Evolution of the God Concept Among the Hebrews

97:5.1These were the times when some were pro­claim­ing threat­en­ings of pun­ish­ment against per­sonal sins and na­tional crime among the north­ern clans while oth­ers pre­dicted calamity in ret­ri­bu­tion for the trans­gres­sions of the south­ern king­dom. It was in the wake of this arousal of con­science and con­scious­ness in the He­brew na­tions that the first Isa­iah made his ap­pear­ance.

97:5.2Isa­iah went on to preach the eter­nal na­ture of God, his in­fi­nite wis­dom, his un­chang­ing per­fec­tion of re­li­a­bil­ity. He rep­re­sented the God of Is­rael as say­ing: “Judg­ment also will I lay to the line and righ­teous­ness to the plum­met.” “The Lord will give you rest from your sor­row and from your fear and from the hard bond­age wherein man has been made to serve.” “And your ears shall hear a word be­hind you, say­ing, ‘this is the way, walk in it.’” “Be­hold God is my sal­va­tion; I will trust and not be afraid, for the Lord is my strength and my song.” “‘Come now and let us rea­son to­gether,’ says the Lord, ‘though your sins be as scar­let, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like the crim­son, they shall be as wool.’”

97:5.3Speak­ing to the fear-rid­den and soul-hun­gry He­brews, this prophet said: “Arise and shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.” “The spirit of the Lord is upon me be­cause he has anointed me to preach good tid­ings to the meek; he has sent me to bind up the bro­ken­hearted, to pro­claim lib­erty to the cap­tives and the open­ing of the prison to those who are bound.” “I will greatly re­joice in the Lord, my soul shall be joy­ful in my God, for he has clothed me with the gar­ments of sal­va­tion and has cov­ered me with his robe of righ­teous­ness.” “In all their af­flic­tions he was af­flicted, and the an­gel of his pres­ence saved them. In his love and in his pity he re­deemed them.”

97:5.4This Isa­iah was fol­lowed by Micah and Oba­diah, who con­firmed and em­bel­lished his soul-sat­is­fy­ing gospel. And these two brave mes­sen­gers boldly de­nounced the priest-rid­den rit­ual of the He­brews and fear­lessly at­tacked the whole sac­ri­fi­cial sys­tem.

97:5.5Micah de­nounced “the rulers who judge for re­ward and the priests who teach for hire and the proph­ets who di­vine for money.” He taught of a day of free­dom from su­per­sti­tion and priestcraft, say­ing: “But ev­ery man shall sit un­der his own vine, and no one shall make him afraid, for all peo­ple will live, each one ac­cord­ing to his un­der­stand­ing of God.”

97:5.6Ever the bur­den of Micah’s mes­sage was: “Shall I come be­fore God with burnt of­fer­ings? Will the Lord be pleased with a thou­sand rams or with ten thou­sand rivers of oil? Shall I give my first-born for my trans­gres­sion, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has shown me, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord re­quire of you but to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God?” And it was a great age; these were in­deed stir­ring times when mor­tal man heard, and some even be­lieved, such eman­ci­pat­ing mes­sages more than two and a half mil­len­ni­ums ago. And but for the stub­born re­sis­tance of the priests, these teach­ers would have over­thrown the whole bloody cer­e­mo­nial of the He­brew rit­ual of wor­ship.