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Updated: June 27, 2025
Indeed, in the old poetry of Israel Yahveh was said to have risen up "from Seir," and the charge brought against Edom by the prophet Obadiah is not that of idolatry or the worship of a "strange god," but of standing on the side of the "foreigners" on the day that Jerusalem was destroyed.
Its central position, its natural strength, and its independence of the history of any special tribe, all combined to justify the choice. Here David built his palace, and planned the erection of a temple to Yahveh. Meanwhile the kingdom of Israel was passing into an empire.
The hostility between Yahveh and the heathen gods has its deep ethical significance in the struggle of chastity against licentiousness, to which the religious sanction brings reinforcement. But the Hebrew God has a savage and vindictive quality, which only slowly and partially disappears.
The final idea of Yahveh accepted by the Hebrews was not the product of a sudden revelation but of a gradual evolution. The Hebrews, about the twelfth century B.C., gained access into Canaan, and at first were successful in warfare, so that under King David they presented the aspect of a united nation.
Hardly had the Israelites escaped from Egypt when they were called upon to dispute with the Amalekites the possession of the desert. At Rephidim the Bedâwin robbers fell upon the Israelitish camp. But they were beaten off with slaughter, and never again ventured to molest the people of Yahveh during their wanderings in the wilderness.
Here is that which Jesus named as the first and great commandment: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might." The teaching of the book is primarily the worship of Yahveh, a holy, loving, and judging God, who rewards his people with blessings or punishes them with disasters.
It is supposed by some, that Jehovah is the word which stands for this secret name; and some Hebraists think that the word "Yahveh" is much more nearly the right one. The Mohammedans, who have received many notions from the Jews, believe the same story about the secret name of God, and they think it was engraved on Solomon's signet, as all readers of the Arabian Nights will very well remember.
Then came the idea that he was the friend and favorer of the righteous, of the merciful and just. The turning-point in the history of Judaism the birth-hour of religion as it has come down to us is marked by that great dimly-seen personality, Moses, who taught that the worship of Yahveh forbade murder, adultery, theft, false witness, covetousness.
Thus, in the Old Testament, there are numerous instances recorded of the practices of slaughtering of innocent animals who were offered as peace offerings to Yahveh. As time passed, the practice of slaughtering and then burning the sacrificial animal gave way to the practice of only giving the blood of the animal as an offering.
Even the doctrine of the resurrection is passed over in silence; the Pentateuch keeps the eyes of the Israelite fixed on the present life, where he will meet with his punishment or reward. The doctrine of the resurrection was part of the faith in Osiris, Isis, and Horus, and Yahveh of Israel would have no other god beside Himself.
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