonian writings have a related story in the epic of Gilgamesh, who invokes the spirit of his friend Eabani from the dead.3 Eabani 44 rises like a wind from the gulf of the Underworld ” ; Samuel is an 44 elohim rising from the earth.”
1   See Winckler, Gesch. Isr., ii. 172.
2   Ishsha ba'alatdb; in Bab.-assyr. Vorst. vom Leben nach de7n Tode, p. 102 (1887), we drew attention to the Babylonian syllabary Sb 361, where the ideogram denoted as abtitu, with the personal determinative ilfi, { = mush$Hl ekimmu, “he who calls up the spirits of the dead ”) indicates a sorcerer or witch. Babylonia and Canaan have the word and the thing in common.
3   See Ho lie und Parodies, 2nd ed.; A.O., i. 3, 2nd ed., pp. 27 ff.
SOLOMON
185
We have evidence of necromancers as priests in the Babylonian texts (C.T., xxiii.). Also the visit of Odysseus to the Underworld to question Teiresias has been referred to.1 But passages like Exod. xxii. 18, which speak of the rooting out of witches, give a real foundation to the story.
1   Sam. xxxi. 10, see p. 62, n. 1.
2 Sam. v. 21: Carrying away statues of strange gods by David. That is the same form of conquest as in Assyria; see pp. 292, i., and 189.
2 Sam. v. 24: A rustling in the tops of the baka trees is the sign of Yahveh.2
2 Sam. xxi. 9 ff. : Seven sons of Saul are hanged before Yahveh (comp. p. 159) 44 in the first days of the harvest.” Rizpah sits in mourning garments upon the rock “from the beginning of harvest, till the first rainfall,” and scares away the beasts of prey from the bodies. An Israelite Niobe.8
Solomon
According to 2 Sam. xii. 25, Solomon’s real name was Jedidiah.4 The tradition places him as prince of peace in opposition to the war-lord David, and emphasises his industry in building (upon the connection with Hiram of Tyre, see p. 205) and his wisdom.
1 Kings ii. 46: Solomon’s mines. The Swacrrev/nara of the Sept, is a wrong translation of the Hebrew   It
means Solomon’s mines6 in the district of Lebanon, which in I Kings iv. 16 are in Ba4alat; Be4ana was governor in Asher and (set over) the mines. He could only have been really governor in one province. Also the metal furnaces,
1   Winckler, Gesch. Isr., ii. 168.
2   See Ottli, Geschichte Israels, p. 284.
3   See Winckler, Gesch. Isr., ii. 241 f., and compare upon Niobe, Roscher, Lexikon, iii. 372 ff.
4   The name corresponds also in form to Salama, of which there is evidence in Arabian. Also the Tyrian divine name Shalmayati is related : Abimilki of Tyre in the Amarna Letters is a servant of Shalmayati and Tyre is the city of Shalmayati; see Winckler, K.A. T., 3rd ed., 236 ; Erbt, Die Hebraer, pp. 74, 152.
5   In Glaser’s Sabsean inscriptions speaking of the rupture of a dam at Mareb, bin, signifies “to break through the rock.”
6   See Winckler, Gesch. Isr., ii. 261, n. 2.
186
SAMUEL, SAUL, DAVID, SOLOMON
 
1 Kings vii. 46, which Solomon had,are probably to be looked for here.
1 Kings iii. 16 ff.: The judgment of Solomon. The same story is represented in a Pompeian wall-painting ; see fig. 166. It is quite out of the question that this can be a Biblical picture possibly in a Jewish house, because of the representation of the figures as caricatures (they are pigmies). The Pompeian picture shows, much more likely, that it treats of a traditional feature of the fabulous endowments of the44 wise king.”1
1 Winckler, Gesch. Isrii. 248: “The ‘judgment of Solomon’ in the quarrel of the two women should naturally be looked upon as a story, the substance of which does not belong to the Jewish mind, but had been in circulation in all countries of the East for thousands of years, though we have as yet no further evidence of it elsewhere.” Our picture offers the required evidence. Upon the picture itself, comp. Overbech, Pompeji,   584,
652. Upon the Biblical ex-
SOLOMON
187
1 Kings iv. 7 ff.; see p. 45, i.
1 Kings iv. 30 ff. describes the wisdom of Solomon: 44 excelled the wisdom of all that dwell in the East and all the wisdom of Egypt .... and they came from all people to hear the wisdom of Solomon.”1 P. 203 we shall find the tradition of Tyre, which shows, in contradiction to this, that Hiram was wiser than Solomon. The art of proverb-making and the art of making fables in poetry is common to all the Ancient-East. Cuneiform writings unfortunately offer very little material upon this ground up to the present. The Edomites also were celebrated as poets; comp. Jer. xlix. 7; Obad. viii.
1 Kings v. 6 : Lebanon. The hill of Lebanon (Assyrian Lab-na-na) was familiar to the Babylonians from the earliest times. Of the mountain ranges of the 44 Westland” mentioned by Gudea—Sub-sal-la (K.B., iii. 1, p. 35)* Ti-da-num (ibp. 37) —the latter (comp. II. R. 48, 12: Tidanu, Tidnu = Amurru) probably denotes the northern Lebanon. Since Lebanon belonged to the Assyrian territories under Tiglath-Pileser (comp. pp. 195 f.), wood for building was brought from thence, as the Egyptians had previously done (see fig. 104, p. 329, i.). In the Wady Brissa in Lebanon Nebuchadnezzar had a road made- to bring the cedars down. Rock reliefs in the Wady Brissa and at the Nahr el Kelb represent there how he 44 breaks the cedars with clean hands.”2 Amanus (Am-a-num) was already by that time probably rather denuded of trees. It was already mentioned by Gudea as the hill from which he brought cedars, and it was represented as shad er%n% 44 cedar mountain,” in the chronicles of the Eponyms till the eighth century B.C.3
1 Kings vi. 29; see p. 212, i.
planation, rightly doubted, of the Italian scholars, we may mention Victor Schultze’s essay in Daheim% 1883, No. 5, p. 72.
1   According to the record x. 23 ff. they brought offerings of homage. We may recall Matt, ii., where the Magi bring their gifts to the new king. The meaning of the story is : Solomon is the expected Deliverer, and he is hailed as such (comp. Ps. lxxii.). Matt. ii. shows the same tendency. The great Deliverer king has appeared in the Westland, see B.N.T., 50 ff.
2   Compare with this clearing of the wood, p. 210, n. 5. The inscriptions of Nebuchadnezzar now published, together with the pictures by F. H. Weissbach, Die Fclsminschriften Nebukadnezars, ii., Leipzig, 1906.
9 Comp. Winckler, F.A.T., 3rd ed., 190.
188
SAMUEL, SAUL, DAVID, SOLOMON
1 Kings vii. 15, 21: The two pillars correspond to the obelisks at the entrance to the temples of other nations. Inasmuch as the Temple reflects the throne of God, the pillars represent the two turning-points (solstices) of the zodiac.1 The two pillars are called Jachin (right) and Boaz (left).
1 Kings vii. 23 : The molten sea borne by twelve oxen served, according to 2 Chron. iv. 6, comp. Exod. xxx. 18 f., for the priests to wash in. Attention has rightly been drawn 2 to the fact that the construction, so inconvenient for washing, points to an original symbolic meaning. The vessel is, like the brazen altar, which the chronicler in 2 Chron. iv. 1 writes in this passage, derived from strange lands (Hiram of Tyre), and, like other vessels of the Temple, is of “ Babylonian ” pattern. In Babylonian temples “ oceans ” were likewise placed.3
1 Kings vii. 27 ff., comp. Jer. lii. 17 ff.: Mekonah, sacred vessel for holding the consecrated basin. It is decorated with lions, oxen, and palms. Hommel compares with it a bronze vessel found in Cyprus, which has eight winged sphinxes as decoration,4 and which points to a relationship with the Minaean sacred vessel makanat. Also we may recall the sacred chariot of the heathen worship at Lachish, mentioned Micah i. 13.
1 Kings vii. 29, see p. 212, i. 1 Kings ix. llb, 12 ff.:   Solomon
as a vassal of Hiram, see pp. 203 ff. 1 Kings ix. 16, see p. 342, i. 1 Kings ix. 24, see 1 Kings x. 10.   1 Kings ix. 26, see p. 60.
1 Kings x. 1 ff*.: Queen of Sheba. The story illustrates by an example what has been said, 1 Kings iv. 29 ff. It is fabulously
1   East and west, or north and south, according to the orientation, see pp. 25, i. ff. On the cylinder of Assurbanipal found by Rassam, II. 41 f., the Assyrian king designates the two obelisks of the temple at Thebes as manzaz bdb E-kur, “ posts of the gate of the temple.” Manzaz = Hebrew, WD, Exod. xii. 7 (station of the divinity), for the doorposts, which have the same religious signification, see p. 103. Comp, also p. 104, the Mazzeboth.
2   Benzinger, Konige, p. 48.
3   For example of Urnina, K.B., iii. 1, 13 ; ot Agum-kakrimi, K.B., iii. I, 43, comp. I. R. 3, No. xii. ,1,17. They are water basins in which certainly consecrated water for washing was preserved ; seep. 217, i., and p. 211, i., the consecrated spring of water in the temple of Marduk. The Ritual Text IV. R. 23 speaks of a bronze basin with twelve bronze gods (compare with this Hommel, Aufs. u. Abk., ii. 229).
4   Fig. 187, p. 232. Hommel, Aufs. u. Abh., 222 ff. The bronze vessel was first published and discussed by Furtwangler, Miinchener Ak. der IVt'ss., ii., 1899, p. 411.
189
' QUEEN OF SHEBA
embroidered in colours of the later South Arabian kingdom of Sheba, which was remote from Judah, Ps. lxxii. 10,1 and lay in the region of fairy glory, Ps. lxxii. 15. But there is also no evidence of South Arabian queens later. In the time of Solomon one of the queens of the North Arabian kingdom of Aribi may be taken into consideration, as they are mentioned by Tiglath-Pileser III. and his successors.2
Winckler, K.A.T., 3rd ed., 150, 237, is inclined to look for the historic basis in the Egyptian king’s daughter (according to Winckler, of Muzri, see above, p. 287, i.), whose palace is mentioned 1 Kings ix. 24, and who played an important part in Solomon’s life. Compare also Weber, M.F.A.G., 1901, 23 f.
The answering of riddles is added in 2 Chron. ix. 1 ff. Guessing riddles is common to the whole of the Western Orient. On the authority of Menander of Ephesus, Hiram of Tyre was an expert in guessing riddles, comp. pp. 187,203. This arabesque of the figure of Solomon clearly betrays this. The Semiramis of the Jewish fable is also a guesser of riddles.3
1 Kings x. 15:   The pahdt are 44 governors,*”4 Assyrian
pahatu, prefect of the province (contraction from bel pahati, 44 lord of the province ”).
?1'Kings x. 18 ff. (Solomon’s throne). Compare with this Wiinsche, “ Salomo’s Thron und Hippodrom Abbilder des babylonischen Himmelsbildes,” Ex or. lux, ii. 3. The six steps lead up to the seat of God (comp. pp. 310 and 57, i, f.; further, p. 55, on Jacob’s dream, and pp. 15, i. f. and 57, i., on the tower of seven stages). Wiinsche shows in a surprising way how the knowledge of the Ancient-Oriental picture of heaven is reflected in the Agada above Solomon’s throne and in the Hippodrom.
1 Kings x. 28, see Ezek. xl. ff. 1 Kings x. 28, comp. 2 Chron. i. 16 f., see p. 284, i. 1 Kings xi. 4 ff*., see pp. 60, 92.   1 Kings xi.
5 and 23, comp. Ezek. xxiii. 13 ; see Gen. xxxviii. 14 ff., p. 6l.
1 Kings xi. 7: Solomon builds in the vicinity of Jerusalem (according to xi. 7, upon the Mount of Olives) places of worship
1   Matt. xii. 42 : “from the ends of the world.”
2   Comp. Winckler, K.A.T., 3rd ed., 57, 150.
3   Comp. Fz. Delitzsch, Die Blumenratsel der Konigin von Saba in Irist Farbenstudien undBlumenstucke, pp. 115 ff. Upon Babylonian riddle-writing, see Jager, B.A., ii. 274 ff.
4   In Isaiah, see xli. 25, and in Ezek. xxiii. 6, 12, 23 we find, together with this as a higher rank, the scganim — Assyrian shakniiti.
190
SAMUEL, SAUL, DAVID, SOLOMON
for the gods of the Moabites and Ammonites. This heathenising process is a result of political events. Conquests were sealed by carrying away the statues of the strange gods and articles of the cultus. In 2 Sam. v. 21 a precedent is recorded of David. In contradiction to pure Yahveh religion, which the Mosaic law required, and which established Yahveh’s lordship over the whole world and over all nations, the Yahveh popular religion saw in the gods of the heathen real powers, gods of the land, who were irrevocably bound up with the fate of their territories. Solomon, at times when his religious life was not at its highest, was very near to this popular religion (the Deuteronomist says : “when Solomon had grown old”). The lapse into paganism caused by the strange women of the harem which the “Deuteronomist” blames, xi. 1 fF., is very similar. Political treaties in the Ancient East were everywhere ratified by marriage, that is, by sending strange princesses to the harem of the allied ruler.
The marriage of Solomon with the Egyptian princess is thus explained, and the marriage of Ahab with the princess of Tyre. But for the gods of these strange women chapels and altars had to be erected. It may be imagined what devastation this circumstance would introduce into the religious condition of Jerusalem.
1 Kings xi. 29 ff.: The prophet’s mantle is torn into twelve pieces. The act agrees with cosmic symbolism, which is linked to the sacred garment, and which has been spoken of pp. 177, i. and 135.1 The mantle signifies the cosmos, or the microcosmos of the kingdom, or what in idea is the same, knowledge and power over fate. It bears the same relationship in the mantle of Elijah.
The call to Elisha is accomplished by Elijah casting his mantle over him. The meaning of it follows upon the above remarks on the mantle of the prophet of Shiloh. 2 Kings ii. 8, 14, the rolled-up mantle divides Jordan (motif of the disruption of the dragon); ii. 13, Elisha takes the mantle of Elijah naturally, in order to wear it in future in Elijah’s stead.
1 Upon Ps. civ. 2 (heaven as garment of God) we find in Gunkel, Ausgewdhlte Psalmen, p. 258, quoted from the Persian: Yasht xiii. 3, “That heaven .... Mazda takes to himself as a garment, star-embroidered, god-woven.”
\
THE MANTLE
191
1 Kings xii. 11 : Solomon has chastised with whips, Rehoboam will chastise with scorpions. In this pictorial, probably proverbial, form of speech is hidden a motif. Comp. M.V A.G., 1901, 311, 312 ; and the scourge of Osiris in Erman’s Aeg. Religion, p. 17 ; the zuqaqipn is also attested in Babylonian as some kind of instrument. Xerxes scourged the Hellespont, and drove the army into battle with whips; made them labour under the scourge, and drove the soldiers with scourges over the bridges of the Hellespont. Herodotus, vii. 35. 22, 56, 223 ; see Miicke, Vom Euphrat zum Tiber, p. 95. Ktesias, 23, relates the same. What is the meaning ? Upon the fact, p. 205, n. 2.
CHAPTER XXV
THE POLITICAL HISTORY OF THE STATES OF ISRAEL AND JUDAH IN THE LIGHT OF THE MONUMENTS
The Authorities
THE history of the state of Israel is developed in the midst of a brisk intercourse with the great civilised states of the Ancient- East. The Biblical tradition itself gives a lively picture of these circumstances. The so-called historical books in their present condition no longer show much of it, since the annals (above all “ the book of the wars of Yah veil”) which were open to the authors of our Books of the Kings have for the most part been lost.1 To the authors of our Books of the Kings it was not historical stories they were relating, but religious events, for which reason the historical books are called in the Jewish tradition “the earlier prophets.” Fragments like % Kings viii. show how exactly the earlier sources of the relations were orientated to the surrounding world, and the table of nations, Gen. x., presupposes a surprisingly accurate knowledge of political geography and of national movements in the eighth century.1 2 Elisha is just as well acquainted with circumstances in Tyre as with circumstances in Israel. He appears even to be a subject of Tyre. And he is in lively relation to Damascus. But, above all, the oracles of written prophecy3 show that the leading men in
1   The Books of the Chronicles also contain an historical core, and are not absolutely valueless as history. We repeatedly come across valuable statements in the Chronicles. Benzinger’s Commentary has recognised this.
2   See pp. 275, i. ff. and Map I.
3   It is pure accident that in the extant literature Amos appears as the first prophet to commit his utterances to writing. The earlier period also certainly possessed written remains of its prophets.
192
SOURCES OF THE STORIES
193
Israel and Judah occupied themselves with the greatest interest in the politics of their time, and that they stood in close intercourse with the surrounding nations.
Before the cuneiform writings of the monuments had been deciphered, which were brought to light from the palaces of Nineveh, and partly also from Babylonian ruins, a strange picture was presented by the manuscript sources of the history of Assyria and Babylonia for the time from the middle of the eighth century till 538—that is to say, for the period of political dependence of Israel-Judah upon the kingdoms on the Tigris and Euphrates. There were points in chronology which can be verified with absolute certainty. But the accounts of the events themselves were extremely meagre.
The excerpts preserved from Diodorus, and the stories of Ktesias about the history of Nineveh and the kingdom of the Medes, which for two thousand years brought confusion into the history of Assyria, have been proved quite useless.
These authorities come into consideration :
(a)   The astronomical “ Canon of Ptolemy ” in its first division to the time of Cyrus. It contains an astronomical calendar from Nabonassar onwards,1 which gave the astronomical events of each royal year. The Babylonian calendar passed to Egypt and was continued there, with wholly incorrect figures (by Hipparchus?), and carried on to several centuries after Christ. It is named after Claudius Ptolemaeus, bectfuse he mentioned the lists and handed them on unfalsified. Lunar eclipses are given for 747-538, which were verified later, and found to correspond to the Julian calendar.
(b)   Fragments and notices from the Chaldaean history by Berossus. He was contemporary with Alexander, and wrote in the service of the Seleucids his three books, XaXSaiKa and Ba/hAoma,Ka. As he was a priest of the temple of Marduk in Babylon, he had a rich source of documents at his disposal. The monumental cuneiform writings have given brilliant proof of his reliability.
(c)   Notices out of Abydenus so far as they concern Babylon. He is later than Berossus, and wrote, according to Moses of Chorene, “Origins” (probably = ’ApxaioAoyiKa); according to Eusebius, histories of Chaldaea, Assyria, and of the Medes.
(d)   The notices of Herodotus upon the histories of the Medes, Lydians, Babylonians, and Egyptians, as he heard them in all good faith from the natives.
(e)   Upon the history of Tyre, three fragments of the writings
1   See pp. 75, i. f., and compare besides Syncellus, Chronogr267 : curb NafSa- vacrapov robs XP^0VS T*is T®v uvrepcov Kivfjffius Xa\Satot ^KptjSwcrav.
VOL. II.   13
194 POLITICAL HISTORY OF ISRAEL AND JUDAH
of Menander of Ephesus in Josephus, C. Apion, i. 117 (113 !) to 125 (Ant., viii. 144); i. 158 (Ant., ix. 283).
Josephus himself can only be included when it is a case of confirming a record from another source. Chronographers like Eusebius and Syncellus are useless. Their writings are not founded upon good authority. The little they knew they wrested forcibly to fit their system, and it is not possible to distinguish truth from falsehood.
The Assyrian inscriptions brought rich sources of material for judging of the middle period of the kings. It is worthy of emphatic note that, in the beginning, the statements of the Bible gave much enlightenment towards deciphering the Assyrian annals.
Since the middle of the tenth century we possess unbroken records of Assyrian kings; the royal inscriptions only fail for the period 781-744.
With 893 the Limu lists begin,1 which are overlapped by the later Babylonian lists and chronicles. They are almost complete for the middle period of the Israelite kings. What the catalogues of the Archons are for the study of Greek history, and the Consular Fasti for Roman history, the lists of the Assyrian eponyms, named after the Greek prototype, are for the history of Western Asia. The copy preserved to us begins with Adad-nirari II., son of Tiglath-Pileser II., of whom we know nothing but the name. He reigned till 890 (891)- Our fragment begins in 893. Probably the lists began in 911* With this year a new saros ( = 600 years) seems to have begun. The beginning of the next saros falls in 312/11 and opens the era of the Seleucids. The fragments reach to 666, and therefore they supplement the Ptolemaic Canon of the years 747-555, or 538.
The part of the list which is of special importance is a particular column which communicates the most important facts of the year in question. So in the ninth year of Asurdan it is said : “ In the month Sivan an eclipse happened to the sun.” It may be reckoned that the statements can only refer to the total solar eclipse which was observed in Nineveh on 15th June 763 B.C. This would give to Asurdan, the years of whose reign may be counted according to the list, from 772-754. Accordingly the reigns of the previous and the following kings can be most accurately established.
Supplementary to the Limu lists are: (1) The so-called “Synchronistic History,” a fragment of diplomatic acts, an extract from archives concerning certain dealings between Assyria and Babylon.1 2 (2) The Babylonian Chronicle (from the library of Assurbanipal, transcript of a Babylonian original).3 (3) A Babylonian list of kings.4
1   K.B., i. 204 &
2   K.B., i. 194 ft
3   K.B. ii., 273 ff., recently published by Delitzsch ; in Abh. d. Kgl. Sachs. Ges. der Wissenschaften, 1906.
4   K.B., ii. 288.
MOUNT CARMEL THE BOUNDARY
195
Political Rights in Syria .as far as Mount Carmel
About 1500 the power of the Egyptian kings (eighteenth dynasty) extended as far as Mesopotamia. Thothmes III., under whom probably the supremacy over Canaan and Egypt was established (see pp. 327, i. f.), had already forced the Hittites to pay tribute. In the Amarna period the Hittites appear as powerful foes of the Egyptians.
The silver tablet treaty,1 which after long, warlike complications was, about 1270, concluded for mutual help between the Hittite king Khattusar and Pharaoh Rameses II., appears to have given up Syria as far as Mount Carmel to the Hittites. Fully one hundred years later the Assyrian king Tukulti-apil- eshara (Tiglath-Pileser) I., under whom Assyria was for a short time a great ruling power, infringed the rights of the Hittites.1 2 He overthrew them in the north and north-east,3 passed over the Euphrates, took possession of the land up to the Taurus, and undertook, after the manner of the ancient Babylonian kings, to open the road which led through Karkemish, Aleppo, and Hamath to the Mediterranean. He conquered the Hittite king [ . . . . ]-Teshup and pressed as far as the coast of Phoenicia. During the stay of his court in Arvad.4 he received an ambassador from the Egyptian king. Then he advanced along the Phoenician coast and probably placed the first Assyrian statue at the Nahr el Kelb (Badi-ra’si).5 By this political act the ancient territory of the Hittites, which reached to Carmel, passed over to the
1   Last translated and considered by Messerschmidt, A. O., iv. i, 2nd ed., pp. 6 ff. ; comp. p. 330, i. The Hittite original in Babylonian cuneiform character was discovered by H. Winckler in Boghazkoi.
2   In the inscription of Bavian, line 50, Sennacherib mentions an event which happened 418 years before his conquest of Babylon (689). This gives the year 1107 as a certain date for the reign of Tiglath-Pileser. The inscriptions of the first six years of his reign (K.B., i. 14 ff., and in addition the broken obelisk which belongs to this time, 125 ff.) are as yet our chief historical authorities for this period.
3   Inscriptions in grotto near the source of the Euphrates, III. R. 4, No. 6 ; K.B., i. 48 f.
4   In the later Assyrian campaigns this northernmost Phoenician city is not mentioned. It remained under Assyrian dominion.
5   See p. 319, i.
196 POLITICAL HISTORY OF ISRAEL AND JUDAH
great Assyrian king. This is an important point for the comprehension of the later Assyrian claims in the wars with Israel.
There comes now a gap of a hundred years in our traditions. Shalmaneser II. mentions the efforts of one of his predecessors of this period, Assur-(h)irbi, to retain the conquests in Syria and Phoenicia, and records that he, like Assur-irbi, had erected his statue by the sea.1
Formation of the Small Mediterranean States
During this period of Egypt’s weakness and the Hittite wars the nations on the Mediterranean coast could develop in comparative freedom and independence.2 Phoenician city- kingdoms arose, for a time as it appears, under the leadership of Sidon, later of Tyre. On the southern coast (rather southward from Dor) the Philistine state consolidated itself, which owes its rise3 to a settlement of a remnant of the so-called “sea- people.” In the land of Jordan the formation of the states of Israel-Judah was completed, and the states of Edom, Moab, and Ammon arose. In Syria, in the territory of the ancient Hittites, arose Aramaic states. Already since the middle of the second millennium there are hints of the Aramaya.4 About 1000 B.C. Syria and Mesopotamia, till then overrun by Hittites, have a preponderant Aramaic population. Only Palestine itself did not become Aramaic. But here also there are traces of its influence; after the time of Assyrian rule (ninth century) the business language of Palestine was Aramaic. The most important states, with a mixed Hittite-Aramaic population, are:
1.   The state of Patin, northward and southward from the
1   These would be, therefore, Nos. 2 and 3 of the Assyrian statues to be sought on the Nahr el-Kelb. No. 1 was the first - mentioned monument of Tiglath- Pileser I.
2   The most remarkable evidence of this period of free intellectual development is the introduction of the Hebrew alphabetic writing in place of the Babylonian syllabic and verbal script of which there is evidence in the Amarna period and still later. Alphabetic writing is attested in North Syria by the Panammu inscription found at Zenjirli and in the later Bible land by the Moabite stone.
3   See p. 346, i., n. 2 ; comp. p. 337, i., n. 1.
4   Comp. A.O., iv., 3rd ed., Sanda, Die Aramaer.
DAMASCUS
197
Orontes district. It is probably identical with the Biblical Padan-Aram. Southward from this—
2.   The state of Hamath.
3.   The state of Damascus.1 For the Biblical historian Damascus (Aram Dammazek) is the essence of the Aramaean kingdom.
As the states of Israel-Judah were temporarily alternately under Tyrian and under Damascene supremacy, we must direct our attention to the histories of Damascus and Tyre, in order to understand the political history of Israel.
Damascus
In all ages Damascus was the key to Syria. From hence the caravan road led eastward to Babylonia, southward to Arabia, northward to Mesopotamia, and westward over the passes of Lebanon to Sidon and Tyre and the northern Phoenician cities. Also the via marts of Isaiah led by the sources of Jordan to Damascus.
Unfortunately, we are dependent for our knowledge of the history of Damascus almost entirely upon the Biblical records and d;he cuneiform inscriptions. There is little hope of finding any native Damascene tradition. The name Dimashq points to a non-Semitic founding of the city, which is prehistoric. At the period historically interesting to us the population must have been a mixed Aramaic-Hittite race. But this population had inherited the same Semitic civilisation which was brought by the “ Canaanite ” 2 migration, the flood- tide of which in the third millennium overflowed Western Asia. It is shown that this civilisation still existed by 2 Kings v. 18 amongst others, according to which Rimmon was the divinity worshipped at Damascus, that is, the Babylonian Ramman, in whom the Hittites recognised their Teshup.3
1   South of Damascus the small state Zobah (Assyrian Subiti, named in 2 Sam. x. I-14 near Ma‘acah and Rehob). The exegesis formerly erroneously assumed, upon the authority of 2 Sam. viii. and x., comp. I Kings xi. 23, a large Aramaean kingdom of Zobah, which was annihilated by David, and which was separate from the Aramaean kingdom of Damascus. Compare upon this Winckler, Gesch. Isr.t i. 138 ff.'
2   See p. 2, i., note.
3   Comp. fig. 46. Upon the corresponding Aramaean divinity, see p. 198 n. 2.
198 POLITICAL HISTORY OF ISRAEL AND JUDAH
From the sixteenth century onwards we meet with Damascus as one of the Syrian cities in Egyptian inscriptions. In the Canaanite letters in the archives of A mania, “ Dimashqi in the land of Ubi11 (possibly = Hoba of Gen. xiv. 15) appears, not very prominently. According to the Biblical tradition, the district was subject to the state of Judah in the time of David. In the time of Solomon (about 950) Damascus became the seat of an Aramaic kingdom through Rezon, an officer of the king of Aram-Zoba, who took possession of Damascus, as leader of a band of freebooters. 1 Kings xi. 23 ff.: “ Rezon was Israel’s adversary, so long as Solomon lived.” The actual founder of Damascene power is Ben-hadad (885-843).   1 Kings
xv. 18 his ancestors are named: Tab-Rimmon and Hezion ; the latter probably erroneously for Rezon.1 Ben-hadad,1 2 who subjugated Israel under Baasha, and then again after it had allied itself with Tyre, was a powerful opponent of the Assyrians.
The first king on the Limu list, spoken of at p. 194, is Tukulti-Ninib I. (889-884), who carved his statue in the grotto at the source of the Euphrates, near that of Tiglath- Pileser I. He was followed by Asurnazirpal III. (884-860). He saved Mesopotamia, fought against the Aramaeans who were settling there, chiefly against Bit-Adini (i.e. b’ne ‘Eden of the Bible) in the neighbourhood of Haran, passed over the Euphrates, fought against the Hittites, remnants of whom had gradually grouped themselves round about Gargamish, and opened the way to the Mediterranean Sea for Assyrian power. He next succeeded in overthrowing the northernmost of the Aramaean states, Patin. He conquered the king Lubarna, and made his city of Aribua into a centre for an Assyrian colony. This brought him to the northern boundary of Hamath, which adhered to Damascus. He avoided war with
1   Thus with Klostermann ; see Gesenius-Buhl, s.v. jin.
2   Thus M.T., LXX. vlos ’ASep, Assyrian IM-’idri. The ideogram of divinity IM must be read as Adad or Ramman or Bir. Possibly Bir (in investiture documents named Be-ir together with Adad, see K.A.T., 3rd ed., 134) is the Aramaic divinity corresponding to the “ Canaanite ” (see p. 124, i.) Ramman and Adad, and to the Hittite Teshup (see p. 124, i.). From Biblical tradition the existence of two Ben-hadads has erroneously been concluded.
PHOENICIA
199
Damascus, but rather passed southwards along the sea, and had his statue carved at the Nahr el-Kelb.1 Tyre and Sidon paid tribute to him. His successor, Shalmaneser II. (869-825), took up the war against Damascus, without material result, in spite of fierce assaults.2 His annals record his campaign in the sixth year of his reign (854). He overthrew Aleppo (Halman). Farther south, on the Orontes, near Qarqar, the fighting strength of Damascus came against him under the leadership of Ben-hadad (“ alliance of Syrian-Hamathite cities”), Hamath, together with those of the Hatti land (general term of the Assyrians for Syria) and of the sea-coasts. Ahab of Israel (A-ha-ab-bu matu sir-’i-la-ai) took part with two thousand chariots and ten thousand men. The great king of Assyria announces that he was victor in an awful battle, and dammed the Orontes with bodies of the slain as by a bridge. In reality he was stopped from making further advance. Also in 849 and 846 his attempts were fruitless. The Assyrian policy then turned to isolating Damascus. We have to follow out the further fortunes of the state of Damascus in the course of the history of Israel.
Phoenicia, especially Tyre 3
So long as darkness veiled the civilisation of the Ancient- East, the importance of Phoenicia was vastly overrated on the ground of the information in classical writings. The fifty miles of coast-land, bounded at the back by Lebanon, could not produce any independent civilisation, nor could it command the seas by its own power. The “ Phoenicians ” belong to the same stratum of people which populated Babylon with Semites and the valley of the Nile with the Hyksos, Canaan with Ammonites, Moabites, Edomites, and lastly with Israel. They form the first movement forward of this people’s march,
1   No. 4 of the Assyrian monuments to be sought on the rocks (p. 196, n. 1).
2   The text upon the following is in K. T., 2nd ed., pp. 14 ff.
3   Works upon the subject : Pietschmann, Die Geschichie der Phonizier, 1889 ; Fr. Jeremias, Tyrus bis zur Zeil Nebukadnezars; v. Landau in Ex or. lux, i. 4, and A.O., ii. 4; Winckler in A.O., vii. 2 (“Die Euphratlander und das Mittel- meer”); further Jf.A.T., 3rd ed., pp. 126 ff., and Auszug aus der Vorderasiat. Geschichie, pp. 74 ff.
200 POLITICAL HISTORY OF ISRAEL AND JUDAH
which from here outwards pressed on towards the coasts of North Africa. But they found civilised states there before them, of whose history we know nothing. Sargon, or his son Naramsin, was obeyed by the kings of the sea-coast and thirty- two cities ; see p. 319, i.
In the Amarna period we find independent cities along the coast of the Mediterranean, but no disposition to the formation of states. But it was a uniform population as far as Gaza. The writings of a King Zimrida of Sidon and letters from Abimilki of Tyre are in the archives of Amarna. Map II. shows the cities mentioned in the A mama Letters. Then the cities came successively under Hittite or Assyrian dominion. Tiglath-Pileser, who carried the claims of the Hittites as far as Carmel, took up his quarters in Arvad. When, about 1100, the Assyrians emerged here (pp. 195 f.), the Phoenician cities offered no resistance. Unlike Damascus, they were much more drawn to the Assyrians.
The principal towns northward from Carmel lie at an almost symmetrical distance apart: Arvad (Aruada, Tripoli), Gebal (Gubla), Beerot (Berunu, Beirut), Sidon (Sidonia), Tyre (Tsurru), Akka (Ptolema'is). Southward from Carmel the cities in like manner bear Phoenician character, although they were under Israelite and Philistine influence: Dor, and not far from there Migdal-Ashtoret (Stratonsburg, Stratonos Pyrgos),1 and the only haven which came into consideration for Israel and Judah,1 2 Jaffa (Japu, Joppa). From here, after the fourteenth century, stretched the Philistine territory.
Arvad, likewise Sidon and Tyre, lay, according to the inscriptions, originally upon islands.3 At some period Sidon must have had the supremacy. The native name of the Phoenicians is Sidonians (the kings of Tyre call themselves kings of the Sidonians; Sidon is the “ mother of Canaan ”).
1   Comp. Stratonice = Ishtar, see Kampf um Babel und Bibel, 4th ed., p. 35.
2   When Josiah went out against the Pharaoh Necho, it was to be expected that he would try to stop him here at his landing-place. For this reason Megiddo (battle of Megiddo 609-8, death of Josiah) may, as Winckler assumes, very likely, be a misunderstanding of Migdol.
3   When Zimrida of Sidon besieges the king of Tyre, it is said in an Amarna Letter : “ He has no water to drink, and no wood for fires.”
BOUNDARIES OF ISRAEL-JUDAH
201
Homer also calls the Phoenicians Sidonians, and the Old Testament designates by Sidonim the state which united Tyre and Sidon. But probably only the southern group from Beirut is meant. The two parts of the coast district show differences of dialect to the present day. Gebal and Arvad show a certain isolation, and their inhabitants appear in the inscriptions as independent tribes.
At the period of the Israel-Judah state Tyre had the supremacy. Abi-ba‘al (about 980) appears as a contemporary of David. Hiram I., who subdued Cyprus and built the city of Kart- hadasht there, was contemporary with Solomon. In the fragments of Menander of Ephesus,1 Hiram appears opposed to Israel-Judah in the same position as later Ben-hadad of Damascus.
The Boundaries of the States of Israel-Judah 1 2
A natural boundary is formed to the north by Hermon, 300 metres high, and the deep hollow of the Nahr el-Kasimiyeh, in its upper reaches called Litani (Eleutheros of the Greeks). The 'desert bounds the east, likewise the south. The Wadi es Seba comes into consideration for the southern boundary. This is the “ stream of Egypt ” (nahal Mizraim, or Muzri).3
The record of the conquest, Joshua xi. 16 f., really also names as northern boundary the hollow between Lebanon and Hermon : “ Ba‘al Gad in the plain (bebik‘at) of Lebanon, under Mount Hermon”; comp. xiii. 5, “unto the entering in of Hamath,” that is, the hollow between Lebanon and Hermon, across which is the way to Ccele-Syria. What is meant is the Hamath lying north from Galilee, south from Hermon.
The statement of the boundary in Judges xx. 1 and 1 Sam. iii. 20, comp. Gen. xiv. 14, agrees with this: from Dan to Beersheba. It could be as well expressed : “ from the entering in of Hamath to the stream of Egypt (nahal Muzri).” The
1   P. 194.
2   Comp. Buhl, Geographie Palastinas. And chiefly Winckler, F., iii. 249 ff. Also Nagl, Die nachdavidische Konigsgeschichte.
3   Winckler takes the Wadi el Arish for the southern frontier, because Raphia, mentioned by Esarhaddon, lies there.
202 POLITICAL HISTORY OF ISRAEL AND JUDAH
late idea took it to mean Syrian Hamath, and added also to it Zobah, in the district to the north, instead of the south, of Damascus.
The proverbial statement, “ from Beersheba to Dan,” or, nahal Muzri to “the entering in of Hamath,” also gives the boundaries of the kingdom of David. This definition of boundary lies at the root of the numbering of the people, 2 Sam. xxiv. 5 ff., comp, also 2 Kings xiv. 25; see p. 213. When David had subdued Hadadezer of Zobah and the Aramaeans of Damascus, 2 Sam. viii., Toi of Hamath brought him tribute {sha'al shiilmi). Like Philistia, Moab and Ammon, the people beyond the northern frontier, acknowledge the supremacy of the kingdom of David. Also 1 Kings iv. 21 really gives no greater extent of territory to Solomon. The passage is spoilt by a later legendary extension of the kingdom of David. When national life had been extinguished, imagination drew a kingdom of David extending from the Nile (instead of nahal Muzri) to nahar Haggadol (interpreted as Euphrates, instead of Eleutheros).1 The passage runs: “ (Solomon) ruled over all kings from the (great) River (Eleutheros), over the land of the Philistines, and unto   bill (the nahal Muzri
here has grown to the River of Egypt, the Nile).”
Even Ezekiel, xlvii. 15-17, contents himself with the actual extent, although an ideal picture is being given. The northern boundary here is a line running eastward from the sea through Hamath. And in the period of the Maccabees, the actual boundary was still recognised. 1 Macc. xii. 24-34, Jonathan leads an army against Demetrius, “ and came against them in the country of Hamath, for he would not leave him time to set foot in his country.” He .therefore lays claim to the country named in Ezekiel. Jonathan defeats the enemy, but does not pursue them “ because they had gone over the river Eleutheros ” (i.e. Litani, Nahr el-Kasimiyeh. He turns against an Arab sheikh and comes into the country of Damascus (he had therefore crossed one of the passes leading down the southern slope of Hermon).
1   Eleutheros is certainly some kind of translation of the surname “the great (the noble).”
SOLOMON AND IIIRAM
203
Gen. xv. 18 : “ Unto thy followers will I give this land from the nahal Muzri unto the nahar Haggadol” (i.e. Eleutheros ; see p. 202, and n. 1, below). This is the original meaning. Deut. i. 7 : “go to the hill country of the Amorites (i.e. Hermon and the southern spurs of Lebanon, therefore the district of Hamath) and to all the places nigh thereunto [gloss : in the Arabah, and in the hill country, and in the lowland on the sea, and in the Negeb, in the land of the Canaanites] and Lebanon as far the great river [gloss: the river Euphrates].” The original meaning is : they shall possess the land to the northern frontier, as far as Hamath.1
Joshua i. 4 confirms this : “ from this Lebanon even unto the great river [the river Euphrates] ! ”
Solomon and Hiram of Tyre
The monuments give us nothing on the histories of Saul and David. The statements about Saul’s victories over surrounding enemies—Moab, Ammon, Aram 1 2 bet Rehob, and Zobah (northern and north-easterly neighbours of Israel)—and about David’s victories (over the Israelites, 2 Sam. viii. 2; over the Philistines 44 from Gath even unto the sea,” viii. 1 [?] ), over Hadad 4Ezer of Zobah (2 Sam. x.) and his allies, Beth-Rehob, king of Ma4acah ( = Geshur) and the men of Tob (comp. Judges xi. 3, 5), correspond to the actual circumstances of the time. David freed the land east of Jordan from the encroaching Aramaeans. For this reason To4u of Hamath3 made him presents.
For the stories of Solomon we are not dependent only upon the Biblical records. How often in Oriental history the great builder follows the conqueror! What the Bible records of Solomon, Menander of Ephesus, who had access to the Tyrian annals of the temple of Melkart, relates of ITiram, contemporary of Solomon, and of his father Abiba4al. As Solomon beautified Jerusalem, so these two beautified Tyre, by fine buildings. In the fragments of Menander, whose 44 Greek and barbaric stories ” were aware alike of the writings of Berossus of Babylon and Manetho of Egypt, Solomon is mentioned, and in the sense of a Tyrian polemic
1   Buhl’s explanation, loc. cit., p. 65, accordingly falls to the ground.
2   To be read thus, instead of Edom, with Winckler, Gesch. Isr., i. 143 ; upon the following, comp. ii. 206 ff.
3   See above.

