13 - PROPHETS OF AN UNSEEN God

The greatest Theophany ever to take place was unique not only in its scope - viewed by 600,000 people, not only in its duration - several months, and not only in its attainments - the Covenant between God and a Chosen People and the proclamation of Commandments and laws of lasting impact. It also revealed a key aspect of the Deity - that of an Unseen God. "No one can see my face and live," He stated; and even approaching too closely to where the Kabod rested was a peril.

Yet if He were to be followed and worshiped, how could He be sought, found, and heard? How would Divine Encounters with Yahweh take place?

The immediate answer, in the Wilderness of Sinai, was the Tabernacle, the portable Mishkan (literally: Residence) with its Tent of Appointment.

On the first day of the first month of the second year of the Exodus the Tabernacle was completed in accordance with the most detailed and exact specification dictated by the Lord to Moses, including the Tent of Appointment with its Holy of Holies; therein, separated from the other areas by a heavy screen, was placed the Ark of the Covenant that contained the two Tablets and above which the two golden Cherubim touched their wings. There, where the wings touched, was the Dvir - literally, the Speaker - by which Yahweh conversed with Moses.

And when Moses had completed "all this work, as Yahweh had commanded," on the prescribed day, a thick cloud landed and engulfed the Tent of Appointment. "The Cloud of Yahweh," the last verse of the Book of Exodus states, "was upon the Residence by day and a fire was in it by night, before the very eyes of the whole house of Israel, throughout their journeys." It was only when the divine cloud lifted that they moved on; but when the cloud did not rise off the Residence, they stayed put where encamped until the cloud would rise.

It was during those resting periods (as the first verse in the next book of the Pentateuch, Leviticus, states) that "Yahweh called Moses, and spoke to him from inside the Tent of Appointment." The instructions covered the appointment of the House of Aaron as the priestly line, and the precise details of the priestly clothing, consecration, and the rituals of the sacred service of Yahweh.

Even then, in the immediate aftermath of the landing on the Mount and within the consecrated confines of the Tabernacle, it was from inside the thick cloud of a foglike darkness, from behind the screened-off portion, from between the Cherubim, that Yahweh’s voice could be heard - the words of the Unseen God. With all those precautions and obscuring veilings, even the High Priest had to raise an additional opaque haze by burning a specific combination of incenses before he could approach the screen that veiled the Ark of the Covenant; and when two sons of Aaron burned the wrong incense, creating a "strange fire," a beam of fire "emanating from Yahweh" struck them dead.

It was during those resting periods that Moses was instructed regarding a long list of other rules and regulations - for all manner of sacrifices and the paying of homage to the Lord by the common people, who were all to be considered "a nation of priests"; for the proper relations between members of the family and between one person and another, prescribing equal treatment of the citizen, the serf, and the strangers. There were instructions for what foods were proper or improper, and in the diagnosing and treatment of various ailments.

Throughout and repeatedly, there were strict prohibitions of the customs of "other nations" that were associated with the worship of "other Gods" - such as the shaving of the head or beards, the incising of tattoos, or the sacrificing of children as burnt offerings. Forbidden was the,

"turning to conjurers and seers," and emphatically prohibited was the "making of idols and graven images, and the erection of statues, or of a carved stone to bow upon it."

"By these shall the Children of Israel be distinguished from the others - a holy nation, consecrated unto Yahweh," Moses was told.

As the ensuing biblical books of Judges, Samuel, Kings, and Prophets reveal, it was the last prohibition that was the most difficult to maintain. For all around them the people could see the Gods they were worshiping - sometimes in fact, otherwise (and most of the time) through their graven images. But Yahweh had asserted that no one could see his face and live, and now the Israelites were required to observe strictly a myriad of commandments and keep faith with a sole deity that could not even be represented by its statue - to worship an Unseen God!

That it was a total departure from the practices everywhere else was readily admitted by Yahweh himself. "After the customs of the Land of Egypt, wherein ye have dwelt, and after the customs of the Land of Canaan whither I am bringing you, ye shalt not do, and their precepts ye shall not follow," Yahweh decreed; and He knew well what he was talking about.

Egypt, whence the Children of Israel had come out - as ancient depictions and archaeological finds amply attest - was awash with images and statues of the Gods of Egypt. Ptah, the patriarch of the pantheon (whom we have identified with Enki), Ra his son, head of the pantheon (whom we have identified with Marduk), and their offspring who had reigned over Egypt before the Pharaohs and who were worshiped thereafter, sometimes appeared to the kings in person in various Divine Encounters, some other times (and more frequently so) were represented by their images (Fig. 105).

Figure 105
 

The more distant the Gods became over time, the more did king and people turn to priests and magicians, seers and diviners to obtain and interpret the divine will. No wonder that Moses, endeavoring to impress the doubting Pharaoh with the powers of the Hebrews’ God, had first to engage in magic to outperform the Pharaoh’s royal magicians.

In the realms of the Enlilites, the notion of an Unseen God was surely an oddity. Reclusive, perhaps; selectively accessible, yes; but unseen - certainly not. Virtually all the "great Gods" of Sumer - with the apparent exception of Anu - were depicted one way or another, in sculptures or engravings or upon cylinder seals (Fig. 106).

Figure 106
 

That they were actually seen by mortals is evident from countless cylinder seals found throughout Mesopotamia, Anatolia, and the Mediterranean lands that depict what scholars call "presentation scenes" in which a king, as often as not wearing priestly robes, is shown ushered by a lesser God (or Goddess) into the presence of a "great God."

A similar scene is depicted on a large stone stela found at a site called Abu Habba in Mesopotamia, in which the king-priest is being presented to the God Shamash (Fig. 107) - a scene that recalls those of the granting of codes of law that we have reproduced in earlier chapters. And, one must assume, in instances when a God had a human spouse or during Divine Encounters of the Sacred Marriage kind, the God or Goddess was not unseen.

Figure 107
 

(That, too, increased the Israelites’ consternation, for nowhere throughout the Hebrew Bible is there mention of Yahweh as having a spouse, be it divine or human. This, biblical scholars believe, was why in spite of all admonitions the Israelites digressed toward veneration of Asherah, the principal Goddess of the Canaanite pantheon).

Even in Sumer, where the presence of the Anunnaki Gods in their ziggurats was an accepted fact, the Divine Word was conveyed to the people through the intermediary of oracle priests. Indeed, the name Terah of Abraham’s father suggests that he was a Tirhu, an oracle priest; and the family’s clan designation, Ibri ("Hebrew"), we believe, indicates that the family stemmed from Nippur (Enlil’s cult center), whose Sumerian name was NI.IBRU - "Beautiful dwelling place of crossing."

