Biblical Theology (Part 3) by Geerhardus Vos

The Old Testament PART TWO
THE PROPHETIC EPOCH OF REVELATION
ONE:
THE PLACE OF PROPHETISM IN OLD TESTAMENT REVELATION
Next to Mosaism, Prophetism marks an epochal onward movement in Old Testament revelation. In order to understand why this should be so, we must call to mind how the process of revelation is articulated. Revelation follows events. But not all happenings in the history of Israel, even though apparently momentous, give rise to a large influx of new revelation. What is necessary for this is, that the new happenings shall leave something new, that is of lasting significance, behind. When the acts of the exodus lead to the setting
up of the theocratic organization, a large volume of revelation follows in their wake. We must, therefore, ask, what was the great event in Sacred History, that could call forth such a new body of revelation of the most far-reaching importance.
This event can be nothing else but the new organization of the theocratic kingdom under a human ruler. In the days of Samuel this movement began; it found provisional embodiment in the rule of Saul, but was not consolidated on a firm basis until the accession of David. Henceforth the idea of this kingdom remains central in the hopes of Israel. This human kingdom, however, is only a representation of the kingdom of Jehovah Himself. At first, when the people asked for a king, Jehovah disapproved of the un-theocratic spirit in which the request was made, and declared it tantamount to rejection of Himself. Nevertheless the desire was granted, obviously in order that through the wrong conduct of the office by Saul, its true conception might be the more clearly taught.
This was also the reason why for such a long time during the period of Joshua and the Judges the institution of the kingdom was kept in abeyance. Only after in this twofold manner—first by withholding a king, and next by allowing a wrong sort of king—the ideal of the king after the heart of Jehovah had been carefully inculcated, did the actual permanent thing arrive. The kingdom is in its intent an instrument of redemption as well as the embodiment of the blessedness of Israel. To it the Messianic expectations attach themselves. It is a serious mistake to conceive of the kingdom as something accidentally arrived at, and merely tolerated for a time at the expense of democracy. The thing was too large and deep to have aught of the unessential and dispensable about it. It touches, through the kingship of Christ, the very acme and perfection of the Biblical religion.
A KINGDOM-PRODUCING MOVEMENT
To this kingdom-producing movement the rise and development of prophetism attach themselves. The prophets were guardians of the unfolding theocracy, and the guardianship was exercised at its centre, the kingdom. The purpose was to keep it a true representation of the kingdom of Jehovah. It sometimes almost appears as if the prophets were sent to the kings instead of to the people. From this interlinking of the prophetic office with the national interests of Israel, summed up in the kingdom, we can best explain the peculiar circumstances under which prophecy arose at the time of Samuel, in a deep patriotic movement, with a large admixture of national aspirations, shaping itself collectively at the first as well as individually. The bands or so-called ‘schools’ of the prophets were centres of religious and patriotic life in one; but, in harmony with the purpose of Israel’s existence, the religious dominated the patriotic, not the reverse. The case of Deborah in the period of the Judges furnishes an earlier example.
It is a mistake, however, to infer from this national function, that the prophetic office was a sort of diplomatic, political office. This has been done by Winkler, who appeals wrongly in support of it to the enumeration of offices in Isa. 3:2. As developed by him, the view in question would throw a rather unpleasant light upon the prophetic activity during the later critical days of the kingdom. He believes that the great Oriental powers availed themselves of the prophets as agents to further their own interests among the smaller kingdoms. Hence the phenomenon that so often the counsel given by the prophets in political complications coincided with the plans pursued by these powers. Elisha is assumed to have received his instructions from Damascus, Isaiah from Nineveh, Jeremiah from Babylon.
But there is no evidence that such relations of a diplomatic or semi- diplomatic kind were ever cultivated by the prophets. What we find is rather an aversion to all political entanglements and alliances. But this is not based on superior political insight on the part of the prophets. It simply results from their staunch maintenance of the theocratic principle, that Jehovah is King, and Israel bound to rely
exclusively on Him [Isa. 7; 30:1–5; Hos. 7:11; 12:1]. Already in the times of David and Solomon such prophets as Nathan and Gad worked largely through the kingship. By Elijah and Elisha afterwards the same method was pursued. That whatever there seemed to be of political interposition was not at bottom political, but religious, appears from the fact that its procedure is open. There is no secret understanding, no conspiracy about it. Politics as such is unable to dispense with the element of secret procedure. It must be admitted, however, that there is some difference in this respect between Elijah and Elisha. The latter did enter into a conspiracy against the dynasty of the house of Omri. But even what Elisha aimed at was not improvement of the political situation. The end in view was to eradicate the cult of Baal by fire and sword through the supplanting of the Omrites by the house of Jehu. One need only compare the conduct of the prophets of Israel with that of the seer Balaam in the Mosaic period, to acquit the former of all charges of diplomatic intrigue. Balaam let himself be hired by a king, something no prophet of Israel could ever have contemplated.
THE WORD AS THE INSTRUMENT OF PROPHETISM
Prophetism, in restricting itself to the word as its instrument, while seemingly limited as to efficacy in this respect, in reality did more than anything else towards the spiritualizing of the relation between Jehovah and Israel. The prophets did not create facts, they upheld principles; and whatever future facts they spoke of were placed by them in the pure ideal light of prediction. Through prophecy Biblical religion has first come to be, to the extent it is, the religion of truth, of faith, of Scripture. In this respect the prophets were the precursors of Protestantism, at least from a formal point of view. More than ever before, the religious consciousness of Israel felt itself bound up with the cardinal fact of revelation. Jehovah’s approach to Israel is eminently the approach of speech; God gives Himself in the word of His mouth.
The word, while being primarily intended for an official purpose, secondarily also becomes a means of grace for the prophet himself. The intimacy of the intercourse which the prophet needed and enjoyed in virtue of his task, could not fail at the same time to minister to his own religious growth. Still, the stressing of this feature can be overdone. It is suspicious, when joined to a neglect or implicit disavowal of the revelation-significance of the prophet. Religious heroism is not what Scripture puts foremost among the phenomena of prophecy. And where a high degree of religiousness is shown, we are distinctly given to understand that it was the result of the privileges of the office, rather than the prerequisite of investment with the office. The prophets were not primarily chosen because of their signal piety. They became pious above the average as a result of the exercise of their God-ward function.
A FACTOR OF CONTINUITY
Prophecy is a factor of continuity in the history of revelation, both through its retrospective and through its prospective attitude. Its preaching of repentance, and of the sin of apostasy from the norms of the past, links it to the preceding work of Jehovah for Israel in the patriarchal and Mosaic periods. Through its predictive elements it anticipates the continuity with the future. Although the name ‘prophet’ may not mean ‘foreteller’, none the less foretelling is an essential part in the prophet’s task. The prophets themselves emphasize this so much that one cannot consider it to be incidental [Amos 3:7]. The initiation into the secret of the coming things forms part of that religious intimacy into which the prophet has been received with Jehovah. But objectively also the prophet could not be a true revealer if the substratum of facts, which all revelation requires, were absent from his consciousness. And this substratum is given partly in the future facts.
Modern interpreters but too frequently make the prophet stand as a disinterested ‘teacher’ historically, forgetful of all things except his own present lesson. This is a distortion of his figure. Teachers in this
sense the prophets never were and ‘schools’ they never kept. The error in question frequently springs from a failure to observe how closely the doctrinal principles of the prophet’s preaching shape his forecast of the future. Mere arbitrary exhibitions of pretended foresight the predictions never were. They cannot be removed from the preaching without disarranging and deforming the latter. And here again the personal equation must be taken into account. The prophets felt to a large extent that they were living in times out of joint, and among a people out of sympathy with what was most precious to themselves. Their instinctive desire would be to seek compensation in the future for what the present denied them. A warmth of emotionally-coloured interest not seldom suffuses their predictions. And there is also perceptible a desire for contemplating in advance the vindication of the truth, assailed and scorned in the present. Religious decadence and degeneracy have always stimulated occupation with the future. Eschatological interest is sometimes a species of comfort to the pious soul. For all these reasons it is a cheap modernizing tendency to belittle the predictive element in prophecy.
TWO MAIN PERIODS OF PROPHETISM
The principle of continuity within the plan of revelation in its double form of linking on to the past and reaching out into the future, can be distributed over the two main periods in which the history of prophetism divides itself. The former of these periods extends from the great prophetic revival in the time of Samuel to the date of the first writing-prophets about the middle of the eighth century B.C. The second extends from there onwards until the close of Old Testament prophecy. The difference between these two periods is that in the earlier one the possibility of repentance and conversion, in response to the prophetic preaching, is still reckoned with. The prophets speak out of the consciousness of being reorganizers, reconstructionists. That something better will come and must come they know, but they are not aware as yet of the extent to which, when come, it will swallow up the past.
In the second period, although the call to repentance never ceases, yet it acquires a more or less perfunctory tone. The prophet now knows that, not repair, but regeneration of the present lies in the womb of the future. But the main thing to be observed is that this rebirth is not equivalent to a new setting up of the past, not even in an idealized form. Occasion is taken from the prediction of overthrow to introduce into the picture all the absolute values of eschatology. As the divine method in general is not to bring out of the chaos and dissolution of sin the return simply of the former state of affairs but the attainment of a higher order of things, so the same rule on a smaller scale is illustrated here in the history of Israel. God made use of the impending destruction of the Mosaic theocracy to create room for something far transcending the original structure.
The arrival of this new phase of prophecy coincides with a series of new, momentous developments on the scene of history. The first phase opened with the record-breaking events of the age from Samuel to David. The second opens with the appearance upon the horizon of the great, humanly-speaking irresistible, Eastern power which God had chosen to be the instrument of His judgment. How important was the change thus brought about in the outlook of prophecy may be seen from this, that it has left its impress even upon the outward form of communicating the message. From the middle of the eighth century onwards the prophets begin to be writing prophets. Amos, Hosea, and, somewhat later, Isaiah and Micah for the first time committed the prophetic word to writing. The word of the earlier prophets, though a truly divine word, had been largely a transient word, intended for their own day and generation. But from this second crisis onward the word ever increasingly obtained reference to the new creation of the future, and consequently dealt with things in which future generations would have a share and supreme interest. And even their own contemporaries, who refused the prophets a hearing, were through the witness of the written word to be convicted of the truth spoken of them. In these ideas the prophets begin to grasp more clearly than had been done before the
principle of the continuity, that is, of a history of redemption and revelation.
The true principle of history writing, that which makes history more than a chronicling of events, because it discovers a plan and posits a goal, was thus grasped, not first by the Greek historians, but by the prophets of Israel. Hence we find also that the activity among these circles includes sacred historiography, the production of books like the Books of Samuel and Kings in which the course of events is placed in the light of an unfolding divine plan. Good meaning can thus be found in the ancient canonical custom of calling these historical writings ‘the earlier prophets’.
TWO:
THE CONCEPTION OF A PROPHET: NAMES AND ETYMOLOGIES
THE HEBREW TERM ‘NABHI’ ‘
The Hebrew word for prophet is nabhi’. It is doubtful whether the etymology can render us much assistance towards determining the fundamental conception of the office. Various proposals have been made by exegetes. We mention the following:
(a) Connection is sought with a root-group in which the first two radicals are nun and beth. The meaning fixed upon is ‘to spring’, ‘to gush forth’, or passively ‘to be sputtered, bubbled or gushed against’. The nabhi’ then might be ‘the one gushed upon by the Spirit’ (so Keil). Kuenen seeks to give an active turn to the idea. He thinks the nabhi’ may have been so called because he was rushing and gushing
in his gestures and speech. The passive view is excluded by the intransitive meaning of these verbs, which are not capable of a direct object. Nor does the active sense particularly suit the purpose to which Kuenen would put it. He seeks in it support for considering the earliest prophets a sort of raving men, dervish-like in their behaviour. ‘To gush’ is scarcely strong enough for that. At the utmost the copious flow of speech could perhaps be referred to, but on this there is no clear reflection anywhere. ‘To drop’, as a synonym for prophesying, seems rather to describe the constant iteration of the message [Ezek. 20:46; 21:2], but even this is not certain.
(b) Recourse is had to the Arabic. In it naba’a means ‘to announce’. But the ideas of ‘bubbling’ and ‘sprouting’ are also represented in this root-circle, so that adherents of view (a) may find additional support here. A difficulty arising in connection with ‘to announce’ is that nabhi’ is restricted to the announcer for the Deity, whilst the verb, in order to give us help, would have to signify ‘to announce’ in general. The suspicion arises that perhaps the verb is derived from nabhi’ in its technical religious sense, which latter then might very well have had another etymology. Nor is it impossible that the word entered into the Arabic from the Hebrew.
(c) Derivation from the Assyrian has been advocated. Nabu here signified ‘to call’, ‘to proclaim’, ‘to announce’. The element of authority seems to be regularly associated with the word. The ideas of ‘gushing’, ‘springing’ are likewise represented in the root: manbau is ‘a fountain’, nibhu, ‘a sprout’. The concurrence of the Hebrew, Arabic and Assyrian in expressing this idea in the same root to which nabhi’ belongs is certainly remarkable, but we are not able to point out the transition from this root-concept to the specific meaning of nabhi’ ‘prophet’.
(d) A special derivation from the Assyrian is that attaching itself to the name of the god Nebo. Some think that Nebo bears his name as speaker and herald for the gods, but this is not proven. He does appear as the god of wisdom, inventor of the art of writing, carrier of
the tablets of destiny. Sayce says: he was interpreter of the will of Bel-Merodach; he reads the oracles and interprets dreams. He might, however, carry all these predicates, and yet there might be no etymological connection with his name.
(e) Hupfeld proposes to identify the roots naba’a and na’am, from which latter comes the well-known phrase ne’um Jahveh, ‘oracle of Jehovah’. The identification of the two roots is precarious, because it involves both interchange of mem and beth, and exchange of place between these two radicals. On Hupfeld’s view nabhi’ would mean ‘oracler’.
(f) Certain Jewish scholars, and more recently Land, bring nabhi’ into connection with the verb bo’, ‘to enter in’. It is taken by them as the Niphal participle of this verb, ‘one entered in’, that is, by the Deity. But on this view the most important part of the conception would have remained unexpressed or been lost sight of through long usage. ‘Nabhi’ of the Deity’ or ‘nabhi’ of the Spirit’ nowhere occurs.
In view of this uncertainty of the several derivations it is exceedingly fortunate that from a few Old Testament passages we can gather with certainty the meaning attached to the word by Scripture in the sphere of revelation. These passages are: Ex. 4:16; 7:1; Jer. 1:5, 6. From these we learn that nabhi’ was understood as an appointed regular speaker for a divine superior, whose speech carries the authority of the latter. In the first-named passage, it is true, the term nabhi’ is not used explicitly. None the less a definite view of what a prophet ought to be with reference to God underlies it. Aaron will serve Moses as a mouth, and Moses will be to Aaron as a god. It is not a question of the relation between some sender and his ambassador in general, but a question of an ambassador of God. Aaron shall be the substitute-mouth for the Moses-god. It is only because Moses, so to speak, occupies the place of God, that Aaron can be spokesman in this absolute sense. And within the terms of the figure the infallibility of the result is safeguarded, for Jehovah says: ‘I will be with thy mouth and with his mouth.’ The second passage is
still more convincing. Moses is made a god to Pharaoh and Aaron is to act as Moses’ nabhi’. Aaron can be nabhi’ only because a god stands back of him. The same, without figurativeness, follows from the relation between Jehovah and Jeremiah defined in the third passage. God says, He has ordained Jeremiah a prophet. Jeremiah answers: I am a child; I cannot speak. Then Jehovah declares that He has put His words in Jeremiah’s mouth by touching it with His hand. Thereupon the words become divinely-powerful: Jeremiah stands over the nations, to root out and to pull down, to build and to plant.
It will be noticed that in all three passages it is a question of speaking. This alone introduces into the second the figure of the nabhi’. The disqualification pleaded is in each case an inability to speak. The prophet’s business lies in the sphere of speaking. And this speaking is not ordinary speaking, as in ordinary life one man might speak representatively for another. It is a unique representation conveying divine authority and, in a measure, divine omnipotence, and these are based on divine communication. Jehovah touches the mouth and puts the words there, and they acquire the effect of divine words.
The point is thus clearly established, that even to the pre-Mosaic Hebrew consciousness a nabhi’ is an authorized spokesman for the Deity, and that in his word a divinely-communicated power resides. Jehovah does not endeavour to teach Moses what a prophet is. He takes for granted that Moses knows this, and on that supposition constructs the analogy, wherein Moses figures as a god and Aaron as a prophet. Whatever the etymology of the name in its origin, to the Old Testament mind the prophet stood from beginning to end as the authoritative speaker for Jehovah. What the implications of this general conclusion are, we shall investigate presently, when dealing with the mode of prophetic revelation. But the general conclusion in itself is of the highest importance. It marks the religion of the Old Testament as a religion of conscious intercourse between Jehovah and Israel, a religion of revelation, of authority, a religion in which
God dominates, and in which man is put into the listening, submissive attitude.
Within the process of carrying the divine message nabhi’ names the active factor. The nabhi’ is one who does something; he speaks. True, in order to be able to do this, he must have been first passive; he must have received or experienced something. But that the name does not express; it only presupposes it. In fact the receiving of a divine message does not necessarily imply that it must be communicated. It can be for the recipient himself, or intended to be kept unspoken. Only when with the message there goes, explicitly or implicitly, the charge to transmit it, is there a case of prophecy. The prophet is a speaker to others. In other names the reverse, passive side of the process, the receiving of the message may stand in the foreground. In ‘prophet’ it does not. And nabhi’ has become the prevailing name. Not the mysteries of the background, but the issue in the open, where it reaches the mind of man, is the main consideration. The term is practical through and through, and so is the religion of the Old Testament which it so largely colours.
Some of the etymologies above reviewed differ from this conclusion. They would lay the stress on the passive side of the prophetic experience. Apart from etymology, two motives underlie this un- biblical preference. By representing the prophet as chiefly passive the way is prepared for conceiving him after a rude, primitive fashion, as not in control of himself, being powerfully affected by a strange extraneous compulsion. On the other hand, the passivizing of the form suits the modern desire for assimilating the prophetic experience as much as possible to the common experience of religion, for that can be done only through bringing out the subjective, experiential side.
The two linguistic arguments adduced for the passive understanding are, in the first place, that nabhi’, after the pattern of qatil, must be meant passively, and in the second place, that the only verbal forms occurring in connection with the word are the Niphal and Hithpael
species. It must be conceded that the qatil-form often has passive meaning. For example, mashiach is, not the one who anoints, but the anointed one. Still this is by no means uniformly so. There are quite a number of active nouns of this formation, such as paqid, ‘overseer’. In the Arabic, Ethiopic, and Assyrian languages qatil is the regular form for the Qal active participle. As to the verbal forms, we must remember that, while the Niphal is both passive and reflexive, the Hithpael is never passive, but always reflexive. The fact is that both are reflexive, being derivatives from the noun nabhi’, and signify simply ‘to conduct oneself as a nabhi’.
THE GREEK TERM ‘PROPHETES’
With this enquiry into the meaning of nabhi’ we may combine a brief discussion of its Greek equivalent, prophētēs, from which our word prophet has come. We associate with this mostly the idea of ‘foreteller’. This is not in accord with the original Greek etymology. The preposition ‘pro’ in the composition does not express the time- sense of ‘beforehand’. It has local significance; the prophētēs is a forth-teller. The Greek term, however, has religious associations no less than the Hebrew one. Prophētēs is the one who speaks for the oracle. Thus it might seem, that with the ‘pro’ correctly understood, the Hebrew nabhi’ and the Greek prophētēs were practically synonyms. This, however, would be misleading. The Greek prophētēs does not stand in the same direct relation to the deity as the Hebrew nabhi’ does. In reality he is the interpreter of the oracular, dark utterances of the Pythia, or some other inspired person, whom, from the depth underneath, the godhead of the shrine inspires. The Pythia would thus stand at the same remove from deity as the nabhi’, but the prophētēs is separated from the deity by this intervening person. Prophētēs is therefore rather an interpreter than a mouth-piece of what the god speaks through the one he directly inspires. He adds of his own, not merely the illumination of the oracle, but also the form in which he clothes the meaning apperceived.
Those who scorn the idea of what they contemptuously call ‘verbatim inspiration’ move rather along the Hellenic than along the Biblical line. It is precisely the Greek prophētēs, and not the Old Testament nabhi’ who has this freedom of movement they think so desirable. And not merely are the nabhi’ and the prophētēs different, but this difference is in the last analysis due to the difference between the Biblical Jehovah and the pagan god. Phoebus Apollo speaks, or rather speaks not. He utters dark, incomprehensible sounds. Then the Pythia, herself upon her tripod under the influence of the narcotic fumes arising from the cleft, needs likewise a prophētēs for rendering the oracular noise intelligible to ordinary mortals. But the Biblical God is light in Himself and His word gives light to all who seek it, although He uses the nabhi’ as His transmitter. Somewhat of the savour of subjectivity always clung to the Hellenic term. A philosopher is prophētēs of immortal nature. Poets are prophētai of the Muses. These are, of course, metaphors, but none the less they arise out of the apperception of the vague character of divine inspiration, belonging to the whole complex of pagan experience from which they spring.
It is no wonder, then, that the word prophētēs, taken into the service of Biblical religion, had to undergo a baptism of regeneration, before it could be properly used. And, since so much of the task of the Old Testament nabhi’ consisted, as a matter of fact, in prediction, the Biblical-Greek usage naturally put this into its regenerated prophētēs. Although this was etymologically wrong, it was not so theologically. The New Testament already puts a quite perceptible chronological stress on the preposition pro. There can be no doubt but, when the Evangelist Matthew writes numerous times, ‘this happened in order that it might be fulfilled that was written by the prophet’, etc., he associates with the word ‘prophet’ the idea of foretelling, which the Hebrew word nabhi’ has not, although the nabhi’-function has.
Some of the Greek fathers, who might have been more sensitive to Greek idiom, forgot the locally-projectory sense of pro, and
substituted for it the chronological sense. Thus Chrysostom observes: ‘For prophēteia is nothing else but the proclamation beforehand of things to come.’ Augustine, as a matter of etymological definition, quite correctly says: ‘The prophet of God is nothing else but the enunciator of the words of God to men.’ When he, however, adds: ‘men, who either are not able to, or do not deserve to hear God’, this goes beyond the import of both nabhi’ and the Biblical prophētēs. Although thus the New Testament and the fathers may have sacrificed somewhat of etymological correctness, we should remember that their interest lay not in philology. The modern tendency to minimize the predictive element, and lay well-nigh exclusive stress on the teaching function, is far more one-sided and misleading than the popular impression that the prophets were foretellers of coming events. Still the original meaning of prophētēs as an exact translation of nabhi’ is by no means entirely lost sight of in the New Testament [cp. Heb. 1:1].
THE TERMS ‘RO’EH’ AND ‘CHOZEH’
So much for nabhi’ and its equivalent, prophētēs. We now come to two other names, ro’eh, and its synonym chozeh. These two names are translated into Biblical English by ‘seer’ without distinction. For determining their import the point at issue is: do they refer to supernatural insight (metaphorically), or are they descriptive of a specific visionary mode of receiving what is conveyed by God? In themselves the two verbs could easily bear a metaphorical interpretation. But it is not so easy to apply this notion to the noun. We do not usually say that a person has, or has had, a sight, when we simply mean that he evinces deeper insight into certain matters than the average man. Yet the object-nouns of the verbs are quite freely used. The verbs must at first have related to a visionary process or product in the technical sense. Later on their sense was generalized; they came to mean ‘revelation’ by whatever process obtained, through hearing no less than vision. But this did not make them metaphors. We shall see, later on, how this generalizing came about in the regular development of the mode of prophetic revelation. The
word ‘seer’ refers to an extraordinary influence brought to bear on the seeing-faculty of the prophet, by which he was made to see things, instead of hearing them, with the same result that through this seeing a message of divine provenience was introduced into his consciousness. The two terms differ from nabhi’ in that the latter describes the active function of speaking for transmission of the message, whereas ‘seer’ describes the passive experience of being made acquainted with the message ocularly. To this, of course, would correspond the hearing which receives the speech of God.
Koenig, in his work entitled The Old Testament Conception of Revelation, has endeavoured to establish a distinction between chozeh and ro’eh. He thinks that ro’eh is used of true prophets only, whereas chozeh would, if not exclusively, yet predominantly be applied to false prophets. Isa. 28:7 shows that ro’eh is not avoided with reference to false prophets. According to Isa. 30:10, the two terms are quite synonymous [cp. further 2 Chron. 16:7, 10]. And the nouns for ‘vision’ are taken from both roots without any perceptible difference.
There are other designations of the prophets, more of a descriptive nature, and not rising to the rank of formal names. Such are tzopheh, metzappeh (outlooker, watchman); mal’akh Jahveh (messenger of Jehovah); ro’eh (shepherd); ‘ish haruach (man of the Spirit); ‘ish ha’elohim (man of God). These either explain themselves or will find their explanation in connection with those features of prophecy of which they are descriptive.
THREE:
THE HISTORY OF PROPHETISM: CRITICAL THEORIES
The term ‘prophet’ is not always used in the stiff, strict technical sense we are accustomed to combine with it. As ‘vision’ came in course of time to stand for revelation in general, so ‘prophet’ could be equivalent to ‘instrument of revelation’ without particular regard to technical sense, distinguishing a prophet from other organs of revelation. Moses is called a prophet, and yet is set over against the prophets as to his communication with God [Num. 12:6ff.]. In Gen. 20:7, Abraham is called a prophet. The meaning here seems to be one who has special acquaintance with God, and can intercede for others. To this Psa. 105:15, refers, where the synonym is ‘anointed ones’. Amos speaks of prophets raised up in the distant past [2:11]. Hosea calls Moses a prophet [12:13]. Peter, in Acts 3:21, 24, uses in succession the wider sense and the specialized application: ‘holy prophets which have been since the world began’, and ‘all the prophets from Samuel and them that followed after’. This recognizes that there was an incision in the history of revelation in the time of Samuel, that prophecy in a new form began from that date. The reason for this has been explained above.
THE HISTORY OF PROPHETISM
We can take our point of departure for the history of prophetism in the time of Moses. Not only were there prophets at that time among Israel, but they represented, with the exception of Moses, whose case was unique, the prevailing form of revelation. Their position was a privileged one. Nor was this entirely due to pre-eminence of office. It is evident that a religious pre-eminence was involved. Moses, in Num. 11:29, expressed the desire that all the Lord’s people might be
prophets. This clearly shows that from the first there was a religious as much as a functional value found in the appearance and exercise of the office. This appraisal runs through the entire history of prophecy from beginning to end. The divine promise in Joel 2:28–32 extends it into the eschatological age. Not only is Israel honoured by having prophets, the greater honour is that the people are intended to become prophets. Jer. 31:34 is of the same tenor. Afterwards the functional position of the prophets is raised. From inferior to Moses, they become in prospect like unto Moses, with an approach even to the prophetic dignity of the Christ [Deut. 18:15; Acts 3:22].
During the first stage of the new epoch in the history of prophetism, which dates from Samuel, the difference from what had existed before lay in two points. On the one hand, the office obtained a more public theocratic background for its activity in the newly-established kingdom. On the other hand, the number of prophets shows a large increase, especially if we count in the groups of collective prophets associated with such men as Samuel. Prophetism, as attached to the kingdom, did not on that account lose any of its independence. The events in the reigns of Saul and David in turn, upheld and restrained by the prophetic leaders of the time, are sufficient proof of this. A mere religious appendix of the kingdom prophecy never was. In course of time, as the occupants of the throne degenerated, it became the very opposite, an institution to counterbalance and reprove, or even to reject. But on the whole, during this first stage of development, the attitude of the prophets towards the kingdom was a friendly, fostering, protective one. Especially was this the case in the line of the Davidic succession.
As apostasy reared its head, both in the kings and among the nation, the relationship was altered. Prophets and kings stood over against each other. The keynote of prophecy having become the message of overthrow, the kings, who naturally believed in the conservation of what existed, could not fail to regard the prophets with suspicion and antagonism. The prophets were from their standpoint lacking in patriotism, in fact traitors. This change of base on both sides is
followed by the invasion of apostasy into the ranks of the prophets themselves. The contrast between true and false prophets begins to play a role. False prophecy encroached to such an extent upon the true, as to bring the whole office into discredit. Zechariah predicts that in the better order of affairs to come, parents will disavow a son laying claim to prophetic calling, nay, that the quasi-prophets themselves shall be ashamed of the calling. Prophesying and an unclean spirit are put on a line [13:2–6]. This is quite a different reason for the supersession of prophecy from that forecast in Jer. 31:34, and the opposite of the favourable forecast of Joel, which hearkens back to the Mosaic era.
