I . S L I T T L E
A
of Israelcontrary,T H E N O R M S O F M O R A L CONDUCT1
AS ANY other major civilized religion does that
know of morality apart from religion. On the we would expect from our knowledge of the Israelite view of God that here above all the derivation of moral conduct from the all-ruling will of God would be pursued with especial vigour; and, as we turn the pages of the Old Testament, this expectation is completely confirmed. From the earliest to the latest period it is God’s demand, which comes vested with absolute authority, which is the strongest and the dominating motive of human conduct. The power of the good rests entirely on the recognition of God as the One who is good. Of moral behaviour for the sake of an abstract good there is none.
Nevertheless, even within a morality so strongly determined by religious factors, importance still attaches to the acknowtedgment of such norms as possess a certain independent validity for the control of con- duct, and do not require the citation of a divine command to support them in every instance. This means that there is a sphere in which human behaviour is subjected to an unconditional Ought, because this is felt to be something absolutely valid in itself. Generally speak- ing, this is certainly true wherever morality is based on a fairly highly developed national life; and the point at which a general moral con- sciousness emerges is, of course, popular moralitjv.
1 Cf. P. van Imschoot, Z%.kZogie de Z’dncien Zktament II, 1956, ch. 3 : Les devoirs de l’homme; C. Ryder Smith, Ihe Bible Doctrine of Man, I 95 I.
3’6
.
3’8 EFFECT OF PIETY ON CONDUCT
in upholding the covenant of friendship,1 and in risking their lives for the national community, whether it be in peril from hostile armies2 or from some other threat;3 and at such times all private feuds have to take second place.4 This social bond results in a conservative retention of traditional morals and forms of law. The inheritance of one’s fathers is regarded as sacred, and men are not to be inveigled into alienating it for gain. 5 Society protects the institution of blood- revenge, and only very gradually suffers it to be replaced by objective processes of law. But popular morality also goes beyond these things to positive moral requirements. Thus men strive to ensure incorruptibility in a judge,6 and condemn breach of faith in any form, from simple cheating to assassination, even where the latter hides itself behind justifiable revenge for the blood of a kinsman.7 Indeed, it is also quite generally regarded as wrong to requite good with evil;* and praise is given to the magnanimous conduct of the man who cannot be diverted even by injustice from doing good to his neighbour.9
Moreover, this recognition of obligatory norms of conduct in early Israel does not stop at the limits of the nation, but goes beyond them to the self-evident conviction that certain fundamental ordinances arc binding on outsiders also. This does not apply only to those groups with which one is brought into closer association by covenant and con- tractual relationships, which inevitably presuppose loyalty to agree- ments and the sacrosanctity of oaths.10 Even where no security has been taken in dealings with neighbouring peoples, the validity of the most general basic moral principles is assumed, and any breach of them is regarded as a sign of the special depravity of the nation in question. Above all there is the obligation of guest-friendship, on which the foreigner must be able to rely, even if it means risking one’s own life, or indeed the honour of one’s family.11 Certain requirements of modesty and pietas are felt by all nations to be binding;12 hence even
1 I Sam. 18.1-4; x9.2-7; 20.8 (‘a covenant of Yahweh’) ; II Sam. 9.1; 21.7.
sJudg. 3.27f.; 5.2, g, 18, 23; 7.23f.; I Sam. 11.7; II Sam. 10.12, etc.
sJudg. 21.1ff.; II Sam. 2.26ff.; 24.17.
4 II Sam. 1.18ff.
s I Kings 21.3.
6 I Sam. 12.Iff.; cf. Ex. 23.1-3, 7-g.
7 Gen. 31.26ff. ; II Sam. 3.28ff. ; I Kings 2.5.
8 I Sam. 25.21.
Q I Sam. 24.18; Ex. 23.4-6.
loGen. 21.23ff.; 26.28ff.; 31.44, 4gff.; II Sam. 21.
11Gen. 18.3ff.; 19.1, 6ff.; Judg. 19.23.
