Now, were there no other passage in the book called the
Bible, than this, to demonstrate to us that we have lost the
original meaning of the word prophesy, and substituted an-
other meaning in its place, this alone would be sufficient;
for it is impossible to use and apply the word prophesy, in
the place it is here used and applied, if we give to it the
sense which later times have affixed to it. The manner in
which it is here used strips it of all religious meaning, and
shews that a man might then be a prophet, or he might
prophesy, as he may now be a poet or a musician, without
any regard to the morality or the immorality of his character.
The word was originally a term of science, promiscuously
applied to poetry and to music, and not restricted to any
subject upon which poetry and music might be exercised.

Deborah and Barak are called prophets, not because they
predicted anything, but because they composed the poem or
song that bears their name, in celebration of an act already
done. David is ranked among the prophets, for he was a
musician, and was also reputed to be (though perhaps very
erroneously) the author of the Psalms. But Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob are not called prophets; it does not appear from
any accounts we have, that they could either sing, play
music, or make poetry.

We are told of the greater and the lesser prophets. They
might as well tell us of the greater and the lesser God; for
there cannot be degrees in prophesying consistently with its
modern sense. But there are degrees in poetry, and there-
fore the phrase is reconcilable to the case, when we under-
stand by it the greater and the lesser poets.

It is altogether unnecessary, after this, to offer any ob-
servations upon what those men, stiled prophets, have written.
The axe goes at once to the root, by shewing that the original
meaning of the word has been mistaken, and consequently
all the inferences that have been drawn from those books,
the devotional respect that has been paid to them, and the
laboured commentaries that have been written upon them,
under that mistaken meaning, are not worth disputing about.
-- In many things, however, the writings of the Jewish poets

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