It has been attempted to derive the corruption of prophecy in some way from the collective form which the latter developed. This is unjust so far as the earlier stage of the history of this movement is concerned. It coincides, as we have seen, with the religious and patriotic revival that occurred in the age of Samuel, and can scarcely be discredited without discrediting in principle the whole movement of which it formed a part. The same observation can be made in regard to its intensified activity in the age of Elijah and Elisha. The historical writers plainly stamp it with their approval [1 Sam. 3:1]. It is not easy, however, to define the exact relation between individual prophetism and group-prophetism. We meet with the group- prophets first in 1 Sam. 10:5. The word here used is chethel, ‘band’, ‘company’. The same meaning belongs to another word, Lehaqah, found in 19:20. A ‘school’ in any academic sense these words cannot describe. After this these designations are not met with again. But something analogous appears in the history of Elijah. The name here is ‘sons of the prophets’ [1 Ki. 20:35; 2 Ki. 2:3; 4:38; 6:1]. The only subsequent reference to this name is in Amos 7:14.
‘Sons of the prophets’ might be descriptive of the relation of submission and attachment in which these bands lived with great individual leaders. Or it might be simply an instance of the Hebrew idiom, which, by putting ‘son’ before some noun, indicates that a person is possessed of the character the noun expresses. In that case
‘sons of the prophets’ might not differ from the simple ‘prophets’. Of course, the phrase is not a genealogical designation. But the second view also meets with the objection that some sort of distinction is clearly suggested. Amos even makes the statement that he was at the time of his calling neither a prophet nor a prophet’s son disjunctively. What is the distinction? Some have attempted to seek it along the line of prophets as recipients of revelation and as cultivators of religious enthusiasm. Koenig has characterized the leading prophets as ‘primary’, the group-prophets as ‘secondary’. He thinks the secondary prophets were mere preachers. Supernatural disclosures were not confined to the leading prophets.
The term ‘preachers’ is apt to obscure the very point in which perhaps a difference between individual prophets and band-prophets can be discovered. The group-prophets do not seem to have been employed in the transmission of truth as the others were. The individual prophets, therefore, were the ‘preachers’. That the collective bodies were recipients of supernaturally-communicated truth is plain, nevertheless. They ‘prophesied’, and this can scarcely mean anything else than that they had been touched by the Spirit in a supernatural manner.
The strange bodily manifestations that took place among them likewise bear witness to that fact. These extraordinary phenomena must be attributed to the Spirit as much as were the analogous peculiar phenomena in the early New Testament Church. The Spirit has not his exclusive function in moralizing and spiritualizing. He can work also in the sphere of the semi-intelligible. Music played a part both in the production and the expression of the enthusiasm characteristic of these circles, and music lies on the border-land of that reign of feeling where mysterious forces play upon the soul, of which even he who experiences them cannot give a clear account to himself. We must not classify such things depreciatingly. They were different from bodily convulsions of purely pathological origin. They have their contact with the centre of the religious, spiritual life. As
regards music, it is interesting to note that, according to 1 Chron. 25:1, the temple-singers by their singing ‘prophesied’.
Taking these things into account, we shall be kept from drawing too sharp a line of division between the individual and the group- prophets. Individuals from the groups were selected to execute errands for the others. Sometimes a group-prophet was made an individual one. There seems, however, to be no evidence that the functions and experiences of the collective prophets were life- occupations. The call of such men as Isaiah and Jeremiah was obviously a call to life-long service. The assumption that Amos, after prophesying at Bethel, returned to his secular occupation at Tekoah finds no real support in 7:14. A point of difference between the two kinds of prophets may perhaps be found in this, that those belonging to the band-prophets had no power to do miracles [2 Ki. 6:5].
It has been asserted that Amos disavows every connection between himself and ‘the sons of the prophets’ [7:14]. This cannot be a correct exegesis, for the same disavowal would also include the prophets in general. Amos speaks of the sending of prophets to Israel as one of the bounties bestowed upon the people by Jehovah [2:11]. It has been overlooked that in the Hebrew form of the statement there is no predicative verb. It is just as grammatical to render: ‘I was no prophet’, etc.’ as to render: ‘I am no prophet,’ etc. He was no prophet before his call, but precisely in virtue of the call he is one now. The only implied criticism that Amos seems to make of the prophets or prophets’ sons of his day lies in the indignant repudiation of the priest’s charge that he prophesies in order to eat bread, i.e., to support himself, and therefore should not stay at Bethel, but return to his own Judean country. We may even infer from this that Amaziah means to intimate, ‘Do not take away the bread from such prophets as are native here’.
This is the first trace we discover of a deterioration within the prophetic circles. Micah later on criticizes the prophets of his own day on the same ground [3:11; Jer. 6:13]. When serious corruption of
this nature appears, we are obviously on the eve of the approach of ‘false prophecy’ in general. The court and temple prophets at Bethel cannot have deserved the name of true prophets. And yet there is no particular reason for finding the source of such corruption among the group-prophets. We find Isaiah gathering around himself a band of disciples. Evidently there did not attach any stigma in his day to the group-formation as such [8:16]. And in the time of Jeremiah we observe that the false prophets had individual leaders, leading them astray, so that it was no matter of individuals or groups either for good or for evil. The collective movement had as good a reason of existence as the activity of individual prophets. The crisis through which Israel passed in the time of Samuel, and again of Elijah-Elisha, was but a form of expression of a religious crisis. The issue between Philistines and Israel, and that between Canaanites and Israel, was at bottom a religious issue. We must look upon the assemblies of prophets as centres of religious life. As the priestly representation of Israel was entrusted to a tribe and family, so it was quite appropriate that companies of men, under the influence of the Spirit, should represent and typify the new Israel, through their endowment with extraordinary gifts and powers. To the individual prophets such a symbolico-typical significance likewise belonged, but in their case it was to some extent obscured by their messenger and speaker function. And herein may lie a reason why the reception of truth was common to both orders, whilst the transmission of it fell outside of the province of the prophetic groups.
The modern critical reconstruction of the history of Israel’s religion has laid hold upon prophetism at two vital points. The first concerns the origin of nabhi’-ism among Israel. The second relates to the role the prophets are believed to have played from the eighth century, B.C. onwards as creators of ethical monotheism. These two points deserve separate investigation.
THE ORIGIN OF ‘NABHI’-ISM’ IN ISRAEL
First, then, we have the hypothesis, widely spread in critical circles, of the Canaanitish derivation of prophetism. It is believed that the movement was not an indigenous one in Israel, but by a sort of contagion passed over from the Canaanites. The arguments adduced in favour of this hypothesis are chiefly the following four:
(a) There is in Hebrew no etymology for nabhi’; the thing therefore, as well as the name, must have been an exotic thing:
(b) the peculiar phenomena of the movement remind of the wild, orgiastic character of Canaanitish nature-worship;
(c) the time of its emergence coincides with the time of closest contact and conflict with the Canaanites;
(d) the subsequent history of prophetism, its gradual purification, is most readily explained on the theory of its foreign provenience.
Our answer to these arguments is as follows: the absence of the Hebrew etymology nabhi’ has in common with other offices of a religious nature. It simply proves that the function is exceedingly ancient. The word kohen, priest, likewise has no ostensible root in Hebrew, but nobody infers from this that the priesthood was a foreign importation; there is no etymology in the Canaanitish idiom any more than in the Hebrew. The enthusiastic elements of the prophetic phenomena of the period of Samuel are much exaggerated. The gusher-etymology is too uncertain and too variously- interpretable to furnish any solid support. Much reliance is placed on the following contexts for bearing out the view in question [1 Sam. 10:10; 19:23; 1 Ki. 18; 2 Ki. 9:11; Jer. 29:26; Hos. 9:7; Zech. 13:6]. The first two show Saul encountering bands of prophets, prophesying with them, and engaging in certain movements peculiar to their behaviour. In 1 Ki. 18 we have the account of the story of the orgy of the Baal-prophets at Carmel. 2 Ki. 9 gives the story of the officers in camp with Jehu, who spoke of the young man sent to them by Elisha as ‘this mad fellow’. Hos. 9:7 has: ‘the prophet is a fool, the
man of the Spirit is mad.’ Jer. 29:26 reads: ‘every man that is mad, and makes himself a prophet.’ Zech. 13:6 speaks of the wounds (received in prophesying) which the young man will ascribe to some other cause, when disavowed and threatened with death by his parents.
It must be granted that there are some strange phenomena here. They are, however, by no means homogeneous in character. There is nothing, for example, in the remainder of the material resembling the actions of the Baal-prophets at Carmel; notice the phrase ‘after their manner’. Such a thing as the cutting of themselves with knives nowhere else occurs, except, perhaps, in the decadent post-exilic period. Our danger and difficulty spring from this, that this whole group of phenomena lies so far removed from the customs and habits of our religion, that, out of astonishment at the mere facts as such, we lose sight of the great difference between the features displayed among Israel and similar features observed in pagan religion.
At the outset we should frankly acknowledge this mysterious ‘irrational element’ to have been an integral part of prophetism for those times. It was not a thing disapproved of, but created and sanctioned by God and the great leaders of Israel’s faith. It stood in close connection with the collective form that prophetism assumed, and the fundamental significance for Old Testament revelation of which we have endeavoured above to point out.
As to the phenomena in detail some special observations may be added here. The descriptions in 1 Sam. 10 and 19 give no warrant for speaking of ‘roving bands’, or ‘wandering dervishes’. Saul met a procession of prophets. That they roved over the whole land or through certain parts of it, is not proven by this. On the contrary, 19:20–24 indicates that at Naioth, near Ramah, they had a fixed habitation. Of ‘dancing’ and ‘leaping’ there is no mention. A distinction must further be made between what the prophets did and what happened to Saul. The passage reads: ‘the Spirit of God was upon him also [that is, in like manner as upon the prophets], and he
stripped off his clothes also [in like manner], and prophesied before Samuel in like manner, and lay down naked all that day, and all that night.’ Observe that with the last statement the ‘also’ is not repeated. The lying naked for twenty-four hours, therefore, need not have been of common occurrence among the band-prophets. It seems to have been rather a special judgment visited upon Saul, something moreover which furnished David an opportunity to escape. The ancient Versions omit the ‘also’ in vs. 20 likewise; if this be adopted as an emendation, the stripping off of clothes may as well have been something peculiar to Saul. At any rate the ‘nakedness’ was not quite the same as what we understand by that term. It need mean no more than the laying aside of the upper garment. From all this to wild, orgiastic ecstasy there is still considerable distance. Raving behaviour is reported of Saul in 1 Sam. 18:10: ‘And it came to pass in the morning that the evil spirit from God came upon Saul, and he prophesied in the midst of the house … and Saul cast the javelin’, etc. The verb rendered ‘prophesied’ is in reality a denominative from nabhi’; it means ‘he behaved like a nabhi’. The point of comparison is that he behaved like one possessed of a spirit, whose words and actions are beyond his own control. But this cannot prove that the prophet in all respects was like a ‘raving madman’. It only proves that a madman could be characterized by certain symptoms of prophesying.
There is still further the term meshugga’ used by the officer in Jehu’s camp of the messenger sent by Elisha. It means ‘a mad fellow’, and is still used every day as a slang term in the Yiddish language. It is now an expression of disrespect, but was not necessarily so in everybody’s mouth at the time of Elisha. It is only the smart young officer in the camp who applies it with contemptuous connotation. This is not different from the way in which a company of drinking men might speak of a preacher who appeared with a message to some person of their number. It might be best rendered by ‘fanatic’.
The word recurs in Hos. 9:7, in parallelism with ‘ewil: ‘The prophet is meshugga’, the man of the Spirit is ‘ewil, for the multitude of thine
iniquity and the great hatred.’ These words either describe the desperate state of mind overwhelming the prophet when he sees the judgment come (in which case the true prophet is meant), or they describe the madness and foolishness of the prophet who encourages the people in their iniquitous course of action (in which case the false prophets are meant).
A third passage containing meshugga’ is Jer. 29:26. It occurs here in the letter sent by Shemaiah to the priest Zephaniah. It gives the latter authority to put into prison ‘every meshugga’ and mithnabbe’. Vs. 27 shows that the writer reckons among this category also the prophet Jeremiah. Translating strictly, the two terms are not quite synonymous; the pair means, ‘every one that is mad and pretends to be a prophet’. Besides, this is a judgment passed by a false prophet, and does not reflect the average opinion among the people. Shemaiah was the bitter enemy of Jeremiah.
Disrespect for the prophetic office has also been found in the question of 1 Sam. 10:11, 12: ‘Is Saul also among the prophets?’ and the further question to which it gave rise: ‘And who is their father?’ [cp. 19:24]. The context in which the narrative occurs makes it difficult to believe that, at least on the narrator’s part, real disrespect is intended. If there originally was such to his knowledge, he would scarcely have incorporated into his account the quaint saying embodying it from mere archaeological curiosity. Samuel is depicted as standing on a footing of familiarity with these prophets: he causes the just-anointed Saul to be brought into their company. The meaning of the proverb is obscure, but it can hardly mean: ‘How does such a decent man get into such disreputable company?’ Equally obscure is the import of the other question. That would, on the assumption of intended disrespect, have to mean: These fellows are people of no extraction; no one knows their father. Neither of these two interpretations has anything particularly in its favour, except the circumstance that a better one has not so far been found. Proverbs are often the hardest things to interpret. The alleged disavowal of connection with the prophetic order by Amos has been
touched upon above. This disposes of the first and second arguments in favour of the derivation of nabhi’-ism from Canaan.
The third argument requires but little comment. In reality it tells much more strongly against the hypothesis under review than in favour of it. At the alleged time of the rise and spread of the movement there was strong antagonism between Israelites and Canaanites. Is it likely that a man like Samuel, who stood at the head of the theocratic-patriotic movement, should have encouraged borrowing from the enemy? In order to make this credible, it would first be necessary to assume that the entire figure of Samuel, as drawn by the historian, is a caricature.
The fourth argument is easily the most feeble of all. That foreign origin presents more favourable opportunity for improving a movement of this kind, than its indigenous character, would be hard to prove. With equal, nay, greater, force one might contend that the native growth will have more of the gradualness and native attachment, which are the basis for a desire after improvement.
DID THE LATER PROPHETS CREATE ETHICAL MONOTHEISM?
In the next place we will consider the theory of the same critical school as to the role played by the prophetic movement at a later point in history. The prophets, from the age of Amos and Hosea onwards, are credited with the discovery and establishment of the great truth of ethical monotheism, in which the distinctive and permanent value of Old Testament religion is held to reside. We here must endeavour to sketch the genesis of this belief in the prophetic circles as the critics conceive of it. The phrase ‘ethical monotheism’ should not be misunderstood. It is not constructed on the principle of addition, as though the prophets had stood, in the first place for monotheism, and in the second place for the ethical character of Jehovah. The real meaning is: an ethical conception of Jehovah giving rise to monotheism. It will not be overlooked that in this opinion concerning the later complexion of prophetism, the critics
assume towards the movement a favourable attitude, whilst, as just shown, the critical appraisal of its origin is highly unfavourable. This is the reason why it is so necessary, from the critical premises, to speak of gradual purification and improvement. Once the fact of ethical improvement, in an idealizing direction, has been established, there can be, perhaps, no serious difficulty about deducing monotheism from it. But the problem lies in the ethicizing of the conception of God from the starting-point of an ethically-indifferent or sub-ethical conception of Jehovah’s nature and character. The construction we are offered by way of solving this problem is as follows:
The ethical element must have come in between the days of Elijah and Elisha on the one hand, and the age of Amos and Hosea on the other. Before the time of Elijah and Elisha Jehovah was only the national God of Israel. He was neither a particularly ethical being, nor the only true God. Some of His features were even ethically repellent. The prophets like Elijah and Elisha stood up for Jehovah, simply because they were greater patriots and more confirmed nationalists than the rest. Elijah’s main trait is his insistence upon the exclusive right of Jehovah to the national service of Israel. Neither he nor his lesser successor protested against the calves set up at Dan and Bethel. Of course, they did represent Jehovah as the avenger of gross injustice. But this is by no means to be confounded with the prophetic view of a a century later, which made the entire relation of Israel to Jehovah rest on an ethical basis, and believed that it served a moral purpose. It did not differ in principle from the way in which a heathen deity might have been invoked in a similar situation elsewhere.
What then happened to create a difference in this respect? The course of external events became the great ethicizer in the prophetic mind. Israel suffered serious reverses in war. Such a thing, especially when of a protracted nature, was difficult to explain on the old basis of national favouritism alternating with autocratic caprice. As soon as the existence of the nation was threatened, the unsatisfactory
nature of such a crude, incalculable relationship became apparent. The smaller nations, when conquered by the large powers, not only themselves passed from the scene of history, but with them vanished their gods. The problem of the threatened existence of Israel assumed the character of a religious problem. The national god has no other reason of existence than to protect his people. Failing in this, his usefulness is at an end. The situation became even more acute when, after the danger from Syria had been averted, the Assyrian power appeared on the horizon. From Damascus one might possibly hope to escape.
The national god was not equal to such a crisis. The alternative became: Israel is saved, and then Jehovah remains, or Israel is conquered, and then Jehovah likewise is eliminated. While only the latter seemed within the range of historical possibility, the prophets of that age shrank from even contemplating such a terrible issue. They were so attached to their God, that they dared not think of His perishing. To escape from this desperate thought it was evidently necessary to detach in some way the national existence of Israel from the religious existence of Jehovah. This, of course, could be done in one way only: by incorporating some other superior element in His character, such as would surmount the ideas of national championship and favouritism towards Israel, in which no one could possibly believe any longer. It was not sufficient to say: Let Israel be sacrificed, but let Jehovah continue. What was needed in addition was a new and super-national content to fill up the gap created in the concept of Jehovah through the prospective fall of Israel.
Now it was this service which the ethical conception of God rendered to the prophets. For, if Jehovah were supremely ethical, then the ethical aims He pursued could be thought of as requiring the destruction of Israel. In that case the destruction of the nation would no longer involve the destruction of Jehovah. On the contrary, from the new standpoint, it would mean the vindication of Jehovah as to His innermost character. The prophets thus sacrificed Israel in order to save their God. At an almost exorbitant rate, as it were, they
insured their religious conviction in regard to the indestructibility of God. At bottom, and sharply looked at, it was not so much positive interest in the idealism of ethics that made them reason as they did. In reality their ethicizing of the character of Jehovah was but the indispensable prerequisite for keeping a hold upon Him. They adored Him religiously, with a deep traditional attachment, so strong, that in the case of an enforced choice they would rather lose their people than their God. The ethical character of God was a means to an end.
But how did they come to seize upon the ethical element as precisely fitted to render them this service? The answer is that the prophets were somewhat ethically gifted above the mass. They had a greater sensitivity to right and wrong. But even this was not so much to their credit as might be at first supposed. It was rather a case of goodness arising from reaction against extreme evil. For, as a fact, the moral conditions among Israel offered abundant warrant for such a reaction. Riotous living and licentiousness prevailed, especially among the upper classes. The administration of justice was thoroughly corrupt. The rich oppressed and exploited the poor. All the elements were therefore given for framing a new conception of God. The newness consisted in this, that the prophets clearly enunciated the absolute supremacy of the ethical aspect in the nature of Jehovah. The entire religion of Israel was placed by this on a new basis. All the distinctive tenets of the prophetic theology are supposed to have sprung from it. It lies at the root of the monotheism differentiating the prophets of the eighth century from the monolatry of the preceding age, beyond which even an Elijah and Elisha had not advanced. With His character of ethical absolutism Jehovah now stood unique among the gods.
Most critics agree that this monotheistic inference is clearly drawn from Jeremiah’s time onward. Some difference of opinion exists as to the period between Amos and Jeremiah. According to some the writers of this period are practically monotheistic, so far as Israel is concerned, but without as yet reflecting upon the sphere outside of
Israel (so Baudissin). According to others this period is one of nascent monotheism, the prophets not expressing themselves consistently, but only occasionally passing the line between monolatry and monotheism (so Kuenen). Still others think that the whole problem had no existence for the pre-exilic prophets, that not Jeremiah, but Deutero-Isaiah, during the exile, was the first actual monotheist (so Stade). But all agree that the genesis of monotheism was after the manner described.
It ought to be further noticed that, according to the critics, the ethicism that thus came to be ascribed to Jehovah, was extreme ethicism, hyper-ethicism, as it were. It was concentrated, not in the benevolent, gracious aspects of the ethical consciousness, but in the strictly retributive aspect of the same. The Jehovah of the prophets is not so much a good Being in the sense of ‘well-inclined’, as a good Being in the sense of his insisting upon obedience. He has little of the genial warmth of love about Him. The emphasis weighs heavier upon the inevitable consequences of disobedience, than upon the joy of obedience. The whole view of God’s moral nature has a certain unamiable one-sidedness about it. The ethics exclude the love and grace of God. This is the reason for the divisive criticism practised by certain writers of this school upon the text of the prophetic books. On the principle that a promissory, gracious attitude of Jehovah towards the people would have been utterly irreconcilable with the ethical premises of the prophets, these writers proceed to eliminate from the prophetic discourse everything that, in their opinion, would belie the manner in which the ethical convictions had been acquired. Large sections of a promissory, eschatological nature are exscinded.
In still one further respect the ethical absolutism of the new-school prophets powerfully affected the reconstruction of religion. Ethicism tends of itself to spiritualizing, and spiritualizing, carried to an extreme, resulted in the rejection of all religious usages among Israel that were not spiritual, at least not on the surface. All ritual observances, the sacrificial cult, the feasts, all images made of the Deity, were represented by the prophets, not merely as ineffective,
but as reprehensible and exciting the wrath of Jehovah. Notice carefully: it is not the spiritual knowledge of Jehovah that has produced the correct ethical ideal as to his demands; the reverse process took place: because Jehovah was ethical, therefore He must be spiritual.
There is at this point also some dispute as to the more or less absolute nature of the prophetic opposition to the cult. Some hold that it was rejected in toto as intolerable to Jehovah. Wellhausen admits that the prophets reject the sacrificial cult of the people, because it was so grossly corrupt. Smend declares: ‘The prophets reject the sacrificial cult of a people with whom Jehovah is on the point of suspending all fellowship.’ But others think more radically on this point.
Finally, although this is supposed to have been a more gradual development, the ethically monotheistic conception of God gave birth in course of time to whatever there appears of individualism and universalism in the prophetic religion.
So far the hypothesis represents the movement of prophetism as tending towards a better and ideal goal. The remainder of the story is of a different nature. For prophetism proved unequal to the combat with the unethical popular religion it had ventured upon. The perception gradually dawned upon the prophets, that as pure idealists they could not accomplish anything. A more pragmatic tendency appeared as a result of this. The prophets now addressed themselves chiefly to the cult as the root-seat of all the evils denunciated. An attempt was made to turn the cult, which could not be entirely abolished, to the best possible use by making it a vehicle of ethical and spiritual ideas. For this purpose it had, of course, to be pruned of its most naturalistic excrescences. Unfortunately this pragmatism, aiming at compromise, bore in it the seeds of decay. It meant, regarded from the original prophetic standpoint, an abandonment of the absolute distinction between right and wrong. The several law-codes of the Pentateuch, with their strange mixture
of the moral and the ritual, are the product of this compromise. In this way prophetism obtained its first external hold upon the popular mind, but the strength inherent in its former uncompromising attitude was broken. In accepting a fixed law for regulating the religion of Israel it sacrificed its idealistic freedom. It succeeded to some extent in uprooting the cult from its soil of naturalism, but the cult, however much modified, remained something external. The antithesis between the ritual and the prophetic loses its sharpness, until in the post-exilic prophets it vanishes almost entirely. Thus were laid the first foundations of Judaism.
The foregoing must suffice as an outline of the later history of prophetism from the eighth century onward, as the critics construe it. The criticism of its several positions is so interwoven with our positive presentation of the prophetic teaching, that we cannot help deferring it until then.
FOUR:
THE MODE OF RECEPTION OF THE PROPHETIC REVELATION
The prophets affirm and imply everywhere a real communication from Jehovah to themselves. They believe themselves recipients of revelation in the solid, unmodernized, unsubjectivized, original sense of the word. We proceed to enquire into the specific forms of statement in which the prophets describe this experience, and the mode in which they conceive it to have come to them from God.
That the prophets had a conviction concerning the objectivity of the process is acknowledged with practical unanimity even by those
whose theological or philosophical standpoint leads them to deny the supernatural source from which the prophets derived it. This being so, it becomes incumbent on all those unable to accept the simple, straightforward explanation submitted by the prophets, who had the experiences themselves, to attempt a different solution of the problem. It is true, the old form of reasoning which simply reduced the whole matter to the alternative: either the prophets were untrustworthy characters, and then their writings are a tissue of lies, or they were honest, reliable men, and in that case we must accept their testimony at its face value with all the supernaturalism involved —this reveals a sort of historical naïveté, somewhat remote from our modern way of thinking. Not all honest, sincere testimony, backed up by a good reputation of the witness can in this way be absolutely identified with the reality of what happened, although in our ordinary relations of life it still remains, and will doubtless remain, the simple and only means of verification. But even in judicial proceedings the matter becomes easily complicated far beyond the reach of such simple tests.
Modern psychology is said to have made many things comprehensible, on which our forefathers looked as profound mysteries. But modern psychology has also revealed depths in the inner life of man, of the existence of which rationalism, with its easy- going way of accounting for things, could not have any suspicion. Modern science in this matter applies in both directions: the rationalistic explanation of prophecy is as thoroughly discredited by it as any superficial and naïve demonstration of the reality and truth of the phenomena, that was current among the orthodox at one time.
There are three elements entering into the problem to be solved.
(a) The first is the psychological fact of the conviction on the part of the prophets.
(b) The second is the continuity of the prophetic movement with its claim to supernaturalism during so many centuries.
(c) The third is the remarkable body of predictions, that has accompanied the movement in its course, the whole teleological trend of it towards a distant consummation, in point of which no movement in the history of religions can be compared with it.
If we keep these three points in mind, it ought not to be difficult to show that prophetism still remains a mystery, unsolved as much as ever, and that it casts no stigma of being unscientific or outdated upon anyone, if he prefers to accept the testimony of the prophets themselves, that the revelations came to them from above.
THE VIEWS OF KUENEN EXAMINED
Kuenen recognizes the fact that the prophets sincerely believed in the direct divine source of the message they proclaim. But he thinks they must have been mistaken in this, because many of their predictions have not been fulfilled, nay, are incapable of fulfilment at the present day, or at any future day. Yet he recognizes with true scientific temper that the uniformity and continuity of conviction on the prophets’ part require a psychological explanation of greater dignity than the easy verdict: they were mistaken. But the explanation he offers is a very poor one. It consists in this, that the great sureness expressed is the reflex of the earnestness and unshakableness of their ethico-religious belief. The prophets were aware, literally speaking, that no such communications from God took place, but they desired, by the representation of objectivity employed, to impress the people, that their teaching was true. The explanation is open to serious criticism both as to its reconcilableness with the antique cast of mind, and to its moral excusability. It is too modern a conception to try to convince people of the truth of the thing preached not only by earnestness of preaching, but to do so by way of a pretended direct derivation of the thing from God. The earnestness would stand in inverse ratio to the consciousness of the preacher, that he had to resort to pretence. The prophets would, no doubt, have discovered sooner than modern preachers seem to be able to do, that every such mental reservation broke the force of their enthusiasm, and
moreover cut through the bond of sympathetic self-identification of their hearts with the hearts of their audience. It is easy to see that what such an explanation ascribes to the prophets is something that a high-minded man like the critic in this case would hesitate to admit as his own mental attitude.
Further there is here a failure of understanding the prophets from a purely literary point of view. Their avowals sound so positive, and realistic also, that the conscious intent of utilizing them for the purpose of persuasion seems out of the question. Such positiveness and realism are not the product of rhetorical craftsmanship.
Nor must we forget into how difficult a position the consciousness of using such methods would have brought the prophets in their controversy with the false prophets. Against them the burden of prophetic criticism was that they prophesied ‘out of their own hearts’. Can that have meant that the false prophets lacked the earnestness of conviction which their criticizing opponents ascribed to themselves? Is the point not rather this, that they questioned the supernatural provenience of the message proclaimed by the other prophets? And that, while all the time they must have been aware of their own having prophesied out of their hearts, with this difference only, that they believed their heart to be a better one!
Finally on any theistic scheme that believes in a real contact of God with the prophets, however much ‘psychologized’ it may have been, the stigma of half-true representation would inevitably involve God Himself. How could He have indulged in or connived at such a procedure as would have lain beneath the plane of business ethics supposed to be in force between the principal and his agent?
