72. Why the Old Testament Prophets Were so Full of Doom and Gloom.

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Many people, including many Christians, keep away from the Old Testament Prophets, unless they are reading Isaiah 53, 54 or 61, or something of that ilk. By “that ilk” I mean the comforting chapters of scripture that have a distinctly “feel good” factor. This augurs very badly for the body of Christ and a grasp of who and what the Old Testament prophets were and what their calling was all about.

Startling insights in the One Liners of the Old Testament Prophets

There are also various breathtaking single verses speckled throughout the writing prophets that stand alone as classic spiritual insights that are eternally valid and feed the rationale of one’s faith. Verses like Hosea 4:6: “My people perish for lack of knowledge,” or a section of Hosea 8:7: “They sow to the wind and they reap the whirlwind,” are often sermonically applied by evangelical preachers without the slightest educational reference to the context or the social climate to which the words were originally spoken.  I will freely accede to the fact that the truth contained in such verses (and there are lots of one liners of this calibre) can stand alone solidly and teach much. I have heard quite a few addresses in my life where these verses, or similar one liners were the proof texts of some sterling gospel presentation, However, it is my conviction that almost any reference to the Old Testament prophets in public addresses, commonly demand some kind of explanation as to why the prophets were down on their people so heavily. One or two of the sermons I have heard on Hosea 4:6 comprised of great theology and an understanding of what the verse means, but without the slightest reference as to the context of why it was written or even who wrote it.

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The opening chapter of Isaiah is a classic example of the need to explain and expound. A society described as the opening verses graphically portray must have been a hideous place to exist in.  I believe it is necessary to educate Christian people generally as to what the prophets were all about and the muck and the mire of the society they were addressing needs to be highlighted to properly understand them.  An intelligent pronouncement of the social and historical context of the Old Testament writing prophets should clearly explain to the Christian masses why it is unsound to speak such condemnatory language in the New Testament age, and yet so profoundly necessary in the Old Testament for the Hebrew prophets in Israel and Judah to do so.  It would also highlight the whys and wherefores of New Testament prophecy not being modeled by the Old Testament content. The historical word of God needs to be seen in the context of its social and historical setting to be understood why certain prophets emphasized certain truths or went off in certain directions of morality or faith. The single unshakeable parallel between Old and New Testament prophecy is the fact that they are both the words of God to the generation in which they were first uttered, and therefore to be studied and absorbed.

Misunderstood usage of the Old Testament Prophets in the New Testament

Getting back to why the Old Testament prophets are not read as commonly as other sections of scripture; we also have those Old Testament statements in the prophets that many don’t quite understand in their Old Testament context but have interpretive light shed on them by the New Testament quoting of them. They cause consternation amongst some preachers and the general population of Christians simply because some of the applications of the prophets’ statements, when quoted in the New Testament, seem to break every expository principle known to Theologians the world over. For example Hosea 11:1: “When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt.” This verse in Hosea is clearly referring to Moses leading Israel out of Egypt in the book of Exodus i.e. history past. However, this verse caused Matthew to be inspired of the Holy Spirit to defer it to the baby Christ taken to Egypt in order to spare His life, i.e. future predicted: “And was there until the death of Herod: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called my son.” (Matt 2:15).

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Preachers need to make sure this is handled correctly when presented to congregations and students. Another similarly mysterious peace of New Testament interpretation is Matthew 2:23 where the author states, “And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene.”  But scholars confirm and unanimously agree that there is no known verse in the Hebrew canon that tells us, “He shall be called a Nazarene.” However, Zechariah 6:12 is utterly educational. It says: “And speak unto him, saying, This is what the Lord of hosts says, “Behold the man whose name is “The Branch.”  And he shall grow up out of his place, and he shall build the temple of the Lord.”  The word “Branch” in biblical Hebrew is a word that could be transliterated into English as, “Natzer,” or “Netzer.” In Hebrew, the word “branch” actually only consists of three consonantal letters: N Z R. The town Nazereth stands out as having the same three primary letters. The word for the “Branch” in Zechariah 6:12 sounds very similar to the Hebrew word for “branch.”  “He shall be called …” is just a legitimate variation of the original Hebrew into English. So there is a verse of scripture that tells us that Jesus was a Nazarene.

My point is that this kind of mystery in the translation process causes many non academic and/or non book culture Christian people to shy aware from problematic scriptures and to keep where they are comfortable.

