The University of Chicago Press The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures

Oracle in the Old Testament
Author(s): Elihu Grant

Source: The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures, Vol. 39, No. 4 (Jul.,
1923), pp. 257-281
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
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ORACLE IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
BY ELIHU GRANT
Haverford College
How did man come by the notion that God speaks, or that he
communicates with human beings after the analogy of man's revela-
tion of himself to man through the senses ? An answer to this ques-
tion would bear upon prophetic and poetic inspiration, theophany,
oracle, and prayer. It relates itself to the mysterious processes of
all intellectual communication whether between humans or between
God and humans. The God who hears and speaks is one of the useful
anthropomorphisms bequeathed to us by an early world. The God
who sees and is seen did not fare so well, as a complete sensuous figure,
among the Hebrews, at least. "Thou God seest me" persisted as one
of the most helpful of religious and ethical concepts but the vision of
the deity scarcely survives the prophets.
It has been suggested that all oral communications between the
divine and the human are divisible into two classes, roughly dis-
tinguishable as theophanic and oracular, that the recorded experi-
ences of human-divine intercourse are either, cases in which the
divine took the initiative or those in which the human agent took the
initiative. This may prove to be a false division and no distinction
at all. Popular thought, to be sure, tends to conceive of human-
divine relations under some such twofold classification. Folk-
tradition sometimes suggests that the theophanic precedes the oracular
because that seems to be the order of dignity which is itself a logica
order. In the great world of nature is not man anticipated, appar-
ently, by the powers outside himself ? In the more subjective world
of thought and reflection it may be possible that man creates, find
his way, simulates nature, and reveals to himself a relationship to th
greater world. It is at least commonly thought that nature suggests
teaches, and acts as mother and that man learns and appeals. Bu
theophanies have also been recorded as following the human approach
to, or presence in, a shrine, or in an act of appeal or worship. Being
in a way of duty, or service, or worship, or actual oracular appeal,
257
258 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SEMITIC LANGUAGES
"the Lord met him" (cf. Gen. 32:1). We should, perhaps, not be
far wrong in subsuming the theophanic under the oracular, so far as
the nature of experience goes. The order of experience seems to be
Nature, Oracle, Theophany. In the light of these considerations,
if we ask the question, "Did the divine lead off in communication, or
did man invent the concept of divine speech ?," we discover that we
must separate for the time between the absolute or metaphysical
aspects of the question and the historical facts or phenomenal order.
Our present inquiry is of the latter kind and concerned with the
historic origin of experiences and notions.
It is exceedingly difficult to assure ourselves that we have the
data for tracing man's experience in audience with the universe. By
the time the human animal had become reflective he was already an
ardent cultivator of the resources about him and a too suggestive
interpreter of natural phenomena. When we consider the nature of
the mind it would appear as if, in the courtship between man and
nature, man was reprehensibly the aggressive one; he provided both
question and answer, or to change the figure, he was inclined to stage
the entire play and act all the parts, finding now and then, however,
that it was necessary to dodge if his mountains, or sky, or other
properties threatened to fall upon him. He felt moreover the impulse
to impute a soul like his own to all the figures about him. We cannot
take testimony from that which is early in time so we turn hopefully to
that which is remote or primitive in space and hunt eagerly among the
simple-mannered for something analogous with early mankind. But
the analogy does not hold perfectly, though it is probably one of our
best aids. Our next recourse is to the growing child but the speed
with which he accomplishes his phases and the constant interference
with his processes by adults makes it difficult to appraise the data.
In despair we turn to the behavior of the lower animals, but that is
too much of a good thing, carrying us too far back. The portion of
the human diary which we need is defaced. We are able to observe
man's reactions to the pangs of hunger, to cold, heat, moisture, and
drought. His organism responds as many plants do to needs from
within and to supply from without. All supplies must yield to the
laws of assimilation within the organism dr they fail to help it sustain
life. Sooner or later we are led to see that man is himself a member
ORACLE IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 259
within nature and the introducer of problems. Questio

him and because of him. The mind for which alone the
nature exist is itself of nature and its ultimate problem
The first motions and noises of man's experience ar
within himself though memory fails to record them a
suggest outside sources. At some stage in development
name things and to account for them. He did this ver
the basis of conscious, personal experience of a too sub
perhaps, but how else could he proceed ? Reflection h
ever since with the fast accumulating data of observati
pretation, seeking to bring truth and order into being
Reflection could not begin without data and it cannot r
material has been tested and organized. The sights a
nature must early have suggested to animistic mankin
invisible being dealing with man. If man formed the
communication between the parts and spirits in nature
of prompting thereto in his own constitution and in huma
about him.
Religious history makes it clear that expectation is likely to have
what it wants or an acceptable substitute. Once expectation 'is
aroused, gratification in some form or degree is certain to follow. If
the fashion of the day is for glossolalia, voices, portents, fainting fits,
etc., according to our instructed wishes, the experience that is in current
demand is the experience that will prevail. The prior question is,
"How [i.e., by what stimuli] was the expectation born; what direc-
tion and quality did it show ?" If nature is in any degree considered
divine, then experience is to that degree a continuing theophany. If
gods are anywhere in nature they may occasionally be met, or fail-
ing that, expected. Nature is more eloquent to some souls than to
others and, often the favored ones are more eloquent or forward
persons. As in the case of the material resources of nature, fire, food,
metals, etc., man at some stage began to seek and to try to control
the oracular resources. He wished to have them in readiness against
need. Such intangible resources seemed often to be connected in
some hidden way with the tangible. Fountains, trees, and many
objects, places and creatures were vocal. Man learned the orthodox
methods of search for the more spiritual goods of the world. It would
appear that the oracle was the apex and consummate achievement
of a cycle of religious investigation carried on through all but incon
ceivable times and toils. It may have been the historical era's
inheritance from the prehistoric ages. Professor Toy thought tha
"in general, the organization of oracular shrines grew in proportio
to the rise of manlike gods-deities whose relation to men was social
intimate."'
The experience of communication with the divine is, in its attempt
and consummation, one of the most fruitful practices in man's reli-
gious history. The effort runs the gamut, animism, fetishism, magic,
divination, oracle and prayer. Oracle seems to be the central term
of these. Excluding the last, it is the most articulate and it seems
to be the norm upon which prayer was expanded. As with the tele-
scope and microscope man seeks to extend his vision, and with teleph-
ony he seeks to extend audition, so with oracle he has sought to
extend his range of counsel. Oracle is a case of what Marett calls
transvaluation of culture or a devulgarization of value.2 Oracle has
persisted and is found today, often changed into some of the finest
forms of religious activity.
The ancient interpretation of theophanic and oracular usage was
based upon too small a knowledge of man's physical and mental
nature. It belonged to the current anthropomorphisms. Science
and religion today make out a different case. But we still use many
of the naive concepts of early man as symbols of our different ideas
and explanations. We still speak figuratively of the voice of nature,
the voice of the divine. Once this poetry was realistically employed.
Indeed, modern mystical writers claim the substance of that which
mystics in all ages have held, viz., direct access to the divine and the
reality of communication, vision, and even, in cases, audition, etc.
"All religions depend for their origin and continuance directly upon
inspiration, that is to say upon direct intercourse."3 The same
author (p. 113) quotes, approvingly from Brierly: "A saintly life
makes a man an auditory nerve of the Eternal."4 Professor Jones
1 Introduction to History of Religion, ?927, p. 426.
2 Psychology and Folklore, p. 99 and Chap. v.
3 R. M. Jones, quoting Brinton, Religion of Primitive People, p. 52, in his Studies in
Mystical Religion, pp. xv f.
4 Ourselves and The Universe, p. 233.
as a psychologist calls our attention to the fact t

