Quotes about Israel

Rulebook Bible reading" shortchanges the depth and raw reality of Israel's own journey of faith in God.

These first seven books are Israel's stories of their deep past, or "origins stories" as they are sometimes called. They don't exist for entertainment or for idle curiosities about the past (and definitely not as fodder for children's Bible lessons). They explain how things came to be, why things are the way they are, and most important, how Israel got to be Israel—a kingdom with a land of its own.

The period of the monarchy is not only the meat of the Old Testament narrative of Israel. It's also the period when Israel's grand narrative was written.

Israel's beginnings are mysterious from an archaeological point of view, so we can't be dogmatic about explaining how and when Israel began. But it does seem that a nation eventually called "Israel" probably came on the scene gradually and relatively peacefully.

Forty is a go-to number symbolizing a complete or "right" period of time, and "480" is twelve times forty—twelve likely symbolizing the twelve tribes of Israel. The number is symbolic. It draws on ancient conventions of the symbolic value of round numbers to mark off a sacred moment.

It may be hard—sometimes impossible—to see the history in Israel's stories, but we do get a good picture of how these ancient Israelites experienced God.

God's act of salvation in Exodus hearkens back to God's act of creation in Genesis, when God separated the waters on the second and third days of creation. Saving Israel is a divine act of "re-creation.

This theme has a lot of moving parts. The bottom line is that when God saves Israel, it is an "act of creation"—or perhaps better, "an act of re-creation." To save is to re-create because to be saved is to start anew.

Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men, and you have prevailed.”

There he set up an altar and called it El-Elohe-Israel.

When Jacob’s sons heard what had happened, they returned from the field. They were filled with grief and fury, because Shechem had committed an outrage in Israel by lying with Jacob’s daughter—a thing that should not be done.

And God said to him, “Though your name is Jacob, you will no longer be called Jacob. Instead, your name will be Israel.” So God named him Israel.