698 ECCLESIASTICAL INSTITUTIONS. 



Jahveh was one god among many, there were assertions of 

 universality of rule ; these were paralleled by assertions con 

 cerning certain gods of the Egyptians nay, by assertions 

 concerning a living Pharaoh, of whom it is said &quot;no place 

 is without thy goodness. Thy sayings are the law of every 

 land. . . . Thou hast millions of ears. . . . Whatsoever is 

 done in secret, thy eye seeth it.&quot; Along with the 



limitations of Jahveh s authority in range, went limitations 

 of it in degree. There was no claim to omnipotence. Not 

 forgetting the alleged failure of his attempt personally to 

 slay Moses, we may pass on to the defeats of the Israelites 

 when they fought by his advice, as in two battles with the 

 Benjaminites, and as in a battle with the Philistines when 

 &quot;the ark of God was taken&quot; (1 Sam. iv, 3-10). And 

 then, beyond this, we are told that though &quot; the Lord was 

 with Judah,&quot; he &quot;could not drive out the inhabitants of 

 the valley, because they had chariots of iron.&quot; (Judges i, 

 19.) That is, there were incapacities equalling those attri 

 buted by other peoples to their gods. Similarly 

 with intellectual and moral nature. Jahveh receives informa 

 tion ; he goes to see whether reports are true ; he repents of 

 what he has done all implying anything but omniscience. 

 Like Egyptian and Assyrian kings, he continually lauds 

 himself ; and while saying &quot; I will not give my glory to 

 another&quot; (Isai. xlviii, 11), he describes himself as jealous, as 

 revengeful, and as a merciless destroyer of enemies. Jtie 

 .sends a lying spirit to mislead a king, as Zeus does to 

 Agamemnon (2 Chron. xviii, 20-2) ; by his own account 

 he will deceive a prophet that he may prophesy falsely, 

 intending then to destroy him (Ezekiel xiv, 9) ; he hardens 

 men s hearts that he may inflict evils on them for what they 

 then do ; and, as when he prompts David to number Israel, 

 suggests a supposed sin that he may afterwards punish those 

 who have not committed it. He acts as did the Greek gods ; 

 from whom bad impulses were supposed to come, and who 

 were similarly indiscriminate in their revenges. 



