Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/431

 ISRAEL and it was also that which most closely corresponded to nfluence the character of the kingdom of Judah. Thus it came owards about that the reform of the theocracy which had been aaking con t e mplated by Isaiah led to its transformation into an church, ecclesi istical state. No less influential in effecting a radical change in the old popular religion was Isaiah s doctrine which identified the true Israel with the holy remnant which alone should emerge from the crisis unconsumed. For that remnant was more than a mere object of hope ; it actually stood before him in the persons of that little group of pious individuals gathered around him. Isaiah founded no &quot; ecclesiolain ecclesia&quot; indeed, but certainly an &quot;ecclesia in civitate Dei.&quot; Now began that distinction between the true Israel and ths Israel according to the flesh, that bipartite division of the nation which became so important in later times. As head and founder of the prophetic party in Judah, Isaiah was, involuntarily, the man who took the first steps towards the institution of the church. ludah The catastrophe which befel the army of Sennacherib igai i had no very great effect upon the external affairs of Judah. rassal to g elinac } ier ib indeed, being busy in the east, was unable to retrieve the loss he had sustained, but his son Esarhaddon, who succeeded him in G81, resumed the Egyptian war with better success. He made himself master of the Nile valley, and brought the Ethiopians into submission. That the petty kingdoms of Palestine returned to the old relations of dependence is to be taken as a matter of course. Judah appsars to have resumed the yoke voluntarily, but the Samaritans only after force had been applied ; they were afterwards deported, whereupon the deserted country was occupied by foreign colonists, who, however, accepted the cultus of the god of the land. [anasseh. That Manasseh beu Hezekiah should have again come he re- under Assyrian suzerainty appears at that time to have made lon but little impression ; since the time of Ahaz Judah had been accustomed to this relation. The book of Kings speaks only of internal affairs under the reign of Manasseh. According to it, he was a bad ruler, who permitted, and even caused, innocent blood to flow like water. But what was of greater consequence for the future, he took up an attitude of hostility towards the prophetic party of reform, and put himself on the side of the reaction which would fain bring back to the place of honour the old popular half- pagan conception of Jehovah, as against the pure and holy God whom the prophets worshipped. The revulsion mani fested itself, as the reform had done, chiefly in matters of worship. The old idolatrous furniture of the sanctuaries was reinstated in its place, and new frippery was imported from all quarters, especially from Assyria and Babylon, to renovate the old religion ; with Jehovah was now associated a &quot;queen of heaven. 7 Yet, as usual, the restoration did more than merely bring back the old order of tilings. What at an earlier period had been mere naivete now became superstition, and could hold its ground only by having imparted to it artificially a deeper meaning which was itself borrowed from the prophetical circle of ideas. Again, earnestness superseded the old joyousness of the cultus ; this now had reference principally to sin and its atonement. Value was attached to services rendered to the Deity, just in proportion to their hardness and unnatural- ness ; at this period it was that the old precept to sacrifice to Jehovah the male that opens the matrix was extended .to children. The counter-reformation was far from being unaffected by the preceding reformation, although it under stood religious earnestness in quite another sense, and sought, not to eliminate heathenism from the cultus, but to animate it with new life. On the other hand, the re action was in the end found to have left distinct traces of its influence in the ultimate issue of the reformation. We .possess one document dating from Manasseh s time in Micah vi. 1-vii. 6. Here, where the lawlessness and utter disregard of every moral restraint in Judah are set in a hideous light, the prophetic point of view, as contrasted with the new refinements in worship, attains also its simplest and purest expression. Perhaps to this period the Decalogue also, which is so eloquently silent in regard to cultus, is to be assigned. Jehovah demands nothing for Himself, all that He asks is only for men ; this is here the fundamental law of the theocracy. Manasseh s life was a long one, and his eon Amon walked Amon. in his ways. The latter died after a brief reign, and with his death a new era for Judah began. It was introduced by the great catastrophe in which the Assyrian empire came to an end. The sovereignty of the world was beginning The to pass out of the hands of the Semites into those of the Scyth- Aryans. Phraortes of Media indeed was unsuccessful in Ians&amp;lt; his attempt against the Assyrians, but Cyaxares beat them and proceeded to besiege their capital. The Scythian invasion of Media -and western Asia (r. G30) at this juncture gave them another respite of six and twenty years ; but even it tended to break into pieces the great, loosely-compacted monarchy. Tin provinces became gradually disintegrated, and the kingdom shrivelled up tilt it covered no more than the land of Asshur. 1 The inroad of the Scythians aroused to energy again the voice of prophecy which had been dumb during the very sinful but not very animated period of Manasseli s reign.&quot; Zephaniah and Jeremiah threatened with the mysterious Zephan- northern foe, just as Amos and Hosea had formerly done ^ an. d n -,-, .-, A mi c&amp;lt; L-I 11 T i i Jeremiah. with the Assyrians. Ihe Scythians actually did invade Palestine in G2G (the 13th year of Josiuh), mid penetrated as far as to Egypt ; but their course lay along the shore line, and they left Judah untouched. This danger that had come so near and yet passed them by, this instance of a prophetic threatening that had come to pass and yet been mercifully averted, made a powerful impression upon the people of Judah ; public opinion went through a revolution in favour of the reforming party which was able to gain for itself the support also of the young king Josiah ben Amon. The circumstances were favourable for coming forward with a comprehensive programme for a reconstruc tion of the theocracy. In the year 621 (the eighteenth of Josiah) Deuteronomy was discovered, accepted, and carried into effect. The Deuteronomic legislation is designed for the refer- Deutero- mation, by no means of the cultus alone, but at least quite norn y- as much of the civil relations of life. The social interest is placed above the cultus, inasmuch as everywhere humane ends are assigned for the rites and offerings. In this it la plainly seen that Deuteronomy is the progeny of the pro phetic spirit. Still more plainly does this appear in the motifs of the legislation ; according to these, Jehovah is the only God, whose service demands the whole heart and .every energy ; He has entered into a covenant with Israel, but upon fundamental conditions that, as contained in the Decalogue, are purely moral and of absolute universality. Nowhere does the fundamental religious thought of pro phecy find clearer expression than in Deuteronomy, the thought that Jehovah asks nothing for Himself, but 1 Our knowledge of the events of the second half of the 7th century has remained singularly imperfect hitherto, notwithstanding the im portance of the changes they wrought on the face of the ancient world. The account given above is that of Herodotus (i. 103-106), and there the matter must rest until really authentic sources shall have been brought to light. With regard to the final siege of Nineveh, our chief informant is Ctesias as quoted by Diodorus (ii. 26, 27). Whether the prophecy of Nahum relates to the last, siege is doubtful (in spite of ii. 7, and the oracle given in Diodorus, 6ri r-^v NTvov oaStls Ae? Kara Kpdros fav ,UTJ wpoTfpov 6 -rroTa/j-bs rfj tr6ti yivrra.i iroffj.tos), inas much as Nahum (i. 9) expressly speaks of the siege alluded to by him as the first, saying, &quot;the trouble shall not rise up tlm second ime.&quot;