Category: Israel

KEYS TO UNDERSTANDING BOOK OF JOSHUA

The Twelve Historic Books Series: Part Two: JoshuaiIn chapter headings, addenda background in an epilogue.
see also Part 1 in the series: http://bonitabiblemission.worthyofpraise.org/twelve-bible-historical-books/

JOSHUA’S CHAPTER HEADINGS & BACKGROUND ADDENDA:
JOSHUA: 1.
Joshua prepares to enter the Promised Land of Canaan.
JOSHUA: 2.
The spies enter Jericho; Rahab secretly gives them refuge.
JOSHUA: 3.
Jordan River stops flowing; Joshua crosses on dry ground.
JOSHUA: 4.
Jordan’s waters return to their normal course.
JOSHUA: 5.
Joshua circumcises minors from the Exodus Red Sea crossing.
JOSHUA: 6.
Seven days’ march around Jericho leads to walls’ collapse.
Rahab’s scarlet thread; Joshua rescues her entire family.
JOSHUA: 7.
The curse of Achan the thief that cost many lives.
JOSHUA: 8.
Joshua builds an altar in Canaan inscribing the Law upon it.
JOSHUA: 9.
Canaanite kings prepare against Israel; Gibeonite deception.
JOSHUA: 10.
Five kings attack Gibeon for defecting to Israel;
Joshua guarantees the treaty and defends Gibeon
The sun stands still for Joshua routing the enemy host.
JOSHUA: 11.
Surrounding kings ready their onslaught; all are defeated.
JOSHUA: 12.
List of thirty-one kings whom Joshua subdued.
JOSHUA: 13.
Aged Joshua exhorts all tribes to fully possess Canaan.
Tribes failing to expel heathen; all boundaries defined.
The false prophet, Balaam, attempts to curse Israel; but succeeds by Baal-Peor.
JOSHUA: 14.
Joshua’s companion Caleb seeks Hebron for his own.
JOSHUA: 15.
The territory allotted to the tribe of Judah.
JOSHUA: 16.
Territory allotted to children of Ephraim, Joseph’s son.
JOSHUA: 17.
Territory allotted to children of Manasseh, Joseph’s son.
JOSHUA: 18. Shiloh’s tabernacle assembled.
Joshua divides rest of Canaan to the seven tribes.
Joshua allots the first territory to tribe of Benjamin.
JOSHUA: 19.
Joshua allots the second territory to tribe of Simeon.
He allots the third territory to tribe of Zebulun.
Joshua allots the fourth territory to tribe of Issachar.
He allots the fifth territory to tribe of Asher.
Joshua allots the sixth territory to tribe of Naphtali.
He allots the seventh territory to tribe of Dan.
JOSHUA: 20
Joshua appoints the cities of refuge for accidental manslaughter.
JOSHUA: 21.
Joshua allocates forty-eight cities to the Levites in which to dwell.
JOSHUA: 22.
Army releases Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh to return to Gilead.
Joshua tells Gilead’s discharged soldiers to be faithful to God’s Laws.
The misunderstood returned soldiers’ altar sparking a civil war threat.
The three tribes wisely answer the west bank’s ultimatum & avert war.
JOSHUA: 23.
Aged Joshua warns of dangers accompanying peace.
Joshua commands the twelve tribes to fully oust the Canaanites.
JOSHUA: 24.
Joshua’s farewell address revises Hebrew history.
Joshua’s warns of idolatry’s dangers.
The dire consequences when people presume upon God’s mercy.
Israel covenants with God sealing its tryst with Joshua.
Joshua’s final address to the nation from Shiloh.
***
ADDENDA IN EPILOGUE.
This is the sixth book of the Holy Bible after the five books of Moses called the Pentateuch. They are Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The Book of Joshua is a record of Israel’s final entry into the Promised Land crossing over the River Jordan into the land of the Canaanites.
Forty years God had sent them wandering in the inhospitable wilderness terrain until all 599, 998 army rebel doubters died within its barren bounds. Only two of the original host survived: Caleb and Joshua.
Instead of believing their good report of Canaan they chose only to believe the doubts presented by the other ten spies. Thus they wanted to stone the two men of faith and go back to Egypt for the food offered in the land of their bondage. God had provided immeasurably for them in the desert with daily manna for bread and quail for meat, while at the same time always leading them to hidden source of water. Miraculously their feet never swelled and their clothes failed to wear from the abrasive desert conditions.
Despite their frequent, but intermittent murmurs of ingratitude which sometimes tested Moses to the point of exasperation, God’s mercy and loving-kindness continued when they chose to remember the covenant of blood, notwithstanding the chastising ordeals Israeli ingrates received from the Lord’s hand driving them to repentance but often with vast loss of life.
Forty day the emissaries of Moses espied the features of the Land the Hebrew people were to possess. But when the grand mutiny occurred at Kadesh after receiving the twelve men’s report, God deemed the forty days would incur a forty year sentence upon the Israeli adults for the rebellious disbelief.
Even after thirty eight years the final stage of the second attempt to enter Palestine almost failed because of the Moab-Midia nexus of hostility. Devilishly, when Balaam (the powerful occultist) was divinely prevented from cursing Israel , he then beguiled Israel’s men into succumbing to the adulterous religious practices of Baal-Peor. In the hour penultimate to Israel reaching its long awaited glorious zenith her invisible arch enemy almost succeeded. He had created an irrevocable anticlimax that would have aborted the saga of Israel’s pilgrimage.
Nevertheless, the Book of Joshua, the first of the twelve historic books, is an exciting record Joshua’s life of unmitigated faith and robust exploits for his Lord, whom he had come to know personally. He’d sat so often alone in the Tabernacle with God; he had been Moses’ servant; he had ascended Mount Sinai with his master when the moral Law was written in stone; and he had under Moses been divinely nominated and empowered to lead the nation’s seventy elders in Moses’ stead before his imminent death.
This book reveals the recalcitrant ways of the human heart, which despite having the best possible conditions for faith showed they had none at all in the hour of trial. They refused the grace of God and were only interested in the ulterior motive of sensual self-gain, dietary, physical or material benefits. In other words they were normal human beings with incurable heart disease but wearing the mask of conformity to the prevailing religion of the status quo and its social privileges. They were happy to use and exploit that religion for their own ends until the day of truth arrived then their real selves were unmasked. Does it not remind the reader of today’s Christendom and its myriad mass ‘converts’ ?
In hindsight, Israel rejected the grace of God, the only medium for faith. Of the 600,000 only Joshua and Caleb sought the Lord wholeheartedly, the minimum requirement before the Lord will personally draw near to the individual.
Over a million Hebrews had seen the miracles afforded to them both before and after the Exodus journey, but only Moses and two others possessed a different spirit. What was that spirit? Paul the apostle says that it was the Holy Spirit within them. (1Peter 1:11) How does that scripture apply? Both Moses, Joshua were prophets in their own right. Caleb, a valiant soldier, and emissary was an individual seeker who did so reverently with all his soul, mind and might. One day the Spirit of Christ drew near to dwell within him.
Religion; miracles; following the presence of God in religion; or being a fellow traveler in a Christian Church by using one’s own ‘simple childlike faith’ will not make anyone a wholehearted seeker of Christ, let alone regenerate the person. Following God and His presence will allow the follower an awareness that God is with him, but this falls far short of possessing the indwelling Spirit of Christ.
The Pentateuch catalogued over a million of His chosen people continuously doubting and disobeying. Having seen the clearest injunction of the written Law, heard the best preacher; and observed many mighty miracles, Moses that in dejection sought God for a replacement so he could retire from his role to be with his Maker.

