Consolation in the Ancient Prophecy

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The heights of anticipation and the depths of failure

The vista of hope in Chapter 2 of Hoshea originally referred to the era of renewal and revolution that would arise with “one [single] head” for Yehuda and Israel, and would bring glory to Yizre’el:

“And the children of Yehuda and the children of Israel shall be gathered together, and they shall appoint themselves one head, and shall go up out of the land, for great shall be the day of Yizre’el.” (Hoshea 2:2)

And indeed, the spilled “blood of Navot” and his sons[1] became the symbol of the revolution, with Yehoram, the son of Achav and Izevel, killed “in the portion of Navot the Yizre’eli”[2] at a historical turning point that could have brought about unification of the two kingdoms. However, Yehu’s revolution was a failure in this regard; it did not lead to unification, nor did it raise the banner of purification promoted by the “wilderness” prophets.

Yehu ben Nimshi also killed Achazyahu, king of Yehuda,[3] and slaughtered forty-two of Achazyahu’s brethren who were on their way “to salute the children of the king and the children of the noblewoman.”[4] This seemingly created an opportunity for unification of Yehuda and Israel under “one head” who would be faithful to God and to the prophets.

Atalia, daughter of Achav and Izevel, responded to this massacre and the annihilation of her mother’s household in Shomron by launching a bloody massacre of her own that wiped out all surviving descendants of David who were potential rulers[5] – “all the royal seed.”[6] This would seem to have been the ideal opportunity to unify all of Am Yisrael under a single leader, in accordance with the prophecy, thereby repairing the long-standing division of the kingdom initiated by Yarovam ben Nevat.

An echo of the great anguish over the failure of this prophetic ideal, which had been the original catalyst for and had accompanied Yehu’s revolution, can be found immediately after God’s words to Yehu in Sefer Melakhim, like two contradictory prophetic voices:[7]

And the Lord said to Yehu: “Since you have done well in executing that which is right in My eyes, and have done to the house of Achav according to all that was in My heart, your sons of the fourth generation shall sit on the throne of Israel.” But Yehu took no heed to follow the teaching of the Lord God of Israel, with all his heart; he did not depart from the sins of Yarovam, with which he caused Israel to sin. (Melakhim II 10:30-31)

Mention is also made there of the “golden calves of Beit El and of Dan,”[8] from which “Yehu did not depart”; these are the most prominent expression of the religious and political split between Yehuda and Israel. Small-minded politics, focused on the need to maintain two separate kingdoms with separate temples for Yehuda and for Israel, prevented the great unification, and the “day of Yizre’el” drowned in its own bloodbath.

Despair and duality vs. “God is One and His Name – One”

In contrast to the failure of the “house of Yehu,” the house of the Rekhavim turned the “wilderness” lifestyle into an all-encompassing ideology which was bequeathed to future generations. However, there is a clear tension between the prophecy, on one hand, and the legacy of Yonadav ben Rekhav, on the other. A permanent withdrawal to a naziritic “wilderness” existence expresses despair of any possibility of a flourishing agricultural society. According to this view, not only had society become corrupt, but this is the path that any society of abundance would inevitably take, such that the only hope of a healthy, pure life was to separate oneself and live in the “wilderness”:

…for you shall dwell in tents all your days… (Yirmiyahu 35:7)

This view also clashes with the commandment to enter the land and settle it, and to work the ground in accordance with all the relevant mitzvot. Moreover, it embodies a dualistic perspective that divides the world into good and evil, fertile land and wilderness, thus obstructing the path towards manifestation of the Oneness of God and the Oneness of His Name in this world. Someone who believes in the One God, Whose dominion extends to infinity and Who exists everywhere, cannot entertain the thought that a fertile, flourishing agricultural land must necessarily be corrupt, since this essentially entails dividing the world into “two dominions.”

Attention should be paid to the declared purpose of Yonadav’s directive to his descendants:

…in order that you may live many days upon the land in which you sojourn. (Ibid.)

This is precisely the language that the Torah uses in explaining the purpose of the struggle for the service of God, and against idolatry – especially in Sefer Devarim:

When you shall bear children, and children’s children… and shall deal corruptly, and make a graven image, the form of any thing… I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day that you shall soon utterly perish from off the land… you shall not prolong your days upon it… Know this day… that the Lord – He is God in heaven above and upon the earth beneath; there is no other. And you shall keep His statutes and His commandments… that it be well for you and for you children after you, and that you may prolong your days upon the land which the Lord your God gives to you, forever. (Devarim 4:25-26, 39-40)[9]

Elsewhere in Sefer Devarim we find the expression “living upon the land”[10] mentioned twice; the idea is expressed most explicitly near the end of Sefer Devarim:

In order that you may live, you and your progeny… For it is your life and the length of your days, that you may dwell in the land… for it is your life, and through this thing you shall prolong your days upon the land to which you are crossing the Jordan, to possess it. (Ibid. 30:19-20; 32:47)

The context of these verses speaks of love for God and fear of Him, and of eradicating the pagan gods and their temples.

