Introduction to the Prophetic Books

_{Handout 23}

I. The Age of the Prophetic Books / Their General Redemptive-Historical Context

II. The Three Main Clusters of Prophetic Books / Their Specific Historical Contexts

 Isaiah

                Jeremiah - - - - -
                    - - - - - Ezekiel

• (!) Note the order of the 12 Minor Prophets; it generally follows …

III. The Function of the Prophets

Their main function is …

The reason these objectionable books, full of judgment and condemnation, came to be preserved and revered, was (Ezek 33:33) …

IV. The Main Messages & Emphases

1. Warnings / Judgments / Calls to Repent, to both to Israel & Judah, but also sometimes to the nations. // For Israel alone they function as …

2. Predictions/Descriptions of a Future Blessing / of “the .” But always (!) the people are repentant & obedient, even righteous.

3. However, in any & all prophetic books that pronounce judgment upon Israel/Judah, there is always:

V. OT “Predictions” ↔ NT Fulfillments

• Not always “square peg → square hole.”

• The basic meaning of the NT term for “fulfillment” is …

• There is (!) a perceptible resemblance / a correspondence in the way the NT uses the OT passage to the way that passage is used in its OT context.

  That is to say, the NT’s use …

• A NT “fulfillment” may be surprising (Matt 2:15 ↔ Hosea 11:1), but …

VI-a. Similarities to the Book of Psalms

Like Psalms, most of the prophetic books are written in __ .

Both the Psalms & the Prophets provide …

VI-b. A Point of Contrast versus the Book of Psalms

The Prophets name several of Israel’s & Judah’s kings.

The Psalms, in the text proper (not counting the superscriptions), names only one king: