The Major and Minor Prophets
A Partial Survey of the Major and Minor Prophets
Christ’s Community Study Center
Mbarara, Uganda
Donald F. McNeill
Partial Survey of the Major and Minor Prophets
I. Introduction
A. The Difficulty of Interpreting Prophecy1 B. Defining Prophecy 1
C. The Institution of Prophecy2
D. The Uniqueness of Moses as an OT Prophet2
E. The Function of the Prophet4 1. Represented God before men. 4
2. Guarded the theocracy, the kingdom of God.5 3. Wrote the history of the theocracy. 6
F. Periods of Prophetic Activity6
1. From the prophet Samuel (1070 B.C. [?]) to the time of the
writing prophets of the eighth century (750 B.C.).6 2. From the eighth century (about 750 B.C.) to the end of OT history
(about 425 B.C.).6
G. Characteristics of Prophecy6 1. Progressively realizedin history 6
2. Embedded in history7 3. The time-frame between the prophecy and its fulfillment
difficult to determine 7
4. Sometimes conditional 8
5. Symbolic language common but not exclusive9
6. Forms, terms, and events familiar to the audiences of their day10
7. Transcend the limitations of time to speak of the future12
8. Prophetic enactment12
II. Rules for Interpreting Prophecy13
A. Determine Their Literal Meaning13
B. Discover the Fundamental Idea Expressed14
C. Assume the Reality of Symbolical Actions14
D. Discover How the Prophecy is Fulfilled by Different Installments14
E. Interpret Prophecies in Light of Their Expressed Fulfillment 15
III. Additional Principles of Interpretation15
A. Determine whether the prophecy is cited in the OT or NT as fulfilled. 15
B. Find out what prophetic passages parallel each other. 16
C. Determine whether the prophecy is predictive or whether it deals with moral, ethical or theological truth. 16
D. Observe carefully how the NT writers use the OT scriptures (pp.261-269).16
1. Sometimes the NT writers use the OT to prove a point. 16
2. Sometimes the NT writers use the OT to clarify or illustrate their teaching. 16
3. The NT writers recognize a clear continuity (continuation) between Israel and the church. 16
IV. True and False Prophets19
A. Realpolitik20
B. Vox Populi22
C. The Distinction between True and False Prophets24
1. Different motivations24
2. Criteria for distinguishing between true and false prophets26
a. Predictions of the true prophet came to pass.26
b. True prophets prophesied only in the name of Yahweh27
c. True prophets upheld the law stipulated in the Mosaic
Covenant27
3. Biblical Accounts Demonstrating the Difference between
True and False Prophets30
a. 1 Kings 22—Micaiah versus Zedekiah30
b. Jeremiah 28—Jeremiah versus Hananiah33
4. The true God versus “God in the box”35
IX. Chronological Table of Kings and Prophets of Israel and Judah (931-586 B.C.)41
X. The Prophecy of Amos42
XI. The Prophecy of Hosea55
XII. The Prophecy of Jonah68
XIII. The Prophecy of Isaiah73
XIV. The Prophecy of Micah112
XV. The Prophecy of Joel122
XVI. The Prophecy of Nahum126
XVII. The Prophecy of Zephaniah127
XVIII. The Prophecy of Habakkuk130
XIX. The Prophecy of Jeremiah133
XX. The Prophecy of Daniel166
XXI. The Prophecy of Haggai192
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Christ’s Community Study Center—Mbarara, Uganda——July, 2012
The Major and Minor Prophets
The Major and Minor Prophets
I. Interpretation of Prophecy
A. The Difficulty of Interpreting Prophecy
Prophecy is perhaps the most difficult genre (form) of Biblical literature to interpret, and one about which there is the most disagreement among evangelical scholars. Ramm highlights this difficulty in the following quotation:
The prophetic material of Scripture is to be found from Genesis to Revelation. To assemble each passage, to thoroughly digest its meaning, to arrange the passages in a prophetic harmony, would involve a prodigious [amazing] memory, years of exacting work, a masterful knowledge of Biblical languages, an exhaustive reading of prophetic literature, a keen exegetical sense, a thorough knowledge of the histories of many peoples and a knowledge of all relevant archaeological materials. And yet some claim that prophetic Scripture is as easy to interpret as the prose passages [ordinary form of written or spoken languages] of the New Testament! (Protestant Biblical Interpretation, p. 245).
B. Defining Prophecy
Berkhof has defined prophecy as “the proclamation of that which God revealed” (L. Berkhof, Principles of Biblical Interpretation. p. 148). The prophets were ordained of God to explain the meaning of past events, clarify events which were taking place in the present, and predict what was going to happen in the future. Prophecy is commonly defined as the prediction of the future, but by examining the literature, we find that the predictive element is a minor part of their task. Mostly the prophets are preoccupied with admonition, rebuke, and warning to those who persisted in sin, as well as comfort and encouragement for those who were willing to forsake their sin and repent. In this more limited sense of the word—declaring the word and will of God rather than predicting the future—the prophetic gift continues in modified form. Preachers today may, and should, preach the word of God prophetically by declaring the whole council of God. Their teaching office is not, however, a continuation of the official prophetic office given to the OT prophets who were ordained by God to be the special mediators between God and men. They were, therefore, mediators of the covenant established between God and the people of Israel.
