The Bible Year

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Feb 17, 1916

Assignment for February 20 to 26

FEBRUARY 20: Numbers 14, 15. FEBRUARY 21: Numbers 16 to 18. FEBRUARY 22: Numbers 19 to 21. FEBRUARY 23: Numbers 22 to 24. FEBRUARY 24: Numbers 25 to 27. FEBRUARY 25: Numbers 28 to 30. FEBRUARY 26: Numbers 31 to 33.

To Think About as You Read

FEBRUARY 20: God’s pardoning mercy. FEBRUARY 21: The sin of rebelling against God. FEBRUARY 22: Life for a look. Am I looking to Jesus for eternal life? FEBRUARY 23: God does not compel any one to serve him. “If you want to do wrong, you may.” FEBRUARY 24: Submission to God’s will. FEBRUARY 25: Am I faithfully keeping my vows? FEBRUARY 26: No secret sin can be hidden from God.

Life for a Look

The New Testament is interwoven with the Old; the Old Testament is the background of the New. The one supplements and completes the other. Long after the brazen serpent was lifted up in the wilderness, Jesus referred to the incident in the familiar words, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up.” Of the serpent of brass it was said, “Every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live.” To those bitten by the serpent of sin, Jesus gives the invitation, “Look unto me, and be ye saved.” “We can understand why Christ should be represented by the innocent lamb and animals of like nature; but how can he be fitly represented by the serpent, the beast that is the symbol of Satan? We see in this to what degree our Lord descended in order to rescue us. He was ‘made a curse for us: . . . cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.’ Jesus experienced that which Paul said he could wish for himself—he was accursed for his brethren.”

In later years the children of Israel made an idol of this brazen image, and burned incense before it. It was destroyed by Hezekiah.

The Books of the Bible

There are sixty-six books in the Bible, thirty-nine in the Old Testament and twenty-seven in the New. The Old Testament books are grouped under four heads, as follows:—

Law, five books.
History, twelve books.
Poetry, five books.
Prophecy, seventeen books.

The New Testament books are grouped as follows:—

Biographical, four books.
Historical, one book.
Pauline epistles, fourteen books.
General, seven books.
Prophetical, one book.

Let every one learn the names of all the books of the Bible in their order, and drill upon them until perfectly familiar with them.

The Bible was probably divided into chapters by Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, who died cir. 1227 A. D. The Old Testament was divided into verses by Rabbi Nathan in 1437 A. D., and the New Testament by Robert Stevens, in his Greek Testament of 1551.

The Pentateuch

The first five books of the Bible are called the Pentateuch, a word meaning “five books.” This word does not occur in the Bible itself, “the Israelites calling these books collectively the law, the law of Moses, the law of the Lord, the book of Moses, the book of the law of Moses, the book of the law of God, the book of the law of the Lord. This fact suggests that the five books were considered as one; and they still are so in Hebrew manuscripts, though severally cited by their opening words.”

Seven Reasons for Bible Study

“Every young man should make the Bible central in his reading and study,— “1. Because it is the most alive and widely studied book in the world today. “2. Because the English Bible is the greatest classic in our literature. “3. Because its study enlarges one’s horizon and brings one in touch with the most earnest and self-sacrificing spirits of this and of every age. “4. Because to know it helps one to appreciate all else that is best in literature. “5. Because it touches and crowns all other branches of knowledge. “6. Because it is God’s appointed means for the development of noble Christian character. “7. Because it contains God’s message of grace and power for the full salvation of the needy world in which he has placed us.”—“Why Read and Study the Bible,” p. 16.