Fishing about and about fishing

PROPHECY

 

When I was a young boy, still the 5th or 6th grade student, our teacher once asked the class: - "who can tell me who's a prophet". The class responded in a chorus: - "one that can foretell the future".

 

-"Wrong ­ called out the teacher ­ what you mean is a fortune-teller. I'll tell you who's a prophet. Once upon a time after King David took Batsheva, the wife of Uria the Hittite, to his palace, a man named Nathan approached the King and told him about a rich owner of many sheep, who murdered his poor neighbour to take his only ewe.

 

 

Who's that man? - called the King. 

 Tell me his name and I'll punish him. 

 You're the man ­ answered the man".

 

"Think, children ­ said our teacher ­ here is a single man, who's got nothing but his sense of justice and his courage, confronting a powerful king, who commands an army of soldiers, and is also the top executor of justice, and tells him straight in the face that he's a murderer. It couldn't bring back the ewe (Batsheva) to her husband, whom the King sent to die in battle, but it left a lesson for later generations. Also other prophets are remembered not because they were foretelling the future, but rather because they caused both the mighty ones and whole nations to face their wrongdoings". 

 

I believe that the intention of Isaiah, or whoever wrote down his prophecies about the peace to come, was not so much to make optimistic forecasts, but to show a way to his own and future generations, and to tell them that there's an alternative to wars and poverty. 

 

One problem of our generation is that it is deficient in prophecy and prophets. Although, according to an old proverb, after the destruction of the Temple prophecy was given to fools, nowadays - even fools stopped prophesizing. Instead, they all seem to be busy in politics, and let to lead their nations on warpaths. And wise men and sages are busy with their sciences, philosophies, arts, religions, and their own private interests, and evidently resigned to sail on board the global ship of fools.