Bible Commentaries

1 Kings 22:5-7 — king… What king? Ahab or Benhadad? This is exactly the way the Delphian oracle replied to Pyrrhus: "Pyrrhus the Romans shall overcome; thou shalt go; thou shalt return never in war shalt thou perish."The Preacher's Homiletic Commentary, Kings, p. 350. Opposite meanings depending upon the punctuation are mingled. (4)    The fourth reason why these prophets must not be thought of as prophets of Jehovah is in the fact that Jehoshaphat requested that they consult "a prophet of Jehovah,"

2 Kings 18:29-35 — siege. (4)    The most astounding argument of all is the fourth. Rabshakeh claimed that Jehovah had ordered him to come up and destroy Judah and Jerusalem. This was exactly the maneuver of Adolph Hitler who employed the Big Lie as one of his weapons. (5)    The fifth argument was such a monumental falsehood that one may well wonder at the stupidity of the man who told it. "If you will just surrender, we will provide you free transportation to a beautiful land far away - just like

2 Kings 20:1-21 — Isaiah 39, is one of the most difficult in the O.T. "Due to the variations in the duplicate texts, and even more to the complex historical problems, no other section of Kings has produced more critical debate."International Critical Commentary, Kings, p. 513. We cannot allow in a work of this kind sufficient space for a thorough discussion of all the questions. We shall note here a few of the problems that concern scholars. Regarding the date of Hezekiah's fatal sickness, capable scholars have dated it

1 Chronicles 12:23-40 — of King David. There are a number of historical references to the Jewish Passover, held every year in Jerusalem, indicating that in excess of 60,000 lambs were often slain at each celebration of the Passover; and there is one citation in which over 250,000 lambs were killed at the Passover.International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, Vol. 5. p. 2257. Counting ten persons for each lamb, as prescribed in Exodus, indicates that crowds in Jerusalem were frequently in excess of half a million in number;

Nehemiah 6:1-9 — feignest them out of thine own heart. For they all would make us afraid, saying, Their hands shall be weakened from the work, that it be not done. But thou, O God, strengthen thou my hands." "The narrative which was broken by the parenthetical Nehemiah 5 is here taken up again."Footnote is not available "The enemies of Judah had found ridicule (Nehemiah 4:1-6) ineffective, and their threatened military attack had not taken place (Nehemiah 4:7-23); and their plan here was to kill Nehemiah, or at least

Job 19:25 — "And He shall stand upon the earth (the dust, literally)." And what is that dust? All of the enemies of Christ shall at last be as dust under his feet. "He shall stand"! This means his word shall stand; his authority shall stand; his name shall stand. (5) There is also the corollary of the Redeemer's eternity in this. Job said, "He lives." But he will also be there, at "the latter day," "in the end," etc. "He is the same yesterday, today and forever" (Hebrews 13:8). Who is this Redeemer which Job mentioned

Psalms 123:1-4 — character; there is no loud complaint, or impetuous plea."H. C. Leupold, p. 878. It is these very qualities which, to us, makes the psalm so attractive. McCaw found in this psalm, "A glad certainty of mercy for the defamed,"New Bible Commentary Revised, p. 531. which he contrasted with the "Sad theme of expectation of God's judgment on the defamers in Psalms 120."Ibid. "O thou that sittest in the heavens" "It was doubtless this very first verse that led to this psalm's selection for the collection of processional

Psalms 145:1-7 — mankind! Today, there is no nation on earth where the present generation is not telling to the next generation the mercies and love of God, even in Russia, and in the nations once behind the iron curtain! "Men shall speak of thy terrible acts" (Psalms 145:6). What are the terrible acts of God? There is no catalogue of all of them, but a few are surely revealed in the holy Bible. (1)    The Great Deluge must head the list. How terrible is the thought of drowning the entire human race

Psalms 28:4-5 — in the world to come. Regarding David's prayer here, "There is no evidence that there is anything of vindictiveness or malice in his prayer. It is a prayer for justice."Albert Barnes, p. 244. "He will break them down and not build them up" (Psalms 28:5). "David, in these lines, is a prophet."Alexander Maclaren, Vol. 1, p. 270. The grounds of this fate which God announced through David is listed in the preceding lines, "They regard not the works of Jehovah, nor the operation of his hands." The wicked

Isaiah 12:1-6 — added to this list already. The last three verses here carry repeated instructions to God's people of all ages: (1) give thanks to Jehovah; (2) call upon his name; (3) declare his doings among the people; (4) make mention that his name is exalted; (5) sing unto Jehovah; (6) God hath done excellent things; let this be known in all the earth; (7) Cry aloud and shout, thou inhabitant of Zion; for great in the midst of thee is the Holy One of Israel. All of this adds up to an elaboration of the Biblical

