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 | Exodus , 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

God’s judgement of priests in Jeremiah’s time

By Mark Morgan | Jeremiah , Minor prophets

God’s priests

When God led the people of Israel out of Egypt to Mount Sinai, they quickly went astray while Moses was up on the mountain.  Only the Levites worshipped God as he wanted them to and so he selected them as his special tribe in Israel.  Not only that, but he selected Moses’ brother Aaron as priest, and said that his descendants after him would inherit this important task. Did they do the job well? Are we told what God’s judgement of priests was?Continue reading

Events around the birth of Jesus

By Mark Morgan | Harmonies , Jesus

Events around the birth of Jesus

We are given quite a bit of detail surrounding the birth of Jesus and his early life in the gospels of Matthew (Matthew 1:18-2:23) and Luke (Luke 2:1-52), but there is little overlap in the details given.  Putting the two together as a parallel record can help us understand when various events took place.Continue reading

Quotations from Jeremiah

By Mark Morgan | Jeremiah

Quotations from the Old Testament

Writers in the New Testament often refer to passages from the Old Testament – including some quotations from Jeremiah.  Used for two main reasons, this habit ties the two testaments very closely together.  So what are the two reasons?Continue reading

Bible Covenants

By Mark Morgan | Exodus , 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

Mourning in the Bible

By Mark Morgan | Jeremiah

Mourning in the Bible

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

The Passover Lamb

By Mark Morgan | Exodus , Jeremiah , Passover

The Passover

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).

A lamb in the home?

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