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Isaiah 47
[Bible]Isaiah 47 is a prophetic poem announcing the fall of Babylon, portraying the city as a woman brought down from her throne to sit in the dust. It declares that Babylon, proud, cruel, and reliant on divination, will have no one to save her.
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.
Bethsaida
[Bible]Bethsaida was a town on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee. The Gospels identify it as the hometown of the apostles Philip, Andrew, and Peter, and it is where Jesus healed a blind man and rebuked the town for failing to repent.
Macedonia
[Bible]Macedonia was a region in the northern part of the Greek peninsula and, in New Testament times, a Roman province. Paul crossed over to it after being called in a vision and founded churches there in cities such as Philippi and Thessalonica.
Aram-naharaim
[Bible]Aram-naharaim, meaning "Aram of the two rivers," is an Old Testament place name. It is generally understood to refer to northern Mesopotamia along the upper Euphrates, particularly the region around Haran. Following the Septuagint, many translations render it as "Mesopotamia" in most of its occurrences.
Hezekiah's Tunnel
[Bible]Hezekiah's Tunnel is a rock-cut tunnel that Hezekiah, king of Judah, is believed to have dug to bring the waters of the Gihon Spring into Jerusalem in preparation for an Assyrian invasion. Today it is also called the Siloam Tunnel.
Joshua 8
[Bible]Joshua 8 recounts how, after the Achan incident, Israel captures the city of Ai by means of an ambush, and how Joshua then builds an altar on Mount Ebal and reads the law before the whole congregation.
2 Kings 6:16
[Bible Verses]2 Kings 6:16 records the words Elisha spoke to his frightened servant in the city of Dothan, which the Aramean army had surrounded: "Fear not." Because the verse speaks of God's unseen protection, it is often quoted in sermons on fear and crisis.
Simon Magus
[People]Simon Magus is a sorcerer in Samaria who appears in Acts 8. After being baptized, he tried to buy the power to impart the Holy Spirit and was rebuked by Peter. The term "simony," meaning the buying and selling of church offices, is derived from his name.
Qumran
[Bible]Qumran is an ancient site on the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea. It became widely known after the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in nearby caves beginning in 1947. The name does not appear in the Bible.
Sargon
[People]Sargon, known to scholars as Sargon II, was a king who ruled Assyria in the late eighth century BC. His name appears only once in the Bible, in Isaiah 20:1.
Doeg
[People]Doeg was an Edomite who served as King Saul's chief herdsman. He denounced Ahimelech, the priest of Nob who had helped David, to Saul, and at Saul's command he killed eighty-five priests and the people of the city of Nob (1 Samuel 21–22).
Arba
[People]Arba is a figure in the Old Testament Book of Joshua, identified as the father of Anak and the greatest man among the Anakim. According to the biblical record, Kiriath-arba, the ancient name of Hebron, was derived from his name.
Ram's Horn Trumpet
[Bible]The ram's horn trumpet, known in Hebrew as the shofar, is a trumpet made from the horn of a ram. It is best known from the account of the fall of Jericho in Joshua 6, in which priests blew it before the Ark of the Covenant.
Lydda
[Bible]Lydda is the town where Peter healed Aeneas, a man sick of the palsy, in Acts 9. It lay near Joppa, is generally identified with Lod of the Old Testament, and corresponds to the modern city of Lod in Israel.
The Pilgrim's Progress
[Christian Life]The Pilgrim's Progress is a Christian allegory by the English Puritan preacher John Bunyan, published in 1678 (Part One) and 1684 (Part Two). Told in the form of a dream, it depicts the journey of the pilgrim Christian from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City.
Cathars
[History]The Cathars were a dualist Christian sect that spread through southern France and northern Italy in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. They are also called Albigensians, after the southern French city of Albi. The Catholic Church condemned them as heretics and suppressed them through a crusade and the Inquisition.
Obed-edom
[People]Obed-edom was the owner of the house where the Ark of the Covenant remained for three months during the reign of King David. Scripture records that God blessed him and his entire household during that time. Chronicles also presents him as a Levite gatekeeper.
1 Chronicles 16
[Bible]1 Chronicles 16 records the day David placed the ark of the covenant in the tent he had pitched for it, offered sacrifices, and blessed the people. The chapter also contains the Levites' song of thanksgiving and the assignment of worship personnel to two sites, Jerusalem and Gibeon.
Ahasuerus
[People]Ahasuerus is the king of Persia who appears in the Old Testament Book of Esther. He made Esther his queen, and many scholars identify him with the Persian king Xerxes I.