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 sacredness and necessity of his own existence,—necessity before which the existence of Nature, the existence of other nations vanishes into nothing; Jehovah is the salus populi, the salvation of Israel, to which everything that stands in its way must be sacrificed; Jehovah is exclusive, monarchical arrogance, the annihilating flash of anger in the vindictive glance of destroying Israel; in a word, Jehovah is the ego of Israel, which regards itself as the end and aim, the Lord of Nature. Thus, in the power of Nature the Israelite celebrates the power of Jehovah, and in the power of Jehovah the power of his own self-consciousness. “Blessed be God! God is our help, God is our salvation.”—“Jehovah is my strength.”—“God himself hearkened to the word of Joshua, for Jehovah himself fought for Israel.”—“Jehovah is a God of war.”

If, in the course of time, the idea of Jehovah expanded itself in individual minds, and his love was extended, as by the writer of the book of Jonah, to man in general, this does not belong to the essential character of the Israelitish religion. The God of the fathers, to whom the most precious recollections are attached, the ancient historical God, remains always the foundation of a religion.