Most Highs

35:6.1At least three Voron­dadeks are as­signed to the ruler­ship of each of the one hun­dred con­stel­la­tions of a lo­cal uni­verse. These Sons are se­lected by the Cre­ator Son and are com­mis­sioned by Ga­briel as the Most Highs of the con­stel­la­tions for ser­vice dur­ing one dekamil­len­nium—10,000 stan­dard years, about 50,000 years of Uran­tia time. The reign­ing Most High, the Con­stel­la­tion Fa­ther, has two as­so­ciates, a se­nior and a ju­nior. At each change of ad­min­is­tra­tion the se­nior as­so­ciate be­comes the head of the gov­ern­ment, the ju­nior as­sumes the du­ties of the se­nior, while the un­as­signed Voron­dadeks res­i­dent on the Sal­ving­ton worlds nom­i­nate one of their num­ber as can­di­date for se­lec­tion to as­sume the re­spon­si­bil­i­ties of ju­nior as­so­ciate. Thus each of the Most High rulers, in ac­cor­dance with pres­ent pol­icy, has a pe­riod of ser­vice on the head­quar­ters of a con­stel­la­tion of three dekamil­len­ni­ums, about 150,000 Uran­tia years.

35:6.2The one hun­dred Con­stel­la­tion Fa­thers, the ac­tual pre­sid­ing heads of the con­stel­la­tion gov­ern­ments, con­sti­tute the su­preme ad­vi­sory cab­i­net of the Cre­ator Son. This coun­cil is in fre­quent ses­sion at uni­verse head­quar­ters and is un­lim­ited in the scope and range of its de­lib­er­a­tions but is chiefly con­cerned with the wel­fare of the con­stel­la­tions and with the uni­fi­ca­tion of the ad­min­is­tra­tion of the en­tire lo­cal uni­verse.

35:6.3When a Con­stel­la­tion Fa­ther is in at­ten­dance upon du­ties at the uni­verse head­quar­ters, as he fre­quently is, the se­nior as­so­ciate be­comes act­ing di­rec­tor of con­stel­la­tion af­fairs. The nor­mal func­tion of the se­nior as­so­ciate is the over­sight of spir­i­tual af­fairs, while the ju­nior as­so­ciate is per­son­ally oc­cu­pied with the phys­i­cal wel­fare of the con­stel­la­tion. No ma­jor pol­icy, how­ever, is ever car­ried out in a con­stel­la­tion un­less all three of the Most Highs are agreed upon all the de­tails of its ex­e­cu­tion.

35:6.4The en­tire mech­a­nism of spirit in­tel­li­gence and com­mu­ni­ca­tion chan­nels is at the dis­posal of the con­stel­la­tion Most Highs. They are in per­fect touch with their su­pe­ri­ors on Sal­ving­ton and with their di­rect sub­or­di­nates, the sov­er­eigns of the lo­cal sys­tems. They fre­quently con­vene in coun­cil with these Sys­tem Sov­er­eigns to de­lib­er­ate upon the state of the con­stel­la­tion.

35:6.5The Most Highs sur­round them­selves with a corps of coun­selors, which varies in num­ber and per­son­nel from time to time in ac­cor­dance with the pres­ence of the var­i­ous groups at con­stel­la­tion head­quar­ters and also as the lo­cal re­quire­ments vary. Dur­ing times of stress they may ask for, and will quickly re­ceive, ad­di­tional Sons of the Vo­ron­da­dek or­der to as­sist with the ad­min­is­tra­tive work. Nor­la­ti­adek, your own con­stel­la­tion, is at pres­ent ad­min­is­tered by twelve Vo­ron­da­dek Sons.

43:3.1The rulers of the con­stel­la­tions are of the Vo­ron­da­dek or­der of lo­cal uni­verse son­ship. When com­mis­sioned to ac­tive duty in the uni­verse as con­stel­la­tion rulers or oth­er­wise, these Sons are known as the Most Highs since they em­body the high­est ad­min­is­tra­tive wis­dom, cou­pled with the most farsee­ing and in­tel­li­gent loy­alty, of all the or­ders of the Lo­cal Uni­verse Sons of God. Their per­sonal in­tegrity and their group loy­alty have never been ques­tioned; no dis­af­fec­tion of the Vo­ron­da­dek Sons has ever oc­curred in Neb­a­don.

