How to Study the Bible. History I: Old Testament History

Yeah, the idea here is we've got, just to get the big picture, you've got a couple of overview sheets in the front, then a table of contents, and then you've got page numbers 1 through 28. The package I just gave you has two large-size, oversized, folded sheets, and they should stay where they are. There are three new appendix items, and they're numbered, 4, 5, and 6.

To be put in the very back. Right. Studying the Bible. Hey, it's a piece of cake. Yeah. You know what, though? When we when we've done this, we've tried we've tried, you know, handing out the appendix separate. And that doesn't help either. So this this is and this is easier to copy this way. So we just say, well, we'll take this form of confusion rather than the other one. OK.

So today we've got history one, Old Testament, and history two is for next week, and you have the material for it already, and that's for New Testament history. The idea is to do a quick sweep through Old Testament and New Testament history, but give you in that handout some additional tools for your own more detailed study.

That's the idea and that's what we're trying to do here. What we've been saying all along is that the three things to study about in the Bible are language, things about language, things about history, that's for this week and next week, and then things about culture. Those are the three areas that we take a look at. And by putting those together and applying some principles of interpretation, which we'll get to next, then we're able to study the Bible and from there you can study it in depth.

And we're looking to give you the tools both descriptively and in writing so that you've got something to remember us by. Would you like a binder? Okay. Yes. Not just reading the Bible, but studying it. Yes. Doug makes a good point. Let me turn the thing on here. We're not just looking at reading the Bible, but studying it. Okay? So that's a key thing. We're not wanting to just read it and just kind of, what does it make me think of? Or how do I feel about it? But look at it with the idea we're studying to ask the question, what did the author mean? And behind that, what did God intend for him to say?

Some people read the Bible through in a year. Yes, right. Some people read the Bible through in a year, and I certainly wouldn't want to discourage that, but recognizing there is a limitation to that, that that's not the same as study. You're learning a different thing by, say, reading the Bible through in a year. Yeah, well, basically it's difficult to dig out the depth because you're just getting whatever initial concept hits you out of the English translation instead of digging for what's there.

Let's take a moment to pray first here, okay? Lord, we thank you. As we look at how to study your word, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the living word. the one whose life we have, by your grace. May we just pray for our time together, in Jesus' name, Amen.

Let's see, one thing, boy, I've forgotten this a couple weeks in a row, so I don't want to forget. John Blackwell is involved with another ministry where he's got a couple of spare concordances, these are print concordances, one's a Strong's and one's a Young's, He's putting them out for distribution for whoever might want to have those. It's not free, but it's also not a charge. It's a grace gift, if you will, at whatever you feel is appropriate. See John if you're interested in one of those concordances.

Take a look at what we've got here in front of us. The first half of page 23 has got some key stuff for us to take a look at. Why do we bother studying history? What's interesting is in some religions of the world, history is practically irrelevant. For example, for most branches of Buddhism, it really wouldn't matter if Buddha ever lived. Because what is presented is really a philosophy and a perspective. But Buddha didn't do something that is pivotal in the lives of most people who believe in Buddhism. That's not true of Christianity. That's not true of Biblical faith. History is central and pivotal to what is contained in Scripture.

Let's take a look. We've got five bullets there. And nobody's going to get shot, but let's see what these have to say. History matters in the Bible because one reason we say is by God's faithfulness and intent, history is going somewhere. But where are the somewheres where history is going?

Pardon? There's some repetition, certainly. But what else about, by God's faithfulness and intent, history is headed somewhere? Pardon? Okay, it's headed towards eternity. This isn't it, right? This isn't the end of it. It's heading for eternity. What else do we know? Ah, okay. God's glory is a pivotal point in the direction of history. God's glory. Good point. What else? What's going to happen to you as a believer? What are we certain of will happen to you as a believer? We'll have eternal life. And that's where it's headed, right? Have eternal life with Him. Good. And what else?

