Dr Paul Allen

  Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died: his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated.  (Deuteronomy 34:7) During his last years, Dr. Norman Vincent Peale wrote: “The longer I live, the more convinced I become that neither age nor circumstances need deprive us of energy or vitality. Although I have retired from my church, I occupy my working hours with Guideposts Magazine, speaking, and writing books. I go to bed as early as possible and rise early. I try to eat sensibly, exercise regularly, and avoid bad habits of all kinds. I mentally repudiate physical, mental or spiritual decline and disability. I trust in the living God, and I recommend the same to anyone who desires a long and healthy life.” The Bible says, “The Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than the beginning” (Job 42:12). Your age is not a problem to God so long as your faith is strong. Noah didn’t start building the ark until he was 500, went into it at 621, came out of it at 622, and he...

Few things can cripple people like fear. Fear makes people shrink from doing what they know they ought to do. Fear can also make us do things we ought not to do. Fear is not simply self-protective or self-preserving; fearful concern for the well-being and protection of those we love can cause us to worry, lie awake at night, and even do things that could be perceived as either very brave or very foolish.  So, what overcomes fear? The Bible offers a clear and potent solution—faith in God's promises. “By faith, he left Egypt, not afraid of the king's anger” (Hebrews 11:27). This verse stands in the middle of Hebrews 11 and in the middle of the author’s commentary on Moses's life. It briefly reflects on Moses's faith in the face of a very real and present danger (humanly speaking)—the king of Egypt. Moses was like any other man; blood flowed in his veins just as in yours and mine. He was truly human and thus capable of knowing the reality of fear in the face of an imminent...

Without question, one of the strangest verses in the Bible is Jude 9: But Michael the archangel, when he disputed with the devil about the body of Moses, did not dare pronounce against him a railing judgment, but said, “The Lord rebuke you!” Questions have long swirled around this verse and the death and burial of Moses in general. The canonical record of the death and burial of Moses is shrouded in mystery in Deuteronomy 34. Verse 1 says, “Now Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, opposite Jericho. And the LORD showed him all the land, Gilead as far as Dan.”  A few verses later, verses 5-6 add, “So Moses the servant of the LORD died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the LORD. And He buried him in the valley in the land of Moab, opposite Beth-Peor, but no man knows his burial place to this day.” After seeing the Promised Land from afar, Moses died alone in the presence of the Lord. Then something mysterious happened: Moses did ...

Question: Recently an unbeliever raised an objection against the reliability of the biblical accounts, he said that the account of Moses in which he was placed in a basket on the river by his mother had been a copy of the biography of Sargon of Akkad, a Mesopotamian monarch around 2400 BC. The account of Sargon goes like this:        “My mother was high priestess, I did not know my father. My father’s brothers loved the hills.  My city is Azupiranu, which is located on the banks of the Euphrates. My mother high priestess conceived me, and secretly gave birth to me. She left me In a reed basket, he sealed the lid with bitumen. He threw me into the river, which rose above me. The river carried me and carried me to Akki the water carrier. Akki the water carrier took me as his son and raised me. Akki the water carrier named me his gardener. Although I was a gardener, Ishtar granted me his love, and for four and […] years I have held the monarchy. ”    ...

Recently, while reading a highly regarded commentary on the Book of Numbers, I realized a fairly common preaching “trope” I have heard from the pulpit for years was quite erroneous. That trope, or “commonly repeated conventional view,” is the reason God prevented Moses from entering the promised land.  It is an exegetical point that may not seem all that important. After all, we realize that Moses, like everyone, was a sinner. And, we know that sinners sin. Moreover, we also know that in doing so, sinners often forfeit the right to what would otherwise be an appropriate reward or “blessing.” This is not a terribly controversial idea in Jewish or Christian theology. It also seems to be a basic fact of experience that anyone can understand, regardless of religious persuasion: if you screw up, you may not get what you want. However, thinking a bit more carefully about it, it does seem a fairly big deal that the greatest prophet of his time; the greatest prophet in all of Jewish histor...

If you were a Jew, you understood that it doesn’t get any better than Moses. It’s all downhill after Moses. No one will outstrip Moses and what he has given to God’s people. What came before is always better because what came before is Moses. So what is Jesus saying through this sign? He’s not just performing some cheap parlour trick to impress his disciples. Nor is he simply showing them that he has power to do what he wants. No, this whole miracle is a parable of a deeper truth about who Jesus is and about how Jesus is going to defy Jewish expectation. They thought that the pinnacle was Moses. But Jesus is saying, “No, my Father has saved the very best for last, and it’s me. It’s me.” Do you remember what John the Apostle wrote in the Prologue? John 1:16-18, “16 For of His fullness we have all received, and grace in place of grace. 17 For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ. 18 No man has seen God at any time; the only begotten God, who...

JIM HAMILTON “I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” (Genesis 3:15) I well remember the questions. They reflected the very perspective I had been taught: If Genesis 3:15 is so important, why isn’t it quoted in the rest of the Bible? That’s what those bright students, who had heard the line from other teachers, fired at me. It took me back to my second year of a master’s program at an evangelical seminary, when in a first-semester Hebrew class I made the mistake of asking the professor whether Genesis 3:15 really was the protoevangelium—the first announcement of the gospel. “We’ve got to start getting rid of the myths somewhere,” the professor retorted with his customary disdain, “it’s just a snake in a garden!” My faith survived that professor, but I came out of that school having learned the warped view that seemed the standard line: “The only thing that justifies the way that...

