Evening star., 1927-11-13

owe to this little people hemmed in
among the hills Of Palestine. No Won
der Renan describes the Hebrew Ian
guage as "a quiver full of steel ar
rows, a. trumpet of brass crashing
through the air." And history, which
can be as reckless as nature, has al
lowed that noble speech to decay, CIV
ing its place to dialects cut off from all
literary traditions and shorn OF all
beauty and power.
But if Amos reaches at the very
outset to splendor Of thought and ut
terance, what shall we say of Isaiah.
who is to Amos like thunder and light
ming to gentle rain?
While Palestine was weakening it.
self with division, great empires were
growing about her to the east. In
722 B. c. the Assyrians took Samaria,,
capital of the northern Hebrew king
dom; and q few years later, led by
Sennacherib, they laid siege to Jeru-
salem. And while tho despairing Jews
felt the anguish of starvation. and
asked themselves why their god had
abandoned them, a greater prophet
rose among them than ever before, and
dared to tell them that the army of
Assyria was but a rod and scourge
in Yahveh's hand to bring his people
back to justice and social peace.
1t Is unnecessary to meet war with
war. said Isaiah to the incredulous
Jews. War is a worse evil than any
that 1t can remedy. Meet y with
righteousness, and God will sLovYa just
nation the way out Of might into
right, out Of empire into federation.
"And He shall judge among the ma
tions and shall rebuke many people;
and they shall beat their swords into
ploughshares and their spears into
pruning hooks; nation shall not lift
up sword against nation, neither shall
they learn war any more" Gi.4) .
X X y
For a time it seemed that Yahveh
would protect his people. A great
pestilence swept away the army OF
Sennacherib (701 B. c., the Jerusa-
lem was saved. But the political
chaos of Judah combined with its des
located soil and its economic depend
ence upon Phoenician trade to leave
it open to renewed attack, and in
$50 e. C.. NebuchadneZzar, leading the
armies to the new empire of Chaldea,
captured Jerusalem and dragged most
of it's population away with him to
captivity in Babylon. 1t was in these
awful days that Jeremiah poured
forth his wrath upon the leaders Of
his people, denouncing their foolish
reliance upon force and attributing
the misfortunes of the Jews to the
exploitation and greed which belied in
practice their religion Of benevolence
and justice. His country exiled him.
and he ended his days In misery and
bitterness in Egypt; but he had pre-
pared the way for q prophet greater
than himself, that anonymous genius
who, in the later chapters (xl.lv) of
the Book Of Isaiah, explained to the
Jews the narrowpess Of their tribal
deity and lifted them for the first time
to the vision Of God as the spirit OF
life, not Of one people merely, but Of
all things. No longer II am the Lord
thy God; thou shalt not have other
gods before me-; there were no other
gods, there was only one: II am the
Lord, and there is none else" (xlv.5.)
And then again we touch a peak IN
literature:
Behold the Lord God, who hath
measured the waters In the hollow
of His hand and meted out heaven
with the span, and comprehended
the dust of the earth in a meas
ure, and weighed the mountains in
scales and the hills in a balance.
Behold the nations arc as q
drop of a. bucket: behold He taketh