The Religion of Israel Before Sinai Continued)

Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, University of Pennsylvania

The Religion of Israel before Sinai (Continued) Author(s): M. H. Segal Reviewed work(s): Source: The Jewish Quarterly Review, New Series, Vol. 53, No. 3 (Jan., 1963), pp. 226-256 Published by: University of Pennsylvania Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1453748 . Accessed: 16/11/2011 00:03 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

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THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL BEFORE SINAI BY M. H. SEGAL, Hebrew University, Jerusalem (Continued from JQR July, I96I) VIII. THE OFFERINGOF THE FIRSTBORNAND THE PASCHALLAMB THE BELIEF OF ISRAELin Egypt in the ancestral God was not merely an abstract memory. It was a living faith which on occasions found expression in the people's life. Just as the patriarchs turned to God in prayer in times of need (Gen. 25, 2I; 32, IO-I3) so also their descendants in Egypt cried to God for help in their distress (Deut. 26, 7; Ex. 2, 23; I4, IO; also 5, I2; I8, 4). The universal practice in antiquity of offering sacrifices to the Deity must have found its counterpart also in early Israel. The patriarchs are reported to have offered sacrifices (Gen. 8, 20; 22, I3; 46, I), and their descendants in Egypt must have done likewise (cf. Ex. IO, 25; I8, I2; also 32, 6). The scene of such sacrificial worship was the wilderness near Goshen, but not Goshen itself or Egypt for fear of arousing the fanaticism of the Egyptians who worshipped the beasts used by the Israelites for sacrifices (Ex. 8, 22). The demand of Moses from Pharaoh to let the people go to the wilderness and hold a feast of sacrifices (Ex. 5, I3; IO, 9) points to the existence of such a regular feast already before the days of Moses. As a pastoral people the Israelites may be assumed to have been accustomed to offer as sacrifices the firstborn of their cattle. It is possible that the practice existed already in the patriarchal age, since Abel, the first shepherd, is said to have sacrificed the firstlings of his flocks (Gen. 4, 4). This sacrifice must have taken place in spring, the season of the parturition of the flocks. It is noteworthy that the law in the Pentateuch of the santification of the firstborn of man and of beast is associated with the spring festival of the pas-

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sover (Ex. I3, 2 I2-I5). It may be conjectured that this sanctification was an old custom in Israel which received divine sanction at the time of the exodus. If so also the sanctification of the firstborn of man was practised in early Israel, but since human sacrifice was abhorrent to the nature of Israel (cf. Gen. 22; Deut. I2, 30, etc.), and was only introduced as an alien practice, in the degenerate days of the later Judean monarchy (II Kings i6, 3; 2I, 6), it may be assumed that in pre-Mosaic Israel the sacrifice of a lamb was substituted for the firstling of an ass (the only unclean animal in the possession of early Israel) which was unfit for a sacrifice (Gen. 8, 20). Only the Pentateuchal law granted in the case of the firstborn of man a wider method of substitution or redemption (I3, I8 I5; Num. 3, I2-I3 4I 45-5I; 8, i8). Thus in spring time the Israelites in Goshen may have become accustomed to journey into the neighbouring wilderness and celebrate the sacrifice of the firstborn of the beasts and of the substitute for the firstborn of man, and this custom may have become a regular annual feast which eventually gave rise to the great biblical festival of the passover. For the sacrifice of the paschal lamb is in its essence a substitute for the firstborn of man. Because the observance of the old feast in the wilderness had been suspended through the enslavement of the people into forced labor, Moses demanded from Pharaoh to let the people go and hold the feast of sacrifice in the wilderness, lest they be punished by their God "with pestilence" among the cattle for the neglect of the sacrifice of the first born of the cattle, "or with the sword" among men for the neglect of the sacrifice of the substitute for the firstborn of man (Ex. 5, 3). Pharaoh's definite refusal of the demand of Moses led to the great events of the night of the exodus. The divine command transferred from the wilderness to the homes of the Israelites in Egypt the sacrifice of the lamb as a substitute for the first of man. At midnight the firstborn of the Egyptians were struck down by the pestilence, but the firstborn of the Israelites were saved by the token of the

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sacrificial blood on the door of their homes. (Ex. I2). This was followed in the same night by the departure of Israel from Egypt and their liberation from the Egyptian enslavement. Thus the new reformed paschal sacrifice became the commemoration of the the exodus from Egypt in the festival of the passover. The divine sanction of the new sacrifice was accompanied by a series of injunctions regulating the consumption of the flesh of the sacrifice. These are sufficiently explained by the requirements of the departure from Egypt which was to follow in the same night. The participants in the sacrifice had to be ready for the journey at quick notice. Hence the sacrifice had to be roasted whole and not to be opened and boiled as was the customs with other sacrifices (Ex. Lev. 8, 3I; Deut. i6, 7; I Sam. 2, I3 I5), in order to save time in its preparation. It had to be eaten with unleavened bread which is baked quickly (Gen. I9, 3; I Sam. 28, 24). Those who consumed it had to be prepared for the journey with their loins girded, their shoes on their feet, their staffs in their hands, and eating in haste (Ex. I2, 8-iI). But it must be remarked that some of these details may already have been customary in the primitive sacrifice in the wilderness. That also involved a journey from Goshen. The exigencies of the wilderness only permitted the roasting of the sacrificial flesh and the baking of unleavened bread. (The latter was also customary in the regular sacrifices in the Tabernacle. Ex. 29, 2; Lev. 2, 4-5, etc.). The bitter herbs to be eaten with the flesh and the unleavened breat may have served both in the paschal ceremony as well as in the primitive sacrifice as merely a condiment to facilitate the hasty eating. The fear of observation by the Egyptians may have forced also the primitive ceremony in the wilderness to be performed i-n the night. The nocturnal character of the ceremony in the wilderness may have dictated its timing in the middle of the month when the moon is at its brightest. On the other hand, it is also possible that this purely native Israelite ceremony had received in pre-Mosaic

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days certain syncretistic features of a Mesopotamian origin. The timing of the sacrifice at the full moon of the spring equinox may perhaps be a reminiscence of Mesopotamian moon worship. It may also be conjectured that the name (rin, passover) of the sacrifice at the exodus was already attached to the primitive ceremony in the wilderness. Moses is reported to have told the elders of Israel: "slay the pesalk" (E. I2, 2I), as if the name was well known to his hearers. 18 Originally the name pesali may have signified "leaping, or dancing", from the sacred dance around the altar which accompanied the sacrifice, just as the prophets of Baal leaped and danced upon the altar at Carmel (I Kings I8, 26). Originally the dancing was in honor of the moon god. A reminiscence of dancing in honor of the moon has survived to this day in the leaping practised in the Jewish ceremony of the "Sanctification of the Moon" which we will discuss in a later section (Ch. XI). In the conversion of the sacrifice as a memorial of the exodus the name pesah was reinterpreted as signifying "passing over"', or sparing (Isa. 3I, 5), the houses of the Israelites in Egypt in the plague of the firstborn (Ex. I2, I3 27). Therefore it is declared: "It is a passover unto Yhwh" (Ex. I2, II), and not as the Mesopotamians in Israel might have thought it to be a dancing unto Sin the moon god. This new interpretation of the name pesah is parallel to the new significance given in the Mosaic law to the primitive name shlapato-shlabatwhich we discussed above. IX. OFFERINGS TO DEMONS

The wilderness near Goshen was the scene also of sacrifices of a different character. Individual Israelites appear to have been in the habit of going outside to the open spaces ('fields') and offering sacrifices to the imaginary demonic spirits which were believed to inhabit the desert. We learn this from the law in Leviticus which prohibits the slaughtering of animals 18

Cf. U. Cassuto, Commentary on Exodus, P. 179 f.

