What Prophets Do

Last updated on: August 4, 2016 at 10:00 am by Eric Smith

What Prophets Do 2016-08-02T10:03:50-06:00 Eric Smith

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The Prophet Malachi, by Duccio di Buoninsegna, 1310. Image in the public domain, taken from Wikipedia.

By: Anonymous

Many people view the prophets in the Hebrew bible (or Old Testament as Christians refer to it) as fortunetellers, who could foretell the future. Rather, they were people who listened to God’s voice and followed God’s instructions. God instructed the Israelites with the Ten Commandments in same fashion that Jesus did his disciples- that above all else, we should love God and love other people. Jesus cited these at the two greatest commandments. God’s Ten Commandments can be sorted into the same two categories- the first four on how to love God, the remaining six on how to love those around them. Love God and love people were preached in both Testaments as the most important pieces to following God.

Instead of being fortunetellers, the Prophets were people who had not forgotten what God commanded. They remembered that the Hebrew people were instructed to love God and love people. They offered signs of God’s disapproval with the day’s misdeeds, which included exploiting the poor, not taking care of the poor, orphans, and widows, corrupt officials, the rich’s vanity. Some of these signs included symbolic naming of their children, most notably Hosea’s child Lo-ammi, meaning “Not my people”. Other signs included Hosea marrying a promiscuous woman, who cheated on Hosea, which represented the Israelite people not being loyal to God. The prophets offered these types of signs as warnings to the Israelites- change your ways, return to God, or reap the consequences of your choices. These warnings are meant to be a commentary of what the prophets saw and what they think the choices of the Israelites might lead to. Many people today see this commentary as foretelling the future rather than a social commentary, which is what it actually was. The commentary was a caution of what the choices made would eventually lead to.

The laundry list of the Israelites’ misdeeds sounds similar to the misdeeds of American Christians today- not taking care of the poor and marginalized, corrupt officials, the rich getting richer while the poor are getting poorer, not being loyal to God, not loving God fully, not loving others wholly. There is much for us to glean from the words and warnings of the prophets. If we do not remind ourselves that our top priorities should be to love God (which includes following God’s ways) and to love (all) other people- including those similar to and different from us. As the prophets warned, not doing so could lead to wrong choices with very bad consequences.

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