Isaiah 30:27-33 — "passing through the fire to Molech!" No wonder such a place gave a name that in the New Testament would mean "hell." The destruction prophesied here for Assyria will be accomplished by God's rod (Isaiah 30:31); but Assyria was God's "rod" in Isaiah 10:5; and now it will be another "rod of God" that Jehovah will use to destroy Assyria. "Babylon was the `rod' that destroyed Assyria."Homer Hailey, p. 261. This paragraph gives a magnificent picture indeed of Jehovah as the judge and the ultimate destroyer

Jeremiah 13:3-5 — that the Euphrates river was almost four hundred miles from Anathoth; and the two journeys to that river by Jeremiah would have required his traveling a distance of some sixteen hundred miles. We have no problem at all with this, because Jeremiah 13:5 flatly declares that, Jeremiah went and hid it as Jehovah had commanded him. Where is there any problem? Rationalistic critics, however, believe that such an extended amount of traveling, while not impossible, was certainly not very practical in those

Jeremiah 18:21-23 — Christian writers have seen fit to assign to it. Thompson pointed out that God gave no answer to this prayer of Jeremiah, despite the fact that God had given a response to the first three of these laments in Jeremiah 11:20; Jeremiah 12:1-4, and Jeremiah 15:14-18. There was no response to the fourth in Jeremiah 17:14-18, nor in the lament before us (Jeremiah 18:18-23). "Once God responded with a word of encouragement (Jeremiah 11:21-23), and twice with words of rebuke and instruction (Jeremiah 12:5-6,

Jeremiah 21:1-2 — against us: peradventure Jehovah will deal with us according to all his wondrous works, that he may go up from us." Zedekiah evidently expected Jehovah to lift the siege against Jerusalem by some tremendous miracle similar to that in which God destroyed 185,000 soldiers of Sennacherib's army and lifted the siege against Jerusalem in the days of Isaiah. The ancient Jews never learned the lesson that God's promises are all conditional, even those of his everlasting love and blessing. They were the ancient

Jeremiah 31:34 — F. Keil, Keil-Delitzsch's Old Testament Commentaries (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company), p. 41. but we know that Keil cannot possibly be correct in this, since Christ himself ordained that, "They shall all be taught of God" (John 6:45); and the Great Commission itself commanded that "all nations," "the whole creation," must be taught. Of the dozens of scholars whose works we have been privileged to read, only George DeHoff gave the true explanation of what is meant here. "Under the

Jeremiah 49:19-22 — fulfillment of the prophecy against Edom did not take place immediately. It began with the activity of the Chaldeans five years after the destruction of Jerusalem. Keil stated that that destruction "is unquestionably inferred from Jeremiah 49:7 ff; Ezekiel 35; Jeremiah 25:9; Jeremiah 25:21, and Malachi 1:3."C. F. Keil, Keil-Delitzsch's Old Testament Commentaries (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company) (Vol. 8), p. 376. Edom's destruction continued when Alexander the Great conquered the world in

Judges 18:1-6 — an inheritance" The Danites indeed had been allotted their inheritance in Canaan, but their distress was due to the encroachment against their territory: (1) first by the Amorites (Joshua 3:10 and (2) also by the Philistines (Judges 13:1; Judges 13:5; Judges 14:4; and Judges 15:11). It is a mistake to hold the Danites guiltless in this situation. "Their failure to drive out the Amorites was not due to lack of power, but to lack of faith. The Danites had two choices: (1)    to

1 Samuel 29:1-5 — the temptation that came to David in this trial brought with it the promised "way of escape," as the Lord promised (1 Corinthians 10:13). David wrote in Psalms that, "I do not sit with false men… I hate the company of evildoers" (Psalms 26:4-5); but at this juncture in his life he had been closely associated with the wicked for years. God alone could have spared him from the disastrous results which might have ensued. WHY THE PHILISTINE COMMANDERS REJECTED DAVID Willis cited no less that

2 Samuel 1:1-10 — lord." Critics who seem to be searching for things which they can call "contradictions" in the Bible have complained that this report of Saul's death "is impossible to reconcile with the account in First Samuel."International Critical Commentary, Samuel, p. 254. This is no problem whatever, because, as Willis stated, "The Amalekite's report was a deliberate lie. What actually happened is recorded in 1 Samuel 31, and this paragraph reports what the Amalekite told David."John T. Willis, p. 281. A similar so-called

2 Samuel 12:15-23 — fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he will not return to me.'" This well-known passage, read at many funerals, is incapable of being misunderstood and, "Needs but little comment."International Critical Commentary, op. cit., p. 325. To us, it seems strange that David was so touched by the death of this child. In the normal run of things, the death of some infant in the harem of an Oriental king would have rated little or no attention. Why the difference here? David knew that he