Halley's Bible Handbook, Classic Edition

Henry H. Halley

• Publisher: Zondervan
• Year: 2008
• ISBN:
  9780310296072
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Reference

The bestselling Bible handbook of all time with millions of copies sold, the Halley's Bible Handbook makes the Bible's wisdom and message accessible to everyone.

The beloved and classic Bible companion has been thoroughly updated, while retaining its time-honored features and Dr. Halley's highly personal style, to offer even greater clarity, insight, and usefulness.

Whether you've read the Bible many times or never before, you will find insights that provide a firmer grasp of God's Word and an appreciation for the cultural, religious, and geographic settings in which the story of the Bible unfolds. Written for both mind and heart, this completely revised, updated, and expanded edition features:

• All-new maps, photographs, and illustrations
• Contemporary design
• Practical Bible reading programs
• Helpful tips for Bible study
• Fascinating archaeological information
• Easy-to-understand sections on how we got the Bible and on church history
• Improved indexes

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The Old Testament

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IN THE BEGINNING
Genesis 1–11

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” In quiet grandeur and simplicity it is stated, without argument, without explanation.

The first 11 chapters of Genesis are part of a much larger work: the Pentateuch—the first five books of the Bible, which according to tradition were written by Moses. He wrote these books for the people of Israel on their way to Canaan, the Promised Land.

Genesis 1–11 sets the stage and holds the key to our understanding of the entire Bible, both Old and New Testaments. Within these few chapters, God reveals Himself to us—He is the Creator, our loving Father, the provider, and a just judge. God creates man in His own image, with a free will. Satan, the great deceiver, introduces sin into God’s perfect creation. God cannot tolerate sin. Because God is a just judge, there is consequence for sin. God has a plan to redeem man to Himself and put an end to Satan’s power forever.

God’s redemptive plan, which is introduced in Genesis 1–11, provides for us the backdrop of why God chose Noah and why He chooses Abraham. This is also why He will make Abraham a blessing to the world—God’s plan for the redemption of the world runs through Abraham and through the nation of Israel and leads us ultimately to Jesus Christ, our Savior.

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Genesis 1–11

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Creation; Adam and Eve
Cain and Abel
Noah and the Flood
Tower of Babel

God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.

—GENESIS 1:31

“I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. . . . Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life.”

—GENESIS 9:13–15

Who Wrote Genesis?

Ancient Hebrew and Christian traditions say that Moses, guided by God, composed Genesis from ancient documents that were already in existence in his day. The book of Genesis ends about 300 years before Moses. Moses could have received this information only by direct revelation from God, or through such historical records as had been handed down from his forefathers.

How Genesis Is Organized

The book begins with the “Creation Hymn,” followed by 10 “accounts” (KJV, generations), which constitute the framework of Genesis. It seems that they were incorporated bodily by Moses, with such additions and explanations as he may have been guided by God to make. These 11 documents are as follows:

1. Creation Hymn (1:1–2:3).
2. The account of “the heavens and the earth when they were created” (2:4–4:26).
3. The account of Adam’s line (5:1–6:8).
4. The account of Noah (6:9–9:28).
5. The account of “Shem, Ham and Japheth, Noah’s sons” (10:1–11:9).
6. The account of Shem (11:10–26).
7. The account of Terah (11:27–25:11).
8. The account of “Abraham’s son Ishmael, whom Sarah’s maidservant, Hagar the Egyptian, bore to Abraham.” (25:12–18).
9. The account of “Abraham’s son Isaac” (25:19–35:29).
10. The account of “Esau (that is, Edom)” (36:1–43).
11. The account of Jacob (37:2–50:26).

These 11 documents form the book of Genesis.

• The first six accounts cover the period from creation until about 2000 B.C. (Genesis 1–11).
• The last five accounts cover the life of Abraham and the three generations after him, from about 2000 B.C. until about 1800 B.C.

The book begins with the creation and the first humans in the Garden of Eden. It ends with Abraham’s descendants in Egypt.

Between the end of Genesis and the beginning of the next book, Exodus, is a gap of about 400 years.

1. The “Creation Hymn,” Genesis 1:1 to 2:3

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A poetic description, in measured, majestic movement, of the successive steps of creation, cast in the mold of the oft-recurring biblical number seven. In all literature, scientific or otherwise, there is no more sublime account of the origin of things.

Who wrote the “Creation Hymn”? Used by Moses, but written, no doubt, long before. Writing was in common use long before the days of Moses. Furthermore, some of God’s “commands, decrees, and laws” were in existence in the days of Abraham, 600 years before Moses (Genesis 26:5).

How did the writer know what happened before man appeared? No doubt God revealed the remote past, as later the distant future was made known to the prophets.

