Books of the Minor Prophets

The Book of Jonah - 12-23-2011

2 Kings 14:16-27: 16 And Jehoash slept with his fathers [perhaps around 798 BC], and was buried in Samaria with the kings of Israel; and Jeroboam his son reigned in his stead. 17 And Amaziah the son of Joash king of Judah lived after the death of Jehoash son of Jehoahaz king of Israel fifteen years. 18 And the rest of the acts of Amaziah, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? 19 Now they made a conspiracy against him in Jerusalem: and he fled to Lachish; but they sent after him to Lachish, and slew him there. 20 And they brought him on horses: and he was buried at Jerusalem with his fathers in the city of David. 21 And all the people of Judah took Azariah, which was sixteen years old, and made him king instead of his father Amaziah. 22 He built Elath, and restored it to Judah, after that the king slept with his fathers. 23 In the fifteenth year of Amaziah the son of Joash king of Judah Jeroboam the son of Joash king of Israel began to reign in Samaria, and reigned forty and one years. 24 And he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD: he departed not from all the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin. 25 He restored the coast of Israel from the entering of Hamath unto the sea of the plain, according to the word of the LORD God of Israel, which he spake by the hand of his servant Jonah, the son of Amittai, the prophet, which was of Gathhepher. 26 For the LORD saw the affliction of Israel, that it was very bitter: for there was not any shut up, nor any left, nor any helper for Israel. 27 And the LORD said not that he would blot out the name of Israel from under heaven: but he saved them by the hand of Jeroboam the son of Joash.

 So Jonah the prophet, the son of Amittai, lived and prophesied before the time of Jeroboam the son of Joash of the kings of Israel. Jeroboam II was king in Israel for about 40 years, from about 793 BC, so Jonah definitely prophesied before 753 BC, and possibly before 793 BC – although that is not certain from the text here in 2 Kings 14. This places Jonah as one of the earliest of all of those prophets of the Bible from Isaiah to Malachi which can be dated. 

The prophecy of Obadiah is a prophecy concerning Edom, that nation which descended from Esau, Jacob's brother. In order to understand the prophecy concerning Edom, one must understand all of the history of the nation, and its relationship to Israel and to God, from the days of Jacob and Esau.

The angels that left their first estate, left it because they decided to race-mix with men, and also with many other species, something we find only in apocryphal literature but which our Bibles as we know them today do not sufficiently explain. When Adam was placed into the Garden of Eden, that tree of the knowledge of good and evil – the results of that first rebellion against God – was already in the garden. These were a race of people (or angels if you must) who at one time knew good, and then knew evil – when they had rebelled against God. Their creation is not explained in Genesis, although Christ tells us in Luke chapter 10 and in the Revelation at chapter 12 that they fell “from heaven”.

The fall of Adam was the partaking by him and his wife of this tree of the knowledge of good and evil – they race-mixed with that person represented by the epithet of “serpent”. Cain was the result of this union, and in spite of the corrupted text we currently know as Genesis 4:1, it can be discerned in several other ways that Cain was not the son of Adam, although he was the son of Eve. Later on in the New Testament, but also often in the allegories of the Old Testament, are the descendants of Cain often referred to as “serpents”.

Hosea Chapter 1

I decided to present the prophecy of Hosea commencing with this week, because on the Saturday program over the next few weeks I plan to present my papers on the Scythians and their origins - God willing – and this prophet more than any other with the arguable exception of perhaps Isaiah, goes hand-in-hand with the history of the deportations of Israel and Judah.

Hosea began his prophesying, according to his own introduction, at the time when Uzziah (who is also sometimes confusingly called Azariah in the King James Version) ruled over Judah and and Jeroboam II ruled over Israel. Both of these men reigned for a long time: Uzziah, who was stricken with leprosy while he ruled, from about 791-739 BC and Jeroboam II from 793-753 BC. Therefore Hosea began to prophecy before 753 BC. He wrote until the days of Hezekiah. Hezekiah ruled Judah from about 729-698 BC and since there was no king in Israel after Hoshea's rule ended circa 722 BC, we see that Hosea did not mention any king after Jeroboam II even though six kings followed him before Israel was fully broken as a kingdom. Therefore Hosea wrote from no later than 753 BC unto at least 722 BC, a period of at least 32 years during the time described in the Bible from II Kings chapters 14 to 20, and from II Chronicles chapters 26 to 32.

