Prophecy, Prophets

Prophecy, Prophets

PROPHECY, PROPHETS.Hebrew prophecy represents a religious movement of national and worldwide importance, not paralleled elsewhere in history. Most significant in itself, it has acquired deeper and wider import through its connexion with Christianity and the philosophy of religion generally. The present article will deal in brief outline with (1) the history, (2) the inspiration, and (3) the functions and specific teaching, of the prophets of the OT; also (4) with the special topic of Messianic prophecy and its fulfilment in the NT.

1. History and prophecy.The prophetic period proper may be said to have extended from the 8th to the 4th cent. b.c. During these centuries at least, prophecy was a recognized, flourishing, and influential power in Israel. But a long preparatory process made ready for the work of Amos, Hosea, and their successors, and it is not to be understood that with the last of the canonical writings the spirit of prophecy disappeared entirely from the Jewish nation. It is not surprising that the beginnings of Hebrew prophecy are lost in comparative obscurity. Little light is shed upon the subject by a comparison between similar phenomena in other religions. It is true that among Semitic and other peoples the idea was widely prevalent of an order of men who were favoured with special intercourse with the Deity and entrusted with special messages from heaven, or an unusual power of prognostication of future events. The line which separated the priest from the prophet was in early times a very narrow one, and sometimes the functions of the two offices were blended. In Israel also, during the earlier stages of history, lower conceptions of the Divine will and human modes of optaining knowledge of it prevailed, together with practices hardly to be distinguished from pagan rites. The description in Deu 18:10-14 proves how long these mantic ideas and customs lingered on in the midst of clearer moral and spiritual light. When the true significance of prophecy came to be understood, the contrast between it and heathen divination was very marked, but the process by which this stage was reached was gradual. Its course cannot always he clearly traced, and down to the Christian era, the lower and less worthy popular conceptions existed side by side with the high standard of the prophetic ideal.

No certain information can be gathered from the names employed. The word most frequently used in OT (more than 300 times) is nb, but its derivation is doubtful. It was long associated with a root which means to bubble up, and would thus denote the ecstatic influence of inspiration, but it is now more usually connected with a kindred Arabic word meaning to announce. Two other wordsreh, which occurs 9 times (7 times of Samuel), and chzeh, about 20 timesare of known derivation and are both translated seer. The historical note in 1Sa 9:9 marks the fact that reh passed comparatively out of use after Samuels time, but both it and chzeh are used later as synonyms of nb, and in Chronicles there appears to be a revival of earlier usage: We shall probably not be far wong if we find in the words the two main characteristics of the prophet as seer and speaker,the spiritual vision which gave him knowledge, and the power of utterance which enabled him to declare his message with power. Other phrases employed areman of God, used of Moses, Samuel, and others; servant of God, a term not limited to prophets as such; messenger of Jehovah, chiefly in the later writings; and once, in Hos 9:7, the significant synonym for a prophet is used, man of the spirit, or the man that hath the spirit.

We may distinguish three periods in the history of prophecy: (1) sporadic manifestations before the time of Samuel, (2) the rise and growth of the institution from Samuel to Amos, (3) the period marked out by the canonical prophetic writings.

(1) In dealing with the first, it will he understood that the literary record is later than the events described, and the forms of speech used must be estimated accordingly. But it may be noted that in Gen 20:7 Abraham is called a prophet, and in Psa 105:15 the name is given to the patriarchs generally. In Exo 7:1 Aaron is described as a prophet to Moses who was made a god to Pharaoh. In Num 11:25-29 the incident of Eldad and Medad shows that in the wilderness the spirit rested on certain men, enabling them to prophesy. The episode of Balaam in Num 22:1-41; Num 23:1-30; Num 24:1-25 is very instructive in its bearing upon the ideas of Divine revelation outside Israel. In Num 12:5-8 the Divine intercourse vouchsafed to Moseswith him I will speak mouth to mouth, even manifestlyis distinguished from the lower kind of revelation, in a vision, in a dream, granted to the prophet; and in Deu 18:15 Moses is described as possessing the highest type of prophetic endowment. Later, Deborah is described (Jdg 4:4) as both a prophetess and a judge, and an anonymous prophet was sent to Israel at the time of the Midianite oppression (Jdg 6:8). Samson was not a prophet, but upon him, as a Nazirite from infancy, the spirit of Jehovah began to move in youth, and it came mightily upon him. Finally, before the special revelation given to Samuel, there came a man of God to Eli, rebuking the evil-doings of his sons and announcing punishment to come. It must be borne in mind, moreover, that during all this period God was, according to the OT narrative, speaking to His people in various ways, revealing Himself by dreams and visions, or through special messengers, though the term prophet but seldom occurs.

(2) It is generally recognized that a new era begins with Samuel. Peter in Act 3:24 used a current mode of speech when he said all the prophets from Samuel and them that followed after, and the combination in him of the prophet and the judge enabled him to prepare the way for the monarchy. The statement in 1Sa 3:1 that in the time of Eli the word of Jehovah was rare and that vision was not widely diffused or frequent, points to the need of clearer and fuller revelation such as began with Samuel and continued more or less intermittently for some centuries. Whether he originated the prophetic communities known as sons of the prophets, who first appear in his time and are mentioned occasionally until after the times of Elisha, we cannot be sure. But at Ramah (1Sa 19:18), at Naioth (2Ki 6:1-33), at Bethel, Jericho, Gilgal, and other places there were settlements which may be described as training-schools for religious purposes, and these provided a succession of men, who were in theory, and to some extent in practice, animated by the devoted and fervent spirit which was necessary for the maintenance of the prophetic fire in the nation. Music formed a prominent part in their worship (1Sa 10:5; 1Sa 10:10). These societies might constitute a true and abiding witness for Jehovah (1Ki 18:13), or they might be characterized by false patriotism and subserviency to a prevailing policy (1Ki 22:6). Saul was at one time brought under their influence in a remarkable manner (1Sa 10:10-13), and Samuel evidently exercised a commanding influence over them, as did Elisha in later days. To these colleges may probably be traced the preservation of national traditions and the beginnings of historical literature in Israel.

David is styled a prophet in Act 2:30, but this is not in accordance with OT usage, though the Spirit of Jehovah is said to have rested on him as a psalmist (2Sa 23:2). In his time began that close association between kings and prophets which continued in varying phases until the Exile. Nathan the prophet was his faithful spiritual adviser, and Gad is described as the kings seer (2Sa 24:11). Both these counsellors exercised a wholesome influence upon the large-hearted, but sometimes erring, king, and according to the Chronicler they assisted David in organizing Divine worship (2Ch 29:25). Nathan, Ahijah of Shiloh, and Iddo the seer are mentioned in 2Ch 9:29 as having taken part in the compilation of national records, history and prophecy having been from the first closely associated in Israel. In Solomons time prophecy would seem to have been in abeyance. But it appears again in connexion with the description of the Kingdom, and from this time forwards in Israel and Judah the relation between Church and State, between king and prophet, was of an intimate and very significant kind. The prophet, as a man specially endowed with the spirit of God, did not hesitate to warn, rebuke, oppose, and sometimes remove, the king who was Gods anointed. But when the monarch was faithful to the high position, the prophet was to him as a strong right hand. Elijah, in the idolatrous times of Ahab, is the very type of the uncompromising and undaunted reformer; and Elisha, though of a milder character and with a less exacting task to accomplish, was instrumental in the overthrow of the ungodly house of Omri (2Ki 9:1-37). These two are essentially prophets of action; the writing prophets do not appear till a century later.

(3) It is inevitable that for us at least a new era of prophecy should appear to set in with the earliest prophetical book that has come down to us. We are dependent upon our records, and though the continuity of prophecy was never quite broken, the history of the prophets assumes a new character when we read their very words at length. Amos, the first in chronological order, shows in Amo 2:11 that he was only one in a long line of witnesses, and that he was but recalling the people to an allegiance they had forgotten or betrayed. But he introduces the golden age of prophecy, in which Isaiah is the central glorious figure. Modern criticism has carried the analysis of the prophetical books as they have come down to us so far that it is not easy to present the chronology of the prophetic writings in a tabular form. But it may be said roughly and generally that six prophets belong to the Assyrian period, Amos and Hosea in the Northern Kingdom, about the middle of the 8th cent. b.c., and Isaiah and Micah in the Southern, a little later, whilst Zephaniah and Nahum belong to the early part of the 7th cent. b.c. As prophets of the Chaldan period we find Jeremiah and Habakkuk before the Exile (b.c. 586), and Ezekiel during the former part of the Captivity. Before its close appears the second Isaiah (perhaps about 540), and after the Return, Haggai and Zechariah (chs. 18), whilst Malachi prophesied in the middle of the 5th cent. b.c. The dates of Joel, Jonah, Obadiah, and Zec 9:1-17; Zec 10:1-12; Zec 11:1-17; Zec 12:1-14; Zec 13:1-9; Zec 14:1-21 are still debated, but in their present form these books are generally considered post-exilic. Many chapters of Isaiah, notably 2427, are ascribed to a comparatively late date.

It is impossible here to trace the fluctuations in prophetic power and influence, as these waxed or waned with the varying fortunes of the nation throughout the period of the monarchy. The Northern Kingdom came to an end in b.c. 722, but for more than 150 years longer there appeared prophets in Judah who aided the repeated efforts at national reformation made by kings like Hezekiah and Josiah. These, however, met with little permanent success, and a change in the characteristic note of prophecy begins with Jeremiah. Thus far the prophets had aided the cause of religious and civil progress by bringing to bear upon national policy the moral principles of the religion of J [Note: Jahweh.] , but as time passed, the recuperative power of the nation declined, false prophets gained predominating influence, and the true prophets task grew more and more hopeless. All that remained for Jeremiah was to preach submission to foreign foes, and the imminence of coming judgment, and to point the people to a spiritual fulfilment of promises which could no longer be realized by means of any earthly monarch or dynasty. It was the painful duty of Jeremiah to oppose princes, priests, and people alike, as none of his predecessors had done, and to stand alone, charged with lack of patriotism, if not with actual treachery. Though a man of peaceable and kindly temperament, he was involved in perpetual conflict, and whenever he was tempted to withdraw from a thankless and apparently useless office, the word of the Lord burned within him again like a fire in his bones, and he was bound to deliver it, whether men listened and heeded or not. The chief burden of this last pre-exilic prophet was the declaration that, as the measure of the peoples sins was now filled up, they must as a nation suffer practical extinction; but stress was laid upon the importance of individual fidelity and the fulness of spiritual blessing which might still be enjoyed, whilst hopes of material good and national prosperity had been disastrously overthrown.

The fall of Jerusalem brought with it many changes. Ezekiel adopted and expanded many of Jeremiahs ideas, but his forecasts of restitution, as delivered to the exiles in Babylon, took fresh shapes, determined by his circumstances, his personal temperament, and the fact that he was priest as well as prophet. It was left for a great unknown seer to deliver in the second part of the Book of Isaiah the most spiritual message of all, and to re-animate his countrymen by means of pictures glowing with larger and brighter hopes than any of his predecessors had portrayed. But after the return from captivity prophecy did not renew its ancient fires. Haggai and Zechariah are but minor stars in the great constellation, and the book known as Malachi testifies to a dwindling inspiration, though fidelity to truth, and hope of fuller Divine manifestations yet to come, were not entirely extinct in Gods messengers and representatives.

