Learning to Blog

To All, this is my first blog other than the posting that Bryan did for me. I had to begin by remembering what my password was.

Death be Proud: In Bryan’s blog he said, "What I'm beginning to think is that God allows death to come prematurely in some cases to actually prevent evil from destroying lives. Consider again, John the Baptist..." Let me add to his examples the story of Hezekiah, which the Bible says, "There was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, either before him or after him. He held fast to the LORD and did not cease to follow him; he kept the commands the LORD had given Moses." (2 Kings 18:5-6). Hezekiah restored the operation of the Temple, tore down the high places, built his tunnel to bring water from the Gihon spring into the city and performed many righteous acts. After GOD defeated the king of Syria, HE told Hezekiah through Isaiah, "Put your house in order, because you are going to die; you will not recover." (2 Kings 20:1). We know the rest, Hezekiah prayed to the LORD (2 Kings 20:3) and the LORD added 15 years to Hezekiah’s life (2 Kings 20:6). Because he lived, a child was born to Hezekiah named, "Manasseh." Manasseh "led Judah and the people of Jerusalem astray, so that they did more evil than the nations the LORD had destroyed before the Israelites." (2 Chron 33:9). I wondered if GOD foresaw that Hezekiah would have an evil son to lead Israel away from GOD and therefore sought to prevent this son from being born? Otherwise, why would GOD cut short the life of Hezekiah who had been such a righteous king?

Circumcised Egyptians: In response to Bryan’s question, I think that the reference to the circumcised in Egypt, Judah, Edom, etc. could be Jews who lived in those countries. One of most significant gatherings of Jews outside of Israel was Alexandria in Egypt. This was named after Alexander the Great so it did not come into existence until 331 BC. Jeremiah writes around 580 BC so Alexandra would be in the future which is consistent with "The days are coming." The dispersion of the Jews to other countries begins with the conquering of the northern empire around 700 BC and then Jerusalem in 586 BC.