Throughout the Bible, we catch glimpses of Yahweh calling his heavenly family together to meet with him. In such meetings, Yahweh’s family members might report on the affairs of earth that they had witnessed (Gen. 18:20–21; Job 1:6; Zech. 1:10; Matt 18:10), or they might help Yahweh arrange earthly judgments (1 Ki. 22:13–23; Dan. 4:17), or they themselves might experience judgment for their own actions (Ps. 82).
Occasionally in Scripture, humans would find themselves in one of these divine council meetings. Take Isaiah, for example, who was caught up in a powerful vision of Yahweh’s throne room (Is. 6). There he saw Yahweh on his throne, protected by his seraphim bodyguards. Yahweh had called his court into session because he was eager to deliver a message to Israel.
This meeting seems a bit odd since Yahweh’s heavenly family is filled with messengers who could have done this. After all, the Hebrew word for messenger is mal’āk. When we’re referring to a human messenger, we simply translate mal’āk as messenger. But when we’re referring to a heavenly messenger, we translate mal’āk as angel, which God’s throne room is full of.
“Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” (Is. 6:8), Yahweh calls out to the council. Perhaps Isaiah looked around at the myriad of angelic messengers, waiting for someone to respond, when suddenly it dawned on him that he was probably there for a reason. Humans aren’t just brought into the divine council every day. “Here I am!” Isaiah responded. “Send me” (Is. 6:8).
Yahweh accepts Isaiah’s proposal and commissions him as the mal’āk that will carry his message to humanity. In this light, Isaiah has just become angelic, though he is human. He went into the realm of the angels, received a message from God, and was sent back to earth. Therefore, it’s unsurprising that the word mal’āk can be applied to the different humans Yahweh entrusted with his messages (2 Chron. 36:15-16; Hag. 1:13; Mal. 3:1).
Such humans are Yahweh’s anointed angelic-like messengers—or what we call prophets. These prophets have been taken up into Yahweh’s throne room to hear his declarations and they have brought them back to us. They are Yahweh’s messages wrapped up in earthly skin. They are people of the Spirit (Ho. 9:7).
But as these Holy Spirit-infused women and men returned to earth with Heaven’s messages, they were met with a most upsetting response: people rarely wanted to listen. And not only that, but people often oppressed the prophets for the messages the Holy Spirit stirred up in their hearts. They shunned Yahweh’s human mal’āk, put them in the stocks, and even killed them (Mt. 23:29-35).
Though we consider prophets to be holy people of great renown, they are never treated that way. Their messages and works may become famous in time, but few people in their own generation or hometown ever listened to them (Mt. 13:57). Jeremiah, the most emotive prophet in the Bible, gives us a glimpse of what it felt like to serve as an ambassador of Yahweh as he declares curses on himself (Jer. 20:14-18).
How many worship songs do we sing and prayers do we pray where we beg Yahweh to speak to us, telling him we’ll listen? The Bible is historical proof that this has rarely been the case and convincing evidence that it rarely will be the case this side of the resurrection. While the prophets have plenty to say, the truth is that the world doesn’t want to hear it—and Yahweh’s people are no different.
Jamin Bradley 
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