Survey of Old Testament History
Look at your “World History Time Chart.”
On your time charts, dates are given with the designation “B. C.” or “A. D.” “B. C.” means “Before Christ” and is used with dates counting backward from the birth of Christ. “A. D.” means “Anno Domini” (Latin for “the year of our Lord”) and is used with dates counting forward from the birth of Christ till the present.
This way of counting years did not begin until the middle ages and those who calculated the years did not have completely accurate information. They missed the time from Jesus’ birth by about 4 or 5 years. This was discovered centuries later. Rather than change the year on the calendar throughout the whole world, we now adjust our estimate of the actual time of Jesus’ birth to 4 or 5 BC. The year 2000 is about 2,000 years after the birth of Christ, but actually 2,004 years. Jesus lived about 33 years but the actual date of his death was about 29 AD.
The date of Adam is shown on your charts as “Over 4,000 BC.” Using the Old Testament genealogies, Bishop Ussher calculated Adam’s date as 4,004 BC. But because the Israelites often skipped over generations in their genealogies and went from grandfather to grandson or great grandson, and because Hebrew use of numbers was not as exact as ours, the date of Adam may have been much earlier.
Major dates in the Old Testament period are the flood (c. 2500 BC), the call of Abraham (c. 2,000 BC), Moses (c. 1,500 BC), David (c. 1,000 BC) and Malachi, the last prophet (c. 400 BC).
Look at your Old Testament and Jewish History Time Chart.
Creation: God made everything good.
The Fall: Satan, God’s enemy, tempted Adam and Eve and mankind fell into sin. Man became mortal and death entered the world. Man’s fellowship with God was broken. Man lost his dominion over the creation and it was taken over by Satan. Man became the slave of sin.
he first promise of redemption was given in Genesis 3:15 – The descendant of woman would someday bruise the head of the serpent, Satan. Angels and prophets longed to see into what God was planning for mankind’s salvation – l Peter 1:10-12.
God taught Adam’s sons, Cain and Abel, how to offer animal sacrifices for forgiveness of sins. But Cain murdered Abel in jealousy.
The Flood: Evil grew in the world and the world became so corrupt that God decided to wash the world with a flood – Genesis 6‑9. Righteous Noah and his family were saved in the ark. The earth was repopulated from Noah’s three sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth. Some of Noah’s descendants tried to build a tower to heaven at Babel and were scattered when God confused their languages – Genesis 11.
The Call of Abraham: One of Shem’s descendants was a man named Abram (later called Abraham by God). He lived in Ur of the Chaldees. God called Abraham to leave his country and to go to a country that God would show him – Genesis 12. Abraham would become the father of the chosen nation, Israel. Abraham was not chosen by God because of his race or appearance but because of his faith in God. God did not choose Abraham because God loved Abraham alone, but so that through him God could bless all nations.
God gave Abraham three great promises: he would give Abraham a land, he would make a great nation of Abraham, and through Abraham’s descendants all nations would be blessed – Genesis 12:1‑7. Everything else in Bible history grows out of these three promises. God gave Abraham and his descendants the promised land of Canaan. God made the nation of Israel and other nations from Abraham. And through Abraham’s descendant Jesus Christ the people of all nations have been blessed – Matthew 1:1; 28:19,20. It is easy to see that one must know the Old Testament in order to really understand the New Testament.
The “Patriarchs”: Abraham became the father of Isaac, who became the father of Jacob (also called Israel) who became the father of twelve sons. From these twelve sons came the “twelve tribes of Israel.” As Jacob was blessing his sons before his death, he prophesied that “the scepter will not depart from Judah [the tribe from which Jesus was born] until he comes to whom it belongs” [referring to Jesus] – Genesis 49:10.
Egyptian Bondage: Because of a famine, Jacob and his sons were moved to Egypt by one of the sons, Joseph. Eventually King Pharaoh of Egypt made the Israelites slaves.
Moses and the Exodus from Egypt: The Israelite slaves cried out to God to deliver them from their suffering. God raised up Moses to deliver them. After God defeated Pharaoh through great plagues, the Israelites marched out of Egypt and crossed the Red Sea on dry land by the power of God. See the book of Exodus
The Covenant at Mount Sinai: Moses led the people to Mount Sinai where God gave the people the ten commandments and his other laws and statutes. God made a covenant with Israel as his chosen people based on the laws given. This covenant lasted until God made a new covenant through Christ. We call the covenant at Sinai the “Old Covenant.” It established a place of worship (the “tabernacle” or tent of meeting), a priesthood and a system of sacrifices and worship. Moses wrote the first five books of the Old Testament, Genesis through Deuteronomy, sometimes called the “Pentateuch.”
Moses led the people to a place near the border of Canaan but Israel failed to enter Canaan because they were afraid and failed to trust God’s power. God sentenced them to wander in the wilderness for 40 years. During this time a prophet, Balaam, spoke of Christ who would someday come: “A star will come out of Jacob; a scepter will rise out of Israel…” – Numbers 24:17. Moses himself prophesied of Christ: “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers. You must listen to him.” – Deuteronomy 18:15,18.
