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Casual English Bible

By Stephen M. Miller

Collection of all the Bible book introductions in The Casual English Bible

Collection of all the Bible book introductions in The Casual English Bible

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Collection of all the Bible book introductions in The Casual English Bible

Intro Notes for Book 2 of 5 in Psalms

Psalms featured image

Many of the individual psalms in Book 2 are laments, as in Book 1, but there are also psalms that call down blessings on a human king and psalms that insist that God is king over both Israel and other lands. Again, like Book 1, Book 2 contains a number of psalms associated with David, but it also includes psalms that are associated with various guilds, such as the Korahites.

Choirs of Korahites

 Music at the Temple was generally overseen by a number of guilds made up of members of the tribe of Levi, one of the twelve tribes that made up the original nation of Israel. Levite families worked as priests and worship leaders and assistants for the Jewish nation. It is not clear whether the guild members composed the psalms or merely preserved them and sang them. Subtitles to some individual psalms give instructions to these guild members about how to sing and accompany particular songs, sometimes even assigning a certain tune.

Psalms 42­­–49 are credited to the Korahites, as are Psalms 84, 85, 87, & 88 in Book 3. The Korahites were members of a guild of singers descended from Korah (2 Chroncles 20:19). The psalms in Book 2 that are ascribed to the Korahites include three laments, the first of which (Psalm 42), speaks of panting for God in the way that a thirsty deer pants for water. (A similar image is found in Psalm 63:1, attributed to David, where the psalmist thirsts for God “Like parched land thirsts for water.”) In contrast, the Korahite psalm 45 is a royal wedding hymn, addressed to a king and queen on their wedding day.

Other Korahite psalms celebrate God as commander of the nations and protector of Jerusalem and its Temple. Psalm 47 asserts that God is king not only of Israel but of all peoples, the people of the kingdom that is to come, which is evoked in the Lord’s prayer.

Psalm 49, the last psalm attributed to the Korahites in Book 2, stresses that all of us will die, rich and poor alike. We can can buy up all the real estate in the world, but in the end, we’ll give up all those lands “for a cemetery plot.” (Psalm 49:11).

More about David

 Book 2 ends with a collection of 18 Davidic psalms (51–65, 68–70). Of these, eight psalms address incidents in David’s life: Psalms 51, 52, 54, 56, 57, 59, 60, and 63. Another, Psalm 53, is nearly identical to Psalm 14. This repetition indicates that the five books of Psalms were put together separately, not by a single editor at one given point in time.

The psalms tied to incidents in David’s life need not be thought of as historical pieces but may be turned into personal prayers. For example, the subtitle of Psalm 51, a kind of sinner’s song, claims that this lament was written in response to David’s sin of seducing Bathsheba then having her husband killed. However, there is nothing in the psalm itself that ties it to David or anyone else. It is simply the impassioned plea of a sinner for forgiveness. And it can certainly be used by any of us to ask forgiveness for whatever sins we may have committed. (The blood mentioned can be thought to represent any injuries we have caused to others.)

A number of psalms praise God and thank him for his many gifts and for the mighty deeds he has performed to save his people. Psalm 68 praises God because he looks after orphans and widows, the lonely, and prisoners; It also praises God for leading Israel to victory and rescuing Israel when needed. It then describes a procession of Israel’s tribes into the Temple and concludes by praising God, who is mighty, majestic, and the source of strength for his people.

Get the bad guys

Other psalms ask God for his protection from all sorts of danger and insult. In particular, Psalm 69 calls out,

“Please God, “save me
I’m neck-deep in rising water
I’m sinking in the mud.” (Psalm 69:1–2).

It goes on to complain that

“I don’t have enough hairs on my head
To represent people who hate me for no good reason.” (Psalm 69:4).

These spiteful people, the psalmist continues, have been falsely accusing him of theft and making fun of him for fasting and praying.  Furthermore, gossips gossip about him and drunks sing about him. Finally, when the psalmist was desperately searching for compassion, his foes “seasoned my food with poison. And they tried to quench my thirst with vinegar.” (Psalm 69:21) Some Christians see the giving of vinegar to the thirsty as a prophecy of Jesus on the cross. The psalm concludes with a promise to praise God in return for help.

Psalm 70, which calls for God to stop the people who laugh at the psalmist and want him dead, is very similar to Psalm 40:13­–17 in Book 1, but the subject of old age is added here. Psalm 71:18 pleads, “God, don’t ignore me when I’m old and gray.” It then alternates calls for help in old age with lavish praises of God’s goodness.

Psalm 52 remembers that God can be trusted to punish those who do wrong, telling these villains that God is going “to beat you into the dirt forever . . . deport you from the land of the living” (Psalm 52:5).  Psalm 58 is even harsher. Forgetting all about “love your neighbor,” it is a bitter curse on those who do evil, asking God to “smash the teeth / Right outta their mouths” (Psalm 58:6) and let evildoers “die slowly, like snails dissolving into slime” (Psalm 52:8).

Dying kings and newly crowned kings.

Kings are also the subject of a few of the psalms in Book 2. Psalm 61 is a lament by a king who is gravely ill. A request is made in verse 6 of this psalm to “Let the king live a long life. / Let him see grandkids and great-grandkids.” This brings to mind the story of Hezekiah in 2 Kings 20, where the dying king is granted 15 more years of life in answer to his prayer.

In contrast, Ps 72, the final psalm in Book 2, seems to be celebrating the coronation of a new king. The psalm calls down blessings on the king, asking that his reign to be peaceful and prosperous and predicting that the king will be just and will care for the needy. Then, at the end of verse 16, the psalm breaks off from its main subject, the king, and ends with a doxology (a call to praise God). This doxology was probably added to the original psalm by the person compiling the collection to give it the traditional ending for a Book of the Psalms.

The end, except it’s not

 Psalm 72 is followed by a note that says that the psalms of David, the son of Jesse, are ended. As Psalm 72 itself seems to come to an end with verses 18–19, It is possible that an earlier collection of psalms ‘of David’ ended with this note. It is not, however, the last of the psalms associated with David. Eighteen more will follow, 15 of them in Book 5. This fact bolsters the argument that the five books of psalms were not put together at the same time. When this note was added at the end of Book 2 the editor probably expected no more psalms to follow. The final three books of psalms, then, were probably added at a later date.

By Robert V. Huber

editorial advisor
retired Reader’s Digest Bible Books editor
Co-author, with Stephen M. Miller, of The Bible: A History

Intro Notes for Book 1 of 5 in Psalms

Psalms featured image

Book 1 of Psalms is a book in a book in a book.

Introduction to Psalms, book 1. Yes, Psalms Book 1 is just part of the book of Psalms, which makes it a book in a book.

