Bible Fiber: Recent Episodes
Shelley Neese
Welcome to Bible Fiber where we are encountering the textures and shades of the prophetic tapestry in a year-long study of the twelve minor prophets. I am Shelley Neese, president of The Jerusalem Connection, a Christian organization devoted to sharing the story of the people of Israel, both ancient and modern. Join us as we read one minor prophet a month!
Deuteronomy 12 looks to a future day when the Tabernacle no longer needs to be portable. Until now, God has moved his cloud of presence from camp to camp, following the Israelites in their forty-year journey. God promises that they are entering a place of rest from their wanderings and from surrounding enemies. When they are living in relative safety, God desires his presence to also have a place of rest.
Deuteronomy 12 looks to a future day when the Tabernacle no longer needs to be portable. Until now, God has moved his cloud of presence from camp to camp, following the Israelites in their forty-year journey. God promises that they are entering a place of rest from their wanderings and from surrounding enemies. When they are living in relative safety, God desires his presence to also have a place of rest.
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This week’s Torah portion is called Eikev, and it covers Deuteronomy 7:12 to 11:25. The name Eikev translates to “because” or “as a consequence of.” Much of its message is about the cause-and-effect relationship between Israel’s obedience and God’s blessings and her disobedience and God’s curses. The portion starts: “If you pay attention to these laws and are careful to follow them, then the Lord your God will keep his covenant of love with you, as he swore to your ancestors” (7:12). Moses lists the blessings to include everything from abundance of crops to protection from disease.
Moses recaps the last forty years, recalling all of Israel’s highs and lows. He is speaking to a new generation—people who have never known anything other than desert wanderings. However, he recounts the events as if they too were eyewitnesses. He rebukes their shared lack of faith. He reminds them of their darkest moments. These incidents include the crafting and worshipping of the golden calf (9:16) and the constant complaining about the lack of food and water (9:22). Yet, alongside his rebuke of what he regularly calls “stiff-necked people,” Moses reminds them that they were chosen out of all the nations on the earth. All the trials and hardships over the last forty years had a purpose. God was humbling them and testing them so he would know what was in their hearts (8:2). Moses promises them that if they remember to keep God’s commandments after they settle the land, all will be well with them.
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This week’s Torah portion covers Deuteronomy 3:23–7:11. It is called Va’etchanan, which translates to “I pleaded,” because it begins with Moses pleading with God for permission to cross the Jordan River.
This week’s Torah portion also includes the most important proclamation in all of Judaism. As Moses contemplates the preservation of the Israelite faith and how best parents can impress the teachings upon their children, he pronounces:
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. (Deut. 6:4)
This verse is known in Hebrew as the Shema. It is considered the most critical piece of liturgy in all of Judaism, the great declaration of God’s oneness and his kingship. Jewish morning prayers and evening prayers include the Shema. The Shema is also part of the Shabbat prayers. On Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar, the service climaxes with the communal recitation of the Shema.
According to tradition, if a Jewish person believes their death is imminent, they should recite the Shema so that it can be the last words on their lips. I have read stories of soldiers in the Israel Defense Forces in wartime reciting the Shema together in their tanks and from their lookouts.
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We have finally made it to the last book of the Torah. Deuteronomy is Moses’s magnum opus, his farewell speeches to the people he has led out of Egypt and into the wilderness. They are finally at the cusp of entering the promised land, and what Moses and everyone with him understand is that he will not be accompanying them for this final portion. While the Israelites camp on the plains of Moab, and prepare to cross the Jordan River, Moses has some parting words for them. He uses his final days with them to reflect on their journey, reiterate all they have learned together, and reinforce the covenant God made with the nation.
Given the strength of Moses’s message, it seems the 120-year-old prophet had lost his original fear of speaking to the people. He is now a strong, wise, and experienced orator. And yet, sadness tinges the whole book. Moses, the people, and even the modern reader know that he is about to die.
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This week’s Torah portion covers Numbers 30:2–36:13. The double reading portion of Matot-Masei brings the book of Numbers to its end. Positioned on the plains of Moab, the Israelites stand at the threshold of the Promised Land. This final section functions as a bridge between the wandering generation and the conquest generation. Through legal stipulations, historical recitations, and geographical boundaries, the text establishes a framework for an orderly, holy society.
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This week’s Torah portion covers Numbers 25:10–30:1, and it is titled Pinchas. Phinehas is the name used in English Bibles, so that’s the name I will use in this podcast. Phinehas was a prominent biblical priest whose leadership started in the wilderness wanderings and continued into the early period of the Judges. He was the grandson of Aaron and the eventual High Priest of Israel.
Phinehas is most famous for a violent moment of righteous rage. However, the Bible offers a much longer testament to the fullness of his character, telling a bigger story of his faithful obedience to God.
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This week we are reading a double Torah portion: Chukat and Balak. It covers Numbers 19:1–25:9. Together, these two portions mark a major turning point in the book of Numbers. The older generation that left Egypt has almost entirely passed away in the wilderness. Now, Israel stands on the edge of the Promised Land, facing two distinct types of challenges. First, they must deal with the internal, spiritual challenge of ritual purity after a season of immense death. Second, they face external political anxiety from neighboring nations that view their arrival as a threat.
For thirty-eight years, the book of Numbers tracks an entire generation of adults dying out in the desert due to their rebellion at Kadesh Barnea. According to biblical law, encountering a corpse causes the highest level of ritual defilement. Because death was a daily occurrence in the camp, the entire nation had become ritually impure. They could not march into a land flowing with milk and honey while carrying the lingering ritual defilement of their wilderness judgment.
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Korah is the antihero in this Torah portion, infamous for leading a coup against Moses and Aaron that leaves 15,000 dead. However, every family dispute has two sides to the story, so we should learn more about Korah to fully understand the family dynamics. Korah was a prominent Levite and a close relative of Moses and Aaron. Korah’s father and Moses’s father were brothers, which makes Moses, Aaron, and Korah first cousins. As Korah watched his cousins attain the highest positions of authority in the community, resentment slowly took root in his heart.
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This week’s reading portion covers Numbers 13:1 to 15:41. It contains one of the more famous stories in the Torah: the episode of the twelve spies. Twelve appointed leaders went to Canaan to scout the land and its inhabitants. Moses gave them very specific instructions. They were to enter the land through the Negev Desert and journey up to the hill country in the north. They were to take note of the fertility of the land, its trees, and its produce. Also, the scouts needed to assess if the people in the land were strong or weak, numerous or sparse, and if the towns were fortified.
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In this week’s Torah portion (Num 8:1–12:16), Moses experiences a profound breakdown when the Israelites demand meat. His reaction is far more severe than it was during previous complaints about food. Before this crisis, he had led the people through repeated breaches of faith without becoming so deeply despairing. This time, however, he cries out to God, declaring that the burden of leadership is too heavy for him to bear alone. He even begs God to kill him rather than force him to continue under such a weight. In response, God does not end Moses's life. Instead, he causes meat to rain down upon the camp until the people grow completely sick of it.
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Numbers 6 introduces the long-enduring institution of the Nazirite and memorializes one of the oldest documented Hebrew prayers.
While the Levitical priesthood was strictly a hereditary role, the Nazirite vow offered a democratic, merit-based path. It allowed any individual to dedicate themselves fully to God and consecrate themselves like a priest. This remarkable institution lasted in Israel for 2,000 years.
The chapter concludes with one of the most enduring blessings in human history. God gave this exact phrasing to Moses to pass on to Aaron and his sons to use when blessing the Israelites. Today, the Aaronic blessing remains one of the most recognizable biblical passages to every Jew and Christian.
Archaeology has confirmed the antiquity of these words. The Ketef Hinnom silver scrolls, found in 1979, contain the Aaronic blessing. They are the oldest biblical text ever found, even 500 years older than the Dead Sea Scrolls. Next time you sing The Blessing at church, know that you are singing lyrics that are 2600 years old.
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This week, we begin the book of Numbers, the fourth volume in our weekly Torah readings. Before decamping from Mount Sinai, God commands Moses and Aaron to take a headcount. The specific instructions given to Moses and Aaron focused on identifying and counting those fit for battle. They had to have a record of the number of men “able to go forth to war,” which meant all men over the age of twenty. The Levites were the only tribe not eligible for military service, as they were set apart for work at the Tabernacle.
Despite the emphasis on the Levitical role as servant to the community, it still feels as though the Levites are elevated above the other tribes. This naturally raises the question: by what merit did the Levites secure such a position? Knowing human nature and group dynamics, I am certain this question arose within the camp as well. However, God preempts the accusation with a history lesson from Exodus. And Bible Fiber is going to share that history lesson with you!
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This week’s Torah portion is known as Behar–Bechukotai and covers Leviticus 25:1–27:34. These are the final two Torah portions in the book of Leviticus.
In Leviticus 25, the concept of the Jubilee is introduced as the ultimate expression of God’s sovereignty over the land and time. It functions as a “super-Sabbath,” occurring after seven cycles of seven years.
Moses instructs the nation to count off seven cycles of sabbatical years—seven years seven times. In the fiftieth year, the people are to hallow the Year of Jubilee. During that year, on the Day of Atonement, a shofar is blown all across the land to announce the moment of redemption.
The Jubilee year is defined by three primary mandates that reset the economic and social structure of Israelite society. The most significant aspect of the Jubilee is the restoration of property. In the biblical framework, land could not be sold permanently. Instead, it was leased based on the number of years remaining until the next Jubilee. Families who sold their land due to poverty or debt received it back. The practice reinforced the idea that the land belongs to God. The Israelites were merely tenants or stewards of his property. Any Israelite who had sold himself into servitude to pay off debts was set free. These individuals were permitted to return to their ancestral clans and their own family land. The Jubilee transformed the concept of “ownership” into “stewardship.”
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This week’s Torah portion is known as Emor—which means “speak”—and it covers Leviticus 21:1–24:23. The counting of the Omer began on April 2 and will end on May 21. For the Jewish people, the goal of counting the Omer is to become a vessel ready to be filled by God’s holy law. For the Christian, we can also count the Omer as we retrace the life of our messiah Jesus from his death, resurrection, and the outpouring of the Spirit. Right now, at this moment, on Day 29 of the Omer, the disciples were still learning at the feet of Jesus. What Jesus did for his followers during those days is the goal of Bible Fiber. He sat with them, and “beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures” (Luke 24:27). By prayer and study, I suggest that we all retrace the steps from Egypt to Sinai and from the resurrection to Pentecost.
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These chapters contain some of the most vital commands for the people of Israel. They include the liturgy for the holiest day on the Jewish calendar—Yom Kippur. A unique part of the ceremony involved two goats of similar size and appearance. One goat was for Yahweh, and the other was for Azazel. These animals represented two aspects of atonement. One paid the penalty and was sacrificed in the sanctuary. The other removed the sin from the community and was released into the wilderness. Which goat represented Jesus?
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This week’s reading is called Tazria and it covers Leviticus 12:1–15:33. This portion is completely occupied by issues of ritual impurity. Last week’s reading, Shemini, was concerned with the structural boundaries between the sacred and the profane, as it pertained to the Tabernacle and priesthood. Tazria–Metzora shifts the lens toward the human body and the private experiences of the laypeople. It deals with the laws of ritual impurity arising from childbirth and every possible skin affliction. Where Shemini focuses on the physical structure of the sanctuary and the behavior of the priests, this portion focuses on the physical state of the common person. It addresses how natural life cycles and mysterious illnesses affect an individual’s ability to participate in communal worship.
The laws of ritual purity in Leviticus were the essential start of what would later become one of the most important sacraments of our faith. By understanding the origins of immersion in these chapters, we gain a deeper appreciation for baptism, recognizing it not as a new invention but as the beautiful fulfillment of a divine promise.
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Until this point, Leviticus emphasizes that all the preparations and sacrifices had been performed just as the Lord commanded. However, the second the priests went off script, acting spontaneously on their own, disaster struck. Aaron’s oldest sons, Nadab and Abihu, “each took his censer, put fire in it, and laid incense on it, and they offered unholy fire before the Lord, such as he had not commanded them” (10:1). Just as fire had previously consumed the sacrifices as a sign of divine favor, “fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord” (10:2).
The reader is left imagining the horror of the scene. It was all going according to plan when God consumed the offerings laid on the altar, but then the same divine fire consumed the offerors. Aaron’s highest high, encountering the power of God so intimately, was followed by his lowest low: witnessing the tragic death of his sons and fellow priests. Leviticus 10:3 attests that after Moses offered a divine explanation that might seem jarringly blunt in the wake of such loss, “Aaron remained silent.”
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This week’s Torah portion covers Leviticus 6:8–8:36. The second reading in Leviticus is titled Tzav, which means “Command!” Like last week, the text dryly expounds on how the priests are to present the sacrifices in the tabernacle. Details include how they are to dispose of the ashes, eat the grain offerings, and maintain the eternal fire. Each type of offering—be it burnt offering, grain offering, sin offering, or peace offering—has a distinct set of rules.
What are Jewish people supposed to do with the manual now that there is no temple? At this point, they have lived far longer without a sanctuary than they lived with one. There are still those who know they are in the Levitical priesthood, but they have not had an altar to service or an animal to slay for 2,000 years. It isn’t as if the Jews ever had the chance to voluntarily phase out their sacrificial system; the Romans decided that for them. The destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE abruptly ended the Jews’ most central form of worship. As they mourned the loss of their sacred sanctuary, they asked themselves how they were supposed to atone for their sins without a temple. Of the 613 laws, 150 pertain to temple worship. How were they to maintain God’s laws when a sixth of them were no longer possible?
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The first reading portion in Leviticus goes from 1:1 to 6:7. If you have read ahead—and I always encourage you to take that approach—we are not blazing through creation and early human history like in Genesis. We aren’t following the earth–shaking signs and wonders of Exodus. We haven’t yet arrived at Numbers, where the chosen people get on the move. Leviticus is the Bible’s pause, and I don’t mean a dramatic pause; it’s more like a prescriptive pause. In a window of about 30 days, God established the architecture of the sacrificial system and the institutions that will govern Israelite religious life for 1,500 years.
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This week’s Torah portion is Vayakhel-Pekudei, which covers Exodus 35:1–40:38. This is our 22nd Torah portion in the annual reading cycle and our final Exodus study.
Before the people gathered to hold a collection of precious materials and commission artisans, Moses reminded them of the commandment to observe a Sabbath rest. Chapter 35 begins: “Moses assembled the whole Israelite community and said to them, ‘These are the things the Lord has commanded you to do: For six days, work is to be done, but the seventh day shall be your holy day, a day of sabbath rest to the Lord. Whoever does any work on it is to be put to death.’”
It may strike the reader as a bit odd that Moses expounded on Shabbat right before he launched into a litany of work orders for the whole community. As they built their house of worship, he established the moral code and divine calendar that would guide the upstart nation. In practical terms, the institution of Shabbat outlasted the Tent of Meeting or the future temples. As the Zionist writer Ahad Ha’am famously said, “More than the Jews have kept the Sabbath, the Sabbath has kept the Jews.”
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This week’s Torah portion is Ki Tissa, which covers Exodus 30:11–34:35. It is also the week Jews in Israel and abroad celebrate Purim. Purim is the joyous Jewish holiday that marks the survival of the Jewish people in the ancient Persian Empire after a plot to annihilate them was thwarted by the bravery of Esther and the steadfastness of Mordecai.
This week’s Torah portion presents a narrative pendulum that swings from Israel’s highest high—the giving of the ten commandments—to her lowest low—the casting of the golden calf.
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This week, we explore the Torah portion called Tetzaveh, which translates to “you command.” This section covers Exodus 27:20-30:10. Much of the reading is about the priesthood, one of the most critical institutions in Israel’s spiritual architecture. Tetzaveh covers the sacred vestments, exactly what the priests were supposed to wear, from their head covering to the hem of their robe. It also addresses the critical components required to keep the Tabernacle functioning, such as lighting the menorah, burning incense, and performing the daily sacrifices. A good bit of time is spent on the seven-day ceremony to consecrate the priests.
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This week we enter the nineteenth weekly Torah portion, Terumah, which in Hebrew means “offering.” At this point in the Exodus story, the Israelites have just witnessed the dramatic crossing of the Red Sea and stood at the base of Mount Sinai to receive the covenant. They have been given the foundational instructions for living as set-apart people. Now, God has a plan for a communal building project.
This leads us to wonder: Why did God need the Tabernacle? Why did the creator of the universe even allow for himself to be limited to a tent? Doesn’t that mean God was condescending to the imagination of men and allowing himself to seem like all of Israel’s neighbors’ gods with their temples and altars? The truth is, God didn’t need the Tabernacle. Man did. God used the Tabernacle to invite his people back through the gates of Eden. He desired to once again be in their midst, to be known by them and worshiped.
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This week’s Torah portion is Mishpatim, Hebrew for “laws.” The portion covers Exodus 21:1 to 24:18. At this point in the Exodus chronology, the Israelites are entering their seventh week of freedom. In the previous portion, Yitro, they heard for the first time the Ten Commandments, the Big Ten.
If the Ten Commandments are the constitution of this new nation, Mishpatim is the civil and criminal code. This section provides a detailed look at the full covenant. It takes the moral heights of the mountain and applies them to the grit of daily life.
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In this episode of Bible Fiber, we explore the Torah portion Yitro (Exodus 18:1–20:23). While most weekly readings have titles that describe actions, this portion is one of only five named after a person: Jethro, the Midianite priest and father-in-law of Moses.
We look at how Jethro served as an "executive consultant" to Moses. He identified a major flaw in Moses’ leadership and provided the recipe for its correction. By advising Moses to delegate authority, Jethro helped build the foundation for the Israelite judicial system. Jethro is more than a biblical figure; he is the chief prophet and spiritual ancestor of the Druze community. About 140,000 Druze live in Israel today, with over one million across the Levant.
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This week’s portion is Beshalach, which translates to “when he sent.” The name comes from the opening verse: “When Pharaoh let the people go...” (13:17). After ten rounds of increasingly destructive plagues, Pharaoh finally agreed to release the Israelites.
Exodus 14 first provides a list of place names describing the winding journey of the escape. This was not a direct march from Egypt to Canaan; it was a zigzagging, circuitous route. For modern scholars and archaeologists, this path is almost impossible to retrace with certainty, since many place names have faded from historical memory. Therefore, the exact route of the Exodus journey remains a mystery.
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Consider donating (one-time or recurring) to www.TheJerusalemConnection.us so we can continue to bring valuable content via podcasts free to the public. Help us increase our audience reach and improve production quality. Your donation is 100% tax-deductible to our non-profit organization. Bible Fiber and The Red Alert Report are available via YouTube and all major podcast platforms. The Jerusalem Connection also engages in additional educational and advocacy programs. Check our "Projects" tab for all the endeavors we invite YOU to be part of.
This week’s Torah portion, Bo, covers Exodus 10:1 to 13:16. The narrative intensity hits its peak here. The last three of the ten plagues descend on Egypt: locusts devour the crops, impenetrable darkness shrouds the land, and finally, the firstborns of every Egyptian family are killed during the night.
The portion begins with a command from God to Moses: “Go to Pharaoh; for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his officials, so that I may show these signs of mine among them” (10:1).
There is a fascinating linguistic twist here. The word translated as “Go” is actually Bo in Hebrew, which means “Come.” So a more accurate translation is “Come to Pharaoh” and not “Go to Pharaoh. God was telling Moses, “Come with me to Pharaoh.” The Pharaoh’s palace was the heart of the beast, the center of Egyptian idolatry. But by saying “come with me to Pharaoh,” God was reassuring Moses that he would not be walking into that throne room alone. God was already there, waiting.
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Consider donating (one-time or recurring) to www.TheJerusalemConnection.us so we can continue to bring valuable content via podcasts free to the public. Help us increase our audience reach and improve production quality. Your donation is 100% tax-deductible to our non-profit organization. Bible Fiber and The Red Alert Report are available via YouTube and all major podcast platforms. The Jerusalem Connection also engages in additional educational and advocacy programs. Check our "Projects" tab for all the endeavors we invite YOU to be part of.
This week’s Torah portion covers Exodus 6:2-9:35. It is called Va’era, which means “and I appeared,” the first words spoken to Moses in the text. In Va’era, the story of the Exodus begins. Plagues hit the Egyptians in full force. Pharaoh knew the names of many false gods, but the one true God, the God of the Israelites, was a mystery to him. Through a series of pestilence, blood, darkness, death, and disease, Yahweh shows himself greater than any other imaginable power.
Exodus is the most supernatural book in the Hebrew Bible. But it is also the climax, the pinnacle of Israel’s story. Until now, the patriarchs learned of God’s covenant promises through quiet acts like nighttime wrestling, angelic visitations at the door of a tent, or through firm convictions of conscience and clear revelations. But now the birth pangs are growing sharp. The Egyptians require unprecedented signs and punishments that go beyond the explainable.
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Consider donating (one-time or recurring) to www.TheJerusalemConnection.us so we can continue to bring valuable content via podcasts free to the public. Help us increase our audience reach and improve production quality. Your donation is 100% tax-deductible to our non-profit organization. Bible Fiber and The Red Alert Report are available via YouTube and all major podcast platforms. The Jerusalem Connection also engages in additional educational and advocacy programs. Check our "Projects" tab for all the endeavors we invite YOU to be part of.
Genesis closed with the descendants of Jacob living in the land of Egypt, waiting out the period of famine that had overtaken the region. What started as a temporary move turned into a centuries-long stay. We do not know the exact time interval separating Joseph from Moses. The Bible says a Pharaoh arose who “did not know Joseph” (1:8). The new Pharaoh was not beholden to the Israelites. The history of Joseph’s service was long forgotten, which meant the Israelites lost their protected status as the relatives of a national hero.
Goshen no longer hosted just Jacob and his descendants. That original generation of 70 refugees passed away. But they were an “exceedingly fruitful” people, fanning out over the Nile Delta. They grew so large that the native Egyptians felt threatened by their size. The first words out of the new Pharaoh’s mouth were: “Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and more powerful than we. Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, or they will increase and, in the event of war, join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land” (1:9–10).
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Consider donating (one-time or recurring) to www.TheJerusalemConnection.us so we can continue to bring valuable content via podcasts free to the public. Help us increase our audience reach and improve production quality. Your donation is 100% tax-deductible to our non-profit organization. Bible Fiber and The Red Alert Report are available via YouTube and all major podcast platforms. The Jerusalem Connection also engages in additional educational and advocacy programs. Check our "Projects" tab for all the endeavors we invite YOU to be part of.
This week’s Torah portion Vayechi covers Genesis 47:28–50:26. These are the last chapters of Genesis and the final moments of the era of the patriarchs. It is a biblical pivot point. While Genesis covered the personal lives and divine encounters of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Exodus will launch into the national history of the twelve tribes.
A Heart Anchored in the Promise
After Joseph brought his family to Goshen, Jacob lived there with his extended family for the last seventeen years of his life. These were likely his most peaceful years. He was surrounded by his children and grandchildren. Yet, as his strength begins to fail, his mind does not dwell on the comforts of Egypt. He calls Joseph to his side for a final request. He says: “Deal kindly and truly with me. Please do not bury me in Egypt” (Gen. 47:29).
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Consider donating (one-time or recurring) to www.TheJerusalemConnection.us so we can continue to bring valuable content via podcasts free to the public. Help us increase our audience reach and improve production quality. Your donation is 100% tax-deductible to our non-profit organization. Bible Fiber and The Red Alert Report are available via YouTube and all major podcast platforms. The Jerusalem Connection also engages in additional educational and advocacy programs. Check our "Projects" tab for all the endeavors we invite YOU to be part of.
As we follow the Jewish reading calendar, we arrive at this week’s Torah portion, called Vayigash (Genesis 44:18–47:27) which means “and he drew near.” It is the climax of the Joseph cycle, when he reveals himself to his brothers, who assumed he was long dead. For both Jewish and Christian readers, Vayigash is a revelation of how God guides human history toward redemption.
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Consider donating (one-time or recurring) to www.TheJerusalemConnection.us so we can continue to bring valuable content via podcasts free to the public. Help us increase our audience reach and improve production quality. Your donation is 100% tax-deductible to our non-profit organization. Bible Fiber and The Red Alert Report are available via YouTube and all major podcast platforms. The Jerusalem Connection also engages in additional educational and advocacy programs. Check our "Projects" tab for all the endeavors we invite YOU to be part of.
The Hebrew title of this week’s Torah portion is Miketz, which translates to “at the end,” and it covers Genesis 41:1 to 44:17. After two years, Joseph’s long season of suffering is almost over. This portion chronicles his meteoric rise from prisoner to the Pharaoh’s chief economic advisor, second in command only to the ruler of Egypt himself. It exposes Joseph as a brilliant leader, but more importantly, it reveals a man of character whose wisdom and humility paved the way for the salvation of his family.