The Conquest of Canaan: Joshua succeeded Moses and led Israel to conquer Canaan. He divided the land among the tribes of Israel
The Period of the Judges: After Joshua’s death “another generation grew up, who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done for Israel” – Judges 2:10. The people often forsook God and worshipped Idols. As punishment God would let Israel fall into the hands of their enemies. They would cry to God in repentance and God would raise up a judge to deliver them and rule over them. But they reverted to idolatry again and again. During this period of about 400 years the people were led by such judges as Ehud, Deborah, Gideon, Samson, Jephthah and Samuel.
The United Kingdom: In the days of Samuel the people demanded to have a king. Saul was chosen as their first king. Saul became proud and was rejected by God for disobedience. David was chosen to succeed Saul. God promised David that if David’s sons would obey God, one of them would always rule on David’s throne – 2 Samuel 7; Psalm 89. This was ultimately fulfilled in Jesus, descendant of David, who was born to be king of the Jews – Luke 1:31‑33. Some Old Testament prophets refer to the coming Christ as “the branch” that would sprout from the stump of the tree of David’s royal family.
The Divided Kingdom: Solomon, David’s son, succeeded David. He turned away from God toward idols during his later life and God caused the ten northern tribes to rebel against Solomon’s son, Rehoboam. Only Judah and Benjamin remained loyal. From this time the northern tribes were called “Israel” and the two southern tribes were called “Judah.” This division of the kingdom happened in about 933 BC. In order to keep the northern tribes from going south to Jerusalem to worship at the annual feasts (and perhaps returning to Rehoboam’s rule), the northern king Jeroboam set up golden calf-idols in the north for his people to worship.
Captivity: The northern kingdom (Israel) slid quickly into idolatry and God sent prophets to warn them of coming punishment if they did not repent. They would not listen, and the Assyrians carried the Israelites into captivity in 721 BC. They were scattered among the nations and were never restored as a nation again. They seemed to have vanished, and so the expression, “the ten lost tribes of Israel.” Actually a number of Israelites from the north migrated to the south and were absorbed into Judah, so that the Jews actually contained people from all the 12 tribes.
The southern kingdom of Judah took a little longer to slide into idolatry but eventually became more corrupt than Israel had been. They ignored the prophets sent to warn them. Judah was carried captive to Babylon in three raids, 606, 597 and 586 BC. The beautiful temple of Solomon was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586. Daniel the prophet was carried away to Babylon as a boy in the raid of 606.
In Daniel chapter 2 Daniel interpreted a dream of Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar. He had seen a large statue made of four kinds of metal. It represented four successive world empires, Babylon, Medo-Persia; Greece and Rome. Daniel prophesied that the kingdom of God would be set up during the days of the fourth kingdom or empire, Rome. This was fulfilled when Christ was born during the Roman rule and the church was established.
Restoration: When the Persians overcame Babylon in 536 BC, they allowed the Jews to return to their homeland and to rebuild the temple and Jerusalem. Many Jews remained abroad in various countries and worshipped God in their churches called synagogues. These were known as the Jews of the Dispersion (or “Diaspora”). A Jewess, Esther, became the queen of Persia and saved the Jewish people from destruction at one time.
The restoration of the Jews to their homeland is recorded in Ezra and Nehemiah. Ezra helped restore the worship of God in the temple and taught the people God’s law. The people had learned their lesson and never again returned to idolatry. Nehemiah rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem. The prophets Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi were active during this restoration period.
Between the Testaments: The Old Testament records history down to about 450 or 400 BC. We rely on other historical sources to know what happened to the Jews between the close of the Old Testament writings and the coming of Christ
The Greek empire succeeded Persia in 332 BC. In 167 BC the Jews were freed from Greek domination in the Maccabean revolt. In 63 BC Palestine was conquered by Rome and became part of the Roman Empire. Jesus was born in about 4 BC.
Israel and the Gospel: Most of the Jews rejected Jesus and the gospel. Though the church started out among the Jews, it became more and more a church of Gentiles (non-Jews). Paul writes in Romans chapters 9 through 11 about God’s purpose for Israel even though Israel has largely rejected Christ. Paul says that because of their unbelief, the Jews have been broken like branches from the tree of God’s grace. Gentile branches have been grafted in. But the Jews can also be grafted back into the tree of God’s grace if they will believe in Christ. Romans 11 seems to indicate that the time will come when many Jews will turn to Christ.
© by G.B. Shelburne, III (except for any graphics). You may reproduce this material for non-profit instructional purposes only, provided document content is not altered and this whole copyright notice is included. If necessary contact owner at South Houston Bible Institute, 14325 Crescent Landing, Houston, TX 77062-2178, USA, tel. 281-990-8899, Email shbi@shbi.org Web site www.shbi.org