The Prophets: Introducing Israel's Prophetic Writings

By Stephen L. Cook, John T. Strong and Steven S. Tuell

The prophets remain figures of enduring interest and importance in contemporary Judaism, Christianity, and even secular society. The Prophets introduces students to the rise of prophecy in ancient Israel, possible ancient Near Eastern parallels, the messages of individual prophets, and the significance of the compositional and editorial history of the prophetic writings. The book guides students into leading questions and issues in contemporary scholarship, and surveys different contemporary approaches to the messages of the prophets.

Part 1 introduces the prophets and prophecy in context. The rise of prophecy, the role of the prophet, key themes, and the fate of prophecy are explored. Part 2 profiles Israel's prophets during the eighth century, the exile, and the postexilic period. This section will also look at each book of the prophets and how the prophetic writings fit within the complete Hebrew Bible and the Old Testament. These chapters also provide insights into interpreting the prophetic writings today, including Jewish and Christian interpretations, prophecy and prediction, and the secular legacy of Israelite prophecy.

This textbook includes numerous images, charts, and maps to enhance the experience of the students.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fortress Press
• Release date: Mar 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781451465280

Book preview

Cover Page for The Prophets

Praise for The Prophets

The genius of this book lies in its selectivity, readability, and theological sensitivity. Drawing upon wide-ranging knowledge of the ancient Near East and the biblical canon and of theology and art from multiple periods and cultures, these immensely knowledgeable authors view each of the Latter Prophets from a unique angle so that their distinctive qualities emerge clearly. They have produced a study of the prophets for this generation that captures their spirit with the same freshness and urgency that made Heschel’s work invaluable for an earlier generation. Pick up and read.

—Ellen Davis, Amos Ragan Kearns Distinguished Professor of Bible and Practical Theology, Duke Divinity School

For those looking for an accessible introduction with heft, Cook, Strong, and Tuell offer an engaging and lucid survey of the canonical prophetic books and explore the prophetic experience with admirable integrity and balance. This volume is a sensitive treatment of the key literary, historical, sociological, and theological issues that have occupied readers of the prophets for centuries.

—Dexter E. Callender Jr., associate professor of religious studies, University of Miami

Cook, Strong, and Tuell have written a comprehensive introduction to the prophetic material in the Old Testament, from the prophetic narratives in the Deuteronomistic History to the prophetic literary texts. The authors present the material clearly and compellingly, but even more important, they model that the best biblical scholarship is inherently collaborative. Their blending of historical and theological concerns makes this book particularly suitable for seminary education.

—Corrine Carvalho, University of Saint Thomas

Three authors well-versed in the changes that have occurred to the study of prophetic literature in recent decades pool their collective wisdom on the prophetic books to illuminate the contents, and to instruct students in how to understand the distinctive voice of each prophetic writing by traveling back in time using historical-critical tools. The authors remind readers that these books reflect the words and worlds of individual prophets and later editors. They take readers on a journey to learn to hear these books in their ancient settings.

—James Nogalski, professor of Hebrew Bible, Department of Religion, Baylor University

The Prophets

The Prophets

Introducing Israel’s Prophetic Writings

Stephen L. Cook, John T. Strong, and Steven S. Tuell

Fortress Press

Minneapolis

THE PROPHETS

Introducing Israel’s Prophetic Writings

Copyright © 2022 Fortress Press, an imprint of 1517 Media. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Email [e-mail] or write to Permissions, Fortress Press, PO Box 1209, Minneapolis, MN 55440-1209.

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Cover image: Prisoners playing lyres, Assyrian, about 700-692 BCE, from the Lachish Relief, British Museum / Photograph by Mike Peel.

Cover design: Joe Reinke

Print ISBN: 978-0-8006-9951-2

eISBN: 978-1-4514-6528-0

While the author and 1517 Media have confirmed that all references to website addresses (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing, URLs may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.

To our mentors,

Robert R. Wilson

S. Dean McBride, Jr.

Appoint for yourself a teacher, and acquire for yourself a friend, and judge all with the scale weighted in their favor (Pirkei Avot 1:6).

Contents

List of Figures, Tables, and Maps

List of Sidebars

Preface

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

Chart: Kings and Prophets in Israel and Judah

Part I. Approaching Ancient Israel’s Prophets

1. Introduction to the Prophetic Writings

Prophecy’s Place within the Biblical Canon

Prophets as Interpreters of Written Divine Revelation

Tales and Legends of the Prophets

Prophetic Legends as Hagiography

The Writing Prophets as Literary Constructs

2. The Historical Setting of the Israelite Prophets

Prophets and Prophecy in the Ancient Near East

The Theologies and Roles of Israelite Prophets in the Eighth Century

Prophecy against the Backdrop of Assyrian Imperial Development

Prophecy during the Crisis of Assyrian Expansion

The Decline of Assyria and the Reforms of King Josiah

The Rise of Babylonia and the Rise of Written Scripture

The Final Decades of Judah and Jerusalem’s Destruction

The Exilic Era

Israelite Prophecy in the Early Persian Period

Prophecy in Mid-Fifth-Century Yehud

Part II. The Prophetic Literature

3. Isaiah

Introduction

First Isaiah (Isaiah 1–39)

Second Isaiah (40–55)

Third Isaiah (56–66)

The Isaianic Apocalypse (24–27)

