We tend to think of Jesus’s disciples as fishermen; after all, several of them were fishermen, and Jesus says he will make them “fishers of men” (Matthew 4:19, Mark 1:17, Luke 5:10). But He called twelve disciples, and not all of them had the same backstory.
Let’s quickly distinguish between the disciples I’m talking about here and the many, many people who followed Jesus throughout His life. These are the twelve whom Jesus specifically named apostles (Matthew 10:2, Mark 3:14, Luke 6:13). The gospels consistently refer to “the twelve” separately from the other disciples2. We know from Luke 10:1 there were at least seventy-two people He trusted to go ahead of Him, but these twelve were separate even from those. Unlike so many people through the gospels, these twelve get names.
With that out of the way, let’s get going.
Matthew 4:21–22; Mark 1:19–20; Luke 5:1–11; John 1:35–42
Jesus calls Simon and his brother Andrew at the same time. He has already begun his preaching career, and he finds himself speaking to a huge crowd by the Sea of Galilee. The custom in those days was for the teacher to sit and his audience to stand, but sitting on the shore would ensure only that nobody could see or hear.
Jesus sees a couple of fishing boats, and he asks if they would put out into the lake and let Him teach from there. The fishermen are a little perturbed, as they’ve had a bad night of fishing and caught only a few scrawny fish—they’re still working, and this guy wants to use their boat for teaching!
But they let Him anyway, and afterward He thanks them by having them let down their nets once more. They haul up a catch so enormous it starts to capsize their boat, and they have to call over to the other boat Jesus had seen. While they stand amazed, Jesus says, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”
They do, and He does.
John, of course, tells the story differently. In his telling, Simon and Andrew were disciples of John the Baptist. John sees Jesus walking toward him one day and exclaims, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” The next day, Andrew and another man are standing with John when John sees Jesus again and repeats, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” Andrew and the other disciple immediately follow Jesus, but Andrew also goes to get his brother Simon to tell him they had found the Messiah. We never learn who the other man, one of Jesus’s first two disciples, is.
John reminds us that Simon and Andrew are from Bethsaida in Galilee.
Matthew 4:21–22; Mark 1:19–20; Luke 5:1–11
James and John are the men in the other fishing boat, the ones Simon and Andrew had to call over to help with the miraculous massive daytime catch. It seems the four were frequent partners, and since they all witness the miracle and hear Jesus’s call, they all drop everything to follow Him.
John 1:43–51
Having called Andrew and Simon (John 1:35–42), Jesus goes to Galilee, finds Philip as if He were there just to look for him (maybe He was), and says, “Follow me.” Philip, like Andrew, understands that Jesus is the one prophesied, and he goes to tell Nathanael (Bartholomew3).
When Nathanael arrives, Jesus says something remarkable: “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!” Jesus variously commends the disciples, but he also rebukes them. Here, he declares that “there is no deceit” in Nathanael—high praise indeed from the Lord of Truth.
John also tells us that Philip, like Simon and Andrew, is from Bethsaida.
We never get a specific origin story for Thomas; he is first called out in the lists of names when Jesus calls the twelve (Matthew 10:2, Mark 3:14, Luke 6:13).
Matthew 9:9, Mark 2:14, Luke 5:27–28
Jesus is in Nazareth after being run out of the country of the Gadarenes due to the whole demon-pig incident (Matthew 8:28–34), and he sees Matthew at work (“sitting in a tax booth”). He simply calls, “Follow me,” and Matthew follows.
We learn from Mark that Matthew is also known as Levi, and his father’s name is Alphaeus, which will become important in two seconds.
James, like Thomas, never gets an origin story. But unlike Thomas, we know who his father was: Alphaeus, also the name of Matthew/Levi’s father. So we can guess that James is Matthew’s brother, and probably he was called the same way as Simon/Andrew, James/John, and Philip/Bartholomew: enthusiastic one-on-one evangelism!
Thaddaeus, also called Judas and Lebbaeus3, also never gets an origin story. However, we can infer a little bit about him.
We learn that he is the “son of James” (Luke 6:16, Acts 1:13), but he may actually have been the brother of James and the son of [drum roll] Mary and Joseph! How the heck did we get there?
Well, “Judas” sounds a lot like “Jude”, and there’s a book of Jude in the New Testament in which the author calls himself “Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James.” (Jude 1:1) The author clearly thinks that’s enough to identify himself, and there’s a very, very famous James who has his own New Testament book: the half-brother of Jesus, one of Joseph and Mary’s biological children (see Matthew 13:55 and Mark 6:3 for other siblings of Jesus). It would make sense that Jude the apostle wrote the book of Jude, but that means there has to be a Jude the apostle, so that must be Thaddaeus.
One possible reason the gospels call him Thaddaeus instead of Judas would be to avoid any confusion with Judas Iscariot, the betrayer—I imagine it would be a lot like people named Adolf in the years following the conclusion of World War II or people named Alexa following the introduction of the Amazon device. It’s your name, but suddenly its associations make it unpalatable, so you start going by something else.
Simon never gets an origin story, but of all the disciples, only Simon gets an explicit political affiliation. The Zealots were a Jewish political movement aiming to overthrow the Roman occupation of Judea.
It makes me wonder how Simon, who wanted to violently overthrow the Roman government, and Matthew, who was literally employed by the Roman government, got along. Jesus is big on knocking down walls and flipping the world on its head.
Judas Iscariot never gets an origin story; you can imagine why the authors didn’t want to spend too much time on how he first met Jesus.
But we learn a little; “Iscariot” may be a reference either to his home town (Kerioth) or to a group of Jewish assassins known as the Sicarii. In the latter case, Judas Iscariot would also be a member of the Zealots along with Simon the Zealot.
Why do we care where the disciples came from?
Picture these initial meetings. What would it be like to meet Jesus? Would you recognize Him immediately as the Messiah, the prophesied One? Would you be skeptical? Would you just see another face in the crowd? If a crazy man said, “Follow me,” would you drop everything and follow? Or would you be the one saying, “I have to go do something first. I’ll follow when it’s convenient for me.”?
Reading about the disciples’ first meetings with Jesus puts us in their shoes.
We also care because of the differences among them: four fishermen, two random dudes from Bethsaida, a tax collector working for Rome and his brother, possibly one of Jesus’s half-brothers, one or two extreme political activists, and Thomas.
That’s four dirty, smelly, atrociously poor laborers; two average Joes; two relatively well-off folks; a sibling of the Son of God; a pair of terrorists… and Thomas. And Jesus says to each, “Follow me.” And they don’t just follow; they do it together.
Let’s knock down some walls.
This question—where each disciple came from—is what I was originally trying to answer when I got sidetracked by the different lists of disciples. ↩
Matthew 10:1,2,5; Matthew 11:1; Matthew 19:28; Matthew 20:17; Matthew 26:14,20,47; Mark 4:10; Mark 6:7; Mark 9:35; Mark 10:32; Mark 11:11; Mark 14:10,17,20,43; Luke 8:1; Luke 9:1,12; Luke 18:31; Luke 22:3,47; John 6:67,70,71; John 20:24 ↩
Confused? Read about the names of the disciples. ↩ ↩2
I believe in the consistency of Scripture, and I definitely believe that twelve is the correct number (among other reasons, it matches the number of tribes of Israel). So I went hunting for the answer to this mystery.
