Biblical Characters

Agabus

Prophet of the Early Church

Dates

c. 40-60 CE

Tribe

Judah

Agabus was a Judean Christian prophet active in the apostolic church. He predicted the severe famine under Claudius (Acts 11:27-28) that prompted the Antioch-to-Jerusalem relief offering, and — in a prophetic sign-act — he took Paul's belt, bound his own hands and feet, and foretold Paul's arrest in Jerusalem (Acts 21:10-11).

Ahijah

Ahijah the Shilonite

Dates

c. 960-900 BCE

Tribe

Levi (Shiloh)

Ahijah the Shilonite prophesied during the reigns of Solomon and Jeroboam I. He tore his new garment into twelve pieces to symbolically give Jeroboam ten tribes (1 Kgs 11:29-39) — inaugurating the divided kingdom. He later pronounced the judgment on Jeroboam's house (1 Kgs 14).

Amos

Prophet of Justice

Dates

c. 760-750 BCE

Tribe

Judah (prophesying to Israel)

Amos of Tekoa — a Judean shepherd and "dresser of sycamore figs" — prophesied against the northern kingdom during the prosperous reign of Jeroboam II. His message of social injustice under cover of ritual piety is the sharpest prophetic critique of covenantal hypocrisy in the Hebrew Bible.

Anna

The Prophetess in the Temple

Dates

c. 90 BCE - 5 CE

Tribe

Asher

Anna the prophetess was an 84-year-old widow who worshipped night and day in the temple with fasting and prayer. She recognized the infant Jesus when Mary and Joseph brought him for dedication and spoke of him "to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem" (Luke 2:36-38).

Daniel

Prophet in the Court

Dates

c. 620-530 BCE

Tribe

Judah

Daniel was taken to Babylon as a youth of noble lineage in the first Judean deportation (605 BCE), trained in Babylonian wisdom, and rose to become an official advisor to Nebuchadnezzar and later Darius the Mede. His book contains court narratives of faithful exile (ch 1-6) and four apocalyptic visions (ch 7-12) shaping Second Temple eschatology.

Elijah

Tishbite Prophet

Dates

c. 900-840 BCE

Tribe

Gilead (Tishbite)

Elijah the Tishbite was the prophetic voice against the Baal-worship established by Ahab and Jezebel in the northern kingdom of Israel (c. 874-853 BCE). His confrontation with the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel, his fire-calling, chariot-ascending departure, and his appearance with Moses at Jesus' transfiguration make him the prophetic archetype alongside Moses.

Elisha

Son of Shaphat; Successor to Elijah

Dates

c. 890-800 BCE

Tribe

Abel-meholah

Elisha son of Shaphat was Elijah's successor, receiving a double portion of his master's spirit (2 Kgs 2:9). His ministry spanned the reigns of four northern kings (Ahab's dynasty through Jehu's), and he performed about twice the number of recorded miracles as Elijah — parallel in form but amplified in extent.

Ezekiel

Prophet of the Exile

Dates

c. 622-570 BCE

Tribe

Levi

Ezekiel son of Buzi, a priest, was among the exiles deported to Babylon in 597 BCE. Called in the fifth year of his exile, he prophesied to the Jewish community by the river Chebar for at least twenty-two years, delivering visions of strange apocalyptic power: the wheels within wheels, the valley of dry bones, the restored temple, and the river flowing from the temple.

Gad

David's Seer

Dates

c. 1020-970 BCE

Tribe

Judah

Gad the seer served David from the outlaw years through the kingship. He delivered God's direction during David's cave period (1 Sam 22:5), announced the judgment after David's census (2 Sam 24; 1 Chr 21), and helped organize the Levitical worship (2 Chr 29:25).

Habakkuk

Prophet Who Questioned God

Dates

c. 615-605 BCE

Tribe

Judah

Habakkuk is the only prophet whose book is a dialogue between himself and YHWH — a theodicy wrestling with the problem of how God can use the wicked Babylonians to judge the less-wicked Judeans. The answer: "the righteous shall live by his faith" (Hab 2:4), cited three times in the New Testament.

Haggai

Prophet of the Second Temple

Dates

c. 520 BCE

Tribe

Judah

Haggai prophesied during the second year of Darius the Great (520 BCE), urging the returned Babylonian exiles to resume construction on the second temple which had stalled for sixteen years. His four brief oracles precipitated completion of the temple in 516 BCE.

Hosea

Prophet of Covenant Love

Dates

c. 785-725 BCE

Tribe

Israel (north)

Hosea prophesied during the final decades of the northern kingdom before its fall to Assyria in 722 BCE. His prophetic sign was his own marriage to Gomer, an unfaithful wife whom he bought back from slavery — a dramatization of YHWH's covenant love for unfaithful Israel.

Huldah

The Prophetess of Josiah's Day

Dates

c. 640-620 BCE

Tribe

Judah

Huldah the prophetess — whose husband Shallum was keeper of the wardrobe — authenticated the rediscovered book of the Law when Josiah's workers found it in the temple (2 Kings 22; 2 Chronicles 34). Her prophetic judgment triggered Josiah's great reform.

Isaiah

Prophet

Dates

c. 760-680 BCE

Tribe

Judah

Isaiah of Jerusalem prophesied through the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah of Judah (c. 740-680 BCE). Called in a throne-room vision in the year King Uzziah died (Isa 6), he delivered the longest prophetic book in the Hebrew Bible, containing the most extensive and richest messianic prophecies — the Immanuel oracle, the Prince of Peace oracle, the Suffering Servant, the new heavens and new earth.

