ESV · free iPhone quiz
Major Prophets Bible Trivia Questions
Questions on Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, and Daniel. The app has 102 questions in this set. 7 more quote the ESV at length, and those stay in the app rather than on this page. 12 are printed here.
Questions and answers
Easy Old Testament — The Major Prophets
Which prophet does God address again and again throughout his book as “son of man”?
- AEzekielCorrect
- BIsaiah
- CJeremiah
- DHosea
Answer: Ezekiel
Ezekiel 2:1 · ESV
From his commissioning onward, God speaks to Ezekiel by this title dozens of times. It marks the prophet as a mere mortal standing before overwhelming divine glory, which is fitting for the book that opens with the throne chariot vision. The same phrase is used very differently in Daniel 7:13, where one like a son of man comes with the clouds and receives an everlasting kingdom.
Ezekiel 2:1, 3, and throughout the book.
Why not this one. God calls Jeremiah by name and once likens him to a fortified city, but the repeated address as son of man belongs to Ezekiel.
Medium Old Testament — The Major Prophets
Ezekiel 1:3 identifies the prophet by name, by his father, and by what other office he held?
- AHe was a priestCorrect
- BHe was a scribe
- CHe was an elder of Judah
- DHe was a temple singer
Answer: He was a priest
Ezekiel 1:3 · ESV
Ezekiel was a priest, son of Buzi, and the word came to him among the exiles in the land of the Chaldeans by the Chebar canal. His priestly training runs through the whole book: its constant concern with what is clean and unclean, its horror at the abominations in the sanctuary, the vision of the glory leaving the temple and later returning to it, and the closing chapters of measurements, offerings, and priestly duty. He was a priest with no altar to serve, given instead a vision of the true one.
Ezekiel 1:1–3; compare Ezekiel 4:14 and 44:15–23.
Why not this one. Elders of Judah and of Israel do come and sit before Ezekiel to seek a word, as in Ezekiel 8:1 and 14:1, but he is never numbered among them.
Hard Old Testament — The Major Prophets
Ezekiel dates his visions by the years of the exile of which king of Judah?
- AJehoiachinCorrect
- BJehoiakim
- CZedekiah
- DJosiah
Answer: Jehoiachin
Ezekiel 1:2 · ESV
Ezekiel's inaugural vision came in the fifth year of King Jehoiachin's exile, and the book's later dates count from the same point. That fixes Ezekiel among those deported with Jehoiachin, before Jerusalem fell, which is why he prophesies to exiles already in Babylonia while the city still stands and false hopes of a quick return persist.
Ezekiel 1:1–3; the deportation is recorded in 2 Kings 24:12–16.
Why not this one. Zedekiah reigned in Jerusalem during Ezekiel's ministry and appears in his prophecies, but he was installed by Babylon rather than exiled at this point, so the dating is not by his years.
Easy Old Testament — The Major Prophets
Isaiah 53 describes the Suffering Servant. According to Isaiah 53:5, he was pierced for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities. What does the passage say brought us peace?
- AHis obedience to the law on our behalf
- BThe chastisement that brought us peace was upon himCorrect
- CHis prayers of intercession in the temple
- DHis victory over death at the resurrection
Answer: The chastisement that brought us peace was upon him
Isaiah 53:5 · ESV
The verse works by substitution four times over, with the pronouns doing the work: our transgressions, our iniquities, our peace, our healing, and each time him. The word rendered chastisement is the vocabulary of corrective punishment that a wrongdoer has earned, and it lands on the Servant instead. The peace in view is peace with God, secured because the penalty fell elsewhere.
Isaiah 53:5
Why not this one. This is sound doctrine and a real part of how Christ saves, so anyone holding the whole picture in mind reaches for it. It is not what verse 5 says; the clause about peace is attached to the chastisement laid on him, not to his keeping of the law.
Medium Old Testament — The Major Prophets
In Daniel 2, Nebuchadnezzar had a troubling dream about a great statue. What metal was the head of the statue made of?
- ASilver
- BBronze
- CGoldCorrect
- DIron
Answer: Gold
Daniel 2:32 · ESV
Daniel told Nebuchadnezzar outright that he was the head of gold, and the metals fall in value as the statue descends, to silver, bronze, iron, and finally iron mixed with clay in the feet. Value drops while hardness rises, which sets up the reading of successive kingdoms, each less glorious than the last. The whole figure is then shattered at its brittle base.
Daniel 2:31–38
Why not this one. Silver is genuinely in the statue, forming the chest and arms, and it stands for the kingdom that would rise after Nebuchadnezzar's. The head, the part Daniel identified with the king standing in front of him, is fine gold.
Hard Old Testament — The Major Prophets
Ezekiel 40–48 describes a temple in great detail, and orthodox readers differ over it. Which understanding does the dispensational premillennial reading hold?
- AThat it is a literal temple to stand in a future earthly millennial kingdomCorrect
- BThat it is a symbolic portrait of God's dwelling with his people, fulfilled in Christ and the new creation
- CThat it was fulfilled exactly in the temple Zerubbabel built after the return
- DThat it describes Solomon's temple as it stood before the Babylonians destroyed it
Answer: That it is a literal temple to stand in a future earthly millennial kingdom
Ezekiel 40:1–4; 43:1–12 · ESV
The question asks what one recognised view claims, not which view is right. Dispensational premillennialists read the measurements, the offerings, and the priestly regulations as a description of a real building in a future kingdom on earth. Other orthodox interpreters read the vision as a symbolic assurance that God will dwell with his people, fulfilled in Christ and consummated in the new creation. Scripture does not settle the dispute, and neither does this bank.
Ezekiel 40–48, especially 43:1–12 and 48:35.
