which they could no longer find at home.  The gods of Damascus and Assur who had caused the downfall of Gath, of Calneh, and of Hamath,* those of Tyre and Sidon who lavished upon the Phoenicians the wealth of the seas, or even the deities of Ammon, Moab, or Edom, might well appear more desirable than a Being Who, in spite of His former promises, seemed powerless to protect His own people.  A number of the Israelites transferred their allegiance to these powerful deities, prostrated themselves before the celestial host, flocked round the resting-places of Kevan, the star of El, and carried the tabernacles of the King of heaven;** nor was Judah slow to follow their example.  The prophets, however, did not view their persistent ill-fortune in the same light as the common people; far from accepting it as a proof of the power of other divinities, they recognised in it a mark of Jahveh’s superiority.

     * Amos vi. 2; with regard to the destruction of Gath by
     Hazael.

     ** Amos v. 26, 27

In their eyes Jahveh was the one God, compared with Whom the pagan deities were no gods at all, and could not even be said to exist.  He might, had He so willed it, have bestowed His protection on any one of the numerous races whom He had planted on the earth:  but as a special favour, which He was under no obligation to confer, He had chosen Israel to be His own people, and had promised them that they should occupy Canaan so long as they kept free from sin.  But Israel had sinned, Israel had followed after idols; its misfortunes were, therefore, but the just penalty of its unfaithfulness.  Thus conceived, Jahveh ceased to be merely the god of a nation—­He became the God of the whole world; and it is in the guise of a universal Deity that some, at any rate, of the prophets begin to represent Him from the time of Jeroboam II. onwards.

This change of view in regard to the Being of Jahveh coincided with a no less marked alteration in the character of His prophets.  At first they had taken an active part in public affairs; they had thrown themselves into the political movements of the time, and had often directed their course,* by persuasion when persuasion sufficed, by violence when violence was the only means that was left to them of enforcing the decrees of the Most High.  Not long before this, we find Elisha secretly conspiring against the successors of Ahab, and taking a decisive part in the revolution which set the house of Jehu on the throne in place of that of Omri; but during the half-century which had elapsed since his death, the revival in the fortunes of Israel and its growing prosperity under the rule of an energetic king had furnished the prophets with but few pretexts for interfering in the conduct of state affairs.