Hosea Chapters 3 through 5

Last week, discussing Hosea chapters 1 and 2, I think that the primary lesson was summed up in the idea that the children of Israel are a nation of whores, and a whore as a nation, because they sought intercourse in commerce with all of the other nations, which they had been commanded to remain separate from. This is seen near the beginning of Hosea chapter 2, where it says “2 Plead with your mother, plead: for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband: let her therefore put away her whoredoms out of her sight, and her adulteries from between her breasts; 3 Lest I strip her naked, and set her as in the day that she was born, and make her as a wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and slay her with thirst. 4 And I will not have mercy upon her children; for they be the children of whoredoms. 5 For their mother hath played the harlot: she that conceived them hath done shamefully: for she said, I will go after my lovers, that give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, mine oil and my drink.” Today, chasing after the produce of China, Mexico, and every other race on the earth, we are whores once again. That is why, speaking of the then-future Mystery Babylon, the Revelation again depicts the nation of Israel as a whore: and that is where we are now, awaiting Babylon's fall. For her intercourse with other nations, the nation of Israel was punished and carried away by the Assyrians and later Babylonians, as a judgement from Yahweh. This message continues throughout Hosea.

There was a break at 1:14, where the connection dropped and I was not sure where in respect to the presentation that had happened. Therefore some verses were discussed twice, and I left that in the recording but cut out almost all of the whitespace.

Hosea Chapters 6 through 9

Hosea 1:10 says: “Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered; and it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God.” In order to realize the fulfillment of this prophecy, we must find the dispersed people of the children of Israel deported by the Assyrians, which Hosea is describing. The prophet Isaiah, speaking of the coming fate of these very same children of Israel, records these words of Yahweh in the 66^th chapter of his prophecy: “19 And I will set a sign among them, and I will send those that escape of them unto the nations, to Tarshish, Pul, and Lud, that draw the bow, to Tubal, and Javan, to the isles afar off, that have not heard my fame, neither have seen my glory; and they shall declare my glory among the Nations.”

Tarshish is Tartessus in Spain. Pul is an allegorical name for Assyria after one of its kings, as can be ascertained in the books of Kings and Chronicles. Lud is Lydia in Anatolia. Tubal at this time lived on the Black Sea. Javan are the Ionians, and represents the lands of the Greeks. Within 300 years of the deportations of the Israelites, the Germanic people showed up in all of these places, threatening their very existence. They overthrew Assyria, sacked Lydia, and forced the people of Tubal up through the Caucasus mountains. They threatened Ionia, sacked Etruria – another land of the Lydians in northern Italy, and settled what became known as Gaul as far west as Spain, or what was once Tarshish. No other people ever showed up in all of these places in the centuries following the deportations of the Israelites. This is the “large place” where the children of Israel were to be fed by Yahweh, where he says at Hosea 4:16: “now the LORD will feed them as a lamb [Christ the lamb] in a large place.” With the spread of Christianity to Europe, every word of these prophecies has come true.

Hosea Chapters 10 through 11

I will repeat an important concept which I discussed last week. Here is what is written in the law at Leviticus 20:10 concerning adultery: “And the man that committeth adultery with another man's wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbour's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.” Israel, as a nation being the wife of Yahweh, has committed fornication with every other nation and race upon the face of the earth. There are many in Christian Identity today who want to extend the mercy of God to the lovers of the whore: the other races which our Israel nations consort with unto this today. That is universalism! That is not the Scripture, where it tells us that the mercy of God is extended to Israel alone. The day shall come, when we see the words of Jeremiah fulfilled: “Go up to Lebanon, and cry; and lift up thy voice in Bashan, and cry from the passages: for all thy lovers are destroyed” (Jeremiah 22:20). The children of Israel shall indeed be spared, as Yahweh has promised, but all those consorting with her - all of her lovers - shall be destroyed by God, according to His law. Thus Yahweh warns us in Isaiah chapter 52 - which Paul repeats – to come out from among them, and touch not the unclean – so that He would receive us and be our God, and we could be His people, if indeed we are of the children of Israel.

