AT THE CROSSROADS 37

The Prophetic Alternative (2)


In the Old Testament prophetic period, the economic interests of a few were behind the collusion of the Temple and the State to disenfranchise and impoverish the people. The victims were always the poor and the needy of the land, the women, the young people and children, nazirites and genuine prophets and creation. So now comes the prophetic admonition (Amos 5,21-24):

Thus says the Lord: I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and cereal offerings, I will not accept them, and the peace

offerings of your fatted beasts I will not look upon. Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I do not listen. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

Hosea gave a stinging summary to what was going on in the land, to a people who have learned to run after other gods and plundered the people with violence and oppression. Idolatry, not atheism nor paganism, was the anti-thesis to the worship of Yahweh. In social practice, it was likened to harlotry and prostitution. Absence of knowledge of Yahweh spelled transgressions of the law. In the socio-historic order, this meant swearing, lying, killing, stealing and committing adultery. As a result of this social violence, the integrity of creation suffered the fate of the neglected and the downtrodden (Hos 4,1-3). Yet, Yahweh’s lawsuit was specially directed at the temple authorities as the most guilty of all these…

For with you is my contention, O priest. You shall stumble by day, the prophet also shall stumble by night. And I will destroy your mother. My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you from being a priest to me. And since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children (Hos 4,4-6).

For the priest and the prophet knew the law and the justice of Yahweh. But they ceased to proclaim and to teach them. In the time of violence of oppression and injustice, they spoke nothing. While the people were in search for an alternative moral order, in the time of successive palace revolutions and coups d’etat, assassinations and dynastic changes, these temple officials did nothing. Therefore, they were most guilty. In 722/721 BCE, the Northern Kingdom of Israel fell to Assyria and the inhabitants of the land sent into exile and dispersion throughout the Assyrian empire (2 Kg 17,4-6).

This experience of conquest and exile proclaimed the prophetic alternative: go back to the terms of the Covenant, be purified from all your infidelities against God and then reap the radical redemption fit for the People of God. – Fr. Ben Alforque, MSC