HOW TO STUDY THE BOOKS OF THE

OLD TESTAMENT PROPHETS

 

Jesus to the Apostles on Resurrection Sunday: “ This is what I meant when I said, while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses in the Prophets and in the Psalms, was destined to be fulfilled.” Luke 24:44

 

Father of might and majesty,

More than any other people of the Old Covenant, the Old Testament Prophets enjoyed a unique relationship with You Lord, as the inspired receivers of Your divine revelation. In the Old Covenant being “in the Spirit” was a special privilege only imparted to these few.  But now Your revelation is written on our hearts—as New Covenant believers we have received this unique privilege for we reflect Your divine glory just as Your prophet Moses prayed “If only all the Yahweh’s people were prophets and that Yahweh had given them His spirit!”  His petition was fulfilled in the Pentecostal outpouring of Your Holy Spirit 10 days after the Ascension of Jesus the Messiah.  Having been likewise anointed by the Holy Spirit through our baptism may we have the courage to take up our prophetic offices and preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ!  Lead us in our short study, Lord, of the books of the great prophets of the Old Covenant.  We pray in the name of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen!

 

Many readers of Sacred Scripture find the books of the Prophets so full of bizarre literary imagery and majestic historical figures that the reader begins to feel lost in the maze of words and symbolism.  It is true that the Hebrew prophets spoke in poetry, in figures and symbols but that poetry and symbolism draws on a rich heritage of Biblical images and conveys a message that becomes the bridge of the Hebrew Bible that links the Old Covenant to the New.  It is the symbolic and poetic messages of the prophets that link the Torah of Moses and the books of Bible History to the prophecies that will be fulfilled in the Incarnation of Jesus the Messiah in the New Testament.  There are two keys to the study of the books of the prophets. Those keys are to understand the mission of Yahweh's holy prophets and to understand the focus of their metaphorical imagery and symbolism.

 

In Sacred Scripture the mission of Prophet of Yahweh is to be:

¨      The Voice of God to His Covenant People;

¨      The Covenant’s people’s direct representative to God;

¨      God’s divine prosecuting attorney against a rebellious people;

¨      God’s mediator to a repentant people. 

 

A prophet’s job was exceedingly difficult.  Not only must he be willing to face death in delivering God’s message to a rebellious people [Matthew 23:30-31] but he must also be willing to offer his own life on behalf of a repentant people [see Exodus 32:32].

 

Even though the ministry of God’s holy Prophets covered a span of hundreds of years in missions to communities as diverse as Judah, Israel, Assyria, and Edom, the Hebrew prophets shared, to a great extent, a specific set of metaphorical images with which they expressed Yahweh’s message.  These images include briars and brides, harlots and horses, lambs and lions (or other wild beasts), vineyards and vomit, and wine and winepresses to name a few.  These images are used in vivid word pictures over and over again by the prophets to express Yahweh’s relationship with His Covenant people and with other communities who are called to repentance and acknowledgement of the One True God.  What is often missed in the study of the books of the prophets is the way these images appear to be grouped and the way these different groups or clusters of images are often used to tell essentially the same unfolding story of Covenant love, a broken covenant relationship, redemptive judgment, and the promise of restoration and restored communion. 

 

The four most often repeated groups of images used in the books of the Old Covenant Prophets (with the exception of the books of the Prophet Jonah and the Prophet Daniel) are Covenant marriage, animals, a fruitful vineyard/fig tree, and wine.  Significantly these imagery patters play out in a divinely unfolding four part human drama:

 

THE SYMBOLIC IMAGES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT PROPHETS

 

(chart revised from Bible Review, October 1990, “Exploring four persistent prophetic images”, Margaret Parker)

 

Notice that each of the image groups consist of four parts:

¨      Part I: Yahweh and his people enter into a Covenant relationship.  Yahweh will bind this people to Himself in the blessings of security and prosperity in return for obedience to the Covenant of the Torah [first 5 books of Moses]

¨      Part II: Israel, the Covenant people ignore the Laws of the Covenant; they rebel by going their own way

¨      Part III: God sends His holy prophet to call His people back to Him.  Failing in this mission the prophet calls down a Covenant Lawsuit which results in Covenant curses—punishment meant to bring about repentance and restoration

¨      Part IV: In response to repentance, Yahweh reaches out to restore and to take His people back into the Covenant relationship they had first enjoyed.

 

The plot line of this great prophetic drama is played out according to which of the prophetic image groups are being utilized.  The Covenant Marriage Relationship scenario unfolds with Yahweh the Bridegroom:

¨      Part I: Yahweh takes Israel as His beloved Bride

¨      Part II: The Bride is unfaithful and becomes an adulteress (a code word in Scripture for idol worship)

¨      Part III: She is humiliated by her many lovers (false gods)

¨      Part IV: She repents her unfaithfulness, is forgiven and is finally restored to Yahweh, her true husband.

 

The Vineyard/ fig tree is one of the most frequently used symbols for Israel.  Yahweh cultivates His people like a vinedresser cultivates a vineyard and like a Master Gardener cultivates His prized fig tree:

¨      Part I: Yahweh’s people are a vineyard/ fig tree He plants and tends in Covenant love

¨      Part II: In disobedience the vines grow wild / the tree becomes diseased

¨      Part III: The vineyard/ fig tree is ruined and desolate no longer producing fruit

¨      Part IV: Yahweh restores His vineyard/ fig tree and once again fruitful vines grow / the tree become fruitful bearing the best fruit

 

The domesticated animal imagery expresses Yahweh’s relationship with His people as the Master husbandman who provides for the domesticated animals in His care:

¨      Part I: God has tamed His Covenant people; they are his obedient domesticated animals (lambs, sheep, or oxen)

¨      Part II: But they break out of the safety of their enclosure and turn wild

¨      Part III: In the wilderness they are ravaged by wild beasts or birds of prey

¨      Part IV: They are rescued by their rightful Master and obediently returned to the safety of His care

 

The drinking of wine imagery is particularly significant to the New Covenant Church and is used by God’s prophet John in the Book of Revelation:

¨      Part I: God’s people enjoy the good wine He provides in the communion of their Covenant relationship

¨      Part II: But when they misuse His gift they become drunk

¨      Part III: As a result of their rebellion they must drink the “cup of God’s wrath”

¨      Part IV: God gives them the “New Wine” of the New Covenant, which restores them into full Communion with Him.

