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Jesus’ Birth and Flight to Egypt

As the time drew near for Jesus to be born, a mandatory Roman census made it necessary for Joseph to return to his ancestral home of Bethlehem. There Mary gave birth to Jesus, and later, wise men from the east came to worship him. The wise men’s recognition of

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The Setting of Matthew

The events in the book of Matthew take place almost entirely within the vicinity of Palestine, an area extending roughly from Caesarea Philippi in the north to Beersheba in the south. During this time it was ruled by the Roman Empire. The opening chapters describe events surrounding Jesus’ birth in

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The Setting of Malachi

c. 460 b.c. Malachi likely prophesied several decades after the first exiles of Judah, now under Persian rule, had returned from Babylon to the minor province of Judea and rebuilt the temple. Edomites had migrated northwest from their traditional homeland just south of Moab into the area immediately south

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Jerusalem at the Time of Zechariah

c. 520 b.c. Zechariah prophesied to the people of Jerusalem after they returned from Babylon in 538 b.c. and before they rebuilt the temple in 515. The city of Jerusalem lay in ruins, the walls and the temple having been destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 b.c.

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Palestine at the Time of Zechariah

c. 520 b.c. By Zechariah’s time the borders of the land of Israel and Judah, later called Palestine, had been completely redrawn from the days before the Assyrian and Babylonian invasions. The minor Persian province to which exiles of Judah returned from Babylon was now called Judea, and

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The Near East at the Time of Zechariah

c. 520 b.c. Zechariah prophesied to the people of Judah soon after they had returned from exile in Babylon. Several years earlier, in 539 b.c., Cyrus the Great, who had united the Persians and the Medes under his rule, conquered Babylon and absorbed its territory into his empire.

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Jerusalem at the Time of Haggai

c. 520 b.c. Haggai prophesied to the people of Jerusalem after they had returned from Babylon in 538 b.c. and before they had rebuilt the temple in 515. The city of Jerusalem lay in ruins, the walls and the temple having been destroyed by the Babylonians in 586

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Zephaniah Prophesies against Judah’s Neighbors

c. 620 b.c. Zephaniah prophesied against Judah’s longtime enemies in Philistia, to the west of Judah along the coast.

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The Near East at the Time of Zephaniah

c. 620 b.c. Zephaniah prophesied during the reign of Josiah, when Egypt, Judah, and Babylonia (with the help of the Medes) were regaining their autonomy and eroding the power of Assyria. Shortly after this time the Babylonians would replace the Assyrians as the dominant power in the Near East.

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The Near East at the Time of Nahum

c. 660–614 b.c. Nahum likely prophesied sometime between the zenith of Assyria’s power around 664 b.c. and the fall of Nineveh in 612. During this time the Assyrian Empire was in decline as Egypt, Judah, and Babylonia (with the help of the Medes) regained autonomy and

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Micah Prophesies Destruction

c. 740 b.c. Micah foretold the destruction that awaited Jerusalem and the towns that guarded the approach to the city. Though these towns lay to the southwest of Jerusalem, they lay along the route normally traveled by invading forces from the north, who typically followed the Great Trunk Road

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The Near East at the Time of Micah

c. 740 b.c. Micah prophesied to Israel and Judah during the decades just before the fall of Samaria through the time of King Hezekiah of Judah. Micah witnessed the destruction of Israel by the rising Assyrian empire, yet he probably also witnessed the Lord’s dramatic rescue of Jerusalem

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The Setting of Jonah

c. 760 b.c. Jonah prophesied during the politically prosperous time of Jeroboam II of Israel (2 Kings 14:23–28). During this time the Assyrians were occupied with matters elsewhere in the empire, allowing Jeroboam II to capture much of Syria for Israel. The Lord called Jonah to go

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The Setting of Obadiah

c. 570 b.c. Though various dates have been given for the prophecy of Obadiah, it was most likely written sometime after the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians in 586 b.c. but prior to the fall of Edom in 553. Obadiah condemned the Edomites, who were descendants of

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Israel and Judah at the Time of Amos

c. 750 b.c. Amos, a shepherd from the Judean town of Tekoa, prophesied during a resurgence of political power for Israel and Judah. Under Jeroboam II, Israel had captured much of Syria, though it is not certain how firmly they held it. Likewise, Judah captured several Philistine towns as

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The Near East at the Time of Amos

c. 750 b.c. Amos likely prophesied to Israel during the decades just prior to the fall of Samaria to the Assyrian Empire. The resurgence of this ancient empire dominated much of the politics of the ancient Near East from the time of Jeroboam and Azariah until the empire’s

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The Setting of Joel

c. 500 b.c.? Though there is much debate about the date of Joel’s prophecies, it is likely that they occurred during a national calamity sometime after Judah returned from exile in Babylon.

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Israel and Judah at the Time of Hosea

c. 740 b.c. Hosea prophesied during a time of great political turbulence in Israel and Judah. The early part of his ministry witnessed a brief period of resurgence under the reign of Jeroboam II, who captured much of Syria for Israel. Within a couple decades, however, Israel and Syria

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The Near East at the Time of Hosea

c. 740 b.c. Hosea prophesied to Israel and Judah during the decades surrounding the fall of Samaria to the Assyrian Empire. The resurgence of this ancient empire dominated much of the politics of the ancient Near East from the time of Jeroboam and Azariah until the empire’s demise

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The Maccabean Kingdom

c. 167–63 b.c. The Maccabean kingdom of Israel had its beginnings when the priest Mattathias and his family refused to obey the Seleucid rulers’ order to sacrifice to the pagan god Zeus at Modein. They led a revolt that initially controlled only the territory of Judea in the

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The Empires of Daniel’s Visions: The Ptolemies and the Seleucids (Late)

c. 198–133 b.c. By the second century b.c., the Seleucid Empire was losing its grip on much of its territory, and the Roman Empire was rapidly expanding throughout the Mediterranean world. In an attempt to unite his empire and shore up his defenses against these pressures, Antiochus

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The Empires of Daniel’s Visions: The Ptolemies and the Seleucids (Early)

c. 323–198 b.c. The two most powerful successors to Alexander, Ptolemy and Seleucus, continued to expand their domains into territory claimed by other generals of Alexander, and they repeatedly clashed with each other over land along the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, including the land later called

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The Empires of Daniel’s Visions: The Greeks

c. 335–303 b.c. The ascension of Alexander the Great to the throne of the Macedonian kingdom (in northern Greece) spelled the end for the mighty Persian Empire. After gaining the loyalty of the other city-states of Greece, Alexander’s astounding military prowess and success enabled him to systematically

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The Empires of Daniel’s Visions: The Persians

c. 538–331 b.c. After Cyrus the Great united the Median and Persian empires, he overthrew the Babylonians and established the greatest power the world had ever known. Under later rulers the Persian Empire eventually extended from Egypt and Thrace to the borders of India, and Cyrus himself declared,

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The Empires of Daniel’s Visions: The Babylonians

c. 605–538 b.c. Though their empire was short-lived by comparison with the Assyrians before them and the Persians after them, the Babylonians dominated the Near East during the early days of Daniel, and they were responsible for his initial exile to Babylon. Daniel himself, however, outlived the Babylonian