Tag: Israel

The Bible in a Year – 20 September

If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.

20 September. 1 Chronicles chapters 18-20

Following on from the rejoicing of previous chapters, we are suddenly plunged back into the bloodiness of the warfare that was a constant feature of the ancient near east.  God’s promise to David that he would make him the leader of a great nations seems to be coming true, as one tribe after another (Philisitines, Moabites, Arameans, Edomites and Ammonites) falls to the armies of Israel.   Since the time of Joshua this had been an ongoing process, and even after David’s victories, the other peoples were not completely eliminated.

The tactics they employ are sometimes clever strategies, at other times sheer force of numbers.  But what links these victories is the concept they have of God being with them and granting them victory for his sake.  The purpose of Israel’s territorial control being enlarged was not merely to give God’s people room to expand, but to eradicate the idolatrous religions that went with the inhabitants of the land.

Sadly, we can see this worldview today in the actions of the present state of Israel is forcing Jewish settlements on land that according to international agreement belongs to the Palestinians.  The same process of driving out the “peoples of the land” by military force, by settlement in large numbers, by seizure of farmland, by controlling water supplies, and so on, is justified (in the eyes of some Jews at least) by the actions of David and other kings in their ancient history.  Without wishing to see the extinction of the Jewish faith and culture, one has to be critical of the way they are going about preserving them.

The Bible in a Year – 10 June

If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.

10 June. Ezekiel chapters 35-37

Ezekiel 36:26 is one of the most quoted verses from this book: “A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh”. Its prime meaning is usually taken as being that in future people would no longer live selfishly, and regard Gods commandments as onerous and to be avoided, but would willingly embrace a new and loving relationship with God and welcome his laws as rules for living well.  The context is the restoration of Israel as a nation on its own land, which occupies the rest of this book.

 

Chapter 37 is equally well known for its vision of the dry bones of the dead which God restored to life and breathed his spirit into them.  The promise that God would “open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people” (37:12) could possibly be seen as a belief in reincarnation, but such a belief is not found elsewhere in the Bible, so is much more likely to be a way of saying that Israel would be re-founded as a kingdom. In fact the last section of the chapter makes it clear that this would happen, and that the former division of Israel and Judah would be healed, and they would be one nation again.

 

The Bible in a Year – 25 April

If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.

The kingdom of Israel has by this time (the late 8th century BC, about 250 years after king David’s time, and perhaps a hundred years after Elisha) become increasingly unstable. Chapters 15-17 list six kings of Israel over a 40 year period, although one lasted only a month and two others less than two years. In the time of king Menahem the Assyrians appear on the scene for the first time, and are paid off, but that can be done only once.  A few years later they come back, this time taking Galilee and other areas of Israel. At this time, incredibly, Judah makes an alliance with the Assyrians against Israel, showing just how irrepairable has become the split between the two parts of what was once a single nation under God.

 

In Hoshea’s reign the Assyrians return a third time, this time capturing the Israelite capital Samaria, and taking large numbers into captivity. Chapter 17 acts as a summary of why  all of the original kingdom of Israel with the exception of the tribe of Judah has gradually been lost to enemy invasions as a direct result of the sin of idolatry over the six centuries or so since they entered the promised land.    But Judah’s time would come.