Tyndale Concise Bible Commentary

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Tyndale Concise Bible Commentary

Robert B. Hughes
J. Carl Laney

L A R I D I A N

Cedar Rapids, Iowa

Tyndale Concise Bible Commentary

Electronic Edition

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible , New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible , New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the Holy Bible , King James Version.

The authors wish to acknowledge all those who have had an influential or direct part in the production of this book. Numerous colleagues, especially Dr. Donald Launstein and Dr. Stanley Ellisen, and students through the years have greatly influenced the approach taken in this book. We also wish to acknowledge Mrs. Nancy Nasution, a Tyndale editor who worked many hours on this project. Although she did not live to see the completion of this book, her edits will be appreciated with each new page read. Our editor, Mr. Mark Norton, has skillfully led us through the entire editorial process. We are also happy to acknowledge his expertise, scholarship, and clarity of thought.

Contents

Index of Bible-Wide Themes

Preface

Introduction: The Big Picture

Index of Bible-Wide Themes

All of the following themes are Bible-wide in scope and could easily be traced through many, if not all, of the books of the Bible. This index connects these “Bible-wide” themes to the biblical books where they are discussed in the Concise Bible Commentary . See the Bible-Wide Concepts sections in the books mentioned for more information on the listed themes.

Adam, Abraham, and Christ : Genesis, Luke, Romans, 1 Corinthians, Hebrews

Belief : John

Cities and God's Rule : Nahum

Covenant, Abrahamic : Introduction, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Ruth, 1 & 2 Samuel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Jonah, Matthew, Acts, Romans, Hebrews

Covenant, Davidic : Introduction, Ruth, 1 & 2 Samuel, 1 & 2 Kings, 1 & 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos, Haggai, Matthew, Acts, Romans, 2 Timothy, Hebrews

Covenant, Mosaic : Introduction, Exodus, Leviticus, 1 & 2 Samuel, Ezra, Lamentations, Joel, Matthew, Acts, Romans, Hebrews

Covenant, New : Introduction, Jeremiah, 2 Corinthians, Colossians, Hebrews, 1 & 2 John

Covenant, Old : Introduction, Genesis, Exodus, Deuteronomy, 1 Timothy, Hebrews

Creation : Genesis, Proverbs, Isaiah, Romans, Colossians

Conflict between God and Satan : Genesis, Job, Galatians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 & 2 John

Cultural Conformity : Judges

Curse, The : Genesis, Exodus, Ecclesiastes

Day of the Lord : Joel, Zephaniah, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians

Disobedience and Judgment : Exodus, Leviticus, Joel

Discipline and Its Value : Joshua, Ezekiel, Habakkuk

Earthquakes and God's Appearance : Exodus, Revelation

End Time, The : Daniel, Zechariah, 2 Timothy

Evil, The Problem of : Job

Exodus, The : Exodus, 1 & 2 Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hebrews

Faith and Works : Titus, James

Fall, The : Genesis

Flood, The : Genesis, 1 Peter

Foundation Stone, The : Zechariah, 1 Peter

Gentiles and Jews : Jeremiah, Amos, Jonah, Galatians, Ephesians

God's City, Jerusalem : Nehemiah, Zechariah

God's Jealousy and Patience : Nahum

God's Loving-kindness : 1 & 2 Samuel

God's Presence : Exodus, Haggai, Matthew, 2 Corinthians, Philippians

God's Sovereignty : Ecclesiastes, 1 Thessalonians, 2 Peter

God the Warrior : Exodus, Joshua

Grace of God : Genesis, Joshua, Philemon

Holiness of God : Exodus, Leviticus

Holy Spirit : Joel, Haggai, Luke, Acts, 1 & 2 Corinthians, Galatians, 1 John

Holy Nation and People : Exodus, Leviticus

Humiliation and Exaltation : Philippians

Israel and Her Enemies : Esther, Obadiah

Journeys : Exodus, Numbers

Judgment : Exodus, Joshua, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Jude, Revelation

Justification : Romans

Kingdom of God, The : Micah, Luke, Acts, 1 Corinthians, Colossians, 2 Timothy

Kingship in Israel : Deuteronomy, 1 & 2 Samuel

Lament over World Evil : Psalms, Lamentations

Law, The : Exodus, Leviticus, Romans, Titus

Law, the Letter vs. the Spirit : Ruth

Leadership and Its Importance : Exodus, Joshua, Judges, Ezekiel, Ephesians

Love, Human : Song of Songs

Love, Divine : Song of Songs, Hosea, 1, 2, & 3 John

Messiah (Christ), The : 1 & 2 Samuel, Psalms, Isaiah, Micah, Haggai, Zechariah, Matthew, Mark, Luke

Miracles and World Rulers : Daniel

Nature of God : Romans

Nature of Man : Romans

Obedience and Blessing : Exodus, Leviticus

Obedience and Gratitude : Leviticus, 1 Corinthians

Passover, The : Exodus

Preservation of Israel : Esther

Promised Land, The : Exodus, Leviticus, Joshua, Isaiah

Remnant, The : Haggai

Righteousness : Romans

Righteous Sufferer, The : Job, Isaiah, Zephaniah , 2 Corinthians, Philippians, 2 Thessalonians

Reconciliation : Exodus, Leviticus, Philemon

Redemption : Exodus, Romans, Jude

Restoration from Exile : Exodus, Ezra, Jeremiah, Habakkuk

Return of Christ : Zechariah, Haggai, Philippians, 1 & 2 Thessalonians, 1 John

Salvation : Exodus, Revelation

Sacrifice for Sin : Leviticus

Sin : Genesis, Joshua, Nehemiah

Son of Man : Mark, Philippians

Tabernacle, The : Exodus, Leviticus

Temple, The : 1 & 2 Samuel, 1 & 2 Kings, 1 & 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Psalms, Haggai

Wilderness, The : Exodus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, John

Wisdom : Job, Proverbs, 1 Corinthians, James

Preface

Introductory Sections

The Concise Bible Commentary presents each Biblical book by means of an introductory section followed by an outline and interpretive notes. The introduction to each Biblical book contains four subsections. First, the BASIC FACTS section discusses the book's historical setting, authorship, date, and essential purpose. Second, the GUIDING CONCEPTS section provides keys to understanding how the book's message unfolds and to identifying its major emphasis. Third, the BIBLE-WIDE CONCEPTS section explains how the book fits into the unified message of the Bible as a whole. Finally, a fourth section pinpoints the major NEEDS MET BY a particular book for its original hearers and for readers today. A fifth section discussing geographical concerns has been added to books in which geography plays a significant role. The idea of these introductory sections is to take the reader to the original time and setting of the book, to how the author developed his message, to the book's place in the entire scope of God's revelation, and, finally, to the major applications of its message—then and now.

Outlines and Notes

The introductory sections are followed by an overall outline of the book and then specific notes on each section of the book. The notes at the beginning of each major section of the book summarize the development of the author's thought over a major section. The interpretive notes that follow these overviews contain historical, geographical, and archaeological insights and help with major interpretive problems. We have tried to distill the essential message of each book without adding extensive and overly technical data. While the notes are quite readable on their own, our hope is that you will read them in close conjunction with the Biblical text. We also hope that you will keep this volume close at hand to provide an initial orientation to particular books of the Bible before you begin reading them and to answer your questions as they arise along the way.

Introduction: The Big Picture

Every book from Genesis through Revelation has a special way of fitting into the Bible as a whole. Wonderful when studied one by one, the Biblical books form an even more enriching whole when viewed together. Like a diamond's facets, each book makes its own special contribution to God's unfolding revelation. It is beautiful to see how the smaller facets—verses, chapters, and books—contribute to and receive meaning from the whole of God's revelation. The benefit of studying passages in the full light of their immediate, bookwide, and Bible-wide contexts is great. And an investigation of Scripture with the narrow and wide contexts in mind is the best foundation for accurate interpretation and effective application. The following overview of the Bible's big picture will help the reader make applications that will be based on the truth revealed in the whole of God's word.

The Need for a Big Picture

A Bible Map

As tourists need maps to avoid getting lost in foreign cities, Bible readers need a map to keep from getting lost between the books of Genesis and Revelation. They need to see how the whole Bible is laid out—how Scripture's main freeways interconnect with its smaller streets and avenues. Although a child may recognize the houses where he and his grandparents live, he may not know how to get from one to the other. Likewise, Bible readers may know one Bible book here and another there, but have no real sense of how the one is connected to the other. How does Genesis lead to 1 and 2 Samuel? Or how are 1 and 2 Chronicles crucial for understanding Matthew? The books of Scripture are extremely diverse, yet in their diversity, they form a unified whole that reveals God's amazing work to save and redeem mankind. The Concise Bible Commentary will provide a bird's eye view of the Bible, recognizing the diversity of its individual books and revealing how its diverse parts form a wonderful unity.

Diversity within the Bible

Different authors.

The Bible was finished nearly two thousand years ago. Many different human authors wrote it over a period covering at least fifteen hundred years and including three different languages (Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek). During that long period, history and culture changed radically—from the time of Moses, writing some fourteen hundred years before Christ, to the time of the apostle John, writing in the Roman Empire around A.D. 80. In addition to different cultures and languages, the Biblical writers had their own different personalities and abilities. Moses was a prince of ancient Egypt—Matthew was a Roman tax collector. Solomon lived securely in a palace—Ezekiel was a prisoner of war. Paul was highly educated—Peter was an unschooled fisherman.

Different purposes.

Each Bible book was written with its own specific purpose in mind. Each author wrote to meet specific needs. He selected, under God's guidance, appropriate truths that matched the particular needs of God's people at that time. Therefore, many different needs and situations are represented from book to book: announcements of God's discipline, loving God for his redemption, the problem of family hatred and jealousy, wandering in the desert, wars with the Philistines, captivity in Babylon, church squabbles, and dealing with personal sin. Some books were written to individuals, others to large groups. Some were for singing, while others were poetry or narrative to be read aloud. Some were written to bring correction, while others were for information or historical record.

Different topics.

Because the purposes differ from book to book, so does the subject matter. God did not present his Word in long and organized lists of simple principles for living, detached from real people and their ancient historical situations. He wrapped his truths in greatly varied everyday history, language, and life. God gave us his truth in ancient books like Exodus, Joshua, Malachi, Romans, and 1 and 2 Peter. He did not give us books like 1 and 2 Thought Life or The Epistle To Parents. God's principles and truth are embedded in the events of God's salvation history and the diverse experiences of God's people.

Neither life nor God's truth comes in a neat, self-contained package. Just as our daily experiences contain diverse situations and needs, the books from Genesis to Revelation contain a diverse presentation of truth; the Bible is not a systematized card file of questions and answers. Its diversity is important to consider when interpreting and applying the Bible. God presented his eternal truth in the context of communities and people with concerns and needs defined by distant places and cultures. Thus, Bible readers cannot ignore the various cultures and situations of the Biblical text. Part of the task of interpreting the Bible is to see how its ancient context actually sharpens and clarifies its message. Seeing how God's truth helped ancient people in the struggles of their varied lives shows how we can apply the same truths today. Understanding the diversity of the Bible's message and context is vital to properly interpreting and applying Scripture.

Different relevance.

