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HEIR very succession in time prompts the question of what the three great prophets of the neo-Babylonian and early Persian periods have in common. Ezekiel was a younger con- temporary of Jeremiah-the two must have known one another; and at the time when Ezekiel’s prophecy ceased (after 571), Deutero-Isaiah may already have been alive. What specially links them, however, is that they lived during the period when the never ending crisis which began with the birth of the Mesopotamian empires’ interest in Palestine had now entered upon its tensest and most acute phase. No one living in Jerusalem about the year 600 could fail to see that world-shaping events were already in preparation. But what was Jahweh’s purpose behind them? Was it, indeed, entirely certain that Jahweh was still in control of events? - t h e element of sense in his control of history, and even his power, had, after all, been questioned. Zephaniah speaks of people who were saying that Jahweh “does neither good nor evil”

(Zeph. ^I. 12); these were no atheists, but they no longer reckoned with divine action in the present day; and when the storm broke, and the Southern Kingdom suffered the same fate as had the Northern, and saw its upper classes deported to Babylon, the question of Jahweh’s re- lationship to his people became completely uncertain. Indeed, to many of them it seemed already to have received a negative answer (cp.

fer. XLIV. 15ff.). Deutero-Isaiah, too, belongs to this period of acute crisis in that at a time when other answers seemed much more plausible, ee came forward with the message ofJahweh’s passionate concern for Jarusalem, and with the prophecy that Jahweh was even now about to

rpise up a world power in order that he might avow his loyalty to his heople and glorify himself in history.

On the other hand, in considering the question of the common element in these three prophets, we must remember that they belong to a time when men had bccomc even more detached than before from

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the ties of religion- a process which left its mark even on the prophets OI the day. This does not mean that their prophetic passion was feebler as a result of the contemporary undermining of religious belief, but it does mean that there was some change in their relationship to the traditions of the faith. In ^{VOL. I} we have already mentioned the great extent to which, in the last days of the Monarchy, the individual emancipated himself from the group and asked questions about his rights as a person.1 Thus, the prophets, too, of the monarchical era are much more of individuals, they are religious and literary personalities to a far greater extent than are Amos and even Isaiah. In short, the specifically human element and all the problems which this entails now claim a much greater place. Accordingly, these three prophets’ relation- ship to the sacral traditions is looser and more eclective. How arbitrary Ezekiel or Deutero-Isaiah could be in handling a time-hallowed tradition (cp. Ezek. XX; Is. ^{LV. IE)} ! Jeremiah is generally taken to be the prophet who went furthest along the road of isolation and in- dividuality, and in comparison with him Ezekiel may seem much more bound to tradition. And yet, in his very lavish use of elements taken from tradition, Ezekiel illustrates more than the change in the times in general. Indeed, it is probable that he was ahead of his time in the “modernity” of his interpretation and his use of a subtly rational and completely novel point of view to master his material. It is Ezekiel who makes it absolutely clear that his mental world is miles away from the world of traditions which he forces into some sort of relevance for his own day. Therefore, in order to give a proper answer to the question of what these prophets had in common, we have to start from the fact that they had all travelled far along the road towards becoming individuals.

To take an external point first, a new element in these prophets is that, as far as forms are concerned, their preaching stands on a very much broader basis than did that of the earlier prophets. The picture of the prophetic tradition has now far more colours to it. As well as the traditional literary categories (the messenger formula or oracles against foreign nations), we find in the prophets of this age large-scaled alle- gorical compositions (Ezek. XVI, ^XXIII), a theological excursus (Ezek, xvru), a pastoral letter (Jer.^XXIX), dialogues of the prophet with God.

1 See VOL. I, pp. ^391ff. As well as the sceptical utterance of the people of Jerusalem:

“the way ofJahweh is not just” (Ezek. XVIII. 25,29; cp. VOL. I, p. 391), another saying is quoted in Ezek. XII. 22: “every [prophetic] vision comes to naught.”

long soliloquies of lament, etc. Two things are here characteristic.