 

Each of the groups of images expresses a different aspect of God’s relationship with His Covenant people and only rarely will God’s Prophet describe the entire four-part cycle with a single image group in one prophetic oracle. More often the prophets will introduce images taken from the four different parts in what seems to be an apparently haphazard, out of sequence cycle, but the images have a cumulative effect just as Salvation History is cumulative and unfolds in repeated patterns that become familiar.  Gradually one learns to visualize the whole cycle pattern of the great drama in all its powerful visual imagery.

 

Part I: Yahweh’s love:

Act I of the Covenant Marriage imagery is beautifully expressed by the prophet Ezekiel  in Ezekiel 16:1-63.  This chapter contains 3 images of the cycle of the Covenant Marriage cluster and ends with the 4^th image, the promise of restoration.

 

Please read Ezekiel 16: 4-14. Part I: Yahweh takes Israel as His Covenant Bride.

 

[Yahweh speaking] “Then I saw you as I was passing.  Your time had come, the time for love.  I spread my clock over you and covered your nakedness; I gave you my oath, I made a covenant with you—declares the Lord Yahweh—and you became mine.  I bathed you in water, I washed the blood off you, I anointed you with oil.  I gave you embroidered dresses, fine leather shoes, a linen headband and a cloak of silk. I loaded you with jewels, gave you bracelets for your wrists and a necklace for your throat.  I gave you nose-ring and earrings; I put a beautiful diadem on your head.  You were loaded with gold and silver and dressed in linen and silk and brocade.  Your food was the finest flour, honey and oil.  You grew more and more beautiful; and you rose to be queen.  The fame of your beauty spread through the nations, since it was perfect, because I had clothed you with my own splendor—declares the Lord Yahweh.” Verses 8-14

 

Question: How is Yahweh’s relationship with Israel expressed in the imagery used by Ezekiel?

Answer: Yahweh is the suitor, the husband and lover who delights in the Bride He has chosen to love.  He provides for all her needs and showers her with gifts.  His love is faithful and He expects her faithful [covenant] love in return. 

 

Part II: The Bride is unfaithful:

Please read Ezekiel 16:15-34.

 

Ezekiel 16: 15-16 “But you became infatuated with your own beauty and used your fame to play the whore, lavishing your debauchery on all comers.  You took some of your clothes to make for yourself high places bright with colors and there you played the whore.”

Question: What happens to strain the Bride’s relationship with her Bridegroom?

Answer: She becomes unfaithful and takes lovers.

 

Question: In Scripture “unfaithfulness” and “becoming a whore” are code words for what sin?  What verse indicates that this passage is referring to this sin?

Answer: Idol worship.  Verse 16: Baal and other false gods were worshiped on “high places”.

 

Please read Ezekiel 16: 20-21 “What is more—declares the Lord Yahweh—you took the sons and daughters you had borne me and sacrificed them as food to the images.  Was not your whoring enough in itself, for you to slaughter my children and hand them over to be burnt in their honor? 

 

Question: Israel’s sin of idol worship led to what other abomination?  See Jeremiah 32:35; 2 Chronicles 28:3; 33:6.

Answer: Human sacrifice.

 

Part III: The Harlot Bride is humiliated and abused by her lovers = Redemptive judgment.

Please read Ezekiel 16:23-61. 

 

Ezekiel 16:23 “To crown your wickedness—disaster upon you, disaster! Declares the Lord Yahweh…”

16:35-39 “Very well, whore, hear the word of Yahweh!  The Lord Yahweh says this: For having squandered your money [literally “poured out your bronze”, an idiomatic expression in Hebrew for “lust”] and let yourself be seen naked while whoring with your lovers and all the foul idols of your loathsome practices and for giving them your children’s blood—for all this, I shall assemble all the lovers to whom you have given pleasure, all the ones you liked and also all the ones you disliked; yes, I shall assemble them round you and strip you naked in front of them, and let them see you naked from head to foot.  I shall pass on you the sentence that adulteresses and murderesses receive; I shall hand you over to their jealous fury; I shall hand you over to them; they will destroy your mound and pull down your high place; they will tear off your clothes, take away your jewels and leave you stark naked.”

 

Question: When did Ezekiel live and to whom did he prophesy?  What was happening to the Covenant people during Ezekiel’s lifetime?  When was Ezekiel’s prophecy in 16:23-39 fulfilled?

Answer: The Priest/Prophet Ezekiel was a contemporary of the Priest/Prophet Jeremiah.  In 722BC, in fulfillment of the prophecies of Isaiah, Hosea, and Amos the Assyrian Empire conquered the Northern Kingdom of Israel and took the 10 Northern tribes into exile [2Kings 18:9-12].  It appeared that the Southern Kingdom of Judah would escape destruction when the Assyrians withdrew from the siege of the city of Jerusalem, struck down by a plague inflicted by the Angel of Yahweh [2Kings 18:13-19:37; 2Chronicles 32:1-23].  The reforms of King Josiah of Judah rallied the nation to repentance and restoration of Judah’s Covenant relationship [2Kings 22:1-23:37] with Yahweh but all these hopes were destroyed by the sudden death of the king at the Battle of Megiddo in 609BC [2Kings 23:28-30; 2Chronicles 35:26-27] and the disruption caused by the defeat of the Assyrians and Egyptians armies at the Battle of Carchemish by the Babylonian army of Nebuchadnezzar in 605BC which resulted in the expansion of the Babylonian Empire.  Beginning in 605BC the neo-Babylonian Empire imposed its will on the entire region.  Judah became a vassal state and a number of Judah’s most prominent citizens were taken into exile (Daniel was taken to Babylon at this time).  Judah rebelled in 597BC and the Babylonians responded by capturing Jerusalem and deporting part of her population.  The Prophet Ezekiel was part of this deportation.  His prophetic ministry began in 593BC.  While Jeremiah was the prophet to God’s people in Judah, Ezekiel was God’s prophet to the people of Judah in exile.  This prophecy of the punishment of Judah was fulfilled on the 9^th of Ab 587/6BC when the Babylonians, in response to another Judean revolt, burned down the city of Jerusalem and destroyed Solomon’s Temple to Yahweh on the heights of Mt. Moriah.  The surviving inhabitants were stripped of all their possessions and taken into exile in Babylon.

 

Part VI: The Promised Restoration of the Bride

Please read Ezekiel 16:59-63. 

 

Ezekiel 16: 60, 62 “But I shall remember my covenant with you when you were a girl and shall conclude a covenant with you that will last for ever. […] I shall renew my covenant with you and you will know that I am Yahweh, and so remember and feel ashamed and in your confusion be reduced to silence, when I forgive you for everything you have done—declares the Lord Yahweh.”

 

Question: Was this promise of complete restoration fulfilled in the return of the nation of Judah [tribes of Judah and Benjamin] from the Babylonian exile?

Answer: No, it was not.  The return resulted in only a partial restoration.  Only a faithful remnant of the people returned from the Exile.  In the original Exodus from Egypt 74,600 men 20 years old and over, fit to bear arms from the tribe of Judah made the exodus journey along with the other 11 tribes [see Numbers 1:26-27], but in the return from the Babylonian captivity the first of the three groups of returnees only numbered 49,897 men, women, and slaves, and the other two groups that followed numbered even fewer people.

 

The prophet Isaiah also uses the vineyard as a type of imagery, God’s people as vines in His vineyard.  It is probably one the best known of Isaiah’s very beautiful and expressive passages.  Please read Isaiah 5:1-4.  “Let me sing my beloved the song of my friend for his vineyard.  My beloved had a vineyard on a fertile hillside.  He dug it, cleared it of stones, and planted it with red grapes.  In the middle he built a tower, he hewed a press there too.  He expected it to yield fine grapes: wild grapes were all it yielded.  And now, citizens of Jerusalem and people of Judah, I ask you to judge between me and my vineyard.  What more could I have done for my vineyard that I have not done?  Why, when I expected it to yield fine grapes, has it yielded wild ones?”

Question: How does Isaiah express Yahweh’s relationship to His Covenant people?

Answer: As a Vinedresser to his vineyard.  Yahweh owns the vineyard, it is His possession and so He tends and protects the vineyard.

Question: What are Yahweh the Vinedresser’s expectations for Israel, His vineyard?

Answer: He expects His Covenant people to produce good fruit on the land that He has prepared for them.  He expects them to produce the “works of God” as a witness to the other nations of the earth.

 

The Prophet Micah uses animal imagery to give a different aspect of Yahweh’s Part I Covenant relationship with Israel in Micah chapter 4. 

 

Please read Micah 4:13.  “Start your threshing, daughter of Zion, for I shall make your horn like iron, I shall make your hooves like bronze, so that you can crush many peoples.  And you will devote what they have stolen to Yahweh, their wealth to the Lord of the whole earth.”

Question: How does Micah express Yahweh’s relationship with His Covenant people?  How is this aspect of His relationship different from the previous passages?

Answer: In Micah’s imagery Israel is associated with domesticated animals.  She is like a team of oxen and God is the Master who guides and directs her.  The emphasis is on the people’s responsibility to be obedient and to submit to God’s yoke so that they can do His work.

 

Prophets also used animal imagery to suggest the total dependence of Israel on God. Please read Isaiah’s sheep metaphor in 40:10-11.  “Here is Lord Yahweh coming with power, his arm maintains his authority, his reward is with him and his prize precedes him.  He is like a shepherd feeding his flock, gathering lambs in his arms, holding them against his breast and leading to their rest the mother ewes.”

Question: The Micah passage stressed Israel’s need to be guided by Yahweh and to submit to His yoke but what other aspect of God’s relationship with His people is Isaiah expressing?

Answer: Isaiah is comparing God’s relationship with Israel with a Shepherd to his sheep.  Sheep metaphors in particular stress the need that God’s people have to be led, fed and protected by God.  This will be a favorite metaphor that Jesus will use repeatedly to express His “Good Shepherd” relationship to believers.

 

 

The last image group within the framework of Part I in the divine drama of the Covenant between Yahweh and His people focuses on the drinking of wine:

¨      Jeremiah 40: 12 “The Judeans all came back from wherever they had been driven.  On their return to the land of Judah, to Gedaliah at Mizpah, they harvested an immense quantity of wine and summer fruit.”

¨      Isaiah 62:8-9.  “…Never again shall I give your grain to feed your enemies.  Never again will foreigners drink the wine for which you have toiled.  No, the reapers will eat it and praise Yahweh, the harvesters will drink it in my sacred courts!”

