Do you know who the minor prophets were and what importance they have in Christianity today? If you want to answer this question with a resounding yes, this is the article for you.
The 12 minor prophets of the Bible
In the history of religion there are many important people who in one way or another contributed to lay the foundations for our faith. the foundations for our Christian faith. Christian faith.
A very important group was that of the Old Testament prophets. The prophets were people who were able to see the future thanks to the visions that the Lord provided for them. After seeing what was about to happen, his mission was to spread the message to his fellow citizens and warn them if necessary.
For Christians and Jews there are two groups of prophets two groups of prophets: the major prophets and the minor prophets. We have already talked about the first ones in another Your Online Bible article we recommend you to read if you want to know more about them. These were Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel.
On the other hand, there are the minor prophets, people who created works of lesser extent but no less important than those of the major prophets. In all there were twelve of them and their books are arranged as follows in the Bible: Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi.
Names of the 12 minor prophets
Today in Your Online Bible we are going to explain what were the contributions of these 12 prophets to Christianity and how their legacy affects us today.
Will you join us?
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Hosea minor prophet
The Book of Hosea is one of the most unconventional texts in the Bible. The main theme is the loss of love of the people of Israel towards God during the 8th century BC.
For this purpose, the Lord uses a very crude metaphor and instructs Hosea to marry a woman and have children in sin. Similarly, the people of Israel was being unfaithful to God by worshipping false gods.
For all these reasons, Hosea is considered the prophet of love. Prophet of love, but also of poverty and frugality, since for him the reason for which the people of Israel turn away from God is the comfort brought by all that is material.
This book is a difficult text to interpret, and here we have only given you the main features. If you want to know a little more, we recommend you to read it on your own and look for biblical commentaries about it.
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Joel minor prophet
After the Book of Hosea comes the Book of Joel. This sacred text is considered a manual of repentance and penance and penance, since it places these two actions as the main axis to obtain God’s forgiveness.
The book begins as a historical account of a plague of locusts. Plague of locusts in Israel. There is no consensus on the period in which it was written, although it is not very relevant to understand its meaning.
The Lord promises to restore order in Israel if believers will devote themselves to penance and prayer. Penance and prayer. On the other hand, the text ends with several half-apocalyptic prophecies, such as the restoration of Eden and a kind of Final Judgment:
“Woe to the day, for the day of the LORD is near; and it shall come as destruction from the Almighty.” (Joel 1:15)
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Amos minor prophet
The Book of Amos was written during the eighth century B.C., although slightly earlier than Hosea. His prophecy is intended to teach his contemporaries that the Lord rules the universe above any law imposed by human beings.
God has the power to create catastrophes and to bring goodness to a starving people. This is used as a threat to Israel, although it can also be viewed as the opportunity for redemption.
Amos 5:4 makes clear the message that the Lord wants to transmit through him:
“But thus saith the LORD unto the house of Israel, Seek ye me, and ye shall live” (Amos 5:4).
The solution to all the world’s problems is to seek God and pray regularly. Only a life close to the Lord will be far from evil.
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Obadiah minor prophet
With the Book of Obadiah we come to the shortest text of the Old Testament with only 21 verses compacted into one chapter. At present, there is discussion about the date when the book was written, since being so short, there is little information about it.
Like the other prophetic books we have seen above, Obadiah also speaks about the apocalyptic “Day of Yahweh”. According to him, his people will be judged for the sins committed.
In this book, we highlight the appearance of a toponym that you may not have known: Sefarad. This is the name that the Jews gave to the Iberian Peninsula, and it is in Obadiah that it appears for the first time in the Bible.
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Jonah minor prophet
Unlike the other minor prophetic books, Jonah has a different style. Different style, since it narrates in a more biographical way the mission that God entrusted to the prophet of the same name.
Although Jonah was reluctant to accept this mission, the Lord caused him to be thrown into the water and swallowed by a fish. Swallowed by a fish for a few days. In there, Jonah prayed deeply and decided to accept the mission God was entrusting to him.
This consisted of going to the city of Nineveh and prophesying times of judgment for them, which caused the whole city to repent. The whole city to repent and take the right path.
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Micah minor prophet
The book of Micah is once again a common book of prophecies of punishment for punishment of his people after the bad behavior of the previous years.
