Bible Commentaries

1 Kings 12:25-33 — him."J. R. Dummelow's Commentary, p. 220. There is absolutely nothing in all the Bible that supports any such notion. The comment that, "The bull images set up by Jeroboam were traditional symbols of Yahweh's strength,"The Layman's Bible Commentary, Vol. 7., p. 50. cannot possibly be correct. "W. F. Albright has built an excellent case on archaeological grounds showing that bull images were not images of Jehovah, but pedestals upon which the invisible God of Israel stood,"Wycliffe Old Testament Commentary,

2 Kings 17 overview — written here. The great facts of the chapter are as clear as our solar orb on a cloudless day when the sun is at perihelion. (1)    The day of grace for the Northern Israel expired, and God removed them "out of his sight" (2 Kings 17:18). Therefore, we may safely ignore the Book of Mormon and its fairy tale about the American Indians being "the lost ten tribes," as well as all the other cock and bull stories that, throughout history, have located those lost tribes in half a dozen

2 Chronicles 29:1-11 — THE BEGINNING OF THE REIGN OF HEZEKIAH XII. HEZEKIAH (715-687 B.C.) HEZEKIAH'S MOVE TO RESTORE THE TRUE WORSHIP "Hezekiah began to reign when he was five and twenty years old; and he reigned nine and twenty years in Jerusalem; and his mother's name was Abijah, the daughter of Zechariah. And he did that which

Leviticus 8:31-36 — of this passage thus: "The eating of the sacrifices and the bread illustrates the necessity of believer-priests feeding upon Christ (John 6:50-55) and remembering the benefits of His death through partaking of the Lord's table (1 Corinthians 11:25-27). The seven-day span of the feast may envision this present age, when a heavenly priesthood (the church) is spiritually feasting on Christ."Merrill F. Unger, op. cit., p. 157. The necessity for the priests to remain at the door of the tent of meeting

Jeremiah 20:14-18 — understand how they should be interpreted. PROPOSED SOLUTIONS: (1)    The boldest and most radical solution was proposed a long while ago by Ewald. "He simply moved this bottom paragraph and placed it between Jeremiah 20:6 and Jeremiah 20:7."E. Henderson, The Book of the Prophet Jeremiah (London: Hamilton, Adams, and Company, 1851), p. 119. That, of course, would solve the problem completely. Opposed to this is the fact that the arrangement of the verses as in this chapter is likewise

Ezekiel 30:10-12 — Egyptian gods would be destroyed or carried away in the Babylonian quest for victory and wealth. All of Egypt's allies would fall to the sword: Ethiopia and Lydia in western Anatolia (modern Turkey), Arabia in the east, Lydia in the west (Ezekiel 30:5-7), Put and Lud in the west; and even those `people of the covenant land,' the Jews who fled to Egypt following the murder of Gedaliah would suffer the ravages of the Babylonian invasion. The judgment of God would be comprehensive; it would be awful;

Daniel 8:5-8 — PROPHECY OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT This is so clear a prophecy that there is no wonder that Alexander the Great recognized himself in it when it was shown to him. Again we have the clear consonance of this vision with the earlier ones in Daniel 2 and Daniel 7. The Greek kingdom of Alexander was represented in the first as belly and thighs of brass, and in the second by a leopard with four wings. The four wings, of course, stand for swiftness; and here that characteristic is inherent in the fact that this

Amos 3:3-6 — gin is set for him? shall a snare spring from the ground, and have taken nothing at all? Shall the trumpet be blown in a city, and the people not be afraid? Shall evil befall a city, and Jehovah hath not done it? These verses are the prelude to Amos 3:7-8, below; and they consist of a series of questions, each of which demands a negative answer from the hearers, an answer that is not awaited, for it is considered obvious. "Shall two walk together" Israel's having forsaken God's way means that they

Numbers 33:1-49 — and there, one of the names corresponds with the location of events related in Exodus. "Twelve of the places mentioned are mentioned nowhere else in the Bible."John Joseph Owens, Broadman Bible Commentary, Vol. 2, Numbers (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1970), p. 168. "Of all the seventeen places listed between Numbers 33:19-36, not a single one is known or can be pointed out with certainty (with the possible exception of Ezion-geber)."C. F. Keil, Commentary on the Old Testament, Vol. 1 (Grand Rapids:

Malachi 2:10 — Lewis, The Minor Prophets (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1968), p. 85. but he "was not thinking in terms of the universal brotherhood of man," but rather of "brotherly loyalty within the nation of Israel."Joyce G. Baldwin, op. cit., p. 237. It is a false view that the mere fact of a common Creator forms any kind of a practical or legitimate foundation for an era of good will among the sons of Adam. The only "brotherhood of man" that has any possibility whatever of resolving the savage

