The Hebrew Bible, aka the Old Testament, is all about prophets and prophecy. Prophets wrote it. Prophecy was its content. The narrative and plotline is constantly interfered with and tweaked by prophets making pronouncements that the different generations that received them changed their spiritual, social, and political direction. Strangely enough the greatest of these prophets – the ones that used to be referred to as “the Writing Prophets” but now are referred to by the academic world as “the Canonical Prophets” – are accepted as world changers, even though the generations that were contemporaneous with each one of them were so rejected for the purity and solidity of their claims that they were, in the due process of godless mobs, unceremoniously executed by the masses. Does that remind you of anybody? It is enough to add that when Jesus asked his disciples “who do people say that I am?”, some said Jeremiah, some said Elijah, “or one of the prophets”.
Prophecy and Prophets were, to human observation, were needed to function where the Levitical rites and ordnances were simply boringly existent as a performed set of solemn rituals within the national cultus set in place by Moses under God’s instructions. While the pillars of daytime cloud and night time fire was active and visible to the entire Israeli nation, and when water was produced from the rock that followed them, and Manna was eaten by everybody every day, and while there were people still alive who had heard the trumpets and the thunder when Yahweh had spoken from the mountain, every single action- no matter how trivial and slight – of the Levitical priests and their God designed activities around the sacrifices of the Tabernacle would have plainly been perceived in the consciousness of the people as somehow Divinely ordained, and mysterious activities. “That voice that we heard from the mountain at the beginning! That smoke, thunder, and earthquake that we saw and experienced when Yahweh wanted to speak to us! That food and drink that we received through Yahweh’s words! That manna that never failed six days of the week and was always double the day prior to the Sabbath! And this boring routine of the Levitical priests and their never-ending sacrificial system was an integral part of the whole Divine presentation. Understood, or not, it was visible and vital to Yahweh, and therefore vital to us as His nation”. Awesomely divine indeed it was. It is a striking fact that the biblical book that states more than any other – “The Lord said” is the book of Leviticus where the rules, regulations and practices of the Hebrew sacrificial system was laid out. The so called “boring details” of the Levitical sacrificial system was heartily received as an integral part of the heart stopping supernatural manifestations of God speaking to and through Moses for the forty years in the resourceless desert.
Old Testament prophets were a serious phenomenon. Moses and Samuel stood apart as the builders of the Hebrew society of their respective generations, but once the rot of idolatry and Godlessness was introduced, nay, grafted into their culture, (initiated basically by Solomon, at one time known as “the wisest man in the world”) God had to speak, and although prophets and prophecy had traces and dots and dashes, toggled on and then off, and then on again throughout Israel’s history, two men in particular, arose and arrived emerging like eagles out of the shell of the masses of the Hebrew population that set a standard as prophets and a benchmark for the definition of prophecy and – it needs to be added – have been stimulating the faith of millions of believers ever since.
Elijah and Elisha exploded onto the scene of time in the 800’s BC. By these two radically outstanding human beings, prophets and prophecy had shown themselves as a matured, solidified and impacting Hebrew phenomena that was understood to be, in its purist manifestation, a God initiated wonder which, when positively responded to as what it was – i.e., a word from God Almighty that would bring nothing but benefit and well-being to the Hebrew people and even the surrounding gentile nations. I say that, even though the notes, quotes and anecdotes of the Hebrew scrolls do all they can to lay it on the reader that they were just common, ordinary people like you and me. It was a tangible manifestation of the Word of God communicated by the daily routines and expressions in the life of two human beings. It was considered so astonishing that a third or so of the book of Kings in the Hebrew Tanach (two books in the Christian Bible) is not about the Kings directly, but about these two characters and the impact they had on the kings of their generation. (To verify my statement, read 1 Kings 17 through to 2 Kings 13:21. 19 of 47 chapters.)
