Survey of the Old Testament 1

Survey of the

Old Testament 1

History: Genesis–Esther

by Alfred Martin, Th.D.

MOODY DISTANCE LEARNING

Moody Bible Institute

820 North LaSalle Boulevard

Chicago, Illinois 60610

Revised 1965, 1995, 2004, 2011, 2012, 2014.

Edited by Kelli Fleck.

any form without written permission from the publisher, except

in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and

reviews.

All Scripture quotations, unless indicated, are taken fromthe

HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. Copyright

permission of Zondervan Bible Publishers.

Moody Distance Learning / Survey of the Old Testament 1 1

Contents

Description 03

Requirements and Procedures 05

Academic Policies and Information 07

Lesson 1 What and Why 09

Lesson 2 Genesis 17

Lesson 3 Exodus 29

Lesson 4 Leviticus 45

Lesson 5 Numbers 53

Lesson 6 Deuteronomy 61

Lesson 7 Joshua 73

Lesson 8 Judges and Ruth 81

Lesson 9 1 and 2 Samuel 89

Lesson 10 1 and 2 Kings 101

Lesson 11 1 and 2 Chronicles 109

Lesson 12 Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther 117

Quiz Answer Key 129

Moody Distance Learning / Survey of the Old Testament 1 3

Description

To see the Scriptures as a whole is not only crucial to a good

understanding of the Bible; it can also be an exciting experience.

This lesson material is based in part on a former course by Dr.

James M. Gray. Exams, maps, and charts were prepared by

John Phillips. This lesson material is the rst in a series of three,

designed to take you completely through the Bible.

• Survey of the Old Testament I: Genesis—Esther

• Survey of the Old Testament II: Job—Malachi

• Survey of the New Testament: Matthew—Revelation

Course Components

Your course consists of two components – this study guide and an

envelope containing four color-coded answer sheets.

The Study Guide

• The study guide contains all of the lessons and exams for this

course. There is a self-check quiz after every lesson (true and

false questions and/or multiple choice). An exam follows Lesson

3, 6, 9, and 12.

The Scantron Answer Sheets

• The color-coded Scantron answer sheets come with your course.

These correspond to the exams in your study guide. Please use

these sheets to mark your answers for each exam. Use only a #2

lead pencil to mark your answers. (Because these tests are

electronically graded, ink or harder leads are not acceptable.)

Moody Distance Learning / Survey of the Old Testament 1 5

Requirements and Procedures

Requirements

In order to receive credit, the four exams must be completed with

an overall average grade of 70% or better. A Grade Record Sheet is

provided at the beginning of your study guide to help you keep track

of your standing in this course.

Procedures

Please follow the procedures listed for completing the lessons and

exams in this course. As you complete each exam, mail the answer

sheet to Moody Distance Learning, 820 N. LaSalle Boulevard,

Chicago, IL 60610-3284, along with a self-addressed, stamped

envelope for the return of your graded answer sheet. If you prefer, you

may send multiple exams in one envelope. We request that you use the

envelopes provided for this purpose.

The Lessons

• Read the study guide at a time when you can concentrate. Pick a

time of the day you are most likely to be alert and relatively

uninterrupted.

• Read with a pencil or pen in hand. You will want to underline

words or phrases, even sentences, for later reference.

The Exams

• When you have completed all of the lessons that an exam

covers, go back and review the material in the study guide. You

may want to prepare by writing out your own outline of the

material covered. The outlines will help you focus on the major

truths discussed in each lesson.

• All exams are objective in nature and utilize the special answer

sheets, or Scantron forms, provided with this course.

6 Moody Distance Learning / Survey of the Old Testament 1

When taking the exam, please follow these instructions:

• It is important that you select the proper answer sheet for each

exam. The answer sheet are as follows:

Exam 1 is blue

Exam 2 is green

Exam 3 is red

Exam 4 is tan

• Fill in the blanks at the top of your answer sheet. Please write legibly.

• We encourage you not to refer to your textbook or notes of any

kind while taking the exam.

• Please use a #2 lead pencil to mark your answers. Fill in the spaces

darkly and completely – be sure to erase any mistakes thoroughly.

