The Message of the Twelve

Hearing the Voice of the Minor Prophets

Al Fuhr, Gary Yates

• Publisher: B&H Academic
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781433683770
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

Although they ministered for more than three centuries during some of Israel's most tumultuous days, the Minor Prophets remain a mystery to many Christians in the 21st century. Old Testament scholars Richard Alan Fuhr, Jr. and Gary E. Yates believe that the message of the twelve Minor Prophets is relevant for the church today, and they re-introduce these important books of the Bible to contemporary Christians. Ideal for use as a textbook as well as for personal study, The Message of the Twelve surveys the historical background of each prophetic book, the prophet's message and themes, as well as the book's place in the biblical canon. The authors also provide in-depth exposition of each book—from Hosea's metaphor of Israel's infidelity and Nahum's warnings of foreign judgments, to Haggai's postexilic call and Malachi's vision of future restoration. The Message of the Twelve goes beyond typical biblical surveys to examine the key interpretive issues in each book, including important literary insights from the Hebrew text. Drawing on the prophets' proclamations to ancient Israel and Judah, the authors emphasize that the church today must heed the call to reject apathy and return to a vibrant relationship with the living God.

1

The World of the Twelve: The Historical Background and Setting of the Book of the Twelve

Introduction

The lives of the prophets in the Book of the Twelve span a period of more than three centuries (c. 770–430 BC), and they ministered in some of Israel’s most tumultuous days. The Lord had promised through Moses that he would send prophets to communicate his word to his people (Deut 18:15–22), and he kept his promise even as he prepared to bring judgment against Israel and Judah for their unfaithfulness, which had persisted for hundreds of years. The specific mission of the Twelve was threefold: to call the people to repentance so that they might avert divine judgment, to warn them of the judgment of exile when there was no repentance, and then to offer hope for the future as the people returned to the land following the exile. The Lord sent prophets to Israel and Judah during the Assyrian crisis before the fall of Samaria in 722 BC and then sent more prophets to Judah in the Babylonian crisis before the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BC. The postexilic prophets challenged the people to rebuild the temple and to fully return to the Lord so they might experience all the blessings of restoration and renewal that he had planned for them. The Book of the Twelve reflects disappointment that full restoration had yet to occur, but holds forth the hope that the Lord would never abandon his people or his commitment to fully bless them and to extend the blessings of salvation to the nations.

The purpose of this chapter is to provide an historical survey of the times in which the Twelve lived and ministered.3 It is important to understand the historical setting of the prophets because they preached more about their own times than they did the last days. The prophets reminded the people of God’s sovereign control over the chaotic events of their day. When the Lord roars like a lion, his judgments extend beyond Israel to all the nations (Joel 3:16; Amos 1:2). The Lord controls the forces of nature, whether to direct a disobedient prophet like Jonah or to send drought and locusts to get the attention of his rebellious people. The Lord also directs the kings and armies of the nations to accomplish his purposes and to execute his judgments. Assyria was the “rod” of Yahweh’s anger (Isa 10:5), Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon his “servant” (Jer 25:9; 27:6), and Cyrus of Persia his “shepherd” and “anointed one” (Isa 44:28–45:1). The destruction of Israel, Judah, Edom, and Nineveh were “days of the Lord” and not simply geopolitical events. The prophets also sought to turn the people away from military and political solutions to the crises they were facing and to help them recognize the only way they would survive was to return to the Lord before it was too late.

This chapter attempts to place the prophets in their historical context and setting, while recognizing that there was likely a lapse in time between the actual ministries of the prophets and the composition of the books bearing their names. The prophets were primarily preachers who delivered their oracles orally rather than literary authors. Aaron Chalmers notes that the process by which each prophet’s words became a book is unclear but likely involved three distinct movements: (1) from oral words to written words, (2) from written words to collected words, and (3) from collected words to prophetic book.4

The Prophets and the Assyrian Crisis

Israel’s Classical Prophets

	Prophets to Israel	Prophets to Judah
ASSYRIAN PERIOD	Jonah* (785–775) Amos (760–750) Hosea (750–715)	Isaiah (740–681) Micah (735–690)
BABYLONIAN PERIOD		Zephaniah (630–620) Nahum (630) Habakkuk (620) Jeremiah (627–580) Obadiah (600?) Ezekiel (593–570)
PERSIAN (POSTEXILIC) PERIOD		Haggai (520) Zechariah (520–518) Joel (500?) Malachi (450–430)

*Minor prophets’ names are in bold.

When Israel separated from Judah just after the time of Solomon in 930 BC, Jeroboam I, as Israel’s first king, plunged the nation into apostasy by setting up sanctuaries that centered on the worship of golden calves (1 Kgs 12:25–33). Jeroboam sought to keep his people from going down to Jerusalem so they would not give their loyalties to the house of David, but in the process, he also led Israel away from worship at the place where the Lord had chosen to dwell among his people. Israel would walk this path of apostasy for its entire history, and 1–2 Kings notes that every Israelite king followed in the sins of Jeroboam, his father. Ahab was remembered as Israel’s worst king because he and his wife Jezebel promoted Baal worship in Israel (1 Kgs 16:30–33). Even though Elijah and Elisha as prophets and Jehu as military commander and king helped to purge Baal worship from Israel, the northern kingdom never fully abandoned its idolatry, syncretism, and pagan worship practices.5

In many ways, Judah to the south was no better. The people worshipped at the temple in Jerusalem, but syncretism and idolatry plagued the southern kingdom as well. A handful of godly rulers reigned among the kings, but the majority of them neglected to walk in the ways of their father David or do what was right in the eyes of the Lord. Social injustice and disregard for the Lord’s commands were problems in both Israel and Judah. Through the prophets, the Lord would provide one final opportunity for both Israel and Judah to return to him, but 2 Kings 17:13–18 reminds us that Israel “would not listen” and “became obstinate like their ancestors who did not believe the Lord their God.” Judah likewise would fall under judgment because its people “did not keep the commands of the Lord their God but lived according to the customs Israel introduced” (2 Kgs 17:19–20).

