By Mark Morgan | Jeremiah
A covenant is simply an agreement. Bible covenants are agreements made between people, or between God and people.
When we sign a contract, that is an agreement, and each country has many laws that detail just how binding such agreements are. These sorts of agreements and their associated laws have changed through history, and the Bible tells us of many agreements made thousands of years ago.Continue reading
By Mark Morgan | Jeremiah
Death and mourning are subjects which became important for humans because of sin (Romans 5:12). Different countries have many different customs surrounding death. Many ways of mourning can be seen around the world. Not only that, but customs have also changed a lot through time. There is quite a bit of variation in mourning described in the Bible too, with some differences based simply on whether the person who had died was respected or loathed! Let’s have a quick look at death and mourning in the Bible, particularly in connection with the time of Jeremiah.Continue reading
By Mark Morgan | Jeremiah
Just before God led the people of Israel out of Egypt, he told them to keep the Passover lamb in their homes from the 10th day of the first month (Exodus 12:3) until until they killed it on the 14th at twilight (Exodus 12:6).
When the Passover is defined as a national feast in Leviticus 23 and Deuteronomy 16, there is no mention of any requirement to keep the lamb beforehand. Was this just a once-off requirement as part of building up for the first Passover? Continue reading
By Mark Morgan | Jehoshaphat , Jeremiah
When we wish to see a broader view, we look for high places. Each year, about 1,000 people try to climb Mount Everest. In 2016, about 600 reached the summit and 6 climbers died.
Of course, the world’s highest mountain is a far cry from your local hill, but it seems that high places have always been attractive to people, and the Bible talks about “high places” about one hundred times.Continue reading
By Mark Morgan | Jeremiah
From time to time, I am asked the question: “Why does the series Terror on Every Side! present such a negative picture of God’s opinion of Judah even in the time of Josiah who was such a good king?”
The answer to this question takes time to give.Continue reading
By Mark Morgan | Jeremiah
Israel is home to many species of birds. In the Old Testament, the law of Moses devotes space to lists of which types of birds are unclean (e.g., Leviticus 11:13-19 and Deuteronomy 14:11-18).
The law forbade eating of unclean birds, and a quick look at the list of unclean birds shows that all the birds included eat meat or fish.Continue reading
By Mark Morgan | Jeremiah
The cycle of the year in Israel was guided by “feasts” – annual religious events. The name “feast” can be a little misleading as it may lead us to think of celebrations with party food, but these feasts were not like that at all. One “feast” – the Day of Atonement – required all the people to “deny themselves” (Leviticus 23:27), which seems to refer to fasting.Continue reading
By Mark Morgan | Jeremiah
For those of us who live in cities, particularly western cities, the cycle of the year does not effect us much. Our weather may change, but ploughing, sowing, threshing and reaping have little impact on us. Western supermarkets are stocked with a vast array of foods throughout the year, and the immediate connection between the fertile earth and the food on our tables is not very clear. Foods can be imported from countries all over the earth and land on supermarket shelves within days of being picked in some remote corner of the world. For us, the early and latter rains don’t really matter much.Continue reading
By Mark Morgan | Jeremiah
Last year I started to write out sections of scripture, and today, reading over what I had written, I came across a mistake that highlighted one sort of error that can very easily be made by copyists.Continue reading
By Mark Morgan | Jeremiah
In the times before computers and smartphones became so common, a Bible concordance was a wonderful tool for finding words in the Bible. Furthermore, if you could find words, you could also find expressions, although it could be quite a lot of work. The very first expression I remember looking up in a concordance was “terror on every side”. As a teenager, it seemed to me that I came across it on every second page when we were reading through Jeremiah as a family. So I pulled out my copy of Strong’s Concordance – the one with a gaudy purple cover which I still have – and began the search.Continue reading
By Mark Morgan | Jeremiah
In the time of King Josiah, the book of the law was found in the temple of Yahweh. It was read to Josiah and the words he heard caused him to tear his clothes and weep (2 Chronicles 34:19-21, 27; 2 Kings 22:11, 19) because the nation had not obeyed the laws it contained. Josiah expected that the punishments promised in the book of the law would follow.Continue reading
By Mark Morgan | Jeremiah
In Australia, we use the Gregorian calendar (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregorian_calendar), which was first introduced in various Roman Catholic countries in 1582 and gradually spread over the rest of the world over the next 350 years. Although there are still many different calendars in local use around the world, the Gregorian calendar is by far the most common one used for international dates. According to this calendar, the average year contains 365.2425 days, due to the careful inclusion of leap days added according to a defined plan.Continue reading