Prophet

(Heb. nabi, from a root meaning "to bubble forth, as from a fountain," hence "to utter", comp. Ps. 45:1). This Hebrew word is the first and the most generally used for a prophet. In the time of Samuel another word, ro'eh, "seer", began to be used (1 Sam. 9:9). It occurs seven times in reference to Samuel. Afterwards another word, hozeh, "seer" (2 Sam. 24:11), was employed. In 1 Ch. 29:29 all these three words are used: "Samuel the seer (ro'eh), Nathan the prophet (nabi'), Gad the seer" (hozeh). In Josh. 13:22 Balaam is called (Heb.) a kosem "diviner," a word used only of a false prophet. The "prophet" proclaimed the message given to him, as the "seer" beheld the vision of God. (See Num. 12:6, 8.) Thus a prophet was a spokesman for God; he spake in God's name and by his authority (Ex. 7:1). He is the mouth by which God speaks to men (Jer. 1:9; Isa. 51:16), and hence what the prophet says is not of man but of God (2 Pet. 1:20, 21; comp. Heb. 3:7; Acts 4:25; 28:25). Prophets were the immediate organs of God for the communication of his mind and will to men (Deut. 18:18, 19). The whole Word of God may in this general sense be spoken of as prophetic, inasmuch as it was written by men who received the revelation they communicated from God, no matter what its nature might be. The foretelling of future events was not a necessary but only an incidental part of the prophetic office. The great task assigned to the prophets whom God raised up among the people was "to correct moral and religious abuses, to proclaim the great moral and religious truths which are connected with the character of God, and which lie at the foundation of his government." Any one being a spokesman for God to man might thus be called a prophet. Thus Enoch, Abraham, and the patriarchs, as bearers of God's message (Gen. 20:7; Ex. 7:1; Ps. 105:15), as also Moses (Deut. 18:15; 34:10; Hos. 12:13), are ranked among the prophets. The seventy elders of Israel (Num. 11:16-29), "when the spirit rested upon them, prophesied;" Asaph and Jeduthun "prophesied with a harp" (1 Chr. 25:3). Miriam and Deborah were prophetesses (Ex. 15:20; Judg. 4:4). The title thus has a general application to all who have messages from God to men. But while the prophetic gift was thus exercised from the beginning, the prophetical order as such began with Samuel. Colleges, "schools of the prophets", were instituted for the training of prophets, who were constituted, a distinct order (1 Sam. 19:18-24; 2 Kings 2:3, 15; 4:38), which continued to the close of the Old Testament. Such "schools" were established at Ramah, Bethel, Gilgal, Gibeah, and Jericho. The "sons" or "disciples" of the prophets were young men (2 Kings 5:22; 9:1, 4) who lived together at these different "schools" (4:38-41). These young men were taught not only the rudiments of secular knowledge, but they were brought up to exercise the office of prophet, "to preach pure morality and the heart-felt worship of Yahweh, and to act along and co-ordinately with the priesthood and monarchy in guiding the state aright and checking all attempts at illegality and tyranny." In New Testament times the prophetical office was continued. Our Lord is frequently spoken of as a prophet (Luke 13:33; 24:19). He was and is the great Prophet of the Church. There was also in the Church a distinct order of prophets (1 Cor. 12:28; Eph. 2:20; 3:5), who made new revelations from God. They differed from the "teacher," whose office it was to impart truths already revealed. Of the Old Testament prophets there are sixteen, whose prophecies form part of the inspired canon. These are divided into four groups: (1.) The prophets of the northern kingdom (Israel), viz., Hosea, Amos, Joel, Jonah. (2.) The prophets of Judah, viz., Isaiah, Jeremiah, Obadiah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah. (3.) The prophets of Captivity, viz., Ezekiel and Daniel. (4.) The prophets of the Restoration, viz., Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi.

