RELATIONSHIP
3. THE SPECIAL STAMP GIVEN TO SOLIDARITY THINKING IN THE MONARCHICAL PERIOD
I. As a result of the foundation and consolidation of the state by David and Solomon this vital expression of individual life in a tribal league that was predominantly collective in character underwent
SOLIDARITY IN THE MONARCHICAL PERIOD 243 a remarkable re&zping. The story of the succession in II Samuel, and the whole Yahwist historical narrative which is closely linked with it, by their high degree of emancipation from the sacral conception of life which had marked the earliest period of Israel’s history, and by their liberal evaluation of rationalistic expediency in the exercise of kingly power, reveal a new mood for which Man stands at the centre of events, and is appreciated in his distinctive personal quality. In conjunction with this development the operations of the deity move out of the sphere of the miraculous and of the immediacy of the cult very largely into the hiddenness of an indirect guidance of history.1 And yet at the same time the Yahwist writer can bring the superiority of the divine governance, a superiority so great as to be miraculous, vividly to life, by showing that it attains its goal of salvation by the purposeful use of independent human decision-the wide scope given to which in no way relaxes men’s strict responsibility in face of the divine will, but gives it its full importance. Hence this new orientation of the understanding of history, which is sometimes described as Solomonic humanism, is no shallow rationalistic creed. The collective relationship of the divine covenant, which placed the whole existence of the nation at the service of God’s plan, also exercised its influence on this latest spiritual adaptation, and blocked every attempt to secularize the will of Yahweh, or to change the concept of the nation from sacred to profane. It was at this point that David’s lust for power was halted,2 it was this idea which dominated the struggle of Elijah and his successors to beat back the intrusion of a secularized monarchy into the law of Israel’s innermost life.3 The Deuteronomic lawgiver built on the same foundation, when he gave to the idea of the covenant that strongly personalist stamp which determined both his paraenetic method of teaching the Law and his theocratic conception of the State.4 The hypertrophied cultus of the later monarchy might suppress the sense of personal vocation in popular piety; the monarchy itself might tend to subordinate the moral demands of God to nationalistic egomania, and so substitute the commandment of national solidarity for the personal sense of responsibility; but again
1 G. von Rad is the first to have pointed this out with proper emphasis (Das formgeschichtliche Problem des Hexateuchs, 1938, pp. 62ff.-ET in 3% Problem of the
Hexateuch and other Essay, 1966, pp. 68ff.).
s II Sam. 24.1ff.
3 I Kings 19.18. 7,000 was a large enough number to represent the true people of Yahweh!
4 Cf. vol. I, pp. 55E, goff.
244 T H E I N D I V I D U A L A N D T H E C O M M U N I T Y
and again the hold of the collective was restrained by the spiritual leaders, who stood unrelentingly for the control of the nation by Yahweh’s decree, and so summoned the individual to selfless commit- ment to the cause of the sovereignty of God.
How this awakening and strengthening of individuality also affected the formation of popular piety has already been described.1 All that need be pointed out here is that the same influence is manifest in ethical behaviour, and necessitated the taking of a higher view of the relationship of man to man than was customary in common popular morality.2
At the same time, none the less, the genealagz’cal conce~tiun remains findo?nentaZfar the understanding ofhistoy, and is able to exert a decisive influence by making clear that the power of community to determine destiny is an essential factor in the historical drama. Hence the Yahwistic narrative is permeated by the conviction that the genea- logical cohesion of the nations and of humanity is expressed in a mental solidarity by virtue of which opposition to God is a basic attitude of the human race. In the primal history of Gen. I-I I the major fundamental factors in the destiny of mankind become visible in the way in which the curse or blessing proceeding from the ancestors determines the fortunes of their descendants, and subjects them to the same fate. Similarly Israel’s history is ‘from the very beginning controlled by the decisions of the tribal patriarchs, and falls under the blessing promised to them. This blessing assigns to the nation, united with its ancestors in a physical and psychical totality, the special path it has to tread. This does not indeed do away with the importance of personal decision for the individual citizen. History is not fixed by a collective determinism, but leaves room for obedient or disobedient attitudes on the part of men to the divine decree.
Nevertheless, inasmuch as the types of right and wrong attitudes to God are already to be seen in the fathers of the tribe, this sets the pattern for the interpretation of the succeeding history, and through the indissoluble union of the generations gives rise to a continual effort to realize afresh the goal originally set them. Thus the genea- logical conception results in a view of history the cohesive force of which also provides later writers, such as the Deuteronomic and Priestly historians, with the possibility of combining past and present in a vast spiritual history which is a true unity.
