Nobody wants to hear the prophets because they have entered Yahweh’s Kingdom of Heaven and returned with a critique of the gods’ Kingdom of Babel. Such a message is especially annoying to the rich and powerful, for Babel has benefited them quite well and they do not desire an alternative way of doing things. Indeed, they assume it must be going so well for them because they have divine favor, so who are these human messengers telling them otherwise? They’re probably just poor, bitter people who are sad that it hasn’t worked out so well for them.
But the prophets can’t stop prophesying. The message of Yahweh overwhelms their hearts like a fire in their bones (Jer. 20:9). They have to speak. They must speak. If they don’t, they’ll explode. And so out of their mouths pour the convictions of Heaven, which come flowing out in the form of judgment. Justice is at the heart of Yahweh’s words, for the world was built for justice and Yahweh feels passionately about injustice. As he sees the poor, the oppressed, and the marginalized, he cries out on behalf of the Kingdom of Heaven. If injustice should not be found in the gods, then it should not be found in humans either! In the same way that the gods use their power to oppress humans, humans with greater status use their power to oppress other humans—even though they’re all made in the image of Yahweh. The sons of God were not supposed to do this. Humans were not supposed to do this. Babel is not allowed to do this—it is a perversion of the kind of kingdom Yahweh desires to bring to the earth.
Yahweh is patient, but we must change our ways quickly or face the consequences. This dynamic put the prophet in a bit of a catch-22. As Yahweh revealed to Jeremiah, Yahweh can always choose to dismiss the consequences of his prophetic declarations (Jer. 18:5–11). So if he speaks judgment and people repent, he will remove the prophesied consequences, just as they hoped he would. But because no consequence then happens, his messengers suddenly look like false prophets. “Was anything ever going to happen in the first place?” many would question.
But the prophets know what they’ve heard whether people believe them or not. And even if they somehow hadn’t heard Yahweh correctly, their message of justice would be no less the prophetic message of Yahweh, for his concern for the poor never changes, whether he specifically anointed someone to say it or not. Just as we cannot be wrong when we proclaim Yahweh’s love, so we cannot be wrong when we proclaim Yahweh’s desire for justice, for these themes belong together.
And so the prophets try to serve as a bridge between Heaven and Babel, with the hope of overriding the ways of Babel with the ways of Heaven. They try to work over their society in every conceivable way. They proclaim their messages. They write poetry and fiction. They put on performances. They become living parables. They call out the rich and they defend the poor. And they participate in politics, reporting their heavenly messages to kings who are supposed to listen but are often not open to their critique.
Bad kings especially didn’t want to hear the prophets and instead surrounded themselves with yes-men in the guise of prophets. For example, when King Ahab wanted to go to war, he inquired of 400 of his own personal prophets who all gave him the answer he wanted to hear. Ahab was then pressed to ask an actual prophet of Yahweh, which he did not want to do. “I hate him,” he said. “For he never prophesies good concerning me, but evil” (1 Ki. 22:8).
The prophets are clearly not in this line of work to be popular, for there is no such perk. If you wanted someone to tell you what you wanted to hear, there were hundreds of false prophets you could ask. If you wanted someone to actually check in with Heaven on your behalf, you could ask one of the real ones. But a heavenly response could cause the prophet to face jail time or death; for Babel, its gods, and its kings have little space for truth-tellers, Yahweh’s messengers, or Heaven’s politics.
The earthly messengers of Heaven were more likely considered infamous than famous, for they were known to poke the beast. There are all kinds of labels society then and now would have slapped on them in attempts to silence them. They were woke for believing in the stories of the marginalized. They were instigators for telling society that the lives of minorities matter. They were rebels for not just going with the flow of the majority. They were liberals for wanting politicians to help the poor. They were progressives for believing that society had to change because the status quo was not good enough. They were communists for believing that all humans should care for one another. They were bad people, for they were imprisoned or killed for their words—and that only happens to bad people, not prophets… right?
Jamin Bradley 
Leave a reply to The Gods, the Poor, and the Kingdom to Come – Jamin Bradley Cancel reply