Knowing the future in Samuel’s prophecy to Saul
Hello Rabbi,
I saw that the rabbi claims that the prophet does not truly know the future but rather makes an assessment based on the present situation.
- According to this, is the uniqueness of the prophet from all other people only in that he calculates more moves ahead, is he a better psychologist, a geopolitical strategist, etc.? From the scriptures it seems that the qualities required of a prophet are primarily spiritual.
- Why is it that when a prophet makes a mistake, even once, he is considered a false prophet and killed? In your opinion, there cannot be such a test that distinguishes between a true prophet and a false one.
- Your understanding can be said mainly about prophecies like Jonah’s “In 40 days, and Nineveh will be overthrown,” which really didn’t happen in reality, and the prophet was still a true prophet – but he was assessing based on the current situation, and the situation really has changed. How can you explain prophecies like Samuel’s prophecy to Saul immediately after he anoints him king, in which he describes to him three things that need to happen and they do happen?
- Follow-up question to 1: What is the meaning of “the prophecy period”? Why can’t there be prophets today?
Thank you very much!
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- He does not calculate, but God calculates and reveals to him. A person cannot calculate on such a level.
- As part of the attempts to determine whether he is a true prophet, God ensures that his prophecy will come true (i.e., gives him such prophecies that He intervenes to fulfill them).
- Either it came true even though it wasn’t necessary (good predictions also come true), or God took care of it.
- Because God does not reveal this information to people after the end of prophecy.
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From your answers, I understand that my assumption regarding your explanation of the prophecy was incorrect. I assumed this because you claim that no one, including God, knows the future and that this is necessary for there to be free choice. This can be done with prophecies that God can ensure happen - when their fulfillment does not involve free choice, for example, someone dying of an illness. But how does it work in places where there is a choice? Like for example in Samuel's prophecy to Saul, mentioned in the third question, that people would ask him about his well-being and give him two loaves of bread?
If this was predetermined, then the choice was probably ruled out.
Regarding prophecies like Nineveh,
Scholars and Bible commentators usually present this in such a way that in Deuteronomy 18 the law of the prophet is presented in general terms, and Jeremiah in his confrontation with Hananiah ben Azur (chapter 28) performs an “okimata” only for positive prophecies.
However, God does not send His word to the prophet in vain. It is therefore reasonable to understand this so that every prophecy, without exception, is true as the literal meaning of the law of the prophet. When a prophet is sent to a nation, the very nature of his mission shows that his prophecy is presented as a conditional sentence: Unless you repent – Nineveh is destroyed. After all, this is precisely the success of his mission – that the people repent and the warnings will not be fulfilled. But when the condition is not met (the condition of the conditional sentence is false), the entire sentence is true in any case. And only the Counterfactual remains, which says: If you had not repented, Nineveh would have been destroyed. Which is indeed true, assuming that this is a true prophet.
This explains all the cases in the Bible where even a negative prophecy must come true. Regarding Gog and Magog, it is said that they will be forced to attack: And I will turn you around and put hooks in your jaws; and I will bring you out with all your army, etc. The context itself teaches that the prophecy is not presented as a conditional sentence and therefore must come true. And so did Moses with regard to Korah and his congregation: "If all the people die, and all the people are gathered together, the Lord has not sent me." Or the words of Micaiah to Ahab: "And Micaiah said, 'If you return in peace, the Lord has not spoken by me.' And he said, 'Hear, all you people.'" And so on.
“He does not calculate, but God calculates and reveals to him” How do you know what a person cannot do with his mind?
You will immediately say that God revealed the right move to Kasparov, because it is impossible for a person to see and understand so far into the future.
No one can know things like: Nebuchadnezzar will come and do evil to Tyre, and after that other nations will come and sweep the city's ore, its stones, and its walls into the sea and make it a platform from which fishermen will later come to fish. Then Nebuchadnezzar comes and does evil to the city and turns it into a vassal, and after him Alexander the Great builds a land bridge from the mainland to the island using the ruins of Tyre that Alexander destroyed, which he sweeps completely into the sea in an operation that has no parallel in any other conquest in history.
You'd be surprised how many people know things you think are unknowable.
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