But both books are part of the book called the Bible, which makes Book 1 of Psalms in the Bible a book in a book in a book.

There are five books in Psalms, each ending with a song of praise often called a doxology (from the Greek, meaning “words of praise”):

  • Book 1 (Psalms 1–41)
  • Book 2 (Psalms 42–72)
  • Book 3 (Psalms 73–89)
  • Book 4 (Psalms 90–106)
  • Book 5 (Psalms 107–150)

 Chinese Book Boxes

What are all these books? It’s like a set of Chinese boxes, one inside the other, except that these boxes are books.

But that’s the way it is. The Book of Psalms is not a single work, like Genesis or Jeremiah. It is a collection of 150 individual psalms that are used in Jewish and Christian worship. The psalms were not written by a single author or even during a single period of time. They were created as needed and sung or chanted during worship services in Bible times, just as hymns are sung during Christian church services today. In fact, the biblical psalms are often included among the hymns Christians sing.

Early Hymnals

 At some point in time, probably in the days of King Solomon, workers at the newly built Temple began gathering groups of popular psalms together onto single scrolls, forming the first Jewish hymnals. Because these early collections were probably made by different people, some psalms ended up appearing in more than one collection. Much later, sometime after the Babylonians conquered Jerusalem and brought the Jewish people into exile in the area that is now Iraq, psalms from various collections were brought together into the five books we have today. Some Bible scholars see these five books as reflecting the five books of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Old Testament, which Jews consider their Law.) Although there seems to be no sure organization within these five books, each book ends with verses or entire psalms that simply praise God.

Be Wise and Love the Law

Book 1 of the Psalms starts off with a psalm that acts as a general introduction to the entire Book of Psalms and is more Wisdom Literature than prayer or hymn. It announces in poetic style that we must think about God’s Law all the time and follow it. If we do, we will be blessed. If we don’t, we will be doomed. This same theme will be picked up in Psalm 19, later in Book 1, and in Psalm 119, the longest of all the Psalms, which is placed at the center of Book 5.

David is the Man

Books 1–3 of the Book of Psalms present devotion to God as seen through King David. In Book 1 many of the psalms center on David and his successors, holding David up as God’s chosen one. In fact, Book 1 includes just over half the psalms associated with David (37 out of 73) and of these, four address incidents in David’s life (Psalms 3, 7, 18, and 34). However, all these associations with David are made in the psalms’ subtitles, which were added later and may not reflect the intentions of the original authors.

The first of these ‘Davidic’ psalms, Psalm 2, which seems to be a celebration of the coronation of David, asserts that God himself has chosen David and made him king. Then, echoing the opening psalm, it warns rival kings to “Respect the LORD and do what he asks. If you don’t, be afraid.” (Psalm 2:11).

Because it is also found in 2 Samuel 22, Psalm 18 seems to be more genuinely Davidic than the others. Many Bible scholars believe that both this psalm and the beloved Psalm 23 (“The Lord is my shepherd”) may have actually been written by David.

The other psalms associated with David are of various types, including psalms that were part of Temple service rituals. For example, Psalm 15 asks: “LORD, who’s allowed in your worship center?” Psalm 24 seems to have been sung or chanted in processions going to the temple, as it calls out “Open up, city gates.” The greatest number of psalms associated with David in Book 1, however, are laments.

Nobody Knows the Troubles I’ve Seen

We have all been there at one time or another. We’ve all felt at times that everything has gone wrong and that God has deserted us. It is easy to get angry with God for not giving us what we think we want. More than a third of the psalms in the Book of Psalms express such feelings. A large number of them ask God why he seems to be ignoring our prayers. Psalm 31 begins by crying out, “LORD, how long are you going to keep this up? / Are you going to ignore me forever?” In fact, the words “how long” appear repeatedly in these psalms, which are generally known as laments. Psalm 3 is the first of the laments found in the Book of Psalms.

The reasons for the pain expressed in the laments range from serious illness to people are out to get me. Some of these psalms vent their anger at God and even blame him for the troubles we’re in. And that is the beauty of these psalms. They show us that it is not wrong to complain to God or be angry with God. Nor is it a sign of lack of faith in God. After all, why would we ask for help from someone if we didn’t believe they existed and could help?

Songs expressing timeless ideas

Although these psalms of lament were written by individuals who lived in Bible times, and are sometimes attributed to specific individuals, such as David, the feelings they express can be felt by anybody at any period in time. The enemies referred to in the psalms don’t have to be political opponents or enemies in a war we are fighting with swords and spears. They can be quarrelsome neighbors or disagreeable fellow workers, or even a best buddy who has betrayed us (see Psalm 41:9).

In short, people have been using these psalms of lament for thousands of years to open their hearts to God. Even Jesus himself, as he hung on the cross, called out the opening words of Psalm 22: “My God, my God, why did you leave me? / You’re too far away.” In other psalms of lament, the person at prayer admits being a sinner and asks God for both forgiveness and help. Generally, each lament tells God what is going wrong, asks God for help, gives reasons why God should help, and promises to praise God and thank him once he has given that help.

Thanks, God, You’re Great

Finally, a number of the psalms In Book 1 celebrate the greatness of God, praising him as Creator, wondering at his great might, and asking why he bothers with us insignificant human beings. Others thank God for protecting us and for showering us with wonderful gifts.

Psalm 41, which brings Book 1 to a close, thanks God for helping good people. It also begs God to forgive our sins and asks him for help in warding off enemies. The final stanza brings Book 1 to a close by urging us to praise of God “from eternity past to forever.”

By Robert V. Huber

editorial advisor
retired Reader’s Digest Bible Books editor
Co-author, with Stephen M. Miller, of The Bible: A History

Intro Notes for Psalms

Psalms featured imagePsalms was the Jewish playlist in Bible times.

When Jews wanted a worship song to sing at the Jerusalem Temple, or alone at home, or on the road to Jerusalem, or at a celebration honoring the king, they could find one in this collection of 150 Hebrew poems.

These were poems written in lyrical style—fit to sing, chant, or think about while humming for those who couldn’t carry a tune.

There are songs:

  • of joy and thankfulness to God.
  • of complaint, about people, God, and life in general. The blues.
  • of dismay, confusion, and disappointment. Fear, too.
  • that tell about Jewish history
  • celebrating the Jewish Law.
  • of Wisdom, in the ancient style of Wisdom literature

Whatever the songs say, they say it as Hebrew poetry. It’s easy to recognize Hebrew poetry when we read it. Here’s the clue. One line says whatever it says, and the next either repeats that idea, contrasts it with an opposite idea, adds more to the idea, or in some other way builds on the bedrock of that first line.

