exempts them from the rigid application of ordinary historical canons. They contain history and something more. They record events in the light of a known purpose of God, and consequently do not hesitate to interpret what they relate, in order to exhibit the leading principles of the divine government, and the laws which control the development of events'. Accordingly our task is to estimate the truth. and validity of the theory which guides the sacred historians in their selection of incidents, and in their comments upon character and upon matters of fact2.

Now the leading ideas which constitute the prophetic theory of Israel's history, and which give a characteristic complexion to the historical books, would seem to be mainly three: (1) the reality and perpetuity of Jehovah's redemptive grace; (2) the idea that Israel's election implied obligations which the nation constantly failed to discharge; (3) the uniformity of method exhibited in divine deliverances.

1. One leading idea of the narratives is the reality of divine grace. The foreground of the picture is occupied by self-revelations of Jehovah in act or prophecy displays of power and compassion in which His undeserved favour towards Israel is manifested.

1 Riehm, A TI. Theologie, pp. 209 foll.: 'Der Prophet hat die Verhältnisse und Ereignisse seiner Zeit in das Licht des göttlichen Ratschlusses zu stellen, und so über Bedeutung und Zweck der göttlichen Führungen Aufschluss zu geben. Überhaupt ist er Interpret dessen was Gott in der thatsächlichen Sprache der Geschichte zu seinem Volke redet, weshalb auch die Geschichtschreibung zu den prophetischen Berufsaufgaben gehört.' 2 Bruce, Apologetics, p. 197. The function of the prophetic writers was 'not to narrate facts, but to teach the right point of view for reading truly the religious significance of Israel's whole history.' Cp. Kittel, Hist. of the Hebrews, vol. ii. p. 5: 'We recognize [in the historical books] the historical standards of men who had absorbed the ideas of the prophets, and who regarded the national past from a purified point of view in consequence of Israel's calamity. It is not so much history as a philosophy of history. It is elucidation, estimation, adjustment of facts from the standpoint of subsequent knowledge of the consequences and goal of the historical development, rather than simple narration of the course of the events themselves; a history that is more satisfactory as a means of religious and moral improvement, than as supplying historical knowledge about the original course of events.' See also Kuenen, Hibbert Lectures, pp. 72 foll.

The thought of divine intervention on Israel's behalf is evidently uppermost in the minds of the historians. It forms the keynote of those summary reviews of the history which meet us at different points in the narrative1. The most conspicuous feature of the past had been the display of divine lovingkindness and forbearance. It had been signally manifested in the deliverance from Egypt, in the protection and sustenance of the people during the long years of pilgrimage in the wilderness, in the amazing conquests both on the east and west of Jordan, and in the raising up of strong and heroic leaders in times of national pressure and distress.

2. But, secondly, in close connexion with repeated declarations of Jehovah's grace and longsuffering, we find descriptions of critical moments at which Israel's own relation to God is determined or manifested. The Old Testament history is remarkable in this respect especially-that in the main it is the record of a series of crises. Long periods are passed over in silence, e. g. the thirty-eight years of wilderness life, the seventy years of exile. Between the death of Joshua and the appearance of Samuel a period of considerable length, possibly nearly three centuries, elapsed; yet how brief and compressed is the record of an age in regard to which Kuenen declares that it 'is of the highest importance for Israel's entire development 2. How much that might have filled the pages of a modern manual of history do the biblical writers ignore the slow process by which the tribes of Israel passed from the rough habits of nomadic life to the settled ways of agriculturalists, the rise and growth of the trading instinct through intercourse with the cities of Phoenicia, the religious syncretism which resulted from Israel's self-identification with the conquered territory 3. How much that might absorb the

1 Judges ii. 6 foll., iii. 6 foll.; 1 Sam. xii. 7 foll. ; 2 Kings xvii. 7-23, 34-41. The Religion of Israel, vol. i. p. 143.

3 Cp. Wellhausen, Sketch of the History of Israel and Judah, p. 36; cp. Kittel, op. cit. vol. ii. pp. 93 foll.; G. A. Smith, Hist. Geog. of the Holy Land, pp. 88 foll., and 111.

attention of a student, or kindle a poet's imagination', is passed over. The record is essentially a religious history, of which the gist is practically this: that Israel as a nation had been peculiarly favoured by God, that the calamities and reverses which followed the settlement in Canaan were due to national shortcoming and sin, that in the sorest straits deliverance came through some human instrument specially raised up by Jehovah, and that, finally, popular expectation was directed towards the southern tribe of Judah, as if the imperative need of a stable monarchy was likely to be supplied from that quarter. It may be granted that the picture of this period is somewhat highly coloured, for Israel's shortcomings scarcely seem on a superficial survey to have amounted to a formal or visible apostasy from Jehovah again and again repeated, as the Deuteronomistic passages in the book of Judges apparently suggest. But at least the general fact of unfaithfulness to a recognized standard of worship and morals is clear, and it is judged from the standpoint of Him whose thoughts are higher than our thoughts. The pure worship of Jehovah was evidently hindered or tainted by the spirit of religious syncretism, i. e. the corruption of the Mosaic cultus by the admixture of usages and symbols borrowed from the nature-worship of Canaan. ́ The manifest elements of retrogression which appeared in the period of the Judges are regarded by the Deuteronomic school as constituting

