The Minor Prophets
A reminder about prophets
- God usually sent prophets to warn people (1) that they were disobeying God, (2) that God would punish them if they didn’t turn back, and (3) God would restore them once they repented and turned back to God.
- Sometimes he did send a prophet to give good news. For example, he sent Ezekiel to tell the Jews in captivity in Babylonia that God would restore them to their old kingdom.
- God usually sent prophets to the Jews.
- Sometimes he did send a prophet to non-Jews, and you will see examples below, such as Jonah.
Reminder: All these prophets lived after the time of Solomon.
Note: All dates are approximate.
Timeline for Major and Minor Prophets
Repeated from the Major Prophets section
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
Note: Other prophets certainly lived during this time. But only the 15 prophets above wrote books (or their followers recorded their prophecies).
Hosea
14 chapters
Date: 750 BC
Biography
- He was from Israel.
He wrote against Israel
Notes
- He is the only one of the writing prophets to come from the northern kingdom (Israel).
- Hosea lived in the tragic final days of Israel: 6 kings in 25 years: 4 were murdered and 1 captured in battle.
- God tells him to marry a prostitute, named Gomer, which signifies that Israel has chased after other gods.
- Both Hosea and God were faithful, but both Hosea’s wife and Israel were unfaithful.
- Just as Hosea’s wife chases after another man, yet Hosea still loves her, Israel chases after other gods, but Yahweh still loves them.
- Hosea and Gomer had three children. Their names represent God's attitude to the Jews. The order and meaning of the names is important, plus what God told them after the last son was born (from NIV):
- 1:4, 5: "Then the Lord said to Hosea, “Call him Jezreel, because I will soon punish the house of Jehu for the massacre at Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of Israel. In that day I will break Israel’s bow in the Valley of Jezreel.”
- This name referred to one action, a massacre at Jezreel by the northern kingdom of Israel.
- 1:6, 7a: "Gomer conceived again and gave birth to a daughter. Then the Lord said to Hosea, “Call her Lo-Ruhamah (which means “not loved”), for I will no longer show love to Israel, that I should at all forgive them. Yet I will show love to Judah; and I will save them."
- This name represents an intensity of punishment: God will not longer love Israe but will continue to love Judah.
- 1:8, 9: "After she had weaned Lo-Ruhamah, Gomer had another son. 9 Then the Lord said, “Call him Lo-Ammi (which means “not my people”), for you are not my people, and I am not your God."
- With this name, God tells the Jews that their disobedience has driven him away from both kingdoms, Israel and Judah. He wants to be their God, but they continue to reject him.
- 1:10: "Yet the Israelites will be like the sand on the seashore, which cannot be measured or counted. In the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ they will be called ‘children of the living God.’"
- Yet God continues to show that he loves his people even then they continue to reject him. Even though the Jews have turned their back on the Covenant and the Law, God is faithful and continues to love them.
Theme: The kingdom would be defeated by the Assyrians unless the Jews repent from following other gods. As we know, the Jews did not repent, and the Assyrians defeated them in 732 BC.
- 8:2-4: "Israel cries out to me, ‘Our God, we acknowledge you!’ But Israel has rejected what is good; an enemy will pursue him. They set up kings without my consent; they choose princes without my approval. With their silver and gold they make idols for themselves to their own destruction."
Joel
3 chapters
Date: The book gives no indication of when it was written. (No kings or other events are mentioned.)
Biography
- He was probably from Judah since it mentions “Zion.”
He wrote probably against Judah
Note
- A swarm of locust caused a severe drought.
Theme: Joel states this is because of punishment and calls on people to repent.
Amos
9 chapters
Date: 760-750 BC
Biography
- He was from Judah.
- 7:14, 15: "Amos answered Amaziah (a priest), 'I was neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, but I was a shepherd, and I also took care of sycamore-fig trees. But the Lord took me from tending the flock and said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.'"
- He was from Tekoa, a small village close to Jerusalem, but sent to prophesy to Israel and other nations
Theme: Social justice; against those who are wealthy and have turned their eyes from the poor, both from Israel and other nations.
Obadiah
1 chapter
Date: The book gives no indication of when it was written. (No kings or other events are mentioned.) It does mention that Edom was glad over the fall of Judah to the Babylonians and even looted the Jews belongs after the Babylonians had defeated them, and God would punich them for this.
He was from: Unknown
He wrote against the kingdom of Edom; he was one of the prophets who did not write against Jews.
Theme: Edom did not aid but instead looted Judah. God would punish them.
Jonah
4 chapters
Date: late 775 BC
He was from Israel
He wrote against Nineveh (in Assyria at that time); he was one of the prophets who did not write against Jews.
Notes
- Even though God called him to preach against Nineveh, Jonah fled to the west.
- A storm almost overcame a boat he was in.
- The sailors threw him overboard and the ship was saved.
- Jonah was swallowed by a large fish and remained inside for three days.
- He was vomited out on the beach and then went to Nineveh to preach.
- The people repented.
- Jonah was not happy and waited for God to destroy him.
- God sent a vine to provide shade then a worm to kill the vine.
- Jonah was angry, and God rebuked him for being angry at the vine but not being happy over the people of Nineveh repenting.
Theme: Ninevah was warned that they needed to follow God, and they did after Jonah preached to them.
Micah
7 chapters
Date: 740 BC (before the destruction of Israel because he warns of its destruction)
Biography
- He was from Moresheth, a village southwest of Jerusalem.
