God’s endless compassion could reach even the Assyrians, whose cruelty and military power had made them the terror of the ancient world. Jonah’s prophetic message is directed not at Israel, but at the sin-choked foreign city of Ninevah-a reminder that God’s love and forgiveness was not limited to one nation or ethnic group. The most famous of the Minor Prophets, Jonah was famously swallowed by a whale while attempting to flee God’s call. Edom’s actions would be revisited upon them: their land and wealth would be lost just as Judah’s had been. Obadiah’s message is quite specific to his time, describing the judgment that awaited the nation of Edom, which had done nothing to help Judah in her hour of need. Selling even the sweepings with the wheat. Amos’ criticisms still strike home two thousand years later:Īnd do away with the poor of the land, saying, Injustice, in the form of slavery, greed, and mistreatment of the poor, was commonplace. AmosĪmos was a simple shepherd called to deliver a message nobody wanted to hear: Israel had grown complacent, spiritually lazy, and hypocritical. However, Joel is best known for predicting the “pouring out” of the Holy Spirit which would occur hundreds of years later at Pentecost, as described in Acts 2. He described God’s coming judgment as an “invasion of locusts”-a clear and terrifying image for Iron Age Israelite society. Joel’s recorded prophecies are short but direct. Hosea had the dubious honor of having his life used as a living moral object lesson for Israel-instructed by God to marry an unfaithful wife, he spoke movingly and earnestly about God’s sorrow at Israel’s “adulterous affairs” with false gods and His willingness to forgive. Let’s take a brief look at each of the Minor Prophets in turn. Together, their indictments of Israel’s drift away from God set the stage for the New Covenant that will be ushered in with the person of Jesus Christ. They’re described as “minor” not because they’re less important than the books of the Major Prophets, but because they’re shorter in length (most of them can easily be read in a single sitting). In order of their appearance in the Bible, they’re Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. There are twelve Minor Prophets, each of whom is given a separate book in Protestant and Catholic Bibles. In case you missed them, here are the previous installments of our Tour of the Bible: Today, we’ll take a look at the so-called Minor Prophets-and we’ll conclude our tour of the Old Testament while we’re at it. Last month we revived our Tour of the Bible series to examine the Major Prophets.
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