_2 Chron. 32:31_—“_God left him_ [Hezekiah], _to try him, that he might know all that was in his heart_”; _cf._ _Deut. 8:2_—“_that he might humble thee, to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart._” _Ps. 17:13, 14_—“_Deliver my soul from the wicked, who is thy sword, from men who are thy hand, O Jehovah_”; _Ps. 81:12, 13_—“_So I let them go after the stubbornness of their heart, That they might walk in their own counsels. Oh that my people would hearken unto me!_” _Is. 53:4, 10_—“_Surely he hath borne our griefs.... Yet it pleased Jehovah to bruise him._” _Hosea 4:17_—“_Ephraim __ Ephraim is joined to idols; let him alone_”; _Acts 14:16_—“_who in the generations gone by suffered all the nations to walk in their own ways_”; _Rom. 1:24, 28_—“_God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts unto uncleanness... God gave them up unto a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not fitting_”; _3:25_—“_to show his righteousness, because of the passing over of the sins done aforetime, in the forbearance of God._” To this head of permissive providence is possibly to be referred _1 Sam. 18:10_—“_an evil spirit from God came mightily upon Saul._” As the Hebrew writers saw in second causes the operation of the great first Cause, and said: “_The God of glory thundereth_” (_Ps. 29:3_), so, because even the acts of the wicked entered into God’s plan, the Hebrew writers sometimes represented God as doing what he merely permitted finite spirits to do. In _2 Sam. 24:1_, God moves David to number Israel, but in _1 Chron. 21:1_ the same thing is referred to Satan. God’s providence in these cases, however, may be directive as well as permissive. Tennyson, The Higher Pantheism: “God is law, say the wise; O Soul, and let us rejoice, For if he thunder by law the thunder is yet his voice.” Fisher, Nature and Method of Revelation, 56—“The clear separation of God’s efficiency from God’s permissive act was reserved to a later day. All emphasis was in the Old Testament laid upon the sovereign power of God.” Coleridge, in his Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit, letter II, speaks of “the habit, universal with the Hebrew doctors, of referring all excellent or extraordinary things to the great first Cause, without mention of the proximate and instrumental causes—a striking illustration of which may be found by comparing the narratives of the same events in the Psalms and in the historical books.... The distinction between the providential and the miraculous did not enter into their forms of thinking—at any rate, not into their mode of conveying their thoughts.” The woman who had been slandered rebelled when told that God had permitted it for her good; she maintained that Satan had inspired her accuser; she needed to learn that God had permitted the work of Satan.