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So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.”

—Genesis 1:27–28

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Who knows, perhaps God Himself may have taught this hymn to Adam? And it may have been recited by word of mouth, around the family circle, or sung as a ritual in primitive worship (hymns constituted a large part of the very earliest forms of literature), generation after generation, until writing was invented; God Himself then guarded its transmission until finally it found its intended place as the opening statement in the divine Book of the Ages.

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Who Made God?

Every child asks this question—and no one can answer it. There are some things beyond us. We cannot conceive of the beginning of time, nor the end of time, nor the boundaries of space. The world has been in existence always, or it was made out of nothing—one or the other. Yet we can conceive of neither.

This we do know: the highest of all things within reach of our thinking is personality, mind, intelligence. Where did it come from? Could the inanimate create intelligence? In faith we accept, as the ultimate in our thinking, a power higher than ourselves—God—in hope that someday, in the beyond, we shall understand the mysteries of existence.

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If the Bible is God’s Word, as we believe it is, and if God knew from the beginning that He was going to use the Bible as a main instrument in the redemption of humanity, why should it be difficult to believe that God Himself gave the germ and nucleus of that Word?

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Gen. 1:1 THE CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE

“In the beginning” God created the universe. What follows, in the “seven days,” is a description of the forming of substance already created in preparation for the creation of Adam.

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Gen. 1:2–2:3 THE SEVEN DAYS

Whether the seven days were days of 24 hours, or long, successive periods, we do not know. The word “day” has variable meanings. In 1:5 it is used as a term for light. In 1:8 and 1:13 it seems to mean a day of 24 hours. In 1:14 and 1:16 it seems to refer to a 12-hour day. In 2:4 it seems to cover the whole period of creation. In passages such as Joel 3:18, Acts 2:20, and John 16:23, “that day” seems to mean the whole Christian era. In passages such as 2 Timothy 1:12 the expression seems to refer to the era beyond the Lord’s Second Coming. And in Psalm 90:4 and 2 Peter 3:8, “With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day.”

Note that the six days form three pairs (days 1 and 4; 2 and 5; 3 and 6). In the first of each pair the realm is created that is later populated by the objects or beings that are created in the second.

Day 1: Light and dark

Day 2: Sea and sky

Day 3: Fertile earth

Day 4: Lights of day and night

Day 5: Creatures of water and air

Day 6: Creatures of the land; land animals; humans’ provision of food

THE STRUCTURE OF THE ACCOUNT OF EACH OF THE SIX DAYS

in Genesis 1:2–2:3

1. Announcement “and God said”
2. Command “let there be,” “let [them] be gathered,” etc.
3. Report “and it was so”
   —a descriptive phrase telling what God did
   —a word of naming or blessing
4. Evaluation “it was good”
5. Temporal statement “there was evening, and there was
   morning—the—day”

First Day: Light, 1:2–5

The heavens and the earth were created by God in the beginning—sometime in the dateless past. All was dark, empty, and formless until God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. We see that God’s creative power is manifested by simply speaking. His first creative word called forth light in the midst of darkness.

In John 1:1–2 we learn that the “Word” (Jesus) was in the beginning, and that the “Word” was with God and was God. John further tells us that “through him [the Word] all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made” (1:3).

God did not just make a physical universe: “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good” (Genesis 1:31). Whatever God makes is very good indeed, because the Word through which He created all things is the very essence of goodness, beauty, and light: “In him [Jesus] was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness” (John 1:4), now as it did at the very beginning of creation.

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Creation and Re-creation?

While most Bible students believe that Genesis is an account of creation, some believe that Genesis gives us an account of both creation and re-creation. In the case of the latter, v. 1 tells of the original creation, while v. 2, “Now the earth was [became] formless and empty,” tells of a time subsequent to the initial creation when God re-created the heavens and the earth after they had become formless and void, perhaps due to some catastrophic event. The Hebrew word for “was” used here in the original text is translated “became” where it appears elsewhere in the Bible.

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Second Day: The Expanse, 1:6–8

The expanse (KJV, firmament), called “sky,” is the atmosphere, or layer of air between the water-covered earth and the clouds above, made possible by the cooling of the earth’s waters.

Third Day: Land and Vegetation, 1:9–13

Up to this point, the earth’s surface seems to have been entirely covered with water. God commanded the water to gather in one place that He called “sea...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Foreword to the 25th Edition
• The Heart of the Bible
• Bible Backgrounds
• The Old Testament
• The 400 Years Between the Testaments
• The New Testament
• After the New Testament
• Reading and Studying the Bible
• Prayers
• Supplemental Materials
• Henry H. Halley — A Memoir
• Sources
• Index