Yonadav ben Rekhav did not advocate a “wilderness” lifestyle as a “healthy” or “natural” trend, aimed at promoting long life for human beings as individuals. This is not the language of someone who is zealous for God. Yonadav sought some way of guaranteeing a life of purity in the face of the recurring corruption of pagan harlotry in an affluent society. He promised long life to his children and progeny “upon the land,” in the words of Sefer Devarim – not in the agricultural sense, the “land flowing with milk and honey,” but rather upon the land of nomadic tents, “upon which you sojourn.”[11]

Thus, Yonadav deviated from the intention of the Torah and the prophets that the land be inherited and settled by Bnei Yisrael – apparently, because he reached the firm conclusion that there was no hope of living a pure life with fear of God in an environment of agricultural abundance. But if this was his view prior to Yehu’s revolution, why did he accompany Yehu on his campaign to eradicate Ba’al from Israel? Does his journey not express a powerful hope for revolutionary change throughout society, matching the Torah’s intention? Was this not the promise of the ancient prophecy in Hoshea? As we read:

Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her. And I will give her her vineyards from there, and the valley of Achor for a doorway of hope, and she shall respond there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt. (Hoshea 2:16-17)

We must therefore conclude that Yonadav arrived at his resolution after witnessing the failure of Yehu’s revolution. When he saw how, after all the bloodshed entailed in eradicating the house of Achav and purging Ba’al-worship from Israel, pagan harlotry had re-sprouted amidst the affluent society of Shomron, Yonadav the zealot and fighter despaired of the flourishing agricultural kingdom and all that it included, seeking instead a pure life in the service of God.

This is also precisely the background to the prophecy of Hoshea ben Be’eri in the days of Yarovam ben Yoash, rooted in the ancient prophecy but pointing towards the destruction of “the kingdoms of the house of Israel.”[12]

Strong proof of all this is to be found, once again, in the prophecies of Yirmiyahu, who holds up Yonadav ben Rekhav as an exemplary model for emulation. Yirmiyahu even expresses explicitly his own yearning for the idea of separating from the sinful society in favor of the “wilderness”:

Oh that I were in the wilderness, in a lodging-place of wayfarers, and that I might leave my people and go from them! For they are all adulterers; an assembly of traitors. (Yirmiyahu 9:1)

But God does not allow Yirmiyahu to leave the sinful society for the wilderness, because the Torah cannot forswear the abundant, fertile land, and prophecy cannot be reconciled with despair and duality. Therefore, God’s word as spoken by Yirmiyahu describes the imminent destruction as an act of the wilderness overcoming the land and Jerusalem.[13]

On the other hand, when the time of redemption comes, God will bring back the captivity of the nation, the city, and the land, as in bygone days.[14] Yeshayahu goes even further, describing how even the wilderness itself will flourish at the time of the redemption.[15] Another three prophets – Yoel,[16] Yechezkel,[17] and – especially – Zekharia, emphasize the nullification of the pagan duality (between wilderness and fertile land) by invoking the living waters that will emerge from Jerusalem, bringing life to the Judean desert and the Dead Sea as well as the coastal plain to the west. Only with this nullification of that pagan duality – which also encompasses light/darkness, day/night, and summer/winter – will God be revealed as the One King over the entire world:

And it shall be that at evening time there shall be light. And it shall be on that day that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem: half of them towards the eastern sea, and half of them towards the western sea; in summer and in winter it shall be so. And the Lord shall be King over all the earth; on that day the Lord shall be One and His Name One. (Zekharia 14:7-9)

Ancient prophecies (in Amos and Hoshea) – summary

1. Sefer Amos begins with an ancient prophecy from the period of the great depression, after the fall of the house of Achav, when Aram-Damesek (in the era of the house of Chazael) was growing stronger at the expense of Israel and Yehuda and the neighboring nations caused Israel great harm. Most of the events mentioned as part of the punishment that would be meted out to Israel’s enemies had already come to pass long before Amos’s time. Amos invokes this prophecy as a preface to his own harsh rebuke of the “transgressions of Israel.” He uses the ancient chain of prophecies against the nations as a model for his long and bitter prophecy against the kingdom of Israel.
2. The prophecy at the end of Sefer Yoel serves as a framework for Amos (even if Sefer Yoel, as we have it, was written in a different generation). A comparison of Yoel and Amos reveals a fundamental disagreement concerning the “day of the Lord” and God’s “roar”: would salvation arise from the midst of the darkness, as at the time of the Exodus from Egypt? If so, for whom? For Yehuda alone, or also for Israel? For that same generation, or for future generations?

