in some way with the early prophetic movement, for they are mentioned
side by side with the prophets (Amos ii. 11, 12); and it is probable
that Samuel was both a Nazarite and a prophet (1 Sam. i. 11), while
Samson, in whom the Spirit of Jehovah seemed to produce these strange
outbursts of savage frenzy, was certainly a Nazarite (Judges xiii. 4,
5, 7, 14). It would appear that the Nazarites were men who devoted
themselves to the service of Jehovah under certain vows of abstinence
from wine and ceremonial defilement. The vows might be taken for life
or for a limited period, but while under the vow the hair was left
unshorn. There is evidence that this is an old Semitic custom, and that
when the vow was accomplished the hair was made an offering to the god
(Num. vi. 18); to this day the pilgrims to Mecca are forbidden to cut
their hair until the journey is completed. The law of the Nazarites
(Num. vi.) is only a late attempt to legislate for a custom that had
existed independently of the institutions of the religion of Jehovah,
and so to secure a place within the official religion for a custom
that would have been difficult to suppress by prohibition. Similar
in many respects to the Nazarites, but even more obscure, were the
Rechabites, who abstained from wine (Jer. xxxv. 2-10), but who seem
also to have protested against the adoption of any of the arts and
customs of settled life, especially as these customs were typified
in the cultivation of the vine. They chose these methods in order to
resist the influence of Canaan, which was threatening so dangerously
the integrity of the nation and the national religion. They probably
hoped by these conservative manners to destroy the syncretism between
Baal and Jehovah; for the only other mention of the sect in the Old
Testament is in connection with the extirpation of the house of Ahab (2
Kings x. 15-17).
It may appear repulsive to those who have made up their minds as to the
methods by which the Spirit of God can work to trace back the supreme
genius, the impassioned ethical ideals, and the practical statesmanship
of the great Prophets of Israel to movements bordering on insanity; yet
it is from enthusiasm that most of the great saving movements of the
world have come. Certainly the great religious revival which was soon
to come in Israel owed almost as much of its success to these bands of
enthusiasts as to the personality of Elijah.
It falls now to our task to trace the movement from bands to
individuals, from Prophetism to Prophecy, from a phenomenon to a
teaching. We have records of men who seem to have moved beyond the
mantic stage and who prepare the way for the great Prophets. We can
conveniently call these "transition prophets." We shall find that
they bear some resemblance to the old style of Seer, or to the guild
prophets, or to both. Of some of these we have only the merest mention,
so that they may be called the _minor_ transition prophets.
Two stand together by their connection with David and from the fact
that they both seem to have been Court officials (2 Sam. vii. 2; xxiv.
11; 1 Kings i. 10). There is no word here of the mantic fury of the
early prophets; although in Gad, who makes known the best way to escape
the anger of an offended Deity, we have a survival of the ancient seer;
but in Nathan we have a truly noble example of one who, although he
may have been dependent on David for his daily bread, yet faced him
with the unsparing denunciation of his sin. Here is a man who regards
right in Israel more than the smile of princes, and who has a higher
conception of his office than that of a convenient manipulator of
oracles for the flattering of a King. Nathan is a true ancestor of Amos
and Jeremiah.
Ahijah the Shilonite is famous because he foretold the disruption of
the Kingdom (1 Kings xi. 29-31), and we may see in this the beginnings
of that political judgment which was to become notable in the later
Prophets; although a partisan motive might be suspected in this
particular case, when Jeroboam, in later years, sent his wife to
consult Ahijah, accompanied with the usual fee (1 Kings xiv. 2), the
message he received shows that in Ahijah we have no party politician,
but the impartial judgment of the later Prophets.
There is a pathetic and somewhat mysterious story of an unnamed man
of God who delivered the word of Jehovah to Jeroboam at the altar at
Bethel, and who, refusing the accustomed hospitality due to a prophet,
afterwards accepted the invitation of the old prophet of Bethel, and
paid the penalty with his death. We have here a story, the moral of
which may be obscure enough, but which certainly illustrates the
growing conflict between the two prophetic ideals. Here is a prophet
who travels from his own land to rebuke the sin of a King to his
face, afterwards yielding to the blandishments of one of the official
prophets. The new Prophetism, tempted from its superior position by the
old, fell; yet not many years were to elapse before these two orders,
in the persons of Amos and Amaziah, were again to face one another at
this same spot, and this time the new Prophetism was to maintain its
integrity (1 Kings viii.; Amos vii. 10-17).
