Who were the prophets? · BereaWay Academy

🎯 Objectives

By the end of this lesson you will be able to:

explain who a prophet was in the Old Testament and where his authority came from;
recognize the different functions of the prophetic ministry: proclaiming, warning, comforting, foretelling;
place the prophets on a basic timeline: before, during and after the exile.

📖 Receive

Read slowly Isaiah 6:1-8, the vision in which Isaiah is called, and then Jeremiah 1:4-10. Notice what the two accounts have in common: who takes the initiative, how the prophet reacts, what God puts in his mouth.

Then pause on this verse:

“For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” — 2 Peter 1:21 (KJV)

🔍 Examine

God’s spokesmen

When we hear the word “prophet” we often think of someone who predicts the future. That is part of the truth, but not the most important part. In Hebrew the most common term is nabî’, which refers to someone who speaks by inspiration, someone called to proclaim. The Greek prophḗtēs, from which our word comes, literally means “one who speaks before”: before the people, on behalf of another.

A fine portrait of the prophet is found in Exodus 7:1, where God tells Moses that Aaron will be his “prophet”, that is, his spokesman before Pharaoh. That is what a prophet is: the mouth through which God speaks to his people.

Personally called

No one became a prophet by family tradition or as a career. Priests were priests because they descended from Aaron; prophets, on the other hand, were personally called by the Lord.

Isaiah sees God’s holiness in the temple and discovers he is a man of unclean lips, before being cleansed and sent (Isaiah 6).
Jeremiah hears that God knew him and had set him apart even before he was born, and he tries to object that he is too young (Jeremiah 1).
Amos declares that he is neither a prophet nor a prophet’s son, but a herdsman and a gatherer of sycamore fruit, taken by God as he followed the flock (Amos 7:14-15).

There is a beautiful and important difference: the priest represented the people before God, offering sacrifices and prayers; the prophet represented God before the people, bringing them his word. The priest served mainly in the temple; the prophet went into the squares, to the city gates, into the palaces of kings, wherever God sent him.

📌 The credentials of a true prophet

The Law gave the people some criteria for recognizing a true prophet: his word comes to pass (Deuteronomy 18:21-22) and it never leads away from the God of Israel, even when accompanied by signs (Deuteronomy 13:1-5). True prophecy is consistent with what God has already revealed.

Four functions

As we read the prophetic books we can recognize at least four tasks, often woven into the same message:

Proclaiming: the prophet is a herald, the King’s crier. He proclaims God’s word with the recurring formula “Thus saith the LORD”.
Warning: he is a preacher of righteousness, especially in times of moral and spiritual crisis. He denounces idolatry, immorality and the oppression of the poor.
Comforting: after judgment comes the promise. The same Isaiah who announces ruin also writes “Comfort ye, comfort ye my people” (Isaiah 40:1).
Foretelling: the prophet is also a “seer” (1 Samuel 9:9). God shows him future events, near and far, up to the coming of the Messiah.

You can picture these four functions as the branches of a single tree: at the center there is always the prophet as God’s spokesman.

mindmap
  root(("The prophet, God's spokesman"))
    ("Proclaims the Word")
    ("Warns the people")
    ("Comforts after judgment")
    ("Foretells the future")

An example helps us see the proportions. If you read a chapter like Amos 5, you will find a few lines about the future and many about the present: empty worship, justice trampled underfoot, the invitation to seek God and live. Most biblical prophecy is preaching to its own time; prediction serves this call to repentance.

Two great themes

The prophets’ themes can be gathered around two axes.

The ethical themes concern the life of the people: the condemnation of idolatry and injustice, the holiness of God who demands justice and mercy, and the nature of true religion, which concerns the heart and not just rituals. In Isaiah 1:11-17 God says he is weary of sacrifices offered by hands full of violence, and he asks the people to learn to do good. Micah sums it up in a memorable sentence:

“He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” — Micah 6:8 (KJV)

The eschatological themes concern the future God is preparing: the day of the Lord, when God judges Israel and the nations; the Messiah, his work and his Kingdom; the faithful remnant, that is, the part of the people whom God saves and preserves despite the judgment.

Major and minor

In our Bibles the prophetic books are divided into two groups. The Major Prophets are Isaiah, Jeremiah (with Lamentations), Ezekiel and Daniel. The Minor Prophets are twelve: Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi.

Be careful: “major” and “minor” refer only to the length of the books, not to their importance. The short book of Habakkuk gave us the sentence “the just shall live by his faith” (Habakkuk 2:4), which the New Testament quotes three times.

A basic timeline

To read a prophet well you need to know when he spoke. A simple map, with approximate dates:

Before the exile (c. 800-586 BC): Jonah, Amos and Hosea in the northern kingdom, before the fall of Samaria (722 BC); Isaiah and Micah in Judah at the time of the Assyrian threat; then Nahum, Zephaniah, Habakkuk and Jeremiah, as Babylon draws near.
During the exile (c. 605-538 BC): Ezekiel among the deportees and Daniel at the court of Babylon. Jeremiah sees the destruction of Jerusalem (586 BC).
After the exile (from 538 BC): Haggai and Zechariah encourage the rebuilding of the temple; Malachi closes the series about a century later.

The same map, laid out on a timeline, helps you place each prophet in his historical moment:

timeline
    title The prophets in Israel's history
    section Before the exile
        c. 800-722 BC : Jonah, Amos, Hosea (North)
        c. 740-700 BC : Isaiah, Micah (Judah)
        c. 650-586 BC : Nahum, Zephaniah, Habakkuk, Jeremiah
    section During the exile
        c. 605-538 BC : Daniel, Ezekiel
    section After the exile
        c. 520 BC : Haggai, Zechariah
        c. 430 BC : Malachi

For some books, such as Joel and Obadiah, scholars propose different dates: we will look at that in due course.

🔗 Connect

The prophets are not an isolated chapter of the Bible: they are a thread running through all of it.

Deuteronomy 18:15-18: God promises to raise up a prophet like Moses, and Peter applies this promise to Jesus (Acts 3:22-23).
Hebrews 1:1-2: God, who had spoken many times and in many ways through the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by his Son.
1 Peter 1:10-12: the prophets searched carefully into the time and circumstances of Christ’s sufferings and the glory that would follow.
Luke 24:27: the risen Jesus explains to the disciples, beginning with Moses and all the prophets, what the Scriptures say about him.

With the BereaWay Method, in this course we will receive each prophet in his own time, examine his message and connect it to Christ, in whom God’s promises find their “yes”.

🙏 Apply

Take a few minutes, on your own or with your group:

Did you think of the prophets mainly as people who predict the future? What changes when you see them first of all as God’s spokesmen for their own time?
Reread Micah 6:8. Which of the three requirements (justice, mercy, humility) feels most urgent in your life today?
The prophets spoke uncomfortable words to kings and priests. Are you willing to let the Word correct you, even when it touches well-established religious habits?
Thank God that he did not remain silent, but spoke through the prophets and, fully, through his Son.

📚 Go Deeper

Read Isaiah 6, Jeremiah 1 and Ezekiel 1-3 and compare the call narratives: what does each reveal about God’s character and about the prophet?
Read Amos 7:10-17: the clash between the prophet and the priest Amaziah shows clearly the difference between someone sent by God and someone who serves those in power.
Prepare your own chart of the prophets with three columns: before, during and after the exile. We will complete it together in the next lessons.

In the next lesson we will learn how to read a prophecy, without forcing it or flattening it, and we will discover the “prophetic perspective”.