a prophet: a person God authorizes to speak for him, carrying his word to a people
This is the central word for the person through whom God speaks in Israel. What makes someone a prophet is not a technique, a trance, or a gift for predicting the future, but a commission: God appoints the person and puts his word in that person's mouth, and the person delivers it. The most common thing a prophet does is announce a message with the formula "this is what the LORD says," addressing a real situation in the present, whether or not the future is in view.
The word covers a wide range of figures. It names the great individuals God raised up across Israel's history, from Moses and Samuel through Elijah, Isaiah, and Jeremiah, who confronted kings and the nation face to face. It also names groups: bands of prophets who traveled together with music and were seized by God's Spirit, and the communities that gathered around Elijah and Elisha, called the sons of the prophets. The same title is used of a woman, and its feminine form names Miriam, Deborah, and Huldah, who did the same work of speaking for God.
Strikingly, the word is neutral about whether the speaker is genuine. Hebrew has no separate word for a false prophet: someone who lies in God's name, or speaks for another god, is still called by this same title, and the surrounding text supplies the verdict. Elijah and the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel all bear the one label. The books of Deuteronomy, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel wrestle hard with how to tell a true prophet from a false one, precisely because the title itself does not settle the question.
An old note preserved in the text (1 Samuel 9:9) records that this word came to replace an older title, seer, as the standard term for such a person. By the time of the writing prophets it was the settled word for anyone who speaks in God's name.
Nuances
Disputed
Whether the ancient Hebrew Bible offers any workable test to tell a true prophet from a false one, given that both are called by this one title. Some hold that the biblical criteria (fidelity to the LORD in Deuteronomy 13, fulfillment of the word in Deuteronomy 18) were meant to function in real time; others argue no criterion could actually distinguish the two before the outcome, so the labels true and false were applied only after the fact by the side that survived.
- contestedThe biblical tests were intended as genuine, usable criteria: a prophet who leads Israel to other gods is false regardless of signs, and a prophet whose word fails has not been sent.; TWOT, s.v. נבא (R. D. Culver), vol. 2, pp. 544-545
- contestedThere was no valid real-time criterion; the Masoretic Text has no word for false prophet, and true and false were sorted out only retrospectively by the survivors and later editors.; James L. Crenshaw, Prophetic Conflict: Its Effect upon Israelite Religion (BZAW 124; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1971), pp. 49-61; Thomas W. Overholt, The Threat of Falsehood: A Study in the Theology of the Book of Jeremiah (SBT 2/16; London: SCM, 1970)