The children born from these formerly barren women are significant. Abraham begets Isaac, Isaac begets Jacob, and Jacob will have sons as well. The first three barren women in the Old Testament (Sarah, Rebekah, and Rachel) are all wives of patriarchs—three generations in a row! In other words, the generations of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob all face the obstacle of barrenness, an obstacle the Lord overcomes by his promise-keeping power. It is the Lord’s power that sustains and advances his covenant promises.

Whenever the biblical authors describe a woman as barren, you can rest assured she won’t be barren for long. The reason for this confidence is the pattern of God’s reversal of the state of barrenness.
The Old Testament authors describe five women as barren. Let’s zoom in and see who they are.
Five Barren Women
First is Sarah. She’s Abraham’s wife. Genesis 11:30 tells us, “Now Sarai was barren; she had no child.”
Second is Rebekah. She’s Isaac’s wife. In Genesis 25:21 we read, “And Isaac prayed to the LORD for his wife, because she was barren.”
Third is Rachel. She’s Jacob’s wife. According to Genesis 29:31, “Rachel was barren.”
Fourth is Manoah’s wife. She’s unnamed. The writer says in Judges 13:2, “And his wife was barren and had no children.”
Fifth is Hannah. She’s Elkanah’s wife. The writer says in 1 Samuel 1:2 that “Hannah had no children,” and the reason is in 1 Samuel 1:5: “the LORD had closed her womb.”
Sometimes interpreters have suggested that Ruth was barren. Ruth 4:13 says, “So Boaz took Ruth, and she became his wife. And he went in to her, and the LORD gave her conception, and she bore a son.” I don’t think the language is clear enough about barrenness to include Ruth in the list, so I’m contending that five—not six—barren women are identified in the Old Testament.
Barrenness Overcome
There were certainly barren women before and after the ones named above. So why do the biblical authors draw attention to the barrenness of these five women?
In every case where a barren state is identified, the Lord overcomes the woman’s barrenness.
The Lord had promised that “Sarah shall have a son” (Gen. 18:14). And the Lord “visited Sarah as he had said, and the LORD did to Sarah as he had promised. And Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age at the time of which God had spoken to him” (Gen. 21:1–2).
Read More
Related Posts:

The Psalms teach us about salvation. There is no salvation to be found in chariots or spears or horsemen or political power. Salvation is from the Lord. When God saves sinners, he forgives their sins. He counts righteousness to them through faith. God is the refuge and the rock of his people. He pulls them from the mire, he delivers them from the water, he snatches them from Sheol, he rescues them from the darkness, and he pours out his abundant mercies upon their helpless estate.

In Martin Luther’s A Manual on the Book of Psalms, he says in the preface, “So that you may truly call the Book of Psalms, a little Bible; for in it all things that are contained in the whole Bible are given to us in the most wonderfully brief and sweet manner, and condensed into a most beautiful manual.”
Luther makes a strong claim, but when you read the Psalms, you see the truth in what he said. The Psalms are a little Bible, engaging the reader with a myriad of doctrinal truths that are taught outside the Psalms as well.
The Psalms teach us about God. We learn that God is trustworthy, holy, righteous, sovereign, powerful, just, everlasting, worthy of worship, faithful, loving, and supreme over all things. He is the Creator. He is the maker and sustainer of all things, and the echoes of his glory fill creation. There is none like the Lord. He shares his glory with no idols, and he reigns in unrivaled majesty.
The Psalms teach us about mankind. God made us a little lower than the heavenly beings, and he commissioned us to exercise dominion over creation. We rebelled and are thus corrupt and sinful. Instead of seeking the Lord, mankind pursues evil out of the overflow of their evil hearts. Society is filled with acts of injustice from one person toward another. We need salvation. We need forgiveness.
Read More
Related Posts:

We can notice a section of Mark’s Gospel where each category is represented. In Mark 4:35–5:43, we see a nature miracle (Mark 4:35–41), an exorcism (Mark 5:1–20), a physical healing (Mark 5:25–34), and a resurrection (Mark 5:35–43). I love how Mark has given us that series of stories so that we can see, all in a row, the various and mighty deeds our Savior has performed.

