The Bible-IV

With the prophets, so goes the Old Testament. I’m finally ready to get into the New Testament.

I found myself wishing for an annotated Bible while I was reading this section. Even though the prophets did say what year in whose reign they were writing from, I still didn’t really know what was going on in Israel and the ancient world at the time. As a result I was often confused as to how the prophesies related to what was happening. Some prophets were in Israel, some were in Babylon. Not having that context made it very hard to follow.

Most of the prophets seemed pretty sane, but, and I say this with the utmost respect, I’m pretty sure that Ezekiel was in fact smoking something. His visions were pretty out there. That was one that was particularly challenging for me to read.

I am also somewhat confused as to the transition from God being extremely upset with the Israelites and sending them into exile and killing a lot of them, but then turning around and punishing the oppressors that he ordered to do the killing and exiling in the first place. It was pretty obvious how the people had initially messed up. But it seemed a little unfair to basically use the Babylonians, et al. as pawns to destroy them and later on destroy the Babylonians for that same act. It is certainly possible that I am missing some info that would make that one come into line.

I did enjoy one section, and I can’t remember where it was now, that did really seem to foretell the coming of Jesus. That was really pretty cool to read.

A very short sum up to end the Old Testament. I’m looking forward to moving on.