worthwhile?

Apart from Him all is vanity - empty.

The name of this book seems to suggest that Solomon wrote it, but this is not so. It could be that the book was

written for Solomon, or it may even be about him. In any case, the most we can say in a short booklet like this is

that it is a love story.

The rest of the Old Testament is taken up with the prophets. There are 16 in all, 4 which we call major prophets,

and 12 minor prophets. God caused them all to be written, so the names major and minor do not mean that some are

more important than others. They are all important, but four of them are longer than the rest, and so are called

major prophets. The four major prophets are:

Now write out the 12 minor prophets, by turning to the first one, Hosea, and then carrying on through the Old

Testament until you have them all.

We have already said that some prophets spoke of things to come. Some of the things they said have already

happened, but others have still to take place in the future. The prophets spoke about the Lord Jesus Christ, who

came in the past, and will come again in the future.

To help us remember something about the prophets, we notice that they prophesied during three periods of the

history of the Jews.

1.

When the Jews (children of Israel) were divided into two kingdoms (Israel and Judah).

2.

When Judah were slaves in Babylon.

3.

After Judah had been freed from Babylon.

Let us look at these three periods.

(1) When the Jews (children of Israel) were divided into two kingdoms.

The prophets who spoke during this time were:

Do not worry if you forget which prophets belong to which period; you can always look it up in this booklet.

The important thing is to remember something about the three periods.

The period we are thinking about at the moment is when there were the two kingdoms, Israel in the north, and

Judah in the south.

Some of the prophets we have just listed spoke to Israel, some to Judah, and some had warnings for both

kingdoms . They warned the Jews (children of Israel) that God would punish them if they did not change their

One prophet during this time was sent to warn the people of Nineveh, the capital of Assyria. His name was

Jonah, and you probably know something about him. Do you remember that Assyria took the Northern kingdom,

Israel, as slaves? Some of the other prophets warned Israel of this.

Other prophets at this time also foretold of later days when Judah would suffer under Babylon. The Jews were

often disobedient to God, not listening to the warnings of the prophets, and so the strong nations of Assyria, and