For example:

“Be kind, LORD, because I’m sick.
Heal me, LORD, for I hurt all over” (6:2).

The second line says pretty much what the first line said.

Some English poetry is easy to spot because it rhymes. But as far as anyone has been able to tell, ancient Hebrew poetry didn’t rhyme at all. It did the rerun thing instead, working with parallel ideas compared, contrasted, or extended. Sometimes, to make the parallelism work, the writer uses different names for a place to avoid repeating the name. So, Jerusalem became Zion and Jacob (whose 12 sons produced extended families that became the 12 tribes of Israel) became Israel.

Knowing this can come in handy when we’re trying to figure out what to do with the lyrics the songwriter wrote. If it’s poetry, we might be less inclined to take the writer literally and more inclined to recognize the writer was driving with a poetic license.

Perhaps the most famous song of all is one we recite as someone approaches “the valley of the shadow of death,” Psalm 23. We remind ourselves that “the LORD is my shepherd.”

Jews call this songbook Tehilim, Hebrew for “songs of praise.” That’s half right.

Certainly there are a lot of praise songs in this 150-song playlist. But nearly half of the songs are complaints. People are calling on God for help because they’re sick, under attack, disappointed, or lonely.

You name the feeling, they sang it.

Some songs rip God a new face, expressing angry dissatisfaction with him:

“Why did you leave me… For all of my life, you have been my God” (22:1, 10).

Yet by song’s end, in most cases, the writer is back on good terms with God.

The lyrics often reflect life, telling the story of a faith journey with highs and lows, and of a God who is always there and always on the side of goodness.

Writer

King David gets what appears to be a byline for almost half the psalms, 73 of the 150. But that doesn’t mean he wrote them.

Subtitles that give the credit are vague: “A psalm of David.” The word “of” is the problem. It could mean he wrote it. But it could also mean someone merely wrote it about him or dedicated it to him.

Other Bible stories do confirm that Dave wrote songs and played music on a lyre, a harp that looks like it got wet and shrunk. When moody King Saul was feeling spooked and spooky, he called for David to come and play him some calming music on the lyre (1 Samuel 16:14-23). That usually settled his nerves.

David later wrote a song of mourning about the battlefield death of King Saul and Saul’s sons: “How have the mighty fallen!” (2 Samuel 1:19-27 New American Standard Bible.). An ancient Jewish scroll from about the time of Jesus, discovered among the famous Dead Sea Scrolls, reports that David wrote 3,600 songs.

Despite all the attention paid to David in the Book of Psalms, most scholars seem to agree that it’s unlikely that David personally wrote more than a handful of its 150 psalms. Other psalm writers probably included professional musicians associated with David and his successors. In addition, some of the laments (psalms that express complaints, dismay, confusion, or general misery) may have been written by individual worshipers, who left copies of their anguished prayers in the Temple, where musicians later adapted them for use in worship services.

What it all comes down to is that we really don’t know for sure who wrote any of the individual psalms.

Timeline

These songs are nearly impossible to date because they don’t usually tell a story with characters from history. They express timeless feelings, struggles, and hopes.

Some may have been written in David’s lifetime, some 3,000 years ago.

Some songs talk about life in Babylonian exile in what is now Iraq; and that happened 500 years after David, in the 500s BC.

Other songs go back to the time of Moses, some 200 to 400 years before David (scholars debate when Moses lived, 1200s BC or 1400s BC). But there’s no way to tell when those songs were written. They could have been written long after Moses by someone reflecting on Israel’s ancient history.

12 tribes of IsraelLocation

Most psalms seem set in what is now Israel and Palestinian Territories, also called the Holy Land. Some are set in Egypt. Others talk about Jews in exile in ancient Babylon, which is now Iraq.

Intended readers

Jews used these songs to worship, much like Jews and Christians today use music to express their faith and their feelings.

Some songs were used in coronation rituals to crown a new king or to honor the anniversary of his reign.

Fifteen songs are called “songs of ascent” (Psalm 120-134). Jewish travelers sang these songs as they walked to Jerusalem to celebrate one of the religious holidays, such as Passover. The songs became known as songs of “ascent” because Jerusalem was in the Judean hills on top of a ridge next to the Mount of Olives ridge. No matter what direction travelers came from, they had to climb to reach Jerusalem.

Return to Psalms 1

Intro Notes to Ecclesiastes

Intro Notes to Ecclesiastes

King Solomon—reportedly the world’s wisest human ever—searches for the meaning of life. Like it’s a science project.

He writes up his finding:

There is no meaning. Humans exist. Then they die.

The contrarian’s Bible

This is one of those contrary books that doesn’t belong in the Bible, some Jewish scholars have said.

For one, it’s not kosher teaching. Human life is meaningless? He says it a lot. That’s depressing. Who would want to read a book like this on a rainy Monday morning after getting fired on Friday?

Besides, the book could sound like an insult to God. He created us. For what? We go from diapers to diapers, then dead. Saints or sinners, no difference. Dead.

And for another, the writer is a flake, to paraphrase Jewish scholars. They criticize him for sometimes saying one thing and later saying the opposite.

Laugh

“I have a prescription for that craziness.

Enjoy.

That’s the best thing you can do for yourself.

Eat, drink, and have fun” (Ecclesiastes 8:15).

Don’t laugh

“Laughing is insane. And having fun makes no sense” (Ecclesiastes 2:2).

If we need a reason not to laugh

“It’s better to go to a funeral
With a lot of people crying
Than to party with a lot of food.
We’re all going to end up dead.
We might as well accept it”(Ecclesiastes 7:2).

Did the writer know God?

Some Christian students of the Bible say the writer didn’t know much about God, if the man’s writing is any clue. So, they conclude that the point of the book is to show how bleak life is for people without a spiritual connection to God—and without the hope of an afterlife.

Yet the man mentions God scores of times, and he does it with respect:

  • “Eat and drink—and to find a job you enjoy. All three, I concluded, are gifts from God” (Ecclesiastes 2:24).
  • “If we stay on God’s good side, he’ll reward us with knowledge, wisdom, and joy” (Ecclesiastes 2:26)
  • “Whatever God does will last forever” (Ecclesiastes 3:14).

Why are we here?

This writer is a Thinker. If nothing else, he seems to set aside all the sermons and Bible studies he has ever heard lectured into his face. And he chooses to ask the honest questions, which are often life’s hardest questions.

He wants to know why we’re here.

Why do we live, only to die? Why don’t we make a difference? Why will everyone forget us?

Tragically, this writer might say, if pressed:  God isn’t big on answering “why” questions.

Without answers to these questions, the writer can’t make sense of life when the best that comes from it is ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

Quite the downer. But with surprising uplifts. A bit like a dark hero in a novel. He knows he’s going to die, but he’s going to have good times before the bad times come.

