Hebrew Bible

Joel is a relatively short book, and little is known about the author or his context. Although his name is given in the opening attribution, the internal evidence of the text is insufficient to fix it to any known figure. Even assigning it to a particular period of history is challenging, and dates from the ninth century to the second century BCE have been suggested. The mainstream opinion usually places it as a post-exilic work during the Persian period. Much of the text is structured as a lament, and portions of it have found usage as a liturgical text in services of lamentation. It urges G-d’s people to repent in response to the devastation that faces them. Despite the difficult circumstances described in the text and the intimation that darker days of G-d’s judgment will come, there are also forward-looking prophecies that foretell a coming age of redemption and restoration.

Amos was a prophet in the eighth century BCE, an early contemporary of Isaiah and Hosea. Although he was from the territory of Judah, his prophetic preaching is largely directed against the northern kingdom of Israel. At the time of his ministry, still decades before the Assyrian invasion, the divided monarchy of the Israelite states was enjoying a period of strength and prosperity. In contrast to these good political fortunes, Amos bears a message of warning and reproach, castigating the wealthy elites of Israel’s capital, Samaria, for their disregard of G-d’s law and their lack of care for the poor. Many of Amos’s prophecies appear to point to the coming devastation of the Assyrian invasion later in the century. Israel’s practices have become so abhorrent in G-d’s sight that he rejects their acts of worship directed toward him. As with many of the prophets, however, Amos closes with an optimistic vision of a future age of restoration.

Obadiah is the shortest book of the Hebrew Bible. It is composed of prophetic denunciations of Edom (a neighboring state to the east of Judah) and thus falls into a sub-genre called oracles against the nations, examples of which also occur in the works of other prophets. Because the text references the actions of Edom in rejoicing over Jerusalem’s fall, it likely comes from a sixth-century context, after the Babylonian destruction of the city in 586 BCE. Obadiah follows common prophetic themes by predicting a “day of the L-rd” against all nations but a coming restoration for the covenant-people of G-d.

The speaker predicts the coming destruction of Edom, implying that the nation proudly believes itself invulnerable because it is built high in the mountains. The putative founder of Edom is Esau, whose twin brother, Jacob, is believed to be the father of the Israelites. For this reason, the speaker predicts that Edom will be punished for Esau’s inequity toward Jacob. The speaker implies that Edom abetted the Babylonians in sacking Jerusalem, and he casts this political act as one of fraternal betrayal. Edom—metaphorically the house of Esau—has betrayed the house of his brother, Jacob (Jerusalem), and must therefore be punished.

The Book of Jonah tells the story of the prophet swallowed by a great fish and then miraculously delivered back onto dry land. It tells of Jonah, son of Amittai, a prophet also known from other references in the Hebrew Bible (see 2 Kings 14.25), whom G-d calls to deliver a message to Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian Empire. The story takes place within the eighth century BCE, though the date of the text’s authorship is a subject of significant debate. 

Jonah resists G-d’s call and instead books passage on a ship sailing in the opposite direction. When a storm comes up, Jonah realizes that it is an act of divine judgment against his disobedience, so he instructs the sailors to throw him overboard, at which point the famous incident occurs: “The L-rd provided a huge fish to swallow Jonah; and Jonah remained in the fish’s belly three days and three nights” (Jonah 2.1). After Jonah repents and is spewed back onto dry land, the prophet makes his way to Nineveh and preaches a message of G-d’s impending judgment. To Jonah’s great displeasure, the Ninevites respond by repenting, and G-d accepts their repentance. Jonah, who would have rather seen judgment played out against this enemy of Israel, ends the book by pouting on a hillside outside the city, but G-d rebukes him for his attitude, explaining that he has pity and compassion even for the city’s pagan residents.

Micah was active in the eighth century BCE, during the period of the divided monarchy. Micah offers judgments against both kingdoms, directing his prophecies to the capital cities of Jerusalem and Samaria (see Micah 1.1). Amid the predictions of coming desolations, Micah describes an age of restoration yet to come: 

And many nations shall go and shall say, ‘Come, let us go up to the Mount of the L-rd, to the House of the G-d of Jacob; that He may instruct us in His ways and that we may walk in His paths.’ […] [T]hey shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks (Micah 4.2-3). 

Despite the many prophetic denunciations and warnings in Micah, it follows a common theme among the prophets in ending with a positive note. In Micah’s case, this positive note is a reaffirmation of the character of G-d, who will prove to be faithful to the covenant.

