Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets (Hebrews 1:1).
God’s love for people is such that He did not remain silent. He did not leave us alone and ignorant. “GOD SPOKE.” He could have communicated in any number of ways. “In the past,” He chose to speak “through the prophets.” Prophets were God’s messengers, passing along God’s message to the people.
The writer of the book of Hebrews had no doubt who those prophets were. He quoted often from them—prophets like Moses (Hebrews 4:4; 8:5), David (Hebrews 4:7), Nathan (Hebrews 1:5b), Isaiah (Hebrews 2:13), Jeremiah (Hebrews 8:8), Habakkuk (Hebrews 10:37), and Haggai (Hebrews 12:26). Hebrews chapter 11 also names many prophets. We call these the Old Testament prophets. The book of Hebrews shows that the words given through these prophets were not their own words, but God’s words. When Hebrews quotes from Psalm 95, it recognizes that Psalm as written by King David. Yet look at how it is expressed: “God… saying through David” (Hebrews 4:7). In Hebrews 3:7 the same words by David are said to be from God’s Spirit: “Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says…” Similarly, through Jeremiah’s writing, “the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us…” (Hebrews 10:15).
Hebrews and other books of the Bible often speak like this. Nehemiah 9:20,30 is an example from the Old Testament. It tells how God’s Spirit was in His prophets, teaching and warning His people for many years. In the Bible there is no doubt about it. God has spoken by His prophets. He has spoken so clearly that people many, many years later could depend on their words. The books of Nehemiah and Hebrews were written hundreds of years after the old prophets died. Yet they still quoted and trusted those prophets’ words as the true words of God.