03. The Speech of God to Man and Man to God

The Speech of God to Man and Man to God

Prayer implies reciprocity. It is more than medita­tion, it is communion. It is a dialogue, not a mono­logue. It is not enough that man speak to God; he must believe that God can hear and, in some way, speak to him again. And one of the most welcome and surprising features of the Bible is that it is even more full of God’s speech to men than of man’s to God. In the very early stages of a national literature, this is to be expected. In Homer, the gods are on easy and familiar terms with men; and, generally speaking, the ancient mind, which has a keen appreciation of the mystery and poetry of things, but no power of philo­sophical analysis, instinctively peoples its world with supernatural beings who sustain direct and real rela­tions to men. But the peculiar thing about the Bible is that this phenomenon persists through every stage of the literary and religious development. The prophetic parts of the Pentateuch are full of tales of the meeting and converse of God with men. There we might ex­pect them; for these tales are among the oldest prose narratives in the Bible, and they represent a tradition older still. But such converse is not confined to the Mosaic or pre-Mosaic period: it occurs also in the books of Samuel and Kings, in Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, prophets who stand in the full blaze of history; it occurs even in the New Testament. It may be difficult enough to form any clear or adequate idea to our own minds of the way in which Deity thus impinged upon human experience; but summarily to brand all the recitals as legendary is impossible. In any case, this description could only apply to the earlier narratives, while the phenomenon itself persists throughout the whole development. Doubtless the men who, in later times, so clearly heard the voice of God were men of special spiritual capacity; it is also possible that there were peculiarities in their mental, spiritual, and even physical constitution, which increased their native susceptibility to impressions of the divine. But, however we explain it, the Bible is saturated throughout with the idea that God can speak as well as man. In later and more reflective times, the divine voice could be detected in the processes of nature, and in the large movements of history. There was no speech nor language, but the voice was heard clearly enough by the attentive ear. Often the later psalmists heard it sounding across the centuries from “the days of old,” on which they love to meditate (Psalms 78; Psalms 95:7; Psalms 105); it was heard in the roar of the thunder (Psalms 29), in the solemn inexplicable pro­cesses of nature (Job 38-39, in the measured westward tramp of the Assyrian hosts (Amos 3:8). But the voice of God of which we hear most in Scripture was more definite and particular than that. It was a still small voice, which fell upon the inward ear almost like the voice of a man. In the earlier narratives, God speaks much and man comparatively little. Promises are made (Genesis 13:14-18) and com­mands are given (Genesis 12:1), and the patriarchs have little to do but believe the one and execute the other. Abraham is silent when he hears the voice bidding him take his son, his only son, and offer him in sacrifice upon a mountain (Genesis 22:2). Sometimes, indeed, a divine speech is no­thing but a palpable device on the part of the historian to summarize a situation graphically, as, for example, the resume of Israel’s earlier history with which Joshua introduces his farewell speech to the people (Joshua 24:2-13); and occasionally there is a certain stiffness or formality in the dialogue which suggests that the historian has a didactic aim in view, as in the intercession of Abraham for Sodom (Genesis 18:23-32), or in the choice of David and the rejection of his brethren for the kingship (1 Samuel 16:6-12).

But, as a rule, the dialogues are full of life, psycho­logical interest and literary beauty. So much is Jehovah like the men to whom He speaks that they can even argue with one another. “‘Come now, and I will send thee to Pharaoh,’ says Jehovah to Moses; and Moses said, ‘ Who am I that I should go? ’ and He said. ‘ Certainly I will be with thee.’” (Exodus 3:10-12) Later on, Moses demurs, “Oh, Lord, I am not eloquent, I am slow of speech and of a slow tongue. And Jehovah said to him, ‘ Who hath made man’s mouth? or who maketh a man dumb, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? is it not I, Jehovah? Now therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt speak.’ And he said, ‘Oh, Lord, send, I pray thee, by the hand of him whom Thou wilt send,’” (Exodus 4:10-13) and very naturally the anger of Jehovah was kindled against him. There is a somewhat similar discussion in the late book of Jonah. “God said to Jonah, ‘Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd? ’ and he said, ‘ I do well to be angry, even unto death.’” And Jehovah is represented as reasoning with the narrow-hearted prophet, and seeking, as it were, to appeal to his com­mon sense. “You care for a little plant, on which you have spent no thought or effort, and am I not to care for the great city of Nineveh?” (Jonah 4:9-11)