With Jeremiah and Ezekiel at least, the prophetic “I” suddenly be- comes very much more prominent-indeed, the Book of Ezekiel is practically a long prophetic autobiography. These men are actually much more distinct personalities, they are more detached, and in their spiritual and theological aliveness much more self-dependent than were their predecessors.2 In the same measure, they are also much more free not only in their choice of expression and in the forms in which they clothe their message, but also in their whole dealings with Jahweh.

Nothing is more characteristic of the last than the fact that they could sometimes even turn on Jahweh with complaints and reproaches (Habakkuk, Jeremiah). The second feature is unquestionably closely connected with their versatility as individuals-their relationship to the

‘(thou,” the people to whom they spoke, has also changed, for it has become much more intense. Their message enters much more into the hearers’ religious situation, indeed, it absolutely pursues them, and this means that the prophets’ debate is at a much deeper level. Their audi- ence was largely critical, if not positively sceptical, and if they wanted to be heard at all, they had to adapt themselves to this. Accordingly, their endeavours are directed even more than their predecessors’ were towards being really understood by their hearers. They try to clear up misconceptions, they are urgent in their efforts to persuade, and they take care that their arguments are cogent. These efforts reach their climax in, for example, Deutero-Isaiah’s discussions or his proofs from prophecy, with their broad theological basis (Is. ^XLI. 26f., XLIII. gf., XL~-III. 14). This implies that theological reflexion played a very large part in giving its characteristic features to the preaching of these prophets. It is certainly no accident that the prophets of this era are the first with whom we see an effort to give an axiomatic deftition and explanation of the phenomenon of the word of Jahweh. One notices how engrossed they are not only with each separate “word” which they have to deliver, but also with the phenomenon of the word of Jahweh in general. In the context of a purely abstract consideration of

2 The direct result of this individualisation of prophecy was the increase in the number of collisions with those who saw the same situation with different eyes, and whom we call “false prophets.” The collisions must have grown more and more in proportion as this individualising process progressed. It was only in this period that the latent problem of the authority of the prophetic word appeared in all its final acuteness.

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the value which belongs to d&xent modes of revelation, Jeremiah calls

“the” word of Jahweh a hammer that breaks the rocks in pieces, and he contrasts it with the less authoritative form of revelation by means of dreams (Jer. XXIII. ^28f.). Again, Deutero-Isaiah’s statements on the word of Jahweh are demonstrably those of a theoretical theologian.

There is something almost schematic about the way he divides the empirical world into two realms. On the one side is the world of flesh and the transience of everything in it; on the other, the word afJahweh, the only thing creative and productive of blessing (Is. XL. 6-8, ^{LV. ION.).}

This unsurpassable value which is accorded to the word of Jahweh naturally increased these prophets’ self-confidence. As the bearers and spokesmen of this word they occupied an absolutely key position be- tween Jahweh and his government of the world.

2. One of the central subjects upon which they reflected was God’s

“justice,” that is to say, the question of how Jahweh’s faithfulness to the covenant was made effective. It was a question which had not only become a source of serious perplexity to the people of the day: it was also one which even the prophets were no longer able to answer in the same way as Israel had hitherto done. With Habakkuk it was the arbitrary action and arrogance of stronger political powers that raised doubts as to whether Jahweh was still gracious to his people. Jeremiah and Ezekiel faced the same problem from a different angle-how did Jahweh’s will to save work out in practice for the individual? Did not his actions prove that he paid no heed to the individual, and that he was indifferent both to his guilt and his devotion and obedience? Did Jahweh’s actions afford a reasonable basis for faith? It is not surprising that the prophets’ answers to this perplexing contemporary problem do not follow any set pattern-why, d.if%rent prophets even framed the question in different ways ^! Ezekiel countered the complaint that Jahweh lumped the generations together in wholesale acts ofjudgment by roundly asserting the contrary-each individual stands in direct relationship to God, and Jahweh has the keenest interest in the individual and the decisions which he takes, because he wants to preserve his life (Ezek. xvnr). In advancing this view, Ezekiel abandoned the old col- lective way of thinking. How modem and revolutionary the prophet appears here, this very prophet whose thinking is at the same time so conditioned by sacral orders! Jeremiah too has heard it said that the children had to bear their fathers’ guilt, and he too used what was a radically individualistic view to counter the saying (Jer. ^XXXI. 29f).