Reading Isaiah as a Book

4. Jeremiah

Preliminary Remarks on the Nature of the Materials within the Scroll

The Prophet Jeremiah

The Text of Jeremiah

Themes and Theology of the Jeremiah Scroll

Final Reflections: The Death and Life of Jeremiah

5. Ezekiel

Introduction

Social, Historical, and Ritual Background

Literary Character

Theological Issues

The Prophecies of Ezekiel

6. Hosea

Introduction

Hosea: A Theological Portrait

The Hosea Scroll

Hosea 14:9: A Final Reflection

7. Joel

Introduction

Social, Historical, and Ritual Background

Literary Character

Theological Issues

8. Amos

Opening Reflections

The Prophet Amos

The Scroll of Amos

Closing Reflections

9. Obadiah

The Historical Setting of Obadiah

The Text of Obadiah

10. Jonah

Introduction

Jonah’s Setting

Literary Issues

Theological Issues

11. Micah

Micah of Moresheth

The Scroll of Micah

Conclusion

12. Nahum

Historical Setting

Literary Issues

Theological Issues

13. Habakkuk

Historical and Sociological Background

Habakkuk’s Literary Structure and Character

The Content of Habakkuk’s Prophecies

14. Zephaniah

Introduction

Historical and Literary Issues

The Scroll of Zephaniah

In Summation

15. Haggai

Introduction

Haggai’s Setting

Theological Issues

16. Zechariah

Historical and Sociological Background

Zechariah’s Structure and History of Composition

The Content of Zechariah’s Prophecies

17. Malachi

Introduction

Historical and Social Setting

The Traditions and Texts behind Malachi’s Prophecies

The Content of Malachi’s Prophecies

18. Daniel

Introduction

Daniel as an Apocalypse

Historical Setting

Literary Features

The Message of Daniel

Glossary

Image Credits

Author Index

Figures, Tables, and Maps

1.1   Abimelech Rebukes Abraham

1.2   Elijah Fed by the Raven

1.3   Jonah and the Whale

2.1   The Prophet Micah Exhorts the Israelites to Repent

2.2   Detail from the Kurkh Stela

2.3   Detail from the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III

2.4   Cast of Jeroboam seal

2.5   Conquest of the city of Ashteroth-Karnaim

2.6   Hezekiah’s tunnel

2.7   Map of Sennacherib invading Judah

2.8   The Taylor Prism

2.9   Map of the Neo-Babylonian Empire

2.10   Chart showing King Josiah and his sons

2.11   Jeremiah Lamenting the Destruction of Jerusalem

2.12   Al-Yahudu tablet

3.1   The Prophet Isaiah fresco

3.2   The Great Isaiah Scroll

3.3   The signet of King Ahaz

3.4   Hezekiah clay bulla

3.5   The Tell Dan stele

3.6   The Cyrus Cylinder

3.7   Babylonian Cylinder: Marduk slaying Tiamat

3.8   The Destruction of Leviathan

4.1   The Prophet Jeremiah

4.2   Josiah hears the book of the law

4.3   Aerial view of Tel Megiddo

4.4   Clay bullae inscribed Gedalyahu servant of the king

4.5   Jeremiah prophesies wearing a yoke

4.6   Code of Hammurabi stele

5.1   Michelangelo’s Ezekiel

5.2   Map of the Babylonian settlement along the Chebar River

5.3   Wall relief depicting the god Ashur

5.4   Four elements of Ezekiel’s throne-chariot

5.5   The Flammarion engraving

5.6   Babylonian map of the world

5.7   Stele from Bethsaida

5.8   Ta’anach terra-cotta offering stand

5.9   Drawing of King Hezekiah’s seal impression

5.10   The Egyptian ba

5.11   The Dirty Bride

5.12   The Death of Ezekiel’s Wife

5.13   Ammit the Devourer

5.14   The Bones Come Alive

5.15   Rendering of Gudea of Lagash

6.1   The Prophet Hosea

6.2   Bull stele at et-Tell

6.3   Baal stele found at Ugarit

6.4   Alabaster bas-relief of Sargon II

7.1   Fresco of the prophet Joel

7.2   Swarming locusts illustration

7.3   Locust detail from the grave chamber of Horemhab

7.4   Gog and Magog

7.5   Let Us Beat Our Swords into Ploughshares (Isaiah 2:4)

8.1   Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial

8.2   Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 846

8.3   Script of the Yavne-Yam ostracon

8.4   The judgment of the prophet Amos against Amaziah

9.1   Edomite worshipping warrior from Qitmit

9.2   Basalt stele of Babylonian king Nabonidus

9.3   The fortress of Sela in Edom

10.1   The Prophet Jonah and the Fish

10.2   Jonah’s Wrath over Nineveh woodcut

10.3   Jonah and the Whale

10.4   Jonah sarcophagus

11.1   Micah prophesies before three men

11.2   After the Fall of Lachish

11.3   The Prophet Micah Exhorts the Israelites to Repent

12.1   Siege of Lachish

12.2   Ishtar, Queen of the Night

12.3   Lachish siege engine

13.1   The Habakkuk Commentary

13.2   Map of Assyria, Babylon, and Armenia

13.3   Baal with a thunderbolt

14.1   The Prophet Zephaniah

14.2   Hezekiah’s Broad Wall

15.1   The Rebuilding of the Temple Is Begun

15.2   The Darius seal

15.3   Gudea Cylinders B and A

16.1   Elephantine papyri letter

16.2   Zechariah’s vision

16.3   The Brazen Sea

16.4   Gabriel Revelation stone

17.1   The Prophet Malachi

17.2   Darius the Great at Behistun

18.1   The Prophet Daniel

18.2   Map of the Greek Empire

18.3   Bust of Antiochus IV Epiphanes

18.4   The Accusation of Susanna by the Elders

18.5   Fiery Furnace

18.6   Nebuchadnezzar

18.7   Belshazzar’s Feast

Sidebars

1.1   Elijah Fed by the Raven

2.1   The Messenger Formula

2.2   Major Female Prophets in Scripture

2.3   Kings Cited in the Superscripts of the Prophets of the Book of the Four

2.4   Apocalyptic Prophecy

2.5   Jonah and Canonical Hermeneutics: A Test Probe

3.1   Hezekiah’s Tunnel

3.2   Immanuel in Isaiah’s Canonical Shape and in the New Testament

3.3   The Destruction of Sennacherib

4.1   Terms for Deuteronomistic Traditions

4.2   Jeremiah Chronology

4.3   The Family Tree of Scribe Shaphan

4.4   How MT and LXX Versions of Jeremiah Differ Structurally

4.5   The Masoretes

4.6   An Outline of the Jeremiah Scroll

4.7   The Stele of Hammurabi

5.1   The Structure of Ezekiel

6.1   Hosea and the Dynasties of Israel

6.2   Baal

6.3   Outline of the Hosea Scroll

7.1   The Structure of Joel

7.2   The Day of the Lord in Biblical Prophecy

7.3   The Phenomenon of Antitypes in Apocalypticism

8.1   Outline of the Scroll of Amos

8.2   Table Detailing Amos’s Oracles against the Nations

8.3   The Yavneh Yam Letter

9.1   The Structure of Obadiah

9.2   Edom in the Old Testament

10.1   The Structure of Jonah

10.2   Nineveh

10.3   The Structure of the Psalm in Jonah 2

11.1   Outline of Micah

11.2   The Fall of Lachish

11.3   Expansions to the Micah Text

12.1   Nineveh as Ishtar

12.2   The Structure of Nahum

12.3   The Acrostic Poem

13.1   The Structure of Habakkuk

13.2   Heschel and Niebuhr on the Prophet’s Understanding of Human History

14.1   Outline of the Scroll of Zephaniah

15.1   Social and Economic Conditions in Palestine in the Early Persian Period

15.2   The Structure of Haggai

16.1   Outline of Zechariah

17.1   The Structure of Malachi

18.1   Son of Man

Preface