At last Psa 74:9 and 1Ma 4:43; 1Ma 9:27; 1Ma 14:41 point to a time when signs were no longer seen among the people, when there is no more any prophet, neither is there any among us that knoweth how long. The latest prophetic book, Daniel, does not properly belong to this list; it was not reckoned by the Jews among the prophets, but in the third part of the sacred canon known as writings. The remarkable visions it contains do not recall the lofty spirit or the burning words of Isaiah; they contain another kind of revelation, and belong not to prophecy but to apocalyptics. Nearly two centuries elapsed before John the Baptist, the last prophet under the Old Covenant and the forerunner of the New, came in the very spirit and power of Elijah to make ready for the Lord a people prepared for him.

2. Inspiration of the prophets.When we seek to pass from the outward phenomena of prophetism to its inner mental processes, from its history to its psychology, many questions arise which cannot be definitely answered. How did God reveal His will to the prophets? In what did their inspiration consist? How far were their natural faculties in abeyance, or, on the other hand, heightened and strengthened? Did the prophet fully understand his own message? How could personal errors and prejudices be distinguished from direct Divine afflatus? To these questions no simple categorical replies can be made. But Scripture sheds sufficient light on them for all practical purposes.

It must be borne in mind that prophecy has a history, that the record is one of developmentof rise, progress, and decayand that precise definitions which take no account of these changes are misleading. Some forms of inspiration are higher than others, and a measure of advance is discernible from the lower forms which belonged rather to the soothsayer, to those higher moods which distinguish the OT prophet from all others. The steps of the process are not always discernible, but the distinction between lower and higher is to be drawn according as (1) the prophet was a mere unconscious instrument, or his highest mental and spiritual faculties were enlisted in his work; (2) the inward revelation of the Divine will was or was not bound up with external and objective manifestations; and especially (3) the moral and spiritual element in the message became its distinguishing, feature, in contrast with a mere non-ethical seeking for signs. Revelation by means of dreams and visions was recognized throughout, and in Num 12:6, Deu 13:1, Jer 23:5 a dreamer of dreams is synonymous with a prophet. The distinction between dream and vision appears to be that the former occurred in sleep, the latter in a kind of ecstatic waking state, the seer falling down and having his eyes open. But the distinction is not strictly enforced, and in the Hexateuch, and where the Elohist speaks of dreams, the Jahwist more frequently describes God as speaking directly to His messengers. Side by side with revelation by means of dreams and visions went that higher spiritual enlightenment which we associate with Hebrew prophecy at its best estate.

It was not necessary that a prophet should receive a formal call to undertake the office. Many were trained in the schools who never became prophets, and some prophets, like Amos, received no preparation, whether in the schools or elsewhere. Upon some, the affiatus appears to have descended occasionally for a special purpose, whilst in other cases the influence of the Divine Spirit was permanent, and they were set apart to the work of a lifetime. The important point was that in every case the Spirit of God must rest upon His messenger in such a way as to supersede all other influences and ideas, and this higher impulse must be obeyed at all costs. The prophet must be able to announce with unwavering confidence, Thus saith the Lord. In some instances a description is given of the way in which this overpowering conviction came upon the man. Samuel was (perhaps) called as a child; Amos exclaimed, when both king and priest did their best to silence him, Jahweh hath spoken, who can but prophesy? Isaiah, when he beheld God lifted up upon His throne and when his lips had been purified by the hot stone from the altar, cried, Here am I, send me. Jeremiah, when but a youth, was strengthened to be as an iron pillar and a brazen wall against the whole force of the nation, because God had put His words in his mouth. The vision of the chariot which came to Ezekiel by the Chebar dominated his imagination and moulded all his ministry. Whether a vocation in the formal sense was, or was not, vouchsafed at the opening of a prophets course, it was absolutely essential that he should be directly moved by the Spirit of God to deliver a message which he felt to be an irresistible and overwhelming revelation of the Divine will.

The phraseology used to describe this inspiration, though varied, points entirely in this direction. The Spirit of the Lord is described as coming mightily upon Saul (1Sa 10:6; 1Sa 10:10); the hand of the Lord was on Elijah (1Ki 18:46, Eze 1:3); or the Spirit clothed itself with the man as in Jdg 6:34, 2Ch 24:20; or Micah is said to be full of power by the spirit of the Lord to declare to Jacob his transgression (2Ch 3:8). Perhaps the impulses were more violent and external in the earlier history, whilst in the later more room was left for human reflexion, and a more intelligent comprehension of the Divine will and word. Still, it would be a mistake to suppose that the overmastering power of the Divine commission was relaxed in the later prophetic period. No stronger expressions to describe this are found anywhere than those used by Jeremiah, who sat alone because of Gods hand, and to whom Gods word was as a burning fire shut up in his bones, so that he could not contain (2Ch 15:17, 2Ch 20:9).

Neither the exact mode of communicating the Divine will, nor the precise measure of personal consciousness which obtained in the prophetic state, can be defined; these varied according to circumstances. But speaking generally, it may be said that the personality of the prophet was not merged or absorbed in the Divine, nor was his mind as an inanimate harp or lyre which the Divine Spirit used as a mere instrument. Moses is represented as holding back from the Divine call (Exo 3:3), as remonstrating with God (Exo 32:11), and offering himself as a sacrifice to appease the Divine anger (Exo 32:32). Amos succeeded in modifying the Divine decree (Exo 7:2-3), and Jeremiah was very bold in reproaching the Most High with having given him an impossible task, and as having apparently failed to fulfil His own promises (Exo 15:18). A careful study of all the phenomena would go to show that whilst supernatural power and operation were taken for granted, the workings of the prophetic mind under inspiration were not very different from some of the highest experiences of saints in all ages, the Divine and human elements being blended in varying proportions. The fact of inspiration, rather than its mode, is the important feature in the Bible narratives.

A similar answer must be given to the question whether the prophets understood their own prophecies. For the most part they understood them very well, and expressed themselves with remarkable clearness and vigour. What they often did not understand, and could not be expected to understand, was the full bearing of their words upon contingent events and their application to conditions as yet in the far future. In 1Pe 1:10 we are told that they searched diligently what time or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did point unto, perhaps with special reference to Dan 8:15. That is, it was not given them to discern at what epoch, or under what circumstances, the fulfilment of their words should come to pass. But the declaration of moral principles required no such elucidation, and the prophets were the first to recognize that the fulfilment of their words depended on the way in which they were received. For the work of the prophet was not to mouth out oracles, mystic sayings obscure to the mind of the speaker and enigmatical to the hearers, like the utterances of Delphi or Dodona. The root idea of prophecy is revelation, not mystery-mongeringSurely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets (Amo 3:7).

Deeper and more important questions concerning the nature of prophetic inspiration gather round the existence of false prophetsthis term does not occur in the Hebrew textthe line of distinction between the true and the false, and the tests which should separate the two in practice. The subject is greatly complicated to the modern mind when we read in Deu 13:1-18 that a prophet might be utterly mistaken, that a lying spirit might come from the Lord (1Ki 22:22), that tests of genuineness were necessary, and that God might mislead the very prophets themselves, destroying the people through the agency of a deceptive vision (Eze 13:14). These are no doubt exceptional expressions, a sharp contrast being usually drawn between genuine and spurious prophecies, as those which come from God, and those which come from the prophets own heart (Jer 23:16). Professed prophets might be treacherous (Zep 3:4), just as the priests might profane the sanctuary and do violence to the law. The fact that Divine gifts may be abused does not interfere with their significance when rightly used. But wherein lay the distinction between true and false? If the prophets were connected with idolatrous worship (1Ki 18:1-46), or devoted to other gods (Deu 13:2), their departure from the truth is obvious. Also if high prophetic gifts were perverted for purposes of selfish advancement, or a part were deliberately assumed to deceive (Zec 13:4), or office were desired merely for a livelihood (Mic 3:5), the case is clear. But might the prophets themselves be deceived, and how were the people to distinguish between the true and the false?

Ostensibly both classes had the same ends in viewthe honour of Jehovah and the prosperity of the nation. But some put religious principle first and taught that prosperity would follow obedience; others, blinded by false ideas of national advantage, thought they were doing God service by promoting a policy which seemed likely to lead to the aggrandizement of His people. The same difference has often been observed in the Christian Church between a true religious leader and a mere ecclesiastic, honestly persuaded that whatever advances the Church must be for the Divine glory, but who, none the less, perverts the truth by setting the means above the end. Lower ideas of God, of morality, and of true national prosperity lay at the root of the utterances of the false prophets. The main distinction between them and the true messengers of God was a moral and spiritual one, and discrimination was possible only by trying each on its own merits.

But certain tests are suggested. Sometimes (a) a sign or wonder was wrought in attestation (Deu 13:1-2), but even this was not conclusive, and the true prophets seldom relied upon this evidence. Again, (b) in Deu 18:21 f. fulfilment of prediction is adduced as a test. Clearly that could not be applied at once, and it would rather be useful afterwards to students of the national history than to kings or people about to enter on a battle or an alliance. But (c) the people were expected to use their moral and spiritual insight and distinguish the issues set before them, as a man has to judge for himself in questions of conscience. In the case of Hananiah (Jer 28:1-17), an example is given of two lines of national policy presented by two leading prophets, and the process of judging between the true and the false was a part of the education through which Israel was called to pass and in which unfortunately it often failed. The difficulty of this process of discrimination was often lightened (d) by watching the career of the prophets, as to how far their character bore out their professions, what motives actuated themwhether crooked policy, immediate expediency, or high self-denying principleand thus in the centuries before Christ, as afterwards, one of the best criteria was, by their fruits ye shall know them.

One other point remains. To what does the term inspiration applythe men or their writings? What relation do the books that have come down to us bear to the originally spoken words of the prophets? The answer is that in the first instance it is the man who is inspired, not the book. In the case of the Hebrew prophet especially, the very nature of the influence at work impelled him to immediate utterance, and if he was inspired at all, the word is most applicable at this stage. In many instances the prophet went as it were from the very presence of God to perform his errand and utter winged words which have come down to us as delivered, white-hot from the very furnace of Divine prompting. But in other cases the record was not written till long after the original utterance; only a summary of the addresses delivered was handed down. The literary element predominates in the composition, and a finish is given to its phraseology which does not belong to the spoken word. A full account of the process is given in one case (Jer 36:7), where we are told that the prophecies delivered through 21 years were carefully written out with the aid of a secretary, the transcription taking some months to accomplish. The document thus prepared was handed to the king and destroyed by him in anger at its contents, whereupon another record was made with considerable additions. Probably a similar process was usual in the case of the literary prophets. The utterances called forth by a crisis could not be prepared beforehand; sometimes, as in Malachi, the prophet would be interrupted by objections from the people, to which he must reply on the spur of the moment, and open conflicts were not infrequent. But the words in which the substance of many utterances was embodied were carefully chosen and were of more abiding import. The process of selection and transcription, as well as the original outpouring of the message, was under the guidance of the Divine Spirit, who actuated the prophet in all he said or did.

