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Bible Encyclopedias
Prophecy
Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature
or Prophecy. The principal considerations involved in this important subject may be arranged under the following heads:—
I. The nature of Prophecy, and its position in the economy of the Old Testament.—Divine inspiration is only the general basis of the prophetic office, to which two more elements must be added—
1. Inspiration was imparted to the prophets in a peculiar form. This appears decisively from , etc. which states it as characteristic of the prophet, that he obtained divine inspiration in visions and dreams, consequently in a state different from that in which inspirations were conveyed to Moses and the apostles.
2. Generally speaking, everyone was a prophet to whom God communicated His mind in this peculiar manner. When the Mosaic economy had been established, a new element was added; the prophetic gift was after that time regularly connected with the prophetic office, so that the latter came to form part of the idea of a prophet. Speaking of office, we do not of course mean one conferred by men, but by God; the mission to Israel, with which the certainty of a continued, not temporary, grant of the donum propheticum was connected.
That the Lord would send such prophets was promised to the people by Moses, who by a special law () 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 was only to rouse and excite. In this point, however, there was a difference between the kingdom of Israel and the kingdom of Judah. In the latter the agency of the prophets was only subsidiary to that of the regular servants of God, the priests and the Levites. But in the former the prophets were the regular servants of God, for the priesthood there had no divine sanction, and was corrupt in its very source. With the office of the prophets therefore 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.
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 ought from it; what was said in this respect to the whole people (; ) 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. They were indeed commissioned to foretell 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 () to be immutable and eternal.
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 threatening, 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 resort often to the most arbitrary interpretations, and the latter are opposed by a mass of facts against which they are unable successfully to contend.
Some interpreters, misunderstanding passages like; , have asserted that all prophecies were conditional; and have even maintained that their revocability distinguished the true predictions from soothsaying. But beyond all doubt, when the prophet denounces the divine judgments, he proceeds on the assumption that the people will not repent, an assumption which he knows from God to be true. Were the people to repent, the prediction would fail; but because they will not, it is uttered absolutely. It does not follow however, that the prophet's warnings and exhortations are useless. These serve 'for a witness against them;' and besides, amid the ruin of the mass, individuals might be saved. Viewing prophecies as conditional predictions nullifies them.
The sphere of action of the prophets was limited to Israel. Many predictions of the Old Testament 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.
II. Duration of the Prophetic office.—Although we meet with cases of prophesying as early as the age of the patriarchs, still the roots of prophetism among Israel are properly fixed in the Mosaic economy. The main business of Moses was not that of a prophet, but he was occasionally commissioned to foretell what was to befall Israel in the latter days, and he instilled into the congregation of Israel those truths which form the foundation of prophecy, and thus prepared the ground from which it could spring up. In the age of the Judges, prophecy, though existing only in scattered instances, exerted a powerful influence. From this time to the Babylonian exile, there happened hardly any important event in which the prophets did not appear as performing the leading part. About a hundred years after the return from the Babylonian exile, the prophetic profession ceased. The Jewish tradition uniformly states that Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi were the last prophets.
III. Manner of Life of the Prophets.—The prophets went about poorly and coarsely dressed (), not as a mere piece of asceticism, but that their very apparel might teach what the people ought to do. Generally the prophets were not anxious of attracting notice by ostentatious display; nor did they seek worldly wealth, most of them living in poverty and even want (; ). Insult, persecution, imprisonment, and death, were often the reward of their godly life. 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. 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. 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 (). 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 (; ); and at a later time there were such institutions in different places, as Bethel and Gilgal (;; ). 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.; ). Samuel, Elijah, and Elisha, are mentioned as principals of such institutions. From them the Lord generally chose his instruments. Amos relates of himself (), 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 schools 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 should have been as settled and established as in the kingdom of Israel. The prophets of the kingdom of Israel 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 connected with extraordinary events than in the kingdom of Judah: the history of the latter offers no prophetical deeds equaling those of Elijah and Elisha.
IV. Symbolic Actions of the Prophets.—In the midst of the prophetic declarations symbolic actions are often mentioned, which the prophets had to perform. The opinions of interpreters on these are divided. Some assert that they always, at least generally, were really done; others assert that they had existence only in the mind of the prophets, and formed part of their visions. The latter view, which was espoused by Calvin, is probably the correct one. Some of the symbolic actions prescribed to the prophets could not have been performed by them (;; ); others are inconsistent with decorum (; ). These are therefore to be regarded as internal, not external facts.
V. Criteria by which True and False Prophets were distinguished.—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. But how were the people to distinguish true and false prophets? In the law concerning prophets (; comp. 13:7-9), the following enactments are contained.
The prophet who speaks in the name of other Gods is to be considered as false, and to be punished capitally.
The same punishment is to be inflicted on him who speaks in the name of the true God, but whose predictions are not accomplished.
From the above two criteria of a true prophet, flows the third, that his addresses must be in strict accordance with the law.
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.
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. 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.
To those who had any sense of truth, the Spirit of God gave evidence that the prophecies were divinely inspired.
The prophets themselves utter their firm conviction that they act and speak by divine authority, not of their own accord. 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.
Part of the predictions of the prophets referred to proximate events, and their accomplishment was divine evidence of their divine origin (See; , sq.;;; Ezekiel 24). Whoever had been once favored with such a testimonial, his authority was established for his whole life.
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.
VI. Promulgation of the Prophetic Declarations.—Usually the prophets promulgated their visions in public places before the congregated people. Still some portions of the prophetic books, as the entire second part of Isaiah and the description of the new temple (Ezekiel 40-48), probably were never communicated orally. In other cases the prophetic addresses, first delivered orally, were next, when committed to writing, revised and improved. Especially the books of the lesser prophets consist, for the greater part, not of separate predictions, independent of each other, but form, as they now are, a whole, that is, give the quintessence of the prophetic labors of their authors. There is evidence to prove that the later prophets sedulously read the writings of the earlier, and that a prophetic canon existed before the present was formed. Zechariah explicitly alludes to writings of former prophets; 'to the words which the Lord has spoken to earlier prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and in prosperity' (;; ). In consequence of the prophets being considered as organs of God, much care was bestowed on the preservation of their publications. Ewald himself, though he thinks that a great, number of prophetic compositions has been lost, cannot refrain from observing (p. 56), 'We have in a clear proof of the exact knowledge which the better classes of the people had of all that had, a hundred years before, happened to a prophet, of his words, misfortunes, and accidents.'
The collectors of the Canon arranged the prophets chronologically, but considered the whole of the twelve lesser prophets as one work, which they placed after Jeremiah and Ezekiel, inasmuch as the three last lesser prophets lived later than they. The collection of the lesser prophets themselves was again chronologically disposed; still Hosea is, on account of the extent of his work, allowed precedence before those lesser prophets, who, generally, were his contemporaries, and also before those who flourished at a somewhat earlier period.
Public Domain.
Kitto, John, ed. Entry for 'Prophecy'. "Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature". https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/kbe/p/prophecy.html.