Solomon’s bullets of wisdom

Let the good times roll.

  • Enjoy your food and drinks (Ecclesiastes 2:24)
  • Find a job you enjoy (2:24)
  • Enjoy your life because you’ll be dead too soon (9:9)
  • Eat, drink, and have fun” (8:15).

But this writer respects his Creator. And his final words show that he wants us to do the same.

  • Respect God (12:13)
  • Obey his laws (12:13)

Writer

“David’s son, the Scholar and King of Jerusalem, offers these observations” (Ecclesiastes 1:1). That’s a triple-dip clue pointing to David’s son and successor, King Solomon.

First dip: Solomon was David’s one son of many who became king.

Second: A Bible writer quoted God as saying he would make Solomon the wisest person in the world and in human history, past, present, and future (1 Kings 4:31).

That tracks with the title he gives himself in Ecclesiastes. In Hebrew, it’s Koheleth (co HELL et). A koheleth could be someone who convenes a meeting or teaches a class or gives a speech to an audience. English words that might describe this person: Teacher, Preacher, Scholar.

Third: Bible writers credit Solomon with writing 3,000 proverbs, which are often fortune-cookie-size snippets of insight and advice, like many in Ecclesiastes (1 Kings 4:32).

“Ecclesiastes” comes from the Greek word ekklesia, which means “assembly,” or “meeting.”

Solomon, not the writer?

Rabbis in Roman times (and the New Testament) generally seemed to accept Solomon as writer, though some opposed including this short in the Jewish Bible. Later scholars noticed Persian words in the text, which they said could date the book to 500 years after Solomon. Some scholars said they see Greek influences in the writing.

The oldest tattered piece of the book to survive is dated in the 100s BC. It was found among the famous Dead Sea Scrolls, in dry caves by the Dead Sea in the 1940s.

map of Solomon's kingdom

Timeline

The story, whether fiction or fact, takes place during the lifetime of King Solomon. He ruled Israel for a generation, from about 970-930 BC.

Without using the name of “Solomon,” the writer identifies himself as King Solomon. He does this with strong hints (Ecclesiastes 1:1, 12, 16; 2:7, 9). For one, “I had more of everything than anyone in the history of Jerusalem (2:9). One Bible writer backs that up by reporting that Solomon was the richest king in the world (2 Chronicles 9:22).

Location

The story seems to take place mainly in Israel, probably in the king’s palace in the capital city of Jerusalem.

Yet, this writer says he has been around the block a time or two. Some of his observations come from traveling:

“If you travel to a land where rulers treat people horribly and they reject justice, don’t be surprised. That’s how it works. One official covers for another—from the bottom to the top” (Ecclesiastes 5:8).

Purpose

This book pits the wisest man who ever lived against the hardest question of all time. Solomon wants to know what on earth we’re doing here.

In other words, given the fact of death, what’s the point of life? Why bother?

“Nothing really matters because we all end up at the same place. Dead…What happens to good people will happen to sinners” (Ecclesiastes 9:2).

Wise as the writer says he is, he can make no sense of life.

But he does offer some advice:

  • “Enjoy life” (Ecclesiastes 3:12).
  • “Love God and obey his laws” (Ecclesiastes 12:13).

Extra resources

Bible Gateway

Fun with Ecclesiastes

Cover for video Fun with Ecclesiastes

Watch on (Vimeo) or (YouTube)

Intro Notes to Esther

Intro notes to Esther

Sometimes stories in life go wild, for real. And we couldn’t write them any better even if we were free to take a left turn at fiction and go a little crazy. Esther reads like the flipped side of that pancake, some scholars suggest.

They say it’s just a little too wild and crazy to file under “history.” Yet, the anonymous writer says this is the story behind how Jews started celebrating the most party-hearty holiday on their religious calendar: Purim.

It’s on the house

The story starts with King Xerxes the Great on a seven-day drunk. It’s a party with his officials, honoring himself.

This is the same Xerxes whose army, about one year before his marriage to Esther, crushed King Leonidas’ Spartan warriors at a narrow mountain pass in the Battle of Thermopylae, in 480 BC. Xerxes sailed on to capture Athens and conquered much of Greece. He would, however, return to Persia with only half his army.

At the end of his seven-day drunk, when Xerxes is “juiced and happy” (Esther 1:10), he calls his number one wife, Queen Vashti, to come and show the guys how pretty she is.

She kindly says the dickens with that.

The king consults his lawyers who say the queen, by her refusal, offended men everywhere. On their recommendation, he fires her—banning her from ever coming to see him again. He may have killed her. It’s hard to tell. And if it’s fiction, it probably doesn’t matter.

Also on legal advice, he makes a decree by royal executive order: “He declared every man the boss of his own family. Period” (Esther 1:21).

Persian beauty contest

Later, he starts thinking about Vashti and perhaps what he’s missing. He may have needed a good hug because his staff recommends a beauty contest. They say he’ll be able to pick a gorgeous substitute for Vashti—maybe even a younger model upgrade with shinier fenders.

He tries out a lot of contestants, spending a night with each one. But a Jewish orphan named Esther wins. She had what the king wanted. But it could sound like she cheated. She got a little help from a eunuch: “advice” (Esther 2:15).

Two men with egos

The cousin who raised her, Mordecai, refused to bow to the king’s top official, Haman, who hated him for it. Haman is such a poor excuse of a human that even today when Jews read this story aloud, they make noise when it’s time to drown out his name.

He’s a man who seemed to have it all: murderous influence and power, a fragile ego, and the bad timing of a bank robber with a flat tire.

He plots to kill Mordecai and all Jews in the empire. With what could sound like a caricature of a bribe— one-third of a million tons of silver (Esther 3:9)—he convinces the king to decree the genocide and to schedule it. All the king seems to know about these people is what Haman told him: “there’s a group of people among us who follow their own laws instead of yours” (Esther 3:8).

Surprise, the queen is a Jew, too

Too bad Haman didn’t know Mordecai was a Jew who had recently saved the king from assassination, or that Queen Esther was Jew to the bone.

The pretty, young Esther asks her lover the king to please save her and her relatives from this mean man.

Xerxes can’t revoke his first decree. It’s apparently against Persian law. But he could and did make a new one, allowing Jews to defend themselves.

By the story’s end, Haman and his 10 sons are hung on stakes, possibly impaled, a Persian preference. The story wraps with Jews escaping the holocaust by fighting back and killing 75,000 enemies. Mordecai takes Haman’s job as Xerxes’ number one man.

That’s a happy ending for Jews and an ending for Haman.

