Idols have mouths, but don’t speak. But the fear of the prophets is that Yahweh might be the same. Evil abounds in Israel and the nations, yet Yahweh does nothing and says nothing. If Yahweh is silent in the face of evil, how does he differ from the gods of the nations? The problem of evil in the prophets is the problem of God’s silence, which is really a question of theology proper: Is Yahweh any different from Baal or Molech?
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