Week 17 II Kings
In my bible the seventeen books of the prophets go from page 1049 to page 1334.
285 pages of prophets, all grouped together at the end of the OT.
Because of that I slip into a kind of lazy assumption that the Samuels and Kings happened, and then sometime later the prophets began prophesying.
But it doesn’t work that way. I got that reminder while I was reading about king Jeroboam the son of Joash and I saw the name of Jonah the son of Amittai. This is the Jonah of the Jonah & the Big Fish story. Jonah’s story comes twenty books after II Kings. I check a cross-reference to Hosea. He prophesied: during the reign of Jeroboam the son of Joash. I check a cross-reference to Amos. He prophesied: in the reign of Jeroboam the son of Joash.
In my bible there are hundreds of pages between king Jeroboam and the books of Hosea Amos & Jonah. But what do you know? They were contemporaries.
If I had the time I’d be tempted to revise the OT into its chronological sequence. I won’t because I’m pretty sure it would be a nightmarish copy-and-paste job. Plus I don’t know it’d be worth the effort.
So I’ll stick with the normal bible-order, but try to keep these gaps in mind.
Note: quotes from Hosea 1:1, Amos 1:1 (NASB). Jeroboam is in II Kings 14:23-29