Note 2026 — Chapter X · (continued 2)

It is not clear that the peculiar cults described in Isa. lxv, 3-5; lxvi, 3 f., are of Semitic origin. Their history, however, is obscure—they are not referred to elsewhere in Jewish literature. In part they are, like the cults mentioned in Ezek. viii, 10, the adoption of the sacred animals of neighboring peoples; Isa. lxv, 5 seems to point to a close voluntary association with a ceremony of initiation, but nothing proves that the association was of Semitic origin. For a different view see W. R. Smith, Religion of the Semites, 2d ed., p. 357 ff.