[397] "With the idea of a Prophet," (says Gesenius in his Hebrew Lexicon, on the noun,) "there was this necessarily attached; that he spoke not his own words, but those which he had divinely received; (see Philo, t. iv. p. 116, ed. Pfeifferi,--προφήτης γὰρ ἴδιον μὲν οὐδὲν ἀποφθέγγεται, ἀλλότρια δὲ πάντα ὑπηχοῦντος ἑτέρου); and that he was the messenger of GOD, and the declarer of His will. This is clear from a passage of peculiar authority in this matter, (Ex. vii. 1,)--where GOD says to Moses,--'I have made thee a god to Pharaoh; and Aaron thy brother _shall be thy prophet_.'" ... Elsewhere, (speaking of the Hebrew verb, 'to prophesy,') Gesenius has the following remarkable statement:--"The _passive forms_, Niphal and Hithpael, are used in this verb; from the Divine Prophets having been _supposed to be moved rather by another's powers than their own_." (Just as if the Oracles of GOD were not express on the subject! viz. "No prophecy ever came by the will of Man; but, [because they were] borne along (φερόμενοι) by the HOLY GHOST, spake those holy men of GOD."--2 St. Pet. i. 21.) Προφήτης, in fact, means 'an interpreter' rather than 'a prophet,' (for which, in our popular sense, the Greek is rather μάντις:) hence the use of the words προφήτης, προφητεύω, προφητεία in the New Testament, e.g. 1 Thess. v. 20. 1 Cor. xi. 4: xii. 10. Rom. xii. 6, (where see Wordsworth.) See also 1 Cor. xiv. 1, 3, 4, 5, &c.: in all which places, the προφήτης was what we should rather now call _a preacher_. But then, the expounding of GOD'S Word is the special function of the preacher's office from which he takes this name.--The reader is referred to Blomfield's Glossary, _Agam._ v. 399, and to Liddell and Scott's _Lexicon_; (in both of which, some important references are given:) also to Trench's _Synonyms of the New Testament_, pp. 22-26. [398] See above, pp. 2-5.--The reader will find an interesting passage based on this analogy, in the Appendix (F).