Month: October 2018

PROLOGUE TO BOOK OF JOB

NoteS on the Book of Job.
This is the first poetic book generally regarded as being outside the Mosaic covenant and part of the Wisdom Literature. Not all books in that category made it into the canon of holy writ. The book was written by an unknown author, who has been either dated as in the time of David, or much earlier in the primeval period of biblical history. Its outspoken theme of God being seemingly tempted by His arch foe Satan, is unprecedented and unrepeated in any of the ensuing poetic books or other divisions of the Bible.

Puzzling conundrums in the book of Job are:-
1. The ability of Lucifer to gate-crash the assembly of the saints meeting to worship.
2. The willingness of God to discuss His people with the devil.
3. The enigma of Job’s victimization.
4. Satan’s provocations of his creator.
5. God first provoking Satan to test the validity of Job’s upright motives
6. God then accepting Satan’s ploy to destroy Job’s, property, and lives of his servants and his ten children.

These controversies are unprecedented in Scripture. They do compare with much of another Wisdom Book: Ecclesiastes where the lapsed Solomon offers sceptical philosophic questions so atypical of the rest of Scripture and in direct challenge to his father’s wisdom in the Psalms recommended by Christ in Luke 24. We must also keep in mind that quite a number of Wisdom manuscripts were found unacceptable to include in the canon of sixty six books when compiled, and placed instead in the Apocrypha, which appear in Roman and liberal editions of the Bible that reject the scholarship of Erasmus and the Puritan Reformers.

The book of Job, however, makes neither God a victim of temptation, nor the righteous exposed to the unpredictable malice of Satan. The book does, nevertheless, reveal how God will provoke Satan to carry out the Lord’s divine sovereign purpose. Tragedy, bereavement, and illness were used to show future posterity down through the ages the purpose of suffering and how God’s refining fire is for the greater glory of the kingdom. Though servants and children perished, we do not read that they were righteous. The seven sons and three daughters were excessive lovers of pleasure, revelry and wine day after day. They were lost before calamity took them. They godlessly refused to walk in the upright steps of their father, Job. Drunken debauchery is strongly condemned in Scripture.

* * *

CHAPTER ONE OF JOB from the King James Version of the Bible 1611 (Public Domain).

Righteous Job made a divine example of saints’ patience in suffering.
1 There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil.
2 And there were born unto him seven sons and three daughters.
3 His substance also was seven thousand sheep, and three thousand camels, and five hundred yoke of oxen, and five hundred she asses, and a very great household; so that this man was the greatest of all the men of the east.
4 And his sons went and feasted in their houses, every one his day; and sent and called for their three sisters to eat and to drink with them.
5 And it was so, when the days of their feasting were gone about, that Job sent and sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt offerings according to the number of them all: for Job said, It may be that my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts. Thus did Job continually.

A holy remnant of Jehovah’s followers gather to worship.
6 Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them.
7 And the Lord said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.

God provokes Satan to react with malice towards Job.
8 And the Lord said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?

Lucifer impugns a selfish motive to Job’s righteousness.
9 Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, Doth Job fear God for nought?
10 Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land.
11 But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face.

The Lord, for His own purpose, allows Satan to bring calamity.
12 And the Lord said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand. So Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord.
13 And there was a day when his sons and his daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother’s house:

God gives Satan freedom to ruin material wealth and property.
14 And there came a messenger unto Job, and said, The oxen were plowing, and the asses feeding beside them:
15 And the Sabeans fell upon them, and took them away; yea, they have slain the servants with the edge of the sword; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee.
16 While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, The fire of God is fallen from heaven, and hath burned up the sheep, and the servants, and consumed them; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee.
17 While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, The Chaldeans made out three bands, and fell upon the camels, and have carried them away, yea, and slain the servants with the edge of the sword; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee.
18 While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, Thy sons and thy daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother’s house:

God gives Satan freedom to use nature’s violence for His purpose.
19 And, behold, there came a great wind from the wilderness, and smote the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young men, and they are dead; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee.
20 Then Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, and worshipped,
21 And said, Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.
22 In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly.

Notes, headings, sub headings and foreword by John David.
Job 1: from the King James Version Bible 1611 (Public Domain-ex biblegateway.com)

PROLOGUE TO THE BOOK OF JOB

EZEKIEL CH. 26 & 27 notes

FOOTNOTE Ezekiel 26:2.
Tyrus is the name of Tyre, a Phoenician kingdom of antiquity an island off the south western coast of Lebanon from which Hiram had sent his fleet of ships for David and Solomon. In later times it had resisted Nineveh, gained autonomy, and for a time repulsed the Chaldean armies of Babylon. Later it became a dependent state of Babylonia. Its Persian successors to power then used Tyre’s naval strength to aid its conquest of the east.

