1
Ne 1:4 Why was there more than one
prophet in the days of Lehi?
Some
students of the gospel identify so strongly with the president of the church as
¡°the Prophet¡± that they are bothered by the presence of multiple prophets in Old
Testament times. Who was the President
of the Church in Lehi¡¯s day? Was there one predominant prophet?
First
of all, there is almost always more than one prophet on the earth at one
time. Currently, there are 15 men on the
earth set apart as Prophets, Seers, and Revelators. What makes the President of the Church unique
is that he is the only man on earth who has authority to exercise all the keys
of the priesthood, even though those keys were given to him when he was first
ordained an apostle. Today¡¯s
organization of prophets is much different than in Lehi¡¯s day.
In
the Old Testament, there was no ¡°President of the Church.¡± The presiding
priesthood authority under the Mosaic Law was the high priest of the Aaronic
Priesthood (2 Kgs. 22:8; Neh. 3:1). Since the ecclesiastical institution of the
time was governed by the Aaronic Priesthood, these prophets (most of whom had
obtained the Melchizedek priesthood through personal righteousness) were not
ecclesiastical administrators in the same sense that they are today. Rather,
they received mandates from the Lord to perform specific prophetic
functions. The prophet Jonah is a good
example; he was commanded of the Lord to preach repentance to the city of
Nineveh. Lehi was commanded to prophecy
to the Jews regarding their impending destruction and to call them to
repentance. Other Old Testament prophets
were given special callings to counsel the king in conjunction with their
responsibility to cry repentance to the people, e.g. Samuel, Nathan, Isaiah, and
Jeremiah. They may have been the major
prophets of their day but they were not the administrative leaders of the
religious organization under Mosaic Law.
1
Ne 1:4 there
came many prophets
The justice
of God requires that he warn the people before they are destroyed. 2 Kings 17:13 says Yet the Lord testified against Israel, and against Judah,
by all the prophets, and by all the seers, saying, Turn ye from your evil
ways. In the case of the
Babylonian captivity, the Lord sent several prophets to warn the people. Lehi, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Habakkuk, Nahum,
Urijah (Jer 26:20-23), Zephanaiah and Obadiah were probably all contemporaries,
and all but Obadiah and Nahum are known to have prophesied specifically about
the destruction of Jerusalem.