Question: What aspect of God’s relationship with His people is expressed in these passages?

Answer: God provides the gifts of the blessings of the Covenant, in this case, the wine.  His people are stewards who ought to use the blessing properly by giving praise to God for the gift. 

Question: In Isaiah 62:9 how does this passage expresses the ideal relationship between God and His people?  What is the promise of a future blessing?

Answer: The Covenant people who have cooperated with God by working to gather the fruit and produce the wine will drink in the courts of His sanctuary—in the Temple in Jerusalem in the Jeremiah passage but the promise in Isaiah refers to the Sanctuary of the heavenly Jerusalem where the Covenant people will drink the “new wine” of the New Covenant in His presence.

 

Part II: The People Rebel

Using the four image groups the Hebrew prophets vividly illustrate the damage people do to themselves when they rebel against God and violate the covenant:

¨      God’s bride is unfaithful and turns to adultery and prostitution

¨      God’s domestic animals go astray rejecting the security of God’s stall or pasture for the dangers of the wilderness.

¨      God’s fig tree or vineyard produces bad fruit or thorns and briars

¨      God’s gift of wine is not used for celebration of the Covenant relationship in worship and fellowship with Yahweh but for debauchery, drunkenness, and sin.

 

The message is clear: when God’s people turn away from Him, His blessings and gifts to them are spoiled.  The Prophet Isaiah records Yahweh’s lament over 8^th century Jerusalem in Isaiah 1:21: “The faithful city, what a harlot she has become!  Zion, once full of fair judgment where saving justice used to dwell, but now assassins!”

 

Two centuries later the 6^th century prophet Jeremiah records God’s lament over Israel and Judah; Israel already lost, and Judah’s impending destruction. The United Kingdom of Israel had split into two kingdoms in 930BC with 10 tribes forming the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the tribes of Judah and Benjamin forming the Southern Kingdom of Judah.  Both kingdoms turned away from Yahweh, their true Husband, and entered "adulterous relationships" by taking "lovers"-- worshiping the pagan gods of their neighbors: Jeremiah 3:6-8. “Yahweh said to me, ‘Have you seen what disloyal Israel has done?  How she has made her way up every high hill and to every green tree, and played the whore there?  I thought, “After doing all this she will come back to me.”  But she did not come back.  Her faithless sister Judah saw this.  She also saw that I had repudiated disloyal Israel for all her adulteries and given her her divorce papers.  Her faithless sister Judah, however, was not afraid: she too went and played the whore.”

 

The prophets Jeremiah and Isaiah use the vineyard and drinking wine in the same negative imagery portraying God’s people as choosing to turn from Him:

§         Jeremiah: “Yet I had planted you, a red vine of completely sound stock.  How is it you have turned into seedlings of a vine that is alien to me?” Jeremiah 2:21.

§         Isaiah: “Woe to those who get up early to go after strong drink, and stay up late at night inflamed with wine.  Nothing but harp and lyre, tambourine and pipe, and wine for their drinking bouts.  Never a thought for the works of Yahweh, never a glance for what his hands have done.” Isaiah 5:11-12

 

A few chapters later Jeremiah also represents the people of Judah as headstrong animals that resisted the divine Master’s gentle, guiding hand.  Jeremiah writes in 8:6b-7 “Not one repents of wickedness saying: What have I done?  Each one keeps returning to the course like a horse charging into battle.  Even the stork in the sky knows the appropriate season; turtledove, swallow and crane observe their time of migration.  But my people do not know Yahweh's laws!"

 

Yahweh’s prophets also use the four image groups to show that people who repeatedly choose to turn away from God and refuse to come back to Him through repentance and reconciliation eventually lose their power to choose the good from the bad.  Ezekiel speaks of this tragedy when Yahweh warns that those who prostitute themselves in idolatry are soon controlled and consumed by the lust to which they have abandoned themselves as we already observed in Ezekiel 16:30-34: “How simple-minded you are!—declares the Lord Yahweh—for although you do all the things that a professional prostitute would, in building a mound and making yourself a high place in every street, you do not act like a proper prostitute because you disdain to take a fee.  An adulteress welcomes strangers instead of her husband.  All prostitutes accept presents, but you give presents to all your lovers, you bribe them to come from all over the place to fornicate with you!  In fornicating, you are the opposite of other women, since no one runs after you to fornicate with you; since you give the fee and do not get one, you are the very opposite. [Please note adultery, prostitution and fornication are all symbolic of the worship of false gods]. 

 

Likewise in Jeremiah 13:22-23 the prophet Jeremiah uses the duel imagery of wild animals and the harlot bride to depict God’s chosen flock and adulterous bride who in rebelling against God may find it impossible to turn back.  Those who consistently turn from God will become so enmeshed in their sin that they will no longer be able to choose to do good any more a leopard can “change its spots”: “And you should ask yourself, ‘Why is all this happening to me?’  It is because of your great guilt that your skirts have been pulled up and you have been manhandled.  Can an Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?  And you, can you do right being so accustomed to wrong?” and then in verse 26 Yahweh tells the people: “I am the one who pulls your skirts up over your face to let your shame be seen.”

 

In using the vineyard and wine imagery the prophets illustrate two kinds of evil choices made by rebellious people that lead them not to what they think will be freedom but instead to the loss of freedom and slavery to sin. 

¨      One who abuses wine becomes a drunkard as in Joel 1:5 “Wake up, you drunkards, and weep!  All you wine-bibbers lament for the new wine: it has been snatched from your lips.”

