J. M. Jost: Geschichte der Israeliten seit der Zeit der Maccabäer bis auf unsere Tage. Leipz.
1820–’28, 9 vols. By the same: Geschichte des Judenthums und seiner Secten. 1857–159, 3
vols.
Salvador: Histoire de la domination Romaine en Judée et de la ruine de Jerusalem. Par. 1847, 2
vols.
Raphall: Post-biblical History of the Jews from the close of the 0. T. about the year 420 till the
destruction of the second Temple in the year 70. Lond. 1856, 2 vols.
Abraham Geiger (a liberal Rabbi at Frankfort on the M.): Das Judenthum und seine Geschichte.
Breslau; 2d ed. 1865–’71, 3 vols. With an appendix on Strauss and Renan. Comes down to the
16th century. English transl. by Maurice Mayer. N. York, 1865.
L. Herzfeld: Geschichte des Volkes Jizrael. Nordhausen, 1847–’57, 3 vols. The same work, abridged
in one vol. Leipz. 1870.
H. Grätz (Prof. in Breslau): Geschichte der Juden von den ältesten Zeiten bis auf die Gegenwart.
Leipz. 1854–’70, 11 vols. (to 1848).
"Salvation is of the Jews."^54 This wonderful people, whose fit symbol is the burning bush, was
chosen by sovereign grace to stand amidst the surrounding idolatry as the bearer of the knowledge
of the only true God, his holy law, and cheering promise, and thus to become the cradle of the
Messiah. It arose with the calling of Abraham, and the covenant of Jehovah with him in Canaan,
the land of promise; grew to a nation in Egypt, the land of bondage; was delivered and organized
into a theocratic state on the basis of the law of Sinai by Moses in the wilderness; was led back into
Palestine by Joshua; became, after the Judges, a monarchy, reaching the height of its glory in David
and Solomon; split into two hostile kingdoms, and, in punishment for internal discord and growing
apostasy to idolatry, was carried captive by heathen conquerors; was restored after seventy years’
humiliation to the land of its fathers, but fell again under the yoke of heathen foes; yet in its deepest
abasement fulfilled its highest mission by giving birth to the Saviour of the world. "The history of
the Hebrew people," says Ewald, "is, at the foundation, the history of the true religion growing
through all the stages of progress unto its consummation; the religion which, on its narrow national
territory, advances through all struggles to the highest victory, and at length reveals itself in its full
glory and might, to the end that, spreading abroad by its own irresistible energy, it may never vanish
away, but may become the eternal heritage and blessing of all nations. The whole ancient world
had for its object to seek the true religion; but this people alone finds its being and honor on earth
exclusively in the true religion, and thus it enters upon the stage of history."^55
Judaism, in sharp contrast with the idolatrous nations of antiquity, was like an oasis in a
desert, clearly defined and isolated; separated and enclosed by a rigid moral and ceremonial law.
The holy land itself, though in the midst of the three Continents of the ancient world, and surrounded
by the great nations of ancient culture, was separated from them by deserts south and east, by sea
on the west, and by mountain on the north; thus securing to the Mosaic religion freedom to unfold
itself and to fulfil its great work without disturbing influenced from abroad. But Israel carried in
its bosom from the first the large promise, that in Abraham’s seed all the nations of the earth should
be blessed. Abraham, the father of the faithful, Moses, the lawgiver, David, the heroic king and(^54) John 4:22. Comp. Luke 24:47; Rom. 9:4, 5.
(^55) Geschichte du Volkes Israel, Vol. I. p. 9 (3d ed.).
A.D. 1-100.