the view that the word means 'he who will be.' There is an inevitable vagueness in the phrase, but, as Prof. Robertson Smith explains, it implies that 'no words can sum up all that Jehovah will be to His people'.' It essentially conveys the notion of a living and active moral personality. Jehovah is a personal being possessed of definite will and character; free to intervene in the course of events, and to enter into a relationship of grace with His creatures; faithful to His own nature, persistent and self-consistent, an object, therefore, on which human hopes may securely rest; a being moreover who, because He truly is, is therefore holy, for evil is only the negation of true being. Id malum est, says Augustine, deficere ab essentia et ad id tendere ut non sit 2.

There remain two Hebrew titles of deity, Adonai and Jahveh Tsebaoth, 'Jehovah of hosts,' of which the latter only needs a word of explanation at this point. The name first appears in the narrative of the books of Samuel, a circumstance which suggests that it was commonly associated with the early fortunes of the monarchy. The original sense and application of the name is disputed, but most probably its earliest application was to the armies of Israel itself, which were habitually regarded as the hosts of Jehovah, marching under Him as their captain and waging war in His name 3. According to this view the title naturally occurs in the early historical books, having been suggested by the warlike experiences of the exodus and the entry into Canaan.

Before we consider the relation in which these various names of God stand to one another, and the special importance of each in the history of revelation, let us pause to notice the general conception of revelation which they imply.

1 Prophets of Israel, lect. ii, note Io. Cp. Robertson, Early Religion of Israel, p. 286.

2 de mor. Manich. ii. §§ 2, 3. Cp. Conf. vii. 12; Ath. c. Gent. iv, vi. 3 Cp. Exod. vii. 4, xii. 41; Num. xxi. 14; 1 Sam. xvii. 45. Cp. Robertson, Early Religion of Israel, note 16, p. 503.

In the first place, the Old Testament witnesses to an implicit belief that God approaches man independently of man's efforts to find God. The Hebrew idea of God was simple and concrete. The Jew instinctively thought of Jehovah as a personal being, and therefore capable of making communications to man. A single expression marks the gulf that parts the ancient from the modern habit of mind. The Hebrew prophet speaks of 'seeking God,' not of 'seeking after truth.' God is already for him an existing personal being, the high and lofty one that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is holy1, but who has revealed to man the conditions of entering into communion with Himself. In a word, the religion of the Old Testament has rather a prophetic than a philosophic character. It is presupposed that God can and does speak to man in language that he is capable of comprehending dreams, visions, oracles, theophanies, angelic communications, prophetic messages-these are the usual media of communication between God and His creatures, and they all point onwards to the possibility of that immediate converse between the human spirit and the Spirit of God, which is the goal and crowning-point of revelation. The childlike narratives of the early history represent Jehovah as holding intercourse with His elect, talking with them as a man speaketh unto his friend2. In proportion as the idea of deity becomes more developed this kind of language disappears. The distance is not widened between the Creator and His creatures, but the mode of His communication with them is more spiritually conceived. Throughout the Old Testament, however, there is no change in the general idea of divine revelation, namely, that a self-acquired knowledge of deity is impossible for man, that the first approach must be made by God Himself, that so much only can be known of Him as He is willing to manifest from time to time in the course of history.

1 Isa. lvii. 15.

2 Exod. xxxiii. 11.

That Jehovah, then, is a being who communicates with man is, for the Hebrew, an instinctively drawn inference from the belief in the divine personality. That God should enter into close relationships with men, that He should intimately associate Himself with their tribal and family life, with their traditional customs of worship, with their joys and sorrows, their migrations and feuds-this was an integral element in early Semitic belief. Not less habitual was the ascription to deity of a readiness to intervene with counsel in difficulty, or with an authoritative sentence in matters of dispute. There was something in this habit of mind which manifestly fitted the Semitic race to be the vehicle of divine revelation to mankind. The desire to know God and to hold fellowship with Him was a natural basis on which the fabric of revealed religion could be built up. Imbued with the sense of a close antecedent relation to God, determining his tribal status and his social duties, the primitive Semite displayed an habitual inclination to explore the purposes and to ascertain the will of the powerful being to whom he felt himself so closely bound and so irresistibly attracted. Hence doubtless it is that soothsaying and prophecy, whether in its lower or higher forms, are so constant a phenomenon in Semitic religion. It seemed entirely natural that the deity should converse with man, that He should employ human organs in the declaration of His will, that by secret communications of His Spirit He should impart that knowledge of His nature and requirement which constitutes the true life of man.

