The March of Time

This section and those immediately following give a bird's eye view of about eight hundred years of Israel's history. Its purpose is to show the continued necessity of updating the applications of the basic law given by Yahweh to Moses.

Israel Under Judges and Kings

During the days of the Judges [about 1200-1050 B.C.E.] Israel was loosely structured politically. The tribes came together at a central shrine like Shiloh and then went back again to a peaceful way of life. They came together at other times to repel marauders. That way of life seems to have been a very modest one. It is found even at the beginning of the monarchy. The first king of Israel, Saul [about 1020 B.C.E.], was anointed by Samuel when he was out searching for his donkeys [I Sam 9:1-2]. Saul also ploughed his own fields [1 Sam 11:5]. David's family seems to have belonged to the same solid stock because David as a youth was a shepherd boy. Furthermore the present he brought to king Saul was a very modest one from a farming family, "five loaves, a skin of wine and a kid" [1 Sam 16:20]. After the conquests of David [1000-962 B.C.E.] and the consolidation of the state under Solomon [961-922 B.C.E.], changes in life style became obvious. The oppressive nature of the state under Rehoboam [922-915 B.C.E.] and the revolt by Jeroboam 1 [922-901 B.C.E.] with the consequent division of the kingdom into Israel and Judah foreshadowed greater changes to come.

Yahweh Speaks Through the Prophets

Here we are interested only in the social changes brought about under the reign of a later king of Israel, Jeroboam II [783-743 B.C.E.]. "His long and prosperous reign set the stage for the gross social and religious conditions that provoked the tirades of the prophets Amos and Hosea" [NJBC, 75:99]. In the light of the faith of their fathers they condemned luxury, sexual immorality, insincere worship and idolatry. This situation was not confined to Israel; to a lesser extent it was also true of Judah.

The prophets give ample evidence of the social changes of the age. Prosperity was the order of the day, to get rich was glorious. '"How rich I have become!' says Ephraim, 'I have made a fortune'" [Hos. 12:9]. Isaiah is similarly explicit, "The land is full of silver and gold and treasures unlimited" [Is 2:7]. The prophets condemn displays of luxury in several forms, e.g. in dwellings [Hos 8:14; Amos 3:15, 5:11], inentertainment [Is 5:11-12; Amos 6:4], and in dress [Is 3:24].

This new spirit abroad in the land had a profound effect on Israel's ancient ideal of each man under his own vine and fig tree with no one to disturb him. The prophets also condemned the buying up of land and houses. Isaiah has a powerful passage: "Woe to those who add house to house and join field to field and there is nowhere left and they are the sole inhabitants of the country" [Is 5:8]. Micah speaks of evil-doers as "seizing the fields they covet ... owner and house they seize alike, the man himself as well as his inheritance" [Mic 2:1-2; Amos 8:5]. Judges who took bribes must have contributed greatly to this injustice, [Is 1:25; Jer 5:28; Mic 3:11. 7:3]. Creditors who knew no pity also make their appearance: "They have sold the upright for silver and the poor for a pair of sandals" [Amos 2:6-8, 8:6].

From these quotations we see that those who had the misfortune to fall into poverty were liable to lose not only their land but their freedom as well. This situation is well illustrated by the story of the widow's oil which is to be found among the stories about the prophet Elisha [2 Kgs 4:1-7]. The wife of a dead prophet came to Elisha saying, "A creditor has now come to take my two children and make them his slaves". That was because she could not pay her debts, and she had pledged her children against the payment of the debt. All she had left was a jar of oil. Elisha told her to borrow empty jars from all her neighbours and then keep pouring oil from her own jar into the borrowed jars. When this was done she went to Elisha again who said to her: "Go and sell the oil and redeem your pledge; you and your children can live on the remainder ".

