The Minor Prophets

Hosea preaches to the northern kingdom in its last decades, while Jeroboam II reigns in Israel and Uzziah to Hezekiah reign in Judah. God tells him to marry Gomer, a woman who will be unfaithful, and the names of her three children announce judgment on Israel. Before chapter 1 ends, God promises that those called not his people will be called sons of the living God. In chapter 3 Hosea buys Gomer back, a picture of Israel living many days without a king.

From chapter 4 the book brings the charge. Israel has no faithfulness and no knowledge of God, its priests lead it astray, and its kings run to Assyria and Egypt for help. In chapter 11 God remembers calling his son out of Egypt, and his heart will not give Israel up. Chapter 14 calls Israel to return and promises healing.

Joel speaks to Judah and Jerusalem after a plague of locusts has stripped the land and a drought has followed it. The vines and fig trees are bare, the cattle have no pasture, and the priests have no grain or wine to offer in the temple. Joel calls the old men, the farmers and the priests to mourn, and he says the disaster points to the day of the LORD.

In chapter 2 the locusts become an army marching on Zion, and Joel calls the whole people to a fast and to return to God with all their heart. God answers with pity, promises to repay them for the years eaten by locusts, and promises to pour out his Spirit on all people. Chapter 3 gathers the nations for judgment in the Valley of Jehoshaphat and ends with the LORD dwelling in Zion.

Amos is a herdsman from Tekoa in Judah, and God sends him north to Israel in the prosperous reign of Jeroboam II, two years before an earthquake. He opens with judgments on the nations around Israel, Damascus, Gaza, Tyre, Edom, Ammon and Moab, then on Judah, and at last on Israel itself, which sells the righteous for silver and crushes the poor.

Chapters 3 to 6 press the charge. Israel's worship at Bethel and Gilgal is busy, and God calls instead for justice to roll on like a river. Chapters 7 to 9 give five visions, and in chapter 7 Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, orders Amos home to Judah. The book ends with Israel sifted among the nations and a promise that God will raise up the fallen tent of David.

Obadiah is one chapter of twenty-one verses, the shortest book in the Old Testament, and all of it is spoken against Edom, the nation descended from Esau. Edom lives high in the rocky hills and believes that no one can bring it down, and God answers that he will bring it down even from among the stars. Its allies will betray it, and its wise men and warriors will be cut off.

The charge is what Edom did on the day Jerusalem fell. It stood aside while strangers carried off the city's wealth, gloated over Judah's ruin, looted the city and waited at the crossroads to hand over those who fled. In verse 15 the book turns to all the nations, because the day of the LORD is near. It ends with deliverance on Mount Zion and the kingdom belonging to the LORD.

God sends Jonah to preach against Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, and Jonah boards a ship at Joppa bound for Tarshish in the opposite direction. God sends a great storm, the sailors cast lots, and the lot falls on Jonah, who tells them to throw him into the sea. The sea grows calm, and a great fish swallows him and holds him for three days and three nights. Chapter 2 is the prayer he prays inside the fish.

In chapter 3 the word of the LORD comes to Jonah a second time, and he goes. He walks into the city and announces that in forty days Nineveh will be overturned. The people believe God, the king calls a fast, and God relents. In chapter 4 Jonah is angry at God's mercy, and God teaches him with a plant, a worm and a hot east wind. The book ends with God's question about his pity for the great city.

Micah comes from the village of Moresheth in Judah and preaches in the reigns of Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, while Isaiah was also prophesying. His word concerns both capitals, Samaria and Jerusalem. In chapter 1 God comes down in judgment, Samaria becomes a heap of ruins, and the wound reaches the gate of Jerusalem. Chapters 2 and 3 accuse the men who seize fields and houses, the rulers who devour the people and the prophets who preach for pay, and Micah warns that Zion will be plowed like a field.

Chapters 4 and 5 turn to hope. The mountain of the LORD's house will stand above the hills, and a ruler will come from Bethlehem. Chapter 6 asks what the LORD requires, and chapter 7 ends with a God who pardons sin and casts it into the depths of the sea.

