Introduction and Background Basics

Transcript

GRS 1
Introduction and Background Basics
Old Testament Survey
January 12, 1986
Gil Rugh

I’d encourage you that as we get into the books of the Bible, starting with Genesis, that you’d take the time to be reading a chapter a day, Monday through Friday. And encourage your family to be doing that and provide some good opportunity for discussion, perhaps at your dinner table in the evening. Did you read your chapter today? What did you think of it? Oh, boy, I didn’t understand anything there or that was dry or I thought there was an interesting point. Good for your children as well. Provide a basis for you to have some good discussion around the Word of God.

I recommend you get a good study Bible. We used to use the New Scofield Reference Bible and since we went to the New American Standard Bible, why it’s a little hard to find a reference Bible. I recommend to you the Ryrie Study Bible. It’s available with the New American Standard text in it. I find myself basically in agreement with Ryrie’s notes and find them very helpful. The biggest difficulty with that Bible, it’s like carrying around an unabridged dictionary. But the format is very nice as well. There’s a lot of white space on the page. That makes easy reading and also provides a lot of room for notes where you can write in the margin and that helps you as you move through chapters of the Bible. If you want to grab onto larger section, just write your comments summarizing perhaps a paragraph in the margin. You’ll be amazed how that will help solidify things in your mind. You might prefer to use a paragraphed Bible, like the New International Version. Seeing the paragraphs helps. You ought to begin to think in paragraphs. So that’s an option.

Some of the notes you might make as you go along. Title the chapter. List major events and people in the chapter. Note questions that come to your mind. Don’t delve into a detailed study as you read a chapter or you’ll mire down. Read the whole chapter and then if you have time, go back work on points or perhaps just make notes of something you think might be worth pursuing at another time when you have time. Make a note. What’s the purpose of this chapter? What did I get out of it? What do I think is here for me? Some of those things to help you appreciate the Word and then we’ll be looking over the chapters together.

In our study together today, I want to just do a basic overview of some background material and then to highlight the basic historical books in the Old Testament. Those books that will move the history along. But perhaps just a little bit of background material maybe like Bible Trivia.

Do you know how many chapters there are in the Bible? Eleven hundred and eighty-nine chapters. And that breaks down nine hundred and twenty-nine in the Old Testament and two hundred and sixty chapters in the New Testament. A total of eleven hundred and eighty-nine chapters. Sometimes I get asked where did we get chapter and verse from? And how long have we had them? Well, I went and looked it up and found out that the chapters were put into the Bible in 1250 AD. So, 1250 AD, the Bible was divided into chapters. That’s not part of the original text, as you’re already aware and that accounts for why sometimes it seems the chapter break is at an awkward point. That person back in 1250 AD, sat down with a text that had no breaks for chapters and to the best of his ability he attempted to divide it up. But I think he did a pretty good job, considering. Verse divisions had to wait another 300 years to get verses in the Bible. In the New Testament, 1551 AD when the first English Bible was printed that had verses through the Old and New Testament alike. So, somewhat late addition to the Scripture. Middle 1500’s before you get verses. Verses are a help to us in locating a certain spot in Scripture. But they are also a detriment to us because we tend to think in verses. And you ought to think in paragraphs as you look at the Bible. Whether you use a paragraph Bible, that’ll help, but if you’re using a Bible marked out in verses they’ll usually mark the paragraphs in bold letters or numbers. And you ought to make a practice of looking at the paragraph and thinking that way, otherwise you break up the thought of the author.

Sixty-six books in the Bible. Thirty-nine in the Old Testament, twenty-seven in the New Testament. The Bible was written by 40 different authors over some 1500 years. Now to me this is one of the major marks of the supernatural character of the Bible. You take 40 different authors who are going to do their writing over 1500 years, then you’re going to put it together in one book and have it make sense. That’s astounding. And yet, that’s exactly what we have in the Scripture. That’s because behind it all, there is one author, the Spirit of God. If you remove that element from it, it defies explanation. You take any other area take a 1500 year period and collect the writings of 40 different people and put them together and try to have something that complements, coordinates, builds on, adds to and has a unified, cohesive, non-conflicting presentation. It has to be a supernatural work and it really is.

