held fast, that the name expresses not God's essential nature, but His relation to Israel as the God of the covenant.

But speculations on the meaning of this name are less. fruitful than observation of what Scripture says in regard to Him. It is from this we can gather the ideas entertained by the people.

5. Jehovah the God of Israel.

A question of great interest now arises, What is involved in saying that Jehovah was the God of Israel? How much meaning in relation, say, to the general idea of the absolute unity of God, or to Monotheism, may we suppose to lie in the phrase?

אהיה is Elohim saying

We have said that Jahweh and Elohim are not names parallel; Jahweh is Elohim in relation to Israel, Jahweh And Elohim saying n is Elohim of Israel. But thus Jahweh became the name of the Elohim of Israel—or rather of Elohim in Israel. This is certainly the way of thinking among the great prophets of the eighth and ninth centuries before Christ. Jahweh is not to them a God among other gods, neither is Jahweh God simply. He is God in Israel—God saying I will be, God in the act of unveiling His face more and more, in the act of communicating the riches of Himself more and more, in the act of pouring out all His contents into the life of Israel; or God as the constant One, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.

It is not easy to state with certainty what is included in the expression "Jahweh, God of Israel," and excluded by it. In order to estimate it fairly, we have to take into account not merely the form of expression, but the facts of history bearing on its meaning, and the conduct of those who professed this belief. But in taking into account history, a multitude of considerations have to be attended to. Israel was a numerous people; its past history had made it not a homogeneous, but a composite nation. Narratives, the veracity of which we have no reason to

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doubt, represent the people in the wilderness as a mixed multitude. Egyptian elements no doubt entered to some extent into the nation. Then it must have gathered foreign though kindred elements from the Shemitic tribes whom it encountered in the wilderness. The Kenites, who play an important part in Israel's history, attached themselves to it there. Moreover, it is plain that Israel on entering Canaan neither put to the sword nor dispossessed in any great measure the native races, but merely subjected them to tribute, and ultimately absorbed them into itself. It is evident that into the Israelitish nation which history deals with, elements of the most diverse kinds entered, and that classes existed differing very widely from one another in culture and morals. When it is asked, therefore, what is meant by saying "Jahweh was God of Israel," the answer may be that it meant very different things among different classes. And history may bring too often to light this unfortunate divergence. But manifestly we ought to ask, What did it mean in the minds of those who were the religious leaders of the people, such as Moses, and Samuel, and David, and the like?

Now it is plain, first of all, that it meant that Israel was to worship no other God. The first commandment is, “I am Jahweh; thou shalt have no other gods in My presence." Israel's worship was confined to one Godto God under one name, Jahweh. Not only the first commandment, but every element in the constitution bore this meaning. The expression and idea of a covenant had this in view—it made the people Jahweh's. And so was it with all the separate provisions of the covenant. The Sabbath, which was but an intensification of the idea that Israel's whole life was dedicated; the offering of the firstborn, which meant the nation in its strength (implying all its increase); the first-fruits of the harvest, and much else, particularly the appearing of all the males before Jahweh three times a year, all these things were but expressions of the fundamental idea that Israel was Jahweh's-His por peculiar possession, His alone.

But it becomes a question, Did this particularism amount to Monotheism? Was Jahweh, whom alone Israel worshipped, God alone? Such a question can be answered only by an induction of the attributes of Jahweh and of the facts of history. And this is not easy to make. On the one hand, it is known that each separate people of antiquity had its national god, and that one god worshipped did not necessarily imply one god believed in. The separate peoples, while each worshipping its own god, did not deny the existence of the gods of their neighbours. And in all likelihood among Israel very many stood on no higher platform than this Jahweh was God of Israel; but Chemosh was god of Ammon. It is scarcely possible to explain Israel's history and the persistent falls into idolatry of a large part of the nation, unless we start with some such supposition as this that to a great number in the nation Jahweh was merely the national God. If any higher idea was laid before them, they had not been able with any depth or endurance to take it in. But the question is, Was it laid before them by Moses and the founders of the Theocracy? The first commandment contents itself with prohibiting Israel from serving a plurality of gods; it does not in words rise to the affirmation of Monotheism. But in like manner the seventh prohibits merely Israel from committing adultery, and the sixth from murder; they contain no hint that these injunctions have a universal bearing, and are fundamental laws of human well-being. The laws are all cast into the form of particular prohibitions. But who can doubt that the comprehensive mind which ministered to Israel those profound abstractions concerning purity and regard for life and truth and respect for property, perceived that they expressed the fundamental principles of human society? And is it supposable that with such insight into morality he stood on so low a platform in religion as to rise no higher than national particularism?

