Daniel is a difficult book. But it is a book about the meaning of history, and people today need its message. The whole church needs reassurance, especially in view of Marxist claims to be able by human effort to introduce a utopian world government. "When the church lets part of its message go by default people look elsewhere for a substitute," writes Joyce Baldwin. "All the more reason, then, why the church needs to be counting on the certainties...

"For most Bible readers Ezekiel is almost a closed book," writes John Taylor. "Their knowledge of him extends little further than his mysterious vision of God's chariot-throne, with its wheels within wheels, and the vision of the valley of the dry bones." "Otherwise his book is as forbidding in its size as the prophet himself is in the complexity of his make-up," Taylor goes on. "In its structure, however, if not in its thought and language, the book...

Jeremiah and Lamentations tell the story of God's judgment during a bleak period in Judah's history. While painting a vivid picture of human loneliness and suffering, these Old Testament books also reveal the beautiful hope found only in God.This twelve-lesson Bible study begins with a thorough examination of Jeremiah, one of the most autobiographical books in the Bible. By studying the "weeping prophet" and his faithfulness to his calling, who or...

Preaching's Preacher's Guide to the Best Bible Reference for 2014 (Old Testament Commentaries). Levitical rules and regulations can at first appear irrelevant to contemporary Christians--but they provide important Old Testament background for understanding large portions of the New Testament. Leviticus describes a point in human history when God came and dwelt in the midst of the ancient Israelites and taught them what their purpose in life really...

The book of Kings is a unique source for understanding the history of Israel from the last days of the united kingdom under David to the eventual fall of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Presenting Israel's national history from a divine viewpoint, these narratives measure the kings of Israel and Judah not by the mark they leave on secular history, but by their "doing what is right in the Lord's sight." Embedded in this story are enduring lessons...

A wanton and adulterous woman repeatedly spurns the love of her youth. Her betrayed and grieving husband offers forgiveness and seeks to restore the intimacy of their first love. Bold imagery indeed for telling the story of God and his people. Bolder still when God calls a prophet to enflesh this divine suffering and redeeming forgiveness in his own marriage. Yet this remarkable story sets the stage for Hosea's message of God's enduring love, his...

"Guide me, O Thou Great Jehovah" is one of the best-known hymns in the world. Yet the book of numbers, whose story that hymn summarizes, is seldom read. Why? "Its very title puts the modern reader off," writes Gordon Wenham. "In ancient time numbers were seen as mysterious and symbolic, a key to reality and the mind of God himself. Today they are associated with computers and the depersonalization that threatens our society." In his effort to bridge...

This Old Testament book, the best of songs, has fascinated and perplexed interpreters for centuries. We hear the passionate melody of romantic love, and are confronted by erotic imagery but whose love is described? Is it a couple's love for each other, Gods love for his people, or a poem that speaks to love in all its dimensions? Iain Duguid's commentary explains how the Song is designed to show us an idealized picture of married love, in the context...

The Chronicler wrote as a pastoral theologian. The congregation he addressed was an Israel separated from its former days of blessing by a season of judgment. The books of 1 and 2 Chronicles bring a divine word of healing and reaffirm the hope of restoration to a nation that needed to regain its footing in God's promises and to reshape its life before God. The Chronicler expounds the Bible as he knows it, skillfully weaving his commentary into the...

Exodus, Cole says, is "the center of the Old Testament." It recounts the supreme Old Testament example of the saving acts of God, narrates the instituting of Passover and enshrines the giving of God's law. It portrays Moses, the prototype of all Israel's prophets, and Aaron, the first high priest. The book of Exodus is especially important to Christians because Christ fulfilled its great themes: He accomplished God's greatest act of deliverance. He...