The Prophets, by Abraham Joshua Heschel

For the longest time, my studies of the Bible have focused mainly on the New Testament. Maybe I dabbled in Genesis, Exodus, Psalms, and Proverbs a bit, but for most of my life I skipped the books in the middle with the funny names. I'm happy to have rediscovered the prophets not too long ago, because they are far too awesome to be ignored.

The thing I love best is their passion. In my mind, they are a perfect example of internalized pain. They felt fully the anger, betrayal, and suffering of both God and their people. Their messages were verbal, true, but also emotional. And they gave everything they had, their whole lives, to bear these messages.

Are there modern-day prophets? I think there are, but I don't think we're very good at listening. For one thing, I don't think our prophets are white, middle-aged, straight, rich, American men who hold so much cultural and political power -- which means their voices are quieter and we may have to seek them out instead of sitting back comfortably and listening. I'm not nearly as good at that yet as I want to be. I'm working on that.

A few excerpts from the book that I especially enjoyed:

The prophet disdains those for whom God’s presence is comfort and security; to him it is a challenge, an incessant demand. God is compassion, not compromise; justice, though not inclemency . . . The prophet’s word is a scream in the night. While the world is at ease and asleep, the prophet feels the blast from heaven. (pg 16)

The prophet is a lonely man. His standards are too high, his stature too great, and his concern too intense for other men to share. Living on the highest peak, he has no company except God. (pg 100)

The prophet's preoccupation with justice and righteousness has its roots in a powerful awareness of injustice. That justice is a good thing, a fine goal, even a supreme ideal, is commonly accepted. What is lacking is a sense of the monstrosity of injustice . . .
Justice is scarce, injustice exceedingly common. The concern for justice is delegated to the judges, as if it were a matter for professionals or specialists. But to do justice is what God demands of every man: it is the supreme commandment, and one that cannot be fulfilled vicariously.
Righteousness must dwell not only in the places where justice is judicially administered. There are many ways of evading the law and escaping the arm of justice. Only a few acts of violence are brought to the attention of the courts. As a rule, those who know how to exploit are endowed with the skill to justify their acts, while those who are easily exploited possess no skill in pleading their own cause. Those who neither exploit nor are exploited are ready to fight when their own interests are harmed; they will not be involved when not personally affected. Who shall plead for the helpless? Who shall prevent the epidemic of injustice that no court of justice is capable of stopping?
In a sense, the calling of the prophet may be described as that of an advocate or champion, speaking for those who are too weak to plead their own cause. Indeed, the major activity of the prophets was interference, remonstrating about wrongs inflicted on other people, meddling in affairs that were seemingly neither their concern nor their responsibility . . . The prophet is a person who is not tolerant of wrongs done to others, who resents other people's injuries. (pg 204)

There is an evil which most of us condone and are even guilty of: indifference to evil. We remain neutral, impartial, and not easily moved by the wrongs done to other people. Indifference to evil is more insidious than evil itself; it is more universal, more contagious, more dangerous. A silent justification, in makes possible an evil erupting as an exception becoming the rule and in turn being accepted . . .
The prophet is a person who suffers the harms done to others. Wherever a crime is committed, it is as if the prophet were the victim and the prey. The prophet's angry words cry. The wrath of God is a lamentation. All prophecy is one great exclamation: God is not indifferent to evil! He is always concerned, he is always personally affected by what man does to man. He is a God of pathos. This is one of the meanings of the anger of God: the end of indifference! (pg 284)

It is no mere listening to, and conveying of, a divine message which distinguishes his personal life. The prophet not only hears and apprehends the divine pathos; he is convulsed by it to the depths of his soul. His service of the divine word is not carried out through mental appropriation, but through the harmony of his being with its fundamental intention and emotional content . . .
The words of the prophet are often like thunder; they sound as if he were in a state of hysteria. But what appears to us as wild emotionalism must seem like restraint to him who has to convey the emotion of the Almighty in the feeble language of man. His sympathy is an overflow of powerful emotion which comes in response to what he sensed in divinity. For the only way to intuit a feeling is to feel it. One cannot have a merely intellectual awareness of a concrete suffering or pleasure. (pg 308)