The Intense Relevance of the Mosaic Covenant to God and the Old Testament Prophets

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History and the Bible inform us with great clarity that it is only the nation of Israel that had ever entered into a covenant with God – a covenant that was actually initiated by Yahweh Himself, as at Sinai. In this covenant the nation and the people of Israel had committed themselves to live in a certain way with a certain heart attitude devoted to Yahweh. If they obeyed the covenant lifestyle and law as presented, with a pure devotion to God, the promised and therefore expected blessings of health, longevity, prosperity and fertility were utterly phenomenal. See it described in Deuteronomy 28:1-15. Likewise, a failure to obey the covenant commitment would lead to the most horrendous curses. For those details, fasten your seatbelt, keep a sick bag nearby and read Deuteronomy 28:15 to the end. It is a rather long chapter. Making covenant, especially a blood covenant, with anybody – particularly God was a serious life or death issue.

The Uniqueness of Israel in Relationship to God Because of the Mosaic Covenant

No other nation in history has ever – or will ever – be part of such an intimate relationship with Yahweh as expressed through the Mosaic covenant that was cut between Israel and their God. It was for this reason that it could only be Israel that had God’s excessive anger poured on them for breaking covenant, just as they would always be excessively blessed and honoured more than any other nation if they had kept that covenant. The promises made by God to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the descendants of Israel thereafter and the covenants made by Yahweh, some unconditional some conditional, make Israel’s righteousness, culture and social life a matter of extremely high priority to God, and therefore to the people of Israel themselves.

The Importance of the Mosaic Covenant Reveals the Importance of the Prophets

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When the whole historical scenario of the pre-exilic major and minor prophets is pieced together in the light of the above, the weight of the prophetic message, as well as the abusive neglect they received from the people of their respective generations is seen as incredibly important issues. It is a lack of this kind of information fed to the church of Christ generally that causes many believers to sidestep these remarkable seventeen books that supply a comprehensive insight into the society of the days of Kings and Chronicles, be it in Israel, Judah, or the surrounding nations, the level of spirituality of those days, and the grounds that supplied the very need of the prophets to address the entire Hebrew population in the desperate and severe manner that they did.

The Relevance of the Mosaic Covenant and its relevance to Eschatology

This rationale I have stated above is why I believe, these contributions to the sacred canon are so often neglected, or, if not neglected, abused? The Old Testament comprises the scriptures from which the New Testament apostles preached. Sadly, in my inter action with many Christians, to suggest that the truths of the New Testament are plainly seen in the Old, commonly brings wrinkled brows or a change of subject in a discussion. In my varied dialogue with Christians through the years I hear people say that the prophets generally are “too heavy,” “too monotonously condemning,” or “too complicated on issues that we in the west do not understand.”  This sort of response wrinkles my brow and causes me to change the subject.

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For all these reasons I want to explain why I get so much out of all the writing prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures. To keep this statement brief I intend to give the “basement level” 101 biblical logic as to why the Old Testament prophets should be staple reading for all Christians.

God’s vision for Israel birthed in Abraham

When God called Abraham, He did so with a vision as clear as a straight line-ruler. It was Yahweh’s vision to cause the man from Ur to father a family that would, over the generations, develope into clans, that would thereafter become a huge nation, from which would later be born the Messiah, the Christ, the Lord Jesus Himself. Nobody but Yahweh Himself knew when the date of Messiah’s arrival would be.

On the way, between Abraham and the virgin Mary, the descendents of Abraham and Sarah were intended to display a faith and an obedience to the divine lifestyle that would tell the world in the clearest of expression  who and what God is. In modern Christianese language, we would say that the divine motive in creating the nation of Israel was evangelistic. Unfortunately every generation failed to follow Abraham’s model of faith and obedience. The biblical history of Israel is a sad one, and occasionally utterly tragic. What was God to do?

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Circumstances, precipitated by the evil of Jacob’s sons perpetrated against Joseph and their father, left the children of Abraham, when there was only seventy of them, to be living in Egypt.  Jacob was renamed Israel by God Himself. Israel’s son Joseph quite literally saved the entire world from starvation, but a generation or two after his death, together with a change of dynasty in Egypt, Israel’s children were deemed superfluous to social requirements as Egyptian neighbours, but were highly desired as Egyptian slaves. As they became a down beaten, down-trodden expanding population,  Moses, by the power of God, over four hundred years later led what is calculated to have been around two million people out of Egypt, across the Red Sea and over to Mount Sinai in Arabia.

