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such traditions about their ancestors. The people of Israel were the chosen people of God. He had entered into a special relationship with their ancestors; he had delivered them from slavery in Egypt; he had given them his Law; and he had bestowed upon them the promised land. This God was the Lord God Almighty, the maker of heaven and earth and sovereign over all that exists. He was powerful and could accomplish his mighty purposes on earth simply by saying the word. And he was on the side of tiny Israel, agreeing to protect and defend his people and to make them prosper in the land he had given them, in exchange for their devotion to him.
    Given this theology of election—that God had chosen the people of Israel to be in a special relationship with him—what were ancient Israelite thinkers to suppose when things did not go as planned or expected? What were they to make of the fact that Israel sometimes suffered military defeat or political setbacks or economic hardship? How were they to explain the fact that the people of God suffered from famine, drought, and pestilence? How were they toexplain suffering—not only nationally, but also personally, when they were starved or seriously wounded, when their children were stillborn or born with defects, when they faced grinding poverty or personal loss? If God is the powerful creator, and if he has chosen Israel and promised them success and prosperity, how is one to explain the fact that Israel suffers? Eventually the northern kingdom was utterly destroyed by a foreign nation. How could that be, if God had chosen them to be his people? In another 150 years the southern kingdom was destroyed as well. Why did God not protect and defend it as he had promised?
    These were questions naturally asked—fervently asked—by many of the people of Israel. The most resounding answer to the question came from a group of thinkers known as the prophets. To a person, the prophets maintained that Israel’s national sufferings came because it had disobeyed God, and it was suffering as a punishment. The God of Israel was not only a God of mercy, he was also a God of wrath, and when the nation sinned, it paid the price.
     
    Introduction to the Prophets
     
    The writings of the prophets are among the most misunderstood parts of the Bible today, in no small measure because they are commonly read out of context. 14 Many people today, especially conservative Christians, read the prophets as if they were crystal-ball gazers predicting events that are yet to transpire in our own time, more than two thousand years removed from when the prophets were actually speaking. This is a completely egocentric approach to the Bible (it’s all about me !). But the biblical writers had their own contexts and, as a result, their own agendas. And those contexts and agendas are not ours. The prophets were not concerned about us; they were concerned about themselves and the people of God living in their own time. It is no wonder that most people who read the prophets this way (they’ve predicted the conflict in the Middle East! they foresaw Saddam Hussein! they tell us about Armageddon!)simply choose to read one or another verse or passage in isolation, and do not read the prophets themselves in their entirety. When the prophets are read from beginning to end, it is clear that they are writing for their own times. They often, in fact, tell us exactly when they were writing—for example, under what king(s)—so that their readers can understand the historical situation they were so intent on addressing.
    What makes a prophet? In the Hebrew Bible there are, roughly speaking, two kinds of prophets. Some prophets—probably the majority, historically—delivered “the word of God” orally. That is, they were spokespersons for God, the ones who communicated (their understanding of) God’s message to his people, to let them know what God wanted them to do or how God wanted them to act—in particular, how they needed