[Prometheus]

204 POLITICAL HISTORY OF ISRAEL AND JUDAH
against the late-Biblical representation of the wisdom of Solomon. Solomon is wise in solving problems, but JJiram is wiser!1 In another important circumstance the Biblical relation must even be corrected in favour of Hiram. 1 Kings ix. 11 b, Solomon had to give up to Hiram twenty cities in Galilee, and make a money payment; xi. 5, Solomon favours the cult of Ashtoreth of Tyre. Both these things betray the fact that Solomon was a vassal of Tyre.2 Also the mutual commercial enterprises are hints that Solomon was under obligation to JJiram. Hiram had no havens upon the Red Sea, and used Solomon’s port Eziongeber. According to 1 Kings ix. 27, Solomon had to supply ships and men. The few men supplied by Hiram were probably overseers.3
Division of the Kingdom,
The death of Solomon was the seal to the fall of David’s kingdom. But the “ division of the kingdom ” was certainly not the result of internal strife only. External powers had assuredly some hand in it.
In the first place, the Pharaoh Shoskenk would be interested in weakening the mightiest of the Syrian states. After the period of weakness, as we find evidence in the Golenischeff papyrus, Egypt again began to occupy herself over the question of supremacy in Canaan. The marriage of Solomon with the daughter of Pharaoh Psusennes II., last ruler of the Tanitic dynasty, for whom a wonderful palace was built, had a political reason.4 In the history of Jeroboam, son of Nebat, who was brought up in the court of the Pharaoh, and who, according to a tradition which appears in the LXX. of 1 Kings xii. 24, was
1   Comp, with this, pp. 188 f.
2   Winckler, K.A.T., 3rd ed., 237.
3   In r Kings ix. 28 and x. 22, gold, ivory, kdphapes (according to Ed. Glaser, kdphim is frankincense) and negroes are named as merchandise. If Ophir also was an Arabian port, the reference is to African merchandise ; see K.A. T., 3rd ed., 239; Niebuhr, O.L.Z., 1900, 69.
4   Since Solomon received as dowry Gezer, which till then had been independent (i Kings ix. 16 f.), the allusion here is undoubtedly to Egypt, and not to Muzri(as Winckler will have it in Helmolt’s Weltgesch., iii. 197). Solomon made good his claim upon Gezer with Pharaoh. The event can be illustrated by similar proceedings in the Amarna Letters.
DIVISION OF THE KINGDOM
205
married to a sister-in-law of Pharaoh, we find traces of the recognised Egyptian policy, of dallying with aspirants to the throne of allied states. Also the dependence of Solomon upon Tyre must have taken place with Egyptian aid. The rulers of the Nile and the Euphrates preferred having the small vassal states in dependence upon each other. This simplified the levying of tribute. The position of Rehoboam still remains obscure. We know from 1 Kings xv. 18 f. that he relied upon Damascus.1 ' It appears that he tried to shake off Tyrian and at the same time Egyptian supremacy when he sought the connection with “the adversary, whom God had raised up against his father Solomon " (1 Kings xi. 2S).1 2 Damascus had certainly already been at work behind the scenes in the wars between Jeroboam and Rehoboam, and was tertius gaudens in the dividing of the kingdom. The hegemony amongst the minor states of the “ Westland ” passed over to Damascus. With the overthrow of Israel, Damascus also obtained a commercial road to the Phoenician seaports open at all seasons of the year, likewise across the plain of Esdraelon to the Philistine seaport cities.
After Rehoboam had refused at Sichem, where he wished to establish a supremacy over North Canaan, to withdraw certain laws made by his father (1 Kings xii.), the northern confederacy of Sichem revolted. Egypt joined (1 Kings xiv. 25) in favour of Jeroboam. Shishak sacked Jerusalem, and proposed to found a kingdom which would unite under one sceptre North Canaan “ from Bethel unto Dan ” and the land east of Jordan, and for this Rehoboam’s only obligation was to support the policy of Egypt in Asia.3 *
With this Jerusalem sank into the position of a city kingdom, as it was in the Amarna period. Rehoboam’s second son Asa (see n. 1, below) appears to have succeeded in shaking off
1   Asa was the second son of Rehoboam ; brother, not son (as i Kings xv. 8 erroneously states), of Abijam.
2   “ I will chastise you with scorpions ”(I Kings xii. n);comp. p. 191. Behind this claim stands not Jeroboam only, but certainly Egypt also; comp. p. 206.
3   At this period we hear nothing of Tyre. The notification according to
which Abdashtoreth (5Aj8Sa<rrapros in Menander) was murdered by the “ four
sons of his nurse,” shows that it was occupied with internal wars.
206 POLITICAL HISTORY OF ISRAEL AND JUDAH
the interference of Egypt. The chronicles report a victory over the Cushite Zerah (2 Chron. xiv. 8 IF.). He drove back an Egyptian or Arab tribute-levying army. Then he sought support from Damascus. He sends tribute, and reminds Ben-hadad of an alliance that his father had made with Ben-hadad’s father. He prays for help against his foe Baasha, king of Israel, who had deposed Nadab, the son of Jeroboam, and sought to break the treaty that existed between Israel and Damascus. This in reality means: he placed himself under the ruler of Damascus as a vassal, and thus took the position already held before by Israel. Ben-hadad acceded with pleasure to the prayer, which meant that he assumed supremacy over the long-desired territory east of Jordan: Ijon and Dan and Abel-beth-Maacha and Kinneroth, together with the whole land of Naphtali (1 Kings xv. 20). Thus Damascus acquired a legal claim to this territory, and in consequence, in 733, Tiglath-Pileser included it when he made Damascus into an Assyrian province.1 From thenceforward Israel was forced to maintain a standing army at the disposal of Damascus. The commander, Omri, owed his elevation to the kingship to the ascendancy of the army.
Israel and Judah to the Fall of Samaria
With Omri begins a new period for Canaan. There is silence about his acts, but the deficiency is supplied by the Mesha Stone, which gives evidence of the subjugation of Moab under Omri. He sought union with the north, such as David had once accomplished with the south. Documentary evidence of his epoch-making appearance is given by the circumstance that Assyrian diplomacy called Israel mat JHlumri, bit ^umri(a).2 Judah not being mentioned in Assyrian annals till the time of
1   From this time Damascus advanced step by step. In I Kings xx. 34 we learn that under Omri Ben-hadad took possession of more cities, and opened bazaars (naturally with privilege for the commerce of Damascus) in the newly founded Samaria. In any case, that was the stipulated reward for the help given to the usurper Omri in his seizure of the throne. Omri then tried, as a wise politician, to counterbalance the dangerous Damascene ‘ ‘ friendship ” by alliance with Tyre.
2   Also Jehu, the usurper supported by Assyria, is called “the son of Omri” (mar IJumri). Ahab is still called Sir'lai; later in the Assyrian incriptions mar Bumri signifies “ Israelite.”
ISRAEL AND JUDAH
207
Jotham and Ahaz, is simply due to the fact that it was a vassal state of Israel. Where Israel is mentioned, the inclusion of Judah goes without saying. Omri allied himself with Ithobaal of Tyre. The marriage of his son Ahab with Ithobaafs daughter Jezebel was of political importance. And the political union meant recognition of the religion. It brought the religion of Ba‘al from Tyre into Israel. Ahab was then able to venture open enmity with Damascus (1 Kings xx. ff.). The following wars, in which Israel was certainly supported by Tyre, and in which Judah was occasionally obliged to supply an army, had varying results, but the dependence of Israel upon Damascus1 was not finally broken, for we soon after find Ahab fighting against Assyria amongst the certainly compulsory followers of Ben-hadad.2 Meantime danger approached the powerful Aramaean state of Damascus from the side of the Assyrian kingdom. Since the time of Asurnazirpal one of the chief aims of the policy of Assyria was “ the road to the sea,” a free passage to the Mediterranean Sea for commerce and armies.3 To this end Damascus had to be subjugated, and with its possession was included the disposal of the small nations of the district east of Jordan. A party friendly to Assyria soon formed itself in Israel, which hoped for freedom from the yoke of Damascus by means of the powerful empire.
Probably under Omri Israel had, for the first time, to deal directly with Assyria. From thenceforward the Israelite court had to keep in touch with Assyrian events. We may assume that Israel, that is to say Judah, maintained ambassadors at the court of Nineveh. New light is thrown upon the story of Jonah’s mission, even if it only indicates an historical dressing up of a didactic writing. How did the union of interests between Israel and Assyria arise? Tyre and Sidon had paid
1   The intellectual superiority of the kingdom of Damascus over Israel-Judah is attested by Amos iii. 12, and perhaps also 2 Kings xvi. 10 f., where Ahaz sends the pattern of an altar from Damascus to Jerusalem.
2   Ahab goes with Jehoshaphat to the Jabbok (1 Kings xxii. 3), to rend Ramoth Gilead out of the hands of the Damascenes. Incidentally, therefore, the power of Damascus reached so far! The friendship between Jehoshaphat and Ahab signifies nothing more here than the relationship of vassalage of Judah towards Israel.
3   Comp. pp. 319, i. ff., and fig. 96 f.
208 POLITICAL HISTORY OF ISRAEL AND JUDAH
tribute to Asurnazirpal during the last years of his reign over North Phoenician countries. The Phoenician cities would not have done this unwillingly so long as they had to suffer from the oppression of the too-powerful Damascus.1 In the close connection then existing between Tyre and Israel, it is more than likely that Omri determined to send tribute and do homage even if it were not included in the homage due to Tyre as his overlord. But Israel is first expressly mentioned by the royal tablet-writers under the son and successor of Asurnazirpal.
After Shalmaneser II. (860-825) had brought Babylon under his rule, he armed for the “ march to the sea,” as the “ Eponym Canon ” says.
Whilst his father had avoided a conflict with Damascus, a powerful opponent appeared against Shalmaneser in 855 in the person of Bir-’idri of Damascus. He concluded a defensive alliance with Irhuleni of Hamath in which Israel (with Judah) was obliged to unite. This confederacy 2 is traditionally called the Damascene-Hamathite cities’ confederacy. Ahab of Israel is mentioned in the inscription of Shalmaneser as A-ha-ab-bu Sir-i’-la-ai,3 and it is said that he took part with ten thousand men and two thousand chariots.4 Shalmaneser records in an inscription on a monolith 5 fuller detail of the campaign of the year 854. A battle took place in the northern district of Hamath, near Qarqar, the royal city of Irhuleni, on the Orontes (Arantu). The real aim, the overthrow of Damascus, was not attained. The king of Damascus remained independent and also retained feudal supremacy over Israel. The second Assyrian attempt in the year 849 had a like result, and also the third, in
1   After the fall of Damascus the Phoenician states ventured to resist Assyria.
2   The number of the allies is uncertain ; the inscription says twelve, but counts eleven. Is this also an intentional rounding off in the sense spoken of p. 43, n. 5 ? The thirty-two in 1 Kings xx. 1 is founded upon an error which has arisen from twenty-two and thirty-one.
3   Upon the writing of the name = Hebrew, Israel, see Winckler, JCA.T., 3rd ed., p. 247.
4   Whilst the Damascene tradition is missing, we must renounce the idea of any clear survey of the political relationship of that time being possible. The annals of Shalmaneser give us the most valuable information. In the Biblical records of the Books of the Kings naturally Israelite events take the most prominent place, and in consequence relatively trivial events appear as chief facts.
5   K. T., 2nd ed., pp. 14 ff.
ISRAEL AND ASSYRIA
209
the year 846, in spite of the assurance: “ I conquered Adad’idri and his vassals.” There is only a fragment of truth in the assertion, in that he must somehow have managed to isolate Damascus, and to set free the vassals, amongst them Ahab of Israel. This is shown by the next campaign in the year 842, where we find the king of Damascus without allies. It would not have been difficult to make the vassals remiss in their aid against Assyria. Ben-hadad had drawn upon himself the enmity of the vassals. The passage 1 Kings xx. 241 betrays that he had. made an attempt to put aside the kings of the vassal states and to set Damascene governors in their places. The wars of Ahab against Ben-hadad, related by the Bible, certainly indicate the reaction against this attempted discipline. Under such circumstances an Assyrian party might have formed itself for the first time in Israel. It is very probable that the prophet Elisha was the intellectual leader of these friends of Assyria. It is undoubted that the forcible change of throne in Israel is connected with the formation of this party. Jehu probably carried out his coup d'etat under Assyrian protection. The succeeding events show that he felt himself bound to the king of Assyria. It is similar to what happened later, under Pekah. An Assyrian party overthrew the king, and, in gratitude for help rendered, the new king acknowledged Assyrian supremacy.
In the dissolution of vassalage most probably the change of throne in Damascus also played a part. When in 842 the Assyrian army appeared, the powerful Ben-hadad was no longer living. Hazael—Assyrian inscriptions write him as Haza-llu— was king in his stead. The Bible records the change of throne for us, 2 Kings viii. 9-15.
The cuneiform written record1 2 of the campaign of Shalmaneser against flaza-'ilu says:
PASSAGE FROM AN INSCRIPTION (OF THE YEAR 842)
In the eighteenth year of my reign I passed for the sixteenth time over the Euphrates. Hazael of Damascus relied upon the number of his troops, and called out his troops in multitudes. He
1   The authenticity of the passage has been, in our opinion, wrongfully doubted.
2   K,T2nd ed., pp. 20 fif.
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210 POLITICAL HISTORY OF ISRAEL AND JUDAH
made the Saniru,1 a hill top opposite Lebanon, his fortress. I fought and conquered him. I slew 6000 of his warriors with the sword;
I took from him 1121 of his chariots of war, 470 of his war-horses, and his camp. He fled to save his life. I pursued him, and shut him up in Damascus, his chief city. I hewed down his parks, and advanced as far as the hills of Hauran. I destroyed, devastated, and burned numberless cities, and led away captives innumerable. 1 advanced as far as the hills of Bafli-ra’si, a promontory, and placed my royal statue there.2 Then I took tribute from the Tyrians, Sidonians, and Jaua’, the son of Omri.
OBELISK INSCRIPTION OVER THE RELIEFS
Tribute of Jehu, the son of Omri: bars of silver and gold, shaplu of gold, zuqut of gold, goblets (?) of gold, buckets (?) of gold, bars of lead, liutartu (wooden articles!) for the hand of the king, purumfydti3 (wooden articles !) did I receive from him.
In 842 Shalmaneser also passed over Lebanon without opposition, and advanced to the sea-coast, like his forefather engraved his statue on the promontory of the river, and then sought to seize upon Damascus from the west. Hazael barred his way at the mountain pass between Hermon (Saniru)4 and anti-
Black obelisk of Lebanon, but finally was obliged to fall Shalmaneser II., represent- 7 i   mi •,   j
ing amongst other things back uPon Damascus. The city proved
the payment of tribute by impregnable. Shalmaneser had to con- Jehu of Israel.   r ®   .
tent himself with venting his wrath upon
the gardens and palm groves,5 which then, like to-day, sur-
 
FIG. 167.
1   Hermon (comp. Deut. iii. 9): YJB\
2   On the Nahr el Kelb, see p. 196, n. I, and comp. p. 320, i.
3   Or budilhati (root from which bedolaJi, pine, comes ?).
4   See note 1, above.
5   According to Deut. xx. 19 it was forbidden to cut down fruit trees in a siege. In 2 Kings iii. 19, nevertheless, Elisha advises to cut down all fruit trees in Moab and to stop all the fountains. In times of peace great havoc was made in the cedar mountains. See fig. 104, and compare the lament of the prophet Habakkuk ii. 17, Isa. xiv. 8, and the remarks upon 1 Kings v. 6, p. 187.
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rounded Damascus; he barbarously devastated the whole neighbourhood as far as Hauran. This victory brought about a reaction in the minds of the minor states, which had formerly
 
FIG. 168.—A representation on the obelisk of Shalmaneser II. The tribute of Jehu of Israel.
been vassals of the state of Damascus. The Assyrian party gained adherents everywhere. Together with Tyre and Sidon, Jehu also, king of Israel fJa-u-a apil ljumr]), with his subvassal Judah, brought tribute.
 
FIG. 169.—A representation on the obelisk of Shalmaneser II. Tribute of Jehu of Israel.
This fragment of tribute is illustrated upon the obelisks of Shalmaneser. Jehu’s deputation is made known by the annotations. We have therefore in the sculptures reproduced (figs. 167 to 169) the oldest representation of Israelite figures. Above fig. 168 are the words, “Tribute of Jehu, the son of Omri.”
212 POLITICAL HISTORY OF ISRAEL AND JUDAH
According to 2 Kings viii., Elisha was in his prophetic calling also a deliberate politician.1 He had a hand in the change of throne in Damascus, he led the overthrow of the house of Omri in Israel. The motives, which are not clearly recognisable from the fragments of the traditions of the Books of the Kings, are naturally to be looked for on religious grounds. Possibly already then, the worshippers of Yahveh, as they did later in the period of the Babylonian exile, sought alliance with the intellectual leaders of Assyria, or rather of Babylonia, in the interests of religion.
The boastful representation of the tribute-paying of Palestine cannot deceive us over the doubtful results obtained by Shalmaneser. In the next campaign also, of 839,1 2 he did not succeed in conquering Damascus.
INSCRIPTION ON THE OBELISK (OF THE YEAR 839)
In the twenty-first year of my reign I passed over the Euphrates for the twenty-first time. I marched against the cities of Hazael of Damascus. I conquered four of his cities. I took tribute from the Tyrians, Sidonians, Byblians.
Jehu, therefore, was not amongst them. Hazael had made use of the intervening time to punish Israel and its dependent Judah for its Assyrian inclinations, and to bring it again under his rule. This is recorded in 2 Kings xii. 17 ff. In the punitary campaign, which reached to Jerusalem and Philistia, he must have raged murderously, as 2 Kings viii. 12 shows. Amos i. 3 still recalls with terror the horrors of the devastation, and records the judgment of God, which then as punishment overtook Damascus. Jehu and his son Jehoahaz were unwillingly forced to return under Damascus. We recognise it by the fact that in the last campaign of Shalmaneser against Damascus in 839, in which four Damascene cities were conquered, Jehu does not appear amongst those paying tribute (Gebal, Sidon. and Tyre).
At length, after 839, Shalmaneser abandoned the attempt to win a way to the Mediterranean through Syria. The last
1   Upon this political importance of the prophets, compare Winckler, Ex or. lux, ii. I, 24 ff.
2   Between 842 and 839 there were some expeditions to the Amanus to fetch wood for building.
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campaign went towards Tarsus, therefore sought a passage to the sea over the Cilician Pass.
Shalmaneser’s successors1 did very little in the Westland; they were otherwise occupied. On the contrary, Adad-nirari III. (812-783) records, upon one of the small inscriptions we have preserved from him,2 that he overcame the coast-lands of Tyre, Sidon, Omri (and Edom, and Philistia), and imposed tribute upon them, then he besieged King Mari (that is, probably, Ben-hadad III.) in Damascus. He therefore, following Shalmaneser’s lead, had attempted, in the first place, to isolate Damascus. This campaign, which took place in the reign of Jehoahaz, and may be placed about 803, signified for Israel a change from Damascene supremacy to Assyrian. The Assyrian party celebrate Adad- nirari III. as the Deliverer. “Yahveh gave a saviour,” it is said in 2 Kings xiii. 5. The rescue from the yoke of Damascus is meant. The later Jewish edition took,exception to this, and expunged the name of Adad-nirari. But he clearly helped the kingdom of Israel to its old standing, which it had lost through the Damascene campaign of vengeance, indicated 2 Kings viii. 12. In this sense the trial still continued under Jehoahaz’s successor Joash; 2 Kings xiii. 25 speaks of the results which Joash had attained.3
The successors of Adad-nirari4 could only retain the results in the Westland with difficulty. In particular, a revolution which involved the whole of Assyria, in the year 763, called away the attention of the Assyrian king from the distant vassal lands. Damascus was able again to shake off the Assyrian yoke.
1   Ashur-danin-apli, and Shamshi-Adad.
2   K.T., 2nd ed., 22 f. There it should say: “ Rammanirari, who has been endowed from childhood by Ashur with a kingdom unequalled [?nald katushu, speaking exactly, ‘to fill the hand,’ see fig. 187, p. 274], and whose pastorate he made like unto a vine and plant of life (comp. Ps. xxiii.) for the people of Ashur.”
3   2 Kings xiv. 25 the situation is again mentioned, and there it speaks of a division of territory which had been at one time given up to Damascus and then won back again. The successful issue was foretold by Jonah ben Amitai. Winckler (Jf.A.T., 3rd ed., 260, 262; comp. Ex or. lux, ii. 1) is inclined to link the historic kernel, or better, background of the Book of Jonah, with this ; at the same time, naturally, giving up his former view (F., ii. 160 ff.), according to which, contrary to Budde, he disputes the identification of the two Jonahs.
4   Shalmaneser III., 782-773, who any way in the last years of his reign appeared before Damascus, Asurdan 772—755, Asur-nirari 754-745.
214 POLITICAL HISTORY OF ISRAEL AND JUDAH
That at this period Israel was not again forced into the old feudal relation to Damascus, was owing to the strong rule of Jeroboam II. (785-745), who reinstated the old boundaries “ from where it entereth Hamath, to the sea of the Arabah11 (2 Kings xiv. 25).1 His successors, Menahem (Me-ni-hi-im-me alu Sa-me-ri-na-ai) and Pekahiah (Pa-ka-ha), partly from individual policy, partly from fear that the overthrow of Damascus might also mean their downfall, again joined with Damascus. In the last year of Jeroboam the mighty Tiglath- Pileser III.,1 2 or Pul3 (745-727), ascended the throne of Assyria. He seized the power as leader of a movement, organised in Kalah, which was directed against the hierarchy. This Pul stands at the beginning of the last flourishing period of the Assyrian empire; he extended the Assyrian power in the Westland as none of his predecessors had done, and annihilated the Aramaic kingdom of Damascus. Unfortunately, his annals, and amongst them specially the records of the wars in the west, have only come to us in a mutilated condition. It is well that we have the annotation of the Assyrian Eponym Canon upon the chief events of the year, and the statements of the Babylonian Chronicle, which begins with the year 747. What is recorded, 2 Kings xvi., of the downfall of the kingdom of Damascus, entirely agrees, as was remarked previously, with the statements of the tablet-writers to the Assyrian king. When Pul assumed the government, the states of Palestine were as independent of Assyria as they were in the time of Shalmaneser II. Israel (and Judah) held, as has been said, with Damascus. But even in the first years of his reign, as soon as he had made his rule over Babylonia secure, Pul turned his special attention to
1   Upon the boundaries, see pp. 201 fif. The mutilated passage xiv. 28 seems to contain the announcement that he brought Hamath back to Israel, defeated Damascus, and secured the ascendancy over Judah; see Winckler in K.A.T., 3rd ed., p. 262.
2   The Bible repeatedly writes his name thus, also the Panammu inscription from Zenjirli has it exactly the same (see Ausgrabungen in Sendschirli, published by the Orient-Komitee in Berlin, i. 55 ff.
3   This is his Babylonian name. The Babylonian list of kings calls the name Pula, the chronicle says Tukulti-apil-esharra. When the Ptolemaic Canon names him as Poros, king of Babylon, this is the same phonetic change as in mdr-galittu ( “child of the sea ” = pearl) and Margaret (F. E. Peiser).
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the west. Before all, he had to bring the kingdom of Arpad in central Syria, which had already given trouble to his predecessor, Assur-narari, into complete subjection. It cut him off, in the then arrangement of the political situation,1 from the ports of the Mediterranean Sea. And these ports were the desire of the great Assyrian king, who had here to renew old claims. For the years 743-740 the Eponym Canon shows campaigns against Arpad. In the year 741 “he marched to Arpad for three years as conqueror.” 2 Kings xix. 11 ff. reflects a memory of this victorious campaign. The state of Arpad became an Assyrian province in 740. Damascus also, and the other Syrian states, next anxiously sent tribute.1 2 But no sooner had Pul turned towards the north, to enlarge his boundaries there, than the Syro-Palestinian states again attempted to free themselves from Assyria. Damascus again took the lead. As soon, however, as the Assyrian king appeared in the neighbourhood,3 Rezin4 5 of Damascus, Menahem of Israel, and the other confederates paid him homage. Here also Judah is simply an appendage to Israel.3 But the obedience was only in appearance. As soon as Pul turned away, the confederacy again consolidated under Damascus. Whilst Pekah of Israel, like his predecessor Menahem, again took part, Judah, till now the sub-vassal of Israel, hesitated to make the resolution. Here for the first time Judah appears in the Assyrian inscriptions by name. King Ahaz of Judah (Ja-u-ha-zi Jaudai)6 decided for Assyria. His father, Jotham, seems already to have been inclined to join himself to the Assyrian power. He also would certainly have done homage to Pul, in the hope of thus freeing himself from the guardianship of Israel, and with the help of Assyria
1   Compare now Sanda, “Die Aramaer,” in A.O., iv., 1st ed., p. 17.
2   Menahem also, 2 Kings xv. 19.
3   In 738 he came to Syria, called by Panammu of Sam’al, i.e. Zenjirli, to-his help against Azriya’u, who had overpowered the district of Yaudi belonging to Sam’al. This fact has led to great confusion. It was formerly believed that this was Azaryah of Judah. The error has now been corrected, see Winckler, F., i. 1 ff.: “Das syrische Land Jaudi und der angebliche Azarja von Juda.”
4   Instead of Reztn it should therefore be read Resun.
5   See p. 206.
6   Inscription upon clay tablet of Tiglath-Pileser III. {F.T., 3rd ed., 34) from Nimrud.
216 POLITICAL HISTORY OF ISRAEL AND JUDAH
again establishing the kingdom of David. He thus drew upon himself the enmity of Rezin of Syria and of Pekah of Israel (2 Kings xv. 37), an enmity which, under Ahaz, led to the siege of Jerusalem. Judah was to be by force of arms compelled to join the confederacy against Tiglath-Pileser; “the son of Tab’el ” who, according to Isa. vii. 6, was to be king in Jerusalem, is no other than Rezin.1 Isaiah, in opposition to the popular voice, pressingly warned Ahaz against adherence to Assyria.2 He was to stand firm against the wrath of Syria and Israel (Isa. vii.), and for the rest, to have faith and be quiet. He sees in spirit how the waters of the Euphrates swallow up Judah (Isa. viii. 5 ff.). But his warning was in vain. He reserved it thenceforward for the circle of his disciples, as wine is preserved in skins for the restoration of future ages. And the course of events seemed for the moment to put the prophet in the wrong.
The campaign of Pul to the Westland in the year 734 freed Judah from its difficulty. According to 2 Kings xvi. 7, Ahaz himself prayed him to come by sending (an extraordinary ?) tribute. The Assyrian army marched first against Philistia. On the way there (Annals, 227) they passed through and took possession of Israel. Pul’s aim was at the same time to cut off Damascus from he]p from the south; he passed through Galilee, and included the district of Manasseh as a district of Damascus, and made it, together with part of the Hauran, into the province of Zobah. This event signified the actual fall of the State of Israel. In an inscription,3 which describes the events of the year 733, Pul says that in the previous campaign he had made all the cities of the “ house of Omri ” into districts of his land, led the inhabitants into captivity, and only left Samaria (Ephraim). Figs. 170 f. and 209 ff. may serve to illustrate such wars. The Bible records this carrying away in 2 Kings xv. 29. The northern half of Israel, Manasseh, there-
1   See Bredenkamp in the Commentary upon the passage, and Winckler, Alt-testamentliche Untersuchungen, p. 74.
2   We cannot agree with Wilke’s opinion in Jesaja und Assur concerning the change of Isaiah’s Assyrian policy. It is, besides, totally different from Isa. vii. 14 ff. and ix. 5 ff.
3   Annalen 227, see K.T.t 3rd ed., 31.
ISRAEL AND ASSYRIA
217
fore was wholly Assyrian. Is this why Hosea says only Ephraim, and no longer Israel ? Now, whilst Pul, 733, advanced against Gaza, Pekah was overthrown in Samaria, and Hosea (A-u-si-’) with the favour of the Assyrian king took over the rule. It is said in the inscriptions of Pul:
They overthrew their king Pekah, I set Hosea [to rule] over them. I received ten talents of gold .... talents of silver as a gift.
By this statement the situation in 2 Kings xv. 30 is confirmed and elucidated (“ Hosea made a conspiracy against Pekah, slew
 