Historically, Micah is dated to the end of the 8th century B.C., a time of war for the kingdom of Judah that Micah attributes to this punishment from God. Furthermore, Micah explains that this punishment has no other purpose than to renew the people of Israel, the summit of this process being the arrival of the Messiah.
We see this exemplified in verse Micah 7:11, among many others in chapter 7:
“The day is coming when your walls will be built up; in that day the boundaries will be extended.” (Micah 7:11)
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The prophet Nahum
Nahum’s prophecy is again dedicated to the city of Nineveh. City of Nineveh although some 150 years later than the one made by Jonah.
In the previous case, the city had a happy ending and repented for the sins committed. In Nahum, the ending is certainly different. This prophet has visions about the destruction of the city which means the abolition of the slave regime that existed there.
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Habakkuk minor prophet
The Book of Habakkuk was one of the most influential texts for Christianity from among all the minor prophets. It was written at the end of the 7th century BC.
The main theme of the book is the salvation of the salvation of the righteous through faith and prayer, something that Jesus affirmed many years later in his passage through the world. Habakkuk puts it this way in his book:
“He writes that the wicked are proud,
But the righteous shall live by their faithfulness to God.” (Habakkuk 2:4)
The above verse is quoted up to three times in the New Testament, specifically in the Epistles of Romans and Galatians. Romans and Galatians, hence its importance for our religion.
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Zephaniah minor prophet
There are indications to believe that Zephaniah lived at the same time as Jeremiah, because the mission of both of them was to convince King Josiah of the imminent invasion of his people by the Babylonians.
There is not much to say about this book, since it consists only of the prophecy of the Day of Yahweh. The day of Yahweh in which the whole kingdom of Judah will be judged for all its sins committed.
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Haggai minor prophet
Haggai prophesied in the world together with Zechariah, of whom we will speak in the next section because their two books are found in a row in the Bible.
Both inhabited Judah after the Babylonian invasion, that is, around 500 BC. Thus, Haggai’s message is one of reconstruction of his people on the basis of faith and prayer, as had already been predicted by the previous prophets.
“I made a covenant with you when you came out of Egypt, so my Spirit will be in the midst of you; do not be afraid.” (Haggai 2:5)
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Zechariah minor prophet
As we have already told you, Zechariah lived at the same time as Haggai after the destruction of Judah. His book is more complete than the previous one and consists of two distinct parts.
In the first, Zechariah narrates the eight visions the Lord gave him about the revival of Jerusalem. Revival of Jerusalem from the ashes of war. As Jeremiah did in his time, Zechariah also predicts the future condemnation of Babylon for its invasion of Judah.
The second part is made up of two oracles in which a prophecy is possibly made about the messiah. Prophecy about the messiah. In the first, Zechariah speaks of a king arriving in the city on a donkey, just as Jesus did on his arrival in Jerusalem.
“Rejoice greatly, city of Zion!
Sing for joy, O city of Jerusalem!
Your king comes to you, righteous and victorious,
but humble, riding a donkey,
on a donkey, the offspring of a donkey.” (Zechariah 9:9)
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The prophet Malachi
The last of the 12 minor prophets is the prophet Malachi. His work is the least concrete of them all, being difficult to situate temporally and giving very little information about the author.
Malaki in Hebrew means “my angel”, so it is difficult to think that its author really had this name.
There is no one central theme that is addressed in the Book of Malachi, but rather there are several themes that are already extensively discussed in the other prophetic books.
A good summary of the book is that it consists of disputes between the inhabitants of Israel and God. The law of Moses, trying to make all of them follow the law of Moses. The same process is followed as in the other books, in the end the righteous will be saved, and the sinners will be condemned.
Finally, we share with you an in-depth study on the minor prophets, which will surely make clear to you their origins and the reason for their existence.
The minor prophets explained for children
These have been the 12 minor prophets of the Bible! Although it has been a brief introduction of each of them, we hope it has helped you to discover a part of the Bible that for many Christians is completely unknown.
Feel free to share this article with anyone you like so that everyone can discover the wonders hidden in the pages of the minor prophets.
We say goodbye here, but not before thanking you for reading us. See you next time!