visions are excellent illustration of the fact that in ecsta
mind still uses, though subconsciously, the material o
has by no means shaken off the human element.
suppressed his reason to become a passive lyre fo
whatever might come through his lips in this state
.... It was the oracular prophecy of Dodona and D
dress and baptized with a new name."'
In the Preface to his volume on Muhammad, Mar
of the value, in his own investigations, " of biographies
have convinced many of their fellows that they we
divine communications" (p. vii). Present-day followe
research and spiritists readily credit the better anc
their prophets with success in efforts to reach objective
sustain real communication therewith. There have be
physicists and psychologists who have inclined to sim
who cannot be said to have converted their brethren.
As would be expected, Frazer's massive collections in The Golden
Bough have material illustrating our theme though his larger interest
is in another direction. He might well add a volume to the
series and entitle it "The Speaking God." Tylor gives us valuable
notes and reflections. Vocal trees, winds, birds and insects, earth-
quakes, springs, wizards, apparitions as in dreams, ghosts and spirits
are well known in the rich lore of peoples. "It is as widely recognized
among mankind that souls or ghosts have voices as that they have
visible forms, and indeed the evidence for both is of the same nature.
Men who perceive evidently that souls do talk when they present
themselves in dream or vision, naturally take for granted at once the
objective reality of the ghostly voice and of the ghostly form from
which it proceeds. .... The more modern doctrine of the subjec-
tivity of such phenomena recognizes the phenomena themselves but
offers a different explanation of them."2 Tylor notes that such ghostly
sounds as chirping, murmuring and whistling are the appropriate
voices of ghosts and spirits and reminds us of the classical instances
of murmuring and twittering mentioned in the Iliad, 23: 100, and
1 Op. cit., pp. 48 ff.
2Tylor, Primitive Culture, I, 452.
in Ovid, Fast. V: 457,1 and the Isaianic passages (Isa. 8:19; 29:4).
Data flow in from investigations the world around to show that
sincere and pretended wizardry abounds and that the prophetic
frenzy and other psychic states are held in high regard by those who
would seek guidance. Epileptic fits are suffered or simulated. Ven-
triloquism is employed. Hysteria, idiocy, and madness are made to
serve the purpose. In Kamchatka there are female shamans.
Fijian priests give divine answers. Oracles are given in the Sandwich
Islands by the shrill cries supposed to issue from the god Oro. In
China, mediums thought to be possessed are available for divination
purposes while in the Australian wilds "demons whistle in the
branches, and stooping . . . . seize the wayfarer." "In Tahiti. ....
men who in natural state showed neither ability nor eloquence, would
in . . . . convulsive delirium burst forth into earnest, lofty declama-
tion, declaring the will and answers of the gods and prophesying
future events in well-knit harangues full of the poetic figure and
metaphor of the professional orator. But when the fit was over and
sober reason returned, the prophet's gifts were gone."2 The same
authority cites cases of Indians who through fasting become especially
susceptible to apparitions, sounds, etc., and thus qualified to act as
guides to life for their clients. Tylor finds a similar animistic origin
for sacrifice and prayer, "as prayer is a request made to a deity as if
he were a man, so sacrifice is a gift made to a deity as if he were a
man."3 "Prayers, from being at first utterances as free and flexible
as requests to a living patriarch or chief, stiffened into traditional
formulas whose repetition required verbal accuracy."4 This, we
think, neither Tylor nor any other author has made out. All
analogy and the very data so carefully gathered convince us that
prayer was learned at first through what was essentially oracular
practice and always had a certain stateliness and awesome manner in
its early instances. Prayers negligee are a sign of decadence and not
of primitiveness. A simple sacrifice of a creature accompanied by a
petition, or the mere act of killing accompanied by a word though
scarcely more than a breath, or the calling of a potent name with no
specification of desires, or such an act as that of Hannah (I Sam. 1: 13),
1 Text C. H. Weise, In Hallam's ed. (1899), v. 409 f.
2 Tylor, op. cit., II, 134. 3 Ibid., II, 375. 4 Ibid., II, 371.
are of course much simpler affairs than the procedur

