The Prophets

We’ve reached the last major part of the Old Testament: the prophets.

Before we dive in, let’s clear up a common misunderstanding. Many people think of prophets as fortune tellers whose main job was to predict the future, so they expect these books to be full of secret codes about what’s coming.

That idea can really mislead you. Instead, I want to give you a more accurate picture. Once you see what a prophet really was, these books become much more meaningful.

In ancient Israel, a prophet was mainly a spokesperson for God, speaking to the people of their own time. The Hebrew word for prophet means someone called to speak for another.

Prophets believed God gave them a message, and they shared it – often at great personal risk – with the people, priests, and especially the kings of their day. Their focus was on the present, not the distant future.

They spoke to real problems happening around them, challenging their own communities about how they were living. Most of what the prophets said was meant for their own time.

Once you understand that, the rest becomes much clearer.

So what did the prophets actually say? Their message usually focused on three main themes. If you know these, you can understand almost any prophetic book.

The first theme is a call to covenant faithfulness. Remember from Unit 8 that the covenant is the special relationship between God and Israel, and from Unit 9 that every king was judged by whether he kept it. The prophets spoke up for that covenant, calling people back when they turned to other gods or forgot their commitments. In a way, they acted as covenant enforcers, reminding people of the relationship they had left behind and urging them to return.

The second main theme, and one of the most important, is the prophets’ strong call for social justice. They cared about more than just proper worship. The prophets spoke out against the mistreatment of the poor, widows, orphans, and foreigners; the most vulnerable people.

Over and over, they said that God values justice and mercy more than religious rituals done by people who mistreat others. They criticized corrupt judges, dishonest merchants, and leaders who became wealthy while the poor suffered.

This focus on justice is one of the prophets’ most lasting contributions, inspiring justice movements even today.

The third theme is the balance of judgment and hope. The prophets warned very seriously that if people continued to be unfaithful and unjust, disaster would follow. Breaking the covenant would lead to ruin, and much of their strongest language was about this coming judgment.

But the prophets rarely ended on a hopeless note. Alongside their warnings, they offered a strong hope; a promise that even after judgment, God would not abandon his people. There would be restoration, renewal, and a future. The prophets always held both judgment and hope together.

So forget the idea of prophets as fortune tellers. A prophet was someone who spoke for God to their own generation, focusing on three main things: calling people back to the covenant, demanding justice for the vulnerable, and sharing a message that combined warning and hope.

If you read the prophets with this in mind – listening to what they said to their own people in their own time – you’ll see how powerful and relevant these books really are. Now, let’s look at how the prophetic books are organized.

Let’s take a moment to get familiar with the prophetic books. Although they may seem confusing at first, a little organization makes them much easier to understand.

The first thing to know is a simple distinction that often causes confusion. The prophetic books are divided into Major Prophets and Minor Prophets, but this only refers to the length of the books, not their importance.

The Major Prophets – Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and Lamentations – are the longer books. The Minor Prophets are the twelve shorter books at the end of the Old Testament, from Hosea to Malachi.

Being a minor prophet doesn’t mean being less important; the book is just shorter. In fact, some of the most famous prophetic words come from the Minor Prophets, so don’t skip them because of the label.

The most helpful way to read the prophets is to place them in their historical context. This is where what we learned in Unit 9 really helps. The prophets didn’t speak in isolation; each one spoke during a specific time in Israel’s history. You can’t fully understand a prophet without knowing when they lived.

There are three main periods when the prophets were active, and knowing which period a prophet belongs to helps you understand their message.

The first period is before the exile, called the pre-exilic period. These prophets spoke during the decline of Israel in the north and Judah in the south, as both drifted into injustice and idolatry, with disaster approaching.

These prophets acted as warners. They saw trouble coming, pointed out the unfaithfulness and injustice causing it, and urged people to change before it was too late. Many of the most well-known prophets belong to this period, delivering strong warnings while there was still hope.

The second period is during the exile, called the exilic period. Remember from Unit 9 the great catastrophe, the fall of Jerusalem, the destruction of the temple, and the deportation to Babylon. Some prophets spoke into that very disaster and its immediate aftermath, to a people who had lost everything – their land, their king, and their temple – and who were now captives in a foreign land, wondering whether God had abandoned them forever.