As usual when faced with a Bible question, I started with a broad search of Scripture itself. It turns out the New Testament lists the disciples five times: once each in Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Acts. How convenient! Here are the lists:
Matthew 10:1-4 | Mark 3:13-19 | Luke 6:12-16 | John 21:2 | Acts 1:13 |
---|---|---|---|---|
Simon, who is called Peter | Simon (to whom he gave the name Peter) | Simon, whom he named Peter | Simon Peter | Peter |
Andrew [Simon’s] brother | James the son of Zebedee | Andrew [Simon’s] brother | Thomas (called the Twin) | John |
James the son of Zebedee | John the brother of James | James | Nathanael of Cana in Galilee | James |
John [James’s] brother | Andrew | John | the sons of Zebedee | Andrew |
Philip | Philip | Philip | 〃 | Philip |
Bartholomew | Bartholomew | Bartholomew | Two others of his disciples | Thomas |
Thomas | Matthew | Matthew | 〃 | Bartholomew |
Matthew the tax collector | Thomas | Thomas | Matthew | |
James the son of Alphaeus | James the son of Alphaeus | James the son of Alphaeus | James the son of Alphaeus | |
Thaddaeus | Thaddaeus | Simon who was called the Zealot | Simon the Zealot | |
Simon the Zealot | Simon the Zealot | Judas the son of James | Judas the son of James | |
Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him | Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him | Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor |
In the table, I’ve transcribed exactly what the author calls each man to make sure we don’t get James and James confused, or Judas and Judas, or Simon and Simon.
We note a few things immediately. The first is that John’s list is totally different from the other four; I suppose we should expect that of John. There’s a reason the other three are called “synoptic1,” and Luke wrote Acts, so it’s reasonable that we get four similar lists and one… John.
The second thing we notice is that the list in Acts has only eleven names. That’s also reasonable, because by that point in the story (Acts 1:13), Judas Iscariot has betrayed Jesus and later killed himself, but the disciples don’t choose Matthias as a replacement until Acts 1:26.
Finally, we notice that the lists of names are very similar—but not the same—and the orders of the names are similar—but not the same.
All five lists start with Simon Peter, and they all include also Thomas, James the son of Zebedee, and John the son of Zebedee. The three synoptic lists and Acts all include Simon Peter, Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Thomas, Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Zealot (sometimes called Simon Zealotes). The three synoptic lists (but not Acts) all include Judas Iscariot, as previously explained.
Luke and Acts further include Judas the son of James, and John adds Nathanael of Cana in Galilee.
So now we have fourteen names to match to twelve disciples. But before we move on to that task, let’s keep looking at those lists.
If you stare long enough, you realize that even though the order of the lists is jumbled, the structures in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Acts are surprisingly similar:
Not only is this structure intriguing and delightful, but it also immediately solves one problem for us: the person Matthew and Mark call “Thaddaeus” is almost definitely the same person that Luke and Acts call “Judas the son of James”. John MacArthur in his book Twelve Ordinary Men suggests that the man’s given name was Judas, and Thaddaeus—meaning “breast-child”—was a nickname2.
So there’s only one question left: Who is Nathanael?
Well, his origins don’t help; they’re all Galilean. But just as “Thaddaeus” feels like a nickname because of what it means, another name on the list suggests that it’s not the man’s given name either. Before moving on, see if you can guess which name it is based on its similarity to other Biblical names.
I’ll wait.
If you remove Thaddaeus, all of the other listed names are common enough first-century first names except Bartholomew. That name actually means “son of Tolmai,” suggesting that it’s not what his mother called him unless she was angry. So that’s the apostle most likely to have another name; a different author might have written “Nathanael the son of Tolmai” just as these guys wrote “Judas the son of James” and “James the son of Alphaeus.”
Now that we’ve equated Thaddaeus with Judas the son of James and Bartholomew with Nathanael, we’re back down to twelve names, which is where we started and what we expected.
In the next article, we’ll look at how Jesus called His disciples, going fishing for fishermen to make them fishers of men.
]]>But I keep thinking, what about the other 65 books?
What are their favorite words, and what does that say about them? And what about favorite phrases, not just words? Ezekiel, for example, likes to explain God’s actions by concluding, “and you [or they] shall know that I am the Lord.”1
So I fired up some computational linguistics software2 and went to work.
Let’s start with the easy question: what’s the most-common word in every book?
Spoiler: it’s “the” in all but six books:
Book | Most-Common Word |
---|---|
Mark | and |
Luke | and |
2 Corinthians | be |
1 Thessalonians | you |
Titus | to |
Philemon | I |
Okay, that just mirrors the English language, so it’s not that helpful. Maybe longer phrases will work better? I did the same thing with phrases up to six words long, with some preprocessing to make sure we didn’t miss anything for silly English reasons3, and removing one- and two-word phrases4.
There are a lot more questions we can ask, and over the next few articles, I’ll explore some of them, but for now I’m going to pause and observe the famous phrases and topics in already uncovered in each book.
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|
the land of | in the land of | these be the son of | year and have other son and |
Each entry in the “book of the generations of Adam” in Genesis 5 follows the same pattern: “When [father] had lived X years, he fathered [son]. [Father] lived after he fathered [son] Y years and had other sons and daughters.” It is this line of long-lived fathers and sons that is interrupted by the corruption on the earth to which God responds with the Flood.
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|
the people of | the people of Israel | the LORD say to Moses | blue and purple and scarlet yarn |
The dual foci of the book—the word of the Lord to Moses and the God’s relationship to His people Israel are quite evident—but what stands out to me is the “blue and purple and scarlet yarn” that adorns the tabernacle as God describes it to Moses. The exacting colors and qualities of the tabernacle as a shadow of the heavenly throne room were so important that they show up in a simple frequency analysis of the text.
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|
the priest shall | and the priest shall | the LORD speak to Moses | the LORD speak to Moses say |
As a list of laws for priests and ceremonies given by God to Moses, we shouldn’t be surprised that the most common phrases are God talking to Moses and Moses commanding the priests.
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|
the people of | the people of Israel | of the people of Israel | the LORD speak to Moses say |
Everybody who starts at Genesis in January and bogs down in Numbers 2 thinks the whole book is all censuses, but in fact Numbers is a book about the journey of Israel in the wilderness, so we see God speaking to Moses and the people following along.
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|
the LORD your | the LORD your God | that the LORD your God | that the LORD your God be |
How amazing is it that each longer phrase builds up to the same phrase? Unfortunately, if we go a little further the pattern breaks down. Two themes of Moses’s sermon have the same pattern. First, he reminds them over and over that God is giving them this land: “the land that the LORD your God is giving you.” Second, he tells them about this God whom he has met, but they haven’t: “the LORD your God is” a merciful God (Deuteronomy 4:31); a jealous God (Deuteronomy 6:15); the faithful God (Deuteronomy 7:9); the one who makes you wealthy (Deuteronomy 8:18); and many more.
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|
the people of | the people of Israel | tribe of the people of | the tribe of the people of |
We all remember Joshua and the battle of Jericho, but one of his major challenges was to partition the conquered land of Canaan among the tribes of Israel. Here we see his reference not to the whole people only but to each tribe.
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|
the people of | the people of Israel | and the people of Israel | do what be evil in the |
The story of Judges is that the people become wicked, and their neighbors invade them, and God sends a savior, and the savior judges for forty years and dies, and the people become wicked again. The repeated refrain, as we see, is, “And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the LORD.” (Judges 2:11, Judges 3:7, Judges 4:1, Judges 6:1…)
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|
mother in law | her mother in law | from the country of Moab | return from the country of Moab |
The story of Ruth is all about her relationship with her mother-in-law Naomi and her decision to return from her home country of Moab to Israel, thereby becoming one of the ancestors of King David and eventually Jesus.
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|
of the LORD | the ark of the | the ark of the LORD | the ark of the God of |
1 Samuel almost has the same cool pattern that Deuteronomy does, but about the ark of the covenant instead. The whole book isn’t about the ark, but there is a long story about its passage from Shiloh out to the field of war at Ebenezer, where the Philistines captured it and brought it back to the temple of their god Dagon in Ashdod (where the statue of Dagon kept falling on its face each night the ark was there). They sent it to Gath, then Ekron, then back to Israel at Beth-shemesh, whose people sent it up to Kiriath-Jearim, where it stayed for twenty years. The story takes five chapters, more than 16% of the book.