Jeremiah

The Weeping Prophet

Dates

c. 645-580 BCE

Tribe

Levi (Anathoth)

Jeremiah, son of the priest Hilkiah of Anathoth, prophesied through the final forty years of Judah's existence (c. 627-586 BCE) and continued into the Babylonian exile. Called "the weeping prophet" for the intense emotional anguish of his book and the book of Lamentations, he is one of the most personally transparent figures in prophetic literature.

Joel

Prophet of the Day of the Lord

Dates

date debated — likely c. 835 or 400 BCE

Tribe

Judah

Joel son of Pethuel prophesied after a devastating locust plague in Judah, interpreting it as a prefiguring of the greater "day of the LORD." His prophecy of poured-out Spirit (Joel 2:28-32) is cited by Peter at Pentecost (Acts 2:16-21) as the inaugural text of the church's age.

John the Baptist

The Forerunner

Dates

c. 6 BCE - 30 CE

Tribe

Levi (priestly family)

John the Baptist, son of the priest Zechariah and Elizabeth, was the prophetic forerunner of Christ — the "Elijah to come" whose wilderness baptism announced the kingdom at hand. Jesus said of him: "Among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist" (Matt 11:11).

Jonah

The Reluctant Prophet

Dates

c. 785-760 BCE

Tribe

Israel (Gath-hepher)

Jonah son of Amittai of Gath-hepher (mentioned in 2 Kgs 14:25) is the prophet whose rebellion became his sign. Commissioned to preach to Assyria's capital Nineveh, he fled to Tarshish, was swallowed by a great fish, and three days later was vomited onto dry land to fulfill his mission. Jesus named him as a sign of his own death and resurrection.

Malachi

The Last Prophet

Dates

c. 460-430 BCE

Tribe

Judah

Malachi — "my messenger" — is the traditional last of the writing prophets of the Hebrew Bible, prophesying perhaps a century after Haggai and Zechariah, around the time of Ezra and Nehemiah. His book closes the Hebrew Bible with the promise of Elijah's return before the great Day of the LORD.

Micah

Prophet of Peace and Judgment

Dates

c. 750-700 BCE

Tribe

Judah

Micah of Moresheth was contemporary with Isaiah, prophesying during Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah's reigns. His oracle of the ruler born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2) is the foundational messianic prophecy cited at the birth of Christ (Matt 2:6).

Miriam

Prophetess

Prophetess and sister of Moses and Aaron who led the women's song at the sea; struck with leprosy for challenging Moses' unique authority and restored at his intercession; died at Kadesh.

Moses

Prophet, Lawgiver, Deliverer

Dates

c. 1526-1406 BCE

Tribe

Levi

Moses is the central human figure of the Old Testament — the prophet who led Israel out of Egyptian slavery, mediated the covenant at Sinai, shepherded the people through forty years of wilderness wandering, and received the Torah. Deuteronomy 34:10 declares: "there has not arisen a prophet since in Israel like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face."

Nahum

Prophet of Nineveh's Fall

Dates

c. 663-612 BCE

Tribe

Judah

Nahum of Elkosh prophesied the fall of Nineveh, the Assyrian capital — fulfilled in 612 BCE when the Medes, Babylonians, and Scythians besieged and destroyed the city. His three-chapter book is sustained poetic celebration of divine justice against imperial oppression.

Nathan

Court Prophet under David

Dates

c. 1010-960 BCE

Tribe

Judah

Nathan was David's court prophet — a trusted advisor who both mediated the foundational Davidic covenant (2 Sam 7) and confronted David's gravest sin with the parable of the ewe lamb (2 Sam 12). His ministry established the prophetic office as the covenantal conscience of the monarchy.

Obadiah

Prophet Against Edom

Dates

c. 586-580 BCE

Tribe

Judah

Obadiah's one-chapter prophecy — the shortest book in the Hebrew Bible — is an oracle of judgment against Edom for its complicity in Jerusalem's destruction in 586 BCE. The theological point is larger: "the day of the LORD is near upon all the nations."

Obadiah (the prophet)

Prophet

Author of the OT's shortest book, the vision against Edom; otherwise unidentified — a dozen OT men share the name and the text gives no lineage. Distinct from Ahab's steward (1 Kings 18).

Samuel

Prophet, Judge, Priest

Dates

c. 1100-1010 BCE

Tribe

Ephraim

Samuel is the transitional figure between the period of the judges and the monarchy. Born of the previously barren Hannah and dedicated from birth to the sanctuary at Shiloh, he served as Israel's last judge, first major prophet, and the anointer of Israel's first two kings, Saul and David.

Silas

Prophet

A leading man among the brethren, sent from Jerusalem to carry the Council's letter to Antioch, and then Paul's companion on the second journey — singing hymns at midnight in the Philippian jail when the earthquake came.

Zechariah

Prophet of Apocalyptic Restoration

Dates

c. 520-480 BCE

Tribe

Judah (priestly family)

Zechariah son of Iddo, a priest of the returned community, prophesied contemporary with Haggai to encourage the temple reconstruction. His book contains eight night visions, two apocalyptic oracles, and some of the OT's most specific messianic prophecies.

Zechariah (the prophet)

Prophet

Son of Berechiah, son of Iddo (Zech 1:1), Haggai's younger contemporary; the eight night visions and the Twelve's densest messianic material — the Branch, the pierced one, the king on the colt.

Zephaniah

Prophet of the Day of the Lord

Dates

c. 640-609 BCE

Tribe

Judah

Zephaniah prophesied early in the reign of Josiah (c. 640-625 BCE), before or during the great Josianic reform. His book is the Hebrew Bible's most concentrated "Day of the LORD" prophecy — a sweeping announcement of universal judgment followed by a remnant promise of restoration.