The prophets that we are studying in this book lived during tumultuous times. Amos, the earliest prophet, preached during the reign of Jeroboam II, king of Israel (786–746 BC).1 Malachi, the last prophet, probably ministered in the middle of the fifth century BC (ca. 450 BC). The rest of the prophets fall in between these two. Thus the prophets span about three hundred years, from around 750 BC to around 450 BC. During this period, the history of the Ancient Near East was