Hebrew Life and Times Part 9

There came one day to King Jeroboam's own shrine at Bethel a man in the garb of a shepherd and speaking in the name of Jehovah, like the prophets. But what strange words are these which he utters?

="I hate, I despise your feasts, and I will take no delight in your solemn a.s.semblies. Yea, though ye offer me your ...

meal-offerings, I will not accept them: neither will I regard the peace-offerings of your fat beasts. Take away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols. But let judgment roll down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream."=

What this shepherd prophet was proclaiming was a religion in which burnt-offerings, or sacrificial ceremonies of any kind had little or no place, but which expressed itself in justice and righteousness toward one's fellow men. What Jehovah wants is not sacrifices at all, he said, but to stop cheating the poor: to throw away your false balances, and set free the slave.

=Amos' dire forebodings.=--In many addresses, as reported in the book which bears his name, with bitter and thrilling eloquence Amos tried to drive home this great message to the hearts of his fellow countrymen. He warned them that unless they heeded, disaster would come to the nation. For as surely as Jehovah demanded justice, so surely would he punish injustice. Terrible are his pictures of the calamities with which the guilty Israelites would be visited. Nor did he appeal wholly to fear. There is now and then a pleading note in Amos. Honest and burning indignation and threats are indeed most common in the pages of his book; yet listen to this:

="Thus the Lord G.o.d showed me: and, behold, he formed locusts in the beginning of the shooting up of the latter growth ...

and ... when they made an end of eating the gra.s.s of the land, then I said, O Lord G.o.d, forgive, I beseech thee: how shall Jacob stand? for he is small."=

There speaks the shepherd pleading for his little sheep--"How can Jacob stand, for he is small?"

THE RESULTS OF AMOS' WORDS

Amos' mission to the northern kingdom seemed to be a failure. He had come up from his sheep tending, in his home in Tekoa, in Judah, because he felt burning within him a message for his people. But he soon went home. The chief priest at Bethel drove him out. And apparently the people did not care. No doubt even the poor people in whose cause Amos had so eloquently spoken were shocked by his words.

"What, are not our sacrifices holy and pleasing to Jehovah? Would he have us stop offering up burnt-offerings? That is almost blasphemous."

=Bread upon the waters.=--Yet there were some who listened. And the proof is found in the existence of the book of Amos in the Bible. Some one cared enough to preserve and copy the first ma.n.u.script of Amos'

sermons and to make still other copies. Another proof is the fact that within that same century three other supremely great religious teachers caught up his great idea of a new kind of religion and repeated it in new and wonderfully convincing ways. Of these other prophets we shall learn more in the chapters to follow.

STUDY TOPICS

1. Glance over the book of Leviticus, also the latter part of Exodus, and the book of Numbers. How important did the Hebrews evidently consider the carrying out of sacrifices?

2. Look up in the Bible dictionary Jeroboam II and Amos. Find out more (1) about the times in which Amos lived and (2) about his personal history and character.

3. Read as much as you can in the book of Amos: chapters 1 and 2 and 7 and 8 are most important for our study.

4. Are religious ceremonies ever subst.i.tuted to-day for the religion of justice and right? If so, explain how.

CHAPTER XVI

A NEW KIND OF WORs.h.i.+P

Amos seemed to think of sacrifices and burnt-offerings as mere formalities which distracted men's attention from the thing of real importance, namely, just and righteous dealing between man and his neighbor.

There was another prophet who lived a little later than Amos. Perhaps as a youth he heard Amos speak. This was Hosea, who probably came from Gilead east of the Jordan. This man saw even deeper into the truth of religion than Amos, and his messages wonderfully completed and rounded out the great true words which the older prophet had so bravely spoken.

THE GOOD AND THE EVIL IN THE OLD SACRIFICES

The old religion of sacrifices was by no means wholly evil. When a family in those days sat down to a happy feast and gave some of everything in grat.i.tude to Jehovah, G.o.d really was there, not in the sacred rock, but in their love for one another and for him. When they poured out libations and burned fat on the altar, G.o.d was indeed glad, not because of the smell of the smoke or because he enjoyed drinking the blood, but because his children were grateful.

=Wrong ideas of G.o.d.=--On the other hand, these sacrifices, when misunderstood, tended to give people a wrong idea of G.o.d as one who was greedy for food and gifts. There was the greater danger of this wrong idea because of the character of the priests who were supposed to represent Jehovah. Many of them were very greedy indeed. The story of Eli's sons in 1 Samuel 2. 12-17 is an ill.u.s.tration. The priests were supposed to receive for their own personal support a part of all the gifts which were brought to the shrine. But the sons of Eli made it the rule that whatever came out of the meat kettle on a three-p.r.o.nged fork stuck in by the priest should belong to him. Very often, it is plain, the priest got everything. And naturally the people came to think of Jehovah as like his priests--as a Being who cared only for gifts.

