Bible Commentaries

Genesis 12:1-3 — and I will bless them that bless thee, and him that curseth thee I will curse; and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed." "Jehovah said unto Abram" We are not informed as to the manner of God's communicating with Abram; but Acts 7:2 declares that, "The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham." God is Spirit, and it might be conjectured that in this call there occurred one of the great theophanies which, again and again, marked God's dealings with His people. "Unto the land

Exodus 30 overview — This chapter is of unusual importance, detailing the instructions for the golden altar of incense (Exodus 30:1-10); the institution of the poll-tax for the ransom of souls (Exodus 30:11-16); the command for making a bronze laver (Exodus 30:17-21) the formula for making the holy oil for anointing (Exodus 30:22-33); and the recipe for making the holy incense (Exodus 30:34-38). Efforts of critics to downgrade this chapter by making it a late addition to the instructions in Exodus 25, when examined

Nahum 1:2 — commentators boldly criticize what they call "the religious inadequacy of his teachings." Graham said, "Nahum provides an outstanding example of arrested religious development!"William C. Graham, Abingdon Bible Commentary (New York: Abingdon Press, 1929), p. 799. THE WRATH OF GOD A search of current sermonic literature reveals no single sermon devoted to "The Wrath of God"; and in sermon topics in preachers' manuals and even the most extensive commentaries, it is mentioned, if at all, in the most

Zephaniah 1:18 — be conducted upon the basis or what any man has, but upon the basis of what he is, and whether or not he loves and serves God. "Whole land shall be devoured by fire" The apostle Peter elaborated this description of the earth's destruction by fire in 2 Peter 3:10-13, a thing that the apostle most surely would not have done without the certain knowledge that what he wrote was in full harmony with the will and teachings of the Saviour of all men. "End… of all them that dwell in the land" Our

Zechariah 14:21 — more a Canaanite in the house of Jehovah of hosts." We believe that the purpose here is to show that even those vessels (pots) once excluded from the lists of the sacred, shall in the new age be as holy as the "bowls before the altar" (Zechariah 14:20). Such a conclusion as that of Mitchell, supposing that the pots were much more numerous than the bowls, and from this concluding that the verse teaches a vast "increase in the number of worshippers,"Hinckley G. Mitchell, op. cit., p. 356 while true

Zechariah 3:2 — who returned were but a handful compared to the ones who remained in Babylon. Unless God had plucked them as a brand from the fire, they would no longer have been a people."Clinton R. Gill, Minor Prophets (Joplin, Missouri: College Press, 1971), p. 279. This whole vision should be understood exactly for what it is, a vision, an enacted metaphor of reality. The law-court scene in which Satan appears as prosecutor and the angel of God as defender of God's people is an enacted figure of speech, one

Matthew 15:5-6 — their tradition. Behold the life cycle of tradition: (1)    First appears the innovation, something new, clothed with specious plausibility, riding the crest of some unusual occasion, some exceptional circumstance, or emergency. (2)    It is repeated and moves into a place of acceptance as something allowed, occasionally at first, invariably afterwards. (3)    It becomes appreciated as an "aid" to the worship, something helpful. (4)    Eventually,

Matthew 26:17 — hastening his death by the breaking of his legs (as they intended) was precisely for the purpose of preventing his body from remaining upon the cross over the Passover (15th Nisan), which began technically at sundown the day he suffered (14th Nisan). 2.    If the day of the crucifixion had been the Passover (15th Nisan), the officers and men who arrested Jesus the night before (after the Passover had legally begun) would not have borne arms on such a high day. 3.    If

Matthew 26:38-39 — (in the person of Christ) to pay the penalty of man's redemption. God had "passed over" the sins of countless generations, knowing what he at last would do; but then the time had come for God to "show his righteousness" (Romans 3:25-26) in having so done. Satan marshaled every possible force to thwart God's purpose. Having found it impossible to murder the Lord, which he had repeatedly attempted, there remained only two means of possible victory for the evil one. These were: (1)

Matthew 3:7 — tend to be obscured by the fact that they opposed the work of Christ. Ledlow lists seven distinct classes of Pharisees, as follows: (1) The Shoulder Pharisee who wore all his good deeds on his shoulder and did his alms to be seen of men (Matthew 6:5); (2) The Wait-a-Little Pharisee who always suggested something else to do first. Of this type was the man who when asked to follow Christ said, "Suffer me first to go and bury my father" (Luke 9:59-60); (3) The Bruised Pharisee who was too pious

