Mining the Minors: The Post-Game Show

So then, 212 posts. I almost hate to see the end of it. This series might be the most fun I’ve ever had writing about the word of God for free in my spare time (of which I currently have way, WAY too much). I’m not sure how many of our readers benefited from it, but nobody benefited from it more than I did.

I started with the idea that Andy Stanley is wrong about the Old Testament’s irrelevance to the Christian message. I’m more convinced than ever of that. The gospel is anchored to an Old Covenant narrative and worldview, and the Christian “case in the marketplace”, as Stanley refers to it, depends on respecting and making use of the entire story God has told the world concerning his Son.

Mining the Minors: Malachi (9)

New Testament quotations and allusions to Malachi are primarily (though not exclusively) related to the role of John the Baptist as the herald of Messiah who would make ready for the Lord “a people prepared”, tying together the two halves of our Bibles and bridging the 400-year revelation gap between the Testaments.

Let’s go through these in as close to chronological order as possible.

Mining the Minors: Malachi (8)

A word of thanks to any of our readers who have made it through even a portion of our massive Mining the Minors project as we begin winding down the series. To date, we have posted a grand total of 210 straight Saturdays, or over four years, on the messages of the twelve Minor Prophets, a task I felt many questions about attempting back in September of 2020.

At the time, I wondered if such a lengthy series might not be cut short by the Lord’s return. I expect that’s still possible, and if not this series, perhaps the next.

Mining the Minors: Malachi (7)

God’s fifth complaint through the prophet Malachi in the late fifth century BC completes his critique of the nation. Israel has questioned him five times to date and the Lord has answered all their queries, sincere or otherwise. He will answer three more today. Malachi will make several further comments, both encouraging and challenging, but YHWH has fully laid out his case by verse 15 of chapter 3.

Following these final comments comes four hundred years in which Heaven was effectively silent. Old Testament revelation ended with Malachi. First time Bible readers moving chronologically may find themselves wondering, “Did Israel respond?”

I suppose the answer to that is, “The Israel that mattered responded.” We will see the seeds of a faithful nation-within-a-nation shortly.

Mining the Minors: Malachi (6)

As we noted last week, the last half of chapter 2 has been Malachi speaking on God’s behalf. As we move into chapter 3, God will return to directly addressing the nation in the first person. Prior to that, we receive a remarkable look into the future announcing the coming of both John the Baptist and the Word made flesh.

“Where is the God of justice?” the people have been asking. God is in the process of providing his answer: “Behold, he is coming.” The manger in Bethlehem might still be 400 years away, yet “the Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness”.

First, the fourth of God’s five complaints against Judah and its priests.

Mining the Minors: Malachi (5)

The bulk of Malachi’s prophecy consists of the prophet quoting God directly, passing on corrective messages from YHWH to his nation and its priests. Verses 10-17 of chapter 2 are the first time the prophet has had anything to say for himself, slipping into the first person plural (“we”, “us”). Also, until this point Malachi has exclusively targeted the priests. Now he rebukes the men of his entire nation.

His primary concern remains the profaning of covenants.

Mining the Minors: Malachi (4)

There is no way to overstate the danger to Israel posed by the ongoing corruption of their religious leaders in the early fifth century BC. Judah had only recently returned from seventy years of Babylonian captivity intended to correct their idolatry. As far as obvious, literal idol worship was concerned, the exile cured Israel for good. However, the hearts of most of the priests were no more open toward God than the previous generations, and their sinfulness quickly began to manifest in new and offensive ways, the first of which we studied last week.

Malachi’s five complaints show how speedily corrupt spiritual leaders can wreck a nation. God assured the priests he would deal with them. It was only a matter of time.

Mining the Minors: Malachi (3)

The Lord’s table is a sufficiently important subject that I’ve felt the need to touch on it recently outside this series. Today’s post is probably more effective if you read it in connection with that one.