• Mail your answer sheet to Moody Distance Learning along with

a self-addressed, stamped envelope for the return of your graded

answer sheet. If you prefer, you may send multiple exams of the

same course in the same envelope. Please use the envelope

provided with the course, for this purpose. Please do not send

the pages of the exam from the study guide.

• When you receive your graded answer sheet from Moody Distance

Learning, record your grade in the appropriate box on the Grade

Record Sheet. Please mail in the Grade Record Card with your last

exam(s). Keep your exams for future reference.

Moody Distance Learning / Survey of the Old Testament 1 9

Lesson 1 What and Why

What and Why

It is very important to have a clear picture of the Bible in its

entirety before attempting a detailed study of its various parts. In this

lesson, we will consider the aim of our study and the scope of the

lessons that follow.

The Bible is the Word of God. Consequently, it is essential that we

learn what is in it and what it means. We must know the content of the

book before we can know its interpretation. In other words, we have

to know what the Bible says before we can understand what the Bible

means. Our aim should be at least fourfold.

• To get a mastery of the factual content of the Bible

• To recognize the unity of the Bible, noting the relationships

of the various books to one another and to the Bible as a

whole

• To see the Lord Jesus Christ in all the Scriptures

• To make practical application to our own lives

The Theme and Purpose of the Bible

The Bible does not claim to be the complete history of the universe

or even of the human race. Rather, it is the history of redemption,

illustrating the outworking of God’s purpose in saving humanity

through His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Because of this, we should

expect to see the Lord Jesus in all parts of the Bible—in the Old

Testament as well as in the New. After His resurrection from the dead,

Jesus said to His disciples, “This is what I told you while I was still

with you: Everything must be fullled that is written about me in the

Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms” (Luke 24:44).

The Structure of the Bible

It is easy to see that the Bible falls into two main divisions—the Old

Testament and the New Testament. The word testament, as it is used

10 Moody Distance Learning / Survey of the Old Testament 1

here, means a covenant or an agreement. The Old Testament is God’s

covenant with humanity before the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ

into the world. The New Testament is God’s covenant with humanity

through Jesus Christ.

Interestingly, the Old Testament is three times as long as the

New. Since God has given this large amount of material in the Old

Testament, we can rightly infer that He must want His people to study

it. It is impossible to understand many of the doctrinal references in the

New Testament without knowing a good deal about the Old.

The Old Testament contains 39 books written over a period of many

hundreds of years, from the time of Moses (approximately 1500 b.c.)

to the last book of the Old Testament, Malachi (approximately 400

b.c.). We usually speak of these books as falling into four categories:

books of the Law, books of history, books of poetry, and books of

prophecy. The books of prophecy are often further divided into the

Major Prophets and the Minor Prophets. A convenient memory device

is the use of the gures 5, 12, 5, 5, 12—that is, ve books of the Law,

twelve books of history, ve of poetry, ve of the Major Prophets, and

twelve of the Minor Prophets.

The New Testament can be divided into books of history, books of

teaching (the Epistles), and one book of prophecy; that is, ve books

of history (the four Gospels and the book of Acts), twenty-one epistles

(from Romans to Jude), and the single book of prophecy (Revelation).

This survey is divided into three volumes, two of which will focus

on the Old Testament and one on the New. In this rst volume we study

the books of the Law and the books of history–seventeen books in all.

The entire Old Testament, lengthy as it is, is anticipatory. It looks

forward to the coming of the promised Redeemer into the world. We

could write over the whole of it, “He is coming; He is coming; He

is coming!” From the very rst prophecy of the Lord Jesus Christ in

Genesis 3:15, and on through the entire Old Testament, the denite

line that is followed is the line of this promised Redeemer.

We need to understand the unity of the Word of God, a unity in

spite of variety. Here are 66 books, produced by about forty different

writers over a period of many hundreds of years, and yet manifesting

incredible harmony, centering around one person—the Lord Jesus

Christ. The Bible declares itself to be from God. “All Scripture is God-

Moody Distance Learning / Survey of the Old Testament 1 11

breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training

in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16). The men who wrote the Bible

were spokesmen for God, as the Bible itself tells us: “For prophecy

never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they

were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:21).

