There is one grave difficulty of identity that meets us here which we must not overlook. In 1 Sam. xxiv, 1, we read: “The anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them to say: go number Israel and Judah.” In 1 Chron. xxi., 1, we _read_: “And
Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel.” Are “God” and “Satan” convertible terms? It is clearly blasphemy to say that they are not, since the above verses prove that they are, yet I fancy it must be blasphemy to say that they are.
The barbaric magnificence of the temple built by Solomon is fully described in 1 Kings vi.—viii., and we are bound to believe that Solomon offered up 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep! It would scarcely have been possible for him to have killed more than one animal in five minutes, for each corpse would have to be dragged away to make room for the next, and this is supposing that others prepared the dead animals for sacrifice. Yet at this rapid rate, without stopping for food or rest or sleep, it would have taken Solomon 11,833 hours and 15 minutes to complete his task, or 493 days. As he must have stopped for food and sleep we may double this time, and a pleasant 2 3/4 years poor Solomon must have passed.
Numberless contradictions may be found in these historical books, but I pass over them all at present, as well as over the succeeding books until we come to the prophets, for to these I must devote the remainder of the space allotted to this part of my subject. We may note in passing the ludicrous absurdity of the headings, “reciprocal love of Christ and his Church,” etc., put by commentators over the sensual and suggestive descriptions of male and female beauty in the amorous “Song of Solomon.”
Isaiah is by far the finest and least objectionable of the seventeen prophets whose supposed productions form the latter part of the Old Testament. A distinctly higher moral tone appears in the writings called by his name, and this is especially noticeable in the “second Isaiah,” who wrote after the Babylonish captivity. There is also much fine imagery and poetic feeling, and a distinct effort to raise the people above the brutal savagery of animal sacrifice to the recognition that justice and right-doing are more acceptable to Jahveh than dead animals. Jahveh himself has wonderfully altered, and though there are many traces of the savage Mosaic deity, the prevailing thought is of the “High and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose Name is Holy” (Is. lvii., 15).