A NEW KIND OF RELIGION
Among all ancient peoples, including the Hebrews, a large part of
religion was the burning of animal sacrifices on altars. Whenever a
sheep or lamb or kid was slaughtered for food the blood was poured out
on the sacred rock, or altar, in which the god was supposed to dwell.
Afterward the fat was burned on the same rock. It was believed that
the god in the rock drank the blood and smelled the fragrant odor of
the burning fat.
=Whole burnt offerings.=--On special occasions, such as a wedding, the
birth of a child, the beginning of a war, or the celebration of a
victory, the entire animal was burned on the altar. The first-born
calves, or lambs, or kids of any animal mother were also regarded by
the Hebrews as sacred and were burned as whole burnt-offerings to
Jehovah.
SACRIFICES IN CANAAN
After the Hebrews settled in Canaan they adopted other kinds of
sacrifices. Grains and fruits were offered as well as animals. Wine
and oil were poured on the altars. Baked cakes were burned. One sheaf
from every harvest field of wheat or barley was supposed to be waved
back and forth before an altar of Jehovah. This was a sort of
religious drama by which Jehovah was thought to receive a share of the
grain.
=Religious feasts.=--In Canaan also the Hebrews observed certain
religious festivals, which corresponded to the early, middle, and late
harvest seasons; they were called respectively, the "Feast of
Unleavened Bread," the "Feast of Weeks" (or Pentecost), and the "Feast
of Tabernacles." All of these were joyous occasions somewhat like our
Thanksgiving Day, and at all of them each family offered to Jehovah
some part of the products of their fields.
PRIESTS AND THEIR DUTIES
The altars where these sacrifices were offered were in charge of a
special class of men, the priests. In the early days, in Canaan, there
was a little temple, or shrine, outside each town and village with one
or more priests in charge of it. Sometimes wealthy men had private
shrines and hired their own special priests. It was the business of
these men to know just how a sacrifice must be offered in order that
it might be pleasing to Jehovah. There were certain rules and
regulations handed down from generation to generation. There were
certain kinds of animals which could not be offered. It was important
to know just what parts of each victim were to be burned. The various
meal offerings had to be prepared in a certain way. Yeast could not be
used, nor honey.
=The increasing number of priestly rules.=--As the centuries passed
more and more rules were worked out by the priests. This was their
whole business in life, and, of course, they made much of it. More and
more different kinds of offerings were invented; for example, incense,
which was the burning of herbs which made a sweet-smelling smoke. The
books of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, especially Leviticus, are
largely composed of these rules for sacrifices. The animals had to be
washed, killed, and skinned, according to certain directions. The
blood had to be disposed of according to strict rule--some placed in
the horns of the altar, some on the priests, some on the worshiper
bringing the offering, and so on. And the more there were of these
rules, the more priests there had to be to remember and enforce them.
Thus it came about that all too frequently sacrifices came to be the
chief thing in religion. Religion meant sacrifices and not much else.
THE REIGN OF JEROBOAM II
Jeroboam II, who reigned over the northern kingdom of Israel for some
forty years, beginning about B.C. 790, was in some ways like Ahab, who
lived a century earlier. He was victorious in war and brought peace
and prosperity to his nation. These years of peace brought little
happiness, however, to the common people of Israel. They had already
become so poverty-stricken during the long years of petty but cruel
wars, under the earlier kings since Solomon, that they were
practically at the mercy of a small class of nobles and wealthy
merchants who grew richer all the time while the people grew poorer.
=Evil days.=--These rich men used false weights and measures. In
buying wheat from the farmer they would use heavy weights, and get
more than was right; in selling to the poor of the cities they used
light weights, and so gave out little for much. They corrupted courts
and judges, so that no poor man could get his rights. They charged
enormous rates of interest for the money which the poor were obliged
to borrow. All over the land the mass of the people were living in
hovels and selling their sons and their daughters into slavery to keep
from starving, while the rich men and their families lived in luxury
and in wasteful, extravagant display.
