• An excellent account of general heathen mantlcism Is given
In K. Kohler, Dpr I'ruphetiitiiuu drr tlvlintrr, u. tlir MariUk iter
Gritchcn, IS'JIJ. The work of P. Scholz, (Jiitziiidini)il «. '/.aiUjer-
WfHMi Oft ilfn aiUn Uet/ruem u. den Utuichbartint yoikent,
I 1877, is less critical.
108 PROPHECY AND PROPHETS
PROPHECY AND PROPHETS
and to Israel. And here manticism and prophecy come in con- tact. The two agree in fomi, and have to be distinj^ished by other toliens, e.ij. by the pod in whose name the oracle was given, and perhaps by the fact that in the mantic ecstasy the consciousness was overpowered and lost, while in prophecy there was only exaltation of inind and loss of the consciousness of external thiiif^s.
The other thing's mentioned in Dt W"- are of the nature of magic or sorcery, and were always proscribed in the religion of J" (Ex 22'8, 1 S 28' '■•), though they continued in Israel till very late times. Saul names as legitimate sources of knowledge of the will of the deity, dreams, Uritn, and prophets (1 S 2S<'). Un- like divination, wliich seeks to ascertain the mind of the deity, magic was a means of binding superhuman powers (chietly demonic or chthonian), either to restrain them from injurmg oneself, or to constrain them to injure others, and put them under a spell, or to reveal what to mortal man was unknown. Tlie magical means might be— (1) protective, such as amulets (Gn S.i-i Is 33. 19) ; or (2) both protective and constraining, such as fonnulas of incantation (Ps 6S^i-, Dt 18", Is 47»- 12) ; an<l (3) necromancy. The last had several forms : (a) consulting theVii/, lb) consulting the yid'vni, and (c) consulting the dead. The forms (d) anillM are embraced in (c), though whether they ex- haust (c) is somewhat uncertain (Is 819 29-1, Lv 2027). Cf. W. R. Smith, Jmr. of PkUolugy, vol. xiii. 2"3fE., xiv. 113ff.; and Driver on Dt IsioT-.
ii. The Name Pkophet.— In 1 S 9" it is said, ' He that is now called " the prophet" (n'3: nabi') was beforetime called " the seer " (nx-i ru'eK).' The passage is an annotation, much later in date than the context, and cannot have been written before the name 'prophet' had been long current and attached to a succession of men. The radical meaning of the word nabi' is uncertain. Two terms are used for ' seer,' rffeh and huzeh (nin), though without diti'erence of sense. The annota- tor's remark might be supposed an inference from the fact that in the ancient record before him Samuel is called ' the seer.' Still that fact is of importance ; and the possibility that there was a time when the word ' seer ' was in common use may seem supported by the other fact that the word ' vision ' (j'ln, p-in, etc. ) connected with ' seer ' is used all down the literature for ' prophecy,' the term^ 'prophecy' (nebu'ah) connected witli 'prophet' being a fate word (Neh 6^^ 2 Ch 9-^ 15*). Much weight maj' not be due to this consideration, and on tiie other side may be urged the extraordinary rarity of the word ' seer,' though this again may be explained by supposing that all references to early times in which 'seer' might have been ex- pected to occur belong to writings which are pos- terior to the time when the word 'prophet' liad become the usage.* The author of the annotation 1 S il'' is familiar with 'prophets' who were great isolati'd personages, like Elijah and probably the canonical prophets; and lie considers the 'seer' Samuel to have been quite like one of these. This is certainly true of Samuel, though how far true of other seers of his day, if such existed, may be doubtful. The seer was an isolated personage like the great pro|ihets. Hut, further, the character- istic of the true 'projihet' was that he pursued nation.al religious ends. Samuel did this with more splendid initiative than the greatest of his suc- cessors. He created the nation by giving it a king ; they only sought to preserve it. But the seers of h'is day, if there was such a class, may have ministered rather to personal and private interests, as Samuel himself seems to have done on some occasions (1 S 9). In 1 S 3' it is said that ' vision ' when Samuel was young ' was not widely diffused'; but 'vision' is here used of true prophecy such as the author was familiar with in his own time. History leaves us in complete ignorance in regard to the seers. In fact, the only ' seer ' we know of is Samuel, and his history is told as in a very fragmentarv way. The historian gives a beautiful picture of his birth and childhood, narrating how he was dedicated by his mother to the Lord, and how J" sjioke to him in Shiloh as He
• For example On ■Jii' (Abraham), Ex 11)»> (Miriam), Nu 112«»- (Eldad «nd Meaad), Dt lsi», Jg 4« 68, 1 S 3a>, c(. V.
did to the canonical prophets afterwards (1 S 1-.3) ; but the narrative is smldenly broken otl', and when we hear of Samuel again he is already an old man, dwelling in Kamah, and known as ' the seer.- We learn from Jer 7'- that the house at Shiloh was at some time completely overthro\\'n — no doubt at the hands of the Philistines ; and Samuel driven from there took up his abode at Kamah. Though called a priest, the role of prophet was that accepted by him, as it is tliat usually as.4gned to him (1S9'^ Jer 15', Ps 99^ Ac 3'-^) ; and it was in the exercise of his r6le as prophet— statesman in the kingdom of God— that he interfered in so decisive a mannei in the national politics. It is true that the religion of J" did not as a rule create new agencies, but served itself of those already existing, into which it infused its own spirit, which gradually threw oH all heathen elements originally belonging to them. There may have been a class of 'seers' in the time of the Judges whose methods may not have been greatly unlike those in use among othei Shemitic peoples. But we know nothing of them. Samuel is the only ' seer ' known to history.