Prophets, Priests and Politics

By Stephen Disraeli

The prophets of the Old Testament were speaking, in the first instance, to the people of their own time. This means that we need to locate the prophets in the history of their own time, in order to understand them in the first instance.

I propose to survey Israel’s history mainly in terms of the work and role of the prophets, from Moses to Malachi. Of course, they were interacting with the temple priesthood and with the disciples of Machiavelli, who cannot be left out of the story. God himself is in the background of this history, pursuing his purposes through these events and making his will known, which brings us back to the prophets.

I’ve been a student of history since I was nine years old, a simple transition from an interest in maps. My mind itches, instinctively, to arrange things in chronological order. In fact, I was trying to synchronise the kings and prophets, for my own interest, while I was still at school. However, this will not be an academic work. My chief source of information will be the Old Testament itself.

The story is told from a Christian viewpoint, or even a Protestant viewpoint, as will be evident from time to time. Yet faith will not be over-powering the critical spirit. The charioteer will be running these two horses as a team.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Mar 28, 2024
• ISBN: 9781035842896

Stephen Disraeli

Stephen Disraeli is the pen-name of a British subject, from a teaching family. He was brought up at the more “catholic” end of the Church of England but lapsed into student atheism. He was rescued from this into a more evangelical faith. The motto of his theology is now “The essence of Faith is trust”. His academic qualifications are in history (Wadham College, Oxford), divinity (London) and church history (King’s College London). For more than ten years Stephen has been writing on Bible matters on the internet (under the name Disraeli), and he is now transferring this teaching into print.

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Foreword

The prophets of the Old Testament were speaking, in the first instance, to the people of their own time.

This means that we need to locate the prophets in the history of their own time, in order to understand them in the first instance. They may be freshly interpreted by later generations, but our later interpretations (if we follow the best practice) will be in keeping with the prophet’s first intention.

I propose to survey Israel’s history mainly in terms of the work and role of the prophets, from Moses to Malachi. Of course, they were interacting with the temple priesthood and with the disciples of Machiavelli, who cannot be left out of the story. God himself is in the background of this history, pursuing his purposes through these events and making his will known, which brings us back to the prophets.

I’ve been a student of history since I was nine years old, a simple transition from an interest in maps. My mind itches, instinctively, to arrange things in chronological order. In fact, I was trying to synchronise the kings and prophets, for my own interest, while I was still at school. However, this will not be an academic work. My chief source of information will be the Old Testament itself. Following the well-known precedent set by Sellars and Yeatman, this account will offer only two dates.

The story is told from a Christian viewpoint, or even a Protestant viewpoint, as will be evident from time to time. Yet faith will not be over-powering the critical spirit. The charioteer will be running these two horses as a team.

Chapter 1

Moses and the Tribes

Before the Land

I promised to cover the prophets from Moses to Malachi, but I don’t propose to spend much time in discussing Moses himself.

For one thing, my real concern is with the story of Israel when they were already settled in the land. Moses was God’s agent in preparing the way for a settlement, so his own story takes place in a different environment.

Of course, his life defines what it means to be a prophet in the Old Testament. The Lord God of Israel sends him to deliver a message, and he speaks to the people in God’s name.

In his case, the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend (Exodus ch33 v11). We must not be too literal in understanding face to face. As John justly observes, No one has ever seen God (John ch1 v18). In fact, it would be impossible for any human to take in the full reality of that sight. When people in the Bible see God, the most they get is an image accommodating itself to their understanding, in order to give them a sense of being in the presence of God. It is a kind of filter. That is why the Biblical visions vary so much in detail.

Once Moses had taken Israel away from alien authority, his next task was to establish them as God’s people, living under God’s rule. He brought them to meet the Lord at Sinai, where they heard the Ten Commandments. He presided over the ceremony which bound God and his people in a covenant relationship, after which seventy representative elders were taken to meet their God in person (Exodus ch24).

Moses is the nominal founder of the legal code of Israel, but he can’t be responsible for every detail of that law. For example, In the day when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to your fathers or command them concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices (Jeremiah ch7 v22). And many of the social laws in the Pentateuch pertain to life in a settled agricultural community and must have been adopted or borrowed when the people arrived in the land.

The most sensible explanation is that the legal code is another collaboration between God and man. The message at Sinai was about the basic principles of the law, as expressed in the Ten Commandments, and summed up later as You shall love the Lord your God, and your neighbour as yourself. When these principles were combined with traditional customs and preferences found in the culture of the time, the result was the full code which we find in the Old Testament. That is why the New Testament summons us to get back to the basic principles.

What we see in the life of Moses is the way the true prophet, as God’s voice, claims the first place in the leadership of God’s people. The prophet Moses and the priest Aaron are brothers, but God’s word is more important than the management of ritual. The priest may be at fault, indeed, if his enthusiasm for ritual carries him in wrong directions, as in the story of the golden calf. Miriam, the prophetess, is their sister.

