A Companion to the Old Testament: Volume 1 - The Pentateuch and History Books

By Donald W. Haynes

The Holy Bible is the most revered book in the Christian world, but the affirmation "The Bible says" so often reflects the speaker or writer more than it does the honest content of the sacred writ. This book does not cherry-pick the author's favorite chapters and verses. It helps the reader to understand the message of the biblical writer, the c

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stratton Press
• Release date: Sep 15, 2022
• ISBN: 9798887641638

Donald W. Haynes

Dr. Donald W. Haynes is a retired United Methodist clergy and a member of the Western North Carolina Annual Conference. He is a graduate of High Point University and Duke University Divinity School. His honorary Doctor of Divinity is from Pfeiffer University. His first appointment was in 1954. He has thirty-eight years as a full time parish minister, four as Conference Director of Ministry, a term as District Superintendent, and has served six churches since his retirement. Also, after retirement, from 1999-2016 he was Director of Wesleyan Studies at Hood Theological Seminary, a racially diverse academic community affiliated with the AMEZ denomination. This is his seventh published book; others are in either biblical studies, Methodist history and doctrine, or “Singing our Faith,” a book on hymn stories. He is widowed, father of three children, seven grandchildren, and five great grandchildren. His hobbies are writing, woodwork, and yard work.

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 Acknowledgments

I am a part of all that I have met. I owe a great debt to my mama and a handful of other devout Christian women who taught me Bible stories and biblical golden texts. I memorized these as guideposts for growing up with some measure of biblical knowledge. These mothers of Methodism" kept the Lord’s lamp flickering and changing lives in our small membership church.

I owe a great debt to Holiness preachers who mesmerized me and took me into the Scriptures. Even though I had to unlearn much of their holiness code moralism and biblical literalism, they were God’s medium for calling me, as a sixteen year old, to preach the Gospel.

I owe a great debt to my college and seminary faculties for their gentle guidance that led me beyond a belligerent brand of Fundamentalism or verbally inspired biblical infallibility. They were more Christ-like than I was and enabled me to let God out of my little box. They taught me that the Bible is an anvil that has worn out many hammers. I was freed from squeezing it into my mold.

So many churches and individuals have taught me, corrected me, and forgiven me across the years. When I was a nineteen-year-old boy, the good people of Oakdale Methodist Church in Jamestown, North Carolina, accepted me as their pastor! They loved me so much that I could not fail. That was 1954–58. Subsequently, other congregations from fifteen to two thousand, twenty-two hundred, made important contributions to my pastoral skills and my growth until 1999 when I retired. I taught at Hood Theological Seminary 1999–2016. For four years, I was pastor at Kallam Grove Christian Church in the rural community where I grew up. I am Minister Emeritus at two former churches: in Asheboro, North Carolina, and Statesville, North Carolina. Gracious people in these three churches asked that I write this book for a larger audience.

Martha Webster in Lubbock, Texas, generously provided her prodigious proofreading and editing services. Several friends in Asheboro, North Carolina, have proofed the contents and offered excellent suggestions. Alexander Haynes, my oldest grandson, has been a very constructive critic. My son, Douglas Haynes, provided technical help. My wife of sixty-four years, Joan, was the epitome of patience, support, and encouragement, graciously tolerating my living in the study so many hours of so many days. A former English teacher, she also was helpful in proofreading. My dear wife who helped so much in the development of this manuscript went to heaven on May 31, 2021.

I am also deeply indebted to those who have graciously endorsed the book—Drs. Len Sweet, Christopher Seitz, Michael Brown, Robert Hopkins, and Peter Graves. Hopefully, it will be, as they believe: a study guide to the preacher, the teacher, and any other reader of the sacred Scriptures.

—Donald W. Haynes

Asheboro, North Carolina

 Preface

Lay Christians whom I led in the study of the Bible for more than two-thirds of a century have encouraged me to write this book. On every page, my goal is to make the Bible come alive for my children and grandchildren, the laity to whom I was the pastor and mentor, seminary students whom I taught, preachers, and other readers whom I know casually or not at all

The Bible is not one standard of authority among others; it is the primary authority for the Christian faith and our practice as Christians. The Bible authenticates itself. Fred Craddock of Candler School of Theology has written, The Christian faith grows out of and is sustained by the conversation between the church and its Bible. From this engagement, generation after generation, come the beliefs, the ethics, the liturgy, the purposes and the relationships that define the Christian faith. Christians, Muslims, and Jews, are all historically called people of the Book. For us Christians, the Bible is The Book. It is not to be only honored, but to be learned. To use football language, it is the Playbook for being discipled as Christians.