stately shrines of classical Greece, but they are precisely
of the simpler oracle practice which preceded the gra
Levant.
Law and medicine have their ancient analogies in the decisions
and healings for which the gods were besought at oracle-seats. Laws
need the oracular quality for their greater dignity and we know that
dicta resembling legislation very closely have grown up from shrinal
practice. The frequent claim of law to a divine origin (cf. Moses,
Solon, Hammurabi, etc.) joins it in some way, in tradition at least,
to our conception of oracle and theophany. Before there was a
science of medicine there was an art and when this latter was in the
control of priests and shamans it was often a curious mingling of magic
with common-sense. The art reached high achievement among the
Egyptians and Greeks whose observations laid the bases for more
scientific study.
Prophecy is connected with oracle. This is apparent in the earlier
forms of prophecy. The attendant at the shrine or the custodian of
the images and other instruments of oracular practice seem to have
a primitive priestly function but the interpreter of omens is associated
in our thought with prophetic activities. These two offices were
often lodged in one. "Communion" and "guidance" in their ancient
guise were products of the oracle. For the early peoples of the Levan-
tine area, Semitic and others, the world seemed peopled with the seen
and the unseen much as the present Arabs fancy the presence of
jinns, afrits, ghouls, angels, and shaytans quite as real as humans.
The desert places hold many apparitions and demons and the wilder-
ness and sown lands are spirit inhabited.' Thesefantastic folk were
familiar to Hebrews, Assyrians, and Babylonians and gave rise to
the queer shapes of dragons, satyrs, griffins, whether pictured or told.
The natural good and evil of man's world was augmented by this
uncanny population. Blessings and trouble, sickness, luck, annoy-
ance, and timely aid had unseen causes. Magical practices and
secret powers were joined. These powers were conceived in ranks
and stations, the most dignified being represented, among Semites of
all ages, by the concept of ilu, el, ilat, allah, elohim. Each tribe or
1 Ed. Meyer, Gesch. d. A. I, p. 368 .
nation was dependent for existence upon its true conception of thi
folk-,endowing power usually designated by a name that became al
the name of the people. Such were the folk and deities, Assur
Amurru, Edom, Gad, Abram, Nasr. Sometimes it was an ancestral
name that was indicated as borne by this power. The power or
powers, for they were numerous and frequently associated in group
often appear to be abstractions of man's experience with the force
of nature and his superstitious fears of what might befall him ther
Anything weird, fantastic, lunatic or mad in humans was attribute
to this world of the unseen. Disease was so accounted for and
ecstasy was plainly derivable not from the ordinary certainly, t
fore from the extraordinary. Order came into this spiritual w
and clearer notions of its control produced rituals, cults, and t
ogies. We know that in Greece this regulating service was
dered by the oracles. "A great part of the function of the ora
in Greece was to instruct the worshipper to what deity, under
particular name he should pray."' The proto-Elijahs of Sem
peoples led their clans to discriminate and to become fierce part
of the better ways (Exod. 34:12 f.; I Kings 19:10). They enjo
the ecstatic states in which they believed themselves to be in "i
diate converse with God" which was to them "the subjective att
tion of their vocation." HithnabbA meant in Hebrew "to behave
as a prophet" also "to behave madly."2 (I Sam. 18:10).
The tendency and frequent effect of oracle practice in Greec
and of prophecy in Semitic lands was to disclose a person who thou
not a monotheist was a partisan of a single deity. The specializat
of service thus induced was eventually suggestive of monotheism
Any degree of selective devotion and interpretation afforded a mental
fulchrum, a tangible measure and standard which helped the serv
of the cult to secure bearings and orientation in the vast field o
ancient observation and superstition and thus to make possible a
real advance looking toward the emancipation of philosophy, me
cine, law, and other branches of knowledge.
Unusual fulness of detail is obtainable concerning the cultivatio
of oracles in those lands of which we have literary remains. Thi
1 Farnell, Cults of the Greek States, I, 35.
SN61ldeke, Sketches from Eastern History, p. 7.
notably so in the Levantine countries. In larger Syr

Hellenic lands and almost anywhere in the brilliant arc
Mediterranean the examples multiply. These reveal
of sincerity and naivete, of dignity and hocus-pocus.
underlying the false and the honest is discernible.
So eager are the people at times and in places to be gr
the ideal which they have proposed that they do not t
simplest means to detect fraud. So sincere often are the
custodians of shrines that they are doubtless misled w
being intended. So dignified and of such proved worth
are the results of the oracular that it would be a hardy
who would suggest anything but divine validity. Note
in Syria the use of the image of the bearded Apollo, perhap
Hadad' for oracular purposes. When carried by the
(priests) it led them in directions of its choice and sign
favorable and unfavorable by a forward or retrogra
"was known to leap from one priest to another or rise
spontaneously." In fact, it seems to be the earliest ana
ouija board. It may have been the same deity who
Heliopolis was an oracle seat,2 under the name of Jupit
anus. Written questions were submitted and answer
hexameter measure were vouchsafed.3 Measures and verse made
the oracular responses more impressive, as Philostratus noted4
although as he remarks they might as well have been in terse prose.
In a similar manner the pagan Arabian augurs gave oracles in the
form known as the saj.5 Jaribolus at Palmyra suggests one of those
numerous Bels of Western Asia. His was a fountain-oracle. At
Daphne ecstatic priests presided at an oracle and answered inquirer
At Gaza was Marnas, at Abydos the god Besa, on Mount Carm
a sanctuary stood in the open under the sky, and there was also th
well-known shrine on Mount Casius. The catalogue could be ma
a long one. The traditional remains weave about the lands of
Canaan-Palestine with a fairly similar oracle-practice, the similari
is but thinly disguised by the different Greek and Latin names giv
I According to Macrobius; vide Bouchier, Syria as a Roman Province, p. 261.
SBouchier, 126. 3 Bouchier, 127. 4 Conybeare's ed., II, 53.
a See Hirschfeld, New Researches into the Composition, etc., of the Qoran
to the local baals. A strong impression is made of an indigenou

oracle cult preceding all the historic faiths. "In Assyria religiou
visions and oracles played an important part, constituting a regul
means of communication between man and the gods. Oracles were
sought by Esarhaddon, Ashurbanipal and the kings in general upo
all sorts of occasions, public and private."' "Where conflicting
claims arose within the community, they might be settled (perhaps)
by an appeal to the oracle of the god Hubal, whose minister decided
by the drawing of arrows; or the opinion of a sorceress might be
asked. These sibyls indeed play a rather important part in the
early history of Arabia, combining the professions of lawyer, phy-
sician, and priest, they yet enjoyed little respect."2 Dillman com-
ments on Gen. 25:22: "It is implied that there already existed places
where divinely inspired responses were given or that there were seers
and priests of the true God to whom people might apply for explana-
tion and advice in such circumstances."s In Gen. 14:7 we have "the
well of decision." Professor A. T. Olmstead has called my attention
to a rarely valuable reference in II Kings, chapter 16, where in con-
nection with Ahaz's introduction of the Assyrian worship and a new
altar, mention is made of the use to be made of the brazen altar.
The king says to Urijah the priest "but the brazen altar shall be for
me to inquire by" (II Kings, 16: 15; cf. 1:2).
There is a strong family likeness noticeable in all the oracle cults
in the Levant when we consider the objects sought and the lesser tools
of the practice. Naturally drought was a common experience and
the need of rain a common burden of inquiry everywhere in that part
of the world, as in the case of Elijah on Carmel. Musical instruments
are frequently met with from the time of Saul onward. Priests, lots,
entrails, arks, garments, cups, rods, altars, torahs have a strong
likeness as one looks about the field of eastern motives and methods
for approaching the divine powers in the perplexities of life. Religion
whenever oracular was often a practical work-a-day means to the
accomplishment of human desires.
On the one side of our central term, oracle, the investigation dis-
closes the lower ranges of magic and divination and on the other the
1 J. M. P. Smith, The Prophet and His Problems, p. 6, and M. Jastrow, Jr., Relig. of
Babylonia and Assyria, 1898, pp. 338 ff., 379.
2 D. S. Margoliouth, Mohammed, p. 18. 3 Commentary on Genesis, II, 194.
higher acts of sacrifice and prayer. The oracles orga

