The prophet's handbook

is what Ecclesiastes 5:8 means. This structure allows them to rectify abuses and inequities in His kingdom, and it is not exclusive to the church. Such was the case with Eli, Samuel, the prophetic, and the priesthood. To assure the revelatory provisions of God were not monopolized by a single group, the Lord distributed spiritual power among the two existing official revelatory institutions He ordained in that day: the priest and the prophet, respectively. Bible accounts indicate that God’s prophetics as a ministry had been practically muted during the nation’s developing institutions from Moses to Samuel. The end of Joshua’s era also ended the fixture of established prophetics and the godly use of spiritual power. Divine utterances were loosely delivered by whatever prophet was available. The priesthood curtailed the legal exercise of God’s supernatural exploits to the priests’ personal advantage. Their dominance caused the prophetic to fade into the background, eventually becoming nostalgic window dressing on the nation’s spiritual landscape. Priestly ministry, concurrent with this move, rapidly became presumptuous. The young nation’s secular, political, and social dominions each took its natural course and shape as Israel grew. Only the prophetic remained fetal in nature. It alone lagged behind as an important professional class in Israel’s culture. Blending with the priests’ teaching mandates, it became locked into their interpretations and applications. Spontaneous utterances were rare because they were hindered and eventually suffocated. The manipulations of Eli’s sons reflect this. (See 1 Samuel 1–2.) Since no concrete provisions were left by Moses to found and extend his prophetic initiatives into the cultural life of the new nation, the priests developed the function as they saw fit. Moses had made provisions, however, for the prophetic’s eventual reinstatement. (See Exodus 18.) Nevertheless, he prepared no definite guidelines for its emergence among the ranks of the Lord’s officers. It took God’s displeasure with Eli’s ministry and His judgment on his immoral priesthood to change all that, and He did so with Samuel. God instigated the new move, spearheaded by Samuel, that would perpetually have both prophet and priest regulating each other. To introduce His change in response to the nation’s degeneration, God sent an unnamed prophet with a word to Eli the high priest. He declared that Eli and his posterity would be permanently obliterated because of the depravity he endorsed in the land. Not long after this, the Lord awakened the prophet Samuel’s spirit to