Prophet

PROPHET

A person who foretells future events. It is particularly applied to such inspired persons among the Jews as were commissioned by God to declare his will and purposes to that people.

See PROPHECY. False Prophets.

See IMPOSTORS; and Josephus’s Hist. of the Jews. Some of the Prophets, an appellation given to young men who were educated in the schools or colleges under a proper master, who was commonly, if not always, an inspired prophet in the knowledge of religion, and in sacred music, and thus were qualified to be public preachers, 1Sa 10:1-27 : 1Sa 11:1-15 :2Sa 19:1-43 : 2Ki 2:1-25 :

Fuente: Theological Dictionary

prophet

(Greek: prophetes, speaker for)

The Hebrew words for prophet and prophecy, nabi and hozeh, mean: the first “interpreter and mouthpiece of God”; the second, the vision or revelation interpreted. A prophet in the Old Testament was one who made known the will of God, not always by foretelling the future, but often by exposing and rebuking evil, by standing lor the law. Abraham , Moses , Samuel, Balaam , Elias , Eliseus , and Nathan are mentioned as prophets. The prophets whose writings form a book of the Old Testament are mentioned in the article on the Books of the Bible . We gather from the prophetic books that prophecy was a vocation; that it required supernatural knowledge, revelation of some truths or facts by God and inspiration to utter and impress these on men. The bulk of the prophecies of the Old Testament concerns the punishment of guilty nations, and the fulfilment of the ancient promises. This is to bring the new and final Covenant. Few will live to see or be worthy of it; from the remnant will arise the Messianic Kingdom, the nations united under the great king, the Son of David. The prophecies mentioned in the New Testament are those of Zachary, Saint Elizabeth , Simeon, Anna , Saint John the Baptist , and of Our Lord.

Fuente: New Catholic Dictionary

Prophet

a person who acts as the organ of divine communication with men, especially with regard to the future. He differs from a priest in representing the divine side of this mediation, while the priest rather acts from the human side. The following article therefore discusses chiefly the personal relations of the prophet himself. SEE PROPHECY.

I. The Title in Scripture. The ordinary Hebrew word for prophet is (nabi), derived from the verb , connected by Gesenius with , to bubble forth, like a fountain. If this etymology be correct, the substantive would signify either a person who, as it were, involuntarily bursts forth with spiritual utterances under the divine influence (comp. Psa 40:1, My heart is bubbling up of a good matter), or simply one who pours forth words. The analogy of the word (natdph), which has the force of dropping as honey, and is used by Mic 2:6; Mic 2:11, Eze 21:2, and Amo 7:16 in the sense of prophesying, points to the last signification. The verb is found only in the niphal and hithpael, a peculiarity which it shares with many other words expressive of speech (comp. loquifari, vociferari, concionari, , as well as and vaticinari). Bunsen (Gott in Geschichte, p. 141) and Davidson (Intr. Old Test. 2, 430) suppose nabi to signify the man to whom announcements are made by God, i.e. inspired. Exo 4:1-17 is the classical passage as to the meaning of this word. There God says to Moses, Aaron shall be thy (nabi) unto the people, and thou shalt be unto him instead of God. The sense is. Aaron shall speak what thou shalt communicate to him. This appellation implies, then, the prophet’s relation to God: he speaks not of his own accord, but what the Spirit puts into his mouth. Thus (nabi) is an adjective of passive signification: he who has been divinely inspired, who has received from God the revelations which he proclaims. But it is more in accordance with the usage of the word to regard it as signifying (actively) one who announces or pours forth the declarations of God. The latter signification is preferred by Ewald, Havernick, Oehler, Hengstenberg, Bleek, Lee, Pusey, M’Caul, and the great majority of Biblical critics. We have the word in Barnabas (), which is rendered (Act 4:36), one whom God has qualified to impart consolation, light, and strength to others. Augustine says, The prophet of God is nothing else nisi enunciator verborum Dei hominibus. So Heidegger, Nabi is properly every utterer of the words of another, not from his own, but from another’s influence and will.

Two other Hebrew words are used to designate a prophet- (nre/b) and (chozeh)-both signifying one who sees. They are rendered in the A.V. by seer; in the Sept. usually by or , sometimes by (1Ch 26:28; 2Ch 16:7; 2Ch 16:10). The three words seem to be contrasted with each other in 1Ch 29:29. The acts of David the king, first and last, behold they are written in the book of Samuel the seer (roeh), and in the book of Nathan the prophet (nabi), and in the book of Gad the seer (chozeh). Roeh is a title almost appropriated to Samuel. It is only used ten times, and in seven of these it is applied to Samuel (1Sa 9:9; 1Sa 9:11; 1Sa 9:18-19; 1Ch 9:22; 1Ch 26:28; 1Ch 29:29). On two other occasions it is applied to Hanani (2Ch 16:7; 2Ch 16:10). Once it is used by Isa 30:10 with no reference to any particular person. It was superseded in general use by the word nabi, which Samuel (himself entitled nabi as well as roeh [1Sa 3:20; 2Ch 35:18]) appears to have revived after a period of desuetude (1Sa 9:9), and to have applied to the prophets organized by him. The verb , from which it is derived, is the common prose word signifying to see: whence the substantive (chozeh) is derived-is more poetical, q.d. to gaze. Chozeh is rarely found except in the books of the Chronicles, but is the word constantly used for the prophetical vision. It is found in the Pentateuch, in Samuel, in the Chronicles, in Job, and in most of the prophets. In 1Sa 9:9 we read, He that is now called a prophet (nabi) was beforetime called a seer (roeh); from whence Stanley (Lect. on Jewish Church) has concluded that roeh was the oldest designation of the prophetic office, superseded by nabi shortly after Samuel’s time, when nabi first came into use (ibid. 18, 19). This seems opposed to the fact that nabi is the word commonly used in the Pentateuch, whereas roeh does not appear until the days of Samuel. The passage in the book of Samuel is clearly a parenthetical insertion, perhaps made by the nabi Nathan (or whoever was the original author of the book), perhaps added at a later date, with the view of explaining how it was that Samuel bore the title of roeh, instead of the now usual appellation of nabi. To the writer the days of Samuel were beforetime, and he explains that in those ancient days that is, the days of Samuel the word used for prophet was roeh, not nabi. But that does not imply that roeh was the primitive word, and that nabi first came into use subsequently to Samuel (see Hengstenberg, Beitrage zur Einleitung ins A. T. 3, 335). Stanley represents chozeh as another antique title; but on no sufficient grounds. Chozdh is first found in 2Sa 24:11; so that it does not seem to have come into use until roeh had almost disappeared. It is also found in the books of Kings (2Ki 17:13) and Chronicles (frequently), in Amo 7:12, Isa 19:10, Mic 3:7, and the derivatives of the verb chazah are used by the prophets to designate their visions down to the Captivity (comp. Isa 1:1; Dan 8:1; Zec 13:4). The derivatives of raah are rarer, and, as being prose words, are chiefly used by Daniel (comp. Eze 1:1; Dan 10:7). On examination we find that nabi existed before and after and alongside of roeh and chozeh, but that chozehl was somewhat more modern than roeh.

Whether there is any difference in the usage of these three words, and, if any, what that difference is, has been much debated (see Witsius, Miscell. Sacra, i, 1, 19; Carpzovius, Introd. ad Libros Canon. V T. 3, 1, 2; Winer, Real-Wortenbuch, art. Propheten). Havernick (Einleitung, Th. i; roeh. i. 56) considers nabi to express the title of those who officially belonged to the prophetic order, while roeh and chozeh denote those who received a prophetical revelation. Dr. Lee (Inspiration of Holy Scripture, p. 543) agrees with Hivernick in his explanation of nabi, but he identifies roeh in meaning rather with nabi than with chozeh. He further throws out a suggestion that chozeh is the special designation of the prophet attached to the royal household. In 2Sa 24:11, Gad is described as the prophet (nabi) Gad, David’s seer (chozeh), and elsewhere he is called David’s seer (chozeh) (1Ch 21:9), the king’s seer (chozeh) (2Ch 29:25). The case of Gad, Dr. Lee thinks, affords the clew to the difficulty, as it clearly indicates that attached to the royal establishment there was usually an individual styled the king’s seer, who might at the same time be a nabi. The suggestion is ingenious (see, in addition to places quoted above, 1Ch 25:5; 1Ch 29:29; 2Ch 29:30; 2Ch 35:15), but it was only David (possibly also Manasseh, 2Ch 33:18) who, so far as we read, had this seer attached to his person; and in any case there is nothing in the word chozeh to denote the relation of the prophet to the king, but only in the connection in which it stands with the word king. On the whole, it would seem that the same persons are designated by the three words nabi, roeh, and chozeh the last two titles being derived from the prophets’ power of seeing the visions presented to them by God; the first from their function of revealing and proclaiming God’s truth to men. When Gregory Naz. (Or. 28) calls Ezekiel , he gives a sufficiently exact translation of the two titles chozeh or roeh, and nabi.

Sometimes the prophets are called (tsophiim), i.e. those who espy. explore for the people, a watchman (Jer 6:17; Eze 3:17; Eze 33:7). Such also is the usage of (shomer), i.e. a watchman (Isa 21:11; Isa 62:6); and roiim, i.e. shepherds (Zec 11:5; Zec 8:16), in reference to the spiritual care and religious nurture of the people. Other names, as man of God, servant of Jehovah, and now and then angel, or messenger of Jehovah, etc., do not belong to the prophets as such, but only in so far as they are of the number of servants and instruments of God. The phrase man of the Spirit (, Hos 9:7) explains the agency by which the communication came. In the appointment of the seventy elders the Lord says to Moses, I will take of the Spirit which is upon thee, and will put it on them (Num 11:17). So with regard to Eldad and Medad, the Spirit rested upon them,… and they prophesied in the camp. The resting of the Spirit upon them was equivalent to the gift of prophecy (see 2Pe 1:21).

The word nabi is uniformly translated in the Sept. by , and in the A.V. by prophet. In classical Greek, signifies one who speaks for another, specially one who speaks for a god, and so interprets his will to man (Liddell and Scott, s.v.). Hence its essential meaning is an interpreter. Thus Apollo is a , as being the interpreter of Zeus (Eschylus, Eum. 19). Poets are the Prophets of the Muses, as being their interpreters (Plato, Phcedr. 262 d). The attached to heathen temples are so named from their interpreting the oracles delivered by the inspired and unconscious (Plato, Tim. 72 b; Herod. 7:111, note [ed. Bahr]). We have Plato’s authority for deriving from (l.c.). The use of the word in its modern sense is post-classical, and is derived from the Sept.

From the mediaeval use of the word , prophecy passed into the English language in the sense of prediction, and this sense it has retained as its popular meaning (see Richardson, s.v.). The larger sense of interpretation has not, however, been lost. Thus we find in Bacon, An exercise commonly called prophesying, which was this: that the ministers within a precinct did meet upon a week-day in some principal town, where there was some ancient grave minister that was president, and an auditory admitted of gentlemen or other persons of leisure. Then every minister successively. beginning with the youngest, did handle one and the same part of Scripture, spending severally some quarter of an hour or better, and in the whole some two hours. And so the exercise being begun and concluded with prayer, and the president giving a text for the next meeting, the assembly was dissolved (Pacification of the Church). This meaning of the word is made further familiar to us by the title of Jeremy Taylor’s treatise On Liberty of Prophesying. Nor was there any risk of the title of a book published in our own days, On the Prophetical Office of the Church (Oxf. 1838), being misunderstood. In fact, the English word prophet, like the word inspiration, has always been used in a larger and in a closer sense. In the larger sense our Lord Jesus Christ is a prophet, Moses is a prophet, Mohammed is a prophet. The expression means that they proclaimed and published a new religious dispensation. In a similar, though not identical sense, the Church is said to have a prophetical, i.e. an expository and interpretative, office. But in its closer sense the word, according to usage, though not according to etymology, involves the idea of foresight. This is and always has been its more usual acceptation. The different meanings, or shades of meaning, in which the abstract noun is employed in Scripture have been drawn out by Locke as follows: Prophecy comprehends three things: prediction; singing by the dictate of the Spirit; and understanding and explaining the mysterious, hidden sense of Scripture by an immediate illumination and motion of the Spirit (Paraphrase of 1 Corinthians 12, note, p. 121 [Lond. 1742]). It is in virtue of this last signification of the word that the prophets of the New Test. are so called (1 Corinthians 12); by virtue of the second that the sons of Asaph, etc., are said to have prophesied with a harp (25:3), and Miriam and Deborah are termed prophetesses. That the idea of potential if not actual prediction enters into the conception expressed by the word prophecy, when that word is used to designate the function of the Hebrew prophets, seems to be proved by the following passages of Scripture: Deu 18:22; Jer 28:9; Act 2:30; Act 3:18-21; 1Pe 1:10; 2Pe 1:19-20; 2Pe 3:2. Etymologically, however, it is certain that neither prescience nor prediction is implied by the term used in the Hebrew language. But it seems to be incorrect to say that the English word was originally used in the wider sense of preaching, and that it became limited to the meaning of predicting in the 17th century, in consequence of an etymological mistake (Stanley, Lect. 19, 20). The word entered into the English language in its sense of predicting. It could not have been otherwise, for at the time of the formation of the English language the word had, by usage, assumed popularly the meaning of prediction. We find it ordinarily employed by early as well as by late writers in this sense (see Polydore Virgil, Hist. of England, 4:161 [Camden ed. 1846]; Coventry Mysteries, p. 65 [Shakespeare Soc. ed. 1841]). It is probable that the meaning was limited to prediction as much and as little before the 17th century as it has been since.

II. The Prophetical Order.

1. Its Historical Development. Generally speaking, every one was a prophet to whom God communicated his mind in this peculiar manner. Thus, e.g. Abraham is called a prophet (Gen 20:7), not, as is commonly thought, on account of general revelations granted him by God, but because such as he received were in the special form described; as, indeed, in chap. 15 it is expressly stated that divine communications were made to him in visions and dreams. The patriarchs as a class are in the same manner called prophets (Psa 105:15). Moses is more specifically a prophet, as being a proclaimer of a new dispensation, a revealer of God’s will, and in virtue of his divinely inspired songs (Exodus 15; Deuteronomy 32, 33; Psalms 90); but his main work was not prophetical, and he is therefore formally distinguished from prophets (Num 12:6) as well as classed with them (Deu 18:15; Deu 34:10). Aaron is the prophet of Moses (Exo 7:1); Miriam (Exo 15:20) is a prophetess; and we find the prophetic gift in the elders who prophesied when the Spirit of the Lord rested upon them, and in Eldad and Medad, who prophesied in the camp (Num 11:27). At the time of the sedition of Miriam, the possible existence of prophets is recognised (Num 12:6).

When the Mosaic economy had been established, a new element was introduced. The sacerdotal caste then became the instrument by which the members of the Jewish theocracy were taught and governed in things spiritual. Feast and fast, sacrifice and offering, rite and ceremony, constituted a varied and ever-recurring system of training and teaching by type and symbol. To the priests, too, was intrusted the work of teaching the children of Israel all the statutes which the Lord hath spoken unto them by the hand of Moses (Lev 10:11). Teaching by act and teaching by word were alike their task. This office they adequately fulfilled for some hundred or more years after the giving of the law at Mount Sinai. But during the time of the Judges the priesthood sank into a state of degeneracy, and the people were no longer affected by the acted lessons of the ceremonial service. They required less enigmatic warnings and exhortations. Under these circumstances a new moral power was evoked- the regular Prophetic Line. Special functionaries of this kind had from time to time already appeared. In the days of the Judges we find that Deborah (Jdg 4:4) was a prophetess; a prophet (Jdg 6:8) rebuked and exhorted the Israelites when oppressed by the Midianites; and in Samuel’s childhood a man of God predicted to Eli the death of his two sons, and the curse that was to fall on his descendants (1Sa 2:27). But it was now time for a more formal institution of the prophetic order. Samuel, himself a Levite, of the family of Kohath (1Ch 6:28), and certainly acting as a priest, was the instrument used at once for effecting a reform in the sacerdotal order (1Ch 9:22), and for giving to the prophets a position of influence which they had never before held. So important was the work wrought by him that he is classed in Holy Scripture with Moses (Jer 15:1; Psa 99:6; Act 3:24), Samuel being the great religious reformer and organizer of the prophetical order, as Moses was the great legislator and founder of the priestly rule. Nevertheless, it is not to be supposed that Samuel created the prophetic order as a new thing before unknown. The germs both of the prophetic and of the regal order are found in the law as given to the Israelites by Moses (Deu 13:1; Deu 18:20; Deu 17:18), but they were not yet developed, because there was not yet the demand for them. Samuel, who evolved the one, himself saw the evolution of the other. It is a vulgar error respecting Jewish history to suppose that there was an antagonism between the prophets and the priests. There is not a trace of such antagonism. Isaiah may denounce a wicked hierarchy (Isa 1:10), but it is because it is wicked, not because it is a hierarchy. Malachi sharply reproves the priests (Mal 2:1), but it is in order to support the priesthood (comp. 1, 14). Mr. F. W. Newman even designates Ezekiel’s writings as hard sacerdotalism, tedious and unedifying as Leviticus itself (Hebr. Monarch. p. 330). The prophetical order was, in truth, supplemental, not antagonistic, to the sacerdotal. SEE SAMUEL.

Samuel took measures to make his work of restoration permanent as well as effective for the moment. For this purpose he instituted companies, or colleges of prophets. One we find in his lifetime at Ramah (1Sa 19:19-20); others afterwards at Bethel (2Ki 2:3), Jericho (2Ki 2:5), Gilgal (2Ki 4:38), and elsewhere (2Ki 6:1). Their constitution and object were similar to those of theological colleges. Into them were gathered promising students, and here they were trained for the office which they were afterwards destined to fulfil. So successful were these institutions that from the time of Samuel to the closing of the Canon of the Old Test. there seems never to have been wanting a due supply of men to keep up the line of official prophets. There appears to be no sufficient ground for the common statement that after the schism the colleges existed only in the Israelitish kingdom, or for Knobel’s supposition that they ceased with Elisha (Prophetismus, 2, 39), nor again for Bishop Lowth’s statement that they existed from the earliest times of the Hebrew republic (Sacred Poetry, lect. 18), or for M. Nicolas’s assertion that their previous establishment can be inferred from 1 Samuel 8, 9, 10 (Etudes Critiques sur la Bible, p. 365). We have, however, no actual proof of their existence except in the days of Samuel and of Elijah and Elisha. The apocryphal books of the Maccabees (1, 4:46; 9:27; 14:41) and of Ecclesiasticus (36:15) represent them as extinct.

The colleges appear to have consisted of students differing in number. Sometimes they were very numerous (1Ki 18:4; 1Ki 22:6; 2Ki 2:16). One elderly, or leading prophet, presided over them (1Sa 19:20), called their father (1Sa 10:12), or master (2Ki 2:3), who was apparently admitted to his office by the ceremony of anointing (1Ki 19:16; Isa 61:1; Psa 105:15). They were called his sons. Their chief subject of study was, no doubt, the law and its interpretation; oral, as distinct from symbolical, teaching being henceforward tacitly transferred from the priestly to the prophetical order. Subsidiary subjects of instruction were music and sacred poetry, both of which had been connected with prophecy from the time of Moses (Exo 15:20) and the Judges (Jdg 4:4; Jdg 5:1). The prophets that meet Saul came down from the high place with a psaltery and a tabret, and a pipe and a harp before them (1Sa 10:5). Elijah calls a minstrel to evoke the prophetic gift in himself (2Ki 3:15). David separates to the service of the sons of Asaph and of Heman and of Jeduthun, who should prophesy with harps and with psalteries and with cymbals…. All these were under the hands of their father for song in the house of the Lord with cymbals, psalteries, and harps for the service of the house of God (1Ch 25:16). Hymns, or sacred songs, are found in the books of Jon 2:2, Isa 12:1; Isa 26:1, Hab 3:2. It was probably the duty of the prophetical students to compose verses to be sung in the Temple (see Lowth, Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews, lect. 18). Having been themselves trained and taught. the prophets, whether still residing within their college or having left its precincts, had the task of teaching others. From the question addressed to the Shunamite by her husband, Wherefore wilt thou go to him to-day? It is neither new moon nor Sabbath (2Ki 4:23), it appears that weekly and monthly religious meetings were held as an ordinary practice by the prophets (see Patrick, Conmm. ad loc.). Thus we find that Elisha sat in his house engaged in his official occupation (comp. Eze 8:1; Eze 14:1; Eze 20:1), and the elders sat with him (2Ki 6:32), when the king of Israel sent to slay him. It was at these meetings, probably, that many of the warnings and exhortations on morality and spiritual religion were addressed by the prophets to their countrymen. SEE PROPHETS, SCHOOLS OF.

The schools of the prophets were thus engaged in what we may call pastoral functions, rather than in the disclosure of things to come; their office was to bring home to men’s business and bosoms the announcements already made. Selected from the Levitical and priestly classes, they performed services chiefly of a priestly character (1Sa 9:13), but presided over devotional exercises and gave spiritual instruction. We may regard Elijah as the type of the whole prophetical order at this period; a man of heroic energy in action, rather than of prolific thought or excellent discourse. Power was given him to smite the earth with plagues (Rev 11:6). When an impression had been made by these extraordinary displays of power, a still small voice was heard to quicken the people to newness of life. If we pass on to the religious teachers who are associated with the name and age of David Nathan, Solomon, and others, who composed the Psalms we shall see that these aimed at the religious education of their contemporaries by a pure stream of didactic and devotional poetry. Their object was to advance the members of the ancient economy to the highest degree of light and purity which was attainable in that state of minority. The predictive element crops out most distinctly in the Messianic psalms, which point to the ultimate completion of the kingdom in David’s Lord, and the universal reign of righteousness, truth, and peace. When these efforts failed to stem the tide of corruption and to rescue the chosen people from disorder, ancient prophecy assumed the form of specific prediction. The moral element is chiefly seen in denouncing the iniquity and unrighteousness of the age, but the distinctive characteristic is that, in exposing the evils which prevailed, they directed the eye to the future. This band of religious teachers who are popularly spoken of as the prophets commenced with Hosea soon after the ministry of Elijah and Elisha. Hosea’s labors commenced in the days of Uzziah, king of Judah, and Jeroboam II, king of Israel, and were prolonged to the time of Hezekiah, comprising more than sixty years, so that with him were contemporary Amos, Jonah, Joel, Obadiah, Isaiah, Micah, Nahum. Next to these in order of time cane Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Habakkuk, Zephaniah. The last three were Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi. From these we derive our amplest materials for comparing the anticipations of prophecy with the subsequent events of history. Thus the prophets of the Old Covenant form a regular succession; they are members of an unbroken continuous chain, of which one perpetually reaches forth the hand to the other. SEE PROPHETS, MAJOR, AND MINOR

In the first book of the Maccabees (9:17) the discontinuance of the prophetic calling is considered as forming an important era in Jewish history (see Stemann, De TerDmino Prophetarum [Rost. 1723]), while at the same time an expectation of the renewal in future ages of prophetic gifts is avowed (1Ma 4:46; 1Ma 14:41). After the Babylonian exile the sacred writings were collected, which enabled every one to find the way of salvation; but the immediate revelations to the people of Israel were to cease for a while, in order to raise a stronger longing for the appearance of the Messiah, and to prepare for him a welcome reception. For the same reason the ark of the covenant had been taken away from the people. The danger of a complete apostasy, which in earlier times might have been incurred by this withdrawal, was not now to be apprehended. The external worship of the Lord was so firmly established that no extraordinary helps were wanted. Taking also into consideration the altered character of the people, we may add that the time after the exile was more fit to produce men learned in the law than prophets. Before this period, the faithful and the unbelieving were strongly opposed to each other, which excited the former to great exertions. These relaxed when the opposition ceased, and pious priests now took the place of prophets. The time after the exile is characterized by weakness and dependence; the people looked up to the past as to a height which they could not gain; the earlier writings obtained unconditional authority, and the disposition for receiving prophetic gifts was lost. About a hundred years after the return from the Babylonian exile, the prophetic profession ceased. The Jewish tradition uniformly states that after Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi no prophet arose among the Jews till John the Baptist woke afresh the echoes of a long lost inspiration as the prelude to a new dispensation. For its resumption under the New Test. economy, see 10 below.

2. Manner of Life of the Prophets. The prophets went about poorly and coarsely dressed (2Ki 1:8), not as a mere piece of asceticism, but that their very apparel might teach what the people ought to do; it was a sermo propheticus realis. Comp. 1Ki 21:27, where Ahab does penance in the manner figured by the prophet: And it came to pass, when Ahab heard these words, that he rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his flesh and fasted (see Nicolai, De Prophetarum Vestitu [Magdeb. 1746]; Zacharia, De ProphetaTumn labitu [Sodin, 1756]). The general appearance and life of the prophet were very similar to those of the Eastern dervish at the present day. His dress was a hairy garment, girt with a leathern girdle (Isa 20:2; Zec 13:4; Mat 3:4). He was married or unmarried as he chose; but his manner of life and diet were stern and austere (2Ki 4:10; 2Ki 4:38; 1Ki 19:6; Mat 3:4). Generally the prophets were not anxious to attract notice by ostentatious display; nor did they seek worldly wealth, most of them living in poverty and even want (1Ki 14:3; 2Ki 4:1; 2Ki 4:38; 2Ki 4:42; 2Ki 6:5). The decay of the congregation of God deeply chagrined them (comp. Mic 7:1, and many passages in Jeremiah). Insult, persecution, imprisonment, and death were often the reward of their godly life. The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews says (Heb 11:37): They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword; they wandered about in sheep-skins and goat-skins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented (comp. Christ’s speech, Mat 23:29 sq.; 2Ch 24:17 sq.). The condition of the prophets, in their temporal humiliation, is vividly represented in the lives of Elijah and Elisha in the books of the Kings; and Jeremiah concludes the description of his sufferings in the 20th chapter by cursing the day of his birth. Repudiated by the world in which they were aliens, they typified the life of him whose appearance they announced, and whose spirit dwelt in them. They figured him, however, not only in his lowness, but in his elevation. The Lord stood by them, gave evidence in their favor by fulfilling their predictions, frequently proved by miracles that they were his own messengers, or retaliated on their enemies the injury done them. The prophets addressed the people of both kingdoms: they were not confined to particular places, but prophesied where it was required. For this reason they were most numerous in capital towns, especially in Jerusalem, where they generally spoke in the Temple. Sometimes their advice was asked, and then their prophecies take the form of answers to questions submitted to them (Isaiah 37; Ezekiel 20; Zechariah 7). But much more frequently they felt themselves inwardly moved to address the people without their advice having been asked, and they were not afraid to stand forward in places where their appearance, perhaps, produced indignation and terror. Whatever lay within or around the sphere of religion and morals formed the object of their care. They strenuously opposed the worship of false gods (Isa 1:10 sq.), as well as the finery of women (3, 16 sq.). Priests, princes, kings, all must hear them must, however reluctantly, allow them to perform their calling as long as they spoke in the name of the true God, and as long as the result did not disprove their pretensions to be the servants of the invisible King of Israel (Jer 37:15-21).