As to the argument from non-fulfilment or impossibility of fulfilment of certain prophecies, that is a chapter by itself. Reasoning from this is very deceptive and precarious, because the fundamental premises of supernaturalism and naturalism enter into the very determination of what ‘fulfilment’ of a prophecy means, and as to whether it is
absolutely unfulfillable at any point of time. The adoption of pre- millenarianism would greatly limit the field of the impossible in this respect, chronologically speaking. Upon the problem of ‘fulfilment’ we cannot here enter. The question under debate ought to be staked on the self-testimony of the prophets alone.
‘KERNEL-REVELATION’
Another serious attempt in the same direction is made by the theory of ‘kernel-revelation’. God is believed to have imparted to the prophets the essential kernel of the truth only, and to have left the working-out of this kernel to the subjective prophetic reflection. This would conserve at least a portion of the claim of the prophets that their message came supernaturally from God. The ‘kernel’ is usually identified with the ethico-religious principles of the preaching. In this case likewise the prophets must have been aware of the distinction in provenience between the two elements of their message. But here again the criticism applies that such a distinction between kernel and envelope lies far from the mode of antique religious thought. The prophets everywhere insist on their word carrying the authority of God, but nowhere indicate that this claim must be understood with the qualification named. The prophets must have been conscious of the contribution made out of their own minds to the resulting product, and yet they speak of this product in its entirety as invested with absolute divine authority. Finally, this hypothesis requires the intervening of a considerable period between the communication of the truth-kernel to the prophet and the state of ripeness of it, through reflection, for transmission to the people. As a matter of fact we find frequently that, no sooner is the message received, than it is made known to the hearers. Such instantaneousness the theory renders impossible.
THE ‘DIVINATION’ THEORY
In the third place we consider the ‘divination’ theory. This places the prophetic knowledge on a line with extra-biblical instances of a
mysterious knowledge, so that the former would lose its unique character. It is a theory particularly devised for explaining the predictive element in the prophetic writings. It ranks higher, from a religious point of view, than the two preceding views, in that it places the phenomena at least in a mysterious light, and disdains to make use of rationalistic devices to account for them. The contact between Jehovah and the prophet is, indeed, a highly mysterious thing. Some of the mystery escapes us because we are led to speak of it in anthropomorphic language. Smend and others would stake the whole issue of prophetic prediction on this one analogy.
It is true, there are some well-authenticated instances in history of foresight or insight into matters far out of the range of ordinary human knowledge. In Deut. 13:1, 2, Scripture itself speaks of ‘prophets’ and ‘dreamers of dreams’, giving a sign and wonder that comes to pass, who yet seduce the people through the prestige thus obtained to idolatry. Yet a certain degree of divine influence in their activity cannot be denied, for we are told that through this experience God proves the people. It is added, however, that such a quasi-prophet must be put to death. But to explain the phenomena of Old Testament prophecy as a whole on the basis of such a faculty of insight or foresight is not to be thought of. There are certain features differentiating all that has been discovered of this nature from the facts of prophetism. The naturalness, clearness and immediacy of the latter are here looked for in vain. Magical preparations and manipulations regularly accompany these alleged analogous processes. Much that seemed at first unaccountable has been explained on the basis of ‘suggestion’ or ‘autosuggestion’. This field, however, while to some extent explored, remains still full of mystery. It is foolish to build upon it a comprehensive explanation of the phenomena of Biblical prophetism. Perhaps it may throw light on the development of false prophecy among Israel. False prophecy is probably not entirely made up of fraud. Self-delusion may have had something to do with it. On the other hand, there is among the true prophets a clear and not seldom expressed consciousness that the God of Israel alone can make true predictions of the future and lay
bare the secret things to which the created mind has no access. Were prophecy to be explained as ‘divination’, then we should have to say that in this respect it has thoroughly misunderstood itself.
REVELATION THROUGH SPEECH AND HEARING
We now proceed to register the statements of the prophets themselves as to the manner in which the truth came from God to them. We must distinguish here between what falls in the sphere of speaking followed by hearing, on the one hand, and what falls in the sphere of showing followed by seeing, on the other. References to the speech of Jehovah are frequent in the records of the prophets. Sometimes Jehovah’s speaking is a comprehensive formula for the whole process of bringing the message into the mind of him for whom it is intended, including every step leading up to this. He is said to speak to the people, although in reality He at first spoke only to the prophet, commissioning the latter to repeat His words in the ears of the people. For the present we are concerned only with what passed from God to the prophet. [Cp. for the distinction Hag. 1:1; Mal. 1:1; with Hos. 12:10.]
The most frequent formulas used of the divine prophetward address are amar Jahveh, dibber Jahveh, ne’um Jahveh. The first and second of these are in the perfect tense and mean ‘Jahveh has said’, ‘Jahveh has spoken’. The third is a passive participle signifying ‘that which has been oracled’. The perfect tense is important, because originally, and probably always, related to revelations imparted before the prophet spoke. That this speaking of God was meant by the prophets, not in any mere figurative, but in the literal sense appears in various ways. They distinguished between Jehovah as the speaking God and the idols as dumb gods. This antithesis entirely loses its point, if the divine speech was not to, but only through the prophets. The contrast drawn is a piece of popular apologetic. For as regards speech through the prophets, the heathen laid claim to receiving this as much as Israel, and there was no way of proving the difference with regard to indirect provenience. The difference lay precisely in this
point, that in paganism there was no objective speech coming from the gods to the prophets, because the whole structure of pagan religion and revelation lacks reality [Isa. 41:22–26; 43:9; Jer. 10:5; Hab. 2:18].
Further the divine speech is represented by the prophets as the expression of the thinking and planning of Jehovah. Just as in man thought and speech belong organically together, so in God [Isa. 19:17; 23:9; Jer. 51:29; Amos 3:7]. Still more realistically, we find a mouth ascribed to Jehovah, which, while not implying a corporeal nature, yet admits of no other interpretation than that He exercises the faculty of speech in the literal sense [Isa. 58:14]. The prophets describe this speaking of Jehovah as coming with various degrees of emphasis. Such a variety could be predicated of a real act only [Isa. 5:9; 8:11; 14:24; Jer. 25:30; Amos 3:7, 8].
Once more, the prophets not merely say in an indefinite way that God has spoken, but add the indirect object: Jehovah spake unto me [Isa. 8:1; 18:4]. The speaking of Jehovah is assigned to a definite point both in space and time [Isa. 5:9; 16:13, 14; 22:14; Jer. 1:13; Ezek. 3:12]. According to 1 Sam. 3:8, 9, the voice was so external that Samuel mistook it once and again for Eli’s voice. Isaiah distinguishes explicitly between his hearing from Jehovah and his declaration to others of the thing heard [21:10].
It has been objected to this mode of argument, that neither Deuteronomy nor Jeremiah places the criterion for distinguishing between a false prophet and true prophet in the reception of divine communications, but, on the one hand, in the agreement of the oracles with the principles of the true religion, on the other hand in the fulfilment afterwards. This, however, relates not to the prophets themselves, but only to those to whom they were sent. Of course, the people could not tell what had or what had not taken place in the private chamber of the prophet’s intercourse with God.
There is ample ground, then, to assume that in a number of cases the speech of Jehovah was not only objective but external. The externality implies the objectivity, but this cannot be turned around, so as to make the objectivity in every case involve externality. Koenig takes the ground that all speech of God to the prophets must have been external, because thus only could an infallible assurance be produced of the divine source of the revelation. But this a priori ground is not sufficient to prove his thesis. Externality of revelation would not exclude every possibility of self-deception. Hallucinations of hearing are not uncommon things in excited states of mind. If the testimony of the prophets claimed an external speech as underlying every communicated message, we should have to accept this, no matter whether it was to our taste or not. But this the prophets do not claim. The resulting problem arises, how objective speech can be conceived without externality.
At the outset the confusion of thought should be guarded against, as though the inward speech of Jehovah to the prophet were identical with the product of reflection or emotion in the prophet’s mind, so that it welled up from his own consciousness. This would not so much internalize as subjectivize the whole process, and as a rule it is stressed by those whose faith is not quite equal to belief in a solid revelation from God. They feel that, if somehow it could flow up as a part of the natural mental processes, the thing would appear more normal and credible. But this is not meant by ‘internal speech’. The phrase is here taken to designate an inner occurrence in which, apart from the bodily ear, the prophet perceives a divine voice addressing him, and that with such objectivity as to enable him clearly to distinguish its content from the content of his own thinking.
The possibility of such a thing rests partly on the theological, partly on physiologico-psychological grounds. Theologically speaking, it is not impossible for God to convey to the soul directly sounds of words expressing a certain thought. God has control of the soul in its whole internal organization. And we must endeavour to realize that the conveying of sound to the soul ab extra through the ordinary process
of air-vibration and nerve-conduction and brain-impression and soul-reaction is in itself a most wonderful, to us unintelligible, thing, so long as we believe in the difference between matter and soul. Hearing is a psychical, not a physical act. It has ordinarily certain physical prerequisites, but is not identical with these. What then should hinder God from producing the psychical experience of hearing in other ways than the ordinary one? The case is precisely the same in the sphere of sight-production and seeing as a psychical act. The prerequisites of seeing are physical, the seeing is psychical. It is a difficult question to answer, how the prophet could have distinguished between internal voices and speech externally conveyed. But it certainly would be presumptuous, with our limited knowledge of the borderland between matter and mind, to declare it impossible.
The grounds on which it has been assumed that not infrequently such an inner speech came from God to the prophet’s soul are as follows. The root from which comes the well-known phrase ne’um Jahveh is cognate with roots that signify ‘to rumble’, ‘to grumble’. It might, therefore, well be expressive of a dull, low sound, and in so far appropriate of low, whispered tones heard from within. True, we must not appeal to 1 Kings 19:12, because here ‘the sound of a gentle stillness’ is symbolical, the actual revelation coming afterwards. Job 4:12–16 might rather be compared: ‘Now a thing was secretly brought to me, and mine ear received a whisper thereof … fear came upon me and trembling … a form was before mine eyes: silence, and I heard a voice.’ The analogy of revelation through vision suggests a double mode of revelation by sound. The vision was not always seen with the bodily eye; most likely the speech was not always received through the bodily ear. The force of this analogy is further strengthened by the circumstances that in both cases, of seeing and hearing, a preparatory operation on ear and eye was required. Jehovah ‘opens the eye’, but He likewise ‘wakes the ear’ [Isa. 50:4].
The Spirit of God is sometimes specified as the organ for communicating the word of God. This favours the view, that in such
cases at least the revelation was an inward one. The Spirit works usually ab intra. Koenig has denied that the Spirit anywhere appears as a source of revelation. He would restrict the Spirit’s work in connection with revelation to the preparatory sphere, and excludes from it the impartation of truth itself. But there are some passages which speak of the Spirit as Revealer [2 Sam. 23:2; 1 Kings 22:24; Isa. 61:1; Joel 2:28 (English Bible); Zech. 7:12; Neh. 9:30; 1 Pet. 1:11]. Of course, there was such a thing as an antecedent operation of the Spirit for the endowment of the prophet with necessary gifts, such as courage, force of utterance and similar qualifications [Mic. 3:8].
In what proportion verbal revelation took place by external or internal speech cannot be determined. It has been suggested that, as verbal revelation gradually supplanted visions, so the increasing use of the internal word may have marked an advance in the development of prophetism. It might be said that in the inner word God comes nearer to man than in any other mode of self-disclosure. But positive evidence to that effect we do not possess. Which were the motives for the preference on each several occasion of the one to the other is hard to determine. Where the communication occurred in privacy, both forms may have appeared equally appropriate. The choice may have depended on the momentary psychical or religious condition of the prophet. There are moods in the spiritual life, even of the ordinary child of God, where the desire for an external approach of God is felt strongly. This desire is at bottom the desire for something substantial, suited to meet the weakness of faith. Every external approach of God to His people is more or less of the nature of a sacrament. On the other hand, the religious state of the prophet may have been at times so spiritualized, that the desire for touch with God took the inward direction, and the voice perceived within produced a feeling of unique satisfaction.
Where the contact occurred in public, in the presence of other witnesses, and of the people for whom the communication was intended, the natural mode of address would be the inward one. Here the prophet had to repeat the words. Suppose they had been
given to him by an external voice, then this voice would have reached the ear of the others no less than his own, and the transmission of the message to these others would have become an unnecessary duplication. The function of the prophet would have been in that case superfluous.
Further the internal speech may have secured, through its immediate precedence of the delivery of the message, the exact correspondence of word received and word transmitted. The prophet could simply utter straightway what the internal voice supplied. There was scarcely an interval of remembrance; the whole thing became, as it were, one living process; the prophet became in a veritable sense the mouth of God, while lending his ear to God within. Perhaps in the writing of prophecy also the inward voice played a part. The main point to affirm is that the prophet indiscriminately calls whatever he utters in the discharge of his function ‘the word of Jehovah’, and means this in a strict, literal sense. The product is to him the essential thing, not the variable process. But the prophet never makes the freedom observed in the process an excuse for impugning the absoluteness of the product.
REVELATION THROUGH SHOWING AND SEEING
Side by side with the revelation through speech and hearing goes the other form, that through showing and seeing. Visions are recorded of the canonical prophets in the following instances: Isa. 6; Jer. 1:11–12; 24:1; Ezek. 1–3; 8–11; 37:1–10, 20–28; Dan. 2:19; 7; 8; 10; 11; 12; Amos 7:1–9; 8:1–3; 9:1; Zech. 1:8; 6:1–8. No visions occur in Hosea, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Malachi. Taking the extended visions of Ezekiel and Daniel as units we obtain a comparatively small number. This, however, leaves out of account the cases where ‘visions’ are spoken of in the prophets, and uncertainty exists as to whether the word means visions proper, or is a general term for revelation. But, even counting these in, there are not enough to bear out Hengstenberg’s view that the visionary form was the constant form of prophetic revelation,
and that whatever speech there is must be considered as intra- visionary speech. In some cases the visionary mode of receiving a message would seem to have belonged to the introductory act of the prophet’s career.
There is evidence that in ancient times visions were of common occurrence. Balaam’s revelations were received in a visionary state. In the time of Moses, according to Num. 12:6, the ordinary converse of Jehovah with prophets was in a vision, and the parallelism with dreams, in which the term here occurs, shows that visions in the technical sense are referred to. For the period immediately preceding Samuel, ‘word of Jehovah’ and ‘frequent (or open) vision’ were synonyms. These facts have been construed as indicating a steady progress in revelation from the more external and sensual media to the more internal and spiritual vehicles, because sound and hearing come closer in their nature to the spiritual world than perceptible objects and sight. This is open to the objection, however, that with both Ezekiel and Zechariah the visionary mode preponderates, and that in Jeremiah visions are somewhat more frequent than in Isaiah. The personal equation probably had something to do with this phenomenon. Some of the prophets may have been of a more imaginative type of mind than others. Jeremiah relates of himself that he lived constantly amidst the scenes of the coming destruction, and that they were so vivid to him as to become exceedingly painful. He could no longer participate in any social pleasure, was ‘full of the fury of Jehovah’, weary with holding in [6:11].
It has already been observed that in course of time ‘vision’ lost its technical meaning, and became simply synonymous with ‘revelation’, in whatever form received. The title standing at the head of the Book of Isaiah: ‘The vision of Isaiah, the son of Amoz’ certainly does not mean to cover the whole book as the product of visionary experiences. The content of much of the book excludes this. It simply means ‘the revelation of Isaiah’; the verb in the clause ‘which he saw’ has the same generalized sense: it means ‘which he received’.
We can distinguish in visions proper between the nature of some objects perceived and that of others. Realities of the supersensual world may have been momentarily brought within the range of sight of the prophet. This may have been the case in 2 Kings 6:17, where Jehovah at the prayer of Elisha opens the eyes of his servant, so as to make him see the supernatural host encompassing the city of Dothan. A purely symbolical picture, had he been told that it was such, would hardly have satisfied the boy. But surely in other cases there was no need of bringing forth the supersensual realities and laying them open to the beholder. We gain the impression from the account just referred to that the prophet himself either did not need to have his eyes opened, because he had this faculty of ‘second sight’ constantly, or that for this particular occasion his eyes had been opened some time before. The opening of the eyes would suit equally well the beholding of supernatural realities as the apprehension of supernaturally produced pictures. There can be no doubt that in many cases the wonder was an internal one. It was then placed before the inner vision of the prophet, an inner field of vision, as it were, consisting of pictures.
But even here a distinction is possible: the things thrown upon this screen might have been psychical reproductions, portraits of the realities submitted, or they may have been symbolic figures shadowing forth the realities but not copying them. This yields various possibilities. Similar distinctions may be drawn as to the organ of perception employed in a vision. This may have been the external bodily eye. If there was external reality ab extra, though of a supernatural kind, it would seem that the organ of external vision would have been the proper instrument for perceiving it. It might have been supernaturally qualified for the act, but it would be none the less the bodily eye. If, on the other hand, the things to be shown were spread out on the inner field of vision, then the inner eye, the soul-eye, would be the organ of vision indicated. The outer eye for the outer things, the inner eye for the inner things, would seem to be a natural rule to follow. Still there is something of logical constructiveness about this, so that we may well hesitate to lay it
down as a hard and fast rule. The whole region is a field of mystery, and other processes than we can imagine may have characterized it.
REVELATION THROUGH RAPTURE
Notice, however, that there is conceivable, as to the field of vision, still a third possibility besides the two mentioned above. A rapture of the prophet’s entire personality into the region of heaven is not out of the question. In that case he would have seen not merely a piece of objective supernaturalism, descended for his own benefit, but he would have himself ascended, either in the body, or, what is more likely, in the spirit to the very realm of heaven. There has been much dispute along this line in regard to the vision of Isa. 6. Was this a vision in the temple on Mount Zion, or an opening up to the prophet of the heavenly sanctuary into which he had been transported? It is good to keep these various possibilities before one’s mind in order to avoid confusion of thought, but not commendable to yield to the urge of curiosity, where Scripture withholds details. Paul, who had had the visionary experience in a most realistic form, up to the point of rapture into heaven, modestly disclaims knowledge as to whether the rapture was in or outside of the body [2 Cor. 12:1–4].
BODILY EFFECTS
The visionary mode of receiving a message differed in one important respect from the process of audition, namely, as to the manner and extent in which it affected the body. Perhaps there was in hearing also a clearing or closing up of sense from the outside world, with entire concentration upon the one voice heard. But on its negative side this has not found expression. It is not uncommon to say in ordinary connections, that a person closes his ears or has his ears closed. Still no reference is made to this, where the hearing of divine speech is described. Only the ‘waking’ of the ear is mentioned, not its being put to sleep, or being closed to the outside world. With the seeing-process it is different. Here we have somewhat detailed and objective description of what happens to the body during the
visionary state. First of all, of course, comes the shutting of the bodily eye. No sooner does the prophetic vision set in than the external sight is suspended, and this is not due simply to psychical concentration upon the shown image; there is a physical closure of the eyelids. Balaam describes himself as ‘the man whose eye was closed’, and also as ‘the man which saw the vision of the Almighty, having his eye open’ [Num. 24:3, 4]. The seer’s inner eye was opened, whilst the bodily eye was closed. But the bodily peculiarity was not confined to the eye, for Balaam mentions as a further characteristic of this visionary experience his ‘falling down’. We read of this also in the accounts of Ezekiel and Daniel. This was not a voluntary act of worship, but obviously an effect of the overpowering divine influence coming upon him. As such, of course, it was not necessarily a symptom of the visionary state. Further, however, goes what is related about Ezekiel’s sensation of being carried off to a far away place, whilst yet the elders in Tel-Abib remained sitting before him [8:1ff.]. This looks like a regular rapture of the soul while the body remained where it was, and, if so, involves a separation between soul and body.
Frequently the prophetic vision in its subjective side is associated with the revelation-dream [Num. 12:6; Dan. 2:19; Joel 2:28]. Although the association shows that the two were in some measure cognate, the distinction shows them to have been different in other respects. In the dream there is no abnormal, disturbed relation between body and soul. In the vision there probably was, at least at times. What it consisted in is not easy to determine. The vision seems to have exhausted the body much more than would happen through a dream. In order to interpret to him a new vision the angel had to awaken Zechariah, as a man that is awakened out of his sleep. The appearance of the body after the vision was like that of a sleep. Still this does not describe here the bodily condition during the vision. It is an after-effect of something not itself described [Zech. 4:1]. After receiving a revelation Daniel was sick for some days [7:28; 8:27]. Jer. 31:26 is also peculiar: the prophet after depicting the delights of the
future, says, ‘I awaked, and beheld; and my sleep was sweet unto me’. Is the use of ‘sleep’ instead of ‘dream’ here significant?
THE INTRA-MENTAL STATE
So far, however, all this relates to the commerce between body and spirit. Much more delicate and difficult the problem becomes when the intra-mental state during the vision is enquired into. Even if we go so far as to conceive of the body as having lain in a trance, with apparently suspended animation (which does not happen in a dream), even then this would not teach us anything as to how the soul felt and reacted under the things shown within the vision. In attempts to answer this question, altogether too much has been built on the Greek term ekstasis. The influence of this term is due, not so much to its summing up in itself a group of Biblical phenomena, as rather to its having served at first as the translation of the Hebrew word tardemah, ‘torpor of deep sleep’ in the Greek Bible, and to its having, once in, carried with itself many associations acquired in its previous or subsequent extra-biblical usage. Tardemah occurs twice, first of the sleep God made to fall upon Adam before the removal of his rib, and the second time of the sleep into which Abram was put previously to his vision of the theophany that passed between the pieces of the animals [Gen. 15:12]. In Adam’s case the sleep had nothing to do with any visionary state. It simply acted as an anaesthetic. In Abram’s case, on the other hand, we actually have a sleep introducing and accompanying the vision.
But tardemah here does not throw any light on the patriarch’s mental state during the vision, although we learn from the situation itself that he did not, while in this visionary sleep, lose consciousness of things around, as would be the case in an ordinary sleep, for the very purpose of the transaction was that he should observe and notice. But the apparent source of information began to flow, when the word ekstasis replaced tardemah, for ekstasis is an extremely pregnant and suggestive term in the Greek consciousness. It expresses in classical Greek the state of insanity, mania, although
this does not seem to have been particularly applied to the oracular process in religion. The word has also both in ordinary Greek and in the Greek Old Testament the weaker sense of ‘dread’; ‘astonishment’; a figurative and toned-down meaning, which presupposes the stronger one, as when we say that we are ‘beside ourselves’ under sudden, strange occurrences. Originally the ekstatis was real abnormality, insanity. Perhaps something of this crept into the popular conception of the prophetic state, since it easily appeared as a condition of lack of self-control. But that insanity has lack of self- control, and the prophetic state shows the same feature, does not, of course, identify prophecy with insanity.
Stronger, however, than popular usage, was the effect produced by the philosophical handling of the word. Philo gave it a prominent place in his system, and that in a peculiar well-defined sense. According to Philo ekstasis is the literal absence of the nous from the body. His view of the transcendental nature of God and its incompatibility for close association with the creature necessitated this view. When the divine Spirit arrives in the prophet, he observes, the nous takes its departure, because it would not be fitting for the immortal to dwell with the mortal. Now this Philonic conception of ecstasy received wide acceptance in the early Church, although in a somewhat moderated form. Its widest spread it obtained through the Montanists, who in the second century cultivated a type of prophecy rendering the prophet out of his senses. In order to justify the phenomena current among themselves, the Montanists claimed that the Biblical prophets had been subject to the same law. They expressed their view in the belief that the prophet was amens, in the visionary state. Tertullian sided with them, and spoke, like them, of the amentia of the prophets.
In more recent times Hengstenberg has been a strenuous defender of the realistic ‘ecstasy’, and in the first edition of his ‘Christology of the Old Testament’ even approaches the Montanist position, although in the second edition his statements are more moderate, and he here concedes that, as between the Montanists and the Church fathers,
the truth lay in the middle. In order not to do injustice to this type of view, we must carefully note the philosophical provenience of the term amentia. It was not meant as a synonym of dementia. Far less is it the equivalent of ‘mania’. It simply means that the prophet for the time being is ‘without his mind’. This at least was the philosophically oriented theory of Philo, although much cruder and wilder notions may have gathered around it, when handled by less cultivated minds.
It is plain on the surface of the Biblical data that ecstasy in the Philonic or Montanist sense had no place in prophetism. The Biblical prophets coming out of the visionary state have a distinct remembrance of the things seen and heard. Biblical prophecy is not a process in which God dislodges the mind of man. Its true conception is that it lifts the human mind to the highest plane of intercourse with God. And it is of the very essence of Biblical religion that its exercise lies in the sphere of consciousness. The prophets, while in the visionary state, retained the faculty of reflection and introspection. Isaiah compares with the holiness of Jehovah, sung by the seraphim, the sinful state of himself and his people. Ezekiel in later visions was aware of the similarity of what he actually saw to things shown him before [3:23; 8:4; 10:15, 22; 43:4]. Interesting from this point of view is Isa. 21:6–10. Here the prophet, as it were, becomes a double personality, one for receiving the vision, another for reflecting upon it and speaking about it to God. In the New Testament we have the explicit declaration of Paul, that the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets [1 Cor. 14:32]. A glossolalist needs an interpreter, the prophet interprets himself.
We have found in the above enquiry that the mode of seeing, while the older of the two main forms of prophetic revelation, yet continued to accompany the mode of hearing, in later times. The prophets did not cease to be ro’im, henceforth to remain nebhi’im exclusively. The coequality of the one with the other is proven by the constant double usage till the latest times. This result seems to be upset by the passage, 1 Sam. 9:9: ‘Beforetime in Israel, when a man went to enquire of God, thus he said, Come and let us go to the ro’eh:
for he that is now called a nabhi’ was beforetime called a ro’eh.’ The verse is an interjected remark of the writer to explain why in vs. 11 Saul and his servants say to the young maidens, ‘Is the ro’eh here?’ Here ro’eh and nabhi’ appear as two successive designations of the same office in the course of history.
The critics have not been slow to make use of it in support of their theory of the importation of nabhi’-ism from Canaan in the time of Samuel. This the passage could never prove, for the writer, certainly later than Samuel’s time, speaks from his own historical standpoint: what was customary in his (the writer’s) time had not yet been so in Saul’s time. Between the period of Saul and his own a change of usage had taken place. But what he does not say is that the change had come in the time of Saul or thereabouts. It might have been later, and have had nothing to do with any importation from Canaan.
But, while for this reason of no use to the critics, the verse causes difficulty. Negatively it seems to imply that nabhi’ was not yet in use at the time of Saul. And it would also create some difficulty to determine about what date the change of usage came in and what occasioned it. When and why was the designation ro’eh dropped and nabhi’ uniformly used? These two difficulties are met by substituting for the Massoretic text that of the Septuagint. The latter reads: ‘for the people called the nabhi’ the ro’eh’. In the text followed by the Septuagint translators, in the place of hayyom, ‘today’, there stood ha’am, ‘the people’. Through this emendation the statement becomes clear in its import. Of the two, so to speak official, names in use for the prophet the people had preferred for a long time to employ the ro’eh-title. This was still their habit in Saul’s day; it was no longer so in the time of the writer. Because his readers might not be familiar with the ancient popular way of speaking, he explains its early prevalence. It was entirely a matter of popular habit of address. In no way does this contradict the statements in earlier history that there were nebhi’im long before, say in the time of Moses.
Perhaps we can even surmise in what this popular habit of avoiding nabhi’ was rooted. The common people would come to a man like Samuel in the ordinary, in a certain sense trivial, difficulties of their daily life, as was the case with Saul seeking his father’s animals. To that kind of enquiry the name ro’eh may well have seemed more fitting than the stately, serious nabhi’. And the man of God would also naturally obtain the information sought through vision-process rather than through speech-address from God. Such things Jehovah supplied to His servants by letting them see, for instance, the place where something lost could be found. A state of mind like this, so far from proving the non-existence of nabhi’ rather presupposes it.
There is no occasion, moreover, for looking down upon this part of the prophet’s function as something beneath his dignity, and putting it on a line with pagan soothsaying. It was God’s desire to furnish the people with light even on such homely subjects. They were a people among whom revelation dwelt, and it was one of their privileges to reap this practical benefit from it. The ro’eh of Israel could be at the same time the nabhi’ in the important affairs of national and religious life. It is instructive to read Isa. 8:19ff. in this connection. There is false soothsaying among Israel, but the prophet maintains not only that it is evil; he likewise maintains that it is unnecessary, because normal provision has been made for its supply: ‘Should not a people seek unto their God?’
EXTREME CRITICAL VIEWS ANSWERED
Two extremes may be observed in the critical attitude towards the visionary phenomena of prophecy. The latest tendency is to approximate what took place among Israel as much as possible to the abnormalities of pagan prophecy, and to reduce the phenomena in both quarters alike to the pathology of religion. Interpreters of the prophets have turned themselves into medical students in order to discover what specific type of neurology can throw light on the symptoms. Hysteria, epilepsy, catalepsy and several other more recondite states are studied from the records of medicine, in order to
make the abnormal from the physiological or psychological point of view the normal from the pathological standpoint. When a prophetic strangeness has been classified as a disease, it is supposed to be sufficiently accounted for. Hoelscher’s book, Die Propheten, is so excessively technical in this respect as to be unreadable to the theologian who is not at the same time an expert in a highly specialized branch of medicine.
