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July 11, 2025
Dear friends,
Last week, we started our conversation about the third section of the Old Testament as we have it in our Bibles, the section we call the Poetic Books. There are five books in this section and here is the list in the order they appear in our Bible:
Job
Psalms
Proverbs
Ecclesiastes
Song of Songs (also knows as the Song of Solomon)
For this piece I am going to cover the Book of Job
You might be surprised that the Book of Job is a part of the poetic section, but it is a book that employs some wonderfully poetic language. I think most of us know that the Book of Job is about human suffering. The Book of Job does not explain the mystery of suffering or “justify the ways of God” with human beings, but it does probe the depths of faith amid the trials of human suffering. The book is divided into three sections: a discussion between Job and his three friends (chapters 3-31), a statement by Elihu, a contemporary of Job and his friends, (chapters 32-37) and the speeches of the Lord (chapters 38-42). Satan plays a critical role in this story. Satan is a Hebrew word that literally means “adversary” or “accuser.”
The story introduces a profound question that comes on the lips of Satan: “Does Job serve God only because it is profitable for him, that is, because God has been good to him?” Job was a good man with ten children, many animals and many servants. The text says that he was blameless and upright. When Satan suggested that Job only feared God because God had protected him and blessed him, God agreed to test Job. Job lost all his property and even his children. He responded by mourning and worshipping, but not by sinning or by charging God with any wrongdoing. As if that wasn’t enough, Job then developed sores all over his body. His wife suggested that he should curse God, but Job would not. Three of his friends heard about his situation and traveled to be with him in his suffering. After a week of sitting with his friends in silence, Job finally spoke and cursed the day he was born. His friends took turns speaking to Job. They accused him of wrongdoing and suggested his troubles were punishment for his sin. They presented a traditional understanding of God’s action in the world and the presence of suffering. Job hated his life and was unable to find any peace. Wicked people went unpunished, but Job, who was guiltless, lost everything; how could that be? Finally, God answered Job from the whirlwind with an extended series of questions about Job’s participation in the creation of the world, “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding…” (Job 38:4). Job responded by acknowledging that God could do all things, most of which were beyond his understanding, and he repented. In the closing verses of the book, God told Job’s friends that they were wrong and that Job was right about the nature of God. The friends were instructed to offer sacrifices to Job and were told that Job would pray for them. He did pray for them and God heard his prayer. Job’s fortunes are restored twofold and again was given ten children and many animals.i
In the poetic language of the book, God is at work in the universe, even “to bring rain on the land where no one lives” (Job 38:26). God is fully aware of evil (personified by the monsters Behemoth and Leviathan (Job 40:15 – 41:34), but at the same time God cares for Job so much that God reveals Godself personally to him and shares with him the vision of cosmic responsibilities. A God who confesses the burdens God carries to a human being is a God who is profoundly involved in human destiny. The restoration of Job in chapter 42 beginning at verse 7 and following is not the point of the book, it merely serves to reveal Job’s integrity and the truth of Divine generosity.ii
Peace,
Dave.
i Tyler Mayfield, A Guide to Bible Basics, Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, KY: 2018; pp. 111-112.. ii The New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocryphal / Deuterocanonical Books, Bruce M. Metzger and Roland E. Murphy eds., Oxford University Press, New York, NY; 1991; pp. 625 OT.
July 6, 2025
Dear friends,
We have now come to the third section of the Old Testament as we have it in our Bibles and that is the section that has been termed the Poetic Books. The Bible is full of different genres that need to be read with different sensibilities. For example, a person doesn’t read a history book the same way they might read a book of poetry. We approach those two kinds of literature very differently with different expectations. We have just come through the historical section of the Old Testament and now we will need to change gears a bit as we look at the beautiful prose and poetry offered in this section of the Old Testament. Here is the list of books in the poetry section in the order they appear in our Bible:
Job
Psalms
Proverbs
Ecclesiastes
Song of Songs (also knows as the Song of Solomon)
All five of these books appear in the “Writings,” section of the of the Hebrew Bible. The “Writings” is the third and final part of the Hebrew canon. Lamentations and Daniel also appear in this section of the Hebrew Bible, whereas they are listed among the Prophetic books in our Bible. You may, from time to time, come across the designation “Wisdom Literature.” This is a more modern designation that refers to three of these five books on our Bible namely: Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes. The term “Wisdom Literature” also refers to two additional books that we find in our apocrypha: Sirach, also known as The Wisdom of Ben Sira or Ecclesiasticus (not to be confused with Ecclesiastes) and the Wisdom of Solomon.
These are wonderful books, we know them and we love them. Next week, I will attempt to cover all five of these books in more detail.