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outside the Tabernacle in order that the Israelites "shall no more offer their sacrifices unto the se'itrim after whom they have gone awhoring" (Lev. I7, I-7). Se'irim, singular se'ir, means hairy creatures, (Ge. 27, II 23), and is also the regular name in Hebrew for he-goats. In the Book of Isaiah se'ir, se'irim are mentioned among the wild creatures which inhabit desolate places also inhabited by the female demon lilith. In a description of the utter desolation of Babylon the prophet says: "But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there .... and se'irim shall dance there" (Isa. I3, 2I). And again in the description of the desolate ruins of Edom the prophet says: "And the wild beasts of the desert shall meet the howling creatures, and the se'ir shall cry to his fellow; yea lilitl shall rest there and find for herself a place of rest" (Isa. 34, I4). In the law of Leviticus se'irim are thus demons of the wilderness conceived in popular superstition as hairy beings or in the shape of he-goats, something like the satyrs in Greek mythology or like the fauns in Roman mythology. To these demons Israelites offered sacrifices evidently with the object of securing their goodwill or of guarding against their enmity. These demonic sacrifices are most probably identical with the sacrifices to the shedim (demons or devils) which Israel is accused of having offered in the Song of Moses: 19 "They sacrifice to shedim, no-gods, divinities whom they know not, new ones that have come newly up, whom their fathers feared not" (Deut. 32, I7). The prohibition in Leviticus i7 of secular slaughter in order to wean the people from sacrificing to the se'irim belongs to the Sinaitic legislation, and was promulgated after the erection of the Tabernacle (Lev. 26, 46; 27, 34; I, I). It was specially designed for life in the wilderness when the people were concentrated in a camp (v. 3) in close proximity to the Tabernacle and near the supposed haunts of the imaginary So already Leviticus Rabba ch. 22: On the Mosaic authorship of the Song cf. my study in JQR, xlviii, p. 344 ff. 19


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demons. The law was abrogated, granting full permission for secular slaughter of animals for food, when Israel reached the cultivated land of Canaan and the people scattered over wide areas, living at a distance from the sanctuaries (Deut.h 2, I5 20. From the expression, "no more" in the law of 20-2I) (Leviticus I7, 3) it may be inferred (with Ibn Ezra) that the practice of sacrificing to the seirim had existed in Israel already before the exodus during their life in Goshen, while the bitter denunciations of the sacrificial worship of demons in the Song of Moses proves that the law in Leviticus remained of no effect and that the pagan practice continued to the last days of Moses, at least among the lower classes of the people. This is not surprising. Demonolatry was universal in ancient times. It formed a large and vital element in Mesopotamian religion and practice. A belief in the existence of demons and in their power over the life of man must have existed also in early Israel, if only as a part of its Mesopotamian heritage. This is proved by the names of shedim and lilith in the Hebrew Bible which are derived from Babylonian speech. Nevertheless, the practice of sacrificing to the se'irim and shedim did not come to Israel from Mesopotamia. The Song of Moses describes it as an innovation unknown to Israel's ancestors: "divinities whom they knew not, new ones that came newly up, whom their fathers feared not." The worship of these particular demons must have developed in Goshen and may be ascribed to the dread inspired in the superstitious by the neighboring desert, that "great and terrible wilderness" that "waste howling desert" (Deut. 8, I5; 32, IO). For Israel was intrinsically a civilized people. It originated and developed in association with the great civilizations of Mesopotamia and Canaan and Egypt. The Israelites hated and feared the desert, and during their enforced sojourn in the wilderness they repeatedly broke out in complaints and rebellion against Moses and Aron who had 20

Cf. my Masoreth u)Biqqoreth, p.

IO9.

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led them there on the way to Canaan. To allay their fear they sought while still in Goshen to gain by sacrifices the goodwill of the demonic rulers of the desert. Finally, it may be observed that Israel in Goshen and in the wilderness is not accused of offering worship to the great gods of the nations in whose midst they had dwelt, to Osiris or Isis of the Egyptians, or to Sin or Ishtar of the Mesopotamians. Such worship would have been to Israel a conscious betrayal of Yhwh the God of their fathers. They are only charged in this law of Leviticus and in the Song of Moses with the petty paganism of rendering worship to minor semidivine spirits, a practice which the ignorant Israelites in the days of Moses, like their descendants in the days of Samuel (I Sam. 7, 3-4), must have thought quite compatible with their faith and loyalty to the God of their ancestors. X. ICONOLATRY

Another practice sternly prohibited by the Mosaic law, which seems to have existed among the Israelites in Egypt was the symbolic representation of the Deity in a visible and tangible form. The worship of the divine in a material form was almost universal in all ages and is still practised by the majority of mankind, including even communions which claim a faith in monotheism. We have no clear evidence of the attitude of the patriarchs to this practice. From the patriarchal traditions in the Book of Genesis it appears (as observed above Ch. III) that the patriarchs believed that on occasions the divine assumed in its revelations a form visible to man and behaving like man (Gen. i8, 2 ff. I9, I ff.; 32, 29 3I). But this does not prove that the patriarchs themselves worshipped the Deity in some material representation in the shape of a figure or image. The story of Jacob hiding (probably by burial) under a terebinth at Shechem the foreign gods, i.e. the images of the foreign gods, brought by his people from Harran (Gen. 35, 6) cannot be adduced as evidence that Jacob

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himself attached significance to images as representations of the divine. The heathen images were to him instinct with impurity from which his people had to separate and cleanse themselves before their participation in the worship of his God (vv. 2-3). But it may be conjectured that under the influence of those Mesopotamian immigrants with Jacob, his descendants in Egypt had learnt to venerate the patriarchal God in the form of an image. This conjecture helps us to explain the strange behavior of the people in the story of the golden calf. When Moses had delayed his return from the mountain, the people suspected that they had been deserted by their divinely inspired human guide and their natural fear of the desert turned into a panic. So they demanded from Aaron to make them a divinely inspired figure to act as their guide which would be free of human disabilities. They gave their gold to Aaron who promptly produced for them a molten calf which the people acclaimed as the inspired representation of the Deity that had brought them up out of the land of Egypt. Aaron, too, evidently saw in the calf a genuine representation of the Deity, for he built an altar before it and proclaimed the morrow as a feast unto Yhwh (Ex. 32, i-6). These singular doings are only explicable on the assumption that the people had long been used to images of the Deity, and that Aaron had learnt in Egypt to fashion such images. Aaron appears here as an acknowledged religious leader, a position which he seems to have held already before the appearance of Moses with his message of liberation. Aaron was vouchsafed a divine communication in Egypt. He was made an assistant to Moses, and it was he who introduced Moses and his mission to the elders of the people (Ex. 4, 27 14-i6 30). He is styled 'the levite' (ibid. v. I4) which may be as elsewhere equivalent to "the priest'. From I Sam. 2, 27 it may be inferred that already in Egypt Aaron exercised certain priestly functions, 21 and this may have entitled him later to the appointment of 21

See my Commenztary onzthe Books of Samuel (1956),

p.