None of this shameful injustice seemed to weigh heavily on any man's
conscience, for they were careful to keep up all the sacrifices to
Jehovah. And was not Jehovah showing his pleasure by granting them
these long years of peace and prosperity? They forgot the old lessons
of Jehovah's justice which the nation had learned from Moses. Even
Moses, according to their traditions, had given laws about sacrifices
and offerings. These seemed to be the essential thing. So they kept on
offering up costly sacrifices at their great temples and shrines, with
stately and gorgeous ceremonials, and thought to themselves, "How
pleased Jehovah must be!"
AMOS
There came one day to King Jeroboam's own shrine at Bethel a man in
the garb of a shepherd and speaking in the name of Jehovah, like the
prophets. But what strange words are these which he utters?
="I hate, I despise your feasts, and I will take no delight
in your solemn assemblies. Yea, though ye offer me your ...
meal-offerings, I will not accept them: neither will I regard
the peace-offerings of your fat beasts. Take away from me the
noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy
viols. But let judgment roll down as waters, and
righteousness as a mighty stream."=
What this shepherd prophet was proclaiming was a religion in which
burnt-offerings, or sacrificial ceremonies of any kind had little or
no place, but which expressed itself in justice and righteousness
toward one's fellow men. What Jehovah wants is not sacrifices at all,
he said, but to stop cheating the poor: to throw away your false
balances, and set free the slave.
=Amos' dire forebodings.=--In many addresses, as reported in the book
which bears his name, with bitter and thrilling eloquence Amos tried
to drive home this great message to the hearts of his fellow
countrymen. He warned them that unless they heeded, disaster would
come to the nation. For as surely as Jehovah demanded justice, so
surely would he punish injustice. Terrible are his pictures of the
calamities with which the guilty Israelites would be visited. Nor did
he appeal wholly to fear. There is now and then a pleading note in
Amos. Honest and burning indignation and threats are indeed most
common in the pages of his book; yet listen to this:
="Thus the Lord God showed me: and, behold, he formed locusts
in the beginning of the shooting up of the latter growth ...
and ... when they made an end of eating the grass of the
land, then I said, O Lord God, forgive, I beseech thee: how
shall Jacob stand? for he is small."=
There speaks the shepherd pleading for his little sheep--"How can
Jacob stand, for he is small?"
THE RESULTS OF AMOS' WORDS
Amos' mission to the northern kingdom seemed to be a failure. He had
come up from his sheep tending, in his home in Tekoa, in Judah,
because he felt burning within him a message for his people. But he
soon went home. The chief priest at Bethel drove him out. And
apparently the people did not care. No doubt even the poor people in
whose cause Amos had so eloquently spoken were shocked by his words.
"What, are not our sacrifices holy and pleasing to Jehovah? Would he
have us stop offering up burnt-offerings? That is almost blasphemous."
=Bread upon the waters.=--Yet there were some who listened. And the
proof is found in the existence of the book of Amos in the Bible. Some
one cared enough to preserve and copy the first manuscript of Amos'
sermons and to make still other copies. Another proof is the fact that
within that same century three other supremely great religious
teachers caught up his great idea of a new kind of religion and
repeated it in new and wonderfully convincing ways. Of these other
prophets we shall learn more in the chapters to follow.
STUDY TOPICS
1. Glance over the book of Leviticus, also the latter part of Exodus,
and the book of Numbers. How important did the Hebrews evidently
consider the carrying out of sacrifices?
2. Look up in the Bible dictionary Jeroboam II and Amos. Find out more
(1) about the times in which Amos lived and (2) about his personal
history and character.
3. Read as much as you can in the book of Amos: chapters 1 and 2 and 7
and 8 are most important for our study.
4. Are religious ceremonies ever substituted to-day for the religion
of justice and right? If so, explain how.