however, has nothing to do with cultus, but only with justice and morality.  In another passage (viii.11 seq.) we read, “Ephraim has built for himself many altars, to sin; the altars are there for him, to sin.  How many soever my instructions (torothai) may be, they are counted those of a stranger.”  This text has had the unmerited misfortune of having been forced to do service as a proof that Hosea knew of copious writings similar in contents to our Pentateuch.  All that can be drawn from the contrast “instead of following my instructions they offer sacrifice” (for that is the meaning of the passage) is that the prophet had never once dreamed of the possibility of cultus being made the subject of Jehovah’s directions.  In Isaiah’s discourses the well-known passage of the first chapter belongs to this connection:  “To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the Lord.  I am weary with the burnt-offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts, and I delight not in the blood of bullocks and of lambs and of he-goats.  When ye come to look upon my face, who hath required this at your hands?—­to trample my courts!” This expression has long been a source of trouble, and certainly the prophet could not possibly have uttered it if the sacrificial worship had, according to any tradition whatever, passed for being specifically Mosaic.  Isaiah uses the word Torah to denote not the priestly but the prophetical instruction (i.10, ii.3, v.24, viii.16, 20, xxx.9); as both have a common source and Jehovah is the proper instructor (xxx.20), this is easily explicable, and is moreover full of instruction as regards the idea involved; the contents of the Priestly Code fit badly in with the Torah of i.10.  Lastly, Micah’s answer to the people’s question, how a return of the favour of an angry God is to be secured, is of conspicuous significance (vi.6 seq.):  “Shall I come before Him with burnt-offerings with calves of a year old?  Is the Lord pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil?  Shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body as atonement for my soul?—­It hath been told thee, O man, what is good, and what Jehovah requireth of thee.  Nay, it is to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly before thy God.”  Although the blunt statement of the contrast between cultus and religion is peculiarly prophetic, Micah can still take his stand upon this, “It hath been told thee, O man, what Jehovah requires.”  It is no new matter, but a thing well known, that sacrifices are not what the Torah of the Lord contains.

That we have not inferred too much from these utterances of the older prophets is clear from the way in which they are taken up and carried on by Jeremiah, who lived shortly before the Babylonian exile.  Just as in vi.19 seq. he opposes the Torah to the cultus, so in vii.11 seq. he thus expresses himself:  “Add your burnt-offerings to your sacrifices, and eat flesh!  For I said nought unto your fathers,