What is a Prophet? By Paul Marn Henebury An excerpt from the book ‘The Words of the Covenant’ (forthcoming) It is commonly asserted within biblical scholarship that the main focus of the prophet was on proclamaon; that only incidentally was he (or she) concerned with predicon. In many studies of the role of the prophet the emphasis is put upon the prophet’s funcon as a moral exhorter to his me and place. Here is a recent example: The prophet’s role was to speak the word of God to the king, naon, or people to reveal his will for their lives and how they should act. Prophecy somemes included predicons, but always with a view to revealing something of God’s plan, nature, or personality so that the hearers would respond appropriately in worshipful obedience. 1 This descripon is given no verificaon, and on closer inspecon will not stand up to scruny. It can, for instance, be demonstrated that in numerous cases the prophec predicon did not have in mind the transformaon of the hearers, but was instead a kind of indictment on their hard heartedness or else a simple warning. Moses’ words in Deuteronomy 4:26-28, Hosea’s pronouncement in Hosea 3:4, and the ministry of Agabus in Acts 11:28 and 21:10-11 are enough to disprove it. As I begin I want to remind the reader of something I said before: that our understanding of what a prophet is will be dependent to a large extent on our view of biblical prophecy. While declaiming sins was an important part of what a prophet of God was to do, but it was not at all his defining role. His job was to foretell what God would do. This has been well said by a recent writer in speaking about the wring prophets: Every literary prophet makes specific observaons about the future…that can be tested as to their veracity as events unfold… It is crucial to underscore this aspect of prophecy, for there has been in the past century an unfortunate emphasis upon the prophet as primarily a “forthteller” (i.e. a preacher) with a concomitant minimizing of the prophet as “foreteller” (i.e., one who makes predicons about the future)…Many might like to see the prophets as social reformers, but the simple fact is that they were not. 2 The Hebrew Bible uses three main terms for a prophet: nabi, roeh, and hozeh. Of the three the word nabi (“one who tesfies or proclaims”) is the most instrucve. 3 The first menon of a nabi concerns Abraham in Genesis 20:7. This is when God tells Abimelech in a dream not to touch Sarah, who unbeknownst to him is Abraham’s wife. God calls Abraham His prophet. There is no explanaon in the chapter of what the term a nabi actually means. Unlike those who came aſter him Abraham does not at 1 John D. Laing and Stefana Dan Laing, “The Doctrine of the Future, the Doctrine of God, and Predicve Prophecy”, in Eschatology: Biblical, Historical and Praccal Approaches , D. Jeffrey Bingham and Glenn R. Kreider, eds., 80 2 Samuel A. Meier, Themes and Transformaons in Old Testament Prophecy, 209. 3 The word “Prophet” comes from the Greek compound word prophetes, which means “to speak before or on behalf of another”. A prophet was God’s “mouth”.