Later, however, when the Davidic heirs in succession through the years commonly seemed somewhat morally and spiritually deficient and challenged, the whole sacrificial institution was openly and commonly derided as none-impacting and irrelevant in attempting to direct or inspire the two Hebrew nations in their day-to-day philosophy and culture. The priests were as immoral as the rest of the nation, if not, more so as they were social leaders. The spiritual reality of the tangible almighty Yahweh, and a relationship with Him was a widely lost experience and concept of the social psyche. Idolatry ravaged the nation from Solomon’s time onwards.
The Levitical conventions, and the priests that had conducted those conventions had, through the years, degenerated it all into a set of lifeless, wonted, meaningless rogation, ritualistic feasts, celebrations, and historical remembrances which created deep, dead, and dire religiosity, and by itself was a death nell to true spirituality. To some degree, I suppose it must have carried the benefit of a gentle foot on the brakes, delaying the decline in the morality and Godlessness of the Hebrew people. It was, however, as the rot set in, a misuse of the purpose and substance of the Levitical ordination. It became so non-impacting that the biblical text of Israel’s history reveals its total abandonment. When the witch Athaliah was reigning on the Davidic throne (She was far from Davidic descent or faith it needs to be understood.) The huge magnificent Solomonic temple was actually closed down and totally abandoned like some huge departmental store in High streets of the west having closed down after the financial crash. The huge multi-floored stores still have the company name tattooing the empty shell that was once a central gathering place for the masses that carried social purposes far beyond the retail centre that it fundamentally was. The wicked Queen officially kept the Temple to Yahweh locked and barred to the world. Athaliah had the entire Davidic bloodline executed. She had the considerable tribe of Royal descendants that could conceivably claim a right to the throne killed. And make no mistake the many wives and many, many children that the Davidic line produced must have been in the hundreds. The Davidic line was fertile to a degree our modern concepts of fertility would not properly envisage. But … she missed one. And, would you believe it, the single surviving heir (the single heir that Athaliah did not know about) was brought up in the Temple safely. It was the only place that Hebrew people and all Levites would simply not go. Athaliah’s death pronouncements of the slightest intention towards Yahweh chilled the heart and faith of nearly everybody in the land for six whole years. If that isn’t the most profound anomaly, what is? It was not only Athaliah that was utterly Godless, but the Hebrew nation of Judah had all by default and moral entropy allowed the use of the Temple to die out and they simply carried on with life while Solomon’s glorious legacy of an outstandingly beautiful building was ignored. It was a truly freefall decline of Hebrew spirituality of that time.
Understanding the character and person of Yahweh, and the directive instruction that was required in order to hack the Godly pathway of Hebrew life through the idolatrous and heathen jungle of the various cultures of the Middle East, cultures that were marinated in witchcraft and spiritualistic religious fervour, was imparted to and through the Prophets worldview and insight. It was a body of crystal-clear statements and doctrine that, if followed, would align them with the destiny that revealed their Divine purpose and context in the world. The prophets, generation by generation, brought them a solid stable body of truth to stand on as doctrine, and instructional, directive truths that were needed for Divinely ordained stewardship in generations of turmoil and international implosion. A century prior to Elijah’s appearing seemingly from nowhere, David had declared “Your Word is a lamp unto my feet, and daylight to my path” (Psalm 119:105). Their feet needed to stand on firm and solid ground. Their pathway needed clarity and direction through the plate of mingled and mangled spiritual spaghetti that was their political and social world. The Hebrew scriptures, in other words, had all the light and direction that the Hebrew people required, however, a lack of insight in interpreting what Yahweh was saying in the scriptures precipitated the need for men who had been present at the inner councils of heaven and the secret thoughts of God Almighty.
Israel had indeed experienced prophetic input and outstanding carriers of prophetic revelation, prior to Elijah and Elisha, some named and some unnamed. Examining the succession of prophet after prophet, Moses and Samuel were the giants of them all, even if they were so gigantic that some others seemed almost Hobbit-like in comparison. Having noted that, it still has to be said that some of the men referred to as “prophets”, even though unnamed, and even though there may be only one prophetic message noted to some of them in the biblical scrolls, all prophets noted in the scrolls were outstandingly influential in directing individuals, groups, and even the nation(s).