Hosea Chapters 12 through 14

This is the last installment of our series of presentations on the prophecy of Hosea. Throughout the prophecy, we have seen a common theme, which is also common in the other Biblical prophets: that the children of Israel were about to suffer a great calamity, and were being cast off from the Kingdom and polity of Yahweh their God because of their sin, but that they had a promise of a later reconciliation in Christ. Here in these last chapters, Hosea continues with that same theme, allowing us to further reflect upon much of what has already been presented these past few weeks, and although his words are quite foreboding, he ends with a message of hope, a hope which we still bear to this very day.

KJV Hosea 12:1 Ephraim feedeth on wind, and followeth after the east wind: he daily increaseth lies and desolation; and they do make a covenant with the Assyrians, and oil is carried into Egypt. 

At Hosea 2:5 it is explained that Israel's national sin was related to Israel's desire for foreign trade: “For their mother hath played the harlot: she that conceived them hath done shamefully: for she said, I will go after my lovers, that give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, mine oil and my drink.”

The Prophecy of Joel, Part 1

This program, because of technical difficulties at Talkshoe, was held on the Christogenea Chat Page and Christogenea Live! Streaming Radio, which was a necessary first at Christogenea.

The following is from the Thomas Nelson Publisher's King James Study Bible, copyright 1983 by Thomas Nelson Inc. While I would usually not read anything like this from mainstream commentaries, they do get some things right, and I read this here for it's testimony of the nature of Joel's prophecy, which is actually pretty fair and decent considering it was originally a product of Liberty University.

“Joel is a highly emotional prophecy, rich in imagery and vivid descriptions. In it two unique events, not to be forgotten, are compared. These two events are to be committ­ed to the descendants of the people. [Oddly, they deny this of the New Covenant today!]

“Historical Setting. Joel was one of the earliest prophets of Judah. The specific place from which Joel wrote is not known. Since he was a resident of Judah and Jerusalem, he likely wrote his prophecy from there. His frequent calls to blow a trumpet in Zion, to consecrate a fast, to proclaim a solemn assembly, and to gather the people together to come before the Lord lend credence to the view that the prophecy was issued [verbally] from the temple court.

The Prophecy of Joel, Part 2

We shall begin with Revelation 20:7-10, from the King James Version: “7 And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, 8 And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. 9 And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them. 10 And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.”

For a thousand years in Christian Europe did the true people of God prevail over the Jew, who collectively is Satan, or the Adversary. The Jew had plotted against Christianity and the people of Europe from the time of Christ (and for thousands of years before that, if Old Testament history were truly understood). Upon the emancipation of the Jew in the early days of Napoleon, instigated by the French Revolution, the Jew became free and equal citizens of Christians in Europe. From that time, Satan has used the false ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity, in one form or another, to gather all of the world's hominid beasts into Christians lands, where they are hostile both to Christianity and to the White race which are the true people of God. That is where we are today, at Revelation 20:9. Now to read from Joel chapter 2, which is a promise of deliverance:

The Prophecy of Amos, Part 1

Many students of the Bible fail to realize, or at least easily forget – and I also at times have probably been guilty of this same thing – that the promise to Abraham that his seed would possess all of the land from Egypt to the Euphrates was indeed fulfilled in the days of King David. Even the Jews often deny the fact of this fulfillment, hoping themselves to be the heirs of this land in modern times and pointing to the prophecy in order to justify their treachery – and in spite of the fact that they are not genetic Israel. Here it is in Genesis 15:18-21: “18 In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates: 19 The Kenites, and the Kenizzites, and the Kadmonites, 20 And the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Rephaims, 21 And the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.”

Now it is clear from Scripture that the children of Israel did not exterminate all of the tribes of Canaan as they were so commanded. But that does not mean that they did not possess the land. The fulfillment of this promise of Genesis 15:18 is evident in 2 Samuel chapter 8...

The Prophecy of Amos, Part 2

The prophecy of Amos begins with oracles against both Israel and Judah, and also against the Edomites, Syrians, Moabites and Ammonites and certain of their cities. In the first segment of our presentation of the Book of Amos we began to discuss the fates of these places, and presented much of what can be seen of these things from ancient Assyrian inscriptions. This helps to demonstrate that the Biblical account of the history of this period certainly is true, and also to show that these prophecies indeed had the beginning of their fulfillment in the years subsequent to the time of the prophet. Here we shall repeat these oracles against Damascus and against Gaza, and continue with our theme from last week.

