The Institutions of Priest and Prophet in Joshua Through Kings

Transcription

1 LESSON 24 OF 24 OT511 Old Testament Theology 1 Richard E. Averbeck, Ph.D. Professor of Old Testament and Semitic Languages at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois The following lecture has been produced for the Christian University GlobalNet and is copyrighted by Christian University GlobalNet, Grand Rapids, Michigan. All audio rights are reserved worldwide. No part of this material may be reproduced in any form whatsoever without the written permission of Christian University GlobalNet. The lecturer holds exclusive publication rights to all of the intellectual material in the lecture. Richard E. Averbeck, Ph.D.: We ve been working through the four major institutions in Ancient Israel from Deuteronomy 17 and 18. We now refer to the two in Deuteronomy 18: (1) priest and (2) prophet. In Deuteronomy 18:1-8, we have the institution of Levitical priest. Starting with 18:1: The Levitical priests, the whole tribe of Levi, shall have no portion or inheritance with Israel; they shall eat the Lord s offerings by fire and His portion. They shall have no inheritance among their countrymen; the Lord is their inheritance, as He promised them. So we have this general principle of Levitical priests. They don t have a special inheritance, a landed region. They do have the Levitical cities which we talked about before. Verse 18:3: Now this shall be the priests due from the people, from those who offer a sacrifice, either an ox or a sheep, of which they shall give to the priest the shoulder and the two cheeks and the stomach. These are all set out, these priestly portions, in Leviticus 7 in the latter part of that chapter, where the priest gets part of each one of the sacrifices in terms of the peace offerings where the meat is eaten rather than burnt on the altar. Verse 18:4: You shall give him the first fruits of your grain [so they get the first fruits as well], your new wine, and your oil, and the first shearing of your sheep. So even the wool. They get the first parts of all of this. Verse 18:5: For the Lord your God has chosen him and his sons from all your tribes, to stand and serve in the name of the Lord forever. So there we are talking in verses 18:3-5 specifically about the priests themselves. They are part of the Levitical family. Of course, they come from Aaron, so that s the priestly family within the Levitical Tribe. [Deuteronomy] 18:6: 1 of 15

2 Now if a Levite comes from any of your towns throughout Israel [in other words from the other families in the tribe of Levi] where he resides, and comes whenever he desires to the place which the Lord chooses, then he shall serve in the name of the Lord his God, like all his fellow Levites who stand there before the Lord. They shall eat equal portions, except what they receive from the sale of their fathers estates. Now they have these Levitical cities and they have their portions within these Levitical cities and the towns around. So they have the father s estates, but they are going to leave that and come to the sanctuary where the tabernacle is, later the temple, and they are going to function there because they re dedicating themselves for the Lord. Then you have Levites other than the priests who are also functioning in the temple perpetually. This is what this law is about: the priests and the Levities. We are talking about the family of Moses, and Aaron specifically. They were really considered to be the courtiers of the Lord s theocratic kingdom. They were the ones that took care of the tabernacle, the residence of the Lord; for example, maintaining it and leading the nation in worship. But they were also the ones who were given charge over the Law of God and Israel. So therefore, back in [Leviticus] 17, when we talk about the central court, they come to the central sanctuary, and there is the Levitical priest or the judge. And the Levitical priests, since they were custodians of the Law, would naturally be the ones that would have a better understanding of a difficult case that might be brought from the local regions. Likewise in 17:18, they would be the ones under whose supervision the king would come and write his own copy of the Law. And so they could rule according to the Law. The Levitical priests would be the supervisors of that because they are the custodians of the Law. They are the custodians of the tabernacle and the worship system. They also were the custodians of the Law. Now there are Ancient Near Eastern priestly systems that we could look at and so on. I have some of the references there, but we are not going to look into that at this point. One thing we do want to look at, however, is the difference between offerings and sacrifices that are offered at solitary altars whether by the Patriarchs in Genesis before the sanctuary was built or later also at other periods in the times of Israel s history the difference between that solitary altar worship system, whether that would be building an altar somewhere in a particular area, as opposed to the system of Tabernacle priestly worship in the Tabernacle at the altar there. There in the Tabernacle only priests could function in terms of offering sacrifices. They would take the blood and apply it and so on. Whereas at the solitary altars, other leaders of families and so on would do these kinds of things. There is basic legislation in Exodus 20 about this basic system. It is important to understand this because it shows up in the Historical Books. 2 of 15

