We do not know who Malachi was. Malachi might have been his birth name, or perhaps his nickname, as God's messenger. He was active during the reign of Persia, around 500 BCE. The subjects with which Malachi was preoccupied were different from those that preoccupied the classical prophets and reflected his time. But one can find in them beautiful comparisons to today's problems as well. One of the main subjects in his prophecy was the covenant between God and Israel, as well as his criticism of the people's disdain for the worship of the temple, and of the priests for misusing their position.

Haggai was active for a very short time, only about four months, in the second year of Darius I (520/521 BCE). In these four months, Haggai managed to encourage the exiled people of Zion to return to Judah and Jerusalem, to begin building the temple. They faced many difficulties: they suffered from drought and shortage and did not manage to get by in the barren land. When they started building the temple, Haggai was required to strengthen the spirit of the people and its leaders, Zerubbabel the priest and Joshua the high priest, in view of the modest dimensions of the building, with the promise that "the glory of this new Temple will surpass that of the old".

Prophet Ezekiel is not mentioned outside the book of Ezekiel even once. The book was almost shelved in a repository by ancients, but eventually was saved by Hananiah ben Hezekiah ben Garon (beginning of the first century AD). But the prophet and his book were not absent in the memory of Israel, and since the end of the biblical literature period (the beginning of the Second Temple period), the Book of Ezekiel was very influential. Ezekiel's visions and prophecies of God in Babylon captivated the mystics, the vision of the dry bones accelerated the idea of resurrection, and the division of the country into tribes fed the dream of the return of all the Jewish people to Israel.

Along with the official Aramaic translation of the Prophets, known as "Targum Yonatan", other Aramaic translations were circulating in the Jewish communities. These translations, most of which are found in manuscripts, are referred to in the modern research as "Translation Supplements" (Toseftot Targum), some of which have Midrashic extensions. The source of the translation additions is vague: they may be part of a complete Palestinian translation of the prophets, and they may be translations of the Haftoroh chapters only. The book contains a collection of one hundred and fifty texts, with a varied dialectical nature collected from over a hundred manuscripts and first editions.