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Biblical Theology

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THE PROPHET AND HIS
PROBLEMS

THE PROPHET AND HIS
PROBLEMS

BY
J. M. POWIS SMITH, Ph.D.
ABHOCIATE PROFESSOR OF OLD TESTAMENT LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
IN THE UNIVERSITY OV CHICAGO

NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

IPX}

copykight, 1914, by
Charles Scribner's Sons

Published September, 1914

TO MY WIFE
CATHERINE McKLVEEN SMITH
" The heart of her husband trusteth in her "

PREFACE
The Hebrew prophet has received a
new interpretation at the hands of mod
ern scholarship. Prior to its advent he
was classified as belonging to an alto
gether unique species. He was neither
of earth, nor of heaven, but had more or
less tangible connections with both. He
was a thing to be admired — yea, won
dered at, but not to be understood. His
mental and spiritual processes defied all
analysis. He was an unfathomable mys
tery. To-day the prophet is, in one sense, as
much a mystery as ever; and he will
remain so. Genius always eludes defi
nition and exposition; and religious gen
ius is no exception to the rule. But we
have come to see that, after all, the
prophet was a man among men. He was,
vii

viii PREFACE
in essence, not differently constituted
from other men. Nor was he vouchsafed
a monopoly of the facilities for the dis
covery of truth and of God. This brings
him nearer to us, and makes his experi
ences of primary interest for us, because
they are seen to be such as, in kind at
least, are common to men. They thus
furnish illumination and direction to the
modern man in his effort to know God
more fully and to do his will more per
fectly. No section of the Old Testament, and
but little of the New, comes so close to
the needs of our day as does the pro
phetic literature. Reading it in the light
of the conditions that produced it, we
cannot but feel constantly the essential
oneness of the prophet's problems with
our own. They were struggling, and at
times in the face of what seemed insuper
able difficulties, to justify the ways of
God to men. As time went on, these dif
ficulties multiplied, rather than dimin-

PREFACE ix
ished. Old systems of thought and con
victions of duty had to be abandoned,
and new ones formulated in the heat of
the conflict. Religion had to readjust
itself from time to time to a new thought
environment. To this task of reinter
preting the always changing phenomena
of the world-life in terms of religion the
prophet brought all his powers. Its suc
cessful achievement was the imperative
need, if God was to be kept supreme in
the thought of men. The perpetuation of
Hebrew religious faith and its continued
development in Christianity are proof of
the prophet's success.
To a generation that sees many of the
old strongholds of religion crumbling, and
finds it necessary to seek surer founda
tions for new structures, the story of the
Hebrew prophets should always prove
interesting and helpful. They have much
to teach those who are called upon to
build after them. Their example of un
blinking recognition of the facts of life

x PREFACE
is a stimulus to right thinking, and their
courage in the presence of tremendous
odds inspires faith. Their experience
seemed to involve much pain and loss.
But on the contrary, this was in every
way much gain. The old customs and
dogmas that had to be dropped were
but obstructing the way for the entrance
of larger truth. The whole story spells
progress. It cost much to learn the new
truth; but truth paid its way then even
as now. The truth proved to be no
enemy to faith, but the enlarger and
strengthener of faith.
This little book does not, of course, at
tempt to tell the whole story of prophecy.
It aims rather to present a few illustrative
sections of that story. Through these, it
is believed, a general point of view re
garding the prophet and his work may
be attained. It is hoped that some who
read these pages may be sufficiently in
terested and quickened to feel a desire
to fill in the lacuna? by more detailed and

PREFACE xi
consecutive studies. Therefore, a list of
books has been appended for those who
may desire to go further and learn more.
The prophetic writings yield rich reward
for intelligent and faithful study. They
show us Hebrew religion in the making
and they point the way to God for all
who would in like manner make their
own religion.

CONTENTS I

PAGE

Prophets in the Semitic World . .
II
Primitive Hebrew Prophets .... 36
III
False Prophets  59
IV
Prophetic Prediction  87
V
A Prophet's Marriage  109
VI
The Prophet and the State .... 137
VII
The Prophet and the Individual . . 168
xiii

xiv CONTENTS VIII

TAGE

The Prophet's Religion  209
APPENDIX
A List of Books for the General
Reader  235
Index  239

THE PROPHET AND HIS
PROBLEMS

PROPHETS IN THE SEMITIC
WORLD x
For a long time prophecy was looked
upon as an exclusively Israelitish institu
tion, as that which set Israel apart from
all competitors in the sphere of religion.
This point of view was inevitable as long
as the opinion prevailed that Israel was
"the peculiar people," isolated on every
side from the world about her, having
connection only with the God above her.
But that opinion is now being retired into
the ever more thickly populated limbo of
outworn, outgrown, and forgotten dog
mas. It is impossible for the historian
any longer to treat the Hebrew nation as
a thing apart. By birth the Hebrews were
1 Reprinted, with revision and expansion, from The Biblical
World, vol. XXXV U910). 3

4 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
members of the great Semitic family.
Nothing pertaining to the Semite was
wholly foreign to the Hebrew. Semitic
blood flowed in Israel's veins; Semitic
ideas rounded out her mental horizon;
Semitic impulses and passions furnished
the content of her emotions. Israel's
whole social, intellectual, and spiritual
background was through and through
Semitic. Not only so, but at one time or an
other in Israel's experience she was
brought into vital contact with all of the
great civilisations of antiquity. Egyp
tians, Hittites, Assyrians, Babylonians,
Persians, Greeks, and Romans, all in
turn made their contribution to Israel
itish life and thought. The great out
standing and enduring feature of Israel's
life was her willingness to borrow from her
neighbours. No nation has manifested
a greater openness of mind and heart.
Yet there was nothing of slavish depen
dence in her attitude. She exhibited a

SEMITIC PROPHETS 5
wonderful selective power in the things
she took and in many a case her touch
was transforming. It is now generally
recognised that not a single institution
of Israel's Hfe was exclusively Hebraic.
Quantitatively speaking, that which
united Israel to the neighbouring peoples
far outweighed that which differentiated
her from them. Her pre-eminence was
wholly in the sphere of quality and de
gree. We are now prepared, therefore, for
consideration of the proposition that
prophecy was shared alike by all the
Semitic peoples. If sacrifice, priesthood,
temple, clean and unclean, circumci
sion, Sabbath, sabbatical year, atone
ment, fasts, feasts, sacred pillars, tera
phim, blood-revenge, oracles, prayers,
and psalms are all held in common by
the Semitic world, why should we ex
pect prophecy to form an exception?
The Old Testament itself furnishes
no warrant for such an expectation but

6 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
rather gives direct evidence of a contrary
sort. Balaam, son of Beor (Num. 22 : 5),
though a prophet of Yahweh (22 : 8),
was yet quite evidently not a Hebrew,
for he sought oracles to the detriment
of Israel and for the benefit of Midian
and Moab. Even the Philistines had
"diviners" (I Sam. 6:2). The King
of Babylon is represented by Ezekiel
(21 : 21) as employing divination by
means of arrows, teraphim, and the in
spection of the livers of animals.
When we extend our quest beyond the
Old Testament, evidence for the existence
of prophets among non-Hebraic peoples
multiplies. In Assyrian religion, visions and ora
cles played an important part, constitut
ing a "regular means of communication
between man and the gods." * Oracles
were sought by Esarhaddon, Ashurbani-
1 M. Jastrow, Jr., Religion of Babylonia and Assyria (1898),
pp. 338 Jf. and 379. In the new German edition of this work
(completed in 1912) three entire chapters, covering 833 pages,
are given to the various kinds of divination.

SEMITIC PROPHETS 7
pal, and the kings in general upon all
sorts of occasions, public and private.1
By means of them the kings sought
from the gods guidance and light upon
the outcome of their plans. The func
tion of the seer, diviner, and soothsayer
in Assyria, therefore, frequently took on
national significance, thus being sugges
tive of Israehtish prophecy in its higher
development. For example, when Ash-
urbanipal, after the capture of Babylon,
propitiated the outraged gods by the
purification of their shrines, it was done
by direction of the guild of soothsayers.
On another occasion, Ashurbanipal, just
as he was setting out for a campaign
against Elam, poured out his soul in sup
plication for aid to Ishtar, and later in
the same night was comforted by re
ceiving a revelation from her. As he
himself tells the story:

1 Cf. C. D. Gray's translations of some oracles of Esarhad
don in R. F. Harper's Assyrian and Babylonian Literature
(1900), pp. 414/.

8 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
Toward the end of the night in which I had
addressed myself to her, a seer lay down and
dreamed a dream; and Ishtar showed him a vi
sion of the night which he related to me as fol
lows: "Ishtar who dwells in Arbela entered with
her quivers hanging down on the right side and
on the left. In her hand she held a bow, and a
sharp war sword she drew from its sheath and
held before her. Like the mother that bore thee,
she speaks with thee, she calls thee. Ishtar, the
exalted among the gods, establisheth thy fate.
. . . Whither thy face is set, thither go I.
Thou didst say to her: 'Whithersoever thou
goest, will I go with thee, O queen of the gods.'
She replied to thee: 'Thou mayest stay here;
where the shrine of Nabu is, eat food, drink wine,
make music, and exalt my deity, until I go forth
and complete that work and give thee the wish
of thy heart. Let not thy countenance pale nor
thy feet totter.' In her good mother-love she
hid thee and protected thy whole body. Before
her will a flame flash forth, and for the destruc
tion of thine enemies will she cause it to go
forth abroad. Against Teumman, King of Elam,
against whom she is enraged, has she set her
face."1 This narrative irresistibly calls to mind
the corresponding scene when Ahab and
1 See H. Winckler, Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek, vol. II (1890),
pp. 251/.

SEMITIC PROPHETS 9
Jehoshaphat sought to know the will of
Yahweh concerning the expedition against
Ramoth Gilead and finally called in Mi
caiah ben Imlah (I Kings 22 : 4 ff.).
In connection with the revolt of Sha-
mash-shum-ukin, King of Babylon and
brother of Ashurbanipal, the following
episode is narrated:
At that time a certain seer was lying asleep
during the night, and he saw a vision, thus: On
the disk of Sin (i. e., the moon) there was written
as follows: "Whoever plots evil against Ashur
banipal, E!mg of Assyria, and begins hostilities
against him, I will send an evil death upon. I
will bring his life to an end by the swift, iron
dagger, the firebrand, famine, or the devasta
tion of Gira" (i. e., the pest god). I heard these
things and I trusted in the word of Sin, my lord.1
A badly damaged text from Ashurban-
ipal's famous library has preserved a
prophecy of the fall of Babylon which
is especially interesting and instructive.
The prophecy perhaps dates back as far
•See my translation of the "Annals of Ashurbanipal," in
R. F. Harper's Assyrian and Babylonian Literature (1900),
p. 108.

10 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
as the fifteenth century B. C. and ex
presses the hope and confidence of As
syria regarding the fate of her rival
Babylon. The intelligible portion of the
inscription reads:1
In the conquest (?) of Babylon
The builder of that palace will suffer harm (?) :
That prince will experience disgrace,
His heart will not be glad.
During his reign
Fight and battle
Will not cease.
Under his rule one will devour the other;
The people will sell
Their children for money.
The lands will all at once revolt (?) ;
The husband will forsake the wife,
And the wife will forsake the husband.
The mother will bar her door against the
daughter.
The possession of Babylon
Will come to Subartu
And to Assyria.
The King of Babylon
Will to the prince of Assyria the property of
his palace
And his possession to. . . .
1 This translation follows that of Ungnad, in Gressmann's
AUorientalische Texte und Bilder zum Alten Testamente (1909),
pp. 75 $.

SEMITIC PROPHETS 11
The Assyrian and Babylonian prophet,
diviner, or soothsayer was always of
the priestly class and connected with a
shrine, therein differing, it is true, from
men like Amos and Micah but, on the
other hand, furnishing an exact parallel
in this respect to a seer like Samuel,
who combined in himself the functions
of priest and prophet. In contrast with
the higher reaches of prophecy in Israel,
the prophets of Assyria and Babylon
were, for the most part, caught in the
meshes of sorcery, witchcraft, magic, and
necromancy. So far as we at present
know, they never dealt with the ills of
the social order or presented themselves
in behalf of the gods as ardent champions
of the poor and the oppressed. But a
new inscription may at any moment re
veal them to us in a new and better
light.1
'For other examples of Assyrian prophecy, see Peiser,
Mittheilungen der Vorderasiatischen Gesellschaft, III (1898),
pp. 257/.; and C. H. W. Johns, "The Prophets in Babylonia,"
The Interpreter. April, 1906.

12 . PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
Another close parallel to Old Testa
ment prophecy is furnished us by the
little kingdom of Byblos, in northern
Syria. The time of the occurrence was
about 1100 B. C. The occasion of the
prophecy was an embassy from Hrihor,
high priest of Amon at Thebes, to Za-
kar-Baal, prince of Byblos. The envoy
Wenamon was commissioned to secure
from Zakar-Baal sufficient cedar from
the Lebanons for the building of a new
sacred barge for the god Amon. After
various delays and vicissitudes, Wena
mon arrived at Byblos.1 Here his ill
fortune continued, for, having come in
a merchant vessel instead of in a royal
ship, and lacking the usual costly gifts
and other credentials of an Egyptian
envoy, he was refused recognition by
Zakar-Baal and was ordered to return
whence he came. Notwithstanding the
fact that the order of dismissal was re-

1 For the full story of the expedition, see J. H. Breasted's
Ancient Records of Egypt, vol. IV (1906), pp. 274/.

SEMITIC PROPHETS 13
newed every day for nineteen days,
Wenamon persisted in remaining and
urging his claim upon the refractory
prince. At last, just as he was on the
eve of re-embarking for Egypt, having
already sent his baggage aboard and
waiting only for the darkness that he
might carry the image of his discredited
god aboard under its friendly cover, he
was requested to remain and was granted
an mterview by the prince, as a result of
which he was able to carry through his
mission to success. The reason for the
sudden change of heart upon the part
of the prince is told by Wenamon as
follows: "Now, when he (Zakar-Baal)
sacrificed to his gods, the god seized one
of his noble youths, making him fren
zied, so that he said : ' Bring (the god)
hither! Bring the messenger of Amon
who hath him. Send him and let him
go.' " Thereupon, the King, profoundly
impressed by this message, summoned
Wenamon to his presence.

14 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
The points of resemblance between
this episode and the activity of the He
brew prophet are clear. There is the
same ecstatic state which, as in Israel, is
attributed to divine possession. Further,
the prophetic personage is apparently
not a priestly official of any sort but a
man of high rank at the court, remind
ing us somewhat of Isaiah's position.
Yet again the prophet does not fear to
run diametrically counter to the royal
will in bidding the King be courteous
to a political representative whom he
has thus far treated with the greatest
discourtesy. Not only so, but the proph
ecy comes on the occasion of a national
crisis, or at least it probably seemed
such to the "noble youth." The prophet
fears that the rude dismissal of the Egyp
tian envoy may involve Byblos in war
with the great Egyptian Empire, for
which he probably entertained a much
greater respect and fear than did his
master, Zakar-Baal. He broods upon

SEMITIC PROPHETS 15
the danger of the King's course until he
is impelled to speak words of warning
in the name of his god and in behalf
of his country. Here we approach very
close to the heart of Hebrew prophecy.
Another proof of the activity of proph
ets in northern Syria is afforded by a
recently discovered inscription of Zakar,
King of La'ash and Hamath about 800
B. C. Zakar was attacked by a coali
tion of neighbouring kings and was in
great straits. "Thereupon," as he him
self says, "I raised my hands to the
Lord of the heavens; then the Lord of the
heavens heard me; [an oracle] the Lord
of the heavens [sent] to me through the
seers1 and the . . . ; and the Lord of
the heavens [said to me]: Fear thou
not; for [I] made [thee] King; [I will
stand] by thee and rescue thee from all
[the kings who] have raised intrench-
ments against thee." Here again we

1 The word here used is one often employed in the Old
Testament to describe prophetic vision or utterance.

16 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
find "seers" exercising influence upon
public affairs in the name of the gods.
The most striking parallels to Hebrew
prophecy, however, come from Egypt.
The oldest document of this sort so far
known exists, in whole or in part, in five
copies — a fact attesting its popularity.
It has recently been placed within the
reach of English readers by a translation
from the hand of Alan H. Gardiner,1
which is the source of our information
here. King Snefru (ca. 2900 B. C), after
a meeting of his council, requested that
some one be brought before him who
could while away the time with interest
ing narratives. Thereupon, a priest of
the goddess Ubast was produced, who
proceeded to set forth the calamities that
must befall Egypt. His opening words
were: "Up my heart, and bewail this
land whence thou art sprung." Contin-
1 In The Journal of Egyptian Archeology, April, 1914.
Gardiner's rendering is based upon the edition of the text
by W. Golenischeff, viz.: Les papyrus htiratiques Nos. 1115,
11164, 1116B de L'Ermitage Imperial a St. Petersbourg (1913).

SEMITIC PROPHETS 17
uing in this strain, he depicts the land
as a prey to internal brigandage, to ir
ruptions of Asiatic nomads, to drying up
of the Nile, and to civil war. "I show
thee the land upside down; the man
weak of arm is now the possessor of an
arm; men do the bidding of him who
once did other men's bidding. I show
thee the undermost uppermost. Men
live in the Necropolis. The poor man
will make his hoard. . . . The pauper
eats offering-bread." But after this reign
of terror there will arise a King the
splendour of whose reign will atone for
all past agony.
There is a King shall come from the South,
whose name is Ameny, son of a Nubian woman,
a child of Chen-Khou.1 He shall receive the
White Crown;2 he shall assume the Red Crown;3
he shall unite the Two Powerful Ones;4 he shall
propitiate Horus and Seth,6 with what they
love. . . .
1 A name for Upper Egypt.
2 That of Upper Egypt. J That of Lower Egypt.
* The two goddesses who preside over the double crown.
6 The two rival brother gods between whom Egypt had
been divided.

18 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
The people of his time shall rejoice; this man
of noble birth shall make his name for ever and
ever. Those who turn to mischief, who devise
rebellion, shall subdue their mouthmgs through
fear of him. The Asiatics shall fall by his sword;
the Libyans shall fall before his flame, and the
rebels before his wrath, and the froward before
his majesty. The Uraeus that dwelleth in front1
shall pacify for him the froward.
There shall be built the wall of the prince, so
as not to allow the Asiatics to go down into
Egypt, that they may beg for water after their
wonted wise, so as to give their cattle to drink.
And right shall come into its place, and iniquity
be cast forth. He will rejoice who shall behold
and who shall serve the King. And he that is
prudent shall pour to me libation when he sees
fulfilled what I have spoken.
Another source of our knowledge con
cerning prophecy in Egypt is known as
the Leiden papyrus No. 344. Though
long studied by Egyptologists, the diffi
culty of the text, due to its illegibility,
obscurity, and fragmentary character,
was so great that not until the year
•That is, the serpent symbol worn upon the brow of the
Pharaoh and believed to be likewise worn by the sun-god Re.
Its function was to protect the King.

SEMITIC PROPHETS 19
19031 was any true insight into the nature
of its contents obtained, and even then
much was left to be illuminated by fur
ther study. But in the year 1909 there
appeared from the press a study of this
document by Alan H. Gardiner, bearing
the title Admonitions of an Egyptian
Sage (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs). This
work, containing text, transliteration,
translation, and introduction, is hence
forth the editio princeps. It renders the
text of the papyrus accessible and intel
ligible to all scholars. Few texts can be
of greater interest or significance to the
students of the Old Testament.
The date of the text is at present in
large measure an open question. Sethe
assigns it to the Hyksos period (ca. 1675-
1575 B. C), while Gardiner vacillates be
tween this date and the period between
the sixth and eleventh dynasties of
Egypt (2475-2160). In either case, the
1 H. O. Lange, "Prophezeiungen eines agyptischen Weisen,"
Sitzungsberichte der Koniglichen Preussischen Akademie der
Wissenschaften (1903), pp. 601-610.

20 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
document comes from a period centuries
earlier than the first known appearance
of prophecy in Israel. The contents of
the document make it evident that an
individual named Ipuwer is represented
as delivering a long and impassioned
discourse in the presence of the King and
his courtiers. What the occasion was
that called forth this speech we do not
know. He may have suffered some in
justice which made him seem to himself
to be the typical victim of an admin
istration that was plunging all his fel
low citizens into disaster and suffering,
as Gardiner suggests, or he may have
been called in by the King for advice;
or, like Amos at Bethel, he may have
gone to court voluntarily, driven by an
inner conviction that was like fire in his
bones. In any case, he hesitates not to
lay bare before the eye of the King the ter
rible wickedness and consequent misery
and disaster that confront the observant
citizen on every side. The conditions he

SEMITIC PROPHETS 21
describes may be suggested by a collec
tion of some citations from his address:1
The [doorkeepers] say: Let us go and plun
der. The washerman refuses (?) to carry his load.
A man looks upon his son as his enemy. The
virtuous man walks in mourning (?) on account
of that which has happened in the land. The
wrong-doer is everywhere. Plague is throughout
the land. Blood is everywhere. Crocodiles are
glutted (?) with what they have captured; men go
to them of their own accord. Forsooth, hair has
fallen out for every one. Great and small say: I
wish I might die. Little children say (?): He
ought never to have caused me to live (?). For
sooth, all animals, their hearts weep. Cattle
moan because of the state of the land. A man
strikes his brother, (the son) of his mother. The
roads are guarded. Men sit over the bushes
until the benighted (traveller) comes, in order to
plunder his burden. What is upon him is taken
away. He is belaboured (?) with blows of the
stick and slain wrongfully. Forsooth, grain has
perished on every side. (People) are stripped
of clothes, spices (?) and oil. Everybody says:
There is none. The storehouse is ruined. Its

1 The translation of A. H. Gardiner is used. It should be
borne in mind that, unless otherwise mentioned, the sen
tences grouped together here and in the following citations
do not follow one another closely in the papyrus, but are
scattered widely throughout the document.

22 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
keeper is stretched upon the ground. The poor
man begs. ... All is ruin.
One element in the situation that
seems to overwhelm Ipuwer is found in
the apparently almost complete subver
sion of the social order. This is depicted
for us in the following language:
Forsooth, poor men are become owners of good
things. He who could make for himself no san
dals is now the possessor of riches. The wealthy
are in mourning; the poor man is full of joy.
Every tongue says: Let us suppress him, the pow
erful among us. Forsooth, the land turns round
as does the potter's wheel. Good things are in
the land, (yet) the mistresses of houses say:
Would that we had something to eat. The build
ers of pyramids have become field labourers. The
son of a man of rank is no longer distinguished
from him who has no such father. The children
of princes are dashed against the walls. Those
who were clad in fine linen are beaten. He who
was a (notable) does commissions himself. Noble
ladies suffer like slave girls. All female slaves are
free with their tongues. When their mistress
speaks it is irksome to the servants. She who
looked at her face in the water is possessor of a
mirror. Poor men come and go in the great
houses. The children of princes are Cast out (?)

SEMITIC PROPHETS 23
in the streets. He who knows says it is so. He
who is ignorant says, No. He who does not know
it does good in his eyes. He who could make for
himself no coffin is (now) (possessor) of a trea
sury (?). He who never slept upon walls (?) is
(now) the possessor of a bed. He who could not
build himself a cell is (now) possessor of walls.
The possessor of wealth (now) passes the night
thirsting. He who begged for himself his dregs
is now the possessor of bowls full to overflowing ( ?) .
The possessors of robes are (now) in rags. Behold
the poor of the land become rich, and (the pos
sessor) of property has become one who has
nothing. An extremely serious feature of the sit
uation is indicated by Ipuwer's state
ments regarding the general disrespect
for law. For example:
Forsooth, the splendid (?) judgment-hall, its
writings are taken away. Public offices are
opened and (their) census lists are taken away.
. . . — [officials] are slain and their writings are
taken away. The laws of the judgment-hall are
cast forth; men walk upon (them) in the public
places; poor men break them up (?) in the streets.
Two things are done that have never been for
long time past; the King is taken away by poor
men. Behold a few lawless men have ventured
to despoil the land of the kingship. The secrets

24 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
of the kings of Upper and Lower Egypt are
divulged. Behold, the judges of the land are
driven out through the land.
One striking thing about the speech of
Ipuwer is the fact that, like the prophets
of the Old Testament, he apparently
stands in no awe of his King but fear
lessly charges him to his face with being
himself responsible in large measure for
the prevailing conditions. He addresses
his King thus:
Taste, knowledge, and truth are with thee.
Confusion is what thou dost put throughout the
land together with the noise of tumult. Behold,
one uses violence against another. People con
form to that which thou hast commanded. If
three men journey upon a road, they are found
to be two men; the greater number slay the
less. ... It is because thou hast acted so (?)
as to bring these things about (?). Thou hast
spoken falsehood. . . . Would that thou might
est taste some of these miseries. Then wouldst
thou say . . .
Apparently he charges the King with
having been subservient to the will of
the powerful regardless of the effect of

SEMITIC PROPHETS 25
such proceeding upon the public welfare.
Speaking to the King directly, he says:
To be ignorant of it is what is pleasant in their
hearts. Thou hast done what is good in their
hearts. Thou hast nourished people with it.
To add to the horrors of the situation,
the land apparently is in the throes of
a foreign invasion. Accompanying this
condition of material and moral degen
eration, it is not surprising to find that
Ipuwer also discerns spiritual decay.
Men are doubting the existence of God
and acting as though he were not. " For
sooth, the hot-headed (?) man says: if I
knew where God is, then would I make
offerings unto him."
The unfavourable elements in this
piece of literature when it is compared
with the prophetic writings of Israel stand
out in clear relief. A polytheistic religion
lies behind all of Ipuwer's statements.
Magic, at least when performed for legit
imate ends, is accepted as commendable,

26 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
and an exposure of its secrets is deplored.
As reparation to the gods for the sins of
the land, the prophet prescribes ritualistic
performances after the manner of Baby
lonia, rather than repentance and faith,
as was the wont of the prophets of Is
rael. Ipuwer urges —
to fumigate with incense and to offer water in a
jar in the early morning. Remember to erect
flagstaffs and to carve stela?, the priest purifying
the temples and the god's house being plastered
(white) like milk; (remember) to make fragrant
the perfume of the horizon and to perpetuate
bread-offerings. Remember to observe regula
tions and to adjust dates. (Remember) to re
move him who enters upon the priestly office
in impurity of body (?). . That is to perform it
wrongfully. That is corruption of heart (?).
Still further, it must be confessed that
there is no ringing note of sympathy with
the poor, such as glorified the prophecy
of Israel. The Egyptian prophet's anger
and sympathy are aroused, indeed; not
so much, however, because the weak are
oppressed as because the established or-

SEMITIC PROPHETS 27
der of society is overthrown. Whereas
the Hebrew prophet was the champion
of the poor, the Egyptian is, in this case
at least, the defender of law and order.
It is unseemly in his eyes that the con
ditions should be reversed as they have
been so that poor and rich have changed
places. Yet again, there is an almost total
lack of logical order in this prophetic
writing as it has come down to us. This,
to be sure, is a fault shared by some of
the Hebrew prophecies, but it is not a
characteristic of Hebrew prophecy at its
best. Repetition, irrelevancy, and abrupt
transition are unpleasingly frequent in
Ipuwer's discourse. This sort of thing
compels us to raise the question whether
or not modern scholarship has gone too
far in its demand of the Hebrew prophets
that they give us smooth and logical
discourses. Nor is there apparently any sense on
Ipuwer's part of a divine commission.

