The Prophetic Imagination

by Walter Brueggemann

  Marx’s programmatic statement from “Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right,” is: “Thus the criticism of heaven is transformed into the criticism of earth, the criticism of religion into the criticism of law, and the criticism of theology into the criticism of politics,” quoted from Robert C. Tucker, ed., The Marx-Engels Reader (New York: Norton, 1972), 13. ↵

  James Plastaras, The God of Exodus: The Theology of the Exodus Narratives (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1966), chap. 3. ↵

  On the meaning of the term “primal scream,” see Arthur Janos, The Primal Scream (New York: Putnam, 1970). Dorothee Soelle has shown how expressed complaint is the beginning of liberation; see Suffering, trans. E. R. Kalin (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975). ↵

  Erhard Gerstenberger, “Der klagende Mensch: Anmerkungen zu den Klagegattungen in Israel,” in Probleme biblischer Theologie: Gerhard von Rad zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. H. W. Wolff (Munich: Kaiser, 1971), 64–72. See also his important distinction between complaint and lament in “Jeremiah’s Complaints,” JBL 82 (1963): 407 n.55; his more recent Psalms: Part 1 with an Introduction to Cultic Poetry, FOTL 14 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988). ↵

  Soelle writes that the movement from helplessness to power is accomplished through public expressions of lament, complaint, and protest (Suffering, 73). In describing the powerlessness that comes with failed speech, Graham Greene contrasts those who lack speech: “Most of his middle-class patients were as accustomed to spend at least ten minutes explaining a simple attack of flu. It was only in the barrio of the poor that he ever encountered suffering in silence, suffering which had no vocabulary to explain a degree of pain, its position or its nature”; The Honorary Consul (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1973), 66. ↵

  Hall effectively explores the theme of darkness as the arena of suffering, death, and liberty. He concludes his study: “The people of the cross, who name the darkness, can summon no absolute light, no unsullied vision, whether of God or of man. It becomes for them, as for all who in the past have been grasped by his logic of the cross, a matter of faith” (Lighten Our Darkness, 225). ↵

  Characteristically the prophets do partisan theology “from below” while the royal consciousness always wants to state it “from above.” See Robert McAfee Brown, “The View from Below,” A.D. 6 (September 1977): 28–31. In that connection, the Detroit Conference on “Theology in the Americas” expressed a “hermeneutic of suspicion,” a posture linked to theology from below. This phrase is identified with Paul Ricoeur, but especially in biblical studies with Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins (New York: Crossroad, 1983; 10th anniversary ed. 1994). ↵

  David Noel Freedman, “Pottery, Poetry, and Prophecy: An Essay on Biblical Poetry,” JBL 96 (1977): 5–26; idem, “Divine Names and Titles in Early Hebrew Poetry,” in Magnalia Dei: The Mighty Acts of God. Essays on the Bible and Archaeology in Memory of G. Ernest Wright, ed. F. M. Cross et al. (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1976), 55–107. These two studies are reprinted in Freedman’s Pottery, Poetry, and Prophecy: Studies in Early Hebrew Poetry (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1980), 1–22 and 77–129. ↵

  On that scholarly recovery, see, for example, Phyllis Trible, “Bringing Miriam Out of the Shadows,” Bible Review 5/1 (February 1989): 13–25. ↵

  Abraham Heschel, Who Is Man? (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford Univ. Press, 1965), chap. 6 and passim. ↵

  On the fundamental importance of the universe of discourse for the possibility of faith, see especially Rubem A. Alves, Tomorrow’s Child: Imagination, Creativity, and the Rebirth of Culture (New York: Harper & Row, 1972). ↵

