History of the Jews (Vol. 1-6). Graetz Heinrich

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СКАЧАТЬ to say, "I am no prophet and no prophetic disciple, but only a shepherd and planter; but the Lord spake unto me, 'Go, prophesy unto my people Israel.'" In the strongest language, he concluded with a threat of punishment. It is noteworthy that he did not protest against the evil deeds in Judah with the same energy, but rather displayed a certain leniency towards the kingdom governed by the house of David. He entered into no particulars concerning the sins which were rife there, but only spoke of them in general terms. He predicted a happy future for the kingdom of Judah, while predicting woe to Israel.

      "Behold, the eyes of the Lord God are upon the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from off the face of the earth; saving that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, saith the Lord."

      When contemplating in his prophetic vision the new plagues which would descend upon the land, he interceded with prayer in behalf of Judah, exclaiming, "Lord God, cease, I beseech thee; how shall Jacob rise, since he is so small?" (Amos vii. 2, 5.)

      The state of weakness into which Judah had fallen since the death of Amaziah, and from which it had not yet recovered in the first years of Uzziah's reign, filled the prophet Amos with compassion. He did not wish to discourage the nation and the court still further, but prophesied the future reunion of the tribes under the house of David.

      At this time another prophet arose in Jerusalem, named Joel, the son of Pethuel. Most of the prophets were of obscure origin, and returned to obscurity without leaving a trace of their individuality, which was entirely merged in their deeds or works. Joel appeared at a time when all minds had been terrified and driven into a condition of despair bordering on stupor, by the repeated attacks of the Idumæans and neighbouring nations, and the subsequent plagues of earthquake, drought and locusts. The inhabitants of Jerusalem and the country were wearing themselves away in long fasts and lamentations; they tore their garments as a sign of mourning, and assembled around the Temple with cries and supplications to avert Divine anger, and the priests were equally despondent. Joel, therefore, had a different task from that of Amos; not to censure and blame the people was his mission, but to raise and cheer up the despondent, and to arouse those whom despair had stupefied. He did not openly denounce, but merely hinted at the sins and errors of the nation, alluding to the drunkards now left without wine, pointing to the external repentance which contented itself with torn garments and left the heart untouched, and scorning the popular notion that the Deity could not be appeased without sacrifices. Joel had to exert the whole power of his eloquence in order to convince the nation that God's mercy had not departed from them, that Zion was yet His holy mountain; that He would not deliver up His people to disgrace; that He was long-suffering and full of mercy, and would relieve them from their misfortunes without their burnt-offerings and fasts.

      Joel's oratorical power was, perhaps, even greater than that of Amos. His highly coloured description of the ravages of the locusts and the accompanying calamities is a stirring picture; the reader feels himself to be an eye-witness. The extant production of Joel's prophetic eloquence, with its rhythm and metre and even a certain strophic structure, also occupies the middle between poetry and prose. The only speech of his which has been preserved is divided into two halves; in the one half he describes the misfortunes of the nation, blames their perverted ideas, and points out wherein their conversion must consist; and in the other, he seeks to fill their hearts with a joyous hope for the future. Joel endeavoured to carry his trembling, wailing and despondent hearers, who had collected on the Temple Mount, beyond the narrow boundaries of their present sorrow to a higher view of life. He told them that God had sent the plagues as forerunners of a time full of earnestness and awe, of a day great and fearful, destined to purify them and lead to a higher moral order. The sorrows of the present would pass away and be forgotten. Then the great day of the Lord would dawn.

      Joel also predicted political changes, when the enslaved Jews of Judah and Jerusalem, whom Philistines and Tyrians had sold to the slave-trading Ionians, who again on their part had scattered them far and wide, should again return. The peoples who had committed acts of cruelty would be severely punished in the Valley of Justice (Emek Jehoshaphat), where God would pronounce judgment on all nations. Then Egypt and Idumæa would become deserts, because they had shed the innocent blood of the Judæans; but Judah and Jerusalem would be inhabited throughout all generations. Then a higher moral order would begin, and all creatures would be filled with the divine spirit of prophecy.

      "And it shall come to pass afterwards that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions. And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit." (Joel iii. 1–2.)

      The wish which has been attributed to Moses (Numbers xi. 29) will, according to Joel's prophecy, be realized at some future time. Not only Israelites born in the land, but also the strangers, who lived as slaves in their families, would have a share in this kingdom of God, and would become worthy of the gift of prophecy. Thus the prophetic vision began to roam beyond the national barriers.

      Hosea, son of Beeri, the third prophet of Jeroboam's and Uzziah's times, spoke yet more decidedly against the kingdom of the Ten Tribes, and in favour of the house of Jacob. Nothing is known of his life and actions; we are not even told in which kingdom he delivered his speeches. It is, however, probable that the scene of his activity was Bethel or Samaria. Whilst Amos made moral corruption the main object of his rebuke and scorn, Hosea declaimed against the religious defection of the kingdom of the Ten Tribes, which had returned to the worship of Baal. He did not possess the wealth of expression nor the metrical evenness of his two contemporaries. His eloquence comes nearer the form of common prose; it is more amplified, more fluent, but also more artificial; it likes the interweaving of allegorical names, in which Hosea probably followed the style of the prophetic school from which he appears to have come. He started from one simile, which he applied in a twofold manner. He represented the introduction of the Baal worship in the Ten Tribes as the conduct of a faithless wife, and compared the future return of the people to God, which he predicted, to the return to the path of duty of a repentant and abashed adulteress. This his theme he premised with an introduction. In a prophetic vision, he said, he received the command to take to himself an adulterous wife. Following this command, he married a woman of evil repute, who bore him three children—a son, Jezreel, a daughter, whom he called "Unloved" (Lo-Ruchamah), and a second son, named "Not-My-Nation" (Lo-Ammi). The prophet explained these metaphorical names; thus, Jezreel meant two things—in the first place, that God would visit on the house of Jehu the blood that their forefather had shed in Jezreel; and further, Jezreel denoted that God would destroy the armies of Israel in the Valley of Jezreel. The name of the daughter meant that God would no longer care for the house of Israel; and, lastly, the name of the second son denoted that the God of Israel had deserted the nation, and would no longer be its God. After this introduction and its interpretation, the prophet began his address:

      "Contend with your mother, contend,

       For she is not my wife,

       And I am not her husband;

       Let her put away her prostitution from her face,

       And her adulteries from her bosom." (Hosea ii. 4–6.)

      Then the prophet depicts the entire extent of the faithlessness of the house of Israel,—that adulteress who pursues her lover (Baal), in the belief that her riches and her plenty had come from him, forgetting that God had endowed her with the corn and wine, the silver and gold which she was wasting on the idol Baal; God would therefore deprive her of everything, and not leave her even sufficient clothes to cover her body. In her need she would be overcome by repentance, and say, "I will return to my first love, for then it was better with me than now." The prophet then pictures the return of the faithless wife, who would remorsefully recognise the whole extent of her past wickedness, and, turning to her husband, would call him "My husband," for the name "lord" (Baal) would have become hateful to her. (Hosea ii.)

      Reconciled with his betrothed (the nation), СКАЧАТЬ