The Seven Wounds Experienced by the Prophets
1. Sensitivity to Evil
2. Coming Judgment
3. Hearing the Unperceived Cry
4. Disrupted Lifestyle
5. Wound of Spiritual Encounter
6. Divine Pathos: zeal for the covenant
7. Aloneness of Prophetic Call
I. THE WOUND OF SENSITIVITY TO EVIL
“The things that horrified the prophets are even now daily occurrences all over the world. Indeed the sort of crimes and
even the amount of delinquency that fill the prophets of Israel with dismay do not go beyond that which we regard as
normal, as typical ingredients of social dynamics. To us a single act of injustice-cheating in business, exploitation of the
poor-is slight; to the prophets, a disaster. We rarely grow indignant or overly excited while to the prophets even a minor
injustice assumes cosmic proportions.” (Heschel “The Prophets” Pgs. 3,4)
Hear this, you who trample upon the needy, and bring the poor of the land to an end, saying: “When will the
new moon be over that we may sell grain? And the Sabbath, that we may offer wheat for sale, that we may
make the ephah small and the shekel great, and deal deceitfully with false balances, that we may buy the
poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals, and sell the refuse of the wheat?”. The Lord has sworn
by the pride of Jacob: Surely I WILL NEVER FORGET ANY OF THEIR WORKS. SHALL THE LAND NOT
TREMBLE FOR THIS AND EVERYONE MOURN WHO DWELLS IN IT? (Amos 8:5-8)
“The prophet’s words are outbursts of violent emotions. His rebuke is harsh and relentless. But if such deep sensitivity to
evil is to be called hysterical, what name should be given to the abysmal indifference to evil which the prophet bewails? Our
eyes are witness to the callousness and cruelty of man, but our heart tries to obliterate the memories, to calm the nerves,
and to silence our conscience. The prophet is a man who feels fiercely. God has thrust a burden upon his soul, and he is
bowed and stunned at man’s fierce greed. Frightful is the agony of man; no human voice can convey its full terror.
Prophecy is the voice that God has lent to the silent agony, a voice to the plundered poor, to the profaned riches of the
world. It is a form of living, a crossing point of God and man. God is raging through the prophet’s words.” (Heschel, Pgs. 5,6)
“My heart within me is broken because of the prophets; all my bones shake. I am like a drunken man, and
like a man whom wine has overcome, because of the Lord, and because of His holy words. For the land is
full of adulterers; for because of a curse the land mourns. The pleasant places of the wilderness are dried
up. Their course of life is evil, and their might is not right.” (Jeremiah 23:9,10)
II. THE WOUND OF COMING JUDGMENT
O my soul, my soul! I am pained in my very heart! My heart makes a noise in me; I cannot hold my peace,
because you have heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war. Destruction upon destruction
is cried, for the whole land is plundered. Suddenly my tents are plundered, and my curtains in a moment.
How long will I see the standard, and hear the sound of the trumpet? (Jeremiah 4:19-21)
“They (the prophets) suggest a disquietude sometimes amounting to agony. Yet there are interludes when one perceives
an eternity of love hovering over moments of anguish; at the bottom there is light, fascination, but above the whole soar
thunder and lightening. His one not only with what he says; he is involved with his people in what his words foreshadow.
This is the secret of the prophet’s style: his life and soul are at stake in what he says and in what is going to happen to
what he says.” (Heschel, P.7)
1. Alive to the pain of the inevitable judgment.
2. Painfully longing for conditional judgment to be averted.
3. Pain for human suffering in judgment
III. THE WOUND OF HEARING THE UNPERCEIVED CRY OF INJUSTICE
“The prophet’s ear, however, is attuned to a cry imperceptible to others.”
“We and the prophet have no language in common. Our standards are modest; our sense of injustice tolerable, timid; our
moral indignation impermanent; yet human violence is interminable, unbearable, permanent. Who could bear living in a
state of disgust day and night? The conscience builds its confines, is subject to fatigue, longs for comfort, lulling, soothing.
Yet those who are hurt, and He Who inhabits eternity, neither slumbers nor sleeps. Perhaps the prophet knew more about
the secret obscenity of sheer unfairness, about the unnoticed malignancy of established patterns of indifference, than men
whose knowledge depends solely on intelligence and observation. The prophet’s ear perceives the silent sigh.”
(Heschel, Pgs. 9-11)
“Moreover the Word of the Lord came to me saying, “Now, son of man, will you judge, will you judge the
bloody city? Yes, show her all her abominations! Son of Man, say to her: …the people of the land have used
oppressions, committed robbery, and mistreated the poor and needy; and they wrongfully oppress the
stranger…therefore I have poured out My wrath; and I have recompensed their deeds on their own heads!”
(Ezekiel 22:1, 24,29,31))
“Woe to him who heaps up what is not his own,…
Woe to him who gets evil gain for his house,…
For the stone cries out from the wall,
And the beam responds.