Matthew 18:12-14 — account of it, it appears to have been spoken as an argument against the Pharisees who would go to a lot of trouble for a lost animal but had no regard for a lost man. The parables are the same, but they are spoken with significant variations (Luke 15:3-7). In the Scriptures, goats are used to represent sinners, and sheep represent Christians. The lost sheep, therefore, represents a child of God who has become a backslider, who is separated from the fold, and from the Shepherd. Note these facts about

Luke 1:5 — by Octavius, to whom Herod had given large sums of money. He was a descendent of Esau and fully as profane as his progenitor. Technically, he reigned from 40 B.C. to the year of his death in 4 B.C.; but his actual control of the country dates from 37 B.C.Encyclopedia Britannica, Vol. 11, p. 510. The event narrated here occurred in either 7 B.C. or 5 B.C., depending upon the exact date assigned to the birth of our Lord. Dummelow favored 6 B.C.,J. R. Dummelow, op. cit., p. 627. and Boles 4 B.C.H.

Luke 10:13-14 — understanding. Obviously, there shall be many surprises in the judgment. J. W. McGarvey pointed out that "When the time came for evangelizing the Gentiles, Tyre and Sidon accepted the gospel and verified the words of this text (Acts 21:3-6; Acts 27:3).J. W. McGarvey, Commentary on Matthew (Delight, Arkansas: The Gospel Light Publishing Company), p. 100. For more on Tyre and Sidon, see in my Commentary on Mark, under Mark 7:24. In sackcloth and ashes … Clothing oneself in the coarsest of

Luke 21:37-38 — every day … The fact that Jesus taught "every day" of the final week contradicts the near-unanimous opinions of scholars to the effect that "Wednesday and Thursday were spent in retirement."H. D. M. Spence, op. cit., p. 187. Robertson, in his "Harmony of the Gospels," scheduled no word or event from Jesus on Wednesday, and nothing on Thursday except the Last Supper.A. T. Robertson, A Harmony of the Gospels (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1922), pp. 189-190.

Acts 14:23 — op. cit., p. 229. ELDERS Trenchard wrote that: It is widely agreed that during the apostolic age, elder = bishop (overseer) = pastor, and that there was a plurality of these in each local church, forming the presbytery. E. H. Trenchard, op. cit., p. 317. As a matter of fact, there are no less than six New Testament words which refer to exactly the same office, that of elder mentioned here. Bishop ([@episkopos]) translated "overseer" Presbyter translated "elder" Pastor translated

Acts 15:13-18 — the Gentiles should be free from the observance of the Law, and gave him the right hand of fellowship. After this the result of the Council was a foregone conclusion. J. R. Dummelow, Commentary on the Holy Bible (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1937), p. 838. It is evident that Dummelow is correct in this, which means that the decisive part of the confrontation in Jerusalem took place before the formal gathering, that it was dominated and controlled, not by the Pharisee party in Jerusalem, but

Acts 6:7 — teaching" by Stephen, whose talent did not consist of inventing new teachings but in the skilled advocacy of the teachings "once for all" delivered to the apostles. As will appear more clearly in Stephen's speech (fully reported in Acts 6:7), there was no "new" element in it. Obedient to the faith … Here is another outcropping of that fundamental fact of the New Testament, making "faith" not a subjective thing at all but an objective obedience of the gospel commandments.

Romans 12:6-8 — patterns of human behavior. Prophecy … Although there were prophets, in the usual present-day sense of the word, in New Testament times, as, for example, Agabus (Acts 21:10), the meaning of the word here has a wider application. Exodus 4:16; Exodus 7:1, shows that Aaron was Moses' prophet, or spokesman; and, in that view, every preacher and teacher of God's word is a prophet. This view is consistent with 1 Corinthians 14:3: He that prophesieth speaking unto men unto edification, and exhortation,

Romans 8:9 — simple! Man, by the very nature of his creation, is free only to the extent of being able to choose between good and evil, between God and Satan. There are not ten thousand ways, but only two. Jesus called them the narrow way and the broad way (Matthew 7:13-14). But that glorious right of decision makes all the difference. It is the most priceless endowment of life on earth. Man was created in God's image; and, although sin has eroded and defaced the sacred likeness, enough divinity remains in every

Judges 13:1 — it, not realizing the awful danger of losing their identity by an amalgamation with the Philistines. "And God gave them into the hand of the Philistines for forty years" "This forty years lasted at least unto the second battle of Ebenezer (1 Samuel 7:10 ff)."The New Bible Commentary, Revised, p. 269. THE HISTORY OF THE PHILISTINES In the history of Israel, the Philistines appeared very early as an obstacle in the way of what Israel desired to do. When Moses led Israel out of Egypt, the Philistines