The prophets of Israel and Judah are usually remembered for oracles. In the narrative books they spend most of their time in rooms with kings, saying things kings did not want to hear. Twelve questions on those encounters, at three levels. Every answer comes with the passage that settles it.
Open “Bible Trivia: Kings and Prophets” on its own page — if the module does not load.
Every question, with the answer and the reason
The interactive module above runs in a sandbox of its own, which means its text is not part of this page. So here is the whole thing in full: all 12 questions, the options as they appear, the answer, and why that answer and not the one beside it. Nothing is held back to make you play first.
Easy
These turn on something stated outright in the text. If you have read the book, you have met the answer.
Which prophet confronted King Ahab over the vineyard of Naboth?
- Elisha
- Nathan
- Micaiah
- Elijah — correct
Answer: Elijah
1 Kings 21. Naboth refuses to sell the vineyard because it is his ancestral inheritance, Jezebel arranges his death on false witness, and Elijah meets Ahab standing in the vineyard he has just taken. Nathan is the prophet who confronts David over Bathsheba; Micaiah confronts Ahab, but over the campaign at Ramoth-gilead.
Who succeeded Elijah as prophet?
- Obadiah
- Elisha — correct
- Hosea
- Jehu
Answer: Elisha
2 Kings 2. Elisha asks for a double portion of Elijah's spirit, sees him taken up, and picks up the mantle that falls — then uses it to part the Jordan, repeating what Elijah had just done. The double portion is the elder son's inheritance share, so the request is about succession rather than about power.
Which king built the temple in Jerusalem?
- David
- Solomon — correct
- Hezekiah
- Josiah
Answer: Solomon
1 Kings 6. David gathers materials and is told in 2 Samuel 7 that he will not build it; Solomon begins in the fourth year of his reign and takes seven years. Hezekiah and Josiah both purify and repair the same building, two and three centuries later respectively.
Which prophet was told to marry Gomer?
- Amos
- Joel
- Micah
- Hosea — correct
Answer: Hosea
Hosea 1:2 — the command opens the book, before any oracle. The marriage is a sign-act: Gomer's unfaithfulness and the names given to the children, including Lo-ammi, 'not my people', are the argument the book is making about Israel, acted out before it is stated.
Medium
These need a detail held in place — a name, a sequence, a number that only means something next to another number.
Which king of Judah discovered the book of the law during temple repairs?
- Josiah — correct
- Hezekiah
- Manasseh
- Jehoshaphat
Answer: Josiah
2 Kings 22. Hilkiah the priest finds the scroll during repairs, Shaphan reads it to Josiah, and the king tears his clothes. The reform of chapter 23 follows directly from it. Hezekiah's reform, a century earlier, is not prompted by any discovery of a book.
Whose book opens with the words “The burden of Nineveh”?
- Jonah
- Zephaniah
- Nahum — correct
- Habakkuk
Answer: Nahum
Nahum 1:1 — 'the burden of Nineveh', an oracle against the Assyrian capital. Jonah is set at Nineveh too, but it is a narrative about a prophet rather than a collection of oracles, and its concern is the city being spared rather than falling.
Which king did Samuel anoint first?
- David
- Solomon
- Jeroboam
- Saul — correct
Answer: Saul
1 Samuel 10. Samuel anoints Saul privately, then Saul is chosen publicly by lot. David is anointed later, in 1 Samuel 16, while Saul is still reigning — which is what makes the middle of the book so tense. Solomon and Jeroboam are both anointed by others, generations on.
Which prophet served in the Babylonian court under Nebuchadnezzar?
- Ezekiel
- Daniel — correct
- Jeremiah
- Zechariah
Answer: Daniel
Daniel 1–4 places him inside the court, trained in the literature of the Chaldeans and serving as an interpreter of dreams. Ezekiel is among the deportees by the river Chebar, outside the court entirely; Jeremiah never goes to Babylon at all, remaining in Judah and later taken to Egypt.
Hard
These turn on what the evidence actually supports, which is not always what the story is remembered as saying.
Which prophet was lowered into a cistern in Jerusalem during Zedekiah’s reign?
- Ezekiel
- Uriah
- Jeremiah — correct
- Baruch
Answer: Jeremiah
Jeremiah 38. He is lowered by ropes into a cistern with no water in it, and sinks into the mud. Ebed-melech the Cushite goes to the king, gets permission, and pulls him out using worn rags under his armpits to keep the ropes from cutting — one of the most physically specific rescues in the prophetic books.
Which king of Judah was struck with a skin disease after burning incense in the temple?
- Uzziah — correct
- Ahaz
- Amon
- Abijah
Answer: Uzziah
2 Chronicles 26. Uzziah enters the sanctuary to burn incense, a priestly act, and is confronted by Azariah with eighty priests; the disease breaks out on his forehead while he is still holding the censer. He lives in a separate house afterwards, and his son Jotham governs — which is why Isaiah 6 dates itself to the year of his death.
Which prophet was told by Amaziah, priest of Bethel, to go back to Judah and prophesy there?
- Hosea
- Elisha
- Amos — correct
- Joel
Answer: Amos
Amos 7:12–13. Amaziah tells him to flee to Judah, eat bread there, and prophesy there — because Bethel is 'the king's sanctuary and a temple of the kingdom'. The confrontation is about jurisdiction, not doctrine: the prophet is being told he is speaking in the wrong state.
Which prophet reports a vision of the Lord standing beside a wall with a plumb line?
- Amos — correct
- Zechariah
- Ezekiel
- Nahum
Answer: Amos
Amos 7:7–8, the third of the visions in that chapter. The first two — locusts and fire — are averted when Amos intercedes; the plumb line is not. A plumb line measures an existing wall against a standard rather than helping to build one, and the vision turns on that.
What this quiz draws on
Books in play: 1 Kings, 2 Kings, Major Prophets, Minor Prophets. Each of those leads to what the book contains, who has been proposed as its author, and how it is dated.
Themes: Kings and empires.
Answers here are drawn from the biblical text and, where an external record bears on the question, from the artefact or publication that carries it. How this site reads a text and how this site is written set out the rules, so you can check the reasoning rather than take the answer on trust.