Justice and Righteousnes according to "The Prophets"

We have a tendency to think that it is only in our time that what is right, what is true, what is eternal - seems to be filled with ambiguity, questions of relativity, and outright & outrageous defiance. We often think or feel that there may be a way of going back to a simpler time when the line between right and wrong was well defined.

I find tremendous comfort in knowing that the pain and confusion that each of us struggle with when confronting the brokenness in our own lives, relationships, and in the world as a whole, has been shared through the ages by great men of God, and is resonating from the heart of God Himself.

"...Righteousness is not just a value; it is God's part of human life, God's Stake in human history. Perhaps it is because the suffering of man is a blot upon God's conscience; because it is in relations between man and man that God is at stake. Or is it simply because the infamy of a wicked act is infinitely greater than we are able to imagine? People act as they please, doing what is vile, abusing the weak, not realizing that they are fighting God, affronting the divine, or that the oppression of man is a humiliation of God.

The universe is done. The greater masterpiece still undone, still in the process of being created, is history. For accomplishing HIS grand design, God needs the help of man. Man is and has the instrument of God, which he may or may not use in consonance with the grand design. Life is clay, and righteousness the mold in which God wants history to be shaped. But human beings, instead of fashioning the clay, deform the shape.

The world is full of iniquity, of injustice and idolatry... But God needs mercy, righteousness; His needs cannot be satisfied in the temples, in space, but only in history, in time. It is within the realm of history that man is charged with God's mission.

Justice is not an ancient custom, a human convention, a value, but a transcendent demand, freighted with divine concern. It is not only a relationship between man and man, it is an act involving God, a divine need...It is not one of His ways, but in all His ways. Its validity is not only universal, but also eternal independent of will and experience.

People think that to be just is a virtue, deserving honor and rewards; that in doing righteousness one confers a favor on society. No one expects to receive a reward for the habit of breathing. Justice is as much a necessity as breathing is, and a constant occupation."
~Abraham J. Heschel, THE PROPHETS p. 253

Isaiah 28:15-18
15 Because you have said, "We have made a covenant with death, and with Sheol we have an agreement; when the overwhelming scourge passes through it will not come to us; for we have made lies our refuge, and in falsehood we have taken shelter"; 16therefore thus says the Lord God, See I am laying in Zion a foundation stone, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation: "One who trusts will not panic." 17And I will make justice the line, and righteousness the plummet; hail will sweep away the refuge of lies and waters will overwhelm the shelter. 18Then your covenant with death will be annulled, and your agreement with Sheol will not stand; when the overwhelming scourge passes through you will be beaten down by it.