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The Book of Haggai contains sayings of the prophet woven into a narrative and set in a chronological framework. Haggai emerged in Jerusalem in 520 b.c., the second year of the Persian monarch Darius I, and served there for only four months. Economic difficulties stemming from poor harvests were troubling the community, and reconstruction of the temple had come to a halt. This setting provided the occasion of Haggai’s (and Zechariah’s) ministry. The temple stood at the heart of Haggai’s message. The distress of the day, he taught, was the result of breaking off the r…

The Book of Jonah is the only part of the Minor Prophets that consists of a prophet story in which a psalm (2:1–9) has been inserted. The work tells of the prophet’s attempt to evade a divine commission, the miraculous way in which God brought him back, his proclamation of judgment upon Nineveh, the penitence of Nineveh, which moves God to withhold his judgment, and the anger of Jonah that God spared the city upon its conversion, to which God responds with instruction. The main character, Jonah, is taken from a note in 2 Kgs. 14:25, referring to a prophet who proclaimed a message of salva…

The Book of Obadiah opens with the phrase “The vision of Obadiah,” a superscription obviously intended to reflect the prophetic functions of Obadiah, about whom we know nothing. Although the ¶ name may have been a fictitious one attached to an originally anonymous collection of oracles against Edom, an actual individual may be behind the book, someone generally identified as a cult prophet who was active shortly after the fall of Jerusalem in 587 b.c. (see vv. 11–14). H. W. Wolff suggests he may have been a cult prophet who a…

1. Name, Author, Form “Malachi” is not the name of a prophet but simply means “my messenger” (see 3:1). We do not know, then, the name of the author. The work consists of six discussions setting out a thesis, stating the arguments against it, then establishing it and drawing out the implications. This form influenced later scribal disputations (Scribes) in early Judaism. 2. Contents The book deals with the people’s offering of worthless sacrifices and reduced tithes, divorce and mixed marriages, and proclamation of the day of God’s judgment. Many scholars vi…

1. Man and Date Micah was from Moresheth-gath in the Judean hill country. He was also active in Jerusalem. He was a younger contemporary of Isaiah, and his message is similar. He prophesied between 734 and 712 b.c. Nothing is known of his status. He has been described as a poor farmer, a worker on the land, and a village landowner or elder (H. W. Wolff). 2. Contents and Redaction The book is divided into three parts (chaps. 1–2, 3–5, 6–7) and carries a message structured according to the schema of disaster and salvation. Scholars dispute how much comes from Micah himself. T…

1. Hosea was the only native writing prophet of the northern kingdom. He was active between 755/50 and 725 b.c., a period that saw the last years of peace for Israel (§1) under Jeroboam II, the so-called Syro-Ephraimite war of 733, and the successive dismantling of the northern kingdom by the Assyrian king Shalmaneser V. The defeat of Samaria and deportation of Israel by the Assyrians are not yet reflected in the book. Hosea worked in Samaria but probably also in Bethel and Gilgal. He differs from Amos in that his message contains less social complaint and more criticism of the cult. 2. The book …

The Book of Habakkuk has a liturgical form. A complaint by the prophet in 1:2–4 is followed by God’s reply (vv. 5–11), which announces the coming of the Chaldeans (v. 6). When the prophet objects (vv. 12–17), Yahweh gives a fresh answer (2:1–5), to which a series of woes is appended (6–20). Chap. 3 contains a prayer, the heart of which is the depiction of a theophany. This chapter is structured in such a way that it can be used in worship. The presence of social criticism, which in the present context is directed at international events and especially at the Babylonians, crea…

The prophet Nahum came from Elkosh (site unknown). He was active between the capture of Thebes (or No-Amon, see 3:8) by the Assyrians in 664/663 b.c. and the fall of Nineveh in 612. The essential content of his book is intimation of the collapse of Assyria and of future salvation for Israel (§1). These themes and the liturgical forms used are generally taken to suggest that Nahum was a Jerusalem cult prophet. The work begins with a fragmentary acrostic psalm (1:2–8) that Nahum himself, it is widely thought, did not perhaps formulate. After a word of comfort for Juda…

The Book of Joel has a strong liturgical orientation. A serious plague of locusts and drought (chap. 1) ¶ signifies the threatening proximity of the day of Yahweh (2:1–11). This setting issues in a proclamation of a day of lamentation and fasting (2:12–17), which brings about a turn to salvation (2:18–32). The day of Yahweh becomes a day of judgment on foreign peoples, while Jerusalem and Judah experience deliverance and paradisiacal fruitfulness (chap. 3). The date of the book is contested, though it may be the beginning of the fourth century b.c. (a different view is taken by W. Rud…

1. Amos, the first of the writing prophets, came from Tekoa in Judah. Although a herdsman and a grower of figs, not a professional prophet, Amos was a man of broad outlook who did not lack means or education. A call from God took him out of his daily round and sent him to do prophetic work in the northern kingdom. He came there about 760 b.c. and in Bethel and Samaria, perhaps also Gilgal, proclaimed the inevitable fall of Israel. Denounced and expelled, he seems to have gone back to Judah after hardly a year of activity. Amos’s coming occurred at the time of Israel’s final prosperity. The w…