God speaks through Aaron and Miriam, but not as directly as he speaks through Moses, and Miriam is the one who is punished when they claim equality (Numbers ch12).

At the same time, it is not necessarily wrong to work for God outside the usual channels. Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, were at fault because they were guided by their own spirits when they brought in unholy fire, such as the Lord had not commanded, and prompted the Lord to strike them down (Leviticus ch10). This lesson was important enough to disrupt the opening ceremony of the tabernacle.

Yet when the Spirit of the Lord rested on the seventy elders round the tent of Moses and allowed them to prophesy, the same spirit also rested upon Eldad and Medad, who had remained in the camp (Numbers ch11). Moses did not even consider rebuking them; ‘Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, that the Lord would put his spirit upon them.’

The affair at Shittim (Numbers ch25) was the climax of all these events. This was the encounter between the covenant people from Sinai and the peoples on the eastern side of the Jordan. The outcome was the defeat of the idolatrous Midianites, while Moses won or kept the allegiance of the other tribes. The same affair made Phinehas, grandson of Aaron, the founder of a hereditary priesthood (many of whom were evidently named after him), because he was jealous for his God and made atonement for the people of Israel.

The prophet’s mission was fulfilled, though he did not live to see it, on that day when the ark of the Lord was carried across the Jordan (Joshua ch3). God and his people were entering the land together, beginning the great experiment of living under the covenant.

Before the Kings

There was a time, as the book of Judges observes disapprovingly, when there were no kings in Israel, and every man did what was right in his own eyes. Our knowledge of the governing of Israel in those days is rudimentary, partly because the governing systems themselves were rudimentary.

Why do we need kings, anyway? Early kingship (and government in general, for that matter) has two indispensable functions, namely war and justice. That is, protecting the people from external enemies, and protecting them from each other.

As we see from references in the laws and early history, the most basic institution of government was the town gate; And Boaz went up to the gate and sat down there; and behold the next of kin, of whom Boaz had spoken, came by. So Boaz said, ‘Turn aside friend; sit down here’… And he took ten men of the elders of the city and said ‘Sit down here’ (Ruth ch4 vv1–2).

The town gate was the place of business because it was the place where people could be found, in the absence of any Greek-style marketplace. Sooner or later, the man you wanted to meet would be passing through. There would probably be idlers sitting around, ready to resolve themselves at a moment’s notice into a panel of witnesses for a business transaction, or into a quorum of the town elders.

The agreement for the purchase of Sarah’s tomb, in the currently Hittite city of Hebron, was made ceremoniously at an assembly of all those who went in at the gate of the city (Genesis ch23 v10). When a man fails to marry his deceased brother’s wife, the widow shall go up to the gate to the elders to claim her rights (Deuteronomy ch25 v7).

Unfortunately, local justice may be at the mercy of local rivalries, and may not necessarily remain even-handed. We are told that a man with many sons shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate (Psalm 127 v5). The clear implication is that a man who hasn’t gathered that support will be put to shame, as the hostile neighbour with his homegrown private army throws his weight around at the town meeting. Hence the attractiveness of anyone who can offer justice at a higher level.

On two occasions in David’s reign, a wise woman appears in the story. One wise woman might be regarded as a casual description, but two looks like an institution. On both occasions, her role is to mediate between people. One is called in to help reconcile David and Absalom, while the other voices the appeal of a besieged town, asking for terms (2 Samuel ch14, ch20). I suggest that the field of work of the wise woman was knowing the right thing to do, with particular reference to social interaction.

For some reason, I think of my grandmother and the sometimes uncomfortable little talks she might have with her grandchildren. Having an accepted social function, the wise woman should not be confused with the witch, who is listed and condemned among the practitioners of divination.

The Israelites were organised into tribes, as outlined in the story of the birth of the sons of Jacob (Genesis ch29 and ch30). Looking at this list and reading between the lines, we see signs that the community may have developed in two stages. The first version would have been dominated by Jacob’s four eldest sons, namely Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah, the first sons of Leah. Reuben would have been taking the lead, as eldest brother.

The Blessing of Jacob (Genesis ch49) calls him my might and the first fruits of my strength, pre-eminent in pride and pre-eminent in power, but goes on to say you shall [no longer] have pre-eminence.

Simeon and Levi may have been powerful in the highlands west of Jordan. According to the Blessing, they are known for their fierce anger and cruel wrath, as illustrated by the destruction of Shechem (Genesis ch34), but they will be divided and scattered. That prediction is already fulfilled in Joshua’s division of the land, when Simeon occupies an enclave in Judah’s territory, and Levi has become the common priesthood of Israel.