  2

  Royal Consciousness: Countering the Counterculture

  We have tried to suggest that Moses was mainly concerned with the formation of a countercommunity with a counterconsciousness. In making that claim for Moses I have carefully avoided any primary link between prophetic imagination and social action, for I believe that Moses did not engage in anything like what we identify as social action. He was not engaged in a struggle to transform a regime; rather, his concern was with the consciousness that undergirded and made such a regime possible. I do not deny that specific actions of a political kind are at times mandatory according to the gospel. But they are not inherently linked to nor the focus of prophetic ministry any more than is a hospital call or a service of worship. Moses was also concerned not with societal betterment through the repentance of the regime but rather with totally dismantling it in order to permit a new reality to appear. Prophetic imagination as it may be derived from Moses is concerned with matters political and social, but it is as intensely concerned with matters linguistic (how we say things) and epistemological (how we know what we know)—all of which may be to engage simply in verbal distinctions. But I stress the point for two reasons; first because the prophetic purpose is much more radical than social change; and second because the issues that concern the Mosaic tradition are much more profound than the matters we usually regard as social action.

  The alternative consciousness of Moses was exceedingly radical in its implications both for religion and for the social and political order. First, the notion of God’s freedom probably is more than any religious movement can sustain for very long. As Karl Barth has seen, the dispute between revelation and reason concerns not only other or false religions but the very “religion of Christian revelation.” Second, the notion of human justice and compassion is rarely a foremost factor in ordering a community. Indeed, most communities find ways of treating it as the last question and never the first question about human reality. It could well be that the possibilities emergent from the ministry of Moses are too radical for any historical community, either in terms of theological presupposition or in terms of societal implementation.

  By way of analogy, it is clear that the militancy and radicalness of the earliest churches was soon compromised. Indeed, John Gager has argued that if they had not changed to embrace culture to some extent, they would have disappeared as a sectarian oddity.[1] Perhaps it must be concluded that the vision emerging from Moses is viable only in an intentional community whose passion for faith is knowingly linked to survival in the face of a dominant, hostile culture. That is, such a radical vision is most appropriate to a sectarian mood, which is marginal in the community. Such situations of risk do seem to call forth such radicalness. Conversely, situations of cultural acceptance breed accommodating complacency.

  Thus, in our utilization of sociological insight concerning the social dimensions of knowledge, language, and power, we must not be inattentive to our very own sociology and the ways in which it commandeers both our faith and our scholarship.[2] Perhaps the minority community of slaves and midwives was able to affirm the freedom of God just because there was no other legitimated way to stand over against static triumphal religion, for every other less-free God had already been co-opted. Perhaps the minority community of slaves is able to affirm the politics of justice and compassion because there is no other social vision in which to stand in protest against the oppression of the situation. As George Mendenhall has urged, the social purpose of a really transcendent God is to have a court of appeal against the highest courts and orders of society around us.[3] Thus a truly free God is essential to marginal people if they are to have a legitimate standing ground against the oppressive orders of the day. But then it follows that for those who regulate and benefit from the order of the day a truly free God is not necessary, desirable, or perhaps even possible.

  Given the social setting of most churches in America, these matters may give us serious pause. It seems probable that the radicalness of the Mosaic phenomenon cannot be separated from the social setting of the hapiru.[4] From that it may follow that the freedom of God and the politics of justice are not so easily embraced among us, given our social setting and our derivative religious interestedness. We know enough to know that our best religion is never disinterested. Here I mean only to raise the difficult point that Mosaic, proph
etic religion also is not disinterested. Indeed, that tradition of ministry can hardly be understood or practiced without embracing the interests it serves.

  All of that is by way of introduction to the emergence of a deep problem in the faith and history of Israel. The revolution, both religious and political, of Moses was able to sustain itself until approximately 1000 B.C.E. as a viable social reality. That is no mean feat when we reflect on the difficulties of maintaining recent revolutions in our own history, for example, the American, French, Russian, Chinese, Vietnamese, Cuban, and Nicaraguan. By the time of Solomon in approximately 962 B.C.E. (after forty years of shrewd and ambiguous leadership from David) there was a radical shift in the foundations of Israel’s life and faith. While the shift had no doubt begun and been encouraged by David, the evidence is much clearer and unambiguous with Solomon.[5] The entire program of Solomon now appears to have been a self-serving achievement with its sole purpose the self-securing of the king and dynasty. It consists of what Alberto Soggin calls a program of state-sponsored syncretism, which of course means the steady abandonment of the radicalness of the Mosaic vision. It includes:

  A harem, which, in addition to serving as a way of facilitating political marriages, likely reflects a concern for self-generated fertility (1 Kgs 11:1-3). (The purpose of a harem in terms of self-securing may be understood quite in contrast to the fortunes of the midwives of the Mosaic period [Exod 1:15-22].)