Our reading in Malachi is the first of five complaints made by the Lord against his people approximately a century after they were allowed to return to their historic homeland by a Persian monarch with respect for Israel’s God. Sadly, all that God had done on their behalf didn’t keep Judah and Israel from going astray in a variety of new ways.

Mining the Minors: Malachi (2)

“I have loved Jacob but Esau I have hated.”

Few statements in scripture are so frequently alleged to teach something they really don’t. Paul’s famous quotation of Malachi is not about election to individual salvation or damnation, not in Romans 9 and definitely not in its original context, which we will look at today. Rather, let me suggest it concerns the election of two nations to strategic roles in human history (as discussed here): one as the beneficiary of grace and the other as an object lesson never to be forgotten. “Loved” and “hated” are relative terms that have more to do with God’s sovereign dispensation of mercy and justice than with his emotional state.

Mining the Minors: Malachi (1)

The name Malachi appears exactly once in scripture, giving us no connection to the historical books of the Old Testament by which to identify or describe its very last recorded prophet. That’s unless you want to count John the Baptist as the last, and there’s a pretty good case to be made for him. Nevertheless, since our mission here has been to explore the twelve Minor Prophets, we’ll leave John out of it. Except we can’t. John is going to make a cameo appearance in Malachi’s final verses, making for about the neatest possible segue from Testament to Testament.

Go ahead, tell me the Bible is just a bunch of books cobbled together by human authors and editors.

Mining the Minors: Zechariah (28)

The New Testament writers quote, allude to, or possibly allude to Zechariah more often than any other Minor Prophet. Given the sheer number of passages that reference his writing, I will only attempt to deal in any depth with direct quotations or obvious repurposings of the prophetic word.

It seems as the time grew shorter for Messiah to enter the world, the Holy Spirit was all the more eager to testify to his coming at every possible opportunity.

Mining the Minors: Zechariah (27)

As we have discussed several times in the process of trying to interpret the prophecies of Zechariah, commentators have tried a variety of approaches to the text. One of the least successful (but most respectful) of these remains Martin Luther, who wrote, “I give up. I am not sure what the prophet is talking about.”

Hey, better than blabbering on without any idea where you are going.

Mining the Minors: Zechariah (26)

We are coming down the home stretch in Zechariah, moving topic by topic, though not necessarily in the order these future events will take place. Today’s four verses are set in millennial Israel, describing the geographic upheaval that will take place at the second coming of the Lord Jesus and continue into the millennium, as well as a couple of statements concerning the rule of Christ during this period.

That rule is a well-established Old Testament fact. Zechariah can sum it up in two sentences.

Mining the Minors: Zechariah (25)

Martin Luther said of Zechariah 14, “Here, in this chapter, I give up. For I am not sure what the prophet is talking about.” Apparently he wrote two commentaries on Zechariah, both of which ended abruptly with chapter 13. John Calvin likewise demurred to offer an interpretation, for which many of us are eternally grateful.

There is no problem interpreting Zechariah 14 if you take it literally, believe God is God and that he keeps his covenants with no cute allegorical cheats. None. So I am definitely not boldly going where no man has gone before. Lots of men have gone there. They just didn’t spiritualize everything they ever encountered in the Old Testament and apply it to the Church. Steer clear of that interpretational dead-end, and you’ll be fine. So let’s have at it!

Mining the Minors: Zechariah (24)

How many ethnic Jews are there in the world today?

The Brave AI tool I just asked that question warns that counting Jews is not an exact science. (Some people incorrectly refer to Gentile proselytes of Judaism as “Jews”. Real Jews do not, and the Bible definitely does not.) Anyway, AI estimates the low number of actual Jews at 15.7 million and the high at 25.5 million, around 0.2-0.3% of the world’s population. The lower number is probably closer to reality.