The rusting, creaking doors of Israel’s spiritual history were squeaking in their failing neglect-laden hinges until Elijah and Elisha oiled the purpose and functioning swing of Israel’s and Judah’s gateways of opportunity (and the destiny also of other nations surrounding them). Things moved quickly and supernaturally in those days under the ministrations of these two men. The influence of their lives initiated and precipitated a few hundred years of successive prophetic characters that have for many years been known as, “The Hebrew Writing Prophets” – now referred to as “the canonical prophets.” There were surely others that have no written legacy to their name, but Elijah’s confrontations with Ahab, Jezebel and Baal was a template for the future addressing of the double headed force that was Judah and Israel – God’s chosen people.
The “big names” that followed, in the chronology that we are sure of, were Amos, Hosea and Isaiah. These three men lifted the reputation and wonderment of the prophetic gift amongst people of their generation to a high sense of awe and wonder. Even if the people were not obedient to their messages, they seem to have been widely acknowledged as prophets with divine content in their mouths. These three were the birth of a prophetic strand that stretched out, with only a few years break at times, through to 400 BC or thereabouts. The make-up of these various prophetic characters, and their differing timbre and tone of various messages, tells us that they were not anything like a co-ordinated human movement – but individuals, each with a unique calling. It is true that the 16 books attributed to the canonical prophets could not be improved upon by displaying 16 men of greater diversity of character, tone, concerns, and outlooks on life. My own perspective on them all (a perspective that is far from authoritative) is that the more I read, study, and meditate, my own strands of thought and understanding become more and more complex while paradoxically, contemporaneously, becoming strangely clearer. My goodness – I love reading the Old Testament prophets. It is as if God Himself went searching for a group of men that were so different and unlike each other, nobody would be able to suggest they were all from the same school, college or social class or intellectual level.
A major point to wrestle with, for readers of the various western twenty-first century cultures is that all the prophets were, obviously, from the Middle East. Ovious eh? As if you did not know that already! Added to that, they were all in different historical cultures – cultures and contexts that moved and changed from generation to generation. If they were from the current western culture and carried western educational values, their writings would undoubtedly contain major headings, with subheadings as well as sub-subheadings, together with subjects and topics that would be systematically dealt with as A, B, C, and so on. There would also be sound-byte type headings that would hook themselves into the readers permanent memory. But their written subjects go up and down, with joy and righteousness directly juxtaposed to doom and damnation, back and forth from past history to future visions, followed by current statements of their day, mixing and mingling their various insights with severe judgement followed – sometimes in the same verse – by remarkably positive encouragement that makes a book like Isaiah’s (a book we read as 66 chapters) seems to be incoherent to many. How many times while ploughing studiously through prophetic writings – both major and minor – do I hear myself frustratingly inwardly crying, “Why on earth have you changed the subject when you don’t seem to have finished your previous point?”
This frustration is far too much for many sincere Bible reading evangelicals to contend with. We finish up with the vast majority of even mature Bible believers using the biblical prophets purely as a reference directory for anything that refers to Christ in the glorious body of “Miraculous Hebrew Messianic Prophecy.” We stand up boldly debating, argueing and declaring that we believe the scriptures from cover to cover, when most Christians only read a small portion of the prophetic texts – and that is the text that their pastors and teachers have soundly repeated in order to strengthen their conviction of the pre-ordained destiny of Messiah’s expectation. Nothing wrong with that of course, apart from the fact that the full depth of the prophetic message gets ignored. It is the eastern culture and manner of presentation that leaves even the most spiritual and intelligent believer wrestling with the spear points of the biblical attack to the human consciousness.
There is a brick-by-brick generational development of the wall of prophetic characters from the moment we meet the singing, dancing, music playing shamans in the days of Samuel (1 Samuel 10:5-6), a phenomena that I have always interpreted as having been initiated by Samuel’s own prophetic imagination and encouragement.