28 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
He makes no claim to speak as the rep
resentative of the gods. Unless this be
entirely due to the fragmentary char
acter of the narrative from which sev
eral portions are lacking, it separates
Ipuwer widely from the prophets of
Israel. The very word prophet in its
Hebrew home designated the bearer of
that name as spokesman of Yahweh.
Their influence with the people was
largely due to the recognition they re
ceived of their right to declare the or
acles of God.
While all this and more may be said
in the way of unfavourable criticism, it is
none the less true that the resemblance
to Hebrew prophecy is remarkably close.
The unflinching courage shown by Ipu
wer in pressing home upon the King his
responsibility for the disastrous state of
affairs is parallel to Nathan's "Thou art
the man." The entire absence of the
ecstatic element and of everything in the
way of fanaticism is suggestive of He-

SEMITIC PROPHETS 29
brew prophecy at its best. The resolute
exposure of the ills of society of which
the narrative is full is in keeping with the
very essence of Old Testament prophecy.
Nowhere else in the Semitic world save in
Israel, so far as we now know, was there
anything approximating this study of
society from the moral point of view.1
Furthermore, this capacity of the Egyp
tian to detach himself from the social
state to which he belonged and to make
the society of his day the object of his
study is manifested here, in any case,
centuries before anything of the same
sort presents itself in Hebrew literature.
Not only so, but it is quite evident that
Ipuwer was not the first in Egypt to
strike out new paths in social study.
His work presupposes that of forerunners
who have created a style and method for
him. Here is a man who, like the proph
ets of Israel, dared to assume the atti-

1 Cf. J. H. Breasted, "The Earliest Social Prophet," The
American Journal of Theology, January, 1910, pp. 114 jf.

30 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
tude of a judge toward his own genera
tion which he weighed in the balances
and found wanting. When we remember
that this was the supreme function of
the Hebrew prophet we at once see how
important this point of contact between
Egypt and Israel becomes. It is a fact
that immediately raises questions as to
the character and closeness of the literary
and spiritual relations of the two peoples.
One more point of resemblance must
be noted. It is found in the following
portion of Ipuwer's discourse:
He bringeth (?) coolness upon that which is
hot. It is said he is the herdsman of mankind.
No evil is in his heart. When his herds are few,
he passes the day to gather them together, their
hearts being on fire (?). Would that he had per
ceived their nature in the first generation (of
men); then he would have repressed evil, he
would have stretched forth (his) arm against it;
he would have destroyed their seed (??) and their
inheritance. . .' . Where is he (?) to-day? Is he
sleeping? Behold, his might is not seen.
This passage has occasioned discus
sion among Egyptian scholars. Profes-

SEMITIC PROPHETS 31
sors H. O. Lange, Ed. Meyer, J. H.
Breasted, and others, claim Messianic
significance for it, declaring it to be a
prophecy of a coming prince who should
rescue and heal his people, restoring
Egypt to her old-time place of pres
tige and power. A. H. Gardiner, on the
other hand, presents a strong case for
the view that the language is to be re
garded as describing the activity of the
god Re, the creator and preserver of
mankind. He it is who is the "herds
man of mankind" and might have "per
ceived their nature in the first genera
tion (of men)" and might have brought
the race to an end and so have avoided
the existence of the present evil age.
His return to his earth will restore peace
and prosperity. Whether or not the
speaker refers to a Messianic prince is
uncertain, as a matter of fact ; but
it must be remembered that Egyptian
mythology looked back to Re as the
first King and that all succeeding kings

32 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
were "sons of Re." Hence the Egyp
tian Messianic King would inevitably
be thought of as a reincarnation of Re
and might thus be spoken of as present
at the first origins of the race. Indeed,
we recall that the book of Micah speaks
of a coming Messiah "whose origins are
from of old, from ancient time." It is
to be noticed, however, as Gardiner re
minds us, that Ipuwer does not predict
the coming of the Messianic ruler but
merely gives expression to his longing
that such an one might appear. Whether
or not the thought is concerned with an
individual Messiah in the ordinary sense
of the word, the context is too uncertain
to determine. But it is perfectly clear
that there is here presented a longing for
the coming of a golden age such as that
so gloriously depicted and so confidently
predicted by the prophets of the Old
Testament.1 Furthermore, the passage
'For other examples of Egyptian "prophecies," see H.
Ranke's translations in Gressmann's AUorientalische Texte und
Bilder, I, pp. 202-210. Cf. Ed. Meyer, Die Israeliten (1906),

SEMITIC PROPHETS 33
quoted on pp. 17 /. is in form at least a
prediction of a coming King, who shall
bring prosperity. This shows that the
power to predict was acknowledged, even
if the prediction here should be one only
in form.
Finally, what is to be said regarding
the relation of Israel's prophecy to that
of her neighbours? Certainly, they are
not indebted to Israel for the gift of
prophecy, for non-Israelitish prophecy
antedates prophecy in Israel by centu
ries. On the other hand, are we com
pelled to say that Israel derived her
prophecy in its earliest forms from her
neighbours? There seems to be no more
reason for such a supposition than for
the ultimate derivation of any of the
other Israelitish religious institutions from
abroad. Prophecy seems to have been
a native product in Israel as elsewhere
in the Semitic world. Semites all alike
pp. 451-455; Maspero, New Light on Ancient Egypt (1909),
pp. 228/.; and Cheyne, Two Religions of Israel (1911), pp.
1-13.

34 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
apparently possessed the original en
dowment of the prophetic spirit. But
in Israel this spirit yielded its choicest
fruit. To what extent, if any, Israel
was directly influenced by her neigh
bours in general and Egypt in par
ticular in the development of her pro
phetic gift it is hazardous to say in
the light of the present imperfection of
our knowledge concerning the commerce
of ideas in the Oriental world. It is
very probable, however, that the proph
ets of Israel knew something of the ac
tivity of their fellows in Egypt. The
only thing certain is that up to the
present time no Oriental nation has pro
duced anything approaching the purity
and power of Hebrew prophecy. Israel's
prophets excel even those of Egypt in
the nobility and simplicity of their con
ception of God and in the lofty purity
and contagious passion of their ethical
ideals. Granting Ipuwer and his kind
the benefit of all doubts, still they fail

SEMITIC PROPHETS 35
to exalt ethics above ritual and to make
it the supreme concern of the divine
heart and mind. Here Amos and his
followers stand without a rival.

n
PRIMITIVE HEBREW PROPHETS
To appreciate the Hebrew prophet at
his best we must also see him at his
worst. Prophecy did not make its first
appearance in Israel full-grown. Behind
the prophets of the classic period lay a
long line of prophets of a lesser order.
These earlier prophets, humbly prepar
ing the way for their greater successors,
remind us at many points of the proph
ets of Babylonia, Assyria, Egypt, Syria,
Phoenicia, Philistia, Greece, and Rome.
They all alike share in a common ex
perience. The glory of Israel's proph
ets is that, coming up through this
common experience, they were not con
tent to abide there but passed on in
36

HEBREW PROPHETS 37
splendid isolation to better and diviner
things. In this chapter we shall be looking
at the beginnings of prophecy in Israel.
The best path to the understanding of a
people or an institution is by way of its
history. We cannot, within the scope
and purpose of this volume, trace the
history of prophecy from beginning to
end, but we can at least "look into the
rock whence (they) were hewn and to
the hole of the pit whence (they) were
digged." Fortunately we have, pre
served in some of the older strata of
the Old Testament, survivals of the older
type of prophecy, and to these we now
direct our attention.
The asses of Kish, a well-to-do farmer
of Benjamin, had gone astray. Kish
sent his son Saul with one of the ser
vants to find them. After three days of
fruitless search, Saul, fearing lest his
father become alarmed by his long ab
sence, proposed to return home. But

38 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
the servant called his attention to the
fact that they were at the home of "a
man of God" of great reputation as an
infallible soothsayer, and suggested con
sulting him regarding the lost animals.
To this Saul assented, but reminded his
servant that they had no gift for the man
of God. The servant, however, removed
all difficulty by producing "a fourth part
of a shekel of silver" which might be
given in return for the desired informa
tion (I Sam. 9 : 1-10). Aside from the
fact that the "man of God" in question
is Samuel and that apparently he was
of only local reputation, being unknown
to Saul, whose home was not so far away,
the interest of this episode for us lies in
the conception of a "man of God" evi
dently entertained by both Saul and the
servant and manifestly the common view
of the times. He is one to whom men
go for the solution of their hard prob
lems, which he by reason of his relations
with the unseen world is thought to be

HEBREW PROPHETS 39
able to solve. But he must be paid for
his services.1 He is a "seer," gifted with
"second sight." When Ahab and Je
hoshaphat ask counsel of the four hun
dred prophets regarding the advisability
of a campaign against Ramoth-Gilead
(I Kings 22 : 5/.) they are crediting the
prophets with exactly the same kind of
insight that Saul's servant attributed to
Samuel. Such power to pry into the
future or to discover that which is hid
den and lost has been ascribed to proph
ets and seers the world over.
When Saul departed from Samuel,
having obtained what he went for and
a call to the kingship besides, he met
a "company of prophets coming down
from the high place with a psaltery and
a timbrel and a pipe and a harp before
them," and prophesying as they came

1 The same point of view appears in II Kings 8 : 8/., where
Hazael is said to have taken a present with him when he
went to consult Elisha in behalf of Benhadad; and also in
I Kings 14 : 2Jf., where Jeroboam's wife goes similarly pre
pared to consult Ahijah.

40 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
along; and "the spirit of God came
mightily upon Saul and he prophesied
among them" (I Sam. 10 : 5-10). This
is suggestive of a Salvation Army pro
cession or of a band of whirling der
vishes. The prophets are prophesying
en masse as they march along to the
accompaniment of music. What sort
of "prophecy" can it have been? Were
they indulging in chorus singing? Or
were they howling forth short phrases
in unison, something like war-cries or
campaign slogans? Or were they sim
ply in a state of uncontrollable frenzy
suggestive of a certain type of modern
camp-meeting? The fact that these early prophets
lived and worked in groups and not as
individuals finds further support in sev
eral passages. We at once think of the
four hundred prophets called upon for
oracles by Ahab and Jehoshaphat. We
recall, likewise, "the company of the
prophets prophesying" with Samuel at

HEBREW PROPHETS 41
Naioth in Ramah (I Sam. 19 : 20), the
groups of prophets at Bethel (II Kings
2 : 3) and at Jericho (II Kings 2 : 5,
7, 15) who warned Elisha of the impend
ing departure of Elijah, the band of
prophets who were enlarging their quar
ters when one of them lost his axe head
(II Kings 6 : 1-7), and the guild of
the prophets at Gilgal for whom Elisha
healed the pottage (II Kings 4 : 38-41).
In this connection we may note that the
term "sons of the prophets" is not to
be taken too literally. The term "son"
has a very wide usage in the Old Tes
tament. It designates not only blood-
relationships but in a very large num
ber of cases a quality or characteristic.
For example, "sons of the exile" = ex
iles (Ezra 4:1); "sons of strangeness"
= foreigners (Gen. 17:27); "son of
strength" = mighty man (I Sam. 14 : 52) ;
"and Noah was a son of five hundred
years" = was five hundred years old
(Gen. 5 : 22). In the same way "sons

42 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
of the prophets" are men endowed with
the prophetic spirit, members of the pro
phetic group.
The use of musical instruments by
these prophets is noteworthy. For what
purpose was this music? Was it to fur
nish a suitable accompaniment to their
poetic strains? Or was it to aid in
arousing the prophetic passion? That
the latter hypothesis is correct seems
practically certain. In II Kings 3 : 6-20
we read that when Jehoram of Israel and
Jehoshaphat of Judah in their campaign
agamst Moab came into difficulty they
sought to learn the will of Yahweh
through Elisha. Now, Elisha was not
in the mood for prophecy just then;
hence he said: "Bring me a minstrel."
"And it came to pass when the minstrel
played, that the hand of Yahweh came
upon him. And he said, Thus saith
Yahweh" (3 : 15/.). The divine affla
tus here was evidently superinduced by
the strains of the music. We find some-

HEBREW PROPHETS 43
thing analogous to this in the use of
music in certain of the religious exercises
of the Mohammedan dervishes, which
adds much to the nervous tension and
greatly accentuates the high-strung emo
tions of the participants.1 The use of
music by David to soothe the troubled
spirit of the insane Saul belongs in the
same category.
It appears from all this that these
early prophets were peculiarly subject to
attacks of ecstatic frenzy and that this
had much to do with their recognition as
prophets. Mohammedan dervishes, by
means of music, certain rhythmical
breathing exercises, and other methods of
self -incitement, produce a state of more or
less ecstatic trance at will.2 In groups of
more or less extent, under certain condi
tions, the rapid spread of a state of feel
ing throughout a company is a well-
known fact. Many a man carried away
1 Cf. D. B. Macdonald, Aspects of Islam (1911), pp. 163/.;
cf. pp. 48-50.
iCf. D. B. Macdonald, op. cit., pp. 50, 93.

44 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
by the psychology of the mob has done
deeds of which he himself in isolation
would have been incapable. But the
mob spirit is contagious; it is difficult
to resist its power. Exactly in the same
way does prophecy seem to have been
contagious. Saul, confronted by the pro
cession of prophets prophesying, himself
is seized by the prophetic spirit and
joins their ranks.
A still more notable illustration of this
contagion of prophecy is furnished by
I Sam. 19 : 20-24. David had fled from
Saul, who sought his life, to Samuel in
Ramah. Saul sent a company of mes
sengers to seize David and bring him to
his presence. But David was surrounded
by "the company of the prophets proph
esying," and when the messengers saw
them they, too, prophesied. This pro
phetic seizure befell three companies of
messengers in succession. At last Saul
went after David in person and he, too,
fell a victim to the prophetic ecstasy in

HEBREW PROPHETS 45
that "he also stripped off his clothes and
he also prophesied before Samuel and
lay down naked all that day and all that
night." Few episodes reveal to us more
vividly the crudeness of the religion of
these early prophets and the limitations
of their conception of God.
Two other facts point to the ecstatic
character of early prophecy. The first
is recorded in II Kings 9 : 1-13. Elisha
sent "one of the sons of the prophets"
to anoint Jehu King over Israel. The
messenger found Jehu in the midst of
a group of captains at Ramoth-Gilead.
Calling Jehu apart, he fulfilled his mis
sion and left. Upon Jehu's return to
his friends they asked him: "Is all well?
Wherefore did this mad fellow come to
thee?" The prophet is thus classed by
them as an insane person. The second
fact is along the same line. In Jer.
29 :26 the terms "mad" and "prophet"
are coupled together in the description
of men like Jeremiah. The ancient Se-

46 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
mitic attitude toward the insane was one
of fear. It was due to the belief that
such persons were the victims of spirits
that had possession of their bodies and
had established residence therein. "An
evil spirit from Yahweh was upon Saul"
and was held responsible for his fits of
madness (I Sam. 16 : 14; 19 : 9). The
New Testament belief that such unfortu
nates were possessed of devils (cf. Luke
8 : 27-40) shows how the ancient diagnosis
persisted all through the centuries. A
prophet also was one possessed. But
whereas others might be possessed of
demons, he was possessed of the spirit
of God. A common way of describing
the prophetic seizure was "the spirit of
God came upon him" (I Sam. 10 : 6;
11 : 6; 19 : 19/., 23; cf. II Kings
3 : 15). The spirit of God in such
phrases is evidently thought of as just
as tangible, real, definite, and — we might
almost say — concrete as were the spirits of
another order which afflicted the insane.

HEBREW PROPHETS 47
This element of ecstasy due to seizure
by the divine spirit was a trait common
to all Semitic prophets, at least in the
early stages of the development of the
various prophetic orders. It is a part
of the splendour of Hebrew prophecy
that it so completely threw off the more
crass conceptions and manifestations due
to this belief. Never letting go of the
fundamental and essential fact that the
prophet was the mouthpiece of God,
Hebrew prophecy at its best almost
wholly repudiated ecstasy, trance, and
fanaticism and abandoned all efforts to
superinduce such experiences. An ex
amination of the writings of the great
prophets for phenomena of this sort
warrants the statement that the greater
the prophet was the less recourse did he
have to such extraneous support for his
message. In Amos, Hosea, Micah, Isaiah,
Jeremiah, and Deutero-Isaiah, with the
exception of a few visions, experiences of
an ecstatic order are conspicuous by their

48 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
absence. The greatness of a religious
experience may well be determined by
the things that it discards.
If it be true that the early Hebrew
prophets were as crude and primitive as
the foregoing pages seem to imply, what
could they contribute to the religion of
their times? To answer this question we
need to bring before our minds the sit
uation amid which these prophets lived
and laboured. Yahweh and Israel were
strangers in a strange land. That land
was already tenanted by other gods with
their peoples. The Baalim and the Ca
naanites were there first. The task con
fronting Yahweh and his people was that
of making good their foothold and en
larging their sphere of occupation and
influence. This was an undertaking re
quiring time. The process was not in
any sense completed until the reign of
David; and even then much territory
in the field of religion remained unsub
dued. The relations between the resi-

HEBREW PROPHETS 49
dent Canaanites and the immigrant He
brews were not uniformly, everywhere
and always, the same. In some places
and at some times there was a process
of peaceful amalgamation, with the two
peoples living side by side and learning
each other's ways. In other places and
at other times there was war to the
death between the two. In either case
the prophets of Yahweh were called
upon to render invaluable service.
When peaceful relations prevailed, the
danger to Yahweh and Israel alike was
that they would be swallowed up in the
Ufe of Canaan, even as the captives from
Samaria in 721 B. C. were lost in the hfe
of Assyria. Nomads from the desert
had everything to learn regarding the
agricultural life of Canaan. The Ca
naanites themselves were, of necessity,
their teachers. The civilisation of Ca
naan flourished under the banner of the
Baalim. To learn that civilisation was
to learn Baalism, too. The Baalim were

50 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
the gods of the land. Yahweh was an
interloper. They supphed all the needs
of the Canaanites; why should they not
function in the same way for the Israel
ites? The processes of agriculture were
under their auspices. What could Yah
weh, the god of the desert, know about
crops? If Yahweh is to preserve his
hold upon the confidence of his people,
he must take over to himself the func
tion heretofore discharged by the Baalim.
If the necessities of daily life are looked
upon as gifts of the Baalim, Yahweh
must inevitably fade out of the conscious
ness of his people. How real the prob
lem was and how long the struggle be
tween the opposing gods lasted is shown
by the fact that this very question en
gages the attention of the prophet Hosea
as late as the middle of the eighth century
B.C.
Plead with your mother, plead;
For she is not my wife,
Nor am I her husband;

HEBREW PROPHETS 51
That she put away her harlotry from her face,
And her adultery from between her breasts;
Lest I strip her naked,
And set her as in the day of her birth,
And make her like a wilderness,
And set her like a dry land,
And slay her with thirst.
And her sons I will not pity.
For sons of harlotry are they.
For their mother has played the harlot;
She that conceived them has acted disgrace-
fully;
For she said, "I will go after my lovers,
Who give me my bread and my water,
My wool and my flax, my oil and my drink."
And she did not know
That it was I who gave her
The corn, the new wine, and the oil;
And that I multiplied for her silver
And gold — which they used for the Baalim.
Therefore I will take back
My corn in its time and my new wine in its
season,
And I will snatch away my wool and my flax,
Which were to cover her nakedness.
(Hosea 2 : 4-7, 10/.)
The early prophets met this danger at
its worst. They were stanch adherents
of Yahweh and stood unflinchingly for

52 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
absolute loyalty to him on the part of
his own people. Over against the lux
ury and sensuousness of the Baalistic civ
ilisation of Canaan, they set the simple
and stern ideals of the desert. They
opposed every step in the direction of civ
ilisation as a departure from Yahwism
toward Baalism. So, in the midst of a
hfe that constantly threatened Yahweh
with extinction, the prophets stood as the
champions of a purer type of religion,
striving to hand down "the faith once
delivered to the saints" and to keep this
primitive Yahwism pure and unspotted
from the world of Baalism.
In so far as the efforts of the prophets
were directed toward arresting the prog
ress of civilisation in Israel, they were,
of course, doomed to failure. The forces
opposed to them were irresistible and in
hne with the eternal purpose. The prim
itive ideas of the desert could not meet
the needs of those dwelling on farms and
in cities. The narrow and undeveloped

HEBREW PROPHETS 53
life of nomads must be expanded and
enriched before it would appeal to the
culture of the world. The god of hunt
ers and herders could never suffice for
farmers and traders. Change and growth
were indispensable to continued useful
ness. But while the prophets were thus
in part failures, they were in a larger
measure gloriously successful. They
acted as a conserving element. They
kept matters from going too fast.
They guided the movement in the right
direction and did their part in making
Yahweh and his will the dominating
force in Israel. They stood for Yahweh
as the supreme God and they refused to
lend his sanction to acts of oppression, in
justice, cruelty, and sensuality. In early
days, therefore, the prophets laid firm
foundations for the lofty ethical and
spiritual conception of God, which later
came to enrich the hfe of the world.
When friction set in between the Ca
naanites and Israelites, as it so often

54 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
did, these early prophets proved the
saviours of their people. Then it be
came necessary to arouse enthusiasm for
Yahweh and to insist upon unswerv
ing loyalty to him. The common adher
ence to Yahweh and the common need
were the main influences in producing the
measure of co-operation among the vari
ous Israelite groups that obtained in
times of crisis. In leading the war prop
aganda the prophets were second to
none. The existence of Israel was at
stake and with it was mvolved the exis
tence of Yahweh. The god and his peo
ple must stand or fall together. The
wars of Israel were the wars of Yahweh.
The activity of the prophets along these
patriotic fines was hardly of less value
than that of the mihtary leaders. The
interests of religion were here identical
with the interests of patriotism and each
reinforced the other.
An excellent illustration of all this is
furnished by Judges 5, a poem reciting the

HEBREW PROPHETS 55
story of the last great mihtary struggle
between Canaanites and Israefites. The
prophetess Deborah stands alongside of
the general Barak. The victory is cele
brated as a great triumph for Yahweh.
The Israelites who "came not to the
help of Yahweh, to the help of Yahweh
against the mighty," are denounced and
cursed; those "that offered themselves
willingly" are praised and highly exalted.
The contribution of Deborah in the way
of stimulus to faith and courage was all
that made the victory possible. Without
her or some other similarly loyal and en
thusiastic spokesman for Yahweh, Israel
would have submissively endured oppres
sion and ultimately perished from among
the nations.
The labours of the prophets were of
the same kind and of no less importance
when struggles set in for the mastery of
the land between Israel and neighbour
ing peoples, e. g., Philistia, Moabites, and
Aramaeans. In the great struggle with

56 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
the Philistines, the leading figure of the
early stages was Samuel the seer and
prophet. The relations between him
and the "sons of the prophets" were evi
dently very close (I Sam. 19 : 20). It
is significant that Saul, after leaving
Samuel, came upon the band of proph
ets prophesying in the immediate vicin
ity of "the hill of God where the officers
of the Philistines are" (I Sam. 10 : 5).
It is not at all unlikely that their high-
strung prophetic temperaments were
stirred by the sight of the symbols of
their country's shame; hence they broke
out in prophecy. They may well have
been flaming firebrands of war among
the people. In any case, Samuel's great
task was that of summoning Israel to
the great struggle for its life and honour,
and that of inspiring a leader capable of
leading the disorganised and discouraged
clans to victory. His service in this
direction was so great that one source
goes so far as to say that "the Philis-

HEBREW PROPHETS 57
tines were subdued, and they came no
more within the border of Israel: and
the hand of Yahweh was against the
Philistines all the days of Samuel" (I
Sam. 7 : 13). At a later day, in the
long, exhausting war with Syria, the
services of the prophets in heartening
king and people were worth battalions
to Israel; see I Kings 20 : 13/., 22, 28,
35/.; II Kings 3 : 10/.; 8 : 10/. In
this connection, the estimate placed
upon Elijah by Elisha is significant, "My
father, my father, the chariots of Israel
and the horsemen thereof" (II Kings
2 : 12); cf. the same judgment upon
Elisha himself by King Joash (II Kings
13 : 14).
The ministry of the early prophets
was thus eminently practical, in that it
was precisely what was needed for the
times. The prophets were rugged and
intense men, crude in thought but vig
orous and effective in action — the only
kind of men that could be effective in

58 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
such an age. Ignorant and narrow-
minded as we should certainly regard
them now, they were mighty instru
ments in the hands of God for the work
ing out of his great purposes. Despise
not the day of small things ! Beginnings
were here, as often, of apparently slight
significance; but who can measure the
glory of their latter end?

Ill
FALSE PROPHETS
The term "false prophet" does not
occur in the Old Testament. The idea,
however, is present in such expressions
as "the prophets prophesy lies . . . they
prophesy unto you a lying vision" (Jer.
14 : 14); and "if a man walking in a
spirit of falsehood lies" (Micah 2 : 11).
The expression itself fell from the lips
of Jesus according to Matt. 7 : 15/.:
"Beware of false prophets which come
to you in sheep's clothing" (cf. Mark
13 : 22). The aim of this chapter is to
discover the real distinction between
such evidently great and true prophets
as Amos, Hosea, and Isaiah on the one
hand and their opponents, the so-called
"false prophets," on the other. Are the
59

60 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
latter all, without discrimination, to be
grouped together and regarded as actu
ated by unworthy motives and as delib
erate perverters of the truth? How
could the contemporaries of the proph
ets distinguish the "true" from the
"false"? Was there any "short cut"
to the discovery of the truth in the
days of the Hebrew prophets, but now
no longer available?
We commonly read the prophets' ut
terances regarding their opponents with
out stopping to realise that what seems
so clear, and indisputable to us was not
necessarily so to those to whom it was
originally addressed. We accept the
charge of falseness made by a Micah or
a Jeremiah at its face value and never
ask ourselves how the prophet in ques
tion could be so certain of his estimate
or how the people who heard him could
know whether or not he spoke the truth.
There was no outer sign distinguishing
the true prophet from the counterfeit.

FALSE PROPHETS 61
It is not improbable, indeed, that in the
early days, at least, prophets were marked
by some kind of a brand, or shaved off
the hair of the head in some character
istic fashion. In I Kings 20 : 35-43 an
episode is related which seems to point
to some outer sign upon the head or face
which showed that a man belonged to
the prophetic order; cf. especially vss.
38 and 41. But such outer credentials
were, of course, available to both types
of prophets alike; indeed, the possibil
ity of "false" prophets being marked
like "true" ones is clearly recognised in
Zech. 13 : 4 b. Such an outer sign, in
the very nature of the case, could have
no weight in deciding the question at
issue. One of the most striking examples of
"false" prophecy is recorded in I Kings
22. Ahab had summoned Jehoshaphat,
of Judah, probably his vassal, to join him
in an attack upon Ramoth-Gilead, then
in the hands' of the Syrians. Before

62 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
starting upon the campaign, in response
to the suggestion of Jehoshaphat Ahab
summoned the prophets of the kingdom
to the number of about four hundred
and inquired of them Yahweh's will re
garding the enterprise. With one voice
they said: "Go up, for Yahweh will de
liver it into the hands of the King."
Notwithstanding the fact that these were
prophets of Yahweh (vs. 5) and spoke
Yahweh's message, Jehoshaphat sought
further testimony, and Ahab reluctantly
called in Micaiah ben Imlah, saying:
"But I hate him; for he does not proph
esy good concerning me, but disaster"
(vs. 8). Micaiah, when pressed for the
truth by Ahab, declares the message of
the four hundred to be a lie and fore
tells the overthrow and death of Ahab
in the contemplated campaign.
Here is courage, indeed! One man, in
magnificent isolation, daring to assert
his own interpretation of the divine will
in opposition to the enthusiastic and

FALSE PROPHETS 63
unanimous testimony of four hundred
prophets as well accredited as himself.
Furthermore, he does it at the cost of
the royal displeasure. This is the stuff
of which prophets are made! But, more
striking still, he explains the message
of his prophetic exponents. And his ex
planation is, to say the least, extraor
dinary. Summarily stated, it is to the
effect that Yahweh had determined upon
the downfall and death of Ahab. In
order to give this decision effect, he
had commissioned "a lying spirit" to go
forth from his presence and control the
utterance of all the four hundred proph
ets so that they might urge Ahab on to
his end. It is at once evident that the
moral responsibility for the lie rests upon
Yahweh himself. The prophets are help
less; Yahweh, through his agent, has
inspired them to tell a lie. What a
flood of light a statement like this lets
in upon the ethical standards of the
prophets of the ninth century B. C!

