We have outlined the most important points in the historical existence of the Old Testament prophetic schools. The Bible, with its information, seems to cast two rays of light on the history of the prophetic schools, completely covered with the darkness of obscurity. In the light of the first ray, we see the prophetic hosts of Samuel's time, and in the light of the second, the sons of the prophetic times of Elijah and Elisha. The hosts of the prophets and the societies of the sons of the prophets are described by different and different features, but also by non-contradictory ones. It is possible to admit the uninterrupted existence of prophetic schools [25], only by the time of the prophets Elijah and Elisha these schools had a different external form. What stages in their historical development the prophetic schools passed through can only be guessed, since there is no historical evidence. To write in detail the history of the prophetic schools is a thankless task and a useless task.

Internal structure of prophetic schools

The Bible gives many grounds for judging the internal structure of the prophetic schools, although this information is far from sufficient for a clear and detailed representation of both the essence and the external forms of the prophetic schools. In the reports of 1 Samuel it is very difficult to see the essence of the "hosts of the prophets." Some idea of what these hosts are can be gleaned from an analysis of the term used. Of course, it is possible to judge the essence of an institution by its name only in the absence of other data.

To designate the hosts of prophets, the writer of the 1st Book of Samuel uses two terms: hebel nebiim (see 1 Samuel 10:5, 10) and lahaka hanebiim (see 1 Samuel 19:20). The first term means not only an assembly, a crowd of people, in this case, prophets; This term indicates a closer union of persons who make up a host than a simple random gathering in one place. The verb habal means "to bind inseparably," and the noun hebel means "a closely united union of people." The cognate word hoblim means "bonds" and is used in the Bible as a symbol of brotherhood, close union. After all, we also use expressions - ties of kinship, bonds of brotherhood. Thus, in the book of the prophet Zechariah we read: "And I broke My other rod - "bonds" - to break the brotherhood between Judah and Israel (Zech. 11:14). Here, the "bonds" symbolize brotherhood. And therefore hebel can also mean "fraternal union of persons". On the other hand, the word hebel itself means "a measuring rope" (Micah 2:5; cf. Zech. 2:5; Amos 7:17; 2 Kings 8:2), "a measured piece of land" (Joshua 17:14; 19:9; Deuteronomy 3:4; Zeph. 2:5), "inheritance" as property (Deuteronomy 32:9), and then means "a union of men." If we take into account this meaning of the word hebel, then we can introduce into the concept of the host its singularity, its isolation. In Deuteronomy it is said: "A portion of the Lord is His people, Jacob is His inheritance (hebel)" (32:9). The same lot of the Lord was the prophetic hosts. Just as the entire Jewish people was set apart from among other nations, so the prophetic hosts were separated from among the people themselves.

Thus, an analysis of the term hebel gives the following two signs of the prophetic hosts: 1) fraternal unity of the members - on the internal side, and 2) separation and isolation on the external side.

The second term, lahaka, is less characteristic from the philological point of view. Apax legТmenon lahaka - by rearranging the letters, it was formed from kahal (kahal). Kahal means society, assembly; the verb kahal means, by the way, "summons." Therefore, the term denoting the prophetic assembly characterizes it as convened, gathered not by chance, but with a specific purpose. In addition, attention is drawn to the very name of the prophetic settlement near Rama - Nawaf, which, if translated as a common noun, corresponds to what we call a "common life" [26]. All these data indicate that the prophetic hosts were not accidental societies of ecstatics; All terms define the prophetic hosts as societies that had their own modus vivendi. A particularly characteristic feature reported in 1 Samuel 19:20 is that Saul's ambassadors saw a host of prophets prophesying and Samuel ruling over them. Samuel is here called the chief (nicab) of the prophetic host. Nice from the verb "natsab", which with the preposition al, as here, means "to be placed over something, assigned to something" (see Ruth 2:56), and the noun itself with the same preposition means "a person standing at the head of an institution"; This, by the way, is the name of the ruler of Solomon's stewards and the ruler of the king's house (see 1 Kings 4:56). Such an attitude of Samuel is possible only with regard to the organized society which he led. The fact that Samuel occupied a central place in the assembly is evidenced by the 1st book of Samuel (19:2324): Saul, upon whom the Spirit of God descended... prophesied before Samuel.

All the above considerations give us the right not to consider the prophetic hosts as shapeless crowds of ecstatics, but to consider them as organized institutions, to consider their internal structure and character in connection with the societies of the sons of the prophets mentioned in the 2nd Book of Kings. We can unite the hosts of prophets and the societies of the sons of the prophets under one name of prophetic schools [27]. Most scholars do not even suppose a difference between prophetic hosts and prophetic schools. Metropolitan Philaret calls both of them "prophetic schools." Keil, Ehler, Maybaum, Keel, Hengstenberg, and others call them indifferently prophetic schools.