Now, that number is strictly related to Judah and the tribes associated with it, and does not take into account the ten tribes of Israel, mostly scattered abroad since 722 BC. There is no easy way to calculate their number (hint: it is probably equal to or higher than the number of Jews). The vast majority of Ephraim will not come home to Israel until Christ sets up his kingdom.

Whatever those numbers may be, they will definitely factor into our discussion of today’s reading in Zechariah.

Mining the Minors: Zechariah (23)

In April of this year, the US House of Representatives passed a bill called The Antisemitism Awareness Act. If signed into law, the act would make it illegal to say the Jews killed Christ, as the Bible plainly and repeatedly states. The bill gives examples of online statements that would now be classified as hate speech and violations of the law, including “using the symbols and images associated with classic anti-Semitism (e.g. claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis”.

If it’s anti-Semitic to say the Jews killed Christ, then the apostle Peter, a Jew himself, was a flaming anti-Semite.

Mining the Minors: Zechariah (22)

Four times in the book of Revelation the Lord Jesus or God identifies himself as “the Alpha and the Omega”: the beginning and the end or the first and the last, depending on your translation. This is not a title men have given him but a name by which he chooses to make himself known. It’s a reminder of the truth boldly stated numerous times throughout the New Testament (and probably not well understood prior to that time) that the Word was in the beginning with God and nothing at all was made without his participation.

The Son was personally active in the beginning, and he will be personally active again in the end. The title means more, of course, but that is certainly one implication.

Mining the Minors: Zechariah (21)

You will not find the expression “day of the Lord” in the Old Testament prior to the books of the prophets. Joel turns the phrase more frequently than anyone else, but Isaiah also uses it, as do Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Amos, Obadiah, Zephaniah, Malachi and, of course, the prophet we are currently studying, where it appears exactly once, introducing the final chapter.

Naturally, that’s not all the Bible has to say about the day of the Lord. Not by a long shot.

Mining the Minors: Zechariah (20)

In chapter 11, Zechariah is either living out an object lesson in real time or else telling a parable in which he is a character. By no means is his illustration a simple, obvious analogy, and commentators are all over the place in trying to parse out its intended meaning. The parable concerns two shepherds and a flock doomed to slaughter, and it’s chock full of symbols, familiar and unfamiliar. If we can’t unpack it to everyone’s satisfaction, at least we can make a few sensible suggestions consistent with other prophetic scriptures, and eliminate the more absurd possibilities sometimes offered.

The parable spans Israel’s history, starting in the distant past and ending in the future.

Mining the Minors: Zechariah (19)

Israel has a problem today, and it’s not a new one. It’s a leadership problem.

I’m not talking about Mr. Netanyahu specifically, though there are many who object to his policies and those of all his predecessors going back to David Ben-Gurion in 1949, when Israel became a nation again for the first time in 1900 years. All politicians take a certain amount of flak from the critics. That’s normal. Some are objectively better than others, but all have their limitations.

Mining the Minors: Zechariah (18)

Earlier this week, I quoted from Israel’s rather bloodthirsty-sounding Finance Minister, who gave a much-panned speech calling for the total annihilation of the Palestinian cities of the Gaza Strip, in which he also referred to aspiring to destroy Hezbollah “with God’s help” and send a message to the enemies of Israel.

Those of us who have read the prophetic scriptures know Israel cannot count on God’s help apart from first coming to genuine national repentance for their rejection of Messiah, so Mr. Smotrich may be presuming just a little. Terrible things must happen both in Israel and to Israel to bring them to the point of desperation and cause them to cry out to the Messiah they crucified.

Mining the Minors: Zechariah (17)

Sometimes, apart from supernatural intervention, prophetic fulfillment is inexplicable; things happen that couldn’t possibly have happened without the hand of God. Other prophecies attain fulfillment by simple acts of human will.

Take, for example, a virgin conceiving and bearing a son. The Holy Spirit came upon Mary and the power of the Most High overshadowed her. God did what was otherwise impossible. That was a supernatural fulfillment of Isaiah.

