Esdras Preacheth the Law FROM THE BIBLICAL SERIES BY JULIUS SCHNORR. + "So Esdras the chief priest brought the law unto the whole multitude from man to woman, and to all the priests.” -I. Esdras, 9, 40. T HE apocryphal books of the Bible occupy a pecu liar position. By mediaval Christians they were accepted in much the same way as the other books. Now, however, a sharp distinction is drawn against them by most Churches. We have no original Hebrew text of them. In most cases, there is no evidence that any such text ever existed. Hence their authenticity, or at least their Divine Inspiration, is open to question, though the religious value of most is not denied. The usual modern attitude toward them is that they are instructive and inspiring, but that they must not be regarded as establishChristian doctrine. ing any Thus the First Book of Esdras or Ezra, which now opens the Apocrypha was once inserted before the accepted Book of Ezra, to which it formed an introduction. The apocryphal book is little more than a repetition of the closing chapters of Chronicles, with portions of Ezra and Nehemiah, all being made more emphatic and picuresque by the addition of details. Thus, for instance, the Apocrypha tells that Ezra "sat honourably in the first place in the sight of them all" and stood forth with the Law upon a pulpit of wood "in the broad court before the holy porch." THE BOOK OF JOEL Chapter 14 1 An exhortation to repentance. 4 A promise of God's blessing. 1441 ISRAEL, return unto the LORD thy God; for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity. 2 Take with you words, and turn to the LORD: say unto him, Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously: so will we render the calves of our lips. 3 Asshur shall not save us; we will not ride upon horses: neither will we say any more to the work of our hands, Ye are our gods: for in thee the fatherless findeth mercy. 4 ¶ I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely: for mine anger is turned away from him. I will be as the dew unto Israel: he shall grow as the lily, and cast forth his roots as Lebanon. 6 His branches shall spread, and his beauty shall be as the olive tree, and his smell as Lebanon. 7 They that dwell under his shadow shall return; they shall revive as the corn, and grow as the vine: the scent thereof shall be as the wine of Lebanon. 8 Ephraim shall say, What have I to do any more with idols? I have heard him, and observed him: I am like a green fir tree. From me is thy fruit found. 9 Who is wise, and he shall understand these things? prudent, and he shall know them? for the ways of the LORD are right, and the just shall walk in them: but the transgressors shall fall therein. The Book of Joel (The Book of Joel gives no definite announcement and no positive indication as to the period when its prophecies were delivered. We are thus thrown entirely on conjecture. Joel certainly dwelt in Judah, and there protested to his countrymen against their sins. Taking advantage apparently of one of those terrible and not infrequent devastations of the land by a huge host of locusts, he warned his people of worse punishments to come. He has sometimes been placed among the earliest prophets as an older contemporary of Amos, Hosea and Isaiah; but his complete silence as to the kingdom of Israel on the one hand, or any world-threatening empire like Assyria or Babylon upon the other, his ignoring of Judah's kings and of her idol-worship, these and other suggestions have led most modern scholars to regard Joel as living after the exile, and probably after the complete re-establishment of Judah as a priestly state, that is, about the year 400 B. C. This conjecture makes him, in date, the last of all the prophets, not even excepting Malachi.) Chapter 1 1 Joel, declaring sundry judgments of God, exhorteth to observe them, 8 and to mourn. 14 He prescribeth a fast for complaint. HE word of the LORD that came to Joel the son of Pethuel. 2 Hear this, ye old men, and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land. Hath this been in your days, or even in the days of your fathers? 3 Tell ye your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation. |