by Justin Marple | Apr 12, 2012 | Former Prophets, OT Prophets Commentary, Samuel Commentary, TEACHING
David’s John the Baptist, the prophet Samuel, drops out of view for 1 Samuel 4:1b-7:2. The book so far has been preparing us for Samuel to lead Israel, but for now Samuel is off stage. Thus we will see how well Israel is without Samuel there to be...
by Justin Marple | Apr 10, 2012 | Former Prophets, OT Prophets Commentary, Samuel Commentary, TEACHING
Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings — these are the four books of the former prophets. Samuel is One Book. It is intended to be read as ONE BOOK, not two. There is no Biblical reason to divide the book into two, it is only divided that way for length. (Note...
by Justin Marple | Mar 17, 2012 | Former Prophets, Judges Commentary, OT Prophets Commentary, TEACHING
I noted in an earlier post that the first oppressor of Israel was a world-emperor, that the second was a regional power, then the rest of the oppressors were much more close to home. By the time we reach these last chapters of the book the enemy is Israel herself. ...
by Justin Marple | Mar 10, 2012 | Former Prophets, Judges Commentary, OT Prophets Commentary, TEACHING
Symbolic of the twelve tribes there are twelve judges in the book of Judges. Thus in order to reach the number 12 there are brief asides mentioning Shamgar (Judges 3:31), Tola and Jair (Judges 10:1-5), and Ibzan, Elon, and Abdon (Judges 12:8-15). It is interesting...
by Justin Marple | Mar 3, 2012 | Former Prophets, Judges Commentary, OT Prophets Commentary, TEACHING
The nation of Israel continues its downward spiral with Gideon’s cycle. The cycle opens, “The people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of YHWH, and YHWH gave them into the hand of Midian seven years” (Judges 6:1). The Midianites, Amalekites...
by Justin Marple | Feb 24, 2012 | Former Prophets, Judges Commentary, OT Prophets Commentary, TEACHING
The very first judge was also the best judge and the one with the least “exciting” cycle. We saw in Joshua that the text was not written to be a movie script. One of the main reasons for this is that the bloodshed, which is what makes the movies exciting...
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