THE PROPHETS
In the old story of Saul and Samuel (1 Sam. 9 f.) Samuel is named "the
seer," that is, a man endowed with what we call second sight, and a
note by an editor explains that what in his time was called a prophet
used to be called a seer. Samuel was, indeed, in the apprehension of
later times, a prophet, but the story itself makes a clear distinction
between the two. The band of prophets whom Saul meets coming down from
the high place, working up by music an enthusiasm, or possession,
which makes them beside themselves, raving in the prophetic fury
(raving and prophesying, in such connections, is the same word in
Hebrew), an enthusiasm which Saul catches, to the surprise and scandal
of his townsmen, are evidently something quite different from the
village seer; they must have been outwardly very much like modern
Moslem dervishes.
In the ninth century of the Syrian wars, these gregarious prophets
appear in many places; especially in the stories of Elisha they are
organized societies of devotees, living by themselves in colonies of
huts or cells under a superior--again very much like a dervish
order--and sometimes turning their religious zeal into political
channels, as when they incite Jehu to the revolt which overthrew the
house of Omri.
Beside them are others who also bear the name prophet, but stand apart
from the order and often in opposition to it. Such a figure is Micaiah
son of Imlah, confronting the four hundred prophets whom Ahab got
together, and declaring their unanimity of inspiration to be the work
of a lying spirit sent from God to lure the king to his doom (1 Kings
22). Such a figure, above all as we have already seen, is Elijah, who,
solitary, champions Jehovah's right to the undivided allegiance of
Israel, or thunders the doom of the dynasty at the authors of Naboth's
judicial murder. It is in such men as these, rather than in the common
herd of prophets by profession, that the ethical prophets of the
eighth century have their forerunners.
The moral conception of God had its roots far down in the religion of
Israel, as may be seen in the older (certainly preprophetic) strata
in Samuel, and better still in the patriarchal legends, which received
their present form in the same age; but after the establishment of the
kingdom it was crossed by the national idea. It was not till the
eighth century that the men came who thought through what the moral
idea of God involves, and had the courage to proclaim its
consequences, fatal though they might be to both state and church.
These prophets, beginning with Amos, not only preached a new doctrine,
they employed a new method. The message which they spoke to the
heedless, incredulous, or hostile ears of their contemporaries, they
also recorded, whether in the hope to reach through the written page a
larger audience, or to perpetuate their words to generations
following. Thus there begins a prophetic literature which is one of
the most characteristic features of the Old Testament. Four prophets
of the second half of the eighth century have given their names to
such prophetic books, Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, and Micah. Then, in the
latter part of the seventh century and the beginning of the sixth,
follow the little books of Zephaniah, Nahum, and Habbakuk, and the
great one of Jeremiah, whose younger contemporary in Babylonia is
Ezekiel. Haggai and Zechariah were instrumental in the rebuilding of
the temple in the reign of Darius I. In the discussion of these books
we shall not attempt a chronological disposition, but follow the order
of the English Bible.