After the demise of Sumer and the rise of Babylon (with Marduk as head of the pantheon) and later of Assyria (with Ashur as head of the pantheon), a complex plethora of oracle and omen priests, astrologers, dream interpreters, diviners, seers, conjurers, voyagers and fortune-tellers filled temples, palaces, and humbler abodes - all claiming to be expert in conveying the Divine Word or being able to guess the Divine Will - "fortune" - from the examination of animal livers, or how oil spreads on water, or celestial conjunctions.

In this respect, too, the Israelites were required to act differently. "Ye shall not practice divination or soothsaying," was the commandment in Leviticus 19:26. "Seek neither seers of spirits nor fortune tellers," admonished Leviticus 19:31. In direct contrast to the inclusion of such "professionals" within the ranks of the priests of other nations in antiquity, the Israelite priests and the Levites selected to serve in the temple were qualified to "stand before Yahweh" by (among other restrictions) never becoming,

"a magician, a diviner, a wizard or an enchanter, nor one who is a charmer or a seer of spirits, a fortune teller, or one who conjures up the dead; for all of them are an abomination to Yahweh - it is because of those abominations that Yahweh thy Elohirn doth drive them out before thee."

(Deuteronomy 18:10-12).

Practices that were - certainly by the time of the Exodus, in the fifteenth century B.C. - part and parcel of the religious practices throughout the ancient world and the worship of "other Gods," were thus strictly forbidden by Yahweh in the religion and worship of Israel. How then could the Children of Israel, once in their Promised Land, receive the Divine Word and know the Divine Will?

The answers were given by Yahweh himself.

First, there will be the Angels, the Divine Emissaries, who would convey the Lord’s will and guidance and act in His behalf.

"I am sending a Mal’akh to be in front of thee, to guard thee on the way to bring thee unto the place which I have prepared," the Lord said to the Children of Israel through Moses; "beware of him and obey him, be not rebellious against him, for he will not forgive your transgressions; my Shem is in him"

(Exodus 23:20-21).

If so hearkened to, the Lord said, his Angel will bring them safely to the Promised Land.

There will also be other channels of communication, Yahweh said. They were made explicit as a result of an incident in which Aaron, the brother of Moses, and Miriam, their sister, became envious of Moses being the only one summoned to the Tent of Appointment to speak with Yahweh.

As reported in Numbers chapter 12.

And Miriam and Aaron said:

"Hath Yahweh spoken only through Moses?

Hath he not also spoken through us?"

And Yahweh heard it.
Then, suddenly, Yahweh spoke unto
Moses and Aaron and Miriam, saying:
"Come out ye three unto the Tent of Appointment.
And the three of them came forth.
And Yahweh descended in a pillar of cloud,

coming to rest at the door of the Tent.

And He called Aaron and Miriam,

and the two of them stepped forward.

Thus getting their attention, and bringing them as close as possible to the "column of cloud" that had descended and positioned itself in front of the Tent, Yahweh said to them:

"Hear now my words:
If there be a prophet of Yahweh among you, in a vision will I make myself known to him, in a dream will I speak to him. Not so is it with my servant Moses, faithful in all mine house. With him I speak mouth to mouth, in appearances and not in puzzles; the similitude of Yahweh does he behold; How then dared you speak ill of my servant Moses?"

And Yahweh’s anger was kindled against them, and He departed.

And the cloud lifted off the Tent;
and lo and behold,
Miriam became leprous,

her skin white as snow.

So there it was, clearly stated: It will be through the Prophets of Yahweh, appearing to them in a vision or in a dream, that the Lord will communicate with the people.

The usual concept of a "prophet" is that of one who engages in prophecies - predictions of the future (in this instance under divine guidance or inspiration). But the dictionary correctly defines "prophet" as "a person who speaks for God" in divine matters, or just "a spokesman for some cause, group or government."

The prediction aspect is present or assumed; but the key function is that of a spokesman. And indeed, that is what the Hebrew term, Nabih, means: a spokesman. A "Nabih of Yahweh," commonly translated (and so quoted above) "a prophet of Yahweh," literally meant "a spokesman of Yahweh," someone (as explained in Numbers chapter 11) "upon whom the spirit of God was bestowed," qualifying him (or her!) to be a Nabih, a spokesperson for the Lord.

The term appears for the first time in the Bible in chapter 20 of Genesis, which deals with the transgression of Abimelech, the Philistine king of Gerar, who was about to take Sarah into his harem not knowing that she was married to Abraham. "And Elohim came unto Abimelech in a nighttime dream" to warn him off. When Abimelech pleaded innocence, the Lord told him to return Sarah unmolested to her husband, and ask him to pray for forgiveness. "A Nabih he is," the Lord said of Abraham, "and pray he will for thee."

Next the term is used (in Exodus chapter 6) in its rudimentary sense. When the mission to the Pharaoh was imposed on Moses, he complained that his was a "halting speaking," which would not be heeded by the Pharaoh. So Yahweh said to him: "Behold, as an Elohim I will make thee before Pharaoh, and Aaron thy brother shall be thy Nabih" - your spokesman.

And once again, after the Children of Israel had crossed the Sea of Reeds when it had parted miraculously, Miriam, the sister of Moses and Aaron, led the daughters of Israel in a song and dance honoring Yahweh; and the Bible calls her

"Miriam the Nebiah,"

"Miriam the prophetess."

In yet another instance, when it was necessary to enlist the tribal leaders in administrating a multitude of 600,000,

Moses assembled seventy men
from among the elders of the people
and he stationed them around the Tent.
And Yahweh came down in the cloud,
and spoke to him;
And bestowed from the spirit that was upon him
on the seventy elders;
And when the spirit rested upon them,
they became Nabih ‘s (spokesmen) -
then, but not thereafter.

But two of the elders, the narrative reports, continued to be under the spell of the Divine Spirit, and were acting as Nabih’s in the encampment. It was expected that they would be punished; but Moses saw it differently: "I wish the whole people would be Nabihs, that Yahweh would bestow His spirit upon them," he said to his faithful servant Joshua.

The matter of the Nabih as a true spokesman for Yahweh must have needed further elucidation - witness the additional statements in Deuteronomy. Unlike other peoples who "listen to diviners and magicians," the Lord said, to the people of Israel He will provide a Nabih, one from their own brethren who "My words shall be in his mouth, who shall speak to them as I will command."

Recognizing that some might lay claim to be speaking for God without it being so, Yahweh warned that such a false prophet shall surely die. But how would the people know the difference? "If there arise in the midst of thee a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and he giveth thee a sign or a wonder," but it was only to induce you to "follow other Elohim, unknown to thee, and worship them - do not hearken to the words of such a Nabih," Yahweh explained through Moses.

There could be another test of the prophet’s authenticity, it was explained (Deuteronomy chapter 18): "If that which the prophet was saying in behalf of Yahweh will not happen and shall not come to pass, maliciously hath the prophet spoken it - not the words of Yahweh."

