The Bible Year

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jun 15, 1916

Assignment for June 18 to 24

June 18: 2 Chronicles 18 to 21. June 19: 2 Chronicles 22 to 25. June 20: 2 Chronicles 26 to 29. June 21: 2 Chronicles 30 to 33. June 22: 2 Chronicles 34 to 36. June 23: Jonah. June 24: Joel.

A Point to Remember

The contemporary history of the times of the kings of Israel and Judah, and the records preserved from still earlier times that have a bearing on the destiny of the chosen people, are of absorbing interest. Their value to us lies in the fact that they widen our horizon, and present a setting for the events recorded in the Bible. It is well, however, while giving due attention to such historical helps as we may have access to, not to miss the precious spiritual lessons to be gleaned from the daily reading.

The history of the men whose deeds are recorded in the Old Testament was not written, like the boasting proclamations of the heathen kings, to exalt man, or even that this generation might know of the successes and failures of men in those days. The books of the Bible, and the events around which those books are written, are directly “connected with God’s historical revelation, which culminated in Christ.” Take Christ out of the Bible, and its meaning, its message, is gone. “It is from Christ, the central light, that illuminating rays are shed through the whole of Scripture; he is the central sun, who holds together all its various parts.”

Says Spurgeon: “Whate’er your science is, come and bend over this Book; your science is here. Come and drink of this fount of knowledge and wisdom, and ye shall find yourselves wise unto salvation. Wise and foolish, babes and men, gray-headed sires, youths, and maidens, I speak to you, I plead with you, I beg of you, respect your Bibles, and search them out; for in them ye think ye have eternal life; and they are they which testify of Christ.”

Jonah

The story of Jonah is one of the most familiar of the Old Testament narratives. The prophet was a native of Gath-hepher, a village in the eastern frontier of Zebulun, a little more than an hour’s journey north of Nazareth. He was sent with a message from the Lord to sinful Jeroboam II. 2 Kings 14:25.

According to the marginal dates, the book of Jonah is the oldest of the prophetic writings; and the experience therein recorded occurred nearly three hundred years before Daniel, in Babylon, showed his loyalty to God by praying openly, as was his habit, three times a day. It is thought that the warning to Nineveh was given during the latter part of Elisha’s life.

While the book of Jonah does not say that the great fish which the Lord prepared to receive the prophet was a whale, it is so named in one New Testament reference to the incident. It has been objected that a whale could not swallow a man’s body. On this point Sidney Collett, in “All About the Bible,” cites the evidence of an eyewitness who declared that on one occasion in his experience “a shark fifteen feet in length was found in the stomach of a sperm whale.” The same authority added that “when dying, the sperm whale always ejects the contents of its stomach,” and sometimes the ejected food is thrown out in masses much larger than a man’s body.

“The most astonishing thing in the life of Jonah,” says another, “seems to be his displeasure at the sparing of the city of Nineveh from destruction. This comes nearer being an incredible thing than his living three days in the whale’s belly.”

It was by this miraculous preservation of his life that Jonah “became one of the most remarkable types of the death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus to be found anywhere in the Old Testament Scriptures.” The accuracy of the historical record received abundant confirmation from the lips of Jesus himself when he said, “As Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”

Joel

Because he does not mention Assyria by name among the foes of Judah, Joel is supposed to have lived not later than the time of King Uzziah (in the closing years of whose reign Isaiah also prophesied), and to have begun his work about the year 800 B. C. Although of the tribe of Reuben, and therefore of the northern kingdom, Joel was a prophet of Judah. His prophecy begins with a warning of the judgments of God presently to overtake the land, and an exhortation to repentance, with fasting and prayer, that these calamities may be averted. This leads to the warning given in the second chapter to Zion, the church, in the last days, urging her priests and ministers to similar zeal and earnestness in view of the destruction to overwhelm the world. Many signs preceding the day of the Lord are mentioned, one of the most striking of which, in view of present conditions, is the vivid picture drawn of warring nations.