Will Vaus

  After this I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority; and the earth was made bright with his splendor.   He called out with a mighty voice, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great!      It has become a dwelling place of demons, a haunt of every foul spirit,      a haunt of every foul bird,      a haunt of every foul and hateful beast. For all the nations have drunk      of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her,      and the merchants of the earth have grown rich from the power   of her luxury.” Then I heard another voice from heaven saying, “Come out of her, my people,      so that you do not take part in her sins, and so that you do not share in her plagues; for her sins are heaped high as heaven,      and God has remembered her iniquities. Re...

Lawrence Boadt provides this introduction to the book of Ezekiel in his book, Reading the Old Testament …. The most remarkable individual during Israel’s period of exile was the prophet Ezekiel. The opening lines of his book tell us that he was called in the fifth year of the exile, i.e., 593 B. C., at a Jewish settlement on the Chebar (Kebar) River, one of the great canals that brought water from the Euphrates to irrigate the lands around Babylon. He was, like Jeremiah, both a priest and a prophet, although he shows distinct differences from Jeremiah by making more use of his priestly training in his message. On the other hand, many of his oracles are clearly influenced by, and drawn from the work of, his older contemporary Jeremiah. He spoke with a great deal of freedom and seemed to have been very well informed about what was going on back in Jerusalem, sometimes describing scenes in the temple and city that are just like eyewitness accounts. We know that Je...

After spending more time telling about the kings of Judah than the Book of Kings does, the Chronicler comes to a relatively swift conclusion. He spends four chapters on the last kings of Judah, whereas Kings spends five. Chapter 33 focuses on Manasseh and Amon. The Chronicler agrees with the Book of Kings that Manasseh did evil things. Yet, once again, the Chronicler tells us something that Kings does not, namely that Manasseh repented. Chronicles tells us that the Lord brought the commanders of the army of the king of Assyria against Manasseh as a punishment. These commanders took Manasseh bound to Babylon. (Kings does not mention this either.) It was at this point that Manasseh changed his attitude: While he was in distress he entreated the favor of the Lord his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his ancestors. He prayed to him, and God received his entreaty, heard his plea, and restored him again to Jerusalem and to his kingdom. Then Manasseh ...

These chapters continue the genealogy lists from Adam to post-exilic Judah. Here is the rest of Boadt’s introduction to the Books of Chronicles that sets all of this in context…. Because of the changed world of Israel after the exile, the priestly leaders felt the need for an updated version of Israel’s history. They took up and rewrote the great Deuteronomistic history found in the Books of Samuel and Kings from their own perspective. No doubt one important reason to do this was to explain the proper role of the kings over Israel in the past now that they were gone for good. Another was to emphasize the temple for religious worship. Chronicles often follows the Books of Samuel and Kings word for word through whole chapters. But we get a sense of its distinctive message when we compare the many places where it either leaves out matter found in Kings or adds to it new material. In the story of David, for example, it leaves out altogether his terrible sin with Ba...