Reading to grow and to become wise concerning the most important thing in life 2 Prophetic and poetic writers
Reading to grow and to become wise concerning the most important thing in life 2 Prophetic and poetic writers
The Pentateuch and the words of prophetic man are still of value for today and contain a lot of wisdom and stories by which we in the present times can learn a lot from.
By reading the prophetic books we not only can learn what happened in the past and how wars could be won, but also what is going to happen in the future and how we can prepare us for the coming World War III and the end-times.
In “Reading to grow and to become wise concerning the most important thing in life 1 Times of reading” I explained that we were given five books, the Pentateuch, which could give us a picture how the universe came into being and how man evolved in times where he did not always have it easy. I told also that in those books you can find the history of man. Though that may be long ago you might think those stories from long ago, the Bereshith, the Shemoth, the Wayyiqra, the Bemidbar and the Devarim would have no value or meaning for today. Be not mistaken, in them you can find lots of wisdom which is practical for today as well.
11th century Hebrew Bible with targum, perhaps from Tunisia, found in Iraq: part of the Schøyen Collection. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
But it does not stop by those books. We can find several prophetic writers who notated a lot of wisdom which is still very good to know today. In the Tanakh or Hebrew Bible or Hebrew Holy Scriptures there have been taken some very interesting books which offer us proverbs, maxims or aphorisms,riddles and charms, poetry and songs which are offering texts which should get us to think about several matters and give advice on very important life matters which are still applicable today.
The icon of the prophet Samuel from the collection of the Donetsk regional art museum.
The Elohim Hashem Jehovah not only spoke to Moshe to bring His Words to us. Today we may look at the inspired books of Moses which are the most ancient extant writings, although there are written monuments as old as about 2000 B.C. E. After Moshe God used other people to act as “ro’eh” or “seer”, like Shmuʾel or Shemu’el (Samuel), Natan (Nathan) and Gad.
God choose specific persons to do work for Him here on this earth. They worked as immediate organs of God for the communication of God His Spirit (God’s Mind) and will to men.
Deut. 18:18 a prophet I will raise up for them from among their brothers, like you;
I will put my words in his mouth, and he will speak to them
whatever I command him.
Deut. 18:19 And it shall be:
(any) man who does not hearken to my words which he speaks in my name,
I myself will require (a reckoning) from him.
Those men did not speak for themselves and the words they wrote down were words man had to take seriously. People where told that if the things those prophets told did not come out (nor came to pass), that would mean that it was not the thing which the Most HighElohim had spoken, but the prophet had spoken it presumptuously and therefore man should not be afraid of him.
(Deut. 18: 20-22) 20 But: the prophet who presumptuously speaks a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak, or that he speaks in the name of other gods: die that prophet shall!
21 Now if you should say in your heart:
How can we know it is the word that YHWH {Jehovah} did not speak?
22 Should the prophet speak in the name of YHWH but the word not happen, not come-about — (then) that is the word that YHWH did not speak; with presumption did the prophet speak it; you are not to be-in-fear of him!
Leningrad Codex text sample. A very old manuscript of the hebrew bible. A former possession of karaït jews. They claim his author was karait, a position refused by rabbanite jews. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
By the years passing people came to know that there where those men with special gifts. Their possibility to speak about certain matters gave man to know that it where words not from what was here on earth but from above man’s world. Those chosen men of God penned down the whole Word of God which may in this general sense be spoken of as prophetic, inasmuch as it was written by men who received the revelation they communicated from God, no matter what its nature might be. That Word also proved to be telling something happening which man himself could not alter to happen. It was a Word which roofed infallible and which man could not destroy. How much man also did to destroy the Word of God, by the centuries always there where generations who could come in contact with it and learn from it.
The foretelling of future events was not a necessary but only an incidental part of the prophetic office. The great task assigned to the prophets whom God raised up among the people was
“to correct moral and religious abuses, to proclaim the great moral and religious truths which are connected with the character of God, and which lie at the foundation of his government.”
The corrections those chosen men gave to the people around them are still of value for today. The lessons they brought to the people are still lessons by which we can learn a lot. Many of those chosen men warned for the Most High and told about a sort of fear we should have for Him that is mightier than all mighty man or gods of this world. It is that fear for the Most High which also brings wisdom.
“The fear of Jehovah (the Most High Elohim) is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.”
(Proverbs 9:10)
Many are not interested in the Word of God and do not want to read the Bible, but we should know that
“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.”
(Proverbs 1:7 KJV)
In those writings which are read in our community from childhood those listening to it can grow in wisdom and find ways to put evil at the site so that they can get more understanding.
“And unto man he said, Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.”
(Job 28:28 KJV)
Though those texts may be from long ago we should listen to them and take them at heart.
“Regard the days of ages-past, understand the years of generation and generation (ago); ask your father, he will tell you, your elders, they will declare it to you:”
(Deuteronomy 32:7 SB)
The nevi’im spoke about things in the near future but also told about matters non of the living persons at time would ever come to see in their life, because it was going to happen many centuries later.
In the second main division of the Hebrew Bible (the Tanakh), between the Torah (Law or instruction) and Ketuvim (writings), we find the older books of the Nevi’im Rishonim or Former Prophets, which tell us what happened and how god promised things and how they could see it accomplished. Jehoshua (Joshua), Shemu’el (Shumel or Samuel) admonished the people to be loyal to the God of the covenant.