Martin Luther said, Abandon Scripture, and you abandon yourself to the lies of men. Yet to many Christians, the Bible is almost unknown while most Muslims have memorized large portions of the Quran and most Buddhists are well versed in Buddha’s Noble Eightfold Path.

This is not a book about the Bible but a companion, a manual, a learning tool, to be read along with your Bible. My intent is to enable you to read your Bible with new insights and excitement. My intent is to take the mystery out of biblical content. The real miracle of Pentecost was that each heard in his own language. My goal is that this book enables you to do just that—understand the Bible’s age-old words in the vernacular of the twenty-first century. This is not a book you will read straight through. Its purpose is to have your Bible at your hand as you read, perhaps seeing certain passages for the first time. My intent is for you to enhance your biblical mastery, however little or much you might know about the Good Book now.

Professor Leonard Sweet likes to say, We are in the world, but not of it, but not out of it either! The Bible was inspired by God, but was written the cultural vernacular of its first readers, not in a holy tongue or a vacuum The writing spans the time from the origin of Hebrew as a language, Aramaic as an oral vernacular including the words of Jesus, and koine Greek in which the New Testament was written in Mesopotamia, Palestine, the Alexandrian Empire, and the Roman Empire. It was subsequently translated first into Latin, then into literally thousands of languages and dialects.

Upon reflection and readers’ critique, I have divided the content of this Revised Edition into three volumes, all on the Old Testament. Neither stands alone, but as a vital part of a tripartite companion to the Scripture:

Volume 1— Translations, Middle East History, Palestinian Geography, Biblical History Books

Volume 2—Biblical Books Written by the Prophets—Speaking for Their Times and Ours

Volume 3—Biblical Books Known as Wisdom Literature or the Writings.

 Overview

For each book of the Old Testament Bible, you will find these features:

A brief introduction—one that might help you decide if you want to read more about it!

The historical and cultural setting—Contemporaneity in surrounding Semitic tribes and Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, or Greek Empires.

Looking into the text—A commentary on most of the chapters of each book’s contents. The plan is to give new light so that the words become the WORD! If you can say, I did not know that before, or I read that years ago but had forgotten, or I always thought that but never saw it in print, then, all my work will be worthwhile.

Eternal truths in each book—What rises aboveancient culture, ethnic identity, and ethnic theology with equal clarity in our own time? Some biblical texts are part and parcel of Mosaic law and the cultural ethics of their time and are not eternally applicable. Examples are Mosaic food laws, Temple priests’ sub-culture, Temple worship, tribal warfare, cultic practices, genocide, polygamy, slavery, and gender roles.

The Golden Nuggets are verses that I have highlighted across the years in my own Bibles. Many of these nuggets I learned from my mother or lay teachers. They are timeless in their expository usefulness and worthy of being memorized.

We must avoid bibliolatry that makes an idol of the Bible. This can lead some to intellectual agnosticism. We do not worship the Bible; we worship the God who inspired the Bible as a vehicle of revelation. Yet the writers are inspired to write beyond their cultural setting.

We will speak often of Deuteronomic theology which you find in some Old Testament texts. This theology asserts that right living is inevitably blessed with prosperity and sin is punished with poverty, disease, and military defeat. How sad that some Deuteronomic theology is still our doctrine even today. In places like Amos, Jeremiah 31, Ezekiel 18:1–4, the Book of Ruth, and Jesus you will see examples of God’s inspired theological correction of Deuteronomic theology. Jesus himself often said, You have heard it said of old, but I say to you.

I appreciate the perspective that Jews have of their Hebrew Bible, but as Christians, we see God through the lens that Jesus provided us. Let us take note of Martin Luther’s words: Scripture is the manger in which Christ is laid. Karl Barth in his Church Dogmatics, wrote From the first to last, the Bible directs us to the name of Jesus Christ. Brevard Childs of Yale has reminded us that while the Old Testament must be understood as a bona fide Jewish voice, Its concept has been dramatically altered because it is part of the larger Christian Bible. He continued, There is an ultimate theological coherence of the Scriptures. The Bible is the Word of God for the people of God. For that we say, Thanks be to God.