These comparisons allow us to identify and understand prophecies that preceded Amos, the most prominent among them being the prophecies of deliverance from amidst the darkness of the “day of the Lord.” Amos had to present a fierce counterbalance to the attempts to preserve and uphold these ancient prophecies, which had been true for their time (the generation of dire misery prior to Amos) but which, in the generation of affluence under the rule of Yarovam ben Yoash, and in view of the world power that was gradually approaching on the horizon, had become “false prophecies.”

3. Chapter 2 in Hoshea is an ancient prophecy against Izevel and the house of Achav, dating to when the kingdom of Israel was at its prime, under Achav’s reign. Izevel is the inspiration for the “wife of harlotry,” along with her two sons and one daughter: Achazyahu is “Lo Ami” (“not My people,” as he sent to inquire of the gods of Ekron); Yehoram is “Yizre’el” (as he was killed there on account of the “blood of Yizre’el” of Navot and his sons), and Atalia is “Lo Ruchama” (“she who has not shown compassion,” as she annihilated the royal seed of the house of David).

Hoshea presents the “wife of harlotry” – the kingdom of Israel in his generation – as paralleling Izevel and the house of Achav, because this time God would visit “the blood of Yizre’el upon the house of Yehu” and the kingdom of Israel would be broken. The ancient prophecy is invoked as a necessary preface to Hoshea’s main message: that the house of Yehu, and Israelite society in general, are no better than their wicked predecessors. Despite the historical opportunity, Yehu’s revolution had not led to a unification of Yehuda and Israel;[18] no purification had taken undertaken in the spirit of the prophetic “wilderness” movement;[19] and the “children of the prophets” (like the progeny of the Rekhavim) had separated themselves from society and were forced to fight for their lives. The failure of Yehu’s revolution rendered all the sinners who had been eradicated in its path “innocent blood,” and widened the chasm separating prophecy from the kingdom.

]Yarovam ben Yoash] restored the border of Israel from the entrance of Chamat to the sea of the Arava, according to the word of the Lord God of Israel, which He spoke by the hand of His servant, Yona ben Amitai, the prophet, who was from Gat-Chefer. (Melakhim II 14:25)

4. In the period of the ancient prophecy (in the generation after Eliyahu and Elisha) we read of God’s word “which He spoke at the hand of His servant, Yona ben Amitai, the prophet, who was from Gat-Chefer,”[20] foretelling the astounding victories of Yarovam ben Yoash. If we read the chapters of the story of Yona ben Amitai within their historical context (and not just the literary one), we discover another dimension of the scope and power of the ancient prophecy, and attain a better understanding of this prophet’s motivation in fleeing. He had no wish to save Ninveh, the capital of the Assyrian empire, one generation later.
5. To all of this we should also add Yeshayahu’s prophecy, the “Pronouncement on Moav” (masa Moav),[21] which describes the great arrogance of Moav and the great weeping that God would bring upon the kingdom. The style and content of that prophecy closely resemble the prophecies against the nations at the beginning of Sefer Amos.

Indeed, Yeshayahu declares openly towards the end of this prophecy: “This is the word that the Lord spoke concerning Moav, in time past. But now the Lord has spoken, saying: Within three years, as the years of a hireling, the glory of Moav shall become contemptible for all his great multitude, and the remnant shall be very small, without strength” (Yeshayahu 16:13-14).

This makes Yeshayahu the only prophet who explicitly identifies an ancient prophecy and invokes it for his own generation.

The outline and character of the ancient prophecy

The ancient prophecies that we have encountered are full of the tempestuous battle of [the day of] the Lord against Israel’s enemies. Within Israel, a fierce parallel battle was being waged in God’s name against the regime of Achav, who had introduced idolatrous Canaanite harlotry into Israel via his marriage to Izevel of Sidon.

These prophecies do not speak of complete destruction and exile for the kingdom of Israel. They express complete faith in the roar of salvation and the great deliverance that will come to Israel from the midst of the “day of the Lord,” along with a vision of a “wilderness” purification for the nation, which will be rejuvenated as in the days of its youth at the time of the Exodus, when there was likewise a purification in the wilderness.

In other words, we are speaking of a “national prophecy,”[22] part of God’s message to His people under attack from outside and corrupted within. These prophecies do not speak ominously of destruction and exile, of the land vomiting out Bnei Yisrael “as it vomited the nation that was before you,”[23] nor is there a “vision of the End of Days” in which the nations will all ascend God’s mountain and receive “Torah from Tzion” that teaches world peace.

These points are precisely what differentiate the ancient, “national” prophecy from the “universal” prophecies of Hoshea, Amos, and Yeshayahu (and Mikha in his earlier years).[24]

Here, however, attention must be paid to the common mistakes in understanding this fundamental change. It was not an ideological change, reflecting conceptual movements with different religious outlooks, as interpreted by Christianity and by central approaches in biblical scholarship.[25] Rather, the main change was on the historical horizon.

