When discussing the prophets of the Old Testament, the terms “major” and “minor” are simply ways of categorizing the writings of these men – not the men themselves. That is, what’s being compared is the size of their writings, not the relative importance of the individual men. For example, Elijah and Elisha did great miracles – more than most other prophets – but left us no writings. Therefore, Elijah and Elisha are not listed among the major or the minor prophets. Thus the distinction between “major” and “minor” strictly refers to the way these 17 writings have been grouped in the Bible.
There are a couple of points to be made about how the writings are categorized. First, by chapter size, it might seem inappropriate to have Daniel (12) among the major prophets while Hosea (14) and Zechariah (14) are among the minor prophets. However, the chapter divisions came centuries after the major and minor distinctions were settled. By word count, Daniel is almost twice as long as Zechariah and its more than twice as long as Hosea. Second, the book of Lamentations is short enough by word count to be placed with the minor prophets; however, since it was authored by Jeremiah, it is placed after the book that bears his name.
As for how the writings are organized in each category, they generally follow a chronological order. Thus Isaiah, being the first book written among the major prophets, comes first; similarly, Hosea being the first book written among the minor prophets, comes first in that group. Generally speaking, therefore, the major and minor prophets are spread across the same time period; that is, it is not the case that all the minor prophets wrote after all the major prophets.
The following list follows the order in which the books appear in the Old Testament. The number given is the number of chapters in the book.
- Major Prophets:
- Isaiah (66)
- Jeremiah (52)
- Lamentations (5)
- Ezekiel (48)
- Daniel (12)
- Minor Prophets:
- Hosea (14)
- Joel (3)
- Amos (9)
- Obadiah (1)
- Jonah (4)
- Micah (7)
- Nahum (3)
- Habakkuk (3)
- Zephaniah (3)
- Haggai (2)
- Zechariah (14)
- Malachi (4)
The Minor Prophets are also called “The Twelve Prophets” or even just “The Twelve.” Of course, this last term only finds use in Jewish circles because in Christian circles people would assume that term to refer to the twelve apostles.
The Duty of a Man 