There are obvious traces of grief expressed in a primitive way among the Hebrews.  ’Ye shall not cut yourselves, nor make any baldness between your eyes for the dead’ (Deut. xiv. 1).  ’Neither shall men lament for them, nor cut themselves, nor make themselves bald for them; neither shall men tear themselves for them in mourning, to comfort them for the dead’ (by way of counter-irritant to grief); ’neither shall men give them the cup of consolation to drink for their father or their mother,’ because the Jews were to be removed from their homes.[10] ’Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you.’[11]

It may be usual to regard inflictions, such as cutting, by mourners, as sacrifices to the ghost of the dead.  But one has seen a man strike himself a heavy blow on receiving news of a loss not by death, and I venture to fancy that cuttings and gashings at funerals are merely a more violent form of appeal to a counter-irritant of grief, and, again, a token of recklessness caused by a sorrow which makes void the world.  One of John Nicholson’s native adorers killed himself on news of that warrior’s death, saying, ‘What is left worth living for?’ This was not a sacrifice to the Manes of Nicholson.  The sacrifice of the mourner’s hair, as by Achilles, argues a similar indifference to personal charm.  Once more, the text in Psalm cvi. 28, ’They joined themselves unto Baal-Peor, and ate the sacrifices of the dead,’ is usually taken by commentators as a reference to the ritual of gods who are no gods.  But it rather seems to indicate an acquiescence in foreign burial rites.  All this additional evidence does not do much to prove ancestor-worship in Israel, though the secrecy of the burial of Moses, ’in a valley of the land of Moab, over against Beth-peor; but no man knoweth of his sepulchre to this day,’ may indicate a dread of a nascent worship of the great leader.[12] The scene of the defection in Psalm cvi., Beth-peor, is indicated in Numbers xxv., where Israel runs after the girls and the gods of Moab:  ’And Moab called the people unto the sacrifices of their gods; and the people did eat, and bowed down to their gods.  And Israel joined himself unto Baal-peor.’  Psalm cvi. is obviously a later restatement of this addiction to the Moabite gods, and the Psalm adds ‘they ate the sacrifices of the dead.’

It is plain that, for whatever reason, ancestor-worship among the Hebrews was, at the utmost, rudimentary.  Otherwise it must have been clearly denounced by the Prophets among the other heresies of Israel.  Therefore, as being at the most rudimentary, ancestor-worship in Israel could not be developed at once into the worship of Jehovah.