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Daily Bible Study

June 3, 2025 Bible Study — Overcoming Obstacles by Trusting God and Making a Plan

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Today, I am reading and commenting on Nehemiah 4-6.

Today’s passage describes multiple obstacles which arose to the rebuilding of Jerusalem’s walls.  Most of them were attempts by those who benefited from Jerusalem’s lack of walls.  They threatened and otherwise tried to discourage those who were building the walls.  Nehemiah encouraged the builders to pray and trust God, while also working with them on a plan to address the threats.  The next obstacle recorded here resulted from the greed of the powerful and wealthy which divided the people when they needed to be united.  Nehemiah once again provided an answer by being an example, recognizing the way that his own actions contributed to the problem and reversing them.  Finally, the external enemies tried to distract Nehemiah.  Nehemiah refused to allow them to distract him, and refused to give into fear when they threatened him.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Daily Bible Study

June 2, 2025 Bible Study — God Calls Nehemiah to Bring His People Back to Him

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Today, I am reading and commenting on  Nehemiah 1-3.

The first thing I want to point out is that the state of Jerusalem which Nehemiah’s brother described to him was not because of the Babylonians sacking Jerusalem back in Jeremiah’s time when they took the Jews into Exile.  No, the wall of Jerusalem had been broken down and the gates burned after the returned Exiles had initially rebuilt them.*  So, when Nehemiah confessed the sins of “we, the Israelites,” he was not talking about the sins which led to the Israelites being exiled in the first place, at least, not primarily.  Rather, Nehemiah was referring to the sins which he and his fellow descendants of Jacob had committed since Cyrus issued an edict allowing them to return to Jerusalem and ordering them to rebuild the temple.  Which brings me to something which occurred to me for the first time today: when Nehemiah went before Artaxerxes and requested permission to go to Jerusalem to rebuild the wall and gates, rebuilding the wall was not his primary agenda.  Rather, rebuilding the wall and gates of Jerusalem was a means to calling the Jews living in Jerusalem and Judah to return to being faithful to God.  And, as I write that I realized it tells us something about the way that God works.  Both Ezra and Nehemiah were called by God to go to Jerusalem and lead the people to more faithfully follow Him.  They were each called within a few years of each other and they were called independently of each other.  Yet, they worked together to bring the Jewish people to faithfully serve God.

*I make this point because for many years I just assumed that when this passage says that the wall of Jerusalem was broken down and the gates burned that it referred to them still being unrepaired from when the Babylonians sacked Jerusalem, when they had been rebuilt and destroyed yet again.  Additionally, many of the commentaries on Nehemiah hold the position that the wall and the gates remained destroyed from the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem.  I think they are mistaken.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Daily Bible Study

June 1, 2025 Bible Study — Understanding Hard Passages

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Today, I am reading and commenting on Ezra 9-10.

This Book of Ezra always troubles me because it seems to suggest that the Israelites should reject anyone not of their ancestry.  Today’s passage discusses the reaction of the more devout among the returned exiles to those who had intermarried with the people around them.  One could easily read it as condemning those who welcomed outsiders who wished to join the people of God.  However, there are several reasons to realize that is not the message.  The first reason is a couple of verses I maybe should have written about yesterday, Ezra 6:21. There, when the exiles celebrated the Passover it says, “So the Israelites who had returned from the exile ate it, together with all who had separated themselves from the unclean practices of their Gentile neighbors in order to seek the Lord, the God of Israel.”  When they ate the Passover, they welcomed those who separated themselves from the practices of their Gentile neighbors.  Another other reason is contained in Ezra’s prayer about the situation.  When Ezra prays confessing this sin, and seeking God’s guidance on what to do about it, he says that they were intermarrying with people who commit detestable practices.  The implication being that the people of God were taking wives who had not given up the practices which were incompatible with serving God, and were giving their daughters in marriage to men who were following those practices.  The final reason to think that the problem with intermarrying was the idolatrous practices of those with whom they were marrying, rather than with them not being descendants of Israel, comes in the way they chose to implement the solution.  Rather than lay out a blanket law that all of those who had married foreign wives must divorce them and send them away, they decided that those accused of having foreign wives would come before the elders on a case by case basis, and those who had intermarried would be required to send divorce their foreign wives and send them away.  This reads to me that they were dealing with this on a case by case basis because some of those women whose families were not Jewish had separated themselves from the unclean practices in order to seek the Lord.  Those who had done this were no longer considered foreign.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Daily Bible Study

May 31, 2025 Bible Study — Study, Obey, Teach, In That Order

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Today, I am reading and commenting on Ezra 6-8.