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Consider donating (one-time or recurring) to www.TheJerusalemConnection.us so we can continue to bring valuable content via podcasts free to the public. Help us increase our audience reach and improve production quality. Your donation is 100% tax-deductible to our non-profit organization. Bible Fiber and The Red Alert Report are available via YouTube and all major podcast platforms. The Jerusalem Connection also engages in additional educational and advocacy programs. Check our "Projects" tab for all the endeavors we invite YOU to be part of.
Joseph’s life story is one of the most masterful literary arcs in the whole of scripture. It goes far beyond just an example of brotherly jealous provoked by parental favoritism. The complex characters are fully developed so that no one is entirely guilty or innocent. The setting changes from pit to palace to prison as the storyline progresses. Although God does not make a dramatic appearance to Joseph, like the burning bush or a wrestling angel, he speaks to him in dreams, both his own and others. The entire time a tension hangs over the story asking the reader to discern between human agency and divine providence.
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Consider donating (one-time or recurring) to www.TheJerusalemConnection.us so we can continue to bring valuable content via podcasts free to the public. Help us increase our audience reach and improve production quality. Your donation is 100% tax-deductible to our non-profit organization. Bible Fiber and The Red Alert Report are available via YouTube and all major podcast platforms. The Jerusalem Connection also engages in additional educational and advocacy programs. Check our "Projects" tab for all the endeavors we invite YOU to be part of.
As we follow the weekly Jewish reading calendar, we arrive at this week’s Torah portion, called Vayishlah, which means “and he sent.” The portion covers Genesis 32:4 through 36:43.
Jacob was not the same person returning to Canaan as he was when he left twenty years prior. The biblical narrative presents an intentional symmetry to show this transformation, framing his self-induced exile with two distinct nighttime encounters with the Divine. These two events place parentheses around his time away, marking the beginning and the culmination of his spiritual journey. Jacob’s transformation started during his initial flight from home and was only fully realized upon his return. In both instances, Jacob was vulnerable and isolated. However, the nature of his interaction shifted dramatically from a passive recipient to an active participant.
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Consider donating (one-time or recurring) to www.TheJerusalemConnection.us so we can continue to bring valuable content via podcasts free to the public. Help us increase our audience reach and improve production quality. Your donation is 100% tax-deductible to our non-profit organization. Bible Fiber and The Red Alert Report are available via YouTube and all major podcast platforms. The Jerusalem Connection also engages in additional educational and advocacy programs. Check our "Projects" tab for all the endeavors we invite YOU to be part of.
As we follow the weekly Jewish reading calendar, we arrive at this week’s Torah portion, called Toldot, which means “descendants” or “generations,” covering Genesis 25:19–28:9.
The reading picks up where the last portion ended: the union of Isaac and Rebekah. After twenty years of childlessness, God blessed the couple with twin boys: Jacob and Esau. However, before we delve into Jacob and Esau’s turbulent rivalry, it is essential to pause and give their father, Isaac, his due attention.
Isaac is a mysterious figure, by far the most understated of the patriarchs. The biblical narrative that surrounds Isaac is undramatic. Abraham negotiates with God and Jacob wrestles a divine being and demands a blessing. Isaac, on the other hand, hardly speaks at all. The stories where he is the central character rarely have him in extended dialogue.
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This week’s Torah portion is called Chayei Sarah, which means “the life of Sarah.”
The title of this portion is ironic because it begins with the death of Sarah, at the ripe age of 127. The passing of Sarah sets the stage for two great movements in Abraham’s later life. First, he purchases a piece of land in the place God promised him and his descendants. Second, he finds a suitable bride for his son, Isaac.
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This week’s Torah portion is called Vayera, which means “And he appeared.” It is named for God’s appearance to Abraham and it covers Genesis 18:1–22:24.
The narrative opens with the arrival of three visitors at the entrance to Abraham’s tent. The text states, “The Lord appeared to Abraham by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the entrance of his tent in the heat of the day. He looked up and saw three men standing near him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent entrance to meet them and bowed down to the ground” (Gen. 18:1-3).
The identity of these three men is bathed in mystery. Jewish tradition interprets the three “men” as three distinct angels—Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael—each sent on a specific mission. Christian tradition interprets the third figure—the one identified as “Lord”—as a Christophany, a visible manifestation of the pre-incarnate Christ. The visitor apparently had a human form, as he ate and drank the meal Abraham had prepared. Yet, he also spoke with divine authority and knew Sarah’s hidden thoughts. Both Jewish and Christian traditions praise Abraham’s elaborate hospitality to these strangers. The author of Hebrews uses Abraham’s interaction in Genesis 18 as the highest standard for showing hospitality, stating, “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it” (Heb. 13:2). It is during this visitation that the divine messenger delivers a crucial promise: even though the couple was advanced in years, Sarah would finally conceive a son. The announcement is naturally met with disbelief and a laugh from Sarah. The Lord acknowledges her reaction by posing the rhetorical question, “Is anything too wonderful for the Lord?” (Gen. 18:14).
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This week’s Torah portion is called Lech Lecha, which means “Go forth,” and it centers on God’s call on Abraham’s life. It covers Genesis 12:1–17:27.
After the biblical flood and the failed ambition of the Tower of Babel, God changes His strategy for engaging with humanity. Instead of a universal covenant with all of creation, God narrows His focus to one person: a man named Abraham from a land called Ur of the Chaldeans. The opening words of this portion are simple, but they set a new course for all human history: “The Lord said to Abraham, ‘Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.’”
God doesn’t fully explain His plan to Abraham. He simply says, “Go forth” or “lech lecha.” Abraham, a model of faith and obedience, sets out for the land God will reveal. He leaves behind his entire world to follow a promise into a land he has never seen. Abraham was called to leave the height of civilization, the sophistication of Ur. To follow God, Abraham had to abandon the very highest human accomplishments and security, venturing into an unknown, backwater land with no guarantee of safety or prosperity.
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This week’s Torah portion is called Noach and it covers Genesis 6:9–11:32. The flood narrative is more than a story about a punishing rainstorm. From a theological perspective, it’s a de-creation. It’s an undoing of the world back to its primordial state of watery chaos, echoing the formless and empty earth of Genesis 1. God is essentially hitting the reset button on His creation. The waters cover the earth, and all life is swept away, leaving only Noah and his family. The ark becomes a symbol of God’s redemptive power, saving a remnant to start over. The take-home message is that sin leads to cosmic chaos and death, but God, in His mercy, always provides a way for a remnant to survive.
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For the past four years, we've embarked on a deep, chapter-by-chapter exploration of prophetic texts often overlooked by many readers—from the twelve minor prophets to the reformers Ezra and Nehemiah, and the major prophet Ezekiel. Now, we are embarking on a one-year sprint through the foundational texts of our faith: the first five books of the Bible, the Torah.
This series is structured around the Jewish reading cycle. According to Jewish tradition, some 2,500 years ago, Ezra the Scribe established an annual reading schedule that divides the Torah—the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy—into 54 weekly portions. In Hebrew, those portions are called parashot. By following this centuries-old calendar, we will complete the entire Torah in one year. This isn’t just a reading plan; it’s an invitation to join an ancient and ongoing Bible Reading Challenge. I hope to build a bridge between the Bible conversations happening around Christian tables on Sunday lunches and the Shabbat tables of our Jewish friends and neighbors.
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Prophets in the Bible who did not write their own books are often referred to as non-writing prophets. Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel’s prophecies were compiled into dedicated biblical books. The ministries of non-writing prophets are instead recorded within the historical narratives of other books, like Kings and Chronicles. Their primary role was to deliver God’s message to kings and the people of Israel and Judah. Their ministries were frequently characterized by bold confrontations with idol worship and corrupt rulers.
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The prophet’s final recorded revelation is a divine mandate on how the land of Israel will be divided among the tribes once they are restored to the land. This vision is a pretty granular in all its detail, but it was meant to give hope to a people in despair. The Israelites had lost their land and their temple, and this meticulous oracle of restoration was a promise that God had not abandoned His people or forgotten His covenant promises.
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In Ezekiel 47, the prophet, along with his angelic guide, witnesses a river of living water flowing from the temple. Sitting on the bank of the river with the angel, Ezekiel observes that the river brings life to everything it touches. In the Gospels, Jesus often referred to himself as living water. This wasn’t just a casual use of a metaphor; it was a deliberate theological statement that connected his ministry to ancient prophetic promises.
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Chapters 45 and 46 of Ezekiel detail the structure of a future Jerusalem, including a holy district with land allotments for priests and Levites, and a separate area for a new leader called "the prince." This prince is an ideal, righteous ruler who oversees the temple and provides sacrifices, contrasting with the corrupt kings of the past. The vision also outlines specific regulations for temple traffic, sacrifices, and festivals, which differ from the traditional Mosaic Law. Although the identity of Ezekiel's prince is mysterious, it can't be Jesus for obvious theological reasons.
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In this episode of Bible Fiber, you'll discover the fascinating story behind the permanently sealed East Gate. We’ll also explore the surprising strictness about who could enter Ezekiel's ideal temple. You'll learn about the unique calling of the Zadokite priests.
While Ezekiel's vision is incredibly detailed about the future temple, there's a significant omission – no High Priest. The answer is in the Book of Hebrews. Jesus is our ultimate, eternal High Priest, the one who tore down the veil and gives every believer bold, direct access to God's throne of grace.
Intrigued by how ancient prophecies connect with modern-day realities and the truth of the Gospel? Tune in to this episode of Bible Fiber on Ezekiel 44.
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After four years of near weekly episodes, I took the month of June off and went to Israel to participate in an archaeological dig at Shiloh. The excavation has been going on for years under the auspices of the Associates for Biblical Research (ABR) and Dr. Scott Stripling, who directs ABR’s excavations. Things took a crazy turn when Israel attacked Iran. At first we kept digging, until we couldn't anymore...
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Shavuot is also known as the Feast of Weeks or the Feast of Harvest. It is a joyous one-day festival that begins on the sixth day of the third month in the Hebrew calendar, Sivan. This typically falls in late May or early June on the Gregorian calendar. It’s worth noting that Shavuot comes exactly 50 days after the second day of Passover, hence its Greek name, Pentecost, meaning “fiftieth.” This timing links the Exodus from Egypt to the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai.
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This week we are taking a break from our Ezekiel study because I have a special guest with me, Omri Toppol. I met Omri recently at the National Religious Broadcasters convention. I was super intrigued by a new project that he is starting, and I thought Bible Fiber listeners would be as well. Omri is the CEO of Temple Mount Soil. Yes, you heard that right: Temple Mount Soil.
Check out the website: https://www.templemountsoil.com/
If you make a purchase be sure to use the promo code: BIBLEFIBER for a 10% discount!
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In Ezekiel 43, we witness a pivotal moment: the powerful return of God's glory to the temple, a stark contrast to its departure described earlier in the book.
Join me as we explore the profound significance of this event, examining the conditions for God's enduring presence and the intriguing question of why the detailed temple vision wasn't immediately reconstructed. We'll also delve into how the imagery of Ezekiel's vision finds resonance and transformation in the book of Revelation.
This episode offers insightful perspectives on themes of restoration, divine presence, and the ultimate fulfillment of prophecy.
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This week, we will delve into Ezekiel chapters 40 to 42, which present Ezekiel’s visionary depiction of a future temple complex. While our usual format for Bible Fiber is to explore one chapter each week, I have decided to dedicate this episode to an in-depth discussion of all three chapters together. As a priest, Ezekiel was likely enthralled by the measurements and architectural details of his temple vision. However, for many listeners, his verbal descriptions might be challenging to visualize. Thankfully, there are scholars who have carefully analyzed every measurement and created illustrated renditions of Ezekiel’s square temple city. Although these illustrations are not easily adaptable to a podcast format, I will strive to convey the significance of his temple vision.
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This week, we are studying Ezekiel 39, the second half of his famous oracle against the mysterious Gog from the land of Magog.
Israel’s only job
Throughout most of the Gog oracle, the emphasis has been on God’s direct intervention in defeating the invading armies. Whether it was God knocking the bow and arrows from the archers’ hands (39:3) or setting fire to Magog and the coastlands (39:6), the responsibility fell entirely on God to obliterate the hordes.
In the prophecy, the Israelites emerged only once the battle was already over. Their only task was to organize a cleanup operation. They began by collecting all the weaponry left behind by their defeated enemies. Ezekiel noted that they gathered enough shields, bows, arrows, and war clubs. However, instead of storing the weapons in their armory, they repurposed them for fuel. Gog’s captured weaponry would provide them with firewood for seven years (39:9). In other words, with the defeat of Gog and its allies, Israel entered into an era of total peace.
Ezekiel gave a new twist on the prophecies of Isaiah and Micah, which stated that in the Messianic age, people would turn their swords into plowshares (Isa. 2:4, Micah 4:3). The Israelites sensed that this was the last war. Ezekiel also notes the irony: “And they will plunder those who plundered them and loot those who looted them” (39:10), as the hordes had initially invaded Israel, intending to plunder its cities and villages.
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This week, we are studying Ezekiel 38, where the prophet presents his famous oracle against Gog from the land of Magog. This quasi-apocalyptic vision has captivated and perplexed scholars, theologians, and lay readers for centuries. Its cryptic nature, rich symbolism, and futuristic implications have led to many, often conflicting, interpretations. The shadowy figure of Gog, the vivid portrayal of a great battle, and the promise of divine intervention have made these chapters a focal point for those attempting to decode the mysteries of the end times. However, the complexities of the oracle are manageable, and its insights are less sensational than often believed.
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This week, we are studying Ezekiel 37, which contains one of the most iconic prophetic visions in the entire Bible: The Valley of Dry Bones. Apart from God’s winged throne chariot in Chapter 1, this is the most memorable symbol in Ezekiel. The vision’s enduring popularity stems from its vivid imagery and potent message of hope. As an apocalyptic vision, it easily lends itself to endless interpretation.
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Welcome to Bible Fiber, where are we encountering the textures and shades of the biblical tapestry. I am Shelley Neese, president of The Jerusalem Connection, a Christian organization devoted to sharing the story of the people of Israel, both ancient and modern.
This week we are studying Ezekiel 35 and 36. In the previous chapter, Yahweh restated his loyalty to the covenant people as a nation. In Chapters 35 and 36, he reasserts his commitment to the land of Israel.
Mount Seir
God instructs the prophet to direct his prophecy against Mount Seir (35:1-3). As the capital of Edom, Mount Seir represents the descendants of Esau, Israel’s perpetual foe. This oracle seems out of place, as God has already declared punishment for Edom in the Oracles Against the Nations (25:12-14). Why is Ezekiel reiterating God’s disapproval of Edom when this could have been tacked on to Chapter 25’s mini-oracle?
The answer lies in the literary structure of the entire book. In the judgment portion of Ezekiel’s message, God instructed him to prophesy against the mountains of Israel (6:1-3). The mountains, hills, valleys, and ravines would all experience God’s wrath for hosting idol-worshiping Israelites with their pagan shrines and altars. In Ezekiel’s salvation portion, however, he reverses the curse on Israel’s mountains by shifting the punishment to Mount Seir.
Certainly, the exiled audience heard reports of the Edomites encroaching on their abandoned properties and capitalizing on Jerusalem’s misfortune. They plundered the city, captured Judean refugees, and handed them over to the Babylonians. While Israel suffered in exile, Edom seemed to thrive. The Edomites aimed to annex the land of both Israel and Judah, which Ezekiel refers to as the “two nations” and “two countries” (35:10). The Abrahamic land promise had been denied to their patriarch, Esau, in favor of Jacob, fueling their resentment. Israel’s exile led the Edomites to believe they could finally reclaim the birthright they felt was unjustly taken from them. God condemned their lack of compassion for Israel during its most tragic moments, declaring he would destroy Edom because they “cherished an ancient enmity and gave over the people of Israel to the power of the sword” (35:5). Their actions during the Babylonian assault displayed a sense of betrayal due to their kinship with Israel.
The Edomites’ actions during Jerusalem’s conquest particularly incited divine disapproval as they celebrated the city’s downfall and sought to exploit it for their gain (Psalm 137:7). Before Israel returned to the land, God promised judgment against Edom. The Edomites believed the land of Israel would become theirs by default (35:10-13). However, God declared that this assumption disregarded his sovereignty over Israel. In his omniscience, he heard their blasphemous claims that the land was now theirs to devour (35:12). Despite Israel’s failings and the subsequent exile, God remained dedicated to protecting the land for Israel’s eventual return.
When the Edomites rejoiced over Israel’s ruin, they directly challenged Yahweh. Consequently, he would make their land desolate. The Edomites failed to understand that God is the true owner of the covenant land; he repeatedly refers to it as “my land,” even though he entrusted Israel with its care. Seizing any part of the land equates to stealing from Yahweh.
When Edom is mentioned in the Bible, it refers not only to historical Edom and a paradigm for all godless nations that oppose God’s people. Edom represents those who stand against God and his chosen representatives. Each enemy nation that antagonizes the Jewish people today follows the path of Edom. Although the “Edoms” of the world may experience moments of success, they will ultimately be defeated while Israel is preserved.
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In Chapter 34, Ezekiel’s prophetic tone changes. Previously mute and limited to delivering messages of judgment, Ezekiel now offers words of comfort and hope to his fellow exiles. This change marks a turning point in the book of Ezekiel and in the prophet’s ministry.
By this time, the number of Jewish exiles in Babylon had grown considerably. Ezekiel could have dwelled on the past, reminding his traumatized audience of the reasons for their punishment. Instead, he chooses a more compassionate approach. The focus of his oracles shifts dramatically towards the future. While the first two-thirds of the book primarily criticized Israel for its history of rebellion, the latter third looks forward with optimism, emphasizing themes of restoration and a new covenant between God and his people.
This dual structure—judgment followed by renewal—is not unique to Ezekiel. It’s a characteristic pattern found in many prophetic books of the Hebrew Bible. Prominent prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah first pronounced judgment before transitioning to messages of hope and salvation. Ezekiel was retracing the footsteps of his predecessors.
This pattern reflects a deeper theological understanding of history in ancient Israelite thought. History is not random or cyclical but moving purposefully towards a divinely ordained goal: redemption. The exiles’ suffering was not the end of the story, but a painful yet necessary step towards a greater future.
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Bible Fiber delves into Chapter 33, a pivotal point in the book of Ezekiel that marks a transition from judgment to hope. Ezekiel is recommissioned as a watchman over Jerusalem. The chapter addresses themes of personal responsibility, repentance, and God's desire for the wicked to turn from their ways and live. It contrasts the attitudes of the exiles in Babylon with those remaining in Jerusalem, highlighting misconceptions about divine favor and covenant responsibilities. The arrival of a fugitive from Jerusalem validates Ezekiel's prophecies, but despite his increased popularity, the people treat his messages as entertainment rather than applying them to their lives.
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This week, we’re examining Ezekiel 32, the final chapter of eight in his Oracles Against the Nations. This chapter also concludes the series of seven oracles against Egypt. It consists of lamentations for Pharaoh and the Egyptian forces, symbolically depicting their defeat and descent into Sheol.
The sixth oracle against Egypt came to Ezekiel on March 3, 585 BCE, two years after the previous oracle and two months after news of Jerusalem’s fall reached the exiles (33:21). By this time, new refugees lived among them in Tel Abib, and they were hearing Ezekiel’s prophecies for the first time. All hope of Egyptian intervention was lost.
Ezekiel raised a final lament for Pharaoh saying, “You consider yourself a lion among the nations, but you are like a dragon in the seas; you thrash about in your streams, trouble the water with your feet, and foul your streams” (32:2). Ezekiel then returned to his earlier imagery of a crocodile or tannim, a mythical sea monster. Yahweh decreed that he, and a throng of people, would capture the sea monster in a net and hurl it into an open field. Exposed to the elements, the creature would die. Perhaps this was Ezekiel’s way of portraying Pharaoh’s exile to a foreign land. Scavenging animals and birds would eat from his massive carcass that overlaid the mountains and filled the valleys with his blood (32:3-4).
When the creature died, God would darken the skies. He said, “All the shining lights of the heavens I will darken above you and put darkness on your land” (32:7). Darkening the sun, moon, and stars was reminiscent of the Exodus, the last time God confronted the pharaoh by displaying his power over all of nature (Ex. 10:21-24). God also vowed that he would wipe out all of Egypt’s livestock (32:13). During the Exodus, the fifth plague God sent on Egypt specifically targeted the animals of Egypt but spared the livestock of the Israelites. According to Ezekiel, so little would survive in Egypt that the Nile River and its channels would have a chance to rest. Without cattle kicking up mud or humans drawing water, the debris would settle, and its streams would run clear as oil (33:14).
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This week we are reading Ezekiel 31, the fifth oracle against Egypt, in a series of seven. Ezekiel, the master of word pictures, has already depicted the pharaoh as a crocodile left to die in the desert and a disabled soldier powerless to grasp a sword. In this chapter, Ezekiel likens the Egyptian empire to a fallen cedar tree. The chapter can be divided into two parts. The first part presents the tree’s beauty, height and shade (31:1-9). The second part describes the tree’s demise (31:10-18).
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This week we are studying Ezekiel 30, which contains Ezekiel’s third and fourth oracles against Egypt. There are seven in total.
In the third oracle, God commanded Ezekiel to wail over Egypt. He said, “The Day of the Lord is near; it will be a day of clouds, a time of doom for the nations” (30:1). Ezekiel proclaimed that the “Day of the Lord” would bring devastation to Egypt and its neighboring nations (30:1-19). The oracle painted a grim picture of Egypt’s downfall, describing the destruction of cities, the slaughter of people, and the collapse of power structures. In the fourth oracle, God described breaking the Pharaoh’s arm so badly that it had no chance of healing.
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We are still in the OAN, the long suspense-building pause between Ezekiel’s announcement of Jerusalem’s fall in Chapter 24 and confirmation of Jerusalem’s fall in Chapter 33. Ezekiel arranged the seven oracles in a geographical sequence around Israel. He started with Ammon to the east. Next, he addressed Moab and Edom, further southeast. The focus then shifted westward to Philistia, followed by Tyre and Sidon to the northwest. In the last pronouncement, Ezekiel turned his reproach to Egypt in the southwest. The oracle against Egypt is Ezekiel’s longest by far, spanning four chapters.
Babylon’s Rival
At the start of the oracle against Egypt, Ezekiel gave the exact date, the equivalent of 7 January 587 BCE (29:1). It was exactly a year since Nebuchadnezzar first laid siege to Jerusalem.
In the early sixty century BCE, at the time of Ezekiel, Egypt was the only regional power who had a chance of challenging Babylon’s expansion. As Nebuchadnezzar’s army campaigned throughout the region, Egypt tried mightily to hold on to its upper hand. Jerusalem found itself in a precarious position, caught in the middle of two major powers vying for dominance. King Zedekiah, Jehoiakim and Jehoiachin all hoped to preserve Jerusalem’s independence. They switched their allegiance between Babylon and Egypt, unsure of the safest bet.
One of Egypt’s tactical strategies was to help smaller nations in their resistance to Babylonian ambitions. They wanted their allies to be codependent on them for aid. For example, the Pharaoh Hophra of Egypt (588-569 BCE) encouraged Judah to rebel against Babylon, promising Egypt’s military support in their struggle. He said they would intervene on Judah’s behalf and repel Nebuchadnezzar. According to Jeremiah’s account, Egypt’s intervention forced the Babylonians to lift their siege of Jerusalem, giving the city a brief respite and strengthening Judah’s determination to continue fighting (Jer. 37:5-11). However, Hophra relented, and his battalion retreated once they confronted the Babylonian army. Jeremiah’s description is vague, but Egypt might have withdrawn without a battle. This withdrawal of Egyptian forces hastened the fall of Jerusalem.
Both Ezekiel and Jeremiah prophesied that God was going to use Babylon to punish Judah. With that understanding, they wanted to get the punishment over with. That is why they were both irritated with Egypt prodding Jerusalem’s kings to revolt. The prophets blamed Egypt for soliciting Judah’s partnership and blame Judah for placing their trust in Egypt. Judah had to be punished and Hophra was interfering with that process.
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This week I am interviewing a special guest, Yair Levi. Yair is a Jewish Israeli singer, songwriter, and musical producer based in Tel Aviv, Israel. Yair is incredibly popular among Christians who love Israel which is one of the things we will talk about.
Yair has become a global phenomenon, widely recognized for his powerful songs such as Refa Na and Blessed, which resonate deeply with audiences around the world.
As a Jewish Levite and former Captain in the Israeli Navy Seals, where he served for eight years, Yair brings a unique perspective to his music.
His work blends Biblical soul, faith, and Biblical values, reviving ancient texts and melodies to make them relevant and inspiring for today’s world.
