And what sort of god was this holy Jahweh himself, whom the Hebrews recognised from a very early time as emphatically and above all others “the God of Israel”? If ever he was envisaged as a golden bull, if ever he was regarded as the god of light, fire, or the sun, those concepts, I believe, must have been the result of a late transference of attributes and confusion of persons, such as we may see so rife in the more recent mystical religion of Egypt. What in his own nature Jahweh must have been in the earliest days of his nascent godhead I believe we can best judge by putting together some of the passages in old traditionary legend which bear most plainly upon his character and functions. In the legendary account of the earliest dealings of Jahweh with the Hebrew race, we are told that the ethnical god appeared to Abraham in Haran, and promised to make of him “a great nation.” Later on, Abraham complains of the want of an heir, saying to Jahweh, “Thou hast given me no seed.” Then Jahweh “brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven and tell the stars: so shall thy seed be.” Over and over again we get similar promises of fruitfulness made to Abraham: “I will multiply thee exceedingly”; “thou shalt be a father of many nations”; “I will make thee exceeding fruitful”; “kings shall come out of thee”; “for a father of many nations {193}have I made thee.” So, too, of Sarah: “she shall be a mother of nations; kings of people shall be of her.” And of Ishmael: “I have blessed him and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly: twelve princes shall he beget, and I will make him a great nation.” Time after time these blessings recur for Abraham, Isaac, and all his family: “I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the seashore, and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies.”