Minor Prophets

The minor prophets are the final books that appear in the Old Testament. They are minor in the sense of being small books in comparison to the longer works of a few of the other prophets; the longer books are referred to as major prophets.

Collectively, these books cover a long period of time. The earliest of these prophets preached during the reigns of the latter kings of Israel and Judah. Some of them preached during the period of captivity and occupation that followed the fall of the Jewish kingdoms. Finally, a few of these prophets were active after the Jewish people were released form captivity and allowed to return to Israel.

Several themes run through all of these books. Sadly, a major them that occurs both before and after the period of captivity is the people’s indifference toward God. In the period before the captivity, idolatry was rampant and the people sought alliances with foreign powers rather than protection from God. Foreign alliances were an issue after the captivity, too, and religious practice for many was perfunctory, devoid of devotion to God, righteousness or justice.

Many of these prophets also foresaw the coming of Jesus Christ. Some foresaw his first coming in the incarnation with a mission of salvation. Others saw further into the time of His eternal reign. The problem of sin, the call for redemption and our hope for salvation (in Christ) are still with us today.

Though the Jewish people of the time were the immediate audience for most of the prophets, some bore messages to foreign neighbors. These books have value to Christians even today.

The minor prophets are

Daniel

Hosea

Joel

Amos

Obadiah

Jonah

Micah

Nahum

Habakkuk

Zepheniah

Haggai

Zechariah

Malachi

Major Prophets

The major prophets are the longest books in the prophecy section of the Old Testament. These are Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations and Ezekiel.

These books were written toward the end of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah and into the period of captivity to foreign empires. The main themes of the major prophets were: the fall of Israel and Judah to foreign powers, the eventual return of the people after a period of captivity, and the coming of the messiah.

The fall of the kingdoms is attributed to the sin of the people and their leaders. They abandoned God, pursued whatever their lusts desired, oppressed weak and poor people, and relied on alliances with foreign powers. They would be enslaved to foreign empires for 70 years.

Some of these prophets were active during the period of captivity. As much as earlier prophecies were warnings, God’s message in this time was focused on comfort and His plan to restore the people to the land from which they were taken.

Isaiah in particularly provides many messages of the messiah who will restore a true, lasting relationship with God. Christians see evidence in these prophecies for the claims of Jesus Christ, and some New Testament writers point to passages from Isaiah as evidence to believe Him.

If you’re interested in the major prophets, you may also be interested it

Daniel

Ezra

Hebrews

Nehemiah

Second Chronicles

Second Kings

Ezekiel

Ezekiel was a prophet to the Israelites who were captives to Babylon. He was a contemporary of Jeremiah, who was a prophet to the people left behind in Jerusalem.

When Ezekiel was taken into captivity, the Babylonians had not yet destroyed Jerusalem. His early prophesies related to the imminent fall of Jerusalem and the horrors of the sieges that would lead to it. His visions made clear that the destruction of Jerusalem was a judgment on the immorality of the people, especially the variety of idol worship they practiced even in the temple.

Nebachudnezzar, the Babylonian emperor, extend his reach far beyond Israel and Judah. Ezekiel warned that other nations would fall to Babylon. Some of these were comparatively weak such as Ammon, Moab, Edom and Philistia. Others were powerful: Tyre and Egypt.

Ezekiel also saw that the captivity had a limit. The Israelite would return to their homeland. In particular, God was preserving and protecting those who were faithful to Him.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested it

Daniel

Jeremiah

Second Chronicles

Second Kings

Ezekiel. The Holy Bible. New King James Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1982.

Haggai

The Old Testament prophets that come before Haggai lived and focused on the period leading to the fall of Israel and Judah and the captivity of those peoples in foreign empires. Haggai, along with Zechariah and Malachi, preached during the period of rebuilding after the captivity.

A theme that runs through this book is one that runs through much of the Old Testament. The people suffer because they do no follow God. In particular, they neglected the rebuilding of the temple, but they also neglected the righteous life to which God called them. Getting on the temple job was the easy part.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Ezra

Jeremiah

Jeremiah was a prophet in Judah in the last days of the kingdom leading up to its fall to Babylon. While many were carried into captivity, Jeremiah continued as a prophet to those who remained. He lived from the reigns of Josiah through Zedekiah.

