All That Glitters is Not God (Isaiah 40)
Of all the writing prophets, Isaiah is justly accounted the greatest. His prophecy is one of the longest, is quoted more frequently than any other in the New Testament, and he more often than any other prophet tells of the coming Messiah. Isaiah prophesied for about fifty years (see Chart 80) during very critical times of both kingdoms, Israel and Judah. He was greatly responsible for the sweeping reforms introduced by Hezekiah, who was one of Judah’s righteous kings. Merrill Unger says this of Isaiah: “Isaiah … is the great messianic prophet and prince of OT seers. For splendor of diction, brilliance of imagery, versatility and beauty of style, profundity and breadth of prophetic vision, he is without peer.
The primary task of the Old Testament prophets was not to foretell future events but to forthtell the will of God which He had revealed to His prophets. Concerning the verb “prophesy,” Gleason Archer writes:
The Hebrew word is nibbaʾ … a word whose etymology is much disputed. The best founded explanation, however, seems to relate this root to the Akkadian verb nabu, which means “to summon, announce, call.…” Thus the verb nibbaʾ would doubtless signify one who has been called or appointed to proclaim as a herald the message of God Himself. From this verb comes the characteristic word for prophet, nabiʾ, one who has been called. On this interpretation the prophet was … one called by God to proclaim as a herald from the court of heaven the message to be transmitted from God to man.
C. OTHER TITLES APPLIED TO THE PROPHETS
The prophets of the Old Testament were sometimes designated by other titles. Of these, the three most frequently used were:
1. “man of God”—suggesting an intimate spiritual relationship
2. “seer”—suggesting perception of the true, and insight into the invisible things of God (cf. 1 Sam 9:9)
3. “servant” of Jehovah
The prophets were also known as messengers of Jehovah, men of the Spirit (cf. Hos 9:7), interpreters and spokesmen for God.
All of God’s prophets shared the same purpose for which they were divinely called. Their primary ministry was to deliver a message from God to an unbelieving and apostate Israel (cf. Deut 18:18–19). Some of these, now referred to as the writing (or literary) prophets, were chosen of God not only to a public-speaking ministry, but also to be the authors of the inspired canonical books of prophecy. The others, now referred to as the oral prophets, ministered mostly by the spoken word.
Two Messianic themes. When a prophet speaks of Christ, he refers to Him in either of His two comings—either in the first coming, as the suffering Messiah (e.g., Isa 53), or in the second coming, as the reigning Messiah (e.g., Isa 11). The prophets were apparently not aware that a long interval of time would transpire between Christ’s manifestation in suffering (first advent) and Christ’s revelation in glory (second advent). His suffering and His reigning appeared to them to be very close in time. The student of prophecy must keep this in mind when he studies the predictive sections of the prophetic books.