sides and continued their use in some form. As societies or individ-
uals retrograde they still tend to employ magic, divination, clairvoy-
ance. As they progress the ideals connected with sacrifice, prayer,
and communion are refined. The ideal underlying all these grows,
perhaps, from the instinct for fellowship. It is the range of this con-
ception, viz., that men may voice the meanings of the gods, or gather
that voice in multitudinous ways, times, and places, that is so amaz-
ing. "There is historical continuity between Shamanism and the
heights of mystical rapture."'
We shall hope sometime to have a better understanding of the
rise of the conception of converse between God and man. To say that
it is an anthropomorphism built upon an animistic philosophy is not
completely satisfactory. Man who makes and understands articulate
sounds naturally draws the analogy that other beings in the world are
making similar sounds when he hears the "voices of nature" and he
comes to believe that dertain of those beings or forces are gods.2 But
this does not cover the case. Not only have we in the Old Testament,
for example, reports of rational discourse by the deity, the content
of which is analogous with human reflections and possibly evolved
from the conception of divine sounds, but we have the accounts of
conversations between God and man, in the Hebrew language. Such
ideas which are commonplace in the scriptures and in different
religions must have had a rise rather different from the primitive
animistic source mentioned above. These are conceptions which
when once possessed go on to complicated refinement, but we suggest
that the concept of conversation at its simplest is not an immediate
corollary of sound or voice. At some point in the spiritual history
of man somebody entered upon the new concept, either that God
spoke to him (essentially theophanic), or that he himself ventured to
speak to the deity and that response was afforded which was either
thought to come in an actual word, or was symbolized in terms of
language (essentially oracular). The reporters of human-divine
conversations have perhaps ever been divided between those who took
that way of describing the experience, either as a figurative, or as a
1 Coe, Psychology of Religion, p. 266.
2 Cf. Isaac ="he laughs," name of a god. Vide Paton, Early Religion of Israel, p. 34,
and Frazer, Magic Art, II, 225, re "noises made by drilling in wood."
literal, accounting of what actually transpired. We know how easy

it is to use the concept in a thoughtless way and how narrow is the
dividing line between reverence and irreverence in this subject.
As has already been indicated, the question whether the Hebrews
thought that it was a man or a deity who made the first advance in
fact to the other, is an interesting one. But the nearer problem in
historic time is whether there were in Hebrew practice numerous
occasions when man frankly used oracle means to secure help and
advice. If he did then we probably have echoes of such a custom in
the Hebrew scriptures. If at any time oracle practice was known
and customary it would be easy to see how writers of the day would
incline to project it into their accounts of past times which may or
may not have known it. If there was one time more likely than
another when a practice of oracles similar to the practice among other
Levantine peoples was carried on among the Hebrews that time was
during the period from Moses to Samuel. This has been freely
acknowledged in one way or another by modern writers.1 It is not
meant that oracles began with Moses nor ended with Samuel but it
seems reasonable to suppose that that was their flourishing period
when they had the full sanction of the best minds of the nation.
Oracles continued to be used long after Samuel's age, but Israel by
that time was entering on the age of the greater prophets whose
remarkable personal consciousness was to supersede in importance
the service of the prophetical attendants at the oracle seats. And
following the prophets came the priestly class of legalists and his-
torians who worked out the constitution, ritual, and revised literary
monuments of the Jews. These priests in their turn were more
scientific and important than the type of priest which used to preside
at the oracle seats.
Though the color of oracular practice is often missed in our Old
Testament literature that literature is nevertheless instinctively
oracular. The oracle style was never lost but rather augmented in
successive literary schools and descended to all three of the Semitic
1 Moses "took up his abode at Kadesh, the old centre of the Leah tribes and devoted
his life to the consolidation of the results that he had already achieved. Here he estab-
lished an oracle of Yahweh which was consulted in all disputes between tribes and between
individuals and through it he gave decisions that carried with them the formidable sanc-
tions of religion. These oracular decisions (toroth) soon constituted a body of precedents
on which later jurisprudence depended."-L. B. Paton, Early History of Syria and Pal-
estine, p. 142. Vide T. J. Meek, in AJSL, XXXVI, 118, certifying Wellhausen.
religions. Two things happened. Under the strong inf

oracle habit the literary workers of the schools of prophet
wrote up the ancient past as if in those days the saints had
access to the divine counsels and the prophetic teache
deepened the tendency to couch all their leadings throu
or medium whatever in the forms of a divine voice spe
inner consciousness. The habit of speaking to God and
the words of God has fastened on their successors until it seems the
perfection of orthodoxy to account for most spiritual leadings through
the figure of the sense of hearing and it seems strange, to say the least,
when any religious enthusiast nowadays says that he or she has visions
or tangible evidence of the divine, while to taste or smell the powers
would generally be abhorrent to piety (Ps. 34:8, "taste and see that
the Lord is good"). We find trace of a suggestion of the medium
of taste in Ezekiel (3:1-3), of smell in Gen. 27:27,1 and of touch in
Isaiah (6:7) and Jeremiah (1:9) and must remember the testing of the
fleece, wet and dry (Judg. 6:36-40). But sight and hearing are the
more usual senses employed and among the Hebrews hearing is the
more favored. Sight might have led more often to idolatrous
practices. This latter consideration would have had more weight in
the Deuteronomic age and later.
Among the Levantines the oracle was a potent factor in guiding
the people in their thinking and acting. Back of the idea of oracular
revelation was a conviction of unseen powers vouchsafing signs of
guidance, whether by voice, word, burden, message, torah, or other
symbol. While the senses were the media the mind used several con-
cepts notably that of space because perhaps it seems more sensuous.
Place or an occurrence or object in space would include tree,
spring, cave, mountain, spot of ground, bush, storm, lightning, rock,
building, altar, pillar, shrine. The thought of place is easier than
that of time. Later, the concept of time was drawn on as in Sabbath,
Holy Days, Sunday, seasons, etc.
To the writers of the Bible, Palestine of the past and the past
itself were much more oracular than their present experience. The
mention of instruments and paraphernalia ordinarily used by con-
1 Cf. the poetic fragment Gen: 27:27b-29 with the prose context after the analogy of
a comparison of Judg, chaps. 4 and 5. See A Jewish Interpretation of the Book of Genesis
by Rabbi Julian Morgenstern, Cincinnati, Ohio, 1919, p. 233 (3d par.).
sulters is omitted because of the thought that in the earlier days

