In the Days of Prosperity.

It was market day in Samaria.

Great throngs of people crowded all the streets. They jostled each other good naturedly, traded, bargained, renewed acquaintanceship, spoke of their home towns and expressed the hope of meeting again.

The market place itself, where the many bazaars displayed wonderful merchandise from many cities and many lands, was an especially lively place. It was gay with life and color. Gilded chariots and ivory-bedecked litters passed to and fro. Heralds announced particularly important personages and escorts and cleared a way for them with whip or spear. Military men and merchant princes, with many followers, often scattered the smaller merchants and petty traders in their path through the market. Many were caught under the wheels of the vehicles of the rich when they did not get out of the way quickly enough. Others were purposely thrust aside by the wealthy aristocrats simply to show their disdain.

It was a typical Samarian market day—crowds and noise; buying and selling; idle rich and drudging poor; haughty military grandees, in their resplendent attires, and cowed, miserable beggars in their rags; color and laughter at the bazaars, and tears and sorrow at the auction block just across the way—always crowds and always noise.

The auctioneer was shouting above the general din the good points of a man who had just been placed on the block.

"To be sold till the Jubilee Year," he cried. "How much am I bid?"

A clerk read the court's decree that this man was to be sold for debt. It was signed by the judges, who sat in the East Gate of Samaria. The document was a cold, formal statement. It did not take into account the reason why this man, in the full vigor of manhood, had fallen into debt. His creditors had pushed the poor fellow hard for their money. He could not pay. He pleaded with the judges that the sickness of his wife and children had reduced him to direst need, but it was without avail. He could not pay his debts and must work them off as a slave for seven years; that was the decree of the court. After seven years he would be a free man again. Cases like this were very common.

The keen eye of the auctioneer noted a man at the far edge of the platform who had made several attempts as if to bid during the sale. He was a middle-aged man, tall and thin, but wiry. His face was bronzed from exposure to sun and wind. He wore a long woolen mantel that completely covered him, even to the sandals on his feet.

"How much am I bid?" The auctioneer spoke the question directly to this country yokel, while he winked at the crowd in front of him. He thought that the fellow who came to the market clad in such clothes, instead of his Sabbath best, had little money with him to buy a slave, and less use for one. So he spoke the question again to the "farmer," expecting an answer that would make the crowd laugh and put them in good humor.

The country yokel again made as if to speak but changed his mind and backed away, facing the auctioneer.

He had hardly backed three paces when he bumped into some one. He was pushed violently forward, and, before he could recover, winced under a stinging crack from a whip.

He turned quickly and faced two brutish looking men, swearing at his awkwardness and cursing his impudence for being in the way.

The "farmer" could have given a good account of himself in a square fight with these men, but he knew better than to start a fight with them. They were the foreguards to a splendid pleasure outfit—the outfit of a very rich Samarian merchant. A fight meant arrest and punishment at the hands of Samarian judges, whether he was in the right or not. The rich of Samaria had the judges under their thumbs. A stranger or a poor man, in fact, anyone who had no influence in Samaria, stood little chance of getting justice.

So the farmer cleared the way. Standing aside, he watched the chariot drawn by four Egyptian steeds, surrounded by guards, slaves and hangers-on, make its way through the crowded market place, paying no attention to the rights and privileges of any one. The wealthy merchant in the chariot held his head up proudly. He greeted only the prosperous looking; upon the curious crowds and small merchants, he looked down with contempt.

The merchant whose attendants had so grossly insulted the "farmer" drew up before a great palace. Rich carpets were spread from the chariot to the steps of the mansion. The rich man's followers bowed low as he passed up the steps and through the door held open by attendants. Some followed him into the house; others mingled with the people in the market place; the slaves went to their quarters by a rear entrance.

The stranger in the woolen robe was not as green as he looked. He had witnessed the growth and prosperity of Samaria during the last twenty years of Jeroboam II's reign until it became the busiest trade center in the Empire.

Leaning against the stone column, on which was graven the record of Jeroboam's victory over Damascus, and still smarting from the lash of the servant's whip, he recalled the story of Samaria's great strides to its present prosperous condition.

The subjugation of Judah on the south, which this farmer had good cause to remember; the conquest of Syria on the north and Jeroboam's peace compact with Assyria further east, assured a long period of peaceful development within the empire.

New highways were built, so that the farther ends of the country were brought close together for business purposes. Farmers could bring their crops to the cities easily. Many remained in the cities and engaged in business pursuits. Caravans traveled great distances, bringing precious luxuries from one part of the empire to another, and even from foreign countries.

Many thus became very wealthy. They built themselves palaces for winter residences in the cities and palaces for summer residences in the country. To get rich seemed to be the aim of everybody; and, with riches, came ostentation and luxuriant living.

