This is a look at the prophets of Ancient Israel, as discovered through the Hebrew Old Testament, in six parts…
Part One Introduction:
How do you see an invisible God? How do you interact with a spirit you cannot touch? God has emotions, and a voice, but how can you experience that emotion, and how do you hear the voice of God?
This question plagued the children of Israel. As a fledgling nation, no bigger than a large family, the patriarchs directly interacted with God. After four generations, they found themselves enslaved in Egypt without a God. The deliverer Moses then stepped into the role of proxy to God through the wilderness wanderings on the way back to the promised homeland. After the reconquest of Canaan, the Hebrew people again lost sight of God through a series of semi-king judges and into the establishment of the Israelite Kingdom. To answer this loss of vision, God ordained the prophets, after the tradition of Moses, to be His physical presence, to show His emotion, and to speak His words. The prophets became the being and essence of God in the nation of Israel.
There is an ancient Asian proverb which states: “You cannot love without knowing pleasure; you cannot be happy without knowing sorrow; you need to know all of them to know one”(1) and I think this truth is evident in the great love story told through the ages by the prophets of God. The prophets exhibited the emotions of an intensely personal God to a wayward nation.
Michael Card in his song entitled “The Prophet” references many of the ancient prophets, and portrays their deep emotional frustration, “I am the prophet, and I smolder and burn…won’t you listen to me? I sorrow in His anger; my eyes weep His tears” (2) These man of ancient faith struggled mightily to bear the emotions of an awesome God.
In portraying the interactions of the primary emotions of life (love pleasure sorrow and happiness) I will personify them through the lives of seven prophets, six of whom were contemporaries, and across the backdrop of the fall of Jerusalem and the exile to Babylon, and demonstrate them to be the multi-faceted emotions of God displayed in humanity.
Notes
(1) As referenced by director Jieho Lee according to his film The Air I Breathe
(2) Michael Card Lyrics
a simple man 