As seen above, there were institutions for training prophets; the senior members instructed a number of pupils and directed them. These schools had been first established by Samuel (1Sa 10:8; 1Sa 19:19); and at a later time there were such institutions in different places, as Bethel and Gilgal (2Ki 2:3; 2Ki 4:38; 2Ki 6:1). The pupils of the prophets lived in fellowship united, and were called sons of the prophets; while the senior or experienced prophets were considered as their spiritual parents, and were styled fathers (comp. 2Ki 2:12; 2Ki 6:21). Samuel, Elijah, and Elisha are mentioned as principals of such institutions. From them the Lord generally chose his instruments. Amos relates of himself (Amo 7:14-15), as a thing uncommon, that he had been trained in no school of prophets, but was a herdsman, when the Lord took him to prophesy unto the people of Israel. At the same time, this example shows that the bestowal of prophetic gifts was not limited to the school of the prophets. Women also might come forward as prophetesses, as instanced in Miriam, Deborah, and Huldah, though such cases are of comparatively rare occurrence. We should also observe that only as regards the kingdom of Israel we have express accounts of the continuance of the schools of prophets. What is recorded of them is not directly applicable to the kingdom of Judah, especially since, as stated above, prophecy had in it an essentially different position. We cannot assume that the organization and regulations of the schools of the prophets in the kingdom of Judah were as settled and established as in the kingdom of Israel. In the latter, the schools of the prophets had a kind of moastic constitution: they were not institutions of general education, but missionary stations; which explains the circumstance that they were established exactly in places which were the chief seats of superstition. The spiritual fathers travelled about to visit the training-schools; the pupils had their common board and dwelling, and those who married and left ceased not on that account to be connected with their colleges, but remained members of them. The widow of such a pupil of the schools of prophets who is mentioned in 2Ki 4:1 sq., considered Elisha as the person bound to care for her. The offerings which, by the Mosaic law, were to be given to the Levites were by the pious of the kingdom of Israel brought to the schools of the prophets (4:42). The prophets of the kingdom of Israel thus in some sort stood in a hostile position to the priests. These points of difference in the situation of the prophets of the two kingdoms must not be lost sight of; and we further add that prophecy in the kingdom of Israel was much more completed with extraordinary events than in the kingdom of Judah: the history of the latter offers no prophetical deeds equalling those of Elijah and Elisha. Prophecy in the kingdom of Israel not being grounded on a hierarchy venerable for its antiquity, consecrated by divine miracles, and constantly flavored with divine protection, it needed to be supported more powerful, I and to be legitimized more evidently. In conclusion, it may be observed that the expression schools of the prophets is not exactly suited to their nature; as general instruction was not their object. The so-called prophets’ schools were associations of men endowed with the spirit of God, for the purpose of carrying on their work, the feeble powers of junior members being directed and strengthened by those of a higher class. To those who entered these unions the Divine Spirit had already been imparted, which was the imperative condition of their reception. SEE PROPHETS, SONS OF.

III. The Prophetic Functions. These have already been in part glanced at, but the importance of the subject demands a fuller exposition. To belong to the prophetic order and to possess the prophetic gift are not convertible terms. There might be members of the prophetic order to whom the gift of prophecy was not vouchsafed. There might be inspired prophets who did not belong to the prophetic order. As we have seen above, the inspired prophet generally came from the college of the prophets, and belonged to the prophetic order; but this was not always the case. In the instance of the prophet Amos, the rule and the exception are both manifested. When Amaziah, the idolatrous Israelitish priest, threatens the prophet and desires him to flee away into the land of Judah, and there eat bread and prophesy there, but not to prophesy again any more at Bethel, Amos in reply says I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet’s son; but I was an herdsman, and a gatherer of sycamore fruit: and the Lord took me as I followed the flock, and the Lord said unto me, Go prophesy unto my people Israel (Amo 7:14). That is, thought called to the prophetic office, he did not belong to the prophetic order, and had not been trained in the prophetical colleges; and this. he indicates, was an unusual occurrence (see J. Smith On Prophecy, ch. 9).

1. In a general way, we may indicate that the sphere of action of the prophets was absolutely limited to Israelites, and there is only one case of a prophet going to the heathen to preach among them that of Jonah sent to Nineveh. He goes, however, to Nineveh to shame the Hebrews by the reception which he meets with there, and acting upon his own nation w as thus even in this case the prophet’s ultimate object. Many predictions of the Old Test. concern, indeed, the events of foreign nations, but they are always uttered and written with reference to Israel, and the prophets thought not of publishing them among the heathens themselves. The conversion of the pagans to the worship of the true God was indeed a favorite idea of the prophets; but the Divine Spirit told them that it was not to be effected by their exertions, as it was connected with extensive future changes, which they might not forestall.

That the Lord would send such prophets was promised to the people by Moses, who by a special law (Deu 18:1) secured them authority and safety. As his ordinary servants and teachers, God appointed the priests: the characteristic mark which distinguished the prophets from them was inspiration; and this explains the circumstance that, in times of great moral and religious corruption, when the ordinary means no longer sufficed to reclaim the people, the number of prophets increased. The regular religious instruction of the people was no part of the business of the prophets: their proper duty as only to rouse and excite. The contrary viz. that a part of the regular duty of the prophets was to instruct the people-is often argued from 2Ki 4:23, where it is said that the Shunamitess on the sabbaths and days of new moon used to go to the prophet Elisha; but this passage applies only to the kingdom of Israel, and admits of no inference with respect to the kingdom of Judah. As regards the latter, there is no proof that prophets held meetings for instruction and edification on sacred days. Their position was here quite different from that of the prophets in the kingdom of Israel. The agency of the prophets in the kingdom of Judah was only of a subsidiary kind. These extraordinary messengers of the Lord only filled there the gaps left by the regular servants of God, the priests and the Levites: the priesthood never became there utterly degenerate, and each lapse was followed by a revival of which the prophets were the vigorous agents. The divine election always vindicated itself, and in the purity of the origin of the priesthood lay the certainty of its continued renewal. On the contrary, the priesthood in the kingdom of Israel had no divine sanction, no promise; it was corrupt in its very source: to reform itself would have been to dissolve itself. The priests there were the mercenary servants of the king, and had a brand upon their own consciences. Hence in the kingdom of Israel the prophets were the regular ministers of God: with their office all stood or fell, and hence they were required to do many things besides what the original conception of the office of a prophet implied-a circumstance from the oversight of which many erroneous notions on the nature of prophecy have sprung. This led to another difference, to which we shall revert below, viz. that in the kingdom of Judah the prophetic office did not, as in Israel, possess a fixed organization and complete construction.

In their labors, as respected their own times, the prophets were strictly bound to the Mosaic law. and not allowed to add to it or to diminish aught from it. What was said in this respect to the whole people (Deu 4:2; Deu 13:1) applied also to them. We find, therefore, prophecy always takes its ground on the Mosaic law to which it refers, from which it derives its sanction, and with which it is fully impressed and saturated. There is no chapter in the prophets in which there are not several references to the law. The business of the prophets was to explain it, to lay it to the hearts of the people, and to preserve vital its spirit. It was, indeed, also their duty to point to future reforms, when the ever-living spirit of the law would break its hitherto imperfect form, and make for itself another: thus Jer 3:16 foretells days when the ark of the covenant shall be no more, and (Jer 31:31) days when a new covenant will be made with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. But for their own times they never once dreamed of altering any, even the minutest and least essential precept, even as to its form; how much less as to its spirit, which even the Lord himself declares (Mat 5:18) to be immutable and eternal! The passages which some interpreters have alleged as opposed to sacrifices as instituted by the Mosaic law have been misunderstood; they do not denounce sacrifices generally, but only those of the Canaanites, with whom sacrifice was not even a form of true worship. but opposed to the genuine and spiritual service of God.

2. More specifically, the sixteen prophets whose books are in the Canon have that place of honor because they were endowed with the prophetic gift as well as ordinarily (so far as we know) belonging to the prophetic order . There were hundreds of prophets contemporary with each of these sixteen prophets; and no doubt numberless compositions in sacred poetry and numberless moral exhortations were issued from the several schools, but only sixteen books find their place in the Canon. Why is this? Because these sixteen had what their brother collegians had not the divine call to the office of prophet, and the divine illumination to enlighten them. It was not sufficient to have been taught and trained in preparation for a future call. Teaching and training served as a preparation only. When the schoolmaster’s work was done, then, if the instrument was worthy, God’s work began. Moses had an external call at the burning bush (Exodus 3, 2). The Lord called Samuel so that Eli perceived, and Samuel learned, that it was the Lord who called him (1 Samuel 3, 10). Isa 6:8, Jer 1:5, Eze 2:4, Amo 7:15, declare their special mission. Nor was it sufficient for this call to have been made once for all. Each prophetical utterance is the result of a communication of the divine to the human spirit, received either by vision (Isa 6:1) or by the word of the Lord (Jer 2:1). (See Aids to Faith, essay 3, On Prophecy.) What, then, are the characteristics of the sixteen prophets thus called and commissioned, and intrusted with the messages of God to his people?

(1.) They were the national poets of Judaea. We have already shown that music and poetry, chants and hymns, were a main part of the studies of the class from which, generally speaking, they were derived. As is natural, we find not only the songs previously specified, but the rest of their compositions, poetical, or breathing the spirit of poetry. Bishop Lowth esteems the whole book of Isaiah poetical, a few passages excepted, which, if brought together. would not at most exceed the bulk of five or six chapters, half of the book of Jeremiah, the greater part of Ezekiel. The rest of the prophets are mainly poetical, but Haggai is prosaic, and Jonah and Daniel are plain prose (Sacred Poetry, lect. 21). The prophetical style differs from that of books properly called poetical, whose sublimity it all but outvies, only in being less restrained by those external forms which distinguish poetical language from prose, and in introducing more frequently than prose does plays upon words and thoughts. This peculiarity may he explained by the practical tendency of prophetical addresses, which avoid all that is unintelligible, aid studiously introduce what is best calculated for the moment to strike the hearers. The same appears from many other circumstances, e.g. the union of music with prophesying, the demeanor of Saul when among the prophets (1Sa 10:5), Balaam’s description of himself (Num 24:3) as a man whose eyes were opened, who saw the vision of the Almighty, and heard the words of God, the established phraseology to denote the inspiring impulse, viz. the hand of the Lord was strong upon him (Eze 3:14; comp. Isa 8:11; 2Ki 3:15), etc. (See 6, below.)

(2.) They were annalists and historians. A great portion of Isaiah, of Jeremiah, of Daniel, of Jonah, of Haggai, is direct or indirect history.

(3.) They were preachers of patriotism; their patriotism being founded on the religious motive. To the subject of the theocracy, the enemy of his nation was the enemy of God, the traitor to the public weal was a traitor to his God: a denunciation of an enemy was a denunciation of a representative of evil; an exhortation in behalf of Jerusalem was an exhortation in behalf of God’s kingdom on earth, the city of our God, the mountain of holiness, beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, the city of the great King (Psa 48:1-2).

(4.) They were preachers of morals and of spiritual religion. The symbolical teaching of the law had lost much of its effect. Instead of learning the necessity of purity by the legal washings, the majority came to rest in the outward act as in itself sufficient. It was the work, then, of the prophets to hold up before the eves of their countrymen a high and pure morality, not veiled in symbols and acts, but such as none could profess to misunderstand. Thus, in his first chapter, Isaiah contrasts ceremonial observances with spiritual morality: Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them… Wash ye, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well; seek judgment; relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow (Isa 1:14-17). He proceeds to denounce God’s judgments on the oppression and covetousness of the rulers, the pride of the women (ch. 3), on grasping, profligacy, iniquity, injustice (ch. 5), and so on throughout. The system of morals put forward by the prophets, if not higher or sterner or purer than that of the law, is more plainly declared, and with greater, because now more needed, vehemence of diction. Magna fides et grandis aldacia prophetarum, says St. Jerome (In Ezekiel). This was their general characteristic, but that gifts and graces might be dissevered is proved by the cases of Balaam, Jonah, Caiaphas, and the disobedient prophet of Judah.

(5.) They were extraordinary, but yet authorized, exponents of the law. As an instance of this we may take Isaiah’s description of a true fast (Isa 58:3-7); Ezekiel’s explanation of the sins of the father being visited on the children (ch. 18); Micah’s preference of doing justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with God, to thousands of rams and ten thousands of rivers of oil (Mic 6:6-8). In these, as in other similar cases (comp. Hos 6:6; Amo 5:21), it was the task of the prophets to restore the balance which had been overthrown by the Jews and their teachers dwelling on one side or oil the outer covering of a truth or of a duty, and leaving the other side or the inner meaning out of sight.

(6.) They held, as we have shown above, a pastoral or quasi-pastoral office.

(7.) They were a political power in the state. Strong in the safeguard of their religious character, they were able to serve as a counterpoise to the royal authority when wielded even by an Ahab.

(8.) But the prophets were something more than national poets and annalists, preachers of patriotism, moral teachers, exponents of the law, pastors, and politicians. We have not yet touched upon their most essential characteristic, which is that they were instruments of revealing God’s will to man; as in other ways, so, specially, by predicting future events, and, in particular, by foretelling the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the redemption effected by him. There are two chief ways of exhibiting this fact one is suitable when discoursing with Christians, the other when arguing with unbelievers. To the Christian it is enough to show that the truth of the New Testament and the truthfulness of its authors, and of the Lord himself, are bound up with the truth of the existence of this predictive element in the prophets. To the unbeliever it is necessary to show that facts have verified their predictions.

(a.) In Matthew’s Gospel, the first chapter, we find a quotation from the prophet Isaiah, Behold a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel; and, at the same time, we find a statement that the birth of Christ took place as it did that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, in those words (Isa 1:22-23). This means that the prophecy was the declaration of God’s purpose, and that the circumstances of the birth of’ Christ were the fulfilment of that purpose. Then, either the predictive element exists in the book of the prophet Isaiah, or the authority of the evangelist Matthew must be given up. The same evangelist testifies to the same prophet having spoken of John the Baptist (Joh 3:3) in words which he quotes from Isa 40:3. He says (Joh 4:13-15) that Jesus came and dwelt in Capernaum that other words spoken by the same prophet (Joh 9:1) might be fulfilled. He says (Joh 8:17) that Jesus did certain acts that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet (Isa 53:4). He says (Joh 12:17) that Jesus acted in a particular manner that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet in words quoted from Isa 42:1. Then, if we believe Matthew, we must believe that in the pages of the prophet Isaiah there was predicted that, which Jesus some seven hundred years afterwards fulfilled. This conclusion cannot be escaped by pressing the words , for if they do not mean that certain things were done in order that the divine predestination might be accomplished, which predestination was already declared by the prophet, they must mean that Jesus Christ knowingly moulded his acts so as to be in accordance with what was said in an ancient book which in reality had no reference to him, a thing which is entirely at variance with the character drawn of him by Matthew. and which would make him a conscious impostor, inasmuch as he himself appeals to the prophecies. Further, it would imply (as in Mat 1:22) that God himself contrived certain events (as those connected with the birth of Christ), not in order that they might be in accordance with his will, but in order that they might be agreeable to the declarations of a certain book- than which nothing could well be more absurd.

But further, we have not only the evidence of the evangelist; we have the evidence of the Lord himself. He declares (Mat 13:14) that in the Jews of his age is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith (Isa 6:9). He says (Mat 15:7), Esaias well prophesied of them (Isa 19:13). Then, if we believe our Lord’s sayings and the record of them, we must believe in prediction as existing in the prophet Isaiah. This prophet, who is cited between fifty and sixty times, may be taken as a sample; but the same argument might be brought forward with respect to Jeremiah (Mat 2:18; Heb 8:8), Daniel (Mat 24:15), Hosea (Mat 2:15; Rom 9:25), Joel (Act 2:17), Amos (Act 7:42; Act 15:16), Jonah (Mat 12:40), Micah (Mat 12:7), Habakkuk (Act 13:41), Haggai (Heb 12:26), Zechariah (Mat 21:5; Mar 14:27; Joh 19:37), Malachi (Mat 11:10; Mar 1:2; Luk 7:27). With this evidence for so many of the prophets, it would be idle to cavil with respect to Ezekiel, Obadiah, Nahum, Zephaniah; the more so as the prophets are frequently spoken of together (Mat 2:23; Act 13:40; Act 15:15) as authoritative. The Psalms are quoted no less than seventy times, and very frequently as being predictive.

(b.) The argument with the unbeliever does not admit of being brought to an issue so concisely. Here it is necessary

[1] to point out the existence of certain declarations as to future events, the probability of which was not discernible by human sagacity at the time that, the declarations were made;

[2] to show that certain events did afterwards take place corresponding with those declarations;

[3] to show that a chance coincidence is not an adequate hypothesis on which to account for that correspondence. SEE PROPHECY

Dr. Davidson pronounces it as now commonly admitted that the essential part of Biblical prophecy does not lie in predicting contingent events, but in divining the essentially religious in the course of history… In no prophecy can it be shown that the literal predicting of distant historical events is contained… . In conformity with the analogy of prophecy generally, special predictions concerning Christ do not appear in the Old Testament. Dr. Davidson must mean that this is now commonly admitted by writers like himself, who, following Eichhorn, resolve the prophet’s delineations of the future into, in essence, nothing but forebodings efforts of the spiritual eye to bring up before itself the distinct form of the future. The prevision of the prophet is intensified presentiment. Of course, if the powers of the prophets were simply forebodings and presentiments of the human spirit in its preconscious region, they could not do more than make indefinite guesses about the future. But this is not the Jewish nor the Christian theory of prophecy. See Basil (In Esai. c. iii), Chrysostom (Hom. 22 t. v, 137, ed. 1612), Clem. Alex. (Strom. lib. ii), Eusebius (Dem. Evang. v, 132, ed. 1544), and Justin Martyr (Dial. cum Tryph. p. 224, ed. 1636). See Suicer, s.v. .

The view commonly taken of the prophets is, indeed, that they were mere predictors of future events; but this view is one-sided and too narrow; though, on the other hand, we must beware of expanding too much the acceptation of the term prophet. Not to mention those who, like Hendewerk, in the introduction to his Commentary on the Prophet Isaiah, identify the notion of a prophet with that of an honest and pious man, vet we see from the above considerations that the conception of those is likewise too wide who place the essential feature of a prophet in his divine inspiration. That this does not meet the whole subject appears from Num 12:6 sq.. where Moses, who enjoyed divine inspiration in its highest grade, is represented as differing from those called prophets in a stricter sense, and as standing in contrast with them. Divine inspiration is only the general basis of the prophetic office, to which other elements must be added, especially the gift of that inspiration in a formal manner and for a specific purpose. This will become still more clear from the considerations adduced under the next heads.

IV. Test of the Prophetic Character. As Moses had foretold, a host of false prophets arose in later times among the people, who promised prosperity without repentance, and preached the Gospel without the law. The writings of the prophets are full of complaints of the mischief done by these impostors. Jeremiah significantly calls them prophets of the deceit of their own heart i.e. men who followed the suggestions of their own fancy in prophesying (Jeremiah 23, 26 comp. Jeremiah 23, 26:16, and ch. 14:14). All their practices prove the great influence which true prophetism had acquired among the people of Israel. But how were the people to distinguish between true and false prophets? This is decided partly by positive or negative criteria, and partly by certain general marks.

1. In the law concerning prophets (Deu 18:20; comp. 13:7-9) the following enactments are contained:

(1.) The prophet who speaks in the name of other gods i.e. professes to have his revelations from a god different from Jehovah is to be considered as false, and to be punished capitally; and this even though his predictions should come to pass.

(2.) The same punishment is to be inflicted on him who speaks in the name of the true God, but whose predictions are not accomplished.

These enactments established a peculiar right of the prophets. He who prophesied in the name of the true God was, even when he foretold calamity, entitled to be tolerated, until it happened that a prediction of his failed of accomplishment. He might then be imprisoned, but could not be put to death, as instanced in Jer 26:8-16, who is apprehended and arraigned, but acquitted: Then, said the princes and the people unto the priests and the prophets, This man is not worthy to die, for he has spoken to us in the name of the Lord our God. Ahab is by false prophets encouraged to attack Ramoth-gilead, but Micaiah prophesied him no good; on which the king becomes angry, and orders the prophet to be confined (1Ki 22:1-27): Take Micaiah and put him in prison, and feed him with bread of affliction, and with water of affliction, until I come in peace. Micaiah answers (1Ki 22:28), If thou return at all in peace, the Lord has not spoken by me. Until the safe return of the king, Micaiah is to remain in prison; after that, he shall be put to death. The prophet agrees to it, and the king goes up to Ramoth-gilead, but is slain in the battle.

(3.) From the above two criteria of a true prophet flows the third, that his addresses must be in strict accordance with the law. Whoever departs from it cannot be a true prophet, for it is impossible that the Lord should contradict himself.

(4.) In the above is also founded the fourth criterion that a true prophet must not promise prosperity without repentance; and that he is a false prophet, of the deceit of his own heart, who does not reprove the sins of the people, and who does not inculcate on them the doctrines of divine justice and retribution.

2. In addition to these negative criteria there were positive ones to procure authority to true prophets. First of all, it must be assumed that the prophets themselves received, along with the divine revelations, assurance that these were really divine. Any true communion with the Holy Spirit affords the assurance of its divine nature, and the prophets could, therefore, satisfy themselves of their divine mission. There was nothing to mislead and delude them in this respect, for temporal goods were not bestowed upon them with the gift of prophesying. Their own native disposition was often much averse to this calling, and could be only conquered by the Lord forcibly impelling them, as appears from Jer 20:8-9 : Since I spake, the word of the Lord was made a reproach unto me, and a derision daily. Then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name, but his word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay. Now, when the prophets themselves were convinced of their divine mission, they could in various ways prove it to others whom they were called on to enlighten.

(1.) To those who had any sense of truth, the Spirit of God gave evidence that the prophecies were divinely inspired. This testimonium Spiritus Sancti is the chief argument for the reality of a divine revelation; and he who is susceptible of it does not, indeed, disregard the other proofs suiting the wants of unimproved minds, but lays less stress on them.

(2.) The prophets themselves utter their firm conviction that they act and speak by divine authority, not of their own accord (comp. the often recurring phrase , a prophecy of Jehovah, Jer 26:12, etc.). Their pious life bore testimony to their being worthy of a nearer communion with God, and defended them from the suspicion of intentional deception; their sobriety of mind distinguished them from all fanatics, and defended them from the suspicion of self-delusion; their fortitude in suffering for truth proved that they had their commission from no human authority.

(3.) Part of the predictions of the prophets referred to proximate events, and their accomplishment was divine evidence of their divine origin. Whoever had been once favored with such a testimonial, his authority was established for his whole life, as instanced in Samuel. Of him it is said (1Sa 3:19): The Lord was with him, and let none of his words fall to the ground (i.e. fulfilled them); and all Israel knew (from this) that Samuel was established to be a prophet of the Lord. Of the divine mission of Isaiah no doubt could be entertained after, for instance. his prophecies of the overthrow of Sennacherib before Jerusalem had been fulfilled. The credentials of the divine mission of Ezekiel were certified when his prediction was accomplished, that Zedekiah should be brought to Babylon, but should not see it, for the king was made prisoner and blinded (Eze 12:12-13); they were further confirmed by the fulfilment of his prediction concerning the destruction of the city (ch. 24). Jeremiah’s claims were authenticated by the fulfilment of his prediction that Shallum, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, should die in his prison, and see his native country no more (Jer 22:11-12).

(4.) Sometimes the divine mission of the prophets was also proved by miracles; but this occurred only at important crises, when the existence of the kingdom of Israel was in jeopardy, as in the age of Elijah and Elisha. Miracles are mentioned as criteria of true prophets (Deu 13:2), still with this caution, that they should not be trusted alone, but that the people should inquire whether the negative criteria were extant.

(5.) Those prophets whose divine commission had been sufficiently proved bore testimony to the divine mission of others. It has been observed above that there was a certain gradation among the prophets; the principals of the colleges of prophets procured authority to the sons of prophets. Thus the deeds of Elijah and Elisha at the same time authenticated the hundreds of prophets whose superiors they were. Concerning the relation of the true prophets to each other, the passage 2Ki 2:9 is remarkable; Elisha says to Elijah, I pray thee, let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me. Here Elisha, as the first-born of Elijah in a spiritual sense, and standing to him in the same relation as Joshua to Moses, asks for a double portion of his spiritual inheritance, alluding to the law concerning the hereditary right of the lawfully begotten first-born son (Deu 21:17). This case supposes that other prophets also of the kingdom of Israel took portions of the fulness of the spirit of Elijah. It is plain, then, that only a few prophets stood in immediate communion with God, while that of the remaining was formed by mediation. The latter were spiritually incorporated in the former, and, on the ground of this relation, actions performed by Elisha, or through the instrumentality of one of his pupils, are at once ascribed to Elijah, e.g. the anointing of Hazael to be king over Syria (1Ki 19:15; comp. 2Ki 8:13); the anointing of Jehu to be king over Israel (1Ki 19:16; comp. 2Ki 9:1 sq.); the writing of the letter to Joram, etc. Thus in a certain sense it may be affirmed that Elijah was in his time the only prophet of the kingdom of Israel. Similarly of Moses it is recorded, during his passage through the desert, that a portion of his spirit was conveyed to the seventy elders (Num 11:17). The history of the Christian Church itself offers analogies; look, e.g. at the relation of the second-class Reformers to Luther and Calvin.

(6.) It hardly needs to be mentioned that before a man could be a prophet he must be converted. This clearly appears in the case of Isaiah, whose iniquity was taken away and his sin purged previous to his entering on his mission to the people of the covenant.

For a single momentary inspiration, however, the mere beginning of spiritual life sufficed, as instanced in Balaam and Saul.

3. As to prophecy in its circumscribed sense, or the foretelling of future events by the prophets, some expositors would explain all predictions of special events; while others assert that no prediction contains anything but general promises or threatenings, and that the prophets knew nothing of the particular manner in which their predictions might be realized. Both these classes deviate from the correct view of prophecy: the former often resort to the most arbitrary interpretations, and the latter are opposed by a mass of facts against which they are unable successfully to contend: e.g. when Ezekiel foretells (Eze 12:12) that Zedekiah would try to break through the walls of the city and to escape, but that he would be seized, blinded, and taken to Babylon. The frailty of the people, under the Old lest., required external evidence of the real connection of the prophets with God, and the predictions of particular forthcoming events were to them , signs. These were the more indispensable to them, because the ancients generally, and the Orientals in particular, showed the greatest tendency towards the exploration of futurity, which tended to foster superstition and forward idolatry. All other methods of knowing future events by necromancy, conjuration, passing through the fire. etc., having been strictly forbidden (Deu 18:10-11), it might be expected that the deep-rooted craving for the knowledge of forthcoming events would be gratified in some other and nobler manner. The success of a prophet depended on the gift of special knowledge of futurity; this, it is true, was granted comparatively to only few, but in the authority thus obtained all those shared who were likewise invested with the prophetic character. It was the seal impressed on true prophecy, as opposed to false. From 1Sa 9:6, it appears that, to inspire uncultivated minds with the sense of divine truths, the prophets stooped occasionally to disclose things of common life, using this as the means to reach a higher mark. On the same footing with definite predictions stand miracles and tokens, which prophets of the highest rank, as Elijah and Isaiah, volunteered or granted. These also were requisite to confirm the feeble faith of the people; but Ewald justly remarks that with the true prophets they never appear as the chief point; they only assist and accompany prophecy, but are not its object, not the truth itself; which supersedes them as soon as it gains sufficient strength and influence.

