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Nehemiah 3-4
Nehemiah wasn’t a general contractor. And he didn’t arrive in Jerusalem as a former royal bartender turned stone mason. He was appointed acting governor by King Artaxerxes. And he has been a model of leadership ever since; mainly because he led by example. It can be hard to grasp the scope of this wall and…
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Nehemiah 1-2
And just like that, we have come to the end of the Old Testament narrative. Ezra and Nehemiah were originally a single book. Jerome who translated the Bible into Latin was the first to split them in two. Nehemiah is the last book of Old Testament history. It’s been 100 years since Cyrus decreed the…
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Ezra 9-10
There is a tiny remnant of people in Judea. The crumbs of a once great kingdom. They are descendants of those who survived exile. Their fathers and grandfathers had witnessed the collapse of their nation. And why did the nation implode? Why did God depart from His temple and hand them over to cruel foreign…
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Ezra 8
I read Ezra 7 and 8, and (I suppose it’s because I grew up playing The Oregon Trail and reading Little House On the Prairie), but I pictured his journey as a wagon train. I mean, technically it kinda was. There was a large group of several hundreds. They were traveling with wagons and oxen…
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Ezra 7
It is a this point that we realize… Ezra wrote about the events in chapters 1-6 as a historian, not as an eye-witness. The events of Ezra 1 happened about 78 years before Ezra actually arrived in Jerusalem himself. He wasn’t even born yet when Cyrus issued that decree and Zerubbabel and Friends started rebuilding…
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Esther 8-10
Now that (the very wealthy) Haman was dead, the king gave his entire estate and portfolio over to Esther. It reminds me of this verse: “A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children, but the sinner’s wealth is laid up for the righteous.”Proverbs 13:22 ESV And this one… “Blessed are the meek, for…
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Esther 5-7
In the margin of my Bible I have a note in Esther about moral courage: Three components of moral courage: To know something (head) 🧠 To feel something (heart) ❤️ To do something (hand) 🫲🏼 It takes all 3. Knowing that something needs to be done, and even feeling strongly about it, without actually doing…
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Esther 3-4
Enter Haman the Agagite. The term “Agagite” is a title. There is only one Agag in the Bible. And the prophet Samuel cut him into pieces. 😲 He did WHAT?! Remember that story where King Saul was supposed to wipe out the Amalekites and everything they possessed? 🤓 Yeah. He didn’t follow instructions very well.…
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Esther 1-2
Ahasueras [aha-shoo-where-us] 😐 Bless you. 🤓 Gesundheit. No. That’s the king in Esther. 🤨 Someone named their child Hashew…whatever you said? Ahasueras 🤓 Here. Have a tissue. 🧻 😐 Poor kid. Well, it may not have been the name he was given at birth but rather a “regnal name,” more like a title. And it’s…
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Zechariah 13-14
CHAPTER 13 “On that day a fountain will be opened for the dynasty of David and for the people of Jerusalem, a fountain to cleanse them from all their sins and impurity.”Zechariah 13:1 NLT We need to ask, “What day?” And the answer seems to be in chapter 12. The phrase “in that day” appears…
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Zechariah 10-12
The LORD regathers His people like a shepherd gathers up his flock. No longer will they be weak and abused. They will be strong warriors. 😐 Warrior…sheep? 🤓 Isn’t that an oxymoron? It is. It’s also a hilarious series of middle-grade adventure books. The Lord asks Zechariah to go get a job as a shepherd…at…
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Zechariah 7-9
CHAPTER 7 Unless you are Jewish or very familiar with the Jewish calendar, we are likely to read Zechariah 7:1-3 without realizing the significance of the date that these people from Bethel have come to ask about. We don’t know if they are descendants of the few Jews left behind in the land after the…
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