Gilbert House Fellowship

KING AMAZIAH of Judah is a classic example of someone whose pride got the better of him.  2 Kings 14 tells us that after Amaziah became king, he led a successful military campaign against Edom. He captured the stronghold of Sela, which was probably Petra in present-day Jordan, defeating an army of some 10,000 Edomites.  This led him to provoke a war with the northern kingdom of Israel. Despite a w...

THE TEMPLE in Jerusalem fell into disrepair within a century of the death of Solomon. The king who repaired it was a good man—mostly.  Joash (or Jehoash), son of Ahaziah, reigned in Judah 835–796 BC. He was made king at age seven by the high priest Jehoiada and is credited with restoring the Temple—even pushing the priests, who seemed rather slow to make repairs even after they were ordered to do...

THE FIRST SECTION of the Book of 1 Enoch concludes with Enoch’s travels to the ends of the earth, including a visit to Eden.  We discuss the author’s description of the portals through which the stars and winds pass, noting that evil winds came from the north, the direction from which bad things always came in Jewish thought (physical and supernatural). We also note Enoch’s travels proceeded count...

THE END of Ahab’s line came within a span of seven years.  Jehu, an Israelite military commander under Ahab’s son, King Jehoram (or Joram), was anointed king over the northern kingdom at the direction of the prophet Elisha. Jehu moved quickly to eliminate Jehoram and the rest of the sons of Ahab. We explain why Ahab didn’t literally have 70 sons (the number 70 in the ancient Near East was not a qu...

A MIRACULOUS healing led to a Syrian warrior carrying mule loads of dirt from Israel back with him to Damascus.  Why did Naaman the Syrian do that? In the ancient world, it was understood that every nation had a patron deity. For Syria, that was the storm-god Hadad, better known to us as Baal. For Israel, it was Yahweh—although Jezebel and her children tried hard to replace the God of Abraham, Isa...

THE KING of Moab sacrificed his oldest son on the wall of his capital city, causing the combined armies of Israel, Judah, and Edom to withdraw from their siege. How do we process this?  Then he (King Mesha) took his oldest son who was to reign in his place and offered him for a burnt offering on the wall. And there came great wrath on Israel. And they withdrew from him and returned to their own la...

JERUSALEM IS the center of the world in the Book of 1 Enoch. That echoes Ezekiel 5:5 and 38:12, where Jerusalem is “the center [literally, “navel”] of the earth.”  This is a concept probably best known from Greek religion, where the oracle of Delphi was at the site of the omphalos, the stone that was supposedly substituted for Zeus by his mother Rhea because Kronos was eating their children as soo...

THE PASSING of the mantle from Elijah to Elisha was spectacular: A fiery chariot pulled by horses of fire in a whirlwind carried the elder prophet to heaven. The whirlwind was a theophany, an appearance by God Himself. The chariot, as Sharon noted, was believed to be the vehicle that carried human spirits to the netherworld—but in this case, Elijah was carried off to heaven.  We discuss the locati...

Psalm 83 appears to be an already-but-not-yet prophecy that may be key to understanding the end times.  Bill Salus, in his book The Psalm 83 War, wrote that Psalm 83 prophesies a future war in which Israel is attacked by its Muslim neighbors. We think Bill is correct, and further, this war may be used to deceive Jews into welcoming a false messiah—i.e., the Antichrist.  We also note the hints at a...

PSALM 82 is a courtroom scene in heaven.  This psalm is the source of the term “divine council,” a concept well known in the ancient Near East. The high god in the pantheon was believed to preside over a group of lesser gods, who were tasked with carrying out the will of the king of the pantheon. But in the religions of Babylon, Canaan, Egypt, Greece, Rome, etc., the lower gods were part of a poly...

THE SHORT BOOK of Obadiah prophesied judgment on the nation of Edom for its role in the destruction of Jerusalem by Babylon in 586 BC.  However, Obadiah also prophesied a future reversal of fortunes, when, on the Day of Yahweh, the people of Israel would possess the lands of their tormentors—which includes Philistia (the Gaza Strip) and Zarephath (southern Lebanon, recently occupied by the IDF as...

THE BOOK OF 1 ENOCH describes journeys by the patriarch to the places of punishment for fallen angels and sinful humans.  The author of 1 Enoch described rebellious angels, called “stars of heaven,” as “great mountains… burning with fire.” This is consistent with other descriptions of angels in the ancient Near East as burning mountains (for example, the “stones of fire” in Ezekiel 28:14, 16).   E...

