.

Hope throughout the O.T., a glorified Israel the one thing to which they looked forward. Prophets speak of this glorious coming transfiguration of Israel as a resurrection (e.g. Hos. vi. 2; Ezek. xxxvii.), but metaphorically, i.e. they simply picture the nation's restoration from captivity to prosperity in the new Israel under the form of a resurrection. It is a national, not an individual, Future Hope. On the subject of individual resurrection the canonical prophets are silent.

(c) After the Exile religion becomes personal, and, in the presence of the problem of the sufferings of the righteous and the prosperity of the wicked (Jer. xii. 1), men here and there tentatively throw out hints of another life1 in which, possibly, earth's wrongs shall be righted. But it is only an aspiration, a gleam seen only by a thoughtful few groping after a clearer light than the theology of their day warranted or revealed. In all the Old Testament, only some half a dozen passages embody a definite hope of individual resurrection in our sense, and it is open to question whether a single one of them is of earlier date than 300 B.C., the period of our next paragraph. The passages are: Pss. xvi. 8-11; xvii. 15; xlix. 14, 15; lxxiii. 23–26, and especially Is. xxv. 8; xxvi. 19; Dan. xii. We deal fully with the question later, and state why Job xix. 25-27 is excluded. Even in these passages, several come under (6), for their individual resurrection is mainly with a view to the righteous dead sharing in the Messianic Kingdom.

(d) From 300-I B.C., the modern belief in an individual resurrection to eternal life is frequently met with, but in apocalypses (cf. Is. xxv.-xxvi., Dan. xii.), and almost without exception outside the Bible. Several speak very definitely of Life after Death, Judgment, Eternity, Heaven, and Hell exactly as we do. Some speak of a resurrection of the body, others only of the soul

1 Two sources fed these aspirations: (1) contact with Persian (and Greek) thought, with their belief in the soul's immortality; (2) some Psalmists, in their close mystical communion with God (e.g. Pss. lxxiii. 23, 24; xvi. 8-11), feel that not even death can sever their oneness with God; this communion with God must go on; as if, like Enoch and Elijah, they too must be rapt into heaven yet nearer to God. Hence two parallel lines of O.T. resurrection hopes: (1) a resurrection upon earth out of Sheol at the Messianic Age (e.g. Is. xxv. 8, xxvi. 19, and Dan. xii.), and (2) an immediate escape from Sheol at death in a continued life of conscious blessedness in heaven.

Cf. Socrates, who felt in his heart of hearts that man's "spirit" or "personality," partaking of the essence of God, must rise after death, though he candidly owns that it is only a pious hope for which he can give no reason, and adds that he is not quite certain. He sees dimly, but feels strongly on the subject (see Zeller's Socrates, pp. 147 sqq., English translation).

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or personality clothed in a purely spiritual body. By the time. Christ came on earth, the conviction of individual resurrection to an eternal life of communion with God was clearly and definitely established in most Hebrew minds (e.g. Pharisees, not Sadducees). The people generally, however, still, clung to a national resurrection, i.e. a glorified Israel here on earth as the Kingdom of God. Our Lord's Apostles shared this view, e.g. Acts i. 6: "Lord, dost Thou at this time restore the Kingdom to Israel?" while S. Mt. xxvii. 52: "And the tombs were opened and many of the saints that slept were raised," etc., proves that Christians of that day fully believed that the righteous Jews who had died would rise to share in the kingdom.

NOTE ON P. 145: The Sabbath a Day of Rest, and of
SACRIFICE APPARENTLY.

We know nothing of Hebrew Sabbath-observance up to 700 B.C., except as a day of rest; all else is inference. In Babylonia (p. 80 sup.), the 7th, 14th, 21st, and 28th of each month were "favourable days, evil days" (i.e. apt to be unlucky), the others simply "favourable days." On these four days, great care was taken not to offend the gods. Hence the Babylonian equation: ûm nûkh libbi shabattum, "Day of rest of the heart (of the deity) = sabbath," i.e. a day for the gods to rest from their anger, a day for the pacification of a deity's anger, sabbath. The day was "holy" (p. 61 sup.), work taboo. So in early Israel; but the Hebrews humanised it, made it a day of recreation from labour (Hos. ii. 11), fixed it every seventh day irrespective of lunar phases (its original idea, p. 80, n.), and gradually made it holy in our sense; its strictness also grew (Jer. xvii. 19-27). As "holy," it was probably a day of sacrifice, but we have no direct evidence in early days; Is. i. 13, etc., are all ambiguous on that point. Burney derives Sabbath from Sumerian SA (heart) BAT (to appease)="heart appeasing." (See Jastrow, Heb. and Bab. Tradns., ch. iii., and Driver in Hastings' D. of B., iv. 317 sqq.).

CHAPTER XI

THE BOOK OF THE LAW, AND JEREMIAH

THE Book of the Law (Deut.), embodying all the prophets' ideals, and Jer. xxxi. 33, 34, with its great ideal of religion as a relationship between God and the individual soul, are two epoch-making revelations, and need a chapter to themselves. Israel's tragic history led up to both.