John David 2019
Jonacy Press
POB 366603 Bonita Springs FL 34136
biblesimply@gmail.com

SCRIPTURE REFERENCES. (King James Version: Public domain.)
Numbers 14:24. But my servant Caleb, because he had another spirit with him, and has followed me fully…
Numbers 27:18. And the Lord said unto Moses, Take thee Joshua the son of Nun, a man in whom is the spirit,
1 Peter 1: 10-11. Of which salvation the prophets have enquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you: Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify…
Luke 24: 44. And he said unto them, These are the words which I spoke unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me. OTHER REFERENCES: 1 Peter 1:11; Romans 5; + 7; Romans 1.

: http://bonitabiblemission.worthyofpraise.org/easy-keys-to-bible-book-joshua/

PREAMBLE TO THE TWELVE HISTORICAL BOOKS.

PREAMBLE TO THE TWELVE HISTORICAL BOOKS.
INTRODUCTION
The following twelve of the thirty-nine Old Testament books of Israel’s history describe the consequences of Adam’s fall when beguiled by a woman to reject the tree of eternal life for the short term benefit of super-spiritual knowledge.

The twelve books from Joshua to Esther highlight the progressive decadence of the human race despite being given a second chance in Noah’s day. Though Cain’s descendants perished in the flood, God gave the race a new start under Noah because of the preserved line of Seth. Yet man’s endemic and incurable, but hidden, heart disease soon surfaced again to rapidly gnaw at the very fabric of mankind’s existence.

But the historical books also reveal how God’s grace can ransom a select handful ‘plucking them as brands from the burning’ fire of iniquity, self-righteousness, and the masquerade of religious profession. Abel, Seth, Enoch, Noah, Abram, Moses, Caleb, and Joshua are the early examples of the remnant reached by the pre-incarnate Christ of the triune godhead: together responsible for creating the first man.
(“There are three that bear record in heaven: The Father, the Word, and the Spirit)
[1 John 5.7].

    Each of them men had found grace and faith in spite of their incurable heart disease. They were each a rarity in their generation. Each had a different spirit and wholeheartedly sought the Lord God Almighty and discovered the mystery of the atoning blood that covered sin and forgave the inner enmity that had separated them from their Creator.

    Abram was visited by God in Ur of the Chaldees and later by Christ (Melchizedek) who blessed Abram returning home to Hebron after his rescue of Lot [Genesis 14]. Melchizedek’s blessing and its grace soon thereafter generated Abram’s faith in God’s promise, and he was justified by faith [Genesis: 15] becoming a child of God who possessed the Holy Spirit within. [Genesis Chapters 11-12; 14-15; & 17]

    These twelve books of sacred biblical canon come after the first five books of Moses and extend over the period from Joshua’s entry into the Promised Land to the exile of rebel Israel’s ten tribes of Samaria. Judah also went into captivity one hundred and twenty years afterward. Later we read of their release by Cyrus the Great allowing them to return to Jerusalem after seventy years in Babylon.

