Old Testament Survey
Introduction to the Prophets
Rick Walker
http://Didaskalia.tripod.com
1. Classical Prophecy. The prophets can be divided into two categories.
A. Pre-Classical Prophets. Men and women like Moses, Deborah, Samuel,
Elijah, Elisha, and Nathan.
1. They addressed the king and his court as
head of the people.
2. We have a lot of stories about these people,
but no writings (with the exception of Moses).
B. Classical Prophets.
1. Classical prophecy began in the eight
century B.C. during the reign of Jeroboam II in the Northern
Kingdom.
2. Though they still addressed the king and his
court, the classical prophets also addressed the people.
a. This helps explain
why their works were written down. In this way they could reach the masses with their
message.
b. The classical prophets can
be broken down into two further groups.
1. Major
prophets number five. They are the longer writings.
2. Minor
prophets number twelve and are shorter.
2. The Role of the Prophet in Ancient Israel.
A. The prophets were men who stood before their fellow countrymen and
sometimes even before the Gentiles,
as the spokesman or
"mouthpiece" of God.
1. When God had a message for his people,
he would raise up a man to go them and say, "This is what God
says."
2. Prophecy never had its origin in the
will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the
Holy Spirit (2
Peter 1:21).
3. The prophet would receive a
communication from God in various ways.
a. Through dreams
(Jer. 31:26; Num. 12:6, 7).
b. Through
visions (Zech. 1:8).
c. Sometimes the
text says, "The word of the Lord came to . . . ." (Ex. 7:1, 2).
4. The words of the prophets carried the
highest authority because they were not their own words, they were the
words of God.
B. The prophet had a role which complimented the role of the priest. We can
note the following contrasts between
prophets and priests, though the distinctions
should not be overdrawn.
1. They represent different parties before each
other.
a. We have said that the
prophet spoke for God. He was God's representative before the people.
b. The priest, on the other
hand, was man's representative before God in worship.
c. Men like Jeremiah
and Jesus played both roles.
d. This line of communication
can be illustrated:
God
å ã
Prophet
Priest
æ
ä
Man
2. They have a different emphases.
a. The priest put his primary
emphasis on worship and found joy in ceremonies and ritual observances.
b. The prophet put his primary
emphasis on life, conduct, and moral quality.
1. The
prophet quite often stood alone as the moral compass of men, kings, and even the nation as
a
whole.
a.
The prophet denounces sin and vice wherever it is found.
b.
He irritates the conscience of the guilty.
c.
He prods men to repentance and right living.
d.
He quite often stands alone against men and kings.
2. The
prophet was against empty ritual. The key word here is empty ritual.
a.
The eight century prophets are often misunderstood to have been against the ritual of the
temple:
sacrifices,
feasts, and the other things commanded by the Lord through Moses.
1.
(Isaiah 1:11-14) "The multitude of your sacrifices-- what are they to me?" says
the LORD.
"I
have more than enough of burnt offerings, of rams and the fat of fattened animals; I have
no pleasure
in
the blood of bulls and lambs and goats. When you come to appear before me, who has
asked
this
of you, this trampling of my courts? Stop bringing meaningless offerings! Your incense is
detestable
to
me. New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations--I cannot bear your evil assemblies. Your New
Moon
festivals and your appointed feasts my soul hates. They have become a burden to me; I am
weary
of bearing them (NIV).
2.
(Amos 5:21-24) "I hate, I despise your religious feasts; I cannot stand your
assemblies. Even
though
you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you
bring
choice
fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them. Away with the noise of your songs! I
will
not
listen to the music of your harps. But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness
like a never-failing
stream!
(NIV).
b. This is a good place where context is the key to a proper
understanding of the Scriptures. The contexts
are
those in which the worshipers offer sacrifices to God in the temple and observe the
appointed festivals,
but
their spiritual lives are far from God.
1.
By reading the verse alone one gets the impression that God hated the sacrifices, temple
service,
and
festivals.
2.
But the contexts show that he hated them from these particular people because they led
ungodly
lives.
This is especially clear in Jeremiah and Micah.
a.
(Jer. 7:21) "`This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Go ahead, add
your
burnt
offerings to your other sacrifices and eat themeat yourselves! For when I brought your
forefathers
out of Egypt and spoke to them, I did not just give them commands about burnt
offerings
and sacrifices, but I gave them this command: Obey me, and I will be your God and you will
be
my people. Walk in all the ways I command you, that it may go well with you (NIV).
b.
