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The Prophetic Tradition in Judaism
For thousands of years, certain members of the Jewish nation have been willing to
speak out against injustice, immorality, and iniquity within their community and also within
the actions of the ruling elite. The first of these trendsetters were the prophets of the Hebrew
Bible, men like Samuel, Nathan, Amos, and Jeremiah. These biblical prophets established a
moral tradition that would continue through history into the heart and actions of today’s Jews.
Important to note, however, is that this tradition simply started with these prophets but is not
confined to those who qualify as prophets. The prophetic tradition that has been passed on
through the ages is not one of foretelling the future, or of predicting the Messiah’s
appearance. The real, lasting prophetic institution is one of speaking truth derived from
divine inspiration or from moral conviction, even if that truth is socially detested. Thus, for
my purposes, the term prophet will be used to describe a Jew brave enough to speak out
against corruption in society or its rulers.
The corruption in society may take many forms, thus necessitating the evolution of the
prophet’s purpose. But whatever the message, the prophets were willing to take a stand for
something they knew was right or against something they knew was wrong, even if the
opposing powers threatened to take their lives. While the prophets in the Hebrew Bible
received their inspiration from God, Jews throughout history – many of the secular –
addressed societal problems as a result of the prophetic impetus inherent within every Jew.
However, even though this tradition can be traced through time, the most prophetically active
periods are found within early and modern Judaism. Especially within American Jewry, this
prophetic institution has an immense influence upon how the Jews participate in the political
realm. The nearly two thousand year gap between the time of Jesus and the 20th century was
relatively inactive, though not devoid of prophetic figures. As a result, and because of the
enormity of this concept, my focus will be on Biblical prophets along with those Jews found
in the past century – especially in America - who most definitively uphold the tradition, with
only a cursory glance at the members of the aforementioned gap in prophetic history. The
scope being thus limited, the information on the Biblical prophets will mostly come from the
Hebrew Bible itself, not from interpretational sources.
Samuel and Nathan, prophets during the time of Kings Saul and David respectively,
were responsible for the establishment of the tradition. Despite the fact that Moses was the
first to prophesy to a ruler, his mission was one born from physical endangerment of the
Jewish people rather than an affinity for speaking out against injustice. However, one must
keep in mind that both Samuel and Nathan may have been influenced by the account of
Moses, thus bolstering their own prophetic resolve. They were the first prophets to speak out
against immorality in the lives of the Israelite kings and speak God’s truth to the kings despite
the obvious danger inherent in the open criticism of a monarch. In First Samuel, chapter
thirteen, King Saul disobeys the command of the Lord and offers a burnt sacrifice without the
mediation of Samuel. Samuel reprimands Saul for his foolish actions and announced the
demise of Saul’s dynasty because of his disobedience. (Jewish Study Bible) In another
instance, Saul disobeyed the Lord by sparing the king of the Amalekites and some of his
choicest livestock instead of exterminating everything. Samuel was sent by the Lord to
inform Saul that he had lost favor in God’s eyes and would be replaced by another, worthier
king. (1 Samuel 15:26-27 JSB) In both of these cases, Samuel censured the most powerful
man in the Jewish community. Mortal danger could not deter him from his prophetic
mission, setting a precedent of truthful declaration despite personal inconvenience.