Finally, when Tyre repelled Alexander the Great’s empire, his Greek forces built a causeway by which he was able to eventually storm the city and break its power, so aptly described by Ezekiel in following chapters. The contempt of Tyrus for Jerusalem’s demise and imminent predicament would bring upon it the vengeance of God for gloating over the fate of Judah.

FOOTNOTE. Ezekiel 27: 13-23.
The names mentioned show the immense influence of this pivotal sea port on the Mediterranean dating back to primeval period of history. Tyre’s opulence and magnificent seafaring vessels together with its key location made it a very rich trading city. And the envy of many a nation.

*NOTES on the King James Version of the Bible (1611).
KJV is public domain (ex biblegateway.com).
Notes, headings and sub headings, & footnotes by John David.

The King James Version was the last of the six Puritan printed Bibles of the Reformation in the 16th & 17th century based on the Greek Text of Erasmus and published in Britain, France, Germany, and Geneva when translators and publishers had to flee for their lives.

Due to the Enlightenment of the 18th Century and its damning effects all subsequent modern English versions since the 19th C, translators have rejected the work of Erasmus and used instead the sub-standard 19th C Greek text of Westcott & Hort. Thus subtle Roman scholarship effectively muted the authoritative voice of the Puritan Reformation and Protestantism itself.

EZEKIEL CH. 26 & 27 notes

EZEKIEL EXPLAINED: 23rd Ch.

Foreword to Ezekiel 23.
Two promiscuous women are the allegory in this chapter. In an analogy of Jerusalem (the kingdom of Judah), and Samaria (the rebel breakaway ten tribes of Israel), Aholah represents Jerusalem, and Aholibah Israel. They are either called whores, or prostitutes, because both the southern and northern kingdoms had fallen prey to the idolatry and devil worship of the cult of Baal. Instead of vanquishing all the Canaanites, in the original conquest by Joshua, those allowed to remain became a snare to both Jerusalem and Samaria.

In God’s eyes such idolatry was equated with the actions of an unfaithful wife. Thus Ezekiel’s prophecy uses the terms whore, and whoredom to describe how they had prostituted themselves to alien gods. Both kingdoms paid a terrible price for their infidelity: God provoked the nations of Egypt, Syria, Assyria and Chaldea to lay siege to Jerusalem and Samaria with disastrous consequences, ending finally in the destruction of both cities of Samaria first, and Jerusalem 120 years later. The Lord regarded the Jews as his own people and calls them his wife, and himself as husband many times in both Old and New Testaments.

When Isaiah uses the word RETURN he speaks of the future regathering of the scattered Jews (Diaspora) throughout the nations. It is clear that God has judged both the kingdom of Israel and the kingdom of Judah for their grievous apostasy in adopting the pagan worship of other nations. Despite God’s merciful pleas through His prophets to repent they resorted to the worship of sun, moon, stars and idols of the cult of Baal. Under the reign of King Manasseh Judah had passed the point of no return, that Samaria had reached four generations earlier.

The despicable decadence of God’s chosen people: the Jews infuriated the Lord. Though his judgments were harsh he promised never to totally abandon the Jews even in their respective bondage and captivity. Jerusalem would be destroyed, the cities would become ghost towns, and the once fruitful Land would become barren and unproductive, yet in His afflicting chastisement He would not and could not forget His covenant with David, (the perpetuity of the Kingdom of David), or Solomon (the eternal preservation of Jerusalem).

The King James Version was the last of the six Puritan printed Bibles of the Reformation in the 16th & 17th century based on the Greek Text of Erasmus and published in Britain, France, Germany, and Geneva when translators and publishers had to flee for their lives. Due to the Enlightenment of the 18th Century and its damning effects all subsequent modernizing translators have rejected the work of Erasmus and used instead the sub-standard 19th C Greek text of Westcott & Hort. Thus subtle Roman scholarship effectively muted the authoritative voice of the Puritan Reformation and Protestantism itself.

Bible Reference: King James Version 1611- Public Domain (ex biblegateway.com)
Foreword by John David.

EZEKIEL EXPLAINED: 23rd Ch.

FOREWORD TO ISAIAH 14.

This chapter covers three areas of prophecy. Despite the Latinized English syntax, and Isaiah’s poetic and geographic allusions this chapter is crucial to understand the sequence of consecutive empires in the Middle East and Far East of Isaiah’s past, present, and future nations hostile to the Jews of the land under the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah in Isaiah’s ministry. Extra biblical history declares he died a martyr at the hands of Manasseh, the successor to Hezekiah. Living under four different kings the enemy activity against Jerusalem was both constant and varied in its source. This background may assist the readers difficulty in fathoming a difficult book.