(Micah 6:6-8) With what shall I come before the LORD and bow down before the exalted God?
Shall
I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the LORD be
pleased
with
thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I offer my firstborn for my
transgressions
the
fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has showed you, O man, what is good. And
what
does
the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God
(NIV).
C. The prophet played the role of "seer" and
"proclaimer."
1. "Seer" (ro'eh) is one who sees
into the divine mysteries.
a. Primary role of the
prophet as a seer was to see the sins of the people and nation. He could see the
relationship
between the sin of society and how it affected the political, military, social, and
economic
well-being
of the nation.
b. Secondary role of
the prophet as a seer was to see into the future.
1.
He saw into the future in a certain context.
a.
If you continue to sin, history will turn out this way.
b.
If you live righteously, history will turn out this way.
2.
It should be noted that seeing into the future was only a secondary role of the prophet.
It served to
support
his primary role of calling the people back to righteousness.
2. "Proclaimer" (nabi) is one who
proclaims to the people what he has seen.
a. He has seen the sins
of the people.
b. Sometimes he could
see the future outcome of these sins if Israel continued down the same path.
D. The role of the prophet required a man with certain characteristics.
1. Individualist. The prophet, as God's
spokesman, had to be uncompromising. He could not be one who was
swayed by public
opinion or political interests.
2. Man of Action. The prophet was usually a man
of action and had a certain ruggedness of character which was
able to withstand the
antagonism and persecution of men.
a. The prophets often
underwent persecution, sometimes even to the point of death.
b. It is worthy to note
that the New Testament encourages Christians to be faithful even under times of
persecution.
The prophets are held up as the examples to be followed in this. Just as they
endured
persecution,
so is the Christian.
1.
Matthew 5:11, 12.
2.
James 5:10
c. Earlier we noted the
contrasts between the prophets and priests. The priests of the Old Testament are never
held
up as examples to be followed in enduring persecution because they were generally not
persecuted.
This
can be attributed by their role in Israel. They were men's representatives before God. Men
do not persecute their
representative
to God, but God's representative to them, who pricks their consciences.
3. Holy Men. The life of the prophet was morally
clean and wholly consecrated to God.
a. Of necessity if he is to
be the moral compass of the nation.
b. In all the prophets we do
not find a single word criticizing their moral lives. The true prophet is always the
voice
of Yahweh and stands in his council. However, the same cannot be said of the false
prophet.
c. Holiness distinguishes the
true and false prophet.
1. How do
you tell a false prophet is false?
a.
Deut. 18:22. If a prophet makes a prophecy that does not come true, he is a false prophet.
b.
That sounds easy enough, but, is there any way to tell he is a false prophet before the
prophesy
fails?
If a prophet makes a prediction, should we listen to his words until we learn that
his prophesy has
failed?
Are there other ways to identify a false prophet?
2. There
are two other tests for prophets.
a.
A false prophet calls people away from holy living, i.e., the law of Moses.
1.
Deut. 13:1-3. Even if he foretells the future, but calls people away from God, he is
false.
2.
Ez. 13:22: Because you disheartened the righteous with your lies, when I had brought them
no grief,
and
because you encouraged the wicked not to turn from their evil way and so save their lives.
3.
Jer. 23:19.
b.
A prophet who lives an unholy life is a false prophet (Jer. 23:11-14; 2 Peter 3).
3. The question
is sometimes asked whether Nostra Dames was a prophet, since he, it seems, foretold
the
future.
The answer to this question is that he never spoke a word which he claimed was from
God. A man
who
does not at least claim to speak a word from God cannot be considered a prophet. Prophets,
by their
nature,
speak a word from God.
4. Outspoken Critic. The prophet spoke against
specific evils in the social order.
a. Would even criticize
the king, which might cost the prophet his life.
1.
In 1 Kings 19:1-9 Elijah is found fleeing for his life from Ahab and Jezebel.
2.
1 Kings 18:13, Jezebel is killing the prophets and one hundred others are hiding in caves.
b. Jesus most often
called a prophet by the people of his day. Never did they call him a priest. This alone
smashes
the popular conception of Jesus.