David, the monarchical predecessor of Saul, was counseled, criticized, or reproached
by the prophet Nathan on three separate occasions. The first recorded conversation between
David and Nathan is in Second Samuel, chapter seven. David desired to build a temple for
the Lord, but Nathan was sent by God to inform David that his son, not he, would receive that
privilege (JSB). The second discourse between David and Nathan in Second Samuel, chapter
12, is perhaps the most commonly recollected instance of prophetic confrontation with a
monarch. David had committed adultery with a woman named Bathsheba, attempted to
conceal the sin from her husband Uriah, and perpetrated the murder of Uriah when the cover
up failed (2 Samuel 11:1-15 JSB). In chapter twelve of the same book, Nathan is sent to
David by the Lord; and, in one of the most gripping passages in the Hebrew Bible, relates to
him the parable of a young man and his favorite lamb. David, upon hearing of the slaughter
of that lamb in the parable, passes judgment on the rich man responsible for the murder; and
demands he repay the poor man fourfold (JSB). “You are the man!” replies Nathan,
condemning David’s actions and disregarding his personal safety in order to uphold the
prophetic check upon the monarchical corruption (2 Samuel 12:7 JSB). The third and final
account of the relationship between David and Nathan occurs when David is nearing death
and his sons are vying for power. Earlier in his reign, David had promised the throne to
Solomon, one of his sons by Bathsheba; but Adonijah, David’s son by Haggith, had set
himself upon the throne and taken control of the nation. David was unaware of this due to his
age and senility, and Nathan took action to counsel Bathsheba in the matter. Because of
Nathan’s actions and the ensuing actions of Bathsheba, David replaced Adonijah with
Solomon, thus protecting the kingdom from disobeying God, who would surely have
punished such an evil ruler as Adonijah (1 Kings 1:5-31 JSB). Thus, Nathan was willing to
step in and remedy a precarious situation within the monarchy. On three separate occasions,
Nathan acted on behalf of God or the people to ensure the correct use of power by the king,
and not the corruption that had defined so many of the cultures around Israel.
Samuel and Nathan both used their prophetic position to influence the actions of the
Israelite rulers preserving peace with God and making the monarchy responsible for its
actions. However, the two prophets Amos and Hosea used their status to speak out against
social injustice, religious ills, and the abuse of the poor and widowed. They also spoke truth
to the monarch, but their main function was to try and right the societal wrongs in both Israel
and Judah. Amos, a prophet to the Northern kingdom of Israel in the 8th century BCE,
stressed the condemnation of Israel because of political and social evils. He warns the
Israelites that God will not revoke his punishment because they have “sold for silver those
whose cause was just, and the needy for a pair of sandals.” They had also “[trampled] the
heads of the poor into the dust of the ground, and [made] the humble walk a twisted course”
(Amos 2:6-7 JSB). For these, and many other immoralities, Amos pronounces judgment upon
Israel unless they repent of their malicious actions (Amos 9:8 JSB). However, despite the
overall reproachful attitude of Amos, he portends of future restoration which is a common
phenomena among most of the other prophets. According to Edgar Magnin, the
condemnation from the prophets was not the nation’s final hope. “After punishment would
come the hour of redemption. The nation would rise form the ashes like the phoenix”
(Magnin, 1969, 112). Thus Amos, known as one of the most fiery and indignant of the
prophets, upholds a tradition of future restoration for the children of Israel.
Hosea, a prophet around or slightly after Amos, was more concerned with religious
syncretism and idolatry within Israel, although he also confronts societal shortcomings.
Hosea informs the people that God loved them and longed to commune with them, but they
had defected from God and turned to idols (Hosea 11:1 JSB). Not only are the people
criticized for their religious treachery, the priests are also called into condemnation for
leading the people astray (Hosea 5:1-4 JSB). However, he strikes a balance between the two
groups, making sure they know that they are equally responsible for their religious negligence
(Lundbom 1986, 52). Hosea, though not the first to do this, reinforces the precedent of
judging both those who lead and those who are led astray. Hosea, unlike Amos, is mostly
known for his love and compassion towards the people of Israel and his constant hope of
future restoration for the nation (Batten 1929, 263). Hosea upheld the tradition because he
knew that God loved Israel and that love brought a profound hope and almost certainty of
God’s eventual mercy upon the monarchy and the people (Betteridge 1902, 459).
The tradition thus far has been one of speaking truth to the powerful and speaking out
against social and religious abuses from the clergy and the common people. Another aspect
of the prophetic tradition, as seen in all the prophets but most emphatically in Jeremiah, is the
purpose or impetus behind their prophecy. At least a century after Amos and Hosea, Jeremiah
prophesied to the people of Judah, the Southern kingdom. Jeremiah prophesied destruction
upon Judah unless the people repented of their sins, but he was greatly distressed because of
the mortal danger he faced and the lack of positive response from his audience (Rice 1992, 3).
