The Bible reveals to us God’s promises, commandments, and works. God’s people are well off to be fully knowledgeable of the Scriptures. The Scriptures are “profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,” and they are a source of life transformation, making us “complete, equipped for every good work” (1 Tim. 3:16-17). We are to become acquainted with God’s sacred writings for they give us the wisdom for salvation of our souls (1 Tim. 3:15). That being said; I thought it right to present a few posts offering a basic snapshot of the overarching narrative of the Bible. Let us begin with an overview of the Old Testament.
Moses is traditionally considered the author of the first five books of the Old Testament called the Torah or Pentateuch. The Torah includes: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.
Genesis concerns the creation of the universe, the fall, and the flood in the days of Noah. It also tells of Yahweh’s covenant with Abraham, and the way the Lord brought the patriarch out of the land of Ur to the promise land. Abraham would be blessed by the Lord to be a blessing to all nations. This covenant was then carried on through Isaac and Jacob / Israel. This book also includes the account of Joseph, which how Yahweh delivered Jacob and his twelve sons from a great famine, and moved them from Abraham’s promise land into Egypt.
The Hebrew people spent about four hundred thirty years in Egypt and during that time there came about a Pharaoh who enslaved them. Yahweh then used Moses to deliver the Hebrew people from slavery and to lead them back to the promise land. The great salvation event from Old Testament history is displayed in the Lord’s humbling of Pharaoh through ten plagues followed by the parting of the Red Sea. Yahweh also gave to Moses the Law on Mount Sinai, which gave the Hebrew people a unique cultural identity. They were to be a people centered upon the tabernacle worship of Yahweh. These events are covered in Exodus. The Law is further expounded upon in Leviticus. The Israelites also cycled through times of affirming their covenant with Yahweh, breaking the covenant on account of a particular sin, experiencing divine wrath on account of breaking their covenant with the Lord, repentance, and renewal of the covenant. This is further explored in the latter part of Exodus, particularly in the golden calf incident, and throughout the Numbers, which highlights two censuses taken during Israel’s wilderness experience. Sin would also keep an entire generation of Hebrews who experienced the great exodus from Egypt including Moses from entering the promise land, and they wandered in the desert for forty years. Deuteronomy is a renewal of the covenant with the generation of Israelites that would enter the promise land under the leadership of Joshua.
Next there are the books narrating the history of the Israelite people: Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1-2 Samuel, 1-2 Kings, 1-2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther.
The book of Joshua covers the entrance of the children of Israel into Abraham’s promise land with another great display of Yahweh’s power in the parting of the Jordan River. The people also renewed their covenant with Yahweh, and the men took on circumcision, which is the sign of the covenant. Joshua will tell of Israel’ conquest and settlement into the promise land, but also indicates the people still cycled through the experiences of sin, wrath, repentance, and renewal.
About three centuries of Hebrew history is covered in the book of Judges. During that time, the people would continue to cycle through the experiences of sin, wrath, repentance, and renewal. The times of wrath were characterized by life under the abusive and oppressive forces of pagan warlords. Yahweh also graciously and mercifully sent judges to deliver the people. Twelve judges are named: Othniel, Ehud, Shamgar, Deborah, Gideon, Tola, Jair, Jephtha, Ibzan, Elon, Abdon, and Samson. The period of the judges is also characterized by the fact that there was no king and everyone did what was right in their own eyes. The book of Judges ends in very dark circumstances, wherein a Levite priest is nearly abused by men from the Benjamite town of Gibeah, who succeeded in gang raping the Levite’s concubine, which resulted in her death. The Levite rallies ten tribes of Israel to bring the perpetrators to justice, but the tribe of Benjamin refuses to give up the guilty. This incident eventually escalates into a tribal war, and the Benjamites are nearly wiped out. The final chapter of the book ends with certain Benjamites taking virgins from Shiloh to continue their line. The book of Ruth offers a bright spark of light in this dark period of Hebrew history, as this Moabite widow affirms that the Hebrew people would be her people, and their God her God. She eventually marries a man named Boaz, and from their descendants comes David, who was Israel’s quintessential king.