64 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
Micaiah's God was capable of strange
and questionable things. Strictly speak
ing, if Micaiah's interpretation of their
conduct be correct, the four hundred
prophets are free from all blame. They
are but unconscious tools in the hand
of Yahweh. There is no warrant for
branding them as deliberately "false."
They were speaking what they sincerely
believed to be the truth and nothing
but the truth. Their hearts burned with
patriotic pride and religious zeal as, in
the name of Yahweh, they bade Ahab
go forth to conquer. But it is doubt
ful whether or not Micaiah gave the
four hundred the full benefit of his
theory. It is hardly likely that he
imputed to them the same sort of sin
cerity of motive and loyalty to truth
as possessed his own soul. His "lying
spirit" rather represents two convic
tions, viz.: (1) that the oracle of the
four hundred was untrue, and (2) that
the whole programme was ordained of

FALSE PROPHETS 65
Yahweh. The old problem of the free
will of man versus the sovereignty of
God is raised by this explanation of the
attitude of the opposing prophets, but
Micaiah was not concerned with such
abstract things. The fact that Yahweh
had willed that the four hundred should
lie probably did not in Micaiah's mind
constitute any excuse whatsoever for
their action. He would none the less
vigorously denounce them as liars.
If we give Micaiah ben Imlah credit
for having thought through the question
of the sincerity of the four hundred
prophets, we are compelled to conclude
that he acquitted them of all intention
to deceive. Whether he did or not, we
must find for ourselves a satisfactory
explanation not only of their attitude
but also of that of the so-called "false"
prophets as a class. In the search for
this we must bear in mind certain facts.
First of all, the prophets as a class at
times certainly bore an unenviable repu-

66 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
tation for self-seeking. Amos, for ex
ample, when he went upon his pro
phetic mission to Bethel, was charged by
Amaziah, the priest, with being actuated
by unworthy motives (Amos 7 : 12).
Amaziah's statement, being interpreted,
amounts to this: "What mean you, O
Amos, by coming to Bethel, the seat
of the King's palace and the royal
chapel, with a message announcing the
imminent downfall of the monarch? If
you wish to fill your pockets and your
stomach, as most of your class do, this
is not the kind of oracle to bring here.
Take it down south to Judah. They will
appreciate it there and pay you well for
it. But there is no market for your
wares here." The significant thing here
is that Amos practically acknowledges
the legitimacy of this characterisation of
the prophets as a whole, for he does
not take pains to deny it. He contents
himself with repudiating the accusation
of being a member of the prophetic or-

FALSE PROPHETS 67
der himself. Whatever may be true of
"prophets," he cannot be held respon
sible for it, for he is not a "prophet"
but a shepherd and cultivator of fruit-
trees. There are prophets and proph
ets, and Amaziah has mistaken his man.
A similar judgment to that of Amaziah's
is passed upon the common run of proph
ets by Micah the Morashtite (3:5).
They are docile and amenable as long as
they are well fed, but woe to him who
refuses to be blackmailed by them.
Zech. 13 : 2/. reflects a like opinion of
the prophetic order in the postexilic
age. But, while we may grant that
many of the representatives of prophecy
were unworthy of their profession and
guilty of all with which the great proph
ets charged them, we must guard our
selves against condemning indiscrimi
nately all those who opposed the true
"prophets" and against supposing that
it was an easy matter to tell the "true"
from the "false."

68 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
Amos was himself misunderstood and
misrepresented at Bethel. He and his
compeers may at times, either in whole
or in part, have misjudged others. It
is by no means clear that the interpre
tations of their opponents' motives by
men like Jeremiah and Micah were al
ways absolutely correct. They had no
magic mirror revealing to them the in
ner thoughts and purposes of their con
temporaries and were therefore not im
mune against error in judgment. If the
prophet at his best could not be an in
fallible judge, how much less could the
people at large be so regarded? Indeed,
how were the people, who after all were
the ones most vitally concerned, to know
when they were being told the truth
and when a lie? This was a vital ques
tion in Israel on many an occasion; upon
the right judgment in a given situation
frequently depended the fate of the na
tion. The Israehtes themselves fully
realised the importance of this question

FALSE PROPHETS 69
and sought earnestly for the right an
swer. We have on record two attempts
at an answer.
When discontent and revolt were rife
in Jerusalem in the years immediately
following the first deportation to Baby
lon, two policies were struggling for the
mastery. A typical illustration of the
situation is given in Jer. 28. Jeremiah
represented the view that Babylon was
destined to remain mistress of the Ori
ental world and that the only thing that
could wisely be done was to submit with
out struggle to her yoke. This was
Yahweh's will. Such an attitude seemed
to Hananiah the prophet and the many
who supported him to be not only un
patriotic but also disloyal to Yahweh.
It showed a lack of confidence in Yah
weh's goodness and power. Inspired by
a fanatical faith in his God, Hananiah,
therefore, prophesied: "Thus says Yah
weh of hosts, God of Israel, saying, I
have broken the yoke of the King of

70 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
Babylon. Within two full years will I
bring again into this place all the ves
sels of Yahweh's house, which Nebu
chadrezzar, King of Babylon, took away
from this place, and carried to Babylon:
and I will bring again to this place Je-
coniah, the son of Jehoiakim, King of
Judah, with all the captives of Judah, that
went to Babylon, says Yahweh; for I will
break the yoke of the King of Babylon."
This was in direct and open oppo
sition to the preaching of Jeremiah.
Which of the two should the people
beheve? Should they continue to pay
tribute to Babylon, accepting their mis
fortune and disgrace as the expression
of Yahweh's will; or should they flout
the Babylonian and defy him, trusting
to the love of Yahweh for his people
and to his omnipotence. The latter
policy, on the face of it, seemed much
more religious than that of Jeremiah.
For guidance toward the right decision
in such a dilemma as this Jeremiah

FALSE PROPHETS 71
makes an appeal to history. He first
of all expresses his deep sympathy with
the hopes of Hananiah, implying, how
ever, that they were doomed to disap^
pointment. Then he continues: "Never
theless, hear now this word which I
speak in thine ears and in the ears of
all the people: the prophets that have
been before me and before thee of old
prophesied against many countries and
against great kingdoms of war, and of
calamity, and of pestilence. The prophet
who prophesies of peace — when the word
of the prophet comes to pass, then shall
the prophet be known, whom Yahweh
has, indeed, sent."
This answer of Jeremiah's is positive
but na'ive. He virtually says: "If you
survey the field of prophetic history, you
will find that all the prophets of for
mer generations have prophesied along
the same general lines as I myself am
now following. The burden of the pro
phetic message has always been disaster

72 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
and doom. I am no exception to the
rule; I am in the line of prophetic suc
cession. When a prophet appears, like
our friend Hananiah, who preaches pros
perity, I advise you not to be too quickly
influenced by his words. The chances
are all against him. Wait and see
whether his predictions come to pass
before you commit yourselves to his
programme. That is the only way to
keep on the safe side." If Jeremiah's
interpretation of history was right, what
about Messianic prophecy? Or shall we
say there was no Messianic prophecy
until after his time? Or must we con
clude that Jeremiah's historical method
was at fault, that he picked out from
history the facts that accorded with his
own views and ignored the rest? In
any case, Jeremiah's test of prophecy
was of little practical value. Its adop
tion would have meant the complete
rejection of all counsels of hope until
they were no longer needed.

FALSE PROPHETS 73
Another answer to our question, of
very similar character, is given in Deut.
18 : 15-22. The legislator here is warn
ing Israel against trusting in "false"
prophets. He anticipates their question
and answers it thus: "If thou say in
thine heart, How shall we know the
word which Yahweh has not spoken?
When a prophet speaks in the name of
Yahweh, if the thing follow not, nor
come to pass, that is the thing which
Yahweh has not spoken: the prophet
has spoken it presumptuously, thou shalt
not be afraid of him." This test of the
truth of a prophet's message could be
applied only when it was too late to be
of any direct value. That prophet is
the true one whose message is vindicated
by the subsequent course of events.
But the function of the prophet was to
aid and direct in the determination of the
course which events should take. The
only test of any value from this point
of view would be one that could be

74 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
apphed at once. The nation must act,
one way or another, at once. Which
poficy shall it pursue? In many cases
not to act is in itself a decision. Of
what use in such a crisis is a test that
applies only when the crisis is past and
the results of the decision made at the
critical moment are apparent to every
body? Certainly neither Jeremiah nor
Deuteronomy furnished the kind of a
test that could be depended upon in
a case of need. There seems to have
been no way of distinguishing before
hand between "true" and "false" proph
ets. Not only so, but in the light of his
tory we must ask ourselves whether or
not the "true" prophets were always
"true"? The fact is that those who
received the indorsement of the ages
did not always agree among themselves.
The revolt of the northern kingdom
under Jeroboam, if not instigated and
supported by the prophets, was at least

FALSE PROPHETS 75
approved by them; cf. I Kings 11 : 29/.
But Hosea, looking back across the cen
turies and seeing the outcome of the
revolt, condemns it and hopes for the
healing of the schism thereby created
(Hosea 1 : 11; 3:5; 8:4 [?]). In the
days of Sennacherib's invasion both
Micah and Isaiah were interpreting the
situation.1 It is difficult to determine
the course of Isaiah's thought in this
crisis. Conflicting reports of his views
seem to have been recorded; see pages
160/. But Micah's attitude is clear and
pronounced. Dwelling on the country
side and looking upon Jerusalem as the
embodiment of the sin of Judah, he says,
probably in connection with this cam
paign: "Therefore, on account of you,
Zion will be ploughed as a field and Jeru
salem will become ruins, and the moun
tain of the house a high place in a for
est." Micah was mistaken about the

lSee pp. 19 JT. of. my Micah, in the International Critical
Commentary (1911).

76 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
fate of Jerusalem; but who would think
of calling him a false prophet? The
contemporaries of the invasion had con
tradictory views regarding its outcome
urged upon them. To which should they
hearken, and how were they to know
the right decision?
In the light of the foregoing, it is
plain that the hearers of the prophets
had to make their own decisions regard
ing truth and error. They had no short
cut to the truth but had to seek for it
with struggles and tears, even as we do
to-day. The prophets were thus de
pendent for the success of their proph
ecy upon their audiences, just as mod
ern preachers are. They had no way of
convincing men of the truth that is not
open to the modern prophet. They
could not and did not enforce their teach
ing by any external authority. The
power of their message lay in its appeal
to the hearts and minds of those to
whom it was addressed. Truth was

FALSE PROPHETS 77
self-authenticating in their age even as
in our own. It must find its way into
the minds of men as a welcome guest,
else it will not enter at all. Its only
credentials are its own inherent worth.
The man who cannot or will not recog
nise its value for himself will never
know the truth by any other token. The
prophets, therefore, like all heralds of
the truth, were perforce content to send
forth their message by spoken word and
printed page and trust it to do its own
work in the lives of men.
The fact that religious truth is inde
pendent of and cannot be attested by
outer demonstration, even of the most
extraordinary kind, was, at least in part,
recognised by the prophetic teachers of
Israel. This is shown by Deut. 13 : 1-5.
Here Israel is warned against accepting
religious teaching that does not accord
with what she has already learned of
Yahweh, even though such false teach
ing be supported by signs and wonders

78 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
that actually come to pass. Even a
miracle cannot validate a lie. This warn
ing is the negative side of the proposi
tion that the only test of truth is found
in its fellowship with truth already
known. The truth demonstrated in Is
rael's experience was that Yahweh was
God. Any doctrine setting forth new
gods was in irreconcilable conflict with
this and was of necessity false. Noth
ing could show it to be true. Signs and
wonders are not safe guides.
In the last analysis what was the real
difference between the "true" and the
"false" prophet? It certainly was not
that the one was sincere and honest in
his utterance and the other was deceit
ful, hypocritical, and deliberately given
over to lies. Undoubtedly, some repre
sentatives of the prophetic order did
abuse their office, treating it as a means
for self-enrichment and self-aggrandise
ment. The world has never lacked those
who were willing to use a high calling

FALSE PROPHETS 79
for base ends. But as one listens to the
utterances of Hananiah, the son of Azzur,
and men like him, their words ring true.
They beheved what they said with heart
and soul. They were as patriotic and
as religious as the "true" prophets who
opposed them. They did not need to
yield an inch in loyalty to country and
in loyalty to Yahweh to any man. The
"true" prophets, to be sure, called them
bad names, but theological and ecclesi
astical partisanship, even in Christian
times, has not been lacking in bitterness;
odium iheologicum is a synonym for acri
mony and abuse.
The true ground of distinction is to
be found in the attitude of the two
parties toward the problems of their
day. The one group was essentially
traditionalistic in its attitude toward
life. It was content to know how the
fathers had thought and acted. What
was good enough for former generations
was good enough for the present genera-

80 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
tion. They were for ever harking back
to the faith once delivered unto the
saints. They worshipped the past and
had no true appreciation of the signifi
cance and value of the present. They
lacked the creative spirit and power.
They were engaged in the task of per
petuating old views and customs after
these had outlived their usefulness. They
looked upon the spokesmen of new ideas
as irresponsible innovators and foes of
the common weal; and they themselves
were, in turn, reckoned disloyal to the
truth and behind the times by their
more clear-sighted and aggressive rivals
for the religious leadership of Israel.
The "true" prophets, on the other
hand, were diligent students of their
own times. They were not lacking in
appreciation of the past, but they did
not allow the past to annihilate the
present. They realised that Yahweh had
spoken to the men of former ages great,
creative truths; but they were equally

FALSE PROPHETS 81
certain that he had still more truth to
make known to his children. They held
themselves in readiness to receive it,
and they believed themselves commis
sioned to proclaim it. They knew that
Yahweh had met the needs of the past
with a message adapted thereto, and
they were convinced that he was in fike
manner revealing himself in response
to the needs of the present. They read
the message of Yahweh in the events of
the day as an ever-growing and ex
panding revelation. They were quick
to see new obhgations or duties arising
in the development of the social and
economic order and they did not hesi
tate to identify these demands with the
will of Yahweh. Religion thus became
in their hands a constantly enlarging
experience; its demands could not be
met by the mere repetition of ancient
formulas; or by the performance, no
matter how zealous, of an established
ritual; or by the discharge of traditional

82 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
duties. It must be a vital thing, keep
ing pace with all the interests of the
ever-changing world and making its
ever-fresh contribution to the changing
needs of man.
The difference between the "true"
and the "false" prophet may be illus
trated by setting forth briefly the main
features of the situation in Israel in the
eighth century. The reign of Jeroboam
II had brought to Israel a high degree
of prosperity. To the great mass of
those who had profited by this prosper
ity and to most of the contemporary
prophets this state of affairs meant that
Yahweh was satisfied with Israel and
was, therefore, showering blessings upon
her. They rejoiced in their wealth and
success and gratefully multiplied offer
ings to Yahweh in acknowledgment of
his favour. They hoped for the day
of Yahweh to come; then Yahweh would
crown all his efforts in Israel's behalf by
overthrowing all her foes and setting

FALSE PROPHETS 83
her in authority over them. To all fear
ful and less trustful souls they said con
fidently: "Is not Yahweh in the midst
of us? No disaster can befall us"
(Micah 3 : 11). They regarded Yah
weh's interests as identical with those
of Israel. They judged Yahweh by the
standards they set up for themselves.
They were zealous in their worship of
him and well satisfied with their stand
ing in his sight. Were they not doing
all that could be demanded? Was not
their very prosperity itself convincing
evidence of Yahweh's indorsement of
them and their ways?
But there were others, like Amos,
Hosea, Micah, and Isaiah, who had a
totally different conception of God.
They believed him to be more interested
in justice than in sacrifice, in honesty
than in festivals, in worthy deeds than in
empty words.
Let justice roll down as waters,
And righteousness as a mighty stream.

84 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
They held him to be so tremendously
concerned about ethics that he would
not hesitate to destroy an unethical
nation. They conceived of his inter
ests as embracing the world and thus
made him independent of his people
Israel. In his name they denounced the
commercial dishonesty and the grasp
ing greed that had taken hold of the
hearts of the men of Israel. They de
manded a new social spirit adequate to
the new situation. They passionately
pleaded for the rights of men as over
against things, and claimed Yahweh as
the avenger of the wrongs of the op
pressed and exploited poor. In view of
the travesties of justice which they saw
on every hand, they could see no future
for Israel but disaster and doom at the
hands of God.
In the larger life of that eastern world
in which Israel was becoming more and
more deeply involved, the religious need
for Israel was the formulation of a new

FALSE PROPHETS 85
and larger idea of God. To this the
prophets of traditionalism were not equal.
They had neither the intellectual acu
men nor the spiritual insight adequate
for such a task. It called for men of
broader human sympathies and deeper
spiritual life. They could neither meet
the need of the age nor recognise its exis
tence and were thus well content to let
things go along as they always had
done. They were staunch defenders of
the old, because they were totally un
able to appreciate the new.
If this diagnosis of the situation be
along the right lines, it will at once fol
low that there was no sharp dividing
line between "true" and "false" proph
ets. Some were by temperament and
training better able to seize the truth
than others. Each, to the best of his
ability, sought to interpret the age in
which he lived in terms of religion; one
succeeded in larger measure than the
other. Each served his God with all

86 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
his heart and soul; but one made a
larger contribution to the rehgious
thought and life of men than the other.
In his lifetime the great prophet did
not always receive as much considera
tion and honour as the little prophet;
but time vindicated him and placed the
seal of its approval upon his words.
With few exceptions, the prophetic liter
ature which has survived the test of time
is that produced by the great outstand
ing figures in the history of Hebrew
religious thought. Their great sayings
did not fail to find some appreciative
hearers who treasured them in their
hearts and passed them on to later gen
erations-. Men have never been willing
to let truth perish. They can always be
trusted with it and will not fail, sooner
or later, to enthrone it in their hearts.
The true prophet is always sure of a
hearing, for the hearts of men instinc
tively respond to a message that comes
from God.

IV
PROPHETIC PREDICTION
It has come to be a commonplace that
the primary function of the Hebrew
prophets was not that of foretelling.
The older view which made them little
more than recorders of history before it
had taken place was a gross misinter
pretation. The word "prophet" itself
carries no such significance as "fore
teller." In its Greek form, the imme
diate ancestor of our English word, it
means "one who speaks for, or in be
half of, another"; i. e., of course, "one
who speaks for a god." The Hebrew
word, of which this is a translation, is
not wholly clear in its significance. But
probably, like its Assyrian equivalent, it
is best rendered "speaker" or "pro-
87

88 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
claimer." Certainly, in certain passages
of the Old Testament, the meaning of
"prophet" is made fairly clear; he serves
as the spokesman of Yahweh. In Jer. 1 :
9, Yahweh says to Jeremiah, "Behold,
I have put my words in thy mouth";
cf. Deut. 18 : 18. In Ex. 4 : 10-16, a
relatively old passage (= J), Yahweh is
represented as saying to Moses: "Now,
therefore, go, and I will be with thy
mouth and teach thee what thou shalt
speak." Moses is still hesitant; hence
Yahweh continues: "Is there not Aaron,
thy brother, the Levite? I know that
he can speak well. And further — lo, he
comes forth to meet you, and when he
sees you he will be glad in his heart.
And thou shalt speak unto him and put
the words in his mouth: and I will be
with thy mouth and with his mouth
and will teach you what you shall do.
And he shall be thy prophet ( = spokes
man) unto the people: and it shall come
to pass that he shall be to you a mouth

PREDICTION 89
and you shall be to him as God"; cf. also
the account, Ex. 7:1. The prophet,
then, from the point of view of these
passages is the one who declares unto
men the will of God.
The interpretation of the will of God
might conceivably pertain to the history
of the past; and certain prophetically
minded men gave themselves, indeed, to
the task of interpreting the past in such
a way as to obtain therefrom warning,
guidance, and inspiration for the pres
ent; witness the J and E documents
of the Hexateuch and the stories of
Judges and of Samuel which are made
to drive home the lessons of prophetic
teachers. Yahweh's will for the pres
ent is, however, a matter of more vital
importance; and to this the great proph
ets of the classical period of Hebrew
literature gave themselves with undi
vided energies. But the will of Yahweh
regarding the future was also a matter
of profound concern; and at no stage

90 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
in the history of prophecy was it ig
nored. Of the earher days of Hebrew
prophecy it is probably safe to say
that the chief concern of the prophets
was with the future. Oracles by lot,
by omens, by trances and dreams were
eagerly sought and highly treasured.
The best possible attestation of a proph
et's authority was the fact that "what
soever he says comes to pass" (I Sam.
9:6). This was proof positive that he
knew the mind of God.
That such attempts to read the se
crets of the future have been made the
world over is well known; and that they
have, at times at least, been successful
there is no sufficient reason to doubt.
Bear with a case or two by way of il
lustration. E. W. Lane, in his edition
of the Arabian Nights,1 says: "To-day
[November 6, 1834], as I was sitting in
the shop of the Basha's booksellers, a re
puted saint whom I have often seen here
1 Vol. I, pp. 210/.

PREDICTION 91
came and seated himself by me, and
began, in a series of abrupt sentences,
to relate to me various matters respect
ing me, past, present, and to come.
He is called the sheikh Alee-el-Leysee.
. . . '0 Effendee,' he said, 'thou hast
been very anxious for some days. There
is a grain of anxiety remaining in thee
yet. Do not fear; there is a letter com
ing to thee by sea that will bring thee
good news.' He then proceeded to tell
me of the state of my family, and that
all were well excepting one, whom he
particularised by description and whom
he stated to be then suffering from an
intermittent fever. This proved to be
exactly true." Again, Lane says of the
same man: "He several times accosted
me in an abrupt manner, acquainted
me with the state of my family in Eng
land, and uttered incoherent predictions
regarding me, all of which communica
tions, excepting one which he qualified
with 'if it be the will of God,' I must

92 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
confess, proved to be true." When Cy
rus the Younger was upon his famous
march against his brother Artaxerxes,
and was daily expecting an attack from
the latter, he was told by Silanus, the
soothsayer of Ambracia, that Artax
erxes would not join battle within the
next ten days. Cyrus promised Silanus
three thousand darics if his prediction
proved true, and on the eleventh day
after the prediction was uttered, Cyrus
paid the money over to Silanus in ac
cordance with his promise.1 In the mid
summer of 1908 a religious fanatic, be
longing to the order of "Nazarenes,"
went up and down the streets of Mes
sina proclaiming: "Be warned, take heed,
and repent, O men of Messina. Before
this year shall end, your city shall
be utterly destroyed." The earthquake
wiped out the city on December 28 of
that year.2
1 See Xenophon's Anabasis, bk. I, close of chap. VII; cf.
also Thucydides, bk. II, chap. LIV.
* See A. Knudson, Beacon Lights of Prophecy (1914), p. 76.

PREDICTION 93
One of the best modern illustrations
of this power of prediction is furnished
by the hfe of Savonarola. His wonder
ful influence was, in part, due to the
possession of this strange gift. For ex
ample, he foretold the deliverance of
Charles VIII at a time when his retreat
seemed cut off on all sides. At the very
height of his own power, he had a pre
monition of his own fate and predicted
his martyrdom. On May 26, 1495 A. D.,
he said to King Charles: "Remember
that I repeatedly announced your de
scent into Italy when it was expected by
none. I have predicted your success,
predicted your perils. The Lord has
punished you because, departing from
his commands, you have abandoned his
works. And still heavier punishments
await you if you return not to the right
path." In September, 1496 A. D., this
threat was terribly fulfilled by the death
of the Dauphin.1
1 See Villari's Vie de Savonarola (1893), vol. I, pp. 186, 309;
vol. II, pp. 4, 42, 56, 90.

94 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
The Old Testament, too, records cases
of this sort. A man of God tells Eli
that his two boys will die on the same
day, as they actually did (I Sam. 2 : 34;
4 : 11). Samuel tells Saul that the lost
asses have been found (I Sam. 10 : 2).
Micaiah ben Imlah predicts disaster for
Ahab (I Kings 22 : 28). Amos foretells
the disgrace and slaughter of the family
of Amaziah the priest and the exile of
Amaziah himself (7 : 17). x Isaiah pre
dicts the downfall of Ephraim within
sixty-five years, if the text be correctly
preserved, which is not probable (7 : 8).2
Jeremiah is said to have foretold the
death of his opponent Hananiah the
prophet within the ensuing year. Han
aniah died within about two months
(Jer. 28:16/.). Ahijah the Shilonite

1 However, we are not informed regarding the fulfilment or
non-fulfilment of this prediction. It is possible that Amaziah
survived till the exile of Gilead and Naphtali in 732 B. C,
but it is hardly probable.
2 As a matter of fact, the final overthrow of northern Israel
occurred in 732 B. C, only twelve or thirteen years at most
after the time at which the prediction was made.

