Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/396

 382 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

The blood of the innocent poor was ever crying unto Jehovah from the ground (Amos 8:4; Jer. 2:34; 19:4). The oppression of the needy was ever moving the men of Jehovah to grief, or arousing their indignation. When the poor were vexed or oppressed, when they were crushed or trodden under foot, these men came forward with their words of wrath or scorn (Amos 2:7; 4:1; 5:11; Ezek. 18:12; 22 : 29). Those who set themselves to exterminate the poor, or went no farther than to devise means of injuring them, could not be overlooked by the prophets (Isa. 32:3). The fact is pathetic, but it is interesting to notice that the phrase "to grind the faces of the poor" is as old as the Hebrew prophets. One of them calls his people to account for grinding their faces (Isa. 3:15). Such a charge, like others that were frequently made, could not have been brought forward if the conditions of the poor had not seemed deplorable.

Here, however, they did not stop, for here unfortunately the oppressors of the poor were not content to rest: they kept back the wages of the poor; they let them live in order that they might defraud them of the fruits of their labor. To treat them so was to use them worse than they used their slaves. We need not wonder that the prophets should have demanded that the wages of such be paid them (Isa. 3 : 14; 10:2; Jer. 22:13; Mai. 3:5). So were the poor preyed upon that the prophets must have felt, as did one of the writers of the Proverbs, that they were defrauded or robbed because they were poor, because they were safe and easy prey. Beyond this fact was another quite as distressing: the poor were denied justice, they were turned aside in the gate (Amos 5:12; Jer. 5 : 28 ; Isa. 10:2). Like the deuteronomists the prophets insisted that justice be not denied the poor, and that the widows and fatherless especially be considerately treated in local courts. Looking upon these poor unfortunates as those for whom they were responsible, they labored to secure for them the justice which was so often denied them. It is impossible for us to understand their labors, as they tried to alleviate the lot of such, if we do not take into consideration the fact that they looked upon themselves as men into whose hands their God as the God