Jeremiah 36:20-32, Was the prophet’s message to his own time?

As watchman and guardian of the theocracy the prophet automatically became a messenger to his own time.  Kirkpatrick regards him as more of a forth-teller than a foreteller, more of an instructor than a predicter, more of an expositor that a futurist.  As the vehicle of revelation he had to be concerned with faith.  But this was not to say that Hebrew faith never had anything to say beyond its own generation.  Young places special emphasis upon the constantly recurring phrase “the latter days.”  Self-evidently the phrase has an eschatological ring.  It connects history with its divinely established goals.  The future was related to the present, at least to the actions of the present.  Deliverance, the redemptive blessings of God, and the divine accomplishments were all gathered up into the expression, “the latter days.”  And because of them proper action was demanded of the people then.  Submission and fidelity were mandatory for with or without the present generation the blessings of God were coming in “the latter days.”  The expression thus tied the present and the future together and made it impossible to separate them.  Tomorrow for them would be the consequence of today and today would determine tomorrow.

“The latter days” also involved the prophet in future generations.  He was passing on a message in which the generations to come would find their aspirations and hopes.  He spoke, therefore, to the present and to the future.  People of a coming day would search his message to understand the divine unfolding in their day.  Prophecy, therefore, became ubiquitous in its concerns.  It spoke to the faith of men both in their present circumstances and in the furthest outreach of their earthly goals. 

Our interest in the destination of the prophet’s message also involves us in the question of his being a writing prophet.  If his message was only for his own day, its recording was necessary only as a permanent record.  However, if his message equally involved a future generation recording was mandatory for its proper communication.  If the prophet’s message was only for future generations its public deliverance at the time served little purpose other than to become a part of the prophet’s credentials.

That the prophets wrote is amply demonstrated in such passages as Isa. 8:16; 30:8; Ezek. 43:11-12; Heb. 2:2; Jer. 30:2; 36:20.