Week 10: Chapter 10 — The Prophets: Forthtellers and Foretellers

1.Fee and Stuart challenge the popular assumption that the prophets were mainly concerned with predicting the future. What was the prophets' primary role, and how does recognizing their role as 'forthtellers' (covenant prosecutors) rather than exclusively 'foretellers' reshape our reading of the prophetic books?

2.The authors explain that the prophets spoke in poetry, not prose — and that prophetic poetry has its own conventions (parallelism, imagery, hyperbole) that readers often mistake for literal prediction. What dangers arise when we read prophetic poetry as if it were a newspaper report about future events?

3.Fee and Stuart argue that most of the prophets' words were addressed to their own immediate historical context — calling Israel or Judah to repentance, announcing judgment, or offering hope. How does recovering this original context actually make the prophets more powerful and relevant, not less?