FIG. 170. — Storm of a fourfold-walled fortress by Sargon. Relief from Khorsabad (Botta).
him, and became king in his stead ”). We also gather from it that in 2 Kings xvii. 3 Shalmaneser must be corrected to Pul.1 In the following year, Ahaz of Judah fulfilled his feudal duty to Assyria, when Pul marched to destroy the isolated Damascus. We may consider that Ahaz found himself in person amongst Tiglath-Pileser’s followers during this victorious campaign, of which the tablet-writers give full detail. The siege of Damascus, of which 2 Kings xvi. 9 gives a summary record, seems to have lasted two years (733 and 732). After the conquest of the city the Phoenician ports stood open to the
1 See Im Kampf um Babel und Bibel, 4th ed., p. 12. Kittel, in Konige, upon the passage cancels Shalmaneser as a gloss ; compare also K.A.T., 3rd ed., 268.
218 POLITICAL HISTORY OF ISRAEL AND JUDAH
great king of Assyria. The remainder of the state of Israel could not have held out long.
Soon after the death of Pul, Hosea of Israel, in union with Tyre and other possessors of Mediterranean ports, must have refused tribute to Shalmaneser IV.1 Unfortunately, we have no
 
FIG. 17I.—Assyrian representation ot a battle. Assurbanipal fighting against the Elamites.
inscriptions of this period. They must have told of the puni- tary campaign against the Westland, and of the three-year siege of Samaria (2 Kings xvii. 5). The conquest of the city lirst took place under his successor Sargon (722-705 ?),2 whose annals tell in the very beginning of the fall of Samaria:
In the beginning of my reign [722] and in the first year of my reign ... I besieged Samaria and conquered it ... . [three lines
1 Tebet 727 to Tebet 723.
2 An usurper? see p. 271, n. I,
ISRAEL AND ASSYRIA
219
are missing] .... I carried away 27,290 inhabitants, I took from thence fifty chariots of war as my royal due .... I restored and colonised it more than formerly. I colonised it with people from lands I had conquered. I set my officers as governors over them, I laid upon them Assyrian tribute and taxes.
We call this event “ the carrying away of the ten tribes.” In reality the main event happened eleven years earlier when Manasseh became an Assyrian province (p.
216). What we designate as the “carrying away of the ten tribes” could only relate to Ephraim, i.e. to the district, which was bounded on the south by Judah, on the north by Galilee, and on the east by Jordan. The record, 1 Chron. v. 26 and vi., throws the records of the two deportations of 733 and 722 together, if it relates to the deportation of the tribes east of
 
FIG. 172.—King Sargon II, and his field-marshal.
Jordan, Sargon gives the number carried away as 27,290. He left those who possessed nothing in the land. Two years later the remnants of the inhabitants, under the leading of Ya’u-bi’di (variant El-bi’di) of Hamath, once more took part in a rising against Assyria. The result was that, after a battle near Qarqar, Hamath, and with it the rest of the great Aramaean state, became an Assyrian province.
2 Kings xvii. names Mesopotamia and Media as places to which the exiles were taken; according to the Book of Tobit they were also taken to Nineveh itself. For further detail upon this, see pp. 242 f. upon the passage named. Possibly here also the districts of the two deportations of 733 and 722 are confused.
220 POLITICAL HISTORY OF ISRAEL AND JUDAH
History of Judah from the Fall of Samaria to the Destruction of Nineveh
The glowing hopes of the Jews for a restoration of a united kingdom were not fulfilled by the fall of Samaria. Ahaz found himself bitterly deceived towards the end of his reign. Therefore his successor, Hezekiah, dallied with the enemies of Assyria. The next opportunity that offered itself was the Philistine rising under King IJanunu of Gaza, who had been spared by Tiglath-Pileser-Pul, Isa. xiv. 23-32. The Philistines had clearly been encouraged by the before-mentioned rising of Ya’u-bi’di of Hamath, in which also the remnant of the Samaritans had taken part. This insurrection came to an equally bad end. Hanunu, with 9633 Philistines, was carried away to Assyria, and Rapihu, the boundary fortress of the district of Gaza on the nahal Muzri,1 was demolished. The question arises as to how far Judea took part in these events in neighbouring lands. In the writing on the stone tablet of Kelah, Sargon says of himself, “he subdued the distant land of Ya-u-du/1 If this means Judea, we must assume that, hoping for some result from the Philistines, Hezekiah for a while refused tribute to Assyria, but then humbled himself in good time before the conquering Sargon.2 But it may also mean that Ya’udi of which we spoke p. 215. In any case, in the following years, 713 till 711, Judea took part in the risings which broke out in central Syria. In the annals of Sargon, as in the Bible, the part taken by Judah in a revolt originating in the seaport city of Philistia, Ashdod is expressly mentioned. Sargon names those concerned: amongst others, Philistia (Pi-lis-ti), Judah (Yu-u-di), and also Moab and Edom. Isaiah warned the king in vain. The result could not be happy. Sargon relates that he made Ashdod into a province and carried away the inhabitants.3 Judah could not complain of severity, if it was spared.
1   K.T., 2nd ed., 38. Ashdod then took the lead against Assur.
2   Possibly he made himself serviceable to Assyria in the campaign against the Philistines attested in 2 Kings xviii. 8 (scattered passage).
3   Annal 227, Pr. 107. But this does not agree, for immediately afterwards a king of Ashdod appears, see p. 223.
HEZEKIAH AND ASSYRIA
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In the meanwhile hope of deliverance from the Assyrian rule had arisen for Hezekiah from quite another quarter. Assyria's most dangerous foe, Merodach-Baladan (see fig. 187), king of Babylon, sent an embassy to Jerusalem to Hezekiah ; see 2 Kings
xx.   ; Isa. xxxix.1 The same embassy would certainly have visited other coasts of the Syro-Palestinian minor states to stir up the rising against Assyria. Merodach-Baladan purposed making Babylon into an independent power, and therefore came in touch with Assyria’s discontented vassals. We may gather that this embassy should be placed in the year 702. But it probably was connected with the reverses which Sargon experienced in the beginning of his reign on Babylonian territory. In the year 721 1 2 he was defeated by the Elamites, confederates of the rebellious Babylonians; this is betrayed to us by the Babylonian Chronicle, though the Annals boast of a victory. In fact, Sargon was obliged, in the first instance, to renounce Babylonia; it was only in the year 710 that he succeeded in successfully arming himself against Merodach-Baladan. As things stand now, we must therefore think of the embassy as in the beginning of the reign of Hezekiah, and assume that it brought at the same time congratulations upon his accession.
Like Ahaz, Hezekiah hoped for a restoration of the kingdom of David. Babylon might help, after Assyria had denied any assistance. He rebuilt the Millo upon Zion, restored the walls and towers, and filled the treasure chambers, as the Book of Chronicles relates with great credibility. A religious reform, originating from the Temple in Jerusalem, was to inaugurate the new age. The information in the Chronicles in this case also is of great historical value. According to 2 Chron. xxx. 6-11, Hezekiah in those days sent messengers—travelling “ prophets ” (speakers) we must imagine—throughout all Israel, through the districts of Ephraim and Manasseh, inviting them
1   Assyrian sha'al shulmi; exactly, ‘ ‘ to inquire after the health ”: in reality meaning “to offer his service,” “to make known his loyalty,” comp. p. 202. A parallel to the event showing the meaning of the words is presented in Amarna x. 14-27. Burnaburiash of Babylon is very indignant that Pharaoh Naphuria did not express sympathy during his sickness. Nap^uria says he knew nothing about the sickness.
2   According to the annals; according to the Babylonian Chronicle, 720.
%%% POLITICAL HISTORY OF ISRAEL AND JUDAH
to join Judah against Assyria. The messengers, who would also certainly have preached a propaganda of the old tradition of David, were laughed at and mocked in Israel. In Isaiah we find preserved the warning voices of those prophets, who clearly recognised the political situation, and who held an adherence to Babylon to be highly dangerous. Sargon, as a fact, did succeed in absolutely subduing Babylonia, as soon as he was able to cut off Elamite help. In the first year of the campaign, 710, he entered Babylon as king.
It is known that Sargon met his death in 705. One year previously the Eponym lists announce the dedication of his residence, Dur-Sharrukin, north of Nineveh. Up to then he had resided in Kelah. The circumstances of his death are not yet quite clear. The passages of the Assyrian documents which speak of it are mutilated. Probably he died a violent death during a campaign, for it is said in K 4730: “He was not buried in his house.” Possibly the Song of the Underworld, Isa. xiv. 4-20, where the poet was quite familiar with Babylonian thought cycles, was originally intended for the death of Sargon. Otherwise Sennacherib might be in question. See upon the passage, p. 270.
SargoiTs son and successor, Sennacherib (704-681), not only ventured all upon definitely breaking Babylonia’s desire for freedom, he followed much more the adventurous scheme of making Assyria’s dominion1 free from the overwhelming power of Babylon’s civilisation: he purposed conquering Egypt, and, with the fall of Babylonia, to open up new ways through Egypt.2 But just this forceful policy destroyed the power of Assyria. The distant vassal states refused tribute. The Biblical Books of the Kings inform us how Judah also, under Hezekiah, sought to make use of the Assyro-Babylonian confusion to shake off Assyrian rule. Sennacherib’s scheme to extend his power over Arabia to Egypt was fatal to Judah. Judea had to be enchained, for it lay upon the southern boundary of Assyrian possessions.
The Biblical record speaks of three campaigns of Sennacherib against Jerusalem.
1   He suppressed Kelah, and made Nineveh into a brilliant residence; see pp. 297, i. f.
2   Esarhaddon aimed at the same goal with the help of Babylonia. Under Assurbanipal Egypt was lost; compare the remarkable passage, Isa. xix. 23 f.
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223
1.   In the year 701, after he had temporarily pacified Babylon, he marched to the Westland.1 * Only Tyre, which Sennacherib besieged in vain, and Hezekiah opposed him, in the hope of help from the Sheikhs of Mnzri and Meluhhi.
The Biblical record relates about this campaign :
In the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah, did Sennacherib, king of Assyria, come up against all the strong cities of Judah and took them. Then Hezekiah, king of Judah, sent to the king of Assyria to Lachish, saying: I have offended; withdraw again from me : that which thou puttest on me will I bear. Then the king of Assyria appointed unto Hezekiah three hundred talents of silver, and thirty talents of gold (2 Kings xviii. 13-16).
In order to pay this enormous sum, Hezekiah was forced to seize upon the treasures of the Temple and palace, and even to
 
FIG. 173.—Musicians and musiciennes. Out of a palace of Assurbanipal.
strip the gold from the Temple gates; 2 Kings xviii. 16. The Assyrian record relates the same events as follows: 1 2
And of Hezekiah of Judea, who had not bowed beneath my yoke, I besieged forty-six strong cities, surrounded by walls, and numberless smaller cities in their neighbourhood; with overthrow of ramparts (?) and storming of the battering ram (?), assault of the zuk-shepa troops by breaches, with hatchets (?) and axes I besieged and conquered (them); 200,150 people, young, old, men and women, horses, mules, donkeys, camels, cattle and small beasts without number I led out, and counted them as booty. He himself I imprisoned like a cage bird in Jerusalem, his residence ; I raised strongholds against him, and turned back (?) those who came out of the gates of his city. His cities, which I had plundered, I separated from his land and gave them to Mitinti, king of Ashdod,3 Padi, king of Ekron and Zil-bel, king of Gaza, and diminished his land. To the former tribute, the fruit of his land, I added the
1   See Prasek, “Sanheribs Feldziige gegen Jlida,” M.V.A.G., 1903, 113 f., where other works of reference are quoted. Compare also Nagl, Die nachdavidische Konigsgeschichte.
2   K. T., 2nd ed., 45 f.   3 P. 221, n. 1.
224 POLITICAL HISTORY OF ISRAEL AND JUDAH
tribute and the presents due to my sovereignty, and laid them upon him. He, Hezekiah, was overpowered by fear of the glory of my royalty, and the Urbi and his brave (?) warriors, whom he had caused to come (thither) to the defence of Jerusalem, his residence, mutinied.1 Together with thirty talents of gold (and) 800 talents of silver, he sent to me to Nineveh, my chief city, precious stones, cosmetics .... pure uknu stones, couches of ivory, thrones of ivory, elephant skins, ivory, Ushu and Urkarinu wood, all kinds of treasures in quantity, and his daughters andfwomen of the palace,
 
FIG. 174.—Sennacherib enthroned before Lachish receiving tribute.
and musicians and musiciennes (comp. fig. 173).2 He sent his messengers to deliver his tribute and to declare his subjection.
Both records give evidence that in this campaign Jerusalem was not really besieged. Sennacherib was in any case not then in a condition to be able to take the powerful Jerusalem. He was obliged to send the main part of his fighting strength home, because new disturbances had broken out in Babylon. So he had contented himself with threatening Jerusalem and holding it in check from some strong point. This point must, according
1   Irshu batlati (comp. Delitzsch, Handworterbuch, 171a).
2   The remark is very important in the history of the pre-exilic Temple music in Jerusalem, and until now has remained unnoted. 1 Sam. ii. 22b is true in its mention of women of the Temple in Shiloh. Mishnah Erachin viii. 4 also speaks of Canaanite Temple slaves (women) in Jerusalem.
HEZEKIAH AND SENNACHERIB
225
to the Biblical record, have been Lachish,1 which lay near the present Tell-el-hasi, southwards from the road leading from Gaza to Jerusalem. The Assyrian inscription certainly does not name Lachish, but an inscription on a relief which shows the king on his throne, whilst tribute-bearers appear before him, (see fig. 174) says :
Sennacherib, king of the world, king of Assyria, seated himself upon the throne, and the prisoners from Lachish came up before him.
This gives evidence that Lachish played such a role in these circumstances. But one asks now: Why did Hezekiah submit himself to the humiliating tribute ? The answer is perhaps to be found in the results obtained by Sennacherib against Babylon, of which Hezekiah received news during the siege of Jerusalem. Hezekiah, already made anxious for himself by the loss of his cities of Judah, bowed himself, after the subjugation of Babylon, before the representative of the king, who appeared from Lachish (2 Kings xviii. 14 does not necessitate the assumption that Sennacherib was in Lachish in person), and paid tribute and even sent it (and this also argues for our idea), with a deputation, who were to confirm Hezekiah’s subjection, to Nineveh! We assumed, therefore, on the authority of the inscriptions, that between 2 Kings xviii. 13 and 14 Sennacherib’s good fortune in Babylon and a lengthy investment of Jersualem are to be concluded. Whether the tribute sum thirty talents of gold and three hundred talents of silver according to the Bible, and thirty talents of gold and eight hundred talents of silver according to the inscriptions, are equivalent, we do not know, as we do not know the Assyrian money values well enough. This subjection of Hezekiah is registered on the inscription of Sennacherib from the Nebi-Yunus mound1 2 in the following words:
I overthrew the wide borders of Judah; I forced obedience upon its king Hezekiah.
1   Seat of a pre-Israelite Canaanite kingdom according to Joshua x. 3. In Micah i. 3 probably the same Lachish is meant. There a chariot without horses is spoken of which is the occasion of sin. A processional car is probably meant. An antithesis to the ark of the covenant.
2   See K.T,, 2nd'ed., 47 ?
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15
226 POLITICAL HISTORY OF ISRAEL AND JUDAH
2.   The scene described 2 Kings xviii. 17-xix. 8 we take to be an episode in the campaign just spoken of.1 It records the dealings with Hezekiah from Lachish. Rabshakeh’s oration is an added poetical amplification. The supposition upon which the oration is founded, that Hezekiah had already put faith in Egypt, which like a broken reed pierces the hand that leans upon it, is probably taken over from the situation in the later campaign, described 2 Kings xix. 9 ff., a situation which first developed itself in 691, when Tirhakah, the third Ethiopian king, came to the throne, and menaced Assyria. When the messengers arrived who were to demand tribute and homage from Hezekiah, Sennacherib had already withdrawn from Lachish to Libnah. We do not know where Libnah was. But the statement agrees with the assumption mentioned above: Sennacherib was forced to withdraw with the main body of his army from Lachish and to return home, because new tumults had broken out in Babylonia.
3.   The third division of the Books of Kings, 2 Kings xix. 9-37 (comp. Isa. xxxvii. 9-37), speaks of a later campaign of Sennacherib which must have taken place in the period after the destruction of Babylon. It is marked by the appearance of Tirhakah, who only came to the throne in 691. We have no Assyrian account of this campaign. Shortly after it Sennacherib was murdered.1 2 The last thing that the annals record of his deeds is the destruction of Babylon. The tablet-writers had the less reason for describing the campaign in that its course was unfortunate. Cuneiform experts and historians have therefore tried in vain to reconcile the Biblical record of the unhappy
1   In Isa. xxxvi. -xxxvii. 8 we have the two passages 2 Kings xviii. 13-16 and 18, xvii.-xix. 8 combined. The investigations of B. Stade, Zeitschrift fiir altt, Wissensch., 1886, 173 f., upon the different authorities, are of fundamental importance.
2   Nagel, Der Zug des Sanherib (1902), and Wilke, Jesaja und Assur, declare themselves against the assumption of two campaigns. Tirhaka appears in 701, eighteen years before his accession to the throne of Egypt, as king of Cush (here = Ethiopia). This is an historical impossibility. If it is referring to one campaign, then Tirhakah might be an erroneous gloss. But then the direct connection of the story with the death of Sennacherib is inexplicable. Between 701 and the death of Sennacherib lies the proudest act of his life : the conquest and destruction of Babylon,
SENNACHERIB
227
result with the annals of Sennacherib. Forty years or more ago, however, G. Rawlinson had already recognised that the Biblical record belonged to a campaign of which there is no mention in the annals of Sennacherib.
Upon a campaign in the Westland (after 691) Sennacherib suddenly found himself threatened by Tirhakah, the third of the Ethiopian kings (since 691, according to Egyptian accounts). He sent messengers to Jerusalem, and demanded the surrender of the city.
In this situation the second highly important appearance of Isaiah took place. Hezekiah sent to the prophet and asked how he should act in reference to the demand of the Assyrian, who mocked at any trust in Yahveh. The king obeyed the voice of the prophet and replied with a refusal.
Isaiah’s prophecy, 2 Kings xix. 32-34, that Sennacherib should not enter the gates of Jerusalem, that itt should not even be besieged,"was marvellously fulfilled (2 Kings xix. 35 f.; comp. 2 Chron. xxxii. 21):
In the same night the angel of Yahveh went forth (allegoric expression for the plague) and smote in the camp of the Assyrians 185,000 men; then Sennacherib departed and returned and dwelt at Nineveh.
This event, which must have been looked upon as a special intervention of God, brought Isaiah into high esteem.

[Prometheus]

If 2 Chron. xxxii. 9 does not contain an error, which might proceed from confusion in the connecting verse 2 Kings xviii. 9, this time also the negotiations with Jerusalem were conducted from Lachish. The Bible unites the information of the murder of Sennacherib with the record (681).
Towards the end of 682 Sennacherib was murdered by one of his sons. The Babylonian Chronicle relates :
“ Upon 20th Tebet, Sennacherib, king of Assyria, was killed by his son in a rebellion.”
The place of the murder was Babylon. For Assurbanipal relates that at the conquest of Babylon he slew people as sacrifice to the dead by the statues of the protecting gods (therefore at the gate of the Temple), near where Sennacherib was murdered. But it can scarcely be assumed that they were taken to Nineveh for this purpose.
The special place for the deed would be the temple of Marduk.
228 POLITICAL HISTORY OF ISRAEL AND JUDAH
The Biblical record does not contradict this (2 Kings xix. 37) : “he returned and dwelt at Nineveh. And as he worshipped in the temple of Nisroch, his god, there smote him. . . Between the two sentences there should be a gap. The name Nisroch is in the usual way a mutilation of Marduk. The “ two sons ” of the Biblical record is founded upon a misunderstanding; the Bible probably handed down two names of the same person.1
Shortly before his death (after the death of Hezekiah ?) Sennacherib must have succeeded in forcing Jerusalem to obedience. For Hezekiah’s successor Manasseh again sent tribute to Nineveh. Amongst the vassal princes who pay tribute to Esarhaddon (see fig. 180), Sennacherib’s son and successor (681 to 668), appears Me-na-si-e shar (king) Ya-u-di (Assurbanipal calls him Mi-in-si-e). According to 2 Chron. xxxiii. 11 he was forced to appear at Babylon to justify himself. It would be easy for him to prove his “ innocence,” since the policy of Esarhaddon was in opposition to that of his predecessor. He remained faithful to Esarhaddon. When, according to 2 Kings xxi. 16, he “ filled Jerusalem with innocent blood,” that probably means the extirpation of the anti- Assyrian party. In this case that would have been the party of Yahveh. In opposition to it and to Hezekiah’s policy, Manasseh introduced the Assyrian cult. In particular he again erected the statue of Asherah (xxi. 7) which Hezekiah (xviii. 4) had done away with.
Then, when Esarhaddon marched against Egypt (in 671 Tirhakah was defeated and Memphis conquered), like the rest of the princes of Palestine Manasseh was obliged to supply auxiliary troops. The campaign passed through tracts of Arabia which were enveloped in mystery and which imagination peopled with fabulous beings. Esarhaddon’s inscriptions tell of two-headed serpents and other remarkable winged beasts which brought death and amazement into his army, till Marduk the great Lord came to the rescue, and inspired the troops anew. Isa. xxx. 6 seems to reproduce Judaic memories of the terrors of such a campaign :
1   The Babylonian Chronicle names only one son, likewise Berossus, following Polyhistor ; Ardumuzanus, according to Abydenus; Adramelus, see K.A.T., 3rd ed., 84. In the Armenian fables of the heroes the two Biblical murderers are celebrated as national heroes on account of 2 Kings xix. 37; see p. 276, i., n. 3.
ESARHADDON
229
Through a land of trouble and anguish, as [they] there [bring] lion and lioness, viper and flying dragon, they carry their riches upon the backs of asses, and their treasures upon the bunches of camels, to a people that is of no use ! Egypt’s help is vain and useless.
 
FIG. 175.—King Assurbanipal and his wife in a vine-covered arbour.
During a new Egyptian campaign against Tirhakah Esar- haddon died in the year 668. His son Assurbanipal (see fig. 175) continued the war against Tirhakah’s nephew Tanut- Ammon and conquered Thebes. To him also Manasseh was obliged to supply auxiliaries. Very soon, however, difficulties at home made it impossible for Assurbanipal to follow up his conquests in the south. The destructive wars against Assyria began which ended with the fall of Nineveh (see above, pp. 297, i. f.).
The Jewish patriots awaited this issue with glowing fervour. Manasseh was hated because of his Assyrian inclinations. His son Amon was murdered for the
1 Surrounding inscription : To Merodach, his Lord, Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon has presented this for his life. In the Hague museum is a similar stone without a head. They are held to be the eyes of a statue of Marduk consecrated by Nebuchadnezzar ; then in a late Greek period the head was inserted in one of them.
 
FIG. 176. — Cameo of Nebuchadnezzar. Portrait spurious,   Greek
in character.1   Berlin
Museum.
230 POLITICAL HISTORY OF ISRAEL AND JUDAH
same cause.1 He was followed by Josiah, who in the eighteenth year of his reign began his great religious reformation. His accession must have taken place with the approbation of Assyria, still under Assurbanipal. Till after his death he was held by the Jews as a “ deliverer,” as has been said pp. 99 f., i. 1 Kings xiii. 2 relates that his coming as Deliverer was foretold. The great reformation was probably to inaugurate the restoration of the ancient kingdom, as before under Hezekiah. Josiah met with his tragic end when he went (in the service of Assyria ? ) to stop Necho in his march through Syria (Megiddo instead of Migdal Ashtoreth ? see p. 200).
In the meanwhile, a Chaldaean dynasty, in the person of Nabopolassar, had disputed the sovereignty in Babylon with success, and inaugurated the second Babylonian kingdom. Jehoiakim did homage (605) to his son Nebuchadnezzar (comp. fig. 176), after the latter, following the fall of Nineveh, had defeated the Pharaoh Necho near Karkemish and by pursuit of the enemy had taken possession of Palestine to the southern boundary. 2 Kings xxiv. 1 relates:
In his (Jehoiakim’s) days Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up, and Jehoiakim became his servant three years : but then he turned and rebelled against him.
A campaign by Nebuchadnezzar, attested in cuneiform writings,1 2 against Ammananu (anti-Lebanon) was therefore probably directed against him and other states of Palestine who owed tribute. The punishment first fell upon his son Jehoiachin. He was taken prisoner (Dan. i. 1 f., who also confuses the event in other ways, says erroneously Jehoiakim), the inhabitants of Jerusalem were partly carried away, and the worship of Yahveh was suspended by the removal of the sacred vessels.3 The lawful position of Zedekiah, who was recognised
1   The party which revenged him is called pxn DJ7, “peasants.” It is the same form of expression as the Roman pagani= heathen.
2   See Winckler, K.A. T., 3rd ed., 107 ff., where the meaning of the long known inscription is determined ; text, K. T., 2nd ed., 58.
3   See 2 Kings xxiv. 13 and comp. 2 Chron. xxxvi. 10; this act here takes the place of the removal of the statue of the god, which was necessary according to Oriental usage; see Winckler, Krit. Schr.y 120 ff. ; JF.A.T., 3rd ed., 279 f., comp. pp. 290 f.
NEBUCHADNEZZAR
231
as king by Nebuchadnezzar, is not clear. When his hopes1 of making a free position for Judea with the Babylonian court miscarried, he allowed himself to be led into rebellion by Egypt. For this gruesome punishment fell upon him. He was blinded.2 City and temple were destroyed, and the district declared waste-land. The rest of the land remained untouched. Mizpah became the seat of government (2 Kings
xxv.   23), Gedaliah was recognised as their governor, and the land was placed under the supervision of Chaldaean officers.
The Jews who were carried away to Babylon played a very
 
FIG. 177.—An Assyrian king (Sargon II.) puts out the eyes of a prisoner.
distinguished part in the country of the Euphrates, not only in economical relations, as, amongst others, the commercial contracts from the excavations at Nippur show, but they had also to be considered politically. Amel-Marduk (Evil-merodach) in the first year of his reign confirmed the prisoner Jehoiachin as king of Judah (2 Kings xxv. 27), and thereby theoretically again recognised the claim to existence of a Jewish state. After that the leaders of the exiles hoped for a return. After a time of bitter disappointment under the Chaldaean rulers, they welcomed the Babylonian hierarch Cyrus as the one who would fulfil their hopes and realise the frustrated measure of Amel-Marduk. In Isa. xlv. 1 Cyrus is greeted as the heaven-
1   Comp. Jer. xxvi. 16 ; xxviii. 1-4 ; xxix. 3.
2   Comp. fig. 177.
232 POLITICAL HISTORY OF ISRAEL AND JUDAH
sent, “ whose right hand is held by Yahveh,” 1 of whom Yahveh says “ he is my shepherd and shall accomplish all my will.” The inscription of Cyrus agrees with this, where it says :
Marduk looked around and sought for a righteous king, and he took the man after his own heart and called Kurash to be king over the whole world (for more detail, see upon Isa. xliv. 28, pp. 274 f.).2
The impression given is almost as though the author of the
 
