Sermon Tone Analysis

Standing in the Council

Let’s face it.

Few bible readers know much about the prophets, who after the conquest take a back seat to David, Solomon, and maybe a couple of the judges.

The average Christian reads the prophetic material only when the pastor needs a good sermon on sin or judgment.

The prophets are just a bunch of wild eyed gloom and doom fanatics, aren’t they?

The caricature is not completely without foundation, but it fails to accurately communicate who the prophets were, why God raised them up, and what their mission was.

There is a distinct pattern to Yahweh’s sovereign choice of human leaders, a pattern that includes the divine council.

Just What Was a Prophet?

To discern the full implication of this pattern, it is vital to understand what is meant by the term “prophet.”

Forecasting future events was only a small part of what prophetic figures did and what they were about.

Prophets were simply people who spoke for God - men and women who, at God’s direction, looked their fellow Israelites in the eye and told them they were being disloyal to the God to whom they owed their existence and who had chosen a relationship with them over everyone else on earth.

Prophet’s told people the unvarnished truth and often paid dearly for it.

The “classical prophets” (Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel) preached during the monarchy (from the time of Saul onward).

But God had been appointing people to speak on his behalf for much longer than that.

For example, Samuel, the last of the judges, is called a prophet (1 Sam 3:20).

Since Samuel is a transitional figure from the time of the judges to the establishment of the first king in Israel, Samuel is often thought of as the first prophet.

That isn’t actually the case.

If we define prophets simply as spokespeople for God, prophets go back to the very beginning.

The First Prophet

Eden was the dwelling place of Yahweh, the place from which he ruled with his council.

Humanity was created to be part of God’s family and his ruling council.

That is not difficult to discern when approaching Genesis in its original context, but seeing Adam as a prophetic figure requires moving outside of Genesis.

Eliphaz asks these questions of Job and they are obviously rhetorical.

By using contrast, they anticipate an answer of no.

Of course Job was not the first man — Adam was.

Job had not listened in the council of God, but the rhetorical contrast implies that Adam HAD listened in the council of God.

This would make sense, given that Adam lived in Eden, the meeting place of the council, and that it had been God’s intent for human beings to be his earthly children and human members of his council.

Think back to Gen 3:8

Here Yahweh approaches Adam and Eve after they had violated God’s command.

They heard the sound of the Lord walking.

The walking terminology suggests that God appeared to them in human form (spirits don’t walk or make noise if they did) The text says that Adam and Eve knew it was God - there was no surprise or shock, This was an experience they had had before.

Adam and Eve were familiar with God’s presence.

We don’t think of that in prophetic terms because there were no other people in Eden.

But once there were others, Adam and Eve would have been the mediators between God and other humans, their own children.

The description of Yahweh “walking” is also used of God’s active presence inside of Israel’s tabernacle, creating another link between Eden, the cosmic mountain, and the tabernacle sanctuary.

One can read the OT in vain for any instance where Yahweh walked around the camp of Israel, as opposed to appearing in a cloud over the holy of holies, and so the description here isn’t describing God literally glad-handing with the Israelites.

Rather, the language is another way of saying that Yahweh’s abode was among the Israelites - -and where God’s house was, his council was.

On the other side of the veil was where God and his council could be found.

Enoch and Noah

The idea that “walking” was language that expressed presence shouldn’t be foreign to us.

We use it, too, when we talk about walking with God.

Our conception is one of communion or relationship.

Scripture uses the phrase for at least that much, but it could also mean more direct contact with the divine presence.

And understanding the notion of “meeting with God” is crucial to understanding what being God’s spokesperson meant.

When God chose someone to speak for him - to represent him to the rest of humanity or to his own people, they had to meet first.

This is the idea behind the biblical call to service.

Enoch is remembered in Gen 5: 22, 24 as never seeing death.

These passages note that he walked with God, and God took him.

Jewish writings from the period between the OT and NT do in fact connect these few words with the divine council.

The the book named for him Enoch is considered God’s spokes-person since he delivers the words of judgment to the fallen sons of God after the Gen. 6: 1-4 incident.

The NT reports that Enoch prophesied:

Noah also walked with God, according to Gen. 6:9.

God spoke directly to Noah, as he had done to Adam before him and many prophets after him.

Noah prophesied the flood, warning of judgment.

The Patriarchs

The pattern of an encounter with God or with divine council members as validation of one’s prophetic status gets even clearer with the patriarchs.

Since we have seen this before, we will take an abbreviated tour here.

Recall that God appeared to Abraham on several occasions.

But in Gen 12: 6-7

This is a detail we have not covered.

Compare Gen 18:1

These oaks are each what are called a terebinth - a sacred tree that got its reputation because it marked a spot where divine beings appeared.

In fact, Oak of Moreh literally means Oak of the Teacher.

The point behind the name would be that some divine figure teaches people or dispenses information at this location - what we commonly think of as an oracle.

Because they were thought to be holy ground, place where God was present, such places were considered good places to bury loved ones.

The dispensing of divine knowledge and divine decrees is associated with the divine council in the OT.

This connection is transparent when we get to the classical prophets.

While Abraham was still a pagan, God had chosen him to be the father of his own inheritance after the debacle at Babel.

Abraham became the conduit for God’s truth to the disinherited nations.

Isaac had the same status, and God appeared to him to ratify the covenant.

Jacob had a number of direct encounters and he had the same prophetic status of his father and grandfather.

The pattern that emerges from the patriarchs is that when God chooses someone to represent him, that person must first meet with God.

By necessity, that meeting is with the visible Yahweh, who can be discerned by human senses.

In many cases, the divine job interview occurs in a place that is described as God’s home or headquarters, the place where the divine council meets.

Moses, Joshua, and the Judges

Look at Moses Deut 34:10

This makes it clear that Moses was a prophet, and all of his divine encounters validate that status.

For the Israelites, divine encounters was what convinced people that Moses was God’s man. the connection is explicit Exodus 19:9

The implication is clear — the people need to listen and will listen to the person who is validated by an encounter with the presence of God.

Divine encounter was also what initially validated Joshua as a prophet.

Joshua went with Moses up the mountain of God. and then

See Deut 31: 14-23

The Classical Prophets

The most familiar initiation of a prophet is perhaps that of Isaiah .. who is called into God’s presence, throne-room and divine council gathering...

Then we see the plurality of the commission and the purpose of it

notice the wording ....Whom shall I send…who will go for us” God is the commissioner, but the commission extends from his divine council as well.

The same divine rite of passage is experienced by Ezekiel in an even more dramatic call to ministry … instead of Ezekiel going to the throne room it comes to him

And the pattern hold sith Jeremiah

Jeremiahs dramatic call by the embodied Yahweh in the book serves as the basis of true prophet status.

This become a litmus test for a true prophet or false one

The implications are clear: true prophets have stood and listened in Yahweh’s divine council; false prophets have not.

The litmus test of direct divine encounter for validating one who claimed to speak for God never went away in Israel.

It was alive and well in NT times.

In the next three week — the final ones in the OT — we will get prepared and our minds ready for Yahweh’s ultimate human voice.

The prophets would fail in their ministry, in the sense that they were not able to preserve and revive Israel’s loyalty to God.

The prophetic message would change to judgment and redemption - but the means was deliberately veiled. 1 Peter 1: 12

You and I have the advantage of hindsight - but we still need to know what we are looking at.