Alter begins his introduction with a most important clarification, “The Twelve Minor Prophets are “minor” only in regard to the quantity of their writings that have come down to us. In fact, in Hebrew they are simply called “the Dozen,” with no mention of minor.”
In Hosea 5:15, Alter explains a bit of theological nuance, “I will go, return to My place. This is an interesting biblical intimation of the idea of deus absconditus. God, in His anger against Israel, withdraws from them to His celestial abode, where He will await the moment they recognize their guilt and seek Him out before He will return to Israel.” In Hosea 6:3, Alter describes a pun in the original Hebrew, “like the latter rain He will shower the earth. As often happens in the Bible, there is a pun hiding close to the surface. God’s instruction to humankind (the word translated as “shower” also means “instruct”) is life-giving, like the rain. But the verb for “teach” or “instruct,” yoreh, is also a homonym of the noun that means “former rain,” often paired with malqosh, “latter rain.” One should also note that in these two lines God is compared first to the sun, then to the rain—both giving life to earth.”
Alter, again, explains the wordplay in the original Hebrew in Joel 1:18, “the flocks of sheep are desolate. The verb here is another reflection of Joel’s fondness for introducing double meanings through similarities of sound. The verb ne’ashmu would ordinarily mean “to be guilty,” but it seems to be a deliberate distortion of nashamu, “to be desolate,” thus intimating a shadow of personifying guilt in the depiction of the desolate animals.” In Joel 4:1, there is more wordplay, “the Valley of Jehoshaphat. The name means “The Lord judges,” and the prophet immediately plays on shafat, “judges,” as he says “come to judgment,” nishpateti.” In Joel 4:10, there is a reference back to another prophet, “Grind your plowshares into swords / and your pruning hooks into spears. This is an obvious—and grim—reversal of the famous verse in Isaiah 2:4 that envisions a wondrous era of peace.”
In Haggai 2:3, Alter details a bit of history, “Who among you remains who saw this house in its former glory? There could be a few in Haggai’s audience who had actually seen the First Temple, but they would be very old because sixty-seven years had passed since its destruction. Is it not as nothing in your eyes? The foundation for the Temple, according to the Book of Ezra, had been laid during the reign of Cyrus, but the work did not go forward, so what met the eye was a half-finished foundation and no structure above it.”
Alter relates the uniqueness of Zechariah’s prophesying in Zechariah 5:1, “and, look, a flying scroll. By this point, it is evident that Zechariah’s mode of prophecy is essentially different from that of his predecessors. They occasionally experience enigmatic visions that are then explained, but their principal vehicle is direct address…. Zechariah, by contrast, witnesses a series of puzzling visions shown him by a divine emissary, and they seem to become progressively more bizarre.” In Zechariah 8:21, Alter notes the biblical introduction of the word Jew, “ten people from all the tongues of the nations shall grasp the border of a Jew’s garment. This vivid image conveys the sense of throngs of foreigners desperate to join the people with whom God dwells. The term yehudi, “Jew,” never appears in earlier biblical literature, although it occurs frequently in Esther, which also belongs to the Persian period. Yehudi is palpably moving toward the meaning of “Jew” because it is now hard to speak of a “Judahite” (Hebrew, ben yehudah), given that the kingdom of Judah no longer exists, having been replaced by the Persian province of Yehud.”
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