The chief Hebrew god Jahweh, when we first catch a passing glimpse of his primitive worship by his own people, was but one among a number of competing deities, mostly, it would appear, embodied by their votaries in the visible form of stone or wooden pillars, and adored by a small group of loosely-connected tribes among the mountain region in the southwest of Syria. The confederacy among {155}whom he dwelt knew themselves as the Sons of Israel; they regarded Jahweh as their principal god, much as the Greeks did Zeus, or the early Teutons their national hero Woden. But a universal tradition among them bore witness to the fact that they had once lived in a subject condition in Egypt, the house of bondage, and that their god Jahweh had been instrumental in leading them thence into the rugged land they inhabited throughout the whole historical period, between the valley of Jordan and the Mediterranean coast. So consistent and so definite was this traditional belief that we can hardly regard it otherwise than as enclosing a kernel of truth; and not only do Kuenen and other Semitic scholars of the present day admit it as genuine, but the Egyptologists also seem generally to allow its substantial accuracy and full accord with hieroglyphic literature. This sojourn in Egypt cannot have failed to influence to some extent the Semitic strangers: therefore I shall begin my quest of the Hebrew god among the Egyptian monuments. Admitting that he was essentially in all respects a deity of the true Semitic pattern, I think it will do us good to learn a little beforehand about the people among whom his votaries dwelt so long, especially as the history of the Egyptian cults affords us perhaps the best historical example of the growth and development of a great national religion.