occurred from that time forward in the development of prophecy: — namely, that the Lord now began to raise up prophets in the midst of His people, who discerned in the present the germs of the future, and by setting forth in this light the events of their own time, impressed them upon the hearts of their countrymen both in writing and by word of mouth. The difference between the prophetae priores, whose sayings and doings are recorded in the historical books, and the prophetae posteriores, who composed prophetic writings of their own, consisted, therefore, not so much in the fact that the former were prophets of “irresistible actions,” and the latter prophets of “convincing words” (Delitzsch), as in the fact that the earlier prophets maintained the right of the Lord before the people and their civil rulers both by word and deed, and thereby exerted an immediate influence upon the development of the kingdom of God in their own time; whereas the later prophets seized upon the circumstances and relations of their own times in the light of the divine plan of salvation as a whole, and whilst proclaiming both the judgments of God, whether nearer or more remote, and the future salvation, predicted the onward progress of the kingdom of God in conflict with the powers of the world, and through these predictions prepared the way for the revelation of the glory of the Lord in His kingdom, or the coming of the Saviour to establish a kingdom of righteousness and peace. This distinction has also been recognised by G. F. Oehler, who discovers the reason for the composition of separate prophetical books in the fact, that “prophecy now acquired an importance which extended far beyond the times then present, inasmuch as the consciousness was awakened in the prophets’ minds with regard to both kingdoms, that the divine counsels of salvation could not come to fulfilment in the existing generation, but that the present form of the theocracy must be broken to pieces, in order that, after a thorough judicial sifting, there might arise out of the rescued and purified remnant the future church of salvation;” and who gives this explanation of the reason for committing the words of the prophets to writing, that “it was in order that, when fulfilled, they might prove to future generations the righteousness and faithfulness of the covenant God, and that they might serve until then as a lamp to the righteous enabling them, even in the midst of the darkness