Mining the Minors: Zechariah (16)

Zechariah begins with eight visions, continues with four messages, and finishes with two oracles, literally “burdens”, a word often used to refer to prophetic revelations of the future. Each oracle spans three chapters, the first beginning in chapter 9 and the second commencing with the first verse of chapter 12. I have called the first oracle “against the nations” because it commences with words of coming judgment concerning the nations immediately west and north of Israel, later going on to mention Greece, Egypt, Assyria and other ethnic groups further afield.

There’s plenty about Israel in the first oracle as well, but it’s definitely more general than the second oracle, which is specifically “concerning Israel”, Judah included.

Mining the Minors: Zechariah (15)

Zechariah’s final message of four is full of hope. Responding to a question from the men of Bethel about when Judah’s seventy years of judgment would finally come to an end, the prophet first paints a picture of a future Zion in which the Lord sweeps up their exiled brothers and sisters all over the world and restores them to their national home, coming to dwell in their midst. As with many prophecies, this one would not come to pass for thousands of years, but its fulfillment is as certain as the character of God himself.

Now, in view of God’s future mercies to Israel, Zechariah gives seven instructions for the men and women of Judah living in the early sixth century BC about how they ought to conduct themselves as a people for whom God intends and desires nothing but good.

Mining the Minors: Zechariah (14)

Get ready, we’re going to do a little time traveling for the next week or two.

Zechariah’s fourth message from God is his longest, even if you break it into two parts as many commentators do (using the words “And the word of the Lord of hosts came” as the starting point of each revelation). I prefer to keep the two revelations together, since both speak of the future restoration of Zion, and both use similar language to distinguish past from present and future. When we break them up, we lose what I feel are intentional associations.

Mining the Minors: Zechariah (13)

Sin has consequences. The vast majority of these are no fun. The usual result of experiencing the consequences of sin is sorrow, and sorrow is an emotional mechanism designed by God to produce better things in the long run. Sadly, some people never get beyond their sin-induced misery to the state of mind God intended it to bring about, like prodigals in the pigsty to whom it never occurs to return to the father’s house.

Biblical repentance is not merely feeling bad about the consequences of your sin, but recognizing its offensiveness to God and doing something about it. That’s what this second message in Zechariah 7 is all about.

Mining the Minors: Zechariah (12)

A couple of my Christian friends gave up certain food groups for Lent this year, provoking the occasional thought about the purpose of biblical fasting, though not necessarily inspiring me to join them. I’m on an eighteen-hour-a-day intermittent fasting program already, which is more than enough for me. Adding forty days of any kind of deprivation to that? Don’t think so.

Fasting has a long history as a perceived act of religious devotion, including among practitioners of Judaism, for whom the Law of Moses actually commanded it. Christians have no specific apostolic instructions to observe it, but some have always done so, citing the words of the Lord Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount concerning fasting, despite the fact that his own disciples did not make a habit of it.

Of course, the Lord’s instructions about fasting were directed to Jews, but that often goes unremarked.

Mining the Minors: Zechariah (11)

Prior to the destruction of Solomon’s temple by the Chaldeans, back when there was an Ark of the Covenant in which holy things could be stored, God occasionally ordered the preservation of certain items: the tablets of the covenant, Aaron’s rod that budded, a jar of manna. Somewhere along the line, two of these went missing, but in their time, they served as reminders to Israel of God’s law, sovereignty and provision.

His eight visions finally completed, Zechariah now receives an object lesson from the Lord, a Messianic illustration to act out in front of witnesses, to be commemorated with the only God-given physical reminder of the Second Temple era.

Mining the Minors: Zechariah (10)

Sometimes the study of Bible prophecy presents no easy answers. The pieces just do not seem to fit. Efforts to make a particular vision or oracle map onto what we know of the past creates conflict with the established historical record. Efforts to make it map onto the future creates conflicts with scripture. Or maybe both.