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This week we are studying Ezekiel 28. In Ezekiel’s first two prophecies against Tyre, he condemned Tyrian civilization. In this chapter, God tells Ezekiel to address only the king of Tyre. The first ten verses deliver a warning and a condemnation. Ezekiel avoided naming the king, but historians identify him as King Ethbaal II (585-573 BCE). In biblical stories and prophecies, foreign leaders often go unnamed. That way the text can focus on the characteristics of the leader and emphasize the universal themes that make the prophecies relevant beyond their immediate historical context. For example, the Exodus story does not name the Pharaoh. His anonymity highlights his role as the quintessential oppressor, rather than his personal story. With Ezekiel 28, the arrogant Tyrian king represents all despotic leaders who elevate themselves over God, forgetting that “there is no authority except from God” (Rom. 13:1).
Ezekiel accused the king of being so vain that he fancied himself to be divine. Ezekiel voiced the internal thoughts of the king, saying, “Because your heart is proud and you have said, ‘I am a god; I sit in the seat of the gods, in the heart of the seas’” (28:2). The prophet did not focus on the wrongfulness of the king’s actions, but his mindset. Ezekiel sharply rebuked the king’s delusion of grandeur, saying, “you are but a mortal and no god” (28:2).
Unlike in Egypt, Canaanite royals did not claim to be superhuman. Ezekiel did not reveal if the Tyrian king claimed godhood outwardly to his subjects, or if his ego only secretly fueled his delusions. However, he likely felt like an object of worship because so many nations relied on his vast trade network to prop up their economies. Their material success depended on Tyre’s strength. Despite the gold and silver that the king amassed in his treasury, divinity was not a rank he could buy.
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Welcome to Bible Fiber, where are we encountering the textures and shades of the biblical tapestry. I am Shelley Neese, president of The Jerusalem Connection, a Christian organization devoted to sharing the story of the people of Israel, both ancient and modern. This week we have a special guest from Israel, Gidon Ariel.
Gidon is the founder and CEO of Root Source, an organization dedicated to promoting respectful relationships between pro-Israel Christians and Jews. Root Source's flagship program brings knowledgeable, authentic Israeli teachers and curious Christians together to study the Jewish texts and concepts that are foundational to their faith.
Gidon made Aliyah from Queens, NY when he was 14. He spent close to a decade in advanced Jewish studies institutes (Yeshivas) and the Israeli Army. After 20 years in the Tank Corps, today he is a reserve officer in the IDF Spokesperson's office. A pioneer in Jewish-Christian relations, Gidon is a seasoned Hebrew and Judaism instructor and public speaker.
On this episode we talk about Root Source, a free library of Jewish teachings for Christian audiences.
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This week we are studying Ezekiel 27, a continuation of the Oracles Against the Nations. Even if you’re a lifelong churchgoer, chances are you’ve never heard a sermon on Ezekiel’s Oracles Against the Nations. Ezekiel’s OAN is in competition with the genealogies in Chronicles or the purity regulations in Leviticus for the least-read scriptures.
Skipping the difficult parts is not the goal of Bible Fiber. I also do not manipulate the text for application lessons to our modern lives. Sometimes the main purpose of a biblical passage is to lay the groundwork for a broader understanding of Israel’s place and circumstances. After Jerusalem fell, the Israelites were in a questioning headspace. They needed proof that they were still the covenant people. They longed for God to punish the nations who came against them. Ezekiel’s OAN answers their doubts, even if indirectly. With Tyre, Ezekiel took three chapters to carry out his goal.
After Ezekiel pronounced an oracle of judgement, God instructed the prophet to raise a lament for Tyre (27:1). A lament is a funeral song, like a graveside eulogy in our time. Occasionally, biblical prophets used laments as literary devices to announce judgment over Israel’s enemies or, in Amos’s case, Israel itself (Isa. 14-17, 19, 23; Amos 5:1-3). Delivered in a mocking tone, the lament expressed sorrow over the fate of a nation or city. They were inviting the condemned to their own funeral.
Ezekiel adds his own spin to the classical lament by shaping it into an extended allegory. His lament over Tyre portrays the city as a luxury merchant ship that was hit by a strong wind and sank.
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In Chapter 26, Ezekiel’s Oracles Against the Nations moves onto the city of Tyre, and the prophet stays fixated on Tyre for three chapters. It is surprising that Ezekiel only glances at the Ammonites, Moabites, Edomites, and Philistines while he gives Tyre a jaundiced stare-down. Israel had long-running enmities with the first named people groups. Tyre was little more to Israel than an enviable trade rival. The Ammonites, Moabites, Edomites, and Philistines were Jerusalem’s closest neighbors. Tyre was 100 miles north of Jerusalem. Still, Ezekiel’s audience would have found his predictions of Tyre’s downfall impossible. Tyre’s wealth had no limits, and the island stronghold was impenetrable.
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Ezekiel 25 delivers four mini-oracles targeting Judah’s closest neighbors, which are also her longest standing enemies: Ammon, Moab, Edom, and Philistia. Israel had been at odds with these four nations for most of its existence. Scholars generally date these oracles to shortly after the Babylonian attack in 586 BCE, given that Jerusalem's suffering serves as the backdrop for each prophecy.
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This week on Bible Fiber we have a special guest, Tim Mahoney. So we are taking a little break from our Ezekiel study. Tim is a Christian filmmaker and a documentarian. I first learned of his work because two of my professors at The Bible Seminar have participated in his films. I also had the chance to see his film called The Moses Controversy a few years ago when it first came out.
Tim now has a new film as part of his Patterns of Evidence series. It is called The Israel Dilemma—Ancient Prophecies. It is screening on November 13, 14, and 17 in theaters nationwide. So we are two weeks away from showtime. I will put a link in the show notes for how you can purchase your ticket in advance.
Tim always puts a ton of research into his documentaries. And in this film, he builds the case that ancient Israel has been in the Promised Land since the time of Abraham. There is a strong focus on the biblical story and archaeology of Israel.
Please check out this episode and find out how you can see the film!
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This is our last episode in the miniseries on The High Holidays for the Goyim. On October 24 and 25th, Jews will mark Simchat Torah and Shemini Atzeret. Simchat Torah is a celebration for the finish of an entire year of Torah study. While Simchat Torah is not technically part of Sukkot, it comes immediately after Sukkot as part of the fall holiday season. In Israel, Simchat Torah is observed on the same day as Shemini Atzeret, while in the diaspora, it is celebrated on the following day.
Shemini Atzeret means eighth day of assembly. It comes from the command in Leviticus 23:36. God said, “Seven days you shall present the Lord’s offerings by fire; on the eighth day you shall observe a holy convocation and present the Lord’s offerings by fire; it is a solemn assembly; you shall not work at your occupations” (Lev. 23:36).
While closely associated with Sukkot, Shemini Atzeret is considered a separate holiday with its own significance. It’s often interpreted as a day when God asks the Jewish people to stay for one more day of closeness and celebration after the week-long festival of Sukkot. That interpretation makes sense to me. Often when I am on vacation, I want to extend the trip just one more day. One more day of rest and one more day of family time. God desired the same from his people.
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When is Sukkot?
Sukkot, also known as the Feast of Tabernacles or the Feast of Booths, is a joyous seven-day festival that begins on the 15th day of the seventh month in the Hebrew calendar, Tishrei. This typically falls in September or October on the Gregorian calendar. In 2024, Sukkot will be celebrated from October 16th to October 23rd. It’s worth noting that Sukkot comes just five days after Yom Kippur, marking a dramatic shift from solemnity to celebration.
Where is Sukkot Mentioned in the Bible?
Sukkot is mentioned several times in the Hebrew Bible. The most detailed instructions for observing Sukkot are found in Leviticus 23:33-43. This passage establishes the dates of the festival, commands the people to dwell in booths, and explains the historical significance of the holiday. God commanded Moses, “So beginning with the fifteenth day of the seventh month, after you have gathered the crops of the land, celebrate the festival to the Lord for seven days... Live in temporary shelters for seven days: All native-born Israelites are to live in such shelters so your descendants will know that I had the Israelites live in temporary shelters when I brought them out of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.” (Lev. 23:39, 42-43)
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On October 1st, the first Bible Fiber book launched! It is a 52-week study of the Twelve Minor Prophets, going through each book. This comprehensive companion provides thoughtful commentary for every chapter, making these ancient texts accessible to all readers. Grab your copy of Bible Fiber today! It is available on Amazon as a Paperback and on Kindle!
Second, we are pressing pause on the Ezekiel study during the Jewish High Holidays for a miniseries we are calling “High Holidays for the Goyim.”
When is Yom Kippur?
Yom Kippur, also known as the Day of Atonement, is the holiest and most solemn day in the Jewish calendar. It falls on the 10th day of the Jewish month of Tishrei, exactly 10 days after the celebration of Rosh Hashanah. That means Yom Kippur is the climactic day of atonement following a long reflective period. This year, on the Gregorian calendar, Yom Kippur starts at sundown on October 11th and ends at sundown on October 12th.
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Rosh Hashanah begins at sunset on October 2nd and concludes at sundown on October 4th. Tonight, Jewish families around the world will gather for the start of their High Holiday season. Now that we live in Miami, this is the first time my kids have been in a public school that has off for Rosh Hashanah.
I hope Christians will open your hearts about how we can incorporate the themes of each holiday into our own month. And also, how we can love and serve our hurting Jewish neighbors a year out from October 7th.
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Because my mind always holds thoughts of biblical Israel together with concerns over modern Israel, I am struck by the relevance of Ezekiel’s Oracles Against the Nations. The prophet’s words to the exilic community of 587 BCE still resonate with those in Israel today.
When I gather the people of Israel from the nations where they have been scattered, I will be proved holy through them in the sight of the nations. Then they will live in their own land, which I gave to my servant Jacob. They will live there in safety and will build houses and plant vineyards; they will live in safety when I inflict punishment on all their neighbors who maligned them. Then they will know that I am the Lord their God. (Ezek. 28:25-26)
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Our focus this week is on Ezekiel 24, the dramatic climax of the book. Until now, Ezekiel’s message has served as an ongoing alarm for Jerusalem’s impending punishment. For five years, Ezekiel used every strategy in his prophetic playbook to communicate his message: oracles, visions, sign-acts, riddles, parables, songs, rhetorical questions, history lessons, and laments. By cataloguing Jerusalem’s sins, he established the city’s guilt and validated the need for divine intervention. Yahweh’s patience had run its course.
Judgement day fell on January 15, 588 BCE. Ezekiel received an oracle from the Lord at the same moment that Nebuchadnezzar’s army closed in on Jerusalem’s walls.
Chapter 24 also tells the tragic story of the death of Ezekiel's wife, and God's command that Ezekiel not publicly mourn her.
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Chapter 23 continues the lewd allegory that began in Chapter 16. Both feature the covenant people’s unfaithfulness through graphic marriage metaphors. Chapter 23 rivals Chapter 16 in its pornographic imagery and R-rated content. Guaranteed, neither chapter makes it into many sermons or Bible studies.
Chapter 23 continues the lewd allegory that began in Chapter 16. Both feature the covenant people’s unfaithfulness through graphic marriage metaphors. Chapter 23 rivals Chapter 16 in its pornographic imagery and R-rated content. Guaranteed, neither chapter makes it into many sermons or Bible studies.
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This week I am interviewing Ted Wright! Ted Wright is the founder and Executive Director of EpicArchaeology.org. He has a B.A. in Anthropology & Archaeology from the Cobb Institute of Archaeology at Mississippi State University, and a M.A. degree in Christian apologetics from Southern Evangelical Seminary.
For over a decade, Ted has been a speaker on Christian apologetics as well as Biblical Archaeology across North America & internationally. One of the super cool things he is doing is currently working as field assistant, photographer, and videographer for the “Agri Regional Archaeological Survey” in Eastern Turkey, co-sponsored by Andrews University and Istanbul University. In fact, Ted just got back from Mount Ararat (Yes, you heard that right….Noah’s Mount Ararat) yesterday. We talk all things Mount Ararat, ancient flood epics, and glacial moraines at 13,000 feet.
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In this episode, we explore Ezekiel 22, offering unique insights into the religious life of Judeans during the Babylonian exile.
Key points to look forward to:
• Gain an insider's view of the exiled community's spiritual atmosphere
• Discover Ezekiel's harsh critique of Jerusalem's sins and their consequences
• Explore powerful metaphors of metallurgy used to describe God's judgment
• Understand the prophet's role in reframing the mindset of the exiles
• Learn how this chapter helps explain the fall of Jerusalem from a theological perspective
Whether you're a biblical scholar, history enthusiast, or simply curious about ancient prophecies, this episode promises to offer fresh perspectives and thought-provoking analysis. Don't miss this opportunity to deepen your understanding of the Bible and its historical context!"
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In our study of Ezekiel 21, I go over the complex tapestry of Ezekiel's fire and sword oracles. The prophet uses vivid imagery as he foretells Jerusalem's impending doom and God's judgment on surrounding nations. Ezekiel is a big believer in bringing his message to life!
From cryptic allegories to stark warnings, this episode explores:
-The connection between divine fire and sword prophecies
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Ezekiel's struggle with his audience's skepticism
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The fate of the righteous and wicked in times of judgment
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The downfall of Jerusalem
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God's ultimate justice for Babylon and Ammon
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This week we are studying Ezekiel 20. Through parables, fables, laments, allegories, and riddles, the prophet spent the previous five chapters undermining the exiles’ ingratitude and blame shifting. However, Ezekiel must have grown tired of delivering opaque messages (20:49). In Chapter 20, Ezekiel broke from a long streak of metaphorical language and finally delivered a straightforward history lesson. By recasting their history from God’s viewpoint, Ezekiel’s overview contrasts Israel’s chronic rebellion with God’s persistent mercy.
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This week we are reading Ezekiel 19. God instructs the prophet to “raise up a lamentation for the princes of Israel” (19:1). Hebrew lamentations, or funerary songs, are a common style in the Old Testament. Often sung at gravesides, traditional laments praised the admirable qualities of the departed and mourned their loss. When King David heard of Jonathan’s death on the battlefield, he composed a sorrowful lament acknowledging their strong bond (2 Sam. 1:25-27). Lamentations is an entire book composed of songs mourning the destruction of Jerusalem. Laments also pop up in the Psalms. Thanks to Bob Marley’s 1977 track “By the Rivers of Babylon,” biblical laments have even made their way into pop culture.
Hebrew poets composed laments with a particular poetic meter with musical qualities that do not come through in English translations, but Ezekiel’s audience would have recognized his style immediately. What they may not have comprehended was the essence and underlying meaning of his lament. Unlike classical laments that focus on personal or communal suffering, Ezekiel 19 uses entirely allegorical language. Rather than focusing on the virtues of the departed, it emphasizes the vices of the deceased.
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This week we are parsing Ezekiel 18, the prophet’s extended theological sermon on individual responsibility and divine justice. We can divide Ezekiel’s message into two themes. First, individuals will not face judgment for the sins committed by their ancestors, nor will God credit them for the righteousness of their ancestors (18:1-20). Second, God judges everyone based on their current faith and obedience status, not the sins of their past (18:21-32). He is willing and ready to forgive those who sincerely repent.
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This week we are pausing our study of Ezekiel to talk to my friend Derek Gilbert who was recently on a solidarity mission to Israel.
Derek has been in the world of broadcasting for decades. He is producer and host of the web radio programs A View from the Bunker and P.I.D. Radio. He also co-hosts Unraveling Revelation with his wife Sharon Gilbert. They are both part of the SkyWatchTV team. We met back in 2019 when I had the chance to visit their studios in Missouri and another time at one of SkyWatch’s Defender Conferences.
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As an innovative prophet, Ezekiel never ran out of teaching methods, whether it was a mime, public shaving, small scale enactment of a siege, judgement speech, or a twisted fairytale. In Chapter 17, God commanded Ezekiel to compose a riddle (17:1). The riddle was supposed to expose the treachery of King Zedekiah, a favorite subject of his condemnations. He had already performed an elaborate charade portraying King Zedekiah’s botched escape from Jerusalem (12:7-14). His ever-changing communication styles hammered home similar messages. Riddles were a popular party trick in ancient times. Perhaps when he first presented the riddle, bored exiles gathered who were looking to be entertained. However, if his listeners expected amusement rather than condemnation, they had to be disappointed.
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As an innovative prophet, Ezekiel never ran out of teaching methods, whether it was a mime, public shaving, small scale enactment of a siege, judgement speech, or a twisted fairytale. In Chapter 17, God commanded Ezekiel to compose a riddle (17:1). The riddle was supposed to expose the treachery of King Zedekiah, a favorite subject of his condemnations. He had already performed an elaborate charade portraying King Zedekiah’s botched escape from Jerusalem (12:7-14). His ever-changing communication styles hammered home similar messages. Riddles were a popular party trick in ancient times. Perhaps when he first presented the riddle, bored exiles gathered who were looking to be entertained. However, if his listeners expected amusement rather than condemnation, they had to be disappointed.
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Welcome to Bible Fiber and thank you to Dan and Charlene Selvage for sponsoring this special episode! We are taking a break today from our Ezekiel deep dive to catch up with my friend Brian Sanders who returned from Israel two weeks ago.
Brian is the president and CEO of All for Zion ministry based in Dallas, TX. He is also the director and producer of a film series called Why Stand With Israel. He recently released the first film in the series at a world premiere in Jerusalem. This has been Brian’s labor of love for 8 ½ years. His hope for the film is nothing less than to inspire the hearts and minds of the Global Church to live out its responsibility to stand with Israel.
Brian, I have to say that after watching your film, I felt a stirring in my own heart for our mission at Jerusalem Connection. What you articulate in the film is our exact mission statement. We as an organization work to inform, educate, and activate Christians to be supporters of Israel and friends to the Jewish people. So even though your film was absolutely preaching to the choir with me as the audience, I felt really charged up from it!
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Brian Sanders, president and CEO of All for Zion ministry, discusses his film series 'Why Stand with Israel' and the importance of standing with the Jewish people. He shares his personal journey of coming out of replacement theology and anti-Semitism and how it inspired him to create the film. The film explores the biblical reasons for standing with Israel, refutes misconceptions and lies about Israel, and calls the global church to bless and support the Jewish people. Sanders also discusses future films in the series, including ones on the biblical feasts, anti-Semitism, and Israel's destiny.
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This week we are studying Ezekiel 16:44-63, the last third of the longest oracle in the book. Ezekiel replaced the story of the generous king and his adulterous queen with new characters and a different plotline. In the marriage metaphor, Yahweh adopted Jerusalem as an infant and betrothed her when she matured. Ezekiel’s follow-on allegory inspected other branches of Jerusalem’s family tree. Ezekiel conducted his own version of a sibling study: three sisters separated at birth all make the same mistakes and pay a similar price.
The allegory starts with Ezekiel implying that Jerusalem was the butt of a popular joke. Ezekiel wrote, “See, everyone who uses proverbs will use this proverb about you, ‘Like mother, like daughter’” (16:44). He commented that just as Jerusalem’s mother had hated her husband and children, Jerusalem also hated her husband and children (16:45). Jerusalem was repeating the immoral choices of her mother, as often happens when families get caught up in generational sin.
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This week we are studying Ezekiel 16, the longest chapter in the book by far. Ezekiel’s extended allegory is 63 verses, which makes this one chapter longer than the books of Obadiah, Jonah, Nahum, Malachi, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, and Haggai. Because of this, we will divide Ezekiel 16 into two parts. This week, we focus on the initial 43 verses, which are reflective. In the next episode, we will study the last 20 verses which look to Israel’s future.
Hosea
Ezekiel 16 presents a parable using marital terminology to explain the broken covenant relationship between God and his people. His exilic audience was already familiar with the marriage metaphor. Several centuries earlier, God had commissioned the prophet Hosea to marry the promiscuous Gomer as a symbol of the Northern Kingdom’s infidelity (Hos. 2:3-15). Hosea and Gomer’s marriage was a living parable. Just as Hosea endured heartache from his wayward wife, Israel snubbed God’s love. Yet, Hosea’s love for Gomer was unfailing, just as God’s love for Israel remained steadfast.
Hosea’s real-life marriage may have inspired Ezekiel’s marriage parable. However, in typical Ezekiel fashion, the prophet amplified and stretched the teaching to its furthest and most disturbing extreme. While Hosea’s wife, Gomer, was an adulterer, the woman Ezekiel depicted was a nymphomaniac.
If Spotify listed Ezekiel 16, they would mark it as “explicit” for language and theme. For this reason, you’ve probably never heard these chapters preached on a Sunday morning. English translations have tried to soften the more pornographic descriptions in the text, but fully masking the chapter’s crudeness would require a complete alteration of its content.
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This week we are studying Ezekiel 15.
For the first fourteen chapters, Ezekiel’s divine dispatches included overpowering visions and bizarre sign-acts. In Chapter 15, he switched his method of communicating, choosing instead to reinforce the message through a series of six parables and metaphors (Ezek. 15-19). The other worldly theme of a throne chariot motored by winged and wheeled composite creatures faded out. In its place, Ezekiel relied on realistic scenes from nature and homelife that would be familiar to every ancient person. He likened Israel to a useless vine, an unfaithful wife, and an abandoned infant. He compared Jerusalem’s political alliances to two battling eagles and her last kings to captured lions. Each parable points to the impending destruction of Jerusalem and the awful fate of the city’s residents. If Jewish mysticism holds that only mature initiated mystics should ponder Ezekiel’s throne chariot, the compilation of Ezekiel’s word pictures is the opposite. The parables and their explanations are accessible to all.
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Welcome to Bible Fiber! We are taking a break today from our Ezekiel deep dive to catch another archaeologist before he sets off for a summer expedition in Israel. Today’s guest is Chris McKinny. Chris has his PhD from Bar Ilan University in Israel. His dissertation focused on the historical geography and archaeology of the town lists of Judah and Benjamin in the book of Joshua. If you have never met a biblical geography junkie, you are in luck because you are going to today.
Chris currently serves as an adjunct faculty member at several universities. I had the privilege of taking a class with Chris on the Peoples of the Bible two years ago. He is also a senior staff member on the Tel Burna Archaeological Project which is why he is heading to Israel soon. He is the host of a great podcast called OnScript: Biblical World. Check out his recent episode on the Gilgamesh Epic. A couple years ago, I had a great time in Israel with Chris and the rest of his team at Gesher Media filming an upcoming feature film called Quest for the Throne of God, which I want an update on as well.
Chapters
- 00:00 Introduction and Background
- 06:41 The Importance of Historical Geography
- 09:48 Tel Burna: Biblical Libna
- 24:39 Discoveries at Tel Burna
- 27:03 The Importance of Architecture in Archaeology
- 33:36 The Formation of Tel Burna
- 38:53 The Quest for the Throne of God
Takeaways
- Historical geography combines physical geography, philology, and toponymy to understand the biblical world.
- The Tel Burna excavation site is identified as biblical Libna and provides insights into the history of Judah.
- Despite the ongoing conflict in Israel, precautions are taken to ensure the safety of the excavation team.
- The Tel Burna excavation project is in its final season, and the focus is on the late Bronze Age and understanding the destruction of the site.
- Architecture plays a crucial role in archaeology, providing insights into ancient societies and their religious practices.
- New technologies, such as residue analysis and XRF, are being used to analyze artifacts and understand how people used the land in ancient times.
- The upcoming film 'The Quest for the Throne of God' explores the story of the Ark of the Covenant and its significance in the Hebrew Bible and Christian theology.
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Hello Bible Fiber listeners. Today we are doing something new that will become a monthly feature. Bible Fiber is starting up interviews with Bible scholars, archaeologists, and historians as part of a series we are calling Bible Fiber BFFs.
Our first guest is someone who I have pretty regular interaction with as he is the provost of the seminary I attend, The Bible Seminar in Katy, Texas. Dr. Stripling is also the Director of Excavations for the Associates for Biblical Research at Khirbet el-Maqatir and Shiloh, Israel. We are catching him before he heads off to Israel for another excavation in Shiloh on May 14th!
We talk about what it will be like carrying out an excavation during the middle of a regional war, what the daily dig process looks like logistically, and the importance of Shiloh in the Bible. Dr. Stripling also expresses his hopes for the upcoming excavation season!
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Our sponsor of today’s episode is Jim Werner who has kindly dedicated his sponsorship to my family. As many of you know we are a military family and like lots of other military families this month, we found out we have orders to move again which means there has been some tears mixed with silver linings. So thank you Jim! You probably did not even know how timely your dedicated sponsorship message really was!
This week we are studying Ezekiel 14. The chapter begins by introducing Ezekiel’s company. He recorded, “certain elders of Israel came to me and sat down before me” (14:1). Perhaps it was the same delegation of elders that waited in Ezekiel’s home while the divine spirit transported him to Jerusalem (8:1).