Salvation is initially accomplished And then we have here down, there's Romans 8.28 and 29 passage. What does that tell us? We're going to be what?

Conformed to the image of the Son. And God works all things together, including the history that you're living right now. The history that you're living right now has the ultimate direction that you will be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. So your very life is a part of this point right here, that God has an ultimate intent in history, and your place in that is that you be conformed by everything that He works out for good through the image of Jesus Christ.

One of the things we have also here, sequence matters. Does it matter, let's just take a quick for instance, we are frequently telling people here at Holly Hills that you've been identified with Christ in His death, burial, resurrection, ascension and seeding.

Does that sequence make a difference? Yeah, but suppose that the reverse order was true, and you've been left and now you're crucified and that's it. That's not going to work, is it? Now you're dead. That's great. The sequence does matter. The sequence matters immensely. Key point there.

Periods of time and specific points in time matter. Galatians 4, 4, and 5 points to an event that is brought up towards the end of each calendar year. In the fullness of time, in the fullness of time, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, right? Periods of time, in the fullness, all that span of time, and then points in time, that very moment, when Christ, for a matter of what on earth measures as a few hours, About the time we meet now until just a little later on today, in a matter of a few hours, that period of time was one of the most momentous times in all of history.

Historical reality matters. Does it really matter that Christ died on the cross? Maybe it's just kind of a good concept and that's cool. Yeah, it matters historically. The truth is Christ died on the cross. It was a real cross. If you were there, you could have put your hand out and had drops of blood fall. You could have put your hand on the cross and gotten splinters.

I mean, this is a real event. And as a matter of fact, here's that little tiny event from the world's viewpoint of an insignificant peasant man. As Scripture states it, if that had not occurred, the rest of this is all for naught. So that little piece of history, yes, it most definitely matters. Pardon? It's God's appointed time. Yes, it's God's appointed time. At the right time God sent His Son. Not just because it would be nice to have a little story about a baby being born in a little village in Israel.

But why? To redeem. To redeem. So, yeah, key point. Thank you. Yes, it was an historical and not just pivotal, but essential event. Must be. So when we look at history, history isn't just some sort of an incidental, that's for people who just like to read old books. But instead, It is absolutely essential, and the moment in history that we're living right now is a part of God's very process in conforming us to the image of the Son. History does matter, and that's one of the reasons we want to take a look at it.

And by the way, I may not be exhausted on this list. There might even be some more. One of them that I thought about afterwards, I think, ponder this, that here is God who's not dependent on time. nothing surprises him, and yet he decided to enter time and at least in the person of Jesus Christ to be subject to time. Isn't that a fascinating thing to ponder? Is there a lot of buzz here? Apologies about that. Let's see if we can take a look at that. Okay, so let's look at the oversized chart. You've got a chart there on the page right following that.

And by the way, it should say Hebrew Old Testament Chronology. Hebrew Old Testament Chronology should be that. And we printed it in extra large size so you could see the details and even put notes in it if you feel like that's appropriate for you. But the chart we have here allows us to see a couple of things. On the top part of the chart, you've got some key events and the date that those events took place. And then there, in addition to that, some spans of time.

So you've got some information on that chart that you might find helpful. And it's almost like a construction drawing, so you'll get it. Anyway, what's that? Oh, yes. So anyway, This chart is a good tool because not only does it have some of these key events on the second page of the chart, but also on the bottom part of the chart is the beginning and ending dates that are covered in each of the Old Testament books.

And just taking a quick sweep at it, one of the things you see is some books cover a very specific point in time, maybe even one year. In the middle here we have, for example, Amos, the middle right off to the right slightly, 762 BC, and that's it. So the book just covers that one year. Other books, like Psalms, cover centuries. Psalms can be thought of as Israel's national hymn book, which was collected over a period of about a thousand years.

So you'll have quite a bit of difference in what the books cover, but it allows you to look at what events and what place in time does this book have. Now, we've given on the bottom of page 23, which is the page right before this chart, we've given some kind of rule of thumb dates that may also be helpful. If it's helpful to you, feel free to mark it on your chart. But we have this.