What can I tell you? Despite best efforts, this is one of those days.

Mining the Minors: Zechariah (9)

There’s no getting around the fact that the Bible’s pictures of wickedness are frequently female. We’re going to study one today.

Commentators occasionally feel the need to apologize for this, as if maybe the Holy Spirit might be a tad misogynistic, or perhaps the prophets of God went off the reservation and used imagery consistent with their patriarchal biases that he might not have personally approved.

Hey, we all know the Lord Jesus loved women …

Mining the Minors: Zechariah (8)

In interpreting Zechariah, a great deal depends on the systematic theology of the reader. When you start with an ironclad overview of the prophetic scriptures in mind, it’s next to impossible to interpret individual passages without inflicting your prejudices on them. I’ll try to keep that in mind as I go along.

The next two visions are considerably more difficult. They must be, as scholarly opinions about their meanings are all over the map. I’ll give a quick summary of the major viewpoints and then, in most cases, tell you where and why I disagree with them, and what I’d suggest as alternatives.

Mining the Minors: Zechariah (7)

Wikipedia says, “A perpetual motion machine is a hypothetical machine that can do work infinitely without an external energy source. This kind of machine is impossible, since its existence would violate either the first or second law of thermodynamics, or both.”

In the real world, systemic failure is inevitable. The most sophisticated humanly devised machinery eventually breaks down and grinds to a halt.

Mining the Minors: Zechariah (6)

Zechariah is the penultimate Minor Prophet and the penultimate book of the Old Testament in the order we have it in English, as well as historically. He is also the penultimate prophet in the Hebrew Old Testament, though not the next-to-last book, which is Chronicles.

Given his proximity to the New Testament, we should not be surprised to find Christ so prominent in Zechariah, as we have mentioned. Zechariah’s vision in chapter 3 portrays Messiah in at least four different aspects: (1) as priest, (2) as the angel of the Lord, (3) as the Branch, and (4) as the stone with seven eyes.

Let’s dive in.

Mining the Minors: Zechariah (5)

Several years back, my cantankerous next-door neighbor had her front walk redone with great, imposing slate pavers. I’m not sure they harmonized with the look of her property quite as well as the railroad ties she had in prior years, and I bet they cost a bundle, not least for the prodigious amount of labor involved in what initially looked like a fairly small project. It took three men several days to tear up what was there and replace it.

There was only one problem.

Mining the Minors: Zechariah (4)

The prophet Zedekiah once forged a pair of animal horns out of iron as an object lesson for the kings of Israel and Judah, who were contemplating going up to Ramoth-gilead to fight the king of Syria. It must have been quite a dramatic moment when he trotted out his artistic creation in front of the two Hebrew kings on their thrones before a gathering of 400 prophets, crying out, “With these you shall push the Syrians until they are destroyed.” Too bad Zedekiah was actually a false prophet regurgitating what he thought King Ahab wanted to hear.

All the same, his literal “forgery” gives us a little bit of insight into the meaning of the imagery in Zechariah’s second vision.

Mining the Minors: Zechariah (3)

The phrase “the angel of the Lord” occurs 58 times in 19 Old Testament passages. Three of these passages are in Zechariah. The name appears to designate a unique being distinct from and possessing greater authority than other angels, one who identifies himself with deity and acts as if he were God.

We know the Lord Jesus was active on God’s behalf during the OT period. When we add to that John’s claim that no one has ever seen God, and that God has been (and continues to be) made known only through his Son, the Word, the logical conclusion is that the angel of the Lord was a visual manifestation of the preincarnate Christ.

More on that shortly.

Mining the Minors: Zechariah (2)

Two months before Zechariah began to receive messages from the Lord for the people of Judah, the prophet Haggai received his first recorded revelation, a message to the two men who represented civic and religious authority among the returned exiles, the governor Zerubbabel and the high priest Joshua. The Lord instructed these two to lead the people in rebuilding the temple, a project they had abandoned almost two decades prior.

