This is the Baimel podcast with Marty Solomon. I'm his co-host, Brent Billings. Today I am back with Marty and Redent to continue our introduction to the prophecy of Isaiah and consider Walter Bergman's ideas about the prophetic imagination.

Oh yeah, hey, it's good to be back with you guys.

Get me back.

So, so please, that you're here. Nothing, nothing could possibly go wrong in this recording, I'm sure.

It's been really smooth.

Okay, so before, before we maybe move into what you actually prepared for us, Marty ended last episode talking about the idea of what a prophet is.

And I think the definition that Heschel has is this like beautiful, nuanced visual, but I actually, in preparation for these recordings, I was listening to a couple of Bible project episodes on prophecy in general.

And they pointed out that the text itself actually has a pretty clear definition of the role of a prophet in Exodus 6 and 7.

So, if you don't mind, I'm going to read it real quick. Please. Now, when the Lord spoke to Moses in Egypt, he said to him, I am the Lord, tell Pharaoh, King of Egypt, everything I tell you.

But Moses said to the Lord, since I speak with faltering lips, why would Pharaoh listen to me? Then the Lord said to Moses, see, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron will be your prophet.

You are to say everything I command you, and your brother Aaron is to tell Pharaoh to let the Israelites go out of his country.

So, it is the voice of God through someone else.

Yeah, and I think it actually fits Heschel's work really well because Heschel, he really went against this idea of the prophet is more than a mouthpiece.

Like, I remember reading that chapter in Heschel's work and being like, well, it's essentially what we said in the podcast, and now I feel bad.

But, I mean, that verse really encapsulates it. Yes, you have a message to give. Yes, I'm going to, but you will, like one of my favorite parts of that verse that I use in other material is you will be as God to Pharaoh.

There's that solidarity, there's that pathos, there's that nuanced, you have a message, but you have also been with me.

You know where I'm at, you've experienced my experience, and you get to go give that to those who don't have that same experience, that same pathos.

So, I think that definitely, I wasn't sure where you were going to go or what Bible project had said, but I think that works perfectly with what we learned from Heschel.

Yeah, I agree, and I think it's not so much the that a prophet speaks for God that is like a, at least in the church that I grew up in, that's not so much the hang up or the problem.

The question becomes, okay, so what is the like true substance of a prophetic message?

What is it meant to be about and maybe are there some ways that we caricature it or that we exaggerate it, make it kind of cartoonish and not really real to what we find in the biblical prophets, if that makes sense.

So, like for me, I grew up in a church that was fairly charismatic, and I know that this is not everybody's church experience, but there are some people out there who are listening, who maybe come from something like that, where we actually had so-called prophets who would come to the church, and you could make like an appointment with the prophet.

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