Elohistic and Jehovistic Sources of Mosaic History

 •  12 min. read  •  grade level: 10
Listen from:
• BibleTruthPublishers.com
The statement as to "Elοhistic and Jehovistic"1 sources of the Mosaic history (words which I hope my readers have never heard before, and very worthy of their German infidel source, and which they are happy if they never hear again) is without any other foundation than ignorance and the low German habits of criticism. I say, low habits.2 There is (at least in what I have seen) a plodding diligence, no doubt, to find out something which has the character of human learning, no matter what, but something which will make a book (which somebody else has not made); but then it has all a downward tendency, and never rises above a groveling pre-occupation with the external means of truth, or the spinning out their ideas of what ought to be. Take even Michaelis, a learned man and attractive by his modesty. When he comes to touch the interpretation of scripture, it is puerile to the last degree. A child who reads the scriptures with a little simple intelligence would smile at the wonders he finds out by Syriac and Hebrew (and, if Marsh is right, often a very slovenly use of them), and the working of his own mind. It is such naϊf nonsense, and brought out with such good faith, that it produces the kindly feeling one has for the foolish questions of a child which betray his innocence. The mind of God in the passage never seems to occur to him, though he believes scripture to be inspired. Now Jehovah and Elohim are always used each in its own proper sense: the latter as the Creator God, God in His own being as such; the former as made known to Israel, a personal name in which He dealt with Israel, and even with the world though they did not own Him. The appropriateness of each is always sensible to him who seizes the bearing of the passage in which it is used. When the relationship or work of God known in relationship to Israel is expressed, we have "Jehovah." When the account is simply historical, God (Elohim) is used. In some cases either would give, if not so perfect sense, yet very little different; since Jehovah is the true Elohim, and Elohim is Jehovah; and the use of Jehovah in these latter cases amounts to the writer having God as known to himself in his mind.
The Psalms notably show the different use of the two terms, as does the Book of Jonah. I will take a special example from the Psalms to show this-Psa. 14 and 53. These are very nearly the same; but in one Jehovah is used, in the other Elohim. In Psa. 14 Jehovah is used. Hence it says, "They were in great fear, for [Elohim-God Himself] God is in the generation of the righteous." The relationship, the consequence of this name Jehovah, is expressed in the presence of Elohim with the righteous in verse 6. "Ye have shamed the counsel of the poor, because Jehovah is his refuge." Now in Psa. 53 Elohim is used; it is the historical fact of what they were in the sight of Elohim. Hence we have, "There were they in great fear, where no fear was; for Elohim hath scattered the bones of him that encampeth against thee; thou hast put them to shame, because Elohim hath despised them." These psalms convey the same truths; but the thought of relationship prevails where Jehovah is used; whereas, where Elohim is used, we have the general result as regards the enemy.3
Again, look at Jonah, where there is not and cannot be the smallest pretense of two accounts. The intercourse between Jonah and God is under the name Jehovah. When the seamen learn who his God is that he is running away from, they fear Jehovah, and call upon Jehovah. Where it is a general testimony of repentance in strangers (Jonah 3: g to the end), it is Elohim. And when we have the general supreme dealings of God with Jonah, to make Him show what He was with man as God, it is again Elohim. Now in Jonah this has peculiar force, because the relationship of Israel with Gentiles, and of Gentiles with Jehovah, is in question. It is the last public direct testimony of God to Gentiles before Christ. And this goodness of God to Gentiles is really what Jonah dreaded, as discrediting his message of judgment, which Jewish pride might like to see executed. (See Jonah 4:22And he prayed unto the Lord, and said, I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil. (Jonah 4:2).) Hence on one side we have Gentiles brought, in the moment of judgment on the Israelite, to confess Jehovah; and on the other, God, as such, showing Himself good, the faithful Creator, who thought of those who could not distinguish between their right hand and their left, and even of the cattle. At the same time the proper relationship of Jehovah to His prophet, as such, is also fully maintained, and the word Jehovah, his God, more than once repeated.
Now here we have the elements of Jehovah's grace, and Elohim's true character and supremacy; what, in the nauseous systematizing of ignorance, is reduced to some imaginary4 documents, which none of them know anything about, but suppose. We have, I say, these two titles brought out in the clearest and most instructive way, as unfolding divine relationships for those who have the heart to delight in them, and justify that wisdom which is the joy of her children. The infidel must imagine and suppose some external cause, because he knows nothing of the real divine force of these things. And I would remark, that I am not here bringing an external proof of the truth of the Jewish system; but that, supposing its existence, the reason for the distinctive use of the words Jehovah and Elohim is fully given within the system itself-is consistent and appropriate. This the infidel ought to have seen or at least examined; because it is a part of the system he pretends to judge (and there are adequate proofs of its consistency within itself, which make his arguments perfectly futile): for what he finds imaginary reasons for is accounted for on the plainest principles of the system he is judging. For everyone can see that Jehovah was a proper name of God to Israel, and declared positively to be such, though the name of the one true supreme God. Now for the believer the use of the names of God carries blessed divine instruction with it, for all His names have a meaning: Almighty, Jehovah, Father, all have a sense to his soul. But it is not even rational to seek for a reason in imaginary causes, when the real reason lies within the system and makes a clearly stated and characteristic part of it. Now such is the difference between Jehovah and Elohim.
 
1. "For some time back I had paid special attention to the book of Genesis; and I had got aid in the analysis of it from a German volume. That it was based on at least two different documents, technically called the Elohistic and Jehovistic, soon became clear to me." (Phases, p. 133.)