Peace,
Dave.
June 27, 2025
Dear friends,
We are now at the end of our discussion of the Historical section of the Old Testament. Last week we looked at Ezra and Nehemiah. Today we will focus on the Book of Esther.
Once again, I want to keep the full order of the Historical section of the Old Testament in front of you,
Joshua
Judges
Ruth
1 and 2 Samuel
1 and 2 Kings
1 and 2 Chronicles
Ezra
Nehemiah
Esther
The Book of Esther is associated with the Jewish holiday of Purim. It is named after the book’s main character who was a Jewish woman who became a Persian Queen. Let’s get into the story.
As the story of Esther opens, King Ahasuerus of Persia is in power. In the third year of his reign, the king apparently gave a lavish banquet for all his ministers and officials and the nobles and governors of the surrounding provinces. That banquet lasted for half the year. When that was complete he gave a much smaller banquet for all the people of his kingdom that lasted only a week. On the last day of that banquet, he requested that his wife Vashti come to him and reveal her beauty to the kingdom, but she refused to come. Because of her disobedience, the king banished her and he went in search of another queen. Esther was brought before the king and he fell in love with her and made her queen. Now Esther was a Jewish woman who, after her parent’s had died, was adopted by her cousin Mordecai. The king made her his queen NOT knowing that she was Jewish.
As the story continues, Esther’s cousin Mordecai learned of a plot to kill the king and he told it to Esther who in turn told the king what Mordecai had discovered. The assassination plot came from within the king’s court, so the king had the instigators hanged and he appointed Haman to be his right-hand man. Mordecai refused to bow down to Haman, however, and it so infuriated him that, after finding out that Mordecai was a Jew, Haman devised a plan to kill all the Jews throughout the kingdom. In an underhanded way, Haman convinced the king to write a decree that all Jews should be killed. Mordecai learned of the plan and asked Esther to use her influence with the king to stop the decree. Remember, the king does not yet know that Esther is Jewish. So, Esther planned a banquet and invited both King Ahasuerus and Haman to come. In the meantime, Haman had constructed gallows and was hoping to convince the king to hang Mordecai, but that was not in the cards. The night before the banquet, the king could not sleep so he asked that the record books be read to him and when he heard about Mordecai’s earlier help with the assassination plot, he wanted to honor him. The king asked Haman what he should do to honor someone who had performed a favorable deed toward the king. Haman, thinking the king was intending to honor him, answered that the person should receive royal robes, a horse, and a royal crown and be paraded around the open city square. The king immediately responded that Haman should quickly do all of this for the Mordecai. Haman complied, then he returned home utterly humiliated.
At the banquet the next day, the king offered to grant Esther any request that she might have. Esther revealed her Jewish identity to him and requested that her people be spared. When the king asked who devised the plan to kill the Jews, Esther pointed at Hamen who was sitting at the table. The king ordered that Hamen be hanged on the same gallows that had been prepared for Mordecai. Esther then requested that the king write to the provinces of the kingdom declaring that the Jews could defend themselves against any attacking forces. Over the next two days, the Jews struck down their enemies. The Festival of Purim was established to celebrate the end of these skirmishes.i
This is a great story, but from a Biblical scholarship point of view, it is a bit complicated. There are actually two versions of this story, the Hebrew version that we have in our Bible and a Greek version that has an additional 107 verses. The Hebrew version of Esther has been criticized by Jewish and Christian people alike for not being “religious” enough. For example, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is not mentioned a single time in the entire book. It has also been faulted for its moral tone. Basic Judaic values such as kindness, mercy and forgiveness are not really found in the story. In fact, many Jewish and Christian people alike have lamented the vengeful, bloodthirsty and chauvinistic nature of the story.
Now, the Greek version tries to remedy this to some degree by adding the words, “Lord,” or “God” more than 50 times throughout the narrative. However, the Greek version is also quite anti-gentile, interestingly enough, which is not something that is present in the Hebrew version. Beginning with the King James Version of the Bible, the Greek version of the story of Esther was added to the Apocrypha and that is where we can find it today in our Bible. The Hebrew and Greek versions are both thought to be mostly fictional in spite of the story’s historical trappings. The Greek version, however, was clearly written after the Hebrew version and meant to give the story a more “religious” context. In its present form, the Hebrew version of Esther dates to a period just prior to the Maccabean Period (167-135 BC).ii
So here ends our look at the historical section of the Old Testament. Next week we will be on to the poetic books.
