To Table of Contents

The Major Prophets with Lamentations and Daniel


Prophets

Simply put, a prophet was a person who God gave his message to and who told that message, often to the entire nation. Remember, the OT period was a time when the Holy Spirit did not come on all Jews like the Holy Spirit comes and is a part of all Christians. Therefore, prophets played an important role that was not needed after Jesus, since prophets was God's voice to the people like the Holy Spirit speaks to each believer after Jesus. Sometimes that message was intended for one person, sometimes to all the Jews, and sometimes to non-Jewish kingdoms. In other words, when God wanted to say something, he usually picked a messenger, give his message to the messenger, and that messenger gave God’s message to the intended audience. We call those messengers prophets or prophetesses. (The OT describes both male and female messengers.) Those types of prophets (God giving a word that needed to be shared with all Jews) are not needed after the time of Jesus because God now uses the Holy Spirit to speak to individuals. [This does not mean that the office of prophets ended, just that the OT type of prophet ended.]

The OT has fifteen books written by or about prophets. The first three listed in the OT are called “major prophets” because they are much longer: Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. The remaining twelve prophet books are referred to as “minor prophets,” and they are much shorter.

Nevertheless, books are not called major or minor because of their importance, since all the prophet books include the messages of God and are important. They are referred to as major and minor simply because of their length.

This does not mean that the OT period only had fifteen prophets. The OT describes many more prophets, such as Elijah and Elisha, who do not have books named after them. Instead, the OT consists of prophets who do not have books named after them, like Elijah and Elisha, and those who do have books written after them, like Isaiah and Jeremiah. Some of the 15 "writing prophets" may have written the written the book themselves and others, like Jeremiah, had a scribe, Baruch (Jeremiah 36:4: "So Jeremiah called Baruch son of neriah, and whild Jeremiah dictated all the words the LORD had spoken to him, Baruch wrote them on the scroll.") Nevertheless, all the "writing prophets" came from the period after the Jews had split into two kingdoms, whereas the "non-writing prophets" existed even as far back as time of the book of Judges. (

Three types of prophecies

Two books are not prophet books: Lamentations and Daniel. Lamentations was written by someone who witnessed the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BC and wrote about it. Many scholars think the author is Jeremiah, which is why it comes after the book of Jeremiah. Daniel is an apocalyptic book, which means that many people believe it looks to distant future events.

Timeline for Major and Minor Prophets

Unknown date: Joel, Obadiah

950 BD: Solomon's Temple built (this is the first Temple)

900 - 800 BC: No writing prophets, although prophets did live during this time.

800 - 700 BC: Isaiah, Hosea, Amos, Jonah, Micah

700 - 600 BC: Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah

600 - 500 BC: Jeremiah (started before 600 BC), Ezekial, Haggai, Zachariah

500 - 450 BC: Malachi

Isaiah


Date: He began his ministry around 740 BC

Place of writing: he spent most of his life in Jerusalem

Isaiah prophesied mainly against Judah (the southern kingdom), although he did also prophesy against the surrounding kingdoms.

Please note: Remember that the main (and often only) message of almost all prophets was for Jews to return to God and stop living disobedient lives. That is why you rarely if ever saw a prophet speaking to the people when the Jews were obeying God: there was no need. For that reason, all fiften prophets (major and minor) basically had the same message: return to God or be punished, but, after you return to God, you will live at peace in the Promised Land.

Review of the history when Isaiah was alive: He lived during the last days and even defeat of the northern kingdom of Israel by the Assyrians (which happened in 732 BC). But, he lived in Jerusalem (in the southern kingdom) and was not directly affected by this. Isaiah warned the southern kingdom of Judah that their disobedience would also bring captivity of them at the hands of Babylon, just as the Assyrians had defeated the northern kingdom of Israel due to their disobedience.

Isaiah is mentioned in other OT books: II Kings 19 & 20 and II Chronicles 26:22 & 32:20, 32.

Message: In thinking about the three types of prophecies in the OT as described above (prophets either warn people to turn from disobedience and return to God, promise for change in the future after Jews repented, and prophets speaking of Jesus), we can see all three in Isaiah. Certainly, Isaiah spends much time in warning the Jews. He warns them to return to God so that they would not be punished and conquered like the northern kingdom of Israel was. He was successful for a while, and the Jews in the kingdom of Judah returned to God under Hezekiah. But eventually they rebelled, and God punished them by having the Babylonians conquer them in 586 BC.

