Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

ITS FIRST MEANING.

149

him', and Jehovah is represented as holding such other gods to be similar to himself, although he eventually subdues them, and (as every nation believes of its tutelar deity) he is more powerful than they2. Such, it is evident, cannot be termed a pure monotheism, and assertions like that of Werners, "If all else be denied to Moses, his pure monotheism must still be left to him," will require no further notice. Although, therefore, we have found that the earliest worship of Jehovah is clearly referred by the Pentateuch to Moses, we have still made but little progress towards the discovery of the truth; we only know that these mythical books expressly deny its earlier existence [under that name]5, and we must therefore have recourse to the other Hebrew writings for further information concerning the worship of the national Deity.

1 "I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage."-Exod. xx. 2.

2" For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the Lord." -Exod. xii. 12.

"Who is like unto thee, O Lord, among the gods? who is like thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?"—Exod. xv. 11. "Now I know that the Lord is greater than all gods: for in the thing wherein they dealt proudly he was above them." Exod. xviii. 11.

3 Ueber die vier erst. Kap. der Genesis (On the first four Chapters of Genesis), p. 80.

[The commencement of a pure monotheism may however be observed in the limited ideas of the one Deity of a favoured family and nation, which are represented in the Hebrew scriptures, among the characteristics of the early ages of their national progress. More comprehensive views of the infinite almighty, eternal and universal power of Deity are subsequently unfolded, when the sages, the priests, and the poets of the Hebrews become themselves more enlightened.]

[ocr errors]

5 [See Exod. vi. 3. By my name Jehovah was I not known unto them,"-Abraham, Isaac and Jacob."]

[blocks in formation]

It can scarcely be doubted that the book of Judges is founded on actual tradition; but at the same time the low degree of culture, the political anarchy, and the rude spirit of the age it describes, are utterly inconsistent with the regular centralization of a theocratical government. The worship of Jehovah is certainly implied, and every external calamity is regarded as the punishment of disobedience to his laws; but this, we must remember, is a common characteristic of the whole body of Hebrew literature, and this book of the Judges was not written, as can be proved, till the time of the Kings, at a period when the worship of Jehovah had already found supporters. Moreover, it is admitted that idols were openly worshiped during the whole of this period [or at least during a large portion of it]', so that we are fully justified in denying all weight to any such ambiguous evidence, and we can admit no conclusive proof of the worship of Jehovah anterior to the ancient hymns of David. Down to the time of David everything in relation to this subject is involved in obscurity, and every successive writer derives his pictures of a bygone age from that in which he happened to live.

1 "And they forsook the Lord God of their fathers, which brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods, of the gods of the people that were round about them, and bowed themselves unto them, and provoked the Lord to anger. And they forsook the Lord, and served Baal and Ashtaroth.”—Judges ii. 12, 13.

"And it came to pass, as soon as Gideon was dead, that the children of Israel turned again, and went a whoring after Baalim, and made Baal-berith their god.”—Judges viii. 33.

"And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the Lord, and served Baalim, and Ashtaroth, and the gods of Syria, and the gods of Zidon, and the gods of Moab, and the gods of the children of Ammon, and the gods of the Philistines, and forsook the Lord, and served not him."-Judges x. 6.

See also ch. x. 18, and elsewhere.

66

THE NAME JEHOVAH."

151

Another circumstance which deserves to be mentioned in this place is, that the very name of Jehovah (on which so much has been written) is, beyond all doubt, not Semitic in its origin. That the present orthography is not correct, is a fact as generally admitted as the loss of the ancient laws of Hebrew pronunciation; since the Masora, in foreign names, merely gave the vowel sounds1 which happened to prevail at that day, as Kopp has abundantly proved. The different modes in which Jehovah was pronounced by the ancient Jews and the Christian fathers have been collected by Bellermann4, Kopp5 and Hartmann®: these were Jave among the Samaritans7, Jaho, and most commonly Jao (Iaw), as it appears in proper names commencing with Jeho-, which is that which Bellermann and Hartmann are inclined to adopt. Thus too it was written on the Abraxas 8 gems, which from their sacred character present the most trustworthy evidence9; and thus it was applied to Dionysos 10 and also to the Sun. In this shape it is clearly connected with the names of the Deity in many other languages,—with the Greek Alòs, the Latin Jovis, and

1 [Previously to the introduction of vowel points (after 700 A.D.) these sounds were supplied by the reader.]