For those who consider “initiation” an inappropriate word to use for a generational “institution” that was truly birthed by an act of God Himself, it is definitely appropriate to promulgate the view that as the early prophetic bands were first seen in Samuel’s days and were biblically explained as being submissive to the “Daddy” of all prophetic bands of that generation – Samuel fathered, pastored, and mentored the first known prophetic bands. And those bands, and that phenomena greatly impacted the first two kings of Israel, Saul, and David. Though sadly, the third Hebrew king (Solomon) was the only king throughout Hebrew history, that had no prophetic support among his courtiers or generation of aides. There would clearly have been no division of the kingdom if Solomon had employed an “in house” prophet for a counsellor. There was indeed some major influential prophetic activity in the days of Solomon, but all of it was outside the Palace and out amongst the politically manipulating people who were hungry for power once Solomon had gone to his eternal reward. But there was never a prophet in his court or among his advisers.
From the memorable Samuellian days and the nascent number of “schools” carrying the prophetic gifting, the increase was seen to be in numbers and organisation, growing and developing to a seemingly well-known and socially accepted “movement” in the days of Elijah and Elisha. Through the following generations these so-called “schools of the prophets” expanded and grew as a revolutionary “divine download” into Hebrew society throughout the days of the division of the kingdom, and in both north and south nations thereafter, and even, occasionally, beyond the borders of Judah and Israel. That should not surprise us as God has always wanted to speak to all nations of the world, and not only in Christ’s Great Commission. Meaning that He has always wanted to speak to a wider audience than Israel, Judah and the church.
Sadly, as the radical and revolutionary movement of the prophetic gifting settled and became a “socially accepted norm”. What was outside the national Mosaic religious infrastructure, became an abusive and manipulative arm of the religious wallpaper of Hebrew life. We have stories of huge numbers of prophetic schools/groups/colleges telling lies or advertising the political views in the name of Yahweh, in attempts to make their claims seem like Godly inspiration. I am referring to days when alcoholism amongst the prophets seems to have been common, as well as well-earned reputations of being totally mercenary charlatans. In Isaiah’s day we even have “prophets” being described as so drunk they were vomiting their liquor, and then falling asleep with their faces buried in the expelled detritus. (Isaiah 28:7-9) Sadly the revolutionaries had died and left behind characters that had step by step, generation by generation, become softened through the social acceptance of the reputation of “Prophets of God”. Social and spiritual entropy festered through the generations. What begun as utterly righteous, radical, and counter cultural – degenerated to an accepted “career” for many who “played religion” and were in fact established and professional “prophetic quacks”.
Immediately prior to the fall of Jerusalem in 587 BC the large numbers of men in the institutional, “guild” of prophets all violently argued and disagreed with Jeremiah and with pseudo confidence they fiercely insulted and abused the grand old man (Jeremiah 2:8; 4:9; 5:31; 6:13-15; 14:13-16; 23:9-40; 27-29). Just by the way, there are also prophetesses scattered throughout the biblical Hebrew history)
Revolutionary movements in all dimensions and in all points of history need guts, persistence, and continual examination of their raison d’etre to sustain the flame that birthed them. Wildly successful Methodism lost its sharpness as it blended into the religious background of a godless yet religious British culture. The Blood and fire evangelism of the Salvation Army became a religiously bland, yet aggressively social outreach organisation (generally speaking), and what was blindingly sharp, radical, and penetrating, slid into the morass of all things “normal” or even, ridiculously, negative. Twentieth century “New Churches” of the Charismatic and Pentecostal flavour seem to be halfway down the slide to be blending with what other Christian streams hold as the religious status quo. There are those academics who may think I am just oversimplifying a highly complex narrative. So I grant you taking my words cautiously.