Why not this one. No major reading claims this, and the second temple did not match Ezekiel's plan; those who see a past fulfilment argue very differently.
Easy Old Testament — The Major Prophets
In Isaiah 65:17, what does the LORD declare that he is about to create?
- ANew heavens and a new earthCorrect
- BA new throne for the house of David
- CA new priesthood after the order of Melchizedek
- DA new ark to house the covenant
Answer: New heavens and a new earth
Isaiah 65:17 · ESV
Isaiah's closing chapters look past exile and return to a wholly renewed creation, so complete that the former things will not be remembered. The promise is repeated in Isaiah 66:22 and taken up by Peter and by John's vision, where the new heaven and new earth are the final home of the redeemed. Salvation ends not in escape from the world but in its remaking.
Isaiah 65:17 and 66:22; compare 2 Peter 3:13 and Revelation 21:1.
Why not this one. That priesthood is announced in Psalm 110:4 and argued in Hebrews 7, not in Isaiah 65, where the subject is the renewal of creation itself.
Medium Old Testament — The Major Prophets
According to Daniel 5, what happened on the very night Daniel read the writing on the wall?
- ABelshazzar was killed and Darius the Mede received the kingdomCorrect
- BBelshazzar repented and proclaimed a fast throughout Babylon
- CDaniel was thrown into the den of lions
- DThe temple vessels were sent back to Jerusalem
Answer: Belshazzar was killed and Darius the Mede received the kingdom
Daniel 5:30–31 · ESV
Belshazzar kept his word and clothed Daniel in purple with a gold chain, proclaiming him third ruler in the kingdom, and that same night the king was killed and Darius the Mede received the kingdom at about sixty-two years of age. The reading of the writing and the fall of Babylon are set side by side to show the word taking effect at once.
Daniel 5:29–31.
Why not this one. That comes in the following chapter and under a different ruler: it was Darius, not Belshazzar, who was tricked into signing the injunction against prayer.
Hard Old Testament — The Major Prophets
Ezekiel 18 forbids the proverb about fathers eating sour grapes and the children's teeth being set on edge. What does God assert in its place?
- AThe soul who sins shall die; the son shall not bear the guilt of the fatherCorrect
- BThe father shall bear the guilt of the son who goes astray
- CPunishment for sin is deferred until the day of judgment
- DA righteous father's obedience covers the guilt of his household
Answer: The soul who sins shall die; the son shall not bear the guilt of the father
Ezekiel 18:4, 20 · ESV
The exiles were blaming their fathers for a judgment they thought unjust. God answers that all souls are his and each is judged for his own conduct, then presses the point with three generations of examples and a call to repent and get a new heart and a new spirit. He adds that he takes no pleasure in the death of anyone who dies.
Ezekiel 18:1–4, 20, 30–32.
Why not this one. Scripture does teach a final judgment, but that is not Ezekiel 18's answer; the chapter insists on present, personal accountability against a saying that blamed the previous generation.
Easy Old Testament — The Major Prophets
To which nation did God command the people of Judah to submit during the time of Jeremiah’s ministry?
- AAssyria
- BEgypt
- CBabylonCorrect
- DPersia
Answer: Babylon
Jeremiah 27:6–7 · ESV
During Zedekiah's reign Jeremiah wore a yoke on his own neck and told the envoys of Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre and Sidon to put their necks under Nebuchadnezzar, whom God twice calls his servant. Submission was the road to life and resistance meant sword, famine and pestilence. This is why he was treated as a traitor, and why prophets promising a quick end to Babylon drew the crowds.
Jeremiah 27:1–11; Jeremiah 28
Why not this one. Egypt is the alliance Judah's court kept reaching for as the alternative to Babylon, so it hangs over the whole period. Jeremiah opposed that policy, and after the city fell he warned the surviving remnant not to flee there; they went anyway and carried him along.
Medium Old Testament — The Major Prophets
In answer to Hezekiah's prayer, how many men of the Assyrian army did the angel of the LORD strike down in one night?
- A185,000Correct
- B120,000
- C70,000
- D42,000
Answer: 185,000
Isaiah 37:36 · ESV
Sennacherib had taken the fortified cities of Judah and sent a letter taunting the living God as no better than the gods of the nations he had already swept away. Hezekiah spread the letter before the LORD in the temple, and Isaiah sent word that the Assyrian would not shoot an arrow into Jerusalem or build a siege mound against it. That night the angel of the LORD destroyed the camp, Sennacherib withdrew to Nineveh, and he was later killed there by two of his own sons.
Isaiah 37:14–38, paralleled in 2 Kings 19:14–37.
Why not this one. Seventy thousand fell in the plague after David's census in 2 Samuel 24:15, a different judgment altogether.
Hard Old Testament — The Major Prophets
Isaiah 53:9 says the Servant was buried with the wicked and with a rich man in his death. What two qualities does the verse ascribe to him?
- AHe was blameless in deed and spotless in heart
- BHe had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouthCorrect
- CHe was holy in conduct and pure in motive
- DHe had spoken no falsehood and committed no sin of thought
Answer: He had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth
Isaiah 53:9 · ESV
The verse records an oddity in the burial: a grave assigned with the wicked, yet a rich man's tomb in the event, which is what happened when Joseph of Arimathea took the body of Jesus and laid it in his own new tomb. The two qualities are stated negatively and cover deed and speech, and 1 Peter 2:22 applies the second of them directly to Christ.
Isaiah 53:9; Matthew 27:57–60; 1 Peter 2:22
Why not this one. It captures the right idea, innocence outwardly and inwardly, and would pass as a fair summary of the Servant. The verse is more concrete than that, pairing violence never done with deceit never spoken, and it is that second clause Peter picks up.