Before we pass on to the _major_ transition prophets, it will be well
to consider here the effect which the foundation of the Monarchy had on
the development of the religion of Israel.
Of the inauguration of the Monarchy we possess two accounts; one
extremely unfavourable, written doubtless after Judah's experience
of some of her notorious Kings, and in the light of a somewhat ideal
conception of the Theocratic government that was supposed to have
flourished before the time of Saul (1 Sam. x. 17-24); the other
account, in which Samuel himself at the revelation of Jehovah
initiates the movement towards the Monarchy (1 Sam. ix. 15-x. 1) by
anointing Saul, is the one that is placed earlier by the critics. The
Monarchy was an inevitable stage in the social development of a settled
people, and it was the policy of Samuel to make the Monarchy the organ
of the Theocracy. For all this Saul does not seem to have had any
influence on religion, or to have ever realised the needs of his times,
and under the sense of failure he became a prey to fear and depressing
influences which eventually wrecked his reason.
Round the name of David have gathered the national ideals of heroism
and sainthood so often found in combination in early story. They
had a true origin in David, if we judge from the standards of piety
and rulership that were natural to his age. Outlaw, hero, poet,
saint--David is the darling of Israel's history. It would be unfair
to David to picture him as the saintly author of some of the tender
Psalms that bear his name, although others of a more robust character
might well be from his hand. That David was a poet seems to be certain,
and the songs of lament over Saul and Abner, which have strong claims
to be genuine, bear witness to his true poetic gift; but they are
deficient in any display of deep religious feeling. We may have also
to reduce somewhat the conception of the extent or the absoluteness of
his kingly rule. He was rather one of those freebooters who by their
heroism and rough manly courage are able to gather round them men of
their own nature and to inspire in their followers a loyal devotion. To
this pleasant adventurer the early Kingdom fell, but for long it was
only a kingdom of personal followers; nor does he ever seem to have
been enthusiastically acknowledged by the whole nation, or to have
established his claims absolutely beyond dispute. His heroic defence
against the Philistine invasion was sufficient to give him a great
place in the affection of the people, yet he never assumed the imperial
rule in the manner of his successor Solomon. With all this necessary
allowance for the idealising process of a later age, David was the
indispensable centre round which the early ideals and legends of the
Monarchy could collect. His work was of immense importance for the
future; especially his conquest of Jerusalem, now for the first time
wrested from the Canaanites and destined to become in the future the
centre of the national life, to be bound up with his name, and above
all to be the peculiar dwelling-place of Jehovah. To make Jerusalem
his capital was a very diplomatic stroke, for it was neutral territory
to both Ephraim and Judah, and this fact quietened the mutual jealousy
of these tribes. It was also a great work of David that by his rough
piety he definitely connected the Kingship with devotion to the cause
of Jehovah. This devotion found expression in his care for the sacred
palladium of the Tribes, although it was policy as well as piety that
brought the Ark to Jerusalem; for we are forced to admit that in
matters of religion David was not greatly in advance of his times. He
regarded the jurisdiction of Jehovah as not extending beyond Palestine
(1 Sam. xxvi. 19), and although he himself may have abandoned idols,
yet he allowed them in his house (1 Sam. xix. 13), while he retained
the old custom of consulting the will of Jehovah by the Ephod (1 Sam.
xxx. 7) or by the movements of trees (2 Sam. v. 23-25). His conception
of Jehovah was that of a Being of uncertain temper, who would take
vengeance for any acts of ceremonial violation (2 Sam. vi. 9) or whose
anger might be aroused for reasons beyond human discovery (2 Sam. xxiv.
10-17).
But it would be equally wrong to blame David because he does not come
up to the ideals of a later age. So far as it went, we may believe
that his piety was real; he was a man after Jehovah's own heart, _for
those times_. He certainly did his best to found a Kingdom on personal
affection and to establish some kind of impartial justice. In the
matter of Bathsheba and Uriah David has been judged by impossible
standards, and especially by the religious ideas of the 51st Psalm,
which bears in its every line evidence of a morality far too deep for
the age of David, and which is quite unsuitable for a confession of
murder and adultery. It was no crime in the eyes of an oriental monarch
to take his neighbour's wife, and it was novel doctrine that David
heard from the lips of Nathan; it is to be laid to his everlasting
credit that he listened to this prophetic judgment, was convicted of
the sinfulness of his act, and repented very profoundly.