1s Gen. 9.23; x8.2of.; 20.9.
I
I I I I
!
I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I i I
I
THE NORMS OF MORAL CONDUCT 3’9 a foreign people may be a righteous people, preserving the fear of God.1 Unnecessary cruelty, even toward enemies, is abominable.2 Abuse of confidence is regarded as wickedness and folly, both in the relationship of servant and master, and in general dealings.3 Sym- pathy with the weak is also assumed to exist in foreigners, and violation of it is seen as harsh injustice.4 In dealings with aliens men try to repay good with good, and indeed expect gross ingratitude to be visited with sure punishment.5 To show unselfishness toward foreigners is highly praiseworthy,6 and in his intercession for a foreign city Abraham exhibits behaviour which is plainly regarded as exemplary.7 Likewise men are prepared to recognize magnanimity, even when it is shown by those who belong to another nation.8
II. The infruence of the concept of God on popular morality
In all these matters Israel was essentially on a level with the more developed nations of the ancient world. She upheld the ethics of a healthy, unspoiled, agricultural people, and thus shows that her moral consciousness was rooted in the basic facts of human life as given in Nature. But at various extremely important points it is pos- sible to detect a raising of the level, which is by no means self-evident, and which is indisputably religiously conditioned, since it reveals the influence of the God-Man relationship established in the covenant.
In the first place we have to remember the quite new stress which was bound to be laid on ethical norms, in so far as they were understood as expressing the will of the one divine Lord, who claimed to bring into subjection to himself the whole of human life in all its aspects. Because they were backed by the one absolute authority, these basic principles of human social life were lifted out of the sphere of the merely relative binding force which obtained within the framework and the limits of a particular historical situation, and acquired a share in the timeless and unconditioned quality of the holy. Now it was no longer possible to evade uncomfortable obligations at the solicitation of more com-
1 Gen. 20.4, I I. 2 Gen. 49.6; cf. 34.30.
s Gen. 39.8; 44.4f., g.
4 Ex. 2.6; Gen. 1g.5ff.; Judg. 1g.22ff.
511 Sam. 10.2; I Sam. 8.gff.; 12.7, 13ff.; Judg. 9.16.
6 Gen. 14.23ff.
7 Gen. 18.23ff.
s Gen. 33. It has already been pointed out at pp. 232ff. above that here a great deal is bound up with the nomad’s sense of solidarity.
320 E F F E C T O F P I E T Y O N C O N D U C T
pelling interests. It was precisely the concrete demand of the narrowest circle of the individual’s life which laid hold on him with all the seriousness of a responsibility before God, and which gave the per- formance of his duty, even in the most humble setting, the nobility of an act of worship. The weight and impressiveness which was bound to attend moral demands in such circumstances may be seen from the formula in which they now frequently occur. Indeed, it is part of the unique nature of the Israelite legal tradition that the technical juristic formulation of casuistic law is constantly being interrupted by categorical divine comma&s and@rohibitions, in which the laying down of a human punishment is replaced by the authoritative demand of the divine Lord.1 And because these apodeictic utterances come together in series,2 their conciseness, concentrated force, and impressive sequence, as well as the iron ring of the similar individual clauses, convey a powerful sense of the absolute validity of the will standing behind them.
At the same time, however, there are clear signs in these demands, which derive originally from the sacral sphere, of the tendency toward unijcation
of
the ethical norms. The great, simple, fundamental outlines of moral conduct must be drawn in a few lapidary propositions.Hence these collections go far beyond the domain of casuistic law, and combine with legal both moral and religious requirements. This effort reaches its climax in the Decalogue, where, by partially renouncing external homogeneity of construction, and by leaving out the concrete detail of particular transgressions and the allocation of punishment, the range of the prohibitions is stretched as far as it will go. In this way the individual clauses acquire the significance of general principles for all similar cases, and at the same time allow the moral content to stand out with a heightening of its pregnant and absolute quality. Implicit in the actual selection made from the whole multiplicity of legal and moral prescriptions is the unspoken conviction ofan essential unity behind all moral demands; and by making an attempt to describe this in terms of the basic principles cited, it contains a critique of the mass of rules for living which had been sanctioned hitherto, and which had grown up as a result of Nature and historical accident. Moreover, inasmuch as the will of God emerges as the 1 On this subject cf. the impressive exposition of A. Alt, Die Urspriinge des israelitischen Rechts, 1934, pp. 33ff.
