If Jeremiah was the first Jew, it was Ezekiel and his visions which gave the dynamic impulse to the formulation of Judaism. The Exile necessarily meant a break with the tribal past. Indeed, ten of the tribes had already disappeared. Ezekiel insisted, like Hosea, Isaiah and Jeremiah, that the calamities which befell the Jews were the direct and inescapable result of sinful breach of the Law. But whereas earlier histories and prophecies had dwelt on the sense of collective guilt, and attributed to kings and leaders the wickedness which had brought down divine wrath on all, the exiled Jews now
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