As everything without exception is placed in direct relationship with God in the Old Testament, all is said to emanate from God; the cedars of Lebanon are the cedars of God;[123] men of great stature, the giants, are called in Genesis sons of God; the knowledge of nature and of natural things which Solomon possessed is called the wisdom of God; the discretion of a judge and the gains of a merchant are the gifts of God; Assyria is the scourge of God, and the lightning His arrows. And Spinoza asks: why are the children of Israel called God’s chosen people? Because the Lord, having delivered them out of Pharaoh’s hands, led them into the land of Canaan, where they lived under the laws revealed to Moses, to which the surrounding nations were not subject. “I will be your God, and ye shall be My people,” Jehovah had said by the mouth of Moses. This was the covenant concluded on Mount Sinai between the Lord God and the Jewish nation. These laws, which were at the same time civil and religious, were included under the general term, the Law of the Lord, and the Book containing these precepts was called the Word of God. According to an ancient tradition, God revealed to Noah seven precepts which corresponded to commandments given generally to all mankind without distinction of race; there was thus perhaps a revelation given at the beginning of time, even before the first and greatest of the prophets, Moses; and this revelation the patriarchs knew. The light which lightens every man born into the world impressed these first precepts on the human heart; to the Jewish race it seemed perhaps improbable that a divine law not promulgated by a human mouth nor delivered in the name of the God of Israel, could be imposed on man; as Moses was permitted to hear God’s voice amongst the lightnings and thunders, the Israelites considered themselves on a higher level than the rest of humanity, and held in less esteem eternal verities which were the possession of all mankind. Moses told them that after his death God would raise up a prophet amongst them on condition that they should keep His Covenant and His Commandments to do them, and he warned them of the consequences of breaking these: “I testify against you this day that ye shall surely perish.” We find the second revelation in the books ascribed to Moses; written in our memory as distinctly as in the Bible; it has so entirely eclipsed the first that the greater number of us do not remember ever to have heard of the seven precepts of Noah.