3 Exodus 20:22-26: Then the Lord said to Moses, Tell the Israelites: You have seen for yourselves that I have spoken to you from heaven. This is in the context where they had seen the theophany on Mount Sinai. They have seen the Lord speak to them. They are afraid so they ve asked Moses to be the mediator. Verse 23: Do no make any gods to be alongside me; do not make yourselves gods of silver or gods of gold. So no other Gods and no idols. That s what they are not to do in worship in Ancient Israel. Now what are they supposed to do? Verse 20:24: Make an altar of earth for me. Now remember, this is before the tabernacle has been built. And this altar of earth is later used after the tabernacle. For example, in Deuteronomy 27, in Joshua 8 that gets followed up on. Gideon builds such an altar and so on. We will look at some of these passages. Make an altar of earth for me and sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, your sheep and goats and your cattle (Exodus 20:24). So they can be places of sacrifice. Now where? Wherever I cause My name to be honored, you are to come and I will bless you (Exodus 20:24). So you could build an altar wherever the Lord shows Himself specifically to come through in a theophany or something like this. This would be a normal place to build an altar. Furthermore: If you make an altar of stones for Me (Exodus 20:25). Now, it has been talking about making altar out of just packed earth, but you could also use stones. But when you do that, do not build it with dressed stones (Exodus 20:25). In other words, you don t wield your iron tool on it to shape it because that s like making an image. You don t make images and shape them and that sort of thing. So you don t do that with the stones either when you make this type of rugged, solitary altar. For you will defile it if you use a tool on it. Also, do not go up to my altar on steps, lest your nakedness be exposed on it (Exodus 20:25-26) the whole idea of proper clothing. Sometimes actually in the Ancient Near East, priests would officiate in the nude and this was an abomination to the Lord. So priestly garments become very important in this system of tabernacle and temple worship as it develops later. In these very natural, rugged altars, you weren t supposed to have steps. Thus, you wouldn t have a problem of the nakedness. Now this practice of solitary altar worship begins really way back with, say, Cain and Abel. And then Noah builds an altar in Genesis 8. And then in Genesis 12 with the Patriarchs you have Abraham coming into the land. In Genesis 12:7-8: The Lord appeared to Abram and said, To your descendents I will give this land. So he built an altar there to the Lord, who had appeared to him. Then he proceeded from there to the mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; and there he built an altar to the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord. It would be normal to approach the Lord through an altar and call upon the name of the Lord by building an altar. Moses did the same thing in Exodus of 15

4 And Joshua did it in Deuteronomy 27 leading into Joshua 8. Later on, Gideon did it as well in Judges 6. This is how Gideon gets introduced as the one who is going to be a judge over Israel. Judges 6:22: When Gideon saw that He [the one who had appeared to him] was the angel of the Lord, he said, Alas, O Lord God! For now I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face. Now his assumption is that since he has seen God, therefore he is going to die. Judges 6:23-27: The Lord said to him, Peace to you, do not fear; you shall not die. Then Gideon built an altar there to the Lord and named it The Lord is Peace. To this day it is still in Ophrah of the Abiezrites. Now on the same night the Lord said to him, Take your father s bull and a second bull 7 years old, and pull down the altar of Baal which belongs to your father [so his father is one who had an altar to Baal] and cut down the Asherah that is beside it; and build an altar to the Lord your God on the top of this stronghold in an orderly manner, and take a second bull and offer a burnt offering with the wood of the Asherah which you shall cut down. Then Gideon took 10 men of his servants and did as the Lord had spoken to him; and because he was too afraid of his father s household and the men of the city to do it by day, he did it by night. So he was told by God to build an altar and to offer sacrifice on it. This is a common thing and it is highly received by the Lord. There is no problem with these kinds of altars. In fact this is the battle that goes on between Elijah and the prophets of Baal in I Kings 18. In I Kings 18:20-30: So Ahab sent a message among all the sons of Israel and brought the prophets together at Mount Carmel. Elijah came near to all the people and said, How long will you hesitate between two opinions? Either serve the Lord or serve Baal. Elijah said to the people, I alone am left a prophet of the Lord, but Baal s prophets are 450 men. Now let them give us two oxen; let them chose one ox for themselves (I Kings 18:22-23), and you know the story. They offer theirs to Baal and they get no response. But Elijah offers to Yahweh, and he gets the Lord consuming the offerings from heaven on his altar. First Kings 18:30-32: Then Elijah said to all the people, Come near to me. So all the people came near to him. And he repaired the altar of the Lord which had been torn down [This is Elijah rebuilding a stone altar] Elijah took 12 stones according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, to who the word of the Lord had come, saying, Israel shall be your name. So with the stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord. And the Lord responds to this solitary altar that is out there. It is not anywhere near. This is on Mount Carmel, but not anywhere near where the temple is. The temple had already been built by this time. 4 of 15

