INTRODUCTION THE  

BOOK OF THE HISTORY  

OF ADAM BY NEHEMIAH 

On returning to the habitation of prosperity - Jerusalem - from the fort of Susa, as a governor, to rebuild the walls of the habitation of prosperity - Jerusalem - after the decree of Cyrus that all Jews could return to the habitation of prosperity - Jerusalem - and after Zerubbabel and Jeshua had returned from Babylon with the first set of returnees and built the house of worship and the second set of returnees, also from Babylon, had returned with Ezra to restore the worship of the Self-existent, Nehemiah also, seeing the need to put together a book for the returnees and the unborn generations to know their origin and how they got to where they were, decided to write a book.  

As a governor, Nehemiah definitely did not have the time to write a history, so he necessarily had to employ the services of people to do it, and being of northern extraction (this is very evident in the book named after him, written with his own hands), the people around Nehemiah were people of Israel, the northern kingdom, one of whom was Hanani, whom he referred to as “one of my brethren” while he referred to others as “men of Judah” or “the Jews” (Neh. 1:2 – KJV). However, as a governor, Nehemiah had all the resources at his disposal to carry out research on their history, especially knowing all that had transpired since the time of Rehoboam, and more so that his grandparents had been carried to Assyria for long. Added to this is that the one written by Ezra is lopsided and biased in favor of Judah. 

Naturally, the people wrote from the point of view of a northerner. With the resources available to them they were able to dig deep into their history which he (Nehemiah) titled, “The Book of the Generations of Adam” (Gen. 5:1 - KJV) — The Hebrew word “towldah” translated to “Generations” can mean “History” figuratively. The actual meaning of “towldah” is “the begottens.” Accordingly, the phrase should be, “This is the book of the Begottens of Adam” or “This is the Book of Those Given Birth to By Adam,” which is best put in modern language as “This is the Book of History of Adam” especially knowing that the writing does not end in the chapter, or in the piece titled Genesis itself. The writers began the history with Adam and graduated it to the time when Jacob found himself in Egypt (Genesis). They followed it with how Israel spent four hundred and thirty years in Egypt before God raised up Moses for them as a deliverer and how they came out from Egypt and spent forty years in the wilderness, how they got the law through Moses and how Moses died in the wilderness (Exodus to Deuteronomy). After Moses’ demise, they reported their journey to the promised land under Joshua’s leadership and how they possessed and allocated the land (Joshua). 

They progressed in Judges, Ruth, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel to Kings where they reported all that transpired in Israel before the division, giving more attention to events in the northern kingdom and revealing all the bad things David and Solomon did, which Ezra kept mute about and showing that Solomon’s waywardness and the high-handedness of Rehoboam his son were responsible for their revolt. After reporting the division, unlike Ezra, they began to report events in the two resultant kingdoms alternately, but consciously putting Israel (the northern kingdom), their country, first until the captivity of Judah (the southern kingdom) in 2 Kings 25, having reported the deportation of Israel (the northern kingdom) in 2 Kings 17. 

Following that, they brought in the story of Prophet Jonah who had gone to preach to their captors before their deportation. Then, they wrote about their God’s benevolence to His people in Shushan in Esther. The book was rounded off with the writings of Nehemiah which was introduced with the superscription – The Words of Nehemiah the son of Hachaliah (Neh. 1:1- KJV) – after which we find Nehemiah writing in the first-person pronoun. Having completed the book, the prologue – Genesis 1 to 4 – was written and put at the beginning.  

Apart from the unbroken progression of the narration from Genesis to Nehemiah and the chronologicity of the events in the fifteen books from the creation of the first man, Adam, to the birth of the great ancestor of Israel, Jacob, up to the arrival of Jacob and his family in Egypt, their stay in Egypt, their departure from Egypt, their wanderings in the wilderness for forty years, their arrival at the promised land, their taking possession of the land, their life and time in the promised land — the pleasant land [Eden – the land of superabundant milk and honey] — their deportation from the promised land, their life and time in the lands they were deported to, and their return to the promised land – the fact that the events from Genesis to Jonah were written in third-person pronoun, makes it clear that one person or group was responsible for the fifteen volumes, and makes Nehemiah the author or chief editor. 

