same thing; sometimes
they are willing to prophesy what a king wishes to hear.

The greater prophecy of Israel arose out of such beginnings as these.
Israel was accustomed to expect to hear the will of Jehovah declared
by a speaker of whom the spirit had laid hold, and among those who
came forward to meet this expectation there appeared from time to
time men of commanding insight and of great intensity of character.
The name "seer" indicates the nature of this kind of prophecy. The
seer is one to whom Jehovah communicates his intentions personally,
perhaps without any steps having been taken on his part to place
himself in the way of the god. He sees visions while awake and in his
ordinary frame of mind, he also hears what others do not hear; and
the vision and the message have reference to the future. Things are
intimated which are shortly to come to pass, and they are things
concerning the state or the monarchy: the fate of Israel is the
burden of the prophet's intimation. Samuel's seeing led him to
institute the monarchy under Saul. The prophet Abijah declared for
the division of the kingdom into two; and his prophecy was not vain.
Elijah foretold the downfall of the house of Omri, and Elisha saw to
the accomplishment of that prediction. The prophets we see were a
great power in public affairs, and were able in important crises to
determine the course of the nation's history. Often the prophet
stands quite alone, and in opposition to the court and apparently to
the nation, and yet his words have a tendency to get themselves
fulfilled; Jehovah's word does not return to him void. At other times
the prophet seems to have many sympathisers among the nation, and to
speak as the mouthpiece of the most earnest section of the community,
the section most devoted to Jehovah; and in these cases it is less
wonderful that his words come true. When, however, we speak of the
prophets as a whole, the expression is a loose one; the prophets are
not a party that always acts together, nor a school in which the
leader is always sure of a following. A great voice sounds, perhaps
once in a century or a half-century; and these voices represent the
true tradition of Israelite religion, and develop it further. In the
time of Elijah we notice that there is a puritan movement in Israel;
a number of men are agreed together in detestation of the foreign
worships which are practised at court, and are heartily agreed in
wishing to bring back the