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|
the son of | my lord the king | and the king say to | the people who be with he |
2 Samuel is primarily the story of David, which we see in its constant discussion of the king. The longest repeated phrase comes from Absalom’s war against him, where the author is concerned not only for the king but for “the people who are with him” as they flee the coup.
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|
of the LORD | the king of Israel | the word of the LORD | the LORD the God of Israel |
I admit no particular story comes to mind when looking at the most-common phrases in 1 Kings. Sorry.
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|
the king of | the house of the | the house of the LORD | the house of the LORD and |
Chapters 5–9 of 2 Kings detail Solomon’s building of the temple and his own house, after which the temple becomes the singular iconic landmark of the kingdom, so we see repeated references to it.
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|
the son of | of the son of | his son and his brother | his son and his brother twelve |
The shorter common phrases in 1 Chronicles come from the expected genealogies. But to my delight, the longer ones come from the obscure division of the labor of the singers of the temple in 1 Chronicles 25. There were 288 skilled singers, and David divided them by lot into twenty-four groups of twelve; for example, the final lot fell “to the twenty-fourth, to Romamti-ezer, his sons and his brothers, twelve.”
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|
of the LORD | the house of the | the house of the LORD | the house of the LORD and |
Clearly, 2 Chronicles is all about “the house of the Lord”—indeed, it contains a second telling of the building of the temple, and then many later stories involve the cycles of corruption and cleaning of the temple.
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|
the son of | of the son of | the province beyond the River | of the province beyond the River |
Because Ezra begins the return of Israel from their exile in Persia as permitted by Cyrus, it is concerned with recounting the genealogies of Israel—in particular, enrolling the true members of the nation of God. Many dozens of family listings follow, resulting in various forms of “the son of.” But what about that “province beyond the River”?
The grace of God shines through Cyrus, who sent Ezra with a letter to “the governors of the province beyond the River” to ensure he had the materials he needed to rebuild Jerusalem, and that those governors didn’t disrupt his work. Ezra records copies of those letters and his interactions with those governors.
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|
the son of | of the house of | the house of our God | and set its door its bolt |
Nehemiah oversees the rebuilding of Jerusalem and especially its wall. Nehemiah 3 describes the rebuilding and setting of the gates of Jerusalem, saying that the builders rebuilt each gate, laid its beams, “and set its doors, its bolts, and its bars.” He is also tasked with not only rebuilding the temple but restoring, to the greatest extent possible, its former glory. The book therefore records the people’s gifts to “the house of our God.”
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|
the king ‘s | of the king ‘s | if it please the king | month which be the month of |
Esther’s story takes place under the reign of King Ahasuerus, who is also a major character in the story, so the repeated references to the king make sense. The book also explains the origin of the celebration of Purim, which occurs on a specific day each year, and as a result is significantly concerned with calendar time—when a bet was made, when an edict was issued, when a battle took place. Two formulas are used, one for days and one for months:
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|
answer and say | be in the right | then Job answer and say | and the LORD say to Satan |
The entire plot of Job is set up in the first chapter as a series of conversations between Satan and God, explaining the repeated phrase, “and the Lord said to Satan.” Most of the rest of the book is a conversation among Job, his wife, and his four companions, regarding the cause of and solution to Job’s suffering. The beginning of each discourse is marked by, “then [speaker] answered and said…” Finally, a significant topic of their discourse is how a man can ever “be in the right” before God.
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|
of the LORD | his steadfast love endure | his steadfast love endure forever | for his steadfast love endure forever |
With 150 psalms written by no fewer than seven authors, it’s not surprising to find little commonality. However, Psalm 136 has a repetitive call-and-response structure where the response is always, “for his steadfast love endures forever.”
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|
of the wicked | be an abomination to | the fear of the LORD | be an abomination to the LORD |
Almost every proverb contrasts the thoughts and deeds of the wise man and the foolish man, the upright and the wicked. The author repeats sentiments like, “The way of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord, but he loves him who pursues righteousness.” (Proverbs 15:9)
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|
under the sun | this also be vanity | be do under the sun | that be do under the sun |
One of the most famous phrases of Ecclesiastes, “there is nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9), is just one of many examples where the author draws a universal conclusion about “all that is done under the sun.”
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|
be like a | o daughter of Jerusalem | I adjure you o daughter | I adjure you o daughter of |
This love song repeatedly compares the lovers and their bodies to other things, so the super-common simile language makes sense. The author addresses “the daughters of Jerusalem” six times, of which four are adjurations, and three of those are pleas “that [they] not stir up or awaken love until it pleases.” (Song of Solomon 2:7, Song of Solomon 3:5, Song of Solomon 8:4)
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|
of the LORD | the LORD of host | the Holy One of Israel | for all this his anger have |
The prophecies of Isaiah are long and complex, and its most famous passages (like Isaiah 9:6) do not have enough repetition to show up on this chart. However, we do see Isaiah’s favorite name for God: “the Holy One of Israel.” Of the thirty times this phrase appears in the Bible, twenty-five (83%) are in Isaiah.
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|
declare the LORD | thus say the LORD | the word of the LORD | thus say the LORD of host |
I was very surprised to see the declarations of God show up on this list in Jeremiah and Ezekiel; I would have guessed all the prophets, especially the major prophets, would use such a formulation, making it less unique and therefore less likely to rise to the top. However, Jeremiah uses fifty of the seventy-three instances of “thus says the Lord of hosts,” more than two-thirds.
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|
the daughter of | of the daughter of | the daughter of my people | of the daughter of my people |
Referring to Israel, “the daughter of my people” appears in both Jeremiah and Lamentations, which is not surprising considering their shared authorship. Ten of the eleven occurrences of this phrase (91%) are in one of those two books (the eleventh is in Isaiah).
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|
the Lord God | thus say the Lord | thus say the Lord God | know that I be the LORD |
As with Jeremiah, I was surprised at the first five entries here. However! I was not at all surprised by the sixth, which is a phrase that shows up all the time in Ezekiel—next time you read this book, watch for it. You’ll be amazed: fully eighty-one of the Bible’s eighty-eight instances of this phrase (92%) are in Ezekiel. He wants you to know who God is.
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|
the king of | the king of the | the wise man of Babylon | be wet with the dew of |
Most people know the basic outline of Daniel: he is exiled to Babylon, raised in the palace, thrown in a lion’s pit, and rescued from there by God. But there’s a lesser-known story in Daniel 4 where King Nebuchadnezzar is made to live like an animal, driven from cities, and naturally every morning he is “wet with the dew of heaven.”
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|
and I will | in the day of | the child of Israel shall | I will betroth you to I |
The great metaphor of Hosea is his marriage to Gomer, a prostitute. God commands Hosea to seek out Gomer repeatedly and redeem her, just as God seeks out His children and redeems them. We, as his children, are betrothed to him “forever…in righteousness and justice, in steadfast love and mercy…in faithfulness.” (Hosea 2:19–20)
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|
of the LORD | the LORD your God | for the day of the | for the day of the LORD |
“For the day of the Lord” is just barely most-common in Joel; four of the Bible’s seven uses of the phrase (57%) occur there. In each case, “for” means “because”—Joel proclaims mourning because of the imminent day of the Lord.
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|
the Lord God | thus say the LORD | thus say the LORD for | thus say the LORD for three |
Amos proclaims judgment on Israel and her neighbors, one by one, with the formula, “Thus says the Lord: ‘For three transgressions of [nation], and for four, I will not revoke the punishment, because….’” The first two chapters of Amos proclaim eight judgments this way: Damascus, Gaza, Tyre, Edom, the Ammonites, Moab, Judah, and Israel. Bonus: this formula is called Graded Numerical Parallelism, probably my favorite construction in all of Scripture.