Before this psychiatric development took place, the diametrically opposite tendency existed, namely, to consider the visions of the prophets, not real experiences, but a species of literary composition employed in order to add vividness and force to their message. Some have applied this to all visions. Others would restrict it to the later period of prophetism, holding that in earlier times the visions were real. The argument in support of this theory is as follows. Some visions, it is believed, are so circumstantial and elaborate, that they cannot possibly have been perceived. They betray in numerous points the workmanship of the free composer. Some are made up of such fantastic and grotesque features that no degree of imaginative power could enable us to combine them into a real picture. They elude the painter’s skill, for the simple reason that they are not real pictures, just aggregates of single scenes loosely combined. The connection between the vision and the message is often far-fetched and artificial. The complicated and artificial visions occur largely in the later prophets, Ezekiel and Zechariah, the simple and more natural ones belong to the older period.
Over against such considerations we should take into account other equally pertinent facts. We are not fitted to determine from the range of our own imagination how far the visualizing power may have extended in the prophets. The prophets were Shemites. The ecstatic state allowed of intense concentration upon a single scene. Our inability to reproduce the vision into a picture proves or disproves nothing as to what the prophets were capable of in that respect. The argument from looseness in combining, closely looked at, proves the opposite of what it is intended to prove. In the case of free literary
composition a prophet like Jeremiah would certainly have been capable of producing more natural and striking symbols. This suggests that such visions are the work of God, whom in this matter we do not presume to measure by the rules of pictorial or literary composition. It may be true that the unnatural visions are found largely in the later prophets, but these same prophets on other occasions see visions of striking vividness and charm. On the theory of literary composition it becomes difficult to explain why the prophets have, on the whole, made such rare use of this form of representation. The prophets draw a clear distinction between symbolic actions and objects figuring in the reality, and symbolic visions seen by themselves. Why this distinction, if the visions were inventions? Why did not Jeremiah exhibit the almond rod, or Amos the basket of summer fruit? Most writers now admit that the older prophets did see visions. But the later prophets speak of theirs in precisely the same language. This would have been somewhat misleading, had they not actually seen them.
FIVE:
THE MODE OF COMMUNICATION OF THE PROPHECY
SPEECH
We have already seen that the name nabhi’ places the emphasis upon the communication of his message by the prophet. Where the form in which the message had been conveyed was that of speech, the most natural form for delivering it would be that of reproductive speech. That divine speech can thus naturally pass over into human speech is a wonderful thing in itself. But man has been made in the image of God, and the faculty of speech forms a part of this. In all speech outside of God there is something divine-like. Besides, the prophets stood under the special control of the Holy Spirit, who plays upon the human organ where and as He will. Especially if through inner speech the oracle came at the very moment preceding delivery, there would remain no time to translate it into other language. And the retention of the same form was of official importance.
The prophets, of course, must have done considerable work in writing their prophecies. This would remain true, even if the modern theory of the redactional character of the books named after them were to be adopted. The written prophecies were in the first instance delivered in speech, to some extent at least. And the cause why writing was resorted to was a peculiar one which had nothing to do with the original form of transmission. Ezekiel has sometimes been singled out as a type of the rhetorical writing prophet, especially in his eschatological deliverances, but he was none the less a great speaker too. His audiences were so impressed and excited by the address made to them as to be daily talking against him by the walls and in the doors of the houses, and representing his speech as a very
lovely song of one that has a pleasant voice and can play well on an instrument [33:30–32]. It would not be useless to study even Ezekiel for homiletical instruction.
Just as the spoken divine word calls for verbal delivery, so the vision calls for a special kind of verbal delivery, in which its pictorial origin shall be reckoned with. For words were necessary here also. The prophets could not set up a stage or throw on a screen that inner film they had looked upon in the vision. The optical experience is, however, reproduced in words as closely optical as possible, and frequently the prophet leaves it at that without further explanation. He simply says, I saw. The visionary form obviously was chosen for the people’s sake, no less than for the prophet’s sake. Hence both in parables and allegories the medium of the objective work is likewise employed. Isaiah probably had not seen in vision the vineyard of Chapter 5. Still further the prophets are sometimes directed to turn their persons and their actions into the form of symbolism. Here is the incarnate vision.
It must be admitted, however, that some of these actions are of a most extraordinary nature, so as to raise doubt as to the possibility of their having been actually carried out. The two conspicuous examples of this are what is related in Jer. 13:1–7 and in Ezek. 3:26. To these may be added, though of less difficult interpretation, Isa. 20:3, and Hos. 1:3. It would take too long to rehearse in detail the difficulties and possibilities of these instances. The commentaries should be consulted on this subject by the curious.
MIRACLES
Under the head of the communication of the divine purpose, also the miracles performed by the prophets should be considered. The Old Testament is not precise in its definition of what constitutes a miracle or in distinguishing among the several types of miracles. The several names in Hebrew reveal this indefiniteness on the theological side. These words are: pel’e, something peculiar, extraordinary;
mopheth, something creating surprise or attracting attention; nora’, something that inspires awe; and the comprehensive name ‘oth, sign, which is generic for the preceding more special terms. The importance obviously lies in the effect to be produced, not in the precise manner of its production.
Besides the sign of omnipotence there is the sign of conjunction, consisting in the prediction that two (possibly both natural) events will come together in time, and which in the last analysis is reducible to the omniscience of God, showing His supernatural presence in the course of things as clearly as the sign of omnipotence. All predictions are wonders, that is, when taken together with the fulfilment. This does not, however, necessarily imply that the fulfilment must be brought about through supernatural interposition. The supernatural here lies in the foreknowledge; it is a species of omniscience-miracle. In such cases the name ‘sign’ is transferable to the fulfilling event itself [Isa. 41:22ff.; 42:9].
But we shall have to conceive of the connection between prophecy and fulfilment as closer still. The representation emerges here and there, that there is a causal nexus between the predictive word spoken and the event following at its own appointed time. The divine word here appears invested with a self-realizing, omnipotent power: it is a word that works miracles. Of course, this is not the word entered into matter or bound to paper, but the living word that issued from the divine mouth, and is never detached from Him.
Finally, it should be observed, that the record of the prophetic miracles is found not so much in the prophetic writings themselves, as in the historical books dealing to a large extent with the prophets. The inference has been drawn from this that we cannot place reliance on the miracle accounts, because they are not borne out by the prophets’ own testimony. This is an unwarranted inference. The difference is due to the different character of the two sources. History is an account of acts, prophecy an account of words. Hence, where a piece of history-writing has been inserted in a prophetical book, the
miracles are as much in evidence as in the history elsewhere [cp. Isa. 36–39]. The case of the New Testament is analogous. Here we find the miracles in the historical document of Acts, rather than in the Epistles. The wonders that do appear in the prophetic writings are those most intimately connected with the word, viz., the wonders of prediction. In the earlier part of Daniel, which is historical in character, the wonders occupy more space than in the later part, which bears a different impress. The idea that the disappearance of the wonder element would be one of the symptoms of the gradual purification and spiritualization of prophecy has no support in the phenomena. As prediction prevails especially in the later prophets, and prediction is regarded as a wonder-thing, one might be inclined to reverse the judgment in question, and affirm that the element of miracle appears not on the decrease but on the increase in the history of prophetism.
Besides the apologetic and a soteric purpose served by the miracles themselves, the prominence of this element in its teaching has also a typical significance belonging to the sphere of eschatology. It bears witness to the prophets’ interest in the great supernaturalizing world-change expected from the future. The specifically eschatological predictions of the prophets are steeped in the atmosphere of the supernatural. Modern criticism likes to call this the apocalyptic element in the prophetic writings. While it must be granted that the later apocalyptic (non-canonical) writers have run to excess in this matter, they probably would not have done so, had there not been a solid basis for it in the canonical books. The more up-to-date criticism, which is succeeding the school of Wellhausen, has already made a much-needed correction at this point. Through showing that there was an indigenous eschatology in Israel before the time of the great writing prophets, it has greatly changed the aspect of the ancient religion that used to be placed back of the prophetic movement by the critics. Still this sense for the supernatural, as is now being realized and recognized more clearly, lies at a far remove from the pagan sphere of magic and divination. Against the latter the prophets uniformly protest. The prophetic
miracle is wrought after prayer, and in dependence on the power of Jehovah working freely [1 Kings 13:5; 17:20ff.; 18:36ff.; 2 Kings 4:33; 20:11]. Of compulsion of the Deity there is no trace anywhere. And in the future epoch it will not be otherwise.
SIX:
THE CONTENT OF THE PROPHETIC REVELATION
We confine ourselves in this place to the teaching of the great prophets of the eighth century. Coming as these do at the great turning-point of the Old Testament history of redemption, their study is of fundamental importance, and in point of newness anticipates much of the teaching of the later period.
The subject easily divides itself into the following parts: [A] The Nature and Attributes of Jehovah.
[B] The Bond between Jehovah and Israel.
[C] The Rupture of the Bond: The Sin of Israel.
[D] The Judgment and the Restoration: Prophetic Eschatology.
[A] THE NATURE AND ATTRIBUTES OF JEHOVAH
It goes without saying that the prophetic orientation is God-centred. This is but another way of saying that it is religious, for without that,
no religion deserving that name can exist. The prophets feel this so instinctively that they have no need nor occasion for reflecting upon or expressing it. It is only when reaching its highest point, and becoming a veritable passion for Jehovah, that it sets its crown upon itself by reflecting upon its own nature and delighting in its own expression. For in religion everywhere, not the instinctive, unreflected, but the clearly-recognized, the thoroughly illuminated, constitutes the finest product of the process. That is the cause why a religious experience uncoloured by thought and doctrine necessarily means an inferior thing, and may even reach the vanishing-point, where doubt arises whether it still deserves the name of religion or not. This does not mean that there is not much in religion lying below the surface of consciousness, or belonging to the spheres of volition and feeling. But it can prove its title only by the urge of ascending into the light of day and the region of praise, for in no other way can it reach the place where the divine glory finds recognition and the movement of religion attains its summit. God is not a philanthropist who likes to do good in secret without its becoming known; His delight is in seeing Himself and His perfections mirrored in the consciousness of the religious subject. No compromise is possible here. The only other comprehensive principle is that man finds his supreme pleasure in seeing himself and his excellencies recognized and admired by God. He who chooses the latter standpoint will never understand the prophets.
The one among the prophets who has most clearly apprehended this and expressed it is Isaiah. If we compare his consciousness in this respect with Hosea’s, we shall find that the latter dwells more upon what Jehovah is and does for Israel, the former is centred in what Israel is for Jehovah [Isa. 5; Hos. 13:8]. While Jeremiah in his inaugural visions sees things, Isaiah in his temple vision sees Jehovah Himself. And he sees Jehovah in His temple, that is to say, in the place where everything is subordinated to God, and God sets the stamp of His presence upon everything, the place of worship. In keeping with this, Isaiah is pre-eminently the prophet of the highest
type of religion. His religious sensibilities are most finely and strongly affected by the message he brings to others.
Further, this religious reaction is in Isaiah of a peculiarly fundamental character. Three primal ingredients enter into it. First there is a vivid perception of the infinite majesty of Jehovah. In the second place this has for its correlate a deep realization of the immeasurable distance between the majesty of Jehovah and the creaturehood, as well as the sinfulness, of man. Thirdly, there enters the element of unqualified surrender to the service of the divine glory. It is a significant fact that the noblest conception of religion is represented in the circle of the prophets by him who was unquestionably the greatest of the prophets in every respect.
MONOTHEISM
Coming now to the first head of the prophetic teaching on the nature and attributes of Jehovah, we begin with the principle of monotheism. As has been shown above, there is agreement on this point between us and the critical school, inasmuch as the latter not only grants the prophets to have been monotheists, but even regards them as the discoverers and first champions of the belief. Controversy as to the point of fact could arise with the left wing of the school only, namely, with those who make explicit monotheism an exilic or post-exilic product. With the others the further question might be debated, as to whether the pre-exilic monotheism from Amos downward was only a nascent, inconsistent, or an explicit, confirmed monotheism. It remains, therefore, still of importance both for a positive and for a controversial purpose to state the facts as furnished by the early prophets.
We find in them explicit statements in which at least the divinity of the pagan gods is denied, although this, of course, does not deny to these gods absolutely every sort of existence. Amos calls the false gods after which the ancient Judeans had walked ‘their lies’ [2:4; cp. Isa. 1:29, 30]. Isaiah has a sarcastic term for naming the idols,
‘elilim; this, though not of the same etymology as el, yet reminds of it, but by making out of the word a diminutive, represents the pagan gods as ‘godlets’, or (etymologically taken) as ‘good-for-nothing- ones’. The false god fails to measure up to the conception of full deity [2:8, 18, 20; 10:10ff.; 19:1, 3; 31:7]. In Hosea, who comes chronologically between Amos and Isaiah, we have no such explicit statement, apart from his references to the images. In chapter 1:10, however, he calls Jehovah ‘the living God’ in which there may be a reflection on the ‘dumb’ idols.
Monotheism is likewise presupposed by the way in which the early prophets express themselves about images and image-worship. The images are represented as the work of man’s hand and their worship is ridiculed. This polemic against idols is found in both Hosea and Isaiah [Hos. 2:10; 4:12; 14:3; Isa. 2:18, 20; 17:7, 8; 31:7]. It might be objected that such ridicule strikes only at the images, with which the gods were not identified. The objection might also be raised, that the same polemic is directed against the images of Jehovah, in whose case it cannot have implied denial of His existence or Deity. With reference to the first caption it should be answered that such a distinction between the god and his image is a thoroughly modern idea. The idolatrous mind forms a far more realistic concept of the image than that of a symbolic reproduction of the deity. In some way, not always comprehensible to us, the image and the god are seen in one; through the image, control is exercised over the deity. This alone, after all, makes the ridicule of Hosea, Isaiah and some of the Psalmists, fair and to the point. Where the theological distinction between image and what is imaged forth is introduced, it immediately becomes unfair and beside the point. But the ridicule of the prophets through the image is intended for the pagan gods. If it is a disgrace for the god to be manufactured out of matter, then this must be because the god is actually bound up with matter; a more remote or refined association with matter, on the principle of symbolism, would not warrant it.
We may here refer back to what was said in connection with the second word of the Decalogue. To the pagans the magically-divine presence in the image exists. A deity which lets itself be manufactured or encased in this manner, to be manipulated by man, exposes itself to ridicule. This ridicule, then, proves proximately only that the pagan god is falsely invested with deity by his worshippers. In the somewhat later stage of the polemic this has apparently become different. Here the language employed is such as to suggest that there is nothing to the image besides mere matter. From this latter standpoint the ridicule becomes, of course, more poignant and incisive: it leaves nothing un-annihilated. But perhaps in the earlier period the subject had not been thought through thus far by the popular mind.
The second caption made upon the argument was, that it would seem as if the prophets through their ridicule of the images had struck at the existence of Jehovah Himself, since what they say is not seldom, nay, primarily, addressed to the cult of Jehovah-images. This caption likewise is unwarranted. The prophets actually meant to strike at ‘Jehovah’, that is, at the false Jehovah represented by the images, such as stood at Dan and Bethel. Hosea places the Jehovah of Dan and Bethel entirely on a par with the foreign gods or the imported deities in Israel or the indigenous gods of Canaan. He calls him outright ‘Baal’.
There are a number of statements in the early prophets, as there are in other parts of the Old Testament, which vividly speak of other gods and ascribe actions or movements to them seemingly implying existence. It is possible, that this may be due to belief in subdivine, demonic existence. It is also possible, however, that such statements must be explained on the basis of rhetorical personification. It is not always easy to say which of the two is involved. Sometimes the context will tell [cp. Isa. 19:1; 46:1; Mic. 7:18]. In Psa. 96:4, we read: ‘Jehovah is to be feared above all the gods’, yet vs. 5 soon adds: ‘All the gods of the peoples are things of nought, but Jehovah made the
heavens’, and in vs. 7 all the peoples are invited to give glory and strength unto Jehovah [cp. Psa. 135:5, 6, 15ff.].
The unlimited power ascribed to Jehovah in every place and sphere has for its correlate the monotheism of the prophets. To be sure, these affirmations do not exactly cover what we understand by ‘the universe’, as in its vast extent it has become known to us in the course of history. But this objection is not relevant. The sole question is, whether any rival power was attributed in any known sphere of reality to any other divine or sub-divine being. Of this there is no trace.
If the critical theory of a gradually developing monotheism in the era of the prophets were true, we should expect that the monotheistic belief would appear in the earlier writers in a less developed, in the later writers in a more developed form. We might be prepared for finding Amos and Hosea less consistently monotheistic in their forms of statement than Isaiah and Micah. Or, as between the eighth and the seventh centuries, we might anticipate a progress in Jeremiah beyond Isaiah. But no difference of this kind is found. Further, the monotheism of the prophets is nowhere associated by them with the unique ethical nature of Jehovah. The modern theory holds that stressing the ethical at the expense of the gracious character of Jehovah brought forth the monotheistic conviction. Mic. 7:18 reasons in precisely the opposite way.
THE NATURE AND ATTRIBUTES OF JEHOVAH
Next to the question of monotheism the prophetic teaching on the nature and attributes of Jehovah claims attention. Jehovah is called ‘spirit’, but this has a somewhat different connotation from what it has in our doctrinal terminology. It does not express immateriality, but the energy of life in God. Its opposite is ‘flesh’, signifying the innate inertia of the creature, considered apart from God [Isa. 31:3]. ‘Flesh’ is not yet, as later in the New Testament, associated with sin.
Among the attributes distinguished there is no attempt at classification. In Isa. 57:15, two aspects of the divine manifestation towards man are distinguished, the transcendental one, in virtue of which God dwells on high, and the condescending one, in virtue of which He bends down and dwells with the humble ones of His servants. This approaches in a broad way the well-known distinction between incommunicable and communicable attributes. To the class of transcendental attributes belong omnipotence, omnipresence, eternity, omniscience, holiness.
OMNIPOTENCE
The unlimited power of Jehovah is strongly emphasized by Amos, largely for the ethical purpose of magnifying the terror of the approaching judgment. A word for the conception of omnipotence the Old Testament does not possess. But Amos in a figurative, descriptive way succeeds in vividly conveying the impression of what it consists in. Jehovah forms the mountains, creates the wind, makes the Pleiades and Orion. He calls for the waters of the sea, and pours them out upon the face of the earth. The change from day into night and from night into day obeys His will. As a conqueror controls the land through occupying its high places, so He treads upon the high places of the earth. He sends fire, famine, pestilence, and all plagues and evil, all this again as instrumental in the execution of His judgment [2:5; 3:6; 4:6, 9, 10, 13; 5:8; 7:4].
Similar statements are met with in Isaiah in similar connections. Especially the suddenness, the immediateness of the effect produced, are stressed by this prophet. Jehovah works by a word, and this is but a way of saying that He works supernaturally. He sustains to the creature the relation of a potter to the clay, a great figure expressive of omnipotence as well as of sovereignty. In the future He will change the whole face of the earth, making Lebanon a fruitful field and the fruitful field a forest [2:19, 21; 9:8; 17:13; 29:5, 17]. The strongest statements are in the second part of the prophecy [40; 42; 45]. For Micah we may compare 1:2–4.
‘JEHOVAH OF HOSTS’
One of the standing names of Jehovah is associated with this attribute of omnipotence, the name ‘Jehovah of Hosts’. It occurs in several forms, some fuller, some more compact in form. It is difficult to tell whether the variety is due to a process of enlargement or of abbreviation. The longest form is ‘The Lord Jehovah the God of the Hosts’. This (with the article before ‘hosts’) is found in Amos 3:13 only. Most common is ‘Jehovah Zebaoth’. This is a specifically prophetic name of God, which does not appear in the Pentateuch, Joshua, or Judges. We meet with it first in Samuel and Kings, next in eight Psalms, in all four of the early prophets, in all the other prophets, except Joel, Obadiah, Jonah, Ezekiel. Finally, it occurs in three passages in Chronicles. Jehovah Zebaoth is probably an abbreviation, since a proper name cannot stand in the construct state. A further abbreviation is that into the simple ‘Zebaoth’, but this is not found in the Old Testament. The Septuagint has in a number of cases transliterated ‘Zebaoth’, and this has passed over into two New Testament passages [Rom. 9:29; Jas. 5:4]. Where the Septuagint translates it, it has either ‘The Lord of the powers’, or, ‘the Lord, the All-Ruler’.
The word tsabha’ has outside of the name four meanings, and to each of these one of the four interpretations of the name attaches itself. These four meanings are: an army of human warriors, the host of super-human spirits, the host of the stars, the sum-total of all created beings. The last-named view, proposed by Wellhausen, is thought to be borne out by Gen. 2:1, where the writer speaks of ‘the heavens and the earth and all the hosts of them’. While the plural of the pronoun shows that hosts of the earth is not an unconceivable phrase, yet it is evident that the preceding reference to ‘heavens’ has by way of zeugma induced the writer to draw ‘the earth’ into the same construction. It is not proven thereby that this was a common way of combining ‘hosts’ with the earth. There is, however, truth in Wellhausen’s observation that in Amos the name has most comprehensive cosmical associations. Only, this is due to another
cause, as we shall see presently. Some have found two other instances of this cosmical use, one in Psa. 103:20–22, the other in Psa. 148:1–4. In these passages, however, a clear distinction is drawn between the works of Jehovah in heaven and on earth, and his hosts, which shows that the latter must be sought in a specific sphere of the intelligent creation, namely, among the heavenly servants of God.
Wellhausen, besides putting upon it this peculiar interpretation, has also advocated the view that the name was coined by Amos. But this is unlikely, because already in Amos the name has several forms, and because the prophet nowhere seeks to explain it. Both features indicate that the name was in use before him. As a matter of fact it does occur in passages which on Wellhausen’s own view, would be older than the date of Amos. In order to carry through his conjecture he has to declare these passages interpolated or altered from their original form. For this no literary necessity exists.
The interpretation which understands the hosts of the astral bodies has some things in its favour. ‘The host of heaven’ occurs most frequently in passages where astral idolatry is spoken of [Deut. 4:19; 17:3; Jer. 8:2; 19:13; 32:29; Zeph. 1:5]. In pagan religion this is usually based on the belief that the stars are living beings or somehow identified with superhuman spirits. It has been suggested that this reference of the phrase ‘host of heaven’ is originally identical with the reference of it to angels. It would then date back to a time when a similar belief still prevailed among the ancestors of the Hebrews. Its use in the name of God would involve a protest against this species of idolatry, it being intimated that Jehovah is superior to these beings, Lord over every creature. There was also a belief, not seldom associated with the preceding, that the star-angels had been set over the pagan nations to rule them under the permission of God, and the belief in this form seems to have existed and survived late among the Jews. There are some contexts in Deuteronomy, where this belief is referred to. In chap. 29:26, we read: ‘they went and served other gods … whom He had not divided unto them.’ In 32:8, the Septuagint has a text diverging from the Hebrew, which reads:
‘When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when He separated the children of men, He set the bounds of the peoples according to the number of the angels of God.’ The Hebrew reads, ‘according to the number of the children of Israel’. But the difference in reading between the original and the Greek Version rather suggests that here the Septuagint translators or readers stood under the influence of this peculiar idea, and changed the text accordingly. And there are several serious objections to the idea that the name was in ancient Israel understood in this sense. In the early prophets it does not occur in contexts where the stars are mentioned. Amos in 5:8, where he speaks of Pleiades and Orion, does not employ it [cp. also Isa. 40:26]. The stars are uniformly called the ‘host’ of heaven in the singular. And they are never called ‘the host of Jehovah’.
Much more can be said in favour of a view, enjoying considerable vogue at the present day, that the ‘hosts’ are the armies of Israel of which Jehovah is the captain. The wide acceptance accorded to this is due to its favouring the critical idea, that Jehovah was originally a wargod. Still this need not hinder us from accepting it. There is a warlike side to the conception of God in the prophets; Isaiah especially reveals a certain delight in describing the martial features of Jehovah. It would by no means imply, as the critics seem to think it does, that Jehovah had once been a war-god exclusively. An argument in favour of this interpretation has been taken from the fact that of the military ‘hosts’ only, the word is used in the plural, whereas of stars and angels it always occurs in the singular. The name has the plural; what else then can these ‘hosts’ be than the ‘hosts’ of Israel? [cp. Ex. 7:4; 12:41; Psa. 44:9; 60:10; 108:11].
Two things, however, somewhat detract from the force of this argument. The first is that in the Exodus passages, not the soldiers of Israel, but the multitude of the people in general are spoken of as ‘the hosts of Jehovah’. The use of the noun ‘hosts’ is not, then, due to military associations; it arises simply from the numerousness of the people. And in the Psalm passages the hosts are not called Jehovah’s hosts, but ‘our hosts’. A counter-consideration is this, that precisely
those passages where God is named ‘Jehovah of Hosts’, when they have occasion to refer to the armies of Israel, do not employ the term ‘hosts’, but some different word (1 Sam. 4:16, 17].
Another argument adduced in favour of the military sense is, that in several instances ‘Jehovah of Hosts’ occurs in significant combination with the ark, which was a palladium of war (1 Sam. 1:3, 11; 4:4; 2 Sam. 6:2]. The first two passages do not speak of the ark in particular, but only of the tabernacle, and for its association even with the ark another reason would have to be found, since there is nothing military in the story of Hannah. As to 1 Sam. 4:4, and 2 Sam. 6:2, where the surroundings are more or less warlike, it yet seems unlikely that the use of the name Jehovah of Hosts is induced by the ark as the exponent of this. In the sequel of these references the ark is spoken of repeatedly, and yet it does not draw in its wake the name under discussion. There must then be another reason why it should do this in precisely the two passages cited. And the reason is not difficult to discover, for in these two there are mentioned, together with the ark, the cherubim upon it. And that points to another explanation presently to be looked into.
A further argument, and one to which some force cannot be denied, is taken from 1 Sam. 17:45, and Psa. 24:10. In the former David says to Goliath: ‘I come unto thee in the name of Jehovah of Hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, which thou hast defied.’ Here ‘The God of the armies of Israel’ seems actually to be explanatory of ‘Jehovah of Hosts’. The Psalter passage is not equally convincing. ‘Jehovah of Hosts’ in vs. 10 is not necessarily the equivalent of ‘Jehovah mighty in battle’ of vs. 8. The structure of the passage seems to be rather climacteric, so that ‘Jehovah of Hosts’ is made out to mean far more than ‘Jehovah mighty in battle’. If we assume that for David the martial sense was really associated with it, we shall have to regard this as probably the older interpretation put upon the name, one, however, which in course of time, in Prophets and Psalms gave way to another, felt to be more adequate in describing the central character of Jehovah.
Nor need the reason for such a substitution have lain exclusively in the enlarged conceptions of this later period of revelation. There is something else to be taken into account. The prophets probably felt that the times had changed. Whilst in the time of David the whole trend of the religion of Israel was towards the forcible shaking off of a foreign yoke, in the period of the prophets, when altogether too much reliance was placed on military resources, and the divine purpose was to break this unreligious, untheocratic frame of mind, the stress could no longer be laid upon what should be done with human help, but rather upon what Jehovah would miraculously accomplish. And therefore the ‘hosts’ become of a different complexion; they are now exponents of the heavenly, supernatural interposition of God in the affairs of His people. This is quite in line with the condemnation of political alliances, which is a constant ingredient of the prophetic preaching of our period.
So far as the prophets are concerned, then, we are led back to the older view, which interprets the ‘hosts’ of the multitude of angels. This best satisfies all the facts in the case. We have already found that the occurrence of the name in 1 Sam. 4:4 and 2 Sam. 6:2, is due to the mention of the cherubim. A number of other instances show the same conjunction. It is Jehovah worshipped by the seraphim whom Isaiah calls Jehovah of Hosts. In Isa. 37:16, Hezekiah’s prayer, Jehovah is called Jehovah of Hosts as sitting upon the cherubim. The only place where the name occurs in Hosea stands in a context which mentions the angel of Jehovah [12:4, 5]. In Psa. 89 the name occurs only once, vs. 8, and in the preceding context the angels stand in the foreground.
Further, this interpretation most easily explains the several features associated with the name. The war-like flavour arises from the fact that the God of the angels is the omnipotent King of the heavenly multitudes, who can conquer His enemies, when earthly resources fail, nay, can even turn His hosts against Israel, if need be [Isa. 31:4]. Jehovah of Hosts is His royal name. It designates Him as the almighty King both in nature and history [Psa. 103:19–22; Isa. 6:5;
24:23; Jer. 46:18; 48:15; 51:57]. In the Orient the might of a king is measured by the splendour of his retinue.
