Summary of the Old Testament

Summary of the Old Testament The first division of the Old Testament, The Pentateuch, is a miraculous saga of how God creates the universe, creates mankind, and how he prepares a covenant for his people. In the first book of the bible, Genesis, God is in complete darkness and begins to speak into the darkness things he desires to create. He creates light, the sky, land, plants, animals, and humans in the time of 6 days. On the seventh day, He rests while he watches what he has created.

He creates a man named Adam but learns that the man needs a companion so God takes a rib from Adam while he is sleeping one night and creates a woman named Eve. The two together, lived in the Garden of Eden where everything was perfect and there was no knowledge of evil. One day in the garden, Eve is confronted by a serpent, which we later learn is Lucifer, who convinces her to eat a fruit that God has forbidden both, Adam and Eve, not to eat from under any circumstances. After Eve has eaten the fruit, she persuades Adam to eat the satanic fruit which in turns causes the two to feel shame and regret.

After such disobedience, God curses the two and says Eve will be cursed to suffer painful childbirth and must submit to her husband’s authority. He also curses Adam saying that he much toil and work the ground for food and that Adam & Eve must leave the Garden of Eden. After countless generations, God calls on a human named Abram who, at the time, lived with his father and wife, Terah and Sarai. He calls on Abram to leave his father’s house to land that He has promised to give to him and to all of Abram’s descendants. Once Abram has settled into the Promised Land, Canaan, he and his wife Sarai cannot conceive a child.

Sarai convinces Abram to sleep with their servant, Hagar, to conceive a child for the couple. After Hagar become pregnant, Sarai becomes angry and causes Hagar to run away but she later returns to give birth to her first son, Ishmael, after God comforted her. At this time, God tells Abram of a new covenant that requires men descendants of Abram to become circumcised. God also promises the couple a son and they are to name him “Isaac,” during this time God renames Abram “Abraham” and Sarai “Sarah. ” After Isaac has grown into a young boy, God speaks to Abraham to take Isaac to a mountain and to give Isaac as a sacrifice to God.

Abraham takes Isaac to the altar and is ready to sacrifice Isaac as an angle of the Lord stops Abraham’s hand. God soon sees how devoted Abraham is to Him and reaffirms their covenant. Three generations later Jacob, who is Abraham’s grandson, has many sons who become jealous of their youngest brother Joseph because of the favoritism Jacob has displayed towards Joseph. One day, Jacob’s eleven sons sell Joseph into slavery and tell their father, Jacob, that Joseph was killed by a wild animal while showing a torn coat that Jacob had given Joseph. Joseph earns a reputation as a dream interpreter and gains prestige in the Egyptian government.

Years later while at the Egyptian market, Joseph recognizes his brothers there but his brothers seem not to recognize him. Joseph decides to plant a silver cup in the satchel of rice they have bought and accuses them of stealing. He threatens to kill Benjamin if the brothers no return to Canaan and retrieve Abraham. Once all in Egypt, Joseph reveals himself to his father and brothers and invites them to come live in Egypt. After 400 years in Egypt, the people from the descendants of Joseph are enslaved and are used by the Pharaoh as a massive workforce.

God calls on a man named Moses to rescue his people from the wrath of Pharaoh. After Moses ask that his people be let go and Pharaoh denies his request, God sends 10 plagues upon Egypt and in turn the Pharaoh releases the Israelites. Moses and the 600,000 Israelites head east toward the land God has promised them but the Pharaoh chases them to the coast of the Red Sea. With nowhere to go and the Pharaoh closing in on them God instructs Moses to strike the sea with his staff and this causes the Red Sea to split in half causing the Israelites to cross and killing the Egyptian army.

After 3 months, Moses and the Israelites arrive at Mount Sinai where Moses climbs and receives 2 tablets of stone that host the 10 commandments. An application I received from this is you must always have faith in God if you have none anywhere else. A theme I also got was there is always a constant pressure of evil throughout life and you must decide the path you want to walk. In Romans 1:19-20 it explains that “God’s power is revealed through creation, and men are condemned because they do not recognize this. In the books of the Former (Historical) Prophets, Joshua is made the leader of the Israelites after the death of Moses. The Israelites arrive at Jericho, which has massive walls to protect from enemies. Joshua sends 2 spies into Jericho and they are hid by a prostitute named Rahab who keeps them in her home. After her allegiance, they promise to reserve her and her family when they destroy Jericho. God commands that the Israelites march around the city for six days and seven times on the seventh day. The walls of Jericho fall and Israelites invade the city destroying everything in it.

Years later, Joshua dies and the tribes of Israel continue their attempt to wipe out any foreign inhabitant throughout their promised land. During this time, the Israelites steadily turn their hearts away from God and in turn God threatens to abandon them. God sends Israel a series of judges and rules such as, Deborah, Gideon, and Samson who are to help keep the Israelites focused on God. Throughout this time, there is an on-going pattern that the Israelites displayed; “the people of Israel fall into evil, God sends a leader to save the, and once the judge or ruler dies, the people commit even greater evil. The next judge/prophet selected by God is Samuel and the people of Israel complain that they want a king. In turn, God tells Samuel who to elect as king and Saul is elected. While Saul is king, he disobeys God twice when he performs a war sacrifice without the help of a priest and when Saul spares the life of the Amalekite king and livestock when God told Saul to “leave nothing alive” and because of this Samuel tells Saul that God will elect a new king for Israel. Samuel goes to the town of Bethlehem and chooses a boy named David, who is a shepherd, as the new king of Israel.

