The Old Testament_A Very Short Introduction

by Michael D. Coogan

  Some prophets were professionals, trained by a period of apprenticeship under a master prophet. He was their “father” (see 2 Kings 2:12; 13:14), and they were the “sons of the prophet” (2 Kings 4:38). Others apparently were amateurs, like the prophet Amos, who asserted:

  I am not a prophet, nor a son of a prophet; but I am a herder, and a dresser of sycamore trees, and Yahweh took me from following the flock, and Yahweh said to me, “Go, prophesy to my people Israel.” (Amos 7:14–15)

  Here Amos claims that despite his lack of professional training he is a true prophet, because he received a call.

  Modes of revelation

  The prophets believed, as did their contemporaries, that they received direct and special communication from the divine. Speech and vision are the most frequent metaphors used to describe such communication—the prophets were both hearers and seers. The non-Israelite seer Balaam, for example, describes himself as “one who hears the words of God, who sees the vision of the Almighty” (Num. 24:4). Likewise, the opening of the book of the prophet Amos mentions “the words of Amos … which he saw” (Amos 1:1). A standard formula for revelation to prophets is that “the word of the LORD came to” them; then the prophet speaks, not in his or her own name, but in the name of Yahweh: “Thus says the LORD.” In scholarly jargon, the message that the prophet delivered is called an oracle, a term derived from classical antiquity.

  But how exactly did the prophets receive their messages? One form of revelation was dreams, and there is a widely attested process called incubation, in which an individual would spend the night in a sacred place precisely in order to have an inspired dream. Were their accounts of divine revelation the vivid externalization of a profound inner experience, or did they actually see or hear anything? A modern critical understanding suggests that they did not, but in any case what was significant was the inner experience, as well as the shared conviction among prophets and their audiences that the experience was divinely given.

  One of the most significant recurring accounts of revelation is the claim by some prophets to have witnessed, or even participated in, the deliberations of the assembly of the gods, the divine council over which in ancient Israelite religion Yahweh presided. For example, the prophet Micaiah reports: “I saw Yahweh sitting on his throne, with all the host of heaven standing beside him to his right and to his left” (1 Kings 22:19). Likewise, Jeremiah claims that only he, and not the false prophets, had stood in the divine council (Jer. 23:22).

  Isaiah’s vision

  In this first-person narrative, the prophet Isaiah describes his participation in the divine council, during which he is commissioned to prophesy to God’s people:

  In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple. Seraphs were in attendance above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. And one called to another and said:

  “Holy, holy, holy is Yahweh of hosts;

  the whole earth is full of his glory.” …

  Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I; send me!” And he said, “Go and say to this people:

  ‘Keep listening, but do not comprehend;

  keep looking, but do not understand.’” (Isa. 6:1–3, 8–9)

  Classical prophecy

  Prophets appear frequently in biblical narratives set before the eighth century BCE. The accounts concerning them are often legendary and in the books of Samuel and Kings have been incorporated into the Former Prophets of Jewish tradition. Beginning in the eighth century BCE, however, we encounter a new kind of prophecy, or at least a new genre of prophetic expression. This is found in the writing prophets, or the classical prophets, whose words were collected and preserved in the books known as the Latter Prophets, that is, the lengthy books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, the Major Prophets, and the shorter books of Hosea through Malachi, the twelve Minor Prophets.

  At least two factors contributed to this development. One was the spread of literacy in ancient Israel, which enabled the oracles of prophets to be written down and collected, either by the prophets themselves or by their followers. A second factor was the Israelites’ growing engagement with and eventual subjugation to major powers of the Near East, especially the Assyrians in the eighth and seventh centuries BCE, and their successors the Babylonians in the late seventh and early sixth centuries. The divided kingdoms of Israel in the north and Judah in the south, directly in the path of the Assyrians and later the Babylonians in their imperial advances, especially toward Egypt, were no match for those superpowers, and the prophets were important interpreters of these events.

  The prophetic books generally include two different types of material. One is prophetic oracles, the speeches given by the prophets, often in poetry. A second type of material in the prophetic books is prose narratives, either autobiographical, in which the prophet describes his own experiences, or biographical, in which details of the prophet’s career are recounted by others. It is often difficult to determine how these different materials were organized. A few books, such as Ezekiel and Haggai, have precise dates and a chronological order, but many of the others have no obvious principle of arrangement. Furthermore, most of them, especially the longer ones, have their own literary history, a history of arrangement, editing, and additions.