=A wors.h.i.+p based on greed.=--The wors.h.i.+p of such a G.o.d, or of a G.o.d who was thought of as being of such a character, would, of course, be very far from the love and adoration which we Christians are taught to offer to our Father, and was really far from the kind of wors.h.i.+p advocated by devout Hebrews. It would be a sort of bargain-hunting wors.h.i.+p: the people to bring gifts of the fat of lambs and libations of blood and wine, and the G.o.d to give them in return good crops of wheat and oil, and figs and grapes, and an abundance of silver and gold. If Jehovah would give these things, then wors.h.i.+p Jehovah. If other G.o.ds and Baals would give more than Jehovah, wors.h.i.+p them.

In short these sacrifices, as Hosea saw, were a kind of wors.h.i.+p, and no wors.h.i.+p is a mere formality, but is a vast influence for good or for ill. Because of these wrong ideas the sacrifices had come to be more and more an influence for evil. And you cannot have a righteous and happy human family in which men are just and kind to each other, without a true wors.h.i.+p, growing out of a true idea of G.o.d.

HOSEA'S EXPERIENCE AND MESSAGE

This young man from the lovely, gra.s.sy plains and valleys east of the Jordan had had an experience which taught him much. He was by nature a man with a loving heart. He loved his native land with a burning patriotism. By and by there came to him, as to most young men, the experience of a pa.s.sionate love for a beautiful girl. All the deep wells of tenderness in Hosea's loving heart were hers, and she became his wife. For a time they were happy; then little by little it became clear that this woman, Gomer, did not really love him as he loved her.

She only wanted his money. And when she could get nothing more from him, or could get more elsewhere, she left him. She was like the woman in Kipling's poem, "The Vampire," "she did not care." It hurt Hosea.

For a time the light of the whole world seemed darkened for him.

=Reading a meaning in sorrow.=--Then like a flash the thought came to him; Jehovah is just like me in this regard. He wants love, not gifts, from his people, a love which on their part does not fawn for other gifts from him in return, like the cupboard love of kittens purring for cream. He loves his people Israel just as I love Gomer. That is why he asks us not to wors.h.i.+p these other G.o.ds, the Baals; not because he is jealous but because he is good. He wants us to learn a different kind of wors.h.i.+p altogether--a wors.h.i.+p which is not prompted by greed but by love.

With his whole soul aflame, Hosea poured these new ideas into the ears of his countrymen.

="I desire mercy, and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of G.o.d more than burnt-offerings."=

These great words were quoted by Jesus himself in one of his controversies with the Pharisees; they are one of the supreme utterances of human literature.

STORM CLOUDS ON THE HORIZON

This new insight of Hosea helped him to interpret hopefully the troubles which at that time were coming thick and fast upon his people. The forebodings of Amos were coming true. The kings of a.s.syria were ambitious. They had set their hearts upon a great a.s.syrian empire extending from Babylonia to Egypt. For more than two centuries each new king at Nineveh sent his conquering armies farther west and south.

Already in Hosea's day they had more than once invaded northern Israel and had taken away tribute. And the leaders of the nation did not have the brains or the character to avoid a conflict with this merciless and resistless foe.

=Jehovah loving even in punishment.=--Amos had declared that Jehovah would surely punish his people because of injustices and wrongs which they were inflicting on one another. Hosea agreed, but was able to go further, and say that in these very punishments which were now coming Jehovah was still showing not his anger but his love. He was punis.h.i.+ng in the hope that his children might learn their lesson and return to him in love.

=Fall of the northern kingdom.=--The nation, as a nation, seemed to pay no attention to Hosea's pleadings. They went right on living their selfish and greedy and l.u.s.tful lives. And in B.C. 721, as a result of provoking the a.s.syrian king Shalmanezer to a fresh attack, the land was again invaded and the city of Samaria was captured and sacked.

Thousands of the northern Hebrews were carried away as exiles to other lands and never returned. The northern kingdom was a failure. The religious ideals and dreams of Abraham and Moses had not yet been fulfilled. The common people had had little opportunity for happiness or growth in knowledge and goodness. But the southern kingdom still existed. And many a disciple of Hosea, some of them carrying sc.r.a.ps and rolls of papyrus on which his sayings were copied, fled to Jerusalem, and there sowed the seed of his great message of a G.o.d not only of justice but of love.

STUDY TOPICS

1. Read Genesis 4. 1-15. In this story of Cain and Abel is there any hint as to how even an animal sacrifice might be true wors.h.i.+p?

2. Look up Hosea in the Bible dictionary, or in the chapter on Hosea in Cornill, The Prophets of Israel. Find out more about the times in which he lived and about his personal history.

3. Read what you can in the book of Hosea. This is rather hard reading, but chapter 11 is not very difficult, and gives a good idea of Hosea's style.

4. Which kind of prayer counts more for the happiness of all, prayers for personal advantage, or prayers of love and grat.i.tude to our Father?

CHAPTER XVII

JEHOVAH NOT A G.o.d OF ANGER