On the basis of a philological analysis of the term hebel, we have said that the prophetic host lived together and separately from other people. Biblical data confirm our assumption. Thus, already at the first mention of the prophetic schools, we see a host of prophets descending from on high (1 Samuel 10:5,10). If the assumption of some is correct that at the height of the hill there was a residence of the host, then we have here the first testimony about the life of the sons of the prophets in special places. In the same way, Nawaf can be considered the place of a prophetic settlement near Ramah. But the story of the construction of a common dwelling is especially clear about the common and separate life of the sons of the prophets, which is conveyed in the 2nd Book of Kings. The sons of the prophets said to Elisha, "Behold, the place where we dwell with you is narrow for us; let us go to the Jordan and take from there each one a log, and make ourselves a place to dwell there. He said, "Go." And one said, "Do me mercy, and go with your servants." And he said, "I will go." And he went with them, and came to the Jordan, and began to cut down trees (2 Kings 6:13). From this news, which was accidentally preserved, since the writer intended to report on the miracle performed by the prophet Elisha on the Jordan, it is quite clear from this news that the unity of the sons of the prophets extended even to the place of residence, and it is absolutely impossible to deny the joint life of the sons of the prophets, as Krapichfeld does. It should be noted, however, that the sons of the prophets in verse 1 speak of the narrowness of the place where they sat in the face of Samuel - this is how the Hebrew jasehabim scbam lephaneha should be literally translated. From this we can assume that in [this] narration it is about the construction of a new room for the actual meetings around the prophet. But there is reason [to suppose] that the sons were prophets and lived together near Jordan. Even if we are talking about the construction of only a prefabricated building, this still not only does not exclude, but even, on the contrary, proves that the sons are prophets and lived together. Otherwise, why did they build a building for their meetings near the Jordan, and not where they lived permanently? But in addition, the text itself indicates that the sons of the prophets do not separate their dwellings from the place of assembly. Let us make, they say, a place for ourselves to dwell there (2 Kings 6:2). The place where they sat before the prophet is here called a place of residence. Consequently, the sons of the prophets lived together wherever they gathered, perhaps under the same roof.

There is an earlier indication of the same common life of the sons of the prophets. In the Bible we read: When Jezebel was destroying the prophets of the Lord, Obadiah took a hundred prophets, and hid them, fifty in number, in caves, and fed them with bread and water (1 Kings 18:4,13). It can hardly be positively asserted that this refers only to individual prophets who gathered together during the time of Jezebel's persecution. Against this understanding speaks the very number of prophets, about whose activity nothing is said. It is strange to suppose that so many prophets lived and worked in the kingdom of Israel at one time: Jezebel, it must be supposed, had already destroyed some of them (cf. 1 Kings 19:14), and yet there remained a hundred of them. But Obadiah's attitude towards these prophets speaks especially against this position. Obadiah said of himself: "I hid a hundred men of the prophets of the Lord fifty men in caves" (1 Kings 18:13). If these were individual prophets, they themselves would be hiding from persecution, but here comes Obadiah, who, as it were, commands all of them. Therefore, it can be assumed that the prophets of Jehovah mentioned in the 1st Book of Kings (chapter 18) formed a prophetic school, headed by Obadiah. When the hard times of Jezebel's persecution came, Obadiah took care to hide his "prophets" in a safe place. The name "prophets" does not contradict the fact that they were members of the prophetic school; for even the members of the assembly of Samuel's time are called prophets (1 Samuel 10:5,10; 19:20,24). But this passage also shows that these prophets lived together. If these prophets had lived in their homes, they would not have hid themselves together; it is utterly unwise to gather together in the time of persecution out of dispersion; Obviously, the prophets did not have their own dwellings. In addition, Obadiah emphasizes that he, hiding the prophets in caves, divided them into two parts of fifty people each. In our opinion, this circumstance conceals a subtle hint that all the prophets used to live together; dividing them into two parts, therefore, deserved to be noted.

The above cases are noted when the prophets lived together in dwellings located in solitude. Sometimes there were prophetic schools in the cities, as we see in Bethel (2 Kings 2:3), in Jericho (2 Kings 2:5), but in the cities the members of the prophetic schools speak together. Perhaps they lived together in the cities. These prophetic dwellings are called coenobia by some [30].