3 Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Damascus, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they have threshed Gilead with threshing instruments of iron: 4 But I will send a fire into the house of Hazael, which shall devour the palaces of Benhadad. 5 I will break also the bar of Damascus, and cut off the inhabitant from the plain of Aven, and him that holdeth the sceptre from the house of Eden: and the people of Syria shall go into captivity unto Kir, saith the LORD.

The opening remarks to this program are not directly related to the subject matter, and are therefore published at the Christogenea Forum. 

The Prophecy of Amos, Part 3

The prophecy of Amos begins with oracles against both Israel and Judah, and also against the Edomites, Syrians, Moabites and Ammonites and certain of their cities. We have already discussed the fates of many of these places, and presented much of what can be seen of the contemporary history of these places from ancient Assyrian inscriptions. This helps to demonstrate that the Biblical account of the history of this period certainly is true, and also to show that these prophecies indeed had the beginning of their fulfillment in the years subsequent to the time of the prophet. Here we shall commence with Amos chapter 2, continuing with the utterances against Moab, continuing with our theme from the last two segments.

The Prophecy of Amos, Part 4

In closing the last part of this presentation on Amos, we discussed some of the historical evidence of the ancient kingdom of Israel. Early in that presentation we had seen the attestation of the text of the ancient Moabite Stone. In it we see the tribe of Gad mentioned explicitly, connected to the “king of Israel”, and in some of the same locations that the Hebrew Bible also places them.

Where the Moabite Stone says “Now the men of Gad had al­ways dwelt in the land of Ataroth, and the king of Israel had built Ataroth for them”, it agrees with the Biblical Book of Numbers at chapter 32, verses 1 through 4. This same inscription also mentions the Israelite king Omri, as the Assyrian inscriptions also often do. The Assyrian, Babylonian and Persian inscriptions verify the historicity of many things in the Bible, which we shall see as this presentation unfolds. To imagine that all of the inscriptions attesting to the historicity of the Bible are somehow spurious is ridiculous. There is no doubting the veracity of a great number of these inscriptions, for the accounts concerning their discoveries are well recorded.. The people that made such inscriptions were pagans, and had nothing extraneous to gain by them, and could not have imagined that over 2,500 years later these things would be dug out of the ground and found to verify the accounts in an unrelated book which was to be passed down over so many centuries.

The Prophecy of Amos, Part 5

Over the past four segments of this presentation on the prophecy of Amos, we have discussed the ancient Mesopotamian inscriptions and their evidences of the existence of and the demise of the ancient kingdoms of Damascus, Ammon, Moab, Edom, and then Judah. In the past two segments of this, we also witnessed some of the Greek historical attestations of the founding of the ancient Kingdom of Israel by Moses, as it was recounted by both Strabo the Geographer and Diodorus Siculus. Discussing the oracle of Amos against Judah last week, we saw three ancient witnesses attesting to the facts and circumstances concerning the history of the ancient Kingdom of Judah as they are outlined in the Old Testament. These were the Lachish Ostraca, the Taylor Prism containing the Annals of Sennacherib, and various Babylonian inscriptions attesting to the presence of the household of Jehoiachin the King of Judah in captivity in Babylon. All of these things are more than sufficient proof witnessing to the historicity of the books of the Old Testament. Here we shall see further evidence from ancient inscriptions verifying the truth of the historical circumstances found in the writings of the Bible, and of this prophet.