The books of 1-2 Samuel and 1 Chronicles tell of the establishment of Israel’s monarchy in the days of Samuel the prophet. The first king of Israel was a man named Saul, who was from the tribe of Benjamin. On account of sin, Saul forfeited the right for his descendants to sit upon the royal throne, and David, who was from the tribe of Judah, was anointed as king. The Spirit of the Lord was no longer with Saul, the king was tormented to the brink of insanity, and he sought to murder David. The Lord eventually ended Saul’s life on the battlefield, along with the king’s son Jonathan, and David then took hold of the royal throne. David also cycled through the experience of sin, wrath, repentance, and renewal (e.g. the incident with Bathsheba, the census); however, his life was characterized as being a man after the Lord’s own heart. David also sought to build a temple for the Lord, but Yahweh indicated the temple would be built by David’s son, Solomon.
The Israelites considered Solomon a king with unparalleled wisdom, who established a new epoch of temple worship in Jerusalem. However, Solomon’s heart was divided, and on account of this, Israel’s monarchy would eventually be divided. After his reign, there came about a civil war, which divided the kingdom in two, with an alliance between the tribes of Judah and Benjamin in the south ruled by Rehoboam, and an alliance between the remaining ten tribes of Israel in the north ruled by Jeroboam. Nineteen generations of kings reigned in the northern kingdom of Israel from the tenth century to the eighth century when the nation was taken into Assyrian captivity. Twenty generations of kings that reigned in the southern kingdom of Judah from the tenth century to the late sixth century BC when they were taken into Babylonian exile. Both kingdoms cycled through sin, periods of experiencing divine wrath, occasions of repentance, and the renewal of the covenant; however, human sin would eventually lead them into exile for seventy years. The times of the kings of Israel and Judah are described in 1-2 Kings and 2 Chronicles.
Babylon was subjugated by Persia in the days of Cyrus, who decreed that the Jewish exiles could return to their homeland. The book of Ester is the account of a Jewish maiden who becomes part of the royal harem of a Persian monarch named Ahasuerus (Xerxes), and the way her particular circumstances served the occasion of delivering the Jewish people from genocidal pagans who sought their extermination. The books of Ezra and Nehemiah tell of the various stages the exiles came back, and the rebuilding of Jerusalem, the city’s walls, and a second temple. It is towards the end of the fifth century BC that the Jewish exiles are back in their promise land, albeit under Persian rule.
Then there are the books of wisdom and poetry: Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon. These writings offer praise to God and bear witness to His mighty deeds and steadfast love. They wrestle honestly with the problem of evil and suffering, refusing easy or superficial answers. The Book of Job, particularly, rejects simplistic explanations for why the righteous suffer, acknowledging the present world to be immersed in sorrow, yet one in which the righteous sufferer is ultimately vindicated. Throughout these books, God’s ways are shown to transcend finite human understanding, even as He remains just in all His ways. The wisdom literature also contains numerous proverbs that offer concise and penetrating insights into living well, grounding all wisdom for moral decision-making in the reverence for the Lord.
Lastly, there are the writings preserving the words of the ancient Hebrew prophets, which include: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi.
Yahweh also promised Moses that He would raise up prophets to speak to His people (Deut. 18). The historical books—1–2 Kings, 1–2 Chronicles, along with Ezra and Nehemiah—record the ministries of many of these prophetic figures. Jonah, Amos, and Hosea prophesied at various times in the northern kingdom of Israel, while Joel, Isaiah, Obadiah, Nahum, Jeremiah, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah ministered primarily in the southern kingdom of Judah. Micah uniquely addressed both Judah and Samaria, the capital of the northern kingdom. Jonah and Nahum were sent to Nineveh, the capital of the pagan Assyrian Empire. Daniel and Ezekiel carried out their prophetic ministries during the Babylonian exile, and Zechariah, Haggai, and Malachi served in the post-exilic period among the returning community.
Adam and Eve fell into sin, and their descendants were likewise afflicted by original sin. Yet the Old Testament progressively reveals God’s redemptive plan for humanity—His promise to dwell among His people, to grant them new hearts, to pour out His Holy Spirit, to raise the dead to everlasting life, and ultimately to set all things right, bringing about a new heaven and new earth. Thus, the Old Testament marks the era of promise unfolding, anticipating the New Testament era in which those promises find their fulfillment.
— WGN
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