Prophet

VIEW:24 DATA:01-04-2020
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 Lord’s 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 NT—the 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.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
Edited by James Hastings, D.D. Published in 1909


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; Jas_5:16; Jas_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.
Fausset's Bible Dictionary
By Andrew Robert Fausset, co-Author of Jamieson, Fausset and Brown's 1888.


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.
Smith's Bible Dictionary
By Dr. William Smith.Published in 1863


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 נָבַיא (nabi), derived from the verb נָבָא, connected by Gesenius with נָבִע, “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 נָט ִ (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 נָבָא is found only in the niphal and hithpael, a peculiarity which it shares with many other words expressive of speech (comp. loquifari, vociferari, concionari, φθἑγγομαι , as well as μαντεύομαι 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 נָבַיא(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 נָבַיא (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 (בִּרנָבַיא), which is rendered υἱὸς παρακλήσεως (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-— רֹאֶה (nre/b) and חֹזֶה(chozeh)-both signifying one who sees. They are rendered in the A.V. by “seer;” in the Sept. usually by βλέπων or ὁρῶν, sometimes by προφήτης (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 רָאָה, from which it is derived, is the common prose word signifying “to see:” חָזָה— whence the substantive חֹזֶה (chozeh) is derived-is more poetical, q.d. “to gaze.” Chozeh is rarely found except in the books of the Chronicles, but חָזוֹןis 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 ὁ τῶν μεγάλων ἐπόπτης καὶ ἐξηγητὴς μυστηρίων, he gives a sufficiently exact translation of the two titles chozeh or roeh, and nabi.
Sometimes the prophets are called צוֹפַאַים(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 שׁוֹמֵר(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” (רוִּח, 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 προφήτης, and in the A.V. by “prophet.” In classical Greek, προφήτης 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 προφήτης, 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 προφῆται attached to heathen temples are so named from their interpreting the oracles delivered by the inspired and unconscious μάντεις (Plato, Tim. 72 b; Herod. 7:111, note [ed. Bahr]). We have Plato's authority for deriving μάντις from μαίνομαι (l.c.). The use of the word προφήτης in its modern sense is post-classical, and is derived from the Sept.
From the mediaeval use of the word προφητεία, 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 προφητεία 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 ἵνα πληρωθῆ , 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. προφήτης.
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 גְאֻם יְהָֹוה, “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 for
CYCLOPEDIA OF BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL
press 1895.





Norway

FACEBOOK

Participe de nossa rede facebook.com/osreformadoresdasaude

Novidades, e respostas das perguntas de nossos colaboradores

Comments   2

BUSCADAVERDADE

Visite o nosso canal youtube.com/buscadaverdade e se INSCREVA agora mesmo! Lá temos uma diversidade de temas interessantes sobre: Saúde, Receitas Saudáveis, Benefícios dos Alimentos, Benefícios das Vitaminas e Sais Minerais... Dê uma olhadinha, você vai gostar! E não se esqueça, dê o seu like e se INSCREVA! Clique abaixo e vá direto ao canal!


Saiba Mais

  • Image Nutrição
    Vegetarianismo e a Vitamina B12
  • Image Receita
    Como preparar a Proteína Vegetal Texturizada
  • Image Arqueologia
    Livro de Enoque é um livro profético?
  • Image Profecia
    O que ocorrerá no Armagedom?

Tags