That it was not an easy matter to distinguish between true and false prophets was thus anticipated right from the beginning; the ensuing events offered bitter confirmation of the problem.

"And there arose not a Nabih in Israel like Moses, whom Yahweh hath known face to face," it is stated at the conclusion of the Book of Deuteronomy (and thus the conclusion of the Pentateuch, the so-called Five Books of Moses); for Moses, as decreed for all those who had known the servitude in Egypt, was doomed not to enter the Promised Land. Before dying, the Lord made him go up Mount Nebo that was on the eastern side of the Jordan facing Jericho, to see from there the Promised Land.

Significantly or ironically, the mount chosen for that final act, Mount Nebo, was named after Nabu, the son of Marduk. // Nabium, the "God who is a spokesman," Babylonian inscriptions called him; for as historical records show, it was he who, while his father Marduk was in exile, roamed the lands bordering on the Mediterranean, converting the people to the worship of Marduk in preparation for the seizing of the supremacy by Marduk at the time of Abraham.

The function, the mission of the Prophets of Yahweh winds its way through the era of the Judges, finds expression in the biblical books of Samuel and Kings, and reaches its high ground, moral and religious message and its prophetic visions for humanity in the books of the Prophets. Guidance, rage, and solace; teaching, reprimanding, and reassuring, the words and symbolic deeds of these "spokesmen" of Yahweh gradually fashion, as the years and the events march by, an image of Yahweh and His role in the past and in the future of Earth and its inhabitants.

"It was after the death of Moses the servant of Yahweh, that Yahweh spoke unto Joshua the son of Nun, the minister of Moses, saying: Moses my servant died; now therefore arise and cross the Jordan, thou and all this people, unto the land which I do give to them, the Children of Israel ... as I was with Moses so will I be with thee; I will not fail thee nor forsake thee ... Only be thou strong and steadfast in observing to act according to all the teachings which Moses my servant commanded thee - turn not to the right or to the left."

Thus begins the Book of Joshua, with a reiteration of the Divine Promise on the one hand and of the required absolute adherence to Yahweh’s commandments on the other hand. And right away Joshua, recognizing that the former depended on the latter, realized that it would be the latter that would be the problem.

As in the time of Moses, divine assistance in the form of miracles was provided the new leader to make the double point: Though unseen, Yahweh was omnipresent as well as omnipotent. The very first obstacle facing the Israelites who had journeyed up the east side of the Jordan was how to cross the river westward; the time was soon after the rainy season and the river’s waters were high and overflowing.

Reassuring the people that "Yahweh will show you wonders," he told them to sanctify themselves and be ready for the crossing, for Yahweh had directed him to have the priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant step into the river; and lo and behold, the moment the priests’ feet touched the waters, the Jordan’s waters flowing down from the north froze and were held back as a wall, and the Israelites crossed over on the river’s dried bed. And when the priests carrying the Ark crossed over as well, the piled-up waters collapsed and the river was filled again with water.

"By this shall ye know that a living God is among you," Joshua announced - proof that though unseen, He is present, He is powerful. He can perform miracles. The miracles indeed did not cease; the one of the Jordan’s crossing was soon followed by the appearance of the Angel of Yahweh with the instructions for the toppling of the walls of Jericho, and the use of Joshua’s lance the way the staff of Moses was held - this time for the miraculous defeat of the mountain fortress of Ai. Next came me miraculous defeat of an alliance of Canaanite kings in the Valley of Ajalon, when the sun stood still and did not set for some twenty hours.

"And it came to pass after a long time, after Yahweh had given rest unto Israel from all their surrounding enemies, that Joshua waxed old and aged"

Thus begins the end of the Book of Joshua and the record of the events of the conquest and settlement of Canaan under his leadership. It ends, however, as it began: with the need to reaffirm the existence and presence of Yahweh; for, as the Bible explains, not only Joshua but all the elders who could recall the Exodus and the Lord’s miracles were passing from the scene.

So Joshua assembled the tribal leaders at Shechem, to review before them the history of the Hebrews from their ancestral beginnings until the present. On the other side of the Euphrates River did your ancestors live, he said - Terah and his sons Abraham and Nahor - "and they worshipped other Elohim."

The migration of Abraham, the story of his descendants, the enslavement in Egypt and the events of the Exodus under the leadership of Moses were then briefly reviewed, as well as the crossing of the Jordan and the settlement under Joshua’s leadership.

Now, as I and my generation are passing on, Joshua said, you are free to make a choice: you can remain committed to Yahweh - or you can worship other Gods:

Would’st ye hold Yahweh in awe,
and worship Him in sincerity and in truth -
then remove the Elohim whom your forefathers
had worshipped across the river [Euphrates]
and in Egypt, and worship [only] Yahweh.
But if it does not please you to serve Yahweh -
choose here and now whom ye shall worship:
whether the Elohim which your forefathers had
served on the other side of the River,
or the Gods of the Westerners in whose land ye dwell;
and I and my family shall worship Yahweh.

Faced with this momentous yet clear-cut choice,

"the people answered and said: It is unthinkable that we should forsake Yahweh to worship other Elohim ... It is Yahweh our God whom we shall worship, it is Him whom we shall obey!"
 

So "Joshua said unto the people: Ye all are witnesses against yourselves that ye have chosen Yahweh to worship. And mey said: We are witnesses."

 

Thereupon "Joshua made a covenant with the people that day," writing it all down "in the Book of the Teachings of Yahweh."

And he erected a stone stela under the oak tree that was beside the Tabernacle in witness of the covenant. But no admonitions and witnessed covenants could preserve the reality of an Israelite monotheistic enclave within an overwhelming multitude of polytheistic peoples.

As pointed out in the writings of the Jewish theologian and biblical scholar Yehezkel Kaufmann (The Religion of Israel), the "Basic Problem" facing the Israelites was that the Bible was "dedicated to fighting idolatry" - the worship of idols, of statues made of wood and stone, or gold and silver - but recognized that other peoples worshiped "other Gods."

"Israelite religion and paganism are historically related," he wrote; "both are stages in the religious evolution of Man. Israelite religion arose at a certain period in history, and it goes without saying that its rise did not take place in a vacuum."

Among the difficulties inherent in the Religion of Yahweh were the absence of a genealogy and of a primordial realm whence the Gods had come. The Gods who had been worshiped by the parents and forefathers of Abraham "across the river" - the first set of "other Gods" listed by Joshua - included Enlil and Enki, the sons of the Anu, the brothers of Ninharsag. Anu himself had named parents. All of them had spouses, offspring - Ninurta, Nannar, Adad, Marduk, and so on. There was even a third generation - Shamash, Ishtar, Nabu. There had been an original homeland - a place called Nibiru, another world (i.e. planet) whence they had come to Earth.

