Forlong - Rivers of Life

154
Rivers of Life, or Faiths of Man in all Lands.
pillars of Syria, see fig. 16 of Dr Inman’s plate V., vol. ii, and this other which
he gives us at page 491 of the aame volume, exemplifying the Phallic pillar,
on an altar, or a mount of sacrifice, but which may mean
something more; I give many figures of the Phallic Thyrsus
and Serpents. The two supports of the man Moses on
this occasion are suggestive. Hur, rwh, says Inman, is the
moon as a male god, and was a deity in Babylon and
Fig. 57.
MOSES, EXODUS xvii. 9-11.
Phenicia (i. 96, 596); whilst Aaron, }wrha, or Ahur rha,
is held to be the air, later Aer, and Greek Ouranos, pro-
bably light or brightness and heat, with the root rwa, or aur, or Ur. Hebraists tell
us that wra is “one of power” or strength, who extends, is firm like a tree or mast,
etc. (see Inman, i. 277). Aer was one of the second Asyrian triad, in conjunction
with the sun and moon (p. 176), and the sky, or air, whether Jupiter tonans or pluvius,
is the connection between god and his children—between the sun and his earthly
ark; and this link between Jhavh and his people Israel, was here the high priest
A-aron. If the A at the commencement is held to be prosthetic, and the two last
letters merely formative, as we have many instances of (I-esh-wāra and Par-vati are
in point), then we have Hur, as an Omphi or mouthpiece of the deity, precisely similar
to Hermes, who had a blossoming club, which gave life and dealt forth death; who
originated worship and sacrifices, and taught eloquence—all points, in which Aaron
excelled, see Ex. IV. 14-16 and onwards, and Dr. Inman, under Art. Aaron. It is
mere trifling with Israel’s God to tell us, that we over-reach ourselves in likening a
man on a hill top with a rod, and two men supporting him, to a Phallic triad, for
these here are clearly no mere men, and this no mere rod. The figure, and then the
group, swayed warring thousands and determined victory, which neither skill nor
numbers had any effect over; so it is our duty to try and see what God is here,
and how he manifests himself. Immediately after the victory, the god is brought
down from the hill, and we may conclude that “his rod” Nissi, or a pole emblematical
of “the rod of Elohim,” which had given the tribes the victory, was erected on
this altar, which thus takes the place of the erect man Moses seen on the right hand
of the figure. This Nissi, which I take to be merely an enlarged edition of the Rod,
as the outer columns of temples or the obelisks of Egypt were of the rods of the
priests of Egypt, was then their god of victory, and the Jews say they had only one
god, which none dare make light of, nor would wish to do so, for he gave victory on the
very easiest of terms; he had but to be erected, to discomfort Israel’s foes “from generation
to generation;” his rod budded as did that of Bacchus, see Figs 5 and 9, Pl. V.,
turned into a serpent, cleft asunder rocks and seas, and was therefore in all
respects a veritable Soter kosmou, so that no wonder the tribes kept the God’s symbol
carefully shut up in their “holy of holies.”
These two figures seem to embrace the same, or a very close similarity of