Like other prophets, Jeremiah called the people to return to God during a time of apostasy and moral decay. He predicted the rise of Nebuchadnezzer and his expansion of the Babylonian empire into Israel and the destruction of Jerusalem. The Babylonian occupation was presented as a judgment against Israel for their wickedness and unfaithfulness. Jeremiah predicted that Babylon would conquer many nations, and he lived to see it.

This did not make Jeremiah popular. False prophets preached that Judah would thrive and that Jerusalem would survive the Babylonian siege. Jeremiah repeatedly refuted them and preached the words of warning God had given to him. He was repeatedly imprisoned and threatened for his trouble.

Even in the midst of judgment, Jeremiah had a message of hope. God’s plan was for the captivity to be limited to 70 years, after which He would restore Jerusalem. He predicted the fall of Babylon, which would succumb to judgment for its own wicked ways.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Hebrews

Second Chronicles

Second Kings

Jeremiah. The Holy Bible. New King James Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1982.

Old Testament History

The historical books of the Old Testament (the first 17 books in the typical organization of Christian Bibles) tell the story of the rise and fall of the Israelite nation. The big chunks of history are organized in this manner:

1- Founding the nation and receiving the Law (the Pentateuch, which includes Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy),

--The conquest and early settlement of Canaan (Joshua and Judges),

3-The early roots of a kingdom in Israel (Ruth and I Samuel),

4-The Israelite Kingdom (II Samuel, I and II Kings, I and II Chronicles), and

5-The end of captivity and rebuilding of Jerusalem (Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther).

The books are not organized in a strictly chronological order. In addition, there are overlaps and gaps.

A theme that runs through the books is the active engagement of God. He is engaged in all of His creation, and particularly in the history of the Israelite nation. He called them out to be His people, he caused them to rise and prosper as a nation, and when they turned away from them, He brought them low.

Another theme in these books is the importance of moral leadership. When the nation had morally upright leaders, the people tended to also be morally upright. When the leaders were selfish, greedy, lustful, and following false gods, the people followed them into every kind of sin. We are strongly influenced by others, especially our leaders.

The Holy Bible. New King James Version. Nashville, TN:  Thomas Nelson, 1982.

Second Kings

In the Hebrew Bible, First and Second Kings are one book.  Collectively, they are a history of the Israelite monarchy.   During most of this period, it is dual monarchies because two southern tribes make up the kingdom of Judah, the remaining tribes being Israel.

Second Kings covers a period of about 250 years.  It begins in the reign of Ahaziah.  It ends with the fall of Judah to Babylon.

Fall is an appropriate word.  The book describes the decline of the Israelite monarchy.  It is strongly associated with moral decline and apostasy.  Israel was called out to be God’s people.  Instead, they worshiped the gods of the people who occupied the land before them or of their neighbors.  Sometimes this idol worship was introduced and encouraged by the kings.  Some of the practices associated with these foreign religions included temple prostitution, sodomy, and child sacrifice.

When God established ancient Israel as a nation, he made a covenant with them.  If they followed Him, He would cause them to prosper in the land He gave to them.  If they did not, and especially if they abandoned Him to worship other gods and do evil, he would cut them off from the land and let their enemies overcome them.  That is exactly what happened.

Israel, the northern kingdom, succumbed first.  It fell during the reign of Hoshea.  It became a vassal state to Assyria.  More than that, the Assyrians removed the Israelite population to other lands and resettled Israel with people from across its empire.  Chapter 17 is an indictment against Israel, listing its crimes the judgment of expulsion from the land.

God did not let Israel go easily.  Much of the first half of the book is devoted to the exploits of Elijah and Elisha.  These prophets called people back to God and stood up against the influence of false religions.  Later, Isaiah would warn against the coming captivity to Assyria.

Judah held out longer, in part probably because of fitful reforms by kings such as Hezekiah and Josiah.   None of the kings of Israel committed themselves to god, but some of the kings of Judah turned their hearts to God, restoring the worship of God and sometimes even breaking down the idols of false gods.  Even so, they fell like their brothers to the north.

Babylon was the empire that overtook Judah during the reign of Zedekiah.  Zedekiah himself was appointed by Babylon after it took his nephew Jehoiachin as a prisoner.  Babylon also moved much of the population.  The poor were left to tend the farms, but anyone with status, military skill, training in crafts, or education was moved to Babylon to serve there.  The Israelite monarchy was finally broken and replaced with a Babylonian governor.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Deuteronomy

First and Second Samuel

First Kings

Second Kings.  The Holy Bible.  New King James Version.  Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1982.