Even in the earliest narratives, the divine speech is always serious and worthy. Often, as was to be ex­pected, its theme is the future greatness of the Hebrew people (Cf. also the Balaam story in Numbers 23 f.); but it is often, indeed, usually inspired by moral and religious motives. The voice that came to Adam and Cain was a voice that carried conviction of sin, and throughout the historical narratives religious motives are implicated with the political. That voice addresses itself especially to those who are called to prominent service among the people of Israel, as in the Old Testament, or in the kingdom of God, as in the New. It may be heard by children, by warriors, by kings, but most of all by prophets. It comes to Samuel in the sanctuary (1 Samuel 3:4), it reassures Joshua repeat­edly with the promise of victory and in the words, “Be not afraid,” (Joshua 8:1-2; Joshua 10:8; Joshua 11:6) it sends Gideon forth with cheer upon his perilous task (Judges 6:14; Judges 6:23), and tells him the precise moment when he is to strike the blow, it speaks to Solomon in the sanctuary at Gibeon (Judges 7:9), its imperious tones ring in the ears of Elijah, impelling him to face the king (1 Kings 18:1), and again forcing him away from the desert retreat to which he had fled from the wrath of Jezebel (1 Kings 19:9; 1 Kings 19:13). To the great prophets that voice is the realest of all realities. “When Jehovah has spoken, who can help prophesying?” (Amos 3:8) So deeply have its notes sunk into their soul that it is not so much they that speak as the voice that speaks in them. When they appear before the great audiences gathered on festal occasions at the country sanctuaries, or in the Jerusalem temple, they are conscious of a direct commission from above, and they preface their brave and searching speeches with the words, “Thus saith Jehovah.” The people may resent and deny their claims, but at the risk of their lives they unflinchingly assert the divine authority of their message. “You may put me to death, if you please, but if you do, know that you are putting to death an innocent man, and my blood will be upon you and your city, for it is really Jehovah who has sent me to speak these words in your ears.” (Jeremiah 26:14 f.) The supernatural voice is usually that of God, or rather, in the Old Testament, of Israel’s God, Jehovah. Another mode of representation regards it as an angel’s voice (Judges 2:1-3). The angel of Jehovah is practically identical with Jehovah Himself—in Judges 6:12 it is the angel of Jehovah who speaks, and in Judges 6:14 Jehovah Him­self; but in later times, when the sense of the trans­cendence of God is beginning to produce a more elaborate angelology, divine messages are mediated to men by angels (Zechariah 1-2, 4-6), who are so far personalized that even their names are sometimes mentioned (Daniel 9:21; Luke 1:19; Luke 1:26). Frequently also in the New Testament, important messages of warning or comfort are brought to men by angels. An angel of the Lord appears repeatedly to Joseph with messages concerning the birth of Jesus, the flight into Egypt, and the return from Egypt (Matthew 1-2). Gabriel an­nounces to Zacharias the birth of John the Baptist, and the birth of Jesus to Mary (Luke 1-2). An angel appears to the apostles in prison with the command to preach in the temple (Acts 5:19 f.). An angel directs Philip on the way on which he is destined to meet the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 7:26). An angel urges Cornelius to send for Peter (Acts 10:3). An angel appears to the shipwrecked Paul with words of en­couragement (Acts 27:23 f.). It is worthy of note that most of these angelic appearances are expressly connected with dreams or trances (Acts 18:9; Acts 23:11).

