Cayden Johnson

1 December, 2020

How To Read and Understand The Biblical Prophets Journaling Project

Introduction:
Date written and read: 12/1/2020
It is important to adopt different reading strategies for different types of reading material.
One does not read the cartoons of a newspaper in the same way they would read an article on
the front page. Having an arsenal of reading approaches is important when studying the Bible,
especially when reading the prophets. Christians often read apocalyptic and prophetic literature
much in the same way they read the gospel narratives or the epistles of Paul. The prophets
often employ various means of communicating with their audiences that, if taken with a more
literal approach, can lead the reader to completely miss the point.

I am very interested to start reading this book. The prophets are very interesting to me
and unfortunately, we never really studied them in bible class at church, which has left me with a
rather large gap in my biblical knowledge. I am especially intrigued by Mr. Gentry’s approach to
reading and studying the prophets. I have seen in modern churches that the prophets are
misunderstood even if I couldn’t understand why and I believe that putting them into the proper
context will perhaps help me in understanding them better and making direct applications from
them into my life.

Chapter 1: Calling the People Back to the Covenant

Date written and read: 12/1/2020
One of the most important aspects of the prophets' teaching was their emphasis on
calling Israel back to keep the terms of the Mosaic Covenant and to maintain social justice. In
fact, the prophets have very little to do with predicting the future as much as they are concerned
with Israel restoring their relation with God. The Hebrew authors often used different literary
techniques to strengthen their message. Hebrew literature was often recursive. A topic would be
discussed from one perspective and would then immediately be followed by another discussion
of the same topic but from another perspective. Both discussions were the same and different at
the same time and thereby gives the reader a more complete grasp of the topic discussed.
Authors would also often use parallelism to create new phrases and words to express an idea,
such as in the case of the expression in Isaiah, “justice-righteousness”, in which both of the
words are held in parallel in separate lines of a couplet but are meant to be taken together.
Literary devices such as these are so important that the literary structure of each of the
prophetic books is fundamental to a proper interpretation of the text. In addition to conveying
their message of restoring the covenantal relationship and social justice, the prophets also tried
to show how the covenant could be kept in their own day and time.

I had not realized until taking this class or reading this book just how important the
covenant relationship was for the prophets. Mr. Gentry seems like he is trying to create a
paradigm shift in his readers, one away from the mystical, apocalyptic portrayal of prophets
which is rather common to reality: that the prophets were deeply concerned with the spiritual
state of Israel and were trying to get them back into a right relationship with Yahweh. I found it
profound to learn that the literary structure of each of the books is fundamental to interpreting
them. The devices discussed so far are very interesting and clever in how they convey the
prophets message.

Chapter 2: The End of the Covenant, Judgment, and Restoration

Date written and read: 12/1/2020
While their main message was to call Israel to repentance, the prophets did occasionally
predict the future. However, they always did so to demonstrate that the covenant had been
broken, that Israel would have to pay for its sins, and that ultimately the relationship with God
would be restored. Predicting the future had five main uses. Firstly, a prophet that could
correctly predict the future would have been signified as a true messenger of God and not a
mere false prophet. Secondly, correctly predicting the future meant the prophet could explain
why Israel was being judged by God: not that foreign gods were bigger and stronger than
Yahweh, but rather that they had broken the covenant. Thirdly, future predictions showed that it
would take time for Israel to be delivered. Fourthly, predictions showed that God was sovereign
over all of the nations, not Israel alone. And finally, future predictions showed that God was
faithful and that he would keep his word.

So this explains a lot of the confusion many people have when reading the prophets for
the first time. They fail to see the prophet’s main message of restoring Israel to the covenant
and focus instead solely on future predictions. I wonder why it is so easy to fall into the trap of
thinking that the prophets are always predicting future events directly applicable to the modern
age. However, Gentry clearly shows that the role of future predicting was always within the
context of the main message of the prophets. This is important to keep in mind as one reads the
prophetic literature.

Chapter 3: The Function of Repetition in Hebrew Literature

Date written and read: 12/1/2020
Ancient Hebrew literature heavily uses repetition and an understanding of repetition is
critical to understanding the prophets. As has already been said, Hebrew literature is recursive
in nature: a topic is discussed first from one perspective and is then restated from another point
of view, giving a more complete picture of the topic. Repetition and recursion can be seen
especially in Hebrew poetry which focuses heavily on the couplet. The couplet is a device where
something is stated and then reinstated with more perspective or information being given to
elaborate on the first statement of the idea. Word pairs are also an important device in which
two words are formed together to create a whole that is greater than the two words taken
individually. A key example of this is the word pair kindness-faithfulness which represents the
idea of social justice in the context of the Mosaic Law. In addition to the couplet and word-pairs,
Hebrew writers often employed the chiasm, a device with the form A,B,C::A’,B’,C’. Chiasms
were a special form of repetition that can help understand and interpret the text and shed light
on more difficult passages.
 I had known previously about the use of repetition in Hebrew literature prior but I did not
realize its importance in shedding light on the text and conveying the message of the prophets. I
am interested to learn more about word-pairs and see how Gentry develops his discussion of
them throughout the text. It is interesting to me the non-linear way of writing that was used by
the Hebrew writers and it makes me wonder why the west did not adopt a similar writing fashion.
Such a repetitive approach seems like it would aid memorization which would make sense as
the culture of the Ancient Near East was one primarily driven by orality.

