6. Finally, it must be Proponpces, a@ gross exag- geration to think of al/ the activity of the pro-
hets as carried on under ecstatic conditions. When a prophet begins his message with the expression ‘ Thus saith the LORD’ (7° 7px 45), or introduces into his address the very frequent
674 RELIGION OF ISRAEL
RELIGION OF ISRAEL
Neen ee ee eee eee eee eee nee ee ee
‘word of the LorD’ (77 oy3), he means to claim that he does not speak a message of his own creation, like the false prophets: Jahweh must have spoken to him before he can proclaim the word of Jahweh. But this does not imply that the inspiration from Jahweh must in every instance be connected with the throwing of the prophet into the ecstatic condition. It may, further, be asked whether for every particular message of the prophets there was needed a special inspiration from Jahweh, or whether we should not rather hold that they always spoke in the power of the spirit of God, which was imparted to them at their call. The answer is, that both these possibili- ties are witnessed to in the Prophetical writings. (a) In the story of the call of Isaiah (6°), as well as in that of Jeremiah (19%) and of Ezekiel (2°* and 3178.) we hear of a general commission from God to these prophets, a kind of programme of their ministry, to which at all times they are to give heed in word and act.
(6) But, on the other hand, we possess also some notable evidences that the word of Jahweh may in a particular instance be at first withheld, and only communicated after a while.—(a) Thus the prophet Habakkuk can at first give no reply to the com- plaint which he has to make to Jahweh (in chapter 1). Nay, he resolves to take his stand upon his watch-tower* to look out and to learn what Jahweh has to say to him, and what reply He will make to his grievance. And, in fact, Jahweh answers him at once, and even commands him to write down the revelation he receives.
But there are two testimonies of Jeremiah which point still more clearly in the same direction.—(f) When the false prophet, Hananiah of Gibeon, in the presence of Jeremiah proclaims to priests and Role as a word from Jahweh (Jer 281") that the yoke of Nebuchadrezzar is about to be broken, and the temple-vessels carried away under Jehoia- kim to be brought back from Babylon, Jeremiah gives his Amen to this. He expresses, indeed, his suspicion at the suddenness of the change from the predictions of woe uttered by the old prophets to the opposite. But he allows Hananiah to take from his neck and break the yoke which he had worn for some time as a threatening allusion to the yoke of the Chaldzans. Straightway Jere- miah takes his departure. But soon thereafter the command comes to him from God to announce to Hananiah that Jahweh would put an iron yoke in place of the wooden one broken by him, and would bring all nations under the yoke of Nebu- chadrezzar. Hananiah himself was further to be told that as a false prophet he was doomed to die the same year. And so it fell out in the seventh month of that year. In this whole transaction it is highly noteworthy that Jeremiah at first con- siders it possible that Hananiah has spoken a true message from Jahweh, because he himself has received none to a contrary effect, but that after- wards he has no hesitation in opposing his subse- quent communication from Jahweh to Hananiah’s
*The much discussed passage, Is 216f., belongs (if we adopt the present text) to a different category. We leave it an open question whether this oracle belongs to Isaiah (dating from c. 710 B.c.), or whether it should not rather be placed about the year 540. In y.6 Jahweh bids the prophet set a watcher, who is to mount the tower and tell what he sees. This is generally explained as an embodiment of the fact that the prophet, under the influence of the Divine spirit, distinguishes in himself, as it were, two personalities. According to Duhm (Com. on Isaiah, p. 129), ‘the meaning of the command is that the prophet is to yield himself to catalepsy (cf. above, p. 6735) and let loose from himself the angel, who, untrammelled by the bodily senses, can perceive supra-sensual things.’ But it is hardly open to ques- tion that the present text of v.6is due to a misunderstanding of the Massorah, and ought, with Buhl (ZA7'W, 1888, p. 157 ff.) and Stade (ib. p. 165 ff.), to be emended so as to read as a com- mand of Jahweh to the prophet to mount the tower. Thus the catalepsy alleged by Duhm falls away of itself, and Is 216 becomes a simple parallel to Hab 21.
lying word. Here, again, all notion of mere imagination or invention on the part of the pro- phet is absolutely excluded. What he speaks is based upon real, direct inspiration.
(y) The other testimony, which is no less char- acteristic, is found in Jer 42'@, The remnant of the people, which had fled from Mizpah after the murder of Gedaliah, beg the prophet to give them a message from Jahweh to indicate the right course for them to pursue, and assure him that, whatever be the instructions, they will carry them