Three basic matters as background in approaching the Scripture, in way of review: revelation, inspiration and illumination. We’re not going to do the details, but just a reminder of these key ideas and words. Revelation has to do with the fact that God has revealed Himself. God has chosen to make Himself known. That’s what revelation is. God is revealing Himself or making Himself known. There are two kinds of revelation; we call it general revelation and specific revelation. Or you might say the revelation in creation is the first kind and then there’s the revelation that we have written in the Word of God. The revelation of creation is available to everyone. The heavens declare the glory of God. That’s a revelation of creation. It’s all about us. You might turn in your Bible to Psalm 19, the 19th Psalm. In Psalm 19 and verse one we read, “The heavens are telling of the glory of God; and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands.” And down through the first six verses, a reminder that creation is a revelation of God. The book of Romans chapter one emphasizes this clearly that God has revealed His very character and nature through His works of creation. That’s general revelation. That’s the revelation available to all men. Now, the Bible is also clear and Romans chapter one is specific on this, that the revelation of creation reveals a man to be sinful, but does not result in the salvation of an individual. It’s not possible to be saved by the revelation of creation only. Because of our sinfulness, we always corrupt the revelation that God has given of Himself in nature, in creation. But nonetheless it is a true revelation. But it is only understandable when you see it through the revelation of the Word of God. So, that’s foundational to understanding God’s revelation, His Word. The specific revelation given in the Scripture. You know, over 2,600 times in the Bible, the writers claim that God is speaking to them or speaking through them or they are speaking the words of God, like ‘Thus saith the Lord’ or ‘The Word came unto so and so’. Twenty-six hundred times. So , if the Bible really isn’t a revelation from God, I take it it is so full of lies that it’s not worth anybody’s time. If you’re going to have 2,600 times with just a little under 1,200 chapters, that means on an average of twice in every chapter the claim is made that God is speaking. If that’s a lie, then you don’t have much that you can depend on in this book. It’s the revelation as we have it in Scripture that enables us then to understand the revelation that God has given of Himself in creation. So those who have come to believe what God has revealed concerning Himself in His Word now can understand and appreciate the revelation that He has given of Himself in creation. And that’s where David goes in the 19th Psalm. The first six verses talk about the revelation of creation and then verse seven picks up on the revelation written in the Word of God. ‘The law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul; The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right…’ and so on down through the section. So, there He brings the two revelations together; the revelation of creation and the revelation of the Word of God. Now, you have God revealing Himself.

The next area is inspiration that has to do with the recording of the revelation. God revealed Himself in nature. God revealed Himself to men and women down through the ages. Now, the recording of that revelation brings in inspiration. And inspiration basically is the Spirit of God controlling the man who is writing the revelation to guarantee its accuracy. Now, that does not take away from the personality of the writer but it does guarantee that even as God uses his personality there will be no errors or mistakes. 2 Timothy 3:16 says all Scripture is God breathed. It comes out from God. 2 Peter 1:21 says that holy men of ole wrote as they were moved by the Spirit of God. That’s what happened in inspiration. So god has revealed Himself. Now that revelation has been written down for our benefit. How do I know that it’s reliable? Because the Spirit of God superintended and directed in its recording to guarantee its accuracy. Now, I realize that we have a Bible that has been passed down over the centuries and the inspiration of Scripture goes back to the original manuscripts, the autographs as they are called. They were without error. But I take it that the evidence is also that we have a record that is accurate down to today. It’s remarkable how accurately the Scriptures have been passed on from century to century to century. We would expect that would be the case. If God intends to reveal Himself and He intends that record to permanently be recorded would you not expect that He would guard its accuracy? Otherwise by the time we got it, it would be such a jumbled mess that it wouldn’t reveal anything. It would be helpless to trying to sort through the error and mistakes. I think that we have found ample manuscripts in Old and New Testament alike to have full confidence and reliability of what we have as being the Word of God.

