The prophets Hagay, Zechariah, and Malachi lived in the time of Ezra and Nehemiah. After them, there were no more prophets among the people of Israel. People wondered, “Why does God no longer speak to us through prophets as in biblical times?” Throughout the Second Temple era, people longed for the return of prophecy. They asked, “Why has God distanced himself from us? Where are the prophets?” Jewish literature of the Second Temple era consistently displayed a longing for prophecy.

From our historical perspective, it is easy to answer the question of why there are no more prophets. The acceptance of the Torah as Holy Scripture under Ezra the scribe brought prophecy to a sudden and irreversible end. A people and a religion cannot have both prophecy and scripture. One looks to a prophet to receive a new message from God. The Scriptures, for their part, claim to be the complete and only message of God. What would we do if a prophet contradicted the word of the Scriptures?

From the moment the Jews accepted the Torah as Scripture, the sage replaced the prophet. The sage was a scholar who knew the Torah and how to interpret it. God now spoke through the sage, instead of the prophet.

Malachi was the last of the prophets. He emerged after the time of Ezra the scribe. The third and final chapter of the book of Malachi represents the final farewell to biblical prophecy. Malachi announces a future that will be dominated by interpreters of the scriptures rather than by messengers of God. Malachi announces the Day of God as the one in which those who obey the commandments of the Creator will be vindicated. God’s message will come to us by interpreting the commandments of the Torah and not through the words of a prophet.

Zechariah and Malachi wrote in the question and answer format. Was this just a literary device? Or were the last prophets imitating the style of the sages, who receive a question and answer it with a studied response? We do not know. But we do know that this was the end of the prophets.

By Marcos Gojman

Bibliography: The Jews in the Time of Jesus by Rabbi Stephen M. Wylen.