43:3.2At least three Vo­ron­da­dek Sons are com­mis­sioned by Ga­briel as the Most Highs of each of the Neb­a­don con­stel­la­tions. The pre­sid­ing mem­ber of this trio is known as the Con­stel­la­tion Fa­ther and his two as­so­ciates as the se­nior Most High and the ju­nior Most High. A Con­stel­la­tion Fa­ther reigns for ten thou­sand stan­dard years (about 50,000 Uran­tia years), hav­ing pre­vi­ously served as ju­nior as­so­ciate and as se­nior as­so­ciate for equal pe­ri­ods.

43:3.3The Psalmist knew that Eden­tia was ruled by three Con­stel­la­tion Fa­thers and ac­cord­ingly spoke of their abode in the plu­ral: “There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the most holy place of the taber­na­cles of the Most Highs.”

43:3.4Down through the ages there has been great con­fu­sion on Uran­tia re­gard­ing the var­i­ous uni­verse rulers. Many later teach­ers con­fused their vague and in­def­i­nite tribal de­i­ties with the Most High Fa­thers. Still later, the He­brews merged all of these ce­les­tial rulers into a com­pos­ite De­ity. One teacher un­der­stood that the Most Highs were not the Su­preme Rulers, for he said, “He who dwells in the se­cret place of the Most High shall abide un­der the shadow of the Al­mighty.” In the Uran­tia rec­ords it is very dif­fi­cult at times to know ex­actly who is re­ferred to by the term “Most High.” But Daniel fully un­der­stood these mat­ters. He said, “The Most High rules in the king­dom of men and gives it to whom­so­ever he will.”

43:3.5The Con­stel­la­tion Fa­thers are lit­tle oc­cu­pied with the in­di­vid­u­als of an in­hab­ited planet, but they are closely as­so­ci­ated with those leg­isla­tive and law­mak­ing func­tions of the con­stel­la­tions which so greatly con­cern ev­ery mor­tal race and na­tional group of the in­hab­ited worlds.

43:3.6Al­though the con­stel­la­tion regime stands be­tween you and the uni­verse ad­min­is­tra­tion, as in­di­vid­u­als you would or­di­nar­ily be lit­tle con­cerned with the con­stel­la­tion gov­ern­ment. Your great in­ter­est would nor­mally cen­ter in the lo­cal sys­tem, Sa­ta­nia; but tem­porar­ily, Uran­tia is closely re­lated to the con­stel­la­tion rulers be­cause of cer­tain sys­tem and plan­e­tary con­di­tions grow­ing out of the Lu­cifer re­bel­lion.

43:3.7The Eden­tia Most Highs seized cer­tain phases of plan­e­tary au­thor­ity on the re­bel­lious worlds at the time of the Lu­cifer se­ces­sion. They have con­tin­ued to ex­er­cise this power, and the An­cients of Days long since con­firmed this as­sump­tion of con­trol over these way­ward worlds. They will no doubt con­tinue to ex­er­cise this as­sumed ju­ris­dic­tion as long as Lu­cifer lives. Much of this au­thor­ity would or­di­nar­ily, in a loyal sys­tem, be in­vested in the Sys­tem Sov­er­eign.

43:3.8But there is still an­other way in which Uran­tia be­came pe­cu­liarly re­lated to the Most Highs. When Mi­chael, the Cre­ator Son, was on his ter­mi­nal be­stowal mis­sion, since the suc­ces­sor of Lu­cifer was not in full au­thor­ity in the lo­cal sys­tem, all Uran­tia af­fairs which con­cerned the Mi­chael be­stowal were im­me­di­ately super­vised by the Most Highs of Nor­la­ti­adek.

15:2.42. The Con­stel­la­tion. One hun­dred sys­tems (about 100,000 in­hab­it­able plan­ets) make up a con­stel­la­tion. Each con­stel­la­tion has an ar­chi­tec­tural head­quar­ters sphere and is pre­sided over by three Vo­ron­da­dek Sons, the Most Highs. Each con­stel­la­tion also has a Faith­ful of Days in ob­ser­va­tion, an am­bas­sador of the Par­a­dise Trin­ity.

