The Hebrews were not entirely free from these wrong notions in their conception of Jehovah. Even in the story of Moses, for example, there is a strange narrative which declares Jehovah "met Moses and sought to kill him" and would have killed him except for the ceremonial rite which his wife Zipporah performed.
The story of the ark and the men of Beth-shemesh.—Similar to this is the story of the wanderings of the ark in 1 Samuel. This ark, or sacred chest, was regarded as the special dwelling place of Jehovah in Canaan, his permanent home supposedly being on Mount Sinai in the desert. When the ark was captured by the Philistines a plague broke out in every city where it was taken. Finally it was placed on a new cart with specially chosen cows to draw it, and sent back toward the Hebrew border, and in the course of time it reached the Hebrew town of Beth-shemesh. And we read that "the sons of Jeconiah did not rejoice with the men of Beth-shemesh, when they looked upon the ark of Jehovah. So he smote among them seventy men."[4]
Sacrifice as a Propitiation of Jehovah's Anger
It was just this idea of Jehovah as subject to fits of anger which prompted many of the old sacrifices. It was not merely that Jehovah was greedy and could be bribed with gifts to grant favors, but also that he was dangerous when his anger was stirred and hence sacrifices were necessary to placate him.
Human sacrifices.—An even darker side of the picture is the existence of human sacrifices, even among the Hebrews, in the worship of Jehovah. The pathetic story of Jephthah's daughter is the most conspicuous example. This warrior had promised to sacrifice to Jehovah whatever first came out to meet him, if he returned victorious from war. Alas, it was his own daughter! Yet he did not dare to break his vow.
The story of Abraham and Isaac also proves that human sacrifices to Jehovah were not unknown among the Hebrews. In this story Jehovah finally intervenes and allows Abraham to offer up a ram instead of his own son. Yet the story implies the belief that Jehovah might demand of a father that he kill his own son and burn him on the altar. These ideas continued to be believed even down to the time of the prophets, Amos and Hosea, and the others about whom we will study.
The Prophet Micah and His Message
About the time that Hosea was finishing his sad career in the north another prophet in the south caught up the torch of light and truth. His name was Micah. Like the two great men who preceded him, Amos and Hosea, his heart was stirred to pity and indignation by the sufferings of the poor and by the injustice and luxury of the rich and powerful. In plain, direct, and fiery sentences he denounced these evils and foretold punishment. Because of these things, he declared that "Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of a forest."
Micah was especially bitter against those men who made religion their business, and used it as a means of oppressing the poor—the prophets who proclaim a holy war against those "who put not into their mouths," that is, those who do not give them presents. The priests, Micah says, "teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money."