———————————————— THINK AGAIN AN L STUDY NOTES STUDY NOTES L INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT PROPHETIC BOOKS ———————————————— ———————————————— C. HASSELL BULLOCK PERSONA 1 LIVING WORD AMI PROPHETIC BOOKS ———————————————— ———————————————— CONTENTS THINK AGAIN Preface 1. Introduction L STUDY NOTES STUDY NOTES L Part One The Prophets of the Neo-Assyrian Period 2. Jonah: Preface to the Prophets 3. Amos: Call for Moral Obedience 4. Hosea: A Prophet’s Dilemma 5. Micah: Judgment, Hope, and Promise 6. Isaiah: Prophet Par Excellence Part Two The Prophets of the Neo-Babylonian Period 7. Zephaniah: Profile of a People 8. Habakkuk: Prophet of Transition 9. Jeremiah: Prophet to the Nations PERSONA 10. Nahum: The Reality of Judgment 11. Ezekiel: The Merging of Two Spheres 2 LIVING WORD AMI PROPHETIC BOOKS ———————————————— ———————————————— 12. Obadiah: Edom’s Day of the Lord 13. Lamentations: Reflections of the Soul THINK AGAIN Part Three The Prophets of the Persian Period 14. Daniel: Witness in Babylonia STUDY NOTES L 15. Haggai: The Temple and the Future 16. Zechariah: Prophet of the New Kingdom 17. Joel: The Day of Decision 18. Malachi: Prophet of Covenant Love Abbreviations in Bibliography Bibliography 1 PERSONA 1Bullock, C. H. (1986). An introduction to the Old Testament prophetic books. Spine title: Introduction, Old Testament prophetic books.; Includes indexes. (1). Chicago: Moody Press. 3 LIVING WORD AMI PROPHETIC BOOKS ———————————————— ———————————————— THINK AGAIN PREFACE “TO BE A PROPHET,” said Abraham Heschel, “is both a distinction and an affliction.”1 Writing a book about them is hardly otherwise. The deep satisfaction of STUDY NOTES L studying the words of some of history’s most profound spokesmen is indescribable. But so is the deep anguish of the message they delivered to their ancient audience with its application for the modern world. Their call to righteousness, their summons to fasten social structures to the character of an ethical God, and their insistent proclamation that the Lord’s patience would not endure forever, even though in the end sin could not outdo His grace or undo His love—those were emphatic precepts that the prophets iterated and reiterated to their world, precepts that still have not lost their potent relevance. The satisfaction of learning from others who have pored over the prophetic oracles along with the anguish of trying to represent them fairly and to learn from their erudition as well as their theological anomalies are part of the mixed package of writing a book on the prophets. Their erudition has taught me far more than their anomalies, and to my PERSONA teachers who have instructed me both from the lectern and the published page, I am inexpressibly grateful. I hope they can find gratification in the 1 Abraham J. Heschel, The Prophets. 2 vols. (New York: Harper & Row. 1962), 1:17–18. 4 LIVING WORD AMI PROPHETIC BOOKS ———————————————— ———————————————— positive features of this book while letting the responsibility for its contraventions rest squarely on my shoulders. THINK AGAIN Our technological distance from the age of the prophets is almost a measureless chasm. From ancient writing methods to the modern computer is an expanse that can hardly be appreciated even by those who have been liberated from pen and page STUDY NOTES L to the efficiencies of word processing. Yet God forbid that we should make the mistake of assuming that efficiency and technology have removed us also from the demands of the prophets’ God, who comprehends the broad time expanse that technology has made so wide. At this point I gratefully acknowledge those who have assisted me in writing the manuscript until my own computer skills matured. Mrs. Jane Marston typed portions of the manuscript from my rough copy, and Mrs. Mary Lou McCurdy put portions of it into the computer. Their technical skills and their personal friendship have given a dimension to the manuscript that only I can readily discern but from which the reader will also unconsciously profit. Then there have been my graduate assistants who have contributed to the growth of this book at various levels, Henry Sun, Brad Blue, and James Coleman. Their help has freed me to concentrate on the task of research and writing. Another person who deserves far more thanks than a line of text can provide is my friend PERSONA and former student, Don Patrick, who did the footwork for the bibliography. Members of my family also merit much thanks for their patience with me. My wife, Rhonda, has at times felt that her husband and the computer were synonymous, and 5 LIVING WORD AMI PROPHETIC BOOKS ———————————————— ———————————————— my children, Scott and Becky, have often wished that their father would allow them more computer time for their playful moods. Finally, I am heartily THINK AGAIN grateful to the Board of Trustees of Wheaton College for a sabbatical leave in the fall of 1984, when much of this work