Matthew 4:18 — of an ordinary or degraded social position. True they were not members of the aristocracy; but Luke shows these four men, including James and John, to have been partners in a business (Luke 5:7); Mark mentions two hired servants in the boat (Mark 1:20); and it is evident from John 18:16 that John was favorably known to the high priest. Such considerations make it imperative to think of these men as far above ordinary persons. Socially, they were of the stable middle class which constituted at that

Deuteronomy 5:1-33 — unaware, apparently, that the Hebrew writers paid little or no regard to the number of pronouns. "They are used apparently at random"Peter E. Cousins, The New Layman's Bible Commentary, Deuteronomy (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1979), p. 290. throughout whole sections of this book. This same frustration has also led to some very weak and worthless interpretations. We are happy indeed to find more and more scholars who are returning to the conviction that these (the books of the Pentateuch)

Mark 10:45 — translated were understood by the Jews as applicable to martyrs, and they indicate the voluntary nature of Christ's atoning death. People did not take his life, except in a limited sense, for Jesus gave his life as a ransom for men (John 10:17-18). (2)    "A ransom …" The Greek word thus rendered denoted the ransom of a prisoner of war, or of a slave. The Old Testament use of the word in the Septuagint (LXX) meant the money a man paid to redeem his life which

Mark 4:30-32 — have been built in the kingdom of God cannot corrupt the institution with which they are connected by association only, actually having no identity whatever with it. This interpretation is supported by Matthew 13:4; Matthew 13:19, and Revelation 18:2. The person planting the seed does not appear prominently in the parable; but the kingdom of God which was produced by it identifies the sower here with God, or Christ, as in the parable of the sower. The following analogies are discernible: The seed

Mark 5:2 — POSSESSION Trench called this miracle "the most important, and, in many respects, the most perplexing of all the cures of demoniacs"; Richard C. Trench, Notes on the Miracles (Old Tappan, New Jersey: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1943), p. 162. and this is an appropriate place to give attention to this phenomenon which is mentioned in all the gospels. Demon possession may not be identified merely as mental disorders, or various kinds of sickness, because a differentiation between them is

John 1:51 — And he saith unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Ye shall see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man. Ryle noted that the expression "Verily, verily" is unique to this Gospel, being used in it 25 times, always by Jesus, and having the equivalent meaning of "Amen, amen." It always implied a solemn and emphatic statement of some great truth. No other New Testament writer ever used this solemn double "Amen."J. C. Ryle, op.

Romans 5:1 — through our Lord Jesus Christ. Justified by faith … has invariably the meaning of "justified by an obedient faith," as in the case of Abraham. See the preceding chapter. Also, for further explanation of this synecdoche, see under Romans 3:22. Both at the beginning and ending of Romans, Paul defined "faith" in the sense of its being "the obedience of faith"; and although this has been cited before, the extravagant and vociferous claims to the effect that Paul really

1 Corinthians 12:10 — Sapphira, saying that "The miracles of mercy stand higher in God's esteem than those which execute his judgments and mete out punishment." J. W. McGarvey, Commentary on 1 Corinthians (Cincinnati, Ohio: Standard Publishing Company, 1916), p. 123. Prophecy … Gifts of prophecy, including the ability to foretell future events, were the endowment of certain Christians in the apostolic age; and there would appear to have been two orders of these, the higher including those mentioned under

1 Corinthians 14 overview — of tongues at Corinth was no different from what it was on Pentecost; and there is a considerable weight of evidence to support this. Paul and Luke were friends; and the use of the same word to describe God's gift is used here which is used in Acts 2; and, since Acts was written by Luke at a time after Paul wrote the Corinthians, "It would seem logical that Luke would have noted the distinction between the two phenomena, if any existed." S. Lewis Johnson, Jr., Wycliffe Commentary (Chicago:

Revelation 18 overview — consideration seems certain; but Criswell thought that Revelation 18 deals with the particular "judgment of God himself upon Babylon," W. A. Criswell, Expository Sermons on Revelation (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1962), IV, p. 16. as sharply distinguished from the judgment of Revelation 17, in which "the nations of earth, not by the intervention of heaven, but by something that mankind does, grow weary of her and destroy her." Ibid. As we see it, this is