The prophecies by Amos were given in the reigns of Uzziah, king of Judah, and Jeroboam II, king of Israel. He describes himself as a herdman of Tekoa, a town in the hill country of Judea, about twelve miles from Jerusalem. A desert town surrounded by solitude, it was a suitable place for men of […]
The book of Micah is composed of three chief divisions, ushered in by a call to listen, “Hear, ye peoples, all of you; hearken, O earth, and all that is therein” (1:2); “And I said, Hear, I pray you, ye heads of Jacob, and princes of the house of Israel” (3:1); and “Hear ye now […]
Habakkuk has been called “the doubting Thomas of the Old Testament,” “the grandfather of the Reformation,” “the prophet of faith,” and “the free-thinker among the prophets.” Had they known each other, there is no question but what Habakkuk and Job would have been bosom friends. It is evident that he lived in the period of […]
In his national prejudice against the Assyrian and in the pride that resented the cancellation of his prediction, Jonah objected to the grace of God to that city. What a sad and forcible reminder of the fact that the only hope for mankind lies in God; and what an exhibition of the flesh, even in […]
The identity of this prophet is uncertain. Nahum calls himself the Elkoshite. Elkosh was probably situated in Galilee; certainly Nahum was familiar with this particular part of Palestine. It is most probable that the prophet moved into Judah after the fall of Israel, when the northern territory was re-populated by Esar-haddon. It is not difficult […]
Haggai’s messages were addressed to Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua, the high priest, clearly proving that the prophet was sent to the remnant of the Jews that returned to Jerusalem in the days of Cyrus, king of Persia, as recorded in the book of Ezra (Ezra 3:2). To understand the significance of these […]
How vividly Sir George Adam Smith describes Edom in The Book of the Twelve Prophets. The purple mountains, into which the wild sons of Esau clambered, run out from Syria upon the desert, some hundred miles by twenty of porphyry and red sandstone. From Mount Hor, which is their summit, you look down upon a […]
The summer was drawing to a close. The late-night ferry crossing from Newhaven, England, to Dieppe, France, was jammed with college students returning to the Continent. There seemed to be no end to the creativity expressed by my fellow travellers in finding places to sleep. But a few of us were enjoying the moon-lit ride […]
On the coast of Britain there were small fishing villages peopled by Britons who had earlier been conquered by the Romans. There Christianity had gained a foothold, but the Romans had not penetrated Scotland or crossed the narrow sea to Hibernia, an island we know as Ireland. Whether Christianity gained a foothold among any of […]