Some interpreters, misunderstanding passages like Jer 18:8; Jer 26:13, hare asserted, with Dr. Koster, (p. 226 sq.), that all prophecies were conditional; and have even maintained that their revocability distinguished the true predictions (Weissagung) from soothsaying (Wahrsagung). But beyond all doubt, when the prophet denounces the divine judgments, he proceeds on the assumption that the people will not repent, an assumption which lie knows from God to be true. Were the people to repent, the prediction would fail; but because they will not, it is uttered absolutely. It does not follow, however, that the prophet’s warnings and exhortations are useless. These serve for a witness against them; and besides, amid the ruin of the mass, individuals might be saved. Viewing prophecies as conditional predictions nullifies them. The Mosaic criterion (Deu 18:22), that he was a false prophet who predicted things which followed not nor came to pass, would then be of no value, since recourse might always be had to the excuse that the case had been altered by the fulfilment of the condition. The fear of introducing fatalism, if the prophecies are not taken in a conditional sense, is unfounded; for God’s omniscience, his foreknowledge, does not establish fatalism, and from divine omniscience simply is the prescience of the prophets to be derived. The prophets feel themselves so closely united to God that the words of Jehovah are given as their own, and that to them is often ascribed what God does, as slaying and reviving (Hos 6:5), rooting out nations and restoring them (Jer 1:10; Jer 18:7; Eze 32:18; Eze 43:3); which proves their own consciousness to have been entirely absorbed into that of God.

V. The Prophetic State of Inspiration. WE learn from Holy Scripture that it was by the agency of the Spirit of God that the prophets received the divine communication. Thus, on the appointment of the seventy elders, The Lord said, I will take of the Spirit which is upon thee, and will put it upon them… And the Lord… took of the Spirit that was upon him, and gave it unto the seventy elders; and it came to pass that when the Spirit rested upon them, they prophesied and did not cease… And Moses said Would God that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his Spirit upon them (Num 11:17; Num 11:25; Num 11:29). Here we see that what made the seventy prophesy was their being endued with the Lord’s Spirit by the Lord himself. So it is the Spirit of the Lord which made Saul (1Sa 10:6) and his messengers (1Sa 19:20) prophesy. Thus Peter assures us that prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake, moved () by the Holy Ghost (2Pe 1:21), while false prophets are described as those who speak a vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of the Lord (Jer 23:16), who prophesy out of their own hearts,… who follow their own spirit, and have seen nothing (Eze 13:2-3). Hence the emphatic declarations of the Great Prophet of the Church that he did not speak of himself (Joh 7:17, etc.). The prophet held an intermediate position in communication between God and man. God communicated with him by his Spirit, and he, having received this communication, was the spokesman of God to man (comp. Exo 7:1; Exo 4:16). But the means by which the Divine Spirit communicated with the human spirit, and the conditions of the human spirit under which the divine communications were received, have not been clearly declared to us. They are, however, indicated. On the occasion of the sedition of Miriam and Aaron, we read, And the Lord said, Hear now my words: It there be a prophet among you, I the Lord will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream. My servant Moses is not so, who is faithful in all mine house: with him will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches, and the similitude of the Lord shall he behold (Num 12:6-8). Here we have an exhaustive division of the different ways in which the revelations of God are made to man: 1. Direct declaration and manifestation I will speak mouth to mouth, apparently, and the similitude of the Lord shall he behold; 2. Vision; 3. Dream. It is indicated that, at least at this time, the vision and the dream were the special means of conveying a revelation to a prophet, while the higher form of direct declaration and manifestation was reserved for the more highly favored Moses. Joel’s prophecy appears to make the same division, Your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions, these being the two methods in which the promise, your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, is to be carried out (Joe 2:28). Of Daniel we are told that he had understanding in all visions and dreams (Dan 1:17). Can these phases of the prophetic state be distinguished from each other? and in what did they consist?

According to the theory of Philo and the Alexandrian school, the prophet was in a state of entire unconsciousness at the time that he was under the influence of divine inspiration, for the human understanding, says Philo, takes its departure on the arrival of the Divine Spirit, and on the removal of the latter again returns to its home, for the mortal must not dwell with the immortal (Quis Rer. Div. Hoer. 1, 511). Balaam is described by him as an unconscious instrument through whom God spoke (De Vita Mosis, lib. 1, vol. 2, p. 124). Josephus makes Balaam excuse himself to Balak on the same principle: When the Spirit of God seizes us, it utters whatsoever sounds and words it pleases, without any knowledge on our part,… for when it has come into us, there is nothing in us which remains our own (Ant. 4:6, 5). This theory identifies Jewish prophecy in all essential points with the heathen , or divination, as distinct from , or interpretation. Montanism adopted the same view: Defendimus, in causa novae propheti e, gratiae exstasin, id est amentiam, convenire. In spiritu enim homo constitutus, praesertim cum gloriam Dei conspicit, vel cum per ipsum Deus loquitur, necesse est excidat sensu, obumbratus scilicet virtute divina; de quo inter nos et Psychicos (catholicos) questio est (Tertullian, Adv. Marcion. 4:22). According to the belief, then, of the heathen, of the Alexandrian Jews, and of the Montanists, the vision of the prophet was seen while he was in a state of ecstatic unconsciousness, and the enunciation of the vision was made by him in the same state. The fathers of the Church opposed the Montanist theory with great unanimity. In Eusebius’s History (v, 17) we read that Miltiades wrote a book . St. Jerome writes: Non loquitur propheta , ut Montanus et Prisca Maximillaque delirant, sed quod prophetat liber est visionis intelligentis universa quae loquitur (Prolog. in Nahum). Again: Neque vero ut Montanus cum insanis fenminis somniat, prophetae in ecstasi locuti sunt ut nescierint quid loquerentur, et cum alios erudirent ipsi ignorarent quid dicerent (Prolog. in Esai.). Origen (Contr. Celsum, 7:4) and St. Basil (Commentary on Isaiah, Prooem. c. 5) contrast the prophet with the soothsayer, on the ground of the latter being deprived of his senses. St. Chrysostom draws out the contrast: , , , , , . , , , (Hom. 29 in Epist. ad Corinth.). At the same time, while drawing the distinction sharply between heathen soothsaying and Montanist prophesying in the one side, and Hebrew prophecy on the other, the fathers use expressions so strong as almost to represent the prophets to be passive instruments acted on by the Spirit of God. Thus it is that they describe them as musical instruments the pipe (Athenagoras, Leg. pro Christianis, c. ix; Clem. Alex. Cohort. ad Gent. c. i), the lyre (Justin Martyr, Cohort. ad Graec. c. viii; Ephraem Syr. Rhythm. 29; Chrysostom, Ad Pop. Antioch. Haom. i, t. ii), or as pens (St. Greg. Magn. Praef: in Aaor. in Job). Expressions such as these (many of which are quoted by Dr. Lee, On Inspiration, Appendix () must be set against the passages which were directed against the Montanists. Nevertheless, there is a very appreciable difference between their view and that of Tertullian and Philo. Which is most in accordance with the indications of Holy Scripture?

It does not seem possible to draw any very precise distinction between the prophetic dream and the prophetic vision. In the case of Abraham (Gen 15:1) and of Daniel (Dan 7:1), they seem to melt into each other. In both the external senses are at rest, reflection is quiescent, and intuition energizes. The action of the ordinary faculties is suspended in the one case by natural, in the other by supernatural or extraordinary causes (see Lee, Inspiration, p. 173). The state into which the prophet was, occasionally, at least, thrown by the ecstasy, or vision, or trance, is described poetically in the book of Job (Job 4:13-16; Job 33:15), and more plainly in the book of Daniel. In the case of Daniel, we find first a deep sleep (Dan 8:18; Dan 10:9) accompanied by terror (Dan 8:17; Dan 10:8). Then he is raised upright (Dan 8:18) on his hands and knees, and then on his feet (Dan 10:10-11). He then receives the divine revelation (Dan 8:19; Dan 10:12). After this he falls to the ground in a swoon (Dan 10:15; Dan 10:17); he is faint, sick, and astonished (Dan 8:27). Here, then, is an instance of the ecstatic state; nor is it confined to the Old Test., though we do not find it in the New Test accompanied by such violent effects upon the body. At the Transfiguration, the disciples fell on their face, being overpowered by the divine glory, and were restored, like Daniel, by the touch of Jesus’ hand. Peter fell into a trance () before he received his vision, instructing him as to the admission of the Gentiles (Act 10:10; Act 11:5). Paul was in a trance ( ) when he was commanded to devote himself to the conversion of the Gentiles (Act 22:17), and when he was caught up into the third heaven (2Co 12:1). John was probably in the same state ( ) when he received the message to the seven churches (Rev 1:10). The prophetic trance, then, must be acknowledged as a scriptural account of the state in which the prophets and other inspired persons, sometimes, at least, received divine revelations. It would seem, in such particular cases, to have been of the following nature:

(1.) The bodily senses were closed to external objects as in deep sleep;

(2.) The reflective and discursive faculty was still and inactive;

(3.) The spiritual faculty () was awakened to the highest state of energy.

Hence it is that revelations in trances are described by the prophets as seen or heard by them, for the spiritual faculty energizes by immediate perception on the part of the inward sense, not by inference and thought. Thus Isaiah saw the Lord sitting (Isa 6:1). Zechariah lifted up his eyes and saw (Zec 2:1); the word of the Lord which Micah saw (Mic 1:1); the wonder which Habakkuk did see (Hab 1:1). Peter saw heaven opened… and there came a voice to him (Act 10:11). Paul was in a trance, and saw him saying (Act 22:18). John heard a great voice… and saw seven golden candlesticks (Rev 1:12). Hence it is, too, that the prophets’ visions are unconnected and fragmentary, inasmuch as they are not the subject of the reflective, but of the perceptive faculty. They described what they saw and heard, not what they had themselves thought out and systematized. Hence, too, succession in time is disregarded or unnoticed. The subjects of the vision being, to the prophets’ sight, in juxtaposition or enfolding each other, some in the foreground, some in the background, are necessarily abstracted from the relations of time. Hence, too, the imagery with which the prophetic writings are colored, and the dramatic cast in which they are moulded; these peculiarities resulting, as we have already said, in a necessary obscurity and difficulty of interpretation.

But though it must be allowed that Scripture language seems to point out the state of dream and of trance, or ecstasy, as a condition in which the human instrument occasionally received the divine communications, it does not follow that all the prophetic revelations were thus made. We must acknowledge the state of trance in such passages as Isaiah 6 (called ordinarily the vision of Isaiah), as Ezekiel 1 (called the vision of Ezekiel), as Daniel 7, 8, 10, 11, 12 (called the visions of Daniel), as Zechariah 1, 4, 5, 6 (called the visions of Zechariah), as Acts 10 (called the vision of St. Peter), as 2 Corinthians 12 (called the vision of St. Paul), and similar instances, which are indicated by the language used. But it does not seem true to say, with Hengstenberg, that the difference between these prophecies and the rest is a vanishing one, and if we but possess the power and the ability to look more deeply into them, the marks of the vision may be discerned (Christology, 4:417). This view is advocated also by Velthusen (De Optica Rermum Futuraruum Descriptione), Jahn (Einleit. in die gottlichen Biicher des A. B.), Tholuck (Die Propheten und ihre Weissagungen). St. Paul distinguishes revelations from visions (2Co 12:1). In the books of Moses speaking mouth to mouth is contrasted with visions and dreams (Num 12:8). It is true that in this last-quoted passage visions and dreams alone appear to be attributed to the prophet, while speaking mouth to mouth is reserved for Moses.

But when Moses was dead, the cause of this difference would cease. During the era of prophecy there were none nearer to God, none with whom he would. we may suppose, communicate more openly than the prophets. We should expect, then, that they would be the recipients, not only of visions in the state of dream or ecstasy, but also of the direct revelations which are called speaking mouth to mouth. The greater part of the divine communications we may suppose to have been thus made to the prophets in their waking and ordinary state, while the visions were exhibited to them either in the state of sleep or in the state of ecstasy. The more ordinary mode through which the word of the Lord, as far as we can trace, came, was through a divine impulse given to the prophet’s own thoughts (Stanley, p. 426). Hence it follows that. while the fathers in their opposition to Montanism and were pushed somewhat too far in their denial of the ecstatic state, they were yet perfectly exact in their descriptions of the condition under which the greater part of the prophetic revelations were received and promulgated. No truer description has been given of them than that of Hippolytus and that of St. Basil: , , , (Hippol. De Antichristo, c. ii). , (St. Basil, Conm. in Esti. Procem.). The state of ecstasy, though ranking high above the ordinary sensual existence, is still not the highest, as appears from Numbers 12, and the example of Christ, whom we never find in an ecstatical state. To the prophets, however, it was indispensable, on account of the frailty of themselves and the people. The forcible working upon them by the Spirit of God would not have been required, if their general life had already been altogether holy; for which reason we also find ecstasy to manifest itself the stronger the more the general life was ungodly; as, for instance, in Balaam, when the Spirit of God came upon him (Num 24:4; Num 24:16), and in Saul, who throws himself on the ground, tearing his clothes from his body. With a prophet whose spiritual attainments were those of an Isaiah, such results are not to be expected. As regards the people, their spiritual obtuseness must be considered as very great to have rendered necessary such vehement excitations as the addresses of the prophets caused.

Had the prophets a full knowledge of that which they predicted? It follows from what we have already said that in many cases they had not, and could not have. They were the spokesmen of God (Exo 7:1), the mouth by which his words were uttered, or they were enabled to view, and empowered to describe, pictures presented to their spiritual intuition; but there are no grounds for believing that, contemporaneously with this miracle, there was wrought another miracle enlarging the understanding of the prophet so as to grasp the whole of the divine counsels which he was gazing into, or which he was the instrument of enunciating. We should not expect it beforehand; and we have the testimony of the prophets themselves (Dan 12:8; Zec 4:5), and of St. Peter (1Pe 1:10) to the fact that they frequently did not fully comprehend them.

The passage in Peter’s epistle is very instructive: Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you: searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow. Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. It is here declared (1) that the Holy Ghost through the prophet, or the prophet by the Holy Ghost, testified of Christ’s sufferings and ascension, and of the institution of Christianity; (2) that after having uttered predictions on those subjects, the minds of the prophets occupied themselves in searching into the full meaning of the words that they had uttered; (3) that they were then divinely informed that their predictions were not to find their completion until the last days, and that they themselves were instruments for declaring good things that should come not to their own but to a future generation. This is exactly what the prophetic state above described would lead us to expect. While the divine communication is received, the human instrument is simply passive. He sees or hears by his spiritual intuition or perception, and declares what he has seen or heard. Then the reflective faculty, which had been quiescent but never so overpowered as to be destroyed, awakens to the consideration of the message or vision received, and it strives earnestly to understand it, and more especially to look at the revelation as in instead of out of time. The result is a comparative failure, but this failure is softened by the divine intimation that the time is not vet. The two questions. What did the prophet understand by this prophecy? and What was the meaning of this prophecy? are somewhat different in the ultimate estimation of every one who believes that the Holy Ghost spake by the prophets, or who considers it possible that he did so speak. It is on this principle rather than as it is explained by Dr. M’Caul (Aids to Faith) that the prophecy of Hos 11:1 is to be interpreted. Hosea, we may well believe, understood in his own words no more than a reference to the historical fact that the children of Israel came out of Egypt. But Hosea was not the author of the prophecy he was the instrument by which it was promulgated. The Holy Spirit Intended something further, and what this something was he informs us by the evangelist Matthew (Mat 2:15).

The two facts of the Israelites being led out of Egypt and of Christ’s return from Egypt appear to Prof. Jowett so distinct that the reference by Matthew to the prophet is to him inexplicable except on the hypothesis of a mistake on the part of the evangelist (see Jowett, Essay on the Interpretation of Scripture). A deeper insight into Scripture shows that the Jewish people themselves, their history, their ritual, their government, all present one grand prophecy of the future Redeemer (Lee, p. 107). Consequently Israel is one of the forms naturally taken in the prophetic vision by the idea Messiah. It does not follow from the above, however, that the prophets had no intelligent comprehension of their ordinary vaticinators. These, so far at least as the primary reference is concerned, were plain to their own mind, although the future and full significance was of necessity dim and imperfectly apprehended. Time, in the order of providence, is God’s own best expounder of prophecy. While the prophets were under the influence of inspiration, the scenery might produce deep, absorbing, or elevated emotion, which would sometimes greatly affect their physical system (Gen 15:12; Num 24:16; Dan 10:8; Eze 1:28; Rev 1:17). Still they had an intelligent consciousness of what they were describing, they retained their distinct mental faculties; they did not utter frantic ravings like the prophets of Baal. Undoubtedly, as the prophecies are a revelation from God, the prophets well understood, at least in a general way, the predictions they uttered; but they did not necessarily testify or know anything respecting the time when the events predicted should happen (Dan 12:8-9; 1Pe 1:10-12). Occasionally even this was revealed to them (Jer 2:10). The symbols which were often exhibited to the prophets they described as they came before them in succession, and in some instances they were subsequently favored with a more full and particular explanation of the scenery which passed before them (Eze 37:11). Though the prophetic office was generally permanent, it need not, and should not, be supposed that at all times and on all occasions the prophets spoke and acted under the special aid and guidance of the Holy Spirit. So much was not true of even the apostles of Christ. It is enough that at all due times, and in appropriate circumstances, they were specially guided and aided by the Spirit of God. Nor is it necessary to assume that all the prophets were endowed with miraculous powers. Such was not the case even with Christian prophets (1Co 12:10). SEE INSPIRATION

VI. Form and Peculiarities of the Prophetic Utterances.

1. Verbal Modes of Delivery. Usually the prophets promulgated their visions and announcements in public places before the congregated people. Still some portions of the prophetic books, as the entire second part of Isaiah and the description of the new Temple (Ezekiel 40-48), probably were never communicated orally. In other cases the prophetic addresses first delivered orally were next, when committed to writing, revised and improved. Especially the books of the lesser prophets consist, for the greater part, not of separate predictions, independent of each other, but form, as they now are, a whole that is, they give the quintessence of the prophetic labors of their authors. In this case it is certain that the authors themselves caused the collection to be made. But it is so likewise in some cases where their books really consist of single declarations, and in others it is at least highly probable. Further particulars concerning the manner in which prophetic rolls were collected and published we have only respecting Jeremiah, who, being in prison, called Baruch to write from his mouth his predictions, and to read them in the ears of the people (Jeremiah 38:41). There is evidence that the later prophets sedulously read the writings of the earlier, and that a prophetic canon existed before the present was formed.

The predictions of Jeremiah throughout rest on the writings of earlier prophets, as Kiiper has established (in his feremias Librorum Sacrorum Interpres atque Vindlex, Berlin, 1837). Zechariah explicitly alludes to writings of former prophets; to the words which the Lord has spoken to earlier prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and in prosperity (Zec 1:4; Zec 7:7; Zec 7:12). In all probability we have complete those predictions which were committed to writing; at least the proofs which Ewald gives (p. 43 sq.) for his opinion, of prophecies having been lost, do not stand trial. The words as the Lord hath said, in Joe 2:32, refer to the predictions of Joel himself. In Isaiah 2 and Micah 4 nothing is introduced from a lost prophetic roll, but Isaiah borrows from Micah. Hosea alludes (Hos 8:12), not to some unknown work, but to the Pentateuch. In Isaiah 15, 16 the prophet repeats, not another’s prediction, but his own, previously delivered, to which he adds a supplement. Obadiah and Jeremiah do not avail themselves of the written address of a former prophet, but Jeremiah makes the prophecy of Obadiah the groundwork of his own. The opinion that in Isa 56:10; Isa 57:11, there was inserted, unaltered, a long remnant of an older roll is founded on erroneous views respecting the time of its composition. The same holds good of Isaiah 24, where Ewald would find remnants of several older rolls. The very circumstance that in the prophets there nowhere occurs a tenable ground for maintaining that they referred to rolls lost and unknown to us, but that they often allude to writings which we know and possess, clearly proves that there is no reason for supposing, with Ewald, that a great number of prophetic compositions have been lost, and that of a large tree, only a few blossoms have reached our time. In consequence of the prophets being considered as organs of God, much care was bestowed on the preservation of their publications. Ewald himself cannot refrain from observing (p. 56), We have in Jer 26:1-19 a clear proof of the exact knowledge which the better classes of the people had of all that had, a hundred years before, happened to a prophet of his words, misfortunes, and accidents.

2. Symbolic Actions. In the midst of the prophetic declarations symbolic actions are often mentioned which the prophets had to perform. The opinions of interpreters on these are divided. Most interpreters hold that they always, at least generally, were really done; others assert that they had existence only in the mind of the prophets, and formed part of their visions. SEE HOSEA. Another symbolic action of Jeremiah prefigures the people’s destruction. He says (Jer 8:1-10) he had been by the Lord directed to get a linen girdle, to put it on his loins, to undertake a long tour to the Euphrates, and to hide the girdle there in a hole of the rock. He does so, returns, and after many days the Lord again orders him to take the girdle from the place where it was hidden, but the girdle was marred and good for nothing. In predicting the destruction of Babylon and a general war (Jer 25:12-38), he receives from the Lord a wine-cup, to cause a number of kings of various nations, among whom the sword would be sent, to drink from it till they should be overcome. He then goes with this cup to the kings of Egypt, Arabia, Persia, Media, and many other countries. When the prophet Ezekiel receives his commission and instructions to prophesy against the rebellious people of Israel, a roll of a book is presented to him, which he eats by the direction of the Lord (Eze 2:9; Ezekiel 3, 2, 3). He is next ordered to lie before the city of Jerusalem on his left side three hundred and ninety days; and when he had accomplished them, on his right side forty days. He must not turn from one side to the other, and he is ordered to bake with dung of man the bread which he eats during this time (Eze 4:4; Eze 4:8; Eze 4:12). Isaiah is ordered to walk naked and barefoot, for a sign upon Egypt and Ethiopia (Isa 20:2-3). But, however we may understand these directions, we cannot refer all symbolic actions to internal intuition; at least, of a false prophet we have a sure example of an externally performed symbolic action (1Ki 22:11), and the false prophets always aped the true ones (comp. Jer 19:1 sq.). These undoubted instances of a literal action warrant the presumption that in the other cases likewise there was a substantial fact as the basis of a spiritual symbolism. SEE VISION.

In the case of visions the scenery passed before their mind, something like a panoramic view of a landscape, gradually unfolding, in symbolical imagery, forms of glory or of gloom; accompanied with actions of a corresponding character, not unfrequently exhibiting, as in actual occurrence, the future and distant events. The prophets occasionally beheld themselves as actors in the symbolical scenery. In the visionary pageant many objects would appear to be grouped, or lying near together, which were in fact separated by considerable intervals of time; so that it is not to be expected that the prophets would describe what they saw in their connections and relations. SEE SYMBOL.

3. Prophetic Style and Diction. The idea of prophecy as anticipated history has given rise to many erroneous views of prophetic language. No prophecy can be rightly interpreted which does not illustrate the name of God in the elements of his character, the principles of his government, his purposes of mercy and judgment towards men. The human race presents the only proper object of moral treatment. When judgments or blessings are announced upon states and kingdoms, to have respect to the territory rather than the inhabitants is to merge the spiritual in the natural. The promises which are associated with Mount Zion, and the threatenings uttered against Edom, belong not to the locality, but to the people, and to all who imbibe their spirit and walk in their steps.

The mission of the prophets was the religious education of the Jewish people. They were raised up, according to the exigencies of the times, to preserve them from error, and to prepare their minds for the future development of the kingdom of God. Their object was twofold to maintain the Church in due allegiance to prescribed rites, institutions, ordinances, and yet to prepare the people for a further manifestation of the blessings of the new covenant. By their writings they designed to impart to future ages an explanation of the vanishing-away of the system under which they lived, and to confirm the divine origin and authority of the new order of things. The prophetic style and diction exactly accords with this view of their design. This will account for the various hues of light and shade which streak the scroll of prophecy.

If the future course of events had been clearly marked out and formally laid down, all motives to present duty would have been obliterated; no room would have been left for the exercise of faith, of hope, of fear, and love; all thoughts, all feelings, all desires, would have been absorbed in the overpowering sense of expectation. But enough is revealed to support faith and animate hope. The remoter future is seen afar off in promises indistinct yet glorious. Confidence is bespoken for these distant predictions, by the clear and precise terms which portray some nearer event, fulfilled in that generation as a sign and token that all shall be accomplished in its season. Heathen divination, when it refers to any event which is near at hand, uses language remarkable for its ambiguity, but speaks distinctly of those matters which are reserved for the distant future. Those who spake in the name of Jehovah pursue the directly opposite course. Their language is much more express, distinct, and clear when they speak of events in the nearer future than in describing what shall take place in the latter days. Prophecy of this nature would not raise its voice at all times, lest that voice from its familiarity should be unheeded; but at every critical and eventful period prophecy led them on a pillar of cloud in the brighter daylight of their purer and better times; a pillar of fire gleaming in the darker night of their calamity or sin (Dean Magee).

The moral results of prophecy would have been lost if the historical element had been clear prior to the occurrence of the prefigured events. A certain veil must necessarily hang over the scene until its predictions passed into realities. The best form in which a prophecy can be delivered is to leave the main circumstances unintelligible before the fulfilment, yet so clear as to be easily recognised after the event. It was necessary as a touchstone for the faith and patience of the Church that a certain disguise should veil the coming events till they become facts in providence. Whatever private information the prophet might enjoy, the Spirit of God would never permit him to disclose the ultimate intent and particular meaning of the prophecy (Bishop Horsley).

4. Prophetical Language. This takes its hue and coloring from the political condition of the kingdom, from the local standpoint of the writer, from the position of those to whom the message was delivered.

To say that prophetical language is figurative is simply to say that it is used for a spiritual purpose, and directed to spiritual ends. Our ordinary language in reference to mental and moral subjects is founded on analogy or resemblance. In early times language is nearly all figure; natural symbols are employed to denote common facts. It is the necessity of man’s state that scarcely any fact connected with the mind or with spiritual truth can be described but, in language borrowed from material things. The visible world is the dial-plate of the invisible. God has stamped his own image on natural things, which he employs to describe and illustrate his own nature and his dealings with the Church. The Author of the spiritual kingdom is also the Author of the natural kingdom, and both kingdoms develop themselves after the same laws. Nature is a witness for the kingdom of God. Whatever exists in the earthly is found also in the heavenly kingdom. The religious teachers of the Hebrew nation might adopt the apostle’s language, We see through a glass; we consider, we contemplate by means of a mirror in a dark saying (1Co 13:12). All who held the prophetical office could in a measure adopt the language of our Lord, I will open my mouth in similitudes; I will give vent to things kept secret from the foundation of the world (Mat 13:35).

