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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.
This is not mere sentiment but theological necessity.
Joseph Exell observes that this practice of reviewing one's vows to God carries three profound advantages.
The subject—"a man's ways"—encompasses his entire carriage through life: thoughts, speeches, and actions combined.
For forty years, the prophet Isaiah had testified to a truer understanding of Elohim, warning that these supports were *rotten* and would fail at the crucial hour.
First, Christians are objects of *special Divine regard*.
First, Christ's dismissal was coercive and indignant (Luke 4:8).
When a telescope is directed towards a distant landscape, it enables us to see what we could not otherwise perceive; yet it does not create what has no real existence in the prospect before us.
Yet he strikes a decisive balance between head and heart.
The term "perfect" (*tam*) means not faultless but whole-hearted, one who consciously withholds nothing from God.
Charles Spurgeon observed that while one sermon explains salvation, ten are required to exhort men toward it.
Exell, in his 1887 *Biblical Illustrator*, identifies why this pursuit matters.
This principle cuts to the heart of Christian discipleship: we cannot expect exemption from sufferings our Master endured.
The rabbis represent Amoz as possibly a brother to King Amaziah, yet his true legacy emerges in his son's very name: *Yeshayahu* (salvation is from Yahweh).
Yet when a boulder interrupts this relentless current, something miraculous occurs: within seasons, a garden flourishes on its leeward side.
Internally: hearts are savingly affected, spirits mightily strengthened.
Human hope derives from only two sources: sense and faith.
All men walk in paths as different as the characters they sustain—saints or sinners—yet sinners remain insensible to the objects leading them toward ruin.
We recoil from the depths of human depravity described here, yet the lesson cuts deeper than scandal.
This dual calling reveals three critical truths about ministerial office.
The prophet invokes the Eastern sky during the dry season—from May to September—when clouds vanish entirely for four months, leaving an atmosphere of pristine clarity.
The prophet had learned to recognize God's messengers in natural phenomena—as he wrote, the winds themselves are messengers of Elohim (Psalm 104:4).
Sin operates as a *phoros* (burden)—an insupportable load that detains sinners from Elohim, the only source of relief.
Herod's character bore five destructive marks: blindness to spiritual truth, luxurious indulgence, vengeful anger, susceptibility to flattery, and habitual sin.
To ransom (*lutroo*) means to redeem or free from captivity by paying an equivalent—to rescue from danger and death, to deliver from an enemy's possession through warfare or purchase by gold.