We now turn to Samuel. When we discussed the call of Moses to be the servant of God (Exodus 3), we defined 'prophet' in the Biblical sense as meaning 'the spokesman of God'. Those who are called to speak and act for God in the Bible are given a responsibility to communicate the revelation of God which they have received to those to whom they are sent by God. In the account of Moses' call to be God's prophet, we saw how the revelation of God's presence came to him dramatically and with absolute certainty. In the account of the call of Samuel a similar experience is described. Neither had ever heard the voice of the Lord before but each recognized the voice when it came to him.

Each of these prophets was given an immediate task of great difficulty. Moses had to return to Egypt to begin the rescue of his people, and Samuel had to go to the old priest Eli and tell him of the coming destruction of his sons and his family. Recognition of the difficulty of accepting the prophetic call or vocation is seen in the response of each; Moses protested, Samuel did not protest but tried to hide from Eli. Each had to learn that the prophetic vocation could only be accepted in the strength given by God, and not carried out by human strength. A prophet did not choose his task; God chose it for him and gave him the strength to do it. It is clear from verses 19-21 of 1 Samuel 3 that Samuel realized this, and that his total commitment to the service to which God had called him was recognized by the Israelites: 'As Samuel grew up, the LORD was with him and made everything that Samuel said come true. So all the people of Israel, from one end of the country to the other knew that Samuel was indeed the prophet of the LORD. The Lord continued to reveal himself at Shiloh, where he had appeared to Samuel and had spoken to him. And when Samuel spoke, all Israel listened. '

The similarities that we have noticed between the stories of Moses and Samuel are not accidental. The book of Deuteronomy shows that the kind of total commitment to the service of God which had been seen in Moses was expected of all who spoke in the Lord's name. Moses is seen as the prototype of all Biblical prophets. We read this from the book of Deuteronomy: 'There has never been a prophet in Israel like Moses; the Lord spoke with him face to face' (34: 10). And the following passage in which the Lord speaks to Moses can be taken as a Biblical definition of a prophet: 'I will send them a prophet like you from among their own people; I will tell him what to say, and he will tell the people everything I command. He will speak in my name, and I will punish anyone who refuses to obey him. But if any prophet dares to speak a message in my name when I did not command him to do so, he must die for it, and so must any prophet who speaks in the name of other gods' (Deuteronomy 18: 18-20).

We shall return to this definition and the verses which follow it as we look at the nature of the prophetic vocation in Israel and its tremendous importance for Israel's faith.