Words of (in-)-evitable certitude? Reflections on the interpretation of Prophetic Oracles of Judgement

How are we supposed to read prophetic oracles of judgement? And what did the prophets think they were doing in conveying their message of divine punishment?2 Usually these questions are answered in one of the following ways. The prophets - and I am thinking here of the often so called 'classical prophets' of the eighth century BCE - are conceived either as harbingers of doom, whose task consisted simply, and solely, in announcing the inevitable punishment of God. Or their words are understood in a subjunctive sense as opening up for their audiences the possibility of 'becoming something other', as Jeffrey has put it. In this latter view, in which the interpretative focus has moved away 'from the determinism of the surface text to the open world of the text within',3 oracles of judgement are understood as warnings. [1] Steiner once coined the phrase ' "evitable" certitude' in order to describe the relation of the genuine prophet - as opposed to that of the diviner - to the future. He notes that to the prophet 'the future is entirely present... in the literal presentness of his speech-act. But at the same moment... his enunciation of the future makes that future alterable' (Steiner, After Babel, 153). [2] Houston posed this question a few years ago (cf. Houston, 'Prophets'). [3] Jeffrey, People, 40