    The salient memorable events in the time span, from Joshua to Esther, cover the following phases in approximate chronological sequence:-

    Covered in the period of the Books of Joshua, Judges, and Ruth.
    1) Israel ends its 40 years of desert wandering and enters Palestine;
    2) Canaan is conquered by Joshua, but not fully possessed by Israel;
    3) Israel loses sight of its uniqueness and intermarries with the Canaanites it was meant to expel. It turns to their heathen idols becoming wayward.
    4) A repeating cycle of God’s chastisement sets in:
    a. Affliction by a foreign country,
    b. The nation cries for help and a deliverer,
    c. A judge, prophet or king delivers the Jews from tyranny,
    d. After respite a rapid return to idolatry
    This habitual waywardness becomes a permanent feature of Jewish hypocrisy despite faithful men or women whom God sends to them as messengers.
    5)
    In spite of God’s miraculous loving-kindness and merciful atoning umbrella, and intermittent times of revival the Jews remain apostate except for the faithful remnant.

    Covered in the Books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles.
    6)
    The life of Prophet Samuel in the reign of Saul & David.
    7)
    David gives his temple plans to Solomon for its construction.
    8)
    Solomon builds David’s temple which replaces the tented tabernacle.
    9)
    Solomon’s early godly reign is later clouded by his idolatrous wives and he falls away from Jehovah his God t their heathenism.
    10)
    Solomon’s son Rehoboam reigns in Jerusalem but sees the kingdom of Solomon divided and loses ten tribes to rebel state of Israel which boycotted Jerusalem becoming Judah’s enemy in the north in a region known as Samaria. Later the city of Samaria was established and first used by King Ahab.
    11)
    While Judah worships God in Jerusalem, Israel’s ten tribes worship Jeroboam’s golden calf in Dan to the north and Bethel in the south.
    12)
    Civil wars between the two kingdoms weaken and progressively destroy many cities of Judah and also suburban Jerusalem. Respite comes only when the Assyrian army besieges Samaria and takes away the bulk of Israel’s populace into captivity to its own cities including Babylon, on the Euphrates, occupied by Nineveh’s garrison.
    13)
    Israel’s ten rebel tribes were thus deported and replaced by Assyria’s imported, Stalin-styled, forced migration of Assyrians to repopulate rebel Israel’s territory.

    14)
    Much of this devastating judgment on alien Israel in the north occurred during the reign of Jerusalem’s King ‘Ahaz‘when the prophet Isaiah ministered.
    15)
    A hundred & twenty years later Judah too was judged for its idolatry, homicide, infanticide, and abhorrent human sacrifices to the gods of the sun, moon, and stars. ‘Nebuchadnezzar‘, the Chaldean king of Babylon (the golden city of the East) was sent by God to destroy Jerusalem and deport its prisoners of war to Babylon leaving behind ‘Jeremiah‘ the prophet in Judah’s gutted and deserted wasteland.

    Covered in the Books of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther.
    16)
    The Chaldean Empire had superseded the Assyrian Empire for a short period until the Medo-Persians superseded it capturing Babylon and its prisoners of war.
    17)
    After seven decades Jews were released by King Darius acting for Cyrus the Great, the Persian emperor.
    18)
    Cyrus allows the first return to Jerusalem’s ruins.
    19)
    The Persian emperors, of this era, included ‘Cyrus the Great’, ‘Darius the Great‘, and others were often known as only ‘Artaxerxes’ (or ‘Xerxes‘), a common royal title. The Medo-Persian ‘King Darius‘ took Babylon without a fight, for ‘Cyrus‘, though the Prophet ‘Daniel‘ informs us ‘Belshazzar‘ the Chaldean king was slain that night.
    As Babylon’s puppet king ‘Darius‘ served ‘Cyrus’ autonomously. This ‘Darius‘was, not the later ‘Darius the Great‘, the emperor who reigned (like some others) from Shushan’s palace nearly 200 miles away east in the hinterland of the Persian Gulf.
    20)
    This last period of the twelve historical books is covered by books of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther in which there are two distinct returns of the Jewish Diaspora destined for Jerusalem and its abandoned Judean cities.
    21)
    The ancient city Babylon resting on both sides of the Euphrates was finally destroyed by the conquering Greek Empire’s Alexander the Great, also described by the Prophet Daniel in his book.
    22)
    Though the ensuing five Poetic Books after Esther interrupt the train of Jewish history the sixteen books of the Prophets thereafter continue the historic vein of the Jews from differing perspectives in time. While some reiterate pre-captivity scenarios of Jewish decadence, others write as Babylonian captives to Jews within Babylon and abroad in Jerusalem awaiting the imminent final siege of the Chaldeans.
    23)
    Only the book of the Prophet Daniel speaks clearly of the Greek empire that succeeded the Persian one. Alexander the Great left Babylon in a heap of rubble, some fifty miles from Baghdad. This fulfilled the prophecies of both Isaiah and Jeremiah, his successor. This empire still had a great influence on Palestine in Christ’s day, having been overtaken by the Roman Empire over two centuries earlier.

