After Jehovah, acting more immediately within the political
sphere, had established the nation and kingdom, he now began in
the spiritual sphere to operate against the foreign elements, the
infusion of which previously had been permitted to go on almost
unchecked. /1/
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1. It is worth noticing how much more frequent from this period
onwards proper names compounded with the word Jehovah become.
Among the names of the judges and of the kings before Ahab in
Israel and Asa in Judah, not a single instance occurs;
thenceforward they become the rule.
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The Rechabites, who arose at that time, protested in their zeal
for Jehovah altogether against all civilisation which presupposes
agriculture, and in their fundamental principles aimed at a
recurrence to the primitive nomadic life of Israel in the
wilderness; the Nazarites abstained at least from wine, the chief
symbol of Dionysiac civilisation. In this indeed Elijah was not
with them; had he been so, he would doubtless have been
intelligible to the masses. But, comprehending as he did the
spirit from which these demonstrations proceeded, he thought of
Jehovah as a great principle which cannot coexist in the same
heart with Baal.
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