The Amazing Bible. Book Club

With Hebrew poetry and wisdom literature, there is an understanding that God is sovereign over all things, and these poetic books acknowledge Him and cry out to Him. With Proverbs, this is not, "Thus says the Lord," instead it is people speaking to humanity about humanity. These are not necessarily promises from God, but general truths about life. There are proverbs about almost every as...

In the twelve chapters of Ecclesiastes, the "Teacher," who has tried everything under the sun finds everything, "Meaningless! Meaningless! Everything is meaningless!" Toiling away at a hard job is just chasing after wind. Seeking wisdom just brings much sorrow. Laughter - foolishness. Projects - foolishness. Great wealth - foolishness. Both the wise and the fool end up in the s...

The Song of Songs, also known as the Song of Solomon, could be a collection of various songs, or it could mean that it is the best of the songs, like "King of kings, Lord of lords, Song of Songs." In Hebrew it could mean it is either "by," "for," or "about" Solomon, and there are few divisions, so it makes it hard to understand who is speaking. Most interpre...

It is interesting that the write of Solomon's life uses nine and a half chapters to mainly tell the great things about Solomon and his reign with just a few glimpses of what is coming, and then bang, he uses the last chapter, chapter 11 to tell all the bad stuff. Solomon had 700 wives of royal birth and 300 concubines, and he loved foreign women, all the ones the Lord said to not intermarry w...

After Solomon had achieved all he had desired to do, the Lord appeared to him a second time. The first time was in 3:4-15 when Solomon asked the Lord for wisdom, and here the Lord has heard Solomon's prayers, and He reminded Solomon if he and his sons would be faithful to the Lord then he would be blessed, but if their hearts turn from the Lord, "then I will cut off Israel from the land...

King Solomon makes a treaty with Hiram king of Tyre, who supplied David with materials to build his palace, not Solomon will be getting supplies from him to build the temple as well as his new palace, a new palace for his first wife, the daughter of the Pharoah king of Egypt, as well as a colonnade, a throne hall and hall of justice. It took Solomon seven years to build the temple and 14 years to...

Today's lesson covers who king Solomon's officials and governors were.  We see that some of David's official's sons are now serving Solomon. He also redistricted his land, probably due to the increase of the borders of Israel. Two of his governors were his son-in-laws, so this is later in Solomon's reign. Verse 20 says, "The people of Judah and Israel were as numerous...

Now that the kingdom is firmly established in Solomon's hands, we learn that he made an alliance with Pharaoh, king of Egypt and married his daughter who came and lived in Jerusalem with him. Solomon loved the Lord and walked in the ways of his father David, except he offered sacrifices and burned incense on the high places. While he was at Gibeon, after his sacrifices, God spoke to him in a...

Before king David dies, he charged his son, Solomon, the next king to walk in the ways of the Lord. He also wanted Solomon to deal with a few men from David's kingship. The first on the list was Joab, who had killed men that David did not want killed such as Abner, Israel's commander of the Army, Amasa, Absalom's commander of the army, plus David's own son, Absalom. The second...

King David is now old, around 70, and he could not get warm, even with blankets, so his servants found a beautiful young woman who would help take care of him, and keep him warm, but they did not have sex. Since David was weak and old, his 4th born son, which is now the oldest living son, Adonijah, decided it was time to make himself king. He gathered all his brothers, except Solomon, and Joab, Da...

The last two chapters of 2 Samuel end the epilogue in the last 4 chapters of the book. It is written in a artistic style called a chiasm. Chapter 23 starts with section "C" which are "David's last words," then it ends with section "B" about king David's mighty men. Chapter 24 covers section "A" which is about how David stopped a divinely sent plagu...

The ending of 2 Samuel seems to be some added events throughout David's reign as king of Israel. Some call the last four chapters (21-24) as an appendix or an epilogue. Robert D. Bergen in his commentary pointed out that it is written in an artistic style called a chiasm. Chapters 21-22 cover the ABC, and then chapters 23-24 cover CBA. The "A" section is 21:1-14, "David Ends a...

King David's son, Absalom, pursued David to kill him and take the throne. 18:8 reads, "The battle spread out over the whole countryside, and the forest claimed more lives that day than the sword." Absalom's head got caught in an oak tree, and his mule kept going on. He hung in midair. David's men were afraid to strike him since David had asked them to be gentle with him fo...