Becoming aware of the Bible's diversity may cause us to make a mistake. We may tend to ignore those parts of the Bible that seem strange or difficult to apply. When we read the New Testament, especially Paul's letters, God seems to be speaking directly to us. But in the Old Testament we may find it difficult to apply things like bloody battles, ancient rituals, and long genealogies. In the face of the Bible's strangeness, it is possible that we may read only the New Testament—and just parts of it, at that. But such a neglect of the difficult and culturally distant parts of Scripture is wrong. To correct this neglect that grows out of the Bible's cultural distance and diversity, we need to look to another truth—the Bible's essential unity.

The Unity of the Bible

But how do the various books of the Bible fit together? Although the Bible was written book by book over a period of around fifteen hundred years, the end result is a single work, each part of which contributes perfectly to the whole. Therefore, it is not enough to study only a book here or there. The Bible should be understood as a logically ordered whole, moving from Genesis through Revelation. Although there are many different historical contexts and human authors in the Bible, God is the unifying author behind it all. Behind each diverse passage of Scripture stands our unchanging God. Behind the Bible's many human authors stands the single divine Author. And he is the real solution to the needs of the people in the Bible and those living today. Since God intended for the diverse books of Scripture to fit together as a unified whole, the interrelationships of the various books are significant for understanding God's revelation as a whole.

It would be somewhat odd to begin reading a current best-seller in the middle of the fifth chapter, skip to the last chapter, and then go back and read the end of the third chapter. Although a reader could make some sense of what he had read, he would not have an accurate picture of what the book was all about. The reader would have to see why the chapters were arranged in their present order and how each chapter fit into the entire book. Likewise, Bible readers need to determine how each Bible book fits into Scripture as a whole. Then they will be able to understand how the Bible's development has resulted in a beautiful and cohesive whole, from Genesis through Revelation, that meets the practical needs of believers.

Getting from the Bible Map to Life

Questions concerning how the different books of the Bible are interrelated are not just academic questions. The question of how the Bible fits together is crucial for a believer's practical application of Scripture. In order to understand the relationships between the various books of Scripture it is important to emphasize God's single authorship and the literary unity of Scripture. An understanding of the unifying message of Scripture should serve as a Bible map, revealing the unity of God's revelation amidst its diversity. Without a sense of how each book relates to the others, historically and literarily, interpretations and applications are open to a number of potential problems.

First, verses or books might be taken out of their larger Biblical context. They might be read as if they can be properly interpreted without understanding their original God-given literary context. This approach sees the Bible as if it were just a long list of detached Christian principles. Scripture becomes like a stack of cards, each with a principle for living. This approach denies the true nature of the biblical text and can be a cause for great misinterpretation.

One slightly humorous example of such misinterpretation would be to read Ps 91:4, “He will shield you with his wings. He will shelter you with his feathers,” and conclude that God has wings and feathers. To convert these bare words into a meaningful interpretation demands placing the words in their original context. When that is done, it is clear that the key element of the context is poetry that involves figurative language. Thus, the feathers and wings are not spoken of in a scientific sense but in a poetic sense describing God's love and care using the imagery of a mothering bird.

A less humorous example is found in Mt 5:29: “If your eye—even if it is your good eye—causes you to lust, gouge it out and throw it away.” The gouging out of the eye might appear to solve the problem of sin, especially lust (see Mt 5:27-28). But a look at the broader context of Jesus' entire Sermon on the Mount ( Mt 5:1-7:29) shows that God is against the notion that sin problems can be solved by external remedies. The context calls believers away from external actions (called hypocritical in Mt 6:2,5,16) to making changes of the heart ( Mt 5:28; 6:21). Hands and eyes do not cause people to sin. They are just instruments, controlled not by themselves, but by man's inner desires and will. Removing them would not remove the inner bent of people toward sin. The context shows that the problem of lust is solved by correcting the warped vision of the spiritual eye (“eye” as symbolic of one's worldview, Mt 6:22) not the gouging out of the physical eye.

If readers ignore the literary and historical context for the verses they study, they will inevitably pile up misunderstandings about God's original message. Each verse must be read in its immediate literary context (chapter and book) and then interpreted within the context of the entire Bible—a formidable but necessary and lifelong task.

Second, failing to study Scripture with its unity in mind creates a greater possibility of coming up with many conflicting interpretations. Without the control of the broader Biblical context, interpretations will be built on the interpreter's own experiences and ideas. The interpreter will tend to project his own needs and solutions into the text and, in doing so, miss what God originally intended. Interpretations may end up being as numerous and as creative as the interpreters themselves.

Third, fragmentary Scripture knowledge leaves the interpreter deficient when coping with the transition between Old and New Testaments. A great change came about at the coming of Christ, and that change is reflected in differences between the Testaments. But only a firm grip on the Bible-wide context can help interpreters move accurately from the Old to the New. How should Christians view the Old Testament laws and rituals? Why do some Christians still keep them while others do not? How are Christians supposed to use Genesis through Malachi?

Fourth, a Bible-wide picture is necessary for understanding how and why Christ, Paul, John, and the rest of the New Testament authors continually referred to the Old Testament in order to explain the fullness of God's redemption in Christ. What did the New Testament authors, who had known and experienced the person and work of Jesus Christ, find the same as they looked back to the Old Testament times of Moses? What had changed? How did they connect Christ with the Old Testament? How did they use the Old Testament to define Christian behavior? The identity of Christians rests on their appreciation of how the New Testament grows out of the Old. Without that appreciation they may make the mistake in day-to-day practice of treating the content of Genesis through Malachi as somewhat inferior, if not excludable, information.

Discovering how the whole Bible fits together will help Bible readers avoid these four problems and others. It will become clear that in the New Testament the Bible developed progressively, both by adding new truth and by reinterpreting the old. After readers have become oriented to God's map from Genesis to Revelation, they will have accurate directions for avoiding interpretations rooted solely in their own situations or personalities, and they will find themselves nearer to God's intended truth.

Finding Present Power in Ancient Scripture

God made no mistakes when he chose the means for communicating his truth. He purposely used history, different kinds of literary form (poetry, prose, proverb, hymns), culture, the authors' personalities, and three languages (Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek). These things are both antiquated and foreign to the world we live in today. Since God's word is conveyed in an ancient medium, what part should it play in contemporary interpretation and application of the Bible? Must we pay attention to the ancient forms used in Scripture to apply God's word today? How can God speak today through such a diverse and ancient document? Why did God not give his word in lists of timeless truth, rather than in truth wrapped up in time-bound language and culture?

Actually, we should be glad that God chose to communicate the way he did. He did not bring his message around the specifics of history. Rather, he brought his word right into the middle of the miracles and the messes of human life. So, rather than seeing the foreign people and cultures of Scripture as confusing, we need to see them and their occasional strangeness as part of the very message God intended for us to receive. The earthy quality of the Bible is a vital part of its divine message. It is not something to be ignored or peeled off in order to get at a supposed “real” and “timeless” Biblical message. Just as our Lord in his full humanity became the perfect medium for the message of God, so the written word of God, with all its ancient, diverse, and sometimes strange qualities, is the perfect expression of God's mind. God did not want to simply present truth. He wanted to present truth in the context of life's events. In that way God revealed truth in application, not in the abstract. And the applications of the Bible to its original readers should provide direction for our own applications. God wrapped his truth in the real world because he wants us to learn it and live it in the real world. And appreciating both the familiar and the foreign in the Bible is the best way to appreciating the fullness of God and his will for the world. If we fail to recognize Scripture's historical distance and diversity, we might interpret Scripture from the limited standpoint of modern culture—much like the artists of the Renaissance who painted all Biblical characters, whether Abraham or Paul, in the clothing and setting of contemporary Europe—thus distorting the true message of Scripture.

The Focus of God's Rule

The entire Bible consistently develops God's three-part promise of his presence , his chosen place , and his redeemed people . God's presence, place, and people form the focus through which readers can discover and profit from the Bible's “big picture.” Bible readers can use this threefold framework at each point in Scripture to discover how that section develops God's promises and speaks to believers today. Although many different and sometimes strange things happen in Scripture, they can all be unified around the three aspects of presence, place, and people.

Place

The first aspect, God's promised place, relates to the physical universe, and earth in particular. God's will and power stand behind the existence of the earth, sea, trees, birds, and animals. The physical creation perfectly manifests God's will and reveals much about his character and abilities, for example, his sheer power and incredible creativity. The earth also became the exciting arena in which God reveals his will and where humans respond to that will with either a yes or a no. God began with a perfect earth, cursed it with thorns and groanings ( Ro 8:22), gave a piece of it to Israel as a Promised Land, and promised to ultimately re-create an entirely new heaven and earth. The progressive revelation of what God wants to do with the physical earth is a unifying theme from Genesis through Revelation.

People

The second aspect of the Bible's focus is God's desire for his people. He creates, rules over, and seeks intimacy with them. Under God's rule, his people experience a vast variety of situations, problems, and needs. His special beginnings with Adam, Noah, and Abraham are summed up and brought to completion in Christ. The progressive revealing of how God works through his people's needs is a unifying theme from Genesis through Revelation.

Presence of God

The third and most important aspect of the Bible's focus is God himself. The crown of the Bible is the proclamation of who God is. Believers know who God is both by what he does and by what he says. Although the physical universe reveals much about its Creator, reading the Creator's words shows in even more detail who he is. When God reveals what he wants, he reveals something about himself—God's will reveals his character.

And when believers look closely at what God wants, they are brought close to his character and heart. The presentation of God's character by means of his deeds and words is the comprehensive unifying theme from Genesis through Revelation. He is consistently characterized as a king ruling from his throne. And the Bible clearly explains what the rule of God looks like from Genesis through Revelation. It is a story of how the King became more intimately present with his estranged kingdom by following a consistent pattern through differing times and cultures. A series of interrelated agreements, or covenants, between God and his creation brought his promises concerning his presence, place , and people to ultimate fulfillment.

The Map of God's Rule

The Signposts of God's Covenants

From the time of the apostles, the sacred writings were collected under two names that greatly illuminate the big picture of Scripture: the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Bible is about two testaments, or covenants. The old covenant was given under Moses. The new covenant came through Christ. A covenant is an agreement to do something, like a contract or a promise. Some biblical covenants are like contracts where both parties, God and people, have responsibilities and conditions for the contract to be fulfilled. Other covenants place all the responsibility to carry out the conditions on God alone. Instead of being like contracts, these covenants are more like unconditional promises.

Although the two covenants of Moses and Christ receive the most attention in the Bible, several other covenants complete God's revelation. In fact, God's covenant promises form the basis for all of his redemptive actions throughout Scripture. The covenants inform and explain virtually all of the events and speeches in the Bible and frame the development of God's plans for his presence , chosen place , and people . A covenant is at the backbone of every book of the Bible and, taken together, the covenants form the blueprint of the entire Bible.

Covenants also pave the way to understanding how each book interrelates with the rest of the Bible. Each new covenant is a sign-post that shows the next major route opening up in Scripture and how to understand all the little side roads of biblical history. Because each book was written from the perspective of the covenant or covenants operating at that time, knowing the main promises of those covenants will help the reader understand a book's particular emphasis and point. It will also help him to avoid making major points out of minor details and keep him from missing the heart of God's message. From Genesis through Revelation the unfolding interrelationship between the covenants is the key to understanding and applying the Bible. This overview of how God expressed his rule of love and justice through his promises begins with the sad fact of a divinely blessed creation being broken under a divine curse.

