When the earliest minor prophets wrote, both kingdoms – Israel and Judah – were still standing. But this was long past the glory days. Decline was rampant, territory lost to invasions, and hardships common, though peppered with occasional revivals and resurgences. The Assyrian Empire was rising in the east, and threatened both kingdoms.
These hard times came because the people, along with their political and religious leaders, abandoned their covenant with God, turning to idol worship and the evils associated with it. God had promised Israel prosperity if they were faithful, and disaster if they strayed. And in these days, generations of disobedience were culminating in imminent unrecoverable loss.
If you want a more complete backstory, keep reading. Otherwise feel free to skip to the next section.
The people of Israel were very committed to their history. They relied on it to know who they were, how they fit into the world. And by the times of the prophets, they had a lot of history. In order to understand them, we need to know just a few highlights about that history.
In ancient times God made His covenant with a middle-eastern nomad, Abraham. Famine drove his grandson Jacob, also called Israel, and his family to Egypt, where they settled and grew into a thriving community. But the Egyptians came to see them as a threat and enslaved them. God sent Moses to retrieve them from Egypt. Since the Egyptians refused to release them, God sent ten plagues, each worse than the last. Ultimately the people of Israel escaped.
Migrating toward the land God had promised to give Abraham, they stopped at Mount Sinai. There God made another covenant with His people. He gave them standards for right living, including the Ten Commandments, and promised that if they lived accordingly, life would go well for them. But if they continued their selfish and destructive ways, disaster would follow.
God ushered them into the promised land, and under Joshua’s leadership they conquered and inhabited much of it. As God promised, life was good.
Centuries passed, during which God’s people alternated between times of faithfulness to God, resulting in prosperity and security, and times of living selfishly, resulting in invasions by enemies, famines, plagues, and other hardships.
At the right time, God raised a king, David, to shepherd His people. David was extremely devoted to God, trusting Him completely even under great duress. Under David’s leadership, Israel came into their golden age. Always in love with God, he reinvigorated worship, wrote many psalms, refreshed people’s memory about God. And he led them to love God as he did.
His devotion to God led to great success. He so completely subdued the neighbor kingdoms that his son, King Solomon, never needed to fight a war.
But all that was long in the past. Later kings had forgotten or neglected God, ruled unjustly, and so undone much of the good they inherited.
Just a generation after David’s time, the kingdom split in two. The larger, northern portion kept the name “Israel”. Israel immediately rejected God entirely, instead establishing a cult worshiping golden calf idols.
The smaller, southern kingdom took the name “Judah” (David’s tribe). Judah alternated between times of faithfulness to God and times of rejecting God, but gradually dwindled in godliness and prosperity.
Over in the fertile crescent, the Assyrian Empire was the new rising power. Cruel and relentless and conquering everywhere they went, they were feared by all. They had sent their armies all the way to the area surrounding Israel, and destroyed many peoples.
We meet the prophets in this late part of the divided kingdom period. Both kingdoms remain, but are struggling. Other kingdoms have encroached their territory on all sides. They live in fear of further invasions. And they live in fear of their own friends and neighbors, who may turn on them at any time.
The prophets argue the hard times came because they rejected God. If they will return to God and His ways, life will improve.
But for the most part, the listeners are hardhearted. They refuse to hear or change their ways.