Moshe Reiss says that Jeremiah prays and complains to God because of his suffering and
because he views himself as a failure (Reiss 2004, 234). However, in chapter twenty of
Jeremiah, he describes his calling as a fiery force within his very bones. Despite all of the
derision and contempt from the kings and the people, he simply cannot contain the truth he
has in his heart (Jeremiah 20:7-9 JSB). Jeremiah was willing to speak the truth because of his
divine and moral calling to the ministry. He could have given the people what they wanted,
prophecies about prosperity and peace; but he knew that he had to get his urgent message
across to the people if there was to be any hope of repentance and restoration (Blank 1955, 3).
The impetus behind the prophetic tradition is seen most acutely in Jeremiah. The truth that
these characters proclaim is the very force that drives them, regardless of danger or lack of
success.
The next member of the prophetic tradition that will be looked at in detail is Jesus.
While many important prophetic figures existed between the time of Jeremiah and Jesus,
including Daniel and Ezekiel, their message was similar to that of the previously discussed
prophets or was related to futuristic predictions. Thus, to restrict redundancy, they will not be
dissected according to the tradition. Also, between Malachi (the last recorded prophet) and
Jesus, no single prophetic figure emerged (Bernard 1905, 118). The Maccabees and Zealots
fought against Greco-Roman oppression, but that fight was out of physical necessity and in
defense of the torah, not from a strong, moral conviction to speak the truth (Farmer 1956, 6062). Jesus will therefore be next in the line of succession due to the uniqueness of his
situation and the power of his message.
Jesus of Nazareth was a Jew who lived during the time of the Roman Empire and used
his position as a prophet to censure the Jewish society in which he lived. Despite one’s
personal views on Jesus, Paul Davies asserts that “the title ‘prophet’ remains as an irreducible
minimum” (Davies 1945, 241). Whether Christian, Jew, or Muslim, one can not discount the
role of Jesus in the long line of prophetic tradition. Arnold Wolf claims that Jesus is
definitively Jewish in his message because he claimed a personal authority that had been
recently given to the rabbis (Wolf 2001, 30). Throughout history, Jesus has been vilified by
the Jews as someone who subverted the teachings of Judaism and as the cause of antiSemitism from dogmatic Christians (Sherwin 2001, 31). However, one must remember that
Jesus was a Jew who believed he held the truth and was willing to proclaim that truth in the
face of opposition. “The biblical prophet is an interpreter of the present…and Jesus eminently
fulfilled this prophetic tradition” (Croatto 2005, 459). Jesus was a great moral teacher and he
condemned societal evil and corruption within the religious leaders of the day. He also
reflected Jeremiah when he threw out those in the temple who were using it to make a profit
(Addison 2001, 104). In Jesus one finds the combination of the traditional elements found in
Samuel, Nathan, Amos, Hosea, and Jeremiah. He spoke out against the rulers of the day,
although they took the form of the religious elite instead of a monarch. He was also an
advocate of socioeconomic equality and condemned anyone who would oppress the poor
(Solomon 2001, 161). His teachings were in “perfect accord with the great themes of the
Hebrew prophets – righteousness…and the Kingdom of God” (Pollard 1904, 96). Jesus,
despite the controversial nature of his life and interpretation, was perhaps one of the greatest
prophetic figures in Jewish history. Not only did he uphold the previous tradition of the
Hebrew prophets, he was killed because of his prophetic message and the political threat he
posed to the religious rulers in Israel (Shapiro 2001, 168). Therefore, in spite of the
amalgamation of ideas about Jesus, his role as a prophetic figure cannot be discounted in the
line of the Jewish prophetic tradition.