In a very real sense, this book began on the banks of the River Chebar (see Ezek 1:1). This is because its three authors, Stephen Cook, John Strong, and Steven Tuell (hereafter we will refer to ourselves using a very unroyal first-person plural pronoun), developed a very close professional and personal relationship, working together over the past couple of decades in the Theological Perspectives on the Book of Ezekiel seminar, a continuing section in the Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature. We are Ezekiel people. With the River Chebar as our meeting place and the Ezekiel seminar as our shared workplace, the three of us recognized and developed a common interest in two important qualities that appear throughout this volume on Israel’s prophets: ancient time and distant space. What brought us together as Ezekiel scholars is not that we agree about an ancient eccentric priest-prophet (we don’t!), or about Israel’s prophets in general (perhaps, at times, and on certain points), but that we all care about hearing ancient, distant voices that are not our own.

We are time travelers. We travel in order to hear the voices of ancient theologians—Israel’s prophets. We strive to eavesdrop on their debates. We sit quietly at their feet as they explain how they construct their world and society. We lean in close as we try to understand their myths and mysteries. We grow silent at their brilliance. At times, we are shocked and saddened by the cruelty that they endured—and sometimes perpetrated. The Hebrew Bible is our time machine. With this volume, we hope to open the hatch to our TARDIS, and we invite the reader to join us on a journey to the past, a journey that can be sometimes troubling, often fascinating, but always presents to our ears voices that are radically different from those that fill today’s airwaves.

We are aware of important trends in the current study of the prophets, which view with skepticism the ability to travel back in time and the possibility of hearing the voices of Hosea, Amos, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the rest of ancient Israel’s theologians. In his recent volume, Martti Nissinen has argued that the prophetic texts of the Hebrew Bible do not preserve the performances and pronouncements of Israel’s prophets but rather are the literary productions of scribes working in the Second Temple period.¹ For Nissinen, the prophetic texts of the Hebrew Bible are the least reliable of the three prophetic heritages—Greek, Near East, and Israelite—since they were handled and developed centuries after the events they address. The prophets we meet in the texts, according to Nissinen, are literary characters. Our principal inquiry should be the Second Temple period scribal construct of prophecy. In their efforts to perpetuate the prophetic tradition, Nissinen says, these scribes became something akin to diviners, as they manipulated (i.e., interpreted) the texts they inherited, with their resulting product being scribal divination.

While we acknowledge the caution expressed by Nissinen, we are far less skeptical than he and other colleagues who share his view. The engine that drives our time machine, to continue the metaphor, is the historical-critical process and the results its practitioners have published in the past few centuries. We concede that the final form of the texts left to modern readers is the product of scribes and educated elites working in the Second Temple period. Yet while these later scribes have layered the texts, adding their theological insights to those they treasured, we contend that they did not bury the original prophetic voices but intentionally—reverentially, even—left the words of their prophetic ancestors intact and accessible. We remain confident, in the face of others’ skepticism, in the historical-critical process that powers us back in time, allowing us to cock our ears in the direction of Hosea and Amos and all the rest. At the same time, we remain attentive to as many approaches and methods as we find illuminating of each prophet’s unique texts, including giving attention to literary artistry, to the holistic and canonical form of Scripture, and to the history of the interpretation and the contemporary impact of the prophets.

We owe our interest in the voices of the historical prophets to Robert R. Wilson (mentor to Stephen Cook) and S. Dean McBride Jr. (mentor to John Strong and Steven Tuell). Our presentations in this volume reflect the foundational work of Wilson’s Prophecy and Society in Ancient Israel, which we hold to be a classic and mandatory reading for the serious study of the prophets. In this work, Wilson expresses his own appreciation for the contributions of McBride, who was also his teacher and colleague (see pp. x, xii, 17, 233, 245).

Wilson brought modern readers to the audiences of the ancient prophets, who worked as spokespersons for support groups that held to and advocated for specific, identifiable theological traditions. The prophets moved into, out of, and around the power centers and social peripheries of Israelite and Judahite societies. For his part, McBride has modeled for us the vital connection between uncompromising critical scholarship and vibrantly authentic theological expression. In his own words, If there is to be a genuine dialogue between the Word of God and the church, mediated through faithful, engaged interpretation of the Scriptures, they must be allowed to speak in their own voices and distinctive theological accents, especially since what they have to say to us is not always what we want or expect to hear.² Readers of the present volume will recognize the influence of these two scholars, and it is with deeply held gratitude that we dedicate this volume to our teachers, who first guided us back in time, allowing us to hear the voices of these ancient theologians.

Our trust in the historical value of the texts has shaped the chapters in this volume, which, generally speaking, follow a common outline. Each begins with an initial presentation and examination of important issues regarding the prophetic book, including especially a discussion of the historical and sociological setting. A discussion of the text follows, attentive to everything from literary and poetic considerations to canonical shaping and the history of the text’s effects on history, religion, and the arts. This discussion will highlight major features that serve to shape the text while also interpreting particular passages or sections. We have attempted to alert the reader to the breadth of the most important scholarly views on any given issue. Ultimately, though, our objective is to open the text to our readers so that they too can hear the voices of Israel’s ancient theologians across the span of time and space.

