“Indeed, the sort of crimes and even the amount of delinquency that fill the prophets of Israel with dismay do not go beyond that which is regarded as normal, as typical ingredients of social dynamics. To us a single act of injustice - cheating in business, exploitation of the poor- is slight; to the prophets, a disaster. To us injustice is injurious to the welfare of the people; to the prophets it is a deathblow to existence: to us, an episode; to them, a catastrophe, a threat to the world."
"Their breathless impatience with injustice may strike us as hysteria. We ourselves witness continually acts of injustice, manifestations of hypocrisy, falsehood, outrage, misery, but we rarely grow indignant or overly excited. To the prophet even a minor injustice assumes cosmic proportions.”
“…if such deep sensitivity to evil is to be called hysterical, what name should be given to the abysmal indifference to evil which the prophet bewails?”
“Reading the words of the prophets is a strain on the emotions. Wrenching one’s conscience from the state of suspended animation”
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