Goodness.

In Ge 1 God evaluated his creative work as being very good. In Ge 2 God sanctified the completion of his creative work with a great Sabbath rest. In Ge 3 God cursed everything he had made and damned it to an eternity in hell. What caused the goodness of creation? And what caused the badness of the curse?

Creation was good because it was exactly the way God wanted it. The pattern in Ge 1 is “God said, ‘Let there be. . .’ and so it was.” God got what he asked for. When he commanded that there be light, there was light, pure and simple. When he called for fish and birds, he got fish and birds. And when his word was perfectly obeyed, he recorded his response: “God saw that it was good.” This reveals the relationship between what God wants and who he is. What he wants springs from his essential goodness. When his will is accomplished it reflects the goodness of his divine character.

From its first lines, the Bible defines what makes something good. Things and people are not good because they are beautiful, smart, rich, productive, or fun. Goodness is that which matches up with what God wants and the standards he sets. To the extent that people and the earth are the way God wants them—to that extent, they are good. And what God wants reveals who he is—powerful, sovereign, and good.

Badness.

In Ge 3, God cursed the world because of Adam's sin. The pattern of “God said . . . and so it was” was broken. God wanted obedience, but he did not get it. He said, “You may freely eat any fruit in the garden except fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” But Adam and Eve said, “No.” They did not shout it, and they probably had, in their own views, very good reasons for saying no. But, while all creation had resounded up to that point with a very good yes to God, Adam quietly brought in the first no. God could not say “It was good” to that response. He could only say, “Cursed.” Adam's sin infinitely offended God's infinitely holy character. God responded with an infinitely devastating curse.

From its first lines, the Bible defines what makes something bad. Things and people are not bad because they may be unattractive, ignorant, poor, unproductive, or no fun. Badness is that which does not match up with what God wants and the standards he alone sets. God's curse provides Scripture's constant background of brokenness and need for restoration. Behind each act of hate, lust, murder, or lying stand human sin and divine curse. Not only are the Bible's characters shot through with a sinful nature, they also have to labor in a world damned at every turn by God's own curse.

God's Promise of Ultimate Victory

Along with the curse, the Bible reader needs to keep God's promise continually in view. The curse was not the end of the human story; it became the reason for God's plan to offer worldwide salvation to a fallen creation. What could ever remedy the infinite offense of sin and remove the infinite curse? Only a correspondingly infinite sacrifice would be sufficient to do so. The entire scope of the Bible is about how God moves from the good creation into the bad and cursed creation and out again into a new and blessed second creation. It is a story of how God, at great cost, removed his offense at mankind's sin and restored a relationship of blessing with his creation. The Bible is first and foremost a story of God dealing with his problems with human sin. To put it another way, it is a simple story of two acts, one of offense, the other of forgiveness. It is about an intensely personal transaction between God and humanity.

Right in the middle of his curse regarding Adam, God gave a promise of ultimate victory ( Ge 3:15). He said that someday a son of Adam would crush the head of the serpent. Ultimately, the son of Adam was Christ, and the serpent was Satan. Amazingly, God's curse and Satan's hatred would culminate in the crucifixion of Christ, an act that satisfied God's offense at sin and defeated Satan's power. But God did not move immediately to the fulfillment of his promised redemption in Christ. Thousands of years came between the promise to Adam and Christ's resurrection. And nearly two thousand years have passed since then.

The Covenants and God's Character

How could Adam, Eve, and all people who have followed them know that there would be ultimate victory as the process of conflict with personal and world evil lengthened from days to thousands of years? As generations came and went through the cursed world, their faith had to be based on a God who would keep his word. To his original word of promise in Ge 3:15, the Creator, who was by nature a sufficient object of trust, added many more words of promise.

Those words of redemptive promise blossom within the framework of the covenants recorded in Scripture. Behind each covenant stands the trustworthy character of God. God takes nearly all the responsibility in some covenants and shares it with his people in others. Biblical contracts form a blueprint that unifies the diverse Scriptural elements of people, place , and God's presence around God's faithful character. Also, those covenants clarify how believers may apply the truth of any passage.

The Covenants at a Glance

The grand scriptural movement from infinite curse to eternal blessing is directed by a series of covenants between God and sinful mankind. Through these contracts, God brings promises of hope and blessing to a world that has been separated from its Creator by sin. See the accompanying chart.

As Bible readers discover what the Bible says about why God made contracts, three questions should continually be asked. (1) What can be learned about God in each covenant? (2) What does he want from the people he brings into those contract relationships? (3) In what way do God's conditions continue or change from covenant to covenant? These questions will provide a solid basis for applying the Bible to a reader's own situation. Each covenant contains the basic elements that provide signposts for tracking change and development from one covenant to another. These guidelines also show how the passages properly apply to a reader's own personal situation.

God's Covenant with Noah

The Foundations of Longsuffering

God made a contract with Noah ( Ge 9:1-17) that, in part, echoed what he had originally said to Adam in Ge 1:28. God restated his original commission to the human race. Though Noah, God was giving humankind a second start with a second “first family.” The contract with Noah was necessary for all the others that would follow because in it God said he would never again destroy the entire earth by flood. Without that promise of restraint, humans could expect God to vent his global wrath at any moment. Every so often, God would have to destroy the world again. Why? Because the human problem of saying no to God still persisted. God would have had to punish sin.

By making a contract with Noah, God showed he could withhold his righteous retribution. And though God at times in Scripture judged some sins in order to warn and instruct, he let the vast majority of human sin go unpunished throughout the course of history. God refrained from immediate judgment by exhibiting the characteristic of longsuffering. From the time of Noah, Bible readers should appreciate the concept of longsuffering in a new way. The holy God, whose attitude of loathing and grief toward sin had not changed, would now live with sin for a long time. Why?

The Cost of Longsuffering

The covenant with Noah reveals a God who is more concerned with the restoration of the human race than with its destruction; God is more concerned with humankind's salvation than he is with venting his own righteous anger. God's decision to be longsuffering toward sinful people was costly. It left his reputation open to human scoffing that he was powerless or indifferent regarding evil. It would cost him his own dear Son. Longsuffering would also become the only acceptable model for the life-styles of his followers.

Even after the flood, the earth was still under God's curse. And, as Noah's children show, people had not miraculously become any less sinful as a result of the flood. Above all, God had certainly not changed his mind about sin. He still hated it. But, in the contract with Noah, God determined to hold back the flood waters of his wrath in order to make room for his grace in the cross of Christ.

In Ge 3:15 God had promised ultimate victory over the serpent. Through Noah, God promised to withhold his global wrath on the road to ultimate victory. The next step toward that great victory was God's covenant with Abraham.

God's Covenant with Abraham

Three Elements

The basic elements of the covenant with Abraham are found in Ge 12:1-3 (cf. also Ge 13:14-17; 15:1-21; 17:1-14). Abraham was promised a place , the land of Israel; a people , the nation of Israel; and the blessings that come from the special presence of God. These three elements—place, people, and God's presence—were God's focus in the original creation, and they direct the way to his future final restoration of worldwide blessing. Although this promise begins with Abraham, eventually “all the families of the earth” will find blessing ( Ge 12:3). The Abrahamic promise included every place and people of the entire earth. From this point on, each book of Scripture will be understood by finding out how it shows God's progress in fulfilling his promises to Abraham of place, people, and presence.

The Place.

The initial place of Abrahamic promise, the Promised Land—Israel—was just a starting point. It began with Palestine, but it will eventually extend to the entire earth. In the beginning of history, God gave, as a starting point, a little patch of the earth to Adam and Eve. Although their ultimate goal was dominion over the entire earth, they had to start somewhere. The Garden of Eden was a small starting point. The finish line would be of global proportions. Likewise, the place of Abrahamic promise, beginning with the Promised Land of Israel, will also ultimately be global and will one day extend to the new heavens and earth. Each book of Scripture needs to be searched as to what it says about God's progress in giving the Promised Land to Israel and then about giving the new earth to all the saints.

The People.

The starting point of the people aspect of the Abrahamic covenant was Abraham's children: from Isaac and Jacob to the twelve tribes of Israel. But it did not end there. It would eventually grow to include all the people of the earth. At creation, God gave his original commission for world dominion to just two people, Adam and Eve. But through them he addressed all the human race who would follow after them. In a similar way, God's promises were given to one man, Abraham. But through Abraham God addressed all peoples. The people of the Abrahamic promise are international. Each book needs to be searched as to what it says about how God extends his people from Abraham, to Israel, and finally into all nations.

The Presence of God.

God promised Abraham great blessing. Blessing is not defined throughout Scripture as simply the material things God gives. The essence of blessing is having God present in a special way. Blessing is God's presence, not just his gifts. The blessings offered to Abraham were based on a new intimacy with God. God often told Abraham, “I am with you” or “I will be with you.” Later, God would be with his people in greater intimacy as he moved from thundering Mount Sinai into the tabernacle at the center of Israel's camp. That intimate presence would later be extended to all lands and peoples in the new covenant in Christ. God would move from the tabernacle and temple into the center of believers' hearts. Finally, the joy of eternity will be the unhindered presence of God in the new earth. The divine presence of the Abrahamic promise is universal. Each book can yield rich truths about the conditions required for God's presence and how he became increasingly more intimate with his people on the basis of each new covenant.

Abraham and the Bible

All the rest of the Bible is about how God fulfilled the three aspects of his great promise to Abraham. The next covenants, centered around Moses, David, and Christ, all flesh out and fulfill the great promises to Abraham. From Abraham on, the geographic starting places of Eden for Adam and the newly dried earth for Noah were replaced with the focus on the Promised Land of Israel. The human starting points, Adam and Noah, were replaced with Abraham. And the work of God to reverse his curse and restore his unhindered presence took a great leap forward in his deepened intimacy with Abraham. Long after Abraham, the apostle Paul would call him the spiritual father of all believers ( Ro 4:12).

The Preservation of the Promised Nation and Land

Nation.

Once God had marked out his chosen man, Abraham, and his chosen line through Sarah's children, the history of Abraham's covenant revolves around how Abraham's descendants respond to God's grace and demands for obedience. Although God always remained faithful, more often than not his people were uncooperative and placed themselves at great risk. God had promised Adam ultimate victory. The covenant with Noah had shown that God was more interested in redemption than in destruction. But how would God preserve his continually rebellious people in order to bring in his promised blessings? That drama brings excitement to many portions of the stories of the Patriarchs and of Israel. Here are just a few examples of the drama of God's preserving his people despite their sins: Would Sarah be married off to the wrong man before she could bear the promised son ( Ge 12:10-20; 20:1-18)? Would Rebekah be married off to the wrong man in a similar way, putting a stop to God's chosen family ( Ge 26)?

In addition to individuals like Sarah and Rebekah, the drama of preserving Abraham's line also relates to the nation of Israel as a whole. God used Joseph's captivity in Egypt as the very thing needed to bring his family down out of Canaan and into Egypt to preserve the kernel nation of Israel from starvation during a great famine. God caused the tribe of Israel to increase miraculously while in Egypt. He preserved Israel from Pharaoh's army and from starvation in the wilderness after the Exodus.

