398 LECTURES AND ESSAYS [1874- 



by the majority of the nation as late as the Exile, was 

 always viewed in Israel as an irregularity, so that even 

 those who worshipped false gods did not venture to name 

 their children after them. 



In discussing his second question, Dr. Nestle traces in 

 a very interesting way the character of the pious depend 

 ence on God expressed in the proper names. Many of 

 these refer to the child as the gift of God to the parents, 

 and it is a quaint, but no doubt just observation, that 

 as female children were less valued, this class of names 

 is exclusively masculine. Other names perpetuate the 

 religious significance of the birth of a son into the family 

 in various manners. God hath helped, God hath heard, 

 God hath remembered, and so forth. In other names 

 again the religious view of national concerns is expressed. 

 Such are many names of kings, for from Jehoshaphat the 

 kings of Judah always bore a name compounded with 

 Jahve so that Eliakim on his succession becomes Jeho- 

 jakim. The exceptions are the godless kings, Ahaz, 

 Manasseh, Amon ; and we have some reason to think 

 that these names may have been changed, as the monu 

 ments give to Ahaz the name of Jehoahaz. Special 

 attention is paid to the forms that combine the Divine 

 name with the notion of king and father, and it is shown 

 how many of the expressions of Old Testament piety in 

 psalms, the priestly blessing, and elsewhere, are reflected 

 in proper names. These observations, which do not 

 apply only to the later names, and which are supported 

 by the absence of names that present a naturalistic con 

 ception of deity, make it manifest that from the earliest 

 times the ethical truths of revealed religion had taken a 

 deep hold of the mass of the Israelites. However much 

 may remain uncertain in the details of Dr. Nestle s in 

 vestigation, this result can hardly be shaken ; and the 

 evidence which it bears against those who refuse to view 

 the corrupt nature worship of the eighth century as a 

 declension from an admitted standard of national religion 