While prophecy frequently employed natural objects and scenery as the means of impressing the memory, instructing the judgment, interesting the heart, and charming the imagination, it made large use of the present and past condition of the nation, of the Levitical institutions and ceremonies, as symbols in representing good things to come. Thus we may observe

(1.) The future is described in terms of the past. The known is made use of to give shape and form to the unknown. We have a striking instance of this in Hosea (Hos 8:13; Hos 9:3): They shall return to Egypt. Ephraim shall return to Egypt. and shall eat unclean things in Assyria. The old state of bondage and oppression should come back upon them. The covenant whereby it was promised that the people should not return was virtually cancelled. They had made themselves as the heathen; they should be in the condition of the heathen. For in Hos 11:5 we read: He shall not return into the land of Egypt, but the Assyrian shall be his king; because they refused to return. They would not have God for their king; therefore the Assyrian should be their king, and a worse captivity than that of Egypt should befall them. In accordance with this, the teachers of false doctrine and the abetters of corruption in the Asiatic churches are spoken of as a resuscitation of Jezebel and Balaam (Rev 14:20).

(2.) Prophecy made great use of the present, and especially of the standpoint and personal circumstances of the agent, to illustrate the future. Ezekiel describes the coming glory of the Church under the gorgeous and elaborate description of a temple. All the images in the nine concluding chapters are taken from this one analogy. He sums up his minute and precise representation with the significant hint, The name of the city from that day shall be, The Lord is there. The Apocalyptic seer, living when the Temple was laid waste, and all its rites and institutions were superseded, describes the glory of the new Jerusalem in language that seems to be directly contradictory (Rev 21:22), I saw no temple therein; but in entire harmony with Eze 48:35, the Spirit testifies, the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. Both Ezekiel and John speak of the same glorious future in language and imagery perfectly natural and appropriate to the times and circumstances in which they were placed.

(3.) Frequently the prophetic style received its complexion and coloring from the diversified circumstances of the parties addressed, as well as from the standpoint of the prophet. This is peculiarly the case with the language of Daniel, which presents such an approximation to the style of history that some have rashly assigned his writings to a date long posterior to the captivity of Babylon. The specific form which a portion of his prophecies assumes may be accounted for by considering the great feebleness and depression of the people on resuming their residence in Judaea; the anomalous and shattered condition of the theocratic constitution when the ark of the covenant, the Urim and Thummim, the kingly rule and government, were gone, when the vision was sealed, and no one of the prophetic order remained. This is the time selected for setting forth the external aspect of God’s kingdom to one who was well conversant with political revolutions, who stood at the centre of the world’s power and glory when earthly monarchies began to aspire after universal dominion. The visions granted to Daniel (8, 9), though plain to us who read them after the event, were far from being clear to himself or to others (Dan 8:27; Dan 12:4; Dan 12:8-9). In the symbols he employs we have a reflection of his own peculiar position and political experience; and in the detailed exhibition of the coming future, in the explicit predictions of the changes and vicissitudes which were at hand, the children of faith felt that the God of their fathers was still in the midst of them. Prophecy is always a revelation of specific events, when the events spoken of are to be fulfilled in the nearer future. The picture presented to the Church was minutely portrayed in a historical dress whenever the hope of the faithful required special and immediate support. (See 8, below.)

(4.) The divine impulse under which the prophets spoke, though it was supernatural, acted in harmony with personal characteristics and native susceptibilities. The supernatural ever bases itself upon the natural. Constitutional tendencies are moulded by the plastic influence of divine grace, but are never entirely obliterated. The prophets never lost personal consciousness, or any distinctive characteristic of thought and feeling, even when they were raised into an ecstatical condition. Extraordinary impressions of divine light and influence affected the rational as well as the imaginative power. The false lights which pretended to prophecy were impressions made on the imagination exclusively, whose conceptions ran only in a secular channel, as the sect of diviners, enchanters, dreamers, and soothsayers (J. Smith). The lowest degree of prophecy is when the imaginative power is most predominant, and the scene becomes too turbulent for the rational faculty to discern clearly the mystical sense. The highest is where all imagination ceases-as with Moses, whom God knew face to face where truth is revealed to the reason and understanding.

(5.) The poetical element of prophecy arises from the ecstatical condition of the prophet, from the action of spiritual influences on constitutional tendencies. But as the primary aim of the religious teachers of the Hebrews was to influence the heart and conscience, the poetical element, though never entirely suppressed, was held in restraint, to further the higher ends of spiritual instruction. Hence, as Ewald remarks, Prophetical discourse has a form and impress of its own, too elevated to sink to simple prose, too practical in its aim to assume the highest form of poetry. Of the two ideas involved in vates, the prophetical ruled the poetical. The distinction between the poet and the prophet may be thus expressed: as the prophet’s aim was to work upon others in the most direct and impressive manner, he was at liberty to adopt any form or method of representation; but as the immediate aim of the poet is to satisfy himself and the requirements of his art, he cannot vary his definite manner, and change his mode of address at pleasure, in order to work upon others. The poetical elevation appears most vividly in the idealistic and imaginative form, when the patriarchal heads of the Jewish nation, their several families, Zion, Jerusalem, their religious and political centre, are addressed as living personalities present to the mind and eve of the prophet. A vivid instance of this personification occurs in Jer 31:15, Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted. It was at Ramah that the Chaldean conqueror assembled the last band of captives (40:1): the prospect of perpetual exile lay before them. On their departure the last hope of Israel’s existence seemed to expire. In the bold freedom of Eastern imagery, the ancestral mother of the tribe is conceived of as present at the scene, and as raising a loud wail of distress. This scene was substantially repeated in the massacre at Bethlehem. The cruel Edomite who then held the government of Judaea aimed what was meant to be a fatal blow against the real hope of Israel. Though it was but a handful of children that actually perished, yet as among these the Child of Promise was supposed to be included, it might well seem as if all were lost (Fairbairn). SEE POETRY,

VII. Interpretation of Predictions. In addition the hints given above and below, we here have only space for a few rules, deduced from the account which we have given of the nature of prophecy. They are,

(1.) Interpose distances of time according as history may show them to be necessary with respect to the past, or inference may show them to be likely in respect to the future, because, as we have seen, the prophetic visions are abstracted from relations in time.

(2.) Distinguish the form from the idea. Thus Isa 11:15 represents the idea of the removal of all obstacles from before God’s people in the form of the Lord’s destroying the tongue of the Egyptian sea, and smiting the river into seven streams.

(3.) Distinguish in like manner figure from what is represented by it, e.g. in the verse previous to that quoted do not understand literally They shall fly upon the shoulders of the Philistines (Isa 11:14).

(4.) Make allowance for the imagery of the prophetic visions, and for the poetical diction in which they are expressed.

(5.) In respect to things past, interpret by the apparent meaning, checked by reference to events; in respect to things future, interpret by the apparent meaning, checked by reference to the analogy of the faith.

(6.) Interpret according to the principle which may be deduced from the examples of visions explained in the Old Test.

(7.) Interpret according to the principle which may be deduced from the examples of prophecies interpreted in the New Test. SEE INTERPRETATION

VIII. Use of Prophecy. Predictions are at once a part and an evidence of revelation: at the time that they are delivered, and until their fulfilment, a part; after they have been fulfilled, an evidence. An apostle (2Pe 1:19) describes prophecy as a light shining in a dark place, or a taper glimmering where there is nothing to reflect its rays, that is, throwing some light, but only a feeble light as compared with what is shed from the Gospel history. To this light, feeble as it is, you do well, says the apostle, to take heed. And he warns them not to be offended at the feebleness of the light, because it is of the nature of prophecy until its fulfilment (in the case of Messianic predictions, of which he is speaking, described as until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts) to shed only a feeble light. Nay, he continues, even the prophecies are not to be limited to a single and narrow interpretation, for the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, i.e. the prophets were not affected by personal considerations in their predictions, but holy men of old spake by the impulse () of the Holy Ghost. This is in entire keeping with the above views ( vi) of the character of the prophetic utterances, and was the use of prophecy before its fulfilment to act as a feeble light in the midst of darkness, which it did not dispel, but through which it threw its rays in such a way as to enable a true-hearted believer to direct his steps and guide his anticipations (comp. Act 13:27). But after fulfilment, Peter says, the word of prophecy becomes more sure than it was before, that is, it is no longer merely a feeble light to guide, but it is a firm ground of confidence, and, combined with the apostolic testimony, serves as a trustworthy evidence of the faith; so trustworthy that even after he and his brother apostles are dead, those whom he addressed will feel secure that they had not followed cunningly devised fables, but the truth.

As an evidence, fulfilled prophecy is as satisfactory as anything can be, for who can know the future except the Ruler who disposes future events; and from whom can come prediction except from him who knows the future? After all that has been said and unsaid, prophecy and miracles, each resting on their own evidence, must always be the chief and direct evidences of the truth of the divine character of a religion. Where they exist, a divine power is proved. Nevertheless, they should never be rested on alone, but in combination with the general character of the whole scheme to which they belong. Its miracles, its prophecies, its morals, its propagation, and its adaptation to human needs, are the chief evidences of Christianity. None of these must be taken separately. The fact of their conspiring together is the strongest evidence of all. That one object with which predictions are delivered is to serve in an after-age as an evidence on which faith may reasonably rest is stated by our Lord himself: And now I have told you before it come to pass, that when it is come to pass, ye might believe (Joh 14:29). SEE PROPHECY.

As prophecy came , in many portions and in many modes (Heb 1:1), we need not be surprised to find a relative disregard of time in its announcements. The seers beheld things to come much as wee look upon a starry sky. To the natural eye all the orbs that bespangle the firmament seem to be at the same distance from the earth. Though the monarchies of Daniel are successive, yet in a certain way they are described as co-existent; for it is only on the establishment of the last that they seem to disappear. As the precise time of individual events is not revealed, prophecy describes them as continuous. The representation is rather in space than in time; the whole appears foreshortened; perspective is regarded rather than actual distance; as a common observer would describe the stars, grouping them as they appear, and not according to their true positions. Prof. Payne Smith well observes, The prophets are called seers, and their writings visions. They describe events passing before their mental eye as simple facts, without the idea of time. A picture may represent the past. the present, or the future; this we may know from its accessories by the inference of the judgment, but not by the sight as such. If time is revealed, as in the seventy weeks of Daniel, time is the idea impressed upon the mind. But where time is not itself the thing revealed, the facts of revelation are not described as connected with or growing out of one another, as in the pages of history, but are narrated as facts merely, which future ages must arrange in their proper place, as one by one they are fulfilled. The first conquest and the complete destruction of Babylon are spoken of together (Jeremiah 1:41), though nearly a thousand years elapsed between them. Zechariah connects the spiritual salvation of the Church in the distant future with the temporal deliverance of the Jews under Alexander and the Maccabees. In the description which is given of the humiliation and glory of the Messiah, notice is seldom taken of the interval which is to elapse before the full and final establishment of his kingdom. So Paul in the fulness of his faith, which realized the object of his hope, and brought vividly before the eve of his mind the consummation of all things. has used language respecting the coming of Christ which some have misinterpreted as implying that he expected the day of Christ to arrive in his lifetime. Occasionally the precise time was revealed, as in the case of the sojourn of Abraham and his posterity in Egypt (Gen 15:13); the disruption of Ephraim (Isa 7:8), and the captivity in Babylon (Jer 29:10). But usually the prophets were entirely ignorant of the time, and only ascertained. after careful inquiry, that they spoke of the distant future (1Pe 1:10-12). At evening-time it shall be light (Zec 14:7). The faithful in the land will discern the period when the events are upon the eve of fulfilment. SEE ESCHATOLOGY

IX. Development of Messianic Prophecy. Prediction, in the shape of promise and threatening, begins with the book of Genesis. Immediately upon the fall, hopes of recovery and salvation are held out, but the manner in which this salvation is to be effected is left altogether indefinite. All that is at first declared is that it shall come through a child of woman (Gen 3:15). By degrees the area is limited: it is to come through the family of Shem (Gen 9:26), through the family of Abraham (Gen 12:3), of Isaac (Gen 22:18), of Jacob (Gen 28:14), of Judah (Gen 49:10). Balaam seems to say that it will be wrought by a warlike Israelitish King (Num 24:17); Jacob, by a peaceful Ruler of the earth (Gen 49:10); Moses, by a Prophet like himself, i.e. a revealer of a new religious dispensation (Deu 18:15). Nathan’s announcement (2Sa 7:16) determines further that the salvation is to come through the house of David, and through a descendant of David who shall be Himself a king. This promise is developed by David himself in the Messianic Psalms. Psalms 18, 61 are founded on the promise communicated by Nathan, and do not go beyond the announcement made by Nathan. The same may be said of Psalms 89, Which was composed by a later writer. Psalms 2, 110 rest upon the same promise as their foundation, but add new features to it. The Son of David is to be the Son of God (Psa 2:7), the anointed of the Lord (Psalms 2, Psa 110:2), not only the King of Zion (Psalms 2, Psa 110:6; Psa 110:1), but the inheritor and lord or of the whole earth (Psa 2:8; Psa 110:6), and, besides this, a Priest forever after the order of Melchizedek (Psa 110:4). At the same time he is, as typified by his progenitor, to be full of suffering and affliction (Psalms 22, 71, 102, 109): brought down to the grave, yet raised to life without seeing corruption (Psalms 16). In Psalm 45:72, the sons of Korah and Solomon describe his peaceful reign. Between Solomon and Hezekiah intervened some 200 years, during which the voice of prophecy was silent. The Messianic conception entertained at this time by the Jews might have been that of a King of the royal house of David who would arise, and gather under his peaceful sceptre his own people and strangers. Sufficient allusion to his prophetical and priestly offices had been made to create thoughtful consideration, but as yet there was no clear delineation of him in these characters. It was reserved for the prophets to bring out these features more distinctly.

The sixteen prophets may be divided into four groups: the Prophets of the Northern Kingdom Hosea, Amos, Joel, Jonah; the Prophets of the Southern Kingdom Isaiah, Jeremiah, Obadiah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah; the Prophets of the Captivity Ezekiel and Daniel; the Prophets of the Return Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi. In this great period of prophetism there is no longer any chronological development of Messianic prophecy, as in the earlier period previous to Solomon. Each prophet adds a feature, one more, another less clearly: combine the features, and we have the portrait; but it does not grow gradually and perceptibly under the hands of the several artists. Here, therefore, the task of tracing the chronological progress of the revelation of the Messiah comes to an end: its culminating point is found in the prophecy contained in Isa 52:13-15, and Isaiah 53. We here read that there should be a Servant of God, lowly and despised, full of grief and suffering, oppressed, condemned as a malefactor, and put to death. But his sufferings, it is said, are not for his own sake, for he had never been guilty of fraud or violence: they are spontaneously taken, patiently borne, vicarious in their character; and, by God’s appointment, they have an atoning, reconciling, and justifying efficacy. The result of his sacrificial offering is to be his exaltation and triumph. By the path of humiliation and expiatory suffering, he is to reach that state of glory foreshown by David and Solomon. The prophetic character of the Messiah is drawn out by Isaiah in other parts of his book as the atoning work here. By the time of Hezekiah therefore (for Hengstenberg, Chrtistology, vol. 2, has satisfactorily disproved the theory of a Deutero-Isaiah of the days of the captivity) the portrait of the at once King, Priest. Prophet, and Redeemer was drawn in all its essential features. The contemporary and later prophets (comp. Mic 5:2; Dan 7:9; Zec 6:13; Mal 4:2) added some particulars and details, and so the conception was left to await its realization after al interval of some 400 years from the date of the last Hebrew prophet.

The modern Jews, in opposition to their ancient exposition, have been driven to a non-Messianic interpretation of Isaiah 53. Among Christians the non-Messianic interpretation commenced with Grotius. He applies the chapter to Jeremiah. According to Doderlein, Schuster, Stephani, Eichhorn, Rosenmuller, Hitzig, Itandewerk, Kister (after the Jewish expositors Jarchi, Aben-Ezra, Kimchi, Abarbanel, Lipmann), the subject of the prophecy is the Israelitish people. According to Eckermann, Ewald, Bleek, it is the ideal Israelitish people. According to Paulus, Ammon, Maurer, Thenius, Knobel, it is the godly portion of the Israelitish people. According to De Wette, Gesenius, Schenkel, Umbreit, Hofmann, it is the prophetical body. Augusti refers it to king Uzziah; Konynenburg and Bahrdt to Hezekiah; Statudlin to Isaiah himself; Bolten to the house of David. Ewald thinks that no historical person was intended, but that the author of the chapter has misled his readers by inserting a passage from an older book, in which a martyr was spoken of. This, he says, quite spontaneously suggested itself, and has impressed itself on my mind more and more; and he thinks that controversy on ch. 53 will never cease until this truth is acknowledged (Propheten, vol. 2, p. 407). Hengstenberg gives the following list of German commentators who have maintained the Messianic explanation: Dathe, Hensler, Kocher, Koppe, Michaelis, Schmieder, Storr, Hansi, Kruger, Jahn, Steudel, Sack, Reinke, Tholuck, Havernick, Stier. Hengstenberg’s own exposition, and criticism of the expositions of others, is well worth consultation (Christology, vol. ii). Riehm has given a very good outline of these prophecies in their origin, historical character, and relation to New Test. fulfilment in the Studien und Kritiken for 1865 and 1869 (transl. by Jefferson, Messianic Prophecy, Edinb. 1876, 12mo). Drummond’s work on The Jewish Messiah is a semi- rationalistic view drawn chiefly from apocryphal literature (Lond. 1877, 8vo). Prebendary Row has shown (Bampton Lecture for 1877, p. 234 sq.) the insufficiency of the Messianic elements of the Old Test. as an ideal model for the delineation of the Christ of the New Test. SEE MESSIAH.

X. Prophets of the New Testament. So far as their predictive powers are concerned, the Old-Test. prophets find their New-Test. counterpart in the writer of the Apocalypse; but in their general character, as specially illumined revealers of God’s will, their counterpart will rather be found, first in the Great Prophet of the Church, and his forerunner John the Baptist, and next in all those persons who were endowed with the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit in the apostolic age, the speakers with tongues and the interpreters of tongues, the prophets and the discerners of spirits, the teachers and workers of miracles (1Co 12:10; 1Co 12:28). The connecting link between the Old-Test. prophet and the speaker with tongues is the state of ecstasy in which the former at times received his visions and in which the latter uttered his words. The Old-Test. prophet, however, was his own interpreter: he did not speak in the state of ecstasy: he saw his visions in the ecstatic, and declared them in the ordinary state. The New-Test. discerner of spirits has his prototype in such as Micaiah, the son of Imlah (1Ki 22:22), the worker of miracles in Elijah and Elisha, the teacher in each and all of the prophets. The prophets of the New Test. represented their namesakes of the Old Test. as being expounders of divine truth and interpreters of the divine will to their auditors.

That predictive powers did occasionally exist in the New-Test. prophets is proved by the case of Agabus (Act 11:28), but this was not their characteristic. They were not an order, like apostles, bishops or presbyters, and deacons, but they were men or women (Act 21:9) who had the vouchsafed them. If men, they might at the same time be apostles (1 Corinthians 14); and there was nothing to hinder the different of wisdom, knowledge, faith, teaching, miracles, prophecy, discernment. tongues, and interpretation (ch. 12) being all accumulated on one person, anti this person might or might not be a presbyter. Paul describes prophecy as being effective for the conversion, apparently the sudden and immediate conversion, of unbelievers (Act 14:24), and for the instruction and consolation of believers (Act 12:31). This shows its nature. It was a spiritual gift which enabled men to understand and to teach the truths of Christianity, especially as veiled in the Old Test., and to exhort and warn with authority and effect greater than human (see Locke, Paraphrase. note on 1 Corinthians 12, and Conybeare and Howson, 1, 461). The prophets of the New Test. were supernaturally illuminated expounders and preachers.

XI. Literature. On the general subject of prophecy no comprehensive or altogether satisfactory treatise has yet been produced. Among the old works we may mention Augustine, De Civitate Dei, lib. 18:cap. 27 sq. (Op. 7:508, Paris, 1685); Carpzov, Introd. ad Libros Canonicos (Lips. 1757). Some good remarks will be found in the essay of John Smith, On Prophecy (Select Discourses, disc. 6:p. 181, Loud. 1821, 8vo), which was translated into Latin and reprinted at the end of Le Clerc’s Commentary on the Prophets (Amsterd. 1731). It contains interesting passages on the nature of the predictions in the Old Test., extracted from Jewish authors, of whom Maimonides is the most distinguished.

Of less importance is the essay of Hermann Witsius, De Prophetia et Prophetis (in vol. 1 of his Miscellan. Sacra [Utrecht, 1692], p. 1-392): he digresses too much and needlessly from the main question, and says little applicable to the point; but he still supplies some useful materials. The same remark also applies in substance to Knibbe’s History of the Prophets. Some valuable remarks, but much more that is arbitrary and untenable, will be found in Crusius’s Hypomnnemata ad Theologiam Prophet. (Lips. 1764, 3 vols.). In the Treatise on Prophecy inserted by Jahn in his Introduction to the Old Testament, he endeavors to refute the views of the Rationalists, but does not sift the subject to the bottom. Kleuker’s work, De Nexu Proph. inter utrumque Foedus, possesses more of a genuine theological character. The leader of the Rationalists is Eichhorn, Die Hebraischen Propheten (Getting. 1816); also in his Introduction to the Old Testament, and in his dissertation De Prophet. Poes. Hebr. Their views on this subject are most fully explained by Knobel in his Prophetismus der Hebriaer vollstiindig darqestellt (Breslau, 1837, 2 vols.): the work contains. however, little original research, and is valuable only as a compilation of what the Rationalists assert concerning prophecy. The work of Koster, Die Propheten des A. und N.T. (Leipsic, 1838), bears a higher character: on many points he approaches to sounder views; but he is inconsistent and wavering, and therefore cannot be said to have essentially advanced the knowledge of this subject. Of considerable eminence is the treatise by Ewald on prophecy, prefixed to his Propheten des Alten Buzndes (Stuttg. 1840; 1867, 3 vols.).

But to the important question, whether the prophets enjoyed supernatural assistance or not, an explicit answer will there be sought for in vain. His view of the subject is in the main that of the Rationalists, though he endeavors to veil it: the Spirit of God influencing the prophets is, in fact, only their own mind worked up by circumstances; their enthusiasm and ecstasy are made to explain all. Finally, the work of Hoffmann, Weissagun iq tnd Erfullungq im A. und N.T. (Nbrdlingen, 1841, vol. 1), is chargeable with spurious and affected originality: his views are often in their very details forced and strained, and it is to be regretted that the subject has by this work gained less than from the author’s talent might have been expected. Many of the elements of prophecy have been very ably and a soundly discussed by Hengstenberg, Christology of the Old Testament, in T. T. Clark’s transl. (Edinb. 1854). Other German works of importance on the subject are those of Umbreit, Die Propheten des A. Test. (in the Stud. u. Krit. 1833, p. 1040 sq.); Tholuck, Die Propheten und iahe Weissayungen (1860; tranlsl. in the Bibliotheca Sacra, 1833, p. 361 sq.). The subject is likewise discussed more or less fully in all the introductions (q.v.) to the Old Test. See also Bible Educator (Index, s.v.). One of the latest and most specious productions of the Rationalistic school is that of Prof. Kuenen (of the University of Leyden), The Prophets and Prophecy in Israel (transl. by Milroy, Lond. 1877, 8vo); it reiterates with ingenious array all the difficulties, contradictions, and failures alleged by hostile writers, and refuted or explained again and again by orthodox scholars. SEE SEER.

Among writers in English we may especially name the following: Sherlock. discourses on the Use and Intent of Prophecy (1755, 8vo); Hurd, Introd. to the Study of the Prophecies, etc. (17/72, 8vo); Apthorp, Discourses on Prophecy (1786, 2 vols. 8vo); Davison, Discourses on Prophecy (1821, 8vo); Smith (J. Pye), Principles of Interpretation as applied to the Prophecies (of Holy Scripture (1829, 8vo); Brooks. Elements of Prophetical Interpretation (1837, 12mo); Alexander, Connection of the Old and New Testaments (1841, 8vo), lect. 4-7, p. 168-382; Lowth, De Sacra Presi Hebrceorum (Oxon. 1821, and transl. by Gregory, Lend. 1835); Horsley, Biblical Criticism (Lond. 1820); Horne, Introduction to Holy Scripture (Loud. 1828), ch. 4: 3; Van Mildert, Boyle Lectures (Lond. 1831), 22; Fairbairnl, Prophecy: its nature, Functions, and Interpretation (Edinb. 1856); M’Caul, Aids to Faith (Lond. 1861); Smith (K. Payne), Messianic Interpretation of the Prophecies of Isaiah (Oxf. 1862); Davidson, Introduction to the Old Testament (Lond. 1862), ii, 422; Stanley, Lectures on the Jewish Church (Lond. 1863); Maurice, The Prophets and Kings of the Old Testament (rep. Bost. 1853); Stuart, Hints on the Interpretation of Prophecy (Andover, 1844); Arnold, On the Interpretation of Prophecy (in his Works, Lond. 1845, i, 373 sq.); Taylor, Spirit of Hebrew Poetry (rep. N.Y. 1862). See also Journ. Sacred Literature, Oct. 1862; Meth. Qaur. Rev. April, 1862; Alford, Greek Test. (note on Acts 13:41); the monographs cited by Volbeding, Index Programmatum, p. 22, 43, 44; by Hase, Leben Jesu, p. 103; by Danz, Worterb. p. 793; by Darling, Cyclopedia Bibliograpihica, col. 1785 sq.; and under the art. SEE PROPHETS, MAJOR AND MINOR.

Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

Prophet

(Heb. nabi, from a root meaning “to bubble forth, as from a fountain,” hence “to utter”, comp. Ps. 45:1). This Hebrew word is the first and the most generally used for a prophet. In the time of Samuel another word, _ro’eh_, “See r”, began to be used (1 Sam. 9:9). It occurs seven times in reference to Samuel. Afterwards another word, _hozeh_, “See r” (2 Sam. 24:11), was employed. In 1 Ch. 29:29 all these three words are used: “Samuel the See r (ro’eh), Nathan the prophet (nabi’), Gad the See r” (hozeh). In Josh. 13:22 Balaam is called (Heb.) a _kosem_ “diviner,” a word used only of a false prophet.

