The time gaps in the life of a prophet

[Athanasius]

This is the most common interpretation of Isaiah’s wife as a prophetess:

The term "prophetess" here may not mean she had the office of a prophet like Isaiah, but rather that she was married to a prophet—hence the title.

I mean that's one way to look at it.

It's also certainly possible that there were prophets that we never heard of. Dozens; hundreds; thousands; maybe more. The reason we've never heard from them is because their revelation did not concern us, and so was never recorded for posterity.

Perhaps...then again it might be due to the fact that God is often silent and speaks only when necessary.

I don't think God is that Stoic. A God as creative as ours isn't also unmatched in His silence. I suspect it's a been fantastical to think that God is pretty silent because we haven't heard X, Y, or Z. I'm in line with Fenris above. For all we know - and as I would expect - God is always speaking. We're just not always the audience.

[Sojourner]

While God's communications can be stirring and profound, I think He often speaks to us individually in a still small voice, as he did with Elijah. The real question is, are we listening?

[Fenris]

Perhaps...then again it might be due to the fact that God is often silent and speaks only when necessary.

A further talking point:

Let's have a look at 1 Samuel 9.

We are introduced to the future king Saul.

The chapter begins-

There was a Benjamite, a man of standing, whose name was Kish son of Abiel, the son of Zeror, the son of Bekorath, the son of Aphiah of Benjamin.  Kish had a son named Saul, as handsome a young man as could be found anywhere in Israel, and he was a head taller than anyone else.

A problem crops up, and Saul is given a task by his father: Find the lost donkeys.

Now the donkeys belonging to Saul’s father Kish were lost, and Kish said to his son Saul, “Take one of the servants with you and go and look for the donkeys.”  So he passed through the hill country of Ephraim and through the area around Shalisha, but they did not find them. They went on into the district of Shaalim, but the donkeys were not there. Then he passed through the territory of Benjamin, but they did not find them.

He can't find them, and Saul is ready to give up.

When they reached the district of Zuph, Saul said to the servant who was with him, “Come, let’s go back, or my father will stop thinking about the donkeys and start worrying about us.”

His servant has a suggestion, however:

But the servant replied, “Look, in this town there is a man of God; he is highly respected, and everything he says comes true. Let’s go there now. Perhaps he will tell us what way to take.”

Saul said to his servant, “If we go, what can we give the man? The food in our sacks is gone. We have no gift to take to the man of God. What do we have?”

 The servant answered him again. “Look,” he said, “I have a quarter of a shekel of silver. I will give it to the man of God so that he will tell us what way to take.”  (Formerly in Israel, if someone went to inquire of God, they would say, “Come, let us go to the seer,” because the prophet of today used to be called a seer.)


The last few verses are very interesting, and they tell us a few things:

-A Prophet (In Hebrew, נביא ) used to be known by another name, "seer" (In Hebrew, רואה)

-Prophets were well known to the people, and that is why the servant suggests going to see one

-Important for our discussion, people would go to prophets, not just for important issues, but even something as trivial as lost property. That means that prophets were receiving revelation on small matters, of which obviously none is recorded in the bible.

The Jewish position is that in Jewish history, there were as many prophets as people who received revelation at Sinai, some 2 to 3 million people. The bible only records 50 prophets because only those prophets who had revelation that pertained to their day and the future were written down for posterity.