5 Also in I Kings 19:9-10 when he [Elijah] is in despair over the whole situation with Jezebel, I Kings 19:9-10: The he came there to a cave and lodged there; and behold the Word of the Lord came to him, and He said to him, What are you doing here, Elijah? He said, I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the sons of Israel have forsaken Your covenant, torn down your altars and killed your prophets with the sword. So in this Northern Kingdom context, they were using altars to be faithful to the Lord. And the Lord responded to this faithfulness. So it was legitimate to have solitary altars in various places that were not just in the Temple or the Tabernacle earlier on. There are many, many other examples of this very thing. Now how do we explain this in light of passages like Leviticus 17. Let s turn to Leviticus 17. Now this is when they are going to be traveling through the wilderness to come to the Promise Land. In Leviticus 17:1-4: Then the Lord spoke to Moses saying, Speak to Aaron and to his sons and to all the sons of Israel and say to them, This is what the Lord has commanded saying, Any man from the house of Israel who slaughters an ox or a lamb or a goat in the camp, or who slaughters it outside the camp, and has not brought it to the doorway of the tent of the meeting to present it as an offering to the Lord before the tabernacle of the Lord, bloodguiltiness is to be reckoned to that man. He has shed blood and that man shall be cut off from among his people. Now the point is: in bringing peace offerings, part of the animal, of course, was eaten of the flesh of the animal. The blood had to go on the altar and so on. In the wilderness, when they were traveling together around the tabernacle through the wilderness, anytime you wanted to eat meat you needed to bring it to the tabernacle. The fat and the blood would be offered on the tabernacle on the altar, and then you would eat the meat of this peace offering. In this case, they are around the tabernacle, and the purpose, according to the passage, is so they don t go and sacrifice to other gods in the wilderness. If they go to the tabernacle, the priests will control who they are sacrificing to. Now in Deuteronomy 12, after the wilderness wanderings between Leviticus 17 and the book of Deuteronomy, 40 years later, we have what we call a centralized altar law. I want to start with Deuteronomy 12:1-3: These are the statutes and the judgments which you shall carefully observe in the land which the Lord, the God of your fathers, has given you to possess as long as you live on the earth. You shall utterly destroy all the places where the nations whom you shall dispossess serve their gods, 5 of 15

