=1. The "Covenant" Relation was a Moral Conception.=--The usual religious conception is that of some blood or kin relation between people and deity. This has the same potential meaning and value as that of the other relations of group life outlined in Chapter II. But it is rather a natural than a "moral"--i.e., conscious and voluntary--tie. To conceive of the relation between god and people as due to voluntary choice, is to introduce a powerful agency toward making morality conscious. Whatever the origin of the idea, the significant fact is that the religious and moral leaders present the relation of Israel to Jehovah as based on a covenant. On the one hand, Jehovah protects, preserves, and prospers; on the other, Israel is to obey his laws and serve no other gods. This conception of mutual obligation is presented at the opening of the "Ten Commandments," and to this covenant relation the prophets again and again make appeal. The obligation to obey the law is not "This is the custom," or "Our fathers did so"; it is placed on the ground that the people has voluntarily accepted Jehovah as its god and lawgiver. The meaning of this covenant and the symbols by which it was conceived, changed with the advance of the social relationships of the people. At first Jehovah was "Lord of Hosts," protector in war, and giver of prosperity, and the early conceptions of the duty of the people seemed to include human sacrifice, at least in extreme cases. But with later prophets we find the social and family relationship of husband and father brought increasingly into use. Whether by personal experience or by more general reflection, we find Hosea interpreting the relationship between God and his people in both of these family conceptions. The disloyalty of the people takes on the more intimate taint of a wife's unfaithfulness, and, conversely, in contrast to the concepts of other religions, the people may call Jehovah "my husband" and no longer "my master" (Baal). The change from status to contract is thus, in Israel's religion, fruitful with many moral results.