    PREAMBLE TO THE TWELVE HISTORICAL BOOKS.

PONDER ISAIAH 53 AFRESH

ISAIAH 53
Jesus the Messiah would come as the sacrificial Lamb of God.
1 Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?

The conception, nativity, and youth of Jesus Christ.
2 For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.

Jesus the Jew to be rejected by his own people.
3 He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

He would come to bear our sins in his body on the tree.
4 Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes, we are healed.

God the Father would lay on him the iniquity of all believers.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Christ would come as the Lamb of God, the new pascal lamb.
7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he opens not his mouth.

The prophesied arrest, arraignment, crucifixion and burial of Jesus.
8 He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken.
9 And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.

God would sacrifice His Son as the scapegoat to bear the sins of many.
10 Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when you shall make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.

God would make Him sin for us that we may have His righteousness.
11 He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.

The prophesied water and blood from Christ’s pierced side.
12 Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors, and he bare the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors.
* * *

FOOTNOTE.
Isaiah 53:11. Herein is the mystery of joint imputation through grace. I.e. The believer’s sins are imputed to Christ’s crucified body risen and ascended to the right hand of the Father in heaven. Correspondingly the Lord’s righteousness is simultaneously imputed to the believer justifying the new believer in a robe of righteousness. This is the divine act of grace administered by the Holy Spirit to the penitent sinner seeking the Lord with all of his heart, soul, might, and strength.
For he hath made him be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
( 2 Corinthians 5:21.)

CREDITS:
Scripture taken from the King James Version (1611- Public Domain) of the Bible, the last Puritan Bible published.
Headings, subheadings, and footnotes by John David.

PONDER ISAIAH 53 AFRESH

FOREWORD: ISAIAH 21

Foreword: Isaiah 21
Isaiah envisions final fall of Babylon to Nebuchadnezzar.
Though Assyria was centred in Nineveh it used Babylon to house its captured prisoners. It took the captive Jews from Samaria to Babylon when General Tiglath-Pileser captured Israel and placed Judah under tribute. This was in the time of Judah’s wicked King Ahaz.

One hundred and twenty years later the Chaldean King, Nebuchadnezzar would destroy all trace of the southern Kingdom of Judah, sacking Jerusalem in the process and taking captives to Babylon too, the jewel of the East.

He would abduct its citizenry in stages, Daniel being among those of the first captivity, whilst Jerusalem still stood. About a decade later the prophet Ezekiel would be in another batch of captives sent to Babylon. The prophet Jeremiah, who succeeded Isaiah, would remain in Jerusalem to the end, and was treated favourably by Nebuchadnezzar’s General and allowed to stay in the devastated ruins of the city. Both these prophets predicted the fall of Babylon:-
1. to the Assyrians at first;
2. to the Chaldean Empire later;
3. to the Medo-Persian army led by Darius for Cyrus the Great;
4. and finally to Alexander the Great, of the rising Greek Empire who would leave Babylon in ruins fifty miles south of current day Baghdad, where it can still be viewed today.

Of interest also are Isaiah’s allusions and predictions of the First Advent of Christ when Jerusalem was under the reign of the Roman Empire that succeeded the Greek Empire’s control of Palestine.

It is important that the reader acquaints himself with the historical sequence of four empires to understand the eighteen Books of the Prophets:
1. Syria,
2. Assyria,
3. Chaldea,
4. Medo-Persian.
It is also helpful to remember the two empires that succeeded these four:
5. The Greek Empire under Alexander the Great (favourable to Jews)
6. The Roman Empire under the Caesars.

7. In grasping these six historic eras and their protagonists one can appreciate more the prophets’ predictions of Christ’s First Advent during Roman times and better fathom the rather indirect poetic references and allusions to different regions and countries under the merciless:-
a. attack upon the two Jewish kingdoms;
b. attack upon one or another anti-Semitic hostile nation chosen by God to humble the Jews into repentance;
c. attack upon Syria by Assyria;
d. attacks upon Israel of Samaria by Assyria;
e. attacks upon Jerusalem (Judah) by one or other of the empires, including other nearby neighbouring peoples:
i. Moab
ii. Egypt,
iii. Ethiopia,
iv. Idumea (Mt. Seir/Seir)-Esau’s descendants;
v. Samaria;
Yet there are two more dimensions to be necessarily understood within the writings of the Prophets:-
8. The prophesied return to the Land of scattered Jews (Diaspora):
a. led by Nehemiah and Ezra by permission of Persian Kings;
b. encouraged by the Greeks who also ordered preservation of the Hebrew Old Testament into the Greek Septuagint (LXX) by appointment of 72 Hebrew translators of the literati;
c. led by a trickle of European Jews to migrate to Palestine early in the 19th C;
d. encouraged by the British between 1917 and 1944 after General Allenby took Jerusalem and Palestine away from Turkish Muslim control;
e. encouraged by the USA (5/1948 onwards) who arranged massive global air armadas of returning Jewish refugees from anti-Semitic states after the 1948 State of Israel’s Independence;
(* a considerable number settled in New York)
f. to be drawn back to the Land after the great apocalyptic battle of the northern alliance (Gog and Magog) for control of Jerusalem, when Christ will descend to the Mount of Olives to rule and reign over the nations at the end of the end times in which we live.

