Bible Commentaries

Jeremiah 25:17-19 — all men have to drink, i.e., the consequences of our wrong choices. Life places it to our lips, and its contents can be very bitter, whether the recipient be a nation or an individual."Broadman Bible Commentary (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1971), p. 132. "To wit, Jerusalem, etc." The expression to wit means "namely." It is used in legal documents to introduce a list or an explanation; and it is so used here. Significantly, it is Jerusalem that leads the list. Why? "Judgment begins at the house of God."

Jeremiah 29:21-23 — death. This was a rather lengthy communication which Jeremiah sent to Babylon, as Cawley and Millard noted, "This letter includes messages to no less than four different groups: (1)    those already in captivity in Babylon (Jeremiah 29:10-14); (2)    those who would become captives later (Jeremiah 29:15-19); (3)    Ahab, Zedekiah and their fellow false prophets (Jeremiah 29:21-23); and (4)    to Shemaiah (Jeremiah 29:24-32)."The

Jeremiah 49:14-18 — prophecies by Jeremiah, and again we have evidence that Jeremiah was familiar with all that any of the prophets before him had written. Obadiah wrote during the ninth century B.C., and Jeremiah prophesied more than two centuries afterward. See Vol. 2 of the minor prophets series of commentaries for a full discussion of Obadiah. Obadiah is not the only prophet who gave pronouncements of God's wrath upon the Edomites. Others are Ezekiel 25:12-14; Ezekiel 35:1-15; Joel 3:19; Amos 9:12; Isaiah 21:11-12;

Jeremiah 50:21-28 — of Pekod" Some scholars try to locate these places as provinces of Babylonia, but Keil suggested that the words were invented by Jeremiah,C. F. Keil, Keil-Delitzsch's Old Testament Commentaries (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company), p. 278. and Graybill gave their meaning as "double bitterness" for Merathaim, and "punishment" for Pekod.Wycliffe Old Testament Commentary, p. 691. The names therefore are symbols of the punishment coming upon them. "The hammer of the whole earth" Babylon

Jeremiah 50:6-10 — Babylon… they shall set themselves against her… she (Babylon) shall be taken" There are no less than six verbs, all in the future tense, which here announce that Babylon "shall be taken," making it an absolute certainty that Jeremiah 50:2 is in the prophetic past perfect tense. "Be as the heights of the flocks" Judah here was admonished to be the leader (like the heights) in fleeing from Babylon. They did not heed this. As a matter of fact, they were hardly willing to leave at all, and

Ezekiel 18:21-24 — it. The strong inference here that the passage may indirectly refer to Manasseh occurs in the fact that despite his being such an evil monarch, at the end of his days, Manasseh turned from his sins and returned to the true God. Regarding Ezekiel 18:21, here, Beasley-Murray stated that, "A man is not only free from the sins of his father, but he may also be free from his own sins, if he so wishes; he can repent and turn away from them."G. R. Beasley-Murray in the New Bible Commentary, Revised, p.

Ezekiel 18:29-32 — 18:30). "Make you a new heart and a new spirit" O no, a man cannot create in himself a new heart; but he can so order his behavior that God will indeed create in him a new heart. God commands men to "Save yourselves from this wicked generation" (Acts 2:40); but men cannot "save themselves," except in the sense that they can comply with the conditions that will enable God to save them! Men cannot "create" a new heart in themselves, but they can repent of their wickedness and turn to God who will then

Ezekiel 23:43-49 — the Word of God. Thus ends the tragic allegory of Oholah and Oholibah. A summary of why they deserved the awful fate which they endured must be understood as (1) their forgetting God and relying upon alliances with evil nations for their protection, (2) forgetting God and wallowing in the sensuous debaucheries connected with their shameless worshipping the pagan fertility gods, resulting in the total wreck of the nation's morality, and (3) forgetting God and the profaning of his sanctuary, his sabbaths,

Ezekiel 3:1-3 — that the sad news God's message contained for the fallen people of Israel was the source of any "sweetness" for the prophet. This symbolical action of eating the roll teaches that, (1) the words of Ezekiel would not be his words but the Word of God; (2) the written word of God would become the very life of the prophet; (3) the eating of the roll by Ezekiel indicated his acceptance of the commission God was here giving him; and (4) that he would need to digest it, assimilate it into his very being,

Ezekiel 32:11-16 — General Sherman did the same thing in his march to the sea, during the Civil War. "Their rivers to run like oil" This is the only instance of the use of this particular metaphor in the Bible. "These `rivers of oil' were symbols of ethical blessedness (Job 29:6 and Deuteronomy 32:13)." Keil applied this to the righteous rule of Nebuchadnezzar; but Plumptre believed there are echoes of the future Messianic kingdom in the passage.E. H. Plumptre in the Pulpit Commentary, p. 167. "The rivers of oil here are