6 Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they sold the righteous for silver, and the poor for a pair of shoes; 7 That pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the poor, and turn aside the way of the meek: and a man and his father will go in unto the same maid, to profane my holy name: 8 And they lay themselves down upon clothes laid to pledge by every altar, and they drink the wine of the condemned in the house of their god. 9 Yet destroyed I the Amorite before them, whose height was like the height of the cedars, and he was strong as the oaks; yet I destroyed his fruit from above, and his roots from beneath. 10 Also I brought you up from the land of Egypt, and led you forty years through the wilderness, to possess the land of the Amorite. 11 And I raised up of your sons for prophets, and of your young men for Nazarites. Is it not even thus, O ye children of Israel? saith the LORD. 12 But ye gave the Nazarites wine to drink; and commanded the prophets, saying, Prophesy not. 13 Behold, I am pressed under you, as a cart is pressed that is full of sheaves. 14 Therefore the flight shall perish from the swift, and the strong shall not strengthen his force, neither shall the mighty deliver himself: 15 Neither shall he stand that handleth the bow; and he that is swift of foot shall not deliver himself: neither shall he that rideth the horse deliver himself. 16 And he that is courageous among the mighty shall flee away naked in that day, saith the LORD.

The Prophecy of Amos, Part 6

In the first two chapters of Amos, we saw judgements pronounced upon the people of Israel and Judah, and also upon the surrounding nations as well. These other nations are the Ammonites, Moabites, Edomites, Philistines and the Syrians of Damascus. Some of these people of the surrounding nations were from the accursed tribes of Canaan, or from of the inbred descendants of Lot. Others were Adamic peoples closely related to the Israelites. Many of the people in these nations were evidently Israelites themselves who had been both residing in and even mixing with these nations ever since the period of the Judges, and especially since the time of the division of the Kingdom when Israel was turned to paganism by their political leaders. 

It is perfectly evident in 2 Samuel chapter 8, that the Syrians of Damascus, the Philistines, Moabites, Ammonites and Edomites were all subjected to Israel in the days of King David, and that his kingdom did indeed stretch from the border of Egypt to the Euphrates, and that David's sons were delegated rulership over parts of this territory. These things are truly not noticeable in inscriptions or often even in the Bible, because in the Bible the original names of these lands were kept, the lands were mostly named after the original occupants, and later on those who inhabited these lands were often called after these names no matter what tribe they were from. That the children of Israel had indeed begun to mingle with these subject people is evident throughout the Biblical narrative, that they went “a whoring after the heathen” (i.e. Ezekiel 23:30) and begot “strange children” (i.e. Hosea 5:7).

The Prophecy of Amos, Part 7

In the last segment of this presentation of the prophecy of Amos we spent a considerable amount of time examining the phrase “all the families of the earth”, which appears in Amos 3:2, in the light of the context of Scripture. We shall not again dwell at length on that phrase here, however we shall summarize a few things from last week's presentation, and then proceed with the rest of Amos chapter 3.

Amos 3:1 Hear this word that the LORD hath spoken against you, O children of Israel, against the whole family which I brought up from the land of Egypt, saying, 2 You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.

The phrase “all the families of the earth” can only refer to all of the White Genesis 10 nations of the Adamic oikoumenê, which is the Biblical context provided by Genesis chapters 5, 10 and 11, which is also the way the phrase was understood in both Deuteronomy 32:8 and in Acts 17:26:

Genesis 5:1: “This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him; 2 Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.”

Genesis 10:32: “These are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations, in their nations: and by these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood.”

Genesis 11:1, 8-9: “1 And the whole earth [that whole land of Shinar] was of one language, and of one speech.... 8 So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. 9 Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth [of all of that land]: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.”

The Prophecy of Amos, Part 8

Most of the historical portion of our presentation is past. Now we shall focus on the pattern of sin and punishment suffered by the children of Israel.

KJV Amos 4:1 Hear this word, ye kine of Bashan, that are in the mountain of Samaria, which oppress the poor, which crush the needy, which say to their masters, Bring, and let us drink.

Bashan means fruitful. The land of king Og of Bashan fell to the lot of Manasseh when the land was taken from the Canaanites and divided by Israel (Joshua 17). The children of Israel are likened to kine. If we had to venture as to why, it is evident that they had worshipped the golden calves of Jeroboam I all throughout the period of the divided kingdom. Adam Was formed in the image of Yahweh his God, and these Israelite children of Adam would rather worship calves. They were therefore likened to calves. Later, Ahab, Ahaziah, Jehoram, Jehu, Jehoahaz, Jehoash, Jeroboam II, Azariah, Menahem, Pekah, all kings of Israel, and probably some others besides these, were all criticized for doing “evil in the site of Yahweh” and for not departing from the ways of “Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin”.

