440 CHAPTER XVII. LAW AND PROPHECY. The order of law and prophets reversed by modern theory, and this not merely as an order of written documents but of history—(1) Position examined that all the prophets denied the divine authority of sacrifice and ritual laws-Passages from Isaiah, Micah, Hosea, Jeremiah considered (2) The position that the Deuteronomic Code was introduced through prophetic influence, and with it the impulse given to legalism -Inconsistent character in which the prophets are made to appear in modern theory-The whole position of the prophets as religious guides is to be taken into account The Covenant, and what it impliedThe historical situation in Josiah's time does not agree with modern theory-Nor does the situation at and after the exile-Fundamental harmony of law and prophecy-The history did not turn on a struggle of parties-Law and Gospel. ACCORDING to the modern theory the Biblical order of law and prophets is reversed into the order of prophets and law. Did this merely amount to the assertion that some of the prophetical writings existed before the Pentateuch had assumed its present form, it might be a defensible position on grounds of literary criticism.1 It is, however, maintained in the sense that prophetic activity comes historically before the acceptance of authoritative law, and that, in fact, by a course of development, the prophets 1 Cf. Wellhausen, p. 409. Attitude of Prophets to Law, 441 brought about the introduction of the law. The position which, on this theory, the prophets are made to assume from first to last, and the relation in which they are made to stand towards the whole movement of legislation, are so peculiar that the subject requires some special treatment. (1.) We have already considered the contention that in all those passages in the earlier writing prophets in which law or laws are mentioned, the reference is only to oral and not to written law. The priests, we are told, like the prophets, gave forth their toroth or instructions orally to the people; and the substance of the priestly Torah was chiefly moral, but partly also ceremonial, relating to things clean and unclean. Whatever became of the concrete toroth on those subjects, we are assured that the practice of the priests at the altar was never matter of instruction to the laity, and was not written down in a codified shape. It is not made very clear in all this wherein the Torah of the priests. differed from that of the prophets; nor is it made clear to what extent, if any, the priests wrote down their moral and ceremonial Torah. What we have particularly to do with here, however, is the attitude of the prophets to the law. It cannot be denied that, in the expressions of a general kind which they employ, they show a high respect for the Torah of the priests. This, however, say the critical historians, was the moral part of the priestly instruction, and it is strenuously maintained that the prophets, down to the time of Jeremiah, denied the divine authority of sacrifice and ritual laws. The situation, as I understand the contention, was this: In pre-exilic antiquity, when the worship of the Bamoth was the rule, 1 Wellhausen, p. 59. the main thing in the service was not the rite, but the deity to whom the service was rendered. The historical books that date from pre-exilic time-the books of Judges, Samuel, and Kings-exhibit great varieties in the modes of sacrifice, some of which may correspond to the law of the Pentateuch, while others certainly deviate widely from it, proving that there was no fixed rule.1 The prophetical books also," in their polemic against confounding worship with religion," while they "reveal the fact that in their day the cultus was carried on with the utmost zeal and splendour," show that this high estimation rested, not on the opinion that the cultus came from Moses, but simply on the belief that Jahaveh must be honoured by His dependants, just like other gods, by means of offerings and gifts. "According to the universal opinion of the preexilic period, the cultus is indeed of very old and (to the people) very sacred usage, but not a Mosaic institution; the ritual is not the main thing in it, and is in no sense the subject with which the Torah deals." 3 So that, in a word, as far as regards the ceremonies of worship, "the distinction between legitimate and heretical is altogether wanting;" the theory of an illegal praxis is impossible, and the legitimacy of the actually existing is indisputable. The prophets, therefore, when they rebuke the people for their sacrifices and offerings, are not to be understood as reproving them for the corruption of a pure law of worship that existed, but as expressing disapproval of the whole sacrificial system, as a thing of mere human device, and destitute of divine sanction. Not only do they show, by thus speaking, that there was no law such as the Levitical Code in their day; but even the prophets, 1 Wellhausen, p. 55. 2 Ibid., p. 56. 3 Ibid., p. 59. before the time of Josiah, have nothing to say against the local sanctuaries (so long as they are devoted to the worship of the national God), a proof that the Deuteronomic Code did not come into existence till that period, and much more a proof that it had no divine sanction. The prophets, in a word, appear as the exponents of a tendency the very opposite of the legalising tendency which brought legal Codes into existence. Great stress, in this argument, is laid upon the declaration of Isaiah. His antipathy to the whole ritual system finds expression, it is said, in the well-known passage in the first chapter of his book: "To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith Jahaveh: I am weary with the burnt-offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, and of lambs, and of he-goats. When ye come to look upon my face, who hath required this at your hands, to trample my courts?" This expression, Wellhausen asserts with confidence," the prophet could not possibly have uttered if the sacrificial worship had, according to any tradition whatever, passed for being specifically Mosaic."1 But what then becomes of the book of the Covenant, which was surely at this time accepted as an authoritative Code, and is expressly ascribed to Moses? It says, in the law of worship which the critics appeal to as existing up to Josiah's time, and therefore prevailing in Isaiah's days: "An altar of earth thou shalt make unto me, and shalt sacrifice thereon thy burnt-offerings, and thy peace-offerings, thy sheep, and thine oxen." 2 Or if it is maintained that Isaiah condemned even that early piece of legislation, surely the argument here employed proves too much. For it would make the prophet condemn also the Sabbath 1 Wellhausen, p. 58. 2 Exod. xx. 24. as a piece of will-worship, and even reject prayer as a thing displeasing to God, since, in the same connection, he says: "The new moons and Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; . . . and when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you; yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear." 1 If we allow to Isaiah the perception of a difference. between sacrifice as an opus operatum, and sacrifice as the expression of a true and obedient heart-and surely the prince of the prophets was capable of drawing such a distinction-his words have a definite and precise meaning, eminently suited to the times and circumstances in which he lived. If we take them as a statement in this bald form, of the history of religious observances in Israel, they are emptied of their ethical as well as their rhetorical force, and land us in a position which is incomprehensible in the circumstances. For what, is it conceived. or conceivable, was the worship of a true Israelite in Isaiah's days? Is there any outward worship left that a man like Isaiah himself could take part in? Is this prophet to be refined away into a kind of freethinker who stood aloof from all outward observances of religion, who "never went to church," as the modern phrase goes, because the whole of the ordinary service of worship was a mere human device? Or if a prophet might thus attain to a position independent of the out 1 Isa. i. 13, 15. König (Hauptprobleme, p. 90) endeavours to make a distinction between "I cannot away with" (v. 13) as applied to the Sabbath, and "who hath required?" (v. 12) as applied to offerings; and says that a "cautious exegesis" shows that the things enumerated in vv. 11-16 were looked upon as matters of worship, coming in different senses and degrees from God. "Cautious" is scarcely the term that I should apply to such exegesis; for I doubt very much whether such fine distinc tions ever occurred to the minds of the prophets |