o longer recoverable, is described
as a grave sin. When you are compelled to free your slaves,
you must give them sufficient capital to embark upon some
industry which shall prevent their falling back into
slavery. A number of holidays are insisted upon. There must
be no more crushing of the poor out of existence, for God
cares for these people who have been driven to poverty, and
they shall never cease out of the land. Howbeit there shall
be no poor with you, for the Lord will bless you, if you
will obey these laws.

But then prosperity came, and culture, which meant contact with the
capitalist ideas of the heathen empires. The Jews fell from the stern
justice of their fathers; and so came the prophets, wild-eyed men of
the people, clad in camel's hair and living upon locusts and wild
honey, breaking in upon priests and kings and capitalists with their
furious denunciations. And always they incited to class war and social
disturbance. I quote Conrad Noel again:

Nathan and Gad had been David's political advisers, Abijah
had stirred Jeroboam to revolt, Elijah had resisted Ahab,
Elisha had fanned the rebellion of Jehu, Amos thunders
against the misrule of the king of Israel, Isaiah denounces
the landlords and the usurers, Micah charges them with
blood-guiltiness; Jeremiah and the latter prophets, though
they strike a more intimate note of personal repentance,
strike it as the prelude to that national restoration for
which they hunger as exiles.

The first chapters of Isaiah are typical of the Old
Testament point of view. Just as the prophets of the
nineteenth century thundered against the "Christian"
employers of Lancashire, and told them their houses were
cemented with the blood of little children, so Isaiah cries
against his generation: "Your governing classes companion
with thieves; behold you build up Sion with blood." Their
ceremonial and their Sabbath keeping are an abomination to
God. "When ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes
from you. Your hands are full of blood." The poor man is
robbed. The rich exact usury. "Woe unto you that lay house
to house and field to field, that ye may dwell alone in the
midst of the land." "Wash you, make you clean, put away the
evil of your doing from before mine eyes; cease to do evil;
learn to do well