During this time, the Philistines continue to threaten the people of Israel with a dominant warrior called Goliath. With the help of God, David defeats the massive Philistine warrior, Goliath, with a single stone from his sling. At this time, Saul begins to become very jealous of David and begins to attempt to kill David by throwing a spear at him twice, sending David on a suicide mission, and attempting to kill David in his sleep. God delivers Saul into the hand of David twice but David spares Saul’s life. Even after, Saul continues to pursue the death of David but is eventually distracted when the Philistines invade.

In this battle, Saul takes his own life and his son Jonathan is killed while in a different battle with the Amalekites, David succeeds in wining against the Amalekites. After mourning Saul’s and Jonathan’s death, David gathers the Israelites and takes back the city of Jerusalem renaming it, “The City of David. ” David also brings back the Ark to Jerusalem and at this time God promises that David’s kingdom will last forever. One day while the men of Israel were out at war, David saw a woman, Bathsheba, bathing from his palace and eventually has sex with her causing her to become pregnant. After realizing what he had done, David orders that

Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah, be sent to the front of the warfront to die to hide what he done. Soon the prophet Nathan visits David and tells him what he has done and how it has made God angry at David. And because David has done this, the child that was conceived soon died after it was born, God brought 3 days of plague on Israel, and God will bring catastrophe on David’s household. Soon David and Bathsheba have another son, Solomon, who is later named king of Israel. After David dies and Solomon is king, God goes to Solomon and tells him to ask one wish, in return Solomon asks for wisdom.

Impressed with Solomon’s modest request, God promises Solomon wealth and long life. Solomon begins to build an elaborate temple to God in his honor. Solomon begins to turn his heart away from God when he begins to build temples and altars to gods of his wives religion. And because of this, God vowed to tear away the kingdom but one will remain, Judah. Years after Solomon’s death, king of Babylon invades the southern kingdom of Judah and exile the people of Israel to Babylon. An application I receive from this is that the downfalls of humanity rely heavily on our own actions and not the actions of God.

In the historical prophets, the theme centered on having faith within God and his capabilities. In Revelation 5:5 it states, “Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of Dave, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals. ” I believe this perfectly correlates with when David conquered back Jerusalem in 1 Chronicles. The Writings illustrate the time when the Israelites are exiled to Babylon and their eventual return to the promise land. The Writings of the Old Testament focus on Ester, Ezra, Nehemiah, Job, and Psalms.

In the book of Ezra and Nehemiah, nearly 50,000 people of Israel are set free and they embark from Babylon to Jerusalem. When they arrive Jerusalem is destroyed and in ruins and the Israelites began building the temple that Nebuchadnezzar had destroyed over a century and a half before. Before its completion in 21 years, the Israelites enemies and Persian government stopped the construction. King Artaxerxes gives Ezra many gifts to take to Jerusalem to help fix up the temple. Ezra brings around 6,000 people with him to help carry these gives to Jerusalem and this trip takes about 4 months.

The walls of Jerusalem were also destroyed which their enemies could easily come and attack the Israelites. Nehemiah is an Israelite that came from Persia who was a chief cupbearer of King Artaxerxes. After 13 years since the temple was completed, Nehemiah asked King Artaxerxes to go to Jerusalem to help construct rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem and King Artaxerxex allows him to go. Nehemiah is also made governor and construction of the walls was completed in 52 days. When Nehemiah leaves for a number of years and returns he finds the walls strong but the people of Jerusalem weak and brittle.

He reestablishes worship and prayer by encouraging the people to revival by reading and adhering to the Word of God from the Law of Moses, stressing the sins of intermarriage and selling food on the day of the Sabbath. The last division of the bible is the Latter Prophets and it tells a tale of prophetic legacies left behind by Major and Minor Prophets throughout the Old Testament. In the Latter Prophets, it hosts books from Major Prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel; in the Minor Prophets, also called The Twelve Prophets, it hosts books from Hosea to Malachi. The prophets (including Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel) were spokesmen for God to the people and to their leaders: they often disagreed with the men in power and had no fear of expressing their messages from God — generally directing against the idolatry and “false gods. ” The Old Testament concludes in the book of Malachi when Malachi prophesies coming of a messenger of the Lord, and the coming of the day of God. The overall application I received from the Old Testament is the sin of intermarriage.

The act of marrying someone outside of your culture is not what God is concerned with but where your heart turns afterwards. Many people in the bible, including powerful kings such as Solomon, face a downfall when they gave in to praising the gods of their spouses, instead of focusing their worship toward God. And I believe that’s why God listed “I am the Lord thy God, … Thou shalt have no other gods before me” as the 1st of the Ten Commandments because placing other gods before Him is one of the greatest sins. Works Cited Buseck, Craig Von. “The Christian Broadcasting Network. The Major Divisions of the Old Testament: Spiritual Life CBN. com. N. p. , n. d. Web. 21 Apr. 2013. Gunther Plaut, Rabbi W. “The Latter Prophets – My Jewish Learning. ” The Latter Prophets – My Jewish Learning. N. p. , n. d. Web. 21 Apr. 2013. “Old Testament of the Bible Summary and Analysis The Pentateuch. ” Old Testament of the Bible: Summary and Analysis: The Pentateuch. N. p. , n. d. Web. 21 Apr. 2013. “CANON OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. ” CANON OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. N. p. , n. d. Web. 21 Apr. 2013. “Bible: The Old Testament. ” SparkNotes. SparkNotes, n. d. Web. 21 Apr. 2013.