Then there were the "other Gods" of Egypt; Yahweh had shown His might against them when Egypt was afflicted to let the Children of Israel go, but they continued to be venerated and worshiped not only in Egypt but also wherever Egypt’s might had reached. They were headed by Ptah, and the great Ra was his son - traveling in Celestial Boats between Earth and the "Planet of Millions of Years," the primordial abode. Thoth, Seth, Osiris, Horus, Isis, Nepthys were related by simple genealogies in which brothers married half sisters.

When the Israelites, fearing that Moses had perished on Mount Sinai, asked Aaron to reinvoke the deity, he fashioned a golden calf - the image of the Apis Bull - to represent the Bull of Heaven. And when a plague afflicted the Israelites, Moses made a copper serpent - the symbol of Enki/ Ptah - to stop the plague. No wonder that the Gods of Egypt, too, were fresh in the Israelites’ mind.

And then there were the "other Gods of the Westerners in whose lands you dwell" - the Gods of the Canaanites (Western Asiatics) whose pantheon was headed by the retired olden God El (a proper name or epithet being the singular of the plural Elohim) and his spouse Asherah; the active Ba’al (simply meaning "Lord"), their son; his favorite female companions Anal and Shepesh and Ashtoret, and his adversaries Mot and Yam.

Their playgrounds and battlegrounds were the lands that stretched from the border of Egypt to the borders of Mesopotamia; every nation in that area worshiped them, sometimes under locally adjusted names; and the Children of Israel were now dwelling in their midst ...

To compound the "Basic Problem" of the missing ingredients of a genealogy and a primordial abode, was added the greater difficulty for the Israelites: an Unseen God who could not even be represented by a graven image.

And so it was that, on and off, "the Children of Israel did wrong in the eyes of Yahweh, and worshiped the Ba’al Gods; they forsook Yahweh, the Elohim of their forefathers who hath brought them out of Egypt, and followed other Elohim from among the Gods of the nations that surrounded them ... and paid homage to Ba’al and to Ashtoreth Gods" (Judges 2:11-13). And again and again leaders - designated Judges - arose to return the Israelites to their true faith and thereby remove Yahweh’s wrath.

One of those Judges, the female Deborah, is fondly recalled by the Bible as Nehi’ah - a Prophetess. Inspired by Yahweh, she chose the right commander and tactics for the defeat of Israel’s northern enemies; the Bible records her victory song - a poem considered by scholars a unique ancient literary masterpiece. David Ben-Gurion (the first prime minister of the modern State of Israel), in The Jews in Their Land, wrote that "that religio-national awakening was movingly expressed in the Song of Deborah with its reference to the great and invisible God."

In fact the victory hymnal song did more than that: It referred to the celestial nature of Yahweh, asserting that the victory was made possible because Yahweh, whose appearance "makes the Earth tremble, the heavens quake and the mountains melt," caused the "planets, in their orbits," to fight the enemy.

Such a celestial aspect of Yahweh, as we shall see, was to become highly significant in the prophetic utterances of the great Prophets of the Bible.

Chronologically the term Nabih and its holder come into play again in the Books of Samuel, the boy who grew to be a combination prophet-priest-judge of his people. We have already described the series of dream-encounters by which he had been called to Yahweh’s embassy;

"and the boy Samuel grew up and Yahweh was with him, and none of his words went unfulfilled; from Dan to Beersheba did the whole of Israel know that Samuel was confirmed as a Nabih of Yahweh. And Yahweh continued to appear in Shiloh, for it was in Shiloh that Yahweh revealed himself there to Samuel, when Yahweh hath spoken."

Samuel’s ministry coincided with the rise of a new and powerful enemy of Israel, the Philistines, who commanded the coastal plain of Canaan from five strongholds. The conflict, or when-push-comes-to-shove relationship, had flared up earlier in the time of Samson, and in another incident when the Philistines even captured the Ark of the Covenant and brought it into the temple of their God Dagon (whose statue, the Bible relates, kept falling down before the Ark).

It was thereafter that leaders of the twelve tribes assembled before Samuel and asked that he choose a king for them - a system of government "akin to that of all the nations." It was thus that Saul the son of Kish was anointed the first king of the Children of Israel. After a troubled reign, the monarchy passed to David, the son of Jesse, who had come into prominence after he slew the giant Goliath. And after he was anointed by Samuel, "the spirit of Yahweh was upon him, from that time on."

Both Saul and David, the Bible states, "inquired of Yahweh," seeking oracles to guide their actions by. After Samuel had died, Saul sought an oracle from Yahweh but received none "neither in dreams or visions nor through prophets" (he ended up speaking to the ghost of Samuel through a medium). David, we read in I Samuel 30:7, "inquired of Yahweh" by putting on the priestly garment of the High Priest with its oracular breastplate.

But thereafter he was given the "word of Yahweh" through prophets - first one named Gad and then another named Nathan. The Bible (II Samuel 24:11) calls the former "Gad the Nabih, the Seer of David," through whom the "word of Yahweh" was made known to the king. Nathan was the prophet through whom Yahweh had told David that not he, but his son, would build the Temple in Jerusalem (II Samuel 7:2-17) - "all the words in accordance with the vision did Nathan say unto David."

The function of the Nabih as teacher and upholder of moral laws and social justice, and not only as a conduit for divine messages, emerges from the deeds of even such an early Prophet as the enigmatic "Nathan" ("He who was granted"). It happened when David, having seen Bathsheba naked as she washed herself on her home’s roof, ordered his general to expose Bathsheba’s husband to the most dangerous battlefield spot, so that the king could take Bathsheba as a wife once she was widowed.

It was then that Nathan the prophet came to the king and told him a fable of a rich man who had many sheep but nevertheless coveted the only sheep that a poor man had. And when David exclaimed, "such a man must be punished by death!" the prophet told him: "Thou art the man!"

Recognizing his sin and going out of his way to atone for it, David spent ever more time in pious meditation and solitary prayer; many of the king’s reflections on God and Man found expression in the Psalms of David; in them the celestial aspects of Yahweh echo, and expand upon, the words in the Song of Deborah.

"These are the words of the song David sang to Yahweh" (II Samuel 22 and Psalm 18):

Yahweh is my rock and my fortress;

He is my deliverer ...
In my distress I call Yahweh,

to my God I call out;
And he hears my voice in his Great House,
my cry reached his ears.
Then the Earth heaved and quaked,
the Heaven’s foundations were disturbed and shook .. .
In the heavens he turned and came down,

thick fog lay under his feet.

Upon a Cherub he rode and flew,

on the windy wings he appeared...
From the heavens Yahweh thunders,

the Most High utters his voice...

From the heights he reached out to pick me up...

to save me from my foe.

