Expository Notes on the Bible (Constable)

• Scope
  The events recorded in Genesis stretch historically from Creation to Joseph's death, a period of at least 2500 years. The first part of the book (ch. 1-11) is not as easy to date precisely as the second part (ch. 12-50). The ...
• Purpose
  Genesis provides the historical basis for the rest of the Bible and the Pentateuch, particularly the Abrahamic Covenant. Chapters 1-11 give historical background essential to understanding that covenant, and chapters 12-50 re...
• Outline
  The structure of Genesis is very clear. The phrase "the generations of"(toledotin Hebrew, from yaladmeaning "to bear, to generate") occurs ten times (really eleven times since 36:9 repeats 36:1), and in each case it introduce...
• I. PRIMEVAL EVENTS 1:1--11:26
  Chapters 1-11 provide an introduction to the Book of Genesis, the Pentateuch, and the whole Bible."What we find in chaps. 1-11 is the divine initiation of blessing, which is compromised by human sin followed by gracious prese...
• The sixth day 1:24-31
  1:24-25 "Cattle"probably refers to animals that man could tame and "beasts"to wild animals.What happened to the dinosaurs? Conservative Bible interpreters generally believe they existed but became extinct before the Flood or ...
• 4. The seventh day 2:1-3
  "2:1-3 echoes 1:1 by introducing the same phrases but in reverse order: he created,' God,' heavens and earth' reappear as heavens and earth' (2:1) God' (2:2), created' (2:3). This chiastic pattern brings the section to a neat...
• 1. The garden of Eden 2:4-3:24
  This story has seven scenes that a change in actors, situations or activities identifies. Moses constructed this section of Genesis in a chiastic (palistrophic, crossing) structure to focus attention on the central scene, the...
• The creation of woman 2:18-25
  2:18 Adam's creation was not complete because he lacked a "helper"who corresponded to him. This deficiency led God to pronounce Adam's condition "not good."151God not only evaluated Adam's condition, He also rectified it.152"...
• The temptation of Eve 3:1-5
  As in chapters 1 and 2, the word of the Lord is very important in chapter 3. Here Adam and Eve doubted God's integrity. This pericope also has something to teach about the acquisition of wisdom. Chapter 2 anticipated God's gi...
• God's confrontation of the sinners 3:9-13
  This section begins to relate the effects of the Fall. We now see the God who was creator and benefactor in chapters 1 and 2 as judge (cf. 1:3-4). He first interrogated the offenders to obtain a confession, then announced new...
• Additional effects on Adam and Eve 3:20-21
  Adam and Eve accepted their judgment from God and did not rebel against it. We see this in Adam's naming Eve the mother of all living (v. 20). He believed life would continue in spite of God's curse. This was an act of faith....
• 2. The murder of Abel 4:1-16
  Chapter 4 shows the spread of sin from Adam's family to the larger society that his descendants produced. Not only did sin affect everyone, but people became progressively more wicked as time passed. Verses 1-16 show that the...
• 2. The dispersion at Babel 11:1-9
  The main emphasis in this section is not the building of the tower of Babel but the dispersion of the peoples. We can see this in the literary structure of the passage.361AAll the earth had one language (v. 1)Bthere (v. 2)C o...
• F. What became of Shem 11:10-26
  "The Babel account (11:1-9) is not the end of early Genesis. If it were, the story would conclude on the sad note of human failure. But as with earlier events in Genesis 1-11, God's grace once again supersedes human sin, insu...
• II. PATRIARCHAL NARRATIVES 11:27--50:26
  One of the significant changes in the emphasis that occurs at this point in Genesis is from cursing in the primeval record to blessing in the patriarchal narratives. The Abrahamic Covenant is most important in this respect. H...
• The divine promises 12:1-9
  "These verses are of fundamental importance for the theology of Genesis, for they serve to bind together the primeval history and the later patriarchal history and look beyond it to the subsequent history of the nation."414"W...
• Peace in the family of Jacob 50:15-21
  The words of Joseph's brothers may or may not have been true (vv. 16-17). Jacob may have left such a message even though Moses did not record it in Genesis. Since Moses did not record it, he probably intended the reader to co...
• Bibliography
  Aalders, Gerhard Charles. Genesis. The Bible Student's Commentary series. 2 vols. Translated by William Heynen. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1981.Aharoni, Yohanan, and Michael Avi-Yonah. The Macmillan Bible Atlas...
• 10. The sign of the Sabbath 31:12-18
  "As a sign of the Noahic covenant is the rainbow (Gen. 9:13), and as the sign of the Abrahamic covenant is circumcision (Gen. 17:11), the sign of the Mosaic covenant is the observance and celebration of the Sabbath day (Exod....
• Distinctions between clean and unclean animals 11:1-23
  We have here the same threefold division of animals that inhabit the land, sea, and air as the one that appears in the story of creation (Gen. 1:20-23)."It has long been recognized . . . that the order of the purity laws in L...
• 2. Uncleanness due to childbirth ch. 12
  The laws of purification begun in this chapter connect in principle with the preceding ones that deal with unclean food and animals. The defilement dealt with in this group (chs. 12-15) proceeded from the human body. Pollutio...