2. Even Stuart, I judge, on the canon of scripture, does not escape this. For if we do not read with God, but simply as men, we are already on this low ground. Thus, judging as he and others do of the scriptural importance or authenticity of a book, by the inquiry if it has an ethical tendency for me:-what a thoroughly narrow-minded way of looking at it, instead of seeing it as part of an immense and divine conception and communication of the whole history of men, and God's ways with them. Thus, for instance, Esther. Is the providential care of Israel even during its rejection not a principle of immense importance in God's dealings with men and His people? It is of the very last importance. Is such a knowledge of God not ethical for me? He could not reveal Himself, or it would not be the time of their rejection. All the style of reasoning I am commenting on, I must be forgiven for calling by the well known term of " pettifogging." But I anticipate.
3. It may be interesting to those who do study scripture with spiritual understanding, however feeble, to draw their attention to the circumstance, that all the psalms in the first Book (i.e., to the end of Psalm 41) are addressed to Jehovah, except Psa. 16, in which, as cited by Paul in proof of Christ's partaking of human nature, and by Peter as proof of His resurrection, Christ's taking His place with man is most clearly brought out. "Preserve me, O Elohim, for in thee [in what God was as such, He having become man] do I put my trust. Thou hast said to Jehovah, Thou art my Adon [Lord]; my goodness extendeth not to thee." (He takes the place of subjection, and that in Israel, not as equal with the Father. "Why tallest thou me good? there is none good but God.") "[Thou hast said] to the saints that are in the earth, and the excellent, All my delight is in them." He takes His place now along with the saints, not with Jehovah: as to Him, He takes the place of a servant. How deep and admirable are the instructions of the word! Now all these psalms of Book 1 suppose relationship existing (as, however deserving rejection and not a people, was the case in Israel when Jesus was amongst them). But in Psa. 53 (i.e., Book 2) it will be seen that they are cast out from God's sight-can no more frequent His temple and worship. Hence we at once find not Jehovah, but Elohim addressed. And so it is through this Book; though, of course, He is owned to be Jehovah, and Jehovah as the only true Elohim. I have no doubt that, prophetically, Book 1 refers to the Jews in the latter day, returned to Jerusalem, and enjoying outwardly their hoped-for advantages there; and that Book 2 has its application when they are driven out in the time of the great tribulation mentioned in Matt. 24 It will be seen that Book 3 (beginning with Psa. 73) refers to all Israel (i.e., the ten tribes as well as the two) as such, and not specially the Jews, but only to the clean in heart, however, among them. They are still driven out-the temple pillaged and defaced -and Elohim is addressed, until the last confederacy in Psa. 83, where the judgment prophetically spoken of introduces Jehovah, known as Most High over all the earth. Then in Psa. 84 they address Jehovah, and turn and mount up to the tabernacles of Jehovah Sabaoth and His courts, finding that man blessed whose trust is in Jehovah. Thence onward is praise to Jehovah, with contrition and exercise of heart, mercy celebrated in the true, gracious, or holy One (Chasídika), Christ, the true David, which closes the Book. I may just add, that Book 4 celebrates in all its bearings, but in special connection with Israel, the introduction of the first-begotten into the world (Psa. 90 giving Jehovah's interest in Israel; Psa. 91, Christ's taking Jehovah the God of Israel as the true Elion Shaddai-the names by which Melchizedek blessed Abraham), then celebrates Him in this character and develops the coming of the Lord to reign, and that in detail from the cry of the needy till He is fully again seated between the cherubim. In Book 5 from Psalm for we have the general bearings of it all, and the praises and hallelujahs which result from it-a kind of historical comment upon all God's dealings with the world, Israel, the Messiah, and His place while all was going on. Already, in the last psalms of Book 4, Christ's government (that, while utterly brought low even to death, He was Jehovah) is brought out in the most astonishing way. The healing of the paralytic in Luke is a distinct allusion to Jehovah's name in Psa. 103:33Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; (Psalm 103:3). But I must not go farther here on this subject.
4. I would just add here, that it is perfectly indifferent to me if Moses used five hundred documents, provided what he in result gives me expresses exactly, perfectly, and completely, what God meant to communicate to me. I have taken the case of Jonah, because we have the use of Jehovah and Elohim where there is no pretense for this flimsy notion of documents. I may add, that I never found a case in which the use of either of these words did not seem to me precisely appropriate; and this distinctive use is eminently instructive. In the Psalms this is peculiarly the case. This internal evidence of suitableness to relationship is the strongest possible kind of proof of the genuineness and (the subject being moral and divine) of the divine character of the record, in which this suitableness is uniformly found. Thus, not to speak of the Psalms, where it is shown more in detail (see preceding note), the Book of Jonah touches on the relationship of Israel to Gentiles, of the peculiar God of Israel with Gentiles, of God as such with the latter, with creation, so as to put everything in its place-without an idea of proving anything about it according to the whole history of the Bible from Genesis to the end of Chronicles. It shows the feeling of a Jew on one side, and God's way of looking at it on the other. The proper place of Jehovah, in His character of God of Israel, is always preserved; and yet it is shown that this very Jehovah was the supreme God of goodness to men, let them be in the height of their pride, if there was room for repentance-a character which He would not relinquish even towards cattle. Nothing can be more important as a key to the whole question of God being Jehovah, and the peculiar God of Israel, and yet the one supreme and universal God (a thought so easily lost, at any rate as to goodness, if not as to power, by Jewish pride). It corrects all that a Jew could draw falsely from his peculiar position.