Evolution of the God Concept Among the Hebrews

97:6.1While sev­eral teach­ers con­tin­ued to ex­pound the gospel of Isa­iah, it re­mained for Jeremiah to take the next bold step in the in­ter­na­tion­al­iza­tion of Yah­weh, God of the He­brews.

97:6.2Jeremiah fear­lessly de­clared that Yah­weh was not on the side of the He­brews in their mil­i­tary strug­gles with other na­tions. He as­serted that Yah­weh was God of all the earth, of all na­tions and of all peo­ples. Jeremiah’s teach­ing was the crescendo of the ris­ing wave of the in­ter­na­tion­al­iza­tion of the God of Is­rael; fi­nally and for­ever did this in­trepid preacher pro­claim that Yah­weh was God of all na­tions, and that there was no Osiris for the Egyp­tians, Bel for the Baby­lo­ni­ans, Ashur for the As­syr­i­ans, or Dagon for the Phil­is­tines. And thus did the re­li­gion of the He­brews share in that re­nais­sance of mono­the­ism through­out the world at about and fol­low­ing this time; at last the con­cept of Yah­weh had as­cended to a De­ity level of plan­e­tary and even cos­mic dig­nity. But many of Jeremiah’s as­so­ciates found it dif­fi­cult to con­ceive of Yah­weh apart from the He­brew na­tion.

97:6.3Jeremiah also preached of the just and lov­ing God de­scribed by Isa­iah, declar­ing: “Yes, I have loved you with an ev­er­last­ing love; there­fore with lov­ing-kind­ness have I drawn you.” “For he does not af­flict will­ingly the chil­dren of men.”

97:6.4Said this fear­less prophet: “Righ­teous is our Lord, great in coun­sel and mighty in work. His eyes are open upon all the ways of all the sons of men, to give ev­ery one ac­cord­ing to his ways and ac­cord­ing to the fruit of his do­ings.” But it was con­sid­ered blas­phe­mous trea­son when, dur­ing the siege of Je­ru­sa­lem, he said: “And now have I given these lands into the hand of Neb­uchad­nez­zar, the king of Baby­lon, my ser­vant.” And when Jeremiah coun­seled the sur­ren­der of the city, the priests and civil rulers cast him into the miry pit of a dis­mal dun­geon.