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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 indictment reveals a profound spiritual blindness: Israel refused to recognize that Elohim's judgment itself was an expression of mercy.
"If he steal to satisfy his soul when he is hungry" (Proverbs 6:30). Joseph S. Exell's 1887 treatment exposes sin's cunning architecture. Before transgression ripens into external action, sin deploys imagination, invention, and reason itself to justify the forbidden object—representing...
The kingdom begins as a temple, then becomes a city, finally a kingdom—each representation equally valid aspects of the same grand reality.
Yet the ocean addresses us in manifold languages, calling upon us through both eye and ear.
The first figure—the shepherd—depicts Yahweh's intimate care over the soul's journey.
There exists a happiness which the spirits of just men enter immediately upon separation from the body; yet after the resurrection and general judgment, the righteous shall proceed into life eternal.
Exell observes that in the Church, Elohim is present as a great reservoir of fervid love, a storehouse of blazing affection heated seventy times seven hotter than any creatural love, pouring out its ardours for the quickening of all who...
Exell (1887) observed that nature and Scripture together form two revelatory books: creation displays God's *dynamis* (power), while Scripture unveils His salvation.
First, wealth itself is good—Elohim commands humanity to possess the earth and subdue it, and Scripture approves righteous acquisition.
A human father could scarcely forgive such murderers; it requires the infinite mercy of Elohim to accomplish it.
Exell's *Biblical Illustrator* (1887) offers a striking agricultural parable: farmers along Scotland's Sutherland coast discovered that arable land covered with shore stones—from turkey-egg to eight-pound weights—consistently produced better crops of oats and pease.
But conviction of a man's worth matures slowly through lived experience.
Historically, Moab had suffered severe humiliation under King Jehoram of Israel (2 Kings 3:4, 25).
Exell (1887) illuminates this harsh pronouncement through agricultural metaphor: as farmers spread manure upon ploughed fields to enrich the soil and increase harvests, so Yahweh's judgments—though they deface and destroy nations—serve a remoter purpose of subsequent fruitfulness.
First, it is profoundly *personal*—not abstract truth, but living communion.
Consider the ivy clinging to wall and tree: it extends innumerable tendrils, each seeking adhesion, each striving to become one with its support.
The legalists nullify grace by rejecting Christ as the sole means of salvation, seeking righteousness through works of the law—which can only intensify consciousness of sin rather than remove it.
David declares that Yahweh will light his home lamp, making his dwelling joyful.
First, that his word should not issue in conversions.
He possessed the intellect, courage, and ancestral fervor to become a leader of the Pharisaic faction—perhaps another Maccabeus or Gamaliel, rallying noble spirits against Rome's armies.
Exell's 1887 commentary offers four obligations toward this treasure: First, **Appreciate it**.
The God who called Himself "the God of Israel" and "the Saviour" permitted His own people repeated abandonment to enemies and seventy years of Babylonian captivity.
When Herod sought the young child's life, evil demonstrated its relentless persistence against innocence itself.
Yet this climactic judgment resolves a tension Scripture-readers often overlook.