From YHWH alone to One God alone *
* This material is an edited summary of Dijkstra, op cit, 123 ff.
_
The prophets were advocates for YHWH alone. YHWH was for them the national God of Israel alone, the God ever since Egypt[1] He was the universal God, who tolerated no one besides him. As we shall see, towards the end of the Monarchic period, Josiah attempted to abolish suspect religious practices by closing sanctuaries outside Jerusalem, even by destroying them[2] while he purified he temple of Jerusalem of foreign influences.
The picture that emerges is that exclusive belief in YHWH as the one and sole God did not become part of the belief system of the majority (the communities of Judah and Israel) before the end of the Monarchic period. The destruction of the Temple in 586 BCE did not cause a clean break in the religious life and practice of most people. It was the higher echelons of society who were deported to Babylon. Other people continued the pattern of their religious life as usual[3] and this pattern may have existed throughout the 6th and 5th century into the years of the cultic and civil restorations of Ezra and Nehemiah.
Many Israelites and Judaeans saw no objection to venerating the God of Israel in a conservative, ancient Canaanite fashion, in contrast to the reformist elite which devoted itself to the worship of YHWH alone, freed from all kinds of ancient polytheistic Canaanite-Israelite associations, and despite all the efforts of the reformers, even at the end of the Monarchic Period, Asherah still formed part of the official cult of Samaria and Jerusalem.
El and YHWH become one and the same [4]
But in contrast to the eventual decline of Asherah, the character and nature of YHWH became more and more prominent as the jealous El [5], the exclusive and universal God and Creator of Heaven and earth, but the ancient name El YHWH returned in liturgy and prophecy [6]. In Dijkstra’s opinion, this revival of El’s name and epithets in the exilic and postexilic theological vocabulary is only explicable in the light of the tenuous, never broken tradition that El-YHWH in the end is, and was identical with the patriarchal El, the God of Israel. The parallelism of El, the God of Israel and YHWH the God of Israel, strongly suggests that the veneration of the ancestral El was transformed and continued under a new divine name, which also expressed the growing identity and independence of Judah and Israel from other tribes and nations in the area. El was the ancient God of Israel. YHWH became the God of Israel, and somewhere in the history of Israel, the name of El became a title of YHWH. The veneration of El of Israel as the ‘jealous El’ branched off from the Canaanite El when Israel split off from Canaan culturally and politically.
Thus, Israelite YHWHísm had its origins in the early history of Israel, when YHWH became an independent Israelite manifestation of the pluriform Canaanite El. This was not syncretism (an amalgam), but happened on the basis of an original identity or at the most, an inner religious integration of El the God of Israel and YHWH the God of Israel. In other words, YHWH did not arrive from a place outside the ethnic, cultural or religious borders of Canaan after the settlement in Canaan, taking over some of the titles and prerogatives of El, as is often assumed, but YHWH continued and transcended the religious tradition of the Canaanite El from the outside under his Israelite name [7].
Although the belief that El YHWH was the god of Israel since the escape from Egypt was an old tradition[8], it did not apply in the pre-Monarchic and Monarchic Period in the way it did in the later period of the Kingdoms and during and after the Exile, because by then the experience of the exile and the return from Babylon had retrospectively endowed the theological impact of the Exodus with a whole new significance[9]. The Hebrew Bible bears the unmistakable editorial imprint of the Deuteronomic Historian (DH), a school which interprets the Exile as a punishment from God because the people worshipped idols. This is but a retrospective theological analysis stemming from the post-exilic period.
[1] Amos 3.1-2; 9.7; Hos 2.14; 12.10; 13.4.
[2] 2 Kgs 23.8, 15-20.
[3] Isaiah 57:5-10; 66.3; Jeremiah 41.5; 44.
[4] Ibid, 126.
[5] Exodus 20.4; 34.14.
[6] Psalms 118.27; Isaiah 42.5.
[7] Dijkstra, op cit, 102.
[8] See Numbers 23.22; 24.8; Hosea 13.4,
[9] Dijkstra, op.cit, 111.
The picture that emerges is that exclusive belief in YHWH as the one and sole God did not become part of the belief system of the majority (the communities of Judah and Israel) before the end of the Monarchic period. The destruction of the Temple in 586 BCE did not cause a clean break in the religious life and practice of most people. It was the higher echelons of society who were deported to Babylon. Other people continued the pattern of their religious life as usual[3] and this pattern may have existed throughout the 6th and 5th century into the years of the cultic and civil restorations of Ezra and Nehemiah.
Many Israelites and Judaeans saw no objection to venerating the God of Israel in a conservative, ancient Canaanite fashion, in contrast to the reformist elite which devoted itself to the worship of YHWH alone, freed from all kinds of ancient polytheistic Canaanite-Israelite associations, and despite all the efforts of the reformers, even at the end of the Monarchic Period, Asherah still formed part of the official cult of Samaria and Jerusalem.
El and YHWH become one and the same [4]
But in contrast to the eventual decline of Asherah, the character and nature of YHWH became more and more prominent as the jealous El [5], the exclusive and universal God and Creator of Heaven and earth, but the ancient name El YHWH returned in liturgy and prophecy [6]. In Dijkstra’s opinion, this revival of El’s name and epithets in the exilic and postexilic theological vocabulary is only explicable in the light of the tenuous, never broken tradition that El-YHWH in the end is, and was identical with the patriarchal El, the God of Israel. The parallelism of El, the God of Israel and YHWH the God of Israel, strongly suggests that the veneration of the ancestral El was transformed and continued under a new divine name, which also expressed the growing identity and independence of Judah and Israel from other tribes and nations in the area. El was the ancient God of Israel. YHWH became the God of Israel, and somewhere in the history of Israel, the name of El became a title of YHWH. The veneration of El of Israel as the ‘jealous El’ branched off from the Canaanite El when Israel split off from Canaan culturally and politically.
Thus, Israelite YHWHísm had its origins in the early history of Israel, when YHWH became an independent Israelite manifestation of the pluriform Canaanite El. This was not syncretism (an amalgam), but happened on the basis of an original identity or at the most, an inner religious integration of El the God of Israel and YHWH the God of Israel. In other words, YHWH did not arrive from a place outside the ethnic, cultural or religious borders of Canaan after the settlement in Canaan, taking over some of the titles and prerogatives of El, as is often assumed, but YHWH continued and transcended the religious tradition of the Canaanite El from the outside under his Israelite name [7].
Although the belief that El YHWH was the god of Israel since the escape from Egypt was an old tradition[8], it did not apply in the pre-Monarchic and Monarchic Period in the way it did in the later period of the Kingdoms and during and after the Exile, because by then the experience of the exile and the return from Babylon had retrospectively endowed the theological impact of the Exodus with a whole new significance[9]. The Hebrew Bible bears the unmistakable editorial imprint of the Deuteronomic Historian (DH), a school which interprets the Exile as a punishment from God because the people worshipped idols. This is but a retrospective theological analysis stemming from the post-exilic period.
[1] Amos 3.1-2; 9.7; Hos 2.14; 12.10; 13.4.
[2] 2 Kgs 23.8, 15-20.
[3] Isaiah 57:5-10; 66.3; Jeremiah 41.5; 44.
[4] Ibid, 126.
[5] Exodus 20.4; 34.14.
[6] Psalms 118.27; Isaiah 42.5.
[7] Dijkstra, op cit, 102.
[8] See Numbers 23.22; 24.8; Hosea 13.4,
[9] Dijkstra, op.cit, 111.