"Forty years did David rule over the whole of Israel - seven years he reigned in Hebron and thirty-three in Jerusalem," it is stated at the conclusion of / Chronicles, "dying at a ripe old age."

"And all that concerns David, from the first to the last words, are recorded in the books of Samuel the Seer, and the book of Nathan the Prophet, and the book of Gad the Man of Visions."

The books of Nathan and Gad have vanished, as did other books - the Book of the Wars of Yahweh, the Book of Jashar, to mention two others - that the Bible speaks of. But Psalms attributed to (or sung by) David make up almost half (seventy-three to be exact) of the 150 Psalms retained in the Bible. They all provide a wealth of insights into the nature and identity of Yahweh.

The significance of the statement that David ruled "over the whole of Israel" becomes evident as the wheels of history turn from the second millennium B.C. to the beginning of the first millennium B.C, when Solomon ascended the throne in Jerusalem; for soon after his death the kingdom split into separate states, that of Judaea in the south and that of Israel in the north.

Cut off from Jerusalem and the Temple, the northern kingdom was more exposed to foreign customs and religious influences. The establishment of a new capital by the sixth king of Israel circa 880 B.C. signified both a final break from Judaea as well as from the worship of Yahweh in Jerusalem’s temple; he called the new city Shomron (Samaria), meaning "Little Sumer," leaning toward Gods whose images could be seen.

Throughout those turbulent years, the word of Yahweh was brought to the competing kings by a succession of "Men of God" - sometimes called a Nabih (Prophet), other times called Hozeh (One who sees visions) or Ro’eh (Seer). Some of them relayed the direct Word of God, others were guided by an Angel of Yahweh; some had to prove that they were "true prophets" by performing miracles which the "false prophets" - those whose utterances were meant to always please the king - could not duplicate; all were involved in the struggle against paganism and in efforts to see that the throne was occupied by a king who did "that which was righteous in the eyes of Yahweh."

One whose ministry and record stood out in his time and left an indelible messianic expectation for generations thereafter was the Prophet Elijah (Eli-yahu in Hebrew, meaning "Yahweh is my God"). He was called to prophecy in the reign of Ahab (circa 870 B.C), the king of Israel who succumbed completely to the religious influences of his Sidonite wife, the infamous Jezebel. He "proceeded to worship Ba’al and bow to him;" he built a temple to Ba’al in Samaria and set up an altar to Asherah. Of him the Bible (I Kings 16:31-33) states that "he angered Yahweh the God of Israel more than any other kings of Israel who had reigned before him."

It was then that the Lord called upon Elijah to become a Spokesman, taking care to assure his authority and authenticity through a series of miracles.

The first recorded miracle was when Elijah came to stay with a poor widow; when she told him she was running out of food, he assured her that the little flour and oil she had would last and last for days. And indeed, as they ate of it, the food miraculously never diminished.

While staying with the woman, her son became grievously ill "until at last his breathing ceased." Asking Yahweh to spare the boy, Elijah took the child upstairs and laid his body on the bed, and stretched himself upon the boy three times, crying out to the Lord each time;

"and the soul of the child came back into him, and he revived."

"And the woman said unto Elijah: Now by this I know that thou art a Man of God, and that the word of Yahweh in thy mouth is truth."

As time went on, Jezebel had no less than 450 "prophets of Ba’al" assembled in her palace, with Elijah alone remaining a "prophet of Yahweh." Told by Elijah to arrange a final showdown, the king assembled the people and the prophets of Ba’al on Mount Carmel. Two bullocks were brought and prepared for sacrifice on two altars, but no fire was lit on the altars: Each side was to cry out and pray to their God for a fire to strike the altar from the heavens.

The whole day went by without anything happening on the altar to Ba’al; but when it was the turn of Elijah to seek divine intervention, "a fire from Yahweh fell down and consumed the sacrifice" and the altar itself. "And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and said: Yahweh is the Eiohim!" And Elijah told them to kill all the prophets of Ba’al, letting not one escape.

When the news reached Jezebel, she ordered Elijah killed; but he escaped southward, toward the wilderness of Sinai. Hungry and thirsty he lay exhausted, ready to die; it was then that the Angel of Yahweh miraculously provided him with food and water and showed him the way to a cave on Mount Sinai, the "Mount of the Eiohim."

There the Lord, speaking to him out of the stillness, instructed him to go back north and anoint a new king in Damascus, the Aramean capital, and a new king over Israel; and to "anoint Elisha son of Shaphat to be a prophet after thee."

This was more than a hint of things to come - the involvement of the Prophets of Yahweh in affairs of state - predicting the downfall of kings and anointing their successors; and not only in Israel or Judaea, but also in foreign capitals!

Several more times the prophetic activity of Elijah is stated to have taken place after the "Angel of Yahweh" had given him instructions, and it appears that this was the manner in which Yahweh’s word was communicated to him. Untold by the Bible, though, is the manner by which Elijah was given his most memorable (and final) instructions for his ascent to heaven in a fiery chariot.

The event, the likes of which harkens back to the times of Enmeduranki, Adapa, and Enoch, is described in detail in II Kings chapter 2. It is clear from the tale that the ascent was not a sudden or unexpected occurrence, but rather a planned and prearranged operation whose place and time were communicated to Elijah in advance.

"And it came to pass when Yahweh was to take up Elijah into heaven in a whirlwind, that Elijah went with Elisha from Gilgal" - the place where Joshua had set up a stone circle to commemorate the miraculous crossing of the Jordan River. Elijah sought to leave there his principal disciple and proceed by himself, but Elisha would not hear of it. Reaching Bethel, their students (called "sons of Prophets") assembled there too and said to Elisha:

"Knowest thou that Yahweh will, this day, take thy master from above thee?" and Elisha answered, "Yes, I know it too, but keep silent."

Still trying to free himself of companions, Elijah then stated his destination to be Jericho, and asked Elisha to stay behind; but Elisha insisted on coming along. Elijah then made it clear that he alone must proceed to the river; but Elisha insisted on coming along. As their students stood at a distance and watched,

"Elijah took his mantle and rolled it together and struck the waters, and the waters parted hither and thither, and the two of them crossed over on dry ground."

Once they were across - about where the Israelites had come across in the opposite direction when they entered Canaan - as the two were walking and talking to each other,

There appeared a chariot of fire,

and horses of fire,

and the two were separated.

And Elijah went up into heaven in a Whirlwind.

And Elisha, seeing this, cried out:
"My father! My father!
The Chariot of Israel and its Horsemen!"
And he could see him no more.

As the biblical detailing of the route shows, Elijah’s ascent in a fiery Whirlwind took place near (or at?) the site of Tell Ghassul, where the UFO-like bulbous vehicles with three extended legs had been depicted (see. Fig. 72).