Peace,
Dave.
i Tyler Mayfield, A Guide to Bible Basics, Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, KY: 2018; pp. 106-107. ii The New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocryphal / Deuterocanonical Books, Bruce M. Metzger and Roland E. Murphy eds., Oxford University Press, New York, NY; 1991; pp. 612 OT, 41-42 AP
June 20, 2025
Dear friends,
We are coming to the end of our discussion of the Historical section of the Old Testament. Last week, we looked at First and Second Chronicles. We noted that these two books offer a perspective on the period that extends from Genesis through Second Kings that is quite different from the Deuteronomist’s perspective that begins with the Book of Deuteronomy and runs through Second Kings. This brings us to the last three books of this section, namely Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther. Today we will focus on Ezra and Nehemiah. Next week, we will finish our discussion of the Historical section of the Bible with a look at the Book of Esther.
Once again, I want to keep the full order of the Historical section of the Old Testament in front of you,
Joshua
Judges
Ruth
1 and 2 Samuel
1 and 2 Kings
1 and 2 Chronicles
Ezra
Nehemiah
Esther
Like First and Second Kings and First and Second Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah was once a single book that was called Ezra. The Book of Ezra is named after the main character in the narrative and the book focuses on the return of the Israelites from their exile in Babylon and the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem.[i] For the sake of our conversation here, we will discuss these two books, Ezra and Nehemiah, as if they were really one.
In antiquity, several books circulated under the name of Ezra, not just the books that we know today as Ezra and Nehemiah. In our Apocrypha, for example, the Book of Esdras tells the story of Ezra and could very well be one of these other books that was in circulation then. The version of Ezra and Nehemiah that we have in our Bible is attributed to the Chronicler and many scholars think that it was prepared as a supplement to the Book of Chronicles. The Book of Chronicles ends with the destruction of Jerusalem and the carrying away of treasure and captives (this occurred around 587 BC). The first verses that appear in this supplement (that is Ezra), appear also at the end of Chronicles and tell the story of how some returned from captivity and labored at restoring religion to a newly restored temple in a newly rebuilt and reinforced Jerusalem. [ii] Just to remind you, Cyrus the Great conquered Babylon, perhaps the greatest city in antiquity, in 539 BC. Cyrus is the one who freed the Israelites to go back to their homeland and rebuild it.
It is important to understand when reading these two books that not everybody was exiled to Babylon under Nebuchadnezzar II. The weak, the infirm, the very young, stayed behind in the burned-out shell of what was left of Jerusalem. Over the course of the 50-plus years of the exile, those left behind didn’t have much of a life. The Babylonians took into exile the best and the brightest of Hebrew people, including the young, the strong, and the skilled. Those left behind didn’t have the resources to rebuild and so they floundered and wandered away from their religious roots. So, the author of Ezra and Nehemiah wanted to portray the returning exiles as that godly remnant who were on a religious mission. It is also important to remember that not everybody returned at the same time. Many Hebrews had built a life for themselves in Babylon and they were in no hurry to return home.
There seem to have been four stages to the return from exile:
1. The first was under Cyrus the Great (around 538 BC) and was led by a man named Sheshbazzar who is the one who commenced rebuilding the temple. He encountered resistance from that remnant that had not been exiled. Because of the local opposition, he had to leave the project unfinished.
2. Another group returned during the reign of Darius I (521-485) and was led by a man named Zerubbabel who also encountered opposition, but with the encouragement of the prophets Haggai and Zechariah (two of the minor prophets), he was able to get the Temple completed.
3. Another group returned under the reign of Artaxerxes I (464-423) led by Ezra who brought with him the codification of the Mosaic law.
4. Finally, a group returned under the reign of Artaxerxes II (404-358) led by Nehemiah who came twice under Artaxerxes I to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem and attempt to reestablish the purity of the religious/worshipping community.[iii]
As you can see it took almost 200 years for the exiles to return home to Israel from Babylon and rebuild the Temple and the city of Jerusalem.
The ancient city of Babylon is about 80 miles southwest of current day Baghdad in Iran. Today the modern city of Hillah stands on top of the ancient ruins of that once great city. It strikes me today how much animosity remains between the people of Israel and the people who occupy what was once the heart of the Babylonian Empire. As bombs fly today between these two nations, Israel and Iran, there is so much we need to understand about the history of this part of the world before we can hope to have peace.
Next week, we will take a look at the Book of Esther and then we will be on to the poetic books.
Peace,
Dave.
[i] Tyler Mayfield, A Guide to Bible Basics, Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, KY: 2018; pp. 98.
[ii] The New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocryphal / Deuterocanonical Books, Bruce M. Metzger and Roland E. Murphy eds., Oxford University Press, New York, NY; 1991; pp. 581 OT.
[iii] Ibid.