PREDICTION 95
is said to have foretold the exact mo
ment of the death of Jeroboam's son,
Abijah (I Kings 14 : 12, 17). Elisha is
said to have predicted the death of
Benhadad of Syria and the consequent
accession of Hazael, his murderer (II
Kings 8 : 10-15). The mention of Cy
rus in Isaiah 44 : 28 and 45 : 1, which
used to be taken as a prediction, is now
understood to be the utterance of a con
temporary, since Isaiah 40-66 are rec
ognised as exilic and postexilic literature.
A prophet's prediction of King Josiah
as the destroyer of the altars set up by
Jeroboam (I Kings 13 : 1/.), nearly three
hundred years before Josiah's birth, is
also now seen to be the product of a
writer living during or after Josiah's
own age.1
Were we to accept uncritically every
one of the predictions of this sort con
tained in the Old Testament, the number
•See, e. g., the commentaries on Kings by W. E. Barnes
(The Cambridge Bible) and J. Skinner (The New Century

96 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
would be relatively very small. Defi
nite and specific predictions were evi
dently not of very great value in the
minds of the greater prophets. The fact
is that we could find much more of this
sort of thing in the utterances of non-
Hebraic seers and of the Hebrew proph
ets of a lesser order than we meet in
the oracles of the great creative proph
ets of Israel. These exalted souls were
not content to be mere diviners striv
ing to wrest the secrets of the unknown
from the clutches of the gods. They
were enlisted for a task even more dif
ficult than that of piloting the footsteps
of the nation by the aid of advance in
formation regarding the programme of
Yahweh. Their preaching was of the
sort to stimulate and challenge faith
rather than to stifle it by removing all
necessity for its exercise because of the
substitution of knowledge for faith.
While there is but little prediction of
a specific and concrete sort in the Old

PREDICTION 97
Testament, there is quite a good deal of
another kind. The prophets frequently
present warnings or promises relating to
the future. These are, for the most part,
general in scope and more or less hazy
and indefinite as to details. Amos, for
example, at first threatens Israel and
the surrounding peoples with a certain
fearful, fiery form of destruction, of which
nothing definite is said except that it
is punishment inflicted by Yahweh for
sin. Later on he seems to have decided
upon some invading army as Yahweh's
agent of destruction. Apparently, he ex
pected the blow to fall almost immedi
ately, but Samaria stood about forty
years longer. Hosea reiterated the same
message of destruction, seeming to vacil
late between Assyria and Egypt as the
executors of Yahweh's wrath. Zepha
niah looked for a world-devastating cata
clysm, with the Scythian invasion as a
forerunner. Jeremiah probably shared
the same view in his early ministry; but

98 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
later came to see that the Babylonian
was the chosen instrument in Yahweh's
hands. The author of Isaiah 40-55
promised his people deliverance from
exile at the hands of Cyrus and expected
that deliverance to be the dawn of the
Messianic age of glory. Haggai and
Zechariah, a generation later, were still
hoping for the Messiah's appearance and
told Judah that the rebuilding of the
temple was all that was needed to make
certain the crowning of Zerubbabel as
Messianic King, and the realisation of
all their hopes of Messianic blessedness.
Such threats of punishment on the one
hand and predictions of blessing on the
other were, as a rule, of the most
general character. They were, indeed,
largely without form and void. The
fact of the coming of punishment or of
blessing was almost the only definite
thing about them. The form of the pun
ishment or the content of the bless
ing was usually left undefined, being

PREDICTION 99
described only in the most general and
elusive terms. The time for its realisa
tion was usually represented as lying in
the immediate future, but of the day and
hour no word was given.
For a right understanding of such
prophetic utterances it is important to
remember that prediction was not, for
the prophets, an end in itself. They
had no desire to be known as infallible
prognosticators. Prediction was not to
them of primary importance; it was but
a means for the attainment of a greater
end. They were interested in the future,
to be sure. Indeed, in a sense, all their
work looked toward the future. Yet
they were well aware that that future
was dependent upon the present and
that the latter, therefore, could not be
ignored, but was of prime significance.
So, in a sense, also, their first interest
was in the present. They sought in ev
ery possible way to bring their people
to make that present what it ought to

100 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
be.1 They brought to bear upon the
children of the present all their hopes
and fears as to the future. They in
sisted constantly that the present was
the future in the making and that there
could not possibly be any divorce be
tween the two. They appealed to their
people's patriotism in the hope of se
curing a response in repentance and re
form that would make a glorious future
possible. They appealed to their sense
of justice that they might forsake op
pression for the same reason. They
threatened them with impending dis
aster that they might terrify them into
goodness and thus guarantee a splendid
future for Israel. They promised them
wonderful manifestations of Yahweh's
power and love that they might lift
them out of despair and spur them for-

1 Moses Buttenwieser (The Prophets of Israel [1914], pp.
178, 297) repeats the mistaken view that the prophets had lit
tle expectation of effecting any change in the lives of their
contemporaries. This seems psychologically impossible and
in conflict with the whole spirit and aim of prophecy.

PREDICTION 101
ward to fresh endeavour for the sake
of the future. Prediction, then, was to
some extent a homiletical method for
achieving moral and spiritual results for
the present.
It will at once appear, then, that there
was a large element of the conditional in
prediction. In proportion as a prophet
was successful in his main endeavour,
many of his predictions would fail to be
realised. If a prophet threatened pun
ishment from Yahweh for sin, in the
hope of bringing Israel to repentance, his
success as a prophet required that his
prediction should induce the repentance
which would obviate the necessity for
that punishment. This point of view
is clearly stated in Jer. 18 : 1-10, the
closing portion of which reads:
At the moment I speak concerning a nation, and
concerning a kingdom,
To pluck up and to pull down and to destroy it;
If that nation turn from its wickedness concern
ing which I spoke,

102 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
I will repent of the evil that I thought to do to it.
And at the moment I speak concerning a nation,
and concerning a kingdom, to build and to
plant it;
If it do evil in my sight in not obeying my voice,
Then will I repent of the good, wherewith I said
I would benefit them.
Such a platform as this could be used
by a disingenuous prophet to vindicate
himself no matter how events came
about. Indeed, in all good faith, a man
like Jeremiah would find no difficulty in
explaining the course of events upon this
basis. If disaster came notwithstanding
repentance, the penitence was not gen
uine or was too facile. If prosperity
came notwithstanding persistence in evil,
then the prosperity was only transitory
and the punishment would be all the
more terrible when it did come.
In fact, not infrequently we must
freely recognise that the specific elements
in the predictions of the prophets failed
of fulfilment. History is the authorita
tive and final judge in this matter. Amos

PREDICTION 103
apparently looked for the fall of Samaria
within a few years at the most (Amos
7 : 17); but that event did not arrive
till 722 B. C, about forty years after
the time of his oracle. Micah expected
Sennacherib to lay Jerusalem in ruins
(3 : 12), but Sennacherib left her un
scathed to stand for more than a hun
dred years. Zephaniah and Jeremiah
seem to have been called forth by the
Scythian invasion, from which they an
ticipated dire calamity to Judah; but
the Scythians passed by leaving Judah
practically untouched. The author of
Isaiah 40-55 predicted the dawn of the
Messianic age upon the release of Judah
from captivity. Haggai and Zechariah
saw in Zerubbabel the Messiah himself
and urged Judah to remove the obstacles
in the way of the immediate manifesta
tion of Messianic glory; the same hopes
possessed Malachi and other postexilic
prophets; but the Messianic age is yet
to dawn. The prophets were not gifted

104 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
in the art of reading the details of the
future to any greater extent than ex
perts along these lines elsewhere in the
world. In so far as they did indicate
the general direction of human progress,
it was due to the fact that they were
better qualified students of the present
than others. They were in profounder
sympathy with the eternal purpose, and
by keen discernment of its workings in
the past and present were able to fore
cast the main lines of operation in the
immediate future.
The Hebrew predictions of a calamity
upon the heathen and blessing upon Is
rael are partly the expression of a pro
found conviction of the moral justice of
God. The history of Israel, especially
during the later centuries, was a history
of disaster and woe. This was, for the
most part, inflicted by nations of far
inferior ethical and spiritual ideals. The
natural longings of the Hebrew soul find
expression in these hopes for the future

PREDICTION 105
and their passion for righteousness rein
forces their hopes. From this point of
view these predictions are the expression
of the very soul of Israel. The certainty
that glorifies them is of the heart and
not the head. This side of the proph
et's predictions may be illustrated by a
modern parallel. An Armenian student
in my classes,1 during the period of the
recent Balkan revolt against Turkey, thus
wrote upon this question:
Two millions of suffering Armenians have
been predicting the downfall of the Turk with
just as much of a firm assurance and certainty
as the old Hebrew prophets did the downfall of
the Assyrian or the Babylonian. Disinterested
people, outsiders, might have predicted the same
end on the basis of certain facts observed in the
situation which they believed would logically
work out the declme and fall of Turkey. The
basis of prediction for the Armenians was not
what they could see and understand (though they
were not lacking in intelligence), but what they
felt in their hearts. They hate the Turk so bit
terly — they so much long to see his end come
•Viz.: Mr. A. A. Bedikian, professor in Robert College,
Constantinople.

106 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
— that they simply believe for a fact that it will
come without fail. Strong feelings create a vision
of a future certainty. It may seem an empty
dream for another, but for the sufferer it has the
sustaining power of a hopeful fact.
In view of the nature and function of
prediction as thus far seen, it is clear
that those who look to the prophetic
writings for a key to the meaning of
modern movements are demanding of
the prophets what they never attempted
to give. To read the fifty-third chapter
of Isaiah as a literal prediction of the
career of Jesus of Nazareth is grossly to
misunderstand the prophet who penned
that noble ideal. To find in the book
of Daniel descriptions of the course and
fate of the Roman Catholic Church, or
data for determining the chronology of
the last age and the coming of the Day
of Judgment, is to fail to appreciate the
purpose of that book and the limitations
of its author. The predictions of the
prophets are rather their highest ideals

PREDICTION 107
carried over into the region of the future
and visualised. They are describing the
world for us as they would like it to be
and as they believed in God's good time
it would be. In such utterances they
are giving us dreams — not time-tables,
pictures — not reality.
The day for the "fulfilment" of their
visions has long since passed away. We
are living in a new world, which is not
the world of their dreams. Imperfect as
our world is, we would not exchange it
for the world they longed for if we could.
We could not live content in their un
real world; we have outgrown its pro
portions in every direction. Their hopes,
lofty as they were, cannot be our hopes.
We must develop our own ideals and
follow them toward the perfection that
beckons afar. We shall be honouring
the prophets not by a mere parrot-like
repetition of their words and thoughts,
but by a genuine sympathy with their
spirit. The same divine discontent with

108 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
this world of the present and the same
sort of hunger for "a world in which
dwelleth righteousness" will stimulate us
to the same sort of ceaseless effort for
the improvement of the present that the
coming of that better age be not too
long delayed. We honour most the
prophets of the past by giving diligent
heed to the prophets of our own day
as they warn us of our perils and point
out for us the way of social betterment,
clear-eyed justice and world-wide broth
erhood.

A PROPHET'S MARRIAGE 1
No portion of a prophet's life was ex
empt from service in behalf of the proph
et's purpose. He denied himself the
privileges and joys of other men if
thereby he could the more effectively
achieve his aim. He laid bare the se
crets of his own heart and the tragedies
of his own experience when by so doing
he thought it possible to make a pro
found impression in favour of true relig
ion. Jeremiah and Ezekiel furnish proof
of this; but Hosea, in the story of his
marriage, gives us the best illustration
of a prophet's absolute self-abnegation.
The prevailing interpretation of Ho
sea's marriage is to the effect that Hosea,
1 Reprinted with slight revision from The Biblical World,
vol. XLII, August, 1913. 109

110 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
as a young man, fell in love with Gomer
and married her, supposing her to be all
that his youthful imagination fancied
her to be. To this union were born
three children. But meantime Gomer
had developed latent tendencies to sen
suality and had played Hosea false. At
last she left his home to live with an
other man. The love of Hosea, how
ever, made it impossible for him to
leave her to her fate, and, going after
her, he purchased her from her para
mour and placed her under restraint,
preparatory to her full restoration to
her position as his wife. Long brooding
over this tragic experience produced in
him the conviction that it all had been
ordained of Yahweh to the end that
Hosea might thereby be aroused to the
true significance of Israel's attitude to
ward Yahweh and be inspired to preach
to Israel regarding her sin. The whole
experience was Yahweh's way of calling
Hosea to be a prophet.

A PROPHET'S MARRIAGE 111
The attractiveness of this interpreta
tion lies in the essentially human and
natural character of the experience thus
portrayed. It presents no psychological
difficulties to the modern mind. Hosea
becomes a man like ourselves, moved by
similar passions and learning the will of
God precisely as we do — by experience.
Many of the leaders of modern scholar
ship have enthusiastically indorsed this
view and furthered it by both learning
and eloquence. Among others may be
mentioned Cheyne, Wellhausen, W. Rob
ertson Smith, Kuenen, George Adam
Smith, A. B. Davidson, Nowack, Marti,
and W. R. Harper. Yet I venture to
think that the truth lies on the side of
older generations of scholars, whose ex
egetical sense forbade them taking the
language of Hosea as meaning other than
what, on the face of it, it seems to say.
Modern representatives of this view,
which looks upon Gomer as having been
a public prostitute when Hosea married

112 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
her, have not been lacking. The most
forceful presentation of this interpreta
tion in recent years is that of Professor
Paul Volz, in Zeitschrift filr loissenschaft-
liche Theologie, XLIV (1898), 321-335.
The present chapter proposes once more
to array the evidence for a literal in
terpretation of the language of Hosea
and to reconstruct this section of the
biography of the prophet.1
The language of the narrative leaves
no room for the view that Gomer was
a woman with a tendency toward har
lotry, rather than an out-and-out harlot.
In support of the "tendency" view much
has been made of the fact that in 1 : 2
Hosea is told to take "a wife of har
lotries" (DWUT rt*K), not "a harlotrous
wife." But there is no chance for the
idea "a wife with tendencies toward
1 After this chapter in its original form was put in type, but
before its publication, Professor C. H. Toy, of Harvard Uni
versity, published an article, "Note on Hosea 1-3," in the
Journal of Biblical Literature, XXXII (June, 1913), pp. 75-79,
in which he also declared for » literal interpretation of the
language descriptive of Gomer.

A PROPHET'S MARRIAGE 113
harlotry" in the former phrase. Ex
actly the same idiom is employed in
Prov. 12 : 4; 31 : 10 and Ruth 3 : 11,
where "a woman (or wife) of virtue"
certainly does not and cannot mean "a
woman with tendencies toward virtue,"
but simply "a virtuous woman." The
same thing is true of similar phrases
in Prov. 6 : 24; 9 : 13; 11 : 16; 21 : 9;
25 : 24 ; and 27 : 15. Hosea himself uses
the same idiom again in 4 : 12 and 5 : 4,
where "a spirit of harlotries" is clearly
something more than "a spirit with
tendencies toward harlotry." The id
iom is simply one of the regular ways of
predicating a characteristic of a person
and cannot legitimately be made to carry
such a load as the "tendency" view
places upon it. Gomer, the "wife of
harlotries," was nothing more nor less
than a "wife who plays the harlot."
Nor is it true that Hosea was made
a prophet by his marriage. According
to the literal sense of the narrative, the

114 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
marriage itself was imposed upon him
by the word of Yahweh; i. e., he was al
ready a prophet before marriage. Even
if this plain statement might be legiti
mately set aside on the ground that it
is the product of Hosea's later reflection
upon the cause and significance of his
marriage, it yet remains true that Hosea
was a prophet at the time of the birth
of the first child, for he bestowed upon
him a name having prophetic signifi
cance. Yet it is quite generally held
by exponents of the "tendency" view
that at this time Hosea knew nothing
of his wife's unfaithfulness, which is
supposed to have kindled in him the
prophetic fire. Furthermore, it is not at
all necessary to posit a tragic marital
experience in explanation of the origin
of Hosea's characteristic conception of
the relation between Yahweh and Israel
as one in which the ruhng principle
should be a mutual love, like that which
should obtain between husband and wife.

A PROPHET'S MARRIAGE 115
The representation of a god as the hus
band of his land was close at hand in
the Baalism of the day, in which this
was the basic thought. The thought of
Yahweh's love for his people, even though
they were sinful, was by no means new;
it is implied in Amos 2 : 9-11 and 3 : 2
and finds clear expression in the stories
of J and E incorporated in the Hexa
teuch; e. g., Ex. 15 : 13; Joshua 23 : 4-
11; Deut. 33 : 12. It would have been
wholly cruel to require Hosea to arrive
at the idea of Yahweh's love for Israel
through such a heart-breaking experi
ence as the "tendency" view presupposes,
when that idea lay ready to hand, having
been worked out in the experience of pre
ceding generations.
The "tendency" view also implies
that Hosea first of all received a revela
tion from Yahweh through the marriage
experience, which he was to pass on to
the people of Israel. But there is not a
word said in the narrative about this

116 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
mediating function of Hosea. Judging
from analogous records, in which the
r61e of mediator is always explicitly en
joined upon the prophet, it is not likely
that this mediating task was to be taken
for granted by Hosea. The brevity of
the record is a most serious obstacle in
the path of the "tendency" interpreta
tion, for that view implies so much that
is not mentioned in the narrative. So
vital an element in the experience as
Hosea's failure to discover Gomer's true
character before he married her and the
consequent paralysing revelation of it
afterward could hardly have been passed
over in utter silence.1 Nor would there
have been left unexplained such an ex
traordinary fact as Hosea's continuing
his marital relations with a wife after
1 Cf. the statement of Professor Toy in the article previ
ously mentioned: "The romantic history of a man wounded
in his deepest feelings through an ill-fated marriage that sad
dened his life and coloured his thought seems to me to have no
foundation in the text. If there had been passionate devotion
and sorrow there would doubtless have been some mention of
it, but there is none; the narrative is a quiet statement of
facts."

A PROPHET'S MARRIAGE 117
the birth of two children, one of whom
at least was known to be a child of
shame, if Gomer's true nature had been
unknown to him before his marriage.
Furthermore, such a case of adultery as
is presupposed by this view was punish
able by death; cf. Deut. 22 : 22/.; Ezek.
16 : 40. Hosea could hardly have passed
over in silence his reason for not having
the law enforced.
Hosea was not led blindfolded by
Yahweh into a marriage that was to
break his heart and wreck his hfe. On
the contrary, he married a woman of
evil reputation with his eyes wide open.
If this seem to us a psychological impos
sibility, we need only recall other cases
in which prophets did extraordinary
things. The psychology of a prophet
was not subject to the laws controlling
the mental operations of ordinary men.
The belief that Yahweh willed the per
formance of any act was enough to lead
him to undertake the most unusual, yea,

118 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
repugnant programme. Illustrations of
this absolute surrender to the will of
Yahweh are furnished in Isaiah 20 : 2/.
and Ezek. 4:4/., 12/.; 12 : 3ff.; 24 :
16/. Nor are instances of similar
character wanting in more recent times.
Simeon Stylites spending almost half a
century continuously upon the top of
a column, thinking that thereby he was
pleasing God, is a case in point. An act
looked upon as God-ordained and recog
nised as such from the start is thereby
lifted above all ordinary rules of pro
cedure. The will of God transcends all
other laws.
The moral problem raised by such a
command from Yahweh for the modern
mind would not present itself to the
men of the eighth century B. C. The
moral difficulty is essentially the same
on either hypothesis. For Yahweh to
order a prophet to marry a woman who,
as Yahweh knows, will turn out a har
lot is every whit as bad as for him to

A PROPHET'S MARRIAGE 119
bid the prophet marry one who is al
ready a harlot. But this aspect of the
question would present no serious diffi
culty to men who were able to think of
Yahweh as hardening Pharaoh's heart
to the end that he might destroy him,
or as stirring up David to number Israel
only to punish him for so doing, or as
inspiring a body of prophets to tell Ahab
a lie in order that Ahab might go to
his death.
The marriage to Gomer presented it
self to Hosea as required of him by
Yahweh, precisely because it was an ex
traordinary and sensational act. It was
calculated to attract wide-spread atten
tion. It and the succeeding births were
vivid object-lessons for the whole na
tion. Such a marriage inevitably would
provoke questions and give Hosea an
eager audience for his answers. These
show that he intended that his family
life should be regarded as a concrete
illustration of the nature of the relation-

120 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
ship between Yahweh and Israel. Just
at this point we need to guard against
misinterpretation of the marriage. Its
purpose was to present the existing sit
uation in Israel from the point of view
of Yahweh. It is reading into the nar
rative what is not there to insist that
it shall represent the whole history of
Israel's relation to Yahweh, and that
Gomer, therefore, must have been a
pure young maiden at the time of her
marriage, even as Israel is represented
elsewhere (cf. Hosea 11 : 1; Ezek. 16)
to have been at the time when Yah
weh chose her as his people. But the
demands of the narrative and of the
experience itself are satisfied if the mar
riage be looked upon as a striking por
trayal of the utter lack of inner sym
pathy between Yahweh and Israel in
Hosea's own day, and especially of the
base disloyalty and ingratitude of Israel
in not giving her full and undivided al
legiance to Yahweh, her rightful Lord
(cf. Hosea 2:5/.).

A PROPHET'S MARRIAGE 121
The name Gomer bath diblaim itself
may furnish evidence of the true char
acter of its owner before her marriage.
The meaning of the name is, perhaps,
"Gomer, daughter of fig-cakes." The
real significance of the name is, on this
basis, "Gomer whose person is held at
a low value." The point of view is fur
nished by a statement from an Ara
bic writer, viz.: "We used to conclude
mofa-marriages for a handful of dates
and meal in the time of the prophet
and Abu-bekr, until Omar forbade us
such."1 The mofo-marriage was a tem
porary union between a man and woman
and altogether unworthy of the name
of marriage. The same phraseological
usage appears in the common English
idiom, found also in Latin, "not worth
a fig." If this be the meaning of the
name, Gomer is thereby branded as a
woman who could be obtained for very
1 See Eb. Nestle, Zeitschrift fur die aUtestamentliche Wissen-
schaft, XXIII, 346, and XXIX 234; cf. W. Baumgarten, ibid.,
XXXIII, 78.

122 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
low hire, not more than a couple of
handfuls of figs. The phrase "lovers of
raisin cakes" in Hosea 3 : 1 belongs in
the same general circle of ideas; for
there the "other gods" are thought of
as hiring the service of Israel with gifts
of raisin cakes. It is true that the word
"daughter" does not occur elsewhere as
indicative of price or value. But the
terms "son" and "daughter" do have
a much wider range of meaning in He
brew than in English. They are used,
for example, to express a person's age,
viz., "Noah was a son of five hundred
years," etc., i. e., Noah was five hundred
years old (Gen. 5 : 32; 7 : 6, etc.); or
to denote a characteristic, as "Joseph is
a son of a fruitful one," i. e., Joseph is
a fruitful bough (Gen. 49 : 22), and "a
son of perverse rebelliousness" (I Sam.
20 : 30), and "a vineyard on a hill a
son of oil," i. e., a vineyard on a very
fertile hill (Isaiah 5:1), and "daughter
of troops," i. e., warlike one (Micah 5: 1).

A PROPHET'S MARRIAGE 123
This usage comes at times very close to
the idea of price or value, as, e. g., in "a
son of death," i. e., one deserving death
(I Sam. 20 : 31), and "a son of smiting,"
i. e., one deserving a beating (Deut.
25 : 2). Yet, lacking any exact parallel,
we cannot dogmatically assert that this
must be the true interpretation of Go
mer's name; it remains only an attrac
tive possibility.
It remains to consider the light shed
upon the story of chapter 1 by the nar
rative of chapter 3. This has usually
been taken as a record of Hosea's love
for his wife which led him to go after
her when she had deserted his bed and
board and to purchase her back from her
paramour. But this interpretation en
counters serious difficulties. Why should
the dissolute Gomer, whom Hosea by
this time, according to hypothesis, knows
only too well, be spoken of to him not
as "thy wife" but as "a woman"? If
his runaway wife were here meant we

124 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
should certainly expect a much more def
inite and specific description of her to
her deserted husband than "a woman."
Again, why should Hosea have pur
chased his own wife from her paramour?
Was she not already his morally and
legally? Or was Hosea a weakling who
dared not insist upon his rights and was
willing to purchase peace at any price,
even that of his own dishonour? If Ho
sea took back his wife, who had for
saken him for another man, would not
his act have been looked upon as at
least as scandalous as that postulated in
Jer. 3:1? The silence of the narrative
regarding the desertion of Hosea by his
wife is surprising. It is not mentioned
at all but taken for granted. Yet such
a step on Gomer's part would have been
too vital an element in the situation to
be ignored. It would have been precisely
the sort of thing of which Hosea would
have made splendid use in setting forth
the significance of his marriage for Israel.

A PROPHET'S MARRIAGE 125
These difficulties with the current in
terpretation have been so keenly felt
that some scholars have sought to avoid
them all by making the woman of chap
ter 3 to be another than Gomer. But
this device has not met with any gen
eral approval, and rightly so; for the
experience that was pedagogically of
value upon its first occurrence would
have lost all novelty and value if re
peated. Instead of wondering and ques
tioning, Hosea's contemporaries would
have been satisfied to set him down as
a stark fool and would have gone about
their own affairs and left him to his fate.
A suggestion recently made1 seems to
relieve the difficulty here. Chapter 3 is
not the record of a later stage than
chapter 1 in the marital experience of
Hosea but is rather a parallel narrative
recording the initiation of the original
marriage with Gomer. The record of
1 By C. Steuernagel, Einleitung in das Alte Testament (1912),
p. 605.

126 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
chapter 3 is the story as told by Hosea
himself in the first person; that of chap
ter 1 is the story as told by another.
This accounts for the more specific and
concrete detail of chapter 3. This calls
for a new translation of 3 : 1, to be sure,
but it is a translation that finds its jus
tification in the usage of numerous other
passages. Instead of "And Yahweh said
to me, Again go, love," etc., we must
render: "And Yahweh said to me again,
Go, love," etc. For illustration of this
position of the word "again," see Hosea
2 : 16, "Thou wilt not call me again";
Isaiah 8 : 5, "And Yahweh added to
speak to me again"; Isaiah 62 : 4, "It
shall not be said to thee again." This
"again" may imply that Yahweh had
previously urged this step upon Hosea
withoutMeffect, as in the case of Jonah.
Or it may merely mean that the com
mand to marry a prostitute was not
the first communication between Yahweh
and Hosea. In any case, this transla-

A PROPHET'S MARRIAGE 127
tion delivers us from the hypothesis of
a second marriage and from the diffi
culty of finding an explanation for Ho
sea's purchase of his renegade wife.1
On the understanding that this is Hosea's
own story of the first and only mar
riage with Gomer, the purchase becomes
at once natural. Marriage regularly in
volved the payment of a dowry to the
bride's guardians; cf. the story of Ja
cob's marriages (Gen. 29 : 15/.). The
low price paid for the bride, according to
Hosea 3:1, accords well with the in
terpretation of "Gomer bath diblaim"
(1 : 3) as "Gomer, daughter of figs,"
which is suggested above.
On the basis of these two records of
the marriage we may, perhaps, reconstruct
the story of Hosea's experience as fol
lows: Hosea, a prophet already burdened
with the sense of his people's sin, felt
himself called upon by Yahweh to marry
'Steuernagel and Toy account for "again" as an editorial
gloss made to join the two narratives chronologically.

128 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
a lewd woman, to the end that through
such a marriage he might open the eyes
of Israel to the enormity of its offence
in being disloyal to Yahweh, its right
ful lord. In pursuance of this convic
tion, Hosea bought Gomer, a woman
living in public shame with her para
mour. But he at once placed her under
restraint, denying her association with
himself as well as with others, and seek
ing by such discipline to fit her for her
position as his wife. This phase of the
experience was interpreted for Israel as
meaning that she as Yahweh's bride
must be disciphned by exile before she
could expect to enjoy any further favour
from Yahweh. After this period of re
straint for Gomer she was taken by
Hosea into his home and became the
mother of three children. Each of these
in succession was given a prophetic
name and, like Isaiah's children, became
a walking sermon to Israel just as the in
stitution of the marriage itself had been.