Tel Abib, the refugee encampment where Ezekiel lived with the rest of the exiles, likely had an abundance of leaders. According to Nebuchadnezzar’s policy, the first captives the Babylonians deported were Jerusalem’s political, religious, and cultural elite. Although they had no political independence once in Babylon, the captives must have transferred some of their social order from Jerusalem to the refugee encampment as they made paltry attempts at self-governance.
This week we are studying Ezekiel 13. At the end of Chapter 12, last week, we discovered Ezekiel had resisters among his peers in Tel Abib. They rejected him as a doomsayer and doubted if his prophecies would materialize (12:28). In the next two chapters, we discover Ezekiel was not only up against cynics dismissive of his prophecies. He also faced counterfeit prophets who actively contradicted him with oracles of their own (12:11-14:11). While Ezekiel pronounced the coming judgment, they spoke of the coming deliverance. He preached repentance, and they encouraged patience.
To all those guilty of propagating falsehoods, God had a strongly worded dispatch: “Alas for the senseless prophets who follow their own spirit and have seen nothing” (13:3).
In last week’s episode, Ezekiel offered encouragement and comfort to the exiles, who worried that they were excluded from God’s plans for the nation of Israel. Surprisingly, Ezekiel identified them as the prophesied remnant. To help them chart a fresh course, God promised to gift them a new heart made of flesh (11:19). Instead of rejoicing over the good news, Chapter 12 reveals that a contingent of exiles rejected Ezekiel as a divine messenger. His oracles and sign-acts, no matter how forceful and dramatic, were unsuccessful in getting through. Despite Ezekiel’s best efforts, they remained stonyhearted. God warned Ezekiel, “Mortal, you are living in the midst of a rebellious house who have eyes to see but do not see, who have ears to hear but do not hear” (12:2).
Other prophets, like Isaiah and Jeremiah, used this same terminology to describe the epidemic of spiritual indifference in their time (Isa. 26:11; Jer. 5:21). Jesus, six hundred years later, also described how his teaching failed to affect those with deadened senses. Jesus used parables to reveal the purpose of his mission, recognizing that only those with perceptive eyes and attentive ears would understand his teachings (Matt. 13:13-15). For those listeners who were spiritually awake, the parables revealed “the secrets of the kingdom of God” (Luke 8:10). Like Jesus, Ezekiel hoped his message broke through to the seeing and hearing remnant, even if the spiritually blind and deaf rejected it.
This week we are studying Ezekiel 11, the concluding sequence in Ezekiel’s multi-part vision, and his last message before the glory of the Lord departed Jerusalem. So far, the prophet has taken a tour of the temple’s abominations, observed a squad of executioners on a killing spree, and watched the man in linen drop fiery coals on Jerusalem. The last episode ended with the Lord mounting his throne chariot to depart the temple complex, but his glory paused over the east gate. Chapter 11 opens with the divine spirit depositing Ezekiel at the east gate where the throne chariot still hovered (11:1).
In Ezekiel’s vision of the departing presence, the glory of the Lord was represented by a cloud. God’s glory coming in the form of a cloud would have been familiar to Ezekiel and his audience. In the early days of Israel’s wilderness wandering, the Israelites were comforted by the divine cloud as it settled atop the tabernacle and filled the tent with the divine glory (Ex. 40:34). Throughout those forty years, the cloud was a constant reassurance that Yahweh abided in their midst. When the cloud lifted, it was time for the people to decamp and move to the next site. As they moved sites, the cloud moved as well, demonstrating that Yahweh remained with his itinerant people. The most terrifying aspect to Ezekiel’s vision was that Yahweh’s cloud of glory was moving out of Jerusalem without the covenant people. Acting with his own free and divine agency, God did not invite the Jerusalemites to follow him. The glory of God made a solo exit.
This week we were going to go over Ezekiel 10, the next chapter in our Ezekiel study. Ezekiel 10 is one of the lowest lows in the entire book because it records when God’s glory exited the Jerusalem temple. But that did not seem like the right message two days before Resurrection Sunday. I still regret doing a podcast on the Philistines five days before Christmas. So, we are going to pause Ezekiel this week and instead focus on a prophetic passage that Jesus himself used to introduce his ministry on earth. We are looking at Isaiah 61 and its connection to Luke 4.
Isaiah 61 begins:
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn. (Isa. 61:1-2).
This passage in Isaiah is one of the most remarkable prophecies in the book. It throbs with messianic hope. On one particular Sabbath service in Nazareth, sometime around 27 AD, Jesus was the special congregant called up to the pulpit to read Isaiah 61.
Ezekiel watched as God summoned six executioners forward to take their places in the temple courtyard. The executioners each wielded a weapon for slaughter (9:2). Initially, Ezekiel referred to them as “guards,” but their task was not to protect the temple city. Although he also referred to them as “men,” they behaved more like angelic assistants than regular mortals. They only purposed to do God’s bidding.
In addition to the six executioners, God summoned one scribe, a man dressed in linen with a writing kit strapped to his side. The scribe also has angelic like qualities. The word Ezekiel used for writing kit was an Egyptian loanword to describe a professional scribe’s carrying pouch. Scribal kits usually contained a writing palette, a pen, and two colors of ink.
This week we are studying Ezekiel 8, the prophet’s second visionary experience. Ezekiel had been living in exile for five years without any updates about the situation in Jerusalem. One day, toward the end of his 430-day stint of lying on his side, he envisioned a messenger of God, fiery like gleaming amber, picking him up by his hair and supernaturally transporting him to Jerusalem. Out of all the prophets, Ezekiel may be the best at delivering a well-crafted hook.
In describing his transport, Ezekiel said, “the spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven and brought me in visions of God to Jerusalem” (8:3). In my imagination, Ezekiel traveled the thousand miles from Babylon to Jerusalem in the same manner the characters traveled in Madeline L’Engle’s science-fiction book The Wrinkle in Time. In the book, Meg Murray, the main character, moved between places and eras by “tessering,” wrinkling the fabric of space-time. Ezekiel was reluctant to “tesser” which is why his divine guide had to grab hold of his hair. Again, this is all in my head where literature sometimes colors the Bible’s missing details and tessering is L’Engle’s made-up verb. According to the biblical text, Ezekiel’s body remained in Babylon, but his mind had a full sensory experience in Jerusalem.
Ezekiel noted that the vision occurred “in the sixth year, in the sixth month, on the fifth day of the month” (8:1). Ezekiel used the sixth year of King Jehoiachin’s reign as his reference point, even though Jehoiachin was exiled in Babylon alongside him and not actually ruling over anything. (There is a lot more to say about King Jehoiachin, but I am going to save that for the episode on Ezekiel 17.) Ezekiel’s date works out to 18 September 592 BCE. According to his precise chronology, the Jerusalem vision occurred fourteen months after he first saw an apparition of God’s throne chariot by the Chebar River and accepted his call to the prophetic office.
According to the text, a delegation of elders was with Ezekiel in his home when he had the visionary experience. They were likely lay leaders who came to Ezekiel seeking an oracle from the Lord. Despite the excesses of his sign-acts, the people recognized him as a prophet. Perhaps they inquired about Jerusalem and the fate of their compatriots, or they came because his elaborate sign-acts were a sight to behold.
This week we are studying Ezekiel 7. On last week’s episode, our prophet-in-exile addressed the mountains of Israel from the plains of Babylon. In the two episodes before that, Ezekiel spoke to the city of Jerusalem. This week, he expands his message to all “the land of Israel” in a highly evocative sermon (7:1).
We are only seven chapters into Ezekiel, but the message is starting to feel like the reverse of the classic folktale of Chicken Little. In the folktale, after an acorn falls on Chicken Little’s head, he falsely determines that the sky must be falling. He spreads the news to all his animal friends, like Lucky Ducky and Henny Penny, and total hysteria ensues in the community.
Ezekiel had the opposite experience. He knew the proverbial sky was falling and it was not the result of naivety or a misunderstanding of gravity. As God reveals the inevitable devastation of Jerusalem, the panicked tone in Ezekiel’s prophecies ratchets up. However, unlike Chicken Little, the Israelites did not take his warnings seriously.
This week we are reading Ezekiel 6. In his previous demonstrations, Ezekiel centered his actions and oracles around his Jerusalem city model. After that drama, God instructed the prophet to turn and address a new audience, the mountains of Israel. God said, “Set your face towards the mountains of Israel and prophesy against them and say: You mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord God” (6:2).
Ezekiel certainly could not see the mountains of Israel from the plains of Babylon. In fact, in the low-lying valley between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, Ezekiel would have seen only flat fertile land for miles. As the prophet set his face towards his homeland, he had to conjure up the memory of Israel’s mountain ridge that ran north to south for almost the entire length of the country.
Ezekiel’s address includes the hills, ravines, and valleys. All of Judah’s undulating landscape is in view, including Jerusalem situated on a plateau in Judea’s central highlands. However, Ezekiel did not recall the beauty of his homeland as a sentimental exercise. The prophet, speaking for Yahweh, pronounced, “I myself, will bring a sword upon you. And I will destroy your high places” (6:3).
This week we are reading Ezekiel 5, a continuation of the prophet’s bizarre series of sign-acts. The Lord commanded Ezekiel to get a sharp sword, instead of a barber’s razor, and shave his head and beard (5:1). The laws of Leviticus forbid priests from making bald spots on their head or shaving off the edges of their beards (Lev. 21:5). Yet, as a priest, Ezekiel did not protest this defiling performance. With a sword in his hand, he dramatized what must have seemed to his audience like a self-appointed excommunication.
In biblical times, shaving could be a legitimate expression of mourning (Job 1:20). Ancient mourners tore their clothes, put on sackcloth, and rubbed ashes on their head as outward representations of their internal suffering. One interpretation of the sign-act is that Ezekiel was symbolically mourning the coming loss of Jerusalem. If that was his intention, a razor would have sufficed. Instead, Ezekiel used a sword, an instrument of war, to shear himself. In the ancient Near East, victorious armies often degraded their captives by shaving them as a sign of their forced subjugation (Isa. 15:2). Ezekiel humiliated himself to represent the Babylonian’s military defeat of Jerusalem.
After Ezekiel shaved, God instructed him to put the hair on a balancing scale so that he could divide it into three equal parts (5:1). Weighing and measuring were verbs often used to describe God’s careful and deliberate judgement. After he divided the hair into thirds, the prophet was to dispose of each section of hair through different actions that symbolized the fate of Jerusalem’s population, whether their death occurred by fire, famine, or sword.
Prophetic sign-acts pop up frequently in the Major and Minor Prophets. They were real-life dramatizations that represented divine messages. I think of them as prophetic versions of immersive theater with object lessons. Knowing humans are visual, auditory, and tactile learners, God used all three communication methods to shake the covenant people out of their spiritual apathy. Elijah, Elisha, Hosea, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Zechariah all performed sign-acts during their careers to reinforce their primary message. However, no prophet relied on sign-acts more than Ezekiel. This probably had something to do with the fact that he was also the prophet that God struck dumb.
God commanded Ezekiel to “take a brick and set it before you” and “on it portray a city, Jerusalem” (4:1). When imagining Ezekiel’s brick, do not picture a small, hardened, modern brick. It was more likely the size of a large tile or building block. Because God told Ezekiel to inscribe the brick, the clay must have not yet dried and hardened in the sun, according to typical Babylonian construction methods. Although the text does not indicate the level of Ezekiel’s artisanship, the prophet drew from memory a blueprint of his hometown, Jerusalem. God also instructed him to build models of siege equipment, possibly out of sticks, clay, or straw. Encircling the visual aid of Jerusalem was a miniature siege wall, a ramp, enemy encampments, and battering rams (4:2). According to Babylonian war tactics, the siege wall prevented escape during the siege, and the battering rams broke down the city’s gates and walls. In my imagination, Ezekiel engaged in a one-player version of the board game Risk.
Today we are studying the rest of Chapter 3. The section opens with the spirt of God once again lifting Ezekiel up to his feet after he had fallen prostrate at the sight of Yahweh’s glory (3:11). As the Spirit transported him to the colony of exiles in Tel Abib, Ezekiel heard the commotion of the living creatures’ wings and the rumbling of the chariot wheels (3:11-12). When Ezekiel had faced the throne chariot head-on, the visuals overwhelmed him. When the throne chariot was behind him, he realized the high decibels.
In a rare moment of personal expression, Ezekiel confessed the anger he felt about his burdensome assignment. He said, “I went in bitterness in the heat of my spirit” (3:14). Rarely in the book does Ezekiel give insight into his interior state, but this confession shows why the prophet required a long prompting from God. During his commissioning, the prophet listened to Yahweh’s presentations and speeches without pushing back. How could he argue with a gleaming figure sitting atop a supernatural throne surrounded by four-faced beasts? Only when he returned to the colony of exiles did the reality of his depressing message hit him.
Last week, we studied Ezekiel 1, the prophet’s first inaugural vision, which provided an intense peak at God’s heavenly throne chariot. The experience overwhelmed Ezekiel so much that he collapsed prostrate on the ground, which is where we find him in today’s episode when God verbally commissioned Ezekiel (2:1–3:11).
Although Moses, Isaiah, and Jeremiah all included the narratives of their divine call, Ezekiel’s story is by far the longest account. Incidentally, it is the only call narrative where God did all the talking. Moses and Jeremiah pushed back on God’s request with their own counter-speech. Moses felt inadequate for the task because he was “slow of speech and slow of tongue” (Ex. 4:10). Jeremiah was insecure about his youth (Ex. 4:10; Jer. 4:6).
Isaiah and Ezekiel both experienced such powerful theophanies that they were quick to comply with no reservation (Isa. 6:1-13). The major difference between Isaiah and Ezekiel’s inaugural visions is that God transported Isaiah to the heavenly throne, but for Ezekiel, he brought the divine throne to him in exile.
If you have ever dipped your toe in Ezekiel’s waters, you know why the book can feel unapproachable: the quirky symbolic gestures, the bizarre visions, complex allegories, and harsh oracles. However, Ezekiel has also carved out a permanent place in the imagination of every Bible reader with his vision of God’s throne-chariot, the valley of dry bones, and the apocalyptic battles with Gog from the land of Magog.
Indeed, the prophet’s message contains multitudes. We are going to use everything in our toolbox to study Ezekiel. Going chapter-by-chapter, we will consider the prophet’s historical, social, and geographical context to better understand his teaching. And when appropriate, I will offer the traditional Jewish interpretation of difficult passages and the traditional Christian interpretation.
The Edomites are unique in our miniseries because much of what we know about them is from the Bible. Although archaeologists have excavated ancient Edom, they have found few inscriptions or epigraphic evidence shedding light on the religion, language, or government of the Edomites. Yet, the Bible pays more attention to the Edomites than any other ancient people group. The Bible presents their origin story in Genesis, depicts their enmity with the Israelites in Numbers, frequently predicts their downfall through the prophets, and includes prayers for vengeance against Edom in the Psalms.
Welcome to Bible Fiber. I am Shelley Neese, president of The Jerusalem Connection, a Christian organization devoted to sharing the story of the people of Israel, both ancient and modern.
One thing that makes reading the Hebrew scriptures difficult is that while the Bible is telling the story of one people, the Israelites, other ancient people groups enter and exit the scene. The Israelites did not live in a bubble, and they still do not. They were constantly interacting with their neighbors and subjugated by the rotating door of ancient empires. In our effort to be more informed Bible readers, we are doing a miniseries on the Peoples of the Bible. Today’s history lesson is on the Hittites.
Although the Hittites were one of the great civilizations of the ancient Near East, most Bible readers are only familiar with the term Hittite from the famous story of David and Bathsheba. The book of 2 Samuel records that Bathsheba, the bathing woman that David seduced, was the wife of Uriah the Hittite. When Bathsheba became pregnant, David failed in his effort to cover it up because Uriah was a loyal soldier who refused to sleep with his wife when his comrades were at war. Instead of dealing with the consequences of his sin, David had Uriah killed in battle. In David’s confrontation with the prophet Nathan, Nathan compared David to a rich man who slaughtered the beloved sheep of a poor man, Uriah. The whole biblical episode is surprising and disturbing. First, the Bible presented the Hittite as the good guy in the story and the most beloved Israelite king as the bad guy. Second, it seems worth knowing why a Hittite was fighting in Israel’s army.
To answer those questions, we must go back to the Bronze Age.
Region
From 1700 to 1200 BCE, the Hittites were Israel’s neighbor to the north. Although scholars debate their place of origin, their language suggests they have Indo-European roots. Most likely, they were part of a large migration from the west in the Middle Bronze Age. They settled Anatolia, or Asia Minor, which is equivalent to today’s modern Turkey. One of the earliest Hittite kings stationed their capital at Hattusa, where it remained for over three centuries.
A mountainous region in Anatolia’s central highlands, Hattusa had the great advantage of natural barriers, like deep gorges and ridges, making it easier to defend against potential invaders. But the Hittites still did not take any chances. They also heavily fortified Hattusa with massive walls and multiple gates. From their strategic perch, the Hittites controlled key trade routes and maintained their influence over neighboring regions.
During the peak of the Hittite empire (1344–1272 BCE), they extended Hittite influence into various regions, including parts of northern Syria and upper Mesopotamia. Because the Hittite Empire and ancient Israel shared common borders, they had various interactions.
Something to keep in mind while you are reading your Bible, the biblical authors broadly used the term Hittite to refer to people who lived in the region even after the historical Hittite Empire no longer existed. In the years after the empire’s decline, smaller Hittite city states formed with their own local regents. Modern historians call them Neo-Hittite or Hittite-Luwian states. The Israelites’ interaction with Hittites mostly occurred after the Hittite empire fell, but the biblical authors kept referring to people from the region as Hittites. They were not as concerned as modern scholars with clear-cut ethnographic classifications. A modern-day equivalent is that people might still refer to the Czech Republic as Czechoslovakia, forgetting that the name is no longer correct after 1993.
Language
Even prior to the fall of the Hittite Empire at the end of the Late Bronze Age, the Hittites abandoned Hattusa for reasons not fully understood. Over the centuries, the capital was b
The Philistines were an ancient people of uncertain origins. They settled in the southern coastal region of ancient Canaan around the 12th century BCE. They formed a confederation of five coastal cities: Gath, Ashkelon, Ekron, Gaza, and Ashdod. The modern-day equivalent of their former territory covers most of the Gaza Strip and coastal Israel.
Archaeologists would love to excavate ancient Philistia, but that has not been feasible over the last couple of decades under Hamas rule. However, as we learn about the complex web of underground tunnels crisscrossing Gaza, I wonder how many Philistine artifacts the Palestinian laborers lost or destroyed.
Surely, they came across Philistine material remains, even if they did not know it. Maybe one day, there will be a Gaza version of the Temple Mount Sifting Project in Israel, where they can wet sift all the debris from the Gaza tunnels. Of course, that is in the unforeseeable future.
Back to ancient Philistia. The five cities are called the Philistine Pentapolis. Each city had their own political leader, which meant they each enjoyed a combination of independence and alliance. On the west, the Mediterranean Sea bordered their territory, and their eastern border was the Shephelah, or the Judean hill country. The way their five cities ran up and down the coast meant they shared a long border with Judah. Keep that in mind when you read the biblical story of Samson. Samson frequently went back and forth between Judean and Philistine territory with little trouble (Judges 14-16). Before David became king, he also took advantage of the porous border between Philistia and Judah when he was trying to hide from King Saul (1 Sam. 27).
The Bible’s reference to Canaanites creates the impression to the modern reader that the Canaanites were a unified people group. Really, the term Canaanite is an umbrella term that applied to all the people groups living in the land of Canaan during the Middle and Late Bronze Age. We should not take Canaanite as an ethnic term. Canaan included many tribes, each with their own social stratification and hierarchy. Each tribe had its own ruler and distinct culture. Each city-state had their own defense system and alliances. Because Canaan comprised diverse groups, Joshua had to approach each of them separately with unique battle plans, which we see in the book of Joshua and the story of the conquest.
In over seventy episodes over the course of two years, we have done a deep dive into the 12 Minor Prophets, a monthlong minicourse on why prophecy ended, and then tackled the postexilic books of Ezra and Nehemiah. The next book on the horizon for Bible Fiber is Ezekiel. But before we start a new book, I am giving a minicourse on the Peoples of the Bible. One of the many things we have learned since October 7th is that neighbors really matter, and neighbors can be very problematic for the tiny nation of Israel. Israel did not exist in a bubble during biblical times, and it does not live in a bubble now.
This week we are learning about the Babylonians, one empire that seems to have permeated the entire Old Testament story. The name Babylon occurs 289 times in the Hebrew scriptures, starting in Genesis and ending with Habakkuk. In Genesis, even though the story of the Tower of Babel is critical of Babylon’s misplaced arrogance, it credits Babylonia as being the birthplace of many cultures, languages, and civilizations. After Genesis, Babylon was synonymous with evil and greed. God used Babylon to punish Judah when she had strayed too far from the covenant and refused to repent. Despite serving as God’s agent of punishment, Babylon then becomes the target of God’s wrath as he swore to vindicate his covenant people. They are the villains of the Old Testament because they were the army that ransacked Jerusalem, looted, and burned the First Temple, and carted off Judeans into captivity.
When the biblical authors recorded Israel’s history, they presumed their audience was familiar with the Assyrians, Babylonians, Philistines, Amorites, Edomites, and the list goes on. I am sure that was a safe assumption at the time they wrote their story. However, most modern readers see the names of foreign people groups in the Bible as mere names on a page.
Unless you are well-versed in ancient Near Eastern history, you are unlikely to know the distinction between Edomites and Ammonites or what led to the domination of the extensive empires, like the Assyrians and Babylonians. Thankfully, the grand theological and ethical lessons of the Bible do not require believers to also be students of history. The most Christ-like people in my life are not history nerds. However, I believe learning more about all the characters and peoples in the Bible is helpful for going deeper into the narratives and prophecies.
For the next seven or eight episodes of Bible Fiber, I will debrief you on the major Peoples of the Bible: the Canaanites, Philistines, Assyrians, Babylonians, Arameans, and Hittites. We will do an overview of their history, language, politics, and religion. And I will outline how, when, and why each group interacted with biblical Israel. We are going to start with the Assyrians, because they are the empire in the Bible that gets the most textual real-estate, especially in the prophets.
This week we are studying Nehemiah 13. I divided the chapter into two parts to avoid rushing through the last nine verses of Nehemiah, which are thought-provoking to say the least.
I have had part two of Nehemiah 13 written for weeks, but the events of October 7th took center stage in my mind and life and I assume they did for many of you as well. The first few days after Hamas’s killing spree, I was encouraged by the response of world leaders who unequivocally condemned the murder of innocent civilians.
We have come to know more about Hamas’s disgusting tactics through the confessions of captured Hamas operatives, the footage from their body cameras, the recordings of their phone calls, and the evidence from the charred and mutilated bodies of their Jewish victims. And yet, support for Israel’s right to retaliate has weakened. Even worse, the details of Hamas’s incursion have emboldened the pro-Palestinian and pro-Hamas crowds. Their chants of death to the Zionists and Jews make me fear it is the 1940s all over again.
But we will press on as an organization as we find ways to support modern Israel, confront the anti-Israel forces in America. We study the Bible as our foundation for why we do what we do and believe what we believe. Also, I got an email from one of Bible Fiber’s Jewish listeners in Virginia who asked that we keep pressing on in our study. So, Am Israel Chai and back to Nehemiah.
Welcome to Bible Fiber. I am Shelley Neese, president of The Jerusalem Connection, a Christian organization devoted to sharing the story of the people of Israel, both ancient and modern.
I have had the Bible Fiber episode on Nehemiah 13 written for weeks, but I have not had the power or will to release it as our regular scheduled Bible Fiber rollout. October 7th changed everything, and nothing has felt regular or routine. Like any organization, we always have a monthly plan for our written and digital communications to our audience. With Bible Fiber, I have the great advantage of being able to plan even further out since the Bible never changes.
But right now, even the words in the Bible are all framed through the horror and trauma of October 7th. My mind is unable to separate what is playing out in Israel from the words on the page in my Bible.
The Psalms, Lamentations, and Ecclesiastes especially pulsate with relevance in their call for vindication and judgement on Israel’s enemies. They also provide comfort that the God of the Jewish people will not forsake or abandon them at this hour. The emotional whiplash of the prophets has never felt so appropriate to the national mood in Israel.
After 12 years of governing in Judah, Nehemiah journeyed to Susa to check-in with King Artaxerxes. Recall that the king had readily given Nehemiah permission to go to Jerusalem, but the king’s only stipulation was that Nehemiah would eventually return (2:6). Nehemiah kept his word by reappearing in the Persian court to give a report of all the happenings in the Judean province. With the city walls rebuilt, Jerusalem repopulated, and the people recommitted to covenant obedience, Nehemiah likely felt it was a safe moment to take a sabbatical from his governorship.