Abraham lived around the year 2000 BC. So just in round numbers, how many years ago was that? 4,000 years ago, right? So that's a good, just kind of a number you can keep in your head fairly easily. It's fairly simple. We're 2,000 years after the time of Christ. He was 2,000 years before. Total, 4,000 years ago.

The next thing we noted here was Moses lived to just before 1400 BC. A nice round number. About 1,400 years before Christ. Moses spent 40 years growing up in Egypt, 40 years out in the desert shepherding sheep, and then 40 years shepherding the people of Israel until they got to the edge of the promised land. But about 1400 B.C. was the time when Moses lived and died. Okay, now, then David lived about 1000 B.C. There's again a good round number you can work with. A thousand B.C. That means that he lived about a thousand years before Christ. Isn't it interesting?

Here is David. The Lord promised him David, someone will reign from your lineage will reign over the house and sit on the throne and over the kingdom. A thousand years later, Mary was told by the angel about a house and a throne and a kingdom. Same three words that her son would reign over. And so here's just direct fulfillment.

And so you've got 1000 BC, here's David getting the promise. Very close to zero. And by the way, nobody lived there near zero. They don't even count it, right? But about that time, here's Mary getting the exact same promise repeated in brief with the exact same words, house, throne, kingdom.

Okay. The Old Testament was completed by about 400 B.C., so that's about 1,000 years after Moses died. So basically the Old Testament stretches out over that 1,000 year period of time, from Moses until the end of the Old Testament, 1,000 years. So those are just some quick rules of thumb that might be helpful to you. Alright, behind this chart that we have in front of us here, the big chart, We have page 24, which is a smaller chart. A couple of them. The top one is the period of the Judges. And what's interesting about that, there is this chart of the Judges of Israel after Joshua on the top of page 24.

And here what you have is actually just detail drawn from the pages of scripture. This isn't some archaeologist dug it up or somebody took it out of something obscure. It's just names and passages and years and names of enemies all drawn from the pages of scripture. And it's just, this is how you can get detail about these things.

Look at what does scripture say? And so this gives us detail, for example, on the Book of Judges. What's one of the things on the top of page 24 of that chart on the Book of Judges? What are some of the things you notice when you look at the chart? One of the things I noticed is a piece of 40 years that spans several judges. It confuses me a little. It says 40 and 80. That adds up to 120 years, and yet we're only talking about 36 years of judges' names off to the left. 36 years? 36 years of judges' names.

What do you mean? Othniel? Right. It's a passage set to such oppression, eight years. I'm assuming that he reigned for eight years? No, no. Here's the deal with the judges, so let me explain that. Hopefully that's clear. What would happen is an enemy would come in, and this is kind of a cycle through the book of Judges. An enemy would come in, and we name the enemy in most cases there, but not all.

An enemy would come in, the first one is Mesopotamia. The oppression under that enemy lasted for eight years. The judge that was sent to liberate the Jews during that time was Othniel, who was the first one. After Othniel led that liberation, there was peace and no oppression for 40 years. So it's eight years of oppression under Mesopotamia. Othniel comes in and liberates the country. Yes, and then 40 years of peace until they nosedive into the next cycle of disobedience and ignoring what God says.

Then what happens? They get another oppressor. The next one is Ehud, who by the way was left-handed. I'm a lefty, so you saw this. Anyway, Ehud was left-handed. He took out the oppressor, the king of the oppressor, after 18 years. And then there was 80 years of peace and freedom from oppression. But then guess what? The Jews nosedived again, spiritually speaking.

Yes? This does not say how long that judge lived. That's correct. That's correct. Here's for example of Ehud. It just says he took out the king of the oppressor And then after that was 80 years. It doesn't mean he lived 80 years after that or that he reigned for 80 years. It just means that they had peace for 80 years. Yeah, good point. Thank you. The next one is Shamgar, the third one. Philistia oppressed them for an undisclosed number of years. and there's also an undisclosed period of peace following that.

