The Prophets

In short

Sixteen of them wrote books*, but there are several more prophets in the Bible as well. They often spoke fiery messages directly from God, and as such, they were often hated and sometimes killed for these words.

Why they are important

God tries to get His people to hear the truth and repent of doing wrong. When the people sin heinously and perpetually, they probably need just as harsh of a wakeup call. But people are pretty stubborn.

What is a prophet?

Not what you think. A prophet does not necessarily tell the future. Let that sink in.

The prophet’s job is to get people to wake up. Often it is already plain as day that God wants people to do this or stop doing that, yet people sin anyway. The prophet will bring a judgment to a group of people (not always Israelites) that if they do not change and obey God, punishment will come – often some kind of destruction.

Related to this, prophets often speak of “the day of the LORD.” I will cover that next week, but again, that is also probably not what you think. (Hint: it is usually not the end of the world.)

And… sometimes they tell the future. Especially those longwinded ones.

A list

By no means is it all of them.

Prophets with really long books

• Isaiah
• Jeremiah
• Ezekiel
• Daniel

Prophets with “shorter” books

• The twelve – Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi
• This grouping of 12 goes back to the Hebrew Bible
• I say “shorter,” and yet Zechariah is two chapters longer than Daniel and just as wacky with its visions. I don’t make the rules.
• Christians call these books “the minor prophets”

Other well-known Old Testament prophets

• Elijah, in Samaria/Israel
• Elisha, Elijah’s successor
• Samuel, in the days of Saul and David (1Sa 3:20)
• Nathan, in David’s day (2Sa 7:2)
• In Jewish tradition, Joshua is also a prophet (the first in the Nevi’im), but myself, I cannot support that with any clear Scripture

More obscure Old Testament prophets

• Some of these aren’t named as prophets until the New Testament
• Abraham (maybe, Gen 20:7)
• Moses (Deut 34:10)
• Aaron (Ex 7:1)
• David (Acts 2:29-30, and, you know, a bunch of messianic psalms)
• Enoch (Jude 14)
• And about nine unnamed prophets and several other obscure named ones, too

New Testament prophets

• Jesus, of course (Mark 6:4). He certainly told people to repent. But did also predict the future – for example, the destruction of Jerusalem in the first century.
• John the Baptist (Matt 11:9)
• Anna, the prophetess (Luke 2:36)
• Philip’s four daughters (Acts 21:9)
• And again, many other more obscure people

Footnotes

* That is, books of prophecy in the canonical Protestant Old Testament. Some may have wrote other kinds of books, too.