FIG. 178.—Bronze carrier for holy water vessels (mekonah).
Discovered in Cyprus. Original now in Antiquity Room of the Berlin Museum.
prophetic passage must have known the text of the Cyrus cylinder.3 After the conquest of Babylon in 539 Cyrus gave the permission for return and for the foundation of an independent political state, with its own administration.4 The contention over the kind of government, whether it should be a civil or a religious constitution, was the stimulating force in the following historical development of Judaism.
1   Upon the ceremonial of holding the hand, compare, for example, fig. 35, p. 109, i.
2   He also deceived the people of Judah. The Jews said, according to Berach. 17, a s’Dnn cm 3. In other places certainly, as Rosh hashanah i. 3b, Cyrus is praised as “ righteous king.”
3   Comp. Kittel in Z.A. W., 1898, 149 fif.
4   For further detail, particularly in reference to the religion of Cyrus, see pp. 274 f.
CHAPTER XXVI
FURTHER GLOSSES UPON THE BOOKS OF KINGS, CHRONICLES, EZRA, AND NEHEMIAH
UPON 1 Kings i.-xii. 11, see pp. 185-191.
1 Kings xii. 28 : The statues of golden calves in Bethel and Dan are still inexplicable. They seem to have represented Yahveh in the popular religion. But the meaning of the statues, like the ^golden calf’1 in Exod. xxxii. (see pp. 138 f.), must be sought in astral mythology; for that is the character of all animal statues of the cults in the Near East, no matter from whence the example is taken (chief festival; upon the full moon of the eighth month, xii. 32 f.); for in these things the Near East is all one. Every 66 initiate ” in Israel understood the symbolism, just as he understood the symbolic meaning of the twelve oxen on the basin in the Temple (pp. 188 f.). If Elijah did not inveigh against them, it would be because he looked upon the statues as relatively harmless, and to be interpreted according to the meaning of the Yahveh religion.
] Kings xiii. 2, see p. 230.   1 Kings xiv. 24 (Kedishim), see
p. 6l.
1 Kings xv. 13: The Queen Mother held the high rank of a gebira (comp. 2 Kings x. 13, Jer. xiii. 18 and xxix. 2, where she is placed side by side with the king). The sultana walida holds the same position. Also in the Assyrian inscriptions the Queen Mother repeatedly appears as a political power, and Assyrian letters prove her important position. In the heathen Oriental conception of the world the Queen Mother is the same
233
234 GLOSSES UPON THE BOOKS OF KINGS, ETC.
as the Queen of Heaven and mother-goddess in the celestial household.1
1 Kings xvi. 34 (sacrifice to the building?), see p. 158.
1 Kings xviii. 28:   “To cut themselves with knives'’ is
forbidden as a heathen custom in Deut. xiv. 1. In the annals of Sargon it is said of a mourning Babylonian : “ he crouched down upon the earth, rent his garment, took the knife, and broke forth into cries.” Upon other gestures of mourning, see Ezek. xxvii. 31.
1 Kings xix. 8 ; see pp. 2, n. 1, 98.
^ In 1 Kings xix. 19, Elisha is ploughing with twelve pair of oxen when Elijah casts his mantle upon him. Calling from the plough is a motif in the call to the Bringer, or the Foreteller (nabi\ of the new era (Midas, Cincinnatus). We find the same motif in the call to Saul. In 1 Sam. xi. 5, he comes “ behind the oxen home from the field,” when the messengers meet him. The meaning was discussed p. 59, i.; comp. pp. 235 f. %
1 Kings xx. 22, 26; see pp. 45, i. f.
1 Kings xxii. 10 ff.: The kings sit under the gate (comp, fig. 135), and the prophets prophesy before them, one of them by means of a symbolic action. Clearly a historic picture. They sit (in ceremonial vestments) “ upon a threshing-floor.”2 We conjecture that this is a technical expression for the semicircle of the ceremonious divan.3
Elijah and Elisha
In the later conception Elijah 4 was held to be not only the prophet (nabi’), but to be the forerunner, of the expected
1   The East also recognised feminine rule. In Phoenicia it was specially usual; from thence it spread its unhealthy influence over Israel (Jezebel) and Judah (Athaliah), see p. 249.
2   1 Chron. repeatedly D'acri before pJ3, and the Sept, translates only * ‘ they sat upon a threshing-floor.”
3   This would make Klostermann’s conjecture fall through. Comp. B.N 71, 14 f. upon Rev. xii. (heavenly counsel), where it is asserted by Shemoth Rabba upon Exod. iv. 28, “Some time God will group the elders of Israel like a threshing-floor [that is, according to what follows, in a semicircle], and give them the law as their president.”
4   Upon the political importance of his appearance against the power of Tyre, see Winckler, IC.A, 71, 3rd ed., 248 ff., and compare above, pp. 215 f. Elijah and Elisha both came from and worked in districts which were then under the influences of Damascus (Elijah from Thisbe in Gilead, Elisha from Abel Mehola). The
ELIJAH AND ELISHA
235
Deliverer. Mai. iv. 5, u I will send Elijah the prophet before the day of Yahveh come.11 This was the most popular sentence about the awaited Messiah. Therefore it was that the whole bearing of John the Baptist made him appear to be Elijah.
The Biblical chroniclers interwove the motifs of the expected Deliverer with his figure; and later editors, above all the Rabbinical exegetes, amplified them.
^ We draw attention to the following:—
1.   In the text before us Elijah appears entirely as a deus ex machina. The mysterious birth attributed to him by the Rabbis (Berach. 58a), “without father or mother,” corresponds to the motifs known to us; see pp. 90 ff.
2.   He is fed by ravens by the command of God, and drinks from the brook. The drying up of the brook should be related introductory to the time of drought. The miraculous food has no direct connection with the following context. They tell in the language of that time the miraculous direct protection of the prophet by God.1 The chief event is the supply of water, for the failure of which preparation is made. And we know the mythological meaning (to which attention was long ago drawn) of the raven with the beaker in the starry heavens, which the Hydra prevents from drinking. Hygin relates how Apollo cursed the raven who was to feed him, because he neglected the command to supply him with water.
3.   The time of drought lasted three years. It is a time of curse, preceding the deliverance. To this is added the second sign from God, “fire from Yahveh,” 1 Kings xviii. 38, which consumes Elijah’s sacrifice. The slaying of 450 (surely a motif-number, possibly confused from 350 ?) priests of Baal, executed by Elijah, alone and single-handed, with the sword (xviii. 40, xix. 1), seals the victory of Yahveh over Baal. Do not the motifs, adorning historic fact, here also signify a deliverance ?
4.   Upon the forty days’ journey to the mountain of God, see p. 68, i.
5.   Elisha’s call by the mantle of the prophet, see p. 190. As in the case of Saul, he is called from the plough, 1 Kings xix. 19 ff.
work of Jesus in the district of Tyre and Sidon and southward is connected with memories of Elijah and Elisha. The heathen as well have a part in his work there. For Elijah and Elisha also there were no narrow frontiers. The story of the widow in Sarepta and of the healing of Naaman indicate perhaps lines of religious connection between Israel and Damascus. Unfortunately, we have no evidence from Damascus.
1 Legend says that Paulus Eremita was fed for sixty years by ravens. We might conclude from Ps. cxlvii. 9 and Job xxxviii. 41 that the popular legends in Israel looked upon the raven as the special bird of God.
236 GLOSSES UPON THE BOOKS OF KINGS, ETC.
Upon the meaning of this, see pp. 59, i. f.; comp. p. 234.   “ Twelve
pair of oxen were before him, and he himself followed the twelfth.” Elisha slays and roasts the pair of oxen, using the wood of the plough for fire. This motif is incomprehensible to us; it corresponds to the slaying of the oxen of the plough when Saul was called.
6.   In this connection 2 Kings ii. 23 f. should be specially noted. Forty-two boys are torn to pieces by bears, because they have mocked Elisha as “ bald-head.” No one will regret a solution of the story. It appears to us certain that motifs of the cycle of the year lie before us. The monuments in the district of Lebanon attest the bear as the animal representing the critical solstitial points; see p. 99, i- The tonsure—for it is to this the story refers—belongs to the sun-man. Read Plutarch, Theseus, and comp. p. 172, above.
The historical and the religious importance of Elijah is in no way diminished by unveiling motifs of mythology and fable.
The motifs form the nimbus in which a past age enveloped him, in order (by means of the simple ideology of the ancient world) to make his importance understood by the people.1 For us this nimbus is far outshone by the glory which surrounds him from the standpoint and teaching of Jesus and the Christian idea of the world.
Elijah’s ascension1 2 “in the whirlwind” (2 Kings ii. 1 ff.). What Elisha saw was a vision, as in vi. 17, which they could see “whose eyes Yahveh had opened.” The prophet sees a fiery chariot and fiery horses. He cries: “My father, my father! the chariots of Israel and the horsemen ! ” The words primarily do not apply to Elijah, but to the heavenly appearance. As the stars were held to be warriors of Yahveh Sabaoth (p. 133), so the prophet sees in this appearance the heavenly war-hosts of the people of God. When the vision was past, Elijah was taken up into heaven. It is not said that he ascended in one of the chariots with fiery horses.
1 Kings xx. 34: The huzot of the Israelite merchants in Damascus were bazaars and parts of the city (Arabian suh)
1   And how delicate is the Biblical story in contrast to the later Jewish embellishment, which makes Elijah the Sun-man, representative of fruitfulness, who is present at circumcisions, and which links with a flippant song (Gadja song) in the liturgy of the Passover the expectation of the return of Elijah, which sings the cycle of the fate of worlds, finally ending in equalising justice.
2   Upon the motif word np1? for snatching away, I Kings ii. ii, see p. 240, i.
THE MOABITES
287
reserved for strangers (conditionally with exemption from taxes) near the bazaars of the natives.
In the Middle Ages there were the fondachi of the markets in Oriental mercantile cities (Winckler, O.L.Z., 1901, Sp. 143). We meet with exactly the same institution in the Thousand and One Nights, and to the present day the various goods have their particular parts of the bazaars; see Holzinger, Archaologie, 132. Herodotus, xi. 112, records specialised bazaars of the Syrians in Memphis. Compare also our ancient city divisions, tanners’ quarter, and so on.
2 Kings iii.: The Moabites; see Gen. xix. 80 ff.1 David, by force of arms (2 Sam. viii. , brought the Moabites under his rule. The mysterious passage, 2 Sam. viii. 2, of the measuring, probably means that one-third of the country fell to the conqueror and two-thirds remained with Moab.1 2 The victory would certainly be sealed according to Oriental custom by the introduction of the worship, therefore of the worship of Yahveh. The inscription of Mesha, in fact, records from a later time that vessels of Yahveh-worship were carried away from the Moabite city of Nebo.
Contrariwise, David brought Moabite sanctuaries to Jerusalem (2 Sam. viii. 10 ff.). These trophies were fatal in Solomon’s time; they were probably primarily used for idolatrous purposes in circles of immigrated Moabites (1 Kings xi. 5: worship of Chemosh in Jerusalem). According to the Book of Ruth, David was himself of Moabite descent. We have no reason to doubt the authenticity of the statement, though one would have expected a hint of it in 1 Sam. xxii. 8 f., where David sought refuge “ for father and mother ” in Moab. With the fall of the kingdom of David, Moab naturally became again independent. But during the rule of the dynasty of Omri it was again put under tribute by the Northern Kingdom. Omri subdued the
1   Upon the following compare Buhl, article on Mesha and Moab in Hauck, R.Pr.Th., 3rd ed., where, however, the parts agreeing with the inscriptions are to be modified according to the following; in the same way, the article on Mesha by Driver and the article on Moab by G. A. Smith, Wellhausen, and Cheyne in Enc. Bibl., and Winckler, K.A.T., 3rd ed., particularly pp. 251 ff., where the views expressed in Gesch. Isr., i., specially upon 2 Kings iii., are modified.
2   Winckler, Gesch. Isr., ii. 206, n. 3. “He measured off § to death and the third to life ” is perhaps simply the technical expression for this division at the conclusion of peace.
238 GLOSSES UPON THE BOOKS OF KINGS, ETC.
Moabite king Chemosh-Khan (?), father of the Mesha, well known by the stone inscription, after the conquest of the city of Mahdaba (ca. 882).
Under Mesha, Ahab renewed the subjection.
 
FIG. 179.—Stone of Mesha.
Two Biblical authorities (2 Kings i. 1, iii. 5) then record that after the death of Ahab the king of Moab refused tribute. Joram went out against him, and Jehoshaphat of Judah lent him auxiliary forces.1 The campaign did not lead to the overthrow of Moab; the Mesha Stone, which was written and erected after the campaign recorded in 2 Kings iii. and after the fall of the 1 2 Chron. xx. presents Jehoshaphat’s part as an independent campaign.
THE MESHA STONE
239
house of Omri (therefore about 842), much more records an extension of the territory of Moab (towards Hdronen, in any case into Israelite territory).
The statements of Mesha entirely agree with those of the Bible.1
THE MESHA STONE (fig. 179)
CONTENTS.—Thanksgiving to the god Chemosh (to whom Mesha, according to 2 Kings iii., sacrificed his son in order to appease his wrath and to obtain the victory), who had helped him against the enemy, and aided him to extend his kingdom and to establish it.
1-3. I am Mesha, the son of Chemosh-Khan (?),1 2 king of Moab, from Dibon. My father was king over Moab thirty years, and I became king after my father. . . .
4-9- Omri, king of Israel, oppressed Moab long, for Chemosh was angry with his land. And his son Ahab succeeded him, and he also said : I will oppress Moab ; he spake so in my days, when I saw my desire upon him and his house.
And Israel fell for ever. Omri, however, possessed the land of Mahdeba and there passed his days, and the days of his sons forty years. And Chemosh restored it in my days. . . .
ca. 908-878. Chemosh-Khan. ca. 878-? (after 842). Mesha.
ca. 882. Conquest of the country about Mehedeba by Omri (not mentioned in the Bible).
876-855. Ahab’s conquests in Moab, 2 Kings iii. 4; Mesha pays tribute to Ahab.
854-843. Joram (and Jehosha- phat), against Moab, had instituted payment of tribute after the death of Ahab (2 Kings iii. 4 ; comp. i. 1). According to iii. 27, Joram was finally obliged to withdraw (the “ wrath” veils the misadventure). Mesha then advanced triumphantly, outlived the overthrow of the house of Omri by Jehu (see above, “Israel fell for ever”), reconquered Mahdeba and the territories of A. tarot and Nebo
1   This acknowledged fact forms a weighty evidence for the reliability of the Biblical historical authorities. Upon 2 Kings iii. see p. 47. Upon the text, K. T., 1st ed., 100 ff.
2   In no case three letters, according to Lidzbarski’s examination of the text, but only two ; therefore not Kamoshmalik, possibly p.
240 GLOSSES UPON THE BOOKS OF KINGS, ETC.
and Jahad and Uoronen, and made the Israelites give tributary service in his building operations. (Nothing is mentioned of this in the Bible.) ca. 842. Erection of the stone, which celebrates the triumph.
10 if. But the people of Gad were from of old settled in the territory of fAtar6t, and the king of Israel had built f A tarot. But I fought against the city and took it, and slew all the people of the city, a joy to Chemosh and to Moab. And I brought back from thence the ’arel1 of their god and brought it before Chemosh in Cherijot. And I transported thither the people of Shrn and the people of IJrt. And Chemosh spake to me : Go and take Nebo against Israel, and I went out by night and fought against them from the break of day till noon, and I took it and slew all; seven thousand men and (boys) and women and (virgins) and maidens ; for I had dedicated it to Astar-Chemosh ; and I removed from thence the .... 1 2 of Yahveh and brought them before Chemosh. And the king of Israel had built Yahash, and made himself a stronghold therein when he fought with me. But Chemosh drove him before me, and I took two hundred men from Moab, all his princes, and led them against Yahash and conquered it, to remove it to Dibon. I built Krhh, Homathaje£arin and Homathacophel, and I built its gates and I built its towers, and I built the king’s palace, and I made two basins for water inside the city. But there was no well inside the city, in Krhh ; and I commanded all the people : Make you every one a well in his own house. And I bored the tunnel (water-course) for Krhh with prisoners from Israel. I built Arofer and I made the streets of Arnon. I built Beth-Bamoth, for it was destroyed. I built Bezer, for it had fallen to ruin; princes of Dibon there were fifty, for the whole of Dibon was subjugated. And I ruled over one hundred (princes) in the cities which I had added to the land. And I built Mhdba and Beth- Diblaton and Betli-Ba‘al-Me‘on, and I led forth from thence the shepherds (?) .... sheep of the land. And in Horonen sat . . . . and .... Chemosh commanded me L GO, fight against Irjoron^n. And I went down .... and Chemosh (gave it back) in my days, and I went up from thence to . . . . ? ? and I . . . .
1   usually interpreted as “shrine” also at line 17-18, should probably be
complemented with   According to Sellin, Ertr. der Ausgrabungen, p. 36,
portable altars like that represented in fig. 115, pp. 346 f., i., should be understood. H. Grimme in the Hath. Litt. Rundschau, 1904, pr. 347, sees in ’ar’el a person (priest ?) who was carried off.
2   The finals of line 17 and beginning of line 18 supplemented byline 12, see n. I.
MOAB
241
2 Kings xiii. 20 shows that at a later time also Moab made great trouble for Israel in many severe battles. The cuneiform inscriptions offer some material for the further history of the Moabites.
In the middle of the eighth century Moab was ruled by independent “kings.” Tiglath-Pileser names Salamanu of Moab amongst the kings who bring tribute to him during the campaign against Damascus (732, at the same time as Ja-u-ha-zi of Ja-u-da-ai, that is, Joahaz of Judah); see K.T., 2nd ed., 34. Twenty years later we find Moab, like Philistia, Judah, and Edom, taking part in the insurrection against Assyria (713-711), led by Azuri of Ashdod (see K.T., 2nd ed., 41); but in the campaign of 701 Sennacherib names Kammusu-nadab of Moab amongst the tributaries of the Westland; see K.T., 2nd ed., 44. Esarhaddon records that, like Manasseh of Judah and many others, so also Muzuri of Moab had to give him tribute in labour for the building of his armoury (see
K.T., 2nd ed., 52); and Asurbanipal praises a Moabite king, because he has proved a faithful vassal in war against the Arabian Kedar, who, with the Nebajot (see Gen. xxv. 13), overran the district of Judah and the hinterland of Moab Jn the last period of the kingdom of Judah (G. Smith, History of Asurbanipal, p. 288 = Cyl. B, viii. 37; the name put together with Kammasu, i.e. Chemosh, is unfortunately mutilated). At the conquest of Jerusalem the Moabites, like the Edomites, are named as malicious onlookers (Ezek. xxv. 8; compare, however, Jer. xl. 11). Together with Edom, Ammon, and other tribes, they overran the conquered territory of Judah during the Exile.
Chemosh was the Bafal of the Moabites, a stern war-god, who probably reflected the character of the Moabite people. Captive enemies were slain before his altars (Mesha inscription, line 11). According to 2 Kings iii., Mesha in time of calamity in war sacrificed his own son before Chemosh. The deity   who
appears together with him upon the Mesha Stone, is probably his feminine correlative, a warlike Ishtar, to whom the captives of war were dedicated before their slaughter. The name Bafal Peor may be an epithet for Chemosh “ the Lord of Peor.” The name of the city Nebo in Moab is not an evidence of the worship of Nebo in Moab (contrary to Buhl, l.c., and Hommel, G.G.G., p. 39); the name may be the remains of a former Babylonian civilisation in the Westland, like the names of the Mountain of Nebo and of the priestly city of Nob.
The inscription of Mesha attests an advanced civilisation in Moab of the ninth century. In periods of independent development Canaan had emancipated itself from the Babylonian cuneiform writing, as the Amarna letters give evidence, and lately some discoveries in Palestine show it in an earlier epoch. The Mesha Stone shows, like the Panammu inscription of Zenjirli, an alpha-
VOL. II.   16
242 GLOSSES UPON THE BOOKS OF KINGS, ETC.
betic writing graven in basalt (the origin of our Hebrew square writing). The inscriptions also show that the Moabites understood building strongholds with gates and towers, and making artificial roads (a mesillat was built at Arnon).
2 Kings v.: Naaman, see p. 217, i., n. 3, and comp, the healing of Gilgamesh at the bathing-place of the Holy Island, p. 217, i. 2 Kings v. 12 ; see p. 206, i.
2 Kings v. 17 f.: Naaman wishes to take two mules’ burden of sacred earth with him, in order to build an altar to Yahveh in Damascus. Elisha grants the request. Only in the question of making obeisance he prays for indulgence. When he accompanies his king as knight on service into the temple of Rimmon, he will be obliged to kneel also. But in spirit the act of reverence is to be to Yahveh. This is the meaning of the passage (see Klostermann upon the passage). Rimmon (Sept. Remman) is the “Canaanite” (Amorite) god of storm, who is also called Adad; see p. 124, i. According to one passage he is special tutelary god of Damascus. Zech. xii. 11, lament for Hadad-Rimmon =Tammuz, comp. p. 99, i., and ‘En-Rimmon in Joshua xv. 321 are evidence of an ancient Canaanite worship of this god of storm.1 2
2 Kings vi. 25 : During the siege of Samaria food became dear. But they had not eaten either the heads of asses or doves’ dung, as the newest commentaries still assume (also Benzinger, Konige, upon the passage). The passage is corrupt. nitDPI should be read -|£n; that is, homer, the dry measure. To this belongs D'Win, in which word, according to Gen. xl. 16, a species of corn is veiled.
is the remains of Bq-pn, must; the \ kab belongs to this. Therefore a homer of corn, like a ^ kab of must, was exorbitantly dear. Thus Winckler, Krit. Schriften, ii. 35.
2 Kings vi. 27 confirms the correctness of this reading. Ahab asks: With what shall I help thee, with something from the threshing-floor or from the wine-press ?
2 Kings vii. 1 ff., see p. i.
2 Kings viii. 13: “But what is thy servant, the dog” Kalbika,
thy dog,” is in Assyrian letters an expression of devotion. Sept, strengthens it, as in 2 Sam. ix. 8 : “ dead dog.”
2 Kings ix. 13 : Garments were laid down upon the road for a royal progress, as in Matt. xxi. 8.
1   To be read thus, instead of ‘ain we-Rimmon, with Holzinger, upon this passage.
2   The form of name Rimm6n is also attested on the Amarna tablets, see Peiser, O.L.Z., 1898, 276.
GLOSSES UPON THE BOOKS OF KINGS 243
2 Kings ix. 27 (Gur), see p. 343, i., n. 4. 2 Kings xvi. 3, see below. 2 Kings xvi. 10 ff. : The altar of Ahaz built after a Damascene pattern, see p. 345, i.
2 Kings xvi. 18 : In consideration of the king of Assur, Ahaz makes innovations in the Temple. Was a visit from the Assyrian king expected in the Temple ? In any case, the passage shows that the political * alliance resulted in falling away and paganism.
2 Kings xvii. 6; comp. p. 278, i.
2 Kings xvii. 6, xviii. 11 : Sorgon carried them away to Halal} and the Habur, the river of Gozan, and [m] the mountains (Sept, ev opoi<i) of the Medes. But 1 Chron. vi. [5], 26 records xthat Tiglath-Pileser carried away the Reubenites and the Gaddites and the half tribe of Manasseh in n^n, ‘I'lin and Kin to the river of Gozan ; see p. 248. The separation of the “river of Habor” from the “river of Gozan11 rests upon a misapprehension. The parallel passage 2 Kings xv. 29 says simply: Tiglath-Pileser carried them away into Assyria. 2 Kings xix. 12 and Isa. xxxvii. 12 name Gozan, together with Haran and Rezeph and Eden, as one country subdued by the Assyrians.
Cuneiform writings mention a city of Gozan in the district of the Euphrates.1 It is, in any case, treating of Babylonian country. Probably by the “ mountains of the Medesr) the actual country of the Medes is not meant, but rather the districts of Suleimania lying not very far from the other places enumerated and which Shalmaneser had conquered shortly before.1 2 Here also (comp. p. 219) the events of the years 734-33 and 722 are confused.
2 Kings xvii. 17 : They caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire. xvi. 3 relates the same thing of Ahaz. Human sacrifice is not to be understood, but the ceremony of
1   For the evidence in cuneiform writings of Guzana in the district of the Euphrates, see article on Gosan, R.P.Th3rd ed. ; in addition, II. R. 53, 43a: Guzana = Nasibina. It may be identical with the Gauzanitis of Ptolemy, v. 17, 4, edited by Car. Muller, 1901 (between Chaboras and Saocoras), Kaushan of to-day.
2   Otherwise in Kittel, Konige (Nowack’s Handk.), p. 274.
244 GLOSSES UPON THE BOOKS OF KINGS, ETC.
leaping through the fire at the heathen festival of the solstice; see p. 348, i.
2 Kings xvii. 24 ff.: Colonisation of Samaria by Babylonians. Perhaps this record relates to the time of Sennacherib after the overthrow of Babylon. Kuthah was closely allied to Babylon (p. 139, i.). Sepharvaim is perhaps Sippar on the Euphrates (double city ?), the Abu Habba of to-day.1
2 Kings xvii. 30: Men of Babylon made Succothbenoth. We may expect the cult of Babylon, Marduk-worship therefore.
Winckler, M.F.A.G., 1901, 316 f., assumes that Succoth is the same as Siccuth in Amos v. 26, that is, Nebo (corresponding in the Westland to Marduk of Babylon, therefore = Winter-Marduk = Tammuz, who was lamented). If, however, benolh may be explained as bariitu, a name of the Belit Ishtar as Jensen has it, Z.A., iv. 352, then we should rather, in connection with Ishtar- worship, understand huts for the Temple prostitutes.
2 Kings xvii. 30: The people of Cnth made Nergal. In a commentary on the Pentateuch, Maimonides (twelfth century) founds himself upon primitive books of the heathen (he means Nabataean writings), according to which the Cuthites professed sun-worship.2 This is correct. Upon the solar characteristics of Nergal, see pp. 30, i.; 32, i. In a review of the exiles, to the later Jews the land of Cuthim was current as clean ;3 upon the other hand, on account of their mingling with the heathen, the Samaritans were scornfully called Cuthim. Ashima, Nibhaz, and Tartak contradict the meaning.
2 Kings xvii. 31: Anammelech. If the name denotes a Babylonian and not rather a Syrian divinity, this contains the single Biblical evidence of the Babylonian god Anu. The divine name Adrammelech may perhaps be changed to Arad-malik or to Adad-malik.4
2 Kings xviii. 4: Nehushtan, a serpent symbol, like the brazen serpent (Numb. xxi. 8 f.).5 It is assumed that it is treating of an officially recognised symbol of Yah veil.
1   Or should we, with Winckler, Altt. Uniers., 97 ff., 105 ff., understand it to be the Babylonian deportation mentioned in Ezra iv. 8-10 ?
2   Baba Bathra, 91a; comp. Herrschensohn, yivr, p. 222.
3   In opposition to the heathen country, comp. Herrschensohn, loc. cit., 139.
4   See K.A.T., 3rd ed., 84, n. 2, 408, n. 1.
5 Upon the form of the word, see Hommel, G.G.G., p. 132.
GLOSSES UPON THE BOOKS OF KINGS 245
Historically the matter is still obscure. As tutelary god of Der, the city of Anu (see pp. 102, i. ; 104, i., n. 1), a serpent god is named, called “Lord of Life.1’1 Figs. 149 and 152 show two serpent monuments from Petra.
2 Kings xviii. 14, 17, see p. 342, i.
2 Kings xviii. 17 ff. Peiser, O.L.Z., 1902, 41 ff., reviews the question whether a knowledge of the Assyrian language in Jerusalem of that time is to be assumed. In v. 26 “ Assyrian” may have stood and been replaced, as often happens, by Aramaean (because later both were the same).
2 Kings xviii. 34 ; comp. Hommel, G.G.G., 89, n. 3. Schiaparelli, Astronomie, p. 67.
2 Kings xix. 12 and Isa. xxxvii. 12 name four Babylonian districts or cities^ as places of banishment: Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and Bene Eden; see 2 Kings xvii. 6.
2 Kings xix. 27, see p. 276, i., n. 3.
2 Kings xix. 37: Upon the murder of Sennacherib, see p. 227. Fig. 180 shows his successor Esarhaddon: the king as a giant, the captives as dwarfs held by the king by iron rings fastened through their chins; compare with this p. 294.
2 Kings xx. 7: The prophet is also a physician; he prescribes a fig plaster.
2 Kings xx. 12: Embassy from Berodach-baladan (that is, Merodach-baladan of Isa. xxxix. 1); Babylonian, Marduk- Apaliddina.2 He sent letters and presents. Upon the meaning of this, see p. 221, n. 1. The rTDD JT1 into which Hezekiah leads the messengers is the Assyrian bit nakamti, the treasure-house, where also costly spices and oil were kept.3 Probably being taken through “ the house of his armour ” was more important to the messengers, for a political alliance was in question.
2 Kings xx. 20:   The conduit of Hezekiah. According to
2 Chron. xxxii. 30 this building relates to the Siloam tunnel, in which, in 1880, the oldest Hebrew inscription was found by H. Guthe.
2 Kings xxi. 5, comp, xxiii. 5 : Altars for all the host of heaven were built in the fore-court of the Temple at Jerusalem.4
1 B.A., iii. 238, 42.   2 See fig. 187, p. 274.
3   Comp. 1 Kings x. 10, and see Benzinger, Konige, upon the passage.
4   Comp. Jer, viii. 2 ; Deut. xvii. 3 ; Job xxxi. 26.
246 GLOSSES UPON THE BOOKS OF KINGS, ETC.
This did not mean uprooting the worship of Yahveh to the people. The popular religion simply took Yahveh Sabaoth literally: Lord of the heavenly host.1 The commandment in Exod. xx. 4 related to that sort of prayer. In Exod. xxii. 23 Targum says: 44 Thou shalt not make for worship the picture of sun, and moon, constellations and planets, nor of angels, which serve before me.”1 2 According to Isa. iii. 18, the women of Jerusalem wore little moons of gold; Judges viii. 21, certainly in a critically debatable passage, says the war camels carried them upon their necks.
The growing half moon is to be understood, which to the present day is current as symbol of growth and fertility. The Hillulim in the autumn festival, Lev. xix. 24 and Judges ix. 27, ~   i r • like perhaps halleluiah (see pp. 37, i.; 110, i.;
tory of Esarhaddon after 140> agree> at any rate originally, with the the conquest of Egypt moon and its festivals (see Wellhausen, Reste and Tyre, from Zenjirli. Arabische Heidentums, pp. 107 ff.). The cres- Berlin Museum. Pri- cent moon as mark of the Turkish Moham-
Ethiopia and Ba‘al of niedans appears to have been first assumed Tyre.   with the conquest of Constantinople in 1453.
Mohammed II. then took it as a symbol of the city, on the red banner.3 Yet upon the first Islamic coins and upon the Byzantine coins from the second century B.C. till the third century A.D. taken over by Islam the crescent moon already appears. By some the symbol is referred back to the miraculous intervention of the moon-goddess Hecate at the siege of the city by Philip II. in the year 339 B.C.4 Since, however, the cult of Hecate, which came
1   Note p. 134, where it is shown that later they took trouble to re-write heathenish-sounding names.
2   The Talmud Tractate Rosh hashanah 24b says in the same passage : Make to thyself no idols after the likeness of the spirits who serve before me in the heights: Ophanim (periods of time), Seraphim (Isa. vi.), Chajjoth (Ezra i.), and malte hasherat (serving angel). Jewish quotations show that they knew the Oriental teaching very well, and that in later times they held, in agreement with the Oriental secret doctrine, that the phenomena of the cosmos are personified powers of God.
3   “Munch. Orient-Ges.” in Zeitschrifi Asien, December 1902.
4   The Persian historian Mirchond asserts a specially Turkish origin, according to which the Turks brought the crescent moon as their symbol with them from Central Asia.
 