According to John’s Gospel, “Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book” (John 20:30). These signs are miracles, and we learn from John that he has given us a selective, not exhaustive, account.
Looking at the miracles that the Gospel writers do report, we can put them in four categories. Jesus performed nature miracles, exorcisms, healings, and resurrections.
Nature Miracles

Exorcisms

Read More
Related Posts:

The New Testament authors do quote from the Old Testament, but most of their uses of the Old Testament are allusions. And these allusions sometimes come back-to-back. Like those who understand the expression, “May the force be ever in your favor,” we need to be diligent readers of the Old Testament so that the allusions to it in the New will be more evident to us. We can read how an author uses an earlier text and smile and say, “Ah! I’ve seen language like this before. I know this phrase is pulling from an earlier source.” 

I can’t remember the first time I saw someone write, with a smirk no doubt, “May the force be ever in your favor.” It’s like those memes that attribute a Lord of the Rings quote to Harry Potter. I smile at these things when I see them, and maybe you do too, because we know what the writer is up to. The conflation is deliberate. We’re “in” on the joke.
With the statement, “May the force be ever in your favor,” the first half is drawing from Star Wars, and the second half is drawing from The Hunger Games.
Years ago I heard someone use that deliberately-melded line to make a biblical point: “The New Testament authors do this all the time.” Now that got my attention. What did he mean?
The New Testament authors don’t mind putting back-to-back allusions to the Old Testament together without telling you that’s what they’re doing. In order for you to understand what the biblical authors are doing, we must be careful readers who are immersed in earlier Scripture. If someone isn’t aware of Star Wars or The Hunger Games, then the statement, “May the force be ever in your favor,” won’t have the effect that it should.
As a biblical example, the Gospel of Mark opens like this: “Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way, the voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight’” (Mark 1:2–3).
These words in Mark 1:2–3 push several Old Testament lines together.

In Exodus 23:20, “Behold, I send an angel before you to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place that I have prepared.”
In Isaiah 40:3, “A voice cries: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.’”
In Malachi 3:1, “Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me.”

Read More
Related Posts:

Jesus quotes a psalm. He says, “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes” (Mark 12:10–11, citing Ps. 118:22–23). In the parable the beloved son is rejected, and in the psalm the stone is rejected. Jesus cites the psalm after telling the parable because he is the rejected son, and the rejected son is the rejected stone. 

On Tuesday of the week Jesus was going to die, he was teaching in the temple courts. Religious leaders tried to trap Jesus with various questions, though he evaded their traps with his superior wisdom. In one scene he told a parable followed by a quotation from a psalm, and we should see this parable and psalm together.
Jesus said that a vineyard owner leased the vineyard to tenants while he went to another country (Mark 12:1). During the season for fruit, the owner sent a servant to the tenants to get fruit, but the tenants beat the servant (12:2–3). Another servant arrived, but they treated him the same way, striking him on the head (12:4). More servants came, and some of them were even killed (12:5). Finally, the vineyard owner sent his “beloved son” (12:6). The wicked tenants saw an opportunity to take out the heir, so “they took him and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard” (12:8).
The parable was about the rejection of those who should have been received. The tenants should not have shamefully treated the vineyard owner’s servants. The treatment of the servants revealed the wickedness of the tenants. And since the tenants mistreated the servants, the momentum of the parable prepares us for the hostile way they will treat the vineyard owner’s son. In the shocking narration of the parable, the vineyard owner’s son dies at the hands of the wicked tenants.
Read More
Related Posts:

In the four Gospels, Jesus had come to the promised land which was still in spiritual exile. He had come to lead the meek and lowly to new creation. He had come to bring life to the dead, restoration to the broken, and forgiveness to the transgressors. The physical miracles were signs of God’s inbreaking kingdom. After thirty-eight long years, the invalid in John 5 encounters the Lord Jesus. Though physically lame, the invalid was a spiritual wanderer. By the pool of Bethesda he beheld the Lamb of God who had come to bring people to a greater inheritance—eternal life and new creation.

Jesus healed an invalid in John 5, and the setup to the miracle went like this: “Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. In these lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years” (John 5:2–5).
That’s a very specific number of years. In the Gospels, we’re not normally told how many years someone has dealt with a particular malady. When John tells us this number, he doesn’t even round it to the nearest ten (“about forty years”). He says the man was an invalid for thirty-eight years.
Now maybe that number signifies nothing more than those years for that individual. But this number appears in the Gospel of John, which is known to use numbers in very careful ways. For instance: there are seven “I am” claims, there are seven miracles of Jesus before the cross, in 6:13 there were twelve baskets of bread fragments, and in 21:11 the disciples catch 153 fish (and I’ve argued elsewhere that the 153 fish is a number that means something).
John’s careful and symbolic employment of numbers should, at least, invite us to ask the question, “Does the thirty-eight years in John 5:5 have any discernible significance?” Since the other numbers—like seven or twelve or 153—have Old Testament background that illuminates them, we should consider whether “thirty-eight” has any Old Testament background that illuminates it.
The number “thirty-eight” is used three times in the Old Testament.