¨       Those who neglect Yahweh’s vineyard reap unproductive wild vines and weeds: Micah 7:1-4 “How wretched I am, a harvester in summer time, like a gleaner at the vintage; not a single cluster to eat, none of those early figs I love!  The faithful have vanished from the land: there is no one honest left.  All of them are on the alert for blood, every man hunting his brother with a net.  Their hands are adept at wrongdoing: the official makes his demands, the judge gives judgment for a bribe, the man in power pronounces as he pleases.  The best of them is like a briar, the most honest of them like a thorn-hedge.  Now from the north their punishment approaches!  That will be when they are confounded!”

 

 The prophets use these four image groups concerned with rebellion to make powerful statements about how at some point when a person crosses the line and rebels against God that he becomes entrapped and enslaved by his own sin.  At that point when a person goes his own way in a stubborn refusal to yield to God, that person ends up loosing the real freedom that is his or hers in a Covenant relationship with God for an distorted sense of freedom that only enslaves and destroys [i.e. the Fall of our first parents when they usurped God’s sovereignty to choose what was good or what was evil for themselves].

 

Part III: Rebellion brings judgment and punishment

The Prophets of God use all four image patterns to give the clear message that rebellion against God will result in just and terrible consequences.  Obadiah, the 9^th century BC prophet to Edom warns “for the Day of Yahweh is near for all the nations.  As you have done, so will it be done to you: your deeds will recoil on your own head.”  Obadiah 1:15

 

When God’s Bride, Israel, behaves like a harlot consorting with the false gods of other nations she should not be surprised when the blessing of rain and prosperity cease and those pagan nations with whom she lusted turn on her to repudiate and shame her, to expose her nakedness and threaten her life: 

·        Ezekiel 16:28-29 “Still unsatisfied you have prostituted yourself to the Assyrians; you played the whore with them, but were not satisfied even then.  You committed further acts of fornication in the country of merchants, with the Chaldaeans, and these did not satisfy you either.”

·        Amos 4:7-8 “I even withheld the rain from you full three months before harvest-time; …and still you would not come back to me—declares Yahweh.

·        Jeremiah 3:1b-2“And you having played the whore with many lovers, you claim the right to come back to me!  Yahweh demands. ‘Lift your eyes to the bare heights and look! […] You have polluted the country with your prostitution and your vices: this is why the showers have been withheld, the late rains have not come.’”

·        Jeremiah 4:30-31“You may dress yourself in scarlet, put on ornaments of gold, enlarge your eyes with paint but you make yourself pretty in vain.  Your former lovers disdain you, your life is what they are seeking.  Yes, I hear screams like those of a woman in labor, anguish like that of a woman giving birth to her first child; they are the screams of the daughter of Zion, gasping hands outstretched, ‘Unhappy me!  I am dying, the murderers have killed me!’”

 

If Israel, Yahweh’s vineyard, turns wild and fails to yield good fruit, God will destroy the unfruitful, useless vineyard: Isaiah 5:3-6 “And now, citizens of Jerusalem and people of Judah, I ask you to judge between me and my vineyard.  What more could I have done for my vineyard that I have not done?  Why, when I expected it to yield fine grapes, has it yielded wild ones?  Very well, I shall tell you what I am going to do to my vineyard: I shall take away its hedge, for it to be grazed on, and knock down its wall, for it to be trampled on.  I shall let it go to waste, unpruned, undug, overgrown by brambles and thorn-bushes, and I shall command the clouds to rain no rain on it.”

 

If God’s domesticated animals choose to run away from their Master who has lovingly cared for them, behaving instead like wild animals, it is to be expected that, out of their Master’s protection that their enemies  would attack them and they should lie unburied like any wild beast.   In this violently vivid passage from the 8^th century prophet Hosea God Himself is pictured as a ferocious animal punishing the rebellious people:  “I pastured them, and they were satisfied; once satisfied their hearts grew proud, and therefore they forgot me.  So now I shall be like a lion to them, like a leopard I shall lurk beside the road, like a bear robbed of her cubs I shall meet them and rend the membrane of their heart, and there like a lioness I shall eat them, like a wild beast tear them to shreds.” Hosea 13:6-8

 

Israel in her disobedience will reap the harvest of sins by being lost and alone like the wild donkey in Hosea 8:1-14 “Put the trumpet to your lips!  Like an eagle, disaster is swooping on Yahweh’s home!  Because they have violated my covenant and been unfaithful to my Law, in vain will the cry, ‘My God!’  […] Israel has rejected the good, the enemy will pursue them.  [..]  Since they sow the wind, they will reap the whirlwind; stalk without ear, it will never yield flour—or if it does, foreigners will swallow it.  Israel has himself been swallowed; now they are lost among the nations like something no one wants, for having made approaches to Assyria—like a wild donkey, all alone…….”

 

The prophets sternly warn if God’s Covenant people choose to reap His gifts without acknowledging Yahweh as Lord they will experience a harvest of regret  as in Joel 4:13 “Ply the sickle for the harvest is ripe; come and tread, for the winepress is full; the vats are overflowing, so great is their wickedness!”   Those transgressors will be forced, in the drunkenness of their rebellion, to drink to cup of God’s holy wrath! “For Yahweh, the God of Israel, said this to me, ‘Take this cup of the wine of wrath and make all the nations to whom I send you drink it;..” Jeremiah 25: 15  “You will say to them, ‘Yahweh Sabaoth, the God of Israel, says this: Drink! Get drunk! Vomit! Fall, never to rise again, before the sword that I am sending among you! Jeremiah 15:27 [see Isaiah 63:2-3; Jeremiah 13:12-14; 25:15-31; 48:26; 25:27-28, 30]. 

