July 8: The Prophets

18 Woe to you who long
for the day of the LORD!
Why do you long for the day of the LORD?
That day will be darkness, not light.

19 It will be as though a man fled from a lion
only to meet a bear,
as though he entered his house
and rested his hand on the wall
only to have a snake bite him.

20 Will not the day of the LORD be darkness, not light—
pitch-dark, without a ray of brightness?

21 "I hate, I despise your religious festivals;
I cannot stand your assemblies.

22 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.

23 Away with the noise of your songs!
I will not listen to the music of your harps.

24 But let justice roll on like a river,
righteousness like a never-failing stream!

Amos 5:18-24 TNIV

Verse 24 may ring familiar with students of modern history. Martin Luther King, Jr. used it within his “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial in August, 1963. As we think through the roles and messages of the Old Testament prophets, we appreciate how King’s use of this quote is an appropriate modern echo of their themes.

More individual books of the Bible come under the heading of prophecy than any other category – 16 books in total:

• Four “major”: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel

• Last 12 books of the Old Testament (Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi) are called the “minor” prophets, from the Latin term “prophetes minores” – minores meant shorter, not less important

Written in ancient Israel between 760 & 460 BC, the prophets contain a vast array of messages about God, but understanding the prophets can be a challenge, primarily due to misunderstandings about function and confusion about form.

Let’s acknowledge some basic difficulties in reading the prophets

• Problem of history – very hard to put the words of the prophets in their proper context, given our distance in terms of the religious, historical and cultural life of ancient Israel

• We know very little about the prophets themselves – we hear from God via the prophets, but very little about them.

• Hard to read the longer prophetic books in one sitting, and they can be hard to follow. For the most part these books are collection of sayings (oracles) – not always presented in chronological sequence, often without hints as to where one oracle ends and another begins, and often without hints as to historical setting

• And most of the oracles were spoken in poetry!

Probably the largest problem is an inaccurate understanding of the word “prophecy.” For most folks this means what the dictionary lists first – “foretelling or prediction of the future.”

So many Christians only refer to the prophetic books for predictions about the coming of Jesus, but using the prophets this way is highly selective: Less than 2% of Old Testament prophecy is messianic, less than 5% specifically describes the new-covenant age, less than 1% concerns events yet to come.

The prophets did announce the future, but it was overwhelmingly the immediate future of Israel, Judah, and other surrounding nations, not our future. For us to see the prophecies fulfilled, we have to look back on times that for them were still future, but for us are long past.

If we focus on the prophets as predictors of future events, we’ll miss their primary function, which was to speak for God to their own contemporaries

Two key points about the function of prophecy in Israel:

The prophets were covenant enforcement mediators

Need to understand the OT law is a covenant – a binding contract between two parties, both of whom have obligations under the covenant. The law is expressed in the common covenantal / contractual form of the day, as a covenant would be expressed between a ruler and subjects seeking his protection

The law constituted a covenant between God and his people that included both stipulations and sanctions. In return for benefits and protection, Israel was expected to follow the stipulations (commandments) – or face the sanction. In the Old Testament, God does not just give Israel his law, he enforces it.

Blessings will come to Israel for faithfulness to the covenant. Descriptions of the blessings are found in Leviticus 26: 1-13, Deuteronomy 4:32-40, Deuteronomy 28:1-14
Read Leviticus 26: 3-13

Categories of blessings for covenant faithfulness include life, health, prosperity, agricultural abundance, respect, and safety. Blessings are announced with a warning – if Israel does not obey God’s law, the blessings will cease.

Curses: found especially in Leviticus 26:14-19, Deuteronomy 4:15-28, and throughout Deuteronomy 28:15 – 32:42 Read Leviticus 26: 14-17

The full range of curses can be categorized under ten headings, all beginning with the letter “d”: Death, disease, drought, dearth, danger, destruction, defeat, deportation, destitution, disgrace

Prophets did not invent the blessings or curses they pronounced – they were inspired to express them in novel and captivating ways, but the substance of their pronouncements is grounded in the terms of the covenant.

As we read the prophetic books, we find a simple pattern:

1. Identification of Israel’s sin – or God’s love for his people

2. Prediction of curse or blessing, depending on the circumstances

The prophets’ message was not their own, but God’s

Each prophet has his own unique style, emphases, imagery, and concerns – but God is the one who raised up the prophets to speak his Word to Israel. The Hebrew word for prophet comes from the verb “to call.” If someone presumed to take on the office or role of prophet on their own, this would be good cause to consider them a false prophet

The prophets regularly punctuate their oracles with phrases like “this is what the Lord says” or “declares the Lord.”

• Most common of the forms in the prophetic books is the “Messenger Speech”

• These forms were used by messengers in diplomatic or business settings in the ancient world to remind their listeners that they weren’t making up their content but were speaking the exact words of the one who had sent them.

A majority of the time, the prophetic message is thus relayed directly as received from the Lord, in the first person, so God speaks of himself as “I” or “me.”

The prophets were spokespersons / ambassadors for God, so on their own they were neither radical social reformers nor innovative religious thinkers.

• The social reforms and religious thought that God wished to impart to the people had already been revealed in the covenantal law – these concerns were God’s concerns, and had been expressed in His covenant.

