CHAPTER X MICAH OF MORESHETH The writings of Isaiah give a vivid picture of conditions in Jerusalem under siege. We must not overlook the fact that there were many Hebrew towns in the vicinity of Jerusalem which were not protected by walls and fortifications as was the greater city. Upon these fell the horrors of war in fullest measure. Villages were devastated or burned, crops consumed by soldiers, and agriculture brought to a standstill. Owners of great estates had fled to the city for safety, and the poor were left without means of support or defense. Even in times of peace social conditions outside Jerusalem were very different from those within its walls. Rich landowners preferred to live in the city rather than upon their greater estates. The country people supplied in large measure the food for the city. The agriculturist was at the mercy of his richer neighbor, and there was every opportunity for the gratification of greed and the practice of extortion and tyranny. Thus there was ever a touch of bitterness in the attitude of the countrymen toward the inhabitants of Jerusalem. Micah of Moresheth, a prophet whose home was in the midst of the fertile plain of the Philistines to the southwest of Jerusalem, has left us a few fragments' which reflect this attitude toward the city, as well as a less sanguine view of her fate than that of Isaiah. The details of his eventful life we cannot even conjecture, but the boldness of his words may well have brought to him both friends and enemies. Like Isaiah he saw destruction descending upon Samaria, and interpreted it as a visitation of Jehovah on account of her sins. Hear, all ye people; Hearken, O earth, and all that therein is: And let the Lord Jehovah be witness against you, 1 Selections are here given from chaps. 1 and 3. 5 For behold, Jehovah cometh forth out of his place, And will come down, and tread upon the high places of the earth. And the mountains shall be melted under him, And the valleys shall be cleft, As wax before the fire, IO As waters that are poured down a steep place. For the transgression of Jacob is all this, What is the transgression of Jacob? Is it not Samaria? 15 And as places for planting vineyards: And I will pour down the stones thereof into the valley, Isaiah reared in the very shadow of the Temple courts could only believe that Jehovah, the Holy One of Israel, must maintain an inviolable dwelling-place among his people. To Micah, this same city of Jerusalem was synonymous with tyranny and oppression, greed and dishonesty, heaped-up riches, gathered in the fields of his neighbors-à city too corrupt for Jehovah to endure. When therefore Sennacherib came marching down the coast he saw no hope for Jerusalem. He cries: "I will lament and wail, I will go stripped and uncovered:* 5 For her wound is incurable; For it is come unto Judah; It reacheth unto the gate of my people, even to Jerusalem." His denunciations have in them a ring of fierceness which is almost personal and we wonder what tragic experiences lie back I Jehovah is here represented as having a contention with his people, which will bring him to the earth, with great upheavals of nature in his train. In the midst of this terrible visitation Samaria will be destroyed. • Stripped and uncovered: That is, without an outer garment. symbolic act in connection with the proposed alliance with Egypt. of hope in Micah's lamentation. 3 Like the ostriches: The allusion is to the shrill cry of these birds. Recall Isaiah's There is no note of them. The ruling classes receive no more bitter arraignment than their leaders, the false prophets, who "cry, peace, when there is no peace." Did Micah perhaps include Isaiah in this class of false leaders, because of his promise of the deliverance of Jerusalem ? "Hear, I pray you, ye heads of Jacob, And rulers of the house of Israel; Ye who hate the good, and love the evil: 10 And chop them in pieces as for the pot, Then' shall they cry unto Jehovah, but he will not answer them: Yea, he will hide his face from them at that time. According as they have wrought evil in their doings. 15 Thus saith Jehovah concerning the prophets that make my people err, That bite with their teeth and cry, Peace, And whoso putteth not into their mouths, They even declare war against him. "Therefore it shall be night unto you, that ye shall have no vision; 20 And it shall be dark unto you, that ye shall not divine; And the sun shall go down upon the prophets, And the day shall be dark over them. And the seers shall be put to shame and the diviners confounded. Yea, they shall all cover their lips; 25 For there is no answer of God.' But as for me, I am full of power by the spirit of Jehovah, To declare unto Jacob his transgression, And to Israel his sin. 1 Then: The prophet here looks forward to the day of punishment which he believes to be at hand. 30 Hear this, I pray you, ye heads of the house of Jacob, And rulers of the house of Israel, That abhor justice, and pervert all equity, And Jerusalem with iniquity. 35 The heads thereof judge for reward, 40 No evil shall come upon us.' Therefore shall Zion, on your account, be plowed as a field And the mountain of the house,' as the high places of the We see that two prophets of the same generation, influenced by differing traits and experiences, differed radically in their judgment as to the outcome of political events, but each based his theory upon his conception of the character of Jehovah as an ethical God, demanding right relations between man and man, as well as between God and man. In the words of a later prophet: "What doth Jehovah require of thee, To love mercy, And to walk humbly with thy God?" The mountain of the house: The Temple hill. Note in the last lines of this selection the climax of the arraignment. The people assuring themselves that Jehovah cannot desert them see no cause for serious alarm. The prophet sees them doomed to captivity, and their land a desolation. The picture contained in the first strophe is so strong as to be almost repulsive. Is it not however almost as appropriate a representation of some existing conditions today? CHAPTER XI JEREMIAH AND THE FALL OF JERUSALEM The long and wicked reign of Manasseh in Judah (685–641 B.C.) served to establish more firmly than ever idolatrous worship and the immoral practices of the people. Of the prophets of Jehovah, some perished in a general persecution, others were silenced for the time. That those who survived were not inactive is evidenced by later events. Manasseh was succeeded by his son Amon whose reign of less than two years, ending in assassination, was not distinguished in morals and religion from that of his father. Perhaps the death of this worthless monarch may have been directly or indirectly the result of feeling stirred up by priests and prophets of Jehovah, for it would seem that the eight-year-old boy, Josiah, the son of Amon, who was placed upon the throne at the death of his father was watched over by both priests and prophets with jealous care. During all this period, faith seems to have been kept with Assyria and the fate of rebellious vassal kingdoms avoided. But about 626 B.C. a new foe appeared upon the horizon of western Asia, and Palestine lay in the path of the invaders. The Scythians were a nomadic people, rude and barbarous, but apparently invincible in war, who originated in southeastern Europe, and spread eastward throughout central Asia. Little is known of them. Herodotus is responsible for the statement that at about this date a horde of uncivilized and brutal Scythians swept eastward and southward seeking to overthrow the Medes, a people from the northwest who had their eyes fixed upon the riches of the Assyrian kingdom, and the fertile valleys of the Tigris and the Euphrates. Herodotus reports that the Scythians became masters of Asia, and sought to extend their conquests to Egypt, but were met by the king of Egypt in Palestine, and in response to tribute and entreaties turned back upon their path. Whatever may have been the exact extent of their conquests, a wave of terror must have spread before them, heralding their approach. In Judah, lying directly in the path to Egypt, with |