The books composing this division differ from those of the Former Prophets in that they give the author's name and are hortatory rather than historical in their contents.

They are divided into Major and Minor Prophets. Of the Major we have three, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel; of the Minor we have twelve, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. The terms Major and Minor refer simply to the size of the books.

The peculiar feature of these books is that they record the teachings of the men whose names they bear. From them we learn but little of Jewish history, and that in a very fragmentary and incidental way. The Latter Prophets were preeminently the teachers of the divine will to their generation, giving God's message relating to their own time and revealing also God's purpose in regard to the future development of His kingdom. When they refer to history it is to furnish a background to their teaching, or so to locate the truth they utter that the people may recognize the presence and the power of God in its fulfillment.

Many attempts have been made to fix the dates of the Minor Prophets. The older critics considered the order in which they now appear in the Bible as the true chronological order, but later scholarship has shown that this is incorrect. Some have thought the length of the book decided the location of it. Some have seen an effort to secure a continuity of thought in the arrangement.