Prophetic Styles

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1. Eliyahu in Horev (Part 9)

   The First Encounter Between Eliyahu and Elisha (Part 1)

   Rabbi Elchanan Samet

   The description of the meeting between Eliyahu and Elisha highlights the profound contrasts between these two prophets. The scene describing their meeting brings together, like a mirror, Eliyahu's past and Elisha's future. Therefore, every detail in this brief description contributes to understanding the relationship between the two men and their respective eras.

2. Eliyahu in Horev (Part 9)

   The First Encounter Between Eliyahu and Elisha (Part 2)

   Rabbi Elchanan Samet

   Eliyahu casts his mantle towards Elisha, not only signaling that Elisha is going to become a prophet, but also implying that Elisha is destined to inherit Eliyahu's own role as the prophet of his generation. However, the Divine command previously indicated that God has chosen as Eliyahu's successor a prophet whose attitude is different from Eliyahu's, and is tasked with correcting the zealousness in Eliyahu's approach. It is difficult to find so stark a contrast as that between the prophetic activity of Eliyahu and the prophetic activity of Elisha.

3. Eliyahu in Horev (Part 9)

   The First Encounter Between Eliyahu and Elisha (Part 3)

   Rabbi Elchanan Samet

   Elisha’s decision to part from his parents and friends with a feast points to his warm, humane personality. Eliyahu believes that service to God is absolute, and allows no space for human relationships. Elisha's actions express two opposing ideas: the delayed departure signifies that he perceives prophecy not as severance from the circle of life surrounding him, but as a connection to that cycle. On the other hand, the delay enables him to express the transition from being a tiller of the soil on his father's estate, to being a prophet of Israel.

4. Ahav's Final Battle

   Rabbi Alex Israel

   While the 400 prophets in the narrative are not prophets of Ba'al, but speak in the name of God, they are nonetheless false prophets. The method in which God reveals himself to prophets, other than Moshe, does not allow two prophets to prophecy in the same words. At the request of Yehoshafat, the king of Yehuda who enthusiastically embraces unity with the Northern kingdom, a solitary true prophet is brought. He brings a message of Ahav's demise and for this he is punished. Despite his disguise, Ahav is mortally wounded in battle, but remains in the battleground, sacrificing his life, in order to give moral support to his soldiers. 

   Ahav is a wavering personality who lacks a solid backbone and is easily influenced. He can be swayed towards Ba'al and can be shocked to veer closer to God worship. It is this lack of personal resilience and consistency that leaves him so susceptible to wide alterations in his religious orientation. The damage that he inflicted upon both the nation and the unfortunate individuals who met their death as a result of his actions means that he is one of the worst kings in the history of the Northern kingdom.

    

5. Yirmiyahu and the False Prophets

   Rabbi David Sabato

   Clashes between true and false prophets take place in many places in the Bible. But for no other prophet does this type of confrontation play such a central role in his world as it does for Yirmiyahu.

   Yirmiyahu highlights four distinctions between the true prophet and the false prophet.

   Personality of the Prophet:

   One cannot separate the prophet's personality from his prophecy. Prophecy is not a profession external to the prophet's person; rather, it must fill his entire world. Hence, a prophet who sins in his personal life cannot be a true prophet in his public life.

   Purpose of the Prophecy:

   The role of the true prophet, from the days of Avraham, is to speak out against the faults of society and try to fix them, thus trying to prevent the moral deterioration so that it not be destroyed like Sedom. The false prophets, on the other hand, work in the opposite manner: They turn Jerusalem into Sedom by way of their false prophecies of reassurance, thus betraying their role as prophets.

   Wording of the Prophecy:

   The authenticity of a prophecy is reflected in the unique style of the prophet who delivers it. He receives the word of God and then formulates it in his own words and his own personal style. The uniform style of the false testifies to its inauthenticity and the absence of inner connection to the prophet himself.

   Experience and Clarity of the Prophecy:

   The realm of dreams is by its very nature a place where the boundary between reality and imagination becomes blurred; a person is liable to think that he received a prophecy from above, when in fact he merely had a dream and imagined fantasies in his mind. The experience of prophecy, on the other hand, is unequivocal; a prophet who experiences the intensity of prophecy – "like a burning fire shut up in my bones" cannot be mistaken about it. The inner distinction between imagination and prophecy is sharp and clear, and anyone can distinguish between the two in himself.

6. Do Two Walk Together if They had Not First Convened

   Rabbi David Silverberg

7. The Prophecies of Amos: Oracles against the Nations

   Shiur #03

   Rabbi Yitzchak Etshalom

   תאריך פרסום: 5778 |

   In this chapter, we will introduce Amos’s famous prophecies against the surrounding nations, which make up the first twenty verses and comprise a “set-up” for his prime audience in Shomeron. Amos delivers oracles against Aram, Peleshet, Tzor, Edom, Ammon and Moav, then Yehuda before zeroing in on Yisrael.  Why does Amos deliver prophecies foretelling punishment specifically to these nations? Why does he not mention Assyria or Egypt, two major (and threatening) superpowers? What is his prophetic purpose, and what is the nature of these "prophecies to the nations?" 

   Looking at the map, we see that as the people of Israel hear the prophecies of doom for their enemies, they feel some relief. And then they realize that they are being entrapped instead of protected, and destruction is looming closer and closer. 

8. The Prophecies of Amos: Oracles against the Nations(Continued)

   Shiur #05

   Rabbi Yitzchak Etshalom

   תאריך פרסום: 5778 |

   In this lesson, we will analyze the rhetorical style of the Oracles to the Nations at the beginning of Amos, specifically the opening formula of each. Each of the oracles follows a common pattern – a pattern which is then greatly expanded in the final, culminating oracle against Yisrael. We will analyze the use of the "messenger formula" ("koh amar"  - "thus says") here and elsewhere in Tanakh, and the theological and political tension carried with it.  We will then look at the meaning of the "three and four" formula and the rhetorical twist used for the final verse.