Page:An analysis of religious belief (1877).djvu/575

 Troubles of many kinds might beset the people in the meantime; but of the attainment of the goal at last there could be no doubt.

Of course this ever-recurring burden of the prophetic song is varied by many strains on subordinate or outlying topics. The prophets constantly refer to the events of the day, and use them for their own purposes. They reprove the sins of kings and people, endeavoring to show that these bring upon them the misfortunes from which they suffer and which postpone the day of their triumph over the Gentiles. They connect special calamities with special offenses. They indicate the conduct which under existing circumstances ought to be pursued. They draw eloquent and beautiful pictures of the state of their own and of foreign countries. And they endeavor to raise the popular conceptions of the majesty of God, of his character, and his requirements, to the level they have themselves attained.

Turning now to the individual books which have come down to us in the Canon, and which must by no means be taken as comprehending all the works of the prophets who wrote their prophecies, we find that the oldest of these is that of Joel, the son of Pethuel. Joel is supposed by the highest authority to have lived in the time of King Jehoash, or Joash, who is praised for his devout obedience to Jehoiada, the priest (2 Kings, xii). His prophecy was occasioned by a devastation of locusts. Locusts had wasted the land for some years, and there had been drought at the same time. On the occasion of a long drought Joel feared a fresh invasion of locusts, and therefore summoned his people to a festival of repentance at the temple. This festival occurred, and rain soon followed (P. A. B., vol. i. p. 87 ff). Here the old notion of a direct connection between the attention paid by the people to Jehovah and his care for them is almost grotesquely manifested. Locusts are to be averted by fasting; rain obtained by rather more than usual devotion to God. On the other hand, the more spiritual view of religion to which the prophets generally tend, is shown in the order to the people to rend their hearts and not their garments. After thus attending to immediate necessities, Joel in stirring language ex-*