That the work of collecting the prophetic utterances was not always carefully done is clear from the state of the text in some of the books that have come down to us, e.g., the serious differences between the Hebrew and the LXX [Note: Septuagint.] in Jeremiah. Also it should be noted that the utterances of different authors were often blended under one well-known name: e.g., under Isaiah many prophecies extending over a long period have been gathered; the Book of Zechariah is certainly composite, and indications of additions, editorial notes, and modifications are numerous. But the God who inspired His servant first to see and then to speak, did in certain cases inspire him also to write; and thus words which were intended in the first instance for rebellious Israel or disconsolate Judah have proved of perennial significance in the religious education of the world.

3. Functions and teaching.One who was essentially a man of God under the conditions of life which obtained in Israel must have had many parts to play, many messages to give; and many would be the ways in which he brought his Influence to bear upon the life of his time. The prophetic office in its essence implied freedom from such routine duties as occupied (e.g.) the priest and later the scribe. These could easily be enumerated, but the work of the prophet, from its very nature, cannot be defined by strict boundary lines.

In the earliest times prophets were consulted on common matters of daily life. Samuel was asked by Sauls servant how to find the lost asses of his master. Later, inquiry was made concerning the sickness of Jeroboam and its probable issue, and Elisha throughout his life was sought for in times of private and domestic need. On another side of their lives the prophets were closely connected with literature; they compiled historical records and preserved the national chronicles (see 1Ch 29:29). The narrative portions of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and other prophetical books show that the seer is a man whose searching glance may run backwards as well as forwards. It required a prophetic eye rightly to read the lessons of Israels past, and to this day the inspired historical books of OT teach lessons which no mere annalist could have perceived or conveyed to others. The work of other prophets lay in the department not of literature but of action, andapart from Elijah and Elishasome of the most notable figures in the prophetic succession were distinguished, not so much for what they taught as because at the critical moment they threw the weight of deservedly great influence into the right scale, and actually led the people in the right way.

These, however, were not the prophets main functions. His chief work was to serve as a great moral and religious teacher, especially in relation to the duties of national life. He was sent to minister to his own age, to teach his contemporaries the duties of the hour, how to apply the highest religious principles to current questions of political and social life. In the course of the delivery of this message he was moved to utter predictions, and these formed so characteristic and important a feature of the prophets teaching that foretelling the future came to be regarded as his chief work. This was not strictly the case, since the forecasts of the future arose out of the delivery of the message to the speakers own age. But prediction must be allowed its due place in an estimate of Hebrew prophecy; a reaction against the excessive stress formerly laid upon this element has unfortunately led to the opposite extreme of underestimating its importance.

Moral teaching was pre-eminent. The prophets were not exponents of the law in the technical sense; that belonged to the priest (Jer 18:18); but the word which was given to the prophet was an immediate revelation of the will of God, and was sometimes necessarily opposed to the orthodox and conventional religious teaching of men more anxious about following precedents than discerning the highest duty. In Is 1 and 58, in Mic 6:1-16, and Eze 18:1-32 we have examples of lofty ethical teaching which might appear to disparage the routine of religious service and the traditions of religious doctrine. It is not sacrifice in itself, however, that is denounced, but a trust in formal service punctiliously rendered to God, without a corresponding reformation of character. The prophet was the messenger who recalled the people to their highest allegiance, who fearlessly rebuked spiritual unfaithfulness, and who laid emphasis, not on the tithing of mint, anise, and cummin, but on those weightier matters of the law, judgment and mercy and faith. Of worship and ritual they would have said, as did the greater Prophet who followed them, These ought ye to have done, and not to have left the other undone (Mat 23:23). These moral teachings covered a very wide field. The prophets called evils by plain names and denounced them in uncompromising terms, however high the places in which they were found. Habits of luxury and self-indulgence in the upper classes; Intemperance and tendencies to excess of all kinds; the oppression of the poor, the usurpations of landowners, the extravagance of women in dressthese are only a few specimens of class-sins which they frankly exposed and fearlessly denounced.

In this sense the prophets strove to recall the best features of Israels post. The tone of remonstrance adopted shows that for the most part the people were familiar with the principles laid down. The prophets were not innovators; they spoke as men whose words were likely to find an echo in the consciences of their hearers. But reformers they undoubtedly were in the sense that they spared not the hoary head of inveterate abuse, and they prevented many of the evils which an undisturbed conservatism induces. They belonged to the party of progress in the beat sense of the term, and their work was especially to break up the fallow ground of habit that had become hard and set and unfit to receive the seed of fresh spiritual teaching. Moral reformation, they taught, was a necessary condition for the acquisition of spiritual knowledge, and the enjoyment of spiritual privilege. Wash you. make you clean was the burden of their message; the arm of Jehovah is not shortened, nor His ear heavy, but your sins have separated between you and your God. Deal bread to the hungry and let the oppressed go free, then shall thy light break forth as the morning and thine obscurity shall be as the noonday and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water whose waters fail not.

This moral teaching was brought to bear especially upon national life. Israel was a church-nation, one in which the community counted for much more than the individual, and the prophets chief function was to promote national righteousness. He represented the highest civic consciousness. He might, and did, rebuke private individuals and point out personal faults, though this was chiefly in the case of kings like David, Jeroboam, or Ahab, or State officials like Shebna in Isa 22:1-25. Whole classes might go astray, the prophets themselves be unfaithful to their calling, and then an individual prophet was sent to recall all alike to their duty, himself the sole representative of Jehovah in a degenerate nation. For a time the political influence of the prophets was great, while their power was at its zenith, but this period did not last very long. Isaiah and Micah, Amos and Hosea, illustrate the way in which, both in the Southern and in the Northern Kingdom, the prophets intervened in questions of wars and alliances and treatiesthe foreign policy of their times. They took their part in domestic policy no less, sometimes standing between the sovereigns and their subjectsteachers and examples of patriotism in the best sense of the word. Whilst the false prophets practically asserted the maxim My country, right or wrong. the true prophet enforced the lesson that There is no wisdom nor understanding nor counsel against the Lord, and that unflinching loyalty to Him is the only secret of national stability and success. Sometimes they urged bold defiance of enemies, as in the invasion of Sennacherib (2Ki 19:1-37); sometimes they recommended a policy of neutrality as between Egypt and Assyria (Isa 30:1-33); whilst, as already pointed out, it was sometimes the duty of a Jeremiah to preach submission to the power of Babylon, even though that course might be represented as pusillanimous truckling to superior force. In thus directing the national policy, the prophet might be commissioned to announce the success or failure of certain projects, and to foretell the consequences of a given course of action. But if the prophecies be closely examined, it will be seen that the forecasts were for the most part conditionalIf thou wilt hear and obey, thou shalt eat the good of the land; if not, thou shalt be devoured with the swordthe object of such vaticinations being pre-eminently moral, to bring the people to such a state of mind that the threatened evils might be averted.

The value of such an institution in any State is obvious. J. S. Mill describes it as an inestimably precious feature, that the persons most eminent in genius and moral feeling could reprobate with the authority of the Almighty, and give a higher and better interpretation of religion, which henceforth became a part of that religion. The power of the prophet has been compared to the modern liberty of the press. The comparison is sadly inadequate, for at best the press represents the highest current of public opinion, whilst it was one of the chief duties of the prophet to rebuke public opinion in the light of higher truth, which he discerned as from a mountain top whilst all the valley below lay in darkness. That the ethical standard was maintained in Israel as high as it was, and that the Jews were the most progressive people of antiquity, and conjointly with the Greeks have so strongly influenced modern culture, is due mainly to the prophets.

Religious teaching was closely connected with the ethical. The prophet would not permit any severance of these two elements. The explanation of the freedom and beauty of the moral life on which they insisted was that it was not inculcated as a code, but as a service rendered to a holy and gracious God. The people were to offer the kind of service with which He would be pleased; hence the higher their conceptions of God were raised, the higher also became their standard of conduct. The prophets of the 8th cent. b.c. are sometimes described as the first teachers of ethical monotheism, but this position it would be difficult to establish. That the standard of the people had sunk sadly below that of the revelation granted them is certain, and that the prophets not only recalled them to their duty, but raised their very conceptions of Deity, is practically certain. But Amos, the first of the writing prophets, appealed to a conscience and a God-consciousness already developed, and his rebukes presuppose the knowledge of one holy God, and do not inculcate the doctrine for the first time. Both he and Hosea press home the duty of the people to return to the God they had forsaken; sometimes sternly, sometimes with tender and pathetic pleading: O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee? Thou art graven on the palms of my hands. The worst feature of the wickedness of the times lay in the unfaithfulness of Israel to the God who had bound His people to Him by the closest ties and their disobedience is described as infidelity to a spiritual marriage vow. The prophets strove and urged and remonstrated, rising up early and pleading that they might win the heart of the people back to God, sure that thus, and thus only, a basis could be secured for a permanently upright national and individual character. From this point of view their words can never grow obsolete.

As to the predictive element in prophecy, it may be discerned on every page, but it is not of the fortune-telling order. Most of the predictions refer to national events, in Israel or surrounding nations. Some of these enter into detail, as in the overthrow of Ahab at Ramoth-gilead foretold by Micaiah (1Ki 22:34), and the failure of Sennacheribs expedition announced by Isaiah. Others threaten in a more general way that punishment will follow disohedience, this strain becoming ever sterner and more pronounced as time advanced. These dark presages were fulfilled in the case of the Northern Kingdom in the 8th cent. b.c.; and afterwards when Judah refused to take the warning, her calamities culminated in the capture and overthrow of Jerusalem.

The prophets, however, are able to take a wider outlook, their penetrating gaze extends to the more distant future. This feature is so closely blended with the last, that it is sometimes hard to distinguish the two. It is the habit of the prophets to pass immediately and without warning from the nearer to the further horizon, and the question perpetually recursOf whom, of what period, speaketh the prophet this? That their power of foresight was akin to the moral insight which other exceptionally gifted persons have possessed, enabling them within limits to forecast the future, may be admitted. But no parallel has been found in any other nation to the phenomena of Hebrew prophecy, especially in the continuous succession of men carrying on the same remarkable work for generations. Many critics seek to eliminate the element of the supernatural from prophecy. But, whilst it may be granted that many prophecies were not fulfilled because they were given with a condition stated or implied, and that the poetical language of many others never was literally fulfilled, or intended to be so, there remain a considerable number of national predictions which were fulfilled in a very remarkable manner, especially when we bear in mind that they ran directly counter to the prejudices of the times and were sometimes uttered at the risk of very life to the daring messenger himself.

