Hebrew Sense Of Prophets

Prophets are religious figures who have contact with greater beings or gods. In the Hebrew sense, prophets were the messengers from God to the people. The Hebrew word for prophet “navi” comes from the phrase “niv sefatayim” which means “fruit of the lips”. This implies that the prophets were revered as sacred vessels of knowledge and information sent from the heavens above and God himself. While the Hebrew scripture only recorded fifty-five prophets, the Talmud shows that there were more than 600,000 prophets. However, most of these prophets only relayed messages meant for their peers, not the whole of the Hebrew society. This is the reason they were not recorded in the Bible alongside the others. Among the recorded prophets are Abraham, Isaac, Moses, and …show more content…
Their jobs included advising, encouraging, teaching, guiding, and leading God’s people. They were a sort of spokesperson for God. The Hebrew people looked to prophets for help with everything from life decisions to punishments to daily actions. The prophets were responsible for hearing God’s message and relaying it to the Hebrew people. They were then expected to be a helping hand to the Hebrew society and guide them in the direction that God wanted them to go. Prophets also called upon the people to respond to God’s word and the messages of which they spoke. The scriptures 2 Chronicles 24:18-19 are a prime example of prophets calling to the people and their words falling on deaf ears. It says “They abandoned the house of the LORD, the God of their fathers, and served the Asherim and the idols; so wrath came upon Judah and Jerusalem for this their guilt. Yet He sent prophets to them to bring them back to the LORD; though they testified against them, they would not listen.” The prophets are shunning Judah and Jerusalem for worshipping deities other than the one true God. However, they will not listen to the prophets’