Bible chapters explained
What each chapter really says, what's easily missed, the words behind it, and how it leads to Jesus. In Favor, every chapter explains itself as you read.
Genesis
- Genesis 1 explained: In the beginningGenesis 1 tells you who made everything, that God saw all he had made and it was very good, that people, male and female, are made in God's image and given the earth to rule, and that the first week ends with a day God blessed and made holy.
- Genesis 2 explained: Dust and breathGenesis 2 comes down to the ground. God, now named as the LORD, shapes a man from the dust like a potter, breathes the breath of life into him, gives him work and one limit, and calls only one thing not good, being alone, before he makes a partner who matches him.
- Genesis 3 explained: Where are you?The first sin starts with a question that turns God's yes into a no. God's first words afterwards are a question too, "Where are you?", and inside the judgment he puts a promise: the woman's offspring will bruise the serpent's head.
- Genesis 12 explained: All the families of the earthBefore Genesis 12, Genesis says "cursed" five times; in God's first words to Abram it says "bless" or "blessing" five times, ending with all the families of the earth. Peter says God sent Jesus to bring that blessing.
- Genesis 22 explained: God will provideGod tested Abraham by asking for Isaac, the son he loved, in the Bible's first use of the word love. Abraham went, told Isaac "God will provide himself the lamb", and was stopped by the angel of the LORD. A ram was offered instead of his son, and God swore by himself that all the nations would be blessed by Abraham's offspring.
- Genesis 37 explained: Joseph and his brothersJacob loved Joseph more than his other sons and gave him a special tunic, and Joseph's dreams set his brothers against him. They threw him in a pit, he was sold to traders bound for Egypt, and they deceived their father with his tunic dipped in goat's blood, as Jacob once deceived his own father with goats. Jacob said he would go down to Sheol mourning, the Bible's first use of the word.
Exodus
- Exodus 3 explained: Holy groundAt the bush God said he had already seen, heard and come down to deliver his people. To Moses' "Who am I?" he answered "I will be with you", with the same word he used for his name, I AM. He named himself the LORD, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and Jesus read that name as proof that the dead are raised.
- Exodus 14 explained: The LORD will fight for youThe Hebrew verb for Pharaoh making his heart heavy (8:15) is the verb the LORD uses when he says, "I will get honor over Pharaoh" (14:4), and in "they drove them heavily" (14:25), "heavily" is a noun from the same family. The "wall" of water (14:22) is the Hebrew Bible's usual word for a city wall, used here for the first time.
- Exodus 20 explained: All these wordsBefore a single command, God says who he is: "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt" (20:2). What the WEB calls "the ten commandments" (34:28) are, in Hebrew, the ten words, and they were spoken aloud before they were written on stone (20:22, 31:18). Jesus took two of them further, to anger and to lust in the heart (Matthew 5:21-28).
Joshua
Ruth
1 Samuel
Psalms
- Psalm 1 explained: Blessed is the manThe first verse and the last share one Hebrew word: "the path of sinners" (1:1) and "the way of the wicked" (1:6) are both derekh. And the stand the blessed man won't take (1:1) isn't the stand the wicked can't make in the judgment (1:5): the WEB has one word, the Hebrew two verbs.
- Psalm 23 explained: The LORD is my shepherdPsalm 23 speaks about the LORD until the valley, then speaks to him: "for you are with me" (23:4). Its "still waters" are, in Hebrew, waters of rest. And the goodness and loving kindness that "follow" the psalmist (23:6) pursue him, with the verb other psalms use for enemies.
- Psalm 27 explained: The LORD is my lightWith an army camped against him, the one thing Psalm 27 asks of the LORD is to dwell in his house and see his beauty (27:4). The "he will hide me" of 27:5 is the same Hebrew verb as "Don't hide your face from me" (27:9). And the call "Seek my face" (27:8) is plural in Hebrew, answered by one heart: "I will seek your face, LORD."
- Psalm 46 explained: Be still, and know"Be still, and know that I am God" (46:10) is God speaking, to more than one person, with the nations in view. And the refuge of 46:1 and the refuge of the refrain (46:7, 46:11) are two different Hebrew words, machseh and misgav.
- Psalm 51 explained: Create in me a clean heartIn Hebrew, "Purify me with hyssop" (51:7) is the verb of "I have sinned" (51:4). And "Create in me a clean heart" (51:10) uses the verb of "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth" (Genesis 1:1): nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible is a heart what it creates.
- Psalm 91 explained: The shadow of the AlmightyPsalm 91 names God four ways in its first two verses, says deliver three times with three different Hebrew verbs (91:3, 91:14, 91:15), and ends with God himself speaking. Its lines about angels (91:11-12) are quoted in the Gospels by the devil, to Jesus, who answered, "You shall not test the Lord, your God" (Matthew 4:7).
