PREAMBLE TO THE PROPHETS
We are now looking at the major and minor prophets. Minor prophets are not minor at all in importance but simply because of the length of the book they wrote. At one time, ten minor prophets fitted onto one scroll. The Septuagint translation separated them for ease of understanding, and the Western Bible grouped them under the heading Minor Prophets without any specific order.
How shall we group the Prophets? First is a group of ‘Former Prophets’. These are found in the four books, Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings. We tend to treat these as history but the Hebrew treat them as prophetic because the law books had taught the people what was required them and the sanctions that would be applied if they were not kept. These books show the actual choices made by the people and how God kept his word by applying sanctions when they did not. We might say the books tell us God is serious about his laws and the people of Israel demonstrate the consequences of not obeying them.
Taking all major and minor prophets together, they can be grouped into three groups:
Pre-exile prophets, those that foretold the coming invasion of Assyria and then Babylon: To warn Israel of her coming destruction; To foretell the punishment time and restoration time for Judah; To warn surrounding countries when they had overstepped the mark and judgement day was approaching them.
Exiled prophets went into exile with Israel and Judah to: instruct them how to behave while in exile; To proclaim and prepare for the restoration of Jerusalem; To show how these events fit into future world events.
Post Exiled Prophets came out of Babylon with the people and foretold: Of the messiah and his kingdom; To set and apply the standards expected by God in preparation for that kingdom; To detail the concluding events leading up to Messiah’s coming; To remind Judah they were the means of blessing all people groups of the world.
The three pre-exile prophets Micah81, Nahum and Habakkuk warned the ten tribes of the North of impending judgement. Zooming in further shows seven prophets primarily sent to Judah. Judah was fearfully concerned with a threat from Assyria who had carried off their ten brother tribes of the North and scattered them among the nations. Worse, Assyria had moved Cuth-ites, Ava-ites, Hamath-ites, and Seph-arvaim-ites to live in the promised land of Canaan. Now Assyria had one eye on Jerusalem in the South. All this happened one-hundred-and-twenty-years before Joel, Amos and Micah could arrive on the scene to reassure Judah that it was not the Assyrians that were about to discipline Judah but the little rising nation called Babylon.
The exile also produced a group of prophets known as Apocalyptic prophets. Daniel and Ezekiel for example spoke with amazing and accurate detail, not only about events that would occur several-hundreds-years later but also about events leading up to the close of history itself. The big problem for us is they described them in very strange pictures that only become clear as the events get closer. Three Post exile prophets close the first prophetic age by encouraging those that returned to Jerusalem to be strong and build as they had envisaged. But they also bring down the curtain for four-hundred-years with the promise that after that interval the curtain would go up on the second act with a prophet crying in the wilderness preparing the way for Messiah.
What happened in that four-hundred-years can be seen in history, mainly outside scripture, as people like “freedom fighters” Maccabee brothers and others tried to take things into their own hands. Daniel had told them God had planned for the Greeks and Romans to rise before Messiah came, so it was not surprising when they were all defeated until the timing of God brought John-the-Baptist onto stage. He announces the final act just as prophesied, the act which we call, “The years of Grace” and which the Scripture calls, “The time of the Gentiles”, which must be played before act-three.
81Micah and Micaiah are alternative spellings depending on the version