Israel; but this unity was not felt at certain periods of disorganization, and the idea of including Judah among the sons of Israel could not have arisen at a time when Israel and Judah were rival kingdoms.[1] In so far as the traditions can be read in the light of biblical history it is evident that they belong to different ages and represent different national, tribal, or local standpoints.
Another noteworthy feature is the interest taken in sacred sites. Certain places are distinguished by theophanies or by the erection of an altar (lit. place of sacrificial slaughter), and incidents are narrated with a very intelligible purpose. Mizpah in Gilead is the scene of a covenant Interest in holy places. or treaty between Jacob and his Aramaean relative commemorated by a pillar (Maṣṣēbah). It was otherwise known for an annual religious ceremony, the traditional origin of which is related in the story of Jephthah’s vow and sacrifice (Judg. xi.), and its priests are denounced by Hosea (v. i). Shechem, the famous city of the Samaritans (“the foolish nation,” Ecclus. I. 26), where Joseph was buried (Josh. xxiv. 32), had a sanctuary and a sacred pillar and tree. It was the scene of the coronation (a religious ceremony) of Abimelech (Judg. ix.), and Rehoboam (1 Kings xii. 1). The pillar was ascribed to Joshua (Josh. xxiv. 26 seq.), and although Jacob set up at Shechem an “altar,” the verb suggests that the original object was a pillar (Gen. xxxiii. 20). The first ancestor of Israel, on the other hand, is merely associated with a theophany at an oracular tree (xii. 6). The Benjamite Bethel was especially famous in Israelite religious history. The story tells how Jacob discovered its sanctity,—it was the gate of heaven,—made a covenant with its God, established the sacred pillar, and instituted its tithes (xxviii.). The prophetess Deborah dwelt under a palm-tree near Bethel (Judg. iv. 5), and her name is also that of the foster-mother of Rebekah who was buried near Bethel beneath the “oak of weeping” (xxxv. 8). Bochim (“weeping”) elsewhere receives its name when an angel appeared to the Israelites (Judg. ii. 1, Septuagint adds Bethel). To the prophets Hosea and Amos the cultus of Bethel was superstitious and immoral, even though it was Yahweh himself who was worshipped there (see Bethel). South of Hebron lay Beersheba, an important centre and place of pilgrimage, with a special numen by whom oaths were taken (Amos viii. 14, see Sept. and the commentaries). Isaac built its altar, and Isaac’s God guarded Jacob in his journeying (xxxi. 29, xlvi. 1). This patriarch and his “brother” Ishmael are closely associated with the district south of Judah, both are connected with Beer-lahai-roi (xxiv. 62, Sept. xxv. 11), whose fountain was the scene of a theophany (xvi.), and their traditions are thus localized in the district of Kadesh famous in the events of the Exodus (cf. xvi. 14, xxi. 21, xxv. 18, Ex. xv. 22). (See Exodus, The.) Abraham planted a sacred tree at Beersheba and invoked “the everlasting God” (xxi. 33). But the patriarch is more closely identified with Hebron, which had a sanctuary (cf. 2 Sam. xv. 7 seq.), and an altar which he built “unto Yahweh” (xiii. 18). The sacred oak of Mamre was famous in the time of Josephus (B. J. iv. 9, 7), it was later a haunt of “angels” (Sozomen), and Constantine was obliged to put down the heathenish cultus. The place still has its holy tree. Beneath the oak there appeared the three divine beings, and in the cave of Machpelah the illustrious ancestor and his wife were buried. The story of his descent into Egypt and the plaguing of Pharaoh is a secondary insertion (xii. 10-xiii. 2), and where the patriarch appears at Beersheba it is in incidents which tend to connect him with his “son” Isaac. There is a very distinct tendency to emphasize the importance of Hebron. Taken from primitive giants by the non-Israelite clan Caleb (q.v.) it has now become predominant in the patriarchal traditions. Jacob leaves his dying father at Beersheba (xxviii. 10), but according to the latest source he returns to him at Hebron (xxxv. 27), and here, north of Beersheba, he continues to live (xxxvii. 14, xlvi. 1-5). The cave of Machpelah became the grave of Isaac, Rebekah and Leah (but not Rachel); and though Jacob appears to be buried beyond the Jordan, it is the latest source which places his grave at Hebron (l. 1-11 and 12 seq.). So in still later tradition, all the sons of Jacob with the exception of Joseph find their last resting-place at Hebron, and in Jewish prayers for the dead it is besought that their souls may be bound up with those of the patriarchs, or that they may go to the cave of Machpelah and thence to the Cherubim.[2] The increasing prominence of the old Calebite locality is not the least interesting phase in the comparative study of the patriarchal traditions.