6 on the high mountains and on the hills and under every green tree. You shall tear down their altars and smash their sacred pillars and burn their Asherim with fire, and you shall cut down the engraved images of their gods and obliterate their name from that place [and so on]. Deuteronomy 12:5: But you shall seek the Lord at the place which the Lord your God will choose from all your tribes, to establish His name there for His dwelling, and there you shall come. In other words, when you come to worship the Lord, you don t worship at the places the Canaanites have been worshiping at. You come to the central place, the tabernacle, the temple. Deuteronomy 12:6: There you shall bring your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, the contribution of your hand, your votive offerings, your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herd and of your flock. Now the time when this is supposed to be happening we can determine from verses 12:8-11: You shall not do at all what we are doing here today, every man doing whatever is right in his own eyes; for you have not as yet come to the resting place and the inheritance which the Lord your God is giving you. When you cross the Jordan and live in the land which the Lord your God is giving you to inherit, and He gives you rest from all your enemies around you so that you live in security, then it shall come about that the place in which the Lord your God will choose for His name to dwell... there you shall bring all your offerings. Now in Deuteronomy, they are anticipating moving right into the land, conquering the land. Now they are going to be spread out in the land. So they have to now bring their offerings to the Lord at the central place where the tabernacle is. The rest of this chapter in Deuteronomy really talks about: Now what if you want to eat meat wherever you are along way from the central place? Well you would kill the animal, pour out the blood on the ground. You would not eat the blood, of course, because that only goes to the Lord. That s the representation of life. And you would eat it like wild game like if you killed a gazelle or something like that. You do not present it as a sacrifice. You present it as a sacrifice at the central place. But this is supposed to happen after they have rest in the land. Now when did they actually get rest in the land? Well it becomes clear from II Samuel 7 that the final rest where they really get control of the land is the time of David. Second Samuel 7:1-2: Now it came about when the king lived in his house, and the Lord had given him rest on every side from all his enemies, that the king said to Nathan the prophet, See now, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the Ark of God dwells within tent curtains [and so on.]. What he [David] is saying is, I want to build the temple. Well this was really 6 of 15

7 the time of rest and the time in which they were supposed to have centralized worship. Up to this point there was not rest really completely in the land. Even in the time of Joshua there was a certain level of control, but we ve seen all through Judges there was not rest in the land. So they could use these solitary altars in these various places. This is the way it was supposed to be. Centralization was meant for a time of rest. Well rest continued from the time of David through Solomon. But after the death of Solomon, you get the split of the North from the South, the Northern Kingdom and the Southern Kingdom. That creates a lack of rest again. So therefore in the Northern Kingdom, for example, in I Kings 18 that we looked at, it was very legitimate to use solitary altars simply because there was not rest in the land. The centralization principle has to do with that. That is why we can have central sanctuary worship like in the days of Eli and Samuel at the tabernacle in Shiloh. We can have that while at the same time you have altars spread out throughout the land through which people could in those places serve the Lord. This is the way it really worked in Ancient Israel. Now as we work through the Levitical priesthood, we see there is a whole history of this. There is pre-mosaic kinds of priesthoods, for example, Melchizedek in Salem, which is really Jerusalem, in Genesis 14. We have other Levitical concepts. And Jethro, Moses father-in-law, was a Priest of the Lord in Median where the Mountain of God was Sinai (Genesis 18). So he was a priest of the Lord there. We keep getting many different Levitical concepts even reflected back in Genesis because, of course, Genesis is written from the perspective of already having the Law in Moses day. Moses is actually the first priest of the nation. He is the one that ordains Aaron and his sons to be the priests. We have all sorts of different background things that go on, but when it comes right down to it, what happens is: in Deuteronomy 18:1-8, we have this system of Levites and priests that are to function within the central sanctuary context. Now in the history of Old Testament priesthood there are a lot of things that happen. And it is a rather checkered history and we can see this how it develops in the Historical Books. When we come to Eli in I Samuel, he is from the line of Ithamar. And we can see that by comparing certain passages in the Bible. And so you have Aarons sons: Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar. And there was a promise that was made to Phinehas back in Numbers 25 that he was going to have the ultimate line of the priesthood. Well Eli was from the other son Ithamar. Now as this develops, Eli, because of what he does with his sons and does not rebuke them and keep them in good order. He loses the line of the High Priest. That s what happens in I Samuel 3. It is talked about in I Samuel 3: What happens is that when we come to the time of Solomon in I Kings 2:27, we have Solomon s brother at Adonijah trying to take the throne nearing their father David s death. And, of course, one of the priests, Abiathar, is in support of him. Well the problem is that it doesn t work out. Adonijah is not successful. So we end up with Abiathar 7 of 15

