At the time of Jeroboam II (786-746 B.C.E.), the kingdom of Israel was enjoying its largest territorial expansion and great economic prosperity (Am. 7:10-17). Being a shepherd from Tekoa, in the southern kingdom of Judah, Amos had the temerity to prophesy against Jeroboam at the royal sanctuary at Bethel, the northern competitor to the temple in Jerusalem. His message exposed the injustices done by the prosperous and flamboyant princes who thought themselves blessed because of their generosity with the sacrifices of bulls and heifers at the temple. Amos pointed out to them that their ritual displays at the altar did not cover up their abuses of the poor, their greed and their trust in their own piety. Being descendants of Jacob, they considered themselves the elect of Yahveh who were destined to even greater prosperity. They had the idea, its origin is obscure, that on the Day of the Lord, when God would personally enter history, they would be able to celebrate with much rejoicing as they would achieve the pinnacle of national glory and untold fame. Amos announced to them, to the contrary, that on account of their way of life, their expectations were totally unfounded. He told them, “Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord! It is darkness, and not light; as if a man fled from a lion, and a bear met him; or went into the house and leaned with his hand against the wall, and a serpent bit him. Is not the day of the Lord darkness, and not light, and gloom with no brightness in it?” (Am. 5:18-20). Amos’ aim was not to prognosticate the future. It was to call for a change of behavior that would cause their dark future not to be. The constant advice of the prophetic messages in the tradition of Amos was shub, turn, return, change course, repent. Amos’ message was quite negative because God’s ways were not being followed. His intention, however, was to cause them to change their unjust ways so that they could continue to live in the land in security and peace.
Hosea, who prophesied in the northern kingdom a few years later, also gave a negative appraisal of the way in which the Israelites were living. After charging the people with harlotry (Hos. 4:13-15) and other sins, Hosea announced, “The days of punishment have come, the days of recompense have come; Israel shall know it.… They have deeply corrupted themselves as in the days of Gibeah; he will remember their iniquity, he will punish their sins” (Hos. 9:7-9). His description of God’s punishments is disturbing, “Samaria shall bear her guilt, because she has rebelled against her God; they shall fall by the sword, their little ones shall be dashed in pieces, and their pregnant women ripped open” (Hos. 13:16). If life in Samaria, the capital of the northern kingdom of Israel, continued in its present course, Hosea predicted a future that today rings as one devised by a sadistic torturer. He, however, balanced his indictments with calls to repentance, “Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God, for you have stumbled because of your iniquity. Take with you words and return to the Lord, say to him, ‘Take away all iniquity’ .… They shall return and dwell beneath my shadow, they shall flourish as a garden; they shall blossom as the vine, their fragrance shall be like the wine of Lebanon” (Hos. 14:1-2, 7). Hosea reports God saying“I will heal their faithlessness; I will love them freely” (Hos. 14:4); “How can I give you up, O Ephraim! How can I hand you over, O Israel! … My heart recoils within me, my compassion grows warm and tender. I will not execute my fierce anger” (Hos. 11:8-9). The contrast between the two possible futures could not be more pronounced: the sadist killer against the romantic lover. The early prophets aimed at causing the people to take seriously the present and live according to their commitments to Yahveh. For them, the future was still open. God could change his mind and not execute the dire judgments their present conduct called for. While Amos is unique in his concentration of the coming doom that will punish a sinful people, all the other prophets, starting with Hosea, balance their announcements of doom with demonstrations of God’s loving commitment to his people.
Prophetic adjustments to new circumstances
The prophets active in the southern kingdom of Judah just prior to the destruction of Jerusalem and afterwards during the Exile in Babylon, Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel (630-570 B.C.E.), found the situation untenable and lamented the extreme corruption taking place at the palace and the temple. They could do no other but announce the downfall of the city and the temple due to the total disregard for the God of the covenant. Their idolatry had no bounds. Yahveh is a jealous God of justice, and retributive justice would take its course.
Jeremiah and Ezekiel, however, realized that the retributive justice of God needed to be adjusted to a new understanding of the self. They recognized that the traditional understanding of the self as a member of a family, or tribe, does not make sense to those who saw themselves as individual persons. The notion that the exiles were suffering on account of the sins of ancestors who had been idol-worshipers in Jerusalem was no longer reasonable. Both Jeremiah and Ezekiel refer to a proverb that was used to justify suffering as punishment for sins committed by ancestors. It said, “The fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children’s teeth are set on edge” (Jer. 31:29; Ez. 18:2). According to these prophets, justice does not operate this way any longer. They proclaimed instead, “the soul that sins shall die” (Ez. 18:4) or “each man who eats sour grapes, his teeth shall be set on edge” (Jer. 31:30). The individualization of responsibility for one’s actions was a major shift in the Israelite understanding of justice.
Until then it was perfectly reasonable to punish a whole clan for the crime of one of its members. The story of the conquest of Jericho, tells that Achan “took some of the devoted things; and the anger of the Lord burned against the people of Israel” (Jos. 7:1). The story ends with the resolution of the problem created by the fateful deed. “And Joshua and all Israel with him took Achan the son of Zerah, and the silver and the mantle and the bar of gold, and his sons and daughters, and his oxen and asses and sheep and his tent, and all that he had; and they brought them up to the Valley of Achor. And Joshua said, ‘Why did you bring trouble on us? The Lord brings trouble on you today.’ And all Israel stoned him with stones; they burned them with fire, and stoned them with stones. And they raised over him a great hip of stones that remains to this day; then the Lord turned from his burning anger” (Jos. 7:24-26). At that time it apparently seemed quite reasonable for God to be angry with all the people of Israel and cause their defeat at Ai as punishment for the transgression of one man. To solve the problem that had affected all the people of Israel, the people did not execute just Achan, but Achan, his sons and his daughters. Besides, all his possessions were burned. That God’s justice works on the basis of tribal identity is in evidence throughout the history of Israel up to the Exile. What Jeremiah and Ezekiel proclaimed was that the way in which God’s justice had been working in the past was no longer to be. From now on, punishment would only affect the guilty perpetrator.
Among the features that contributed to the dawn of an apocalyptic perspective during and following the Exile, this shift in the identification of a person from one who is a member of a tribe to one who is a single individual is crucial. This is the transition from corporate to individual identity. Jeremiah and Ezekiel proclaimed this new vision of how Yahveh’s justice works to disallow the excuse being given by the exiles who blamed their fathers rather than themselves for their sufferings in Exile. The prophets told them that because they did not turn away from the evil ways of their fathers they were responsible for their own suffering. This transition, of course, reflects a new understanding of the value of an individual. It became logical to understand that God’s justice works on the basis of individual responsibility because of the influence of the Greek philosophers who established a new vision of the person. In Greece, it had brought about the rejection of autocrats and the establishment of the right of each individual citizen to vote for the election of rulers. In Israel, where history had become the arena of God’s activity, the arrival of individual identity brought about a new understanding of God’s justice.
The basic theological proposition supporting the reaffirmation of the Law in Deuteronomy is that God is the God of retributive justice. The book contains three discourses given by Moses at the gates of the Promised Land interpreting God’s words at Sinai. By the time Deuteronomy was written and “found” at the temple (2 Kg. 22:3-8) to become the basis for the reforms of King Josiah (621 B.C.E.), Moses was considered the greatest of the prophets on the basis of his having been the One who spoke for God. It was written as Moses’ “testament;” as a warning to the future which they would face after his imminent death. In the book, Moses functions in a new role. He interprets the word the Lord had given in the past, rather than proclaiming a new word for the present. “If you obey the voice of the Lord your God,