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|
the day of | in the day of | in the day of his | in the day of his calamity |
Obadiah says “in the day of his calamity” only twice, both in Obadiah 1:13 as a warning to Israel’s neighbors not to gloat over Israel’s judgment. But the value of the technique we used to find all these phrases is that even though it only appears twice, and judgments against Israel are not exactly rare among the prophets, it’s unique to Obadiah.
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|
of the LORD | the word of the | the word of the LORD | from the presence of the LORD |
Jonah is the most famous person to run from God, so we are not at all surprised that this fact appears on this list.
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|
of the LORD | of the house of | of the house of Israel | of Jacob and ruler of the |
When I think of Micah, I always think of his prophecy of Jesus (Micah 5:2) and his ringing correction of our understanding of sacrifice (Micah 6:6–8). But he also speaks directly to the “heads of Jacob and rulers of the house of Israel,” the corrupt ones who “detest justice,” and this linguistic tool reminds us that there’s more to the Bible than the verses we remember.
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|
the LORD be | he will make a | he will make a complete | he will make a complete end |
“Nahum” means “comfort,” and indeed the bloody, disaster-filled book of Nahum is intended to be a comfort to Israel as God defeats all her enemies; “he will make a complete end” of them.
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|
woe to he | woe to he who | why do you idly look | why do you idly look at |
The five woes in [Habakkuk 2] clearly shine through this analysis, as do his admonitions to those who can see the wicked and, instead of defending the righteous and punishing traitors, merely “look idly at” them.
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|
of the LORD | the day of the | at that time I will | from the face of the earth |
The most-indicative phrases from Zephaniah tell a story of destruction by God in the day of the Lord, and indeed that’s what you find in his prophecy. The disaster he prophesies is total, rivaling the flood: God says, “I will utterly sweep away everything from the face of the earth.” (Zephaniah 1:2)
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|
the LORD of | the LORD of host | say the LORD of host | the word of the LORD come |
Two major prophets—Jeremiah and Ezekiel—use “says the Lord of hosts” enough that it shows up on their lists; the same is true for the final three minor prophets: Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. So let’s focus on the other phrases. Haggai records the prophet bringing the word of the Lord specifically to Zerubabbel and Joshua, the governor and high priest of Judah, respectively.
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|
LORD of host | the LORD of host | say the LORD of host | thus say the LORD of host |
Every most-indicative phrase in Zechariah is about God speaking. Awesome.
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|
say the LORD | the LORD of host | say the LORD of host | but you say how have we |
Malachi answers the outwardly faithful just as Jesus does in His famous story about the sheep and the goats (Matthew 25): “But you say, ‘How have we done this bad thing?’” And he answers exactly how they have done this thing of which they refuse to be accused.
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|
say to he | I say to you | truly I say to you | what be speak by the prophet |
Matthew wrote his gospel to a primarily Jewish audience with a focus on the inclusivity of Jesus’s saving work—that is, Jesus came for Gentiles as well as Jews. Matthew serves this audience in a couple of important ways, and one of them is explicitly demonstrating how Jesus fulfilled Old Testament prophecy.
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|
say to they | and he say to | and he say to they | the chief priest and the scribe |
I was hoping “immediately” would show up in this initial analysis; it didn’t, but it’s coming later. Instead, we see six instances of “the chief priests and the scribes” (compared to one in Matthew, four in Luke, and none in John), all in the context of the plot to arrest and kill Jesus.
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|
he say to | and he say to | and he say to they | say to they why be you |
My only guess for why this six-word phrase pops out of Luke is that his gospel is so diverse that there are relatively few phrases that repeat at all. He is giving a history, so we might expect that he would have less repetition for storytelling or poetic reasons than the prophecy-focused Matthew, the immediacy-focused Mark, or the theology-focused John. Otherwise, I confess I’m not sure.
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|
say to he | I say to you | truly truly I say to | truly truly I say to you |
I love that John’s use of Jesus’s promises shows up here. He’s the only gospel author who uses this specific repetitive formulation for these promises, and he uses it twenty-five times.
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|
the Holy Spirit | and when they have | the word of the Lord | the name of the Lord Jesus |
We are not surprised by the sudden appearance of “the Holy Spirit” in Acts, since the work of the Spirit through the disciples of Jesus is the entire point of the book.
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|
the one who | as it be write | as it be write the | to bring about the obedience of |
Paul loves to quote the Old Testament as he draws out his arguments from the law and the prophets to the new freedom in Christ. Romans contains fourteen instances of “as it is written”; the rest of the New Testament contains only eleven.
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|
I do not | do you not know | do you not know that | or do you not know that |
Paul’s rhetorical flourish—”do you not know?”—shines in 1 Corinthians, no more so than in 1 Corinthians 6, where six times Paul insists that the people should have known these basic spiritual truths, but they have fallen away from them.
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|
for we be | accord to the flesh | in the sight of God | be be bring to an end |
The long phrase here are the words, “was being brought to an end,” and they all refer to the shining glory of Moses’s face after he returned from speaking with God on the mountain; Paul compares that momentary glory, which the Israelites still could not bear to look upon, to the surpassing and eternal glory of the gospel of Christ.
Paul also clearly thought that the Corinthians had fallen into earthly desires and needs rather than focusing on spiritual things, and he accuses them six times of acting and thinking “according to the flesh.”
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|
work of the | work of the law | by work of the law | preach to you a gospel contrary |
Paul’s main theme in Galatians is the replacement of the Law—which had value—with faith, which has infinitely more. He therefore discusses the works of the law. The long phrase, “preach to you a gospel contrary,” is used exactly once in Galatians. Does that mean there are no other six-word phrases in Galatians that are unique to that book?
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|
accord to the | in the heavenly place | of our Lord Jesus Christ | Father and the Lord Jesus Christ |
I wasn’t expecting “in the heavenly places” to make the list for Ephesians, but it surely does: five times in Ephesians and nowhere else in the Bible, Paul refers to both our being seated with Christ and spiritual forces of evil. If you remember the famous “armor of God” paragraph from [[Ephesians 06]], this focus might make sense in the context of spiritual warfare.
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|
in the Lord | the Lord Jesus Christ | for the sake of Christ | have reason for confidence in the |
Nearly 10% of the verses in Philippians (9/104) use the phrase “in the Lord.” You’d think that phrasing would be common throughout the Bible, and it is, but nowhere as densely as in this letter.
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|
that you may | the will of God | of your faith in Christ | to the elemental spirit of the |
I don’t know why Paul referred to earthly concerns as “the elemental spirits of the world” in this letter, but it’s an interesting turn of phrase that shows up twice here and nowhere else in Scripture.
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|
our Lord Jesus | our Lord Jesus Christ | before our God and Father | to you the gospel of God |
Another phrase that seems more common than it is, Paul recounts his ministry proclaiming “to [the Thessalonians] the gospel of God” in unique terms, apparently.
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|
Lord Jesus Christ | of our Lord Jesus | of our Lord Jesus Christ | God our Father and the Lord |
“Of our Lord Jesus Christ” shows up as particularly common both here and in Ephesians, but of course similar phrases show up all over the New Testament, so I don’t know that we learn much, unfortunately. The same is true for the six-word phrase here.
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|
of Christ Jesus | in the presence of | that be in Christ Jesus | the saying be trustworthy and deserving |
“The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance” is the full phrase used twice in 1 Timothy and nowhere else. Paul is giving Timothy both advice and confidence to continue his ministry in Paul’s absence.
