shall not sojourn with Thee. The arrogant shall not stand
in Thy sight; Thou hatest all workers of iniquity."(317)

Nor does justice stop with the prohibition of evil. The very arm that
strikes down the presumptuous transgressor turns to lift up the meek and
endow him with strength. Justice becomes a positive power for the right;
it becomes _Zedakah_, righteousness or true benevolence, and aims to
readjust the inequalities of life by kindness and love. It engenders that
deeper sense of justice which claims the right of the weak to protection
by the arm of the strong.

5. Hence comes the truth of Matthew Arnold's striking summary of Israel's
Law and Prophets in his "Literature and Dogma," as "The Power, not
ourselves, that maketh for righteousness." Still, when we trace the
development of this central thought in the soul of the Jewish people, we
find that it arose from a peculiar mythological conception. The God of
Sinai had manifested Himself in the devastating elements of nature--fire,
storm, and hail; later, the prophetic genius of Israel saw Him as a moral
power who destroyed wickedness by these very phenomena in order that right
should prevail. At first the covenant-God of Israel hurls the plagues of
heaven upon the hostile Egyptians and Canaanites, the oppressors of His
people. Afterward the great prophets speak of the Day of JHVH which would
come at the end of days, when God will execute His judgment upon the
heathen nations by pouring forth all the terrors of nature upon them. The
natural forces of destruction are utilized by the Ruler of heaven as means
of moral purification. "For by fire will the Lord contend."(318)

In this process the sense of right became progressively refined, so that
God was made the Defender of the cause of the oppressed, and the holiest
of duties became the protection of the forsaken and unfortunate. Justice
and right were thus lifted out of the civil or forensic sphere into that
of divine holiness, and the struggle for the down-trodden became an
imperative duty. Judaism finds its strength in the oft-repeated doctrine
that the moral welfare of the world rests upon justice. "The King's
strength is that he loveth justice," says the Psalmist, and commenting
upon this the Midrash says, "Not might, but right forms the foundation of
the world's peace."(319)

6. Social life, therefore, must be built upon the firm foundation of
justice, the full recognition of the rights of all individuals an