1 Kings 16:29: “In the thirty-eighth year of Asa king of Judah, Ahab the son of Omri began to reign over Israel, and Ahab the son of Omri reigned over Israel in Samaria twenty-two years.”
2 Kings 15:8: “In the thirty-eighth year of Azariah king of Judah, Zechariah the son of Jeroboam reigned over Israel in Samaria six months.”
Deuteronomy 2:14: “And the time from our leaving Kadesh-barnea until we crossed the brook Zered was thirty-eight years, until the entire generation, that is, the men of war, had perished from the camp, as the LORD had sworn to them.”

The two occurrences of “thirty-eight” in 1-2 Kings are not about significant events in Israel’s history. On both occasions, the “thirty-eight” is referenced so that we can know how long one king of Judah had been reigning when another king came to power over Israel.
Deuteronomy 2:14, however, is very significant. The period of Israel’s wilderness punishment was thirty-eight years. When you add the months prior to the rebellion in Numbers 13–14, you get forty years from the exodus to the promised land. Nevertheless, the “thirty-eight years” is an important historical note. This number for the wilderness years appears in the Old Testament only in Deuteronomy 2:14.
Read More
Related Posts:

The story of Ruth does not end with the narration of Boaz and Ruth’s son, however. The last part of the book is a genealogy. There are genealogies elsewhere in the Bible, but they occur either at the beginning of books (like in 1 Chronicles and Matthew) or they occur between narratives (like in Genesis or Luke). The book of Ruth is the only place in the whole Bible that ends with a genealogy. A genealogical ending, therefore, is the surprising climax of the book. 

During the period of the judges, there is a wonderful story of providence and marriage, yet the union of Boaz and Ruth is not the most important part of their story.
When the judges ruled, the Israelites experienced spiritual upheaval. According to the book of Judges, the people imitated the idol worship of the dispossessed Canaanites. In response to such high-handed rebellion, the Lord would raise up an adversary to judge them. When the people turned from wickedness and called upon the Lord, he then raised up a judge to deliver them. The problem, however, is that after their deliverance, the people were still drawn back into rebellion.
The story of Ruth and Boaz takes place in the context of the book of Judges (Ruth 1:1). Amidst the cycle of rebellion there is a story of providence and hope.
The beginning of Ruth’s story is that there is a famine in the promised land. An Israelite named Naomi, from Bethlehem, traveled to Moab with her husband and sons. During the years that followed, her sons married Moabite women, and her husband and sons died, leaving Naomi and her widowed daughters-in-law.
Ruth insisted on returning to the promised land with her mother-in-law (Ruth 1:16–17). Living in her new home in Bethlehem, Ruth was prepared to work hard. She gleaned in a field that “happened” to belong to Boaz—a man in Naomi’s extended family. As events unfolded, Boaz treated Ruth with protection, respect, provision, and hospitality (Ruth 2–3).
Naomi knew that if Ruth married Boaz, their future would be secure. Boaz would be fulfilling his role as a “kinsman redeemer,” someone who could act to bring redemption or restoration to a situation of distress and loss. A public scene at the city gate led to witnesses confirming the role that Boaz would fulfill (Ruth 4:1–12).
Read More
Related Posts:

On the third day, the Lord Jesus rose and put on bodily immortality. His resurrection was unto glory. He was the firstfruits of the future resurrection of God’s people. When Jesus returns, he will raise the dead (John 5:28–29). And this time the dead who come to life will not die again.

We know that when people die, their bodies stay dead—which is why our mouths drop open and our eyes widen when we read biblical stories of dead people coming back to life. The God of heaven and earth is the God of life.
In the Old Testament, there were three occasions when people died and came back to life.

In 1 Kings 17:17–24, Elijah raised a widow’s son.
In 2 Kings 4:18–37, Elisha raised the Shunammite’s son.
In 2 Kings 13:21, a dead man revived when his body was thrown into the same place as Elisha’s bones.

