Bible Commentaries

Psalms 80:1-7 — measure. Thou makest us a strife unto our neighbors; And our enemies laugh among themselves. Turn us again, O God of hosts; And cause thy face to shine, and we shall be saved." Barnes stated that there are two prayers here (Psalms 80:1-3 and Psalms 80:4-7), but there are similarities. God is petitioned for salvation in both; He is requested to "Turn us again" in both (Psalms 80:3; Psalms 80:7); and the reference to the Aaronic blessings of Numbers 6:25, "Cause thy face to shine," is in both (Psalms 80:3;

Isaiah 55:6-8 — the wicked way," "Forsake unrighteous thoughts," - there are twenty of these in the first seven verses! It is as if God is standing and screaming for men to heed his word and be saved. The balance of the chapter, and beginning right here in Isaiah 55:7, is devoted to the reasons why men should heed the Divine call to repentance, there being five of these: (1) "God will abundantly pardon" (Isaiah 55:7). (2) "My thoughts are not your thoughts," etc., (Isaiah 55:8). (3) A third for introduces this reason,

Jeremiah 23:1-4 — God did not "fear any more." There are most certainly overtones of the kingdom of heaven in the prophecy here. "The remnant of my flock" The doctrine of a righteous remnant appears extensively in the Old Testament. It is found in Isaiah 1:9; Isaiah 37:4; Micah 4:7; Micah 7:18, and in Jeremiah here, and in Jeremiah 24 and Jeremiah 40-44. One of the sons of Isaiah was named, "A remnant shall return," being in fact a double prophecy, not merely of the captivity, but also of the return to Palestine of

Jeremiah 49:7-13 — THE PROPHECY AGAINST EDOM (Jeremiah 49:7-22) A. EDOM'S JUDGMENT IS INEVITABLE (; Jeremiah 49:7-13) "Of Edom. Thus saith Jehovah of hosts: Is wisdom no more in Teman? is counsel perished from the prudent? is their vision vanished? Flee ye, turn back, dwell in the depths, O inhabitants of Dedan;

Ezekiel 38:1-6 — and overthrow of God was "just prior to the Millennium";G. R. Beasley-Murray in the New Bible Commentary, Revised, p. 682. but this cannot be true because the Lord has revealed that it will be after the thousand years reign of Christ (Revelation 20:7). On the contrary, it will occur as the terminal action of Satan's opposition to God and just prior to his overthrow in hell. Keil called attention to the fact that, "Ezekiel gives prominence to the leading of God in causing the nations to come against

Daniel 7:13-14 — appears that Christ received the kingdom only after the total and final destruction of the world kingdoms. However, the placement of this paragraph cannot indicate the chronological sequence of the event of Jesus' receiving the everlasting kingdom. Daniel 7:9-12 merely indicate the fact of the vision's continuing until the time of the judgment and the destruction of the four beasts. These verses do not teach that all of the world powers were destroyed before Christ's kingdom was established. Daniel 7:13-14

Amos 7:10-11 — priest of God! "His name (Yahweh is strong) is compounded with Yahweh and would indicate that the sanctuaries of Israel maintained the worship of Yahweh."J. Keir Howard, The New Layman's Bible Commentary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1979), p. 968. The same kind of argument would prove that the great New Testament preacher Apollos was a worshipper of Apollo. One can hardly understand the tenderness of so many commentators with regard to that utterly pagan and depraved worship of the

Luke 3:3 — baptism was a new rite, "not founded on the immersions of the old dispensation, but a divinely appointed act, peculiar to Christianity, and first introduced by John."H. Leo Boles, Commentary on the Gospel according to Luke (Nashville, 1940), p. 76. It is one of 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

John 10:1 — entereth not by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. (John 10:1) Verily, verily … See introduction of this chapter. Entereth not by the door … Christ is the true door (John 10:7) of access to the sheep who are the true Israel of God. It was Christ the door who opened up the whole burden of Old Testament prophecy concerning him and whose coming into the world was the only reason for the existence of Israel as a chosen people.

John 10:12 — being fully worthy of his hire; but it denotes a class of persons who merchandise holy things, not out of regard for sacred values, but purely from selfish and carnal motives. The wolf … was Jesus' usual designation of false teachers (Matthew 7:15 ff); and the modus operandi of such is always that of scattering the flock. The surest evidence of such a wolf is that which derives from this very characteristic. A "church buster" is invariably a wolf, regardless of his pretensions.

