A Woman And A Nail

In the Old Testament, the Israelites were seen as people who failed to listen to God’s commandments. Despite knowing beforehand that they would be punished for their disobedience, they still continued to commit sin. God tried to deter their misbehavior by promising them many blessings, but it worked to no avail. Due to the insubordination of the Israelites, He made sure that the promises He made to them would be withheld and that they would face consequences.

The nation of Israel, for several centuries, was under a theocracy of God. Their king was God instead of a human. When Israel was in distress, God sent judges to deliver them and turn them back to Him. Unfortunately, instead of worshipping God after their deliverance, they turned against Him in their sin. Israel began to become like the other nations and kings reigned over them. The kingships of Saul, David, and Solomon significantly influenced the nation of Israel. When these kings obeyed God, He blessed them and the nation. However, when the kings disobeyed God, He removed his blessings from them and the nation of Israel. The disobedience to and disregarding of God eventually lead to the downfall of the nation of Israel.

The Israelites spent 430 years in bondage. Although the Israelites had left Egypt, Pharaoh still sought after them by chasing them with his army. God accomplished the complete liberation of the Israelites by allowing Moses and his people to cross the Red sea and then drowning the Egyptian army that followed. “Around 1209 BC, Egypt lost control of Syria-Palestine in this period due to internal difficulties” (Thronveit and Gaiser).This was as a result of the events at the Red Sea. After Liberation was completed, God preserved the Israelites in the wilderness through miraculous provisions.

The books of both Joshua and Judges provide an oversight into conquest and occupation of the Promised Land. Initially, when God promised Abraham land for he and his descendants it seems all that is required of the Israelites is to comply with the covenant (Tullock & McEntire, 2012, p. 96).

God warned Israel before they entered the Promised Land that they will forsake Him and go after other gods. As a result of this, He will scatter them among the nations. After the death of Solomon, the United Kingdom was split in two: The Northern ten tribes will form Israel and the remaining 2 tribes in the South will form Judah. Israel went into Assyrian captivity in 722 B.C. and they never returned to their land. Judah went into Babylonian

Desperate to escape the despotic government, many people from Judah turned to false gods and idolatry.6 Pleading to God for rescue from such an immoral, faithless place, Habakkuk learned that the situation of Judah would be rectified in time.7 God said that He had prepared a chastising rod and that Babylon would be the avenging instrument of the just Judeans.8 After the Babylonians expelled Jehoiakim from the throne, God emancipated the Judeans and relieved the heinous social situation. In the end, Habakkuk knew that the just Israelite would not perish from the calamities of the Babylonian attacks;9 he knew that righteousness and faith would prevail. Instead of rectifying the situation at once, the Chaldean empire took control and continued to treat the Judeans harshly. Furthermore, Habakkuk became angry and questioned God again. Nevertheless, he heeded to the previous words of God and kept his faith. Before humanity lost faithfulness, Habakkuk needed to spread this message throughout the empire to save the Judeans. Habakkuk had to extend the word of God to all oppressed people, so he wrote in a style the Israelites could grasp.

About 500 years after the death of Abraham, his descendants through Isaac were living in Egypt as slaves. Genesis 37 to 50 tells the story of how this came about. The 10 oldest sons of Abraham's grandson Jacob disliked their younger brother Joseph so much that they found a way to sell him to traders who in turn sold him to an Egyptian officer as a slave. In his new land, Joseph went through a series of ups and downs and eventually became the prime minister of Egypt, the highest official under the king. God enabled Joseph to foresee an approaching time of famine, and used him to store up food and then distribute it during the famine. His political position made it possible for him to settle his father's family in Egypt's most fertile territory. Here they prospered for many years. However, the time came when the leaders of Egypt began to view the rapidly growing Israelite community as a threat. As a result, they made slaves of the Israelites, treating them with ever-increasing harshness. Finally, desperate because the descendants of Jacob continued to multiply, they issued an order that all their male babies be destroyed at birth. The first 12 chapters of Exodus tell the story of how the Lord responded to the cries of His people. He miraculously provided Moses to be their leader, sent 10 plagues on the Egyptians, helped the Israelites celebrate their first Passover, and led them out of the land of bondage. It appears that as they left for Canaan, they had no

The Jewish were led to Israel by one of their patriarchs, Abraham, around 1950 B.C.E. Throughout time, the Israelites were captured numerous times by the Assyrians, Babylonians, and Phoenicians. The

people and created the state of Israel. This was not accepted well by either group of people. The

Let’s talk about the world about 2,000 years ago. It was a world where the mass of people were illiterate, taxes were extremely high, and the leaders would cheat and kill to feed their ever growing need for power. We all can relate to having a good storyteller in our lives, most were read to at night by their parents or are parents themselves that read to their children. What is the purpose of storytelling? It’s simple, comfort. A good story can ease your psychological unrest as well as offer a moral purpose. Sometimes you can even relate a story to your own life and offer an explanation to something you may be experiencing. This is exactly what the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were. They told their stories of Jesus to offer comfort to their people in a time when people could not pick up a story and read it themselves. It is part of human nature to have the desire for a good story. This paper will describe several events that were written by great storytellers in the bible.

In opening a defense of the conquest of Canaan we must look into the Israelites history, and see how God had formed them, and why they felt called to conquer the inhabitants of Canaan. According to the Old Testament scripture the land of Canaan had been promised by the Creator of the Universe to the Israelites in Genesis 17:8, in which God tells Abraham the father of the nation Israel, “And I will give

I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” God makes an extensive covenant to Abram, declaring that he will become a great nation. Little does Abram know, this is the dawn of the nation of Israel, God’s chosen

Indeed, He had called them out as His Chosen People. All of this was part of the Israelites cherished history. But you can’t live in the past. History has its place, but it must be kept in its place. The Israelites were challenged not to think that their greatest victories with the Lord were behind them. Isaiah’s prophecy charged them to forget the past…its comfortable familiarities, and even its shortcomings and disappointments. It was true that the Lord had brought them through the Red Sea, but He was also prepared to take them through the wilderness. Isaiah commanded the Israelites to look ahead, and he prophesied that God was going to do a new thing!

When the Hebrew peoples lost everything and entered into captivity to Babylon, they were a lost and floundering nation. “After the days of Solomon, the history of Israel was a story of increasing apostasy and judgement” (Clowney, 2013, p. 185). Despite their breaking of the covenants, and sinning against God in the worst ways, God did not abandoned them. He was very unhappy, and sent many prophets to speak His words to try to bring them back into relationship with Him, then God sent judgements down upon them. However, through these judgements, He kept to His promise to Abraham to ultimately bless the nations of Israel. (Clowney, 2013, p. 193) When they were allowed by Cyrus to return to Jerusalem (Arnold & Beyer, 2008, p. 58), with permission

Subsequently, in 1 Chronicles 9, the people of Judah were told they lost Jerusalem and its Temple because of their unfaithfulness to God (1 Chronicles 9:1 & Murphy 113). God had sent king Nebuchadnezzar to take the Jews because God’s people were mocking His “messengers, despised his words and scoffed at his prophets” (2 Chronicles 36:16). The Jews were in exile until Cyrus became the king of Persia, in which many Jews returned from Babylon and a new temple was built.