The year in Israel – rain

By Mark Morgan | Jeremiah

Rain

For those of us who live in cities, particularly western cities, the cycle of the year does not effect us much.  Our weather may change, but ploughing, sowing, threshing and reaping have little impact on us.  Western supermarkets are stocked with a vast array of foods throughout the year, and the immediate connection between the fertile earth and the food on our tables is not very clear.  Foods can be imported from countries all over the earth and land on supermarket shelves within days of being picked in some remote corner of the world.  For us, the early and latter rains don’t really matter much.Continue reading

Copying

By Mark Morgan | Jeremiah

Copying

Last year I started to write out sections of scripture, and today, reading over what I had written, I came across a mistake that highlighted one sort of error that can very easily be made by copyists.Continue reading

“Terror on every side”

By Mark Morgan | Jeremiah

“Terror on every side”

In the times before computers and smartphones became so common, a Bible concordance was a wonderful tool for finding words in the Bible. Furthermore, if you could find words, you could also find expressions, although it could be quite a lot of work. The very first expression I remember looking up in a concordance was “terror on every side”. As a teenager, it seemed to me that I came across it on every second page when we were reading through Jeremiah as a family. So I pulled out my copy of Strong’s Concordance – the one with a gaudy purple cover which I still have – and began the search.Continue reading

The book of the law

By Mark Morgan | Jeremiah

The book of the law

In the time of King Josiah, the book of the law was found in the temple of Yahweh. It was read to Josiah and the words he heard caused him to tear his clothes and weep (2 Chronicles 34:19-21, 27; 2 Kings 22:11, 19) because the nation had not obeyed the laws it contained. Josiah expected that the punishments promised in the book of the law would follow.Continue reading

Calendars

By Mark Morgan | Jeremiah

Calendars in Bible times

In Australia, we use the Gregorian calendar (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregorian_calendar), which was first introduced in various Roman Catholic countries in 1582 and gradually spread over the rest of the world over the next 350 years. Although there are still many different calendars in local use around the world, the Gregorian calendar is by far the most common one used for international dates. According to this calendar, the average year contains 365.2425 days, due to the careful inclusion of leap days added according to a defined plan.Continue reading

God’s communication

By Mark Morgan | Jeremiah

As far as we can tell, the majority of people in the Bible never heard directly from God. Nevertheless, God has spoken to humans on many occasions in many different ways throughout history. Men and women, young and old, kings and slaves, rich and poor, righteous and evil. God has also communicated or interacted in other ways: blessings, curses, riches, poverty, rewards, punishments, sickness, health, barrenness and having children. We are even told that in some situations he took control of people and made them do what he wanted. So what does the Bible tell us about God’s communication with people?
Continue reading

Cisterns in Bible times

By Mark Morgan | Jeremiah

Cisterns

In many parts of the world, rainfall is not consistent or predictable, so water must be collected and stored to make sure there will be enough water when there is no rain for some time. Australia, where I live, is a very dry continent and in most areas, it would not be possible to live without storing large volumes of water.Continue reading

Jerusalem’s gates

By Mark Morgan | Jeremiah

The city gates of Jerusalem

Jerusalem had many different gates and a few are mentioned in the prophecy of Jeremiah. Mostly they are referred to during his work as a prophet where at times he was required to go to a particular gate and do something at God’s command.Continue reading

Scrolls

By Mark Morgan | Jeremiah

Scrolls

Nowadays we read text on screens or if we are old-fashioned like me, we use books. Also called a codex, the book as we know it combined the advantages of two different earlier methods of collecting written records. Pages in a book are a convenient rectangular shape. This was the main advantage of the clay tablets that were used for recording information in many ancient nations. Paper has the added benefit of being flexible, and this was the main advantage of scrolls.

In this background article, we look at scrolls, their characteristics, advantages and drawbacks.Continue reading

Pottery

By Mark Morgan | Jeremiah

Pottery was everywhere

Nowadays in western countries, we use pottery much less than it was used in Bible times.  This is mostly because of the easy availability of plastic, glass and metal.  However, this was not always the case and in Israel, the most common artefacts found in archaeological excavations are pieces of broken pottery.Continue reading

Roads in Old Testament Times

By Mark Morgan | Jeremiah

Highways and Roads in the Old Testament

Today we use the word “highway” simply to mean a major road, possibly one that might stretch between cities. However, it is actually a compound word which contains its historical meaning in the two words it joins. A “highway” comes from the idea of a “high way” – a road that has been built up and raised above its surroundings. Ruts and depressions always form in roads, so roads at the same level as the land they cross become places for collecting water. So much so that in periods of rain, they can even become watercourses themselves. We still have these problems today, just as they did with roads in the Old Testament.Continue reading

From Anathoth to Jerusalem – Walking

By Mark Morgan | Jeremiah

At the start of Jeremiah we read that he comes from Anathoth (Jeremiah 1:1).  In the series of novels Terror on Every Side! The Life of Jeremiah, it is common for Jeremiah to walk to Jerusalem in the morning and walk back home in the afternoon.  Is this realistic?  Walking in the Bible was very common – but how far did they walk?Continue reading