Expository Notes on the Bible (Constable)

• A. The prophet's cleansing 6:1-8
  6:1 Why did Isaiah date this passage since he did not date most of his others?70Probably he did so because King Uzziah had been the best king of Judah since Solomon. Nevertheless during the last part of his reign he suffered ...
• 1. The promise of divine enablement 1:4-10
  1:4 The prophet now began speaking to his readers and telling them what the Lord had said to him. Throughout this book, an indication that the Lord had told Jeremiah something is often the sign of a new pericope, as here (cf....
• The expanse 1:22-28
  1:22 Ezekiel also saw something like a clear expanse (Heb. raqia', firmament, Gen. 1:6; Ps. 19:1; 150:1; Dan. 12:3) of ice (Heb. qerah, crystal) over the heads of these four living creatures. Rather than being empty space thi...
• Theology
  Theologically the book stresses the sovereignty of God."The absolute sovereignty and transcendence of God above all angels and men literally permeates the book."11"The theme running through the whole book is that the fortunes...
• Genre
  Daniel is a book of prophecy."Among the great prophetic books of Scripture, none provides a more comprehensive and chronological prophetic view of the broad movement of history than the book of Daniel. Of the three prophetic ...
• Message22
  The Book of Daniel contains many unique and significant emphases. I would like to point out some of these first before we organize them into an explanation of what God has given us this book to reveal.Theologically Daniel str...
• Outline
  I. The character of Daniel ch. 1A. Historical background 1:1-2B. Nebuchadnezzar's training program for promising youths 1:3-7C. Daniel's resolve to please Yahweh 1:8-13D. The success of the test 1:14-16E. God's blessing of Da...
• E. God's blessing of Daniel and his friends 1:17-21
  1:17 In addition to favor with their overseers, God gave Daniel and his three friends the ability to master the subjects they studied and wisdom in these matters (cf. James 1:5). They may have thought that Nebuchadnezzar had ...
• F. Daniel's vision of future world history ch. 7
  "As interpreted by conservative expositors, the vision of Daniel [in chapter 7] provides the most comprehensive and detailed prophecy of future events to be found anywhere in the Old Testament."235"The vision's setting in the...
• 5. The interpretation of this vision 8:15-26
  8:15-16 As in the previous vision (7:16), Daniel needed help understanding what he had seen. He saw someone who looked like a man standing before him. Evidently this was an angel. Daniel also heard a voice that he could under...
• C. Daniel's most detailed vision of the future chs. 10-12
  We have observed that God's method of revealing what He wanted Daniel to know and to communicate about the future follows good pedagogy. God first gave the prophet a general picture of the future, first about humanity general...
• The subject of the revelation 10:10-14
  10:10-11 Evidently the "man"who touched Daniel and who proceeded to speak to him was the same one the prophet saw in the vision (vv. 5-6). The angel described Daniel as a man of high esteem (cf. 9:23; 10:19). We know that Dan...
• Daniel's continuing weakness 10:15-17
  10:15 Apparently the angel's explanation about the angelic conflict was something about which Daniel had known nothing. His only reaction to this information, on top of the vision that he had just seen, was to bow his head an...
• Daniel's further strengthening 10:18-19
  10:18 This is the third instance in this chapter of Daniel receiving strength from an angel who touched him (vv. 10, 16; cf. Heb. 1:14).400This human-appearing angel was probably the same one who touched Daniel's lips (v. 16)...
• The angel's explanation of his activity 10:20-11:1
  10:20 The angel asked if Daniel knew why he had come to him. He apparently did this to focus the prophet's attention on the vision to follow anew since Daniel was quite weak.The angel informed Daniel that he needed to return ...
• The deliverance of Israel 12:1-3
  Whereas the previous verses have focused on the Antichrist, those in this pericope concern Israel. Here we learn that this "end time"will definitely be a time of intense persecution of Jews. This section constitutes the clima...
• 1. The setting of the Sermon on the Mount 5:1-2 (cf. Luke 6:17-19)
  The "multitudes"or "crowds"consisted of the people Matthew just mentioned in 4:23-25. They comprised a larger group than the "disciples."The disciples were not just the Twelve but many others who followed Jesus and sought to ...
• 1. Jesus' preparation in Gethsemane 22:39-46 (cf. Matt. 26:30, 36-46; Mark 14:26, 32-42; John 18:1)
  Luke organized his narrative so Jesus' praying in the garden follows immediately His instructions to the disciples about their preparing for the crisis to come. The present pericope shows Jesus' proper approach to it and the ...
• The supernatural deliverance of Peter 12:1-19
  "Peter's rescue from prison is an unusually vivid episode in Acts even when simply taken as a story about Peter. Because it is not connected with events in the chapters immediately before and after it, however, it may seem ra...
• D. The Humiliation and Glory of God's Son 2:5-9
  Verses 5-18 present eight reasons for the incarnation of the Son: to fulfill God's purpose for man (vv. 5-9a), to taste death for all (v. 9b), and to bring many sons to glory (vv. 10-13). He also came to destroy the devil (v....
• 4. Promise 3:20-22
  In the context we note that God addressed well-known verse 20 to Christians."The first thing which a person mustget fixed in his mind when studying the message to the Church in Laodicea is the fact that the Spirit of God is a...
• The dragon's expulsion from heaven 12:7-12
  12:7 Michael the archangel (Jude 9) is the leader of God's angelic army. He is Israel's special patron (Dan. 10:13, 21; 12:1). He evidently holds high rank among unfallen angels as Satan does among the fallen. John saw him en...