What you'll find, and I asked for what do you see in the chart, one thing you'll see is we have quite a bit of information, we don't have exhausted information. Quite a bit of information, not exhausted. If you look at the columns, we have at least one piece of those four, columns of information, sometimes three, but never do we have all the information. Later on in the chart, you'll notice, and this is the point that Doug made, the period of judgeship is given in the last part. It is given, but not for the initial five judges. So the period that they judged is given in the last half of the book.

And notice that, you know, where do we get the information? It's all right in the pages of scripture. This is not that is just looking it up and write it down. And this chart seems to me an easy way to put it down. But it's not a matter of, boy, I got some obscure book and dug up something. It's just right in the pages of scripture. It's a matter of laying it out and getting it to a place where you can look at it and study it.

Okay, on the bottom half of page 24, now we have after the judges, we have Saul, David, and Solomon. Each of them, remember the three periods of time for Moses? 40 years in Egypt, 40 years in the desert, 40 years leading Israel. Saul, David, and Solomon also reigned 40, 40, 40. Saul for 40 years, David for 40 years. Remember David's around 1000 BC. Solomon for 40 years. So there's a nice round number. David's lived around 1000 BC. Saul before him, 40 years. David for 40 years. Solomon for 40 years.

So there's just nice things to kind of give you a frame of reference. Then, after Solomon, the kingdom divided. Why did the kingdom divide? Anybody happen to recall that? Why did the kingdom get divided? Remember that? David and Solomon were told not to do something, and they did it anyway. They multiplied wives and concubines, Hundreds. Hundreds. They were told, don't do it. They did it. And some of those were things like, hey, I'll make a political deal with you. I'll marry your daughter. I'll add her to my harem. And in turn for that, you and I will be peaceful with each other. Cool? And so those are some of the deals that he made.

They were told, don't do that. But they did it, and so now this division took place. They were also told, don't go running to Egypt for help. Don't go looking to Egypt for horses and chariots and all that stuff. That's not going to fix anything. They did it anyway, especially Solomon. So there was the division.

The divided kingdom is in the bottom of the chart on page 24. It's also included in the larger chart, but details are given on this chart on the second page. And one of the things that is, I think, helpful here on this chart that's on the bottom of page 24.

Notice, again, we just give scripture passages. This information comes from scripture. We send you to resources who will say, look up this, here's a good book, or here's a good map, or something of that sort. But the truth is, scripture itself is going to be one of your most valuable tools in studying scripture. It's got a great deal of information. And this is case in point. We list the scripture passages in 1st and 2nd Kings and 1st and 2nd Chronicles here, particularly 2nd Chronicles. And we could list others, but this is just a start.

One of the things that you notice, the time for Israel, the Northern Kingdom, and Judah, the southern kingdom, are quite different. Israel took out the northern kingdom, 722 BC. Judah lasted a longer period of time before they were exiled. Okay, now let's look at page 25.

One of the things you're going to note, and you're going to see it even on the charts that you've got right in front of you, some slight variation in the years from one to the next. You may have already picked that up. Why would that be? Why would there be differences from one chart or reference to another, you know, like maybe by a year or something like that? What's that? Interpretation, okay, and that is a part of it. Think about it.

One of the things we point out here is our modern dating system where we have, you know, we've got these years and the years that we clock things by is independent of who's president or who was king or anything else. And that system didn't come about until several centuries after the New Testament was completed. And interestingly enough, that system was not accepted in all countries, even to within the last century. Russia, for example, was one that did not go by this system under the Tsar. So real interesting, it's only been in the last century that some countries have come to the system we've got. Before that, Bible times, how did they date things? by who was king, right? And they would say, in the first year of the second, you know, second month and the third day of king, you know, and they'd go like that.