  As an example of the complicated nature of the prophetic books, consider the relatively short book of Amos, the earliest of the classical prophets. It opens, as do most of the prophetic books, with a historical note about the prophet. There follows a short oracle, in which the prophet announces Yahweh’s judgment; this same oracle also occurs in Joel, and such duplication of material in the prophetic books is not uncommon. The first major unit in the book of Amos is a carefully patterned series of oracles in which Yahweh first announces his judgment on the nations surrounding Israel and then on Israel itself. Then follow, with no discernible principle of arrangement, an oracle on the nature of prophecy; several oracles against Israel and groups within it, especially the elite in the royal capitals of Samaria and Jerusalem; snippets of hymns; oracles of woe; first-person narratives in which the prophet describes a series of visions (although these are not all grouped together); a third-person prose narrative about the prophet; and an oracle promising divine restoration of the dynasty founded by David but now apparently fallen. And all of this in only nine chapters!

  Amos was active in the mid-eighth century BCE, a period of relative autonomy and prosperity in the small kingdoms of the Levant, such as Israel, Judah, Aram-Damascus, Ammon, Moab, and Tyre. The Assyrians, whose imperial expansion had begun in earnest in the ninth century, were for a few decades preoccupied with troubles on their northern and southern borders, and so the states of the western Levant had a brief respite. But the Assyrian advance would shortly resume. In his oracles, Amos anticipated this resurgence of Assyrian aggression and its consequences.

  The policy of the Assyrians toward a conquered territory was well known. They generally removed the ruling family from power, frequently destroyed the capital and other major cities, and deported many of the elite to other areas of their empire, replacing them with colonists transplanted from other regions into what became an Assyrian province ruled by a governor appointed by the Assyrian king. This is precisely what Amos announced. In the case of Damascus, for example, the capital would be destroyed, along with other royal strongholds, the ruling family removed, and the people sent into exile (Amos 1:4–5). Similar actions are announced for other neighbors of the Israelites, and for both Israel and Judah, whose aristocracy in the capitals of Samaria and Jerusalem would be exiled (Amos 6:1, 7; 7:11).

  That was what happened. The Assyrians captured and destroyed Damascus in 732 BCE and Samaria in 722, and both became Assyrian provinces. Judah had become an Assyrian vassal in 734, and so the Assyrians left Judah alone for a time, but
when it too proved rebellious, the Assyrian army laid siege to Jerusalem in 701. So, in a sense, Amos had predicted what would occur. But it would not have taken a special divine revelation to anticipate the actions of the Assyrians, and later of their successors the Babylonians. What is noteworthy about Amos 1–2 and similar texts is not their apparently predictive quality. Rather, it is the interpretation, the spin as it were, that they give to the anticipated Assyrian advance. From a modern historical perspective, the Assyrian conquests were the inevitable result of the vast superiority of a military superpower to relatively small states that stood in its way. But for Amos and the prophets who followed him, including Hosea, Isaiah, Micah, and Jeremiah, such an explanation was insufficient. Amos repeatedly asserts that Yahweh himself was responsible:

  I will take you into exile beyond Damascus. (Amos 5:27)

  I will deliver up the city and all that is in it. (6:8)

  I am raising up against you a nation,

  O house of Israel, says the Lord, the God of hosts. (6:14)

  Amos, like the biblical prophets in general, insisted on the divine control of human history: the defeat of kings, cities, and nations was ultimately due to divine activity. Yahweh was angry with his people, and he used the imperial powers of his day to punish them for their failure to observe their covenant with him. This was the insight of the prophets, their interpretation of the events of their times.

  Messengers of the covenant

  Underlying the immediate involvement of the prophets in the particulars of their own times, then, there is a consistent message. What had happened, what was happening, and what would happen were all the doing of Yahweh. He was “the lord of all the earth” (Ps. 97:5), and thus responsible for events throughout the entire world, not just within Israel’s borders. But his primary focus was Israel, his chosen people.

  The Israelites had made a covenant with God at Mount Sinai, but they had broken that agreement. The primary text of the covenant is the Ten Commandments, whose obligations fall into two categories: exclusive worship of Yahweh alone, in the manner he prescribed, and concern for their fellow Israelites. Keeping these obligations brought divine blessing, and failure to do so brought divine punishment. The reward was continued prosperity in the land that Yahweh had given them, and the punishment could take many forms—drought, famine, and especially enemy attack, defeat, and even exile.