 

And now in judgment God’s holy prophets, as His prosecuting attorney, will call down a Covenant Lawsuit in judgment on a rebellious people as Hosea calls on Israel in Hosea 2:4-15 “To court, take your mother to court!  For she is no longer my wife nor am I her husband.  She must either remove her whoring ways from her face and her adulteries from between her breasts, or I shall strip her and expose her naked as the day she was born; I shall make her as bare as the desert, I shall make her as dry as arid country, and let her die of thirst…[..] vs 14 “I shall make her vines and fig trees derelict of which she used to say, “These are they pay my lovers gave me.’ I shall turn them into a jungle: wild animals will feed on them,  I mean to make her pay for the feast-days on which she burnt incense to the Baals, when she tricked herself out in her earrings and necklaces to chase after her lovers, and forget me! –declares Yahweh.”

 

Part IV: The Promise that true Repentance will result in the Restoration of God’s People:

The prophets are not only harbingers of doom; they also offer hope, redemption, and restoration.  God has no intention of giving up on those He has loved with such a passionate and abiding love.  It is always His plan to bring a faith remnant back into fellowship with Him.  The prophet Hosea paints a beautiful picture in the symbolic imagery of vineyard, of animals, of new wine, and of Covenant marriage when he records Yahweh’s promise of a restored Covenant relationship in Hosea 2:16 (14)-25(23)“But look, I am going to seduce her and lead her into the desert and speak to her heart.  There I shall give her back her vineyards and make the Vale of Achor* a gateway of hope.  There she will respond as when she was young, as on the day when she came up from Egypt.  When that day comes—declares Yahweh—you will call me, ‘My husband’, no more will you call me, ‘My Baal’.  I shall banish the names of the Baals from her lips and their name will be mentioned no more.  When that day comes I shall make a treaty for them with the wild animals, with the birds of heaven and the creeping things of the earth; I shall break the bow and the sword and warfare, and banish them from the country, and I will let them sleep secure.  I shall betroth you to myself forever, I shall betroth you in uprightness and justice, and faithful love and tenderness.  Yes, I shall betroth you to myself in loyalty and in the knowledge of Yahweh.  When that day comes, I shall respond—declares Yahweh—I shall respond to the heavens and they will respond to the earth and the earth will respond to the grain, the new wine and oil, and they will respond to Jezreel.  I shall sow her in the country to be mine, I shall take pity on Lo-Ruhamah, I shall tell Lo-Ammi, ‘You are my people,’ and he will say, ‘You are my God.’ ” Hosea 2:16-25

*The Valley of Achor, an arid site located on the northern border of Judah, was formerly a site of tragedy [Joshua 7:24-26] but the prophet promises that even the past will be healed and its bad reputation will be reversed from one of despair to hope.

 

In this image of future restoration Yahweh is promising a covenant “knowledge” [verse 22] founded on His faithful love [hesed in Hebrew].  This covenant relationship is more than merely an intellectual knowledge of Yahweh.  God ‘makes Himself known’ to human beings when He forms a family bond with them through a covenant and shows His faithful love [hesed] for them by the blessings He confers.  In a similar way, God’s Covenant people ‘know God’ when they return his faithful [hesed] love for them by loyally and obediently observing His Covenant commandments and by showing gratitude for His blessings which they use according to His plan by letting His works work through them as an obedient, faithful, holy people.  This is the promised future covenant Jeremiah promised in Jeremiah 31:31-34 when Yahweh promises a new and more perfect Covenant in which God will write His Law on the hearts of His people. “Look, the days are coming, Yahweh declares, when I shall make a New Covenant with the House of Israel and the House of Judah.  […] Within them I shall plant my Law, writing it on their hearts.  Then I shall be their God and they will be my people.  There will be no further need for everyone to teach neighbor or brother, saying, ‘Learn to know Yahweh!’  No, they will all know me, from the least to the greatest, Yahweh declares, since I shall forgive their guilt and never more call their sin to mind.” Jeremiah 31: 31, 33-34

 

Question: Looking back over these four groups of prophetic imagery patterns what are the familiar, reoccurring themes concerning God and man found in all four image clusters?

Answer: The image clusters vividly picture the relationship Yahweh desires to have with mankind as one in which He takes the initiative in showering His beloved ones with all they could ever desire or need.  In turn, He asks that His people respond to His love by entering into a Covenant relationship with Him and by submitting in obedience to the restraints He has placed on them--restraints which will enable them to become the holy people He has called them to be--people who will be ready to be used for the work He wants them to do.

 

Question: If Yahweh is the All True Loving God how could He bring the harsh judgments that fell on the Old Covenant Church like the destruction and exile of Israel in 722BC and the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in 587/6BC that resulted in the bitterness and suffering of the people taken into the Babylonian exile? 

Answer: The Old Testament clearly teaches that God is merciful and loving but even though He loves us just as we are—when we are deep in sin He loves us too much to leave us that way.  Punishment is always meant to be redemptive—punishment is meant to bring the sinner back into communion with the Father.  The painful truth is that sin hurts living things—sin hurts the wicked as well as the innocent, but God does promise the innocent who suffer that they will have justice, if not in this world in the next.

 

Question: Why is it that the books of the Old Testament Prophets only promise restoration?  When does true restoration of the Old Covenant Church to God take place?