28.

I6

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the priesthood in the Tabernacle of the wilderness. His actions in the story of the golden calf may lead us to suppose that Aaron had been active in Egypt in connection with the making and worship of images. This assumption that Israel in Egypt had been used to the practice of making and worshipping images illuminates the unusual detail with which the prohibition of this practice is presented in the decalogue, and the severity of the penalties extending to future generations which are attached to its transgression (Ex. 20, 4-6; Deut. 5, 8-Io). It also illuminates the frequent repetition of this prohibition in other parts of the Pentateuch, and the rigorous injunctions to destroy utterly the images and the other material objects of heathen worship

in Canaan (Ex. 20,

23; 23, 24; 34, I7;

Lev.

I9, 4; 26, I;

Deut.

4, I5-I9; 7, 25-26; I7, I5, etc.). It was a long-standinghabit in Israel which the Mosaic law sought to suppress and to eradicate. Though to other ingrained habits in man's approach to the divine the Mosaic law showed itself quite lenient. It sanctioned the universal practice of bringing sacrifices to God and legislated in detail the mode of their offering. But in contrast to the heathen conception of sacrifices as the food and drink of the deity the Mosaic law emphasizes repeatedly that the sacrifices are merely "a sweet savor unto Yhwh" (Lev. I, 9 I7, etc.). So already of the sacrifice of Noah after the flood (Gen. 8, 2I), in striking contrast to the picture in the Babylonian epic where the famished gods crowd like flies to pick up bits of the flesh of the sacrifice of which they have been deprived during the flood. The Mosaic law conceded also another custom prevailing in Mesopotamia and Egypt and all over the world of erecting temples and furnishing them as homes for their gods to dwell therein in their deified images. The law granted the building of the tabernacle and legislated its details. But the tabernacle was not the dwelling of God. It contained no representation of the Deity. Its most sacred object, the ark, was primarily a receptacle for the tables of the covenant, though as the footstool of the divine


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throne represented by the empty space between the cherubim (Psalms 99, 5; I32, 7; I Chron. 28, 2), the ark also symbolized the divine presence in Israel (Nu. IO, 33-36, etc.); but the most boorish could not confuse a receptacle for tables of stone with an image of the Deity. These concessions to the prevailing conventions, far from compromising with the current heathen conceptions, served on the contrary by their particular characteristics and differences to distinguish and to emphasize the spiritual character of the Mosaic God and to teach the people to recognize it and to realize it. But no concession was possible in the matter of the images. A material representation of God was both a lie and an offence against His spirituality. Moreover iconolatry necessarily led to idolatry. Any material symbol may also have been used by the heathen to represent their gods. The calf made by Aaron and later reproduced by Jeroboam was also the emblem of Hadad in Syria and Mesopotamia. This was bound to lead to a confusion of the God of Israel with the idols of the heathen and to the worship of the idols by the side of God. The suppression of this inveterate habit, brought to Israel by the Mesopotamian immigrants with the patriarchs and fostered through the ages by human weakness and foreign influence, was only fully accomplished after the Babylonian exile when the law of Moses became the ruling guide in the daily life of the community and the individual. XI. SABBATH AND NEW MOON

We have seen in an earlier section (Ch. V) that in all probability it was Abraham who formulated the tradition on which is based the story in the opening of the Book of Genesis of the creation of the world in six days culminating in the seventh day as a blessed and sanctified rest day for the divine creator. It may therefore be assumed that Abraham bequeathed to his descendants the conception of the seventh day as a divine rest day and that this conception was known

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among the Israelites in Egypt and had received among them the name of Sabbath which does not occur in the story of the creation and which (as we have seen above) is an adaptation of the old Mesopotamian shappatu-shabbatu. Upon this conception of the seventh day as the divine rest day at the creation was later established in the decalogue the institution of the weekly Sabbath as a sanctified rest day in Israel. That the name Sabbath and its significance were known to the Israelites already before the Sinaitic revelation appears clearly from the wording of the injunction in the decalogue: "Remember (Keep) the Sabbath day to sanctify it", "The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God" (Ex. 20, 8 Io; Deut. 5, I2 14). This wording implies that already before the exodus the Israelites had known the name and the meaning of the Sabbath, but they did not remember to keep it holy, except perhaps certain individuals. This is supported by the story of the manna which proves the existence of a tradition that already before the Israelites had reached Sinai the seventh day was known among them as the Sabbath, a day sanctified to rest. But we also learn from the story of the manna that the people found it hard to accustom themselves to abstain froni all work regularly on one day in the week. This is also implied in the story of the man that gathered sticks on the Sabbath day (Num. I5, 32-36) and by the charges of the prophet Ezekiel against Israel of the profanation of the Sabbath in

the period of the wildernessand afterwards (Ez. 20,

I3, 2I 24).

It was because of the difficulty experienced by the common people in the strict observance of the Sabbath that the injunction of the Sabbath (like the injunction against image) is expressed in full detail in the decalogue and is so often repeated with stringency in other parts of the Mosaic law (Ex. The 20, 8-II; 23, I2; Lev. I9, 2 30; 23, 3; Deut. 5, I2-I5). observance of the Sabbath is particularly enjoined in cases when work may appear to be imperative, as in the season of ploughing and harvesting; in the building of the holy taber-


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nacle; used in the making of a fire which may be needed for the warming of the human body and the preparation of food (Ex. 34, 2I; 35, 2-3). Laxity in the strict observance of the Sabbath seems to have continued long after the Mosaic age down to the last days of the monarchy and as late as the early period of the second Temple (Jer. I7, 2I-27; Isa. 56, 2 I3-I4

Neh. IO, 32;

I3, I5-22).