A PROPHET'S MARRIAGE 129
In this connection it must be remem
bered that the names given to the chil
dren need cast no slur upon the birth of
the children nor upon their character.
The names carried by Isaiah's children
certainly were not meant to bear any
relation whatsoever to the children them
selves. Hence, the names are not nec
essarily proof that the children of Hosea
were not his own.
If, however, the names of the chil
dren and the fact that in Hosea 1 : 2
they are called "children of whoredom,"
i. e., children of harlotrous parentage,
should seem to some to imply that
Gomer was unfaithful to Hosea after
her marriage, it is equally possible to
suppose that Hosea took Gomer into
the full rights of wifehood immediately
upon marrying her. In that case, the
birth of the children, who were of doubt
ful parentage, and the names bestowed
upon them did but impress upon the
public mind more deeply the lesson of

130 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
the marriage itself. Then after exhaust
ing every means, supposably, to keep
Gomer in the path of virtue, Hosea put
her in isolation; and there the story
leaves her, to preach her silent sermon.
If it be objected to this interpretation
that Hosea could not have loved a
woman of such a type, it is sufficient to
say that he is not anywhere said to
have loved her. The nearest approach
to such a statement is 3:1, where Yah
weh bids him "go, love a woman," etc.
But it is worthy of note that in the very
same sentence the same word "love"
(2iiN) is used to characterise the relation
ship between the woman in question and
her paramour. The word frequently is
used to denote mere carnal passion (e. g.,
II Sam. 13 : 1, 4, 15; I Kings 11 : 1, 2),
having no suggestion of genuine spiritual
love. The fact is that early Hebrew
had no word strictly corresponding to
"marry," and in issuing a command to
marry it was necessary to use some

A PROPHET'S MARRIAGE 131
descriptive phrase, such as "take a
woman" (Hosea 1:2), or "become a
daughter's husband" (Deut. 7:3), or
"love a woman." Love is not subject
to orders, and even a prophet could not
command his feelings to the extent of
loving in the true sense whenever and
wherever Yahweh told him to love.
Yahweh's command was really nothing
more than "Go, marry a woman." Nor
was it necessary that true love on Ho
sea's part should enter into the marriage
at all. The lesson of the marriage for
Israel was not dependent upon any deep
feeling toward Gomer on Hosea's side.
The essential thing was that Hosea had
taken Gomer under his roof and had
thereby become responsible for her sup
port and likewise entitled to her un
divided loyalty. Lacking this on her
part, the marriage must be suspended,
or broken off, until such time as she is
found to be worthy of restoration. In
like manner Yahweh had taken Israel

132 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
from among the nations to be his own
people. He had showered prosperity
upon her and given her every reason to
remain true and faithful to him. She,
however, had taken up the worship of
other gods and was thus, at least, shar
ing her devotion between Yahweh and
them. This state of affairs could not
continue indefinitely; Yahweh would not
endure it. Its only possible outcome was
exile and captivity.
No serious difficulty lies in the fact
that such a marriage was in the highest
degree sensational in character. This
very fact made it of the greater value in
Hosea's eyes. The prophets were never
deterred from any course by the fear
of its being considered startling. The
standards of taste of that day were not
identical with ours; but the prophets
were not afraid to violate such stand
ards as there were. Isaiah walked the
streets of Jerusalem in stark nakedness;
Ezekiel broke through the wall of his

A PROPHET'S MARRIAGE 133
own house and moved out his goods un
der cover of the dark; Jeremiah dragged
his dirty linen before the public eye.
Hosea is moving along the same lines
when he marries a harlot and declares it
to be in obedience to Yahweh's behest.
To take this view of Hosea's marriage
is not to make Hosea less of a prophet
but more. He is seen to be a man
whose whole life, even in its most inti
mate relationships, was held subject to
the control of Yahweh. He seeks every
possible way to impress the message of
Yahweh upon Israel and does not hesi
tate to forego the possibility of a happy
home life — yea, even to doom himself
to a miserable existence — if thereby he
can the more effectively deliver his mes
sage. In this respect he recalls the ex
perience of Jeremiah who deliberately
denied himself the joys of home life for
a similar reason, and that of Ezekiel,
who forbade himself the natural expres
sion of his grief when his heart was bro-

134 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
ken by the death of his wife. Hosea
thus becomes one more illustration of
the strength of the passion of self-sacri
fice exercised in behalf of patriotism and
religion. The record of such an experience as
this marriage warns us not to make the
mistake of classifying the prophets as
men of ordinary and especially of modern
minds. The possibilities of prophetic
action may not be restricted to those
things which a modern man would natu
rally do or say. The consciousness that
they were merely instruments in the
hands of Yahweh put the prophets into
a class by themselves. This fixed idea
lay behind all their thought and action.
They did not hold themselves respon
sible for their words and deeds; it was
Yahweh's hand that pointed out to them
their duty. "Their's not to reason why;
their's but to do and die." Men who
have thus surrendered their minds and
wills, or have thus seated their minds

A PROPHET'S MARRIAGE 135
upon the throne of God, identifying
their own mental operations with the
movements of the divine thought, are
in great danger. Genius is said to lie
next door to madness; prophecy cer
tainly was very near the border line.
It is not surprising that the two spheres
of insanity and prophecy were so closely
associated in early Israelitish thought
(see page 45). The actions of Isaiah
(20 : 2/.) and Ezekiel wouldv certainly
at the present day be taken as indica
tive of insanity, and they were evidently
only slightly less startling in that day
than they would be now. Our insane
asylums contain many men and women
who look upon themselves as the spokes
men or agents of God. The prophets
were saved from the danger of becoming
madmen by the fact that they kept so
closely in touch with life in all its phases.
They never ceased to be practical men.
Consequently they developed a breadth
of vision that kept them from becoming

136 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
absurd or impossible. Their sanity was
of the largest order and enabled them to
stand the strain that would have torn
smaller minds from their moorings. But
in attempting to understand their mo
tives and their policies we must never
lose sight of their absolute resignation
of the right to call their souls their own.

VI
THE PROPHET AND THE
STATE
The prophet's objective was the wel
fare of the state. Not until the days
of Ezekiel was serious attention given to
the "cure of souls" (see following chap
ter). The prophet did not wholly ignore
the individual, to be sure; but his inter
est in him was determined by his value
and significance for the community as a
whole. In so far as individuals affected
the life of the nation, the prophet was
concerned with them, but not with in
dividuals for their own sake.
The prophet's consuming desire was
the consummation of the glory of the
kingdom of Yahweh. This kingdom of
Yahweh was for the prophet no esoteric
society but the actually existing king-
137

138 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
dom of Israel. This was the object of
his affections and the centre of all his
hopes. Not until the futility of expect
ing any great political glory for Israel
was fully apparent did the prophets
abandon the hope of the kingdom as a
whole and turn their faces toward an
Israel within Israel.
The religious life of both the prophet
and his audience found expression in a
state church. The interests of church
and state were inextricably mixed. What
concerned the one was of vital interest
to the other. Samuel apparently not
only anointed but had much to do with
the selection of Saul, the first King.
Solomon appointed Zadok chief priest in
Jerusalem (I Kings 2 : 35). Jehoiada
the priest organised the conspiracy that
resulted in the slaughter of Athaliah and
crowned Jehoash King in her place (II
Kings 11 : 4-20). The Deuteronomic re
form was carried through under the aus
pices of King Josiah. These and other

PROPHET AND STATE 139
such facts show the close relationship of
sceptre and mitre. All the citizens of the
state were at the same time members of
the church. While there might be op
posing political parties on any given is
sue, all parties alike swore allegiance to
Yahweh as the national God. From the
founding of the monarchy on down there
were never any serious contenders with
Yahweh for the position as head of the
state religion. Nor was there ever any
movement looking to the abolition of a
state religion as such. The place of Yah
wism in Israel was assured. The prophet
consequently was not so much struggling
for the preservation of the existence of
Yahwism as he was insisting upon his
people and government giving full and
free course to Yahweh's will as he re
vealed it unto them. This brought the
prophet into close touch with practically
every phase of the social and political
life of Israel and made the range of his
interests and activities as wide as those

140 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
of the nation. Inevitably, therefore, the
prophet who adequately discharged his
mission was called upon to be a states
man. He was Yahweh's ambassador to
Israel. The aim of this chapter is to
indicate by some examples the ways
in which and the degree to which the
prophet met this demand to furnish
guidance in the political turmoil and
confusion of the times.
In the latter part of the eleventh cen
tury B. C, a struggle for the supremacy
in Canaan set in between the Philistines
and the Hebrews. In its earlier stages
Israel was unable to hold its own. The
Philistines were victors on the battle
field (I Sam. 4); they captured the ark
of Yahweh itself (4 : 11); and they
reduced Israel to humiliating bondage
(I Sam. 13 : 19-23). An occasional vic
tory, however, served to buoy up the
spirits of the Hebrews (I Sam. 7 : 9/.).
Israel's weakness and disgrace lay heav
ily upon the minds of the prophets.

PROPHET AND STATE 141
Bands of prophetic patriots roamed up
and down the land seeking to arouse
enthusiasm and courage in Israel for a
supreme effort toward the attainment
of liberty for the nation and glory for
Yahweh. One prophet of commanding
personahty recognised that the need of
the day was unification and efficient
leadership. He not only saw that need
but found the man to meet it. Hence,
when the young Saul came to Samuel
looking for his lost asses, he found far
more than he had anticipated. Samuel
inspired him with a vision of his people's
needs and of his own opportunity and
sent him on his way thinking of greater
things than straying donkeys. Thus,
when the critical moment came Saul
was ready to take advantage of it (I
Sam. 11 : 1-11) and to strike an effec
tive blow for freedom. A careful com
parison of the conflicting records of the
establishment of the monarchy makes it
clear that, far from opposing the step,

142 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
Samuel was the leader and guide in the
whole movement. The representations
to the contrary in I Samuel are quite
generally recognised as reflecting the
point of view of later times regarding the
monarchy, when the freedom-loving He
brews had come to feel keenly the heavy
burden of taxation involved in the main
tenance of an established government
and a standing army. But Samuel saw
that the maintenance of Israel's indepen
dent sovereignty among the nations was
possible only under the leadership of a
competent king, strong enough to bind
the loosely allied clans together in a
firm allegiance and courageous enough
to lead them forth under Yahweh's ban
ner to victory over Philistia. The in
terests of the state and those of religion
were here one and the same. For should
Israel completely have lost its political
liberty at this early day the religion of
Yahweh would have disappeared from
the face of the earth. A god who could

PROPHET AND STATE 143
not have conquered his people's foes
could never have won his people's hearts
or retained their fealty.
In connection with the death of David
intrigues developed in the court and the
royal family, and rival claimants for the
succession appeared. Adonijah, an older
son, seemed to be sweeping everything
before him. But Nathan the prophet
started a movement in favour of Solo
mon, and with the aid of Bathsheba,
his mother, secured David's indorsement
of Solomon's coronation. This political
activity of Nathan the prophet in sup
port of Solomon brings" to mind the in
dorsement by Ahijah the Shilonite of the
revolt of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat,
from Rehoboam, Solomon's son. The
motives which led Nathan to support
Solomon's claim for the throne are not
apparent to us. But the reasons for
Ahijah's desertion of Solomon and Re
hoboam are manifest. Rehoboam's auto
cratic programme, his utter disregard of

144 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
the protests of his oppressed subjects
against the continuance of the heavy
burdens of taxation and forced labour
imposed by Solomon, and the tolerance
of non-Hebraic religions and customs by
both Solomon and Rehoboam (who was
himself the son of an Ammonitess) are
clear occasions of offence to Ahijah.
Yahweh was the defender of the oppressed
and entitled to the exclusive devotion
of his nation in the thought of all the
prophets. Ahijah may also have been
influenced by other considerations. As
an inhabitant of Shiloh, the seat of an
ancient sanctuary, he may have resented
the prestige acquired by the new temple
at Jerusalem. As a northerner, he may
have objected to the prominence given
to Judah by the Davidic dynasty. As a
prophet whose predecessors had made
and unmade kings he may have feared
the loss of prophetic influence over a king
who owed his elevation to the throne in
no way to the prophets. Whatever the

PROPHET AND STATE 145
dominating motives may have been, Ahi
jah and his colleagues did not hesitate
to throw the whole weight of the prophetic
influence on the side of revolt and dis
ruption. The same policy of opposition and
conspiracy against the reigning house
was pursued by Eh jah and Elisha. Ac
cording to I Kings 19 : 16 and II Kings
9 : 1/., both Elijah and Elisha sought
the overthrow of Ahab's house, which
was consummated by Jehu. The under
lying causes for this breach between the
prophet and the King were in essence
the same as in the case of the disruption.
Ahab and his Queen showed too much
favour to the Baal of Tyre to please the
jealous representative of Yahweh. That
Ahab in no sense proposed to forsake or
repudiate Yahweh is quite clear. He
named his children in honour of Yahweh,
viz.: Ahaziah, Athaliah, and Joram, all
compounds including the divine name
Yah. When needing an oracle regard-

146 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
ing the outcome of the attack upon
Ramoth-Gilead, Ahab was able to sum
mon four hundred prophets of Yahweh
to his aid. Nor was the danger of the
triumph of Baalism so imminent as the
records of Elijah's campaign against it
would lead us to think. For when Jehu
sent out word to gather all the wor
shippers of Baal to a great festival in
honour of Baal the whole company was
not so large but that it could be accom
modated within the precincts of a sin
gle shrine (II Kings 10 : 18-28). But
Ehjah resented any recognition by the
government of any other god than Yah
weh; hence he condemned Ahab and
denounced him. The episode of Na-
both's vineyard represents the other ele
ment of Ahab's policy which was ob
noxious to the prophets. It was part
and parcel of the same autocratic spirit
and method to which the yeomen of Is
rael had objected in the time of Solo
mon and Rehoboam. It was in direct

PROPHET AND STATE 147
conflict with the freedom-loving democ
racy of the north, which ever became
restless under the heavy hand of despot
ism. Thus Eh jah utilised both religious
and social forces for the accomplishment
of his purpose against Ahab.
Ahab, on the other hand, was the
strongest King who had thus far occu
pied the throne of the northern king
dom. He had come to the kingdom at
a time when strength and strategy were
called for by the situation developing in
western Asia. Ahab saw that he was
mvolved in a great struggle and strained
every nerve to bring victory to his side.
Assyria was pushing westward and on
toward Egypt. The little states of Syria
dropped their petty wars with one an
other and combined their resources to
repel the invader. Ahab co-operated in
this movement. He maintained an al
liance with Tyre, having married its
King's daughter; he made alliance with
Judah, and, dropping the bitter hostili-

148 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
ties with Damascus, he entered upon al
liance there, too. Thus at peace on ev
ery side, he joined in the common effort
to beat back Assyria. In 854 B. C. battle
was joined at Karkar between Shalma
neser of Assyria and twelve kings of the
West-land, of whom Ahab was one; and
his quota of troops was one of the
largest among the allies. The struggle
was indecisive and was renewed again
in 850, 849, and 846 B. C. The only
possible chance for success in this strug
gle for life on the part of the West-land
lay in the whole-hearted support of all
the governments endangered. Ahab, as
a shrewd statesman, saw the danger and
did his best to meet it. Elijah appar
ently saw and cared nothing in regard
to the interests that Ahab held dear.
He therefore pestered Ahab with con
stant preachments regarding exclusive
loyalty to Yahweh and full recognition
of the rights of Hebrew farmers. To
Ahab, concerned with weighty matters of

PROPHET AND STATE 149
state, these affairs that meant so much
to Elijah must have seemed trifling, and
it is no wonder that he broke out in
anger against the prophet: "Is it thou,
thou troubler of Israel?" But, after all,
Ahab was concerned with the things that
are of but passing moment, while Elijah
and his followers were devoted to the
things that are of eternal significance.
No matter how effectively Ahab and his
allies might mass their resources, the final
victory of Assyria was inevitable. The
political independence of Israel could
not be maintained. But the spiritual su
premacy of Israel was not dependent
upon political success. The prophet who
wrought for the elevation of Israel's
religious and ethical standards was giv
ing himself to a work that had enduring
foundations. A century and more after Elijah's
time we find Isaiah holding forth pro
phetic ideals in Judah. His lot was cast
in troublous times. One critical situa-

150 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
tion succeeded another with but short
intermission. There was need of wise gui
dance, courageous faith, and strong en
durance. It was no easy task that con
fronted those who held the helm of state
in Isaiah's day. The first crisis in his
lifetime was the Syro-Ephraimite inva
sion of Judah in 735 B. C. The fittle
states of western Asia were again con
spiring together to rid themselves of the
Assyrian peril. This time they had a
powerful ally in the kingdom of Urartu,
located around Lake Van in Armenia.
Just when Tiglath-pileser IV was dev
astating Urartu, Syria and Ephraim, with
Philistia, formed a coalition against him.
Into this they sought to bring Judah.
But Ahaz was either neutral or else pro-
Assyrian in his policy. Consequently
the allies set upon him intending to force
his kingdom into comphance with their
plans. When Pekah and Rezin invaded
Judah terror fell upon the populace. In
the expressive words of Isaiah 7:2: "His

PROPHET AND STATE 151
heart was moved, and the heart of his
people, as the trees of the forest are moved
with the wind."
At this juncture Ahaz and his court
saw no alternative but to appeal to As
syria for aid. This, of course, meant the
acknowledgment of the suzerainty of
Assyria by Judah in the payment of
tribute and the like. But Isaiah was of
a different mould and protested strongly,
in the name of Yahweh, against any
such confession of weakness, which was
in the last analysis a confession of doubt
in Yahweh's power and love. Could
not and would not Yahweh save his
own people, without the intervention of
any foreign power or the invocation
of any foreign gods? Indeed, would
not Assyria herself, without solicitation,
swoop down upon Syria and Ephraim,
since they were engaged in movements
directed against her? In any case, Isa
iah denounces the policy of appeal to
Nineveh and insists upon a contrary

152 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
policy of faith in Yahweh. "If you will
not believe, surely you will not be estab
lished." He assures Ahaz that the in
vasion will come to naught and that the
invaders will themselves be destroyed.
This prediction Isaiah offers to confirm
by the performance of a sign; and when
Ahaz declines the opportunity to put
him to the test, he voluntarily gives him
the Immanuel sign. Whatever else this
sign may or may not signify, it evidently
was put forward as conclusive proof that
the downfall of the enemy and the de
hverance of Judah were near at hand.
"For before the child (viz., Immanuel)
shall know to refuse the evil and choose
the good, the land whose two kings thou
abhorrest shall be forsaken" (Isaiah
7 : 16).
Isaiah's protest was in vain. Ahaz
refused to make the venture of faith.
He preferred the safe course of submis
sion and humiliation. "So Ahaz sent
messengers to Tiglath-pileser, King of

PROPHET AND STATE 153
Assyria, saying, I am thy servant and
thy son; come up and save me out of
the hand of the King of Syria, and out of
the hand of the King of Israel, which
rise up against me. And Ahaz took the
silver and the gold that was found in
the house of Yahweh and in the treasures
of the King's house, and sent it for a
present to the King of Assyria. And
the King of Assyria hearkened unto him;
and the King of Assyria went up against
Damascus and took it, and carried its
people captive to Kir, and slew Rezin"
(II Kings 16 : 7/.).
In 713-711 B. C. another attempt to
repudiate Assyria was made by the
western states. As we learn from Sar-
gon's own records, the conspiring states
were Egypt, Ashdod, Edom, Moab, and
Judah. Isaiah's attitude on this occa
sion, as shown in Isaiah 20, was one of
unalterable opposition to the whole move
ment. He saw no possibility of anything
but defeat and failure. The hopes of the

154 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
conspirators were not without a certain
measure of plausibility. A new and vig
orous Ethiopian dynasty was now in
control of Egypt. Was not Egypt a
great power, a worthy rival of Assyria?
With her aid, might not victory be won?
The scene of the struggle was far re
moved from the Assyrian home base,
thus constituting in itself a heavy handi
cap upon her efforts. Furthermore, Me-
rodach-baladan, with the aid of the King
of Elam, had wrested from Sargon the
independence of Babylon and was a
constant source of trouble to Assyria
from 722 to 710 B. C. This loss of pres
tige and power to Assyria was, of course,
known and rejoiced in throughout all
the west. Another vigorous foe was ac
tive in the north, where Urartu had re
asserted itself after its overthrow by Tig
lath-pileser IV. It had incited other
neighbouring peoples to revolt. Hence
Sargon was kept busy with expeditions
against Urartu and the north, which

PROPHET AND STATE 155
followed one another in rapid succession,
viz., in 719, 718, 716, 715, 714, 713, and
711 B. C. Thus, with Elam and Baby
lonia co-operating on the east and south,
Urartu and its neighbours from Lake
Urumia to the Mediterranean in revolt
on the north, and the states of Syria-
Palestine combining with Egypt and cer
tain Arabian tribes on the west and south,
it is not to be set down as political and
military stupidity that the leaders of Ju
dah believed it possible to obtain free
dom from the galling yoke of Assyria.
But Isaiah in most sensational and per
sistent manner urged upon his country
men to refrain from entering into this
movement. That his advice was disre
garded we know only from the fact that
Sargon fists Judah among his foes upon
this occasion. What caused Isaiah to
oppose this which was apparently so pa
triotic and so promising an undertaking
we are not told. He may have been a
keener student of the situation than the

156 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
partisans of the anti- Assyrian programme
and have foreseen the certain failure of
the enterprise because of his more ac
curate estimate of the strength of the
opposing forces. Or he may have op
posed the policy for purely religious rea
sons. Co-operation on the part of Yah
weh's people with heathen peoples was
an insult to Yahweh. Was he not able
to obtain, unaided, whatever he wished
his people to possess? To join hands
with the worshippers of other gods was
to show distrust of Yahweh's power and
to recognise the claims of his rivals. In
any case, the issue of events vindicated
Isaiah's counsel.
Once again does Isaiah come to the
fore in an effort to influence the coun
sels of state. In 705 B. C. the mighty
Sargon died and Sennacherib, his son,
succeeded him upon the throne. This
change of rulers seemed to the liberty-
loving vassals of Assyria to offer a good
opportunity for another blow for free-

PROPHET AND STATE 157
dom. The prime mover in this revolt
seems to have been Merodach-baladan,
who had been subdued and expelled from
Babylon by Sargon in 710 B. C. In 705-
704 he again seized the throne of Baby
lon and held it against Sennacherib for a
period of from six to nine months. In
connection with this attack upon Sen
nacherib he stirred up revolt also in
Phoenicia, Philistia, Egypt, and Judah.
Jerusalem became a maelstrom of plots
and counterplots. Ambassadors came
there from Merodach-baladan (Isaiah 39),
from Philistia (Isaiah 14 : 28/.), and
from Egypt (Isaiah 18). Upon all this
glow of preparation and enthusiasm Isa
iah threw cold water in the form of
predictions of failure of the enterprise.
He sought with all his might to induce
Hezekiah and his advisers to remain
loyal to Assyria. In 735 B. C. he had
opposed Ahaz in his purpose to assume
gratuitously the yoke of Assyria's suze
rainty; but in 711 and in 701 alike his

158 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
advice was to abide faithfully by the
obligations they had voluntarily assumed.
He assured the government that to de
pend upon Egypt for aid was but to
lean upon a broken reed; she had never
kept her promises and was unable to do
so now (Isaiah 30 : 5/.; 3 : 1-9). He
counselled, as before, that Israel should
trust in Yahweh, forsake sin, and refrain
from political intrigue. His whole mes
sage might be summarised as "trust in
Yahweh and do good and thou shalt
inherit the land."
The currents running against Isaiah
were too deep and strong. His objections
were swept aside. Hezekiah and his
court were carried blithely into the con
flict. When the irrevocable step had
been taken, Isaiah consistently continued
to interpret the will of Yahweh as bod
ing ill for Judah. Here belong such ora
cles as 1 : 2-17; 22 : 1-14; and 17 : 12-
18 : 6. The Assyrian is the rod in Yah
weh's hands wherewith he will smite

PROPHET AND STATE 159
Israel for its sins. Nothing but disaster
awaits Jerusalem.
And in that day did the Lord, Yahweh of hosts,
call
To weeping and to mourning and to baldness
and to the girding on of sackcloth.
But, lo, there was rejoicing and mirth,
Killing of cattle and slaughtering of sheep,
Eating of flesh and drinking of wine;
"Eat and drink— for tomorrow we die,"
But Yahweh has revealed himself in my ears:
"Surely this guilt shall not be atoned for you
until you die."
The outcome of the movement is re
corded both by the Old Testament and
by Sennacherib. The latter relates that
he first of all subdued Babylon and later
came west. Here he first attacked the
Phoenician King and subdued all his ter
ritory. He then received submission and
tribute from certain near-by states and
also from Moab, Amnion, Edom, and
Ashdod. He next continued southward
and overthrew the rebel cities of the
Phihstines. At this stage he was con-

160 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
fronted by a reheving army from Egypt,
which he defeated at Eltekeh. He then
completed the subjection of Ekron and
secured the release of Padi, its King,
who had been held captive in Jerusalem
by Hezekiah. Judah and Jerusalem were
finally attacked. Forty-six of its strong
towns and fortresses were besieged and
captured. Hezekiah was shut up in Je
rusalem like a bird in a cage. Two hun
dred thousand one hundred and fifty
captives and innumerable oxen, horses,
cattle, etc., were taken as prey. Many
of Judah's cities were turned over to Ek
ron, Ashdod, and Gaza. A heavy indem
nity was paid by Hezekiah; tribute was
paid, and the lordship of Assyria rec
ognised. Then Sennacherib was called
back to his own land by the outbreak of
fresh troubles there.
This report agrees in its essential
features with that given in II Kings
18 : 14-16. But there are also given in
Kings two further narratives which are

PROPHET AND STATE 161
found also in duplicate in Isaiah 36 and
37. The version in Isaiah is generally
admitted to be a later edition of the
material found in Kings. The two sto
ries so found in Isaiah are (1) 36 : 1-37 :
7 and 37 : 37/. and (2) 37 : 9-36. These
are duplicate stories of the same series
of events. They represent the Assyrian
as demanding the surrender of the capi
tal; Hezekiah as sending in despair to
Isaiah for aid; Isaiah as assuring the
King of deliverance and as praying for
Yahweh's intervention in behalf of Jeru
salem; and Yahweh as smiting the be
sieging army by night with a fearful
pestilence, thus fulfilling the prophet's
prediction. We note in this story certain puzzling
elements. Why did Isaiah suddenly
change his mind? Having denounced
the whole movement toward revolt from
the beginning, what made him change
his attitude when precisely that which
he had foretold took place? Tirhakah

162 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
(Isaiah 37 : 9) of Ethiopia was not King
until 688 B. C, thirteen years after the
event with which he is here connected.
The number slain by pestilence in one
night is without parallel in the records
of plagues, even of the most virulent
type. There is no allusion to any such
marvellous deliverance of the city either
in Sennacherib's account or in the book
of Isaiah, aside from these chapters bor
rowed from the book of Kings. It is,
therefore, not improbable that the actual
course of events was that represented on
the one hand by Sennacherib and on the
other by II Kings 18 : 14-16; and that
the balance of the story is due to that
homiletical expansion for religious pur
poses to which much of the Hebrew his
tory was sooner or later subjected.
Further pursuit of the political activi
ties of the prophets would reveal Zeph
aniah interpreting the oncoming Scyth
ian invasion as the advance host of the
day of Yahweh; Jeremiah counselling

PROPHET AND STATE 163
submission and surrender to Babylon
when every drop of liberty-loving blood
in Judah was crying out for resistance
to the oppressor; Ezekiel preparing his
fellow exiles for the fate of Jerusalem;
Deutero-Isaiah predicting deliverance
from exile and kindling faith in the light
of Cyrus's career of conquest; and Hag
gai and Zechariah urging the rebuilding
of the temple and predicting the es
tablishment of the Messianic kingdom
under Zerubbabel, because they inter
preted the revolts after the death of
Cambyses as portending the collapse of
the Persian Empire.
In view of such facts as the foregoing
it is evident that any successful study
of prophecy must involve a careful study
of history. The prophet was vitally in
terested in the politics of his day, both
international and local. He needed to
be a close student of the political situa
tion. He could not and did not hold
himself aloof from affairs of state. On

164 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
the contrary, he not infrequently thrust
his advice upon his rulers unasked. His
work, for the most part, fell in an age
when the world was the prey of contend
ing gods. It was his task to represent
the claims of Yahweh in the conflict and
to enforce them upon his people in gen
eral and the rulers in particular. This
he sought to achieve by offering ever
afresh an interpretation of past and
present history from Yahweh's point of
view. This involved upon the prophet's
part more or less of constant adjustment
and readjustment to the changing con
ditions of his day. The argument for
Yahweh's claims that served one decade
not uncommonly was useless for the
succeeding decade. The prophet was
forced by the issues with which he had
to deal to change his standpoint from
time to time and to enlarge his range
of vision. Only so could he keep his
religion in vital contact with the needs
of his -age. He was driven on by the

PROPHET AND STATE 165
pressure of events to new discoveries.
We see him ever moulding new truths
upon the wheel of circumstance. He
sought to shape history and succeeded
better than he knew. But it is no less
true that history likewise left its mark
upon him. For his message was in large
part given to him by the circumstances
of his times. Out of them he read the
will of God and in them he saw the hand
of God at work.
When political disaster threatened his
people, the prophet utilised the occasion
to urge upon them Yahweh's demand for
social morality and spiritual worship.
Calamity was but Yahweh's chastisement
for sin. New moral ideals and loftier
spiritual aims were brought forth under
the castigation of the enemy's rod. By
responding to the demands of Yahweh
thus enforced, the prophet sought, as it
were, to force Yahweh to be gracious.
When Israel, in the face of repeated mis
fortune and long-continued oppression at

166 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
the hands of her foes, began to doubt
whether or not Yahweh was after all
worthy of the confidence placed in him
and whether other gods might not be
more powerful, then the prophet met the
situation by making Yahweh the God
of the world and denying the reality of
all other gods. In the movement to
ward this monotheistic standpoint, it is
probable that prophecy was aided by the
familiarity with world-embracing con
ceptions forced upon them by the long-
continued conflict with Assyria, the great
world-power. When, accepting this point
of view, Israel raised the further ques
tion as to the justice of a God who
could permit even more wicked peoples
to chastise and triumph over his own
relatively just and pious nation, the
prophet responded with a new concep
tion of Israel's mission in the world and
a new interpretation of the significance
of her suffering; see the descriptions of
the servant of Yahweh in Isaiah 40-55.

