Note 125 — Chapter I · The Religious Origin of the Yezidis
Reading edition
Cf. R. Smith, ibid, pp. 203-212; S. I. Curtiss’ Primitive Semitic Religion To-day, pp. 84-89; Stade, ibid, p. 114, seq.; see also II Sam. 5: 24, and John 5: 2, 3.
The original idea might have been that the waters, the stones, and the trees themselves were divinities. In Jud. 5: 21, we have the statement: “The river Kishon swept them away, that ancient river, the river Kishon.” Now Kais was the name of an Arabian god in Pre-Islamic time. In Num. 5: 17 seq., an accused woman is tested by a sacred water. In Deut. 32: 4, “He is the rock,” “rock” is as much a term for God as El, or elohim; cf. verses 15, 18, 30, 31; II Sam. 23: 3. In Ps. 18: 2, the word rock is used of God, “the Lord is my rock.” Jacob took the stone which he had put under his head as a pillow, and raised it up as a pillar, poured oil upon it and called it the “house of God,” Gen. 28: 18, 19, 22. “The sound of a going in the tops of the mulberry trees” (II Sam. 5: 24), for which David was to wait, was nothing less than the divine voice speaking to David in accordance with ancient conceptions.