and the idols, but
of the Asheras (wooden posts) and the Mazzebas (stone pillars) often set
up beside the altar of Jehovah (xvi. 21). These reforms made too heavy
demands upon the people, as was proved by the reaction which set in at
Josiah's death. Indeed the country people would look on the destruction
of the high places with their Asheras and Mazzebas as sacrilege and
would consider Josiah's death in battle as a divine punishment for his
sacrilegious deeds. On the other hand, the destruction of Jerusalem and
the exile of the people would appear to those who had obeyed D's
instructions as a well-merited punishment for national apostasy.

Moreover, D regarded religion as of the utmost moment to each individual
Israelite; and it is certainly not by accident that the declaration of
the individual's duty towards God immediately follows the emphatic
intimation to Israel of Yahweh's unity. "Hear, O Israel, Yahweh is our
God, Yahweh is one: and thou shalt love Yahweh thy God with all thine
heart and with all thy soul and with all thy strength" (vi. 4, 5).

In estimating the religious value of Deuteronomy it should never be
forgotten that upon this passage the greatest eulogy ever pronounced on
any scripture was pronounced by Christ himself, when he said "on these
words hang all the law and the prophets," and it is also well to
remember that when tempted in the wilderness he repelled each suggestion
of the Tempter by a quotation from Deuteronomy.

Nevertheless even such a writer as D could not escape the influence of
the age and atmosphere in which he lived; and despite the spirit of love
which breathes so strongly throughout the book, especially for the poor,
the widow and the fatherless, the stranger and the homeless Levite
(xxiv. 10-22), and the humanity shown towards both beasts and birds
(xxii. 1, 4, 6 f., xxv. 4), there are elements in D which go far to
explain the intense exclusiveness and the religious intolerance
characteristic of Judaism. Should a man's son or friend dear to him as
his own soul seek to tempt him from the faith of his fathers, D's
pitiless order to that man is "Thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand
shall be first upon him to put him to death." From this single instance
we see not only how far mankind has travelled along the path of
religious toleration since Deuteronomy was written, but also how very
far the criticism implied in Christ's method of dealing with what "was
said to them of old time" m