20:1.10Mel­chiz­e­deks are the joint off­spring of a lo­cal uni­verse Cre­ator Son, Cre­ative Spirit, and Fa­ther Mel­chiz­e­dek. Both Voron­dadeks and La­non­an­deks are brought into be­ing by a Cre­ator Son and his Cre­ative Spirit as­so­ciate. Voron­dadeks are best known as the Most Highs, the Con­stel­la­tion Fa­thers; La­non­an­deks as Sys­tem Sov­er­eigns and as Plan­e­tary Princes. The three­fold or­der of Life Car­ri­ers is brought into be­ing by a Cre­ator Son and Cre­ative Spirit as­so­ci­ated with one of the three An­cients of Days of the super­uni­verse of ju­ris­dic­tion. But the na­tures and ac­tiv­i­ties of these Lo­cal Uni­verse Sons of God are more prop­erly por­trayed in those pa­pers deal­ing with the af­fairs of the lo­cal cre­ations.

35:5.1Af­ter the cre­ation of the per­sonal aids and the first group of the ver­sa­tile Mel­chiz­e­deks, the Cre­ator Son and the lo­cal uni­verse Cre­ative Spirit planned for, and brought into ex­is­tence, the sec­ond great and di­verse or­der of uni­verse son­ship, the Voron­dadeks. They are more gen­er­ally known as Con­stel­la­tion Fa­thers be­cause a Son of this or­der is uni­formly found at the head of each con­stel­la­tion gov­ern­ment in ev­ery lo­cal uni­verse.

• periodically send out broadcasts

33:6.6Con­stel­la­tion broad­casts are pe­ri­od­i­cally sent out from the head­quar­ters of the con­stel­la­tion by the chief of the Con­stel­la­tion Fa­thers.

• appoint System Sovereigns
• reigning Most High is Constellation Father

35:9.2The Sys­tem Sov­er­eigns rule in com­mis­sions of two or three on the head­quar­ters of each sys­tem of in­hab­ited worlds. The Con­stel­la­tion Fa­ther names one of these La­non­an­deks as chief ev­ery dekamil­len­nium. Some­times no change in the head of the trio is made, the mat­ter be­ing en­tirely op­tional with the con­stel­la­tion rulers. Sys­tem gov­ern­ments do not sud­denly change in per­son­nel un­less a tragedy of some sort oc­curs.

35:9.3When Sys­tem Sov­er­eigns or as­sis­tants are re­called, their places are filled by se­lec­tions made by the su­preme coun­cil lo­cated on the con­stel­la­tion head­quar­ters from the re­serves of that or­der, a group which is larger on Eden­tia than the av­er­age in­di­cated.

35:9.4The su­preme La­non­an­dek coun­cils are sta­tioned on the var­i­ous con­stel­la­tion head­quar­ters. Such a body is pre­sided over by the se­nior Most High as­so­ciate of the Con­stel­la­tion Fa­ther, while the ju­nior as­so­ciate super­vises the re­serves of the sec­ondary or­der.

• courts of

43:2.4All ju­di­cial prob­lems are first re­viewed by the coun­cil of the Mel­chiz­e­deks. Twelve of this or­der who have had cer­tain req­ui­site ex­pe­ri­ence on the evo­lu­tion­ary plan­ets and on the sys­tem head­quar­ters worlds are em­pow­ered to re­view ev­i­dence, di­gest pleas, and for­mu­late pro­vi­sional ver­dicts, which are passed on to the court of the Most High, the reign­ing Con­stel­la­tion Fa­ther. The mor­tal di­vi­sion of this lat­ter tri­bu­nal con­sists of seven judges, all of whom are as­cen­dant mor­tals. The higher you as­cend in the uni­verse, the more cer­tain you are to be judged by those of your own kind.

55:9.3As the ages pass, the Con­stel­la­tion Fa­thers take over more and more of the de­tailed ad­min­is­tra­tive or super­vis­ing func­tions which were for­merly cen­tered on the uni­verse head­quar­ters. By the at­tain­ment of the sixth stage of sta­bi­liza­tion these uni­fied con­stel­la­tions will have reached the po­si­tion of well-nigh com­plete au­ton­omy. En­trance upon the sev­enth stage of set­tled­ness will no doubt wit­ness the ex­al­ta­tion of these rulers to the true dig­nity sig­ni­fied by their names, the Most Highs. To all in­tents and pur­poses the con­stel­la­tions will then deal di­rectly with the super­uni­verse rulers, while the lo­cal uni­verse gov­ern­ment will ex­pand to grasp the re­spon­si­bil­i­ties of new grand uni­verse obli­ga­tions.