The only bit of Theology that the people of Israel really knew about at this time was that they were the children of a man named Israel whose Grandfather had received long term promises from Yahweh about Canaan. Yahweh was THE God that made the universe and all that was in it. They also had the bones of Joseph and his final utterances that were a command to take those bones to Canaan when their time to inherit (as promised to Abraham) would arrive. They knew that God had said that he owned the nation of Israel as His very own special and chosen people. But it had to be noted that the entire bundle of life of Israel’s existence was centred on their being a light to the world and the cradle from which Messiah would be born and grow up in. Without those prophetic purposes Israel were, like no other nation, a waste of space and in complete defiance of the purpose of God. I am confident to say that the Hebrew prophets of the Old Testament saw these issues clearer than I am expressing.

The Severity and Lavish Generosity of the Mosaic Covenant

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While the rabble of two million were camped at Sinai, to encourage obedience and faith, God inserted into their culture what can only be referred to as a series of steps and sacrificial activities that were to be followed to fulfill the people’s desire  of approaching Him. These rituals were to be slavishly followed in order to breed faith into the hearts of their spiritual DNA of the nation. The rabble, under Moses and Joshua became an ordered militant nation.

However, the people of Israel, as a race were clearly unbelieving and stubborn, even in the face of the miraculous deliverances performed by God through Moses and they seemed to be hell bent on doing their own thing. I am, of course, referring to the first five books of Moses; what we in the West refer to as Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. This network of religious sacrificial practice, as well as the making of several sacred artifacts that were supposed  to graphically encourage adherence to what is referred to as the Mosaic law and the worship of Yahweh, was abused and defaced to the point that Israel developed a hugely sinful lifestyle of rank rejection of God’s purpose.

The law of Moses itself is not of faith at all (Galatians 3:12), yet when it’s precepts were followed as God intended them to be, it was meant to pump faith into the human heart of the Hebrew nation, together with a deep love of God into the practitioners of the sacrificial system of God’s stated manner of approach to Him.  God is Spirit and needs to be worshipped in spirit for it to be righteous in His sight. Without the devoted heart and the strong faith in the person and precepts of Yahweh the entire sacrificial system was a mockery and quite frankly, rejected by God.

Obedience and strict adherence to these statutes and divinely ordained practices would lead to long life, happiness, health and great prosperity (Deuteronomy 28:1-15). However, with a deep sigh and a sorrowful “Oh!” we have to say that turning away from God en bloc was to live with one foot in the swamp of temporal catastrophe, and the other foot stuck in eternal damnation.

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The Law was an Insertion

The Law of Moses was not instituted on an “easy come, easy go” basis. Far from it! It was all instituted on a completely different basis to the relationship and promises given to Abraham. Abraham was called on the basis of unconditional, unsolicited promises given by Yahweh to give his descendants, the people of Israel, a deep certainty that the plan of God’s salvation and the advent of Messiah could be depended on. Genesis 12:1-3 cannot be rescinded without God being called a liar, and Titus 1:3 tells us clearly that God cannot lie.  There was indeed a covenant set in place in Genesis 15 where God again swears unconditionally that His promises to Abraham were certain. But the Abrahamic dealings were irrevocable.

The Mosaic law, nearly five centuries later, was also instituted as a covenant, but this covenant was clearly conditional. If Israel as a nation, and the Hebrew population as individuals obeyed God and the law that he had prescribed, the blessings that would fall on Israel were to be outrageously broad and wide, and nations would sit at the feet of the nation of Israel and learn of Yahweh.

The only reason Israel existed was for these reasons. Israel was to be a light to the world. The Hebrew nation was to demonstrate the power of faith to a world of unbelief. They were to show love and health to a world that was sick and full of hate. All the prophetic analogies of Hosea’s prostitute wife sleeping around with other men was for no other reason than to explain to the Hebrew people the terms of the Mosaic covenant, how they had broken the contract, and how passionately God wanted them to turn to the original marital vow with Him and walk in the parameters of the covenant as it was given.

The Breaking of Covenant by Israel and the Passion of Yahweh toward His People

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The history of Israel after the Sinaiatic covenant was filled with such rank neglect of God’s terms and conditions that He finally raised prophets to address them. These prophets were people of great faith, tender love, and deep relationship with God. Their entire “corporate” message (not that there was anything humanly corporate about their brotherhood in prophecy) was to explain to Israel where they had gone wrong and how to turn things around to make them right.

However, as true prophets, they could not be emotionless about God’s heart and mind concerning the backslidings of the Hebrews. They were in such a relationship with Yahweh that they cried when God cried. They became angry when God Himself became angry. They sang when Yahweh started singing. These men were special to the degree that lives were cursed and lost or blessed and developed according to a person’s response to them. Read verses like Amos 3:7, 2 Chronicles 20:20 and see if there is any other conclusion to come to. These men were the very apple of God’s eye.  However …!