PROPHET AND STATE 167
Such contact with the world at large
was indispensable to the life of the
prophet. His function was essentially
national. He needed the free air of all
out-of-doors and the stimulus of world
movements to keep the spiritual life vig
orous and healthy. This kept him from
becoming narrow and petty in his aims
and sympathies. The history of proph
ecy is sufficient proof of this. Not till
Israel got ready to assume the respon
sibility of nationality did the prophet
proper appear in her life. The classical
period of prophecy was the age during
which Assyria was remaking the map
of western Asia and little Israel was
making the gallant fight for indepen
dence. When that independence was fi
nally and hopelessly lost, prophecy died.
The prophet made an inestimable con
tribution to the life of his state; but the
life of the state was an imperative neces
sity to the prophet.

VII
THE PROPHET AND THE
INDIVIDUAL x
The centre of the prophet's interest
was always the welfare of the nation.
His concern was with national problems,
perils, and hopes. The interests of in
dividuals, as such, were below the level
of his gaze; they came into view only
in so far as they affected the public weal.
The early soothsayer or seer was, to be
sure, in touch with individual life and
primarily concerned therein; but the
great, outstanding figures of the classical
period of prophecy had larger interests
at heart. And yet when the individ
ual finally came to his own in Hebrew
thought he received the recognition of
1 First printed under the title, "The Rise of Individualism
among the Hebrews," in The American Journal of Theology,
vol. X (1906), pp. 251-266. 168

PROPHET AND INDIVIDUAL 169
his rights at the hands of the proph
ets. In early Israel, as among all other
primitive Semitic peoples,1 the solidarity
of the family, clan, or tribe was so in
grained in the whole life and thought as
to render it extremely difficult for the
consciousness of individuality and per
sonality to assert itself and vindicate its
rights. The idea of solidarity finds ex
pression everywhere in the early Hebrew
literature. Familiar illustrations of its
prevalence and power are seen in the
case of the destruction of Korah, Dathan,
and Abiram with their wives and chil
dren (Num. 16 : 27/); in the punish
ment of Achan and his entire family
for the theft of the "goodly Babylonish
mantle, and two hundred shekels of
silver, and a wedge of gold" (Joshua
1 Cf. W. R. Smith, The Religion of the Semites*, pp. 32/.,
274; and Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia?, pp. 25 ff.
The feeling of the solidarity of the clan has persisted in
Palestine down to the present day and is a recognised prin
ciple there in the administration of Turkish law; see Balden-
sperger, in Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly Statement,
January, 1906, p. 14.

170 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
7 : 16-26); in Saul's massacre of the
entire population of the city of Nob
(I Sam. 22 : 16-19); in the hanging of
the children of Rizpah and Michal to ex
piate the crime of their grandfather Saul
(II Sam. 21 : 1-9) ; in the common prac
tice of blood-revenge (II Sam. 3 : 27-30;
14 : 6-11; Ex. 22 : 2/.; Num. 35 : 9-34;
Deut. 19 : 6; Joshua 20 : 3, etc); in the
judicial murder of Naboth's sons along
with their father (II Kings 9 : 26); in
the phraseology of the second com
mandment, "visiting the iniquities of
the fathers upon the children, upon the
third and upon the fourth generation of
them that hate me" (Ex. 20 : 5; Deut.
5 : 9; cf. Ex. 34 : 7 and Num. 14 : 18);
and in the common belief of later times
that Israel's sufferings were due to the
sins of Manasseh (Jer. 15 : 4; 23 : 26;
24 : 3; 31 : 29; Ezek. 18 : 2). The fact
that Amaziah, King of Judah, did not
avenge the murder of his father upon
the children of the murderers is cited

PROPHET AND INDIVIDUAL 171
in II Kings 14 : 6 as a departure from
the ordinary custom.1 The persistence of
the doctrine even down to the latest
period is attested by the stories of the
hanging of Haman's ten sons (Esther
9 : 13/.) and of the casting of Daniel's
accusers and their families with them
into the lions' den (Daniel 6 : 25) .2
Prophecy itself was dominated by this
conception; in its earlier stages the na
tion was always thought of as standing
or falling as a whole. This in some mea
sure accounts for the intensity and pas
sion of the prophet's denunciations of the
wicked — the evil consequences of their
deeds are not confined to themselves
and their descendants, but involve the
destruction of the whole people, good as

1 This verse as it now stands is, of course, the work of the
redactor, but there is no sufficient reason to doubt the fact
here chronicled. Cf. the remarks of Kittel and Benzinger,
ad. loc.
2 The question of the historicity of these stories does not
materially affect their bearing upon our topic. The fact that
these stories are told with approval carries with it an accep
tance of the justice of the custom in accordance with which
children were punished for the sins of their parents.

172 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
well as bad. Many influences combined
were necessary to effect a modification
and weakening of this controlling senti
ment such as to make room for the
growth of ideas concerning individual
worth and responsibility in the sight of
God. We may not conclude, however, that
the individual was wholly without recog
nition in early Hebrew life. There are
too many evidences to the contrary for
that, even if such a stage of social devel
opment could be found anywhere. The
individual has never and nowhere been
able to sink himself wholly in the social
mass; there is and always has been a
certain area of personal experience which
differentiates him from all others. The
mass, on the other hand, is and always
has been conscious of certain differenti
ating characteristics in the members of
which it is composed, and has shown
this recognition of personality by its will
ingness to follow certain men as leaders

PROPHET AND INDIVIDUAL 173
in various kinds of activity. The He
brews were no exception to this rule.
Alongside of the abundant evidence of
the dominance of the feeling of social
and religious solidarity in the early liter
ature of Israel, there is found similar
proof of the fact that individuals were
valued for their work's sake, and that
they in turn felt themselves, at least
at times, to be the objects of Yahweh's
care and were not afraid to ask for per
sonal favours; see, e. g., I Sam. 1 : 10/.;
17 : 37. Stories like those regarding
Gideon and Jephthah clearly demonstrate
the place accorded to forceful men be
cause of their ability; and the many
personal names that are compounds of
the name Yahweh show the strong hold
Yahweh had upon the personal religious
life; e. g., Jonathan = Yahweh has given;
Joshua = Yahweh has delivered. But,
granting everything of this sort, it re
mains true that in early Israel the
rights of the individual, especially in the

174 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
sphere of religious and ethical thought,
had not come to full recognition.
Among the influences working toward
the complete habilitation of the indi
vidual as an individual, one of the ear
liest and most persistent was the social
and industrial life of Canaan itself. The
clan spirit and organisation of nomadic
life could not continue indefinitely in
the midst of the settled life of Canaan.
Landownership necessarily tended to be
come individual rather than commercial.
Agricultural life, with its diversity of in
dustry, naturally brought the individual
to the front. The growth of large towns,
like Jerusalem, Samaria, and Bethel,
furnished greater scope for individual
effort and enterprise. The ever-increas
ing ramifications of trade and commerce
constantly afforded new fields for the
development of individual talent.1 In
tercourse and amalgamation with the ear
lier inhabitants, the necessity of learning
1 Cf. Day, The Social Life of the Hebrews (1901), p. 66.

PROPHET AND INDIVIDUAL 175
from them the art of agriculture, and
especially the relations established be
tween the Israelite and the "stranger,"
all helped to hasten the deterioration of
the clan.
The establishment of monarchical gov
ernment operated to the same effect.
The monarch and his house waxed strong
at the expense of the clans.1 In the or
ganisation of the army, clan ties were
largely disregarded; the basis of organi
sation was numerical, not tribal; there
were captains of fifties, of hundreds, and
of thousands (I Sam. 8 : 12; II Sam.
18 : 1/.; II Kings 1 : 9-13). To mili
tary positions of honour and responsi
bility individuals were appointed, not on
the basis of tribal affinities, but because
of merit evidenced by conspicuous deeds
of valour, loyalty, and efficiency (II
Sam. 23 : 8-39). The very existence of
a standing army necessitated the ab
sence of a comparatively large number of
1 Cf. Day, op. cit., p. 127.

176 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
farmers and citizens from their homes
and the consequent weakening of family
ties (cf. II Sam. 8 : 6, 14). The forced
labour employed upon public works by
Solomon and his successors withdrew
many more from their clan associations
for long periods (I Sam. 8 : 16). In
Solomon's organisation of the kingdom
into twelve districts the clan and tribal
limits seem to have been disregarded
(I Kings 4 : 7-19). The establishment
of the national capital at Jerusalem and
the erection there of the royal temple
drew visitors, traders, and residents from
all parts of the kingdom; this migratory
movement was greatly intensified as a
result of the centralisation of worship
effected in Josiah's reign. The free in
tercourse and interchange of ideas thus
arising was a great educative influence
tending to do away with clannishness
and narrow provincialism and to elevate
many individuals to a higher plane of
thought and feeling. Everything which

PROPHET AND INDIVIDUAL 177
strengthened the bonds of national unity
at the same time hastened the dissolu
tion of the clan organisation and the
weakening of clan loyalty.
In addition to these and other social,
economic, and political influences, there
were ethical and religious forces at work
preparing the way for the incoming of
individualism. The sage was essentially
individualistic both in the method and
the substance of his teaching.1 He con-

1 The Wisdom literature is, of course, of postexilic origin;
hence it might be inferred that the activity of the sages was
an outcome of the adoption of the individualistic point of
view rather than an efficient factor in the development of
that point of view. It is scarcely supposable, however, that
a type of literature so rich in content and so widely differing
from all that had preceded it could have sprung up, as it were,
in a night, independently of any preparatory work. It is
easier to beheve that the Wisdom thought had representatives
in the earlier period of Hebrew history, and that this school
found its great opportunity for influence in the conditions of
the exilic and postexilic periods and at that time came to
the front in literary activity. Hints to this effect are not
wanting; e. g., Joab employed a "wise woman" to rebuke
David (II Sam. 14 : iff.); another "wise woman" advised
the yielding of Sheba, the Benjamite, to Joab (II Sam.
20 : 16 ff.); tradition ascribed unparalleled "wisdom" to Sol
omon (I Kings 5 : 29-34; 10 : 4 ff.; Prov. 25 : 1); and in
Jeremiah's time the wise men are clearly differentiated as a
recognised class ranking along with the priest and the prophet
(Jer. 18 : 18).

178 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
cerned himself with the common, prac
tical interests of ordinary, every-day hfe.
He met men face to face on the streets
and at the city gates and gave them
counsel on matters arising from their
relations to each other as individuals.
All his work laid emphasis upon the
moral responsibilities of individuals; he
had nothing to do with men in the mass,
but confined himself to the individual
member of society and, for the most
part, apparently, to the affairs of private
life. The whole trend and influence of
his work from the outset must have been
individualistic to a high degree. The
outcome of his activity as seen in the
Wisdom literature, Proverbs, Job, Ec
clesiastes, and Ecclesiasticus — the most
individualistic books in the Old Testa
ment — is sufficient warrant for the claim
that the teachings of the earlier sages
exerted a predominantly individualistic
influence. The function of the priesthood, like-

PROPHET AND INDIVIDUAL 179
wise, though primarily national, was not
without its individualistic features. The
early priest was the attendant at the
sanctuary of the clan or tribe. This
function as minister of the community
persisted all through Israel's history; it
appears, for example, in the case of Mi
cah's Levite (Judges 18 : 19/.); of Eli,
priest of the sanctuary at Shiloh; of Sam
uel sacrificing at Gilgal and at Beth
lehem (I Sam. 11 : 14; 16 : 1-13); of
the priesthood at the royal shrines of
Bethel and Jerusalem; and especially
of the priesthood of the second temple.
But, in connection with his duties in
this capacity, the priest sustained im
portant relations toward the individual
members of his community. To him fell
the task of adjudicating between them
in both secular and religious matters. It
was his function to instruct them as to
their ceremonial obligations in connec
tion with sacrifices and offerings, to see
to the observance of the regulations

180 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
concerning clean and unclean, and to
inspect personally all cases of leprosy
and prescribe the course to be pursued.
In these and many other ways he was
brought constantly into contact with in
dividuals, and through this sort of ex
perience must have gained some con
ception of the relation of the individual
to God. The legislation of the Cove
nant and Deuteronomic Codes, moreover,
was the expression in statutory form of
the earlier priestly teachings and prac
tices, and the codification of these laws
was itself the work of the priest. Much
of this legislation, both ritualistic and
secular, in the very nature of the case,
deals with individual matters. The ad
ministration of justice is necessarily in
dividualistic in tendency.1 The rights of
the individual as such inevitably assert
themselves sooner or later. The injus
tice of punishing one man for the crimes
committed by another, even though they
1 See Cornill, Das Buck Jeremia erklSrt (1905), p. 347.

PROPHET AND INDIVIDUAL 181
may be of the same blood, cannot be
overlooked for long in a progressive com
munity. The proper relation between
crime and punishment is maintained only
when it is the criminal himself who suf
fers the punishment. The truth of this
could not be felt in the sphere of civil
and criminal law without at the same
time coming to recognition in the inter
pretation of the divine administration
of justice, especially among a people who
recognised no distinctions of sacred and
secular in law, for whom all law was of
divine origin and authority. Further
more, the "obedience, worship, and love
of the heart demanded by Deuteronomy
on the ground of common union with
Jehovah were bound at length to mani
fest themselves as a personal experience
and privilege known besides to God
himself alone." J It is not without sig
nificance in this connection that the

1 McCurdy, History, Prophecy, and the Monuments* (1911),
§ 1025.

182 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
great prophetic exponent of the principle
of individualism was not only a prophet,
but was by birth and training a priest
(Ezek. 1:3; 4 : 12-15).
Prophecy, too, though its scope and
purpose were fundamentally national,
held within itself the germ of individual
ism.1 The idea of the remnant itself,
whether it originated with Elijah or
Isaiah,2 was a starting-point for individ
ualism. The idea carries with it a dis
tinction between Israel according to
flesh and Israel according to spirit, even
if Israel according to spirit consist only of
those who are also in Israel according to
flesh; the remnant of the Elijah stories,
for example, consisted of the seven thou
sand who had not bowed the knee to
Baal; Isaiah's remnant included his dis
ciples and those faithful to the great
prophetic ideals. Membership in the
1 Sir end, Lehrbuch der alttestamentUchen Religionsgeschichte'
(1899), pp. 199 ff., 308.
2 See Meinhold, Studien zur israelitischen Religionsgeschichte,
vol. I, "Der heilige Rest" (1903).

PROPHET AND INDIVIDUAL 183
remnant, and through this a place in
the future glorified Israel, was made de
pendent, therefore, not solely upon the
fact of being an Israelite, but also upon
faithfulness to the ideals of true Yahweh
worship. Thus, in addition to the acci
dent of birth as a Hebrew, there was set
up a standard of character, and such a
standard is in the nature of the case in
dividualistic. The continual insistence by the proph
ets upon ethical ideals was another
step in the direction of individualism.
Though the ethics of the prophets was
social in intent and purpose, the basis
of it, as of all ethics, was individualistic;
and the prophets' application of these
ethical principles to the conditions of
their times was emphatically individual
istic. Corporations, syndicates, trusts,
trades-unions, and the other multiform
organisations of the present day were
unknown to them; the sins they de
nounced were sins of individuals and

184 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
were to be opposed only by individual
istic preaching of the most personal
type.1 Samuel denouncing Saul, Nathan
laying bare the crime of David to the
eye of his own conscience, Elijah fiercely
opposing the despotic oppression of Ahab
and Jezebel, Amos proclaiming unwel
come truths before the chief priest at
Bethel, Isaiah confronting and confound
ing kings and princes — these are exam
ples of the kind of service rendered by
the true prophets. Among the leaders
of Israel, immunity from such attacks
as these was assured only to the posses
sors of sound moral character. Of the
same personal nature was the use made
by the prophets — e. g., in the J and E
documents — of the stories concerning the
great individuals of Israel's past; the
praiseworthy characteristics of Abraham,
Moses, and David were described and
emphasised for the admiration and in
spiration of succeeding generations.
1 Cf. Smend, op. cit., p. 308.

PROPHET AND INDIVIDUAL 185
It was the task of exilic prophecy to
gather up these scattered threads of in
fluence and weave them into the great
doctrine of individualism. The times
were ripe for the formulation and utter
ance of this doctrine. Political ambi
tions had been dashed to the ground.
The death of Josiah and the calamity of
597 B. C. must have destroyed, for the
time being, the last vestige of hope for
Israel's political future. The attention
of thoughtful men could no longer linger
upon the nation as a pohtical unit, but
was turned to the consideration of its
religious mission. Religion became the
great issue of life; all other questions
were merely of secondary importance;
the best thought concerned itself with
the problems of religion. These prob
lems necessitated the formation of new
conceptions of God. The course of re
cent historical events had to be consid
ered from the point of view of Yahweh's
relation to them. Even if Yahweh were

186 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
only a national deity like other national
gods, such as Chemosh, Milcom, and
Marduk, the fact of Israel's successive
disasters permitted two methods of ex
planation: either Yahweh was inferior
in power to the god whose people had
overthrown Israel, or Yahweh was angry
with his people for some offence against
his majesty, and had therefore with
drawn his favour from them and left
them to the mercy of the enemy.1 " Some
were doubtless ready to accept the for
mer alternative and transfer their alle
giance from Yahweh to the god of the
conquerors. But the prophets, with
unswerving loyalty to Yahweh, unhesi-
1 Cf. the explanation given by the Babylonian priests of the
capture of Babylon by the Persians, viz., that Marduk was
angry at his people and therefore delivered them into the
hands of their enemies; see the prologue of the Cyrus Cylinder
(translated in R. F. Harper's Assyrian and Babylonian Litera
ture [1901], pp. 171 ff.), wherein Marduk is represented as
having become "furious with anger" and as forsaking his
land, which he turns over to Cyrus. The characteristic dif
ference between the Babylonian and the Hebrew explanations
of their very similar experiences is that the anger of Marduk
is occasioned by ritualistic offences; e. g., "he (Nabonidus)
allowed the regular offering to cease"; while Yahweh's wrath
is aroused by gross violations of moral and spiritual law.

PROPHET AND INDIVIDUAL 187
tatingly chose the latter alternative and
declared Israel to be at fault in having
disregarded Yahweh's demand for right
eousness and truth; and, not content
with this, they enlarged the sphere of
Yahweh's activity to world-wide propor
tions and pointed out that the Assyrian
and Babylonian armies were but tools in
Yahweh's hands for the execution of his
wrath upon Israel. Thus in the hour of
his apparent overthrow, Yahweh became
King of kings and Lord of lords. Israel
was now only one among the nations, all
of whom were subject to the dominion
of Yahweh; but she was still his ancient
people and, therefore, the most highly
favoured of all. It was coming to be
seen, however, that the basis of this
closer fellowship was to be found not
in any clan or family relationship but
rather in the moral and spiritual supe
riority of Israel as compared with all
other peoples. The national communion
with Yahweh being thus conditioned by

188 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
a character qualification, the individual
ising of the relationship between him
and his people was bound to follow in
due course.
The gradual breaking down of the old
conception of the solidarity of the na
tion was hastened under the stress of
the intense sufferings of the exilic period.
The common opinion seems to have been
that the present generation was paying
the penalty of the sins committed in
Manasseh's reign (Jer. 15 : 4; II Kings
21 : 2, 11, 16/.; 23: 26; 24 : 3/.). The
popular estimate of the fairness of this
principle of the divine administration of
justice found expression in the ironical,
half -sceptical proverb "The fathers have
eaten sour grapes and the children's
teeth are set on edge" (Ezek. 18 : 2; cf.
Jer. 31 : 29). The spirit of the times
was evidently opposed to the practice
of such doctrine. The dissolution of
the doctrine was aided by the condi
tions resulting from the deportation of

PROPHET AND INDIVIDUAL 189
597 B. C; family ties were ruthlessly
sundered and the lines of clan demar
cation ignored; individuals were uprooted
from their native soil and transplanted
in a foreign land. Many of those re
maining behind were robbed of practi
cally all their kinsmen and former asso
ciates, and were under the sad necessity
of beginning life anew almost alone.
Each had to stand or fall upon his own
merits in the new business and social
conditions. Amid such conditions as these Jere
miah did his work. He realised that the
prevalent tendency to cast the responsi
bility for present difficulties upon the
shoulders of a former generation robbed
the divine chastisements of all educative
moral and spiritual effect for the great
mass of his contemporaries. Hence he
never wearied of pointing out the sinful
ness of his contemporaries (2 : 19/.;
3:1/.; 5:1 /.; 6:6/; 8 : 6; 13 :
22/.; 17 : 1/.; etc.), endeavouring thus

190 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
to bring home to their consciences the
conviction that they themselves had by
their own deeds merited all the pun
ishment they were receiving, and were
altogether in error in supposing them
selves any better than their predecessors.
Following in the same strain, later com
mentators on Jeremiah charged the peo
ple of Judah with being even worse than
their fathers (Jer. 7: 26; 11 : 10), and
Ezekiel (16 : 51) declared them to be
twice as wicked as the people of Samaria
had been before the fall of the northern
kingdom. Jeremiah exposed sin in the
hope of showing its exceeding sinfulness
in such a way as to cause Israel to loathe
it and repent, and on condition of true
repentance he assured them of Yahweh's
forgiveness (3 : 12/.; 4 : 1, Sff.; 8 : 4/;
etc.). This offer of forgiveness on con
dition of repentance was in itself an as
surance that Israel's fate was in its own
hands; it was in direct contradiction to
the popular thought that the nation was

PROPHET AND INDIVIDUAL 191
doomed because of the sins of a previous
generation — a thought the prevalence of
which meant the death of all moral prog
ress. According to Jeremiah, each gen
eration determined its own fate by its
attitude toward Yahweh and his demands
for ethical righteousness and spiritual
worship, without any let or hindrance
due to the rebellious deeds of previous
generations. This position seems to be
the furthest point reached by Jeremiah
in the direction of individual responsi
bility; for the great passage, 31 : 29/.,
even if it could be shown to be original,1
1 The grounds for assigning this passage to a later period are
well set forth by Smend, op. cit., pp. 249 ff.; so also Stade,
Duhm, Schmidt (Encyclopaedia Biblica, col. 2384), Cornill,
(Die metrischen Stiicke des Buches Jeremia reconstruirt [1901],
and in Das Buch Jeremia erkldrt [1905], pp. 346-8), et al. For
the contrary view see Giesebrecht, in he. The only passages
in Jeremiah that can by any means be cited in support of the
thesis that Jeremiah preached individualism are 31 : 29 ff.;
3 : 14-16; 15 : Iff.; 12: 1 ff.; 17 : 9/.; and 32 : 18/. These are
all assigned, wholly or in part, to a later age by Duhm, Cornill,
Schmidt, et al. In addition to the specific ground urged
against each of these passages by these interpreters, a general
objection presents itself to all. These scattered hints of in
dividualism have no vital connection with the prophecies of
Jeremiah at any point; they form no part of the burden of
his soul. It is scarcely conceivable that a prophet of Jere-

192 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
evidently recognises the necessity of the
operation of the old principle of solidar
ity in the existing regime, and postpones
the introduction of the new doctrine of
individualism until the incoming of the
Messianic age.
Individualism was for the first time
clearly defined and enunciated by Eze
kiel, the younger contemporary of Jere
miah. His environment was especially
favourable to the development of this
doctrine. Torn away from home and
his native land in his youth, he was
plunged at once into the midst of Baby-

miah's insight and capacity, confronted by great problems
in ethics and religion, and having possession of a profound
truth adapted to their solution, should have contented him
self with a few incidental, lifeless allusions to it, displaying no
enthusiasm concerning it and making no practical use of it.
Moreover, Jeremiah was still dealing with the nation. His
activities were practically ended before the nation had ceased
to be. Hence the whole motive and background of his work
were necessarily national. His contemporaries clung to the
national idea as long as there was a vestige of hope. Indeed,
the ambition for existence and power as a nation among the
nations of the earth did not fail until the final fall of Jerusalem
and the dispersion of the Jews to all quarters of the earth in
70 A. D. The national spirit blazed forth fiercely again in
the days of the Maccabees and occasioned numerous revolts
against the Romans up to the end.

PROPHET AND INDIVIDUAL 193
Ionian power and influence. The con
trast between the might and splendour
of the conqueror and the weakness and
poverty of his own people must have
made a deep impression upon him. He
abandoned all hope of successful resis
tance and strove to prepare his people
for the inevitable catastrophe, seeking
to turn their thoughts away from polit
ical hopes and intrigues, and to concen
trate them upon the affairs of the moral
and spiritual realm in which they might
still maintain supremacy. The commu
nity of his fellow exiles was constituted
upon an individualistic basis; the con
querors had selected for deportation the
leaders of the nation's thought and ac
tion (II Kings 24 : 14-16) with slight
reference to clan and family ties (Ezek.
24 : 21). These were naturally the most
enlightened and intelligent citizens, and
therefore most likely to be hospitable
toward a new truth.
Furthermore, the probable lack of any

194 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
facilities for public worship on the part
of the Jews in Babylonia,1 who could not
visit the temple at Jerusalem, the only
place where men ought to worship, of
itself prepared the soil of their hearts
for the seed of individualism. Shorn of
opportunity for worship as a member
of the community to which he belonged,
the devout Jew would inevitably be
thrown back upon the necessity of lift
ing his own thoughts and desires to Yah
weh's throne in the privacy of his own
solitude. The passing of the Deutero
nomic law of the central sanctuary about
620 B. C. would tend in this direction
even while the Jews were still in the
homeland, but its full effect was not felt
until the exile, because, on the one hand,
there was always the possibility of visit-
1 The recent discovery that the Jews in Egypt built a temple
of their own at Assuan does not necessarily involve the exis
tence of corresponding Yahweh shrines in Babylonia. The
Assuan colony was of much older origin than the Babylonian
and may represent a period when the Deuteronomic law had
not yet secured full recognition. Yet the discovery of this
Egyptian temple makes it more probable that the Babylonian
Jews also had one or more sanctuaries.

