result of
provoking the Assyrian king Shalmanezer to a fresh attack, the land
was again invaded and the city of Samaria was captured and sacked.
Thousands of the northern Hebrews were carried away as exiles to other
lands and never returned. The northern kingdom was a failure. The
religious ideals and dreams of Abraham and Moses had not yet been
fulfilled. The common people had had little opportunity for happiness
or growth in knowledge and goodness. But the southern kingdom still
existed. And many a disciple of Hosea, some of them carrying scraps
and rolls of papyrus on which his sayings were copied, fled to
Jerusalem, and there sowed the seed of his great message of a God not
only of justice but of love.

STUDY TOPICS

1. Read Genesis 4. 1-15. In this story of Cain and Abel is there any
hint as to how even an animal sacrifice might be true worship?

2. Look up Hosea in the Bible dictionary, or in the chapter on Hosea
in Cornill, The Prophets of Israel. Find out more about the times in
which he lived and about his personal history.

3. Read what you can in the book of Hosea. This is rather hard
reading, but chapter 11 is not very difficult, and gives a good idea
of Hosea's style.

4. Which kind of prayer counts more for the happiness of all, prayers
for personal advantage, or prayers of love and gratitude to our
Father?

CHAPTER XVII

JEHOVAH NOT A GOD OF ANGER

There are other mischievous delusions in regard to the character of
God which we find among all races in the early childhood of their
history. They think of their gods not only as greedy but as having
arbitrary whims and as often falling into fits of unreasonable and
cruel anger.

EARLY IDEAS OF JEHOVAH'S ANGER

The Hebrews were not entirely free from these wrong notions in their
conception of Jehovah. Even in the story of Moses, for example, there
is a strange narrative which declares Jehovah "met Moses and sought to
kill him" and would have killed him except for the ceremonial rite
which his wife Zipporah performed.

=The story of the ark and the men of Beth-shemesh.=--Similar to this
is the story of the wanderings of the ark in 1 Samuel. This ark, or
sacred chest, was regarded as the special dwelling place of Jehovah in
Canaan, his permanent home supposedly being on Mount Sinai in the
desert. When the ark was captured by the Philistines a plague broke
out in every city where it was taken. Finally it was placed on a new
cart with