Nevertheless the Sabbath

(along with the New Moon) was generally observed as a festive day of joy (Hosea 2, I3), when special additional sacrifices in its honor were offered in the sanctuary (Num. 28, 9-IO), when merchants closed their places of business and people foregathered in the sanctuary or visited the prophet for worship and religious instruction (Amos 8, 5; Isa. I, I3; 66, 23; II Kings 4, 23). In the passages just cited from the prophets the Sabbath is coupled with another festival, the New Moon, which like the Sabbath seems to have had its initial origin in the moon worship of Mesopotamia. Like the Sabbath the New Moon also was a festive day of joy which had its special additional sacrifices (Num. 28, II-I5). On the New Moon also merchants closed their business and people repaired to the sanctuary or to the prophet. On the New Moon, King Saul ordered a special repast for himself and his principal chiefs of which only persons ritually pure could partake, evidently because the meat consumed in the repast was of a sacrificial character (I Sam. 20, 26). From the fact that usually the New Moon comes first in the twin expression 'New Moon and Sabbath' it may be inferred that the New Moon was then popularly considered as more important than the Sabbath. And in fact, it was easier for the common people to keep as sacred one day in the month than one day in every week. But it is a striking fact that the Mosaic law ignores the sanctity of the New Moon. It does indeed order additional sacrifices for the New Moon and even richer ones than for the Sabbath (Num. 28, II-I5; cf. Io, io), but it does not include the New Moon in the list of its sacred days (Lev. 23, also Ex. 23; 34;

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Deut. I6), and nowhere does it command to rest on the New Moon or to celebrate it in any way except in the additional sacrifices in the sanctuary, in order perhaps not to deprive the altar and the priests of their due. This silence of the law in respect to a festival so popular and wide-spread, celebrated, it seems, even more strictly than the Sabbath, cannot be accidental. It must be a deliberate act of omission for a set purpose. The explanation of this omission appears to be that the lawgiver disapproved of the celebration of the New Moon, and would fain have suppressed it, or have confined it merely to the altar. And in fact, in the time of the Second Temple when the Jews lived strictly in accordance with the law of the Pentateuch, the New Moon lost its sacred character and was treated as an ordinary week day. It is also noteworthy that in the literature of that period, the twin expression is no longer 'New Moon and Sabbath' but ,,Sabbath and New Noon' (Neh. IO, 34; I Chron. 23, 3I; II Chron. 2, 3; so already Ez. 46, 3, but 45, I7 still "New Moon and Sabbath"). Clearly the New Moon was a popular institution not ordained by the law and not approved by the law, but the law was powerless to abolish it. Again from the coupling of the New Moon with the Sabbath, it is clear that like the Sabbath, the New Moon is a native institution in Israel brought by Israel into Canaan together with the Sabbath, and was not (as maintained by modern critics) borrowed by Israel from the Canaanites. In fact, there is good reason to believe that in the Israelite period, the worship of the moon declined greatly among the Canaanites, hence the scarcity of place names in Canaan with the component YeraJh(moon) in the first millenium ante, as compared with the frequency of such names in the second millenium. 22 We therefore conclude that the festival of the New Moon was a popular institution in Israel older than the Mosaic law; that like the Sabbath it was known to Israel in Egypt and was 22 So W. F. Albright, Archeology and the Religion of Israel p. 83, cited in Encyclopedia Biblica (Hebrew), iii, s.v.

(1946),


239

apparently more strictly observed than the Sabbath; that the Mosaic law disapproved of it because of its patent heathen origin in honor of the new moon, 23 and that it was introduced into Israel in Egypt by their compatriots the Mesopotamian immigrants who came to Canaan with the patriarchs from Harran the great centre of the worship of the moon god. Despite its heathen origin, the festival of the New Moon had necessarily to adapt itself in the course of time to the monotheistic faith and practice of Israel and become a festival in honor of the God of Israel, but it was never radically converted like the Sabbath into a spiritual symbol of Israel's faith in Yhwh. It could never rid itself completely of certain rites and practices reminiscent of its heathen origin. This is also true of the relic of the celebration of the New Moon which has survived among Jews to this very day. The celebration is known as the 'sanctification of the moon', and is performed in the open air in the evening in the early days of the lunar month when the moon shines brightly in the clear sky. The ceremony is of course thoroughly Jewish in character. It opens with a benediction borrowed from the Talmud 24 lauding God as the creator of the luminaries of heaven who ordained the monthly renewal of the moon. But the ceremony is accompanied by details which are foreign to the puritanical spirit of Judaism. Thus it is laid down in an authoritative rabbinical tractate 'Masseket Sopherim' (compiled in the early centuries of the Middle Ages), ch. xx: "The blessing of the moon must take place at the conclusion of the Sabbath 25 when one is in a jolly mood and dressed in nice garments. The worshipper must look steadily at the moon, join straight his two feet and recite the Talmudic benediction .... he must say three times 'a good sign, a good sign' . . . . he must perform three dances in front of the moon .... greet his neighbor with the 23

A reference to the idolatrous worship of the moon is found in 3I, 26-7. 24 Babli San. 42a. 25 A reminiscence of the old connection of the New Moon with the Sabbath. Job

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blessing 'peace be upon thee, peace be upon thee', and then go home with a happy heart". Finally it may be added that the custom of abstention from work on the day of the New Moon has been sedulously preserved by religious Jewish women almost to our own day. This custom of the women is recorded with approval in the ancient Jerusalem Talmud. 26 XII. THE NEW YEAR AND THE DAY OF ATONEMENT

In addition to the regular New Moon festival discussed in the preceding section, the Israelite calendar has also a special celebration of a particular New Moon which has its parallel in the Mesopotamian culture. This is the festival celebrated on the New Moon of the seventh lunar month (Tishri) known in Judaism by the name of the New Year (Rosh Hashanah). It has its counterpart in the festival of the New Year (Resh Shatti) celebrated in various centres of Mesopotamia long before the days of Abraham as the principal feast of the year. Already the Sumerian king Gudea in the first half of the third millenium speaks of the celebration of the New Year in his city of Lagash. At Erech and at Ur, this festival was observed twice a year, in the equinox of the autumn and in the equinox of spring. Specially famous was the splendid and elaborate celebration of the New Year's festival at Babylon which fell in spring and lasted from the second to the eleventh day of Nisan. A fairly detailed description of the great Babylonian celebration has been preserved in a late copy of an undoubtedly early text 27 to which we shall refer later in our discussion. The festival of the New Year must have been well known to the Mesopotamian immigrants who were associated with the Ben6 Israel in Egypt, and through them the festival must have been known also to the Israelites themselves long before 26 27