1 Cf. vol. I, pp. 136ff.
2 A fuller discussion of this point will be found below, pp. 32xf.
S O L I D A R I T Y I N T H E M O N A R C H I C A L P E R I O D 245
I I. That which, in spite of the sensible limitations of a self-
,
conscious nationalism, was thus already alive in ancient Israel received reinforcement and development of the utmost consequence from the work of the great prophets. The social fragmentation of the people, and the impact of international civilization, which took place just at this time, had already shaken any idea that the unrestricted sway of morality and custom could be taken for granted. The unity of the nation was imperilled by the struggle between the privileged and the oppressed classes; and the simultaneous abandonment of the old patriarchal morality and of a peasant economy shattered the solidity of the common way of life.1 But the effects of this slacken- ing of the old, established standards were only fully felt as a result of the diuine demand for conversion, proclaimed with unprecedented vehemence and harshness by the prophets; for this demand, even though directed to the nation as a whole, yet made its appeal to the individual’s capacity for decision, calling him to a conscious grasp of his obligation as an individual, even if this involved him in breaking with hallowed tradition.2 By conversion the prophets understood not a forcible re-establishment of the ancient, primitive conditions, but the bringing of every department of life under the sovereign claims of the holy God. Moreover, this God, who had encountered them in their own lives with consuming immediacy, and had bound them to his will as their one guiding principle, they now set over against any form of autocratic national self-will as the sovereign will compelling men to ultimate personal decision. This meant that at one and the same moment the spiritual independence of the individual was sum- moned to the most extreme exertions and set upon the unshakeable ground of the divine promise. The resultant conflict and division within the people of Yahweh was bound to place the signijcance of the individualfor theformation of the God-Man relationship in a new light, and to express the great fundamental ideas of divine rewlation in $recise personal terms. Just as, with regard to God’s marvellous nature, the newly comprehended mystery of his personal being led men far beyond all magical or juristic categories, and made them recognize even his
the
1 The Canaanite city constitution, with its aristocratic form of government by ba’%hZtr, and the extension of the city’s domain over the surrounding country- side, which led to the growth of Zutifundia and thus came into conflict with the ancient Israelite concept of the peasant proprietor, must also be taken into account as an important factor in the social and spiritual revolution (L. Rost in a letter to the author).
2 Cf. pp. 467ff. below.
246 THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE COMMUNITY
holiness as life of a personal kind,1 so the person of Man, as a Thou called by God, acquired a unique value;2 and this in turn gave the sphere of ultimate personal decision, namely the moral, that quite distinctive majesty from which derive both the dignity and the limitation alike of cultus and of law.3 And because even the nation’s sin springs in the last analysis from roots in personal life, the judg- ment, redemption and renewal of the individual-in short, the re- shaping of the whole relationship between the individual and his God becomes the indispensable means to the redemption of God’s people. In the re-creation of the individual, and nowhere else, God achieves the re-creating of his congregation.4 Even so, the solidarity of the nation in responsibility is still maintained, and the ‘house of Israel’ designated as the entity, unchanged since the day of its election, in which God is bringing his design of salvation to its goal.
4. POLITICAL COLLAPSE
AND THE RESHAPING OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE
I. In the seventh century this new definition of the relationship between the individual and the community proved to be the salvation of the mission entrusted to Israel. For at this time, when under Manasseh’s despotic rule Near Eastern culture and religion flooded over Judah, and sought to uproot and sweep away all that was indigenous and genuinely Israelite in character, there was an inner disruption of national unity. The catastrophic end of the State’s existence, which followed almost at once, then robbed of their out- ward home a people who had already become inwardly homeless.
The result of these disasters was to emancipate the in&z&al from the ancient sacred ties of community; but this emancipation could no longer bring about a strengthening of spiritual independence, but only the unrestricted licence of a self-destructive individualism. The lower strata of society sank more and more, now that the spiritual prop of
1 Cf. vol. I, pp. 28of.
= Cf. vol. I, pp. 356ff.
* Cf. vol. I, pp. 360ff.
4 Cf. pp. 457f., 465ff., below It is important not to allow the fact that the pro- phetic preaching is normally addressed to the nation to blind one to this increasing concentration upon the individual. Decisive in this respect is the fact that through- out everything is seen in terms of the person. In addition the description of Israel as b~tiyih’d instead of justyiJm’c1 or ‘rS y&o’d, a usage which from the time of Amos onwards becomes more and more popular, seems equally to point to a relaxation of the old collective consciousness.
POLITICAL COLLAPSE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 247 their ancestral faith had been taken away from them, into ugly superstition and crude Nature worship. The ruling classes sought salvation in a characterless cosmopolitanism, which took pains to have the gods of the current ruling power as their helpers in time of need, but at the same time continued to show reverence to Yahweh.
At bottom, however, they properly trusted no god, and regarded the religious enthusiasm of the people with a sceptical smile, thinking themselves far above such a limited outlook, and seeing no social order to hinder them any longer from cunningly exploiting these lower classes in the interests of their own well-being.1 Once the bond of nation and State, which till then had enclosed and safeguarded the life of the individual, had been completely smashed by the deporta- tions of the Exile, and at the same time an end had been made of the community of the Temple worship, which had constantly drawn the individual within its sphere of influence, and given him the feeling of being at home in things religious, there seemed to be no longer any barrier to total loss of self-control.
In this situation everything depended on whether Israel’s faith in God could endure the collapse of all the natural supports which it had hitherto possessed in the form of the old patriarchal morality, the sense of nationhood, the State, the monarchy, and the structures of cultic life, and fashion a neter life-relationship between the community and the individual, or whether it itself would be sucked down into the process of dissolution. The answer to this question was given in the life, work, sufferings and struggles of two men, in whom the personalism of the prophetic preaching reached its definitive form, and led to the shap ing of an individuality which was to be the indestructible kernel of a new community--eremiah and Ezekiel.
