Prophets & Prophetic Stories

Basic Info

Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk,Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi

A prophet, as understood in the Bible, is someone who is called by God to remind the people of the covenant Moses made with God whereby God will take care of the people if the people will be faithful to God and obey the Law. Summarized in a sentence, the Law is to love God with all one’s heart / mind and to love the neighbor as oneself. The executive summary of the Law is the Ten Commandments. The expanded version is known as the Torah or, in Christian terms, the Pentateuch, or first 5 books of the Bible. When the people weren’t keeping the covenant, a prophet would tell them how they were misbehaving, determine where their behavior was leading, and tell them what was going to happen if they didn’t change their ways.

The prophets weren’t like fortunetellers. They didn’t predict the future by looking into a crystal ball. They looked at what was going on and could read the signs of the times. They were faithful to God and understood and appreciated God’s Law. They used poetry, prose, metaphor, angry diatribe, and any other form of communication they could think of to get their messages across to thick-headed people or thick-headed kings who should be leading the people in a better direction.

Because the prophets didn’t often tell stories, the artistic tradition was usually limited to portraits of the prophets or stories of God calling the prophets themselves. That being said, there are a few exceptions. Elijah and Elisha did healings, Isaiah had a vision of an angel cleansing his mouth with a hot coal, Ezekiel had a vision of a valley with dry bones and rode a fiery chariot, Samuel and Nathan had encounters with kings and generals, etc.

What to Look For

• The physical appearance of the prophet (normal, outsider, high class, poor, etc.)
• The prophet’s relationship with God (prayerful, God’s power passing through him, presence of an angel, etc.)
• Other people in the scene (kings, people ailing, people misbehaving, enemies, etc.)
• The prophet’s relationship with other people (yelling, coaxing, being reasonable, telling a parable, etc.)
• Evidence of how the people are not keeping the covenant (crime, sin, idol worship, oppressing widows and orphans, luxurious excess, etc.)

Questions to Focus a General Interpretation

Does the artwork focus more on the holiness of the prophet and his closeness to God or on the actions of the people (or kings) and the prophet’s message to repent?

Questions to Guide a Personal Interpretation

Do you have the ability to read the signs of the times and see where people have turned away from God’s Law? Does the artwork’s depiction of the prophet call you to speak out about what is wrong in today’s world?

Questions to Suggest a Historical Interpretation



What might have been going in the artist’s place and time (economically, politically, in the church, or in society) that raised the kinds of questions the prophets raised (rampant excess, idol worship, sin, oppression of the poor, etc.)? Is that reflected in the artwork, or is the artwork merely a reference to the prophet?