8 falling out of favor. Well he is from the line of Ithamar as well. We come to I Kings 2:26-27: Then to Abiathar the priest the king [Solomon] said, Go to Anathoth to your own field, for you deserve to die; but I will not put you to death at this time, because you carried the ark of the Lord God before my father David, and because you were afflicted in everything with which my father was afflicted. So Solomon dismissed Abiathar from being priest to the Lord, in order to fulfill the Word of the Lord, which he had spoken concerning the house of Eli in Shiloh. So he was a descendent of Ithamar down through Eli and therefore the Eli prediction in I Samuel 3 is fulfilled in the times of Solomon. Instead then of Abiathar continuing to be priest, we have another priest, Zadok. First Kings 1:8: But Zadok the priest, Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, Nathan the prophet, and so on, warn David that Adonijah is trying to take the throne. Now Zadok is from the line of Eleazar through Phinehas, and now we get the fulfillment of the promise to Phinehas in Numbers 25 the priestly covenant there through the line of Zadok from the time of Solomon. It is interesting as we go through to the ideal temple being built in Ezekiel 44 actually chapters But in chapter 44, it refers to the Zadokite priests. In Ezekiel 44:15: But the Levitical priests, the sons of Zadok, who kept charge of My sanctuary when the sons of Israel went astray from Me, shall come near to Me to minister to Me; and they shall stand before Me to offer Me the fat and the blood, declares the Lord God. So the priests who remained faithful, even through the unfaithfulness of the nation, was the Zadokite line, and they, then, are the priesthood in the future. Now during the Intertestamental Period, the High Priesthood was alienated from the Zadokites for political reasons. Therefore the Qumran Community looked forward to the restoration of the Zadokite Priesthood. During that time, the High Priest was made by political appointment. The Qumran Community rejected this and this is one of the reasons the Essenes of the Qumran Community developed a separate community from the Jerusalem temple and its corruption. So this is a history that leads all the way through the Old Testament in terms of the development of the priesthood. And much more could be done with the particular individuals involved in all of this. We turn now to the institution of prophecy. From Hebrews 1:1, for example, in the New Testament we learn that this is the most important institution in biblical development for the inspiration, inscripturation, and canonicity really of the Bible. In Hebrews 1:1: God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed to be the heir of all 8 of 15

9 things, through whom also He made the world. Jesus is the ultimate prophet. The ultimate one through whom the revelation of God comes. The prophets are active in the Old Testament as the foundation for Jesus as this ultimate prophet. Now the judges were supposed to judge people righteously according to the Law. The kings were to rule according to the Law. The priests and the Levites were supposed to teach the Law. The prophets were supposed to teach the Lord s will, specifically, for the current situation whatever it might be. They were charismatic people who really brought the Word of the Lord to bear upon particular situations in Ancient Israel whether it be political or religious or whatever. They spoke from outside of the system. The priests and the Levites were really supported by a tithe system. That s in Numbers 18 and Deuteronomy 14 that it is talked about. But the prophets are not. The prophets do not receive any of the tithe. They are independent of the administrative, theocratic system. So they can speak from outside into it and they often do. So that you will hear a prophet rebuking a priest or you hear him rebuking a king or a judge or whatever. So we have this basic principle of the prophet being the one who stands outside and speaks into the situation. Now we have Ancient Near Eastern prophetic texts just like we have ancient Near Eastern legal texts and texts about priests and about kings. There are certain precursors to the institution of prophecy in the Old Testament. Abraham, for example, is called a prophet in Genesis 20. Aaron was a prophet. He was actually the one who spoke for Moses as Moses prophet. We can see this as a good illustration of the nature of the prophetic institution of who a prophet was. Staring in Exodus 6:28 7:2: Now it came about on the day when the Lord spoke to Moses in the land of Egypt, that the Lord spoke to Moses saying, I am the Lord, speak to Pharaoh king of Egypt all that I speak to you. But Moses said before the Lord, Behold, I am unskilled in speech; how then will Pharaoh listen to me? Then the Lord said to Moses, See, I make you as God to Pharaoh [ So you stand out as Me ], and your brother Aaron shall be your prophet. You shall speak all that I command you, and your brother Aaron shall speak to Pharaoh that he let the sons of Israel go out of his land. So the prophet is really the spokesman for God, is the idea in that passage. Miriam is a prophetess according to Exodus 15. We have all sorts of examples of this even in the Pentateuch with 70 elders in Numbers 11, where they receive the prophetic spirit in order to function effectively in helping Moses with the nation. And in fact, it is important that in that particular passage when Moses is dealing with the fact that some others were prophesying to those that had come outside of the camp, we get Numbers 11:29 where it says, Would that the Lord [this is Moses speaking] would make all the people prophets, so that the Lord would set His Spirit upon them. The close identity 9 of 15