sEx. 20.2-17; 2 1 . 1 2 , 15-17;
27.15-26. Lev. r8.7ff.; 20.2, g-13, rgf., 20-27; Deut.
T H E N O R M S O F M O R A L C O N D U C T 327 suprcmc norm behind all particular requirements, the desired unity of the moral sphere shifts in essence to the personal activity of the covenant God.
In addition to this surehanded selection of essential elements from the traditional popular ethic the moral effect of the new knowledge of God makes itself felt just as much in the correction and expansion of older legal outlooks. The norms given in the Book of the Covenant (Ex.
20-23) reveal, when compared with related law-books of the ancient Near East, radical alterations in legal practice.1 In the evaluation of offences against property, in the treatment of slaves, in the fixing of punishment for indirect offences, and in the rejection of punishment by mutilation, the value of human life is recognized as incomparably greater than all material values. The dominant feature throughout is respect for the rights of everything that has a human face; and this means that views which predominate universally elsewhere have been abandoned, and new principles introduced into Zegal practice.
Ultimately this is possible only because of a profundity of insight hitherto undreamt of into the nobility
of
Man, which is now recognized as a binding consideration for moral conduct, Hence in Israel even the rights of the lowliest foreigner are placed under the protection of God; and if he is also dependent, without full legal rights, to oppress him is like oppressing the widow and orphan, a transgression worthy of punishment, which calls forth God’s avenging retribution.2 The knowledge of God as one who confronts men in personal encounter, and calls them into his service, leads to an awareness of the distinctive position of Man as compared with all the rest of animate Nature, and assures him of his worth as a responsible, personal ‘I’, with all the obligations that derive from this.3Similar conclusions may be drawn from the patriarchal sagas, which certainly do not give us a picture of spotless saints, and which yet allow us to discern the ideal of the pious man as this was already a living reality in the barbarous times of the Judges and the early monarchy. The peaceableness and unselfishness which stand out in a figure like Abraham, the honour and sincerity for lack of which mis- fortune dogs the hard life story of Jacob, the forgivingness and
1 Cf. vol. I, pp. 77ff.
2 Ex. 22.21 (MT 20); 23.9, 12.
3 This naturally applies even where this awareness has not yet been exalted into a theologically important formula by the concept of Man as the image of God:
cf. pp. I 18f. above.
322 E F F E C T O F P I E T Y ON C O N D U C T
placability which are accentuated in Joseph, are not natural, popular virtues, but are learned only from those who are seen to be Yahweh’s chosen, and to walk with him. How, in particular, placability and refusal to satisfy the impulse of revenge prevail as a result of men’s vision of Yahweh, and in opposition to popular morality, is vividly illustrated by the story of David.1 The showing of besed, faithful love, toward the person who is bound to oneself by a covenant, even when human self-interest counsels different behaviour, is described as ?ze.sed
‘elchim, faithful love such as God desires, and himself displays.2 Like- wise, the ruler is urged to restrain blood-revenge, when its imple- mentation would mean more than just the punishment of the killer, and would, in fact, prejudice the continuance of the family, as a work well pleasing to God;3 and the showing of forgiveness to someone who has grievously offended, instead of exacting one’s rights in- exorably and in full, is felt to correspond truly to the attitude of God himself.4 Thus, as men are influenced by their experience of the rule of the covenant God over his people, new moral norms are added to those already in existence, and indicate new paths for conduct, which run counter to popular morality and the satisfaction of selfish desires.