As we begin the study of this lesson material, it is important that we

know what it is we are studying. The word Bible comes from a Greek

word which originally meant “book.” Through usage, this came to be

regarded as a plural form, translated “books.” Of course, either the

singular or the plural is appropriate. Undeniably, the Bible is a single

book, distinct from all other books; at the same time, it is a collection

of books, numerous writings forming one unied whole.

The most common term the Bible uses for itself is the Scriptures.

This means “writings.” Sometimes the adjective holy is joined with this

word; the Holy Scriptures are the writings that are set apart, distinct

from all other writings—the writings that came from God.

The study of the Bible is both like and unlike the study of other

literature. It is like other studies in that it requires personal diligence

and application. It is unlike the study of human literature in that it

includes a spiritual as well as an intellectual element. The Holy Spirit

is the author of this Book and He must be its interpreter as well. An

unsaved person can read and study the Bible but cannot actually

understand its spiritual content because he or she does not have the

indwelling Holy Spirit. “The man without the Spirit does not accept

the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness

to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually

discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14). Therefore, the rst qualication for

real Bible study is that the student be born again through faith in the

Lord Jesus Christ (John 3:3, 7, 16).

Even believers, however, can be hindered in their understanding

of the Bible if they are not living in right relationship to the Holy

Spirit. So, a second qualication is a surrendered life. Paul told the

believers at Corinth that humanity is divided into three groups as to

their understanding of the Word of God. The rst is the natural man,

who is unsaved and cannot receive the things of God. In contrast, there

is the spiritual man, a believer who is correctly related to the Holy

Spirit and, therefore, able to discern all things. In between is the carnal

12 Moody Distance Learning / Survey of the Old Testament 1

man, a believer who is not yielded to the Holy Spirit and, therefore, a

babe in Christ (1 Corinthians 2:14–3:4).

Yielded Christians, even though they may not have much

formal education and may have only a limited intellectual capacity

can, nevertheless, make great progress in their understanding of

the Word of God because they know the Teacher and have daily

fellowship with Him.

The Theme of the Bible

The general theme of the Bible, as we have noted, is redemption

through the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God. After His resurrection

from the dead, on the walk to Emmaus with two disciples, Jesus began

“with Moses and all the prophets” and “explained to them what was

said in all the Scriptures concerning himself” (Luke 24:27). Of course,

this is true of the New Testament as well. That the message of the Bible

is indeed Christ in His person and work is also shown in the words of

our Lord to the Pharisees. “You diligently study the Scriptures because

you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures

that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life” (John

5:39, 40). It is possible to know the factual content of the Scriptures

without ever knowing the person to whom the Scriptures point.

The Incompleteness of the Old Testament

Every part of the Word of God is perfect because it is the Word of

God. But the Old Testament by itself, as long as it is, is incomplete. We

have seen that it is anticipatory of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the New

Testament speaks of the fulllment of that expectation. “But when the

time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under

law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of

sons” (Galatians 4:4, 5). If we had only the Old Testament, we would

feel that the story is far from complete. From beginning to end, it is a

book of promise, looking forward to something not yet fullled.

How the Story Unfolds

God is the God of history, and much of the Bible story grows out

of His dealings in history with His chosen people. Beginning with a

Moody Distance Learning / Survey of the Old Testament 1 13

brief review of early human history, the story line of the Bible soon

focuses on Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—the founding fathers of

the Hebrew race. The descendants of Jacob, known as the children

of Israel, grew to nationhood in Egypt, eventually settled in the

promised land of Canaan, and there became a powerful people.

Their early history in the land, however, was marked by constant

apostasy. God had given them the Law, the tabernacle, the Aaronic

priesthood, and a rich heritage through the ministry of Moses. But

the Israelites stubbornly ignored God’s warnings against idolatry

and soon became involved in the vile religious orgies of their

heathen neighbors. For the purpose of judgment, God allowed them

to be delivered again and again into the hands of their foes, and

these oppressions were only temporarily relieved by the occasional

appearance of godly judges.

The nation nally became a monarchy. Saul’s disastrous reign

was followed by the founding of the royal house of David, the

“man after God’s own heart,” who greatly extended Israel’s borders

and brought peace to the land. David and his son Solomon made an

important contribution to the poetical sections of the Old Testament.

