The Seer.—But the word Nabi acquired a wider connotation. Later than the age of Samuel it came to be applied to persons who in earlier times would have been called Seers (Ro'eh, "Visionary"; or H5zeh, "Gazer": I Sam. ix. 9). The Seer, ubiquitous in antiq uity and ranging in dignity from the itinerant soothsayer to the guardian of some famous sanctuary, was credited with power, through interpretation of omens or (more impressively) through trance-visions, to gain knowledge from a spiritual being inacces sible to ordinary men : he was, as others were not, a "man of God." Balaam (Nu. xxii.–xxiv.) is typical: "essentially an Arab Kdhin or seer of that early type which combined the priest's offices of ritual and sacrifice, the diviner's reliance on omens and lots, and the prophet's experience of ecstasy and dreams" (G. A. Smith). The possibilities in the calling for good and evil are obvious. Affinities with the baser forms of divination—wizardry, necro mancy, etc.—were close, and degenerate seers became only too numerous in Israel (Is. ii. 6, Mic. iii. 7), notwithstanding a strong tradition that such arts were peculiarly abhorrent to the God of Israel (I Sam. xxviii. 3, sqq. Ex. xxii. 18, Is. viii. 19). But the famous seers created the expectation of individuals in mysterious contact with God, "standing in his counsel," "knowing his secret," whose words should therefore have absolute authority in hours of crisis. Much more than the Nebi'im with their collective "inspira tion," the seer is of the lineage of the great prophets. Yet a distinc tion may be drawn. The ordinary seer made his powers his profes sion and livelihood (Am. vii. 12), and his functioning was habitually passive : he waited to be consulted. The great prophets were men of diverse callings, driven by an irresistible constraint actively to declare to Israel the word of its God. Thus to his con temporaries Samuel was not one of the Nebi'im but the Priest Seer of Ramah, whom a Saul could consult about strayed animals. Later generations rightly accounted him a prophet of the great type because of his initiative in rousing the people against the Philistines, in creating a monarchy, and later in rejecting Saul for David.
The Higher Prophecy.—But all the seers and prophets of antiquity would have but infinitesimal interest, were it not for the appearance in Israel of certain individuals of amazing spiritual insight, whom we, like their contemporaries, for lack of a better word must call "prophets." Their work and words endow Prophecy with almost inexhaustible importance for religion and for social organization. The diversity of the occupations and circles to which these higher prophets belonged is significant. A few, especially in the earlier period, pertained to the professional prophetic class: Samuel was a famous seer, Gad and Nathan official prophets of David's court, Micaiah one of the recognized Nebi'im (I Kings xxii.—a passage which should be studied). But Elisha was a prosperous farmer, Amos a shepherd of Judaea, Isaiah a citizen of Jerusalem, Micah a Judaean villager, Jeremiah a youth of ancient priestly family, Ezekiel a priest of the Temple. The unifying characteristic is that to each came an overmastering conviction that, temporarily or permanently, he must forsake his way of life and declare what God would say to His people. Their prophesying was the constraint of a vocation, not the pursuit of a profession. When their teaching is coordinated certain principles they held in common can be analysed (see articles on the several prophetical Books, HEBREW RELIGION, etc.) with results sufficiently impressive. But such surveys are meagre and mechan ical: what counts is the stress' of circumstance from which the great ideas were won, and the heroic application of beliefs to events. Knowledge of Hebrew prophecy is knowledge of the lives
of glorious personalities; only when name after name of the prophets calls up the memory of lonely insight into truth, of un breakable loyalty to duty, maintained through scorn and hatred and despite despair, can its splendour be realized.
Historical Development.—Complex as are the Pentateuchal narratives concerning Moses, it seems certain that an influential section of the mixed population under the Hebrew monarchies held a tradition that a great leader of prophetic character (yet not an ordinary seer, Nu. xii. 6-8 ; but such as Samuel had been, a man whom a Hosea or Jeremiah could call a Prophet, Ho. xii. 13, Jer. xv. I) had led their ancestors out of Egypt to the independence of the desert, and had fired them with such confidence in the God Jehovah as had given them the unity necessary for a successful assault on Canaan. However dimly recalled, and by however few, the tradition of Moses, it may be held, preserved potent ideas : that Jehovah required a standard of morality that differentiated Him from other gods, and that in Moses himself—remembered as a life of splendid patience and mercy, of unswerving integrity and awe-inspiring intimacy with the invisible God—there had been seen a true servant of Jehovah. Subsequently in Canaan the leadership of Samuel not only established the national existence, but created in the popular consciousness the sense that their kingdom was truly, and not nominally, a theocracy, where kings must heed the word spoken by God's prophets to an extent start ling in the ancient East (I. Kings xxi. 7). The vigilance of pro phetic censorship over the dynasty was notably displayed against David (by Gad and Nathan), against Solomon (by Ahijah), against Rehoboam (by Shemaiah) ; and momentously in Flijah's adamantine opposition to Ahab and Jezebel, whereby the alliance with Phoenicia was broken and Israel left to face unsupported the impending attack by Damascus.
The deep motives in the higher prophecy now became apparent. Not by political wisdom was Elijah actuated, but solely by an imperious religious instinct which swept aside all other considera tions in the assertion that Jehovah demands an absolutely ex clusive worship, and that He champions the rights of the humblest against even the king. This principle holds good throughout. Attempts (cf. Winckler) to explain the actions and attitude (e.g.) of Isaiah or Jeremiah primarily by political foresight or predilec tions can be shown in detail to be misconceived. Prophecy had created the nation, and wished to sustain it; not, however, in the interests of the nation, but in the interests of its God. The im portant account of Elijah's flight to Horeb, I. Kings xix. (taken in conjunction with the sequel : Elijah's sense of a commission to anoint Jehu king over Israel, and Hazael over Syria, followed by the achievement of those ends by Elisha, his disciple, and by high-minded prophets) shows that the parable read by Elijah in the quiet of the enduring mountain, following the storm, was not that the ways of God are gentleness alone, but on the contrary that the prophet's resolve to overthrow the house of Ahab must be pursued to its bitter end through revolution in Israel and war with Syria. The nation must pass through the tumult : thereafter the unalterable good purpose of its God would be apparent. In face of the grim realities of evil true religion must send first not peace but a sword.