Yer. Ta'anith i, 6. In Pritchard's A ncient Near-Eastern Texts, p. 3 3 I f


24I

Moses. Yet most surprisingly, the Mosaic law is completely silent about the connection of the celebration of the seventh New Moon with the New Year's festival. It is only in popular tradition that the seventh New Moon is identified with the New Year. The Mosaic law does indeed include the seventh New Moon in its calendar of the sacred days of the year (Lev. 23) and in its calendar of festal sacrifices (Num. 28-29), but it is reticent about its character and about the purpose of its celebration. The description of this day in those two calendars is left vague and obscure. In Leviticus 23, 24 the day is described as "a rest, a memorial of blowing the trumpets (teru'ah), and in Numbers 29, I, it is said "a day of the blowing the trumpets (Teru'ah) it shall be unto you", but nothing is said in either passage about the significance or purpose of this memorial and of this teru'ah. The expression "a memorial of a teru'ah" may be interpreted as 'a memorial by a teru'ah', or a teruah for the purpose of a memorial, namely to bring Israel to the remembrance of God to grant Israel divine favor; compare Numbers IO, IO: "And in the day of your gladness and in your festivals ye shall blow with trumpets .... and they may be to you for a memorial before your God", viz. to accept favorably your sacrifices; and again ibid. v. 9: "And if you go to war .... ye shall blow an alarm with the trumpets and ye shall be remembered before the Lord your God and ye shall be saved from your enemies." This may also be the meaning of the briefer expression "a day of blowing the trumpets", namely to bring Israel into the remembrance of God who may grant them His mercy. But in any case, no explanation is given in the Mosaic law why Israel need invoke the divine remembrance just in particular on the seventh New Moon more than on any other New Moon of the year. The answer to this question is given by popular tradition as preserved in Talmudic literature. The Mishnah says: "The first day of Tishri (the seventh month) is the New Year in respect of (the counting of) the years". This is based on the

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belief that the creation of the world began on twenty-fifth day of Elul (the sixth month) and was completed on the first day of Tishri, 28 and then began regular time and the chronology of years. And again: "On the New Year all who came into the world pass before God in orderly numberation," namely for judgment and for fixing their fate in the coming year (Mishnah Rosh Hashanah I, I-2). Finally the Talmud commenting on Psalm 93 says: "'The Lord reigneth', that means that when God had completed His works of creation, He became king over themr" (B.RH 3ia). These three principles, the creation of the world on the New Year, the manifestation of God's kingship over the world on the New Year, and the judgment of the world by God on the New Year form the chief theme of the liturgy of the New Year's festival as still solemnized year by year in the Jewish Synagogue. The three principles follow logically one from the other. The divine kingship could only become manifest when the world had been created which forms His domain. And the divine judgment follows from the divine kingship. For the chief function of the king in Israel's ideology is to maintain justice and righteousness. Thus the kingship of David is described in the words "And David executed judgment and justice (or: righteousness)unto all his people" II Sam. 8, I5). This is also the principal function attributed to the ideal successor of David (Psalm 72, 2 4) and to the eschatological king in Zion (Is. II, 4). Those three principles associated in the Synagoque with the New Year are not the invention of a later Judaism. They were already proclaimed together in a series of liturgical psalms which form a distinct group marked by a close affinity of tone, of language and of thought. These are the joyous and triumphant songs contained in Psalms 95-IOO, to which belong also Psalm 93 and the first part of Psalm 94. The 28 Pesiqta d'R. Cahana (ed. Bober), I5ob; Pesiqta Rabbati (ed. Friedmann), i86a.


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constantly recurring thoughts in these beautiful songs are God as creator, God as King, God as judge. Thus, "The Lord reigneth .... the world also is set firm that it cannot be moved. Thy throne (probably: seat of judgment) is established of old" (93, I-2); "lift up thyself, thou judge of the earth, render a reward to the proud" (94, 2). "A great king (is God) over all the gods"; "The sea is his and he made it, and his hands formed the dry land"; "Before the Lord our maker" (95, 3 5 6); "Say among the nations the Lord reigneth, the world also is set firm that it cannot be moved, He shall judge peoples with equity. Let the heavens rejoice .... before the Lord for He cometh, for He cometh to judge the earth, He shall judge the earth with righteousness and the peoples with his faithfulness" (96, IO-I3); "The Lord reigneth .... righteousness and judgment are the foundation of his throne"; "Zion heard and was glad, the daughters of Judah rejoiced because of thy judgments, 0 Lord" (97, I 2 8); "He hath revealed his righteousness in the sight of the nations"; "Make a joyful blast before the king, the Lord. Let the sea roar .... before the Lord, for He cometh to judge the earth, He will judge the world with righteousness and the peoples with equity" (98, 3 6-9); "The Lord reigneth, let the peoples tremble"; "And the strength of the king loveth justice, thou hast established equity, thou hast executed justice and righteousness in Jacob" (99, I 3). These psalms are of Judean origin. They speak of Zion and of the daughters of Zion. They are also pre-exilic. They invite the worshippers to the courts of God and bring with them an offering, as one brought to a king on his appointment (96, 8; cf. I Sam. IO, 27). The courts are of the First Temple, as is clear from the epithet of God as "sitting on the cherubim" and from the command to worship at His footstool which means the ark (I Chron. 28, 2; 99, I 5). The Second Temple had no cherubim and no ark. Further, phrases like "He is to be revered above all gods", "thou art greatly exalted above all

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gods", "worship Him all ye gods" (96, 4; 97, 7 9) stamp the whole group as archaic. 30 The fact that these three principles form the main theme both of the psalmodic liturgy of the First Temple and of the liturgy of the Synagogue for the New Year's festival cannot be a matter of chance. The liturgy of the Synagogue, saturated as it is with the thoughts and with the language of the Psalms, is the direct descendant of the older liturgy of the Temple. The identity of theme of these psalms with the New Year's liturgy of the Synagogue proves therefore that these psalms also have the festival of the New Year as their subject. There is also another feature which is shared by these psalms and the Jewish liturgy of the New Year. This is the blowing of the horn or the trumpet (nw1?A) which in the Mosaic law (as we have seen) is the sole characteristic of the celebration of the seventh New Moon. The blowing of the horn is still a prominent and distinctive part of the celebration of the New Year in the Synagogue. But the tert'ah is also a principal feature of worship in these psalms. "With trumpets and the sound of the horn (shofar) make a joyful noise (teru'ah) before the Lord" (98, 6). The noun teru'ah does not indeed occur in these psalms, but the cognate verb is frequently used in them to express an essential part of the worship: r"In: (95, I 2); IVrl'? (98, 4 6: also ioo, i). So also in another psalm which proclaims the kingship and probably also the judgment of God, Psalm 47, which in Jewish tradition is also associated with the festival of the New Year, though it does not speak of God as creator: "Make a teru'ah (15P1,) unto God", "God hath ascended (the throne of judgment, v. 9) with a teru'ah, the Lord with the sound of the horn (shofar)." It must, however, be observed that there is a marked difference in character between the teru'ah of the psalmist and the blowing of the horn in the Synagogue. The teru'ah of the psalmist is a joyful greeting to the divine king coming to 30 Is. 52, io is borrowed from Psalms 98, 1-3, and not the reverse as maintained by critics who consider these psalms as post-exilic.


