The Bible Story Part 323

They that turn justice to wormwood, and abase righteousness to the earth! They hate him that reproveth in the gate and him that speaketh sincerely they abhor. Wherefore, because ye trample on the weak, and take from him a present of corn, ye shall have houses built of hewn stone, but ye shall not dwell in them: vineyards for pleasure have ye planted, but ye shall not drink of their wine. For I know how many are your crimes and how forceful your sins--ye that browbeat the righteous, take bribes and {362} turn aside the poor in the gate.

Therefore the prudent in such a time is dumb, for an evil time it is.

Seek good and not evil, that ye may live, and Jehovah G.o.d of Hosts be with you as ye say he is. Hate evil and love good: and in the gate set justice on her feet again --it may be that Jehovah G.o.d of Hosts may have pity on the remnant of Joseph.

Therefore thus saith Jehovah, G.o.d of Hosts, Lord: On all the open ways, lamentation, and in all streets they shall be saying, "Ah woe!

Ah woe!" And in all vineyards, lamentation, and they shall call the ploughman to wailing, and to lamentation them that are skilful in dirges, for I shall pa.s.s through their midst, saith Jehovah.

Woe unto you that long for the day of the Lord!

Wherefore would ye have the day of the Lord? It is darkness, and not light. As when a man fleeth from the face of a lion and a bear falls upon him: and he comes unto the house and leans his hand upon the wall and a serpent bites him. Is it not darkness, the day of Jehovah, and not light? storm-darkness, and not a ray of light upon it?

I hate, I loathe your feasts, and I will not smell the savour of your gatherings to sacrifice. Though ye bring to me your burnt-offering, and your meal-offerings, I will not be pleased, or your thank-offerings of fatted calves, I will not look at them. Let cease from me the noise of thy songs: to the playing of thy viols I will not listen. But let justice roll on like water, and righteousness like an unfailing stream.

[Footnote: This translation is in the main that of George Adam Smith in the "Expositor's Bible."]

{363}

HOSEA

(Hosea belonged to the same generation as Amos, and meets the same social sins and oppressions of the poor by the rich. He emphasizes the religious side of the difficulties. Sin is treachery against G.o.d, and peculiarly mean treachery; for G.o.d loves his people. Hosea's emphasis on the love of G.o.d is almost the beginning of the greatest idea about G.o.d that man ever conceived. It grew out of a very sad part of his own life. His wife had left him, and yet he could not forget her. He still loved her, and could not cease loving her. This experience showed him what G.o.d must be like. G.o.d loved Israel. When Israel sinned, G.o.d was hurt and saddened. Could G.o.d cease to love Israel? Never! If he, a man, still loved his wife, could Jehovah, being G.o.d, love less? Must not his love be greater than man's? So it comes about that Hosea gives a very vivid and wonderful picture of the sad and terrible results of sin, and of the tender, compa.s.sionate love of G.o.d. The book is more disconnected than many of the prophecies. It is a series of independent sections, nearly all of which express, in different language, much the same ideas of Israel's sin and G.o.d's love.)

I

SOWING THE WIND; REAPING THE WHIRLWIND

When I would heal Israel, then is the iniquity of Ephraim discovered, and the wickedness of Samaria; for they commit falsehood: and the thief entereth in, and the troop of robbers spoileth without. And they consider not {364} in their hearts that I remember all their wickedness: now have their own doings beset them about; they are before my face. They make the king glad with their wickedness, and the princes with their lies. They are all hot as an oven, and devour their judges; all their kings are fallen: there is none among them that calleth unto me. Ephraim, he mixeth himself among the peoples; Ephraim is a cake not turned. Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knoweth it not: yea, gray hairs are here and there upon him, and he knoweth it not. And the pride of Israel doth testify to his face: yet they have not returned unto the Lord their G.o.d, nor sought him for all this. And Ephraim is like a silly dove, without understanding: they call unto Egypt, they go to a.s.syria. When they shall go, I will spread my net upon them; I will bring them down as the birds of the heaven: I will chastise them, as their congregation hath heard. Woe unto them!

for they have wandered from me; destruction unto them! for they have trespa.s.sed against me: though I would redeem them, yet they have spoken lies against me. And they have not cried unto me with their heart, but they howl upon their beds: they a.s.semble themselves for corn and wine, they rebel against me. Though I have taught and strengthened their arms, yet do they devise mischief against me. They return, but not to him that is on high; they are like a deceitful bow: their princes shall fall by the sword for the rage of their tongue: this shall be their derision in the land of Egypt.