Sometimes the voice is said to proceed from the spirit. It was the spirit that told Philip to approach the Ethio­pian chariot (Acts 8:29), and that indicated to Peter the presence of the three men who had come from Cornelius to seek him (Acts 10:19). Sometimes the voice is more mysterious still, as in the eerie specter that came at midnight upon the sleeping Eliphaz, and made all his bones to shake (Job 4:12-17), or that epoch-making voice that smote upon the ears of Saul as he hasted away to Damascus (Acts 9:4). This was the voice of “the Lord”; and it is not without significance that “the Lord (that is) Jesus” (Acts 9:17) occasionally speaks in the book of Acts, to Paul, just as Jehovah speaks in the Old Testament to a patriarch or prophet. It is He who commissions Paul to his great task among the Gentiles (Acts 22:18-21), and who sustains him in that task by words of cheer (Acts 18:9; Acts 23:11; cf. 2 Corinthians 12:8-9).

Thus, in one way or another, voices from beyond were borne upon the ears of men. Now it was the voice of Jehovah, now of an angel, and again of the risen Jesus. The Hebrews were very sensitive to the divine speech, and their history is one long dialogue between this world and the world above. In ancient times, prayers were directed by “every man to his own God” (Jonah 1:5), by the Hebrews therefore to Jehovah; but in later times there are traces of the idea that they may be offered to angels, or at least that the angels can intercede for men (Job 5:1. The “holy ones” here are the angels. Cf. Tob 12:15, “I am Raphael, one of the seven holy angels who pre­sent the prayers of the saints.”), and the rich man in the parable cries to father Abraham to have mercy upon him (Luke 16:24-27).

We have seen how God spoke to man, let us now see how man spoke to God; and as the prayers of the New Testament will receive special consideration in two subsequent chapters, we shall confine our at­tention here chiefly to the Old Testament.

Throughout the Bible, God is the Friend of man (2 Chronicles 20:7); and, especially in the earlier books, man speaks to God as a man to his friend. A growing sense of the distance of God and of the reverence due to Him in­spires the later speech with a becoming humility; but many of the older addresses are marked by an ease, a candor, a bluntness even, which are peculiarly welcome as showing how real to the speakers, and how human, was the God they thus boldly addressed. Goethe remarks somewhere that the speech of a man to his friend may be more deadly than to a stranger. To his friend he is less careful of the proprieties and conventions. He lets himself go; and, in a moment of provocation, he may stab with a word the friend he loves. A similarly dangerous familiarity, occa­sionally degenerating into something very like im­pertinence, marks some of the speeches in the patri­archal narratives.

After an unsuccessful visit to Pharaoh, Moses thus addresses Jehovah: “Lord, wherefore hast Thou dealt ill with this people? why is it that Thou hast sent me? For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in Thy name, he hath dealt ill with this people; neither hast Thou delivered Thy people at all” (Exodus 5:22 f.). Even more extraordinary is the temper displayed in the speech made by Moses when the people, tired of the manna, begin to clamor for meat. “Why hast Thou dealt ill with Thy servant? and why have I not found favor in Thy sight, that Thou layest the burden of all this people upon me? Have I con­ceived all this people? Have I brought them forth, that Thou shouldest say unto me, Carry them in Thy bosom as a nursing father carrieth the sucking child, unto the land which Thou sparest unto their fathers ’? Whence should I have flesh to give unto all this people? For they weep unto me, saying, ‘Give us flesh, that we may eat.’ I am not able to bear all this people alone, because it is too heavy for me. And if Thou deal thus with me, kill me, I pray thee, out of hand, if I have found favor in Thy sight, and let me not see my wretchedness” (Numbers 11:11-15). Two other disappointed prophets beseech, in their petulance, Jehovah to kill them (Elijah in 1 Kings 19:4 and Jonah in Jonah 4:3. Cf. Job 6:8 f.). Jacob once addresses God almost in the spirit of a man who is driving a bargain (Genesis 28:20-22); and the skeptical Gideon, after putting the word of God to one test which issued in a way that should have satisfied his misgivings, immediately proceeds to demand another test (Judges 6:36-40). The primitive nature of ancient religion and the familiarity of men in their relations to God are often quaintly illustrated by the motives with which they urge their prayer upon Him. Sometimes the divine sense of justice is appealed to: “Shall one man sin and wilt Thou be angry with all the congregation?” (Numbers 16:22) Or the divine mercy is besought for the guilty people because of Jehovah’s special relations with the patriarchs (Deuteronomy 9:27), or because of the redemption which He wrought for them in ancient times (Deuteronomy 9:29; 1 Kings 8:51-53), or because they are called by His name (Daniel 9:19). But the most characteristically primitive appeal is the appeal to Him to consider His reputation. If He fails to help Israel, what will the nations think (Joel 2:17)? They will be more inclined to say that He was unable than that He was unwilling. So, to save His reputa­tion, as it were, He is bound to interpose; otherwise not only Israel’s name, but His name will be cut off (Joshua 7:9). This reminds us of the practice of Muller of Bristol who, it is said, “used to employ arguments in prayer, giving eleven reasons why God should do a certain thing: He could not suffer His own glory to be dimmed or His promise to be dishonored,” etc. Perhaps the most delightfully naive illustration of this type of appeal is in the memoirs of Ezra (Ezra 8:21-23). He had already told Artaxerxes that God protected those who trusted Him, and so he was ashamed, he tells us, to ask him for a guard of soldiers to protect his com­pany on the way to Palestine. Consequently they prayed very earnestly to God that He would Himself guide them safely. God was thus, if we may say so, put upon His honor; “and He was entreated of us, and He delivered us from the hand of the enemy and the ambush by the way” (Ezra 8:23; Ezra 8:31).

