Many a stalwart Bible reading plan has been stopped in its tracks by the books of the Prophets. The language can be intense, the imagery obscure, and the references to people and places incomprehensible. Perhaps most frustrating is that it’s often difficult to understand what these books have to do with the larger story of redemption and why they take up so much space in our Bibles.
But the Prophets are important. Their role is an essential part of the unfolding story of the Messiah. Understanding the Prophets will give us a deeper, richer appreciation for the work of Christ for God’s people and for the hope that is ours in him.
To that end, here are four helpful tips for reading the Bible’s prophetical books that every Christian should know.
Be Aware of Their Purpose
The prophets of the Old Testament are sometimes considered God’s lawyers. They’re the legal messengers he sends to his people to remind them of the covenant promises to which they swore. In return God promised them blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience.
Israel—as one nation and then later as the Northern Kingdom and the Kingdom of Judah—has broken the covenant they made with God generation after generation. The list of their abuses is long and varied across the prophetical books (though idolatry and the worship of false gods is nearly always listed among them). In Amos’s proclamation against Judah and Israel, it’s not just for false worship, but for immorality and oppression often seen among Israel’s enemies. God’s judgment will come to Israel because, “they sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals—those who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth and turn aside the way of the afflicted; a man and his father go in to the same girl, so that my holy name is profaned; they lay themselves down beside every altar on garments taken in pledge, and in the house of their God they drink the wine of those who have been fined” (Amos 2:6–8).
The prophets come to record these crimes before God’s people, to urge them to repent, to warn them of the consequences of their faithlessness, and—amazingly—to repeat the promise of God’s faithful love toward his sinful people.
Understand the Genre
Part of the difficulty of reading the Prophets is the imagery used to convey their message. The Prophets are considered apocalyptic literature, which means much of the language is highly figurative. It’s helpful to know this going into the reading. When Isaiah talks about the Lord’s Day of vengeance, it’s helpful to know that the picture of someone so covered in blood it looks like they have been trampling grapes in a winepress is figurative language (Isa. 63:3).
Not all the language is gory, of course. Malachi talks about “the sun of righteousness” that rises “with healing in its wings” and that God’s people will rejoice at his coming, “leaping like calves from the stall” (Malachi 4:2).
We ought to be careful not to jump to literal interpretations or fulfillments to what we find when we read the Prophets. We must set aside the expectations we might have for the epistles or historical books of Scripture—chronological and direct—and prepare to dive into the beautiful, wild, and inspired words of God’s lawyers.
This kind of masked language is also part of the judgment being brought by the prophets of God. We see Jesus employ a similar kind of language in his parables. In Matthew 13:11–14, when the disciples asked him why he spoke in parables that were so difficult to decipher, he said, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given” (Matt. 13:11).
The Prophets are not just abstract apocalyptic literature, included in the canon of Scripture because of their audience or subject matter. No, they—like the rest of Scripture—are the divinely inspired word of God. They are included in the unfolding of God’s redemptive plan and written within the covenant context of God and his people for a theological purpose, reflecting a specific historical and geographical context. Therefore, readers should exercise discernment, praying for a humble posture before God’s revealed word, and for the Spirit to open our eyes and our hearts.
Let Scripture Interpret Scripture
The meaning of Old Testament prophecies are not hidden messages we were never meant to understand. One of the surest ways of understanding the Prophets is to see how Scripture itself interprets them. All through the New Testament, Jesus and the apostles quote Old Testament Scripture or “writings.” Sometimes, they quote them exactly, other times they simply echo what was proclaimed so long ago.
We see this in Isaiah’s Suffering Servant prophecies when Jesus stood silent before his accusers (Isa. 53:7) and then was pierced with a sword as he hung on a cross to make redemption for our sins and give us peace with God (Isa. 53:5).
But we also see the prophets quoted directly, like Peter at Pentecost, who quotes directly from Joel 2:27–31. Joel speaks about men and women prophesying, seeing visions and dreams, and having the Spirit poured out on them. It ends with this incredible picture of apocalyptic imagery:
And I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke; the sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day. And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. (Joel 2:30–31; see Acts 2:19–21)
Peter interprets the prophecy in Joel as being fulfilled by the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. There was no literal blood, fire, and smoke, nor did the sun turn to darkness. Rather, these are pictures of the magnitude of the event of the coming of the Spirit on his people. The figurative apocalyptic language of Joel is fulfilled at Pentecost, and the New Testament Scriptures help us see that.
Look for Temporary and Final Fulfillment
Knowing that so much of the Prophets is fulfilled in the coming and work of Christ, it’s helpful to approach these books with two planes in view: the immediate context of Israel’s exile and return, and the future context of the promised Messiah. We might ask: What isn’t fulfilled after the return from exile? For example, Ezekiel 36 includes God’s promise to return Israel “from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land” (Ezek. 36:24). In part, he does this—though the return does not include being ruled by their own king, nor is the return to the land of Israel a permanent one, and the rebuilding of the temple ends up being largely disappointing (see Ezra 3:13). But in this same passage, he also promises something else: “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.” This “new hearts” language is key! Whenever we see this, it should tip us off to a future fulfillment. God isn’t just talking about temporal, earthly promises. He’s talking about spiritual fulfillment—the work of the Messiah, the pouring out of his Spirit, and the heavenly Zion toward which even Abraham looked in faith (see Heb. 11:9–16).
The covenantal context of the Prophets, their purpose within the story of redemptive history, their unique genre as apocalyptic writings, and their multiple planes of fulfillment as witnessed by Scripture itself make them rich reading for the believer.
Don’t skip this section of your Bible reading plan—the books of the Prophets have as much to edify us today as they did when first they were written.
