[335] It may be urged that the moral character given to Yahweh was the creation of the moral consciousness of his worshipers; but even so, this conception of deity once formed would inevitably react upon the moral sense to deepen and purify the feelings that gave it birth. [336] _Geschichte des Volkes Israel_ (1889), Bd. i, S. 429. [337] Budde, _Religion of Israel to the Exile_ (1899), pp. 35 ff.; Toy, _Judaism and Christianity_ (1891), p. 307; W. Robertson Smith, _The Religion of the Semites_ (1894), pp. 75 ff. [338] W. Robertson Smith urges that sacrifice among the Hebrews had its origin in the sacramental communal idea. According to this belief the clansmen and their god are of the same stock, and the bond of kinship is renewed and strengthened through the human and the divine members of the community partaking together of the flesh and blood of an animal slain. [339] Job iii. 19. [340] Eccl. ix. 5; and so ix. 10: “For there is no work, nor desire, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in Sheol, whither thou goeth.” [341] Is. xxxviii. 18. [342] See below, pp. 165 f. [343] Cf. Chapter II. [344] The oldest form of the Decalogue is found in Ex. xxxiv; cf. Ex. xxxiii. [345] If we compare the morality of this Hebrew Decalogue with that of the Egyptian Negative Confession, we shall find it to belong to about the same stage of ethical development. [346] In the Book of Judges are preserved some traditions which are illustrative of the moral state of society at this time; for though all the details of these stories may not be historical, still they doubtless reflect the general condition of things during this period. There is a striking similarity between these traditions of gross and incredible crimes and the traditions of the atrocious immoralities of the Merovingian Age in European history. [347] The kingdom of Israel was destroyed by the Assyrian power 722 B.C.; the kingdom of Judah fell before Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, 586 B.C. [348] Cf. Kuenen, _The Prophets and Prophecy in Israel_. [349] _The Prophets and Prophecy in Israel_ (1877), p. 344. [350] Cf. 1 Kings xxi--the story of Naboth’s vineyard. [351] “The life-work of Elijah was a turning-point in the history of the religion of Israel, similar in its consequences to those which followed the appearance of Zarathustra in Iran.... It was the ethical idea of God matured in the soul of the prophet by the need of his time which broke through with irresistible power to the demand for a final choice between Jehovah, the holy God, and the unholy nature gods of the heathen.”--PFLEIDERER, _Religions and Historic Faiths_ (1907), pp. 225 f. [352] _History of the People of Israel_ (1892), vol. ii, p. 275. [353] Calamities were at this time befalling Israel. “The national distress served to awaken Israel’s conscience. The obligation covenanted at Sinai knocked again at the door of their hearts” (Budde, _Religion of Israel to the Exile_ (1899), p. 93). [354] Amos iii. 10.