Prophecy
THE NATURE OF PROPHECY
We should note at the outset that the Prophetic Books are among the most difficult parts of the Bible for people of later times to interpret or read with understanding. The reasons for this are primarily related to misunderstandings as to their function and form. But before we discuss these two matters, some preliminary comments are in order.
The Meaning of Prophecy
The primary difficulty for most modern readers of the Prophets stems from an inaccurate prior understanding of the word “prophecy.” For most people this word means what appears as the first definition in most dictionaries: “foretelling or prediction of what is to come.” It often happens, therefore, that many Christians refer to the Prophetic Books only for predictions about the coming of Jesus and/or certain features of the new-covenant age—as though prediction of events far distant from their own day was the main concern of the prophets. In fact, using the Prophetic Books in this way is highly selective. Consider in this connection the following statistics: Less than 2 percent of Old Testament prophecy is messianic. Less than 5 percent specifically describes the new-covenant age. Less than 1 percent concerns events yet to come in our time.
The prophets did indeed announce the future. But it was usually the more immediate future of Israel, Judah, and other nations surrounding them that they announced rather than our future. One of the keys to understanding the Prophetic Books, therefore, is that for us to see their prophecies fulfilled, we must look back on times that for them were still future but for us are past.
The Prophets as Spokespersons
To see the prophets as primarily predictors of future events is to miss their primary function, which was to speak for God to their own contemporaries. It is the “spoken” nature of their prophecies that causes many of our difficulties in understanding.
For example, of the hundreds of prophets in ancient Israel in Old Testament times, only sixteen would speak oracles (messages from God) that were to be collected and written up into books.
The Problem of History
Another matter complicates our understanding of the Prophetic Books—the problem of historical distance. Indeed, by the very nature of things, we modern readers will find it much harder to understand in our own time the word of God as it was spoken by the prophets than did the Israelites who heard those same words in person. Things clear to them tend to be opaque to us. Why? Partly because those in a speaker’s audience have certain obvious advantages over those who read a speaker’s words much later, and, to boot, secondhand (cf. what was said about the parables in ch. 8), not to mention that so much of it comes to us by way of Hebrew poetry, which itself took a quite different form from what most modern readers expect regarding “poetry.” But this is not where the difficulties really lie for the most part. Rather, as people far removed from the religious, historical, and cultural life of ancient Israel, we simply have great trouble putting the words spoken by the prophets in their original historical context. It is often hard for us to see what they are referring to and why—which is also why a contemporary reader often needs some outside help in order to understand them better.
THE FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN ISRAEL
To understand what God would say to us through these inspired books, we must first have a clear understanding as to the role and function of the prophet in Israel. Four items must be emphasized:
1. The prophets were covenant enforcement mediators. We explained in the preceding chapter how Israel’s law constituted a covenant between God and his people, modeled after the ancient suzerainty treaties and thus containing both stipulations and sanctions. God’s covenant with Israel, therefore, contains not only regulations and statutes for them to keep but describes the sorts of sanctions that accompany the law: the sorts of blessings his people will receive if they keep the law, and the sorts of punishments (“curses”) that God will necessarily mete out if they do not. Thus God does not merely give Israel his law, but he enforces it.
This is where the prophets come in. God announced the enforcement (positive or negative) of his law through them, so that the events of blessing or cursing would be clearly understood by his people. Moses was the mediator for God’s law when God first announced it and thus is a paradigm (model) for the prophets. They are God’s mediators, or spokespersons, for the covenant. Through them God reminds people in the generations after Moses that if his law is kept, blessing will result; but if not, punishment will ensue.
The kinds of blessings that will come to Israel for faithfulness to the covenant are found in three Old Testament passages (Lev 26:14–38; Deut 4:32–40; and 28:1–14). But these blessings are announced with a warning: If Israel does not obey God’s law, the blessings will cease. The sorts of curses (punishments) that Israel could expect if they violated the law are found especially in three places (Lev 26:14–39; Deut 4:15–28; and throughout Deut 28:15–32:42).
Therefore, one must always bear in mind that the prophets did not invent the blessings or curses they announced. They may have worded these blessings and curses in novel, captivating ways, as they were inspired to do so. But they pronounced God’s word, not their own. Through them God announced his intention to enforce the covenant, for benefit or for harm—depending on the faithfulness of Israel—but always on the basis of and in accordance with the categories of blessing and cursing already contained in the Leviticus and Deuteronomy passages noted above. If you will take the trouble to read these chapters from the Pentateuch with care, you will be rewarded with a much better understanding of why the prophets said the things that they did.
2. The prophets’ message was not their own, but God’s. As you read the Prophetic Books with some care, you will easily pick up that each prophet has his own unique style, vocabulary, emphases, idioms, and concerns. The unique features of each of their books is highlighted in How to 2, pages 171–265. Here we want to emphasize, in keeping with what has just been said, that God is the one who raised up the prophets to speak his word to Israel (cf. Exod 3–4; Isa 6; Jer 1; Ezek 1–3; Hos 1:2; Amos 7:14–15; Jonah 1:1; et al.). If a prophet presumed to take the office of prophet upon himself or herself, this would be good cause to consider such a person a false prophet (cf. Jer 14:14; 23:21). The prophets responded to a divine call. The Hebrew word for prophet (nābîʾ) comes in fact from the Semitic verb “to call” (nabû). You will note as you read the Prophetic Books that they preface, or conclude, or regularly punctuate their oracles with reminders like “This is what the LORD says” or “declares the LORD.” A majority of the time, in fact, the prophetic message is relayed directly as received from the Lord, in the first person, so that God speaks personally, in terms of “I” or “me.”
3. The prophets were God’s direct representatives. As vehicles through whom God’s word was delivered both to Israel and other nations, the prophets held a kind of societal office. They were like ambassadors from the heavenly court who relayed the divine sovereign’s will to the people. The prophets were, on their own, neither radical social reformers nor innovative religious thinkers. The social reforms and the religious thought that God wished to impart to the people had already been revealed in the covenantal law. No matter which group broke those laws, God’s word through the prophet held punishment. Whether the guilt for covenant violations lay with the royalty (e.g., 2 Sam 12:1–14; 24:11–17; Hos 1:4) or with the clergy (Hos 4:4–11; Amos 7:17; Mal 2:1–9), or any other group, the prophet conveyed God’s message of national curse faithfully. Indeed, at God’s bidding, prophets even installed or deposed kings (1 Kgs 19:16; 21:17–22) and declared war (2 Kgs 3:18–19; 2 Chr 20:14–17; Hos 5:5–8) or spoke against war (Jer 27:8–22).
What we read in the Prophetic Books, then, is not merely God’s word as the prophet saw it but God’s word as God wished the prophet to present it. The prophet does not act or speak independently of God. In fact, the introductory wording in many prophetical books that is usually translated “the word of the LORD came to [name of prophet]” is probably better translated “the word of the LORD was entrusted to [name of prophet].” Prophets held a deep responsibility to preserve and convey that word widely and repeatedly, no matter the difficulty or opposition.
4. The prophets’ message is not original. The prophets were inspired by God to present to their generation the essential content of the original Mosaic covenant’s warnings and promises (curses and blessings). Therefore, when we read the prophets’ words, what we read is not new in concept but new in wording—in each prophet’s own style and vocabulary—of the same message in essence delivered by God originally through Moses. As one should expect, the exact wording may be unique, and in that sense “novel,” but the concepts expressed restate faithfully what God had already expressed to his people in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.