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The prophets were not mainly foretellers of future events, but interpreters and forthtellers of God's will; not minute historical soothsayers, but essentially patriots, statesmen, moral teacher,, chosen vessels of spiritual revelation. In each of their duties they were great. As statesmen they were intensely practical, gloriously fearless; seeing that there was no distinction between national and individual morality; recognising that what is morally wrong can never be politically right. As patriots they were men of the people; pleading against oppression, robbery, and wrong; braving the anger of corrupted multitudes; reproving the crimes of guilty kings. As spiritual teachers they fostered in Israel the conviction of their lofty destiny by upholding the majesty of God's law, by preserving the authority of His worship, by pointing to the revelation of His Son. In each of these functions they have an eternal value for the human race. Every reformation has been effected by following in the path which they trod as pioneers. The Hebrew prophets were marked by three great characteristics — Heroic Faith, Unswerving Hope, and Absolute Belief in Righteousness.

1. I shall name their heroic faith. "All men have not faith." They either openly deny and disbelieve, or more often saying they believe act as though they did not. They are cowed by the power of wickedness, or tempted by its seductions. If they begin to make an effort for good, they fling up the contest as soon as they find that it will compromise their interests. Most often they will brave no danger, expose no falsehood, stand up against no wrong; they will spread their sails to every veering breeze; they will swim with the stream; they will look on success and popularity as the ends of living and the tests of truth. Not so the prophets. They will not be deceived by the vain shows of the world, nor seduced by its bribes, nor blunt the edge of their moral sense with its manifold conventions. Terror will not daunt, nor flattery lure them. Through lives of loss and persecution they will go on with an intense and quiet perseverance, which no success will cause them to relax, and no reverse subdue. They will devote every energy and possession to the cause of God, and the service of the most helpless of mankind.

2. They saw beyond. Over and around them towered the colossal kingdoms of the heathen. The giant forms of empires around them were but on their way to ruin, because they were not founded on righteousness. Kings, priests and mobs might be against them; they were but vain and idle men (Jeremiah 1:17-19). And if they had the faith which looked beyond the little grandeurs of men, they also had the hope which looked beyond their sorrows, and this hope spread outwards in ever-widening circles. Amid the apostacy of Israel they always prophesied that Israel should not be utterly destroyed. And this hope was concentrated in their greatest and most unfaltering prophecy of an Anointed Deliverer, a coming Saviour for all mankind: a Man who should be "a hiding-place from the wind; and a covert from the tempest; the shadow of a great rock in a weary land."

3. The third great characteristic of the Hebrew prophets is their sense that the very end and aim of all religion is simply righteousness: that there is an abysmal difference between a mere correct worship and a living faith. Such was the spirit of the prophets. Let us conclude by considering the way in which we too, in our measure, are called to share in their spirit, and to continue their work.

(1) We must try to do so, first, by escaping the average. He who has an unswerving faith in a few great moral principles to which, through evil report and good report, he clings; he who will only look on opinions and practices as he believes they must appear in the sight and before the tribunal of God; he who in politics knows no principle but truth and right; he who in the path of duty is indifferent to human praise or human blame; he who will stand firm when others fail; he who because the house of his life is built on a rock will do what God has given him to do, and say what God has given him to say, holding his own against chances and accident, against popular clamour and popular favour, against the anger and prejudices of the circle among whom he moves, that is the true prophet, that is the strong Christian man.

(2) And as ours should be the aim of the prophet, ours should be the qualities of his mind and heart. Something at least we must have of their enthusiasm, something of their devotion, something of their indignation against wrong; something, too, of their courage.

(Archdeacon Farrar.)

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KJV: And there ran a young man, and told Moses, and said, Eldad and Medad do prophesy in the camp.

WEB: A young man ran, and told Moses, and said, "Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp!"