The “prophet” proclaimed the message given to him, as the “See r” beheld the vision of God. (See Num. 12:6, 8.) Thus a prophet was a spokesman for God; he spake in God’s name and by his authority (Ex. 7:1). He is the mouth by which God speaks to men (Jer. 1:9; Isa. 51:16), and hence what the prophet says is not of man but of God (2 Pet. 1:20, 21; comp. Heb. 3:7; Acts 4:25; 28:25). Prophets were the immediate organs of God for the communication of his mind and will to men (Deut. 18:18, 19). The whole Word of God may in this general sense be spoken of as prophetic, inasmuch as it was written by men who received the revelation they communicated from God, no matter what its nature might be. The foretelling of future events was not a necessary but only an incidental part of the prophetic office. The great task assigned to the prophets whom God raised up among the people was “to correct moral and religious abuses, to proclaim the great moral and religious truths which are connected with the character of God, and which lie at the foundation of his government.”

Any one being a spokesman for God to man might thus be called a prophet. Thus Enoch, Abraham, and the patriarchs, as bearers of God’s message (Gen. 20:7; Ex. 7:1; Ps. 105:15), as also Moses (Deut. 18:15; 34:10; Hos. 12:13), are ranked among the prophets. The seventy elders of Israel (Num. 11:16-29), “when the spirit rested upon them, prophesied;” Asaph and Jeduthun “prophesied with a harp” (1 Chr. 25:3). Miriam and Deborah were prophetesses (Ex. 15:20; Judg. 4:4). The title thus has a general application to all who have messages from God to men.

But while the prophetic gift was thus exercised from the beginning, the prophetical order as such began with Samuel. Colleges, “schools of the prophets”, were instituted for the training of prophets, who were constituted, a distinct order (1 Sam. 19:18-24; 2 Kings 2:3, 15; 4:38), which continued to the close of the Old Testament. Such “schools” were established at Ramah, Bethel, Gilgal, Gibeah, and Jericho. The “sons” or “disciples” of the prophets were young men (2 Kings 5:22; 9:1, 4) who lived together at these different “schools” (4:38-41). These young men were taught not only the rudiments of secular knowledge, but they were brought up to exercise the office of prophet, “to preach pure morality and the heart-felt worship of Jehovah, and to act along and co-ordinately with the priesthood and monarchy in guiding the state aright and checking all attempts at illegality and tyranny.”

In New Testament times the prophetical office was continued. Our Lord is frequently spoken of as a prophet (Luke 13:33; 24:19). He was and is the great Prophet of the Church. There was also in the Church a distinct order of prophets (1 Cor. 12:28; Eph. 2:20; 3:5), who made new revelations from God. They differed from the “teacher,” whose office it was to impart truths already revealed.

Of the Old Testament prophets there are sixteen, whose prophecies form part of the inspired canon. These are divided into four groups:

(1.) The prophets of the northern kingdom (Israel), viz., Hosea, Amos, Joel, Jonah.

(2.) The prophets of Judah, viz., Isaiah, Jeremiah, Obadiah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah.

(3.) The prophets of Captivity, viz., Ezekiel and Daniel.

(4.) The prophets of the Restoration, viz., Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi.

Fuente: Easton’s Bible Dictionary

Prophet

It has always been part of the system of the Divine government to employ men as instruments for the conveyance of heavenly truth and blessing to the world at large. Whether it be as the announcers of the Revealed Message, as the writers of the inspired Scripture, as the official representatives of God in matters relating to the atonement; or as teachers and guides of the people, human instruments have been employed, human voices have been heard, ‘the pen of a man’ has been used, the agent has been ‘taken from among men,’ the treasure has been conveyed in ‘earthen vessels.’ There has, indeed, been a constant tendency in those that have been selected for these important services to constitute themselves into a caste, and to assume to themselves powers and rights which God never gave them; and by a natural reaction, many persons, resenting such claims, have thrown discredit on sacred offices, and have sought to break through the distinctions which God Himself has marked out.

The practical advantages of a settled order of ministry are denied by comparatively few; but how many there are who differ, and that hotly, concerning the names, relative positions, and spiritual powers of the ministry! Metaphysical questions have intruded themselves, to add to the entanglement. Not only has the nature of the special prophetic gifts of the O. and N.T. been earnestly investigated, but such points as the following are raised:–Does the grace of God’s Spirit come direct to each member of the Church, or only through certain privileged persons t Does the spiritual efficacy of baptism and the Lord’s Supper depend up on the presence and superintendence of a person who has received special gifts by the laying on of hands? Are the spiritual gifts referred to in the N.T. transmitted through Episcopal consecration? or are they vested in the Holy Catholic Churc has a body, to be exercised through such representatives as may be appointed from time to time by the Christians of each locality? is a threefold order of ministry –bishops, presbyters, and deacons –essential to the exercise of such gifts? is Episcopal succession from the Apostles’ days, by a continuous laying on of hands, necessary in order to convey these gifts?

The animosity raised by such questions is endless, and we need over and over again to be reminded that the great object of the ministry is not that men should set themselves up as a privileged caste, but that they should lead others to Christ; whilst the object of Christ in dispensing his gifts to men is to make them conformable to the will of God. Whatever helps forward that conformity, whether it be the faithful use of the Lord’s Supper, the reading and meditating on Scripture, public prayer and preaching, or private spiritual intercourse between man and man, that is to be regarded as a gift, and as a means whereby the life of God penetrates the soul.

Prophet

The general name for a prophet in the O.T. is Nabi [ in Assyrian the Nab proclaimed the will of the gods; hence Nab or Nebo (?annap) ‘the prophet-god.’ The predicter of the future was the asipu ().] (). The original meaning of this word is uncertain; but it is generally supposed to signify the bubbling-up of the Divine message, as water issues from a hidden fountain. It is used both of prediction, properly so called, and of the announcement of a Divine message with regard to the past or present; also of the utterance of songs of praise. It is applied to messengers of false gods (e.g. ‘the prophets of Baal’), and to a man who acts as the mouthpiece of another, as when the Lord says to Moses (Exo 7:1), ‘Aar on thy brother shall be thy prophet.’ The first passage in which the word occurs is Gen 20:7, where it is used of Abraham in Deu 18:15; Deu 18:18, the title is applied to the Messiah, who was to have God’s words in his mouth, and who thus became the Mediat or of the New Covenant, taking a position analogous in some respects to that of Moses. The LXX almost always adopts the rendering and for Nabi.

In Mic 2:6; Mic 2:11, the word nathaph (), to drop, is used. Some commentators suppose that it is adopted as a word of contempt. It is used, however, of a discourse distilling in drops in the following passages:–Job 29:22, ‘My speech dropped up on them;’ Pro 5:3, ‘The lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb;’ Son 4:11, ‘Thy lips, O my spouse, drop as the honeycomb;’ 5:13, ‘H is lips, like lilies, dropping sweet-smelling myrrh;’ Eze 20:46, ‘Drop thy word towards the south;’ 21:2, ‘Drop thy word towards the holy places;’ Amo 7:16, ‘Drop not thy word against the house of Isaac.’

The word Masa (), a burden, is used in Pro 30:1; Pro 31:1, where the A. V. renders it ‘prophecy.’ by a burden we ale to understand the message laid up on the mind of the prophet, and by him pressed on the attention of the people. The message of the Lord ought not to have been regarded as a burden by the people (see Jer 23:33-38); but it could not fail to be realised as such by the prophets, who at times felt heavily laden with the weight of their message. See Jer 20:9, and compare Nah 1:1, Hab 1:1, and Mat 1:1.

In Hos 9:7 the prophet is described as the ‘man of the spirit,’ or the ‘spiritual men,’ en expression which reminds us of St. Peter’s declaration that ‘holy men of old spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.’

Fuente: Synonyms of the Old Testament

Prophet

nabiy’, from naaba’ “to bubble forth as a fountain,” as Psa 45:1, “my heart is bubbling up a good matter,” namely, inspired by the Holy Spirit; 2Pe 1:19-21; Job 32:8; Job 32:18-19; Job 32:20. Roeh, “seer,” from raah “to see,” was the term in Samuel’s days (1Sa 9:9) which the sacred writer of 1 Samuel calls “beforetime”; but nabi was the term as far back as the Pentateuch, and roeh does not appear until Samuel’s time, and of the ten times of its use in seven it is applied to Samuel. Chozeh, “seer,” from the poetical chazeh “see,” is first found in 2Sa 24:11, and is frequent in Chronicles; it came into use when roeh was becoming less used, nabi being resumed. Nabi existed long before, and after, and alongside of roeh and chozeh. Chazon is used in the Pentateuch, Samuel, Chronicles, Job, and the prophets for a prophetic revelation. Lee (Inspir. 543) suggests that chozeh designates the king’s “seer” (1Ch 21:9; 2Ch 29:25), not only David’s seer Gad (as Smith’s Bible Dictionary says) but Iddo in Solomon’s reign (2Ch 9:29; 2Ch 12:15).

Jehu, Hanani’s son, under Jehoshaphat (1Ch 19:2). Asaph and Jeduthun are called so (1Ch 29:30; 1Ch 35:15); also Amo 7:12; also 2Ch 33:18. Chozeh “the gazer” upon the spiritual world (1Ch 29:9), “Samuel the seer (roeh), Nathan the prophet (nabi), Gad the gazer” (chozeh). As the seer beheld the visions of God, so the prophet proclaimed the divine truth revealed to him as one of an official order in a more direct way. God Himself states the different modes of His revealing Himself and His truth (Num 12:6; Num 12:8). Prophet (Greek) means the interpreter (from pro, feemi, “speak forth” truths for another, as Aaron was Moses’ prophet, i.e. spokesman: Exo 7:1) of God’s will (the mantis was the inspired unconscious utterer of oracles which the prophet interpreted); so in Scripture the divinely inspired revealer of truths be fore unknown. Prediction was a leading function of the prophet (Deu 18:22; Jer 28:9; 1Sa 2:27; Act 2:30; Act 3:18; Act 3:21; 1Pe 1:10; 2Pe 3:2).

But it is not always attached to the prophet. For instance, the 70 elders, (Num 11:16-29); Asaph and Jeduthun, etc., “prophesied with a harp” (1Ch 25:3); Miriam and Deborah were “prophetesses” (Exo 15:20; Jdg 4:4, also Jdg 6:8); John the Baptist, the greatest of prophets of the Old Testament order. The New Testament prophet (1Co 12:28) made new revelations and preached under the extraordinary power of the Holy Spirit “the word of wisdom” (1Co 12:8), i.e. imparted with ready utterance new revelations of the divine wisdom in redemption. The “teacher” on the other hand, with the ordinary and calmer operation of the Spirit, had “the word of knowledge,” i.e. supernaturally imparted ready utterance of truths already revealed (1Co 14:3-4). The nabi was spokesman for God, mediating for God to man. Christ is the Antitype. As God’s deputed representative, under the theocracy the prophet spoke in God’s name.

Moses was the highest concentration of the type; bringing in with mighty signs the legal dispensation, as Christ did the gospel (Deu 18:15; Deu 34:10-11; Joh 1:18; Joh 1:45; Joh 3:34; Joh 15:24), and announcing the program of God’s redemption scheme, which the rest of the Bible fills up. Prophecy is based on God’s unchanging righteousness in governing His world. It is not, as in the Greek drama, a blind fate threatening irrevocable doom from which there is no escape. Prophecy has a moral purpose, and mercifully gives God’s loving fatherly warning to the impenitent, that by turning from sin they may avert righteous punishment. So Jonah 3; Dan 4:9-27. The prophets were Jehovah’s remembrancers, pleading for or against the people: so Elijah (1 Kings 17; 1Ki 18:36-37; Rom 11:2-3; Jam 5:16; Jam 5:18; Rev 11:6). God as King of the theocracy did not give up His sovereignty when kings were appointed; but as occasion required, through the prophets His legates, superseded, reproved, encouraged, set up, or put down kings (as Elisha in Jehu’s case); and in times of apostasy strengthened in the faith the scattered remnant of believers.

The earlier prophets took a greater share in national politics. The later looked on to the new covenant which should comprehend all nations. Herein they rose above Jewish exclusiveness, drew forth the living spirit from beneath the letter of the law, and prepared for a perfect, final, and universal church. There are two periods: the Assyrian, wherein Isaiah is the prominent prophet; and the Chaldaean, wherein Jeremiah takes the lead. The prophets were a marked advance on the ceremonial of Leviticus and its priests: this was dumb show, prophecy was a spoken revelation of Christ more explicitly, therefore it fittingly stands in the canon between the law and the New Testament The same principles whereon God governed Israel in its relation to the world, in the nation’s history narrated in the books of Samuel and Kings, are those whereon the prophecies rest. This accounts for those historical books being in the canon reckoned among “the prophets.” The history of David and his seed is part of the preparation for the antitypical Son of David of whom the prophets speak.

Daniel on the other hand is excluded from them, though abounding in the predictive element, because he did not belong to the order of prophets officially, but ministered in the pagan court of the world power, Babylon. Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings were “the former prophets”; Isaiah to Malachi “the latter prophets.” The priests were Israel’s regular teachers; the prophets extraordinary, to rouse and excite. In northern Israel however, where there was no true priesthood, the prophets were God’s regular and only ministers, more striking prophetic deeds are recorded than in Judah. Moses’ song (Deuteronomy 32) is “the magna charta of prophecy” (Eichhorn). The law was its basis (Isa 8:16; Isa 8:20; Deu 4:2; Deu 13:1-3); they altered not a tittle of it, though looking forward to the Messianic age when its spirit would be written on the heart, and the letter be less needed (Jer 3:16; Jer 31:31). Their speaking in the name of the true God only and conforming to His word, and their predictions being fulfilled, was the test of their’ divine mission (Deuteronomy 13; Deu 18:10-11; Deu 18:20; Deu 18:22).

Also the prophet’s not promising prosperity without repentance, and his own assurance of his divine mission (sometimes against his inclination: Jer 20:8-9; Jer 26:12) producing inward assurance in others. Miracles without these criteria are not infallible proof (Deuteronomy 13). Predictions fulfilled established a prophet’s authority (1Sa 3:19; Jer 22:11-12; Eze 12:12-13; Eze 12:24). As to symbolic actions, ninny are only parts of visions, not external facts, being impossible or indecent (Jer 13:1-10; Jer 25:12-38; Hos 1:2-11). The internal actions, when possible and proper, were expressed externally (1Ki 22:11). The object was vivid impressiveness. Christ gave predictions, for this among other purposes, that when the event came to pass men should believe (Joh 13:19). So Jehovah in the Old Testament (Isa 41:21-23; Isa 43:9; Isa 43:11-12; Isa 44:7-8.)

The theory of a long succession of impostors combining to serve the interests of truth, righteousness, and goodness from age to ago by false pretensions, is impossible, especially when they gained nothing by their course but obloquy and persecution. Nor can they be said to be self deceivers, for this could not have been the case with a succession of prophets, if it were possible in the case of one or two. However, various in other respects, they all agree to testify of Messiah (Act 10:43). Definiteness and curcumstantiality distinguish their prophecies from vague conjectures. Thus Isaiah announces the name of Cyrus ages before his appearance; so as to Josiah, 1Ki 13:2. Prophets as an order. The priests at first were Israel’s teachers in God’s statutes by types, acts, and words (Lee, 10:11). But when under the judges the nation repeatedly apostatized, and no longer regarded the acted lessons of the ceremonial law, God sent a new order to witness for Him in plainer warnings, namely, the prophets. Samuel, of the Levite family of Kohath (1Ch 6:28; 1Ch 9:22), not only reformed the priests but gave the prophets a new standing.

Hence he is classed with Moses (Jer 15:1; Psa 99:6; Act 3:24). Prophets existed before: Abraham, and the patriarchs as recipients of God’s revelations, are so designated (Psa 105:15; Gen 15:12; Gen 20:7); but Samuel constituted them into a permanent order. He instituted theological colleges of prophets; one at Ramah where he lived (1Sa 19:12; 1Sa 19:20), another was at Bethel (2Ki 2:3), another at Jericho (2Ki 2:5), another at Gilgal (2Ki 4:38, also 2Ki 6:1). Official prophets seem to have continued to the close of the Old Testament, though the direct mention of “the sons of the prophets” occurs only in Samuel’s, Elijah’s, and Elisha’s time. A “father” or “master” presided (2Ki 2:3; 1Sa 10:12), who was “anointed” to the office (1Ki 19:16; Isa 61:1; Psa 105:15).

They were “sons.” The law was their chief study, it being what they were to teach, Not that they were in antagonism to the priests whose duty it had been to teach the law; they reprove bad priests, not to set aside but to reform and restore the priesthood as it ought to be (Isa 24:2; Isa 28:7; Mal 2:1; Mal 1:14); they supplemented the work of the priests. Music and poetry were cultivated as subordinate helps (compare Exo 15:20; Jdg 4:4; Jdg 5:1). Elijah stirred up the prophetic gift within him by a minstrel (2Ki 3:15); so Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun (1Ch 25:5-6). Sacred songs occur in the prophets (Isa 12:1; Isa 26:1; Jon 2:2; Hab 3:2). Possibly the students composed verses for liturgical use in the temple. The prophets held meetings for worship on new moons and Sabbaths (2Ki 4:23). Elisha and the elders were sitting in his house, officially engaged, when the king of Israel sent to slay him (2Ki 6:32).

So Ezekiel and the elders, and the people assembled (Eze 8:1; Eze 20:1; Eze 33:31). The dress, like that of the modern dervish, was a hairy garment with leather girdle (Isa 20:2; Zec 13:4; Mat 3:4). Their diet was the simplest (2Ki 4:10; 2Ki 4:38; 1Ki 19:6); a virtual protest against abounding luxury. Prophecy. Some of the prophetic order had not the prophetic gift; others having the gift of inspiration did not belong to the order; e.g., Amos, though called to the office and receiving the gift to qualify him for it, yet did not belong to the order (Amo 7:14). Of the hundreds trained in the colleges of prophets only sixteen have a place in the canon, for these alone had the special call to the office and God’s inspiration qualifying them for it. The college training was but a preparation, then in the case of the few followed God’s exclusive work: Exo 3:2, Moses; 1Sa 3:10, Samuel; Isaiah, Isa 6:8; Jeremiah, Jer 1:5; Ezekiel. Eze 2:4.

Each fresh utterance was by “vision” (Isa 6:1) or by “the word of Jehovah” (Jer 2:1). The prophets so commissioned were the national poets (so David the psalmist was also a prophet, Act 2:30), annalists (2Ch 32:32), theocratic patriots (Psalm 48; 2Ch 20:14-17), promoters of spiritual religion (Isaiah 1), extraordinarily authorized expounders of the spirit of the law (Isa 58:3-7; Ezekiel 18; Mic 6:6-8; Hos 6:6; Amo 5:21) which so many sacrificed to the letter, official pastors, and a religious counterpoise to kingly despotism and idolatry, as Elijah was to Ahab. Their utterances being continued at intervals throughout their lives (as Isaiah in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah) show that they did not earn their reputation as prophets by some one happy guess or oracle, but maintained their prophetical character continuously; which excludes the probability of imposture, time often detecting fraud. Above all, the prophets by God’s inspiration foretold concerning Jesus the Messiah (Mat 1:22-23 with Isa 7:4; Isa 8:8).

The formula “that it might be fulfilled” implies that the divine word spoken through the prophets ages before produced the result, which followed in the appointed time as necessarily as creation followed from the creative word. Christ appeals to the prophets as fulfilled in Himself: Mat 13:14 (Isa 6:9), Mat 15:7 (Isa 29:13), Joh 5:46; Luk 24:44. Matthew (Mat 3:3) quotes Isa 40:3 as fulfilled in John the Baptist; so Mat 4:13-15 with Isa 9:1-2; Mat 8:17 with Isa 53:4; Mat 12:17 with Isa 42:1. So also Jeremiah, Mat 2:18; Heb 8:8; Daniel, Mat 24:15; Hosea, Mat 2:15; Rom 9:25; Joel, Act 2:17; Amos, Act 7:42; Act 15:16; Jonah, Mat 12:40; Micah, Mat 12:7; Habakkuk, Act 13:41; Haggai, Heb 12:26; Zechariah, Mat 21:5; Mar 14:27; Joh 19:37; Malachi, Mat 11:10; Mar 1:2; Luk 7:27.

The Psalms are 70 times quoted, and often as predictive. The prophecies concerning Ishmael, Nineveh, Tyre, Egypt, the four empires Babylon, Medo-Persia, Graeco-Macedonia, and Rome, were notoriously promulgated before the event; the fulfillment is dear; it could not have been foreseen by mere human sagacity. The details as to Messiah scattered through so many prophets, yet all converging in Him, the race, nation, tribe, family, birthplace, miracles, humiliation, death, crucifixion with the wicked yet association with the rich at death, resurrection, extension of His seed the church, are so numerous that their minute conformity with the subsequent fact can only be explained by believing that the prophets were moved by the Holy Spirit to foretell the event. What is overwhelmingly convincing is, the Jews are our sacred librarians, who attest the prophets as written ages before, and who certainly would not have corrupted them to confirm Jesus’ Messianic claims which they reject. Moreover, the details are so complicated, and seemingly inconsistent, that before the event it would seem impossible to make them coincide in one person.

A “son,” yet “the everlasting Father”; a “child,” yet “the mighty God”; “Prince of peace,” sitting “upon the throne of David,” yet coming as Shiloh (the peace-giver) when “the sceptre shall depart from Judah”; Son of David, yet Lord of David; a Prophet and Priest, yet also a King; “God’s Servant,” upon whom He “lays the iniquity of us all,” Messiah cut off, yet given by the Ancient of days “an everlasting dominion.” The only key that opens this immensely complicated lock is the gospel narrative of Jesus, written ages after the prophets. The absence of greater clearness in the prophets is due to God’s purpose to give light enough to guide the willing, to leave darkness enough to confound the willfully blind. Hence the prophecy is not dependent for its interpretation on the prophet; nay, he was often ignorant of the full meaning of his own word (2Pe 1:20-21). Moreover, if the form of the prophecies had been direct declaration the fulfillment would have been liable to frustration. If also the time had been more distinctly marked believers would have been less in a state of continued expectancy.

The prophecies were designedly made up of many parts (polumeros; Heb 12:1); fragmentary and figurative, the temporary and local fulfillment often foreshadowing the Messianic fulfillment. The obscurity, in some parts, of prophecies of which other parts have been plainly fulfilled is designed to exercise our faith, the obscure parts yet awaiting their exhaustive fulfillment; e.g. prophecies combining the first coming and the second coming of Christ, the parts concerning the latter of course yet require patient and prayerful investigation. Moreover, many prophecies, besides their references to events of the times of the sacred writer, look forward to ulterior fulfillments in Messiah and His kingdom; for “the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy” (Rev 19:10). Thus the foretold deliverance from Babylon by Cyrus foreshadows the greater deliverance from the antitypical Babylon by Cyrus’ Antitype, Messiah (Isa 44:28; Isa 45:1-5; Isa 45:13; Isa 45:22-25; Jer 51:6-10; Jer 51:25; compare Rev 18:4; Rev 17:4; Rev 14:8; Rev 8:8).

So the prophet Isaiah’s son is the sign of the immediate deliverance of Judah from Rezin and Pekah; but language is used which could not have applied to him, and can only find its full and exhaustive accomplishment in the antitypical Immanuel (Isa 7:14-16; Isa 8:3-12; Isa 8:18; Isa 9:6-7; Mat 1:18-23). So too our Lord’s prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem is couched in language receiving its exhaustive fulfillment only in the judgments to be inflicted at His second coming (Matthew 24); as in the sky the nearer and the further off heavenly bodies are, to the spectator, projected into the same vault. The primary sense does not exclude the secondary, not even though the sacred writer himself had nothing in his thought; beyond the primary, for the Holy Spirit is the true Author, who often made the writers unconsciously utter words reaching far beyond the primary and literal sense; so Hos 11:1, compare Mat 2:15; so Caiaphas, Joh 11:50-52. They diligently inquired as to the deep significancy of their own words, and were told that the full meaning would only be known in subsequent gospel times (Dan 12:8-9; Zec 4:5; 1Pe 1:10-12).

The prophet, like his Antitype, spoke not of himself (Joh 7:17-18; Num 11:17; Num 11:25; Num 11:29; 1Sa 10:6; 1Sa 19:20; Num 12:6-8). The dream and vision were lower forms of inspiration than Moses enjoyed, namely, “mouth to mouth, not in dark speeches”; directly, without the intervention of dream, vision, or person (compare Exo 33:11 with Joe 2:28; Dan 1:17). The prophets did net generally speak in ecstatic unconsciousness, but with self possession, for “the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets” (1Co 14:32); but sometimes they did (Genesis 15; Daniel 7; Daniel 8; Daniel 10; Daniel 11; Daniel 12, “the visions of Daniel”); “the vision of Isaiah” (Isaiah 6); “the vision of Ezekiel” (Ezekiel 1); “the visions of Zechariah” (Zechariah 1; Zechariah 4; Zechariah 5; Zechariah 6); the vision of Peter (Acts 10); of Paul (Act 22:17; Act 22:2 Corinthians 12); Job (Job 4:13-16; Job 33:15-16); John (Rev 1:10) “in the Spirit,” i.e. in a state of ecstasy, the outer world shut out, the inner spirit being taken possession of by God’s Spirit, so that an immediate connection was established with the invisible world.

Whereas the prophet speaks in the Spirit the apocalyptic seer is wholly in the Spirit, he intuitively and directly sees and hears (Isa 6:1; Zec 2:1; Mic 1:1; Hab 1:1; Act 10:11; Act 22:18; Rev 1:12); the subjects of the vision are in juxtaposition (as in a painting), independent of relations of time. But however various might be the modes of inspiration, the world spoken or written by the inspired prophets equally is God’s inspired infallible testimony. Their words, in their public function, were not their own so much as God’s (Hag 1:13); as private individuals they searched diligently into their far-reaching meaning. Their words prove in the fulfillment to be not of their own origination, therefore not of their own individual (compare 1Pe 1:10-12) interpretation (idias epiluseos ou ginetai), but of the Holy Spirit’s by whom they were “moved”; therefore we must look for the Holy Spirit’s illumination while we “take heed to the word of prophecy (now become) more sure” (through the fulfillment of part of it already, namely, that concerning Christ’s sufferings; and through the pledge given in His transfiguration witnessed by Peter, that the rest will come to pass, namely, His foretold glory: 2Pe 1:19-21 Greek, compare 2Sa 23:2; Hos 9:7).

Messianic prophecy. Prophecy and miracles are the direct evidences of the truth of revelation; the morals, propagation, and suitableness of Christianity to man’s needs, combined together with the two former, are its irrefragable proofs. All subsequent prophecy of Messiah develops the primary one (Gen 3:15). This only defined the Saviour as about to be the woman’s seed. Noah’s prophecy that He should be of the Semitic branch of the human race, (Gen 9:26; Gen 12:3; Gen 22:18; Gen 28:14) of the family of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, (Gen 49:10) of the tribe of Judah, a Shiloh or tranquilizer, yet one who will smite with a sceptre and come as a star (Num 24:17); a prophet, like Moses (Deu 18:15); a king, of David’s seed, reigning forever (2Sa 7:16; Psalm 18; 61; 89); the Son of God, as well as Son of David (Psa 2:2; Psa 2:6-7; Psa 2:8; Psa 110:1-4, etc.).