The Punishment for Sin

"When Solomon fell asleep with his ancestors, he was buried in the City of David his father; his son Rehoboam succeeded him" [I Kgs 11:43]. Rehoboam's attitude to the people brought about a political split among the tribes. The kingdom of David was split into Israel and Judah. The City of David, Jerusalem, which had been the political and religious capital of the whole of Israel, was now in Judah. Jeroboam I [922-901 B.C.E.], king in the northern kingdom, Israel, feared for the stability of his kingdom and his own life if the people continued to "go up to the Temple of Yahweh in Jerusalem to offer sacrifices" [I Kgs 12:26]. To offset the attraction of Jerusalem, he set up two golden bulls at each end of his kingdom, one at Bethel and one at Dan, as symbols of Yahweh. The bull happened to be the symbol of the god, Baal, of Canaan. This was the 'sin of Jeroboam'. It meant assimilating Yahweh to Baal. This apostasy on Jeroboam's part had the effect of unravelling the moral and religious life of the Northern Kingdom, Israel; it was to have disastrous consequences. The Bible does not have many words of praise for the northern rulers. When Samaria, the capital, was taken by the Assyrians, in 721 B.C.E., and the kingdom itself incorporated into the Assyrian empire and its people deported, the biblical writers fairly and squarely laid the blame on Jeroboam's act of rebellion against Yahweh [2 Kgs 17:7-23].

We might be inclined to think that the 'sin of Jeroboam' with its rejection of Yahweh was like the act of a politician in modem times switching to a new political party. Life then goes on as before - the politician is still working for the 'common good'. That is not so. It was a total rejection of God and God's Covenant. The writer of 2 Kgs puts things very clearly. The destruction of the northern kingdom happened because the king and its people rebelled "against Yahweh their.

God who had brought them out of Egypt, out of the grip of Pharaoh king of Egypt" [2 Kgs 17:7]. Overnight the Israelites were back again in Egypt as slaves and under the whiplash of the overseers. Jeroboam I [922-901 B.C.E.] and his advisers were probably in high spirits at the success of their political and religious policies. Jeroboam II [786-746 B.C.E.] and his advisers at the end of his long reign must have been equally happy at the prosperity and security they had achieved. The only trouble was that the two Jeroboams and the other kings in between were the new Pharaohs, and their overseers with their whips were the greedy landowners, the corrupt judges and the pitiless creditors. It is hardly an accident that the prophet Amos appeared during the reign of Jeroboam II, and that he should have been the most uncompromising critic of the apparent prosperity and stability of the kingdom. It was as bad if not worse than the states round about it; both it and they would be destroyed. Yahweh was as good as his word; what Amos saw so clearly happened in the next generation.

JUDAH, TOO, FALLS SHORT. Judah fared somewhat better in the eyes of the Biblical authors. Some kings feared Yahweh, particularly Josiah [640-609 B.C.E.], who carried out far-reaching reforms. It was during his time that a copy of the law, probably incorporating the contents of chapters 12 to 26 of the present Book of Deuteronomy, was found in the Temple [2 Kgs 22:3-10]. The contents of this book [One God, One People, One Sanctuary] opened the eyes of Josiah, so that he decided to put it into practice. The reformation was not wholly successful.

Josiah's successors followed the path of rebellion. Josiah was killed while opposing the advance of the Egyptian Pharaoh, Necho, towards the north. Josiah's son, Jehoiakim [609-598 B.C.E.], after a short break succeeded to the throne. Jeremiah has harsh words for Jehoiakim. The passage is too long to quote in full: "Disaster for the man who builds his house without uprightness ... who makes his fellow-man work for nothing, without paying him his wages. ... Are you more of a king because of your passion for cedar? ... You have eyes and heart for nothing but your own interests, for shedding innocent blood and perpetrating violence and oppression" [Jer 22:13-17].

In due time the fate that befell the Northern Kingdom became the fate of the southern portion, too. This time it was the Babylonians who carried out Yahweh's will, for the Assyrian empire had fallen before the onslaught of the Babylonian armies. Nebuchadnezzar, head of the new superpower, attacked Jerusalem in 587 B.C.E., destroyed the temple and carried off the upper class into captivity in Babylon.

The Exile [587-539 B.C.E.]