GLOSSES UPON THE BOOKS OF KINGS 247
from Asia Minor, was clearly influenced by Ancient-Oriental moon worship, a Western Asiatic prototype lies, in the first instance, at the root, and it is to be remembered that Ancient-Babylonian seal cylinders, like modern Babylonian boundary stones, show the crescent moon as insignia (comp. fig. 34 f. amongst others). On the other hand, it is to be noted that Islam is in many ways linked to the Hobal moon-cult of Mecca (compare the lunar calendar of Mohammed), which corresponds to the lunar cult of Haran; see also Job xxxviii. 31 ff.
The Mazzalot, which are named together with sun and moon (Sept. /ma^oupcoO, Job xxxviii. 32, Mazzaroth), are the houses of the zodiac (lunar stations, or the stations of the solar cy&le).
2 Kings xxii. 8 ff.: The finding of the book of the law. The question of the relationship of this discovered codex to the codices of the Israel-Judah Thora has been led into new directions by the work of Klostermann.1' In any case, in the story it is treating of the finding of an original codex in the archives of the Temple of the same description as the authoritative copy of the law of the kings, which, according to Deut. xvii. 18, was to be guarded in the priest’s house and of which the king was to have a copy by him. Such secret guarding of original documents was to preserve the law from mutilation, such as might happen to it in copies and in verbal interpretation (comp. Deut. xvii. 8 IF.).
The cuneiform texts repeatedly tell of the finding of forgotten political documents. Ezra vi. 1 f. also mentions such an event.2
2 Kings xxiii. 4: The idols were 44 burnt with fire, and the ashes scattered in Kidron.” 3 The same is often in the Assyrian inscriptions as a custom of the kings.
1 Essay in Neue Kirchliche Zeitschrift, 1897. Der Pentateuch, Neue Folge, Leipzig, 1906.
2   An inscription of Assurbanipal, who liked to be represented as the inaugurator of a new era, affords an instance of the discovery of a religious document. An oracle was found in Susa which already, 1635 (1535), years before, had prophesied him as revenger of the goddess Nannaya of Erech ; now “ the time was fulfilled ” {time imM). This is an obvious falsehood, or an artificial adjustment. A comparison of this event with the finding of the Law under Josiah, as is occasionally suggested, is decidedly to be rejected.
3   To be read, with Klostermann, as instead of ^n’3 j comp. Winckler, Krit. Schriften, ii. 46.
248 GLOSSES UPON THE BOOKS OF KINGS, ETC.
Upon 2 Kings xxiii. 10, comp. Jer. vii. 31 (Hinnom); see Baedeker, Palestine.
2 Kings xxiii. 11 : The horses and chariots of the sun (comp, pp. 115, i. f. and 156) are cultural necessities of the astral heathen- worship. Upon the worship of the sun in ancient Canaan, which names of places like Beth-Shemesh attest, see p. 350, i. (Amarna period), and p. 349, i. (Baal and Moloch as solar divinities). The roof of the house (comp. Jer. xix. 13, xxxii. 29 ; Zeph. i. 5) was specially suitable for star-worship.
2 Kings xxiii. 13, see p. 47.
2 Kings xxiii. 29 f.: Necho, king of Egypt. This is Necho II. Assurbanipal mentions Necho I. Ni-ku-u shar al Me-im-pi u al Sa-ai, king of Memphis and Sais. Josiah went out against Necho and fell at Megiddo (or at the seaport city Migdal); see p. 200. Upon the lament for the Deliverer, Josiah (comp. 2 Chron. xxxv. 24, and Zech. xii. 11), see pp. 99, i., and 82.
2 Kings xxv. 8 : “ The captain of the bodyguard, the ‘ servant ’ of the king of Babylon.” “Servant” here is used in the sense of minister, like ardu, “slave,” and corresponding words throughout the East. Compare the seal of the “servant” of Jeroboam, p. 348, i.
The Book of the Chronicles
We have to thank the authority of the Chronicles for some valuable notices,1 amongst others :
1 Chron. xxi. (20) 1 ff. (David’s heroes), see pp. 82, i., 183. 2 Chron. ix. 1 ff. (Solomon’s riddle), see pp. 188 f. 2 Chron. xx. i (Ammonites in alliance with Mesha), see p. 47.   2 Chron. xxxv. 24 f.
(lament for Josiah), see p. 82.   1 Chron. xxviii. 2, xxviii. 18, xxxv. 3
(for understanding the ark), see pp. 124, n. 3, 125, 130, n. 4. 1 Chron. xxviii. 11 ff. (models for the Temple and Gad’s part in the building of the sanctuary), see p. 132.   2 Chron. iv. 6 (brazen
sea), see p. 188.   2 Chron. xxi. 12 (Elijah’s letter), see p. 302.
1 Chron. i. 9, see p. 288, i. 1 Chron. i. 27, see p. 285, i. 1 Chron. v. [6], 26, the Kin, named together with Habur (river of Gozan), and Halah, should be corrected to pn (Haran), Sept., De Legarde’s edition, ''Appav, or (with F. Hommel) should be taken as the Mesopotamian expression for pn, for we have pure Mesopotamian territory which the parallel passage, 2 Kings xv. 29, calls rightly “Assyrian,” as during the period of the Exile it was under the rule of Assyria. Halah cannot be identified, but is
1 Comp. p. 192, n. 1.
CHRONICLES
249
repeatedly attested in the cuneiform writings; the correction to rbl must be abandoned.1
1   Chron. xv. 18, 20: Shemiramoth, masculine name, bearing some likeness to Sammuramat, Semiramis. The Semiramis of Ktesias (wife of Ninus) bears the mythological features of Ishtar.2 But certainly there is an historical foundation for the legendary character, which is not yet further known to us. The Near East recognised queens from the most ancient times. In Phoenicia we meet with feminine rule, occasionally also in Israel and Judah, see p. 233. The excavations in Susa brought to light a bronze statue weighing 2J tons of an Elamite queen. In the time of Adadnirari a figure called Semiramis (Sammuramat) comes to the fore, whose policy was directed against Babylon. Upon the statue reproduced fig. 52 she is expressly mentioned, which is noteworthy.,
2   Chron. i. 16 f., see p. 284, i. 2 Chron. xiv. 9, see p. 286, i. 2 Chron. xx. 1, see p. 47.
Ezra i. 2 : “ All the kingdoms of the earth have been given to me by Yahveh, the God of HeavenSchrader, KA.T., 2nd ed., 372 f., has rightly connected with this some remarks upon the tolerance of Cyrus. In the sixth century a wave of monotheism passed over the whole East; see Monotheistischen Stromungen, pp. 44 ff.
Ezra iv. 8-10, see 2 Kings xvii. 24 (p. 244).
Ezra iv. 9 upon Babylon and Elam, see above, pp. 292, i. ft’., and 301, i. If it is really the name of a city, Arak is Arku, Uruk (Erech), the present Warka, see pp. 295, i. f. Shushan is the Shushan of the cuneiform writings, capital of the land of Elam from the most ancient times. At present being excavated by a French expedition.
Ezra iv. 10: Osnappar is a mutilation of Assurbanipal, Greek Sardanapalus; see figs. 136, l6l, and 175.
Ezra vi. 2 : Achmetha is Ecbatana, capital of the kingdom of the Medes, Agamatanu in the Behistun inscription, line 60. According to Herodotus, i. 98, the battlements of the walls of Ecbatana were decorated with the seven colours of the planets (comp. pp. 305, i. f.), partly painted, partly overlaid with metal (gold and silver = sun and moon).
Ezra vi. 11: Empalement. Assyrian reliefs represent this form of execution.
1   See remarks inB.A., iii. pp. 91 f., and comp. Winckler, F., i. 292.
2   See Izdubar-Nimrod, pp. 68 ff. : Ishtar and Semiramis.
250 GLOSSES UPON THE BOOKS OF KINGS, ETC.
The victim is either pierced through the breast by the point of the erected beam (ina zakipi azkup or ashhun), so that the body falls over it, or (for example, upon the bronze gates of Balawat) the body is pierced upwards through the middle by the point.
Neh. i. 1: The months Chislev and Nisan. The modern Babylonian names of the months were in use after the Exile, and together with this the Babylonian Calendar, with the Spring equinox as New Year. Cuius regio, eius religio. The calendar was a religious act of the state, see pp. 39, i. ff.
The attempts at a reform under Sheshbazar and in the time of the Maccabees prove independence, see p. 46, i.
The post-exilic = New Babylonian names of the months are :1
Jewish =   Babylonian
Nisan   Nisannu
ijjar   airu
sivan   sivannu
tammuz   dtizu
ab   abu
elul   ululu (elulu)
tishri   tashritu
marheshvan (i.e. 8th month)   arah-samna
kislev   kislivu
tebet   tebitu
shebat   shabatu
adar   addaru
The pre-exilic names in the Old Testament are:
Hebrew =
abib ( = nisan)
Exod. xiii. 4 and elsewhere   Phoenician 3
<
II
<S^‘   n't
1 Kings vi. 1, 37   (only attested in I
’etanim ( = tishri)   DJDK
1 Kings viii. 2   CIS 86a
bul ( = marheshvan)   !?n
1 Kings vi. 38   CIS iii. 1, x. 1.
1   Ezra himself says that the Jews took their present names of the months from the Babylonians during the Captivity; see Ideler, Hist. Untersuchungen, 151. Compare now upon the material Ginzel, Handbuch der mathematischen und technischen Chronologic, p. 113 ff.
2   Written thus in the time of Hammurabi.
3   See Lidzbarski, Handb. der Epigraphik, 412.
ESTHER
251
Neh. ii. 8: Pardes-Paradeisos, park, comp. Eccles. ii. 5; Song of Solomon iv. 13. Here it is the royal park of the Persian king.
The word is Indo-Germanic, Zendic pairideza; comp. Lagarde, Arm. Sttid., 1878, Z.D.M.G., xxxii. 761, xxxvi. 182. It is attested in Babylonian in Strassm., Contr. Cyr.} 212 (Meissner, Z.A., vi. 290, n. 3), and on a small Babylonian tablet of the time of Philip (317 B.C.), where a part of East Arabia is called Pardesu (Hommel, G.G.G.f 116, n. 3, comp. 250). The thing itself is old. The Assyrian kings had those sort of park-like places, as the royal inscriptions show (compare the “hanging gardens” of Semiramis at Ktesias).
Neh. ii. 10: Sinballat, that is, “ Sin gives life”; see upon Sin, pp. 108, i. f.; Neh. ix. 7, see p. 12.
The Book of Esther
Jfc In this legendary story motifs out of the Babylonian mythology of Ishtar and Marduk are interwoven, of which the names Esther and Mordecai give a hint; Jensen is thus far correct in Marti’s Handkommentar, xvii. 173 if. It is not correct that the foundation of the Book of Esther lies in the episode of Humbaba in the epic of Gilgamesh : Haman and Vashti enemies of Mordecai—like the Elamites who are represented by the gods f^uman and Mashti, enemies of the people of Marduk, who were Babylonians. Upon the meaning of the myth, and especially of the figure of Haman, see Winckler, F., iii. 1 ff. ^
It is known that the Book of Esther gives the legend of the Jewish festival of Purim. A part of this festival, which is called MapSoxaiKy rjpcpa, 1 Macc. xv. 36, probably dates back to the Babylonian New Year festival, called Za,gumk = resh shatti
(rut? PKI).1
1   See Zimmern, K.A.T., 3rd ed., 514 ff.
CHAPTER XXVII
GLOSSES TO THE SO-CALLED DIDACTIC BOOKS
THE BOOK OF JOB
THE Jews knew that the story of Job which underlies the teaching of the book was not meant to be taken as history.
“ Job never existed, and was no created being, but is a mashel (poem)1'*; see Baba bathra, f. 15a. The material of this poem is common property in the East. It has migrated. But this is only in regard to its dramatic envelopment.   The
religious atmosphere with its theophany is specifically Israelite. The speeches of Elihu served as an appendix. Possibly we may suggest the form of Oriental poems, where the poet in conclusion expresses his own view of the theme discussed. We might then assume that the author speaks in the person of Elihu.
Upon Indian ground also this legendary material is found. The missionary Bouchet (The Religious Ceremonies and Customs of the Various Nations, p. 283) records that he heard the following story from the Brahmins :1
“ One day the gods assembled themselves in their sacred abode. Indra, god of the air, had the chief seat in the assembly. Besides the divinities of both sexes, the most celebrated penitents (saints) were also there, above all, the seven Menus (patriarchs). After some conversation the question is laid before them whether it would be possible to find a faultless prince amongst men. They were nearly all of the opinion that there was none without great faults, and Siva Rudra (the Indian Satan) was leader of those who expressed this opinion. Vasista alone asserted that his pupil Atshandira was faultless. Upon this Rudra, who could not bear any opposition, was very wrathful, and assured the gods that he would soon show them the faults of this prince if they would deliver him over into his hands. Vasista accepted the challenge,
1   Upon the following, see Nork, Realworterbuch, s.v. Hiob.
252

[Prometheus]

252
JOB
253
and it was agreed that the one whose assertion was proved false should abdicate to the other all the honour which he had won by a long course of penance. Atshandira now became the victim of this strife. Rudra tried him by every means, brought him to the most abject poverty, had his only son executed, and took away his wife.
“ In spite of these misfortunes, the king remained so steadfast in all virtue, that the gods themselves, who had allowed these trials to come upon him, undoubtedly would have failed under them. And they rewarded him freely. They also gave him back his wife, and brought his son to life. Thereupon, according to the bargain, Jtudra abdicated all his honours to Vasista, and Vasista bestowed them upon Atshandira. The vanquished Rudra went away wrathful and began another course of penance in order to win for himself if possible another store of honours.”
^ If the mythological is the characteristically Oriental, and therefore the Biblical form of story, we may expect above all to find it in passages like the poem of Job. It may be looked for chiefly in the names and numbers. We look for it in the name of Job (Ijjob, Babylonian ajjcibu, the enemy). We look for it further in the seven sons and three daughters before the trial, and the same number after the trial, in the seven days and seven nights of the friends (Job ii. 13), in the 140 = 2 x 70 years of life after the trial. The names of the daughters are characteristic: Kerenhappuch, Jemimah, and Keziah.
The LXX. translates the first name Kipas ’A/xaA0etas ; they found therefore a mythological play in the name : Amalthea with the cornucopiae1 (in Hebrew the word is called elsewhere “horn of antimony”); Jemimah, “the lengthener of days”? Keziah, “the shortener of the thread of life ” ? Thus, therefore, the names would contain a play upon the Oriental prototype of the three Greek Fates.
When the Targum names their mother Dinah ( = Dike, Nemesis ?), perhaps it agrees with this. It must likewise have been recognised by the Rabbinical Jews that Job’s friends are connected with the mythology of the Underworld; the Midrash upon Eccles. f. 100J says: It is not said about Job’s friends that such an one came from his house or from the city, but from his place; that is, referring to Acts i. 25, “ Judas went to his place” i.e. hell. This last note perhaps supports the assertion of Winckler which finds a myth of Job (Ajjub) and his three, originally two, friends (with Job counted in, it made three) in Nabigha ii. (see M.V.A.G., 1901, 144 If.; F., iii. 44). We may assume, then, from our point of view, that the presentment of the Book of Job has adorned the story of the hero with features of the Year-god sitting in misery (in the Underwrorld) but finally set free.5^
Therefore an astral-mythological allusion : Amalthea is a constellation.
254 GLOSSES TO SO-CALLED DIDACTIC BOOKS
Job i. 1 : There was a man in the land erf Uz. The land of Uz, which has been sought from of old in localities far removed from Damascus, cannot yet be geographically identified. In the mind of the chronicler the events of the story took place in Arabia. The attack by Sabean hordes proves this, i. 15. Also the “ Chaldeans,” i. 17, may be meant in their original East Arabian dwelling-place. The name Uz probably appears in the cuneiform writings in the Gentilicium Uzzai.1
Job i. 5 : Job had them purified (his children) after their feasting.   Delitzsch, Hiob, upon this passage thinks of the
purification by the priest “by a mullilu or eshippu,” as the Babylonians would say. The verb Teadash, “ to make clean,” is in Babylonian also a religious word.
Job i. 6: The sons of God came to present themselves before Yahveh, and Satan came also among them. The sons of God are = gods, comp. Ps. lxxxii. 6, as sons of men = are men. The form of expression is pure Semitic. “Father” denotes authority; “ son,” subordination.1 2 A divine court is here described as in xxxviii. 7. Among the sons Satan appeal’s as an “ evil god,” like Nergal, the god of hell, at the divine court in the Erishkigal myth.3
This is referring primarily to the oppositions in universe and cycle: lordship in the Overworld and in the Underworld, light and darkness. But the duality is overcome by religion here, and the Lord of the Powers of Darkness is in the service of God. The strife is taken over into the moral realm. Satan is the “adversary” and “accuser,” Job i. 6 ff. Comp. Zech. iii. 1 f.4 Therefore, with Zimmern, K.A.T., 3rd ed., p. 461, it must be pointed out that in the Babylonian conception of the forensic relations between the Divinity and man there appear certain demonic figures who play the part of “ accusers ” 5 and
1   See F. Delitzsch, Z.K.F., ii. 87 ff.
2   Compare also b'ne labi= lions, Job iv. 11, and the benoth jaanah — ostriches, Job xxx. 29.
3   See upon this “ Holle und Paradies,” A.O., i. 3, 2nd ed., and see below upon Job ii. 7.
4   Naturally he also has the qualities of the evil spirits. According to Job ii. 7 he can strike with sickness, like the Babylonian gallH and other companions of Nergal.
5   Compare the proceedings in the judgment in Dan. iii. 8.
JOB
255
“ oppressors.” In Zimmem’s tables of ritual1 the “ oppressor of sinners ” (shadiru sha bel ami) is spoken of; amongst the fourteen helpers of the Hell-god Nergal there appears a demon sharabdu, who is named in closest connection with akil karse, “slanderer,”2 II. R. 32. 56, and the Syrians called Satan NJTlp SDN, Matt. iv. But it is not a case of borrowing the image of the figure of Satan, but of a common conception.
Marti, Komm. upon Zech.3 iii. 1 f., says : “ Since there is no evidence of the eMier existence of such a figure of Satan (I also take the first chapter of Job to be later than Zech. i.-viii.) .... it may be assumed that Zechariah himself created this figure.” This is a characteristic specimen of the theory of literary borrowing, which we combat.
Job i. 6 ff., see p. 187, i., n. 1.
Job i. 15 : Delitzsch, Hiob, upon this passage refers to the letter K 562, translated by him in Wo lag das Parodies, pp. 302 f., which communicates the news of a predatory onslaught of the North Arabian Mas’aer upon the tribe of Nabaiat: “ One of them escaped and came hither to the city of the king.”
Job ii. 4: And Satan answered Yahveh, and said, “Body for body.” The proverb corresponds to the ius talionis as we found it in the Biblical Thora and in the laws of Hammurabi, see pp. 110 f.
Job ii. 7 : Leprosy here is caused by Satan, as in Babylonia by Nergal. In the myth of Erishkigal Nergal goes with seven helpers and their seven helpers to the gate of the Underworld : lightning, fever, heat, and so on are their names. Along with them appears Namtar, “ the plague,” as special messenger of the goddess of the Underworld.
Job iii. 3: “ Behold (Sept. iSov), a man! ” Greeting at the birth of Job. Leah named her son Reu-ben (See, a son !). In the Sept, and in the old Onomasticon it is Reu-bal (See, a lord !) The greeting is the same at the rising of a lucky star.
Job iii. 8 (pursers of the day), see p. 194, i.
Job iii. 13: “ For now I should have lien down and been quiet; I should have died, and had rest ” (Wisdom xxii. 11, xxx. 17;
1   Beitrage zur baby Ion. Religion, 115, 19.
2   See Jensen upon K.B,, vi. 77, 79.
256 GLOSSES TO SO-CALLED DIDACTIC BOOKS
comp. xlvi. 19). In an Assyrian letter a man laments that he has lost the favour of the king, and must now languish in misery, and he says: “ I bow my head unto the death; they who are dead have rest,” IV. R.2 46 (53) No. 2, 16 ff. In both we find the same pessimistic resignation. Comp, also Job xvii. 16.
Job v. 1, see upon xxxiii. 23 f.
Job vii. 9 : “ That which descendeth to the Underworld returneth not again ” (Wisdom xxx. 11). In the beginning of the descent into hell of Ishtar the Underworld is called “ the house, into which whoso entereth cometh not out again, the path which returneth not again.”
Job vii. 12: “ Sea and tannin ” (the earth as a dragon, see p. 149, i., n. 7), mythic monster of poetry.
Job ix. 9 upon xxxviii. 31 ff.: The “ chambers of the south ” means some great constellation of the southern heavens, or it may denote the division belonging to Ea, the ecliptic.1
Job x. 21 : Before I go hence and return no more into the land of darkness and of shadow ”; comp. Tobit iv. 10: “ Mercifid- ness delivereth from death, and siiff'ereth not to go into darkness.'” The descent into hell of Ishtar says of the Underworld : “ The dark house, whose inhabitants have no light, where light sees them not, sitting in darkness.” Comp, also Job xvi. 22 and xvii. 16 (bars of the Underworld) and xxxviii. 17 (gates).
Job xi. 8, see p. 191, i.; Job xviii. 5, see p. 42, i.
Job xv. 28: The reference is to the custom of war which declared a city to be desert. This happened to Jerusalem under Nebuchadnezzar.
Job xviii. 13 f.: The Lord of the kingdom of Death is called fc< firstborn of death, the king of terrors.” The language is mythological. Nergal has similar epithets.
Job xxiv. 18 f., according to Delitzsch, B.B., i., 4th ed., pp. 39 and 70, contains the antithesis between a hot, dry desert reserved for sinners, and a garden with fresh, clean water reserved for the blessed, and “ forms the welcome bridge between the New Testament conception of the scorching, waterless, painful hell and the garden which the Oriental with his limited supply of water is unable to conceive without an abundant flow of living water.” With Cornill
1 Thus Hommel, Aufs, und Abk., 432.
JOB
257
we must contradict this explanation. Delitzsch is most in error when he assumes, loc. cit., p. 41, that there is evidence that the drinking of clear water in Sheol is a reward for the “wholly blessed.” Clear water was wished for all the dead—the drink of fresh water is the ideal of every Oriental. The inscription on the clay cone found in Babylon, which as reward for the reverent handling of the coffin promises the drink of clear water in Hades, gives no evidence of any differentiation between hell and Paradise. To curse the dead it was wished that his ghost might be shut out from water; to bless the dead, it was wished that he might drink clear w£ter in Hades. Hence the libations upon the graves, and the springs in the Babylonian cities of the dead. In the second edition of “Holle und Paradies” (^4.0., i., 3rd ed.) this is clearly expressed against Delitzsch, and we repeat our objection, after Delitzsch, in Ruckblick und Ausbliclc, 1904, p. 4, has again emphasised those fatal conclusions as specially important.
Job xxiv. 21, see p. 20, n. 5. Job xxvi. 12 f., see p. 194, i. Job xxxiii. 6, see p. 182, i.
Job xxxiii. 23 f.; comp. v. 1, the interceding angel. We find the idea of a heavenly intercessor in the myth of Adapa, where Tammuz and Gishzida intercede for Adapa with Anu, K.B., vi. 1, pp. 97 ff., in the penitential psalms, and often in the religious presentments on the ,seal cylinders; comp. fig. 35, p. 109, i., and Zimmern, K.A.T., 3rd ed., 419 f.
Job xxxvii. 18, see p. 189, i-
Job xxxvii. 22 : “ Out of the north cometh gold.” According to the Oriental presentment, gold is the “ dirt ” of hell.1 If the origin of gold agrees with their picture of the world,1 2 we would expect it to be the south. But in another respect the north, which, according to Job xxvi. 7, is above, is explicable.3 The
1   P. 234, i., n. 2.
2   Delitzsch, Hiob, upon 37, 22 erroneously identifies the place of the gold with the mountain of God. When the Arallu, II. R. 51, 11, is called shad hurasi, the hell-like interior of the mountain is intended.
3   The Rabbis imagine that the earth is surrounded by heaven, but the north is
open. Comp. Herrschensohn’s Hebrew writing, Book of the Seven Wisdoms, pp. 4 and 12.   “ It is said in Baba bathra ii. 25^ : The heavens surround the earth like
Aksadra (surrounded on three sides, not the north side); this is explained thus : there is no heaven there ; that is, it is open there, there is a gap in the heavens.” It is explained in other passages that the dwelling-place of evil demons is in the gap ; tempest, ghosts, shedim, lightning, and demons come from thence. Compare with this also Hommel in Aufs, und Abh., 267, the demon of the north wind Mehft.
VOL. IT.
17
258 GLOSSES TO SO-CALLED DIDACTIC BOOKS
spirits of destruction sent by Yahveh come from the north, Ezek. ix. 2, and in the midst of them is the recording angel who writes down the blessed.1 The north point of the ecliptic is the critical point, the death point, of Tam muz. At the north gate, Ezek. viii. 14, the women sit who weep for Tammuz sunk into hell. At the north gate of the Temple the Jews placed the “image of jealousy,” Ezek.
viii.   5 ff.2
The north point of the earthly, as of the heavenly All is, however, at the same time, the throne of God, the throne of the supreme God (see p. 20, i.); it is called Arallu, also Harsag- kurkura, Shad matate, the “ mountain of countries.” Isa. xiv. 13 shows that the Israelites knew the presentment; the Babylonian ruler of the world speaks there of the Mount of assembly 3 in the uttermost north.   Also in Ezek. xxviii. 14 u the holy
mountain of God,” which is covered with “ stones of fire,” and guarded by cherubim, recalls the throne of God in the north. In Ps. xlviii. Yahveh appears in glowing flames upon his holy mountain, the mountain of the north4 trembles before him. Zion was for the Jews the earthly type of this throne of God, see pp. 54, i., n. 4; 195, i. ; 206, i. Isa. xxix. 1 f. contains a play of words which, in meaning, has Arallu as throne of God and at the same time place of hell: “ O Ariel, Ariel, mountain where David encamped! Add ye year to year, the feasts shall come round, then will I distress Ariel; there shall be mourning and lamentation, and he shall be a true Ariel.”
Yahveh will distress Zion, which should be an Ariel, .a mountain of God, so that it may be “ a true Ariel ”—that is to say, a mountain of hell full of cries of lamentation.5
Job xxxviii. 4-7, see p. 189, i.
1   See upon the passage. The “ seething caldron,” Jer. i. 13, coming from the north may perhaps also be mentioned here.
2   In the Kabbala pas is besides sometimes a pseudonym for God ; see Knorr v. Rosenroth, Kabbala denudata, i. 666.
3   njno in. Upon the corresponding ijnc V.IK, see pp. 121 f. Compare also p. 266.
4   Ps. xlviii. 3, the gloss to be read pcs in ; pas ’nan’, see Winckler, Gesch. Isr., ii. 129 f.
6   See Vorstellungen vom Leben nach dem Tode, p. 123.
MUSIC OF THE SPHERES
259
Music of the Spheres
Job xxxviii. 7 ; comp. pp. 181, i. ; 187, i. The song of joy of the stars and planets at the creation recalls the passage of the Babylonian myth, where it says, after Marduk has conquered the darkness: 44 When his fathers beheld that, they rejoiced, and shouted for joy ”—but probably it also veils the thought of the 44 harmony of the spheres.” The presentment is founded upon the fundamental law of pre-established harmony ; see pp. 47, i. ff., 55, i. IF. Like colours and metals, sounds also correspond to the planets.1 There is no doubt that this teaching is older than the Greek philosophy, and that it came from the East into Greece, where it was further developed. Pythagoras seems to have been the intermediary whose borrowing of Oriental material is emphatically proved. The early translators of the Old Testament were right in their assumption that the poets of the Old Testament also recognised this Oriental poetic idea, though they suspected hints of it in the wrong passages. Aquila translates the passage in Song of Solomon vi. 10, which really says : “clear as the sun,” with the words, 44 sounding like the sun.” The Vulgate translates Job xxxviii. 37:   concentum coeli quis
dormire faciet, 44 Who will silence the music of heaven ? ” (The passage really says: 44 Who poureth out the bottles of heaven ?”) Two other passages actually speak of the music of the heavenly bodies:   Ezek. i. 24, where it says of the
cherubim (these are the planets of the four chief stations of the zodiac): 441 heard the noise of their wings like the noise of great waters, like the thunder of the Almighty”; and Ps. xix. 1-5: 44The heavens declare the glory of God; their voice goeth out into all lands1 2 and their words to the end of the earth's cycle.”
1   Tones of sound proceed from the planets in their journey through the zodiac (comp. pp. 16, i. f.). The harmonies of music with the seven notes of the octave are founded upon their seven notes. Since the seventh note belongs to Nergal, the devil’s planet and planet of misfortune, the seventh was forbidden in Church music of the Christian era (and in the musica sacra of Scotland to the present day).
2   It should be revised thus; the old translations have it <p66yyos. Gunkel, Ausgewahlte Psalmen: “ Their spit goes out over the whole earth !” One can scarcely believe one’s eyes.
260 GLOSSES TO SO-CALLED DIDACTIC BOOKS
In the Middle Ages, opposed by learned theologians, the teaching of the music of the spheres died out in art, but at the period of the Reformation theologians1 and astronomers presented it anew, whilst poetry willingly reverted to its most ancient figure.
Dante gives to the heavenly bodies sacred guides, who rule the celestial cycles and whose song is an echo of the song of the spheres. Thus Raphael in the prologue to Faust says :
“ Die sonne tont nach alter Weise In Bruderspharen Wettgesang,
Und ihre vorgeschriebene Reise Vollendet sie mit Donnergang.”
Job xxxviii. 14 : The picture of life coming forth from the darkness of earth into the light of the morning is compared with the pictured relief produced by the seal cylinder rolled upon clay. This is a simile which a knowledge of the varied Babylonian seal cylinders first made comprehensible to us.
Job xxxviii. 31 ff.:   Kima can hardly be the Pleiades. It
may perhaps be the star Arcturus in the Great Bear (as bear leader?).1 2 Kesil = Orion, see p. 290, i. Sept. ’Qpelwv, but in Job
ix.   9, "Ea-7repo?. “ Dost thou loose the hands of Kesil Orion is thought of as the giant bound in the heavens, see Gen. x. 9.
This certainly refers to stars or constellations connected with well-known myths. Mazzaroth (see 2 Kings xxi. 5; Babylonian manzaltu, “ place ”) are the stations of the moon, or the “houses” of the sun in the zodiac. ‘Esh (together with their sons), ti>$ read tto, of which it is true there is only Arabian evidence. Originally the signs of the zodiac were the monsters of chaos; comp. p. 146, i., n. 1, and Gunkel, Schopfung und Chaos, 140. The bier ? (it is known that the Great Bear was also represented as the bier): “ And comfoldest thou the death-hier together with her children ? ” comp. Stucken, Astralmythen, 34.   “ Knowest thou the mishtar of the heavens
see p. 49, i., n. 1. That is the book of the revelation of God in
1   Luther says upon Matt. xv. 34 : Pythagoras tells of a wondrous lovely harmony of the heavens, just as though he had read Job. And upon Gen. ii. 21 : Pythagoras has said that the smooth and orderly movement of the spheres under the firmament produces a beautiful sweet song : but because people hear it daily, they become deaf to it ; just as people who live near the waters of the Nile, pay no attention to the roar and the crash of the waters because they hear it all day.
2   Also Sirius (“ Stern” in Geiger’s Jiid. Ztschr., 1865, 258 ff.).
THE PSALMS
'261
the heavens. V. 33b is the parallel passage : “ Or canst thou paint it upon the earth ?11
Job xxxviii. 33 (writing of the heavens), see pp. 49, i. ff. Job xxxix. 6, see p. 42. Job xl. 14 ff., see p. 78.
The Psalms
There exists a close relationship between the poetic form of the Biblical and the Babylonian songs. In every realm of science and art the people of Israel had the civilised nations of Western Asia for their teachers. So soon as they developed a literature, it followed quite naturally that they expressed themselves in old- and long-established forms. On the other hand, it may be par-
 
From relief in a palace of the time of Assurbanipal.
ticularly clearly seen in the religious lyrics of the Psalms that the world of religious thought and feeling in Israel is incomparably deeper than that of Babylon and Egypt.
Upon the instrumental music of Western Asia compare the introduction by Fr. Jeremias to the Psalms in Haupt’s Sacred Books. Figs. 181 to 183 illustrate Babylonian and Assyrian musical instruments.
Ps. ii. 7, see p. 36, n. 3. Ps. xi. 6, see p. 42. Ps. xix. 1 ff., see pp. 181, i.; 189, i. ; and 259- Ps. xxiii. 5, see p. 184, i., n. 2. Ps. xxiv. 2, see pp. 180, i.; 190, i. Ps. xxxvi. 6 £, see pp. 190, i.; 191, i.
Ps. xliv. 23: “ Awake, why steepest thou, Lord?'1 Comp. IV. R. 23, col. 1, line 26 ff.:1
The Lord, who sleeps, how long will he sleep ? The great 1 See Hommel, Aufs. und Abh.} 229.
262 GLOSSES TO SO-CALLED DIDACTIC BOOKS
Mountain, the Father, the god Mul-lilla (Bel), who sleeps, how long will he sleep? The Shepherd, the Decider of Fate, who sleeps, how long will he sleep ?
The reversal of the idea is not conceivable in Babylonia; “ Shepherd of Israel, who neither slumbers nor sleeps,'” Ps. cxxi. 4.
Ps. li.j see p. 227, i. Ps. lx., see p. 60. Ps. lxix. 16, see p. 64. Ps. lxxii. 10, see p. 285, i. Ps. lxxiv. 13, see pp. 180, i.; 194, i. Ps. lxxvi. 3, see p. 27. Ps. lxxxi. 4, see p. 106. Ps. lxxxvii. 4, see p. 195, i., n. 5. Ps. lxxxix. 11, see p. 195, i. Ps. lxxxix. 11 ff., see p. 194, i.
Ps. xci. 13: “tread upon the dragon” see figs. 33 and 47; further, pp. 149, i., 183 (1 Sam. xvii. 51), Test. Lev. 18:
Belial shall be bound and the priest Messiah shall give his children power to tread upon evil spirits.
Ps. civ., see p. 175, n. 2; 177, i.; 191, i.; 197, i. Ps. civ. 4, see p. 188, i., n. 1. Ps. civ. 12, see p. 180, i., n. 1. Ps. cx., see p. 29.
The religious presentment of the ascent to the throne of God is decisive in the explanation of the liturgical idea shir hamma^loth (Ps. cxx.-cxxxiv.; Luther, Psalms of stages). As the Babylonian in his manner ascended the tower of stages in order to draw near the divinity (p. 57, i.), so the journey of the pilgrims to Mount Zion was a journey to the throne of God (Exod. xxxiv. 24 ; compare also the pilgrimage to Sinai, p. 105). The songs of travel were undoubtedly sung at certain stations in the “ascent to Jerusalem.”
Ps. cxxxvii. 7, see p. 6l. Ps. cxlviii. 8, see p. 53, 11. 3.
The Proverbs of Solomon
The reference which has lately been suggested, of proverb poetry to Egyptian influence, mistakes the unity of Western Asiatic civilisation, which included Egypt. The same thing holds good here as was remarked at p. 261 upon the Psalms. Numb. xxi. 27 ff. quotes ancient Moshelim. During the period of great international commerce which began under David and Solomon, the literature of Israel was probably specially stimulated. Possibly Arabia made its influence felt. As poet proverb-maker Solomon is as historic as is the tradition of
BOOK OF PROVERBS
,263
David as psalmist. The naming of the collection of proverbs in honour of Solomon agrees with a common custom of the East. The collector does not mean that the proverbs originated with Solomon, as the superscriptions to individual groups show.
Wisdom is personified as sitting
myth; see pp. 48, i.; 105, i.; 191, i.
Upon Prov. ii. 16-19, Peiser,
O.L.Z., 1900, 450 f., raises the conjecture that the description of the feminine seducer is founded upon that Babylonian poem in which the sinking of Ishtar into the Underworld is described :
Who there forsakes the friend of her youth2
[and has forsaken the covenant of her God],
for she sinks into death [that is, her house],
her paths lead to the Rephaim (Shades of Death),
[to the house], from whence none,
who enters, returns again,   FIG. 184.—Ancient-Babylonian
and never reaches the path of life.   fragment from Telloh. Eleven-
1   stringed harp.1
Prov. iii. 18, see p. 207, i.
V.   3-5 recalls the answer with which Gilgamesh repels the seductive arts of Ishtar on Table vi. of the epic of Gilgamesh. Compare also Prov. vii. 27,44 her [the harlot’s] house is the way to the Underworld, which leadeth down to the chambers of death.” The presentment of the Underworld in the Proverbs corresponds to the Babylonian world of death ; comp. ix. 18 (44 he knoweth not that the Rephaim are there, and her guests in the depths of Sheol ”) ; xxi. 6 : 44 he that wandereth from the path of wisdom shall remain in the realms of the Rephaim.” 1 2
1   Ps. xii. 1, eight strings ; xcii. 4, ten strings ; there is evidence of a harp with seven strings, for example, in Erachin I3b. The earlier assumption, that the eleven-stringed harp is of Greek origin, is overthrown by the monument of Telloh.
2   Tammuz is called hamer zifyrtitiska, husband of the youth of Ishtar.
in Tehom, as in the Babylonian
 
264 GLOSSES TO SO-CALLED DIDACTIC BOOKS
Prov. viii. 22-31, see p. 188, i. Prov. ix. 1, see p. 200, i. Prov. xi. 30, see p. 208, i. Prov. xiii. 12, see p. 208, i. Prov. xxx. 7 ff. (proverbs in the form of riddles), comp. pp. 189 f.
The Song of Songs (Canticles)
In the form before us the Song of Songs is, as the superscription shows (shir kashskirim), meant to be a uniform whole without regard to literary origin. Its meaning as an allegory of the Messiah naturally cannot be justified (in the Christian Church since Origen, and in the Middle Ages, the book was kernel and star of the mystics), though it is comprehensible when it is pointed out that the Synagogue recognised the motifs of the expectation of the Deliverer in the marriage song1 (in the same way as in the marriage song in Psalm xlv.) and so looked upon the poem as an expression of the hope of the Messiah. There appear to have been two divisions in the Jewish conception: the one looked upon the song as a worldly poem (]Y6EJ>D), the other as a sacred book (D'Khp KHIp). Consult the valuable introduction to Delitzsch’s interpretation of the Song of Songs.
Cant. i. 5 : Tents of Kedar (see p. 51) and curtains of the Salamians (not Solomon), the sister-tribe to the Nabataeans of the Nabataean inscriptions (Euting, Nab. Inschrift., 2) ; see Winckler, F., ii. 545 ff.
Cant. vi. 4, 10: Instead of   should perhaps be read
Nergalot together with morning; as sun and moon, it would then denote the “ twins.11 The epithet “ terrible11 agrees with the connection with Ninib and Nergal.1 2
Cant. vi. 9, see p. 259-
Ecclesiastes
represents in its fundamental constituent parts a pessimistic document which is in opposition to the views of the Yahveh religion and which recalls the characteristically pessimistic tone of the Babylonian poets mentioned pp. 227, i. f.
The document in our canon is a polemic revision in the spirit of the prophetic religion.3 A fragment from an epic of
1 Erbt’s assertions in Die Hebrder, pp. 196 ff., are very noteworthy in this direction.
2   See Winckler, F., i. 293 ; Jensen, Kosmosi 64; and comp. p. 114, i.
3   See Paul Haupt, Koheleth oder Weltschmerz in der Bibel, Leipzig, 1905.
ECCLESIASTES   265
Gilgamesh forms an interesting parallel to the Epicurean counsels:1
Gilgamesh, why dost thou wander around ?
Life, which thou seekest, thou canst not find.
When the Gods created man
they laid upon him the doom of death,
anci retained life in their hands.
Thou, Gilgamesh, satisfy thy body, rejoice day and night, make a festival each day ; rejoice and put off care day and night, let thy garments be clean,
thy head be clean, and wash thyself with water.
Behold the little ones which thou holdest in thy hand, let thy wife rejoice upon thy bosom.
1   V.A.Th,, 4105, discussed by Meissner, M. V.A.G., 1902, 1 ff.
CHAPTER XXVIII
GLOSSES ON THE PROPHETS
ISA. i. 9, see p. 1.
Isa. i. 11,16 f.; comp. Ps. li. 19. The passage may illustrate the relationship of the Israelite and Babylonian religion. In the one case a spiritualised, in the other a naturalistic, religion.
“ To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me ? saith Yahveh. I am full of the burnt-offerings of rams and of the fat of fed calves .... wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes ! Cease to do evil: learn to do well.”
“The sacrifice of God is a broken spirit, a broken and subdued heart, thou, O God, wilt not despise.”
Isa. i. 18, see p. 51, n. 3.
(O Ishtar) what shall we give thee ? Fat oxen, plump sheep?” “I will not eat fat oxen, nor plump sheep; give unto me the stately appearance of the women, the beauty of the men.”
Craig, Rel. Texts, ii. 19; see Zimmern, K.A.T., 3rd ed., 595, n. 1.
Isa. ii. 2: Behind this picture of the future is veiled the presentment of the mythical “mountain of assembly” as in Isa. xiv. 13, har-mo^d (see p. 258).
In the New Testament it appears in Rev. xxi. 10.1 The antithesis is the Mount of Assembly of the powers of the Underworld, which we believe we find again in Rev. xvi. 16 (Har-Magedon, a corruption from har-mo^ed).
Isa. vi. 1 ff.: Isaiah sees in vision the heavenly temple. The description of the seraphim corresponds to the genii shown in Babylonian sculpture, see figs. 65 ff., 122, 185; comp. p. 236, i.
The name is scarcely to be compared with the name Sarrab(p)u, which is borne by Nergal “ in the Westland,” according to II. R.
1   Also Matt, iv., and with this B.N.T., 95. 266
ISAIAH
267
54, 76, c,d (see Zimmern, K.A.T., 3rd ed„ 415). Like^cherubim (see p. 236, i.), it is a common name for the angels>ho£are][the intermediaries between the heavenly and the earthly worlds.
The song of praise,
Holy, holy is Yahveh Sabaoth,
all lands are full of his glory (kabod),
agrees with the fundamental idea of the Mosaic religion; see p. 107. In Isa. viii. 11-13 the principle by which Isaiah’s soul was moved at critical moments is repeated, and xxx.
11 shows that this moving motive was at variance with a people sunk in heathenism. Here we find the characteristic of the Yahveh religion in opposition to that paganism which shows itself at all periods in the popular religion (p. 16) of Israel.
Isa. vii. 14 ff‘.: A virgin shall hear a son, which she shall call “ God with usHe is the future Deliverer, who (at ix. 5) has appeared and there bears the miira upon his shoulder.1
1   What is this? Certainly not primarily an abstract thing (“dominion,” “government”), as in v. 6. Is it the coronation mantle, as in Rev. xix. 16 (upon the garment as abstract of government of the world, see p. 190) ? Compare the interesting investiture of Eliakim as deliverer-king, xxii. 21 ff. ; he bears the key of David upon his shoulder, xxii. 22 recalls the appearance and disappearance at the call of Marduk, p. 177, i.
 