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judgment. The blowing of the shofar in the Synagogue is a cry of supplication to the divine judge on His New Year's day for mercy. The difference stems from the varying conception of the nature and purpose of the judgment. In the psalms, the judgment is a general trial of the earth and the nations inhabiting it which is to bring salvation to Israel "Zion heard and was glad, the daughters of Judah rejoiced because of the judgments, 0 Lord" (97, 8); "He hath remembered His mercy and His faithfulness towards the house of Israel, all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God" (98, 3). In the Synagogue the judgment is a trial of individuals, including the Jewish worshipper. The fate of the individual is to be fixed for the New Year, and the worshipper prays the divine judge for mercy and forgiveness. The difference does not signify a different origin. It only marks a later stage of development in keeping with the growing sense of personal sin and failure which characterized later Judaism. We thus conclude that the group of Psalms 95-99 formed a liturgy for the festival of the New Year as celebrated in the First Temple of which the Synagogue ritual for that day is the direct descendant. Both the psalmodic liturgy as well as the Synagogue ritual are implicit in the Mosaic command to celebrate the seventh New Moon by a teru'ah or by a memorial of a teru'ah. Why then does not the Mosaic law call the festival by its specific name, the festival of the New Year, as known in the living tradition of the people? The only feasible answer is that the law purposely refrained from using this name because in the Mosaic age, this name still had a strong pagan connotation. The New Year was known to Israel in Egypt, and more especially to the descendants of the Mesopotamian immigrants, as the great festival of paganism with its heathen rites and ceremonies so utterly hateful to the lawgiver. It may be conjectured that through the influence of a tradition of Mesopotamia, where in some parts the New Year was celebrated in autumn, the beginning of the year was reckoned by Israel in Egypt from the New Moon of the seventh

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THT J1EWISH QUARTERLY REVIEhW

month, the month of Tishri (which in Accadian has the meaning of beginning), and that in accordance with the faith of Abraham in God as the creator the New Moon of Tishri was associated already by Israel in Egypt with the creation of the world. The Mosaic law sanctioned briefly the popular celebration of that special New Moon without calling it by the then heathen name of New Year. But the religious genius of the people gradually developed further the significance of the day as the manifestation of the divine kingship and of divine judgment, this latter idea stimulated perhaps (as we shall see later) by Mesopotamian influence. The assumption that the reckoning of the New Year from Tishri was an established custom of Israel in Egypt offers the only reasonable explanation of the anomaly that the Jewish New Year began with the New Moon of the seventh month and not with the New Moon of the first month. According to Exodus I2, 2 the month of the exodus (Nisan) was ordained as the first of the months of the year. And indeed all the lists of the festivals in the Pentateuch begin with thefestival of Nisan, passover, thus in the list of the festvials of pilgrimage to the sanctuary (Ex. 23, I5; 34, i8) Deut. i6, i), in the list of sacred days (Lev. 23, 5), and in the list of festal sacrifices (Num. 28, i6; cf. also Ez. 45, 2I). But the year never began in Nisan, but in the first month of autumn. This is clear from the popular description of the Succoth festival as being "at the going out (end) of the year", "at the going round of the year" (Ex. 23, i6; 34, 22). Again the year of the Jubilee begins with the seventh month near the time of the Harvest and vintage of the aftermath and before the time of sowing. And that was also the beginning of the year of release (Lev. 25, 9-II 4-5). The theory of the critics that the institution of Nisan as the first of the months of the year was equivalent to the institution of Nisan as the beginning of the year, and that this was an innovation introduced by the priestly exilic writer in imitation of the Babylonian New


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Year's festival in Nisan is quite unacceptable. 31 A writer in the Babylonian exile, and especially a priest, could not possibly have put in the mouth of his God a command to Moses and Aaron, to observe a custom borrowed from the pagan festival of Merodach. Moreover the institution of the years of Jubilee and release also belongs according to the critics to the same document of P(in the form of the 'Book of Holiness'), and they still begin in autumn. Again Ex. I2, 2 must be older than the exile, since the older documents (according to the theory of the critics), E in Ex. 23, i6, J in Ex. 34, 22, and D in Deut. i6, i, all begin their calendar of festivals with the month of Nisan as commanded in Ex. I2, 2. The truth is that already in Egypt the institution of the New Year in autumn was so well established in Israel that at the time of the exodus Nisan could only be made the first of the months, but not the beginning of the year. The New Year's festival on the first day of the seventh month is followed in the Mosaic law by another festival on the tenth day of the seventh month. Unlike the New Year's festival, the other festival is given in the law its particular name, the Day of Atonement, and its observance and purpose are described clearly by the law (Lev. 23, 27-32; cf. Num. 29, IO). Moreover, the law devoted a special chapter to a detailed description of the solemn ceremonies, to the strict observance and to the spiritual significance of the day. This is Leviticus i6 which in its place forms the concluding section of the part of the Book of Leviticus which deals with the various impurities, impurities of animals, impurities of the human body, of human clothing and of the h,uman dwelling, and their purification (Lev. II-I5). Chapter i6 concluding this part of the book enjoins the purification on the Day of Atonement of the sanctuary from the impurities which may have been brought into it by the people and the purification of the people from the spiritual impurities of their sins. It is linked to the previous chapters by the verse at the end of the preceding 31

Wellhause,

Pyolegomerta (i899),

p.

I07,

and so all his foHowers.

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chapter: "And ye shall separate the children of Israel from their uncleanness that they die not in their uncleanness when they defile my tabernacle that is among them" (Lev. I5, 3I). The chapter describes firstly ritual of the purification by the High Priest of the sanctuary from defilement introduced into it by the people (i6, 3-I9); secondly the ritual of the transference by the confession of the High priest of the sins of the people to the scapegoat, and the removal of the sins by the banishment of the scapegoat into a "a land cut off from human habitation" (or: from the providence of God, rri? rfl vv. 20-22), and thirdly the participation of the people in the task of purification and of atonement of their sins by the observance on the day of a strict rest and a fast (vv. 29-34). Physical uncleanness passes naturally into spiritual impurity and both are removed by the priestly ritual combined with the penance of the people. The ritual of the scapegoat sent "away to Azazel into the wilderness" (v. io) has been a subject of much debate and speculation among commentators. Modern critics, who assign the chapter to a late priestly writer after Ezra, 32 consider the ritual to be a survival of the worship of the demons. Azazel is the prince of the se'irim which we discussed in a previous section (Section IX). But it is incredible that such a bold demonological sacrifice could have been introduced into the worship of the second temple after Ezra. It is also incredible that a priestly writer would have embodied in the Book of Leviticus a divine command to offer a sacrifice to a demon just immediately before the divine oracle in chapter I7 denouncing sacrifices to the se'irim. 32 This view is based upon Nehemiah 9, I, where it is related that a special fast and day of mourning was held on the twenty-fourth day of the seventh month (cf. ibid. 7, 73). It is argued that if the tenth day of that seventh month had been observed as the fast of the Day of Atonement there would have been no need for holding a special fast on the twenty-fourth day. But this argument is fallacious. The Day of Atonement is not only a fast but also a holy festival on which mourning in sackcloth with earth upon the head is strictly prohibited.


