MODIFICATIONS IN THE IDEA OF GOD, ETC. 51 



the idea of God. Modern criticism does not permit us any 

 longer to assume the historical or chronological accuracy of 

 the Hebrew narratives. But until it has substituted a clear 

 and incontrovertible account of the growth of Hebrew 

 religious ideas for the statements of the Hebrew authorities 

 themselves it cannot forbid us to make use of their contents. 

 They represent to us an Israelite, brought up in the Egyptian 

 court, and enjoying the best possible opportunities of becoming 

 familiarized with contemporary Egyptian civilization and 

 thought. Driven from the land of his birth by palace intrigues, 

 he takes refuge in the Sinaitic peninsula and becomes a 

 shepherd. We may be sure that this highly educated and 

 cultured man — a man who, as the narratives also do not fail to 

 point out, possessed high and conspicuous ability — must have 

 pondered long and earnestly upon religious and political 

 problems. One day he beholds a marvel in the desert. The 

 Deity, we are told, appears to him by a sign, and reveals 

 Himself as the Eternal — the Ever-existing. I am aware that 

 the view that Jehovah, or more properly Jahveh, is simply the 

 tbird person singular of the imperfect* tense of the Hebrew verb 

 signifying "to be" has been and is contested. But when critics 

 differ one may be allowed to introduce other considerations 

 beside mere criticism. One may, for instance, be justified in 

 contending that the founder of a famous religion and a famous 

 polity may not improbably have been a great man, and tliat, 

 from whatever source his ideas were derived, he may reason- 

 ably be supposed to have imprinted some grand religious 

 ideas indelibly upon the heart and conscience of the race 

 from which he arose and to which he was sent. What more 

 important idea could he have imparted to the people which 

 have been destined to exercise so vast an iniiuence upon the 

 other peoples of the earth than this : that the Being they 

 had worshipped as Might — Might to produce and save, and 

 Might to destroy — was the Eternal Existence Itself, and 

 therefore the Fount of all Being, in other words, as He was 

 afterwards represented, the living God — li\dng for ever 

 in HiDiself and the Source of life in others ? f We are 



* I.e., the tense wliich represents unfinished action or condition, past, 

 pi'esent, or future. The notion, however, that this tense is really the 

 present tense, though not, I believe, in favour with Hebrew scholars at 

 the present moment, seems not unworthy of consideration. 



t He is being, i.e., He continues to be ; He has never had beginning 

 nor end. 