[blocks in formation]

6 Untersuchungen über den Pentat. (Researches, &c.) p. 148.

7 This would have been of the 2nd mood from 1. See

Ewald, Short Gram., § 228.

::

Hitzig on Isaiah, i. 2.

8 [The name given to gems on which these or other cabalistic letters were engraved. They have been mostly found in Egypt and Asia, are supposed to date from the third or fourth century A.D., and to have been used as amulets or talismans.]

9 See Kopp, p. 556. &c.

10 [The Greek name of Bacchus.] Macrob. Saturn. i. 18.

152

ORIGINAL FORM "JAH."

the Sanscrit devas, devo1,-and the original form would be Jah, which frequently occurs in Hebrew poetry. In Exod. iii. 14, the name Jehovah is derived from the root hayah, 'to be '2; but havah, in this instance (as is also the case in the etymology of Eve), is only borrowed from a dialect, and any transposition of the vowels we may choose to adopt must as signally fail in concealing its foreign origin as the Jewish substitution of those belonging to Adonai3. This transposition of the vowels, moreover, was not made until after the name of the Deity had been declared to be secret and unutterable, and is first to be found in Philo and the Rabbins, who exclude from eternal happiness whoever shall dare to pronounce it. The original motive for this sacred mystery was the fear that hostile priests might banish the national deity 5.

The derivation in Exodus is, however, in complete accordance with the general practice of the Pentateuch in the explanation of names; for in this case the Deity himself is represented as supplying the interpretation of his title, but that interpretation is evidently adapted to the conceptions of a much later period; and, as De Wette, Bellermann and Hartmann have very justly observed, it is of much too abstract a nature for the national deity of a very early

1 Compare Alapovva among the ancients for Yamuna.

2 'ehějeh 'ăsher '’ehějeh, ‘I am that I am:' ¿yà ɛiμi ó öv, LXX. ́Sum qui sum,' Vulg.

3 The learning of Tholuck has done little to remove this difficulty in the Literar. Anzeiger, 1832, No. 28.

4 See Philo. Vit. Mosis, iii. 519, and Hartmann in Schwarz, Jahrb. der Theologie, 1825, p. 321.

Compare Macrobius, Sat. iii. 9.

6 Krit. ii. 182.

7 Researches, p. 148.

DERIVATION OF THE NAME.

153

period. It was reserved for after-bards and prophets to give this extension to his character, in the same manner as Svayambhú, 'the Self-existent,' and other names of the same kind among the Hindoos, are known to date their origin from the philosophical speculations of comparatively recent times.

Whence the Hebrews have derived the name of Jehovah we cannot pretend to determine; a large number of the learned have decided in favour of Egypt, and their opinion would certainly appear to gain some support from the fact that Pharaoh changed the name Eliakim (God will upraise) into Jehoiakim (Jehovah will upraise)', and more especially as the reigns of David and Solomon, from which the worship of Jehovah, together with the rise of the priesthood, date their first appearance in history, would seem to have been peculiarly favourable to its introduction. The court of Jehovah, if we may be allowed the expression, is an evident copy from the household of a prince, and such as could only have been drawn at a period of regal splendour: he conceals himself in his Holy of holies like an eastern monarch; like him, he has his messengers, who stand before him as his ministers; incense is burnt in his presence, he is jealous of other gods, and none dare appear before him without an offering2. It may be observed too,—1st, that the older proper names terminating in el, as Israel, Samuel, &c., become less and less common at and after the time of

1 "And Pharaoh-nechoh made Eliakim the son of Josiah king in the room of Josiah his father, and turned his name to Jehoiakim, and took Jehoahaz away: and he came to Egypt, and died there.”—2 Kings xxiii. 34.

2 "None shall appear before me empty.”—Exod. xxiii. 15. "All the firstborn of thy sons thou shalt redeem. And none shall pear before me empty."-Exod. xxxiv. 20, and elsewhere.

ap

« ZurückWeiter »