Reading the Old Testament front to back is confusing partly because the books are arranged by type rather than by date. Prophets who spoke during events described in Kings appear four hundred pages later. Here is the actual order.

Beginnings

Creation, the rupture, the flood, the scattering. Genesis chapters one to eleven, covering the widest span of time in the fewest pages.

The family

Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph. One family, four generations, ending in Egypt. Genesis twelve to fifty.

Exodus and law

Slavery in Egypt, the rescue, the covenant at Sinai, forty years of wandering. Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The law belongs here, given to this people at this moment, which is worth remembering when a regulation seems strange.

The land

Entering, settling, and several centuries of local chaos under judges. Joshua and Judges, with Ruth as a small quiet story from the same period.

The kings

Saul, David, Solomon, then the split into two kingdoms and a long decline. First and Second Samuel, First and Second Kings, retold from another angle in Chronicles.

Most of the prophets belong here, speaking into these events: Amos and Hosea to the northern kingdom, Isaiah, Micah and Jeremiah to the southern one. Many of the Psalms come from this period too.

Exile

The northern kingdom falls, then the southern, and the people are deported to Babylon. Ezekiel and Daniel are there. Lamentations grieves the loss of Jerusalem.

Return

Persia permits a return. The temple and the walls are rebuilt, on a much smaller scale. Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, and the last prophets including Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi.

Then four hundred years

Between Malachi and Matthew, nothing is recorded in the Protestant canon, though a great deal happened. That gap is why the world of the New Testament, with Rome, synagogues and Pharisees, feels so different from the last page of the Old.

One practical use of this list: when you begin a prophet, find which period it belongs to first. It converts a strange book into a letter with a situation, and most of the difficulty disappears.

Our daily readings give you a passage a day, and you can ask about a specific book in our questions section.