JEHOVAH’S RELATION TO TIME AND SPACE
Next to Jehovah’s omnipotence His relation to time and space come under consideration. In regard to God’s presence in space two representations occur. He abides in Zion, whence He roars [Amos 1:2], and where He has His royal throne [Isa. 2:3; 8:18]. Hosea calls Canaan Jehovah’s land [9:3]. These statements do not involve any earthly limitation of God’s presence. They are not remnants of a crude theology. These writers elsewhere represent God as dwelling in heaven [Hos. 5:15, of a return to heaven; Isa. 18:4; 33:5; Mic. 1:2, 3]. In Zion there is a presence of gracious revelation. Of course, the same is true with reference to heaven, for heaven, no more than any locality on earth, can circumscribe or bind God. The heaven is His throne, and the earth His footstool. According to Amos 9:2, the reach of Jehovah’s power is absolutely unlimited by space. True, this is expressed in anthropomorphic popular language. There is no hint of the idea that God is above all space, and strange to it in His own inner life. He, of course, recognizes space as an objective reality in the existence of the creature, but His own divine mode of existence it does not affect.
The same relation applies as between Jehovah and time. In popular language, such as the prophets use, eternity can only be expressed in terms of time, although in reality it lies altogether above time. Some have found in Isa. 57:15, the theological conception of eternity as a sphere enveloping God, in the same manner as time is that in which, by reason of the structure of his consciousness, man necessarily dwells. But the words rendered in the Authorized and Revised Versions by ‘that inhabits eternity’ are also capable of the rendering, ‘that sits enthroned for ever’, which would yield only the ordinary idea of duration without beginning and without end. Among the early prophets it is only Isaiah who reflects upon this mysterious and majestic divine attribute. In the description of the Messiah [9:6], the
title abhi’ad, now frequently rendered by ‘father for eternity’, might perhaps mean ‘father of eternity’, although this would be an even higher flight into the realm of the transcendental than the idea of God’s inhabiting eternity.
Indirectly the eternity finds expression in various ways. Inasmuch as Jehovah is the Creator of all things, He must have existed before every creature and be prior to every development in history. He is the first and the last, because He has laid the foundation of the earth and spread out the heavens [Isa. 44:6; 48:12, 13]. He calls the succeeding generations of men from the beginning [Isa. 41:4]. Together with these statements sometimes occurs the divine self-designation, ‘I am He’, which is interpreted to mean, I am the same, not subject to change through the flux of time, especially as implying a warrant for the unchanging faithfulness of Jehovah. This would be the same thought which we found expressed in Ex. 3:14, in the phrase ‘I am that I am’, and that is thenceforth associated with the name Jehovah as such.
OMNISCIENCE
Jehovah’s omniscience finds expression in connection with His omnipresence, and His ability to predict things. Because He is everywhere, He knows whatever occurs. He declares unto man what is his (man’s) inward thought [Amos 4:13]. Hosea says, ‘The iniquity of Ephraim is bound up, his sin laid up in store’. Every sin committed by the people is present before God; it cannot be lost any more than can money kept carefully in a bag [Hos. 13:12]. God’s eternity comes into play here also. Being before all that happens, He has been able to foretell many things that came to pass, and now challenges the pagan gods to measure themselves with Him in further predictions [Isa. 41:22–24; 43:9–13; 44:6–8]. This implies that His foreknowledge is intimately connected with His purpose. It is no magical divination of uncertain contingencies, but the natural concomitant of His plan. ‘Jehovah does nothing, but He reveals His secret unto His servants the prophets’ [Amos 3:7]. It is in vain to
seek to hide one’s counsel from Jehovah, as the politicians try to do, who work in the dark and say: Who sees us, and who knows us? This is in vain, because Jehovah is, in reference to all plotting of man, as the potter is to the clay: He fashions the very mind that conceives the thought of hiding from Him. Man’s hiding from Jehovah is an object of Jehovah’s own purpose [Isa. 29:15, 16].
HOLINESS
Another transcendental attribute is the ‘holiness’ of Jehovah. The Hebrew for the adjective is qadosh, the corresponding noun ‘qodesh’. Of the verb the Niphal, Piel, Hiphil and Hithpael species are in use. But all these verbal forms are derivatives from the noun or adjective; they therefore can afford no help towards ascertaining the fundamental meaning beyond what the noun and adjective give, and these give nothing by way of etymology, because the whole root with all its derivatives has been monopolized by religion, leaving us to guess what, outside the sphere of religion, its physical root- signification may have been. And such is the case not only in Hebrew, but likewise in the cognate languages. Some compare the radicals with those of the root chadash, ‘to shine’, from which is formed the adjective for ‘new’, the new thing being the shining thing. This would be in accord with the positive aspect of the Biblical idea of ‘holiness’, that of purity, and to it the ethical application of the idea would naturally attach itself. Others make the derivation from a root-group having for its first radicals the combination qad, in which inheres the idea of ‘cutting’, of ‘separation’. On this view the branch of the concept which denotes aloofness, majesty, lies nearer the root- concept. The latter of these derivations deserves the preference.
The reasons for this preference are, first: it is easier to subsume all that pertains to the idea of holiness under the concept of separation, than, pursuing the reverse order, to start with the notion of purity. The transition from majesty to purity seems easier than that from purity to majesty. In the next place, the opposite of qadosh is chol; the latter means ‘loose’, ‘open’, ‘accessible’: it is natural, then, to
assume that qadosh is originally ‘separated’, ‘cut off’; ‘non- trespassible’ [1 Sam. 21:5; Ezek. 42:20; Amos 2:7]. And thirdly, a certain synonymity can be observed between the idea of holiness and that connected with the root cherem. The Hiphil of this latter root means ‘to devote’, and this starts from the idea of separating (cp. ‘harem’ and ‘Hermon’).
Starting then with the concept of ‘cutting off’, we must endeavour to trace the development of the word, and in what manner it came to be applied to the Deity. The original sense is a negative one. And it is a practical one, describing a rule of behaviour to be observed with relation to the Deity and His surroundings. Beginning to speak of an ‘attribute’ of God can only lead to misunderstanding. ‘Holiness’ is not in the first instance what a god is, but it teaches what ought not to be done to a god, that is, come too familiarly near. ‘Unapproachability’ would best express it. But the further feeling is that this rule of exclusion is not something arbitrary; it is due to the fact that the divine is divine, and that it insists upon having this distinction between itself and the creature recognized. Here, then, a positive element enters in through the consciousness on God’s part of His distinctness and His resolve to maintain the distinction and give it external expression. A shrine is not indiscriminately open, the entourage of the deity and of the shrine constitute a barrier for approach, which, when violated, excites the resentment of the deity.
Thus far the notion is not one of Special Revelation; it is not confined to Israel or the Old Testament. The Phoenicians, for instance, speak of ‘the holy gods’. But under the influence of Special Revelation the idea is immeasurably deepened. It is safe to say that no Shemitic pagan ever looked upon his god in the same manner that Isaiah did when having the vision in the temple. Since ascription and feeling of holiness are at the bottom a recognition of deity, it must follow that the true, inward, consummate sense of it can be reached only there, where the conviction of the uniqueness, not of a god as such, but of Jehovah as the only true God, exists. As Deity obtains a new meaning, when we pass over from paganism to Israel, so does
holiness. Notice that the idea of majesty and exaltation above the creature is not abandoned; it is only deepened and purified, and remains a standing safeguard against every vulgar familiarity with God, such as would undermine the very basis of religion.
Taking the divine holiness in this form, we can easily perceive that it is not really an attribute to be co-ordinated with the other attributes distinguished in the divine nature. It is something co-extensive with and applicable to everything that can be predicated of God: He is holy in everything that characterizes Him and reveals Him, holy in His goodness and grace, no less than in His righteousness and wrath. An attribute, strictly speaking, holiness becomes first through its restriction to the ethical sphere.
There are certain passages in the Old Testament that clearly illustrate this general conception of the majesty-holiness of Jehovah. The Song of Hannah [1 Sam. 2:2], addresses God in these words: ‘There is none holy as Jehovah, for there is none beside Thee, neither is there any rock like our God’; again, Hos. 11:9: ‘I am God and not man, the Holy One in the midst of thee (Israel).’ We can explain from this general meaning the association also between holiness and God’s dwelling on high [Isa. 57:15]. The heavens are the highest and most intimate shrine, where Jehovah dwells alone; hence the striking contrast, when over against this is set His condescension to the humble. The same association exists with Jehovah’s eternity. This likewise is something so specifically divine that it sets Him apart from all that is created and exists in time. In the passage just quoted, God’s being enthroned for ever and His holiness stand side by side. Habakkuk exclaims: ‘Art not Thou from everlasting, O Jehovah my God, mine Holy One; we shall not die’ [1:12]. It is the same with the divine omnipotence, for this too belongs to Jehovah alone. In the song of Ex. 15 God is celebrated as ‘glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders’. According to Num. 20:12, Moses and Aaron are rebuked for not having ‘sanctified’ Jehovah (that is to say, for not having recognized and proclaimed Him as ‘holy’), when they failed to ascribe to Him the omnipotence that could make water flow from the
rock at a simple word of command. Especially in the prophet Ezekiel this association with omnipotence is frequent. One might almost say that here holiness is equivalent to almighty power. God complains that His holy name has been profaned among the nations through the captivity of Israel, because it made the heathen doubt His omnipotence to protect and defend and deliver His people. Hence in order to sanctify His name again (that is to say, to exhibit Himself as omnipotent), He will gather them and bring them back into their land. ‘My great name’ is now interchangeable in this prophet with ‘my holy name’. The subjective response from man to this majesty- holiness consists in awe and reverence [1 Sam. 6:20; Isa. 6:2, 3], where even the raphim, though not sinful, recognize it with trembling [Isa. 8:13].
More familiar to us is the specifically ethical aspect of ‘holiness’. This is due to its having almost monopolized the word in the New Testament. Still it has not entirely supplanted the general majesty- holiness, as the second petition in the Lord’s prayer may remind us. But, what is of more importance, the ethical meaning does not stand in the Old Testament simply co-ordinated with the majesty-meaning, as if these represented two disconnected ideas. On the contrary, the ethical sense bears very plainly upon its face the impress of its development out of the majesty-idea. The development starts with the experience that by a sinful being the majesty of God is far more keenly felt than by a sinless one. The seraphim in Isa. 6 feel the majesty and react to it with awe; the prophet feels this same thing, but feels it as a sinner; hence his exclamation, ‘Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.’ This is a sense, not of general fear, but of moral dissolution. The reaction upon the revelation of Jehovah’s ethical holiness is a consciousness of sin. But this consciousness of sin carries in itself a profound realization of the majesty of God. It contemplates the holiness not as ‘purity’ simply. It were better to define it ‘majestic purity’ or ‘ethical sublimity’. It is associated with exaltation no less than the other branch. Especially in Isaiah this intermarriage between majesty and purity is clearly observable. The
prophet likes to speak of it in terms of dimension rather than of intensity. ‘Jehovah of Hosts is exalted in judgment, and God the Holy One is sanctified in righteousness’ [5:16; cp. Psa. 15:1; 24:3].
From this interweaving with the idea of majesty we may further explain that holiness becomes the principle of the punishment of sin. From mere purity, which is a negative conception, this could never follow, for purity might satisfy itself with a mere revulsion from sin or a shutting up of itself against sin. As soon, however, as the element of majesty is made to mingle with that of purity, the latter becomes an active principle, that must vindicate itself and uphold its own honour. Holiness thus operating is represented as the light of divine glory turned into a flame devouring the sinful [Isa. 5:24; 10:17; 33:14, 15]. The same colouring received from the majesty of God is perceptible in the other, benevolent, ethical attributes. According to Psa. 103:1ff., the ‘holy name’ of God underlies such gracious manifestations as are enumerated in vss. 2–5.
Side by side with holiness in God Himself, holiness is predicated of certain things that are more or less closely related to Him. The temple is holy, heaven is called holy, the sabbath is holy, the mountain of Jehovah is holy. We have already seen how this is a natural consequence of the primary meaning of the word. If Jehovah is unapproachably majestic, then it becomes important to draw a circle of holiness around Him, which shall bar out the ‘profane’. On our view the holiness predicated of God is the primary, original conception, the holiness of the other things is derivatory. The divine holiness radiates, as it were, in every direction, and creates a light inaccessible.
Some writers, however, have taken the opposite view of the sequence of these two ideas. They assume that at first certain objects entering into the cult of the deity were considered holy, and that afterwards this way of speaking passed over from the objects to the god into whose cult they entered. It has even been suggested that the transfer may have been brought about through the images, which were both
sacred things devoted to the worship of the deity, and identified with the gods themselves. But this would have been an utterly unintelligible procedure. What could the holiness of an object, considered as antedating the custom of calling the gods holy, have meant? To say that they were ‘consecrated’ is no answer, for it presupposes that the deity is sacred. The only answer that could be given would be that the things were set apart as the property of the god, in other words, ‘holiness’, when predicated of a thing, would be equivalent to ‘the property of the god’. But on this view it becomes quite incomprehensible how the transition of the attribute to the deity ever took place. If the thing is holy, because it is exclusive property, what could it mean that Jehovah was exclusive property? The proximate answer to this would probably be: He is the property of those who are holy, that is Israel. But on that view the idea would become a purely reciprocal one, in which the god would have no priority to man.
This certainly is not the impression we receive from the Old Testament usage, which stresses so strongly the exclusive application of the idea to God. Moreover, the difficulty arises, that on this view of the matter the existence of private property must have preceded in time the rise of the idea of holiness. Diestel, who advocates the priority of thing-holiness or at least its simultaneity with god- holiness, seeks to prove his theory with two arguments. The one is derived from the name ‘the Holy One of Israel’, frequent in Isaiah, occurring also in Jeremiah and the Psalter. He takes it to mean, ‘the One who consecrates Himself to Israel’. Grammatically this is possible, for on the same principle the sabbath is called ‘the holy one of Jehovah’, that is to say, dedicated to Him. So is Aaron. Still, the usual construction on such an understanding would have been with the preposition lamed, ‘holy to Israel’. But an objection to Diestel’s view is that Isaiah uses the name not exclusively with favourable reference to Israel; sometimes the opposite is the case [5:19, 24].
On account of this it is better to interpret the name as joining two thoughts in one: Jehovah is the Holy One, and Jehovah is the God of
Israel. His appurtenance to Israel is indeed affirmed, but it finds expression in the phrase ‘of Israel’, and ‘Holy’ stands in the ordinary (ethical-majestic) sense to describe His nature. The other fact relied upon by Diestel has already been touched upon above. He thinks that because holiness can be associated with benevolent divine intent towards Israel, this must rest on its being a name for Jehovah’s consecration to Israel. We saw that this combination has no other purport than to ascribe to the attributes in question a unique richness and quality.
The derived holiness of things and persons in the service of the deity or in the neighbourhood of its dwelling-place occurs, as has been shown, both in the circles of paganism and in revealed religion. But there is a difference in principle as to the manner in which the idea has been worked out. The background of the concept in paganism is of a physical, naturalistic kind. The derived holiness was conceived as a vague influence passing over to persons and things. One might compare it to an electrical current, with which everything in the vicinity of a shrine is charged. It makes things dangerous to the touch. It is different among Israel. Though the same dangerous character may belong to certain things (for instance, the ark), yet this is due only to a free sanctifying act of God. Thus God ‘hallowed’ the sabbath, not because it inherently possessed a peculiar character, to which magic and superstition could attach themselves, but because it was His will that the day should bear a peculiar significance reminding of and binding it to the service of God.
The specific connotation of ‘holiness’, as predicated of man, both in the Old Testament and the New Testament, should be carefully noted. When a man is declared to be ethically holy, even where the conception has been thoroughly spiritualized, the meaning is never simply that of moral goodness, considered in itself, but always ethical goodness seen in relation to God. The idea marks the consecration of ethics to religion.
RIGHTEOUSNESS
Midway between the transcendental and the communicative attributes stands the righteousness of Jehovah. The Hebrew words are tsedek and tsedakhah; the adjective is tsaddiq. First of all it ought to be observed that when righteousness is predicated of Jehovah, the analogy is not the duty of fair dealing between man and man, but always the procedure according to strict justice on the part of a judge. There are only apparent exceptions to this, as when, for the sake of metaphor, God is represented as Himself appearing in court seeking a verdict on His own action [Psa. 51:4]. As a rule the righteous God is the righteous judge. Now a judge among men is not called righteous simply because he follows an instinct of fairness towards the parties before him, but because he rigidly adheres to the law above him. Thus the question arises how this idea can be transferred to God, who has no law above Him. Still, the prophets and the Old Testament in general adhere to this form of representation. Nor is this with them a convenient anthropomorphism simply. The idea lies behind it, that underlying the decisions of Jehovah lies His nature. That is the law, not, to be sure, above Him, but yet truly within Him. And the same presupposition applies when not merely in a case of decision under the law, but also in the making of the law Jehovah is called righteous. The law was not made according to arbitrary fiat, it is a righteous law, because conforming to the divine nature, higher than which there is and can be no norm [Deut. 4:8].
This forensic or judicial righteousness of Jehovah further branches out in several directions. We can distinguish
[1] a righteousness of cognizance,
[2] a righteousness of retribution,
[3] a righteousness of vindication, and
[4] a righteousness of salvation, shading off into [5] a righteousness of benevolence.
[1] First, then, the righteousness of cognizance
By this we mean that Jehovah is held to take notice and keep account of all moral conduct. This applies both to individuals and to nations collectively. All conduct falls under the divine jurisdiction. Here it should be remembered that God, while functioning as judge, none the less remains God, and His being God cannot be separated from His procedure as judge. In ordinary life it is not the business of a judge to watch the conduct of men subject to his jurisdiction. From Jehovah’s oversight nothing escapes. Nor is He in any relation a disinterested spectator: the cognizance is with a view to corresponding action.
Amos has given most emphatic expression to this. To him the divine omniscience has practically become the pervasiveness of ethical appraisal and ethical control on the part of Jehovah. Righteousness and God are identical; to seek the one is to seek the other [5:4, 6, 14]. To such an extent does the prophet feel righteousness to be the inward governing principle of world-control, that it appears to him as the normal, the departure from which is monstrous and absurd [5:7; 6:12]. God stands beside every wall of conduct, a plumbline in His hand [7:8]. In this figure, however, the cognizance-aspect is seen at the point of turning into that of retribution, for the plumbline was used not merely for measuring, but likewise for tearing down [Isa. 28:17].
[2] Secondly, therefore, Jehovah is righteous as the One who punishes sin
The modern ethical admiration for the prophets but too often overlooks this feature of their teaching. Ritschl has even denied that the punishment of sin appears anywhere in the Old Testament, except in some of the latest writings, as a result of the divine righteousness. He would interpret the attribute as a benevolent one. Going back to the physical root-meaning of ‘straightness’ he defines it as ‘the order and normal consistency with which God acts to secure
for the righteous and pious the attainment of salvation through protection from the wicked’. Only incidentally, because the positive beneficial end cannot be attained otherwise, the destruction of the wicked results. They stand in the way of God’s plans and must be swept aside.
Our criticism upon this interpretation should not be that it is entirely wrong. There is a meaning of the term ‘righteousness’ imparting to it benevolent character and sometimes losing sight in doing so of the retribution administered to the wicked. We shall presently see what there is of this in the prophets. Ritschl’s mistake does not lie in this either, that the later writings of the Old Testament evince a keener sense of this terrible side of the divine treatment of sin. The later generations had learned through the bitter experience of the judgment how true and inavertible the execution of this principle was. The more frequent occurrence of the word itself, for instance, in the penitential prayers of that period, may serve as proof of this [2 Chron. 12:6; Ezra 9:15; Neh. 9:33; Lam. 1:18; Dan. 9:14]. But the mistake of Ritschl lies in his taking part for the whole. Still, so far as the actual occurrence of the idea in the Old Testament is concerned, he was not mistaken.
We must, however, emphatically insist that there is a retribution for sin in the prophets and that this is for them associated with the word ‘righteousness’. In fact Amos and Isaiah are all emphasis on this. The word is not lacking, but its relative infrequency is proof of its unworded presence to the mind of the prophets. There are things so self-understood that scarcely articulate expression is required for voicing them. The term is found in Amos 5:24: ‘let justice roll down as waters and righteousness as a mighty stream.’ This should not be interpreted as a demand for uprightness from Israel. Israel, being so degraded and corrupt as the prophet represents it to be, it would have been strange to ask for uprightness of such sudden and copious production as the figure implies. The idea is rather, that, the time for reasoning and expostulation having gone by, nothing remains but divine judgment rushing down and sweeping away the sinners. The
thought of the absolute necessity of this has made so deep an impression on Amos’ mind, that he almost loses sight of everything else. There is a grandiose one-sidedness in this prophecy; Amos is the preacher of justice and retribution par excellence. His mind is carried away by the unparalleled energy, one might almost say impetuosity, of the divine resentment against sin. Jehovah, according to Amos, executed righteousness, not from any lower motive, such as safeguarding the structure of society, or converting the sinner, but from the supreme motive of giving free sway to the infinite force of his ethical indignation. In Isaiah we meet with essentially the same conception, although not perhaps in such impressive grandeur as with Amos. In two passages the divine righteousness is explicitly named as bringing the judgment on sin [Isa. 5:16; 10:22].
[3] The third aspect of righteousness in the prophets is that of vindication
Jehovah decides between two causes, puts the one in the right, the other in the wrong. He does this as part of His world-government, to which all issues are subject, but more particularly, because the fulfilment of His purpose is involved. The idea is soteric, though having in it a principle of universalism. It may be applied to individuals, but also collectively. The Psalmists sometimes claim that they are righteous, and appeal to Jehovah to acknowledge this and treat them accordingly. This has caused difficulty with interpreters on account of its seeming to run athwart the principle of unmeritoriousness in God’s dealing with His people. The difficulty is relieved by giving such statements their proper setting. It is not over against God in the abstract, that the pleaders claim to be righteous, but over against their adversaries, who persecute them, not, however, for private reasons, but on account of their identification with the true religion.
The same holds true where the claimant is not an individual but the personification of Israel. In the Psalms it is not always easy to
determine whether the praying subject is an individual or the congregation of Jehovah. The principle, however, is the same in both cases. However sinful against Jehovah, Israel stands in the world for the true religion, the cause of God is bound up with her destiny. Over against her oppressors and persecutors she is in the right, although these at the same time are the instruments of God in pressing His claim against Israel. But they go too far and do not understand the merely instrumental nature of the service they render. It is the part of the divine righteousness to declare this, in doing which, for a moment, the issue between Jehovah and Israel may be put to one side. But not seldom also the sight of Israel’s humiliation and sorrow seems to move Jehovah to deep compassion, and becomes the occasion for a signal display of grace towards His suffering people. An instructive and touching passage in this connection is Mic. 7:9, where Israel speaks: ‘I will bear the indignation of Jehovah, because I have sinned against Him: until He plead my cause, and execute judgment for me: He will bring me forth to the light, and I shall behold his righteousness’ [cp. for the righteousness of vindication, Isa. 41:10, 11; 50:8; 51:5; 54:1, 14, 17; 59:16, 17].
[4] Out of this reasonable righteousness of vindication, that of salvation easily develops
So far, even in the vindication of Israel against her enemy, the setting is plainly forensic. God acts in the instances cited plainly in the capacity of a judge. There are, however, cases where righteousness is spoken of as a source of salvation without particular reflection on the righting of the people’s wrongs from the side of their enemies. This saving righteousness can appear as an attitude or intent in God [Isa. 46:4, 13]. But it can also be objectified, so as to acquire existence and embodiment outside of Jehovah, the product of the righteousness as it is in Him. Nay, it can even appear in the plural: ‘righteousnesses’ [Isa. 45:24; Mic. 6:5 Heb.]. It is synonymous with such terms as salvation, light, glory, peace [Isa. 46:12; 51:5, 6, 8; 56:1; 59:9, 11; 61:3, 10; 62:1, 2]. Isaiah 49:4 is the only passage where the salvation- idea and the judicial-award-idea intermingle: ‘Yet surely the
righteousness due to me is with Jehovah, and my recompense with my God.’
These passages, all in the latter part of Isaiah, furnish Ritschl with the evidence for his benevolent construction of the idea of ‘righteousness’ in general. It cannot be denied that here his contention is right, and credit due to him for having brought light into the facts. But his recurring upon the root-idea of ‘straightness’, and framing his definition upon it, is not thereby proven correct. It reflects his desire to cut the whole idea loose as much as possible from its forensic moorings. It need not be absolutely rejected, however, on that account. To us a sufficient explanation seems to be found in this, that the judge is commonly expected to be the saviour of the wronged and oppressed. When it is forgotten that he does this as a judge, and only the beneficent intent and the desirable result are remembered, the judge, as it were, disappears from the scene, and only the saviour remains. To us the association of righteousness in God as Judge on the one hand, and saving procedure on the other, [Psa. 51:14] appears more or less incongruous, just as the same combination of holiness with saving procedure, previously observed, has something strange for us. Compare, however—and it is found in the New Testament [1 John 1:9]—’He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins.’
For the pluralizing of the idea noticed in Isa. 45:24, and Mic. 6:5, analogies have been discovered outside of the prophets [Judg. 5:11; 1 Sam. 12:7; Psa. 11:7; 103:6]. According to some writers, however, this is a different usage, with its own peculiar etymology, and the rendering ought to be ‘victories’. But the two ideas, perhaps, do not lie so far apart as is imagined. Even if the term be rendered ‘victories’, there may be reflected in this the belief, so common in war, that victory is a practical verdict from the deity, declaring the victor in the right. On this view the instances cited should be classified with the preceding rubric, the righteousness of vindication.
[5] One step farther still, the term ‘righteousness’ is removed from its forensic origin where it comes to stand for ‘generosity’, ‘alms-giving’
This is a late development. Instances occur in Dan. 4:27 (Aramaic); Psa. 112:3, 9; Prov. 10:2; 11:4. Examples of it also occur in the New Testament [Matt. 6:1; 2 Cor. 9:9, quoting freely from the Psalm]. Undoubtedly in Judaism there was connected with the usage as such a sentiment of self-righteousness. Hence our Lord’s criticism of the spirit, while retaining the current word.
EMOTIONS AND AFFECTIONS
The next group of attributes consists of what may be called the ’emotional’ or ‘affectional’ dispositions in Jehovah’s nature. Most of the material for this is found in Hosea and the second part of Isaiah. Hosea’s temperament was strongly emotional, and therefore adapted for giving expression to this side of the divine self-disclosure. We are here in a sphere full of anthropomorphism, but this furnishes no excuse for neglecting or glossing over the subject. An anthropomorphism is never without an inner core of important truth, which only has to be translated into more theological language, where possible, to enrich our knowledge of God.
The prophet Hosea was not unaware of the relativity and limitations of this mode of description, as may be seen from 11:9: ‘I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger … for I am God, and not man, the Holy One in the midst of thee.’ What other prophets affirm concerning God in terms of will and purpose, Hosea expresses in language suffused with emotion. He speaks of the divine resentment of sin as ‘hating’ [9:15]. God’s intention to punish Israel is ‘a strong desire’ [10:10]. ‘Anger’ appears as a motive for judgment [11:9; 13:11]. The strongest expressions are found in 5:14; 13:7, 8. Still the tendency towards this is not wholly absent from Isaiah either [42:13, 14; 59:17; 63:3–6].
The terms are usually derived from violent physical processes, but we must not forget that the language formed such words before the prophet, and the latter only made use of them. As to anger, chemah means ‘a boiling heat within’; ‘aph is ‘the snorting quick breathing’ of an angry person; as its opposite, ‘erekh ‘appim, literally ‘long breathing’, means ‘longsuffering’; za’am is ‘seething heat’; ‘ebhrah, ‘the overflowing of passion’.
But not only the dangerous, likewise the friendly, benevolent manifestation of Jehovah’s nature is expressed, in similar terms. The most general term for this is chesed, a word which has received the most varying renderings, but, taking all in all, is best rendered by ‘loving-kindness’. It expresses the warm, affectionate feeling that should exist between persons bound together in a previous bond of love. It presupposes love, but is even more than that. Compare Job 39:14–16; the pinions and feathers of the ostrich have no chesed, because she leaves her eggs in the sand. ‘ahabhah, ‘love’, is distinguished from chesed, in that it expresses the spontaneous, free origin of the divine affection. Into chen, ‘grace’, the element of the unworthiness of the recipient enters. Still further we meet rachamim, literally ‘bowels’, for mercy and compassion. The importance of ‘loving-kindness’ is seen in this, that it underlies and enriches and makes more tender other disclosures of the divine affection [Hos. 2:19]; for the New Testament, cp. Eph. 2:4, 5.
