The Minor Prophets

First… What’s a prophet?

Prophets remind the people of the covenant with God

-point out sin

-call for repentance

-proclaiming the consequences for rebellion

Sometimes those things are blended with the cosmic time spanning poetry of ages, sometimes it’s

For the most part prophets were ignored until disaster and repentance were taken seriously… or not at all. Everything they do with visions or miracles is intended to show God’s plan in history. Specifically for the people at the time they prophesied. To show how Israel was completing this cosmic plan to bring salvation and bless all the nations. So the tragedy and exile gets turns into redemption and future hope. A picture that applies to the whole world not just Israel. So… we need to pay attention to prophetic warning and the hope that are twisted together which always point us to Jesus.

So the minor prophets are the twelve smaller prophetic books. We call them minor because they’re small in their length. The collection of all twelve were actually a single scroll. In the Jewish tradition they consider the twelve one book with each prophet more like a chapter. I had thought to do them in chronological order but after some serious digging I found out… we don’t definitely know the dates each of the prophets were in. Some we do because they tell us who was in power at the time or give us other time clues but some of these books don’t give us any indication that we can be certain about. With that in mind we will just treat this study as if this were just one scroll. We’ll start from the beginning and go to the end.

To setup let’s just have a quick history lesson. Israel was united under King Saul, it prospered under King David, and built the Temple under Solomon. After Solomon’s death the nation ends up splitting apart to a northern and southern kingdom. The northern kingdom is often referred to as Israel while the Southern Kingdom is often called Judah. This north south split happens across the tribal borders that left ten of the tribal territories in the north and two in the south. This did not mean that those tribes stayed in the north and those two stayed in the south. There was plenty of movement and the ten tribes were never lost as some people like to talk about. That’s a rabbit hole we aren’t jumping into. Anyway over time both kingdoms at various times get invaded, taken into captivity, dispersed and destroyed to some extent or another. That’s the world that the minor prophets are talking to. The prophets write to different audiences around this time that spans possibly four centuries from 9th to 5th century BC.

Any questions on any of that?

First book is Hosea 1.1

Hosea 1:1 ESV

The word of the Lord that came to Hosea, the son of Beeri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel.

In our first verse, unlike some of the other prophets in our series we get names of rulers that will date this book for us. Hosea is prophesying through a large portion of the 8th century BC. He’s also speaking mostly to the Israel (The northern kingdom). We’ll jump in very quickly here. Hos 1.2-3

Hosea 1:2–3 ESV

When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, “Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord.” So he went and took Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.

People have handled this command in several ways through history and I won’t enumerate all of them. In summary some people just take Hosea as an allegory or a parable, others have tried to soften the command from God saying he was just supposed to marry a woman who was likely to commit adultery. I think the simplest reading is usually the best, unless we have some other really good reasons to think otherwise. God told Hosea to marry a whore and have children with her. Hosea obeyed God.

Hosea 1:4–5 ESV

And the Lord said to him, “Call his name Jezreel, for in just a little while I will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel. And on that day I will break the bow of Israel in the Valley of Jezreel.”

We talked about this a little bit back in our Romans study too but looking at these names will tease out some more meaning we wouldn’t otherwise get. Let’s start with Hosea - Hoshea just means salvation. Joshua from the book of Numbers one of the two who is sent into the land that comes back with a good report and go on to lead the people later. His original name is Hosea in we see Num 13:16 “These were the names of the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land. And Moses called Hoshea the son of Nun Joshua.” Moses changes his name from the name salvation to the name that means Yahweh’s Salvation.

Next we have Gomer… this name means to complete… or to bring something to an end. That could be a bit ominous.. and in fact Hosea is the last prophet to give prophecy before the end of Israel. Assyria conquers the northern kingdom at the end of Hosea’s ministry.