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The answer that Habakkuk and J eremiah received to the question

“why” was dif-l%rent from that received by Ezekiel. Whereas Ezekiel had no hesitation in speaking of a clearly perceptible logic in the divine action in the case of an individual’s responsible decision, with Jeremiah and Habakkuk the answer to the question why there should be such great and mysterious suf%ring is so remarkably veiled and obscure that it makes one feel as if Jahweh were retreating before the question, and withdrawing into ever deeper seclusion. At all events, both cases are alike in that they give no answer to the question “why,” but only disclose horizons of still greater suf&i.ngs and trials. Jeremiah has to learn that he is still at the very start of his road, and that Jahweh can make no use of him if he is already f&g in “a land that ilS safe” (Jer.

MI. 5). While this oracle confines itself to directing the prophet’s troubled eyes to greater problems and suffering, the one received by Habakkuk contained more comfort: it speaks of the promise that accrues to perseverance in faith (;13mK) on the part of the righteous (Hab. II. 4).

There was another respect in which the relationship between men of this time and Jahweh had been called in question. Not only had Jahweh’s iI? become a problem for them, but there must also have been many who came increasingly to doubt whether it was possible for Israel, that is, for the human partner, to maintain the covenant relationship offered her by Jahweh. For these people, therefore, what we call “assurance of salvation” had been shaken by doubts as to the possibility of men’s ;li;r7X. This brings us to the deeply perplexing questions which Jeremiah answered with the message of the new covenant and Ezekiel with that of the new heart.

In this connexion, we must first of all say something more about the great theological contexts to which these belong. For in this matter Jeremiah and Ezekiel were, of course, far from being lone voices

crying in the wildemess. On the contrary, it can be easily shown that, in certain circles at least, religious thinking was very much alive during these years, and that it apparently concentrated on ,the question of the covenant, on how far men might rely upon it and how much it could bear. Here we must first mention Deuteronomy and the people who gave it its final form; for Deuteronomy is, of course, the outline of a comprehensive covenant theology, directed solely towards making the people of the time believe that the covenant had a meaning for their own day and generation. It covers a huge time-span, from Moses and

the events at Sinai down to its own day, and it cries out to this late generation : now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation!

Here we must particularly consider the two passages Deut. v. 2f. and

MIIX. 4ff. [3ff.], which have already been discussed in ^{VOL. I,} for they reveal more clearly than anything else the effort to make the “con- temporaneousness” of the Sinai covenant plausible for the present. The way in which Deuteronomy presses this offer of salvation also shows a concern lest Israel should reject what was almost an ultimatum (Deut.

xxx. ^15ff.); nevertheless, Deuteronomy still has a lively confidence that, if Israel harkens to the voice of Moses and obeys the command- ments, she will have “life.”

3. Some decades after the great occasion of the publication of Deuteronomy, in the reign ofJosiah, saw the birth of the Deuteronomic history. This splendidly conceived theology of history does not, it is true, deal particularly with the problem of the covenant, but it works out, with a fascinating theological precision, that it was on Jahweh and his commandments alone that Israel, along with her kings, came to grief. Nowhere is this crushing verdict so forcefully expressed as in the words put into the mouth of Joshua at the assembly at Shechem, with which he cuts clean through Israel’s declaration that she is prepared to serve Jahweh :

“You cannot serve Jahweh, for he is a holy and a jealous God”

(Josh. XXIV. 19).

