There was not much mystery or inscrutability on this score. The End was predetermined; the Israelites kept making wrong choices; and the Lord kept blaming them for his continued unwillingness or inability to fulfill his promise. The world’s first heavenly autocrat was also, by virtue of his chronic theodicy problem, the world’s first Underground Man (or Adolescent). Constantly snubbed by his spiritual inferiors, he bragged about his great accomplishments, promised even greater accomplishments, nursed his many grudges, feigned humility, relished his ability to cause pain and thwart expectations, and fantasized obsessively about a spectacular public humiliation of the strong, the arrogant, and the well-connected. According to Isaiah, among others, he was not going to simply take his people to the assigned place and help them defeat the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites who lived there. “The LORD is angry with all nations; his wrath is upon all their armies. He will totally destroy them, he will give them over to slaughter. Their slain will be thrown out, their dead bodies will send up a stench; the mountains will be soaked with their blood.”16
As for those who will survive the slaughter (said the Sovereign Lord to his people), “They will bow down before you with their faces to the ground; they will lick the dust at your feet. Then you will know that I am the LORD; those who hope in me will not be disappointed…. I will make your oppressors eat their own flesh; they will be drunk on their own blood, as with wine. Then all mankind will know that I, the LORD, am your Savior, your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.” All those who had ever offended against the Israelites and their mighty redeemer would get their comeuppance and eat their words. “And those tall Sabeans—they will come over to you and will be yours; they will trudge behind you, coming over to you in chains. They will bow down before you and plead with you, saying, ‘Surely God is with you, and there is no other; there is no other god.’” And in case they were still unconvinced, Gog, of the Land of Magog, would be tricked into attacking the chosen people one last time: “I will summon a sword against Gog on all my mountains, declares the Sovereign LORD. Every man’s sword will be against his brother. I will execute judgment upon him with plague and bloodshed; I will pour down torrents of rain, hailstones and burning sulfur on him and on his troops and on the many nations with him. And so I will show my greatness and my holiness, and I will make myself known in the sight of many nations. Then they will know that I am the LORD.”17
The happy ending was subject to the same inflation as the violent resolution. The promise of a safe homecoming and peaceful life in the land of milk and honey evolved into a prophecy of entirely “new heavens and a new earth”:
Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped.
Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy. Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert.
The burning sand will become a pool, the thirsty ground bubbling springs. In the haunts where jackals once lay, grass and reeds and papyrus will grow.
And a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness. The unclean will not journey on it; it will be for those who walk in that Way; wicked fools will not go about on it.
No lion will be there, nor will any ferocious beast get up on it; they will not be found there. But only the redeemed will walk there, and the ransomed of the LORD will return. They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away.
Sorrow and sighing would not simply flee away—they would disappear forever. The ferocious beasts would not simply walk off—they, too, would be overtaken by gladness and start feeding on milk and honey. “The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them.”18
Meanwhile, the Israelites’ earthly lot had not improved very much. The end of the Babylonian exile and the return of the ransomed was followed by a succession of more or less egregious Gogs. The worse the offenses against Zion and less likely the prospect that it would “no longer be plundered by the nations,” the more cosmic and urgent the visions of the final retribution. The three centuries that were centered on the birth of a “new era” and bounded by the Maccabean Wars of the 160s BCE and the Bar Kochba revolt of the 130s CE were a time of a dramatic flourishing of Jewish apocalyptic eschatology (“revelations” of the End). All such revelations, beginning with the Book of Daniel, told the same story: the position of the righteous is worse than ever before; the history of their oppression is entering its highest and final stage; the corrupt ruling empire is about to fall; the ensuing time of troubles will involve general lawlessness, fratricidal wars, and natural disasters; God will finally intervene, directly or through a special representative; his army will defeat the united forces of evil; and the righteous will live happily ever after. “The sovereignty, power and greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven will be handed over to the saints, the people of the Most High. His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom, and all rulers will worship and obey him.”19
There were different ways of welcoming the inevitable. The members of the Qumran sect withdrew to the shores of the Dead Sea, renounced property and marriage, condemned Jewish appeasers along with Roman invaders, and strove after absolute ritual purity in preparation for the approaching slaughter. Others, often collectively known as “zealots,” took up arms on the assumption that, as Josephus put it, “the Deity does not cooperate in restoring liberty otherwise than by influencing man’s decision, and God will be much more ready to assist us if we do not shirk the toil entailed by the great cause which we have at heart.”20
First-century Jewish Palestine was teeming with teachers, preachers, prophets, healers, exorcists, messiahs, and miracle workers inspired by the expectation of the imminent End. “A certain impostor named Theudas,” writes Josephus, “persuaded the mass of the rabble to take their belongings with them and follow him to the river Jordan; for he said that he was a prophet and would by a word of command divide the river and afford them an easy passage; and by these words he deceived many.” A “charlatan” from Egypt “gained for himself the reputation of a prophet,… collected about thirty thousand of his dupes, entered the country and led his force round from the desert to the mount called Olivet.” A “body of villains … under the pretense of divine inspiration fostering revolutionary changes … persuaded the multitude to act like madmen and led them out into the desert under the belief that God would there give them tokens of deliverance.”21
According to Mark, a preacher named John “wore clothing made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist,” ate “locusts and wild honey,” and preached “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” And according to Celsus, a second-century Greek writer,
there are many, who, although of no name, with the greatest facility and on the slightest occasion, whether within or without temples, assume the motions and gestures of inspired persons; while others do it in cities or among armies, for the purpose of attracting attention and exciting surprise. These are accustomed to say, each for himself, “I am God; I am the Son of God; or, I am the Divine Spirit; I have come because the world is perishing, and you, O men, are perishing for your iniquities. But I wish to save you, and you shall see me returning again with heavenly power. Blessed is he who now does me homage. On all the rest I will send down eternal fire, both on cities and on countries. And those who know not the punishments which await them shall repent and grieve in vain; while those who are faithful to me I will preserve eternally.” … To these promises are added strange, fanatical, and quite unintelligible words, of which no rational person can find the meaning: for so dark are they, as to have no meaning at all; but they give occasion to every fool or impostor to apply them to suit his own purposes.22