Additional reading is recommended from the following list of books, all in English. A number of significant German works are cited in the footnotes. A fuller, annotated English bibliography may be found in Gottwald, A Light to the Nations, pp. 553 ff.

Albright, NV. F., From the Stone Age to Christianity, Anchor Edition, Garden City, 1957.

Anderson, B. NV., Understanding the Old Testament, Englewood Cliffs, 1957.

Bentzen, A., Introduction to the Old Testament, Copenhagen, 1952, vols. I-II.

Bright, J., A History of Israel, Philadelphia, 1959.

Buber, M., Moses, Torchbook Edition, New York, 1958.

Buber, M., The Prophetic Faith, New York, 1949, (Torchbook Edition, 1960)

Burrows, M., An Outline of Biblical Theology, Philadelphia, 1946.

Childs, B., Myth and Reality in the Old Testament (Studies in Biblical Theology, No. 27), London, 1960.

Driver, S. R., An Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament, New York, 1910.

Gottwald, N. K., A Light to the Nations, New York, 1959.

Hahn, H., The Old Testament in Modern Research, Muhlenberg, 1954.

The Interpreter's Bible, Nashville, 1952-1957, vols. I-VI; especially articles by NV. A. Irwin, NV. F. Albright, J. Muhlenberg, and G. F. Wright (vol. I); Exodus Introduction and Exegesis by J.C. Rylaarsdam (vol. I); Job Introduction and Exegesis by S. Terrien (vol. III); Isaiah 1-39 Introduction and Exegesis by R. B. Y. Scott, and Isaiah 40-66 Introduction and Exegesis by J. Muhlenberg (vol. V); Lamentations Introduction by T. J. Meek, Ezekiel Introduction by H. G. May, Zechariah 9-12 and Malachi Introduction by R. C. Dentan (vol. VI).

Jacob, E., The Theology of the Old Testament, New York, 1958.

Mowinckel, S., He that Cometh, New York, 1954.

Napier, B. D., From Faith to Faith, New York, 1955.

Noth, M., The History of Israel, trans. S. Godman (from Geschichte Israels, 2nd ed.) New York, 1958.

Pedersen, J., Israel, Its Life and Culture, London, 1926 and 1940, vols. I-II, III-IV.

Pritchard, J. B., ed., Ancient Near Eastern Texts, 2nd ed., Princeton, 1955. von Rad, G., Genesis, trans. J. Marks (from Das Erste Buch Mose, in the series Das Alte Testament Deutsche, vol. II) Philadelphia, 1961. von Rad, G., Moses, New York, 1960. von Rad, G., Studies in Deuteronomy (Studies in Biblical Theology, No. 9), London, 1953.

Robinson, H. W. Inspiration and Revelation in the Old Testament, Oxford, 1946.

Robinson, H. W. The Cross in the Old Testament, Philadelphia, 1955.

Rowley, H. H., The Biblical Doctrine of Election, London, 1950.

Rowley, H. H., The Servant of the Lord and Other Essays, London, 1952.

Rowley, H. H., ed., Studies in Old Testament Prophecy, Edinburgh, 1950.

Rowley, H. H., ed., The Old Testament and Modern Study, Oxford, 1951.

Scott, R. B. Y., The Relevance of the Prophets, New York, 1947.

Snaith, N. H., The Distinctive Ideas of the Old Testament, London, 1944.

Voegelin, E., Israel and Revelation, Baton Rouge, 1956.

Vriezen, T. C., An Outline of Old Testament Theology, Boston, 1958.

Wellhausen, J., Prolegomena to the History of Israel, 1885 (Meridian Edition, 1957).

Wright, G. E., Biblical Archaeology, Philadelphia and London, 1957.

Two kings span the major part of the seventy years of Neo-Babylonian ascendancy (in round numbers, 610-540 B.C.). Nebuchadnezzar (605[4]-562) is one of history's strongest men. He was Babylon; and as long as he lived, Babylon's power was unassailable. He administered Jerusalem's surrender and the first deportation in 597; the city's three-year siege, its fall and destruction, and the second deportation of 587; and a third act of aggression and deportation in 582. The number of these involuntary exiles was not large - about forty-six hundred according to Jeremiah 52:28-30; but since this is probably the number of adult males, we would not be far wrong in assuming a grand total of, say, fifteen to twenty thousand. It is clear that their lot, as exiles, was uncommonly good. This last fact, together with the dismal physical state of Judah, no doubt attracted some voluntary Jewish exiles to Babylonian settlements. Other Judeans certainly moved, out of preference, to Egypt (Jer. 42-43).

Babylon's collapse began in the years immediately following Nebuchadnezzar's death (562). The Babylonian demise was presided over by Nabonidus (556-539), who seized the throne after its occupancy by several other ill-fated rulers. It is possible that Nabonidus would have looked better in some other historical epoch: it was his personal misfortune to share the days of his years with Cyrus the Great, who literally took Babylon and its empire away from him.

Like Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus stands as one of history's most powerful men. But he is also one of history's wiser emperors. Of Persian origin, he appears as early as 559 as an administrator of promise in an Elamite province belonging to Media called Anshan. From Anshan he gained control of the empire of the Medes which had been able to maintain itself by treaty even through the years of Babylon's strength. Having won all the Median territory, Cyrus moved west and north and with remarkable ease annexed the Lydian empire (Asia Minor). Astutely, he did not hurry to conquer Babylon. Time, Babylon's internal confusion, and his own growing prestige all worked for him; and when at last in October, 539, he moved in battle array against the city, the populace threw open the gates and poured out of the city to welcome him.

So it was that Cyrus, this combination of Mede and Persian, became the ruler of the ancient world, the first non-Semitic occupant of the emperor's throne in the ancient Middle East. He ruled as had none of his predecessors. It is a fundamental fact of his administration that he respected the dignity and the integrity - short of political independence, of course - of all subject peoples; and in consequence he not only permitted, but apparently on occasion encouraged and supported, the reestablishment of broken peoples and their traditional ways and institutions. It was in the first year of his assumption of Babylonian rule that he set in motion the machinery for Judah's renewal with a favorable edict permitting and supporting the return of exiles and the rebuilding of the Temple. We say "exiles" - they were by that time for the most part second and even third generation "Babylonians":

The restoration project was placed in charge of Shesh-bazzar, prince of Judah. Presumably he set out for Jerusalem as soon as practicable, accompanied by such Jews (Ezra 1:5) as had been fired by their spiritual leaders with a desire to have a part in the new day. How large a company this was we cannot say. The list of Ezra, ch. 2, which reappears in Neh., ch. 7, belongs later. . .But it is unlikely that any major return of exiles took place at this time. After all, Palestine was a faraway land which only the oldest could remember; and the journey thither difficult and dangerous; the future of the venture was at best uncertain. Moreover, many Jews were by this time well established in Babylon. . . . It is probable that only a few of the boldest and most dedicated spirits were willing to accompany Shesh~bazzar.²

Others came back to the old "land of promise" in the years to follow, probably never in large numbers. But there is a sense in which "Israel" was gathered again. Houses and fields and vineyards were again bought and sold in the land even as Jeremiah had boldly predicted (Jer. 32: 15). The Temple and its cultus were reconstituted, the walls of Jerusalem finally rebuilt, and covenant life in covenant community was resumed - not, to be sure, in demonstrable terms of Jeremiah's and Ezekiel's new covenant, but at least so as to provide substance for the preservation of that hope and expectation.

From Isaiah to Second Isaiah

The prophet of this epoch is nameless. We call him the Second Isaiah because the substance of his prophetism - such as we have - is preserved in the book of Isaiah. Probably chapters 34-35 are his; certainly chapters 40-55; and perhaps some of the oracles in chapters 56-66. This is the extent of Second Isaiah, either as directly recorded or as "remembered" in the same prophetic circles to which he himself had belonged.

It was no accident that brought together the prophetic utterances of these two Isaiahs. Their prophetism (as well as that of "Third" Isaiah in 56-66, and "Fourth" Isaiah in 24-27) is of the same essential character. It is prophetism out of a common, enduring Yahwistic tradition; but even more, it is out of a distinctively cultivated and maintained Yahwistic prophetism. The oracles of the Isaiahs were preserved, if not all originally created, in circles of prophetism which knew a common and sustained theological discipline. This theory predicates a peculiarly "Isaianic" prophetic tradition the major record of which, created over a number of centuries, is the book of Isaiah.

The explicit and implicit theme throughout is the holiness of Yahweh which is the "God-ness" of Yahweh - his greatness, his unqualified adequacy, his absolute sufficiency. And yet at the same time holiness means above all else that Yahweh keeps close to Israel, that he could not abandon them without denying himself. The holy one dwells in the high places, yet comes down to the contrite and humble (Isa. 57:15), for although holiness is that which qualifies God as god it is also that in him which is most human. The holy one of Israel is he who gives his word (Isa. 5:24; 30:12,15), the one who is always near to help (Isa. 3 1:1; 37:23), whose blessings are so evident that the peoples will exclaim: "Yahweh is only found in you" (Isa. 45: 14).³

The holiness of Yahweh is at once distinct and radiant.⁴ This quality which removes Yahweh from man as the heavens are removed from the earth conveys at the same time his immediate impingement, his "historicity," his self-disclosure in human life and human community, his "in-the-midst-ness" (notice the repeated phrase throughout the book of Isaiah, "the holy one of Israel ). This holiness of Yahweh is the explicit theme of Second Isaiah, as it is also of Isaiah of Jerusalem some two centuries earlier. There is, however, a significant difference. For the eighth-century Isaiah the understanding of Yahweh as holy devolves from history. It is history which informs the prophet of this essential quality of Yahweh. In Second Isaiah's prophetism, demonstrably nurtured in a solidly Isaianic tradition, the holiness of Yahweh takes priority over history, that is, it is history now which devolves from Yahweh's holiness. It is from the holiness of Yahweh that all history is informed. Yahweh's holy nature is the prior fact which conditions history. It is in this sense and for this reason that Second Isaiah has been called "the originator of a theology of world-history."⁵

The common theme of Yahweh's holiness in both Isaiahs and their common use of closely related subthemes could hardly account for the anonymity of the Second Isaiah. By any criteria - literary, poetic, theological - he can be ranked second to none of the classical prophets. The movement of classical prophetism attains its ultimate expression in him. The finest qualities of his predecessors are his, some of those qualities more intense or more subtle, or still further refined; and to an extent unmatched in any other prophet, Second Isaiah's prophetism gives coherent unity to virtually the whole range of prophetic Yahwism, embracing at once all the centuries from the two previous "beginnings" in Moses' and the Yahwist's days to this new beginning in his own and Cyrus' day. How right that one should say, "In many ways he stands closest to the writer of Israel's most glorious epic, the Yahwist, and he grasps the distances and guises of the epic with fidelity and certitude."⁶

Now it is simply unthinkable that the name of this most powerful prophet should have fallen into obscurity - unless the prophet himself had regarded his work as an extension of Isaiah's prophetism and had insisted that this name be also his own identification. Such would appear to be the case. We have already observed the apparent fact that Isaiah of Jerusalem, at some point in his career, deemed inappropriate the further proclamation of the Word of renewal beyond the coming catastrophe.

