with irritating repetitions; Jehovah who appears to Joshua and equips him with courage for his great campaigns; Jehovah who is the sole bond of union to this unorganized people during the colonial period; Jehovah who sustains Saul when Saul is loyal, and abandons him to defeat and death when he is disloyal; Jehovah who summons David from the sheepfold to the throne; Jehovah who sends prophets, from Elijah the reformer to Isaiah the statesman, to recover the people from their apostasies, and to counsel and encourage them in their national crises; Jehovah who gives them prosperity when they walk in his way, and who sends them adversity when they depart from it.

The historian does, indeed, narrate the deeds of great men; but he so narrates them that our attention is fixed, not on the man nor on the deed, but on Jehovah who inspires the man to do the deed. Moses was a great statesman, the father of civil liberty for all humanity; yet it is not of the statesman but of the prophet who walked with Jehovah that we think as we read the story of his life. David was a great organizer; the essential principles of his organization of the state into great departments and of the army into companies, regiments, and army corps we still maintain to-day, nearly thirty centuries after his death; but it is not of the great organizer, but of the poet and of his experience of God in nature and men, that we think as we read the story of his life and his 1 2 Sam. xviii. 1, 2; 1 Chron. xxvii. 25–34.

achievements. Ahab brought Israel to a great degree of prosperity by his skill and courage as an astute statesman and a brave captain;1 and yet it is of the sins of Ahab against God and humanity that we think as we read the story of his reign; not of his statecraft and his military achievements, but of his robbery of Naboth. In all this Biblical history the moral element predominates over the merely political, and the religious over the merely ethical. And yet the historian rarely if ever formulates a dogma or draws a moral. He writes not to prove that "righteousness exalteth a nation, and sin is a reproach to any people;" but believing that this is true, and believing that this truth is writ large in the history of his people, he so writes the history that his readers see it recorded there, not by his pen, but by the events themselves.

The question, then, for the student of Biblical history to ask, is not whether all the deeds of the heroes of Hebrew history were virtuous, whether Abraham did right to lie, or Jephtha to sacrifice his daughter, whether Samson was really a hero, or David's adultery a pardonable offense. The historian recites the virtues of men without applause, and their vices without condemnation. He draws no morals; this he leaves to be done by the conscience of the reader. The question is

11 Kings xx. See History of Israel, by C. A. Cornill, 102 ff.; The Religion of Israel, by Karl Budde, 116 ff.; Hastings's Bible Dictionary, tit. Ahab; History of the Jewish Church, by A. P. Stanley, lect. xxx.

not whether God commanded all that the ancient Hebrews thought he commanded, or approved all that they thought he approved. The historian recites their errors as well as their sins. It is not whether all the occurrences took place as they are recorded; whether Samson tied foxes or jackals together; whether Elijah was fed by ravens or Arabians; 2 whether Elisha made the axe-head swim in the water. The value of the history does not depend upon its scientific accuracy in detailed incidents in this remote past. The question to consider is whether the historian is right or wrong in his interpretation of human history, whether God is in his world of men, whether Jehovah is to be reckoned with in national policies, whether moral forces are to be taken account of by wise men in the world's adminstration; or whether might makes right and God is only on the side of the strong battalions. This question I do not discuss ; for it is no part of the object of this volume to show that the view of life taken by the Biblical writers is correct. I only seek to show what that view is; to interpret the Old Testament, not to discuss its accuracy. To interpret it we must understand first of all the purpose of the writers; and the purpose of the historical writers of the Old Testament was not to secure infallible accuracy 1 Judg. xv. 4.

2. 1 Kings xvii. 4, 6. See Robert Tuck's Handbook of Biblical Difficulties, p. 439; Kitto's Bible Illus., vol. ii. part 2, pp. 216220.

8 2 Kings vi. 1-7.

in dates, numbers, statistics, and historical incidents, but to interpret their national history as Jehovah's dealing with his people. Did they interpret it aright? and does this interpretation give us a clue by which we can interpret also the history of our own times? If so, the Bible history is true, and its truth is not impugned, and not even a suspicion is cast upon its truth, by the conclusion that certain of the incidents recorded in it are unhistorical, and many of the moral judgments which it records are to be corrected in the light of a later moral development, and by the standards of a later revelation.

CHAPTER III

PREHISTORIC TRADITIONS REWRITTEN

THE principles respecting Hebrew history which were set forth and illustrated in the preceding chapter are two. The first principle is that this history is a compilation from previously existing materials, and that by careful study it is possible to distinguish in some measure these different materials, to separate the strand and show the threads of which it is composed, and that this task is made easier for us because in the latter portion of the history two of these strands are separated for us into two books - the Book of Chronicles, which is priestly or ecclesiastical, and the Book of Kings, which is prophetic. The second principle is that this history is not factual nor philosophical, but epic; that it is not compiled by a scientific student whose aim it is to give accurate information as to details, nor by a philosophical thinker whose aim it is to enforce a theory of human life, but by a prophetic or poetic or dramatic writer, who uses the material which he finds ready to his hand for the purpose of illustrating a certain phase or aspect of human life, namely, that aspect which presents itself to one who believes that God is in his world