Hebrew Bible

This section of the Nevi’im is the first part of the so-called “Latter Prophets” (from Isaiah through The Twelve). It consists of three long books—each among the longest in the entire Tanakh—which are the records of prophets’ ministries: one from middle of the divided monarchy period (Isaiah) and two from the end-of-monarchy/early-exilic years at the turn of the sixth century BCE (Jeremiah and Ezekiel). Jewish tradition regards them as part of the larger scope of the Nevi’im, thus recognizing the interwoven nature of history and prophecy in the Hebrew Bible, as can be clearly seen in the substantial historical narratives in Isaiah and Jeremiah. Christian tradition, by contrast, usually takes them as a separate set of books from the histories and calls them “Major Prophets” (Christians also add the books of Lamentations and Daniel to this category).

The prophets were a class of people selected by G-d on an individual basis and called to serve as bearers of divine messages for the people of Israel. Any Israelite person could be called by G-d to serve as a prophet. Some of the prophets left their oracles in writing, while others, like Elijah and Elisha, did not. The books that constitute the prophetic writings, then, are representative of the ministry of the prophets but do not constitute a totality of its teaching. The authorship and dating of these prophetic books range from simple to complicated, with Jeremiah and Ezekiel generally regarded as firsthand works of the eponymous prophets (or their scribal circle), while Isaiah sparks wide-ranging disputes among scholars. Even in the simple cases, though—like Jeremiah’s—there are complicating factors since Jeremiah’s transmission through its manuscript tradition has produced versions of the book with significant variations in length, and not all scholars agree on how to assess those variations. The debates about Isaiah’s authorship are founded mostly on the difference in tone between the first and second parts of the book (Chapters 1-39 and 40-66), with some scholars willing to concede firsthand authorship of the first portion to Isaiah during the period of the monarchy but finding the latter portions more likely to be the product of the exilic or post-exilic Jewish experience. Some theories go further and divide the latter section as well, creating subdivisions referred to as “First Isaiah” (Chapters 1-39), “Second Isaiah” (40-55), and “Third Isaiah” (56-66). It should be noted, however, that there remain scholars who seek to retain the traditional authorship attribution of the whole book to Isaiah. 

Like most of the Hebrew Bible’s prophetic works, poetic sections dominate the text, but there are extended sections of prose as well (generally more so than in the subsequent texts of The Twelve). The literary features of the text include poetic constructions like oracles (pronouncements of divine messages) and prose constructions that relate historical narratives or prophetic visions. Regarding oracles, it is important to distinguish between prophecies that relate to events yet to come (which some biblical scholars refer to as “foretelling” prophecies) and those that relate to the messages of G-d for his people in their present context (“forthtelling” prophecies), both of which constitute major aspects of biblical prophecy. The narrative visions related in these prophecies, most of which are set in prose constructions, are often full of vivid imagery. They tend to be either visions of heavenly realities, such as depictions of the throne of G-d (as in Isaiah 6 and Ezekiel 1), or of apocalyptic events—the unveiling of future realities in highly symbolic language.

These prophets all relate, in one way or another, to the great catastrophe of Israelite history: the fall of the monarchy and the exile in Babylon. Isaiah predates those events but points toward them based on the prophet’s own experience during the earlier Assyrian conquest, offering both warnings of coming devastations and the promise of a great restoration that will follow. Jeremiah and Ezekiel center directly on the decades in which Judah experiences its fall, looking at it from both a Jerusalem-centered perspective (Jeremiah) and from the perspective of those already in exile in Babylon (Ezekiel). 

This historical context brings out the three major themes observed in the Hebrew Bible’s previous books and binds them together in a profound expression of Jewish faith. The experience of conquest, fall, and exile gives the prophets a concrete understanding of the interconnections between The Land as Promise and Reward, contingent on the people’s faithfulness to G-d’s law, and The Chesed (Steadfast Love) of G-d that provides for their continued existence even in the chastening experience of exile. In these books of the Nevi’im (together with the end of 2 Kings), a tragic endpoint to the warnings of Deuteronomy and Joshua come full circle: The Israelites were warned that they could lose the land of Israel (the treatment of which forms one of the dominant themes of the whole Hebrew Bible), and in these texts, they do. Nevertheless, in each of these prophets, the hopeful note of G-d’s own faithfulness to the covenant, expressed in steadfast love, is sounded over and over again. Even the darkest of these prophets’ works include sections where they find peace in G-d’s unshakeable love and in the promise of a restoration yet to come.