FIG. 185.—Genius on a relief of the King Assur- nazirpal, who sits drinking in his palace (Nimrud).
268
GLOSSES ON THE PROPHETS
Isaiah stood before the king in great excitement to warn him against an unholy alliance and to awaken his trust in the help of Yahveh. His words are broken and puzzling. They proclaim a golden age, and they treat of the coming of the Deliverer, like the picture drawn of the end of time in Rev. xii. The virgin is, in the sense which rules the entire Oriental world, and in the Israelite prophetically deepened meaning of the expectation of the Deliverer, the heavenly virgin.1 Whether the prophet was thinking of an event near at hand, or to occur in far-off ages, is immaterial. The prophetic pictures lack perspective. If he was thinking of the daughter of a king, she would be to him the representative of the heavenly virgin. We may think also of the “ daughter of Zion ” in Micah, who waited for the birth of the Deliverer King from Bethlehem (see Micah iv. .
Milk and honey shall he eat. This also is an established motif of the dawning time of blessing,2 as in Micah iv. 4: “ Every man shall sit under his own vine and fig-tree.” And then this golden age should begin when the awaited one should learn to refuse the evil and to choose the good. This does not mean “when he is three or four years old,”3 but when he is capable of bearing arms, when he knows what there is to strive for.4 Then he shall appear, and the golden age shall dawn.5
1   Comp. pp. 119, i. f., B.N.T., 35 ff. The extra-Biblical world held to the horoscope of the winter solstice ; Virgo rises in the east with the child in her arms, persecuted by the Dragon. The Biblical conception awaits the wonderful one sent from God, the fxeya rb rrjs ev<re/8etay fivar^piov.
2   See B.N.T., p. 47, n. 1.
3   Thus in the commentaries, for example, Duhm, upon the passage: this is judged according to modern education. Isa. viii. 4 tells of such an age of childhood (before the child can say “father ” or “ mother ”). Duhm otherwise has a correct perception : “The author perhaps assumes that the boy was of special eschatological development, possibly the Messiah, in whose youth he believes himself to have discovered, by exegesis, an interesting individuality.” It is not a question of exegesis, but of the knowledge of the universally prevalent motifs of the expected Deliverer.
4   Deut. i. 39, the expression is used in the same sense.
5   Compare the greeting of the wonderful boy, who brings the Golden Age, and the new cycle in the celebrated fourth Eclogue of Virgil. When he has ripened to manhood “a great Achilles shall again be sent against Troy.” The motifs of the springtime of the universe are here also the same as in the Babylonian texts (comp. B.N.T., 31 f.) and in the prophetic utterances of the Bible. As in Isa. xi. 6 fif., peace in the animal world and wonderful fruitfulness is promised in Virgil also.
ISAIAH
269
Isa. viii. 1, see p. 109. Isa. viii. 7, see p. 218, i. Isa. ix. 11, see p. 205, i., n. 3. Isa. x. 9, see p. 295, i. Isa. xi. 6-8, see p. 232, i., n. 5.
Isa. x. 4. We hold, with Winckler, O.L.Z., 1902, pr. 385, that it is impossible to find Beltis and Osiris here.
Isa. x. \9: Kalno1 is like Kalne (Amos vi. 2) (a Syrian city according to the connection), the North Syrian Kullani of the cuneiform inscriptions, that is, probably the chief city of the land of Ya’udi.1 2 3 * In the year 738 Tiglath-Pileser III. conquered the city.
Isa. xi. 12: We know nothing definite about a carrying away of the Israelites to Elam, Shinar, and Hamath. Possibly those carried away under Tiglath-Pileser-Pul may have gone there. Schrader, K.A.T., 2nd ed., upon the passage, points out that, according to Khors., 138 f., Sargon carried away Hittites from Elamite territories and inhabitants of the Westland to Shinar- Babylonia; Khors., 49-56, records a colony of Armenians in Hamath.
Isa. xiii. 7, see p. 278, i.
Isa. xiii. 10 ff.: Darkening of the constellations as sign of the time of the curse, as in the pictures by Joel and Ezek. xxxii. 7 IF. Babylonian texts give the same motif; it is thus in the Reisner text, hymn 131, where the time of the curse is described in which, in the world of beasts and of men, relations destroy each other:
The moon does not rise shining over the land;
Sun and moon rise not shining over the land.8
Isa. xiii. 21 : Satyrs in the wilderness. A play of words upon ; the desert is the dwelling-place of the demons, see pp. 117 and 141. Comp. B.N.T., upon Matt, iv., pp. 94 f.; Matt. xii. 43 (ib. 99 f.); Rev. xvii. 2 f.
Isa. xiv. 4 ff.: The relationship of the Biblical pictures of the Underworld in Isa. xiv. and Ezek. xxxii., which was asserted by us in spite of general contradiction in 1886, in Babylonisch-assyrisclie Vorstelluiigen vom Leben nach dem Tode, miter Beriicksiclitigung der
1   To be read Kalni, comp. p. 295, i. Upon the Babylonian Calneh, Gen. x. 10, see equally p. 295, i.
2   Yaudi on the inscriptions of Zenjirli, see p. 215, n. 3.
3   Placed in this connection by Zimmern, K.A. T., 3rd ed., 393. Upon the time
of the curse, see also B.N. T., 97 f., and upon the eclipse of the sun, 103.
270
GLOSSES ON THE PROPHETS
alttestamentliclien Parallelen dargestellt, is now generally acknowledged. Schwally, who in his Vorstellungen vom Leben nach dem Tode ignored our writing and only acknowledged internal Jewish development, says later, O.L.Z., 1900, Sp. 17: “1 now ascribe much greater influence to foreign causes. . . . Babylonian features were intermixed with the Biblical presentment of Sheol.” Compare now our “Holle und Paradies bei den Babyloniern,” A.O., i. 3, 2nd ed.
Isa. xiv. 4 ff.: This song is in reference to a certain event decisive to the fate of Judah. The death of Sargon, conqueror of Samaria, who had deceived the hopes of Judah, comes into consideration in the first instance.1 Budde thinks of the death of Sennacherib. 2 Kings xix. 21-28, where the speedy fall of Sennacherib is foretold, certainly recalls the song in many features. The king, as Helal ben Shahar, is like the gleaming morning star, which as evening star (Lucifer) is sunk into the Underworld. The myth of the descent into hell bears here the motif of Venus as evening star, instead of sun or moon motif, as has been remarked p. 121, i. Upon the comparison of the king to the star, see p. 181, i. Certainly the crescent moon is scarcely meant here (thus Winckler, F., ii. 388; Zimmern, K.A.T'., 3rd ed., 565); the myth would otherwise also be the same in that case. The atmosphere of the song recalls the myth of Etana.1 2 See Deut. xxx. 12, xxxii. 11, and comp. Exod. xix. 4.
Isa. xiv. 13 (Mount of Assembly), see pp. 258, 266. Isa. xiv. 23, see p. 294, i., n. 4.
Isa. xiv. 29 ff.: Rejoice not, Philistia, because the rod that smote thee is broken (death of Shalmaneser): for out of the root shall go forth a viper, and his fruit shall be a winged serpent. Sargon is compared to a mythical dragon.3
Isa. xix. 18, see p. 341, i. Isa. xxiii. 1, 12, see p. 285, i.
Isa. xx. 1 : The single passage where Sargon, the conqueror of Samaria (722-705, see fig. 172), is mentioned. He is called Sharukin arku, ‘‘the other,” to distinguish him from Sargon I., the founder of Babylon (see p. 317, i.). When he boasts of
1   Or Sennacherib? See p. 222. Upon the following, Z.A. W., ii. 12 ff.
2   Jensen, K.B., vi. 101 ff.
3   See Winckler, O.L.Z., 1902, 385 i.=Krit. Sc hr., iii. 9.
ISAIAH
271
his three hundred and fifty royal forefathers (Cyl. I., 45, K.B., ii. 47), he represents himself as citizen of a new cycle, see p. 77, i.1
Isa. xxii. 5-7: The oracle against Hizayon could not possibly be interpreted rightly formerly, because the names of the nations were not known. It says: 44 Yahveh, the Lord of Hosts, brings in warlike excitement [the play of word is only approximately translatable] into the valley Hizayon Kar and Suti1 2 from the mountains, and Elam bare the quiver and Aram mounted the horses—and Kir bare the shield, and all the streets shall be full of chariots of war and riders, and Sot (the Suti) possess the gate.” Kir3 is the land of Kares, which Arrian names together with Sittakene ( = Suti, identical with Yamutbal). Both districts lie in the plain of Yatburi, which is between Tigris and the mountains, and borders on to Elam. The Aramaeans appear, Ezek. xxiii. 23, in the same neighbourhood under the Assyrian designation Pekod, that is, Pakudu.
Isa. xxii. 21 ff., see p. 267.
Isa. xxiv. 21 ff.: Judgment and time of blessing (compare upon this passage p. 195, i.). Yahveh subdues the heathen kings, and the army,44 the high ones ” (merom), are the stars, amongst whom, according to v. 23, moon and sun belong. He therefore conquers the powers under whose dominion the world (the East) has stood till then—the heathen kings and the world of astral gods. The end is to be that Yahveh overthrows their dominion, imprisons them (!), and is to reign from Zion, central point of the universe.4 Yahveh is here presented exactly like Marduk. As Marduk conquers Tiamat and the gods of a hostile world, so Yahveh conquers the powers of the existent system. The strife was thought of in the same form.
1   He also does not name his father. Motif of unknown ancestry? Comp, pp. 91 ff. Then possibly he would be no usurper.
2   n't? should be read for JTs? ; see already Delitzsch, Paradies, 24.
8 Erroneous reading for Kor, see upon Ezek. xxiii. 23, not = Kutu, as Delitzsch, in Paradies, p. 240, thinks ; see upon Amos ix. 7, and article on Kir in R.P. Tk., 3rd ed.
4   V. 23^ is an added quotation from a poem; the foregoing uses ancient words and ideas.
272
GLOSSES ON THE PROPHETS
The passage, then, is specially important for the comprehension of the idea of Yahveh Sabaoth. "The hosts of the high ones/’ Dn»PI v. 21, are the heathen astral gods. Yahveh takes from them their dominion, and becomes in his way Yahveh Sabaoth, "Yahveh of the (star) hosts” (comp. Ps. cxlviii. 2, where the army of the mer6m has become Yahveh’s army, his angel world). Poetry regarded the stars as heavenly warriors, see p. 164.
Isa. xxvii. 1 (the sickle sword of Yahveh), see p. 110, i., n. 3; 195, i. Isa. xxx. 3, see p. 304, i., n. 1. Isa. xxx. 7, see p. 195, i., n. 5. Isa. xxx. 26, see p. 18 Isa. xxx. 33, see p. 349, n. 2.
Isa. xxxiv. 14: Lilith is identical with the Babylonian demoness Lilitu (masculine Lilu, together with Ardat lili, 44 Maid of. the Lilu ”). Formerly the Biblical Lilith, who is also often in evidence in Hebrew and Aramaic magic spells, was explained mostly as a night monster from night. But since the Assyrian lilatu signifies evening (in Hebrew Tib'b is night), only Hebrew popular etymology can make it 44 night- monster.” The Rabbinic writings look upon Lilith decidedly as night-monster, who, especially upon Friday nights and the night of the new moon, is dangerous to children and to those with child.1 Also the hymn V. R. 50 f., which describes the works of the rising sun, in saying that the sun disperses the Ardat lili, argues for the night-monster. It is said once of the Maid of Lilu that she 44 whisks in through a window upon a man.” Perhaps we may think of winged demons.1 2
 
FIG. 186.—Assyrian demon, comp. fig. 195. Botta, Mon. de Nin.y ii. 152 (Sargon).
The "two women,” who, according to the Babylonian, bear the rish'ah between heaven and earth, each with two storks’ wings in which is the wind, also belong here, Zech. v. 9 f. In Babylonian the lilitu, as winged beings, take their name from HI, " wind,” explained in Assyrian by sharu, zakiku.
1   The devils of prostitution live in her hair, therefore Mephistopheles in Faust warns against the hair of Lilith. Comp. Erubin ioob ; Nidda 24b.
2   Of the seven Babylonian demons one is always called ilu, that is, the summus deus of the seven (planets), or his demoniacal counterpart ; compare the 6+1 in the Persian teaching, p. 163, i.
ISAIAH
273
Isa. xxxv. 5, see lx. 1 ff. (Blessed age). Isa. xxxvii. 9, see p. 286., i. Isa. xxxvii. 29, see p. 246, fig. 180.
Isa. xxxviii. 10 : Upon the gates of the Underworld, comp. Job xxxviii. 17 ; Ps. ix. 14 ; Matt. xvi. 18 ; Wisdom of Solomon xvi. 13 (Rev?" i. 18, “keys”). Comp. 3 Macc. v. 50, “May God by an appearance have mercy upon those who stand already at the gates of the Underworld.”
There is no mention in the Bible of a gatekeeper of the Underworld, but the Greek translator of Job xxxviii. 17b knows of such ; the later Jews also make Abraham gatekeeper of hell, as the Catholic legends make St Peter.
Isa. xl. 26, see p. 181, i.
Isa. xxxix. 1: The embassy from Merodachbaladan. The historical connection has been discussed pp. 221 ff. Upon the meaning of the “ congratulation upon recovery ” (sha6al shulmi), see p. 221, n. 1. Fig. 187 gives a picture of Merodachbaladan.
Isa. xxxix. 1 and 7: The messengers of Merodachbaladan were eunuchs.1 The prophet says successors of Hezekiah shall serve as eunuchs in the Babylonian court because Hezekiah has admitted the eunuchs of Merodachbaladan.
Isa. xl. 13, lv. 8 f.: We may compare the corresponding ideas in the Babylonian song IV. R. 60, see p. 228, i., line 33 ff.
Isa. xl. 13: Who hath meted out the spirit of Yahveh, and who instructs him as counsellor ?
Isa. lv. 8 f: For my thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not my ways, is the saying of Yahveh; but so much higher as are the heavens than the earth, so much are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
IV. R. 60. What seems good to a man himself, is bad with God; what is despicable according to a man’s idea, that is good with God.2 Who may understand the counsel of the Gods in Heaven, the design of God, full of darkness (?), who founded it! How may dull men understand the way of a God.
Isa. xli. 25: The segantm, “ rulers,”3 are the Assyrian shaknuti, instituted as representatives of the great King (shakanu) as governors of the provinces.
1   See Duhm, /esaias, upon the passage ; v. i should be read O'D'i1?.
2   Said in bitter irony.
3   Upon the phonetic change compare Sargon = Sharrukin.
VOL. II.
18
274
GLOSSES ON THE PROPHETS
Isa. xlii. 1 ff. (The servant of Yahveh), see p. 278.
Isa. xlix. 23 (“Kings shall fall upon their faces and lick the dust of thy feet ”), see p. 233, i.
Isa. xliii. 1 ff., see p. 145, i., n. 1,1 call thee by thy name, v. lb, signifies the new creation (antithetic sentence: I created thee, I
formed thee before birth, v. la). This is a parallel passage to: I redeem thee.
The bestowal of a name being equivalent to re-creation, wasdiscussed at p. 145,i.1 2 Yahveh is the Deliverer (I^BTlD) in passing through the waters and in passing through the fire (motif of water and fire-flood as the two antitheses in the cycle, see p. 70, i. f. ; 273, i.).
Isa. xliv. 25, comp. Jer. 1. 36, refers to the prophesying priests. With G. Haupt we read CP'll (Babylonian barn, looker-on).3
Isa. xliv. 28, xlv. 1 ff.: Cyrus is hailed as Deliverer. 44 He is my shepherd, and shall fulfil all my will" In the inscription of Cyrus (B.A., ii. 209 ff), after a description of the misery which prevailed in Babylonia, it is said :
 
FIG. 187.—Merodachbaladan II., King of Babylon, rewards1 one of his dignitaries with landed property. Berlin Museum.
Marduk took pity. He looked round throughout all the lands, considered them, and sought a righteous king after his own heart, to take by the hand. He called Kurash, king of Anshan, by his name, to rule over the whole universe, he took note of his name (comp. pp. 232 f.).
1   Maid katushu, see p. 213, n. 2.
2   Compare the Babylonian saying: “ Marduk created men to set them free,” see pp. 275 f. For detail. B.N.T., 106.
3   Haupt, Babylonian Elements in the Levitical Ritual; comp. Zimmern, K.A. T., 3rd ed., 589 f.
ISAIAH
275
Amongst the Babylonians, as amongst the exiled Jews, there existed a party which held Cyrus to be the Deliverer. Both won Cyrus to their side. At the capture of Babylon the temple of Marduk was carefully protected and his cultus favoured:
The Lord, who awakens the dead by his power, willingly blessed it.
Over my works [the tablet-writer makes Cyrus say] Marduk rejoiced, the great Lord, and blessed me, the King, and Cambyses, son of my body, as also my whole army in his favour, whilst we joyfully glorified his divinity in uprightness before him.
Cyrus also restored other cults. But the various gods appeared to him to be only the priestly servants of Marduk. At the conclusion of the cylinder of Cyrus it says :
May all the gods I have brought back make intercession for me with Marduk.
We may assume it was from the same point of view that Cyrus allowed the Jews to return home. What is put into his mouth in Ezra i. 2 ff. and in 2 Chron. xxxvi. 23 may quite well be authentic according to this idea.1
We have already referred, pp. 231 f., to the relationship of form with the greeting of Cyrus by Deutero-Isaiah. But it was not a case of an approach in form only. Both greetings, Babylonian and Biblical, rest upon the view that the institution of the king was guided from heaven. Only the heaven of the Babylonian world was too low. At p. 59, i. we met with the story in the myth of Etana, in which Ishtar and Bel “ look round for a shepherd in heaven and for a king upon earth.11
We find therefore that in the Oriental world outside the Bible the appearance of epoch-making rulers was linked to the expectation of the Saviour. The king was then the incarnation of the saving God, who appears in the cycle of the universe year.2 As such he was endowed with certain artificial motifs, which describe the blessed age, the spring of the universe, which the expected Deliverer brings.3
1   Thus Lindner, R.Pr.Th., 3rd ed., article on Cyrus. Upon the religion of Zarathustra, which arose then, see pp. 161, i. fif.
2   Pp. 76, i. fif.
3   Examples are referred to pp. 77, i., 67, 89 f. Further detail is given at other passages. A review of the connection between the Ancient-Oriental expectation
276
GLOSSES ON THE PROPHETS
From the standpoint of the Christian conception of the world we must refuse to accept the deductions drawn by Zimmern, K.A.T., 3rd ed., who looks for the ultimate sign of the idea of the heavenly Deliverer-King, as recognised by the Christian dogma (likewise of the “suffering righteous one,” etc. ), in the mythology itself. The mythology is the popularising of a teaching the religious ideas of which are related to those of the Bible. The mythology itself can only enlighten and explain the alphabet of the religious expression.
Isa. xlv. 7, 12: “ Yah veil, form the light and create darkness ; I make peace and evil . ... I have made the earth and created man; my hands have stretched out the heaven, and I have ordered all their host.” These words are a formulated protest against the Ancient-Oriental mythological conception. They are in connection with the greeting to Cyrus, which   is   highly interesting from a religious point of
view (comp.   p.   274). The   teaching   of Zarathustra,1 which
presents a particular systematisation of the religious conception of the Near East, arose in that time (see pp. 161, i. ff.). The assumption that the prophet combats the theology of Zarathustra,   at   least in its   exoteric   interpretation,2 is well
founded.
Isa. xlv. 20: They are without knowledge that carry their graven image of wood, and pray unto a god that cannot save. This is probably a reference to idolatrous processions as shown in fig. 131. Comp. Ep. Jer. iv. 14.
Isa xlvi.   1   is speaking   of the   fall of Babylon, and
therefore names Bel (Marduk) and Nebo, the two chief gods of Babylon and Borsippa, as corresponding to the event.
of the Deliverer and that of the Bible was attempted in a University lecture in Leipzig (1st March 1905) by A. Jeremias. There is an exposition upon the subject in the Dresdener Journal of 17th and 24th March 1905. The principles are repeated in Jeremias’ discussion of Cheyne’s “Bible Problems” in the Hibbert Journal, iv. 1, 217 ff. (Oct. 1905). Gressmann’s book upon the Israelite expectation makes use of only a small part of the material at command, and therefore suffers from a lack of comprehension of the great coherence of the mythological and religious ideas.
1   The tradition of the Parsees, according to which Zarathustra began his career as teacher “when forty years old” in 559, and died in 522, may be near the historic fact.
a The esoteric religion of Zarathustra is not dualistic in the ordinary sense, see Monoth. Stromungen, p. 45.
ISAIAH
m
The saying, of which the beginning is probably missing, runs:1
“ Bel is bowed down, Nebo stoopeth.”
Their (the Babylonians’) idols have become beasts of burden,
laden as with a load, to pasture (cattle)
they stoop and bow down together,
they could not deliver the burden,
and they themselves are gone into captivity.
 
FIG. 188.—Band from the bronze gate of Balawat (Shalmaneser II.).
Isa. xlvii. 2 f.: Exposure of the legs and taking off the train of the garment was imposed upon women, taken prisoners in war, as a humiliation, as we may see from the representation on the bronze gates of Balawat, fig. 188. The threat in Nah. iii. 5 ; Isa. xx. 4 ; Jer. xiii. 22, 26; Ezek. xxiii. 29, also Micah iv. 11, refers to this.
Isa. 1. 1 : The mother receives a bill of divorcement, the children are sold. In both cases it is the punishment of transgression. Compare the legal principles of the Hammurabi Code, pp. 424 ff, and the so-called “ Sumerian family law.”
Isa. li. 9, see p. 195, i., n. 2 ; p. 195, i., n. 5. Isa. li. 9 ff, see p. 194, i. (Rahab).
1 See Winckler, F.t iii. 226 f. Here, therefore, it is not speaking of processions of idols (Delitzsch, Babel und Bibelt i. 20, 59), but probably it is so in Isa. xlv. 20, see above.
278
GLOSSES ON THE PROPHETS
The Servant of Yahveh
The servant of Yahveh who is described in the songs in Isa. xlii. 1-7; xlix. 1-6; 1. 4-11; lii. IS; liii. 12 is, in the highest sense, a figure of the Deliverer. He is, speaking in “ Babylonian,” a figure of Tammuz embellished by the prophet.1
Therefore in these songs also we meet with the motifs of the expected Deliverer.
1.   He is of mysterious origin, xlix. 1 : “ called from the womb, from the bowels of his mother, his name was mentioned.’’ We find the same figure of speech at the call of the prophet Jeremiah, Jer. i. 5, likewise at the call of Cyrus, and of Assyrian kings, who had themselves represented as Deliverer, see p. 274.
xlix. 2: “Hidden in the shadow of Yah veil’s hand, a polished shaft, still hidden in the quiver ” ; liii. 2 : “ growing up like a tender plant [literally, suckling] before Yahveh and like a root out of a dry ground.” The words recall the deliverer motif of the semafy of miraculous growth (p. 280) and Neser (p. 32).
2.   He is despised, forsaken by men, oppressed with grief, liii. 5 (y?|-|D, “ wounded ”) cannot mean leprosy, as Duhm thinks. It should be taken as one slain by the sword, as in Zech. xii. 10 (“ipi), possibly as crucifixion. The motif of the suffering envoy of God is also recognised by Plato, De republ., ii. 361 f,: “ . . . but they say that the righteous is thus qualified, scourged, bound, blinded, and after having borne all persecution, is bound to a pillar, in order that he may not appear to be righteous, but rather may long to be righteous.”
3.   The servant of Yahveh is exalted :
(?)   His soul is carried away (motif word np^b as in the case of
Enoch, Elias = Babylonian leku in the case of the Babylonian Noah, see p. 240, i.). liii. 8 : “ From oppression and judgment taken away.” 1 2
(?)   He will rise again. He lives, has children, is a bounteous
king, he takes Yahveh’s concerns into his hands (liii. 10), and his age is renewed. The deliverance, which is apparent in Job, is here greatly outdone.3
1 Comp. p. 67, Joseph as Tammuz; p. 99, i., Josiah as Tammuz, and so on.
Luther’s translation gets the right meaning. The text must be mutilated.
3   Theologically the most important points are: (1) The vicarious suffering. “ He bore the sins of many, took the place of the deserter,” “ Yahveh put upon him the sins of us all.” Therefore an arrangement between Yahveh and his servant, with the deliverance (that is, “ Yahveh’s intention ”) in view. Not a deliverance through Buddhistic sufferings, but by a patient acceptance of the punishment, by means of which a catharsis is created, which makes it possible for God again to have intercourse with His people ; see Duhm upon the passage. There is a heathen analogy to the idea of substitution in /Eschylus, in Prometheus Bound% v.
ISAIAH   279
(c) He brings the blessed age. Upon the motifs of xlii. 7, see Isa. lx. 1 ff.
Isa. liii. 8, see p. 241, i. Isa. liv. 9, see p. 271, i., n. 2. Isa. lvii.
8.   see p. 103.
Isa. lviii. 9: Putting forth of the finger was the termination of a delivery of judgment.1 To point with the finger—for example, at the stars—is prohibited in the East.
Isa. lviii. 13, see p. 199, i.
Isa. lx. 1 ft.: Description of the blessed age; comp. xxxv. 5, xlii. 7, and in addition Matt. xi. 5, or Luke vii. 22. In Matt, xi. 11 the motif of the separation of the ages is directly given, and Matt. x. 35 places the time of the curse in opposition; see B.N.T., 97.
Isa. lx. 7, see p. 51. Isa. lx. 9, see p. 284, i.
Isa. lx. 18: The walls are called “ Salvation,” the gate “ Glory.” It is an Oriental custom to give names to walls and gates; it is so in Babylon (Gate of Ishtar, see p. 154, i.), and in Nineveh, as in Jerusalem (Jer. xxvi. 10: the new gate of Yahveh).
Isa. lx. 20, see p. 178, i. Isa. lxiii. 9, see p. 54. Isa. lxiii. 16, see p. 43, n. 1. Isa. lxv. 3, see p. 114, n. 1.
Isa. lxv. 11: Gad, the god of good fortune, often found in names of places, as in Ba‘al-Gad, Isa. xi. 17, possibly also presenting itself in the name of the tribe Gad ; it appears repeatedly in Assyrian letters as Ga-di-ja-a, Ga-di-ilu; see Zimmern, K.A.T., 3rd ed., 479 f.
Isa. lxv. 25. Upon the gloss, “ But the serpent's bread shall be dust,” see pp. 233, i. f.
Jeremiah.—Upon the motif of the divine call before birth to be Nabi’ of the people, Jer. i. 5, see p. 278.
Jer. vii. 18, comp. xliv. 17-19, 25. The Malkat hashshamajim, for whom the Jewish women baked cakes, is the Babylonian-
1026 ff. (comp. B.N.T., 116), and in Sophocles in (Edipns in Colonos, v. 49S f. (2) The appropriation of the deliverance (a) by the confession of those who despised him, Isa. liii. 5 if., comp. Zech. xii. 10 ff. ; (b) by his becoming the shepherd of the sheep who were going astray.
1   See Winckler, Das Gesetz Hammurabis, p. 36, n. 1.
280

[Prometheus]

GLOSSES ON THE PROPHETS
Assyrian Ishtar, the Canaanite Astarte.1 Cake-baking is a characteristic element in the cult of Ishtar ; comp. p. 99, i. The word kawan, which is used here, signifies in the Babylonian cult the cakes of Ishtar : kamanu. In K 2001 it is said :2 44 O Ishtar, I prepared for thee a pure preparation from milk, cakes, salted roast bread (kaman tumri) ”; compare with this p. 99, i., and 61, above. A Babylonian ideogram for nindabn, “ offering,” signifies exactly 44 bread of Ishtar.”
Epiph , adv. Hcer., lxxviii. 23, lxxix. 1 : “Some women go so far as to offer cakes (KoXXvptSa TLVa) in the name and to the honour of the blessed Virgin.” “ Upon a certain day of the year they present bread and offer it in the name of Mary. But they all eat of this bread.”
Jer. viii. 1; comp. Ba. ii. 24 f.: The bones of Jewish kings, priests, prophets, and citizens were cast out of their graves. This agrees with the gruesome custom of war amongst the Assyrians. Sennacherib dug up the bones of Merodach-baladan’s predecessors. Assurbanipal relates that after the overthrow of Susa he devastated and uncovered the mausoleums of the kings :
I destroyed the burial-places of their kings,1 2 3 I took their bones away with me to Assyria, I laid unrest upon their ghosts and shut them off from the burial feast of the libation.
Jer. viii. 2 (star-worship), see pp. 245, 248. Jer. x. 2, see p. 181, i. Jer. xvii. 6, see p. 42. Jer. xxii. 18 (lament for Jehoiakim), see p. 127.
Jer. xxiii. 5: Zemah zedek, 44 righteous plant,” is a term of the expected Deliverer ; comp. Isa. iv. 2, xi. 1 ; Zech. iii. 8, as in Matt. ii. 28, neser (44 branch ”) (play of words upon the name Nazareth).
In the teaching of the Ptolemies, who caused themselves to be glorified as incarnations of the deity, the term zema\ zedek is used with same meaning, as the inscription of Namaka shows;4 calling the Christians Nazarenes has its ultimate explanation in
1   Statue of the mother-goddess, pp. 118, i., and 6i (figs. 38 and 124).
2   Jensen, K.B., vi. 380, 511.
3   Upon the explanation of gt'gund, and upon the fact, see Baby/. Vorste/l. vom Leben nach den Tode, pp. 51 f.
4   Vide Landau, No. 105—the text is mutilated ; it is speaking of the successors of Ptolemy, perhaps Cleopatra is meant; see Winckler, Krit. Sc/ir., ii. 80.
JEREMIAH
281
this. The name Nozairian contains the same motif of the expected Deliverer.1
Jer. xxv. 11, see p. 243, i., n. 3. Jer. xxv. 23, see p. 289, i. Jer. xxv. 25, see p. 277.
Jer. xxxi. 19: 44After I became wise, / smote upon my thigh” There is the same gesture of mourning in the Assyrian, for example in the descent into hell of Ishtar. The same gesture in the Odyssey, xiii.
198.
Jer. xxxii. 10 ff.: The sale of land in Ana- thoth. 44 And I wrote in a deed1 2 the terms and conditions, and sealed it, and called witnesses.
Then I weighed the money in the scales.” This appears to be a bargain after the Babylonian
manner:   written upon pIG jgg—Ancient-Babylonian contract with
clay, the conditions (that the “cover” broken oft. Original in the .   .   ,   author s possession.
is to say, in regard to
forfeiture) added to it, the witnesses noted, and the seal rolled over the names of the witnesses. 44 And I took the deeds of the purchase, that which was closed3 and that which was open, and gave them to Baruch.” It is probably treating of a tablet of clay, like those Babylonian documents which contained the contract enclosed in an outer cover; the clay tablet was wrapped in another layer, and upon the outer cover of clay the contents were inscribed together with the names of the witnesses, and the seal was rolled upon it also.4 According to v. 14 they
 
1   Upon Nezer-Nazareth, see B.N.T., 56. Upon the Nzr motif compare above, p. 32. Upon the related idea of the “blossoming staff,” see p. 143.
2   Sepher, Assyrian shipru \ comp. p. 48, i.
3   Dinn ; it should be translated thus, on account of the antithesis.
4   See fig. 189. Upon the matter, Winckler, F., iii. 171.
282
GLOSSES ON THE PROPHETS
were kept in an earthen chest. Sellin found one of them at Ta4annek, comp. p. 843, i. In Hab. ii. 2 also the writing must be taken to be engraved upon clay. 1 Macc. xiv. 18, viii. 22, the writing was graven upon brass tablets.
Jer. xxxii. 14, see p. 343, i. Jer. xxxiv. 8 ff, see p. 110, n. 3. Jer. xxxiv. 18 f., see p. 32.
 