 

Answer: Part of the answer lies in the book of the Prophets Daniel which does not repeat these reoccurring images of Covenant commitment, apostasy, judgment, and promised restoration.  The book of the Prophet Daniel records the visions he received from Yahweh that foretell the unfolding of historical events that will precede the coming of the Messiah.  Living in the 6^th century BC in the time of the Babylonian captivity and serving the kings of Babylon, Daniel prophesizes the rise and fall of four successive kingdoms beginning with the Babylonians who will be succeeded by the Medo-Persian Empire and then the Medo-Persian Empire that will be conquered by the Greek Empire established by Alexander the Great and his Greek armies [see Daniel chapters 2, 7 and 8].  Daniel prophesizes that the Greek Empire of Alexander the Great will split into 4 parts [chapter 8], with two kingdoms who will dominate the Promised Land [Egyptian Greek Ptolemy dynasty and Syrian Greek Seleucid dynasty].  As Daniel prophesized these Greek kingdoms were swallowed up by a 4^th Empire that would conquer all the other kingdoms and spread its rule across the known world [see Daniel chapter 2 and 7:23-24].  This prophecy was fulfilled in the conquest of the armies of Rome and the 10 provinces that would come to make up the Roman Empire, which included the province of Judah [see Daniel 7:23-24; there are 10 Caesars from Julius Caesar to Vespasian and the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70AD].  However, in 2:44 Daniel prophesized that this 4^th mighty empire would be overcome by a fifth kingdom that would conquer and rule forever, and in Daniel 7:13-14 Daniel was given a vision of a king whose kingship would never come to an end!  “I was gazing into the visions of the night, when I saw coming on the clouds of heaven, as it were s son of man.  He came to the One most venerable and was led into his presence. On him was conferred rule, honor and kingship, and all peoples, nations and languages became his servants.  He rule is an everlasting rule which will never pass away, and his kingship will never come to an end.”

 

In addition to revealing God’s plan for the unfolding of history from the time of the Exile to the Roman conquest, Daniel also receives a vision interpreted by the angel Gabriel of the restoration of Israel and the coming of the Messiah [meaning “Anointed One”] who is identified as “the son of Man” [see Daniel 7:13-14], which will become Jesus’ favorite title for Himself.  Later in Daniel 9:24-27 in response to Daniel’s appeal that the time has come for Israel to be restored the angel Gabriel reveals to Daniel that although his people will be allowed to return to Judah at the completion of the 70^th year from the Exile that his people will not be fully “spiritually” restored” until 70 weeks of years are completed, or 490 years.  At that time “the Anointed”, Messiah will come [9:25] but He will be put to death outside His city and later the city and the Temple will be destroyed [9:26].  Some scholars see this prophecy fulfilled during the persecution of the Jews by the Greek Seleucid king Antiochus Epiphanes which in 167BC erupted into the revolt of  the Jews led by Judas Maccabeus and his brothers, but other scholars see fulfillment of these prophecies in the atoning death, burial, and Resurrection of Jesus, with the Ascension of Jesus fulfilling Daniel’s vision of 7:13-14 [see Acts 1:9], the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 AD, and the victory of the 5^th Kingdom, the Universal Church of Jesus Christ and the conquest of the Church through the spread of the Gospel across the earth.

 

Question: What is the significance of the title “Son of man” in the Gospels and what is the reaction of the High Priest during Jesus’ trial before the Sanhedrin when he uses this title for Himself when referring Daniel 7:13-14?  See Matthew 26:63-66.

Answer: “Son of man” is Jesus’ favorite title for Himself [He uses this title at least 40 times in the Gospels].  When Jesus refers to Daniel 7:13 during His trial, the High Priest immediately rents his clothes and declares that Jesus has blasphemed, a crime punishable by death under the Sinai Covenant.  The High Priest Caiaphas understands that Jesus is claiming this passage for Himself and therefore that He is claiming to be the divine Messiah.  See Matthew 26:63-66; Mark 14:61-62; Luke 21:27.

 

Question: What similarities do you see between Daniel 7:13-14 and Acts 1:9?

Answer: In both visions a “son of man”, one who has the appearance of a man, is taken up into the Glory Cloud to heaven.  The Daniel passage adds the information that this “son of man” who is a king is presented to a figure that Bible scholars both ancient and modern have identified as Yahweh.  We know from the Gospels and Acts that Jesus ascended to the right hand of the Father and therefore Acts presents the same image of Jesus Ascension as the vision in Daniel.

 

For these questions please refer to the Chart of symbolic images of the Prophets found at the end of this study:

Question: The Old Testament prophets promise a complete restoration of the Church to Yahweh but when does the Church become the fully restored Bride of the One True God?

What Shepherd will rescue the Covenant people who like lambs have gone astray and need to be returned to their rightful Master?

Who will be sent to the Covenant people to the True Vine who will restore the fruitfulness of the Church?

When do the Covenant People drink the “new wine” of the everlasting covenant?

In whom is Part IV of the prophetic cycle fulfilled?

 

Answer:

The four prophetic cluster images we have discussed play a vital role in the New Testament.  The prophetic imagery of restoration in Plan IV is a vision of the future—a prophetic vision not realized in Old Testament times.  The Gospel writers all announce that the promise of that vision is played out on their stage of human history--they are the players in the final human drama of the prophetic image groups!  When the Holy Spirit inspired Gospel writers echo those images of the Old Testament prophets it is with the conviction that in Jesus the Messiah the Old Testament prophesies are being fulfilled.  It is what Jesus tells the Apostles after His Resurrection: "This is what I meant when I said, while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses, in the Prophets and in the Psalms, was destined to be fulfilled" [Luke 24:44] and “Now all this happened to fulfill the prophecies in Scripture..”[Matthew 26:56].  It is Jesus the Messiah who takes the initiative to restore the people of the Covenant to fullness of life and to perfect Communion with God the Father:

 

In the New Testament Jesus is the Divine Bridegroom come for His New Covenant Bride:

