The  most recent doctrines can be accessed here.

The PDF documents are usually large so that, when you click on them and try to read too quickly, they document may freeze because it is not completely loaded into your browser window.  Therefore, some of you will find it easier to need to download those files to your harddrive to read them from there.  With the PDF files, you will get all of the graphics and all of the Hebrew (including vowel points) correctly displayed.

A recent version of WordPerfect (X4) allows me to save documents in an HTML format which will preserve the Hebrew characters properly written from right to left.  Documents produced after October 2008 will reflect the Hebrew as it should look.  Unfortunately, it takes me 6-12 months to exegete one chapter of a book, so those which will correctly display in an HTML format will be added quite slowly (I have just completed 2Sam. 12, Psalms 32  51).

Updated 11-28-2011.

I have exegeted the following books, either in full or in part:

  • At this point, the book of Samuel (broken down into 2 books in your Bible) (HTML)  (PDF) (the chapters are exegeted separately and this link takes you to a list of the chapters), is the crowning achievement of my work.  All totaled, the complete exegesis of Samuel will run around 8000 pages (right now, I am at 6000 pages), and will be broken down not just verse-by-verse, but word-by-word as well.  The exegesis is designed so that, if you want to ignore the Hebrew exegesis, you may easily do this--you simply skip over the Hebrew tables (the formatting is specifically designed to allow you to ignore that part of the text).  However, if you want the text broken down word-by-word, then these tables are right there and easy to use.  Exegeted with the book of Samuel are certain Psalms (HTML)  (PDF) and the book of Chronicles (HTML)  (PDF), which are also reasonably well-done.  The book of Samuel is a work in progress; I am presently working on  2Samuel 13.
  • Every single word of Hebrew is examined in these studies.  However, I have placed the Hebrew exegesis into tables so that you could easily skip over them.  The Hebrew exegesis is placed there for me, in order to get a good translation of a particular verse; and for anyone else who is teaching this and needs the complete exegetical background for a verse.  Now and again, you will question the translation I give, and the Hebrew tables are there which justify this translation.  Most of the time, the definitions are taken from BDB and/or Gesenius (which, for verbs, are stem-specific); and, once and a great while, from a verse-by-verse study of a particular word.  Also contained in these studies are the alternate readings as well as notes on grammar.  Most of the alternate readings are quite trivial.   So, for most people, the translation and the explanatory text should be all that you read and/or study.
  • Genesis:represents a new project; one which is very different from most of the exegesis found on this website.  I have always admired and appreciated the Thru the Bible series by J. Vernon McGee.  However, its chief weakness is his use of the King James Bible.  McGee always went back to the Bible and quoted verses out of the King James version.  Two or three generations ago, this was acceptable; today, however, few people are comfortable with the Shakespearian language of the KJV, and, as a result, his wonderful 5 year series becomes less and less relevant to us, despite his outstanding teaching (McGee was a genius when it comes to taking complex Biblical principles and explaining them in clear, plain language).  I've decided to put together a series of lessons which are not as thorough as most of my exegetical studies, but which cover specific books of the Bible.  I do not know how many books I will cover, and I certainly do not expect to be able to duplicate McGee's amazing feat of going through the entire Bible in 5 years.  However, what I have attempted to do is to develop of series of lessons, between 3-5 pages each, which introduce the Bible and exegete several books in the Bible.  At this point in time, I have no idea how far I will take this series.  I email out the new lesson each Wednesday and if you want to be on this email list, just contact me and let me know.  Meanwhile, these lessons are posted online in groups of 10 lessons as they are completed.
    • General Introduction (PDF) (4 lessons);
    • Introduction to the Bible (PDF) (14 lessons); 
    • Introduction to the Book of Genesis (PDF) (3 lessons).  All of these introductory lessons are one document.
    • Genesis Lessons 1-100  (HTML)   (PDF) (these links represent a change since August of 2010).   Whereas I had hoped to cover this material in less detail, I must admit to getting bogged down in with some detail (not as much, however, as in the Samuel series).   All of the doctrines covered are now indexed as a part of the first few pages and hyperlinked to where they are found in the exegesis.
