(c) The character of the conception of God and the religious conditions find their natural reflexion in the moral conditions that prevailed in the nation. On this head we have endless complaints by the prophets, directed at times against the people as a whole, and at times against particular classes. Beginning with the latter, we find, at least in Hosea, no longer an echo of the ancient senti- ment (cf. above, p. 660") about the monarchy as a blessing bestowed by Jahweh. There is no bond of union between these later kings of Israel, who made their way to the throne largely by rebellion or even assassination, and the kingship in the sense and spirit of the theocracy (Hos 8+ 13!f),* Isaiah’s opinion of Ahaz js presumably contained in the statement of 3, and the downfall of Judah is ultimately traced to the iniquities of Manasseh (2 K 23°65 942-4), Numerous, and at times very vehement, are the complaints against the heads of the people (Is 3", Mic 3" 74) as unfaithful shep- herds (Jer 23'); against the priests (Hos 44%,
* If Hos 99-15 109 really referred to the introduction of the monarchy, these passages (like 1§ 86ff- 1212) would contain an absolute repudiation of it. But this interpretation is, to say the least of it, doubtful.
RELIGION OF ISRAEL
RELIGION OF ISRAEL 691
Mic 3", Zeph 33, Jer 2° 5°! 61%), and against the false prophets (Zeph 34, Jer 2% 61 239% 21. 258. 908.) No wonder that under such guidance all kinds of vices flourished luxuriantly. Abundance of outward pos- sessions gives birth to arrogance (Am 6° %, Jer 13°, Dt 8!#-), luxury (Am 6*), ostentation, especi- ally on the part of women (Am 4’, Is 3"), and licentiousness (Am 27»). But it is, above all, the oppression of the poor and needy, the turning aside of justice in the case of widows and orphans, that provokes the bitterest complaints (Am 2°”, Is 5% 10!*-, Mic 2? 31), Finally, not only are the people charged with particular vices and offences, but there is attributed to them such a perversion of all moral ideas (Is 5°), such radical and general cor- ruption, that any increase of it seetas hardly pos- sible. Hosea (4!"-) is already constrained to lament that there is no fidelity, no love, no knowledge of Godin the land : ‘they curse and lie, they murder and steal and commit adultery, and one bloody deed treads upon the heels of another.’ Is 3°: refers to the shamelessness with which, in bold defiance of Jahweh, they proclaim their sins, like the Sodomites, without concealment. No less cheerless is the condemnatory verdict of Micah (714 ; ef. esp. v.4 ‘The best of them is as a brier, the most upright is as a thorn hedge’) and of Jeremiah (5! 618: 28 91), Jeremiah declares the corruption to be so deeply rooted that the Ethi- opian could more readily change his skin or the leopard his spots than the people their evil course of conduct (13). Deceit and treachery are so general that they find their way into the closest friendship and the most sacred family connexions, so that it has become a rule that ‘a man’s foes are they of his own household’ (Mic 7").
4, The attitude of the Prophets to the corrupt moral condition of the people.—In view of the con- ditions above described, it might have been ex- pected that the efforts of the prophets would be primarily directed towards preaching repentance and amendment, so as, if possible, to snatch the people from destruction even at the eleventh hour. And so in point of fact it was. The assertion so often repeated at the present day, that the writing prophets before the Exile announced judgment only, without any alleviation or any prospect of at least a partial deliverance and restoration, is ab initio psychologically unintelligible. A prophet who had a perfectly definite expectation of the destruction of the State and a// the members of the nation, must have regarded it as quite pur- poseless to proclaim unceasingly nothing but this destruction, especially if his words met with no credit. The most natural course for him would have been to abandon the multitude to their fate, and in the company of those like himself to bewail their obduracy and the ruin of his nation. Instead of this we find that all these prophets, in proclaim- ing the word of Jahweh, display a burning zeal which finds its only explanation in the aim which they always set before them in the discharge of this duty. They seek to rescue what is still capable of being rescued, to open the eyes of at least a portion of their infatuated countrymen, and to bring them within the small remnant which has been chosen by God to survive the judgment. And so we have the following stages in the prophetic message : a simple call to repentance, coupled with the indication of a still possible escape; then the denunciation of judgment, so far as the godless majority of the people are concerned. This judg- ment assumes more and more of an inevitable aspect, and appears as a total destruction of the State and the hitherto existing nationality. But, notwithstanding all this, there is ever in the back- ground the thought that for a portion of the people it will prove a purifying and not a destroying