Through what experiences and under what tuition these teachers of Israel made the passage in thought from polytheism to monolatrism we need not now inquire. For our purpose we need simply note the fact and emphasize its supreme historical importance. It marks the beginning of a divergent evolution in religious belief and ethical conviction which in the lapse of time was to lead Israel far apart from her Semitic kinsmen, and make her the standard bearer of a universal religion and a universal morality. For monolatry was with the prophets and seers of Israel only the first step toward monotheism, the doctrine that there is only one God, the Universal Father. This idea of deity was not reached much before the time of the Second Isaiah. Along with this later view of Yahweh there came the thought and conviction that he is a God of absolute righteousness. This conception of God and of his character was, as we shall see, an idea charged with the deepest significance not only for the ethical development in Israel but for the moral life of all mankind. [Sidenote: The belief in a supernaturally revealed law] After this conception of Yahweh, first as a jealous tribal deity and later as the sole God and Universal Father, the belief in a supernaturally revealed law wherein all the duties of man were made known was the most potent force in molding the moral ideal of Israel. It was this belief which made the chief duty of man to be unquestioning obedience to the divine commandments; for the revealed law was the measure of duty--what it enjoined was right, what it forbade was wrong. This investiture of an outer law, conceived to be of supernatural origin, with sovereign authority over man’s every act, and the subordination to it of the inner law of the individual conscience, had consequences of vast importance for the ethical evolution not only in ancient Israel but also among all the peoples whose moral ideal was essentially an inheritance from her. For where the full duty of man is made to consist in obedience to the minute requirements of an external law there is inevitably created a morality made up largely of artificial ritual duties, and as intelligence grows and the moral consciousness deepens and clarifies, there necessarily arises a conflict between this conventional morality and the natural morality of the human reason and conscience. In such a conflict, in this way created, within the moral life of Israel centers the dramatic interest of her moral history. [Sidenote: Special ground of the Israelites’ feeling that obedience to the law was their highest duty]