The Histories
Why do you call them the Histories?
In the Histories we see the hundreds of years long story of the Israelite nation from their arrival in the promised land, to their deportation by foreign empires, to their ultimate return to the land.
What books are contained in the Histories?
Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1-2 Samuel, 1-2 Kings, 1-2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther.
Whose death opens the book of Joshua?
The book of Joshua begins with the death of Moses.
What is the promise God makes to David?
God promises David that he will have a great dynasty and that his throne will be established forever.
What great tragedy concludes 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles?
Both Kings and Chronicles end with the deportation of the southern kingdom of Judah, the last remaining vestige of God’s covenant people, to Babylon. The northern kingdom of Israel, which had split off from Judah nearly 400 years before in a bloody civil war, had previously been swept away by Assyria roughly 150 years before Judah, never to return.
Why is Israel’s exile so important?
God had promised Israel that if they failed to keep his covenant teachings that he would expel them from the promised land and their choices would lead to death. Israel’s ultimate exile demonstrated that God was serious about their end of the bargain, despite hundreds of years of God’s action to prevent exile through his prophets.
Exile further demonstrated that even though exile was a consequence of rebellion and disobedience, God was still obliged by his own self to bless the nation of Israel and bring about a blessing for the whole world through them.
What can we know about God given Israel’s exile?
There are three things we clearly see in God’s exile of his people.
The first is that God hates sins. The people of Israel were expelled for failure to faithfully practice the covenant teachings which God had given them, as well as for idolatry and for mistreatment of the widow, the orphan, the immigrant, and the poor and needy.
The second is that God is slow to anger. He sends numerous prophets over hundreds of years to turn his people back to himself, yet the people did not return.
The last is that God is faithful to his promises. Though he waited many years to finally expel Israel from the land, their expulsion was promised as a curse connected with breaking the covenant.
Why is Esther a peculiar book?
Esther is a peculiar book because God is never mentioned, not by his divine name YHWH nor by any other name. The book is violent, sexually promiscuous, the heroes regularly break torah, in stark contrast to Daniel, and ends with a drunken festival in which all the people of Israel crossdress. Yet we see that even in the darkness, God is faithful to his covenant people in spite of their failings.