THE RELATION OF SEMITICS TO RELIGION 81 



ter at Gibeon, and chased them by the way of the ascent of Beth- 

 horon, and smote them to Azekah. . . . And it came to pass as they 

 fled from before Israel . . . that Yahwe cast down great stones 

 from heaven upon them . . . and they died. They were more who 

 died with the hailstones than they whom the children of Israel slew 

 with the sword." Such a passage has no longer a unique claim upon 

 our confidence. We must now place side by side with narratives like 

 these others supplied from the Babylonian archives, for example, 

 Ashur's response to Esarhaddon in the presence of his enemy the 

 Gimirrai. " Thou thy mouth hast opened. I thy distress have heard. 

 From the gate of heaven I will curse. Thou shalt stand within their 

 fortress. Before thee I shall arise. To the mountains I shall chase 

 them. Stones of destruction I shall rain down upon them. Thy foes 

 I shall cut off, with their blood I shall fill the river." As Yahwe 

 fought for Joshua and the kings of Israel, so Ashur fought for Esar- 

 haddon and the kings of Assyria. When King Mesha of Moab saw 

 that the Israelites were winning the day, the only strategy he knew 

 was to sacrifice his son upon the walls of the city to his offended god, 

 " and lo! the battle was stayed. There was great indignation against 

 Israel and they departed from the king of Moab and returned unto 

 their own land." Israel's god and Moab's god are seen in this story 

 to be twin deities, bone of the same bone, and flesh of the same 

 flesh, as the relationship of Moab and Israel might have led us to 

 expect. It matters not that the sacrifice of children died out in 

 Israel before it did among the people of Moab. 



As we read the Hebrew scriptures in the light of the larger litera- 

 ture of the Semitic peoples, we find more and more justification for 

 the significant attempt made years ago by Robertson Smith when he 

 undertook to treat " The Religion of the Semites " as a whole. We see 

 more reason for laying stress upon the human side which was empha- 

 sized by the Mutazilites in their theory of the origin of the Quran. 



Let us look for a moment at Prophecy in the light of this new 

 view we are learning from Semitics. Prophecy is more and more 

 seen to be the outcome of the conflicts and milling of kingdoms. 

 Political conditions, social conditions, moral sentiments, and patriotic 

 impulses on the one hand, on the other hand the prevailing con- 

 ception of Yahwe, who has not yet outgrown all the features of his 

 early tribal origin. These were its inspiration and are the most 

 evident facts in its explanation. It presents on its ethical side some 

 of the very best that is in our Bible. Its authors often walk on 

 moral heights far above their fellows, at times appear to soar in the 

 serene sublimities of the spiritual world. But how clearly we see the 

 play of situation and circumstance in the uttered message ! 



Look at Amos, the prophet of law. He learned a simple science 

 of nature as he trod the plains by day and tented beneath the stars 