Bind up the testimony, seal the teaching among my disciples. I will wait for Yahweh, who is hiding his face from the house of Jacob, and I will hope in him. (Isa. 8:16-17)

The word for disciples is limmudim. This is the first occurrence of this form from its root lmd and the first instance in the Old Testament of a word which is properly rendered "disciples." The same form of the word does not occur again until Second Isaiah, and it is subsequently found nowhere else. The original Isaiah proposed in effect that it was not yet time for the full-scale prophetic Word of redemption. Let the Word be sealed among his disciples until the hour of its fulfillment, lest its premature preaching lend itself to the increase of popular complacency and pride.

And so, a year or two before the fall of Babylon, with Cyrus long in the public eve and his administrative policies long known and admired, this prophet from among Isaiah's continuing circle of disciple-prophets breaks the living seal. The message of redemption from this second Egypt, of a second exodus and a second entrance into the land of promise, is brought forth from its place of living seclusion in the hearts of Isaiah's disciples.

The Lord Yahweh has given me the tongue of limmudim [disciples: RSV, "those who are taught"] that I may know how to sustain with a word him that is weary.

Morning by morning he wakens, he wakens my ear to hear as limmudim. (Isa. 50:4)

The term is used once more by Second Isaiah, this time to express the expectation in faith that as he is among Isaiah's limmudim, so Israel shall be limmudim of Yahweh: "A11 your sons shall be limmudim of Yahweh!" (54:13).⁷

From Cyrus to Servant

The main body of Second Isaiah's oracles, chapters 40-55, is perhaps intentionally divided into two sections. In chapters 40-48 the subject is almost exclusively the deliverance of the captive people - their physical, political release from "captivity" in the very near future. Chapters 49-55 differ from this first section in two more or less subtle regards. The sense of immediate deliverance is heightened: one wonders if these oracles may not have been created in the very year of the first return, although still before the actual fact. And the quality of deliverance takes on a more pronounced spiritualization: much more prominently now, the expectation of Jacob/Israel's reconstitution is charged with meaning and consequences more theological than political, although that quality is not wanting in the first section. The hope, rapturously articulated throughout, is in the second section much more conspicuously a sweeping, profound interpretation of the sharply anticipated event. It is an interpretation which gathers up in essence and projects in essence the substance of Israelite Yahwism, daringly embracing again the whole world, and with the consummate audacity of bold faith, bringing into single focus all generations in all time. What does this event of redemption mean, together with all that was Israel before? Altogether it means nothing less than light to the nations of the world and salvation to the end of the earth" (see 49:6). Now certainly this is an expectation - a projection of faith - never literally realized; and it may well be that it remains ultimately beyond historical realization. And yet, in the last analysis, it is this essential interpretation which nurtures and motivates the faith of Judaism and Christianity. Second Isaiah's phenomenal articulation of faith, hope. and love has known this kind of reality through a long past, and will surely continue to know it into an indefinite future in the biblical religions.

This movement from 40-48 to 49-55 is most sharply pointed up in the shift of emphasis from the political figure of Cyrus to the theological figure of the Servant. On the eve of Cyrus' elevation to the pinnacle of world power, this prophet of the Isaiah name speaks of Cyrus in terms that sound in the Old Testament almost - but certainly not - sacrilegious. >From chapter 40 to chapter 45 the word is one of comfort and high expectation. The creator of these soaring lines lyrically enunciates the single dominant theme: It's over! The anguish and the sorrow, the bitterness and the loneliness are behind us now. Israel will be Israel again. Our chaos is about to be transformed into joyful order, our previous bleak, unloved existence into loving security. Yahweh himself is about to

. . .feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms, he will carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young. (40:11)

The creation faith is articulated and emphasized as it has not been since the Yahwist's day, but in no sense as abstract support for a proposition of "theoretical monotheism." Second Isaiah remains a prophet, not a philosopher or even a theologian. This faith in creation is nowhere abstracted; it is nowhere propositional. It is always enunciated specifically for "existential" reasons - to support, undergird, substantiate the prophetic Word of impending release. This message seems incredible - but it is Yahweh who will do this! And who is Yahweh?

Have you not known? Have you not heard?

Has it not been told you from the beginning?

Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?

It is he who sits above the circle of the earth,

.............................. who stretches out the heavens like a curtain (40:21 f.)

The power of the Creator in the first exodus is recalled, not now for itself, but in support of the prophetic Word of the imminent second exodus front the second Egypt, as a historical witness to the creation faith:

I am Yahweh, your Holy One, the Creator of Israel, your King.

..............................

Who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters,

.............................

Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?

I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert

.............................. to give drink to my chosen people, the people whom I formed for myself that they might declare my praise. (see 43:15-21)

And the instrument by which this event of Israel's re-creation will be effected?

Thus says Yahweh, your Redeemer, who formed you from the womb,

. . .who made all things

. . .who confirms the word of his servant

. . .who says of Jerusalem, 'She shall be inhabited'

. . .who says of the deep, 'Be dry'

. . .who says of Cyrus, 'He is my shepherd. . ."

Thus says Yahweh to his anointed [m^eshiah= messiah], to Cyrus, whose right hand I have grasped,

...........................

"I will go before you and level mountains,

............................

For the sake of my servant Jacob, and Israel my chosen,

I call you by your name. . ." (see 44:24-45:4)

Thus says Yahweh, the Holy One of Israel, and his Maker:

.............................

I made the earth, and created man upon it;

It was my hands that stretched out the heavens, and I commanded all their host.

I have aroused him (Cyrus) in righteousness, and I will make straight all his ways; he shall build my city and set my exiles free (see 45:11-13)

Cyrus does not appear again. The figure which takes his place is the figure of the Servant. It is not impossible (we do not and cannot know) that the prophet has Cyrus in mind in the first of the four Servant Songs (42:1-4). Compared to his predecessors on the throne of the Middle East, this man Cyrus was indeed gentle and just and faithful. His own words on the Cyrus Cylinder (inscribed on a clay barrel) support this characterization:

(Marduk, God of Babylon) scanned and looked through all the countries, searching for a righteous ruler. . . . He beheld with pleasure Cyrus' good deeds and his upright heart (and therefore) ordered him to march against his city Babylon. . . . going at his side like a real friend. His widespread troops - their number, like that of the water of a river, could not be established - strolled along, their weapons packed away. Without any battle, he made him enter his town Babylon, sparing Babylon and calamity. . .Happily [the inhabitants] greeted him as a master through whose help they had come (again) to life from death (and) had all been spared damage and disaster, and they worshiped his (very) name.⁸

But in three subsequent poems dealing with the person of the Servant, his function and mission, all in the second division of chapters (49:1-6; 50:4-9; and 52:13-53:12), the Servant clearly cannot be Cyrus, and the Servant's mission has gone quite beyond any historical accomplishment of Cyrus.

Can the Servant in the four Songs be Israel? In a number of other contexts, all but one in the first division, Israel is collectively identified as a servant:

But you, Israel, my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen (41:8)

You are my witnesses and my servant (43:10)

But now hear, O Jacob my servant, Israel whom I have chosen (44:1)

Remember these things. O Jacob, and Israel, for you are my servant; I formed you, you are my servant (44:21)

For the sake of my servant Jacob, and Israel my chosen (45:4)

Declare this with a shout of joy Yahweh has redeemed his servant Jacob!" (48:20)

Yet the specific identification of Servant and Israel appears only once (49:3) in the four Songs, and in a line suspected of having been tampered with (but suspected chiefly for this reason, that it alone of the Servant Songs expressly equates Servant and Israel).

The identity of the Servant will remain indefinitely a matter of debate. You draw your own conclusions on the strength of a fresh, contemplative reading of the four Songs in immediate sequence. There can be absolutely no doubt that collective Israel - judged, smitten by Yahweh, disfigured, uprooted - has at least influenced the understanding of the meaning and mission of the Servant. Even if the Servant figure is consistently or only at times conceived as an individual (on the pattern of a Jeremiah, or perhaps the prophet himself, or a contemporary, or someone yet to appear), the very individualization is obviously shaped in the prophet's mind, consciously or unconsciously, by his people's corporate experience in the days from Nebuchadnezzar to Cyrus. The rule holds: the great affirmations of the Old Testament people are all historically conditioned; and it is again the major events of exodus, David-Zion, destruction, and now reconstitution which most radically determine the structure of their faith. To be sure Second Isaiah is able to begin with the holiness of Yahweh; and he does indeed see all history devolving in meaning therefrom. But the precise form of this "theology" is as powerfully influenced by the events of his own century as the prophetism of Isaiah by events of the eighth, or Jeremiah by those of the seventh and sixth centuries.

PROPHETIC UNDERSTANDING

I am God and not Man.

Hos. 11:9

If we essay a single broad look at classical prophetism as a whole, a number of concepts emerge as most crucial and characteristic. The essence of prophetism is embraced in the prophets' understanding of (1) Word and symbol, (2) election and covenant, (3) rebellion and judgment, (4) compassion and redemption, and (5) consummation.

Thus Says Yahweh: Word and Symbol

As we have seen, the Word was regarded as an entity containing and releasing divine power to accomplish itself, that is, to perform or bring to pass its content. In relationship to the prophet himself and his call, we witness the phenomenon of the psychology of captivity - a self-consciousness in vocation characterized by feelings of having been overpowered by the Word of Yahweh. This is evident in the three remarkable call-narratives of Isaiah 6, Jeremiah I, and Ezekiel I; pointedly in Amos 3:8, 7:15; and in Jeremiah 20:8b f.

We have seen that this sense of the entity and power of the Word explains in great part the concentrated emotional character of the prophets and their deep anguish in proclaiming the negative message. To announce catastrophe under the formula "Thus says Yahweh" is in the prophetic psychology to take a direct hand in the destructive event. The very proclamation of doom releases the power to produce the debacle.

What is true of the Word is also true of the prophets' symbolic acts. The devices of symbolism (e.g., the use of names, Hos. 1 and Isa. 7 and 8, and the singular, sometimes weird dramatizations of Jeremiah and Ezekiel) are simply graphic extensions of the Word which possess for both the prophet and his people a quality of realism ultimately unfathomable to the Western mind. The dramatized Word, like the uttered Word, is deemed by the prophet to be charged with the power of performance.

Now, if we recall another psychological phenomenon in ancient Israel, the normative sense of corporate personality, the identity of the one in the many and the many in the one, we are able to understand that in their application of Word and Symbol the prophets became not only executioners of Israel, but at once also their own executioners. In the destructive Word and Symbol directed at the people they are themselves destroyed in profoundly realistic psychological meaning.

All of this may be (and probably is) a survival out of primitive, mimetic magic. But the transformation is striking. Magic coerces the unseen powers. But the prophet is overwhelmed by the sense of Yahweh's coerciveness. Rather than aiming at control of the deity, the prophetic symbol is inspired, performed, and interpreted at the behest of the Word of Yahweh, to bring to pass the judgment and will of Yahweh in Israel and the world.⁹

Election and Covenant

Out of Egypt I called my son.

