e still was thought of, as all ancient gods were
thought of, as geographically limited to the country whose god he was.
Milcolm and Chemosh were real gods too, ruling in Philistia and Moab as
Jehovah did in Canaan. This is the meaning of Jephthah's protest to a
hostile chieftain: "Wilt not thou possess that which Chemosh thy god
giveth thee to possess?" [10] This is the meaning of David's protest
when he is driven out to the Philistine cities: "They have driven me out
this day that I should not cleave unto the inheritance of Jehovah,
saying, Go, serve other gods." [11] This is the meaning of Naaman's
desire to have two mules' burden of Jehovah's land on which to worship
Jehovah in Damascus.[12] Jehovah could be worshiped only on Jehovah's
land. But ever as the day of fuller understanding dawned, the
sovereignty of Jehovah widened and his power usurped the place and
function of all other gods. Amos saw him using the nations as his pawns;
Isaiah heard him whistling to the nations as a shepherd to his dogs;
Jeremiah heard him cry, "Can any hide himself in secret places so that I
shall not see him? . . . Do not I fill heaven and earth?" [13]; until at
last we sweep out, through the exile and all the heightening of faith and
clarifying of thought that came with it, into the Great Isaiah's 40th
chapter on the universal and absolute sovereignty of God, into the
Priestly narrative of creation, where God makes all things with a word,
into psalms which cry,

"For all the gods of the people are idols;
But Jehovah made the heavens." [14]

Moreover, as Jehovah's sovereignty thus is enlarged until he is the God
of all creation, his character too is deepened and exalted in the
understanding of his people. That noblest succession of moral teachers
in ancient history, the Hebrew prophets, developed a conception of the
nature of God in terms of righteousness, so broad in its outreach, so
high in its quality, that as one mounts through Amos' fifth chapter and
Isaiah's first chapter and Jeremiah's seventh chapter, he finds himself,
like Moses on Nebo's top, looking over into the Promised Land of the New
Testament. There this development flowers out under the influence of
Jesus. God's righteousness is interpreted, not in terms of justice only,
but of compassionate, sacrificial love; his Fatherhood embraces not only
all mankind but each individual, lifting him out of obscurity in the mass
into infinite worthfulness and hope.