Jay Haley
Old Testament
Make-up Work

In the remaining books I was to read of the Bible; Ezekiel, Obadiah, Haggai, Zechariah, Joel, and Malachi there were many different things going on in each book. Although some of these books cannot be pinpointed on the exact date they were written many scholars give a time frame for which they believe they could have and most likely were written. In Ezekiel the works are dated so it’s easy to date this book. The main theme that I think this book covers is what God expects from the people of Israel and the destruction of Jerusalem as a warning to Israel if they rebel against the Lord and refuse to listen to Ezekiel. The book of Ezekiel talks about the messages that Ezekiel was told to deliver to the people of Israel. Ezekiel continuously throughout the book is commanded by the Lord to prophesy to the rebels of Israel who had not listened and obeyed God’s commands. The Lord also instructed Ezekiel to prophesy to a valley filled with human bones; in doing so God gave Ezekiel the power to breath life back into the valley full of bones and when he did this the bones came together and then were covered again in muscle and flesh. I like that Ezekiel was thought to be somewhat crazy and eccentric. In Ezekiel’s opening chapter there seems to be the first recordings of an extra terrestrial sighting. Ezekiel was with the exiles at a river and saw what would be described now days as a flying saucer and aliens. I liked this book because it was very dramatic and entertaining. Perhaps my favorite chapter in Ezekiel is 12 “A Story of Two Eagles”. In this story it talks of 2 eagles one of which planted the seed of a tree which is symbolic for a nation and allowed it to grow and prosper but along comes another eagle and takes that from the first eagle and now the trees and vines look to it to grow and prosper. The eagles represent leaders of 2 different nations and the second eagle swoops in and steals the first eagle’s nation. The riddle is later explained in this chapter. Ezekiel is a book of life, death, destruction, and restoration and for that very reason I find it entertaining. Obadiah was a very short book and mainly talked about the destruction of Edom. The Lord spoke and said there were to be no survivors in the land of Edom. So the Lords people reclaimed the land from the Edomites. The reason the Lord demanded the slaughter, destruction, and pillaging of the land of Edom is to punish them for the things they done to Israel. The book of Haggai is another very short book but is just as important as the other books of the Bible. Haggai was a prophet that the Lord used to deliver a message to Zerubbabel, Jeshua, and the exiles that have returned demanding that they rebuild the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem after the Babylonian exile. The Lord speaks through Haggai to Zerubbabel, Jeshua, and the people and tells them that if they listen and follow the Lord’s demands then they will be blessed with more bountiful crops and harvest more than what they had been previously. Zerubbabel, Jeshua, and the people listened and began building the temple of the Lord and