After the death of Jesus, the prophetic tradition seems to disappear for a substantial
amount of time. According to Abraham Heschel, many prophets appeared during the
medieval era, including Moses Maimonides, a Jewish sage and physician during the 12th
Century (Heschel 1996, 13-23). Other than Maimonides, however, the other prophetic figures
were simply those thought to have divine revelation, not those willing to speak out and take a
stand for a personal or divine conviction. Moses Maimonides was more of a philosopher, but
is regarded as the most influential Jewish sage of all time and is known for his arguments
against Jewish assimilation and his authoritative commentary on the Mishnah (Heschel 1982,
62). However, though one can not deny his importance to Judaism, his significance within
this tradition is minimal.
Until now, all of the Jews within this tradition have been bound by the religion of
Judaism. However, one is tempted to consider if the prophetic tradition extends beyond the
religious realm into what could be called secular Jews. One man may shed some light on this
question. Karl Marx was born a Jew from a long line of Talmudic scholars, but was baptized
at an early age by his parents who had converted to Protestantism in order to escape
persecution (Jewish Virtual Library). Marx is famous for his opposition to capitalism and his
formulation of communism; and he is also known for his phrase denouncing religion as the
“opiate of the people” (Jewish Virtual Library). However, according to Jeremiah Ben-Jacob,
Marx used the power of the Rabbis and the fury of the prophets to bring his message across.
He may have opposed organized Judaism, “but it is his role as a prophet which stirred the
imagination of millions of workers throughout the world” (Ben-Jacob 1946, 5). Marx,
although his views have come to be vilified, fulfilled the prophetic tradition by condemning
the social injustice he saw as inherent to capitalism. Thus, even a Jew who no longer claims
Judaism, a Jew who rejects religion altogether, can retain the truthful aspect of the Hebrew
prophets and uphold the tradition which is central to the identity of the Jewish nation.
Despite the tradition being upheld by such people as Maimonides and Karl Marx,
upon reaching the twentieth century, prophetic inspiration seemed to have all but disappeared.
However, according to my own interpretation, three separate events have caused an explosion
in Jewish prophetic figures – the Holocaust, the establishment of the nation of Israel, and the
civil rights movement in America. While recent prophetic activity is not limited to these three
crucial events, they have inspired many Jews around the world to speak out in the manner of
their Biblical predecessors. However, no where is this more evident than in America, where
Jews exercise considerable freedoms and can speak without great fear of reprisal. The
number of Jews inspired by these three events is enormous; therefore I will examine one
Jewish prophetic figure for each event.
The Holocaust was a very traumatic event in the history of Judaism and history of the
entire world. Elie Wiesel is perhaps the most representative survivor of the Holocaust and has
become a Jewish spokesman for “civic responsibility, awareness, and intervention on behalf
of all the victims in the world” (Kelly 2002, 4). Though Romanian by birth, Elie Wiesel has
been a United States’ citizen since 1963 and has served as the Chairman for the President’s
Commission on the Holocaust, Chairman of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council,
and Chairman of the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity which has been use to speak out in
defense of the Soviet Jews, Cambodian refugees, the Kurds, and many other oppressed
peoples around the globe (The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity). On April 19, 1985,
Elie Wiesel was invited to the White House where he gave a speech entitled “Speaking Truth
to Power.” The title of the speech already signifies the prophetic tradition manifesting itself
in modern Judaism, but the content of speech is even more powerful. In the speech, Wiesel
fervently warns against the sin of complacency and the dangers of apathy in a world so full of
evil. Those in power, specifically the United States as a nation, are responsible to defend
those who otherwise can not defend themselves. He praises America for its role in liberating
the Jews from the Nazi concentration camps, but criticizes the speed in response from an
America that knew of the Holocaust far before it took action. (Wiesel 1985, 268-270) He
upholds the legacy of Amos and Hosea by calling for further action to help the victimized in
society; but he also maintains the tradition of Nathan and Samuel by admonishing President
Reagan for his plans to visit a cemetery known to contain graves of former Nazis. In this one
speech is found the incorporation of the entire prophetic tradition within one ordinary man
turned extraordinary by the most horrendous event in Jewish history.