On the other hand, the Old Testament teaches that the faculty which apprehends the divine communications is moral rather than intellectual. What differentiates Hebrew prophecy from heathen mantic is not only its actual content, but the moral conditions

which it presupposes. The power of prophecy implies as its basis the life of friendship with God, and friend1 Riehm, ATI. Theologie, p. 46.

ship can only exist where there is likeness in character and aim. The religion of Israel tends ever more completely to exclude the ethnic notion of inspiration divorced from morality. Spiritual insight is the outcome of the fear of God-a fear which is no mere slavish emotion of abject dependence or terror, but a principle of practical wisdom and a faculty of spiritual perception, discerning in all things the divine purpose and in all action guided by the divine will 2. Such fear involves the renunciation of self-conceit. Lean not, says the Hebrew sage, unto thine own understanding. Be not wise in thine own eyes. And Jeremiah insists even more emphatically. Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom,...but let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the Lord which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth. Thus the inspired wisdom of the Old Testament anticipates the teaching of the New, in laying down two main conditions under which alone a true knowledge of God is possible for man. First, human faculties cannot reach a deity who hides himself; religion, the life of friendship between the human heart and God, is impossible except on the basis of a divine self-communication. And, secondly, the capacity to know God is a moral quality; inspiration and revelation are the correlative aspects of a moral relationship subsisting between God and man, God making His communications to a being whose power of response primarily depends on the condition of his heart and will, on the degree of his moral sympathy with his holy Creator.

We may now consider somewhat more in detail the revelation of God in which the several names above mentioned seem to mark distinct and definite stages.

The general names, 'El, 'Elohim, 'Eloah, 'El Elyon, which were apparently common among the Semitic

1 Cp. Prov. ix. 10. 2 Cp. Prov. iii. 6.

See Oehler, § 240.

3 Prov. iii. 5, 7.

4

• Jer. ix. 23, 24.

tribes, correspond to that vague and undefined conception of deity which would be natural at a primitive stage of civilization. 'Elohim is a power who transcends nature and man, who is elevated above the limitations of the visible universe. The title seems to concentrate in a single term all that may be known of God by contemplation of the universe, regarded as His handiwork 1. 'Elohim is the Creator manifesting His wisdom and omnipotence in all the varied processes of nature which at the same time He transcends. From the first, the use of the name in Hebrew religion served to exclude pantheistic conceptions of deity. The notion of transcendence, however, came to be more distinctly conveyed by the rare 'El 'Elyon, 'God Most High,' a name which distinguishes the one true God from other conceivable 'Elohim. Speaking generally, this entire group of terms may be described as universalistic in their connotation. They indicate the relation of God to all that He has made, as its creator and sustainer. Thus when creatures other than man are represented as speaking, they employ the term 'Elohim2. Again, it has been observed by scholars that 'Elohim, as the title of God most frequently employed in post-exilic days, is a symbol of the increasingly spiritual and transcendental conceptions of God which the teaching of later prophecy displays. The tendency of religion at this period was to exalt the deity to a point where He stood far removed from contact with the world, and consequently to describe Him in abstract and general terms. The names God of heaven, Most High God begin to be used, and

1

Cp. Rom. i. 19.

2

e. g. Judges ix. 9.

3 Renan strangely regards the name Jahveh as representing a lower stage of faith than Elohim. The religious progress of Israel will be found to consist in reverting from Jahveh to Elohim,... in stripping him of his personal attributes and leaving him only the abstract existence of Elohim' (Histoire du peuple d'Israël, bk. i. ch. 6). The history of Israel,' he says elsewhere (bk. ii, ch. 5), was an effort continued through long ages to shake off the false god Jahveh, and to return to the primitive Elohim.'