He also speaks about the return of the Jews to Jerusalem after they have been punished by being exiled: 49:8: "This is what the LORD says: 'In that time of my favor I will answer you, and in the day of salvation I will help you; I will keep you and make you to be a covenant for the people, to restore the land and to reassign its desolate inheritances, to say to the captives, 'Come out," and to those in darkness, 'Be free.''" (NIV)

Isaiah also includes the third type of prophecy, where he describes Jesus in a unique set of verses referred to as the “Suffering Servant” passages. This group of verses all describe Jesus, who came over 500 years later. These passages are found in 9:1-7, 42:1-9, 44:1-6, 50:4-9, and 52:13 to the end of 53.

Multiple author theory of Isaiah. Many scholars believe that Isaiah is a composite of the writings of three different prophets, who all wrote under the name of “Isaiah.”

Explanation: Part of the reason for this comes from the names in the book itself. The book starts by stating, “The vision concerning Judah and Jerusalem that Isaiah son of Amoz saw during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. These kings reigned from 792 to 686 BC. On the other hand, Isaiah 44:28a states, “Who says of Cyrus, ‘He is my shepherd and will accomplish all that I please.’” This speaks about Cyrus, the king of Persia, who defeated the Babylonians around 539 BC. At this point, most of the Jews from the southern kingdom were living in Babylonia. Then, later, Isaiah speaks about the Jews living in Jerusalem with the walls rebuilt, “I have posted watchmen on your walls, O Jerusalem.” (Isaiah 62:6a). This dates from around 500 BC. These verses (and others) seem to come from different periods, which has caused some scholars to claim that parts of Isaiah were written at different periods.

This might seem to be a problem, but not after understanding how the ancient world worked. Today, if someone copies from someone else and does not tell where they borrowed the information, that is considered plagiarism.

But that was not the case in ancient times. Often a famous person started a school, such as Plato and Renaissance painters, and taught his style to students. Frequently their students wrote or painted and signed their master’s name to the work. That is why, for some writings and paintings, scholars debate as to whether or not the master did the work or did the student do the work on behalf of the master and sign the master’s name.

This same type of thing happened in the New Testament. For example, no one knows who wrote the book of Hebrews, but everyone agrees with two points: first, Paul did not write it and, second, whoever did write it learned from Paul because it is full of Paul’s ideas. Therefore, Hebrews was included in the NT because of the strong Paul connection.

In the same way, some people would gather and live around prophets (like John the Baptist had followers) and, whenever one of the “lesser” prophets in that gathering was given a message by God, that prophet sometimes gave the prophecy in the name of the main prophet. Therefore, if this theory is correct, it means that the main “Isaiah” lived in the mid-700s BC and founded a gathering of followers and “lesser” prophets around him. After he died, the school remained strong. God continued to give messages to different people within that community, and all those prophecies were gathered together under the name of Isaiah.

A current example today would be a famous person having a school named after him or her, such as the Billy Graham School of Missions, Evangelism, and Ministry at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. People assume, and rightly so, that any writing that comes out of that school will match up to Billy Graham’s standards, even though someone else wrote it.

Or it could have all been written by Isaiah, and the theory is wrong.


Jeremiah


Date: Jeremiah’s prophetic ministry began in 626 BC and ended sometime after 586 BC. (Remember, the southern kingdom was defeated in 586 BC, so Jeremiah lived through that.) This is about 150 years after Isaiah.

Place of writing: Jeremiah lived most of his life in Jerusalem.

Jeremiah prophesied against: Judah (the southern kingdom)

The minor prophet Zephaniah immediately preceded his ministry. Habakkuk was a contemporary of Jeremiah and perhaps Obadiah also.

Interesting fact: While Psalms has the most chapters of any book in the Bible, it is not the longest book in the Bible if you count words. The longest book in the Bible (using a word count per book) is Jeremiah.

Message: Jeremiah's message was simple: he warned that the Babylonians would conquer Judah unless they returned to God. The Jews refused, and they were defeated in 586 BC. Jeremiah was living in Jerusalem when it was defeated.

[Personal note: Jeremiah is my favorite person in the Old Testament. One my favorite Bible verses came from him (3:23a): "Surely the idolatrous commotion on the hilltops and mountains is a distraction," which still speaks to our own time period and how people are busy about so much that does not have any spiritual significance, although some of our activity appears to. Plus, he absolutely did not want to be a prophet because he know what happened to many prophets, yet he says (20:9): "But if I say, "I will not mention him or speak anymore in his name, his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot." (NIV) This speaks to me because I still have an acute fear of speaking in front of people, even though I have taught thousands of classes over the last 25 years and people tell me I am good at it.]

God commanded him not to marry and have children because the disaster in 586 BC would kill the next generation.

Unlike Isaiah, which is mainly prophetic messages, Jeremiah includes many personal details:


Ezekiel


Date: Ezekiel received his call to prophesy in 593 BC and lasted until 571 BC.