So Israel’s prophets saw themselves as raised up to be the living line of covenantal mediators between God and His people. Their solemn position involved being brought into the counsels of the Lord of the Covenant. Because of this privileged position, the prophet could declare authoritatively both the moral will and the redemptive purpose of the sovereign Lord of creation. In this role, the prophet could announce the consequences of blessing or cursing that would attend the chosen lifestyle of the people. In addition, by divine revelation, the prophet was enabled to anticipate the history of divine judgment and blessing in both its short-term and its long-term eventualities, making known to the people the plans of the Lord by which he would accomplish his redemptive purposes (O. Palmer Robertson, The Christ of the Prophets, abridged edition., p. 8, emphasis mine).
As we shall see below, the prophetic task was a continuation of that given to the first great prophet, Moses, who also mediated the Law to the people of Israel. Thus, the prophets are more commonly looking backward, not forward. They are looking back to the Covenant Law given through Moses and interpreting how this Law has been violated in the national and personal life of Israel as well as how it should be implemented in the present. At the same time, they are also looking forward to what
the consequences will be for the nation if this Law continues to be set aside. Thus, many of the predictions of the prophets concern judgment and exile if Israel refuses to repent and fails to keep the stipulations of the covenant.
C. The Institution of Prophecy
Allan Harman (Approaching the Psalms: Judges to Poets, unpublished syllabus, pp. 68-69)
mentions many heathen practices of the Canaanites in use when the Israelites entered into the Land of Promise:
- Passing through the fire, a practice connected with the worship of Molech (2 Kings 23: 10; Jer. 32: 35)
- Divination (Ezek. 21: 21; Gen. 44: 5: 15)
- Magic or sorcery (Dt. 18: 10, 14; 2 Kings 21: 6)
- Spiritists, mediums, or necromancers who spoke from within a person (Lev. 20: 27) and who got messages from the dead for the living (1 Sam. 28: 1-20)
In contrast to these illegitimate means of discerning the will of God, the Lord had promised Israel a prophet in whom He would put His words (Dt. 18: 9-22). Moses, who had received the will of the Lord through the Law given at Sinai, was the first of such prophets. The prophet coming after him would be like him. He would be an Israelite, not a foreigner (Judges 22: 24). God would put his words in his mouth, and the Israelites were commanded to listen to everything he says. This was the means of God communicating with His people and supplying additional information to them which Moses did not supply. All other forms of discerning the will of God were forbidden. “The ongoing ministry of the prophets would be essential in restraining the people from resorting to these forbidden methods of determining his will” (O. Palmer Robertson, The Christ of the Prophets, p. 20).
We know from Acts 3: 22-23 and Acts 7: 37 that Christ is the ultimate fulfillment of God’s promise of a prophet for Israel, but it is clear from the history of Israel that the promise of Dt. 18 applies to the entire institution of prophecy scattered throughout OT history. Every true prophet of Israel, including Moses, is a type of Jesus Christ, and every true prophet had something to contribute to the ongoing instruction from the Lord. In this sense, the prophetic institution was similar to the ongoing priestly institution. Just as the priestly institution pointed to the priesthood of Christ, all the prophets from Moses onward pointed to the prophetic ministry of Christ.
D. The Uniqueness of Moses as an OT Prophet
We have some hint of the uniqueness of Moses’ stature as the premier OT prophet from his own words in Deut. 18: 15, “The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your countrymen, you shall listen to him.” The first thing we notice about this verse is the singularity of the word, “prophet” (not “prophets like me”). Although Moses is the first of a long line of prophets who mediate the word of God to the people of Israel, he is not thereby placed on an equal basis with them. He is unique among the OT prophets. His uniqueness, moreover, is verified by God Himself in Moses’ confrontation with Miriam and Aaron (Num. 12; see Robertson, pp. 16-19). In this passage, Miriam and Aaron (and primarily Miriam whose name is mentioned first and who alone is afflicted with leprosy) challenge the priority of Moses as God’s spokesman. As a pretense, they criticize him for taking a Cushite wife (v. 1), but the real reason for their discontent was his exalted position before the nation and before God. Were they not also prophets with whom God had spoken (v. 2)? Their motive was jealousy, plain and simple. God’s displeasure with this challenge is immediately registered in the passage, “And the Lord heard it.” Subsequently, the Lord gathers the three together and explains the difference between Moses and all other prophets whom He has called. The difference will consist primarily in the method and intimacyof communication. For all other prophets, God will make Himself known indirectly in dreams and visions, but with Moses, God will speak directly “mouth to mouth” as one who is “faithful in all My house.” Furthermore, with other prophets God will speak in “dark sayings” and not “openly” as with Moses. When we examine the writing prophets later, we will see first-hand what God meant. When they were not specifically applying the Law of Moses to Israel’s current situation—by far the bulk of their ministry—the OT prophets were describing obscure visions or dreams which were often difficult even for them to understand (Ezek. 1, 10; Dan. 8: 15, 27). Furthermore, even when preaching the requirements of the Law, their language was veiled in a poetic language which is often interpreted only with difficulty. (One might say that the cryptic [mysterious] style of the prophets even in preaching the law foreshadows the method of Christ whose teaching in the latter part of His ministry was often veiled in parables to a resistant Jewish audience.)