access to the deity was not so difficult. The tendency has persisted
to this hour of speaking of the ages of the great saints as times of easy
converse with heavenly powers. The more remarkable thing is the
claim that such an experience of communication is actually achieved
in the present consciousness of spiritual folk and to this day scores of
persons may be found who habitually think and talk of guidance in
the terms of the favored sense of hearing and give us to suppose that
they are in receipt of revelations of this order. They have in their
habitual religious description reduced all the media, or pretty largely
so, by which divine powers influence us, to this one expression and
figure.
When we examine the Old Testament scriptures in order to set
forth the data concerning divine speech we are confronted with various
documents and layers of tradition. - We need to sort the testimony
according to its class or period and to ask within each class, how near
to the experience described does the author stand, and what can be
said of the sources which he employs ? We remember the character-
istic types of literature and the varying strands of the Jehovist,
Elohist, Deuteronomist, Priest, and Chronicler. A comparison of
Genesis 1 and 2 is suggestive of the preliminary literary problem.
These chapters treat of the same general subject and represent two
periods of Hebrew thought as far apart as our date is from that of
Columbus. The first chapter is later. In it God is more often repre-
sented as speaking than in the second chapter where divine activities
are described without an indication of utterance until 2:16 where
"Jehovah God commanded the man." This difference in the chap-
ters is typical of what a comparison of "J" and "P" discloses and
we incline to think that the excess of instances of divine speech in
the first chapter is due to cogitation rather than to further enlighten-
ment as to objective facts. When such a transcendental document as
"P" permits more frequent reference to the divine as speaking than
"J" in treating of the same theme we attribute the difference to style
of thought and writing rather than to source information. Had we
the sources used by the second chapter we should discover whether
they were more or less reserved in attributing speech to the divine
being. This point becomes especially important in the narrative
after the eleventh chapter of Genesis. Our inclinati

second chapter more confidently for the special item of
we are seeking is somewhat affected by the consideratio
is a more or less cogitative piece. In the outside myt
notice similar reserve concerning divine speech. In the
Creation Epic, tablet I, the first utterance of any kind
roar, then Apsu cries and speaks. In another accoun
Marduk is represented, he speaks a little earlier, perhaps, in
of the narrative. The broken condition of the early lin
makes these remarks less significant.' The history of
necessarily be obscure as we seek to penetrate back of
neither of which are primitive but simply early.
The early stories in Genesis helped to answer man
concerning the fundamental relationships of life. S
were something like the following. Whence arise t
common stores of man's wisdom, the unwritten laws of
soon or later reach codified form ? Moderns would answer with the
aid of the concept of evolution working in experience. Ancients, as
many orientals to-day, would say that they come from God, spoken
through accredited agents. Such an answer is given in Genesis 2
and 3, mixed with aetiological accounts of the phenomena of
experience.
We shall gain clearest ideas of the thought of each period of
Hebrew history if we study the literatures in the order of age. The
JE age, if so it may be called, covers the period from about 900 to
650 B.C., from the separation of the Hebrew kingdoms to the eve bf
the newer prophecy of Josiah's day (250 years). The Deuteronomic
age runs approximately from 650 to 500. The Priestly age from 500
to the flourishing period of the school which compiled the books of
Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah, sometime in the third century B.c.
The thought of both the J and the E writers as reflected in our
documents was realistic, dramatic, anthropomorphic, but in varying
degree, according to the different components and strands. Never-
theless, it generally shows remarkable reserve and complete reverence.
It does not merely recount tales of the long ago when the divine and
the human conversed together nor suggest that the privilege was
1 See also the completer Assyrian version. Luckenbill, AJSL XXXVIII (October
1921), 12-35.
simply as man to man. It indicates that such a privilege was

accorded to the most favored or important mortals and that it was
after the analogy of some practice of which the JE age had a nearer
experience. What was that practice, probably current, which pro-
vided the forms and gave the analogy according to which those more
ancient conversations were conceived ? Our thought is that it was
current oracular practice which gave illustration and set the forms
for much of the literary anthropomorphism. While the J and E
schools were composing their histories, the custom of referring many
questions to representatives of the deity at various seats and shrines
was still in vogue. People went to God, i.e., they went to Bethel and
Shiloh and other places where God was more readily approached
because a priest, or seer, or prophet or the instruments of consulta-
tion were there. Thither they took their troubles, questions, and
gifts.
The idea of the speaking divinity is a part of the anthropomorph-
ism which prevails generally in religious thought and language. It
was common with all the Levantine peoples, Greeks, Hebrews, and
others. In Homer, the gods and goddesses talk as freely with humans
as they do in the earlier Hebrew scriptures. Later Greek writers as
they developed the drama gradually gave up the concept. Among
the Hebrews, throughout the schools, the fashion of putting words
into the divine mouth prevailed but the realism of the instances
diminished. The concept of the speaking divinity in later Greece
had to do chiefly with the oracles.' It is well to remember that most
of the Hebrew literature remaining to us from the JE age in Pales-
tine is of the prophetic type and temper. It is fairly clear that the
prophetic function was developed in some relation to a practice of
investigation, consultation, seership, and at seats, shrines, and oracle
centers where prophet and priest may at first have been scarcely dis-
tinguishable but were gradually differentiated as a custodian is
differentiated from an interpreter. But the prophetic group came
to expect that God would speak in the inner consciousness enabling
them to speak authoritatively. When, however, they described the
remote past they loved to picture it under the forms of a society of
which God was audibly and, occasionally, visibly a member. The
1 Cf. Acts 14:12.
nearer past, as said, was essentially oracular. 'Either t

