The Great Shift

by James L. Kugel

  Vespasian, however, ordered him to be guarded with every precaution, intending shortly to send him to Nero [presumably, then to be executed as a leader of the revolt]. Upon hearing this, Josephus expressed a desire for a private interview with him . . . and said to him thus: “You believe, Vespasian, that you have taken captive Josephus, just another prisoner of war. But I have come to you as a messenger of greater things. If I had not been sent on this mission by God, I certainly would respect the practice of the Jews and how it befits a [captured] general to die. But are you sending me to Nero? Why is that? Will any successor of Nero be around for long—until you? It is you, Vespasian, who will be Caesar, you will be the emperor, and your son after you. (B.J. 3:399–401)

  Despite his being the bearer of good news (for Vespasian, at least), Josephus was kept as a prisoner for the next two years. But Nero committed suicide in 68 CE, and his death was followed by the “Year of the Four Emperors”: Galba, Otho, and Vitellius all ruled briefly as emperors but all met their deaths in the single annus mirabilis of 69 CE. Then, in November of that year, Vespasian seized power and took over as emperor; Josephus was right! He was subsequently freed and adopted into Vespasian’s family, and so became known as Flavius Josephus.10

  Not only did Josephus attest to the ongoing existence of prophets, but references in Philo,11 the Dead Sea Scrolls12 the New Testament,13 and other early Christian writings14 likewise bear witness to the continued presence of prophetic figures. Indeed, the theme of the cessation of prophecy came to be taken up by some Christian writers as a polemical point against Judaism: prophecy had indeed been taken away from the Jews because they rejected Christ, but it then became a Christian possession.15

  How then to explain this conflicting evidence? On the one hand, we have the flat assertion in various Second Temple period* sources that prophecy had ceased, an idea supported by some ancient writers as well as by the absence of prophetic writings in the Hebrew Bible after Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi; and on the other, we have clear evidence of the existence of prophets continuing into the first century CE and perhaps beyond, long after its supposed cessation.

  Scholars have proposed various solutions.16 Some maintain that prophecy did effectively cease in Israel, for one or more reasons. Prophecy may have been a kind of zero-sum game, so that as the writings of pre-exilic prophets—not only preserved but revised lovingly throughout the Babylonian exile and thereafter—grew in stature, those of post-exilic prophets seemed to pale by comparison. Or perhaps there was a real difference in quality: after all, who among the post-exilic prophets could compare with Amos or Isaiah or Jeremiah?17 Or perhaps it all had to do with the pre-exilic prophets’ function in society. They were so often represented as rebuking the king or the royal court for malfeasance; once there was no king, what need was there for such a “reprover at the gates” (Amos 5:10)?18

  Other scholars, however, maintain that the whole idea that prophecy ceased is a myth. After all, the writings of Philo, Josephus, and various New Testament texts give irrefutable proof of prophecy’s continuation. If people maintained the opposite, this must have been because rabbinic Judaism (or its predecessors) championed the idea, for one reason or another.19 Or perhaps what was called prophecy’s “cessation” ought to be reconceived; prophecy did not so much cease as gradually transform itself. Second Temple visionaries lived in a different time with different concerns, including a sense of recent history and the divinely controlled future: naturally, these concerns created a new kind of prophecy scarcely identifiable as the continuation of the older kind.20

  Certainly some of these explanations can help to account for the discordant assessments of prophecy in Second Temple times. But there are a few things missing in this summary that may not only round out our understanding of the subject but, more important, say something significant about how Israel’s encounter with God was changing.

  Prophets with Angels

  One of the striking features of prophetic texts from the later parts of the Hebrew Bible is the central role played by angels. Earlier, “classical” prophets reported that God spoke to them (directly or through some sort of vision or dream) and told them what to say. This tradition continued into later times, but along with it sometimes came the stipulation that the prophet did not hear directly from God, but through an intermediary, an angel of some sort.21 Upon consideration, this proves to be a highly significant development.