The city of Samaria, especially, was the center for Israel's most wealthy men. Their homes were wonders of stone and ivory. The furnishings rivaled in beauty the splendor of the outside. The rooms were high and spacious. The beds and tables and chairs were of the finest wood of Lebanon, carved by the craftsmen of Tyre, and inlaid with ivory. The coverings were of the richest purple and gold from Egypt and the Indies. Wine cellars were a part of every house and feasts were spread whenever the occasion offered itself. Fatted lambs and calves were slaughtered daily to supply the tables, and new instruments were invented to furnish music at the feasts.

This, however, was only one side of the picture of Samaria in its days of greatest prosperity. The "farmer" knew that there was another, much less beautiful. While the rich were growing richer, the poor were growing poorer.

The rich, thinking only of themselves, their wealth, their power, their good times, cheated and oppressed the poor unmercifully. They gave false weights and short measure and sold at high prices, poor stuff at that. They would drive a poor man into debt and have him sold into slavery; so that human beings became a drug on the market, as it were. In fact, at the very auction which the "farmer" watched that day, one poor man was sold for the price of a pair of shoes. The poor had even no chance to get justice in the courts. The greed for money placed corrupt officials in office and the offenders bribed them to the undoing of the poor and needy.

Strange to say, the Israelites, in whose midst there were those who lived such scandalous lives and treated the poor people so outrageously—the Israelites—nevertheless, believed in their hearts that they had not forgotten God. They believed that God was with them; that He loved them above all other peoples; that He guarded and protected them; that He sent them all their blessings of prosperity and peace.

This is the way they reasoned it out: Had not God helped them to defeat Judah? Had not God been with them when they crushed their ancient foe, Syria? Did not God send them rain in season, so that crops were good and plentiful?

"Therefore," said they, "God is on our side. Let us go up to the sanctuaries and offer sacrifices upon His altars."

And so, at festival times, Bethel and Gilgal, and Dan and Beersheba were crowded with the rich, offering their sacrifices, feasting, drinking and rejoicing. It never entered their minds that God is the God of the poor, as well as of the rich. Though they continued to rob and oppress and enslave the poor and the needy and the helpless, they were perfectly satisfied with the idea that all God asked of them was to offer the prescribed sacrifices. If there were any who knew differently, or thought differently, they seemingly did not dare say so in anybody's hearing. For the poor, these were, indeed, evil times.

At this point in his musings, the "farmer" actually shuddered. He was not aware that his peculiar dress and his peculiar position at the moment had attracted attention. While he was contrasting in his mind the great difference between the rich and the poor in Samaria, several men, having nothing better to do, had stopped to stare at the yokel. As is always the case when people stand in the street and gawk, a large crowd soon assembled. A military chariot stopped near the group of curious gazers to see what was going on. Soon several others were halted there, including gilded and gaudy litters, in which fashionably dressed women were being conveyed. All stared, called each other's attention to the queerly garbed stranger, and finally laughed outright.

The man who was the center of attraction became aware of the crowd only when he had reached that point in his thoughts, the horrible picture of which had made him shudder. When he noticed the crowd, he gasped. He recovered from his astonishment quickly, however. He opened his mantle, showing his gaunt, powerful form. He raised his head and faced the crowd. His face, strong and sunburned, was tense and drawn for a moment; then it relaxed. Deep lines, expressing severe pain, were furrowed in his forehead.

The crowd, in turn, was astonished at the complete change that had come over the "yokel." Before they recovered from their mistaken opinion about the man, they saw him clinch his fists in determination and heard his voice ring out clearly and distinctly, above the din of the market place:

"Hear ye,
Who turn justice to wormwood
And cast down righteousness to the earth;
Who trample upon the poor
And afflict the just;
Who take a bribe
And thrust aside the needy in the gate:
I know how manifold are your transgressions,
Saith the Lord, God of hosts,
And how mighty your sins,
The end of my people Israel hath come,
Saith the Lord, God of hosts,
I can no longer forgive."

This outspoken attack upon Samaria, its rich, and its military nobles, was so extraordinary that it amazed the crowd. Having spoken, the "farmer" turned away and was soon lost among the bazaars. Some looked after him, astonished at his recklessness in laying himself open to the revenge of the powers that be. Others looked after him, amazed at his bravery and fearlessness.

That night many in Samaria had heard of the unknown stranger and his speech in the market place. At many dinner tables the question was asked:

"Who is this man who dares to lift his voice against the high and powerful in behalf of the poor and downtrodden?"

"Who is this man who dares to proclaim the doom of the Kingdom of
Israel in the days of its greatest prosperity?"