Nahum is a prediction of G-d’s wrath breaking against Nineveh, the Assyrian capital, with no hope for reprieve. The historical context of Nahum falls in the seventh century BCE, between the fall of the northern kingdom of Israel to the Assyrians and the destruction of Nineveh at the hands of the Babylonians (612 BCE). Nahum roots the coming destruction of Nineveh in the unchangingly just character of G-d: “The L-rd is slow to anger and of great forbearance, but the L-rd does not remit all punishment” (Nahum 1.3). In contrast to most of the other prophetic books, Nahum offers no space for anything other than the fiercest judgments, and the only positive aspect is a sense of satisfied vengeance on the part of the book’s Israelite audience, now seeing the decimation of their vicious foe.

Habakkuk offers a short lament that is structured in the form of a dialogue between the prophet and G-d. Internal clues provide a possible historical context for the piece, as it references the rise of the Chaldeans (Habakkuk 1.6)—i.e., the Babylonians—who began their ascent near the end of the seventh century. The Book of Habakkuk thus appears to record a prophecy from somewhere around the year 600 BCE, making him a contemporary of Jeremiah. The book contains two sections of Habakkuk’s complaints and questions to G-d, along with G-d’s two responses, following which are a recitation of woes on the greedy, violent, and selfish and a closing prayer by Habakkuk. Habakkuk recognizes that the rise of the Babylonians is a judgment that is coming against Judah for its sin, but he continues to place his hope in G-d despite the suffering to come.

The ascription of the Book of Zephaniah appears to show that it is the work of a prophet from the royal household, a descendant of Hezekiah, and that Zephaniah serves during the reign of King Josiah (late seventh century BCE). The text offers a warning of judgments that will fall both on Judah and on surrounding nations, including Moab, Assyria, and the cities of the Philistine coast. This judgment is couched in traditional prophetic language of “the day of the L-rd” (Zephaniah 1.7). As is also common, however, Zephaniah changes the tenor of his text near the end, looking beyond the devastation on the horizon to the dawning of an age of restoration.

Haggai was a post-exilic prophet of the late sixth century BCE, a contemporary of the prophet Zechariah and a well-known figure among the returned exiles in the early period described by Ezra. Haggai is unique among the prophets in including an exact dating of his prophecies, all of which occur in a four-month span in the year 520 BCE. Much of Haggai’s prophetic work relates to the scenes played out in Ezra regarding the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem. 

The messages that G-d delivers through Haggai are directed primarily at two men, Zerubbabel (the administrative leader of the Jewish people) and Joshua (the high priest), who also loom large in the prophecies of Zechariah. Haggai tells Zerubbabel and Joshua that the time has come to build a permanent dwelling for G-d. G-d’s house stands in ruins while the people live in fine dwellings, and this situation has led G-d to withhold the rains and let the people go hungry. Speaking through Haggai, G-d promises that the rebuilt temple will be greater than the previous temple, while G-d’s people will prosper as never before. These encouragements appear to have been instrumental in providing an impetus for the work of building the temple.

Zechariah is the longest text in The Twelve. The prophet shares the same context as Haggai, serving the post-exilic community of Jews in Jerusalem in the late sixth century BCE and encouraging the Jewish leaders—primarily Zerubbabel and Joshua—in their work of re-establishing the worship of the temple. An angel speaks to Zechariah, showing him visions and explaining their meaning: The people of Israel have been in exile for 70 years, but this exile is coming to an end, and the enemies of Israel will be chastised. The peoples who have been scattered over the Earth will return to Jerusalem, where G-d’s blessing on them will be renewed. Because of its shared context with Haggai and Ezra, centered around the reconstruction of a temple in Jerusalem, temple-oriented themes predominate the text. Like many of The Twelve, Zechariah includes sections that promise a coming age of restoration, as well as warnings about an apocalyptic day of judgment.

Malachi is the final book of the Nevi’im, both in their canonical ordering and in their historical settings. Malachi describes a situation in post-exilic Judah that bears great similarity to the conditions described in the later sections of Ezra and in Nehemiah, in which a temple again stands in Jerusalem but the people have fallen into halfhearted faith and syncretistic customs. The identity of the prophet known as Malachi is elusive since the name itself might simply be a title given by G-d (malachi means “my messenger”). Malachi uses a style of question-and-answer disputation to relay G-d’s messages: “‘I have shown you love,’ says the L-rd. But you ask, ‘How have You shown us love?’” (Malachi 1.2). Most of these disputations regard the ways in which the post-exilic community has failed to keep G-d’s laws, pointing out their laxness in tithing and their willingness to accept intermarriages and a corrupt priesthood.