Set the trumpet to thy mouth. As an eagle he cometh {365} against the house of the Lord, because they have transgressed my covenant, and trespa.s.sed against my law. They shall cry unto me, "My G.o.d, we, Israel, know thee." Israel hath cast off that which is good: the enemy shall pursue him. They have set up kings, but not by me; they have made princes, and I knew it not: of their silver and their gold have they made them idols, that they may be cut off. He hath cast off thy calf, O Samaria; mine anger is kindled against them: how long will it be ere they attain to innocency? For from Israel is even this; the workman made it, and it is no G.o.d: yea, the calf of Samaria shall be broken in pieces. For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.

II

THE LONGING OF G.o.d FOR HIS CHILDREN

Come, and let us return unto the Lord: for he hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up. After two days will he revive us: on the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live before him. And let us follow on to know the Lord; his going forth is sure as the morning: and he shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter rain that watereth the earth.

When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt. The more the prophet called them, the more they went from them: they sacrificed unto the Baalim, and burned incense to graven images.

Yet I {366} taught Ephraim to walk; I took them on my arms; but they knew not that I healed them. I drew them with cords of a man, with bands of love. How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? how shall I deliver thee, Israel? mine heart is turned within me, my compa.s.sions are kindled together. I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger, I will not return to destroy Ephraim: for I am G.o.d, and not man; the Holy One in the midst of thee: and I will not come in wrath. They shall walk after the Lord, who shall roar like a lion: for he shall roar, and the children shall come trembling from the west. They shall come trembling as a bird out of Egypt, and as a dove out of the land of a.s.syria: and I will make them to dwell in their houses, saith the Lord. I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death: O death, where are thy plagues? O grave, where is thy destruction? I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely: for mine anger is turned away from him. I will be as the dew unto Israel: he shall blossom as the lily, and cast forth his roots as Lebanon. His branches shall spread, and his beauty shall be as the olive tree, and his smell as Lebanon.

{367}

MICAH

(It is supposed that Micah lived in the time of Isaiah, the prophet.

His message resembles that of Amos in its stern denunciation of the wrong-doing of the rich. He himself belonged to the poorer cla.s.ses and speaks from a full heart when he describes the misery of the poor and the oppression of the rich. Like Isaiah, Amos, and Hosea, he is a social reformer.)

Woe to them that devise iniquity and work evil upon their beds! when the morning is light, they practise it, because it is in the power of their hand. And they covet fields, and seize them; and houses, and take them away: and they oppress a man and his house, even a man and his heritage. The voice of the Lord crieth unto the city, and the man of wisdom will see thy name: hear ye the rod, and who hath appointed it. "Are there yet the treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked, and the scant measure that is abominable? Shall I be pure with wicked balances, and with deceitful weights? For the rich men thereof are full of violence, and the inhabitants thereof have spoken lies, and their tongue is deceitful in their mouth. Therefore I also have smitten thee with a grievous wound; I have made thee desolate because of thy sins. Thou shalt eat, but not be satisfied; and thy humiliation shall be in the midst of thee: and thou shalt store up, but shalt not keep it; and that which thou carriest away will I give up to the sword. Thou shalt sow, but shalt not {368} reap: thou shalt tread the olives, but shalt not anoint thee with oil; and the vintage, but shalt not drink the wine."

