Rechab, and others, reacted against this from the standpoint of their ancient, clan mishpat. As a consequence, the situation involved what may be figured as a head-on collision between moral codes. The monarchical government enlisted the organized force of the kingdom on the side of the usages of settled civilization, putting the judicial and military and police powers behind the extension of Amorite law throughout the entire land. It is not impossible that this outcome was foreseen by Samuel substantially as we find it in the book bearing his name. His warning was, that the king would represent a mishpat, or legal system, in which the peasantry would be heavily taxed and reduced to slavery, and in which their lands would fall into the possession of a small wealthy class of nobles. We are not surprised to find that the great mass of the people revolted against the house of David; nor are we surprised to see that the people of the Northern Kingdom destroyed one royal dynasty after another. What is yet more to the point, we are entirely prepared to find that these revolutions against the kings were supported by the prophets of Yahweh, such as Ahijah the Shilonite, Jehu ben Hanani, Elijah, and Elisha (I Kings, chaps. 11, 14-21; II Kings, chap. 9).

Having considered the social struggle from the times of David up into the ninth century B.C. (900-800), we shall now investigate the struggle as it is reflected in the writings of the prophets of later centuries-Amos, Hosea, Micah, Isaiah, and others.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE PROPHETS AND THE MISHPAT STRUGGLE

The prophets were chiefly interested not in the future, but in the problems of their own times.-As we turn from the books of Samuel and Kings to the writings of the prophets, we find the historical development moving onward in the same general terms without a break; and the details of the situation come out before us with an intimacy that we find nowhere else in the Bible.

It is just at this point that one who is turning away from the old view of the Bible begins to get a strong sense of the historical unfolding of Israel's experience. The literary prophets, from Amos onward, have been largely ignored by the older school of biblical interpretation. They have been treated in a mechanical way, as minor incidents, not vitally related to the Bible history. As a consequence, the prophets have not figured much in the thought of Christian people. They have been treated as men who were chiefly interested in the future. It has been supposed that "prophecy" was the equivalent of "prediction." It has been taken for granted that the prophets were mostly talking about "things to come,' and that their main value and significance lay in foretelling the birth and life of Jesus. But the primary meaning of the word "prophet," as well as of the Hebrew term nabi, does not relate to prediction, but simply to preaching. If, instead of saying, the "Book of the Prophet Amos," we should say, the "Book of the Preacher Amos," we should convey a more accurate impression of the facts. For the prophets were preachers, before everything else; and their attention was directed chiefly upon the conditions and problems of their own age. Beginning in the time treated by the fourteenth chapter of

II Kings, the writings of the prophets furnish a commentary on the mishpat struggle going on around them. By studying the prophetic books in relation to corresponding passages in Kings, we are able to go forward in our investigation.'

The literary prophets were intensely preoccupied with the "mishpat" struggle.—It should be emphasized at the outset that the problem of mishpat stood at the very center of the prophetic field of vision. The treatment of this great biblical term in modern translations cannot do justice to the meaning with which it is charged in the Hebrew. Beginning with Amos, in the eighth century B.C., we find the classic exhortation, "Let mishpat roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream" (Amos 5:24). Advancing through the prophetic books that lie along the years, we find a steady and unwavering stress upon the same, fundamental theme, until at last the motive clothes itself in the exalted visions of the post-exilic Isaiah.

Behold my Servant, whom I sustain-my Chosen, in whom my soul delighteth. I have put my spirit upon him. He shall bring forth mishpat [justice] to the nations. . . . . A cracked reed he shall not break, and the dimly burning wick he shall not extinguish. He shall faithfully bring forth mishpat. He shall not fail nor be discouraged till he have set mishpat in the earth; and the isles shall wait for his law (Isa. 42:1-4).a

Those who have not previously approached the Bible from this standpoint will find the following procedure to be very helpful: On the margin of II Kings, 14: 16, write, "Time of the prophet Amos. From this point onward, the books of the literary prophets give an intimate view of the situation." Opposite II Kings 14:23, write, "See Amos 1:1; Hos. 1:1. Compare king-names. This is Jeroboam II." Opposite II Kings 15:1, write, "See Amos 1:1." Opposite vs. 13, write, "See Amos 1:1; Hos. 1:1; Mic. 1:1; Isa. 1:1." Opposite vs. 30, write as opposite vs. 13. Opposite II Kings 16:20, write, "See Mic. 1:1; Hos. 1:1; Isa. 1:1." Opposite II Kings 18:1, write, "See Hos. 1:1; Mic. 1:1; Isa. 1:1." Opposite II Kings 22:1, write "See Jer. 1:2; Zeph. 1:1." Opposite II Kings 22:8, write, "An early edition of the Book of Deuteronomy." Opposite II Kings 23:34, and 24:18, write, "See Jer. 1:3." At the end of the Second Book of Kings, write, "Ezekiel prophesied in Babylonia during the Exile. The Book of Isaiah, beginning with chap. 40, is exilic and post-exilic."

