Bible Discussion Thread

I had skipped this chapter by accident. I thought God or Christ said Eli and his household will pay for their sin and not the 34,000 men who died in battle. Sounds like one chapter talks about Israel doing evil then the other back to God's grace. This is hard to follow sometimes.

Eric,

Good for you, reading carefully and asking questions.

Sometimes a great number of people pay dearly for the sin of one or a few. Look what happened when Achan sinned at Jericho and several thousand died at Ai because of Achan.

Keep in mind, this time is under the Old Covenant and we are under the New Covenant. Most of the Old Testament was written TO the people of Israel. However it was written FOR us.

"Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come." 1Co 10:11

Yes, the history of Israel is a cycle repeated many times over:

Israel serves The LORD,

Israel falls into sin and idolatry,

Israel is enslaved,

Israel cries out to The LORD,

God raises up a deliverer,

Israel is delivered.

Look for it as you read.

There is a sort of HARMONY amongst the books of Samuel, Chronicles and Kings.

It's very tedious, but read through all 3 ( underline or take notes); one after another.

You'll see where more information to a certain event, adds more information from the other books.

Bibles that have a reference column in the CENTER of each page: you'll see tiny alphabet letters to match it to a center column reference to another passage in the Bible. Those help explain events.

I find that the King James Bibles are most likely to have that kind of referencing system.

The Book of Genesis sort of goes forward and jumps backward. Use of the reference Bibles helps to keep you straight. I don't ask the Lord why that is. I just pay attention more to where it's going. I love mysteries! This keeps me on my toes.

Hi mishael ,i have to be honest ive never found the books of samuel ,kings and chronicles tedious ,they exhibit every facet of human nature ,at its worst and its best and we get to see Gods work through a very long lense as He puts all the pieces together to bring us to Jesus ,i think sometimes we have to study it very closely to dig up the gems but they are there ,we are told that sauls daughter who married david had no children to him because she mocked his dancing ,at the end of his reign david very subtily made sure saul had no male heirs to challenge solomon ,if david had had children with sauls daughter how would that have panned out ? It doesnt bear thinking about ,oh im wrong ! It does !