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1 Kings 11:26-40

Understanding Series

Iain W. Provan

... ) to whose wisdom people should listen as the Queen of Sheba had listened to Solomon (Matt. 12:42; Luke 11:31; cf. also Matt. 13:54; Luke 2:40, 52). Like the wisdom teachers of the OT, Jesus is often to be found in the Gospels encouraging his hearers to learn about God by observing how God’s world works (e.g., Matt. 6:25–34; Luke 12:22–34). More than that, however, the NT presents him to us as himself the incarnation of wisdom, the very Wisdom of God (1 Cor. 1:24), present with the Father from the ...

777. Solomon's Death

1 Kings 11:41-43

Understanding Series

Iain W. Provan

778. Ahab Defeats Ben-Hadad

1 Kings 20:13-34

Understanding Series

Iain W. Provan

... with no gods or many, the strategy would have had a fair chance of success. The world that the Arameans actually inhabit, however, is not such a world, and military planning will not make it so. “Other things” are not equal—and the Arameans have to learn this (like the Egyptians before them) as much as the Israelites need to be reminded of it. 20:26–34 The vast army of the Arameans marches up a second time against Israel, whose forces are by comparison but two small flocks of goats (vv. 26–28 ...

779. A Prophet Condemns Ahab

1 Kings 20:35-43

Understanding Series

Iain W. Provan

780. Hazael Murders Ben-Hadad

2 Kings 8:7-15

Understanding Series

Iain W. Provan

... unique Hb. word in v. 15 means) and somehow (we are not given the details) takes power. 8:16–24 We last heard of Judah in 2 Kings 3, when Jehoshaphat was involved in the ill-fated campaign against Moab. We now return to Judah to learn of Jehoram son of Jehoshaphat—first introduced briefly in 1 Kings 22:50 and then mentioned again in 2 Kings 1:17. After two relatively righteous kings (Asa and Jehoshaphat), Judah has a monarch who shares with his Israelite counterpart not only a name (see the additional ...

781. Jehoram King of Judah

2 Kings 8:16-24

Understanding Series

Iain W. Provan

782. Ahaziah King of Judah

2 Kings 8:25-29

Understanding Series

Iain W. Provan

783. Jehoash King of Israel

2 Kings 13:10-25

Understanding Series

Iain W. Provan

... (note the careful way in which John 1:1–42 addresses the issue). Thus it is not surprising that the typological significance of Elisha in relation to Jesus has been downplayed. Solomon and Elijah are presented in the NT as those from whom Christian believers can learn. Whether Elisha is presented in this way is less clear. Hebrews 11:34–35 (and possibly v. 36, if the boys from Bethel are in mind) may be taken as referring to him, and the early church certainly exercised faith of the kind being exhorted ...

784. David's Psalm of Thanks

1 Chronicles 16:7-43

Understanding Series

Louis C. Jonker

... them into a song that fitted the context of David and also invited the addressees of his own context to be part of the performance of the psalm. This example shows how much contemporary interpreters of Holy Scriptures can learn from the Chronicler about hermeneutics! The Chronicler showed great sensitivity for his contemporary audience in his interpretation of the transmitted traditions. Whereas the discussion in the previous paragraphs concentrated on the small but significant changes and omissions the ...

785. Asa's Last Years

2 Chronicles 16:1-14

Understanding Series

Louis C. Jonker

... In self-defense, Asa immediately sought alliance with Ben-Hadad king of Aram (16:2), sending to Ben-Hadad as inducements silver and gold out of . . . the LORD’s temple and of his own palace. The turnaround for Asa is dramatic, at least initially. When Baasha learned of the alliance, he stopped building Ramah (16:5). Asa carried off timber and stones from there to build up nearby Geba and Mizpah (16:6). 16:7–10 The Deuteronomistic account of this battle (1 Kgs. 15:17–22) ends quite positively for Asa ...

786. Later Opposition Under Xerxes and Artaxerxes

Ezra 4:6-24

Understanding Series

Leslie C. Allen

... threat to the empire, a flexing of muscles for independence. The imperial court is advised to verify the charge that Jerusalem is rebellious and wicked by ascertaining its sinister history from the imperial archives or “annals” (NRSV). What it would learn was that in the Assyrian period the Judean king Hezekiah had rebelled, while in the Babylonian period Nebuchadnezzar had destroyed the capital for rebellion. While this was true, the historical climate was now completely different—and Judah was in no ...

787. Completion and Dedication of the Temple

Ezra 6:13-18

Understanding Series

Leslie C. Allen

... Darius’ reply with its generous updating of Cyrus’ decree, the positive sequel in verse 13 and the continuation of the good work of 5:8b. He reminded his readers of the initial stimulus of Haggai and Zechariah, which he had related in 5:1–2. He probably learned from a temple inscription the date of the red-letter day when work on the temple was completed. Alternatively, he might have calculated it with the aid of Zechariah 1:12 as the end of a seventy-year period from 586, when Jerusalem fell and the ...