This introduction is a collaboration, not a consensus view. Each of us was assigned certain prophetic texts or introductory matters and tasked with writing initial drafts. These drafts were passed around, and we all read and edited the initial versions and returned them for review and revision. As a result, a variety of styles and variations in character remain in the different chapters. Our individual interests remain emphasized, resulting in a distinctiveness in each chapter, which will be easily observable to our readers. In addition, beyond style and character and interests, the reader should not assume that the final versions represent a consensus unanimously held by all three of us. Perhaps better, the chapters in this book represent an agreed-upon statement, the product of scholarly compromise. Compromise—a profanity in some circles of our society today—means that, although any one of us may be more or less excited about a particular conclusion or interpretation, each of us has agreed to sign his name to it and proudly support the final, published result.

You Ezekiel people . . . So began the critique by an esteemed colleague of ours after having read an early version of one of the chapters of this book. This colleague, a widely published, important interpreter of prophetic texts, stands closer to the skepticism of Nissinen and is less confident than we are in the ability to hear the voices of the ancient prophets through the texts left to us. But we are Ezekiel people. We met and formed our collaboration on the banks of the River Chebar. To us, these texts are time machines, taking us back to listen to Ezekiel address his community of exiles and to hear his prophecies continue to speak to exiles returned to their homeland. To listen to Isaiah at the Fuller’s Field, who asks Ahaz to request a sign. And to Jeremiah, taking his stance in the Temple Gate, who commands the priests to amend their ways. And indeed, to listen to much later Jews, Christians, artists, musicians, and hosts of others who wrestle with these ancient words.

We are Ezekiel people. Here we stand. We can do no other.

Stephen L. Cook

John T. Strong

Steven S. Tuell

Notes

1 Martti Nissinen, Ancient Prophecy: Near Eastern, Biblical, and Greek Perspectives (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017).

2 From S. Dean McBride Jr., The Charter of Christian Faith and Practice, in Engaging Biblical Authority: Perspectives on the Bible as Scripture, ed. William P. Brown (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2007), 112.

Acknowledgments

The authors, as a group, must thank first and foremost our editor at Fortress Press, Scott Tunseth. Scott has been all the things that authors need from an editor: encouraging, clear, organized, and professional. In the case of this particular project, which, among other challenges, was interrupted by the pandemic, Scott has also been patient. Also, we each find that we cannot escape thanking our coauthors. This has been an adventure, one that began with an unexpected invitation from Stephen Cook, our intrepid leader. Best of all, our professional interactions have generated something much more important to us even than this book: three close friends.

Individually, we each have been supported by family, friends, and colleagues, who add flavor to our lives both in and out of our studies. Each one of us would like to add our own words of gratitude.

Stephen Cook: In addition to my coauthors, my close friends John and Steve, I thank my students for letting me test my ideas on them, and my faculty colleagues, especially Kate Sonderegger, John Yieh, Mark Jefferson, and Judy Fentress-Williams, whose loyal care I depend on. The staff at our Virginia Theological Seminary library always deserve thanks for their tremendous help. Before Scott Tunseth began his intense, tireless work, Neil Elliott at Fortress Press got this project launched, and I thank him. I ardently wish my mentor, Robert R. Wilson, will feel honored through this volume, which leans so much on his research and ideas. Finally, my part of this dedication would be sorely awry without my celebrating my wife, Catherine, and teenage daughter, Rebecca, my priceless ones.

Steven Tuell: In addition to my coauthors John and Steve, I thank my colleagues at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary (especially my fellow Bible wonks Dale Allison, Jerome Creach, Tucker Ferda, Edith Humphrey, and Ron Tappy) and the members of Lemadim Olam for stimulating my thinking and challenging my fancies. My mentor and Doktorvater, S. Dean McBride Jr., continues to enliven and inspire everything I write: may light perpetual shine upon you, Dean! I thank my students, in the school and in the church, whose questions continue to take me to new insights into Scripture. Most of all, I thank my darling Wendy, who believes in me even when I do not.

John Strong: Throughout my entire career, I have been challenged and encouraged by the scholars who have been a part of the Society of Biblical Literature seminar Theological Perspectives on the Book of Ezekiel. Their pushing and prodding show up on the pages of this volume, even in the books other than Ezekiel. I want to thank as well my colleagues in the Department of Religious Studies at Missouri State University who both create and protect the space to do scholarship, even if my scholarship deals with a culture and religions found on the other side of Asia.

My coauthors came to be known to me as a collective, Steve and Steve. My wife, Elizabeth, asked me nearly every evening at dinner for the duration of this project, So did you work on the Steve and Steve book today? Thank you, Elizabeth. Thank you most of all.

Abbreviations

ABD Anchor Bible Dictionary. Edited by D. N. Freedman. 6 vols. New York: Doubleday, 1992.

ABS Archaeology and Biblical Studies

Alter Robert Alter, The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary. 3 vols. New York: Norton, 2019.

ANEP The Ancient Near East in Pictures Relating to the Old Testament. 2nd ed., edited by James B. Pritchard. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994.

ANET Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament. 3rd ed., edited by James B. Pritchard. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1969.

AYB Anchor Yale Bible

BA Biblical Archaeologist

BDB Brown, Francis, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs. A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament. Oxford: Clarendon, 1939.

BHS Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia. Edited by Karl Elliger and Wilhelm Rudolph. Stuttgart, Germany: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1983.

BibEnc Biblical Encyclopedia

BN Biblische Notizen

BRM Babylonian Records in the Library of J. Pierpont Morgan. Edited by Albert T. Clay. Privately printed in New York, 1912.

BZAW Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft

C. Ap. Josephus, Contra Apionem

CBQ Catholic Biblical Quarterly

CBQMS Catholic Biblical Quarterly Monograph Series

CHANE Culture and History of the Ancient Near East

COS The Context of Scripture. Edited by William W. Hallo. 3 vols. Leiden, 1997.

CTA Corpus des tablettes en cunéiformes alphabétiques découvertes à Ras Shamra-Ugarit de 1929 à 1939. Edited by Andrée Herdner. Paris: Geuthner, 1963.