1 One naturally thinks of Mr. Keble's beautiful lines in The Christian Year, poem for the third Sunday in Lent.

2 Observe that the book of Judges begins with an oracle implying the promise of victory to Judah, Judah shall go up (i. 2), and closes with narratives connected with Bethlehem Judah, designed apparently to illustrate the remark, In those days there was no king in Israel (xxi. 25). The book of Ruth, which is an idyll of Bethlehem and gives the ancestry of the first true king, forms an appendix to the book of Judges. Cp. Riehm, Einleitung in das A. T. vol. i. p. 473; Delitzsch, O. T. History of Redemption, § 33.

3

Judges ii. 11 foll., iii. 5 foll., viii. 33, x. 6 foll. Cp. Kittel, vol. ii. p. 97. It is significant that in the résumé of Israel's history contained in Neh. ix. 7 foll. the same salient features appear, the faithfulness of God and the faithlessness of His people. See Hunter, After the Exile, part ii, pp. 201 foll. Cp. Oehler, Theol. of the O. T. §§ 158, 159; Kittel, vol. ii. p. 98.

formal apostasy to heathen gods; and it may be contended that, from an idealistic and prophetic point of view, the representation corresponds with the facts. Israel was during this period falling short of better knowledge; from the earliest times the spirit of unfaithfulness to the obligations implied in Israel's special relationship to God did manifest itself in the national life. In a word, the picture is dark and sombre, but we have every reason to suppose that in essential features it is correct. If, as we have no reason to doubt, Israel recognized in the events of the exodus its special vocation to be the people of Jehovah, if this had been the burden of Moses' teaching, the point of view from which the compilers of the historical books contemplate the course of events is true; and it may be remarked that it is common to these writers with the great prophets of the eighth and following centuries, notably Amos, Hosea, and Jeremiah 1. The same general line of thought applies to the view which the historical writers take of the schismatic cultus established in the northern kingdom by Jeroboam. The theory of the writers and of the prophets is that the pure and imageless worship of Jehovah inculcated by Moses has in the calf-worship sunk back to the level of a heathen cultus. That it represented a reactionary movement can scarcely be doubted, and it is equally probable that the relative purity of religious praxis in Judah was due to the persistency with which the prophets represented the northern cultus in its true character 2.

3. A third feature of the historical books is that they dwell with peculiar interest upon the method of the divine deliverances. The intention of the narratives does not seem to be that of glorifying the heroic figures of old time, but rather that of illustrating the principles on which Jehovah acts in His work of salvation. There is little or no attempt to idealize the

1 See Robertson, The Early Religion of Israel (Baird Lecture for 1889), ch. v.

2 Cp. Riehm, ATI. Theologie, p. 195.

character of the Judges, or of Samuel, or even of prophets like Elijah. The period of the Judges was no doubt an age of contradictions ',' like other periods of religious transition which are apt to witness a certain relaxation of moral principles and disintegration of beliefs; and the figures that appear in the forefront of the history reflect the tendencies of the time: its hold upon certain fundamental religious truths and its laxity in religious practice, its capacity for wild moral excesses combined with a certain robustness of conscience 2.' In this point the narratives are life-like and consistent, but the main truths which the historians bring into prominence are-first, that the saviours sent by Jehovah are men directly empowered by His Spirit; secondly, that it is His habit to select lowly and despised instruments in the execution of His redemptive purpose. Thus the exploit of Gideon is always regarded in the Old Testament as a typical deliverance; the day of Midian becomes indeed a kind of proverbial expression in later prophecy. The choice of Saul, from the least of all the families of the smallest of the tribes of Israel, is another illustration of the same principle, while the career of David derives its special significance from the lowliness of his origin. He chose David also his servant, and took him away from the sheepfolds. As he was following the ewes great with young ones he took him: that he might feed Facob his people, and Israel his inheritances.

In their conception, then, of the period embraced in the historical books, the writers cannot be fairly regarded as mistaken. In its estimate of the pre-prophetic period. modern criticism does not always make due allowance for the factor which imparted to Israel's history, throughout its course, a unique significance the factor which we call 'Inspiration.' The 'Song of Deborah,' for example, which seems to be contemporary with the 1 Schultz, O. T. Theology, i. 150.

2 Bruce, Apologetics, p. 227. The book of Ruth forms a valuable counterpart to the stormy scenes of Judges.

3 Judges vi. 15; vii. 2. Cp. Isa. ix. 4 foll.; x. 26; Ps. lxxxiii. 10 foll. 1 Sam. ix. 21. Ps. lxxviii. 70, 71.

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