[German Version] Jehu, king of Israel (845–818 bce). Jehu founded a dynasty (Kingship in Israel) that ruled over the northern kingdom (Israel: I, II) for barely a century (845–747). According to 2 Kings 9f., Jehu exploited the wounding of King Joram in the battle with the Arameans to sieze power. Spurred on by a prophetic designation (2 Kgs 9:1–6; cf. 1 Kgs 19:16) and the acclamation of the officers of the army, he hurried to Jezreel, killed Joram and King Ahaziah of Judah who happened to be present, a…

[German Version] (Feb 27, 1717, Halle – Aug 22, 1791, Göttingen), theologian and specialist in Near Eastern studies. Brought up in a Pietist family, Michaelis discovered deism during a journey to England in 1741/1742 and sought to chart his own path between rationalism and orthodoxy (II, 2.a), with primary emphasis on maintaining orthodox positions and placing them on a new foundation. In 1746 he was appointed associate professor and in 1750 full professor of oriental languages at Göttingen. Broadly edu-¶ cated and with wide interests, but also emotionally needy and content…

[German Version] was a Phoenician princess, the daughter of Ittobaal of Tyre (or of Sidon, according to Timm), who was married to Ahab of Israel. After Ahab's death, Jezebel gained great political influence as queen mother and used this to promote the Baal/Baalat religion. Jezebel's historical appearance is not easy to determine, since she became the object of a biased historical tradition. It is unlikely that this development of the tradition has deuteronomistic or even later origins. The traditi…

[German Version] An Israelite prophet from the second half of the 9th century bce, Elisha came from a farming family in Abel-Mehola (Tell Abū Ṣūṣ in the bay of Beth-Shean). He was active in the Northern Kingdom under the Omride king (Omri) Jehoram (851–845) and under Jehu, Jehoahaz, and Joaz as the leader of prophetic circles (“disciples of prophets”). Contrary to th…

[German Version] Jeroboam I, was the first king Kingship in Israel) of the northern kingdom of Israel (926–907). Appointed bySolomon (I) as overseer of the central Palestinian forced laborers, Jeroboam use his position to plan an assault on Solomon; however, nothing is known concerning its nature and execution (1 Kgs 11:26–28, 40). Jeroboam had to flee to Egypt (Israel and Egypt). After the central and northern tribes (Tribes of Israel) had seceded from Davidic sovereignty, they installed Jeroboam…

[German Version] Jeroboam II, king (Kingship in Israel) of Israel (787–747), was a contemporary of Azariah/Uzziah of Judah. According to 2 Kgs 14:23–29 and the information in Amos, his reign was a last climax of power and prosperity for (northern) Israel (II, 1) made possible by the weakness of Aram-Damascus (Israel and its neighbours in Syria-Palestine) and the pressure on Assyria from Urartu. Jeroboam was able to restore Israel's traditional landed property in the Transjordan and to extend its c…

[German Version] (Apr 26, 1624, Utrecht, the Netherlands – Sep 30, 1699, Utrecht, the Netherlands), Dutch theologian and expert in Near Eastern studies. ¶ Leusden became associate professor of oriental languages in Utrecht in 1650 and professor of Hebrew in 1653. Instructed by rabbis in Amsterdam, he made himself familiar with the Talmud and with rabbinic literature. Especially important was the text edition of the Biblia Hebraica (1660, 21667), which he organized together with the bookseller Joseph Athias. A model of accuracy and beauty in printing, it became t…

[German Version] Rehoboam, king of Judah (926–910 bce; Kingship [in Israel]), son and successor of Solomon. When he acceded to the throne, the central and northern tribes (Tribes of Israel) exercised their right to speak and demanded that their burden of tribute and forced labor be reduced. When he refused, they announced their separation from the Davidic dynasty and made Jeroboam I king (1 Kgs 12:1–17). This “division of the kingdom” marked the beginning of Israel and Judah as separate states. The invasion of Palestine by the pharaoh Shishak during the reign of Rehoboam aff…

[English Version] Rehabeam, König von Juda (926–910 v.Chr.; Königtum in Israel), Sohn und Nachfolger Salomos. Bei seiner Thronbesteigung nahmen die Mittel- und Nordstämme (Stämme Israels) ihr Mitspracherecht wahr und forderten eine Verminderung ihrer Lasten an Abgaben und Dienstarbeiten. Als R. ablehnte, erklärten sie ihre Trennung von der Daviddynastie und erhoben Jerobeam I. zum König (1Kön 12,1–17). Durch diese »Reichsteilung« war das Nebeneinander der Staaten Israel und Juda eröffnet. – Die In…

[German Version] I. Old Testament – II. Judaism – III. New Testament – IV. Christianity I. Old Testament Elijah, an Israelite prophet in the 9th century bce, was from transjordanian Tishbe in Gilead (not yet located with certainty); consequently, he bore the nickname “the Tishbite,” but only rarely the title “prophet.” He appeared in the Northern Kingdom and was active under kings Ahab (871–852) and Ahaziah (852–851). He is said not to have died but to have been taken up by God to heaven. The traditions concerning Elijah occur in 1 Kgs 17–19; 21; …