Their first son is Jezreel which is two Hebrew words zr and el to sow like planting seeds and el which means God, so God sows. This may also be a hit against the fertility cults of Baal to point out that it is God who brings life. But the name while not common for a person is very famous to the people of Israel as a place, there is a town and a valley, same location called Jezreel. This is where most of the major battles have taken place that you can think of. David and Goliath, Deborah and Gideon have battles here in Judges, Naboth has a vineyard here until the conspiracy by Jezebel has him unalived to get the vineyard for Ahab. So the name certainly comes with the idea of bloodshed built right in. If someone mentions Hiroshima you don’t have to give anymore context they probably know about the nuclear bomb that slaughtered 70,000 nearly immediately and again that many over several more months, some estimates are bigger. That place brings back memories for those of us who were not even alive when it happened. Even more-so was Jezreel for Israel. This lands us with an odd juxtaposition of death and bloodshed alongside life and the prosperity of the land.

Another mystery is that the house of Jehu is to be punished for the bloodshed in Jezreel. Well back to our history lesson. 2 Kings 9.1-10

2 Kings 9:1–10 ESV

Then Elisha the prophet called one of the sons of the prophets and said to him, “Tie up your garments, and take this flask of oil in your hand, and go to Ramoth-gilead. And when you arrive, look there for Jehu the son of Jehoshaphat, son of Nimshi. And go in and have him rise from among his fellows, and lead him to an inner chamber. Then take the flask of oil and pour it on his head and say, ‘Thus says the Lord, I anoint you king over Israel.’ Then open the door and flee; do not linger.” So the young man, the servant of the prophet, went to Ramoth-gilead. And when he came, behold, the commanders of the army were in council. And he said, “I have a word for you, O commander.” And Jehu said, “To which of us all?” And he said, “To you, O commander.” So he arose and went into the house. And the young man poured the oil on his head, saying to him, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, I anoint you king over the people of the Lord, over Israel. And you shall strike down the house of Ahab your master, so that I may avenge on Jezebel the blood of my servants the prophets, and the blood of all the servants of the Lord. For the whole house of Ahab shall perish, and I will cut off from Ahab every male, bond or free, in Israel. And I will make the house of Ahab like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha the son of Ahijah. And the dogs shall eat Jezebel in the territory of Jezreel, and none shall bury her.” Then he opened the door and fled.

Now, this move isn’t a surprise after all this is how the kingdom got split. A prophet anointed Jeroboam I to split off 10 from Solomon. This anointing a new king happens several times. Especially because these kings keep taking Israel away from God. But here specifically Ahab and his entire house has to die, and Jehu the new ruler needs to do it. Jehu is good at his job. Ahab dies, Jezebel dies… the seventy sons die, almost all of them, bloodshed is rampant and praised by God in this situation and it happens in Jezreel.

So how do we get to Hosea and read that Jehu will be punished for the blood of Jezreel? Another reading of the text would instead indicate the blood of Jezreel will be visited upon Jehu. You see Jehu did not learn his lesson, even when God made him the teacher through harsh correction. Jehu did not turn from Jeroboam’s sin, that is golden calf worship and leading Israel away from God. 2 Kgs 10.31 “But Jehu was not careful to walk in the law of the Lord, the God of Israel, with all his heart. He did not turn from the sins of Jeroboam, which he made Israel to sin.” I’m not sure we know which of these two events fulfilled this prophecy but I think it was one of them. In 2 Kgs 15.10 “Shallum the son of Jabesh conspired against him and struck him down at Ibleam and put him to death and reigned in his place.” This ‘him’ was Zechariah the last in the line of Jehu and with his death the Jehu dynasty ended. Ibleam is a town in, you guessed it the Jezreel Valley. It could have also been 2 Kgs 15.29 “In the days of Pekah king of Israel, Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria came and captured Ijon, Abel-beth-maacah, Janoah, Kedesh, Hazor, Gilead, and Galilee, all the land of Naphtali, and he carried the people captive to Assyria.” This defeat happened in the Jezreel Valley as well and ended the Northern Kingdom of Israel.

Perfect, we’ve made it through five verses after our introduction to the Minor Prophets, or The Twelve as the collection is called.