Hos. 11:1

The sense of election, of having been specially chosen for a special function, is not limited to the prophets; and the actual term for covenant, in Hebrew berith appears rarely if at all in the classical, pre-exilic prophets. But in prophetism election takes on a prophetically refined meaning; and covenant is a concept everywhere assumed, despite the striking absence of the term itself. The prophets may have deliberately avoided using the term because of the widespread popular misunderstanding which made the idea of covenant the food for a narrow, prideful, exclusive nationalism.

Covenant is the working extension of election, the implementation of election. In the Old Testament, covenant is the working contract between unequal parties, initiated by the senior party in the act of election.¹⁰ And in prophetism, the concept of election covenant is basic to the interpretation of Israel's existence. If the prophets speak on behalf of social and economic justice, they do not preach a general abstract morality, but pointedly and specifically proclaim an election/covenant ethic, the sense of which is something like this: You shall refrain from this practice, or you shall do thus-and-so, because I am Yahweh who brought you up out of Egypt (election) and you are a people voluntarily committed in return to the performance of my righteous will (covenant). The motivation of the prophetic ethic is election. The nature of that ethic is determined by the covenant. And so it is that we speak of the theological ethic of the prophets.

Rebellion and Judgment

They went from me . . . they shall return to Egypt.

Hos. 11:2,5

The prophetic indictment is not merely of Israel (see Isa. 10:5 ff.; Amos 1-2; and the blocks of oracles against the nations in Isa. 13-23, Jer. 46-51, and Ezek. 25-32). It is the rebelliousness of man against God that is ultimately indicted. But for the prophet, Israel nevertheless stands at the very hub of existence as the nucleus of the vast area of God's concern. She is peculiarly electee and covenanter. In her relationship to Yahweh there is a special intensity and intimacy, a more specific and immediate purpose and mission. Therefore, the judgment of her rebelliousness is unique.

Israel's alienation from Yahweh is willful and complete, the shocking betrayal of her pride and arrogance which appear all the more reprehensible against the background of such relationships as father-son (Isa. 1:2 ff., for example), or owner-vineyard (Isa. 5), or even husband-wife (Jer. 2:2-7; Ezek. 16:8-15; and of course Hosea). Israel's rebelliousness is infidelity; her infidelity, pride. Prophetism is persuaded that this is the sickness-unto-death not only of Israel but of all men. It is the condition which brings Israel, and ultimately the world, under judgment.

The Hebrew root shaphat, "to judge," conveys an act by which wrong is righted by punishment of the aggressor, by restitution to the victim, or by both. Offenders of all sorts are to be judged, but so are the victims of abuse and misfortune (e.g., Isa. 1:17). Thus, judgment is the realization of justice.

We have already marked classical prophetism's orientation in catastrophe, either the fall of North or South Israel. This is divine judgment, the establishment of justice, the re-balancing of the scales between Yahweh and Israel. It means political death for Israel, a figurative return to Egypt. But at the same time it rights the wrong, and more than this, it provides - it is intended by Yahweh himself to provide - the context for the resumption of a productive, meaningful relationship between Yahweh and Israel.

We have seen the staggering power and stunning language of the proclamation of judgment. If the prophets entertain personal hopes that it may be averted (as they surely do) or that it will work for good in an Israel that loves God (as emphatically they do), the character of the proclamation remains nevertheless uncompromised. The force of the judgment is appropriate to the force of Israel's rejection of Yahweh:

You have smitten them, but they felt no anguish; you have consumed them, but they refused to take correction.

They have made their faces harder than rock; they have refused to repent. . .

They have spoken falsely of Yahweh, and have said, "He will do nothing" [lit., "He is not"]

..................................

Therefore thus says Yahweh, the God of hosts:

"Because they have spoken this word, behold I am making my words in your mouth a fire, and this people wood, and the fire shall devour them." (Jer. 5:3,12,14; but see also vv. 1-17)

At the same time, prophetism always intends to and wants to proclaim judgment in the full sense of justice - the setting right of the woefully wrong, the re-ordering of that which is tragically awry - so that the very objects of judgment are restored. It does this in part by setting the issue between Yahweh and Israel in terms of current judicial practice (cf., e.g., Amos 3:1; Hos. 4:1; Isa. 1:2,18 ff.; 3:13; Mic. 6:1 ff.). It is the just and righteous Yahweh who accuses. He renders the verdict. And it is he who is responsible for the execution of the judgment.

The positive quality of judgment becomes clearer in the brief discussions that follow.

Compassion and Redemption

How can 1 give you up, O Ephraim. . . . 1 will return them to their homes.

Hos. 11:8,11

As a whole, the prophets give passionate testimony to their faith that in the context of Israel's life under election/covenant, her rebellion and judgment call forth at once Yahweh's compassion and redemption.

The term hesed best conveys the unique quality of Yahweh's compassion. It is variously rendered mercy, kindness (or loving-kindness), devotion, faithfulness, or even grace. In the RSV it is most commonly "steadfast love." The root sense in Hebrew conveys the quality of sustaining strength. Hesed is often an attribute of covenant, either the Yahweh-Israel covenant or a family covenantal relationship such as husband-wife or father-son. But as the prophets use the term (notably Hosea, Jeremiah, and II Isaiah), hesed is no longer dependent upon Covenant or one of a number of covenant's attributes; but covenant becomes subordinate to hesed. Covenant is subject to control and transformation by compassion that is hesed (see, for example, Hos. 2:16 ff. and 11:8 ff.; Jer. 3:12; Isa. 54:7 f.). If hesed begins in the structure of covenant, it ends with covenant as its own renewed creation:

For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed,

But my hesed shall not depart from you and my covenant of peace shall not be removed, says Yahweh, who has compassion on you. (Isa. 54:10)

Compassion of the hesed quality is compounded of grace and is, of course, rooted and sustained in the love of God:

I have loved you with an everlasting love; this is why I have maintained my hesed toward you. (Jer. 31:3)

Out of Egypt, into this land, back to Egypt again. But "I am God and not man" (Hos. 11:9). Prophetism, in the knowledge of Yahweh's compassion, sees a second act of Yahweh's redemption of Israel from chaos - a redemption to be effected by Israel's return to the land, redemption by the reconstitution of Israel. And this insight, this faith, this expectation was already a part of prophetism in the eighth century. If the first Isaiah was convinced of Israel's doom, he was also persuaded of Yahweh's compassionate purpose in judgment-justice; he was persuaded of a judgment-justice never primarily punitive in intention but redemptive in Yahweh's conception. If judgment is wrath at all, it is purposive wrath, not vindictive wrath. Yahweh's judgment is not an end itself, but the necessary measure to make redemption possible:

I will turn my hand against you and will smelt away your dross. . . and remove all your alloy. (Isa. 1:25)

The remnant that will survive the catastrophe (Isa. 7:1 ff.) is in the same way at once negative but also predominantly positive in its import.

Hosea warmly expounds the same theme (2: 14-23; 5:15; 7:13,15; 11:11). It is pervasive if sometimes implicit in Jeremiah, as witness for example, the familiar lines on the new covenant (Jer. 31:33 f.). In Ezekiel this conviction that Yahweh's judgment is ultimately positive is given singularly moving expression in the prophet's vision of the valley of death, that vast, open grave exposing the skeletons of all the house of Israel (Ezek. 37).

So, deep in the sixth century, on the very eve of the second exodus, the voice of prophetism, summoning into a single moment of time the act of creation and the first exodus, proclaims the now old prophetic faith in the redemptive purpose of Yahweh's judgment:

Awake, awake, put on strength,

O arm of Yahweh; awake, as in the days of old, the generations of long ago.

Was it not you that didst cut Rahab in pieces, that didst pierce the dragon? [a reference to the destruction of chaos at creation]

Was it not you that didst dry up the sea, the waters of the great deep; that didst make the depths of the sea a way for the redeemed to pass over? [the exodus from Egypt, of course] (Isa. 51:9-10)

And now, having brought into the same moment of time the creation of the world and the creation of Israel, the prophet proclaims a third comparable event which is about to be the end and purpose of judgment - a new creation, a new people, a new world!

And the ransomed of Yahweh shall return, and come with singing to Zion;

Everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away. (Isa. 51:11)

Faith in such measure, proclaimed with such rapture, cannot be and is not contained in any concept of one people's redemption, of Israel's redemption alone.

A Light to the Nations: Consummation

In its ultimate projection, prophetic faith points, if not beyond history, at least to a history radically transformed. In the face of an existence which appeared to be as hard and as featureless as a rock, this faith, grounded in the conviction that existence is nevertheless Yahweh-given and Yahweh-ruled, came to insist finally that such an existence would have only limited duration. The totality of existence is Yahweh's, and his countenance is neither hard nor featureless: he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in hesed. (Joel 2:13)11

Moreover, Yahweh has spoken the Word that in Abraham/ Israel all the nations of the earth shall be blessed (Gen. 12: 3), and his Word cannot but accomplish that purpose to which he sends it (Isa. 55:11).

The notion of the historical redemption of Israel alone was never able to contain the prophetic faith or answer prophetism's pressing questions about the meaning of Israel's existence. Even, sometimes, where the terms are of Israel's redemption, the prophetic intensity of feeling and pressure of conviction mark the intent to be universal. This is true of Isaiah 51:9-11 which we have just quoted above. It is also true of such passages as Hosea 2:18-23, Jeremiah 23:5 f., and especially Isaiah 9:2-7. In all these the prophetic disposition and intention embraces all men.

It is appropriate to any summary such as this that prophetism speak its own concluding lines to express its faith in consummation; and it is perhaps inevitable that these lines should most naturally be drawn from the tradition of the Isaiahs. Whatever the identity of the Servant, one thinks at once of Yahweh's word to him:

It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved of Israel;

I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth. (Isa. 49:6)

Whatever the identity of Servant and speaker in the next lines, the sense of the redemption of corporate man is unambiguous:

Surely he [the Servant] has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that made us whole and with his stripes we are healed. (Isa. 53:4-5)

From the line of David, out of the stuff and substance of history, "a shoot from the stump of Jesse" (David's father) will be endowed with the spirit of Yahweh:

He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear; but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth. (Isa. 11:3 f.)

The vision moves now tenderly to the lower orders of creation to make the consummation complete and concludes with reference to all things under creation:

They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of Yahweh as the waters cover the sea. (Isa. 11:9)

1. Isa. 34-35; 40-55.

2. John Bright, A History of Israel, Philadelphia, 1959, p. 344.

3. E. Jacob, Theology of the Old Testament, New York, 1958, p. 90.

4. Cf. M. Buber, The Prophetic Faith, New York, 1949, pp. 128f.

5. Ibid., p. 208.

6. J. Muilenberg. "Introduction, Isaiah 40-66," The Interpreter's Bible, Nashville, 1956, vol. V. p. 397. See the whole of his superb essay, pp. 381-414.

7. Cf. Buber, op. cit., pp. 201-205.

8. For the full text of the cylinder, see James B. Pritchard, ed., Ancient Near Eastern Texts, 2nd ed., Princeton, 1955, pp. 315f.

9. For a fuller discussion of this idea, see B. D. Napier, "Prophets, Prophetism," Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, Nashville, 1962.