During the conquest of Canaan under Joshua, God preserved the nation and gave it great victory. God preserved Israel through the devastating Assyrian and Babylonian captivities. He once again saved the entire nation from being wiped out through the heroic efforts of Esther during the time of Persian rule.

Much can be learned about God and people from these events of preservation. God is faithful and is able to keep his words of promise no matter how many years and harrowing events pass. God preserved his chosen people, not because of their faithfulness, but because he remained faithful to his promise to Abraham.

Land.

The drama of Israel's preservation also involves the second aspect of the Abrahamic covenant, the preservation of the land. Would God be strong enough and faithful enough to give Israel the land? Or would the constant failures of his people void the land promise?

The Old Testament gives great attention to the ups and downs involved in God's people and their land. Abraham received the promise, though he never owned any significant part of the land. The land was taken by Joshua, though it was never very secure until David's conquests and Israel's consolidation under Solomon.

But all of that security evaporated in the face of Assyrian and Babylonian devastation and captivity. Even when the people were allowed to return from the Babylonian captivity, the Promised Land was not their own. Until the time of Christ, Israel would be under a sequence of foreign domination by Persia, Greece, and Rome. God's promises of victory, peace, and international blessing seemed very far off.

God's Covenant with Moses

The Divine Presence Promised to Moses

Long after Abraham, God made another covenant, this time with Moses. Moses' covenant developed the promises and demands God had originally given to Abraham. The Mosaic covenant clarified two critical aspects of God's redemptive plans given through Abraham: human obedience and divine presence. God would be present only with a people obedient to his will.

Under Moses, the rituals surrounding the tabernacle defined the obedience required for remaining in God's blessed presence ( Lev 11:45; 15:31). The great festivals of the covenant clarified the major elements of God's promised blessing through Abraham. The Day of Atonement pictured a perfect forgiveness of sin ( Lev 16). The Jubilee, or Sabbath year, pictured the restored and perfect creation Sabbath ( Lev 25). The blessings and curses spoke of the pleasure and pain arising from either keeping or breaking the covenant ( Lev 26:27-45). God would be with the nation for its blessing only if the people loved and obeyed him. God's law found its source in his love and was designed to lead to an improved relationship between God and his people.

Holiness

The tablets of the Ten Commandments, placed in the Most Holy Place of the tabernacle, summed up the grace and demands of the new relationship with God under Moses. Human obedience and God's presence rested on the demands arising from God's absolute holiness. Because God was holy, he would be redemptively present only with an obedient people. From Adam on, it was always clear that the believer's obedience was indispensable for enjoying the blessing of divine fellowship. The laws of the Mosaic covenant spelled out in black and white the holiness of God's character and how to have a redemptive relationship with him. The detailed laws of Exodus showed how far the people had fallen into lawlessness. The detailed sacrifices of Leviticus showed the gracious way back to obedience and holiness. All of these laws and sacrifices sprang from, and blazingly illustrated, God's holiness. His holiness demanded the believers' conformity to it. But that conformity of obedience was to spring from the heart ( Dt 6:4-9).

In the face of the Mosaic covenant's many laws and regulations, one point must not be lost. The Mosaic covenant grounded blessing squarely on a deep inner love for God which issued in doing what he wanted. While carrying out all the requirements of the Mosaic covenant, the believers' hearts were to match their external conformity to God's law. Only through heartfelt obedience would the curse on God's people and land be lifted. Sincere obedience alone could bring holiness and salvation from war, famine, and disease.

Adam was the source of humanity's fall. Noah's covenant opened up time for grace to overtake judgment. Abraham's promises outlined the route to international blessing. And Moses' covenant visualized the solutions to the two road-blocks to experiencing that blessing: forgiving human sin and perfecting human obedience. The covenant that God would make with David continued to clarify how God would remove those two roadblocks.

God's Covenant with David

The King As Mediator for God's People

God's covenant with David was made during the most secure period of Israel's history. It was a special word of God's promise, not to the whole nation of Israel, but to the special kingly line of David. To Abraham, God had promised blessing on his offspring. To Moses, God had continued the blessing to Abraham's offspring, then known as the nation of Israel. But under David the personal blessing promised to Abraham and Moses focused on one man within the nation of Israel, the king. And that king functioned as the representative for the entire nation of Israel. As the king went, so went the people of Abrahamic promise. In the Davidic covenant a new drama arose in Scripture: the preservation of the kingly line. That drama is clearly seen throughout the books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles and reaches its height in the attempts on the life of the King of Israel, Jesus, during his life as a baby and as a man.

Under the Davidic covenant the king of Israel held a critical place of mediation between God and the nation. The king was responsible to ensure civil justice and the sanctity of the temple services. The preservation of the nation depended upon the king's obedience to God's commands. The whole story of how God enthroned his chosen king, David, is climaxed by the king's mediation for the entire nation of Israel. When the king did right in God's sight by keeping his commands, he answered prayers for the preservation of the people and the land (cf. 2Sa 21:14; 24:25). The king became the person through whom the nation experienced the rule of God. That rule finds its fulfillment in the sacrificial mediation and exalted rule of the ultimate seed of David, Jesus the Messiah.

The King As God's Son

In 2Sa 7:8-19, God promised that a royal line would extend from David onward forever. The critical emphasis was that each Davidic king of Israel would have a special father-son relationship with God. Each king was a special son of God, blessed with a potentially close and powerful relationship with the Father. The kings of David's line realized that potential in degrees varying from better to worse. But the power of divine sonship found its fulfillment in the Son of God, Jesus, who had a perfect and unique form of sonship with God.

Through Christ, that sonship has been shared with his followers. The victory promised to Adam, the international blessing promised to Abraham, and the forgiveness and obedience required under Moses all zeroed in on one man. And that man was the second Adam, the single seed of Abraham, the prophet greater than Moses, and the perfect son of David. Where Adam, Abraham, Moses, and David failed, Christ succeeded. God's redemptive focus narrowed to one man, Christ, so that from his singular perfection it could expand outward into the international blessing promised to Adam and Abraham. Because of Christ's redemptive work, now all believers have the privilege of being called sons and daughters of God. See 2Co 6:18-7:1 where Paul applies the Davidic covenant to Christian believers (Paul quoted 2Sa 7:8,14).

One man, Adam, brought sin and God's curse into the world. He received a promise that someday his son would crush the head of the serpent. To get to that ultimate victory, Noah was promised a period of patient and longsuffering grace. Abraham was given the promise of a special place, nation, and blessing that someday would extend around the world. Moses received the details of maintaining that blessing through forgiveness and obedience. And to David came the hope of one Israelite who would be the perfect king and mediator for the nation and the world. That one would bring in the fullness of the kingdom of God. But until he came, the nation went through traumatic times of failure, always warned, encouraged, or condemned by a long series of prophets.

God's Promises and the Prophets

The Old Testament prophets primarily focused on the conditions for blessing found in the covenant with Moses. They inevitably spoke out because God's kings, priests, and people had broken their promise to love and obey God. Obedience to the commands in Moses' covenant was the key condition for God's people to be preserved in his land. The prophets are best arranged around the times during which they prophesied: before, during , and after the exile to Babylon.

Before the Babylonian Exile

Before the Exile, the nation of Israel still had a chance to avoid destruction. The prophets who spoke before the Babylonian exile warned of impending judgment for unfaithfulness to the covenant with God (for example, see Isaiah, Jeremiah, and the minor prophets from Hosea through Zephaniah). Their message to Israel was to stop being like the nations that surrounded them. Their message to the nations was to repent and do justice to all men, especially Israel. The exhortations to the nations rested not on the Mosaic covenant, which was made only with Israel, but on God as the Creator who had rights to command and correct all of his creation. Also, God continually had more on his mind than just the well-being of the little nation of Israel. The Abrahamic covenant had shown God's ultimate intentions to bless all nations.

Another important prophetic message to Israel was that of the promise of exaltation after a period of chastisement and humiliation. Israel would have to undergo both deserved and undeserved suffering, after which God's people would be raised up and eternally blessed. That great truth is continually emphasized throughout Scripture, especially by the prophets, the Lord Jesus, and Paul: suffering before relief, humility before praise, perseverance before reward.

During the Exile

The prophets who spoke during the Babylonian exile told captive Israel to submit to and learn from God's chastisement (see Daniel, Ezekiel, and parts of Jeremiah; the books of 1 and 2 Kings were also written from the perspective of the exile). The prophets told Israel not to hope in the nations for deliverance. Israel was warned to make sure that idols were scrubbed out of their hearts (see Eze 14 with reference to the curses of Dt 28). The captive Israelites in Babylon were not to hope in the temple still standing in Jerusalem. The temple was not a good luck charm against the consequences of Israel's rebellion. It was only a symbol of God's presence and would soon fall. The real issue of God's presence would hinge on their present obedience, no matter where in the world they might be. Wherever they were obedient to God's laws, God was with them.

Daniel brought a special message of the need to wait for the restoration to the Promised Land. After the seventy years of captivity another type of seventy would come, only this time it would be seven times seventy. Four hundred and ninety years of oppression under the nations would have to pass before the great king of Israel, the Messiah, would come.

After the Exile

The prophets who spoke to Israel after she had returned from exile to the Promised Land called upon the nation to persevere (see Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi; the books of 1 and 2 Chronicles were also written from the perspective of positive restoration after the exile). Daniel had told the nation about the years of oppression to come, but Israel had also been told to continue on in obedience to the requirements of the Mosaic covenant. So, lest Israel's courage fail, the prophets gave comfort and warning. The day of God would eventually come, bringing destruction to the rebellious but salvation and rest to the faithful remnant. That time of final restoration would be according to the Abrahamic covenant as it had been gradually elaborated in later revelation to Moses, David, and the prophets. In that final day: (1) God's land will be restored; (2) God's people will be saved; (3) God's presence will dwell with his people once again.

All of God's promises to Abraham would be fulfilled. But a final covenant, mentioned in Jeremiah and Ezekiel but not inaugurated until Jesus' life, addressed the major problem blocking the dawning of the kingdom of God: sin. All the sacrifices of the Mosaic covenant did not secure perfect and final forgiveness. Guilt persisted. All the laws of the Mosaic covenant could not ensure perfect obedience. Sin persisted. How could the infinite offense of past sin be removed? And how could people stop sinning in the future?

Jesus: The New Covenant

The new covenant was designed by God to remedy the long-standing problem of sin in Israel and the world. First, the new covenant brought a sacrifice that removed God's offense at human sin from Adam onward ( Je 31:34). The basis of the new covenant is the better sacrifice of Christ ( Heb 8-9).

Second, through Christ, God created people who would no longer echo Adam's original no to God. God's people always had a bad habit of doing what he did not like. Adam ate the fruit. Abraham lied. Moses got angry. The nation of Israel grumbled and complained. David committed murder and adultery. Solomon supported idolatry. Peter denied his Lord. Church after church continued to fall prey to pride, bickering, and lapses in faith. Even in the face of God's great redemptive events from the Exodus to the Cross, his people persisted in falling down on their responsibility to respond in gratitude and obedience.

The new covenant in Christ aimed at correcting the weak link of disobedience. And that was begun by putting the law of God into the human heart by means of the interior regeneration of the human soul. The law was placed inside ( Je 31:33-34). God had told Israel to put his will into their hearts ( Dt 6:4-6). But in the new covenant, God does the interior decorating himself. Humans receive a new heart, and the Spirit of God moves believers to obedience to his laws ( Eze 36:26-27). Obedience becomes an instinctive response.

