Who it is about
The prophets
The men and women who carried God's word to power.
“The Lord sent me to prophesy - My commission is from him, and my words are his own. I sought not this painful office. I did not run before I was sent.”
“Thus saith the Lord, I have returned to Jerusalem with mercies. I was going away in wrath, but I am now returning in love.”
“'You seer, go, flee away to the land of Judah. There eat bread, and prophesy there.”
A prophet in the Bible is not primarily someone who predicts the future. A prophet is someone who carries God's own words to people who often do not want to hear them. Prediction is sometimes part of the job. Confrontation almost always is.
The pattern starts with a promise. Moses told Israel that God would raise up a prophet like him from among their own people, and that this prophet would speak everything God commanded (Deuteronomy 18:18). That promise set the shape for every prophet who followed, and Christians have long read it as pointing all the way forward to Christ.
Samuel is the first prophet whose call is told in detail. He was a boy sleeping in the temple when God called his name three times before he understood what was happening. His answer became the model prayer of a prophet's life: speak, Lord, for your servant is listening (1 Samuel 3:10).
Being a prophet rarely meant an easy life. Elijah, after his greatest victory over the prophets of Baal, ran for his life and told God he was the only faithful person left in the whole nation (1 Kings 19:10). Isaiah's call came with a vision so overwhelming that he cried out, then still answered when God asked who would go: here I am, send me (Isaiah 6:8).
Jeremiah is perhaps the clearest picture of what the calling actually cost. God told him before he was even born that he was set apart to be a prophet to the nations (Jeremiah 1:5). Jeremiah tried to stop speaking God's word because of how much trouble it brought him, but he said the word was like a fire shut up in his bones, and he could not hold it in (Jeremiah 20:9). Ezekiel received a similar commission, sent to a rebellious people whether they would listen or not (Ezekiel 2:3).
Amos makes the point that being a prophet was never about pedigree. He was a shepherd and a farmer, not trained in any prophetic school, but he said plainly that the LORD took him from his flock and told him to prophesy (Amos 7:14). When the priest at Bethel tried to run him off, Amos did not budge. The prophets as a group carried this same conviction, stated almost like a law: the LORD does nothing without revealing it first to his servants the prophets (Amos 3:7).
Not every prophet ran toward the call. Jonah ran the opposite direction from Nineveh, trying to escape God's assignment by ship (Jonah 1:3). God did not let him go, and the story ends with a stubborn prophet still arguing with a patient God.
Jesus placed himself in this same long line of rejected messengers. He said his own hometown would not accept him, because no prophet is welcomed in his own country (Luke 4:24), and he told his followers that the world had persecuted the prophets before them for the very same reasons it would persecute them (Matthew 5:12).
The writer of Hebrews sums up the whole prophetic era in a single sentence: God spoke to Israel's ancestors at many times and in many ways through the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken through his Son (Hebrews 1:1). Every prophet's word pointed somewhere beyond itself. Jesus is where all of it was pointing.
Read in full, not just cited
The 3 verses the essay above leans on hardest
I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. I will put My words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything I command him.Then the LORD came and stood there, calling as before, “Samuel! Samuel!” And Samuel answered, “Speak, for Your servant is listening.”“I have been very zealous for the LORD, the God of Hosts,” he replied, “but the Israelites have forsaken Your covenant, torn down Your altars, and killed Your prophets with the sword. I am the only one left, and they are seeking my life as well.”13 passages
Where Scripture speaks
I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. I will put My words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything I command him.God promises to raise up a prophet like Moses — the pattern for every prophet after
Then the LORD came and stood there, calling as before, “Samuel! Samuel!” And Samuel answered, “Speak, for Your servant is listening.”young Samuel's call — 'speak, LORD, for thy servant heareth'
“I have been very zealous for the LORD, the God of Hosts,” he replied, “but the Israelites have forsaken Your covenant, torn down Your altars, and killed Your prophets with the sword. I am the only one left, and they are seeking my life as well.”Elijah, after his greatest victory, tells God he is the only faithful one left
Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying: “Whom shall I send? Who will go for Us?” And I said: “Here am I. Send me!”Isaiah's call — 'here am I; send me'
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I set you apart and appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”Jeremiah set apart as a prophet before he was even born
If I say, “I will not mention Him or speak any more in His name,” His message becomes a fire burning in my heart, shut up in my bones, and I become weary of holding it in, and I cannot prevail.God's word like fire shut up in Jeremiah's bones — the prophetic burden
“Son of man,” He said to me, “I am sending you to the Israelites, to a rebellious nation that has rebelled against Me. To this very day they and their fathers have rebelled against Me.Ezekiel sent to a rebellious people whether they listen or not
Surely the Lord GOD does nothing without revealing His plan to His servants the prophets.the LORD does nothing without revealing it first to his prophets
“I was not a prophet,” Amos replied, “nor was I the son of a prophet; rather, I was a herdsman and a tender of sycamore-fig trees.Amos was no trained prophet, only a shepherd the LORD took and sent
Jonah, however, got up to flee to Tarshish, away from the presence of the LORD. He went down to Joppa and found a ship bound for Tarshish. So he paid the fare and went aboard to sail for Tarshish, away from the presence of the LORD.Jonah runs from his prophetic assignment rather than toward it
Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets before you.Jesus names the pattern of persecution the prophets before him already bore
Then He added, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in his hometown.no prophet is accepted in his own country
On many past occasions and in many different ways, God spoke to our fathers through the prophets.the whole prophetic era summarized before it gives way to the Son
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