In 721 the Northern Kingdom, Israel, fell before Assyria. 27,290 of its best inhabitants (p. 143 sup.) were taken into captivity. Foreigners settled on their lands. In Mesopotamia these Israelite exiles were so completely absorbed by its native population that they left not a trace behind them. This is worth noting, and for this reason. It proves that Judah has simply the 130 years' interval and its prophets to thank for its escape from the same fate! For it is unanimously admitted that Judah's deeper religion, and it alone, saved the Jews 135 years later from the same extinction. Had Judah gone into Captivity in 721, the Jewish name must equally have been blotted out, for at that date there was little to choose between the religious condition of Israel and Judah. Indeed, it was in Israel, under an Amos and a Hosea, that a reaction against a heathenish worship of Jehovah originated and afterwards passed into Judah. Fortunately for Judah's survival as a nation, geographical and other considerations gave it over 100 years' respite. In this interval an Isaiah, a Deuteronomy, and a Jeremiah, backed by such kings as Hezekiah and Josiah, did a good religious work in Judah. Its fruits did not come up to prophetic expectations. It

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produced at the time but a "remnant" of pious and God-fearing souls; yet from this "holy seed" (Is. vi. 13) sprang a new Israel which can never die. Thus it came about that, whereas Israel clean dies out after 721 B.C., Judah's Captivity but gave it a new lease of life. Isaiah and Jeremiah contributed much to this result. In their generation they were but little esteemed; after their death the Jews ranked them only just below Moses.

Isaiah still plays an important part in our period, and Isaiah, Deuteronomy, and Jeremiah (740-586) practically cover four long reigns. Two of these kings are weak, bad, reactionary; in each case they are followed by kings good and progressive on the whole.

Israel's fall in 721 made a deep impression on Judah, but they read it in a Pharisaic spirit. When proud and powerful Israel was laid low and little Judah saved, the Judæans saw in this a guarantee of God's goodwill towards them, and a recognition of their own superior piety. Judah had now entered into Israel's inheritance as well as her own, and Judah was now Jehovah's one land.

Isaiah's influence, politically, in the state was immense. From 740 B.C. his one policy for Judah was one of non-intervention in foreign politics. By every means at his command, he sought to keep Ahaz and Judah free from all entanglements in the politics of the two great powers of that day, Assyria and Egypt. He wanted both king and nation to devote their undivided energies to internal social and religious reforms. "In quietness and confidence (in the Lord) shall be your strength" (Is. xxx. 15) was ever his motto, and when he and Ahaz first come on the scene it was a wise policy. As already stated (p. 144 sup.), Israel was still there to act as a buffer northward, the wilderness eastward, and Egypt was a friendly neighbour. Suddenly (c. 734), Israel and Syria combined against Assyria, and tried to induce Judah to join them. To force his hand they threatened

to invade Ahaz' land. Isaiah bade Ahaz have no fear and pay no heed. Too frightened to listen, Ahaz invoked Assyria's aid. Assyria beat Israel and Syria, but from this moment Judah was Assyria's tributary and doomed. Had Isaiah's advice been followed, Assyria for her own sake must have crushed the Syria-Israel coalition, and Judah would equally have been saved, while retaining her independence. As it is, the next thing we see is Ahaz at Damascus doing homage to Tiglath-pileser, and there borrowing strange altars and cults for Jehovah's worship (2 Kgs. xvi. 11 sqq.).—Hezekiah, son of Ahaz, as we saw (p. 144 sup.), tried to play a double game. He sent tribute to Assyria his overlord, yet secretly abetted Egypt against Assyria, while professing not to break with Assyria. Assyria saw through this double dealing and besieged Jerusalem, but for some reason had to beat a hasty retreat (701). This wondrous preservation of Jerusalem may have contributed1 to Hezekiah's religious reformation, a reform such as Isaiah longed for, but its success was partial. Under King Manasseh (697-638), Judah, which had all along remained Assyria's vassal, was whole-heartedly proAssyrian. A reactionary religious movement also set in, undoing all Hezekiah's good work. The old idolatrous cults and images were reinstated in the sanctuaries, from Assyria was introduced the worship of sun, moon, and stars, while the Canaanite practice of sacrificing the first-born to Moloch was transferred to Jehovah-worship (2 Kgs. xxi. 3-8). Manasseh himself, as Ahaz before him, made his son "pass through fire." "

1 Dr. Burney writes: "I conjecture that Hezekiah's reformation (2 Kgs. xviii. 4) was probably earlier than this. Jer. xxvi. 17 ff. (very important as showing that there actually was such an attempt at a reformation, and that 2 Kgs. xviii. 4 is not simply based on the Deut. redactor's conjecture that what happened under Josiah was begun under Hezekiah), traces Hezekiah's reformation to the influence of Micah." Hezekiah's reform was on the lines of Josiah's (621), but not nearly so far-reaching, still it paved the way for it.

"Pass through fire," the expression probably means "make over to the deity by fire," i.e, it denotes a sacrifice in which the victim was first slain, then burnt (Burney).