The Old Testament promised the fulfillment of the promises to Abraham: a restored earth and people enjoying God's unhindered presence and blessing. And the new covenant is the means for fulfilling those promises. The entire New Testament is an explanation and application of the new covenant for the people of God. Every New Testament book emphasizes the significance of Christ's sacrifice and its implications for past history, present salvation, and future hope.

In Rev 21:1-7; 22:3 all the strands of covenant promise come together. The ruined creation, both people and earth, are re-created. Then God's place and people will experience the greatest blessing: unhindered divine presence. The curse will be lifted, disobedience will end, and all aspects of God's promises will be realized. God's kingdom will have come and his will will be done on earth just the way it is done in heaven—perfectly and from the heart.

The Present

But until that great day of heaven on earth, believers live in the challenge of a world still under God's curse and human sinfulness. Forgiven believers can experience the power of new hearts and the Holy Spirit. All sin is forgiven. The power for obedience is present. And a day will come when all who believe will cease to disobey. But for the present, as the apostle Paul explained in Ro 8:22-23, believers groan, awaiting the glorification of their all-too-mortal bodies. While much of God's promise has been completed, some critical areas await completion. Earth remains a maverick, prone to earthquakes, floods, droughts, and famines. And people continue to be their own worst enemies, prone to the jeopardy of their flesh and Satan's attacks.

But Scripture was written for people just like these, people caught in the weakness and pain of living on a cursed earth. They need Scripture's redemptive truth. The task in Bible study is to find out what redemptive help each section was designed to give. The map of the Bible outlined above will help Bible readers see how a text fits into the flow of God's redemptive plan. As they work to understand what has changed since the text was written and what remains the same, they will be able to link how it was designed to help its original readers to how it can relate to believers today.

Genesis

Basic Facts

Historical Setting

Genesis was written for the people of Israel, who had just been redeemed out of Egypt under the leadership of Moses. They had been living on God's provisions in the wilderness and had seen his awesome appearance on Mount Sinai. They were being introduced to a new relationship with their God through his covenant and through worship of him at the tabernacle.

Author

The Authorship of Genesis through Deuteronomy

The authorship of Genesis is an integral part of the larger question of who wrote the first five books of Scripture (called the Pentateuch by scholars). Scholars agree that these five books have an overall thematic and literary unity and that Scripture and tradition place these books under Moses' name. But scholars disagree as to the editorial process his material underwent to arrive at its present form. The question hinges on the relationship between the material's present and original forms.

A more conservative view tends to see only minor differences between the forms of the original and final compositions. According to the conservative view, the books of Genesis through Deuteronomy contain, with the exception of later minor additions, essentially what God transmitted through Moses. A more liberal view sees a long and complex history of editorial development and a vast difference between the bits and pieces of the original materials and their final edited form. Scholars have presented positions on the authorship of the Pentateuch ranging all the way from direct dictation by God to Moses to seeing the books as a fragmented collection of bits of tradition only brought into its present form after the Babylonian captivity.

Several key biblical passages, however, support Moses' significant part in the original shaping of the Pentateuch. First of all, Moses was highly educated ( Ac 7:22). Then, after the Exodus from Egypt, God told Moses to write a specific message concerning the destruction of the Amalekites ( Ex 17:14). Moses first spoke and then recorded God's law given at Mount Sinai ( Ex 24:3-4; 34:27-28). He recorded the stages of the wilderness journey ( Nu 33:2). He wrote the “Book of the Law” that probably refers to virtually all the Pentateuch except the last chapter of Deuteronomy, which recounts the event of Moses' death ( Dt 31:24-26; see also Ne 13:1).

After Moses died, God referred Joshua to “all the laws Moses gave you” and the “Book of the Law” ( Jos 1:7-8; see also 1Ki 2:3; 1Co 9:9). Although it cannot be proven that the written material mentioned in these passages is identical to the present Pentateuch, it is clear that Moses left for Joshua a comprehensive written record of the laws of God that would encompass the general material now known as the Pentateuch.

Much later, when Jesus referred to the incident of Moses and the burning bush, he revealed that Moses' name was also attached to the book of Genesis (“the writings of Moses, in the story of the burning bush,” Mk 12:26). Luke reflects the common tradition of putting the “law of the Lord” (in this case specifically referring to Ex 13:2,12 and Lev 12:8) under the broad heading of “law of Moses” ( Lk 2:22-24; see also Ac 13:39). When Jesus said that Moses wrote of him, he again reflected the conventional view of Moses as the author of Genesis through Deuteronomy ( Jn 5:46).

The first five books of the Bible were also commonly referred to simply as “Moses” ( Lk 16:29; 24:27,44; Ac 26:22). Although biblical connections between the Pentateuch and Moses' name do not prove that Moses wrote every word of these books, they do affirm him as both the chief figure in the books of the Pentateuch and as their primary human author. Any others who had a later part in editing Moses' work remain unnamed. Moses was viewed as the human transmitter of the laws of God and the chief literary figure behind the Pentateuch.

The Authorship of Genesis

The book of Genesis itself does not name its author, who is therefore anonymous. And although Moses was viewed as the figure behind Genesis, in the book, and throughout the Pentateuch, he is always referred to in the third person “he,” not in the first person “I.” The Pentateuch unfolds its message from a biographical, not an autobiographical, perspective. But the central issue in authorship is the nature and authority of the message.

The question of authorship is usually closely linked to the question of authority. Although it cannot be proven, nor does it need to be proven exactly what Moses or other possible editors wrote, believers can have absolute confidence that Genesis comes with the full authority of God as transmitted through its original human author, Moses. If, after Moses, others had a hand in editing his material, the crucial issue of the book's divine authority through Moses is not altered. But that process of editing, however it may be conceived, is never mentioned in the Bible. Moses and Moses alone is viewed as the author and the mediator of God's authority inherent in the Pentateuch.

Date

Because the book of Genesis builds up to and ends with Israel's bondage in Egypt and her hope of return to the Promised Land, it is clear that its purpose was to lay out the background of Israel's election by God and her exodus from Egypt. Therefore, the date of the book is from a time shortly after the Exodus. Because Moses had a significant hand in writing the material, it initially must have been composed in the wilderness period prior to his death. The two most commonly accepted dates for the wilderness wanderings of Israel, and therefore for the composition of Genesis by Moses, are an early date of around 1446-1406 B.C. and a later date of around 1220-1180 B.C., depending on when one dates the Exodus. See the introduction to the book of Exodus for the issues involved in dating Israel's exodus from Egypt.

Purpose

The general purpose of Genesis is to preserve an accurate record of the beginnings of the human race and the Hebrew nation. More specifically, it is designed to record man's initial rebellion against God's rule and the beginnings of his redemptive program through Israel. Genesis records the origins of the world, plants, animals, humans, sin, death, and redemption. These origins were recorded to provide the necessary background for Israel's appreciation of her election in Abraham, her redemption from Egypt, and her obedience to the Mosaic Law. In essence, the book of Genesis was designed to help God's redeemed people to respond to their Redeemer in gratitude, love, and obedience.

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Date

The book of Haggai may be dated in the reign of Darius, who ruled Persia from 522 to 486 B.C. Haggai's first message was delivered on the first of Elul (August-September) in the second year of Darius (520 B.C.). The last of the four messages came on the twenty-fourth of Kislev (November-December) in the same year. All four messages were given within a period of about four months during the year 520 B.C.

Purpose

The book of Haggai was designed to stimulate the lethargic leaders and people of Judah to recognize their spiritual responsibilities and rebuild the temple. Renewed devotion to God would overcome the problems of drought and economic depression.

Guiding Concepts

Structure

Several dates given in the book of Haggai ( 1:1,15; 2:1,10,20) keep the reader's attention focused on the contemporary historical context and the rebuilding of the temple. The prophetic message called the people to consider their ways ( 1:5,7). God also made several statements about himself: “I am with you” ( 1:13; 2:4-5), “I will again shake” ( 2:6-7), “I will bring peace” ( 2:9), and “I will treat you [Zerubbabel] like a signet ring” ( 2:23). The means of moving from judgment to blessing was by showing obedience to the king, priest, and people. And that call to obedience ( 1:12) is placed between the sections on judgment ( 1:1-11) and blessing ( 2:1-23).

Portions of the book also parallel each other (cf. 1:1-15 with 2:10-19, concerning poor crops; God shaking the nations to bring wealth for the temple [ 2:1-9]; and glory for the ruler [ 2:20-23]). Note the repetition of “Zerubbabel,” “Joshua,” and “remnant” or “people in the land” ( 1:12,14; 2:2,4). Haggai tried to encourage the postexilic people with promises for the present and future.

Bible-Wide Concepts

The Remnant

Haggai spoke to the remnant that had returned from exile. It was a living fulfillment of Isaiah's son Shear-Jashub, whose name meant “a remnant shall return” (cf. Isa 6:11-13; 7:3; 10:21; 11:11). Although God had fulfilled his promise of return, the nation was still obligated to obey him. The true nature of the release from captivity was a return to God, not simply to a land ( Hag 2:17; cf. Am 4:9). Restoration did not do away with the need for obedience or for a relationship with God.

Presence and Spirit

God's phrase “I am with you” finds its greater fulfillment in Mt 28:20 and Rev 21:3. The powers of the heavens will be shaken in the Day of the Lord ( Hag 2:6; cf. Mt 24:29; Lk 21:26; Heb 12:26).

“Sparked the enthusiasm of” ( Hag 1:14) takes its place in the Bible-wide presentation of God stirring up people's spirits to do his will (cf. Ex 36:1-2; 1Ch 5:26; 2Ch 21:16; 36:22; Ezr 1:5).

Enriching God's People

The first part of Hag 2 took place during the seventh month ( Hag 2:1-9). For Israel that month contained the Feast of Trumpets on the first day, the Day of Atonement on the tenth day, and the Feast of Tabernacles from the fifteenth to the twenty-third day. The Feast of Tabernacles celebrated Israel's Exodus from Egypt and God's tender care for them in the wilderness. During the Feast of Tabernacles (the twenty-first day, 2:1) the Lord paralleled Israel's present postexilic state with Israel when she first came out of Egypt ( 2:5-6). As God had shaken Egypt and given wealth to his people (cf. Ex 12:35-36), so he would also shake the world to restore Israel and her king to great prosperity.

The Hope for a King from David's Line

Clearly, the hope for a king in David's line ends the book ( Hag 2:20-23). The king will sit with international authority (cf. Je 22:24, for the king as God's signet ring). The shaking of the heavens and earth spoken of here was the foundation for later theological developments such as the role of the Spirit in stirring up his people to action ( Hag 1:12-15); the greater glory for the temple ( 2:1-9); a great blessing because of the renewed temple ( 2:10-19); and a greater king on the throne ( 2:20-23).