This week we are studying Nehemiah 11. The last three chapters of the book make up Ezra-Nehemiah’s final literary unit.
Ever since the edict of Cyrus, the returnees had their sights set on Jerusalem. The first wave of arrivals rebuilt the temple under the leadership of Jeshua and Zerubbabel. Seventy years later, Nehemiah’s arrival in Jerusalem moved the restoration process into phase two: rebuilding the city walls. The wall project was complete in 52 days. Although the wall completion was viewed as a thrilling miracle, Nehemiah was disappointed that Jerusalem still seemed empty. Nehemiah vented “the city was wide and large, but the people within it were few, and no houses had been built” (7:4).
What was the point of rebuilding the walls if Jerusalem remained underpopulated? That is the predicament that Nehemiah’s final initiative attempted to solve.
This week we are reading Nehemiah 10. After the community got reacquainted with the teachings of the Torah and repented of their sins and the sins of their ancestors, they held a covenant renewal ceremony to affirm their commitment. Nehemiah’s three-step plan was reading, repentance, and renewal, in that order. For the Jewish people, returning to Yahweh meant returning to his commands. And for repentance to be sincere, life transformations had to accompany it.
This week we are studying Chapter 9 when the people stopped feasting and began fasting. Although Chapter 9 is a continuation of the previous chapter’s theme of Torah revival, the national mood shifted from joy to sadness.
When the High Holiday period ended on the 22nd of the month, the people gathered two days later for another general assembly in Jerusalem. This was their third public reading of the Torah in a month.
Ezra’s first public reading of the laws and statutes made the congregants cry spontaneously as they realized how far they had strayed from God’s calling (8:9). Although the scriptures stirred up a wellspring of emotion, Nehemiah and Ezra told the people to lock it up and swallow the lump in their throat, just maybe not in those words. They needed to put off any display of sadness because of the celebratory nature of the holiday season. Like Ecclesiastes says, there is “a time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance” (Eccl. 3:4).
This week we are studying Chapter 8 and believe it or not this is the section I have been looking forward to the entire study, Ezra’s public reading of the Torah.
The passage begins on the first day of the seventh month when “all the people gathered together into the square before the Water Gate” (8:1). On the Jewish calendar, the seventh month is jampacked with ceremonial holidays: the Feast of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement, and the Feast of Tabernacles. The builders finished the city wall just in time for the first holiday when the celebrants were heading to Jerusalem (6:15; 8:2). The Feast of Trumpets, also known as Rosh Hashanah, marks the beginning of the Jewish year and is associated with the blasting of shofars, reconciliation, and temple sacrifices (Lev. 23:25). Ezra and Nehemiah took advantage of the influx of Judeans for the High Holidays by calling for a national assembly.
Ezra’s public reading, and the people’s enthusiastic response, marks a permanent shift in the storyline. Ezra and Nehemiah until now focused on rebuilding the temple and the city. But they realized they also had to rebuild the people by centralizing the Torah in their hearts. What Martin Luther’s nailing up of the 95 Theses is to Protestantism, Ezra’s public reading of the Law of Moses is to Judaism.
This week we are studying Nehemiah 7. The chapter has only six verses of narrative development before launching into a lengthy genealogical record. Admittedly, the list is rather boring, but thankfully the narrative section gives us plenty to unpack.
In 445 BCE, after 52 days of nonstop construction, the Jerusalem fortifications were complete, and the workers set the doors in their gates. Chapter 7 begins with a reiteration of the workers’ accomplishment that was already stated in the previous chapter but certainly worth noting again (6:15; 7:1).
For many years, biblical historians wondered if anything was left of Nehemiah’s fortifications in Jerusalem. For example, Hezekiah’s building projects still have a heavy archaeological footprint. Tourists pass by Hezekiah’s broad wall and through his tunnel every day. As for Nehemiah, historians assumed nothing remained of his fortifications since according to the Bible, they had poorly constructed it in the first place. They were wrong...
This week we are studying Nehemiah 6.
The city wall was almost complete. All that remained was setting the doors in the gateways. With the window of intervention closing, Judah’s local enemies kicked their opposition campaign into overdrive. This time around, they focused all their efforts on Nehemiah. Chapter 6 is a record of the various intimidation tactics they brought against him. As the visionary and leader of the wall project, he had a target on his back.
In earlier stages, the local opposition mocked the workers and insulted their craftsmanship to try and kill the morale (4:1-4). When that did not work, they threatened to knock off individual workers as soon as they let their guard down (4:8,11). With Nehemiah’s constant encouragement, the scared and tired workers refused to quit. Nehemiah, as governor, was at the forefront, reminding them, “Do not be afraid of them. Remember the Lord who is great and awesome and fight for your kin” (4:14). Nehemiah’s habit of regular and spontaneous prayer sustained them spiritually. With intimidation and opposition coming at them from every angle, Nehemiah asked God to “strengthen my hands” (6:9).
Thematically, Chapter 5 is an awkward fit in the book, an insertion that interrupts an otherwise continuous narrative. The subjects that dominated the previous chapters—the wall project and the local opposition—fade to the background in Chapter 5. At some point in Nehemiah’s governorship, Judah went through a food shortage crisis. During that time, the dual problems of hunger and poverty trumped everything else. As the memoir of a leader, the book of Nehemiah shows the full range of obstacles he addressed and successfully handled.
This week we are studying Nehemiah 4, an extra dramatic passage that is mined more than any other chapter in Nehemiah for application that applies to the lives of believers today.
This week we are reading Nehemiah 3. In chapter 3, Nehemiah paused his first-person narrative and inserted an archival record of the Jerusalem wall project. The perimeter of the wall was divided into forty-one sections with a work crew assigned to each. The crews were randomly composed of families, towns, or guilds.
Though Nehemiah is buried behind the scenes in the passage, his excellent leadership and administrative skills shine through. Also, everything that took place in Chapter 3 is a direct result from the events of the proceeding narrative chapter.
Nehemiah likely hatched the plan for his approach during his secretive investigation of the walls (2:11-16). The community’s mobilization was a direct result of Nehemiah’s persuasive speech. Nehemiah encouraging the people to rebuild Jerusalem’s wall so they would “no longer suffer disgrace” (2:17). With full hearts, the people responded, “Let us start building!” (2:18). Nehemiah noted, “they committed themselves to the common good” (2:18). That spirit of camaraderie bleeds over into chapter 3’s description of the organized work effort.
This week we are reading Nehemiah 2. We left off with Nehemiah on his knees, praying and fasting as he prepared to speak directly to the king on behalf of his people. Three months passed from the month of Chislev when Nehemiah heard his brother’s terrible news to the month of Nisan when Nehemiah finally made his appeal to the king (2:1).
Why did Nehemiah not immediately take his problem to the king? Afterall, a cupbearer was often in the company of the king, or as often as the king wanted a drink. The memoir does not fill in that detail. Perhaps, this was the first time he had an audience alone with the king and queen. Nehemiah would not have shared his heart in the presence of others. Or the king may have been delayed arriving at his winter residence in Susa, giving Nehemiah more time to pray and plan.
We finished Ezra and we are now launching our study of Nehemiah. Remember that in the Septuagint and the Masoretic text, Ezra and Nehemiah were originally part of one scroll. They were only separated into two distinct books by early church fathers around the third century who understandably interpreted the introduction in Nehemiah as the start of a new book.
The original layout told the story of three sequential leaders and their pilgrimages from Babylon to Jerusalem. When a new leader took the reins, the editor jumped forward in time and signaled the start of a new unit. Halfway through the book of Ezra, the editor skipped over sixty years between Zerubbabel and Ezra with the phrase “now after this” (Ez. 7:1). With the close of Ezra’s memoir and the start of Nehemiah’s memoir, the editor skipped over thirteen years by inserting the heading: “the words of Nehemiah” (Neh. 1:1).
The ministries of Ezra and Nehemiah overlapped each other. While Nehemiah was not mentioned in the book of Ezra, Ezra made an important appearance in Nehemiah 8. When we get to that chapter, we will see how the work of Ezra the scribe complemented the objectives of Nehemiah the governor. Unlike Nehemiah, Ezra did not have an official title.
We finished Ezra and we are now launching our study of Nehemiah. Remember that in the Septuagint and the Masoretic text, Ezra and Nehemiah were originally part of one scroll. They were only separated into two distinct books by early church fathers around the third century who understandably interpreted the introduction in Nehemiah as the start of a new book.
The original layout told the story of three sequential leaders and their pilgrimages from Babylon to Jerusalem. When a new leader took the reins, the editor jumped forward in time and signaled the start of a new unit. Halfway through the book of Ezra, the editor skipped over sixty years between Zerubbabel and Ezra with the phrase “now after this” (Ez. 7:1). With the close of Ezra’s memoir and the start of Nehemiah’s memoir, the editor skipped over thirteen years by inserting the heading: “the words of Nehemiah” (Neh. 1:1).
The ministries of Ezra and Nehemiah overlapped each other. While Nehemiah was not mentioned in the book of Ezra, Ezra made an important appearance in Nehemiah 8. When we get to that chapter, we will see how the work of Ezra the scribe complemented the objectives of Nehemiah the governor. Unlike Nehemiah, Ezra did not have an official title.
One of the first things you will notice reading the book of Nehemiah is that it was written as a linear first-person memoir, even more so than the second unit of Ezra. Nehemiah has less lists and primary source documents than Ezra. Without the distraction of historical insertions, the memoir moves quickly with vivid dialogues and lively plots.
This week we are finishing the book of Ezra which ends with a resolution to the remnant’s intermarriage crisis. Ezra’s emotional reaction to the community’s guilt continued. The narrator wrote, “Ezra prayed and made confession, weeping and throwing himself down before the house of God” (10:1). Most likely, Ezra’s public repentance occurred in the temple courtyard because “a very great assembly of men, women, and children gathered to him” (10:1). Touchingly, the people did not react to Ezra’s display with cynicism or self-defense. Instead, they wept bitterly alongside him.
In our study of Ezra 9 we learn how Ezra’s Torah teaching put the community under the microscope. Ezra brought the law and the law brought conviction.
Only four months after Ezra’s arrival (458 BCE), Judean officials reported to him that the returnees had a serious intermarriage problem. These informants were quite possibly the judges Ezra appointed when he set up a judicial system for the province (7:25). As new appointees, they took seriously their responsibility to consult Ezra on matters of concern that required judication. Their investigation into the community’s Torah compliance revealed that a subset of returnees “had not separated themselves from the peoples of the lands with their abominations” (9:1). They accused the laity, priests, and Levites of violating God’s marriage laws.
This week we are studying chapter 8, the continuation of the Ezra memoir. Before the caravan of returnees sets out, Ezra recruits volunteers to join him, especially Levites and temple servants. The chapter also describes a bit about their travel preparations and reveals Ezra’s main concern. While the actual journey is not the chapter’s focus, the narrator highlights the particulars of their departure and arrival.
Once again, the book incorporates a list into the narrative. Ezra is slowly killing us with these lists, but in this case he writes the list in first-person. Ezra introduces the record: “this is the genealogy of those who went up with me from Babylonia, in the reign of King Artaxerxes” (8:1). The first names recorded are two priests, descendants of Phinehas, the priest forever celebrated for his zealous defense of Israel’s purity in the wilderness wanderings. God promised Phineas a “covenant of a lasting priesthood, because he was zealous for the honor of his God and made atonement for the Israelites” (Num. 25:13). Later in the book, Ezra demonstrated a Phineas-like zeal for protecting the holy seed of Israel.
This week we are studying chapter 7, the next phase of the restoration process. The second literary unit is different from the first both chronologically and stylistically. Yet, the plot of the second half followed the same pattern as the first. God, in his sovereignty, prompted a Persian king to authorize a large group of Judean exiles to return to Jerusalem and restore their nation. Sound familiar?
In round two of the story, the returnees were on a mission not to rebuild the temple but to renew Judah’s commitment to the laws of Moses. Themes of Persian favor, return, temple prioritization, and religious festivals connect Ezra’s first and second units.
This week we are continuing our study of the book of Ezra, diving into chapter 6. This chapter concludes the story of the first two decades of the people’s restoration to Judah. From the narrator’s perspective, the first half of the book was the “old age,” a lookback at the tale of the founding fathers of restored Israel and their completion of the temple.
Our last chapter, and episode, ended with the Persian officials searching for a document to authenticate the Israelites’ claim that Cyrus gave them permission to rebuild their temple. The Israelites did not have hard feelings about Tattenai’s inquiry. He was doing his job as a provincial leader. Plus, they seemed confident officials could resolve the matter. The community held dear their historical memory of the declaration of Cyrus. Even more importantly, they felt the “eye of their God was upon” them (5:5).
This week we are continuing our study of the book of Ezra, diving into chapter 5. After the plotting and scheming of Judah’s oppositional neighbors, all work on the temple stopped around 535 BCE, still during the reign of Cyrus. The returnees had laid the temple foundations, an event that attracted negative attention from the people of the land, and for the next fifteen years did nothing to move the temple project forward.
On the surface, opposition from the people of the land and interference by Persian administrators was too much to overcome for the returnees. At least, that was the external reasoning for delaying the temple objective, as narrated in the book of Ezra. Internally, however, more was going on. The prophetic books of Haggai and Zechariah offer a peak behind the scenes, exposing the weakened spiritual condition of the restored community.
When the temple preparations got underway, the locals made what seemed like a reasonable proposition to Zerubbabel and the family leaders: “Let us build with you, for we worship your God as you do, and we have been sacrificing to him ever since the days of King Esarhaddon of Assyria, who brought us here” (4:1).
The narrator introduces the local people as “the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin” (Ez. 4:1). How have they already developed an adversarial relationship barely two years after their return to the land? Without knowing exactly what happened in those two years of transition, we only have our imaginations and a few textual clues to try and fill in the gaps.
To be sure, the sudden arrival of a caravan of 50,000 newcomers would be jarring to any local population. Also remember that in the genealogical records given in Ezra 2, many of the returnees still possessed property claims to their ancestral lands. In the half century of their absence, local people surely moved into the evacuated homes and squatted on the unclaimed land. The narrative does not describe evictions but we assume Judeans started an eviction process soon after their arrival.
This week we are continuing our study of the book of Ezra, diving into chapter 3. This portion of the narrative is full of victorious moments. The first wave of returnees from Babylon to Judah rebuilt an altar to the Lord, resumed their religious calendar of worship, and commenced work on the Temple foundations. If chapter 2’s theme was continuity within the community, chapter 3 stresses the continuity between the first and second temples.
The Altar is First Priority
Chapter 3 begins, “When the seventh month came and the Israelites had settled in their towns, the people assembled together as one in Jerusalem” (Ez. 3:1). Their goal was “to build the altar of the God of Israel to sacrifice burnt offerings on it” (Ez. 3:1). The passage conveys the remnant’s feeling of urgency to rebuild the altar. For all this time in exile, they were deprived of sacrifice which, according to the torah legislation, also meant they were deprived of atonement.
This week we are continuing our study of the book of Ezra, diving into chapter 2. The first six chapters of Ezra revolve around two missions: rebuilding the sanctuary and rebuilding the community.
I admit that a first pass of Ezra 2 is about as riveting as reading a rollcall. In case once was not enough, the same extensive list of volunteers will be repeated in Nehemiah 7. As tedious as these genealogical registers are to read, they are permanent acknowledgements of the 42,360 exiles who bravely returned to Jerusalem, sacrificing the comforts of Babylon for the task of rebuilding Judah. These were the heirs to the covenant promise. The detailed inventory of families demonstrates the seriousness of making certain that the new nation was a continuation of the previous nation.
Today we are launching our study of Ezra-Nehemiah. I am referring to the two books together because historically, in the Masoretic Text and the Septuagint, Ezra and Nehemiah were considered one scroll. Early Church fathers, like Origen and Jerome, later distinguished Ezra and Nehemiah as separate books in the Christian canon.
Ezra and Nehemiah do not present a straightforward literary scheme or a chronology easy to outline. Still, it is possible to divide the books into three distinct historical periods that each tell the story of a leader commissioned by God: Sheshbazzar, Ezra, and Nehemiah. Ezra 1-6 records the events of the first wave of returnees under the leadership of Sheshbazzar, who was quickly succeeded by Zerubbabel (538-516 BCE). Only in chapter 7 does Ezra, the namesake of the book, make his first appearance. Ezra 7-10 records the wave of exiles who accompanied the reformer’s return to Judah. The book of Nehemiah relates the life and times of his governorship. The total timeframe of the two books stretches from 539-400 BCE.
For both the Jewish and Christian faith, the whole of the Hebrew scripture is divinely inspired. However, rabbinic Judaism has long favored studying Torah over the prophets, while Christianity from the earliest days “attached itself more to the prophets than the law.”[1] Jews sought teaching and instruction on the Torah and Christians sought teachings that illuminated the gospel. My Jewish friends most often refer to the “law” as a designation for the entire Bible and my Christian friends often designate the Old Testament as “the prophets.”[2]
While the New Testament writers often point to both the law and prophets as the initial revelations that testified to Christ (John 5:39), the New Testament writers turn to the prophets more than anything else in the Hebrew scriptures.
Paul, in Romans, opens and closes his book emphasizing the foundational importance of the prophets as witness to the ultimate revelation in Christ (Rom. 1:2; 16:26). Peter describes the prophets as the preincarnation conduit for Christ, the special few allowed to glimpse God’s salvation plan (1 Pet. 1:10-12). Perhaps more than the law could have, the prophets helped the early church process the confusing death and miraculous resurrection of Jesus as well as the workings of the Holy Spirit.
[1] Ferguson, Backgrounds of Early Christianity, 543.
[2] Ferguson, Backgrounds of Early Christianity, 543.
We have finished the Minor Prophets and we are gearing up for the reformers Ezra and Nehemiah before we tackle the Major Prophet Ezekiel. But before I switch modes entirely, I am doing a mini lecture series, a Prophets 101 class. Previously, I discussed the institution of the prophetic office in the Bible, and last week I explored the Jewish understanding for why prophecy ceased after Malachi. Today, I want to investigate the Christian understanding of prophecy today. The best place to start is the introduction to the book of Hebrews.
The author of Hebrews is hyperaware that in the Second Temple period, the Mosaic law and Hebrew scriptures are understood to be the ultimate divine revelation to the Jewish people. He writes, “the law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming” (Heb. 10:1). He explains how divine revelation came first in the form of the prophets and holy scriptures, but it reached its zenith in the incarnation:
“Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds. He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word.” (Heb. 1:1-3)
The language of all Hebrews offers a rich Christology, as Christ is both the one who God sent and the one who God will send again. However, the book is also firmly rooted in the message of the prophets, quoting and alluding to Isaiah (Heb. 2:13), Jeremiah (Heb. 10:16-17), Habakkuk (Heb. 10:37-38) and Haggai (Heb. 12:26).
We have finished the Minor Prophets and we are gearing up for the reformers Ezra and Nehemiah before we tackle the Major Prophet Ezekiel. But before we switch modes entirely, we are doing a mini lecture series, a Prophets 101 class. Last week we discussed the Institution of the Prophetic Office. Today I want to explore the Jewish understanding for why prophecy ceased after Malachi.
In Jewish understanding, the cessation of prophecy is a spiritual tragedy, a major loss for the community that will only return in the messianic age. On that, all sources agree. As to why prophecy stopped, rabbis, both ancient and modern, have offered many well-contemplated and biblically based theories but there is no one accepted answer.
According to the prophet Amos, prophecy ceased because of the prevalence of sin and lack of faith. In his own day, idolatry and injustice were rampant, but Amos looked to a future when God would no longer bother to send his prophets to offer course correction. Amos predicted, “the days are coming when I will send a famine through the land—not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the Lord” (Amos 8:11-12).
We have finished the Minor Prophets and we are gearing up for the reformers Ezra and Nehemiah before we tackle the Major Prophet Ezekiel. But before we switch modes entirely, I want to take advantage of the pause to talk about the institution of the prophet. We have been doing deep dives into the biblical books, but I want to zoom out and share more generally what constitutes a prophet and what is the prophetic tradition in the Bible.
In the Hebrew scriptures, a prophet was a special human recipient of divine revelation, commissioned by God to communicate his mind to the people of Israel. From Abraham to Malachi, God’s spokespeople fit the broad category of prophet.
Abraham was the patriarch prophet whom God chose to reveal himself (Gen. 20:7). Moses was a prophet leader, authorized to speak in the name of Yahweh to both the Egyptians and the Israelites (Deut. 18:18). In the days of the judges, Samuel held every position: priest, judge, and prophet (1 Sam. 3:20). Mysteriously, the Bible even references a school of the prophets filled with an infectious degree of God’s spirit and gifted in musical worship (1 Sam 10:5). Elijah and Elisha were brave prophet challengers, unrelenting in their confrontations with pagan seers, faulty priests, and wicked kings. By the eight century BCE, a new type of prophetism arose: the writing prophet. The writing prophet was a unique new brand of an ancient office, messengers of God who eventually preserved their oracles in literary products.
Last week, after finishing the 52nd episode in fourteen months, I got a lot of emails and messages asking what was next for Bible Fiber. Before I answer that question, and I will, I want to thank all of you for joining me in this Bible reading challenge. I was talking to a friend from church who is also a listener and she said it was like being in a Bible study with me, but one where I got to do all the talking. I am keenly aware that I was hogging the mic in this virtual Bible study and I apologize for that part. But I loved all the feedback and messages from listeners about what God was showing them in the prophets.
When I first started the podcast I explained that I wanted to commit my organization to teaching the lesser-known parts of the Hebrew scriptures and working through them as a community. But I never actually explained the more personal reason I ventured into the world of podcasting the biblical prophets.
Like many of you, my life always involves spinning several plates at once. I am married to an active-duty Air Force man and we move states almost every two years. In fact, I have lived in two states while doing the Bible Fiber series. I have four children and therefore I am the executive assistant to four potential faith leaders, burgeoning scholars, and ambitious athletes. I am president of The Jerusalem Connection. And I am a graduate student studying biblical history and archaeology at the slow rate of one class a semester.
With those spinning plates in mind, it is hard to explain why I chose the year of my husband’s yearlong deployment to the Middle East to launch a project that required me to read, write, and produce via podcast a commentary essay each week on the Minor Prophets. He deployed in June 2021 and the podcast started in August 2021.
This week we are reading Malachi 4:4-6, Malachi’s epilogue, a short summation of his whole message.
Four hundred years of silence separate the close of Malachi from the coming of Jesus. The famine of God’s words, as predicted by the prophet Amos, was close at hand. Amos foretold, “people will stagger from sea to sea and wander from north to east, searching for the word of the Lord, but they will not find it” (Amos 8:11-12). Both Jewish and Christian traditions refer to Malachi as the “seal of the prophets.” For that reason, his closing statements deserve their own episode as the prophet’s last words, even if they comprise a mere three verses.
This week we are reading the sixth, and final, disputation which covers Malachi 3:13-4:3. In Malachi, God consistently speaks in first person to the people, a fact made more significant knowing Malachi is the last of the writing prophets. God is the dominant speaker in the first, second, fifth, and sixth disputations.
The sixth disputation demonstrates that the spirit of cynicism has taken deep root in the community. The people dare to criticize God. However, for the first time in the book, we learn there is also a righteous minority who remain faithful to Yahweh. The bulk of the disputation describes how the coming Day of the Lord will be a vastly different experience for the righteous and the unrighteous.
Once again, Malachi introduces the disputation using his standard formula of hypothetical dialogue between God and the general population. God makes an accusation and the people give a smug response. In this case, God accuses them of speaking “harsh words” against him. The people, always speaking with one voice, ask, “How have we spoken against you?” (3:13). The rejoinder’s tone could either reflect intentional denial of God’s words or sincere surprise at the accusation. Either way, the prophet’s job is to show them that their indifference to God and his decrees is equally as offensive as rejecting him and criticizing him aloud.
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This week we are reading Malachi’s fifth disputation. God speaks directly to the people without mincing words: “Will anyone rob God? Yet you are robbing me!” (3:8). In other words, they are not tithing adequately. That may seem like a narrow materialistic charge, lacking the heavier moral and ethical challenges of previous prophets. However, embedded in the message of judgement is a message of hope. If they stop their devious practices and return to God, he will return to them, and pour out his blessings.
Malachi’s disputation begins with a theological lesson: “For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, have not perished” (3:6). The “children of Jacob” is one of the Bible’s epithets for the chosen people. Like “Abraham’s seed,” the label highlights the foundation of their national story in the patriarchs.
