Historically the Jews have erected stone memorials at the site of key events. Jacob erected two stone pillars at Bethel after encountering the Lord (Genesis 28:18; 35:14). Joshua memorialized the crossing of the Jordan River with twelve stones (Joshua 4:8), and Samuel set up a stone between Mizpah and Shen in gratitude for the Lord’s help (1 Samuel 7:12). This ancient practice may then serve as the foundation for the modern Jewish practice of placing stones on gravestones.

Unlike flowers that wither away, stones provide a permanent sign that someone has visited the site in order to express his or her respect for the deceased. Stones provide an enduring symbol that the memory of the deceased has not been forgotten. Some Jews also leave lighted candles at the graveside to mark respect for their loved one and to symbolize hope in the ascension of the soul. In some cases you may even find a copy of Psalms that has been left inside a sliding compartment at the graveside which anyone visiting the site can use to recite prayers.

-Daniel McCabe

Trivia Quiz (Find the answer below)

History:The First Hymn

I grew up singing hymns in church. I particularly loved “Sound the Battle Cry,” number 178 in our burgundy pew hymnal, a hymn which I would imagine not more than a handful of you would even recognize. Still I can see my younger Me standing there in the second pew, piano-side, belting out the chorus, “Rouse, then, soldiers, rally round the banner. Ready, steady, pass the word along. Onward, forward, shout aloud Hosanna! Christ is Captain of the mighty throng.” I’m quite sure that I had no idea what Hosanna meant or even that the reference to Jesus as Captain comes from the KJV translation of Hebrews 2:10, but that didn’t stop me from raising my hand on those long ago Sunday nights each time Mr. Collins called on the congregation to request their favorites. The people of Pine Crest Bible Church weren’t exactly a “mighty throng” unless you were to add our voices to the billions that have sung their favorites in church over the last two thousand years.

Do you have a favorite of your own? What about “How Great Thou Art,” “The Old Rugged Cross” or “The Oxyrhynchus Hymn”? Haven’t heard of that last one, you say? Well, it shares its name with a city in Egypt where a papyrus manuscript of the song’s Greek lyrics and musical notation was first discovered in 1918, and it’s actually the earliest known Christian hymn, dating to the end of the third century A.D. The manuscript isn’t complete, only fragmentary, but the surviving lyrics invoke silence before the triune God and they praise his creation.

Most recently two Christian artists, Chris Tomlin and Ben Fielding, have incorporated the lyrics and melody of this ancient hymn into a modern version of the song, and there’s also a recent documentary about it, entitled “The First Hymn.” How I would like to have known the author of the hymn and to have heard it sung in his church! Perhaps one day when a mighty throng of believing voices is gathered around the throne and Jesus calls out for favorites, someone will shout out, “Hymn number one, please!” and we’ll all sing it together.

“Oh, sing to the Lord a new song! Sing to the Lord, all the earth!” (Psalm 96:1).

-Daniel McCabe

Scripture Study: Three Bold Claims, part 1

I want to throw together three loosely connected thoughts and see if they make sense to you.

First, one of the greatest keys to understanding the Bible is understanding the nature of biblical covenants. The Bible runs on biblical covenants, five that God has entered into with different parties at different times. There’s the Noahic covenant, the Abrahamic covenant, the Mosaic covenant, the Davidic covenant and the New covenant, which will replace the Mosaic.

Second, there is no such thing as the Old Testament. What?! Obviously the Old Testament and the New Testament make up the Bible. But what I mean is that there’s no such thing as an Old Testament that is some sort of “Old-gone-away-with” or “Done-away-with” Testament. In Bible times and in the early church there was no Old Testament or New Testament. There was only the book of Genesis, the writings of Isaiah, the gospel of Matthew, etc. The church had sixty-six inspired works, and they were simply known as the Scriptures, the unified corpus of the Bible. The terms Old Testament and New Testament are actually arbitrary designations.

We started to have chapter divisions in the twelfth century and then verse divisions in the sixteenth century. As the Scriptures were written, there wasn’t a chapter 1 or a chapter 2, verse five. It was just, “Here’s a letter from Paul to the Ephesians,” for example. Chapter and verse divisions came later and so did the designations of Old and New Testament. If you were to go back in time and say to the Apostle Paul, “Hey, I love the Old Testament,” he’d say, “What are you talking about? We only have the Scriptures.” Over time the church has developed a default assumption that the Old Testament is in the past and the New Testament is in the present with Revelation being future, and unfortunately a great deal of content from the Old Testament gets dismissed, “That’s just the past. It’s not really relevant to me.” But that’s not true. The entire Bible from cover to cover is as relevant for us today as in any time period.

Third, much of the Old Testament hasn’t happened yet. With regard to the New Testament one might think, “Yes, there are some things that still await the future, such as the Book of Revelation or those passages where Jesus says, ‘I’m coming again,’” and those are obviously future events, but there’s a lot from the Old Testament too that hasn’t happened yet. This is particularly true of promises from God in the Old Testament prophetic books, but since all God’s promises come true, we can know that these Old Testament promises will also come true.

-Adam Keim, October 29, 2022

History & Geography—Jonah of Gath-Hepher

“[Jeroboam II] restored the border of Israel from Lebo-hamath as far as the Sea of the Arabah, according to the word of the Lord, the God of Israel, which he spoke by his servant Jonah, the son of Amittai, the prophet, who was from Gath-hepher” (2 Kings 14:25).

When you read the book of Jonah, you are struck immediately by Jonah’s faithless move away from his appointed task (Jonah 1:1-3). Instead of heading toward Nineveh (to the northeast), he fled to catch a ship from Joppa toward Tarshish (to the west). Jonah ran quite literally in the opposite direction of his calling.

For all that could be said of Jonah, he was still a prophet of the Lord. His hometown of Gath-Hepher rested atop the Nazareth plateau in lower Galilee. The pictured map is oriented to the northeast where you can see Mount Hermon in the distance.

When Nicodemus attempted to defend Jesus, the Pharisees responded to him, “Are you from Galilee too? Search and see that no prophet arises from Galilee” (John 7:52). Perhaps they forgot about Jonah or they were not considering him an actual prophet. The Pharisees likely would not have disrespected Jonah in such a way, so maybe they had the Sea of Galilee region in mind specifically, thinking of Jesus’ home at Capernaum. Ironically, Gath-Hepher is very close to Jesus’ boyhood home of Nazareth.

The only other biblical mention of Gath-Hepher is in Joshua 19:13, as part of Zebulun’s inheritance. The early church Father Jerome, in his commentary on Jonah, describes the place as “an inconsiderable village,” but he does mention that the prophet’s tomb is nearby.

Think again of Jonah’s story. I am always amazed at why he fled to Nineveh in the first place. He wanted the Assyrians to come under judgment, and if he went there then they might escape that fate, since he knew that God was “a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster” (Jonah 4:2). I am so grateful that He is!

-Adam Keim

Answer to the Trivia

A. To wish someone a good morning