One other area and that is the area of illumination. Revelation, God makes Himself known. Inspiration, that revelation that God gives of Himself is written down under the control of the Holy Spirit. Illumination is the ministry of the Spirit now, to enable me to understand the record that God has written. You cannot understand God’s revelation apart from the illumination of the Spirit of God in the life. This is spoken of in 1 Corinthians 2, where in verse 9 we’re told ‘Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, neither have entered into the heart of a man, All that God has prepared for those who love Him. For to us God revealed them through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God (v. 10).’ Then in verse 12, “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, in order that we might know the things freely given to us by God which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual with spiritual.’ The natural man, he doesn’t comprehend spiritual things. The man apart from the Spirit of God cannot understand the revelation that God has given in nature and creation. He does not understand the revelation that God has given in His Word. That’s a supernatural ministry of the Holy Spirit. And the One who authored the Scripture is the One who now enables me to understand the Scripture. So 1 John, in 1 John, John writes and says that we as believers don’t need to depend on human teachers, because ultimately our teacher is the Holy Spirit, who resides within every believer. Now God uses human teachers, but a human teacher does not have the ability to communicate the Word of God in an understandable way apart from the ministry of the Holy Spirit. That means the teacher must have the Spirit of God working in his life to give him understanding of the text and the Spirit of God must be working in the life of the one being taught, so that they can understand the text. The Spirit of God is working in the life of the teacher and in the life of the taught, then there is understanding of the truth of God and growth in the knowledge of God. An encouraging area to me. That emphasis on the ministry of the Spirit giving us understanding of the Word means that every single believer has the potential and ability to understand the things of God. It’s God’s intention that every believer understand what He has revealed of Himself. That does not mean that parts of Scripture don’t take more effort to study than some other parts, but the potential is there. It’s not resident in my intellect. It’s resident in the ministry of the Holy Spirit in my life, my submissiveness to Him in being a teachable person and be willing to apply myself with diligence and that’s where it becomes difficult. We must be diligent. We must labor to demonstrate ourselves workmen approved unto God. Workmen that don’t need to be ashamed but to rightly divide the Word of truth. But as I apply myself to diligence in the study of the Word, the Spirit of God gives me understanding.

Our English Bibles. They are divided into four divisions. Sometimes it seems confusing. Now, we’re going to follow a little different pattern. We’ll talk about that in a moment. The way your English Bible is laid out, it has four divisions. The first division is the Law. That’s Genesis through Deuteronomy, five books. The five books of the Law, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, called the Law. The second division is historical, the historical division. There are twelve books in this division: Joshua through Esther. Joshua through Esther contain the twelve historical books. The third division – poetical books. There are six poetical books. They are Job through the Song of Solomon. So I have the law, Genesis through Deuteronomy. I have the historical books, Joshua through Esther. I have the poetical books, Job through the Song of Solomon. And I have the prophetical books. And there are sixteen prophetical books: Isaiah to Malachi. So you see, there is an order in the way that our English Bible has been grouped together: the books of the Law, the historical books, the poetical books, and the prophetical books. The prophets are usually divided into two groups. The major prophets, there are four major prophets, Isaiah through Daniel, and the twelve minor prophets, Hosea through Malachi. Now, part of the confusion in studying the Bible is this very arrangement. You see, they are grouped in categories. Now, we sit down and start reading in Genesis 1 and try to read through the Old Testament and seems to get confusing, why? It’s not arranged according to historical order. It’s not arranged chronologically. So, I’m reading the prophets at the end of my Old Testament, but I have to fit them in the right sequence time-wise. I’m reading the book of Job, which is a poetical book, but Job in all probability, fits into the time of the book of Genesis. So, let’s look for a moment at the historical development of the Old Testament. By that I mean the chronological development of the Old Testament.

There are eleven books in the Old Testament that moved the history along. Only eleven books. For out of the 39 books of the Old Testament, only eleven moved the history along. If you read these eleven books, you will cover the chronological history of the Old Testament. All the other 28 books fit somewhere within the time framework of those eleven books. Now, that simplifies it for me. These eleven books are Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Joshua, Judges, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, 2 Kings, Ezra, Nehemiah. They’re on the sheet that you should have as a study guide. Eleven books: Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Joshua, Judges, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, 2 Kings, Ezra, Nehemiah. When you have read those eleven books, you will have gone from creation to the close of the Old Testament. The other books will fit in within that framework. And you can see on the sheet that I’ve given to you where some of these books fit. Some of the lines may need to be redrawn. You’ll see that as we move through the Old Testament, but it gives you an idea. You’ll see that after 2 Kings there is the 70 year Babylonian captivity and then Ezra, Nehemiah to close out the Old Testament. So, even though I’m reading Malachi, he fits within the time framework of the Ezra, Nehemiah era, but he doesn’t move the history along. I have to go read Ezra, Nehemiah to find out the historical setting for the prophecies of the prophet Malachi. Then, they’ll begin to make some sense to me. I’ll say, ‘Oh, this is what was going on in the history. This is the period of time in which we are talking.’ That helps make the prophets then make more sense, as well as some of the other books.

