Forlong - Rivers of Life

Serpent and Phallic Worship.
saying that the Jews had anything so good, especially if they desire to antedate their
Jehovah Nissi to 1490! All armies used a bonâ fide standard to support bonâ fide
images, as serpents etc., and so, no doubt, did Jews who would not be likely to understand
woven or painted symbols, but be ambitious to carry, like all nations, a real rod
or baton, like that of Mercury or Hermes. As in the case of all standards also, this
would be revered and worshipped like a god by the soldiers as well as generals
who led “the armies of the Lord.” The Syrian and all Arab tribe were inveterate
mountain-worshippers, as will be made very clear as wc proceed; and that Sinai, as a
great conical, dark, frowning and, perhaps, fiery mountain should be “THE MOUNT OF
GOD,” was quite agreeable to the views of all sects in the Jewish camp. So we see,
that as soon as the wanderers came near to Sinai, all understood that Elohim or
Jahveh was there; for it is related, as a mere matter of course (Exod. xix. 3), that immediately
Moses approached the hill, the Yahveh “called unto him out of the mountain,”
and “Moses went up unto Elohim.” Then follows one of those strange eastern tales,
in which we are told of mighty trumpetings, the rage of the deity, and a host of
puerilities, such as we so often read of in temple-tales in India. The people are warned
again and again that Jhavh or El is a violent god, oonstantly apt to “break forth” in
ungovernable rage; that whatsover creature even touches the mountain with his hand
shall die; that the cloud and the fire, lightnings and thunders, and loud trumpetings,
are his manifestations, that the people are to sanctify themselves in Phallic fashion
by not going near their wives, &c.; all of which, however, comes to nothing, and
the next chapter opens, with, it is justly suspected, an interpolation of the so-called “Ten
Commandments” or rather, “ten word,” regarding which, see Bishop Colenso’s
excellent Lecture viii, on The Pent. and Moabite Stone.
Chapter xx. ends with the tribes being instructed not to make gods of silver or
gold, and how to make altars; verse 22 being apparently the beginning of the celebrated
“Covenant” or “Law of the Lord,” which ends in the xxiii. chapter, and which
Bishop Colenso thinks may be eleven hundred words, and as such, have been engraved
on the four sides of two stones of about 3 × 2 feet; but this is not my idea of the
stones of ancient gods.
Thus, not till the tribes had been for some time at Sinai, did they know anything
of their after altars, sacrifices on them, tents, tabernacles, arks, or laws or writings;
so we crave to know what our Eduth of xvi. 34 was, which, when Moses built the ark
of xxv. 16, he was to put into it,—“that Eduth which I shall give thee,” not what you
can obtain, or make for yourself, like an ark, altar, or temple, but a real PALL-DIUM,
and evidently like all such, believed to be the gift of Jove. I should here notice that
after the tribes got their victorious rod, and worshipped Dio-nissi, and had shown their
capacity for war, they are recognised as an independent desert tribe; and Moses is visited
by his father-in-law, Jethro, “a priest of Midian,” who now graciously brings to him his
wife and two sons out of Egypt, and forthwith begins to instruct this “man of God”
how to manage and judge the people of God. All this Moses strictly attends to, and.
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