2. Prophecy ultimately employed the 'messenger formula' as the most direct means of expressing its function. But since from its very first appearance in Israel there were more kinds of prophecy than one, it is practically impossible to point to any single basic 'form' of prophetic speech and to identify it, from the point of view of form criticism, as prophecy's original starting-point' Yet, even though the 'messenger formula' cannot be taken as this, it should be considered first, since it persists as a constant factor in all OT prophecy from Elisha to Malachi, and is, too, the most consistently used of all the many different prophetic literary categories.

As everyone knows, it was a common custom in the ancient world for a messenger with some announcement to make to discharge his errand when he came into the recipient's presence, by speaking in the first person, the form in which the message had been given to himself; that is to say, he completely submerged his own ego and spoke as if he were his master himself speaking to the other. Examples of this entirely secular use of the 'messenger formula' introduced by the words 'thus says so and so' are still to be found within the Old Testament itself.   This is the form which the prophets used more frequently than any other to deliver their messages, and the fact is important for the understanding of their own conception of their role. They saw themselves as ambassadors, as the messengers of Yahweh.

As a rule, however, the prophets prefaced this messenger formula with another form of words whose purpose was to draw the recipient's attention to the message and which, indeed, gave the first precise designation of those for whom it was intended. In the case of a divine threat, what was prefixed was a 'diatribe', in the case of a promise, an 'exhortation'. These two, the messenger formula and the prefaced clause, must both be present before we have the literary category 'prophetic oracle'. To understand the category, we must remember that down to the time of Jeremiah, with whom there is a change, the prophets always made a clear distinction between the messenger formula and the diatribe or exhortation which introduced it. The former alone was the direct word of God: the other was a human word whose purpose was to lead up to and prepare the way for God's word and give it its reference. The divine word was, of course, primary in point of time: this was what came to the prophet in a moment of inspiration, to be passed on to those whom it concerned. This the prophet did by prefixing to it a diatribe which identified the people addressed. What makes the inner connection between diatribe and threat is the characteristic 'therefore', justifying the latter and leading on to the words 'Thus hath Yahweh spoken'.

But the messenger formula, frequent though it is, is still only one among many forms used by the prophets in their preaching' In fact, they showed no hesitation in availing themselves of all manner of forms in which to clothe their message. None, secular and sacred alike, was safe from appropriation as a vessel for the discharge of his task by one prophet or another. What these men wanted to do, of course, was to attract attention: indeed sometimes, as when, for example, they laid violent hands on some timehallowed sacral form of expression, their express intention was to shock their audience. Thus their utterances can be couched as a priestly direction concerning sacrifice (Isa. 1.16f.; Amos 5.21ff.), as a cultic hymn, or as a pronouncement in a court of law.   DeuteroIsaiah took the priestly oracle of salvation and reshaped it into something more sweeping and made it the 'form' of his preaching. His well-known phrases, 'Fear not, I have chosen you, redeemed you, I call you by name, you are mine' (Isa. 41.10ff.; 43.1f.; 44.1f.; etc.) are modelled on the liturgical language used by the priest in the cult in response to an individual prayer of lamentation (Isa. 41.10ff.; 43.1f.; 44.1f.; etc.). In other cases the message was clothed in the form used by the teachers of wisdom (Isa. 28.23ff.; Amos 3-3ff.), or of a popular song (Isa. 5.1ff.). The best example of the changes which these literary categories underwent at the hands of the prophets, who sometimes even expanded them into really grotesque shapes, is the dirge: the later prophets actually parodied it.   Exegesis has therefore to be particularly careful here, because a great deal depends on correct determination of 'form', and in particular on the correct delimitation of the beginning and end of the unit under discussion. To add a verse from the unit which follows, or to omit one which properly belongs to the close of an oracle, can alter the whole meaning.

The form in which a particular message is cast is also important in a still stricter sense of the word 'form', for a 'form' is never just something external, concerned with literary style alone; in the last resort, form cannot be separated from content. What determined the choice of the form was primarily the subject-matter of the message. But the content of the prophetic preaching could not possibly be housed in any traditional form — not even a specifically prophetic — for it completely transcended the whole of Israel's previous knowledge of Yahweh. The very nature of the subjectmatter itself demanded nothing short of a bold method of expression — it was always, so to speak, ad hoc improvization — simply because the prophets' message thrust out at every side beyond each and all of Israel's sacral institutions, the cult, law, and the monarchy. In the same way, the very nature of prophecy also demanded the right to make use of what were entirely secular forms with exactly the same freedom as with religious ones, as if there were no difference at all between them, for ultimately prophecy moved In a direction which transcended the old distinctions : when it prophesied judgment, it also announced the end of the established sacral order, and when it foretold salvation, it spoke increasingly of a state of affairs in which all life would be ordered, determined, and sustained by Yahweh. This would, of course, result in the removal of the old distinction between sacral and secular.