Anointed by Jehovah as David’s Lord, King of Zion, Inheritor of the whole earth, dashing in pieces His enemies like a potter’s vessel with a rod of iron, “it Priest forever after the order of Melchizedek”; severely afflicted, “hands and feet pierced,” betrayed by “His own familiar friend,” “His garments parted and lots cast for His vesture,” “His ears opened” to “come” and “do God’s will” at all costs, when God would not have animal “sacrifice” (Psalm 22; Psalm 40; Psalm 55; Psalm 69; Psalm 102; Psalm 109). Raised from the grave without His flesh seeing corruption (Psalm 16; Psalm 17); triumphant King, espousing the church His bride (Psalm 45); reigning in peace and righteousness from the river to the ends of the earth (Psalm 72). There are four groups of the 16 prophets.

Of the northern Israel, Hosea, Amos, Joel, Jonah; of Judah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Obadiah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah; prophets of the captivity, Ezekiel and Daniel; prophets of the restoration, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi. Each adds some fresh trait to complete the delineation of Messiah. Isa 52:13-15; Isaiah 53, is the most perfect portrait of His vicarious sufferings, the way of salvation to us and of consequent glory to Him, and eternal satisfaction in seeing His spiritual seed. (See ISAIAH.) The arrangement in the canon is chronological mainly. But as the twelve lesser prophets are regarded as one work, Jeremiah and Ezekiel are placed at the close of the greater prophets, and before the lesser, whose three last prophets are subsequent to Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Hosea being longest of the lesser is placed first of them, though not so chronologically.

Fuente: Fausset’s Bible Dictionary

Prophet

PROPHET

I. The Messiah a prophet.1. Our Lords redemptive work is usually divided into the threefoldprophetic, priestly, and kingly functions; and for this there is ancient precedent. Eusebius (Historia Ecclesiastica i. 3) speaks of Him as the only High Priest of all men, the only King of all creation, and the Fathers only supreme Prophet of prophets (see also Ambrose on Ps 118:79, and Cassiodorus on Psa 132:2). The Church has rightly felt that the unction bestowed on Jesus as the Messiah separated and endowed Him to these offices. She recognized that the old dispensation was established and preserved by those who were anointed to be prophets, priests, and kings, and she believed that each of these offices found its perfection in the Person and work of Jesus Christ. When, therefore, we dwell separately on any one of these three vocations of the Messiah (as we do in this article), we must remember that we are necessarily taking a partial view of His Person; for to hold that He is only a prophet, is to fall into a heresy that has ever faced the Church.

Early in the Churchs history the Gnostic Ebionites rejected the Catholic doctrine of Christs Person, but felt no difficulty in believing Him to be an inspired prophet of the highest order. They regarded Him as one of the , and as superior to ; and, as such, placed Him in line with Adam, Enoch, Noah, etc. etc., upon all of whom had rested the pre-existent Christ; and in their Gospel we find the following words ascribed to Him: I am he concerning whom Moses prophesied, saying, A prophet shall the Lord God raise unto you, like unto me (Clem. Hom. iii. 53; cf. Dorner, Hist. of Person of Christ, i. i. 208 ff.); but they refused to accept the Churchs teaching as to His Deity. Similarly, the Mohammedan Koran says: The Messiah, the son of Mary, is only a prophet (v. 79, also iv. 160 and xix. 30); and the Racovian Catechism (a.d. 1605) of the Socinians ( 5) accepts and accentuates the prophetic aspect of His work.

2. But while the Church thus early classified the redemptive activities of our Lord under this threefold division, it must not be assumed that the Jews of His own time had reached this full conception. It is clear from our Gospels that His contemporaries did not regard the coming prophet as one with the coming Messiah; for when the multitude were astonished at Jesus discourse at the Feast of Tabernacles, and were divided in opinion regarding Him, some saying, This is of a truth the Prophet, and others, This is the Christ (Joh 7:40), none declared Him to be the Christ, and therefore the Prophet.

A similar distinction is found in their view of the Baptist (Joh 1:21). The only exception in the Gospels is the words of the woman of Samaria: Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet. When Christ is come, he will declare unto us all things (Joh 4:19; Joh 4:25). But probably the Samaritans generally had small reason to expect the coming of a kingly Messiah (see Westcott, Study of the Gospels, note 2, ch. 2; Stanton, Jewish and Christian Messiah, pp. 126, 293).

3. Nor does this separation of the offices of the Prophet and the Messiah seem to be due to any special obtuseness on the part of our Lords contemporaries; the OT prophets themselves appear also to have been unable to rise above it. Isaiah, prophesying during the monarchy, pictures the Messiah as a Davidic king, and foretells the outpouring of a fuller revelation during His reign, predicting that then the God of Jacob would teach Israel His way (Isa 2:3), and then Israels teacher(s) would not be hidden any more, but the people would see their teacher(s), and hear a word behind them saying, This is the way (Isa 30:20); but he does not unite these kingly and prophetic endowments in the one person of the Christ. Fuller light of truth is to be a mark of the Messianic reign, but Isaiah does not recognize the Messiah as the organ of the revelation.

The fullest references to a coming prophet are found in Deutero-Isaiah; and here He is clearly identified with the Servant of the Lord. There enters largely into the prophets conception of this great Personality the idea of His being an anointed revealer of truth. Jehovah makes his mouth like a sharp sword (Isa 49:2), and puts his spirit upon him, so that he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles (Isa 42:1, also Isa 59:21, Isa 61:1). But, clear as is our identification of the Servant with Jesus, we yet know that this union of the Suffering One with the Messianic King has ever been the great stumbling-block to Israel. The truth appears to be: the prophets of Israel, influenced by the national circumstances and needs of their own day, predicted under the Spirits influence, now a coming king, now a prophet, now a priestly sufferer with prophetic functions; and these parallel lines of yearning thought found together their satisfaction in the Person of Jesus.

The Book of Malachi closes with a prediction of the return of Elijah (Mal 4:5), and Israels prophetic expectations centred thenceforth chiefly in him.

4. With the silence of prophecy, there came to Israel a deep yearning for the living voice of Jehovah. This was a characteristic of the Maccabaean age, when the anticipation of a coming prophet overshadows that of the Messiah (1Ma 4:46; 1Ma 14:41; 1Ma 9:27, also Sir 48:10).

The same longing is found in Psa 74:9 We see not our signs, there is no more any prophet, neither is there among us any that knoweth how long. This Psalm is therefore thought to belong to the Maccabaean period; on the other hand, similar complaints are found in the writings of the Exile (Lam 2:9, Eze 7:26).

The Apocalyptic literature is mostly silent on the point. But in the Book of Enoch (Simil. 45:36) the Son of Man is portrayed as revealing all the treasures of that which is hidden, and there are seen an inexhaustible fountain of righteousness, and round about many fountains of wisdom. These promises of fuller revelation presumably imply a personal agent for its dissemination. The prophetic gift is advanced in the Test. of the XII. Patriarchs (Levi 8:15) as an implicit claim of John Hyrcanus to the Messiahship; and he alone was said by the Jews to have held the threefold office (Josephus BJ i. ii. 8).

5. If the abeyance of prophecy added to the gloom of Israel during the interval between the time that the last OT prophet delivered his message and the beginning of the Christian era, the coming of Christ was heralded by an outburst of the prophetic gift. It is recorded as first appearing in the priestly house of Zacharias (Luk 1:41; Luk 1:67); it was granted to the Virgin, to Simeon, and to Anna (Luk 2:25; Luk 2:36), and reached its most notable height in the person of John the Baptist. The nation, galled by a foreign yoke, and meditating on the predictions found in their sacred books, and, above all, picturing the return of Elijah as a herald of emancipation, mused in their heart whether the Baptist were himself the Messiah, or Elijah, or the Prophet, or one of the old prophets returned (Luk 3:15, Joh 1:20 ff.). But John, realizing himself to be only a forerunner, and wishing to turn the thoughts of the people from himself to Jesus, refused to be anything save an impersonal voice crying in the wilderness. Fittingly thus was the worlds supreme Prophet ushered upon His prophetic career by a volume of reawakened prophecy.

6. Whatever difficulty His contemporaries felt in acknowledging His Messiahship, they had none in recognizing Him as a prophet. Both at the commencement and at the close of His career, this was the popular view of His ministry. As soon as He became known, the general judgment was pronounced that a great prophet had arisen, and that God had visited his people (Luk 7:16); and when at the close of His ministry He allowed the populace openly to express their feelings regarding Him, they, in answer to the question Who is this? replied, This is Jesus, the prophet of Nazareth (Mat 21:11; also Mar 6:15, Mat 21:46, Luk 24:19, Joh 4:19; Joh 6:14; Joh 7:40; Joh 9:17). Indeed, only those who were biassed by ecclesiastical bigotry could have concluded otherwise, for His miracles of mercy were external credentials recalling the powers of Moses and Elijah; and the authoritative tone of His teaching showed that He claimed for Himself at least the position of a God-sent teacher.

7. But not only was the title generally given to Him; He also claimed it for Himself. Thus He opened His ministry in His native village by reading in the synagogue the words of Isaiah (61:1), The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor, and commenced His discourse upon them by saying, To-day hath this scripture been fulfilled in your ears (Luk 4:18; Luk 4:21). Later in His ministry, when His death was imminent, He openly placed Himself in line with the ancient prophets of Israel, foretelling that, similarly to them, He could not perish out of Jerusalem (Mat 23:29 ff., Luk 13:33); and when He used, in the parable of the Vineyard, the familiar OT figure of the Kingdom of God, He deliberately made Himself the last of the long line of Gods martyr messengers to His people; and told the Jews that, notwithstanding the fact that they had shamefully handled His predecessors the prophets; yet He had been sent to them by God with a final call to repentance.

II. Jesus had the essential marks of a prophet.When we turn to the records of the life of Jesus, we find predicated of Him every characteristic that marked the Hebrew prophets. 1. If Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel were all introduced to their prophetic career by a vision granted and a voice heard (Isa 6:1-8, Jer 1:4-10, Eze 3:10-14), so Jesus commenced His ministry by receiving at His baptism a vision from heaven and by hearing His Fathers voice.

The Gospel according to the Hebrews gives the words then spoken to Him in a form different from that given by the Evangelists, and interesting in the present connexion. We read: It came to pass when our Lord had ascended out of the water, the whole fountain of the Holy Spirit came down and rested upon him and said unto him, My Son, in all the prophets I was looking for thee, that thou mightest come and that I might rest in thee. For thou art my rest, thou art my firstborn Son who reignest to eternity. This form shows how strong was the belief in the earliest days of the Church that Jesus at His baptism was anointed specially to the office of Prophet.

2. The OT prophets were men of God. This title, doubtless, was frequently used, as conveying little more than a customary appellation of those holding the office; yet the fact of its having been chosen as a title shows the underlying conviction, on the part of the nation, that sanctity of character was a necessary condition of receiving communications from Jehovah; and it thus suggests not only the Divine purport of their message, but also the personal religiousness of the prophets. Isaiah felt that, in order to hold intercourse with God, personal holiness was requisite (Isa 6:5); and indeed so fully was this felt that the prophetic state was looked upon as closely related to communion with God in prayer; and the expression which was generally used in the OT for the answering of prayer was frequently applied to prophetic revelation ( Mic 3:7, Hab 2:1 ff., Jer 23:35. See Oehler, OT Theol. ii. 336).

That Jesus bore this characteristic of the prophetic office needs no showing. He, the one sinless Man, whose whole life was lived in conscious communication, full and continuous, with His Father, must necessarily, as regards the fitness of holiness, be the very Prophet of prophets. His perfect sinlessness rendered possible uninterrupted fellowship with God, and guaranteed the perfection of the message He delivered. The pre-eminence of that message rests on the fact that whereas God of old times spake unto the fathers in the prophets, he hath in these last times spoken unto us in his Son (Heb 1:1).

3. Further, as men of God, the message of the prophets was one of moral import. They, as Micah (Mic 3:8), could say, I am full of power to declare unto Jacob his transgressions and to Israel his sins. The greater prophets had developed far beyond the earlier prophets and still earlier seers, who used their gifts to reveal matters of mere personal interest: their message to the individual or to the nation was filled, as occasion required, with moral teachings; rebuking sin, calling to repentance, and threatening Divine judgment.

It is evident that Jesus fulfilled this characteristic continuously and perfectly. For not only did He, like the prophets before Him, utter words pregnant with moral enlightenment but also by His every word and act He constantly manifested the perfection of moral being. Being Himself the revelation of God, His whole incarnate life was a continuous teaching of infinite moral import.

4. The prophets were conscious of being recipients of direct communications from Jehovah. In Amos (Amo 3:7) it is said, The Lord God docth nothing without revealing his counsel to his servants the prophets; and in Jeremiah (Jer 23:22) we are told that the prophet stands in the counsel of Jehovah. God spoke to them, and they received His words into their hearts and heard them with their ears (Eze 3:10). It might seem that here is a characteristic of the prophetic office that is not applicable to Christ. It might be thought that as He is very and eternal God, He required no revelation, having in Himself all the fulness of Divine knowledge, and that therefore when He taught, He taught not what He had received, but what was intrinsically His own. A careful study, however, of the Gospel of St. John, where naturally we seek for light on the mystery of His Person, as it is the Gospel of His self-manifestation, leads us to conclude otherwise. In a remarkable number of passages Jesus speaks of receiving from the Father the truths He disclosed. He says, I speak to the world those things which I have heard; as my Father hath taught me, I speak. I have given unto them the words which Thou gavest me; I spake not from myself, but the Father which sent me, He hath given me a commandment what I should say (Joh 8:26; Joh 8:28; Joh 8:38; Joh 8:40; Joh 12:49; Joh 15:15; Joh 17:8; Joh 17:14).

In such words Jesus seems clearly to teach that His supernatural knowledge was a gift given to Him from the Father, administered to Him in His human nature on some economic principle, so that He might be fitted perfectly to perform the functions of Teacher and Prophet to the Church. In emptying Himself of His glory in the Incarnation, He appears so to have self-limited His Divine Powers as to have been dependent upon His Father for supernatural illumination: while the reception by Him of that revelation must have been perfect through the complete sympathy that essentially existed between Him and His Father. Like the prophets of old, He received communications from God: but in virtue of His Divine Personality He perfectly heard and faithfully expressed every thought revealed to Him. (See, especially, a valuable charge by OBrien, Bp. of Ossory, 1865 (Macmillan); and A. B. Davidson, Biblical Essays, p. 179).

5. A further characteristic of prophecy was its power of prediction. The apologetic use of prophecy in the past no doubt led to a too exclusive consideration of this aspect of the prophetic books; and the Church has gained much by regarding the prophets as men inspired by Jehovah with special moral messages to the age in which they lived. But it is not less one-sided so to over-emphasize this aspect of their work as to exclude their undoubted predictive powers. The writings of the Hebrew prophets are saturated with prediction. They foresee and announce as much of the secret purposes of Jehovah as was needful for His people to know. And the power of Jehovah to reveal to them the future raises Him, in the eyes of Israel, at once above the heathen gods, and proves to them that He is the true God (Isa 41:21-28; Isa 42:9; Isa 43:9-13; Isa 44:25 ff; Isa 48:3-7). No doubt their predictions usually announced the general results rather than detailed accounts of Jehovahs future dealings; nevertheless their predictions were clear unveilings of coming events. So that it may be said that a teacher without the power of foretelling would be no prophet (Deu 18:21-22), for the prophet has his face to the future, and can see more or less clearly, by the inspiration granted to him, the results that Gods love and righteousness are about to accomplish.

Now, full of prediction as are the writings of the prophets, the sayings of Jesus are even more so. With clear vision He was able to follow throughout future time the workings of the principles He taught, and was able to state as a matter of certain knowledge that their adoption would be universal. With an unparalleled insight He disclosed to the world the mysteries of eternity. He drew back the curtain not only from coming events of time, but with equal certainty from the hidden secrets of the invisible world. Hades, heaven, hell are all open to Him. And with a calm boldness, found only with absolute certainty, He tells us of Dives and Lazarus (Luk 16:19), of the many stripes and the few (Luk 12:47), and of the principles upon which the Final Judgment will be carried out (Mat 25:40).

If the Hebrew prophets received at times illumination which revealed to them glimpses of coming events, Jesus was at all times able to reveal hidden things of the future with as much certainty as He could speak of the things clearly seen in the present.

In addition to the predictions of general events, there is also found, but less frequently, among the Hebrew prophets, the power of foretelling particular events to individuals. Thus Micaiah foretells the death of Ahab (1 Kings 22), and Jeremiah the death of Hananiah (Jer 28:16). Here also Jesus surpasses them. With a certainty and clearness far beyond theirs, He was able to announce particular coming events to His disciples. Following the Gospel narrative, we find that the treachery of Judas was open to Him for long (Joh 6:70 f.). The fall of Peter and his final martyrdom, and the prolonged life of John, were all equally clear (Luk 22:31, Joh 21:18; Joh 21:22).

Allied to His knowledge of the future of individuals was His unerring insight into character. This gift was partially granted to the prophets, and may in a measure account for their predictions. It may have been insight into character that enabled Micaiah to predict the coming cowardice of Zedekiah (1Ki 22:25), and it certainly seems to have been this that gave Elisha power to read the future of Hazael (2Ki 8:12). Similarly, only in an infinitely greater degree, Jesus read the inner depths of those around Him. At once He saw the guilelessness of Nathanael (Joh 1:47) and the strength of Peter (Joh 1:42), and was able to read the thoughts of Simon the Pharisee while Simon was misreading His (Luk 7:39-40). The records of His life show repeated instances that exemplify the statement of John, He knew all men he knew what was in man (Joh 2:24-25).

6. As a final mark of His fulfilment of the prophetic office, His fate, must be mentioned. In His own Person He gathered together every insult and cruelty that had been shown in the past to the messengers of God. And if it seems strange that Israel, which more than all other nations had spiritual instincts, should have habitually rejected those sent to them with the very message they above all should have received, and if it be stranger still that they should have crucified the Messiah whom they so passionately desired, it must be remembered that mankind at all times has been unable to receive, with patience, rebukes that shattered its self-conceit and truth that attacked its vested interests. New light ever discloses ignorance, reveals the inadequacy of much that is thought perfect, and shows the sinfulness of much that is looked upon as innocent. And thus it follows that the fuller the new light, the greater the hatred and opposition its bearer will have to endure at the hands of those who fail to recognize its truth. If, then, the preaching of Isaiah raised the gibes of the drunkards of Ephraim, and if the unwelcome predictions of Jeremiah led to bitterest persecution, is it any wonder that the clear light of the revelation of Jesus infuriated the blind Pharisee, and ended in His cruel mockings and death?

III. Jesus is above all other prophets.But while Jesus fulfils every prophetic characteristic perfectly, and is thus the worlds Supreme Prophet, it is also evident, from this very perfection, that He is essentially distinct from all others who bore the title. For not only is there found in Him a man called of God to receive communications from heaven and to give them forth, when received, to his fellow-men, but in Him we have God revealing Himself directly to His creatures. As the personal, uttered Word of God ( ), He manifests Himself (that is, He manifests God) to mankind. And if the essence of the prophetic office consists in revealing the Almighty to His children, then, clearly, He alone is the one perfect Prophet, who from His very nature must have (1) constantly, (2) completely, (3) infallibly, and (4) finally revealed all that mankind may know of their Creator.

1. His revelation was constant. OT prophets, receiving their revelation only at such times as Jehovah desired to reveal His will, could exercise their functions only intermittently; whereas Jesus, living in uninterrupted communion with His Father, was in receipt of a constant revelation of the purposes and will of God. Indeed, even in His hours of silence, He must be thought of as fulfilling His prophetic office. His every act was a message, and His miracles, not less than His parables, were revelations to teach men of His Father. His spontaneous lovingkindness, as exhibited to the sinful and the suffering, revealed even more powerfully than His words the fact that God is Love; the beauty of His sinless life, not less than the depth of His matchless utterances, ever taught men this, the central truth of His message. Jesus, simply by being what He was, constantly delivered His prophetic message to the world.

2. His revelation was complete. The OT prophets could be recipients of only a partial revelation. As their writings are studied, it is seen how gradually God revealed His truth through them. Their knowledge of God is seen to develop, through progressive stages, from little to fuller light; prophet after prophet being sent to add his quota of truth, each being granted that amount of illumination necessary to enable him to advance the hopes and knowledge of Israel beyond the stage already reached. With Jesus it was far otherwise. He came to raise the spiritual wisdom and knowledge of men, once and for all, to the highest point attainable by them on earth. And if we find Him, at any time during His ministry, withholding truth which He might have revealed, we know that the cause of such reserve is to be found, not in His inability to declare, but in His hearers inability to receive (Joh 16:12).

3. His revelation was infallible. Great as was the usefulness of the prophets to Gods chosen people, yet it is clear that in them they had no infallible guides. They had to distinguish between the false prophets and those who truly represented Jehovah. For succeeding generations it may have been comparatively easy to separate them, for time would demonstrate, by events, the correctness or incorrectness of prophetic utterances; but not so for contemporaries. The false prophets were not as a class mere impostors trading on the religious feelings of the people, but rather they were men who, prophets by profession, lacked the spiritual discernment to interpret the mind of Jehovah. Their messages therefore rose no higher than current spiritual ideas. The people of Israel thus had constant need of spiritual discernment on their part to select the true and to reject the untrue in messages proffered to them, which claimed to come from Jehovah. But when experience had marked out to them a prophet as a true revealer of Jehovahs will, they were not even then certain of receiving infallible guidance. The true prophet might at times confuse his own natural judgment with the voice of God. Thus Samuel at first mistook Eliab for the Lords anointed (1Sa 16:6); and Nathan too hastily sanctioned the project of David to build a temple (2Sa 7:1 ff.).

But the revelation of Jesus comes to us with infallible certainty. He does not, indeed, reveal everything; for on earth He was not omniscient. He distinctly told His disciples that there was at all events one thing He did not know (Mar 13:32). Thus He willingly limited His knowledge while on earth; and it is well for us to remember that He Himself was aware of the limitation, for He knew that He did not know. But this self-limitation in no way weakened His claim to infallibility in all He taught. Ignorance is one thing, error quite another. And being the Son of God, and so the perfect recipient of all that the Father willed to teach Him during His state of humiliation, He knew perfectly all He knew. Similarly, if He did not foresee everything, yet what He did foresee, that He foresaw perfectly. Very remarkable is the calm certainty of conviction with which He claims infallibility. The tone of authority in His utterances, the repeated I say unto you astounded the multitude (Mat 7:29); while the claim itself could not have been more strongly put forth than in His words, Heaven and earth shall pass away; but my words shall not pass away (Mar 13:31).

It is here especially that He stands pre-eminent. Throughout the whole course of His utterances there can be found no hesitation due to a possible conflict between His own judgment and His Fathers will, but rather a claim in unmistakable language to absolute infallibility as a Teacher. In truth, His consciousness told Him that He could not be wrong, for He knew where He had received that which He taught. The words which He spake were not His own, but the Fathers who sent Him. He spake that which He had seen with the Father,that Father who was ever with Him (Joh 14:24; Joh 14:10; Joh 8:38). He knew, as none else could know, the truth regarding the heavenly things, for He was the Son of Man, who had come down from heaven (Joh 3:12-13). He is the one infallible Teacher of our race.

Jesus, in His interview with Nicodemus, draws a distinction between earthly things ( ) and heavenly things ( ). The former are spiritual truths within the range of human spiritual knowledge; the latter, spiritual truths which man can learn only by a revelation granted from God. Of these latter, Jesus is the one infallible revealer (see Adamson, Mind in Christ, p. 77 ff.).

4. His revelation is final. If the message of Jesus is thus complete and infallible, it is necessarily final. No doubt, the prophetic office of Christ is still an activity in the love of God for us; and the Church has ever the presence of the Holy Spirit leading her into fuller truth; nevertheless, the message that Jesus brought was complete in itself, and therefore final. For the office of the Holy Spirit is not to teach men something new, something outside that message, but rather to disclose truths which, though hitherto unrecognized, were implicit in His teaching. The Apostolic Church was furnished with prophets, and in a true sense prophets have appeared at intervals throughout the Christian era, and doubtless will yet appear; but, no matter how new their message may seem to the men of their own day, they are, unless they are false prophets, in reality only taking of the things of Christ, and declaring them to His people (Joh 14:26; Joh 16:14-15).

IV. Christs prophetic utterances.When considering the prophetic utterances of Jesus, we must not confine ourselves to His predictions alone. If, as we have seen, foretelling is an essential element of prophecy, it is evident that forthtelling is no less so. The OT prophets not only foretold coming events, but also were the religious teachers of their own age; each in turn adding to the moral and religious knowledge of the nation. So Jesus, speaking as the worlds Prophet, not only revealed the future, but once and for ever delivered potentially all truth to the world. The prophetic utterances of Jesus, therefore, include not only His predictions but all His teachings, and, as such, come within the scope of this article. As, however, His teaching is dealt with in a separate article, it is sufficient to refer the reader to the latter, and only to add some general remarks on the subject.

A. Didactic utterances.1. The moral teaching of Christ concerned itself with general principles rather than with precepts. The Sermon on the Mount, which contains the chief elements of His ethical teaching, is not a code of injunctions, but a declaration of the fundamental principles that underlie His Kingdom; and the particular instances of right conduct mentioned in that discourse are not commandments, but illustrations of these principles. When He teaches His disciples regarding righteousness and sin, He avoids laying down laws regarding special acts, but goes at once to the very heart of moral distinctions, revealing the general principles which rule all special cases. Thus He solved all questions of meat by a single sentence, which made all meats clean (Mar 7:19 Revised Version NT 1881, OT 1885 ); and He answered all questions of casuistry regarding Sabbath observance by pointing out the beneficent principle which led to its institution. In a word, He reduced all right action, whether towards God or towards man, to a fulfilling, and all wrong action to an outraging, of the one all-embracing commandment of Love. And thus His teaching finds its application in every act in every age.

There is but one exception recorded in our Gospels,that in reference to divorce (Mar 10:11-12, cf. Mat 5:32; Mat 19:9). In this case He gives a concise and direct precept; but a precept, obedience to which purifies the human race at its source.

2. But Jesus not only revealed the true principles underlying all sin and righteousness, He also taught that in Himself, and particularly in Himself dying, was to be found the true atonement for sin. As soon as He was able to teach His disciples, even if it were in dark words, regarding His coming death, He connected that death with the worlds salvation. Comparatively early in His ministry He announced that He would give His body for the life of the world (Joh 6:51); later, He told them that, as the Good Shepherd, He would lay down his life for the sheep (Joh 10:15); and as the fatal result of His ministry drew nearer, He declared, with still greater clearness, that He would give his life a ransom for many (Mar 10:45). It is clear, then, that Jesus explicitly taught that His death was in the highest sense sacrificial; that there was a necessary connexion between that death and mans salvation.