10 between being a prophet and having the Spirit manifest in a person s life is found directly there. It is like the work of the Holy Spirit is identified with a prophetic institution in the Old Testament. Now in the Old Testament, the institution of prophecy, again, we come to Deuteronomy 18 for its basic regulations. We start with 18:9. Now we will read up through Deuteronomy verse 18:15: When you enter the land which the Lord you God gives you, you shall not learn to imitate the detestable things of those nations. There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, one who uses divination, one who practices witchcraft, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or one who casts a spell, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. For whoever does these things is detestable to the Lord; and because of these detestable things the Lord your God will drive them out before you. You shall be blameless before the Lord your God. For those nations, which you shall dispossess, listen to those who practice witchcraft and to diviners, but as for you, the Lord your God has not allowed you to do so. [Instead of that], the Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your countrymen, an Israelite like me. You shall listen to him. So prophecy in this passage stands in contrast to divination and witchcraft. This section in 18:9-15 displays that. This is in contrast to that. In the ancient world, divination, various forms of that, were used. And this was something that was common and was practiced in Canaan. The Lord is saying, No, you don t do that. The way you are to learn about what to do in a particular situation is not through divination, witchcraft, sorcery, any kinds of spells, any kinds of readings of things, or anything like that. You go to a prophet. I will speak through the prophet to you. He is my mouthpiece. The combination of these two things, divination and sorcery, and how prophecy replaces that is seen, for example, in I Samuel 28 when because Saul cannot get an answer from the Lord through the Ureem and the Tumeem that the priests had for making decisions, and he couldn t get an answer through a prophet either, what he does is he goes and he finds a witch. And in that context he is actually going from the legitimate means, and because he can t get an answer that way, he is trying the illegitimate means. The result is, of course, a very surprising result, and he still gets a prophet, Samuel, speaking from the dead in such a way that would make it clear that the reason you are not getting an answer from the Lord is because the Lord is not in support of you as the king of Israel any longer. That s what happens in I Samuel 28, the relationship between divination, sorcery, and so on. And prophecy is the right way of going about finding God s Word and is very important in the Old Testament. 10 of 15

11 Now some prophets were peculiar in that they were special prophets like Moses was. Numbers 12 talks about how Moses is special, more than all the other prophets. Others have dreams, and so on. But Moses, God spoke to him face-to-face. And there are prophets that come later on. Samuel may be one [as well as] others that the Lord speaks face-to-face. But in the long run the real background for understanding this is in John 1:21 where they are asking John the Baptist, Are you that prophet? No, ultimately that prophet, who is the ultimate Mosaic type prophet, is Jesus, and that s what is being reflected there. Now the prophet is a mediator. God spoke through him. In Deuteronomy 18:16, we will read through verse 18: This is according to all that you ask of the Lord your God in Horeb on the day of the assembly, saying, Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God, let me not see this great fire anymore, or we will die. This is referring back to Exodus 20 when they asked Moses to be their mediator. So Moses speaks for God. The Lord said to me, They have spoken well [the Lord responded well to that]. I will raise up a prophet from among their countrymen like you [in other words like Moses], and I will put My words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him (Deuteronomy 18:17-18). Now, of course, Moses is giving these sermons in Deuteronomy because he is about to die. So he is looking forward to them having prophetic guidance after his death. And there are going to be prophets raised up that are standing there to be the resources for God s direction in particular situations. Now in Deuteronomy 18:19-22: In shall come about that whoever will not listen to My words which he shall speak [in which the prophet shall speak] in My name, I Myself will require it of him. But the prophet who speaks a word presumptuously in My name which I have not commanded him to speak, or which he speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die (verses 19-20). So now we get an introduction to the problem of the false prophets. Verses 18:21-22: You may say in your heart, How will we know the word which the Lord has not spoken? When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing does not come about or come true, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him. Now a true prophet is to be obeyed and feared as a spokesman for God. False prophets may speak presumptuously by saying that the Lord has said something to them when He really hasn t or they could speak in the name of another god, not even saying that they are speaking for Yahweh; for example, 11 of 15