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|
in Christ Jesus | that be in Christ | that be in Christ Jesus | you have hear from I in |
Likewise, 2 Timothy contains instruction from Paul to Timothy; in this case, the phrase “you have heard from me” appears in two sections where Paul encourages Timothy to follow his example and his teachings.
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|
be to be | of God our Savior | to devote themselves to good | to devote themselves to good work |
Paul wants Titus to teach his people to “devote themselves to good works.” Paul is famously concerned with the necessity of works alongside a strong and informed faith, and it shows up here.
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|
to you and | the Lord Jesus Christ | Paul a prisoner for Christ | Paul a prisoner for Christ Jesus |
This book is so short that practically every phrase is “common” within it, making these results somewhat suspect. But it’s interesting that of all Paul’s letters, several of which were probably written from prison, only here does he actually introduce himself as “a prisoner for Christ Jesus.”
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|
the blood of | after the order of | after the order of Melchizedek | at the right hand of the |
Hebrews is primarily concerned with the proper identification of the savior of the world, namely Jesus Christ. Three times its author reminds us that Jesus—the creator and sustainer of the universe (Hebrews 1:3), the eternal and surpassing high priest (Hebrews 8:1), and the founder and perfecter of our faith (Hebrews 12:2)—is seated now at the right hand of God.
The result including Melchizedek might be my favorite on this entire page. Or maybe tied with Ezekiel’s “know that I am the Lord.” Hebrews’s treatment of Melchizedek demands far more words than I have space for here; if you don’t know what I’m talking about, go read Hebrews 7 and be delighted.
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|
the one who | testing of your faith | have promise to those who | have promise to those who love |
Those who love God will “receive the crown of life” (James 1:12) and be “heirs of the kingdom” (James 2:5). These things are promised.
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|
of Jesus Christ | to those who be | through the resurrection of Jesus | through the resurrection of Jesus Christ |
Here’s another surprisingly unique phrase: “through the resurrection” appears in only 1 Peter. In fact, the phrase “the resurrection of Jesus” is also unique to this book. I had no idea.
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|
of our Lord | and Savior Jesus Christ | of our Lord and Savior | of our Lord and Savior Jesus |
Peter comes up with another unique phrase: “of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” appears only in 2 Peter: once referring to “the eternal kingdom” (2 Peter 1:11), once referring to “the knowledge” (2 Peter 2:20), and once referring to “the grace and knowledge” (2 Peter 3:18).
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|
we know that | have be bear of | have be bear of God | by this we know that we |
John’s principle concern in this letter is to combat gnosticism; one of the ways he does so is to give indicators of salvation through Christ (as opposed to the gnostic sense of salvation, which was escape from the “evil” body to become purely “good” spirit through the revelation of special knowledge). Thus “by this we know…” as well as “has been born of God…”
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|
the Father and | will be with we | the elder to the elect | the elder to the elect lady |
The greeting, “The elder to the elect lady and her children” is partially repeated in 3 John, as we see immediately below. The unique words, then, are “will be with us,” a promise of Christ’s eternal blessing. (2 John is a warning to discern teachers of Christ from teachers of another gospel; these words do not add much to this central message.)
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|
go well with | be walk in the | be walk in the truth | the elder to the beloved Gaius |
John refers twice to the joy he gets when he knows his brothers “are walking in the truth.” Since all three of his letters urge discernment regarding gnosticism, he would naturally rejoice at those who distinguish the true gospel from false ones.
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|
Lord Jesus Christ | of our Lord Jesus | of our Lord Jesus Christ | Jude a servant of Jesus Christ |
Jude is only 610 words long in the ESV; he spends twelve of them on six instances of the name “Jesus Christ,” four of which refer to Jesus as Lord. He is concerned, like John, with combating false teachings in the church, which requires him to distinguish the lordship of Jesus from any other gospel.
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|
of the earth | a third of the | 12,000 from the tribe of | have an ear let he hear |
If you’ve spent any time on this site, you know I love numbers in the Bible, and two of the most-distinctive phrases in Revelation include numbers: “a third” and “12,000.” I love it. You can read all about those numbers in the series on numbers in Revelation, so let’s focus here on the long phrase, “He who has an ear, let him hear.” Seven of these conclude the letters to the seven churches (you can’t escape sevens in Revelation), and one introduces a strident call for “the endurance and faith of the saints” (Revelation 13:10). The author of Revelation urgently needs all his readers to listen and act.
There are a lot more questions we can ask about words. I have two.
I’ve been comparing phrases of similar length across books, but we can also ask what phrases of any length are most distinctive for a particular book.
What question do we have to ask to identify Mark’s urgency?
Let me know what else you’d like to know.
Ezekiel’s use of this phrase is so distinctive that Jules’s almighty speech from Pulp Fiction (warning: language) concludes, “And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee.” Only that last phrase matches the real Ezekiel 25:17, but it sounds believable, right? ↩
Python’s Natural Language Toolkit and spAcy. ↩
I tokenized the text with spAcy to reduce each word to its base; that way, tenses, plurals and pronouns didn’t interfere with the frequency computation. I didn’t remove stop words, because they are important parts of the way we remember these verses, even though they get in the way of linguistic analysis a bit. ↩
We already saw that the most-common one-word phrases aren’t very distinctive; two-word phrases aren’t much better. The phrases and frequencies are, “of the” (28), “the LORD” or “the Lord” (16), “say to” (4), “son of” (3), “the king” (2), “in the” (2), and one instance each of “be like”, “be the”, “do not”, “I will”, “Jesus Christ”, “of God”, “the day”, “the truth”, “to be”, “to the”, and “to you”. ↩
But we tend to focus on only one expression of this statement, the one found in Matthew’s gospel:
19 “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:19–20
What did the other gospel writers think the mission of the church was? What did they expect themselves and their followers to do after Jesus ascended into heaven? Why didn’t they record such a clear, concise command from Jesus’s own lips?
I can think of three possibilities:
In this article, I’m going to interrogate Mark and Luke and John about what they thought about the Great Commission. But before we get to that, let’s start with the famous one and ask Matthew what he thinks.
There are five clear parts to Jesus’s commission in Matthew’s gospel:
In 2017, a sermon I heard gave an easy mnemonic for this structure, although it doesn’t capture the full flavor of what Jesus said: “Mandate, Mission, Message.”
The mandate is not to sit around thinking and praying but to get out of the building they were cowering in and off the peaceful nostalgia of the Mount of Olives and, as we’ll see later in Acts, go to the ends of the earth.
The mission is to continue Jesus’s mission of proclaiming the good news to the whole earth.
The message is the fact of Jesus’s death for the forgiveness of sins and His bodily resurrection for the defeat of death; in short, the gospel.
Go. Preach. The gospel.
Surely the other gospel writers wouldn’t disagree with Matthew, but let’s ask them what they thought, starting with Mark.
Asking Mark questions is a little hard for two reasons. First, his gospel carries a unique sense of urgency that carries through to the very style of his writing. Not only does he use the word “immediately” more than any of the other gospel writers (35 times in 16 chapters), but Mark’s gospel tells the entire story of Jesus much faster than the other four: 23% faster than John; 37% faster than Matthew, and 42% faster than Luke! (Feel free to check my math.)
So if you want to know what Mark has to say about something, you’ve got to be quick.
But there’s a second challenge, which is that the last twelve verses of Mark (Mark 16:9–20) may not have been original to his gospel. They’re included in most modern English Bibles with a note that they weren’t included in the earliest manuscripts we have. As far as I can tell, they don’t contradict the story of God, but they may also not be authoritative.
All that said, let’s read what Mark writes:
15 And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. 16 Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. 17 And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; 18 they will pick up serpents with their hands; and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.” Mark 16:15–18
It sounds an awful lot like Matthew!
We have the same structure: mandate (“go”), mission (“proclaim”), message (“the gospel”).
So far, nothing contradictory or controversial.
