Divination & Prophecy in the Old Testament

Warrior, Prophet, Priest, Judge, and King--Who is Who?

One of the concepts that intrigues me in the OT is the concept of leading and authority with regard to the roles of warrior, prophet, priest, judge and king. Is authority always tied to military might?

This first seems to be the case with Joshua and Caleb. Although Moses killed a man in his youth and although he led the Israelites out of Egypt with the Egyptian armies in chase, I don't think of Moses as a warrior, but more as a spiritual leader. Yes a judge. Yes a prophet. No, not a king. No not a warrior.

The Lord's intent in earthly authority seems to muddy once they enter the Promised Land. Left without a common cause to focus and unify them, the book of Judges ushers in an era of relativism. Over and over the mantra is that "each did what seemed right in his own eyes."

Could anyone be a prophet? Reading through OT passages, it seems like prophets were a common occurrence. If you needed direction in any area of life, practical or spiritual, you could find one on a hill top and inquire.

Here is a good survey of some of the numerous ways that the word prophet is used in the Bible by Bob Deffinbaugh at Bible.org:

Urim and Thummim

How is this different than their use of the Urim and Thummim? The role of these devices smacks of divination to me. They seem exclusively utilized by the high priest and accompany the ephod and breastplate. The article I read on Wikipedia suggests that they were consulted for issues of only communal/national significance--whether to go to war, how to discern the guilty party.

Could they worship the Lord at multiple places? It seems that they went from the concept of the Tabernacle to multiple shrines and locations. Some of these seem to be clearly bad and pagan (such as in Judges), but Was it not until Solomon that the worship was centralized and established in Jerusalem alone?

Shiloh 

Samuel was dedicated to the Lord by Eli at Shiloh.

The site of ancient Shiloh, a city in the Ephraim hill-country, was the religious capital of Israel for 300 years before Jerusalem.[2] Mentioned in the time of the Book of Joshua and Judges, it is north of Beth-El, east of the Beth El–Shechem highway and south of Lebonah in the hill-country of Ephraim (Judg. 21:19). Shiloh has been identified unambiguously with Khirbet Seilun by American philologist E. Robinson in 1838. The location had been established long before by the Roman writer Eusebius and by Nestorius ha-Parhi.

Shiloh is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible as an assembly place for the people of Israel. The "whole congregation of Israel assembled...and set up the tabernacle of the congregation..." (Joshua 18:1), built under Moses' direction from God (Exodus 26) to house the Ark of the Covenant, also built under Moses' direction from God (Exodus 25). According to Talmudic sources, the tent sanctuaryremained at Shiloh for 369 years[3] until the Ark of the Covenant was taken into the battle camp (1 Samuel 4:3–5) at Eben-Ezer and captured by the Philistines at Aphek (probably Antipatris). At some point during its long stay at Shiloh, the portable tent seems to have been enclosed within a compound or replaced with a standing structure that had "doors" (1 Samuel 3:15) a precursor to theTemple.

Shiloh was the center of Israelite worship. The people assembled here for the mandatory feasts and sacrifices, and here lots were cast for the various tribal areas and for the Levitical cities. This was a sacred act, revealing how God would choose to parcel out the land within the tribes.

Generations later, Samuel was raised at the shrine in Shiloh by the high priest Eli. Samuel began prophesying at a young age and continued to serve in the Tabernacle, but not as a priest because he was not from the family of Aaron.

When the Philistines defeated the Israelites at Aphek, one contingent of Philistines carried the Ark of the Covenant off to Philistia, while another contingent apparently marched on Shiloh and destroyed the shrine.[4] Apparently the Tabernacle was removed before the Philistines arrived, and it was shipped to Gibeon, where it remained until David's time. The Ark was soon returned to Israel, but was subsequently kept in Kiryat-Yearim until David had it brought to Jerusalem. It never returned to Shiloh.

When Solomon died, ten of the tribes seceded and their religious leaders built local worship sites (1 Kings 12:31, 2 Kings 17:29–32, and 2 Chronicles 13:9). At this time, Shiloh may have been revived as a holy shrine; it was home to Ahijah HaShiloni, who announced the secession of the ten tribes after Solomon died.[5]

-Wikipedia entry under "Shiloh"

Three Prophetesses

Though not the norm, there were three women mentioned as prophetesses:

Miriam--Exodus 15:20
Deborah--4:4
Huldah--2 Kings 22:14.

How does this shape our understanding of women in authority roles? Deborah was also a judge:

"Deborah was a prophet, the wife of Lappidoth. She was judge over Israel at that time. She held court under Deborah's Palm between Ramah and Bethel in the hills of Ephraim. The People of Israel went to her in matters of justice." Judges 4:4-5