The preservation of the people is not due to their national strength or resourcefulness. God spared them from destruction because of his enduring mercy. The problems confronting the restored community are not the fault of God. He remains constant throughout Israel’s history and faithful to the covenant promises.
This week we are reading Malachi’s fourth disputation. Previous disputations charged the priesthood with negligent worship and condemned Israelite men for their pagan marriages. Those prophetic messages were harsh and pointed. Still, the restored community remains obnoxiously unaware of their shortcomings.
Malachi uses his prophetic pulpit to explain why God is indeed withholding blessing. However, in a balanced message of hardship before hope, Malachi foresees the coming of a messenger who will prepare the way for the Messiah.
The fourth disputation follows the basic structure of the others. Malachi makes an assertion. The people follow up with a counter-question. God weighs in with a warning about the implications of their disobedience.
This disputation addresses the general community. They are all guilty of wearying the Lord with their words. God’s patience with his wayward people has worn thin. Malachi demonstrates their cluelessness by putting words in their mouths that best reflect their poor mindset. The people ask, “How have we wearied him?” Tongue-in-cheek, Malachi adds, “By saying, ‘All who do evil are good in the sight of the Lord, and he delights in them.’ Or by asking, ‘Where is the God of justice?’” (2:17).
This week we are reading Malachi’s third disputation which covers Malachi 2:10-16. The disputation is short and to the point. Israelite men are divorcing their Israelite wives to marry pagan women and God is not pleased!
While the second disputation targeted the priesthood, the third disputation addresses the whole community. Malachi’s disputations often begin with a question where the answer is a presumed “yes.” Malachi asks, “Have we not all one father? Has not one God created us?” (2:10). By reminding the people that Yahweh is their heavenly father, the prophet is highlighting their unique bond as a nation under divine headship. Yet, the people are too self-absorbed to uphold even their most committed attachments, like marriage.
This week we are reading Malachi’s second disputation which is unfortunately not marked off by chapter divisions. Normally, I prefer to keep it clean and do the reading challenge by order of chapters, but with Malachi it will be messier. It makes more sense to study the book one disputation at a time rather than chapter. The second disputation is the longest stretching from Malachi 1:6-2:9, so buckle up for this episode.
Malachi’s first disputation from last week reminded the people of their divine election going back to the days of Jacob and Esau. The point was that the misfortunes faced by the postexilic community were not because of God’s disengagement. Their lack of zeal was to blame. The people were not quick to repent like in Zechariah’s day (Zech. 1:6) or comply like in the days of Haggai (Hag. 1:14). A spiritual malaise had settled over the whole community, but this was particularly the case with the priesthood.
Malachi’s disputation against the priesthood is delivered via question and response, the prophet’s preferred teaching tool. God sets up his indictment of the priests by first establishing agreement with the people about the respect and honor that a son owes his father or a servant his master. Knowing everyone would agree with the terms of common earthly relationships, he asks, “A son honors his father and a servant his master. If then I am a father, where is the honor due me? And if I am a master, where is the respect due me?” (1:6). The analogy highlights that if God is their heavenly father and master, how much more respect does he deserve than an earthly father or master?
This week we are starting Malachi, the last of the Minor Prophets, the last of the writing prophets, the last book in the Christian canon. Malachi’s modern chapter divisions are arbitrary and therefore not the best guides for ordering our study of the book. Structurally, six tightly patterned prophetic disputations makeup the prophetic work. Most translations mark off the disputations with subtitles. Today, I want to cover the first disputation: Malachi 1:1-5. Because there is some discussion over Malachi’s identity and dating, we will layout those details at the start as well.
The book’s superscription in the first verse is skimpy on biographical details. Other prophets often cite their hometown or name of their father. In Malachi’s case, all that is given is the name of the prophet, and we are not even certain of that. There is no character in the Hebrew scriptures with the name Malachi, a slightly awkward name in the Hebrew. Malachi can also translate as a title “my messenger.” Malach is one of the most common Hebrew words in the Bible which can mean angel or messenger. Perhaps the book intentionally left the prophet unnamed, only ascribing the oracle to Yahweh’s messenger. The Septuagint scribes understood the introduction as “his messenger” and translated Malachi’s introduction accordingly: “the word of Yahweh to Israel by the hand of his messenger.” In the Masoretic tradition, the basis for our Bible translations, the pronouncement includes the proper name: “the word of Yahweh to Israel by the hand of Malachi.” So, which is it?
This week we are reading Zechariah 14, the last chapter in a book that has taken over three months to complete. Because I have spread out this study, putting every chapter under the interpretative microscope, I want to pause and zoom out to remind everyone again of the importance and influence of Zechariah, especially on the New Testament. Zechariah is quoted from or alluded to seventy-one times in the New Testament. Only the book of Isaiah trumps Zechariah in its total number of messianic typologies. During our study, I made note of all the times the New Testament writers directly quoted from Zechariah (8:16, 9:9, 11:12-13, 12:10, 13:7). Revelation was the exception. Revelation so frequently echoes Zechariah that I found it impossible to outline all the overlap. Suffice it to say, John of Patmos was a big Zechariah guy.
Despite Zechariah’s enormous influence on the New Testament writers, the book rarely gets more than a passing reference in Christian Bible studies. At some point from the time of the early church to now, Zechariah lost popularity. I understand that the vision sequence seems obtuse, the shepherd imagery jumps around, and the oscillation between promises and curses is dizzying. Feeling that way about Zechariah does not make you less of a believer. What I have enjoyed about this deeper study of Zechariah is the process of mining the prophetic text for surprises. Those have popped up in every chapter in the form of historical insights, glimmering poetry, funny hypotheticals, messianic profiles, and apocalyptic symbols. All that to say, it has been a fun spiritual ride and I hope you have enjoyed Zechariah as much as I have.
This week we are reading Zechariah 13. When the people saw the pierced figure of chapter 12, the nation erupted in mourning and repentance. Chapter 13 provides God’s reaction to those heartfelt cries. As a symbol of his forgiveness, God graciously provides a spring to cleanse the royal family and all of Jerusalem’s inhabitants. Just as the mourning was communal, so will be the cleansing. The verse reads, “On that day a fountain shall be opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and impurity” (13:1). Sin (hattāt) is moral failings and impurity (nidda) is physical defilement from contact with unclean things. By God’s grace, the fountain of cleansing purifies both and brings fulfillment to the spiritual revival that started in the previous chapter.
Purity rituals were and still are essential to the Jewish faith. The rituals described in Leviticus 12-15 and Numbers 19 are not purposefully hygienic acts, even if they have a public health benefit like the requirement to ritually cleanse after childbirth or self-isolate after contact with a dead body. The rituals are instead symbolic, kinetic ways for humans to declare their purification. Only once impure people have been cleansed can they reenter the community of Yahweh and participate in sacrificial worship.
This week we are reading chapter 12. Zechariah makes a sudden about-face from the gloomy language and depressing outlook of chapter 11 where God declared the end of his covenant relationship with his people who he no longer pitied (11:6). Yahweh abandoned the flock doomed to slaughter, leaving them to their cannibalistic desires, saying “what is to die, let it die” (11:9). Zechariah resigned as shepherd leader.
In chapter 12, Yahweh is back in the role of divine warrior, fighting on behalf of his beloved people, assuring their victory, as if chapter 11 never happened. As a student of the prophets, it is moments like these that leave me raising my hand in the back of the class. I want an explanation for what just happened that will answer all the contradictions.
Remember, Zechariah is not the first prophet to give us whiplash. The prophetic method has often involved swaying from one extreme to another, giving off the feeling that they are unstable leaders with an inconsistent message. Rabbi Heschel in his book The Prophets acknowledges the prophets’ moodiness but defends it is as an understandable hazard of their profession. He explains, “what appears to us as wild emotionalism must seem like restraint to him who has to convey the emotion of the Almighty in the feeble language of man.”
Still, you will be relieved to know that chapter 11 and its theme of doom and gloom is an outlier in the bigger scope of Zechariah. Consider it a brief interruption of pessimistic sign-acts sandwiched between otherwise optimistic oracles. Even when the oracles call the people out for their sins or predict coming trials, they remain hope adjacent. The last section, chapters 12-14, returns to Yahweh’s promises to the remnant. The restored community will be victorious over her attackers, even if the community must first go through a season of repentance and purification.
This week we are reading Zechariah 11, arguably the most enigmatic gloomy section of the whole book. The chapter’s prelude (11:1-3) is a dark poem with the vivid portrayal of personified trees wailing over their own destruction. Shepherds and lions join in with the trees’ lament, mourning their own loss of pasture and thicket. Lebanon’s cedars and cypress burn while Bashan’s oaks tumble in a cascade of destruction.
The poem cries, “the glorious trees are ruined!” (11:2) in reference to the fall of the most prized trees in the Ancient Near East, Lebanon’s cedars. David acquired cedar logs from Lebanon to build his palace (2 Sam. 5:11). Cedar paneling from Lebanon adorned Solomon’s Temple (1 Kings 6:6). Even in the Epic of Gilgamesh, the mythic king risked his life to go to Lebanon’s cedar forest and bring back the precious wood to his kingdom.
To Zechariah’s listening audience, the destruction of the cedar trees, forever associated with strength and glory, demonstrated Yahweh’s superiority. If Yahweh is mightier than the stately cedar tree, he is greater than all things. When the Psalmist praised God’s strength, he compared his voice to the cedar: “The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars; the Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon” (Ps. 29:5).
This week we are studying Zechariah 10. Our previous chapter ended with the promise of such agricultural fertility that “grain shall make the young men flourish, and new wine the young women” (9:17). The guarantee of satiated bellies carries over into today’s reading with Zechariah reminding the petition the Lord and he will send the “spring rain” and “the vegetation in the field” (10:1).
After encouraging the people to pray to Yahweh for their needs, the prophet warns them not to seek their protection and provision through other means. He cautions the people against falling back into idol worship, reminding them, “the teraphim utter nonsense, and the diviners see lies; the dreamers tell false dreams and give empty consolation” (10:2).
During the divided monarchy, the people of Israel and Judah were fond of merging Yahwism with the occult. But, even before the age of the prophets, God’s people had been flirting with all kinds of pagan divination. Rachel brought her father’s statues (Gen. 31) into Canaan. Right after the Exodus, when they should have been thanking God for his saving grace, they constructed the golden calf at Mount Sinai (Ex. 32). And there is even the strange scene in 1 Samuel of King Saul consulting a medium to conjure up the ghost of Samuel (1 Sam. 28).
For the most part, biblical historians believe that idol worship stopped being a big problem after the exile. The Bible indicates this was the case and the archaeology confirms it. The prophets Hosea and Ezekiel prophesied that after the ordeal of captivity, the people would eradicate idol worship (Hos. 3:4; Ezek. 37:23). Hosea foresaw a time when “the Israelites shall remain many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or pillar, without ephod or teraphim” (Hos. 3:4).
This week we are studying Zechariah 9. Three units make up the book of Zechariah: the vision sequence in chapters 1-6, the prophet’s answer to Bethel in chapters 7-8, and eschatological oracles in chapters 9-14.
I will get it out in the open. The oracles in the last six chapters of Zechariah are quite different than the first eight chapters. The writing style pivots and the focus changes. In Zechariah 1-8, he was concerned with the key issues of the day which were mainly the rebuilding of the Temple and the return of the exiles. Zechariah 9-14 are forward looking, anxious for the coming period of blessing in the messianic age. For that reason, those chapters are riddled with Messianic prophecies that became very relevant for the New Testament.
The first eight chapters name Zechariah’s historical contemporaries: Joshua, Zerubbabel, the exiles with the offerings, and the Bethel delegation. In Zechariah 9-14, the leadership is unnamed. They are merely corrupt shepherds.
The sudden shift in Zechariah 9 has led many scholars to theorize that the book of Zechariah has multiple authors and two different dates of composition. Zechariah, the historic postexilic prophet, likely wrote the first eight chapters and someone else added the last oracles later, perhaps one of his followers. Scholars refer to the author of Zechariah 9-14 as Second Zechariah. Some experts theorize that Jeremiah authored those chapters, especially since the gospel writer Matthew attributed the verses found in Zechariah 11:12-13 to the prophet Jeremiah.
This week we are studying Zechariah 8, a continuation of the prophet’s response to the Bethel delegation’s question about fast days. In chapter 7, the question provoked a somewhat testy sermon from Zechariah. He warned the people about the consequences of straying from God and the pitfalls of hypocrisy and empty religion.
In chapter 8, the tone changes from rebuke to reassurance. The prophet encourages the people to obey and experience the fullness of their inheritance. But there is a hitch. The blessings are contingent on their ability to “love truth and peace” (8:19).
Last week, we covered the importance of all the minute details in the historical narrative: the timing of the prophecy, the historic enmity of Bethel and Jerusalem, and the continuation of Babylonian influence in the remnant. Zechariah 7-8 is a classic example of the importance of studying the historical and cultural background of the prophets. Of course, the same is true for the entire Bible.
The Bible has a dual nature. While the Bible’s message is eternal, Zechariah, and all the other biblical writers, ministered to a particular people, at a certain time and place. They packed their message in the language, commands, and stories most relevant to those people in that day.
Welcome to Bible Fiber where we are encountering the textures and shades of the prophetic tapestry in a year-long study of the twelve minor prophets. I am Shelley Neese, president of The Jerusalem Connection, a Christian organization devoted to sharing the story of the people of Israel, both ancient and modern.
This week we are studying Zechariah 7. Zechariah 7-8 is a distinct unit, a narrative event occurring between the prophet’s visions and his concluding oracles.
The section opens with a precise date superscription: “in the fourth year of King Darius” (7:1). Right off, we know two years have passed since the prophet experienced his visions (1:1, 7). At this point, around 518 BCE, the Temple construction is proceeding quickly and is only two years from completion (Ezra 6:15). The people are beginning to feel confident of Jerusalem’s reemergence and therefore are paying less attention to their spiritual condition. In this context, Zechariah receives a divine word of warning (7:1), prompted by a visiting delegation of leaders from Bethel.
The narrative explains that the townspeople of Bethel sent a delegation to Jerusalem to settle a dispute in their community about whether they should continue to observe certain fast days. The fast days began in exile to lament the destruction of Jerusalem (7:2-3).
Considering they had returned to Judah and the Temple was almost finished, perha
Welcome to Bible Fiber where we are encountering the textures and shades of the prophetic tapestry in a year-long study of the twelve minor prophets. I am Shelley Neese, president of The Jerusalem Connection, a Christian organization devoted to sharing the story of the people of Israel, both ancient and modern.
This week we are studying Zechariah 6. Zechariah 6 provides the eighth vision in the sequence. The final vision concludes with what biblical scholars call a prophetic sign-act, a real-life action on the part of the prophet that symbolizes a divine revelation. Chapter 6 upholds the major theme of all Zechariah’s visions: the restoration of Judah and construction of the Temple.
The vision opens with the prophet looking up and seeing “four chariots coming out from between two mountains—mountains of bronze” (6:1). Colored horses—red, black, white, and dappled—pull the chariots (6:2). Zechariah asks the messenger for the meaning of the horses. The messenger explains that the chariots are “the four winds of heaven going out” from the presence of the Lord (6:5).
The elements of commonality between vision eight and vision one signal to the reader that the last vision is the bookend to the first. Zechariah’s last vision is wrapping up what the first vision started. The first vision has four horses of four different colors ridden by four horsemen.
In the eighth vision, there are four chariots pulled by horses of varied colors. In the first vision, the horses are standing among the myrtle trees. In the last vision, horse-drawn chariots appear from between bronze mountains. In both visions, the teams of horses and their envoys are doing the work of Yahweh by patrolling the earth (1:10; 6:7). The horsemen in the first vision are tasked with a reconnaissance mission before any warfare. By the last vision, the appearance of horse-drawn chariots, instruments of warfare in antiquity, signals the commencement of a military campaign.
Zechariah’s sixth vision opens with a flying scroll. In my imagination, the scroll is like one of those aerial advertisement banners that fly over busy beaches encouraging people to “Eat at Joe’s.” Obviously, this sky banner is a religious scroll and there is no attached airplane.
An anonymous speaker in the vision asks Zechariah to identify what he sees. The speaker is likely the angelic messenger but the text leaves it vague. Zechariah gives him the dimensions of the flying scroll: twenty cubits by ten cubits (5:2).
A cubit was the standard biblical unit of measurement in Bible times, equal to about eighteen inches, the distance from the elbow to the fingertips. In our terms of measurement, the unfurled scroll was thirty by fifteen feet.
Somehow Zechariah was able to estimate the dimensions of a scroll even though the scroll was in flight. Possibly, the dimensions are a subtle way of connecting the scroll to Solomon’s Temple. The porch or portico of Solomon’s Temple had the same dimensions as the flying scroll (1 Kings 6:3), and so did the cherubim with their wings outstretched across the Ark of the Covenant (1 Kings 6:23-26). The exact dimensions of the Holy of Holies in the Tabernacle are hard to discern from Exodus (26:5-18), but some scholars believe the Holy of Holies was also twenty by ten cubits. If the vision is intentionally correlating the scroll with the Temple, the deeper meaning is that God’s holy word is to be upheld, just like his holy place.
We are halfway through Zechariah’s vision sequence. Before we move on, I want to review the tradition of visions in the Hebrew scriptures. You may be wondering if Zechariah’s constant dreaming is out of line with the rest of the prophets.
Since the time of the Exodus, God has provided a series of righteous human mediators to communicate his will to the Jewish people. During the forty years of wilderness wanderings, God appointed Moses for the role. God declared Moses to be the humblest man on earth, so to him God spoke “face to face—clearly, not in riddles” (Num. 12:8). After the death of Moses came Joshua and then a series of judges who heard the voice of God even if they did not see his form.
After King Solomon, very few of Judah and Israel’s kings even pretended to seek after God. It was during this time of unrighteous leadership that God supplied a steady stream of prophets for the people. Some wrote their prophecies down and gave us the prophetic books. With this new line of mediators, God often spoke to them in dreams and visions. Read Numbers 12 to see how God, in a dialogue with Aaron and Miriam, predicted a day that dreams and visions would be his preferred method of revelation.
The literary prophets all fell between 900 and 500 BCE. During the four hundred years that prophets ministered in Israel and Judah, not all of them recorded dreams or visions. Haggai, for example, had a very direct message for the postexilic community and no visionary experiences. The books most known for their prophetic visions are Amos, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. Amos had visions of swarming locusts, consuming fire, a basket of fruit, and an almond tree (Amos 7-9). His visions were mostly static. Jeremiah also had static visions, one of a blossoming almond tree (Jer. 1:11) and another of a boiling pot tilted toward Judah (Jer. 1:13). Ezekiel was a prolific visionary and his scenes glitter with detail and movement. Among the most famous of his visions are the valley of the dry bones (Ezek. 37), God’s battle chariot flown by winged beings (Ezek. 1), and the divine blueprints of the New Jerusalem (Ezek. 40-48).
This week we are studying the third chapter of Zechariah, the prophet’s fourth vision out of a sequence of eight. The end of Zechariah’s third vision segues into the opening scene of the fourth vision. At the close of Zechariah 2, the prophet called for silence from “all flesh” out of reverence for Yahweh who “roused himself from his holy dwelling” (2:13). In chapter three, the prophet awakens to find that he has been transported to what seems like a heavenly throne room. Among the divine council, Zechariah identifies three characters: Joshua the high priest, the Angel of the Lord, and the accuser.
Joshua is the first historical character introduced in Zechariah’s visions. Joshua is known from other biblical books as one of the returnees in 538 BCE (Hag. 1:1, Ezra 2:2, Neh. 12:1). Even before the vison, Joshua was well known to the prophet Zechariah as they were both leaders of the postexilic community. In the vision, Joshua was standing before the Angel of the Lord (3:1). When the Bible uses the Hebrew verb for “standing before,” it often has a courtroom connotation. The person “standing before” someone is usually being judged. This verb is the reason most commentaries discuss Zechariah’s fourth vision as if it was a tribunal.
Welcome to Bible Fiber where we are encountering the textures and shades of the prophetic tapestry in a year-long study of the twelve minor prophets, one prophet each month. I am Shelley Neese, president of The Jerusalem Connection, a Christian organization devoted to sharing the story of the people of Israel, both ancient and modern.
This week we are studying the second chapter of Zechariah, a continuation of the prophet’s vision sequence: eight visions in one night making up the first six chapters of the book. The chapter begins with the prophet speaking in first person, “I looked up and saw a man with a measuring line in his hand” (2:1). Looking up or being roused is Zechariah’s standard introduction for every vision except the fourth.
Zechariah, accustomed to interacting with the characters in his visions, asked the man with the measuring line, “where are you going?” The man answered the prophet, “To measure Jerusalem, to see how wide and how long it is” (2:2). The man’s optimistic answer comes off as either naïve or noble. In the sixth century BCE, the postexilic community was tasked with rebuilding their once beautiful but now ruinous city. They were low on resources and, according to Haggai, also low on enthusiasm. The young man’s response is heartening to Zechariah. He is not only measuring the foundations of the Temple, but he is also surveying Jerusalem’s old boundary lines, in anticipation of the full city’s restoration.
In Zechariah’s first vision, Yahweh assured the prophet that as he rebuilt the nation a “measuring line shall be stretched out over Jerusalem” (1:16). Now the task of the measuring line is being carried out. When reading Zechariah, it is helpful to keep a look out for how the themes of each vision interlock as the scenes and characters change.
The man with the measuring line represents the community once they have internalized God’s message through Haggai and set ambitiously to the task of rebuilding Jerusalem. The man in the vision cannot see how God is complementing his efforts. The same is true with the returnees. While they might feel discouraged that Jerusalem is never going to reach its former stature, Yahweh is moving in another sphere of time and space to bring about their redemption. Only Yahweh knows every link in the chain of the restoration process.
In verse three, two new characters enter the vision. Zechariah refers to the first as “the angel who spoke with me” and the second is vaguely referred to as “another angel” (2:3). Zechariah scholars often identify the first angel with the angel on the red horse from the scene in the myrtle trees. The second angel may be the mediating angel that was also in the previous vision. Throughout Zechariah’s dream sequence, certain angels appear and reappear, giving the sequence continuity of characters.
Zechariah addresses his questions to the second angel while the first angel runs to meet the young man with the measuring line. The scene has a lot of hurried movements. The first angel instructs the young man to stop his work because he has good news to share: “Jerusalem shall be inhabited like unwalled villages because of the multitude of people and animals in it” (2:4).
Apparently, the man was measuring Jerusalem’s dimensions in order to rebuild the city’s wall. The angel tells the man that Jerusalem cannot have a wall because an influx of returnees is coming that will far surpass the city’s capacity. The new Jerusalem has to be unwalled and unlimited.
Ezekiel, the prophet in exile, also experienced a vision of an unlimited Jerusalem (Ezek. 40-48). In Ezekiel’s vision, the prophet was transported to a mountaintop overlooking all of Israel. An angel with a bronze-like appearance met Ezekiel on the mountaintop with a measuring reed in his hand (Ezek. 40:3). The angel preceded to give Ezekiel a precise blueprint of the future Temple with its gates, courts, rec
Welcome to Bible Fiber where we are encountering the textures and shades of the prophetic tapestry in a year-long study of the twelve minor prophets, one prophet each month. I am Shelley Neese, president of The Jerusalem Connection, a Christian organization devoted to sharing the story of the people of Israel, both ancient and modern.
I am sorry about the prolonged break between our last episode of Haggai and today. My family made a cross country move this summer from Mississippi to Arizona. Only now is life starting to normalize again. I am thankful to have my commentaries, podcast equipment, and coffee pot all unpacked and part of my daily orbit again.
This week we are starting the book of Zechariah, “son of Berechiah, son of Iddo,” according to the book’s superscription (1:1). Both Ezra (5:1) and Nehemiah (12:16) refer to Zechariah only as the son of Iddo and omit the “son of Berechiah.” Commentators theorize that Berechiah, his father, must have died in exile, leaving Zechariah in the care of his grandfather Iddo. In Nehemiah’s genealogy, he listed Zechariah son of Iddo as one of the heads of the priestly families (12:16).
The name Zechariah was surely common, but it is highly unlikely that among the early waves of returnees were two Zechariahs, sons of Iddo. Assuming Nehemiah’s Zechariah is the same as the literary prophet, we learn a great deal from this otherwise simple introduction in the first verse. Zechariah was both a priest and a prophet, in the same vein as Ezekiel and Jeremiah. He also must have been young when he returned from exile to be serving as priest almost seventy years later in the time of Nehemiah.
Welcome to Bible Fiber where we are encountering the textures and shades of the prophetic tapestry in a year-long study of the twelve minor prophets, one prophet each month. I am Shelley Neese, president of The Jerusalem Connection, a Christian organization devoted to sharing the story of the people of Israel, both ancient and modern.