·        John the Baptist, the last of the Old Testament prophets speaks of Jesus “The Bridegroom: “You yourselves can bear me out.  I said, ‘I am not the Christ; I am the one who has been sent to go in front of him.  It is the bridegroom who has the bride; and yet the bridegroom’s friend, who stands there and listens to him, is filled with joy at the bridegroom’s voice.’” John 3:28-29 

·        St Paul uses the same marriage imagery: “The jealousy that I feel for you is, you see, God’s own jealousy: I gave you all in marriage to a single husband, a virgin pure for presentation to Christ.” 2 Corinthians 11:2  

·        And again in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians: “Husbands should love their wives, just as Christ loved the Church and sacrificed himself for her to make her holy by washing her in cleansing water with a form of words, so that when he took the Church to himself she would be glorious, with no speck or wrinkle or anything like that, but holy and faultless.” Ephesians 5:25-27

·        And in John’s vision in the last book of the Bible; “Alleluia!  The reign of the Lord our God almighty has begun; let us be glad and joyful and give glory to God, because this is the time for the marriage of the Lamb.  His bride is ready, and she has been able to dress herself in dazzling white linen, because her linen is made of the good deeds of the saints.”  Revelation 19:7-8

 

In the New Testament Jesus is the True Vine.  Those who abide in Him will bear fruit unto eternal life.

·        “I am the true vine, and my Father is the Vinedresser.  Every branch in me that bears no fruit he cuts away and every branch the does bear fruit he prunes to make it bear even more.”    “As a branch cannot bear fruit all by itself, unless it remains part of the vine, neither can you unless you remain in me.  I am the vine, you are the branches.  Whoever remains in me, with me in him bears fruit in plenty; for cut off from me you can do nothing.”  John 15:1-2, 4-6. 

 

In the New Testament Jesus is the gentle Master and the loving Shepherd:

·        “Come to me, all you who labor and are overburdened, and I will give you rest.  Shoulder my yoke and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for you souls.  Yes, my yoke is easy and my burden light.”  Matthew 11:28-30

·        “In all truth I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold through the gate, but climbs in some other way, is a thief and a bandit.  He who enters through the gate is the shepherd of the flock; the gatekeeper lets him in, the sheep hear his voice, one by one he calls his own sheep and leads them out.  […] So Jesus spoke to them again: […] I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep.  […] I am the good shepherd; I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for my sheep. […].”  John 10:1-18  [please read the whole passage to get the full impact of the imagery].

·        “I pray that the God of peace, who brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great Shepherd of the sheep, by the blood that sealed an eternal covenant, may prepare you to do his will in every kind of good action; 1“  Hebrews 3:20

 

 

And, in His sacrificial death recorded by the New Testament inspired writers, it is Jesus who drinks “the cup of God’s wrath” intended for those who face God’s judgment.  He takes God’s wrath upon Himself so that His followers can joyously drink the Eucharistic wine of the New Covenant in the new relationship which He makes possible as a bridge between redeemed man and a Holy and Eternal God:

·             “(vs 38) Then he said to them, ‘My soul is sorrowful to the point of death.  Wait here and stay awake with me.’  And going on a little further he fell on his face and prayed ‘My Father,’ he said, ‘if it is possible, let this cup pass me by.  Nevertheless, let it be as you, not I, would have it.’[…] “Again a second time, he went away and prayed: ‘My Father,’ he said, ‘if this cup cannot pass by, but I must drink it, you will be done.’ [..]”  Matthew 26:38-45 

·             “Jesus said to Peter, ‘Put your sword back in your scabbard; am I not to drink the cup that the Father has given me?’” John 18:11

·             “Then he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.’  He did the same with the cup after supper, and said, ‘This cup is the New Covenant in my blood poured out for you.” Luke 22:19-20

 

Many of these same images are repeated by the last Prophet of Yahweh to write a book of Sacred Scripture: John, the servant of Jesus Christ: “Alleluia!  The reign of the Lord our God Almighty has begun; let us be glad and joyful and give glory to God, because this is the time for the marriage of the Lamb.  His bride is ready, and she has been able to dress herself in dazzling white linen, because her linen is made of the good deeds of the Saints.  The angel said, ‘Write this, “Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding feast of the Lamb…” Revelation 19:7-9

 

When you read the books of the Old Testament prophets look for the prophetic image patterns so boldly, poetically, and vividly written, and remember that they are a bridge to the fulfillment of that divinely orchestrated human drama that is completed in the redemptive work of Jesus the Messiah!  

Michal Hunt, revised May 2005

 

 

 

 

Resources:

1.      God’s Prophet God’s Servant: A study in Jeremiah & Isaiah 40-50, John Goldingay, The Paternostre Press [1994].

2.      New Jerusalem Bible

3.      Images of The Spirit, Meredith G. Kline, [Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1980].

4.      Bible Review, October 1990, “Exploring Four Persistent Prophetic Images”, Margaret Parker

 

See the handout for this study on the next page:

THE SYMBOLIC IMAGES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT PROPHETS

 

Each of the image groups consist of four parts:

¨       Part I: Yahweh and his people enter into a Covenant relationship.  Yahweh will bind this people to Himself in the blessings of security and prosperity in return for obedience to the Covenant of the Torah [first 5 books of Moses]

¨       Part II: Israel, the Covenant people ignore the Laws of the Covenant; they rebel by going their own way

¨       Part III: God sends His holy prophet to call His people back to Him.  Failing in this mission the prophet calls down a Covenant Lawsuit which results in Covenant curses—punishment meant to bring about repentance and restoration

¨       Part IV: In response to repentance, Yahweh reaches out to restore and to take His people back into the Covenant relationship they had first enjoyed.                                                 Michal Hunt, 2003

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