The prophets, especially the pre-exilic prophets were abused, tortured and ultimately killed for this corrective message,  wholesale.

The Radical Nature of the Old Testament Prophets

There was one key element in the pre exilic prophetic message that caused utter outrage amongst the Hebrew population of each generation that they were sent to. This key element I believe was the same key element for which the apostle Paul was hounded by the Jews in the New Testament throughout his entire Christian life.

The Separation of God’s Word and the Sacrificial System

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The key truth that I refer to was one very remarkable aspect of the call to the Hebrew people instituted by this new breed of prophets. Biblical authorities and serious academics widely declare that this radical direction of the pre-exilic prophets was probably the very greatest escalation of the prophetic message that prophecy as a movement experienced in the course of its development.  I am referring to their clear separation from the ritual and from the external implements of the sacrificial system. The call of the prophets was not to make better sacrifices, but a call that ignored the external issues of Moses law in favour of repentance, faith and clean living as an expression of faith in God.

Samuel, of course, had the substance of the same message, but as a priest used the sacrificial system in a very high profile manner. A clear difference between the defining practices of a prophet and a priest were not clear in Samuel’s day.  While the developing schools of the prophets remained in connection with the ancient centres of religion, they gradually do not appear to have exercised any part in the sacrificial practices at the Tabernacle. The priests, on the other hand, did not confine themselves to sacrifice and other forms of public worship, but exercised many of the so-called prophetic functions. Prophecy in this new order of prophets seems to have been absolutely free of any institutional or ritualistic religious form or position. Both major and minor prophets were utterly free of the ritual of the sanctuaries. As has been justly stated by many learned writers, the ritual of Israel always remained a potential evil to the people, the temptation of relapsing into the debauched paganism of cultures with which they mingled.  Prophecy was, with the likes of Elijah, Elisha, Amos, Isaiah, Joel and Hosea, and those that followed, now wholly independent of “religion” and all its appurtenances.

The Evil of Syncretism

Following the physical externals of the Mosaic sacrificial system as they did, changing from generation, sometimes with more meticulous attention to the Levitical process, sometimes less, the issue of active, vital and relational faith towards God literally seemed to have disappeared from the Hebrew psyche. They adopted idolatrous worship of demons filled with both spiritual and sexual aberrations that generally were mingled with their “worship” of Yahweh. It was “a bit of Yahweh with …” approach to religion in general. There was Ba-al with Yahweh, and sometimes without. There was Moloch with Yahweh, and sometimes without, and many more variations on the theme.  The neglect was so rife and the rejection of God was so widespread that in the days of the Judges, the Tabernacle was treated as some kind of superstition and in great neglect. Only a few generations later after  the opening of Solomon’s temple, the whole kit and caboodle of Mosaic worship was finally closed down for a while. The Temple was so neglected by non-attendance that at one point of time in order to save the life of the only one existing of King David’s descendants, in order to hide him so that he would not be murdered the child was taken to the one place that they knew nobody would ever go to – that was in the temple.

The Message of Faith in Yahweh

In the eighth century BC, God raised up prophets to address the entire Hebrew peoples. “Obey the Mosaic covenant, or suffer the consequences,” was their message. Because there was rank ignorance of the terms and conditions of the Mosaic covenant, their sins had to be explained line by line.

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However, even though the sins of the nation were detailed by all of the prophets as a defiance of the Mosaic Covenant, they went to the very heart and crux of their problem to bring them into a correct relationship with Yahweh. They did not call them back to the sacrificial practices prescribed by Moses, but to faith and integrity. The prophets did not call to them to remember Moses, but to open their hearts in repentance towards God. The prophets unanimously seemed so distraught at the abuse of the Mosaic system that they simply called the people to faith. It was this that brought ridicule, persecution and death to them all. The prophets we tasting, what was to them, the powers of the world to come, and by that I am not referring to heaven or the millennial reign of Christ, but the day in which we live, the days of gospel preaching prior to Christ’s second advent.

What exactly did they say that precipitated this holocaust of terror against these giant prophetic personages?  The random selection of prophetic statements below are the tip of a very large iceberg. Religious solemnity, as well as religiosity for its own sake was, dare I say, cursed by the prophets.  Listen to these none “Mosaic” sounding calls to the nation which were actually sounding the true depths of what the Mosaic system was all about.

