attend, we can see this quite clearly. Wisdom and understanding mean, for Israel, the love of order, of righteousness. Righteousness, order, conduct, is for Israel at once the source of all man's happiness, and at the same time the very essence of The Eternal. The great work of the Eternal is the foundation of this order in man, the implanting in mankind of his own love of righteousness, his own spirit, his own wisdom and understanding; and it is only as a farther and natural working of this energy that Israel conceives the establishment of order in the world, or creation. 'To depart from evil, that is understanding! Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding! The Eternal by wisdom hath founded the earth, by understanding hath he established the heavens;'[1] and so the Bible-writer passes into the account of creation. It all comes to him from the idea of righteousness.
And it is the same with all the language our Hebrew religionist uses. God is a father, because the power in and around us, which makes for righteousness, is indeed best described by the name of this authoritative but yet tender and protecting relation. So, too, with the intense fear and abhorrence of idolatry. Conduct, righteousness, is, above all, a matter of inward motion and rule. No sensible forms can represent it, or help us to it; such attempts at representation can only distract us from it. So, too, with the sense of the oneness of God. 'Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is one Lord.'[2] People think that in this unity of God, this monotheistic idea, as they call it, they have certainly got metaphysics at last. They have got nothing of the kind. The monotheistic idea of Israel is simply seriousness. There are, indeed, many aspects of the not ourselves; but Israel regarded one aspect of it only, that by which it makes for righteousness. He had the advantage,