43:4.2This Faith­ful of Days is a Trin­ity Son of Par­a­dise and has been pres­ent on Eden­tia as the per­sonal rep­re­sen­ta­tive of Im­manuel since the cre­ation of the head­quar­ters world. Ever the Faith­ful of Days stands at the right hand of the Con­stel­la­tion Fa­thers to coun­sel them, but never does he prof­fer ad­vice un­less it is asked for. The high Sons of Par­a­dise never par­tic­i­pate in the con­duct of the af­fairs of a lo­cal uni­verse ex­cept upon the pe­ti­tion of the act­ing rulers of such do­mains. But all that a Union of Days is to a Cre­ator Son, a Faith­ful of Days is to the Most Highs of a con­stel­la­tion.

55:8.1When an en­tire sys­tem be­comes set­tled in life, a new or­der of gov­ern­ment is in­au­gu­rated. The Plan­e­tary Sov­er­eigns be­come mem­bers of the sys­tem con­clave, and this new ad­min­is­tra­tive body, sub­ject to the veto of the Con­stel­la­tion Fa­thers, is su­preme in au­thor­ity. Such a sys­tem of in­hab­ited worlds be­comes vir­tu­ally self-gov­ern­ing. The sys­tem leg­isla­tive as­sem­bly is con­sti­tuted on the head­quar­ters world, and each planet sends its ten rep­re­sen­ta­tives thereto. Courts are now es­tab­lished on the sys­tem cap­i­tals, and only ap­peals are taken to the uni­verse head­quar­ters.

114:4.5Vo­ron­da­dek re­gen­cies are not pe­cu­liar to re­bel­lion-iso­lated plan­ets, for the Most Highs may in­ter­vene at any time in the af­fairs of the in­hab­ited worlds, in­ter­pos­ing the su­pe­rior wis­dom of the con­stel­la­tion rulers in the af­fairs of the king­doms of men.

43:9.4As­cend­ing mor­tals on Eden­tia are chiefly oc­cu­pied with the as­sign­ments on the sev­enty pro­gres­sive uni­v­i­ta­tia worlds. They also serve in var­ied ca­pac­i­ties on Eden­tia it­self, mainly in con­junc­tion with the con­stel­la­tion pro­gram con­cerned with group, racial, na­tional, and plan­e­tary wel­fare. The Most Highs are not so much en­gaged in fos­ter­ing in­di­vid­ual ad­vance­ment on the in­hab­ited worlds; they rule in the king­doms of men rather than in the hearts of in­di­vid­u­als.

134:5.4This rule of the Most Highs in the king­doms of men is not for the es­pe­cial ben­e­fit of any es­pe­cially fa­vored group of mor­tals. There is no such thing as a “cho­sen peo­ple.” The rule of the Most Highs, the over­con­trollers of po­lit­i­cal evo­lu­tion, is a rule de­signed to fos­ter the great­est good to the great­est num­ber of all men and for the great­est length of time.

3:5.2The Fa­ther rules through his Sons; on down through the uni­verse or­ga­ni­za­tion there is an un­bro­ken chain of rulers end­ing with the Plan­e­tary Princes, who di­rect the des­tinies of the evo­lu­tion­ary spheres of the Fa­ther’s vast do­mains. It is no mere po­etic ex­pres­sion that ex­claims: “The earth is the Lord’s and the full­ness thereof.” “He re­moves kings and sets up kings.” “The Most Highs rule in the king­doms of men.”

• rule through Vorondadek observer

43:5.17Ev­ery quar­an­tined or iso­lated world has a Vo­ron­da­dek Son act­ing as an ob­server. He does not par­tic­i­pate in plan­e­tary ad­min­is­tra­tion ex­cept when or­dered by the Con­stel­la­tion Fa­ther to in­ter­vene in the af­fairs of the na­tions. Ac­tu­ally it is this Most High ob­server who “rules in the king­doms of men.” Uran­tia is one of the iso­lated worlds of Nor­la­ti­adek, and a Vo­ron­da­dek ob­server has been sta­tioned on the planet ever since the Cali­gas­tia be­trayal. When Ma­chi­venta Mel­chiz­e­dek min­is­tered in semi­ma­te­rial form on Uran­tia, he paid re­spect­ful homage to the Most High ob­server then on duty, as it is writ­ten, “And Mel­chiz­e­dek, king of Salem, was the priest of the Most High.” Mel­chiz­e­dek re­vealed the re­la­tions of this Most High ob­server to Abra­ham when he said, “And blessed be the Most High, who has de­liv­ered your en­e­mies into your hand.”