A candid examination of the whole conditions of the case must lead to the admission of a supernatural power and knowledge in Hebrew prophecyquite apart from the Messianic element, which will be considered separately. The attempts to explain this away have failed. The prophetic power was not exceptional political shrewdness, not the mere sanguine expectation of enthusiasts, or the gloomy foreboding of convinced pessimists; it was not like the second-sight of the Highlander, the effect of excitement upon a highly sensitive temperament; nor, as rationalism teaches, can all predictions be explained on the vaticinia post eventum principle, as history written after the event. On the other hand, supernatural enlightenment and direction must be included, whilst it may be freely admitted with Tholuck that the predictions were for the most part not of the accidental, but of the religiously necessary, that they were mostly general, sometimes hypothetical, consistent with the freedom of the persons addressed, and that while they contain what some call failures, in broad outline they reflect with wonderful accuracy and force the word of God in relation to the principles and progress of human history.

4. Messianic prophecy and its fulfilment.It was inevitable that teachers so commissioned by God to declare His will should take a wider range. Theirs was emphatically a message of hopethey were sent to prepare the way for a brighter future. Hence we find them passing, by rapid and almost insensible gradations, from immediate to far distant issues, and descriptions of a Final Consummation are blended with their very practical teaching as to present duty. In later Judaism these prospects of coming national felicity gathered round the term Messiah, the Anointed One, used to designate a coming Deliverer, through whose instrumentality the glories of the future age were to be realized. Christians believe that Jesus of Nazareth claimed to be, and was, the promised Messiah of the Jews, and the name Messianic prophecy has been given to predictions which refer directly to the ideal personage of whose coming the prophets were the heralds. But this narrower meaning of the phrase is for several reasons unsatisfactory. In the first place, Messiah is not a recognized OT term for this Deliverer; it may be questioned whether the word is once used in this sense. Further, there is a great body of prophetic utterances which belong to the Messianic era, though no mention is made of a personal King or Saviour. And from the Christian point of view, the preparation for the coming of Christ was very various: many prophecies are believed to find direct fulfilment in Him, in which neither the name nor the idea of a personal Messiah occurs; hence Messianic prophecy is now generally understood to mean all the OT promises which refer to the final accomplishment of Gods purposes for the nation and the world.

The whole OT religion is one of hope. Gods promises made to His people were too large, the ideal descriptions of their privileges were too lofty, to find full realization at any early stage of national development. And Israel itself was so intractable and unfaithful, and the gap between profession and practice was so painfully obvious, that the gaze of the people was ever fixed on the future. Sometimes the prospect was held out of a regenerated city, sometimes of an ideal temple and its worship, sometimes the idea prevailed of a clearer manifestation of God Himself in the midst of His people, sometimes expectation pointed to a Ruler who would embody all the qualities of righteousness. wisdom, and power which had been so conspicuously lacking in many monarchs of the Davidic line. Sometimes material considerations figured most largely in the pictures of the futurethe fruitfulness of the land, abundance of corn and wine and oil; sometimes a promise filled the air like music of an unprecedented peace which should bless the often invaded and always more or less disturbed country; sometimes a broad landscape picture was drawn of the extensive dominion and influence which Israel should exercise over the nations around. And it is obviously undesirable that forecasts which contain a more directly personal reference should be separated from these others with which they were closely connected in the prophets thoughts, especially as closer examination has tended to reduce the number of passages which may be described as directly Messianic. A few central ideas lay at the heart of the whole. The Covenant which bound together God and His people, the City in which He made His abode, the Temple hallowed by His presence, the Kingdom in which His law should prevail and His will be always done, were never very far from the minds of the ancient seers. Correspondingly, the Jew anticipated, and the prophet foretold, the coming of the ideal King who would dwell in the City and at the head of the Kingdom, the ideal Priest of the Temple, the ideal Prophet to declare the Divine purposes completely, and cement the Divine Covenant so that it should never again be broken. Brooding over the whole was the thought of the Divine Presence, which in the future was to be a Theophany indeed.

It was only in the 2nd cent. b.c. that the term Messiah became the focus in which all these rays were centralized. In the OT books the word is used as an epithet of the king, Jehovahs anointed; it is used of Cyrus, a heathen prince, in Isa 45:1 f.; possibly, though improbably, it may be understood as a proper name in Dan 9:25; whilst some would find in Psa 2:1-12 an almost unique use of the word to designate the ideal Prince of the house of David who should rule all the nations with unparalleled and illimitable sway. But if the term Messiah, standing alone to designate a unique office, appears comparatively late in Jewish history, a less clearly defined idea of a personal Ruler and Deliverer pervaded the national thought for centuries before. The terms (1) Son of David, pointing to a ruler of the Davidic line, together with Branch or Shoot, with the same connotation; (2) Son of Man, applied in OT to Ezekiel and others, sometimes indicating man in his frailty, but sometimes man as God intended him to be; and (3) Son of God, indicating the nation Israel, Israels judges and Israels king, alike representing the Most High upon earthall helped to prepare the way for the idea of a Messiah who should, in an undefined and unimaginable way, unite the excellences of the whole in His person. (4) One other name, such as would not have occurred to the earlier prophets, appears freely in Second Isaiah; and, as the event proved, influenced subsequent thought to an unexpectedly profound degreethe Servant of Jehovah as Sufferer and Saviour. It was along these lines and others kindred to them which have not been named, that the preparation was made by the prophets for the coming of Israels true Deliverer. When all are put together, it will be seen that if the number of passages referring directly to the Messiah by name is unexpectedly small, the number which prepared the thoughts of the people for His Advent is exceedingly large, and these are so various in their character that it might well have seemed impossible that they should all be realized in one Person.

It is quite impossible here to survey this vast field even in outline. But one point must not be lost sight ofthe distinction between those prophecies which are directly and those which are only indirectly Messianic. When the meaning of the prophets words is obviously too lofty to be applied in any sense to a mere earthly kingdom, or where the context necessitates it, we may assume that the prophets eyes were fixed, not on his contemporaries but on the far distance, and the period of the Consummation for which it was needful long to wait. But where the mention of local and temporal conditions or of human imperfections and limitations makes it clear that the immediate reference of a passage is to the prophets own times, whilst yet his glance shoots at intervals beyond them, there the words are only indirectly Messianic, and a typical significance is found in them. That is, the same ideas or principles are illustrated in the earlier as in the later dispensation, but in an inferior degree; the points of similarity and difference varying in their relative proportions, so that a person or an event or an institution under the Old Covenant may more or less dimly foreshadow the complete realization of the Divine purpose yet to come. The type may be described as a prophetic symbol.

The line between typical and directly prophetic passages is not always easy to draw. For example, it may be debated in what sense Psa 2:1-12; Psa 8:1-9; Psa 16:1-11; Psa 45:1-17; Psa 72:1-20 and others are Messianic, the probability being that in every case the primary thought of the Psalmist was occupied with the history that he knew, though his words in each case soared beyond their immediate occasion. So the language of Is 53which for centuries has been understood by Christian interpreters to refer directly to a suffering Messiahis now understood by some of the best Christian scholars as referring at least in the first instance to faithful Israel. An ideal personification of Israel, i.e., identified with the nation yet distinct from it, is represented as the true servant of God carrying out His purposes for the national purification, even through persecution, suffering, and death. Opinions may well differ as to whether this interpretation is adequate. But it must be borne in mind in any case that in the prophets we do find a remarkable combination of two featuresa wide outlook into the future implying preternatural insight, and very marked limitations of vision derived from the ideas of the times in which they lived. The object of the student of Messianic prophecy is to examine the relations between these two elements, and to show how out of the midst of comparatively narrow ideas, determined by the speakers political and historical environment, there arose others, lofty, wide, and comprehensive, with springing and germinant accomplishments, and thus the Spirit of Christ which was in the prophets testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glories that should follow them.

When we inquire concerning the fulfilment of prophecy, it is necessary to distinguish between (1) what the prophet meant by his words in the first instance, according to their plainest and simplest interpretation; (2) any realization, more or less imperfect, of his utterances in Israelitish history; (3) any more complete realization of them which may have taken place in Christ and Christianity, considered as the Divinely appointed fulfilment of Judaism; and (4) any appropriate application of the prophetic words which may be made in subsequent generations in further illustration of the principles laid down. If there be a wise and gracious God who orders all the events of human history, if He inspired the OT prophets to declare His will for some centuries before Christ, if the climax of His self-revelation was reached in the gift of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, and if He is still working out His purposes of righteous love among the nations of the modern world, it is to be expected that the declarations of the prophets will receive many fulfilments, many of them much wider, deeper, and more significant than the prophets themselves could possibly understand. But the meaning of the original words as first uttered should first of all be studied without any reference to subsequent events. Then the nature of the connexion between OT and NT should be clearly understood, and the principles on which the NT writers find a complete realization of the promises of the Old Covenant in the New. And afterwards it will not be difficult to see in what sense perpetually new applications of the prophets words may be legitimately made to the subsequent history of the Kingdom of God in the earth.

Every reader of the NT must have noticed that the words that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet are used very freely by the several writers, and not always in precisely the same sense. Christ Himself led the way and the Apostles followed Him in declaring that His work on earth was to fulfil both the Law and the prophets, and that the whole of the OT Scriptures pointed to Him and testified of Him. It was not so much that minute coincidences might be discerned between the phraseology of the OT and the events of His life, though it was natural that such should be noted by the Evangelists. But Jesus specially insisted upon the fact which it is most important for the student of the Bible to observe, viz. that what the Law failed to accomplish, and what the prophets and those who looked for the fulfilment of their words had failed to realize, He had come completely and perfectly to achieve. The emphasis lies, as might have been expected, upon the spiritual, rather than the literal, meaning of the Scriptures; and the most complete fulfilment of OT words lies not in a precise correspondence between circumstantial forecasts made long before with the details of His personal history, but in a spiritual realization of that great end which lawgivers, kings, prophets, and righteous men under the Old Covenant desired to see, but were not able.

OT prophecy, then, is best understood when it is viewed as one remarkable stage in a long and still more remarkable history. Some of its utterances have not been, and never will be fulfilled, in the sense that many of its students have expected. A large proportion of them have already been fulfilled, though in strange and unlooked-for fashion, by Him of whom it has been said that the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy (Rev 19:10). In the Person, life, sufferings, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Christ, and in the establishment of His Kingdom on the earth, is to be found the fullest realization of the glowing words of the prophets who prepared the way for His coming. For a still more complete fulfilment of their highest hopes and fairest visions the world still waits. But those who believe in the accomplishment of Gods faithful word thus far will not find it difficult to believe that our Lords words concerning the Law (Mat 5:18) may be adapted, and that in the highest spiritual sense they will be at last realizedTill heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass away from the prophets, till all things be accomplished.

