I909-] AND THE ORIGIN OF JUDAISM. 361 



Mount Sinai, the sacred mountain of Alidian, must have been a 

 volcano. When the Edomite ancestors of the Jews came to Mount 

 Sinai after the exodus from Egypt, there were thunders-* and 

 Hghtnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the 

 trumpet exceeding loud. . . And Mount Sinai was altogether on a 

 smoke . . . and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a 

 furnace, and the whole mount C|uaked greatly. This passage 

 (Exodus, xix., i6. i8) describes a volcanic eruption accompanied by 

 earthquakes and thunderstorms. The voice of the trumpet (or 

 rather ram's horn)-^ denotes the subterraneous roaring, rumbling, 

 and thundering accompanying a volcanic eruption or earthquake. 

 Homer (//. xxi., 388) uses trumpeting for thundering.-^ We use 

 blare not only of a sound like that of a trumpet, but also of a loud 

 or bellowing noise. We speak of the blare of trumpets and the 

 blare of thunder. In Babylonian omen tablets the blare of thunder 

 is compared to the voices of various animals: rams, asses, horses, 

 hogs, lions, dogs, rats, chickens and other birds, etc.-" Pliny 

 (ii., 193) says that earthquakes are preceded or accompanied by a 

 terrible noise which resembles either a murmuring, or a roaring, or 

 the shouting of men, or the clangor of arms (praecedit vero coniita- 

 turqiie terribilis sonus, alias munnuri siniilis, alias mugitibus aut 

 clamori humano armorumque fragori). A Winchester physician 

 said of the recent seismic shocks in Virginia at the beginning of this 

 month (April, 1909) : I felt two earthquake shocks. They were 

 like the boom of heavy cannon fired in quick succession, and were 

 followed by a loud roaring and rumbling. The earth trembled, and 

 my house swayed perceptibly. 



In the same way the walls of Jericho, which were excavated a 



-* Lit. voices; the plural is intensive; compare above, page 360, note 21. 

 Thunder was regarded as the voice of God. 



^ See the cuts in the Appendix on the Music of the Ancient Hebrews 

 in the translation of the Psalms, in the Polychrome Bible, page 222 ; compare 

 the translation of Joshua, page 63. 



"" Compare also the various uses of Lat. fremitus, sonitus, strepitus; 

 Greek Kkayyi], Krinrnc, I3p6/in(^ etc. See my paper on the Trumpets of Jericho 

 in- the Vienna Oriental Journal, igog. 



"See J. Hunger, Babylonische Ticromina nchst gricchisch-rdmischcn 

 raraUclen (Berlin, 1909) page 168. 