Possibly history—in part or in full, some say:

“Writers preserved the stories about Mordecai and his achievements. They’re recorded in the History of the Kings Medes and Persians” (Esther 10:2). Still looking for that book.

Writer

Unknown. And that’s too bad. This short story delivers a drunken king, a beauty contest, and a planned holocaust—all before wrapping up with a good laugh or two. In Hebrew lit, there are few stories that can hold a reader’s interest better than Esther.

Possible writers: Ezra and Nehemiah are a couple names scholars mention, since the writing style is similar. Yet Esther has all the umph of Ezra and Nehemiah, but with an extra kick in the getalong.

Mordecai apparently knew how to write, too (Esther 9:31). He’s certainly a fair guess.

Timeline

The story takes place during the reign of King Xerxes, known in the Bible by his Hebrew name, Ahasuerus. Esther became his queen in about 479 BC, 30 years before Ezra and Nehemiah left Persia for Jerusalem. Xerxes the Great reigned for 21 years, from 486 BC until his top bodyguard assassinated him in 465 BC.

map of Persian Empire in the time of King Xerxes and Queen EstherLocation

Most of the story seems to take place in Susa, one of the main capital cities of the sprawling Persian Empire. Susa was in what is now Iran, near the border with Iraq.

The empire stretched 2,800 miles (4,500 km) from the Indus Valley on India’s border in the distant east, to Egypt, Libya, and Ethiopia’s border in the southwest. That’s about Bangor, Maine to Los Angeles.

Purpose

The anonymous writer tells the story of how Jews came to celebrate Purim, their happiest holiday of all. This celebration is as close as a Jew can get to dancing, singing, and partying like Mardi Gras, without going to Mardi Gras.

Jews in the Bible story are happy because their Queen Esther saved them from genocide—an empire-wide Jewish holocaust.

An evil guy named Haman, the king’s number one official, decided to kill all Jews. To pick a kill date, he threw “lots” which was something like throwing dice. “Lots” in the native language of Akkadian was pur, which is why the holiday became known as Purim.

Intro Notes to Nehemiah

INTRO NOTES TO NEHEMIAH

Nehemiah is one odd story. He’s a Jew serving wine to a Persian king in what is now Iran. Who saw that coming?

The king, Artaxerxes, trusts this Jewish man with his life.

How did Nehemiah get there? Likely he was the descendant of Jews taken captive to Babylon (Iraq) about 150 years earlier, when Babylon leveled Jerusalem and other cities and took the Jews captive.

About 50 years later, Persia (Iran) defeated Babylon and freed the Jews and other captives to go home. But many Jews stayed because they grew up in exile. Iraq and Iran was the only homeland they knew. Yet, many returned to the land of their ancestors to rebuild Jerusalem and the other cities.

Nehemiah gets word that Jerusalem’s walls are still broken down and the city gates are gone. It’s a city undefended. He can’t believe it. By this time, Jews have had about 90 years to fix those walls.

Winetaster becomes city builder

So, Nehemiah talks the king into giving him a 12-year leave of absence so he can repair the walls. It certainly seems odd that the king would grant his winetaster’s Big Ask. Yet the king also agrees to give him the wood for the job, sends him with a detachment of soldiers as an escort, and then appoints him governor over the Jewish province of Judah.

That’s what the southern Jewish nation of Judah had become, a Persian province ruled by a Persian king who even chose the songs Jews could sing at the Temple (Nehemiah 11:23).

Earlier, when Babylon exiled Jews from their homeland, settlers moved in. They hated the idea of Jews returning to power because it meant the Jews would try to take back the land and get rid of everyone else.

Nehemiah had 12 years to fix the walls. It took him 52 days.

Nehemiah rallied Jerusalem-area Jews to join the work. They felt the clock sands slipping away while their neighbors plotted to stop the work. Murdering Nehemiah seems to have been one plan on the table. Attacking the work crew was another.

Jewish construction workers carried their weapons on the job in daylight, guarded the walls all night, and didn’t get much sleep during those 52 days and nights.

Nehemiah spent the rest of his 12-year leave reminding the people what it meant to be Jewish. They studied the Laws of Moses that we read today as the first five books in the Bible.

Misbehaving Jewish priests

Nehemiah returned to Persia perhaps because his leave was up or for the annual celebration of the king’s coronation day. But he came back, apparently to deal with misbehaving Jews.

He dealt with corruption among the priests. He even banished a son of the high priest. Then he prayed for the man’s family:

“God above, remember that rotten family. They stink up the priesthood and spit on the covenant of their ministry as priests and Levites” (Nehemiah 13:29).

He convinced the Jewish to people renew their vows to God and reminded them of how to behave.

Once, he got ranting, face-slapping, hair-pulling mad about Jewish men marrying non-Jews. He insisted that Jews marry Jews. Nehemiah said, “I made them swear an oath: ‘I will not let my sons and daughters marry foreigners. Period” (Nehemiah 13:25).

He told the people that marriages with foreigners are what got the Jewish nations erased. Jews married outsiders and started living like outsiders, ignoring God and worshiping idols.

He didn’t want the Jews to fall into that trap again. Neither did a priest named Ezra, whose story appears in the Bible Book of Ezra, just in front of Nehemiah’s story.

For a time, the two seemed to work as a tag team that took on all offenders of the Laws of Moses.

Writer

“I’m Nehemiah, Hacaliah’s son. And this is my story” (Nehemiah 1:1). The books of Ezra and Nehemiah were originally one book. Ezra’s book has no byline and Nehemiah is written in the first person, as his personal memoire.

Jewish tradition says Ezra wrote his story and added Nehemiah’s at the end.

Together, the books followed stories from the early history of Israel, preserved in 1 and 2 Chronicles, which were originally one book as well.

Timeline

586 BC, Babylon levels Jerusalem, takes Jewish captives to Babylon

539 BC, Babylon surrenders to Persians

538 BC, Persians free Jews and other captives

516 BC, Jews finish rebuilding Temple

458 BC, Ezra arrives

446 BC, Nehemiah arrives and repairs Jerusalem walls

433 BC, Nehemiah visits Persian king Artaxerxes, returns to Jerusalem

424 BC, Artaxerxes dies of natural causes

408 BC, Egyptian document IDs Sanballat as governor of Samaria

 

Bible map of Persian Empire freeing Jews Map of Jerusalem 3D style - Casual English Bible

Nehemiah’s story starts in about 446 BC. That’s close to 150 years after Babylonian invaders from what is now Iraq leveled Jerusalem and exiled Jews who survived the war. It’s also about 90 years after Jews started returning to rebuild their cities.

Nehemiah spent about a dozen years serving as Judah’s governor. He went back to Persia, but was sent back to Judah a second time, apparently because some important Jews were abusing their power.

