Between the Old Testament and the New lies a gap of roughly four hundred years, popularly known as the silent years. These are the years in which the Bible tells us nothing further about Israel and God; God is, in a sense, silent. Yet it was anything but an idle silence. Behind the scenes, God was arranging the whole world stage for the fulfillment of the promise He had made in the garden—the redemption of man. The prophetic voice paused; but the divine hand never stopped working.222
Here, in brief, are some of the key events of those four centuries—years that, according to the historical records outside Scripture, were far from quiet:
- Israel had returned to Palestine from the Babylonian captivity, but now under the rule of the Medo-Persian empire.
- Then Greece, under Alexander the Great of Macedonia, conquered the Persian empire and dominated the known world. It was under Greek influence that two groups arose among the Jews.223
- The first group refused to mix with Greek culture and custom. They held strictly to the Jewish Law and resisted every change—these became the Pharisees (the name means “to separate”).
- The second group, drawn to Grecian thought and eager to liberalize some of the Jewish laws, grew influential in the politics of the land—the aristocratic, temple-centered party known as the Sadducees.224
- During this same period of Greek dominance, some seventy scholars were tasked with translating the Old Testament from Hebrew into Greek. The finished work was called the Septuagint—from the word for “seventy”—after the number of translators.225
- After Alexander died young, his kingdom was divided into four. The two that most affected Israel were the Seleucids of Syria to the north and the Ptolemies of Egypt to the south.
- In time the Jews rose in the Maccabean revolt against their Greek overlords and won independence (around 142 BC), through terrible and costly fighting against the northern (Syrian) and southern (Egyptian) kings, until Rome took control in 63 BC.226
- The wars of this era were fearfully bloody; great numbers were slain in the fighting.
- It was the Seleucid (Syrian, northern) king Antiochus IV Epiphanes who plundered and destroyed the sacred scrolls, took a sow, and offered it upon the holy altar, defiling the temple and the Holy of Holies.227
- Then the Roman empire rose as the world’s new superpower, taking Jerusalem in 63 BC under the general Pompey.
- Rome appointed Herod the Great to rule in Judea.
By the time the New Testament opens, the world looks very different from that of the Old:
- Rome is now the dominant power on earth.
- The center of power has shifted from the East to the West—to Rome.
- Palestine remains a subject state; the Jews never regained their own sovereignty.
- There is a king on the throne again—but this king is a descendant of Esau, not of Jacob: Herod the Great, an Idumean.228
- The high priests who now hold religious authority are no longer of the line of Aaron; they cannot trace their descent, but hold an office bought and sold as political patronage.
- And now there are Pharisees and Sadducees.
The stage is now set for the New Covenant—the new move of God. I have shared this brief historical background as we pass from the way God spoke and appeared to His people in the Old Testament to the way He would appear in the New. But the focus of this book remains only on Yahweh-Elohim, the I AM, Jesus Christ Himself—not on other events or histories.
Before we cross into the New Testament, here is a summary of how Jesus Christ is prophetically pictured in each book of the Old Testament—a reminder that, as our Lord Himself said, “in all the scriptures” the things concerning Him were written (Luke 24:27):229
| Book | Jesus Christ is… | | --- | --- | | Genesis | the Seed of the woman | | Exodus | the Passover Lamb | | Leviticus | our High Priest | | Numbers | the pillar of cloud and fire, and the smitten Rock | | Deuteronomy | the Prophet greater than Moses | | Joshua | the Captain of the LORD’s host | | Judges | our Judge and Lawgiver | | Ruth | our Kinsman-Redeemer | | 1 & 2 Samuel | the Seed of David, our trusted Prophet | | Kings & Chronicles | our reigning King | | Ezra | our faithful Scribe | | Nehemiah | the Rebuilder of every broken thing | | Esther | our Advocate | | Job | our ever-living Redeemer | | Psalms | our Shepherd | | Proverbs | our Wisdom | | Ecclesiastes | our meaning and purpose | | Song of Solomon | our loving Bridegroom | | Isaiah | the Prince of Peace | | Jeremiah | the Righteous Branch | | Lamentations | our weeping Prophet | | Ezekiel | the four-faced Man | | Daniel | the fourth man in the fire | | Hosea | the faithful Husband, ever loving the unfaithful | | Joel | the baptizer with the Holy Spirit and fire | | Amos | our burden-bearer | | Obadiah | the mighty Savior | | Jonah | our great missionary; the sign of the resurrection | | Micah | the messenger with beautiful feet | | Nahum | the avenger of God’s elect | | Habakkuk | God’s evangelist, crying for revival | | Zephaniah | the Saviour who saves | | Haggai | the restorer of the lost heritage | | Zechariah | the fountain opened for sin and uncleanness | | Malachi | the Sun of Righteousness, rising with healing |
From the seed of the woman in Genesis to the Sun of Righteousness in Malachi, every book leans forward toward Him. The whole Old Testament is a long finger pointing to one Person. And now, after the long silence, that Person is about to step onto the stage of history—no longer from a distance, no longer in shadow and pattern, but in flesh and blood. The Word is about to become flesh and dwell among us.
