Minor Prophets Bible Trivia Questions

According to Jonah 4, what did God appoint to attack the plant that shaded Jonah, so that it withered?

AA wormCorrect
BA locust
CA caterpillar
DA field mouse

Answer: A worm

Jonah 4:7 · ESV

God appointed four things in the book — a great fish, a plant, a worm, and a scorching east wind — and each of them was sent to instruct his reluctant prophet. The worm destroyed the shade Jonah had come to love, exposing a man more grieved over a plant he did not grow than over a city of people he did not pity.

Jonah 4:6–8, leading to God's closing question in Jonah 4:10–11.

Why not this one. Locusts are the instrument of judgment in Joel, where swarm follows swarm across the land. In Jonah it was a worm at dawn, followed by an east wind and the beating sun.

Which minor prophet foretells that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem?

AMicah.Correct
BIsaiah.
CZechariah.
DMalachi.

Answer: Micah.

Micah 5:2 · ESV

Micah names not just the town but the clan, Bethlehem Ephrathah, marking it as the small Judean village of Jesse and David rather than the other Bethlehem in Zebulun's territory. The verse calls it too little to be counted among the clans of Judah, which is the point, and it says the ruler's origins are from ancient days, language the church has long read as reaching past David's line to the eternal Son.

Micah 5:2; Matthew 2:5-6

Why not this one. Isaiah is the prophet most associated with the birth of Christ because of the virgin and the child of chapters 7 and 9, so his name surfaces first. But when Herod demanded to know where the Christ was to be born, the chief priests answered him out of Micah.

Nahum 1:15 shares an image with Isaiah 52:7 that Paul later applies to gospel preachers in Romans 10:15. What image?

AThe feet of one who brings good newsCorrect
BA watchman calling from the wall
CA trumpet blown in Zion
DA lamp set on a stand

Answer: The feet of one who brings good news

Nahum 1:15 · ESV

In Nahum a runner crosses the mountains with word that the oppressor has fallen and Judah may keep its feasts again. Isaiah uses the same figure for the return from exile, and Paul takes it up for those who are sent to preach Christ, since faith comes by hearing a message that someone must carry.

Nahum 1:15; the same figure appears in Isaiah 52:7 and is applied to preachers in Romans 10:14–15.

Why not this one. The trumpet in Zion is Joel's summons to fasting and to the approaching day of the LORD. Nahum's picture is of a messenger's feet appearing on the hills.

Hosea's preaching was aimed chiefly at which kingdom?

AThe northern kingdom of IsraelCorrect
BThe southern kingdom of Judah
CThe kingdom of Edom
DThe empire of Assyria

Answer: The northern kingdom of Israel

Hosea 1:1 · ESV

Hosea preached to the ten northern tribes through their last decades, repeatedly calling them Ephraim after their leading tribe and Samaria after their capital. His marriage was the living picture of that kingdom's unfaithfulness, and his warnings ran out before Assyria carried the north away.

Hosea 1:1 dates him partly by Jeroboam king of Israel; Ephraim and Samaria dominate chapters 4 through 14.

Why not this one. Judah is named in Hosea's dating and is occasionally warned alongside the north, but it is not his audience; the northern kingdom is the unfaithful wife of the parable.

At the end of Jonah, how many persons who cannot tell their right hand from their left does the LORD say are in Nineveh?

AMore than 120,000Correct
BMore than 12,000
CMore than 60,000
DMore than 200,000

Answer: More than 120,000

Jonah 4:11 · ESV

God's closing question to Jonah appeals to the sheer number of the ignorant in that great city, and to its cattle besides. The book ends on a question rather than a resolution, leaving the sulking prophet — and every reader after him — to face the pity of God for those outside Israel.

Jonah 4:10–11, contrasted with Jonah's grief over the plant.

Why not this one. That is a tenth of the figure Scripture gives. The scale of the city is the point of the verse, which is also why Nineveh is called an exceedingly great city.

Paul's argument for God's electing purpose in Romans 9 ends with a line about Jacob loved and Esau hated. From which of the Twelve is it taken?

AMalachiCorrect
BObadiah
CHosea
DJoel

Answer: Malachi

Romans 9:13 · ESV

Malachi opens with the people doubting that God loves them, and God answers by contrasting his dealings with the two brothers and the nations that came from them. Paul uses the line to show that God's purpose of election rests on his own call, and not on works, birth order, or anything foreseen in the men themselves.