Woe to him who builds a town with blood,
And founds a city on iniquity!” (Habakkuk 2:6,9, 11-12)
IV. THE WOUND OF A COMMANDED/INVADED/INTERRUPTED LIFESTYLE
A. Marriage invaded one way or the other
1. Hosea : a marriage invaded by divine love and wounding
Go, take yourself a wife of harlotry and children of harlotry, for the land has committed great harlotry by
departing from the Lord. (Hosea 1:2)Go again, love a woman who is loved by a lover and is committing
adultery JUST LIKE the love of the Lord for the children of Israel, who look to other gods (Hosea 3:1)
2. Jeremiah: called to celibacy as a warning of impending judgment
You shall not take a wife nor shall you have sons or daughters in this place. For thus says the Lord concerning
the sons and daughters who are born in this place, and concerning their mothers…and their fathers… they
shall die gruesome deaths (Jeremiah 16:2-4)
B. Social Life Massively Affected and Invaded
a. Celibate
b. Cannot go to funerals (Jer 16:5)
(1) Cannot grieve for those who die whether family or not
(2) Cannot go, lament, or bemoan
(3) For the Lord has taken his peace from the people
c. Cannot go to any parties (Jer 16:8)
(1) Cannot go, sit with them, to eat and drink
(2) For the Lord will cause the voice of joy to cease in the future and His friend must embrace this now
d. He must take sides with God and let only those who turn come to him in intimate relationship
(Jeremiah 15: 19,20)
(1) Let them return to you, but you must not return to them.
(2) I will make you as a fortified bronze wall to this people
2. See Ezekiel, Hosea as well as the apostle Paul for further illustrations of lifestyle disruption and possession.
V. THE WOUND OF SPIRITUAL ENCOUNTER
A. Daniel: physical weakness, inability to speak, hindering fear, body sick for days due to weight of judgment words that
were spoken
B. Jeremiah reels like a drunken man, his bones shaking because of the Holy Words he received in encounter
C. Ezekiel and John eat a scroll in an encounter that actually affects their digestive tract in negative ways. This is not
God giving sickness but rather the weakness of the human frame under the weight of spiritual encounter.
VI. DIVINE PATHOS: ZEAL FOR THE COVENANT
Elijah said, “I have been very zealous for the Lord God of hosts; because the children of Israel have
forsaken Your covenant, torn down Your altars, and killed Your prophets with the sword” 1Kings. 19:14
Divine injection of Love, Jealousy and Zeal overcome the friends of the Bridegroom as they plead, cry out, weep, shout and
rage with the Words that flow from Holy Love. Paul experienced this as a continual travailing and laboring for souls and a
Divine impartation of God’s affections that caused him to suffer when one was called to stumble and to intercede with
emotions set ablaze in suffering/sacrificial love. Every friend of God that has gone before us has drunk from this river of
fire that proceeds from the Throne of God called, “His Zeal for the Marriage Covenant!”
VII. INHERENT ALONENESS AND SUFFERING OF THE PROPHETIC CALL
A. Daniel says “I alone saw the vision, for the men who were with me did not see the vision; but a great terror fell upon
them, so that they fled to hide themselves. (Dan 10:6) and then again in verse 7, “Therefore I was left alone when I saw
this great vision, and no strength retained in me…”
B. Jeremiah says, “I sat alone because of Your hand, for you have filled me with indignation. Why is my pain perpetual
and my wound incurable?”( Jeremiah 15)
C. The feeling of aloneness that came with the burden was go great for Elijah that he stumbled into actually thinking
he was the “only one”. A lie that led him into false isolation and fear of the enemy. (1Kings 19:14, Rom 11:1-3)
WAYS TO HELP WITHSTAND THE WOUND OF LOVE AND PROPHETIC BURDEN:
1. SILENCE Lamentations 3:27-33, 1 Corinthians 12-14
2. Having done all STAND John 3:29, Ephesians 6:13, 14, 1 Kings 17:1, 2 Kings 3:14
3. Let His WORDS be your Delight Jeremiah 15:16, John 3:29
4. The Sweetness of BELONGING TO HIM no matter what Jeremiah 15:16
5. Embrace the burden as your gift! John 17, Jeremiah 23
6. Lock into Jesus’ three desires in John 17 as your life calling (with Him, see Him, love Him)
7. Be STRENGTHENED by recognizing the prophetic burden in others
8. Follow the footsteps of the flock, follow the shepherds the Lord gives you (SOS 1:8)
9. NEVER STOP INTERCEDING! Exodus 34:9
10. Mention often the loving-kindness of the Lord Isaiah 63:7
What is our option other than living a life of mourning a life of Wounding in our Prophetic Mandate?
Jeremiah 5:12 They have lied about the Lord and said, “It is not He. Neither will evil come upon us, nor shall
we see sword or famine. And the prophets become wind, for the word is not in them. Thus shall it be done
to them. Therefore thus says the Lord God of hosts: Because you speak this word, Behold, I will make My
words in your mouth fire, and this people wood, and it shall devour them.
Jeremiah 23: 21 I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran. I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied.
26 How long will this be in the heart of the prophets who prophesy lies? Indeed they are prophets of the
deceit of their own heart. So try to make My people forget My name by their dreams which everyone tells his
neighbor, as their fathers forgot My name for Baal.
Ezekiel 13:3 Woe to the foolish prophets, who follow their own spirit and have seen nothing! 5 You have not
gone up into the gaps to build a wall for the house of Israel to stand in battle on the day of the Lord. 6They
have envisioned futility and false divination, saying, “Thus says the Lord!” But the Lord has not sent them;
yet they hope that the word may be confirmed. 9 My hand will be against the prophets who envision futility
and who divine lies; they shall not be in the assembly of My people, nor be written in the record of the house
of Israel, nor shall they enter in to the land of Israel. Then you shall know that I am the Lord God.
Ezekiel 13:10-15 Because, indeed, because they have seduced My people, saying, “Peace!” when there is no
peace and one builds a wall, and they plaster I with untempered mortar-say to those who plaster it with
untempered mortar-it will fall…..13 Therefore thus says the Lord God…I WILL BREAK DOWN THE WALL…
I will accomplish My wrath on the wall and on those who have plastered it.