ing neither to the
aristocracy nor to the learned class, he was one of the common people
yet separate from them--a separation not of race or caste or education,
but of unique personality.

His career is understood only in the light of his relations to Judaism
(see HEBREW RELIGION). This faith, in a peculiarly vivid fashion,
illustrates the growth and development of religion, for its great
teachers in the highest degree possessed what the Germans call
God-consciousness. The Hebrew national literature centres in the thought
of God. It is Yahweh who is all and in all, the father, the leader, the
hope, the hero of his people. No other national literature is so
continuously and so highly religious. Another factor gives it still
greater interest for the student of religion,--in it the progress of
religious thought can be traced, and the varying elements of the
religious life seen in harmony and in conflict.

In the early period the Hebrew religion was of the ordinary Semitic
type. In its ancient stories were remnants of primitive religion, of
tabu, of anthropomorphic gods, of native forms of worship, of magic and
divination, of local and tribal cults. Out of these developed, by the
labours of the prophets, a religion of high spirituality and exalted
ethical ideals. According to it God demands not ritual nor sacrifice nor
offerings. He does not delight in prayers and praise, but he demands
truth in the soul and bids man to walk humbly and deal righteously and
mercifully with his brother (Micah vi. 6-8; Isa. i. 2-20). He requires
kindness, forgiveness and loving sacrifice from all to all (Isa. lviii.
3-12). This conception of God revealed itself as so essential to the
prophets that their intense national feeling was modified. God would not
deliver Israel because it was his people, descended from Abraham, his
chosen, but he would punish it even more severely than the other nations
because it denied him by its sins (Amos iii. 1-2). Yet Israel would not
be destroyed, for a spiritual remnant, loving and obeying God, would be
saved and purified (Ezek. xxxvi.-xxxvii.). Thus Israel survived its
misfortunes. When the national independence was destroyed, the prophetic
teaching held the people together in the hope of a re-establishment of
the Kingdom when all nations should be subject to it and blessed in its
everlasting reign of righteousness and peace (Isa. xlix., lx.).

Some of the prophets associated the restoration of the Kingdom