    • Genesis Lessons 101-160 posted 11/28/2011  (HTML)   (PDF).  Lesson #101 marks a radical change in the book of Genesis where we begin to follow Abraham, the father of the Jewish people.  There are a number of very important doctrines included in these  lessons: Historical examples of "I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you."  The Doctrine of Logistical Grace; The Doctrine of Separation; Figures of Speech in the Bible; How the Altar Represents the Essence of God; The Doctrine of Blessing by Association; The Doctrine of the Will of God.  The Doctrine of Faith-Rest.  The Goals of Communism in America.   The Doctrine of the Laws of Divine Establishment.  Spiritual Growth which Results in Eternal Impact. Antisemitism. The Importance of Bible Doctrine.  The Advents of Jesus Christ (with a reference to intercalation).  The true concept of Separation of Church and State (along with some real history of the United States).  Redemption.  The Illustration of the Slave Market of Sin.  The Seeds of Modern Theology in Gen. 1-14.  Progressive Revelation.  Tithing.  The Angel of the Lord.  The Biblical Doctrine of Slavery.  The Geographical Will of God.  Some of these are fundamental doctrines for the Christian life.
  • The Pentateuch  was my first effort to exegete Scripture, so the exegesis is rather brief and does not delve too deeply into the material.  The exegesis for each book is about 500 pages long, and each subsequent effort was better than what I had done previously (i.e., Deuteronomy is much better than Genesis).  The study of Genesis here is not as thorough as the recent study which is at the top of this page.
  • Joshua (this is an old study which, some day, I need to update).  The Bible is not just haphazardly thrown together.  The history and the order of the history is very meaningful.  The Pentateuch--at least the last 4 books of the Pentateuch--are the Books of the Law, the Law which condemns us.  No one has ever lived up to the requirements of the Law of God (except for His Son, Jesus).  What follows immediately after the Law is the book of Joshua.  Joshua means salvation; the Greek equivalent of the name Joshua is Jesus.  Logically, we are first judged by the Law, and then God provides salvation for us in our hopeless condition through Jesus Christ [Salvation Messiah].  Therefore, we go from the Law, which condemns us, to Jesus [Joshua] Who saves us.
  • Judges (I am beginning to update this exegesis; I have completed the first few chapters)
  • Ruth (this is an exegetical study which I did a long time ago, so it is much briefer than my examination of the book of Samuel).
  • Samuel (I have completed 1Samuel in its entirety, and it is the most thorough exegesis that you can find on this book).  There are a lot of things found in this study that you will see nowhere else.  Why did God allow the Ark to fall into disuse during the time of Samuel?  God chose to allow that to happen and there is a very good reason why.  Why did God allow Samuel to be brought back from the dead when King Saul asked to speak to him through a medium?  What Samuel told Saul was not new; it was not earthshaking; Saul already knew what Samuel told him.  So why would God allow Samuel to come back like this?  How did David get to a point where, he was ready to war against his own country?  You may know that David wanted to build a permanent dwelling for the Ark of God (the Temple), but God chose his son, Solomon, to build the Temple--do you know why?  I can guarantee you, there are things in this study that you have never thought about before; and there are things in this study which are explained which have never been explained before.  Now, don't misunderstand me--none of this is going to be earth-shattering or affect the doctrine as received by the saints; however, it will explain a great deal, and you will develop a great appreciation for what God has done in the past and why He chose to do things the way that He did.  At this point in time, I have completed the first 10 chapters of 2Samuel.
  • Chronicles (I am a third of the way through 1Chronicles, and the first 8 or 9 chapters are not exegeted word by word--these are the genealogies, which I found to be much more fascinating than I originally expected).  At this point in time, I have completed 1Chronicles 1-18.
  • Esther  [PDF]; these are my notes from Bible class; I did do an ancient exegesis of this book a million years ago and I have posted that as well (Esther.htm; Esther.pdf).  An related article is, Why Isn't God's Name Found in the Book of Esther? 
  • Job (I have only gone as far as Job 21; furthermore, this book was not exegeted word by word; it is still a superior study, however). 
  • Psalms (I have completed about a third of the psalms, and they vary greatly in quality and  detail of exegesis.  The psalms which I have exegeted during the exegesis of Samuel will be in extreme detail.   Too often, the psalms are ignored; there are extremely important doctrinal principles (e.g., Psalm 2  15  33  44  73  83  104  105) and applications found in these psalms (Psalm 8  34), and many of these psalms provide a great deal of additional information about the narrative portions of Scripture during which they were written (e.g., Psalm 52  56  63  90  106).
  • The Song of Solomon   [PDF]; I did this exegesis a long time ago, so it has a lot fewer details than most everything else I have done.
I should point out that some books will not really display correctly as html documents (some tables would not translate well into html; and Hebrew characters, for the most part, are not rendered correctly).  These things are rendered perfectly as pdf documents, but many of those are very large files, so you may need to download them and view them from your own harddrive (if you need to see the Hebrew characters or graphics or formatting exactly as I have created the document).