  A system of tax districts in which the displacement of clans and tribes made state control more effective (1 Kgs 4:7-19). (Indeed, the deliberate eradication of the tribal perception was essential to the statism of Solomon.) This also shifts the economic weight from local, domestic economies to the political economy of the state.

  An elaborate bureaucracy, which, in imitation of the larger empires, served to institutionalize technical reason (1 Kgs 4:1-6; 9:23). (And of course technical reason is inherently conservative and nearly immune to questions of justice and compassion.)

  A standing army so that armaments no longer depended on public opinion and authentic national interest (1 Kgs 4:4; 9:22), not to mention the old notion of the rush of God’s Spirit.

  A fascination with wisdom, which, in addition to imitating the great regimes, represented an effort to rationalize reality, that is, to package it in manageable portions (1Kgs 4:29-34; 10:1-5, 23-25; Prov 1:1; 10:1).[6]

  Conscripted labor from the villages to support massive building projects (palace, temple, royal cities), quarrying, mining, logging, and shipbuilding (1 Kgs 5:13-19; 6:1—7:51; 9:15-19, 26).

  All these things in the Solomonic moment transpired under the effective umbrella of the Jerusalem temple, surely the quintessence of Canaanization in Israel.[7] George Mendenhall has rightly characterized the Solomonic achievement as the “paganization of Israel,” that is, a return to the religious and political presuppositions of the pre-Mosaic imperial situation—which is to say that the Solomonic effort was not only abandonment of the revolution but a knowing embrace of pre-prophetic reality.[8] (It is worth noting how our perceptions move. The very developments that Mendenhall describes as “paganization” are those that in another context Gerhard von Rad[9] and others, including myself, have termed “Enlightenment.” It is worth recalling this in order to see that more than one reading of the data is possible. Indeed, my own reading of it, from the perspective of the prophetic tradition, is very different from what I have done in other circumstances from a quite different perspective.)[10]

  The shift in presuppositions brought about by Solomon can hardly be overestimated. It is likely that David, genius that he was, managed to have it both ways, and, as Stefan Heym has observed, there is a greatness in David that Solomon could only imitate and even then to poor effect.[11] In any case, it is clear that Solomon had a social vision contradictory to that of Moses. The possibility of an alternative consciousness or an alternative community was quite removed from Israel in Solomon’s time. The king characteristically could find no such notion acceptable. It seems likely that criticism could no longer be practiced because the transcendent agent necessary to criticism was gone. And we may hypothesize that promises that could energize are now all confiscated for royal use. Solomon was able to create a situation in which everything was already given, in which no more futures could be envisioned because everything was already present a hundredfold. The tension between a criticized present and an energizing future is overcome. There is only an uncriticized and unenergizing present. It follows, of course, that the Mosaic vision of reality nearly disappeared.

  In this context, I want to explore three dimensions of the Solomonic achievement that are important to our general thesis. These three elements summarize the dominant culture against which the prophets are regularly a counterpoint.

  Affluence

  The Solomonic achievement was one of incredible well-being and affluence:

  Judah and Israel were as many as the sand by the sea; they ate and drank and were happy. Solomon ruled over all the kingdoms from the Euphrates to the land of the Philistines and to the border of Egypt; they brought tribute and served Solomon all the days of his life.

