The Spirit in the Prophets

Last week, in the first post of three looking at what the Old Testament has to say about the Spirit of God, we saw the emergence, throughout the Law and Historical books, of a general pattern of the Spirit setting apart and empowering individuals for effective leadership, including both good judgment and decision-making and prophetic communication of God’s message. Today, we’re going to look at the (Latter) Prophetic books to see how the Spirit plays out there.

Perhaps surprisingly, considering the connections with prophecy in the stories of the Seventy, Saul, and David, the Spirit is not strongly associated with the biblical prophetic tradition. In these books, “the Word of the LORD” generally takes precedence over the agency of the Spirit of God. The major exception is in Ezekiel; there, the Spirit leads the prophet through a series of visions (Ezekiel 2-3) and gives him words to speak in the same way ‘the Word of the LORD’ does elsewhere: “Then the Spirit of the LORD came on me, and he told me to say…“ (Ezekiel 11.5).

But even if the Holy Spirit is rarely mentioned in conjunction with the act of prophecy itself outside of Ezekiel, it is certainly a theme in the oracles of the prophets themselves. This is particularly true of Isaiah’s messianic oracles, where it is used as an important royal signifier, just as we saw in 1 Samuel:

A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;
from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.
The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—
the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and of might,
the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord—
and he will delight in the fear of the Lord. (Isaiah 11.1-3)

And:

This is my servant; I strengthen him,
this is my chosen one; I delight in him.
I have put my Spirit on him;
he will bring justice to the nations. (Isaiah 42.1)

This comes out again, with a more intentional focus on justice and compassion, in the Servant Song of Isaiah 61:

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
because the Lord has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners… (Isaiah 61.1)

In these oracles we again see a focus on the Spirit being manifest in practical wisdom for good leadership. But in a move typical of the prophets generally, Isaiah leans more overtly into the promotion of justice as a part of that leadership. Elsewhere, Isaiah also connects this with creation theology, to look forward to a day when this messianic king would usher in a new era of transformation for the whole creation. We’ll look more at this in the next post, but it’s important to note here, not just because it’s an integral part of Isaiah’s theological vision, but also because it ties Isaiah’s messianic theology of the Spirit into Ezekiel’s message.

This comes into view in Ezekiel 11 and 36, where Ezekiel applies the same kind of language Isaiah uses for the messianic king to the whole people of God:

I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them;
I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh.
Then they will follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.
They will be my people, and I will be their God. (11.19-20)

‘A new spirit’ is ambiguous here, but in chapter 36, at the end of a similar oracle, Ezekiel removes all ambiguity, identifying this new spirit with God’s Spirit:

I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean;
I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols.
I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you;
I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
And I will put my Spirit in you
and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. (36.25-27)

This is Ezekiel’s version of the more famous passage in Jeremiah, which describes the same promise of universal transformation for God’s people without reference to the Spirit (indeed, Jeremiah does not mention the Spirit at all):

“Look, the days are coming”—this is the LORD’S declaration—
“when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. . . .
I will put my teaching within them and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God, and they will be my people.” (Jeremiah 31:31–34)

At any rate, Ezekiel’s message is reinforced immediately in the stunning vision of the Valley of Dry Bones, which culminates with these words:

Therefore, prophesy and say to them:
“This is what the Lord God says:
I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them, my people,
and lead you into the land of Israel.
You will know that I am the LORD, my people,
when I open your graves and bring you up from them.
I will put my Spirit in you, and you will live,
and I will settle you in your own land.” (37:12–14)

This more universal application of the particular anointing of the Spirit is also seen in the minor prophets, in Zechariah 12.10 and especially Joel 2.28-29:

And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. (Zechariah 12.10)

And

And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your old men will dream dreams,
your young men will see visions.
Even on my servants, both men and women,
I will pour out my Spirit in those days. (Joel 2.28-29)

The Joel passage is particularly striking because this pouring of the Spirit is not just for faithful Israel but for “all people,” full stop, irrespective of age, class, generation, or even nation.

To bring all this together, the Latter Prophets both reinforce and expand upon the understanding of the Spirit of God we saw develop in the Law and Former Prophets (aka the (Deuteronomic) Historical Books). They maintain the notion of God granting special gifts of judgment and understanding to the leaders of God’s people, but push the idea out further, stressing the social justice aspect of good governance, looking forward to a particular future ruler who will fully embody the presence of the Holy Spirit, and hinting at a time when God will act to grant these same gifts of wisdom to everyone.

Thus far, the teachings have had a lot to say about wisdom, but we have yet to touch on what the Bible’s Wisdom literature has to say about the Spirit. This is because there it focuses on the general, rather than particular, presence of the Spirit in and through creation. And it’s that side of the teaching we’ll turn to in the next post in this series.