The narrative from the historical Hebrew Bible text,I concede, secretes a long series of historical dots in the lines of biblical history and narrative, and the joining of those dots seems almost self – evident to some, and rashly without evidence and “source material” to others, where the given data is considered neither consistent nor standardised. The difference between fundamentalists and conservative liberals in these sort of debates is wider than the Mississippi. That is briefly stated by understanding that evangelicals and fundamentalists accept the truth of the biblical history as a given. The Biblical accounts are received as true. Period. Whereas the liberals question all biblical accounts unless verified by extra biblical historical documents and or stele’s that affirm it. The dots of singing dancing groups of prophets in Samuel’s day, followed by the stable quiet seeming input of the likes of Gad and Nathan, then moving to David frenziedly dancing in a seemingly unkinglike manner, then back to the solid sobriety and strength of Elijah and Elisha, succeeded by the groups mentioned again at the end of Elijah’s earthly ministry and their regular part in the life of Elisha, and thereafter followed by a huge array of the canonical prophets referring to false prophets, drunken prophets, groups of prophets that seem more like political parties than spiritual organisms, and then finally defying Jeremiah and even urging his imprisonment in his old age, seems like a continuous line of group dynamics in the process of irascible functioning as part of the morass of dead religiosity that the initial creation of such a group was birthed to contend against generations earlier. Prophecy inspired by the Spirit of God has been a constituent organ of spiritual life in every age from Enoch (Genesis 5 and explained in the book of Jude.) to New Testament experiences, but the “schools”, “groups” and/or guilds of prophets seem to have ceased at the fall of Jerusalem, until, of course, it arose again in a different form with the dozen apostolic figures filled with the Holy Spirit imparting life to all who believed their message. “Christ is Risen!”
The standardised word “prophet,” which comes from the Greek, “prophetes” does suggest to the non-religious, unchurched population, be it Jewish gentile, educated or unlearned, that the prophets all turned up in a “prophet’s uniform”, with their “prophet’s terminology”, common ranting prophetic rhetoric against the norms of society majoring on, “Repent for the end is nigh”. Each mirroring those who went before them, setting a template for those that followed.
Oh! How that matchstick matrix doth err!
How widely are the portrayed characteristics of each of the authored men known as “the Hebrew prophets”! There is absolutely no symmetrical, uniform party of attitudes there.
The fact is that the descriptive designative nouns for this wonderfully differing group of minds and hearts are several. They are variously described as prophets, seers, and/or Men of God. As already commented on, there were prophetess’s also.
The Hebrew word, “nabi” (pronounced naw-bee) occurs throughout the Hebrew Bible 316 times and is interpreted each time as, “prophet”. Nathan, for instance is referred to as “Nabi” every time he is referred to. Gad, however, is David’s seer (1 Chronicles 21:9 “chozeh”), yet contemporaneously also referred to as a prophet (1 Samuel 22:5. “Nabi”). The Hebrew word, “chozeh” is translated as “seer”16 times in the Hebrew scriptures. This word is used of mystic men of God who manifested their gift through visions (i.e., See – er). Although by the Hebrew dictionary the two words, “prophet” and “seer” have a different rootage, it does say in 1 Samuel 9:9 that in the real-time of the narrative that those who “used to be called seers” (haroah) “were currently called” – that means in Samuel’s generation – “prophets” (“nabi”). It would suggest that at the time the text of 1 Samuel 9: 9 was written, the vernaculars and argots were completely interchangeable. There is another scene in the biblical narrative where the two words are used in the same context of interchangeability, as when Amos is confronted by the priest Amaziah. Amaziah says to Amos, “Go back to your home Seer” (chozeh). Amos answers “I was not a prophet” (nabi). 2 Samuel 24:11 seems to clinch what I am saying when in one sentence it refers to “…the prophet Gad, David’s seer…”. Hebrew pronunciation and parsing of the statement even has the two words literally next to each other, i.e., “…Gad the prophet, seer of David…”
1 Kings 13 expands the number of nouns for prophets when a certain nameless man who is referred to several times as a “man of God” is then levelled as a “prophet”. An elderly prophet (unnamed) pursues the man of God and greets him with the phrase, “I too am Nabi” (1 Kings 13:18).
When learned rabbis and preachers discuss the use of prophet and seer today, they are usually used interchangeably as having identical usage, with the postscript explanation to their audiences as explained above. However, sadly, prophets and seers are only common in those parts of the body of Christ that are open to such manifestations of the Holy Spirit. It is a mournful and bleak reality that the majority of established movements, denominations and streams in the world have relegated prophecy, dreams and visions, divine healing, and all things supernatural to the rubbish dump of history and irrelevant to the modern generation. Shame on them all.