Location

Four stops: Persian capital city of Susa, then to Jerusalem, back to Susa, and back to Jerusalem.

Nehemiah’s story starts in the palace of the Persian king, in Susa—now Shush, Iran. The story quickly shifts to Jerusalem, roughly a thousand miles away (1,600 km). There, repairs the city’s broken walls. About a dozen years later he goes back to see the king, perhaps because his leave is up or to celebrate the king’s 32nd year on the throne. But he gets sent back to Jerusalem, perhaps on a mission to clean up the corruption caused by the high priest.

Purpose

Nehemiah’s memoires tell how he led Jerusalem-area Jews on a miraculous, 52-day marathon construction job: repairing Jerusalem’s walls and rebuilding the gates.

With the walls built, he picked a new project. As he put it:

“I cleaned up that town. I got rid of everything that wasn’t kosher” (Nehemiah 13:30).

He forced the Jews to stop buying and selling on the Sabbath; he closed the city gates during Sabbath, so merchants couldn’t come in.

He appointed honest Jews as Temple treasurers. The high priest had been hoarding the grain, wine, and other donated items instead of sharing them with Temple workers as their salary. Jewish law said Temple workers share what is donated.

That put the Temple workers back on the job. They had started working on farms to make a living. So, Temple singers were making music again, Guards stood at the gates. And Jews were again bringing their donations and sacrifices to the Temple.

Jerusalem was looking Jewish again.

Nehemiah ended his memoire with a prayer:

“Don’t forget who I am, God. Remember the good parts of my life” (Nehemiah 13:31).

Who can’t warm up to a prayer like that?

Intro Notes to Ezra

INTRO NOTES TO EZRA

For an entire generation, half a century, Jewish priests like Ezra were jobless in their fields. For priests, work revolved around the Jerusalem Temple. But it had been a busted rock pile since Babylonian invaders leveled it in 586 BC.

Then along came an Iranian (Persian in Bible times). He conquered the Iraqis (Babylonians in Bible times). His name was Cyrus, king of Persia. He freed Babylon’s political captives, including Jews the Babylonians brought back with them after the war.

Remarkably, Cyrus and Persian kings after him paid for supplies to rebuild the Jerusalem Temple. Seven of the 10 chapters in Ezra’s short book are about struggles Jews faced in rebuilding that Temple. Local non-Jewish officials opposed it. They didn’t want the Jewish nation to rise from the dead. That may be because they lived in what used to be the Jewish nation. Jews might start confiscating their land.

Ezra’s dream job

Ezra’s dream was to teach Jews at Jerusalem’s Temple. He wanted them to know the laws of God, and to live by them. So, he left Babylon. He led a caravan on a three-and-a-half month march from Babylon to Jerusalem. They arrived in the summer. His story will end the next spring, as far as the Book of Ezra tells it.

With winter approaching, he discovers that many Jews—priests included—have married local, non-Jewish women. He rips his clothes and tears out some of his beard hair in horror.

Marrying non-Jews and adopting their religion and culture is what had gotten both Jewish nations erased from the world map. Israel fell to Assyria in 722 BC. Judah in the south fell to Babylon in 586 BC. To Ezra, it looks like the Jews haven’t learned a sliver of a thing.

So, the priest decides to teach them a lesson.

One hundred and thirteen Jewish men have married non-Jews. Some men had kids by those ladies. Ezra orders the men to divorce those wives and send them back to where they came from. And they’re to take the kids with them.

Hardcore.

WRITER

There’s no byline on Ezra’s story. Ancient Jewish tradition credits Ezra. But most of the book is history before his time. It sounds like it’s coming from a narrator.

On the other hand, much of what is written about Ezra seems written by him. He’s doing the talking—no third-person narrator.

The oldest copies of the Jewish Bible don’t separate Ezra and Nehemiah. They’re one book.

TIMELINE

586, Babylon levels Jerusalem, takes Jewish captives to Babylon

539 BC, Babylon surrenders to Persians

538 BC, Persians free Jews and other captives

516 BC, Jews finish rebuilding Temple

458 BC, Ezra arrives

446 BC, Nehemiah arrives and repairs Jerusalem walls

 

Ezra’s personal story in the book covers just one year, from the spring of 458 BC to the following spring of 457 BC.

The Book of Ezra, however, covers about 80 years. It starts with Jews wrapping up 50 years in exile to what is now Iraq. Babylonians had conquered the southern Jewish nation of Judah and destroyed Jerusalem in 586 BC. They took Jews home with them as captives.

Ezra 1 begins in 539 BC, when Persia King Cyrus conquers and assimilates the Babylonian Empire. He frees the people they took captive, including the Jews. Many go home and rebuild the Jerusalem Temple in 516 BC.

In the spring of 458 BC, some 80 years after the first Jewish exiles returned home, Ezra leads another group of Jews to Jerusalem. The nearly thousand-mile trip takes almost four months. They arrive in the summer.

By that winter, Ezra is ordering all Jewish men to divorce their non-Jewish wives. The story ends a few months later, in the spring, when 113 Jewish men reportedly divorced their wives.

Map Persian Empire's Susa, nestled alongside a mountain stream, at the foot of the Zagros Mountains of what is now Iran.

Map of Jerusalem 3D style - Casual English Bible

LOCATION

There are two main sites in Ezra:

—Babylon, a city near Baghdad, Iraq.

—Jerusalem

Ezra begins in Iraq, then called Babylon. At the time, Persian King Cyrus reigned over a growing empire, headquartered out of what is now Iran. He had just added the Babylonian Empire to his massive empire.

Ezra apparently lived in or near the Babylonian capital city of Babylon during the time of another Persian king, Artaxerxes (reigned 465-424 BC). Artaxerxes became king after a royal bodyguard assassinated Queen Esther’s notorious husband, Xerxes, killer of 300 Spartans in the Battle of Thermopylae.

Ezra lead a group of Jews from Babylon to Jerusalem, which is where Ezra’s story ends.

PURPOSE

Ezra tells two main stories:

—Rebuilding of the destroyed Jerusalem Temple

—Ezra’s order that Jewish men divorce their non-Jewish wives.

Jews rebuild the Temple, over the objections of regional non-Jews who take their complaints to one Persian king after another. It must have felt like a punch to the gut when the kings told them to use their own tax-collection income to fund the building project. Jews provided the labor. Local non-Jews provided the money.

Ezra’s second story was what some scholars call an overreaction to the destruction of the Temple and Babylon’s exile of the Jews. Prophets said God did this to punish them for breaking his laws, which distinguished the Jews as God’s people, uniquely devoted to him. But they became devoted to themselves.

Instead of making Israel more Jewish, they let the locals make them more non-Jewish. They intermarried the locals and embraced foreign gods and ungodly customs, like sleeping with temple prostitutes in what was considered an act of worship.