CW Collected Works of C. G. (Carl Gustav) Jung. Edited by Herbert Read, Michael Fordham, and Gerhard Adler. Bollingen series 20. 20 vols. New York: Pantheon, 1953.

DDD Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible. 2nd ed., edited by Karel van der Toorn, Bob Becking, and Pieter W. van der Horst. Leiden: Brill, 1995. 2nd rev. ed., Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999.

DJD Discoveries in the Judaean Desert

EANEC Explorations in Ancient Near Eastern Civilizations

Ecl. proph. Eusebius, Eclogae propheticae

FAT Forschungen zum Alten Testament

HALOT The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament. Ludwig Koehler, Walter Baumgartner, and Johann J. Stamm. Translated and edited under the supervision of Mervyn E. J. Richardson. 4 vols. Leiden: Brill, 1994–99.

HBAI Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel

HBC Harper’s Bible Commentary. Rev. ed. Edited by James L. Mays et al. San Francisco: HarperOne, 2000.

HCOT Historical Commentary on the Old Testament

HDR Harvard Dissertations in Religion

Hist. Herodotus, Historiae

HSM Harvard Semitic Monographs

HTR Harvard Theological Review

HTS Harvard Theological Studies

HUCA Hebrew Union College Annual

IBC Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching

IDBSup Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible: Supplementary Volume. Edited by Keith Crim. Nashville: Abingdon, 1976.

IEJ Israel Exploration Journal

Int Interpretation

IRT Issues in Religion and Theology

JAOS Journal of the American Oriental Society

JBL Journal of Biblical Literature

JJS Journal of Jewish Studies

JSOT Journal for the Study of the Old Testament

JSOTSup Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series

KEH Kurzgefasstes exegetisches Handbuch zum A. T. (Alten Testament)

KTU Die keilalphabetischen Texte aus Ugarit. Edited by Manfried Dietrich, Oswald Loretz, and Joaquín Sanmartín. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2013. 3rd enl. ed. of KTU: The Cuneiform Alphabetic Texts from Ugarit, Ras Ibn Hani, and Other Places. Edited by Manfried Dietrich, Oswald Loretz, and Joaquín Sanmartín. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 1995 (= CTU).

KUB Keilschrifttexte aus Boghazköi. Berlin: Akademie, 1921–

LHBOTS Library of Hebrew Bible / Old Testament Studies

MT Masoretic Text of the Hebrew Bible

NIBCOT New International Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

NICOT New International Commentary on the Old Testament

NIDB New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible. Edited by Katharine Doob Sakenfeld. 5 vols. Nashville: Abingdon, 2006–2009.

NIVAC New International Version Application Commentary Series

OTE Old Testament Essays

OTL Old Testament Library

SBLDS Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series

SBLRBS Society of Biblical Literature Resources for Biblical Study

SBLSS Society of Biblical Literature Symposium Series

SBLStBL Society of Biblical Literature Studies in Biblical Literature

SO Symbolae Osloenses

TDOT Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament. Edited by G. Johannes Botterweck, Helmer Ringgren, and Heinz-Josef Fabry. Translated by John T. Willis et al. 8 vols. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1974–2006.

ThStKr Theologische Studien und Kritiken

VAB Vorderasiatische Bibliothek

VT Vetus Testamentum

VTSup Supplements to Vetus Testamentum

WAW Writings from the Ancient World

WO Die Welt des Orients

ZAW Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft

* Additional journal abbreviations can be found in The SBL Handbook of Style: For Biblical Studies and Related Disciplines. 2nd ed. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2014.

Modern English Bible Translations

BBE Bible in Basic English (S. H. Hooke)

CEB Common English Bible (Abingdon)

ESV English Standard Version (Crossway)

GNT Good News Translation (American Bible Society)

ISV International Standard Version (Davidson)

KJV King James Version (Queen’s Printer, Cambridge University Press)

MSG The Message (Eugene Peterson)

NABR New American Bible, Revised (Confraternity of Christian Doctrine)

NASB New American Standard Bible (Lockman)

NET New English Translation (Bible.org)

NIV New International Version (Zondervan)

NJB New Jerusalem Bible (Darton, Longman & Todd; and Doubleday)

NJPS Tanakh (Jewish Publication Society)

NKJV New Kings James Version (Thomas Nelson)

NLT New Living Translation (Tyndale)

NRSV New Revised Standard Version (National Council of the Churches of Christ)

REB Revised English Bible (Oxford University Press)

TEV Today’s English Version (American Bible Society)

VOICE The Voice Bible (Thomas Nelson)

Chart: Kings and Prophets in Israel and Judah

Many of the dates provided are approximations.

After the Return from Exile

Haggai 522–520

Zechariah 520–518

Malachi c. 450

Joel after 445

Jonah (character lived in eighth century); book composed in fifth century

Third Isaiah 500–400

Daniel (character lived sixth century); book composed 170–160

Part I

Approaching Ancient Israel’s Prophets

1

Introduction to the Prophetic Writings

Defining biblical prophecy is not as easy as consulting an English dictionary. Definitions of prophecies as predictions of things to come too often conjure images of fortune-telling or clairvoyants’ oracles. Other definitions along the lines of inspired revelations of God are too broad, fitting the words of sages, lawgivers, and mystics as well as prophets. With some simple concordance work, however, we may begin to grasp the idea of prophecy in an ancient biblical context. Such work clarifies that Hebrew prophecy involves intermediation between God and the community and interacting about revelation with an audience.¹ It entails messages of God conveyed to people by servant-agents who strategically direct history.

The eighth-century intermediary Hosea, for one, had an elevated view of the role of prophets. For him, they steered history on God’s behalf, insisting on requisite course changes. In Hosea 12:12–13 (in the Hebrew text, 12:13–14),² the prophet declares it insufficient for the people of God merely to cling to their identity as descendants of Jacob/Israel:

Jacob fled to the land of Aram,

there Israel served for a wife,

and for a wife he guarded sheep.

By a prophet the Lord brought Israel up from Egypt,

and by a prophet he was guarded.

Certainly, father Jacob was cunning and successful, making it big as a pastor of sheep (12:12). The ones to whom attention should be paid, however, are the prophets, more important kinds of pastors. God used the prophets to form the people’s real identity. The prophets pastored Israel, leading the people out of slavery in Egypt and steering them into a life as God’s flock (12:13 [14]).