But then Mark—or whoever was appending an epilogue to Mark later—goes and adds a bit of his own flair about signs and wonders accompanying the believers.
Clearly, this part is in fact true, whether the text is God-breathed or not. Signs and wonders did accompany the disciples, as we see throughout Acts. Pentecost is the most spectacular of them (Acts 2:2–4), but here are three more famous miracles:
Beyond specific records of miracles, the author of Hebrews gives us a broad statement that God accompanied the gospel in those first years with confirming miracles:
4 While God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will. Hebrews 2:4
The questionable part, I think, for most people, is the specific promised signs:
Sign | Evidence |
---|---|
in my name they will cast out demons | Confirmed in Luke 10:17 |
they will speak in new tongues | Confirmed in Acts 2:4 |
they will pick up serpents with their hands | |
and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them | |
they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover | Confirmed in Acts 9:40 |
Two—picking up serpents and drinking poison—aren’t confirmed in Scripture as far as I can tell, and that should make you wary. Not that it’s necessarily false, but if Jesus had said something so shocking and it had come to pass, I think Luke, the physician, would have written it down. Those in particular would have been especially fascinating to him.
But if we leave the miracles alone for the moment, we see that Mark has the same key points as Matthew: mandate, mission, message. Go. Preach. The gospel.
Luke wrote both Luke and Acts as a historical record of the life and ministry of Jesus and his disciples for the education of the world. So we are not surprised that his version of the Great Commission entails fulfilled prophecy and promises of the future.
After Cleopas and the other disciple meet Jesus on the road to Emmaus, they come rushing back to Jerusalem to tell the disciples. While they’re telling their tale, Jesus appears:
45 Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, 46 and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, 47 and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses of these things. 49 And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.” Luke 24:45–49
What elements does Luke think are important?
Luke is, as always “writing an orderly account” (Luke 1:3). In just five verses, he links Jesus to both old prophecy and modern prophecy3; he establishes the trustworthiness of the disciples (who were some of Luke’s sources for his gospel) as witnesses to these things; and he bridges his gospel to Acts, which he also wrote and which begins with Pentecost, the decisive event where the disciples were “clothed with power from on high.”
What’s missing from Luke is the mandate/mission/message structure. He refers to the message, but only insofar as the disciples are witnesses to the truth. He refers to the mission, but only in the context of the divine will for the gospel to be proclaimed to all nations, not a specific command to the disciples to do so. And he doesn’t include a mandate at all. A reader familiar with Matthew can easily read between the lines and infer all of these things, but Luke doesn’t include them explicitly.
John also records the Great Commission. But ever the odd one out, he includes unique elements:
19 On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” 20 When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. 21 Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” 22 And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.” John 20:19–23
First, John alone records that Thomas wasn’t around when Jesus shows up behind locked doors for the first time. (Thomas shows up later and insists on touching Jesus’s hands and side before he believes. I’m sure John didn’t mean to give his friend the eternal nickname “Doubting Thomas,” but he did.)
Second, John records Jesus breathing on the disciples and saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” Because of Acts 2, we typically think of the Spirit making Himself known at Pentecost, but John records this much more intimate scene of Jesus literally giving his best friends the breath of life.
John’s telling of this scene brings to mind two famous events long before it and one immediately afterward. In Genesis 2:7, God breathes into Adam’s nostrils, “and the man became a living creature.” In Ezekiel 37:5, God says to the valley of dry bones that he will breathe on them and they will live. And in Acts 2:2, the Holy Spirit enters the house with the disciples with a sound “like a mighty rushing wind.” The breath of God gives the kind of life Jesus always talked about: deeper, richer, higher, better, more than simply eating and drinking.
And finally, John includes that bit about forgiving sins. At first, I thought, “Wait, the disciples don’t have power to forgive sins!” But this isn’t the first time Jesus has conferred divine authority on his disciples.
It sounds an awful lot like what Jesus told Peter after his confession:
18 “And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Matthew 16:18–19
It also recalls the even earlier sending of the disciples:
14 And if anyone will not receive you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet when you leave that house or town. 15 Truly, I say to you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town. Matthew 10:14–15
John records an explicit mandate (“even so I am sending you”), but the mission and message are implicit: Jesus says, “As the Father has sent me,” implying that the disciples’ mission and message are the same as Jesus’s were: the Son of God comes to bring salvation to the ends of the earth.
We don’t traditionally consider Acts a gospel, but it gives the expression of the Great Commission that means the most to me:
7 He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” Acts 1:7–8
Unsurprisingly, it has many similarities to the one from Luke’s gospel, because Luke wrote both books:
Element | Luke | Acts |
---|---|---|
Promise of power | “I am sending the promise of my Father upon you…stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.” | “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you” |
Confirmation of witness | “You are witnesses of these things.” | “you will be my witnesses” |
Beginning in Jerusalem | “beginning from Jerusalem.” | “in Jerusalem” |
Proclamation to the ends of the earth | “repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations” | “and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” |
The increasing scope and impact of the gospel is the reason I love this statement more than the other four. It gives us immediate application to our own lives: make disciples nearest you first. In your own heart, then in your family or your house, then on your block and in your city and your state and your nation, and when you’ve covered all of those, get on a plane and make disciples of other nations.
We call Matthew 28:19–20 “the Great Commission” because it’s a nice concise statement of the mission of the church. But as we’ve seen, all four gospel authors record the resurrected Jesus sending his disciples into the world to proclaim the good news, to tell the people that Jesus is Lord, and to make disciples of all nations.
Go. Preach. The Gospel.
Several large modern organizations have adapted it for their formal mission statements. For example, the United Methodist Church says, “The mission of the church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.” ↩
Stephen himself does signs and wonders, which is what got him in trouble in the first place (Acts 6:8). ↩
There are whole books on the prophecies Jesus fulfilled, but in this context, take a quick look at Genesis 12:3, Isaiah 2:3, Isaiah 49:6, Micah 4:2, and John 17:18. ↩
When we think of Biblical names, we typically mean “Matthew” and “Luke” and “Isaiah” — the people whose names go on books, names you’d recognize even if you didn’t read VerseNotes.
But a man named Ethan wrote Psalm 89, and I want to know who he was.
Let’s start at the beginning: the title of the psalm. It reads,
A Maskil of Ethan the Ezrahite.
Almost two-thirds of the psalms (96/150) have an author listed. In fact, every single psalm in Book 3 (Psalms 73–89) has one, as shown in the table.
Author | Number | Psalms |
---|---|---|
Asaph | 11 | 73–83 |
Sons of Korah1 | 4 | 84, 85, 87, 88 |
David | 1 | 86 |
Ethan the Ezrahite | 1 | 89 |
Nobody really knows what a “Maskil” is—every source I’ve checked says some variation of “probably a musical or liturgical term.” Thanks, experts.
But surely we know who Ethan is.
King David wrote almost half of the psalms, and he’s pretty famous. Other famous psalm authors include King Solomon and Moses. The Sons of Korah, the ancient equivalent of a worship band2, wrote eleven; and Asaph, King David’s music director, wrote twelve more (eleven in Book 3, plus Psalm 50).
So who was Ethan, and what’s an Ezrahite?
I’ve never heard of Ethan before, so I went the only place I know to go: Scripture itself. A full-text search of Scripture turns up eight references to an Ethan who might be our guy; let’s examine them.
It sounds like there are three Ethans mentioned in Scripture:
I’m fairly sure we’ve found our man. It’s impressive indeed that when the author of 1 Kings was trying to explain the wisdom of Solomon, he had to go back centuries to find someone comparable—and he found Ethan.
Those last two Ethans are awfully similar, by the way: one is the author of a psalm; the other is a worship leader who sang psalms in the temple. One has a brother named Heman; the other has a close colleague named Heman who is often called his brother.