I’d like to take our time no to look through each of the eleven books that move the history along, just to overview their content. Not in detail. Where do they pick up? Where do they end? What are the approximate dates, to give you some time framework? Now, I’m only going to give you approximate dates and many of these I’ve rounded off, so that they’re within fifty years or so, but it’ll give you an idea of where are we? Are we a thousand years before Christ? Are we twenty thousand years before Christ? Six hundred years before Christ? Just so we have an idea of where we are chronologically.

We start with the book of Genesis. I’ll give you a one word theme for each of these books. You can come up with your own, but at least it will help fix in your mind what Genesis is about. Genesis is about beginnings. Genesis marks the beginning of things, so it’s the book of beginnings. And it starts out with the creation of the world. With that we have in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2, the creation of the world and particularly, mankind as the crown of God’s creation. Then, it will move on to talk about the destruction of the world by the flood. I’m not going to give you chapters, but just some of the highlights, three or four highlights, through the book. The destruction of the world by the flood during the days of Noah. You have the establishing of the nation Israel. So you have the beginning of the nation in the book of Genesis. So, you have the beginning of the world in Genesis. You have the beginning of the nation Israel in Genesis as well with the call of Abraham. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and Joseph, one of the sons of Jacob being the key people in the book of Genesis. The book of Genesis ends with the people of God in Egypt. They’ve gone down into Egypt. They are there when the book of Genesis closes. Now, the book of Genesis begins and you’ll have to put a question mark for the date, because we can’t date that. It ends 1800 or 1850 B.C. so, when you get to the close of the book of Genesis and read the last chapter, you’re about 1800, 1850 years before Christ. The earliest date, we can date with some assurance is the time of Abraham around 2000 B.C. You go back before that, it becomes speculation on how far back we go. That’s the first book from the creation of the world, the establishing of the nation Israel and now Israel is in Egypt.

The book of Exodus is the next book to move the history along. It’s a book of deliverance. So, we’ll give it the one word summary, deliverance. That’s what the book of Exodus is about. It picks up with the birth of Moses. It talks about Moses being prepared by God in the house of Pharaoh and then in the wilderness. So, you just think of Exodus beginning with Moses. Moses’ confrontation with Pharaoh and the plagues on Egypt. Then, you have the giving of the Law at Sinai as God gives His Law for His people that He has delivered from Egypt in the Exodus. The giving of the Law at Sinai and the construction of the tabernacle bring us to the close of the book of Exodus. The dates on Exodus, they run from about 1500 B.C. to 1450 B.C. so they don’t cover a long framework, some fifty years perhaps, maybe a little longer. But around 1500 at the beginning of Exodus with the birth of Moses to about 1450 B.C. at the end of the book of Exodus. Now, that’s about where people begin to grind down when they read the Bible from Genesis through. You really whip through Genesis and that’s fun reading and all the stories about the great men of God and so on. You hit Exodus and that’s great in the opening portion with Moses and the confrontation with Pharaoh. You get to Mount Sinai and then all of a sudden, God starts giving the Law and things start to mire down. Then they start to build the tabernacle and you feel like your feet are walking in tar that’s getting heavier. Then, we go right into the book of Leviticus and usually people never get much beyond that. That about winds it up for reading through the Bible. I can tell some of you have tried reading the Bible that way. Well, the book of Exodus doesn’t move the history along. So, we’re going to skip the book of Leviticus. We go from Genesis, Exodus, to Numbers. Numbers is the next book in the Old Testament that moves the history along. Leviticus will tell us about some things going on within the framework of the Law having been given at Sinai and the construction of the temple and so on.

The book of Numbers’ one word summary is wanderings. It has to do with the people wandering in the wilderness. The name Numbers comes from the fact that twice in the book the people are numbered to find out who to war, the men of war, the men able to go to war are. The book generally is about the wandering of the people of Israel in the wilderness for 38 years. It picks up Israel at Mount Sinai. So, it picks up where Exodus leaves off. We have the journey to the promised land at Kadesh Barnea. Then, lack of faith, Israel is turned away and sent back into the wilderness for 38 years of wandering. So, everyone over twenty years of age is dead. Then, as we come to the end of the book of Numbers, Israel comes back and as Numbers closes Israel is on the east side of the Jordan River ready to march in and possess the Promised Land. The dates for Numbers begins about 1450 B.C. and goes to 1400. So, basically the book of Numbers is involved with the wilderness wanderings of the children of Israel. And when we get to the end of Numbers, it’s about 1400 years before Christ.