Needs Met by Haggai

Haggai's hearers needed to understand the cause and effect relationship between their sin and their problems like drought, national economic depression, and personal lack of money. They had problems because they put their own interests before God's. They needed to understand the high priority of commitment to rebuilding God's temple. And all of that was in the face of not having learned God's intended lessons from the discipline of seventy years of captivity in Babylon. True, they no longer had a problem with worshiping pagan idols. But they simply moved on to another form of idolatry—putting personal comfort over advancing the kingdom of God. Once again, the slow coming of God's promises became a potential trap for discouragement and diversion of their commitment to God. They needed to understand that no matter how long God took to fulfill all his promises, they had to remain sharp in their obedience. The structure and content of Haggai's prophecy show that the people of Israel were probably struggling with questions like these.

•Why do those of God's people who returned from exile not have enough food and money?
•Is rebuilding a temple, which will be much less beautiful than Solomon's temple, really that important now that God's people are back from exile?
•Is the small rebuilt temple all that Israel has to show for the great promises that God made to Abraham, Moses, and David?
•Why doesn't Israel's restoration look as great as the prophets made it out to be?
•Will there be another, greater restoration sometime in the future?

Christians today are not faced with rebuilding God's temple after a period of seventy years of captivity. The lands and economies of modern believers are not experiencing drought and depression because they have not rebuilt God's city and temple. But in Haggai the hearers were encouraged to rebuild the temple, small though it was compared to Solomon's temple, as a sign of their commitment to the law of God and to his greater future temple. The people's present commitment to God was a token of their faith in and hope for the future final and glorious presence of God on earth. God's presence with his people was typified by the temple but realized in the real presence of God in Christ and in his Spirit. For the Christian, Haggai's mention of agricultural or financial troubles being remedied by commitment to God's temple do not need to be spiritualized into modern economic principles of success. The issue for God's people then and now is commitment to God's manner of presence—in the temple back then and in the Holy Spirit now.

Outline of Haggai

The First Message: an Exhortation to Rebuild ( 1:1-15)
1. A Call to Consider: Rationale for Rebuilding ( 1:1-11)
2. Building Commenced: Stirred up by the Spirit ( 1:12-15)
Assurance in Rebuilding ( 2:1-23)
1. The Second Message: Wealth for the New Temple ( 2:1-9)
2. The Third Message: Prosperity for the Land ( 2:10-19)
3. The Fourth Message: Prominence for the Ruler ( 2:20-23)

Haggai Notes

1:1-15 The First Message: an Exhortation to Rebuild

1:1-11 A Call to Consider: Rationale for Rebuilding

1:1-2 The Fact of Procrastination

The “second year” ( 1:1) of Darius (522-486 B.C.) corresponds with 520 B.C. The name “Haggai” means “festal” or “my feast,” suggesting that he may have been born on some festal occasion. “Zerubbabel” apparently succeeded Sheshbazzar as governor of Judah (see the note on Ezr 1:8). Joshua, known by the name “Jeshua” in Ezra and Nehemiah, was the son of Jehozadak, who was high priest at the time of the Babylonian invasion (cf. 1Ch 6:15). The foundation of the temple was laid in 536 B.C. (cf. Ezr 3:1-10), but for fifteen years the people procrastinated, being content with just a foundation and altar.

1:3-4 Questions of Motivation

The first message was an exhortation to rebuild. Instead of focusing on the priority of the temple, the people were busy building their own “luxurious” homes ( Hag 1:4). Good things had crowded out the best. They had allowed concern for their own comfort to get in the way of doing the work God had for them to do.

1:5-6 Consider: You Do Not Have Enough

The exhortation “Consider how things are going for you!” ( 1:5) suggests that the people were to reflect on their activities and the results that would come about because of those activities. The fruitless expenditures and disappointed expectations seen in Hag 1:6 reflected the chastening of the Lord.

1:7-11 Consider: the Reason for Your Lack

The meager harvest was traced to the neglect of the temple ( 1:9). Drought and famine were instruments of God's wrath that were intended to turn his people back to himself ( 1:10-11; cf. Lev 26:19-20).

1:12-15 Building Commenced: Stirred up by the Spirit

The people responded wholeheartedly to Haggai's exhortation. The “remnant of God's people” ( 1:12) was a reference to those who had returned to Judah from the Babylonian captivity (cf. Isa 6:11-13; 7:3; 10:21; 11:11). Twenty-three days had passed since the message ( Hag 1:2-11) was declared by Haggai. Note the repetition of the words “Zerubbabel,” “Joshua,” and “remnant” or “people in the land” ( 1:12,14; 2:2,4). The future was great for the obedient prince, priest, and purified people. The Lord stirred up the spirits of Zerubbabel, Joshua, and the remnant ( 1:14). This stirring up of Israel's leaders ends a section that began with 1:1, when Haggai first brought them the “message” from the Lord (cf. also Ex 36:1-2; 1Ch 5:26; 2Ch 21:16; 36:22; Ezr 1:5).

2:1-23 Assurance in Rebuilding

2:1-9 The Second Message: Wealth for the New Temple

The second message ( 2:1-9) was a word of encouragement to the remnant of Israel. The date of the second message was October 17. This was a busy day in a busy month on the Jewish religious calendar. The Festival of Trumpets was observed on the first day, the Day of Atonement on the tenth day, and the Festival of Shelters on the fifteenth through twenty-first days.

There were those among the community of the returned exiles who had seen the Jerusalem temple before its destruction by the Babylonians ( Hag 2:3). They compared the past glories of Solomon's temple with the present realities of the restoration temple and became quite discouraged. According to Jewish tradition, missing from the second temple were: the ark of the covenant, the Urim and Thummim, the holy fire, the Shekinah, and the Holy Spirit (Babylonian Talmud, Yoma 21b).

The people were reflecting on what was missing, not on what they had. Haggai encouraged the people with a promise of God's personal presence. The shaking of the “heavens” and the “nations” ( Hag 2:6-7) probably referred to God's future intervention into the affairs of men whereby he would overthrow earthly kingdoms in preparation for the establishment of the messianic kingdom. These words were quoted by the writer of Hebrews ( Heb 12:26-27) in connection with Christ's second advent.

The rabbis and church fathers have taken the well-known translation “the treasures of all the nations” to refer to the Messiah ( Hag 2:7). The “future glory of this Temple” ( 2:9) may refer to the second temple refurbished by Herod the Great, or to the messianic temple (cf. Eze 40-43). The promise of “peace” ( 2:9; cf. Isa 9:6-7) would suggest the messianic interpretation.

2:10-19 The Third Message: Prosperity for the Land

The third message ( 2:10-19), a promise of blessing and restoration, was on December 18. Haggai used an illustration to explain the absence of God's blessing in past years ( Hag 2:11-14). Holiness could not be transmitted by mere contact with holy things. However, defilement could be transmitted by personal contact (cf. Nu 19:11-13). The application is in Hag 2:14. Judah's disobedience brought defilement and rendered even sacrificial worship unacceptable. The words “this people” ( 2:14) referred to the Judeans and contain a note of censure.

In 2:15-19 Haggai compared the past problems with the future possibilities. The Hebrew term for the words “from now on” ( 2:15) is better translated “backward.” Haggai wanted the people to look back to past chastening ( 2:16-17) before they began to obey and rebuild the temple (“lay the foundation of the Lord's Temple,” 2:15). In 2:19 Haggai looked to God's future blessing of the repentant people.

2:20-23 The Fourth Message: Prominence for the Ruler

The fourth message, a messianic prophecy, looked forward to a righteous ruler who would bring peace and prosperity to Israel. This message was given on the same day as the third message. The Persian Empire was quite unstable at this time. What was the future of Israel in this insecure situation? God promised to overthrow and destroy the Gentile world powers and preserve Israel. The “signet ring” ( 2:23) was used to make the mark of its owner on a document or clay tablet. It reflected authority and was to be guarded and preserved. God promised that Zerubbabel would be his signet, or representative authority to the people. The promise related primarily to Zerubbabel's dynasty. His family line would be honored and preserved, and through Zerubbabel's lineage would come Jesus the Messiah (cf. Mt 1:12; Lk 3:27).

Zechariah

Basic Facts

Historical Setting

The Jews had returned from captivity in Babylon to their homeland in 537 B.C. The temple's foundations had been laid in 536 B.C. ( Ezr 3:10), but the construction had ceased because of opposition from the Samaritans (cf. Ezr 4:1-5). For sixteen years the temple building was neglected by the selfish returned exiles who did not recognize their spiritual priorities (cf. Hag 1:4). Throughout the ministries of Haggai and Zechariah the people were encouraged to rise up and rebuild the temple (cf. Ezr 5:1-2).

The prophet saw Greece as a menace to the Persian Empire, and the prophecy fits well into Zechariah's day. From 520 B.C. onward the Greeks of Asia Minor were a continual source of trouble for Darius, and in 500 B.C. the great Ionian revolt occurred. By 490 B.C. Darius had stamped out the Ionian uprising, but the Persians were later defeated at Marathon (490 B.C.) and Salamis (480 B.C.). This was a time of insecurity in the Persian Empire.

Author

Zechariah was the grandson of Iddo, who was one of the heads of the priestly families that returned to Judah after the Exile (cf. Ne 12:4). A contemporary with Haggai, he was influential in encouraging the people of Judah to rise up and rebuild the temple (cf. Ezr 5:1-2; 6:14). Zechariah seemed to have succeeded his grandfather, Iddo, as head of the priestly family ( Ne 12:12-16), from which it may be inferred that his father, Berekiah ( Zec 1:1), died before he was able to succeed to the priesthood. Zechariah is generally considered to have been a young man when he received the visions of Zec 1-7 (cf. 2:4). He entered his prophetic ministry two months after Haggai concluded his first oracle.

Some believe that Zec 9-14 was not original to Zechariah and contains anonymous prophecies from a later period. These arguments are based on what some see as different styles and vocabularies. However, the prophetic end-time thrust of this section, and a time period of about twenty years between the giving of the two main sections of the book, may well account for such differences. It was accepted early as part of Zechariah's prophecy, since no Hebrew manuscripts have been discovered with this section of Zechariah missing.

Date

Zechariah began his ministry in the second year of Darius (522-486 B.C.) in 520 B.C. His last dated prophecy ( 7:1) was two years later on the fourth day of Kislev (November-December) in 518 B.C. The latter chapters of the prophecy ( Zec 9-14) appear to have been composed sometime later, possibly around 500 B.C., in view of the reference to Greece ( 9:13). The book of Zechariah was thus composed between 520 and 500 B.C.

Purpose

The book of Zechariah was designed to provide a detailed picture of God's future dealings with his chosen people. Zec 1-8 demanded the ethical responsibility of the people, while Zec 9-14 moved on to revive the hopes of the obedient. The believers needed to turn from their sins. The book comforted and encouraged the remnant by revealing future glories, the overthrow of Israel's enemies, and the universal reign of the Messiah. They had undergone an immense amount of suffering, but if they expected future blessings from God they would have to reform their civil and religious practices.

Guiding Concepts

The two major concepts that controlled the book were the necessity of a functioning temple and the return of the people's hearts and actions to the conditions of the Mosaic covenant. All the various visions of hope and judgment were centered on those two concepts. Zec 1-8 contains a series of visions designed to encourage personal repentance and reconstruction of the temple. Zec 9-14 moved away from the specifics of Zechariah's day and looked to the furious struggles of the end times. Evil did its worst but, in the end, God remained the victorious King.