When we pass to Solomon we come to a character altogether different,
but one that is very difficult to estimate from the portrait presented
to us in the Old Testament. The writers allow themselves to be carried
away by the tradition of his magnificence, and by the external evidence
of his piety preserved in the splendid Temple which he reared to the
glory of Jehovah; but they cannot produce much evidence for the depth
of his personal religion. He attempted to build an empire on the lines
of the barbaric and superficial glories of his greatest neighbours;
but its splendour and certainly its significance have been rather
overdrawn by the later historians. It was a reign of splendour, but
for the religion of Israel it was unimportant, for it was in the main
irreligious. Save for the presence of Nathan at his coronation, the
prophetic ministry almost disappears in this reign; what prophets
remain are opposed to his policy. Solomon was little more than a
worldly cosmopolitan; his empire was magnificent in comparison with
the achievements of his predecessors, but it rested not as David's
on the devotion of the people to a popular hero, but depended for
its strength on a system of taxation and a false imperialism: forced
labour was employed and the loyalty of the tribes was strained. It
was an endeavour to change the government from a natural and tribal
system to that of an Eastern despotism; and it ended in failure. The
building of the Temple was only a part of this policy, and it was a
policy resented by the prophetic party, who were all for simplicity
in matters of worship (2 Sam. vii.; omit verse 13). The Temple did
not occupy too outstanding a place in the block of royal buildings,
and there is no evidence that in this age it was anything more than
Solomon's private chapel built with the desire to rival the splendid
royal shrines of other countries. It was evidently designed largely
on heathen models, and contained heathen symbols which the later
religion absorbed with difficulty. The adoption of the Temple as the
supreme centre of Israel's worship was not the work of Solomon, but
the effect of the teaching of Isaiah of Jerusalem and the consequence
of the reforms of Hezekiah and Josiah. The harem and the strange
worship were similarly parts of an international policy. Solomon was
certainly the first to give to the worship of Jehovah an imposing
splendour and regularity, but it was not a splendour that appealed
to the Prophets. The beautiful prayer of the dedication can hardly
be the composition of Solomon, but is more likely to have been the
production of a later age which endeavoured to give to this display a
piety which the original did not possess. In time the Temple was to
become of enormous importance, but in this period it remained only a
magnificent shrine for the Ark. The fact that two of the prophets sided
with Jeroboam may point to a revolt against this religious splendour.
The bulls of Jeroboam were a counterblast to the Temple, and although
his name is ever afterwards connected with the introduction of this
idolatrous worship, and the succeeding Kings of Israel condemned for
their participation, it is evident that these strictures are somewhat
intensified by the conception that in the quarrel between Israel and
Judah, Judah was in the right, and by the refusal to allow for the fact
that this method of worship had not been condemned by any contemporary.
The calves were most likely ancient symbols of Semitic divinity, and
were certainly intended as symbols of Jehovah. Nevertheless, the future
lay with the Temple and the South, for the revolution was based on
a merely conservative impulse and contained no ideal. In the South,
Jehovah was never worshipped with such an excess of heathen symbolism,
and thither the voice of Prophecy soon transferred itself to find in
Judah its greatest sphere.
We are brought now to one of the most pregnant movements of this time,
known as the northern prophetic revolt, and to the work and personalty
of the major transition prophets, Elijah and Elisha. The introduction
of the worship of the Tyrian Baal by Ahab was the signal for revolt.
Here was a violation of the commonest conceptions of religion: the
transplantation of the worship of another god, Melkart, the Baal of
Tyre, into the territory of Jehovah, who was regarded as the Baal
of Canaan. It opened the eyes of the schools of the Prophets to the
danger of the use of the name of Baal, and was the cause of its
complete disuse as a name for Jehovah (Hosea ii. 16, 17). In the revolt
against the worship of this heathen Baal there stands out as its chief
inspiration and leader the magnificent figure of the prophet Elijah. It
is evident that in the story of his life we have much that is legendary
and probably some confusion with the work of Elisha, but the religious
significance is sufficiently clear. We have noticed that Elijah is
remotely connected with the prophetic schools, and they share with
him the persecution organised by the devotees of Baal; the old mantic
accompaniments of prophecy are still found in Elijah; he seems to
charm the rain (1 Kings xviii. 42), and he certainly hears it coming.