10. Cf. G. E. Mendenhall, Law and Covenant in Israel, Pittsburgh, 1955.

11. Cf Jon. 4:2.

The question of authorship and date of the various poems brought together at the Close of the book of Isaiah, in chapters 56-66, involves us in uncertainty. As a collection, this block cannot be earlier than the last ten or fifteen years of the century. Some sections seem to presuppose a firmly reinstituted temple cultus, which was not realized until after the rebuilding of the temple in the years from 520-515 (see especially chs. 56 and 58). Although the literary quality of the whole is worthy of its position in the book of Isaiah, at points there is a conspicuous unevenness in verbal texture and theological point of view, precluding we think the possibility of unity of authorship.

On the other hand, we read here several poems hardly distinguishable from the work of Second Isaiah; and we must conclude, therefore, that Isaiah 56-66 comes out of continuing Isaianic circles of prophetism surviving the sixth-century debacle, and had as its nucleus a small collection of Second Isaiah's oracles not incorporated in 40-55 and perhaps of somewhat later origin (see especially the three chapters, 60-62, and the Servant Song in 61:1-4).

Some of classical prophetism's persistent themes are sounded again, reinterpreted out of the broadening experiences of the sixth century. Of "foreigners who join themselves" to this religious community of Jews, this is the Yahweh Word:

These I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer;
for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples. (56:7)

The bitter prophetic word of "peace, peace, when there is no peace" (Jer. 8:11) of the preceding century is answered out of the same essential prophetic faith addressing now a new time:

Thus says the high and lofty one who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy:
I dwell in the high and holy place, but also with him who is of a contrite and humble spirit,
I will lead him [my people] and requite him with comfort,
Peace, peace, to the far and to the near, says Yahweh. (see 57:15-19)

If Sabbath observance and other external observations of the revived cultus are enjoined (56:2-5; 58:13-14), the classical prophetic note, the theological-social ethic, is still resoundingly here:

Behold, in the day of your fast you seek your own pleasure.
Is such the fast that I choose a day for a man to humble himself?
It is to bow down his head like a rush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him?
Is not this [rather] the fast that I choose:
to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke!
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
. when you see the naked, to cover him,
Then shall your light break forth like the dawn. (see 58:1-12)

Israel's mission is nothing less than the world's redemption: "Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising" (see 60:1-3).

The servant is here, the anointed one, the messiah (a resurrected, personified Israel, or one out of Israel nevertheless embodying in himself all Israel?) - the Servant, prophetism's boldest and most profound conception, the assertion of the fulfillment of the covenant, and implicitly the assurance that Yahweh's promissory Word to bless the families of the earth is now accomplished (61:1-4).

The Return

These are relatively dark years. Throughout the two centuries of Persian dominance (in round numbers, 540-330) it is always difficult and sometimes impossible to know the nature and sequence of events in Jerusalem and Judah. What we know of the first century of the Persian period in Palestine comes (in addition to what we can glean from Isaiah 56-66) from five Old Testament writings. Two of these purport to be historical books: Ezra and Nehemiah. Three are in the prophetic Canon: Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi.

When we move into the fourth century it is clear that we have to do with a theocratic community, a state ruled by priests. The temple and walls of Jerusalem have been restored. But exactly how and in what sequence all of this occurred in the sixth and fifth centuries we can only conjecture.

The books Ezra and Nehemiah are unmistakably the editorial work of the Chronicler. I and II Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah, were originally a single book, dating probably from 300 B.C. or later. The Chronicler employed a wide range of sources, with which he apparently exercised great freedom. He is not a historian in any sense of the word, but an apologist: he conceives his task as that of glorifying the Kingdom of David, its history, its people, its city, its temple, and its theocratic life. To this end, he happily preserves for us some of the Old Testament's most valuable historical material, including the memoirs of Ezra (Ezra 7:27-28; 8:1-34; 9:1-15) and Nehemiah (but more extensively edited, in Neh. 1-7).

The verbal accuracy of Cyrus' decree as "remembered" by the Chronicler in Ezra 1:2-4 has been doubted; but the fact of a favorable edict and the first return, substantially as described, is certain. Formalized worship of some sort was no doubt reinstituted early; but if the Chronicler exaggerates the returnees' ardor in this regard (he has them beginning intensive work on the Temple almost immediately, Ezra 3:8 ff.), his date for the completion of the work (the sixth year of the reign of Darius I, 521-485, i.e., 516[15]) is supported, although not confirmed, by Haggai and Zechariah. The number of persons (and animals) participating in the first return is grossly excessive:

The whole assembly together was forty-two thousand three hundred and sixty, besides their menservants and maidservants, of whom there were seven thousand three hundred and thirty-seven; and they had two hundred male and female singers. Their horses were seven hundred and thirty-six, their mules were two hundred and forty-five, their camels were four hundred and thirty-five and their asses were six thousand seven hundred and twenty. (Ezra 2:64-66)

The first-century Jewish historian Josephus makes us appreciate the relative modesty of this inflation of numbers: Josephus makes it 4,628,000!

The first rapture fades quickly. It is, of course, a trying, frustrating existence in this land of physical destruction and of utterly deflated morale. The Jerusalem community finds itself hungry and ill-clothed. They cannot build the temple when the fundamental necessities are in woefully short supply. Haggai succeeds in getting the task of building under way (see Hag. 1:1-15). But a few weeks later the work has flagged and he is hard put to it to get the task resumed (2:3-5,9). At the close of the little book of Haggai, this stalwart leader and prophet interprets the current trouble suffered by Darius I within his empire (around 520 B.C.) as a sign of the new era in which, under Jerusalem's own Zerubbabel as the messiah, the nation will be reborn into a glorious future (2:20-23).

Haggai and Zechariah agree in dating the beginning of the temple's reconstruction in the second year of Darius, i.e., 520 (Hag. 1:1; 2:1; Zech. 1:1,7). Neither specifically dates its completion, but, as we have already noted, the Chronicler's date (516 [15]) accords very well with the words of Haggai and Zechariah.

Zechariah worked, with Haggai, at the task of encouraging the rebuilding of the temple (Zech. 1:16). He is of a priestly family (see Neh. 12:16; Ezra 5:1 and 6:14). Of the fourteen chapters in the book of Zechariah, chapters 9-14 chiefly comprise a series of five apocalypses pointing to a date several centuries after the time of Zechariah. This section is usually attributed to a Second Zechariah (see below, chapter 12). For the rest, substantially a unit from the priest-prophet Zechariah, the first six chapters contain eight symbolic visions and one symbolic action; while chapters 7 and 8 comprise historical narrative.

Zechariah is not one of the greatest of the prophets. He exhibits little originality. At points he appears unable to make up his own mind. On the other hand, one appreciates the apparent fact that Zechariah knows this about himself. We observe that he stands in the very dim twilight of the dying day of classical prophetism, the successor in a tradition of giants from Amos to Second Isaiah. Being of priestly affiliation and standing at the beginning of a strongly priestly era, he nevertheless courageously repeats some of the best of the earlier age. At his best in symbolic vision and act he is in close affinity with Ezekiel. He reiterates the old prophetic theological ethic. His primary aim, frustrated at times to his own discontent, is to stand in the Isaianic tradition, as a disciple of the Isaiahs.

Look at the first vision (1:7-17, signifying liberation and restoration). Zechariah was always in tension between his own peaceful, universalistic leanings and the powerful, popular, militant nationalism of his own time. It was a nationalism fed by Persia's internal confusion following the death of Cyrus' successor, Cambyses (529-522). Darius I (521-485) was several years in bringing order and Haggai, as we saw, voiced at this same time the hope of national independence for Jerusalem and Judah under Zerubbabel. But Zechariah refuses to espouse this position. In 1:11 he is in effect counseling quietness. Accept the present order - "All the earth remains at rest." Underlying this counsel is, of course, the prophetic conviction that Yahweh alone is the sufficient strength of the nation; and in this counsel one wonders whether Zechariah may not be ultimately and perhaps consciously dependent upon Isaiah of Jerusalem (cf. again Isa. 7:9; 8:17; 30: 15). The tender lines that follow, 1:12-17, are strongly reminiscent of Second Isaiah.

Again in the third vision (23:1-13) Zechariah rejects nationalistic hopes pinned upon physical defense. To be sure, he appears sometimes to lack the courage and strength of conviction to stand unequivocally against popular hopes. He joins in the expectation of the overthrow of all national enemies and in the identification of Zerubbabel as the messiah. But in one significant respect these concessions to popular nationalism are sharply qualified: whatever is done in the realization of national aims is done not by people, nor by might, nor by ruler, but by Yahweh himself, and for his own ultimate purpose.

This is the Word of Yahweh to Zerubbabel: Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says Yahweh of hosts! (4:6)²

This is an anonymous writing. Malachi is not a proper name, but means simply "my messenger" (see 3:1). The simplest statement of the content of the writing is, after the introductory verses 1:1-5, a two-fold division: (1) 1:6-2:9, the prophet's words to the priests, and (2) 2:10-4:3, his address in the main to the people. The closing verses 4:4-6 are commonly regarded as an editorial conclusion to the book, or perhaps and even probably, to the whole volume of the Twelve Prophets (Hosea-Malachi).

Malachi dates from the first half of the fifth century. The temple is rebuilt but the excitement is gone. Cultic observance is stale, joyless, and uninspired. Not only is the ritual carelessly observed (1:12), but there is widespread, brazen denial of any deviation on the part of priests responsible for this cultic demoralization (2:7-10a). Haggai, a few decades earlier, had assured the nation that its economic plight would somehow be resolved with the rebuilding of the temple. He and Zechariah breathed the confidence that when this was done, Yahweh would bless the community with peace and plenty. But now the temple stands completed, its ritual long since resumed - and the same wretchedness and economic frustration prevail. Understandably, the temple itself suffers from the reaction of disillusionment. Malachi's message in this time and situation is summarized in these words:

Bring the full tithes into the storehouse. . . and thereby put me to the test, says Yahweh of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you an overflowing blessing. (3:10)

This is the central issue. It is essentially the question of theodicy which we met first explicitly in Habakkuk and Jeremiah, which appears repeatedly in the wisdom writings and most pointedly in Job. The orthodox proposition holds that Yahweh, being just and righteous, tangibly rewards the faithful performance, the fulfillment of divine command. Now Malachi, no more than the people, is disposed to dispute this proposition; but the prophet simply insists that they have not in fact acted in faithfulness. They have, he insists, failed to earn the mercies of Yahweh not only by their carelessness, boredom, and abuse of the cultus, but also in their contamination of the purity of the community by intermarriage (2:10-16).