• Bibliography
  Aharoni, Yohanan, and Michael Avi-Yonah. The Macmillan Bible Atlas. Revised ed. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1977.Albright, William Foxwell, The Archaeology of Palestine. 1949. Revised ed. Pelican Archaeology series. H...
• 2. The importance of obedience 30:11-20
  The duty of obedience did not lie beyond the average Israelite's ability if he or she turned to Yahweh wholeheartedly (v. 10). God was not asking something impossible of His people (vv. 11-15; cf. Rom. 10:6-8). He had given t...
• Scope
  The Book of Samuel covers the period of Israel's history bracketed by Samuel's conception and the end of David's reign. David turned the kingdom over to Solomon in 971 B.C.3David reigned for 40 and one-half years (2 Sam. 2:11...
• Bibliography
  Achtemeier, Paul J., and Elizabeth Achtemeier. The Old Testament Roots of Our Faith. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1979.Ackerman, James S. "Knowing Good and Evil: A Literary Ananysis of the Court History in 2 Samuel 9-20 and ...
• 1. The wish that he had not been born 3:1-10
  Job evidently considered his conception as the beginning of his existence (v. 3). His poetic description of his birth sets forth his regret that he had left his mother's womb alive."Leviathan [3:8] was a seven-headed sea mons...
• Praise of one another 1:12-2:6
  1:12-14 The Shulammite girl (6:3) described the effect that seeing Solomon had on her as he reclined at his banquet "table."She wore nard (spikenard, "perfume"NASB, NIV; cf. Mark 14:3; John 12:3), which was an ointment that c...
• New heavens and a new earth 65:17-25
  God not only will be faithful to His promises in spite of Israel's unfaithfulness (63:1-65:16), but He will demonstrate His ability and desire to provide righteousness for sinful humankind by creating new heavens and a new ea...
• The temple river 47:1-12
  47:1 Ezekiel's guide, who appears to have been his original guide in this vision (v. 3), brought him back to the main entrance to the temple proper. Ezekiel saw water flowing to the east from under the temple threshold.565It ...
• D. God's rebuke of Jonah for his attitude 4:5-9
  The Lord proceeded to teach Jonah His ways and to confront him with his attitude problem.4:5 We might have expected Jonah to leave what so angered him quickly, as Elijah had fled from Israel and sought refuge far from it to t...
• The healing of a man with a withered hand 12:9-14 (cf. Mark 3:1-6; Luke 6:6-11)
  In the previous encounter Jesus appealed to Scripture, but in this one He did not. In that one His disciples were the target of Pharisaic criticism, but in this one He was.12:9-10 The Pharisees believed that it was permissibl...
• E. The universal applicability of justification 5:12-21
  Paul's final argument in support of justification by faith was a development of his previous emphasis on the solidarity that the saved experience with their Savior (5:1-2, 9-10). In this section (5:12-21) he expanded that ide...
• 1. Conduct towards the government 13:1-7
  Paul passed from a loosely connected series of exhortations in 12:9-21 to a well-organized argument about a single subject in 13:1-7."Forbidding the Christian from taking vengeance and allowing God to exercise this right in t...
• The importance of sexual relations in marriage 7:1-7
  Paul advised married people not to abstain from normal sexual relations.7:1 Again Paul began what he had to say by citing a general truth. Then he proceeded to qualify it (cf. 6:12-13). The use of the Greek word anthropos(man...
• 2. The argument from creation 11:7-12
  Paul proceeded with a second supporting argument to correct the Corinthians' perversion regarding women's head coverings.11:7 Men should not cover their heads in Christian worship because they are the glory of God. Whereas Pa...
• The duty of husbands 5:25-33
  5:25 In the Greco-Roman world in which Paul lived, people recognized that wives had responsibilities to their husbands but not vice versa.137Paul summarized the wife's duty as submission and the husband's duty as love. The wo...
• B. The primary responsibilities of the men and the women in church meetings 2:8-15
  "In this paragraph Paul continues his instructions on prayers' begun in verse 1. But now the concern is for proper demeanor on the part of the pray-ers.' But whythese concerns, and why in this way? And why the inordinate amou...
• 3. Wives' respect for their husbands 3:1-6
  Having explained before how Christians should conduct themselves in the world, Peter next gave directions about how Christian wives and husbands should behave. He did this to help his readers identify appropriate conduct in f...
• 1. Renouncing sin reaffirmed 3:4-9
  "The present vv, 3:4-9, form six strophes, each of which divides . . . roughly into half. The two halves of the strophes balance one another; for the second part of the v provides a development of the first part (vv 4, 5, 7),...
• II THE LETTERS TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES chs. 2--3
  Before analyzing each of the seven letters that follows we should note some of their features as a group. They are similar in that they are all brief, and each contains a unique description of the Lord Jesus drawn from 1:12-2...
• The restoration of Paradise 22:1-5
  Essentially what John saw next was Paradise regained (cf. 2:7; Gen. 2; Luke 23:43; 2 Cor. 12:2). Having viewed the splendor of the New Jerusalem he now saw what will nourish and enrich the lives of God's people there."Up to t...