Hebrew Prophets

Hebrew Prophets

A priest, it is said, is one who represents people before God. A prophet is one who represents God before the people.

The Bible tells the story of the Hebrew nation (see Judaism, Development of). During much of that history the people rebelled against God by worshiping foreign gods and disobeying the law delivered at Sinai. The prophets were those who, seeing what was happening, delivered warnings and called the people to repentance. Some were successful in their endeavors. Others were not.

Those whose warnings were written down in canonical books (see Bible) bearing their names are known as the "classical" prophets. The four known as major prophets because of the length of their books are the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel. The twelve minor prophets are Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Johah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi.

Their books have been studied, discussed, and written about in countless academic studies. Questions are legion: Did they ever really exist? Probably. Did they really write the books bearing their names? Some of them did. Are some of the prophetical books written by more than one author? Almost certainly. Were there other prophets whose work is lost to us? Emphatically yes. Who were they? Aside from those prophets represented in the Apocrypha (see Apocrypha), we'll never know.