state of ecstasy which was regarded as a favourable condition for prophesying among all nations of the world.

When Elisha was called upon to rescue the armies from their perilous position in Edom, and he desired to seek counsel of Jahveh, he calls for a minstrel, at whose playing it would be possible for him to reach that exalted state in which a revelation was most likely to come. That is clearly the meaning of the statement, "And it was as the minstrel played, that the hand of Jahveh came upon him." This is the condition of the prophets of Baal, leaping and gashing themselves with knives as they cried, "O Baal, hear us!" 2 and also of king Saul when in his frenzy he lay down naked all day and all night.3

The Hebrews were themselves well aware of a higher form of revelation than that by dreams or ecstatic visions. They always looked back to Moses as one possessed of God's revelation in its highest form, and he is set in sharp contrast to the ordinary prophets of the time: "If there be a prophet among you, I will make Myself known unto him in a vision. I will speak with him in a dream. My servant Moses is not so with him I will speak mouth to mouth." 4

The knowledge given to Moses is distinguished by its clearness and definiteness as contrasted with the obscurer dreams and visions. To some prophets

3 I Sam. xix. 24. this passage, but the

corruption does not affect the general sense as rendered above. For emendations, see Dillmann in loc.; and Gray, Numbers, p. 124 ff.

God revealed His will directly; not when they were asleep, or worked up to a state of ecstasy, but when they were most self-possessed. This highest phase has been called direct spiritual enlightenment.

Spiritual enlightenment is the common method of revelation to the great prophets of the golden age of Israel's religious development. To Amos, Isaiah, and the others of their kind, God did not appear as a bodily presence, nor did He send them vague dreams to perplex the mind. Occasionally they saw strange visions, which they interpreted as conveying a Divine message to the people. But generally God put His Spirit into their hearts, and thus they were endowed with a knowledge of the Divine will which gave them a strength of conviction otherwise impossible.

It has sometimes been supposed that the various phases of prophecy show a gradual decline in the manner of revelation. Modern criticism has enabled us to estimate the primitive traditions at their true value, and to see that there was a steady progress upward rather than downward. It was possible for Isaiah to know the mind of God more fully than Deborah or Samuel, because he lived in a more enlightened age, and knew better than to consult the dead on behalf of the living. The men of the prophetic period had learned that the clearest Divine knowledge comes directly to the soul, and not through the medium of dreams or portents.

It should, however, be borne in mind that we are not to question the genuineness of a revelation by dream or theophany because of its medium. Men

1 Isa. viii. 19.

believed that God spoke to them face to face or in other primitive ways. God has always been wont to reveal Himself to man in whatever ways man was able to understand. But in the lower form the possibility of error is so great that every instance must be judged on its merits. Primitive man generally believed that the dream was an objective reality. To dream of hearing God speak was actually to hear Him. To see God in a vision was to see Him really.1

Abraham was firmly convinced that God commanded him at first to sacrifice Isaac and then to substitute the ram. We see in the whole story the Divine teaching of the great lesson so clearly taught by a late prophet that the fruit of one's body was no expiation for the sin of one's soul.2

The message which a man read in his dream or vision was not always just what God intended; still it was often a groping after the truth which pointed the way to a higher conception.

The progressive character of the revelatory methods is perceptible from the seer's ability to command them. One can have but little control over his dreams. Visions may be largely self-induced. The aid of a minstrel or dancing or singing will generally bring on the ecstatic state, at least to the person practised in the art. The direct spiritual enlightenment is always available for one who has eyes to see and ears to hear. Balaam must sleep over the problem involved in Balak's request; Isaiah could answer his problems immediately.

1 See article "Dream," in Hastings' Bible Dictionary.

2 Micah vi. 7. See Newman Smyth, Christian Ethics, p. 161.

CHAPTER III

THE PROPHETIC INSTITUTION

WE

E turn now to the development of Hebrew prophecy as an institution. The institution is not, however, uniform and simple, but varied and complex. We shall best be able to cover the ground by dividing the prophets into two classes. In one class we include Samuel, Nathan, Elijah, Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, and, in fact, the whole line of great men who lived and prophesied as independent individuals. The other class is composed of the socalled "sons of the prophets," whose operations were conducted in companies, and who belonged to a fixed order. This latter class will be reserved for consideration in the next chapter.

When we speak of the prophets we usually mean the men of the first class, and they are indeed men worthy of the distinction accorded by the name. They were men pre-eminent in their day, and held a high place among the great men of Israel. They maintained their greatness because they were free and independent, preserving their individuality to the utmost. We rarely find them working together. Even when they belonged to the same time and place, they co-operate so little that it is not easy to determine their relation. Isaiah and Micah, for ex

ample, prophesied to the people of Judah at the same period. It is frequently assumed that Micah was a disciple of his greater contemporary. But there is no sure warrant for this assumption. These men worked always as individuals, never as members of an institution. Nevertheless, the great prophets had so much in common that we may for convenience speak of them as an order. The history of this order may readily be traced from its lowly origin to a position of great influence and power, and then again through a stage of decline to its final disappearance.

If we read the Old Testament in the traditional way, prophecy seems to go backward rather than forward. That conception is not to be pronounced a priori impossible, but is nevertheless untenable, because it is contrary to historic facts. To those facts we now turn. Moses stands as a great figure at the very beginning of Hebrew history; and in later ages he was deemed the first and the greatest prophet. Many centuries after his time it was declared that "no prophet like Moses had since risen in Israel." Nothing higher could be said even of the Messianic prophet than that he would be like Moses: "A prophet from thy midst, of thy brethren, like unto me, shall Jahveh thy God raise up for thee."2 St. Peter quoted this prophecy as fulfilled in Jesus Christ. But was the greatest prophet at the beginning?

Modern criticism has enabled us to read the early history of Israel in a truer light than was formerly 2 Deut. xviii. 15.

1 Deut. xxxiv. 10.

3 Acts iii. 22.