Romans 9:10–13, citing Malachi 1:2–3.

Why not this one. Obadiah is wholly concerned with Esau's descendants and their downfall, which makes it a natural guess, but the sentence Paul quotes stands at the very head of Malachi.

To which city was Jonah sent to preach?

ANineveh.Correct
BTarshish.
CBabylon.
DSamaria.

Answer: Nineveh.

Jonah 1:2 · ESV

Nineveh was the great city of Assyria, the empire that had been bleeding the northern kingdom and would eventually destroy it, which is why the errand was intolerable to Jonah. He admits as much at the end: he ran because he knew God was gracious and feared this enemy would be spared. Jesus pointed to the city's repentance under Jonah's preaching as something that actually happened and would testify against his own hearers.

Jonah 1:2; 4:2; Matthew 12:41

Why not this one. Tarshish is genuinely in the account, which is what makes it tempting, but it is where Jonah went rather than where he was sent. It lay far to the west across the Mediterranean, in the opposite direction from Nineveh.

How many days was Jonah inside the great fish before it vomited him onto dry land?

AThree days and three nightsCorrect
BSeven days and seven nights
COne day and one night
DForty days and forty nights

Answer: Three days and three nights

Jonah 1:17 · ESV

The interval runs from the swallowing to the moment the fish puts him out on dry land, and chapter 2 preserves the prayer he made from inside, built largely out of the language of the Psalms. Jesus took this as the sign of Jonah, setting his own three days in the heart of the earth beside it, which is why the number carries weight beyond the narrative.

Jonah 1:17; 2:1-10; Matthew 12:39-40

Why not this one. Forty is the book's other number and belongs to chapter 3, where Jonah walks into the city announcing that in forty days Nineveh would be overthrown. The two figures get traded constantly.

In one of Zechariah's night visions, a woman named Wickedness is shut inside a basket and carried away to which land?

AShinarCorrect
BEgypt
CEdom
DCush

Answer: Shinar

Zechariah 5:5–11 · ESV

The vision shows the nation's guilt personified, weighted down under a lead cover and flown out of the land by two winged women to be housed elsewhere. Shinar is the plain of Babel and Babylon, so the picture is of sin removed from the restored community and returned to the place of open rebellion.

Zechariah 5:5–11; Shinar is the plain of Genesis 11:2.

Why not this one. Egypt is the house of bondage that the exodus left behind, and it appears in the judgments of other prophets, but Zechariah's basket is carried in the other direction, eastward.

In Malachi 1, what fault does the LORD find with the animals the priests were bringing to his altar?

AThey were blind, lame, or sickCorrect
BThey were bought from foreign traders
CThey were offered at the wrong hour
DThey were offered without salt

Answer: They were blind, lame, or sick

Malachi 1:8 · ESV

Malachi asks whether the priests would dare present such creatures to their governor, and lets the question answer itself. Offering God what a man would be ashamed to give a human superior is contempt dressed up as worship, and it is the opening charge in the book's series of disputes with the priesthood.

Malachi 1:6–8 and 1:13–14; the law required animals without blemish, Leviticus 22:20–22.

Why not this one. The law does require salt with the grain offering, but that is not Malachi's complaint anywhere in the book. His charge concerns the defective animals themselves.

Habakkuk 2:4 contains a phrase quoted three times in the New Testament. What does it say about the righteous?

AThe righteous shall live by his faithCorrect
BThe righteous shall be justified by his works
CThe righteous shall endure to the end
DThe righteous shall be saved by his confession

Answer: The righteous shall live by his faith

Habakkuk 2:4 · ESV

The line is God's answer to Habakkuk's second complaint. The prophet had asked how a holy God could use the Chaldeans as his instrument, and the reply sets the puffed-up man, whose soul is not upright, over against the righteous who lives by faith. The New Testament takes the verse up three times, and it became the text at the center of the Reformation's recovery of justification by faith alone.

Habakkuk 2:2-4; Romans 1:17; Galatians 3:11; Hebrews 10:38

Why not this one. Endurance sounds close and is a real biblical promise, from Matthew 24:13, so it makes a plausible near miss. Habakkuk's word is faith, and that single word is what Paul builds his argument on in both Romans and Galatians.