The next prophetically inspiring event was the founding of the nation of Israel in 1948.
Abba Hillel Silver, president of the Zionist Organization of America from 1945-1947, was
instrumental in gathering American support for the establishment of the Jewish nation in
Israel in May, 1948 (Feingold 1990, 726). On May 8, 1947, Silver gave a speech in front of
the United Nations General Assembly arguing for the restoration of a nation-state for the
Jewish people. He argued that “the Jewish people belong[ed] in this society of nations,” and
that most Jews around the world were “desperately eager to go to the Jewish national home”
(Silver 1947, 139). He reminds those in power of the recent war and its detrimental affects
upon the Jewish people, calling them the “greatest sufferer[s]” and asserting that this new
nation will be their “salvation” (Silver, 1947, 138). Silver reminds the assembly of the great
Jewish history and the fact that the Jews had “never lost faith in the sovereignty and ultimate
triumph of great moral principles” (Silver 1947, 139). Though not spoken, I believe a
reference to the prophets is made with the mention of those ethical values. These were the
values that the Biblical prophets tried to instill in the people and the same values that were
disregarded by the kings, priests, and other rulers in Jewish society in the times of Amos and
Hosea. As a prophetic figure, “Silver was also able to sway world opinion to favor the
creation of a Jewish state” (Jewish Virtual Library). The prophetic tradition was thus used by
Silver as a political force and a way of effecting a positive change for the Jewish people.
The American Civil Rights Movement is the third event which stimulated many
American Jews to speak out against the injustice seen in the plight of the African Americans.
Some of the white clergy in America began to act upon their opposition to the segregation
ordered by the Supreme Court in 1954, and among those most vehemently opposed to the
inequality was Abraham Joshua Heschel (Friedland 1998, 3, 71). Heschel’s life had always
been characterized by a desire to emulate the Hebrew prophets and their message (Kaplan and
Dresner 1998, 259). He was a Jewish Rabbi and, after gaining citizenship in 1945, accepted a
position as professor of Jewish Ethics and Mysticism at the Jewish Theological Seminary in
New York City. In 1963, he gave a speech condemning segregation in the United States,
claiming that “it was easier for the children of Israel to cross the Red Sea than for a Negro to
cross certain university campuses” (Heschel 1963). According to Friedland, not only did his
message fulfill the role of a prophet, even his appearance and voice gave him a “commanding
presence” similar to the Hebrew prophets (Friedland 1998, 71). Heschel confronted the
religious leaders of the day and spoke out against civic injustices in the same way that Nathan,
Amos, Jeremiah, and Jesus criticized the immorality in their societies.
These three men are simply the tip of the iceberg of American-Jewish involvement
within the prophetic tradition. They are prime examples of how the Hebrew prophets are still
influencing the world today. In an email message, Andrew Gordon, professor of English at
the University of Florida, told me of many other Jewish writers who exhibit the tendency of
speaking truth to power. His list includes Noam Chomsky, Norman Mailer, and E.L.
Doctorow. He also included Sam Girgus who asserts that Jewish-American authors fulfill the
position of Jeremiah and the Hebrew prophets in today’s society by delivering warnings to
those in power and the common people about the corruption that can seep into society (Girgus
1984). This past century has seen a conflagration of Jewish prophetic individuals who
continue the tradition started by the Biblical prophets Samuel and Nathan. The political
ramifications of such an outspoken group can be overwhelming. As seen before in the actions
of Abba Silver, one Jew can make a profound difference in the political sphere. Thus, an
entire population whose historical tradition is one of speaking truth in the face of adversity
can change the entire political landscape in America and across the world. With this tradition,
Jews can ensure that events like the Holocaust never occur again and that forced exile will
never again typify the Jewish nation. The Jewish people can be thought of, not as in
Diaspora, but united as a prophetic nation that will stand against injustice and immorality.
The prophetic tradition passed on through time may not be the one of predicting the future,
but adherence to truth and morality can ensure a much brighter future for the Jewish people.