Source: Marvin A. Sweeney, Jewish Mysticism: From Ancient Times through Today (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2020), 128–166.
This podcast delves into the "Latter Prophets" of the Hebrew Bible—Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the collection known as the Book of the Twelve—identifying them as primary sources for visionary and mystical experience concerning the presence of YHWH. While acknowledging their complex composition through later editing, the source highlights how these books interpret contemporary historical situations, particularly the trauma of the Babylonian Exile and the hope for restoration. Each prophet employs distinct imagery, often drawn from temple practices, royal ideology, and creation, to convey their understanding of divine action in the world, ultimately aiming to explain suffering and underscore YHWH's ultimate sovereignty.
When we picture a biblical prophet, a familiar image often comes to mind: a solitary, bearded figure in the desert, thundering warnings of divine wrath or foretelling a distant future. This popular caricature, while powerful, captures only a fraction of the story. Behind this simplified image lies a far more complex, surprising, and deeply human reality preserved within the biblical texts themselves.
This article explores four of the most counter-intuitive takeaways about the Latter Prophets—figures like Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel—drawing directly on deep textual analysis. These insights challenge our common assumptions and reveal a world of theological complexity, collaborative writing, and raw, visceral human experience.
We typically assume a prophet's primary goal is to inspire repentance and save the people from a terrible fate. The foundational vision of the prophet Isaiah, however, presents a stunning reversal of this expectation. This mission wasn't given in a time of peace. It came as the Assyrian empire threatened to annihilate Judah, and the political landscape was rocked by invasions, royal assassinations, and the disastrous Syro-Ephraimite war. In this moment of crisis, Isaiah receives his commission, but it is not a mission of salvation.
Instead, God's explicit command to Isaiah was to ensure the people would not understand, not turn back, and not be healed. This was to guarantee that a planned punishment—the unfolding political and military catastrophe—would be carried out. The text describes this unsettling mission in unambiguous terms:
YHWH tells him that his task is to render the people blind, deaf, and uncomprehending, so as to ensure that they will not repent and avert the judgment that YHWH will visit upon them.
This command reveals a profound moral complexity. The text presents this as a "teleological understanding of divine purpose," where the ultimate goal—demonstrating God's sovereignty to the entire world—justifies the suffering of generations. From an "ontological moral standpoint," however, the act of intentionally preventing repentance is deeply problematic, challenging any simple understanding of the prophet's role or divine justice.