  One relatively early instance of an angelic intermediary is found in the book of Ezekiel. Ezekiel is said to have prophesied in Babylon at the start of the exile (he was thus situated chronologically on the seam separating the earlier, “classical” prophets like Amos and Isaiah from those who prophesied after the return from Babylonian exile). Chapters 40–48 of Ezekiel include a detailed plan for the rebuilt temple in Jerusalem, a plan that in some striking ways differed from that of Solomon’s temple. Ezekiel introduces this plan by saying that “the hand of the LORD was upon me” (his frequent way of introducing the account of a vision) and that God had brought him in this vision back to the land of Israel. But strangely, at this point another figure takes over:

  When He brought me there, I saw a man who looked as if [made] of bronze. He held a linen cord and a measuring rod in his hand while he stood by the gate. And the man spoke to me: “Mortal! See with your eyes and hear with your ears and turn your mind to everything that I am going to show you, since [this is what] you have been brought here to be shown. Report everything that you see here to the House of Israel.” (Ezek 40:3–4)

  It seems odd that God, who “brought me there,” is replaced by this “man” (a term sometimes used for an angel),* who goes on to lead Ezekiel on a visionary tour of the rebuilt Jerusalem temple. Surely this tour must have been an important topic for later Israelites, especially the priests, since this plan of the new temple was to differ from that of its predecessor. “On whose authority are you saying these things?” a listener of Ezekiel’s might have asked. Yet Ezekiel’s intended answer was apparently not “God,” at least not directly, but some humanlike intermediary, a kind of vision-within-a-vision.22

  Later prophetic texts—not all, to be sure, but some—similarly feature an angel as the intermediate source of a vision. For example, the book of Zechariah begins:

  On the twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month, the month of Shebat, in the second year of [the Persian King] Darius [that is, 520 BCE],23 the word of the LORD came to the prophet Zechariah son of Berechiah son of Iddo; and he [Zechariah] said, “This evening I saw a man mounted on a red horse. He was standing amidst some myrtle trees in a glen, and behind him were red, sorrel, and white horses. Then I said, “What are these, my lord?” The angel who was speaking with me said to me, “I will show you what they are.” The man who was standing amidst the myrtle trees continued, “These are those whom the LORD has sent to go about the earth.” (Zech 1:7–10)

  As in the passage from Ezekiel, this one starts by attributing the prophet’s vision to God (“the word of the LORD came to the prophet Zechariah”), but it is, like the previous passage, mediated through a humanlike figure (“I saw a man mounted on a red horse”) who is sometimes referred to as a man and sometimes an angel. The passage continues:

  Then they [the horses, or more likely their heretofore unmentioned riders] spoke to the angel of the LORD who was standing amidst the myrtle trees and they said: “We have been going about on the earth and have found the whole earth to be dwelling in tranquility.” The angel of the LORD called out: “O LORD of Hosts! How long will You fail to have mercy on Jerusalem and the towns of Judah, with whom You have been angry for seventy years?” And the LORD answered the angel who was speaking with me with favorable words, words of consolation. Then the angel who was speaking with me exclaimed, “Thus said the LORD of Hosts . . .” (Zech 1:11–14)

  I have cited this passage at length to underline its somewhat confusing hierarchy of speakers. There is, first of all, the prophet Zechariah, who is retelling a divinely granted visio
n that he had (and which came to him, according to the previous passage, as “the word of the LORD”). On the next level up are the variegated horses (or their riders) whose job apparently consists of roaming the earth and reporting on what they see (in this case, that the whole earth is “dwelling in tranquility”). Higher than them is the “man mounted on a red horse,” who is also described as an angel of the LORD. Above him, apparently, is the “LORD of Hosts” Himself.