Contents

Acknowledgments

Preface

Overview

1 – The Land of the Bible

2 – The Bible and Middle East History

3 – The Marvelous Way the Bible Came to Us

4 – Introduction to History of the Bible in English

5 – Biblical Higher Criticism

6 – Introduction to the First Five Books of the Bible

7 – Genesis: The First Book of the Pentateuch

8 – Exodus: The Second Book of the Pentateuch

9 – LEVITICUS: The Third Book of the Pentateuch

10 – Numbers: The Fourth Book of the Pentateuch

11 – Deuteronomy: The Fifth Book of the Pentateuch

12 – Joshua: The Canaanite Conquest

13 – Judges: When Israel Had No Monarch(c. 1220–1020 BCE)

14 – Judge Samuel in I Samuel

15 – King Saul in I Samuel

16 – David, the Greatest Hebrew King

17 – I Kings: Solomon Becomes King

18 – The Kingdom Divides: The Northern Kings

19 – II Kings: The Northern Kingdom

20 – The Kings of Judah 922–587 BCE

21 – The Bible in Babylon!

22 – The Persian King’s Restoration of Jerusalem to the Jews

23 – The Book of Ezra

24 – The Book of Nehemiah

25 – The Theological Positions of Ezra and Nehemiah

Appendix I

Appendix II

Endnotes

Introduction to the Bible

1

The Land of the Bible

"The Lord said to Moses,

‘Go to the hill country of the Amorites and the neighboring regions—the Arabah, the hill country, the lowlands, the Negev, and by the seacoast. See, I have set the land before you.’" (Deuteronomy 1:6–8)

Abraham came from Mesopotamia to Canaan (Palestine) during the Early Bronze Age—about 1750 BCE. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are considered the Patriarchs of the Hebrew people. They lived a tribal lifestyle, moving their sheep with the seasons. Deuteronomy 26:5 described Jacob as a wandering Aramean. In Exodus 3:6, when God spoke to Moses, God is described as the God of your fathers; the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Probably in the 1600s BCE, a famine in the Canaanite hill country forced Jacob to take a large number of Hebrews into the Egyptian Delta. Initially, they apparently were welcomed and were free, but with changes in the Pharaohs, they became slaves, working for the government making bricks. Then, the Bible provided us a very pregnant sentence: Now there arose a new king over Egypt who did not know Joseph (Exodus 1:8). This precipitated the leadership of Moses and the Exodus from Egypt.

For over four hundred years, the Hebrews had not lived in Canaan. Most scholars consider Ramses II to have been the Pharaoh of the Exodus (1290–1224 BCE). The year 1250 is a good round number for dating the crossing of the Red Sea and the beginning of the exodus. For forty years of wandering in the wilderness, the focus of the Israelites was to at last have their own land. They called it the Promised Land. When they finally arrived, only two men—Joshua and Caleb—remained who had lived in Egypt under slavery. All the others knew only the wilderness where their livelihood depended on water, manna, and quail. They experienced a major culture shock when they finally conquered and possessed land. As settlers, they would have to change from being wandering nomads to being domesticated!

The challenge was that the Canaanites were already there, so the War of the Conquest ensued. They would have either to confiscate or build houses, seize or hew out cisterns, and seize olive

groves in war. Then they had to transition from a nomadic shepherds’ life to homestead and plant vineyards on newly owned land. The Israelites knew the Twenty-Fourth Psalm and it affected their theology: The earth is the Lord’s and the world therein… The land was seen as a gift from God, and it must be treated accordingly. The care of the environment was inherent in their theology. Let us now preview the promised land so we can understand the Bible.

Unless we have a rather clear picture in your mind of the land of ancient Israel, without some commentary help, there are many passages of Scripture that will have either no meaning or a meaning far different from reality. The total size of Palestine is approximately the same as the state of Vermont! From Nazareth to Jerusalem is only 75 miles—a two and a half day walk; from the city of Samaria to Jerusalem the capitals are only 30 miles apart, one and a half day walk!

Your Geographic Journey

As your read now, imagine yourself viewing the land of the Bible as if you were standing on the east coast of the Mediterranean Sea and could see eastward all the way to Mesopotamia!

The coast (now Gaza), though it has nonatural harbors or ports, has rich land but little rainfall. From north to south, the plain begins at the foot of Mount Carmel and extends about 120 miles south to Beersheba. In some places, the plain is only two miles in width; in some, it is twenty-five miles. The southern part was for centuries the land owned by the Philistines. The Israelites never were a seafaring people like the Phoenicians further north.

East of the coastal plains is a piedmont rocky plateau called "The Shephelah. The area is referred to twenty times in the Bible, often correctly as Shephelah, but sometimes as the land between the hill country and Philistia. Running west to east is a series of sharp valleys. Often, it was the scene of battles. It was in one of these that the Bible says that God made the sun stand still (Joshua 10:10–15). In the valley of Elah, David killed the giant, Goliath (I Samuel 17:1–2). Today it is bare of forest, but in biblical times, it was famous for its trees. (In I Kings 10:27, we read of a tree as plentiful as the sycamore of the Shephelah.") Today, all of the Shephelah is in the state of Israel.

