ABSTRACT
The origins of prophecy are largely veiled in mystery, and are by no means such that we may recognize them without qualification as the outcome of the authentic religious foundation of Moses. The classical representatives of prophecy were constantly complaining of the obstacles that were placed in their way by many of their fellow-labourers whom they stigmatized as misleaders of the people and false prophets. With a few exceptions such as the time of Jeroboam II the political life of Israel, from the time of Ahab and Jehu until the end of the northern state, presents the picture of the ever crumbling unity and power that David and Solomon had once bequeathed to the State. Furthermore, by the encroachment of the Assyrian world-empire from the reign of Tiglath-Pileser IV, together with the internal strife in Samaria itself, the position of the nation was being increasingly threatened.
