i8 7 o] PROPHECY IN CRITICAL SCHOOLS 193 



unclearly indicated in the Hebrew word the most general 

 designation of the prophets. In opposition to most 

 scholars, 1 who regard this word as an active participle, 

 denoting one who speaks forth, or interprets, a word en 

 trusted to him, Kuenen gives to the passive sense of a 

 man inspired by the Divinity. 2 



&quot; What Divinity remains undetermined. We hear in 

 the Old Testament not only of prophets of Jahveh, but of 

 prophets of Baal and Ashera. The person who is seized 

 and breathed into by the Godhead falls into ecstasy ; 

 either into so strong a transport that he wholly loses his 

 self-possession, utters sounds without clear consciousness, 

 and even resembles a madman, or, it may be, simply into 

 an excited condition, in which he expresses with emphasis 

 and enthusiasm the testimony of the Godhead in his inner 

 man.&quot; 3 



It is because history shows no trace that Moses ever was 

 subject to this species of frenzy that Kuenen denies to him 

 the name of prophet. 



The psychological phenomena which, according to this 

 view, are the physical bases of prophecy, are unquestion 

 ably associated with a sickly state. The arguments 

 which forbade us to find in a supernatural ecstasy the 

 true essence of prophecy, apply to such a state with double 

 force. It is hard to believe that the life of Isaiah, in whom 

 Kuenen himself recognises a religious hero a life every 

 where inspired by the noblest and clearest spiritual 

 impulses can have anything in common with mental 

 disease. It is, in fact, not quite plain how far Kuenen 

 supposes the ecstatic state to have characterised the later 

 prophets. In the very latest prophets as, for example, 

 in Ezekiel he is disposed to ascribe almost everything to 

 sober thought. But in general a greater or less measure 

 of ecstasy appears to him the only assumption that 



1 Ewald, Propheten, i. 7 ; Baur, Gesch. 381 ; Fleischer in Delitzsch s 

 Genesis, p. 634 seq., may suffice as examples. 



2 Onderzoek, ii. 3. Compare the long note to chap. iii. of the 

 Godsdienst. 



3 Godsdienst, 187 seq. 



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