MAJORPROPHETS

Isaiah Prophet of the Messiah

• Isaiah was a prophet in Judah @740 BC

• He was educated and had great faith

• During his lifetime he advised many of the kings of Judah

• Isaiah had a vision of the Lord surrounded by angels

• The angels were crying out, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord; all the earth is filled with His glory!”

• Isaiah urged the people to fully trust in God

• Isaiah understood that God ruled the whole world, not just the chosen people

• In the second Book of Isaiah, the prophet speaks of one who would take upon himself the sins of the people; through his suffering the people would be saved.

• This was a prophesy about the Messiah that was to come

JeremiahProphet of the New Covenant

• At first Jeremiah thought he was too young to be a prophet

• When Jeremiah was called by God, a man named Josiah was king

• Josiah was a good and faithful man who called the people to worship the one true God

• After Josiah died, the people went back to idol worship and unjust treatment of each other

• Jeremiah warned them that if they did not stop breaking God’s commands, the Temple would be destroyed and Jerusalem itself would burn

• The people did not listen to their prophet

• In 597 BC, Jerusalem was captured by the Babylonians and the treasures of the Temple were taken

• A second attack in 587 BC saw the Temple burned

• Jeremiah stayed in Jerusalem with the conquered poor, and sent God’s message to those exiled in Babylon

• Jeremiah told the people that God would make a new covenant with them

• God said, “I will place my law within them, and write it upon their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people… Everyone, from least to greatest, shall know me, for I will forgive their inequity and no longer remember their sin.”

- Jeremiah 31:33-34

EzekielProphet during the Exile

• Ezekiel became the prophet for those who were in exile in Babylon

• He often had Symbolic visions

• Ezekiel had a vision in which he ate a scroll containing God’s word.

• This was a sign that the Word of God was within him

• Ezekiel also warned the people of the destruction of Jerusalem

• Ezekiel also warned the people of the destruction of Jerusalem

• The period from 587 BC to 537 BC is known as the Exile

- exile is a state of being banned from one’s own country

• When the second group of exiles arrived in Babylon in 587 BC, they told the others that the Temple and the city of Jerusalem had been destroyed

• Ezekiel began telling the people about God’s plan to bring them back to their land and raise up a new Israel

• God wanted the people to know that He was still with them, even though they were not in Jerusalem

• During the Exile, the people began to see their own failings and started to repent.

• They studied God’s laws and wrote down the teachings of the prophets

• It was during the Exile that many of the Hebrew Scriptures were put onto scrolls and organized.

• Writing it down helped the Jewish people preserve their culture and pass down their faith

• Because they could no longer worship in the Temple, the people built synagogues, places to gather and read scripture

• The Exile lasted about 50 years before the Jews were allowed to return to Jerusalem.

• The returned exiles began constructing a new Temple on the site of Solomon’s Temple.

• Ezra was a prophet whose book tell of this post-Exile period, and who guided the people back to observance of the Torah (Law)

• The Temple was completely rebuilt in 20 – 18 BC, including new foundation stones and smoothing the Temple Mount.

• The king who rebuilt the Temple at that time was Herod the Great