The first thing which I realized when I began working out what to write today is that I get confused about the length of time involved in the first part of this book, which also leads to me sometimes misreading portions of it.  Fortunately, the parts which are confusing are primarily included to set the stage so that we understand the background for what comes starting in today’s passage.  The first part of today’s passage shows us how God will help us overcome obstacles when we act according to His will.  Then we get to the meat of the Book, Ezra leading a group of Israelites to return to Jerusalem and Judah.  After telling us that Ezra was a knowledgeable teacher of the Law who had found favor with Artaxerxes, King of Persia, it quotes the letter which Artaxerxes had given to Ezra.  As part of introducing us to Ezra it tells us that God’s gracious hand was on Ezra because he was devoted to studying, observing, and teaching the Law of the Lord.  I was going to go somewhere else with this until I typed that last sentence.  As I typed that sentence about Ezra I realized that was the lesson I wanted for today.  The passage lays out an important progression which is closely linked together.  God’s grace was not upon Ezra because he studied God’s Law, nor just because he observed it.  God’s grace was on Ezra because he taught God’s Law.  However, before Ezra could teach God’s Law, he had to study it.  And while he could have taught it without following it, that would not have led to God placing His grace upon Ezra.  I am really reminded of what Jesus told His disciples in Matthew 28:19-29. “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”   We cannot make disciples of Christ unless we first obey His teachings, and we cannot obey His teachings if we do not study them.  So, let us do things in the proper order: study, observe, and then teach.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Daily Bible Study

May 30, 2025 Bible Study — Getting Our Priorities Right

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Today, I am reading and commenting on Ezra 3-5.

There are two topics I am tempted to write about in today’s passage.  I may write about both, but we shall see.  As soon as the Returned Exiles, who started calling themselves Jews at about this time, got settled into their new homes they gathered in Jerusalem.  There they built an altar to God and began offering sacrifices on it.  Then, once they had the system of sacrifices down, they began work on laying a foundation for rebuilding the temple.  The key being that they started offering sacrifices and keeping the festivals of God even before they began work on building the temple.  They could have justified beginning offering sacrifices until hey had rebuilt the temple, but they did not even consider doing so.  They did all of this despite fearing the peoples around them.  Which brings us to the second piece of today’s passage.  The passage tells us that once the people surrounding them learned that they were rebuilding the temple those people came and asked to be allowed to help with the rebuilding.  The passage says that those who offered to help were the enemies of Judah and Benjamin.  I am not clear if they were enemies before their help was rejected or not.  However, the passage tells us that as soon as their help was rejected those who had offered to help began to try to discourage the Jews from building the temple.  Which seems to suggest that the Jews were right to reject the offered “help”.  Since those who offered to “help” so quickly tried to discourage the work, one might suspect that they would have used their position on the inside, if their offer had been accepted, to do so to an even greater degree.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Daily Bible Study

May 29, 2025 Bible Study — Waiting for the Discovery of the Urim and Thummim

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Today, I am reading and commenting on  Ezra 1-2.

I was going to write about Cyrus’ proclamation, but I decided to start writing about the list of people who joined Zerubbabel in initially returning to Jerusalem and Judah.  First, you have a group of six hundred fifty-two people who descended from one or more of three people who could not be found in the genealogies which the Exiles had.  Then you have a unspecified number of people whose traditions said they were descended from priests, whose listed ancestors could also not be found in the genealogies.  It appears that the first group was allowed to participate just like any other non-Levitical (or priestly) descendants of Israel, despite being able to clearly establish their descent.  The ones who believed they were descended from priests were told that they could not participate in any priestly function, or eat any of the food from the priests’ share of sacrifices, with a caveat.  The caveat was that when there was a priest ministering with the Urim and Thummim, that priest could inquire of God as to whether they were true priests.  This led me to do some searching to see what they knew about the Urim and Thummim, since when I last looked for information about them I could find only speculation about how they worked.  I found that Talmudic scholars disagree with when the Urim and Thummim were last seen.  Some claimed they were around until the Maccabees, but had not worked since the destruction of Solomon’s temple.  Others said that they disappeared sometime between the death of King David and the fall of Jerusalem.  Considering that Jerusalem was sacked several times before the Babylonians destroyed it and that several of those occasions were during the reign of kings who did not worship God, that seems likely.  I find it interesting that they chose to relegate determining if these people could serve as priests to the recovery of the Urim and Thummim, rather than using another way to determine God’s will concerning them.  And I  wonder if it was appropriate for them to do so.  Perhaps this was a case of them really saying, “you cannot serve as priests unless God presents us with incontrovertible proof He desires otherwise.”  When is it appropriate to do something like that?

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Daily Bible Study

May 28, 2025 Bible Study — Seek God and You Will Find Him

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Today, I am reading and commenting on 2 Chronicles 34-36.

When Josiah was sixteen, he began seeking the Lord.  As part of that process, he began to destroy the altars to other gods, and the idols which the people of Israel worshipped when he was twenty years old.  Six years later he ordered the repair and consecration of the temple.  While they were cleaning and repairing the temple, the priests found a copy of the Book of the Law, which they brought to Josiah and read to him.  Josiah then implemented the practices described in the Book of the Law.  As I read this I thought about a video where a nonbeliever was pushing a Christian saying, “What about those people who never heard of Christ?  Are they condemned to Hell?”  This passage here gives us a way to understand God’s answer to that question.  Josiah did not know God’s Law when he was sixteen, but he knew that he wanted to seek God.  So, he began doing so.  After four years of seeking God and seeking to understand what God wanted of him, Josiah realized that he was being called by God to get rid of the idolatry in the land.  So, he acted upon that knowledge.  Josiah still did not know exactly what God’s Law said.  He just knew part of what God wanted from His people, so he acted on what he knew.  When Josiah completed removing the idols from the land he felt led to clean and repair the temple.  So, he ordered that done.  It was only while re repairing the temple that they found the Book of the Law.  Josiah sought the Lord and did the next thing he understood God asked of him.  It was only after following several steps, that God revealed the Law to Josiah.  In the same way, God will reveal Himself to those who seek Him, even those who have never heard of Jesus.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Daily Bible Study

May 27, 2025 Bible Study — Manasseh Was an Evil King, but When He Cried Out to God He Was Delivered

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Today, I am reading and commenting on 2 Chronicles 31-33.