Chapter 4: The Purpose of Oracles concerning the Foreign Nations

Date written and read: 12/1/2020
The prophets contain many speeches that are written to various foreign powers in the
day the works were written. God promised to use retributive justice to punish Israel if they ever
broke the covenant in the Song of Moses by raising up foreign enemies. However, to show his
own supreme sovereignty, God wants to make sure that these nations do not think that they are
able to defeat Israel by their own strength. He ensures that they realize that they are
instruments of judgment against Israel.

When I was younger, I would often read the prophets and pay special attention to God’s
judgment on foreign nations and was always confused about why He was addressing them in
the first place. It makes a lot more sense now that I understand that God was reigning in his
instruments of judgment against Israel so that they did not become proud, thus demonstrating
his sovereignty over the entire earth. Also, I suspect that Israel seeing that their conquerors
would be judged too would have given them faith in the power of Yahweh as well as show them
that these foreign powers did not have more powerful deities than the one true God.

Chapter 5: Describing the Future Part 1

Date written and read: 12/1/2020
When speaking about the future the prophets used different means. One important way
to speak about future events is typology. Typology is using motifs such as people, places or
events as a model for future things to come. The prophets primarily use the Exodus as a source
of typology. The Exodus was a very important event, if not the most important event in all of
Israel’s history and the prophets often spoke of a “New Exodus” that would come and created
several key parallels between the Old Exodus of the Torah and the coming New Exodus. With
much of the typology in the Old Testament, the prophets speak of the Old Exodus as a shadow
of things to come. The things to come being the new covenant through Jesus Christ. Types
were very important in the prophetic writings and are very useful in understanding much of the
parallelism that occurs in them.

I found this chapter to be the most interesting so far. Types are an intriguing topic and I
found Gentry’s discussion of them very cool! The exodus was an important part of Israel’s past
at the time of the prophets and its mind-blowing to see God showing them how he would renew
the covenant by using parallels. When Gentry mentions the phrase “shadow of things to come” I
cannot help but call into mind Paul’s statement in Colossians that the various Old Law rituals
were a shadow to the reign of Christ.
Chapter 6: Describing the Future Part 2
Date written and read: 12/1/2020
In their description of the future the prophets also heavily relied upon apocalyptic writing
to convey their message to Israel. Apocalyptic literature is often used to describe future events.
The world is constantly changing and the further in the future an event is, the harder it is for
present-day people to understand it. This was also the case for the ancient people of Israel: the
prophets needed to convey information about the future to their audience so they relied on
metaphors and colorful language to get the point across. Much of the prophets are apocalyptic,
especially the books of Daniel and Zechariah. Apocalyptic literature is typically woven within the
framework of a story and is often given from a heavenly messenger. Other features of
Apocalyptic literature include metaphors and colorful symbols, a God’s eye view of history, and
future hope for present struggles.

I never really understood apocalyptic literature growing up. I always read the prophets
and would wonder “what does this phrase mean” and “what does this thing symbolize”. I never
realized that metaphorical writing was used to better convey a message. Gentry really explains
not only what apocalyptic writing is, but goes into great detail with specific examples from
Daniel. I found this chapter to be illuminating and I will definitely keep it in mind from now on
when reading not only the prophets, but also Revelation.

Chapter 7: Describing the Future Part 3

Date written and read: 12/1/2020
The prophets often describe the future in terms of the “Already but not yet”. Isaiah claims
that the day of the Lord will be proclaimed as well as the day of God’s vengeance. In a sense,
the kingdom of God has already come, but is not yet fully come. This idea is seen throughout
the New Testament, particularly in the NT writers interpretations of the prophetic writings.

This was an unusual chapter topic and was frankly difficult to understand at first reading.
I think I now understand it a little bit better. Gentry tries to show that the kingdom is coming but
in a sense has already come. We see that today in which we live under the New Law of Christ,
however we still wait for his coming and the subsequent judgement followed by an eternity in
Heaven. Very interesting topic. I would be interested in studying this concept further.

Conclusion:
Date written and read: 12/1/2020
The prophets have to be read in the cultural, historical, and literary context of the time in
which they were written. Many problems and divisions have arisen from attempting to read them
without this proper context and it is absolutely essential to restore this context when studying
these works.

I really enjoyed this book and I have several ideas for further research that I would like to
delve into at a later time. The prophets are very fascinating and I am very interested to dive into
the texts and to better understand them with this new perspective. This was a great read!