Place of writing: Ezekiel received his prophesies while living in exile in Babylonia. We do not know where he was born, but he most likely died while living in exile in Babylonia.

Note: Not all Jews from the Southern Kingdom of Judah were taken to Babylonia. Many of the poorer Jews and Jews who were no threat remained in Israel.

Ezekiel prophesied against: Judah (the southern kingdom).

Message: At the time of Ezekiel’s prophecy, he was amongst the Jews from the southern kingdom of Judah that the Babylonians had captured and carried away to Babylonia. Ezekiel prophesied that Judah would be punished for disobedience by remaining in exile but would return in splendor after being punished and returning to God. This eventually happened when the Persians defeated the Babylonians, and Cyrus, the king of Persia, allowed the Jews to return to Judah and rebuild the Temple. The book also includes prophecies describing the punishment or destruction of many other kingdoms.


Lamentations


Date: Sometime after 586 BC, the year that the Babylonians captured Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple

Author: Jeremiah

Lamentations is an eye-witness account of the siege around Jerusalem that the Babylonians used to help defeat the Jews, the eventual capture of Jerusalem, and the destruction of the Temple: “He has laid waste to his dwelling . . . he has destroyed his place of meeting.” (2:6). Jeremiah is in such despair that he wonders if God will forget them forever: “Restore us to yourself, O LORD, that we may return; renew our days as of old, unless you have utterly rejected us and are angry with us beyond measure.” (5:21-22; the last two verses in Lamentations)


Daniel


Date: Anytime from 580s BC to mid-500s BC. Daniel was taken into captivity into Babylonia around the year 586 BC. He was of noble lineage.

Style: Daniel is apocalyptic literature, which means that it foretells the distant future. Revelation in the New Testament is also apocalyptic literature. These two books are similar in that only that last part of each describes distant future events (Rev 6-22 and Daniel 7-12)

Author

Description

Chapters 1-6: History

After the Babylonians defeated the southern kingdom of Judah, they took most of the Jews back to Babylonia. Daniel was taken into captivity into Babylonia. He was of noble lineage. Nebuchadnezzar declared that some of the Israelite noble young men be trained for three years, along with given food from his table, in order to prepare them to serve the king. Daniel and his three friends decided not to eat from the king’s table; instead, they ate vegetables and drink water. They were tested for ten days and were found to be healthier than the others. As a result, the other youths were forced to live on vegetables and water. Daniel began understanding visions and dreams. Nebuchadnezzar started having dreams, and Daniel would interpret them, ch 2. 2:48: “Then the king placed Daniel in a high position and lavished many gifts on him. He made him ruler over the entire province of Babylon and placed him in charge of all its wise men.”

Nebuchadnezzar made an image of gold, 90 ft high, and 9 ft wide. He called all the people to worship the idol. Daniel’s three friends, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, refused to worship. They were thrown in a fiery furnace. While there, a fourth man appeared in the furnace with them. Nebuchadnezzar had the three friends brought out and declared that no one speak against their God.

King Belshazzar (a later king, perhaps son or grandson of Nebuchadnezzar) gave a banquet for 1000 of his nobles. He gave orders to bring in the gold and silver goblets that Nebuchadnezzar his father had taken from the Temple in Jerusalem. They began to drink out of them. Suddenly the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall. The king said, “Whoever reads this writing and tells me what it means will be clothed in purple and have a gold chain placed around his neck, and he will be made the third highest ruler in the kingdom.” Daniel came and interpreted the writing. He did not want the gifts. The writing said that the Babylonian empire would be divided among the Medes and Persians because the king had not acknowledged the only God. That very night Belshazzar, king of the Babylonians, was slain.

The Persians defeated the Babylonians. One of the leaders was named Darius. Some men convinced Darius to pass a law that no one could pray to any other god other than him for 30 days. Daniel continued praying to God. Daniel was thrown into a lion’s den but was not eaten. The men who had initially convinced Darius to kill Daniel were thrown in the lion’s den.