PROPHET AND INDIVIDUAL 195
ing the temple, which was easily acces
sible to all the inhabitants of Judah,
and, on the other hand, it may not be
supposed that the associations and cus
toms of the local sanctuaries were at
once and completely abandoned when
Deuteronomy became the authorised
law. In addition to these conditions there
was a very positive influence toward
individualism from the side of the Baby
lonian civilisation, which was centuries
in advance of the Hebrew. As far back
as the days of Hammurabi, and how
much further no one can tell, the Baby
lonians had been a commercial people.
Even in early times their business activi
ties were highly complex, ramifying in all
directions, and their business methods
were precise and accurate, giving scope
for executive ability of the highest order.
The Code of Hammurabi takes cognisance
of banking transactions, trustees, agents,
or commercial travellers, renting and

196 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
subrenting, receipts, etc.; requires a
written contract with regularly attested
signatures and witnesses for every busi
ness transaction; and gives evidence of
the existence of a thorough and well-
developed system of legal procedure.
The social organisation reflected by the
code is unintelligible apart from the rec
ognition of the well-defined rights and
responsibilities of the individual citizen.
There are, indeed, regulations in the code
which seem to imply the older feeling
of the solidarity of the family, as, for
example, the provision in §§116 and 210,
for putting to death the child of a man
who has caused the death of another
man's child. But these are instances to
be explained as due to the influence of
the lex talionis — an old principle which
carried along with it other ancient usages.
A civilisation as advanced and complex
as that of Babylonia in the twenty-second
century B. C. was certainly not less but
more so in the sixth century B. C, when

PROPHET AND INDIVIDUAL 197
Israel began its Babylonian sojourn and
Ezekiel was formulating his doctrine of
the responsibility of the individual. This
a priori assumption is shown to be cor
rect by the indubitable evidence of the
hundreds of contract tablets coming
from every period of Assyro-Babylonian
history, many of them from the reigns
of Nebuchadrezzar and his successors
and recording business transactions of
the most varied and complex character.
There can be no question that in the
commercial life of Babylonia in Ezekiel's
time each individual stood absolutely
upon his own merits. But even in mod
ern times it is impossible to keep busi
ness and religion separate in the life and
thought of any individual. Human na
ture does not readily resolve itself into
a series of water-tight compartments.
The various activities of Ufe inevitably
intermingle and react one upon another.
This truth as applied to business and
religion was even more true in the an-

198 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
cient world than now; then religion
embraced every phase of human life,
the separation of the sacred from the
secular scarcely having been imagined.
Hence it is difficult to conceive of a com
mercial system organised on a strictly in
dividualistic basis coexisting indefinitely
side by side with a religious system dom
inated by the ancient conception of
the solidarity of the family or clan.
Individualism could hardly invade the
commercial and industrial system with
out obtaining foothold likewise in the
territory of religion. Bousset1 has al
ready called attention to the "astrologic
fatalism" of the Babylonians as a specif
ically "individualistic form of religion."
Their penitential psalms also reflect a
very keen sense of personal guilt and
personal responsibility for the same.
Definite expression to the doctrine of in
dividual responsibility for sin is given
1 In Die Religion des Judenthums im neutestamentlichen Zeit-
alter (1903), p. 278.

PROPHET AND INDIVIDUAL 199
in the narrative of the deluge,1 where
the god Ea addresses the god Bel as
follows: Ah, thou wise one among the gods, thou war
rior,
How rash of thee to bring about a flood storm!
On the sinner visit his sin,
And on the wicked his wickedness.
But be merciful, forbear; let not all be de
stroyed! j
Be considerate; let not everything be [con
founded]!
This is the beginning of a distinct pro
test against the injustice of destroying
the righteous with the wicked, in the
'Gilgamesh Epic, tablet XI, 11. 180/. The rendering
given above is that of Doctor Wm. Muss-Arnolt, as found in
R. F. Harper's Assyrian and Babylonian Literature (1901), p.
357. Samuel Daiches, Jewish Quarterly Review, April, 1905,
pp. 441-455, maintains that Ezekiel, especially in 14 : 12-20,
borrowed both language and ideas from the Babylonian flood
story; but the mere fact of similarity of expression is not of
itself sufficient to demonstrate literary dependence. Daiches
recognises the fact that similar phraseology occurs in Ezek.
14 : 12-20; Deut. 28 : 15-68; Lev. 26. It is too much to
suppose that all of these are directly or indirectly depen
dent upon the Babylonian narrative, and it is not necessary
to posit such an origin for any one of them. The phenomena
upon which the hypothesis is based are simple, such as might
be expected to appear among any peoples dwelling amid
similar environments.

200 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
form of a plea that some punishment
other than a deluge, one which would ren
der possible the escape of the righteous,
be employed. JWith the inheritance of
the refigious experience of Israel during
the preceding centuries, and amid such
a social and intellectual environment as
Babylonia furnished, it was perfectly
natural that Israel in exile should re
spond to the stimulus of providential
circumstances in part by the clear for
mulation of the doctrine of personal re
sponsibility for sin.
Ezekiel's individualism appears first in
his statement of his divine call (3 : 16-
21). x Previous prophets had felt them-
1 Kraetzschmar considers this passage a later addition de
rived from chapter 33 and inapplicable to the first period of
Ezekiel's activity. Prior to the fall of Jerusalem, Ezekiel
certainly did give greatest attention to the national phases
of his work, exposing sins and emphasising the certainty and
necessity of the fall of the capital, but his individualism was
not held wholly in abeyance. The new point of view appears
clearly, indeed, in 9 : if.; 11 : 18-21; 14 : 12 ff.; and chap
ter 18. In reply to the charge that 3 : 16-21 forms no essen
tial part of the call, but is an appendix, it is to be said that
in representing this phase of his mission as the subject of a
second revelation Ezekiel meant to indicate that the necessity
of preaching to the individual was not at first realised by him

PROPHET AND INDIVIDUAL 201
selves called as Yahweh's messengers to
the nation and guides of the national
life. Ezekiel defines his mission as that
of caring for the souls of individuals.
He is the watchman appointed of Yah
weh unto the house of Israel to warn
each man of his danger and indicate the
way of escape. His own feeling of per
sonal responsibility to Yahweh for the
souls of those intrusted to his care is
very marked and evidences his keen
conscientiousness. He puts himself on
the same plane with his hearers and
asks them to bear no heavier burdens
but forced itself upon him only after deep meditation upon
the needs of the times. This view is in keeping with the
fact of Ezekiel's concrete and artificial methods of presenting
truth. It is not necessary to suppose that Ezekiel's descrip
tion of his call was given at the opening of his ministry; it
was more probably written after some experience in prophetic
activity and sums up his reflections upon the nature of his
work and the attitude of the people toward his teachings
(cf. the visions of Isaiah and Amos). This is rendered more
than probable by the fact that in 21 : 3/. Ezekiel announces
a destruction upon Jerusalem which shall cut off both the
righteous and the wicked without discrimination. This latter
prophecy seems to be a spontaneous utterance spoken under
the pressure of the immediate circumstances, while 3 : 16-21
and chapter 18, with which it is in conflict, are evidently the
product of careful thought and reflection (see Bertholet and
Kraetzschmar on 21 : 3/.).

202 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
than he is conscious of bearing himself.
He was confronted by the same problem
as that which presented itself to Jer
emiah — viz., the necessity of demon
strating Yahweh's justice to a sceptical
generation — but he offered a new solu
tion. He laid down the basal principle
that every soul sustains its own inde
pendent relation to Yahweh (18 : 4).
On the basis of this personal relation
its fate will be determined. In the ap
proaching crisis every soul that is sinful
will be doomed, while every one that is
just will escape alive. The righteousness
of a father will be of no avail to shield a
sinful son, nor will the sins of a wicked
father be visited upon the head of a right
eous son (18 : 5-20). One man's crimes
do not bring judgment upon another,
nor, conversely, does the righteousness of
one man secure immunity for the sins
of other men (14 : 12-23). x A man's

1Cf. Jer. 15 : Iff. (a later addition). Contrast with this
the earlier view as represented in Gen. 18.

PROPHET AND INDIVIDUAL 203
ancestors, therefore, have in no way in
terfered with his relations to Yahweh
so as to impair his right to an absolutely
just judgment based solely upon his own
merits. But, more than this, a man's
own past hfe even does not count in the
coming judgment; the only thing taken
into consideration is his actual status at
the time the judgment is passed (18 : 21-
28; 33 : 10-20). This warrants a most
earnest appeal to the sinner to repent
and to the righteous man to maintain
his integrity, especially since Yahweh
derives no pleasure from the death of
sinners (33 : 11/.).
In these utterances Ezekiel apparently
breaks loose entirely from the old con
ception of the solidarity of the family
and, carried away by the enthusiasm of
a new idea, passes over to the opposite
extreme of an individualism of the most
atomistic type — atomistic not only from
the point of view of social ethics and fife
but even from the point of view of the

204 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
individual fife itself. The fact of the
essential unity and continuity of each
life is ignored; life is considered from
the point of view of actions, not char
acter. The ties of heredity and envi
ronment which link a man to his fellow
men, and often involve the innocent with
the guilty in temporal disaster, are not
given due consideration.
It may be noted further that Ezekiel's
application of the doctrine of individual
ism was confined ^o the question of man's
status before the bar of divine judgment.
For the thought of personal communion
and fellowship of the individual with his
God he finds no place. Nor did he ever
arrive at the thought of the individual
as Yahweh's representative to the world.
Notwithstanding his great emphasis upon
the idea of individualism, he never loos
ened his hold upon the thought of Yah
weh as fundamentally in union with
Israel's land; it runs through all his
utterances (chapter 16; 20 : 40; 25 : 14;

PROPHET AND INDIVIDUAL 205
28 : 24-26; 35 : 10; 36 : 16-38; chap
ters 38 and 39; 43 : 7).1 Israel is still
the most favoured nation; Yahweh's
activities are always exercised with ref
erence to it. His true worshippers are
always Israelites. There is a spiritual
Israel, indeed, but it is at the same time
made up of those who belong to Israel
according to the flesh, the Hebrews of
the Hebrews.
Ezekiel's vision of the Israel of the
future (chapters 40-48) grows out of his
feeling of the solidarity of Israel and
Yahweh. The new Israel will be a com
munity of true Israelites dwelling with
Yahweh in the Holy City. Yahweh will
be the real head of the community, the
centre of all its interests; the commu
nity will be Yahweh's representative in
the eyes of the world at large. Israel
as a religious unit will take the place of
Israel as a political unit. Thus Ezekiel
finds the highest expression of religion
1 Cf. Bertholet, Das Buch Hesekiel, p. xviii.

206 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
not in the isolated fife of the individual
but in the group life of the community.
His community is, of course, composed
of individual members all of whom sus
tain right relations to God; they five,
however, not for individual ends but
for the furtherance of the purpose of the
community, which is the revelation of
God's glory to the world.
The principle of individualism was in
corporated also in the Deuteronomic law
(Deut. 24 : 16) and so became the es
tablished principle in the administration
of Hebrew justice. This is an advance
upon Deut. 7 : 10 in which nothing is
implied as to whether the descendants
may or may not suffer for their ances
tors' sins, it being made clear only that
the sinner himself shall not escape pun
ishment. It is also practically a setting
aside of the principle laid down in the
Decalogue (Deut. 5 : 9; Ex. 20 : 5).1 This
1 Driver's attempt to escape the contradiction by explain
ing Deut. 5 : 9 as applicable to "the providence of God acting

PROPHET AND INDIVIDUAL 207
Deuteronomic law was, therefore, the
outcome of, or the result of a develop
ment parallel with, the pioneer activity
of Ezekiel1 rather than the basis upon
which his work rested.
This study of the rise of individualism
among the Hebrews, and particularly of
the prophet's share in that movement of
thought, shows the ability of the prophet
to adjust himself to changing scenes and
problems. A transfer of emphasis from
the nation or the family as the relig
ious unit to the individual was essential
to the salvation of religion for thinking
men in the days of the exile. The
prophet met this crisis fearlessly and ef
ficiently, as he had met previous crises,
and in so doing marked a new stage in
the progress of his religion; This was
naturally through the normal constitution of society," and
24 : 16 as applying only to the administration of justice by
the state, seems to overlook the fact that in the Hebrew state
the administrators of human law were the earthly represen
tatives of Yahweh, and that fundamentally all law was divine
law; separation of church from state was not yet effected.
1 So Bertholet, Deuteronomium, p. 76, and Carpenter and
Harford-Battersby, The Hexateuch (1900), vol. II, p. 284.

208 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
the kind of test that brought out the
vitality of the prophetic religion, with
which our concluding chapter deals.

VIII
THE PROPHET'S RELIGION
Vv e shall not attempt to set forth in
a single chapter either the content or
the history of the religion of the proph
ets; either would require a substantial
volume. We must confine ourselves to
sketching a few of the leading charac
teristics of that religion, familiarity with
which would insure the recognition of
prophetic religion wherever and when
ever it might appear. The chapter will
thus constitute a kind of miniature in
troduction to the prophet's religion.
A mere speaking acquaintance with
the prophets brings out the fact of
their vivid consciousness of God. They
thought of themselves as living in God's
world. They believed themselves to be
always under his eye. He was their
209

210 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
ever-present God and never a God afar
off. Yet that presence and nearness
they would never have described as the
modern poet has done:
Closer is he than breathing,
Nearer than hands or feet.
Their God was too distinctly and con
cretely personal to have been thus ab
stractly represented. He was a tangi
ble, objective personality standing out in
sharp relief against the personalities of his
worshippers. He stood outside of them,
and communication between him and
them was correspondingly represented
in a markedly anthropomorphic manner.
That which distinguished the prophet
from other men was his ability to recog
nise the hand and voice of God in the
life of the day. He was in the highest
degree sensitive to the presence of God.
He responded to the call of God like
steel to the magnet. He could distin
guish the divine voice amid the babel of

THE PROPHET'S RELIGION 211
human sounds as quickly as the mother
recognises her child. He lived in con
stant expectation of that voice; his ear
was always open for the divine word and
his eye was never closed to God's work.
He spoke not in his own strength but
in the strength of God. His only mis
sion in life was to be the spokesman of
God. According to his own conception
of his function, he was faithful and true
to his call in proportion as he spake the
whole revelation of God and naught be
sides. The Hebrew prophet was thus in
a very hteral sense "the man of God,"
called of God, inspired of God, and sus
tained of God. God was for him the
most real element in his environment. A
life of increasing communion with the
Lord of all life was the prophet's daily
experience. Another characteristic feature of the
prophet's religion lies in the large place it
gave to faith. Prophecy dealt not with
certainties but with hopes, not with

212 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
the fixed past but with the changing
present and the still more uncertain fu
ture. Yet amid changing circumstance
and fluctuating opinion the prophet was
upheld by a sense of certainty. While
others lost heart and yielded to despair
he lived in confidence "as seeing him
who is invisible." Few things in history
are as marvellous as the firmness of the
prophet's grip upon the unseen. In spite
of apparent failure and in the face of
seemingly insuperable difficulty and inev
itable defeat, the faith of the prophet re
mained serene and immovable. It rose
supreme above every doubt and grew
richer in content with each successive
trial. Illustration of this fact is furnished in
the career of practically every prophet,
but we must satisfy ourselves with two
or three specific cases. Isaiah was pre
eminently a prophet of faith. His lot was
cast in troublous times. No man knew
what a day might bring forth. The

THE PROPHET'S RELIGION 213
minds of men were distracted. Some
sought help in one direction, some in an
other, but through it all Isaiah preached
and practised faith in Yahweh alone.
This was his message to Ahaz when the
armies of Israel and Syria threatened
Jerusalem and "the heart of Ahaz trem
bled, and the heart of his people, as the
trees of the forest tremble before the
wind" (Isaiah 7:2). Isaiah, standing
practically alone, was able to say with
the full assurance of confidence: "Take
care and be calm; fear not neither let
thine heart be faint. ... It shall not
stand neither shall it come to pass. . . .
If ye will not believe, surely ye shall
not be established" (7 : 4-9). But Ahaz
craved more tangible support and could
not be dissuaded from sending "mes
sengers to Tiglath-pileser, King of As
syria, saying, I am thy servant and thy
son. Come up and deliver me from the
hand of the King of Syria, and from
the hand of the King of Israel, who

214 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
have risen up against me" (II Kings
16 : 7).
The same policy of absolute trust in
Yahweh and of withdrawal from all en
tangling alliances with neighbouring po
litical powers was adhered to by Isaiah
throughout his fife. When Ashdod,
Edom, Moab, and Egypt united in 713-
711 B. C. to throw off the yoke of Sar
gon of Assyria, Isaiah in the most dra^
matic fashion (Isaiah 20) sought to re
strain the government of Judah from
joining in the undertaking, but in vain.
From 720 to 711 B. C. Sargon was beset
by foes on every hand; Elam on the
east, Babylon on the south, Urartu and
the neighbouring peoples from the upper
Mediterranean to the shores of Lake
Urumia on the north, and Syria-Palestine
with Egypt and Arabia on the west and
south. There seemed to be every pros
pect of success in the attempt to over
throw the world oppressor, and Judah
naturally wished to co-operate. But Sar
gon triumphed over all his foes, shaking

THE PROPHET'S RELIGION 215
them off one after another, like a lion
beset by curs. Isaiah's poficy of non
interference and trust in Yahweh was
splendidly vindicated. The sermons in
29 : 6-9; 30 : 1-17; and 31 : 1-9 show
that he did not waver but still insis
tently proclaimed the same message in
connection with the plots and counter
plots culminating in Sennacherib's inva
sion.
By returning and rest shall ye be saved;
In quietness and confidence shall be your
strength (30 : 15).
Here, again, the progress of events jus
tified Isaiah as over against his opponents
who trusted in Egypt to deliver them.
The prophet Micah, a contemporary
of Isaiah, constitutes another example of
prophetic faith. Contemplating the in
vasion of Sennacherib, he proclaimed:
Therefore, on account of you, Zion will be
plowed as a field,
And Jerusalem will become heaps, and the
mountain of the house a wooded height.

216 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
This was an utterance of faith to the
point of daring. No prophet yet had
ventured to conceive of Yahweh as dis
sociated from his people Israel. The
future of Yahwism was in Israel's hands.
Amos, Hosea, and Isaiah could contem
plate the fall of Samaria with some de
gree of equanimity, for Judah remained
as the representative of Yahweh. By
701 B. C. Samaria was gone and Je
rusalem was tottering. Could Yahweh
survive should Jerusalem fall? With
the temple desecrated or destroyed and
the priesthood decimated and scattered,
what was to become of the established
institutions of religion? Could Yah
wism survive the shock? Micah with
unshrinking faith proclaimed Yahweh as
superior to and independent of his city,
his temple, and his people. It was a
faith that stopped at nothing.
In days when gods measured their
strength over against one another upon
the field of battle and a god's power was

THE PROPHET'S RELIGION 217
estimated in terms of the success he
brought to his people, such faith as that
of the prophets of Israel becomes of ex
traordinary significance. At a time when
Judah was reduced to its lowest terms,
being under the heavy yoke of a foreign
oppression and deprived of native King,
when Yahweh did not have a foot of
land that he could call his own, a prophet
with triumphant faith could say (Hab.
2 : 14) :
The earth will be filled with the knowledge of the
glory of Yahweh,
Like the waters wliich cover the sea.
Such faith survived shock after shock.
It thrived upon misfortunes. The whole
history of the Messianic idea is an illus
tration of this. "Hope deferred makes
the heart sick." But the prophet's faith
fed upon its disappointments. The
darker the outlook became for political
dominance, the brighter did the proph
et's pictures of the golden age become.

218 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
Driven from one vantage-point, he took
refuge upon a higher one and continued
to pour forth pagans of triumphant faith
for the encouragement of his stricken
people. Never was faith more severely
tried, and never was it more splendidly
vindicated. It is generally conceded that the great
est contribution made to religion by the
prophet was in the realm of ethics.
When this topic comes to mind we at
once think of such utterances as these:
I hate, I despise your feasts,
And I take no delight in your festivals.
Yea, though ye offer me your burnt-offerings
and meat-offerings, I do not accept them:
Nor do I regard the peace offerings of your fat
beasts.
Take away from me the noise of your songs:
For I will not hear the melody of thy harps.
But let justice roll down like waters,
And righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
(Amos 5 : 21-24.)
Wash you, make you clean;
Put away the evil of your doings from my eyes;
Cease to do evil; learn to do good;

THE PROPHET'S RELIGION 219
Seek out justice; set right the oppressor;
Judge the fatherless; plead for the widow.
(Isaiah 1 : 16-17.)
Wherewithal shall I come before Yahweh,
And bow myself before the God of Heaven?
Shall I come before him with burnt-offerings,
With calves a year old?
Will Yahweh be pleased with thousands of rams,
With tens of thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
The fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
It has been told thee, O man, what is good.
Yea, what does Yahweh seek from thee
But to do justice and love kindness,
And walk humbly with thy God? (Micah 6 : 6-8.)
What was the prophetic contribution
in the sphere of ethics? Surely men had
not had to wait for the prophets to tell
them that it was wrong to lie, to steal,
to cheat, to murder, and the like? As a
matter of fact, these things were con
demned by the moral conscience of an
cient Babylonia, as witnessed by the
Code of Hammurabi (2123-2081 B. C),
and also by that of old Egypt as shown

220 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
by the "negative confession" in the
Book of the Dead. These precepts of
Babylonia and Egypt antedate Moses
and the prophets by centuries. Hence
the prophets were not the discoverers of
ethical principles to any great extent.
Their service was rather in the finding
of new applications for old truths and
pre-eminently in the exaltation of ethics
to its rightful place in the scheme of
things. The rest of the Semitic world
was not without ethics; nor was there a
sharp differentiation between ethics and
religion, as has sometimes been main
tained. All the ethics in existence was
under the protection of the gods. But
the prophet of Israel made ethics the
supreme concern of Yahweh. Elsewhere
ethics was only one among' many inter
ests equally dear to the Deity; in Israel
ethics was Yahweh's dominant interest.
The priests of Babylon, for example,
attributed the overthrow of Babylon by
Cyrus to the wrath of the gods, even as

THE PROPHET'S RELIGION 221
the prophets of Israel made Yahweh's
anger responsible for the fall of Jerusa
lem. But, whereas the anger of the Baby
lonian gods was accounted for by the
fact that Nabonidus had not taken care
of the shrines and provided for the main
tenance of the regular offerings,1 the
anger of Yahweh was aroused by the
fact that the moral law was violated on
every hand; see, e. g., Jer. 7 : 1-15.
This difference is a very significant
one, and it is one that marks off the
prophet not merely from non-Hebrew
religious leaders but also from the great
mass of the leaders of his own people.
The priests never gave to ethics that
pre-eminence assigned to it by the
prophet. The failure to do so evinced
a lack of proper appreciation of the
ethical as over against the ritual. He
who values glass equally with diamonds
has no adequate appreciation of dia-
1 See Cyrus Cylinder, a translation of which may be seen
in R. W. Rogers, Cuneiform Parallels to the Old Testament
(1913), pp. 380-4.

222 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
monds. It is the glory of the prophet
at his best that he allowed nothing to
share the place that belonged of right to
ethics alone. He enthroned ethics in the
very heart of Yahweh and thus made
Yahweh the God of the universe. Ethics
knows no national or racial bounds;
sooner or later it inevitably breaks all
such restraints. The god who follows
the interests of ethics wherever they
may lead him is ultimately compelled to
make all mankind his province. Along
this path the prophets of Israel finally
arrived at a monotheistic conception of
God. This was not a philosophical or a
speculative but an ethical monotheism.
For that reason it did not remain, as
in Babylonia and in Egypt, the esoteric
religion of that select few who were able
by virtue of their ability and training
to grasp it mentally and appreciate it;
but it became at last the religion of the
masses. For all men appreciate justice
and can understand a just God; and such

THE PROPHET'S RELIGION 223
a God kindles a contagious enthusiasm
among his worshippers which makes
other men eager to hear about him.
Thus the monotheism of Israel was not
still-born, but grew in scope and power
with each succeeding generation.
This fact suggests another character
istic of the religion of the prophet that
is of great importance. It was not
static but dynamic. It was not a given
system of thought or standard of life
but life itself. It was an ever growing,
expanding, and conquering force. Con
sequently we have a right to speak of
the history of the religion of the prophet.
His religion changed from generation to
generation with the ever-changing en
vironment. It could not stand still; it
must move forward or perish. The fact
of progress is easily shown. The religion
of the earlier prophets is represented by
such scenes as the following: Samuel
hewed Agag in pieces before Yahweh
and verily thought that he was doing

224 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
God service (I Sam. 15 : 33). Samuel
offered a sucking lamb on Yahweh's
altar for the purpose of securing Yah
weh's aid in the ensuing battle (I Sam.
7:9/.). God told David to build an
altar on Araunah's thrashing-floor, and
the offering there made by David was
regarded as responsible for the cessation
of the death-dealing pestilence (II Sam.
24 : 18, 25). Elijah fled from his people
and withdrew to Horeb in order to get
nearer to Yahweh, with whom that moun
tain was intimately associated. Micaiah
ben Imlah thought of Yahweh as delib
erately sending a lying spirit to mislead
the prophetic counsellors of Ahab. One
old prophet in the days of Jeroboam I
lies to another prophet in order to bring
the latter to his death, and, notwith
standing that, was credited with a sub
sequent revelation from Yahweh (I Kings
13 : 18-20).
In marked contrast with such primi
tive conceptions as these we find the

THE PROPHET'S RELIGION 225
ideas and ideals of later prophets. Amos,
with a god-idea that is already tran
scending national and geographic hmits,
says:Are ye not as the children of the Ethiopians unto
me,
O children of Israel? It is the oracle of Yahweh.
Did I not bring up Israel from the land of Egypt,
And the Philistines from Caphtor, and the Syri
ans from Ear? (Amos 9:7; cf. 9 : 3.)
The great unknown prophet of the
exile abounds in statements of the om
nipotence and universality of Yahweh,
e. g.:
Thus says the God Yahweh,
He who created the heavens and stretched them
forth;
Who spread abroad the earth with its products;
Who gives breath to the people upon it,
And spirit to those who walk thereon.
(Isaiah 42 : 5; cf. 40 : 12 ff.; 45 : 21-23.)
The same prophet furnishes a splendid
contrast to the narrow and particularis
tic spirit of earlier times when he repre-

226 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
sents the Servant of Yahweh, which is
Israel, as saying:
And now Yahweh, who formed me from the womb
to be his Servant, says
That he will bring Jacob back to him and that
Israel shall be gathered to him. . . .
Moreover he says, Since thou art my Servant, it
is too slight a thing
That I should raise up the tribes of Jacob and re
store the preserved of Israel;
And so I will set thee to be the light of the nations,
That my deliverance may be to the end of the
earth. (Isaiah 49 : 5, 6.)
In contrast with the earlier emphasis
upon sacrifice, the later prophets are
always minimising it and exalting ethi
cal and social duties, e. g., Amos 5 : 25;
Jer. 7 : 22; Micah 6 : 6-8. Lying, which
is done with Yahweh's approval by early
prophets, is unsparingly denounced by
later ones: Hosea 4:2; Micah 2 : 11;
Isaiah 9 : 15; Jer. 9:3; Zeph. 3 : 13.
The prophet was able to make progress
of this sort in part because he always
faced forward. He was in no sense tied

