Liam O'Leary’s Reviews > Holy Bible: English Standard Version > Status Update

Psalm 98.

The Book of Job and The Psalms have been stumbling blocks for me in my first read of The Bible. Both have filled me with sadness and made me weak as they resonate with my faithless periods of life, but I have returned each time. I somehow did not expect this to be psychically challenging, with hindsight I am not surprised!

Made it to the Book of Ezra, still slowly reading daily this year. It has taken a while but God moves me at his own pace and I recently doubled my reading rate (1 chapter to 2 chapters). If anything this is a practice in patience for my faith. Currently I'm reading Flannery O'Connor's Prayer Journal nightly alongside it. I can't wait to get deep into the Psalms.

I've been following the basic gist of the Bible quite well (I think) up until 2 Kings. All of a sudden Elijah appears, ascends into heaven, and Elisha is doing things and I barely know who they are or where they came from or what made this shift from the successors of King David. Very confused, guess I'll just trundle along.

King David and his son King Solomon were pretty cool dudes. Seem like the first who stay faithful as leaders.

Also, 1 Kings 9:28 is the first mention of 420 in the Bible...

Don't think I'm getting the main points here but I'm getting through it and understanding the basic gist of it!

2 Samuel 21. Huh, David's brother also slayed a giant. Those brothers must have left a great gene pool...

The story of Samson concluded in Judges 16 is to me one of the most interesting things outside of Genesis and Exodus this far into my reading of the Bible. His birth and life seems miraculous.

Judges 11:39 is tragic. Feels to me somehow like a Biblical version of Orpheus and Eurydice. Despite its gravity, Jephthah's daughter has no name mentioned.

Judges 29:54

..."Draw your sword and kill me, lest they say of me 'a woman killed him' ".

Kinda weird to spend one's last breath thinking about this, but as he was evil maybe that explains it? Struggle to understand the worth of reading passages of people who do not follow God?

Joshua over, Judges now.

Deuteronomy 5:
The Ten Commandments (Thou Shalt Not Kill...)

Deuteronomy 17,5:
'Stone to death sunworshippers'

In the space of 12 verses we've changed our mind on the morality of murder? Or is it that stoning nonbelievers for God is allowed but murdering out of some ungodly self interest is not? There's literally no way I can make even abstract theoretical sense of this severity & inconsistency. What did they mean?