was happening was already available to his contemporaries; the prophet did not need to provide them with further facts in that connection. What he could, and must, do was to relay the divine evaluation of those trends and events. To understand the prophet’s original message and to apply it to our own or later periods it is advantageous to build up as complete a picture as we can of the background against which his words were uttered. Our inability to tie every reference down precisely does not detract