All of the above is paramount to understand the messages of the sixteen Prophets in relation to the rise and fall of the Israelite divided kingdoms after the death of Solomon.

Judah in the south had its capital Jerusalem, and Israel to the north had Samaria, but merely a place where the royal seat was situated. Jeroboam in the past had at first rejected Shechem as unfortified chose Tirzah instead.

Later King Omri built a fortress in Samaria, and Ahab had his palace there. Though only forty miles square Samaria was occupied by all ten rebel tribes of Israel. Jeroboam had set up Dan in the north and Bethel in the south as the two religious centres for the worship of his golden calf. Bethel, however, was only twelve miles north of Jerusalem.

Ancient Babylon successively came under the control of Assyria, Chaldea, Persia, and Greece before being razed to the ground by the latter. Awareness of the above information on the one hand; and on the other hand grasping the timeline of both Israel and Judah’s demise, the reader will then be able to comprehend the gist of the three Major Prophets, and the thirteen Minor Prophets.

The fall of Babylon in Isaiah can either mean the defeat of the Assyrians, or the Chaldeans depending upon the context. In Isaiah the context usually points to Israel’s nemesis: Assyria.

This twenty first chapter offers certain geographic clues that point to the imminent defeat of the Assyrians whose capital was Nineveh, but they used a puppet king to rule Babylon where captives from many nations were held

FOREWORD: ISAIAH 21

ISAIAH 15: FOREWORD.

FOREWORD: ISAIAH 15.
Isaiah’s enigmatic diatribe against Moab.
Moab was the arch enemy of Israel and a constant thorn in her side wherever possible. Its territory was situated on the east of Jordan River and south of Gilead which can often be found in a modern Atlas. Midia and Moab conspired together to curse Israel using the soothsayer Balaam on its last stop before entering the Promised Land after its forty years wandering in the wilderness.

Though the false prophet Balaam refused to curse Israel, Moab then entrapped it at Baal-Peor, enticing the Hebrew men to fornicate with the prostitutes of the Baal’s idolatrous and sensuously erotic worship of devils. (See St. Paul’s comment in his letter to the Church of Corinth). The reader will remember that Moses’ father-in-law came from Midia and that Gideon with his 300 men in the Book of Judges fought a battle with the Midianites.

As Joshua forded the Jordan River it banked up and ceased to flow until all of the Israelites had finished walking over the dry river bed. It then returned to its normal flow, brimming over its banks.

This chapter has a plethora of literary devices in the prophet’s poetic, but sometimes enigmatic description. A host of geographic names within Moab, but forgotten mostly in time, can daunt the reader, as can the typical obliqueness of his indirect syntax, but it is well worth persisting with the attempt of grasping Isaiah’s message in its rich historical beauty.

Describing the coming attack on Moab by Assyria’s armies from Nineveh, the prophet goes into great detail over the devastation and destruction of cities and landscape. Even after Moab’s successful demoralization of the children of Israel with the treachery of Baal-Peor, Moab continued to be a hostile thorn in Israel’s side. God’s wrath moves slowly at times, but He never forgets to rewards Israel’s enemy nations with his wrath.

You will remember that the last stop of Moses before crossing Jordan was in Moab where he went to Pisgah’s Peak on Mt. Nebo to view the Land before he died. Remember also that Moab had enlisted Midia and its soothsayer Balaam to curse Israel and stop Moses in his tracks.

However, when this plan did not work Balaam and Balak conspired to lure Moses’ people into immoral actions that would prevent Jehovah from letting them into the Land of milk and honey (the Promised Land) for which they had marched some forty years. Geographic reference points: Kir, Dibon, Nebo, Medeba, Heshbon, Elealeh, Jahaz, Zoar, Luhith, Horonaim, Nimrim, and Dimon all relate to Moab’s towns and topography within or adjacent to Moab like Zoar, next to, but now under, the Dead Sea.

ISAIAH 15: FOREWORD.

UNDERSTANDING 16 PROPHETS: Obadiah.

BRIEF PROLOGUE TO BOOK OF OBADIAH.
Obadiah the prophet to Edom, where the inhabitant descendants of Esau had settled in and around Mt. Seir, decries the wicked past of Edom’s enmity towards Israel. From earliest times the animosity had grown from year to year.

We think of the initial wilderness wanderers journeying at last to their long promised Land of milk and honey after forty long years wherein a generation had died in the wilderness. When merely seeking permission to walk through the adjacent region en route to Pisgah’s Peak and Mt. Nebo before crossing the Jordan River, Israel was treated with open hostility instead of hospitably allowing their brethren, the children of Jacob, to drink from their wells of water.

