Other Prophets

We just learned about Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.

God called on many people to be prophets for him through the years.

We've learned about the ones who wrote some of the big books of the bible,
Daniel, Ezekiel, Jeremiah and Isaiah.

They are called the major prophets because they wrote the longest books of prophecy.

There are 12 other prophets called minor prophets not because they weren't important,
but because the books they wrote just weren't as long.

Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah,
Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi
all delivered prophecies from God to his people.

Some of them warned of the coming exile, some cautioned people to listen to God after the exile,
and some told about the future when Jesus would come along.

(from: wikipedia - malachi)

Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego

During the time of the prophet Daniel the bad king
who ruled over God's people made it against the law to pray to God.

He even made a giant gold statue of himself and told everyone to worship it!

There were three other of God's prophets at that time called Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.
They refused to worship the golden statue of the king,
and for that the king demanded that they were thrown into a giant fiery oven!

But when they were thrown in there to be burned up,
they were not harmed at all, God protected them so not even their clothes got burned.

(from: wikipedia - shadrach, meshach and abednego)

Daniel

We've now learned about God's prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel
who all warned of the coming exile and conquer from the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar.

During the exile, God chose another prophet named Daniel.

God gave Daniel the ability to understand people's dreams,
and the kings of Babylon liked Daniel because he helped them understand their dreams.

Daniel stayed faithful to God, even when it was against the law for him to do it.
Even though the kings liked Daniel, there were some people that did not like him,
and they got Daniel in trouble for praying to God when it was against the law.

They threw Daniel into a big pit filled with hungry lions, called the lion's den!
But God protected Daniel, and the lions did not eat him.

The king saw how powerful God was and how faithful Daniel was,
and he told the whole kingdom that they should worship God!


(from: wikipedia - prophet daniel (michelangelo))

Ezekiel

Like Isaiah and Jeremiah, another prophet Ezekiel
also told people God's warnings about their coming exile and destruction.

During his life the Babylonian army came and took over their land
and kicked God's people out of their country!

He later told people about some day in the future when God would save them
and bring them back to their home land.

(from: wikipedia - ezekiel)

Jeremiah

Let's keep learning about the books of prophecy in the Old Testament.

Last time we learned about the prophet Isaiah.

Another prophet was named Jeremiah.
He is sometimes called the weeping prophet because he was so sad
that he had to tell God's people that because of their sins they were going
to have some difficult days ahead when their temples would be destroyed and they would be captured.


(from: wikipedia - jeremiah)

Isaiah

We just learned about the Bible Books of Poetry

Isaiah was a prophet who lived 700 years before the birth of Jesus.

A prophet is someone who speaks to God and then tells other people what God said.

Isaiah told God's people that they were in trouble for not listening to him,
and that they were going to be taken over by some other people that would not treat them nicely.

He also talked about a savior that would come one day to save everyone,
and this was 700 years before Jesus was born!


(from: wikipedia - isaiah)

Books of Poetry

The bible has lots of poetry in it, and a lot of it was written
by the kings we learned about, David and Solomon

Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs are all
books full of poetry and songs written in praise of God.

(from: wikipedia - psalms)

Job

We just learned about the Return from Exile.

The book of Job teaches us that we should always be patient and trust in God.

In the beginning of the book, Job is one of the best followers of God, and he had many wonderful things.

Then Job lost it all, 10 kids, thousands of sheep and camels, and he even got painful sores on his body.
But through it all, Job did not say bad things about God.

Job knew that God was in control of all things.

Then one day God healed Job, and gave him back twice as many things as he had before.
(from: wikipedia - job (bible))

Return from Exile

Many years after God's people were exiled from their land by Nebuchadnezzar,
a new king came along named Cyrus who allowed everyone to come home,
and even gave back their treasures.

Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther were leaders that God chose
to help rebuild his people after they went back to their homes.

(from: wikipedia - esther)

Nebuchadnezzar

We just learned about some of the Other Kings in the Bible.

In the books about Kings, the Kings that ruled Israel turned away from God.

Becaus they stopped listening to him, God let a king named Nebuchadnezzar come in and rule over his people.

Nebuchadnezzar was not a nice guy!
He took away all of the special treasures that God had given his people,
and sent them away (exiled them) to a place called Babylon

They were exiled from their land for 60 years!


(from: wikipedia - nebuchadnezzar ii)

Other Kings

From the time of the prophets Samuel and Elija and Kings Saul, David and Solomon, there were over 40 different Kings over Israel!

Some of them were good, but most of them were very very bad.

The people asked God for a person to be king over them to be a ruler in place of Him,
but all of these kings showed that people can not be trusted in the way we can always trust in God.

(from: wikipedia - kingdom of judah)

Elijah

After the death of Solomon there were other kings and rulers.
One bad king was Ahab and God sent his prophet Elijah to fight against him.

Elijah was a very powerful prophet.
He declared a drought from God because of the bad king,
and helped fight against people believing in things that weren't true.

In the end Elijah was such a great servant that God took him straight up into heaven!

