The Book of the Twelve Prophets PDF
Preview The Book of the Twelve Prophets
THE BOOK OF THE TWELVE PROPHETS This page intentionally left blank Oxford University Press Oxford New York Athens Auckland Bangkkkkkkkkkkkok Bogota Buenos Aires Calcutta Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Florence Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi Paris Sao Paulo Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto Warsaw and associated companies in Berlin fbadan Copyright © 2000 by David Slavitt Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publicationi Data Bible. O.T. Minor Prophets. English. Slavitt. 2000. The book of the Twelve Prophets / translated by David R. Slavitt. p. cm. ISBN 0-19-513214-9 I. Title. BSi56o.A3S53 2000 224'.9$05209—dc2i 99-2803 i 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 42 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper For Sonja and William Jay Smith This page intentionally left blank C O N T E N TS Introduction ix Hosea 3 Joel 29 Amos 39 Obadiah 59 Jonah 63 Micah 69 Nahum 79 Habakkuk 87 Zephaniah 95 Haggai 103 Zechariah 109 Malachi 125 This page intentionally left blank I N T R O D U C T I ON T he prophets—the nevim—make us uncomfortable, which is part of their job. They come, or so they claim, from God with messages, often unpleasant, that they deliver to the people or, sometimes, to the king. In ancient Israel, they were on occasion consulted by individuals who simply wanted help in finding things they had lost. Prophets could be leaders of local cults or they would work solo; they behaved at times in ways that were bizarre enough so that they could be dismissed as "mad" (I Kings 9.11). They could also serve as military advisors to the throne or they could be miracle workers, mak- ing axe heads float or calling down fire from heaven. To make matters worse, their messages are often murky. The texts of their writings are not reliable, and there are pas- sages from which any clear sense is difficult to extract. And the prophets, themselves, seem to have had an uneasy time ix THE BOOK OF THE TWELVE PROPHETS Translated by David R. Slavitt New York Oxford Oxford University Press 2000
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