Twenty-four days later, work began at the new temple site. Slightly less than a month after that, the Lord sent a word of encouragement to them through Haggai. Ten days later, Zechariah received his first message.

The people of Judah had shown their willingness to obey God when they realized obedience was the only alternative to unrelenting economic misery and personal frustration, but their hearts still needed serious spiritual work.

Mining the Minors: Zechariah (1)

Zechariah is the second of three post-exilic Minor Prophets and the eleventh of the Twelve. Like Haggai, he had a tendency to date at least some of his prophecies, which enables us to map them against events described in Ezra and Nehemiah. It also means we can date the beginning of his recorded ministry to a mere two months after Haggai began his, in the second year of the reign of Darius the Great in 520 BC, just after the people of Judah began a serious second effort at rebuilding the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem.

Mining the Minors: Haggai (7)

The second chapter of Haggai contains two references to the shaking of heavens and earth, the first in verse 6 and the second in verses 21-22. “For thus says the Lord of hosts: Yet once more, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land.” And again, “I am about to shake the heavens and the earth, and to overthrow the throne of kingdoms.”

These promises have far-reaching implications for both Jews and Christians.

Mining the Minors: Haggai (6)

The Chaldean Empire was ruled from Babylon until that fateful night recorded in Daniel 5. After the death of Belshazzar, it staggered on a few years, but the relatively bloodless conquest of the empire’s capital city effectively signaled the rise of the Medo-Persians to the world stage. Cyrus quickly subdued his Median allies and moved on to other conquests, making the Persian Empire the virtually uncontested world power for the next 200 years or so.

This well-established historical note makes the last few verses of Haggai all but impossible to apply to Zerubbabel personally, though there are certainly those who will try.

Mining the Minors: Haggai (5)

Exactly three months after the returned exiles of Judah obediently began to rebuild the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem following a hiatus of at least seventeen years, the prophet Haggai delivered yet another message from the Lord to his people. Unlike the previous two, which were messages of undiluted encouragement, this one did not seem designed to spare anyone’s feelings.

Sometimes we need an accurate assessment of our spiritual state in order to move forward.

Mining the Minors: Haggai (4)

Three old trees of considerable size overshadow my backyard. Between them, they block most of the sun’s rays and tend to kill off the grass near the house. Every year, once the snow is gone and the temperature is regularly above zero, while those big trees are still bare and letting the sun through, I go out with a couple bags of the hardiest, quickest growing grass seed I can find on sale and sow the affected area to catch the spring rains. If the timing is right, I’ll often see little green shoots in a week or two. By June, the whole lawn looks lush.

Next year I’ll have to do it all over again, but that’s how it goes.

Mining the Minors: Haggai (3)

When things are going wrong around us and the obvious blessings of God a distant memory, it’s natural to wonder why. Scripture offers us a variety of possible explanations.

Job suffered because Satan was trying to break him, and God allowed it for a time in order to prove a point. David spent years on the run from Saul in fear of his life because it was not yet God’s time to give him the kingdom. Israel slaved away in Egypt in order to give the Amorites sufficient time to repent and to become a great nation, among other things. The tower of Siloam fell on eighteen people and killed them, and the Lord told his disciples the victims had done nothing out of the ordinary to deserve their fate. Perhaps it was “just one of those things”. A man was born blind in order that God might display his works in his life.

Things go wrong for all sorts of reasons, don’t they. It’s not all one thing, and we may never know the real reasons in this life.

Mining the Minors: Haggai (2)

In his first year on the throne, Cyrus king of Persia ordered the rebuilding of the Lord’s temple in Jerusalem and furnished the returning 42,000 exiles, mostly Jews, with everything they needed to do it. The work started well, then met with opposition from Arab and mixed race locals, then finally came to a halt by order of Artaxerxes, the new Persian monarch, who was obviously unfamiliar with Cyrus’s original edict.

