And the LORD hath sent unto you all his servants the prophets, rising early and sending them; but ye have not hearkened, nor inclined your ear to hear (Jer.25:4).
The Hebrew word for prophet is nabi. The Greek word for prophet is prophetes. Both words are used to refer not only to those who predict the future, but who speak to contemporary issues. The denotation does not necessarily imply (in and of itself) that one so denominated is a speaker of truth. Moses sets forth conditions in Deuteronomy 18:20-22 for discerning a true prophet from a false prophet. The prophet who speaks truth, and whose prophecies come to pass, is proven to be the true prophet.
Neither does a prophet necessarily need to be a man. Miriam and Deborah were a prophetesses (Ex. 15:20; Judg. 4:4) as was Huldah (2 Kgs. 22:14). Isaiah had a wife who was a prophetess as well (Isa. 8:3). In the New Testament are Anna (Luke 2:36) and Philip’s seven daughters (Acts 21:9). We do not see their work as prominently as the men, but they were there and they prophesied in their respective roles.
A prophet was also one who spoke on behalf of another. Of course, false prophets speak on behalf of their false gods, or allegedly on behalf of God, but lie in making such a claim (1 Kgs. 13:18; Jer. 5:31, 29:9). In the sense of speaking on behalf of another, Aaron was once called the prophet of Moses by God (Ex. 7:1). In this sense of the word, a prophet is one who speaks for another.
The story of the prophets in the Old Testament makes up the bulk of the prophets of the Lord in the Bible. They are hard working men; God, through Jeremiah, calls them His servants (Jer. 25:4). More often than not, God sent them to a people who did not want to hear their message: “That this is a rebellious people, lying children, children that will not hear the law of the Lord” (Isa. 30:9). It was difficult to be a prophet under such conditions, but they were told to prophesy regardless. Isaiah once asked how long he was to speak and God answered, “Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate, and the Lord have removed men far away, and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land” (Isa.6:11-12).
The sending of the prophets to God’s people is God’s way of removing excuses. Because the prophets were to prophesy until there were no more people to hear, not a single person could claim ignorance of God’s message. God’s prophets were ubiquitous in the Old Testament. They got around to preaching and teaching everywhere in ancient Israel. As Paul would say about the Gentiles in Romans 1:20, Israel was, because of the prophets, “without excuse.”
The story of the Old Testament prophets in many ways is the same story that preachers and teachers of the gospel live today. The New Testament sets forth many of them as heroes of the faith in Hebrews 11. We have much to learn from their lives and messages. Of course, Paul tells us, “For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope” (Rom.15:4).