These easy relations of men with God bordered, as we have seen, sometimes on irreverence; but they have also a very attractive side. Just because He stands so near them, can be spoken to and reasoned with, as a man speaks to and reasons with his friend, so they can introduce into their requests details of the most concrete kind. Very charming, for example, is the prayer of Abraham’s servant for guidance. “Behold, I am standing by the fountain of water, and the daughters of the men of the city are coming out to draw water; and let it come to pass that the damsel to whom I shall say, ‘Let down thy pitcher, I pray thee, that I may drink,’ and she shall say, ‘ Drink, and I will give thy camels drink also’: let the same be she that Thou hast appointed for Thy servant Isaac, and thereby shall I know that Thou hast showed kindness unto my master” (Genesis 24:13-14). The precision with which the details are arranged is very naive, and the trust which inspires the prayer is beautiful. So practical is the spirit of Biblical prayer that proper names, elaborate descriptions of the speaker’s situation, and historical and geographical allusions are of frequent occurrence. When David, pursued by Saul, is at a loss to know which move to make next, he prays, “Will Saul come down as Thy servant has heard? O Jehovah, the God of Israel, I beseech Thee, tell Thy servant.” And—when an affirmative answer is given—“Will the men of Keilah deliver me and my men up into the hand of Saul?” (1 Samuel 23:11 f.) The tearful prayer in Lamentations 2:20-22 contains a vivid catalogue of the horrors of the siege of Jerusalem, and Lamentations 5, in form a prayer, is really an elaborate description of the people’s distress. Other prayers give a glimpse of the temple, “our holy and beautiful house where our fathers praised Thee,” trodden under foot of the adversary and burned with fire (Isaiah 63:18; Isaiah 64:11).

Another proof of the extreme ease and naturalness of Biblical prayer lies in the fact that, but for the context one would often suppose that a petition, which is in reality addressed to men, was a prayer to God. Take, for example, Aaron’s intercession to Moses for Miriam: “Oh, my lord, lay not, I pray thee, sin upon us, for that we have done foolishly, and for that we have sinned. Let her not, I pray thee, be as one dead” (Numbers 12:11-12). Or take Shimei’s confession to the king whom he had cursed: “Let not my lord impute iniquity unto me, neither do thou remember that which thy servant did perversely; for thy ser­vant doth know that I have sinned” (2 Samuel 19:19-20). No hard and fast line was drawn between the vocabulary of religion and that of daily life. Words like “grace” (Ruth 1:8) and “blessing” (A blessing, 2 Kings 5:15, is a very tangible thing. It may­be a present of two talents of silver and two suits of clothes, 2 Kings 5:23) were equally applicable to God and man.

