Bible Commentaries

Genesis 4:11 — "And now cursed art thou from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand." Adam and Eve were not cursed for their sin, but the far greater offense of Cain resulted in his being cursed, along with the ground itself. Aalders was correct in viewing this as an "extension"G. Ch. Aalders, op. cit., p. 124. of the cursing of the ground "for Adam's sake" in Genesis 3:17-18.

Proverbs 10:20 — "The tongue of the righteous is as choice silver: The heart of the wicked is little worth." Dod's paraphrase of the second clause is, "Sinful persons make a great show on the outside, but there's nothing within them that's worth anything"!Dod in the Preacher's Homiletic Commentary, Vol. 13, p. 170. Peter said to the lame man, "Silver and gold have I none," but his words were life, health and strength to the cripple.Acts 3:6 f.

Proverbs 11:2 — "When pride cometh, then cometh shame; But with the lowly is wisdom." A number of other proverbs regarding pride are Proverbs 13:10; Proverbs 15:33; Proverbs 16:18-19; Proverbs 18:12; Proverbs 22:4. "People who are proud will soon be disgraced. It is wiser to be modest."Good News Bible. The great sin of all mankind is pride; and Paul tells us that it was the sin that ruined Satan (1 Timothy 3:6).

Proverbs 27:21 — "The refining-pot for silver, and the furnace for gold; And a man is tried by his praise." This verse is very similar to Proverbs 17:3, with this difference: there Jehovah is the tester of men, and here it is the public, or the community. Toy rendered the passage, "The crucible for silver and the furnace for gold, and a man is to be estimated according to his reputation."International Critical Commentary, op. cit., p. 491.

Jeremiah 16:14-15 — prophecy. As Dummelow pointed out, this device of throwing in a bright and encouraging prophecy right in the middle of very discouraging and gloomy prophecies corresponds exactly with Jeremiah's pattern of writing throughout the prophecy. "See Jer. 3:14; 4:27; 5:10; 5:18; 37:22; 30:3; and 32:27."J. R. Dummelow's Commentary, p. 467. The thing that confuses some writers is the foolish critical rule that denies the authenticity of this sacred pattern; but the pattern is not only found throughout the

Matthew 11:10 — This is he, of whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, Who shall prepare the way before thee. Christ's selection of this prophecy from Malachi 3:1 and application of it to John proves two things: (1) that John the Baptist is that first messenger mentioned in that passage, and (2) that Jesus Christ is the Lord, "the messenger of the covenant" who even then had suddenly come to his temple.

Mark 12:18 — And there come unto him Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection; and they asked him, saying. THE SADDUCEES PRESENT THEIR QUESTION The Sadducees were the materialists of that day, denying not only any such thing as the resurrection, but the existence of angels as well. For more on the sects of the Pharisees and the Sadducees, see my Commentary on Matthew, Matthew 3:7. Significantly, these ancient enemies were here making common cause against the Lord.

Luke 3:3 — the seven baptisms mentioned in the New Testament.James Burton Coffman's Commentary on Matthew, p. 29. It consisted of the immersion of the penitent in water by the administrator, requiring John to preach where there was "much water" (John 3:23); and, coupled with repentance, it was "unto the remission of sins." John's baptism was, in fact, "God's baptism"; and those who rejected it rejected God (Luke 7:30). It was the only baptism ever submitted to by the apostles of

John 15:25 — thus revealing that the term "law" was a reference to the entire Old Testament. Passages referred to are: Let not them that are mine enemies wrongfully rejoice over me; Neither let them wink with the eye that hate me without a cause (Psalms 35:19). They trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive mischief and bring forth iniquity (Isaiah 59:4). Hated me without a cause … means "without a just cause." That there was indeed a reason why they hated Christ is plain in John

John 17:8 — extensive importance in understanding the inspiration of the Scriptures. Everything in the Bible points to the verbal nature of holy revelation. Jesus made an argument for immortality to rest on a single two-letter word, the verb "AM" in Exodus 3:14, and the mere tense of a verb at that! (Matthew 23:32). Paul likewise trusted the number of the noun "seed" (Galatians 3:16), as the definitive argument for the calling of all the saved in Christ. Jesus brought God's words to men. Therefore,

John 5:3 — In these lay a multitude of them that were sick, blind, halt, and withered. In these … that is, in the five porches of the pool. This pool was a popular health resort similar to such places all over the world, from Hot Springs, Arkansas, and Mineral Wells, Texas, to Bath in Somerset, England, where the father of King Lear was reputed to have been healed of leprosy.Encyclopedia Britannica (Chicago: William Benton, 1961), Vol. 3, p. 203.

