led
Beth-aven; as to the golden calf at Samaria, cf. Amos viii.
14 and Hos. viii. 5, 6.

** Amos iv. 4, 5; v. 21-23.

*** This is the title given in Exod. xxiv. 7 to a writing
in which Moses is said to have entered the covenant made
between Jahveh and Israel; it is preserved, with certain
interpolations and alterations, in Exod. xx. 23?--xxiii. 33.
It was inserted in its entirety in the Elohist narrative,
there taking the place at present occupied by Deuteronomy in
the Pentateuch, viz. that of the covenant made between
Jahveh and Israel prior to the crossing of the Jordan
(Kuenen, _H. C. Onderzoek_, i. Sec. 13, No. 32). Reuss tries to
make out that it was the code promulgated on the occasion of
Jehoshaphat's legal reforms, which is only referred to in 2
Chron. xvii. 7-9; cf. xix. 5. A more probable theory is that
it was the "custom" of one of the great sanctuaries of the
northern kingdom reduced to writing at the end of the Xth or
during the IXth century B.C.

[Illustration: 202.jpg EGYPTIAN ALTAR AT DEIK-EL-BAHARI]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a restoration by Naville.

The directions in regard to ritual are extremely simple, and the moral
code is based throughout on the inexorable _lex talionis_, "Life for
life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,
burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe."* This brief
code must have been almost universally applicable to every conjuncture
of civil and religious life in Judah no less than in Israel. On one
point only do we find a disagreement, and that is in connection with
the one and only Holy of Holies to the possession of which the southern
kingdom had begun to lay claim: in a passage full of significance
Jahveh declares, "An altar of earth thou shalt make unto Me, and shalt
sacrifice thereon thy burnt offerings and thy peace offerings, thy sheep
and thine oxen: in every place where I record My name I will come unto
thee and I will bless thee. And if thou make Me an altar of stone, thou
shalt not build it of hewn stones: for if thou lift up thy tool upon
it, thou hast polluted it. Neither shalt thou go up by steps unto Mine
altar, that thy nakedness be not discovered thereon."**

* Exod. xxi. 23-25.

** Exod. xx. 24-26.

The patriarchs and early ancestors of the race had performed their
sacrifices in the open air, on rude and low