(from: wikipedia - elijah)

King Solomon

Let's keep learning about the kings from the books of Samuel, Kings and Chronicles.
We already learned about the prophet Samuel, King Saul and King David.

Solomon was the son of King David and when David died he became the next King of Israel.

When Solomon was young, the Lord appeared to him and asked him what he wanted.
Solomon asked for wisdom, which made God happy because he could have wished for anything in the world!

Solomon was known as one of the wisest men who ever lived,
and he wrote a book of the bible called Proverbs which is full of wisdom he was given by God.


(from: wikipedia - solomon)

King David

Let's keep learning about the kings from the books of Samuel, Kings and Chronicles.
We already learned about the prophet Samuel and King Saul.

Next up is King David.

David was a small boy, but he had great faith.

When the Israelits were fighting a giant named Goliath none of the soldiers would meet him in battle,
but David went up against him using only a sling to throw rocks.
He hit Goliath right in the head and killed him, because he believed in God's power.

David was also a musician, and met with King Saul because his music helped make the king's bad headaches go away.

Eventually David became king after Saul died.
He is such a popular king that some people called Jesus a son of David because Jesus was from David's family.

David was a great king until one day when he saw a woman that was not his wife,
and stole her away from her husband.

God was angry because David could have had anything he wanted, but he stole something that wasn't his.
David loved the Lord and so he begged for forgiveness.
God forgave him, but because David had done something bad, he had many other problems with his family.

Eventually David died as an old man in his bed after making his son Solomon the next king.

(from: wikipedia - david)

King Saul

Let's keep learning about the kings from the books of Samuel, Kings and Chronicles.
We already learned about the prophet Samuel.

Next up is King Saul.

Saul was a very handsome man, and led God's people to win battles with other people.

He later had problems because he was impatient.
When he didn't listen to some instructions God gave him through Samuel, God was angry.

Saul was also jealous of David, because people were talking about how great a warrior he was.
So he planned to kill David, but Saul's son Jonathan was David's best friend and he saved him.

Saul was eventually killed in a battle.


(from: wikipedia - saul)

Samuel, Kings & Chronicles

Let's keep learning about the other Books of History in the Old Testament.
We already learned about Joshua, Judges and Ruth.

Next up are the books of 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, 2 Kings, 1 Chronicles and 2 Chronicles..
For the numbered books we say first or second, like First Samuel and Second Samuel.

These six books all talk about some prophets and very famous kings that ruled over Israel for some time.

The first person is Samuel. He was a prophet of the Lord, which means he talked to God, and got instructions from God that he told to other people.
Samuel also anointed Kings, which means he declared to all the people that God had chosen that person as King.

Samuel was a very faithful man, and anointed both King Saul and King David.



(from: wikipedia - samuel)

Ruth

Let's keep learning about the other Books of History in the Old Testament.

We already learned about Joshua and Judges.

Next up is Ruth.

During the days from the book of Judges, an Israelite woman named Naomi had a husband and two sons.
Both of the sons married women that were from the land of Moab, where they didn't know about God's laws and his people.

Then Naomi's husbands and her two sons both died!
She was alone, and only her one daughter in law Ruth stayed with her.

Naomi and Ruth both returned to Bethlehem, and there Ruth worked very hard to help gather leftover crops, and because of her hard work a man named Boaz noticed her and ended up marrying her!

Ruth was a very important mother, because her great grandson was David who went on to be king of Israel.


(from: wikipedia - ruth (biblical figure))

Judges

Let's keep learning about the other Books of History in the Old Testament.

We already learned about Joshua.

Next up is Judges.

After Joshua dies at the beginnng of the book of Judges, the people of Israel start to disobey God.
So God sends them many different rulers over many years, to serve as Judges for his people.

Some of them are very famous, like:

Gideon - A great warrior for God who led only a few hundred men to battle and defeated thousands.

Samson - A warrior for God that was so strong he couldn't be defeated unless his hair was cut.
He once killed a lion with his bare hands!


(from: wikipedia - book of judges)

Joshua

We've just finished up learning about the five books that make up the Old Testament books of law

Now let's learn about the next part of the Old Testament, the books of history.

There are 12 books of history: Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, 2 Kings, 1 Chronicle, 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther.

Let's start with the book of Joshua.

Remember that at the end of Deuteronomy Moses dies and Joshua becomes the leader of the Israelites.

In this book, Joshua leads the Israelites into God's promised land of Canaan,
and conquers all the cities.

The first city conquered is Jericho, and the Israelites conquer it using God's power
by marching around the city 7 times and then blowing their trumpets
and yelling at the wall to make it come crashing down!


(from: wikipedia - book of joshua)

Deuteronomy

Let's keep learning about the other Books of Law in the Old Testament.

We already learned about Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers.

The last of the five books of law is Deuteronomy.

The word Deuteronomy means second law.
Just like Leviticus there are many laws listed in this book.

At the end of Deuteronomy Moses dies and Joshua becomes the leader of the Israelites.


(from: wikipedia - book of deuteronomy)