The one distinguishing literary feature of Malachi is the frequent and very effective use of the question. The message of Malachi can be summarized by citing instances of this kind of dialectic discourse:

I have loved you, says Yahweh. But you say, "How have you loved us?" (1:2)

A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If then I am a father, where is my honor? and if I am a master, where is my fear? (1:6)

Have we not all one father? Has not one God created us? Why then are we faithless to one another, profaning the covenant of our fathers? (2:10)

Has not one God made and sustained for us the spirit of life? And what does he desire? (2:15)

You have wearied Yahweh with your words. Yet you say, "How have we wearied him?" By saying, "Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of Yahweh, and he delights in them." Or by asking, "Where is the God of justice?" (2:17)

Return to me, and I will return to you, says Yahweh of hosts. But you say, "How shall we return?" Will man rob God? Yet you are robbing me. But you say, "How are we robbing you?" In your tithes and offerings. (3:7b,8)

Your words have been stout against me, says Yahweh. Yet you say, "How have we spoken against you?" You have said, "It is vain to serve God. What is the good of our keeping his charge or of walking as in mourning before Yahweh of hosts? Henceforth we deem the arrogant blessed; evil-doers not only prosper but when they put God to the test they escape." (3:13-15)

The book of Malachi is a more eloquent and revealing link than Zechariah or any other writing between the earlier Old Testament world of prophetism and the emerging form of Judaism. It throws light on the crucial and otherwise dark half-century in which the transformation was in most active process and it gives strong support to the contention that prophetic Yahwism and priestly Judaism were in closer and more conscious continuity than is sometimes alleged. Malachi tends to confirm three common, binding characteristics. (1) In Judaism as in Yahwism, history is devoutly interpreted: the meaning of existence is derived from Yahweh's concerned and purposive involvement in history. (2) Far from any intention of invalidating the prophetic tradition, it was assumed from the beginning that prophetic faith was gathered up and translated into the structure of Judaism. This is explicitly reflected in Malachi 3:5 and implicitly in the dialectic discourse, the statement-question-answer form of proclamation from which we have just quoted. (3) The clearest single motive behind the earlier Yahwism of the prophets is the creation and continued realization of devoted community. The real aim of Judaism, from its earliest beginnings as expressed in Zechariah and Malachi, is to render tangible, and to fix inescapably in practice, both the law of Moses and the Word of the prophet:

Have we not all one father? Has not one God created us? Why then are we faithless to one another, profaning the covenant of our fathers? (Mal. 2:10)

Judaism emerges in a different time, with a different program, a different disposition, and even a different mind - but no less concerned than prophetism with the realization in fact of the devoted and consecrated community.

The trustworthiness of the Nehemiah Memoirs has rarely been questioned. This includes Nehemiah 1-7, 13, and perhaps also 11:1-2 and 12:27-43. Evidence of editorial work appears here and there and especially in chapter 3, but this autobiography of Nehemiah. . . . is admittedly genuine beyond the shadow of a doubt. . . . Written by Nehemiah himself after 432 (5:14) and recounting his activities during the twelve preceding years, these Memoirs report frankly and vividly, as one would do in a personal diary not intended for publication, the actual events and the emotions which they aroused in the writer.

[The Memoirs] are not only one of the most accurate historical sources in the Old Testament, but they pierce for a moment the darkness enveloping the political history of the Jews during the Persian period.⁴

We assume, on the basis of considerable evidence, that it is to the years and reign of Artaxerxes I (465-424) that Nehemiah refers, not Artaxerxes II (404-358). The Memoirs open (1:1) "in the twentieth year [hence, 445(4)], as I was in Susa the capital" (of Persia). Nehemiah holds a highly trusted position vis-a-vis the king: he is Artaxerxes' cup-bearer and personal steward. Not only that; his relationship to the Persian monarch is uncommonly intimate. Having heard earlier (1:3) of the continuing plight of Jerusalem with its walls still in ruins and its gates gutted by fire, he enters the king's presence in a mood of deep melancholy.

Now I had not been [previously] sad in his presence. And the king said to me, "Why is your face sad, seeing you are not sick? This is nothing else but sadness of the heart." (see 2:1-2)

Nehemiah asks and is granted permission to return and rebuild the city's defenses. This work was completed in the phenomenally short space of fifty-two days (6:15), and that despite the best efforts of malicious obstructionists to defeat the task (2:19 and 4:7). In view of his nearly incredible feat of persistence, leadership, and skilled administration, it is no wonder that he was made governor of the province of Judah for a twelve-year term (444-432; see 5:14); and that at the end of this term he apparently embarked upon a second. In any case, he takes up work anew in Jerusalem (13:6-7). And here our knowledge of Nehemiah ends. We know from the Elephantine Papyri⁵that in 408 one Bagoas, a native Persian, was serving as Governor. Did he, sometime earlier, succeed the aging Nehemiah? Or was Nehemiah recalled to Persia or removed from office in 424 at the death of his patron, Artaxerxes I? Chapter 13, and probably also chapter 5, reflect Nehemiah not as wall-builder, but as governor. In both roles he exhibits vast resources of strength and leadership. He has the prophet's concern for justice and something of the old Yahweh faith (see, e.g., 6:15-16). But he is primarily a man of action who obviously believes that Yahweh helps those who help themselves. He trusts in God but keeps his powder dry. He tells us that he consults with himself (5:7). In the face of social inequities he rests his reform program primarily on his own example (5:10-19). When his constituents are in any disorder, he personally sees to the immediate restoration of order! Chapter 13 admirably illustrates the kinds of problems Nehemiah faced throughout his administration. All four of these issues are characteristic of the emergent theocratic state. They are, broadly speaking, priestly concerns.

1). The sanctity of the temple is desecrated by one Tobiah's residence in one of the rooms.

I was very angry, and I threw all the household furniture of Tobiah out of the chamber. . . . and I brought back thither the vessels of the house of God. (13:8 f.)

2).The temple personnel, the Levites and singers, are in hardship because the people are not paying the tithe that is due the temple (13:10-14). Malachi's reforms obviously haven't held. Nehemiah acts with his usual force and efficiency and adds the characteristic note,

Remember me, O my God, concerning this, and wipe not out my good deeds that I have done for the house of my God and for his service. (13:14, but also vv. 22,29,30)

3).Nehemiah institutes sabbath reform (13:15-22).

Merchants and sellers of all kinds of wares lodged outside Jerusalem (on the sabbath). But I warned them and said to them, "Why do you lodge before the wall? If you do so again I will lay hands on you." From that time on they did not come on the sabbath. (13:20 f.)

Amen. This is Nehemiah.

4). The problem of marriages, first vocal in Malachi, appears again (13:23-31). Nehemiah moves in frontally and personally against parents responsible for arranging such marriages outside Judah:

And I contended with them and cursed them and beat some of them and pulled out their hair; and I made them take oath in the name of God, saying, "You shall not give your daughters to their sons, or take their daughters for your sons or for yourselves. . . ." (13:25)

Note now that Nehemiah says nothing of divorce, of severing such marriages already established. We can well believe that as long as Nehemiah was around the business of marriage in Judah involved exclusively home-grown participants.

This is Nehemiah. No more personally forceful administrator appears in the Old Testament, but on the other hand, none acted with greater integrity and persistence, nor followed any more consistently than he the dictates of the best that he knew.

The Ezra Memoirs, Ezra 7:27-28; 8:1-34, and probably 9:1-15, have not enjoyed so secure a reputation as the Nehemiah Memoirs. It is certain that the Chronicler draws an Ezra somewhat more massive and significant than in fact he was; and it is probable that the Chronicler errs in making Ezra an older contemporary of Nehemiah. The Ezra Memoirs - in any case the most reliable information we have about Ezra - are also dated according to the years of the reign of Artaxerxes. But there is rather convincing evidence that Ezra's monarch is Artaxerxes II (404-358), and that Ezra began his work in Jerusalem about 397 - "the seventh year of Artaxerxes" (7:7). If it were Artaxerxes I the year would be 458(7), more than a decade before Nehemiah returned to build the walls. The powerful priest Ezra would have shared responsibility for Nehemiah 's Jerusalem in the years 444-432. But they do not mention one another in the respective Memoirs. Ezra occupies a restored Jerusalem (9:9), restored earlier, we must conclude, during the reign of Artaxerxes I, by Nehemiah. The Ezra Memoirs generally reflect a more densely populated and more thoroughly settled community than Nehemiah knew. Nehemiah's high priest was Eliashib (Neh. 3:1, 30 f.; 13:4,7), but Ezra's, Eliashib's son, Jehohanan (Ezra 10:6), who was serving in that capacity as early as 408, as we know, again, from the Elephantine Papyri. Nehemiah never appeals to the law which Ezra brought with him, which Ezra promulgated and had ratified, precisely because neither Ezra nor that law had yet appeared in Jerusalem. The problem of mixed marriages is in Ezra's time and perspective far more acute than in Nehemiah's, so much so, in fact, that Ezra insists now upon divorce in existing mixed marriages (9:12; 10:2-4).

Ezra is much more probably the first Jew of the fourth century than a contemporary of Nehemiah in the fifth. He may not have been the giant the Chronicler makes him out to be - a new Moses, the founder of the new nation, and a new Josiah, revealing afresh the law of Moses (see Neh. 8:2-3, 13-18). On the other hand, accepting the tradition that Ezra was among the Babylonian priests, it is in every way credible that he did introduce Torah (instruction) in the form of legislation formulated and codified during the two preceding centuries of exile. We cannot now determine the limits or otherwise identify the law of Ezra. A good guess, but no more than a guess, marks it as conforming roughly to what scholars have long indicated as the P (priestly) strata of the Tetrateuch.⁶

In further support of the reality of the person and work of Ezra, the character of the Judaism which emerges more fully into the light in the Greek period (in the late fourth and third centuries especially) is best explained and understood on the assumption of the substantial historicity of the role of Ezra. The prayer put on Ezra's lips in Nehemiah 9:6 ff. (Neh. 8 and 9 belong to Ezra's work, not Nehemiah's) may represent. that notable priest himself, it is a moving penitential psalm reminiscent of other great confessional recitations on the theme of the history of God-and-people.⁷It is right that this prayer-psalm has been called "the birth-hour of Judaism,"⁸and that Ezra is commonly referred to as the father of Judaism.

A few decades ago it was common to regard the Psalms as a collection of varied devotional pieces for the most part composed and first employed by individuals in postexilic times. In contradiction to this older view, two points of interpretation are now widely held. A great number of the psalms are preexilic; and the vast majority came into existence and were regularly employed in the formal, rhythmic celebration of the cultic year in Israel, the round of Yahwism's ritual expression.

There are one hundred and fifty psalms in both the Hebrew and Greek Old Testaments, but the identification of specific psalms by number differs in the two. One suspects elements of the arbitrary and the haphazard in the division of the Psalter both by individual psalms and by "books." For example, 9-10 and 42-43 are each original units; and the five "books" (note the repeated benediction closing the first four at the end of Pss. 41, 72, 89, and 106) are in conformity to the "five books of Moses," the Pentateuch. The superscriptions, attributing large blocks of psalms to David (3-41, 51-71, 108-110, 138-145, and a number of individual psalms), two to Solomon (72 and 127), and one even to Moses (90) are hardly consistently reliable, although they do indicate how, in later postexilic Judaism, the psalms were read and interpreted.

Many psalms have already been listed for reading in conjunction with preceding sections where the psalm is itself a commentary on the biblical text under discussion. A selection of psalms is included with the list of readings for this section (see note 3). Our understanding of the Psalter as a whole is probably most enhanced by the recognition and consideration of the major types of psalm and the corresponding occasions in the cultic life of Israel-Judah on which they were employed.