2

To translate the term mishpat in this passage merely as "religion" is to obscure the fundamental meaning. The word is here distinctly related to consideration for the poor, who are symbolized by the reed just ready to break, and the light on the point of extinction. As Whitehouse observes, the word is here used "to express the entirety of 'judgments' or customs (usages) of Yahweh's religion."-Commentary on Isaiah (New York, Frowde), Vol. II, p. 81.

In the voices of these mighty prophets, deep answers unto deep across the tumults of history. In spite of differences of expression, the same problem is common to all the prophets. Amos declares that mishpat has been turned to "wormwood' (5:7; 6:12). This thought reappears in Hosea, where mishpat is spoken of as springing up like hemlock, or gall, in the furrows of the field (10:4). Amos longs to see mishpat established "in the gate" (5:15). gate" (5:15). Hosea says that Ephraim, or Northern Israel, is "crushed in mishpat" (5:11.) Micah says that he is full of power, "by the spirit of Yahweh and of mishpat," to declare to Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin (3:8). What does Yahweh require, but to do mishpat, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with thy god? (Mic. 6:8.) Learn to do well; seek mishpat, says Isaiah (1:17). Zion shall be redeemed with mishpat (Isa. 1:27). Woe to those that turn aside the needy from mishpat (10:2). Yahweh is a god of mishpat 30:18). Princes shall rule in mishpat (32:1). Zephaniah, making use of a beautiful figure, says that every morning Yahweh brings his mishpat to light (3:5). Jeremiah says that in all Jerusalem there is not a man that does mishpat (5:1). The needy do not get mishpat (Jer. 5:28). No longer may Judah remain in the Holy Land unless mishpat is thoroughly executed between man and man (7:5-7). Yahweh exercises mercy and mishpat in the land (9:24). Yahweh calls for the doing of mishpat (21:12; 22:3). Ezekiel gives an elaborate catalogue of the various lines of action wherein mishpat consists (18:5-27; see 33:14, 15). Yahweh will feed the people in mishpat (Ezek. 34:16). The princes are exhorted to do mishpat (45:9-12).

When we have succeeded in grasping the fact that all the prophets are absorbed in the same question, we have taken one more step toward solution of the Bible problem as a whole.

It comes to light again in Deut. 29:18.

The strong emphasis of the prophets upon this question is very impressive, and calls for the most careful study. We are even yet only upon the threshold of our theme.

The literary prophets all identify Yahweh with the "mishpat" inherited from the Israelite ancestry of the Hebrew nation.The passages already cited, together with many others of like force, make it clear, in the first place, that the prophets do not regard themselves as innovators. They remember and emphasize the connection of the national god with the ancient ideas and practices that came into the Hebrew nation from the Israelite side of its ancestry. Their view of the “mishpat of Yahweh" rests back on the social experience of Israel in the old, primitive, nomadic life of the desert, in the period of the Judges, and in the time of the highland kingdom under Saul. It was, indeed, the survival of these ideas and practices among the more backward social classes of the nation that gave the prophets their starting-point. In other words, the prophetic thought connected itself with the mishpat that prevailed among the Israelites before Israel was entangled with Amorite ideas and ways of life. Perception of this truth takes us another step into the problem. We have seen that the Hebrew nation was not ironed out into absolute social and religious uniformity; and our previous results and conclusions now begin to drop into place in the structure of biblical interpretation.

At first the prophets contended in a blind way against perversion of the old "mishpat."-The earlier prophets were not in a position to realize the nature of the situation in which they found themselves; and they could not understand the meaning and power of the forces against which they were fighting. The later Old Testament writers-such as the Deuteronomists, Ezekiel, and others-awoke to the fact that the essential thing in the national struggle was the entanglement of Israel with Amorite usages and ideas; and the modern scholar is in a position to see this even more clearly and certainly. But the earlier prophets