2 Samuel 2-4 Soon after Saul was killed in battle against the Philistines, David and his family moved to Hebron. There the people of Judah, David’s tribe, anointed him king over Judah. It seems that David then made an indirect offer to Jabesh-gilead to come under his rule as well, but Abner, the son of […]
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Land Unconquered by the End of Saul’s Reign
Joshua 13:1-6; Judges 1:21-36 Though Numbers 32 and Joshua 13-20 carefully detail the boundaries of each Israelite tribe’s allotted land (see map), much of this land was still occupied by Canaanites, and the Israelites often struggled to establish dominion over their inheritance. In particular, the lands along the Mediterranean Sea, in the plain of Bashan, […]
Philistines Advance into the Central Hill Country
1 Samuel 13 The story of the Philistines’ advance into the central hill country of Israel underscores the likely reason why many Israelites demanded a king to rule over them near the end of Samuel’s life (1 Samuel 8). Rather than merely a matter of keeping up with the Joneses (as the issue is often […]
Nicopolis and Its Surroundings
Like a teaser near the end of an epic novel, Paul’s brief, singular mention of his plans to winter in the city of Nicopolis (Titus 3:12) raises as many questions as it answers regarding his travels after his imprisonment in Rome (Acts 28:14-31). Though Scripture doesn’t clearly say, it seems that after Paul left Rome […]
Borders of the Promised Land
The borders of the Promised Land are described by Moses in Numbers 34 (see also Deuteronomy 1:1-8), and hundreds of years later during the Judean exile in Babylon the prophet Ezekiel essentially repeated this same description as he looked ahead to the restored kingdom of God’s people (Ezekiel 47:13-23). The borders included the land of […]