Bible Gateway Blog

The prophets in the Old Testament are a rich body of teachings in which God’s people are called to be restored to a close relationship with God. But what are we to make of the dire warnings, and the promises? Why does God’s word have so much about the conditions and the events centuries before Christ? What does it all mean for our lives today?

It’s okay to be honest if you’re having difficulty understanding sections of the Bible. Remember, our difficulty understanding Scripture is not a problem. It is what you’d expect of a body of scriptures that speak into the complexities of human experience, and contain the high truth of a transcendent God. When we come to the Prophets, typically the questions that get asked are: What are they talking about? Is this about them or us? Is prophecy about the past or the future?

Remember that when you’re interpreting the Bible, the simplest and most natural explanation is always best. When Jeremiah speaks about Babylon, he means Babylon. Amos was really warning about the armies of the Assyrians descending on Israel. Haggai’s words about the rebuilding of the temple were about events during that period when the Jews were allowed to return to Jerusalem. Most of the events the Old Testament prophets spoke about were fulfilled in the era in which they were spoken. What we get to do all these centuries later is pull out and apply these truths and principles, and apply them in fresh ways in our lives.

In the Old Testament, the prophet was a person who was called to bring the word of God to the people. The prophet was not a fortune-teller or soothsayer. He was not reporting the headlines of the news, mysteriously, before they were written. The prophet was a proclaimer. He brought words of assurance and promise, as well as confrontation and warning. Many people are called prophets: Abraham, Moses, Elijah, Elisha, etc., whose prophetic activity (i.e., being God’s representative to the people) is embedded in the historical narratives.

There are 16 Old Testament books we call “the Prophets.” Four “Major Prophets”: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel; and the so-called “Minor Prophets”: Amos through Malachi. (“Major” and “Minor” only mean their length, not their importance.) All of these books were written within a narrow 300-year span, from 760 to 460 B.C. This helps us understand their purpose. All the prophetic books of the Old Testament were God’s word to his covenant people, warning them and bolstering them during periods of pronounced spiritual and national danger.

The honest truth of the Bible is that men and women—even those blessed to be the covenant people of God—kept falling into sin. It is sobering to read through the Old Testament and encounter never-ending cycles of obedience and disobedience. So God spoke through the prophets. They confronted, warned, and assured. They did offer predictions, most typically showing the cause and effect of disobedience and unfaithfulness. Every oracle of every prophet means something specific. The challenge is that most of us do not have an encyclopedic knowledge of Tyre and Sidon, of Persia, of Darius, of the Nazirites, of Ekron, and of Meshek and Tubal.

Some passages in the Prophets clearly point to events to be fulfilled centuries later, for instance predictions of the coming Messiah. Isaiah 53 is widely understood to be pointing to Jesus. “He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain” (v. 3).

[Check out How to Understand the Bible, the book, here.]

Then there are some passages that appear to be fulfilled in the era of the prophet, but also extend out to the Messianic Age or the end of time. It is possible for a prophecy to have multiple fulfillments, though we have to make sure this is clearly called for in the passage.

So here are some recommendations on reading the Prophets:

1. Read these books naturally and in ample segments, not verse by verse. Listen for the spiritual movement within prophetic oracles, rather than getting bogged down in details. Catch the big-picture spiritual dynamics and message of the oracles. For instance, the disposition of God (e.g., disappointed, indignant, sorrowful, tender, caring), the condition of the people addressed (e.g., frightened, disobedient, humbled, arrogant), the predictions of what might or will happen (e.g., captivity, deliverance, famine, restoration). The best thing we gain from the prophetic books is not about events on timelines, but the great spiritual realities of life, including insights into disobedience and sin, and the judgment and mercy of God.

2. Use Bible helps. In reading the Prophets, we will benefit greatly from good Bible dictionaries and commentaries. Look for commentaries where the original setting and meaning of the Prophets are respected and explained. Unfortunately, there are many commentators, preachers, and teachers who assume prophecy is mostly about events yet to unfold in our day, when the biblical text indicates otherwise. This is crystal ball interpretation. It is arbitrary, misleading, and does not respect the call of the Prophets. It overlooks the plain meaning of the biblical text, which must be our first priority.

3. Go ahead and apply the spiritual lessons of the Prophets to life today. These 16 Old Testament books are the word of God to us, as long as we allow for the different terms of the old covenant and what we stand on today, the new covenant.

4. Be enriched by the word of the Prophets. Don’t be discouraged by their complexity or sometimes-dire message. It is only because God loves humanity that he spoke through the prophets—hard truth included.

Care to offer feedback this week?

Next time: “How Should We Interpret What the Prophets Had to Say?”

Not yet signed up to receive “How to Understand the Bible” via email? You can follow along here at the blog, but we recommend signing up for email updates here. “How to Understand the Bible” is available as a print book at WordWay.org.