told of oracles or else much current practice made that
and expected form. Not until Hezekiah, or, possibl
there any prophetic antipathy to oracles as such. T
would be a small group in any case. The most that
that the prophetic literature proceeded from a group
prejudiced in favor of continued use of oracles.
The accounts in the Bible often preserve but one sid
lar experience, say the divine response, taking for granted
ism of approach, much as religious people will often re
of guidance without necessarily making mention of pr
acts of worship Wvhich may have preceded. A complete
would include the approach of a suppliant or consulte
seat with gifts and petitions and the receipt of res
these items appear in the Old Testament. But usua
divine utterance with accompaniments which would sug
event in certain instances.
The oracular habit of speech persisted in the presentations of
ancient words of wisdom, a few of which may have descended to us in
a poetic form which reflect actual oracle seats and interpreters.
Sometimes the privileges of a higher practice are purposely contrasted
with the divination and necromancy of the day (Isa. 8:19).' The
mode is seen affecting such late passages as Isa. 65:1 and Ezek.
33:30 ff. In such passages we have the oracle instinct and style
although their authors may be a long distance from consultation at
shrines and on the way to a more spiritual conception of the interpre-
tation of the divine.
Such a passage as Gen. 2:15-25, with an echo of the oracular and
its trace of the theophanic, acquires a dignity not possessed by other
literature. We have never appraised the enhanced loftiness given to
the Hebrew Bible style by this oracular quality. The same verbs
are used as are employed in describing the utterance of man but
with how noble a distinction the reverence of the ages will testify.
No literature outside the Old and New Testament has anything like
this sonorous and impressive tone until we come to another of the
Semitic line, the Koran.
1 See note on Isa. 65:4, McFadyen, "Isaiah," The Bible for Home and School, 1910.
Contradiction of the word of the divine seems to be dealt with in

the interesting story in Genesis, chapter 3.1 The serpent is repre-
sented much as a pseudo-oracle and essays a solemn statement which
leads to mischief. But the voice of God was heard by the guilty pair
in the breeze sounds. Gen. 3:8 f. makes the presence of the divine
seem real and the communication with the supernatural perfectly
natural without any descent to grotesqueness or lessening of the
sense of reality. It was easy for students to whom this type of teach-
ing was offered to name the human conscience the voice of the divine
and thus gain the most powerful aid imaginable in the service of moral
education. In 3:14 ff. are three significant words, (1) against the
serpent, (2) announcing the law of travail in human birth and the
subjection of woman to man, (3) a theory of the perversity of agri-
cultural ground and of man's trouble to gain a crop from it. (1) is a
theological, (2) a sociological (biological) and a legal, while (3) is an
industrial dictum. Thus we have in sentences ascribed to God
observations which would seem to be hard earned lessons of evolv
experience. Is this what the voice of God means ? Or do these
lessons seem to be said to us in the sounds of nature and in the
expected responses at places of worship and consultation, as at
shrines, or after meditation? Similar dicta have been vouchsafed
at Sinai and Delphi. They are just such as the brainier custodians
of early shrines attributed to divine inspiration. The dicta of
experience are credited to a divine source and given dracular aspect
as the words of God spoken in an age when heaven and earth were in
easy communication. This scriptural manner has too often led the
unthinking and the lazy of later times to hope for unearned incre-
ments of wisdom. The bases of such dicta were approved in the moral
consciousness of the higher grade prophets and have been found in
the best oracular responses of earlier days. The compact, artistic
form is probably due to some leader or school near a shrinal or cul-
tural center. Such schools and individual leaders were found among
the prophets and in the so-called Wisdom School but what about the
earlier analogues and origins of such ?
Certain of these concise dicta were probably possessions of the
Hebrews before the Jehovistic school composed its writings. Did
1 Note the impressive plural form of the verb in fIn, 3:3 f. Gesenius, Kautzsch-
Collins, and Cowley, Hebrew Grammar, 47m and 72u.
the Hebrews receive any of these dicta as part of an

culture from others and were their benefactors Semitic or non-
Semitic ? There is no lack of suggestion that in either case the intel-
lectual ancestors were familiar with the use of oracles. Literary
tradition would fain give credit to one's own physical ancestors and
one's own past for all lessons of life. In many of these dicta of the
Old Testament one may hear echoes of the original cryptic and epi-
grammatic core of utterance and see in addition the amplifying dress
of literary elaboration.
In Gen. 4:1 we have possibly one of those half-histories of ora-
cular practice referred to above: "I have gotten a man from J1."
In this the thought is, probably, that the mother had asked God for
a child. Probably the offerings of Cain and Abel (4:3 ff.) were
thought of by the Hebrews as approaches to JI which usually meant
to appear with gifts and to seek aid by sign or oracle. Abel was
favored in the responses and Cain was not. The prophetic explana-
tion was a moral one. Gen. 4:6 f., "And the Lord said unto Cain,
Why art thou wroth ? and why is thy countenance fallen ? If thou
doest well, shalt thou not be accepted ? and if thou doest not well,
sin coucheth at the door: and unto thee shall be his desire, and thou
shall rule over him." This which is difficult of interpretation in its
present literary setting (see the versions) may be regarded as the
echo of a cryptic, possibly of an oracular, word which needs the
restoration of its source to make it perfectly clear. The Greek renders
"unto thee its return and thou shalt rule over it"; Syriac, "thou shalt
return to him and he shall rule over thee." Mitchell ("Genesis," in
Bible for Home and School) interprets "he who does a wrong act puts
himself in danger of becoming the slave of evil." The thought
reminds us of the Wisdom of the Hebrews. The thinkers who pro-
duced such passages or collected them are the fore-runners of the
classical Wise Men. Shall we see the rise of Hokhmah in these
prophetic schools and the style of its literary masters in the oracula
style of the interpreters developed to the point of producing such
works as Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes ? Doubtless there is much
to be said in favor of such an explanation.' But the difference of
mental constitution between the non-mystical speculator and the
1 See D.B. Macdonald in Studia Semitica et Orientalia, Glasgow, 1920.
mystical prophetic interpreter was illustrated very early in Israe

and the dual product has never ceased to appear. See Gen. 4:9, 15.
It is interesting to find, in the poetic fragments of the older Hebrew
song, couplets which seem like the echo of some early oracle. Suc
is Gen. 4:24,
If Cain shall be avenged seven-fold,
Truly Lamech seventy and seven-fold.
It is possible that this couplet is older than those which precede i