W. T. Davison.

Fuente: Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible

Prophecy, Prophets

profe-si, profe-si, profets:

I.THE IDEA OF BIBLICAL PROPHECY

1.The Seer and Speaker of God

2.Prophetical Inspiration

3.Relation to Dreams

4.Freedom of Inspiration

5.Supernatural Visions of the Future

6.The Fulfillment

II.HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE PROPHETIC OFFICE

1.Abraham

2.Moses

3.Period of the Judges

4.Schools of Prophets

5.Period of the Kings

6.Literary Prophets, Amos, Hosea

7.Poetical Form of Prophecy

8.Prophets of Judah, Isaiah, and Others Down to Jeremiah

9.During the Exile, Ezekiel, Deutero-Isaiah, Daniel

10.After the Exile, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi

11.Cessation of Prophecy

12.Prophecy in the New Testament

III.HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF PROPHECY

1.Contents of Prophecy

2.Conception of the Messiah

3.Before the Exile (through Judgment to Deliverance)

4.Analogous Ideas among Heathen Peoples

5.During the Exile (Ezekiel, Deutero-Isaiah)

6.After the Exile (Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi)

7.Contemporaneous Character of Prophecy

8.Partial Character of Prophecy

9.Perspective Character of Prophecy

IV.ANALOGOUS PHENOMENA AMONG THE GENTILES

1.Necromancy and Technical Witchcraft

2.The Mantle Art

3.Contents of Extra-Biblical Oracles

LITERATURE

I. The Idea of Biblical Prophecy.

1. The Seer and Speaker of God:

According to the uniform teaching of the Bible the prophet is a speaker of or for God. His words are not the production of his own spirit, but come from a higher source. For he is at the same time, also, a seer, who sees things that do not lie in the domain of natural sight, or who hears things which human ears do not ordinarily receive; compare 1Sa 9:9, where nabh’, speaker, and ro’eh, seer, are used as synonymous terms. Jer 23:16 and Eze 13:2 f are particularly instructive in this regard. In these passages a sharp distinction is made between those persons who only claim to be prophets but who prophesy out of their own heart, and the true prophets who declare the word which the Lord has spoken to them. In the latter case the contents of the prophecy have not originated in their own reflection or calculation; and just as little is this prophecy the product of their own feelings, fears or hopes, but, as something extraneous to man and independent of him, it has with a divine certainty entered the soul of the prophet. The prophet has seen that which he prophesies, although he need not have seen it in the form of a real vision. He can also see words with his inner eyes (Isa 2:1, and often). It is only another expression for this when it is frequently said that God has spoken to the prophet. In this case too it is not necessary that there must have been a voice which he could hear phonetically through his natural ear. The main thing is that he must have been able sharply to distinguish the contents of this voice from his own heart, i.e. from his personal consciousness. Only in this way is he capable of speaking to the people in the name of God and able to publish his word as that of Yahweh. In this case he is the speaker of Yahweh (nabh’), or the mouth of the Lord (compare Eze 7:1 with Eze 4:16). Under these conditions he then regards it as absolute compulsion to speak, just as a person must be filled with fear when he hears a lion roar nearby (Amo 3:8). The words burn in his soul until he utters them (Jer 20:7, Jer 20:9).

2. Prophetical Inspiration:

The divine power, which comes over a human being and compels him to see or to hear things which otherwise would be hidden from him, is called by various terms expressive of inspiration. It is said that the Spirit of God has come over someone (Num 24:2); or has fallen upon him (Eze 11:5); or that the hand of Yahweh has come over him and laid hold of him (2Ki 3:15; Eze 1:3; Eze 3:14, Eze 3:22, and often); or that the Holy Spirit has been put on him as a garment, i.e. has been incorporated in him (1Ch 12:18; 2Ch 24:20); or that the Spirit of revelation has permanently descended upon him (Num 11:25 f; 2Ki 2:15; Isa 11:2; Isa 61:1); or that God has given this Spirit of His (Num 11:29; Isa 42:1); or pours Him out upon man (Joe 2:28 f (Hebrew 3:1 f)). But this inspiration is not such that it suppresses the human consciousness of the recipient, so that he would receive the word of God in the state of sleep or trance. But rather the recipient is in possession of his full consciousness, and is able afterward to give a clear account of what happened. Nor is the individuality of the prophet eliminated by this divine inspiration; unconsciously this individuality cooperates in the formal shaping of that which has been seen and heard. In accordance with the natural peculiarity of the prophet and with the contents of the message, the psychological condition of the recipient may be that of intense excitement or of calmness. As a rule the inspiration that takes possession of the prophets is evidenced also by an exalted and poetical language, which assumes a certain rhythmical character, but is not bound to a narrow and mechanical meter. It is, however, also possible that prophetical utterances find their expression in plain prose. The individual peculiarity of the prophet is a prime factor also in the form in which the revelation comes to him. In the one prophet we find a preponderance of visions; another prophet has no visions. But the visions of the future which he sees are given in the forms and the color which have been furnished by his own consciousness. All the more the form in which the prophet gives expression to his word of God is determined by his personal talents and gifts as also by his experiences.

3. Relation to Dreams:

In a certain respect the dream can be cited as an analogous phenomenon, in which also the ideas that are slumbering in the soul uninvited put in their appearance without being controlled by consciousness and reason. On the other hand, prophecy differs pecifically from dreams, first, because the genuine prophetical utterance is received when the prophet is clearly conscious, and, secondly, because such an utterance brings with it a much greater degree of certainty and a greater guaranty of its higher origin than is done even by a dream that seems to be prophetical. In Jer 23:25 ff it is declared that these two are entirely dissimilar, and the relation between the two is compared to straw and wheat. The Moslem Arabs also put a much lower estimate on the visionary dream than on the prophetic vision in a waking condition.

4. Freedom of Inspiration:

Because this Spirit of God acts with full freedom, He can select His organs at will from among every station, age, or sex. The Spirit is not confined to any priestly class or organization. It indeed was the case at times that a prophet gathered disciples around himself, who could themselves in turn also be seized by his spirit, although the transmission of this spirit was a difficult matter (2Ki 2:10). Yet genuine prophecies continued to be at all times a free gift of the sovereign God. Amos (Amo 7:14 f) appeals expressly to this fact, that he did not himself choose the prophet’s calling nor was the pupil of a prophetic school, but that he had been directly called by Yahweh from his daily occupation as a shepherd and workman. In the same way we indeed find prophets who belonged to the priestly order (Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and others), but equally great is the number of those who certainly did not so belong. Further, age made no difference in the call to the prophetic office. Even in his earliest youth Samuel was called to be a prophet (1Sa 3:1 ff), and it did not avail Jeremiah anything when he excused himself because of his youth (Jer 1:6). Then, too, a woman could be seized by this Spirit. From time to time prophetesses appeared, although the female sex is by no means so prominent here as it is in the sorcery of the heathen. See PROPHETESS. As an exceptional case the Spirit of God could lay hold even of a person who inwardly was entirely estranged from Him and could make an utterance through him (compare Saul, 1Sa 10:11; 1Sa 19:24; Balaam, Nu 23 f; Caiaphas, Joh 11:51). As a rule, however, God has selected such prophetic organs for a longer service. These persons are called and dedicated for this purpose by Him through a special act (compare Moses Exo 3:1 ff; 1Ki 19:16, 1Ki 19:19 ff; Isa 6:1-13; Jer 1; Ezek 1). This moment was decisive for their whole lives and constituted their authorization as far as they themselves and others were concerned. Yet for each prophetic appearance these men receive a special enlightenment. The prophet does not at all times speak in an inspired state; compare Nathan (2Sa 7:3 ff), who afterward was compelled to take back a word which he had spoken on his own authority. Characteristic data on the mental state of the prophets in the reception and in the declaration of the divine word are found in Jer 15:16 f; Jer 20:7 ff. Originally Jeremiah felt it as a joy that Yahweh spoke to him (compare Eze 3:3), but then he lost all pleasure in life and would have preferred not to have uttered this word, but he could not do as he desired.

5. Supernatural Visions of the Future:

The attempt has often been made to explain prophecy as a natural product of purely human factors. Rationalistic theologians regarded the prophets as enthusiastic teachers of religion and morals, as warm patriots and politicians, to whom they ascribed nothing but a certain ability of guessing the future. But this was no explanation of the facts in the case. The prophets were themselves conscious of this, that they were not the intellectual authors of their higher knowledge. This consciousness is justified by the fact that they were in a condition to make known things which lay beyond their natural horizon and which were contrary to all probability. Those cases are particularly instructive in this respect which beyond a doubt were recorded by the prophets themselves. Ezekiel could indeed, on the basis of moral and religious reflections, reach the conviction that Zedekiah of Jerusalem would not escape his punishment for his political treachery and for his disobedience to the word of Yahweh; but he could never from this source have reached the certainty that this king, as the prophet describes the case in Eze 12:8 ff, was to be taken captive while trying to escape from the besieged city and was then to be blinded and taken to Babylon. Just as little could he in Babylon know the exact day when the siege of Jerusalem began (Eze 24:2). If this prophet had learned of these things in a natural way and had afterward clothed them in the form of prophecy, he would have been guilty of a deception, something unthinkable in the case of so conscientious a preacher of morality. But such cases are frequently met with. Jeremiah predicts to Hananiah that he would die during the year (Jer 28:16), but it is not only such matters of detail that presuppose an extraordinary vision of the prophet. The whole way also in which Jeremiah predicts the destruction of Jerusalem as inevitable, in direct contrast to the hopes of the Jerusalemites and to the desires of his own heart, shows that he was speaking under divine compulsion, which was more powerful than his own reflections and sympathies. On any other presupposition his conduct would have been reprehensible cowardice. The case of Isaiah is exactly the same. When he gives to Ahaz the word of God as a guaranty that the Syrians and the Ephraimites would not capture Jerusalem (Isa 7:4 ff), and when he promises Hezekiah that the Assyrians would not shoot an arrow into the city, but would return without having accomplished their purpose (Isa 37:22, Isa 37:33), these things were so much in contradiction to all the probabilities of the course events would take that he would have been a frivolous adventurer had he not received his information from higher sources. Doubtless it was just these predictions which established and upheld the influence of the prophets. Thus in the case of Amos it was his prediction of a great earthquake, which did occur two years later (Amo 1:1); in the case of Elijah, the prediction of the long dearth (1Ki 17:1); in the case of Elisha the undertakings of the enemies (2Ki 6:12), and in other cases. It is indeed true that the contents of the prophetic discourses are not at all confined to the future. Everything that God has to announce to mankind, revelations concerning His will, admonitions, warnings, He is able to announce through the mouth of the prophet. But His determinations with reference to the future as a rule are connected with prophetical utterances of the latter kind. The prophets are watchmen, guardians of the people, who are to warn the nation, because they see the dangers and the judgments approaching, which must put in their appearance if the divine will is disregarded. The prophets interpret also for the people that which is happening and that which has occurred, e.g. the defeats which they have suffered at the hands of their enemies, or the grasshopper plague (Joel), or a famine. They lay bare the inner reason for external occurrences and explain such events in their connection with the providential government of God. This gives to prophecy a powerful inner unity, notwithstanding the great differences of times and surrounding circumstances. It is prophecy which the Hebrew people must thank for their higher conception of history. This people know of a Highest Author of all things and of a positive end, which all things that transpire must serve. God’s plan has for its purpose to bring about the complete supremacy of His will among the children of men.

