How to Read the Prophets

The prophetic books of the bible can sometimes be shrouded in confusion and controversy. But they are part of God's revelation of Himself and His works to us. So here are some tools to help get your head and your heart around these inspired works.
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What are the Prophetic books?

The prophetic books are a collection of books in the bible which contain speeches, or oracles, that were given by specific men to different groups of people living in different time periods. These men received these messages from God and delivered them to the people, often at a severe cost to themselves.

But these prophetic books can sometimes be hard to read because we don't always have a full picture of the events going on nor do we always grasp the dense poetry that the prophets often spoke with.

To get an overview of these prophetic books check out this video from The Bible Project or you can view a playlist of videos which give an overview of several of the prophetic books.
Overview Playlist

Recommended Resources

When you come to the prophetic books of the bible, you're not expected to know everything that you need to help you understand these books. They speak of peoples and events that we're often unfamiliar with. So it is worth beginning a bible reading resource library to help you along the way. Here are a few recommendations for you.
"How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth" gives an overview of each of the different types of literature in the bible (e.g. prophets, poetry, narrative), and it will give you advice on how to read that specific genre.
"How to Read the Bible Book by Book" takes the lessons from the first book and applies them to each individual book of the bible. So you can look up the prophet book you're reading to get a synopsis of the message as well as some useful contextual information.
A bible dictionary is an invaluable tool to look up places, characters and events that you may be unfamiliar with. It will show you where else in the bible those things are mentioned as well as helping you understand the original meaning of those ideas.

The Toolset

Tool #1: The Role of the Prophets

The prophets are not  mystic fortune tellers, they are Covenant Commentators.

Tool #2: The Prophets as Poets

Most of the time, the prophets don't speak in a matter-of-fact way. Instead they paint pictures with their words so that not only do you understand their message, you feel it too.

Tool #3: Think in Oracles

The prophets spoke in different oracles and as we piece the main points of those oracles together, we see the big picture of what the prophet is saying.

Tool #4: Context - Context - Context

Knowing what was going on in the world and in Israel when the prophet was speaking can give us great clues to understanding the meaning of their message.

Tool #5: Look Up Keywords

Sometimes names, places, events or certain words don't mean the same to us. So we can use tools to figure out how these prophets used their words and how the people understood them.

Tool #1: The Role of the Prophets

One of the struggles we have when reading the prophets is that we're not entirely sure what the prophets were trying to do. The majority of the prophecy that we're familiar with are the verses that foretell about Jesus and other future events.

But the majority of the prophets words were addressed to the people of their day, referencing events that they were currently facing, or events that were on their immediate horizon.

The main role of the prophets was to interpret the events of their day in light of the Covenant - they were Covenant Commentators. This Covenant defined the relationship between God and the people of Israel and it listed blessings if the people kept the covenant and curses if they broke the covenant.

The prophets constantly pointed back to the these curses to show that the events of their day were taking place because the people were not keeping the covenant. But they also pointed back to the blessings, saying that if the people would return to the Lord, then he would pour out his blessings on them.

Tool #2: The Prophets as Poets

The prophets can be hard to read because most of the prophets speak in dense Hebrew poetry. Rather than fulfilling their role as Covenant Commentators using matter of fact terms, they spoke in poetic terms to paint a picture with their words.

Today, most people don't read poetry, let alone poetry from a different culture that lived two to three thousand years ago. But we can learn a few hints to spot these poetic devices and see what the prophet was trying to communicate and emphasize by doing so.

Tool #3: Think in Oracles

The writings of the prophets were originally speeches that these prophets gave that were written down at a later date. These speeches are more commonly called oracles because they do not originate from the prophets own thoughts, but from God.

If we understand the main point of each of these oracles and then put them together, we can get a better picture of what God was trying to communicate to His people through the prophet.

Much like when you read the narrative books of the bible, you should think in terms of individual stories, and when you read the letters of the New Testament, you should think in terms of individual paragraphs, so when you read the prophets, you should Think in Oracles.

Tool #4: Context - Context - Context

When it comes to reading the prophets, context is king. We need to understand what the prophet was saying in the context in which he said it. Otherwise it can lead to all kinds of misunderstandings.

As much as we can, it is helpful to understand in which time period of Israel's history the prophet was speaking in and to whom he was speaking. It's also helpful to find some background on what events he was addressing.

The original readers would have known this context intuitively. But we're removed by two and a half thousand years and a few thousand miles, so we need to a little more work. But there's no need to worry - there are great resources to help us do this.

Tool #5: Look for Keywords

Sometimes the prophets refer to people, places, events or nations that we're not too familiar with. They may also used words in a different way than we use them today.  So we want to make sure that we're reading and understanding these words in the way that the prophet intended them to be understood.

To do this we can use search tools that help us to see how else that word is used in the bible so that we can see how the other authors of scripture spoke about the same thing.