186 | Martin Buber’s Theopolitics
no longer a ruler.’”^50 This reading is somewhat tendentious, since Ahab is in fact
followed as king by his son Ahaziah—nor are we told of either a significant inter-
regnum or a reference to the far future in Micaiah’s words. Nonetheless, Buber
sees in “that irrepressible fearless man, Micaiah ben Imlah,” a reassertion of the
united sovereignty of YHVH over both heavenly and earthly things.^51 Speaking
at once to the two kings of Israel and Judah, who are sitting together at the gate
of Samaria plotting military strategy, Micaiah depicts an enthroned YHVH in
heaven sending a spirit to make their court prophets false. Buber is especially im-
pressed that Micaiah describes this spirit as meant to “entice” Ahab. The rejected
prophets are not false merely because they are wrong, nor even because they are
subservient to power and prophesy salvation, “but that what they prophesy is not
dependent on question and alternative.... The true prophet does not announce
an immutable decree. He speaks into the power of decision lying in the moment,
and in such a way that his message of disaster touches this power.”^52 By sending
the spirit to make the court prophets prophesy falsely, YHVH seeks to remind
the kings that he is still lord of history, and not only of heaven.
The Word Militant: Turning to the Future
Elijah and Elisha inspire the revolt of Jehu, but the replacement of Ahab’s son
fails to remind the northern monarchy of its obligations. The king still behaves
as though he is endowed with the power of YHVH, aided by the cultic system,
which allows YHVH himself to be worshipped as an idol.^53 At this point the two
contradictions (first, between the real and fictitious power of God, and second be-
tween the real and fictitious worship of God) “unite and form an abyss.” Against
this abyss, the writing prophets wage a “new stage in the battle for YHVH, the
battling by the word as such: militant script and militant speech.”^54 As this stage
progresses, we discern the “Turning to the Future” that Buber finds in the proph-
ets of the eighth century BCE. The movement of this turning defines the remain-
der of the book.
Buber’s valuation of this turning is ambivalent. On the one hand, there is a
clearly negative direction to the movement. As the prophets weary of the kings
and their followers, they move ever closer to the common definition of prophecy
as prediction, because the ability of the hearers to influence the outcome is seen
as reduced. Thus, every step along the path is one step further in the transfor-
mation of prophecy into apocalyptic literature, a genre for which Buber has no
praise. The contrast between prophecy and apocalypse is quite clear; they form a
binary, and prophecy has every quality lacking in apocalypse. Prophecy is vital;
apocalypse is degenerate. Prophecy speaks to the historical situation and places
a decision before the actors in that situation; apocalypse announces a script for
the future that has already been written, reducing individuals to players simply
acting out their destiny. Prophecy comes from hope that the chosen people of