{"id":62364,"date":"2019-09-04T15:42:56","date_gmt":"2019-09-04T12:42:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=62364"},"modified":"2023-03-30T07:53:42","modified_gmt":"2023-03-30T04:53:42","slug":"setting-limits-on-prophecy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/setting-limits-on-prophecy\/","title":{"rendered":"Setting Limits On Prophecy"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry-content\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[366,506],"acf":{"old_id":"62364","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":34243,"related_cahpter":"300","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"What can we learn from the wording of the calamitous prophecy?","content":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Two items in this chapter related to prophecy invite interpretation. In verse 2, \u201cthe man of God\u201d\u2014rabbinic tradition, based on 2 Chronicles 9:29, identified him as Ido the Seer\u2014delivered the following oracle:<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cO altar, altar! Thus said the LORD: A son shall be born [<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">nolad<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">] to the House of David, Josiah by name; and he shall slaughter upon you the priests of the shrines who bring offerings upon you. And human bones shall be burned upon you.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">First of all, why did he address the altar twice? Here, we have a classic confrontation between <\/span><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">peshat<\/span><\/em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (literary and linguistic interpretation) and <\/span><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">derash<\/span><\/em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (homily). Radak explained that the repetition of the name of something in direct address is standard for Tanakh and cites, in evidence, \u201cAbraham Abraham\u201d (Genesis 22:11), \u201cJacob Jacob\u201d (Gen. 46:2), \u201cMoses Moses\u201d (Exodus 3:4), and \u201cSamuel Samuel\u201d (1 Samuel 3:10). Rashi, however, explained that he was simply referring to two altars: that which he stood before in Bethel, and the other, which stood in Dan. We can ask: which is the <\/span><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">peshat<\/span><\/em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and which the <\/span><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">derash<\/span><\/em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Second, a close reading of the Hebrew text reveals a problem with our translation. The verb <\/span><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">nolad<\/span><\/em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> actually designates the past tense (the future tense would require <\/span><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">yivvaled<\/span><\/em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">). Since Josiah would not be born for several hundred years, why speak of his birth as though it had already occurred? An answer to this question comes to us from Don Isaac Abrabanel (15-16<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">th<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> century, Spain and Italy):<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This verse teaches us important fundamentals. First, that prophets saw matters that came to them in [a divine] flow in detail, rather than the flow being [only] of generalities and the imagination of the prophet filling in the details\u2014as is maintained by recent Jewish philosophers. If that were the case, this prophet would not have perceived who of the House of David would perform these particular actions, nor that his name would be Josiah, since it would not occur for many years.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In all candor, I must admit to finding this somewhat unsatisfactory. Even granting his prophetic ability to foretell the future in precise detail, I cannot imagine of what value the name of Josiah could have had to his immediate audience. Perhaps prophets had a sense that their words would be preserved for later generations.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":62369,"id":62369,"title":"1kings13-prophet","filename":"1kings13-prophet.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/1kings13-prophet.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/setting-limits-on-prophecy\/1kings13-prophet\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"1kings13-prophet","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":62364,"date":"2019-09-04 12:42:45","modified":"2023-04-10 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