Well, then putting that together, suppose you don't have complete information. Or here's another thing, sometimes what would happen is one king as he got older would put his son as a co-regent co-reining overlap, but you wouldn't necessarily be told that. So do you include the overlap or do you make it end-to-end? So those kinds of differences, yeah you're right, interpretation, those kinds of differences end up making the differences for like sometimes a year difference between one charter reference and another.

Small differences like that, that's why. It doesn't bring into question the historicity of the event or the reality of the event. It only brings into question, we've got some uncertainty as to the exact date according to our dating system. Because that's really what we're doing, aren't we? We're trying to make things fit the way we think and the way we brought up and brought up to think about dates and time. So if you find a difference in a year or two, don't let that bother you. It's the sequence that matters, not the specific year.

Another thing that you're going to find different, and it differs between even the charts we've given you here, is the Babylonians attacked Judah, the southern kingdom, a few times. They took captives each time. And some people, like you see in this expanded bigger chart, will date the time when Judah got hauled off the first time as the beginning of their exile. Others will date the last time the Babylonians came in and hauled people off as the exile.

So that's why you'll find a difference in a significant number of years. It's not because they're confused, it's just because which attack and hauling people off did they count as the beginning of the exile. So they're not confused, just we are. Now, at the bottom here, once the two nations divided, we have in the middle of page 25 the summary of the divided kingdom. You see, the northern nation of Israel, which had 10 tribes, they had 19 kings. It says 9 dynasties.

I like to pronounce it dynasties, because they all died nasty. All of them died nasty. They had 19 kings who were all bad. None of them were godly. Every last one of them was rotten to the core. About half of them died violent deaths, assassinated sometimes within a short period of time of becoming king. So those were bad times. Judah, the southern kingdom, which initially had Judah and Benjamin as the only tribes in the southern kingdom of Judah, had 20 kings, and they had roughly speaking 8 godly kings and 12 ungodly kings. So mostly ungodly, but some godly kings. They had one dynasty, all of them, whether godly or ungodly, all were descended from David. All of them.

So a big distinction there. Most of the information from that is just drawn from scripture, straight from scripture. Just a little bit of help there on the dates and durations. But the rest of it is all drawn from scripture. What's interesting is the information, a lot of the things that you see in that chart are actually prophesied in scripture. Scripture said in advance a number of the things that would happen.

For example, you see, all of them were descended from David. That's according to prophecy. In the Northern Kingdom, they had nine dynasties. They'd kill off one line of kings and start another family. But one dynasty, that's according to prophecy. That's according to the promise to David. The fact that Judah was not ended at the same time was also according to prophecy. Hosea, we studied that on our Thursday night Bible studies a couple times back. And Isaiah 37 and 39 is one of the places where it describes how Judah was preserved while the northern kingdom, Israel, was hauled off. All right. Now, as we look at this, I want to point you to some good references. We've got three bullets there identifying some references, and these will be references that will be good for both Old Testament and New Testament.

None of them are terribly expensive, although some of them will be less expensive than others. And the first two may be legally copied and given to other people in terms of, you know, if you want to make a copy for friends of pages or even the whole book. and so it can be really useful. One of them that I've seen for 10 to 15 bucks is Nelson's Complete Book of Bible Maps and Charts. And that's about 500 pages long. It does a very good job of succinctly putting things in words and then showing maps and charts. Good job.

And you can legally copy those for classroom and private non-commercial use, as long as you're not charging for it. You can legally copy that by the hundreds. You can also get it as software. So you can take it, copy it, print out pieces of software, put it in documents, that kind of thing.

And I've seen that for ten bucks. And by the way, the software version has dozens and dozens of other references with it. So it's good stuff, it's well done, it's as simple as you can get it and still get the detail in, and it's cheap. The computer for the software may not be though.

Rose's book of Bible charts, maps, and timelines, about 190 pages. That also is copyable. One difference from the Nelson book is that things are in color, which sometimes is helpful and sometimes it's just color. That also is copyable. You can legally copy from that 300 copies. for classroom or non-commercial use. You want to give it to a friend, you want to send this to somebody, they say go ahead, go right ahead. And they give you a website there to check out some information.