East of the Shephelah is the "hill country.Altitude ranges from 2,000 to 4,000 feet. From west to east, it is only eighteen miles wide before you plunge into the Jordan Valley. Paramount in the hill country is Jerusalem. Psalm 48:2 describes it with ecstasy: His holy mountain, beautiful in elevation, is the joy of all the earth. That holy city is 2,500 feet above sea level and is perched at what Americans could call the continental divide from the Mediterranean Sea in the west to the Dead Sea in the east.

The western slopes outside the city were once good for vineyards but just east, the terrain changes the climate. Rain can be pouring on the Mount of Olives just east of the Temple while shortly as one descends eastward toward Jericho, the sun is shining! Just east of the city, one begins the precipitous decline to Jericho at the tip of the Dead Sea. In that stretch of wretched earth is the wilderness where Jesus was during his forty days of Temptation by the devil. The Dead Sea extends almost all along the eastern edge of the ancient Judah. It is 1,380 feet below sea level.

Joshua gave to the tribes of Manasseh and Ephraim what became known by New Testament times as Samaria. King Omri built a new capital city on a hill and named it Samaria and its inhabitants Samaritans. In Samaria, the Northern Kingdom built a Temple. When Israel (ten northern tribes) was conquered and deported by the Assyrians in 722 BCE, foreign tribes from the Caspian Sea area where forced to relocate there, intermarrying with the Israelites who had escaped deportation. Thereafter, including in Jesus’s day, the Jews considered the Samaritans as half-breeds and had no dealings with them. This bitterness gives great meaning to Jesus’s conversation with the woman at the well.

Ephraim had no town in its territory, but in Jezreel, the soil is rich and its rainfall is plentiful, so farming is productive. However at Shiloh, there was a temple where Eli lived and young Samuel was called. The Ark of the Covenant was kept there before the Temple of Solomon was built and from here it was stolen by the Philistines (Judges 20:27).

North of Samaria is the "Valley of Jezreel," a rich farming country, having both fertile soil and good rainfall. It is but two miles wide! Joshua gave the valley to the tribes of Issachar and Zebulon, and it is said of them in Deuteronomy 33:19, They feast on the affluence of the seas and the hidden treasures of the sand. Here, Gideon chose his army of three hundred to rout the Midianites who were destroying the Hebrew grain fields in the valley floor. Hosea refers to the grain, and wine, and oil of the valley. Isaiah refers to it plaintively as the proud garland of its glorious beauty… (Isaiah 28:1).

About 20 miles southwest of Capernaum is the little village of Nazareth. There Joseph helped Mary reared four children by keeping the small business going. When Jesus’s ministry began, the men of Nazareth asked, Is not this Joseph’s son? (Luke 4:22; John 6:42). In Mark 6:3, the Nazarenes asked, Isn’t this Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon. Aren’t his sisters here with us? So they took offense at him.

About four miles northwest of Jesus’s home village was the new city of Sepphoris, the site of a palace being built by Herod in Jesus’s day. Since he was a tekton (builder, not a carpenter), Jesus might well have accompanied Joseph’s walking to Sepphoris for higher wages. Even as a boy, and especially as a young businessman after Joseph’s death, Jesus would have encountered a wide range of people—caravans stopping by to sell their goods from the Orient (pearls, spices, etc.), Roman soldiers who might have broken chariots needing repair, chiseling shysters, farmers who brought their wares and fruits to market, etc. It is a great misconception to define Jesus as a simple carpenter. He was a small businessman who kept up Mary and six younger children and paid his taxes.

From the Sea of Galilee, the Jordan River meanders 200 miles, though it is only sixty miles as the crow flies to the Dead Sea. It is not a beautiful river, but is narrow, muddy, and almost despicable. In that short distance, it drops another 600+ feet from the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea, 1,380 feet below sea level, the lowest point on earth. The Dead Sea water is 25 percent salt. Jericho is only five miles from where the Jordan River becomes the Dead Sea. (The distance from Jerusalem to Jericho is only fifteen miles with an altitude drop from 2,500 feet above sea level to 825 feet below—3,325 feet in 15 miles!)

Only sixty-five miles south of the tip of the 46-mile-long Dead Sea, the Arabah rises to nearly 2,000 feet at Petra. From that point, the altitude drops in fifty miles to sea level at the Gulf of Aqaba. This area is the ancient country of Edom. It was rich in iron and copper and was controlled by King Solomon.

