The turning point here as in so much else in the Old Testament is the Book of Amos, the first of the written prophecies. It is worth while to try to imagine the effect of those opening clauses. The prophet begins by securing a willing hearing from those to whom he writes: in other words he begins by abusing their neighbours.
"Thus saith the Lord: For three transgressions of Damascus, yea for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof...."
"Thus saith the Lord: For three transgressions of Gaza, yea for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof....
"Thus saith the Lord: For three transgressions of Tyre, yea for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof....
"Thus saith the Lord: For three transgressions of Edom, yea for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof....
"Thus saith the Lord: For three transgressions of the children of Ammon, yea for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof....
"Thus saith the Lord: For three transgressions of Moab, yea for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof...."
And then, without a change of phrase, without even the compliment of a heightened denunciation—
"Thus saith the Lord: For three transgressions of Judah, yea for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof....
"Thus saith the Lord: For three transgressions of Israel, yea for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof...."[#]
It would be impossible more emphatically to insist that all nations, Israel and the rest, stand on an equal footing before the Judgment Seat of God, and are to be regarded as real entities, and real moral agents; but that is not enough for the prophet.
"Are ye not as Children of the Ethiopians unto me, O children of Israel?—saith the Lord."
I have no more care for you than the Ethiopians—who then, as now, were black folk.
"Have not I brought up Israel out of the land of Egypt, _and_ the Philistines from Caphtor, and the Syrians from Kir?"[#]
It is the God who had guided the history of Israel who has equally guided the history of the despised Philistine and the hated Syrian. And this line of thought reaches its culmination where we should expect to find it, in the works of the statesman-prophet Isaiah. His little country of Judah was likely to be destroyed by the hostilities of Assyria and Egypt, and in the middle of that peril, when these nations were at each other’s throats, he looks forward and says:—