A prophet, in the strict and proper sense, was one to whom the knowledge of secret things was revealed, that he might declare them to others, whether they were things past, or present, or to come. The woman of Samaria perceived our Saviour was a prophet, by his telling her the secrets of her _past_ life, John iv, 19. The Prophet Elisha had the _present_ conduct of his servant Gehazi revealed to him, 2 Kings v, 26. And most of the prophets had revelations concerning _future_ events; above all, concerning the coming and kingdom of the Messiah: “He has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David, as he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began,” Luke i, 69, 70. Nevertheless, in a more lax or analogical sense, the title prophet is sometimes given to persons who had no such revelation, nor were properly inspired. Thus Aaron is said to be Moses’s prophet: “The Lord said unto Moses, See, I have made thee a god to Pharaoh, and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet,” Exod. vii, 1: because Aaron received the divine messages, which he carried immediately from Moses; whereas other prophets receive their messages immediately from God himself. In this respect, as Moses stood in the place of God to Pharaoh, so Aaron acted in the character of his prophet. The title of prophets is given also to the sacred musicians, who sung the praises of God, or who accompanied the song with musical instruments. Thus “the sons of Asaph, and of Heman, and of Jeduthun,” are said to “prophesy with harps, with psalteries, and with cymbals,” 1 Chron. xxv, 1; and they prophesied, it is said, “according to the order of the king.” Perhaps Miriam, the sister of Aaron, may be called a prophetess only on this account, that she led the concert of the women, who sung the song of Moses with timbrels and with dances, Exodus xv, 20, 21. Thus the Heathen poets, who sung or composed verses in praise of their gods, were called by the Romans _vates_, or prophets; which is of the same import with the Greek ϖροφήτης, a title which St. Paul gives to Epimenides, a Cretan poet, Titus i, 12. Godwin observes, that, for the propagation of learning, colleges and schools were in divers places erected for the prophets. The first intimation we have in Scripture of these schools is in 1 Sam. x, 5, where we read of “a company of prophets coming down from the high place with a psaltery, a tabret, a pipe, and a harp before them, and they did prophesy.” They are supposed to be the students in a college of prophets at גכעת, or “the hill,” as we render it, “of God.” Our translators elsewhere retain the same Hebrew word, as supposing it to be the proper name of a place, “Jonathan smote the garrison of the Philistines that was in Geba,” 1 Sam. xiii, 3. Some persons have imagined that the ark, or at least a synagogue, or some place of public worship, was at this time at Geba, and that this is the reason of its being styled in the former passage גבעת האלהים, the hill of God. We read afterward of such another company of prophets at Naioth in Ramah, “prophesying, and Samuel standing as appointed over them,” 1 Sam. xix, 19, 20. The students in these colleges were called sons of the prophets, who are frequently mentioned in after ages, even in the most degenerate times. Thus we read of the sons of the prophets that were at Bethel; and of another school at Jericho; and of the sons of the prophets at Gilgal, 2 Kings ii, 3, 5; iv, 38. It should seem, that these sons of the prophets were very numerous; for of this sort were probably the prophets of the Lord, whom Jezebel cut off; “but Obadiah took a hundred of them, and hid them by fifty in a cave,” 1 Kings xviii, 4. In these schools young men were educated under a proper master, who was commonly, if not always, an inspired prophet, in the knowledge of religion, and in sacred music, 1 Sam. x, 5; xix, 20, and were thereby qualified to be public preachers, which seems to have been part of the business of the prophets on the Sabbath days and festivals, 2 Kings iv, 23. It should seem, that God generally chose the prophets, whom he inspired, out of these schools. Amos, therefore, speaks of it as an extraordinary case, that though he was not one of the sons of the prophets, but a herdsman, “yet the Lord took him as he followed the flock, and said unto him, Go, prophesy unto my people Israel,” Amos vii, 14, 15. That it was usual for some of these schools, or at least for their tutors, to be endued with a prophetic spirit, appears from the relation of the prophecies concerning the ascent of Elijah, delivered to Elisha by the sons of the prophets, both at Jericho and at Bethel, 2 Kings ii, 3, 5. The Hebrew prophets present a succession of men at once the most singular and the most venerable that ever appeared, in so long a line of time, in the world. They had special communion with God; they laid open the scenes of the future; they were ministers of the promised Christ. They upheld religion and piety in the worst times, and at the greatest risks; and their disinterestedness was only equalled by their patriotism. The houses in which they lived were generally mean, and of their own building, 2 Kings vi, 2–4. Their food was chiefly pottage of herbs, unless when the people sent them some better provision, as bread, parched corn, honey, dried fruits, and the like, 1 Kings xiv, 3; 2 Kings iv, 38, 39, 42. Their dress was plain and coarse, tied about with a leathern girdle, Zech. xiii, 4; 2 Kings