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The connection of Azazel with the se'irim was already expressed in enigmatic language in the twelfth century by the rationalist Ibn Ezra in his commentary to our passage, and adopted a century later by the mystic commentator Nachmanides (Ramban) who attributed it to the ancient Rabbis. But this view is quite untenable. As Ibn Ezra himself points out, the scapegoat is not treated in the text as a sacrifice. This is an important fact which has to be borne in mind by the exegete. The text does not say that the scapegoat is to be killed. It is to be sent away, or banished (nh', in the Pi'el), carrying away on its head the sins of Israel to a desert locality. It is to be let free in the open desert removing the sins and their impurity far away from human habitation and from the sight of God, even as the leper's live bird and in the live bird, the ritual of the infected house, carry away the impurity into the open field away from human habitation (Lev. I4, 7 53). Therefore the scapegoat cannot be a sacrifice to a demon, as held by the critics, or even a gift to Satan (as maintained by Nachmanides on the authority of a late pseudepigraphical Midrash) in order to induce him to refrain from accusing Israel before God on the Day of Atonement. 33 Azazel also engaged the attention of the Rabbis in the Talmud. They explained Azazel as the name of a certain locality, as if meaning a rough and difficult eminence. 3 This interpretation is given in explanation of the statement in Mishnah Yoma 6, 4 6 that the scapegoat was led away from Jerusalem to a steep cliff (jpi) from the top of which it was pushed down and dismembered. This is a Midrashic exegesis to give Scriptural authority to the method adopted in the second temple of disposing of the scapegoat. It was killed apparently to prevent its returning alive with the load of the sins on its head. But, as we have seen, this was not the original intention of the text which meant the animal to roam Pirqe d'R. Eliezer ch. 46. MTT1J,compound of Tfl),fierce, rough and strong. This interpretation is reproduced in Targum Jonathan, Leviticus i6, io. 33 34

'7


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about freely in the desert eventually to meet its natural death. Another more interesting explanation of Azazel is offered in the same passage of the Talmud where we read: "Azazel atones for the deeds of Uzza and Azel." This treats the name 7vgmas if spelt 7788, and as a compound of nv and 778. On this Rashi ad loc. 35comments as follows: "Uzza and Azael are demonic angels who came down to the earth in the days of Naamah the sister of Tubal Cain (Gen. 4, 22). Of them it is said that the sons of God saw the daughters of men (Gen.6, 2), that is to say (Azazel) atones for the sins of incest", viz. committed in Israel similar to the sins of Uzza and Azael with the daughters of men. The story of these two fallen angels is given in some detail in late Midrashiccompilations 36 in which Uzza is represented as having repented and been forgiven whereas Azazel persisted in his iniquity. He is accused of having invented colorful garments for women to tempt men to sin. Another much older source for the story of Azazel (Azazel) is found in the Ethiopic Book of Enoch.37 There Azael is numbered the tenth in the list of the fallen angels. Later in that book he is called Azazel and he is representedas having taught men the making of weapons and of adornments and embellishments for women to entice men. Then at the command of God Azazel was bound hand and foot by the angel Raphael and thrown into darkness through an opening in the wilderness of Dudael where he was covered with heavy sharp rocks and imprisoned forever. These myths are of course post-biblical and late, but they may go back to an antique source. The story in Genesis 6, I-4 is evidently fragmentary. It must have had a sequel relating the penalties imposed upon the rebellious angels. One of them may have been the Azazel of the scapegoat. (The spelling~Txrv for an original bXTTW may be merely a scribal change to hide the Rashi's comment is derived from Deuteronomy Rabba ch. i i end. Yalqut Shim'oni, Genesis 44; Jellinek, Beth Hamidrash, iv, p. 127 ff.; Eisenstein, Ozar Midrashim p. 249 f. 37 Charles, Pseudepigrapha, pp. I9I, 192, 193, 220, 35 36


25I

angelic origin of the demon). The sequel may have told how Azazel was banished and imprisoned in a desert from which there is no return. To such a desert must be sent the scapegoat with the sins of Israel on its head. Azazel in our text may thus signify (as the ancient Rabbis assumed) the name of a locality named after the demon, the land and prison home of Azazel, a figurative name of a desert from which there can be no return, equivalent to the other unique and symbolic name of that locality rrin r- (v. 22). In the Mosaic law there is no explicit indication 38 of a connection between the festival of the New Year and of the Day of Atonement, but in popular tradition as preserved in Talmudic literature and more especially in the liturgy of the Synagogue, the two festivals are represented as parts of one whole. In popular tradition, the first ten days of Tishri form a special season of which the New Year is the beginning and the Day of Atonement is the culminating conclusion. We read in the Talmud 39 as follows: "Three books are opened on New Year's day, one of the perfectly righteous, one of the completely wicked, and one of the intermediate class; the perfectly righteous are immediately inscribed and sealed unto life; the completely wicked are immediately inscribed and sealed unto death; the intermediate class are given a respite for the ten days of repentance until the Day of Atonement; if they repent they are inscribed unto life with the righteous; if not, they are inscribed unto death with the wicked." The picture of books being opened in the judgment of heaven is found also in Daniel 7, IO: "The judgment was set, and the books were opened". And the Mishnah speaks of the recording in the books of heaven of the actions of man on earth: "All thy deeds are written in the book", "The ledger lies open and the hand 38 But perhaps the particle IN (howbeit, or: verily) at the opening of the paragraph on the Day of Atonement in Leviticus 23, 27, may imply a connection of the two festivals: cf. the lengthy discussion of the particle in Ramban ad loc. 39 B. Rosh Hashona i6b; Yer ibid. i. 3 in a more original wording.

I7*

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writes" (Aboth 2, I; 2, 20). This is an old conception. 40 The prophets speak of the deeds of the righteous and of the wicked being written before God (Mal. 3, i6; Isa. 65, 6; cf. Neh. I3, I4). Even more ancient is the conception that the fate of man upon earth is dependent upon the contents of books in heaven. Already Moses prayed: "Blot me, I pray thee, out of the book which thou hast written", to which God replied: "Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book" (Ex. 32, 32-33). This is the book of life (or: the living) spoken of by the prophet and the psalmist and the seer (Isa. 4, 3; Psalms 69, 29; Dan. I2, I). The symbolism of the three books opened in heaven on the New Year illustrates the profound spiritual and practical significance with which in the course of generations the religious genius of Israel invested the opening of the New Year. The old doctrine of a judgment on the first day of the year together with the Mosaic doctrine of an atonement on the tenth day of the year and the prophetic doctrine of repentance, all combined in Judaism to dedicate the first ten days of the year to a religious rehabilitation and to a spiritual regeneration. For the few in number in the two extremes of righteous and wicked, the judgment on the New Year's day is decisive and final, but for the intermediate class, which embraces the vast majority of mankind, the grace of ten days is granted within which man is given the opportunity of a spiritual recovery by means of a strenuous personal effort so as to become worthy of being included in the class of the righteous. The purification and atonement on the tenth day are not accomplished by the ritual of the priest unless the ritual is accompanied by a strict rest and fasting by the people which form the culmination of a ten days growing exercise in 'repentance and good deeds'. This prolongation of the Israelite New Year for ten days 40 It is frequently referred to in Apocrythal literature and in the NT., e.g. Ethiopic Enoch 47, 3; Jubilees 32, 30, 2; Apocalypse 20, 12, et cet.