For three days the leaderless disciples searched for the disappeared Master, although Elisha had told them the search would be in vain. Possessing the mantle of Elijah, which the prophet had dropped during the ascent, now Elisha could also perform miracles, including the revival of the dead and the expansion of a little food to satisfy multitudes. His fame and miracles were not limited to the Israelite domain, and foreign dignitaries sought his healing powers; after one such magical treatment, the Aramean leader acknowledged that "indeed there is no Elohim on Earth except the one in Israel."

As Elijah before him, Elisha was also involved in royal successions that were divinely ordered; by the time he died, the King of Israel (Joash, circa 800 B.C.) was the fifth successor to Ahab; and as Prophets after him, Elisha was the Divine Spokesman in matters of war and peace. II Kings chapter 3 relates the rebellion by Mesha, the king of the Moabites, against Israelite dominance after the death of Ahab, when Elisha was consulted for Yahweh’s ruling whether to fight the Moabites.

The veracity of that border war is confirmed by an amazing archaeological find - a stela of that very same King Mesha in which he recorded his version of that border war. The stela (Fig. 108a), now in the Louvre Museum in Paris, is inscribed in the same Old Semitic script which was used at the time by the Hebrews; and in it, the name of the Hebrew God YHWH - exactly as it was written in Israelite and Judean inscriptions - appears in line 18 (Fig. 108b).

Figures 108a and 108b
 

It was perhaps no coincidence that the centuries that encompassed the Israelite settlement and conquest of Canaan, through the times of the Judges and early kings, were an intermediate period in what was then World Affairs. The mighty empires of Egypt, Babylon, Assyria, and the Hittites, which arose after the demise of Sumer circa 2000 B.C. and that made the lands of the eastern Mediterranean their battlegrounds, retreated and declined. Their own capitals were overrun or abandoned; age-old religious rites were discontinued, temples fell into disrepair.

Commenting on those times, in Babylon and Assyria, H.W.F. Saggs (The Greatness That Was Babylon) states that,

"the dislocation was so bad that a chronicle dating to about 990 B.C. records that ‘for nine years successively Marduk did not go forth, Nabu did not come,’ that is to say, the New Year Feast, at which Marduk of Babylon went out of the city to a shrine called the Akitu-house and Nabu of Borsippa visited him on his return to the city, was not carried out."

In those circumstances not only could the Hebrew kingdoms rise, but also those of their immediate neighbors - the Edomites, Moabites, Arameans, Phoenicians, Philistines. Their border wars and encroachments were small local affairs compared to the titanic battles of the erstwhile empires in past centuries - and to the major onslaughts that were in the offing.

In 879 B.C. a new capital, Kalhu (the biblical Calah) was ceremoniously inaugurated in Assyria; and the event can be historically considered as the start of the Neo-Assyrian period. Its hallmarks were expansion, domination, warfare, carnage, and unparalleled brutality - all in the name of "the great God Ashur" and other deities of the Assyrian pantheon.

The expanding Assyrian domination in time encompassed the city of Babylon - a ghost of its erstwhile glory. As a gesture to the subjugated followers of Marduk the Assyrians appointed "kings" in Babylon, who were no more than viceroy-vassals. But in 721 B.C. a native leader named Merodach-Baladan reinstated the New Year Festival in Babylon, "took the hand of Marduk" and claimed independent Kingship.

The action evolved into a full rebellion that saw intermittent warfare for some three decades. In 689 B.C. the Assyrians took back full control of Babylon, and went to the extreme of moving Marduk himself to the Assyrian capital, as a captive God.

But continued resistance in what used to be Sumer and Akkad, and Assyrian entanglements in distant lands, eventually led to a resurgent Babylon. A leader named Nabopolassar declared independence and the start of a new Babylonian dynasty in 626 B.C. It was the beginning of the Neo-Babylonian era; and now it was Babylon that emulated Assyria in conquests near and far - all in the name of "die lords Nabu and Marduk" and, according to the inscriptions, with the active help of "Marduk, the king of the Gods, the ruler of Heaven and Earth," who after twenty one years in Assyrian captivity engineered the demise of Assyria and the renewed ascendancy of Babylon.

As border wars grew into world wars (in ancient terms and scope) and as one national God was pitted against another, the Biblical Prophets also expanded their mission to global dimensions. As one reads their prophecies, one is amazed and impressed by their knowledge of geography and politics in distant lands, their grasp of the motives for national intrigues and international conflicts, and their foresight in predicting the outcome of correct or incorrect moves by the kings of Israel and Judaea in the dangerous chesslike game of making and breaking alliances.

To those great Prophets, deemed so important that the Bible included as separate books their words and exhortations, the international turmoil that engulfed Mankind and even involved the nations’ Elohim was not a series of unrelated struggles but aspects of one great Divine Scheme - all the doing and planning of Yahweh to put an end to individual and national inequities and transgressions.

As though harkening back to the days before the Deluge, when the Lord expressed his dissatisfaction with the way Mankind had turned out and sought to wipe it off the face of the Earth on the occasion of the Deluge, so was the Divine Dissatisfaction great once again, the remedy being the demise of all kingdoms - of Israel and Judaea included, the destruction of all temples - that in Jerusalem included, the end of all false worship that is expressed in sacrifices to cover up constant injustices, and the rise, after such a global catharsis, of a "New Jerusalem" that shall be a "Light unto all the nations."

It was, as J.A. Heschel designated it in The Prophets, "the Age of Wrath." Its fifteen Literary Prophets (as scholars designate them because their words were retained as separate biblical books) span almost three centuries, from circa 750 B.C. when Amos (in Judaea) and Hosea (in Samaria) began to prophesy through Malachi circa 430 B.C.; they include the two great Prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah who, in the eighth and seventh centuries B.C., foresaw and saw the demise of the two Hebrew kingdoms, and the great Prophet Ezekiel, who was among the exiles in Babylonia, saw the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar in 587, and prophesied about the New Jerusalem.

On the individual level, the great Prophets spoke out harshly against empty piety - rituals that papered over injustices.

"I hate, I despise your feasts, I take no delight in your solemn assemblies," the Lord said through Amos;

instead, "let justice well up as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream" (5:21-24).

"To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices?"

Isaiah said in behalf of Yahweh;

"bring no more vain oblations... When ye spread forth your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; when ye make many prayers, I will not hear";

rather than all that, "seek justice, undo oppression, defend the fatherless, plead for the widow" (Isaiah 1:17, Jeremiah 22:3).

It was a call to return to the essence of the Ten Commandments, to the righteousness and justice of ancient Sumer.