He wrote against Israel and Judah
Theme: Due to their disobedience, Israel and Judah would fall. God would restore His people.
Popular verse: 6:8: "He has showed you what is good. And what does the LORD require? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God."
Nahum
3 chapters
Date: 625 BC
He was from: Unknown
He wrote against Nineveh, capital of Assyria (Jonah also prophesied against Ninevah, although about 150 years earlier)
Note
- From the book of Jonah, we know that the citizens of Ninevah repented. But by this time, Assyria had fallen into their old ways and had defeated Israel.
Theme: Assyria would be defeated.
Habakkuk
3 chapters
Date: probably in the 600s BC
We do not know anything about him, although a good quess is that he was from Judah.
He wrote against Judah
Note
- This letter is similar to Job in that it is a conversation between Habakkuk and God.
- Part of the conversation:
- 1:2a & 4: Habakkuk: "How long, O LORD, must I call for help? but you do not listen? . . . Therefore the law is paralyzed and justince never prevails. The wicked [Jews] hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted."
- 1:5 & 6a: God: “Look at the nations and watch—and be utterly amazed. For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told. I am raising up the Babylonians, that ruthless and impetuous people."
- God states that he will send the Babylonians to defeat and punish the southern kingdom (which happened in 586 BC).
Theme: Babylon will defeat Judah and then Babylon will be punished.
Zephaniah
3 chapters
Date: 625 BC
Biography
- He was from Judah
- His great-great grandfather was Hezekiah, who was a faithful king of Judah.
- This most likely meant that he was in high social standing.
- “I will sweep away everything from the face of the earth, declares the Lord. “I will sweep away both man and beast; I will sweep away the birds in the sky and the fish in the sea—and the idols that cause the wicked to stumble. When I destroy all mankind on the face of the earth,” declares the Lord, “I will stretch out my hand against Judah and against all who live in Jerusalem. I will destroy every remnant of Baal worship in this place, the very names of the idolatrous priests—those who bow down on the roofs to worship the starry host, those who bow down and swear by the Lord and who also swear by Molek,those who turn back from following the Lord and neither seek the Lord nor inquire of him.”
- Seek the Lord, all you humble of the land, you who do what he commands. Seek righteousness, seek humility; perhaps you will be sheltered on the day of the Lord’s anger.
- 3:15-17: "The Lord has taken away your punishment, he has turned back your enemy. The Lord, the King of Israel, is with you; never again will you fear any harm. On that day they will say to Jerusalem, “Do not fear, Zion; do not let your hands hang limp. The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.”
- 1:1-2: "This is what the Lord Almighty says: 'These people say, 'The time has not yet come to rebuild the Lord’s house.'' Then the word of the Lord came through the prophet Haggai: “Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while this house remains a ruin?”
- Here we see that the Jews were not fully interested in rebuilding the Temple. They had built homes (although not the wall around Jerusalem) and had settled into their lives. This was odd, since they were not able to sacrifice without the Temple. It would seem that they had been glad of God bringing them back to their homeland but had become complacent once they returned and rebuit their homes. God reminds them not to forget their focus on the Temple. Note: he was not angry because they rebuilt their homes, but, instead, was angery that they focused on their "paneled houses"--meaning build impressive homes with luxuries--instead of the Temple.
- Contains several visions in chapters 1-6.
- 1:11-14: "My name will be great among the nations, from where the sun rises to where it sets. In every place incense and pure offerings will be brought to me, because my name will be great among the nations,” says the Lord Almighty. But you profane it by saying, ‘The Lord’s table is defiled,’ and, ‘Its food is contemptible.’ 13 And you say, ‘What a burden!’ and you sniff at it contemptuously,” says the Lord Almighty. When you bring injured, lame or diseased animals and offer them as sacrifices, should I accept them from your hands?” says the Lord. 14 “Cursed is the cheat who has an acceptable male in his flock and vows to give it, but then sacrifices a blemished animal to the Lord. For I am a great king,” says the Lord Almighty, “and my name is to be feared among the nations."
- 4:5-6 (the last two verses in Malachi and in the Old Testament): “See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents; or else I will come and strike the land with total destruction.”
- How do we know that "Elijah" was a spiritual reference to John the Baptist? From Matthew 11:14: [Jesus is speaking] "If you are willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who was to come."
He wrote against Judah and other nations. God's anger in Zephaniah is so great that he would decimate not only the disobedient but the land on which they lived:
Nevertheless, he will save those who are faithful:
After the disobedient Jews have been punished and have repented, God will rebuild them:
Theme: God would destroy Judah and the other nations and rebuild Judah.
Haggai
2 chapters
Date: 525 BC
He was from Judah
He wrote against Judah
Theme: The Jews were back in Judah but had stopped working on the Temple. God tells them to continue working on the Temple.
Zechariah
14 chapters
Date: 525 BC
He was from Judah
He wrote against Judah and other nations
Note
Theme: The Jews were back in Judah, but they needed to return to God and rebuild the Temple. Other nations would be punished, but life would get better for the Jews in Judah.
Malachi
4 chapters
Date: 450 BC
He wrote against Judah
Theme: The Temple had been rebuilt, but prosperity had not come. People had become complacent toward God. This should change or they would be punished.
Finally, Malachi looks forward to John the Baptist and Jesus:
© 2020, 2021 Mark Nickens