Chapters 7-12: Apocalyptic literature. Since this part is highly symbolic and open to numerous interpretations, we will not cover the different theories. Instead, I have located a great source that provides historical details about these chapters (the following is a quote; if you are taking the OT class, you will not be quizzed on this):

"The text arranges Daniel’s visions chronologically, although some occurred during the events recorded in chs 1-6 (chs 7-8 before ch 5; perhaps ch 9 preceded the events of ch 6):

Chapter 7 Daniel’s vision during the first year of Belshazzar. From the dream of Nebuchadnezzar in ch 2, Daniel understood that four other nations would arise before God set up His kingdom among men, and ch 7 may repeat this theme. It may be that the four beasts represented in succession the Babylonian, Medo-Persian, Greek, and Roman empires. The vision of Daniel 7 provided the prophet with insight concerning the dominion of the fourth beast, this one who was “frightening and dreadful, and incredibly strong, with large iron teeth” (v. 7). This kingdom would morph into an empire ruled by 10 kings. Especially concerning to Daniel was the “little horn” who usurped three of the ten horns of the kingdom. This smaller horn spoke arrogantly, but was nil in comparison with the vision of the Ancient of Days—whose kingdom, despite enduring great persecution, would never be destroyed (vv. 8-28)

Chapter 8 Daniel’s vision during the third year of Belshazzar. The angel Gabriel explained that the vision of the ram and the goat referred to the time of the end; perhaps in view were the days when the kingdoms of Media and Persia (the two-horned ram) were overthrown by the kingdom of Greece (the goat), under the leadership of Alexander the Great. Daniel understood that four nations would rise from the destruction of the goat, and when those nations had reached their demise, one skilled leader would arise to the throne; “He will cause terrible destruction and succeed in whatever he does…He will cause deceit to prosper through his cunning and by his influence, and in his own mind he will make himself great” (vv. 24, 25), Daniel wrote. It may be the case that the little horn of ch 8 refers to one of the more prominent kings of the Greek era, King Antiochus IV Epiphanes of Syria—who persecuted the Jews severely—and yet also prefigures the final antichrist introduced in ch 7

Chapter 9 Daniel’s prayer, and vision, during the first year of Darius. Daniel understood from the prophecy of Jeremiah that the years of exile were about to come to an end (vv. 1-2; cf. Jer 25.11-12; 29.10). He thus turned his attention “to the Lord God to seek Him by prayer and petitions, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes” (v. 3). Daniel rightly assessed what the people had done, and what their God had done—according to the prophecy of Moses (cf. Deut 28.15-68). Yet Daniel also understood God to be gracious and full of covenant mercy—according to the word of Jeremiah—and prayed accordingly: “Lord, in keeping with all your righteous acts, may Your anger and wrath turn away from Your city Jerusalem, your holy mountain…For we are not presenting our petitions before You based on our righteous acts, but based on your abundant compassion” (vv. 16, 18b). While he was praying, the angel Gabriel visited Daniel with the answer to his prayer. He gave the prophet a vision of what would come: the seventy years of exile would parallel seventy weeks (of years) in the future; he announced the rebuilding of Jerusalem, the rise of a messianic figure—who would be “cut off” (v. 26)—and a period of great tribulation and the rise of the antichrist (cf. 7.8ff), when the abomination of desolation would be set up in the temple (cf. 2 Thess 2.4; Rev 13.8, 14-17)

Chapters 10-12 Daniel’s vision in the third year of Cyrus (chs 10-12). Daniel was again in a humble posture over the situation of the exiles (10.1-3), when he saw a vision of a heavenly man before him. This messenger had endured a great conflict with “the prince of the kingdom of Persia” (10.13), and had only recently been freed by the angel Michael. Once Daniel was strengthened, he received the weighty visions, matters that had been presented earlier, but now in greater detail: Three more kings would rule the Persian empire before it was conquered by Greece—and it would soon be uprooted and taken over by others (11.2-4); the king of the South (Egypt) would dominate for a time (11.5-13); the king of the North (Syria) would dominate after him (11.14-19); a king who sends out a tax collector would arise for a brief time (11.20); and a crafty leader would take over and initially defeat the king of the South, desecrating the temple fortress and exalting himself against all gods (11.21-45). Daniel gave a detailed account of this leader—most likely King Antiochus IV Epiphanes, who severely persecuted the Jews (cf. 8.9-12, 23-25)—and how some would endure his reign: “With flattery he will corrupt those who act wickedly toward the covenant, but the people who know their God will be strong and take action. Those who are wise among the people will give understanding to many, yet they will die by sword and flame, and be captured and plundered for a time” (11.32-33). It may be that the final description of this ruler points forward even to the days of the antichrist (vv. 36-45; cf. 7.8ff). Indeed, the end of his reign would be more terrible than even Daniel could imagine, but the heavenly messenger promised him that “all your people who are found written in the book will escape” (12.1). While Daniel fervently inquired as to the temporal details of the vision, he understood them only from a distance, and was told: "Go on your way, Daniel, for the words are secret and sealed until the time of the end" (12.9)

From https://themcc.org/scripturestoryline/daniel-7-12/

© 2020, 2021 Mark Nickens

Questions? Comments?
Contact Dr. Mark Nickens