12 the prophets of Baal that we ve looked at in I Kings 18. There are tests, then, of true prophecy. Now part of the problem is that it looks like we have a catch 22 situation here in verses 18: You may say in your heart, How will we know the word which the Lord has not spoken? When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing does not come about or come true, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken. Now it looks like you are supposed to believe in the prophet if he is true and do what he says, but according to this you know if he is a true prophet by whether or not what he says comes true. So how do you work that out since it may be too late by that time to know whether he is a true prophet and therefore obey him? Really what this is talking about is the fact that a certain prophet, for example, Moses or, later, Samuel (in I Samuel 3 we looked at the passage where he gained such a reputation where whatever he said the Lord never let it fail. He was a true prophet that spoke the true Word of God. There was a reputation gained over a certain period of time), so if a prophet with a reputation like Moses or Samuel comes to you, then obviously you fear what he says and you do it. You consider it to be a word directly from God. So reputation is one way of testing prophecy. Another way is the practice of asking for a sign to confirm the truthfulness of the prophet s words. There are many different examples of this in the Bible. One that really stands out in the Old Testament is Isaiah 38 when Isaiah is given an oracle that he is going to die. There are a lot of interesting things in this passage, but it illustrates the point we are trying to make here as well. Isaiah 38:1-5: In those days Hezekiah became mortally ill. And Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz came to him and said to him, Thus says the Lord, Set your house in order, for you shall die and not live. Then Hezekiah turned his face toward the wall, and prayed to the Lord and said, Remember now, O Lord, I beseech You, how I have walked before You in truth and with a whole heart, and have done what is good in Your sight. And Hezekiah wept bitterly. Then the Word of the Lord came to Isaiah, saying, Go and say to Hezekiah, Thus says the Lord, the God of your father David, I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; behold, I will add 15 years to your life. Now this, of course, brings hope to Hezekiah. But how is he going to know that this is true? Well the passage goes on in 38:6-7. I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria; and I will defend this city. This shall be the sign to you from the Lord, that the Lord will do this thing that He has spoken. In other words, add the 15 years. Verse 38:8: Behold, I will cause the shadow of the stairway, which has gone down with the sun on the stairway of Ahaz, to go back 10 steps. So the sun s shadow went back 10 steps on the stairway on which it had gone down. So that was the sign that could be done right in that time when this promise is given to Hezekiah that would show, that would demonstrate that the prediction of 15 more years was true. 12 of 15

13 It was an immediate sign that you could depend on the message that had just been given. This keeps on happening in the New Testament where Jesus is, of course, the ultimate extension of this prophetic institution in the Old Testament, the culmination of it all. He does many signs. In fact, John 20:30 talks about the signs that He does so that you can believe that He truly is the Son of God, the Messiah of Israel. And in I Corinthians 1 you have this passage that talks about the Greeks they desire wisdom, the Jews desire signs. They wanted proofs that God was speaking through the particular person. First John 4, we have testing of the Spirits. In those particular places, and in many others in the New Testament in the Gospels Jesus actually does signs specifically to show that He is the Messiah. Now what He gets frustrated with is when people want the signs but don t want to believe the message. The purpose of the signs is to demonstrate the message. The message is to proclaim who Jesus is and then because He does the signs you are supposed to believe the message. They just wanted the signs. This frustrated Jesus. And at certain points He would say, You want another sign. Well I m not going to give you one because you are not going to believe My message anyway. The only purpose of the signs is to confirm the prophetic message. Therefore there was frustration that Jesus faced with people always looking for signs. Now this prophet then, he speaks in the name of Yahweh, not any other God. He would never call for rebellion against the Lord. Ezekiel chapter 13 talks about that. And prophecy, then, is a supernatural phenomenon that God speaks through people with. And there are lots of supernatural phenomenon some of the divination things that happen, predictions and all of this. We know that there are other supernatural powers in the world besides God. God is over all things, but there are other supernatural powers. And that just is a reality that is admitted in the Bible and we know that is true. The issue is not whether a power that is speaking is supernatural, the question is whether it is from God, Who is the sole authority in heaven and in earth. So even if somebody is right about predictions, that doesn t make any difference unless they are really a servant of God with their predictions or with their preaching that comes out of the predictions. Now there are stages in the development of prophetic history in the Old Testament. You have the Pentateuch where, of course, Moses is the real prophet. Abraham is referred to as a prophet before that. But Moses is the founder of the full orbed prophetic institution. In the Jewish Hebrew Bible canon, Joshua through II Kings as we ve already mentioned is referred to as the Former Prophets, excluding Ruth which is in the Writings. This is most likely because they were written by the prophets and they are not prophetic oracular books, although there are some oracles in it. But these are history written from a prophetic perspective. Deborah is referred to as a prophetess. You have unnamed prophets throughout the Bible. Samuel was confirmed as a prophet. You get various groups of prophets through the Samuel/Kings 13 of 15