It is true that Jesus does not explain how His death wrought the Atonement, and that we must turn to the Epistles for this knowledge; but we may with confidence assume that the early Church derived its light on the matter from Jesus Himself; for St. Luke (Luk 24:47) tells us that among the truths taught the disciples by Jesus during the forty days were those regarding His death and repentance and remission of sins. Therefore the developed doctrine of the Atonement, as found in the writings of the early Church, are not mere subjective theorizings, but are based on the teaching of the risen Lord.

3. Jesus in His teaching taught the absolute value of the individual. The prophets of Israel felt the majesty of their nation as the chosen people of God, and dwelt upon Jehovahs Fatherly care of the Jewish race; but not until the preaching of Jeremiah was the Fatherhood of God over the individual brought into prominence. It was Jesus who first fully revealed the infinite value of the single soul. He insisted frequently on the madness of risking its loss, even if thereby the gain should be the whole world; and He warned men that it were better that they should miserably perish than that they should cause to stumble even one of Gods little ones (Mar 8:36; Mar 9:42).

4. But His teaching was also social. The individual who was so precious in his Fathers sight was not to be left unsupported in isolation. Wide and manifold as are the meanings of Kingdom of God as established by Jesus, it is certain that underlying all else is the thought of its members united in love by a common life. This is essential to the very idea of a kingdom. And in it is ideally presented the thought of a spiritual nation composed of spiritual individuals.

The Kingdom of heaven from its spiritual nature, and as a Kingdom of ideas and principles, rather than of codified laws, is necessarily invisible, save as to its results. But man ever wants the outward or concrete; and Jesus therefore not only founded the Kingdom of God, but established a Church (Mat 16:18; Mat 18:17); the latter being an embodiment of the idea of the former, visibly presenting to the world its truths. The Kingdom is thus, in the teaching of Jesus, much wider and more fundamental than the Church.

5. When we pass from the ethical to the spiritual side of the didactic prophecies of Jesus, we enter upon an unparalleled field of revelation. As we have seen, He alone among menand that because He was more than mancould disclose the heavenly things (Joh 3:12) to the world. When, therefore, He speaks of the nature and acts of God, our attitude is that of reverent humble reception; and our activities are to be exercised rather in the devout investigation of the meaning of His words than in the questioning of their truth.

When we turn to the teaching itself, we find little regarding the essential nature of God. It was His method rather to describe how God acts than to define what God is. Indeed, the only statement approaching to an abstract definition of His Being is found in His words to the woman of Samaria, God is Spirit (Joh 4:24).

The titles chiefly used by Jesus to describe the character of God are King (Mat 5:35; Mat 18:23; Mat 22:2) and Father. God is Father: in a unique sense in relation to Himself (Mat 10:32; Mat 11:27, Joh 5:17; Joh 10:30 etc.); in a special sense of His disciples (Mat 5:16, Luk 12:32 etc.); and in a general sense of mankind (Mat 5:45, Luk 15:11 ff.).

Further, His teaching concerning God reveals the doctrine of the Trinity. His own Deity, and the Deity and Personality of the Holy Spirit are plainly taught by Him; and the three Persons of the Godhead are with equal emphasis combined in the formula for baptism (Mat 28:19).

There seems no reason sufficiently weighty to cause us to regard this latter verse as an amplification of the actual words of Jesus, after the Church had grasped fully the theological doctrine of the Trinity. Rather it appears necessary to assume that some such statement must have been made by Him in order that this belief, which is found so distinctly stated in the earliest Epistles of St. Paul, may be accounted for (see Sanday in Hasting’s Dictionary of the Bible , vol. ii. p. 624).

6. Christ as Prophet chiefly revealed God by revealing Himself. It is customary to emphasize as His prime revelation of God, His teaching regarding the Fatherhood of the Almighty; but rather would we emphasize His revelation of Himself as His chief prophetic work. He stood before men, and said not, I will teach you about God, but, I will teach you about Myself, and then you will know God. Throughout the Gospel of St. John this self-manifestation of Jesus is the one central subject. His ministry, in that Gospel, commences with His convincing self-revelation to Peter and John, Andrew and Philip, and Nathanael (ch. 1); His first miracle manifested forth his glory (Joh 2:11); He closes His interview with Nicodemus by declaring His mission as a bearer from heaven of spiritual truths (Joh 3:12-13); the highest point in ch. 4 is the declaration to the woman of Samaria, I that speak unto thee am he (Joh 4:26); in ch. 5 He declares His oneness in power with the Father by saying, What things soever the Father doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise (Joh 5:19); the teaching of ch. 6 centres round the self-revelation of I am the bread of life (Joh 6:48); at the Feast of Tabernacles He cried concerning Himself, If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink (Joh 7:37); in ch. 8 He asserts His own pre-existence, saying, Before Abraham was, I am (Joh 8:58); while the lengthy account of the cure of the blind man reaches its climax in the declaration, Thou hast both seen him, and it is he that talketh with thee (Joh 9:37). Every section of the Gospel up to this point culminates and finds its reason in a self-revelation of Jesus made to an individual or to a few chosen ones (Joh 2:2) who were capable, by reason of their sincerity, of receiving it; while the succeeding chapters record a similar revelation granted to groups of listeners and disciples. He is the Good Shepherd ; the Door; one with the Father; the Resurrection (Joh 10:7; Joh 10:11; Joh 10:30, Joh 11:25 ). Clearer and clearer grows the revelation of Himself, until at last the real fulness and power, humility and truth of His self-disclosure are seen in the words, He that hath seen me, hath seen the Father (Joh 14:9, Joh 12:45); that is to say, I have revealed God while I revealed Myself. It is this that makes Him in Himself, as also in His deeds and words, the Supreme Prophet, as forthteller of the truth of God.

B. Christs predictions.The predictive element enters very largely into the utterances of Christ. Not only do the Gospels contain prophecies spoken with the express intention of revealing the future to the disciples, such as those relating to His own death and the destruction of Jerusalem, but also numerous prophecies which occur incidentally. An example of the latter is found in His rebuke to those that troubled Mary because of her costly offering; a rebuke that foretells the universality of His Kingdom and the perpetual memorial of her deed (Mar 14:9).

If the Gospels be studied with a view to noting those sayings of Jesus which are predictive, surprise will be felt at their number. It will be seen that the parables grouped in Matthew 13 are predictions of the history of the Kingdom; that His promises not only exhibit His love and power, but also are fore-tellings of His future action (e.g. Mat 18:20; Mat 28:20). It will be found that His miracles are often prefaced by announcements beforehand of the cure to be wrought (e.g. Luk 8:50, Joh 11:11); that His discourse in John 6 is based on a prediction of His own sacrificial death, and that in John 14-16 on His foreknowledge of the Holy Spirits descent. And, further, even in His High-Priestly prayer He shows knowledge of the future by pleading for those whom He foresees as His disciples in the coming age (Joh 17:20); and, if His first recorded word during His ministry is a prophecy of the immediate advent of the Kingdom (Mar 1:15), His last is a prophecy of its spread to the uttermost part of the world (Act 1:8). His words are saturated with prediction.

The predictions of Jesus may be classified as follows: Those referring (1) to individuals, (2) to His Kingdom, (3) to the material world, (4) to His own career, (5) to the destruction of Jerusalem, (6) to the Parousia and the consummation of the age.

1. As His predictions regarding individuals present no special difficulties, it will be sufficient simply to mention them. In giving Simon the name of Peter (Joh 1:42), Jesus not only revealed his character, but foretold his pre-eminence; a prediction justified at Caesarea Philippi (Mat 16:18). On this latter occasion He foretold that the Apostle would become the porter of the Church, and the Acts of the Apostles records the fulfilment. Jesus also predicted his fall and restoration (Luk 22:31, Mar 14:30), and finally announced in hidden language the death by which he should ultimately glorify God (Joh 21:18). At this time He also used words which obscurely foretold to the Apostle John a prolonged life (Joh 21:22). From an early period in His ministry Jesus read the heart of Judas (Joh 6:64; Joh 13:18), shortly after the Transfiguration He announced His coming betrayal (Mar 9:31), in the Upper Room He declared that the betrayer was one of the Twelve (Mar 14:18), and finally by the sign of the given sop He marked Judas as the traitor (Joh 13:26). To Nathanael He foretold that he would see heaven opened (Joh 1:51); to Caiaphas, that he would see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven (Mar 14:62); to James and John, that they would be baptized with His baptism (Mar 10:39); and to all the Apostles, that they would be persecuted like Himself, excommunicated, and in peril of death (Joh 15:20; Joh 16:2), that they would forsake Him in the hour of His greatest need (Mar 14:27), but that after His death they would do even greater works than He Himself had done (Joh 14:12), and ultimately would sit upon twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel (Mat 19:28, Luk 22:30).

2. Predictions regarding the Kingdom.The position of Jesus in reference to the idea of the Kingdom of God is partly that of a fulfiller and partly that of a foreteller. He established during His ministry the Kingdom in its simplest stage, and so far fulfilled what the OT prophets had foretold; but having established it, He made it the subject of His own predictions, projected it into the future, with the OT limitations removed, revealed its struggles throughout time, and announced its ultimate victory.

That Jesus did establish the Kingdom of God during His lifetime can hardly be doubted. To make it entirely future, as some do, seems impossible in the face of such passages as The kingdom of God is among you (or within you, , Luk 17:21; see art. Ideas (Leading), vol. i. p. 770b); Thekingdom of God is come upon you ( , Mat 12:28); From the days of John the Baptist the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence (Mat 11:12, see Wendts Teaching of Jesus, vol. i. p. 364 ff.).

In the parable of the Sower (Matthew 13, see also Luk 14:18 ff.) He foretold the different classes of people that would become its subjects, and the varied reception they would give to its claims; and in the parables of the Tares and the Draw-net (Matthew 13), the presence within it of unworthy members. He marked out for it a long career of struggle with evil, within,false prophets deceiving (Mat 7:15; Mat 7:22), without,malignant foes opposing (Mat 10:16; Mat 10:33, Luk 21:12, Joh 15:20; Joh 16:2); but He promised the support of His abiding presence (Mat 28:20), and guaranteed its invincibility (Mat 16:18).

Though its beginning is unobserved (Luk 17:20), yet He predicted, in the parable of the Seed Growing Secretly (Mar 4:26), its reaching through steady growth its consummation; in the parable of the Mustard Seed (Mat 13:31), its universal extension as a visible society; and in that of the Leaven, its gradually acquired power over the hearts of men (Mat 13:33). No longer will its bounds be confined to the Chosen Race, for adherents from every quarter of the globe will enter it (Mat 8:11), humanity becoming one flock under one Shepherd (Joh 10:16); and towards this great end it will itself work, for it will evangelize the world before His return (Mat 28:19; Mat 24:14). And when He comes in the clouds, its struggles will cease, and He will gather its members to that heavenly feast which will celebrate His marriage with His bride, and then, purged from evil, it will enter upon its career of eternal glory (Mat 24:31, Mat 22:1 ff., Mat 25:1 ff., Mat 13:41, Mat 25:34).

3. Predictions regarding the material world.A renewal of the face of nature enters largely into the prophecies of the OT (Isa 11:6-9; Isa 30:23 ff., Isaiah 35; Isa 65:17, Hos 2:21 f., Eze 34:25; Eze 34:28), and reappears in wider form in the Epistle to the Romans (Rom 8:21), where St. Paul predicts the delivery of creation from the bondage of corruption; and in the Apocalypse (Rev 21:1), where a new heaven and a new earth are foretold (see also 2Pe 3:13). Nor can the Church look forward to any less comprehensive issue, believing as she does in the Incarnation which for ever glorifies matter by its union with the Godhead. The comparative silence of Jesus upon this subject is remarkable. He cannot be said to have alluded to it except in two passages, neither of which is of certain interpretation. The one is in the Sermon on the Mount, where we read, The meek shall inherit the earth (Mat 5:5). These words may mean no more than that meekness here on earth wins more than self-assertion; but, seeing that the meek do not, as yet at all events, receive their due, the words more probably may be eschatological in reference, and predict their ultimate recognition on a renewed earth. In the other passage Jesus promises His Apostles that in the regeneration they shall sit upon twelve thrones (Mat 19:28). But here again there is uncertainty of interpretation; for, while He calls the culmination of the Kingdom of Grace in the Kingdom of Glory the regeneration, He leaves it uncertain whether that regeneration concerns merely the whole body of the redeemed (cf. Briggs, Mess. of Gospel, pp. 228, 315), or whether it includes, as seems more probable, the physical transformation of nature (cf. Schwartzkopff, Proph. of Christ, pp. 219, 232).* [Note: Jesus tells us that not only the brute creation (Mat 10:29; Mat 6:26), but even the vegetable kingdom is under the Fathers care (Mat 6:30).]

4. Predictions regarding Himself.We find in the Gospels frequent predictions by Jesus of His death, and almost invariably in connexion with them allusions to His resurrection. There may be difficulty in deciding as to when He Himself first became conscious of the fatal end to His ministry, but there can be no doubt that as soon as He realized His death as imminent, He must have realized His resurrection as certain. To suppose Him to have recognized Himself as the true Messiah and then to have regarded His death as the end of all, is to suppose the impossible. Living as He lived in uninterrupted communion with the Father, He must have been conscious of the indestructibility of the Divine life that was His, and of the eternal value of His Person and work (cf. Schwartzkopff, Proph. of Christ, pp. 64, 147). And if a dead Messiah was a contradiction in terms to any one holding Messianic hopes, how much more was it so to the Messiah Himself?

It was not until after the confession of Peter at Caesarea Philippi (see Mat 16:21 From that time forth ) that Jesus plainly foretold His death; but having done so, He repeated the warning three times at short intervals, each time adding more definiteness to the prediction. (1) He outlined the Passion, foretelling the Sanhedrins rejection of Him, His death, and resurrection (Mar 8:31); (2) after the Transfiguration, where the highest point of His ministry was reached, He repeated the prediction, adding the fact of the betrayal (Mar 9:31); (3) on the journey to Jerusalem He foretold in very full detail the sufferings that awaited Him (Mar 10:33), enumerating in their actual order the stages of contumely through which He was to pass. The betrayal, the judicial condemnation, the delivery to the Roman power, the mocking and spitting, the killing (Mat 20:19 crucifying), and, finally, the resurrection, all in turn are mentioned (cf. Swetes St. Mark, l.c.). See, further, art. Announcements of Death.

It is assumed by some that Jesus commenced His ministry with views as to His work very different from those with which He closed it, the rigour of events leading Him to modify the ideas with which He started (e.g. Weiss, Life of Christ, iii. 60). If this be true, then the delay in our Lords plain announcement of His death until Peter had made his confession may well be due to the fact that He Himself had not before realized it as inevitable. But we should require the strongest proof to cause us to believe in such vacillation or change of purpose on His part. The argument from silence is always precarious, but never more so than in the case of One who distinctly tells us that He restrained His utterances because of His hearers inability fully to bear the truth (Joh 16:12). We have, therefore, more ground for assuming that His reticence was due to His loving consideration for His disciples, who had already many doubts and difficulties to conquer, rather than to His ignorance of what was before Him. Indeed, in His last discourse He stated that now at length He felt able to speak openly, and would from that moment ( ) tell them plainly what was to come to pass, in order that they might the more readily believe that He was the Christ (Joh 13:19). His reticence and His openness alike are due to His consideration for their weaknesses.

5. Predictions regarding the destruction of Jerusalem.The chief difficulties found in the predictions of Jesus regarding the destruction of Jerusalem are in the great eschatological discourse recorded in Mark 13, and in the lesser Apocalypse in Luke 17. As both these passages will come up before us under the prophecies of the Parousia, it is not necessary to consider them here. We now refer only to those other passages which foretell it.

(a) In the parable of the Kings Son, Jesus declared that those who spitefully entreated and slew the messengers would be punished by the kings armies destroying the murderers and burning up their city (Mat 22:7). These words contain, doubtless, a prediction of the punishment that through the ages ever follows apostasy, but not the less do they foretell vividly the judgment that fell upon Jerusalem.

(b) In the next chapter (Matthew 23) we find the denunciation of the scribes by Jesus, which concludes with His lamentation over the city He loved. And He closes with the words, Your house is left unto you desolate. For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. Here, in foretelling the desolation of the Temple, He predicted its destruction; for while, no doubt, its desolation was a spiritual fact from the moment He finally quitted its precincts, yet the visible evidence of its being God-forsaken was given in its destruction.

Lk. (Luk 13:35) gives these words in a different connexion. In Mt. they are spoken at the close of His ministry, just as Jesus was leaving the Temple for the last time as a public teacher. In Lk. they arise naturally from His sad words telling that no prophet can perish out of the city. It is difficult to decide between these two occasions, and it is possible, though not probable, that the words were spoken twice by Him.

The interpretation of the last part of the prediction is also difficult. The desolation is to cease when they shall say, Blessed is he that cometh. What future event does this indicate? If the words were spoken in the connexion given by Mt., they cannot refer, as some think, to the cries of the multitude on Palm Sunday, as they would have been spoken after that occasion. If Lk. is right, then this is a possible, but very inadequate, interpretation. Thus they may be taken as referring either to the Parousia or to the ultimate conversion of the Jews (cf. Plummer, St. Luke, l.c.). If the latter interpretation be accepted, then they are a prophecy of the final restoration of the Chosen Race, and supplement the prediction of their rejection (Mat 21:43; see also Luk 21:24).

(c) The most minute prediction of the destruction of Jerusalem is found in Luk 19:41-44. On the occasion of His triumphal entry, when He saw the city before Him, He announced with cries of sorrow that He foresaw its inhabitants shut in, the city itself captured, the people slain, and the walls demolished. To some this minuteness of detail suggests that the Evangelist, writing after the event, coloured his description from facts which had already occurred. But if Jesus was able to foretell the fact of the citys destruction, He could with equal ease have described the circumstances here mentioned, which are really common to all sieges.

(d) Jesus gave His last predictive warning of the coming judgment on the city to the women who wept as He journeyed to Calvary. He told them the days would come (i.e. the days of their citys destruction) when they would call upon the mountains to fall on them (Luk 23:30). His grief for the sorrow that the catastrophe would bring on poor womanhood is also shown in His longer eschatological discourse (Mar 13:17), where He says: Woe to them that are with child and to them that give suck in those days.

6. Predictions regarding the Parousia.The predictions of Jesus regarding the Parousia are among the most difficult of His utterances, and many weighty questions of criticism and interpretation arise which are beyond the limits of this article. We can only state the conclusions at which we have arrived, referring readers elsewhere for fuller information (see Parousia, Second Coming). There are five chief passages in which Jesus speaks of His return, and in each of these He uses language difficult of interpretation. This fact must not be forgotten. It is not that He spoke of His return sometimes in clear and sometimes in cryptic language, but that whenever He referred to it He invariably spoke enigmatically. There must have been some reason for this persistent ambiguity; and it is to be found in the dulness of spiritual insight of the Apostles, and their unpreparedness for clearer teaching. In this connexion, as in connexion with the predictions of His death, He was unable to speak openly.

His aim seems to have been to prepare them for the following facts:(a) that He was about to leave them; (b) that His death would be due to His rejection by the hierarchy and the antagonism of the populace; (c) that the sin of that generation which culminated in His death would speedily receive its punishment in the utter destruction of their city and Temple; (d) that He Himself would, by His spiritual might, be the just avenger on Jerusalem of His own death; (e) that ages of gospel preaching would then follow, during which the curse on the Holy City would last until the times of the Gentiles were fulfilled; (f) that not until the whole world was evangelized would He visibly appear; (g) but that He Himself, though visibly withdrawn, would be spiritually present with them and succeeding generations. These facts, so plain to us, could not possibly have been grasped by those who, having found the Messiah, necessarily expected immediate victory at His hands. We know that even after the forty days instruction they still were unable to shake off their preconceptions, and still hankered after a material Messianic kingdom (Act 1:6); and we may therefore be certain that during the days spent with Him before His death and resurrection, they would have been absolutely unable to understand Him had He spoken openly of His continuous spiritual presence, of His spiritual coming during their lifetime to judge-Jerusalem, of the long ages of the Gospel Dispensation, and of His final visible return at the end of the world. What He could do, He did. In words that hiddenly contained these truths. He revealed them enigmatically; and the logic of events would, and did, interpret them to His hearers and to the Church after them.

This characteristic of the sayings of Jesus regarding His. Coming accounts in a measure for the ease with which the early Church changed her view as to the time of His return. At first she lived in expectation of an immediate return of her Lord, but when events proved that this hope was in a literal sense illusory, she, without any great rupture of faith, accepted the view that a long period would intervene before she welcomed Him in His glory. And this revolution of thought can best be accounted for by the fact that when He did not come at the expected time, she turned back to the mysterious words with which He had announced His return, and learnt, what circumstances now made plain, the deeper meaning of His pregnant sayings.

We will now consider the five chief passages which foretell His Coming, taking them not in the order in which they were spoken, but in that which best helps our investigation.

(1) Jesus, in reply to the question of Caiaphas whether He were the Christ, replied: I am; and ye shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven (Mar 14:62). Mt. has, Henceforth ( ) ye shall see (Mat 26:64); Lk. From henceforth ( ) (Luk 22:69). It may be that Mk. gives the exact words spoken, and that Mt. and Lk. make the addition to show what they conceived to be the meaning; but more probably Mk. omitted the henceforth, as not comprehending it. It is evident that Jesus here spoke not of His final Parousia, but rather of an immediate spiritual visitation which from that present moment Caiaphas would experiencea prediction that had not long to wait for its fulfilment; for must not the quaking rocks, the rent, veil, and the opened tomb, followed as they were by Pentecost and the victories of the Church, have been felt by Caiaphas as true comings in power of Him whom he once thought he had mastered? This passage, then, is full of importance; for here, without doubt, Jesus spoke of a Coming other than the final. And it compels us, when considering His other references to the same subject, to inquire whether He refers to historic Comings or to His ultimate reappearance at the end of the world. It is thought by some that to make His sayings refer to such historic Comings, is to use a modern key, made merely for the purpose of getting out of difficulty (Schwartzkopff, Proph. of Christ, p. 246); but in this passage it can have no other meaning, unless indeed we hold that Jesus erroneously thought that His final return would be during the lifetime of Caiaphasa view to most impossible, for it predicates of Him not ignorance but error. On the other hand, we shall find that by the use of His enigmatic words He suggested frequently that His Coming was not one but manifold, and that by His frequent historic returns in the great crises of the life of Humanity, He would prepare the way for and rehearse His grand final Parousia.

It is remarkable that while Lk. follows Mt. in adding henceforth to the words of Mk., he separates from both by omitting the reference to the Coming; substituting shall the Son of Man be seated at the right hand of power for ye shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven. Did he feel that the clouds of heaven, as an apocalyptic phrase, was difficult to be understood by his Gentile readers; or did he miss the point of view that recognized many historic Comings? The omission by him of the words ye shall see points in the latter direction. He understood the Session of the Son of Man at the right hand, but failed to grasp a Coming that would be visible and immediate to Caiaphas. A somewhat similar change is made by him in the great eschatological discourse, where he substitutes know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh (Luk 21:31) for he is nigh (Mar 13:29, Mat 24:33). It is not that, according to him, there is no final coming; for previously he had recorded (Luk 21:25 ff.) the prediction of the signs in the heavens which, following the times of the Gentiles, precede the coining of the Son of Man in the clouds with power; but rather that where the coming does not appear to him as the final coming, he substitutes the Coming of the Kingdom for the Coming of Christ. He makes a similar change in the passage which will next occupy our consideration, namely, Mar 9:1, Mat 16:28, Luk 9:27. Mk. has some shall in no wise taste of death till they see the kingdom of God come with power. Mt. enlarges it till they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom, while Lk. has simply till they see the kingdom of Goda change which makes interpretation easy, but which removes from the words all the allusion to such historic Comings as are implied by Mt. and not excluded by Mk.

(2) The Son of Man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels, and then shall he render unto every man according to his deeds. Verily I say unto you, There be some of them that stand here, which shall in no wise taste of death, till they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom (Mat 16:27-28). Jesus predicts here two Comingsone at the end of the world, when He returns in the glory of His Father to judge the world, the other within the lifetime of some of those present. Opinions may differ as to when this latter was fulfilled, whether at the Transfiguration, or at the Resurrection, or at Pentecost, or at the destruction of Jerusalem, or at each of these in turn; but unless we are to convict Jesus of error of judgment, we cannot hold that He identified any of these with His final coming to judgment. So that here, as in the words to Caiaphas, we find necessarily a prediction in mysterious language of His historic Comingsa prediction that time would explain to His disciples by fulfilling.

(3) Ye shall not have gone through the cities of Israel, till the Son of Man be come (Mat 10:23). These words are a fragment peculiar to Mt., and occur in the charge of Jesus to the Apostles when sending them out. Much of this charge as given by Mt. is found in different connexions in the other Synoptics; it is therefore impossible to say whether this particular prediction was spoken at the time given by Mt., but this doubt does not enable us to conclude that it never was spoken at all. On the contrary, the great difficulty on the face of the saying renders it the more certain that it was spoken by Him on some occasion. Further, it should be noticed that it occurs in that Gospel which, as we have seen, records most fully those sayings of our Lord which refer to His Comings (Mat 16:27, Mat 26:64). We therefore are right in seeing in the words a prediction of His Coming at the Resurrection, or at Pentecost, or at the destruction of Jerusalem.

(4) The lesser Apocalypse of Jesus is a title sometimes given to His discourse found in Luk 17:22; Luk 18:8. Having told the Pharisees that the Kingdom of God was among them, He turned to His disciples and told them that in the future they would desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man but would not see it; but that when his day did come, there would be no mistaking it, as it would shine as lightning and come as suddenly. He, however, would have first to suffer many things and be rejected. He then told them that as in the days of Noah and of Lot (Luk 18:26; Luk 18:28), worldliness predominated until the day that Noah entered the ark and Lot left Sodom (Luk 18:27; Luk 18:29), so would it be in the days of the Son of Man until the day when He would be revealed (Luk 18:25-30). The days of Noah and Lot were days of opportunity for repentance before the day of retribution. So the days of the Son of Man must be the period of grace that ever precedes the day of His revelation in judgment, whether that judgment be the final judgment or such a penal visitation as the destruction of Jerusalem. That the immediate reference in the passage is to the latter, follows from the warning contained in the next verses, bidding those on the housetop not come down and those in the field not return home (Luk 18:31). These words could not possibly apply to the final return of Jesus, but must have been spoken in reference to the flight from the city before its destruction. And as that impending doom drew near, as the atmosphere became weighted with forebodings of coming calamity, and as their hearts failed them for fear (Luk 21:26), then they would desire one of the days of the Son of Manone of those days of Gods patient waiting; but they would not see it, for all was ripened to judgment. His day of vengeance was at hand. He concluded this section with where the body is, thither will the vultures also be gathered together (Luk 17:37)enigmatic words whereby He told His disciples that when the circumstances became ripe, the event would happen. Then followed the parable of the Unrighteous Judge (Luk 18:1), bidding Gods elect pray importunately for relief during the days of trial; and, lastly, came the sorrowful question of Jesus, whether, notwithstanding the certainty of His deliverance of His people, He, when He comes, shall find faith on the earth (Luk 18:8). The worldliness of the days of Noah and Lot supply the answer.

