The God of the Prophets

One of the most important things we need to remember about the Bible is that it is a library, not a book. And like any library worth its salt, the Bible contains different perspectives within it (while, yes, telling an overarching story). This is especially true of the Old Testament, where we see theological debates play out as though in ‘real time’. So while the Deuteronomistic history, with its doctrines of blessings and curses, image-less worship of YHWH in the Jerusalem Temple, and the primacy of David’s royal line, takes up a good amount of space, it’s far from the only answer to the question of ‘What went wrong with the Israelite and Judaite monarchies?’ we find in the Bible. Today we’ll look at what is known as the Prophetic Critique, the main alternative theological perspective to the Deuteronomists’, which would be particularly important in the later development of Christianity.

Israelite and Judahite prophecy was a diverse phenomenon. But, for our purposes, we can think of the prophets as figures who served the royal courts while existing apart from them and being there to critique them. Claiming divine inspiration, they provided theological interpretations and advice on policy matters and current events — whether the ruling classes wanted it or not. Thus they acted as advisors, but also often thorns in the sides of kings and were in the awkward position of speaking truth to an unreceptive power. When we’re talking about ‘the Prophetic Critique’, we’re talking primarily about the latter prophets, those with books named after them rather than those described in the books of Samuel and Kings. The prophets on the whole agreed with the historians that Judah and Israel’s leadership failed to keep YHWH’s Law, therefore abrogating the national covenant with him; where they differed was in the elements of the Law they focused on.

The Deuteronomists were concerned primarily with worship: The countries failed because their rulers worshiped the wrong god(s), or the right God in the wrong way, or the right God in the right way but the wrong place. The prophets, by contrast, emphasized the moral failings of the governing classes. Here are just a few examples:

• “What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says YHWH; I have had enough of burnt-offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats” (Isaiah 1.11)
• “Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?” (Isaiah 58.6)
• “I desire lovingkindness, not sacrifice.” (Hosea 6.6)
• “Thus says YHWH: Act with justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor anyone who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the alien, the orphan, and the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place.” (Jeremiah 22.3)
• “Thus says YHWH of hosts: Render true judgements, show kindness and mercy to one another; do not oppress the widow, the orphan, the alien, or the poor; and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another.  (Zechariah 7.9-10)

It’s not the liturgical matters were unimportant (see Hosea 1-2 and Jeremiah 17.2, for example, on worshiping other gods), but that the people’s ritual life is only one small part of what YHWH’s Law commands of them, and is ultimately nothing compared to the moral and ethical precepts that directly impact the wellbeing of the people with whom YHWH is in covenant relationship.

Just think at how far the biblical story has come:

• Abraham: Obedience to YHWH defined by circumcision
• Moses: Obedience to YHWH defined by awe and Law-keeping
• Deuteronomists: Obedience to YHWH defined by worship of the right God in the right way in the right place
• Prophets: Obedience to YHWH defined by justice, compassion, and care for the poor

We are not quite at ‘ethical monotheism’ yet, but we’re very close, at what we might call ‘ethical henotheism’ (worship of one god in service and wellbeing of others). So, returning to our Integral shorthand, with the Prophetic Critique, we’re beginning to transition from the ‘red’ Power Gods, ‘might is right’, mentality and into the ‘amber’, ‘Mythical Conventional’ worldview. While the Law always contained moral precepts — even in its most basic form in the Ten Commandments, there are the commandments against theft, murder, and envy — it’s only here that how people (here, primarily the ruling classes) treat others comes to the fore in how the Bible talks about what faithfulness looks like. So while in some ways, the Prophetic Critique is presented as little more than an alternative perspective on Law-keeping to the Deuteronomist historians’, in another way, the nature of this alternative is nothing short of revolutionary.

We’ll see this revolution continue in the next post, which will explore the impact of the Exile on how the people understood their relationship with God.