Languages around Israel

By Mark Morgan | Jeremiah

King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon was trying to build an empire by picking off one enemy nation at a time.  The nations around Israel knew this and were doing their best to form a coalition and fight King Nebuchadnezzar together.  They sent envoys to Jerusalem for an international conference to arrange joint resistance. Of course, communication requires shared language and there were many different languages around Israel.

Sometimes, however, actions can communicate when language cannot, and while the envoys were there, God told Jeremiah to make a yoke and wear it – acting out a symbol of servitude for the foreign kings whose envoys had gone to Jerusalem (Jeremiah 27:1-11).
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The stocks in the Bible

By Mark Morgan | Jeremiah , Paul

Comfort

Comfort is important to us.  To get comfortable, we will often be willing to spend a lot of money or work very hard – maybe even change our job or move to a different house, town or country. Some prophets, however, could not avoid the stocks in the Bible: it was all part of doing their job.

We do our best to avoid discomfort and expect others to do the same, so when we look at the lives of prophets in the Bible, the difference stands out.Continue reading

Priest or prophet?

By Mark Morgan | Jeremiah

Jeremiah: priest or prophet?

Have you ever wondered what a prophet of God did when he wasn’t prophesying?

Of the people who we know as prophets, many seem to have been used by God on only a few occasions.  For example, Abraham, Oded (2 Chronicles 28:9), Uriah (Jeremiah 26:20) and various other prophets who aren’t even named.Continue reading

Silence – things missing from Jeremiah

By Mark Morgan | Jeremiah

Sometimes when we have a pet theory – but little evidence! – we use arguments from silence.  For example, we might argue that since something has not been reported as happening, this is proof that it never happened.  Of course, it’s not proof at all, because history doesn’t report most things that happen. Arguments from silence don’t prove anything, however it is valuable at times to observe things about which the Bible is silent and ponder what the reasons for the silence might be.  Let’s look at things missing from Jeremiah – events or facts which the book of Jeremiah does not mention.Continue reading

Marriage in the Bible

By Mark Morgan | Jeremiah , Paul

Marriage?

In the times of Jeremiah, God often used the picture of unfaithfulness in marriage, and even divorce, to show how terrible the behaviour of Israel and Judah was when they worshipped other gods.  This lesson has now lost its power in many countries of the world because unfaithfulness and adultery are not viewed as seriously as God views them.Continue reading

Anointing Bible Kings

By Mark Morgan | David , Jeremiah

Appointing kings

Many countries that have kings or queens, and even those with prime ministers or presidents, have ornate ceremonies for appointing a new person to the position.  The rules for choosing who the new leader will be and the associated rituals are considered important and followed carefully. The same was true for anointing Bible kings.Continue reading

Did King Josiah make a difference?

By Mark Morgan | Jeremiah

Or “Was Josiah a success?”

We all like to think that we have made a difference in the world.  King Josiah was a righteous king, but did he make a difference in his kingdom?  Was Josiah a success?

King Josiah

King Josiah reigned near the end of the kingdom of Judah, about 600 years before Jesus Christ was born.  He is described in 2 Kings 23:25:

“Other gods” in the Bible

By Mark Morgan | Jeremiah , Minor prophets

Foreign gods

We often read of the worship of “other gods” in the Bible – in both the Old and New Testaments. In the Old Testament, we read of different nations worshipping their own individual gods, but the nation of Israel seemed to want to worship all of the available gods!Continue reading

The Sabbath

By Mark Morgan | Jeremiah

Keeping the Sabbath

From time to time over many years, the following question has popped to my mind: Did the people of Israel and Judah keep the Sabbath day during the period of the kings?  Keeping the Sabbath was one of the Ten Commandments, but did God’s people keep the day holy as God had said?Continue reading

Jeremiah in the Septuagint (Greek)

By Mark Morgan | Jeremiah

Jeremiah in the Septuagint

The book of Jeremiah was originally written in Hebrew.  What we read as the book of Jeremiah in our English Bibles is mostly translated from this Hebrew version.  However, the Old Testament – including Jeremiah – was translated into common Greek about 250 years before Christ.  Thus Jeremiah in the Septuagint is in Greek.Continue reading

Books not included in the Bible

By Mark Morgan | Jeremiah

Other books in Bible times

Have you ever noticed that the Bible refers to books not included included in the Bible?  From time to time, someone in our family refers to “Waheb in Suphar and the valleys of the Arnon” – a rather quaint and attractive expression from Numbers 21:14 which tells us that it comes from “the Book of the Wars of the Lord”.  Unfortunately, this quaintness is missing from the KJV which says simply “What he did in the Red Sea, and in the brooks of Arnon”.Continue reading

The Prophet Zephaniah

By Mark Morgan | Jeremiah , Minor prophets

The Prophet Zephaniah

When we read of prophets in the Bible we can get the feeling that they all lived at different times from each other.  There is almost never any indication of different prophets meeting each other or working together.  However, there are just a few examples, including Moses and Aaron; Elijah and Elisha; Haggai and Zechariah; and two nameless prophets in the time of Jeroboam the son of Nebat and maybe some others.  What about the prophet Zephaniah?Continue reading