Mel Lawrenz is Director of The Brook Network and creator of The Influence Project. He’s the author of thirteen books, most recently Spiritual Influence: the Hidden Power Behind Leadership.

If you want to understand the Bible, you have to understand the land of the Bible. It is not only central to the covenant of God, it is the geographical stage on which the magnificent drama of the people of God is played out. You may be surprised when you take a closer look. After you read this, consider going here to watch a 9-minute video giving you a visual understanding.

One of the ways we know that the truth of the Bible is rooted in reality is that the story of the Bible—the drama of God’s interaction with humanity—unfolds in a real place. This is a real God engaging with real people across a timeline that goes for thousands of years in a specific part of the world. The Bible is not detached philosophy. It tells us what happened (in history) so that we can understand what happens (in life).

After the Pentateuch (the first five books of Scripture), there is a major transition as the wandering Israelites entered the ancient land of Canaan. Under Joshua, the Israelite armies conquered this territory promised to them by God as an inheritance (Josh. 1:1-6). The small land of Israel, just 200 miles long and 100 miles wide, would be the main stage for the drama of redemption until the world-changing mission of the apostles—altogether a span of two millennia.

What is it like, this “good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey” (Ex. 3:8)? To the Hebrews who had left slavery in Egypt 40 years earlier, it was a true blessing. It wasn’t paradise, but the plains and hills were a good land for farmers who grew crops of wheat and barley, who developed groves of olive and fig trees, and tended vineyards. The coastal climate is similar to that of Southern California.

In the Old Testament, we find the connecting points between land, life, and theology. The three great festivals (Passover, Firstfruits, and Ingathering) corresponded to the beginning and end of harvests. Rain is the grace of God. Food on the table is the blessing of God. Drought is a time of testing. The land also supported the herding of sheep and goats. So it was easy to describe God’s care as his shepherding (Ps. 23), and Jesus as “the good shepherd.” Real land, real life, real people, real God.

But Israel was a difficult land to live in from a political point of view. The surrounding kingdoms were an almost continual threat, and part of that has to do with the geography of the land of Israel. If you look at a map of the region, what you will see is that this small strip of land is hemmed in by the Mediterranean Sea to the west and the Arabian Desert to the east. Then, to make things even more complicated, the region to the north and east—known as Mesopotamia—was home to a succession of aggressive empires: Assyria, Babylonia, Persia. To the south and west of Israel lay the great land of Egypt. So Israel is a small bridge of land between sea and desert, standing in the way of superpowers to the northeast and the southwest. This explains much of the history of the Old Testament. It is amazing, actually, that there were even brief times when Israel was strong enough to have security and stability.

To understand more about this place and the events that transpired there, picture this bird’s-eye view of the land. Going across the land from west to east, there are five main regions (picture them like strips running north to south). First, is the coastal plain. Flat, fertile, and lush, this is a desirable part of the land, and thus contested by people like the Philistines who occupied the southern coast for centuries. Chariot battles happened here—not so in the central mountainous region of the land.

To the east of the coastal plain are the foothills known as the Shephelah, which slope upwards to about 1,300 feet. The gentle hills of this region are also fertile, crisscrossed with olive groves and fig trees. It is also the battleground for many fights in the eras of Joshua and the Judges, and it’s the region where David famously stood up to the Philistine champion Goliath.

Moving east again, we come to the central mountainous region including Judea and Samaria. These low mountains—rising to just 3,500 feet—are rocky limestone hills, undulating across the landscape. Jerusalem sits on a set of such hills, as does Bethlehem.

The fourth region is the Jordan River Valley, which drops dramatically from the central mountains to below sea level.

And finally, to the east again, the high plateau region known as Transjordan rises. From here Moses viewed the Promised Land he was not allowed to enter.

In the north is the fertile plain and productive sea known as Galilee. More about that when we get to the New Testament.

This is “the land.” More than geography or a patch on a map, it is central to the covenant promise of God. Yet by the time we get to the new covenant, we find that God’s geography and the mission of his people extends to the whole world, just as he promised to Abraham, the man from Mesopotamia who walked across the chalky hills—“all peoples on earth will be blessed through you” (Gen. 12:3).

Get a visual understanding of all this: Watch a 9-minute video here.

Next time: “How Should We Interpret What the Prophets Had to Say?”

Care to offer feedback this week?

Not yet signed up to receive “How to Understand the Bible” via email? You can follow along here at the blog, but we recommend signing up for email updates here. “How to Understand the Bible” is available as a print book at WordWay.org.

Mel Lawrenz is Director of The Brook Network and creator of The Influence Project. He’s the author of thirteen books, most recently Spiritual Influence: the Hidden Power Behind Leadership.