The entire area east of the Jordan River was called Trans-Jordan. The Bible usually refers to it as across the Jordan. It is also the land along the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee. Jews hated the Samaritans so much that they would detour through Trans-Jordan en route to Galilee to avoid going through Samaria. Jesus, though, went through Samaria!

2

The Bible and Middle East History

To see the Bible more clearly, we need to set the Bible in the context of mid-east history. Let us look at the parade of kingdoms in which Judaism prevailed.

A. Beginnings of Israelite History—Freedom, Slavery, and Freedom

B. Era of Tribal Confederations, Decline of Egypt, Rise of Assyria

C. Assyria Conquers Israel, Deports Citizenry; Judah Survives, Barely

D. Rise of Babylon, Babylonian Capture, and Exile of Jews

E. Persian Empire under Cyrus, Darius, Xerxes, etc. (539–321 BCE)

F. Greek Empire under Alexander the Great (322–63 BCE)

Note:

In the twenty-first century, secularists have rejected the terms BC and AD as too Christian. The terms accepted today are BCE (Before Common Era) and CE" (Common Era).

The letter c is an abbreviation of the Latin word circa which means around. This means it is an approximate date. Some books print it as CA.

Bible Translation Abbreviations in this text: KJV (King James Version); RSV (Revised Standard Version; NRSV (New Revised Standard Version); NIV (New International Version); CEB (Common English Bible) (J. B. Phillips and EugenePeterson’s paraphrases).

3

The Marvelous Way the Bible Came to Us

Christianity is an historical religion. It assumes that the knowledge of God is rooted in events that really happened in human life. Events in Israel’s history are interpreted by both historians and prophets. The Bible is a summary of the great convictions of faith that God revealed to be shared and proclaimed. It is not a geology or anthropology textbook, but it is an interpretation of human history, human nature, and God’s unfolding revelation. From Genesis to Revelation, the Bible is the STORY of God’s creation, humanity’s Fall, and God’s rescue mission to save creation.

We shall look in this chapter at the long, circuitous, and miraculous route over which the Bible came to us throughout the parade of kingdoms (world powers) from the Early Bronze Age to Modern times. From the origin of the Hebrew language, probably in the time of Moses, the sacred Scriptures were copied by the Temple priests. By the time of the Jewish Qumran community’s copying the famous Dead Sea Scrolls not long before the birth of Jesus, the Hebrew Scriptures had reached their present content, but Judaism was still centered in sacrifices, so the books of the Hebrew Bible were not canonized until 90 CE.

Beginning of History in the Bible

Genesis 1–11 are chapters defining theological issues—Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden; Noah and the Ark and the Flood; the Tower of Babel. History as we know it begins with a man called Abraham. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all trace our spiritual roots to him. He lived in the Early Bronze Age, about 1750 BCE. He and his son, Isaac, and grandson, Jacob, are called Patriarchs. Hebrew was not a language that early, so the narratives we have about the Patriarchs were passed on in oral form.

The time of Jacob’s progeny in Egypt between the migration of Jacob and his tribe and the Exodus under Moses is over four hundred years. Moses was adopted by an Egyptian princess and educated in Egypt in the same school as the royal family children. Moses spoke and wrote in the language of the Pharaoh when he was begging, Let my people go. Hypothetically, Moses could have read a language that his people could not!

The Amarna letters discovered in 1887 are cuneiform tablets dated from about 1350 BCE. W. F. Albright, prestigious archeologist, sees a distinct similarity between the Amarna letters language and such early biblical poetry as the Song of Miriam (Exodus 15:20–21). They mention a people called Habriu that might be the Hebrews. Moses himself may well have written The Book of the Covenant (Exodus 24:4a). It reflects the proto-Sinaitic language prior to the origin of Hebrew as a distinct language. This raises a real question as to what language God used in writing the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai! Some of the earliest writings were poems or metered verse like Moses’s Victory Song (Exodus 15:1–18) or Jacob’s blessing (Genesis 49). Much of what we have in the Pentateuch was inspired, taught, memorized, and repeated orally for generations before being committed to a scroll. By the twelfth century BCE, Hebrew was developing a written language. The overarching narrative of what we know as the Bible all came through oral revelation before it became a written record. The inspirational level of this medium was incredibly accurate. (We see this accuracy also in the red letter passages ascribed to Jesus in the New Testament.) The transmission of sacred, inspired Word was converted to writing over a long period of time.

From about the twelfth century BCE until the Aramaic/Greek Book of Daniel in about 166 BE,