By Mark Morgan | David , Jehoshaphat
The Bible mentions armour-bearers several times. Their job title gives the impression that all they did was carry armour, but that’s a long way from the truth.
We are never given a full job description for an armour-bearer in the Bible. As far as we can tell, they were special bodyguards for important people such as kings, princes or commanders. Continue reading
By Mark Morgan | Family trees , Jeremiah
Jeremiah was a prophet, but he was also a priest.[1] What do we know about Jeremiah’s genealogy? At the start of his book, he is described as the son of Hilkiah,[2] and we know that there was a High Priest called Hilkiah at that time. Was Jeremiah the son of the High Priest? Hilkiah is called “Hilkiah the priest”[3] and “Hilkiah the High Priest”,[4] but his father’s name is not mentioned. Listing the name of a man’s father name was commonly used to distinguish between people with the same name. Yet it is only when we look in the genealogy of the high priests that we find Hilkiah’s father was called Shallum. This consistent use of the name “Hilkiah” without saying who his father was suggests that saying he was a priest was enough to uniquely identify him. Continue reading
By Mark Morgan | Jeremiah
The book of Jeremiah is not in chronological order.
Many books of the Bible tell us of events that happened during certain years, and sometimes this is refined to the month and day or even the time of day. Other events, however, are reported with very little to locate them in time. The book of Jeremiah includes some passages that are anchored to particular days, while others are not located in time at all. By itself, this would make it hard enough to work out exactly when things happened in Jeremiah’s life, but the situation is worse than that: even the passages with dates are not in order! Continue reading
By Mark Morgan | Jeremiah
Putting the events of the final siege in chronological order can be done with reasonable confidence from the time the Chaldean army surrounds the city until Nebuchadnezzar destroys Jerusalem. The list of events in descriptive point form in chronological order follows. For some of these, we know exact dates, but for most we do not, we only know the order:
By Mark Morgan | Jeremiah
In our previous article, we listed the three times when King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon laid siege to Jerusalem and then looked in some detail at the second siege. In this article, we look at Nebuchadnezzar’s third attack on Jerusalem, the best known and the most devastating attack, that resulted in the complete destruction of the city.[1] By that time, Nebuchadnezzar was reigning over a large empire, yet he dedicated almost two years to the conquest of Judah (during the 17th-19th years of his reign[2]). Continue reading
By Mark Morgan | Jeremiah
Before we look specifically at Nebuchadnezzar’s second attack on Jerusalem, let’s remember that King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon attacked Jerusalem three times:
By Mark Morgan | Jeremiah , Minor prophets
One of Habakkuk’s questions was a simple question we might often have asked ourselves: did God listen to his prayers? But that wasn’t the end if it. Would God answer him? And did Habakkuk want to hear the answers anyway? You see, Habakkuk’s questions weren’t just questions, they were more like complaints.
2 “O Lord, how long shall I cry for help,
and you will not hear?
Or cry to you “Violence!”
and you will not save?
3 Why do you make me see iniquity,
and why do you idly look at wrong?
Destruction and violence are before me;
strife and contention arise.
4 So the law is paralyzed,
and justice never goes forth.
For the wicked surround the righteous;
so justice goes forth perverted.”
Habakkuk 1:2-4
By Mark Morgan | Jeremiah
When I was growing up, my family followed a Bible reading chart to make sure that we read all of God’s word and not just the parts that seem initially to be more interesting. After a while I started to recognise that there were some fascinating details in unexpected places – including God’s opinion of what moral or spiritual pollution is.
As a teenager, I noticed that there were several times during the year when we read of various things that made the land of Israel unclean. But was it the physical earth of the land that was meant or did it mean something else?
By Mark Morgan | Jeremiah , Minor prophets
Habakkuk was a prophet in ancient Judah. We do not know exactly when his visions took place, but in some ways it doesn’t matter, since his questions are universal and the answers can be easily applied to any time.
God chose people to be his prophets and they delivered his messages. False prophets chose themselves and delivered whatever messages they wanted – probably often whatever would get them the most popularity and power. God criticises them often (Lamentations 2:14; Ezekiel 13:9, 22:28; Jeremiah 5:31), particularly towards the end of the life of the nation of Judah.
This was the time when Habakkuk prophesied.
By Mark Morgan | Jeremiah
Many of God’s prophets predicted God’s judgement on Israel would come through attacking nations. Jeremiah predicted that Nebuchadnezzar would attack Judah from the north. He was also a priest. Were prophets and priests meant to fight?
Elisha the prophet was with the army of Israel when Jehoshaphat king of Judah, Jehoram king of Israel and the king of Edom went to attack Mesha the king of Moab (2 Kings 3:9-12). We don’t know if he was there to fight or just sent by God to make sure that a prophet was available when one was needed.
By Mark Morgan | Joseph , Maps
Both of these maps come from the book “Joseph, Rachel’s son” which was released on 4 December 2018.
The first of the maps is a map of Mesopotamia that was derived from a map by Yiyi of the Middle East with a CC BY 3.0 licence.Continue reading
By Mark Morgan | Family trees , Joseph , Timelines
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and then Joseph: here are Joseph’s timeline and family tree in multiple languages.
Joseph lived for 110 years – which seems like a long time to us, but was significantly shorter than the lives of his ancestors, including his father Jacob, who died at the age of 147.
Only a small part – just 11 years – of Joseph’s life was spent in the land of Canaan. About 93 years were spent in Egypt.Continue reading