  Several instances throughout Exodus (e.g., Ex 16:10; 34:5) have made clear that the visible manifestation of Yahweh’s presence often occurs as a cloud. Since the Israelites conceived of Yahweh as invisible, they needed a visible entity—​a reminder or symbol that could be seen by the human eye—​to reassure them that Yahweh was indeed present with them. That visible entity is often referred to in the OT as the “glory” (kabod) of Yahweh. Isa 40:5, e.g., states that it is the “glory of the LORD” that “all people will see.” Once the construction and arrangement of the tabernacle in Exodus are complete, the glory of Yahweh, in the form of a cloud, fills the place that Moses cannot even enter it (Ex 40:35).  It seems, therefore, to have been more than something that could merely be seen; it could be sensed in other ways. At one point in Exodus, the “glory” is called a “consuming fire” (24:17). The glory of Yahweh was reassuring and fear-inspiring all at the same time. This is remin...

Little is known about the extent of literacy among the ancient Israelites and other Near Eastern societies. For the most part, only scribes, certain religious and governmental officials, and some wealthy businessmen, along with other elite persons, could read and write beyond the basics. Possibly those with lower socioeconomic standing would have had basic literary training, but the evidence is small. The invention of writing appears to have occurred in Egypt and Mesopotamia at about the same time—​the late fourth millennium BC—​but neither of those writing systems is alphabetic like ancient Hebrew.  One must presume that some predecessor of ancient Hebrew, a Northwest Semitic language, is the language the Biblical text refers to in Ex 17:14 since the writing is to be preserved for future reference.  Ancient Hebrew and most other alphabetic languages (including modern languages such as English) all derive from the same alphabet—​likely a Semitic invention in the first half of ...

Despite the many English translations that refer to radiance or brightness emanating from the face of Moses, it is unclear what the Hebrew text means to say. Ex 34:29 says, “The skin of his face qaran.”  The main reason why many English translations refer to brilliance is that several ancient translations do so: the Septuagint, the pre-Christian Greek translation of the OT (done two centuries before Christ), the Peshitta (the Syriac translation probably completed by the fourth or fifth century AD), and the Targums (the Aramaic translations of OT books that originated during the first few centuries BC and continued to develop throughout the first millennium AD). The most basic meaning of the Hebrew word qaran is “to have horns.” Iconography, notably the representation of Moses by Michelangelo, portrays Moses with horns protruding from his head.  This interpretation is not as far-fetched as one might think. Besides the surface meaning of the Hebrew, horns are a prevalent symbol ...

God’s answer to Moses was unmistakably clear, taken quite literally, and without any of the emendation, ingenious substitution, or imaginative imposition that have frequently been heaped upon it “ʾEhyeh, ʾasher ʾehyeh,” God says, “I AM the One Who Always Is.” This response is anticipated by God’s emphatic “I AM” in 3:12 and echoed by his statement to Moses for Israel at the end of 3:14, “I AM has sent me forth to you.” More literally still, the answer of 3:14 is “I AM that I AM,” or even “I AM always I AM.” ʾEhyeh occurs once in 3:12, and three times in 3:14, and becomes the basis for the revelation of the tetragram YHWH, a name generally transliterated “Yahweh,” in 3:15. Durham, J. (1990). Exodus (pp. 23–24). Zondervan Academic.

  Exodus 15:19–21  “Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a tambourine in her hand, and all the women went out after her with tambourines and dancing. And Miriam sang to them: ‘Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea’ ” (vv. 20–21). The Song of Moses did not belong only to Moses, but all the people of Israel sang it, as indicated in Exodus 15:1. But how did Moses teach it to the whole company of Israelites, which numbered six hundred thousand men, plus their wives and children, plus many people who had joined the nation in leaving Egypt (see 12:37–38)? Today’s passage gives us at least part of the answer. After mentioning what happened to Pharaoh’s army at the Red Sea one more time, Moses says that the women, led by his sister Miriam, sang and danced (15:19–20). Specifically, Moses says that Miriam sang the song to the women of Israel (v. 21), and the sense here is that she was teaching them the song by s...

In this excerpt from Joshua: Evangelical Biblical Theology Commentary, David Firth explains how the purpose and genre help explain the issues of violence in the book of Joshua. The book of Joshua stands at an important point of transition both in the life of Israel and within the canon that reflects on that life. Appreciation of this shared transition is crucial if we are to read this text and continue to hear it as Scripture today. These points of transition have also played an important role in how the book has been understood through the years, not only in recent critical interpretation but also in the history of Christian interpretation. The transitional function of the book is flagged by its opening verses, declaring that Moses was dead and Joshua was therefore to lead Israel into the land God was giving them. Moses had been the pivotal human figure in the Pentateuch, the one who led Israel out from Egypt and through whom the great body of God’s teaching at Sinai had been delivere...

After Forty Years, God Renews the Covenant With Sinful Israel Before the Conquest of Canaan Deuteronomy concludes the larger composition we know as the Pentateuch (“five books”), but which Jews call the Torah. Although Genesis to Deuteronomy is cast as a continuous narrative, in its content and structure Deuteronomy is a self-contained literary unit. Here the narratives and divine speeches revealing in detail the terms of Yahweh’s covenant with Israel give way to a report of verbal and ritual events that took place within the last weeks or days of Moses’ life.  As Jesus would do with his disciples ( John 13–17 ), here Moses prepares his people for his imminent departure ( Deut 31:2 ,  14 ), by supervising a covenant-renewal ceremony ( 29:1  [Heb  28:69 ]), delivering a series of farewell addresses developing the grace-based theology underlying the covenant ( 1:1–31:22 ), publicly presenting and charging Joshua as Israel’s divinely chosen leader in conquering the prom...