The Prophets

ABBREVIATIONS vi INTRODUCTION vii 1 WHAT MANNER OF MAN IS THE PROPHET? 3 Sensitivity to evil The importance of trivialities Luminous and explosive The highest good One octave too high An iconoclast Austerity and compassion Sweeping allegations Few are guilty, all are responsible The blast from heaven The coalition of callousness arid authority Loneliness and misery The people's tolerance Its assayer, messenger, witness The primary content of experience The prophet's response. 2 AMOS 27 Amos and his contemporaries God and the nations The anger of the Lord A Redeemer pained the people's failure Iconoclasm The Lord repented An encounter will save. 3 HOSEA 39 Hosea and his times Political promiscuity Tension between anger and compassion Hosea sees a drama Emotional solidarity Longing for grunion How to share disillusionment Hosea's marriage The marriage an act of sympathy Daath elohim. 4 ISAIAH (ISA. 1-39) 61 Prosperity and power Isaiah and the Northern Kingdom Surrender to Assyria A covenant with death Jerusalem rejoices, Isaiah is distressed If you will not believe, you will not abide Against alliances Assyria shall fall by a sword not of man Sennacherib's invasion of Judah Confusions The anger of the Lord Divine sorrow There is sorrow in His anger Sympathy for God At one with his people The vision of Isaiah Uncanny indifference My people go into exile for want of knowledge A remnant will return Zion. 5 MICAH 98 6 JEREMIAH 103 Complacency and distress The age of wrath God's love of Israel The inner tension The sorrow and anguish of the Lord Sympathy for God Sympathy for Israel The polarity within The hypertrophy of sympathy Prophecy not the only instrument The collapse of Assyria The emergence of the Babylonian empire The fall of Jerusalem. 7 HABAKKUK 140 8 SECOND ISAIAH 145 On the eve of redemption My right is disregarded by God Who taught Him the path of justice? The suffering servant In all their affliction, He was afflicted Because I love you The Lord's oath A light to the nations The word of God will stand forever. 9 HISTORY 159 The idolatry of might There is no regard for man For not by force shall man prevail The pantheism of history The unity of history The human event as a divine experience The contingency of civilization The polarity of history Strange is His deed, alien is His work Like a stranger in the land A history of waiting for God They shall not hurt or destroy Blessed be My people Egypt. 10 CHASTISEMENT 187 The futility of chastisement The strange disparity The failure of freedom The suspension of freedom No word is God's last word. 11 JUSTICE 195 Sacrifice God is at stake The a priori-mishpat and tsedakah Inspiration as a moral act Perversion of justice The sense of injustice Nonspecialization of justice The love of kindness The inner man An interpersonal relationship A grammar of experience As a mighty stream Exaltation in justice Autonomy of the moral law The primacy of God's involvement in history Intimate relatedness. INDEX OF PASSAGES 221 INDEX OF NAMES AND SUBJECTS 231