50:2.6The rov­ing com­mis­sions of con­cil­ia­tors serve and sup­ple­ment the plan­e­tary tri­bu­nals, and both spirit and phys­i­cal con­trol­lers are sub­ject to the find­ings of these con­cil­ia­tors. But no ar­bi­trary ex­e­cu­tion is ever car­ried out with­out the con­sent of the Con­stel­la­tion Fa­ther, for the “Most Highs rule in the king­doms of men.”

52:3.11Dur­ing the clos­ing cen­turies of the post-Adamic age there de­vel­ops new in­ter­est in art, mu­sic, and lit­er­a­ture, and this world-wide awak­en­ing is the sig­nal for the ap­pear­ance of a Mag­is­te­rial Son. The crown­ing de­vel­op­ment of this era is the uni­ver­sal in­ter­est in in­tel­lec­tual re­al­i­ties, true phi­los­o­phy. Re­li­gion be­comes less na­tion­al­is­tic, be­comes more and more a plan­e­tary af­fair. New rev­e­la­tions of truth char­ac­ter­ize these ages, and the Most Highs of the con­stel­la­tions be­gin to rule in the af­fairs of men. Truth is re­vealed up to the ad­min­is­tra­tion of the con­stel­la­tions.

97:8.5All mod­ern re­li­gions have se­ri­ously blun­dered in the at­tempt to put a mirac­u­lous in­ter­pre­ta­tion on cer­tain epochs of hu­man his­tory. While it is true that God has many times thrust a Fa­ther’s hand of prov­i­den­tial in­ter­ven­tion into the stream of hu­man af­fairs, it is a mis­take to re­gard the­o­logic dog­mas and re­li­gious su­per­sti­tion as a super­nat­u­ral sed­i­men­ta­tion ap­pear­ing by mirac­u­lous ac­tion in this stream of hu­man his­tory. The fact that the “Most Highs rule in the king­doms of men” does not con­vert sec­u­lar his­tory into so-called sa­cred his­tory.

• rule chiefly through seraphim

114:0.1The Most Highs rule in the king­doms of men through many ce­les­tial forces and agen­cies but chiefly through the min­istry of ser­a­phim.

114:0.2At noon to­day the roll call of plan­e­tary an­gels, guard­i­ans, and oth­ers on Uran­tia was 501,234,619 pairs of ser­a­phim. There were as­signed to my com­mand two hun­dred se­raphic hosts—597,196,800 pairs of ser­a­phim, or 1,194,393,600 in­di­vid­ual an­gels. The reg­istry, how­ever, shows 1,002,469,238 in­di­vid­u­als; it fol­lows there­fore that 191,924,362 an­gels were ab­sent from this world on trans­port, mes­sen­ger, and death duty. (On Uran­tia there are about the same num­ber of cheru­bim as ser­a­phim, and they are sim­i­larly or­ga­nized.)

• rule through angels of nation life

114:6.84. The an­gels of na­tion life. These are the “an­gels of the trum­pets,” di­rec­tors of the po­lit­i­cal per­for­mances of Uran­tia na­tional life. The group now func­tion­ing in the over­con­trol of in­ter­na­tional re­la­tions is the fourth corps to serve on the planet. It is par­tic­u­larly through the min­istry of this se­raphic di­vi­sion that “the Most Highs rule in the king­doms of men.”