Now that we’ve found him, there are only two problems left to resolve.
First, the Ethan of 1 Chronicles 2:6 is the son of Zerah, but the Ethan of 1 Kings 4:31 is the son of Mahol. How can they be the same Ethan?
It turns out Mahol means “dance” in Hebrew, so Ethan, Heman, Calcol, and Darda6 were possibly both famously wise and also worship leaders—but dancers, unlike the later Ethan, who was a musician.
Second, what’s an Ezrahite?
There’s no great mystery here, just a language barrier: “Ezrahite” means simply “son of Zerah.”
If not for the incredible similarities between these two Ethans who lived centuries apart—their work as worship leaders and being called “brother” of Heman—and the extremely non-obvious fact that “Ezrahite” is related to “Zerah,” this clue should have immediately clarified for us which Ethan was which.
If hunting down the second-wisest man in Scripture and the little-known author of exactly psalm isn’t delightful enough, take a look at the title of Psalm 88:
A Song. A Psalm of The Sons of Korah. To the choirmaster: according to Mahalath Leannoth. A Maskil of Heman the Ezrahite.
Ethan’s brother Heman also wrote a psalm! Two brothers, grandsons of a patriarch, renowned for their wisdom, each wrote a psalm, and both were preserved for more than three millennia right next to each other.
Psalm 88 is ascribed to both “the Sons of Korah” and “Heman the Ezrahite.” ↩
They’re also a modern worship band. ↩
A fascinating, tragic, sordid story that’s out of scope for this article. ↩
The text lists exactly nine generations, but Old Testament genealogies famously leave out generations when it’s convenient. For example, in this case, there are exactly fourteen generations between Levi and Asaph, and fourteen is twice seven, and seven is a symbolic number for God. ↩
Sure enough, my concordance agrees: Kishi means “bow” and Kushaiah means “bow of God.” ↩
Their fifth brother Zimri is only listed as a son of Zerah, not of Mahol. Either he chose a different path in life, or he died young. ↩
I haven’t made much progress writing these last few weeks. I’ve kept up my daily Chapter By Chapter writing, but the long form has had to take a back seat.
Since the last newsletter, I’ve finished and posted notes for Exodus 27–40, finishing that book; Psalm 39–45, and Luke 11–17.
Last time, we talked about an unnamed man of God, but weren’t able to finish the story because it involved yet another very minor prophet. This time, we can finish that story.
King Amaziah of Judah had just won a battle against the Edomites after sending 100,000 Israelite mercenaries back to Israel on the advice of an unnamed prophet. Inexplicably, he brought back their idols with him and set them up for himself, worshiping them and sacrificing to them.
Another unnamed prophet brings him God’s mocking anger: “Why would you worship these gods who couldn’t even save their own people?” King Amaziah responds by threatening to kill the prophet, and the prophet responds by promising God would destroy him.
Sure enough, Amaziah goes to war against Israel and loses badly. Israel kidnaps Amaziah, destroys part of Jerusalem’s wall, and seizes treasure from the temple and the palace.
Things I learned in my reading this week, in no particular order.
Dr. J. Brandon Meeks, “Canon Theologian of the Bible Belt” aka @NoJesuitTricks teaches us that Leviticus, “the heart of the Torah,” is less a collection of regulations and more “the good news that God has devised means so that His banished by not expelled from Him.”
Part of the previous thread worth highlighting all on its own.
When Moses returns to Egypt after his exile in Midian, his brother Aaron comes out to meet him, to welcome him back to the family of Hebrews (remember, Moses wasn’t really Hebrew and wasn’t really Egyptian either). After the flight from Egypt, when Jethro comes out to meet the new nation, Moses goes out to meet him. The stories are parallel, and Ari Lamm expounds beautifully.
]]>Another unnamed prophet brings him God’s mocking anger: “Why would you worship these gods who couldn’t even save their own people?” King Amaziah responds by threatening to kill the prophet, and the prophet responds by promising God would destroy him.
Sure enough, Amaziah goes to war against Israel and loses badly. Israel kidnaps Amaziah, destroys part of Jerusalem’s wall, and seizes treasure from the temple and the palace.
]]>Also, why is Numbers called Numbers? Sure, chapters 1, 2, and 26 are full of numbers, but the other 23 chapters are about Israel’s wandering in the wilderness. Numbers is only 11.5% numbers! (In contrast, for example, Job is 100% the story of Job.)
Also, what’s an Ecclesiastes?
Let’s dig in.
As we go, we’ll note the various languages the names of the books actually came from. English is a relatively recent language (relative to the Bible, anyway), so the books were originally named in other languages, and then someone translated them, sometimes repeatedly, to get to English.
The books of the Torah—Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy—are named in Hebrew after their first word or phrase:
English | Hebrew | Hebrew Meaning |
---|---|---|
Genesis | Bereshith | “In the beginning” |
Exodus | We’elleh Shemoth | “These are the names of…” |
Leviticus | Wayiqra’ | “And He [the Lord] called…” |
Numbers | Bemidbar | “In the wilderness” |
Deuteronomy | ‘Elleh Haddebarim | “These are the words” |
The English names of these books comes from the Septuagint, sometimes called the LXX1, a Greek translation of the Bible completed in the 100s BC.
Genesis is a Greek word meaning “birth” or “history of origin”, which isn’t quite as cool as just naming it “in the beginning” (Bereshith) like Hebrew, but accurately describes the book: the history of the people of God from the very beginning down to Jacob and his family entering Egypt to escape a famine. And while it’s not the first phrase in the book, it does appear as early as Genesis 2:4 immediately after the first creation account: “This is the book of the generations [genesis] of…”
Exodus is the Latin translation of the Greek exodos, meaning “exit” or “departure”, a clear reference to the Israelites’ flight from Egypt. If Genesis is a fifty-chapter fall from Eden to Egypt, Exodus is the first of God’s rescue plans to bring us back to where He wants us to be. One downside of the English (Latin/Greek) name is that the Hebrew title We’elleh Shemoth (or just Shemoth) also appears in Genesis 46:8, providing direct continuity between the two books and clearly implying that they’re part of the same story rather than two different stories.
Leviticus is a Greek word meaning “relating to the Levites”, the temple helpers. Since the book largely details worship at the tabernacle, which was performed by the priests and assisted by the Levites, this name makes lots of sense. Again, we see some continuity: Exodus gives instructions for building the temple, and Leviticus gives instructions for worshipping there. Geographically, Leviticus happens almost entirely at Sinai, a middle point between the Exodus journey from Egypt to Sinai and the Numbers journey from Sinai to Canaan. The Hebrew name Wayiqra’ also reasonably describes the book, considering the holy calling of the people of Israel in general and the priests and Levites in particular.
Numbers is the English translation of the Greek, and it’s one of the more unfortunate English book names. Sure, there’s a census taken in Numbers 1 and Numbers 26 (results are also reported in Numbers 2 and Numbers 3), but there are thirty-two other chapters! The Hebrew name Bemidbar, “In the wilderness”, is far more accurate and appropriate, since Numbers is really about the journey from Mount Sinai to the camp just outside Canaan.
Deuteronomy is a Greek word meaning “repetition of the law.” It’s probably drawn from Deuteronomy 17:18, which instructs future kings of Israel to copy down the law for himself, although since Moses’s sermon that takes up most of the book does repeat a lot of the laws, it makes a kind of sense (or it would, if anybody knew what “deuteronomy” meant). The Hebrew ‘Elleh Haddebarim, of course, makes perfect sense, because indeed “[Deuteronomy is] the words [of Moses]”.
The historical books (Joshua–Esther) are exclusively named after either their main character or their contents, but despite this fact, the origins of their names are not as obvious as you might think.