THE LAMENT

The lament type is conspicuous in the Psalter and is, of course, represented elsewhere in the Old Testament (e.g., in Jeremiah, Lamentations, and Job). A few psalms in this category (e.g., 74 and 106) are demonstrably laments of all Israel; while many more appear to he individual laments (to mention only a few from our own selection, 6, 22, 27:7-14, 42-43, 51, 130). But as we have had occasion to remark before, the line between the individual and the community among the Old Testament people is often very lightly drawn. If the individual lament survived, it did so because it successfully articulated for the many a sense of impending or consummated calamity and the appropriate response in the Yahweh faith. The lament was recited in the Temple, probably in the presence of a priest; and it may well be that the present exultant conclusion to some of the psalms of lament is in response to the priestly oracle of reassurance (not, of course, a part of the psalm). This priestly oracle may well account for the sudden change of mood characteristic of many of the psalms of lament (see, for example, Ps. 6:8-10).⁹

THE THANKSGIVING

This type of psalm, in its pure representation, appears in the Psalter relatively infrequently. From our selection of psalms, 18 (also a Royal Psalm), 46, 67, and 138 are psalms of thanksgiving. Two excellent examples appear outside of the Psalter, in psalms attributed to King Hezekiah (Isa. 3 8:10-20) and Jonah (Jon. 2:2-9). The thanksgiving psalm no doubt had its regular cultic use as a part of the sacrifice of thanksgiving. Its very close relationship to the lament is obvious, since its "description of the distress (the removal of which is the subject of the Thanksgiving) is often so elaborate and dominating that it can be difficult to determine if the psalm in question is a psalm of thanksgiving . . . or a psalm of lamentation with anticipation of the thanksgiving."¹⁰

THE HYMN

This type of psalm is dominant in the Psalter. It appears in wide variation (examples from our list: 8, 19, 29, 65, 98, 100, 103-105, 114, 136, 150) but typically opens on the note of praise (often "Hallelujah!" meaning "Praise Yahweh! ); elaborates in the body of the psalm on the object and cause of praise which is Yahweh and his power in Word and deed; and concludes either as it began, or on a note of dedication, intercession or benediction (see, for example, 29:11, 104:35, and 19:114). Outside the Psalter, the hymn form appears in the Song of Miriam-Moses (Ex. 15: 1-18), and the Psalm attributed to Hannah (1 Sam. 2:1-10).¹¹

OTHER TYPES

By a flexible definition of these three main types, the vast majority of psalms are included. Hermann Gunkel (who died in 1932) and Sigmund Mowinckel (1884-___), the two pioneering giants in modern study of the Psalter,¹² properly distinguished several other types, but all have some affinity with these three major categories. Gunkel's Songs of Zion (46, 48, 76, 87) and Songs in Celebration of Yahweh's Enthronement as King over All (47, 93, 97, 99) are variations of the hymn. Mowinckel's very large category of psalms assigned by him to the occasion of the celebration of the New Year Festival is also drawn largely from the hymn type.¹³ It may be that we should retain as a major category Gunkel's Royal Psalms (including, from our selection, 18, 72, 110, 132) which have to do with the life and function of the king of ancient Israel - his enthronement (2, 101, and from our selection, 110), the occasion of his marriage (45), or some other auspicious or particularly significant occasion in his reign (see, for example, 18, 20, 21, 72). Some few psalms are unmistakably in the category of liturgy. Thus Psalm 50 would appear to have had its liturgical cultic setting in the repeated ceremony of covenant renewal; and Psalm 24 has long been recognized as a liturgy recited at the temple doors antiphonally between the temple personnel within and the procession of newly arrived pilgrims without. And this brings to mind the two psalms which Gunkel classified as Songs of Pilgrimage (84 and 122) which "point to the existence of a type of psalm which was composed for use of pilgrims to one or another of the annual festivals, and, as such, might be sung by them on their way to the holy city, for example while they were assembling for the road or when they had reached their journey's end."¹⁴

Some psalms, assigned to other types, contain instructional or oracular lines; thus, the office of both priest and prophet is reflected in the Psalter (for example, 4, 15, 24, and some of the Royal Psalms cited above). Finally, a few psalms are of the wisdom type (see below, Chapter 12), a typical example being Psalm I (cf. 37, 49, 73, 112, 128).

The present Psalter is Judaism's work in the centuries following ancient Israel's destruction and exile. The voice of Yahwism's successor, Judaism, is heard repeatedly in the Psalms. But we know now that the life of the days of the kingdoms and the kings and the sanctuaries and the first Temple is also mirrored here, and that in the Psalms we witness afresh the faith and devotion of the Old Testament people over the vast span of perhaps a thousand years.

1. Isa. 55-66; Ezra 1, 3-6; Hag. 1-2; Zech. 1-8; Mal. 1-4.

2. Cf Jer. 9:23-24.

3. Neh. 1-2, 4-7, 13; Ezra 7-10; Pss. 1, 6, 8, 14, 18 (= 11 Sam. 22), 19, 22-24, 27, 29, 42-43, 46, 48, 51, 65, 67, 72, 74. 84, 89-91, 93, 95-100, 103-106, 110, 114, 121, 122, 130, 132, 136-139, 150.

4. R. Pfeiffer, Introduction to the Old Testament, New York, 1958, p. 829.

5. These are documents on papyrus of the fifth-century B.C. Jewish community at Elephantine, an island in the Nile facing Assuan (Aswan).

6. For another opinion, see F. G. Kraeling, Bible Atlas, New York, 1956, p. 340.

7. One thinks especially of the short cultic credos of Deuteronomy 6:20 ff. and the longer recitations of Josh. 24 and Pss. 104-106.

8. Cf. H. W. Robinson, Inspiration and Revelation in the Old Testament, Oxford, 1946, p. 23.

9. One of the milestones of the form critical method is the article of J. Begrich, "Das priesterliche Heilsorakel," Zeitschrift fur die alttestamentliche Wissenscbaft, II (1934), 81-92, in which he proposes and supports this explanation for the characteristic change of mood in the psalm of lament.

10. A. Bentzen, Introduction to the Old Testament, 2nd ed., Copenhagen, 1952, vol. 1, p. 154.

11. In the New Testament, the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55) and the Benedictus (Luke 1:68-79) perpetuate the hymn form.

12. H. Gunkel, Ausgewahlte Psalmen, 4th ed,, Gottingen, 1917; Die Psalmen, in the series Handkommentar zum Alten Testament, Gottingen, 1926; and J. Begrich. Einleitung in die Psalmen, Gottingen, 1933; S. Mowinckel, Psalmstudien, Kristiana, 1921-1924, vols. I-VI.

13. For a knowledgeable summary of Mowinckel's position in this regard, see Aubrey Johnson, "The Psalms," in H. H. Rowley, ed., The Old Testament and Modern Study, Oxford, 1951.

14. Ibid., p. 176.

These four chapters, Isaiah 24-27, cannot be the creation of one of the earlier Isaiahs (First or Second or "Third ), although marked affinities exist. What we loosely call "Fourth" Isaiah is certainly in the broad sense Isaianic: it comes, we suspect, out of the still continuing Isaianic circles. But the last critical Old Testament scholar of any great stature to defend the eighth-century Isaiah's authorship of 24-27 was the remarkable Franz Delitzsch (1813-1890); and almost reluctantly, he himself came finally to abandon the identification.

Three sections in Isaiah 24-27 are more strongly apocalyptic than anything else we have yet read in the Old Testament (24: 18c-23; 25:6-9; 26:20-27:1). A now classical definition of this term apocalyptic (literally, "uncovered ) properly sees the transition from prophetic to apocalyptic literature as really scarcely traceable. But it may be asserted in general terms that whereas prophecy foretells a definite future which has its foundation in the present, apocalyptic directs its anticipation solely and simply to the future - to a new world-period which stands sharply contrasted with the present. The classical model of all apocalyptic may be found in Daniel 7 [see below]. . . it is only after a great war of destruction, a "Day of Yahweh" or day of the Great Judgment, that the dominion of God will begin.²

Isaiah 24-27 is not entirely apocalyptic: now and again the reader comes to feel that he has his eye on history. But as the sensitive Delitzsch expressed it long ago, "if we try to follow out and grasp these [historical] relations, they escape us like will o' the wisps; because . . . they are . . . made emblems of the last things in the distant future."³Delitzsch is arguing with discernment that where we think we have hold of a projection of history - that is, where we think we have moved in unbroken continuity from history past and present to distant history - we discover that it is in fact no projection at all, that while the passage started us off in history, it leaves us at the end in seeming discontinuity with history and the historical process.⁴

The dating of the section with any measure of certainty is impossible. Seeming historical allusions have been variously identified with events in the history of the Middle East from the beginning of the Persian period down through the Maccabean Wars of the second century B.C. Happily, since the major thrust of Isaiah 24-27 is apocalyptic, the matter of date is not crucial. By universal consent it is postexilic; and we should guess that it is best assigned to the fourth century. Arguments for and against the unity of the four chapters are equally inconclusive but again not of great importance. Most frequently suspect as breaking the unity are the three songs (25:1-5,9-12; 26:1-19; and 27:2-6). If these are not of a piece with the rest, but are themselves a unity, they should probably be dated later than the long apocalyptic poem into which, in that case, they have been inserted.

In chapter 24 the reader will not fail to note a point of emphasis strongly reminiscent of the first Isaiah - the subjugation and humiliation of the proud (see especially vv. 4b and 21). Apocalyptic's characteristic discontinuity with history is expressed in verses 19, 20, and 23:

The earth is utterly broken, the earth is rent asunder, the earth is violently shaken.
The earth staggers like a drunken man, it sways like a hut;

...Then the moon will be confounded, and the sun ashamed;
Sun and moon will have no function any longer: Yahweh is the Light.

The voice of classical prophetism with its theological ethic is revived in the first of the songs:

For you [Yahweh] have been a stronghold to the poor a stronghold to the needy in his distress, a shelter from the storm and a shade from the heat. (25:4)

The universalism of Second Isaiah is reflected in the prose lines of 25:6:

On this mountain [Jerusalem's Mount Zion; see 24:23] Yahweh of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wine on the lees well refined.

This universalism is not as consistently maintained as it is in Second Isaiah, as witness the bitter words against Moab in the same passage, 25:10-12.

Discontinuity in history is again voiced in 25:8:

He will swallow up death forever, and the Lord Yahweh will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth; for Yahweh has spoken.

This is not a reference to life after death, but to a radically transformed age in which, simply, there will be no death.

In several ways 26:3-5 is suggestive of First Isaiah:

You keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.

Compare, for example, Isaiah 7:9 and 28:16. One could almost say that the apocalyptic hope is the inevitable and ultimate extension of Isaiah's so-called quietism, his insistence that the fulfillment of existence is only in faith. And now Isaiah's eloquent castigation of pride (see especially Isa. 2:12-17) is resounded:

For he [Yahweh] has brought low the inhabitants of the height, the lofty city.
He lays it low, lays it low to the ground, casts it to the dust. (25:5)

There are probably only two passages in the Old Testament which state explicitly - beyond possibility of doubt - the belief in full life after death. One is Daniel 2:12; and the other is before us now in Isaiah 26:19:

Your dead shall live, their bodies shall rise.
O dwellers in the dust, awake and sing for joy!