John 12:28 — thy name. There came therefore a voice out of heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again. Three times God spoke out of heaven during the ministry of Jesus: here, at the baptism, and at the transfiguration (Mark 1:11; Mark 9:7, and parallels). The Jews are said to have regarded thunder as an echo of the voice of God; but, "In all four Gospels, it is no mere echo of God's voice that is heard, but the direct speaking of the Father to the Son."Alan Richardson, op.

John 16:31 — ye now believe? … is not a questioning of their faith, which was genuine enough; but it was a warning against overconfidence. The Old Testament prophet had written, "Smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered" (Zechariah 13:7), and Mark (Mark 14:27) identified the scattering of the apostles during the Passion as the fulfillment of that prophecy. There is infinite pathos in these words. The scattering of the apostles, the smiting of the Shepherd, the Saviour's being left

John 4:22 — Ye worship that which ye know not: we worship that which we know; for salvation is from the Jews. Ye know not … The Samaritan worship (see under John 4:7) was faulty in several important factors. It was founded upon only a part of the word of God (the Pentateuch), and even that part was not strictly obeyed. Also, many polluting elements of paganism had been incorporated into it. That which we know …

Acts 22:9 — unto God; for no man heareth" (1 Corinthians 14:2), meaning, of course, simply that "no man understands what is being said." We have exactly the same meaning here, as proved by "hearing the voice, but beholding no man" (Acts 9:7). McGarvey said, "It is common among all classes of men to say (of a speaker) I did not hear, not meaning they could not hear the sound of the speaker's voice, but that they could not hear what he said." J. W. McGarvey, Commentary on Acts

1 Corinthians 4:2 — thought. In the New Testament, the term "steward" was applied to all Christians, "as good stewards of the manifold grace of God" (1 Peter 4:10), to elders of the church; "A bishop then must be blameless as God's steward" (Titus 1:7), and to apostles and preachers of the gospel in this verse. "It is important that those entrusted with the truth of God as stewards should be faithful and honest." David Lipscomb, Commentary on First Corinthians (Nashville: Gospel Advocate

1 Corinthians 4:9 — For, I think, God hath set forth us apostles last of all, as men doomed to death: for we are made a spectacle unto the world, both to angels and men. Beginning with 1 Corinthians 4:7, the remainder of this chapter is devoted to the rebuke of the false teachers and exposure of their sins of worldliness, vanity, conceit, vain glory and division. At the very moment of their sporting all those prideful airs of popularity and success,

2 Corinthians 1:2 — precedes PEACE. The former is the basis and the foundation of the latter. Therefore, the order cannot be changed. No man can have peace who has not previously experienced divine grace. Wick Broomall, Wycliffe Bible Commentary (Chicago: Moody Press, 1971), p. 651. God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ … "It should be noticed that the deity of Christ is plainly implied by the language of this verse." Philip E. Hughes, op. cit., p. 7. He is linked on an equality with God as the source

2 Corinthians 10:13 — within the limits which God authorized in order to authenticate the message he is addressing to the Corinthians, "to reach even unto you." The noble words of McGarvey on this place are: Though the whole world was Paul's bishopric (Galatians 2:7-9), yet he contents himself with saying that it included Corinth. In the eyes of his opponents, Corinth was the sum and center of all things, but in the larger life of Paul, it was a mere dot in a limitless field of operations J. W. McGarvey, Second

Hebrews 1:14 — "archangel" have been derived, these terms standing for the several ranks or powers of the angelic company. The intimate connection of the angels with the affairs of the kingdom of God is seen in the rejoicing of angels over one sinner that repents (Luke 15:7) and in the promise of Christ to confess his followers before God and his holy angels Mark 8:38). The angels attended Christ's earthly mission, announced his conception and his birth, strengthened him in Gethsemane, awaited his call during the passion,

Hebrews 5:5-6 — to Jesus in a way which, as far as we can tell, was unprecedented in the early church." Ibid., p. 94. The typical nature of Melchizedek and the manner of his foreshadowing the advent of the Saviour is deferred for full discussion later (Hebrews 7:1 ff), where the true and amazing likeness is brilliantly detailed. This first mention of it though, is very important because of its bearing upon the question of Christ's qualifications to be the great high priest. The logical weight of the argument