Bible-Wide Concepts

Zechariah taught a great deal concerning the first and second comings of the Messiah. He referred to the Messiah as God's servant ( 3:8), the Branch, the stone ( 3:9), and the shepherd ( 13:7). Concerning the first coming of Christ, Zechariah prophesied his entrance into Jerusalem on a colt ( 9:9), his rejection by Israel ( 11:1-17), his betrayal for thirty pieces of silver ( 11:12-13), the piercing of his hands and feet ( 12:10), and his work on the cross ( 13:1).

Concerning the Messiah's second coming, Zechariah prophesied the conversion of Israel ( 13:1-9), the destruction of Israel's enemies by the Messiah ( 14:3, 12-15), the restoration of Jerusalem ( 14:8-11, 16-21), and the reign of the promised Messiah from Zion ( 14:9). The prophecy of Zechariah contains one of the most outstanding passages in the Old Testament concerning the removal of sin and imputation of righteousness ( 3:1-5).

Needs Met by Zechariah

In Zechariah's day, even though the Jews had been restored from captivity they were still under foreign domination. The promises of God's unhindered worldwide reign seemed as far off as ever. Added to that, God's people were still entrenched in sin as if the lessons of captivity had never been learned. Zechariah encouraged his hearers to return to the Lord by giving graphic descriptions of God's future end-time judgments. God's people had lost their will to consistently obey because they had lost sight of God's absolute control and presence. Just because they could not see stupendous evidences of God's presence did not mean he was absent or was not running history exactly as he wanted. As Zechariah affirmed God's complete present control, he also affirmed God's ability to judge or reward those in the present. God's control over history meant moral accountability. The returned nation of Israel had a long list of promises for great prosperity. But those promises seemed very far off, if still in effect at all. Zechariah presented a rather full picture of what lay ahead for Israel in order to confirm the promises and to comfort God's people. The content and structure of Zechariah show that the people of Israel were probably struggling with questions like these.

•What will happen to the priesthood and the line of David?
•Will Israel ever be able to overcome her enemies?
•Because God has returned his people to their land, are they now immune to God's judgment?
•Will the people of Israel ever be the kind of people God wants them to be?

Two of the greatest strains on faith are tough present circumstances and the long time it takes before God's promises are fulfilled. When it seems that God is not actively present in history, it is easy to think he will neither hold his people accountable for their sins nor reward them for their faithfulness. In such a situation their faithfulness tends to collapse and sin tends to increase. Zechariah works to combine the great past acts of God and graphic descriptions of his future judgments and rewards into a package that fills the present with a sense of God's complete control. With this perspective believers can move through this time of waiting, no matter how long ahead it stretches, with a firm sense of God's control and presence to judge and reward.

Outline of Zechariah

Call to Repentance: Do Not Be Like Your Fathers ( 1:1-6)
Eight Visions: God's Protection of His House ( 1:7-6:15)
1. The Temple Built and Enemies Punished ( 1:7-21)
2. The Temple Built: Enemies Punished and Leaders Accepted ( 2:1-4:14)
3. A Rival Temple Built and Enemies Punished ( 5:1-6:8)
4. Returnees Encouraged: The Branch Builds the Temple ( 6:9-15)
The Postexilic Mind-Set: Sadness Turned to Joy ( 7:1-8:23)
1. The Setting: The Question about Fasting ( 7:1-3)
2. Motivation and Rebellion Exposed ( 7:4-14)
3. Words of Assurance ( 8:1-17)
4. Questions Answered and Illustrated ( 8:18-23)
Two Burdens ( 9:1-14:21)
1. Against Nations and Leadership: The Victorious Flock ( 9:1-11:17)
2. Israel's Victory through Mourning ( 12:1-14:21)

Zechariah Notes

1:1-6 Call to Repentance: Do Not Be Like Your Fathers

The date was “midautumn” (Marchesvan, “the eighth month,” which falls in October-November), 520 B.C., “the second year of King Darius's” ( 1:1). The name “Zechariah” means “Yahweh remembers.” The words “your ancestors” ( 1:2) referred to the forefathers of the present generation. Their sins resulted in the Babylonian exile. The words “Return to me” ( 1:3) speak of repentance, that is, a change of attitude resulting in a change of conduct. And Zechariah said, “Repentance is the prerequisite for enjoying God's blessing.” The “earlier prophets” ( 1:4) were those who lived before the Exile and warned of coming judgment. Zechariah warned that life is short, and it is perilous to pass up the opportunity to repent when it is available.

1:7-6:15 Eight Visions: God's Protection of His House

1:7-21 The Temple Built and Enemies Punished

1:7-17 The Worldwide Patrol: Nations at Ease

Note the following pattern in Zechariah's visions: (1) “I saw”; (2) “What does this mean?” (3) An explanation given by the interpreting angel.

In the vision of the red horse's rider among the myrtle trees ( 1:7-17) God promised to bless Israel by showing compassion and rebuilding Jerusalem. The date of this vision was February 15 ( 1:7), 519 B.C., three months after the call to repentance ( 1:1-6). In 1:8-12 there were four participants in the vision: Zechariah, the rider on the red horse, the interpreting angel, and the angel of the Lord ( 1:11). Myrtle is an evergreen tree, once very common in the vicinity of Jerusalem ( Ne 8:15). Early in his rule, Darius had trouble with rebellion in parts of his empire. Now all was quiet and peaceful.

The “seventy years” ( Zec 1:12) referred to the period the temple had lain in ruins (586-516 B.C.). The question was, How much longer would Israel be under Gentile domination? God promised to rebuild Jerusalem and the temple ( 1:16). Jerusalem's election (“again . . . choose Jerusalem”) was emphasized prominently in Zechariah ( 1:17; cf. 2:12; 3:2).

1:18-21 Four Horns and Four Craftsmen

Zechariah was given a vision of four horns and four craftsmen ( 1:18-21) in which God promised to destroy Israel's enemies. The horn was an image of invincible strength (cf. Da 8:5-8). The “horns” ( Zec 1:18) that persecuted Israel and Judah were Assyria, Babylon, Medo-Persia, and Greece. The “blacksmiths” ( 1:20) would destroy the “horns” ( 1:21). Babylon destroyed Assyria, Medo-Persia destroyed Babylon, Greece destroyed Medo-Persia, and Greece was succeeded by the Roman Empire.

2:1-4:14 The Temple Built: Enemies Punished and Leaders Accepted

2:1-13 Protection: No Walls Needed

The vision of a surveyor with a measuring line ( 2:1-13) gave the remnant hope that Jerusalem would be restored and rebuilt. The “measuring line” ( 2:1) was a surveyor's tool. The measuring of Jerusalem was with a view to rebuilding the city. God promised his protection, a “wall of fire” ( 2:5; cf. Ex 13:22). Those who had not yet returned to Judah from Babylon were urged to do so. The “north” ( Zec 2:6) was the direction of travel routes between Israel and Babylon, although Babylon was located directly east of Israel. In 2:9 God promised to protect his people (cf. Ge 12:3). Zec 2:10-12 appears to have its fulfillment in the messianic kingdom (“I will live among you,” 2:11).

3:1-10 Priest Accepted

Zechariah's vision of the cleansing of Joshua the high priest ( 3:1-10) led the way to the cleansing of the whole nation. The nation was to be cleansed spiritually by the promised Messiah. The scene of this vision was a heavenly courtroom where Joshua, the representative of the people of Judah, was standing before the “angel of the Lord” while being accused by Satan. The “stick that has been snatched from a fire” ( 3:2) referred to Judah, delivered from the “fire” of the Babylonian captivity. The “filthy” clothing ( 3:3) symbolized the pollution of sin that needed to be removed (cf. Isa 4:4).

The cleansing of Joshua ( Zec 3:4-5) symbolized the removal of the guilt of sin (“I have taken away your sins,” 3:4) and the imputation of God's righteousness (“fine new clothes,” 3:4). Joshua was recommissioned and promised God's blessing for obedience ( 3:7). In 3:8-9 the Messiah was depicted as a servant (cf. Isa 53:11), a Branch (cf. Isa 4:2), and a stone (cf. Ps 118:22; Isa 28:16). The word “facets” ( Zec 3:9) is translated “eyes” in Hebrew and may also be translated “springs” or “fountains,” which symbolized the spiritual cleansing of the people by the Messiah (cf. 3:4). The image of sitting under a person's vine and fig tree ( 3:10) was an image of peace and tranquility and spoke of the messianic kingdom (cf. Mi 4:4).

TEXT OMITTED FOR PREVIEW

15:1-16:2 The First Bowl Emptied

Another sign is now given. The wrath of God is completed in the seven plagues mentioned in 15:1. They are called seven bowls of wrath in Rev 16. But before the final wrath, God provides a picture of final bliss for those who “had been victorious” ( 15:2-4). Those earthly saints are now connected with the place of God's glory mentioned in Rev 4. Being in the very presence of God is the goal for the exhortations to be “victorious” throughout the book. “God's Tabernacle” in heaven ( 15:5) is the true tabernacle after which the earthly one was patterned ( Heb 8:5; 9:23-24). In Rev 15:5-8 the temple is opened, the four living creatures again appear (cf. 4:6), and the temple becomes unapproachable in God's judgment glory (cf. Isa 66:6). Judgment is an expression of God's righteous character ( 15:4; 16:7; 19:2). This chapter evokes images from the Exodus: the plagues, the sea, the song of Moses, the tabernacle of testimony, and smoke.

16:3-21 The Second through Seventh Bowls

16:3 Seas of Blood

The second bowl, like the second trumpet ( 8:8-9), is poured out upon the sea but is more severe. As a result of the judgment, the sea is turned to blood.

16:4-7 Rivers of Blood

The martyrs' prayer of 5:8 is now being answered ( 16:6-7; cf. 2Th 1:5-6). The third bowl, like the third trumpet ( 8:10-11) is poured out upon the fresh water so that it becomes blood.

16:8-9 Scorching Sun

The fourth bowl, like the fourth trumpet ( 8:12), affects the sun. The increased intensity of the sun scorches the inhabitants of earth.

16:10-11 Darkness

Even at this terrible point, people still resist God (cf. 13:1, 5-6; 10:10-11; 17:3). The fifth plague falls upon the throne of the Beast and brings darkness to his empire.

16:12-16 Euphrates Dried

The sixth bowl judgment will dry up the Euphrates River to facilitate the crossing of the armies of the kings of the east (cf. Da 11:44) as they rush to involve themselves in the campaign of Armageddon. “Armageddon” is literally “the hill of Megiddo,” referring to the hill upon which the ancient city of Megiddo was located. Megiddo was strategically situated at the foot of Mount Carmel to control travel through the Jezreel Valley.

16:17-21 Earthquake

The wrath of God is completed ( 16:17). The great earthquake ( 4:5; 8:5; 11:19) destroys the city of Babylon. The city's downfall is elaborated in Rev 17-18.

17:1-18 The Woman and the Beast

Rev 17 describes the downfall of Babylon ( 14:8; 16:19) in greater detail. Babylon probably refers to the religious, political, and commercial aspects of the Antichrist's empire. Rev 17 focuses on the “prostitute,” the false religious system controlled by the beast of 13:1. Rev 18 will describe the judgment on the Beast and his empire.

