Chapter 23 spiritual leader of the jewish nation

When Saul and David were kings, the Jews were still humble shepherds, but when Solomon came to the throne, the Jews had already played an important role in the field of trade and commerce. The country has transformed from a loose tribal alliance into a powerful oriental autocracy. Jews have lived for centuries in the mountains and plains on both sides of the Jordan River. After years of war with the natives of Canaan and their surrounding neighbors, the Jews finally enjoyed a period of relative peace. Because new roads were built, the traffic on the western Asian continent became very convenient, and caravans passed through these roads to and from Memphis, Babylon, Asia Minor and Arabia.

People's lives have also changed significantly, although this change is gradual and slow. The Jews already liked life in the city. In the time of Moses, they would rather stay in slavery in the Egyptian slums than accept the God-given paradise-the desolate wild life.Moses had a hard time pulling them out of their happy lives under the walls of safety. Now that the tribes were free to make their own decisions, Moses was dead, and so was his great successor, Joshua.That history of hardships and victories has been forgotten. The life of the farmers and shepherds was hard, with long hours and little entertainment, and good money was made at every trading post on a busy commercial road.

Resisting this temptation is not easy.As a result, many people left the countryside and came to the cities. There are more and more rich people, and of course there are not necessarily fewer poor people.National independence and individual liberty were compromised until irreparably lost. In the past, during times of war, famous judges had ruled the country with the power of a monarch. But no one dared to call himself king. The people cannot accept his ambition. Those who trample on the freedom of the people will be destroyed. Only when the country is in danger, the people will obey him.Once peace is restored, the judge is only the honorary ruler of the relatively independent tribes. People respect him, but he is far from the relationship between monarch and minister.

However, if a society changes from agriculture-based to business-centered, everything changes, and people no longer care about national affairs.They also don't want others to interfere in their affairs, leaving them to look after their farms and businesses.Of course, they are also willing to let some professional soldiers and priests take care of the basic material and spiritual interests of the nation. Like us, they don't like paying taxes, but if it's within a reasonable range, people accept it, and so on.As a result of this change, the entire Jewish society moved towards centralization step by step.In the end, an absolutely centralized kingdom was formed, and in less than a hundred years, it became a total autocratic oriental dictatorship.

All this did not appear suddenly. In human society, as in nature, nothing happens by accident, though it may seem sudden, but unknown causes may have been brewing for hundreds of years. The collapse of a mountain and the demise of a system can be completed in minutes or even seconds.But the process of preparation and gradual disintegration before that takes generations. Although there are very few people, not one in a hundred thousand, who can really understand what is going on, the Jewish nation is indeed going through a period of transition. Of course, this may be a bit exaggerated, and several people felt the crisis of the country and the nation.They have sharper powers of observation, they give warnings, and this is what is called a prophet.

We will continue to refer to prophets below, and I should explain a little bit first. It is difficult to define what a prophet is. Perhaps the best explanation is to refer to them as the spiritual leaders of the Jewish nation. Some of them were great poets, but the prophets were far more than poets. Some people have a gift for eloquence, but they are not just orators. One thing they have in common is that they all have the courage to stand up for what they believe to be the truth. Many of them are very extreme and cannot tolerate any dissenting opinions, but when it comes to principles, they have the courage to stick to their beliefs and can sacrifice everything, including their own lives.

Whenever the king of Israel or the king of Judea made a mistake, a prophet would stand up and point it out to him. If the people strayed from the only true path of divine revelation, they would cry out their warnings. And if the nation sinned, a prophet would come out and foretell the wrath of the Lord. The voice of the prophet thus becomes the concrete expression of the national conscience. Hundreds of years later, when the Jewish state was ruined by its own folly, the works written by about fifty individuals, representing the national conscience, became the precious legacy of the Israeli people and the Jewish people to mankind.