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109 illustrations
To honour parents (*timao*, to show respect and value) comprises five essential elements: filial love, reverence and esteem, obedience and submission, succour and help, and the protection of their reputation through righteous conduct.
The prophet's vision does not end in ruin.
First, in *number*: Under the ancient dispensation, spiritual Israel remained comparatively few.
When Abram fled Ur of the Chaldees, renouncing idolatry in a pagan land, westward distance became his sanctuary.
The Paschal moon flooded the landscape nightly with splendor as pilgrims from across Palestine and beyond arrived in Jerusalem in family groups and bands, filling the city to overflowing.
Boundaries were marked by corner-stones placed at the edges of fields.
The Lord keeps His people in six distinct ways.
Note three truths: First, Elohim hath already given the very greatest thing to set before salvation: what every parent who had but one beloved son would surely feel as the greatest of his treasures.
In earthly transactions, once a covenant is confirmed between two parties, neither can annul it or add fresh clauses—the agreement stands in all integrity.
This declaration yields us a threefold warrant for Christmas observance.
Yahweh, the Lord in His everlasting redemptive purpose, invites Israel to *ask*—not as suppliants begging scraps, but as covenant partners speaking into the Divine intention.
Cyrus the Great, born a prince of a small principality at the head of the Gulf of Oman, rose to conquer the Medes, Persians, Asia Minor including Lydia, and finally Babylon itself.
David speaks not of mere bodily existence, but of life in its truest sense—union with Elohim himself.
The apostle Paul grounds predestination in God's eternal foreknowledge—a decree that turns all things to the good of those called according to Elohim's plan.
His spirit had ascended—climbing Jacob's ladder toward glory and immortality—only to descend again into the melancholy fact of his countrymen's spiritual expatriation.
Joseph Spurgeon's exegete William Gouge identified eight layers of meaning embedded in this construction: First, doubling establishes *certainty* (*betach*—absolute assurance).
This distinction cuts to the heart of His redemptive mission.
The kingdom lay low, fractured by foreign invasions and internal division, yet the surrounding nations—particularly the Philistines—watched with both enmity and fear.
As the proverb reminds us, "The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind to powder." Sennacherib's parricides fled to Ararat in Central Armenia, where Armenian historians trace the Sassimian and Arzrunian tribes from them.
First, Christ came on pre-incarnate mission through Old Testament theophanies—manifesting Elohim before the Incarnation.
This tree appears five times in the Bible, always associated with rivers or watercourses—symbols of divine provision and life itself.
The image draws from ancient Near Eastern custom: girdles of gold, blue, purple, and fine-twined linen distinguished persons of high rank, while military girdles signified strength and authority (compare 2 Samuel 18:11, where Joab's girdle marked his station).
Just as the ancients displayed their wealth by suspending gold and silver vessels, armor, and ancestral heirlooms upon spikes along their walls, so Eliakim's elevation becomes the support structure for his entire household.
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.