During the period of ascent under the house of Achav, and in the generation of decline that followed (the reign of Chazael in Damesek), Israel’s main enemies – the neighboring nations since the time of the settlement of the land under Yehoshua, and the time of the Judges – were Amon and Moav, Midian and Amalek, Edom and the Pelishtim, and Aram Damesek at the peak of its strength. Although the Assyrian kings had tried to make inroads in the region,[26] the Assyrian empire had not yet reached its full strength, and destruction and exile were not even a remote possibility.

In the days of Hoshea, Amos, and Yeshayahu, the Assyrian empire had already established itself as a world power that exiled rebellious nations from their lands.[27] Anyone who was still thinking and speaking in terms of the ancient prophecy failed to understand the tremendous historical change that had taken place, and its significance; this vision had been transformed from a genuine, true “national” prophecy into a false vision, even though (perhaps especially because) it had its origins in great prophets such as Elisha and his disciples. There were disciples who were incapable of deviating from the outlines set down by their teachers, the ancient prophets, and who were therefore unable to perceive in an accurate light what had changed. They continued disseminating the vision that had been handed down in the past from within a regional historical context, within the new reality of an international historical context.[28] The true prophets of this new generation raised a loud alarm to try to warn society in time, but they faced tremendous resistance from those who continued to utter the ancient prophecies.

Therefore, we find echoes of this debate at the beginning of the appearance of the “four [prophets who prophesized] in the same era”[29] – Hoshea and Amos, Yeshayahu, and Mikha.

A similar phenomenon appears at the next stage, in the transition from the prophecies of Yeshayahu, and his disciples/successors, to Yirmiyahu and Yechezkel, as they faced the ascent of the Babylonian empire and the danger of the destruction of Jerusalem.

Throughout the prophecies of Hoshea and Amos, Yeshayahu and Mikha, Nachum, and even Chavakuk and Tzefania, it is clear that Jerusalem will survive all the blows and that a faithful remnant will always remain there, protected by God. All this was true and correct against the historical horizon of the Assyrian power, and even at the start of the ascent of the Chaldean dynasty of Babylonia.[30]

Yirmiyahu and Yechezkel, in contrast, were faced with the Babylonians, who made no attempt to maintain and nurture the nations they conquered, but rather destroyed cities and exiled peoples wherever any sign of rebellion arose. This was their policy towards Yehuda, the Pelishtim, Moav, and eventually Edom as well. Flourishing lands were left desolate.

Few and far between were the true prophets[31] who foresaw the terrible change approaching. They were harshly persecuted for their efforts to open the eyes of everyone else.

Many people continued to repeat the ancient prophecies, believing with all their hearts that Jerusalem would always be saved because God would always protect it – just as Jerusalem had been miraculously saved from the hands of Sancheriv, king of Ashur,[32] in the days of Chizkiyahu. They could not begin to imagine the complete destruction of Jerusalem, including the Temple – not only because of the human tendency and desire to hope for the best, and not only because they did not properly appreciate the severity of the sins of the period of Menashe,[33] but also because the framework of the ancient prophecies did not foresee such a possibility. Even important figures adhered tightly to the prophecies of deliverance that was “soon to come,” and were wrong.[34]

A similar process took place at the end of the Second Temple Period. Jerusalem, which had experienced deliverance through the miracles of Chanuka at the hands of the Chashmonaim, could not stand up to Rome. The zealous were completely certain that Jerusalem would be saved at the last moment, as in the days of Chizkiyahu and as at the time of the Chashmonaim. They were incapable of understanding the difference between the Seleucid Dynasty and the Roman Empire. Anyone who did understand, and protested against the zealots, was persecuted and executed. Thus, the early Christians viewed the prophecies of Yirmiyahu and Yechezkel as “prophecies” that were valid for their own era, and they and their successors turned the debate within the world of prophecy into an ideological polemic between “national” prophecy – which they defined, based on Yirmiyahu’s perspective, as “false prophecy” – and “moral-universal” prophecy, which they liked and disseminated throughout the world as true prophecy.

How can we be sure that there was no ideological conflict involved in the far-reaching changes in the order of religious and moral values between the ancient prophecies and Hoshea, Amos, and Yeshayahu?

Very simply: the “national” prophetic visions remained part of the later body of prophecy, almost word for word,[35] and took their place as the “prophecies of consolation” and the “prophecies of salvation” with which Amos and Hoshea conclude, and they burst forth and appear over and over particularly in Yeshayahu. The same applies to Yirmiyahu as well, and even to Yechezkel.[36]

Translated by Kaeren Fish