The Egyptian Pharaoh Merneptah established a stele, discovered in modern times, in which he claims to have laid waste to Israel (or possibly Jezreel). It’s always been a puzzle to match this event against Biblical history. My own theory is that his victims were the sons of Leah version of Israel. That is to say, Merneptah was responsible for dividing and scattering the tribes of Simeon and Levi, and for shattering the power of Reuben.

In their weakened state, the sons of Leah were unable to resist when the House of Joseph moved in, occupying the central highlands and taking over the leadership of the community. Thus, Merneptah would also be responsible, indirectly, for the second stage in Israel’s development.

Once all this dust has settled, the Blessing of Jacob gives us a snapshot of the tribes of Israel in the time of Judges. The Blessing of Moses (Deuteronomy ch33) gives us a similar snapshot from a slightly later perspective. With their assistance, we can make a rough survey of the tribes in their different regions.

On the eastern side of Jordan are the regions of Gilead and Bashan. Reuben used to be pre-eminent, but has now declined to the state of let Reuben live and not die. Conversely, Gad was originally just a band of raiders (in the first Blessing), but has now reached a more dominant position; He chose the best of the land for himself, for there a commander’s portion was reserved (Moses). Half the tribe of Manasseh is also on that side of the river.

Jacob had one of his visions at Mahanaim, in that region, which probably means that Mahanaim was an important cultic centre in the following centuries. There may be another allusion to the existence of Mahanaim in Joshua ch22, when the tribes on that side of the river established their own altar. This act could be seen either as a symptom of schism or as a sign of solidarity in the common worship, and the story is told in order to argue the point.

Another semi-isolated region was the far north, beyond the Vale of Jezreel. This is the location where Dan shall judge his people as one of the tribes of Israel (Jacob). I take that verse as referring to their dominance over the tribes of that area after they had been displaced from their original territory further south. A disparaging story is told (Judges ch17 and ch18) about the origin of the famous altar at Dan. Naphtali occupied the south (that is, the land south of Dan) and the lake.

Issachar and Zebulun were also in the vicinity.

Meanwhile, Judah was quietly expanding in the south and absorbing the remains of Simeon. However, his portion of the Blessing of Jacob is describing a supremacy which is later than the time of Judges. Their most sacred location was Hebron, where Abraham and Jacob occupied the tomb which Abraham first bought for the burial of Sarah.

Finally, the central highlands were occupied by the House of Joseph, an expression which may include the younger brother, Benjamin (2 Samuel ch19 v20). The House of Joseph were the leaders of Israel during the time of Judges, and thought of themselves as the true Israel for a long time afterwards. Joseph is called prince among his brothers (Deuteronomy ch33 v16) and is given the most generous portion of the text in both Blessings. The altar at Bethel is sanctified by two different visions of Jacob (Genesis ch28 and ch35), though he also set up an altar at Shechem.

Manasseh, a tribe with a large territory straddling the Jordan, is called the elder son of Joseph. This must mean that Manasseh was originally the leading partner in that house. Before long, though, the supremacy shifted to Ephraim, as is evident from the stories in Judges. The shift in power is signalled by the scene of their blessing by Jacob (Genesis ch48).

Manasseh, as the elder, had been placed ready to receive the blessing of Jacob’s right hand, but Jacob deliberately swopped his hands in order to give this blessing to Ephraim (his descendants shall become a multitude of nations). The early Christians loved to visualise this scene and observe that Jacob’s arms were thereby making the sign of the Cross.

Something should be said about Levi. According to the Blessing of Moses, their first responsibility is custody of the Urim and Thummim, which were probably used to consult God on the many two-choice questions that appear in the stories. They appear to have been objects held in the ephod, the ceremonial priestly garment. Next, They shall teach Jacob thy ordinances and Israel thy law.

Perhaps they are also custodians of the whole cycle of tradition providing the background of the law, the traditions about the relation between God and his people. These are all aspects of the vital religious task of interpreting the ways of God, helping men to understand him. The ritual function (incense and burnt offering) is the last item on the list, which implies that it was originally the least important.

We should not forget that the tribes of Israel are not the only people living in the land. The Israelites are sometimes blamed now for exterminating the previous inhabitants, but we learn from Judges ch1 that the extermination did not take place. Ephraim and Manasseh did not drive out all the Canaanites, and tribes further north were living in the very midst of them. That is why the Israelites were living under a permanent temptation to mix the local gods into their religious life.

Later, reformers thought a lot of trouble might have been saved if the Canaanites had been removed altogether, and the instruction to remove them will have been added retrospectively. In practice, they remained part of the backdrop of Israel’s life as a community.

The stories don’t tell us much about social organisation during the time when there were no kings in Israel. The heads of families of the tribe of Manasseh make an appearance in Numbers ch36, being interested in the law of land inheritance. The chiefs of all the people, of all the tribes of Israel are taking the lead when the people assemble at Mizpah (Judges ch20 v 2), and in the time of Saul and David, we read about the elders of Israel or the elders of Judah.