Ezra was horrified to see that the Jews hadn’t learned their lesson. So, he reminds them that it’s a sin to marry outside of the Jewish faith. And now it’s time to repent.

Intro for 1 Samuel

God picks three longshot characters to star in the stories of 1 Samuel.

Those three men—Samuel, Saul, and David—are longshots in the sense that if God ever bets on a horserace, he’ll pick the one with the worst odds. It seems God likes to win big. And he likes to make a splash that people will notice. These stories are action dramas about the morphing of Israel’s 12 tribes into one united nation under God.

Samuel

It all begins with Samuel as a longshot baby born to an infertile woman. Once he’s able to eat solid food, his mother gives him back to God. She takes him to the worship center, where he’s raised by Eli, a priest who did a bad job raising his own two sons. They grew up to become corrupt priests. But somehow, Samuel grew into a wonderful priest and prophet.

Saul

Israel’s first king, Saul, was a shy donkey herder until Samuel anointed him king—a job Saul didn’t want. When Samuel called in Israel’s tribal leaders and announced Saul as king, Saul wasn’t there. He was hiding among the baggage of the travelers. It seems a fair guess he was hanging with the donkeys who had hauled the baggage. King Saul made two huge mistakes. He disobeyed God’s strict orders. And he got insanely jealous of David’s popularity. He seemed to devote more time to hunting David than to preparing for the threat of Philistines living next door, along the coastland. David never showed any desire to kill Saul. Philistines killed him and three of his sons.

David

The Goliath Killer was the last son of nine—the runt of a shepherd’s family at a time when shepherds had only one way to go on the social ladder. Up. When the famous prophet and priest Samuel came to meet the family so he could anoint a future king, David’s dad called in all his sons but David. The youngest stayed with the livestock until Samuel insisted on meeting him, too.

By the last chapter in the book, Samuel and Saul are dead. So, David is no longer a refugee on the run from the king. He’s an experienced raider of non-Israelite towns. And he shares the livestock he takes with his friends and the leaders of his own tribe of Judah. That sets him up for the story that continues in 2 Samuel, when those friends will crown him king of Judah. Other tribes will follow later, to make him king of all Israel.

One book split in two

First and Second Samuel were written as one book. But it was too long to fit on a single scroll. So, when Jewish scholars translated it into the international language of the day, Greek, in the decades before Jesus was born, they split it into two books. They did the same with the books of Kings and Chronicles.

Writer

The writer is anonymous.

Timeline

Stories of 1 Samuel span about a century, from Samuel’s birth in roughly 1100 BC until King Saul’s death in a battle with the Philistines in about 1000 BC.

Big events

  • Infertile Hannah prays to get pregnant.
  • Hannah gives birth to Samuel.
  • Samuel says Eli’s priesthood ends here.
  • Philistines defeat Israel, Eli and sons die.
  • Samuel anoints Saul as first king of Israel.
  • Saul disobeys God and God withdraws his Spirit from the king.
  • Shepherd boy David kills Philistine champion, Goliath.
  • Saul gets jealous of David and tries to kill him.
  • David becomes a fugitive who attracts hundreds of followers.
  • Saul dies in a battle he loses to Philistines.

Perhaps the most famous scene of this century was the mortal combat between the Philistine’s best warrior, Goliath, and the only Israelite brave enough to fight him, David, a red-cheeked shepherd boy with a slingshot.

map of ancient Israel Casual English BibleLocation

Most stories take place in what is now Israel and the Palestinian Territories of Gaza and the West Bank.

Some Israelites—ancient ancestors of today’s Jewish people—lived on land they owned east of the Jordan River. That’s now in parts of the countries of Jordan and Syria.

Purpose

First Samuel shows what happens when the people insist on their way over God’s way. Israelites lost their shirts and nearly lost their country.

Early in the story, Israel essentially fires God as king. They want a king with skin, like other nations. Enter the donkey herder, Saul, who seems to be a terrible shot with a spear. He misses his son once and David twice (18:10-11; 19:10; 20:33). He and three of his sons die in a war he loses to the Philistines. Many Israelites abandon their homes and towns as they run for their lives. Philistines move in (1 Samuel 31:7).

Israel starts out as a nation, in chapter one, but ends in chapter 31 as fragmented tribes at risk of being driven out or assimilated into Philistine culture.

Intro Notes for Ruth

Ruth’s story

Drought in Israel forces a Bethlehem family to leave for greener pastures of Moab, a nation across the Dead Sea in what is now Jordan. And home of a woman named Ruth.

The Bethlehem husband and wife have two sons. They marry local Moabite women. But within 10 years, all the men are dead. Left alone are widowed Naomi and her two widowed daughters-in-law, Ruth and Orpah.

Where you go, I’ll go

Naomi decides to go back to Bethlehem. She hopes her relatives there will take care of her. She tells her daughters-in-law to do the same and go back to their parents. The three cry together, and Orpah leaves. Ruth refuses to go. She tells Naomi,

“Where you go, I’ll go.

Where you stay, I’ll stay” (Ruth 1:15).

Savior of the widows

When they get back to Bethlehem, Ruth goes to a barley field being harvested. She picks up grain missed by the harvester crew, as Israelite law allows. A rich farmer, Boaz, admires her devotion to Naomi. He gives Ruth extra grain to share with Naomi.

That’s just the news Naomi needed because she has been wanting to find a new husband to take care of Ruth. Boaz was a close relative of Naomi’s dead husband. That made him a candidate for the “family savior.”  That’s a man who, by Israelite law, marries the childless widow of a family member. It’s ancient social security.

His job is to take care of her and provide her with a son.  The woman’s first son from this marriage would take the family name of the dead husband. “That way, people in Israel won’t forget him” (Deuteronomy 25:6). And the woman would have a son to take care of her in her old age.

Ruth asks Boaz to marry her. He seems delighted. But there’s another man who’s a closer relative. So, Boaz meets him within a few hours after Ruth proposed. The other gent rejects the marriage. He said he doesn’t need another wife in his life.

Boaz marries Ruth. They have a boy: Obed.

Obed will grow up and have a son: Jesse.

Jesse will grow up and have at least seven sons, including one who will become Israel’s most famous and most admired king: David.

Writer

Unknown. Ruth’s story is a beautiful piece of literature. Like Esther, it’s one of the best in the Bible’s library. The prophet Samuel wrote the book according to the Talmud, a collection of ancient Jewish commentaries on the Jewish Bible, which is what Christians call the Old Testament. But some scholars say that’s unlikely because the birth of David is the climax of this story. Yet Samuel died before David became king. Still, it was Samuel who anointed David as God’s pick for the next king, after Saul (1 Samuel 16:13).