(24b,c) to which 24a was attached as introduction by the stor
teller. Verse 24 seems to be the basis of the prose parallel in verse 1
But whether these poetic verses be ballad, pure and simple, or orac
lore, or embryonic bit of Hokhmah, the measured stress which mar
the poetic form arises from related causes, the intense emotion o
enthusiasm of balladist, oracle, or sage. Emotional utterance tend
to the regular cutting of lines and to the rhythm that is inherent
strong feeling. At times of strong emotion there seems to be a cor
relation between the organic beat, heart, viscera, etc., and one
mental activity. A man out of breath, frightened, awed, or unde
other pronounced stress will exhibit the rudiments of the same ph
nomenon as that seen in the case of the emotional genius who creat
artistic utterance. It has often been noticed that anger has led to
unusual eloquence. Profanity and vituperation employ a rotun
dity of expression that is unwonted. Intoxication of several varieti
has been sought to increase eloquence. It is plain that the addic
to such methods sought inspiration.
In Gen. 6:3, in the nalive philosophy of that day, it was though
that some definite word of God had set the bounds of human lon-
gevity. It was natural to theorize that primitive man had a dictum
for every act and turn of his life. The easy converse in the Flood
Story illustrates this, while it explains certain atmospheric facts.
Such a question as that answered in Gen. 6:3 is often taken to oracles.
What more natural than to garb such wisdom or science in the oracle
form! "yet shall his days be an hundred and twenty years." The
fashion of couching all convictions and knowledge in direct quotation
of the deity grew naturally in an oracle atmosphere, Gen. 6:7, 13.
It would not seem natural for us to write our narrative, history,
theory of agriculture, weather, and a hundred other matters in words
purporting to be the words of a divine speaker as is done in Gen.
7:1; 8:15 ff.; 8:21. These are aetiological passages su

backlying sources in poetic form analogous with Judg
We should have to distinguish between the truly p
passages showing literary assimilation to the oracular s
Genesis 9:25-27 contains a justification for the su
Canaan. Noah's curse seems like the pronouncement of oracular
authority.
The modern way of forestalling dispute about legal possession or
title is to go before a court and secure the necessary decision. In old
Israel these matters were taken to God, that is to Bethel or some other
shrine, before the authorities who represented the divinity and the
sanctions required were established beyond reasonable dispute. War
would be entered upon, under such a mandate, with confident
abandon, Judg. 5:12b. In late Judaism the actual names of the
authorities, lawyers, rabbis, etc., were known to the record and we
have them named frequently, but in early Israel the consultees are
disguised under the conventional literary expression and with true
oriental logic the words are taken back to their ultimate authority.
It is this customary reference to first cause probably that accounts for
the frequent impression given us in the Old Testament that a theo-
phany originated the divine-human communication. See, for
example, Gen. 12:6, 8; 13:14. Gen. 12:6-8 mentions the tere-
binth of Moreh at Shechem, thought to have been an oracle-tree.
Abram built an altar there. A second altar was built between
Bethel and Ai. It may be that a Shechem tradition and a Bethel
tradition are blended in this passage, though the analysts usually
treat it as a whole.'
Those literary theologians who gave us the accounts of the occupa-
tion of Canaan by the chosen people would have been surprised indeed
if they had known that their words would ever be interpreted as
meaning that the constitutional position of Israel in the land was
based upon occasional conversations even between God and humans,
instead of the firm basis of oracular dicta, the laws of the divine, the
covenant. This sure word came at every need; to preserve the
purity of Sarah, to decide in the quarrel in Abraham's household in
1 See Mitchell, in loc., "Genesis" (Bible for Home and School) re Shechem: ".Its cen-
tral location . .. as well as the popularity of its oracle and the sanctuary connected
therewith made it a favorite place for great meetings." Cf. Gibecath Ham-more=hill of
the oracle; Paton, E.R.I., 58.
the dispensation which involved the child of Sarah and that of Hagar.
The concept corresponded to what we call divine guidance, Providence.
We should like, of course, to know the nature of the source immedi-
ately back of J and E, whether it was the same for the two and whether
the prophetic schools did any blending of variant source material or
whether a distinction is possible between Babylonian and Canaanitish
data. Did these schools ever see any pure Babylonian material or
was it all Canaanized as it reached them ?
When we pass to the combined JE stories there is a reduction of
the easy, marvelous scope allowed in the prophetic portions of the
first eleven chapters of Genesis. Vision and dream, usually ascribed
to E, enter and share the attention with speech as such and the con-
cept of intermediate agency plays a prominent part. See Gen. 15:1,
5; 20:3; 21:12. In the last of these passages, the voice of Sarah
carries the same content as the voice of the divine being. ". .... in
all that Sarah saith unto thee, hearken unto her voice; for in Isaac
shall thy seed be called." This instance eases the way to the sug-
gestion that to ascribe direct speech to the divine may be a way of
asseverating the truth of what Sarah said.
In Genesis, chapter 16, is the first instance in J where the angel is
the medium of the divine communication. Verse 13 says that "she
called the name of Ji that spake unto her, Thou art a God that seeth."
This easy assumption by which we pass from an angel to the deity
himself is an identification which often takes place between God's
minister and God himself (cf. Exod. 3:14, E, and the Priestly Exod.
6:3). Perhaps we have here the speaking or moving waters motif
(Gen. 16:7 f).
Gen. 18:1, "And JI appeared unto him by the terebinths of
Mamre, as he sat in the tent door." There is no necessary suggestion
that the writer thinks that this is the beginning of the sacredness of
the famous trees, or that Abraham was unconscious of their sacred
character, or quite unprepared for the visitation at that time and
place. We enjoy the gifted story-teller's charm revealed in the natu-
ralness of the tale which disguises the visit of the patriarch and his
wife to one of the seats of divine counsel. The three men who appear
to the patriarch have the unusual knowledge that marks the divine
as sought by cultivators of oracle and divination. Evidently Abra-
ham had met the terms of oracular consultation and his first words
to the divine men, perhaps the attendants, were, "Oh

