that was prevalent during the reign of Jeroboam II (786–746 BC). Kautsky
chooses this quotation from Amos:
Hear this, you who trample upon the needy, and bring the poor of the land
to an end, saying, “When will the new moon be over, that we may sell
grain? And the Sabbath, that we may offer wheat for sale, that we may make
the ephah small and the shekel great, and deal deceitfully with false
balances, that we may buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of
sandals, and sell the refuse of the wheat?” (Amos 8:4–8; Kautsky 1919:221;
1925:221)When peasants brought their grain to market, they were not able to survive
on the paltry sum which they received for it. As a result, the poor were
driven into debt having to sell themselves while the rich took advantages of
this situation. Bloch’s choice of quotations from Amos provides further evi-
dence of class antagonism:
I will send a fire in Judah, that shall consume the palaces in Jerusalem... For
that reason, that the righteous in order to be sold money and the poor in
order to be sold a pair of shoes. They kick the head of the poor in the mud
and hinder the ways of the miserable. (Amos 2:5–7; Bloch 1968:140)Amos expresses his anger at the rich for taking financial advantage of the
poor, who did not have enough to survive on. The teachings of the prophets
were a response not only to political weakness of the divided monarchy but
also to gross economic inequality between classes under a Jewish monarchy.
The Babylonian Exile
The prophets attributed the fall of the northern Kingdom to the Assyrians
not to military weakness, but to turning away from God by practicing the
Baal cult (2 Kings 13, 17). The fall of the southern Kingdom to the Chaldeans
marked the beginning of the Babylonian exile (2 Kings 25). One of the tac-
tics used by the Assyrians in their conquest of Samaria, which was later used
by the Babylonians in their conquest of Judea, was to capture the elites, tak-
ing them into exile, thereby depriving the remaining poor of any political
coherence (Kautsky 1925:221). Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, “carried
away all Jerusalem, and all the princes, and all the mighty men of valour,
ten thousand captives, and all the craftsmen and the smiths; none remained,
except the poorest people of the land” (2 Kings 24:14). While this event may
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