One nevertheless recalls other lines which push hard in the direction of resurrection - Ezekiel's vision in the valley of death (Ezek. 37); some of Job's penetrating questions (Job 14:14 f.; 16:18 f.; 19:23; 27); Psalms 16, 73, and 139; and at least for this reader, the Servant in the fourth of Second Isaiah's Servant Songs, Isaiah 52:13-53:12.⁵

Finally, we cite the appropriateness of "Fourth" Isaiah's place among the Isaiahs as that place is supported by the affinity between the earliest and latest Isaianic Songs of the Vineyard in Isaiah 5 and 27. For the first Isaiah, Yahweh's vineyard (Israel) was the object of Yahweh's offended concern, his indignation, his wrath and judgment (5:1-7). Now, after the long passage of time and in the perspective of apocalyptic, the same vineyard is

A pleasant vineyard, sing of it!
I, Yahweh, am its keeper. (27:2)

It is the same Song of the Vineyard, but a song transformed. It sings now of a vineyard brought out of judgment, through judgment, into fulfillment and redemption.

The three chapters of Joel (four in Hebrew) fall into two major divisions. The first is 1:1-2:27. Two overwhelming natural disasters (accompanied by lesser calamities) are described - a plague of locusts and a severe famine. These appear to have no direct connection with one another (although 2:3a may reflect an effort to relate them), since the famine is caused not by locusts but by drought (see 1:18-20). This first division of Joel closes with the community's confession and petition to Yahweh with the consequent deliverance from the disasters.

The second division is 2:28-3:21. This is an apocalypse in which Yahweh himself visits in exterminating wrath all of Judah's enemies, and himself establishes the utopian age in Jerusalem, to he enjoyed forever by his chosen people.

Specifically, all we know of the author is his name and the name of his father. Beyond this, it is a good guess that he was a priest, and if so, a priest possessed of the articulate gift of the classical prophet - almost. Joel speaks with a style and power which come very near meeting that very high standard. And in part for this reason a pre-exilic date for Joel was long maintained (one of the last scholars to abandon it was, again, Franz Delitzsch). In recent decades Joel has commonly been assigned to the fourth century, or even the early third century.

A recent survey of all evidence for the date of Joel sets the time between 323 and 285 (that is, between the death of Alexander the Great and of Ptolemy I): "when the northern tribes had disappeared, the Jews were scattered . . . the temple was functioning, Mt. Zion was the only Holy Mountain, the wall was standing, the priests ruled Jerusalem, the Jews had no armies, Egypt oppressed Judea, and the Greeks bought Jewish slaves."⁶

The locust plague is one of a series of natural disasters which, for Joel, are sure signs of the Day of Yahweh. The plague is so graphically described after the analogy of an invading army that interpreters have occasionally (but probably wrongly) supposed that Joel envisages in fact the catastrophe of military invasion (2:25 seems clearly to refute this possibility).

Mark now the tender lines of 2:12-13:

Yet even now, says Yahweh, return to me with all your heart,

............................

And rend your hearts and not your garments.

Return to Yahweh your God, for he is gracious and merciful,

Slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

If something of prophetism's verbal gift and theological insight still live in Joel, the universalism of prophetism at its highest is missing - according to the usual interpretation of Joel. "All flesh" of 2:28 is commonly taken in context as a reference only to all Judah. But is it clearly so limited? This is the beginning of the apocalypse of Joel:

And it shall come to pass afterward

[i.e., after the calamitous Day of Yahweh] that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophecy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. (2:28)

And what shall we say of the breadth of faith and expectation in 2:32:

And it shall come to pass that all (?) who call upon the name of Yahweh shall be delivered [from Yahweh's wrath in the Day of Yahweh]

But in what follows, Joel sees the survival and restoration of Judah and Jerusalem and Zion, and Yahweh's devastating judgment upon the nations that have participated in the abuse of Yahweh's people. This is not necessarily a denial of Yahweh's ultimate purposive concern for "all flesh." The old covenant faith, with possible universalistic overtones, is still brilliantly sounded:

Multitudes, multitudes, in the valley of decision!

For the day of Yahweh is near in the valley of decision.

The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining.

And Yahweh roars from Zion, and utters his voice from Jerusalem, and the heavens and the earth shake.

But Yahweh is a refuge to his people, a stronghold to the people of Israel. (3:14-16)

It was in any case this faith, accommodating itself in one form or another to almost every conceivable circumstance of existence, which was responsible for the survival of Judaism's essential integrity, her unique entity - and, historically assessed, for the subsequent creation of the Christian faith.

It may be that three prophetic supplements have been appended to Zechariah 1-8: (1) Zechariah 9-11 (13:7-9 is clearly out of place, and no doubt originally concluded Zech. 9-11); (2) Zechariah 12-14; and (3) Malachi.

Second Zechariah (9-14) is in general character apocalyptic. As such, it is distinguished for the variety in which it presents the apocalyptic form. Five distinct apocalypses are recorded which have no relationship to each other except the typical apocalyptic style, and, probably, a chronological arrangement and reference.

In the first of the apocalypses, 9:1-10, Yahweh's wrath is visited on Judah's immediate neighbors, Syria, Phoenicia, and Philistia. The instrument of divine wrath envisaged by the writer is probably the brilliant son and successor of Philip II of Macedon, Alexander the Great (336-323), who brought the Persian empire to its end and who in the name of Greece conquered the world. The apocalypse closes with the advent of the Messiah and the establishment of universal and everlasting peace, verses 9-10.⁷

In the second apocalypse, 9:11-17, Greece is destroyed. All Israel, in the land of Judah and everywhere in dispersion, knows peace and security.

Upon the death of Alexander, the Greek empire was divided and the fortunes of Palestine were for a time determined by the Ptolemies of Egypt and the Seleucids of Syria (Ptolemy I and Seleucus I were both generals under Alexander). For more than a century after Alexander's death Egypt maintained dominant political control of Palestine although until the turn of the century (301 B.C. at the battle of Ipsus in Phrygia) that control was sharply contested by the Seleucid rule. This third apocalypse, 10:3-11:3, describes ostensibly the overthrow of Assyria and Egypt; but there can be no doubt that these two divisions of Alexander's empire are meant to be designated. It is the overthrow of the Ptolemies and the Seleucids, the empires of Egypt and Syria, that is envisaged, with particular emphasis on Syria (11:1-3).

In 12: 1-13:6 Judah and Jerusalem are vindicated against the nations and made victorious by Yahweh's intervention; the city repents and mourns for someone martyred in a just cause (the historical allusion is unknown); and Yahweh now removes all idolatry and prophecy (degenerate prophecy, prophecy of a mercenary and corrupt form), and effects Jerusalem's spiritual cleansing in a divine fountain. If the order of the apocalypses continues chronological, we can only assume that this is a little later in the Greek period (which is the general designation of the epoch from Alexander's conquest to the time of Rome's annexation of Palestine in 67 B.C.).

Like the fourth, the fifth apocalypse, chapter 14,is also obscure; but its stress upon Egypt suggests a time still a little later in the Greek period. If one may so speak, it is the most apocalyptic of all, that is, it is on a vaster scale and presents by far the most radical break with history. The catastrophe is again (as in the fourth apocalypse) an attack upon Jerusalem by all nations - but this time the city falls and half the city is taken captive. Now Yahweh intervenes. The topography of Palestine is transformed. The living waters (cf. Ezek. 47; and Joel 3:18) flow again. All the mountains are leveled except the Jerusalem hill which is raised to a still higher elevation. The nations fighting against Judah are punished; but the survivors go up to Jerusalem to worship Yahweh. Our tastes would call for the close of the apocalypse at the end of verse 16, perhaps, but the following verses do not annul its universalism; and the concluding note of priestly piety (14:20-21) intends to say simply and essentially that the community is completely devoted to Yahweh.

This brief survey of five apocalypses covers all of Zechariah 9-14 except 11:4-17 and 13:7-9. Like Jeremiah 23:1-4 and Ezekiel 34 and 37:16-28, these two passages are in the form of an allegory of the shepherd; but unlike the shepherd allegories of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, the apparent detailed historical reference here remains utterly enigmatic, totally mystifying.

Time and apocalypse. When faith was able to see no possibility of the fulfillment of Yahweh's historical purposes in the historical process, it was history, not faith, that was broken. Apocalyptic preserved the faith and made it still articulate in the vision of time and history interrupted and transformed by the decisive invasion of Yahweh himself.

Yahweh will become king over all the earth. On that day Yahweh will be one and his name one! (Zech. 14:9)

Introduction and Outline

The book of Job belongs among the most significant works in world literature. Not only its aesthetic value, which is apparent in the power of its expression, in the depth of its sensitivity, and in its monumental structure; but also its content - the bold and colossal struggle with the ancient, and at the same time always new, human problem of the meaning of suffering - all this puts the work, in its universal significance, in a class with Dante's Divine Comedy and Goethe's Faust.⁸

Throughout the centuries, Job has received extravagant praise from literary artists and critics. Thomas Carlyle, for example, is reported to have said, "There is nothing written, I think, in the Bible or out of it, of equal literary merit."⁹The name of Job has become a commonplace in our language in the phrase "the patience of Job." This work is, of course, beyond dispute a literary masterpiece. But the hero appears as a man of distinguished patience only in the relatively brief prologue of the work; and the sensitive reader of Job may well wonder whether the primary concern of the writing is the problem of suffering or that one vast, central problem of life under God, the life of faith.

Job is an anonymous writing. We are able to form an image of the creator of the literary Job only from the book. Job is not biography in any conventional sense of that word. It may well be that there once lived an actual historical Job; but from the once-upon-a-time beginning of the work and the overwhelming evidence throughout of a purpose quite transcending the merely biographical-historical, it is clear that only a known historical name has been employed. It was a name which traditionally conveyed an example of ultimate human righteousness, as is evident from Ezekiel 14:14 (cf. 14:20) where the name of Job is coupled with the names of Noah and Daniel.

Outline of the book of Job

1-2 Prologue.

3-31 Dialogue: a debate in three cycles between Job and his three friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar. Ch. 28, in praise of wisdom, has no intrinsic relationship to the dialogues but may nevertheless appear here in accordance with appropriate editorial design.¹⁰

32-37 The speeches of Elihu, a younger bystander.

38:1-42:6 The Yahweh speeches.

42:7-17 Epilogue.

The composition of the present book of Job cannot be dated. The prologue and epilogue may derive from a pre-exilic Job story, perhaps an ancient and certainly widely known tale. The Elihu speeches¹¹and segments of the Yahweh speeches (notably on the ostrich, 39: 13-18, and Leviathan, 41:1-34) may be added after the creative unification of the rest of the literary Job; but the work as a whole unmistakably reflects Israel's own corporate catastrophic experience of the bitter sixth century. The "biography" of Job is like the "biography" of the Servant of Second Isaiah: both are created and conditioned out of Israel's anguished existence through destruction and exile. The purpose of Job is essentially that of Second Isaiah - to restore a lost faith and lost meaning in existence.

The Literary Problem

The prose prologue and epilogue and the body of poetry in between betray many differences other than merely form. There are striking differences in vocabulary. In the poetry of Job, the deity is rather consistently designated by terms other than Yahweh (127 times it is 'el, or 'eloah, or shadai). But not one of these terms appears in the prose prologue or epilogue where, in contrast, the specific Israelite name, Yahweh, is used. In the poetry, the name Yahweh occurs once only in speech (12:9, but this is commonly regarded as a later editorial addition). In the speeches of Yahweh, 38:1-42:6, the name is never used in actual monologue or dialogue, but only in simple identification of the speaker, as "Job answered Yahweh" (40:3) or "Yahweh answered Job" (40:6).

