14 HEBREW LIFE AND CUSTOM
related without reprobation. No argument, of course, can
be based on exceptional cases, such as from time to time
occurred in the stress of famine.1
It may, however, be considered certain that before the
reforming movement which originated in the eighteenth
year of King Josiah, at all events in what may be regarded
as the more Canaanite section of the community, children
could be sacrificed on the eighth day from birth, or if not
then, at some later period. Not that we are justified in
concluding that all the firstborn males were actually sacri-
ficed, for doubtless in many cases a price was paid to
redeem them, or they were brought up as slaves of the
sanctuary. It is, however, to be noted that Micah’s vehe-
ment denunciation of the sacrifice of the firstborn 2 was
uttered at a time when the brother of the reigning King
Hezekiah had been sacrificed by his father Ahaz ; 3 and it
is also to be observed that the Elohistic version of the law
claiming all firstborn for God * makes no distinction be-
tween the firstborn of men and cattle. In the Jahvistic
recension of the law5 a rider is added to the effect that all
human firstborn must be redeemed, but this rider is doubt-
less the work of the redactor who combined the two docu-
ments. Obviously no one who felt towards human sacrifice
the burning indignation of a Jeremiah 6 or a Micah could
have drawn up ab initio the Iawsjust referred to in the form
in which we have them ; and indeed the prophet Ezekiel7
shows that he is acquainted with laws professing to
emanate from Jehovah, demanding the sacrifice of the
firstborn. He says that such laws were given as a punish-
ment for the people’s sin. Similarly no one who cherished
the teaching found in the great Prophets could have told
1 2 Kings vi. 28 ; Jer. xix. 9 ; Deut. xxviii. 53-7 ; Lev. xxvi. 29 ;
Lam. ii. 20.
1 Mic. vi. 7. 3 2 Kings xvi. 3.
4 Exod. xxii. 29, 30 ; note that the word rendered in the English
version ‘ dam ’ is the ordinary word for ‘ mother ’.
5 Exod. xxxiv. 19, 20. 6 Jer. vii. 21 f. 7 Ezek. xx. 25, 26.
HUMAN SACRIFICES 15
the story of Abraham1 without making it clear that
Abraham’s determination to sacrifice his son was due, not
to a divine command, but to Abraham’s superstition. In
like manner the narrator of the story of Jephthah clearly
recognizes Jephthah’s determination to sacrifice a human
victim.2 Fatted calves do not ordinarily go out of the door
of a house to meet a returning conqueror.
In any case a father might voluntarily sell his daughters
into bondage.3 The later law mitigated the rigour of
ancient custom.4 A man’s sons might be seized by his
creditors, as indeed the father himself might be ;5 but there
is no evidence that he could volιmtarily sell his sons, and
the contrary is implied by Jeremiah.6 The Deuteronomic
law, as noted above, safeguards the rights of children, not
only in forbidding that they should be punished for their
father’s offences,’ but in insisting that a firstborn son by a
hated wife must not lose his birthright in favour of a
younger son by a beloved wife.8
There is pretty clear evidence that, in the earlier period
covered by the Hebrew Scriptures, among the Canaanite
elements of the population, when a boy reached manhood,
before he married, he underwent an initiation ceremony
of which circumcision was a prominent feature. The
primitive character of this ceremony is sufficiently indicated
by the fact that it was performed with flint knives.9 When
Moses is taken ill in the first years of his married life, his
Midianite wife concludes that he has incurred the Divine
wrath by omitting to be circumcised, which among her
people was a sine qua non before marriage. She therefore
decides on bringing about the vicarious circumcision of
Moses in the manner described in the account of Moses’
return to Egypt.10 The story of the circumcision of the
’ Gen. xxii. ’ Judges xi. 39; cf. ver. ɜɪ.
3 Exod. xxi. 7 ; Neh. v. 5 ff. 4 See e.g. Lev. xxv.
5 2 Kings iv. ɪ ; Deut. xv. 12. 6 Jer. ii. 14.
7 Deut. xxiv. ι6. 8 Deut. xxi. 15-17.
’ Exod. ɪv. 25, 26 ; Joshua v. 2-5. “ Exod. iv. 25, 26.