Prophetic Books

Description of the prophetic era

Prophetic books are easier to understand if one knows the historical setting in which they were composed. Therefore, we will briefly acquaint the reader with the most important events of those times. Under Solomon's son, King Rehoboam (980 B.C.), the united kingdom of Israel was divided into two kingdoms of Judah and Israel. Judah, which occupied the southern part of the Holy Land, was ruled by the descendants of King David. The capital of the kingdom of Judah was the city of Jerusalem, where a magnificent temple built by Solomon stood on the Zion Hill. The law allowed Jews to have only one temple because it served as a spiritual center for the Jewish people. The kingdom of Judah consisted of two tribes, the descendants of Judah and Benjamin. The remaining ten tribes were included in the kingdom of Israel, which was formed in the northern part of the Holy Land. Its capital was Samaria, which was ruled by kings of different dynasties. The kings of Israel, fearing that their subjects would wish to return to the sceptre of the king of Judah when they visited the temple in Jerusalem, prevented their subjects from making pilgrimages to Jerusalem. To meet the spiritual needs of the people, they built pagan temples in different parts of Israel and persuaded the people to worship idols. The temptation to idolatry was great, since all the peoples surrounding Israel worshipped various deities. The Phoenician deity Baal was especially popular. Along with idolatry, coarse, immoral pagan customs passed on to the Jews. In this difficult time for the Old Testament religion, God sent His prophets to Israel, who tried to delay the process of spiritual decay and restore piety among the people. The first Israelite prophets Elijah and Elisha lived under the Israelite kings Ahab, Jehu and Jehoahaz (900825 B.C.). They did not leave records of their sermons to posterity, but their miracles and some of their instructions are recorded in the Third and Second Books of Kings. During the long reign of Jeroboam II (782,740 B.C.), the kingdom of Israel reached the highest degree of prosperity. The weakened neighboring kingdoms of Syria, Phoenicia, Moabites, Ammonites, and Edomites did not trouble the Jews. The expansion of the borders of the kingdom of Israel was accompanied by peace and security. It was a time of flourishing art and trade. But at the same time, the morality of the people began to decline rapidly. The rich oppressed the poor, judges acquitted for bribes, debauchery found a wide response among the superstitious masses. The Israelite prophets Joel, Amos and Hosea armed themselves against these evils. A special position among the prophets is occupied by Jonah, who preached not among the Jews, but in Nineveh, the capital of Assyria. After his preaching and the repentance of the Ninevites, the Assyrian kingdom began to grow stronger, expanded, and finally turned into a powerful military force. For two centuries, the Assyrian Empire spread over the territories now occupied by Iran, Iraq, Syria, Jordan and Israel. In 738, the king of Israel had to pay a huge tribute to Tiglathpilesar of Assyria. In view of the increasing demands of the Assyrian kings, the kings of Israel had to look for allies among the kings of neighboring states. For example, the Israelite king Tekoa, together with Rezin of Syria, tried to draw the Judean king Ahab into an alliance against Assyria by force. But the frightened Ahab turned to Tiglathpileser III for help. In 734, Tiglath-thalaser again invaded Israel, annexed Galilee and Damascus to his kingdom and took many Israelites into captivity. During the lifetime of Tiglathalasar, the Israelite king Hosea obediently paid tribute to Syria. After his death, an alliance was concluded with Egypt. Then the Assyrian king Shalmaneser IV invaded Israel and ravaged it, and his successor Sargon II in 722 took the capital of Israel Samaria and ravaged it. The Israelites were resettled in various parts of the vast Assyrian Empire, and neighboring nations were resettled in their place. Thus the kingdom of Israel ceased to exist. In his place later appeared the Samaritans, the descendants of the Israelites, who mixed with the pagans. The prophets Joel, Amos and Hosea predicted the calamities coming upon Israel. They saw in the repentant conversion of the Jewish people to God the only possibility of salvation for them. After the fall of Israel, the kingdom of Judah existed for more than a hundred years. During the fall of Samaria, the pious king Hezekiah ruled in Judea (725696). He, following the policy of his father Ahab, maintained an alliance with Assyria. However, after Sargon's death, Hezekiah joined a coalition of neighboring kingdoms seeking to overthrow the oppression of Assyria. In 701, an Assyrian army led by King Sennacherib invaded Judah and ravaged several Judean cities. Hezekiah bought himself off with a large tribute. Soon Sennacherib again attacked Judah, collecting new tribute necessary for him to maintain his military power, and threatened Jerusalem with destruction. Hoping for God's help, Hezekiah decided to defend himself in Jerusalem. Then the prophet Isaiah spoke, who predicted that Sennacherib's plans would not be fulfilled and God would save the Jews. Indeed, the very next night the Angel of the Lord struck down the 185,000-strong Assyrian army. Sennacherib returned to Assyria in shame, where he was soon killed by conspirators (2 Kings 20). Isaiah revealed the flowering of the prophetic gift, and his book is a remarkable monument of prophetic writing. We will talk about it in more detail later. At about the same time, Micah and Nahum prophesied. Hezekiah's son, the wicked Manasseh (696641 B.C.), was the exact opposite of his believing and good father. His reign turned out to be the darkest period in the history of the Jewish people. It was a time of persecution of the prophets and destruction of faith. Manasseh, having concluded an alliance with Assyria, set himself the goal of making paganism the dominant religion in his country. He mercilessly destroyed the defenders of the faith. During his reign, the great Isaiah also suffered a martyr's death. The reign of Manasseh, which lasted about fifty years, caused irreparable damage to the true faith. Those few prophets who survived the persecution went underground, and we know nothing about their activities. In his old age, Manasseh tried to throw off his dependence on Assyria, but he paid a heavy price for it. In the end, he realized his guilt before God and repented, but neither the aged Manasseh nor his successors could restore the true faith among the people. After Manasseh, the pious king Josiah (639608 B.C.) ruled. Wishing to revive faith in God among the people, he diligently engaged in religious reform, and regular services began again in the temple. However, the success of his reforms was mainly external. Pagan customs and superstitions took deep root among the people. High society was morally corrupt. Nevertheless, the prophets Nahum, Zephaniah, Habakkuk, and especially Jeremiah tried to awaken a sense of repentance in the people and restore faith in God. In 608, the Egyptian army of Pharaoh Necho II, waging war against Assyria, passed through Judah. Josiah, trying to remain faithful to Assyria, entered into battle with Necho, but was defeated at Megiddo (Armageddon). For a short time, Judah became a subject of Egypt. This was the time of the weakening of Assyria and the strengthening of the Babylonian monarchy. The joint army of Nabopolassar of Babylon (Chaldean) and Xerxes of the Medes destroyed Nineveh in 606 B.C. Thus perished the warlike Assyrian Empire, which had terrified and ravaged neighboring countries for a hundred and fifty years. Nabopolassar's successor, Nebuchadnezzar, invaded Judah in his victorious campaign against Egypt, and King Jehoiakim became a subject of Babylon in 604. Contrary to the warnings of the prophet Jeremiah, Jehoiakim's son Jehoiachin rebelled against Babylon and was taken captive to Babylon with many of his retainers (597, the first Babylonian captivity). Among the captives was the prophet Ezekiel. In 588, under King Zedekiah, Judah again rebelled against Babylon (Chaldea). In 586, Jerusalem was besieged and taken. The temple was burned, the city was destroyed. The blinded king, along with the rest of his subjects, was taken captive to Babylon. Thus began the second Babylonian captivity. The Jews spent about 70 years in captivity, from 597 to 536 B.C.