This week we are reading the second chapter of Haggai. We know a good deal about the historical background to Haggai’s prophecies because of the book of Ezra. Ezra names Haggai as a prophet who ministered to the regathered Jews in Judah (5:1-2; 6:14). However, we know nothing of Haggai’s patrimony or biographical profile. For example, Ezra did not include Haggai in his extensive list of the first wave of returnees from Babylon, a notable omission. Perhaps, Haggai was in a subsequent wave, or Haggai never left Judah at all. The Babylonians did not deport all the Jews in Judea, only the prominent citizens. Possibly, Haggai’s parents were among the “poorest people of the land” (2 Kings 24:14). If so, Haggai was prophesying as a local Jerusalemite who had been awaiting the return of his people, living among the ashes of Jerusalem his whole life.
The word of the Lord came to Haggai for the second time on October 17, 520 BCE. This was the seventh day of Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles. We know that fact because of Haggai’s precise dating formula, but the prophet makes no specific mention of the holiday. Interestingly, the name Haggai is connected to chag, Hebrew for festival.
Welcome to Bible Fiber where we are encountering the textures and shades of the prophetic tapestry in a year-long study of the twelve minor prophets, one prophet each month. I am Shelley Neese, president of The Jerusalem Connection, a Christian organization devoted to sharing the story of the people of Israel, both ancient and modern.
This week we are reading the second chapter of Haggai. We know a good deal about the historical background to Haggai’s prophecies because of the book of Ezra. Ezra names Haggai as a prophet who ministered to the regathered Jews in Judah (5:1-2; 6:14). However, we know nothing of Haggai’s patrimony or biographical profile. For example, Ezra did not include Haggai in his extensive list of the first wave of returnees from Babylon, a notable omission. Perhaps, Haggai was in a subsequent wave, or Haggai never left Judah at all. The Babylonians did not deport all the Jews in Judea, only the prominent citizens. Possibly, Haggai’s parents were among the “poorest people of the land” (2 Kings 24:14). If so, Haggai was prophesying as a local Jerusalemite who had been awaiting the return of his people, living among the ashes of Jerusalem his whole life.
Welcome to Bible Fiber where we are encountering the textures and shades of the prophetic tapestry in a year-long study of the twelve minor prophets, one prophet each month. I am Shelley Neese, president of The Jerusalem Connection, a Christian organization devoted to sharing the story of the people of Israel, both ancient and modern.
This week we are reading the prophet Haggai, the first prophet to break the divine silence after the exiles returned from Babylon. A century has passed since Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah first warned the people of Judah that divine punishment at the hands of the Babylonians was near certain. The prophets promised that a remnant would survive the exile, return, and rebuild. For Haggai, the remnant was not eschatological. The remnant was his audience. And good news: the remnant’s response to Haggai’s exhortation is refreshingly positive. The ears that went deaf to preexilic prophets are now actively keen to hear out the postexilic prophets.
We had a little break since our last Bible Fiber. I was in Israel helping with the writing for a new documentary called Uncovering the Tabernacle which should be out by November 2022. If you want to learn more about the documentary, go to www.geshermedia.com or follow Gesher Media on Facebook for behind-the-scenes photos.
This week we are closing out the prophet Zephaniah. Zephaniah’s condemnation of nations in chapter 2 was a rhetorical device. Listeners in Judea surely agreed with the prophet about the urgent need to punish their enemies. As covenant people, they presumptuously anticipated their own pardon. Granted, Assyria destroyed the Kingdom of Israel, but they felt Judah was different. Judah had Jerusalem, the place of God’s presence. Even when Assyria destroyed Israel a century before, Judah was shown mercy (Hos. 1:6). Mercy once shown became mercy taken for granted.
Accountability of the Chosen
In chapter 3, the prophet narrows his focus and points the finger at His listening audience. God is angry with Jerusalem. Jerusalem is guilty of the same sinful behavior as the nations and they will be punished accordingly. He writes, “Woe, soiled, defiled, oppressing city! It has listened to no voice; it has accepted no correction” (3:1-2). Jerusalem has become so self-exalting that the chosen city is no longer capable of hearing God’s voice.
God chose Israel to be a light to the world. God entrusted His laws to them on Mount Sinai so they could create a just, free, and fair society in covenant relationship with Him. By Zephaniah’s day, they were neglecting both the revelations of God and His fellowship. The world outside of Judah lacked a standard for moral and ethical behavior. And still, God held them accountable for their arrogance and violence. Judah, however, knew the ways of God. Therefore, God held them to an even higher standard.
Welcome to Bible Fiber where we are encountering the textures and shades of the prophetic tapestry in a year-long study of the twelve minor prophets, one prophet each month. I am Shelley Neese, president of The Jerusalem Connection, a Christian organization devoted to sharing the story of the people of Israel, both ancient and modern.
This week we are reading the second chapter of Zephaniah, a prophet who, like Jeremiah, ministered during the reign of the righteous King Josiah. Slightly before this time, Nahum prophesied Assyria’s ruin and Habakkuk envisioned the rise of the Babylonians. It was also during Josiah’s reign that the Book of the Law was rediscovered during renovations at the Temple. Hulda, a prophetess in Jerusalem, authenticated the scriptures. She warned King Josiah that God was soon going to discipline all those who have forsaken the covenant (2 Kings 22:3-13; 2 Chron. 34:14-21). This makes for at least five biblical prophets in the seventh century BCE all sounding the same siren. They are prophets living on the precipice of disaster and there is an urgency to their unified call.
As I mentioned in the last podcast, the context clues in Zephaniah link his oracles to the early part of Josiah’s reign, before the king tried to purge the nation of paganism. Jeremiah came a bit after. His book says he first received the word of the Lord in the thirteenth year of Josiah’s reign (Jer. 1:2), slightly in the middle of Josiah’s campaign of reforms.
Still, Zephaniah’s descriptions of Judah’s failures in chapter 1 correspond exactly with Jeremiah’s complaints. The people of Judah were committing the same sins of idolatry, injustice, and immorality that led to Israel’s judgement a hundred years earlier. With all the prophets delivering the same warning message, it is shocking that most of Judah still believed Jerusalem, God’s chosen city, was impenetrable to attack. Not until the Babylonians had the city surrounded did they understand the seriousness of the situation.
Welcome to Bible Fiber where we are encountering the textures and shades of the prophetic tapestry in a year-long study of the twelve minor prophets, one prophet each month. I am Shelley Neese, president of The Jerusalem Connection, a Christian organization devoted to sharing the story of the people of Israel, both ancient and modern.
This week we begin the book of Zephaniah, the prophet most extreme in his language but simplest in subject matter. Zephaniah envisions the Day of Yahweh as both near at hand and terrifying in action. Most prophets incorporate a Day of Yahweh motif, but Zephaniah is the only book wholly devoted to the day. By day, the prophets do not mean a 24-hour cycle, but an event, or series of events.
Superscription
Zephaniah’s introduction includes an extended genealogy: “the word of the Lord that came to Zephaniah son of Cushi son of Gedaliah son of Amariah son of Hezekiah” (1:1). No other prophet traces his genealogy back four generations. In some cases, they follow the custom of adding the name of their father to their own name, but Zephaniah goes much further back. Why is Zephaniah breaking the normal convention? One theory is that he is highlighting the credentials of his royal lineage. He stopped on Hezekiah. Is his great-great-grandfather King Hezekiah (716-686 BCE), known for being “good and right and faithful before the Lord his God” (2 Chron. 31:20).
This week we are closing out the book of Habakkuk. Habakkuk 3 is traditionally read in synagogue services on the second day of Shavuot, or Feast of Weeks. Shavuot, which falls this year in June, is the Jewish holiday to celebrate the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai (Ex. 19). On the Christian calendar, Shavuot links to Pentecost.
Why read Habakkuk in remembrance of the Sinai theophany? Well, Habakkuk, in its own way, is a historic recount of the signs and wonders that accompanied the rescue of the Hebrews “in the days of her youth” (Hos. 2:15). In the prophet’s prayer of praise, he describes Yahweh as a cloud-riding divine warrior king. He alludes repeatedly to the events of the Exodus, wilderness wanderings, and Sinai. Habakkuk is looking forward to a future day when God will intervene in a dramatic way again, saving the people of Judah from exile and oppression. This portion of Habakkuk was composed for public reading and communal worship. I believe its incorporation into Shavuot liturgy is a fulfillment of the prophet’s intent.
Welcome to Bible Fiber where we are encountering the textures and shades of the prophetic tapestry in a year-long study of the twelve minor prophets, one prophet each month. I am Shelley Neese, president of The Jerusalem Connection, a Christian organization devoted to sharing the story of the people of Israel, both ancient and modern.
This week we are studying the second chapter of Habakkuk. The dialogue between God and Habakkuk continues with God addressing Habakkuk’s second question: Why does God tolerate the wicked persecuting the righteous? (Hab. 1:13).
Habakkuk does not offer a prescription for how he thinks God should right all that has gone wrong in Judah. In the prophet’s mind, perhaps God should have appointed a new judge, like Samuel, who could rectify the problems of the judicial system. Or perhaps Judah needed a warrior king like David to bring peace to Jerusalem. Or they needed a reformer like Josiah who would rid the nation of idolatry. Instead, God told the prophet he was raising up the Babylonians as the instrument of his judgement.
The answer tormented Habakkuk. Like the other prophets, he saw the futility behind the endless cycle of violence. In his day, Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon were in a constant power struggle. What one empire built up, the next tore down. The smaller nations, like Judah, stayed vulnerable to the revolving door of conquering armies. The prophets were Yahweh’s megaphone, reminding His people that all empires were accountable to Yahweh (Jer. 25:31) and the way they worshipped their own military might was repulsive to Yahweh (Hos 8:14; Mic. 7:16).
Habakkuk stands out among the prophets as he was determined to get an answer as to why God associated Himself with the wrangling of earthly empires. Habakkuk’s problem from the start of his book has not been that another pagan army is coming for Judah. He wants to know why God has a hand in the process.
This week we are studying the first chapter of Habakkuk. More than any of the other prophetic books, Habakkuk provides a glimpse into the nature of the relationship between Yahweh and his messengers. Habakkuk is not delivering an oracle to the people. His book is not a recording of a sermon with “Thus saith” or “Woe to you.” His book is a prayer dialogue that was once personal and became public. What we find in his back and forth with God is a bold honesty on the part of the prophet and a gentle sincerity emanating from Yahweh.
Superscription
Habakkuk does not provide much in the way of a biographical sketch in his superscription, not his town of origin, his father’s name, or the name of any reigning kings during his ministry. Even his name is of questionable etymology. Habak either stems from the Hebrew word for “embrace” or an Akkadian root for garden flower.
The book begins “the oracle that the prophet Habakkuk saw” (1:1). Blink and you will miss an important detail. Habakkuk’s name includes the title “prophet.” He is the only preexilic prophet to have his name associated with the title. And there are only two postexilic books in the Bible that use the title prophet in their superscription: Haggai (1:1) and Zechariah (1:1). Biblical scholars theorize that the inclusion of the prophetic title in Habakkuk indicates that he was a professional prophet at the Jerusalem Temple. Habakkuk is familiar with temple liturgy, as will become apparent in the last section. His inclusion among the elites of Jerusalem stands in contrast to a messenger like Amos who was a shepherd turned prophet operating on the margins.
Despite the short superscription, there are historical hints later in the text that help date the prophet’s ministry. In chapter one, Yahweh announces the rise of the Babylonians and describes their rapid advance across the Ancient Near East. Scholars deduce from this clue that the prophet’s ministry had to date before the Babylonians took on an international superpower status. Habakkuk also has to date before the three successive Babylonian invasions of Jerusalem (605, 597, and 586 BCE). Otherwise, Yahweh’s announcement is more a flash of the obvious than a divine revelation
The book opens with Habakkuk lamenting the poor spiritual health of Judah. It is unlikely the prophet would have complained about Judah’s disobedience to the law if he were writing during the reign of the righteous King Josiah (630-609 BCE). Josiah implemented many religious reforms, including the purging of the Assyrian cult from the land. Josiah also encouraged a return to the covenantal obligations in the Torah, but Habakkuk describes the law in his day as being paralyzed. Habakkuk was most likely a witness to the reversal of Josiah’s reforms during the reign of King Jehoiakim (608-598 BCE). Although Jehoiakim was the son of Josiah, he disregarded the Torah laws and allowed for the return of idol worship.
This week we are studying the last chapter of Nahum. As you close out your reading of this prophet, you may wonder how a text explicitly focused on the rise and fall of one ancient empire, Assyria, applies to your life or our world today. But let me explain a little bit about why their seems to be a prophetic obsession with Assyria in the Bible.
Prophetic Obsession with Assyria
At its highpoint, the Assyrian empire covered northern Mesopotamia, modern-day Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, Syria, and Turkey. Truly, Assyria’s expansionist policies and aggressive military tactics built the first huge empire in the Middle East. We probably know more about Assyria in the seventh century BCE than we know about Europe in the Middle Ages. That is mostly thanks to Assyrian King Ashurbanipal’s library discovered during excavations of the ruins at Nineveh in the mid-1800s which contained 30,000 clay tablets.
Nineveh became the capital of Assyria during the reign of Sennacherib (704 to 681 BCE). By Nahum’s day, it was the largest city in the world. The city’s fortifications combined with its beauty and size created an imperial standard in the region that subsequent empires like the Babylonians aspired to attain.
Welcome to Bible Fiber where we are encountering the textures and shades of the prophetic tapestry in a year-long study of the twelve minor prophets, one prophet each month. I am Shelley Neese, president of The Jerusalem Connection, a Christian organization devoted to sharing the story of the people of Israel, both ancient and modern.
This week we are finishing the first chapter of Nahum and reading the second chapter. Normally, I try and keep our weekly readings nice and clean, assigning whole chapters, but I thought Nahum’s Divine Warrior Hymn had to be separated from the rest of the book’s pronouncements of judgement against Assyria and oracles of hope for Judah. Nahum 1:9 marks that transition point from hymn to prophecy.
Jonah
In most of the Bible canons, Nahum is placed before Habakkuk and after Micah. This placing makes thematic and chronological sense. Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah emphasize God’s punishment while the first six prophets focus on Israel and Judah’s rebellion. But in the Septuagint, Nahum follows Jonah as a continuous discourse on God’s relationship with the Ninevites who at one time evoke his compassion and at another time provoke his wrath. In Jonah, Nineveh’s sparing displayed God’s power. In Nahum, His power is displayed in Nineveh’s destruction.
Around 150 years separate the life of Jonah from the life of Nahum with Jonah being the earlier of the two. If you read the prophets with no awareness of their relative chronology, it would be easy to assume that Nahum preceded Jonah and that his prediction of Nineveh’s fall was the oracle eventually delivered by Jonah. Or worse yet, reading Jonah and Nahum in tandem makes it appear that their messages contradict each other. Are the people of Nineveh recognized for their repentance and forgiven for their wickedness or not? Did God forgive the Ninevites and then change His mind?
In a sense, Nahum is the sequel to Jonah. In Jonah, the wickedness of Nineveh came up before Yahweh and He determined to destroy the great city (Jonah 1:1). In response to Jonah’s reluctantly delivered warning, however, the whole of the people and their king repented. Their repentance was so humble, sincere, and forthright that Yahweh relented and withdrew His punishing hand. In fact, the repentance of the Ninevites is one of the only two times in the entirety of the Book of the Twelve that people heard the words of a prophet and responded with a sincere change of heart on a national level. (Joel is the other example.)
Based off everything we know about Assyria from 2 Kings, 2 Chronicles, and ancient historical records, Nineveh’s revival did not last beyond a generation. Not only did they return to their violent and evil ways, but they also crossed a red line. In 722 BCE, the Assyrians conquered the Northern Kingdom of Israel, ravaging the land, slaughtering the Israelites, and scattering the survivors throughout the empire. They proceeded to terrorize all the towns of Judah and only failed in their attempted takeover of Jerusalem. The Assyrian empire had exhausted the limits of God’s mercies.
No wonder Nahum states at the outset, “The Lord will by no means clear the guilty” (1:3). As the prophet Jeremiah said, God cannot “let the way of the guilty prosper” (Jer. 12:1). Nineveh’s punishment may have been delayed by repentant hearts during Jonah’s day but God’s forgiveness of the Ninevites was not eternal or unconditional.In the words of Nahum: “No adversary will rise up twice” (1:9).
In Jonah, Yahweh speaks gently to the rebellious prophet, like a patient teacher asking rhetorical questions to nudge the student to the correct answer. In Nahum, Yahweh rides on the clouds, melting mountains and shaking the earth’s foundations with each step. Still, it is not Yahweh whose fundamental character has changed from one book to the next. “For I the Lord do not change,” wrote Mal
This week we begin our study of the prophet Nahum, the seventh of our twelve prophetic books. There are no biographical details about Nahum other than the name of his hometown, Elkosh. Nahum is not mentioned in any other biblical text outside of his own book. The location of Elkosh has been lost to history. Fourth century Christian theologian Saint Jerome claimed Elkosh was a village in northern Galilee. Without any additional archaeological discoveries, Jerome’s tradition has mostly held. There was, however, an ancient Assyrian village named Alkosh near the Tigris River, just north of Mosul in modern times. If Nahum was part of the Israelite community living in the Assyrian diaspora, his parents were likely deported there in previous Assyrian raids. If the anti-Assyrian prophet was writing against the land of his subjugation, it would certainly add an interesting twist to the text. But the vivid way in which Nahum describes the hills, vineyards, and valleys of Israel points to his being a native of Israel or Judah, not someone born in the diaspora.
Nahum does not give an explicit date in his superscription or name a king that would help with dating. Based off clues from the text, however, Nahum likely ministered around the middle of the seventh century BCE. In his third chapter, he mentions the fall of the Egyptian city of Thebes as a historical fact (3:8). Historians know Thebes fell in 663 BCE so the prophet had to have written sometime after that major historical event.
With the way Nahum describes the great strength of Assyria, the empire was still a powerhouse in the prophet’s day. None of Nahum’s prophecies indicate that he witnessed signs of Assyrian weakening. In 612 BCE, Nahum’s prophecies were fulfilled when an alliance of Babylonians and Medes managed to overtake Nineveh, Assyria’s capital. The fall of Thebes and Nineveh give us the parameters for dating Nahum. He had to have ministered sometime between 663 BCE and 612 BCE. Further narrowing of his dates is not possible.
Welcome to Bible Fiber where we are encountering the textures and shades of the prophetic tapestry in a year-long study of the twelve minor prophets, one prophet each month. I am Shelley Neese, president of The Jerusalem Connection, a Christian organization devoted to sharing the story of the people of Israel, both ancient and modern.
This week we are reading the last portion of Micah, chapters 6 and 7. Micah’s book opened with an image of Yahweh descending from his heavenly throne, marching down to earth like a plaintiff entering the courtroom. In this closing section, Yahweh is back in the courtroom with the prophet Micah, His counsel, delivering the terms of the covenant lawsuit. The trial begins: “Rise, plead your case before the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice. Hear, you mountains, the controversy of the Lord, and you enduring foundations of the earth, for the Lord has a controversy with his people, and he will contend with Israel” (6:1-2).
Micah is a prophet to the Kingdom of Judah. At this point in history, there is no more Israel. But in Micah’s speeches and writing, he prefers using Judah’s covenant name, Israel, or the term “House of Jacob.” Micah is not merely exchanging the name Israel for Judah because they are synonymous. The prophet is establishing the antiquity of the covenant relationship between Yahweh and His people before he ever lays out Yahweh’s case against the nation.
This week we are reading Micah chapters 4 and 5. If you have been reading along, you probably have noticed that Micah’s style lacks fluidity. His book is like a collection of oracles stitched together by rough transitions. Some oracles point to judgement and some point to salvation. Some oracles apply to the near future and others connect to Israel’s distant future, also known as the messianic age. As a reader, if you are looking for linear progression in the text from a present judgement to a future salvation, you will not find it. One of the most important things to understand when reading most of the prophets, is that prophecies do not always follow an obvious order. They even switch between first and third person points of view within the same passage. Martin Luther famously complained about what he called the prophets’ “strange way of talking” and he wished that instead they wrote “in an orderly manner.” I recommend in your approach to the prophets keeping room for more literary nuance than Luther. The prophets were not necessarily meant to be read in one sitting, but rather heard in short sermons like inspired street evangelists. They likely did not anticipate a day when the entirety of their prophetic career would be contained in one book, more often read rather than heard.
Welcome to Bible Fiber where we are encountering the textures and shades of the prophetic tapestry in a year-long study of the twelve minor prophets, one prophet each month. I am Shelley Neese, president of The Jerusalem Connection, a Christian organization devoted to sharing the story of the people of Israel, both ancient and modern.
This week we are reading Micah chapters 2 and 3. Micah warned of coming punishment for Judah in chapter 1, but in this section he goes into more detail about who exactly is to blame for the disaster. Micah 2 consists of two speeches of doom, primarily focused on greedy landholders. The elite of Judah have ignored God’s sacred system of land distribution and instead are abusing their power to gobble up the property of the less fortunate. In Micah 3, our prophet widens his gaze, calling out the entire cast of Judah’s leadership: priests, judges, and prophets. These positions of authority were meant to serve the people. Instead, the civil and religious systems are corrupt money grabbing schemes where judges, prophets, and priests deny justice to the people and fatten their own wallets. The punishment for those who hate good and love evil will be overthrow and exile. We need to go deep into the text to unpack the substance of Micah’s accusations and discover the response of Micah’s peers to his message.
Property Rights
Micah first paints an image of Judah’s elite landowners, lying in their beds plotting their next evil deed, eager for the morning so they can renew their wicked acts. Micah says, “they covet fields, and seize them; houses, and take them away” (2:2). The idea of wrongdoers scheming at night, keen on starting each day, is striking for its industriousness. Micah is making clear that the robbing of the disadvantaged in Judah is intentional, not the accidental result of tough economic times or poor agricultural yields. The hardship of the lower classes in Judah is the product of design, not circumstance. The landowners are refusing to obey God’s laws of land inheritance and debt forgiveness. Micah’s contemporary, the prophet Isaiah, spoke of a pervasive spirit of greed: “Woe to you who add house to house and join field to field till no space is left” (Isa. 5:8).
Before the Israelites had conquered the land of Canaan, God mapped out how the people should distribute the land among the tribes (Num. 26). The intent was to fairly provide for each of the twelve tribes and their descendants. On the plains of Moab, Moses took a census of the whole Israelite community. Lots were cast and land was assigned to each clan, larger clans receiving larger lots and smaller clans getting smaller lots. After Joshua and his armies conquered the “hill country, the western foothills, the Arabah, the mountain slopes, the wilderness and the Negev” (Josh. 12:8), the elders distributed the territory according to what had already been decided before the conquest. Because the land of Israel was sacred, a gift from God to His people, only God could divide and distribute the land. It was not the prerogative of earthly systems to redistribute it.
The laws of Moses also laid out a legal system to manage disputes over ancestral lands. Care was taken so that fathers with no sons would pass the family land down to their daughters. If a man had no children, his land went to his brothers (Num. 27). God foresaw a day when the people would try and game his system of debt forgiveness and land returns, but He appealed to what should be a common sense of justice: “Do not take advantage of each other, but fear your God” (Lev. 25:17).
The story of Naboth’s vineyards shows just how seriously the righteous people took the laws of land inheritance, while the wicked disregarded the laws. In 1 Kings 21, the unrighteous King Ahab of Israel coveted his neighbor Naboth’s vineyard. When Ahab asked to purchase the vineyard, Naboth replied, “The Lord forbid that I should give you the inheritance of
The book of Micah opens with: “The word of the Lord that came to Micah of Moresheth in the days of Kings Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah of Judah, which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem” (1:1). Half the Minor Prophets have historical superscriptions in their introductions, but Micah’s is the fullest in detail. Superscriptions are helpful in our reconstruction of the historical, political, and religious environments that shaped the messages of the prophets. We know a good bit about the reigns of these kings from the books of Kings and Chronicles, and we know a good bit about the Assyrian political scene because of their numerous records. So, first, let me paint the historical backdrop for Micah’s world.
With Micah’s ministry overlapping King Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, he dates anytime between 740—690 BCE. Most likely though, from historical clues in his text, his main ministry lasted from 722—701 BCE, uttering the bulk of his prophecies during the reign of Hezekiah.. Around this same time, Hosea and Amos were prophesying in Israel and Isaiah was in Jerusalem. Micah seems to be on the backend of these other prophets. Considering all that was coming for Israel and Judah, God had to speak extra loud at this time. One interesting thing to note is that Micah’s superscription does not name the contemporary kings of Israel at the time of his ministry, probably because they were considered illegitimate.
