Stories of the Prophets (Before the Exile)

An old Hebrew proverb says, "Train up a child in the way he should go, and even when he is old he shall not depart from it." If one should say that the man who wrote this prover...

That very night the most prominent people in Israel--military and civilian--assembled at Bethel, and decided that something must be done to get rid of the Prophet. They consider...

The fearful crisis through which Judah and Jerusalem had passed, before Sennacherib withdrew from Judah to fight his subjects in Babylonia, set both the king and the people to t...

In ancient Palestine, the fruit of the sycamore that grew in Judah was dried, ground into flour and used for making coarse bread. This bread was eaten by the very poorest people...

The great deliverance from the Scythian invasion strengthened Josiah and the Prophetic Party in their work of reform. They felt that their God had spared them because much of th...

Great throngs of people crowded all the streets. They jostled each other good naturedly, traded, bargained, renewed acquaintanceship, spoke of their home towns and expressed the...

King Shallum soon discovered that a stolen throne is no sweeter than any other stolen thing. A palace is no more protection against conscience than a hovel; and Shallum passed m...

Either the Temple Prophets were the true spokesmen of the God of Judah and Jeremiah was an impostor, or Jeremiah spoke the truth that had been "cut off from their mouth" and the...

Whenever Jezreel was sent early to bed, although he had been a good boy during the day, and, in addition, when his little sister and brother were ordered to go with him, he knew...

King Jotham was wise enough to follow the advice of the Prophet Isaiah in his reply to the embassy from Rezin and Pekah. At the Council of State, called to consider the message...

The fact was that Isaiah did not grieve particularly over King Uzziah's illness and approaching death. What troubled him was the attitude taken by his dear friend, the Crown Pri...

Jeremiah returned home a very sad man, but not a wiser one from the point of view of his safety. He kept much to himself in the city of Anathoth and devoted his time to teaching...

Amoz, Isaiah's father, was of a noble family, very near the throne in Jerusalem, and a dear personal friend of the king. Isaiah, too, was a prime favorite of Uzziah's, not by vi...

King Jeroboam II was now an old man. The vehemence and determination and aggressiveness that had made him a far-famed conqueror had been mellowed by the years and rarely, if eve...

Josiah and Jeremiah passed through the first great and vital experience of their lives together and the friendship between these two lads was thereby knit as closely as was that...

For some time, now, Amos had been preaching his new and formerly unheard-of ideas, to the effect that God prefers rather that man be just to his fellowmen than that he offer sac...

It is said that ties of true friendship are often stronger than ties of blood. Of such stuff were the ties made that bound together the families of Hilkiah, the priest, and Shap...

Nebuchadrezzar had taken up his headquarters where Pharaoh-Necho had encamped at Riblah, and there received the homage of the little Syrian and Palestinian states that he had wr...

With a bowed head, though with a stout heart, Hosea went to the market place on the following morning. He mingled with the people in the vicinity of the slave auction district,...

While Isaiah was thus attempting to influence the two parties in Jerusalem, exactly what he had warned Ahaz of happened. The Assyrian forces made a speedy march into Syria, with...

It was the year after, that is 603, the fifth year of the reign of Jehoiakim, and the ninth month, that Baruch took the completed scroll and went down to Jerusalem.

Josiah was determined not to give up so easily. He would not admit to himself that his country and his people were beyond hope. He figured that perhaps the prophetess had exagge...

King Amon had succeeded his father, Manasseh, to the throne of Judah but two years before. He had had no chance to show the character of man he was and the type of a ruler he wo...

Hophrah, however, did finally bestir himself. Word came to Jerusalem, and it reached the besieging forces, that a vast army of Egyptians was on the march northward. To the surpr...

A chain, we are told, is as strong as its weakest link. The weak link in the long chain of Assyrian provinces was the fact that whenever a new king came to the throne, if he hap...

On the ninth day of the fourth month the first breach was made in the outer walls of Jerusalem by Nebuzaradan, the commander of Nebuchadrezzar's body guard, who led the besiegin...

The mystery of the Scythian invasion of Asia has not yet been clearly solved. The results of that invasion, however, shook thrones and shattered kingdoms and changed the face of...

Isaiah called his little band of disciples and followers "The Remnant." He referred to them as "The Remnant" because he knew that, if only these remained true and faithful to Go...

Gedaliah had governed in Mizpah seven months when he was pleased to welcome back to his fatherland, Ishmael, son of Nethaniah, a Judean chieftain of the royal family, who had be...

The whole city of Samaria rang with the glad tidings. Fleet-footed runners, who had started with this precious news on the day of victory, covered more than one hundred and fift...

Though the spineless Ahaz sent his cowardly note, and the presents that followed, to Tiglath-Pileser secretly, the truth leaked out. Great indignation was aroused among certain...

Jeremiah waited eagerly for the return of Baruch and listened most attentively to the story of his adventure at the Temple and in the palace of the king. His pupil's bravery and...

Wonderful is the love of teacher and pupil! There is no blood relationship to fuse that love. No selfishness enters into it. There is only the common interest of the spirit upon...

The forcing of Jeremiah into Egyptian exile with the others was the stroke that finally broke Jeremiah's heart. Against such stiff-necked perversity he could hold out no longer....

A day and a night in the stocks and the smarting lashes at Pashhur's hands, had given him a taste of martyrdom, and left him sick of heart and soul. He wanted to go home! Yes, h...

Stripped of all its best people the country was in a sorry plight when, in the year 596, Nebuchadrezzar, on departing for Babylon, raised Zedekiah to the throne of Judah.

King Hezekiah's preparation for rebellion against Sennacherib, in 715, shattered any optimistic hopes that Micah held for a continuation of improvement in the condition of the c...

Hoshea, son of Elah, of Samaria, was such a man. Tilgath-Pileser, the Assyrian conqueror of Damascus assisted Hoshea to assassinate King Pekah, and appointed the assassin to rul...

"'Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom; neither let the mighty man glory in his might. Let not the rich man glory in his riches; but let him that glorieth, glory in this, th...

Sloping down from the Judean hills toward the plain of Philistia and the Mediterranean Sea is the Shefelah, or Lowlands, a section of Palestine, far-famed for its stretches of r...

In dividing up the Assyrian Empire, Cyaxerxes was perfectly satisfied with the absolute independence of Media and such Assyrian possessions as adjoined his country. The rest, to...

Poor, miserable Jehoiakim! He was not even given an opportunity to meet Nebuchadrezzar on the battlefield in a single engagement. The Babylonian had hardly entered Judean territ...

It was interesting to see, the next morning, the effect upon the two boys when they discovered that instead of being in Josiah's bed in the palace in Jerusalem they were in Jere...

Micah, the Moreshtite, came to Jerusalem when the capital was at comparative peace. The struggle between King Ahaz and the Prophet Isaiah had narrowed down to an armed neutralit...

The prophet Isaiah was a thrice-blessed man. Although no one knows where or how he died, every one knows where and how he lived, and how his life was fruitful in blessings for h...