persons who are better known in some other capacity than as prophets, but who exercised prophetic gifts. Some of these, as Moses the lawgiver or David the king, stand very high in the prophetic ranks. By parity the character of prophet belongs to other men of like position, for example, such men as Joshua and Solomon and Ezra and Nehemiah. It will sometimes be convenient, for distinction's sake, to call such men prophetic men, rather than prophets. That is partly a question of convenience in the use of language. But when we are discussing the prophets as a subject, we must take into the account all persons who have the prophetic character. Third, the terms are applied to persons who were prophets only in a secondary sense, to the pupils or disciples or assistants of the men who were strictly prophets. As we advance in our study we shall find much said concerning certain prophetic "companies," and certain so-called "sons of the prophets," men who were banded together into organizations under such great prophets as Samuel or Elijah, men who were recognized as disciples of such a prophet as Isaiah. A person of this type may naturally be spoken of as a prophet or a man of God, especially when he is sent by his superior on some prophetic errand. The secondary prophets were at times much more numerous than the primary prophets, and it sometimes becomes important to distinguish between the two.

In addition to these uses, many assert that the words that denote the prophet and his functions are also used to denote mere frenzied utterance, and that primarily the prophetic gift is conceived of as a kind of insanity. We shall find that there is no ground for this, and that herein there is a difference between the prophets of Israel and the prophets of the nations.

CHAPTER III

THE EXTERNAL HISTORY OF THE PROPHETS

The attractiveness of the subject

THIS subject, though we must dismiss it with a single chapter, is a fascinating one. Some of the older treatments of it are dull through the lack of imagination, or through the wrong use of imagination. They regard the prophets as unearthly revealers of the divine will, with no human blood in them. Some of the more recent treatments are yet more faulty, rejecting half the biblical data, filling in the gaps thus made from conjecture or by inference from theory, and thus giving portraits utterly different from those in the bible, and immeasurably inferior. In contrast with both these modes of treatment would be that of one who should simply take the trouble to find out just what the biblical statements mean, using his imagination only to render the facts distinct and vivid. What we need is a treatment at once correct and imaginative. Why does not some one write a history of Israel in the form of a series of biographies of the prophets, working it up, not from Bible Dictionaries, not from volumes, not from Josephus, not from commentaries, not from theories of the evolution of religion, but purely from the data given in the bible? There are no heroes in history more picturesque or interesting or full of vitality than these same prophets, provided we picture them rightly.

Many of the books of reference affirm that the succes

sion of the prophets began with Samuel. In proof they cite passages from the Acts and from 1 Samuel. But the context in Samuel, as we shall see below, The division implies that prophecy was previously in exist- into periods ence, and that in the Acts affirms that prophecy had been in existence from the days of Moses, and, indeed, from the beginning of the world.1 Other parts of the record give details in abundance. Certainly the biblical view is that what occurred in Samuel's time was not an origination but a revival. There was then a new beginning in the progress of an ancient institution.

The biblical presentation of the history of the prophets is in very clearly marked chronological periods. The first great period, that before Samuel, includes as subordinate periods the pre-Abrahamic times, the patriarchal times, the times of the exodus, and the times of the Judges before Samuel. The prophets of the second great period, from Samuel to the close of the Old Testament, fall into six groups, namely, the group in which Samuel and Nathan and David were eminent, the Elijah and Elisha group, the Isaiah group, the Jeremiah group, the exilian prophets, and the postexilian prophets. Then any survey of these two great periods is incomplete unless supplemented by obtaining, in part from

1" Yea and all the prophets from Samuel and them that followed after ... told of these days" (Acts iii. 24). It is easy to understand this as affirming that Samuel was the earliest prophet, but the immediate context shows that the writer intended no such meaning. Only a few sentences previously he has used this language: "The times of restoration of all things, whereof God spake by the mouth of his holy prophets which have been since the world began." Moses indeed said: "A prophet shall the Lord God raise up unto you... like unto me" (Acts iii. 21–22, cf. vii. 37; Lc. i. 70). With this agrees the New Testament mention of the prophetic gift in the times of Balaam and of Enoch (2 Pet. ii. 16; Jude 14).

extrabiblical sources, some account of the closing of the succession of the prophets.1

I. We take up the first great period. The Old Testament agrees with the New in representing that the patriarchs exercised prophetic gifts, that such gifts were abundant in the time of Moses, and that they continued during the time between Moses and Samuel.

Books on the subject have been very free in ascribing prophetic phenomena to the times before Abraham.

Prophecy

before Abraham

Jude says that Enoch prophesied (14), and in Luke and the Acts it is affirmed that there have been holy prophets from the beginning of the world (Lc. i. 70; Acts iii. 21). Parts of the first eleven chapters of Genesis have figured largely in discussions concerning prophecy; for example, the protevangelium, the sacrifice of Abel, some of the experiences of Noah (Gen. iii. 15, iv, vi-ix, and New Testament parallels). Something very like prophetic character has been attributed to Adam, Seth, Enoch, Abel, Noah, and others. Any detailed consideration of these matters belongs to a later stage in our investigation. the present it is sufficient to note that the various terms denoting prophetic function are not used in the accounts of the times before Abraham; but that there is nothing to forbid the opinion that the writers of these accounts

For

1 The biblical account seems to be that with Samuel there began certain arrangements for cultivating the prophetic gift, which, thenceforward to the close of the Old Testament times, secured a more abundant succession of prophets than had previously existed. If we distinguish between prophets and prophetic men, applying the latter term to men who had prophetic gifts, but are better known in some other capacity, the great names before Samuel are of prophetic men only. It further happens to be true that the Old Testament books called the Prophets, in distinction from the Law and the Hagiographa, are ascribed in the traditions to the prophets of Samuel's time and later, while the Law and the Hagiographa are ascribed, in the main, to prophetic men.

thought of pre-Abrahamic men as possessing prophetic gifts.1

Old Testament history, however, properly begins with Abraham. From Abraham onward the Israelite literature is familiar with the distinctive titles and duties and powers that belong to a prophet.

The patri

archs were prophets

It is represented that Abraham and Isaac and Jacob had prophetic gifts, though this representation is not very greatly emphasized. Abraham is once expressly called a prophet. In the time when he led a migratory life, going from one country to another, we are told that Abimelech took posses-. sion of Abraham's wife. To him a revelation was made:

-

"And now,

restore thou the wife of the man, for he is a prophet, that he may make his prayer in thy behalf,” etc. (Gen. xx. 7 E).

One of the psalmists, centuries later, cites this incident in the following lines:

"And they went about from nation unto nation,

from one kingdom unto another people.

He suffered no man to wrong them,

and he rebuked kings for their sakes:

Touch ye not mine anointed ones,

and to my prophets do ye no harm."

(Ps. cv. 14-15, repeated in 1 Chron. xvi. 20-22.)

In addition to this one instance in which the word "prophet" is used, it is represented that Abraham had visions, and that the word of Yahaweh came to him in

1 One who accepts the Graf-Wellhausen analysis should observe that the passages which have commonly been cited as prophetic occur alike in the earlier and the later J and in P, though with characteristic differences. On any critical theory it is probable that all the authors of Genesis, earlier or later, thought of the prophetic gift as current among these predecessors of Abraham.