  Solomon’s provision for one day was thirty cors of fine flour, and sixty cors of meal, ten fat oxen, and twenty pasture-fed cattle, a hundred sheep, besides harts, gazelles, roebucks, and fatted fowl. (1 Kgs 4:20-23)

  Clearly, there is a new reality in Israel. Never before had there been enough consumer goods to remove the anxiety about survival. The counterculture of Moses lived in a world of scarcity, whether one talks about hurriedly eaten unleavened bread (Exod 12:8-11) or the strange gift of manna from heaven in the wilderness (Exodus 16). And all it takes to counter that consciousness, as kings have always known, is satiation. It is difficult to keep a revolution of freedom and justice under way when there is satiation. (In our own economy, questions of civil rights seem remote when we are so overly fed. And when we look at the former Soviet Union, how strange it is that the burning issues of freedom have become agendas for consumer goods.) That is what is going on in Solomonic Israel. The high standard of living claimed by the text is fully supported by the archaeology of the period. The artifacts, walls, and building remains attest to a well-ordered and secure social situation.

  It is nonetheless reasonable to conjecture that the affluence and prosperity so attested is not democratically shared. The menu report of 1 Kings 4 just cited most likely represented only the eating habits and opportunities of the royal entourage, which, at best, was indifferent to the plight of the royal subjects. And then or now, eating that well means food is being taken off the table of another. This notice in 1 Kings 4 suggests that satiation had become an accessible goal for the royal society. Covenanting that takes brothers and sisters seriously had been replaced by consuming, which regards brothers and sisters as products to be used. And in a consuming society an alternative consciousness is surely difficult to sustain.

  Oppressive Social Policy

  The Solomonic achievement was in part made possible by oppressive social policy. Indeed, this was the foundation of the regime and surely the source of the affluence just mentioned. That affluence was undoubtedly hierarchical and not democratic in its distribution. Obviously some people lived well off the efforts of others, for we are reminded that there were those “who built houses and did not live in them, who planted vineyards, and did not drink their wine.” Fundamental to social policy was the practice of forced labor, in which at least to some extent subjects existed to benefit the state or the political economy. It is not terribly important or helpful to determine if the forced labor policy included all subjects, as suggested in 1 Kgs 5:13-18, or if the people of Israel were exempted from the general levy of the empire, as contended in 1 Kgs 9:22. In any case, it was unmistakably the policy of the regime to mobilize and claim the energies of people for the sake of the court and its extravagant needs.

  As we know from our own recent past, such an exploitative appetite can develop insatiable momentum so that, no matte
r how much in the way of goods or power or security is obtained, it is never enough. The rebellion announced in 1 Kgs 11:28 and the dispute of 1 Kings 12 concerning the nature of government and the role of people and leaders both show the struggle with a new self-understanding. In that new consciousness on which the regime was built but which was also created by the regime, the politics of justice and compassion has completely disappeared. The order of the state was the overriding agenda, and questions of justice and freedom, the main program of Moses, were necessarily and systematically subordinated. Justice and freedom are inherently promissory; but this regime could not tolerate promises, for they question the present oppressive ordering and threaten the very foundations of current self-serving.

  Static Religion

  The economics of affluence and the politics of oppression are the most characteristic marks of the Solomonic achievement. But these by themselves could not have prospered and endured as they did had they not received theological sanction. So the third foundational element I suggest is the establishment of a controlled, static religion in which God and his temple have become part of the royal landscape, in which the sovereignty of God is fully subordinated to the purpose of the king. In Jerusalem in this period there is a radical revision in the character of God. Now God is fully accessible to the king who is his patron, and the freedom of God is completely overcome. It is almost inconceivable that the God domiciled in Jerusalem would ever say anything substantive or abrasive. Two observations need to be made here. First, I agree with those scholars who stress the tension between the Mosaic and royal traditions. I do not believe the one is derived from the other but rather that they have different roots and foster quite different visions of reality. Second, the reasons for the disastrous religious achievement of Solomon, I believe, are sociological and not historical. That is, Solomon had this kind of shrine not because he inherited it from the Canaanites or Jebusites but because he adopted and developed it because it served his social ideology. If it had not been inherited from the older Canaanite shrine as he might have done, he would have easily imported it as he obviously did so many things he needed for his purposes.