The Seekers: The Story of Man's Continuing Quest to Understand His World Read Free

the nations like grapes, and no one came to help me.
I trampled them in my anger, and their blood has stained all my clothing.
I decided that the time to save my people had come; it was time to punish their enemies.” (Isaiah 63:3-4)
    And He announces a New Creation.
    “I am making a new earth and new heavens. The events of the past will be completely forgotten. . . . The new Jerusalem I make will be full of joy, and her people will be happy.” (Isaiah 65:17-18)
    Isaiah’s God, then, is the God not only of Israel but of all history. “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool” (Isaiah 66:1). “I am coming to gather the people of all the nations. When they come together, they will see what my power can do and will know that I am the one who punishes them” (Isaiah 66:18-19). Jeremiah’s warnings (late seventh century-early sixth century B.C.) that Israel would be punished for idolatry were drastically fulfilled by the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar, by the destruction of the Temple, and by the Babylonian exile of the people of Judah.
    But a change of heart, God promises, will save the people. “I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. It will not be like the old covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand and led them out of Egypt. Although I was like a husband to them they did not keep that covenant. . . . I will put my law within them and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. None of them will have to teach his fellow countryman to know the Lord, because all will know me, from the least to the greatest” (Jeremiah 31:31-34).
    The last of the great prophets, Ezekiel, deported by the conquerors, had carried the message of faith in Yahweh and personal responsibility. The fall of Jerusalem in 587 B.C. and the destruction of the Temple were the fate of idolatry.
    The Lord spoke to me and said, “What is this proverb people keep repeating in the land of Israel?
    ‘The parents ate the sour grapes,
But the children got the sour taste.’
    “As surely as I am the living God,” says the Sovereign Lord, “you will not repeat this proverb in Israel any more. The life of every person belongs to me, the life of the parent as well as that of the child. The person who sins is the one who will die.” (Ezekiel 18:1-4)
    Only the choice of Yahweh and not the merit of the people made Israel a special people. And since Yahweh is everywhere, the duties of the believer go with him wherever he may be.
    Ezekiel too sees Israel redeemed in a New Covenant, a kind of new creation. This he foresees in the famous figure of the Valley of Dry Bones, when the Lord commands:
    “Prophesy to the bones. Tell these dry bones to listen to the word of the Lord. Tell them that I, the Sovereign Lord am saying to them: I am going to put breath into you and bring you back to life. I will give you sinews and muscles, and cover you with skin. I will put breath into you and bring you back to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.” (Ezekiel 37:4-6)
    The survival of the faith of Yahweh did not require a fixed sanctuary. That faith could live in the heart of a believer anywhere.

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    Struggles of the Believer: Job

    While Moses with his commandments posed the test of obedience and the Hebrew prophets posed the test of faith, the search for meaning was not so simple. The Seeker would not be merely a receptive audience. He would put his faith to the test of experience. The classic travail of this test is in the tale of Job. And his struggles would foreshadow the problems of all later Seekers.
    The Book of Job in the Old Testament embroiders an old folk tale of a just man who suffers unaccountably and seeks explanation from his God. Yahweh Himself had boasted to Satan (the Accuser) in his heavenly council. “Did you notice my servant Job? There is no one on earth as faithful and good as he is. He worships me and is