Catholic Replies

1 year ago

Editor’s Note: This series on the Bible is from the book Catholicism & Scripture. Please feel free to use the series for high schoolers or adults. We will continue to welcome your questions for the column as well.

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Prophets are persons who call people back to God. They are specifically called by God and speak with His authority. They sometimes foretell the future. They were not always willing to accept their role and were often afraid. They came from all walks of life — Elisha was a farmer, Amos a shepherd, Isaiah a nobleman, Jeremiah and Ezekiel priests. They differed from false prophets by their holiness of life, their adherence to the law of Moses, and their ability to predict the future and to perform miracles.

They were, in the words of one historian, “extraordinary preachers, men who came rarely, preached dramatically, on subjects of fundamental importance, at times of religious crisis.”

The first great prophet was Elijah, who lived during the reign of King Ahab (874-853) and his wicked wife Jezebel, who supported 450 prophets of Baal, the false god of the Canaanites. After predicting a lengthy drought, Elijah hid out for three years and then returned to famine-wracked Samaria and proposed to King Ahab a contest with the prophets of Baal to see who could make it rain. (You can read about the contest in 1 Kings 18:22-40.) Elijah prevailed, with the help of God, and rain poured down for the first time in three years. He then ordered that all the prophets of Baal be slain and fled for his life to a cave on Mount Horeb to escape the wrath of Queen Jezebel.

While in the cave, the Lord appeared to the prophet and told him to go outside where He would be passing by. As Elijah waited outside the cave, there was a strong and violent wind, but God was not in the wind. Then there was an earthquake, but God was not in the earthquake. After that came fire, but God was not in the fire. Finally, there was a tiny, whispering sound, and Elijah told God that he had been “most zealous for the Lord,” but his fellow prophets had all been killed and “I alone am left, and they seek to take my life” (1 Kings 19:13-14). The Lord told Elijah to go to Damascus and anoint new kings and to choose Elisha as his successor.

The prophet found Elisha, and the two men went to Jericho and stopped at the Jordan River. When they reached the other side after miraculously halting the flow of water, Elijah told Elisha to ask for anything he wanted. Elisha asked for “a double portion of your spirit” (2 Kings 2:9) and, after granting the request, a fiery chariot came between them and Elijah went up to Heaven in a whirlwind. Elijah was a type of Christ in that both were rejected by their people, were threatened with death, and went up to Heaven at the end of their lives.

Another lesson from Elijah is to listen for God when He whispers to us. We need to shut off the music, TVs, videos, and cell phones so that we can hear God speaking to us.

Elisha served God in the Northern Kingdom for sixty years and performed many miracles similar to those of Jesus. He brought a dead child back to life, multiplied loaves of bread, and cured the Syrian army commander Naaman of leprosy. He also told a disciple of his to order King Jehu to destroy the house of Ahab to avenge the murders of the prophets, and Jehu also had Jezebel slain, ending her evil reign.

Amos was the first prophet to preach and write. He predicted divine punishment on Israel for their crimes against the Lord, but said that a remnant of Israel would survive to bring about a restoration of the people. Amos was also a warrior for social justice, condemning the rich for extortion and robbery. Only if they were to “seek good and not evil” would the Lord allow them to live, said Amos (5:14).

The last of the prophets in the Northern Kingdom was Hosea, who used the example of his failed marriage to symbolize the relationship between God and Israel. He resembled Jesus in balancing love with justice, in using the imagery of the vine for Israel, and in denouncing merely external religious observance, saying, as Jesus would say, “It is love that I desire, not sacrifice” (Hosea 6:6).

Micah, who lived 800 years before Christ, prophesied the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem (Micah 5:1), which prophecy led the Magi to that town, and he proposed the solution to all evils then and today: “Only to do the right and to love goodness, and to walk humbly with your God” (6:8).

Arguably the greatest of all the prophets was Isaiah, whose response to God’s call was, “Here I am…send me!” (Isaiah 6:8). Preaching to the people of the Southern Kingdom in the eighth century before Christ, Isaiah is famous for his prophecy about a virgin who would bear a child (Isaiah 7:13-14), for his many wise sayings (“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are my ways your ways, says the Lord” [55:8]), and mostly for his startlingly accurate description (53:5) of Jesus’ sufferings (“He was pierced for our offenses, crushed for our sins…by his stripes we were healed”).

List of Answers:

AMOS

ELIJAH

ELISHA

FUTURE

GOD

HOSEA

ISAIAH

JESUS

JEZEBEL

MICAH

PROPHET

SUFFERINGS

Quiz:

A ____________________ is a person who calls people back to God.
Prophets can sometimes foretell the ____________.
______________ was the first great prophet who battled the forces of Baal.
His greatest enemy was ______________, the wickedest woman in the Bible.
When Elijah hid in a cave, he heard _______ in a tiny, whispering sound, not in wind, fire, or an earthquake.
Elijah was a foreshadowing of ______________ because he was rejected by his people and was taken up into Heaven.
After many years as God’s spokesman, Elijah chose _______ as his successor.
______, the first prophet to preach and write, was a warrior for social justice.
_________ was the last prophet of the Northern Kingdom, and he compared his wife’s adultery to that of Israel’s unfaithfulness to God.
______ was the prophet who predicted the birth of the Messiah in Bethlehem.
_________, perhaps the greatest of the prophets, foretold the Virgin Birth of one who would be called Immanuel.
Isaiah also foretold the _______________ and death of Jesus on Good Friday.