Perhaps there is no part of the Old Testament from which we learn so clearly the fearlessness and candor, with which men who felt their awful need of God could pray to Him, as the book of Job. The appeals of Job—until he is humbled by the marvelous panorama of God’s mighty wisdom and love (Job 38 f.)—are always brave, often bold, and occasionally all but blasphemous, so that we cannot wonder that his conventional friends were shocked or that the oldest of them should reproach him with forgetting that spirit of humble devotion which becomes men in the presence of God (Job 15:4). The boldness of Job even in prayer—if such his desperate appeals can be called— is the boldness of conscious integrity, intensified a thousand fold by his intolerable and unmerited suffer­ing. Repeatedly he asserts that he would not be afraid to appear before God, and he clamors for an audience with Him, if only the conditions of the audience be fair, and such that he will be able to do his own case justice: that is, God must, on the one hand, remove his leprosy from him, and, on the other, He must not overwhelm him by His terrible majesty (Job 9:34 f.; Job 13:20 f.) If these conditions be fulfilled, then Job is ready to appear, not as a coward with hanging head, nor yet as a penitent suppliant, but with head erect “as a prince would I go near unto Him” ( Job 31:37). Why should God torment him so? “Am I a sea-monster, that Thou settest a watch over me? Granted that I have sinned, what harm can I do unto Thee, O Thou who watchest men only too terribly well. Why hast Thou set me as a mark for Thee? Granted that I have sinned, why then dost Thou not pardon my trans­gressions and take away mine iniquity?” (Job 7:12; Job 7:20 f.) He refuses to be condemned unjustly, and demands that God should show him why He condemns him (Job 10:2). “Thou knowest that I am not guilty” (Job 10:7). What good does God get by crushing him, by despising the work of His own hands? (Job 10:3) He parodies the eighth Psalm: “What is man, that Thou shouldest count him so great and set Thy mind upon him, and visit him every morning”—only to torment him? (Job 7:17 f.) He denies that the world is governed on moral prin­ciples: “It is all the same: He destroys the innocent and the guilty alike” (Job 9:22). And in a terrible moment he utters the audacious thought that God has made him only to destroy him (Job 10:7-13).

Such utterances are not perhaps prayer in the common sense of the word. They are rather a volley of angry bitter questions, and of agonized appeals. But through the audacious form breathes a spirit which is the condition of all prayer—the overwhelm­ing recognition of the fact of God. These bold speeches remind us again of Goethe’s remark: they suggest the liberty, the thoughtless liberty, that a man in a passion will take with his friend. They are very different from the sweet humility of Psalms 131.

Jehovah, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty.

Neither do I exercise myself in great matters, Or in things too wonderful for me.

Surely I have stilled and quieted my soul;

Like a weaned child with his mother, Like a weaned child is my soul within me. The temper is very different, but inspired by the same passion for the friendship of God. It has, of course, to be remembered that the book of Job is poetry and not history, though probably it correctly enough mirrors the struggles through which perplexed souls passed in the political and intellectual confusion of post-exilic times.

There is perhaps no Old Testament character, certainly no Old Testament prophet, whom we know so intimately as Jeremiah. He is the most intensely human of all the prophets, “bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh.” He has nothing of the transcen­dentalism of Ezekiel, nothing of the serenity of Isaiah. His eyes are so blinded with tears that he cannot see the King upon His throne high and lifted up. The religion of such a man must be of peculiar interest to us, and it is a matter of great good fortune that so many of his prayers have been preserved. Most of his re­corded prayers, however, are wrung from him by the treachery and heartlessness of his people, and together they give a very inadequate and perhaps totally mis­leading impression of the man.

He “rolled his cause upon Jehovah”—that is the phrase in which he describes his recourse to God in time of persecution (Jeremiah 20:12); and often enough, in the course of his checkered and heart-breaking career would he have occasion to turn to the God whom he calls “my strength and my stronghold and my refuge in the day of affliction”(Jeremiah 16:19). The siege of Jerusalem, when “the city was being given into the hand of the Chaldeans that fought against it” (Jeremiah 32:24), would bring him many a sorrowful moment, and at least two allusions to prayer come from that time. After purchasing the field of his cousin in Anathoth, though humanly speaking the prospects are that the land will be permanently alienated, he seeks in prayer for the guarantee of the hope of ultimate restoration that seems to be belied by the existing situation (Jeremiah 32:16 ff.). And again comes the impulse to pray when he is imprisoned in the court of the guard (Jeremiah 33:3). But more than by the doubt and misery of the siege was Jeremiah distressed by the depravity of his fellow-countrymen, who hated and feared him so much that they plotted against his life; and some of the most appalling prayers in the Bible are offered by him that the divine vengeance may fall upon these base and treacherous men. “Let their wives become childless and widows, and let their men be slain” (Jeremiah 18:21). “Bring upon them the day of evil, and destroy them with double destruction” (Jeremiah 17:18). “Pull them out like sheep for the slaughter, and prepare them for the day of slaughter” (Jeremiah 12:3), and “let me see Thy vengeance upon them” (Jeremiah 20:12).

