Transition: From Wisdom and Poetry to Prophets

The books we just finished, Job through Song of Songs, step away from history and focus inward.

They don’t move the timeline forward. They capture how people think, pray, question, love, work, and wrestle with life. They reflect more on personal experience and much less on public events.

The next section shifts outward again.

The prophetic books are not philosophical reflections or collections of sayings. They are anchored in history. Kings are in power. Nations are rising and falling. Exile is approaching or already happening.

Sometimes the prophets address kings. Sometimes priests, the whole nation or a future generation. Their messages are tied to specific places, political situations, and historical crises.

For this section, I’m going to handle the books differently:

• Each major prophet (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel) will get its own entry.

• The minor prophets will be grouped together in a single overview.

That choice is practical, not dismissive. The term “minor” refers to length, not importance. Many of these books are short, dense, and tightly connected to the same historical periods.

But grouping all 12 books allows me to provide the amount of context I’m looking for while also moving the project along into the New Testament.

As with the rest of this series, the goal here is not interpretation or application. It’s basic orientation.

Who is speaking? When are they speaking? What situation are they addressing?

The prophets can definitely be intense, repetitive and confusing if you don’t have some idea as to what’s happening around them. A little context goes a long way.

We’ll start with Isaiah.