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Prophets and Kings
I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it. For ...
He looked for judgment, but behold oppression; for righteousness, but
behold a cry.”
Jeremiah 2:21
;
Hosea 10:1
;
Isaiah 5:3-7
.
The Lord had through Moses set before His people the result
of unfaithfulness. By refusing to keep His covenant, they would
cut themselves off from the life of God, and His blessing could not
come upon them. At times these warnings were heeded, and rich
blessings were bestowed upon the Jewish nation and through them
upon surrounding peoples. But more often in their history they forgot
God and lost sight of their high privilege as His representatives. They
robbed Him of the service He required of them, and they robbed their
fellow men of religious guidance and a holy example. They desired
to appropriate to themselves the fruits of the vineyard over which
they had been made stewards. Their covetousness and greed caused
them to be despised even by the heathen. Thus the Gentile world was
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given occasion to misinterpret the character of God and the laws of
His kingdom.
With a father’s heart, God bore with His people. He pleaded with
them by mercies given and mercies withdrawn. Patiently He set their
sins before them and in forbearance waited for their acknowledgment.
Prophets and messengers were sent to urge His claim upon the hus-
bandmen; but, instead of being welcomed, these men of discernment
and spiritual power were treated as enemies. The husbandmen per-
secuted and killed them. God sent still other messengers, but they
received the same treatment as the first, only that the husbandmen
showed still more determined hatred.
The withdrawal of divine favor during the period of the Exile led
many to repentance, yet after their return to the Land of Promise
the Jewish people repeated the mistakes of former generations and
brought themselves into political conflict with surrounding nations.
The prophets whom God sent to correct the prevailing evils were
received with the same suspicion and scorn that had been accorded
the messengers of earlier times; and thus, from century to century, the
keepers of the vineyard added to their guilt.
The goodly vine planted by the divine Husbandman upon the hills
of Palestine was despised by the men of Israel and was finally cast over
the vineyard wall; they bruised it and trampled it under their feet and
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hoped that they had destroyed it forever. The Husbandman removed