The community of life was not limited only to the community of the home. The Bible gives some grounds for conjecture in the prophetic schools and the common table. When there was a famine, Elisha said to his servant: "Set up a great pot and cook pottage for the sons of the prophets" (2 Kings 4:38). On another occasion a man from Befaris came, and brought to the man of God the firstfruits of bread, twenty barley loaves and raw grains in husks. And Elisha said, "Give to the people, let them eat" (2 Kings 4:42). But in these two passages the common table is spoken of each time on a special occasion, and therefore it would be too hasty on the basis of these two passages alone [to draw a conclusion about] a permanent common table in the prophetic schools. On the contrary, is it not because these cases are mentioned that they were somewhat outstanding from the ordinary ones? But if not constantly, then sometimes in the common dwellings of the sons of the prophets there was also a common table.

Common life, life in common dwellings, was not, one must think, obligatory. The Bible tells us that some of the sons of the prophets had their own houses, especially those who were in charge of the schools. Samuel had a house in Ramah, where he returned after each tour of the cities of Israel (see 1 Samuel 7:17). Thus, Elisha lives either on Mount Carmel (see 2 Kings 2:25; 4:25), or in Samaria, where he had his own house (see 2 Kings 5:9; 6:32). Other members of the prophetic schools also had their own homes. When one of the wives of the sons of the prophets told Elisha that her husband was dead, and asked him to help, Elisha asked her: "What have you in your house" (2 Kings 4:12)? Consequently, the deceased son of the prophet had his own house. Taking into account these separate houses of their own for some prophetic sons, almost all researchers assume that only unmarried and unmarried prophetic sons lived together. Married and married sons of the prophets lived in their own houses and only at certain periods of time for a certain period of time did they join the sons of the prophets, who lived together in one separate place. Samuel, as it is said, had his house in Ramah, and not far from Ramah was Nabat, where the prophetic assembly had its residence (see 1 Samuel 19:19, 2223). Perhaps the other sons of the prophets had their own houses near the common place of assembly, so that they could often and easily attend the prophetic school. It can be assumed that all the other sons of the prophets did not break ties with their native homes and with their relatives, and sometimes [for a while] lived at home.

The hosts of the sons of the prophets were quite significant in the number of members included in them. This number is already indicated by the earliest name "host" - "kahal", a name that is applied to the whole Jewish people (see: Lev. 4:13; Num. 16:3; 20:4; Deut. 31:30, etc.). Then we see that Obadiah hides a hundred prophets (see 1 Kings 18:4,13); the servant contradicts Elisha, who commanded that the sons of the prophets should be given the firstfruits of bread: "What shall I give to a hundred men" (2 Kings 4:4243)? Elisha orders to cook soup for the sons of the prophets in a large cauldron (see 2 Kings 4:38). The number of prophetic schools is especially indicated by the history of the taking of Elijah to heaven and the history of the construction of a new dwelling. When the sons of the prophets who lived in Jericho went out to meet Elisha, they said to him, "Behold, we thy servants have fifty men, mighty men; let them go and seek your lord (Elijah)... And they sent fifty men (2 Kings 2:1516,17). Obviously, fifty people were only a part of the Jericho prophetic school, the number of its members was much greater. In another story we see that the sons of the prophets found their former quarters cramped (see 2 Kings 6:1); Consequently, there were a significant number of them, and this number grew: the room was not cramped before. The following reasoning of the same sons of the prophets is also characteristic: "Let us go to the Jordan, and let us take from thence each one a log, and make ourselves a place to dwell there (2 Kings 6:2). If the sons of the prophets say that they have only to take one log at a time, and it will be possible to build a new building, then it is clear that the increased number of members of the mentioned prophetic school was considerable. Thus, the prophetic school should be represented as a rather crowded society, and not as a narrow circle of selected people.

In the history of the Israeli people, there were several such prophetic schools at the same time and at different times. In the Bible one can find indications of the existence of the following prophetic schools: 1) in Gibeah (1 Kings 10:5, 10), 2) Nebatha, near Ramah (1 Kings 19:18, 23), 3) Bethel (2 Kings 2:3), 4) Jericho (2 Kings 2:5), 5) Gilgal (2 Kings 4:38), 6) on the banks of the Jordan (2 Kings 6:14) - where the school may have been moved from Gilgal, 7) in Mount Ephraim (see: 2 Kings 5:22), 8) near Samaria (see 1 Kings 18:4,13), perhaps in Afekah (see 1 Kings 20:30). There may have been prophetic schools elsewhere, but there is no trace of their existence in the Bible. And all these schools are known either from some one incident from their lives, which is recorded in the pages of the folk chronicle, or only from a vague or controversial mention of them. And yet each of these schools lived its own life, had its own history, in which sometimes the gloomy pages of persecution and persecution were intertwined, and sometimes the pages of intense activity; Each school had golden years of its life and years of decline and impoverishment. But we know nothing about all this and will never be able to find out.