Different Hebrew terminology from historical middle eastern cultural spectacles, when read by western eyes and minds that prefer concrete systems and filing box particularity, find it hard to hang loose with the translated words, in desperate attempts to strictly classify these three into hard and fast differences. The inspired text seems to intelligently use the terms interchangeably. I shall do the same. Methinks it is completely normal not to expect that the same thing would always be called by the same name at all times and in different places, ages, and cultures? Think through what the word “gay” meant 100 years ago in western society, and what the word suggests presently.
Having said all that above, simply by reading the text of the canonical prophets we can be confident in stating that there was no such concept as a “standard” prophet, seer, or man of God. They were different in so many ways from each other. The only item of description in which they all meet in uniformity is the fact that they all heard from God, and delivered, howbeit in many different ways the word of God to man. Isaiah moved amongst royalty. Elisha was an ex-farmer from the northern tribal setting. Amos came from the southern arable land to speak to the Northern kingdom. In that aspect, may we all yearn to emulate these incredible influencers of mankind. Elijah seems to have worn a loin cloth and camel skin sash of sorts, and moved amongst people we know not of, apart from a widow in Zarepeth. All so many-hued, so variegated, so piebald and random. Yet all wonderfully tuned in to God and His Word.
Leaving the Hebrew Bible for a moment, the word “prophetes” in Greek does not in any way expand our understanding of the concepts mentioned above.
We may take it for granted that men evidentially possessed by the spirit of Yahweh earned the general label of “nabi”. The manifestations of the divinely celestial, in harmony with prophetic instructions which turned the nation’s fortune around, justified the term “nabi” when referring to Samuel from his childhood on. The non-literate, “non-especially spiritual” population of Israel, all with one heart and mind, proclaimed Samuel as “a prophet”. The people literally, wilfully, en masse, gave Samuel ben-Elkanah the rank of Prophet over all issues to do with the national rule and governance. No name, no title, no coronation, no dress uniform, just a name: “Nabi Samuel”. To my mind, Samuel was as far reaching and individual as Moses.
We need to note, however, that the first time that prophecy was seen as a more widespread gift of God amongst the Hebrew people was the startling and strange account of Numbers 11 – yes, back in the days of Moses. The people were complaining of their lot in the midst of a routine lifestyle that had no supply of “normal” food. Moses had had enough and goes to Yahweh. He complains to God that he cannot cope with the pressure the people are putting on him. Yahweh tells Moses to bring 70 of the camps top leaders – “Elders” is the words used. The Almighty wanted the 70 to stand before him in the same spot that Moses normally stood i.e., “the tent of meeting”. Omitting the story minutiae, the visible cloud of God’s presence fell on Moses and the seventy (although it seems that two of the chosen 70 did not obey the summons.). Numbers 11:25 says that Yahweh “took of the Spirit that was upon Moses,” and put it on the 70. That is, on the 68 present in the group before the tent, as well as the two who disobeyed Moses and who were out in the midst of the camp doing whatever was their daily norm. All 70 started to prophesy – even the two elders out in the camp. Moses’ personal aide, Joshua son of Nun, came running to Moses and said, in what must have been a complaining tone of voice, that the “two” were prophesying out amongst the people. And so, we arrive at the amazing, startling moment when Moses replies to his aide, “Are you jealous for me? Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets and that the Lord would put his Spirit upon them all!” (Numbers 11:29)
No frenzy of dance or music is referred to at all. If anything, the only model the 70 had to work with is Moses himself, a prophet who, by the fact that it is never mentioned, seems never to have indulged or necessitated any frenzy or instrumental music. I have always had a creased forehead when reading several liberal Old Testament scholars commonly hailed as masterful biblical expositors – that the seventy must have all been in a frenzied, dance as in 1 Samuel 10. A few liberals hasten to say, without reason, that the frenzy is a basic assumption to the 70 in the camp with Moses. A pox on the thought is my response to that. The presence of God was visibly seen to descend on them all. Whether silently, raucously, or with musical accompaniment (without textual reference to any external activity) The seventy had the prophetic word placed upon them- and within them. Any other definition or qualification of what the scene actually looked like is pure conjecture.