Of course, we must take such evidence as we have, and must not judge antiquity and the East by our modern

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ideas in the West. A Shemitic mind would rise to the idea of unity probably very gradually, and through attaching attributes to his national god which excluded all rivals. If we look down the Decalogue a little further, we come in the fourth commandment to a remarkable statement regarding Jahweh :-"In six days Jahweh made the heavens and the earth." Jahweh, God of Israel, is Creator of the universe. He who wrote this sentence was certainly a virtual monotheist. Perhaps the thought did not rise in his mind as it does in ours, that the existence of such a Being excluded all other beings who might be called Elohim. But one with such a practical faith stood to Jahweh much as believers in the unity of God stand to Him now. And it cannot be doubted that all the leading minds in Israel, and many of the people, had from the beginning reached this high platform.

Perhaps we may observe even in the patriarchal age a tendency in an upward direction and an advance upon the stage indicated by the names which were common to Israel and the kindred races at the beginning. While the family of Abraham maintained the common name Elohim for God, as expressing the general idea, and El, used also as a personal name, we notice what might be called a potentiation of the latter name, a tendency to unite it with epithets which both elevate the conception expressed by it, and distinguish the Being whom the patriarchs called El from others who might be so named. Such names are, El Elyon, "God most High"; El Hai," the living God"; El Shaddai, "God Almighty," or "God of overpowering might." Even in such names as Adon, Baal, El, there is already a step made towards Monotheism, the Being named God has been abstracted from nature. He is no more the mere phenomenon, nor even the power in the phenomenon. He is the power above the phenomenon. And the particularism, as it is called, of the Shemitic peoples, or their monolatry, which is so peculiar to them as distinguished from the Western nations, that is, the fact that they had each a national or tribal god, whom they worshipped alone

as their god, without, it may be, calling in question the existence of other tribal gods whom their neighbours worshipped, or inquiring whether other gods than their own existed or not, this peculiarity, if it cannot be called Monotheism, forms at last a high vantage ground from which a march towards Monotheism may commence. And it is probable that we see in the patriarchal names just referred to, particularly in El Shaddai, the advance in the family of Abraham towards both the unity and the spirituality of God. He who called God El Shaddai, and worshipped Him as the Almighty,' might not have the abstract or general conception in his mind that He was the only powerful Being existing. But, at least to him He was the supreme power in heaven and in earth, and He had given him His fellowship, and was condescending to guide his life. And when one named the Being whom he served the eternal God, or the living God, though he might not have present before his mind the general conception of what we call the spirituality of God, yet practically the effect must have been much the same. For He who existed from eternity and had life in Himself could not be part of that material world everywhere subject to change, nor could He exist in flesh which decayed.

The manner of thinking among these ancient saints of God was very different from ours. We are the heirs of all the ages. There lie behind us centuries of speculation regarding God; and we have reached an abstract and general conception of God to which, if there be any actual God, He must correspond. But these men were pursuing the opposite course. They started from the assurance of the existence of a Being whom they named God, whom they considered a person in close relation with their life; and their general thoughts of Him were few, and only rose to their mind gradually, one after another, as their life and history suggested them. And the history of the people of God enables us to observe how these great thoughts of what God was rose like stars, one in succession to another, upon their horizon; thoughts which we, who have inherited