The Meaning of the Ancient Prophets

In Old Testament times, priests limited themselves mainly to offering sacrifices prescribed by the law. They did not care about the morality of the people. They were priests, but not shepherds. The Jewish people were in spiritual ignorance, and pagan superstitions and vices were easily assimilated by them. Therefore, the main task of the prophets was to teach the Jewish people to believe and live correctly. Seeing deviations from the Law of God, the prophets severely rebuked sinners, no matter who they were commoners or princes, priests or judges, slaves or kings. Their inspired word had great power to awaken a sense of repentance and a desire to serve God. The prophets were the conscience of the people and "elders" to those who longed for spiritual guidance. Only thanks to the prophets did the true faith persist among the Jewish people until the time of the birth of Christ. The first disciples of Christ were disciples of the last Old Testament prophet John the Baptist. While the priesthood was hereditary among the Jews, people were called to the prophetic ministry by God individually. The prophets came from the most diverse strata of the population from the peasant and pastoral class, as, for example, the prophets Hosea and Amos; or from high society, such as the prophets Isaiah, Zephaniah, and Daniel. There were prophets of priestly origin, such as the prophets Ezekiel and Habakkuk. The Lord chose prophets not according to their social background, but according to their spiritual qualities. Over the centuries, the image of a true prophet of God was established among the Jews: a man who was completely unselfish, infinitely devoted to God, fearless before the powers that be, and at the same time deeply humble, strict with himself, compassionate and caring, like a father. Many of the weak and offended among the people found protectors and intercessors in the person of the prophets of God.

For greater clarity, we will consider the prophetic books in chronological order. We will talk about the prophets who lived in the period from the ninth to the sixth century B.C. Joel, Jonah, Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, and Micah. At the center of this first period is Isaiah, whose book must be considered the flowering of the prophetic gift. The eyes of the prophets of this period were turned to the fall of the kingdom of Israel, which occurred in 722 B.C. This first period ends with the persecution and destruction of the prophets by King Manasseh.

The Book of the Prophet Joel

In chronological order, Joel is the first prophet to leave us a record of his sermons. Joel did his prophetic ministry in Judah, probably under the Judean kings Jehoash and Amaziah, about 800 B.C. Joel calls himself the son of Bethuel. Those were the years of comparative peace and prosperity. Jerusalem, Zion, the temple of Jerusalem, divine services are constantly on the lips of the prophet. However, in the disasters that befell Judea, the drought and, especially, the terrible plague of locusts, the prophet sees the beginning of God's judgment on the Jewish people and all people. The main vice against which the prophet Joel arms himself is the mechanical, soulless fulfillment of the ceremonial law. At that time, the pious king Jehoash sought to restore religion in Judah, but he was successful mainly in its outward manifestation. The prophet sees ahead an even greater strengthening of pagan superstitions and the subsequent punishment of God, and calls the Jews to sincere repentance, saying: "But even now saith the Lord: Turn unto Me with all your heart in fasting, weeping, and weeping. Tear your hearts, and not your garments, and turn to the Lord your God; for He is good and merciful, long-suffering and abundant in mercy, and is sorry for adversity (Joel 2:1213). Often in one prophetic vision of Joel, events are combined that are separated from each other by intervals of many centuries, but close in religious terms.

The content of the Book of the Prophet Joel:

нашествие саранчи (Иоиль 1, 220);

о приближении Дня Господня (Иоиль 2, 111);

призыв к покаянию (Иоиль 2, 1217);

О Божием милосердии (Иоиль 2, 1827);

о духовном возрождении (Иоиль 2, 2832);