- Psalm 103 explained: Praise the LORD, my soul"Praise the LORD, my soul" (103:1) is the same Hebrew as "Bless the LORD, my soul" (Psalm 104:1): the psalm speaks to its own soul, and every your in 103:3-5 is spoken to it. And its "flower of the field" (103:15) is Isaiah's, where the Hebrew calls the glory of flesh chesed, the psalm's word for the LORD's everlasting loving kindness (103:17).
- Psalm 121 explained: He who keeps youIn eight verses Psalm 121 has one Hebrew verb six times: shamar, keep. First it names the LORD by it three times, "he who keeps you", "he who keeps Israel", "your keeper" (121:3-5); then three times it says what he will do: keep you, keep your soul, keep your going out and your coming in (121:7-8).
- Psalm 139 explained: Search me, GodPsalm 139 opens, "LORD, you have searched me, and you know me" (139:1), and ends asking for the same two verbs: "Search me, God, and know my heart" (139:23). Its woven (139:15) is the verb Exodus uses for the embroiderer, and its word for thoughts comes only twice in the Hebrew Bible: my thoughts (139:2) and your thoughts (139:17).
Proverbs
- Proverbs 3 explained: Trust in the LORD with all your heart"In all your ways acknowledge him" (3:6) uses the Hebrew verb for know. And six verses after "Happy is the man who finds wisdom, the man who gets understanding" (3:13), the chapter says the LORD founded the earth and established the heavens by those same two, wisdom and understanding (3:19).
- Proverbs 31 explained: A worthy womanThe mother warns her son, "Don’t give your strength to women" (31:3), and in Hebrew that strength is the worthy of the poem's first line: "Who can find a worthy woman?" (31:10). And the book whose first chapter says "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge" (1:7) praises, near its last verse, "a woman who fears the LORD" (31:30).
Ecclesiastes
Isaiah
- Isaiah 9 explained: A great lightThe last of three reasons for joy is a child: a staff lay on a shoulder (9:4), and the government will be on his shoulders (9:6), in Hebrew the same word. And the refrain says his anger is not turned away (9:12) because the people have not turned (9:13): in Hebrew one verb, shuv.
- Isaiah 40 explained: Comfort, comfort my peopleIsaiah 40 uses the same two Hebrew verbs three times: the LORD "doesn’t faint. He isn’t weary" (40:28), "the youths faint and get weary" (40:30), and those who wait for the LORD "will run, and not be weary. They will walk, and not faint" (40:31). In between: "He gives power to the weak" (40:29).
- Isaiah 53 explained: He bore the sins of manyThe New Testament gives words from this chapter, from its first verse to its last, as it speaks of Jesus: 53:1 in John, 53:4 in Matthew, 53:7-8 in Acts, 53:9 in 1 Peter and 53:12 in Mark. In Hebrew the WEB's "laid on him" (Isaiah 53:6) and "made intercession" (Isaiah 53:12) are one verb, and 53:6 begins and ends with one word, kullanu.
Matthew
- Matthew 1 explained: Son of David, son of AbrahamMatthew's list runs "Abraham became the father of Isaac" (1:2), father after father, down to Joseph. Then the words change: "Joseph, the husband of Mary, from whom was born Jesus" (1:16). And 1:18 tells how: Mary "was found pregnant by the Holy Spirit" (1:18).
- Matthew 2 explained: Born King of the JewsThe wise men asked for the one "born King of the Jews" (2:2), and Matthew doesn't give that title again until the governor's question (27:11), the soldiers' mocking (27:29), and the words set over Jesus's head on the cross: "THIS IS JESUS, THE KING OF THE JEWS" (27:37). And Matthew never says how many wise men there were.
- Matthew 5 explained: BlessedIn Matthew 5 the first and the eighth "Blessed" sayings end with the same words, "for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven" (5:3, 5:10). And the first time Matthew calls God Father is here, in Jesus's words: "glorify your Father who is in heaven" (5:16).
- Matthew 6 explained: In secretJesus says the same thing three times, of giving, praying and fasting: the hypocrites "have received their reward" (6:2, 6:5, 6:16), but "your Father who sees in secret will reward you" (6:4, 6:6). The prayer he gives comes between the second and the third (6:9-13). And his words on prayer and on being anxious give the same reason: your Father knows what you need (6:8, 6:32).
- Matthew 7 explained: Hears and does themIn Matthew 7 one Greek verb runs from 7:12 to 7:26 behind the WEB's do, produce, grow and does: the good tree produces good fruit, the one who enters does the will of his Father, and the wise man hears Jesus's words and does them. And "he taught them with authority, and not like the scribes" (7:29) is, in the Greek, the same words as the end of Mark 1:22.
- Matthew 28 explained: I am with you alwaysThe stone that had been sealed (27:66) was rolled away by an angel of the Lord, who sat on it (28:2), and he told the women, "He is not here, for he has risen, just like he said" (28:6). Jesus's last words in Matthew are "Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." (28:20).
Mark
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Every chapter explained as you read, with its words, questions and lines to Jesus. Alone, or with your people.
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