Notes
- 222. The roughly four centuries between the prophecy of Malachi (c. 430 BC) and the events of the New Testament are commonly called the “silent years” or the intertestamental period—silent in that no canonical prophet spoke, though the era was full of momentous history. Useful surveys include F. F. Bruce, New Testament History (New York: Doubleday, 1971), and the standard Bible dictionaries under “Intertestamental Period.” ↩
- 223. Alexander the Great defeated the Persians (decisively at Issus, 333 BC) and died in 323 BC. His empire was divided among his generals into four realms; the two that bore on Israel were the Ptolemies of Egypt (to the south) and the Seleucids of Syria (to the north). Note: the older empire of Assyria had already fallen in 612 BC; the northern kingdom in this later period is the Seleucid (Syrian) realm, not Assyria. ↩
- 224. The Pharisees (from Hebrew parush, “separated”) sought separation from Hellenistic influence and strict devotion to the Law; the Sadducees were the aristocratic, temple-centered party, generally more open to Hellenistic culture and influential in politics. Both appear throughout the Gospels in their encounters with Jesus. ↩
- 225. The Septuagint (from the Latin for “seventy,” often abbreviated LXX) is the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, begun under Ptolemy II in Egypt in the third century BC. Tradition holds that about seventy (or seventy-two) scholars produced it, hence the name. It became the Bible of the Greek-speaking Jewish world and is frequently quoted in the New Testament. ↩
- 226. The Maccabean (Hasmonean) revolt won Jewish independence around 142 BC, which lasted until the Roman general Pompey took Jerusalem in 63 BC. On the great cost in life during these wars, see the accounts in 1 Maccabees and in Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, books 12–14. ↩
- 227. It was the Seleucid (Syrian, northern) king Antiochus IV Epiphanes who, in 167 BC, desecrated the temple—erecting an altar to Zeus and sacrificing a pig on the altar in the holy place. (This corrects a common confusion: Antiochus ruled the northern, Syrian kingdom, not Egypt.) His sacrilege ignited the Maccabean revolt; the temple was cleansed and rededicated in 164 BC, commemorated ever since in the festival of Hanukkah. ↩
- 228. Herod the Great, appointed “King of the Jews” by Rome (reigning from 37 BC), was an Idumean—a descendant of Edom, the nation sprung from Esau (Gen. 25:30; 36:1)—not of the line of Jacob/Israel. By this period the high priesthood, too, had ceased to pass by Aaronic descent and was often granted as a political appointment. ↩
- 229. This summary—“in Genesis He is the Seed of the woman, in Exodus the Passover Lamb…”—circulates in many forms in Christian teaching; a widely used version is associated with the preaching of the late Rev. Dr. S. M. Lockridge. Compilations may also be found at Jesus-focused teaching sites such as Jesus Plus Nothing. The correspondences are devotional and typological, meant to display how the whole Old Testament points to Christ (cf. Luke 24:27, 44). ↩