The Twelve

How will we think about the twelve?

Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi are considered a single book in the Hebrew canon. They are the third section of the prophets, the second major division of the Hebrew Bible.

We can hear in the music, the words of Amos, and his contemporary, Hosea, whose child was named Not-My-People, yet he sings about the count of the children of Israel as the sand of the sea. And Micah sings, like his contemporary, Isaiah, of swords into plowshares.

Zephaniah chants about the unclean bird and the porcupine, stopping over in the capitals of Nineveh. And thinking of that great city, who can forget the lilt of the Jonah cantata once it has been heard?

The Twelve

is volume 4 of the series, The Hebrew Bible and Its Music.