These are singular prayers; but prayer has to be interpreted, like prophecy, in its historical context. On Jeremiah’s view of the world, such prayers were inevitable. Generally speaking, the ancient Hebrew belief was that God rewarded men according to their works; their material fortune was therefore the key to their character. This creed seems to be palpably belied by the facts. Jeremiah is perplexed and con­founded by what he sees. He does not doubt the justice of God, and yet he would fain discuss with Him the principles on which He governs the world (Jeremiah 12:1). He had meant the best and suffered the worst; if he fails in the end, and his enemies succeed, he is dis­credited, and with him the character of God and His government of the world. It is this that accounts for the temper of Jeremiah’s prayers. Without any sure outlook upon immortality, if the moral order is to be vindicated at all, it must be here and now. Jeremiah, therefore, repeatedly protests his own innocence, as well as his persecutors’ guilt. With transparent sin­cerity, he fearlessly appeals to God’s knowledge of his heart. “Thou that triest the righteous, that seest the heart and the mind (Jeremiah 20:12), Thou knowest me, Thou seest me and triest my heart toward Thee” (Jeremiah 12:3).

Jeremiah’s contemporary Habakkuk was equally perplexed, but he meets his doubts more serenely. He takes his stand upon the watch-tower of faith and listens for an answer (Habakkuk 2:1; cf. Psalms 85:8). Jeremiah remains down below upon the plain in the din and confusion of the battle, with the footman and the horsemen and his own hot heart (Jeremiah 12:5). His temperament, his tragic experience, his sensitive religious nature, all combine to inspire his prayers with a passion and familiarity which have no parallel anywhere. He addresses God as one who is behaving like a man who has lost his head, and who cannot save (Jeremiah 14:9); he compares Him even in prayer to a deceitful brook and to waters that fail (Jeremiah 15:18). He charges Him with beguiling him into his prophetic mission (Jeremiah 20:7). He, the mighty Jehovah, had overmastered the tender­hearted Jeremiah, who was but a child (Jeremiah 1:6), and thrust him upon a career in which he had become a laughing stock all the day (Jeremiah 20:7).

Yet nothing in the world is so precious to Jeremiah as the God who tries and perplexes him so. He stands alone, without wife or child (Jeremiah 16:2) or any of the human joys that lift men over trouble or console them within it; he has no seat in the gatherings of men who meet to make merry and rejoice (Jeremiah 15:17). All the more real to him, therefore, is God. God is all that he has, and He must be everything. He is his refuge in the day of evil (Jeremiah 17:17), and His words are the joy and the rejoicing of his heart (Jeremiah 15:16). Jeremiah is, in some ways, the most religious spirit in the Old Testament, and it is significant that among historical characters—for Job is not historical— his prayers are the boldest. He speaks with all the fearlessness and passion of a man to his friend. No book dealing with historical times is so replete with dialogue between God and man as Jeremiah. His ear is very sensitive to the divine voice; he can both speak and listen. For himself, he beseeches help and healing (Jeremiah 17:14); upon his enemies he calls for ven­geance. But that is not all. Again and again we find him in the capacity of intercessor. It is unfor­tunate that none of his intercessory prayers have been preserved; but it is plain from a few stray references that they must have been habitual and earnest (Jeremiah 11:14; Jeremiah 14:11). “Remember how I stood before Thee to speak good for them” (Jeremiah 18:20). Such a man as Jeremiah, even when his message was rejected, must have produced, like Jesus, a tremendous impression upon the people. He is universally recognized as a man whose intercession is powerful. Even when his fortunes are at their lowest, Zedekiah the king recognizes the power of his prayer (Jeremiah 37:3), and no less the people (Jeremiah 42:2). The greatness of Jeremiah both in prophecy and prayer is all the more striking when we contrast him with Ezekiel. To Ezekiel God is also very real, but He is girt about with a mysterious glory which renders Him all but inaccessible, and it is significant of this remoteness of God that dialogue and prayer are very rare in the book of Ezekiel. The dialogue in Ezekiel 4:14 f. turns upon ceremonial cleanness, and though “the hand of Jehovah” was often upon him, there are only two brief prayers in the book. Ezekiel’s characteristic address is “Ah Lord Jehovah” (Ezekiel 4:14; Ezekiel 9:8; Ezekiel 11:13). There is, if you like, a profounder reverence than in Jeremiah, but he lacks that prophet’s terrible passion and his overwhelming sense of the need of God as his friend.