Some Jews probably heaved a sigh of relief when instructed to lay down their tools.

Mining the Minors: Haggai (1)

Around 606 BC, Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon besieged Jerusalem and carried off its king, some of the vessels from the temple, and the cream of the Judean nobility to be educated and serve his empire. Thus began the second Israelite diaspora, the first coming over a century earlier when the king of Assyria conquered Samaria and dispersed the people of the northern kingdom across his own empire. Nebuchadnezzar returned at least twice more, finally destroying Jerusalem and its temple in 586 BC and carrying off the vast majority of Judeans to Babylon and beyond.

Jeremiah and many other prophets we have studied in this series foretold this, and the power and judgment of God were behind it. The last chapter of Chronicles tells us Nebuchadnezzar fulfilled the word of the Lord “until the land had enjoyed its Sabbaths”, to fulfill Jeremiah’s seventy years.

Mining the Minors: Obadiah (5)

What will the Middle East look like during Christ’s millennial reign?

Obadiah tells us seven distinct facts about the future division of the former land of Israel and the territory around it. Considering their number, we should not expect them to be comprehensive. They supplement the more detailed tribal division of the land described in Ezekiel. If you notice, as I did, that these details harmonize better in some places than others, bear in mind that any map drawn today based on ancient place names is bound to have considerable wiggle room. Some ancient locations are well attested; others are mere speculations. As a result, no two maps of Ezekiel’s tribal division of the land square exactly.

Both passages agree future Israel will occupy considerably more territory than at any point in its previous history, expanding north, south, east and west.

Mining the Minors: Obadiah (4)

History teaches many lessons … if we are paying attention.

The children of Esau treated the children of Jacob despicably. Their traitorous disloyalty to their brothers would come back to haunt them; this is the burden of Obadiah’s prophecy. But the judgment of Edom would also serve as a cautionary tale for other nations that had either mistreated Israel or would go on to do so. God made an example of Edom to teach others not to do what they had done.

It’s not as if Edom had not been put on notice. God promised Abraham, “I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse.” When Jacob obtained the birthright and the blessing from Esau, this promise and protection became his. Esau knew it, but apparently his distant descendants had forgotten it.

That’s one of those lessons it’s unwise to forget.

Mining the Minors: Obadiah (3)

When we read Bible history or doctrine, we take for granted that the tenses used by the writers are important. “Don’t do it” is different from “You did it”. However, when we come to Bible prophecy, that ordinary rule of thumb goes right out the window. Prophetic tenses are all over the place.

Even secular observers can’t miss this odd feature of the genre.

Mining the Minors: Obadiah (2)

C.S. Lewis called pride “the essential vice, the utmost evil … the complete anti-God state of mind”. Solomon wrote, “Everyone who is arrogant in heart is an abomination to the Lord; be assured, he will not go unpunished.”

Obadiah is the shortest book in the Hebrew Bible, so it doesn’t take the prophet more than two verses to get to Edom’s problem. Yes, it’s pride. Pride that metastasized into hatred of their brothers. Pride that pulled the wool over their own eyes and made the Edomites believe they were untouchable. Pride that convinced them they could put one over on the God who had decreed “the older will serve the younger”. “Not so,” said Edom.

It was the word of God. Of course they were wrong.

Mining the Minors: Obadiah (1)

“Two nations are in your womb,” the Lord told Rebekah, and “the older shall serve the younger.” The story is so well known that I hardly need tell you the older brother’s name was Esau and the younger Jacob. Jacob became the father of the nation of Israel, Esau the father of Edom, and God set about fulfilling his word to their mother (with some minor, totally unnecessary assistance from mom and a notwithstanding a less successful effort to thwart it from dad).

Later, God would tell his prophet Malachi, “I have loved Jacob but Esau I have hated.” Paul quoted that much-misunderstood line in Romans 9 to the delight of determinists everywhere.

More on that later. Much later.