The Canonical Prophets
While each prophet addresses a particular historical context and crisis in the life of Israel, the following broad observations about their contents serves to orient you to your first reading of the prophetic canon. In general, the prophets indict Israel for covenant violations. In general, they begin with warnings about impending judgment and link current events with God's judgment. In general, they end with an affirmation of God's fidelity and a message of hope. The following summaries identify the historical context and crisis addressed by each book and particular features of their indictment and message of hope.
First time readers of the Prophets often find their rhetoric excessive and their poetry hyperbolic. Perhaps the following quotations from The Prophets (Harper and Row, 1962), the work of the great scholar and man of faith, Abraham Heschel, in which he describes the sort of men and their calling that stands behind the Prophetic texts, will assist you. (Please note that while all of the canonical prophets are men that there are some historical prophets who were women.)
"The prophet is a person, not a microphone. He is endowed with a mission, with the power of a word not his own that accounts for his greatness -- but also with temperament, concern, character, and individuality. As there was no resisting the impact of divine inspiration, so at times there was no resisting the vortex of his own temperament. The word of god reverberated in the voice of man." (x) "We and the prophet have no language in common. To us the moral state of society, for all its stains and spots, seems fair and trim; to the prophet it is dreadful. So many deeds of charity are done, so much decency radiates day and night; yet to the prophet satiety of the conscience is prudery and flight from responsibility. Our standards are modest; our sense of injustice tolerable, timid; our moral indignation impermanent; yet human violence is interminable, unbearable, permanent. To us life is often serene, in the prophet's eye the world reels in confusion. The prophet makes no concession to man's capacity. Exhibiting little understanding for human weakness, he seems unable to extenuate the culpability of man." (p. 9) "The words of the prophet are stern, sour, stinging. But behind his austerity is love and compassion for mankind. Ezekiel sets forth what all other prophets imply: 'Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, says the Lord God, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live?' (Ezek. 18:23). Indeed, every prediction of disaster is in itself an exhortation to repentance. The prophet is sent not only to upbraid, but also to 'strengthen the weak hands and make firm the feeble knees' (Isa. 35:3). Almost every prophet brings consolation, promise, and the hope of reconciliation along with censure and castigation. he begins with a message of doom; he concludes with a message of hope." (p. 12) "An analysis of prophetic utterances shows that the fundamental experience of the prophet is a fellowship with the feelings of God, a sympathy with the divine pathos, a communion with the divine consciousness which comes about through the prophet's reflection of, or participation in, the divine pathos. The typical prophetic state of mind is one of being taken up into the heart of the divine pathos. Sympathy is the prophet's answer to inspiration, the correlative to revelation." "Prophetic sympathy is a response to transcendent sensibility. It is not, like love, an attraction to the divine Being, but the assimilation of the prophet's emotional life to the divine, an assimilation of function, not of being. The emotional experience of the prophet becomes the focal point of the prophet's understanding of God. He lives not only his personal life, but also the life of God. The prophet hears God's voice and feels His heart. He tries to impart the pathos of the message together with its logos. As an imparter his soul overflows, speaking as he does out of the fullness of his sympathy. " (p. 26) |
The Major Prophets:
Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel are called the major prophets because the are contained in individual scrolls. The minor prophets fit together onto one scroll.
Isaiah: This book is divided into three stages of prophecy. First Isaiah addresses the Assyrian crisis and calls Israel to trust in the Lord, to place total reliance on God's power to save, and predicts that a Davidic heir will establish universal peace and justice. Isaiah's call is set in the temple and his prophecy is filled with cultic imagery. Israel will become a holy remnant (that which remains of a whole burnt offering). The nations will gather and come to Zion, to the mountain of the Lord. Read Isaiah 1-6. What are the key themes that are introduced? Create a cartoon or drawing that illustrates Isaiah's call to be a prophet. Read chapters 7-9 which contain prophecies about signs later linked with Jesus. Which signs do you associate with Jesus? Which signs are new to you? Read 25:6-10 which contain an important passage about God's banquet for the nations. What is Isaiah's idea of appetizing food? What would you put on the menu? Second Isaiah, chapters 40-55, addresses the community of the Babylonian Exile. Read chapter 40. What is comforting in this proclamation of God's majesty? Read 42:1-9; 44:9-20; 52:13-53:12. What elements in these verses do you suspect will be important keys to understanding Jesus? His poetry contains the clearest statements of monotheism in the canon. He also gives us four songs called "The Suffering Servant Psalms." In their immediate context, these hymns depict the redemptive role of God's servant, Israel. These psalms become the hermeneutical (method of interpretation) key with which the early church made sense of Jesus' death. Third Isaiah, chapters 56-66, delivers a series of oracles in condemnation of the restored community's religious failures. Read Isaiah 61. Jesus reads the first verse and the first independent clause of the second verse in the Synagogue in Nazareth at the beginning of his public ministry (Luke 4:18-19) and raises objections when he implies that he fulfills this text. This good news is the meaning of the word Gospel. If you were living in shame in exile, which words would you find to be good news?