In these chapters, David is king, and Absalom, the next in line to the throne, is now back in Jerusalem after killing his older half-brother, Amnon, because he had raped his sister.  Absalom works on his plan for four years, making friends with people of the land and casting doubt on David's ability. Now the time has come, and he asked David to allow him to go to Hebron, his birthplace, and t...

These chapters cover the story of David's oldest son, Amnon, raping his half-sister, Tamar, and then he discarded her as trash. Her full blooded brother, Absalom, David's third born son, took care of Tamar, but said nothing to his 1/2 brother. When King David heard, he was angry, but he did nothing. Two years of planning and plotting went by, and then Absalom was ready to act. He planned...

In these chapters David remained in Jerusalem while his men were off to war.  In verses 2-4a we see that David got up, David walked around, David saw a woman, David sent someone to inquire about her, David sent messengers to get her. Who is the initiator in all of this? David! Even after David found out that Bathsheba's father and husband were a part of David's mighty men, and that her g...

These chapters tell us that king David expanded the land of Israel on all directions. It is also clear that the reason this was so was because the Lord gave him victory wherever he went. We also learned that once David was established, he asked if there were any descendants of Jonathan and king Saul, that he could show kindness to? Jonathan had a son, Mephibosheth, who was crippled in both feet. C...

In these chapters David now becomes king over all Israel at the age of 30. He reigned for 40 years, seven years in Hebron, and 33 over all Israel. His first act was to conquer the Jebusite city of Jerusalem to be the new capital. Hiram king of Tyre sent David cedar logs, carpenters, and stonemasons to help build him a palace. After that, David felt established as king. He took more wives and concu...

After king Saul and Jonathan had died, David asked the Lord if it was time to leave the Philistine city of Ziklag and go to his tribe of Judah? The Lord said yes, and that he should go to Hebron. David obeyed the Lord, and he and his two wives and his men and their families moved to Hebron, and there the tribe of Judah made David king. The problem was the rest of Israel, through the leadership of...

Second Samuel begins with David finding out that king Saul and Jonathan both died in battle against the Philistines. The news was brought by an unnamed Amalekite who escaped from the Israelite camp. Now he said, he found Saul on his sword, but he was not dead yet, so he killed the Lord's anointed, and brought David Saul's crown and armband. Once David and the men heard the news, they mou...

In this last chapter of 1 Samuel, the Philistines are at war with the Israelites. Three of king Saul's sons die, Jonathan, Abinadab and Malki-Shua. Saul was fatally wounded by an arrow. Saul asked his armor-bearer to kill him so the Philistines would not torture him, but he would not kill the Lord's anointed, so Saul fell on his own sword. Verse six says, "So Saul and his three sons...

After seeing Saul for the last time, David decided the safest place for him to be was in Philistine territory, so he and his men went to Gath, and this time they were welcome. Achish, son of Maoch king of Gath, welcomed this mighty warrior, and made him his right-hand man. David asked if it would be possible to live in a different city, since they were not worthy of living in such a royal city wit...

In this story, King Saul goes after David again, and the Ziphites go and tell Saul where he is again. They also told him in chapter 23, and we covered Psalm 54 with that lesson. This time David found them first. David sent scouts to find out where Saul was, and he was in the center of the camp with his 6,000 men around him. That night, David and Abishai snuck into the camp to Saul. Abishai wanted...

This story starts with Samuel's death, which ends an era of Judges leadership, and now it clarifies the role of King. David then went to southern Israel in the area of Carmel, where King Saul had placed a monument in his own honor in 1 Samuel 15:12. There was a descendant of Caleb, named Nabal who lived there, but unlike Caleb, Nabal, which means fool, was also cruel and evil in his dealings....

Chapter 24 of 1 Samuel is the story when King Saul and his 3,000 men were chasing David and his 600 men. They were at En Gedi, and Saul goes into a cave to relieve himself. It just so happened to be the same cave where David and his men were hiding. David snuck up to him and cut off a corner of his robe. As soon as he did, he was conscience-stricken, and he realized it was not his place to harm th...