The Form of the Prophetic Message. 

        The majority of the true prophets were bitterly unpopular — Ezekiel is apparently a major exception and there is no evidence for this after the exile. As a result, they could seldom rely on a large audience for any length of time. Their messages had normally to be packed into short pregnant form, generally in poetry, that they might be the more easily re­membered. It should be remembered that before the days of printing, the only possibility of a message becoming widely known was for it to be passed from mouth to mouth (For the form of Hebrew poetry see Appendix, p. 150.).

        The best example of the prophetic message in its simplest form is given in Jonah 3:4. We need not doubt that Jonah expanded it, whenever questioned about it, but basically this was his message. We find the prophetic tradition carried on by John the Baptist (Matt. 3:2), and our Lord (Mark 1:15).

        The fact that the bulk of the earlier prophets and not a little of the later (not Daniel) is written in poetry should serve as a warning to us in our interpretation. It means that we are dealing not merely with the natural exuberance of Oriental language, but with the vivid metaphors and pictures of poetry as well.

        At times the prophet became so unpopular that he could only gain public attention by unusual actions. Examples are Isaiah’s vintage song (5:1-7), and his going about dressed as a slave (20:1-6). Jeremiah had to do this kind of thing a number of times: among them his remaining unmarried (Jer. 16:2), his breaking of the bottle (ch. 19), his wearing a yoke (chs. 27-28), his buying of land (32:7-15), his use of the Rechabites (ch. 35), his hiding of stones in front of Pharaoh’s palace (43:8-13), his sinking of the scroll against Babylon in the Euphrates (51:59-64). This element is very common in Ezekiel, e.g. his acting the siege of Jerusalem (ch. 4), the symbolizing of the scattering of the people (5:1-4), the re­moval of his goods (12:1-16), the rationing of his food (12:17-20), his refraining from mourning (24:15-27). It is the more remarkable here, as there seems to have been no necessity for it. It may be that such actions had come to be expected of a true prophet. The non-mention of such details in connexion with the Minor Prophets may well be due to the virtually complete lack of personal details in their writings.