INTRODUCTION TO PROPHECY

Note that this is the barest outline;
material summarized from Playing with Fire and How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth.
Please do refer to the recommended resources.
They shed essential light on this expansive and important genre.

Basic Features

• Covenant (i.e., Torah) enforcement; prophets reminded people of and called them back to the covenant.
  
• The message is God's and is unoriginal
• Written from a historical situation
  
• Written to a historically situated people
• Most prophecy refers to events contemporary to the prophet and his readers.
  
• Most OT prophecy written between 760 and 460 BCE
• Basic chunk is the oracle, not the paragraph or story
• Primarily written in poetry. Poetic form is thought rhythm: Synonymous (Isa 44:22); Antithetical (Hos 7:14); and Synthetic (Obad 21).
  

What to look for

• Exhortation
• Israel's sin and God's love
• Basic forms: lawsuit (Isa 3:13-26; Hos 3:3-17); Woe (Hab 2:6-8); and Promise (Am 9:11-15)

Getting some context

• Deuteronomy 27
• Purpose of prophecy: Zechariah 1:4
• Purpose of prophecy: Jeremiah 18:7-10

Recommended resources:

• Playing With Fire: How the Bible Ignites Change in Your Soul by Walt Russell
• How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth by Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart
• Timeline of Minor & Major Prophets
• ESV Literary Study Bible
  

Prep for 8/12

• Create a storyline/timeline for the four kings under whose reign Isaiah prophesied (Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah [click king's name for OT refs]; Isaiah 1:1).
• Check out the introductory material for Isaiah in the ESV Literary Study Bible.