It now remains to discuss how the answer to prayer was mediated. In early times the methods were primitive. An answer might, of course, come directly, without any other mediation than that of circum­stance. Abraham’s servant prays for a specific sign to guide him to the woman of whom he is in search, and the sign comes to pass (Genesis 24:15). Such prayers, in their naivete, often come perilously near dictation. The speaker needs definite guidance, and he can be most sure of it when the conditions are pre-arranged by himself. Sometimes, as in the case of Gideon, the circumstance through which the divine will is declared is miraculous. But in early times, as a rule, it had to be profes­sionally interpreted. How elaborate was the apparatus of Oriental peoples for ascertaining the divine will, we may see from the very earnest protest raised against all but prophetic mediation in Deuteronomy 18:9-16. There were diviners, augurs, enchanters, sorcerers, necromancers, etc.; and though as early as the reign of Saul, there was an energetic attempt to remove these influences from Israel (1 Samuel 28:9), they continued to flourish more or less openly for centuries. Saul himself tried to pierce the secrets of the future by the aid of necromancy; the practice is attested for Isaiah’s (Isaiah 8:19) time, and persisted at any rate a century longer (Deuteronomy 18). There is a curious reference in 2 Kings 16:15 to an altar which Ahaz used “to inquire by.” The common methods of ascertaining the divine will are summarized in the story of Saul, who, it is said, inquired of Jehovah but received no answer, “either by dreams or by Urim or by prophets.” (1 Samuel 28:6; cf. 1 Samuel 28:15).