• rule through reservists

114:7.9On many worlds the bet­ter adapted sec­ondary mid­way crea­tures are able to at­tain vary­ing de­grees of con­tact with the Thought Ad­justers of cer­tain fa­vor­ably con­sti­tuted mor­tals through the skill­ful pen­e­tra­tion of the minds of the lat­ters’ in­dwelling. (And it was by just such a for­tu­itous com­bi­na­tion of cos­mic ad­just­ments that these rev­e­la­tions were ma­te­ri­al­ized in the En­glish lan­guage on Uran­tia.) Such po­ten­tial con­tact mor­tals of the evo­lu­tion­ary worlds are mo­bi­lized in the nu­mer­ous re­serve corps, and it is, to a cer­tain ex­tent, through these small groups of for­ward-look­ing per­son­al­i­ties that spir­i­tual civ­i­liza­tion is ad­vanced and the Most Highs are able to rule in the king­doms of men. The men and women of these re­serve corps of des­tiny thus have var­i­ous de­grees of con­tact with their Ad­justers through the in­ter­ven­ing min­istry of the mid­way crea­tures; but these same mor­tals are lit­tle known to their fel­lows ex­cept in those rare so­cial emer­gen­cies and spir­i­tual ex­i­gen­cies wherein these re­serve per­son­al­i­ties func­tion for the pre­ven­tion of the break­down of evo­lu­tion­ary cul­ture or the ex­tinc­tion of the light of liv­ing truth. On Uran­tia these re­servists of des­tiny have sel­dom been em­bla­zoned on the pages of hu­man his­tory.

134:5.3Re­li­gious teach­ers must al­ways re­mem­ber that the spir­i­tual sov­er­eignty of God over­rides all in­ter­ven­ing and in­ter­me­di­ate spir­i­tual loy­al­ties. Some­day civil rulers will learn that the Most Highs rule in the king­doms of men.

136:9.6Rome was mis­tress of the West­ern world. The Son of Man, now in iso­la­tion and achiev­ing these mo­men­tous de­ci­sions, with the hosts of heaven at his com­mand, rep­re­sented the last chance of the Jews to at­tain world do­min­ion; but this earth­born Jew, who pos­sessed such tremen­dous wis­dom and power, de­clined to use his uni­verse en­dow­ments ei­ther for the ag­gran­dize­ment of him­self or for the en­throne­ment of his peo­ple. He saw, as it were, “the king­doms of this world,” and he pos­sessed the power to take them. The Most Highs of Eden­tia had re­signed all these pow­ers into his hands, but he did not want them. The king­doms of earth were pal­try things to in­ter­est the Cre­ator and Ruler of a uni­verse. He had only one ob­jec­tive, the fur­ther rev­e­la­tion of God to man, the es­tab­lish­ment of the king­dom, the rule of the heav­enly Fa­ther in the hearts of man­kind.

175:1.8“This af­ter­noon my apos­tles stand here be­fore you in si­lence, but you shall soon hear their voices ring­ing out with the call to sal­va­tion and with the urge to unite with the heav­enly king­dom as the sons of the liv­ing God. And now I call to wit­ness these, my dis­ci­ples and be­liev­ers in the gospel of the king­dom, as well as the un­seen mes­sen­gers by their sides, that I have once more of­fered Is­rael and her rulers de­liv­er­ance and sal­va­tion. But you all be­hold how the Fa­ther’s mercy is slighted and how the mes­sen­gers of truth are re­jected. Nev­er­the­less, I ad­mon­ish you that these scribes and Phar­isees still sit in Moses’ seat, and there­fore, un­til the Most Highs who rule in the king­doms of men shall fi­nally over­throw this na­tion and de­stroy the place of these rulers, I bid you co-op­er­ate with these el­ders in Is­rael. You are not re­quired to unite with them in their plans to de­stroy the Son of Man, but in ev­ery­thing re­lated to the peace of Is­rael you are to be sub­ject to them. In all these mat­ters do what­so­ever they bid you and ob­serve the es­sen­tials of the law but do not pat­tern af­ter their evil works. Re­mem­ber, this is the sin of these rulers: They say that which is good, but they do it not. You well know how these lead­ers bind heavy bur­dens on your shoul­ders, bur­dens griev­ous to bear, and that they will not lift as much as one fin­ger to help you bear these weighty bur­dens. They have op­pressed you with cer­e­monies and en­slaved you by tra­di­tions.

175:3.2From this time on the Jews were left to fin­ish their brief and short lease of na­tional life wholly in ac­cor­dance with their purely hu­man sta­tus among the na­tions of Uran­tia. Is­rael had re­pu­di­ated the Son of the God who made a covenant with Abra­ham, and the plan to make the chil­dren of Abra­ham the light-bear­ers of truth to the world had been shat­tered. The di­vine covenant had been ab­ro­gated, and the end of the He­brew na­tion drew on apace.