The importance. therefore, of the Hebrew prophets consists in their paving the way for a new and far higher conception of prophecy, which, becoming in time more and more dissoci ated with mere foretelling propensities, made the prophet the moral and religious teacher par ex cellence. The highest expression.of prophecy in this sense is to be seen in the announcement of a glorious age when with the complete recon ciliation of Yahweh with his people a new period is to be ushered in. marked by the triumph of right and justice, and when the worship of Yah weh will be freed from all impurities and un worthy features. That this new era was closely bound up with strictly national ideals repre sents a natural limitation, the absence of which would have placed both the prophets and proph ecy entirely beyond the intellectual nail religious horizon of their times. As late as the advent of Jesus, the Messianic period (as the new era was designated) was bound up in the minds of the masses with the restoration of the Jewish kingdom, and though Yahweh long ere the days of Jesus had ceased to be a merely national deity, yet even the God recognized as supreme and single in the universe was bound by special ties to a particular people; and even when the TMessiah was no longer pictured as an earthly king, the limitation of Hebrew prophecy appears in the position accorded to Jerusalem, which, as the chosen seat of the universal God, was to be the spiritual centre of mankind—the gathering place to which all nations would make pilgrimage.
The view of prophecy above unfolded makes it doubtful whether the term prophet is applicable to such personages as Elijah and Elisha, or even to Samuel and Moses. That in the Old Testa ment the name vabr is distinctly applied to them is simply due to that projection of later condi tions into the remote past which is a distinguish ing feature of the theory controlling historical compilation in the 01(1 Testament collection. According to this theory, the religious views and ideas of the later prophets are but special ex pressions of a faith first promulgated by Abra ham and given a definite shape by Moses. As a matter of fact the historical rille of Moses and Samuel, so far as this can be determined, was so essentially different from that of the prophets from the eighth century on. that it is only a
source of confusion to apply the term V to those who flourished before the beginning of the religious movement that takes its rise with Amos. Elijah and Elisha are in a measure fore runners of this movement, but the religious prob lem in their days, involving mainly the conflict between the Yahweh cult and the Canaanitish Baal cults, is so entirely different from the one encountered when we come to the prophets in the real sense that we ought likewise to avoid the extension of mibi' to individuals of whom Elijah and Elisha are types; or, if the term 'prophet' is to be extended to them, it should at least be recognized that they are prophets of a totally different character, standing far closer to the old Semitic kahins, who, more or less closely organ ized into a guild. differ from the ordinary repre sentatives of the gods—the priests—only in not being attached to any particular sanctuary, but, passing from place to place, furnish oracles to those who seek them out, and engage in religious practices that are the outcome of primitive re ligious beliefs.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. Out of the large mass of litBibliography. Out of the large mass of lit- erature the following works are selected: Smith, The Prophets of Israel (London, 18'82) ; Kuenen. The Prophets of Israel (Eng. trans., London, 1877) ; Duhm, Die Theologic der Prophcten (Bonn, 1875) Ewald, The Prophets of the Old Testament (Eng. trans., London. 1S75) ; Eittei, Prophet:e and Weissagang (Freiburg, 1899) fliehm, Die ilessiunische 1Veissagung (2d ed.. Gotha, 1885; Eng. trans., Edinburgh, 1891) ; Cornill, Der israclitische ProphetismIlS ( St ss burg, 1894; Eng. trans., Chicago. 1897) : Dar mesteter, "The Prophets of Israel," in Selected Essays (Boston, 1395) ; Briggs, Messianie Proph ecy (New York, 1886) : and the Old Testament theologies of Dillmann, Smeml, Oehler, and Schultz. See ELIJAH; ETIsIhA; MOSES; SAM UEL; and the articles, on the different prophets of the Old Testament and their books.