Unfortunately, there is no text in the scrolls that as much as hints on what the 70 were prophesying. Whether it was futuristically predictive, or historically lesson learning, or current international scene revealing – we will never know. I think, however, it was more likely as resolving social fallouts within the camp of 2 million Hebrews. Just a thought, and an opinion I hold loosely.
The lesson of this non-fictional narrative is the placement of the concept of prophecy and prophets amongst the Hebrew people, as a legitimate supernatural occurrence inspired by the Spirit of God amongst them. The manifestation of prophets and prophecy hereby is a divinely certified piece of orthodoxy, sanctioned and initiated by God Himself. The account actually restricts the gift to the manifestation of the Holy Spirit, and no other spirit. It is an aetiology of the whole prophetic stream that was to trickle upon Israel and build up to a Tsunami of the prophetic amongst them in later generations.
Moses’s answer to Joshua in verse Numbers 11:29 opens the readers heart and mind. Moses unleashes upon the believer – then and now – the bible reader and God worshipper of today, that the orthodoxy of prophets and prophecy needs to be seen, noted, and observed. If Moses, a man like us all, wanted widespread egalitarian words of prophecy amongst ALL the people of God, then surely what God seeks is even greater. Joel foresaw God’s Spirit on all flesh, and men and women, bond and free prophesying and having prophetic dreams. Prophecy? It suggests that there cannot be too much of that phenomenon! “Would that all God’s people were prophets.” Joel saw such a thing in a later, yet unknown generation. The apostle Peter declared in the first evangelistic sermon ever preached that those days are here now. That is a sack load of truth that all Bible believers need to digest and ponder.
This story in Numbers 11 is almost immediately followed by another which again deals with a particular manifestation of early prophecy, this time in the form of a gnomic saying. “When there is a prophet among you, I, the Lord, reveal myself to them in visions, I speak to them in dreams. But this is not true of my servant Moses; he is faithful in all my house. With him I speak face to face, clearly and not in riddles; he sees the form of Yahweh” (Numbers 12:6-8). Here again is a connection made between the nabim (plural of Nabi) and Moses, but at the same time, the emphasis is now on the differences between them and Moses.
In the first story, the teaching emphasis was unambiguously on the similarities between the 70 elders and Moses, and the text showed the closest possible relationship between them. The same Spirit, the same source, the same place of meeting with Yahweh and the gift, exercised amongst the Hebrew people as it was with Moses. However, the cryptic enigmatic words quoted in Numbers 12 refer, seemingly, to a different aspect of the divine source for any prospective nabi’ – visions, and God speaking in their dreams. The Spirit of God, almost in New Testament fashion was placed on the seventy (we are not informed if or when the anointing left the 70 or if He remained on them as with Moses for the rest of their days. The inspiration from Yahweh to prophet here, has what we may refer to as a slight measurable geographic distance. We are discussing, substantially, a message from heaven. God speaks. However, the words arrive in dreams and enigmatic utterances within those dreams. Yet, Moses’s words come from mutual direct interaction with Yahweh, face to face, as it were (as it was). The vision of Moses is a physical literal dialogue with a visible manifestation of God. God says in the most awe-inspiring description when He states “he (Moses) sees the form of God.”
Ah! Gasp for breath. What on earth do we do with that statement?
Apart from my assumption that Christ Himself appeared to Moses in human form, I have nowhere else to go. Dreams and visions have more of a mystique and atmosphere of inscrutability, as well as ambiguity. However, it is still prophetic reception and delivered prophecy.
