It’s hard find nice things to say about the woman whose name has become synonymous for being shameless, brazen, and morally bankrupt.
Jezebel came from royalty-her father was Ethbaal, a Phoenician king. She also married into royalty-her husband, Ahab, was the king of the ten tribes that made up the northern kingdom of Israel (see 1 Kings 16:29-33).
Continue reading WOMEN OF THE BIBLE (JEZEBEL: HOW NOT TO LIVE YOUR LIFE)
Job’s desire that his words be recorded for future generations shows three different ways that ancient records were written down. According to the New International Version, these methods were (1) writing on scrolls, (2) writing on lead tablets, and (3) writing on stone monuments. Continue reading BIBLE CUSTOMS AND CURIOSITIES (ANCIENT WRITTEN RECORDS)
Beyond their obvious use in holding objects, hands have long had two other significant roles for people: we count on our fingers, and we measure with the length or breadth of our hands. Finger width and palm width were standard units of measure in Bible times. In passage like Exodus 25:25 and 37:12, 1 King 7:26, and Ezekiel 40:43 the span is transplanted “three inches,” but the original says “handbreadth” Continue reading SIGNS & SYMBOLS OF THE BIBLE (HAND)
We should note at the outset that in the era before clocks and precise record keeping, numbers were often an estimation. Three and five signified a little, and forty a lot more. That is not to say that forty was never an accurate number, only that precision was not the intent of biblical authors. Continue reading BIBLE SIGNS & SYMBOLS (FORTY)