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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 February 2009
It has often been remarked that the last verse of this passage is an epitome of the teaching of the three great eighth century prophets: the appeal of Amos for justice; Hosea's unfolding of the meaning of hesedh; Isaiah's summons to the life of humble faith and obedience, which was the outcome of his vision of the holy and living God of Israel. Nowhere is the prophetic message more concisely and powerfully expressed. There are about these words a dignity and comprehensiveness which may easilytempt the modern reader to isolate them from what precedes, and so to miss the ground and the significance of the prophetic appeal. As George Adam Smith wrote many years ago: “Usually it is only the last of the verses upon which the admiration of the reader is bestowed: What doth the Lord require of thee, O man, but to do justice and love mercy and walk humbly with thy God? But in truth the rest of the passage differeth not in glory; the wonder of it lies no more in its peroration than in its argument as a whole.”1 The observation is salutary. We have not adequately interpreted these words (v. 8) when we see in them simply an ethical counterblast to a religion whose requirements were exclusively cultic and formal, or when we think of them as merely enunciating an austere but unattainable moral standard, as law without gospel. Nor ought they to be dismissed as an impressive testimony to a faith which we have outgrown.
page 191 note 1 The Book of the Twelve Prophets, I (1896), p. 419Google Scholar.
page 192 note 1 The suggested changes in the text both here and at the beginning of the verse are immaterial for the present discussion.
page 192 note 2 Snaith, N. H., The Distinctive Ideas of the Old Testament (1944), pp. 64 fGoogle Scholar.
page 192 note 3 North, C. R., The Thought of the Old Testament (1948), p. 45Google Scholar.
page 193 note 1 Cf. C. R. North, op. cit., p. 48.
page 193 note 2 I use the name without prejudice to the question of authorship.
page 193 note 3 Weiser, A., Das Buck der zivölf Kleinen Propheten, I (1949), p. 252Google Scholar. The above was written before Professor Weiser's commentary reached me.
page 193 note 4 Davidson, A. B., Old Testament Prophecy (1904), p. 109Google Scholar.
page 194 note 1 Fahlgren, K. Hj., S'daKa, nahestehende und entgegengesetzte Begriffe im Alten Testament (1932), p. 132Google Scholar.
page 194 note 2 N. H. Snaith, op. cit., p. 76.
page 194 note 3 N. H. Snaith, op. cit., ibid.
page 194 note 4 Köhler, L., Theologie des Alten Testaments (1936), p. 14 and n. 18Google Scholar.
page 194 note 5 Pedersen, J., Israel, its Life and Culture, I–II (E.T. 1926), p. 349Google Scholar.
page 194 note 6 Lindblom, J., Micha literarisch untersucht (1929), p. 172Google Scholar.
page 195 note 1 J. Pedersen, op. cit., p. 291.
page 196 note 1 Mowinckel, S., Jesajadisiplene (1926), p. 33Google Scholar.
page 197 note 1 Mowinckel's, S. fine study, Die Erkenntnis Gottes bei den AUtestamenttichen Profeten (1941)Google Scholar.
page 197 note 2 Porteous, N. W. in Record and Revelation (1938), p. 246Google Scholar.
