maintain their livelihood. Hence the Terrible Jové, Iové, or Yové, whom we call Jehovah.

It seems probable that the Hebrews, having, like all other surrounding tribes, belief in a band of gods, Ale-im, felt that their Ale-im were very much like the Ale-im of other nations, and hence this god-band did not raise any particular enthusiasm. A nation or tribe must have a tribal god (or a flag is as good) to fight for. Any insult to that god or flag rouses their pugnacity to this day. Then the IA or IV, for they are the same, was given to them or came to them through other tribes, but I think that he must have been given by a higher power, probably, as Sayce says, by the Babylonians (as they are so proud of him as a personal or national possession) and then they settle down, or at least their writers do, to a recognition of this god as their own tribal leader. But there seems to have been periods of indecision, as when Elijah asks the Hebrews (1st Kings xviii., 21)-" How long

66

will ye halt between two opinions? If Jove "is the Ale-im, follow him; but if Baal (be the Ale-im), then follow him." The prophet's own name is a combination of Alé or Eli and Iah, that is of the Ale-im (or one of the Ale-im) and Jové. Now, he asks them to

choose between Jové, who, we have seen, was one of the Ale-im in Genesis ii., and another Alé called Ba. Just as there were Ale-im of whom Jové was the leader, so there were Ale-im of whom Ba was the leader, for whom the Hebrews made molten images and whom they constantly worshipped, if we are to believe the Nabis. The Alé-im of Ba were called Baalim. Their god was Ba, just as the Hebrews' god was Iové, and the name Ba Alé-im was shortened to Baalim.

The savage tribes of the Land of the Pala or Philis mixed up their gods a good deal, as we see that Abraham when told to make a burnt sacrifice of his child he was spoken to by Malaka Isadak, a god not otherwise mentioned, except as Melkisedek. He accepted the command without surprise, as burning of their children alive was a common sacrifice then, see Ahaz, Manasseh, Mical, Josiah, etc., and their god demanded the death of the first born of man and beast. That they believed in other Ale-im, and also that the burning of a child was a sacrifice sure to be answered by even foreign Ale-im, is shown by the fact that when the Israelites had defeated the Moabites and driven them into their walled city, and were preparing to subjugate them, Mesha,

the King of Moab, took his eldest son and made a burnt offering of him to Chemosh (chief of his Ale-im) upon the wall, so that the Israelites could see the savage act performed. The effect was as Mesha had anticipated, and the Israelites at once departed, thinking that it was useless to strive against such a powerful fetish.

CHAPTER VI

FORMATION OF THE HEBREW RELIGION

I have sketched the mental position of the Hebrews in relation to their idea of the god with which their Nabis tried to terrorise them, a purely savage god full of cursing (see Deuteronomy xxxii., and other chapters), vain boastings of his strength (see Job xl., et seq.), and futile doings of which he repents (see Eden, the Flood, Jonah, etc.).

Now let us see what the common people were doing at this time to bring down all this Nabi's threatening of fire, slaughter, torture, and disease.

They were busily engaged in pure Phallic worship, and that we shall see was, as befitted people living in the Land of the Phallus, inculcated by their cults of the Ark and the Tabernacle.

In order that the reader may intelligently follow the proof of the story of the tabernacle,

and that he may see the necessity of the somewhat lengthy detail of proof which I must give and which otherwise he might think wearisome and redundant, I will here shortly state the facts and what is deduced from them, and then give the whole story and its full proof.

Although we treat the Exodus as a sort of history, scholars, from Colenso's time, know that all the books of Moses are the early fables of a barbarous nation put together a thousand years after the supposed date of Moses and cemented by an interwoven fabric of supernatural priest-lore in order to construct a religion going back to dim antiquity, but it has been so edited and altered to suit altered circumstances and change of ideas with lapse of time that it is no longer a logical and consecutive story. However, out of the fragments we can trace the romance of the Ark and Tabernacle.

When Moses brought the children of Israel out of Egypt he had no rules by which to govern them, but his father-in-law Jethro, who was a priest of Midian, came to him and encamped at the Mount of the Ale-im, and sent for Moses, to give him his wife and children and also to instruct him how to govern the