Assyria began to look westward and to put military pressure on Israel in the ninth century BC. Ahab and a coalition of kings halted the advance of Shalmaneser III at the Battle of Qarqar in southern Syria in 853 BC, but the Assyrians exacted tribute from Jehu of Israel in their western campaign in 841. The military actions of Assyria also greatly reduced the kingdom of Aram-Damascus. This freed Israel from the domination of the Arameans, a people with whom Israel constantly fought. Just after the turn of the century, Assyria began to decline as well, forcing its rulers to deal with internal threats at home rather than focus on military expansion. The weakening of both Aram and Assyria allowed the northern kingdom to enjoy a time of unprecedented prosperity under the long and effective reign of Jeroboam II (793–753 BC).6 Jeroboam II recovered the territories that Israel had lost to the Arameans and brought most of southern Syria under Israelite control. Walter C. Kaiser comments, “In less than twenty-five years, Jeroboam II was able to take a nation that was just about to die and turn it into one of the great powers of his day.”7

Territorial expansion was prophesied by Jonah (2 Kgs 14:25–28), but Jonah resisted when he was sent to preach to Nineveh, fearing that God might extend the same mercy to the hated Assyrians that he had shown to Israel (see Jonah 4:2). Many have viewed the Ninevites’ favorable response to Jonah’s preaching as highly implausible. However, Assyria’s troubles—including military threats, revolts by vassal states, political division, and particularly intense food shortages during the years 772–755 BC—likely made the Ninevites receptive to a message of divine judgment.8

While Israel thrived under Jeroboam II, Judah experienced similar prosperity under the long and stable rule of Uzziah (also called Azariah) (792–740 BC). Uzziah was also able to enlarge Judah’s army and to carry out successful military operations against the Philistines, Ammonites, and Edomites (2 Chr 26:6–15). This time of unparalleled blessing should have led the people of Israel and Judah to gratefully seek and serve the Lord, but their prosperity instead led to spiritual complacency and an even greater disregard of the Lord’s commands. The wealthy in the land exploited the poor and needy while pretending to worship God. Despite the Lord’s blessing on his kingdom, Jeroboam II did “evil in the eyes of the Lord” and carried on the apostate practices of his predecessors (2 Kgs 14:23–24, NIV). Uzziah sought the Lord until pride led to his downfall at the end of his reign (2 Chr 26:16), but Judah as a nation also drifted from the Lord because of its wealth and military strength.

Near the end of the reign of Jeroboam II, the Lord sent Amos, a wealthy landowner from Judah, to warn Israel that its apostasy and social injustices would lead to military defeat and exile. The use of an outsider to announce Israel’s judgment reflected both the seriousness of the message and the corruption of Israel’s spiritual leaders. Amaziah, a priest at the sanctuary in Bethel, ordered Amos to stop preaching against “the king’s sanctuary” and to return home to Judah (Amos 7:10–17). Hosea also began to prophesy in the last days of Jeroboam II, and his ministry continued through the turbulent years that led to the fall of Samaria in 722 BC. Hosea then migrated to Judah and continued to prophesy into the reign of King Hezekiah. Hosea’s symbolic marriage and messages sought to convince the people of Israel that they needed to repent for their spiritual adultery against the Lord through their worship of false gods, disobedience to God’s commands, and entangling alliances with foreign nations.

National disaster seemed like a remote possibility as Israel reveled in a golden age of prosperity, but circumstances quickly changed. An earthquake remembered in later generations occurred two years after Amos’s preaching as a further warning of divine displeasure (see Amos 1:1; Zech 14:5). Jeroboam’s II lengthy reign was followed by a series of bloody assassinations and violen...

Table of contents

• Acknowledgments
• Chapter 1: The World of the Twelve: The Historical Background and Setting of the Book of the Twelve
• Chapter 2: The Role of the Twelve: Messengers of God’s Covenants
• Chapter 3: The Words of the Twelve: Literary Genres and Rhetorical Devices within the Minor Prophets
• Chapter 4: The Book of the Twelve: Approaching the Minor Prophets as a Canonical Unity
• Chapter 5: The Book of Hosea
• Chapter 6: The Book of Joel
• Chapter 7: The Book of Amos
• Chapter 8: The Book of Obadiah
• Chapter 9: The Book of Jonah
• Chapter 10: The Book of Micah
• Chapter 11: The Book of Nahum
• Chapter 12: The Book of Habakkuk
• Chapter 13: The Book of Zephaniah
• Chapter 14: The Book of Haggai
• Chapter 15: The Book of Zechariah
• Chapter 16: The Book of Malachi
• Conclusion
• Bibliography of Works Cited