Deuteronomy is the next book, but it doesn’t move the history along. So it fits within the time framework of what we’ve been talking in the book of Numbers. The next book to move the history along is the book of Joshua. That’ll tell me where we move along now in time with Israel. Joshua, a one word summary would be victory. Israel is going in and conquering the land that God has promised to His people. The book of Joshua opens up with Joshua leading the people across the Jordan and into the Promised Land. Jericho is conquered miraculously and that sends fear throughout the rest of the land and the people that are there prepare the way for God’s people. So, Joshua leads Israel into the land, Jericho falls and other cities are conquered. Joshua relates the conquering of Ai with its defeat. The defeat of Israel first then the defeat of Ai. Then other cities that are conquered. The land is divided and settled among the tribes of Israel. The book close with Joshua charging the people and then dying. So, it’s a book of victory for the nation Israel. The dates for Joshua about 1400 B.C. to 1380 B.C. So it’s only twenty years or so, a relatively short period of time covered in the book of Joshua. Great things accomplished there. The people of Israel are now in the land and have possession of the land, but not completely. They are to move through now and drive out the rest of the Canaanites.

The next book to move the history along is the next in order. It’s the book of Judges. You open Joshua to Judges. And the theme of the book of Judges is just the opposite to the book of Joshua. Joshua was victory. Judges is defeat. The whole story of the book of Judges is Israel going into sin and being defeated, repenting, being delivered by God, going back into sin, being defeated, repenting, being delivered by God and what had happened was Israel failed to drive out the Canaanites in the land. They failed to obey God. They made compromise. We can live with these people. In fact we might enjoy the relationship. Spiritual decay and servitude. The judges were the deliverers of the nation. So, they’re civil leaders. But they are the deliverers, the spiritual deliverers of the nation. As the nation goes down into sin and God brings them into defeat and they cry out to God to deliver them, God raises up an individual to be the judge of the nation and he is the deliverer, or she in the book of Judges, to deliver the nation. But the theme of the book of Judges, defeat, spiritual and physical decay characterizes the nation. The book of Judges covers a long period of time. Begins 1380 B.C. where the book of Joshua left off, goes all the way down to 1045, 1045 B.C. is where you are when the book of Judges closes. So, you see we have covered about three hundred years in the book of Judges. The book of Joshua covered about 20 years. The book of Judges covers over 300 years.

Then there are some other interesting things that go on in the time. We have the little book of Ruth that fits in there, but Ruth doesn’t move the history along. We jump to 1 Samuel, 1 Samuel. And 1 Samuel begins with Samuel as a judge. So, Samuel is the last of the judges of Israel. So, you have all the different judges recorded in the book of Judges and the book of Judges comes to a close. The book of 1 Samuel opens up with the last of the judges. The man Samuel was the greatest of the judges. You want to summarize the book of 1 Samuel, you’ll just have to use the name Saul, because the book of 1 Samuel is basically about Saul. It records the entire life of Saul. Begins with Samuel as the last judge and one of Samuel’s responsibilities is going to be to anoint a king over Israel and establish the monarchy. So the monarchy is established in 1 Samuel. And Saul is the first king. The entire life of Saul is recorded in 1 Samuel. If you want to read about Saul, you want to read 1 Samuel. So use his name as a summary of the book. It’s about Saul. In that book you have David’s relationship with Saul recorded, how David came to know Saul, the relationship they had, the conflict that they had. And when 1 Samuel ends David is in hiding from Saul and Saul is dead. And so that’s the note in which 1 Samuel ends, the death of Saul. The date for 1 Samuel, about 1100, 1105 B.C. to 1011. So 100, 1105 down to 1011. Those are the dates covered by 1 Samuel.

2 Samuel is the next book that moves the history along. And you can summarize 2 Samuel with the name David. 2 Samuel is about David. David is established as king in the opening potion of 2 Samuel. Then you have recorded the reign of David. And all the way down to the end of 2 Samuel, we’re in the closing period of David’s reign. And that goes from 1011 to 1004.