Indeed, the whole way in which the Yahwist primal history in Genesis can describe the judgment of God on the moral corruption of mankind, and the Elohist patriarchal sagas recognize the righteousness of a foreign people and the existence of ethical obligations un- connected with membership of one’s own nation,5 makes it clear that the powerful experience of the moral will of God in the history of one’s own people opens men’s eyes to the fact that moral norms hold good in the history ofmankind as a whole; and this leads them to grasp the unconditional character of the ethical demand as an order of human life unrestricted by national boundaries.
III. Weaknesses in the validity of the moral norms
The picture so far drawn presupposes a struggle for the profounder comprehension of the ethical norms. It should therefore occasion no surprise that at points in the early Israelite tradition it becomes apparent that that struggle was denied full success, and that popular
1 I Sam. 24.7, II, Iqf.; 25.3Iff.
2 I Sam. 20.14; II Sam. 9.3.
3 II Sam. 14.6ff.
4 II Sam. 14.14.
s Gen. 20.4; 39.9.
T H E N O R M S O F M O R A L C O N D U C T 323 morality refused to accept the progressive influence of the divine revelation.
(a) It is in place here to observe that many areas ofpopular life were still outside the control of the moral norms. In these areas conduct was left to the free discretion of the individual, and was often governed solely by natural impulse. Thus the sexual moralip of the man was still very largely uncontrolled. It is true that he was forbidden to encroach upon his neighbour’s marriage; but polygamy was still open to him,1 and concubinage with slave-women or with those captured in war was quite usual. 2 Nor, apparently as a result of Canaanite influence, was intercourse with prostitutes felt to be repugnant.3 Similarly, behaviour toward foreigners, especially if an open or latent state of war prevailed, was largely left to the caprice of the individual. The assassination of political opponents can be glorified;4 guile, and robbery with violence, are attributed to the tribes of Dan and Ben- jamin as titles of honour. 5 It is taken for granted that war against dangerous or treacherous enemies should be conducted without quarter of any kind. Q Lying is a perfectly proper weapon, when one is in a position of weakness vis-h-vis the foreigner, and does not render one unworthy of divine protection,’ while even theft is regarded in such cases as justifiable.* If we wish to consider such cases objectively, we certainly ought to remember that behaviour toward one’s enemies is one of those ethical problems which even in Christian ethics have given rise, and still do give rise, to the most varied interpretations.
Hence the co-existence of the kind of moral behaviour toward foreigners mentioned earlier,9 and the amorality to be observed in the present passages is rooted entirely in the difficulty of the practical situation, and is not a sign of especial depravity in moral understand- ing.10
1Gen. 4.19; 21.10; 22.24; 30.3ff.; Deut. 21.15; 22.19; I Sam. 1.2, 6; 25.43.
2 Ex. 21.8ff.; Deut. 21.1off.
3 Gen. 38.2I. 4 Judg. 3.15ff.; 4.18ff.
5 Gen. 49.17, 27.
8 II Sam. 8.2 ; I I. I ; I Kings I I, r5f. ; II Kings 3.25. Cf. by contrast Deut. 20. xgf.
7 Gen. I 2.13 ; 20.2 ; 26.7; Ex. I. rg; cf. a similar case as late as Jer. 38.24ff.
s
Ex. 3.22;;;.2; 1;.35c- Q CX. pp. 318f., 321 above.-
10 What gives offence here is really much more the admixture of the religious element, the fact that God requires such morally questionable conduct, or inter- venes to protect the guilty from punishment. For such comment as is necessary cf.
vhat has already been said in vol. I, pp. 282ff.
