The word nabi is the general word for prophet. But in Samuel and the Chronicles two other expressions are used, both translated “seer”. The one is ro’eh from the ordinary word “to see” in Hebrew. The other is khozeh, from the word especially used for seeing visions. Samuel is called a seer (1 Chronicles 9:22). The prophet Gad is also called a seer (1 Chronicles 21:9). Another seer is Iddo (2 Chronicles 9:29). Heman, Jeduthun and Hanani are also called seers. Even Asaph (2 Chronicles 29:30) is called a seer, although he appears to have served mainly in the ministry of temple music.

“Beforetime in Israel, when a man went to inquire of God, thus he spake, Come, and let us go to the seer: for he that is now called a Prophet was beforetime called a Seer.” 1 Samuel 9:9.

So there is an older word and a newer word in Hebrew that mean the same thing. We have already learned that a prophet speaks on behalf of God. This older word focuses on something else: that the prophet sees a vision from God. That is why he can speak on behalf of God. He tells what he sees. But we learn something perhaps even more important. When we have a problem and we think that we need to ask God about it, the way to do so is to go “to the seer.”

The Bible tells us much about how prophets see visions from God. One remarkable case is when Isaiah saw God sitting on His throne in Isaiah 6:1-4. It was a vision filled with glory, so that “the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke.” (verse 4) Isaiah himself was greatly frightened and said “Woe is me!” (verse 5). The text does not say where Isaiah saw this vision, but it might have been on a visit to the temple, for that is where the posts of the doors shook and that is the house filled with smoke.

Sometimes the prophet sees the vision at night in a dream. “In the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon Daniel had a dream and visions of his head upon his bed.” Daniel 7:1. Scholars call the kind of vision Isaiah had and exterior vision, and the kind of vision Daniel had and interior vision.

Scholars also know a third kind of vision, the intellectual vision, which is a strong spiritual impression without actually seeing images or pictures or physical events. We find many such visions in the Bible as well. “The word of the Lord that came unto Hosea, the son of Beeri, in the days of Uzziah,…” Hosea 1:1. This intellectual vision happened about the same time as Isaiah’s exterior vision.

A vision can be a very impressive event for both the prophet and those around him. “And I Daniel alone saw the vision: for the men that were with me saw not the vision; but a great quaking fell upon them, so that they fled to hide themselves. Therefore I was left alone, and saw this great vision, and there remained no strength in me: for my comeliness was turned in me into corruption, and I retained no strength.” Daniel 10:7,8.

A prophet during vision may not only lose his strength and fall down, but also go into another mental state like a deep sleep. “Yet heard I the voice of his words: and when I heard the voice of his words, then was I in a deep sleep on my face, and my face toward the ground.” Daniel 10:9. The deep sleep here, or tardema in Hebrew, is not an ordinary sleep. The word is the same as used about the man in Genesis 2:21, when God created the woman. It is a stunning with deep sleep or even death. In fact, it may appear very much like death, so that even breathing stops for a long time. “As for me, straightway there remained no strength in me, neither is there breath left in me.” (Daniel 10:17).