Next book, 1 Kings. And 1 Kings, one word summary is division, because it’s in 1 Kings that the kingdom is going to be divided. The opening part of 1 Kings, David dies and the reign of Solomon begins. So, opening chapters David is an old, feeble man as 1 Kings opens up and the arrangement for Solomon to succeed him. Solomon begins his glorious reign. Keep in mind only three kings reigned over the united kingdom, a united Israel, Saul, David, and Solomon. So, in 1 Kings we have the death of David, the reign of Solomon, then we have the division of the kingdom under the son of Solomon. 931 is the date of the division of the kingdom, tremendously significant event. The son of Solomon did not have the wisdom or the spiritual commitment to be used of God to keep the nation together. So with the divided kingdom then, you have all various kings recorded in 1 Kings who reigned over north and southern kingdoms. One of the most outstanding kings, not because he was good, but he gets extended coverage in the latter part of 1 Kings is the wicked king Ahab, who had an equally wicked wife called Jezebel. Also, in the closing portion of 1 Kings, you have recorded the ministry of Elijah. It’s certainly significant. The ministry of Elijah and that’s where the book of 1 Kings is going to draw to a close. The dates of 1 Kings, 971 to 853. 1 Kings begins 971 and at the close 853 B.C.

The next book to move the history along is 2 Kings. And 2 Kings, one word, captivity. 2 Kings will record the captivity of the northern kingdom and the captivity of the southern kingdom. 2 Kings opens up with the conclusion of Elijah’s ministry, and the translation of Elijah into the presence of God without passing through the experience of physical death. You have the ministry of Elisha, the successor of Elijah recorded in 2 Kings. Then you have the captivity of the northern kingdom by the Assyrians recorded. That happened in 722 B.C. The book of 2 Kings ends with the captivity of the southern kingdom; 586 B.C. The dates in the book; it begins in 853, where 1 Kings left off and it concludes 560 B.C. Now the last major event recorded in 2 Kings is the captivity of the southern kingdom, where it goes on to record some incidence there that carries it to 560 B.C. Now, we have the Babylonian captivity. Some would put Daniel up here and moving the history along, but Daniel really doesn’t move the history of Israel along. He records some of the events transpiring during the Babylonian captivity. So, I choose not to put Daniel up there. But you’ll read some charts that put Daniel up as moving the history and that’s why.

The next book that moves the history along is the book of Ezra. The book of Ezra, one word summary is the temple. Because in the book of Ezra, we have recorded the people returning from captivity under Zerubbbabel, and the construction of the temple. It’s the return from the Babylonian captivity. We don’t have a return from the Assyrian captivity of the northern kingdom. There are some people that filter back, but the basic return is from Babylon under Zerubbabel to reconstruct the temple. There’s also a separate return in the last part of Ezra under, in the last part of the book of Ezra, under Ezra, the man after whom the book is named. So, you have the return under Zebubbabel, the construction of the temple and the return under Ezra in the book of Ezra. You have the people getting back from the Babylonian captivity to the land of Palestine and the rebuilding of the temple, far short of its former glory, but they are back in the land with their temple. The dates, 538, the book begins, down to 457. 538 to 457.


There’s one other book that moves the history along and brings a close to the Old Testament record. That’s the book of Nehemiah and one word to summarize Nehemiah is the city. Sometimes you get confused in which book was the temple built and in which book was the city built. Under Ezra they rebuilt the temple. That occurred first and then under Nehemiah, the city, the walls of the city of Jerusalem, will be rebuilt. So, Nehemiah records the rebuilding of the wall, a revival that takes place under Ezra and then a further cleansing by Nehemiah, because the people have back-slid.

That closes the Old Testament. The dates for Nehemiah begins in 444 B.C. and it goes to about 425 B.C. When you read through the book of Nehemiah you have come to a close of the chronological history of Israel that is followed by a period of approximately 400 years of silence. You see Nehemiah closes about 425 B.C., somewhere in that realm. There will be no further record, no further revelation from God until we come to the New Testament and the coming of Christ. Now, the prophets, the other books we haven’t mentioned, they all fit within the framework of these historical books. That’s an overview. A helpful practice or a helpful task to help you understanding the Scriptures. You sit down sometimes and just read through these eleven books. They’ll solidify in your mind the development of Israel’s history. What we’re going to do is go back. My plan in our study together is to follow this historical development and take the other books as they fit within the chronology. The chronological development rather than the order we have in our English Bibles. I think that will make a little more sense to us as we put them in their proper place. I trust that our study of the Word will give us a better grasp of it, a greater appreciation of the old Testament. It seems that we’re much more familiar with the new Testament, but the better we understand the Old Testament, the better we’ll understand the plans and purposes of God, the better we’ll understand the revelation given in the New Testament, which is really built upon the foundation of the Old Testament. Let’s pray together.