Rationale for Studying the Old Testament

Most churches and denominations seem to have a Bible which is 12 pages long; or, for some, a couple hundred pages long at best.  No matter what kind of a church you go to, it is highly unlikely that you offer up animal sacrifices during your Saturday services.  The services at your church, whether you belong to a church driven by covenant theology or dispensationalism, are probably less bloody and take place on Sundays (by the way, the fact that you do not offer up animal sacrifices and meet on Sunday makes you, to some extent, a dispensationalist).

God the Holy Spirit has given us the entire Bible.  He has seen to it that the Old Testament has been marvelously preserved by several different groups, groups who have been, at various times, at odds with one another.  Therefore, even though we do not have 26,000 ancient manuscripts of the Old Testament, we have the Old Testament preserved in Hebrew by the Masorites (Jews), in Greek by the one set of Christians (the Greek Orthodox church among other more independent groups), in Latin by the Catholic Church, and in Syriac and Arabic by other groups.  All of these preserved versions are available to us today, and, remarkably enough, the dissimilarities are minor and usually are of a non-doctrinal nature.  We are speaking of groups who, at various times, have been at odds with one another, and they all preserved the same Scriptures, the Scriptures used early on by the Apostles to the Church.  Therefore, if God the Holy Spirit saw fit to preserve these Scriptures in such an incredible way, then we, as believers in Jesus Christ, ought to study them as well.  All Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness (2Tim. 3:16).

The Old Testament is not designed for us to take a few verses from in order to support some cultic doctrine, e.g., the continued observation of the Sabbath (Saturday).  That is, the local churches doctrine should not reach back and quote the 4th Commandment, add in The Scripture cannot be broken along with and there remains a Sabbath for the people of God (Heb. 4:9), and, since God created the Sabbath observation even before the Jewish nation (Gen. 2:1–3), we should therefore observe the Sabbath.  It is a simple argument based upon what appear to be fairly straightforward verses; but the problem is, these verses are taken out of context, and the close association with the church and the first day of the week is completely ignored.

What I mean is, the Old Testament should be thoroughly studied, and taken in its historical and doctrinal context.  The Old Testament tells us about God’s workings with man; we find the Trinity in the first chapter of Genesis; we find the Angelic Conflict presented in greater detail in the Old Testament (e.g., Job 1–2); and we find so much material on God’s relationship to the Jews that we would be theologically remiss to think that the Church is the new Jew.

Obviously, Church Age-specific doctrines are going to come from the epistles; the 4 accounts of the life of Jesus will come from the gospels; and eschatology is going to be found in Revelation.  However, Psalm 22 and Isa. 53 provide us with more detailed information about the cross than we read in the gospels; there are passages in Daniel, Jeremiah and Isaiah which also tell us about the end times.  And, very importantly, when we study the Old Testament and see how clearly that Jesus Christ is presented, time and time again, it helps to bolster our faith in Him and our trust of Holy Writ.  I fully understand how believers can lose their way, or question their faith, or question God.  However, the more you know about the Old Testament, the more difficult it is for you to go astray from your faith, as it all fits together much too well to just to have happened.