Timeline

Ruth lived perhaps a century before her great-grandson, David, became king of Israel in about 1000 BC.

It’s unclear when someone wrote the story. Some scholars guess a writer recorded the story in David’s day, to support his right to rule. Others guess that someone wrote it about 500 years later, while exiled in what is now Iraq. In 586 BC, Babylonian invaders from Iraq leveled Jewish cities, including Jerusalem, and erased the Jewish nation from the political map. Then they exiled Jewish survivors abroad, to keep the Jewish nation from reforming.

During this time of exile, Jews no longer had access to worship in the Jerusalem temple. So, many scholars say, they focused on preserving their heritage by writing many of the stories and teachings that later became their Bible, which Christians call the Old Testament or the First Testament.

 

Map of Bethlehem - Casual English Bible

Location

Most of the story takes place in Bethlehem, about six miles (9 km) south of Jerusalem. A man named Elimelech and his wife Naomi take their sons Mahlon and Chilion to Moab. That was a country about a 75-mile (120 km) weeklong walk around to the opposite side of the Dead Sea, in what is now Jordan.

 

Purpose

Perhaps the climactic ending of the book is the best place to look for a clue about why someone wrote the story 2,500 to 3,000 years ago.

“Jesse had a son, David.” (Ruth 4:21).

This is David’s story—his family tree in captivating narrative. It’s the story of where Israel’s favorite king came from—born in Bethlehem to a father from the tribe of Judah and a mother from Moab.

Intro Notes for Judges

Joshua is dead

Cue the leaders of Israel known as judges.

Israel has no formal leader for the first time since Moses walked the Israelites out of Egypt two generations earlier.

Joshua did, however, leave them with a mission:

  • “Tribes still need to conquer all the territory” (Joshua 23:4).
  • “Follow all the laws Moses wrote about in the Book of Teaching” (Joshua 23:6).

Israel does neither.

Breaking the rules

First, they learn to live with Canaanite locals. Some scholars say they were getting assimilated into the Philistine nation that dominated them until Samson came along and made love to their women. That started a chain of events ending with Samson killing their soldiers, burning their fields, and driving a wedge of animosity between Israel and the Philistines.

Second, the Israelites bail on God.

They stop worshiping God and start worshiping local gods. Maybe they do this because the local Canaanites are better farmers, and Israelites figure it’s because local gods are better than their God when it comes to farming. Maybe some do it because the sex rituals are fun (Numbers 25:1-8).

After the first story, all the others feel like reruns. Every story follows a similar pattern:

  • Israelites sin, usually by turning their back on God.
  • God punishes them, usually by sending raiders or neighboring oppressors who heavily tax them and treat them like lowlifes.
  • Israel’s people ask God to forgive them and to rescue them.
  • God sends a leader who usually rallies Israel to fight their way to freedom. Samson, an exception, fights them alone.
  • The leader dies and the cycle starts over. Sin. Punishment. Regret. Rescue.

Stories end with a civil war. Reading about it feels like watching a movie full of nothing but bad characters doing stupid stuff. All the tribes gang up on the tribe of Benjamin, killing everyone but 600 of their men who escape.

In the end, there’s no leader. There’s anarchy.

The reason for the anarchy and all the bad choices the people made?

“Israel didn’t have a king at the time. So, everyone did whatever they wanted” (Judges 21:25).

Writer

Anonymous. One of the most popular theories today say an Israelite historian from Judah’s tribe wrote it, since Judah gets promoted to lead the tribes (1:2).

The writer may have compiled the stories sometime after King Saul died (about 1004 BC) but before David became king of all the tribes (about 1010 BC). That timing might fit since writer says Benjamin’s tribe hadn’t been able to get rid of the Jebusite people in Jerusalem. “Jebusites still live there today” (Judges 1:21).

David eventually conquered the Jebusites, declared Jerusalem his capital city, and humbly renamed it “City of David” (2 Samuel 5:6).

Many scholars in past centuries said they thought the prophet Samuel was the most likely writer. That theory isn’t as popular today.

Timeline

Uncertain. These stories may have taken place over a stretch of about 300 years, from the death of Joshua—perhaps in about 1375 BC—to just before Saul became Israel’s first king in about 1050 BC. But some scholars say Joshua arrived in Canaan closer to 1200 BC.

To get the total years spanning Judges, we can’t simply add up the reported years for each of the dozen leaders. Some leaders seem to have led just part of Israel’s territory. So, two or more leaders may have had overlapping periods of influence.

Also, “40 years” was a common ballpark way of referring to a generation or a few decades, or “a long time.” That’s why the number shows up 40 times in the Old Testament. Actually, 52 times. But that’s how “40” worked, as a nice round number.

LEADER YEARS

AS

LEADER

 VERSE
Othniel 40 3:11
Ehud 80 3:30
Deborah 40 5:31
Gideon 40 8:28
Abimelech 3 9:22
Tola 23 10:2
Jair 22 10:3
Jephthah 6 12:7
Ibzan 7 12:9
Elon 10 12:11
Abdon 8 12:14
Samson 20 15:20

 

SUBTOTAL 299
+ Years of oppression 111
TOTAL YEARS 410 Judges 3:14; 4:3; 6:1; 10:8; 13:1

Map of where Israelites settled in CanaanLocation

These stories take place in what is now Israel, Occupied Palestinian Territory, and parts of Jordan and Syria—both sides of the Jordan River. Most of the land west of the Jordan River was known as Canaan.

Purpose

Judges isn’t subtle. It’s hard to miss the main points.

God gets involved in human history. He punishes people when they sin, forgives them when they ask, and treats them kindly when they honor their agreement to follow the laws he gave them.

Israel needed a good king. The leaders in Judges—some good and some not-so-good—illustrate what kind of king the people needed. The king should obey God, protect the people from invaders, and guide Israel away from the kind of anarchy described at the end of the book: “Israel didn’t have a king at the time. So, everyone did whatever they wanted” (Judges 21:25).

Saul was a bad king. This lesson is less obvious but implied by the long story that ends the book. In the three closing chapters, all the Israelite tribes unite to attack Benjamin’s tribe. They’re retaliating because Benjamin refused to let them punish a gang of men who raped to death the wife of a worship leader from Levi’s tribe. Only 600 men of Benjamin survived that punishing war. Saul came from that tribe. His dad or grandad may have been one of those 600 men who protected the rapists.

David’s tribe is best. When Israelites asked God who should lead them now that Joshua was gone, the LORD said, “The tribe of Judah. I’m giving them the job of leading the fight for the land” (Judges 1:2). King David came from Judah’s tribe. And many scholars say the writer probably did, too.