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1 Samuel 15:22
[Bible Verses]1 Samuel 15:22 records Samuel's rebuke of Saul: "Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams." It is a key verse for the principle that obedience to God's word takes precedence over ritual worship. It also raises questions about application, particularly about whom one is to obey.
Jonathan
[People]Jonathan was the eldest son of Saul, the first king of Israel. Recorded in 1 and 2 Samuel, he showed great courage in battle against the Philistines and became the friend of David, with whom he made a covenant.
Jonah (Prophet)
[People]Jonah was an Israelite prophet and the central figure of the Old Testament Book of Jonah. He is known for fleeing from God's command, spending three days in the belly of a great fish, and then going to Nineveh to call its people to repentance.
Michal
[People]Michal was the younger daughter of Saul, the first king of Israel, and the first wife of David. She appears in 1 and 2 Samuel and is known for helping David escape from her father Saul and for despising David as he danced before the Ark of the Covenant.
Jezreel
[Bible]Jezreel is a Hebrew place name meaning "God sows." It refers to a city in the northern kingdom of Israel and to the broad valley around it. The city held a royal palace of the house of Ahab and was the setting of the revolt led by Jehu. Jezreel is also the name of a son of the prophet Hosea.
Shushan
[Bible]Shushan (Susa) was a royal city of the Persian Empire that appears in the Old Testament books of Esther, Nehemiah, and Daniel. It is identified with the area around modern Shush in southwestern Iran.
Dan
[Bible]Dan was a city at the northern extremity of the land of Israel. The tribe of Dan captured Laish and gave it this name, and it was there that Jeroboam, king of the northern kingdom of Israel, set up one of his golden calves.
Lachish
[Bible]Lachish was a city in the lowland of Judah, southwest of Jerusalem. It appears in the accounts of Joshua's conquest of Canaan, the Assyrian king Sennacherib's invasion of Judah, and the final Babylonian assault.
Sisera
[People]Sisera was the commander of the army of Jabin, the Canaanite king who oppressed Israel during the period of the judges. In Judges 4–5 he is defeated by the Israelite forces led by Deborah and Barak, and while fleeing he is killed by Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite.
Jonadab
[People]Jonadab (Jehonadab), the son of Rechab, accompanied Jehu, king of the northern kingdom of Israel, in his purge of Baal worship and commanded his descendants to abstain from wine and to dwell in tents.
Judges 4
[Bible]Judges 4 recounts how, under the oppression of the Canaanite king Jabin and his army commander Sisera, the prophetess and judge Deborah commissions Barak to deliver Israel, and how Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, kills Sisera.
Proverbs 31
[Bible]Proverbs 31 is the final chapter of the Book of Proverbs. It contains the instruction King Lemuel's mother gave her son and a poem in praise of the "virtuous woman."
Isaiah 7
[Bible]Isaiah 7 is the chapter in which Isaiah urges Ahaz, king of Judah, who is afraid of the allied forces of Aram and the northern kingdom of Israel, to have faith, and delivers to him the sign of Immanuel. The chapter then foretells the Assyrian invasion.
Isaiah 8
[Bible]Isaiah 8 uses the name of Isaiah's son, Maher-shalal-hash-baz, to foretell the fall of Aram and the northern kingdom of Israel. It announces both the Assyrian invasion and the assurance that "God is with us." The chapter closes with a warning not to seek those who have familiar spirits but to follow the law and the testimony.
Hosea 6:6
[Bible Verses]A declaration that God desires steadfast love rather than sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings. Jesus quoted the verse twice in disputes with the Pharisees, and it is a key text on the relationship between worship and life, and between ritual and love.
Assyria
[Bible]Assyria was an ancient empire centered on the Tigris River valley in northern Mesopotamia. In the Bible it is the nation that destroyed the northern kingdom of Israel and invaded Judah. It is portrayed both as an instrument of God's judgment and as a proud power that itself comes under judgment.
Garden Tomb
[History]The Garden Tomb is a rock-cut tomb and garden north of the Damascus Gate in the Old City of Jerusalem. It became known in the nineteenth century when some Protestants proposed it as the tomb of Jesus, and today it is a favored place of reflection for Protestant pilgrims.
Ezekiel 23
[Bible]Ezekiel 23 is a prophetic parable that likens Samaria, the capital of the northern kingdom of Israel, and Jerusalem, the capital of Judah, to two sisters, Oholah and Oholibah, who played the harlot. Through this image it indicts their alliances with foreign nations and their idolatry, and it pronounces judgment upon them.
Hosea 4
[Bible]Hosea 4 is the chapter in which the LORD brings charges against the people and priests of the northern kingdom of Israel. It pronounces judgment on the sin and idolatry that arose from their lack of the knowledge of God.
Psalm 34:18
[Bible Verses]A verse from the Psalms declaring that God is near to those whose hearts are broken and whose spirits are crushed, and that he saves them. It is frequently cited in discussions of comfort in suffering and of repentance.