In contrast, God did not communicate with Moses in obscure visions and sayings, but in plain speech as if one human were speaking to another. All the laws of Israel are plainly spoken, and were easily understood within their cultural context (cf. Deut. 30: 11, in which “not too difficult” refers not to the “doing” of the law but to the plainness of communication). The Israelites fully understood the requirements of the Law. They were not obscure or “out of reach” intellectually.
It is evident from the contrast given in Num. 12: 6-8 that neither Miriam nor Aaron was a recipient of this special kind of communication from God, nor would any other merely human prophet in Israel’s history share this special distinction. Consequently, they should have been afraid to challenge Moses as if he were only one prophet among many (v. 8).
The jealousy of Miriam and Aaron became the opportunity for God to underscore Moses’ uniqueness. In effect the Lord says, “You think Moses holds too exalted a position? Let me explain to you just how exalted he is! He stands not only higher than the two of you; he stands in an entirely different category from all other prophets that ever will arise in Israel’s history. He is unique. He functions as the fountainhead of all Old Testament prophetism. All subsequent prophets shall be overshadowed by Moses. The validity of all later prophecy shall be determined by comparison with the prophetic utterances of Moses.”…
None other in Israel was like him. As a later text in Deuteronomy indicates, “No prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the Covenant Lord knew face to face….For no one has ever shown the mighty power or performed the awesome deeds that Moses did in the sight of all Israel” (Deut. 34: 10, 12).
In summary, the priority of Moses in the prophetical line is clearly established, which provides a key to the entire subsequent history of prophetism in Israel. Later prophets never rise above Moses in their position or experience. The bulk of subsequent prophetical literature essentially expands on what Moses already declared to God’s people. The Pentateuch as revealed through Moses functions as the foundational document for the entirety of revelation that comes to the theocracy. Much of the work of subsequent prophets builds on the foundation of revelation as it has been laid by Moses as the fountainhead of revelation for the old covenant people of God (Robertson, pp. 18-19; emphasis mine).
Such being the case, it is strange, is it not, that so many claiming to be prophets in our day are thoroughly ignorant of the Pentateuch and the treasures of Biblical law presented there. And if they object that we are now living in the New Covenant of grace in which OT law has become passé (obsolete and no longer needed), they must then explain why Jesus spends so much time in the Sermon on the Mount explicating the Law of Moses and going beyond its surface applications and why the writers of the NT epistles use so much space explaining how to live the Christian life, often using the language of Old Covenant law (cf. Eph. 6: 1-3; 1 Cor. 6: 9-10; Gal. 5: 19-21).
It is only in terms of the uniqueness of Moses’ prophetic administration that we can appreciate the importance of his typical significance in the history of redemption. Although God “spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways” (Heb. 1: 1-2), the author does not specifically compare the prophetic ministry of Christ with that of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, or Daniel—the so-called “Major Prophets” of the OT. Rather, he goes all the way back to the foundational ministry of Moses, the prophet who would provide the type, par excellence, for the antitype, Jesus Christ.
Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the Apostle and High Priest of our confession; He was faithful to Him who appointed Him, as Moses also was in all His house. For He has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, by just so much as the builder of the house has more honor than the house. For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God. Now Moses was faithful in all His house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken later; but Christ was faithful as a Son over His house—whose house we are, if we hold fast our confidence and the boast of our hope firm until the end (Heb. 3: 1-6).
That it was necessary for the author of Hebrews to say such things in proof of Christ’s superiority is testimony to the unique and exalted position which Moses had in the history of the nation. In this context we can also understand why Moses used the singular, “prophet like me” (Deut. 18: 15) rather than the plural form, “prophets”. In a singular way, Moses typified the later, greater prophet, Jesus Christ, who would become the new Law-giver over-shadowing Moses as the redeemer of Israel (Acts 3: 22; 7: 37). (For an examination of the similarity between Jesus and Moses in giving the law, see Vern Poythress, The Shadow of Christ in the Law of Moses).
E. The Function of the Prophet (adapted from Allan M. Harman, pp. 69-70)
1. Represented God before men
The prophet was God’s spokesman, and since he was God’s representative, not men’s, God alone could chose his successor. The office was, therefore, unique among the three offices of prophet, priest, and king. The offices of priest and king were hereditary—the priestly line proceeding from Aaron and the kingly line from David. But with the prophetic office, God picked each one individuallyto deliver His messageas He required; thus, Amos declared, “I am not a prophet, nor am I the son of a prophet; for I am a herdsman and a grower of sycamore figs.But the LORD took me from following the flock and the LORD said to me, ‘Go prophesy to My people Israel’” (Amos 7: 14-16). Even Moses himself had no control over who would be given the Spirit of prophecy, but willingly submitted to the continuing prophesying of Eldad and Medad (Num. 11: 25-30; Robertson, p. 21).