With all his courage and insight he does not fully comprehend the true
methods by which the religion of Jehovah is to win its way; conviction
is to be brought by thunder and fire; if these fail there remains the
sword. It may be difficult to decide whether Elijah actually conceived
the wonderful revelation at Mount Horeb, but it is more than likely
that to this man there came in the hour of failure the discovery that
there were other ways more to the mind of Jehovah whereby men should
realise His presence; a discovery which has been dramatised in the
theophany on Horeb. Revelation by the still small voice of inner
conviction certainly gained greater recognition after the ministry of
Elijah.
If we seek to understand the meaning of Elijah's stand for Jehovah, we
shall see that it was first of all a protest against the syncretism
of the Baal and Jehovah religions. This protest may have been founded
initially on conceptions not too exalted, namely, that Jehovah and
Melkart could not be worshipped in the same land, but there are
evidences that Elijah had advanced further than that. His daring taunts
to Baal amount to complete scepticism as to his existence, or at least
of his power to injure the true follower of Jehovah. If that is so,
then we have in Elijah the first monotheist. He clearly perceived that
in character Baal and Jehovah were utterly different. The cruelty
connected with the religion of Jehovah still persists under Elijah,
but the incompatibility between the true religion and heathenism is
recognised and affirmed. We may sum up Elijah's religion in his own
phrase: "I have been very jealous for Jehovah."
There is another aspect of Elijah's work which certainly forms a true
transition to the teaching of the later Prophets; he denounces the
murder of Naboth almost as much as the worship of Baal. We trace here
the rise of the ethical conception of the service of Jehovah and the
protest against social wrongs which was to become so great a part of
the burden of such men as Amos and Micah.
With Elijah we can see forming, however dimly, the thought of a Kingdom
of God, and the peculiar patriotism of the Prophets: he desires an
Israel independent of all heathen alliances; it is a conception of
a Kingdom which shall be great in intension rather than wide in
extension. It was this conflict of the prophetic and the so-called
patriotic ideals that was to contribute largely to the final overthrow
of the State. It may have been that the Prophets could never have
built up a strong State on the lines they indicated, and their very
protest may have weakened the arm of statesmen and contributed to the
destruction of the Kingdom founded by David and Solomon. We can only
feel that we side with the Prophets. If the prophetic voice had been
silenced we might have had Israel with a kingdom as mighty as Assyria,
although that is highly doubtful; but it would have been a kingdom as
useless for its contribution to religion as that proud, vain, and
cruel empire.
The theophany at Horeb, therefore, whatever its embellishment and
however symbolical its dress, is the true history of this period.
In the development of the prophetic religion, magic and mystery are
failing, display and external glory are passing away, and there enters
from this time the conception of the religion of the inward voice on
which the work of the later Prophets is built. Elisha is but a pale
reflection of his master, and makes little contribution to religion;
but we soon hear of Micaiah (1 Kings xxii. 8), whose message reveals
the still widening gap between the professional prophet and the new
order of men who hear with greater clearness the true voice of Jehovah.
But sixty years have to pass, and Northern Palestine awakens to the
echoes of a new voice, and listens to the new message of the first
of that prophetic band who have enriched literature while they have
exalted religion--Amos the herdman of Tekoa.
Where elsewhere in history has there been a religion that, starting in
comparative heathenism, almost lost in conflict with a fully-developed
paganism, has yet moved steadily upward, breaking away from its
origins, shedding the false charms of magic and sorcery, and rising
by gradual ascent into fellowship with the Will of God? It is this
_movement_ that constitutes the inspiration of the Old Testament and
that makes it still a Word of God to us.
Many of these conclusions, which have been put forward and established
by critical methods, especially in reference to the religious feeling
of those times, and in the different conception of the piety of
men like David and Solomon, may strike the reader as startling and
disturbing. That may well be, but that is no excuse for our reading
into Bible story more than can be legitimately found there, while it
will be sure to obscure some of its highest teaching, which is to
be found not in isolated "texts," but in great movements. It is the
facts that we have to face, and the facts are obscured not so much
by the corrections of the history by the later historians, as by our
forcing into them the still later conceptions of our own times. We
have not given detailed proof of many of the positions here taken up;
they may be sought in detail by the reader in the works of Biblical
scholarship. Our object is to discover whether these things being so,
we can still find a true revelation in the history of this people,
and hear in it the Voice of God. Do we not get from this corrected
view of the history, a sense of the splendid onward movement of this
religion, which in itself is so much more inspiring than the monotonous
conception, which is only the product of later Judaism, that the
history of Israel's religion is nothing but a series of apostasies
from a pure and perfect faith? That late conception is not borne out
by a careful and critical study of the sources, and it rather owes its
strength to-day to a certain dogmatic conception of human nature that
is needlessly pessimistic, and to an idea of the weakness of the Spirit
of God in His dealings with man that nearly approaches atheism.