The association of the ancestors of Israel with certain sites is a feature which finds analogies even in modern Palestine. There are old centres of cult which have never lost the veneration of the people; the shrines are known as the tombs of saints or walis (patrons) with such orthodox names as St George, Elijah, &c. Traditions justify the reputation for sanctity, and not only are similar stories told of distinct figures, but there are varying traditions of a single figure.[3] The places have retained their sacred character despite political and religious vicissitudes; they are far older than their present names, and such is the conservatism of the east that it is not surprising when, for example, a sacred tomb at Gezer stands quite close to the site of an ancient holy place, about 3000 years old, the existence of which was first made known in the course of excavation. Genesis preserves a selection of traditions relating to a few of the old Palestinian centres of cult. We cannot suppose that these first gained their sacred character in the pre-Mosaic “patriarchal” age; there is in any case the obvious difficulty of bridging the gap between the descent into Egypt and the Exodus, and it is clear that when the Israelites entered Palestine they came among a people whose religion, tradition and thought were fully established. It is only in accordance with analogy if stories were current in Israel of the institution of the sacred places, and closer study shows that we do not preserve the original version of these traditions.[4]
A venerated tree in modern Palestine will owe its sanctity to some tradition, associating it, it may be, with some saint; the Israelites in their turn held the belief that the sacred tree at Hebron was one beneath which their first ancestor sat when three divine beings revealed themselves to him. But it is noteworthy that Yahweh alone is now prominent; the tradition has been revised, apparently in writing, and, later, the author of Jubilees (xvi.) ignores the triad. At Beer-lahai-roi an El (“god”) appeared to Hagar, whence the name of her child Ishmael; but the writer prefers the unambiguous proper name Yahweh, and, what is more, the divine being is now Yahweh’s angel—the Almighty’s subordinate (xvi.). The older traits show themselves partly in the manifestation of various Els, and partly in the cruder anthropomorphism of the earlier sources. Later hands have by no means eliminated or modified them altogether, and in xxxi. 53 one can still perceive that the present text has endeavoured to obscure the older belief that the God of Abraham was not the God of his “brother” Nahor (see the commentaries). The sacred pillar erected by Jacob at Bethel was solemnly anointed with oil, and it (and not the place) was regarded as the abode of the Deity (xxviii. 18, 22). This agrees with all that is known of stone-cults, but it is quite obvious that this interesting example of popular belief is far below the religious ideas of the writer of the chapter in its present form.[5] There were many places where it could be said that Yahweh had recorded his name and would bless his worshippers (Ex. xx. 24). They were abhorrent to the advanced ethical teaching of prophets and of those imbued with the spirit of Deuteronomy (cf. 2 Kings xviii. 4 with v. 22), and it is patent from Jeremiah,
- ↑ In 2 Sam. xix. 43 (original text) the men of Israel claim to be the first-born rather than Judah; cf. 1 Chron. v. 1 seq., where the birthright (after Reuben was degraded) is explicitly conferred upon Joseph (Ephraim and Manasseh).
- ↑ Cf. Josephus, Antiq. ii. 8, 2; Test. of xii. Patriarchs; Acts vii. 16 (where Shechem is an error); Oesterley and Box, Religion and Worship of the Synagogue, pp. 340 seq.; M. G. Dampier, in Church and Synagogue (1909), p. 78.
- ↑ See J. P. Peters, Early Heb. Story (1904), pp. 81 sqq.; S. A. Cook, Relig. of Anc. Palestine (1908), pp. 19 sqq.
- ↑ In like manner the Babylonian story of the flood has been revised and adapted to the Hebrew Noah (cf. Nippur, ad fin.).
- ↑ The writer in Jub. xxvii. 27 treats the pillar as a “sign.” Another useful example of revision is to be found in Josh. xxii., where what was regarded (by a reviser) as an object unworthy of the religion of Yahweh is now merely commemorative.
