The Hebrew Republic: Chapter 19: The Hebrew Prophets
By E.C. Wines
The right understanding of the prophetical office among the Hebrews will throw much light on the Mosaic constitution, and strikingly evince the popular character of the Israelitish government. On this point, far be it from me to disturb the faith which we have inherited from our fathers, or to unsettle, in any mind, the received opinion concerning the true divine inspiration of the Hebrew prophets. I believe, with implicit and unquestioning faith, the testimony of Paul, that "all scripture is given by inspiration of God,"1 and the testimony of Peter that "holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost."2 Nevertheless, to foretell future events, and to impart religious truth and spiritual lessons, were not the whole duty and office of a prophet under the constitution of Moses.
Doubtless, the most important functions of the Hebrew prophets were, in the strict sense, religious in their character. The office of the prophets was much more like that of our modern clergymen than was office of the priests, who had, in fact, but few points of resemblance to the ministry instituted by Christ.3 The prophets were the preachers of the ancient church. According to Augustine, they were the philosophers, divines, instructors, and guides of the Hebrews in piety and virtue. These holy men were the bulwarks of religion against the impiety of princes, the wickedness of individuals, and every kind of immorality. But by far the most important part of their commission was to foretell the coming and kingdom of the Messiah, with their attendant circumstances, and, by slow degrees, yet with constantly increasing clearness, to acquaint their countrymen with the approaching change of their economy, and with the nature of the new, more spiritual, and universal dispensation, which was to succeed it.
Still, as hinted above, the duties of the prophets were not wholly religious. Their relation to the civil state was not, indeed, fixed by any constitutional provision or legal enactment. They did not form a component part of the political system. They were not a branch of the machinery of government. Yet their authority and influence in affairs of state was by no means inconsiderable. They were, so to speak, the privileged state-moralists, guardians, and popular orators of the republic. Coleridge speaks of them as uniting the functions and threefold character of the Roman censors, the tribunes of the people, and the sacred college of augurs. The historian Schlosser says, "We hear, in the prophets, the voice of true patriots, who, standing upon a provision of the law of Moses, spake the truth to the people, to the priests, and to the kings." Horne speaks of them as possessing great authority in the Israelitish state, and as highly esteemed by the pious sovereigns, who undertook no important affairs without consulting them. Alexander represents their influence in the government as very powerful, not indeed by official, formal action, but as special divine messengers, whose authority could not be disputed or resisted by any magistrate, without abjuring the fundamental principles of the theocracy. Milton compares them to the orators of the Greek democracies. The lines which this sage and learned poet puts into the mouth of our Savior, both from their truth and appositeness, deserve to be cited here.
"Their orators, thou then extoll'st, as those
The top of eloquence--statest, indeed,
And lovers of their country, as may seem;
But herein to our prophets far beneath,
As men divinely taught, and better teaching
The solid rules of civil government,
In their majestic, unaffected style,
Than all the oratory of Greece and Rome.
In them is Plaines taught and easiest learnt,
What makes a nation happy, and keeps it so,
What ruins kingdoms and lays cities flat."