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Second Chronicles

Second Chronicle continues the history of Israel from First Chronicles (originally they were one book). It covers a period of almost four centuries, beginning with the reign of Solomon and ending as the Babylonian captivity started.

The chronicles are books of comparisons and contrasts. There was something alike about all the periods when the kings of Israel were successful and the people thrived. Likewise, periods of defeat and loss all shared a common element. These thriving and dying periods similarly were unlike in a key way.

The key factor was the faithfulness of the king, and the people, to God. When the kings sought God and the people worshipped Him, he blessed them and caused to rise in wealth and power.  When the king and people sought their own ways, especially to worship the idols and practice the sins of neighboring kingdoms, God let them fall into the hands of their enemies. Eventually, Israel was completely taken over by Babylon.

This pattern could play out even if the reign of a single king. Some hard-hearted kings would start well but stray from God and lead the people away with him. Some evil kings responded to God’s call of repentance and reconciliation, and their turnaround could bring the whole kingdom back to God.

One could argue that the kingdom was at its peak during the reign of Solomon. He built the temple, he reigned in peace, and he stored up great wealth for himself and his kingdom. In spite of his wisdom, he strayed, too. Though he never abandoned the worship of God, he suffered for his sins, suffering he brought onto himself.

Even so, Solomon was the model of a good king. His reign takes up more pages than others in the book. A lot happened during that time, especially the building of the temple. The temple was the symbol of God’s presence with the nation of Israel, and His blessing is central to the prosperity of the nation, so it makes sense that His temple received a lot of attention.

Other notable kings include Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah, and Josiah. These leaders were associated with revivals, the destruction of idols, the restoration of worshipping God, and generally successful reigns. As an engineer, I take special note of Hezekiah, who was famous for building a reservoir and underground aqueduct to supply water to Jerusalem.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

First Chronicles

First Kings

Second Kings

Second Chronicles. The Holy Bible. New King James Version. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1982.

Zechariah

Zechariah was a contemporary of Haggai and preached during the rebuilding of the temple. His message is one of encouragement. The nations that once oppressed Israel were broken, and though they were still under foreign rule, the king, Darius, was favorably disposed towards the Jewish people and supported the reconstruction of Jerusalem and the temple. Though they had the protection of Darius, God asserted that He was their true protector and He would overcome their enemies.

His visions predicted the coming of Christ. The Branch of David would remove the sins of the people (though Zechariah also warns of judgment for the unrepentant). The governor, and grandson of the Israelite king Jehoiachin who was carried off in the captivity, Zerubabbel was rebuilding the temple, but his descendant would rebuild a more excellent temple (the church). In addition to taking the role of a king, this descendant would become the high priest. Some of his visions of Christ were very specific: he would be killed, his hands would be pierced and he would be betrayed.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Haggai

Isaiah

Jeremiah

John

Mark

Matthew

Nehemiah

Revelation

Malachi. The Holy Bible. New King James Version. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1982.

Obadiah

While many of the Old Testament prophets address nations other than Israel and Judah to some extent, Obadiah is somewhat unique in that his recorded prophecies are all directed at a foreign power: Edom. The Edomites were descendants of Esau, the brother of Jacob. The tension between the brothers continued and worsened through the generations.

Obadiah delivers an indictment against Edom because of its haughtiness and the way it gloated over the fall and hardship of Israel. Rather than seeking peace with their neighbors, ostensibly their long distant cousins, they were belligerent and delighted in Israel’s subjugation to foreigners.

The judgment of Edom would come in the form of its own fall and eventual obliteration as a nation. The territory of Edom would be possessed by Israelites returning from captivity.

Obadiah. The Holy Bible. New King James Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1982.

Ezra

Ezra was a priest who lived in the 5^th Century B.C. Tradition recognizes him as the author of First and Second Chronicles, his titular book, and Nehemiah. In the Hebrew Bible, Ezra-Nehemiah is a single book.

The book of Ezra is a brief history of the return of the Jewish people from exile and captivity to the land that the Israelite nation had once been ruled. The focus is on the Jerusalem, especially the rebuilding of the temple.

The return began under the reign of the Persian king Cyrus. Ezra covers the period into the reign of Artaxerxes. The work of rebuilding the temple and the city took decades, and it was delayed by opposition, though a reiteration of Cyrus’ command by his successor Darius got the work moving again. Ezra copies the orders and correspondence of these kings.