Though sometimes obscure and puzzling the three areas in his prophecies covered are:

1. The Diaspora’s promised return to the ‘Land of Israel.
2. Isaiah predicts Cyrus the Great releasing Babylon’s captives.
3. Isaiah’s proverb of future judgment and God’s coming vengeance against the new future king of Babylon after Nineveh was sacked and the Assyrian puppet king of Babylon fell to the Chaldeans.

When Isaiah uses the word ‘return’ he speaks of the future regathering of the Jews scattered through the nations. This would occur on five historic occasions:

1. When Cyrus the Great took away control of Babylon by defeating the Chaldeans released the captive Jews, after 70 years of bondage;

2. When Alexander the Great of the Greek empire defeated the Persians, and totally destroyed Babylon, never again to be inhabited as prophesied by Isaiah in the previous chapter. This was accompanied by the benevolence of the Greek ruler Ptolemy II, who translated the Old Testament into Greek;

3. When in modern times at the beginning of the 19th C he Diaspora of Europe slowly began to return to Palestine, then occupied by the Turks for Islam;

4. When in 1917 the WW1 British General Allenby took Jerusalem away from the Turks and made it a UN Protectorate of Great Britain, increasing the Jewish flow of the Diaspora from a trickle to a stream that increased until 1944, and from 1948 to the present;

5. When finally in the future at the end of the age, following the apocalypse and the Battle of Armageddon, Christ’s Second Coming to Jerusalem will occur.

It is clear that God had already judged both the kingdom of Israel and Judah for their grievous apostasy in their adopting the pagan religions from other nations. Despite God’s merciful pleas through his prophets to repent, they had resorted to the worship of sun, moon, stars and idols of the cult of Baal. The despicable decadence of Jews infuriated the Lord.

Though his judgments were harsh he promised never to totally abandon the Jews even in their respective bondage and captivity. Jerusalem would be destroyed, the cities would become ghost towns, and the once fruitful land would become barren and unproductive. The captivity of Judah’s populace was progressive. Not all were taken to Babylon. Assyria had taken Manasseh and others to Babylon before he repented and was released. Hundreds of other captives were abducted by several surrounding enemies of the Jews. However, the bulk of those deported went to the city of Babylon and the final purge of Jerusalem’s population came under Nebuchadnezzar, whose forces completely destroyed the city.

Yet, in God’s afflicting chastisement he would not, and could not, forget either his covenant with David over the kingdom of Judah, or his irrevocable promise to Solomon over Jerusalem. There are many difficulties for the reader herein. What do we think of when we hear the term Babylon? Though this city is the subject of the prophet’s diatribe of doom a historical perspective may prevent puzzlement or misunderstanding.

The rulers of the city and its territory of Babylonia reach back into antiquity. Babel was mentioned early in the book of Genesis and archaeologists and the literati propound that Babel and its tower was an early part of the Babylon to which Isaiah refers. Over the millennia the city was destroyed and rebuilt many times as invaders and new empires extended their reach into Mesopotamia, where it was located at the time of Isaiah, the rejected prophet of Judah.

It had long been under Assyrian control as a vassal state that played tribute to Nineveh. The Assyrian kings had sacked the city on two separate occasions: 689 BC, and 651 BC. Amazingly, over time on each occasion it was razed to the ground it was rebuilt more splendidly than before. Eventually, by the time of the Chaldean Regime, under Nebuchadnezzar, it became the jewel of the East with its wondrous hanging gardens, built for the King of the Medes’ daughter, Nebuchadnezzar’s wife.

The prophet was making his predictions and prophecies under the reign of Ahaz, the second most evil King of Judah, except Manasseh, the son of Josiah, the last good king of the kingdom’s existence. The fact that Isaiah was cut in half by Manasseh’s saw has been substantiated by extra-biblical documents.

The main problem understanding this and other chapters of the book is the time gap between Isaiah’s adjacent visions of the future. They often follow one another so quickly that the sequencing is a mystery, to say the least. Imminent future, near future; distant future; the First Advent of Immanuel; the last days of the present modern era; the final apocalyptic judgment of the anti-Semitic nations’ armies surrounding Jerusalem; and, finally the Second Coming of Christ to the Mount of Olives to rule and reign from Jerusalem.

Amid the vast time panoply covered by Isaiah, the reader is given glimpses of the historical present on the one hand, and concomitantly, if not simultaneously, intermittent glimpses of near and future time slots that seem to be unrelated.