One or two lessons of the period stand out in strong relief. One is
that better things come of enthusiasm, even when it is mistaken, than
from indifference. The reference of all the institutions of Israel
to the definitely revealed Will of Jehovah may seem to some, after
these investigations, a mistake. This can only arise from too narrow a
conception of the working of God and the means through which His Spirit
reaches man, for it is this very reference to the Will of God that is
responsible for the advance in Israel's faith. To believe in the Will
of God, and to refer all to it, does gradually increase the knowledge
of that Will, and so leads to a true revelation.
Another lesson is, not to despise the accompaniments of the first
movements of the Spirit of God in man. It is not within the scope of
this work to enquire why it is that when a man is moved by the Spirit
of God such strange phenomena as we have been studying in the prophetic
bands, which still accompany many revivals, should be the immediate
results. There must be patience with these things as beginnings; but
equally must there be impatience with them when they elevate themselves
into a permanent claim to recognition as the only signs of a true
religious life, and when they refuse to recognise as higher the sane
and ethical movement to which they themselves have given birth. One
of the chief difficulties in things religious is to recognise the
offspring of a great movement, to discover the time when the child
must be allowed its new-found freedom, to know when symbols may be
dropped and the reality brought in. Protestantism has given birth to
wider thoughts about God and deeper appreciations of the extent of His
working, which are the logical outcome of Protestantism, and yet which
are often repudiated by those whose Protestantism is of the aggressive
type. A progressive movement of any kind always has these strifes. They
are as constant in Science as in Religion, only in Science they are
more easily overcome by the greater readiness to accept new revelation.
Christianity is a religion that moves, and, as Christ Himself foretold,
it causes the son to rise up against his father, the new generation
to come into conflict with the old. Ours it is never to forget that
the Kingdom of God is on the side of the child; except ye receive the
Kingdom of God as a child, in the spirit of enquiry and growth, except
ye never grow old, ye cannot enter therein.
THE RELIGION OF THE LITERARY PROPHETS
THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE PROPHETS
_Assyrian Period._
B.C.
Amos 760-750 B.C.
Hosea 750-737 Accession of Tiglath Pileser III 745
Isaiah 740-700 Invasion of Sennacherib 701
Micah 724- Fall of Samaria 722
Zephaniah _circa_ 627 Western Palestine invaded by Scythians
Nahum 610-608? Fall of Nineveh 607
_Chaldæan Period._
Jeremiah 626-586 Deuteronomy discovered 621
Habakkuk 605-600? First Great Exile 597
Ezekiel 593-573 Second Great Exile 586
_Persian Period._
Isa. xiii.-xiv.; xxi. 1-10; xxxiv., (Date uncertain, but
xxxv. definitely after the
Exile.)
Isa. xl.-lv. (The "Second" Isaiah)
_c_540. Cyrus takes Babylon 538
Isa. lvi.-lxvi. (Various prophecies,
to be dated after the return.) Return of the Exiles 537
Haggai _c_520
Zech. i.-viii. _c_520
Mal. 460-450 Promulgation of the Law 444
Zech. ix.-xiv. 322
There is nothing to enable us to decide the dates of Jonah, Joel, and
Obadiah with greater definiteness than to say that they were written
after the Restoration.
Diagram representing the religious significance of the Prophets:--
FINAL EMBODIMENT
GOLDEN AGE OF PROPHECY SILVER AGE OF PROPHETIC
TEACHING
_Exile_
+ +--------+ PSALMS
| | |
| | |
| + |
+--------------+ 2 ISAIAH |
| | |
| | |
+---+ JEREMIAH | |
| | |
| | |
+ | |
+--+ HOSEA | |
| | |
| | |
AMOS +-------+ MICAH--NAH.--HAB. +--+--------------+ WISDOM LITERATURE
| | |
| | |
+-----------+ ISAIAH DEUT. | |
+ | |
| | |
| | |
+-------------+ EZEKIEL -----+ THE LAW