Yahweh—God of the Hebrews

96:7.1Un­der the lead­er­ship of their sheiks and priests the He­brews be­came loosely es­tab­lished in Pales­tine. But they soon drifted back into the be­nighted be­liefs of the desert and be­came con­tam­i­nated with the less ad­vanced Ca­naan­ite re­li­gious prac­tices. They be­came idol­a­trous and li­cen­tious, and their idea of De­ity fell far be­low the Egyp­tian and Mes­o­po­ta­mian con­cepts of God that were main­tained by cer­tain sur­viv­ing Salem groups, and which are re­corded in some of the Psalms and in the so-called Book of Job.

96:7.2The Psalms are the work of a score or more of au­thors; many were writ­ten by Egyp­tian and Mes­o­po­ta­mian teach­ers. Dur­ing these times when the Lev­ant wor­shiped na­ture gods, there were still a goodly num­ber who be­lieved in the su­prem­acy of El Elyon, the Most High.

96:7.3No col­lec­tion of re­li­gious writ­ings gives ex­pres­sion to such a wealth of de­vo­tion and in­spi­ra­tional ideas of God as the Book of Psalms. And it would be very help­ful if, in the pe­rusal of this won­der­ful col­lec­tion of wor­ship­ful lit­er­a­ture, con­sid­er­a­tion could be given to the source and chronol­ogy of each sep­a­rate hymn of praise and ado­ra­tion, bear­ing in mind that no other sin­gle col­lec­tion cov­ers such a great range of time. This Book of Psalms is the rec­ord of the vary­ing con­cepts of God en­ter­tained by the be­liev­ers of the Salem re­li­gion through­out the Lev­ant and em­braces the en­tire pe­riod from Amen­emope to Isa­iah. In the Psalms God is de­picted in all phases of con­cep­tion, from the crude idea of a tribal de­ity to the vastly ex­panded ideal of the later He­brews, wherein Yah­weh is pic­tured as a lov­ing ruler and mer­ci­ful Fa­ther.

96:7.4And when thus re­garded, this group of Psalms con­sti­tutes the most valu­able and help­ful as­sort­ment of de­vo­tional sen­ti­ments ever as­sem­bled by man up to the times of the twen­ti­eth cen­tury. The wor­ship­ful spirit of this col­lec­tion of hymns tran­scends that of all other sa­cred books of the world.

96:7.5The var­ie­gated pic­ture of De­ity pre­sented in the Book of Job was the prod­uct of more than a score of Mes­o­po­ta­mian re­li­gious teach­ers ex­tend­ing over a pe­riod of al­most three hun­dred years. And when you read the lofty con­cept of di­vin­ity found in this com­pi­la­tion of Mes­o­po­ta­mian be­liefs, you will rec­og­nize that it was in the neigh­bor­hood of Ur of Chaldea that the idea of a real God was best pre­served dur­ing the dark days in Pales­tine.

96:7.6In Pales­tine the wis­dom and all-per­va­sive­ness of God was of­ten grasped but sel­dom his love and mercy. The Yah­weh of these times “sends evil spir­its to dom­i­nate the souls of his en­e­mies”; he pros­pers his own and obe­di­ent chil­dren, while he curses and vis­its dire judg­ments upon all oth­ers. “He dis­ap­points the de­vices of the crafty; he takes the wise in their own de­ceit.”

96:7.7Only at Ur did a voice arise to cry out the mercy of God, say­ing: “He shall pray to God and shall find fa­vor with him and shall see his face with joy, for God will give to man di­vine righ­teous­ness.” Thus from Ur there is preached sal­va­tion, di­vine fa­vor, by faith: “He is gra­cious to the re­pen­tant and says, ‘De­liver him from go­ing down in the pit, for I have found a ran­som.’ If any say, ‘I have sinned and per­verted that which was right, and it prof­ited me not,’ God will de­liver his soul from go­ing into the pit, and he shall see the light.” Not since the times of Mel­chiz­e­dek had the Lev­an­tine world heard such a ring­ing and cheer­ing mes­sage of hu­man sal­va­tion as this ex­traor­di­nary teach­ing of Elihu, the prophet of Ur and priest of the Salem be­liev­ers, that is, the rem­nant of the one­time Mel­chiz­e­dek colony in Mes­o­po­ta­mia.

96:7.8And thus did the rem­nants of the Salem mis­sion­ar­ies in Mes­o­po­ta­mia main­tain the light of truth dur­ing the pe­riod of the dis­or­ga­ni­za­tion of the He­brew peo­ples un­til the ap­pear­ance of the first of that long line of the teach­ers of Is­rael who never stopped as they built, con­cept upon con­cept, un­til they had achieved the re­al­iza­tion of the ideal of the Uni­ver­sal and Cre­ator Fa­ther of all, the acme of the evo­lu­tion of the Yah­weh con­cept.

96:7.9[Pre­sented by a Mel­chiz­e­dek of Neb­a­don.]