On the national level, the Prophets saw futility and foresaw doom in the making and unmaking of alliances with neighboring kings in efforts to withstand the attacks and domination of the Great Powers of that time, for those surrounding nations, too, were themselves doomed in the coming upheavals: "A storm of Yahweh, a wrath shall come forth, a whirling tempest will burst upon the heads of the wicked," Jeremiah (23:19) predicted, asserting that his prophetic words applied equally to Israel and Judaea, and to all of the "uncircumcised nations" in their region - the Sidonites and Tyrians, the Amonites and Moabites and Edomites, the Philistines, the desert nations of Arabia.

The two Books of Kings distinguish the various reigns of the kings of Israel and Judaea according to whether they "did right" by, or "deviated from," the teachings of Yahweh; and the Prophets considered the shifting alliances as a major cause of the deviations.

Moreover, whereas in earlier times it was tolerable that "other nations" would worship "other Gods," the Prophets deemed that, too, as an abomination, for by their time the "other Gods" of the region were only man-made idols, crafted by humans of wood and metal and stone - unlike Yahweh, who was a "Living God." The peoples who worshiped Ba’al and Ashtoreth, Dagon and Ba’al-zebub, Chemosh and Molech, were also sinners gone astray.

So were the "false prophets" against whom the True Prophets of Yahweh had waged a constant struggle. They were accused not only of speaking in the name of false Gods, but also of pretending to convey the true words of Yahweh. Instead of telling the people of their wrongdoings and the kings of dangers ahead, they just spoke whatever pleased kings and people. "They proclaim. Peace! Peace! but there is no peace," Jeremiah said of them, whereas the True Prophets spared not the kings or the people when reprimand and warnings were needed.

On the international level, the global arena, the Prophets displayed an uncanny grasp of geopolitics, and their remarkable insights and foresights ranged far and wide. They knew of the reemergence of ancient kingdoms, as that of Elam, and the emergence of a new power farther east, that of the Medes (later known as Persians); even distant China, the Land of Sinim, was accounted for.

The early city-states of the Greeks in Asia Minor, their occupation of the Mediterranean islands of Crete and Cyprus, were recognized. The status of old and new powers bordering on Egypt in Africa was known. Indeed, "all the inhabitants of the world and the dwellers on Earth" shall be judged by Yahweh, for they have all gone astray.

At center stage were the three longtime powers: Egypt, Assyria, Babylon; of them, Egypt - and its Gods - were treated with the least respect. In spite of close and sometimes friendly relationships between the Hebrew kingdoms and Egypt (Solomon married a Pharaoh’s daughter and was provided by the Egyptians with horses and chariots), Egypt was considered to be treacherous and unreliable. Its king Sheshonq - the biblical Shishak (I Kings 11 and 14) - ransacked the Temple in Jerusalem, and Necho II, on his way to ward off Mesopotamian armies, killed the Judaean king Josiah who came out to greet him (II Kings 23).

Both Isaiah and Jeremiah spoke out at length against Egypt and its Gods, prophesying the demise of both.
Isaiah (chapter 19), in an "Oracle on Egypt," envisioned Yahweh arriving in Egypt airborne on the day when He would judge and punish Egypt and the Egyptians:

Behold Yahweh,
riding upon a swift cloud,
coming unto Egypt.
The idols of Egypt shall tremble before Him,
the heart of Egypt shall melt as He comes near.

Predicting - correctly - the coming of internal strife and civil war in Egypt, the Prophet envisioned the Pharaoh futilely seeking the counsel of his seers and wizards to find out Yahweh’s intentions. The divine plan, Isaiah announced, was this:

"On that day there shall be an altar to Yahweh in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar to Yahweh at its border shall be a sign and a witness to Yahweh, Lord of Hosts, in the land of Egypt . . . and Yahweh shall make himself known in Egypt."

Jeremiah focused more on the Gods of Egypt, relating (in chapter 43) Yahweh’s vow to,

"kindle a fire in the temples of the Gods of Egypt and burn them down ... to break the statues of Heliopolis, to destroy by fire the temples of the Gods of Egypt."

The Prophet Joel (3:19) explained why,

"Egypt shall be a desolation: Because of their violence against the sons of Judah and the spilling of innocent blood in their own land."

The rise of the Neo-Assyrian empire and its onslaught against its neighbors with unparalleled brutality was well-known to the biblical Prophets, sometimes in astounding detail that even included Assyrian court intrigues. The Assyrian imperial expansion, at first directed to the north and northeast, targeted the lands of western Asia by the time of Shalmaneser III (858-824 B.C).

On one of his commemorative obelisks he recorded the sacking of Damascus, the execution of its king Hazael, and the receipt of tribute from Hazael’s neighbor Jehu, the king of Israel (Samaria). Accompanying the inscription was a depiction showing Jehu bowing to Shalmaneser under the emblem of the Winged Disc of the God Ashur (Fig. 109).

Figure 109
 

A century later, when Menahem the son of Gadi was the king in Israel, "Pul the king of Assyria came against the land, and Menahem gave Pul a thousand talents of silver that his hand might be with him to retain the kingship." This biblical record in II Kings 15:19 reveals the impressive familiarity with politics and royal affairs in distant Mesopotamia.

The name of the Assyrian king who again invaded the Mediterranean lands was Tiglat-Pileser (745-727 B.C.); yet the Bible was right to call him Pul because this king also assumed the Babylonian throne and renamed himself there Pulu - a fact confirmed by the discovery of a tablet ("BabyIonian King List B") that is now in the British Museum. A few years later Ahaz, the king of Judaea, resorted to the same tactic, "taking the silver and the gold that were in the Temple of Yahweh and in the king’s treasury and sending them to the king of Assyria as a bribe."

These subservient gestures, it appears in retrospect, only whetted the appetite of the Assyrian kings. The same Tiglal-Pileser returned and seized parts of the Israelite kingdom and exiled their inhabitants. In 722 B.C. his successor, Shal-maneser V, overran the rest of the Israelite kingdom and dispersed its people throughout the Assyrian empire; the whereabouts of those Ten Lost Tribes of Israel and their descendants are a lingering enigma.

The exile, according to the Prophets, was willed by Yahweh himself because of Israel’s transgressions, "they heeded not the words of Yahweh their Elohim and transgressed His Covenant and all that Moses the servant of Yahweh commanded." The Prophet Hosea, in words and symbolic deeds, foresaw those events as punishment for Israel’s "whoring" after other Gods, but made it known that "a quarrel hath Yahweh with the inhabitants of Earth, for there is neither truth nor justice, nor understanding of Elohim upon the Earth."

Isaiah’s prophecies specified that Assyria would be the Lord’s instrument for punishment: "I the Lord shall bring upon you the king of Assyria and all his hosts," he said as Yahweh’s spokesman.