God used foreign powers to end the northern kingdom of Israel 120 years before the final ruin of Jerusalem. Afterwards, in his wrath and vengeance against Judah he would judge and destroy each hostile invader, with no exception. This may give further insight into the books of the three Major Prophets: Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, each repeating these themes.

HOLY WRIT OF SCRIPTURE.
Isaiah: Chapter 14.
1 For the Lord will have mercy on Jacob, and will yet choose Israel, and set them in their own land: and the strangers shall be joined with them, and they shall cleave to the house of Jacob.

2 And the people shall take them, and bring them to their place: and the house of Israel shall possess them in the land of the Lord for servants and handmaids: and they shall take them captives, whose captives they were; and they shall rule over their oppressors.

3 And it shall come to pass in the day that the Lord shall give thee rest from thy sorrow, and from thy fear, and from the hard bondage wherein thou wast made to serve,

4 That thou shalt take up this proverb against the king of Babylon, and say, How hath the oppressor ceased! the golden city ceased!

5 The Lord hath broken the staff of the wicked, and the sceptre of the rulers.
6 He who smote the people in wrath with a continual stroke, he that ruled the nations in anger, is persecuted, and none hindereth.

7 The whole earth is at rest, and is quiet: they break forth into singing.

8 Yea, the fir trees rejoice at thee, and the cedars of Lebanon, saying, Since thou art laid down, no feller is come up against us.

9 Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming: it stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth; it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations.

10 All they shall speak and say unto thee, Art thou also become weak as we? art thou become like unto us?

11 Thy pomp is brought down to the grave, and the noise of thy viols: the worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee.

12 How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!

13 For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:

14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.

15 Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.

16 They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms;

17 That made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof; that opened not the house of his prisoners?

18 All the kings of the nations, even all of them, lie in glory, every one in his own house.

19 But thou art cast out of thy grave like an abominable branch, and as the raiment of those that are slain, thrust through with a sword, that go down to the stones of the pit; as a carcase trodden under feet.

20 Thou shalt not be joined with them in burial, because thou hast destroyed thy land, and slain thy people: the seed of evildoers shall never be renowned.

21 Prepare slaughter for his children for the iniquity of their fathers; that they do not rise, nor possess the land, nor fill the face of the world with cities.

22 For I will rise up against them, saith the Lord of hosts, and cut off from Babylon the name, and remnant, and son, and nephew, saith the Lord.

23 I will also make it a possession for the bittern, and pools of water: and I will sweep it with the besom of destruction, saith the Lord of hosts.

24 The Lord of hosts hath sworn, saying, Surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand:

25 That I will break the Assyrian in my land, and upon my mountains tread him under foot: then shall his yoke depart from off them, and his burden depart from off their shoulders.

26 This is the purpose that is purposed upon the whole earth: and this is the hand that is stretched out upon all the nations.

27 For the Lord of hosts hath purposed, and who shall disannul it? and his hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back?

28 In the year that king Ahaz died was this burden.

29 Rejoice not thou, whole Palestina, because the rod of him that smote thee is broken: for out of the serpent’s root shall come forth a cockatrice, and his fruit shall be a fiery flying serpent.

30 And the firstborn of the poor shall feed, and the needy shall lie down in safety: and I will kill thy root with famine, and he shall slay thy remnant.

31 Howl, O gate; cry, O city; thou, whole Palestina, art dissolved: for there shall come from the north a smoke, and none shall be alone in his appointed times.

32 What shall one then answer the messengers of the nation? That the Lord hath founded Zion, and the poor of his people shall trust in it.

FOOTNOTES.
Isaiah 14:12 In this proverb against Babylon personifies it as Satan incarnate. ‘O Lucifer, son of the morning! ‘ To say otherwise is to be blind to the text and commit popular bibliolatry for doctrines of extra-biblical demonology. The future Babylonian king will: ‘weaken the nations’, exalt himself into a deity to ‘ascend into heaven’. He will ‘exalt (his) throne’..’above the stars of God’, and before Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego try to be ‘ like the most High’. (Cp. Book of the Prophet Daniel.)
Isaiah 14:25 Babylon in central Mesopotamia 50 miles south of modern Baghdad was controlled by successive powers of Assyria, and Persia. The Babylonian empire under Persian rule would be one of the seven great empires of the time. Babylon had attacked and pillaged Assyrian, Syrian, Israeli, and Egyptian cities. It was almost thought to be omnipotent. This may explain the vague poetic reference: ‘I will break the Assyrian’. God, on the one hand used foreign powers to discipline Judah (& Israel), but on the other hand Jehovah later punished such hostile anti-Semitic nations.

(King James Version 1611-Public Domain)

FOREWORD TO ISAIAH 14.