[B] THE BOND BETWEEN JEHOVAH AND ISRAEL
According to the prophets a close and unique bond exists between Jehovah and Israel. This is so self-understood as not to need explicit affirmation. Indirectly its existence is expressed through references to its origin. Jehovah chose Israel, they are His people; He married her, they are like a vineyard which He cultivates for the sake of its fruit. A technical term for it is berith, usually rendered by ‘covenant’, although this is not always the proximate association. Of forms of some inter-human berith mention is made in Amos, Hosea and
Isaiah. The term does not appear in Micah. Of a berith between Jehovah and Israel we learn only in Hosea and Isaiah.
Of etymologies proposed for berith the chief ones are as follows. It has been derived from bara, ‘to cut’. The reference to ‘cutting’ is then explained from the ceremony spoken of in Gen. 15:17 and Jer. 34:18, 19. The phrase karath berith, ‘to cut a cutting’, for making a berith, has been thought to favour this etymology. Usually, however, in such phrases, when verb and noun repeat the same idea, the identical root is employed for both, so that we should on this view expect bara berith. Others go back for their derivation to the same verb ‘to cut’, but give a different turn to the signification, cutting being interpreted as determining, defining, from which would result as the primary sense ‘law’, ‘ordinance’. Still others go back to the Assyrian beritu, ‘to bind’, birtu, ‘bond’. The etymology is not of overmuch importance, although it may sometimes do harm by unduly tying the conception down to one hard and fast meaning. The only common idea, always present, is that of a solemn religious sanction. Where this is present, a promise, law, agreement, may all be called berith. The main question is, how does it occur in Hosea and Isaiah?
As regards Isaiah, the emphasis and reason for introducing the idea lie largely in the association of the absolute sureness of the divine promise. The berith with Noah and the berith of Israel’s coming redemption are put on a line with this as the point of comparison [54:9, 10]. Similarly, 55:3; 59:21; 61:8. In 24:5, on the other hand, the idea of law, ordinance prevails. There may be an allusion here to the Noachian berith. It will be noticed, however, that even so the emphasis rests on the perpetual obligation of the ordinances, constituting an ‘everlasting’ berith. Only in 56:4, 6, berith seems to signify in Isaiah the general legal relation between Jehovah and His servants, for here observance of the sabbath and other ordinances is specified as pertaining to the ‘holding fast’ of God’s berith.
Difficult of interpretation are 42:6, and 49:8. In both the Servant of Jehovah is designated as berith ‘am, a ‘covenant of people’. The two
most plausible views about this phrase are either that in the future through the Servant the berith will be realized anew or restored, or, laying emphasis on the word ‘people’, that through the Servant the berith will once more assume the form of a relationship into which Israel enters as a people, in contrast with its present scattered, disorganized state of existence. On both interpretations the berith here also appears as the comprehensive, fundamental name for Israel’s religious organization. It will be seen from this that the idea of the berith in this sense, while by no means absent, is neither particularly conspicuous nor pervasive in the prophecy.
As to Hosea we have the explicit statement [8:1]: ‘They have transgressed my berith, and trespassed against my law’; here berith is legal organization of the ancient religion as a whole. For the rest all depends for this prophet on the question, whether the marriage-idea is at all to be equated with the berith-idea. The prophet works out everything belonging to the union of Jehovah with Israel on the basis of the marriage between the two. It is incapable of proof that in his day every marriage was per se a species of berith. Still, this does not exclude the possibility of Hosea’s having made the equation.
The marriage-idea as a form of religious expression is old in Shemitic religion. For this reason Wellhausen’s theory that Hosea, under the influence of his sad marital experience, had by brooding over it come upon the possibility of utilizing the figure for depicting the course of Israel’s religion in past, present and future, is untenable. The whole setting of the figure from the very beginning proves its familiar nature. We have learned from the Decalogue about the conjugal jealousy of Jehovah. The figure is not even characteristic of revealed religion. Like that of fatherhood and kingship, it was current in paganism in Israel’s neighbourhood. The name ‘Baal’ for the Canaanitish deity is based upon it, for this name means the husband- lord, through whose union with the land fruitfulness is obtained, or who from another point of view has the people for wife so that the individual members of the people become his sons and daughters [Num. 25:2–9; Jer. 2:27; Mal. 2:11]. On one of the Phoenician
inscriptions the phrase Bresyeth Baal, the ‘Spouse of Baal’, has been found, but this is individual, the name of a woman.
Isa. 54:1; 62:5; Jer. 31:32, may further be compared, but in all this there is so far no explicit combination of the berith-idea and the marriage-idea. Moreover, these last-cited passages are younger than Hosea and would not be conclusive with regard to him. It is first in Ezek. 16:8, that entering into berith with Israel is called a marrying her. Jeremiah also almost certainly associated the two conceptions, although not doing so explicitly anywhere. Prov. 2:17 calls marriage a berith, and so does Mal. 2:14. With the exception of Proverbs, we know that these writings are later than Hosea, and might have borrowed from him the combination. But this in itself would put it beyond question that Hosea was understood by them to have long ago made it. The critics can doubt this only because they have cut out from Hosea the passage 8:1. If this passage is genuine, and there is no reason for doubting it except that furnished by the critical desire to remove from Hosea all traces of acquaintance with a legitimate statutory religion, then it becomes almost impossible to deny that the prophet identified the berith-idea and his favourite idea of marriage between Jehovah and Israel. Only the expurgated Hosea could have lived in such naïve unconsciousness that the marriage meant a berith-union between the two.
Still in the pre-Jeremianic period we must acknowledge, always leaving Hosea to one side, that there is a scarcity of references to the berith-form of the religion, and the critics find support in this for their contention that the origin of the idea is as late as the latter part of the seventh century. We have already looked into this contention under the head of the Sinaitic berith-making. How, without impugning the latter as a historical fact, can the phenomenon of relative scarcity be explained? We have on that occasion already noted that in the subsequent prophets, excepting Jeremiah and Ezekiel, the conception again suffers eclipse. This shows that there must have been something in the prophetic teaching that temporarily forced it into the background.
The cause for this need not have been the same in each individual prophet. We shall presently see why the berith-thought was peculiarly adapted to the trend of Hosea’s teaching, and that particularly in its specific form of a marriage-union. But with Isaiah it is different. His whole point of view is theocentric, emphasizing that Israel lives for the sake of Jehovah, and possibly the berith-idea with its strongly stressed mutualness did not appear to him peculiarly adapted for bringing this God-centred characteristic of religion to the front. In Amos and Micah again the rupture of the union between Jehovah and Israel appears so certain and inevitable, and so much in need of emphasizing, that perhaps a steady reference to the berith, with its inevitable reminder of the unbreakableness of the bond, may have been found to be less in line with their teaching.
But, apart from all such individual considerations, we must remember the general character of the prophetic revelation. The law institutes and commands, prophecy explains the reasons and motives on which institutions and obedience are based. Behind the berith lies something deeper and more fundamental, the nature and will of Jehovah. For the berith is after all an institution, which can be temporarily kept in the background, for sufficient reasons. Such a procedure does not convict the prophets of ignoring or opposing the berith-idea. It only shows that their teaching moves on deeper lines.
HOSEA’S TEACHING ON THE MARRIAGE-BOND
Hosea, on the supposition that marriage and berith with Jehovah are to him identical, is the chief source of our information in regard to the nature of the union. We learn from him:
[1] The union originated on the part of Jehovah
Not Israel offered herself to Him, He sought out Israel. Theologically speaking, we would say that the berith had its source in the divine election. Election is spoken of by Isaiah [14:1; 43:20; 49:7]. With Amos and Hosea, however, a more characteristic and intimate term
is chosen to convey somewhat of the religious depths and value of this idea. This term is yada’, ‘to know’, not in the intellectual sense of ‘to be informed about’, but in the pregnant, affectional sense of ‘to take loving knowledge of’ [Hos. 13:5; Amos 3:2]. This act is not yet represented as an eternal act on the part of Jehovah; in keeping with their standpoint in the midst of history, the prophets think of it as something emerging in time. The New Testament makes out of this ‘knowing’ a ‘fore-knowing’. But this is simply putting the act back into eternity. To cut it loose from its Old Testament antecedents and to intellectualize it in the interest of a Pelagianizing theology is an utterly unhistorical proceeding. The ‘pro’ in the Greek rendering does not serve to give God His standpoint in time, from which He then is able to look forward and base His decision on what the creature is foreseen to be about to do at a certain point in time; it serves the precisely opposite purpose of giving God His standpoint before, that is to say, in Old Testament language, above time.
[2] The relation had a definite historical beginning
Israel had not been always thus united to Jehovah. The berith- conception as here conceived does not belong to General but to Special Revelation. Israel entered into this special union with Jehovah at the time of the Exodus [Hos. 13:4; cp. 11:1, and Amos 2:10]. It is characteristic of the prophetic point of view, that the origin is sought, not so much in a concrete act of ratification, although that is presupposed, but in the events of the Exodus with all their rich implications. It was not a blind transaction, but one full of intelligence. The idea of marriage was eminently fitted to emphasize the historical birth of the union, better than that of fatherhood and sonship. Father and son never exist apart from each other. Husband and wife do so exist at first, and then are brought together at a definite point of time.
[3] Though the union originated effectually on Jehovah’s part, yet Israel was led freely to enter upon it
The marriage-berith is to Hosea’s mind a spiritualized union. We should, however, realize that this feature was not necessarily given with the idea of marriage as such. In Hosea’s time marriage did not partake of the same spiritual character it has acquired in the course of time, chiefly through the regenerating influence of the subsequent Biblical religion. There was less of equality between the sexes, and less freedom of choice on the woman’s part. It is all the more remarkable that Hosea, while utilizing the conception, has not allowed it to remain upon the level of the common custom of his day. If we adopt the realistic view of chapters 1–3, we shall have to assume that the prophet was by special grace enabled to live on a higher plane of love towards his wife than the average Israelite of that time [cp. Jer. 3:1]. If on the contrary we choose the allegorical interpretation, we must say that, at least in his understanding and vision of the matter, he was led by the Spirit to frame a conception of the divine-marriage-love towards Israel, far transcending, not only his own, but every ordinary experience known to him. The dispute between allegorists and realists is interesting, but doctrinally the points of arrival on each view coincide.
We can only rapidly sketch the features in which this spiritualized character of the union reveals itself. Jehovah is represented as having wooed Israel, sued for her affection [2:14]; as having drawn her with the cords of man [11:4]; here the figure of sonship comes in to supplement and enrich that of marriage. Jehovah strengthened Israel’s arms and taught her to walk [7:15]; although the Giver of all nature-blessings, of corn, wine, oil, silver, gold, wool, and flax, Jehovah is distinguished from the Baals, in that He has something more and finer to give than these: loving-kindness, mercy and faithfulness [2:19]; in reality He gives, in and through all these things, Himself after a sacramental fashion [2:23]; He is personally present in all His favours, and in them surrenders Himself to His people for never-failing enjoyment. Even after Israel becomes unfaithful, He continues to appeal to her heart by proofs of his love; 6:4 is the language of divine disappointment at the failure of these efforts.
To these divine approaches corresponds the attitude expected from the people. The state of mind which the people ought to cultivate, by reason of their union with Jehovah, is described by Amos, Isaiah and Micah on the whole from an ethical, by Hosea from an affectional point of view. When Amos, Isaiah and Micah say: not sacrifices but righteousness, Hosea says: not sacrifices but the knowledge of Jehovah. All the demands made of the people are summed up in this one thing, that there should be the knowledge of God among them, and that not as a theoretical perception of what is Jehovah’s nature, but as a practical acquaintance, the intimacy of love. It is that which corresponds on Israel’s part to the knowledge of Jehovah from which the whole marriage sprang [13:4, 5]; this knowledge is intended to make Israel like unto Jehovah, it has a character-forming influence. This is so fundamental a law that it holds true even in idolatry [9:10].
[4] Although the berith is thus traced back to its highest ideal source in the nature and choice of Jehovah, it nevertheless established a legally defined relationship
The marriage exists under a marriage-law. Israel is charged not merely with having been deficient in love and affection, but with having violated distinct promises. She is legally guilty. Jehovah has a ribh, ‘controversy at law’ with Israel [4:1]. This presupposes a law giving the right to sue. In fact the prophet proceeds to enumerate the points in which the people are indictable. Amos likewise speaks of the torah and the chuqqim which the Judaeans have rejected [2:4] and this cannot be understood of prophetic instruction, as is possible in Isa. 5:24. In the second part of Isaiah there are indisputable references to the law as the norm under which Israel lives [42:21, 24; 51:7; 56:2, 4, 6]. Hosea puts the berith and the torah together [8:1]. Since this is a marriage-law, it must have been imposed at the time of the Exodus. Hosea, therefore, bears witness to the existence of an ancient berith-law among Israel, and in so far refutes the contention of the critics, that no law was recognized as in force by the prophets.
Of course, nothing can be determined from this passage alone as to the extent and nature of this law. From 8:12, however, we learn that it was of considerable compass, and had been given in written form: ‘Though I write for him my law in ten thousand precepts, they are counted as a strange thing.’ Certain statutes of the Mosaic torah are clearly presupposed in the early prophets [4:2]. Hosea considers it a calamity for Israel, that in the coming exile she will be debarred from fulfilling her ceremonial duties [9:3–5). Isaiah also had a high regard for the temple-service, and was on a friendly footing with Uriah, the priest [8:2]. To mark Egypt as belonging to Jehovah he predicts that an altar shall be in the midst of the land and a matstsebhah at its border [19:19]. The Egyptians shall in that day worship with sacrifice and oblation [vs. 21]. Zion is the city of ‘our solemnities and appointed feasts’ [33:20]. For the second part of Isaiah cp. 56:2, 4, 7; 60:6, 7; 63:18; 66:20–24. About the passages alleged to condemn the sacrificial cult on principle, see the next chapter of the discussion.
[5] The covenant is, according to Hosea, as it is to all New Testament writers, a national ‘berith’
It was made when the descendants of Abraham had come to form a nation [11:1]. Nevertheless Hosea has become instrumental in imparting an individualizing direction to the teaching about it. His emotional temperament was a potent factor to this effect. From its emotional side, more than in any other aspect, religion is a personal, individual matter. Even where Hosea speaks of the people collectively, the impulse towards this is so strong as to make him personify and individualize Israel. Several of such passages the individual believer may appropriate even now almost without change [2:7, 16, 23; 6:1–3; 8:2; 14:2, 4, 8]. This will be the less surprising if we remember that, at the basis of such impersonations lay, at least on the realistic view, the intensely personal experiences with his wife, which were to him a mirror of the intercourse between Jehovah and the pious. Jeremiah, who in this poetic, emotional temperament so strongly resembles Hosea, has subsequently taken up this line of
thought, and consequently consciously developed further what to Hosea bore the nature of an intuition.
The marriage-idea worked towards individualism in still another manner. If Jehovah is the husband and Israel the wife, then individual Israelites will appear as Jehovah’s children [2:1; 11:3, 4]. Very strongly the trend towards individualism asserts itself in the closing words of the book [14:9].
Finally, it should not be forgotten, that the prophetic doctrine of the coming judgment bore in it a fertile seed of individualism. In the approaching catastrophe the majority will perish. Those that inherit the promise are only a small remnant, and the differentiation rests on a spiritual basis. Isaiah has carried this doctrine of the saved remnant to its ultimate root in the divine election [4:3]; those that escape of Israel are every one that is written (in the book of life).
[C] THE RUPTURE OF THE BOND: THE SIN OF ISRAEL
The early prophets predict clearly that the bond of the berith will be suspended. It will not, to be sure, be irreparably broken off. Were the critical contention correct, that all connection between Jehovah and Israel is based by the prophets on inexorable justice, excluding every exercise of grace, then plainly the thought of restoration must have been intolerable to them, since it involved nothing less than the abandonment of the supreme principle in the divine nature, a principle moreover that they had learned to uphold only after a long struggle with the opposing forces of grace and favouritism. On that view the prophets would have gone back on themselves, and what is worse, have made Jehovah go back on Himself. That they nevertheless proclaim with obvious delight the idea of grace proves that the critical construction must be, to say the least, one-sided.
The judgment comes on account of the sin of the people. Itself it belongs, as we shall see, to the eschatological perspective. But the sins leading up to it belong to the present stage. The prophets
nowhere deal with sin in the abstract. It is always the concrete sin of Israel with which they are concerned. This, however, they most strictly relate to Jehovah. Strictly speaking, there is no sin except against God. The prophets deal with certain large aspects of the sinful conduct of the people. This, however, is a division on the external side, which does not contribute much to the psychology of sin. In fact the material for this is more largely to be gathered from such writings as the Psalter. Still, as compared with the law, there is more of reflection on the inner nature of sin in the prophets. From the groups of sin that the prophets single out for attack something can be learned concerning the motives of condemnation, and this opens the possibility of drawing inferences as to the real sinfulness of what they protest against. We further can distinguish in the individual prophets a peculiar view-point from which each regards the sin inveighed against. We shall therefore first have to look into the large groups of sin dealt with, and then, in the second place, examine the two prophets who reveal an individual way of judging sin.
COLLECTIVE NATIONAL SIN
The sin which the prophets condemn is largely collective national sin [Amos 2:6–8; 3:1; 7:15; 8:2]. And where not the whole nation in its solidarity is rebuked, certain classes are attacked. Still this is not collectivism pure and simple, as some writers assert, for the distinction between class and class, which accompanies this mass- treatment, proves that the judgment is a qualitative one, and qualitativeness bears in itself the beginning of individualism. We find distinctions drawn between the profligates, the rich oppressors, the voluptuaries, the corruptors of justice, the externalists in the worship of Jehovah. And, on the other hand, we learn of the righteous, the needy, the poor, the meek [Amos 2:6, 7; 5:11, 12; 8:4]. [While this is a collective treatment of sin, it is generically collective. The collectivism of the Old Testament is enforced, however, in this, that when the catastrophe comes, the pious are made to suffer with the wicked. But this is a problem that afterwards staggered Jeremiah and
Ezekiel. All we can do is to recognize that there is solidarity in punishment, and that, following the principles of revelation, we must posit, behind solidarity of judgment, a solidarity of guilt, though we may not be able to reckon this out in detail. It is at bottom the question whether ethical laws or physical laws are supreme in the government of the universe.
The problem is apt to be realized more keenly to the extent that the organic structure of a community falls into pieces. At the time of Amos such a process was not as yet visible on the surface. At the time of Jeremiah and Ezekiel it had become different. The critical judgment on this point has been warped by the assumption that the prophets stood absolutely alone against the whole nation. But this is merely theory. The prophets recognize gradations in the moral and religious condition of the people. Amos knows of a sifting that will take place, although he refers to this not so much in order to console, as rather to frighten: it will be as bad as sifting, the saving of two legs or the piece of an ear out of the mouth of the lion [3:12; 9:9, 10]. For Isaiah compare 3:10. In Micah there is not the same clear distinction of classes, but this is due not so much to an excess of nationalism as to the perception that there are no good individuals left [7:2]. The beginning of the individualized treatment of sin is most clearly perceptible in Hosea, just as the individualization of the berith received from him a powerful impulse [14:9].
THE CORRUPTION OF RITUAL WORSHIP
One great source of sin unanimously attacked by the prophets is the cult, the ritual worship of Jehovah. As stated above, in connection with the sacrificial system of the Mosaic law, the Wellhausen school takes the ground that the prophets opposed sacrifices and similar rites on principle, and that consequently they cannot have looked upon these as ordained by Jehovah, which again amounts to saying that the Pentateuch did not exist in their time. It is admitted, of course, that some passages speak of specific features of the cult, and cannot be quoted in support of such a generalizing theory. Thus
images and other paraphernalia of idolatry are denounced [Mic. 1:7; 5:13, 14]. The corruptness of the priests is rebuked [Mic. 3:11]. According to Amos 2:7, religious prostitution of a particularly aggravated kind occurred, probably in connection with the cult of Jehovah. Amos 2:8, may be compared with Ex. 22:26, 27. These denunciations, as referring to special forms of misconduct, must be kept separated from the passages in which the critics find an unqualified condemnation of the cult expressed. The main passages thus interpreted are: Amos 4:4; 5:5, 21–26; 8:14; Hos. 6:6; Isa. 1:11ff.; Mic. 6:6–8. In the later prophets the passage most frequently appealed to is Jer. 7:21–23.
In endeavouring to estimate the purport of these passages it is necessary at the outset to warn against the attempt to break their force made from the apologetic side, namely, that all these condemnations are turned against a wrong technique with which the sacrifices were handled. This is a highly implausible exegesis, for the prophets are not as a rule concerned with forms, or the correct observance of forms, as such. They deal with principles of spiritual significance only. Thus Amos 4:4–5 discloses a ritual flaw in the offering of leavened things. This is against the law [Lev. 2:11]. But what the prophet censures is not this; he makes use of it only to ridicule the excessive ritual impulse, unable to satisfy itself with the ordinary requirements. Similarly, the advertising of sacrifices brought is condemned, not because any law existed forbidding this, but because of the perversion of the principle of true sacrifice observable in it. Again in the second half of vs. 4, not the bringing of tithes every third day, instead of every third year, is made an object of serious criticism by the prophet. It was, of course, impossible to bring tithes every third day. The prophet on purpose exaggerates, in order to mock the perverted zeal of the offerers. Hos. 10:1 is another example of the same kind of polemic; disapproval of the multiplication of altars has the support of the law, but the prophet has in mind the sinful tendency behind it: multiplying o altars is a piece of religious adultery, which spreads itself over a number of degrading liaisons [cp. vs. 2: ‘their heart is divided’].
This conservative apologetic is therefore not in accord with the facts. What the prophet ridicules is sometimes in harmony with the Mosaic law, sometimes not: hence the point must have lain in something else, as suggested above. Still the critical exegesis is not thereby justified. In carefully examining the passages under debate we shall find that the disapproval of the cult on the part of the prophets is not based on principle, but due to one of the three following considerations: Either, the cult is conducted in a materialistic, mercantile spirit, in order that by giving so much value for return- favour to be obtained, certain benefits may be purchased from the deity after a semi-magical fashion;
or, the cult is conducted, jointly with gross immoral practices, so as to divorce Jehovah’s religious interest from his ethical requirements; or, finally, the cult is employed in order to secure escape from the approaching judgment or to avert the latter entirely.
If we now look into the passages it will become clear that the presence of one or other of these three thoughts is sufficient to account for the phenomena.
AMOS 5:25
Amos 5:25 is of uncertain interpretation as to the meaning of the question proposed by God: ‘Did ye bring unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel?’ Some take this as a protestation on Jehovah’s part that the wilderness-journey proves sacrifices unnecessary for securing or obtaining the divine favour. This would imply that Amos regarded the wilderness- journey, in contradiction to the Pentateuch, a period of divine favour for Israel. The critics profess to find this view in Hosea and Jeremiah, and so take for granted that it must be likewise the view of Amos. But this by no means follows. Amos’ words must be interpreted by themselves. If so taken, the situation immediately takes on another aspect. Its natural meaning becomes: Did you endeavour in the wilderness, after having been rejected by me, to
propitiate me by sacrifices and offerings? If at that time ye were not foolish enough to attempt this, why do ye act on this principle now? Such an exegesis makes the question only negate the effiaccy of the cult as a means for regaining the favour of Jehovah, once forfeited by sin. The law itself precludes this delusion, when it allows no sacrificial covering for sin committed with a high hand, and that was precisely the sin which both the generation of the wilderness-journey and the contemporaries of Amos had committed. The words of vs. 26 also favour this exegesis, when, passing from question to affirmation, God proceeds: ‘Yea, ye have borne Sakkuth, your king [R.V. “the tabernacle of your king”], and Kaiwan, your images, your star-god, which you made unto yourselves.’ This rendering of the verb as a perfect tense, ‘ye have borne’, simply excludes that Amos should have regarded the period of such idolatry as a period of high favour with Jehovah. It is true, some exegetes render vs. 26 as relating to the future: ‘so ye shall take up Sakkuth, your king’, etc., that is, you will have to take all your idolatrous paraphernalia into exile (cp. R.V. in the margin).
While this interpretation is possible grammatically, the perfect being taken as a perfect consecutive, it is by no means necessary, and it would involve an unusually harsh transition to make the statement as a whole mean: the wilderness-journey proved that sacrifices are not essential to right standing with God, therefore ye shall go into captivity with all your idols. This is certainly a strange way of speaking, that might be perhaps tolerated in Hosea; but in Amos, with his closely consequential thought, it seems oddly out of place. What a harsh sentence for such a mere mistaken opinion! And the mild description of the state in the wilderness, as one proving no sacrifices to be necessary, sounds oddly tame for Amos with all his vehemence of expostulation in the context. If our exegesis, on the other hand, be adopted, the preceding context can also be interpreted to the same effect: God hates, despises their feasts, because these things cannot avail to stem the judgment, as the foolish people believe they are able to do. Not sacrifices but
retribution will satisfy Jehovah: ‘Let judgment roll down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.’
ISAIAH 1:10–17
Isa. 1:10–17, sounds even stronger than the language of Amos just considered. But in this case likewise there is nothing to indicate that the statement is meant as a pronouncement on the value or worthlessness of sacrifices in the abstract. The words ‘who has required this at your hand?’ in vs. 12 might, at first sight, seem to imply a divine declamation, ‘I have never required it’, and that would rule out the revelation-origin of the sacrificial laws. But the added qualification, ‘to trample my courts’, clearly shows what is meant. Ordinary frequentation of the temple Isaiah would hardly have stigmatized as a trampling of the temple-courts. Isaiah himself visited the temple, as chapter 6 proves. And how absurd it is to impute to the prophet a sweeping condemnation of all the acts enumerated here! Prayer is one of the things that God refuses to receive! This alone suffices to prove, that not these acts in the abstract, but some peculiar accompaniment of them, rendered them unacceptable in Jehovah’s sight. What this attending feature is the prophet clearly enough indicates. It is the joining together of all these things with flagrant iniquity. Vs. 13 should be rendered: ‘I cannot away with iniquity joined to a solemn meeting.’ When they pray God will not hear. This is not because prayer is wrong as such, but because the hands lifted up in prayer are ‘full of blood’.
It should never be forgotten that in the prophets God speaks the language of burning indignation. If all sorts of qualifications and safeguarding of the words had been added, the entire force of the denunciation would have been broken. What the critics demand, as necessary for our exegesis to stand, is that the prophet should have made Jehovah speak on this wise: ‘Although in the abstract I do not disapprove of ritual worship, and even demand it, yet in the way you offer it to me I cannot accept it.’ What the critics have failed to appreciate psychologically is the rhetorical absoluteness of the
condemnation. They have made a precisely-formulated theological deliverance out of it. What we have in such passages is the anthropomorphic speech of one whose indignation has been aroused to the point of refusal to consider the question in the abstract or with nicety of distinctions. No man, no preacher, truly capable of resentment against sin, would have stopped to add qualifications under such circumstances.
HOSEA 6:6
In Hos. 6:6, the difference between the two members of the sentence is a difference in form but not in reality. The meaning is not that when mercy comes under consideration, God absolutely rejects all sacrifice (‘mercy and not sacrifice’), whilst, when it is a matter of the knowledge of Himself, He has only a relative preference, which does not absolutely reject the sacrifice (‘knowledge of God more than burnt offerings’). There is here simply an idiomatic variation of the same thought in both clauses. The second clause is a way of speaking such as anyone might employ: I want acts rather than mere promises. It therefore should not be regarded as weaker than the ‘not’ makes the first, but be interpreted in harmony with it: Jehovah desires knowledge of God and not burnt offering. The rejection is absolute in both cases. But the point at issue is on what this double rejection is based. The context furnishes the answer. What God here scorns is sacrifice as a means for appeasing His righteous displeasure, sacrifice moreover offered without true repentance. When their goodness is as a morning cloud and the dew that goes early away, offerings cannot avail to avert the judgment. Therefore God hewed them by the prophets, and slew them by the word of His mouth. It is to this train of thought that, by means of ‘for’ the sixth verse is joined. The chesed here points back to the false chesed of vs. 4, and the knowledge of God to the pretended knowledge of vs. 3. When the words are thus interpreted in the light of the context, they no longer prove the contention of the critical theory.
MICAH 6:6–9
In Mic. 6:6–9 likewise everything depends on a correct apprehension of the context. The question, ‘Wherewith shall I come before Jehovah’, etc. is not asked by the prophet himself, but by someone representing the people. It is not permissible at the outset to put into it the expectation of a negative answer, and to make this negative answer the opinion of the prophet; I will not come before Jehovah with any of these things. If it is a question asked by the people, we must understand it as meant in all seriousness; the speaker wants to know what would be the proper way of approaching Jehovah under the circumstances, and to what limit of exertion and expense he ought to go. The structure of the discourse is dramatic. The offer of the speaker in vs. 6 is induced by the expostulation of Jehovah voiced in vss. 1–5. Jehovah has a controversy with Israel, the point of which is that they have been ungrateful for ancient favours received. In response to this charge of ingratitude the prophet introduces the representative of the people, who asks how he can make amends for an acknowledged delinquency. He offers to reimburse Jehovah by ritual service of a most excessive kind, and to conciliate Him by means of a pagan form of expiation, the sacrifice of the first-born.