Ezekiel 36:16-21 — remarks was that Jehovah was an incompetent and impotent god, unable to protect his people. Although not mentioned by Ezekiel here, Israel was to blame for the blasphemy that rose among the pagan nations in other ways. Paul clearly stated in Romans 2:21-24 that, "The Jews were thieves, adulterers, robbers of temples, idolaters, and transgressors of the law, and that they dishonored the name of God," by reason of whom, "The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles." What Ezekiel says here in

Ezekiel 5:15-17 — beasts, and they shall bereave thee; and pestilence and blood shall pass through thee; and I will bring the sword upon thee: I, Jehovah, have spoken it." Greenberg cited no less than five phrases and expressions here that Ezekiel quoted from Leviticus 26.Moshe Greenberg, pp. 116, 117. It was for their violation of the covenant that came through Moses that resulted in God's fierce anger against Israel. "The evil arrows of famine" According to the Book of Moses (Deuteronomy 22:23), these evil arrows

Ezekiel 6:4-7 — times."Charles Lee Feinberg in Ezekiel (Moody Press), PP. 41. "Your sun-images" "These were pillars or obelisks connected with the worship of Baal, the sun god, and they were found standing near his altars."E. H. Plumptre in the Pulpit Commentary, p. 102. Some scholars have identified them as phallic symbols. "These high places were connected with Canaanite fertility rites, an orgiastic worship embodying drunkenness and cultic prostitution. Associated with such high places were idols, sacred stones,

Daniel 9:15-19 — intensity and fervency in the final clauses. Note also the repeated references to the destroyed temple and the devastated city. Also, of interest is the basis of Daniel's prayer: (1)    the previous blessings of God are mentioned; (2)    the persistent sins of the people are repeatedly confessed; (3)    it is admitted that the reproach which has fallen upon Israel is of their own sinful deeds and entirely their fault; (4)    not

Hosea 10:10 — two transgressions were, although it is quite generally accepted that it was the rejection of the Theocracy in the enthronement of Saul that constitutes one of them. Some of the sins thought to be the other one are: (1) the establishment of the cult, (2) defection from the house of David, (3) the calves at Dan and Bethel, (4) their falling into idolatry, etc. However, it does not appear that any of such things were any more identified with the people of Gibeah than with other places of Israel. But

Hosea 11:1 — associated the two events thus: "And he arose and took the young child and his mother by night, and departed into Egypt… that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord, through the prophet, saying, "Out of Egypt did I call my son" (Matthew 2:14-15). A tremendous weight of importance rides upon the necessary identification of the old Israel as a type of the new, Christ himself also being in reality positively identified with both, and making the old Israel, therefore, a type of the church.

Hosea 5:8 — Hebrews as the idiom for any type of general, emergency alert. Jesus Christ even applied it to the general assembly of all mankind for the Great Assize at the last day, an event which he said would be ushered in by "the sound of the trumpet." (Matthew 24:31). Paul used the same metaphor (1 Corinthians 15:52). The cornet and the trumpet appear here in parallel; Hosea did not mean to stress any difference in the instruments. The two were probably slight variants of the same instrument. The Mishna states

Hosea 8:13 — their fathers out of the bondage of Egypt; but now he will send their posterity into a bondage similar to or even worse than that of Egypt."J. J. Given, The Pulpit Commentary, Vol. 13, Hosea (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1950), p. 242. As a matter of fact, the bondage into which the northern kingdom fell was far worse than that of Egypt, because: (1) the nation would not continue to grow as it had in Egypt; (2) there would be no terminus of it; and (3) the complete amalgamation

Joel 2:13 — the reliance upon such outward things in the absence of the truly penitent condition they were designed to demonstrate. Joel here spoke of the same qualities of God's infinite graciousness, mercy, and lovingkindness that were known to Jonah (Jonah 4:2), but it is very unlikely that either writer had received much information from the other, the same being a part of the heritage of Israel, and fully known to long generations prior to either Joel or Jonah. "And repenteth him of evil" Such an expression

Zephaniah 3:1-3 — the particular excesses themselves. "The supreme sin of man's inhumanity to man is the inevitable consequence of false religion dealt with in Zephaniah's first two chapters."Clinton R. Gill, Minor Prophets, Zephaniah (Joplin: College Press, 1971), p. 222. In this light, perhaps the supreme sin should be understood as "false religion ? In any case, Zephaniah certainly dealt with the evils of injustice and exploitation in these very verses. "Polluted" "This word is a term usually connected with blood