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into the Day of Atonement has a parallel in Mesopotamian culture. As mentioned above, the celebration of the Babylonian New Year which fell in spring also lasted ten days from the second to the eleventh of Nisan. There are also other more or less significant similarities between the Israelite celebration of these festivals and the celebration of the older and parallel festivals in Mesopotamia.At Nippur4l the gods cast lots on the New Year to fix the fate of the world and its creatures in the coming year. Similarly at Babylon during the ten days celebration of the New Year, Merodachpresided over a council of the gods and fixed the fate of the year in accordance with the primeval tables of destiny which he had captured from Kingu the vanquished leader of the hosts of Chaos. The ancient text alluded to above 42 which describes the elaborate ritual of the Babylonian New Year contains also other noteworthy details which have a bearing upon the study of the Mosaic ritual. Thus on the fourth day of Nisan, the chief officiating priest (uriqallu) reads in front of the statue of Merodach in his temple the complete text of the so-called 'Epic of Creation' (Enuma Elish) 43 which relates how Merodachdefeated the forces of Tiamat under the leadership of her husband Kingu, how Merodachwas made king of the gods, how he created the orderly world with man in it. From this, it may be inferred that the Babylonian New Year was also associated with divine kingship and with the divine creation of the world and of man. On the fifth day of Nisan, the ritual of Kuppuru (nion) the purification from all defilement of the temple of Merodachand of the adjoining santuary of his son Nebo. For this purpose a slaughtering priest is summoned who brings a sheep and cuts off ist head and wipes with it the temple, while the exorcist priest pronounces incantations against the demon, the enemy of Merodach, and against all his sorceries.The exorcist and the slaughtererthen 41 42 43

Cf. Ch. F. Jean, Religion Sumerienne (1931), P. Apud Pritchard I.c. Ibid. p. 6o ff.

170-I.

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carry away the sheep and exorcist casts the sheep into the river and the slaughterer casts the head into the river, and both depart to a field where they remain unclean for seven days. During the performanceof the ritual of the kuppuruthe chief officiating priest is not permitted to remain within the temple (and, it may be assumed, much less any other person). This recalls the prohibition of the presence of any man in the sanctuary on the Day of Atonement during the performance of the ritual by the High Priest and the uncleannessof the man who carries away the scapegoat and of those who burn the sin offerings (Lev. i6, I7 26 28).

These rather superficial similarities may be fortuitous, stemming from a common civilization, without involving a direct or indirect influence from the older on the younger ritual. The fact that the Babylonian New Year was kept in spring and the Israelite New Year in autumn shows that Babylon did not influence the Mosaic festival. But this does not exclude the possible infiltration into the Mosaicfestival of ideas derived from other Mesopotamiancentres. The custom of beginning the year in autumn could not have been original in a pastoral people like Israel in Egypt. It must have been borrowed from an agricultural civilization such as prevailed in most parts of Mesopotamia.The purificationof the sanctuary at the beginning of the year, practised both in Babylon and in Israel, may have been in vogue also in other centres of Mesopotamia. The determination of the fate of the world on the New Year was ascribed to the gods also at Nippur as well as at Babylon, and may have been a popular belief also elsewhere in Mesopotamia. The ideas also of a divine creation and a divine kingship were familiar conceptions in ancient Mesopotamia. Thus it may be conjectured that the principalbeliefs associated with these two festivals in Judaism were already well known in ancient Israel in Egypt from their Mesopotamian heritage. But of far greater importance than the similarities are the profound differences between the Israelite festivals and


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the Mesopotamian festival of the New Year. The detailed description of the Babylonian celebration may be taken as more or less typical of the New Year celebrations in other centres of Mesopotamia. The Babylonian celebration is steeped completely in magic. It is based on the doctrine of an uninterrupted continuation of the primeval war between the good of the gods and the evil of the demons, waged on both sides with the weapons of a deadly magic. In the primeval war the more powerful magic of Merodach gave him the victory over the hosts of Tiamat, but he was powerless to annihilate them. They continue the struggle by introducing defilement into the temple of Merodach king of the gods. The defilement is removed on the New Year by a magic ritual and by powerful incantations of an exorcist. In the Mosaic law the One God is the sole ruler of all the forces in existence. The struggle between good and evil centers solely in man. The defilement of the sanctuary is caused by man and his sins, and the purification of the sanctuary on the Day of Atonement can only be completely effected by the accompanying purification of man in which man himself must assist by his penance. The Mosaic law does indeed also know of a demon, Azazel, but he is not engaged in a struggle against God. He is only one of God's ministering angels who like man fell to temptation and was banished for his sins. At Nippur and at Babylon, the fate of the world and of man is decided by the blind lot of the tables of destiny which are older than the gods and to which the gods themselves have to submit. In Israel, the fate of man and of the world is decided by the righteous judgment of the Supreme Judge in accordance with the deserts of man. If the Israelite New Year and Day of Atonement do recall reminiscences of old Mesopotamian material their lofty spirituality forms another illustration, alongside of the Sabbath and circumcision and the like, of the power of the Abrahamic faith to create out of primitive dross noble religious institutions of supreme value to mankind. We have reached the end of our investigation. Our study

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has demonstrated how misguided and misleading are the attempts of modern biblical scholarship to trace the beginnings of Israel and of Israel's religion to Arabian or to Canaanite origins. Our study has shown that Israel originated in Mesopotamia and that it preserved much of its Mesopotamian heritage. To explain Israel's beginnings, Israel must be set in a Mesopotamian background. But thus does not mean to say that Israel's religion can be explained in Mesopotamian terms. The reverse is true. Israel's God did not arise out of a Babylonian pantheon, any more than out of an Egyptian or an Arabian or a Canaanite pantheon. The God of Israel is alone, "without beginning and without end", unexplainable in our woefully inadequate human terms. It means to say that the recognition of the One God by Abraham was a revolt against Mesopotamian culture, the beginning of a revolution in the long story of old Sumer and Accad, destined in the fullness of time to bring about the downfall of the mighty system of their idolatry. The downfall was slow in coming. The prophets in the Neo-Babylonian age saw it coming in their vision of the approaching fall of Babylon: "Bel is confounded, Merodach is broken in pieces; her idols are confounded, her images are broken in pieces" (Jer. 50, 2); "Bel boweth down, Nebo they stoopeth .... they are a burden with the weary.... stoop, they bow down together" (Isa. 46, I-2). But their hope was doomed to disappointment. Today polytheism and idolatry in various forms still hold sway in the world. But Israel's faith and Israel's Bible also hold sway in the world. The struggle will continue through the ages until at last Abraham's faith is realized and "the Lord will be One and His name One".

The Religion of Israel Before Sinai Continued)

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