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 BIBLICAL SOCIOLOGY 215

The Old Testament speaks of several covenants between Yah- weh and the patriarchs prior to the one at Mount Sinai. But the transaction contemplated in the body of the Hexateuch, the Judges-Samuel-Kings narrative, and the books of the prophets, is the Sinai covenant. It is to this that Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and other prophets refer, either expressly or by impli- cation. The covenant of the prophets, as Professor A. B. Davidson writes, is the covenant of Sinai, in which Yahweh became the god of Israel.*

It is evident that the transaction referred to must be of great importance. If Yahweh became the god of Israel, it fol- lows, according to the logic of primitive religion, that he must have been connected with some other people before he became the god of Israel. There is no escape from this conclusion. The covenant, then, implies contact between the Israelite clans and some other social group, or groups. What was its real nature? And what was the objective situation? If Yahweh were the god of another people before he became the god of Israel, who was that other people? The unanimous testimony of the biblical documents, however they may diflFer as to stand- point, is that the great covenant was made in the Arabian wil- derness prior to the invasion of Canaan. This transaction, then, lies on the borderland between Israel's prehistoric age and the historic period. There is difficulty in reconstructing the details of the situation upon the basis of the material at our command; but its general features are clearly outlined in relief against the hazy background of myth and legend.^

We have already learned that prior to the invasion of Canaan the Israelites were shepherd clans wandering in the


 * Davidson, Theology of the Old Testament (New York, 1904), p. 246.

however, a well-known h)rpothesis in biblical scholarship. See Budde, Religion of Israel to the Exile (New York, 1899) passim; H. P. Smith, Old Testament History (New York, 1903), p. 72; Barton, Semitic Origins (New York, 1902), pp. 269 ff. ; Davidson, Old Testament Prophecy (New York, 1903), pp. 35, 64, 68; Kent, Beginnings of Hebrew History (New York, 1904) p. 255; Addis, Hebrew Religion (New York and London, 1906), p. 70; Paton, "Origin of Yahweh-Worship in Israel" (Biblical World, 1907).
 * The view now to be presented will seem strange to non-specialists. It is,