But that, Isaiah said, was only the beginning. In the "Oracle on Assyria," in which that power was called "the rod of God’s wrath" (10:5), Yahweh also expressed his anger at Assyria’s excesses, taking it into its haughty heart to annihilate whole nations with unparalleled brutality, whereas Yahweh’s intent was only to chastise through punishment, to always leave a remnant that would be redeemed.

Assyria’s kings can have no more free will than an axe has when in the hands of its wielder. He announced; and when Assyria shall have carried out its initial mission, its own day of reckoning shall come.
Assyria not only failed to realize it was just a tool in the hands of its divine wielder, it also failed to recognize that Yahweh was the Lord, a "Living Elohim" unlike the pagan Gods.

The Assyrians exhibited this failure when, having exiled the people of Israel, they resettled the land with foreigners exiled from (heir lands, letting each group continue to worship iheir Gods. The list, one may note, counts among the idols that were thus set up that of Marduk by the Babylonians, of Nergal by the Cutheans, and of Adad by the Palmyrians. The newcomers to Samaria were devastated, however, by wild lions and saw this as a sign of anger by the "local God,"’ Yahweh.

The Assyrian solution was to send back to Samaria one of the exiled priests of Yahweh, to teach the newcomers "the customs of the local God." So, while an Israelite priest was teaching them "how to worship Yahweh," it was only an addition of one more God to the polytheistic worship ...

That Yahweh was different and that Assyria was subject to His will was demonstrated when Sennacherib (704-681 B.C.) invaded Judaea and, ignoring its tribute, sent his general Rabshakeh and a large army to capture Jerusalem. Surrounding the city, Rabshakeh sought its surrender by suggesting that the Assyrian king was only carrying out Yahweh’s wish: "Is it without the will of Yahweh that I have come hither lo destroy this place? It is Yahweh who hath said to me, ‘Go forth and destroy this land.’ "

Since this was not much different from what the Prophet Isaiah had been saying, the people of Jerusalem might have surrendered were it not for the Assyrians’ growing haughtiness. If you think that your God Yahweh might change His mind and protect you after all, forget it, he said. Listing the many nations that Assyria conquered, "hath any of the Gods of those nations, each one in his country, saved it from the king of Assyria?" he asked rhetorically; "so who is Yahweh that he would save Jerusalem from me?"

The comparison of Yahweh to the pagan Gods was such blasphemy that the king, Hezekiah, tore his clothes and put on sackclodi in mourning. Joining the priests in the Temple, he sent word to Isaiah, asking him to seek the help of Yahweh "in this day of distress, of reviling and disgrace," a day on which an emissary of the king of Assyria reviled "a Living God," comparing Him to the Gods of other nations "who are not Elohim but man-made of wood and stone."

And Isaiah the Prophet sent back to Hezekiah the "word of Yahweh" against the haughtiness of Sennacherib, who dared "raise his voice to revile the God of Israel, He who is enthroned upon the Cherubim." Therefore, the Prophet declared, Jerusalem shall be spared and Sennacherib shall be punished.

"And it came to pass that night that the Angel of the Lord came and smote the camp of the Assyrians, all one hundred and eighty five thousand of them ... And Sennacherib turned and went back to Nineveh; and while he was prostrating himself in the temple of his God Nisroch, his sons Adarmelech and Sharezer slew him with a sword, escaping to the land of Ararat; and his son Esarhaddon became king after him."

(The manner of Sennacherib’s death and the succession by Esarhaddon are corroborated by Assyrian chronicles).

This reprieve of Jerusalem was only temporary. The divine plan for a global catharsis still was in effect; except that now the chastising had to continue with Assyria itself. The process, as we have mentioned, began in 626 B.C.; and the divine rod to achieve that, Babylon, attained its own imperial reach under the king Nebuchadnezzar II (605-562 B.C.).

Their wayward ways - the social injustices, the insincere sacrifices, the worship of idols - would bring upon them due punishment, the Prophets forewarned the kings and people of Judaea. It would bring upon them Yahweh’s wrath in the form of a "great and ferocious nation, coming from the north."

It was in the very first year of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, that Jeremiah made explicit the oracle of punishment against the nation of Judah, the dwellers of Jerusalem, and all the neighboring nations:

So sayeth Yahweh, Lord of Hosts:
Because ye have not hearkened to my words,
I will send for and fetch all the tribes
of the north;
The word of Yahweh [shall be] to Nebuchadnezzar,
the king of Babylon, my servant.
And I shall bring them to this land
against its people
and against all the neighboring nations.

Not only was Babylon a tool in the hands of Yahweh - the specific king, Nebuchadnezzar, was called by Yahweh "my servant"!

The prophecy of the end of the Judean kingdom and the fall of Jerusalem, as we historically know, came true in the year 587 B.C. But even when that Oracle of Punishment was pronounced, the ensuing events were also foretold:

This whole land shall he desolate and in ruins,

and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon for seventy years.
And it shall come to pass,
when seventy years shall be completed
- this is the word of Yahweh -
I will call to account the king of Babylon
and the land and the people of Chaldea,
and wilt put them to everlasting desolation.

Foreseeing Babylon’s bitter end when that nation was just beginning its ascendancy, the Prophet Isaiah put it thus:

"Babylon, the jewel of kingdoms, the glory and pride of the Chaldeans, shall be overthrown as the upheavaling by Elohim of Sodom and Gomorrah."

Babylon, as predicted, fell before the onslaught of a new power from the east, that of the Achaemenid Persians, under the leadership of their king Cyrus, in 539 B.C. Babylonian records suggest that the city’s fall was made possible by the falling out between the last Babylonian king, Nabuna’id, and the God Marduk; according to the annals of Cyrus, as he captured the city and its sacred precinct and entered the inner sanctum, Marduk extended his hands to him and he, Cyrus, "grabbed the extended hands of the God."

But if Cyrus thought that by that he had obtained the blessing of the God Most High, he was wrong, the Prophets said, for in fact he was only carrying out the grand design of "Yahweh, the one and only God." Calling Cyrus "My chosen shepherd" and "My anointed," Yahweh thus pronounced to Cyrus through His spokesman Isaiah (chapter 45):

Though thou knowest Me not,
I am the one who hath called thee by name ...
I am Yahweh, thy Caller,
the God of Israel.

I will enable you to unseat kings and rule nations,

I shall thrust open for you brass doors

and shall break down for you iron bars,

grant to you hidden treasures;

all that because you are

My chosen to restore the Children of Israel to their homeland -

"for the sake of my servant Jacob

and my Chosen, Israel,

have I summoned thee by thy name;

I selected thee, though thou knowest me not,"

said Yahweh!

It was in his very first year as ruler over Babylon that Cyrus issued an edict calling for the return of the exiles of Judaea to their land and permitting the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem. The cycle of prophecies was completed; Yahweh’s words came true.

But, in the eyes of the people, He remained an Unseen God.
 

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