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title are alike obscure: see the footnote. In P it is the signature of the patriarchal age (Ex. 6³); or rather it designates the true God as the patron of the Abrahamic covenant, whose terms are explicitly referred to in every passage where the name occurs in P (28³ 35¹¹ 48³). That it marks an advance in the revelation of the divine character can hardly be shown, though the words immediately following may suggest that the moral condition on which the covenant is granted is not mere obedience to a positive precept, but a life ruled by the ever-present sense of God as the ideal of ethical perfection.—Walk before me (cf. 24⁴⁰ 48¹⁵)] i.e., 'Live consciously in My presence,' 1 Sa. 12², Is. 38³; cf. 1 Jn. 1⁷.—perfect] or 'blameless'; see on 6⁹.—2. On the idea and scope of the covenant (Hebrew characters), see p. 297 f. below.—4. father of a multitude (lit. tumult) of nations] In substance the promise is repeated in 28³ 48⁴ ((Hebrew characters)) and 35¹¹ ((Hebrew characters)); the peculiar expression here anticipates the etymology of v.⁵. While J (12² 18¹8 46³) restricts the promise to Israel ((Hebrew characters)), P speaks of 'nations' in the plural, including the Ishmaelites and Edomites amongst the

least some support in Is. 13⁶, Jl. 1¹⁵, and is free from difficulty if we accept it as an ancient title appropriated by P without regard to its real significance. The assumption of a by-form (Hebrew characters) (Ew. Tu. al.) is gratuitous, and would yield a form (Hebrew characters), not (Hebrew characters). Other proposed etymologies are: from (Hebrew characters) originally = 'lord' (Ar. sayyid), afterwards = 'demon' (pointing (Hebrew characters) or (Hebrew characters) [pl. maj.]: Nö. ZDMG, xl. 735 f., xlii. 480 f.); from [root] (Hebrew characters) (Ar. ṯadā) = 'be wet' ('the raingiver': OTJC², 424); from Syr. (Syriac characters), 'hurl' (Schwally, ZDMG, lii. 136: "a dialectic equivalent of (Hebrew characters) in the sense of lightning-thrower" (Hebrew characters)). Vollers (ZA, xvii. 310) argues for an original (Hebrew characters) ([root] (Hebrew characters)), afterwards, through popular etymology and change of religious meaning, fathered on [root] (Hebrew characters). Several Assyriologists connect the word with šadû rabû, 'great mountain,' a title of Bêl and other Bab. deities (Homm. AHT, 109 f.; Zimmern, KAT³, 358): a view which would be more plausible if, as Frd. Del. (Prol. 95 f.) has maintained, the Ass. [root] meant 'lofty'; but this is denied by other authorities (Halevy, ZKF, ii. 405 ff.; Jen. ZA, i. 251). As to the origin of the name, there is a probability that (Hebrew characters) was an old (cf. Gn. 49²⁵) Canaanite deity, of the same class as 'El 'Elyôn (see on 14¹⁸), whom the Israelites identified with Yahwe (so Gu. 235).—4. (Hebrew characters) is casus pendens (Dri. T. § 197 (4)), not emphatic anticipation of following suff. (as G-K. § 135 f).