Woe is me! for I am as when they have gathered the summer fruits, as the grape gleanings of the vintage: there is no cl.u.s.ter to eat; my soul desireth the firstripe fig. The G.o.dly man is perished out of the earth, and there is none upright among men: they all lie in wait for blood; they hunt every man his brother with a net. Their hands are upon that which is evil to do it diligently; the prince asketh, and the judge is ready for a reward; and the great man, he uttereth the mischief of his soul: thus they weave it together. The best of them is as a brier: the most upright is worse than a thorn hedge: the day of thy watchmen, even thy visitation, is come; now shall be their perplexity. Trust ye not in a friend, put ye not confidence in a guide. For the son dishonoureth the father, the daughter riseth up against her mother, the daughter in law against her mother in law; a man's enemies are the men of his own house. But as for me, I will look unto the Lord; I will wait for the G.o.d of my salvation: my G.o.d will hear me. Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy: when I fall, I shall arise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light unto me.

Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the high G.o.d? shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

{369}

He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy G.o.d?

But in the latter days it shall come to pa.s.s, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills; and peoples shall flow unto it. And many nations shall go and say, "Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the G.o.d of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem."

And he shall judge between many peoples, and shall reprove strong nations afar off; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid: for the mouth of the Lord of hosts hath spoken it.

For all the peoples will walk everyone in the name of his G.o.d, and we will walk in the name of the Lord our G.o.d for ever and ever.

But thou, Beth-lehem Ephrathah, which art little to be among the thousands of Judah, out of thee shall one come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting.

{370}

OBADIAH

(This is the shortest of the books of prophecy in the Old Testament.

It denounces the evil of the people of Edom, who, when Jerusalem was taken by the Babylonians, took delight in its distresses and, pursuing the fugitives in the mountains, captured them and returned them to the Babylonian army. Nothing definite is known of the prophet.)

The vision of Obadiah.

Thus saith the Lord G.o.d concerning Edom: "We have heard tidings from the Lord, and an amba.s.sador is sent among the nations, saying, Arise ye, and let us rise up against her in battle. Behold, I have made thee small among the nations: thou art greatly despised. The pride of thine heart hath deceived thee, O thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, whose habitation is high; that saith in his heart, 'Who shall bring me down to the ground?' Though thou mount on high as the eagle, and though thy nest be set among the stars, I will bring thee down from thence, saith the Lord. If thieves came to thee, if robbers by night, would they not steal till they had enough? if grapegatherers came to thee, would they not leave some gleaning grapes?

How are the things of Esau searched out! how are his hidden treasures sought up! All the men of thy confederacy have brought thee on thy way, even to the border: the men that were at peace with thee have deceived thee, and prevailed against thee; they that eat thy bread lay a snare under thee: there is none understanding in him.

{371}{372}

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"THE PROPHETS"

From the frieze of "The Prophets," by Sargent, in the Boston Public Library.

The prophets here represented are Micah, Haggai, Malachi, and Zechariah.

[End ill.u.s.tration]

{373}

Shall I not in that day, saith the Lord, destroy the wise men out of Edom, and understanding out of the mount of Esau? And thy mighty men, O Teman, shall be dismayed, to the end that everyone may be cut off from the mount of Esau by slaughter. For the violence done to thy brother Jacob shame shall cover thee, and thou shalt be cut off for ever. In the day that thou stoodest on the other side, in the day that strangers carried away his substance, and foreigners entered into his gates, and cast lots upon Jerusalem, even thou wast as one of them.

But look not thou on the day of thy brother in the day of his disaster, and rejoice not over the children of Judah in the day of their destruction; neither speak proudly in the day of distress. Enter not into the gate of my people in the day of their calamity; yea, look not thou on their affliction in the day of their calamity, neither lay ye hands on their substance in the day of their calamity. And stand thou not in the mountain pa.s.ses, to cut off those of his that escape; and deliver not up those of his that remain in the day of distress.

For the day of the Lord is near upon all the nations: as thou hast done, it shall be done unto thee; thy dealing shall return upon thine own head. But in mount Zion there shall be those that escape, and it shall be holy; and the house of Jacob shall possess their possessions.

And the house of Jacob shall be a fire, and the house of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau for stubble, and they shall burn among them, and devour them, and there shall not be any remaining to the house of Esau; for the Lord hath spoken it.