The point of view and tone differ markedly in prose and poetry. The folk quality of prologue and epilogue is pronounced. Here one is confronted by that kind of brilliant, disarming naivete which, while appearing naive, is nevertheless informed by the accumulated understanding of the centuries.¹²One observes the highly stylized form with its effective use of repetition, a device characteristic of Israel's oldest folkloristic traditions. One delights in the deftly humorous use of hyperbole - surely this is the intention, for example, of 1: 13-19.11.¹³But these qualities do not appear in the dialogues. The poetry of Job is certainly also stylized, but it is stylization of a totally different character - the style of wisdom, familiar all over the ancient Middle East and quite at home in Israel from the time of Solomon.

The Yahweh of prologue and epilogue is much more intimately and charmingly envisaged than the relatively sophisticated deity of the speeches. And the character of Job himself appears to be of different stuff. The prologue justifies the popular image of Job as a man of unparalleled (indeed incredible and unhuman) patience; but in all the poetry that follows there is nothing to confirm this quality in Job, not even in the Job who accepts at last the rebuke of Yahweh (40:4-5 and 42:2-6).

In view of these and other decisive differences between the prose and poetry of Job¹⁴ we must assume that the poet, the creator of this unique work, employed an already existent prose narrative as the occasion and setting for his own brilliant literary creation. At the same tune we recall emphatically that literary-theological creativity in Israel was never exclusively a product of single authorship. From the time of the Yahwist, through the Deuteronomists and the complex of the Isaiahs and into the postexilic days of the priests, creativity was conspicuously a more corporate achievement wrought by the judicious, inspired use of existent material as well as by the artistic creation of the new.

The physical text of Job presents its own peculiar problems. The Hebrew of Job is notoriously difficult. Every page of the RSV translation betrays in footnotes the varied problems of the translator. Occasionally the structure of the underlying Hebrew is unintelligible or ambiguous and the translator must resort to the reading in the Greek or the Syriac text or even to conjecture.

In one notable case the text has suffered major disarrangement. As we move into chapter 25 we have had two speeches by each of the three friends, with Job's reply to each; and in addition Eliphaz has delivered his third speech (ch. 22) and Job has given his response (23-24). We now naturally expect the completion of the cycle of three, with a third speech each from Bildad and Zophar and corresponding responsive speeches from Job. As the text now stands Bildad speaks briefly (it is the briefest of all the speeches) in 25:1-6. All that follows, chapters 26-27, is represented as the words of Job, together with the wisdom poem of chapter 28, and the extended final Job speech of 29-31. Not only is Zophar not heard from in the third cycle; not only is Bildad cut short; but parts of the speeches of Job in chapters 24-27 would come much more appropriately from the lips of the friends than from Job (see 24:13-25 and 27:7- 23).¹⁵These peculiar problems of the text are answered b the following reconstruction:

Job's answer to the third speech of Eliphaz 23:1-24: 12

Bildad's third speech 25:1-6; 24:13-25

Job's answer to Bildad 26: 1-27:6

Zophar's third speech 27:7-23

This reconstruction¹⁶gives the fullest possible endorsement to the text as it stands, and achieves the logically anticipated sequence of speeches with minimal rearrangement. Job's answer to Zophar's third speech has not been lost: in chapter 28 the author employs (it is unimportant whether he wrote it or not) this exquisite poem on wisdom as his own answer, not only to the friends, but to Job as well. In advance of Job's self-indicting rebuttal (29-31), it provides the clue, reiterated in the Yahweh speeches (38-42), to the problem of Job.

The Interpretation

The real problem of Job is not his suffering, but his status in existence. It is not affliction and anguish that he cannot accept, but his own fundamental impotence to control the terms of his total environment. In this sense, Job is an existentialist writing, and "Hioh ist da!" He is all men; he is every man!

The old problem of theodicy - the problem of vindicating the justice of God in the face of its seeming denial - is raised again. We have met the same problem earlier in Habakkuk and Jeremiah. The increasingly vigorous and sometimes almost violent running dialogue between Job and the three friends seems to center in the tension between the proposition of a just and righteous God and the fact of innocent suffering. But what is always more deeply at issue is the question of existential sovereignty: who is in control in time and history and in the life of man, who sets the terms of existence, who is lord of life - God or man? In the last analysis Job protests, not his suffering, but an order of existence in which he is unable by his own devices to maintain his life in security and to achieve its fulfillment.¹⁷It is his role against which he rebels. And this is the same age-old theological problem which the Yahwist so brilliantly presented to Israel in the primeval stories of Genesis 2-11. It is the essential problem which prophetic Yahwism always addressed. It has been and is and will remain the primary issue in the life of faith.

Here again it is Job/Israel - as it was Jacob/Israel, King! Israel, Servant/Israel. Biblical theology is a product of history. It is the historical experience of a people that predominantly shapes the faith of the Old Testament.

Job/Israel was indeed unique, the only one who knows Yahweh.

There is none like him, on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil. (1:8)

Job/Israel looked back from post-tragedy to pre-tragedy and saw a relatively idyllic existence (1:3-5,10). Job/Israel suffered an incredible sequence of disasters resulting in the loss of everything (1:13-19). And Job/Israel bore the suffering and survived it (2: 10). But the conditions of survival were unrelentingly oppressive, and Job/Israel was inevitably proffered the "friendly" counsel of neighbors (2:11-13). This is the sense of the prologue as it is used by the author of Job.

The dialogue opens (ch. 3) with Job's consummately articulate elaboration of the death-wish, reminiscent in the Old Testament only of Jeremiah (20: 14-18). In Moses (Num. 11:15), in Elijah (1 Kings 19:4), in Jonah (4:3), as also in Jeremiah and Job, the wish or request for death is seen in the Yahweh faith as an act of defiance of deity, an unwarranted gesture of independence, a bitter - perhaps the bitterest - protest of disrespect of Yahweh. Job/Israel has come to this. This is the measure of bitterness.

The "friends" deliver the timeless note of religious piety and orthodoxy, known in and out of ancient Israel, known long before, and, alas, still long after. It is as thin as this: as a man appears, so is he. His status and condition are the sure measure of his intrinsic worth and worthiness. Job/Israel is sunk to the most miserable level of existence and is of necessity correspondingly evil.

This piece of stupidity is picked up, dusted off, examined from all sides, and powerfully shattered in Job's several brilliant responses on this theme. But while Job devastates the friends as well as their arguments (see, e.g., 6:15 ff.; 12:1 ff.; 13:45; 16:1 ff.; 19:1 ff.; 26:1 ff.), his hardest words and increasingly his attacks are directed at God himself, in the strongest and certainly the most sustained language of its kind in the Old Testament (see, e.g., 7:11-21, with a vitriolic parody of Ps. 8 in vv. 17-19; 9:7-12,30-35; 10:1-9,18-22; 13:3,14-15,20-28; 14:1-2,7-12,14-15,18-22).

The second cycle of speeches begins with Eliphaz' second discourse in chapter 15, and the third cycle at chapter 22. The passage most difficult to interpret and perhaps most disputed in Job falls in the course of the second cycle, in Job's response to the second Bildad speech:

Oh that my words were written!
Oh that they were inscribed in a book!
Oh that with an iron pen and lead they were graven in the rock for ever!
For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at last he will stand upon the earth; and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then without my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see on my side, and my eyes shall behold, and not another
[or, not as a stranger?]. (19:23-27)

So the RSV renders the passage, but the notes indicate the ambiguity or uncertainty of the Hebrew text. The question under debate is whether the character of Job is here intentionally represented as affirming faith that he will achieve his justification with God in life beyond death; or whether the redeemer is in the original sense of the word (in Hebrew, go'el), the kinsman who, in this case, succeeds in ultimately exonerating Job. In the second of these alternatives, the crucial verses yield to this interpretation:

But I know that my defender lives! He will survive my unjust death, and over the dust of my grave [cf. the use of the word 'aphar in 7:21; 7:16; 20:11; 21:26; also 10:9; 34:15; Ps. 104:29] he will stand at the last instant. Through his intermediation, by his activity, he will summon God and me together, and bring me before the face of God!¹⁸

If, on the other hand, Job affirms that God will himself redeem him in death, it is a position only very fleetingly held, since Job has consistently defied God up to this point and continues to do so in following speeches. But this by no means rules out this interpretation. It is not at all beyond the author's superb gifts of imagination and subtlety to effect precisely this kind of summit in the center of the dialogues.

But now Job/Israel is brought to the ultimate protest of worthiness and righteousness which is self-indicting in its very vehemence. The prophetic code of morality has already been extensively stressed in chapter 22 where Eliphaz, in his third speech, accuses Job of its wholesale violation. Job, in his long speech of final rebuttal in chapters 29-31, makes Israel's prophetic code his theme and in effect claims its flawless performance. In having him speak so, it may well be that the author means to present us with the prototype of the Pharisee who justifies himself by his overt performance of a set of relatively agreeable prescriptions and in that performance takes an inordinate and insufferable pride. The days before tragedy are recalled:

Oh, that I were as in the months of old, as in the days when God watched over me

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When the ear heard, it called me blessed and when the eye saw, it approved; because I delivered the poor who cried, and the fatherless who had none to help him.

The blessing of him who was about to perish came upon me, and I caused the widow's heart to sing for joy.

I put on righteousness, and it clothed me; my justice was like a robe and a turban.

I was eyes to the blind, and feet to the lame.

I was a father to the poor, and I searched out the cause of him whom I did not know,

I broke the fangs of the unrighteous, and made him drop his prey from his teeth.

Then I thought, 'I shall die in my nest, and I shall multiply my days as the sand,

My roots spread out to the waters, with the dew all night on my branches,

My glory fresh with me, and my bow ever new in my hand.'

Men listened to me, and waited, and kept silence for my counsel.

After I spoke they did not speak again, and my word dropped upon them.¹⁹

They waited for me as for the rain; and they opened their mouths as for the spring rain.

I smiled on them when they had no confidence; and the light of my countenance they did not cast down.

I chose their way, and sat as chief, and I dwelt like a king among his troops, like one who comforts mourners. (29:2,11-25)

In view of earlier prophetic castigations of pride, this kind of protest of prophetic virtue becomes its own denial; and in the next line the code which the speaker thought to uphold is brutally shattered in one of the most arrogant statements in the Old Testament:

But now they make sport of me, men who are younger than I, whose fathers I would have disdained to set with the dogs of my flock! (30:1)

The vacuous piety of the orthodox friends is rebuked; but so is the colossal pride of Job/Israel. Perhaps the most significant lines in the often soaring, rhapsodic Yahweh speeches are these categorical words - strongly in the Isaianic tradition - calling Job/Israel away from pride to the life of faith again. It is Yahweh's turn to speak with defiance and sarcasm:

Gird up your loins like a man;

I will question you, and you declare to me.

Will you even put me in the wrong?

Will you condemn me that you may be justified?