In Ezek 7:1-4 we find a prophetic
pronouncement given by Ezekiel upon them that “the end” is about to come upon
Israel, which harks back to the prophecy of “the end” in Amos 8:2. Thus a
prophecy which originally applied to the downfall of the Northern Kingdom of
Israel has been carried forward into a larger situation and made applicable to
the threatened fall of the surviving kingdom of Judah more than a century
later. By such a development the earlier prophecy of Amos is certainly
affected, in its written form, since this too acquired new meaning in relation
to the new context. The theme of the end and destruction of Israel, which is to
be found extensively throughout the pre-exilic prophets in the very center of
their preaching, becomes supremely related to the debacle of 587 B.C., with its
fateful consequences for Israel-Judah. That a very extended sequence of
disasters and political misfortunes led up to this tragic climax provides one
clue to the way in which the various prophetic messages have been coordinated
so that they point to a unified message. The message is the destruction of
Israel, although the separate pronouncements and warrings given by the prophets
refer more directly to specific situations and dangers in which first Israel
and then Judah were threatened. In this way the individual threats became a
part of a greater threat—the threat of all Israel’s destruction. It is this
larger threat which properly deserves the description eschatological, if that
term is to be employed at all in relation to pre-exilic prophecy. Events which
historically spanned a long period from the mid-eighth century to the first
quarter of the sixth century B.C., have been linked together and viewed
connectedly as an expression of divine judgment upon Israel. In this process
the formation of written collections of prophecies has contributed to such a
connected pattern of interpretation. (Ronald E. Clements, “Patterns in the
Prophetic Canon,” in Canon and Authority: Essays in Old Testament Religion
and Theology, ed. George W. Coats and Burke O. Long [Philadelphia, Pa.:
Fortress Press, 1977], 46-47)
Further Reading:
Biblical Prophets Changing their Words and the Words of Previous Prophets
