An excerpt from the book
"Jesus and the Symbolic Images of the Prophets"
(available at Amazon here)

Introduction

All Jewish Bibles are divided into three parts, whether in Hebrew or another language. The first section is the Torah or Pentateuch (the five books of Moses). The second is the Nebi'im, or prophets, which includes the books of the Former Prophets (Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings), the Latter Prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the books of the Twelve, so-called, Minor Prophets. The third section is the Ketubim, or Writings, which includes the Book of Daniel and the Wisdom literature. Christian Bibles, in all traditions and languages, have a different structure. Like Jewish Bibles, they begin with Moses's five books, but the Latter Prophets are removed from the middle of the Old Testament and (with the addition of the Book of Daniel) are placed at the end of the Old Testament just before the Gospels. Historians are unsure when the change occurred. Even the earliest Christian Bibles, the oldest surviving copies of which date to the fourth and fifth centuries AD, have the books of the prophets at the end of the Old and the beginning of the New Testament. Therefore, there is no way to know when, how, or who is responsible for making the change. However, a guess can be made as to why the Old Testament prophets are juxtaposed with the New Testament Gospels. According to the Gospel of Matthew's ten Old Testament fulfillment statements and Christian tradition, their prophecies achieve fulfillment in Jesus of Nazareth: son of Mary, Son of God, the heir of King David, and God's Supreme Prophet. More than any other people on the stage of human history, the Old Testament prophets enjoyed a unique relationship with God as the inspired receivers of His divine revelations. Being “in the Spirit” was a special privilege only imparted to those designated as anointed prophets of the God of Israel. Their mission was to act as:

• the Voice of God to His covenant people,
• the covenant people's direct representative to God,
• God's divine prosecuting attorney against a rebellious covenant people, and
• God's mediator to a repentant people.

God called the prophet to be willing to face the possibility of death in delivering His message to a rebellious covenant people. Like Moses, the first of God's Old Testament prophets, and John the Baptist, the last, God expected the prophet anointed to His service to be willing to offer his own life as a holy sacrifice to bring the covenant people to repentance and salvation. Despite their diverse missions, the prophets consistently use symbolic imagery to deliver messages to the people bound to God by the Sinai Covenant. God's previous covenants involved individuals and their families like Adam, Noah, and Abraham. The Sinai Covenant was a corporate covenant that bound the children of Israel to their God as a single, unified people living in obedience under the protection of God's divine Law. The covenant was ratified in Exodus 24:2-8 and finalized in a sacred meal consumed in the Divine presence in Exodus 24:9-11. When the Israelites began to stray from obedience to their covenant union, God sent His divinely anointed prophets to call them to repentance and back into fellowship with Him. Failing in that mission, God gave the prophets the authority to call down divine judgment in the form of a covenant lawsuit upon an apostate covenant people. The desired result of the punishments for continued rebellion was to bring about repentance and restore fellowship with God. The Lord's prophets received vivid and sometimes frightening oracles and visions of armies of locusts with human faces, fiery chariots, monsters of land and sea, and the unstoppable force of God's divine wrath poured out like a flood upon the wicked. Four recurring images appeared among their symbolic examples of a covenant relationship or the lack of one. The frequently repeated images were covenant marriage, a fruitful vineyard or fig tree, shepherding domesticated animals, and drinking wine. Each of the recurring image groups consisted of four parts:

• Part I: God and his people form a covenant relationship based on mutual obligations. The Lord promised to bind His people to Himself in the blessings of security and prosperity in return for obedience to the Sinai Covenant established by His covenant mediator, Moses.
• Part II: Israel, the covenant people, ignore the Laws of the Covenant; they rebel by going their own way. The message is clear: when God's people turn away from Him, His blessings and gifts to them are spoiled.
• Part III: God sends His holy prophets to call His people to repentance and renewed fellowship with Him. Failing in his mission, the prophet calls down a covenant lawsuit upon an unrepentant people. The covenant lawsuit results in covenant curses that are divine punishments meant to bring about the people's repentance and restoration of fellowship with their Divine Lord.
• Part IV: In response to the people's repentance, God promises to forgive and restore His people to the covenant relationship.

The plotline of this prophetic drama was played out depending on which image groups the prophets utilized, as they vividly illustrated the damage people do to themselves when they rebel against God and violate His covenant.

