The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 02 : $b Israel, India, Persia, Phoenicia, Minor Nations of Western Asia
History
The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 02 : $b Israel, India, Persia, Phoenicia, Minor Nations of Western Asia
World history
Many features of the sacred tradition show that the worship of Jehovah
was originally foreign to Israel. To ancient Israel Jehovah dwells
on Sinai, which, therefore, is the original seat of his worship.
Moreover, confused as the accounts may seem in some particulars, the
old tradition explicitly states that Moses, who imposes the worship
of Jehovah upon Israel, is the son-in-law of the priest of an Arabian
race; that is, that the priesthood of Moses and Levi is connected with
an older non-Israelitish Jehovah priesthood.
This father-in-law of Moses is called in Exodus iii. 1, Jethro the
priest of the Midianites, and in Exodus ii. 18, Reuel. Exodus xviii.
contains a fairly authentic account of Jethro by the Elohist, and yet
it is questionable whether this account really refers to him. It is,
however, probable. In Numbers x. 29, his name appears as Hobab. And
in Judges i. 16, the Kenites are brought into connection with the
father-in-law of Moses; Judges iv. 2 likewise calls Hobab, Moses’
father-in-law, a Kenite; he, therefore, should rather have been called
a priest of the Kenites.
That the Arabic or nomadic race, from which Moses borrowed the worship
of Jehovah, was the tribe of the Kenites, is proved by the later
history of this people, who henceforth are closely interwoven with the
worship of Jehovah.
According to Numbers x. 29, and Judges i. 16, the Kenites joined the
children of Israel in their journey to the land west of Jordan, and
according to the latter passage “they went up out of the city of
palm trees (Jericho), with the children of Judah into the wilderness
of Judah.” In the south of the district of Judah, we meet in the
earliest ages of the Kings a nomadic Kenite race, which was in friendly
relations with Judah (1 Samuel xxx.), although dwelling among the
Amalekites (1 Samuel xv. 6).
It is questionable whether, after such a definite proof as the latter
passages, it can be maintained that the Kenites were in alliance with
the Midianites, especially as the land of Midian lies on the east of
the Persian Gulf, and the Midianites at the time of the birth of the
Jewish kingdom lived on the east of Jordan.
In this connection may be cited the fact that a single Kenite clan was
nomadic in the north, and that Ephraim was, according to Judges v. 14,
of partly Amalekitish origin. Nevertheless these are all only surmises.
The scarcity of the records deprives us of any clear light on the
ancient ethnological relations.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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