That hostility had become endemic and now the prophet warns that judgment by the wrath of God, according to the curse of Genesis 12:3, was imminent. Ironically God used hostile neighbour nations to chastise and discipline wayward Jerusalem, he then as a sequel poured out his vengeance upon the same instruments that had brought so much tribulation to the Jews. This is a mystery wherein Jehovah God never forgets to repay those who have cursed his people Israel.

FOREWORD TO OBADIAH 1.

The Prophet Obadiah’s Vision of the descendants of Esau within the Palestinian territory of Mount Seir. They were commonly called Edomites as the region they occupied was named Edom. Confusing to the reader is the interchangeable use of Esau, Edom and Seir to poetically describe the Edomites. Under poetic licence Obadiah alternates between each of the three names when indicting Esau’s descendants. In the same way he calls Mount Seir the ‘Mount of Esau.

The prophet takes Edom to task for its long standing hatred of their brethren the Israelites, called: “brother Jacob” because he was the patriarch of Israel once the angel had changed his name from Jacob to Israel when he prevailed in prayer wrestling with the angel to protect him from Esau’s murderous intent on Mt. Peniel.

God had told Abram in Genesis 12.3 that all those who will bless his descendants will be blessed, but all those who oppose (curse) them will be cursed. The children of Esau, who became Bedouin Arabs in league with Ishmael’s children, had joined with other nations and tribes hostile to Jerusalem’s people during the past.

As things went from bad to worse in the tribe of Judah after King Manasseh’s abhorrently wicked reign Edom and others had gone to Jerusalem to pillage and add to the already existing mayhem from Assyrians, and later the Chaldeans. Sadly, the ten rebel tribes of the now divided kingdom of Israel had also attacked, kidnapped, and killed hundreds of thousands of their fellow Jews in Judah and Jerusalem to the south.

As a result of these atrocities and their idolatrous worship of the golden calf in Dan and Bethel, they had been all (but a handful of the poor) taken away captive by Tiglath Pileser to Assyria’s city of Babylon about 600 miles to the North West
.
Yet whether it was the Jews in Samaria or the Jewish cousins in Edom (Idumea) the vengeance of God was severe for their treasonous acts against the tribe of Judah and its eternal city of Jerusalem.

The rebel ten northern tribes were massively depopulated and deported while a Stalin-like forced immigration of Assyrians replaced the wayward children of Israel. Thus the wrath of God upon Esau’s children was unrelenting without any measure of mercy offered to others at enmity with Jerusalem.

UNDERSTANDING 16 PROPHETS: Obadiah.

PROLOGUE TO DANIEL THE PROPHET

Introduction.
THE JEWISH AND PROTESTANT OLD TESTAMENT.
These contain the five books of Moses (PENTATEUCH) nine HISTORICAL Books; six books of POETRY; and sixteen books of THE PROPHETS. The Jews often regard these as the Law, the Prophets, and the WRITINGS. Upon his resurrection The Lord Jesus Christ alluded to them for recommended reading to understand what each said of Christ and foretold of the Son of God.

The serious god-fearing seeker will sooner or later have his eyes opened to understand the promises of God about the coming Son of God to earth at both his first advent and his second coming at the end of the latter days in which we live.

THE PROLOGUE TO DANIEL.
by John David.
The young man Daniel was among those of the first captivity of Jews by Nebuchadnezzar, the Chaldean king reigning from the city of Babylon, the jewel of the East. His three companions were: Shadrach, Meshech, and Abednego. The four had been princes in the Kingdom of Judah at Jerusalem.

As a prophet, seer, wise man, and later, ruler Daniel had increasing influence in the Chaldean city and its empire. It was of wide expanse after its victorious military campaigns throughout Palestine and the neighbouring regions of the Middle East.

As Syria’s Damascus had fallen prey to the might of Assyrian armies of Nineveh, in turn Syria’s own reign of power was beset by the rapid rise of the Chaldean empire from Mesopotamia on the Euphrates, some 50 miles south of modern day Baghdad.

These three empires, Syria, Assyria and Chaldea figure largely in these sixteen books of Prophecy: books of the three Major Prophets, and the thirteen Minor Prophets of the Bible’s Old Testament.

This is not to discount the significance of other enemy powers raiding Jerusalem in the Kingdom of Judah: i.e. Egypt, Ethiopia, Moab, Edom, etc. However, the predominant themes of the prophets dire warnings concerned Syria, Assyria, Chaldea, and Medo-Persia. The latter three empires successively holding captive Jews as bondmen in and around the city of Babylon.

Daniel’s interaction with reigning monarchs was with the Chaldees until towards the end of the book, wherein the Persian emperor Cyrus the Great appears.

The reader’s problem with many of the prophets is the lack of specific allusion to the empire concerned, and precise description is sometimes indecipherably lost in the vagaries of poetry and geographic place names, familiar only to the Eastern historian of the literati.