  So whether it was Amos in the mid-eighth century BCE, or Isaiah a few decades later, or Jeremiah in the early sixth century, the prophets were all deeply immersed in their times, which they interpreted from a particular theological perspective: that God was ultimately responsible for their experiences, for weal and for woe, to reward and punish. The prophets proclaimed the divine judgment: they were, in the words of the book of Malachi (3:1), “messengers of the covenant.” With remarkable consistency, they condemned the Israelites for their repeated failure to live up to their covenant—by worshipping other gods and not treating each other fairly. At times that condemnation, like the very notion of covenant itself, used a legal analogy, the lawsuit. Speaking through the prophet, Yahweh indicts Israel for breach of contract and announces the punishment that will be imposed:

  Hear the word of the LORD, O people of Israel;

  for the LORD has an indictment against the inhabitants of the land.

  There is no faithfulness or loyalty,

  and no knowledge of God in the land.

  Swearing, lying, and murder,

  and stealing and adultery break out;

  bloodshed follows bloodshed.

  Therefore the land mourns,

  and all who live in it languish;

  together with the wild animals

  and the birds of the air,

  even the fish of the sea are perishing. (Hosea 4:1–3)

  In this passage, the eighth-century prophet Hosea alludes to the Ten Commandments, as does Jeremiah in the late seventh century, urging the Israelites to return to their founding principles:

  For if you truly amend your ways and your doings, if you truly act justly one with another, if you do not oppress the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own hurt, then I will let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your ancestors forever and ever.

  But you are trusting in lies. Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, “We are safe!”—only to go on doing all these abominations? (Jer. 7:5–11)

  Jeremiah insists that despite the extravagant claim of monarchs of the dynasty founded by David that God would forever protect them and the Temple in their capital Jerusalem, there was a prior commitment—the Sinai Covenant. This was the framework for the prophets’ interpretation of the past, the present, and the immediate future. They proclaimed their message in specific historical contexts, to their contemporaries—sometimes individuals, especially kings; sometimes groups within the community; sometimes, at least rhetorically, foreign nations; and most frequently the people of Israel as a whole.

  But their message for the most part was not heeded. The Israelites would inevitably receive the punishment that according to the prophets they deserved for their failure to carry out their obligations to love God exclusively and to love their neighbor. And so it happened: the curses attached to the covenant came to pass: their cities were destroyed, they lost control of their land, and they were taken into exile, first from the Northern Kingdom of Israel in 722 BCE, and then from the Southern Kingdom of Judah in the early sixth century BCE.

  Prophets and the future

  In the aftermath of the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BCE and the exile to Babylon associated with it, prophecy also took a new twist. There was more and more focus on a future restoration of the glorious days of the past, days of independence and prosperity, especially the time of kings David and Solomon in the tenth century. We find detailed pronouncements of such a future in the prophecies related to the events of the sixth century, especially Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Isaiah 40—66, chapters, which although part of the book of Isaiah were written not in his time, the late eighth century, but two centuries later. And, as the prophetic books continued to be revised, expressions of future hope were added to others as well.

  But these divinely promised hopes were not immediately fulfilled, and so they were projected into a distant future, an “end time” in which Yahweh and his heavenly armies would definitively defeat the forces of evil, both primeval and historical. This led to the development of what is known as apocalyptic literature, occurring in the Bible in an early stage in Ezekiel 40–48 and Zechariah 9–14 and more fully in Daniel 7–12, and, in the New Testament, in the book of Revelation.

  Future hope

  The end of the book of Amos is an example of how ideas of restoration of past glory and of future prosperity were added to earlier prophetic books:

  On that day I will raise up

  the booth of David that is fallen,

  and repair its breaches,

  and raise up its ruins,

  and rebuild it as in the days of old …

  says the LORD who does this.

  The time is surely coming, says the LORD,

  when the one who plows shall overtake the one who reaps,

  and the treader of grapes the one who sows the seed;

  the mountains shall drip sweet wine,

  and all the hills shall flow with it.

  I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel,

  and they shall rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them;

  they shall plant vineyards and drink their wine,

  and they shall make gardens and eat their fruit.

  I will plant them upon their land,

  and they shall never again be plucked up

  out of the land that I have given them,

  says the LORD
your God. (Amos 9:11–15)

  The early Christians believed that end time to have arrived in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, and so they interpreted the Old Testament prophets as predictors of his eventual coming, and eventually placed the prophetic books immediately before the New Testament in their arrangement of the canon. That interpretation, however, overlooks the immersion of the prophets in their own times. It may surprise Christian readers to learn that in the Hebrew Bible the title Messiah (an English form of a Hebrew word meaning “anointed”) is never used of a future leader, only of previous and present ones.