186 LECTURES AND ESSAYS [1868- 



into organic unity with the human life of Israel. There 

 are not in the Old Testament two histories, a Divine and 

 a human, but one history, in which the Divine agency 

 never quenches human personality. In the word of 

 Jahveh, spoken by the prophets, this fusion of the Divine 

 and human is already complete. The supernatural word 

 penetrates and quickens, but never suppresses the person 

 ality of the prophet. Sometimes, as we have just seen, 

 there arises a contest between the prophet s own desires 

 and the thoughts of Jahveh. But the end of this contest 

 is always that the prophet is not only silenced, but 

 convinced. Now, a supernatural thought that reaches the 

 prophet in a state of ecstasy has not these qualities. The 

 dualism of the Divine and human is not yet overcome, 

 and hence the Divine word has no power to enter directly 

 as a living factor into history. The theory of ecstasy, 

 therefore, explains nothing, unless we interpose between 

 the reception and the utterance of the revelation a living 

 personal power whereby the prophet makes the Divine 

 word his own. We must seek the true mark of the 

 prophet in something higher than passive ecstasy in the 

 personal sympathy between himself and Jahveh, by virtue 

 of which the God-sent thought approves itself to him 

 inwardly, and not by mere external authority. In this 

 conclusion lies the key to the position of the believing 

 school of critics. History deals with persons, not with 

 things. The historical interest of prophecy does not 

 lie in tracing a sharp line of separation between the Divine 

 and human, but in realizing the personal union of these 

 two factors in the evolution of Israel s history. And so 

 the prophet presents himself to the critical inquirer, less in 

 the light of one who is the passive subject of supernatural 

 influence, than as a man whose life and thoughts are 

 determined by personal fellowship with Jahveh and by 

 intelligent insight into his purpose. No doubt what is 

 personal always rests on a background of the non-personal, 

 a background of merely physical elements which are 



