The prophets are difficult to interpret mainly due to misunderstandings about their function and form (Fee/Stuart p182). Most dictionaries define the word “prophecy”as ‘foretelling or prediction of what is to come. Using the prophets in this way is highly discerning, for less than 2% of OT prophecy is messianic; less than 5% describes the new covenant age and less than 1% concerns future events (Fee/Stuart p182). The prophets usually announced the immediate future of Judah, Israel and the surrounding nations, rather than our future. Those events were forthcoming for them but past for us (Fee/Stuart p182). The primary function of prophets as a spokesperson was to speak for God to their own contemporaries. Of the hundreds of prophets in Israel, we have the writings of only 16. We know a lot about what Elijah and Elisha did, but relatively little of what they said (Fee/Stuart p183). The difficulty of historical distance also complicates our comprehension of the prophets (Fee/Stuart p 183).
Four things must be emphasized about the Function of Prophecy: “The prophets were covenant enforcement mediators”. God gave His law and enforces it: positive enforcement takes the form of blessing, negative enforcement that of curse. God announced the enforcement through the prophets so that the ensuing positive or negative events would be understood by the people. The prophets didn’t create the blessings or curses they announced. They may have worded them in narrative ways, but always on the foundation of and in accordance with Leviticus 26, Deuteronomy 4 and Deuteronomy 28-32 (Fee/Stuart p184). “The prophets’ message wasn’t their own but God’s”. God rose up the prophets; they didn’t take it upon themselves. They consistently preface, end or punctuate their oracles with, “Thus says the Lord” (Fee/Stuart p186). “The prophets were God’s direct representative”. The prophet does not