We have already seen how both in Old and New Testament God is represented as speaking to men in dreams and visions. From this early notice, therefore, we may conclude that, apart from a revelation which might come directly in a dream, the divine answer was usually conceived as mediated by priests and prophets. It was an Israelitish priest who was sent from Assyria to teach the way of the God of Israel (2 Kings 17:27 f.). —in this case the way in which He should be wor­shipped; and the Urim just mentioned were part of the paraphernalia of the priest. Precisely what they were we do not know; but an interesting notice, preserved in the Greek version of 1 Samuel 14:41, but suppressed in the Masoretic text, suggests that they were a means of casting lots. Instructive, too, is the notice in 1 Samuel 30:7-8. When David is in doubt as to whether or not he should pursue the Amalekites who had raided his camp, he “inquired of Jehovah.” But in order to do this, “he Said to Abiathar the priest, ‘I pray thee, bring me hither the ephod,’ and Abiathar brought thither the ephod to David.” And, now that the priest is present with his oracular instruments, “David inquired of Jehovah, saying, etc.” The priest had control of the oracle (1 Samuel 22:10. For peoples outside of Israel, cf. 1 Samuel 6:2-3), and it was by the oracle that the divine will was ascertained. Espe­cially were affairs of tribal and national importance submitted to it. It is consulted, for example, before the assault of Israel upon Canaan (Judges 1:1), it is repeatedly referred to in the book of Samuel, and it is an inter­esting fact that these references nearly all occur in the life of David, who determines, in particular, the movements of his military career by it (1 Samuel 23:10; 1 Samuel 30:8; 2 Samuel 2:1; 2 Samuel 5:19). The answer of the oracle is not confined to Yes and No. It can give specific guidance (Judges 1:1; Judges 20:18; 1 Samuel 10:22; 2 Samuel 2:1). Possibly alternative questions were put and the answer determined by lot (1 Samuel 23:10 ff.). The last illustration of the casting of lots in the Bible is in connection with the appointment of a successor to Judas (Acts 1:26). Possibly it was felt that such methods were no longer worthy or compatible with absolute reliance upon the guidance of the spirit. But far more important for the development of religion than the oracle of the priests was the pro­phetic interpretation of the divine will; and it is with a true instinct that in Deuteronomy 18:15 prophecy is singled out as that which is distinctive of and essential to Israel’s religion. “Jehovah Thy God will raise up unto Thee a prophet: unto him ye shall hearken.” It was to them that Jehovah revealed His secret (Amos 3:7), and though multitudes of the professional prophets were time-servers (1 Kings 22:6), it was they more than any others who were felt to be the repositories of the purpose of God. When the divine will has to be ascertained on the eve of a campaign, on two occasions Jehoshaphat is anxious to hear what a true prophet has to say (1 Kings 22:7; 2 Kings 3:11). Hezekiah, distressed by the blasphemous insolence of the Assyrians, and their menace of Jerusa­lem, appeals to the prophet Isaiah, and receives a divine answer through him (2 Kings 19:1-6), just as, more than a century afterwards, Zedekiah receives an answer through Jeremiah (Jeremiah 21:1-4). The prophetess Huldah was also consulted by the deputation of Josiah, whom the discovery of the book of the covenant had thrown into consternation (2 Kings 22:14).

How the prophets themselves reached their lonely pre-eminence as interpreters of the divine will is a mystery to the depths of which we cannot altogether penetrate. But it is plain that the, knowledge they won of the purpose of God was conditioned, in very large measure, by their sympathy with that purpose. It is the pure in heart who see God, and it is they who hear Him too. The prophets who uttered false mes­sages were those who cared less for the truth than for the bite that was put into their mouths (Micah 3:5). Inter­course of the highest kind was possible only to one who was cleansed of all mercenary motives and whose sole ambition was to see the people turn to purity and God. But even to such men the answer did not always come quickly. The will of God could only be revealed to those who could possess their souls in patience. Twice we find Jeremiah reaching certainty only through a period of watching and waiting. Once, as he lies in prison, he hears a voice telling him to buy the field in Anathoth which his cousin will come to offer him for sale; and, when the cousin comes, “then I knew that this was the word of Jehovah” (Jeremiah 32:6-8). Another time, Hananiah promises complete deliverance from Baby­lon within two years (Jeremiah 28:1-5). At first Jeremiah does not know how to deal with the prophecy, and contents himself with pointing out that, according to the teaching of history, prophecies of peace are less likely to be fulfilled than prophecies of evil: “and he went his way.” But afterwards the conviction that Hananiah was wrong grew upon him till it became a cer­tainty. Then he appeared, denounced Hananiah’s message as a He, and prophesied his death within the year—a prophecy which seems to have been literally fulfilled. The pause before the answer comes is not always so obvious as in these two cases, but it is usually plain enough for those who can read between the lines. Jeremiah, perplexed by the anomalies of the moral world, appeals to the God who sees him and knows his heart, to pull his enemies out like sheep for the slaughter (Jeremiah 12:3). But no bolt from heaven falls. Then after the silence and agonized meditation of days and it may be of months, a voice articulates itself, and answers his prayer, but only by assuring him that more terrible things are in store. “If thou hast run with the footmen and they have wearied thee, then how canst thou contend with horses? and if in a peaceful land thou fleest, how wilt thou do in the jungles of Jordan?” (Jeremiah 12:5) So it was with Paul. In a matter that concerned him very closely the answer came only after he had besought the Lord three times; and when at last it came, it seemed, as did the answer to Jeremiah, stern and hard. The desire of his heart was not granted; but there came to him an assurance which was better still—the assurance of the grace of Christ, and that was sufficient (2 Corinthians 12:9).