The prophet is the third speaker. He opposes to the twofold offer of vss. 6, 7, the declaration, ‘He has showed thee, O man, what is good, and what does Jehovah require of thee, but to do justly, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with thy God?’ Does such an answer imply disapproval of sacrifice on principle? The law itself nowhere represents sacrifice as a sufficient return for the favour of God. Besides this, the idea of lavishness in ritual to make up for past neglect and ingratitude is offensive on every right interpretation of sacrifice. The words, ‘He has showed thee, O man, what is good’, etc. do not refer to the time of the Exodus, so as to carry the implication that these things were the only things taught Israel at that time, to the exclusion of sacrifice. They refer to prophetic instruction of later date.
It has been suggested that in the three things named the characteristic burden of each of the three great prophets, Amos,
Hosea, Isaiah, can be recognized. To do justly would then sum up the message of Amos, to love kindness that of Hosea, and to walk humbly with one’s God, that of Isaiah.
AMOS 4:4
It is far from certain that in Amos 4:4, sacrifice is called ‘transgression’. The form of statement, ‘Come to Bethel and transgress, to Gilgal and multiply transgression’ does, it is true, permit of this exegesis. But it does not require it. The words lose nothing of their point, when the transgression is found, not in the act of sacrificing per se, but in the character which this act had habitually come to bear at Bethel and Gilgal. To sacrifice there was, under the circumstances, to transgress, to do so lavishly involved the multiplying of transgression. To be sure, the transgression cannot in this case, as in Isa. 1:13, have consisted in some sinful manner of life added to the sacrifice. The context in Amos shows that the sin must have been something entering into the sacrificial act itself. We cannot render: ‘Come to Bethel, sacrifice there, and then lead a dissolute life.’ But the sin that increased at the same ratio with the sacrifice need not, for all that, have lain in the sacrifice as such. Apart from the wrong ritual spirit prevailing at the sanctuaries named, we must not forget that precisely at Bethel and Gilgal Jehovah was notoriously served under the form of an image, and that may well have vitiated every sacrifice brought there from the prophet’s point of view. This also would not amount to a denial of the legitimacy of sacrifice in the abstract.
The last-named consideration will have to be remembered likewise in interpreting Amos 5:4, 5. A pointed contrast is here drawn between seeking Jehovah, and seeking Bethel or entering into Gilgal or passing over to Beersheba. In the sanctuaries named Jehovah is not to be found. Why? Not necessarily because sacrifices are brought there, for that happened at many another place in Amos’ time, but because through their officially legitimatized idolatry and the frequency of visits paid to them, they had become the special
exponents of what the prophets regarded as the wrong type of religion.
Even less reason is there to infer from Amos 8:14, and 9:1, that the prophet regards all sacrificial worship as per se sinful. On the contrary, the former passage confirms the suggestion just made, that the image-worship practised at Samaria, Dan and Beersheba, provoked his irony. ‘To swear by the sin of Samaria’ cannot mean to swear by the cult of Samaria. Swearing is usually done by the name of a god, and less frequently in the name of a custom or practice. Probably the ‘sin’ is here the image of the Samaritans, though it may have stood at Bethel, for that was the official sanctuary of the capital. In the formula, ‘as thy God, O Dan, liveth’, we may find a confirmation of this view as to ‘the sin of Samaria.’ Only in the third clause we read of swearing by something that is not directly a god. The exact formula here also is given: ‘As the way of Beersheba liveth.’ It is not easy to tell what ‘the way’ means here. The use of the verb ‘liveth’ makes us expect a reference to something personal. But there is no evidence, so far as we know, of a god or idol having been designated as ‘a way’. There are writers who think that ‘the way’ can mean the type of religion practised at a certain place; here: ‘the cult- way of Beersheba’. This use of derek for religion (cp. the Greek hodos in a similar sense) cannot be proven to have been familiar at the time of Amos. Probably ‘the way of Beersheba’ means the pilgrimage to Beersheba. One could swear by that, even as the Moslem of the present day swears by the pilgrimage to Mecca. But, however interpreted, the phrase gives no countenance to the idea that the prophet meant any condemnation of sacrifice on principle.
JEREMIAH 7:21–23
We find, therefore, that in no passage of the four early prophets is the cult of sacrifice denounced as in itself and under all circumstances sinful. The most convincing passage, however, from their point of view, the critics find in Jeremiah, a prophet of the seventh century [Jer. 7:21–23]. Here Jehovah first declares, ‘Add
your burnt offerings to your sacrifices and eat ye flesh’, and then explains, that in the day of His bringing up Israel out of Egypt He did not speak unto them, nor command them aught about sacrifices. On the contrary, these were the things He had required: ‘Hearken unto my voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people, and walk ye in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.’ And yet a moment’s reflection will show how difficult it is from the critical standpoint itself to attribute to Jeremiah the opinion that the Mosaic legislation imposed no ritual demands upon Israel.
These critics generally assume that Jeremiah had a hand in the Deuteronomic reform-movement, which laid the Deuteronomic code upon the people. Now Deuteronomy does contain considerable ritual material. The code is said to have been a compromise. We ask: how could the prophet compromise on a matter that was to his view a matter of principle, beyond the reach of all compromise, namely, that sacrifices were sinful as such? Wellhausen believes that Jeremiah had cut himself loose from this reform movement, and he finds in 7:8 a characterization of its reprehensible methods from the prophet’s later standpoint. ‘The false pen of the scribes has wrought falsely’ would then be a very bitter word spoken by the prophet against his own past. But there would be more than culpable inconsistency here; it would be a case of unparalleled audacity to dare to speak after such a volte face about anything commanded or not commanded at the time of Moses.
Further, in 17:26 the prophet foretells that in case of obedience to the sabbath law, Jehovah’s favour will be shown in this, that men shall come from all quarters of the land to bring Jehovah burnt offerings and sacrifices and meal offerings and frankincense and thank- offerings. Similarly in 33:11 it is foretold that in the future there will be again heard in Jerusalem the voice of joy and gladness … the voice of them that bring sacrifices of thanksgiving unto the house of Jehovah. It will be necessary to declare these passages spurious, if Jeremiah on principle rejected every form of sacrifice. For these
reasons we shall either have to let the passage in chapter 7 stand as an unsolvable enigma, or put another interpretation upon it.
The reference to the situation in Ex. 19 points the way to its understanding. It was at the very first approach of Jehovah to Israel with the offer of the berith, even before the Decalogue had been promulgated; it was at this earliest coming together of Jehovah and Israel that God refrained from saying anything about sacrifices, and simply staked the entire agreement between Himself and the people on their loyalty and obedience to Him [cp. Ex. 19:5]. Thus understood, the prophet means to affirm that the berith does not ultimately rest on sacrifice, but the sacrifices on the berith.
The fact that no explicit evidence for the prophetic condemnation of sacrifice can be adduced from their writings, gains in significance by observing that there are indubitable statements in which certain particular features connected with the cult are condemned. In Hos. 10:8 the high places of Samaria are called ‘the sin of Israel’. In Hos. 10:10 it is said that the Israelites are bound to their two transgressions, that is to say, to the two calves at Dan and Bethel. In Mic. 1:5 we read in parallelism: ‘What is the transgression of Jacob, and what are the high places of Judah?’ But all this concerns cult- instruments; the cult as such is never declared sin.
Finally, by way of caution against drawing rash inferences from the prophetic passages discussed, reference may be made to analogous statements in the Psalter, and that in Psalms which the modern school itself regards as of post-exilic date, in which, therefore, the Psalmists cannot, on the critical view, have possibly meant to deny the existence or Mosaic provenience or divine authority of the laws of sacrifice (cp. Psa. 40:6; 50:7–15; 51:16–19]. If such statements could coexist with belief in the divine approbation and the religious value of sacrifice, when performed in the proper spirit, there is no reason to deny the possibility of the same mental attitude in the case of the prophets.
SOCIAL SIN
Side by side with the ritual sin of Israel, its social sin falls under the prophetic condemnation. Owing to the present-day sociological trend of religion, this side of the prophetic message has attracted considerable attention. At the outset the caution is necessary, that we may not expect overmuch light from this quarter on specific modern social and economic problems. The situation in the two cases is too widely different for that. The grave economic problems of modern society arise largely from commercial and industrial causes. The people of Israel were not a commercial nor an industrial community. Such a problem as that of the relation of capital to labour did not exist for them. A striking illustration of this is found in the rule that, while no interest may be taken from Israelite by Israelite, this is not forbidden in dealing with foreigners. What is allowed on economic grounds is forbidden on theocratic grounds: a higher rule exists for the people of God than that of economic rightness [Ex. 22:25; Lev. 25:36; Deut. 23:20; Ezek. 18:8]. Thus the cases where analogies can be drawn and applications made from ancient to modern conditions are few.
An exceptional case is, perhaps, what may be called ‘the problem of the city’. Amos, and especially Micah, recognize that the city, while an accumulator of the energies of culture, is also an accumulator of potencies of evil [Amos 3:9; Mic. 1:5]. In the capital all evil is concentrated. Hence in the future all cities will have to cease to exist [Mic. 2:10; 3:8–12; 4:9, 13; 5:10, 13]. Men shall then sit in rural simplicity and security, each under his own vine and fig-tree, and none shall make them afraid [4:4]. The Messianic King will not proceed from the city of Jerusalem, but from the country-town of Bethlehem, as David did originally.
But even in this relative approximation to one of our modern problems, there are points of difference. The prophet has not in mind as one of the chief causes of evil in city-life the congestion of population of which modern sociologists make so much. It is moral
evil that is congested there, and no attempt is made to reduce it, even in part, to physical causes. The cities are condemned for the specific reason of their being instruments of warfare, fortified places, perhaps also on account of their being exponents of a spirit of rebellious self-dependence over against God [Mic. 5:11; cp. Gen. 4:17]. The prophetic polemic against war has only in a subordinate sense the modern humanitarian and economic motive. The motive is largely religious: Israel must trust in Jehovah, not in its own strength. Of course, peace is better than war. In the great eschatological pictures, such as Isa. 2 and Mic. 5 the peace-ideal has its place. Swords will be beaten into ploughshares and spears into hoes, but this has nothing to do with the wickedness of war as such, except in so far as it is cruelly conducted. It stands on a line with the idea that devouring animals will cease.
The prophetic condemnation of the social sin of Israel does not have its deepest root in humanitarian motives. The humanitarian element is not, of course, absent. Nor could it be absent, for it is as old as the theocracy. The law takes the poor and defenceless under its special protection. It is in keeping with this, that the chief institutions of the theocracy, for example, that of the kingdom, bear a conspicuously humane, beneficent character. And we find this preserved and further developed in the prophets. Their rebuke of social sin attaches itself to the distinction between rich and poor, powerful and weak, a distinction that has been at all times the symptom and occasion, though not the cause, of social disease [Amos 2:7; 4:1; 5:11; 6:4–6; 8:4; Mic. 6:12]. The note of divine compassion makes itself distinctly heard in these passages. But against the fact that rich and poor exist together the prophet does not raise his voice; all the prophets would have subscribed to Prov. 22:2. The institution of slavery is not condemned.
Oversounding this note of humanitarianism is the note of resentment of social injustice, and with this the whole problem is raised to the religious sphere. For injustice is sin against God, and no consequences, however deplorable from the manward point of view,
could equal the terrible significance of the religious fact to the prophetic consciousness. In short, it is not the circumstance that the rich injure the poor from which the prophetic mind in the first instance revolts, but what shocks and excites the prophets’ resentment is the bearing of the wicked conduct upon Jehovah and His rights. Hence the phenomenon that the conduct of the rich is condemned in equally strong terms even where it does not directly affect the lot of the poor and the weak.
Amos denounces not merely violence and robbery in the palaces, not only tumults and oppressions in Samaria, worse than what Philistines and Egyptians are accustomed to [3:9, 10], but equally the vain luxury of the rich, lying upon their beds of ivory, feasting at their banquets, engaging in drunken revels, anointing themselves with the finest ointments, trying to imitate David as musicians, keeping up winter-houses and summer-residences, but—and this is the main point—who are through all their pride of life and luxury rendered oblivious of the deplorable state of the people of God, and do not grieve for the affliction of Joseph.
Not wealth and luxury in themselves the prophets attack. Of social burdens, such as heavy taxation, and cruel exactions they do not even speak, but of the reflex indignity offered through social maltreatment to Jehovah in the persons of His people. Amos himself was a man of frugal antecedents, yet there is no note of social jealousy in his denunciation of the opposite. His charge is that wealth and luxury such as were observable in his day render their possessors blind to all higher religious interests. Isaiah, who sprang from quite a different stratum of society, and whose regal mind was keenly sensitive to all æsthetic impressions, none the less renders on this point the same verdict as Amos. Not that to be rich and powerful in itself is a sin. The sin lies in the inordinate, irreligious desire to be so, which in its eagerness brushes aside all other considerations [Amos. 8:4, 5].
All this is of importance, because it marks a great difference between the social message of the prophets, and much that passes as social preaching nowadays. To the prophet it is the sinfulness of the wrong social conduct, to the modern social preacher it is too often the injuriousness to the social organism, that stands in the foreground. The prophets view the facts in their relation to God, as measured by the standards of absolute ethics and religion; the modern sociological enthusiast views them mainly, if not exclusively, in their bearing upon the welfare of man. What the prophets feature is the religious in the social; what many at the present time proclaim is the social devoid of or indifferent to the religious.
The features so far dwelt upon are the common property of all the prophets in the period we are dealing with. There are two of these, however, who have so strongly put the stamp of their religious individuality upon the conception and treatment of it as to place in the strongest possible relief the inner character of sin. These are Hosea and Isaiah. Of their doctrine of sin we shall, therefore, speak separately.
HOSEA’S DOCTRINE OF SIN
First, of Hosea’s. With him it is the conception of Jehovah as the marriage-Lord of Israel that has at nearly every point shaped his presentation of the subject. Hosea dwells upon the sin which Israel as a unit has committed against Jehovah. Sin is to Hosea want of conformity to the ideal of marriage-affection and loyalty. His indictment of Israel reads: ‘There is no truth (i.e. faithfulness), no lovingkindness, no knowledge of God in the land’ [4:1]. And correspondingly Israel’s sin is positively described as treachery [5:7; 6:7], the speaking of lies against Jehovah [7:13], the compassing Him about with falsehood and deceit [11:12; cp. further 7:16; 10:2]. Not merely that the people transgress the laws of Jehovah, but their considering them ‘a strange thing’ constitutes the wickedness of their conduct; they disavow that special claim on their obedience which God has as their marriage-Lord [8:12]. Their sin is a failure to
regard, to fear, to know Jehovah; they have left off to take heed to Jehovah [4:10].
The same idea is expressed by the figure in which Hosea describes the sin of serving other gods. He calls this ‘whoredom’. Sometimes the term is to be understood in the literal sense, for example, 4:11, ‘Whoredom and wine must take away the understanding’. Here the reference undoubtedly is to prostitution as practised in the idolatrous sanctuaries [cp. Amos 2:7]. But in Hos. 4:12 ‘the spirit of whoredom’ is a figurative description of the idolatrous bent of the people: whoredom coincides with adultery. The principal cause of this adultery lies in sensual selfishness. Israel has withdrawn her affection from Jehovah. As He called them (the more He called them), so (the more) they went from Him; they sacrificed unto the Baals, they burned incense to graven images [11:2]. They knew no longer that Jehovah had healed them [11:3]. Their heart was exalted, they had forgotten Him [13:6]. To what Jehovah had given her: ‘I will go after my lovers that give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, mine oil and my drink’ [2:5].
Israel ought to love Jehovah supremely for His own sake, and should seek the external blessings only because in them His love expresses itself. As it is, the very opposite takes place, the people care only for the gifts and are indifferent to the Giver. ‘They sacrifice upon the tops of the mountains, and burn incense upon the hills, under oaks and poplars and terebinths, because their shadow is good’ [4:13]. The sweet cakes of raisins, of which 3:1 says that they love them, are the figure for this sensual cult. Because inspired by this motive, it flourishes in times of plenty: ‘Israel is a luxuriant vine which putteth forth his fruit; according to the multitude of his fruit he has multiplied his altars; according to the prosperity of his land he has made goodly pillars’ [10:1]. When plenty and prosperity cease, the allegiance is lightly shifted from one god to another; ‘I will go and return to my first husband, for then it was better with me than now’ [2:7].
As to the cult Hosea condemns the selfish spirit in which it is conducted, and this for the sole reason, that it vitiates the relation between Israel and Jehovah at the very root. This type of polemic is peculiar to Hosea. What Ephraim brings is only a fleeting affection. Their chesed is like the morning-cloud and like the dew that goes early away [6:4]. Jehovah will not accept such service; it belongs to paganism. Hence the prophet says that she has loved the wages of religious prostitution upon every corn floor. She has sold herself to the strange gods for the produce of the land [9:1].
But the same principle determines Hosea’s opinion with regard to the social and political sin of Israel. The prophet traces a connection between the faithlessness of the people to Jehovah and the dissolution of all social ties. This is the sequence of thought in 4:1, 2. Because faithfulness, lovingkindness (towards God) and knowledge of God fail in the land, therefore in the intercourse between man and man also, there is nothing but swearing and breaking faith and killing and stealing and committing adultery; they exceed and blood touches blood. Where the religious union with Jehovah is not kept sacred, there no human marriage can be secure. Sensuality produces religious whoredom, and religious whoredom again issues into physical whoredom [4:11, 14].
The sin of striving after riches and luxury, which Amos condemns for more obvious reasons, Hosea regards as an alienation of love from Jehovah. So we must understand 12:7–9, where Jehovah charges Israel with this sin, and then, by way of explanation, declares: ‘I am Jehovah thy God from the land of Egypt’, that is to say, I have remained faithful; ye have become faithless. They have become like the Canaanites, that is, like the Phoenicians, the traffickers of the ancient world. They have missed their theocratic vocation by striving to engage in trade. And their trading was dishonest; balances of deceit were in their hand [12:7].
Finally, in what Hosea says about the political sin of Israel it is not difficult to trace the influence of the same principle. A characteristic
sin is in his view ‘the pride of Israel’ [5:5; 7:10]. This is the haughtiness born of self-reliance, the opposite to that spirit of dependence which ought to characterize behaviour towards Jehovah. Before all else, it is an act of disloyalty, when Ephraim seeks help with Assyria, whereas God ought to be her Saviour [5:13]. And, having once forsaken Jehovah, her heart has become so void of all constant attachment, that, while intriguing with Assyria, she at the same time seeks the favour of Egypt [8:9; 12:1]. Like a silly dove Ephraim is fluttering around; they call unto Egypt, they go to Assyria [7:11]. Hosea does not speak of faith positively, as Isaiah does, but this rebuke of the pride of Israel shows that the essence of the grace is familiar to him.
Among the political sins of Israel, the prophet further gives a prominent place to the manner in which they dealt with the institution of the kingdom. Not that he rejected the kingdom on principle, as some expositors claim. This can be maintained only by exscinding 3:5. If these words are genuine, then Hosea must have regarded the Davidic dynasty as the only legitimate one for Israel. But it is just as incorrect to assume that he condemned certain individual rulers of the northern kingdom for individual reasons alone. The terms in which he speaks are too general for that. It is not so much what the kings did, but rather what Israel did with the kingship and the kings, that meets with the prophet’s disapproval. And he disapproves of it, because it was based on a wrong attitude towards Jehovah [8:4; 13:10]. The kingship was founded on the pride of Israel. This applies not merely to the later kings, rapidly succeeding one another; it applies to all the successive dynasties that the northern kingdom had seen. Hosea speaks in equally condemnatory terms of the kingship of Saul, for it had its origin in the same spirit [9:9; 10:9]. Only the kingdom of David escapes, because it was distinctly initiated by Jehovah, an instrument of the salvation He desired to give to His people.
Because thus viewing sin from the one principle of unfaithfulness to Jehovah, Hosea reaches a profound conception of its character as a
disposition, an enslaving power, as something deeper and more serious than single acts of transgression. It is a bent, rendering its victims unable to reform [5:4; 7:2]. The ‘spirit of whoredom’ is within them, they are bent to backsliding [11:7]. ‘Ephraim is a cake not turned’; he remains unconcernedly on the wrong, already burnt, side, however disastrous the consequences may be.
ISAIAH’S DOCTRINE OF SIN
We now turn to Isaiah and his conception of sin. It likewise reveals a point of view clearly his own. On the whole it is the deepest that the revelation of the Old Testament has to teach about sin. What the idea of the berith-marriage is to Hosea, that the thought of Jehovah’s glory is to Isaiah. Sin appears to him as, first of all, an infringement upon the honour of God. The idolatrous practices of the people are denounced for this reason. God has forsaken Israel, because they are filled from the east (perhaps the emendation ‘with divination’, qesem for qedem, is to be preferred), and soothsayers like the Philistines [2:6; 8:19]. Note carefully what is to Isaiah the offensive feature in sin of this kind. Such practices are a slight put upon Jehovah’s divinity. It is His right to supply all teaching and information of this sort to His people. They are to walk in His light, to be open always to the influx of divine truth [2:5]. The ideal in the prophet’s mind is, that Israel as a whole shall live in such unbroken communication with Jehovah, as he was aware of possessing for himself (note the plural ‘let us walk’). What they possess, or imagine themselves to possess, is a caricature of revelation.
In the same way idolatry is a caricature of religion in general, highly dishonouring to God. ‘Their land is full of idols; they worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made’ [2:8]. That God’s people are capable of exchanging the living God for something lifeless, manufactured by themselves, appears to the prophet the height of irreverence and irreligion. Subjectively the offensive feature of this kind of sin consists in its humiliating, degrading influence upon man [2:9]. The true greatness of man
consists in the service of Jehovah; this being abandoned for idolatry, a universal abasement takes place. The idols are to the prophet’s view the opposite of all Jehovah stands for. As Jehovah is the Holy One, so the idols contract, as it were, a sort of positive unholiness; they are to be defiled, to be dishonoured [30:22].
It is, however, not through paganistic forms of divination and the cult of idols alone that Israel has dishonoured Jehovah. In 2:7 luxury, wealth and military pride stand between divination and idolatry, and the combination is very significant. Luxurious and riotous living are condemned from the point of view that these produce carelessness and forgetfulness of God. Those Judaeans who rise up early in the morning to follow strong drink, and tarry late in the night till wine inflame them, whose feasts are harp and lute and tabret and pipe, they are the ones who do not regard the work of Jehovah, neither have considered the operation of His hands. The work of Jehovah here is His work in history, the momentous issues that He is working out in regard to the lot of His people. Every truly religious man ought to have his eyes and ears open to what the course of history portends. Isaiah has here distinctly formulated the thought that history is a revelation of Jehovah, in which there is no place for accident or confusion. Primarily it is, of course, the task of the prophet to watch what is developing. But the specific task of the prophet is destined to be universalized. Had Israel complied with this requirement, they might have adjusted themselves to the coming events and have escaped. As it is, they go into captivity for lack of knowledge [5:13].
Isaiah speaks once and again of the sin of intoxication [5:11, 12, 22; 22:2, 13; 28:1, 3, 7]. Especially the last of these passages is extremely realistic in its picture of the drunken revels of the priests and prophets. The prophet does not, of course, condemn the use of wine as such. On the contrary, some of his noblest figures are derived from it [1:22; 5; 16:8–10; 18:5; 25:6]. But intoxication is irreligious and degrading, because it darkens the perception of the divine spiritual realities in man, and so renders him brutish. The drunkards
at Jerusalem ‘err through wine and through strong drink go astray; they err in vision, they stumble in judgment’ [28:7].
An equally prominent form of sin with this prophet is pride. Isaiah speaks of the lofty looks of man, the haughtiness of men [2:11, 17], and of things in general in the land that are haughty and proud and lifted up, vss. 12–15. The daughters of Zion are haughty and walk with stretched-forth necks and wanton eyes. The glory and pomp of the Israelites are to be humbled [5:14]. ‘Ephraim and the inhabitants of Samaria say in pride and in stoutness of heart: ‘the bricks are fallen, but we will build with hewn stone; the sycamores are cut down, but we will replace them by cedars’ [9:9, 10]. Of the pride of intellect 5:21 speaks. Pride based on wealth and aesthetic pretence likewise comes in for rebuke. Isaiah himself was responsive to all things of beauty and grandeur that the world presented to his sight. And yet he condemns the silver and the gold, the pleasant pictures, the fine apparel of the daughters of Zion, so elaborately described in 3:16–24. Beauty, irreligiously esteemed, infringes upon the glory of Jehovah. To take any natural object or product of art, intended to reflect the divine beauty, so as to make it serve the magnifying of the creature is a species of godlessness. Pride and vanity are closely connected with each other. Pride is vanity, in so far as there is no real worth and greatness behind it.
Pride, however, is not found among Israel alone. To Isaiah it made no difference whether the boasters were the petty grandees of Judaea, or the mighty monarchs of the East. Because the Assyrian claims that by the strength of his hand he has done things, and by his wisdom removed the bounds of the peoples, Jehovah will punish the fruit of the stout heart of the king of Assyria, and the glory of his high looks [10:12]. The highest embodiment that this sin of pride had found, to the far-reaching vision of Isaiah, was in that King of Babel, who said in his heart: ‘I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, I will sit upon the mount of congregation (the mythical mountain, where the gods assembled), in the uttermost parts of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High.’
[14:13, 14]. Pride is in its essence a form of self-deification. Satanic sin, a type of Satan, has been found in the King of Babel thus described [cp. 14:12; Rev. 9:1], and because the King is here addressed as morning star, the name Lucifer has been transferred from him to Satan.
Still other forms of sin castigated by Isaiah are avarice and oppression [3:12, 15; 5:7, 8, 23]. With this we are familiar from Amos and Hosea. The commercial prosperity of the earlier part of Isaiah’s ministry fostered this evil. During the first centuries of their settlement in Canaan the Israelites were a purely agricultural people. Later on, however, a trading class sprang up among them. As the structure of society still continued to be based on agriculture, the increase of wealth meant the acquisition of vast landed properties. The rich made the poor their debtors, and then drove them from their ancient estates. Now the use of the soil had among Israel a religious significance. Jehovah is Lord of the entire land. He gives the people only the usufruct of the soil. The massing of lands in the hands of a few, therefore, was not only an ethical evil because accomplished through foul means, nor merely a social evil because productive of great disparity, but it was likewise a religious evil because it deprived the poor man of the very basis of his religious existence. Deprived of his land, he could no longer bring his tithes, nor his firstlings, nor his sacrifices; he could no longer participate in the celebration of the feasts. Hence Isaiah calls a woe upon those that join house to house, that they may dwell alone in the midst of the land [5:8]. That Isaiah’s motive is at least partly religious, may be seen from 3:13–15. Jehovah here enters into judgment with the elders of his people, because they have eaten up the vineyard. Chap. 5 throws light on this; it is called the vineyard, because in reality the property of Jehovah. The poor are called Jehovah’s people. We can here already observe the religious colouring which the word gradually acquires [10:2; 11:4; 14:30–32].
ISRAEL’S SIN AS VIEWED BY THE PROPHETS HISTORICALLY
In conclusion we must look at the prophetic statements concerning the sin of Israel from a historical point of view. What light do they throw on the state and course of Israel’s religion in the pre-prophetic period? Do these sins and errors appear to the prophets as a lower stage of development, quite natural and unavoidable at the time before the purer prophetic religion arose? This is the critical view.
It is admitted on all sides that the historical writings of the Old Testament contradict it on almost every page. Their testimony is that there was:
(a) a relatively perfect and pure beginning of Israel’s religion in revelation;
(b) an almost immediate falling away from this;
(c) an effort on the part of the prophets to reclaim the nation.
What the adherents of the critical hypothesis claim, is that the writers or redactors of these historical books, under the influence of unhistoric views, so manipulated the sources, that these books no longer reflect the actual course of events, but instead a totally different, imaginary course of events, construed from the subsequent orthodox legalistic standpoint.
Now what we are interested in is, whether the prophets give an account of the history of Israel before their own times which agrees with the critical representation, or one which agrees with this testimony of the historical books.
