********************************************* 1.  Comp.  Zech. xiv. 16 seq.  All that are left of the nations which came against Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship Jehovah of hosts and to keep the feast of tabernacles.  And whoso of the families of the earth shall not come up unto Jerusalem to worship Jehovah of hosts, UPON THEM SHALL BE NO RAIN,.  But for the Egyptians—­who on account of the Nile are independent of rain—­another punishment is threatened if they do not come to keep the feast of tabernacles. **********************************************

It has for its basis no historical acts of salvation, but nature simply, which, however, is regarded only as God’s domain and as man’s field of labour, and is in no manner itself deified.  The land is Jehovah’s house (viii. 1, ix. 15), wherein He lodges and entertains the nation; in the land and through the land it is that Israel first becomes the people of Jehovah, just as a marriage is constituted by the wife’s reception into the house of the husband, and her maintenance there.  And as divorce consists in the wife’s dismissal from the house, so is Jehovah’s relation to His people dissolved by His making the land into a wilderness, or as in the last resort by His actually driving them forth into the wilderness; He restores it again by “sowing the nation into the land” anew, causing the heavens to give rain and the earth to bear, and thereby bringing into honour the name of “God sown” for Israel (ii. 25 [23]).  In accordance with this’ worship consists simply of the thanksgiving due for the gifts of the soil, the vassalage payable to the superior who has given the land and its fruits.  It ipso facto ceases when the corn and wine cease; in the wilderness it cannot be thought of, for if God bestows nothing then man cannot rejoice, and religious worship is simply rejoicing over blessings bestowed.  It has, therefore, invariably and throughout the character given in the Jehovistic legislation to the feasts, in which also, according to Hosea’s description, it culminates and is brought to a focus.  For the days of the false gods, on which people adorned themselves and sacrificed, are just the feasts, and in fact the feasts of Jehovah, whom however the people worshipped by images, which the prophet regards as absolutely heathenish.

Equally instructive is the second passage (ix. 1-6).  “Rejoice not too loudly, O Israel, like the heathen, that thou hast gone a whoring from thy God, and lovest the harlot’s hire upon every threshing-floor.  The floor and the wine-press shall not feed them, and the new wine shall fail them.  They shall not dwell in Jehovah’s land; Ephraim must return to Egypt, and eat what is unclean in Assyria.  Then shall they no more pour out wine to Jehovah, or set in order sacrifices to Him; like bread of mourners is their bread, 1 all that eat thereof become unclean, for

************************************** 1.  For Y(RBW (ix. 4) read Y(RKW, and LXMM for LXM.  See Kuenen, National Religions and Universal Religions (1882), p. 312 seq. **************************************