Jer. xxxix. 3, 13: ID’Ti certainly does not agree with the
ancient Persian Magu, or the Greek yuctyo?. But this last word is certainly related to the Babylonian priestly title ?natyl}ui which, according to Delitzsch, Handle., 397, originally signified 44 the shaven.11 Knudtzon, Gebete an den Sonnen- gott, 170, looks upon
FIG. 190.—Document with impression of seal ^ as a rePr°duc- belonging to the business house of Murashu & tion of the Assyrian Sons. (Fifth century.)   J
v   1   title lor ambassadors,
of which there is repeated evidence, rah mu-g% the more exact meaning of which we do not know.
Jer. xliii. 13: 44 And he will break the Ashera of Ra (God of the Sun) in the land of Egypt, and the temples of the gods of Egypt shall be burnt with fire.” In mi mi£D the mi is due to dithography. The Ashera of Ra were the two columns at the entrance of the Temple.1
Jer. 1. 2: Merodach together with Bel. An inaccuracy presents itself here; Bel is = Merodach, see p. 135, i., and see p. 276 upon Isa. xlvi. 1.
Jer. 1. 12, see p. 29 L h
Jer. li. 34: Nebuchadrezzar as the dragon ! Comp. li. 44, the dragon in Babylon, which the apocryphal writers describe.
1   See p. 157, i-, n. 2, and fig. 60; further, p. 103, and Winckler, Altt. Unter- iuch.y pp. 180 f.
EZEKIEL
283
Bel-Marduk, antagonist of Tiamat, is for the prophets himself the dragon.
li.
n.
42, see p.
Jer.
294, i.,
Ezekiel i. 1 f. : In the fifth year of the captivity of King Je- hoiachin, in the fourth [month], on the fifth day of the month, as I ivas among the captives {in the land of the Chaldeans) by the canal Chebar. This must be understood according
 
FIG. 191.—Stand supported by cherubim, from Zenjirli. Original in the Museum at Constantinople.
to the Babylonian chronology (see Neh. i. 1), which began with
the spring equinox. The fourth month was Tammuz, about our July. Ezekiel lived in a colony of exiles by the Chebar.1 It has been proved by the excavations of the American Nippur Expedition, 1893, that this is not to be taken as the river Chaboras,2 by which the exiles of the northern kingdom settled, see 2 Kings xvii. 6, xviii. 11, but as the Naru Ka- ba-ru, a large navigable canal near Nippur,the presentNiffer.3
1   Sept, in Ezekiel, Xofidp; in Eusebius, Onomast., Xa>j8ap.
2   Schrader (N.A.T., 1st ed., comp. F. Delitzsch, Wo lag das Parodies? pp. 47 f., 184) had already considered
Babylonian canals. On
 
FIG. 192.—Genius with eagle’s head.
one of the
phonetic principles also there could be no connection between Kebar and Habur.
3 See J. Peters, Nippur, 1897, ii. pp. 106, 192, and Hilprecht, The Babylonian Expedition of the University of Pennsylvania ; the canal is twice named in the contracts in the ninth volume.
284
GLOSSES ON THE PROPHETS
 
Hilprecht looks for the ancient Chebar canal in the present Shatt-en-Nil, flowing thirty-six yards wide through Nippur.
In 1903 the American excavations discovered here, amongst other things, the archives of a great commercial house, belonging to Murashu Sc Sons. Fig. 190 shows a business document from these archives. Numerous Jewish names are mentioned in the documents, which show that the exiled Jews became naturalised in Babylonia and took part in the commercial life, just as it is assumed in the Book of Tobit was done in the Assyrian exile, when it describes Tobias as Assyrian official of finance.
Ezek. i. 4: The appearance of the chariot of Yahveh coming from the north.
Fl?' i93*“Genius with Upon the north as dwelling-place of the cage’s feet.   divinity, see Job xxxvn. 22. Kratzschmar,
in his commentary upon the passage, expresses the idea that the mythical north was meant: in chap, xi. the chariot of God went towards the east, and the special mountain of Yahveh, Sinai, lay much more in the south; also such mythological allusions would not be consistent in the prophet who inveighed against the idea that Yahveh had already forsaken the land, viii. 12, ix.
9.   But this would not prevent the Babylonian idea,
which he certainly knew, from being before his mind
 
FIG. 194.—Genius with body 01 a bull and head of a man.
EZEKIEL
285
The^ light in the midst of the cloud flashed like hashmal, that is, in Assyrian, eshmaru, a brilliant metal with which the pavement of the house of the god, for example in the time of Nebuchadnezzar, was overlaid.1 In the midst of the appearance Ezekiel saw something like living creatures. They had the figure of a man, each with four faces : a face of a man, and of a lion, and of an ox, and of an eagle.
They bore the throne, upon which the deity went towards the four points of the heaven.
The four heads of the four figures (each one having four heads is probably a later error) correspond to the four kinds of Babylonian genii: in the form of a man, of an eagle, of an ox, and ot a lion; see fig. 192 ff. The 44 four beasts ” in the Apocalypse (Rev. vii. 11) were taken from Ezekiel and taken in ecclesiastical symbolism thence and applied to the four evangelists.2 Since the figures belong to Ancient-Oriental fancy, so naturally their meaning is cosmic-astral. They are, however, not four signs of the zodiac,3 but the representatives of the
1   F. Delitzsch, in Baer’s lib. Ezechiel, upon the passage.
2   See above, p. 27, i., and B.N. 71., 89 f. Jewish theology is acquainted with the equivalence of Michael = lion ; Gabriel = bull; Uriel = man ; Raphael = eagle. The merkaba (comp. Wisdom xlix. 8 : ap/xa x*pov8i(x) was held to bean “unfathomable mystery” (comp, for example Chagiga, xxi., fol. I2b, I3a). The Kabbala is full of interpretations of the merkaba—Sammael’s chariot, drawn by man, snake, ox, and ass, was represented as counterpart.
3   Bull, lion, aquarius, eagle are usually accepted as the four quarters of the zodiac. Thus already in Nork. But this does not agree, see p. 27, i.
 
FIG. 195. —Genius with body of a lion and head of a man (demons above, comp. fig. 185).
286
GLOSSES ON THE PROPHETS
divine power at the four “ends of the earth,11 as we have already more fully discussed, p. 27, i. The platform is called raqia\ and represents the zodiac in the microcosmos of the divine chariot, which represents the whole heavens. Fig. 191, from the Zenjirli treasures, illustrates a god’s chariot, such as Ezekiel i. 1 had in mind.1
A verse by the poet Omayya, in Mohammed’s time, proves that in the Arabian tradition also these figures were known:
“ A man and an ox at the foot of a man, on his right,
And the eagle upon the other side, and a crouching lion.”
(M.V.A.G., 1901, 287.)
 
FIGS. 196 and 197.—Mythological ornaments from Nineveh, representing on one side winged beasts with men’s heads.
Lion and eagle play a great part in artistic representations and inscriptions as early as the time of Gudea (Gudea’s dream, see p. 298), see fig. 95, p. 320, i., where the eagle holds on to the backs of two lions with his claws, and fig. 92.
Ezek. i. 22 ff., see p. 179, i-
Ezek. iii. 15: Ezekiel goes from Chebarto Tel-Abib, the chief place of the exiles, and stays there seven days (!) in a stupor.2
1   We may imagine the pedestal placed upon wheels, supported by cherubim at each of the four corners. We may draw attention also in this connection to the noteworthy monument in Botta’s Monuments de Ninive, Table 164, No. 3 (fig. 197 f.), the one side of which shows similar “cherubs.”
2   Klostermann has pointed out, on the ground of exhaustive medical studies, that the visions and prophecies of Ezekiel were the result of a cataleptic state
EZEKIEL
287
A Babylonian name was to be expected. The designation til-abubi, frequent in the cuneiform writings, has correctly for long past been compared with 44 mounds of the Deluge.11 Those mounds of ruins were looked upon by the Babylonians as remains of the Deluge. Kratzschmar, Ezechiel, upon the passage, thinks that Nebuchadnezzar put a colony of the Jews upon a nameless til-abub in order that they should make the district habitable. From this nameless place the Hebrews would then have made a til-abib, 44 mound of ears of corn.11 Probably til- abib is only an error in writing.
Ezek. iv. 1: 44 Take thee a tile and lay it before thee, and portray upon it a city” We have many examples of Babylonian architectural plans scratched upon clay, see fig. 205 f.1 The plan of Jerusalem was to be scratched with a stylus upon a Babylonian tile (comp. fig. 206). Babylonian methods of writing were known to the Israelites.2 The Babylonians and the nations dependent upon them for civilisation (Egyptians and Canaanites in the Amarna age, and Elamites) graved the writings upon stone, or scratched them in clay, which was kiln-dried, or burnt 44 in the fiery furnace.11 Even when they knew of the papyrus, they still preferred the stone tablet. Whilst the wood tablet of the Greeks and Romans has been destroyed by time, the Babylonian clay tablet has endured. Only in the tessera hospitalis 3 of the Romans we find something similar. We have found bronze tablets in 1 Macc. xiv. 18, viii. 22. In Rome they were in use from the seventh century of the city.4 Bronze tablets with inscriptions (see fig. 64, p. 208, i.) have been found in South Arabia.
Ezek. v. 5: Jerusalem — and countries round about her. Jerusalem as centre of the world and navel of the earth,
(Th. St. und Krit., 1877, 391 ff.). This explains the frequent substitution of symbolic figures in the orations.
1   Statue of Gudea (fig. 84 gives the head of a similar statue). Upon his lap lies the plan, specially reproduced fig. 205. Another statue of Gudea has upon his lap the scale and stylus with which the writing and drawing was scratched (figs. 204 ff.); comp. Ezek. xl.
‘2 See pp. 323, i.
3   Probably imitated from the stone compacts of hospitality of the Phoenicians.
4   See R. v. Jhering, Vorgeschichte der Indoeuropaer^ pp. 170 ff.
288
GLOSSES ON THE PROPHETS
Babylonian, markas shame u irtzitim, “ the link between heaven and earth.11 Here it has a special religious meaning, but it corresponds to the Ancient-Oriental conception.1 The grouping of the countries of the earth round Jerusalem in medieval maps (see fig. 198) agrees with the specifically religious meaning of this passage.
Mohammed’s conception of the world also took Jerusalem for centre, and upper part of the earth, before he introduced Mecca in
its place. Mohammed’s journey through the air to Jerusalem is an ascension, a visit to the highest heaven. Therefore in Arabic Jerusalem is called el Kuds (the sanctuary, Kodesh); s.v. Landau, M.V.A.G., 1904, p. 57.
Ezek. v. 12. Pestilence, famine, and the sword are to be the means of destruction, see p. 252, i., 1. 192 If.
Ezek. vii. 2 :   The four
kanephot of the earth. Assyrian, kippat of the heavens and the earth, or the four quarters of the world. Here it is the four directions.2
Ezek. viii. 1 ff. : This chapter gives evidence of the heathen cults which had arisen in Jerusalem in the time of the Babylonian vassals of Zedekiah (certainly it is not only a retrospect upon the time of Manasseh, see Kratzschmar, Ezechiel, upon the passage). The Temple was arranged like a heathen temple. The opposition to heathenism was never quite consistently carried out.
1.   At the north gate3 of the Temple stood the “statue of the idol.11 The chronicler (2 Chron. xxxiii. 7, 15) assumes that it was identical with the Asherah formerly erected by Manasseh (2 Kings xxi. 7) and put aside by Josiah. The reference is to
1   Seepp. 54, i. f. China was “Central Kingdom,” Baghdad was the “navel ” of the Islamic world. Delphi was current as 8fx<pa\os ; see Pindar, Pythag., iv. 131.
2   Haupt and Jensen, comp. Z.A., vi. 1, 520, explain kippatu as “vault” according to the Aramaic.
3   Upon the importance and meaning of the north, see p. 290.
E
 
w
FIG. 198.—Mediaeval map of the world.
EZEKIEL
289
some statue such as is also found in Syrian or Babylonian
 
FIG. 201.
Reliefs from east side of the outer city gate in Zenjirli.
temples, representing the dragon of chaos, or something of the kind.
2.   The mysteries of the seventy elders, who in the dark VOL. II,   19
290
GLOSSES ON THE PROPHETS
chamber in the gate offer incense to pictures of creeping things and beasts which were portrayed upon the wall. We may imagine representations like that of the dragon (fig. 58) and of the remit (fig. 28) and of the figures of beasts such as shown upon the gates of Zenjirli, see figs. 199-201. The offering of incense does not necessarily point to an Egyptian cult. The Babylonians also used offerings of incense.1 The inscriptions of Sargon tell of 44 stores of frankincense.” ' The epic of Gilgamesh already tells of offerings of incense before Shamash, and in IV. R. 20, No. 1, it is said: 44plentiful offerings were made, frankincense was laid up in store.” At the end of the 44 journey to hell of Ishtar ” the rising spirits of the dead 44 smell frankincense.” The exact South Arabian incense (Hebrew rni2?) cannot be definitely proved in the Babylonian sacrificial cult from the documents known to us. The mysteries, which always took place by night (v. 12), are of Babylonian origin.2
3.   Women sit at the north gate. This signifies the mourning for Hadad-Rimmon, Zech. xii. 11 f. The women weep at the north gate because the north point is the critical point of Tammuz: the summer solstice, which brings the death of Tammuz. The meaning and importance of this calendar festival was fully discussed on pp. 91, i. ff., and 125, i. ff. The Vlth tablet of the epic of Gilgamesh calls Tammuz the husband of Ishtar’s youth, and says that Ishtar 44 made him weep every year.” Like the figure of Osiris for the Egyptians, he embodied for the Babylonians the hope of resurrection and the expected Deliverer.
Ezek. viii. 12; comp. ix. 9: Yahveh hath forsaken the land and Yahveh seeth us not. This is the heathen Oriental presentment in the mouth of the people. The ark had been taken away. Yahveh had left the land, as when in Babylonia the statues of the gods were carried away into the enemy’s country, and thus the supremacy of the deity over the land was destroyed.3
1   Kutrinnu ; upon incense, comp. p. 114.
2   See Monotheist. Strom., comp, above, p. 85, i.
3   Compare with this p. 230. From these kinds of figures of speech we should draw conclusions as to religious history with great caution. Sometimes what we should call popular superstition presents itself. But often it is only a question of
EZEKIEL
291
Ezek. viii. 14, see p. 98, i.
Ezek- viii. 16 f.: Sun-worship practised by twenty men,1 who turn towards the east, in the inner court, between the altar of burnt sacrifice and the entrance to the Temple. Sun-worship was familiar to Canaan in all ages. In the Amarna age it would have been stamped with special Egyptian features (see p. 350, i.). The Canaanite sun-worship proper celebrated the natural dissension between the two halves of the cycle (Overworld and Underworld, summer and winter, life and death, Baal-Moloch, see p. 349, i.).2 Sun-worship in specially Assyrian form was introduced by Ahaz and Manasseh as a natural consequence of political circumstances; 2 Kings xxiii. 5, 11, see pp. 245 ff.
They hold the branch to their nose: this means, they smell the branches of a plant which was current as the plant of life, see p. 215, i.
Ezek. viii. 17 adds to this—there were also heathen cults practised throughout the whole land: “ Surely the stink [of their offering] has arisen to my nose ” ; compare with this vi. 13 and see p. 267, i.
Ezek. ix. 2 : And behold, there came six men from the direction of the upper gate, which lieth toward the north, and every man had his weapon of slaughter in his hand; and one man in the midst of them, clothed in a linen garment and an inkhorn upon his loins. Seven messengers of God sent from the north! The destruction of Nebuchadnezzar came from the north (comp,
xxvi.   7), but the supernatural spirits of destruction also dwell
a deep religious idea presented in mythological phraseology; comp. pp. 192, i. f. At a recent consecration of a large evangelical church after renovation, the minister said in his prayer of consecration: “Lord, return now to Thy holy dwelling- place, and bless Thine altar anew,” and so on. The Babylonian might have spoken just so when the statue of the god was brought back. And that minister certainly did not intend to say anything Babylonian. Our pulpit language is full of mythological turns of expression. Every ceremonious speech is ‘4 mythological. ” Old Homer spoke mythically of the meaning of Logos, the Word.
1   Not twenty-five, the Sept, gives it correctly as twenty ; that is the Babylonian number by which the Sun-god is designated.
2   The cycle being founded upon the equalisation of solar and lunar cycles, when sun-worship is predominant the moon is still of importance. And, as the myth is in reference to the cycle of nature, it may at any time set Tammuz or Tammuz- Ishtar in the changed relationship, in place of the sun.
292
GLOSSES ON THE PROPHETS
in the north.1 Each of the six bears a hammer to hew in pieces. The one in the midst, in the linen garment of the priest,2 has an inkhorn at his girdle, like the scribe in the ancient3 and in the modern East. He is sent with his stylus to mark the righteous with the letter tau in token of exemption, before the destruction of the godless. It is treating of a stigma, like in Rev. xiii. 16. What was the appearance of the mark ? Hieronymus says that the last letter of the Samaritan alphabet resembled a cross. Upon ancient Samaritan
 
FIG. 202.—Ancient Babylonian seal cylinder. Brit. Museum. Wax impression in the author’s possession.
stone inscriptions and upon the Mesha stone discussed pp. 239 ff. the tau is written like an oblique cross ; compare the ancient Greek X, the Greek T. The sign of Yahveh, therefore, is a recumbent cross.4 According to Job xxxi. 35, the same sign served as attestation of a document for those unable to write.5 Amongst
1   See upon Job xxxvii. 22, p. 257.
2   1 Sam. ii. 18, the boy Samuel’s garment, and xxii. 18, the linen ephod as mark of the priesthood of the eighty-five men. The Babylonian priest’s garment is of linen (V. R. 51, 47b).
3   In a hymn upon Gilgamesh (? K.B., vi. 268 f.), it speaks of inkhorn and pen carried in the girdle (rikzs kabli).
4   The mythological meaning of the various signs of the cross in the heathen East needs special investigation. A connection with the Christian cross can only exist in so far as the invention of the punishment of crucifixion has mythological connections, comp. B.N.T., 20 ff.
6   We consider this also to be religious ; the illiterate makes the sign of Yahveh. This is proved by other Oriental customs. The religious representations upon the Babylonian seal cylinders show that the seal had the binding power of an oath.
EZEKIEL
293
the Babylonians as amongst the Elamites the cross appears to have served as sign of an end on documents. See Hilprecht, Babyl. Inscr., ii., PI. 59, of the copy of a tablet of the Hammurabi dynasty (No. I.); Hommel, Aufs. mid Abh.^ni. 474, upon an Elamite boundary stone (No. II.).1 The number of the divine messengers—seven—naturally points to Ancient-Oriental presentments, which, however, Ezekiel could not have first adopted in Babylonia.
Seven is the number of the great planetary divinities; see p. 15, i. And then it is obvious that the angel with inkhorn and stylus should suggest the figure of Nebo,1 2 who, as writer of the Book of Fate (see p. 138, i.), was represented with the stylus.3 Also the archangel in the Book of Enoch described as celestial scribe (note
that the later Jewish tradition numbers seven archangels), who, pre-eminent in 44 wisdom,” 44 writes all the works of the Lord,” is brought into this connection by No. II. Gunkel, doubtless correctly, with Babylonian presentation of Nebo.4
No. I.
 
Ezek. ix. 3 (miftan), see p. 310.
Ezek. xiv. 12 ff: Famine, wild beasts, sword, pestilence. See upon the judgments, pp. 252, i., 102. These are the judgments which preceded the Deluge in the Babylonian epics. As in the records of the Deluge, so also in Ezekiel's
1   Compare also the cross (in the form of our cross of St John) as a neck ornament on the stele of Shamshi-Adad ; further, the cross in brilliant stone in the palace of Minos at Knossos, from the seventeenth century B.C., and upon seals in Ohnefalsch-Richter, Kypros, Bibel tmd, Homer, i., fig. 73, p. 67. Hcmmel, G.G.G., 100, n. 1, adds some valuable material to the history of the sign of the cross and its mythological signification (as symbol of Saturn?).
2   Gunkel, “ Der Schreiberengel Nabu in A.T. und im Judentum,”in Archiv fur Religionswissenschaft, i. pp. 294 ff.
3   The Talmudic New Year’s festival of Babylonian origin on 1st Tishri (instead of 15th Nisan), when Yahveh opens the “Book of the Living” and decrees the destinies of the year, agrees with this. This rosh hashshanah corresponds to the Babylonian resh shatti, when Nebo writes the decrees. For detail upon this, B.N.T., 70 ff.
4   Gunkel elsewhere thinks that the Egyptian Taut may have had something to do with it as prototype, but Taut is = Nebo; also here it is not a question of borrowing, but of forms of common conceptions.
294   GLOSSES ON THE PROPHETS
records of the judgment, only the righteous shall be saved.1
Ezek. xvi. 3, see pp. 336, i. ; 339, i-
Ezek. xvi. 17 f: Thou didst take gold and silver and made thee images of men .... coveredst them in thy garments . . . . and set offerings before them. The zalme zakar are probably
 
FIG. 203.—Divining liver with magic lines and oracles. Brit. Museum (Cun. Texts, vi.).
offerings in phallic form.2 Envelopment in the garment belongs everywhere to the ceremonies of phallus cult.
Ezek. xix. 4 : “ They led him by nose-rings into Egypt 11 ; xix. 9 : u And they put him zvith hooks into a cage and brought him in chains to the king of BabylonComp. fig. 42 and fig. 180. The Assyrian kings really did imprison captive kings in cages.3
1   Comp. S. Daiches, Ezekiel and the Babylonian Account of the Deluge.
2   H. Grimme in the Kath. Liter. Rundschau, 1904, p. 347, mentions the corresponding South Arabian votive offering s-l-m.
3   Shgar, Assyrian sliigarui therefore probably to be read, with P. Haupt, as shigar.
EZEKIEL
295
At the eastern gate of the city of Nineveh was a cage for this purpose. Assurbanipal records (Annals, col. that he put dogs’ chains upon an Arabian king and forced the prisoners to guard the cage at the east gate of the city.
Ezek. xxi. 26: Divination by the liver is met with amongst the Etruscans as well as amongst Babylonians; comp. p. 169, i. Fig. 203 shows a sheep’s liver with magic divisions and engraven oracles, from Cun. Texts, vi.
Ezek. xxiii. 14 f.: Men portrayed upon the wall, girded with girdles round their loins, with turbans on their heads. Babylonian wall relief pictures are floating in the prophet’s mind.
Ezek. xxiii. 23: (I will bring against thee) the Pehod and Sho‘a and Ko‘a. The Pekod are the Pukudu of the Assyrian inscriptions, a common name for the Aramaeans. Sho‘a and Ko4a may be explained as Suti and Kor (Kir) ; see Isa. xxii. 5-7, where we find the Kir together with the Aramaeans.1
Ezek. xxiii. 24: I will commit the judgment unto them, and they shall judge thee according to their judgments. Compare the conclusion of the Hammurabi Codex, see p. 35. A written document is thought of, according to which Babylonians and Assyrians will judge in the judgment between Yahveh and his people.
Ezek. xxiii. 29 : Thy shame shall be uncovered. This picture is taken from the Oriental custom of war mentioned pp. 277 f. upon Isa. xlvii. 2 f.
Ezek. xxiii. 40 ff. : An erotic feast, exactly as is described hundreds of times in the Thousand and One Nights, with united banquet and song. To the present day, ornaments are almost the only pleasure of women in the East.
Ezek. xxvi. 20.: Picture of the Underworld. Tehom, the primeval flood (see p. 176, i., and comp. xxxi. 15), is to wash away Tyre out of “ the land of the living ” into She’ol, to those gone down into the pit, to the people of old time (“giants of old time,” Ezek. xxxii. 27). Eabani, in the epic of Gilgamesh, describes the Underworld as the dwelling-place of the people of old time, as he has seen them in a dream (?).. Upon the “giants,” see p. 241, i.
1   Compare also article Kir in R.P. Th.t 3rd ed.
296
GLOSSES ON THE PROPHETS
Ezek. xxvii. 6 ff. : Upon Kittim, Elishah, Zidon, Lud, Put, Tarshish, Tubal, Meshech, Togarmah, Javan, Sheba, and Ra4amah, see upon Gen. x. Upon Eden, see pp. 204, i. f.; upon Haran, see p. 7; upon Medes, see pp. 277, i. f. The wine of Helbon, v. 18, was well known to the Ancient-East, The Assyrian wine-list, II. R. 44, also mentions it, and the Bellino cylinder of Nebuchadnezzar, I. R. 65, names ^Jilbunum as one of the lands whence the king obtained wine. Strabo, xv. 735, relates that the Persian kings drank it exclusively. Helbon is the present IJalbun, north-west of Damascus.1
Chilmad, v. 23, has been taken by G. Smith as equivalent to the present Kalwadha, near Baghdad, where bronze rings have been found with the inscription “ Palace of the King Hammurabi ” ; see Delitzsch, Paradies, 206. But the explanation is not correct. It is placed together with Edeq and Asshur. Mez, Harran, 33 f., conjectures that it is to be read Kol-madaj, “all Media,” Winckler (in a written communication) reads hobli; that is, Kullimeri, chief city of Lubdi (p. 302, i.).
Ezek. xxvii. 7, see p. 284, i.
Ezek. xxvii. 30 f.: The gestures of mourning amongst the Hebrews are for the most part very nearly related to those common to the East, and specially to the Babylonian. The characteristic Biblical word for 44 mourning ” is like the Assyrian sapad. The sound of wailing is reproduced in Hebrew as hoi or Ao, see Amos v. 16; in Assyrian as ua and d. The shaving of the hair, bearing reference to the hair of the head, and the beard amongst men, comp. Ezek. v. 1, is in Lev. xix. 27 f.,
xxi.   5 f., Deut. xiv. 1 ff., forbidden as being a heathen custom. The putting on of the sale (Assyrian shakku),2 the rending of the garment in mourning and in penance, comp. Jonah iii. 6 ff. (probably combined with cutting the breast), is related to rending of the garment, which, according to Joel iii. 1, signified metaphorically the inner moral distraction. The ideogram for 44 rending the garment ” is explained in Assyrian by 44 overwhelming affliction ” and 44 foaming-over fury.” Upon cutting with knives, see upon 1 Kings xviii. 28. Wailing men and wailing women are named in 2 Chron. xxxv. 25, comp. Amos v.
1   See Wetzstein, Z.D.M.G. xi. 490 f.
2   Comp. Winckler, F.t ii. 44.
EZEKIEL
297
16; according to Jer. xlviii. 36, comp. Mark v. 38 (Jairus), “flute-playing” was an accompaniment to the mourning ceremonies. Zech. xii. 11-12 speaks of the alternate song between the men and the women, comp. Matt. xi. 17. It is
said about the burial of an Assyrian king that, after the mourning assembly the music- master with his singers (feminine) would make music, and another passage says: “ the wives wailed, the friends replied ” (K 7856).1   3 Macc.
vi. 32 also mentions songs of lamentation. ^
We may mention two other apocryphal passages in this connection which illustrate the noisy Oriental custom of mourning, and which at the same time show that the seclusion of the women in the women’s house was just as much a custom amongst the Jews in the post-exilic period as in other parts of the East.
2 Macc. iii. 19 if- (when the treasures of the Temple were in danger):   “ The women ap
pear clothed in mourning garments, girded under the breasts, in crowds in the streets. The maidens, who otherwise do not go amongst the people, ran, some to the gate, some to the walls; some peered through the windows.” 3 Macc. i. 18 ff. : “The maidens who were secluded in the dwellings, together with the mothers, rushed out, strewed their hair with ashes and dust, and filled the streets with wailing and sighs. Even those also who had quite withdrawn themselves left the dwellings erected as
 
FIG. 204.—Statue of Gudea, with architectural plan on his lap. Telloh, p. 287, n. 1.
1   Comp. Meissner in Wiener Z.eitschrift fur die Kunde des Morgenl., xii. 59 ff. ; and “Holle und Paradies,” A.O., i. 3, 2nd ed., 10 ff.
298   GLOSSES ON THE PROPHETS
annexes and, laying shame aside, ran about the city in disorderly fashion.” 1
Ezek. xxviii. 2 ff‘: I am a god, I sit in the seat of God in the
heart of the seas. The royal residence in Tyre is meant, but the proud words contain at the same time a mythological allusion to Ea, who is enthroned in the cosmic Eridu in the ocean ; see pp. 105, i. f. This is also an argument in favour of the assumption that the sayings of Ezekiel, which speak of the garden of God, refer to Eridu ; see pp. 205, i. f. and 206, i.
Upon Ezek. xxviii. 13 f. (Eden, the garden ot God), see pp. 208, i. ; 213, i.
Ezek. xxxi. 3 if.: the miraculous cedar, see pp. 210, i.; 213, i.
Ezek. xxxvi. 25 : And l will sprinkle clean water upon you, that ye may he clean. Reminiscence of the cult of Ea, comp. p. 217, i. Ezek. xxxviii. 1 if., Gog (Magog), see p. 277, i. Ezek. xxxviii. 6, see p. 275, i.
Ezek. 40 ff : The prophet sees in vision the plan of the new Temple. Babylonian literature also contains similar events. They agree with the Ancient-Oriental principle that everything earthly corresponds to the heavenly pattern ; comp. pp. 58, i. ff. One of the inscriptions of Gudea (Cyl. A) relates a dream : Gudea sees a divine figure, at whose right hand sits the divine bird Im-Gig, whilst two lions crouch to right and left; comp. 1 Kings x. 18 ff. The vision commands him to
1 The position of woman in the Israelite East should not be judged one-sidedly by this ; compare upon this p. 233.
 
FIG. 206.—Measuring rod on the lap of Gudea.
 
FIG. 205.—Architectural plan on the lap of a statue of Gudea.
DANIEL
299
build a house. Heavenly figures approach in lightning bringing pen and tablet, and show him the plan of the building. Compare the statues of Gudea, figs. 204 f. Compare also p. 254, i. Upon the ark according to heavenly pattern, see pp. 121, 130, n. 4.
Ezek. xlvii. 1 if. (Paradise with tree of life and water of life), see p. 216, i.
Daniel.—This prophetical book has been repeatedly revised. The elements in their original form belong to the period of the Exile;1 the Hebrew canon therefore correctly places the book after Ezekiel, and the Sept, before Ezra. The subject of the prophecy is the expectation of the “ last days,11 that is, the Golden Age for Israel. The dawn of the new age was foretold with the forms and imagery of the Ancient-Oriental teaching. The present form shows the prophecy transported into the time of Antiochus Epiph&nes, and served, from a contemporary point of' view, to show that the age of the Maccabees signified the dawn of the deliverance (upon Judas Maccabaeus as Deliverer, see p. 164). The Apocalypse in the New Testament adopts the imagery of Daniel in the visions which foretell the deliverance by the glorified Christ in the last days.
Dan. i. 7:   Belteshazzar, Daniel’s surname, Babylonian
Balatashu-uzur, that is, “protect his life.11'2 Dan. iv. 8 says the name was given “ after the name of the god of Nebuchadnezzar.11 This arises out of a confusion with Belsazar, that is, Bel-shar-uzur, “ Bel (Merodach) protect the king.11 Shadrach is possibly a mutilation from Marduk,3 Abednego from Abed- nebo, “ servant of Nebo.11 Mishael-Meshach is possibly an artificial addition; it is very probable that originally Daniel was included in the number three.4
Dan. i. 20, comp. ii. 2 : Ashshapmi agrees with the Babylonian cxshipu, enchanter; comp, ashap or dshep, Dan. ii. 10.
Dan. ii. 14: Arioch, “Captain of the bodyguard11 (rab
1   See Winckler, F., ii. 435 ff. ; K.A. T., 3rd ed., 334.
2   G. Hoffmann, Z.A., ii. 237 ; Balat-sha(r)-uzur.
3   Kohler, Z.A., iv. 150.
4   See Winckler, F., iii. 47.
300
GLOSSES ON THE PROPHETS
tabbahim.), is certainly the same name as in Gen. xiv., Babylonian 44 Eriaku.”
Dan. iii. 5 (musical instruments), see pp. 261 f. ; comp, also figs. 163, 173, 184.
Dan. iv. 1: Nebuchadnezzar’s madness. The passage probably belongs to the features which may originally be traced to Nabonidus; comp. K.A.T., 3rd ed., p. 110. He was held imprisoned in Tema whilst his son Belshazzar led the army. It may be imagined that the Babylonians would willingly give a very drastic description of the melancholy of the imprisonment; comp. Job iii. 13 ff. The “madness” is meant to describe the misery of the prisoner. Winckler, in O.L.Z., 1898, 71, draws attention to K 7628: 44 What is my transgression, thus [I ask]; what is my sin, thus [I lament]; an ox am IP I eat plants; a sheep am I, [I nibble] grass.”
Dan. iv. 6 ff.: The tree of the world. This passage is emphasised by the Gnostics.1
Dan. iv. 27, see p. 313, i.
Dan. v. 1 : Belshazzar. He possibly owes his bad character to a confusion with Evil-Merodach. Whilst his father was held prisoner in Tema, he was at the head of affairs. On the inscriptions of Nabonidus there is reproduced a prayer by Nabonidus to the moon-god, in which the father prays for Belshazzar, his first-born : 44 Let the fear of thine exalted godhead dwell in his heart, that he may not consent to sin, with fulness of life shall he be satisfied.”
Dan. vi. 10: The direction for prayer (Kibla) was towards Jerusalem. It was the same in the first period of Islam ; later, Mecca gave the Kibla there, see p. 288.
Dan. vii.: As in Ezek. i., the astral figures of the four “ends of the world,” or the corresponding constellations of the quarters, may be considered for explanation of the four beasts. Much is still very obscure here. If in regard to the 44 man ” an astral prototype is in question, it could only have been Nebo, not Marduk (contrary to Zimmem, K.A.T'., 3rd ed., 392). Upon 44 son of man,” zer ameluti, see pp. 9, i. ; 89, i.; 183, i.
1 See Muller, Geschichte der Kosmologie in der griechischen Kirche, p. 291.

