Jeremiah (est 626-585 B.C.)

Jeremiah son of Hilkiah was from Anathoth, and was part of the Benjamin tribe, he was a priest and first started to hear God when he became thirteen.  He is told that despite his young age that he is to tell a message of doom and destruction to Judah followed by rising and rebuilding, and he starts to see visions.  He is told to go to Jerusalem and Judah to tell the people to turn from their wicked ways, and he is also told that he will be protected as other prophets have been killed by the people there.

He sees a vision of a barren earth with no life and the mountains are shaking, all done by the God's fierce anger.  God tells Judah that he will use Babylonians to destroy Israel and Judah to punish them for their wicked ways.  God speaks to Jeremiah by experience, through rotten buried clothes, through drought, through a pottery wheel.  God tells Jeremiah that the people are now destined for starvation, war and disease so he is asked to be a prophet once more, to deliver the message and that he will be protected, he will be make strong.

God has "put a curse on those who turn from him and trust in human strength"

People try and stop Jeremiah from his words, including people who falsely accuse him or event arrest him and hold him overnight.  However some just throw insults at him, but he suffers to the point whether he questions whether he should have been born at all.  Jeremiah is on trial, and they reference Micah how he had foretold the destruction of the temple, but the King had listened and destruction was adverted, and that Jeremiah should not be killed.

Hananiah challenges Jeremiah, but then Jeremiah foretells his death and Hananiah dies within two months.  Jeremiah writes to the King after he is taken as a captive to Babylonia, and explains that they will be brought back to Jerusalem after 70 years of Babylonian rule.  One of his letters went to Shemaiah, who then wrote letters to deny him, one went to the priest Zephaniah(not the Prophet) who showed Jeremiah and so Jeremiah cursed Shemaiah.

Jeremiah declares that the Lord will make a new convenant that will be written into the hearts and minds of people, foretelling a king in the line of David.

While a prisoner in Jerusalem, Jeremiah buys a pice of land belonging to the Benjamin tribe, later, he gets Baruch to write down what he says onto a scroll and the scroll is read out to the people then brought before the king, but the king chops it up and throws it into the fire, but another scroll is written this time including a curse upon the King

First Jeremiah is imprisoned in Jonathon's house, the in the palace prison but then he is thrown down a well but later rescued, and then he was kept in the palace gaurds residence.  When Jerusalem fell after a 18month siege, Jeremiah was going to be led away but he was set free and allowed to stay behind and have a house, he went to live with Gedaliah (the new leader of Judah) in Mizpah, but Gedaliah gets killed by Ismael, who takes everyone in Mizpah captive.

But the captives are rescued and plan to flee to Egypt but they stop at Geruth Chimham near Bethlehem, fearing for backlash from the Babylonians, but Jeremiah tells them to stay in Judah.  They refuse to listen and are all led to Egypt by Johanan.  But then the Lord tells Jeremiah that the Babylonains will now attack Egypt, Gaza, Philistine, Crete, Moab, Ammon, and the Kedar tribe.

Prophet Daniel (est 605-530BC)

The story of the prophet called Daniel which means “God is (my) judge” is told in the Book of Daniel. His overall mission can be said was to show that God was sovereign over the kingdoms of men.

Daniel was a captured Jew living in exile after the siege of Jerusalem, a student of the Babylonian court, and later rose to third in power, looking after much of the kingdom. He was known for his wisdom and for his talent as a dream interpreter, and most famously for surviving a night in the lion’s den.

He was a humble man, knew the importance of eating healthily, trustworthy, not corrupt or negligent, and had knowledge of other prophets including Jeremiah. He had visions during the day and the night; some of which would disturb him or exhaust him or even make him ill. He had the ability to talk with angels. He could make prophecies against people to force the outcome of God’s will (making a king live in the wild, telling a king his days were numbered).

Examples of his prophecies include the rise and fall of four empires (Babylonia, Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome), the prediction of the death of Antichus IV in 164 B.C, the prediction of the coming Messiah and his death and the prediction of Israel’s destruction by Titus in 70 A.D.

Yet his prophecies regarding the end times are equally impressive and were very much studied by prophecy collectors such as Isaac Newton and others. His end-time prophecies include; that a prince called Michael will arise, that those in dust will awake to face their judgement, that there will be a time of great distress on the scale that has never been seen before, yet he also said that more was revealed to him than he was allowed to reveal, the words were ‘sealed up’.

Prophet Obadiah (est605-585BC)

Prophet Information:

Obadiah, which means “servant of the Lord”, according to the Book of the Bee he was from the country of Shechem and was a captain over fifty soldiers until he became a disciple of Elijah and became worthy of prophecy, later he died in peace

Mission/Message:

Obadiah’s message was to announce the coming destruction of Edom, the Edomites were related to the Israelites yet they had not helped when Israel was being destroyed, and they gloated over their own security.

Documentation:

The authors name is given as Obadiah however the date and place of the book is still debated. There are some parallels between the book of Jeremiah and this book, which some have suggested points to either a common source for their material. It is possible that they lived at the same time and were in some way interdependent on each other, but there are no records of this.

Best known for:

-Announcement of the coming destruction of Edom

Attributes of his personality:

Very little can be found due the shortness of the book, however it is recorded that he was possibly sent out to destroy Elijah and the prophets, but instead helped them and as a reward received the gift of prophecy.

Supernatural Aspects:

The book mentions a vision, and also the author speaks as if God had spoken directly to him

Examples of prophecies:

-The destruction of Edom

-The notion of the Deliverer

End Times Prophecies:

The establishment of the ‘Lord’s kingdom’ or the Israel state.