its issues. It would be of little use to foresee coming events unless in some way the knowledge could be turned to advantage, so that evil might be averted and good assured. Joseph interprets Pharaoh's dream as a prediction of the seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine.1 The seer not only comprehends the portent of the dream, but he also sees how this knowledge may be turned to good account, though the preparation for the future requires no supernatural wisdom. The prophet usually does not share the popular belief that he can control the coming events by virtue of any knowledge or power peculiar to him. Balak, the king of Moab, sent far away for Balaam the prophet, not because he wished to know what the future relations between Moab and Israel would be, for he can himself see that clearly enough; but he summons the prophet because of his belief that he had power so to wither Israel by a curse that the invading nation would be powerless for harm. Balaam strenuously insisted from first to last that he had no power to change the purpose of God, and that no inducement would persuade him to pretend to a power he did not possess. "If Balak should give me his house full of silver and gold I could not go beyond the word of Jahveh my God." The prophet was no fatalist; but he knew that the future 1 Gen. xli. 2 Paton gives plausible reasons for identifying Balaam with Bela the son of Beor, a king of Edom, mentioned in Genesis xxxvi. 32. See his Syria and Palestine, p. 152 f. Does this mean that Balaam the king was invited to bring more effective succour to Moab than curses? * Num. xxii. 18. was in God's hands, and that to change the future, one must change the purpose of God, and that could be done only by changing the conditions which constrained Him to act for the weal or woe of the nation. There may be apparent exceptions, but they will not bear the test of a careful examination. The case of Elisha in the wilderness of Edom, for example,1 is not an exception to the principle just stated, as a hasty glance will suffice to show. The allied armies are on the point of perishing for lack of water. The king of Israel does no more than bewail his unhappy fate and cast reproach upon God. Perhaps he had already tried the resources of his hundreds of subservient prophets and found no comfort. Jehoshaphat asked for a prophet of Jahveh, believing that by his aid the armies might be extricated from their perilous position. Elisha is summoned, and indignantly declares that Jahveh would not regard the danger of the Hebrews except for the presence of the pious king Jehoshaphat. The minstrel is called upon to play, and under this stimulus the prophet predicts that the trenches which he orders to be made shall be filled with water; and it happens in accordance with his prediction. But Elisha does not really pretend to a power by which he could fill the trenches with lifesaving water, but only declares the purpose of Jahveh to save the king of Judah. The seer could learn what God's purpose was, but his foresight had no effect upon its accomplishment, except as it 1 1 2 Kings iii. influenced man so to act as to make serviceable the favourable disposition of God. I have gone into the common conception of a prophet fully, because of the general belief now that the primary function of the prophet was to teach the people to do the will of God. That the great prophets were teachers of righteousness is beyond question. That God sent them into the world for that purpose is told again and again in the Bible, and is not to be doubted for a moment. But I am speaking of the conception of the prophets as it was among their contemporaries. The people looked upon the prophets as men possessed of superhuman powers, and especially of superhuman knowledge, and it was this ability to know the otherwise unknowable which gave them their position in the nation. CHAPTER II REVELATION TO THE PROPHET 'ROM the eighth to the fourth century B.C. the life. By the eighth century the office was fully developed and perfectly understood. But it did not attain its exalted station without a long preliminary course of growth. We must trace the growth from the primitive beginning, and see how it came to reach its peculiar influence and power. It may be noted here that the prophet was not a figure peculiar to Israel, and unknown to other nations. In ancient times every nation had its prophets, and there were many features common to them all. And, for that matter, every nation has its prophets still. The Hebrew prophet was differentiated from other prophets in many respects, and yet was similar to those of other peoples.1 When Balak, the king of Moab, desired the services of a seer, he sent to the Euphrates for Balaam.2 Balaam certainly was not a Hebrew, yet his story is told in the Hebrew Scriptures without any intimation that 1 See Briggs, Messianic Prophecy, p. 18 (ed. 1886). The lowest forms of Hebrew prophecy were most akin to that of other peoples. Other nations had few Isaiahs, but Balaams were found among them all. 2 Num. xxii. it is the record of an alien. Balaam prophesies by Jahveh, but he would have been the last one whose services Balak would have desired, had the king supposed him in any way affiliated with Israel. Among the Hebrews, however, prophecy was developed to a point which it never reached in any other nation, and our concern now is to follow the course of that development. We have already seen that the prophet was regarded as essentially one possessed of knowledge which could only come from God. The path of the development of Hebrew prophecy is roughly marked by the manner in which God's will was revealed. We find that revelation coming to man in theophanies, dreams, visions, ecstatic states, and in direct spiritual enlightenment. In the most primitive conception of God, He is represented as coming to earth and speaking to man face to face. God walks in the garden in the cool of the day and calls for the hiding man and woman.1 God speaks to Noah to warn him of the coming flood. So God spoke to Abraham, and to other patriarchs. Jacob named a place Peniel, because there he had met God face to face.3 last to whom God spoke in this way. In his case the direct revelation is looked upon as an unusual mark of Divine favour: "Jahveh spoke unto Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend"; "a prophet has not yet risen in Israel like Moses, whom Jahveh knew face to face." 5 Moses was the 1 Gen. iii. 8, 9. 3 Gen. xxxii. 30. 5 Deut. xxxiv. 10. |