Custom essays on Israel

To begin with, it should be noted that institute of prophecy is based on the fundamental premise that from generation to generation God has revealed His will through those, He chooses for this purpose. The prophet – is a charismatic figure, endowed with the gift of perception of the divine message and the ability to communicate this message to the people. Being like the mouth of God, he does not choose its missions, but he is chosen by God, often in spite of their own accord, with the aim to bring his will to his people, not always ready to heed it. It can be said that Moses is regarded as the greatest prophet. None of the subsequent prophets knew so much the essence of God and no one was in such close connection with Him. The next after Moses is Isaiah, which, inter alia, states that only Moses and he “knew what they were prophesying”, that is why these two are considered as the greatest prophets of Israel, as described in Theological Word Book of the Old Testament.
It should be noted that prophesy – is not a craft that can be mastered. On the other hand, among Hebrew, prophecy does not seek a mystical union with God, there is no conception of the universe into the body of the prophet of God’s spirit leading to the trance possession. On the contrary, prophet, who was chosen by God feels obliged to inform the people His message and get them to do His will, even if he does not agree with His decision. As a matter of fact, very often this led to sad consequences, in particular, the prophet was separated from his compatriots, and it was the burden of his election among other people. In other words, prophet in Israel was the face of the Lord and devoted to his thoughts. He says, when God commanded him to speak, and must set out the divine revelation in human language, as stated in Roles of Israel’s Prophets.
Along with such prominent prophets as Samuel, Nathan, Elijah and Elisha, the Bible calls the hundreds of other prophets. The distinguish feature of Israel prophets lies in the fact that often they formed groups of “disciples of prophets”. Moreover, some of them were married and had families and homes. Without any doubts, the prophets played an important role in social and political life of the Jewish society, giving advice and predicting the future in God’s name. As a rule, their service was paid with money, sometimes very small, or provisions. To more precise, it can be said that in the Bible there are many examples of the influence of the prophets to the social and political life. In particular, Samuel chose Saul and then David as a King of Israel; Nathan denounced King David for his conduct in relation to the Bat-Sheva and her husband, Uriah, and made the king to recognize Solomon as heir apparent. In turn, Ahijah prophesied the election of Iorovama as a King of Israel and the extermination of his house. All these prove that the importance of prophets in Israel is hard to overestimate. Moreover, some kings had court prophets, for example, Nathan and Gad served to David, Nathan and Ahijah created “acts of Solomon”, Iddo and Shmayya – “acts of Rehavam”, as described in The Role of the Prophet.
However, it should be noted that later prophets considered themselves as followers of the prophetic tradition, which going back to Moses, but modern historical conditions forced them to develop new ideologies, which makes them different from the predecessors – the early prophets. It is essential to note that the activity of later prophets was influenced by two major historical disasters – the fall of the Kingdom of Israel (722 BC) and the destruction of Jerusalem (587 BC).

The first of the later prophets appeared decades before the first event, the last later prophets acted about a century after the second event. It should be mentioned that if in the era of the early prophets historical and political concept was concentrated on a local character (the enemies of Israel in those days – Ammon, Moab, Edom, the Philistines, and Aram), in the era of the later prophets, when the world empires were formed, the Hebrew prophets began to see the God of Israel as a leading force in the world history. Although, God’s focus is always directed to the people of Israel, its religious, moral and social behavior, the prophets had to explain to people the reasons for the historic disasters, and to give hope for future redemption, as stated in Prophets of Israel.
It can be said that the prophets saw in the historical events the hand of God – God reveals Himself in the historical events and appeals to all mankind, but only Israel is related to him by ties of covenant. The fact, that the people of Israel are chosen does not guarantee constant protection and grace of God, and some prophets were vehemently against the concept of invulnerability of Israel. On the contrary, the fact, that the people of Israel are chosen means higher degree of responsibility in comparison with other nations. Therefore, one of the features of the later prophets is a relentless struggle against the moral and social evils in Israel – any defect was interpreted that Israel has “forgotten God” and these will be followed by inevitable punishment. In my opinion, prophets played a key role in a very difficult time for Israel – and were able to convince people to continue fight for their own state, which was formed after 2500 years of wandering around the world.

Works cited
David Petersen. 2009. Roles of Israel’s Prophets. Sheffield Academic Press. 131 pages.
Leon J. Wood. 1998. Prophets of Israel. Baker Academic. 408 pages.
R. Laird Harris, L. Archer, Jr. Bruce K. Waltke. 1993. Theological Word Book of the Old Testament, Vol. 2, p. 544.
The Role of the Prophet. 1949.