ri-k of the title of a 1 k published in our own days,
On tin Prophetical off, ofth Church (Oxf. I i ing misunderstood. In fact, the English word prophet, like the word inspiration, has always been used in a larger and in a closer sense. In the larger sen- our Lord Jesus Christ is a " prophet." .Moses is a •• prophi i." Mohammed is a " prophet." The expression means that they proclaimed and published a new religious dispen- sation. In a similar, though not identical sense, the Church is said to have a "prophetical," i.e. :m exposi- tory and interpretative, office. But in its closer sense the word, according to usage, though not according to etymology, involves the idea of foresight. This is and always has keen its more usual acceptation. The differ- ent meanings, or shades of meaning, in which the ab- stract noun is employed in Scripture have keen drawn out by Locke as follows: - Prophecy comprehends three things: prediction ; singing by the dictate of the Spirit ; and understanding and explaining the mysterious, hid- den sense of Scripture by an immediate illumination and motion of the Spirit" (Paraphrase of 1 Cor. xii. note. p. 121 j Loud. 17 k_' >. It is in virtue id' this last signification of the word licit the prophets of tie New Test, are so called (1 Cor. xii); by virtue of the second that the sons of i,saph, etc., are said to have "proph- esied with a harp" (xxv, 3), and Miriam and Deborah are termed "prophetesses." That the idea of potential if not actual prediction enters into the conception ex- pressed by the word prophecy, when that, word is used to di 'signal e the function of the Hebrew prophi ts, seems to he proved by the following passages of Scripture: Dent, xviii. ■_>•_''; Jer. xxviii,9; Ads ii. 30; iii. 18 21;
l I'.i. i. Hi: 2 Pet. i. 19,20; iii. 2. Ety logically,
however.it is eeriain that neither prescience nor pre- diction is implied by the term used in the Hebrew lan- guage. Put it seems to l,i' incorrect to say that the English word was "originally" used in the wid< r sense of "preaching." and that it became "limited" to the meaning of "predicting" in the 17th century, in con- sequence of "an etymological mistake" (Stanley, Lect. xix, xx). The word entered into the English language in ii- sense of predicting. It could not have keen oth- erwise, for at the time of the formation of the English language the word Trpo<pi]Ttia had. by usage, assumed popularly the meaning of prediction. We find it ordi- narily employed by early as well as by late writers in this sense (see Polydore Virgil, Hist. of England, iv, nil [ Camden ed. 1 sp; ] : Coventry ifysteries,[>.6o [Shake- speare Soc. ed. 1841 |). It is probable that the mean- ing was " limited" to " predict ion" as much and as little before the 17th century as it has keen since.
II. Th Prophetical Order. 1. Tts Historical Develop- ment.— Generally speaking, every one was a prophet to whom (oid communicated his mind in this peculiar manner. Thus, e. g. Abraham is called a prophet (Gen. w. 7), not, as is commonly thought, on account of gen- eral revelations granted him by God, but because such
as he received were in the special Crin described; a-, indeed, iii chap, xv it is expressly stated that divine communications were made to him in visions and dreams. The patriarchs as a class arc in the same manner called prophets (Psa. cv, 15). Moses is more specifically a prophet, a- b< ing a proclaimer of a new dispensation, a
PROPHET
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PROPHET
revealer of God's will, and in virtue of his divinely in- spired songs (Exod. xv ; Deut. xxxii, xxxiii ; Psa. xc) ; but his main work was not prophetical, and he is there- fore formally distinguished from prophets (Numb, xii, 6) as well as classed with them (Deut. xviii, 15; xxxiv, 10). Aaron is the prophet of Moses (Exod. vii, 1) ; Mir- iam (xv, 20) is a prophetess; and we find the pro- phetic gift in the elders who '• prophesied" when "the Spirit of the Lord rested upon them," and in Eldad and Medad, who "prophesied in the camp" (Numb, xi, 27). At the time of the sedition of Miriam, the possible ex- istence of prophets is recognised (xii, 6).
When the Mosaic economy had been established, a new element was introduced. The sacerdotal caste then became the instrument by which the members of the Jewish theocracy were taught and governed in things spiritual. Eeast and fast, sacrifice and offering, rite and ceremony, constituted a varied and ever-recurring sys- tem of training and teaching by type and symbol. To the priests, too, was intrusted the work of '• teaching the children of Israel all the statutes which the Lord hath spoken unto them by the hand of Moses" (Lev. x, 11). Teaching by act and teaching by word were alike their task. This office they adequately fulfilled for some hundred or more years after the giving of the law at Mount Sinai. But during the time of the Judges the priesthood sank into a state of degeneracy, and the peo- ple were no longer affected by the acted lessons of the ceremonial service. They required less enigmatic warn- ings and exhortations. Under these circumstances a new moral power was evoked — the regular Prophetic Line. Special functionaries of this kind had from time to time already appeared. In the days of the Judges we find that Deborah (Judg. iv, 4) was a prophetess; a prophet (vi, 8) rebuked and exhorted the Israelites when oppressed by the Midianites; and in Samuel's childhood "a man of God" predicted to Eli the death of his two sons, and the curse that was to fall on his descendants (1 Sam. ii, 27). But it was now time for a more formal institution of the prophetic order. Samuel, himself a Levite,of the family of Kohath (1 Chron. vi, 28), and certainly acting as a priest, was the instrument used at once for effecting a reform in the sacerdotal order (ix, 22), and for giving to the prophets a position of influence which they had never before held. So important was the work wrought by him that he is classed in Holy Scripture with Moses (Jer. xv, 1; Psa. xcix, 6; Acts iii, 24), Samuel being the great religious reformer and organizer of the pro- phetical order, as Moses was the great legislator and founder of the priestly rule. Nevertheless, it is not to be supposed that Samuel created the prophetic order as a new thing before unknown. The germs both of the prophetic and of the regal order are found in the law as given to the Israelites by Moses (Deut. xiii, 1 ; xviii, 20 ; xvii, 18), but they were not yet developed, because there was not yet the demand for them. Samuel, who evolved the one, himself saw the evolution of the other. It is a vulgar error respecting Jewish history to suppose that there was an antagonism between the prophets and the priests. There is not a trace of such antagonism. Isaiah may denounce a wicked hierarchy (i, 10), but it is because it is wicked, not because it is a hierarchy. Malachi " sharply reproves" the priests (ii. 1), but it is in order to support the priesthood (comp. i, 14). Mr. E. W. Newman even designates Ezekiel's writings as "hard sacerdotalism," "tedious and unedifying as Leviticus itself" (Hebr. Monarch, p. 330). The prophetical order was, in truth, supplemental, not antagonistic, to the sacerdotal. See Samuel.