John 9:18-19 — "modernism" in the religious community of our day. The attitude of the Pharisees here shows the folly of supposing that evidence of any kind can persuade men whose purpose is to disbelieve. Faith is a moral thing, as well as intellectual (John 3:19). They called his parents … They overreached themselves in this, for they promptly corroborated the son's identity and the fact of his being born blind. The whole neighborhood could have done the same. It was another example of how the Lord

John 9:25 — Whether he is a sinner, I know not: but one thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see. This return of the healed man to the facts of the wonder was the last thing the Pharisees wanted; and his words are construed as an opposition to their designs. The miracle was proof that Jesus was no sinner; and the Sanhedrin knew this, as one of their own members had admitted (John 3:2).

Acts 10:7-8 — authority more like that of a colonel or general in present-day armies, rather than that of a captain, with which rank centurion is usually equated. The detail thus dispatched by Cornelius left almost immediately; because their arrival time at Joppa, some 30 miles distant, on the following day about noon, demands the understanding that they departed for Joppa about 3:00 o'clock that same afternoon of the angel's visitation, the same being the ninth hour (Acts 10:3). See under Acts 10:9. The promptness

Acts 3:16 — healed the cripple, the faith in view being not of the cripple at all, but of the men who healed him. Following this explanation, Peter went on with his sermon; and, somewhat later, when again he would announce terms of redemption to men, his words (Acts 3:19) were in perfect agreement with what he had announced on Pentecost. The conceit that Peter's mention of faith in this verse was due to his having discovered by some means or other that baptism was no longer a condition of salvation is founded upon

Romans 16:20 — Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Those commentators who view this eschatologically and allege that Paul expected the end of the world shortly, miss the plain point of this verse. Murray was absolutely correct when he saw this as an allusion to Genesis 3:15. As he said: "God of peace" in this place clearly has reference to God's maintaining peace in the church, because of its particular relevance to the bruising of Satan. The previous verses have in view the division caused by Satan's instruments.

Romans 3:14 — Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Paul was continuing to pile up scriptures to prove the wickedness of that generation which rejected Christ. This verse is a paraphrase of Psalms 10:7; and, like the three charges listed in Romans 3:13, deals with sins of the tongue. The fact that this class of sins is mentioned at such length in this context shows how important the tongue is as an indicator of character.

Romans 3:24 — is, in some ways, the most important in all the Pauline writings, where this expression, or its equivalent, "in whom," "in him," etc., is used no less than 169 times. John Mackay, God's Order (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1953), p. 97. What does it mean to be "in Christ"? It means to be in his spiritual body, called the church, the body of which Christ is the head, of which he is declared to be the Saviour, and which means having a spiritual relationship to Christ,

Joshua 5 overview — recounts: (1)    the near-panic that settled over the Canaanites (Joshua 5:1); (2)    the circumcision of the males of the Israelites, a rite that had been neglected for many of them during the wilderness wanderings (Joshua 5:2-9); (3)    the third instance of Israel's observing the Passover (Joshua 5:10-12); and (4)    the great Christophany in which "the Captain of the Hosts of Jehovah appeared to Joshua" (Joshua 5:13-15).

2 Thessalonians 2 overview — The great feature of this chapter, of course, is Paul's great prophecy of "the man of sin" (2 Thessalonians 2:3-10), for a full discussion of which, see excursus at the end of the chapter. The prophecy is preceded by a warning that the Thessalonians should not expect the Second Advent immediately (2 Thessalonians 2:1-2), and followed by an expression of renewed thanksgiving and prayer upon their behalf (2 Thessalonians 2:13-17).