"The Universe [ever] since continues its regular course. This is my opinion; this should be our belief. Our Sages, however, said very strange things as regards miracles; they are found in Bereshith Rabba, and in Midrash Koheleth, namely, that the miracles are to some extent also natural."
Baruch Spinoza proceeds from the premise that "Nature always observes laws and rules . . .
although they may not all be known to us, and therefore she keeps a fixed and immutable order."
"Miracles" merely mean events of which the natural cause cannot be explained. "In so far as a miracle is supposed to destroy or interrupt the order of Nature or her laws, it not only gives us no knowledge of God, but, contrariwise . . . makes us doubt of God and everything else." "What is meant in Scripture by a miracle can only be a work of Nature."5
All these premises are philosophically true and no objection can be
sTractatus Theologico-Politicus (1670), Chap. VII. The quoted sentences are translated by J.
Ratner in his The Philosophy of Spinoza.
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raised against them. Of course, they are true only as long as the philosopher does not insist that the laws of nature as known to him are the real and only laws.
robin-bobin
Discussing instances in the Scriptures to which the quoted principles should be applied, Spinoza insists that the subjective apperception and the peculiar manner of expression of the ancient Hebrews are the only reasons for the accounts of unnatural events.
"I will content myself with one instance from Scripture, and leave the reader to judge of the rest.
In the time of Joshua the Hebrews held the ordinary opinion that the sun moves with a daily motion, and that the earth remains at rest; to this preconceived opinion they adapted the miracle which occurred during their battle with the five kings. They did not simply relate that the day was longer than usual, but asserted that the sun and moon stood still, or ceased from their motion."
The deduction made is: "Partly through religious motives, partly through preconceived opinions, they conceived of and related the occurrence as something quite different from what really happened." "It is necessary to know the opinions of those who first related them . . . and to distinguish such opinions from the actual impression made upon our senses, otherwise we shall confound opinions and judgments with the actual miracle as it really occurred; nay, further, we shall confound actual events with symbolical and imaginary ones."
The Book of Isaiah is offered by Spinoza as another example, and the chapter on Babylon's doomed destruction is quoted: "The stars of heaven . . . shall not give their light; the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine." The philosopher writes: "Now I suppose no one imagines that at the destruction of Babylon these phenomena actually occurred any more than that which the prophet adds: 'For I will make the heavens to tremble, and remove the earth out of her place.'" "Many occurrences in the Bible are to be regarded as Jewish expressions." "The Scripture narrates in order and style which has most power to move men and especially uneducated men . . . and therefore it speaks inaccurately of God and of events."
Asserting a subjective apperception on the part of the witnesses,
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a deliberate intention to impress the reader or listener with exciting descriptions, a peculiarity in the mode of expression of Hebrew penmen, Spinoza nevertheless arrives at a non sequitur: "Now all these texts teach most distinctly that Nature preserves a fixed and unchangeable order. . . .
Nowhere does Scripture assert that anything happens which contradicts, or cannot follow from the laws of Nature," and he supports his view with a theological argument: in the Book of Ecclesiastes it is written: "I know what God does, it shall be for ever."
The events were called miracles and were explained as subjective apperceptions or as symbolic descriptions because they could not be otherwise accounted for. But apart from the events themselves, which this study endeavors to establish as historical, the words of Isaiah and of other seers and penmen of the Old Testament do not leave any room for doubt that by "stones falling from the sky" were meant meteorites; by brimstone and pitch were meant brimstone and pitch; by scorching blast of fire was meant scorching blast of fire; by storm and tempest, storm and tempest; by a darkened sun, by the earth removed from its place, by change of time and seasons, were meant just these changes in the regular processes of nature. Where is the basis for the "sure knowledge" that the earth must move without perturbation at a time when every body in the solar system more or less perturbs every other one? Until the fall of meteorites in 1803, science was sure that stones falling from the sky occurred only in legends.
The "no one imagines" of Spinoza is no longer true. The author of this book does so imagine.
CHAPTER 2
The Year -687
IN ABOUT —722, after three years of siege, Samaria, the capital of the Ten Tribes, was captured by Sargon II, and the population of the Northern Kingdom, or Israel, was removed into captivity from which it never returned.
In about —701, Sennacherib, son of Sargon, undertook the third campaign of his reign; he directed it to the south, into Palestine. The record of this and other campaigns of his is written robin-bobin
and preserved in cuneiform signs worked on the sides of prisms of baked clay. The so-called
"Taylor prism" contains the narrative of eight campaigns of Sennacherib. He wrote about his road to victory: "The wheels of my war chariot were bespattered with filth and blood."
The record of the third campaign on the prism corresponds to the record preserved in II Kings 18
: 13-16. According to both sources, Sennacherib took many cities; "the proud Hezekiah, the Judean," was "closed like a bird in a cage" in his capital, Jerusalem, but Sennacherib did not capture Jerusalem; he satisfied himself with a tribute of gold and silverx sent to him at Lachish in southern Palestine. After that he departed with his booty.
Hezekiah had no choice but to submit; the defenses of the land were inadequate. Now he used the time, which he recognized as only a respite, to build walled strongholds and to garrison them, and to prepare the brooks and the wells of the land to be stopped and destroyed at the first signal.
This is described in II Chronicles (32 : 1-6).
l Thirty talents of gold in both sources; 300 talents of silver according to the Book of Kings; 800
talents of silver according to the prism.
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Sennacherib, alarmed by the revolt of Hezekiah, who aligned himself with the king of Ethiopia and Egypt, Tirhakah, came again with his army and once more set up his headquarters near Lachish. One of Sennacherib's generals, Rab-sha-keh, came to Jerusalem and spoke with the emissaries of Hezekiah, loudly and in Hebrew, so that the warriors on the wall could hear him, too (Isaiah 36 : 18 ff.): "Beware lest Hezekiah persuade you, saying, The Lord will deliver us.
Hath any of the gods of the nations delivered his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria?" He also told them to consider the fate of Samaria, whose gods did not save it when it was stormed by the Assyrians. He informed them that Sennacherib required pledges of submission and promised that they would be exiled to a land as good as their own. Hezekiah's emissaries were ordered not to enter into any dispute. Receiving no reply, Rab-sha-keh departed for Libna where King Sennacherib had gone from Lachish. The Ethiopian king Tirhakah came against Sennacherib out of the borders of Egypt and prepared to meet him in battle. Rab-sha-keh sent again a demand to Hezekiah to submit: "Let not thy God deceive thee, saying, Jerusalem shall not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria."