III. The Need of a Great Moral Awakening. The evils which the prophet denounced were not confined to the priests. The old Semitic law regarding divorce was exceedingly lax. A husband could lead his wife to the door of his tent and tell her to be gone, thereby severing their marriage relation. The Deuteronomic law sought to relieve this injustice by providing that the husband must place in the hand of his wife, as she departs, a document stating the grounds on which he had divorced her. By the middle of the fifth century B.C. divorce had evidently become exceedingly common in Palestine. The prophet denounced it on the basis of its injustice and cruelty. He also maintained that marriage was a solemn covenant before Jehovah between man and wife, and that he who disregarded it dealt faithlessly and was the especial object of divine displeasure.
Traces of the old heathenism still remained in Judah, and the dependent, oppressed classes received little pity from the selfish, heartless rulers. In the face of these evils the prophet declared that Jehovah would surely send a messenger to punish and to reform priest and people. The prophecy was evidently based on a clear recognition that Jehovah was ever working to train and uplift his people, and that a period of degeneration must surely be followed by a period of reform. In the work of Nehemiah the prophet's hopes were in part fulfilled, but the larger fulfilment of the underlying principle was realized in the thorough-going reformatory work of John the Baptist and in that of the Great Teacher. In a later appendix to the prophecy of Malachi this theme is still further developed. The promise is made that another prophet, with the zeal of the great reformer Elijah, would come and prepare the way for a new and nobler era.
IV. The Lot of the Faithful. In the prophecy of Malachi is first voiced the despairing cries and doubts of those of the faithful who failed to rise above the effect of the existing social and religious evils. They are the righteous or afflicted who also speak through certain of the earlier psalms of the Psalter (e.g., 10-17, 22). It was a period when the man who did right and was faithful to the demands of the law was thereby condemned to poverty and persecution at the hands of the corrupt priests and rulers. Worse than that, their poverty and wretchedness were interpreted, According to the current belief of the day, as convincing evidence of Jehovah's displeasure because of their sins. It was a time when wickedness triumphed and innocence suffered, and when the question whether or not a righteous God ruled the universe rose persistently in the minds of the faithful. The author of Malachi recognizes and seeks to meet these doubts:
Ye have said, It is useless to serve God,
And what gain is it to us to have kept his charge,
And that we have walked in funeral garb before him?
Even now we call the proud happy,
Verily those who work iniquity thrive,
Yea, they tempt God and escape.
Here the problem is the same as that of the book of Job. To these doubts the prophet could only reply that Jehovah will keep a record of the faithful and in his good time will reward them.
V. The Problem of Suffering in the Literature of the Period. As was natural, this problem of innocent suffering was prominent in the literature of the period. It became especially insistent at this time, because it had ceased to be the problem of the community, and had become that of individuals or of a class. While the nation rested under the shadow of misfortune, a solution of the problem was found in the consciousness of national guilt and in the hope that the affliction would be but temporary. The old dogma that virtue was always rewarded and wickedness punished continued to satisfy Israel's leaders. When, however, a considerable class in the community were conscious that they had committed no crimes worthy of the bitter persecutions and calamities that overtook them, and that it was often just because of their virtue and the steadfastness with which they clung to the nobler ideals of their race that they were thus assailed, the current interpretations of evil were no longer satisfactory. When in time many of them went down to the grave crushed by affliction and the objects of the taunts and revilings of their wicked pursuers, the insufficiency of the current explanation of misfortune was tragically demonstrated. To their minds Sheol or the grave offered no solution, for, as among all early Aryan and Semitic peoples, it was thought of as the dark, passionless, joyless abode of the shades.
In most of the psalms of this period the poets who speak in behalf of the afflicted class, like the author of Malachi, expressed the hope that Jehovah would speedily come to their deliverance and signally vindicate and reward them. The heroism and fidelity that they represent can only be fully appreciated in the light of this discouraging period when evil was regnant. It was apparently at this time that the great poet, who speaks through the book of Job, presented, with the spirit and method of a modern philosopher, the lot of these innocent sufferers. He also proved for all time that misfortune is not always the evidence of guilt, and that the current doctrine of proportionate rewards and the explanations that were adduced to support it were in certain cases absolutely untenable.
Section XCVIII. THE PROBLEM AND TEACHINGS OF THE BOOK OF JOB
[Sidenote: Job 1:1-5] There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job. And that man was blameless and upright; he feared God and turned away from evil. And seven sons and three daughters were born to him. His possessions also included seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, five hundred she asses, and an exceedingly large number of servants; so that this man was the greatest of all the peoples of Palestine. And his sons were accustomed to hold a feast in one another's house each on his day. And they were wont to send and invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. And when the days of their feasting were over, Job used to send and sanctify them, and he rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt-offerings according to the number of them all; for Job said, Perhaps my sons have sinned, and renounced God in their hearts. Thus Job did continually.
[Sidenote: Job 1:6-11] Now on a certain day when the sons of God came to present themselves before Jehovah, Satan also came among them. And Jehovah said to Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered Jehovah, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and walking up and down on it. And Jehovah said to Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job? for there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man who fears God, and turns away from evil. Then Satan answered Jehovah, and said, Doth Job fear God for nought? Hast thou not made a hedge about him, and about his household, and about all that he hath, on every side? Thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions are increased in the land. But put forth thy hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face.