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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 February 2009
There is a greater amount of evidence than is generally realised that in old Israel there was a cult of the dead. The archaeological evidence is less than one would expect. There is a certain amount of evidence from the second millennium B.C.—ornaments and jars, small cups and suchlike, found for instance at Gezer—but we have very little material from the time of the Israelite occupation. It is true that according to I Samuel 28.3 Saul is said to have ‘put away all those that had familiar spirits, and the wizards, out of the land’, and that there is a law against them in Exodus 22.18 (‘thou shalt not suffer a sorceress to live’). It is not, however, until Deuteronomy 18.11 that we get the stern prohibition of the cult of the dead in every form, and there is every reason to believe that it was on the basis of this prohibition that King Josiah acted when he put away ‘them that had familiar spirits, and the wizards’, 2 Kings 23.24. This was not an isolated action of his, but was part of a general reform in which he got rid also of the teraphim (which may have been connected with the cult of ancestors) and idols generally. There is no record of any king of Judah dealing with necromancers before King Josiah.
page 309 note 2 See Schofield, J. N., Archaeobgy and the After-life (Lutterworth Press, 1951), where he makes the best possible case for what evidence there isGoogle Scholar.
page 311 note 1 Old Testament Theology, vol. I (Eng. tr. 1962), p. 275fGoogle Scholar.
page 311 note 2 cf. von Rad, op. cit., p. 276.
page 316 note 1 The words in italics have been inserted by the translators. It will be seen that it is precisely these additional words which give the main meaning of the verse. In addition we have ‘Redeemer’ with a capital.
page 316 note 2 Reading achur (root chur, ‘see’) cf. Akkadian and the Targums. Also assuming that a shin has been misread as an ayin and a vav, and a daleth as a resh. I give up niqqephu. These changes make a good couplet in verse 26 as well as in verse 25.
page 317 note 1 cf. J. A., Montgomery, Daniel (ICC), 1927 p. 471Google Scholar.
page 320 note 1 See Deane, W. J., The Book of Wisdom, 1881, p. 10Google Scholar.
page 321 note 1 See above.
page 321 note 2 For further details, see the dictionaries and the commentaries.
page 323 note 1 Article ‘Grace’ in A Theological Word Book of the Bible (ed. Richardson, Alan), p. 101Google Scholar.
page 324 note 1 See my The Distinctive Ideas of the Old Testament (1944), pp. 159–73.