6. The Fulfillment:

In genuine prophecy, according to Biblical conceptions, the fulfillment constitutes an integral part. This is set up by Deu 18:21 f as a proof of the genuineness of a prophetic utterance. The prophetic word falls to the ground (1Sa 3:19) if it is not raised up (, hekm, fulfil, for which we more rarely find , mille’, but regularly in the New Testament , plerousthai being fulfilled) by the course of events. It would remain an empty word if it did not attain to its full content through its realization. In fact, in the word spoken by the prophet itself there dwells a divine power, so that at the moment when he speaks the event takes place, even if it is not yet visible to man. This realization is also not infrequently represented symbolically by the prophet in confirmation of his prediction. Thus in a certain sense it is the prophet himself who through his word builds up and pulls down, plants and roots out (Jer 1:10; Jer 25:15 ff). But the fulfillment can be judged by the contemporaries in the sense of Deu 18:22 only when this fulfillment refers to the near future and when special emphasis is laid on external events. In these cases the prediction of certain events assumes the significance of a sign (compare Jer 28:16; Isa 8:1 ff; Isa 37:30, and elsewhere). In other cases it is only later generations who can judge of the correctness of a prediction or of a threat. In this way in Zec 1:6 the fulfillment of a threat is declared, and in the New Testament often the fulfillment of a promise is after a long time pointed out. But it is not the case that a genuine prophecy must be fulfilled like an edict of fate. Such prophecy is not an inevitable decree of fate, but is a word of the living God to mankind, and therefore conditioned ethically, and God can, if repentance has followed, withdraw a threat (Jer 18:2 ff; case of Jonah), or the punishment can be mitigated (1Ki 21:29). A prediction, too, Yahweh can recall if the people prove unworthy (Jer 18:9 f) . A favorable or an unfavorable prediction can also be postponed, as far as its realization is concerned, to later times, if it belongs to the ultimate counsels of God, as e.g. the final judgment and deliverance on the last day. This counsel also may be realized successively. In this case the prophet already collects into one picture what is realized gradually in a longer historical development. The prophet in general spoke to his hearers in such a way as could be understood by them and could be impressed on them. It is therefore not correct to demand a fulfillment pedantically exact in the form of the historical garb of the prophecy. The main thing is that the divine thought contained in the prophecy be entirely and completely realized. But not infrequently the finger of God can be seen in the entirely literal fulfillment of certain prophecies. This is especially the case in the New Testament in the appearance of the Son of Man, in whom all the rays of Old Testament prophecy have found their common center.

II. Historical Development of the Prophetic Office.

1. Abraham:

It is a characteristic peculiarity of the religion of the Old Testament that its very elementary beginnings are of a prophetical nature. The fathers, above all Abraham, but also Isaac and Jacob, are the recipients of visions and of divine revelations. Especially is this true of Abraham, who appeared to the foreigners, to whom he was neither kith or kin, to be indeed a prophet (nabh’) (Gen 20:7; compare Psa 105:15), although in his case the command to preach the word was yet absent.

2. Moses:

Above all, the creative founder of the Israelite national religion, Moses, is a prophet in the eminent sense of the word. His influence among the people is owing neither to his official position, nor to any military prowess, but solely and alone to the one circumstance, that since his call at the burning bush God has spoken to him. This intercourse between God and Moses was ever of a particularly intimate character. While other men of God received certain individual messages only from time to time and through the mediation of dreams and visions, Yahweh spoke directly and face to face with Moses (Num 12:6 ff; Deu 34:10; compare Exo 33:11). Moses was the permanent organ through whom Yahweh brought about the Egyptian plagues and through whom He explained what these meant to His people, as also through whom He led and ruled them. The voice of Moses too had to explain to them the divine signs in the desert and communicate to them the commandments of God. The legislation of Moses shows that he was not only filled with the Spirit of God occasionally, but that he abode with God for longer periods of time and produced something that is a well-ordered whole. A production such as the Law is the result of a continuous association with God.

3. Period of the Judges:

Since that time revelation through prophecy was probably never entirely wanting in Israel (Deu 18:15). But this fountain did not always flow with the same fullness or clearness. During the period of the Judges the Spirit of God urged the heroes who served Yahweh rather to deeds than to words. Yet Deborah enjoyed a high rank as a prophetess, and for a long time pronounced decisions of justice in the name of the Lord before she, through her prophetical utterances, aroused the people to rise up against their oppressors. What is said in 1Sa 3:1 concerning the times of Eli can be applied to this whole period, namely that the word and vision of the prophet had become rare in the land. All the more epoch-making was the activity of Samuel, who while yet a boy received divine revelations (1Sa 3:1 ff). He was by the whole people regarded as a seer whose prophecies were always fulfilled (1Sa 3:19 f). The passage 1Sa 9:6 ff shows that the people expected of such a man of God that he should also as a clairvoyant come to the assistance of the people in the troubles of life. Such a professional clairvoyant, indeed, Samuel was not, as he was devoted entirely to the service of his God and of his people and obeyed the Divine Spirit, even in those cases when he was compelled to act contrary to his personal inclinations, as was the case when the kingdom was established in Israel (1Sa 8:6 ff).

4. Schools of Prophets:

Since the days of Samuel we hear of schools of prophets, or sons of prophets. These associations probably originated in this way, that an experienced prophet attracted to himself bands of youths, who sought to receive a measure of his spirit. These disciples of the prophets, together with their families, lived in colonies around the master. Possibly Samuel was the first who founded such a school of prophets. For in or near the city of Ramah we first find nayoth, or colonies of such disciples (1Sa 19:18 f; 1Sa 20:1). Among these pupils is found to a much greater extent than among the teachers a certain ecstatic feature. They arouse their feelings through music and induce a frantic condition which also affects others in the same way, in which state they prophesy and, throwing off their garments, fall to the ground. In later times too we find traces of such ecstatic phenomena. Thus e.g. in Zec 13:6; 1Ki 20:37, 1Ki 20:38, the wounds on the breast or on the forehead recall the self-mutilation of the priests of Baal (1Ki 18:28). The deeds, suggestive of what the dervishes of our own day do, probably were phenomena quite similar to the action of the prophets of the surrounding tribes. But that prophecy in Israel was not, as is now not infrequently claimed, merely a less crude form of the heathen prophetic institution, is proved by such men as Moses and Samuel, who even in their times represent something much higher. Also in the colonies of prophets there was assuredly not to be found merely an enthusiasm without the Spirit of God. Proof for this is Samuel, the spiritual father of this colony, as Elijah was for the later colonies of this kind. These places were rather the centers of a religious life, where communion with God was sought by prayer and meditation, and where the recollection of the great deeds of God in the past seemed to prepare for the reception of new revelations. From such centers of theocratic ideas and ideals without a doubt there came forth also corresponding influences that affected the people. Perhaps not only was sacred music cultivated at these places but also sacred traditions, which were handed down orally and in writing. Certain it is that at these colonies the religion of Yahweh prevailed.

5. Period of the Kings:

During the period of the kings prophetically inspired men frequently appeared, who demanded even of the kings that they should submit to their divinely-inspired word. Saul, who refused such submission, perished as the result of this conflict. David owed much to the support of the prophets Samuel, Nathan, Gad (1Sa 16:1 ff; 2 Sam 7; 2Ch 29:25, and elsewhere). But David also bowed in submission when these prophets rebuked him because of his transgression of the divine commands (2 Sam 12; 24). His son Solomon was educated by the prophet Nathan. But the destruction of his kingdom was predicted by the prophet Abijah, the Shilonite (1Ki 11:29 ff). Since Yahweh, as the supreme Sovereign, has the right to enthrone or to dethrone kings, this is often done through the mouths of the prophets (compare 1Ki 14:7 ff; 1Ki 16:1 ff). After the division of the kingdom we find Shemaiah forbidding Rehoboam to begin a war with his brethren of Israel (1Ki 12:21; compare 2Ch 11:2 ff; compare another mission of the same prophet, 2Ch 12:5 ff). On the other hand in the Northern Kingdom the prophetic word is soon turned against the untheocratic rule of Jeroboam (1 Ki 13; 14). It is in this very same Northern Kingdom that the prophets unfolded their full activity and generally in opposition to the secular rulers, although there was no lack of accommodating prophets, who were willing to sanction everything that the king wanted. The opposition of the true prophets to these false representatives of prophecy is illustrated in the story of Micaiah, the son of Imlah (1 Ki 22). But a still higher type of prophecy above the ordinary is found in Elijah, whose historic mission it was to fight to the finish the battle between the followers of Yahweh and the worship of the Tyrian Baal. He was entirely a man of action; every one of his words is a deed on a grand scale (compare concerning Elijah and Elisha the article RELIGION OF ISRAEL). His successor Elisha inherited from him not only his mantle, but also a double measure of his spiritual gifts. He exhibits the prophetic office more from its loving side. He is accustomed to visit the schools of prophets found scattered throughout the land, calls the faithful together around himself on the Sabbaths and the new moons (2Ki 4:23), and in this way establishes centers of a more spiritual culture than was common elsewhere among the people. We read that first-fruits were brought to him as to the priests (2Ki 4:42). But while the activity of Elijah was entirely in antagonism to the ruling house in the kingdom, this feature is not entirely lacking in the work of Elisha also. He has even been charged with wicked conspiracies against the dynasty of Omri and the king of Syria (2 Ki 8; 9). His conduct in connection with these events can be excused only on the ground that he was really acting in the name of a higher Master. But in general it was possible for Elisha, after the radical change in public sentiment that had followed upon the work of Elijah, in later time to assume a more friendly attitude toward the government and the people. He often assisted the kings in their arduous contests with the Syrians (compare 2Ki 6:8 ff; 2Ki 13:14 ff). His deeds are generally of a benevolent character. In connection with these he exhibits to a remarkable degree the gift of prophetic foresight (2Ki 4:16; 2Ki 5:26; 2Ki 6:8 ff; 2Ki 7:1 ff; 2Ki 8:10, 2Ki 8:12; 2Ki 9:6 ff; 2Ki 13:19). Jonah, too, the son of Amittai, had at that time a favorable message for the Northern Kingdom (2Ki 14:25).

6. Literary Prophets, Amos, Hosea:

However, the flourishing condition of the kingdom under Jeroboam II had an unfavorable influence on its spiritual development. Soon Amos and Hosea were compelled to announce to this kingdom its impending destruction through a great world-power. These two prophets have left us books. To put prophetic utterances into written form had already been introduced before this. At any rate, many scholars are of the conviction that the prophecies of Obadiah and Joel belong to an earlier period, although others place them in the post-exilic period. In any case, the expectation of a day of settlement by Yahweh with His people was already in the days of Amos common and current (Amo 5:18 ff). As the writing of individual prophecies (Isa 8:1 f; Isa 30:8; Hab 2:2 f) had for its purpose the preserving of these words in permanent authentic form and later to convince the reader of their wonderful fulfillment, thus too the writing down of larger collections of prophecies had for its purpose to intensify the power of the prophetic word and to secure this as a permanent possession of the people (Jer 30:2; Jer 36:1 ff). Pupils of the prophets assisted them in this writing and in preserving their books (compare Jer 36:4; Isa 8:16).