Micah ministered in Jerusalem, even though he was from Moresheth, a rural town 25 miles outside Jerusalem. His prophecies are directed at both the Northern and Southern Kingdoms. He often references both of them as Israel, treating the divided kingdom as if it were still a unified whole.
Amazingly, God felt compassion for the Ninevites of Jonah’s time and spared the city. In chapter 4, as God’s anger has subsided, Jonah’s anger flares up. He regrets ever having come to Nineveh. He asks Yahweh, “Is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing” (4:2). Jonah had rejected God’s command from the outstart not because he was afraid of the Assyrians or what they may do to him. That is what most readers would have assumed from reading the first chapter, since Jonah’s motivation goes unnamed. No, Jonah did not want to go and preach judgement against Nineveh because he knew there was the possibility that if they repented, God would cancel his judgement. Jonah did not believe the Ninevites deserved the mercy of Yahweh.
Jonah is a narrative that places two events under the microscope to exam the nature of God’s wrath and His compassion. In the first half of Jonah, God canceled his punishment of the prophet, saving him from death by drowning and the pagan sailors from shipwreck. In the second half of Jonah, God withdraws his judgement on Nineveh. In both cases, the reader feels God’s punishment on either Jonah or the Assyrians would be just. Jonah was the most disobedient prophet and Assyria was the most wicked of empires. It is not their punishment that surprises the audience, but their rescue.
Welcome to Bible Fiber where we are encountering the textures and shades of the prophetic tapestry in a year-long study of the twelve minor prophets, one prophet each month. I am Shelley Neese, president of The Jerusalem Connection, a Christian organization devoted to sharing the story of the people of Israel, both ancient and modern.
This week we are studying the second chapter of Jonah. Chapter 2 interrupts the narrative progress of the book with a three-stanza poem delivered by an undigested Jonah from inside the belly of the whale, making the book three-fourths prose and one-fourth poem.
The most historically famous sermon on Jonah’s prayer from the whale was delivered by the fictional character, Father Mapple, in chapter nine of Moby Dick. Moby Dick by Herman Melville is the story of Captain Ahab’s revenge on a white whale. Before Ahab sets out on his risky whaling mission, one of his sailors attends a church service with Father Mapple who preaches from a lectern in the shape of a ship’s prow. The former whaler turned preacher naturally was keen on the book of Jonah and the “weighty lesson” derived from Jonah’s supplication. Hear this excerpt from Father Mapple’s sermon:
For sinful as he is, Jonah does not weep and wail for direct deliverance. He feels that his dreadful punishment is just. He leaves all his deliverance to God, contenting himself with this, that spite of all his pains and pangs, he will still look towards His holy temple. And here, shipmates, is true and faithful repentance, not clamorous for pardon, but grateful for punishment. And how pleasing to God was this conduct in Jonah, is shown in the eventual deliverance of him from the sea and the whale. Shipmates, I do not place Jonah before you to be copied for his sin but I do place him before you as a model for repentance. Sin not; but if you do, take heed to repent of it like Jonah.
By many accounts, Moby Dick was Melville’s retelling of the Book of Jonah, and an articulation of his own theological grappling with the attributes of God. Melville grew up in a family where his mother’s relatives were staunch Calvinists and his father’s relatives were liberal Unitarians. Melville had to reconcile God’s abundant mercy with His divine wrath. Jonah is the prophetic book that best gives human voice to the struggle over the mystery of God’s nature, His Will, and His system of justice.
We made it through Obadiah, and some long lessons on the Edomites, and now we have arrived at Jonah, the most exciting of all the prophetic books. In preparation for our Jonah studies, I checked my large collection of children’s bibles at home to see which of the minor prophets made an appearance. As I suspected, Jonah is with rare exception the only minor prophet to appear in illustrated Bibles. In addition, Jonah is the only prophet to get his own musical production at the Sight & Sound theater. Jonah is the only Hebrew prophet to have a full-length Veggie Tale movie. For most Christian adults, Jonah is the prophet that we come to with the most familiarity, but much of that familiarity comes from hearing Jonah’s story as a child.
As part of the Bible Fiber reading challenge, I tried to read Jonah with fresh adult eyes. I had never read Jonah after doing deep studies in the other minor prophets who proceeded him, so it was interesting to get a feel for his place among the twelve. And Jonah is an awkward fit among the other prophets. The literary differences, in both format and message, between Jonah and the other prophets are striking. Jonah is technically not a prophetic book; in that it is not written as an oracle and never takes a first-person voice. It is a narrative book, written anonymously, telling a story in third person about Jonah. In fact, Jonah is the only prophetic book that takes a mocking tone toward the prophet-in-focus. Out of four chapters, only five words in Jonah can be classified as an oracle. We will get to that short oracle in chapter three.
The descendants of Jacob became the people of Israel and the progenitors of the Abrahamic covenant. The descendants of Esau became the Edomites, a distinct people group that sometimes allied with her Judahite neighbor and sometimes warred against her. Thus, they fulfilled the message of the Lord, given to Rebekah while the twins were still in utero: “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples born of you shall be divided; the one shall be stronger than the other, the elder shall serve the younger” (Gen. 25:23).
Obadiah makes sure to remind the hearers of his oracle that the Edomite problem has persisted over many generations. He does so by often referring to Edom not by the contemporary name of her cities but as “the house of Esau” or “Mount Esau.” Listen to last week’s podcast on Obadiah and the Edomites for the full history.
As always, we first have to address the dating of the prophetic book. Obadiah was most likely composed after the Babylonian invasion of Jerusalem, since the prophet writes as if he were an eyewitness to the horrific events. Jeremiah 49 includes an oracle against Edom with some of Obadiah’s very same language. The two prophets likely lived close to the same time, but which prophet influenced which, no one can know for sure. So, why is Obadiah’s book placed after Amos in the order of the canonized books if Amos probably ministered two hundred years before Obadiah? Because Amos’s book both starts and ends with a message for the Edomites.
Obadiah is only twenty-one verses, the shortest book in all the Hebrew scripture. So, as part of our Bible reading challenge, the length of Obadiah is not the hard part to tackle. But the content of Obadiah requires a history lesson that goes well beyond the twenty-one verses. Obadiah is an oracle of judgement against Edom.
How did a short prophetic book written about the sins and punishment of one neighboring nation make it into the cannon? Well, Edom is not your average ancestral enemy. With this first Bible Fiber on Obadiah, I am going to give you a biblical timeline of the Edomites that stretches from the birth of Jacob and Esau to the birth of Jesus. And that way next week, we put Obadiah’s oracle which seems only to be focused on the Edomite problem in the bigger context it deserves.
Obadiah is rooted in the brotherly feud between Jacob and Esau, the twin sons of Isaac and Rebekah. As told in Genesis 25, Rebekah understood even during her pregnancy that the two sons in her womb were at odds with each other. The Lord told her: “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples born of you shall be divided; the one shall be stronger than the other, the elder shall serve the younger” (Gen. 25:23).
Welcome to Bible Fiber where we are encountering the textures and shades of the prophetic tapestry in a year-long study of the twelve minor prophets, one prophet each month. I am Shelley Neese, president of The Jerusalem Connection, a Christian organization devoted to sharing the story of the people of Israel.
So far, in our reading challenge for November, we have worked our way through Amos’s biography in verse one, his Oracles Against the Nations in chapters 1 and 2, and his judgement speeches in chapters 3, 4 and 5. This week we will close out the last judgement speech and launch into the final portion of Amos which is a sequence of five visions. All five visions point to the nearness and severity of Israel’s judgement. Between the second and third vision, Amos gives a brief narrative of an important moment in his own prophetic ministry.
Amos 6 is a continuation of the judgement oracles from the preceding three chapters. Amos is trying to shatter the delusional thinking of the first-class citizens of Israel who assume that their wealth and success reflects God’s favor on them. Their faulty self-conception was only perpetuating the systems of injustice propping up their lavish lifestyle. Amos paints a scathing picture of the ruling class, reclining on their beds of Phoenician ivory, drinking bowls of wine and anointing themselves with oils. To note, beds in any form would have been a luxury. Most people slept on floor mats. And the imported wine and oil is especially indulgent since we know from the woe speeches that the country had recently been through a drought and struggled with crop failure (4:9-10).
Welcome to Bible Fiber where we are encountering the textures and shades of the prophetic tapestry in a year-long study of the twelve minor prophets, one prophet each month. I am Shelley Neese, president of The Jerusalem Connection, a Christian organization devoted to sharing the story of the people of Israel.
Last week we studied the hardest part of Amos, the Oracles Against the Nations. Amos spent those first two chapters calling out the injustices of Israel’s enemies and neighbors, but his last and longest oracle was a formal accusation on his listening audience, the people of the Northern Kingdom. Today, we are studying chapters 3, 4 and 5, the middle section of Amos. These three chapters are a collage of literary styles—lists, poems, hymns, and speeches. They connect in that they are all expressions of Yahweh’s judgment against Israel and her leaders. All three chapters open with the phrase “Hear this word.” There is an urgency to the prophetic message, and the sense that there still may be time for the people of God to repent and avert disaster. Amos uses satire, rhetorical questions, sarcasm, laments, and a doxology to expose Israel’s guilt and delusional thinking, warn of her punishment, and plead for her restoration. Amos is clear that above all else, Yahweh’s name must be exalted. Because of the righteousness of Yahweh, He cannot accept the moral failure of Israel.
At the outset of the judgement oracle, Amos 3:2 reminds Israel that they are chosen by God: “You only have I known of all the families of the earth.” The first time the Bible uses this phrase is when Yahweh promised Abraham, a thousand years earlier, that through his descendants “all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen. 12:3). The election of Israel and the responsibilities they incur through the covenant relationship is a recurring theme in Amos. But as we know from the last two episodes, Israel is far from being a blessing or righteous example. Instead, they are an object of judgement.
Amos 3 asks a series of rhetorical questions. Each question has a quality of cause-and-effect. They start off as mundane encounters. For example, Amos asks, “do two walk together unless they have made an appointment?” and “does a lion roar in the forest, when it has no prey?” The list of encounters builds up to the inevitability of an encounter between Israel and Yahweh. Yahweh is warning them that the encounter will end badly. In this same passage, Amos also aims to establish the authority of all God’s prophets, the messengers entrusted to act as the mouthpiece of God as recipients of His revelation. Amos says, “surely the Lord God does nothing, without revealing his secret to his servants the prophets” (3:7). Like the other prophets, Amos is dutybound to blast the trumpet on the walls of the city, as the last warning before the arrival of the advancing army.
Yahweh invites two of Israel’s enemies, Philistia and Egypt, to come observe the deprivations of Samaria. Samaria was Israel’s capital city. During the reign of Jeroboam II, it was at its height of wealth and power but the prophet Amos sees the fortifications and strongholds as the institutions of corruption and violence. The invitation of two idolatrous nations, Philistia and Egypt, hardly known for championing human rights, is meant to be both shaming and ironic. Amos, in his own poetic way, calls out all of Israel’s wrongdoers. He first indicts the military and political leaders for “stor[ing] up violence and robbery in their strongholds” (3:9-10). He then denounces the religious leaders of Israel, specifically pointing to the coming destruction of the sanctuary in Bethel (3:14). Bethel was the chief sanctuary for the Northern Kingdom, and a center of brazen idolatry since its establishment by the evil king Jeroboam I (1 Kings 12). Lastly, Amos ridicules the opulent lifestyles of the ruling class with their seasonal properties and collections of luxury goods. Yah
One reason this podcast is focusing on the Minor Prophets is because they are very difficult texts to read at times. The text is often organized by theme or literary style, rather than chronologically like in Genesis, Kings, or Chronicles. And as we talked about in Hosea, the nature of prophetic writing also means the voice can change from first to third person within the same passage and the literary style can shift many times in one book. But the most difficult thing of all is that the minor prophets are absolutely filled with references to historical events in Israel’s history and allusions to religious laws from Deuteronomy that only the most biblically literate grasp in the first reading. The guys at the podcast, Bible Project, fittingly refer to these as biblical hyperlinks. The text would be much easier to work through if we could click on a hyperlink for every historical figure and event that we do not recognize. You may have felt this itch when you were reading the first two chapters of Amos. But in lieu of hyperlinks, I would like to walk with you through the first two chapters and provide a little condensed commentary for each of the eight oracles.
We have now made our way through Hosea and Joel. Amos is our featured prophet for November. After studying this truth-telling, justice-seeking, Yahweh-exalting messenger, you will want to name your next born child Amos.
Normally, we read a chapter or two from the prophets each week as part of our Bible Reading Challenge. This week, however, to give Amos, the man, his proper introduction, I won’t make it past the first two verses. These two verses put Amos in his proper historical context, so they are worth dissecting at the outset. Also, before we dive into the nuts and bolts of each chapter, I want to introduce Amos’s main themes and the organizing structure of his book.
The book of Amos begins with a historical superscription: “The words of Amos, who was among the shepherds of Tekoa, which he saw concerning Israel in the days of King Uzziah of Judah and in the days of King Jeroboam son of Joash of Israel, two years before the earthquake.”
Welcome to Bible Fiber where we are encountering the textures and shades of the prophetic tapestry in a year-long study of the twelve minor prophets, one prophet each month. I am Shelley Neese, president of The Jerusalem Connection, a Christian organization devoted to sharing the story of the people of Israel. Joel is our prophet for October.
A slim three-chapter book, you would think the book of Joel hardly makes it into a sermon. But in fact, the prophecies of Joel were critical to the teachings of the apostles, as they tried to make sense of their commission to spread the Good News to all the nations.
In Acts 2, Peter interpreted the unusual events of Pentecost as the fulfillment of Joel’s vision for the Day of the Lord. Paul went out into the world to preach the good news of the Gospel under the mantra of Joel 2:32: “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” And when John the Apostle was banished to the island of Patmos, he described the apocalypse using Joel’s imagery of an enthroned Yahweh delivering judgement to the guilty nations like a sickle reaping a harvest (Rev. 14:15; Joel 3:13) or treading grapes in a winepress (Rev. 14:19; Joel 3:13).
For our reading challenge, I have been assigning chapters that complement the organization system of our modern Bibles. But as you know, these chapter divisions are arbitrary, especially with the prose of the prophets. Joel more naturally divides into two compositions: Joel 1:1 to 2:27 and Joel 2:28 to 3:21. While the first half speaks to the present wreckage left by a severe invasion of locusts. The second half transforms into eschatological prophecies about the future Day of the Lord. The two sections work as parallel poems.
In the first poem, Yahweh is the commander of an army of locusts set to destroy a disobedient Judah. Joel summons the people to Jerusalem to fast, pray, and repent of their sins. Yahweh is moved by the sincerity of their humbled hearts, and He reverses every curse that was visited upon them by the locust army. In the second poem, Yahweh is the judge of all the nations during a day of judgement that will far overshadow the trials of a locust plague. But the righteous of Judah will be saved, while Judah’s historic enemies will be punished.
Joel’s poetry fluidly goes from past to present to future. The locust plague is the judgement that got Judah’s attention. The Day of Yahweh will still use the forces of nature and cosmic disruptions to alert all the nations of Yahweh’s hand. Joel says that when the Day of the Lord nears, “the sun and the moon are darkened and the stars withdraw their shining” and “the heavens and the earth shake” (3:15).
The turning point in Joel from judgement to deliverance occurs in Joel 2:18. Yahweh heard the prayers of the people as they petitioned them with “their whole hearts” (2:12). The prayers moved Yahweh to compassion and He “became jealous for His land and had pity on His people.” The Hebrew in Joel suddenly makes effective use of the first-person possessive pronoun “My.” The people, the land, the silver and the gold are all Yahweh’s and He will reclaim what belongs to Him. He brought them out of slavery and gave them the land of Canaan. It is not the prerogative of the nations to undo the works of God.
Welcome to Bible Fiber where we are encountering the textures and shades of the prophetic tapestry in a year-long study of the twelve minor prophets, one prophet each month. I am Shelley Neese, president of The Jerusalem Connection, a Christian organization devoted to sharing the story of the people of Israel. Joel is a slim three-chapter book, but there is a lot going on. This week we are studying the second chapter of Joel.
Joel 2:1-11 describes the terrible devastation visited upon the land by a locust swarm. Scholars differ on whether or not Joel is describing the same locust swarm that was presented in the first chapter, or if the second chapter is describing another even worse invasion. Joel 2:25 states that Yahweh will repay Judah for the “years that the locust devoured.” That verse points to more than one invasion.
Either way, in the second chapter, Joel lengthens his poetic stride and quickens his pace. His language in chapter two is more fervent, dramatizing Yahweh’s role as commander of what He refers to as “my great army.” It almost feels like Joel is amplifying everything he said in the first chapter because the people have yet to awaken from their spiritual stupor. This time Joel is explicit. There is no way to explain the unprecedented locust attack other than divine retribution. Joel 2 warns about the future Day of the Lord. If the people do not repent and turn to God, the present crisis will pale in comparison to what is coming. Joel quotes heavily from other prophets, which raises the question: how were the prophets influenced by each other? In the end, Joel’s petition was successful. The people repented, providing a timeless example of how a softened heart and humble spirit are the key to renewing a relationship with our Creator.
Joel is a slim three-chapter book, but it still has plenty to unpack.
To begin each prophetic book, we need a little background on the author, the date of the composition, his relation to the other prophets, and his intended audience. For many prophets, writing their bio is a straightforward process. Six of the twelve make it easy by including a historical superscription: Hosea, Amos, Micah, Zephaniah, Haggai, and Zechariah. Others name kings who reigned during their ministry, linking them to the chronology known from 1 or 2 Kings. Prophets sometimes describe significant datable events. Amos and Zechariah both referenced a significant earthquake which shows up in the archaeological record from the eighth century BCE. These particulars in the text help fix the prophets in time. Joel does not work that way. In fact, Joel scholars often spend their careers trying to nail down the historical setting for the book’s composition.
Joel as a historical person is unknown. His name (“Yahweh is God”) was common, but no other books allude to him specifically, and he gives us scant biographical information. One theory is that Joel was so well-known in his own time as a holy man of Jerusalem that he did not have a need to justify his prophetic status. Or since those in his small community were the direct recipients of his prophecy, he did not need to provide a written historical setting. What we do know is that he was a prophet to the Kingdom of Judah. His discourse revolves around Jerusalem and the Temple so he lived somewhere in its environs. In fact, Joel had a high view of the Temple and the sacrificial system, knowing a good deal about the priestly ritual requirements. Scholars therefore speculate that he held the office of both prophet and priest, like Ezekiel.
We stopped in Hosea 9 last week but that was an artificial stop point. Really, the prophet’s judgement speech goes from 6:4 to 11:7 without pausing for a breath. We continue to gain insight in these last chapters into the purpose of God’s retribution. While Hosea is the prophet most sensitive to Israel’s inner spiritual life, he by no means ignores Israel’s more obvious signs of rebellion. Hosea is very specific about the public actions of the people that Yahweh finds most repulsive. Also, his similes and metaphors endure throughout the last chapters, springing back and forth from judgement to mercy so often that you cannot help but worry he will not land on a compassionate note. Only at the end, in an attempt towards resolution, do his previously used symbols for Israel’s current sins get craftily reinvented to represent Israel’s future redemption.
Idolatry, desperate military alliances, and illegitimate kings are the most frequently mentioned outer transgressions committed by Israel. Because these acts are so specific to this people, living at this place and at this exact time, I want to pause and give a miniature history lesson. I believe one of the reasons these prophetic texts are so little read is because it is hard in a 45-minute sermon to try and close the gap in time and culture between the ancient and modern.
This week, we are continuing our study of Hosea so be sure to read Hosea chapters 6, 7, 8, and 9 as part of our Bible Reading challenge.
As a refresher, the first three chapters of Hosea are all about the prophet’s marriage to Gomer and how Gomer’s infidelity is an extended metaphor for Israel’s unfaithfulness. Chapters 4 and 5 begin the message of Hosea. Gomer is never mentioned again and the prophet oscillates back and forth between a message of mercy and a message of judgement. Chapters 6 through 9, however, are almost all judgement. Switching between third person and first-person voice, the prophet offers a litany of metaphors, similes, and analogies for the ways Israel has gone wrong and their coming punishment. More than the other minor prophets, Hosea catalogs the sins of the people with his own unique focus on their inner life, the relational aspect of Israel’s approach to God.
As your tour guide through Hosea, I want to go deeper into the chapters and verses to further explain the concepts that I briefly introduced. Consider this the equivalent of actually reading the placards at the museum and not just breezing through the hallways.
Hosea 6:4 to 11:7 is one long decree, written mostly in first person but occasionally slips into third person. The speech begins with Yahweh speaking directly to the people: “When I found Israel, it was like finding grapes in the desert; when I saw your ancestors, it was like seeing the early fruit on the fig tree” (Hos. 9:10). In verses like these, Yahweh is the obvious speaker. But four verses down, in Hosea 9:14, it is no longer the voice of Yahweh but of Hosea uttering a prayer to the Lord. In Hosea 8:13, the voice changes from first to third person within two sentences: “For the sacrifices of My offerings they sacrifice flesh and eat it, but the Lord does not accept them. Now He will remember their iniquity and punish their sins.” These are abrupt changes in perspective writing and can make reading Hosea disorienting. The book of Daniel is written similarly.
Shabbat Shalom and Welcome to Bible Fiber where we are encountering the textures and shades of the prophetic tapestry in a year-long study of the twelve minor prophets, one prophet each month. I am Shelley Neese, president of The Jerusalem Connection, a Christian organization devoted to sharing the story of the people of Israel. The “minor” prophets are the most neglected books of the Hebrew Bible, but they are all major messengers from the Lord. This week, we are continuing our study of Hosea so be sure to read Hosea 4 -5 as part of our Bible Reading challenge.
Last week, we read the first three chapters of Hosea which told the story of Hosea’s marriage to the harlot Gomer. Hosea’s broken marriage was an extended metaphor, a visual aid, to demonstrate Israel’s abandonment of Yahweh.
In the remaining chapters of Hosea, the tone and style of the prophetic book completely changed as the prophet went from describing his marriage to giving his message. No longer was Hosea writing in autobiographical prose. He transformed to both activist and poet. Oddly, Hosea did not reference Gomer at any point in the rest of the book. Adultery as a symbol for Israel’s infidelity remained the undercurrent throughout his oracle, but the historical Gomer disappeared.
Hosea 4 began with a litany of accusations against Israel, like a lawyer in divorce court: summoning witnesses, identifying the guilty party, listing Israel’s offenses, and declaring her upcoming punishment. Micah 6 was written with a similar formula.
Shabbat Shalom and Welcome to Bible Fiber where we are encountering the textures and shades of the prophetic tapestry in a year-long study of the twelve minor prophets, one prophet each month. I am Shelley Neese, president of The Jerusalem Connection, a Christian organization devoted to sharing the story of the people of Israel, both ancient and modern.
The “minor” prophets are the most neglected books of the Hebrew Bible, but they are all major messengers from the Lord whose poetry and prose still ring true today.
This week, we start with the book of Hosea and its first three chapters. Please be sure to read the first three chapters on your own as part of the Bible Fiber weekly challenge. We are here to hold each other lovingly accountable to the discipline of scripture study as we dive deeper into God’s whole word.
The book of Hosea can be divided into two primary sections: Hosea’s Marriage and Hosea’s Message. The marriage of Hosea to Gomer constitutes the first three chapters of the book. The story in this section is written mostly as narrative, as opposed to the remaining 11 chapters which passed down to us as poetry.
The book of Hosea begins with a historical superscription: “The word of the LORD that came to Hosea the son of Beeri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel.” Scholars believe Hosea’s prophetic career lasted around forty years. We know that Jeroboam II’s reign ended around 746 BCE, and Hosea’s ministry started sometime before Jeroboam’s death. Hosea says he was still prophesying at the time of Hezekiah, and we know Hezekiah’s reign began in 716 BCE. Judging from Hosea’s own historical timestamp, the prophet’s work took place between 746 BCE and 716 BCE.
Welcome. I am Shelley Neese, President of The Jerusalem Connection. This week we are launching a new series called Bible Fiber. Bible Fiber will be a weekly audiocast teaching on our regular Youtube channel where we have posted twice weekly for a decade. But we are also launching it as a podcast, available on all the major podcast directories.
For the next year, I am challenging myself, along with any of you, to study one of the Bible’s twelve Minor Prophets each month. We will read them in the same order as presented in the Christian cannon: Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. In the tradition of the Hebrew Bible, dating as far back as the Dead Sea Scrolls, all twelve prophetic anthologies makeup a single literary unit called the “Book of the Twelve.” That means to fully experience the consistency of their message and fullness of their unified declarations, we better get ready to cross-reference.