I first read excerpts from "The Prophets" by Abraham J. Heschel in a class about the Hebrew Prophets in my Junior year at college. I appreciated it, and was fascinated by the points Heschel made, and the way in which he spoke about God and what it means to be a prophet of Israel. However, it was not until now, after I have finally had the chance to read this work in its entirety, that I realize exactly how important and beautiful of a work this is.

Abraham Heschel, a Hassidic Jew from Warsaw, Poland, published his dissertation, "The Prophetic Consciousness," which would later become the acclaimed book "The Prophets," while at the University of Berlin; this was also shortly after the rise of Hitler and Naziism to power in Germany. Soon after, Heschel fled to the United States, escaping from the clutches of the Nazi Regime; his mother and his three sisters who stayed behind in Poland were all killed by the Nazis, fueled by anti-Semitism. He spent the rest of his life in the U.S.A., teaching and writing; he was an active participant in the Civil Rights Movement, marching alongside of the Reverend and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and also was outspokenly against the Vietnam War. This historical backdrop helps to inform our understanding of who Heschel as a person is, which aids in understanding who Heschel is as a writer, a theologian, and a biblical scholar.

"The Prophets" is one of the most fundamental works to spring up in the 20th century for biblical scholarship and the theology of the Hebrew Scriptures. It continues to bear witness and impact studies and lives today. In countless ways, Heschel shows how the prophets of Israel, unlike prophets elsewhere in antiquity and around the world, are not primarily concerned with their experiencing the divine, or of being possessed by God for their own sake; rather, the prophetic experience exists only because of the divine's concern for humanity and history. According to Heschel, God is attentive to and concerned with the plight of humanity; "it is God's concern for man that is at the root of the prophet's work to save the people" (618). God's pathos is the reason for the prophetic work. Because God is concerned about justice, about the oppression of the poor and the needy, about the events of history, and about His covenant with His people--it is for this reason that the prophets were sent to Israel. God's concern, pathos, and desire for justice is made evident in the spell-binding words and actions of the prophets of Israel.

While there is much more that can be said about this work, one will simply have to read it for one's self to fully unearth the treasures found therein.