those who filled the prophetic office, shows that a contemplative life passed in seclusion from the world was out of the question for those who were members of the association of prophets. This agency, after Samuel had founded the kingdom, and delivered up to the king the authority he had exercised as judge, may be defined as that of watchmen to the theocracy, whence the prophets are frequently designated D's or D'EY (comp. Mic. vii. 4; Jer. vi. 17; Ezek. iii. 17, xxxiii. 7). This office of watchman, moreover, was to be exercised both towards the nation in general and the holders of theocratic offices in particular, especially the king, whose conduct could not on theocratic principles be inspected and controlled by the representatives of the people, but only by the immediate agents of Jehovah. To try the ways of the nation and its leaders by their conformity to the injunctions of the Divine covenant (comp. as the principal passage Jer. vi. 27)—to insist with inexorable severity upon the dignity and sole sovereignty of Jehovah-to testify unreservedly before high and low, and especially before the theocratic office-bearers, against every declension from Him and from His law-to proclaim the Divine judgments against the obdurately disobedient, and to be in some circumstances themselves the executioners thereof, on the other hand, to promise, when needful, deliverance and blessing, such were the duties which constituted the political agency of the prophets,-an agency which must be classed neither with that of ministers and councillors of state, nor with that of popular leaders and demagogues, in the fashion in which it has often been attempted to draw a comparison between them. One duty pertaining to this office of watchman was that of writing the theocratic history, whose object it was to portray, in the light of the Divine counsels and of the inviolable ordinance of Divine retribution, the manner in which Israel had hitherto been led-to pass judgment on the past condition of the people, and especially on the life and conduct of their kings, according to the standard of the law-to point out by

their fate the reality of the Divine threats and promises; and in all these ways to hold up, for the warning and comfort of future generations, the mirror of the history of their forefathers, the so-called "theocratic pragmatism" (9)..

(1) Compare on this subject especially Keil's Commentary on the Books of Samuel, 1864, § 146 sqq. There is scarcely any subject of Old Testament history and theology which could formerly boast of having excited so large a share of interest and investigation as the so-called schools of the prophets. The less was known of them, the more might be made of them, and hence every one saw in them what he wanted to see. The copious literature to which they have given rise is recorded in Kranichfeld's De iis, quæ in V. T. commemorantur, prophetarum societatibus, 1861, p. 2. On the one hand, Jerome, the reverer of monasticism, sees in them the earliest monasteries (see the passages to this effect in Vitringa, de synag. vet. ed. 2, p. 351); on the other, the Rabbinists regard them as (see the notices in Alting's historia academiarum hebræarum in the Academical Dissertations in the fifth volume of his works, p. 242 sqq.). In like manner, most moderns have looked upon them as kinds of colleges, in which were found, as Vitringa, id. p. 350, expresses it, philosophi et theologi et theologiæ candidati scientiæ rerum divinarum sedulo incumbentes sub ductu unius alicujus doctoris. So, too, does Hering (Abhandlung von den Schulen der Propheten, 1777, p. 34 sq.) designate them as schools for the purpose of educating skilful instructors of the people, fit superintendents of public worship, and upright overseers of the church; saying that matters were there expounded which it was necessary, according to the notions of the times, for the future teacher, priest, or Levite to know, for the due discharge of his official duties. Hering opposes this view especially to the Deists, who, regarding the prophets of the Old Testament chiefly as freethinkers, choose also to view the schools of the prophets in the same light. According e.g. to Morgan, they were not merely seats of scientific illuminism, in which history, rhetoric, poetry, natural science, and above all, moral philosophy were studied, but they specially subserved the purposes of political opposition (comp.

Lechler, Gesch. des engl. Deismus, p. 380 sq.; Hering, id. p. 21). Moderns have, after the precedent of Tennemann, compared them to the Pythagorean association; while others, on the contrary, have regarded them as singing academies. The latest advocate of the view which looks upon them as educational establishments properly so called, is Herzfeld (Gesch. des Volkes Israel, ii. p. 4). According to him, Samuel is said to have instructed the young in the pure idea of Jahveh and the history of their native land, with the twofold purpose of making the majority enlightened believers in Jahveh, who, returning to their respective domestic circles, would there exercise a very salutary influence, and of educating the more gifted for actual prophets. (Article Prophetenthum des A. T.)

(2) On the latter, see the history of the kingdom of the ten tribes, § 174.

(3) Saul, who met them when sent by Samuel, was himself affected by the power of the prophetic spirit, and began to prophesy.