THE ELDEST SON of good King Jehoshaphat, Jehoram, was more like his mother-in-law, Jezebel, than his father.  After Jehoshaphat’s death, Jehoram killed his brothers and turned his kingdom toward the gods of the Amorites (i.e., Phoenicians) worshiped by Jezebel. As a result, Jezebel was afflicted with a terrible and horribly painful disease that killed him seven years later.  Jehoram’s son, Ahaziah...

AHAB OBVIOUSLY didn’t wear the pants in his family.  This week, we discuss the episode of Naboth’s vineyard. Ahab pouted because Naboth refused to sell it to the king. Jezebel solved that problem by writing an order using Ahab’s royal seal—an early example of the autopen?—falsely accusing Naboth of cursing God and Ahab (an early example of lawfare!).  For this sin, Elijah was told by God to let Ah...

IT SEEMS odd to us, looking back across more than 2,800 years of history, that Elijah would run from Jezebel right after seeing what God had done on Mount Carmel.  Well, it’s easy to criticize. It’s likely none of us would have done better in Elijah’s place. We discuss how he was ministered to by the Angel of the Lord, the preincarnate Christ, while on the way to Horeb (Mount Sinai), and how God r...

THE REBEL WATCHERS of the Book of 1 Enoch were described as “burning mountains” in a chasm so vast there was no end to the height or the depth.  These were identified by the archangel Uriel as “the angels who mingled with the women,” who will remain there until the final judgment. This is consistent with the description of the sinful angels who are “kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness unt...

THE SHOWDOWN on Mount Carmel is even more spectacular than we’ve been taught.  The story is sensational on its surface: The prophet Elijah, one of the few prophets of God still active in the northern kingdom of Israel, tells King Ahab to his face that there will be no rain until Elijah says so. Then he flees from the king and hides out for three years.  During that time, the prophet was fed by rav...

THE NORTHERN KINGDOM of Israel changed hands twice in a week. And more often than not, succession in Israel involved a sword.  Baasha became king through a coup against Nadab, son of Jeroboam. After a twenty-four year reign, Baasha died and his son Elah ascended to the throne. However, after two years, Elah was assassinated by Zimri, a commander of chariots, who lasted all of seven days before Omr...

MOST OF THE kings of Judah, and all of those who ruled the northern kingdom of Israel, “did evil in the sight of the LORD.”  One notable exception was Asa, king of Judah between about 910 and 873 BC, whose “heart was wholly true all his days.” He got rid of the idols erected by his father, Abijah, and banished male cult prostitutes from the land. The account of his reign in 2 Chronicles further re...

WHERE DO DEMONS come from? The Book of 1 Enoch answers that question.  This week, we discuss Enoch’s mission to deliver God’s reply to the petition of the rebel Watchers for mercy—not just for them, but for their monstrous offspring, the gigantic Nephilim. In short, God’s reply was “no”—the Watchers would not be allowed back into heaven because they’d given up their divine natures and defiled them...

IT DIDN’T take long for simmering tensions in Israel between north and south to erupt into civil war.  Following the death of Solomon, Jeroboam led the northern tribes in rebellion against Judah and the House of David. Solomon’s son, Rehoboam, wanted to go to war immediately but was warned by the prophet Shemaiah that it was not the will of God to do so, since the rebellion was God’s punishment fo...

Enoch is the only human in history, as far as we know, tasked with delivering God’s judgment to a group of rebellious angels.  This week, we discuss Enoch’s mission to the fallen Watchers. We note that he was called by loyal Watchers—which suggests that “Watcher” is a class or rank of supernatural being, some of which are still faithful to God (as in Daniel 4)—to announce God’s punishment to the r...

YOU’D THINK that being anointed king over the northern tribes because of Solomon’s disobedience to God would have caused Jeroboam to be more careful about his theology.  We follow up last week’s study with the consequences of Jeroboam’s decision to set up altars with golden calves. Contrary to some who teach that the golden calves were idols representing God, we believe the locations—Bethel (“Hous...

KING LEMUEL is unknown outside of the reference in Proverbs 31. It may be an epithet of Solomon meaning “belonging to God,” or Lemuel may have been an Arab king descended from Massa, the seventh son of Ishmael.  What we can say for certain is that verses 10–31 of Proverbs 31 is a well-known section of scripture that praises the virtues of an excellent wife. We discuss the value placed on trust bet...

THE WORDS of Agur son of Jakeh include a prayer to be given just enough to get by, since too much can lead one to forget the source of one’s blessings and too little can drive the desperate to steal from others.  The identity of Agur, who is mentioned only once in the Bible, is still unknown. It may be an epithet of Solomon, but the writing style differs from the rest of Proverbs. Some scholars ha...