The prophets
The prophets were messengers of God's covenant who above all warned, called to return and comforted the people of their own day, and who also foretold. Learn to read them in their times and as poetry, to hear judgement and hope together, and to read near and far fulfilment with the New Testament.
Messengers of the covenant
From Isaiah to Malachi, the last part of the Old Testament gathers the books of the prophets. A prophet was someone entrusted with God's word. God had made his covenant with Israel at Sinai, and the prophets spoke to the people's life in the light of that covenant. Most of what they said was not prediction but speech to the people of their own day: rebuke for sin, a call to return, comfort for the broken. "Seek Me and live!" cried Amos (Amos 5:4). Yet they also spoke of what God would do. What prophecy is, and how it has been fulfilled, is the subject of Has biblical prophecy been fulfilled?
So the first question to put to a prophet is: when? The opening verse often tells you. Isaiah saw his vision "during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah" (Isaiah 1:1); Amos saw his words concerning Israel "two years before the earthquake" (Amos 1:1). The prophets worked while the kings reigned, during the exile in Babylon, and after the return. The map under the Jesus tab sets each book in its age, and the Bible Overview lessons, such as Isaiah and Amos, tell whom a prophet spoke to and when.
Much of the prophets is poetry, full of parallel lines that repeat or contrast and of vivid pictures, so read it as poetry (The Psalms and poetry). And a prophetic book gathers many short messages, or oracles, which are not always set in the order they were given. Look for where a message begins, often with words announcing what the LORD says, find where it ends, and read it as a unit.
Judgement and hope together
Take Amos. The northern kingdom of Israel was prosperous, and its shrines were busy with feasts and sacrifices. Yet God says:
I hate, I despise your feasts! I cannot stand the stench of your solemn assemblies. … But let justice roll on like a river, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
Amos 5:21-24
Why would God hate the feasts and offerings he himself commanded? The chapter has already told us. These are people who "trample on the poor" (Amos 5:11) and "deprive the poor of justice in the gate" (Amos 5:12). God rejects not worship itself but worship without justice. Verse 24's two lines say one thing twice, in parallel: he asks for justice that never runs dry.
Yet Amos does not end in judgement. The God who has said he will strike Israel promises at the last, "In that day I will restore the fallen tent of David" (Amos 9:11), and closes:
I will restore My people Israel from captivity; … I will firmly plant them in their own land, never again to be uprooted from the land that I have given them.
Amos 9:14-15
In the prophets, judgement and hope go together. The word of judgement is a call to return; the word of hope declares that God's promise still stands on the far side of judgement. So do not pick out only the threats, or only the promises: read the whole book.
Near and far fulfilment
In Isaiah 7, Aram and the northern kingdom march on Jerusalem, and "the hearts of Ahaz and his people trembled like trees in the forest shaken by the wind" (Isaiah 7:2). Isaiah tells the king not to be afraid, calls on the "house of David" (Isaiah 7:13), and speaks of a sign God himself will give:
Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin will be with child and give birth to a son, and will call Him Immanuel.
Isaiah 7:14
He goes on: "before the boy knows enough to reject evil and choose good, the land of the two kings you dread will be laid waste" (Isaiah 7:16). The sign was spoken to Ahaz and the house of David in their fear. Yet Matthew, telling of Jesus' birth, writes, "All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet" (Matthew 1:22), and quotes these words (Matthew 1:23). Some Christians read the prophecy as pointing directly, from the first, to the Messiah born of a virgin; others read it as a sign given first in Ahaz's day and fulfilled most fully in Christ. Either way, they agree that it was fulfilled in Jesus' birth. Matthew Henry, the English pastor, says that the sign God himself gave "must have raised hopes far beyond what the present occasion suggested" Matthew Henry.
Jeremiah promised a crumbling Judah a new covenant:
Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. … I will put My law in their minds and inscribe it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they will be My people.
Jeremiah 31:31-33
Hebrews quotes the promise from beginning to end, "I will put My laws in their minds and inscribe them on their hearts" (Hebrews 8:10), and calls Christ the mediator of this better covenant. The New Testament shows how what the prophet saw came true in Christ: here Scripture explains Scripture. The Westminster Confession of the Presbyterian churches teaches that under the law the covenant of grace was administered by promises, prophecies and sacrifices, ‘all fore-signifying Christ to come’ ch. 7.5.
How some promises are fulfilled, though, interpreters read differently: the promise of the land in Amos 9, for one, or the saving of ‘all Israel’ in Romans 11 (Romans 11:25-27). Many Christians, among them those who hold covenant theology, read such promises as fulfilled in Christ for one people of God made of Jews and Gentiles, and many of them expect that great numbers of Jewish people will yet turn to Christ. Those who hold dispensationalism expect the promises to be fulfilled literally, in the future, for the nation of Israel, distinct from the church the Scofield Reference Bible. Both confess that salvation comes through faith in Christ.
Try it
Open Isaiah 7 on the map. In the map under the Jesus tab, open Isaiah and tap chapter 7: it has a ‘One-line summary’ and ‘Notes’. Begin with verses 1 and 2, and note the time and the people: ‘v. 1: in Ahaz's day, two kings march on Jerusalem’.
Notice what the prophet tells the king. Find the word not to fear in verse 4 and the sign in verses 14 to 16, and write down what the sign says to Ahaz's own day.
Cross from verse 14 into the New Testament. Tap verse 14 in the reader, then Study and Cross-refs, find Matthew 1:23, and note how Matthew reads the prophecy. Then put the whole chapter into a one-line summary.
Practice
- Practice 1 of 7
What was most of the prophets' message?
- Practice 2 of 7
What is the first question to put to a prophetic book?
- Practice 3 of 7
In Amos 5:21-24, what does God reject?
- Practice 4 of 7
How does the book of Amos end?
- Practice 5 of 7
To whom was the sign of Isaiah 7:14 first given, and how does Matthew read it?
- Practice 6 of 7
How does Hebrews 8 use the new covenant of Jeremiah 31:31-34?
- Practice 7 of 7
How do Christians who hold dispensationalism read the promises of the land, as in Amos 9?
Reading to the end marks it read; tap to switch it.
Related topics
Source
- C. I. Scofield, Scofield Reference Bible 1909 — The reference Bible that spread dispensationalism and pretribulation premillennialism; its notes teach that the land promises to Israel will be fulfilled literally for the nation of Israel, distinct from the church.
Lessons from the Bible, the church's creeds and the Fathers and classic commentary. They take the church's long rule of reading, that Scripture explains Scripture, as their standard, bring out the Reformed confessions' teaching, and present each tradition's way of reading fairly. Scripture quotations: BSB.