Having thus briefly sketched out the gradual changes which the conception of Jahweh himself underwent during the ages when his supremacy was being slowly established in the confederacy of Israel, let us now hark back once more and attack the final problem, Why did the particular cult of Jahweh become at last exclusive and monotheistic? To begin with, we must remember that from the very outset of the national existence, Jahweh was clearly regarded on all hands as the _ethnical_ god, the special god of Israel. The relation of such ethnical gods to their people has been admirably worked out by Dr. Robertson Smith in _The Religion of the Semites_. Even though we cannot, however, accept as historical the view given us of the exodus in the Pentateuch, nor admit that Jahweh played anything like so large a part in the great national migration as is there indicated, it is yet obvious that from the moment when Israel felt itself a nation at all, Jahweh was recognised as its chief deity. He was the “god of Israel,” just as Milcom was the god of the Ammonites, Chemosh the god of Moab, and Ashtaroth the goddess of Sidon. As distinctly as every Athenian, while worshipping Zeus and Hera and Apollo, held Athene to be the special patron of Athens, so did every Israelite, while worshipping the Baalim and the Molech and the local deities generally, hold Jahweh to be the special patron of Israel. Moreover, from the very beginning, there is reason to suppose that the Israelites regarded Jahweh as their supreme god. Most pantheons finally settle down into a recognised hierarchy, in which one deity or another gradually assumes the first place. So, in Hellas, the supremacy of Zeus was undoubted; so, in Rome, was the supremacy {215}of Jupiter. Sometimes, to be sure, as among our Teutonic ancestors, we see room for doubt between two rival gods: it would be difficult to assign the exact priority to either of the two leading deities: among the English, Woden rather bore it over Thunor; among the Scandinavians, Thor rather bore it over Odin. In Israel, in like manner, there was apparently a time when the Presidency of the Immortals hovered between Jahweh and one or other of the local Baalim. But in the end, and perhaps even from the very beginning, the suffrages of the people were mainly with the sacred stone of the ark. He was the God of Israel, and they were the chosen people of Jahweh.