Joshua is named after Moses’s protégé Joshua, whose name means “salvation”. Moses renamed him “Jehoshua”, meaning “the Lord saves.” In this capacity, Joshua, the leader of the Ephraimites (Numbers 13:8), finally claimed the promise made to Abraham to give the Israelites the Promised Land of Canaan.
Judges is literally a history of the judges of Israel, the leaders of Israel between Joshua’s death and the Samuel’s anointing of Saul as Israel’s first king. God gives His own reason for raising these rulers in Judges 2:16.
Ruth is of course the story of Ruth. It is one of only two books named after women, the other being Esther. The author is unknown; it’s traditionally Samuel, but considering the mention of David at the end, it was likely written no earlier than David’s accession to the throne.
1 and 2 Samuel are named after the prophet Samuel (Hebrew: Shmuel, just Samuel’s Hebrew name). He’s less the protagonist of the book and more the official covenant-keeper of Israel, the string that ties the plot together. He couldn’t have written both books, because parts happen after he dies; one possible author is Zabud, the son of the prophet Nathan who served David’s court. They haven’t always had these simple names though: originally a single book in Hebrew, the Septuagint divided it into two and called them “The First and Second Book of Kingdoms”; the Vulgate called them “First and Second Kings”, which we call two totally different books today.
1 and 2 Kings are the accounts of the kings of Israel. Like Samuel, it was originally a single book in Hebrew called Melakhim, “Kings”. And like Samuel, the Septuagint divided it into two books, and the later Vulgate did as well. However, something weird happened: in the year 1448, the traditional Hebrew scriptures followed suit and split them up as well. They were traditionally written by Jeremiah, but there’s little evidence for that.
1 and 2 Chronicles are the various chronicles, genealogies, and stories of the people from Adam to Abram to the Israelites. Kind of a boring title, really, like the English translators couldn’t come up with anything better. In Hebrew, it’s called dibre hayyamim, “the events of the days”, which sounds a lot like “chronicles” to me. The Septuagint has the best name for it: “The Things Omitted”, as in, “all the stuff left out of 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings”. The Vulgate diverged from the Septuagint and called it “The Chronicle of the Whole Sacred History”, which is accurate and slightly less boring than just “Chronicles”, but then Martin Luther came along and shortened it to simply “Chronicles”. It was traditionally written by Ezra, along with the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, but there’s not much evidence for that.
Ezra and Nehemiah were originally a single book detailing the return of Israel from captivity in Babylon to Jerusalem, the rebuilding of the walls and the temple, and the defense against the neighbors. However, the text (Nehemiah 1:1) makes clear they’re really two distinct works, first recognized by Origen, who called them “1 and 2 Ezra” despite, again, Nehemiah 1:1.
Esther is the story of Esther and Mordecai and the salvation of the entire Jewish nation during the Babylonian captivity. The Hebrew name is Esther’s Hebrew name, Hadassah. “Esther” means “star” while “Hadassah” means “myrtle tree”.
The wisdom books (Job–Song of Solomon) are named, with the exception of Job, descriptively after their contents. Job, of course, is named after Job. These books are called in Hebrew Ketuvim, “Writings”.
Job is named after its protagonist, Job. The author is obviously an Israelite given their understanding of the history and theology and historical theology of the Israelites, but since it takes place in roughly Abraham’s time period, it was probably written down much later by an unknown hand.
Psalms is a collection of psalms (songs) written by David, the sons of Korah, Moses, and others. The Septuagint first called this book “Psalms”, intending the stringed instruments that would accompany the songs, but the word eventually evolved to mean the songs themselves. The Hebrew title, Tehillim, means “praises” even though many of them are are actually prayers, tephillot.
Proverbs is a collection of proverbs, or wise sayings, of Solomon and others. Given the significant overlap of the proverbs with the psalms, and given David’s authorship of so many psalms, I sometimes wonder if the proverbs aren’t really Solomon just writing down “things my father always told me that I didn’t want to hear.” The Hebrew title, Mashali, means something like “proverbs.”
Ecclesiastes is an English adaptation of the Latin transliteration of the Greek translation of the Hebrew word Kohelet, also the Hebrew title of the book, which means something like “preacher;” it may also be the given name of the protagonist of the book. The author identifies himself as Kohelet, the Preacher, “son of David, king in Jerusalem.” You might think that means the author must be Solomon, especially given Solomon’s great wisdom, and indeed Jewish and Christian tradition agree. But some of the words and phrases used suggest it was written much, much later than Solomon by some unknown author.
Song of Solomon, also sometimes called Song of Songs, is a single song about a man and his betrothed. The Hebrew title, Shir Hashirim, translates very cleanly to “Song of Songs”, indicating this song is the greatest song about Solomon, not necessarily that he himself wrote it. It may have been composed as a wedding song.
The books of the prophets are divided in two sub-sections: major (Isaiah–Daniel) and minor (Hosea–Malachi). Except for Lamentations, named for its contents, all of these books are named for their authors (or, at the very least, their protagonists). Unfortunately, that means Lamentations is the only interesting book name in all seventeen of these.
Lamentations is a collection of laments of Jeremiah, who is known as “the weeping prophet” for his grief over the rebellion of Judah against God and the resulting Babylonian invasion and exile. The Hebrew title is one of my favorite: ‘Ekah, meaning “How…!”—the first word in Lamentations 1:1, Lamentations 2:1, and Lamentations 4:1.
To be continued…
LXX is the Roman numerals for 70, which is also what “Septuagint” means. The name comes from its origin story: Ptolemy the Great requested seventy Jewish scholars to translate the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek for him. ↩
Last time, I said I was about halfway through a post about the names of the books of the Bible. This week, I’m… still about halfway through, but it’s posted to the website now and you can read it! That’s progress, right? I’ll keep moving on it as soon as I can.
Since you’re being so patient, I’ll include a graphic I’ve built as part of my reading that isn’t on the website yet:
An unnamed man of God warned King Amaziah of Judah that God was not with him in his upcoming war with Edom, More specifically, Amaziah had raised an army of 300,000 Judeans and hired 100,000 more men from Israel. The man of God says that any army including men of Israel would be defeated regardless of the enemy.
Amaziah, in a stunning and rare display of trust in God, actually sends the Israelite mercenaries back!
The story doesn’t end there, but it involves another very minor prophet, so we’ll leave it for now.
Things I learned in my reading this week, in no particular order.
Leaven shows up significantly in the Old and New Testaments, and honey does too, but usually in the Psalms 19:10 sense of being desirable. However, in Leviticus 2:11, God forbids honey as well. I found a bunch of possible reasons, from setting Israel apart to the fact that honey ferments, that probably make a better post than newsletter snippet.
In Leviticus 11:16, we learn some of the various unclean birds. The NET translates the first bird “eagle owls”, while ESV translates it “ostriches.” In any case, the Hebrew is actually “daughters of the wasteland,” which is more fun than either bird.
Maybe everybody but me knew this already. We read in Luke 23:33 that Jesus is crucified at “the place called ‘the skull’”, known as Golgotha. Well, Golgotha was the Aramaic name. The Greek name, which also means “the skull”, is Kranion. The Latin name, which also means “the skull”, is Calvaria, from which it’s a short hop, skip, and jump to Calvary.
]]>A man of God—a man without a name—came to Amaziah to remind him that God was not with Israel and would not support its soldiers, even if they were fighting for Judah. He prophesies that an army from Judah with Israelite soldiers would be defeated regardless of the enemy.
Amaziah, amazingly, relents and sends back the mercenaries, even though he forfeits the hundred talents of silver he had paid for them.
Unfortunately, the mercenaries don’t take it so well. While Amaziah is out at war, they raid a number of towns in Judah and kill 3,000 people. The story doesn’t end here, but it involves another very minor prophet, so we’ll leave it for now.
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