i8;o] PROPHECY IN CRITICAL SCHOOLS 167 



history must always bear witness not only to the age of 

 which it speaks, but to the age in which it was written, 

 in a way that often makes it hard to read the inner life 

 that underlies the historical fact, save by the aid of 

 contemporary records. It can hardly, in truth, be 

 doubted that, if we desire to gain the clearest insight 

 into the religious history of Israel, our true starting- 

 point must be the period of the earliest extant prophetic 

 writings. 



If we put out of account the Book of Joel, the date of 

 which is still disputed, the age to which we are thus 

 referred is the eighth century before Christ, the age of 

 Amos and Hosea, of Isaiah and Micah. This period is 

 known to historians as the Assyrian period of Israel s 

 history. But the early years of the century are not yet 

 impressed with the destroying stamp of the monarchs of 

 Nineveh. The century opens on a period of prosperity 

 both in Judah and in Ephraim . Jeroboam 1 1 . had restored 

 the ancient frontier of his realm ; Judah flourished under 

 the vigorous sceptre of Uzziah. In one of these prosperous 

 years there appeared at the great sanctuary at Bethel, 

 at which the whole northern kingdom was met for solemn 

 festival, a prophet from Judah, Amos, a herdsman of 

 Tekoa. With unsparing words he laid bare the inner 

 disorders of the realm, that combination of the rudest 

 violence with effeminate luxury so characteristic of the 

 breaking up of society in an oriental kingdom. But it 

 was not with the eye of a statesman that Amos viewed 

 these corruptions. They were fatal because they were 

 the fruit of a national rebellion against Jahveh, 1 the God 



1 Since Delitzsch in the second edition of his Psalmen renounced the 

 pronunciation Jahavah, Continental scholars may be said to be agreed 

 in regarding Jahveh as the true punctuation of the &quot; ineffable &quot; Name. 

 The example of Delitzsch was at once followed by his disciples, e.g. by 

 Kohler, of Bonn (now of Erlangen), who in his habilitation thesis of the 

 year before had defended Delitzsch s earlier view. When men like the 

 lamented Hupfeld write Jhvh, they do so only to confine themselves 

 to what MSS. authorise not because they doubt that Jahveh or 

 Jahaveh is the true pronunciation. By adopting a pronunciation 