324 E F F E C T O F P I E T Y O N C O N D U C T
(b) The position is different as regards a series of institutions, hallowed by morality and law, 011 which the moral driving-force of the concept of God, observable elsewhere, seems to have no efict. The polygamous form of marriage sorts ill with the evaluation of the woman as a personality whom God has called to responsibility just as much as he has the man. Both the acquisition of a wife by payment of a marriage- price, and the recognition of the man as alone having the right to divorce, imply the permanently inferior position of women, and doubtless contribute to the fact that the personal worth of the woman is easily forgotten in favour of the attitude which sees her as a thing and as the chattel of the man. The moral requirement of guest- friendship is stronger than respect for the personal value of the woman, or for one’s obligations toward one’s own children;1 the duty of levirate marriage overrides the prohibitions both of unchastity and of incest.2 In striking contrast, moreover, to the high value set on human life which is such a prominent feature of the covenant law is the custom of the ban, whereby one’s opponent, together with his wife and child, is dedicated to total destruction. The fact that such institutions, which undoubtedly contradict the moral tendencies discernible elsewhere within the Yahweh covenant, come under the protection of the covenant God, gives expression to an imbalance which at first seems somewhat surprising. Yet we are dealing with a state of affairs which could not but arise where the national order required by God was not imposed on the people as a complete, logically constructed system, breaking ruthlessly with the past, but was to develop as an organic formation, growing naturally in the given soil of history. Because of the fact that election came to a nation in its natural condition, and called it to fellowship with God in the distinctive character which it had evolved as a result of history, that nation brought with it into the covenant relationship all the details of its life, including the slow growth of its morality and custom, its special social structure, and its natural relationships of obligation and dependence. Hence it was unavoidable that such bonds and obliga- tions, which derived their right to exist not from the worship of Yahweh, but from the social life which had grown up naturally in the past, should, equally with all the rest, be included within the mighty authority of God, who had uttered his Yea to the nation as a whole.
No more in this nation than in any healthy people was it possible to 1 Gen. r g.6ff. ; +Judg. I g.24f.
2 Gcn. 38.14, 26.
THE NORMS OF MOR.\L C O N D U C T 325
assimilate the heterogeneous elements successfully to the moral goals of the covenant God by any other method than a constant and con- tinuing process of creating and transforming law and custom under the permanent influence of a living awareness of God. It was by God’s continual self-communication, both in the guidance of history and in the word of his messengers, that men were given n power@
imbulse to strive for a new self-understanding, and therewith also for a new understanding of moral obligation. The incongruity, therefore, which W C have described, between the inheritance of the past and the new destiny of the people does not point to a closed condition of fossiliza- tion, but to a ‘Notyet’, a condition open to the forces of progress, and one which has, in fact, undergone considerable change. That such forces were already at work in early Israel may be clearly seen from a comparison of the Yahwist and Elohist series of sagas in Genesis. The refinement of moral judgment in the Elohist, which has frequently been remarked, and which may be seen in his omission of gross sexual immorality, his stricter condemnation of lying and stealing, and his more lively sense of the value of the wife,1 points to the struggle of a more mature morality with the cruder views of the earlier period, a struggle which was the result of a sharpening of the conscience through a more profound experience of God.2
(c) Bound up with the situation which we have described is the fact that moral consciousness ,had notyet succeeded in formulating a unijied
#rincipZe of moral conduct. It is still a matter of a multiplicity of com- mands for directing the life of the people of God, though there may also be signs already of that striving after unity mentioned earlier.3 This is especially marked in the conjunction of cultic and moral com- mandments, which both in the Decalogue, and in the Book of the Covenant,4 and in the Shechemite Twelve Commandments,5 are unthinkingly combined in a single whole of uniform binding force, without any sense of qualitative distinction. The particular majesty of the moral order is obviously still unrecognized.
(d) Finally, there is still a danger that the binding force of the moral norms may be misunderstood as heteronomous. A positive commandment does not
1 Cf., e.g., Gen. 20 with Gen. 12, and again with Gen. 31.32. On the whole subject cf. A. Weiser, Religion und Sittlichkeit der Genesis in {hrem Verhdtm’s zur alttestamentlichen Religionsgeschichle, I 928, pp. ‘-/off.
2 Cf. Gen. 39.9.
3 Cf. pp. 32of. above.
4 Ex. 20.22-23.19.
5 Deut. 27. r5ff.