Minor Prophets

The minor prophets need little introduction, as they are by far the most frequently read portion of scripture. We turn to them when we’re feeling confused, or are looking for wisdom. They’re favourites for being preached from the pulpit. I’m sure that between us we could even name most of them.

In all seriousness, these 12 relatively short books are by far the least read and studied portions of scripture, particularly by Christians. That is to say that Jews typically study them far more, yet gain far less, than we do.

How to read them?

Given that so many of us go into the minor prophets fairly blind, how should we read them?

• Contextual Analysis
• When was this written?
• Who wrote this?
• To whom was this written?
• What was the historical context of the people about whom this was written?
• Literary Style
  • Is this historical narrative, poetry, prophetic, epistle, eschatological (end times)?
  • Realising that it could be more than one (e.g. real historical narrative about the setting, with prophetic with implications for there and then, but with future eschatological meaning)
• Careful not to impose our current thinking on an ancient culture
• Allow Scripture to interpret Scripture
  • Clear passages illuminate obscure passages
  • Don’t read in isolation
• Authorial Intent
  • What did the author mean
  • In the case of prophesy, what was the promise, and the out come, and what was the principle God was applying
  • And then carefully, does the prophesy have a future meaning

Historical Dating

With the exception of Joel and Obadiah, dating is relatively trivial. We are either outright told, such as “in the fourth year of this king’s reign”, or it can be gathered easily from the context of what is written.

This gives us three different groups (four if you put Joel and Obadiah in their own group).

1. Those warning of the fall of Israel - 721 BC
   1. Hosea, Amos, Jonah, Micah
2. Those warning of the fall of Judea - 587 BC
   1. Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah
3. Those dealing with the waves of returns of exiles - 538-457 BC
   1. Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi

Note this means that the books are mostly in their groups (Joel and Obadiah notwithstanding).

It’s also important to note that the major prophets were also over this period, so there is a lot of timeline overlap and contemporary prophets, especially around these three key dates.

The role of the prophets

The book of Kings gives us the historical context for the prophets, but what did the prophets actually do?

• They spoke on God’s behalf
• They spoke out for God’s covenant
• They called out idolatry and injustice
• Challenged Israel to repent and turn back to God

The Story Thus Far…

I don’t think I could sum it up better than Paul, so let’s read Acts 13:16-23 (or Stephen’s speech before being martyred, Acts 7:2-53), I was tempted to go with Stephen’s speech, but we’ve got more reading coming up a bit later, so Paul’s shorter version will do.
So we are between David as king and Jesus coming. We’ll get more backstory soon.