1 Samuel 10:1-11, Terms and Definitions (2)

(Dr. Edwards is defining the prophet by the roles he filled.)

2.                The prophet was an established worker in the religious community.  This will be dealt with more fully in the next study.  Suffice it to say that the prophet was a very important link in the chain of the divine service.  While he took his place alongside of the priest and sage, his office often appears as the most vital of the three especially where the security of Biblical faith is concerned.  Warning of the terrible consequences of apostasy and the turning of the people back to the Lord was his spiritual responsibility.

3.                The prophet was often a part of a company of men who moved about in bands and played music instruments.  The exact nature of this activity is difficult.  The Scriptures do not make clear whether or not such activity always resulted in a message or in some kind of a religious service.  The men are said to prophesy but this is the activity we are trying to define.  Does to prophesy always mean to speak a message or does it include the activity of participating in playing music and sharing the ecstatic state?  In many of the early references to the bands of prophets we are never told what the prophets had to say during the prophetic experience.  Cf. 1 Sam. 10:9-11; 18:10.

4.                The prophets often played on instruments and acted in a strange or ecstatic manner.  Again we are not told whether it was necessary for the prophet to engage some form of mystical experience in order to receive his revelation.  I Sam. 18:10; 19:24.  However, in the later experiences of the prophets where their messages were recorded, seldom if ever, is anything said about the ecstatic state.  The writer limits himself to such expressions as “the Word of the Lord through _____________.”

5.                The prophet was often instructed to offer sacrifices as a part of his service (2 Sam. 24:19; 1 Ki. 19:10).  There also seems to be reason to believe that he provided a special “inquiry service” on the festival days (2 Ki. 4:23). 

Young is of the opinion that to prophesy means to act like a prophet, and to act like a prophet is to engage in any of the activities named above.  Thus a man like Saul could join a band of prophets and be considered as one of them simply by removing some of his garments and sharing their “strange behavior.”  That is, he could dance, or play, or sing and be prophesying.  At this state of the activity there did not have to be the actual communication of revelation.

To draw a definition of prophesy from all of the above activities is what Young has in mind when he points out the inadequacies of attempting a definition from “word studies.”  The meaning of the Hebrew term is seldom broad enough to encompass all of the activities in which the prophet engaged.