There are two general meeting-places, both called Mizpah, on either side of the Jordan. Another location is Gilgal, established in the name of the twelve tribes as a whole, at the place where Joshua crossed the river (Joshua ch4). Gilgal appears to have been a stone circle, having one stone placed for each member of the federation. One wonders how many other stone circles in Europe were raised on that principle.

This must be the same Gilgal that was the effective capital of Israel in Saul’s time; the people made him king before the Lord in Gilgal (1 Samuel ch11 v15), and he seems to have made his base there.

In another sense, the centre of Israel is Shiloh, the resting-place of the ark of the Lord, and the home of a yearly feast of the Lord (Judges ch21 v19).

Even in those days, God’s people Israel were defined more by their faith than by their descent.

In principle, Israel were a people ruled by God, more directly and less obliquely than the other peoples of the world. The prophets should have been his guiding voice, and the kings and priests should have been his agents. The history of Israel is the story of how imperfectly this worked, as human will struggled against God’s will.

Chapter 2

The Judges

The judges of Israel, who give their name to the book, are sent by God to supply the most basic needs of kingship. When Israel forsook him and worshipped other gods, he would give them over to their enemies for a period. Then the Lord raised up judges who saved them out of the power of those who plundered them (Judges ch2 v16).

The first example given is Ehud (Judges ch3). When the land was troubled by the Moabites, the Lord raised up for them a deliverer. Once Ehud had killed the king of Moab, he sounded the trumpet in the hill-country of Ephraim; and the people of Israel went down with him from the hill-country, having him at their head (v27). From the human viewpoint, to anyone who does not know about God’s part in the venture, this looks like a self-nominated leadership. The people are drawn into following Ehud, because of his own confidence.

The judging work of the judges would have grown out of their prestige. If community-based justice was failing to redress grievances, the victims would be looking for ways of getting a second opinion. It would be very natural to ask the big man of the area to help settle their disputes. Before he knew where he was, he would be receiving a stream of appeals. Or he might insist on imposing his own judgements without waiting to be asked. On this ad hoc basis, he would supply both functions of kingship at the same time.

Deborah, wife of Lappidoth (ch4), begins the line of prophecy after Moses and is also the next in the line of judges. The people of Israel come to her for judgement, in the place where she sits. From one angle, this resembles the work of the wise women on a larger scale. I’m tempted to see the wise woman phenomenon as an aspect of the prophetic movement, on the premise that their wisdom in dealing with human relations was understood to have come from God.

In dealing with war, Deborah and the later prophets follow the precedent of Moses. And Moses said to Joshua; Choose for us men, and go out, fight with Amalek (Exodus ch17 v8). The prophet does not lead the armies in person. His job is to commission a commander in the Lord’s name, and pray for victory. In the same way, Deborah summons Barak and instructs him to call out the tribes of Naphtali and Zebulun to fight against Sisera. In fact, the song in the next chapter brings most of the west bank tribes into this army.

Clearly, the writer of Judges finds nothing unusual about Deborah’s prominent role. There is no surprise that Deborah was exercising authority, even over men, on God’s behalf. I’ve heard the male argument that God was forced to use Deborah because the men were unwilling. But if the God of Israel wants to work through particular people, he does not normally accept their reluctance as an impediment, as we might learn from some of the later prophets. We must accept that Deborah was acting this part because she was God’s choice for the task.

Ehud provides the pattern of the book of Judges, that a commander is raised up, one way or another, to meet the immediate needs of the time. But a commander may be tempted to let his ad hoc appointment continue as a permanent office. A permanent officer may hope to pass his post on to his children, and that is how the office of a judge may evolve into kingship. We can see these possibilities in the story of Gideon (from ch6).

Israel was now being troubled by the Midianites.

We are told that the angel of the Lord (that is, the Lord’s voice in visible form) appeared to Gideon, of the tribe of Manasseh and instructed him to deliver Israel. As a preface to this task, he was instructed to tear down his father’s altar of Baal and erect a new altar to the Lord, sacrificing one of his father’s bulls. Amongst other things, this illustrates the point that sacrifice is not yet a priestly monopoly.

Once Gideon had overcome the Midianites, the tribe of Ephraim asserted their authority by resenting the fact that he had not called for their assistance. That is, they had missed out on the chance to collect booty from the defeated enemy. He was able to appease them by pointing out that the princes of Midian, Oreb and Zeeb had already fallen into their hands (Judges ch8 vv1–3).

At the end of his major campaigns, the men of Israel offer him what amounts to royal power. Rule over us, your son and your grandson also, for you have delivered us out of the hand of Midian. Gideon’s high-minded response is, "I will not rule over