The book of Lamentations gives raw poetic voice to the grief of that catastrophe. And prophets speaking in this period do crucial work, helping a shattered people understand what had happened and, remarkably, beginning to speak words of comfort and future hope into the darkness.

The third period is after the exile, called the post-exilic period. As we discussed in Unit 9, this was when some people returned under Persian rule and rebuilt a smaller temple and Jerusalem’s walls. Prophets during this time spoke to those who had come back, encouraging them as they rebuilt, urging them to stay faithful even in tough times, and keeping hope alive for a greater restoration in the future.

Also, remember from Unit 2 that Malachi, the last book in the Protestant Old Testament, belongs to this period and ends with a message of hope for what’s still to come.

So, the structure is simpler than it seems. The prophetic books are divided into the longer Major Prophets and the twelve shorter Minor Prophets; this is just about length. Each prophet spoke during one of three key times: before the exile as a warner, during the exile as a voice in the crisis, or after the exile as someone encouraging rebuilding. If you know when a prophet lived, you’re well on your way to understanding their message.

Let me close this unit, and our whole Old Testament survey, by pulling together how to actually read these remarkable books well, and by facing the question of prophecy and prediction that hangs over them.

First, keep in mind that the prophets mostly wrote in poetry. Much of what they said uses poetic forms, so what we learned in Unit 10 is important here. The prophets used parallel lines, vivid and sometimes surprising images, and metaphors meant to shock, move, or inspire.

Their language is full of emotion, from gentle to frightening. So, read the prophets slowly, imagine their pictures, and don’t turn their poetry into a list of predictions. Their power comes from their poetic style, which helps you feel the weight of injustice or the hope of restoration.

Now let’s talk directly about prediction, since this is a key issue in understanding the prophets. As we said earlier, prophets were not fortune tellers; they mostly spoke to their own time. Still, they did talk about the future in two main ways.

First, they warned their people about what would happen soon, like coming judgment or restoration, depending on how people responded. Second, they looked even further ahead, sharing a hope for a future when God would set things right, restore his people, and bring lasting peace and justice.

This hope became a major theme in the Bible, including the promise to David of a coming king (see Unit 9). The messianic hope we discussed in Unit 3, which was strong in the time between the Testaments, was fueled by these prophetic visions.

Here, it’s important to be thoughtful and fair, as we’ve tried to be throughout this course. Many Christian readers have seen the prophets’ words as pointing forward to Jesus, believing he fulfilled their hopes. This is a central and respected Christian view. At the same time, as we learned in Unit 4, scholars point out that these passages first spoke to the prophets’ own audiences, addressing their immediate crises and having meaning in their own time. Some prophetic books, like Isaiah, may have been written in different parts over several periods, which we’ll discuss later.

In this course, I want you to hold both perspectives. The prophets spoke fully to their own generation, but later communities also found hope in their words that reached beyond their time. Respecting both views is part of the maturity we’re aiming for in this course.

There’s one more type of writing to mention, which comes from the prophetic tradition and leads into the New Testament. In the later prophetic books, especially parts of Daniel, we find a style called apocalyptic literature, which we first talked about in Unit 2.

Apocalyptic writing is full of dramatic visions, strange symbolic creatures, cosmic battles, and coded images. It was often written for people facing hardship or persecution, to reassure them that God is in control and will win in the end, no matter how bad things seem. This genre has its own rules, and reading it as a literal schedule of future events is a mistake.

Remember this, because when we get to Revelation in the New Testament, we’ll see the same style, and what we learn here will help us there.

So, this is where Unit 11 ends and our Old Testament survey wraps up.

Prophets were God’s spokespeople to their own generation, focusing on three main themes: calling people back to the covenant, demanding justice for the vulnerable, and sharing messages that combined warning and hope.

The prophetic books are divided into the longer Major Prophets and the twelve shorter Minor Prophets; just a difference in length. Each prophet spoke during one of three key times: before, during, or after the exile.

Most prophets wrote in poetry, so read them with imagination, not as lists of predictions. While their words spoke directly to their own time, they also inspired great hope for the future; a hope that later communities, especially Christians, saw as pointing toward fulfillment.

The apocalyptic writings at the end of this tradition lead us to the visions we’ll see in Revelation. That completes the survey of the Old Testament.