In association with Elijah, one person came to life. In association with Elisha, two people came to life. That second person’s restoration to life confirms the greatness of Elisha’s ministry. This second person who was raised from the dead in 2 Kings had merely been thrown in the same place as Elisha’s bones. And “as soon as the man touched the bones of Elisha, he revived and stood on his feet” (2 Kgs 13:21). The fact that Elisha himself was dead is a confirmation of God’s power working through the prophet’s ministry—even in a posthumous scene like 2 Kings 13:21.
These three stories in the ministries of Elijah and Elisha tell of bodies brought to life that would later die again. Bodily restoration foreshadowed the physical glorification of God’s people, so it was not equivalent to this glorification. The Old Testament resurrections were of mortal bodies that remained mortal.
Read More
Related Posts:

When your heart fears God and desires to keep his commandments, your heart is set upon what is good and right. The writer, in Ecclesiastes 11:9, is not advocating reckless living but Godward living, decisions made overflowing from a heart that fears and follows the Lord. 

Before we look at Ecclesiastes 11:9, let’s get a few things straight first.
Jesus taught that if anyone wanted to follow him, “Let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Mark 8:34). In our culture that encourages people to follow their hearts and be their authentic selves, Jesus’s words are decidedly countercultural. He speaks of denying self and following him, not esteeming self and following your heart.
One of the dangers of the heart is its self-deceit. In the book of Jeremiah, the Lord says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jer. 17:9). A sick heart, one vulnerable to deception, doesn’t sound like the kind of thing we should follow.
In Numbers 15:39–40 the Israelites are told to “remember all the commands of the LORD, to do them, not to follow after your own heart and your own eyes, which you are inclined to whore after. So you shall remember and do all my commandments, and be holy to your God.”
The book of Proverbs is very concerned about the fool’s commitment to his own understanding and desires. In Proverbs 12:15, “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice.” In 14:12, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.” And in 3:5, “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.”
When we reflect on what Numbers Proverbs, Jeremiah, and Mark teach about the heart, the heart is not a thing to be followed.
Now enter the language of Ecclesiastes 11:9. The writer says, “Rejoice, O young man, in your youth, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth. Walk in the ways of your heart and the sight of your eyes. But know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment.”
Walk in the ways of your heart and the sight of your eyes?
Read More
Related Posts:

The four interpretations…are attempts to read a notoriously difficult passage. You might wonder which views have been popular historically and which ancient and modern theologians have held such interpretations. Let’s talk about that next.

How should we understand the “sons of God,” the “daughters of man,” and the Nephilim in Genesis 6:1–4? In the previous post, we considered the echoes in the passage from earlier parts of Genesis, and we thought about the literary placement of 6:1–4 in light of what immediately precedes and follows it.
What are the ways interpreters have read 6:1–4?
Option 1: The Sons of God are Sethites
According to the Sethite view, the “sons of God” are the descendants of Seth. They are human beings only. Their marriages to “daughters of man” would be human marriages, and their offspring would be human children. If the Nephilim are considered the offspring of these unions, the Nephilim are not supernatural beings.
The distinction between the “sons of God” and “daughters of man” is a spiritual one. The godly line of Seth would be intermarrying with the daughters of man, and “of man” emphasizes that these “daughters” do not know the Lord. In the Sethite view, then, these marriages displease the Lord because they involve the joining together of believers and unbelievers.
Support for this view comes, first of all, from the immediately preceding chapter. In Genesis 5, the genealogy of Adam through Seth is traced to Noah. Genesis 5 reports family descent through birth of human “sons” and human “daughters.” Second, the prior chapters of Genesis have been interested in conflicting spiritual lines. We see Cain and Abel in Genesis 4. After Abel dies, the Lord gives Eve another son, Seth. And in Genesis 4, we see the respective lines of descent for Cain and Seth, lines we should contrast. Third, the Sethite view has the advantage of staying with the realm of humanity and not moving to the realm of angels, so there may be less initial objection to strangeness. The non-human views of the “sons of God” must deal with the accompanying oddities which the Sethite view can avoid. Fourth, 6:1–4 reports marriages, and throughout the Old and New Testaments we see human beings getting married. Jesus says in Matthew 22:30 that the angels in heaven do not marry.
Option 2: The Sons of God are Human Kings
The “human king” view understands that in the ancient Near East, a king might be viewed as divine or partly divine, a “son” of the gods. In Genesis 6:1–4, then, the “sons of God” would be human kings who have relationships with human women. These human women became wives to these “sons of God.”
According to the human king—or royal son—view, the offspring of these marriages would be mighty people, the Nephilim, who were human offspring.
Read More
Related Posts: