AUGUST 1 • 2024 | 33
all items of which nature is
composed,” together with
all the laws of physics and
chemistry, then “nothing
would be uncertain and
the future just like the past
would be present” before
your eyes. Karl Marx
applied this idea to society
and history. It is known
as historical inevitability,
and when transferred to
the affairs of humankind it
amounts to a massive denial
of personal freedom.
Finally, there is time as a
mere sequence of events with
no underlying plot or theme.
This leads to the kind of
historical writing pioneered
by the scholars of ancient
Greece, Herodotus and
Thucydides.
Each of these has its place,
the first in biology, the
second in physics, the third
in secular history, but none
was time as the prophets
understood it. The prophets
saw time as the arena in
which the great drama
between God and humanity
was played out, especially in
the history of Israel. If Israel
was faithful to its mission,
its covenant, then it would
flourish.
If it was unfaithful it
would fail. It would suffer
defeat and exile. That is
what Jeremiah never tired of
telling his contemporaries.
MORAL STRENGTH
The second prophetic
insight was the unbreakable
connection between
monotheism and morality.
Somehow the prophets
sensed — it is implicit in
all their words, though they
do not explain it explicitly
— that idolatry was not just
false. It was also corrupting.
It saw the universe as a
multiplicity of powers that
often clashed. The battle
went to the strong. Might
defeated right. The fittest
survived while the weak
perished. Nietzsche believed
this, as did the social
Darwinists.
The prophets opposed
this with all their force. For
them, the power of God was
secondary; what mattered
was the righteousness of
God. Precisely because God
loved and had redeemed
Israel, Israel owed Him
loyalty as their sole ultimate
sovereign, and if they were
unfaithful to God they would
also be unfaithful to their
fellow humans. They would
lie, rob, cheat: Jeremiah
doubts whether there was
one honest person in the
whole of Jerusalem (Jer. 5:1).
They would become
sexually adulterous and
promiscuous: “I supplied
all their needs, yet they
committed adultery and
thronged to the houses of
prostitutes. They are well-
fed, lusty stallions, each
neighing for another man’s
wife” Jer. 5:7-8.
Their third great insight
was the primacy of ethics
over politics. The prophets
have surprisingly little to say
about politics. Yes, Samuel
was wary of monarchy, but
we find almost nothing in
Isaiah or Jeremiah about the
way Israel/Judah should be
governed. Instead, we hear
a constant insistence that
the strength of a nation —
certainly of Israel/Judah — is
not military or demographic
but moral and spiritual. If
the people keep faith with
God and one another, no
force on earth can defeat
them. If they do not, no
force can save them.
As Jeremiah says in this
week’s haftarah, they will
discover too late that their
false gods offered false
comfort: “They say to wood,
‘You are my father,’ and to
stone, ‘You gave me birth.’
They have turned their backs
to me and not their faces;
yet when they are in trouble,
they say, ‘Come and save
us!’ Where then are the gods
you made for yourselves? Let
them come if they can save
you when you are in trouble!
For you have as many
gods as you have towns, O
Judah” (Jer. 2:27-28).
Jeremiah, the most
passionate and tormented
of all the prophets, has
gone down in history as
the prophet of doom. Yet
this is unfair. He was also
supremely a prophet of
hope. He is the man who
said that the people of Israel
will be as eternal as the sun,
moon and stars (Jer. 31).
He is the man who, while
the Babylonians were laying
siege to Jerusalem, bought
a field as a public gesture of
faith that Jews would return
from exile: “For this is what
the Lord Almighty, the God
of Israel, says: Houses, fields
and vineyards will again be
bought in this land” Jer. 32.
Jeremiah’s feelings of
doom and hope were not
in conflict: they were two
sides of the same coin. The
God who sentenced His
people to exile would be
the God who brought them
back, for though His people
might forsake Him, He
would never forsake them.
Jeremiah may have lost faith
in people; he never lost faith
in God.
Prophecy ceased in Israel
with Haggai, Zekharia and
Malachi in the Second
Temple era. But the
prophetic truths have not
ceased to be true. Only
by being faithful to God
do people stay faithful
to one another. Only by
being open to a power
greater than themselves
do people become greater
than themselves. Only by
understanding the deep
forces that shape history
can a people defeat the
ravages of history. It took a
long time for biblical Israel
to learn these truths, and
a very long time indeed
before they returned to their
land, reentering the arena
of history. We must never
forget them again.
“ONLY BY BEING FAITHFUL TO
GOD DO PEOPLE STAY FAITHFUL
TO ONE ANOTHER.”
— RABBI LORD JONATHAN SACKS