was accomplished. A notable part of the distinction of writing this book has been that I have done it as an offering of STUDY NOTES L thanksgiving for my parents, Erbie L. and Agnes C. Bullock, whose love for God and faithfulness to His church and their family of six children have indelibly recorded their names in the roster of those “of whom the world was not worthy.” The value of the Hebrew prophets has been assessed and weighed by three millennia of history, and thankfully they, being dead, yet speak. The distinction and the affliction are still part of their legacy. If writing this book brings the minutest participation in that legacy, even if it be overweighted more with affliction than distinction, and if the God whose will the prophets sought to proclaim has been glorified, the effort expended has been well worthwhile. PERSONA 6 LIVING WORD AMI PROPHETIC BOOKS ———————————————— ———————————————— 1 THINK AGAIN INTRODUCTION THE PLAN OF THE BOOK STUDY NOTES L THE FOCUS of this study is the latter prophets, as they are known in the Jewish canon, or the major and minor prophets, as they have come to be called in the Christian canon. The plan of this book is to follow a historical line through the literary prophets, to the degree that it is visible to modern scholarship. Of course, all scholars do not agree on such fundamental issues as the date, authorship, and literary integrity of the books and their component parts. Those matters will be discussed in some detail in the chapters that follow. My attempt to line the prophets and their books up on a time line rather than treating them in the canonical order carries an element of risk, but it seems worth the venture in order to see the cultural, theological, and historical interrelationships that existed among the canonical prophets. This perspective is not easily appreciated by either the beginner in prophetic studies or the advanced PERSONA student who concentrates on the prophets book by book and never sees the broad picture, with the individual prophets in their historical and theological niches. 7 LIVING WORD AMI PROPHETIC BOOKS ———————————————— ———————————————— Though the prophets were not given to quoting one another by name, they did draw upon each other, some more than others. Once that THINK AGAIN dependence is recognized, a new view of the prophetic movement emerges. They were not lone individualists who knew nothing and cared nothing for what others who bore the name “prophet” had said. Rather they saw themselves in a line of L STUDY NOTES STUDY NOTES L succession and were aware of the tradition they had received from their predecessors. The prophets spoke to Israel in times of crisis. In fact, historical and moral crisis, if the list of canonical prophets is any indication, called them forth. Had there been no crisis, there would have been little need for the prophets. When the list of literary prophets is posted, it will be noted that they are clustered around critical historical events or eras. The historical continuum of Israel’s history from the eighth to the fifth centuries etc. can be sketched, even if roughly, in the literary prophets. Three centers, corresponding to the three international eras, bring them into sharp focus. Or, it might as accurately be said that the literary prophets bring three historical centers into sharp focus. The first category includes those of the Neo- Assyrian period, whose attention fell upon the circumstances leading up to and the conditions PERSONA following the fall of the Northern Kingdom (Israel) in 722 B.C. The constellation of prophets who assessed the moral and theological climate that led to the end of Israel was constituted by Amos, Hosea, Micah, and Isaiah. In varying ways but with 8 LIVING WORD AMI PROPHETIC BOOKS ———————————————— ———————————————— sympathetic insight, they saw the end of Israel and its implications for Judah. The critical nature of this era had much to do with the preservation of the THINK AGAIN prophetic oracles as sacred literature. Although Jonah was not preoccupied with that event and obviously belongs on the periphery of this era, it might be said that the judgment he reluctantly saw submerged in Yahweh’s compassionate nature re- L STUDY NOTES STUDY NOTES L emerged in the era of this prophetic constellation. The second group of prophets is composed of those of the Neo-Babylonian era, whose focus marked out the attendant circumstances and succeeding conditions of the fall of the Southern Kingdom (Judah) in 586 B.C. At the end of the Assyrian period, when the shifting lines of international domination blurred and then cleared again with the rise of the Chaldean-inspired Babylonian empire, some of the most powerful and discerning voices of history addressed the developing crisis. Zephaniah, Jeremiah, Habakkuk, Nahum, Ezekiel, and Obadiah contributed their distinctive insights to their contemporaries and delivered their message from the Lord to Judah.