Image-worship was very speedily followed by idolatry,--which is, however, in like manner, not to be looked upon in the light of an undisguised opposition to the true God. Such an opposition took place during the reign of only one king--Ahab--under whom the matter was carried to an extreme. Holy Scripture, however, with a total disregard of the whole multitude of miserable excuses ordinarily made, designates as _direct_ apostasy from God, everything which was substantially such, although it did not outwardly manifest itself as such. Externally, they remained faithful to Jehovah; they celebrated His feasts,--they offered the sacrifices prescribed in the Pentateuch,--they regulated, in general, all the religious institutions according to the requirements there laid down, as may be proved from the Books of Kings, and, still more plainly, from Amos and Hosea. But in all this they discovered a method by which light and darkness, the worship of idols with that of the Lord, might be combined. Nor was this discovery so very difficult, since their eye was not single. They had before them the examples of heathen nations, who were quite prepared reciprocally to acknowledge their deities, in all of whom they recognised only different forms of manifestation of one and the same divine being; and they were quite willing to extend this acknowledgment even to the God of Israel also, as long as they did not meet with intolerance on the part of those who professed to worship Him, and were therefore not roused to the practice of intolerance in return. This reciprocal recognition of their deities by the nations in the midst of whom the Israelites lived, is sufficiently evident from the circumstance, that they all called their highest deity by the same name--Baal--and expressed, by some epithet, only the form of manifestation peculiar to each. Now, the Israelites imagined that they might be able, at one and the same time, to satisfy the demands of their God, and to propitiate [Pg 177] the idols of the neighbouring mighty nations--especially of the Phœnicians--if they removed the wall of separation betwixt the two. Jehovah and Baal were, in their view, identical as to their essence. The former was that mode of manifestation peculiar to them, and the main object of their worship according to the method prescribed by Himself in His revelation. But the latter was not to be neglected; inasmuch as they imagined that they might thereby become partakers of the blessings which this form of manifestation of the deity was able to bestow. And thus to Jehovah they gave the name of Baal also, Hos. ii. 18 (16); they celebrated the days appointed by Jehovah, ver. 13 (11), but those also devoted to Baalim, ver. 15 (13). In this way we receive an explanation of the fact which, at first sight, is so startling, viz., that according to Hosea and Amos, all is filled with the service of Baal; while the Books of Kings would lead us to think that, with the reign of Ahab, the dominion of