788. The Passover

Ezra 6:19-22

Understanding Series

Leslie C. Allen

789. The Return to Jerusalem

Ezra 8:15-36

Understanding Series

Leslie C. Allen

... delay the starting time by nearly two weeks, according to 7:9 and 8:31. They were needed for temple duties: this is the explanation given in verse 17. In verse 16, Ezra sent an impressive delegation to find Levites—leaders and men of learning. The latter seem to have been priestly instructors in the Torah. It is significant that in Nehemiah 8:7, 9, which belong to the Ezra memoirs, this term appears twice as a verbal form (“instructed,” “instructing”) that describes the Levites as hermeneutical ...

790. Woes and Judgments

Isaiah 5:8-30

Understanding Series

John Goldingay

... own definitions of insight (v. 21). Isaiah offers the first of many critiques of the so-called wisdom that effectively excludes God, though formally it will not have done so. Paradoxically (or not), the woes’ concerns parallel those of Proverbs. Far from being against learning, Isaiah includes it, but with God as part of the picture (e.g., 28:23–29; see, e.g., Whedbee, Isaiah and Wisdom, pp. 105–7). Behind all this (see vv. 11–13) is their combining self-indulgence with perversion of justice (vv. 22 ...

791. A Prophecy Against Egypt

Isaiah 19:1-25

Understanding Series

John Goldingay

... collected over the centuries. Israel knew it well. At least one section of Proverbs was adapted from an Egyptian prototype, the Thirty Sayings in Proverbs 22:17–24:22. In the conviction that all truth is God’s truth, Israel was quite open to learning from the culture and religion of other peoples where that could fill out and fit with what they knew of Yahweh. But this is a dangerous path, and it can lead to an excessive and undiscerning regard for those other resources. So Isaiah attacks reliance ...

792. A Prophecy About Tyre

Isaiah 23:1-18

Understanding Series

John Goldingay

... from the verse as it stands is beset by insuperable difficulties” (J. Skinner, The Book of the Prophet Isaiah [2 vols.; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1896 and 1898; revised ed., 1915 and 1917], 1:190). NIV takes it as a warning to Tyre to learn from the fate of Babylon when it resisted Assyria. NRSV is more literal, “Look at the land of the Chaldeans! This is the people; it was not Assyria. They destined Tyre for wild animals. . . .” The verse then identifies Babylon, not Assyria, as the ...

793. God's Mercy and Israel's Unfaithfulness

Isaiah 43:14-28

Understanding Series

John Goldingay

... has no object. The human means of freeing the people is not so very important. But the lack of an object has another significance. Once more we see these chapters unfolding themes slowly. This is the first reference to Babylon itself and its downfall. We will not learn the means of that fall until an equivalent point at the end of the next series of prophecies, in 44:24–45:8. Here the focus is on the effect of the event. Babylon sat on the river Euphrates, down which ships plied their trade, but these ...

794. Israel to be Destroyed

Amos 9:1-10

Understanding Series

Elizabeth Achtemeier

... in all creation can separate us from that love—neither “famine” (cf. Amos 8:11–12) nor “sword” (cf. Amos 9:1, 4), “neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth . . .” (Rom. 8:31, 35, 38–39). But what Israel learns in this vision and its oracle is that none of those things can separate it from God’s wrath. When trust and obedience are missing, when the name of the Lord has been profaned by empty worship and oppression of the poor and helpless, when human ...

795.

Psalm 103:1-22

Understanding Series

Craig C. Broyles

... 103:1–5 From the expression, Praise the LORD, O my soul, we hear the speaker in conversation with himself (cf. 42:5, 11; 43:5; 104:1; 146:1). We often falsely assume that praise, to be genuine, must be spontaneous. But here we learn that the self can be commanded to exercise itself to confess God’s mercy. Praise, it appears, need not come naturally to God’s creatures. Even Yahweh’s “heavenly . . . servants who do his will” are likewise commanded (vv. 20–22). The conversation actually continues ...

796. Processing Grief

Lamentations 3:1-66

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... the afflicted do well to wait even in silence. There is approval for turning over the yoke (responsibility?) to the younger generation (3:27). However, the context supports the view that yoke deals with suffering (cf. 3:1); the lesson of trust in God, when learned early, is orientation for the remainder of one’s life. Verses 28–30 once more picture the afflicted person in order to set the stage for verses 31–33. Despite the perception that the Lord brought on the affliction, faith affirms that it is ...

797. Daniel Interprets the Dream

Daniel 2:24-49

Understanding Series

William Nelson

... (1:19–20). Later Daniel is called “chief of the magicians” (4:9). This creates some tension with Israelite religion. If Daniel goes to the head of his class and then becomes the dean of the college and the chief magician, it suggests that he learned the Babylonians’ arts and could use them more proficiently than they. At the least he would have allowed them to continue in their arts while he appealed to God in prayer for revelation, for we read of no conversion of the Babylonian school of sages ...

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