Yet, Josephus; historical records of archaeology; and, more importantly, the nine History Books, particularly Joshua, Kings, Chronicles,Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther give the answers to the puzzled reader filling in the missing pieces. Yet it is only the diligent student of the Word, like the more noble Bereans “searching the scriptures daily to see if these things be so,” will become acquainted enough to be enlightened by grace and see what Jesus meant when he said:-

“O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken”…”These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me. 45 Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures.26 Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory? 27 And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.” (Luke 24 KJV)

The student of the Word nevertheless needs to be forewarned of the enigmatic condemnation of wayward Israelites, on the one hand and on the other hand the indictments of the nations hostile to both Israel in Samaria, and Judah in Jerusalem. Here lies the mystery not always understood by even mature readers of the sixteen prophetical books:

1. God’s allowing Israel’s enemies to attack the apostate Jewish nations in his loving mercy;
2. He had tried to stop their worship of sun, moon and stars; and their devotion to gods of Baal;
3. He wanted them to return to their Jehovah God, his ways and his will they had abandoned.

4. Jehovah’s discipline was indeed harsh and became harsher, until in repulsion he abandoned them during the reign of Judah’s King Manasseh, equally wicked with Ahab of Israel and more evil than Judah’s King Ahaz who came before him.

5. Yet even in that abandonment of his people God continued to promise through his faithful prophets that a remnant would be saved. In other words there are continuing hints that God could never break his covenant with David over the eternal legacy of his tribe Judah, nor his promise to Solomon over the city of Jerusalem.

Simply, the perpetuity of both Israel and its Land of Palestine was inexorably guaranteed and would never be abrogated. Thus in the prophets we see glimpses of Elijah (John the Baptist); the virgin birth of Emmanuel (the Branch); the profound effect of his walk on earth; his substitutionary atonement for sinners he made on Calvary’s rugged Cross bearing our sins in his body upon the tree; and finally his second coming to earth to rule and reign from Jerusalem in the midst of invading armies of Armageddon who will be repulsed by the glorious light of his enforcing kingdom.

As a sub-theme in both Daniel and the other fifteen prophets’ books, there occurs repeatedly, but intermittently, the promise of regathering the scattered Diaspora Jews from east, and west; north and south.

These promises have largely been already fulfilled: under Cyrus the Great; Alexander the Great; General Allenby 1917 recovery of Jerusalem from Islamic control; leading inevitably to the independence of the modern State of Israel in May 1948 against all opposing odds. The return of the Diaspora increased during he years 1918 to 1944; and from 1948 to the present time. But the greatest return of those Jews, ashamed to be known as such today and in denial altogether about their Land, will happen when Christ returns with his saints to rule and reign, descending to the Mount of Olives with his saints who in a previous rendezvous met the descending Lord in the clouds in the air together.
Questions and suggested editorial additions welcome to bonitabiblemission@gmail.com
Scriptures quoted from the King James Version (Public Domain) [ex biblegateway.com]

