STUDIES IN OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY

CONTENTS.


PAGE
PREFACE 5
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 9
HINTS TO STUDENTS 11
HINTS TO TEACHERS 13
THE COURSE DIVIDED INTO LESSONS 14
FIRST STUDY.--The Beginnings of Bible History 17
SECOND STUDY.--The Wandering in the Wilderness 25
THIRD STUDY.--The Conquest of Canaan 34
FOURTH STUDY.--The Age of the Heroes 41
FIFTH STUDY.--The Rise of the Israelite Empire 49
SIXTH STUDY.--The Golden Age of Israel 56
SEVENTH STUDY.--The Rival Thrones--Israel 63
EIGHTH STUDY.--The Rival Thrones--Judah 71
NINTH STUDY.--The Captivity of Judah 77
TENTH STUDY.--The Jewish Province 88


FULL-PAGE MAPS.

Empire of David and Solomon _Facing title-page._
Canaan 16
Old Testament World 19
Modern Jerusalem 48
The Divisions of Solomon's Empire 62
Solomon's Dominions 76
Alexander's Empire 90




CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE.


These dates are taken from the common chronology, and those earlier than
the Exodus are probably inaccurate. (See foot-note on page 22.) The
student will find that to commit this table to memory will give him
command of the most important facts of Bible history.

1. The Deluge B. C. 2348
2. The Dispersion of the Races " 2247
3. The Rise of the Empires " 2200
4. The Migration of Abraham " 1921
5. The Descent into Egypt " 1706
6. The Exodus from Egypt " 1491
7. The Battle of Beth-horon " 1451
8. The Death of Joshua " 1426
9. The Victory of Gideon " 1245
10. The Coronation of Saul " 1095
11. The Accession of David " 1055
12. The Division of the Kingdom " 975
13. The Fall of Samaria " 721
14. The Captivity at Babylon " 587
15. The Return from Captivity " 536
16. The Reforms of Ezra " 450
17. The Empire of Alexander " 330
18. The Maccabean Independence " 166
19. The Accession of Herod " 40
20. The Birth of Christ " 4




PREFACE.


THE New Testament is the outgrowth and development of the Old. There is
no revelation in the gospels or the epistles which is not in its essence
contained in the elder Scripture; though to make it manifest required
the incarnation of God's Son and the descent of the Holy Spirit.
Therefore, to understand the New Testament it is necessary to study the
Old Testament. We cannot appreciate Matthew's point of view of Christ as
the Messiah until we have looked upon the throne of David, and Solomon
in all his glory; the theology of Paul is blind until read in the light
of Moses and Isaiah; and Hebrews will obtain a new meaning when placed
side by side with Leviticus. Every chapter in the New Testament has its
references to parallel passages in the Old Testament.

When we open the Old Testament we find it, first of all, a book of
history. We are apt to look upon the Bible as a dictionary of doctrine,
wherein we are to search for sentences as proof-texts. But instead it
contains the story of redemption in the form of a history. We see how
God chose a family and pruned off its dead branches and caused it to
grow into a nation; then, how he trained and disciplined that nation
through fifteen centuries, until upon it blossomed the Divine Man. The
history of the Bible is the history of humanity, of literature, of
ethics, of religion, of doctrine; and no one who studies it carefully
will fail of an abundant reward for his endeavor.

In most works upon Bible history the purpose of the author seems to be
merely to arrange in chronological order a series of events without much
regard to their importance or their relations to each other. The
successive reigns of kings, the chronicles of courts, the reports of
battles form the contents of most histories, whether sacred or secular.