Jonah
Chapters: 4
Setting: Joppa in Israel, the belly of a whale in the Mediterranean Sea and Nineveh in Assyria (see map below), during the reign of Jeroboam II (786-746 BC)
Summary: A beautifully structured, funny and profound story, the Book of Jonah is undoubtedly one of the Bible's gems. Whales have long been a feature of religious stories – in the Hindu account of the flood, Vishnu assumes the shape of a great fish, while in Islam, the whale that swallows Jonah is one of the ten animals to enter Paradise. I remember so many elements of the story from childhood, but reading it again as an adult, especially the ending, does add an extra layer of depth. Jonah disobeying God and heading west rather than east to Nineveh; then getting caught up in a storm on a boat; then being thrown overboard and getting swallowed and later released to safety by a whale – these are all commonly known story elements, but what I didn't remember was Jonah's mass conversion of the Ninevites and his subsequent anger at God in the last chapter. Reading it in context, it's also unique in that it's the only book among the Minor Prophets that focuses more on the story than the content of the prophecy, and it's also unique for its satiric tone – especially relating to the inherent xenophobia of prophets. After being disgorged from the whale, Jonah enters Nineveh proclaiming a simple message: "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!" (3:4) – what he doesn't expect is for all the people of the city, including the king (and animals!), to listen to him and don sackcloth and ashes. This causes God to spare the city, and leads Jonah to end the book sitting in a sulk under the shade of a large plant or vine (called a "gourd" in the KJV), more concerned about a worm eating away at the vine than the survival of the 120,000 people below. God shows sympathies beyond his own Hebrew tribe with his unanswered, rhetorical question to Jonah at the end of the book (quoted below).
Key quotes: "Now the Lord provided a huge fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights" (1:17), "You hurled me into the deep, into the very heart of the seas, and the currents swirled about me; all your waves and breakers swept over me ... To the roots of the mountains I sank down; the earth beneath barred me in forever. But you, Lord my God, brought my life up from the pit" (2:3 and 2:6), "And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?" (4:11)
Micah
Chapters: 7
Setting: Judah, in the latter half of the 8th century BC (after incursions by the Assyrian empire into northern Israel – notably Samaria – refugees flooded south to Judah)
Summary: After the wonderful storytelling of Jonah, the Book of Micah is a return to the standard formula of the Minor Prophet accounts – in essence, doom-laden oracles against the nations laced with hope of redemption for Jerusalem. Micah, like many of the prophets, is a rural figure railing against the corruption of the city (it's reminiscent of the provincial / urban divide opening up in UK and US politics). Though the Book of Micah is very similar to the Book of Isaiah in content, there are some novel elements, notably God's accusation that his people having broken the covenant and are now opening up a lawsuit – "O my people, what have I done unto thee? And wherein have I wearied thee? Testify against me" (6:3) – which Micah responds to by entreating the community "to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God" (6:8). I've quoted this key section in full below, as it marks a new phase near the end of the Old Testament – evident also in the Books of Daniel and Jonah – of a less vengeful God, who is not placing so much emphasis on the strict laws of the Pentateuch but more focus on love and mercy.
Key quotes: "In the last days it shall come to pass, that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established in the top of the mountains ... and many nations shall come, and ... the law shall go forth of Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And he shall judge among many people, and rebuke strong nations afar off; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: Nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid" (4:1-4). Plus another significant long quote: "Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the high God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" (6:6-8). The book also ends with a lament – "For the son dishonoureth the father, the daughter riseth up against her mother, the daughter in law against her mother in law; a man's enemies are the men of his own house" (7:6) – before a prayer for future prosperity.
Nahum
Chapters: 3
Setting: 8th century BC Jerusalem, prophesying the fall of Nineveh
Summary: Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian empire, features in several prophetic books (notably also Jonah and Zephaniah), and the great city did later fall in around 612BC. The Book of Nahum contains several diatribes against it, but starts with a poem praising God and the protection he provides for the faithful – "O Judah, keep thy solemn feasts, perform thy vows: for the wicked shall no more pass through thee" (1:15). Chapters 2 and 3 are full of prophecies about the fall of Nineveh, with Nahum imagining himself on the front line in the city's destruction, by using poetic language to describe the slaying of a great "lion" (2:11). Much of it is very conventional compared to the Book of Jonah, but chapter 3 is notable for the ferocity of the language used against Nineveh.
Key quotes: "The Lord is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked: the Lord hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet" (1:3). "The Lord is good, a strong hold in the day of trouble; and he knoweth them that trust in him" (1:7). "But Nineveh is of old like a pool of water: yet they shall flee away. Stand, stand, shall they cry; but none shall look back" (2:8). "Behold, I am against thee, saith the Lord of hosts; and I will discover thy skirts upon thy face, and I will shew the nations thy nakedness, and the kingdoms thy shame. And I will cast abominable filth upon thee, and make thee vile, and will set thee as a gazingstock" (3:5-6).
Habakkuk
Chapters: 3
Setting: Jerusalem in mid-to-late 7th century BC, before the siege of Babylon
Summary: The Book of Habakkuk is original among the Minor Prophets in that it explores the difficulties of faith, rather than just railing against foreign nations, and consists of an elegant structure, lament (chapter 1) > vision (chapter 2) > prayer (chapter 3). Habakkuk's lament on why God allows such suffering is reminiscent of those in the Book of Job and some psalms. Chapter 2 contains perhaps the book's most famous line, which expresses the idea that in times of injustice, the best will be marked by their faithfulness in God: "Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him: but the just shall live by his faith" (2:4). The slogan, "the just shall live by their faith", was used widely in the Reformation; to Martin Luther, the church was no longer the institution defined by apostolic succession, but the community of those who had been given faith. This line appealed to the democratic instincts of Protestants. In the book's final chapter, Habakkuk recites a hymn to the arrival of God in battle, journeying from the south as a man of war to defeat his enemies (including dragons, as in Isaiah 51:9-11). Chapter 3 also resolves Habakkuk's earlier laments about God not supporting the righteous, with a poetic passage about keeping the faith even in the most difficult of times.
Key quotes: "Therefore the law is slacked, and judgment doth never go forth: for the wicked doth compass about the righteous; therefore wrong judgment proceedeth" (1:4). "Woe unto him that giveth his neighbour drink, that puttest thy bottle to him, and makest him drunken also, that thou mayest look on their nakedness!" (2:15). "Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls: Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation." (3:17-18).
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