There is a shift to the first person in the final chapters, when Ezra himself arrives in Jerusalem. He came to work at the temple and reestablish the religious practices of the Jewish people.

To me, the book is not about the restoration of the Israelite nation. It is about the return of a people to the God who called them. Ezra called people to abandon the idolatrous practices they picked up in their exile or from the people living around them and to return to the worship of God and respect for His law. Ezra’s interest is a religious revival.

Ezra is credited with writing

First Chronicles

Second Chronicles

Ezra. The Holy Bible. New King James Version. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1982.

Daniel

Daniel was a prophet during the Babylonian captivity. He was carried to Babylon as a youth and eventually rose to high office in the courts of Nebachudnezzar and other rulers.

When the Babylonians occupied Israel and Judah, they carried forcibly resettled the aristocratic, wealthy and others they deemed valuable. Daniel was among these. He was brought to Babylon and trained to serve in the court of the king.

Daniel rose to prominence early on. He had a passion to serve God. He showed this by asking to be fed a diet of vegetables rather that the food from the kings table. This was probably food from sacrifices to Babylonian gods (though it may have just not been kosher). He must have been persuasive, for he prevailed. Because he and his friends were very healthy on this diet, he gained a reputation for wisdom.

His reputation grew when God began to show him interpretations of Nebachudnezzar’s dreams. In one of these dreams, Daniel saw the rise and fall of empires from the Babylonians to the time of Christ (the Roman Empire with the Persian and Greek empires in between). Much of his prophecies deal with the kingdoms to come from his own time to the first coming of Christ and the fate of Israel in that time.

The most famous story of Daniel is his survival of a night in the lion’s den. He was cast into it as a form of capital punishment for his devotion to God. This book also contains the story of Daniel’s friends Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-Nego who were cast into the fire of a hot furnace for refusing to worship and idol, a statue in the image of Nebachunezzar. God brought them through unharmed.

Daniel is also mentioned in the book of Ezekiel.

Daniel. The Holy Bible. New King James Version. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1982.

Nehemiah

Nehemiah presents itself as a firsthand account by the titular character of his calling and work to rebuild Jerusalem. Some think some or all of Nehemiah may have been written by Ezra, who is attributed authorship of I Chronicles, II Chronicles and Ezra. Though divided into four books in Christian editions of the Old Testament, Jewish traditions present these as one or two books.

Nehemiah was cupbearer to Persian king Artaxerxes. This must have been a high and trusted position. He was deemed trustworthy enough to serve the king food and set in on the intimate dealings of the king’s court. He was also considered competent to be governor of a province of the vast Persian Empire.

Around the middle of Artaxerxes’ reign, Nehemiah was moved by news of the conditions of Jerusalem and his Jewish brethren there. Though Jewish people were being permitted to return to their ancestral homeland, the fortifications of Jerusalem had not been rebuilt and they were subject to the harassment of surrounding nations. Artaxerxes responded favorably to Nehemiah’s request to do something about the problem, and appointed him governor.

Nehemiah was a shrewd governor. He had to lead Jewish people who were disorganized and disheartened after decades of captivity in foreign lands. He had to manage the clash in cultures between the descendants of those who had been left in the land and those who were returning after being raised in alien cultures. He oversaw a renaissance of Jewish culture and religion with the aid of the priest Ezra and the rediscovery of scriptures in the remains of Solomon’s temple. He fended off jealous neighbors, some of them Persian governors who must have had some clout in Artaxerxes’ court. He also retained the favor of his king, who repeatedly reasserted his desire to rebuild Jerusalem, and his command that the governors of the region provide material support for that purpose.

The book suggests that Nehemiah’s success as a political leader was due to his moral leadership. He desired to set an example for the people. He also expected other leaders to do the same. This led to a moral renewal of the populace. This fits the model in I & II Chronicles, in which the uprightness or degeneracy of the king lead to the same in the people.

This also suggests another point: God is behind it all. God stirred Nehemiah’s heart, and Artaxerxes’, to help a people chastened by the exile to turn their hearts back to the God who called them to be His people.

Books of the Bible that are closely related to Nehemiah are

I Chronicles

II Chronicles

Ezra

Nehemiah. The Holy Bible. New King James Version. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1982.