THE PROPHET'S RELIGION 227
to the past. He appreciated his nation's
past and drew largely upon the experience
of the past for guidance and inspiration.
But he refused to allow it to paralyse his
own initiative. He stood upon the solid
achievement of the past and reached up
ward to higher and better things. He
did not fear to criticise the past when
that seemed necessary.
He unhesitatingly discarded outworn
interpretations and dogmas and made
for himself new ones at need. Ahijah the
Shilonite and his associates supported
Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, in his re
volt; Hosea seems to have looked back
upon that transaction as a mistake and
later writers longed for the healing of
the schism (Isaiah 11 : 13-14). Early
prophets were fully satisfied with the
conception of social solidarity. Ezekiel,
seeing the failure of this dogma to meet
the needs of the day, formulated the doc
trine of individual responsibility to God
(see pp. 168 ff.). So from age to age the

228 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
prophet moved onward and upward,
with face ever toward the light, rever
ent toward the old truth, but hospitable
toward the new.
It follows, as a matter of course, that
the religion of the prophet was not a
gift, nor even an inheritance, but rather
an achievement. That which did come
as a heritage from the past was re-melted
and refined in the forge of his own ex
perience and welded with the new until
the whole constituted a new product.
The source of the prophet's religious
creations was in large measure the life
of his own age. His knowledge of the
past was limited to a few legends and
traditions, some of them in written form
but more of them unwritten. He had
no comprehensive library. He had no
Bible. He was unconsciously helping in
the task of making the Bible. He was
thus limited in his range of materials for
preaching to the resources of his own
mind and heart and to the social and

THE PROPHET'S RELIGION 229
political movements of his day. In the
very nature of the case he had no au
thority from the past pointing out to
him clearly the way he should take in
the present. The responsibility for the
moral and religious leadership of Israel
rested heavily upon his shoulders. New
and perplexing problems in the sphere
of morals and religion were ever arising.
He had no patent or ready-made solu
tion for them. Each had to be faced
and wrestled with as it appeared. Con
flicting voices were from time to time
calling out: "This is the way; walk ye
in it." On his knees before his God
he struggled and agonised for the light
precisely as his modern successors must
do. As he fought his way through dark
ness to victory his religion grew in com
pass and in power. He worked for his
religion and worked hard. He rang the
changes, as all great souls must, on
doubt, faith, despair, hope, success, fail
ure, joy, and sorrow. Thus he made his

230 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
religion out of the stuff of his daily ob
servation and experience.
The task of the prophet was to inter
pret the world as he saw it in terms of his
religion. The questions he asked him
self in the presence of any given condi
tion or set of conditions were: What does
this mean for religion? How is this to
be fitted in with the conviction that
Yahweh loves his people and works for
their good? What is Yahweh saying
through this experience to his people?
Such questions as these were not always
easy of answer even for a prophet. The
book of Habbakuk reveals a prophet
struggling with Yahweh for an answer
and not satisfied till he has thought the
problem through to the end. We do
the prophets an injustice if we think of
them as in any sense excused from the
toil and trial that beset the path of
religiously minded men to-day. As a
matter of fact, they had far less illu
mination upon the pathway of life than

THE PROPHET'S RELIGION 231
the man of the present day has at his
disposal. They were forced to live by
faith and not by sight. Yet, with a
sense of certainty that compels admira
tion and a degree of accuracy that chal
lenges comparison, they came forward
time and again in the midst of most
obscure and trying situations with their
"thus saith Yahweh."
The prophetic religion was thus kept
in constant touch with the developing
fife of the nation. But that national life
was continuously involved in the most
intimate way with the mighty currents of
the larger world life around it. Hence
the religion was made in the full light of
world history. It grew as the mind of
Israel grew. It laid hold upon the great
world movements of the time and claimed
them for itself and for its God. The
whole psychic hfe of Israel moved for
ward as a unit. There was no gap be
tween the secular and the religious; but
they kept even step in the march of

232 PROPHET AND HIS PROBLEMS
progress. Thus, so long as the proph
ets directed the course of Israel's religious
life there was no thought of religion
being left behind in the general forward
movement. The prophetic religion was
always fully up to date.
The task of the prophets is not yet
done. Nor is it likely ever to be com
pleted. They have much to teach the
successive generations of mankind. Not
that their ideas will always be found
adequate to modern needs; for they
themselves would have been the last to
expect permanency for their utterances.
Theirs was the world-view of their day.
The modern scientific mind cannot ac
cept that. The world-view of to-day is
separated from that of the prophets by
centuries of study and experience. But
the prophets' religious ideas fitted their
world. Many of them are out of place
in the world-view of to-day. But their
attitude toward God and his world and
their way of working out their own and

THE PROPHET'S RELIGION 233
their contemporaries' religious salvation
will always be full of instruction and in
spiration to him who reads the record
of their work aright. He who would
slavishly seek to imitate them would
totally misunderstand their spirit. It is
for the modern prophet rather to face
the facts of life with open eye, to read
the message of God to the age as it is
revealed in those facts and processes,
and to surrender himself in the full as
surance of faith to the task of declar
ing and interpreting that message to his
fellow men. So will prophecy live again
and religion once more become a quick
ening power upon the minds of men.

APPENDIX
A LIST OF BOOKS FOR THE GENERAL
READER
1. On Prophecy
C. H. Cornill, The Prophets of Israel. Chicago: Open
Court Publishing Co. 1901. $1.00.
L. W. Batten, The Hebrew Prophet. New York: Mac-
millan. 1905. $1.50.
A. F. Kirkpatrick, The Doctrine of the Prophets. New
York: Macmillan. 1892. $1.50.
W. R. Smith, The Prophets of Israel and Their Place
in History to the Close of the Eighth Century B. C.
New edition, with Introduction by T. K. Cheyne.
London: A. & C. Black. 1896. 10s. 6d.
A. B. Davidson, Old Testament Prophecy. New York:
Scribners. 1904. $3.50.
W. H. Bennett, The Religion of the Post-Exilic Proph
ets. New York: Scribners. 1907. $2.00.
Georgia L. Chamberlin, The Hebrew Prophets, or Pa
triots and Leaders of Israel. Chicago: The Uni
versity of Chicago Press. 1914. $1.25.
Moses Buttenwieser, The Prophets of Israel from the
Eighth to the Fifth Century — Their Faith and Their
Message. New York: Macmillan. 1914. $2.00.
A. C. Knudson, The Beacon Lights of Prophecy. An
Interpretation of Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Jeremiah,
Ezekiel and Deutero-Isaiah. New York: Eaton
& Mains. 1914. $1.25.
G. C. Joyce, The Inspiration of Prophecy. An Essay
in the Psychology of Revelation. New York: Ox
ford University Press. 1910. $1.40.
235

A LIST OF BOOKS
A. C. Welch, The Religion of Israel under the Kingdom.
New York: Scribners. 1912. $3.00.
K. Budde, The Religion of Israel to the Exile. New
York: Putnams. 1899. $1.50.
H. P. Smith, The Religion of Israel. An Historical
Study. New York: Scribners. 1914. $2.50.
J. F. McCurdy, History, Prophecy, and the Monu
ments. New edition. New York: Macmillan.
1911. $3.00. 2. On Literature
S. R. Driver, An Introduction to the Literature of
the Old Testament. Revised edition. New York:
Scribners. 1914. $2.50.
G. B. Gray, A Critical Introduction to the Old Testa
ment. New York: Scribners. 1913. 75 cents.
G. F. Moore, The Literature of the Old Testament. New
York: Henry Holt & Co. 1913. 50 cents.
H. T. Fowler, A History of the Literature of Ancient
Israel. New York: Macmillan. 1912. $2.25.
C. H. Cornill, An Introduction to the Canonical Books
of the Old Testament. New York: Putnams. 1907.
$3.00.
J. E. McFadyen, An Introduction to the Old Testament.
New York: Geo. H. Doran. 1905. $1.75.

3. On History
H. P. Smith, Old Testament History. New York:
Scribners. 1903. $2.50.
G. W. Wade, Old Testament History. New York:
Dutton & Co. 1903. $1.50.
C. H. Cornill, History of the People of Israel. Chi
cago: Open Court Publishing Co. 1898. $1.50.
C. F. Kent, History of the Hebrew People and A His
tory of the Jewish People. 3 vols. New York:
Scribners. 1896-9. $3.75.

A LIST OF BOOKS 237
H. R. Hall, The Ancient History of the Near East. New
York: Macmillan. 1913. $5.00.
J. H. Breasted, A History of the Ancient Egyptians.
New York: Scribners. 1908. $1.25.
G. S. Goodspeed, A History of the Babylonians and
Assyrians. New York: Scribners. 1902. $1.25.

4. On Archaeology
R. W. Rogers, Cuneiform Parallels to the Old Testament.
New York: Eaton & Mains. 1912. $4.50.
S. A. B. Mercer, Extra-Biblical Sources for Hebrew and
Jewish History. New York: Longmans, Green &
Co. 1913. $1.50.
S. R. Driver, Modern Research as Illustrating the Bible.
New York: Oxford University Press. $1.00.
P. S. P. Handcock, The Latest Light on the Old Testa
ment from the Monuments. London: Society for
Promotion of Christian Knowledge. 1913. 6s.
Ira M. Price, The Monuments and the Old Testament.
Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication So
ciety. 1911. $1.50.
J. H. Breasted, Ancient Records of Egypt. 5 vols.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1906.
$17.00. 5. Easy Commentaries on the Prophets
The Expositor's Bible. New York: Geo. H. Doran.
Especially the volumes on Isaiah and the Twelve
Prophets, by G. Adam Smith.
The Century Bible. Edinburgh: T. C. & E. C. Jack.
Especially the volume on the Minor Prophets, by
Driver; those on Jeremiah, by Peake; on Isaiah,
by Whitehouse; on Ezekiel, by Lofthouse.
The Cambridge Bible. Cambridge: The University
Press. Especially the volumes on Joel, Amos, and
Daniel, by Driver; those on Micah and Hosea,

238 A LIST OF BOOKS
by Cheyne; on Isaiah, by Skinner; on Nahum,
Habakkuk, Zephaniah, and Ezekiel, by A. B.
Davidson.
The Bible for Home and School. New York: Mac
millan. Only Isaiah, by J. E. McFadyen, and
Amos, Hosea, and Micah, by J. M. Powis Smith,
are thus far published.
M. G. Glazebrook, Studies in the Book of Isaiah. Ox
ford: The Clarendon Press. 1910.
G. W. Wade, The Book of the Prophet Isaiah. London:
Methuen & Co. 1911. 10s. 6d.
S. R. Driver, The Book of ihe Prophet Jeremiah. New
York: Geo. H. Doran. 1906. $1.50.
J. R. Gillies, Jeremiah, the Man and His Message. New
York: Geo. H. Doran. 1908. $1.50.
F. C. Eiselen, The Minor Prophets. New York: Eaton
& Mains. 1907. $2.00
6. Bible Dictionaries
James Hastings, A Dictionary of the Bible. 5 vols.
New York: Scribners. 1898-1904. $6.00 per vol.
James Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible. 1 vol. New
York: Scribners. 1909. $5.00.
M. W. Jacobus, et al., A Standard Bible Dictionary.
New York: Funk & Wagnalls. 1909. $6.00.

INDEX

Ahab, Micaiah's prophecy concern
ing, 61-65; activities of Elijah
against, 145-149.
Ahaz, Isaiah's attempt to influence
policy of, 149-153; Isaiah's
preachment of faith to, 213.
Ahijah, death of Jeroboam's son
foretold by, 94-95; an example
of the prophet as political leader,
143-145.
Amaziah, priest, judgment passed
on prophets by, 66-67.
Amaziah, King, failure of, to avenge
murder of his father, 170-171.
Amos, absence of ecstatic experi
ences in, 47; view held by, of
prophets, 66-67; indefinite char
acter of prophetic warnings
uttered by, 97; failure of fulfil
ment of prediction of, as to faU of
Samaria, 102-103.
Ashurbanipal, vision of, 7-8.
Assuan, discovery of Jewish temple
at, 194 n.
Assyria, visions and oracles in re
ligion of, 6-11; priestly rank of
diviners of, 1 1 ; points of difference
between prophets of, and those of
Israel, 11; political activities of
Hebrew prophets at times of re
volt against, 145-160.
Baalism, service of early Hebrew
prophets for Yahwism against,
48-58.
Babylon, prophecies relating to,
9-10.
Babylonia, influence of civilisation
of, upon individualism among the
Hebrews, 195-200; ethics in the
religious code of, 219.
Balaam, a prophet of Yahweh
though not a Hebrew, 6.
Baldensperger, article by, cited, 169.
Barnes, W. E., commentary on
Kings by, 95.

Baumgarten, vY., cited, 121.
Bedikian, A. A., quoted on predic
tion among Armenians, 105-106,
Bertholet, work by, cited, 205, 207.
Blood-revenge, practice of, an out
come of solidarity of family life
in Israel, 170.
Bousset, work by, cited, 198.
Breasted, J. H., works by, cited, 12,
29.
Buttenwieser, Moses, mistaken view
in work by, 100 n.
Byblos, an instance of prophecy in,
12-15.
Cheyne, Two Religions of Israel,
cited, 33.
Church and state, intermixture of
interests of Hebrew, 138.
Clan, solidarity of, in early Israel
and present-day Palestine, 169-
171; influences which worked
against the, in favour of develop
ment of the individual, 174-189.
Contagion of prophecy, 44.
Cornill, C. H., cited, 180, 191.
Cyrus and the soothsayer, account
of, 92.
Daiches, Samuel, quoted concern
ing Ezekiel, 199 n.
Daughter, significance of word, in
Hebrew usage, 122.
David, use of music by, in soothing
Saul, 43.
Day, The Social Life of the Hebrews,
cited, 174, 175.
Deborah, service of, as a prophetess
in patriotic war of the Israelites,
55.
Deluge narrative of Babylonia, in
dividual responsibility for sin
expressed in, 198-199.
Dervishes, inducement of ecstatic
trance by, 43.

239

240

INDEX

Deutero-Isaiah, absence of ecstatic
experiences in, 47.
Deuteronomic law, principle of in
dividualism in, 206-207.
Ecstasy, state of, characteristic of
prophecy, 14, 39 ff.; music as an
aid to, 42-43; contagious char
acter of, 43-45; bordered on in
sanity, 45-46; repudiation of, by
prophecy at its best, 47-48.
Egypt, parallels to Hebrew prophecy
in, 16-33; extent of influence of
prophecy of, on that of Israel, 34;
Jewish temple in, 194 n.
Elijah, activities of, in state affairs,
145-149.
Elisha, music as an aid to, in proph
esying, 42; events correctly pre
dicted by, 95; political activities
of, 145.
Esarhaddon, oracles of, 6-7.
Ethical ideals of the prophets, influ
ence of, on development of indi
vidualism, 183-184.
Ethics, the prophets* contribution
to religion in the realm of, 218-
223.
Ezekiel, as a political adviser of the
Hebrews, 163; preaching of indi
vidual responsibility by, 190, 192-
193, 200-206.
Faith, large place given to, in proph
ets' religion, 211-218; Isaiah's
supreme, 212-215; strength of
Micah's, 215-218.
False prophets, 59 ff.; distinguish
ing between true and, 59-61;
Ahab and the, 61-65; real ground
of distinction between true and,
found in attitude toward prob
lems of their day, 79-86.
Family, solidarity of, in early
Israel, 169-171.
Figs a feature of certain Oriental
marriage ceremonies, 121.
Foretelling, not necessarily or gen
erally a function of the prophet,
87; instances of, 90-95. .See
Prediction.
Frenzy associated with early proph
ecy, 39-48.

Gardiner, Alan H., translations by,
of Egyptian documents, 16, 19;
cited, 31, 32.
God, the Hebrew prophets* vivid
consciousness of, 209-211.
Gomer, harlot wife of Hosea, 109-
134.
Gray, C. D., translations by, cited, 7.
Haggai, character of prophetic ut
terances of, 98.
Hammurabi, Code of, 195.
Hananiah, conflicting preachings of
Jeremiah and, 69-72; death of,
foretold by Jeremiah, 94.
Hebrews, position of, as members of
the Semitic family, 3-4.
Hosea, absence of ecstatic experi
ences in, 47; quoted to show strug
gle between Baalism and Yah
wism, 50-51; indefinite character
of prophetic warnings uttered by,
97; the marriage of, an illustra
tion of a prophet's self-abnegation,
109 ff.; conflicting views among
scholars of significance of mar
riage of, 111-112.
Individual, relation of the prophet
to the, 168 ff.; submergence of
the, in the clan or family, 169-172;
recognition of the, in cases of ex
ceptional men, 172-174; influ
ences working toward complete
habilitation of the, 174 ff.
Individualism, influence of social
and industrial life of Canaan on,
174-175; favourable effect of es
tablishment of monarchical gov
ernment, 175-177; effect of ethical
and religious forces, 177; essential
trend toward, of teachings of the
sages, 177-178; individualistic
features of the priesthood, 178-
182; germ of, in prophecy, 182-
188; the idea of the remnant,
182-183; insistence by prophets
upon ethical ideals, 183-184;
question of preaching of, by Jere
miah, 191 n.; defined and enun
ciated by Ezekiel, 192-193, 200-
206; effect on, of lack of facilities
to worship in Babylonia, 194-195;

INDEX

241

influence from side of Babylonian
civilisation, 195-200; present in
the "astrologic fatalism" of the
Babylonians, 198; principle of, in
Deuteronomic law, 206-207.
Insanity, primitive prophecy re
garded as, 45-46; acts of prophets
bordering on, 135; wherein proph
ets were saved from danger of,
135-136.
Ipuwer, Egyptian priest resembling
Hebrew prophets, 20-30.
Isaiah, absence of ecstatic experi
ences in, 47; views of, at time of
Sennacherib's invasion, 75; la
bours of, in state affairs, 149-162;
pre-eminently a prophet of faith,
212-215.
Israelites, as members of the Semitic
family, 3-4; openness of attitude
toward other nations, 4-5; dis
tinguished from their neighbours
in sphere of quality and degree
only, 5; influence of prophecy of
other nations on that of, 33-34;
comparative nobility and purity
of conceptions of, 34-35; begin
nings of prophecy among, 36 JF.
Jostrow, M., Jr., Religion of Baby~
Ionia and Assyria, cited, 6.
Jehu, incident of the anointing of,
by a prophet, 45.
Jeremiah, absence of ecstatic experi
ences in, 47; conflict between
views of Hananiah and, 69-72;
nature of prophetic warnings by,
97-98; as a political adviser, 162-
163; individual responsibility
taught by, 189-192; question of
preaching of individualism by,
191 n.
Jerusalem, effect of establishment of
national capital at, on develop
ment of individualism among the
Hebrews, 176.

Lane, E. W\, instances of prediction
related by, 90-92.
Lange, H. 0., work by, cited, 19.
Leiden papyrus, studies and trans
lations of, 18-33.
McCurdy, History, Prophecy, and
the Monuments, quoted, 181.
Macdonald, D. B., Aspects of
Islam, cited, 43.
Magic in Egyptian prophetic
writing, 25.
Marriage ceremonies among Orien
tals, 121-127.
Maspero, New Light on Ancient
Egypt, cited, 33.
Meinhold, work by, cited, 182.
Merodach-baladan, a leader in re
volt against Assyria, 157.
Messiah, desire for coming of, ex
pressed in Egyptian prophetic
utterance, 31-32.
Messina, foretelling of destruction
of, 92.
Meyer, Ed., Die Israeliten, cited,
31, 32.
Micah, prediction concerning a com
ing Messiah, 32; absence of
ecstatic experiences in, 47; ques
tion raised by attitude of, during
Sennacherib's invasion, 75-76;
non-fulfilment of prediction of, as
to immediate ruin of Jerusalem,
103; prophetic faith illustrated
by, 215-218.
Micaiah, prophecy of, concerning
Ahab, 62-65; an example of fore
teller combined with prophet, 94.
Mob spirit, comparison between
contagion of prophecy and, 43-44.
Monarchical government, effect of,
on development of the individual,
175-177.
jj/ofa-marriages, 121.
Music, use of, in prophecy, 42-43.
Muss-Arnolt, Wm., translation by,
199.

Kings, activities of prophets in be
half of or against, 140-163.
Knudson, A., Beacon Lights of
Prophecy, cited, 92.
Kraetzschmar, quoted on Ezekiel,
200 n.

Names, personal, compounds of
"Yahweh," 173.
Nathan, example furnished by, of
political activities of prophets,
143.
Nestle, Eb., work by, cited, 121.

INDEX

Oracles, held in common by Semitic
world, 5; in Assyrian religion, 6-7.
Patriotism, service of prophets in
interests of, 53-54.
Peiser, work by, cited, 11.
Penitential psalms of Babylonians,
individualism shown in, 198.
Philistines, diviners among, 6;
Samuel's important services in
struggle against, 56-57.
Political affairs, prophets as leaders
in, 140-163.
Prediction, not a necessary part of
the office of prophet, 87; apparent
cases of, through prophets' at
tempt to interpret Yahweh's will
for the future, 89-90; instances of,
90-95; not the aim of the greater
prophets, 96; not of primary im
portance to the prophets, but only
the means to a greater end* 99-
100; large element of the condi
tional in, 101; frequent failure of
fulfilment of, 102-104; in reality
an expression of longing and of
hope, 104-106; fallacy of looking
to the prophetic writings for a key
to meaning of later events, 106.
Priesthood, individualistic features
of the Hebrew, 178-182.
Prophecy, not an exclusively Israel
itish institution, 3-4; cases of,
among non-Hebraic peoples, 5 ff.;
among the Midianites, Moabites,
and Philistines, 6; in Assyrian
religion, 6-11; cases of, in north
ern Syria, 12-16; in Egypt, 16-33;
Israelitish, antedated by non-
Israelitish, 33-34; comparative
nobility and purity of Israelitish,
34-35; beginnings of, in Israel,
36 ff.; early kinship with "second
sight," 38-39; ecstatic character
of early, 39-48; music as an aid
in, 42-43; contagion of, compared
with the mob spirit, 44; repudia
tion of ecstasy by Hebrew proph
ecy at its best, 47-48; importance
of service rendered by, to the
religion of the time, 48 ff.; futility
of, to arrest progress of civilisation
in Israel, 52-53; value as a con
serving element, 53; services of

in national struggles against ene
mies, 53-57; false and true, 59-
86; prediction not included in
significance of, 87; insanity and,
135-136; the germ of individual
ism held within, 182-183.
Prophets, true and false, 59 ff.; out
ward signs of, 60-61; reputation
for self-seeking borne by, 65-66;
unworthiness of a large number,
67; question of dependence to be
placed upon true, 74-78; the real
basis of distinction between true
and false, 79-82; foretelling not
included in meaning of word
"prophet," 87; real office of, to
serve as spokesmen of Yah weh, 88;
led into prediction by interpreting
the will of Yahweh regarding the
future, 89-90; the greater, not
desirous of being mere diviners, 96;
warnings or promises by, relating
to the future, 97-99; general and
indefinite character of warnings
uttered by, 97-99; prediction
regarded as only the means for the
attainment of a greater end by,
99-100; failure of fulfilment of
predictions of, 102-104; predic
tions of calamity upon the heathen
and blessing upon Israel the ex
pression of a conviction of the
moral justice of God, 104; benefit
to be derived from sympathy with
spirit of, 107-108; self-abnegation
of, illustrated by Hosea's mar
riage with Gomer, 109-134; shown
by Hosea's experience to be men
in a class by themselves, not men
of ordinary or modern minds, 134-
136; main objective of, the wel
fare of the state, 137; services
rendered the state by, in critical
times, 140-163; vital interest of,
in the politics of the day, 163-164;
their task to represent the claims
of Yahweh, 164; the Ufe of the
state a necessity to the existence
of, 167; relation of, to the indi
vidual, 168 ff.; tendency of, to
develop individualism, 182 ff.;
vitality of religion of, shown in
their ability to meet the question
of individualism, 207-208; chief

INDEX

243

characteristics of religion of,
209 Jf.; their vivid consciousness
of God, 209-211; firmness of the
faith of, 211-218; contributions
of, in the realm of ethics, 218-223;
ethics made the supreme concern
of Yahweh by, 220-223; dynamic
rather than static character of
religion of, 223; adaptability of,
to their times, 226-228; their
religion not a gift or an inheritance,
but an achievement, 228-230;
their task to interpret their
world in terms of religion, 230;
lessons yet to be learned from,
232-233.
Ranke, IL, cited, 32.
Remnant, idea of the, a starting-
point for individualism, 182-183.
Sacrifice, divergent views of, among
early and later prophets, 225-
224, 226.
Sages, individualistic influence of
teachings of, 177-178.
Samuel, at once a priest and a
prophet, 11; regarded as a " seer,"
38-39; service of, in the struggle
with the Philistines, 56-57; an
example of the prophet as director
of state affairs, 141-143.
Saul, view taken by, of Samuel as a
seer, 37-39; the prophesying of,
39-44.
Savonarola, gift of prediction pos
sessed by, 93.
Second sight, prophecy viewed as,
38-39.
Sennacherib, crushing of revolt of
Assyrian vassal states by, 156-
162; questions concerning pesti
lence sent against army of, 161-
162.
Silanus, soothsayer, story of, 92.
Skinner, J., cited, 95.
Smend, work by, cited, 182, 184, 191.
Smith, W. R., works by, cited, 169.
Snefru, King of Egypt, prophetic
revelation to, 16—18.
Solidarity of family, clan, or tribe
in Israel, 169-172.
Solomon, clan and tribal limits dis
regarded by, 176.

Son, use of word, to express age, 122.
Sons of the prophets, use of term,
41-42.
State, intermixture of interests of
church and, among Hebrews, 138;
welfare of, the prophet's objective,
137; Yahweh the head of the
religion of the, 139; resulting
position of prophets as the repre
sentatives of Yahweh, 189-140;
the life of, an imperative necessity
to the existence of the prophet,
167.
Steuernagel, C, cited, 125, 127.
Syria, prophets and prophecy in,
12-16.
Syro-Ephraimite invasion, Isaiah's
activities at time of, 149-153.
Temples of Jews in Egypt and Baby
lonia, 194.
Toy, C. H., article by, cited, 112,
116, 127.
Tribe, solidarity of, in early Israel,
169-171; influences militating
against the, and toward individual
development, 174-189.
True prophets distinguished from
false, 79-86.
Villari, Vie de Savonarola, cited, 93.
Visions in Assyrian religion, 6-11.
Volz, Paul, interpretation of signifi
cance of Hosea's marriage by, 112.
Wars, services of early prophets in,
53-57.
Wenamon, story of mission of, to
Byblos, 12-13.
Winckler, H., work by, cited, 8.
Wisdom literature, sources of, in
early period of Hebrew history,
177 n.; individualistic trend of,
178.
Xenophon, account by, of Silanus
the soothsayer, 92.
Yahweh, importance of service ren
dered religion of, by early He
brew prophets, 48-68; Micaiah's
peculiar view of, as regards false
prophets, 63-65; attitude of false

INDEX

and of true prophets toward, 79-
86; office of the prophet, as
spokesman of, 88; a prophet's
absolute surrender to the will of,
illustrated by Hosea's marriage,
109-134; the head of the Hebrew
state religion, 139; position of
prophets in state affairs as repre
sentatives of, 139-140; the claims
of, as represented and enforced by
the prophets, 164-166; com
pounds of name "Yahweh" in
personal names, 173; conception
of, maintained by Ezekiel, 204-

205; strength of Isaiah's faith in,
212-215; ethics the supreme con
cern of, in the Hebrew prophets'
doctrine, 220-223.
Zakar, inscription of, showing activ
ity of prophets in Syria, 15-16.
Zakar-Baal, King of Byblos, account
of a prophetic revelation to, 12-15.
Zechariah, character of prophetic
utterances of, 98.
Zephaniah, world-devastating cata
clysm predicted by, 97; political
activities of, 162.

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