Isaiah

Isaiah 1: 11-17 “What should I think about all your sacrifices?  says the Lord. I’m fed up with entirely burned offerings of rams and the fat of well-fed beasts.  I don’t want the blood of bulls, lambs, and goats. When you come to appear before me, who asked this from you, this trampling of my temple’s courts? Stop bringing worthless offerings.  Your incense repulses me. New moon, Sabbath, and the calling of an assembly— I can’t stand wickedness with celebration! I hate your new moons and your festivals.  They’ve become a burden that I’m tired of bearing. When you extend your hands, I’ll hide my eyes from you. Even when you pray for a long time, I won’t listen. Your hands are stained with blood.  Wash! Be clean! Remove your ugly deeds from my sight. Put an end to such evil; learn to do good. Seek justice:  help the oppressed; defend the orphan; plead for the widow.”

As a primary example of this revolutionary message in the very first chapter of Isaiah we have a prophetic cry that, at a cursory glance, calls them away from the sacrifice of animals to a straight forward repentant life of service to God and man. At first glance Isaiah is actually preaching like a New Testament preacher. As far as the above seven verses are concerned the Law is to be left for things of the Spirit. Isaiah is actually calling for a life lived in the Spirit, trusting God. External forms of religious conformism seem to be utterly denigrated.

Hosea

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Hosea 6:6: “For I desire goodness, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt-offerings”

This verse was quoted twice by Christ Himself, a sure sign that Hosea’s message was before his time. We know therefore, as a fact, that Jesus read Hosea. The call seems to utterly decry the mosaic sacrificial system. Like the other prophets, there are times when their speech suggests that it is not so much the sacrificial system per se, as the sacrificial system being conducted with a sinful and faithless attitude. But with Isaiah’s first chapter above, and Christ’s usage of Hosea 6:6 it is clear to see that both Isaiah and Hosea were after nothing but the heart. This is New Testament preaching.

Joel

Joel 2:13 “Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the LORD your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity.” We add 2:13 with 2:32 that says, “And everyone who calls on the name of the LORD will be saved; for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be deliverance, as the LORD has said, even among the survivors whom the LORD calls.”

Once again, any New Testament apostle, or present day minister of the gospel would be truly fulfilling their call to preach by this kind of New Testament language, but Joel is an eighth century prophet whom many scholars suggest was writing his contribution to the Hebrew canon only a few years before Isaiah. Not only were some of these words used by Peter in the first “Christian” sermon ever preached (Acts 2) but it is plain to see that it is as far from the Mosaic external system as one could be. Like the others Joel speaks to all things internal. He defies the Jewish eastern tradition of tearing garments to show a purportedly torn spirit, he only calls for the reality of a rent heart.

My thesis is that it is this sort of message content that enraged the proud religiosity of the Hebrews of the eighth century BC and brought these magnificent servants of God into the horrible world of torture and slaughter, a practice instigated by their own kinsmen.

Jonah

Jonah 3:10 “When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened.” And Jonah 4:2 “He prayed to the LORD, “Isn’t this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.”

It goes without saying that in the book of Jonah there is no sacrificial offerings called for, neither is it suggested that animal sacrifice was an Assyrian response. Jonah simply declared that God had given Nineveh forty more days before the vast city would be destroyed. What was the Assyrian response? Repentance! They repented simply because they believed the prophet. This is amazing. This was similar to Paul in Ephesus or Philip in Samaria or Peter in the house of Cornelius. Jonah preached. He was believed. The Assyrians repented. Yes there was an incredible exterior display of repentance inasmuch as even the animals were covered in dust and sackcloth (something I have always smiled at as I read). But they believed and so Assyria was saved.

Jonah’s successful mission to Nineveh had profound repercussions on the future of Israel and Judah. Jonah was a prophet because of his insight to the character of Yahweh. “You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.” How’s that for New Testament revelation.

Habakkuk

Habakkuk 2:4 “Behold, as for the proud one, His soul is not right within him; But the righteous will live by his faith.”

We close with the verse that defines the New Testament gospel message of salvation. Habakkuk asks some hard questions of God, to which the ultimate answer was, “The just live by faith.”

Because of the understanding we have of New Testament truth it is common for us to see these things with the Old Testament prophets and simply move on reading because it is a wonderful, nevertheless commonplace truth in scripture. We need to see that the blatant call for repentance and faith was so radically far out to the Hebrew mind, even the idolatrous masses of Isaiah and Judah, that anger and repudiation was rampant.

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