While Hezekiah was not perfect, he was a good king who did what was right in the eyes of the Lord most of the time.  However, his son Manasseh was a mostly evil king.  He rebuilt the high places which Hezekiah had destroyed, he built altars to Baal and erected Asherah poles, he bowed down and worshipped “the starry hosts”*.  He even built altars to other gods in the temple and put an idol there as well.  Not only did he worship these other gods, he sacrificed his own children to them.  All of this led to him being taken captive as a prisoner of the Assyrians.  While captive to the Assyrians, Manasseh cried out to God and God delivered him.  When he returned to Jerusalem, he removed the altars and idols he had erected in Jerusalem and consecrated the temple once more.  For the rest of his life he worshiped only the Lord, and called upon the people of Judah to do likewise.  And, while the people continued to sacrifice and worship at the high places Manasseh had built before he turned to the Lord, they worshiped only the Lord at those places after Manasseh’s reform.  Manasseh had been as evil as one could imagine, but after he turned to God, he led others to do likewise.  Let us remember that people today can do the same.  If those suffering the consequences of their sin turn to the Lord and cry out to Him, He will deliver them, and they (and we should consider whether or not we have failed to serve Him and need to turn back to Him) can become great witnesses to others.

 

**the way that “the starry hosts” is used in the Old Testament suggests to me that it was a group of gods that were always worshipped collectively and associated with the stars.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Daily Bible Study

May 26, 2025 Bible Study — Don’t Let the Momentum Slip Away

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Today, I am reading and commenting on  2 Chronicles 29-30.

When I think of Hezekiah, I normally think of Sennacherib’s invasion of Judah, or of Hezekiah’s sickness and healing, and sometimes I think about the visit from the emissaries from Babylon.  I am not sure I have ever thought about how he cleansed the temple after his father’s death.  He started by bringing the priests and Levites together to rededicate themselves.  Once they had consecrated the temple, he gathered the city officials of Jerusalem, and then the people of Jerusalem and got them involved with worshiping the Lord once more.  As soon as the enthusiasm for the Lord had caught on with the people of Jerusalem, Hezekiah planned a Passover celebration, even though it was too late to do it at its assigned time.  By doing so, Hezekiah maintained the enthusiasm and momentum he had gained by acting as soon as he became king.  This is an important lesson for us when we are acting for the Lord, we must keep things moving forward, not rest on our laurels.  Actually, the example of the way in which Hezekiah, and those working with him, kept things moving forward started sooner.  When Hezekiah called on the people to start offering sacrifices there were not enough consecrated priests to skin all of the offering being brought.  So, the Levites pitched in and helped with that task.  There is one other important lesson in this passage.  When the messengers Hezekiah sent out to invite people from the northern tribes, which were not technically under Hezekiah’s rule, to announce the Passover celebration, they were laughed at and mocked.  Nevertheless they carried the message, and some people responded.  Likewise, we need to continue to carry God’s message, even when we are laughed at and mocked.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Daily Bible Study

May 25, 2025 Bible Study — Do Not Blame God for the Consequences of Our Actions

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Today, I am reading and commenting on  2 Chronicles 26-28.

So the first thing I thought about when I read this was that in this passage we have the third and fourth king of Judah in a row who were faithful to God for most of their reigns.  Joash served God enthusiastically, until his stepfather, the priest, died, when he turned to idolatry.  His son Amaziah served God enthusiastically, until he became jaded in his later years.  Today’s passage tells us that Uzziah did what was right in the eyes of the Lord and served the Lord until he became powerful.  When he became powerful, he also became powerful and usurped the role of the priests, for which God punished him.  Uzziah’s son Jotham followed in his father’s footsteps, except that he continued to walk steadfastly before God his entire life and became powerful.  Unfortunately Jotham’s son Ahaz did not follow in the footsteps of his father.  Instead, he followed the example of the kings of Israel and made idols to worship the Baals.  As a result, God allowed him to be defeated by the Arameans, and by the king of Israel.  Instead of turning to God for deliverance, Ahaz chose to adopt the worship of the gods of Damascus.  Reading this I was struck that many people are like Ahaz, they fail to faithfully follow God, they may even indulge in behaviors they know God has commanded against, then when they suffer the consequences, they blame God for not saving them.  Ahaz failed to see how his idolatry and failure to obey God led to his hard times.  Many people today make the same mistake and blame God because He allowed them to suffer the consequences of their actions.  When bad times come upon them, rather than seek God, they turn even further from Him.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.