نوییم حاوی روایت ظهور شکل‌گیری پادشاهی عبرانیان و تقسیم آن به دو بخش پادشاهی یهودا و پادشاهی شمالی اسرائیل است و به منازعات اسرائیلیان و دیگر ملل و همچنین جنگ‌های داخلی میان بنی‌اسرائیل (به‌خصوص بین پرستندگان یهوه و پرستندگان خدایان خارجی)Yehezkel Kaufmann "Israel In Canaan" in "Great Ages and Ideas of the Jewish People" edited by Leo Schwartz, The Modern Library. "The fight against Baal was initiated by the prophets" 54George Savran "I and II Kings" in "The Literary Guide to the Bible" edited by Robert Alter and Frank Kermode. "Each king is judged either good or bad in black-and-white terms, according to whether or not he "did right" or "did evil" in the sight of the Lord. This evaluation is not reflective of the well-being of the nation, of the king's success or failure in war, or of the moral climate of the times, but rather the state of cultic worship during his reign. Those kings who shun idolatry and enact religious reforms are singled out for praise, and those who encourage pagan practices are denounced." 146 می‌پردازد و اعمال ناعادلانهٔ رهبران بنی‌اسرائیل را نقد می‌کند که در این انتقادات، انبیاء نقشی اساسی دارند.Yehezkel Kaufmann "The Age of Prophecy" in "Great Ages and Ideas of the Jewish People" edited by Leo Schwartz, The Modern Library. "The immediate occasion of the rise of the new prophecy was the political and social ruin caused by the wars with Israel's northerly neighbor, Aram, which continued for more than a century. They raged intensely during the reign of Ahab, and did not end until the time of Jeroboam II (784–744). While the nation as a whole was impoverished, a few – apparently of the royal officialdom – grew wealthy as a result of the national calamity. Many of the people were compelled to sell their houses and lands, with the result that a sharp social cleavage arose: on the one hand a mass of propertyless indigents, on the other a small circle of the rich. A series of disasters struck the nation – drought, famine, plagues, death and captivity (Amos 4: 6–11), but the greatest disaster of all was the social disintegration due to the cleavage between the poor masses and the wealthy, dissolute upper class. The decay affected both Judah and Israel … High minded men were appalled at this development. Was this the people whom YHWH had brought out of Egypt, to whom He had given the land and a law of justice and right? it seemed as if the land was about to be inherited by the rich, who would squander its substance in drunken revelry. it was this dissolution that brought the prophetic denunciations to white heat." 57–58Abraham Joshua Heschel 1955 "The Prophets" Harper and Row: "What manner of man is the prophet? A student of philosophy who runs from the discourses of the great metaphysicians to the orations of the prophets may feel as if he were going from the realm of the sublime to an area of trivialities. Instead of dealing with the timeless issues of being and becoming, of matter and form, of definitions and demonstrations, he is thrown into orations about widows and orphans, about the corruption of judges and affairs of the market place. Instead of showing us a way through the elegant mansions of the mind, the prophets take us to the slums. The world is a proud place, full of beauty, but the prophets are scandalized, and rave as if the whole world were a slum. They make much ado about paltry things, lavishing excessive language upon trifling subjects. What if somewhere in ancient Palestine poor people have not been treated properly by the rich? ... Indeed, the sorts of crimes and even the amount of delinquency that fill the prophets of Israel with dismay do not go beyond that which we regard as normal, as typical ingredients of social dynamics. To us a single act of injustice – cheating in business, exploitation of the poor – is slight; to the prophets, a disaster. To us an injustice is injurious to the welfare of the people; to the prophets it is a deathblow to existence; to us an episode; to them, a catastrophe, a threat to the world." 3–4Joel Rosenberg "I and II Samuel" in "The Literary Guide to the Bible" edited by Robert Alter and Frank Kermode. "Samuel is thus a work of national self-criticism. It recognizes that Israel would not have survived, either politically or culturally, without the steadying presence of a dynastic royal house. But it makes both that house and its subjects answerable to firm standards of prophetic justice – not those of cult prophets or professional ecstatics, but of morally upright prophetic leaders in the tradition of Moses, Joshua, Deborah, Gideon, and others ..." 141 نوییم نهایتاً با فتح پادشاهی اسرائیل توسط آشوری‌ها و فتح پادشاهی یهودا توسط بابل و تخریب معبد اورشلیم به پایان می‌رسد.