The Minor Prophets
The Minor Prophets
These twelve were classed by the Jews as one book. The period which they cover, within which the major prophets also fall, extends from about 870-440 b.c. For the sake of better understanding their teaching, they may be grouped round the four greater prophets.
(1) Isaiah is illustrated by Hosea, Amos, and Micah,
(2) Jeremiah is illustrated by Obadiah, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah.
(3) Ezekiel is illustrated by Joel, Jonah, Nahum.
(4) Daniel is illustrated by Haggai, Zephaniah, Malachi. The connection of time with the first group is obvious. Obadiah is connected with Jeremiah by his prophecies against Edom. Habakkuk and Zephaniah are closely connected with the same prophet. The last three of the twelve, with Daniel, lived to see the return after the Captivity. Joel, Jonah, and Nahum contain prophecies concerning the Gentiles which may be taken as linking them with Ezekiel, who prophesied in a Gentile land during the Captivity.[*] Hosea, by Chas. H. Waller, D.D.
“The prophecies contained in these twelve books present one complete view. The kingdom of David is seen as rent asunder, and its riven portions end in apparent ruin. But a believing remnant always survives the wreck, and a restoration will come when David’s Son will rebuild the ruined nation and re-establish the throne. There is a constant look forward, past Macedonian conquests and Maccabean successes, the apostasy of the Jews and the destruction of Jerusalem, beyond even the dispersion of the elect nation, to the final conversion and ultimate restoration ofGod’s chosen people. The Old Testament outline of Messiah and His Kingdom, which at earlier periods of prophecy was like a ‘drawing without color,’ now reaches completeness, and every prophetic book adds at least another touch or tint to the grand picture…. Once let the reader of prophecy get clear conceptions of this fact, that Christ is its personal center and Israel its national center, and that round about these centers all else clusters, and that in them all else converges, and, ‘whether he walks or runs, he will see all things clearly,’ for the vision is written in large letters as upon tablets by the wayside.”[*] The Keywords of the Bible. A.T. Pierson, D.D. 193
Hosea