After a brief period of prosperity and power, however, the united

kingdom fell apart, mainly because Solomon’s indulgences

reintroduced idolatry to the nation. The kingdom was split in two

after Solomon’s death (931 b.c.). Two of the tribes remained true to

the throne of David, but the other ten set up a rival monarchy in the

north, with Samaria eventually becoming its capital. The southern

kingdom, with Jerusalem as its capital, was known as Judah. (In

Matthew 1 the human ancestry of the Lord Jesus is traced through

the line of the kings of Judah, right back to David.) The northern

kingdom was known as Israel, or sometimes as “Ephraim,” its

dominant tribe.

The history of the divided kingdom was turbulent. Not a single

good king sat on the throne of Israel. Eventually the northern

kingdom fell to the evil Assyrians, and its people were carried away

into captivity (722 b.c.). The kingdom of Judah outlasted Israel for

about 135 years. Some of Judah’s kings were good and some bad,

but apostasy and idolatry ultimately prevailed, and the Babylonians

became God’s instrument to punish Judah. Jerusalem was sacked,

the magnicent temple of Solomon was destroyed, and the people

were deported to Babylon (586 b.c.).

14 Moody Distance Learning / Survey of the Old Testament 1

Eventually the Babylonian Empire was replaced on the stage of

history by the Persian Empire, and the Jews were given permission to

return to Palestine. Under great difculties, the small remnant returned

(539 b.c.) and rebuilt Jerusalem and the temple. The entire period of the

divided kingdom, the Captivity, and the return from captivity gave rise

to the prophets, whose books form a large part of the Old Testament.

The New Testament opens on Israel with an intensely nationalistic

remnant in the land but with a large Jewish population dispersed in

all parts of the world. Christ was born in the zenith of Roman power.

He was crucied by the Romans at the insistence of the Jews, who

had rejected Him and His claims to be their King and Messiah. His

resurrection and ascension and the coming of the Holy Spirit on the

Day of Pentecost introduced a new era—the era of the church. Peter

and Paul dominated the early history of the church, taking the gospel

to both Jews and Gentiles. Peter concentrated mainly on Jerusalem

and Palestine, and Paul, after his spectacular conversion, became the

Apostle to the Gentiles and the most famous missionary of the church.

Much of the New Testament is comprised of letters written by the

apostles to churches and converts throughout the Roman Empire—

letters intended to encourage, instruct, and reprove. The Bible closes

on a note of prophecy, anticipating the second coming of Christ, the

nal fulllment of all outstanding prophecies, and the consummation

of all God’s purposes with man.

One good way of xing in your mind the history of the Bible is to

think of it in terms of patriarchs, great leaders, kings, foreign rulers,

Christ, and the church.

Moody Distance Learning / Survey of the Old Testament 1 15

Self-Check Quiz 1

This self-check test will help you evaluate what you have learned in

the preceding lesson and will also help you prepare for upcoming

exam. Indicate your answer to each of the following questions.

1. True or False: We must know the content of a book before we can

know its interpretation.

2. True or False: The Bible is a complete history of the universe.

3. True or False: It is possible to know the factual content of the

Scriptures and still remain a stranger to Christ.

4. True or False: The Old Testament is of little value, now that we

have the New Testament.

5. True or False: The entire Bible is inspired by the Holy Spirit

6. Which of the following Scripture references can be used to prove

that the Bible is inspired by God?

a. 2 Timothy 3:16

b. Titus 2:15

c. James 1:22

d. John 3:36

7. Which of the following names or events came rst, according to

the historical order given in the lesson material?

a. King David

b. Abraham

c. Judah goes into captivity

d. Israel goes into captivity

8. The rst qualication essential to real Bible study is:

a. A good education

b. Ability to name the books of the Bible from memory

c. A careful reading of the Bible from cover to cover

d. New birth through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ

continued on next page

16 Moody Distance Learning / Survey of the Old Testament 1

9. The second qualication essential to real Bible study is:

a. A taste for good literature

b. A teachable spirit

c. A life surrendered to the Spirit of God

d. An alert mental attitude

10. Which gure gives the correct number of books in each of the

following main divisions of the Bible?

a. Old Testament history: 21

b. New Testament history: 5

c. Old Testament Law: 4

d. New Testament prophecy: 2

Refer to the answer key at the end of this study guide. Please do not

send your answers to Moody Distance Learning.