Nahum of Elkosh announces the fall of Nineveh, the Assyrian capital, about a century after Jonah preached there. Assyria had destroyed the northern kingdom and laid waste to Judah, and Nahum's word comes to Judah as comfort. Chapter 1 opens with a hymn to God, who is slow to anger and great in power and will not leave the guilty unpunished. The LORD is good, a stronghold in the day of distress, and a messenger comes over the mountains with good news for Judah.

Chapter 2 describes the siege of Nineveh as it happens, with red shields and racing chariots, until the river gates are thrown open, the palace falls and the city is plundered. Chapter 3 pronounces woe on the city of blood and reminds Nineveh that Thebes in Egypt also fell. The book ends with everyone who hears the news applauding its downfall.

Habakkuk opens with a complaint to God. He asks how long violence and injustice will go on in Judah while God seems not to hear. God answers that he is raising up the Chaldeans of Babylon, a fierce and swift nation, to punish Judah. That answer raises a harder question, and Habakkuk asks how a holy God can use a nation more wicked than the one it punishes.

In chapter 2 Habakkuk stands at his watchpost and waits. God tells him to write the vision plainly, because it will surely come, and declares that the righteous will live by faith. Five woes follow against the proud plunderer. Chapter 3 is a prayer set to music, and it ends with the prophet rejoicing in God even if the fig tree does not blossom and the fields yield no food.

Zephaniah traces his family back four generations to King Hezekiah, and he prophesies in the reign of Josiah. Chapter 1 announces that God will sweep away everything from the face of the earth, and then narrows to Judah, where people worship Baal and the stars and say that the LORD will do nothing. The great day of the LORD is near, a day of wrath, trouble and distress.

Chapter 2 calls the humble of the land to seek the LORD, righteousness and humility, so that they may be sheltered on that day. Then judgment moves around the compass, to Philistia, to Moab and Ammon, to Cush, and to Assyria and its capital Nineveh. Chapter 3 turns back to Jerusalem, a city that will not listen, and then promises a humble remnant who trust in the LORD. The book ends with God rejoicing over his people with singing.

Haggai speaks in the second year of King Darius of Persia, to Zerubbabel the governor, to Joshua the high priest and to the people who have come back from Babylon. The temple's foundation was laid years before, and the work has stopped. The people say it is not yet time to build the LORD's house, while they live in paneled houses of their own. Haggai tells them to consider their ways, because they sow much and harvest little, and within a month the work begins again.

Chapter 2 gives three more dated messages. The old men who remember Solomon's temple weep at the new one, and God promises to shake the nations and fill this house with glory. A question to the priests about what is clean shows that the people's sin has made their offerings unclean. The last message promises Zerubbabel that God will make him like a signet ring.

Zechariah begins to prophesy in the same year as Haggai, to the same people rebuilding the temple, and he opens with a call to return to the LORD. In chapters 1 to 6 he sees eight visions in the night, among them horsemen among myrtle trees, a man measuring Jerusalem, Joshua the high priest given clean garments, a golden lampstand fed by two olive trees and four chariots. Chapter 6 ends with a crown set on Joshua's head and a promise of the man called the Branch.

Chapters 7 and 8 answer a question about fasting and promise a Jerusalem full of old people and of children at play. Chapters 9 to 14 look further ahead, to a king coming on a donkey, a shepherd valued at thirty pieces of silver, the one they have pierced, and the day the LORD stands on the Mount of Olives and becomes king over all the earth.

Malachi speaks to Judah after the temple has been rebuilt, when the promises seem slow and worship has grown careless. The book is a series of disputes. God makes a statement, the people answer with a question, and God replies. He begins by telling them he has loved them, and points to the ruin of Edom. Then he charges the priests who offer blind, lame and sick animals on his altar and have failed in the covenant with Levi.

Chapter 2 rebukes the men who have broken faith with the wives of their youth. Chapter 3 promises a messenger who will prepare the way before the Lord comes to his temple, and calls the people to bring the whole tithe. Chapter 4 promises that the sun of righteousness will rise for those who fear God's name, and the book ends with the promise to send Elijah before the day of the LORD.