Jeremiah is set in the build-up to and during the Babylonian
crisis. Jeremiah's career spanned the reign of a number of kings
from Josiah (ca. 626) to Zedekiah (587 B.C.E.). Jeremiah identifies Babylon as
God's
chosen instrument of punishment for violations against the covenant. Jeremiah's
indictment
against Judah includes charges that the people have oppressed the alien, the
orphan and
the
widow and
shed
innocent blood in Jerusalem (cf. 7:6) and that they have worshiped other gods:
"The children
gather wood, the fathers kindle fire, and the women knead dough, to make cakes
for the queen of heaven; and they pour out drink offerings to other gods, to
provoke me to anger" (7:18). Perhaps
the
most
striking
elements
of
this text are the stories of Jeremiah's own suffering. His rejection
by the Jerusalem leaders mirrors their rejection of God whom they
treat as a cracked cistern rather than a river of living water.
Jeremiah's call to God's people to circumcise their hearts reflects
his use of and affirmation of the vision of Deuteronomy. Read
his call (chapter 1) and part of his lament and God's response
(11:18-12:13). When in his life is Jeremiah called to be a prophet? To whom is
he
to serve as a prophet? Remember this call, because the Apostle Paul will lay
claim
to
the same call. To what does Jeremiah compare himself in his lament? Of what does
he accuse God? How does God respond? Note
how
the
Christian
canon
places
the
book
of
Lamentations right after Jeremiah. Jeremiah is treated as a false prophet by
his contemporaries because he predicts the destruction of the temple and the
Southern
Kingdom. The "official" prophets in Jerusalem think that it is unthinkable that
God would allow this to happen.
Consequently,
Jeremiah
contains
an
indictment against
false prophets who say, "Peace, peace, when there
is no peace" (8:11)
and "You
shall
not
see
the
sword,
nor
shall
you
have
famine,
but I will give your true peace in this place" (14:13). Like all
the prophets, Jeremiah is fraught with metaphors and imagery, but his use of
water stands out.
Here are a few examples.
He laments: "Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there
no physician there? Why then has the health of my poor people not been restored?
O that my
head were a spring
of water, and my eyes a fountain of tears, so that I might weep day and night
for the slain of my poor people" (8:22-9:1). In his affliction, he
accuses God, "Truly, you are to me like a deceitful
book,
like waters that fail" (15:18). In his indictment against the people,
he
accuses
them of forsaking "the fountain of living water, the
Lord" (17:13).
God brings a similar indictment, "for my people have
committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and
dug out cisterns
for themselves,
cracked cisterns that can hold no water" (2:13). Jeremiah
seems
to also be influenced by the language and pattern of the book of Deuteronomy.
He
describes a covenant established, violated and renewed. Early in the book, Jeremiah
invites the people: "Circumcise yourselves to the
Lord, remove the foreskins
of your hearts" (4:4). He predicts the establishment of a new covenant:
The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt--a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the LORD. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, "Know the LORD," for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more. (31:31-34)
Ezekiel: Ezekiel is set during the destruction of the First Temple and the Babylonian Exile. It contains the visions of God's heavenly chariot leaving the Temple and then returning to the Second Temple and the vision of God restoring flesh to dry bone in the wilderness. Through prophetic acts, Ezekiel portrays the siege of Jerusalem by painting a city on a brick and placing siege works against it and, then, reclining on his left side for 390 days to signify 390 years of punishment for the house of Israel and, then, reclining on his right side for 40 days to signify 40 years of exile for Judah(4:1-17). As an act signifying God's intent to restore a united kingdom, Ezekiel binds two sticks together (37:15-28) . On one he has written the words "For Joseph and all the houses of Israel associated with it;" on the other appear the words "For Judah and the Israelites associated with it." Read the first vision of the chariot (chapter 1). What do you think the various parts of the chariot symbolize? Ezekiel's message and visions, in many places, seem to echo or respond to prophecy in the book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah predicts:
At that time, says the LORD, the bones of the kings of Judah, the bones of its officials, the bones of the priests, the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be brought out of their tombs; and they shall be spread before the sun and the moon and all the host of heaven, which they have loved and served, which they have followed, and which they have inquired of and worshiped; and they shall not be gathered or buried; they shall be like dung on the surface of the ground. Death shall be preferred to life by all the remnant that remains of this evil family in all the places where I have driven them, says the LORD of hosts. (Jeremiah 8:1-3)
Ezekiel contains a vision that points to God's restoration of this dead people:
The hand of the LORD came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the LORD and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. He said to me, "Mortal, can these bones live?" I answered, "O Lord God, you know." Then he said to me, "Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the LORD."
So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, "Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live." I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.
Then he said to me, "Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, 'Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.' Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the LORD, have spoken and will act, says the LORD." 37:1-14Ezekiel's vision tells the story of the departure of God's presence from the temple in Jerusalem year's before the temple's destruction. He sees God's presence moving unrestricted and dwelling with the people in exile. Chapters 40-45 contain a detailed vision of a new temple to which God's presence returns. The book ends: "And the name of the city from that time on shall be, The Lord is There" (48:35)