Then the Holman Book of Biblical Charts, that one is very well done. It's probably in the order of about, excuse me, the Rose Book is about $30. This last one, the Holman Book, is somewhere around $20. It's not designed to be copied, but it is designed to be propped up, so it's made so you can kind of set it up, so it makes it easier to look at for study or for small groups.

So all three of those are well done, good resources, they take the Bible seriously, and so any of those I'd have no problem recommending. Each of those are also recommendable for New Testament study. This is for the whole Bible, Old Testament, and New Testament. So when we go cover New Testament history next week, these will be just as good. Yeah, Doug? Let's see.

Nelson's Complete Book of Bible Maps and Charts. If they don't have it, they can order it for you. Rose book, Bible maps and charts, you may be able to get those from stores. What I've done in the past is get it from them directly through their website, but you could probably also get those as well. And the Holman book of biblical charts is another one. Yeah, they should be able to get all three of those for you if you want to go to a Christian bookstore for that. Yeah. Pardon? The Holman book is probably on the order of about 20 bucks. So the first one, 10 to 15 bucks should be a price you should find. The second one about 30 bucks and the third one about 20 bucks.

The thing that's great, these are really good references. The top two are copyable. It's no limitations. It's not like you're violating. It says right on the book, you can copy this. It tells you how many you can make. I think Nelson's book that limits a thousand copies. The second one, the Rose book is 300 or something.

So for anybody ordinarily making use of it, this is great. This is good stuff and there's no problem. The third one doesn't have that copy permission, but it has the handy feature. If you're doing some study, you can kind of prop it up and use it as a reference or you can use it for teaching a small group. So anyway, there's that. It does have New Testament.

The other thing, and the place where I got these larger charts from, there's a website, a guy named Tom Elsrode up in Spokane has a bunch of different charts and in general I'd say they're pretty good. You can get on there, put them down for free. He says do whatever you want with them. He's got no limitations on, you know, can't do this, can't copy that. Do whatever you want, anything you want, just don't charge for it. That's his only limitation. So those are some really good resources at anywhere from 10 to 30 bucks and the Elk's Road charts are free. Except for the computer and the printer.

Okay, that's the material we have for Old Testament history. What I would say is, this chart is a really good tool. What you can do is you look at a book that you're studying, you can say, when was that book written? In some cases, it'll just, it'll nail it and say, here's Haggai, 820, you know, excuse me. Something doesn't seem right. You know, it says 820, that should be corrected.

It's 520 BC, so correct that on the chart if you will. 520 BC, but a specific date. specific date. And the Haggai was written just before the completion of the second temple. That second temple was the one that Christ walked into and the apostles testified in. So that date's wrong? The date on the chart should be corrected to 520. It's placed correctly, it's just not the date as a typo. The one on Psalms, he's got 586 there, but the position of it isn't quite correct. In general though, what's interesting, I've been emailing this guy to try to get him to change it, and he doesn't respond to my emails. Not sure what to do about that.

But in general, I find the chart to be helpful, and I've not quite found anything of this sort. that lays it out for, you know, specific things happening and when books were written. So the ability to sit there and look at it and say, well, this happened about here, this happened about here, or in some cases, this happened right here this time. That's a helpful thing to get things in sequence.

I had a fellow ask me one time, you know, he wasn't sure whether Abraham lived before David. Okay. And I said, no, Abraham was definitely before David, and the sequence matters. And that's one of the points here. Getting the sequence does make a difference. The promise to David was actually a focusing in, a zeroing in, and a getting more specific of the promise to Abraham. So it doesn't matter which one came first. Essentially the promise to David in 1000 BC, was a promise that was a part of the promise to Abraham in 2000 BC. So the sequence makes a difference. Get those out of order.