[Prometheus]

DANIEL
301
Dan. vii. 9 ff : Rev. iv. 2 ff., v. 1 ff., is closely related to this vision. In the midst of the heavenly council, God (“ the ancient of days"’) is enthroned.1 The books are opened, judgment is given, and the doom of the world is decreed. The opened books correspond to the book with seven seals, which is opened by the apvtov in Revelations. In the apocalyptical vision the events of the combat and victory of the apvlov (“ Lamb ”) over the Dragon is in the background. The cicatrised wounds point to victory. As reward the apvlov receives the rulership over final destinies (opening the book with the seven seals), and praise is awarded him (for detail, see B.N.T., 14 ff.). The same situation lies before us here. And here there is fragmentary reference to the combat itself. In Dan. vii. 11 ff the combat takes place. The characteristic feature is emphasised that, before the fight begins, the beast speaks “imperious words.”1 2 The beast is^ killed. Dan. vii. 13, the victor makes his triumphant appearance.3 The Son of man 4 with the clouds of heaven.5 He is brought before the enthroned One, and receives the governorship of the world; might, honour, and dominion are given him, and all people and nations shall serve him ; his kingdom shall never be destroyed.
Dan. viii.: Characterisation of the lands by a cycle of beasts: the ram corresponds to Persia; the ibex (goat) to Syria, because Alexander is not represented as King of “ Greece ” but of Syria (which is the land to be taken into consideration in regard to Judah). Like Eastern Asia, the East proper recognises a corresponding division of the earth into twelve parts, which
1   The same idea lies at the root of the name which, mutatis mutandis, denoted Saturn (Kronos), the god of time, as summus deus (upon Kronos as an old man, see Chwolsohn, Ssabier, ii. 275 ff*)* Also Senis of the Carthaginians corresponds to this idea; see MUnter, Religion der Karthager, p. 9. The ancients knew the cosmic astral meaning of the vision ; and the astrologers had a great liking for representing the heavenly aged figure with scales in his right hand and the Book of Fate in his left.
2   Like Tiamat against Marduk ; see p. 148, i., and comp. Rev. xiii. 5 f.
3   The key to comprehension lies in a knowledge of this connection. Up to the present it had been overlooked.
4   “Like unto a son of man” rests upon later defective understanding of the redeemer terminus, see p. 104, i. Likewise in Rev. xiv. 14.
5   A feebler expression for storm phenomena? seep. 152, i. (reverse of the Labbu text). Matt. xxiv. 30, xxvi. 64 should then be read the same way.
302
GLOSSES ON THE PROPHETS
correspond to the signs of the zodiac. This is discussed in detail p. 56, i.
Dan. ix. 24 f., see p. 243, i.
Hosea and Amos.—That we have no written prophecies from the ancient periods is no proof that no written prophecies existed; see previously p. 192, n. 3.   2 Chron. xxi.
12 records a letter from Elijah. Since he desired to influence at a distance (Damascus) he resorted to written utterances, as Jeremiah did later, who wrote to Babylon. Written notes would always have had some definite purpose. Formerly also they may have been in existence. As regards the religious ^ideal, these two prophets supplement each other. The justice of the judge (Amos), the mercy of the loving Yahveh (Hosea), form the two sides of the Mosaic conception of the divinity; see p. 105, and upon Isa. vi. pp. 266 ff. Amos was not the first to discover the justice, nor Hosea the first to discover the love, of God.
Hos. i. 2 : Wife of whoredom and children of whoredom as starting-point of the prophecy of the future deliverance. We have here a very remarkable motif of the expectation of deliverance, which belongs to the sphere of the motifs of the extraordinary, mysterious birth of the Deliverer. It is on the same lines as the emphasis on figures like Tamar and fiahab in the genealogy of Jesus; see pp. 158, n. 1. The antitheses allude to it. The Jewish Tholedoth of Jesus, which represent Jesus as a caricature of the Messiah and as son of a harlot, know the motif and use it for their travesty.
Hos. iii. 4: Israel shall remain long without teraphim. What is the meaning of the teraphim here (see p. 56) ? Is the loss of the teraphim actually made equivalent to the loss of nationality? Or is it satire ? Upon ephod, see B.N.T., iii., and comp. p. 177, i.
Hos. v. 13: King Jareh should read “ King of Jareb.11 Possibly an Arabian district; comp. pp. 289, i., n. 1 ; 302, i.
Hos. x. 14c is a gloss. Shalman may possibly be the Salamians (see K.A.T., 3rd ed., 152). Schrader’s explanation, K.A.T., 2nd ed., 440 f, which suggests an abbreviation of Shalmaneser, is impossible.
Hos. xii. 3, see p. 51, n. 3. Hos. xii. 12 f., see Deut. xxxii. 17.
HOSEA—AMOS
303
Hos. xiii. 14: Where are thy plagues, O Death; where are thy terrors, O Underworld? All demons and plagues come out of the Ancient-Oriental world of the dead, the place of Nergal and Namtar, the god of pestilence. The “ Journey to Hell of Ishtar” and the myth of Erishkigal give vivid descriptions of this kingdom of terror.
Joel i. 8 put on sak} see p. 296. Joel ii. 13, rending the garment, see p. 296.
According to Amos i. 1, he was a noked (comp. vii. 14). In the H.C. ndkidu is the herdsman in antithesis to reu (Hebrew ro6ets), the owner of herds. Is it the reverse in Hebrew ? According to 2 Kings iii. 4, Mesha, king of Moab, was a noked. Amos was not, in any case, a Bedouin shepherd.   \
Amos v. 26: Amos speaks of astral idol-worship during the wandering in the desert, and follows here the same tradition which is apparent in Acts vii. 42 f. Ye have borne Siccuth, your king, and Chiun (Kaivan, Assyrian Kaimanu) your selem. The first is perhaps the Babylonian Nebo, the other the Canaanite Saturn, Babylonian Jupiter-Marduk.1 The reference is to the two stars which represent the two halves of the cycle (Tammuz in the Underworld and Upperworld).
Amos vi. 2: Calneh, not the Calneh of Gen. x. 10: Kullani of the cuneiform writings, situated in North Syria.
vi. 14 : “ From Hamath unto the nahal Muzri”; comp. 1 Kings viii. 65.
Amos ix. 7 :   The Philistines from Caphtor, Aramaeans from
Kir.1 2 As Yahveh controlled the fate of Israel, so also he did that of other nations. He led the Philistines out of Caphtor and the Aramaeans (the Syrians of Damascus) out of Kir. The Philistines (Pilasata) are the remnant of a seafaring people.3 The gloss to Gen. x. 14 probably arises from this passage. Kir is not the district of the river Kyros, that tributary of the Caspian Sea which, to the present day, like the
1   Upon the confusion, see Winckler, F., iii. 188.
2   See pp. 300, i.
3   A.O., ii. 4, pp. 13 f., vii. 2, p. 15.
304
GLOSSES ON THE PROPHETS
surrounding district, is called Kur. Some modern students think thus, following J. D. Michaelis. But the Assyrian empire never reached so far. Also it is not to be found in Media, as Schrader thinks, nor in South Babylonia, as Halevy holds. It is the land of the Kares (instead of Kir, it should read Kor), in the Plain of Yat- FIG. 207.—Gem, with the buri, between the Tigris and the hills, story of Jonah.   boundary land of Elam. Winckler
has defined the right place in Alttest. Unters., 1892, 178 f., and in Altoriental. Forschungen, ii. 253 ff., 378. Kir was inhabited
 

 
FIG. 208.—Conquest of a city by Assurbanipal. Relief from Nineveh (Ivouyunjik). Palace of Sennacherib.
by Aramaean tribes; see Isa. xxii. 5 ff*. and Ezek. xxiii. 23. According to 2 Kings xvi. 9, in the year 732 Aramaeans (of Damascus) were carried away to Kir by Tiglath-Pileser. This may be taken as historic, although the passage is missing in the
OBADIAH— JONAH
305
Sept. From this fact the author of Amos ix. 7 probably drew the conclusion : they were carried back whence they came. Kir was^their original home (compare perhaps Isa. xxxvii. 29)—the addition Amos i. 5 is probably a gloss out of 2 Kings xvi. 9. The prophet only intended to say : the tribes (Aramaeans, Gaza, Tyre, Edom) were led into captivity, that is, they were robbed of their national existence.
Obadiah v. 20: Sep- harad, cuneiform Sap- arda, is not the Shaparda of the inscriptions of Sargon, which designates a province in South-West Media, but it is the usual name for Asia Minor after the Persian period^;
K.A.T., 3rd. ed., 301.
Jonah.—The mission to Nineveh rests upon presuppositions which correspond to the reality of the intercoursebetween Israel and Assyria at the time in question, see p.
213. The point of the book is the preaching to non-Israelites. Yahveh is the God of all nations. The mission to Nineveh is a consequence of what is said in Amos ix. 7.1 The whole may be taken as a didactic poem with a historical foundation (perhaps an important mission to Nineveh which fell in with the prophet’s story). We find analogies throughout the whole world to the three days’ sojourn in the belly of the fish (Rabbi Abarbanel explained i. 6 to ii. 10 to be a dream). The coast
1 Countess Olga zu Eulenberg has followed up the religious idea further, and in her clever work, Von Asdod nach Niniveh (i.-iii., Leipzig, Wigand), she has tried to bring religious reforms in Nineveh into connection with the mission of Jonah.
VOL. II.
 
FIG. 209.—Conquest of a city. Relief from Nineveh (Kouyunjik). Palace of Sennacherib.
20
306
GLOSSES ON THE PROPHETS
in the neighbourhood of Joppa is the stage of mythical dragon- fights (for example, Andromeda’s rescue by Perseus; see
ty r" #v   F
• „ ** y *   
! .   |>vy\\ 1? j.' pi VKl / Any* -V
lS|   ' Viir M' T V
if
IIUTSl
FIG. 2io.—Assyrian archers and spearmen under Sargon besiege a fortress. Relief from Khorsabad (Botta, Mon. de Ni'n., ii. pi. 90).
Baedeker, Palestine). Therefore it is very natural in regard to Jonah’s fish to think of the monster of chaos.1 The “three
 
FIG. 211.—Assyrian military emblem from Khorsabad. (Botta.)
days ” are motif of deliverance ; they correspond to the rescue of the moon after three days (see pp. 34, i. f.).2 The behaviour of
1   Gunkel, Schopfungund Chaos, 322 ; Zimmern, K.A.T., 3rd ed., 366, 388 f., 508.
2   An Egyptian story (Hommel, Inset der Seligen, pp. 18 f.) shows the same motif in the same connection. In it an ambassador suffers shipwreck, and
MICAH—NAHUM
307
the sailors, who find out by lot with whom the gods are angry, gives a vivid illustration of the popular belief.1 Upon land every god ruled in his own territory. Upon the sea each man called upon his own god. It is evident the prayers to the gods had much in common with the popular prayers to the saints.
Jonah i. 5 f., see p. 350, i. Jonah iii. 3, iv. 11, see p. 298, i.
Micah i. 8 ff.:   Upon customs of mourning, in particular
songs of lamentation, to which this passage refers, see p. 296. It is known that Micah drew his name at the end like the sign of a painter. Upon the formation of the name, an abbreviation of Michael (“who is like [God]”), compare the Assyrian Mannu-ki-Ashur (“who is like Ashur”).
Micah iv. 11:   The daughter of Zion, who waits upon the
Deliverer, shall be -exposed (to be read Ppnn) ; her enemies have their desire, see pp. 277 f.
Micah v, 5, see p. 296, i.
Nahum.—Compare the illustrations from the Oriental material by Billerbeck and A. Jeremias, “ Der Untergang Ninivehs und die Weissagungsschrift des Nahum von Elkosch,” in B.A., iii. 87 ff.   The figs. 208-210 (comp, also pp. 186, i. f.) illustrate
scenes from a siege; figs. 211 and 212 represent Assyrian military badges.
“passes three days in the sea” till a serpent “took him in her mouth” and carried him off to her lair. The same motif is in the myth of the “rescuer,” Hercules, who sprang to the rescue of the daughter of Laomedon in the mouth of Neptune’s hound, fought there for three days, and then came forth with the loss of his hair (comp. pp. 52, 172). The connection with the myth of the Deliverer is particularly clear in the story of the dragon Ladon who swallowed the phallus of Osiris and after three months (winter-time in the solar cycle, corresponding to three days of the lunar cycle) spat it out again, whereupon the new life arises. The glossator, who in the gospels added to the discourse of Jesus, where He designated preaching to the heathen as the sign of the prophet Jonah (Matt. xii. 40), “for as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the fish, so shall the son of man be three days in the earth,” was, in his own way, right. He knew the motif of the three days as motif of the expected Deliverer. “After three days” was an established formula, and is therefore used in regard to the resurrection of Jesus “after three days” (Friday evening till early on Sunday only agrees with “ on the third day,”), see B.N. 71, xxi. 43.
1 Hardy, Z.D.M.G., 1896, p. 153 (Marti, Dodekapropheten, p. 246), points out a Buddhist tale in which a vessel where a disobedient son is on board is forcibly prevented from moving onwards. By casting lots three times he is shown to be the cause of the misfortune, and is put out.
308   GLOSSES ON THE PROPHETS
Nahum ii. 4:   The prophet is thinking of the destructive
instruments of war as shown in fig. 208 f.
Nahum ii. 6 : te The battering-ram is erected there” see fig. 188.
Nahum ii. 8 : The Queen laments and mourns with her maids
during the siege as in Judges viii. 5 f. The maidens mourn as doves. It is said in a fragment 1 that at the siege of Erech “ the maidens coo like doves ” ; on IV. R. 26, No. 8, 56b, a sick man laments “with sighs and weeping like a dove.” They beat upon their breasts ; comp. Jos., Ant., xvi. 7, 5 ; Luke xviii. 13, xxiii. 27.
Nahum ii. 13, see p. 297, i. Nahum iii. 5, see Isa. xlvii. 2.
Nahum iii. 7 : D^DmD, “ arranger of a funeral feast,” or “ the bringer of the offering of the dead.” Nineveh is dead unlamented, like a man who has no relations ; see Wildeboer, Z.A.W., xxii. 381 f.
Nahum iii. 8: Art thou better than No-A mon ?2 The passage is in reference to the conquest by Assurbanipal. The ruins of the temple of Amon and the pillars of Memnon of Amenophis III. are amongst the most magnificent ruins of antiquity. Like Nineveh, Thebes was celebrated for its library, and from this “ hospital of the soul ” many records have come down to us.
Nahum iii. 12 ff.: The work done of necessity caused by the 1 2
 
FIG, 212.—Assyrian military emblem from Khorsabad. (Botta.)
1   See Izdubar-Nimrod^ p. 15.
2   Upon this name comp. Jer. xlvi. 25 : “I will destroy Amon of No”; that is, Thebes.
NAHUM—HABAKKUK
309
assault of the besiegers is meant. Draw thee zvater. Boiling water was poured upon the heads of the besiegers.
Nahum iii. 13: The people have become women. This curse has probably another meaning in the treaty with Matfilu of Arpad (comp. p. 49): 66 If he disobey these laws, he shall become a whore, his people shall become women,” etc. (M. V.A.G., 1898, 234 f.). Compare the stele of Esarhaddon, Berlin, Rev. 56 f. : May Ishtar, queen of strife and of battle, make his manhood into womanhood; comp. K.B., vi. 1, 62, 9 f.
The gates of the land have opened wide. The outskirts of Nineveh are meant (comp. Micah v. 5: the Assyrians gather together in the 44 doors of the land ”; compare also 2 Kings iii. 21). Fire hath devoured thy bolts ; that is to say, the bolts (Assyrian, hargulla) of the gate of the city. The east gate was called 44 door of the thronging people.”
Nahum iii. 16, see p. 297, i.
Nahum iii. 17 :   The tipsar or tapsar are the scribes of the
tablets, cuneiform tup-sar-ru. They were court officials and dignitaries.
Habakkuk.—Peiser, M. V.A.G., 1903, 1 ffi, has shown that it is probable that Habakkuk1 knew passages of Assyrian literature and quoted them. Peiser assumes that Habakkuk, being of royal descent, was sent to Nineveh in his youth as a hostage, and wrote about 625, shortly before the first assault of the Medes, being well conversant with the literature in the library of Assurbanipal. In ii. 2 he sees a hint of an Assyrian tablet inscription; ii. 9-11, an allusion to the Babylonian story of the Deluge; ii. 14, the knowledge of the Lord is likened to the flood of the sea. We might take this to be an allusion to the mythical ocean (apsii) where Ea, the god of wisdom, dwells ; see pp. 105, i.; 191, i.
Hab. iii. 7 (Cushan), see p. 286, i.
Zephaniah i. 9:   / will punish those that mount the
1 I^[ambaVuVu> an Assyrian outland name ; there is evidence on the inscriptions of a name ^ambaku.
310
GLOSSES ON THE PROPHETS
niiftan,1 that Jill their master's house with violence and deceit. The miftan is the pedestal rising in steps upon which the statue of the god in the adyton (it is thus in 1 Sam. v. 4, see p. 176; comp. Ezek. ix. 3), or the king’s throne in the palace, stands. The adyton in the Temple and the throne in the palace are images of the heavenly sanctuary (pp. 58, i. f.). Therefore it rises in steps. In our passage the highest dignitaries of the king are meant, who mount the
 
FIG. 213.—Relief from the rock of Behistun. Prisoners led before Darius.
steps of the throne;1 2 comp. p. 189 upon Solomon’s throne, 1 Kings x. 18 ff.
Zechariah i. 11 f. is written in the gloomy mood which lay over the land after the miscarriage of the great uprising by the eastern and northern provinces of the Persian kingdom. Fig. 213 shows a fragment of the monument of Darius on the rock of Behistun in the Plains of Choas, which celebrates the victory of Darius.
Zech. i. 8 ff*.: Four different coloured pairs of horses pass over the earth (each towards a cardinal point).
Zech. ii. 1 : Four “ horns ” which have destroyed Israel,
1   In Kautsch: “he who hops over the threshold.”
2   Thus vide Winckler, F., iii. 381 ff., one of the numerous “small services” of Winckler to Biblical interpretation.
ZECHARIAH—MALACHI
311
and opposed to them; ii. 3, four smiths as deliverers of Israel.1
/ Zech. vi. 1 ff.: Four chariots, which come forth from between the two mountains (double-peaked mountain of the world, see pp. 23, i. ff.), drawn by four pair of different coloured horses, to the four cardinal points.1 2
Zech. iv. 10: The seven eyes of God which overlook the whole earth (variant of the seven planets as indicators of the will and as messengers of the deity; comp. Rev. i. 4 with v. 6). All these symbolic pictures correspond to the Oriental conception, and to the expected Deliverer connected with it, as described above.
Zech. iii. 8 (Zemah), see p. 280.
Zech. iii. 9 : Before Joshua lies a stone with seven eyes, upon which God will engrave an inscription. Babylonian records often bear the sign of the seven planets (for example, fig. 159). Some, or rather all, are marked with rosettes. The planets are considered everywhere in the East to be 44 eyes ” (compare, for example, p. 156). Nork and others have already therefore assumed that the planets are meant here.
Zech. vi. 6 appears to be speaking of the four seasons. In the story of the Persian horse of the world, Gustasp, the allusion to the four seasons of cycle of the universe is shown ; Zarathustra by enchantment brings forth, one after another, the legs which have been drawn into the body by sickness, comp. p. 164, i.
Zech. xiv. 8 (living water), see p. 216, i.
Malachi i. 8, 13:   Animals without blemish are due to
Yahveh Sabaoth in sacrifice. The Babylonian ritual makes the same demand : beasts for sacrifice without fault (shalmn) are to be brought, comp. p. 114.
1   Called by the Rabbis:   (i) Kohen-zedek (Malki-zedek, Melchizedek);
(2) Elias ; (3) Messiah ben David ; (4) Messiah ben Joseph, or Messiah Milchamah, comp. Dalman, Der leidende Messias, 7 ff.; and Nathanael, 1903, 119, note.
2   Comp. p. 64, i. The four horses or pairs of horses in the New Year races in Germany have the same latent cosmic meaning, see Kampf um Babel und Bibel, 4th ed., pp. 47 f.
GLOSSES ON THE PROPHETS
812
Mai. iii. 16: Before Yahveh a writing of remembrance is drawn (sepher zikkaron). This is the Book of Fate, of life (and of death), which has been treated pp. 51, i. f., and exhaustively in B.N.T., 69 ft. In the book the names are written of those who fear Yahveh Sabaoth and who honour His name.
 
FIG. 214.—Combat of the triad against the monster (wolf?). Seal cylinder acquired in Smyrna. In the author’s possession.
APPENDIX
VOL. I
P. 75, n. 2. Dindorf, i. 389 f• •
<XTT6 NajSovacrapov TOV<S xpwovs rrjs TWV ao-repoiv Kivr)(reu)<s XCLXBCUOL r)KpL[3r)<rav KCLL OLTTO ^aASaiW ol Trap’
''~EiX\r)(n /jLaOruJLaTLKoi Xafiovres i-recSr), a)? 6 ’AXe^avSpos KOX BrJ/oaxro-o?
<ftatriv ol ra? XaXauKa? ap^atoXoyta?
7T€jOi €tX^^)or€9, ’Na/3ovd(rapo<;.
P. 116, fig. 37. Description and dissertation in my monograph on “Schamash” in Roscher’s Lexikon der Mythologie.
P. 208, n. 4, 1. 4 from bottom. This is the Egyptian relationship (sun = life); in Babylonian the tree of the Moon is the tree of life, see Ezek. xlvii. 1 ff. (fruit twelve times in the year).
P. 279, n. 2. According to Weissbach, who has just published in the Vorderasiatischen Bibliothek the Achaemenid inscriptions and at pp. 5 ff. transcribes and translates the great upper inscription, the upper row of figures is incorrectly explained by Andreas. Weissbach remarks : “The Senahauma-nerga form one people : the first figure represents the Persians, then follow the Medes, the Elamites, the Parthians, etc.; exactly in the same order as the nations are named in the great upper inscription.”
P. 314. We have full records of a conquest of the “Westland” by the North Babylonian kings Sargou (of Agade) and Naramsin (about 2600). Both kings ruled from Elam to the Mediterranean, from Armenia (Gutium) to Arabia. Besides fragments of ancient inscriptions we have excerpts in the library of Assurbanipal about this campaign in the form of chronicles of augury by means of liver, under guidance of which it is pretended a great campaign was undertaken. These peculiar traditions illustrate the fact that the period of the rule of Sargon and Naramsin was held by future times as the Golden Age of the world.
(1)   Legends of the birth of Sargon :
They give evidence of three campaigns to the Westland 313
314
APPENDIX
(“three times have I conquered the sea”). This inscription is mentioned in our section on stories of the birth of Moses.
(2)   Fragments of an inscription of the time of Sargon and
Naramsin:
“Thirty-two cities on the sea coast” are conquered. This must refer to a conquest on the Mediterranean by Sargon. The thirty-two cities would then be the later Phoenician and Palestinean and Philistine cities.
(3)   Fragment from a chronicle :
Sargon, king of Akkad, elevated himself with the ring of Ishtar; he had no foe to equal him, he poured out his terror over all lands; he passed over the sea in the east, in eleven years he conquered the land of the West to its uttermost end, he erected his statues in the West, he led away the captives to the coast and over the sea.
(4)   Omina of Sargon’s campaigns :
.... Sargon, who marched upon [Amujrru, overthrew', conquered the four ends of the world.
[. . . . Sargojn, who under these omens [marched] to Amurru [overthrew Amurru], conquered the four ends of [the world].
[. . . . Sargon, who under these auguries] marched [to] Amurru .... his .... he slew, his nobles [. . . . out of] out of the midst he dragged him.
.... Sargon who under this omen [with the ring of Ishtar] elevated himself, had no foe of equal birth, his terror over the [lands poured out to the island]s of the Western Sea. After three years in the West [to the uttermost] conquered, organised, his statues in the West [erected], their prisoners he led to the coasts of the sea over the sea.
The stele of victory of Naramsin, fig. 88, p. 317, shows the king as “Lord of the World.” The territory to be conquered is symbolically represented as the Mountain of the World (phallus); the celestial world—denoted by sun, moon, and Venus—is onlooker.
The supreme period of the North Babylonian kingdom under Sargon and Naramsin was followed by powerful South Babylonian dynasties. Their supremacy also would have extended over the “Westland.” Gudea, the mighty patesi of Lagash (about 2500), records in his numerous inscriptions about building operations in Lagash, that he made use of materials of precious woods and stones from all parts of Western Asia and Phoenicia, from the mountains of Amanus, and from Arabia (Magan and Melujia). Gudea records: “When he built the temple of Nin-gir-su, Nin-gir-su his beloved Lord opened the
APPENDIX
315
way to him from the upper sea to the lower sea. In the Amanus, the cedar mountains, with cedar trunks whose '   height was 60 ells, with cedar trunks whose height was
50 ells, with urkarinu trunks whose height was 25 ells did he make .... and brought them from the mountains. , . . From Umanu, the mountains of Menna, from Rasalla, the mountains of Amurru, he brought great blocks of stone ; he worked them into stele and he erected them in the fore-court of the temple of Ninnu. From Tidanu, the mountains of Amurru, he brought marble in blocks. . .
P. 322. The inscription reads: “ [Asjratu, Bride of Heaven (of Anu), who wields sovereignty, Mistress of Plenty and of Fruitfulness, who is greatly honoured in the mountains, the pitiful Lady who makes her word gracious with her husband ( = makes intercession), has visibly established for the life of Hammurabi, king of Amurru, Itur-ashdu the governor of Nar . . . ., the son of Suban .... a divine protection (lamassu) for her beloved cities, as is due to her divinity.” Hammurabi’s third successor Ammi-ditana also speaks in one of his inscriptions of his relations with Amurru :   “ Ammi-ditana the mighty king, king of Babylon,
king of Kish, king of Sumer and Akkad, king Da-ga-mu of Amurru am I.” The meaning of the word da-ga-mu is still unknown.
P. 322. The supremacy of the first dynasty of Babylon, of which Hammurabi was the mightiest king, indicates the ultimate victory of a people belonging to the so-called Canaanite (or better, Amorite) migration, to which, in the districts of Palestine, the Phoenicians and Israelites, together with the related Edomites, Moabites, and Ammonites belong. It is improbable that the supremacy of Hammurabi’s dynasty included Palestine also as the dynasty of Sargon did. The Hittites appear already at that time to have pressed into the south. The discoveries at Boghazkoi and the Biblical record from the Abrahamic period which names the Hittites together with the Ammonites give evidence of this. The migration of Abraham would in that case have passed through the region of Hammurabi’s power. Further detail upon this is given in dealing with the history of Abraham. The intellectual relationship of this ruling people with the most ancient strata of the religious community of Israel shows itself amongst other things in the sphere of legal observances. The fundamental laws as they are brought into use in the Hammurabi Code and in the laws of Abraham and the legal terminology are partly identical in Babylonia and Israel. (Further detail, see p. 34, ii.).
P. 323. The Hittites and the “ Westland.” The Hatti belong to a migration which had already made its influence felt in the first half of the second millennium as far as Palestine. They won a supremacy over Babylon for a time at the end of the first dynasty. The chronicle already mentioned, which contains records of Sargon,
316
APPENDIX
reaches over the period of the last kings of the first dynasty. “ In the time of Samsu-ditana [came] the IJatti into Akkad.” The oldest recorded evidence of the I^atti is in the letters of king Tushratta of Mitanni to Amenophis III. The expeditions to Boghazkoi have discovered a complete archive of the fortified city of J^Jatti, in Asia Minor, three days’ journey east from Halys (from which therefore the tribe takes its name). The language is different from that of Mitanni. The records belong to the Amarna period and that immediately following. One group of these Ij^atti is certainly Aryan (the first recorded event of the appearance of the Indo-Germanic peoples, comp. Winckler, O.L.Z., 1910, pp. 289 ff)- The history of the Aryans in Asia Minor, however, possibly reaches much further back. They are called I^arri (the Biblical Hivites, who were held to be the original inhabitants of Palestine?). Their gods include amongst others Indra, Mithra, Varuna, and Nashatianna.
P, 327. With the thirteenth dynasty Egyptian monuments in the mines of Sinai cease. Under the fourteenth dynasty Egypt fell under the supremacy of the Semitic Hyksos, Fig. 99 is from the period about 1900, and represents Asiatics who desire to settle in Egypt.
P. 329, after 1. 3. After the death of Thothmes III. the rule of Egypt over Syria was again endangered by a renewed incursion of the l^Jatti under Subilulumen (Amenophis II., Thothmes IV.). Under Amenophis III. and IV. besides the Hittites, the Ilabiri also, nomads of the Syrian vassal territories, formed a danger. The records of Amarna, treated in full pp. 335 f., and the records from Boghazkoi give us further detail of this period. Both the archives discovered describe partly the same events. To these may be added the records from Tell Hesy (Lachish) and Ta‘annek (pp. 343 f.), which in a wonderful way throw light on the same period. About 1350 Syria was under the rule of an established Hittite military state. Sethi I. and Rameses II. only partially reinstated Egyptian rule over Syria.
P. 333, 1. 10 from bottom : according to which Merneptah conquered and punished Syria, which meanwhile had revolted. The mention here of “ Israel ” as a tribe in Syria is specially important. It is possible that this is evidence of the wars which were the source of the original text of the “ Song of Deborah.”
P. 336, last line of page: They sought the support of Babylonia and desired to free themselves from their Egyptian overlords, as in 701 from their Assyrian masters.
P. 337, last line of text: In the theory of political law the supremacy was also upheld later. There are hints of it even in the time of Solomon, Assyria, heir to Babylonian and Hittite supremacy, only laid claim as far as Carmel till the time of Sargon.
P. 341, at end of n. 3. Works on the subject: H. Vincent,
APPENDIX
317
Canaan d’apres l’exploration regente, 1907. P. Thomson, Palastina und seine Knltur im 5 Jahrtausenden, Leipzig, Teubner, 1909- H. Thiersch, u Die neuen Ausgrabungen in Palastina/’ Archaologische Anzeiger des Kais. deutsch. archaologischen Institutes, 1907.
P. 348, 1. 9 from bottom : The excavations of Sellin in Jericho, 1909 and 1910, vide communications of the German Orientgesell- schaft, 1910, give small result for archaeology in Canaan. Parts of the ancient Canaanite city and walls have been opened up. The results of the American excavations in Sebastic, site of ancient Samaria, may be awaited with interest. This is the stronghold of the kings of Israel. For centuries, while Jerusalem was powerless, Samaria was the centre of the political life of Israel.
VOL. II
P. 16,1. 20 from top: in order to denote him thus as type of the expected Deliverer. The Dioscuri myth, corresponding to the position of the spring sun in Gemini, was a specially favourite one with the ancients for embellishing histories. We repeatedly find the motifs in the stories of Abraham. Combined with it we find features from the myths of Sin and Tammuz. They are both suitable for expressing the ideas of combat and victory, of rescue and rulership of the world.
P. 21, 1. 7 from top: The “laughter” of Abraham belongs to the motifs of the New Age. Abraham “laughed,” Gen. vii. 17. Sarah “ laughed ” at the announcement of an heir, Gen. xviii. 12, 13, 15a, 15b, 21, xxi. 19. Ceres laughed when the new fruitfulness was roughly announced. The antithesis is the motif of mourning (weeping for Tammuz), for example, at the Oak of Mourning in Bethel, Gen. xxxv. 8.
P. 37, 1. 7 from bottom : “ Morgengabe” is the old German word for the present which the bride used to give to her husband the morning after the wedding, according to ancient custom.