JEHOVAH NOT A GOD OF ANGER
There are other mischievous delusions in regard to the character of
God which we find among all races in the early childhood of their
history. They think of their gods not only as greedy but as having
arbitrary whims and as often falling into fits of unreasonable and
cruel anger.
EARLY IDEAS OF JEHOVAH'S ANGER
The Hebrews were not entirely free from these wrong notions in their
conception of Jehovah. Even in the story of Moses, for example, there
is a strange narrative which declares Jehovah "met Moses and sought to
kill him" and would have killed him except for the ceremonial rite
which his wife Zipporah performed.
=The story of the ark and the men of Beth-shemesh.=--Similar to this
is the story of the wanderings of the ark in 1 Samuel. This ark, or
sacred chest, was regarded as the special dwelling place of Jehovah in
Canaan, his permanent home supposedly being on Mount Sinai in the
desert. When the ark was captured by the Philistines a plague broke
out in every city where it was taken. Finally it was placed on a new
cart with specially chosen cows to draw it, and sent back toward the
Hebrew border, and in the course of time it reached the Hebrew town of
Beth-shemesh. And we read that "the sons of Jeconiah did not rejoice
with the men of Beth-shemesh, when they looked upon the ark of
Jehovah. So he smote among them seventy men."[4]
SACRIFICE AS A PROPITIATION OF JEHOVAH'S ANGER
It was just this idea of Jehovah as subject to fits of anger which
prompted many of the old sacrifices. It was not merely that Jehovah
was greedy and could be bribed with gifts to grant favors, but also
that he was dangerous when his anger was stirred and hence sacrifices
were necessary to placate him.
=Human sacrifices.=--An even darker side of the picture is the
existence of human sacrifices, even among the Hebrews, in the worship
of Jehovah. The pathetic story of Jephthah's daughter is the most
conspicuous example. This warrior had promised to sacrifice to Jehovah
whatever first came out to meet him, if he returned victorious from
war. Alas, it was his own daughter! Yet he did not dare to break his
vow.
The story of Abraham and Isaac also proves that human sacrifices to
Jehovah were not unknown among the Hebrews. In this story Jehovah
finally intervenes and allows Abraham to offer up a ram instead of his
own son. Yet the story implies the belief that Jehovah might demand of
a father that he kill his own son and burn him on the altar. These
ideas continued to be believed even down to the time of the prophets,
Amos and Hosea, and the others about whom we will study.
THE PROPHET MICAH AND HIS MESSAGE
About the time that Hosea was finishing his sad career in the north
another prophet in the south caught up the torch of light and truth.
His name was Micah. Like the two great men who preceded him, Amos and
Hosea, his heart was stirred to pity and indignation by the sufferings
of the poor and by the injustice and luxury of the rich and powerful.
In plain, direct, and fiery sentences he denounced these evils and
foretold punishment. Because of these things, he declared that
"Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the
high places of a forest."
Micah was especially bitter against those men who made religion their
business, and used it as a means of oppressing the poor--the prophets
who proclaim a holy war against those "who put not into their mouths,"
that is, those who do not give them presents. The priests, Micah says,
"teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money."
=Micah's great message.=--It was, of course, the existence of
superstitious fears in the hearts of the people which made it possible
for the priests and the prophets to join with the rich nobles in
preying upon them. "You give me this or that," "You pay for this
sacrifice or that--or I will call down a curse upon you from Jehovah.
Some dreadful misfortune will come upon you." With one great word
whose throbbing pity for the ignorance and sorrow of men makes it
another of the great utterances of human lips, Micah cut the root of
all such fears. Jehovah is not that kind of a God, he declared. He
does not break out in fits of rage. He does not need to be wheedled
back into good nature by costly offerings, perhaps even sometimes with
the costliest offerings of all, one's own darling children.
="Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself
before the high God? Shall I come before him with
burnt-offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the Lord be
pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of
rivers of oil? shall I give my first-born for my
transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the
Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy,
and to walk humbly with thy God."=
STUDY TOPICS
1. Read the stories of the ark, referred to in this chapter. See 1
Samuel 6. 1-20; 2 Samuel 6. 1-9. What other way of explaining the
death of Uzzah and of the men of Beth-shemesh occurs to you rather
than the anger of Jehovah? In the case of the men of Beth-shemesh,
read 1 Samuel 5, with its clear indications of contagious disease.
2. How has modern science helped to free mankind from the curse of
superstitious fear?
3. Look up Micah in the Bible dictionary, and find out all you can
about his personal history and work.
4. Are superstition and wrong religious beliefs ever made the means of
extortion and oppression to-day? If so, how?
FOOTNOTES:
[4] 1 Samuel 6. 19, Greek version.