You have to be careful, otherwise you end up being your own grandpa. So Psalms, the end of Psalms is like 530? Yeah, they have it here, I think it's 586, should be like 536 is probably a better date. No, 538 should be fine, but it would be 536 on the Psalms. Okay, now, any questions? Either if there's no questions, either a completely baffled view, which is horrible, or I just covered it so well that, you know, I couldn't possibly ask any questions.

So hopefully or probably somewhere in between. The chart is helpful. We've caught a couple of things there that need to be corrected. But even with that, it's helpful. And I frankly have not found anything quite like it in terms of here's the book, and here's where it matches up with everything else. So if he would only correct those couple of dates, it'd be perfect.

Right? Yeah, Bill? Yes, and that's also in your package, except you don't have one, so I'll give it to you. There's extras. So say like you're reading... Pardon? I have two of the Old Testament. Okay, well that's terrible. But that's why we've got Spares and Beasts. By the way, you should have in the Old Testament, this Hebrew chart, and you should have here. And you should have the New Testament in the next section. If you don't, let me know and we'll get you swapped out right now.

This was a bit of a hand collating job and so the opportunity for error is accelerated. Everybody covered on that? I just think this is real helpful. Somebody was starting to ask, I think you or Mike. I think what you do is, let's take a for instance.

Like in the New Testament, the books aren't placed in the same time where they were written. In the New Testament section, of course, we'll cover that next week. But in the New Testament section, yeah, I think they are. Are they? Yeah, I think they are. I thought Olympians was written later than Colossians. No, about the same, they were both in Paul's Roman imprisonment, so about the same time. So, the sequence is correct? The sequence is correct, yeah. But I thought John was written later.

John was written, the Gospel of John was written later, and what you'll see is what he's done is taken the later years And he has an arrow pointing. In order to keep the thing on the chart, he has the arrow pointing to the later point in time. So, remember that little box there on the New Testament chart. Is there any of that in the Old Testament? In the Old Testament, it's all straight as it is. So, that's just one exception. In order to fit it all in the New Testament chart, he had that little area where he pulled the timetable back. Other than that, it should be all straightforward.

And let's take a for instance, I'm looking at Haggai, which should be not 820, but 520. Haggai was writing just one short book, a few chapters long. He was writing in a period of time when many of the Jews had come back to Israel. They had begun building the temple, but got distracted. and just started kind of building their own houses and they kind of dropped it. So Haggai comes in, prophesies for a brief period of time. He writes one fairly short book, which is all designed to exhort them to get back to finishing the temple, the second temple. It's a fascinating brief book. It has a perfect description of inflation. He says you take your money to put it in a bag with holes in it. Right? Good description of inflation, right? And he says, you take your money and put it in a bag with holes in it.

And he tells the governor, because remember they are still under the Persians, he tells the governor of Judah that he will be basically an ancestor to Jesus Christ, the Messiah. Which if you check in the New Testament is true. Shelteel. Okay? It's the governor.

So a fascinating brief book and you can put it in sequence and you can also see on the other chart on page 24, I think it is, that by 515, five years later, they've completed the temple. So the historical sequence fits. It wouldn't do much good for him to be exhorting them to complete the temple if they'd already gotten it done. So that's why the sequence matters. Things begin to make sense. It's actually on this chart too. What's that? Tempo Completion. Yes, Tempo Completion. Yes, 515 is on both charts. Thank you. Yeah, Tempo Completion, 515.

So what you have, the message that he had to say, Haggai had to say, was just the right message. It wasn't long, but it was potent. And it motivated the people, got them stirred up and got the job done. And so even in the short period of time, five years, Everything fits. And in a longer period of time, by the way, Governor, the Messiah will descend from you. So this is good stuff. This is good stuff.

Other thoughts, questions? Yes. I thought Israel was what the Lord called Jacob. And that's where the word Israel came from. Now let's let's let's take a look. Let's take a look at. Doug is asking the question. Here's Jacob, who was named Israel. And now we've got this northern nation of Israel. And now we've got this modern nation of Israel.

