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Is prophecy a thing of the past? [1]

“And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people.  Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions.”  (Joel2:28)

The Bible is full of prophecy that fires the imagination and challenges us to seek a closer walk with God. Prophecy (nevu’a) is crucial in Judaism, shaping Jewish tradition, hopes, and expectations, and pointing to the coming Messianic era. Nevu’a is related to the Hebrew term niv sefatayim, meaning fruit of the lips, which is what a prophet produces through his words—much fruit for the glory of God. Throughout the Bible, God appointed prophets to explain His Word in light of current events and encourage the Jewish People to follow God’s will. He also commissioned prophets to reveal future events in order to warn them of the consequences of sin.

In obedience to the Biblical injunction against shaving

the "corners" of one's head, some men and boys in the

Orthodox Jewish community wear payot (sidecurls).

They are also called simonim (signs) by some Jews,

since they distinguish Jewish people from their non-

Jewish neighbors.

Prophecy sets the history of the Jewish People apart from any other nation.

For instance, God sent Moses to Pharaoh and the Hebrews, Elijah to the Northern Kingdom of Israel, Samuel to King Saul, Nathan to King David, and Jonah to the people of Nineveh. All of these prophets revealed to an important person or entire nation how they were breaking God’s will and the tragedies that would befall them for continuing in their sins. It might be said that while God gave Israel the priests as gifts to uphold the laws of the Torah and perform the day-to-day rituals of the Temple service, God gave Israel theprophets (nevi’im) to encourage them to fulfill their destiny as God’s Chosen People—to be a light to the Gentiles so salvation can reach the ends of the earth.  (Isaiah 49:6) Ultimately, the Israelites as a nation did not fulfill their destiny.  The Northern Kingdom chose to follow kings who were not from the Davidic line, which God established.  They made altars to pagan gods and mingled their businesses and marriages with pagan worshipers.  As a result, the people were exiled out of their land and scattered. As their disobedience continued, the prophets revealed more details about the coming Messiah who would save them from their sins.  They foretold what He would do while on earth and even how and when he would die. The prophets also foretold significant details about events leading up to the Messianic era in the last days.

Moses Receiving the Tablets, by Gebhard Fugel 

A Prophet Like Moses

“When there is a prophet among you, I, the Lord, reveal myself to them in visions, I speak to them in dreams.  But this is not true of my servant Moses; he is faithful in all My house.  With him I speak face to face, clearly and not in riddles; he sees the form of the Lord.”  (Numbers 12:6–8)

When we use the word prophet (nevi), such men as Samuel, Isaiah, and Daniel usually come to mind. The Bible tells us, however, that Moses was a type of ultimate prophet. Moses differs from the other prophets in that God spoke to him directly, face to face.“Since then, no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face.”  (Deuteronomy 34:10) All other prophets of the Bible, except one revealed below, did not enjoy this close, personal relationship; instead, they received their message through dreams, visions, and revelations. There is a limit imposed on how close a prophet can come to God and, therefore, on the greatness of their revelation.  As God told Moses, “No man can see me and live.”  (Exodus 33:20)

Jerusalem

Moses is considered the greatest prophet as he encountered God more closely than any other Hebrew prophet.He foresaw the coming of a prophet like him, Yeshua HaMashiach (Jesus the Messiah), when he said:  “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your fellow Israelites.  You must listen to him.”  (Deuteronomy18:15) Yeshua confirmed this when He said, “If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me.”  (John 5:46) Like Moses, Yeshua spoke with God face-to-face.  He received revelation from God openly and not through the medium of metaphoric images or allegories.  He understood God’s will in its fullness. “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.”  (John 5:19) Like Moses, Yeshua was a mediator between God and man, speaking the Words of God to the people.  Also like Moses, Yeshua offered to die for the sins of the people, and He actually did. “Messiah Yeshua who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.”  (Romans 8:34)

Dreams, Visions and Angelic Visitations

While Moses and Yeshua received revelation directly from God, the 55 Hebrew prophets (according to Jewish tradition) whose words were recorded in the Tanakh for future generations received their communications in the form of divinely inspired words and actions, visions, revelations, and visitations.The book of Ezekiel, for example, opens with the prophet seeing a vision of God(Ezekiel 1:1) who told him that He is sending Ezekiel to the house of Israel.  At the time, Ezekiel was a priest exiled in Babylon. Woven throughout the book are significant visions, such as the rebirth of the nation of Israel (chapter 37), the coming war with nearby nations (chapters 38–39), and the construction details of the coming Third Temple, which is yet to be built and will be constructed prior to the final coming of the Messiah (chapters 40–44). Joseph who dreamed (Genesis 37:5) of his brothers’ sheaves of grain bowing down to his sheaf is a prime example of someone who received prophecy through dreams.