How in the life of the former the false pretensions of personality advanced by the spiritual attitude of his times were broken, and a new personal nature awakened to life through repentance and for- giveness, can be seen supremely in his Confessions2 and in the narratives of his friend and disciple Baruch. To this great experience of the prophet, however, was added another, namely that this personal I, which was delivered up to death by God’s hand, but also sustained and restored by him, was granted a new relationship with God which even the withdrawal-as a result of his excommunication
1 Cf. the sombre picture in Micah 6f. and Zeph. I.
*,Jer. r_q.roff.; 17.gff.; 20.7ff.
248 THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE COMMUNITY
-of the collective guarantees of God’s nearness, the national com- munity and the Temple congregation, could not destroy. His God is near even to the ostracized, causing him to know the power of the divine fellowship, and thus making him a pillar of iron and a wall of brass. But this new worship in which he as an individual now becomes assured of his God means purity of heart and the prayer of the heart- purity of heart which, however clear the conscience, is nevertheless deeply imbued with the awareness that only God himself can over- come the innermost resistance of the human heart toward him, and create a clean heart. Thus even Jeremiah is forced to lament: ‘The heart is unfathomably deep, and desperately corrupt; who can understand it?’ And the answer which he receives is: ‘I the LO R D
search the heart and try the reins !’ It is because of this that he can go on to pray with confidence :‘Heal me, 0 LO R D, and I shall be healed;
save me, and I shall be saved; for thou alone art my hope.‘1
This which had been given him he was able, once the deportation of the year 598 had freed him from his fiercest enemies, and palpably vindicated him, to pass on to his people. In the letter which, on the occasion of an embassy from King Zedekiah to Babylon, he sent to those in exiles he was able to hold out the prospect not only that the people would grow and flourish there but also that they would be able to have regular intercourse with God, legitimated by Yahweh himself through the visible proofs of his favour. In the heathen land, which Hosea and Amos had characterized as unclean, which polluted even the food obtained from it,s prayer and obedience were wholly adequate as the central expressions offaith.
The power of the new worship is shown, moreover, by the fact that
it could dare to bridge the guZf between Jew and Gentile-something which under the dominance of collectivism was impossible. That to which the prophet summons them is prayer for the heathen land-‘the one place in the Old Testament where intercession for enemies and un- believers is commanded’.4 Even though the motive of self-interest is expressly mentioned in the context, yet the way in which both the personal longing for revenge and the national desire for retribution are overcome is remarkable, culminating as it does in the formation of a new fellowship with the heathen through intercession,
1 Jer. x7.9, IO, 14.
2 Jer. 29.
3 Hos. g. I ff. ; Amos 7. I 7.
4 P. Volz, Jeremiaz, x g2 I, ad lot.
POLITICAL COLLAPSE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 249
II. Unquestionably we have here the first steps toward providing the individual element in the God-Man relationship with a new basis and an access of strength which were to prove an effective counter to the cosmopolitan individualism of the sceptic and the hedonist,1 because they showed the individual the way to a personal and inde- pendent fellowship with God. It was the work of the prophet of the Exile, Ezekiel, to supply him in addition with the support of a com- munity, thus guaranteeing him a future. To this man was given authority to proclaim, in the presence of the wreckage of the nation vegetating in careless stupidity or baffled doubt, a divine offer of favour, opening up the way to a new people of God. This-and not a doctrine of retribution-is what chapter 18 of his book is about, when in the solemn language of the Temple thi he announces the removal of the collective fellowship of guilt by which the sons had to do penance for the sins of the fathers. The individual called by God’s word is shown the way into a new ‘house of Israel’, which is to realize the old covenant community in a new form. The God who ‘has no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that he should turn from his Nay and live’s wishes to give each member of his guilt-laden people free scope to be able to enter into a relationship of personal service and loyalty to the God of the fathers, rid of the shackles of inherited guilt.
From those religious and social demands of the Law which could be fulfilled in Exiles resulted the direct appeal to the conscience and voluntary decision of the individual for a new solidarity with his fellow men. No solid legal system guaranteed by the State any longer existed to stand behind the citizen; but out of the old covenant law was erected a moral and social standard for human life which led to inward liberation in union with the moral will of God, and established a new community of faith and purpose in a foreign land.4 Out of the profound convictions and decisions of individuals a common pattern of conduct is arrived at, having no further connection with the ideal of a national community, but leading to the creation of a congregation of God’s people such as had in earlier times formed the living core of
1 The importance of Jeremiah in this respect has been well summed up by A. C. Knudson in the following words : ‘Here we have, it is true, no formal doctrine of individualism, but we have individualism in concrete living expression’ (ZXe religious teaching of the Old Testament, x926, pp. 342f.).
s Ezek. 18.23, 32.
s As set out, e.g., in Ezek. x8.5-8, 10-13, 15-17.
4 Cf. W. Eichrodt, Der Prophet Hesekiel, 1959, pp. 148ff.