7. Poetical Form of Prophecy:

It is to this custom that we owe our knowledge of the very words of the utterances of many of the prophets of a later period. In addition to the larger books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, we have a number of smaller prophetical books, which have been united into the Book of the Twelve Prophets. These utterances as a rule exhibited an elevated form of language and are more or less poetical. However, in modern times some scholars are inclined to go too far in claiming that these addresses are given in a carefully systematized metrical form. Hebrew meter as such is a freer form of expression than is Arabic or Sanskrit meter, and this is all the more the case with the discourses of the prophets, which were not intended for musical rendering, and which are expressed in a rhythmically-constructed rhetoric, which appears now in one and then in another form of melody, and often changes into prose.

8. Prophets in Judah Isaiah, and Others down to Jeremiah:

In the kingdom of Judah the status of the prophets was somewhat more favorable than it was in Ephraim. They were indeed forced in Jerusalem also to contend against the injustice on the part of the ruling classes and against immorality of all kinds. But in this kingdom there were at any rate from time to time found kings who walked more in the footsteps of David. Thus Asa followed the directions of the prophet Azariah (2Ch 15:1 ff). It is true that the prophet Hanani censured this king, but it was done for a different reason. Jehoshaphat also regularly consulted the prophets. Among those who had dealings with him Elisha is also mentioned (2Ki 3:14), as also some other prophets (compare 2Ch 19:2; 20:14-37). The greatest among the prophets during the period of the Assyrian invasions was Isaiah, who performed the duties of his office for more than 40 years, and under the kings Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, and possibly too under Manasseh, through his word exercised a powerful influence upon the king and the nation. Although a preacher of judgments, he at critical times appeared also as a prophet of consolation. Nor did he despise external evidences of his prophetic office (compare Isa 7:11; Isa 38:22, Isa 38:8). His contemporary Micah is in full agreement with him, although he was not called to deal with the great of the land, with kings, or statesmen, as was the mission of Isaiah. Nahum, Zephaniah and Habakkuk belong rather to the period of transition from the Assyrian to the Chaldean periods. In the days of Josiah the prophetess Huldah had great influence in Jerusalem (2Ki 22:14). Much more important under this same king was the prophet Jeremiah, who was called by God for a great mission. This prophet during the siege and destruction of Jerusalem and after that time spoke as an unyielding yet deeply feeling exponent of God, and was compelled again and again to dash to the ground the false hopes of the patriots, whenever these arose. Not so firm was his contemporary and fellow-sufferer Uriah (Jer 26:20).

9. During the Exile, Ezekiel, Deutero-Isaiah, Daniel:

In the time of the exile itself we find the period of the activity of Ezekiel. It was significant that this prophet became the recipient of divine revelations while on Babylonian territory. His work was, in accordance with the condition of affairs, more that of a pastor and literary man. He seems also to have been a bodily sufferer. His abnormal conditions became symbolical signs of that which he had to proclaim. Deutero-Isaiah, too (Isa 40 ff), spoke during the Babylonian period, namely at its close, and prepared for the return. The peculiar prophecies of Daniel are also accorded to a prophet living during the exile, who occupied a distinguished position at the court of the heathen rulers, and whose apocalyptic utterances are of a kind different from the discourses of the other prophets, as they deal more with the political condition of the world and the drama of history, in so far as this tends toward the establishment of the supremacy of Yahweh. These prophecies were collected in later times and did not receive their final and present form until the Greek period at the beginning of the 2nd century BC.

10. After the Exile, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi:

After the return from Babylon the Jews were exhorted by Haggai and Zechariah to rebuild their temple (about 520 BC). At that time there were still to be found prophets who took a hostile attitude to the men of God. Thus Nehemiah (Neh 6:6-14) was opposed by hostile prophets as also by a prophetess, Noadiah. In contrast with these, Malachi is at all times in accord with the canonical prophets, as he was an ardent advocate for the temple cult of Yahweh, not in the sense of a spiritless and senseless external worship, but as against the current indifference to Yahweh. His style and his language, too, evidence a late age. The lyrical form has given way to the didactic. This is also probably the time when the present Book of Jonah was written, a didactic work treating of an older tradition.

11. Cessation of Prophecy:

Malachi is regarded by the Jews as the last really canonical prophet. While doubtless there was not a total lack of prophetically endowed seers and speakers of God also in the closing centuries of the pre-Christian era, nevertheless the general conviction prevailed that the Spirit of God was no longer present, e.g. in the times of the Maccabees (compare 1 Macc 4:46; 9:27; 14:41). It is true that certain modern critics ascribe some large sections of the Book of Isa, as well as of other prophets, even to a period as late as the Greek. But this is refuted by the fact mentioned in Ecclesiasticus (beginning of the 2nd century BC) that in the writer’s time the prophetical Canon appeared already as a closed collection. Daniel is not found in this collection, but the Book of the Twelve Minor Prophets is. It was during this period that apocalyptic literature began to flourish, many specimens of which are foundamong the Apocrypha and the Pseudepigrapha. These books consist of eschatological speculations, not the product of original inspiration, but emanating from the study of the prophetic word. The very name Pseudepigrapha shows that the author issued his work, not under his own name, but under the pseudonym of some man of God from older times, such as Enoch, Ezra, Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Baruch, and others. This fact alone proves the secondary character of this class of literature. See APOCALYPTIC LITERATURE.

12. Prophecy in the New Testament:

Malachi finds a successor in John the Baptist, whose coming the former had predicted. John is the greatest of the prophets, because he could directly point to Him who completed the old covenant and fulfilled its promises. All that we know in addition concerning the times of Jesus shows that the prophetical gift was yet thought of as possibly dwelling in many, but that prophecy was no longer the chief spiritual guide of the people (compare e.g. Josephus, Ant., XIII, xi, 2; XV, x, 5, among the Essenes, or in the case of Hyrcanus, op. cit., XIII, x, 7). Josephus himself claims to have had prophetic gifts at times (compare BJ, III, viii, 9). He is thinking in this connection chiefly of the prediction of some details. Such prophets and prophetesses are reported also in the New Testament. In Jesus Christ Himself the prophetic office reached its highest stage of development, as He stood in a more intimate relation than any other being to His Heavenly Father and spoke His word entirely and at all times. In the Christian congregation the office of prophecy is again found, differing from the proclamation of the gospel by the apostles, evangelists, and teachers. In the New Testament the terms , prophetes, , prophetea, , propheteuo, signify speaking under the extraordinary influence of the Holy Ghost. Thus in Act 11:27 f (prophecy of a famine by Agabus); Act 21:10 f (prediction of the sufferings of Paul); Act 13:1 f (exhortation to mission work); Act 21:9 ff (prophetical gift of the daughters of Philip). Paul himself also had this gift (Act 16:6 ff; Act 18:9; Act 22:17 ff; Act 27:23 f). In the public services of the church, prophecy occupied a prominent position (see especially 1 Cor 14). A prophetical book in a special sense is the Apocalypse of John. The gift of prophecy was claimed by many also in later times. But this gift ceased more and more, as the Christian church more and more developed on the historical basis of revelation as completed in Christ. Especially in spiritually aroused eras in the history of the church, prophecy again puts in its appearance. It has never ceased altogether, but on account of its frequent misuse the gift has become discredited. Jesus Himself warned against false prophets, and during the apostolic times it was often found necessary to urge the importance of trying spirits (1Jo 4:1; 1Co 12:10; 1Co 14:29).

III. Historical Development of Prophecy.

1. Contents of Prophecy:

The contents of prophecy are by no means merely predictions concerning the future. That which is given by the Spirit to the prophet can refer to the past and to the present as well as to the future. However, that which is revealed to the prophet finds its inner unity in this, that it all aims to establish the supremacy of Yahweh. Prophecy views also the detailed events in their relation to the divine plan, and this latter has for its purpose the absolute establishment of the supremacy of Yahweh in Israel and eventually on the entire earth. We are accustomed to call those utterances that predict this final purpose the Messianic prophecies. However, not only those that speak of the person of the Messiah belong to this class, but all that treat of the coming of the kingdom of God.

2. Conception of the Messiah:

The beginnings of the religion of Israel, as also the chief epoch in its development, emanated from prophetical revelations. The prophet Moses elevated the tribal religion into a national religion, and at the same time taught the people to regard the religion of the fathers more ethically, spiritually and vitally. Samuel crowned the earthly form of the concrete theocracy by introducing an Anointed of Yahweh in whom the covenant relation between Yahweh and Israel was concentrated personally. The Anointed of the Lord entered into a much more intimate relationship to Yahweh as His Son or Servant than it was possible for the whole people of Israel to do, although as a people they were also called the servant or the son of God (compare Psa 2:7 f; 110). The Psalms of David are a proof of this, that this high destiny of the kingdom was recognized. David himself became a prophet in those hymns in which he describes his own unique relation to Yahweh. But the actual kings of history as a rule corresponded too imperfectly to this idea. For this reason the word prophetic already in David’s time directs to the future, when this relationship shall be more perfectly realized (2Sa 7:12 ff; compare David’s own words, 2Sa 23:4 ff). See MESSIAH.

3. Before the Exile (Through Judgment to Deliverance):

Solomon completed the external equipment of theocracy by the erection of the temple. But it was just his reign that constituted the turning-point, from which time on the prophets begin to emphasize the judgment to come, i.e. the dissolution of the external existence of the kingdom of Yahweh. Yet prophecy at all times does this in such a manner, that a kernel of the divine establishment on Zion remains intact. The divine establishment of the sanctuary and the kingdom cannot be destroyed; all that is necessary is that they be restored in greater purity and dignity. This can be seen also in Amos, who predicts that the fallen tabernacle of David shall be raised up again (Amo 9:11 ff), which shall then be followed by a condition of undisturbed blessing. The same is found in Hosea, who sees how all Israel is again united under David the king of the last times, when between God and the people, between heaven and earth, an unbroken covenant of love shall be made (Hos 2:1 f, 18 ff); and also in Isaiah, who predicts that during the time of the conquest and subjection of the country by the Gentiles a Son of David shall be born in a miraculous manner and attain supremacy (Isa 7:14; Isa 9:2 ff; Isa 11:1 ff), and who speaks constantly of that divine establishment on Zion (compare the quiet waters of Shiloah, Isa 8:6), the foundation stone that has been laid by Yahweh (Isa 28:16, etc.). Micah, his contemporary, does the same, and in an entirely similar manner predicts that the radical judgment of destruction which shall come over the temple and the royal palace shall be followed by the wondrous King of Peace from Bethlehem (Mic 5:1 ff). Possibly even at a somewhat earlier date Zec 9:9 described this future ruler in similar terms. In general it is not probable that Isaiah and Micah were the first to speak so personally of this King. They seem to presuppose that their contemporaries were acquainted with this idea.

4. Analogous Ideas Among Heathen Peoples:

In recent times scholars have pointed to the fact that in the old Orient, among the Egyptians, the Babylonians and elsewhere, the expectation of a miraculously-born King of the future, who was to bring to His own people and to all nations salvation and peace, was entertained at an early period. Yet so much is certain, that Isaiah and Micah did not base their hopes on the vague dreams of the Gentileworld, but upon the prophetic establishment of a divine sanctuary and kingdom of Zion. The personal figure of this Son of David is not so much in the foreground in the other prophets down to the period of the exile. These prophets mention only casually the Good Shepherd, as e.g. Jer 23:1 ff; Jer 33:12 ff; Eze 34:23 f. But after that time this Messianic expectation became a permanent element in the hopes of Israel.