Like the sentence passed by the Deuteronomic history, these words -which are quite without parallel in the Hexateuch-must in some way link up with the verdicts passed by the prophets, particularly those ofJeremiah and Ezekiel; they are in line with what Jeremiah says about the Ethiopian who cannot change his skin (Jer. xm. 23), and with Ezekiel’s understanding of man. No one in Israel had yet realised with such clarity as Ezekiel the incapacity of human beings to live with and belong to God. His representation of the saving history as a series of entirely fruitless attempts on God’s part (Ezek. xx) is almost blasphem- ous, and it too is connected with Josh. xxrv. 19.

It is clear, therefore, that a radically new factor had at this time entered into men’s understanding of the will of Jahweh, a factor which specially affected the prophets. The change in their outlook as com- pared with that of the earlier prophets is shown by the fact that Jere- miah and Ezekiel made the concept of the will of God addressed to Israel into something concrete by speaking summarily of Jahweh’s

2 6 9 Torah or of the statutes.3 They no longer judge single transgressions in the light of single commandments, but measure Israel against the whole body of Jahweh’s will, and to this degree they recognise Israel’s com- plete incapacity to obey. For these prophets the hardest problem lies in the realm of anthropology-how can this “rebellious house,” these men “of a hard forehead and a stubborn heart” (Ezek. II. 3f), who are as little able-to change themselves as an Ethiopian can change the colour of his skin (Jer. XLII. 23)-how can these be Jahweh’s people?

Here, then, Jahweh’s commandments have turned into a law that judges and destroys. The change can be clearly seen in a prophetic utterance which may well come from this time. It is couched in the form of a liturgy of the gate, that is to say, the ritual of question and answer which took place on entering the precincts of a shrine.4 Now, however, the usual question runs in a completely

has almost become a rhetorical question answered themselves :

different way-it by “the sinners”

Who can dwell with the devouring fire?

Who can dwell with everlasting burning? (Is. xxxm. 14) What was once ‘a ritual used in worship has become an insoluble problem.5

If we are to understand the prophets’ answer to this, the hardest question they faced, we must once again reflect on the idea ofJahweh’s covenant with Israel, so clearly and impressively presented in Deut- eronomy, for the Israel which Moses addresses is actually the Israel of the last days of the monarchy. Deuteronomy sets the scene in the past, but it is really Josiah’s Israel which had just made the covenant with Jahweh and which was still looking forward to the fulfilment of his great promises; this Israel had certainly not as yet fQund rest, which means that the redemption of the great promise of blessing was still to come.6 A comparison between this basic concept in the theology of Deuteronomy and Jeremiah’s prophecy of the new covenant immedi- 3 Characteristic examples of these summary quotations of the Law are Jer. VI. 19,

VIII. 8, IX. 12 (13), XVI. II, xxxr. 33, xxxn. 23 ; Ezek. v. 6, XI. 12, 20, XVIII. jff., xx.

sff, xxxvr. 27. With some of these references, of course, account has to be taken of the Deuteronomic stamp given to the prophet’s words. 4 See VOL. I, pp. 377f.

5 Another example of this prophetic radicalisation was pointed out by Zimmerli,

“Die Eigenart der prophetischen Rede des Ezechiel,” in Z.A. IV., LXVI (Igp+), pp. 24f.