i, 8. Riches were no temptation to them; therefore Elisha not only refused Naaman’s presents, but punished his servant Gehazi very severely for clandestinely obtaining a small share of them, 2 Kings v, 15, &c. To succeeding ages they have left a character consecrated by holiness, and “visions of the Holy One,” which still unveil to the church his most glorious attributes, and his deepest designs. “Prophecy,” says the Apostle Peter, “came not of old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost,” 2 Pet. i, 21. They flourished in a continued succession during a period of more than a thousand years, reckoning from Moses to Malachi, all coöperating in the same designs, uniting in one spirit to deliver the same doctrines, and to predict the same blessings to mankind. Their claims to a divine commission were demonstrated by the intrinsic excellency of their doctrine; by the disinterested zeal and undaunted courage with which they prosecuted their ministry, and persevered in their great design, and by the unimpeachable integrity of their conduct. But even those credentials of a divine mission were still farther confirmed by the exercise of miraculous powers, and by the completion of many less important predictions which they uttered, Deut. xiii, 1–3; xviii, 22; Joshua x, 13; 1 Sam. xii, 8; 2 Kings i, 10; Isa. xxxviii, 8; xlii, 9; 1 Sam. ix, 6; 1 Kings xiii, 3; Jer. xxviii, 9; Ezek. xxxiii, 33. When not immediately employed in the discharge of their sacred office, they lived sequestered from the world, in religious communities, or wandered “in deserts, in mountains, and in caves of the earth;” distinguished by their apparel, and by the general simplicity of their style of life, 2 Kings i, 8; iv, 10, 38; vi, 1; Isa. xx, 2; Matt. iii, 4; Heb. xi, 38; Rev. xi, 3. They were the established oracles of their country, and consulted upon all occasions when it was necessary to collect the divine will on any civil or religious question. These illustrious personages were likewise as well the types as the harbingers of that greater Prophet whom they foretold; and in the general outline of their character, as well as in particular events of their lives, they prefigured to the Jews the future Teacher of mankind. Like him, also, they laboured by every exertion to instruct and reclaim; reproving and threatening the sinful, however exalted in rank, or encircled by power, with such fearless confidence and sincerity as often excited respect. The most intemperate princes were sometimes compelled unwillingly to hear and to obey their directions, 1 Kings xii, 21–24; xiii, 2–6; xx, 42, 43; xxi, 27; 2 Chron. xxviii, 9–14; though often so incensed by their rebuke, as to resent it by the severest persecutions. Then it was that the prophets exhibited the integrity of their characters, by zealously encountering oppression, hatred, and death, in the cause of religion. Then it was that they firmly supported “trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover, of bonds and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword; they wandered about, destitute, afflicted, tormented,” evil intreated for those virtues of which the memorial should flourish to posterity, and martyred for righteousness, which, whenever resentment should subside, it would be deemed honourable to reverence, Matthew xxiii, 27–29. The manner in which the prophets published their predictions was, either by uttering them aloud in some public place, or by affixing them on the gates of the temple, Jer. vii, 2; Ezek. iii, 10, where they might be generally seen and read. Upon some important occasions, when it was necessary to rouse the fears of a disobedient people, and to recall them to repentance, the prophets, as objects of universal attention, appear to have walked about publicly in sackcloth, and with every external mark of humiliation and sorrow. They then adopted extraordinary modes of expressing their convictions of impending wrath, and endeavoured to awaken the apprehensions of their country, by the most striking illustration of threatened punishment. Thus Jeremiah made bonds and yokes, and put them upon his neck, Jer. xxvii, strongly to intimate the subjection that God would bring on the nations whom Nebuchadnezzar should subdue. Isaiah likewise walked naked, that is, without the rough garment of the prophet, and barefoot, as a sign of the distress that awaited the Egyptians, Isa. xx. So Jeremiah broke the potter’s vessel, Jer. xix; and Ezekiel publicly removed his household goods from the city, 2 Kings xxv, 4, 5; Ezek. xii, 7; more forcibly to represent by these actions some correspondent calamities ready to fall on nations obnoxious to God’s wrath; this mode of expressing important circumstances by action, being customary and familiar among all eastern nations. The great object of prophecy was, as has been before observed, a description of the Messiah, and of his kingdom, Matt. xxvi, 56; Luke i, 70; xviii, 31; xxiv, 44; John i, 45; Acts iii, 18, 24; x, 43; xiii, 29; xv, 15; xxviii, 23; 1 Pet. i, 10–12. These were gradually unfolded by successive prophets in predictions more and more distinct. They were at first held forth in general promises; they were afterward described by figures, and shadowed out under types and allusive institutions, and finally foretold in the full lustre of descriptive prophecy. The Hebrew prophets were chosen of God to testify beforehand of the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow. See PROPHECY.