(5) The discourse found in its simplest form in Mark 13 (cf. Matthew 24, Luke 21) is the most elaborate recorded prophecy of Jesus, and presents to interpreters many and serious difficulties; but what has been said on the four preceding passages lessens the difficulties and points to the solution. Some scholars get rid of all that puzzles by assuming that the Evangelists inserted portions of a current Jewish-Christian Apocalypse throughout the discourse of Jesus. (For a good statement of this position, and for the various authorities, see Moffatt, Historical New Test. p. 637; and for a good exposition on conservative lines, see Briggs, Messiah of the Gospels, pp. 132165).

It might be enough to object to such a radical solution by pointing out the entire absence of any external evidence; but, further, it should be said that it seems incredible that the Evangelists should, by this sort of literary patchwork, have concocted a discourse so difficult for themselves and their readers to understand. The undeniable difficulties of the passage lead us to think that Jesus spoke the words; they also show the conscientious regard for truth that actuated those who recorded them. It must also be remembered that the difficulties found in this discourse are precisely the same in nature as those found in the four passages we have just considered, so that to suppose that extraneous Apocalyptic literature is inserted here would lead us to give a like explanation of all these other passages. But that is impossible, for no such supposition would for a moment hold, in the case, for example, of the reply of Jesus to Caiaphas. Neither on external nor on internal grounds is such a solution to be accepted.

The discourse itself must now claim our attention. The disciples, having pointed out to Jesus the splendour of the Temple buildings, receive the reply that not one stone shall be left upon another: a prediction He had previously made regarding the city of Jerusalem (Luk 19:43). The words evidently sank deeply into their hearts, for when they sat with Him on the Mount of Olives they asked Him privately, When shall these things be, and what shall be the sign when these things are all about to be accomplished? (Luk 21:7). They thus asked two questions: first, when it would be; secondly, what sign would herald it. Mt. enlarges the latter question into What shall be the sign of thy coming and of the end of the age?; showing that the disciples connected the destruction of the Temple with Christs return, and that they sought instruction as to whether it was not also the End or consummation of the age ( , Mat 13:39-40; Mat 13:49; Mat 28:20, cf. Heb 9:26). Our Lords reply is full, both as to the time and the sign of the Temples destruction, and is also directed to the question of His return and the end of the world. The fact that He includes these latter subjects in His reply as given in all three Gospels, goes to show that they were implicit in the shorter questions of Mk. and Lk. He first tells them that it will not be when false Christs arise and when nation rises against nation, for these things are but the beginnings of travailthe birth-throes preliminary to final pains issuing in a new age(Mar 13:5-8); but that it will be after the gospel has been preached unto all nations, they themselves in the meantime suffering persecution; and then the end will come (Mar 13:10, Mat 24:14).

He then spoke of the sign, which would be that predicted by Daniel, namely, the abomination of desolation, which would warn of the imminent destruction of the Temple. He further told them that that would occur at a period of unprecedented affliction, and He bade them, when they saw the sign, escape at once to the mountains (Mar 13:14-20, Mat 24:15-22, Luk 21:20-24).

Having thus spoken of the time and the sign of the destruction, He passed on to speak of His Coming, which He announced as following immediately upon the tribulation which He had just described. In Mk. we read, In those days, after that tribulation (Mat 24:29 immediately () after ), the sun shall be darkened and then shall they see the Son of Man coming in the clouds, and he shall send forth his angels and gather together his elect from the four winds Thus both Evangelists make the coming of the Son of Man follow immediately upon the foretold tribulation which was to preface the destruction of the Temple.

Briggs (Messiah of Gospels, p. 155) ascribes to the of Mt. a prophetic sense similar to of the OT. The events were near to the vision of the prophet, but not necessarily near in actual history. But this does not get over the in those days of Mk., which is almost as definite as the immediately of Mt.

The question at once arises, whether those words can be taken as describing the judgment of the city and Temple. As far as the signs in heaven are concerned, we may say Yes; for these theophanic signs may justly be taken as imagery of the spiritual. Thus Peter interprets the heavenly portents foretold by Joel as fulfilled in the outpouring of the Spirit (Act 2:16; Act 2:19). But as regards the gathering together of the elect from the uttermost parts of the earth, we must say No. In no sense can this be said to have taken place when Jerusalem fell. What, then, we are to conclude is as follows: Jesus here foretold His Comings; He wished His disciples to look forward to an early judgment on the guilty city and church, and He wished them also to look forward to a time of ingathering to take place at the consummation of all things. As He had done before (Mar 8:38; Mar 9:1), so now He spoke of these two events, one nigh at hand, the other far in the distant future, both as Comings of Himself; but the two Evangelists, untaught as yet by events, were unable to separate in their records that which to His own mind was distinct. This view is much strengthened by our finding that that Evangelist who wrote after the destruction of Jerusalem was able then to distinguish what to them was confused. It is very remarkable that Lk., instead of placing the final return of Christ immediately after the tribulation, inserts a clause which makes the entire Christian dispensation intervene. He writes, Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled (Luk 21:24); and thus makes room for the ages of evangelization that intervene between the destruction of Jerusalem and the Parousia.

The discourse closed with two remarkable statements: first, that that generation would not pass away until all those things were accomplished (Mar 13:30, Mat 24:34, Luk 21:32); second, that none save the Father, not even the Son, knew that day and hour (Mar 13:32, Mat 24:36). That the Evangelists should have placed side by side two such apparently conflicting utterances, can be explained only by assuming their certain knowledge that Jesus had spoken them, and by their extreme fidelity to truth. To apply both sayings to the same event makes Jesus say, I do not know the exact day or hour, but I know that it will occur within the lifetime of some of those present. But the words are far too strong for such a meaning. He never would have asseverated so strongly in such a connexion the ignorance of the angels in heaven and of Himself as Son. What He evidently meant was, that He Himself would visit the Temple and city in judgment, and level them even with the ground within that generation; but that the day and hour of His final return in glory were unknown even to Himself. That day, is used frequently as synonymous with last day, indeed appears to be always used in that sense where the antecedent is not plainly indicated, and so must be taken in that sense here (Mat 7:22; Mat 26:29, Luk 10:12; Luk 21:34, 2Th 1:10, 2Ti 1:12; 2Ti 1:18; 2Ti 4:8).

Mt. appends a series of parables which illustrate and spiritually apply the great lessons of the discourse. Jesus told His hearers to watch; for if the master of the house had kept awake, the thief would not have entered. They are to be diligent and faithful as trusted servants, so that they may receive the blessing from their Master when He returns (Mat 24:43; Mat 24:51). By the parable of the Ten Virgins He cautioned them against indolence creeping upon them because of His delay in coming. By the parable of the Talents He taught them that definite duties are entrusted to them during the long time of His absence, but that on His return He will proportionately reward faithful service and punish neglect. And, finally, by the parable of the Sheep and the Goats He pictured in majestic language the great culmination of His ministerial office, when, seated on the throne of glory, He will dispense to assembled humanity the justice which their deeds of love or selfishness have merited.

The historic Comings, which are, as we have seen, so largely predicted by the Synoptists, are as plainly taught by John; in fact, it is even more impossible in the Fourth Gospel than in the first three to narrow down the sayings of Jesus that refer to His Comings to any one event. When He says, I will come again, and receive you unto myself (Joh 14:3), His meaning cannot be exhausted by referring the words to Pentecost, or to death, or to the Parousia; rather does it include all these. Similarly, I will not leave you desolate: I come to you (Joh 14:18), is not sufficiently interpreted by referring the words to the Resurrection, or to Pentecost, or to personal spiritual revelations; but must include all these.

In both these verses the Greek is not in the future tense but present (), meaning not I will come, but I come, at all times I am coming (see Westcott, l.c.; see also Joh 16:16; Joh 16:22; Joh 21:22). This view of repeated Comings does not prevent John from teaching the great Final Advent, for he records the words of Jesus which foretell the hour when the dead in their graves shall hear His voice (Joh 5:28); and in his Epistles uses the word in exactly the same sense as it is used by Matthew, James, and Paul (1Jn 2:28; cf. Mat 24:3, Joh 5:7, 1Co 15:23).

The predictions of Jesus carry us even beyond His Parousia. They tell us that His Coming will be the signal for the resurrection of the dead, both bad and good alike (Joh 5:28-29), and that that resurrection will be followed by the judgment of mankind. It is revealed that He Himself will be the Judge, and that before the throne of His glory will be gathered the entire human race in order that they may receive the just recompense for their deeds (Mat 25:31 ff.), each individual receiving his merited sentence (Mat 25:32; Mat 22:11; Mat 16:27). The judgment will thus be universal and individual. It is further revealed that the decisions of that judgment will be age-long in their consequences. On the one hand, the guilty will suffer from the unquenchable fire and the undying worm (Mar 9:44; Mar 9:46; Mar 9:48); they will be shut out from the marriage feast of the Kings Son, and condemned to outer darkness (Mat 22:13; Mat 8:12; Mat 25:30). On the other hand, the righteous will pass in with the Bridegroom to the marriage (Mat 25:10), will enter into the joy of their Lord (Mat 25:21), will be received unto Himself (Joh 14:3), and will behold His glory (Joh 17:24).

As regards the predicted bliss of the pardoned, there can be no doubt that Jesus taught that it was of eternal duration, for that bliss is naught but the gift of life, and that life is the life of God Himself, and so necessarily is everlasting as He is everlasting (Joh 1:4; Joh 5:26-29, cf. 1Jn 5:11-12). His teaching regarding the duration of the punishment of the wicked, however, is less plain. Much of His language is highly figurative, and may have been used by Him only to express the terrible punishment that awaits unrepented sin in the next world, without precluding the hope that God will finally win all to Himself by love; a hope that not a few passages in the later books of the NT suggest.

V. The prophetic office of the Ascended Christ.We must not conceive of the prophetic office of Jesus as ceasing with His ascension; for it, no less than the priestly and kingly, belongs to His essential activities as the Redeemer of men. Error as well as sin blights human life, and truth as well as righteousness is needed to restore the fallen, and therefore from the right hand of God He still teaches the world He loves.

1. His prophetic work is carried on by Him through the instrumentality of His Church, which is inspired by His Spirit. It is not that He has transferred His teaching office from Himself to the Church, but that He Himself still teaches the world through her. When the earliest preachers of the gospel proclaimed their message, He, though enthroned, worked with them and confirmed the word with signs following (Mar 16:20); and it was His Spiritthe Spirit of Jesusthat prevented Paul the missionary from entering Bithynia (Act 16:7), and that thus directed his steps as a teacher to Europe. In a word, the Church in her teaching office is taught, confirmed, and guided by Jesus Christ, her ever-living Prophet.

2. Shortly after the Church started on her career, the inherent prophetic power, which she possessed by her union with Christ, exhibited itself in a recognized order of prophets,men and women who preached under the influence of direct inspiration, and who at times were able to foretell the future. These prophets were placed by St. Paul second in his list of Church ministrants (1Co 12:28, Eph 4:11). Their natural tendency towards independence by and by brought them into collision with the Churchs authoritative organizations; and their ministry of enthusiasm, under the pressure of the more regular and constant ministrations, gradually fell into disuse.

3. But the many movements claiming inspiration throughout her history tell us that the prophetic Spirit is ever present, though perhaps slumbering, within the Christian body. It is difficult to see how such a gift as prophecy, which by its spontaneity refuses to be bound by fixed rules, can coexist, without confusion, as a power along with the stated ministry; but not the least need of the present life of the Church is the discovery of means whereby she may develop her organized existence as a community, and at the same time permit the free utterance of those direct spiritual communications which she may receive from Christ her Prophet.

Literature.(1) On the Messiah as Prophet: Stanton, Jewish and Christian Messiah, pp. 126, 293 f. (2) On Christs Prophetic Office: Martensen, Chr. Dogmatics, p. 295 ff.; and esp. Dorner, Syst. of Chr. Doctrine, vols. iii. and iv. passim. (3) On distinctive marks of prophet: Oehler, OT Theol.; A. B. Davidson, OT Theol., also his art. Prophecy in Hasting’s Dictionary of the Bible ; Ottley, Aspects of OT, p. 275 ff. (4) On Christs didactic prophecies: Edersheim, LT [Note: T Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah [Edersheim].] ; Weiss, Life of Christ [Neanders Life, though not modern, is very useful]; Bishop DArcys Ruling Ideas of our Lord (Hodder) is succinct but full and valuable, see also his art. Ideas (Leading). (5) On Christs predictive prophecies: for those regarding His death see Schwartzkopff, Prophecies of Jesus Christ [English translation T. & T. Clark]; but for conservative standpoint, Denney, Death of Christ; for those regarding His Return see Stevens, NT Theol. pt. i. ch. xil.; Briggs, Messiah of Gospels, ch. iv. and passim; S. Davidson, Doctrine of Last Things; Schwartzkopff, as above; Muirhead, Eschatology of Jesus; art. Parousia in Hasting’s Dictionary of the Bible .

Charles T. P. Grierson.

Fuente: A Dictionary Of Christ And The Gospels

Prophet

PROPHET (in NT).1. The spirit of prophecy, as it meets us under the Old Dispensation, runs on into the New, and there are prophets in the NT who are properly to be described as OT prophets. Such as Anna the prophetess (Luk 2:36; cf. Miriam, Deborah, and Huldah in the OT); Zacharias, who is expressly said to have prophesied (Luk 1:67 ff.); Simeon, whose Nunc Dimittis is an utterance of an unmistakably prophetic nature (Luk 2:25 ff.) But above all there is John the Baptist, who was not only recognized by the nation as a great prophet (Mat 14:5; Mat 21:26, Mar 11:32, Luk 20:6), but was declared by Jesus to be the greatest prophet of the former dispensation, while yet less than the least in the Kingdom of heaven (Mat 11:9 ff. = Luk 7:26 ff.)

2. Jesus Himself was a prophet. It was in this character that the Messiah had been promised (Deu 18:16; Deu 18:18; cf. Act 3:22; Act 7:37), and had been looked for by many (Joh 6:14). During His public ministry it was as a prophet that He was known by the people (Mat 21:11; cf. Luk 7:16), and described by His own disciples (Luk 24:19), and even designated by Himself (Mat 13:57, Luk 13:33). And according to the teaching of the NT, the exalted Christ still continues to exercise His prophetic function, guiding His disciples into all the truth by the Spirit whom He sends (Joh 16:7; Joh 16:13), and building up the body by bestowing upon it Apostles, prophets, and teachers (Eph 4:8 ff.).

3. From the prophetic office of her exalted Head there flowed the prophetic endowment of the Church. Joel had foretold a time when the gift of prophecy should be conferred upon all (Joe 2:28 f.), and at Pentecost we see that word fulfilled (Act 2:16 ff.). Ideally, all the Lords people should be prophets. For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy (Rev 19:10), and in proportion as Christians are filled with the Pentecostal Spirit they will desire, like the members of the newborn Church, to bear testimony to their Master (cf. Num 11:29, 1Co 14:5).

4. But even in the Spirit-filled Church diversities of gifts quickly emerged, and a special power of prophetic utterance was bestowed upon certain individuals. A prophetic ministry arose, a ministry of Divine inspiration, which has to be distinguished from the official ministry of human appointment (see art. Ministry). In a more general sense, all those who spoke the word of God (Heb 13:7) were prophets. The ministry of the word (Act 6:4) was a prophetic ministry, and so we find St. Paul himself described as a prophet long after he had become an Apostle (Act 13:1).

5. But in a more precise use of the term we find the specific NT prophet distinguished from others who speak the word of God, and in particular from the Apostle and the teacher (1Co 12:28 f., cf. Eph 4:11). The distinction seems to be that while the Apostle was a missionary to the unbelieving (Gal 2:7-8), the prophet was a messenger to the Church (1Co 14:4; 1Co 14:22); and while the teacher explained or enforced truth that was already possessed (Heb 5:12), the prophet was recognized by the spiritual discernment of his hearers (1Co 2:15; 1Co 14:29, 1Jn 4:1) as the Divine medium of fresh revelations (1Co 14:25; 1Co 14:30-31, Eph 3:6; cf. Did. iv. 1).

Three main types of prophesying may be distinguished in the NT(a) First, there is what may be called the ordinary ministry of prophecy in the Church, described by St. Paul as edification and comfort and consolation (1Co 14:3). (b) Again, there is, on special occasions, the authoritative announcement of the Divine will in a particular case, as when the prophets of Antioch, in obedience to the Holy Ghost, separate Barnabas and Saul for the work of missionary evangelization (Act 13:1 ff.; cf. Act 22:21; Act 16:5 ff.). (c) Rarely there is the prediction of a future event, as in the case of Agabus (Act 11:28; Act 21:10; cf. v. Act 21:4).

Of Christian prophets in the specific sense several are mentioned in the NT: Judas and Silas (Act 15:32), the prophets at Antioch (Act 13:1), Agabus and the prophets from Jerusalem (Act 11:27 f., Act 21:10), the four daughters of Philip the evangelist (Act 21:9). But these few names give us no conception of the numbers and influence of the prophets in the Apostolic Church. For light upon these points we have to turn especially to the Pauline Epistles (e.g. 1Co 12:28 f., 1Co 12:14, Eph 2:20; Eph 3:5; Eph 4:11). Probably they were to be found in every Christian community, and there might even be several of them in a single congregation (1Co 14:29). Certain of them, possessed no doubt of conspicuous gifts, moved about from church to church (Act 11:27 f., Act 21:10; Cf. Mat 10:41, Did. xiii. 1). Others, endowed with literary powers, would commit their visions and revelations to writing, just as some prophets of the OT had done, though of this literary type of prophecy we have only one example in the NTthe Book of Revelation (cf. Rev 1:3; Rev 22:7; Rev 22:9-10; Rev 22:19).

Quite a flood of light is shed upon the subject of the NT prophets by the evidence of the Didache. We see there that about the end of the first century or the beginning of the second the prophet is still held in the highest estimation (xi. 7, xiii.), and takes precedence, wherever he goes of the local ministry of bishops and deacons (x. 7). But we also see the presence in the Church of those influences which gradually led to the elimination of the prophetic ministry. One influence is the abundance of false prophets (xi. 8 ff.; cf. Mat 7:15; Mat 24:11; Mat 24:24, 1Jn 4:1), tending to make the Church suspicious of all prophetic assumptions, and to bring prophecy as such into disrepute. Another is the growing importance of the official ministry, which begins to claim the functions previously accorded to the prophets alone (xv. 1). Into the hands of the official class all power in the Church gradually passed, and in spite of the outburst of the old prophetic claims, during the latter half of the 2nd cent., in connexion with the Montanist movement, the prophet in the distinctive NT sense disappears entirely from the Catholic Church, while the ministry of office takes the place of the ministry of inspiration.

J. C. Lambert.

Fuente: Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible

Prophet

See Prophecy

Fuente: The Poor Mans Concordance and Dictionary to the Sacred Scriptures

Prophet

Prophet. The ordinary Hebrew word for prophet is nabi, derived from a verb signifying, “to bubble forth”, like a fountain; hence, the word means one who announces, or pours forth, the declarations of God. The English word comes from the Greek prophetes (profetes), which signifies, in classical Greek, one who speaks for another, especially one who speaks for a god, and so interprets his will to man; hence, its essential meaning is “an interpreter”.

The use of the word in its modern sense as “one who predicts” is post-classical. The larger sense of interpretation has not, however, been lost. In fact, the English word has been used in a closer sense. The different meanings, or shades of meanings, in which the abstract noun is employed in Scripture have been drawn out by Locke as follows: “Prophecy comprehends three things: prediction; singing by the dictate of the Spirit; and understanding and explaining the mysterious, hidden sense of Scripture by an immediate illumination and motion of the Spirit.”

Order and office. — The sacerdotal order was originally the instrument, by which the members of the Jewish theocracy were taught, and governed in things spiritual. Teaching by act and teaching by word were alike their task. But during the time of the judges, the priesthood sank into a state of degeneracy, and the people were no longer affected by the acted lessons of the ceremonial service. They required less enigmatic warnings and exhortations, under these circumstances, a new moral power was evoked; the Prophetic Order.

Samuel, himself Levite of the family of Kohath, 1Ch 6:28, and almost certainly a priest, was the instrument used, at once, for effecting a reform in the sacerdotal order, 1Ch 9:22, and for giving to the prophets, a position of importance, which they had never before held. Nevertheless, it is not to be supposed that Samuel created the prophetic order as a new thing before unknown. The germs, both of the prophetic and of the regal order, are found in the law as given to the Israelites by Moses, Deu 13:1; Deu 17:18; Deu 18:20, but they were not yet developed, because there was not yet the demand for them.

Samuel took measures to make his work of restoration permanent, as well as, effective for the moment. For this purpose, he instituted companies or colleges of prophets. One, we find in his lifetime at Ramah, 1Sa 19:19-20, others, afterward, at Bethel, 2Ki 2:3, Jericho, 2Ki 2:2; 2Ki 2:5, Gilgal; 2Ki 4:38, and elsewhere. 2Ki 6:1. Their constitution and object similar to those of theological colleges. Into them were gathered promising students, and here, they were trained for the office which they were , afterward, destined to fulfill. So successful were these institutions that, from the time of Samuel to the closing of the canon of the Old Testament, there seems never to have been wanting, due supply of men to keep up the line of official prophets.

Their chief subject of study was, no doubt, the law and its interpretation; oral, as distinct from symbolical, teaching being, thenceforward, tacitly transferred from the priestly to the prophetic order. Subsidiary subjects of instruction were music and sacred poetry, both of which had been connected with prophecy from the time of Moses, Exo 15:20, and the judges. Jdg 4:4; Jdg 5:1.

But, to belong to the prophetic order, and to possess the prophetic gift, are not convertible terms. Generally, the inspired prophet came from the college of prophets, and belonged to prophetic order; but this was not always the case. Thus, Amos, though called to the prophetic office, did not belong to the prophetic order. Amo 7:14 . The sixteen prophets, whose books are in the canon, have that place of honor because they were endowed with the prophetic gift as well as ordinarily, (so far as we know), belonging to the prophetic order.

Characteristics. — What then are the characteristics of the sixteen prophets thus called, and commissioned, and intrusted with the messages of God to his people?

They were the national poets of Judea.

They were annalists and historians. A great portion of Isaiah, of Jeremiah, of Daniel of Jonah, of Haggai, is direct or in direct history.

They were preachers of patriotism, — their patriotism being founded on the religious motive.

They were preachers of morals and of spiritual religion. The system of morals put forward by the prophets, if not higher or sterner or purer than that of the law, is more plainly declared, and with greater, because now more needed, vehemence of diction.

They were extraordinary, but yet authorized exponents of the law.

They held a pastoral or quasi-pastoral office.

They were a political power in the state.

But the prophets were something more than national poets and annalists, preachers of patriotism moral teachers, exponents of the law, pastors and politicians. Their most essential characteristic is that they were instruments of revealing God’s will to man, as in other ways, so specially by predicting future events, and in particular, foretelling the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the redemption effected by him. We have a series of prophecies which are so applicable to the person and earthly life of Jesus Christ as to be thereby shown to have been designed to apply to him. And, if they were designed to apply to him, prophetical prediction is proved. Objections have been urged. We notice only one, namely, vagueness. It has been said that the prophecies are too darkly and vaguely worded to be proved predictive, by the events which they are alleged to foretell. But to this might be answered.

That God never forces men to believe, but that there is such a union of definiteness and vagueness in the prophecies, as to enable those who are willing to discover the truth, while the willfully blind are not forcibly constrained to see it.

That, had the prophecies been couched in the form of direct declarations, their fulfillment would have, thereby, been rendered impossible or at least capable of frustration.

That the effect of prophecy would have been far less beneficial to believers, as being less adapted to keep them in a state of constant expectation.

That the Messiah of revelation could not be so clearly portrayed in his varied character as God and man, as prophet, priest and king, if he had been the mere “teacher.”

That the state of the prophets, at the time of receiving the divine revelation, was, such as necessarily, to make their predictions fragmentary figurative, and abstracted from the relations of time.

That some portions of the prophecies were intended to be of double application, and some portions, to be understood only on their fulfillment. Compare Joh 14:29; Eze 36:33.

Fuente: Smith’s Bible Dictionary

Prophet

“one who speaks forth or openly” (see PROPHECY, A), “a proclaimer of a divine message,” denoted among the Greeks an interpreter of the oracles of the gods. In the Sept. it is the translation of the word roeh, “a seer;” 1Sa 9:9, indicating that the “prophet” was one who had immediate intercourse with God. It also translates the word nabhi, meaning “either one in whom the message from God springs forth” or “one to whom anything is secretly communicated.” Hence, in general, “the prophet” was one upon whom the Spirit of God rested, Num 11:17-29, one, to whom and through whom God speaks, Num 12:2; Amo 3:7-8. In the case of the OT prophets their messages were very largely the proclamation of the Divine purposes of salvation and glory to be accomplished in the future; the “prophesying” of the NT “prophets” was both a preaching of the Divine counsels of grace already accomplished and the foretelling of the purposes of God in the future.

In the NT the word is used (a) of “the OT prophets,” e.g., Mat 5:12; Mar 6:15; Luk 4:27; Joh 8:52; Rom 11:3; (b) of “prophets in general,” e.g., Mat 10:41; Mat 21:46; Mar 6:4; (c) of “John the Baptist,” Mat 21:26; Luk 1:76; (d) of “prophets in the churches,” e.g., Act 13:1; Act 15:32; Act 21:10; 1Co 12:28-29; 1Co 14:29, 1Co 14:32, 1Co 14:37; Eph 2:20; Eph 3:5; Eph 4:11; (e) of “Christ, as the aforepromised Prophet,” e.g., Joh 1:21; Joh 6:14; Joh 7:40; Act 3:22; Act 7:37, or, without the article, and, without reference to the Old Testament, Mar 6:15, Luk 7:16; in Luk 24:19 it is used with aner, “a man;” Joh 4:19; Joh 9:17; (f) of “two witnesses” yet to be raised up for special purposes, Rev 11:10, Rev 11:18; (g) of “the Cretan poet Epimenides,” Tit 1:12; (h) by metonymy, of “the writings of prophets,” e.g., Luk 24:27; Act 8:28.

“a false prophet,” is used of such (a) in OT times, Luk 6:26; 2Pe 2:1; (b) in the present period since Pentecost, Mat 7:15; Mat 24:11, Mat 24:24; Mar 13:22; Act 13:6; 1Jo 4:1; (c) with reference to a false “prophet” destined to arise as the supporter of the “Beast” at the close of this age, Rev 16:13; Rev 19:20; Rev 20:10 (himself described as “another beast,” Rev 13:11).

Fuente: Vine’s Dictionary of New Testament Words