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 which is still involved in the characterisation of God, so now this limitation is explained for us from the nature of the servile consciousness; and we see too, now, how this particularity arises from the subjective side. This honouring and recognition of Jehovah is something which is peculiar to them, those servants, and they have themselves the consciousness that it is peculiar to them.

This harmonises, too, with the history of the people. The Jewish God is the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God who brought the Jews out of Egypt, and there is not the slightest trace of the thought that God may have done other things as well, and that He has acted in an affirmative way amongst other peoples too. Here, therefore, it is from the subjective side, from the side of worship, that the idea of particularity comes in, and in any case it can be said that God is the God of those who honour Him, for it is God’s nature to be known in the subjective spirit, and to know Himself there. This is a moment which essentially belongs to the idea of God. The act of knowing, of acknowledging, belongs essentially to this characterisation or determination. This often comes out in what is for us a distorted way, when, for instance, God is said to be mightier and stronger than the other gods, exactly as if there were gods besides Him; for the Jews, however, these are false gods.

There is this particular nation which honours Him, and so He is the God of this nation, its Lord, in fact. It is He who is known as the Creator of heaven and earth, He has set bounds and limits for everything and bestowed on everything its peculiar nature, and so too He has given to man his proper place and his rights. This expresses the characterisation according to which He as Lord gives His people laws, laws which have to do with the entire sphere of their actions, both the universal laws, the Ten Commandments—which are the universal, ethical, legal, fundamental, characteristics of lawgiving