Alongside the historical existence of prophetic intermediation in Israel and in its broader milieu, there arose a literary phenomenon of prophecy. Prophetic literature is most familiar to us through its significant canonical deposits within Jewish and Christian Scripture. This biblical prophetic literature differs from the socioreligious phenomenon of prophecy in significant respects. Indeed, its connection to named prophetic figures of the Hebrew Bible and of history is often complex. So also, the prophetic books often include not only various types of mediatory speech but also headings, biographical narratives, prayers, confessions, and more. Isaiah’s book contains material stemming from the eighth-century intermediary Isaiah, active in Jerusalem, but also from two succeeding centuries of prophecy. Jeremiah’s book includes three key categories of material, including biographical material, the historicity of which is a matter of debate.

Prophecy’s Place within the Biblical Canon

In Judaism, prophecy is the second member of three great biblical divisions. The divisions consist of the Torah (the Pentateuch, sometimes called the Law), the Prophets (Nevi’im), and the Writings (Ketuvim; Job, Psalms, and many other great literary works). The acronym TaNaK, the Jewish name for the Hebrew Bible, is a one-word combination of Torah, Nevi’im, and Ketuvim.

The category Nevi’im may initially be confusing to non-Jews in that it encompasses what Christians think of as not only the prophetic books but also the historical books—that is, Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, and 1 and 2 Kings. In Judaism, this subsection is known as the Former Prophets, and it contains the well-known stories of the wonder-working prophets Elijah and Elisha. Joshua through 2 Kings tells of other fascinating prophets as well, such as the powerful man of God (ʾîš ʾĕlōhîm) of 1 Kings 13 (see also 2 Kgs 23:16–18), Micaiah ben Imlah (1 Kgs 22:7–28), and women such as Deborah (Judg 4:4) and Huldah (2 Kgs 22:14). In terms of overall genre, though, these books that are often about prophets are not themselves prophecy but narrative, theological history.

As one may intuit, since there are Former Prophets, there are also Latter Prophets. The Latter Prophets subsection of the Nevi’im contains the books most Christian readers associate with prophecy: the fifteen books from Isaiah to Malachi. There are the three Major Prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel) and twelve Minor Prophets (minor because their books are relatively brief and all fit on one ancient scroll).³ In Jewish and early Christian tradition, this scroll is named the Book of the Twelve. The Twelve include Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. The order of presentation of the books is not fully obvious, although several of the Twelve do appear in rough chronological succession. Where possible, we will discuss issues of canonical placement of the individual prophetic books in our detailed treatments of each of them below.

Notably, the Tanak places the book of Daniel among the Ketuvim/Writings, not the Nevi’im/Prophets. This may be because Daniel seems to have emerged as a complete work relatively late in the process of the Bible’s formation (in the Greek era, after Alexander’s conquests). Modern scholars tend to see Daniel’s separation from the Nevi’im as a helpful reminder that the book is an apocalypse, not a work of classical prophecy. Did the ancient preservers and editors of the biblical corpus have a sense of this as well? Whatever the case, we include the treatment of Daniel’s book below, where we discuss its similarities and differences compared to classical prophetic intermediation.

The Ketuvim/Writings contain prophetic figures and, indeed, prophetic literature. Beyond Daniel, who is called a prophet in Matthew 24:15, consider, for example, the prophetic oracle of rebuke in Psalm 50, the several prophets whom 2 Chronicles describes confronting Israelite kings (e.g., 2 Chr 12:5; 15:1–2; 16:7; 19:2), and the appearance of expressions of Jeremiah at the beginning, middle, and end of Lamentations (Lam 1:18 [Jer 12:1]; 3:28 [Jer 15:17]; 3:31 [Jer 31:37]; 5:22 [Jer 14:19]). Just so, the Torah/Pentateuch contains important references to prophets and prophecy.

Within the Torah/Pentateuch, the first figure to be identified as a prophet (nābîʾ) is Abraham (Gen 20:7). He is the great founder and the ancestor (through his grandson Jacob/Israel) of God’s people. In context, God terms Abraham a prophet by virtue of his efficacy as an intermediary between God and the king of Gerar. That the specific intermediation gift at issue is Abraham’s power to invoke God’s healing is notable in light of the probable original meaning of nābîʾ as one who invokes a god. Abraham earlier showed himself a feisty intermediary on behalf of all possibly innocent residents of Sodom, for whom Abraham vigorously interceded with God in Genesis 18.

Figure 1.1 Abimelech Rebukes Abraham by Wencelaus Hollar (1607–77 CE).

Moses and his sister, Miriam, are—like Abraham—key prophets within the Torah. One of the Bible’s main streams of tradition, that associated with Deuteronomy, specifically makes Moses the gold standard of all prophecy. Indeed, God promises Moses in Deuteronomy 18:18–19 that for each new generation, I will raise up . . . a prophet like you from among their kindred, and will put my words into the mouth of the prophet; the prophet shall tell them all that I command. Anyone who will not listen to my words which the prophet speaks in my name, I myself will hold accountable (NABR). If one keeps alert for allusions, such Mosaic successors are not hard to spot (e.g., Josh 5:15; Judg 6:16; 1 Kgs 19:8–9; 2 Kgs 2:8; Jer 1:9; Hag 1:13). Later, in Deuteronomy 34:10, God declares Moses unsurpassed among all prophets: Never again did there arise in Israel a prophet like Moses—whom the Lord singled out, face to face (NJPS). And Moses’s unrivaled status as intermediary between God and Israel is known across the Scriptures, as is plain from texts such as Exodus 33:11 (E), Numbers 12:6–8 (E), Psalm 106:23, Hosea 12:13, and Malachi 4:4.⁴

The Song of Miriam in Exodus 15:20–21 speaks of Miriam as a prophet (v. 20; nĕbîʾâ, the feminine form of nābîʾ). Scholars sometimes assume that the song, a celebration of the Red Sea crossing, is her prophecy, but this seems doubtful. Her poetry sung on this occasion fits squarely within Israel’s standard victory-song tradition and has no obvious connection with prophetic intermediation. Miriam’s prophetic role (cited also in Mic 6:4) is clearest in the conflict that she and Aaron have with their brother, Moses, in Numbers 12. Here Miriam and Aaron claim that they, alongside Moses, are also intermediaries through whom God speaks. In intervening in the dispute, God explains that although revelation does come to prophets such as Miriam, unique perspicuity and authority characterize God’s communications with the Mosaic prophet (just discussed; see Deut 18:18–19).