The same angel will show the bride of Christ ( 17:1; 21:9). The Beast ( 17:3) appears to represent satanic influence throughout history. Its various heads are its attempts at world rule throughout history. The eighth head is the Antichrist of 13:1-10 (cf. Da 7:19-21).

The “prostitute” imagery is seen also in Na 3:4 and Isa 23:16-17. This woman is to be contrasted with the woman of 12:1-6 and the bride of Christ ( 21:9). The prostitute is given a name that reveals she is the representative of the false religious system that began in ancient Babylon (cf. Ge 11:1-9). The name is “mysterious” ( 17:5), that is, the city of Babylon on the Euphrates is not meant. This is a secret, or symbolic, use of the name, the exact understanding of which remains to be revealed (cf. 14:8; 16:19; 17:6, 18; 18:24). Names on foreheads ( 17:5) appear throughout the book for evil ( 13:16; 14:9; 20:4) and for good ( 7:3; 9:4; 14:1; 22:4). This vision answers a question asked by saints throughout the ages: Why do the enemies of God often seem so victorious instead of being judged? The vision shows that she will indeed be destroyed at God's chosen time. The Beast and harlot's descriptions function as guides to interpreting their destruction in 18:1-19:5.

The seven heads, horns, and hills have been variously interpreted as Rome, other countries and kings, or simply as a symbol for all the kingdoms of history. More specifically, the seven heads are seven mountains or kings; five have fallen, one exists, and the other is yet to come. The first five kingdoms would include Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Egypt. The kingdom in existence while John wrote was the Roman Empire (sixth). The kingdom yet to come will be the final form of world government. It is identified in 17:11 with the Beast's own empire. The idea of “was alive and then died” arises from past and future expressions of Satan through rulers. “Ten kings” ( 17:12) may mean ten actual nations or may be symbolic for all the nations of the world.

For “waters” ( 17:15), see Je 51:13. The destruction of the prostitute is described in images drawn from Eze 23:11-35. Once in power, the beast and his associates will reject the authority of the prostitute's system and throw off her rule. With that system destroyed, the Beast will then be introduced by the false prophet as the true god ( 13:12; cf. 2Th 2:4).

18:1-24 Babylon's Downfall Described

18:1-3 The Announcement of Babylon's Destruction

Rev 18 describes the judgment on the final form of Babylon, the Beast and his empire. The imagery of Babylon falling is taken from Isa 21:9, where the ancient city of Babylon was destroyed.

18:4-20 Lament of the World over Babylon

Rev 18:4-20 is a message from “another voice calling from heaven” ( 18:4). The message begins with a call to separate from the city ( 18:4) and ends with a call to rejoice ( 18:20). The heavenly rejoicing forms a stark contrast with the world's mourning ( 18:9-19). The prayer of the martyrs ( 6:10) is answered. The call to separate is to believers living in the Tribulation period who might be tempted to compromise their convictions and become associated with the Beast. The world's leaders give three laments over fallen Babylon ( 18:9-10,11-17a , 17b - 19). Compare this with Ezekiel's lamentation over Tyre ( Eze 27). Half the commodities mentioned in 18:11-13 are mentioned also in Ezekiel. Mariners, kings, and merchants are also mentioned in the Ezekiel lamentation. The merchants mourn over the long list of commodities rather than their long list of sins. The judgment against Babylon is on behalf of heaven and the saints ( 18:20).

18:21-24 Babylon Destroyed

The reason for the destruction is Babylon's deception ( 18:23) and murder of the saints ( 18:24).

19:1-21 The Marriage of the Lamb

19:1-10 The Glory of God and the Marriage of the Lamb

Rev 19 begins with rejoicing in heaven by the angels and the redeemed. “Hallelujah” ( 19:1) is transliterated from Hebrew and means “Praise the Lord!” The Old Testament context of the verse quoted in 19:2 is Dt 32:34-43. The blood of the saints has been avenged ( 19:2; cf. 6:10). The Old Testament context of 19:3 is Isa 34:10. Many biblical texts describe the relationship between God and his people under the metaphor of marriage ( 19:9; cf. Isa 62:4; Ho 2:19; 2Co 11:2; Ep 5:25-33; Rev 21:2). Here, John describes the marriage of the Lamb and the marriage supper. The wedding feast ( 19:7-9) is a reference to the end of the long and sometimes painful engagement between Christ and his saints. It marks the beginning of the eternal unbroken marriage relationship of perfect fellowship and love. This vision is here to encourage the readers through their tribulations with the vision of their ultimate entrance into God's glory. The study of prophecy should witness to Jesus, giving believers a greater appreciation of his person and work ( 19:10).

19:11-21 The War of the Lamb

This is the second coming of Christ. Jesus the Messiah returns with his heavenly armies to execute judgment on his enemies and to establish his kingdom (cf. Zec 14:1-5; Mt 24:29-30). Jesus is referred to as the “Word” ( 19:13; cf. Jn 1:1). There is debate regarding the identification of the “armies of heaven” ( 19:14). Some interpret them to refer to the saints. More likely, they refer to the angels of heaven who are under God's command (cf. Mk 8:38; 2Th 1:7). The vision of the great banquet of God ( 19:17-21) describes the carnage resulting from Christ's judgment on his enemies. This event is similar to that described in Eze 39:17-20.

20:1-15 A Final Rebellion Is Put Down

20:1-3 Satan Is Bound

Rev 20 describes the duration, nature, government, and chronological sequence of events related to the Millennium. There are three main views regarding this chapter: (1) The postmillennial view interprets the chapter figuratively. The thousand years is understood to refer to a period of prosperity that will culminate in the second coming of Christ. (2) The amillennial viewpoint interprets the chapter symbolically. There is no literal period of a thousand years of Christ's reign after his return because the reign of Christ began in heaven after his ascension. (3) The premillennial viewpoint interprets the chapter as referring to an actual thousand-year period. Christ will return and inaugurate a literal thousand-year earthly reign during which peace and righteousness will prevail.

John observes that Satan is bound for one thousand years ( 20:1-3). This is so there will be no external source of deceit during the thousand years. Satan, the organizer of opposition against Christ, is removed so that righteousness and peace will flourish (cf. Isa 11:3-5).

20:4-6 Judgments for One Thousand Years

The martyred believers and perhaps others (see Da 12:2,13; Mt 19:27-28; 1Co 6:2; 2Ti 2:12) are resurrected to share in Christ's millennial reign. The rest of the dead are not raised until after the Millennium (cf. 20:11-15). This brief description covers one thousand years but emphasizes the blessedness of those who overcame temptation to give in to the Antichrist and thereby escape the horrors of the second death. Again, this encouraged the original readers of Revelation (and should encourage readers today) to view physical death as less important than risking the second and eternal death.

20:7-10 Gog and Magog Defeated

Satan is released for a final period of deception ( 20:3), which is magnified by the contrast of its absence during the thousand years ( 20:4-9). The Old Testament background is Eze 38-39. This event is similar in purpose to the one spoken of in Eze 38-39 and therefore is also called “Gog and Magog.” Satan's followers are apparently those who were born in the Millennium but did not have true faith in Christ. As a result of this final rebellion, Satan is thrown into the lake of fire where he will stay throughout eternity.

20:11-15 The Great White Throne Judgment

The Great White Throne Judgment involves the resurrection and judgment of what 20:5 called “the rest of the dead.” The record books are consulted to demonstrate that the judgment is deserved ( 20:12), and then the book of life is opened to see if their names are within and their deeds have been covered by faith in the shed blood of Jesus. The absence of one's name in the book of life indicates that one's destiny is the lake of fire, the second death.

21:1-22:5 The Perfection of Creation's Glory

21:1-8 The New Heavens and Earth

The last vision of Revelation describes the new Jerusalem, which will serve as the abode of the saints throughout eternity. John saw the new heaven and earth after the present earth had been purged from the effects of sin by fire ( Isa 65:17; 66:22; 2Pe 3:10-13). This completes God's promise to Abraham to give him a land. This does not refer to the partial fulfillment seen in the land of Palestine but to the advent of a new heaven and earth (cf. Heb 11:10,16; 13:14). The new Jerusalem comes down out of heaven to settle on the earth ( Rev 21:2). This city is to be occupied by “all those who are victorious” ( 21:7; cf. 2:7, 11, 17, 26; 3:5, 12, 21; 1Jn 5:4-5). The judgments of the day of the Lord (cf. 2Pe 3:10-12) will melt into eternal peace. The glory of God's children will have released the creation from its futility ( Ro 8:19-22). God's presence will form the perfect and eternal tabernacle (cf. Lev 26:11-12; Je 31:33; Eze 37:27; Zec 8:8). The transformation of believers from glory to glory will be complete ( 2Co 3:18; 4:16-18; 5:16-17). This functions as a motivating vision for overcoming the present temptations to deny Christ and his holiness.

21:9-22:5 The New Jerusalem

The “bride, the wife of the Lamb” ( 21:9) is a reference, not to the city itself, but to its inhabitants ( 21:24,27; 22:2-5). For the twelve gates ( 21:12), see Eze 48:30-34. The city is portrayed with equal dimensions like a cube, significant because the holy of holies in the temple was also a cube (cf. 1Ki 6:20). The image is of the perfect tabernacle of God ( 21:3), built from the ground up with the most precious of materials. In Rev 22 the images of Eden return once again; the river and the tree of life ( 22:1-2; cf. Ge 2:9; 3:22; Eze 47:12) appear once again. The promises to David are fulfilled in the believers ( 21:7; cf. 2Sa 7:14; 2Co 6:18). In the new Jerusalem the faithful will behold what Moses and all people after Adam were denied; they will see the very face of God (cf. Ex 33:20,23; Mt 5:8). Zec 14:7 spoke of a time when there would be no night ( Rev 21:25).

The awful curse of God that fell upon the earth and humanity in Ge 3 is now reversed ( 22:3). God's bond servants can now perform what God wanted from his people from the beginning; God had created man to serve him for eternity ( 22:3). Nowhere in Scripture is there a description of the complete details of the believer's eternal state (cf. 1Co 2:9), but John provides believers with a foretaste of the glories to come. Heaven is in reality a new heaven and earth; it is a beautiful place where believers will enjoy fellowship with Christ, rest, joy, service, and worship.

22:6-21 Blessings and Curses

This epilogue returns to the themes of the prologue (cf. 1:3) and serves as the conclusion of the book. The prophecy was authenticated by the angel ( 22:6), by Christ ( 22:7), and by John ( 22:8-9). John was commanded to leave the book unsealed, for the time was near when people would need understanding of what God was doing ( 22:10). Rev 22:11 reveals that when Christ comes, there will be no further opportunities to change one's destiny. The term “dogs” ( 22:15) refers to persons of lower character. Jesus himself speaks again in 22:16. He identifies himself as the “heir to David's throne” ( 5:5), the one with whom God would fulfill Israel's covenant promises ( Lk 1:32-33). An invitation by the Spirit and the bride was given to all who would thirst for the water of life ( 22:17; cf. Isa 55:1). They were offered the free gift of salvation. In 22:18-19 John warned against additions or subtractions from the prophecy (cf. Dt 4:2; 12:32; Pr 30:6). The warning of 22:19 assumes that no genuine believer would tamper with the Scripture. For the third time in this chapter ( 22:7,12,20), the Lord said that he would come soon. John's reply is also that of his readers, “Come, Lord Jesus.”

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