Amos, Part 9

Accompanying this audio presentation of Amos is a separate article, Scatterers and Gatherers

KJV Amos 6:1 Woe to them that are at ease in Zion, and trust in the mountain of Samaria, which are named chief of the nations, to whom the house of Israel came!

Amos is addressing the rulers, the societal elites, in Israel. The House of Israel had come to these people. That does not mean that these people themselves were not of Israel. It rather means that they had come to the control of the Kingdom, in one way or another. It seems, from 1 Chronicles 5:17, that genealogy still played an important part in reckoning the people, in spite of Israel's having long before gone off into paganism. It must be noted however that the Books of Chronicles were compiled from what records remained after the return of portions of Levi, Benjamin and Judah from Babylon. This is easily demonstrable because it is evident in the listings of the tribes in the opening chapters of 1 Chronicles. After describing the inheritance of the children of Gad, that passage says: “All these were reckoned by genealogies in the days of Jotham king of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam king of Israel.” The reference to Jeroboam is to that king of Israel who ruled during the time of the ministry of Amos.

The remarks which prefaced this program, on the Christian obligation to practice freedom of association and disassociation, are posted in the Christogenea Forum: Remarks on Freedom of Association and Disassociation.

The Prophecy of Amos, Part 10

In Amos chapters 1 and 2, while Yahweh pronounced judgements upon Israel because they oppressed the poor and the righteous, He also pronounced judgements upon Judah and the other surrounding nations for their various transgressions. Beginning with Amos Chapter 3 and through to the end of the book, Yahweh pronounces a series of judgements upon Israel alone which are actually repetitive pronouncements foretelling the same punishment, but giving differing reasons for that punishment in different ways. In Amos chapter 3 Yahweh announces to Israel that “You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.” The reasons given in this chapter are that “they know not to do right, saith the LORD, who store up violence and robbery in their palaces.” This means that the riches they had gained for themselves were accumulated through those unjust means. In verse 12 a reference is made to the horns of the altar of Bethel, which was a principle seat of idolatry in Israel. 

The Prophecy of Micah - Part 1

The prophecy of Micah parallels those of Isaiah, Hosea, and Amos, who were all prophets of the 8th century BC. The ministries of all four of these prophets were focused on forecasting God's impending judgment of the ancient northern Kingdom of Israel, although they all also prophesied of other things, such as the sin and impending judgment of Judah and Jerusalem, of Christ, and of Israel's eventual restoration. The prophet Jonah is earlier than any of these, but he was not concerned with the destruction of Israel. Rather, Jonah sought the preservation of Israel, imagining that Yahweh would destroy the encroaching Assyrians instead. It was demonstrated in our presentation of Amos that Assyria and Israel had been struggling back-and-forth for over a hundred years before the final destruction of Samaria. For instance, we had demonstrated from correlating the Bible with certain ancient Assyrian inscriptions that the restoration to Israel of Hamath, Damascus and the northern plain by Jeroboam II which is mentioned in 2 Kings chapter 14 was in response to earlier Assyrian subjugation of that area. Even earlier than that, we saw in Assyrian inscriptions that the Israelite king Ahab had sent a force of 10,000 foot-soldiers to join a mostly Syrian coalition army against Assyrian expansion into the Levant, something which is not mentioned in the Bible. Ahab was over a hundred years before Jotham, the king of Judah when Micah began his ministry. The lesson of the gourd in Jonah is that Yahweh was indeed going to use Assyria's expanding empire to preserve Israel by taking Israel into captivity. Jonah recorded the lesson of the gourd, but he evidently did not understand it.

The next prophet after Micah is Nahum, a prophet of the 7th century who was indeed focused on Yahweh's revenge against the Assyrians, something which Isaiah also prophesied about at length. The prophet Joel, usually and incorrectly dated to an earlier period, was also a prophet of the 7th century BC, as the third chapter of his book demonstrates. Obadiah is also usually dated to have been written at an early time, but his prophecy could not have been written until after the fall of Jerusalem (verses 10-14). Scholars who dispute the prophecies concerning Edom do not understand who Edom is in the world today, and therefore they cannot understand Obadiah. Aside from these and a few other less significant questions, the King James translators were fair in estimating the proper order of the minor prophets.