Biblefaktor

Hosea is one of the most emotional books in the Bible, an outpouring of suffering love from God's heart. This shows in the writing, which jumps impulsively from one thought to the next. Read a chapter dramatically aloud, and you will get this sense. It is almost like listening in on a husband-and-wife fight. The book divides into two parts. In the first three chapters, the prophet Hosea briefly describes his marriage to an adulterous woman and makes the connection to Isreal's unfaithfulness to God. From chapter 4 onward this dramatic, personal beginning is not mentioned again. But it has set the stage. God's deep love, his disappointment and anger, and his determination to persevere with his unfaithful wife pour out in a series of vivid speeches. For a historical perspective on Hosea's times, read from 2 Kings 14:23 to 17:41, noting that some sections describe Judah, the southern nation, while the rest relate to the deteriorating Isreal Hosea knew. The prophet Amo...

Daniel breaks into two parts, each quite different from the other. The first six chapters tell the “famous” Daniel stories-including the stories of three men thrown into a fiery furnace and Daniel in the lions’ den. Any of these chapters would make a script for a thriller. As you read them, reflect on the principles Daniel can teach you about faithfulness to God in similarly “alien” circumstances. Most people find chapters 7-12 far more difficult. They record Daniel’s visions about the future of world history. Such symbolism was a familiar mode of expression in the ancient world, but it reads very strangely now-almost like science fiction. Look for broad impressions of how God’s people can live, caught in the jaws of brutal world politics. Let the visual symbols engage your emotions and imagination. If you seek a more detailed understanding of these visions, a commentary on Daniel will be a great help. In some passages, background information on ancient world history is essential...

The special difficulty in reading Ezekiel is the dizzying variety of forms he used to get his message across. The book is like a multimedia package-a mix of visions, messages, dramas, poems. But three remarkable visions of God bracket the package, beginning, middle, and end (1:1-3:15; 8:1-6 and 11:16-25; 40:1-4 and 43:1-9). And throughout, one line is repeated: "Then they will know that I am the LORD." All God's messages are meant to shock his people into restoring a living relationship with him. As you read Ezekiel, note down when each prophecy was made and its dominant image-Jerusalem as a prostitute, as a spreading grapevine, as a shaved head, etc. Remember that the book of Ezekiel compresses messages God gave over 22 years. Try to imagine the impact of each message on the people who first heard or saw it. Most of what Ezekiel said in Babylon concerned a dramatic military situation hundreds of miles away from Jerusalem. His message changed from doom to hope in chap...

Lamentations is poetry, one poem per chapter. Its main purpose is not to describe events, nor to teach lessons, though it does both. Its intent is to express grief, to pour out before God the horror and bitterness of what has happened to Jerusalem. These five poems can help you to understand what it meant for Jews to see Jerusalem destroyed. They can also help you learn to deal appropriately with grief, your own or others'. Read them expressively, preferably out loud, so that you catch the deep emotion. Note that the author does not rush to express his hope in God, but fully grieves for the tragedy he was involved in. Lamentations is not difficult to understand, though some of the poetical allusions may become clearer if you use a Bible dictionary or a commentary. For a summary of the destruction that inspired Lamentations, read 2 Kings 25.

Suppose you find, in an old trunk, a thick packet of letters written by your great uncle. You soon realize they are all out of order. One he wrote from the trenches of Franceduring World War I. The next also refers tons war, but from the references to British prime minister Winston Churchill you soon recognize it as World War II, over 20 years later. Those letters might contain the whole of your uncle's life, but to get his story straight, you'd have to read the whole packet. A reader of Jeremiah finds a very similar situation. The book is an anthology of prophecies given at different times. They jump forward and backward in history, and if you imagine that the book is in chronological order, you will become very confused. Fortunately, it is not hard to reconstruct the order of the main events of Jeremiah's life. Jeremiah spoke to a nation about to be destroyed by war. Three hundred years before him, the Israelites had split into two countries, Is real in the North an...

In the eighth century B.C., about the time Homer was writing The lliad and The Odyssey, Isaiah wrote the book that bears his name. It is arguably the most eloquent book in the Old Testament, and you will likely recognize many verses and phrases. Isaiah is full of profound insights into the nature of God and his plan for the earth. Due to its length and its peculiar organization, however, the book may seem hard to grasp. Remember that Isaiah consists of a collection of many messages on various topics, pulled together into groupings. To understand Isaiah, it helps to think of “road markers” that set off the major groupings. Here is a summary of them: Isaiah 1-12: Isaiah’s call and messages of warning to Judah during the prosperous days of the kingdom. (These came mostly in the reigns of Jotham and Ahaz. Isaiah 13-23: Isaiah's messages to all the nations around Judah-including enemies and close allies. Isaiah 24-35: A view of the earth’s future (24-27) and specific...

Since love songs are always popular, many people approach Song of Songs with great expectations. However, readers often find the book different from what they had expected. Two main problems may hinder today's reader. One is the poetic imagery. No modern lover would say, "Your hair is like a flock of goats" (4:1), "Your nose is like the tower of Lebanon" (7:4). While some images in Song of Songs appeal-"His banner over me is love" (2:4) or "Love is as strong as death" (8:6)-the majority of the book's metaphors sound strange to our ears. Most of the comparisons aren't visual, but emotional. For instance, when the lover tells his beloved that "your two breasts are like two fawns" (4:5), he isn't saying that her breast looks like deer. Hhe is saying that they bring out the same tender feelings baby deer do. When you read strange-sounding metaphors in Song of Songs, don't ask, "What did these things (pomegrana...