e
surrounding population. They also at once set up the worship of
Jehovah as the sole God who had his one shrine at Jerusalem. Their
early experiences in Palestine were not encouraging. For a century
they remained a struggling and poor community, and it might seem
doubtful if they would prove strong enough to maintain their separate
position, and to hold up their special testimony to the world. But at
that time the Jews who had remained in Babylon came to their aid.
These men had never ceased to labour along with their brethren in
Palestine for the advancement of their nation; and in particular they
had laboured earnestly at the problem of worship, and the result of
their labours was a religious constitution so rigid in its ideas, so
logically worked out in detail, and so skilfully incorporating and
appropriating to itself all the past traditions and usages of the
race, that it might almost be said to be strong enough to stand by
itself, and would certainly afford to the people, if they adopted it,
the support and the discipline they needed. This constitution was
introduced by Ezra, the priest and scribe, in the year 444 B.C.,[2]
when he read in the ears of the people at Jerusalem (Nehemiah viii.,
ix.) the new law he had brought with him from Babylon fourteen years
before, and had waited all that time to promulgate. The new law of
this period was what is called the Priestly Code; it occupies the
latter part of Exodus and a large part of Leviticus and Numbers; and
the older writings are skilfully interwoven with it, but in general
it may easily be distinguished by its tone from the work of earlier
periods. Deuteronomy, the earliest law-book, is simply tacked on to
it as if it were a part of the same code, though in reality it is
often inconsistent with the latter law. The result is the Torah or
law, or, as we call it, the Pentateuch, or the five books of Moses
(Moses being regarded by a convenient fiction as the source of all
Jewish laws). This was thenceforward the law of the Jews.

[Footnote 2: This date and many features of the story of Ezra and the
return have of late been much questioned. See "Ezra" in _Encyclopaedia
Biblica_. The account given above follows Wellhausen.]

The Jewish religion, of which this is the code, is generally
distinguished from the religion of Israel which prevailed down to the
exile; and several important new principles undoubtedly make their
appearance at this point. This chapter may fitti