6 See var. I, p. 321.

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ately reveals their similarity. Deuteronomy also looks forward to the future, to a time when Israel, obeying the commandments, is to live in the promised land. Neither Deuteronomy nor Jeremiah -expect there to be any miraculous change in the outward conditions of Israel’s future life. According to Deuteronomy, Israel is to be a true nation and to enjoy Jahweh’s blessings in the realms of history and nature alike (;1>71, ;rnnn). A ccording to Jeremiah, Jerusalem is to be rebuilt, there is again to be buying and selling, people will again go on pil- grimages, and the laughter of those who rejoice will again be heard in the villages (Jer. XXIV. sff., xxxm. 4ff., xxx. ^18f.) ; this corresponds line for line with the picture in Deuteronomy even down to the latter’s injunction to rejoice (Deut. XII. 7, ^{12, 18, XIV.} 26, XVI. ^{I I,} etc.). There is only one point of difference: Jeremiah speaks of a new covenant, while Deuteronomy preserves the old one and goes to the limits of theological possibility as it extends its force to apply to contemporary conditions-the fmal period of the Monarchy. The difference high- lights the crucial feature in the prophetic teaching; for Jeremiah places his entire confidence in the expectation of a new saving act with which Jahweh is to eclipse the Sinai covenant: but Deuteronomy hopes that Jahweh is now to give effect to the promises of the old covenant. Here is a remarkable and deep distinction which must be linked, as we have already seen, with the fact that for Deuteronomy the question of Israel’s obedience had not yet become a problem,7 whereas Jeremiah and Ezekiel take Israel’s total inability to obey as the very starting- point of their prophecy.

We have already seen, of course, that the new thing looked for by Jeremiah did not mean that the Sinai covenant and its contents became obsolete. The prophet did not expect Jahweh to put his relationship to Israel on an absolutely new basis. The new thing is part of something else, for Jeremiah believed that Jahweh’s old offer to Israel, that she should be his people and obey his commandments, was still valid. Here his view of the fulfilment of the Sinai covenant is exactly the same as Deuteronomy’s. The new thing lies in the human sphere, in a change in the hearts of men.

Ezekiel’s ideas are so much his own that it is unlikely that his pericope about Israel’s spiritual renewal was taken directly from Jer. XXXI. 3 off.

It is therefore all the more significant that the climax of his forecasts in Ezek. XXXVI. 25ff. should correspond almost exactly to Jeremiah. The

7 See voL. I, p. 230.

T H E B A BYL O N I A N A N D E A R L Y PERSIANPERIOD 2 7 1 only difference is that Ezekiel’s description of the process of man’s re- creation is very much more precise and detailed. He goes further than Jeremiah in that for him Jahweh’s work of re-creation is divided into a whole series of separate divine acts, and the frrst of these is the promise that Israel will be cleansed from her sins-something which Jeremiah only includes as an appendix. Jahweh is next to give Israel a heart of flesh instead of a stony heart; and finally he is to give her the most important gift of all, the gift of his spirit so that she can keep his divine commandments.8

We may notice in passing that Deutero-Isaiah too speaks of a new covenant which Jahweh is to make with Israel. Is. ^LV. 3 clearly shows that this future event is not seen as the actualisation of an already existing covenant. Here it is the covenant with David which in its new form is to embrace the whole people and bring glory to it (Is. ^{LV. 3ff.).}

Though Deutero-Isaiah differs from Jeremiah and Ezekiel, we can see how much the problem of the covenant was exercising men’s thoughts during this whole period, and how the prophets also felt themselves challenged to define their attitude to it.

We have still to consider the revolutionary significance of the amaz- ing new factor which the message of Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Deutero- Isaiah must have contained for its hearers. The adjective “new” in Jer. xxxr. ³¹ implies the complete negation of the saving events on which Israel had hitherto depended. Such a judgment was infinitely harsher than any previous one for it was an out and out challenge to the validity of the basis of salvation on which Israel relied. It is as though these prophets had changed the outlook of faith by ¹⁸⁰ degrees. The saving power of the old ordinances is abolished, and Israel can only find salvation in new, future saving appointments on Jahweh’s part.

Now, the message of the end of the old and the need to turn to a future act of Jahweh was not itself new-it is also to be found in the eighth-century prophets.9 With the prophets of our period, however, the gulf between the old and the new has become much wider, the new beginning, which is the future saving event, is much more sharply, and indeed aggressively, marked off from the end of the old-consider words such as “not like the covenant which I made with their fathers”

(Jer. XXXI. 3 2), or “remember not the former things !” (Is. XLIII. 18), or the mention of a time when the confession “as Jahweh lives who

8 For the exposition of Ezek. XXXVI. zsff., see above, pp. 234ff.

9 See above, pp. 184ff.