Esther J. Hamori explains how Numbers 12 is thus much more affirming of Miriam as a prophet than readers generally conclude:

It is not surprising that the tradition favors Moses; what is surprising, what is so unusual that we should sit up and take notice, is that in a story framed as prophetic conflict between these two, the tradition also acknowledges the legitimacy of Miriam’s role as a prophet of Yahweh, whose authority is diminished only in comparison to the unsurpassed authority of Moses. Where the biblical tradition would usually portray the one opposing the favored prophet as a false prophet (even in the case of a prophet of Yahweh, as in Jeremiah 28), Numbers 12 uses the very validity of Miriam’s claim to prophetic status as the way to establish that Moses’s claim to divine access lies even beyond prophecy.⁵

Prophets as Interpreters of Written Divine Revelation

Ellen Davis defends a new approach to the biblical prophets that emphasizes their place in the rise of written Scripture.⁶ Davis outlines a modern view that takes the prophets as speakers of truth to power. A newer model goes in a different direction, shifting the focus to prophets as interpreters of God’s written word. Both models have weaknesses, but the newer one is suggestive for readers searching for ways to appropriate the prophetic witness today.

In an unusual move, Davis begins her discussion of biblical prophecy with the figure of Huldah, a female intermediary who played a pivotal role in the reforms of King Josiah of Judah in the 620s BCE. When God’s covenant scroll is rediscovered in Jerusalem, the king is aghast at how far short of the book’s instructions Judah has fallen (2 Kgs 22:10–11). At Josiah’s bidding, his advisors seek out prophetic advice, going straight to the key prophet of Mosaic standing at the time, Huldah (2 Kgs 22:14).

Much of what Huldah does is notable. She follows the Mosaic example of being a model teacher of Torah’s meaning (see Exod 4:12; Deut 18:18; 31:19; 1 Sam 12:23). She deals with God’s written word, recognizing how it speaks here and now (Deut 31:9–13; 2 Kgs 22:16–20). For at least once, we have here a successful prophet whom a king believes. Huldah and Josiah are able to hear God’s word as spoken against their own people, against themselves. Contemporary readers of Scripture interested in what a modern prophetic role might look like can learn from Huldah’s example.

Huldah is neither the first nor the last Israelite prophet to function as a bearer and teacher of God’s Torah/covenant instruction. This is significant because a key assumption of modernist biblical study has been that the traditional view of prophets as tradents and enforcers of covenantal law is false. Since the founding work of Wellhausen, many critics have held that, contrary to the traditional biblical picture, prophecy preceded the biblical law codes, is not beholden to them, and is generally spiritually superior to them.⁷

Over a century before Huldah’s recognition of the authoritative status of Torah/law, a tradition of law was already of great import in the prophetic work of Hosea. For example, Hosea 8:12 describes the written Torah as something with which Israel should be familiar. Unfortunately, it is not. The VOICE paraphrase captures the prophet’s satirical tone aptly: It wouldn’t matter how many copies of My law I wrote for him [Ephraim, the northern kingdom]; he’d treat them all as something strange and foreign.

In the decades after Josiah’s reform, Jeremiah, like Hosea and Huldah before him, performs the Levitical role of expositing fixed, authoritative Torah. In Jeremiah 34:14, for example, he recites Deuteronomy’s law of manumission (Deut 15:1–18) to King Zedekiah. As Mark Leuchter writes, Jeremiah overtly places himself in line with Levitical archetypes such as Samuel and Moses (Jer. 15:1). . . . Additional connections may be seen between Jeremiah 11 and the Levitical ceremony in Deuteronomy 27 . . . and Jer[emiah] 7:2 situates the prophet ‘in the gate,’ precisely where Deuteronomy repeatedly locates Levites.⁸

Tales and Legends of the Prophets

It is not through the archived oracles and divine communications of the Latter Prophets that we come to encounter the earliest Hebrew intermediaries of Scripture. It is through engaging, wondrous tales that we meet the biblical prophets appearing prior to the great eighth-century figures of Hosea, Amos, Micah, and Isaiah (figures with their own prophetic books, sometimes called the Writing Prophets). Not through extended prophecies announced in the first person but through skillfully narrated prophetic stories do we learn about figures such as Nathan, Elijah, and Elisha. We encounter the so-called Former Prophets through intriguing episodes about their missions and exploits.

Prophets were called by various names or labels at different times in Israel, as we gather, for example, in reading 1 Samuel 9:9–10. Those verses name the seer (rōʾê), the prophet (nābîʾ), and the man of God (ʾîš ʾĕlōhîm). Different tradition streams and sections of the Hebrew Bible sometimes use these and other titles in differing ways. Also, sometimes the intermediary bearing a given role label is not even named, such as in the case of the man of God (ʾîš ʾĕlōhîm) of 1 Kings 13. Man of God is a role label common in the Former Prophets (but see also 1 Chr 23:14; 2 Chr 8:14; 11:2; 25:7, 9; Neh 12:24, 36). It designates an intermediary who wields divine power in astounding ways (e.g., 1 Sam 2:27; 1 Kgs 12:22; 13:1; 17:18; 20:28; 2 Kgs 4:7; 13:19).⁹ These figures are legendary holy men, a label that sometimes refers to Elijah or Elisha but more frequently designates anonymous figures.

Scripture embeds most of its stories about Israel’s early prophets within the history collection: the historical books Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings (Ruth is among the Writings/Ketuvim in the Tanak). The collection (termed the Former Prophets in Judaism, as noted) is known in modern scholarship as the Deuteronomistic History (see also pp. 50-53). Though set within Israel’s narrative, the prophetical stories are not a product of critical historiography as we know it today. Though they often probably have roots in actual persons and events, the narratives intend more to edify and inspire readers than to understand the past. Their form—their genre (Gattung)—is that of engaging legend.