  The obvious question is: Why doesn’t God just speak directly with His prophet? It might seem that the answer is equally obvious, in fact, that it has already been given:* once the world had only one, true deity, Israel’s universal God, He logically must, by dint of His very universality, have had to rely on lesser divine beings to report to Him up in heaven on the doings of little humans upon the earth. (In fact, this particular passage goes so far as to suggest that even the angel, “the man mounted on a red horse,” is not in touch with what is happening down on earth: that’s what those other multicolored horses are for, galloping around the entire land and reporting to an angel who reports to God.)

  Such lesser divine beings notwithstanding, the question remains: Why didn’t post-exilic prophets take the initiative and ask God directly about the issues dearest to Israel’s heart at the time? But they didn’t. Rather, it seems that Israel’s evolving understanding of God must have made it increasingly difficult to countenance such a direct confrontation. An angelic intermediary—already part of the heavenly retinue—was a far more imaginable interlocutor.

  In various writings from the late- and post-biblical period, angels assume a similar role, replacing the direct address of God and revealing hidden things to the visionary. Thus, in 1 Enoch, the angel Uriel reveals the secrets of heaven to Enoch after his ascent on high.24 Somewhat later, the biblical sage Ezra poses a series of theological questions to his angelic interlocutor (also Uriel) in 4 Ezra;25 in 2 Baruch, the protagonist discourses with an angel named Ramael; in 4 Baruch, Jeremiah “remained sitting in a tomb while the angels came to him and elaborated to him all the things that the Lord would reveal to him through them” (4:12).

  The New Testament book of Revelation is likewise communicated from God to the book’s speaker, John of Patmos, by means of an angelic intermediary: “God made it [the contents of the book] known by sending His angel to His servant John” (1:1). At the book’s conclusion,

  And he [the angel] said to me, “These words are trustworthy and true, for the Lord, the God of the spirits [presumably, ruḥot] of the prophets, has sent His angel to show His servants what must soon take place. See, I am coming soon! Blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book.”

  I, John [of Patmos], am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I heard and saw them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed them to me, but he said to me, “You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and with your brothers the prophets, and with those who keep the words of this book. Worship God!” (Rev 22:6–9)

  In all these works, angels act as go-betweens. This was apparently how God communicated with mere humans after a time—not directly, across impossibly great astronomical (and spiritual) distances—but through a human-sized angel who could communicate with prophets and sages by addressing them face-to-face.26

  Angelus Interpres

  The same angel who appears to Zechariah in the previously cited passages goes on to dominate the whole first part of the book:27 Zechariah continuously refers to “the angel who was speaking with me” (in Zech 2:2, 2:7; 4:1, 4; 5:5, 10; 6:4). Interestingly, however, the angel not only converses with Zechariah, but sometimes exercises a more specific role: he explains to the prophet the significance of what he (Zechariah) has seen (see Zech 1:9; 2:4; 4:5, 11, 14; 5:6; and 6:5). In other words, the prophet alone may have received a vision from God, but he also needs some divine being to explain it to him.28 Because of his interpretive function, this type of angel is sometimes called an angelus interpres (“interpreting angel”), and he appears in a number of biblical and post-biblical texts.29 For example, Daniel encounters such a figure (in fact, probably two in the following passage):

  [Daniel reports after having his vision of the four beasts:] As I was looking on in this night vision, someone [who looked] like a human arrived with the clouds of heaven. He came up to the Ancient of Days [that is, God] and was presented to him . . . As for me, Daniel, my spirit was disturbed on account of this and the vision in my mind alarmed me. I came up to one of those standing about and I asked him the significance of all this, and he explained the meaning of these things. “As to these four mighty beasts, four kings will arise upon the earth . . . [etc.]” (Dan 7:13–17)

  In the next chapter, Daniel encounters another angelus interpres, this time identified as the angel Gabriel:

