THE DUTIES OF RULERS 85 given a remarkably concrete picture of an ideal ruler. The prophecy is addressed directly to Jehoiakim, who, although the ruler of an impoverished nation facing imminent invasion, continued to exploit his people in order to gratify his personal passion for display and luxury (Jer. 2213-19): Woe to him who buildeth his house by unrighteousness, and his chambers by injustice; Who causeth his neighbour to labour without wages, and giveth him not his pay; Who saith, 'I will build me a vast palace with spacious chambers; Dost thou call thyself king because thou excellest in cedar? 'But thine eyes and heart are bent only on thy dishonest gain, Therefore thus saith Jehovah concerning Jehoiakim, the son of "They shall not lament over him, "O my brother" or "O my They shall not wail for him, "O Lord" or "O his glory"! He shall be buried as an ass is buried, drawn out and cast forth.' Even more scathing is Jeremiah's condemnation of Judah's faithless religious teachers (Jer. 580, 31): Frightful and horrible things have taken place in the land: The priests teach according to their direction, And my people love to have it so! What will ye do at the end? Not only have Judah's professional priests and prophets neglected their task as the social conscience of their nation, but they have also lulled the people into a feeling of false se curity. Jeremiah's dramatic setting forth of this truth has made a deep impression upon human literature and thought (Jer. 614): They have healed the hurt of my people as though it was slight, They are not at all ashamed, nor do they know enough to blush! The Irresponsible, Unprincipled Rich. Zephaniah and Jeremiah are equally bold in attacking the economic evils of their day. One of the chief reasons why Zephaniah predicted that the day of Jehovah was "near and rapidly approaching" was because of (Zeph. 112b, c) The wealthy who are thickened upon their lees, Who are saying to themselves, 'Jehovah brings neither prosperity nor calamity!' He declared that (Zeph. 113, 18a) Their wealth shall become a prey and their houses a desolation. By the pregnant figure, drawn from the well-known characteristic of old wine, he described the natural conservatism of wealth. The peril of the rich is that they become inert and strive to maintain the existing order, even though it is radically wrong, until they have lost the very capacity of action. In the hour of calamity wealth is no protection against the invader. Instead it simply tends to give to those who possess it a false sense of security which blinds them to their real danger. Jeremiah has given an equally keen analysis of the effects of wealth unjustly obtained (Jer. 526-28): Wicked men are found, who set snares and catch men with traps so that their houses are full of the fruits of their crooked dealing, even as a cage is full of birds. Thus they become great THE UNPRINCIPLED RICH 87 and rich, they who have grown fat. They plan wicked things and succeed; they violate justice. The cause of the fatherless and the rights of the needy they do not defend. This description fits the same type to-day as well as in the decadent seventh century before Christ. The principle, which underlies Jeremiah's grim warning, is also equally applicable (Jer. 529): 'Shall I not punish such as these?' is Jehovah's oracle, On a later occasion, when in the presence of foreign invaders the rich landlords of Judah had solemnly agreed to set free their slaves and then shamelessly broken their covenant, Jeremiah unsparingly denounced the ruling classes and thereby declared himself the open foe of slavery and the active champion of individual liberty (Jer. 34). The Aims of the Prophetic Reformers Who Prepared the Laws in Deuteronomy. We have a threefold record of the great reformation which culminated in 621 B.C. One is the testimony of the prophecies of Zephaniah and Jeremiah; another is the twenty-third chapter of II Kings, which describes the measures adopted by the reformers; the third is in the book of Deuteronomy itself, which contains the laws which were then promulgated. The character of these laws reveals the aim of those who formulated them. Their primary purpose was to correct the evils which had crept into Judah during the reign of Manasseh and to render their reappearance forever impossible. With this end in view the formal religious life of the nation was transferred from the old Canaanite local shrines and centred entirely in Jerusalem. At the same time the reformers aimed to apply the ethical and social principles set forth by earlier prophets to the daily life of the people. In their essence the laws of Deuteronomy are prophetic rather than priestly. It is probable that the men who wrote them were prophets, although priests like Hilkiah, the head of the temple priesthood, who was in hearty sympathy with the pro phetic party, may also have had a voice in formulating them. Most of these laws are moulded by Hosea's great doctrine of love to God and man. It was a catholic love which went out also to dumb beasts (Dt. 514, 254) and to foreigners resident in Israel, who hitherto had few rights under the Hebrew law. The method of these prophetic lawgivers was in most cases evolutionary rather than revolutionary. Ordinarily they aimed to modify or supplement rather than set aside existing laws and institutions. The result is that the laws of Deuteronomy are a vivid, concrete record of the developing idealism of the Hebrew race down to the close of the seventh century B.C. It is not the work of any one man, but is the embodiment of the idealism of a nation that had learned many important lessons in the painful school of experience and at last was responsive to the teachings of its noblest social and religious teachers. In this code all that is finest in Israel's early religion is blended. Formal Adoption of the New Prophetic Code. The twenty-second and twenty-third chapters of II Kings contain a graphic account of the way in which the prophetic code, now embodied in the book of Deuteronomy, was made the law of the realm. This momentous step was not easy. Evidently the prophetic tradition that Moses was the author of all of Israel's laws was already beginning to crystallise. A new code, therefore, that had been written by private individuals, even though it included many of the older laws of the race and represented the natural development of the principles earlier laid down by Moses, was in great danger of being regarded with suspicion. This danger probably led its authors to place it in the temple, possibly in the keeping of the friendly high priest Hilkiah, until a favourable moment came in which to present it to the king and people. That opportunity arose when King Josiah, after ruling seventeen years, began to make certain repairs on the temple. Then the prophetic code was brought forth by Hilkiah and placed in the hands of Shaphan, Josiah's private secretary. After reading it the king was greatly stirred, and sent it to a certain prophetess Huldah, who was ADOPTION OF THE NEW CODE 89 attached to the court, to have its validity attested. Huldah was evidently in full sympathy with its enactment, for she at once confirmed its authority. This confirmation encouraged Josiah to act. The graphic account of the way in which this code was made binding upon the people of Judah and promulgated as a law is found in II Kings 231-3: And the king sent and they gathered to him all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem. And the king went up to the temple of Jehovah, and with him all the men of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, as well as the priests and the prophets and all the people, both small and great. And he read in their hearing all the words of the book of the covenant which was found in the temple of Jehovah. And the king stood by the pillar and made a covenant before Jehovah to establish the words of this covenant that were written in this book. And all the people confirmed the covenant. Acting in accord with the commands of this code, Josiah at once proceeded to institute a rigorous reform. The priests and the paraphernalia of the Canaanite and Babylonian cults were banished from Jerusalem. The heathen shrines outside the capital city were destroyed and defiled (II Kgs. 236-15). The enactments of the new code were enforced in the temple, in the court, and in the daily life of the people. Judah entered upon a new social and religious era that made the brief reign of Josiah seem like a brilliant autumnal day, all the more glorious in contrast with the wintry years of exile which quickly followed. |