The point at issue should be sharply formulated. The question is not whether the popular religion did or did not actually constitute a lower form of belief and practice than what the prophets stood for. That it did admits of no denial. The mass of the people lived on a low plane religiously. We may go further than this. This was not confined to the particular period or juncture at which the prophets arose; such had been the condition of the mass for a long time previously. Their
actual religion may well have borne many of the features which the critics ascribe to it. We may even say that, through the critical controversy with the Wellhausenians, our eyes have been first opened to this in its full extent. We apprehend better now that during the entire course of Old Testament history the supernatural element introduced by revelation had to wage war with the paganistic tendencies of the people. And, since no false practice can in the long run exist without reacting on beliefs and conceptions, a paganistic cult must have had for its correlate a paganistic creed. In so far we and the critics need not widely disagree as to the state of affairs depicted in the prophetic writings.
But the difference between them and us concerns the question whether, over against this popular religion, there did, or did not exist a better historical tradition, going back to ancient times, to which the prophets could appeal, and on the ground of which they could charge the mass with apostasy. Do the prophets oppose to the degraded practices and belief of their time another type of religion, simply because it is better and their own, or because it is the only legitimate religion in Israel? Do they appeal to their own convictions, as to intuitive verities, in the judgments pronounced and in the ideals set up, or do they call back to a standard fixed before?
But even this does not quite suffice to formulate the point at issue. In a certain sense even our opponents admit that the popular religion in the days of the prophets represented a decline from a previous better state. It is believed that the Hebrews in their nomadic period, before they entered upon the life in Canaan, had had a much simpler form of religion than afterwards. Through adopting many of the customs of the Canaanites they deteriorated. There had been a downward process. For the simple, austere religion of the desert had been substituted the sensual, luxurious religion of the inhabitants of the land. But what the prophets preached was, according to the critics, not identical with this primitive nomadic religion. It differed from it as the ethical differs from the sub-ethical, the spiritual from the naturalistic. So that, while in one sense, the popular religion was a
degenerated religion, in another sense, as compared with the prophetic religion, it was also a lower stage of evolution. There had never been something like those views of the prophets before. Consequently the question must be put as follows: Do the prophets teach that the people had fallen away from a relatively better faith, or do they claim that they had fallen away from an absolute norm, imposed upon them in the past by Jehovah and in substance identical with their own prophetic teaching?
In endeavouring to answer this question, we observe, in the first place, that the prophets charge the people with apostasy from a legitimate religion revealed to them at the time of the Exodus. This is the testimony of Amos 2:10; 3:1; 5:25; 9:7. It is implied also, as we have seen, in what Hosea teaches about the origin of the marriage- union, and the marriage-law resulting from it, in the same period. Israel’s sin goes back, not merely to the time of the secession of the ten tribes, nor merely to the time of Saul (‘the days of Gibeah’ 10:9), but to the time before their entering Canaan [9:10]. Isaiah has numerous references to a better past, when the religious conditions were nearer to the ideal. This refers proximately to the time of David [1:21, 26]. But it reaches further back to the time of the Exodus and the wilderness-journey [4:5; 10:24; 10:26; 11:16]. Israel’s first father already sinned, and her interpreters transgressed against Jehovah [43:27]. God knew from the beginning that Israel was very treacherous, called a transgressor from the womb [48:1–8, especially vs. 8]. Immediately after the redemption from Egypt they rebelled and grieved God’s Holy Spirit, so that He turned into their enemy and fought against them [63:10]. Micah likewise appeals to the saving acts of Jehovah at the time of the Exodus, and appeals to them in order to call Israel back to obedience. Jehovah sent Moses, Aaron and Miriam before them and made known to them what is good [6:3–8].
The prophets view the people’s religious condition, not merely as degraded and deplorable, but as a guilty condition. It is not necessary to point this out in detail; the threat of judgment against it is
inconceivable on any other supposition. The moral indignation which so strongly colours their discourses can only have flowed from the knowledge that wilful transgression was involved.
The prophets identify this old ideal from which Israel has departed with their own teaching. Nowhere do they make a distinction between what Jehovah once demanded and what He now demands. None of the prophets ever betrays that his teaching appears to him in the light of an innovation. Though they were aware that their teaching marked an advance upon what lay before, yet they never indicate that there was an advance in the principles upheld. By these constant principles they judge the conduct of Israel. But not only this, explicitly and positively also they make the identification between their own message and the older one. Hosea says that in former times Jehovah has hewn Israel by the prophets, and slain them by the words of his mouth, because He desired lovingkindness and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God and not burnt-offerings [6:5, 6]. By a prophet Jehovah brought Israel up out of Egypt and by a prophet was he preserved, [12:13]. Israel made answer to Jehovah’s approach unto her in the days of her youth [2:15].
It is the same in Amos. When Jehovah knew Israel among all the families of the earth, it was in order that among them righteousness should be cultivated [3:2]. Israel was originally a wall made by a plumbline; when Jehovah afterwards finds it otherwise, this is due to departure from the erstwhile rectitude [7:7]. Amos even declares that the same unresponsiveness and impenitence that met the prophetic teaching of his day, characterized the Israel of past generations [2:9– 12]. The earlier prophets had preached along the same lines as he himself followed in his preaching. It is because Israel has rejected them, that he is now sent to announce the judgment. The earlier Israel had said to its prophets, ‘Prophesy not’. Amos strongly feels his continuity with them as to the substance of the message. These prophets of old must have proclaimed unpleasant truths, otherwise there could not have been the same unpleasant reaction. And this
could only mean that they, in the same manner as Amos, insisted upon the righteous nature of Jehovah, and foretold a judgment.
This carries back the knowledge of the ethical demands of Jehovah to a much earlier time than that of Amos. Isaiah in a similar way represents everything Jehovah has done to his vineyard as done for the purpose of reaping good fruit, namely, the fruit of righteousness [5:7].
The attitude assumed by the prophets towards the people precludes the idea of their having been conscious of innovation in the traditional faith of Israel. They boldly appeal to the popular conscience, while at the same time attacking the popular religion. Amos, in describing what had taken place in connection with the Exodus, including the raising up of unpopular prophets, asks: ‘Is it not even thus, O ye children of Israel?’ [2:11]. This means something more than that the people are asked to acknowledge the historicity of the facts; the appeal is to their consciousness of favours despised. This interrogative way of reasoning with the people is characteristic of Amos; 5:25; 6:2; 9:7. The last of these passages takes for granted that the people believe in Jehovah’s control over the history of other nations than Israel.
But not only did the prophets expect the popular conscience to give at least a theoretical consent to their position; to some extent this assent must have been actually given; in other words, the people must have felt themselves in the wrong historically. There is no trace whatsoever of any defensive attitude assumed by the people, which nevertheless would have been unavoidable, had the prophets preached a new doctrine. There are not a few passages which give us glimpses of the struggle between prophets and people, but in none of these are the prophets charged with being innovators or iconoclasts in regard to the traditional faith of Israel [Amos 7:11–17; Hos. 9:8, 9; Isa. 28:1–13; 30:10, 11; Mic. 2:6–11]. How could Amos ever have adopted the interrogative form of speaking commented upon, had he been confronting a sceptical and gainsaying audience?
It might be said that the prophets whose writings we possess were not historians, that their aim was not to draw a faithful picture of the times with their conflicting forces and tendencies, but rather to present their own side in the controversy, and that in receiving their testimony without cross-questioning we do the people injustice. But this answer can not invalidate the above argument. For, unless the prophets have on purpose eliminated or obliterated every trace of this historical aspect of the controversy, we must expect to find traces of it in their record.
[D] THE JUDGMENT AND THE RESTORATION: PROPHETIC ESCHATOLOGY
THE VIEWS OF THE WELLHAUSEN SCHOOL OF CRITICISM
According to the Wellhausen school of criticism, eschatology resembles the ethical monotheism of the Old Testament in this respect, that it is a specifically prophetic creation. This implies that, as there was no ethical monotheism before the prophetic period, so there was no eschatology. And as an explanatory hypothesis has been devised to explain the origin of the former out of historical and psychological factors, so one has been constructed to explain on a basis of similar causes the rise of an eschatology among Israel. The difference, say the critics, is that in the construction of their ethical monotheism the prophets were more thoroughly ethical and spiritual than in their upbuilding of the eschatological scheme. While the ethical teaching, as to its substance, has perpetual validity and everlasting significance, the framework of eschatology has in it much that is perishable. In the minds of the prophets it was, to be sure, largely a matter of fantastic expectations. In the sequel, however, it proved highly potential. In fact it has become the source of the supernaturalistic, theological, metaphysical world-view to which the Biblical religion has become wedded. Whatever there is in Christianity beyond ethical idealism and sentimental spirituality, all that transcends the present life and the evolutionary development of things, all that reckons from a definite beginning of creation and
looks forward to a definite winding up of things, and, finally all that cleaves to the Messianic interpretation of Jesus, and has made of historic Christianity a realistic, concrete, factual religion, placing itself at the centre of the development of the world, all this in its last analysis springs from this one source. Hence eschatology, as the prophets preached it, has become in critical quarters not merely a problem for explanation, but likewise an object of criticism.
Since the ethical monotheism and the eschatology are two more or less incompatible things, the natural inclination, from the critical point of view, was to magnify the former and to minimize the latter, at least so far as the earlier prophets, the great heroes of the ethicizing of religion, are concerned. Much material of an eschatological complexion is eliminated by divisive methods from the writings of Isaiah and Micah especially, to a lesser extent also from the prophecies of Amos and Hosea. In the opinion of the critical school these books are not, as books, derived from the men whose names they bear, but are later crystallizations around nuclei of original, authentic material. In the long process of redaction they have undergone much of the accretion that is supposed to have come through the eschatological impulse. The original prophecies may have had a moderate admixture of this kind of material, but the rank growth of it that luxuriates in the present collections is of later origin. This principle finds especial application to the promissory pieces that lie scattered through the denunciatory, pessimistic material. If we distinguish in the full-grown eschatology between the two strands of threat and of hope, then the strand of threat is assumed to have been far more indigenous in prophecy than that of hope. In later times the element of threat was, however, also strongly elaborated as was the element of hope. In the original preaching of men like Amos and Hosea it was, if not less intense, at least more sober and kept subject to the ethical motive.
A distinction is made by the critics between the two strands of ‘woe- eschatology’ and ‘weal-eschatology’ as to their precedence of origin in the prophetic mind. The eschatology of woe always came first, and
remained first in order, even after the other had taken its place by the side of it. The eschatology of woe was the natural product of the prophets’ ethical indignation at the corrupt moral and religious conditions they found prevailing. It all deserved to be swept aside in one great overwhelming catastrophe. From this, to the conviction that it would be, was not a great distance. The historical conjunction of forces favoured the expectation. Such a catastrophe was, of course, apt to be measured both in terms of intensity and in terms of compass by the urge of resentment in the prophet’s heart.
Still, it is believed that the terms in which the early prophets described the coming woe were always derived from the national- political sphere. Their eschatology was a military one. Some earthly power would be the instrument of executing the judgment of Jehovah, and what it did would consist in national convulsions and overthrows. Later on, owing to the influx of all sorts of ideas of mythological origin from the Orient, this military picture was mixed with cosmical elements, and much more complicated schemes resulted. When, and in the measure that, this came about, the change from eschatology to what is called apocalyptic was made. Ezekiel marks the incision in this respect. Afterwards this mythological, cosmical element was retroactively introduced into the earlier prophets, so that the difference is now no longer clearly perceptible.
But the prophets were not entirely heralds of woe. They could not help remaining patriots, and had more of the traditional attachment to the old religion of Israel in them, than they themselves knew. Hence their own predictions of woe caused in them a reaction, and they began to soften these through holding in prospect a future of restoration to the favour of Jehovah and blessedness. Into this likewise crept later on the same mythological elements that had become mixed with the eschatology of woe. There was, however, a time at the beginning when the woe occupied the field alone. The earliest prophets were prophets of calamity pure and simple, and even found the distinction between themselves and the false
prophets in this feature, that the false prophets prophesied of pleasant things to come.
Such is the Wellhausenian construction of the origin of prophetic eschatology. Of late it has lost its monopoly in critical circles through the influence of Babylonian archaeology upon the interpretation of the Old Testament. The views of men like Gunkel and Gressman have begun to supplant it. These men claim that there existed from ancient times an eschatology in the Orient, and that Hebrew belief, as it was influenced from this quarter in many other things, can not have escaped being so in the matter of eschatology. The Hebrews knew about these things long before the great prophets arose. And the prophets themselves knew about them and incorporated them into their message. These elements were from the outset mythological and cosmical.
The difference between the Wellhausen view and this modified view is that the streaming in of the ideas from the Orient is now put at a much earlier date, so early indeed, that it is believed that, before the prophets handled them, the ideas had become quite assimilated by the Hebrews. At first the prophets put them to an ethical and religious use. At a later stage the rank material outgrew their power of adaptation and the ideas were cherished and studied for their own inherent interest.
It will be felt that this shifting of critical opinion immediately made an important difference in the appraisal of the eschatological teaching of the early prophets. In two respects the method of treatment was changed. First, the mere fact of a prophecy being promissory and consolatory was no longer considered as prejudicial to its authenticity. Amos could promise and console, and so could Isaiah, for the material lay ready to hand, and it had acquired a sort of traditionalness and independence, which facilitated its introduction everywhere. There was no special motive required. It belonged to the general spirit of prophesying. Much of the material recently cast out as unworthy of the onesided ethicized prophets was
thus reclaimed. And the same applies to the so-called mythological, realistic strand in the prophetic writings. There was now no longer any occasion to ascribe its introduction to a later vogue of apocalyptic.
THE ESCHATOLOGICAL TEACHING OF THE PROPHETS
After this brief orientation we may now study with equal brevity the eschatological teaching of two prophets, Hosea and Isaiah. It is sufficient to deal with Amos and Micah by way of side-reference only, because the material found in these is largely found in the other two likewise. The two topics with which we have to deal may be called the doctrine of the judgment and that of the restoration. In order to justify the characterization of these as eschatology, we should sharply mark what is the specific difference of eschatology from the Biblical standpoint. In the abstract it might seem more appropriate to fit in the crises described by the prophets with the general up-and- downward movement of history, each one being co-ordinated with preceding and following events. But this would miss the very point of the eschatological peculiarity. This consists in that the crises described are not ordinary upheavals, but such as lead to an abiding order of things, in which the prophetic vision comes to rest. Finality and consummation form the specific difference of prophetic, as of all other Biblical eschatology. The judgment predicted is the judgment, and the restoration is the restoration, of the end.
One other peculiarity to be noted is really a consequence of the one just stated. Whenever the prophets speak in terms of judgment, immediately the vision of the state of glory obtrudes itself upon their view, and they concatenate the two in a way altogether regardless of chronological interludes. Isaiah couples with the defeat of the Assyrians under Sennacherib the unequalled pictures of the glory of the end, and the impression might be created that the latter was just waiting for the former, to make its immediate appearance. The vision ‘hastens’ under their eye. The philosophy of this foreshortening of the beyond-prospect is one of the most difficult things in the
interpretation of prophecy in Old Testament and New Testament alike. We cannot here further dwell upon it.
HOSEA
The manner of the description of the judgment varies according to the individual manner and style of the prophet. In Hosea the idea is more fully elaborated than with the others, precisely because there is more of the individual in it. Hosea, indeed, agrees with the others in declaring it ‘punishment’ inspired by wrath [9:15; 11:8, 9]. But on the other hand the same judgment also serves the opposite purpose. It serves as a chastisement imposed by love to discipline Israel, Jehovah’s son. With reference to the former, notice that national death is specified as the wages of national sin [5:2; 7:9; 13:14]. The last passage should be rendered interrogatively: ‘Shall I ransom them from the power of the grave, redeem them from death?’ The answer required is negative, and Jehovah Himself proceeds to give it by summoning the plagues of death to overwhelm them: ‘O death, where are thy plagues; O grave, where is thy destruction? Repentance shall be hid from mine eyes.’ (Observe the magnificent manner in which Paul has turned this question into its triumphant opposite in 1 Cor. 15:55.)
Chap. 13:13 is the passage in which these two aspects of the judgment, the destructive and the disciplinary one, are most clearly distinguished. Here the new Israel is the son to be born, the old sinful Israel the mother, who dies in giving birth to the child. In dependence on the marriage-idea, all calamities of the judgment result from this, that Jehovah personally withdraws from Israel [5:6, 15; 9:12]. The judgment leads to conversion in more than one way. It enlightens as to the causes which have provoked Jehovah’s wrath; it does this by striking the instruments of sinning involved in each, and thus prepares the way for conviction of sin [8:6; 10:2–8, 14, 15; 11:6]. Forcibly it separates Israel from the objects of her adulterous love [2:9, 12; 3:3–5]. Symbolically this is expressed by the feature that there is no intercourse between Hosea and his wife. But the prophet
also keeps his wife isolated from himself after having received her back [3:3]: ‘so will I also be toward thee.’Jehovah in like manner will keep Himself separated from the people during the exile, to enable them to obtain a truer conception of His character, for otherwise they would only have turned from the other gods to their own caricature of Jehovah. After these preparations Israel is won back by an unparalleled new revelation of Jehovah’s love [2:14, 15].
The conscious results of these experiences are described in chap. 14. Here is the picture of Israel’s conversion. It involves the profound recognition, not merely of sin, but sinfulness. In vs. 2 the word ‘all’ is to be stressed. The two principal forms of sin, pride and sensual idolatry, are specified [vs. 3]. The conviction is voiced that no external worship can buy back Jehovah’s favour [vs. 2]. God’s free forgiving love is the sole source of salvation. The profound humility suffusing the experience strikingly appears in this, that Israel does not call herself Jehovah’s wife, nor even His son, but an orphan [vs. 3]; compare also 3:5 and 11:6, passages in which the same peculiar state of mind, penitence mingled with newly-awakened trust and fear, is finely depicted.
ISAIAH
In Isaiah the pictures of the judgment are, no less than with Hosea, in keeping with the general tone and temper of the prophet. His mode of thinking and seeing things is theocentric. The vision of the judgment in chap. 2 of itself turns into a theophany. The theophany comes in storm and earthquake. Here the political-military feature is absent. For the theophanic display of the majesty of Jehovah the prophet even loses sight of the destruction that overtakes the sinners, which in reality he had planned to describe. The judgment as to its intent is with Isaiah (and Micah) mainly a judgment of purification. But the purification is obtained through extirpation of the evil elements. It is the process by which the remnant is, as it were, distilled [4:3, 4; 6:11–13; 10:20–23; 17:6, 7; 24:13, 14; 28:5, 6, 23–29].
The comprehensive phrase for all this is ‘the day of Jehovah’ [2:12]. This phrase occurs also in Amos. It furnishes one of the proofs for the existence of an ancient pre-prophetic eschatology. It has become very important for New Testament revelation as ‘the day of the Lord’. Some give it a general theocentric explanation for Isaiah [2:11]. It is quite possible that Isaiah gave the idea this turn, but the original sense can hardly have been such. A martial explanation has been suggested: the day monopolized by Jehovah as his day of victory; compare ‘the day of Midian’ [9:4]. A more plausible derivation, in dependence on Amos 5:20, is that it rests upon the contrast between darkness and light. These would be its two diverse manifestations, the one immediately preceding the other. An objection is that on this view it would have been denominated from its better side exclusively, whereas in Old Testament and New Testament alike the emphasis seems differently distributed. In Amos the doing away with all that is evil stands in the foreground, but with Isaiah it is rather the sweeping away of all that is a caricature of divinity. In the later pieces, chaps. 28–38. a more positive connection between the judgment and the conversion is traceable. The experiences of the Sennacherib-crisis will not only destroy the wicked and unbelieving; they will also teach the others how great is the sin of Israel and how great the grace of Jehovah.
In the second part of the book the captivity is represented as an atonement (in the Old Testament sense) for the sin of Israel, and this idea of expiation reaches its highest expression in the figure of the ‘Servant of Jehovah’ of chapter 53. The captivity is also represented as leading the true Israel to repentance [59:12–15]. The idea of ‘the remnant’ thus obtains for Isaiah a more positive aspect than it had for Amos. For Amos it means: ‘nothing more than a remnant’, for Isaiah ‘only, but still a remnant’. In Micah, chap. 7:7–20 corresponds to the second part of the prophecies of Isaiah. Here a confession is put into the mouth of Israel, implying that the experience of the exile has produced a deep consciousness of sin.
Amos and Hosea do not reflect upon the consequences of either a favourable or unfavourable kind, which the judgment will entail for the foreign nations. Their negative and positive eschatology lack the universalistic element. Isaiah and Micah dwell upon both the adverse and the beneficent way in which the world at large will be affected by the crisis approaching for Israel.
Another difference is that the judgment-eschatology of Amos and Hosea is simple, that of Isaiah and Micah complex. The simple eschatology divides itself into two acts, the judgment and the restoration, both considered as units. With Isaiah and Micah this simple scheme becomes complicated. First of all a distinction is made between the judgment upon the Northern and that upon the Southern kingdom. These two are seen to fall apart in time. The complexity, however, arises from still another distinction. Both Isaiah and Micah expect a preliminary judgment of Assyria, which they do not identify with the final collapse of the world-power, and which, therefore, does not interfere with the continued hostile attitude of the latter toward Israel in the future.
From our standpoint we would say that this proximate deliverance stood in a typical relation to the final one. Isaiah and Micah begin to view the judgment after the manner of a process completing itself in successive acts. Assyria will not be the only, nor the last instrument wielded by God in judgment of Israel. After Assyria comes Babylon, mentioned by both prophets [Isa. 13 and 14; Mic. 4:10]. And, besides this specific mention made of Babylon, there still looms in the farther distance an ominous conglomeration of many nations preparing to come up for the attack, and to be destroyed in an even more mysterious, spectacular manner than the proximate foe [Isa. 17:12; 24–27, frequently called the Apocalypse of Isaiah; Mic. 4:11–13].
Finally, the most important difference arises from the appearance and activity of the Messiah in the judgment-drama of Isaiah and Micah, and his absence as a judgment-figure in the other two
prophets [Isa. 9 and 11; Mic. 5:2ff.]. In Hosea he enters only as a static element of the future state [3:5].
THE ‘LATTER DAYS’ IN HOSEA
In outlining the make-up of the future state of the people we again consider Hosea and Isaiah separately. In Hosea the following points must be noted: a new union between Jehovah and Israel will be established. (Observe that this is not represented as the remarriage of the formerly divorced husband and wife. It is a new marriage altogether.) A new betrothal, like unto a first betrothal, precedes. In this the prophecy falls out of the setting of the story. But this is allowed to take place on purpose in order to indicate that the past will be entirely blotted out, so as not to cast forward its dark shadow on the future blessedness of the eschatological union. For this reason the prophet drops the recital of his own marriage-experience in chapter 3. He steps out of the picture, because to him the indelible stain of the former disruption clung, which should not cleave to the final relation between Jehovah and Israel. The new union will be absolutely undissolvable. This is nought but the expression of the eschatological in terms of the marriage-figure.
The personal, spiritual aspect of the new union is depicted in 2:18– 20. The nature-aspect with its supernaturalistic colouring is found in vss. 21–23. In chap. 14 the two intermingle. The Israelites will become individually sons of Jehovah [1:10]. This promise is applied by Peter and Paul [1 Pet. 2:10; Rom. 9:25, 26] to the calling of the Gentiles, not, however, because Hosea was thinking of that, but because the underlying principle was the same, and because the Gentiles had been organically incorporated into the covenant of Israel.
A great increase of posterity will follow the restoration of Israel. [1:10]. The name ‘Jezreel’, which, according to 1:4, had an ominous, meaning, will obtain a favourable sense. Jehovah will sow the handful of remaining Israelites in the land to make of them a great
multitude. Israel and Judah will be reunited. Thus the sinful disruption between them will be healed. The reunited people will appoint over themselves one head of the house of David. This also is the opposite to what their sin had consisted in; hence they are represented as doing it themselves. As they had chosen many heads, so now they will seek one head [1:11; 3:5]. Israel’s rule will be victoriously extended over the neighbouring peoples [1:11].
As a comprehensive name for the approaching future Hosea uses the phrase ‘acherith hayyamim, ‘the latter days’ [3:5]. It seems to denote in this place, not so much the future blessed state, but rather the final crisis leading up to it.
THE FUTURE ‘GLORY’ IN ISAIAH
Isaiah delights in depicting the era after the judgment as a supreme revelation of Jehovah’s glory. His vision of it centres in the sanctuary and the city, whereas to Amos and Hosea, and even Micah, it rested upon the land. There is a priestly dignity about the prophet’s language ultimately to be explained from the predominance of the note of the divine glory in his message. The future will be a state in which the people will be able to engage in the service of God without interruption. Over the whole of Mount Zion and over her assemblies will hang the protecting cloud and fire of the wilderness-journey, a covering for all the glory [4:5]. At the same time the prophet introduces the idyllic blessedness of an ideal life of agriculture into his picture. But this is done again with a clear reference to the greater opportunity such manner of life affords for maintaining the proper attitude of humbleness and simplicity towards God, in contrast to the luxury and artificial refinement which the prophet had learned to interpret as lying at the root of forgetfulness of Jehovah. Israel will in these perfect days put her pride in the fruit of the soil which Jehovah provides [4:2; cp. 30:23–26; 32:16–20]. The meaning of the phrase ‘branch of Jehovah’, which later in Jeremiah and Zechariah has a Messianic meaning, may be thus interpreted in
Isa. 4:2 also, but according to others it means the produce of the soil with the associations just indicated.
In its most majestic form this thought appears where the prophet describes the future state as the restored paradise of the days of creation [11:6–9 in a Messianic context; 65:17–25]. Here the supernaturalizing of the entire state of existence is implied. The thought of the return of primeval golden conditions seems to have formed an ancient ingredient in much, even pagan, eschatology, with this difference, that in the latter there is a succession of cycles, from the highest to the lowest, whilst in Scripture things come permanently to rest in the consummation of the end. The transition from a restored Canaan to a restored paradise is not difficult because, from the outset, Canaan, the land flowing with milk and honey, seems to have been regarded as paradise-land [Amos 9:13; Hos. 2:21–22; 14:5–7]. A still higher flight the prophecy of Isaiah takes, where it speaks of ‘new heavens and a new earth’ created by Jehovah [65:17; 66:22].
The conception of a personal Messiah appears in Isa. 9:1–7, possibly also in chaps. 32; 33. It occurs in Mic. 5, and according to one interpretation in Hos. 3:5, where David might be a personal name of the Messiah. It is not found with Amos. The point of view from which the Messianic concept is introduced is in Isaiah the sacramental one: He is a pledge and constant vehicle of the gracious presence of Jehovah with His people. The name ‘Immanuel’ strikingly expresses this fundamental concept. Afterwards, in Isa. 53, under the name ‘Servant of Jehovah’ he becomes the sacrificial expiator of the sin of Israel on the principle of vicarious sin-bearing. But the original idea is larger in scope. In chap. 9 the Messiah appears as the ideal King. The prophet here seems to move his vision along from the dark scene of the deportation of a part of Northern Israel by Tiglath-Pileser to the scene of light, characteristic of the Messianic glory. Thick darkness has settled upon the territory of the north-eastern tribes, but the light, while first seen by them in its rising, shines in the end on the whole people. The Messiah is the central figure of this vision
of light. His appearance explains all that precedes. (Notice the repeated ‘for’ in vss. 4, 5, 6, introducing each time an explanation of the immediately preceding, with the Messiah as the last factor, beyond whom no explanation is necessary.)
Further, emphasis is thrown on the Messiah’s being the gift of God. ‘A son is given.’ He is identified with Jehovah in such a profound sense as to reveal His Deity. No one not possessed of the attributes enumerated could fulfil the sacramental function ascribed to Him. The names given are four: ‘Wonder of a Counsellor’, ‘God-of-a-Hero’, ‘Father for Eternity’, ‘Prince of Peace’. The first two describe what the Messiah is in Himself, the last two what He is in reference to the people. Of the former pair again the first describes His wisdom to counsel and the second His power to execute. From the recurrence of some of these attributes in 10:21 and 40:28 as attributes of Jehovah Himself, it may be seen on how high a plane the Messianic teaching of the prophet here moves. In chap. 11, on the other hand, the emphasis is thrown on the equipment of the Messiah for his functions by the gift of the Spirit. The Spirit of Jehovah ‘rests’ upon Him. What He enjoys is not a temporary visitation of the Spirit, but His abiding influence [cp. 61:1–3].
One might say that the former of these two Messianic representations is reproduced in the Fourth Gospel, the latter in the Synoptics. The Spirit here also is a Spirit of counsel first, and a Spirit of might in the second place. To these are added the two phrases descriptive of His judging activity, which takes place in knowledge of the actual state of things, and in the fear of Jehovah, that is to say, under the controlling influence of the religious principle. His saving work for the poor and meek is stressed. Together with this, mention is made of the destruction of the wicked. The latter takes place after a supernatural fashion: ‘With the rod of his mouth’ and ‘the breath of his lips’ [cp. Ps. 2:9; 2 Thess. 2:8].