  While I, Daniel, was having this vision and seeking an understanding [of it, suddenly] there stood in front of me someone who looked very much like a man. Then I heard a man’s voice [coming] from [the River] Ulai, and it called out and said: “Gabriel, explain to this fellow what he has just seen.” And he came next to me, but as he approached I became frightened and fell face-down. Then he said to me, “Mortal! Understand that this vision is about the time of the end.” (Dan 8:15–17)

  The angelic narrator of the Book of Jubilees (called the “Angel of the Presence”) is likewise a kind of angelus interpres.30 He recounts to Moses most of biblical history, from the creation of the world to just before the giving of the Torah in Exodus. But his is not merely a recounting: in the process he explains to Moses (and to us readers) the hidden sense of such familiar episodes as the creation of Eve, the causes of the Flood, the biblical calendar, and so forth.

  In another apocryphal book, the Testament of Abraham, God dispatches the angel Michael to interpret a certain dream of Abraham’s son Isaac:

  The Lord said: “Go down, O chief angel Michael, to My friend Abraham, and whatever he tells you to do, do it, and whatever he eats, eat with him as well.* Meanwhile, I will send My holy spirit upon his son Isaac. I will put the subject of his [Abraham’s] death into Isaac’s mind, so that he will see his father’s death in a dream. [Then] Isaac will relate the dream, and you will interpret it, so that he [Abraham] will know his end.” (T. Abr. 4:7–8)

  The angelus interpres is, upon consideration, a further jump away from the direct encounter with God. God does not speak directly to the human; rather, He sends a vision, or a dream, or even, in the above passage, “My holy spirit” to plant a dream. But things do not end there; the human then needs the angelus interpres to explain what he has seen or heard.

  Long-Range Predictors

  Since the late nineteenth century, scholars have emphasized that a “prophet” in the Hebrew Bible was not principally a predictor of future events but a divine spokesman, someone who had been summoned by God to transmit a message to the people or the king or some other individual. This is certainly true in the case of Hosea, Amos, Jeremiah, and other prophets examined herein. What is more, Northern prophets like Elijah and Elisha sometimes personally interceded on the people’s behalf with God, or performed miracles on God’s behalf. This too was part of classical prophesying.

  But this likewise changed in post-exilic times. Prophets now seemed to have acquired much the same function that the word “prophet” conveys in modern English: that is, they came to be associated in particular with foretelling the future.31 This is true, for example, of the way classical prophecy itself was reinterpreted in the Dead Sea Scrolls: the things that God had told to pre-exilic prophets were actually long-range predictions of things that were coming to pass only now, in the time of the Dead Sea Scrolls community. “And God told Habakkuk to write down the things that were going to befall the last generation, although he did not make known to him when that period would be complete” (1QpHab Pesher Habakkuk 7:1–2). The task of revealing the connection between those ancient prophets’ words and the present was left to the prophetic “Teacher of Righteousnes
s” (better: “the Right Teacher” or “the True Teacher”) of the Dead Sea Scrolls, “to whom He has made known all the secrets of the words of his servants the prophets. ‘For there is yet time for [the fulfillment of] the vision, but it will be fulfilled and will not disappoint’” (1QpHab col. 7:4–6, quoting Hab 2:3).

  Similarly, an incident recounted in the book of Numbers, wherein the Israelites came across a well in the wilderness and sang a song of thanksgiving (Num 21:16–20), turned out to be, in the Dead Sea Scrolls interpretation, an allegorical prophecy written down by Moses but whose true, predictive meaning could only be understood many centuries later, in the light of the community’s own recent history:

  The well [represents] the Torah, and those who dug it are those of Israel who returned [in penitence] and left the land of Judah to dwell in the land of Damascus. God called them “princes” [in Num 21:18] because they beseeched Him, and because their glory was never gainsaid by any man’s mouth. The “Scepter” is the expounder of the Torah . . . and the “nobles of the people” are those who came to dig the well with the staves with which the “Scepter” had decreed to walk about. (Damascus Document 6:3–10)32