New Prophets And Its Impact On The Nation Of Israel, Judah, Jerusalem, And Nineveh

In the Old Testament, the Israelites were seen as people who failed to listen to God’s commandments. Despite knowing beforehand that they would be punished for their disobedience, they still continued to commit sin. God tried to deter their misbehavior by promising them many blessings, but it worked to no avail. Due to the insubordination of the Israelites, He made sure that the promises He made to them would be withheld and that they would face consequences.

God is depicted in the Old Testament with a very bad reputation. David Lamb is an old testament professor and he addresses some of the reasons for this bad reputation. In Lamb’s book, God Behaving Badly: Is the God of the Old Testament Angry, Sexist and Racist? In his book, there are seven specific citations addressed that provide proof and evidence for those who would believe “God behaves badly.” The examples that Professor Lamb chose are: angry or loving, sexist or affirming, racist or hospitable, violent or peaceful, legalistic or gracious, rigid or flexible, and distant or near. With each chapter that Lamb writes, it provides multiple biblical narrative accounts and establishes a basis for the particular argument aimed against God.

God of the Old Testament is a God of election. Throughout the Old Testament we see God choosing whether to bless or curse people. Youngblood explains this through Jacob and Esau. Both were from the same father yet he chooses to bless Jacob who was younger than Esau. Election removes pride and boastfulness in humans and puts all of us on the same level waiting for God’s will in different ways. Youngblood than brings out the aspect of the covenant. Since the beginning of the time, God made covenants with the people. Through these covenants, God portrays that he always keeps his promise, and he is fair, and trustworthy to all who honor God.

The prophets are difficult to interpret mainly due to misunderstandings about their function and form (Fee/Stuart p182). Most dictionaries define the word “prophecy”as ‘foretelling or prediction of what is to come. Using the prophets in this way is highly discerning, for less than 2% of OT prophecy is messianic; less than 5% describes the new covenant age and less than 1% concerns future events (Fee/Stuart p182). The prophets usually announced the immediate future of Judah, Israel and the surrounding nations, rather than our future. Those events were forthcoming for them but past for us (Fee/Stuart p182). The primary function of prophets as a spokesperson was to speak for God to their own contemporaries. Of the hundreds of prophets in

First, what must be looked at is who is a prophet and what is a prophet’s message. A prophet is an Israelite called on by God to express in poetic form the vision of God, His kingdom, the messianic age of peace, the work of the Holy Spirit, a new community of people, and the transformation of creation and humanity (VanGemeren 16). One example of a prophet is Amos, where the feeling of prophetic sense of an inner compulsion, “Surly the Lord God does nothing unless He reveals His secret counsel to His servants the prophets. A lion has roared! Who will not fear? The Lord God has spoken! Who can but prophesy?” (Amos 3:7-8).

For us the word "judgment" has much more of an overtone of vengeance and self-satisfying revenge than it did for the Jacobeans 400 years ago. For us it paints a picture of a "judgmental" God who gleefully loves to punish in His demands of absolute servitutde. In fact, that is precisely how Christopher Hitchens pictured the Christian God -- as a "vengeful sky-god." The word for “love” (ahav) means just that. He doesn’t just like judgment He loves it, enjoys it and delights in it. Of course, this depiction belies Jesus' injunction in Matthew 5:44. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you. One translation tried to address this difficulty by using the word "righteousness" instead of "judgment." But if David had meant "righteousness," he would have used the word tsadaq not shaphat.

The first question that Lamb raises is if God’s anger in the Old Testament is justifiable. In other words, can God be concerned with Love and still kill people in his anger? Lamb argues that God 's anger, although sometimes extreme is justified and necessary. To prove his point, Lamb uses the story of Uzzah (2 Sam. 6:1-8). In this story, King David recovered the Ark of The Covenant and paraded it throughout Israel in the back of an ox cart. In front of a large crowd of Israelites the Ark became unstable and Uzzah reached out to steady it, because of this God killed Uzzah instantly. At first this seems completely unjustified, it looks as though Uzzah was just protecting the Ark. But, the more we look into God’s motives, the more it makes sense. First, God commanded the Israelites to carry the Ark by two long poles that attach to the side of the Ark, and he was very clear about this. Second, by killing Uzzah in front of all of these people, God sent a message that said his laws shall not be disobeyed. It

The group of Prophetic Books are divided into the minor prophets and major prophets. The major prophets are Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel are listed first, but not because their messages are more important but that they are longer. The twelve minor prophets are from Hosea through Malachi are writings shorter in length written in shorter in length and follow one by one. The main role for the prophets is to “speak for God” on the issues of the

When the Hebrew peoples lost everything and entered into captivity to Babylon, they were a lost and floundering nation. “After the days of Solomon, the history of Israel was a story of increasing apostasy and judgement” (Clowney, 2013, p. 185). Despite their breaking of the covenants, and sinning against God in the worst ways, God did not abandoned them. He was very unhappy, and sent many prophets to speak His words to try to bring them back into relationship with Him, then God sent judgements down upon them. However, through these judgements, He kept to His promise to Abraham to ultimately bless the nations of Israel. (Clowney, 2013, p. 193) When they were allowed by Cyrus to return to Jerusalem (Arnold & Beyer, 2008, p. 58), with permission

In the textbook's introductory material (Ch. 1 - 4), Hays presents the central focus of the prophets being the covenant and social justice. The covenant is presented within a three-part formula: "I will be your God; You will be my people; I will dwell in your midst" (p. 35). Hays elaborates on the justice aspect on p. 71: "The Prophets and Social Justice Today".

The prophets are some of the most studied individuals in the bible, but often many people overlook the primary mission of the prophets. According to Bratcher “the prophets’ primary task was to call the people

Moving forward in Scripture to the book of Kings a prophet by the name of Elijah is mentioned. The prophet Elijah has been revered by many saints, hermits and mystics, but especially by the carmelite order who took the prophet Elijah as the patron and father of their order. In 1 Kings 18:16-30 Elijah called all the people of Israel and the prophets of Ba’al to meet him at Mount Carmel. He challenged them by asking the people of Israel when will they choose between following the Lord or following Ba’al. He then challenged the prophets of Ba’al by challenging them to set up a sacrifice to their god (and he to his Lord) and whichever god lights the sacrificial altar is the true god. The prophets of Ba’al waited for many hours and called on their

In the last section of the Bible there are two parts. The two parts are the Major and Minor Prophets. The Major prophets are in the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel. The minor Prophets are in the books of Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, these books form that last segment of the Old Testament cannon. The authors of these books were the Hebrew prophets, which makes sense because a Hebrew prophet is a spokesperson for God. The twofold aspect of the prophet's ministry included declaring God's message for people of their day and foretelling God's actions in the future (Hindson). Thus, the prophet was also called a "seer" because he could see future events before

It was Ali Muhammad As-Sallaabee who posed on his book “The Noble life of a prophet” that a prophet is someone called by God and filled with God's Spirit, a prophet spoke God's word to people who had in one way or another distanced themselves from God. The prophet has for its task not only to deliver the message from God to the people but also to predict the future. For the bible informs us that surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he reveals his secret unto his servants the prophets.

The Old Testament is finished up with several different lessons that can be learned from the prophet’s teachings. There were twelve different prophets in the Old Testament, who were also known as the Minor Prophets. The Jews were anxious to know who God was, and the Old Testament prophets offered understanding to many disputes. Idolatry, social injustice and religious ritualism are three topics that are highlighted in the prophet’s teachings and impressed upon the hearts of believers today.