Yeah. One of the things that is helpful, I think, to cover is that the use of names underwent some change over time. And let me walk quickly through that, because I think it'll be helpful. So thank you for asking the question. Here's Jacob. Jacob, so far as he knew originally, he was just named Jacob.

It was God, and we'll see as we get to the end of Genesis many months from now, the Lord allows, God who gave him the name Israel. Now, as the twelve tribes, headed by these sons, as the twelve tribes developed, they took on the name of Israel, and most often You see them referred to as Israel rather, but occasionally even they get called Jacob. The whole nation of people gets called Israel or Jacob.

When the nation of Israel, which was the United Kingdom, divided, the two southern tribes were Benjamin and Judah. The northern tribes were the other ten. The southern tribe that was prominent, the one that had been given the area around Jerusalem, the one from whom the kings came, Judah. The whole nation got called by that prominent tribe. But even the Benjamites were glad to be recognized as with Judah. They stayed loyal to Judah. So that when Paul tells about his qualifications as a Jew, he says, I'm of the tribe of Benjamin. We were loyal to Judah. We stayed on the right side.

But the northern nation then took on the name of Israel, even though it was only ten tribes. The prominent tribe among them was the tribe of Ephraim. And so sometimes you'll see in the prophets that the northern nation, who is often usually called Israel, is also called Ephraim by the prominent tribe. So the pattern for both north and south is to call the nation by the prominent tribe at times. Then, as Judah was hauled off later and then brought back, That prominent tribal name got nicknamed Jews. And so we now even will call the whole group of people who are descended from Jacob, from Israel, Jews.

Why? Because of a nickname, a shortened form of that one prominent tribe in the south. Does that make sense? Now, one more quirk. One more quirk of history. The divided kingdom had ten tribes in the north and two tribes in the south. Remember how many kings in the north were good?

Right. So if you're a righteous Jew, where are you going to head? South. So by the time the Jews got hauled off to the east to Babylon, it wasn't just two tribes, they had representatives of all 12 tribes got hauled off and representatives of all 12 tribes got brought back. Makes sense?

So you're right, and I thank you for bringing that up. There is a kind of a changing and morphing of names, and something like Judah ends up, that's the name of a guy. But wait a minute, it's also the name of a tribe, it's also the name of a nation, and by nickname, it's the name of the whole group. So that's kind of the morphing of the names, and it's important for people to understand. It doesn't take very long to explain it, but I think the explanation is helpful. As you read through things, you say, wait a minute, there's Judah and Judea, there's another change of the name, Judea, which is by New Testament times it was called. That morphing of names and what it applies to, It can be confusing, but it can also be straightened out.

We just understand how it's used. Because that's what we have today, the nation of Israel. Yeah, here's what's interesting is they took on the name of Israel very early because they were all descended from Jacob, whom God named Israel. So early on they took on that name as a nation and as a people.

The difficulties and complications came when they split. Is that kind of like what said Jacob, have I loved, have ye sought my aid? Well, and what was it? Jacob, initially, was just Jacob the person, and Esau the person. But ultimately, that comes down to the descendants of them. So you have Jacob standing not just for Jacob the person, but Jacob, or Israel, the nation. And understanding that kind of evolution in terms, An important one.

One way to think of it is even among ourselves, did you have or did you know somebody that had a nickname younger that they no longer carry? Or maybe gained some more nicknames? I won't tell you what all my nicknames were. But we have that sometimes even among us as people where there's a morphing, you know, multiple names and then a morphing of what those names mean and sometimes a complete substitution. where you don't even know what this person's real name is. John Wayne, by the way, wasn't John Wayne. We have substitute names for people and a lot of times the substitute names end up sticking more than the original.

Okay, let's call it. Alright? Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the things that you've laid out, the wonderful tools that you've presented to us so that we can understand more deeply what you have done for your glory. We thank you for all you've shown us and given us. In Jesus' name, Amen.