Years later, with the Spirit of God coming upon King Saul and his soldiers when entering the same location as the singing dancing prophetic group (1 Samuel 19), and the Spirit being straightforwardly placed on the 70 (Numbers 11), Moses speaking, as it were, face to face and seeing the form of God (Numbers 12), and God speaking to prophets in Dreams and Visions, which, by parsing the statement made by Yahweh that the dreams and visions seem to be riddles, we are left with a full quiver of the biblical statements of scripture, thus far in the biblical text ,as to how prophecy is received. They are several and diverse. But each manner of reception qualifies the recipient as a “Nabi.” I think also that the dream context of receiving from God (Numbers 12:6. Joel 2:28) presupposes the word of God being generally heard in the night (Although dreams can manifest in day times also. I have heard of people also dreaming while awake – yet dreams are generally a night thing.). Nathan received his revelations by night (II Sam 7:4. 7:17), and from such an experience founded the Davidic dynasty. He also appeared unbidden at the royal court to remonstrate in that same name (II Sam.12:1-13). The text also reminds us of the seer Gad, who had to inform David of the divine displeasure at the census which the king had taken (II Sam.24:11). The one thing we can clearly see is that Nathan was no ecstatic, and that he had no connexions with the impassioned, enraptured prophets who were active in the land at the time of Samuel’s ministry. Although we have to add that the likes of Gad and Nathan are commonly thought to have been birthed into prophecy with one of Samuel’s groups.
The case of Ahijah of Shiloh provides a parallel (1 Kings 14:6-16). The account given here resonates with I Sam. 9:7. referring to the prophet Samuel. It reveals that prophets were consulted by people even over domestic misfortunes and were indeed paid a fee for the prophetic advice. Yet Ahijah too also intervened in politics via his gift, and designated Jeroboam king of Israel (1 Kings 11:29-30).
Even in the life of the great Isaiah himself we are still aware of vivid reminiscences of those prophets who, in the name of their God, dealt with kings in matters of war, or of the succession, or even of the nation’s foreign policy.
Even if we searched out the relevant texts in much more detail than is done above, it would still be difficult, if not impossible, to arrive at a detailed picture of the earliest “prophets” which would allow them to be classified and catalogued as a reasonably clearly shaped historical spectacle. The biblical scroll sources give no answer to the questions which we so inwardly ask. But there is no reason to suppose that for Yahweh worshippers this was the spark which kindled Israel’s own specific prophetic movement. When the title of prophet is given to Abraham (Genesis 20:7), or to Moses (Deuteronomy 34:10), or to Aaron (Exodus7:1), or to Miriam (Exodus 15:20) the liberal theologians are quick to claim that these are titles that later scribes or editors inserted for the understanding of later generations. As a believer in the integrity of the Mosaic authorship, despite the plain fact of any editing centuries later, I cannot accept that such vital terminology is only the “correction” of an anonymous scribe that we are asked to accept, maintained the inspiration of the biblical text. It is an anachronism – a total misplacement. At the same time, it is difficult to prove the truth of what is said in I Sam. 9:9-11. The text in itself clearly does not claim that that the nabi’ superseded the seer, but that the terminology of the Hebrew people changed the title of the phenomena of the wonder of men who regularly heard from God’s own mouth.
We see that the main obstacle to a crystal-clear statement of existence and activity of prophetic activity during pre-Mosaic days is a rhetorical vocabular one. We observe that within a couple of brief moments in the life of Moses, and by an understood phenomenon guided by Samuel, every kind of prophet was included in the general term nabi’.
But, amongst modern Pentecostals and all that see the need for prophets and more prophecy today, It is generally understood that the term nabi’ was originally used for those under the moving of the spirit of God and that the ecstatic, and frenzied manifestation was a common phenomenon for a certain short period of time. It would generally be accepted amongst evangelical adherents that being “turned into another man” (I Sam. 10:6) necessarily precedes any authentic prophet in the New Testament, however the musical “frenzy,” seemingly extremely common in Samuel’s day, is not referred to again in scripture, even though David’s “dancing before the Lord” in an frenzied manner, and Elisha’s request for music on one occasion (2 Kings 3:15) leads some to think that the frenzy is almost of vital constituency. We reject such thought.
I find it logical to observe that the cameos the scripture supplies of nabim like Nathan, Gad, and Ahijah, make it necessary to hold that these men were already receiving in blastula form some of the great themes which were to be taken up by the prophets who followed them, and fill the Old Testament with New Testament belief systems like Yahweh’s designs for the Davidic monarchy, and the promise that thePlease Davidic monarchy would be in perpetuity, (1 Kings 14:7).