RESULTS OF MICAH'S TEACHING 75 Did Hezekiah and all Judah indeed put him to death? Did they not fear Jehovah and appease Jehovah, so that Jehovah repented of the evil which he had pronounced against them? But we are on the point of doing great injury to ourselves. That a reformation was instituted during the reign of Hezekiah is also recorded in II Kings 184-6. Inasmuch as the author of Kings was chiefly interested in the ceremonial side of Israel's religion, he speaks only of the abolition of the symbols of the ancient Canaanite cults. It is evident, however, from the incidental testimony of Jeremiah 26 and from the nature of Micah's preaching that this reformation struck deeper into the social life of Judah. Micah, indeed, made no reference to ceremonial rites and customs. It was solely because of Judah's social crimes that he declared: Zion shall be ploughed as a field. There is ample reason, therefore, for concluding that under the leadership of Hezekiah, and following the disastrous Assyrian invasion in 701 B.C., a series of drastic social reforms were instituted that for a time at least delivered Judah from the evils against which the prophets of the Assyrian period had strenuously protested. This conclusion is incidentally confirmed by the fact that at the later crisis in 690 B.C., when Sennacherib again threatened Jerusalem, Isaiah declared unhesitatingly that Sennacherib would fall and Judah survive because the one was clearly in the wrong and the other in the right (Is. 37). It is interesting to analyse the reasons why Micah succeeded in arousing the social conscience of the people of Judah even when Isaiah had failed. It certainly was not because of his originality. In all of his recorded addresses he does little more than echo the principles laid down by Isaiah. The first reason, doubtless, is because he spoke from the point of view of the common people and with a simplicity and vigour and directness that were irresistible. His teachings were also powerfully reinforced by the deadly fear of imminent invasion that gripped the heart of every man and woman and child in his audiences, and by the firmly fixed popular belief that calamity was the certain evidence of Jehovah's disapproval. Micah was the awakening conscience of the nation. He reaped where others had faithfully sown. With sledge-hammer blows he drove home the social principles proclaimed by earlier prophets. The fact that he reasserted truths already familiar to the people but added to their grim effectiveness. The Prophetic Definition of Religious Responsibility. The sixth chapter of Micah contains a crowning epitome of the social teachings of the earlier prophets. In four short lines the prophetic definition of religion, that was first presented by Amos and supplemented by Hosea and Isaiah, is set forth in a way well calculated to arrest the attention of all succeeding ages. The scientist Huxley has said of it: A perfect ideal of religion! A conception of religion which appears to me as wonderful an inspiration of genius as the art of Phidias or the science of Aristotle! To-day it appropriately stands inscribed on the statue of Religion in the Congressional Library at Washington. The historical setting of these immortal lines is apparently the reactionary reign of Manasseh which immediately followed that of Hezekiah. National disaster and apprehension had led the people to ask with intense earnestness (Mi. 6o, 7): With what shall I come before Jehovah, Bow myself before the God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt-offerings, With calves a year old? Will Jehovah be pleased with thousands of rams, With myriads of streams of oil? Shall I give him my first-born for my guilt, The fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? The answer which came first to the popular mind in response to this burning question was suggested by the old ceremonial conception of religion. Jehovah was thought of as a super PROPHETIC DEFINITION OF RELIGION 77 human King whose favour could be won by a wealth of material gifts or by the evidence of supreme self-denial on the part of his worshippers. Here the prophet repeats those conventional standards of religious duty which had almost universally obtained throughout the ancient world until the days of Amos. It was the idea of Jehovah and his service which was still held by a majority of the people of Judah. With masterly skill the prophet brings this primitive popular conception of religion into dramatic contrast with the new social ideals which the prophets of the Assyrian period had proclaimed. He declares that religion does not consist in forms nor in creeds but in acts of justice and love towards man and in that receptive, trusting attitude toward God which makes it possible for the individual to live in daily fellowship with him (Mi. 68): It hath been shown thee, O man, what is good; And to walk humbly with thy God. Here each of the great social prophets speaks in turn and yet in unison. To do justice is an echo of Amos's fundamental teaching. The Hebrew word (hěsědh) translated "mercy" is repeatedly used by Hosea to describe the kinetic love which binds God to man and man to God and his fellow men, and inspires him to express that love in acts of mercy (cf. p. 53). It is love in action. The command is not merely to admire but passionately to love love and its social expression. To walk humbly with God is a reflection of Isaiah's characteristic teaching regarding the majesty and holiness of God. Interpreted in modern terms it means whole-hearted, devoted loyalty. Justice and love toward man and devoted loyalty to God-these are the three basal social virtues, and each marvellously reinforces the others. He who, like Micah, synthesises and makes old truths new and vital forces in human history certainly deserves a high place among the immortal teachers of mankind. VIII THE SOCIAL REFORMERS OF THE SEVENTH CENTURY The Decadent Seventh Century. The seventh century B.C. in southwestern Asia was a period of decadence and transition. Under two energetic kings, Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal, the bounds of the Assyrian empire were extended to their farthest limits. Even the proud domain of the Pharaohs was at last gathered into Assyria's net. Judah and the other small states along the eastern Mediterranean had learned through bitter experience the futility of resisting this great world-conqueror. Spoil and tribute from every quarter poured into the Assyrian treasury; but luxury and moral and social corruption were rapidly destroying its strength. The empire depended for its defense upon the hired mercenaries and subject peoples enlisted in its armies. Patriotism and loyalty had practically disappeared. The entire empire was ruled simply for the purpose of satisfying the personal ambitions and greed of the king and the group of rapacious nobles who gathered about him. Assyria, although to outward appearance at the height of its power, was on the verge of that complete collapse which came suddenly in 605 B.C. Like Northern Israel a century before and Rome eleven centuries later, its fall vividly illustrated the great social and moral principles which the Hebrew prophets proclaimed. Nahum's Condemnation of War Prompted by Greed. The guilt of Assyria and its downfall are the occasion of the powerful prophecy of Nahum. Of the prophet himself nothing is known except what is revealed in the two and a half chapters which have come from his pen. Over the cruel, rapacious empire this prophet of obscure Judah chants a powerful doom-song. NAHUM'S CONDEMNATION OF WAR 79 In the collapse of the great empire he saw not only a vindication of Jehovah's just rulership of the world but also the condemnation of the brutal policy which for over two centuries had involved southwestern Asia in almost continuous war. He strips away all the false pretensions of the great worldconqueror and lays bare the elemental passions which throughout the ages have been the chief incentives to war. He declares that the wars waged by Assyria upon the petty nations of southwestern Asia were simply organised murder inspired by the desire to rob and to gratify the bestial appetites (Nah. 211, 12): Where is the den of the lions, The lair of the young lions, Where the lion was wont to withdraw, The whelps also with none to startle them? He filled his caves with prey, And his lairs with plunder. In imagination he beholds Assyria's foes, inspired by the same ravenous desires, battering down the doors and entering this den of robbers. At last the hour of judgment has struck and the prophet urges on these agents of divine wrath (Nah. 29, 10): Loot the silver, loot the gold; Anguish is in all loins, And the faces of all are flushed. Through all this song of doom there runs as a recurring note the divine condemnation of all war that is prompted by the lust for power and spoil (Nah. 213): Behold I am against thee, is the oracle of Jehovah of hosts, |