Therefore, if you have a reasonable understanding of Dispensational theology (i.e., you understand that God worked through the Jews and through the nation Israel for many centuries before the Incarnation and now God is working through a new institution, the church), then it is not just reasonable, but imperative that you study the Old Testament as well as the New.  However, you must be careful to be under a teacher who is not going to try to subjugate you to the Law or to any doctrine or practice which is specifically for the Jew in the Age of Israel.

Personally, I have no idea why I got so interested in the Old Testament.  I’ve gone through a detailed exegetical study of almost every New Testament book and for ¾ths of the Old Testament.  However, when I went back to exegete the Bible for myself, beginning in Genesis (with the intention of jumping back and forth between the Old and New Testaments), I ended up staying in the Old Testament.  I would venture into the New Testament now and again, and obviously, the doctrine which guides my life is found primarily in the New Testament; still, I have found myself inexplicably drawn to the Old Testament.

What I can tell you is, in most studies I have seen of the Old Testament, there are three things which are too often missing: (1) details; (2) application; and (3) a clear relationship to the New Testament.

When it comes to details, my exegesis might even be somewhat over the top.  I spent 4000 pages exegeting the book of 1Samuel.  Every word found in the Masoretic text is covered and its morphology (this portion can easily be skipped over, by the way); almost every take on every passage is covered; I summarize and re-summarize the material; and my hope is, after going through a chapter in this or that book, that you clearly understand pretty much every detail in that book; and where there are disputations, that you understand what they are and why this or that side is chosen.  My intention is to have a one-stop commentary of the books of Judges and Samuel (and whatever else I can cover in my lifetime), so that, after reading my commentary, you will find no reason to explore other commentaries—you will feel as though you have learned all you can learn about that book.

I found a lot of devotional crap and tangents in the commentaries that I read, but very little application.  When we study David killing groups of Philistines, what should we get out of this?  How do we apply this to our own lives?  Every few verses, I’ll stop and directly tie what we are studying in the Old Testament to your life.

Finally, that the Old Testament is clearly the foundation for all that occurs in the New, I find to be amazing.  For instance, the parallels between the person of Samuel and the Lord Jesus Christ are incredible, and rarely exploited by any commentator.  The unique and most incredible aspect of Samuel’s life is ignored again and again by commentators, and yet is so closely tied to Jesus Christ that, when you see me present it, you will wonder, why didn’t anyone else see this?  My point is, God clearly recorded information in the Old Testament that we need for a number of different things; He designed the entire Holy Bible to fill up our entire lives.  He designed Scripture so that we can go back again and again and get more and more from each passage, no matter how deeply we dig into that passage.

I do not believe for an instant that all of the spiritual gifts distributed the Church Age believers are found listed in the New Testament.  James Strong put together Strong’s Concordance; even though the gifts he possessed in order to put this concordance together are not named specifically in the New Testament, it should be clear that this was the purpose of God the Holy Spirit for this man’s life.  I don’t know what else he did, but this is a defining work.  There are hundreds of men, if not thousands, who have written outstanding reference works which have have been directly and indirectly helpful to millions of believers.  To me, one of the great—and relatively recent—literary works is Josh McDowell’s Evidence that Demands a Verdict (or, any of its many incarnations).  I know very little about McDowell and his relationship to Campus Crusade, but I do know that this is an outstanding book which serves to bolster the faith of any believer who reads it.  So, even though the New Testament does not mention authorship as a spiritual gift, I have no doubt that this is one of McDowell’s gifts, for which many believers today are quite thankful.  I mention this because I believe that my interest and production in the exegesis of the Old Testament is my gift.  This is my own driving purpose; this is what gets me up in the mornings.