The Expositor's Bible: The Book of the Twelve Prophets, Vol. 2 Commonly Called the Minor

The three prophets who were treated in the first volume of this work belonged to the eighth century before Christ: if Micah lived into the seventh his labours were over by 675....

The Book of Zephaniah is one of the most difficult in the prophetic canon. The title is very generally accepted; the period from which chap. i. dates is recognised by practicall...

Towards the year 625, when King Josiah had passed out of his minority,[100] and was making his first efforts at religious reform, prophecy, long slumbering, awoke again in Israel.

There now come a series of oracles on foreign nations, connected with the previous prophecy by the conjunction _for_, and detailing the worldwide judgment which it had proclaime...

The third chapter of the Book of Zephaniah consists[168] of two sections, of which only the first, vv. 1-13, is a genuine work of the prophet; while the second, vv. 14-20, is a...

The Book of Nahum consists of a double title and three odes. The title runs _Oracle of Niniveh: Book of the Vision of Nahum the Elḳôshite_. The three odes, eager and passionate...

The prophet Nahum, as we have seen,[236] arose probably in Judah, if not about the same time as Zephaniah and Jeremiah, then a few years later. Whether he prophesied before or a...

The scene now changes from the presence and awful arsenal of the Almighty to the historical consummation of His vengeance. Nahum foresees the siege of Niniveh. Probably the Mede...

As it has reached us, the Book of Habakkuk, under the title _The Oracle which Habakkuk the prophet received by vision_, consists of three chapters, which fall into three section...

power in 625, attributing the internal wrongs of Judah described in vv. 2-4 to Manasseh’s reign or the early years of Josiah.[315] But the rest, on the grounds that the prophet...

other authorities cited above, p. 117), and admits that it follows on, with a natural connection, to chap. ii. 4, to which Budde proposes to attach it. Nevertheless, for other r...

Of the prophet Habakkuk we know nothing that is personal save his name—to our ears his somewhat odd name. It is the intensive form of a root which means to caress or embrace. Mo...

In the style of his master Isaiah, Habakkuk follows up his _Vision_ with a series of lyrics on the same subject: chap. ii. 5-20. They are taunt-songs, the most of them beginning...

We have seen the impossibility of deciding the age of the ode which is attributed to Habakkuk in the third chapter of his book.[417] But this is only one of the many problems ra...

The Book of Obadiah is the smallest among the prophets, and the smallest in all the Old Testament. Yet there is none which better illustrates many of the main problems of Old Te...

judgment of the Lord.[462] Vv. 10-21 admittedly describe the conduct of the Edomites at the overthrow of Jerusalem in 586; but vv. 1-9 probably reflect earlier events; and it is...

If the Book of Obadiah presents us with some of the most difficult questions of criticism, it raises besides one of the hardest ethical problems in all the vexed history of Israel.

The next group of the Twelve Prophets—Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi and perhaps Joel—fall within the period of the Persian Empire. The Persian Empire was founded on the conquest of...

Cyrus the Great took Babylon and the Babylonian Empire in 539. Upon the eve of his conquest the Second Isaiah had hailed him as the Liberator of the people of God and the builde...

[561] Some think to find this in 1 Esdras v. 1-6, where it is said that Darius, a name they take to be an error for that of Cyrus, brought up the exiles with an escort of a thou...

[583] Compare Cheyne, _Introduction to the Book of Isaiah_, 1895, xxxv. ff., who says that in the main points Kosters’ conclusions “appear so inevitable” that he has “constantly...

The Book of Haggai contains thirty-eight verses, which have been divided between two chapters.[615] The text is, for the prophets, a comparatively sound one. The Greek version a...

We have seen that the most probable solution of the problems presented to us by the inadequate and confused records of the time is that a considerable number of Jewish exiles re...

The Book of Zechariah, consisting of fourteen chapters, falls clearly into two divisions: _First_, chaps. i.—viii., ascribed to Zechariah himself and full of evidence for their...

Zechariah is one of the prophets whose personality as distinguished from their message exerts some degree of fascination on the student. This is not due, however, as in the case...

The Visions of Zechariah do not lack those large and simple views of religion which we have just seen to be the charm of his other prophecies. Indeed it is among the Visions tha...

Among the influences of the Exile which contributed the material of Zechariah’s Visions we included a considerable development of Israel’s belief in Angels. The general subject...

The Visions have revealed the removal of the guilt of the land, the restoration of Israel to their standing before God, the revival of the great national institutions, and God’s...

(2 Kings xxv. 8); in the seventh month Gedaliah was assassinated and the poor relics of a Jewish state swept from the land (Jer. xli.). See above, pp. 30 ff.

This book, the last in the arrangement of the prophetic canon, bears the title: _Burden_ or _Oracle of the Word of Jehovah to Israel by the hand of malĕ’akhi_. Since at least th...

Between the completion of the Temple in 516 and the arrival of Ezra in 458, we have almost no record of the little colony round Mount Zion. The Jewish chronicles devote to the p...

Beneath this title we may gather all the eight sections of the Book of “Malachi.” They contain many things of perennial interest and validity: their truth is applicable, their m...

In the criticism of the Book of Joel there exist differences of opinion—upon its date, the exact reference of its statements and its relation to parallel passages in other proph...

Joel, as we have seen, found the motive of his prophecy in a recent plague of locusts, the appearance of which and the havoc they worked are described by him in full detail. Wri...

_Then did Jehovah become jealous for His land, and took pity upon His people_—with these words Joel opens the second half of his book. Our Authorised Version renders them in the...

Hitherto Joel has spoken no syllable of the heathen, except to pray that God by His plagues will not give Israel to be mocked by them. But in the last chapter of the Book we hav...

Apart from the author of the tenth chapter of Genesis, who defines Javan or Greece as the father of Elishah and Tarshish, of Kittim or Cyprus and Rodanim or Rhodes,[1263] the fi...

We saw that the first eight chapters of the Book of Zechariah were, with the exception of a few verses, from the prophet himself. No one has ever doubted this. No one could doub...

From the number of conflicting opinions which prevail upon the subject, we have seen how impossible it is to decide upon a scheme of division for “Zech.” ix.—xiv. These chapters...

The book of Jonah is cast throughout in the form of narrative—the only one of our Twelve which is so. This fact, combined with the extraordinary events which the narrative relat...

necessary to mention that the metaphor was borrowed, not, as has been alleged by many, from some Greek, or other foreign, myth, which, like that of Perseus and Andromeda, had it...

We have now laid clear the lines upon which the Book of Jonah was composed. Its purpose is to illustrate God’s grace to the heathen in face of His people’s refusal to fulfil the...

At this point in the tale appears the Great Fish. _And Jehovah prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights._

Having learned, through suffering, his moral kinship with the heathen, and having offered his life for some of them, Jonah receives a second command to go to Niniveh. He obeys,...

Having illustrated the truth, that the Gentiles are capable of repentance unto life, the Book now describes the effect of their escape upon Jonah, and closes by revealing God’s...