14 history as well. And these are referred to in certain places. For example, in the time when you have the anointing of Saul back in I Samuel 10:5. Samuel says: Afterwards you will come to the hill of God where the Philistine garrison is; and it shall be as soon as you have come there to the city, that you will meet a group of prophets coming down from the high place with harp, tambourine, flute, and a lyre before them, and they will be prophesying [and so on. They are going to be doing worship as prophets]. Then the Spirit of the Lord will come upon you mightily, and you shall prophesy with them and be change into another man (verses 5-6). The Spirit will coming upon him in this certain way. First Samuel 10:9-11: Then it happened when he turned his back to leave Samuel, God changed his heart; and all those signs came about on that day. When they came to the hill there, behold, a group of prophets met him; and the Spirit of God came upon him mightily, so that he [Saul] prophesied among them. It came about, when all who knew him previously saw that he prophesied now with the prophets, that the people said to one another, What has happened to the son of Kish? Is Saul also among the prophets? He has not been in that category before and now they are wondering, What is going on here? He has changed into a different person. We can continue. We have these groups of the prophets mentioned through here. They are actually groups that are under, for example, Elijah or Elisha. They have prophets following them that are not the major prophet at the time. The major prophet was like the father of this prophetic group. And they were actually the followers, the disciples, of these major prophets. We have other major prophets that are referred to that are not writing prophets; for example, Gad or Nathan, who rebuked David; or Ahijah the Shilohnite, and various others. This continues on down through the Divided Kingdom and into the restoration periods where you have famous prophets like Elijah and Elisha, Micaiah. Then you come to the time when you begin to get with Jonah, classical literary prophets. In other words, prophets that actually have books written with their oracles in them. And Jonah really is the first one. According to II Kings 14:25: He restored the border of Israel from the entrance of Hamath as far a the Sea of the Arabah, according to the word of the Lord, the God of Israel, which He spoke through His servant Jonah, son of Amittai, the prophet from of Gathhepher. See Jonah had a ministry in the northern kingdom of Israel at that time referred to here in II Kings. We know him more through the book of Jonah where his ministry is to go preach to the Ninevites, which he resisted drastically, because he would rather see the people of Assyria destroyed, so he runs away. Finally he s forced, and he gets upset even at the success of his preaching in Assyria. 14 of 15

15 The last prophet in the Old Testament is Malachi, and the end of Malachi is important for understanding how the Old Testament comes to its conclusion. In Malachi, in the last verses of the Old Testament, we read this (4:1): Behold, the day is coming, burning like a furnace, when the Lord is going to come and there s going to be a special day, and people are to get prepared for that day. Verse 4: Remember the Law of Moses My servant, even the statutes and ordinances which I commanded him in Horeb for all Israel. Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord. He will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their father, so that I will not come and smite the land with a curse. So the Old Testament is open ended; looking forward to a time when Elijah is going to come. We find out in the New Testament in Matthew 11:14 that this Elijah is John the Baptist, the first prophet in the New Testament to announce the coming of Jesus and lead into the ministry of Jesus as the ultimate prophet of all time. This course is a part of the curriculum offered through Christian University GlobalNet (CUGN). To learn more, visit us at All material in the preceding lecture is protected by registered international copyright and may not be reproduced in any form whatsoever without the written permission of Christian University Globalnet. 15 of 15