PROLOGUE TO BIBLE BOOK: DANIEL

REMEMBER O LORD THE USA

REMEMBER O LORD THE USA FOR ITS PAST HELP OF YOUR PEOPLE ISRAEL.
Despite its present rampant humanism reigning in Christendom as truth and salvation by Easy-Religionist evangelism; despite its appalling daily gun violence killing its citrizens at a rate of 300,000 a decade; despite its anti-Semitism rearing again its ugly head, even now in Congress; despite its many Deistic Constitution, rights and Amendments: O my God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ we beg of you to have MERCY.
1. Have not your promises and penalties by just judgment been justly kept? HAVE MERCY!
2. Are not your EXCEEDING, GREAT AND PRECIOUS PROMISES been given to us? HAVE MERCY!
3. When we have cried to you, have you not IN WRATH REMEMBERED MERCY?
4. Remember O Lord in the past how USA helped your people Israel!
a. In 1948 when she stood alone amid invading nations to be an independent state.
b. In 1956 to survive multi nation invasion for six days in June.
c. In 1973 when again invaded how Uncle Sam came to its plight.
d. In how Uncle Sam arranged the largest ever air-armada to repatriate stranded Jews.
e. And more recently how Uncle Sam provided the iron dome protection zone.
f. Then also remember president Trump’s move of its embassy to Jerusalem.
5. In its present battle wherein the forces of light are besieged by the forces of darkness and the ‘enemy within’, we beg of you to have mercy and remember the prayers of foregone saints interceding for America: Jonathan Edwards; George Whitefield; David Brainard; Charles Finney etcetera. Have not you collected their prayers as incense in thy bottles of heaven? We beseech you to pour out those answers upon the earth. Especially now amid the battle for its democracy against the vastly wicked DEEP STATE working to undermine and destroy the votes and the voting results, we beseech you TO HAVE MERCY.
6. For the sake of the prayers of the godfearing, the upright, the godly, and the remnant of saints who have been regenerated by your Spiit, and not merely by doctrinaire persuaders.
REMEMBER O LORD THE USA FOR ITS PAST HELP OF YOUR PEOPLE ISRAEL.
Despite its present rampant humanism reigning in Christendom as truth and salvation by Easy-Religionist evangelism; despite its appalling daily gun violence killing its citrizens at a rate of 300,000 a decade; despite its anti-Semitism rearing again its ugly head, even now in Congress; despite its many Deistic Constitution, rights and Amendments: O my God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ we beg of you to have MERCY.
1. Have not your promises and penalties by just judgment been justly kept? HAVE MERCY!
2. Are not your EXCEEDING, GREAT AND PRECIOUS PROMISES been given to us? HAVE MERCY!
3. When we have cried to you, have you not IN WRATH REMEMBERED MERCY?
4. Remember O Lord in the past how USA helped your people Israel!
a. In 1948 when she stood alone amid invading nations to be an independent state.
b. In 1956 to survive multi nation invasion for six days in June.
c. In 1973 when again invaded how Uncle Sam came to its plight.
d. In how Uncle Sam arranged the largest ever air-armada to repatriate stranded Jews.
e. And more recently how Uncle Sam provided the iron dome protection zone.
f. Then also remember president Trump’s move of its embassy to Jerusalem.
5. In its present battle wherein the forces of light are besieged by the forces of darkness and the ‘enemy within’, we beg of you to have mercy and remember the prayers of foregone saints interceding for America: Jonathan Edwards; George Whitefield; David Brainard; Charles Finney etcetera. Have not you collected their prayers as incense in thy bottles of heaven? We beseech you to pour out those answers upon the earth. Especially now amid the battle for its democracy against the vastly wicked DEEP STATE working to undermine and destroy the votes and the voting results, we beseech you TO HAVE MERCY.
6. For the sake of the prayers of the godfearing, the upright, the godly, and the remnant of saints who have been regenerated by your Spiit, and not merely by doctrinaire persuaders.
REMEMBER O LORD THE USA FOR ITS PAST HELP OF YOUR PEOPLE ISRAEL.
Despite its present rampant humanism reigning in Christendom as truth and salvation by Easy-Religionist evangelism; despite its appalling daily gun violence killing its citrizens at a rate of 300,000 a decade; despite its anti-Semitism rearing again its ugly head, even now in Congress; despite its many Deistic Constitution, rights and Amendments: O my God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ we beg of you to have MERCY.
1. Have not your promises and penalties by just judgment been justly kept? HAVE MERCY!
2. Are not your EXCEEDING, GREAT AND PRECIOUS PROMISES been given to us? HAVE MERCY!
3. When we have cried to you, have you not IN WRATH REMEMBERED MERCY?
4. Remember O Lord in the past how USA helped your people Israel!
a. In 1948 when she stood alone amid invading nations to be an independent state.
b. In 1956 to survive multi nation invasion for six days in June.
c. In 1973 when again invaded how Uncle Sam came to its plight.
d. In how Uncle Sam arranged the largest ever air-armada to repatriate stranded Jews.
e. And more recently how Uncle Sam provided the iron dome protection zone.
f. Then also remember president Trump’s move of its embassy to Jerusalem.
5. In its present battle wherein the forces of light are besieged by the forces of darkness and the ‘enemy within’, we beg of you to have mercy and remember the prayers of foregone saints interceding for America: Jonathan Edwards; George Whitefield; David Brainard; Charles Finney etcetera. Have not you collected their prayers as incense in thy bottles of heaven? We beseech you to pour out those answers upon the earth. Especially now amid the battle for its democracy against the vastly wicked DEEP STATE working to undermine and destroy the votes and the voting results, we beseech you TO HAVE MERCY.
6. For the sake of the prayers of the godfearing, the upright, the godly, and the remnant of saints who have been regenerated by your Spiit, and not merely by doctrinaire persuaders.
REMEMBER O LORD THE USA FOR ITS PAST HELP OF YOUR PEOPLE ISRAEL.
Despite its present rampant humanism reigning in Christendom as truth and salvation by Easy-Religionist evangelism; despite its appalling daily gun violence killing its citrizens at a rate of 300,000 a decade; despite its anti-Semitism rearing again its ugly head, even now in Congress; despite its many Deistic Constitution, rights and Amendments: O my God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ we beg of you to have MERCY.
1. Have not your promises and penalties by just judgment been justly kept? HAVE MERCY!
2. Are not your EXCEEDING, GREAT AND PRECIOUS PROMISES been given to us? HAVE MERCY!
3. When we have cried to you, have you not IN WRATH REMEMBERED MERCY?
4. Remember O Lord in the past how USA helped your people Israel!
a. In 1948 when she stood alone amid invading nations to be an independent state.
b. In 1956 to survive multi nation invasion for six days in June.
c. In 1973 when again invaded how Uncle Sam came to its plight.
d. In how Uncle Sam arranged the largest ever air-armada to repatriate stranded Jews.
e. And more recently how Uncle Sam provided the iron dome protection zone.
f. Then also remember president Trump’s move of its embassy to Jerusalem.
5. In its present battle wherein the forces of light are besieged by the forces of darkness and the ‘enemy within’, we beg of you to have mercy and remember the prayers of foregone saints interceding for America: Jonathan Edwards; George Whitefield; David Brainard; Charles Finney etcetera. Have not you collected their prayers as incense in thy bottles of heaven? We beseech you to pour out those answers upon the earth. Especially now amid the battle for its democracy against the vastly wicked DEEP STATE working to undermine and destroy the votes and the voting results, we beseech you TO HAVE MERCY.
6. For the sake of the prayers of the godfearing, the upright, the godly, and the remnant of saints who have been regenerated by your Spiit, and not merely by doctrinaire persuaders.

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