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By Joseph S. Exell · 1887 · 1,353 illustrations
The Biblical Illustrator is a 56-volume reference work compiled by Joseph S. Exell in the late 19th century. Each passage of Scripture is illuminated with historical anecdotes, biographical sketches, analogies from nature, and homiletical observations drawn from ancient and contemporary sources. These illustrations have been carefully restored from the original public-domain text and rewritten for clarity and accessibility — preserving the historical depth while removing Victorian OCR artifacts.
It is a leading feature of this age to reduce the gospel to phrases.
Yet beneath such plausible disguises lie spiritual impostures that demand our careful discernment.
The Preacher warns against an obsession with others' opinions that fragments the soul.
Moses and Pharaoh understood this as warfare between supernatural powers.
The prophet identifies a moral catastrophe: men and women who possess eyes yet refuse to see Yahweh's *providentia* (providence) ordering all things in heaven and earth.
First, Yahweh operates through dual instruments: the judgments of God's mouth and the judgments of God's hand—the word and the work of God.
First, it demands a *specific pursuit* (*zēteō* – to seek diligently).
If we would pray well, we must pray early.
This command demands reading with utmost attention, diligence, and devotion—weeping as John did until the sealed book was opened, digging deep in the mine of Scripture for the mind of God, and holding it fast lest it slip away.
When they differ, it is commonly from ignorance and want of mutual explanation; and therefore when their understandings are informed, as their hearts were right before, they are like so many drops of water on a table—when they touch they...
The Word visited men before the Incarnation through nature and conscience, came fully at the Incarnation, and still comes through the Spirit who interprets His name (John 14:25; 16:13).
First, in *number*: Under the ancient dispensation, spiritual Israel remained comparatively few.
First, the physical: Yahweh fashioned our sensory organs, yet some men deny His authorship, attributing ear and eye to gradual evolutionary development.
First, it serves as a humbling remembrance—deepening his sense of guilt, illustrating Yahweh's greatness in mercy, and inspiring courage for future ministry.
The Victorian homiletics of Joseph Exell (1887) pressed a crucial distinction: godliness genuinely lengthens life, not through magic, but through obedience to Yahweh's wholesome laws.
Like the mythological Twins of Love, *eros* and *anteros*, Truth and Mercy weep together, smile together, sicken together, and recover jointly.
When Elohim displays His supremacy through knowledge—by announcing events before they occur—He addresses our judgment directly, without the bewilderment that miracles may produce.
This contrast illuminates how Elohim accommodates His truth to each person's capacity to receive it.
Eleazar carried four sacred charges: oil for light, sweet incense, the daily meat-offering, and anointing oil.
One managed the vast treasures of an Ethiopian queen; the other carried the gospel commission into the Gaza desert.
Why may we multiply requests before the throne?
This is not blessing but irony—a sentence that cuts to the heart of human motivation.
These are few, extraordinary, and universal in scope.
The metaphor derives from the husbandman's practice: he reserves a portion of grain annually for seed, though small compared to his harvest.