In the thought of the time, when one nation conquered another the victory was due not only to the superiority of the army and its general; it was due above all to the superiority of the victor's god. This was the god to be cultivated in future. The destruction of Jerusalem with the Temple of Yahweh would have meant to the peoples round about that Yahweh was powerless. It must have been a shattering blow to the exiles in Babylon. They had been removed from the land promised them by Yahweh and in their daily lives looked on in perplexity at the processions of the 'victorious' gods of Babylon. The temptation to doubt Yahweh was ever present.

Their faith in Yahweh was shaken. Nevertheless, it stood the test and came out purified and strengthened. Yahweh had said that if the people did not stop committing sin, did not stop going after false gods and did not stop oppressing the poor, punishment was sure to follow. Everything happened as Yahweh said it would. Yahweh had kept the Covenant; the people on the other hand had not.

Certain institutions, like circumcision and the sabbath, held them together as a people and at the same time separated them from others. Circumcision was a sign of who belonged to God's people and who did not. Strict observance of the sabbath, with its readings from Scripture, its songs of praise, lamentations, and petitions became all important in reminding them weekly of Yahweh, who brought them out of Egypt.

They were also spurred on to carry on the work of trying to understand what God wanted of them as a people and embody this in concrete rules of life intelligible to all and covering all aspects of their life. It was a massive undertaking. It meant sifting through the writings of the past and preserving them not only for their own sake but also as God's Word to them. It seems that it was there in the Exile that at least a 'draft' of the Torah [Genesis - Numbers] was produced, the Deuteronomic history [Joshua - Kings] was 'edited', and collections were made of the writings of the prophets.

They were greatly encouraged by a prophet of their own. He was "Deutero-lsaiah" -- to give a name to this nameless prophet. He spoke God's word to the exiles, which in their situation could only be a word of consolation, forgivenness, salvation, and liberation. The period of punishment was over. They would embark on a new Exodus. The gods of the Babylonians were powerless, Cyrus of Persia would prove that. They were encouraged to put their trust Yahweh.

Cyrus occupied Babylon in 539 B.C.E. That event signalled the end of the Babylonian empire just as the Assyrian empire had ended with the capture of Nineveh in 612 B.C.E., less than one hundred years before. The enslaving empires were dead but the people of God lived on; however, they were still in exile.

The Return and Restoration

In 538 B.C.E., Cyrus issued a decree permitting the exiles to return to Jerusalem, and granting permission to rebuild the Temple at state expense and restoring the sacred vessels plundered by Nebuchadnezzar. For the returning first wave the approach to Jerusalem must have been a very joyous occasion. It was another experience that they would not forget. In their enthusiasm they built an altar and began laying the Temple foundations, but it was 515 B.C.E. before the building was completed.

About 445 B.C.E., Nehemiah, a Jewish eunuch in the Persian court, returned to Jerusalem. He rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem and instituted social reforms. Ezra, the scribe, around the same time was responsible for the religious reform and an edition of the Bible. At a celebration of the feast of Shelters [='Tabemacles' or 'Booths' in some translations] the returned exiles gathered in the square in front of the Water Gate in Jerusalem and "they asked Ezra to bring the Book of the Law of Moses which Yahweh had prescribed for Israel" [Neh 8:1]. That day they renewed the Covenant with Yahweh. There was great rejoicing for eight days complete with shelters made of "branches of olive, pine, myrtle, palm and other leafy trees" [Neh 8:15].

Their Vision

What was the vision that enabled the small group to keep the faith and establish a new Israel, albeit much smaller than before? It was the vision that inspired Moses - God's Covenant still held. God had given them back their land. Never again could they waver between their own living, holy, jealous and liberating God and the gods of the nations surrounding them. Those gods were falsehoods that could not be relied upon.

The people had failed to take God seriously and destruction had followed. This time God's word to Moses and to the Prophets had to be made known to the people. The three codes mentioned above and other laws were now given their final edition. Here we are interested only in the ordering of the economic life in the Promised Land.