and therefore for Yahweh. But the sequel impressed upon
the people the idea that Yahweh is a God of righteous
judgment. This same idea must have been fostered by
Moses' use of the oracle to settle disputes among his peo-
ple. A good while after Moses' time it was customary to
bring a man suspected of breach of trust to the sanctuary
and there test him by some sort of ordeal or by an oath
of purgation (Ex. 22:7-11). The tradition that Moses
referred the cases brought before him to the decision of
God indicates that this was ancient custom. It probably
indicates also that Moses himself was a righteous man, for
he could not have retained his hold on the confidence of the
people if he had not administered the oracle according to
justice.

It would be too much to say that from our point of view
the Yahweh of Moses' time had a perfect moral character.
That he was a thorough partisan so far as Israel's relations
to other peoples was concerned is shown by his taking part
in the wars. The enemies of Israel were also the enemies of
Yahweh. Even within the bounds of Israel itself he might
have his favourites. If his action seemed arbitrary no one
could call him to account, and he had full freedom to act
according to his good pleasure.

Although the founder of the religion of Israel, Moses was not in our sense of the word a monotheist. Probably he never considered the question whether there was one God for the whole universe. The problems which confronted him were practical problems, and for the solution of these it was enough to say that Yahweh was powerful enough to secure Israel in possession of all that he had promised them. Sufficient to that day was the faith that Yahweh was a God of war and that Israel was his special care. Except that he was more powerful, he did not differ essentially from Chemosh of Moab, who also delighted in the slaughter of his enemies, who were the enemies of his people as well. Like Moab, Israel devoted its enemies to destruction, and Yahweh insisted on the carrying out of the vow, as we see

from the case of Agag. The consecration of warriors by a special service when going on a campaign was customary in Israel as among her neighbours. In these respects the religion of Moses was crude and cruel like the other religions of the time. But the religion of Moses had in it the promise of development which cannot be truly asserted of these others. How the development came about we have now to see.

FROM about 1200 B. C. until the time of David the Israelites were making their way into Canaan. Tradition is no doubt correct in representing the conquest of the country east of the Jordan as first accomplished, though it is wrong in making the occupation the result of a single battle, or rather of two battles. East of the Jordan the people were always half nomads, so that amalgamation with the earlier inhabitants, or gradual absorption of them, was easier here than across the river. The impression made by our narratives is to the effect that for centuries the land of Gilead retained much of primitive Israelite life and manners. It is for this reason, perhaps, that Ishbaal and David found a refuge in Mahanaim when hard pressed by enemies in Canaan-the tie of blood, so strong among the nomads, was here in full force as in the old desert days. But the political centre of the country was west of the Jordan, and our sources tell us little of the religion and manners of the transjordanic region.

In Canaan proper, at the time of the invasion, the agricultural life was fully established except in the country bordering on the Dead Sea, and the change brought about by amalgamation with the earlier inhabitants was markedthough perhaps not so marked as we are accustomed to think. Israelites and Canaanites were of the same blood and spoke the same language. The later biblical writers preferred to disguise this fact, making Canaan the son of Ham while Israel was derived from Shem. But there can be no doubt from the evidence in our hands that the two

peoples were closely related. Their customs were very similar; their names for God (except that of Yahweh) were the same; intermarriage was early tolerated. The main difference was the one already mentioned-the Canaanites were agriculturists and lived in walled towns. Since it was difficult for the nomads to reduce fortified places, the process, which is usually thought of as a conquest, was really an amalgamation in which the superior vigour of the Israelite stock asserted itself, making an Israelite nation out of the combined elements. The Israelite authors are conscious that amalgamation has taken place, for the more rigid of them allege intermarriage with the Canaanites as the reason for all the misfortunes which befell the people. Indirectly they testify to the same thing when they make certain tribes sons of Jacob by slave girls. The names of at least two of the tribes (Gad and Asher) point in the same direction, for they are the names of Syrian divinities. Judah marries a Canaanitess—that is, the tribe of Judah was made up from the two separate races. In the testament of Jacob Issachar is under task-work (Gen. 49: 15). This means that the Israelite tribe is the inferior part of the composite community. A commentary on the statement is given by the earliest account of the conquest (Judges 1), in which the author tells us frankly that in most of the cities the Canaanites were too strong to be dispossessed and that they and the Israelites dwelt together, sometimes one element being the predominant one, sometimes the other. The most that the Israelites could do in the majority of cases was to reduce the older inhabitants to the position of serfs, and this was not done until the time of Solomon.

The religion of the Canaanites was not very different from that of their nomad neighbours. There was, therefore, no violent break when the immigrants adopted the sacred places of the country and attributed their foundation to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. These sacred places were on the hilltops and under the evergreen trees, and were associated with the local divinities just in the way in which the

desert rocks and trees were. When the people of Shechem consecrated Abimelech as prince they did it at the Oak of the Pillar which is in Shechem (Judges 9:6). These people were Canaanites, and the maççeba at this sacred tree was probably an object of worship before the Israelite invasion. Yet it had now become the dwelling of Yahweh, for one author supposes it set up by Joshua (Joshua 24: 26), and if by him it must have been sacred to the God of Israel. It is, perhaps, not without significance that the divinity of this city is called El-berith or Baal-berith (Judges 8: 33; 9:4 and 46), for the name means God-of-the-covenant or Lordof-the-covenant. The name was given to the God because he had become the guardian of the treaty by which the two peoples bound themselves to live together in peace.

The examples of sacred stones, already discussed under the head of nomadic religion, need not again be cited, though the most of them, from the nature of the case, were found on the soil of Canaan. To later writers they were uncongenial, and the effort was made to disguise their original cultic significance and to make of them historic monuments. The stones from which the sanctuary of Gilgal took its names are thus to the writer of the book of Joshua simply memorials of the crossing of the Jordan (Joshua 4:3), and the stone Ebenezer appears as a similar monument of an Israelite victory (I Sam. 7:12). The sacred stones on Ebal (originally Gerizim, Deut. 27: 2) are made into stones of record on which the Deuteronomic law is written. But the mention of the altar in the same connection indicates that the place was a sanctuary. Numbers of such simple sanctuaries may have been founded after the Israelites entered the country, for, as we have seen, the earliest law encouraged the erection of altars wherever some extraordinary event indicated the special presence of the divinity. At the close of a day of battle Saul had a great stone set apart as a place of sacrifice, and the account indicates that this king showed his piety by erecting a number of such altars (I Sam. 14: 35).

Excavation seems to show that the Canaanite sanctuaries