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