PROPHECY, PROPHETS

word ot the Lord burned within him again lilte a fire in his bones, and he was bound to deliver it, whether men listened and heeded or not. The chief burden of this last pre-exllic prophet was the declaration that, as the measure of the people's sins was now filled up, they must as a nation suffer practical extinction; but stress was laid upon the importance of individual fidelity and the fulness of spiritual blessmg which might still be enjoyed, whilst hopes of material good and national prosperity had been disastrously overthrown.

The fall of Jerusalem brought with it many changes. Ezekiel adopted and expanded many of Jeremiah's ideas, but his forecasts ot restitution, as delivered to the exiles in Babylon, took fresh shapes, determined by his circumstances, his personal temperament, and the fact that he was priest as well as prophet. It was left for a great unknown seer to deliver in the second part of the Book of Isaiah the most spiritual message of all, and to re-animate his countrymen by means of pictures glowing with larger and brighter hopes than any of his predecessors had portrayed. But after the return from captivity prophecy did not renew its ancient fires. Haggai and Zechariah are but minor stars in the great constellation, and the book known as 'Malachi' testifies to a dwindling inspiration, though fidelity to truth, and hope of fuller Divine manifestations yet to come, were not entirely extinct in God's messengers and representatives.

At last Ps 74» and 1 Mac 4" 9" and 14" point to a time when 'signs' were no longer seen among the people, when 'there is no more any prophet, neither is there any among us that knoweth how long.' The latest 'prophetic' book, Daniel, does not properly belong to this list; it was not reckoned by the Jews among the prophets, but in the third part of the sacred canon known as 'writings.' The remarkable visions it contains do not recall the lofty spirit or the burning words of Isaiah; they contain another kind of revelation, and belong not to prophecy but to apoca-lyptics. Nearly two centuries elapsed before John the Baptist, the last prophet imder the Old Covenant and the forerunner of the New, came in the very spirit and power ot Elijah 'to make ready for the Lord a people prepared for him.'

2. Inspiration ot the prophets. — When we seek to pass from the outward phenomena of prophetism to its inner mental processes, from its history to its psy-chology, many questions arise which cannot be definitely answered. How did God reveal His will to the prophets? In what did their inspiration consist? How far were their natural faculties in abeyance, or, on the other hand, heightened and strengthened? Did the prophet fully understand his own message? How could personal errors and prejudices be distinguished from direct Divine aflSatua? To these questions no simple cate-gorical replies can be made. But Scripture sheds sufficient light on them for all practical purposes.

It must be borne in mind that prophecy has a history, that the record is one of development — of rise, progress, and decay — and that precise definitions which take no account of these changes are misleading. Some forms of 'inspiration' are higher than others, and a measure of advance is discernible from the lower forms which belonged rather to the soothsayer, to those higher moods which distinguish the OT prophet from all others. The steps of the process are not always discernible, but the distinction between lower and higher is to be drawn according as (1) the prophet was a mere unconscious instrument, or his highest mental and spiritual faculties were enlisted in his work; (2) the inward revelation of the Divine will was or was not bound up with external and objective manifestations; and especially (3) the moral and spiritual element in the message became its distinguishinf. feature, in contrast with a mere non-ethical 'seeking for signs.' Revelation by means of dreams and visions was recognized throughout, and

PROPHECY, PROPHETS

in Nu 12«, Dt 13', Jer 235 a dreamer of dreams is synonymous with a prophet. The distinction between dream and vision appears to be that the former occurred in sleep, the latter in a kind of ecstatic waking state, the seer ' falling down and having his eyes open.' But the distinction is not strictly enforced, and in the Hexa-teuch, and where the Elohist speaks of dreams, the Jahwist more frequently describes God as speaking directly to His messengers. Side by side with revela-tion by means of dreams and visions went that higher spiritual enlightenment which we associate with Hebrew prophecy at its best estate.

It was not necessary that a prophet should receive a tormal 'call' to undertake the office. Many were trained in the schools who never became prophets, and some prophets, like Amos, received no preparation, whether in the schools or elsewhere. Upon some, the affiatus appears to have descended occasionally for a special purpose, whilst in other cases the influence of the Divine Spirit was permanent, and they were set apart to the work of a lifetime. The important point was that in every case the Spirit of God must rest upon His messenger in such a way as to supersede all other Influences and ideas, and this higher impulse must be obeyed at all costs. The prophet must be able to announce with unwavering confldence, ' Thus saith the Lord.' In some instances a description is given of the way in which this overpowering conviction came upon the man. Samuel was (perhaps) called as a child; Amos exclaimed, when both king and priest did their best to silence him, ' Jahweh hath spoken, who can but proph-esy?' Isaiah, whenj he beheld God lifted up upon His throne and when his lips had been purified by the hot stone from the altar, cried, 'Here am I, send me.' Jeremiah, when but a youth, was strengthened to be as an iron pillar and a brazen wall against the whole force of the nation, because God had put His words in his mouth. The vision of ttie chariot which came to Ezekiel by the Chebar dominated his imagination and moulded all his ministry. Whether a 'vocation' in the formal sense was, or was not, vouchsafed at the opening of a prophet's course, it was absolutely essential that he should be directly moved by the Spirit of God to deliver a message which he felt to be an irresistible and over-whelming revelation of the Divine will.

The phraseology used to describe this inspiration, though varied, points entirely in this direction. The Spirit of the Lord is described as coming mightily upon Saul (1 S 10«- '"); the hand of the Lord was on Elijah (1 K 18«, Ezk 1»); or the Spirit 'clothed itself with the man as in Jg 6", 2 Ch 24™; or Micah is said to be 'full of power by the spirit of the Lord' to declare to Jacob his transgression (3*). Perhaps the impulses were more violent and external in the earlier history, whilst in the later more room was left for human re- flexion, and a more intelligent comprehension of the Divine will and word. Still, it would be a mistake to suppose that the overmastering power of the Divine commission was relaxed in the later prophetic period. No stronger expressions to describe this are found anywhere than those used by Jeremiah, who ' sat alone because of God's hand,' and to whom God's word was 'as a burning fire shut up in his bones,' so that he could not contain (15" 20').

Neither the exact mode of communicating the Divine will, nor the precise measure of personal consciousness which obtained in the prophetic state, can be defined; these varied according to circumstances. But speaking generally, it may be said that the personality of the prophet was not merged or absorbed in the Divine, nor was his mind as an inanimate harp or lyre which the Divine Spirit used as a mere instrument. Moses is represented as holding back from the Divine call (Ex 3'), as remonstrating with God (32"), and offering himself as a sacrifice to appease the Divine anger (32'^). Amos succeeded in modifying the Divine decree (7'-'), and

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