The Covenant Marriage scenario unfolds with the symbolic imagery of God as the Divine Bridegroom and Israel as His Bride. Marriage between a man and a woman is a union based on a covenant and is, therefore, a significant image of God's relationship with His people:

• Part I: God takes Israel as His beloved Bride.
• Part II: Israel is unfaithful and becomes an adulteress (a code word in Scripture for idol worship).
• Part III: Her lovers (false gods) humiliate and injure her.
• Part IV: God promises to forgive and restore Israel as His true Bride.

The Vineyard and Fig Tree depict how God cultivates His people like a vinedresser cultivates a vineyard or like a Master Gardener cultivates a prized fig tree:

• Part I: Israel is a vineyard or fig tree that God plants in fertile soil and tends in covenant love as His cherished plant.
• Part II: The people become rebellious. In their disobedience, the vines of Israel grow wild, and the tree becomes diseased.
• Part III: The vineyard or fig tree is ruined and desolate, no longer capable of producing fruit.
• Part IV: God promises to restore His vineyard or fig tree, which will once again become fruitful, bearing the best fruit.

Domesticated Animal imagery expresses God's relationship with His people as the Master Husbandman and Divine Shepherd who provides for the animals in His care:

• Part I: The covenant people are God's obedient domesticated animals who willingly serve their Master, bearing His gentle yoke and responding to His call.
• Part II: They become rebellious. They resist their Master's yoke; they break out of the safety of their covenant enclosure and turn wild.
• Part III: In the wilderness, wild beasts or birds of prey ravage them, and they bear the iron yoke of a wicked master.
• Part IV: God, their rightful Master, promises to rescue His scattered flock and lost oxen. They yield to their Master's yoke and obediently respond to His voice, returning to the safety of His loving care.

Drinking Wine imagery is particularly significant in the context of the covenant and demonstrated in the sacred meal of covenant unity:

• Part I: God's people enjoy the good wine He provides in the communion of their covenant relationship.
• Part II: They become rebellious, misusing His gift and becoming drunk.
• Part III: Due to their disobedience, they must drink the “cup of God's wrath.”
• Part IV: God promises to give them the “best wine” of a new covenant, which restores them to the fullness of communion with Him.

The symbolic images began with a vivid picture of the fellowship God desired to have with humanity. He took the initiative in showering His beloved ones with all they could ever want or need. In turn, God asked His people to respond to His love by entering a covenant relationship with Him and submitting in obedience to the restraints He placed on them. Those restraints, issued as the Law of the Sinai Covenant in commands and prohibitions, would enable them to become the holy people of a holy God. Through obedience, their sanctification would allow them to fulfill the good work He wanted them to accomplish, bringing all humanity back into a relationship with Him that Adam and Eve first enjoyed in the Garden Sanctuary of Eden. Each image group expressed a different aspect of God's relationship with His covenant people. God's prophets rarely described the entire four-part cycle within a single image group in one prophetic oracle. More often, the prophets introduced images taken from one or two of the four different parts in what appears to be a haphazard, out-of-sequence cycle. However, the symbolic images have an accumulating effect, just as Salvation History is cumulative and unfolds in repeated patterns that become familiar. Gradually, one learns to visualize each of the symbolic dramas' complete cycles in all their powerful imagery and future restoration promises. Most Scripture quotes are from the Revised Standard Version Second Edition that renders God's Divine Name with the substitute words LORD or GOD in capital letters. The four Hebrew letters, rendered in English as YHWH, refer to God's holy covenant name. This form of His name appears in the Hebrew Old Testament about 6,800 times. The four Hebrew characters, YHWH = yad, hay, vav (v in Hebrew can also be rendered w in English), and hay, are called the “tetragrammaton” or “tetragram,” meaning “the four-letter word.” The tetragrammaton first appears in the account of the Creation event (Genesis 2:4b). The first person to speak the Divine Name in Scripture was Eve (Genesis 4:1). Abraham addressed God by His Divine Name (i.e., Genesis 12:8, 15:2). It is the name God told Moses by which He was to be invoked for all generations (Exodus 3:15). The abbreviations IBHE and IBGE represent the Interlinear Bible Hebrew-English and the Interlinear Bible Greek-English, NABRE = New American Bible Revised Edition, NJB = New Jerusalem Bible, and CCC represents the Catechism of the Catholic Church.