• The prophets spoke God’s conviction on these matters, and spoke it directly to any group in violation of the covenant – whether royalty, clergy, the ruling class, or any group

Key Themes of the Prophets

Reminding the people of some Devine realities:

• God is sovereign over everything and everyone
• The people belong to God, and not the other way around
• God’s people have a purpose – to be a blessing to the nations

Reminding them that they are to reflect God’s character:

• By keeping the covenant, and walking in God’s way
• By living as a community that practices social justice, and shows special care for the weak, the poor, the stranger

But why do all this in poetry?

God chose to speak through his prophets largely through poems. All the prophetic books contain substantial amounts of poetry, and several are exclusively poetic.

Poetry seems a confusing way to express things to many of us, as though it were designed to make ideas less intelligible than more easily understood. Our culture places relatively little emphasis on poetry. But in most ancient cultures, including ancient Israel, poetry was a highly valued form of expression. National epics and key historical and religious memories were preserved in poetry.

In ancient Israel, poetry was widely appreciated as a means of learning. The Israelites found it relatively simple to commit to memory and recall things composed in poetry. The people were used to poetry and could remember the prophecies – they would ring in their ears with a presence that may be difficult for us to appreciate.

Why is there such a concentrated writing down of prophetic words during the three centuries between Amos (760 B.C.) and Malachi (460 B.C.)?

This period in Israel’s history called especially for covenant enforcement mediation. These years were characterized by three things:

1. Unprecedented political, military, economic, and social upheaval
2. Enormous level of religious unfaithfulness and disregard for the covenant
3. Shifts in populations and national boundaries, including enormous shifts in the international balance of power

By 760 B.C., Israel was a nation permanently divided by a long, ongoing civil war

• Northern tribes (called Israel or Ephraim) were separated from the southern tribe of Judah

• North – where disobedience to covenant far outstripped anything found in Judah, was slated for destruction by God because of its sin

• Amos (760) & Hosea (755) announced the impending destruction, and in 722 BC the north fell to Assyria, the superpower in the Middle East at the time

Thereafter, the mounting sinfulness of Judah and the rise of another superpower (Babylon) constituted the subject of many prophets, including Isaiah, Jeremiah, Joel, Micah, Nahum, Habbakuk, Zephaniah, and Ezekiel.

• In 587 BC, Judah was destroyed for its disobedience

Afterward, Ezekiel, Daniel, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi announced God’s will for the restoration of his people (beginning with a return from exile in 538 BC, the rebuilding of the nation, and the reinstitution of orthodoxy).

• Note that a majority of what the prophets announce in the 8^th, 7^th, and early 6^th centuries BC is curse, because the major defeat and destruction of the northern kingdom did not occur until 722 BC, that of the southern kingdom did not occur until 587 BC

The Israelites, north & south, were headed for punishment, so naturally warnings of curse rather than blessing predominated as God sought to get his people to repent

• After the destruction of both north and south (587 BC), the prophets were moved more often to speak blessings rather than curses. This is because once the punishment of the nation is complete, God resumes his basic plan, which is to show mercy.

All of this follows the basic pattern laid out in Deuteronomy 4:25-31.

When we go below the overall historical context to the specific context of individual messages from the prophets, it helps to recognize the forms of prophetic oracles – let’s look at some of the most common:

The Lawsuit Oracle

• Read Isaiah 3:13-26 for an example

• An allegorical literary form called a “covenant lawsuit”

• Full form includes a summons, charge, evidence, and a verdict – sometimes elements may be implied rather than explicit.

The Woe Oracle

• “Woe” was the word ancient Israelites cried out when facing disaster or death, or when they mourned at a funeral.

• God makes predictions of imminent doom using the “woe,” and no Israelite would miss the significance of that word

• Three elements characterize the form:

1. Announcement of distress

2. Reason for the distress

3. Prediction of doom

• Read Habbakuk 2:6-8 – a woe oracle against Babylon

The Promise Oracle or “Salvation Oracle”

• Recognize this form when you find three elements:
1. Reference to the future
2. Mention of radical change
3. Mention of blessing

• Read Amos 9:11-15 – a typical example, in which the radical change is the restoration of Israel. Here the blessings include life, prosperity, agricultural abundance, respect, and safety.

The prophets articulate God’s concern for both orthodoxy (correct belief) and orthopraxy (correct action). Through the prophets, God called the people of ancient Israel to a balance of right belief and right action – the very balance that the new covenant requires as well:

• Love the Lord with all your heart, mind, and soul

• Love your neighbor as yourself

The prophets serve as constant reminders of God’s determination to enforce his covenant, a reminder to “afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted,” and most of all a call to action.

Our closing reading: Isaiah 1:11; 15-17

11 "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.”

15 When you spread out your hands in prayer,
I will hide my eyes from you;
even if you offer many prayers,
I will not listen.
Your hands are full of blood;

16 wash and make yourselves clean.
Take your evil deeds
out of my sight!
Stop doing wrong,

17 learn to do right!
Seek justice,
encourage the oppressed.
Defend the cause of the fatherless,
plead the case of the widow.

Next week: The Psalms