(4) In this assembly, also, first the messengers of Saul and then himself were affected by the prophetic spirit, a fact manifested in the case of the latter by a convulsive state.

(5) Similar extraordinary phenomena are recorded also of the oldest Christian churches, especially the Corinthian (comp. 1 Cor. xiv. 24); the Camisards and other phenomena of ecclesiastical history may here be mentioned.

(6) In the very variously understood passage, 1 Sam. x. 12, the words "who is their father?" can hardly be taken to mean "who is their president?" which would here be a very idle inquiry. They are rather to be regarded as a retort to the astonished inquiry of ver. 11, "what is come to the son of Kish?" which they answer by the question, "who then is their father?" i.e. have they then the gift of prophecy in virtue of a privilege of birth?

(7) It is, however, undoubtedly probable that the cultivation of sacred music by the prophets mainly contributed to the impulse given to it from the time of David, who was closely connected with the association of prophets at Ramah, and even, according to 1 Sam. xix. 18, himself sojourned there for a time. There is so close a connection between sacred song and prophecy, that the former is itself called prophesying, 1 Chron.

xxv. 2 sq.; and the chief singers appointed by David (xxv. 1, 5; 2 Chron. xxix. 30, xxxv. 15) are called prophets and seers. (Art. Pädagogik des A. T.)

(8) Comp. 1 Chron. xxix. 29, and what Thenius, on 1 Sam. xix. 19, xxii. 5, remarks on the traces of sketches of the life of David made in the schools of the prophets. The foundations of that great historical work composed during successive centuries by the prophets, so frequently appealed to as an authority in the Books of Kings, and still extant, though re-compiled, in the time of the chronicler, may have been already laid. With respect to the disputed question-which cannot in this place be further gone into-as to the relation of the writings quoted in the Books of Chronicles under the names of prophets (the words of the seer Samuel, of the prophet Nathan, of the seer Gad, the prophecy of Ahijah, the vision of Ye'di, the words of the prophet Shemaiah, of Iddo the seer, the writing of Isaiah, etc.) to the above-mentioned annals, it seems to me that the former must have been in the hands of the chronicler not as separate writings, but as component parts of the latter great work, which is expressly stated to have been the case with the writings of the prophets Jehu and Isaiah, 2 Chron. xx. 34, xxxii. 32. The theory of Movers and others, however, that individual portions of the Books of Kings are designated in Chronicles by the names of prophets, as above cited, only because narratives concerning the prophets in question occur in them, is unnatural. Far rather does the chronicler, as he unmistakeably says, 2 Chron. xxvi. 22, with respect to the history of Uzziah by Isaiah, regard the books on which his own work is founded as the actual compositions of prophets. The connection between the writing of history and the prophetic call will become more evident as we proceed.

(9) An expression quite harmless in itself, yet capable of leading to a total misconception if the view of history imparted to the prophets in virtue of that spiritual vision which disclosed to them the connection of things, is said to be the result of a talent for so representing events as to accommodate history to subjective tendencies.

§ 163.

The Foundation of the Israelite Kingdom. Consecration of the King (1).

We have already glanced at the duty made incumbent on those who filled the office of prophets, by the foundation of the Israelite kingdom. This came to pass in the following manner. In spite of the mutual jealousies of the different tribes, among which that of Ephraim laid special claim to superiority (comp. Judg. viii. 1, xii. 1), the tribulation experienced during the times of the judges had made the people conscious of their need of a national union, by which the several tribes might be bound together. The royal dignity, with hereditary succession, had already been offered to Gideon, and refused by him on theocratic principles, Judg. viii. 23 (2). After his death, a kingdom was set up "over Israel," ix. 22, in Shechem, by his illegitimate son Abimelech, which, however, extended to only a portion of the nation, and lasted but three years. The people having at last experienced under Samuel the advantages of national unity, and fearing the dangers still threatening them from east and west (in the first place from the Ammonites, but also, comp. ix. 16, still from the Philistines), and at the same time apprehensive of the tyranny of Samuel's sons, expressed still more strongly their desire for a king, on whom the command of the army and the administration of justice might regularly devolve, a king "like all the nations," viii. 5, 20. This request, in the sense in which it was made to Samuel, was a denial of the sovereignty of Jehovah, a renunciation of their own glory as the theocratic people, and a misconception of the power and faithfulness of the covenant God, inasmuch as a faulty constitution, and not their own departure from God and His law, was regarded as the cause of the misfortunes they had hitherto experienced; while their hope of a better future was therefore founded upon the institution of an