The prophetic legends are biographical stories about holy people, or saints, told with a relatively developed literary artistry and a definite theological or spiritual sensibility. The Bible also contains some nonprophetic legends, sometimes concerning holy places or sacred ceremonies. Thus the ancient shrine at Bethel has a founding legend, a hieros logos, in Genesis 28:10–22, accounting for some of the site’s rituals. The prophetic legends appearing in the Hebrew Bible may well have been carefully condensed from longer tales. The biographical concern of these legends with the lives and miracles of holy figures stands out in the biblical text.

A. Rofé has defended a rather specific characterization of the prophetic legend, describing hagiographic legenda, in their simple form, as usually including a crisis that requires supernatural intervention, a plea to the prophet—the holy man—for help, a doubt that the miracle will occur, and a miraculous deliverance.¹⁰ Other generic features of the prophetic legend include minimal introductions and conclusions, minimal references to places and names, heavy use of speech and dialogue in propelling the plot, and a full and repetitive style.

The miracles within prophetic legends often entail local happenings, not major events of political justice and salvation history. A starving widow is fed (1 Kgs 17:15) or a general cured of disease (2 Kgs 5:14). The legends preserve some historical coloring and biographical information, but rather than being primarily biographical in purpose, they instead reveal the difference between the holy (the numinous, the Other) and the profane (the ordinary).

The insistence of prophetic legends on revealing transcendence has alienated more than a few modern readers. By the nineteenth century, people began to greet prophetic wonders with consternation. Doubting the credibility of Elijah’s miracles, never mind the edibility of Jonah (see Jonah 1–2), they lost faith in a Bible of such improbable tales. Scholars sometimes even strained to rationalize and smooth things over. John Gray, for example, emended the report about God having ravens feed Elijah (1 Kgs 17:2–6) to make it believable. He adjusted the Hebrew vowels, so that ʿôrĕbîm, ravens, instead became ʿarbîm, Arabs. Thus Arabs, not ravens, brought Elijah his meals.¹¹

Gray’s conjecture is ingenious, but misguided. First, to rationalize the prophetic legends in this manner—and Gray does this repeatedly—is precisely to misapprehend their genre and rob them of their intention. Such stories are supposed to dismay and upset, to dismantle our assured categories for interpreting reality. They invite the reader into a larger, stranger, and holy world, where people bask in God’s grace and behave as God’s servants. Second, to excise the miracle of the ravens from 1 Kings 17 is to excise a key literary link to the Moses traditions. This is a real loss, for it short-circuits the theological message of Scripture’s holistic shape. Without the links to Moses in place, one immediately loses sight of the great canonical theme of the Mosaic covenant arching through history toward an eschatological fulfillment in the reign of God. The literary cross-referencing between the legends, Elijah and Elisha, and the earlier work of Moses are literarily and theologically crucial. They shape Moses’s covenantal work as something pushing forward through time toward God’s reign on earth, a reign proleptically anticipated in the wondrous era of Elijah’s and Elisha’s miracles.

Interestingly, just as Elijah’s and Elisha’s wonders echo the mighty acts of Moses, the tales of Moses’s miracles in Egypt bear the influence of patterns of prophetic interactions with Israelite kings and their courtiers in the monarchic era. The Torah’s stories of Moses are often prophetic legends, similar to the legends of Elijah. In addition, the typical situation of Samuel and Saul, Nathan and David, Elijah and Ahab, as well as of later prophets in relation to their kings, appears to have been extended to Moses and Pharaoh. In the scenes of Moses calling on Pharaoh to obey Yahweh, we can recognize the paradigm of the prophet facing Israel’s king. In the contest of serpents in Exodus 7:8–13, we can see a mirror of Elijah’s contest with the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel.

Prophetic Legends as Hagiography

It may help modern readers in appreciating Rofé’s notion of prophetic legenda to consider the hagiography surrounding bygone holy figures. One such saint is Brigid of County Louth, Ireland, born in 451 CE. Just as Elijah was fed by ravens (1 Kgs 17:6 see fig. 1.2), a white cow with red ears sustained Saint Brigid, who, as a slave girl, always vomited the impure food of her druid master. Just as Elijah’s presence caused a widow’s oil jug to remain full (1 Kgs 17:16), Brigid’s prayers replenished her mother’s store of butter.

David of Wales, who lived in the mid-sixth century CE, was likewise a legendary holy saint. David’s powerful deeds included killing and bringing cattle back to life (see 1 Kgs 17:20–24) and making springs of water well up from nowhere (see 1 Kgs 18:41). Saint Brigid’s staff too was able to make streams burst forth from dry ground. Both Saint David and Saint Brigid were able to bless or curse with a gesture or a word (see 1 Kgs 17:1; 2 Kgs 1:10). An even better-known holy figure is Saint Patrick. He once lost one of his teeth in a river, and no one could find it. As night fell, however, the tooth gave off a luminous glow, so it was visible. A similar phenomenon occurs with Elisha in 2 Kings 6:5–7, where the prophet makes a lost iron ax head float to the surface of the Jordan River.

Figure 1.2 Elijah Fed by the Raven by Giovanni Girolamo Savoldo.

Sidebar 1.1: Elijah Fed by the Raven

The painting (ca. 1510 CE) of Elijah Fed by the Raven is a favorite artwork of many visitors to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. It is by Giovanni Girolamo Savoldo, who lived ca. 1480–1548 CE. In the upper right-hand corner of the painting, you can see a raven feeding Elijah, the miracle of 1 Kings 17:4, 6 just noted. The huge black bird seems to have a chunk of bread or a roll in its beak for the prophet. In the background of the painting, on the horizon in the upper left, lie mountains that belong in the Sinai wilderness. It was in the Sinai wilderness that God’s servant Moses proclaimed to Israel God’s miraculous evening and morning provision of food.

God’s sustaining of Elijah with food each evening and morning deliberately echoes Exodus 16:8, 12–15, where God sustains Moses and the people in the Sinai wilderness morning and evening via miracle birds and bread. The legend cycle has just dropped its first clue that Elijah stands squarely in the tradition of Mosaic prophets (Deut