By Jewish arrangement the twelve minor prophets were grouped in one volume. Thus, in the enumeration of the sacred books by Josephus and others, and in all ancient catalogs, they are classed together, and cited from, as one book. The Hebrew arrangement of the first six prophets differs from the Septuagint. The order in which they stand in our English Bibles follows the Hebrew, which is the moral order. In the Septuagint they are represented thus-Hosea, Amos, Micah, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah, which is not strictly chronological.
We would classify those twelve books under three divisions. 1St. Those which relate to the overthrow of the kingdom of Israel by Assyria, and of Judah by Babylon. 2nd. Those which unfold the judgment of the Gentiles. 3rd. Those which relate to the people restored from the Babylon captivity. Under No. we place the books of Hosea, Joel, Amos, Micah, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, six books in all. Under No. 2, we have the three books of Obadiah, Jonah, and Nahum. While under No. 3, we place Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, which along with Ezra and Nehemiah are termed “the books of the Restoration.”
We may here add that the sixteen prophetical books from Isaiah to Malachi (Lamentations not included) are in our English Bibles, arranged in the main in chronological order; but what is of more value to us, and manifests moreover the hand of God, is the moral arrangement of these writings. The last historical book of the Old Testament is Nehemiah, while the last prophetic book is Malachi. Thus, from Genesis to Nehemiah you have sixteen books, the sum of Old Testament history; while from Isaiah to Malachi you have sixteen books the sum of Old Testament prophecy.
HOSEA. From the first verse of the book we gather that Hosea must have prophesied for a period of about 60 years. We cannot with certainty say whether the prophet resided in Samaria or Judea; probably the former, as Israel or the kingdom of the ten tribes is more especially the burden of these prophecies. But while Judah and Israel for judgment, as also for millennial blessing, are directly regarded in this book, it is. to be observed that the Gentiles are entirely passed over, save perhaps in Chapter 1:10, which study and compare with Romans 9:24-26.
Joel. In this book we have no historical data or chronological notes whatever, to guide us as to the place or time when the prophecy was uttered. But judging from the internal character of the book, and also from the fact that the closing words of our prophet (Chapter 3:16) are the opening words of Amos (Chapter 1:2), we gather that Joel uttered “the word of the Lord” in Judea, perhaps, Jerusalem, and further, as preceding Amos, must have been one of the earliest of the Judah prophets, probably about Boo B.C. The then present circumstances of Judah, the harvests utterly destroyed, the sacrifices withheld from the house of the Lord, while famine and desolation wrapped the land, and all classes of the people in mourning owing to the dreadful ravages of countless swarms of locusts and other insects, form the text on which Joel enlarges and announces “ the day of the Lord.” Judah and Jerusalem-people and city-are specially remembered for millennial blessing (Chapter 3:1, 20), but not the Gentiles as such, who are rather the object of divine judgment (Chapter 3:9-16). “I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh” (Chapter 2:28) does however intimate that grace will overstep the narrow limits of Judaism in the happy years at hand. The descriptive powers of our prophet (see Chapter 2) are unequaled by anything found in Scripture or elsewhere.