Why was Chronicles written? After the Babylonian captivity, Jews had to be reminded where they come from, what God had unconditionally promised to Israel and what they could look forward to. Unsurprisingly, then, the first 9 chapters of 1 Chronicles provide various...
Many calamitous events have happened to the nation of Israel on the 9th of Av. The First Temple and Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonians on the 9th of Av in 586 BC. Subsequent events in history, such as when Jews were expelled from certain countries, also...
The Hebrew title of this book is ‘Qoheleth’ (cf. 1:1-2, 12; 7:27; 12:8-10) and refers to the Preacher who can be identified as the author (Cone 2009:17). The term ‘Qoheleth’ means “to assemble” and the English title “Ecclesiastes” is from the Greek word ekklesia,...
Background and Structure Today, most Bibles show Ezra and Nehemiah as two separate books, but this was not always the case. The most ancient manuscripts, the Hebrew Bible before the 15th century, and the Septuagint all viewed Ezra and Nehemiah as one composition (cf....
Background There may be a good reason why Esther is the only book in the Bible that does not explicitly mention God. If Israel failed to keep the Mosaic covenant, God said (or threatened) that one consequence would be that that He would hide his presence, or ‘face’,...
