1 Kings 15:9-22 Around 895 B.C., a few decades after Israel divided into the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah, a border dispute erupted between the two nations. King Baasha of Israel seized the strategic Judean border town of Ramah and fortified it to gain control over all routes leading to […]
Category Archives: Old Testament
Jephthah’s Exploits
Judges 10-12 The story of Jephthah is set in the time of the judges, when Israel was settling into the land they had taken possession of many years early under Joshua’s leadership. Continuing their repeated pattern of sin, oppression, repentance, and deliverance, the people of Israel were suffering attacks by the Ammonites, who normally occupied […]
The Tribe of Benjamin
The tribe of Benjamin was descended from the youngest son of Jacob (Genesis 35:16-26) and occupied one of the smallest allotments in the Promised Land (Joshua 15-16; 18:11-13), yet it proved to be a people of great consequence throughout the history of Israel. Benjamin’s allotment in the Promised Land fell between Ephraim to the north […]
Galilee throughout Bible Times
Throughout Bible times, nature and history combined to make the region of Galilee in northern Israel a land of great diversity. Galilee’s mountainous terrain is covered with lush vegetation made possible by the region’s abundant rainfall. Upper Galilee, which was occupied by the tribe of Naphtali, is home to the highest mountains in Israel west […]
Lands beyond Persia
Though the lands beyond Persia are explicitly mentioned only a few times in the Bible (Esther 1:1; 8:9; Acts 2:9), these lands affected–and were affected by–biblical events in significant ways. The book of Esther notes that the domain of the Persian Empire stretched from India (its eastern border) to Cush (its western border; not shown […]