I have found favor in thy sight. ... ." Abraham and
there seeking for an heir as is customary for a husban
the Orient, to go together for the blessing. As in Gen
Judg. 1:1, we appear to have cases of oracle-inquiry
was at first oracular was often woven into later theoph
Gen. 22:1 perhaps. If the Hebrews had an instrument b
secured divine counsel it is easy to surmise how they ca
that divine speech was a possibility and that it was
vouchsafed in the ages preceding their own. Two thin
able, that the instrument was divination in some form
cular practice was fairly well known (Ezek. 21:21 E
such an explanation as the essentially oracular our dif
unusual. Perhaps they are unnecessary.
Trees,' caves, and springs have been, of old, places of
There spirits have dwelt and been consulted, in m
Professor L. B. Paton has listed the numerous references in the Old
Testament to such abodes of the powers and with his pupil, Professor
W. Carleton Wood, has studied the subject exhaustively. Mountain
sanctuary, burning bush, rock, earthquake, lightning, fire, any
concrete spot or manifestation of natural phenomena focuses the
attention of essentially religious man and suggests submission and
consultation. We have no reason to supposethat man of a given
grade of culture in early Canaan was different from his contemporary
in culture in other parts of the world. Instances of survival in modern
Canaan are very suggestive as showing what has been obscured by
the superimposition of cults. The beginnings of prophetic practice
and literatures in the JE age scarcely shut the door upon a luxuriant
pre-prophetic practice which resembles other Levantine customs more
closely.2 Oracular seats belong to the period of localized deities.
With the evolution of monotheism goes the progressive delocaliza-
tion of deity and the lessening significance of places, seats, and shrines.
According to the degree of clearmindedness on this subject of mono-
theism depends the degree of detachment of devotion from localities.3
Corresponding with these considerations we should not expect details
of the approach to oracles in those prophetic writings which overlook
the media so often in contemplation of the great relationship between
1 Gen. 35:8. 2 See Marett, Psychology and Folklore, p. 134. ' Ibid., p. 164.
the worshiper and the sole deity. Obedience and righteousness of

life are the great points of emphasis in our Bible.
Out of the belief in the success of these inquiries by the ancien
Hebrews grew the concept of the tender regard of God for all nee
We find it in Gen. 21:17 ff (God and Hagar), "God hath heard th
voice of the lad where he is." Any cry from anywhere is heard, ev
though it be the cry of the child of an Arab slave-girl in the deser
Ishmael the traditional ancestor of the Ishmaelites. This develope
sense of a just and compassionate providence available at any tim
and in any place was long in arriving but in due time it appeared
the higher idealism of the prophetic folk.
According to Gen. 26:24, Isaac slept at the shrine of Beersheba
In 28:13 ff we are told similarly of Jacob that consciously or unco
sciously he slept at a shrinal spot, Bethel, and received the appropriate
communication. We can discern between the position of the writ
to whom ancient Canaan was essentially oracle ground and the su
prise of the till then uninstructed patriarch who learns that there
one more place than he had thought where God might be approach
The distinction between open theophany and dream seems to
one of literary style, partly at least, as will be observed in the J a
the E elements in the Jacob and Joseph stories in Genesis. "T
angel of God said unto me in the dream Jacob: and I said, Here a
I," . . . . "I am the God of Bethel where thou anointedst a pill
where thou vowedst a vow unto me; now arise, get thee out from t
land, and return unto the land of thy nativity" (Gen. 31:11, 1
With these E passages compare Gen. 12:1 (J) to which reference
evidently made. See, further, Gen. 31:24 and 32:24-29 ff., to wh
may be added the following E passages, Gen. 35:1; 37:5 ff.; 40
41:25; 41:28, 32; 46:2.
Once we have the clue to primitive practice, the comparative
method seizes upon rich data scattered in our scriptures which show
pretty clearly what the prophets sought to wean Israel from as they
upheld the loftier ethical, spiritual conceptions of Hebrew religion.
There is more than a figure of speech in such a passage as Josh. 24:27
where "Joshua said unto all the people, Behold this stone shall be a
witness against us; for it hath heard all the words of JI which he
spake unto us; it shall be therefore a witness against you, lest ye
deny your God." God spoke to the primitive Canaanite in the
thunder as he does to many a primitive mind in Palest

clothed himself with militant heroes and acted throu
Judg. 6:34 and 11:29. Priests and prophets were largel
interpreting the meaning of these many vehicles of d
in early Canaan. The nabi' was a proclaimer of answ
divine (I Sam. 9:9). The k6h4n was the priestly at
obtained oracular answers for inquirers. W. R. Smith
Wellhausen's "Gesch. Israels," in Lectures and Essays,
ing of the time of the Judges, says, "The chief function o
was to give oracles; and oracles in such a state of soci
been in great demand."
Shrines continue in vogue in the Levant much as of
for the frowning of certain officials of religion in places.
tells of the shrine of Aaron on Mount Hor which modern Arabs
believe the saint visits two days a week. Cf. also the saint of Nebk,
named Mohammed el-Ghuffary, who "appears in various forms,
sometimes as an old man, sometimes as a young man in white, but
always in human form." A Moslem said of this saint, "I have seen his
spirit because I love the saint and he loves me. He appears to me by
day and by night like a middle-aged man wearing a green robe. I
speak to him and we converse together." It is possible that theophanic
and oracular motive was the origin of many an altar placed upon the
holy spot where notable experience was had. This would be contrary
to the thought of the passage in Toy's Introduction, section 297,
and more in agreement with section 1081 of the same work.
But a counter consideration must be added. Sometimes it is as
important to suppress voice and sign as to invoke them, for the
manifestation might be ill-timed and awkward if not dangerous.
Frazer (M.A., II, 204) tells us of the Bolivian Indian women who,
while at work on pottery, "observe certain ceremonies and never
open their mouth, speaking to each other by signs, being persuaded
that one word spoken would infallibly cause all their pots to break
in the firing." A clumsy Aladdin might rub the lamp at an ill-omened
moment and be confronted by a genius whom he could not employ
suitably.. What did the Jews think would happen if the divine name
represented by the tetragrammeton were pronounced ? Would it
in any sense constitute an unhallowed oracular summons ?
1 Primitive Semitic Religion To-Day, p. 79.

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The University of Chicago Press The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures

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Oracle in the Old Testament

Author(s): Elihu Grant

within nature and the introducer of problems. Questio

as a psychologist calls our attention to the fact t

are of course much simpler affairs than the procedur

notably so in the Levantine countries. In larger Syr

to the local baals. A strong impression is made of an indigenou

higher acts of sacrifice and prayer. The oracles orga

literal, accounting of what actually transpired. We know how easy

religions. Two things happened. Under the strong inf

sulters is omitted because of the thought that in the earlier days

after the eleventh chapter of Genesis. Our inclinati

simply as man to man. It indicates that such a privilege was

nearer past, as said, was essentially oracular. 'Either t

Contradiction of the word of the divine seems to be dealt with in

the Hebrews receive any of these dicta as part of an

mystical prophetic interpreter was illustrated very early in Israe

It is possible that this couplet is older than those which precede i

7:1; 8:15 ff.; 8:21. These are aetiological passages su

to the divine men, perhaps the attendants, were, "Oh

the worshiper and the sole deity. Obedience and righteousness of

thunder as he does to many a primitive mind in Palest

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