In the meanwhile, prophecy had thrown much light on the ways of God, which prepare for His kingdom on earth. Even long before Amos (Amo 5:18 ff) the idea of a day of Yahweh, which was to be a day of revelation, on which God makes a settlement with the nations, must have been generally known, since Amos is already compelled to protest against the abuse of this expectation. But hand in hand with this settlement we find also and at all times the expectation of the exaltation and of the salvation of Israel. Yet the prophets have all emphasized that Israel and Judah must first be thoroughly purified by a judgment, before the land could, through God’s grace, be glorified and richly blessed. The judgment which the preexilic prophets are continually predicting is, however, only a means to an end. This judgment is not the final word of the Lord, as Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Micah and Habakkuk constantly teach. They announce that return to Yahweh and obedience to His commandments is the way to salvation (Hos 6:1; Isa 1:18; Jer 4:1, and often). However, the prophets know that the people will not turn again to God, but that first the Jewish state must be entirely overthrown (Isa 6:1-13). It is particularly deserving of notice, that believing trust in Yahweh is regarded as the positive means for deliverance (Isa 7:9; Isa 30:15; Hab 2:4). It is through this that the remnant of the faithful, the kernel of the people, is saved. Also in the case of Jeremiah, whose work it was to predict the immediate destruction of Judah, there is not absent a kind of an esoteric book of consolation. His battle cry for the future is Yahweh our righteousness (Jer 23:6; Jer 33:16). In his case we find a rich spiritualization of religion. The external customs, circumcision and the like, he declares, do no good, if the true state of the heart is lacking. Even the ark of the covenant is unnecessary and is discarded in the enlargement of the sanctuary. Ezekiel, who lays more stress on the external ordinances, nevertheless agrees with Jeremiah in this, that Jerusalem together with the temple must fall. Only after this destruction the prophet in his spirit builds the sanctuary again; notwithstanding the external character of his restoration, there is yet found in his picture a further development of its spiritual character. The ethical rights and the responsibility of the individual are strongly emphasized (Ezekiel 18; 33). The land becomes transformed; the Gentiles are received into the covenant of God.

5. During the Exile (Ezekiel, Deutero-Isaiah):

Deutero-Isaiah (Isa 40 through 66), during the time of the Babylonian captivity, enriches prophecy in an extraordinary manner, through the figure of the true Servant of Yahweh, who in a peaceful way, through his words of instruction and especially through his innocent sufferings and his vicarious deeds, converts Israel, the undeserving servant, and also wins over the Gentileworld to Yahweh. It was not possible that the picture of a suffering man of God, who through his death as a martyr attains to exaltation, should be suggested to the Jews by the altogether different figure of a death and resurrection of a Babylonian god (Thammuz-Adonis!). Since the unjust persecutions of Joseph and David they were acquainted with the sufferings of the just, and Jeremiah’s life as a prophet was a continuous martyrdom. But the writer of the second part of Isaiah had before his eyes a vision that far excelled all of these types in purity and in greatness to such a degree as did David’s Son in Isaiah and Micah surpass His great ancestor. He brings to a completion the kingdom of God through teaching, suffering and death, and attains to the glory of rulership. In this way He unites the offices of prophet, priest and king.

6. After the Exile (Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi):

After the exile prophecy continues its work. The Messianic expectations, too, are developed further by Haggai, and still more by Zechariah. Malachi announces the advent of the Day of Yahweh, but expects before this a complete purification of the people of God. God Himself will come, and His angel will prepare the way for Him. The visions of Daniel picture the transformation of the world into a kingdom of God. The latter will mark the end of the history of the world. It comes from above; the earthly kingdoms are from below, and are pictured as beasts; the Ruler of the kingdom of God is a Son of man. The latter comes with the clouds of the heaven to take possession of His kingdom (Dan 7:13 ff). Then the judgment of the world will take place and include also each human being, who before this will bodily arise from the dead, in order to enter upon blessedness or condemnation. Here we find indicated a universal expansion of the kingdom of God extending over the whole world and all mankind.

7. Contemporaneous Character of Prophecy:

If we survey this prophecy of the kingdom of God and its divinely-blessed Ruler, the Messiah, from a Christian standpoint, we find that a grand divine unity connects its different elements. The form of this prophecy is indeed conditioned by the views and ideas of the time of utterance. The prophets were compelled to speak so that their hearers could understand them. Only gradually these limitations and forms become spiritualized, e.g. the kingdom of God is still pictured by the prophets as established around the local center of Zion. Mt. Zion is in a concrete manner exalted, in order to give expression to its importance, etc. It is the New Testament fulfillment that for the first time gives adequate form to divine revelation. At least in the person of Jesus Christ this perfection is given, although the full unfolding of this kingdom is yet a matter of the future.

8. Partial Character of Prophecy:

A second characteristic feature of prophecy is the partial nature of the individual prophetical utterances and prophetical pictures. One picture must be supplemented by the others, in order not to be misunderstood. Thus, e.g. according to Isa 11:14; Zec 9:13 ff, we might expect that the kingdom of God was to be established by force of arms. But the same prophets show in other utterances (Isa 9:6 f; Zec 9:9 f) that these warlike expressions are to be understood figuratively, since the Messianic King is more than all others a Prince of Peace.

9. Perspective Character of Prophecy:

A third feature that deserves attention is the perspective character of prophecy. The prophet sees together and at once upon the surface of the pictures things which are to be fulfilled only successively and gradually. Thus, e.g. Deutero-Isaiah sees in the near future the return from captivity, and directly connected with this a miraculous glorification of the city of God. The return did as a matter of fact take place soon afterward, but the glorification of the city in which Yahweh Himself had promised to dwell was yet in the distant future. The succeeding prophets, Haggai and Zechariah, predict that this consummation shall take place in the future.

Also in the predictions concerning the future made by Jesus and in the Apocalypse of John these characteristics of prophecy, its contemporaneous and perspective and at times symbolical features, are not disregarded. The firm prophetic word is intended to give the congregation certain directive lines and distinctive work. But an adequate idea of what is to come the Christian church will become compelled to form for itself, when the fulfillment and completion shall have taken place.

IV. Analogous Phenomena Among the Gentiles.

1. Necromancy and Technical Witchcraft:

The uniqueness of Biblical prophecy is grasped fully only when we try to find analogies among the Gentile peoples. Here we find everywhere indeed the art of sooth-saying, the headquarters for which was Babylon. But with this art the prophecy of the Old Testament stands out in bold contrast (compare the prohibitions in Lev 19:26, Lev 19:31; Lev 20:6, Lev 20:27; Deu 18:10 ff, prohibitions that refer to necromancy for the purpose of discovering the future). This art was practiced through a medium, a person who had an ‘obh (Babylonian, ubi), i.e. a spirit that brought forth the dead in order to question them. The spirits were thought to speak in murmurings or piping sounds (Isa 8:19), which could be imitated by the medium (ventriloquist). According to the Law, which forbade this under penalty of death, Saul had tried to destroy those who practiced incantations, who generally were women (1Sa 28:9). This practice, however, continued to flourish. In addition, the Babylonians and other peoples had also a developed art of interpretation in order to find omens for the future. Especially was the examination of intestines practiced by them. The liver of sacrificial animals particularly was carefully examined, and, from this, predictions, good or bad, were inferred (compare Eze 21:21). See DIVINATION. This art passed over from the Babylonions to the seafaring Etruscans, and through these came to the Romans. But other phenomena also were by the different nations interpreted as prophetically significant and were by those skilled in this art interpreted accordingly. Among these were miscarriages by human beings and animals, the actions of hens, horses, the flight of birds, earthquakes, forms of the clouds, lightning, and the like. Further, mechanical contrivances were used, such as casting of lots, stones, sticks, etc.

2. The Mantic Art:

More spiritual and popular was the interpretation of dreams. It also was the case that mediums intentionally would convert themselves into a semi-waking trance. In this way the suitable mediums attained to a certain kind of clairvoyance, found among various peoples. This approaches the condition of an ecstatically aroused pseudo-prophet, of whom mention is made above. In Greece, too, oracles were pronounced by the Pythian prophetess, who by vapors and the like was aroused to a practice of the mantic article In Dodona it was the voice of the divinity in Nature, which they sought to read in the rustling of the trees and the murmuring of the water. How uncertain these sources were was well known to heathen antiquity. The ancients complain of the enigmatical character of the Sibylline utterances and the doubtful nature of what was said. See GREECE, RELIGION OF. In contrast to this, Israel knows that it possesses in prophecy a clear word (Num 23:23).

3. Contents of Extra-Biblical Oracles:

But the contents also of the Biblical prophecies are unique through their spiritual uniformity and greatness. The oracle at Delphi, too, at times showed a certain moral elevation and could be regarded as the conscience of the nation. But how insignificant and meager was that which it offered to those who questioned it, in comparison with the spontaneous utterances of the prophets of Israel! Also what has in recent times been said concerning the prophetical texts from ancient Egypt (Gressmann, Texte und Bilder, I, 20 ff) may indeed show some external similarity to the prophecies of Israel; but they lack the spiritual and religious depth and the strictly ethical dignity of the prophets of the Scriptures, as also the consistency with which these from century to century reveal the thoughts of God and make known with constantly increasing clearness their purposes and goal.

Literature

Witsius, De prophetis et prophetia, 1731; Chr. A. Crusius, Hypomnemata ad theologiam propheticam, Part I, 1764; A. Knobel, Der Prophetismus der Hebraer, 1837; F. B. Koester, Die Propheten des Altes Testament und New Testament, 1838; B. Duhm, Die Theologie der Propheten; Kuenen, The Prophets and Prophecy in Israel; F. E. Koenig, Der Offenbarungsbegriff des Altes Testament, 1882; C. von Orelli, Die alttestamentliche Weissagung von der Vollendung des Gottesreiches, 1882; W. Robertson Smith, The Prophets of Israel and Their Place in History, 1882; E. Riehm, Die messianische Weissagung, English translation, 1885; Delitzsch, Messianic Prophecy, 1891; A. T. Kirkpatrick, The Doctrine of the Prophets, 1892; G. French Oehler, Theologie des A T, 1891; Ed. Koenig, Dos Berufungsbewusstsein der alttestamentlichen Propheten, 1900; F. H. Woods, The Hope of Israel, 1896; R. Kraetzschmar, Prophet und Seher im alten Israel, 1902; A. B. Davidson, Old Testament Prophecy, 1903; Eb. Schrader, Die Keilinschriften und dos A T, 1902; C. von Orelli, Allgemeine Religionsgeschichte; M. Jastrow, Die Religion Babyloniens und Assyriens, 1903; Gressmann, Ursprung der israelitisch-judischen Eschatologie, 1905; W. J. Beecher, The Prophets and the Promise, 1905; C. S. Macfarland, Jesus and the Prophets, 1905; G. G. Findlay, The Books of the Prophets in Their Historical Succession, 1906-7; Gressmann, Alt-orientalische Texte und Bilder zum A T, 1909; Selwyn, Christian Prophets.

Fuente: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia