📙 [EN] 2. Pre-reading2: Gerhard von Rad "The Message of the Prophets"

1. As the result of a new understanding of the cult, the question has recently been asked whether even the prophets were not much more closely connected with this institution than was once thought possible and, on the basis of what is in some degree a very original interpretation of evidence both inside and outside the Old Testament, the view has been put forward that the majority of the prophets mentioned in the Old Testament were official spokesmen of the cult, and were therefore members of the cultic personnel of the sanctuaries.

It has never been doubted that the prophets liked to pay visits to sanctuaries, both because great numbers of pilgrims resorted to them and also because the catchwords and the points to which they could link their oracles were given them in the religious excitement of the crowds, who would only be met with in such numbers at these shrines. This in itself, however, is no reason for talking about 'cult-prophets'. It may also be taken for granted that an evergrowing number of bands of prophetic 'enthusiasts' were present at the sanctuaries during festivals. These sometimes made such a nuisance of themselves to the priests that special means of supervising them had actually to be set up (Jer. 29.24ff.). But the real question is this — were the prophets members of the cultic personnel in the narrow sense of the term, that is, as its authorized spokesmen? In the case of pre-classical prophecy, it is extremely difficult to give any clear answer, for the simple reason that the material which has come down to us is so scanty. Moreover, we tend to look on this early stage of the prophetic movement as much more uniform than it was in fact. Elisha's station in life was obviously quite different from Elijah's: and both these prophets are clearly very different again from such a man as Nathan. The ecstatics mentioned in I Sam. 10.10f. came from a shrine, but it is difficult to believe that they themselves held a cultic office there. The same is true of the group which gathered round Elisha, and in an even greater degree of Elijah also. No doubt Elijah offered sacrifice on occasion (I Kings 18.30ff.), but this proves nothing, for at that time any Israelite could do the same.

The picture changes when we also recognize the fairly firmly rooted idea that at least one main function of the prophet was intercession. ^l Since, so far as we can see, this was requested on occasions of public emergency and therefore concerned 'Israel', the prophet must at that time have been regarded as in fact a duly authorized spokesman of the whole body of the people. It is also perfectly possible that such intercession by a prophet was sometimes made in the solemn context of an official act of worship. It may be, too, that on such occasions he delivered oracles against foreign nations and called down curses against particular enemies. There is also reason to believe that prophets of a certain kind had an important role assigned them in warfare — it was they who gave the command to attack (I Kings 20.13f., 22, 28; 22.6, 12, 15, Il Kings 3.16f. 6.9). Further, the official ultimatum issued to the neighbours of a people against whom Israel was waging war and to the aliens resident in its midst, warning them to flee from the threatened region (I Sam. 15.6), was a matter for the prophets. Here, too, the prophets are seen as authorized spokesmen of the whole body of the people, in the context of an event which was at that time still regarded as sacral and cultic.

These and other facts show that in the ninth century the prophets were still in various ways incorporated within the official cult. At the same time, however, it is impossible to imagine that their function was as much subject to rules and regulations as that of the priests. For another thing, their office was not hereditary but charismatic, and therefore a priori on a different footing. Again, is it entirely without significance that Deuteronomy gives regulations for the revenues of the priests and levites, but that nothing of the kind occurs in connection with those of the prophets? Further, the fact that women are quite naturally spoken of as prophets (Ex. 15.20; Il Kings 22.14; Neh. 6.14), whereas the idea of women priests was quite inconceivable, rather militates against the thesis of cultic prophets.

Nevertheless, it is clear that there were still large numbers of such temple prophets as late as the time of Jeremiah, and, most probably, they came forward as the spokesmen both of Yahweh and the people. However, the prophets who have been called the 'writing prophets', Amos, Isaiah, Micah, Jeremiah, and the rest of them, were not of their number, as their bitter attacks on these cult prophets makes abundantly clear. They were instead members of a radical wing which increasingly declared its independence from the operation of the official cult.^[1] Proof of this must, of course, be drawn primarily from the content of their preaching and their general outlook, but it can also be demonstrated in the very forms which they used. These are characterized by the extreme boldness of their newly-minted rhetorical devices and of the comparisons they employed, which they chose solely to scandalize and startle the people who heard them, by the way in which so often they couched their messages in completely secular literary forms — selected ad hoc and subsequently abandoned -- and in particular by the incredible variety of forms they used in their preaching, ranging over the whole field of expression then available. Such improvisation was quite unknown in the cultic sphere where all utterance, be it of God or of man, was regulated by convention and standardization. Moreover, there was no place in the cult for the idea that Yahweh would enter into judgment with his own people.^[2] These quick transitions which the great prophets make from form to form are, however, merely the symptom of a radical process which was at work in the very heart of their preaching. This was a totally new understanding of God, of Israel, and of the world, which the prophets each in turn cumulatively developed to a degree which went far beyond anything that there had ever been in the past. Our main reason, however, for thinking that the prophets were much more independent than those who held a fixed office in the organized life of a sanctuary comes from the accounts of their calls, and to these we must now turn.