PROPHECY (OF. prophetic, prophetic, Fr. proph0 ir, from Lat. prophet ia, from Gk. rporparefa, pri9Mteia, prediction, front rpoitr7lrc6eiv, proph (Wiwi n, to predict, from trpoq'afrns, proplo'ffs, prophet, from irporpcisat, prophanai. to say before, from rpo, pro, before + phanai, to say) . -According to the 'popular acceptation, prophecy is essentially prediction, a foretelling of events by divinely inspired personages. inasmuch, how ever, as the general ideas on the subject are based upon religious phenomena in Hebrew his tory, it is but impel', in order to determine the exact force of the term and its development, to turn to Hebrew usage. Adopting this method, we find the earlier terms in Hebrew for prophet (e.g. rVeh, khozch. 'one who has a vision') associated with the prognostication of the future. and there is no reason to differentiate Hebrew prophecy in this stage from the belief common to all peoples in a low state of culture which assigns to certain individuals the power of as certaining the will of the gods in whose hands the future of an individual or of a community lies. Such beliefs were common among Semites closely aflilinted with the In Baby lonia we find soothsayers, sorcerers, witches, and magicians recognized as necessary elements of society, and various classes of omen-priests con nected with the Babylonian temples; kuhin, the Arabic equivalent of the Hebrew word for priest is used to designate the 'soothsayer.' The various classes of soothsayers enumerated in Dent. xviii. 9-14 show not only the prevalence of this belief among the Hebrews up to a compara tively late period. but also the power which the soothsayers continued to exercise even after the period when the Hebrews entered upon a line of religious development destined to mark them off sharply from their fellow' Semites.
The Hebrew 'prophet' accordingly traces his origin back to the 'seer.' that is. to the magician, sorcerer, and soothsayer; if he stands out in history as a itersonage distinct from the 'seer.' it is because there is afterwards added in his case a. quality of a higher order. It is not difficult to determine what this quality is. In the proper historical sense, the term 'prophet' is applicable only to the series of teachers and exhorters who arose among the Hebrews in the eighth century me., and through whose influence a new conception of Deity and of the relation of the national god Yahweh to his people was evolved. While also concerned with 'prophecy'
in the sense of foretelling the future, they dealt not with individuals, but with the nation as a whole or with the two sections of the people— the northern Kingdom of Israel, and the southern Kingdom of .Tudah. More than this, the pro phetic functions which they exercised, or claimed to exercise, were incidental to their main task, which was to impress upon the people the sense of responsibility for their acts to a Deity, who governed. not by caprice, hut by high standards of right, purity, and justice, and who was there fore to be approached, not by gifts and sacri fices, but by a contrite heart and a genuine spirit of devotion, The prognostications indulged in by those prophets of whose utterances we pos sess fragments in the 'prophetical' division of the Old Testament are largely concerned with threats of divine punishment for disobedience to Yah weh's will and decrees. They are accordingly based upon the profound conviction of the prophet that wrong-doing is certain to be pun ished; and in this respect their prophecies differ essentjally from the attempts of soothsayers and diviners to determine by means of omens and oracular devices the course that will be taken by events and to ascertain the will of the gods.
This view of the prophetical calling among the Hebrews applies to the prophets from Amos to the anonymous Alalachi, including therefore the brilliant galaxy Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. At the same time it must be acknowledged that, even in the case of these exhorters, survivals of the more primitive prophetic functions are to be discerned. While discarding the oracular meth ods of the soothsayers, they yet stand forth as interpreting certain signs and symbols in con nection with Yahweh's purposes. and above all they claim, or are represented as claiming, to have had visions in which the future—generally of the nation—was revealed to them. No doubt it was this claim and the belief in their extraor dinary powers that lent them a large measure of the influence that they exerted. And it is not necessary to assume that the prophets of the higher order no longer believed in the super natural phases of their calling. They deeply felt that they were speaking in Yahweh's name and they were essentially the children of their day in accepting the position that Yahweh made his will known to his people through certain individ uals singled out for the purpose.