declares: 'This shall be my
covenant that I will make with the house of Israel: I will write my law
in their hearts: and they shall all know me, from the least to the
greatest: for I will remember their sin no more' (xxxi. 33, 34). And
Yahweh exclaims: 'My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken
me, the fountain of living waters, and have hewn out cisterns that can
hold no water.' 'Lift up thine eyes unto the high places ... thou hast
polluted the land with thy wickedness.' 'Wilt thou not from this time
cry unto me: My Father, thou art the guide of my youth?' (ii. 13, iii.
2, 4). And Deuteronomy teaches magnificently: 'This commandment which I
command you this day, is not too hard for thee, neither is it far off.
It is not in heaven, neither is it beyond the sea, that thou shouldest
say: Who shall go up for us to heaven or over the sea, and bring it unto
us? But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth and in thy heart,
that thou mayest do it' (xxx. 11-14). And there are here exquisite
injunctions--to bring back stray cattle to their owners; to spare the
sitting bird, where eggs or fledglings are found; to leave over, at the
harvest, some of the grain, olives, grapes, for the stranger, the
orphan, the widow; and not to muzzle the ox when treading out the corn
(xxii. 1, 6, 7; xxiv. 19; xxv. 4). Yet the same Deuteronomy ordains: 'If
thine own brother, son, daughter, wife, or bosom friend entice thee
secretly, saying, let us go and serve other gods, thine hand shall be
first upon him to put him to death.' Also 'There shall not be found with
thee any consulter with a familiar spirit ... or a necromancer. Yahweh
thy God doth drive them out before thee.' And, finally, amongst the laws
of war, 'of the cities of these people (Hittite, Amorite, Canaanite,
Perizzite, Hivite, Jebusite) thou shalt save alive nothing that
breatheth, as Yahweh thy God hath commanded thee' (xii. 2-5; xiii. 6, 9;
xviii. 10-13; xx. 16, 17). Here we must remember that the immorality of
these Canaanitish tribes and cults was of the grossest, indeed largely
unnatural, kind; that it had copiously proved its terrible fascination
for their kinsmen, the Jews; that these ancient Easterns, e.g. the
Assyrians, were ruthlessly cruel at the storming of enemy cities; and
especially that the morality and spirituality, thus saved for humanity
from out of a putrid flood, was (in very deed) immensely precious. One
point here is particularly far-sighted--