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The most recent
doctrines can be accessed here.
Some of 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 2-4 months
to exegete one chapter of a book, so
those which will correctly display in
an HTML format will be added quite
slowly.
Updated 4/25/2013.
- The word-by-word exegesis of the
book of Genesis is complete
to Gen. 9. Genesis chapter
links (HTML)
(PDF).
Look further down
in this list, because Genesis is
actually available in 3
formats.
- Exodus, Leviticus,
Numbers and Deuteronomy
were done many years ago and
these are a verse- by-verse
exegesis, and not as thorough as I
would like.
-
Exodus:
Moses takes the Israelites
from bondage to the Land of
Promise. (HTML) (PDF)
Leviticus:
This book is not as much
about the Levitical
Priesthood (a misnomer, by
the way) as about the Mosaic
Law. (HTML) (PDF)
Numbers:
Gen X dies out and the
Generation of Promise is
raised up. (HTML) (PDF)
Deuteronomy:
This book is extremely
significant, and many who
exegete it do not seem to
grasp how it is different
from the previous 3 books. (HTML) (PDF). In
terms of document style,
there will be some minor
differences from chapter
to chapter.
- Joshua chapter links (HTML)
(PDF)
(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 chapter links (HTML)
(PDF)
Although this exegesis was done
years ago, I have begun to update it
chapter by chapter.
- Ruth chapter links (HTML)
(PDF) (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 chapter links for
1&2Samuel (HTML)
(PDF)
1Samuel is now completed and
this 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,
the first 17 chapters of 2Samuel
have been completed. Right
now, the entire exegesis is about
7000 pages; it will be around 9000
pages when completed.
- Chronicles chapter links (HTML)
(PDF)
. 1Chronicles is complete
through chapter 18. 2
Chronicles has not yet been started.
- Esther a very old exegesis
of this book (HTML)
(PDF)
A related article is, Why
Isn't God's Name Found in the
Book of Esther?
- Job chapter links (HTML) (PDF) 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. I
admit that, throughout that study,
as far as I had gone, I have a great
deal of difficulty properly
interpreting the book of Job.
Here is what I believe is the key to
this book: "Here is one of the keys
to Job: we have 4 men discussing
theology throughout most of the
book; this is like a late-night
college bull session at a
seminary. They seem to have a
reasonable understanding of basic
theology; the character of God and
His justice and righteousness.
However, what has confused them is,
the application of what they
know—theology that most of them
agree on—to life. What seems
to be the missing element in their
understanding is, the Angelic
Conflict. Since we are reading
this book from cover to cover, we
understand that the basis for it is
the Angelic Conflict. They
does not appear to come up in these
lengthy discussions.
Therefore, they are confused about
the application of doctrine to
experience." This will be
added to the introduction at some
point in time.
- The Psalms chapter
links (HTML)
(PDF).
So far, the following psalms have
been exegeted: 2 7
8 10 12 15
19 20 21 23
24 32 33 34
41 44 46 47
51 52 54 55
56 57 59 61
62 63 64 68
73 78 81 83
89 90 95 96
99 103 104
105 106 110
114 118 133
136 142 146 148
(this is a little over a
third of the psalms)
- The Song of Solomon
(HTML)
(PDF)
exegeted many years ago; quite
brief.
I should point out that some books will
not really display correctly as HTML
documents (some tables would not
translate well into HTML; and a couple
Hebrew characters are compromised and
sometimes 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 hard drive (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.
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