book. It did not occur to the writer that by this regulation he made the prophet superfluous and opened the way to the scribe, the interpreter of the written document. No more did he see that his emphasis of the Jerusalem sanctuary would put enormous power into the hands of the hierarchy, the guild which had the temple already in possession.

The fundamental character of the Deuteronomic requirement of a single sanctuary must be evident. What is of equal importance is that the sacrifices are now first legitimated in an ostensibly prophetic document. The earlier prophets had denounced burnt offerings and sacrifices, tithes, and free-will offerings as indifferent or even abhorrent to Yahweh. But the Deuteronomist enjoins them as equally important with justice and mercy. Tradition was undoubtedly on his side. The earlier narratives had pointed out that the sanctuaries were places of worship for the patriarchs, and that they had sacrificed there. The earlier codes also had enjoined that all Israelites should appear before Yahweh three times in the year, and that they should not come empty-handed. The eating and drinking and rejoicing before Yahweh which had scandalised Amos and Isaiah, and which Hosea had identified with spiritual adultery, is now made a part of the law of Yahweh. It is, to be sure, purified from some of its more notorious abuses, and its concentration at the central sanctuary made it more amenable to police supervision. Further, the ritual requirement is combined with the ethical, and the attempt is made to use the sacrifices for humanitarian purposes. The tithe is no longer simply a tribute to Yahweh; it is to be given to the poor and needy, they being in some sense his clients. Every third year it is to be wholly used in this way, while on those occasions when it is brought to the sanctuary it is to be shared liberally with the dependent classes (14 : 28 f.). This combination of ritual and ethical requirements was of practical importance, for, as we have seen, the comparative failure of the older prophets is explained by the fact that

they made no allowance for the human longing for ritual. The adoption of the ritual by the Deuteronomists and its concentration at Jerusalem created, we may say, a church which was able to survive the destruction of the national life.

The doctrine of rewards and punishments which underlies the book and which comes frequently into distinct expression is a deduction from the preaching of the earlier prophets. That preaching had constantly threatened national disaster as the consequence of national disobedience. Deuteronomy formulates the theory mechanically, we may say, and has no hesitation in giving details. The frequent phrase, "that thy days may be long in the land," is only one example. More explicit is the promise that the rain on which the productivity of the land depends will be sent in case the law is obeyed, and withheld if other gods are worshipped (11:13-16). The fullest statement of the theory is found in the list of blessings in the twenty-eighth chapter, which is followed by an even more elaborate catalogue of curses. It is possible that a precedent existed for the series of curses in some ancient custom performed at Mount Gerizim (11 29; 27: 11-26; cf. Joshua 8: 30-35). The full force of these curses came home to the people who endured the calamities of siege and exile in the time of Nebuchadrezzar, and the sense of sin so prominent in postexilic Judaism arose from combining the words of Deuteronomy with the disasters which came so soon after its promulgation.

It was of importance for the later development of religion that the earlier history of Israel was rewritten, or at least re-edited, under Deuteronomic influence. According to the view of the Deuteronomic editors all the calamities of the people in the past had come from their lack of conformity to the Deuteronomic standard. The almost rhythmical succession of victory and disaster in the book of Judges is made to teach this lesson. Oppression by the enemy regularly follows apostasy from Yahweh, while repentance is as regu

larly followed by deliverance (Judges 2: 10-19). In the books of Kings we are repeatedly informed that the people sacrificed at the high places even after the temple was built, and the prophets who are introduced in those books to rebuke the people or the rulers enforce the thought that this defection from Yahweh is the cause of their calamities. The whole story, from the time of Joshua down, is made the dark picture of religious declension relieved by a few bright spots.

To point the contrast the history of the conquest was rewritten to show that Joshua was a worthy successor of Moses, and strictly true to the Deuteronomic programme. What actually took place at the conquest we know from the fragment preserved in the first chapter of Judges. Israelites and Canaanites amalgamated, and it was not until the time of Solomon that the Israelite element became predominant. But the Deuteronomist, to whom everything Canaanitish is an abomination, makes Joshua exterminate the earlier inhabitants, saving alive nothing that breathed. The only exception was made by the Gibeonites and their allies, and they obtained their treaty by fraud. The neglect of the Israelite leaders to take counsel of Yahweh in this case is censured, with the implication that the covenant would not have been allowed had he been consulted. The conclusion of the account is the unhistorical statement that Joshua reduced his new allies to slavery.1

The number of hands that must have been employed in this reconstruction of the history shows the extent of the influence which Deuteronomy exerted in the exilic and postexilic period. Henceforth Israel was the people of a book.

1 Joshua 9: 15 and 26 f. On the extermination of the Canaanites, cf. 10 40; 11: 17; 6: 17-24; 7: 12-26.

CHAPTER XI

EZEKIEL

IN the death of the state of Judah it might seem to the onlooker that the battle for a purer Yahweh religion had been lost. But while the disintegration in Palestine was for the time complete, there was a spot far in the East where the ideas to which the prophets had given expression were cherished. This was the district in Babylonia where the exiles, carried away in 597, were settled. These exiles seem to have had some sort of civil organisation of their own. They were permitted to build houses, to plant gardens, and to consult each other concerning their common interests. At first their cohesion was secured by the hope of an early return, a hope which was fostered by prophets of their own as well as by messages from Jerusalem. When this hope was rudely shattered by the fall of their beloved city they were still united by the bond of religion. Their faith in Yahweh was, at least in the case of the more earnest, strengthened by the fact that the words of the prophets had been fulfilled.

The most drastic expression of Yahweh's threats was, as we have seen, that contained in the book of Deuteronomy. For the future of Judaism it was an important fact that by the fulfilment of these threats this book was more firmly fixed in the regard of the exiles. Other thoughts expressed in it were calculated to appeal to them. The strange customs of the people among whom they found themselves living would justify Deuteronomy's condemnation of all heathenism. Not less important was the assertion that Yahweh had made Israel his own by a deliberate act of

choice. His truth and righteousness, emphasised by the calamity which had fallen, gave ground for believing that he would not refuse to hear the prayer of the penitent who should turn to him with all their heart. The soil was thus prepared by Deuteronomy for the establishment of a new type of religion, and the man to cultivate the soil was not lacking.

This man was Ezekiel, to us one of the least sympathetic of the Old Testament characters. We Occidentals of the twentieth century find it difficult to understand his exaggerated visions, his fits of silence, and his grotesque actions. Yet he was only the complete example of a man possessed by the prophetic ideal. His visions differ from those of the other prophets only in their pitiless distinctness of detail; his actions only carry out to logical sequence the belief that the prophet's actions are a part of his message. The point in which he differed from his predecessors is due to the influence of Deuteronomy. What he receives from Yahweh is a book (Ezek. 2: 8 to 3:3). In a sense we may call him the first of the scribes, the exponent of a written revelation. And since he was of priestly birth and training, it is clear that the ritual element in Deuteronomy is the one that most distinctly appealed to him. The priestly ideal, embodied in the word sanctity, was already emphasised by the Deuteronomist. Ezekiel reveals his own point of view when he protests his own scrupulosity in the matter of ritual cleanliness (4:14). From this point of view we must interpret his work.

Ezekiel most distinctly influenced his people by his plans for the future. But before these could be fully appreciated the prophet had a destructive work to do. This was to rid the exiles of many cherished notions. The prophetic ideal had never really impressed the great mass of the people. By Ezekiel it was so firmly held that he demanded a complete break with the past. Not that he had ceased to be an Israelite; the God whom he worshipped was the ancestral God, Yahweh, who in the most literal sense had taken up