A careful reading of relevant biblical texts, stimulated by the study of external resources, has led scholars to a general agreement that Israel did not take Canaan by means of a single, comprehensive, calculated plan of conquest. It happened more gradually and more naturally, through progressive infiltration and acculturation. This relatively peaceful development, which went on for a couple of centuries, reached its fulfillment in the rise of David. Until then, for the most part, walled cities remained in Canaanite hands. Even if these cities were razed, as in the case of Hazor (Joshua 11), Israel does not seem to have made military use of them; David’s occupation of Jerusalem was a first in this respect. The accounts of Joshua’s campaigns (Joshua 10–11) seem to fit these realities; they are accounts of forays by a mobile community, moving ever westward, that increasingly constituted a force to be reckoned with in the open spaces between the walled cities. {Encyclopaedia Britannica on Joshua}
Concerning that city for us today it is of utmost importance to know what is written in the Holy Scriptures. In the different ancient writings we can see how the Divine Creator helped His People to live in the places where they sojourned, but also come to see why they did not get in their days that promised land like it shall become a Land of honey. The book of Nevi’im or Book of Prophets give us insight of the why, how and when and should give us hope that what God promised to Avraham or Abraham shall become a reality.
Our father Abraham never came to see that what millennia later people would come to see that it became growing and that people where gathering together in God’s Name. In the books we can come to see that he was a man to God’s heart. He showed clearly to the Most HighElohim that he was willing to do God His Will. He was ready to obey God’s command to sacrifice Jitshak (Isaac). This was just a test of his faith, which he was not required to consummate in the end because God substituted a ram. With Avraham, Jithsak and Jaʿakov (Jacob) God’s relationship of promise and purpose was fixed for all those who descended from them, and this can be found in all those old books.
The great use of prophecy was to let people to understand how god continually stayed with His own people but was also willing to come to all those who were willing to come to Him. With all the signs God gave to mankind seeing His might and power faith could perpetuated in his predictions and to be prepared for things to come, because God wants people to be ready for those events, especially for the major time to come when everything has to come to a conclusion. But there are many subordinate and intermediate prophecies also which hold an important place in the great chain of events which illustrate the sovereignty and all-wise overruling providence of God.
Jeshayahu (Isaiah) in particular and Dani’el (Daniel) where the two writers who clearly are important for us today, giving us a picture of what to expect in the near future.
Jeshayahu being the first listed is not the earliest of the Nevi’im Aharonim, the latter prophets, explains content and provide places and times for us to take into account. We can read how the kingdom of Judah was so often protected by God and how judgement of God fell on the Assyrian army which had threatened the king of Judah, and wiped out 185,000 of its men. This writer also gives a direct portrayal of the “wrath of the Most High God” as presented, for example, in Isaiah 9:19 stating
“Through the wrath of YHWH the Host of hosts is the land darkened, and the people shall be as the fuel of the fire: no man shall spare his brother.”
(Isaiah 9:19)
When reading the Scriptures the reader shall come to see how the many prophesies about the Jewish nation where fulfilled.
There is in like manner a large number of prophecies relating to those nations with which the Jews came into contact, as Tyre (Ezek. 26:3-5, 14-21), Egypt (Ezek. 29:10, 15; 30:6, 12, 13), Ethiopia (Nahum 3:8-10), Nineveh (Nahum 1:10; 2:8-13; 3:17-19), Babylon (Isa. 13:4; Jer. 51:7; Isa. 44:27; Jer. 50:38; 51:36, 39, 57), the land of the Philistines (Jer. 47:4-7; Ezek. 25:15-17; Amos 1:6-8; Zeph. 2:4-7; Zech. 9:5-8), and of the four great monarchies (Dan. 2:39, 40; 7:17-24; 8:9). {Easton’s Bible Dictionary on prophecy}
Though in the Garden of Eden God had made His first and utmost most important promise. It concerned a solution for mankind its rebellion against God at those early beginnings of the world.
The great body of the Tanakh is all about that solution which would come into the world and would deliver a king to reign from the big cityJerusalem, bringing peace all over the Holy Land and its surroundings.
Jeshayahu and Dani’el give us a picture of what we may expect and how great and beautiful that restored Godly Place shall be. Moshe was the first one who wrote that major promise down.He wrote
“I put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed: they will bruise you on the head, you will bruise them in the heel.”
(Genesis 3:15 SB)
From the seed of a woman was to come the one who would show that God is with us (Immanuel). People had to come to see and believe that God never left His creation but that it was man himself who left God. The prophets continued to refer to that first great promise, and extending in ever-increasing fullness and clearness all through to the Hebrew Bible the Messianic prophecies, too numerous to be quoted, gave witness of the one who would be sent by God to bring salvation not only for the Jews but also for all the goyim who would be willing to believe in him, who was to offer himself on the slaughter of the oppressor.
“To him gave all the prophets witness.” (Comp. Micah 5:2; Hag. 2:6-9; Isa. 7:14; 9:6, 7; 11:1, 2; 53; 60:10, 13; Ps. 16:11; 68:18.)
Jeremias was one of the prophets of the Hebrew Bible. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
It was not just one nabi (or prophet) who showed what God had in store for mankind. More than one wise and literate visionary spoke about that great promise which would bring liberation for all mankind. Those who do not want to listen to them or do not come to read their words shall have difficulty to come to see.
Their eyes shall stay closed and by not willing to see they also shall not hear and before they know it shall be too late. God has also given enough warnings for that, not only in the Tanakh but also by the words of that sent one from God, rabbi Jeshua and his disciples. They too delivered many predictions. Those of Christ were very numerous. (Comp. Matthew 10:23-24; 11:23; 19:28; 21:43, 44; 24; 25:31-46; 26:17-35, 46, 64; Mark 9:1; 10:30; 13; 11:1-6, 14; 14:12-31, 42, 62; 16:17, etc.)
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