One great unifier of the book by Nehemiah is the spelling of Joshua. While he wrote it as “Jehovah saved” from Exodus to 2 Kings, Ezra who wrote the first book made up of 23 of the remaining 24 books, wrote “He will save” (Jeshua) in both Hebrew and Chaldee’s forms, because he grew up in Babylon. (It can be deduced from the books of Ezekiel and Daniel who lived in Babylon that they could have prohibited them from including “Jehovah” or “the Self-existent” in their names.) It is beyond human imaginations that this book, inspired by the Self-existent [the Holy Spirit] and neatly packaged chronologically, could be fractioned into many parts and attributed to different authors. 

As Ezra incorporated the writings of the prophets in his own book with superscription, making the people to call it “the Prophets” or the “Book of the Prophets,” Nehemiah incorporated the Law of Moses in his with superscription making people to call it “the Book of the Law” or “the Book of the Law of Moses.” The third-person pronoun employed to report all the events, in the book, including all that involved Moses from his birth in Exodus chapter 2 to his death in Deuteronomy 34 is an undeniable proof that Moses did not write the book. 

The parallel passages showing many of the passages in Ezra’s book (1 Chronicles to Ezra) and Nehemiah’s book (Genesis to Nehemiah) recorded verbatim or near verbatim reveals that one of the writers copied from the other. That Nehemiah copied from Ezra is supported by the fact that Ezra returned first, Nehemiah’s work is an expansion of Ezra’s, and many errors in dates, ages and names in Ezra’s work were corrected by Nehemiah in his.   

Believers who may still want to defend Moses’ authorship of the first five volumes of the Book of the History of Adam by Nehemiah – presently called Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy - should realize that the presence of Aramaic in Gen. 31:47, apart from over 1,000 other proofs in the book, excludes Moses from being the author of the five books otherwise known as Torah. “Aramaic is thought to have first appeared among the Aramaeans in the 11th Century B.C. It was in the 7th and 6th Century B.C. that it became the lingua franca of the Middle East, and later, it became the official language of the Achaemenian Persian dynasty (559-333 BC).” Since Moses lived between 1530 and 1410 B.C., he could not have written the volume.   

Like those who canonized the books of the Bible titled the piece containing the activities of Joshua “The Book of Joshua,” the piece containing the stories of judges “The Book of Judges,” the piece containing the story of Ruth, “The Book of Ruth,” the piece containing the life and times of Samuel “The Book of Samuel,” the piece containing the ministry of Jonah “The Book of Jonah,” and the piece containing the story of Esther, “The Book of Esther,” this book containing the life and times of Moses was called in the Final Testament “The Book of Moses” (Mark 12:26) and “The Law of Moses” (Luke 24:44) agreeing with what Israel used to call the book written by Moses in the wilderness which was incorporated into it. 

By that, this book becomes one of the three books made reference to by Jesus (Luke 24:44) and the Final Testament writers (Luke 24:27; Acts 26:22 and 28:23), the other two being “The Book of the Prophets” (Acts 7:42) and “the Psalms.” As this, containing the story of Moses, is called “The Book of Moses,” the book by Ezra, containing the writings of the prophets is called “The Book of the Prophets” (Acts 7:42). 

That the title of this book according to Genesis 5:1 – The Book of the Generations of Adam (KJV) - is similar to the title that Matthew gave his narrative about Jesus in Matt. 1:1 – The Book of the Generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham – is sufficient to make believers understand that one is for the first Adam, the other, for the second Adam. 

FUNDAMENTAL KNOWLEDGE TO UNDERSTANDING THE BOOK CONTAINING THE LAW OF MOSES 

According to our Master Jesus and His disciples, three books – the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms – make up the First Testament (Matt. 7:12; 11:13; 22:40; Luke 16:16; 24:44; Jn. 1:45; Acts 13:15 and 24:14), “the Law of Moses” being a short form of the Book Containing the Law of Moses, “the Prophets,” or “the Book of the Prophets” being short form of the Book Containing the Writings of the Prophets  and “the Psalms” being a short form of the Book of Psalms; the Book Containing the Law of Moses  being Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, 2 Kings, Jonah, Esther and Nehemiah, and the Book Containing the Writings of the Prophets  being 1 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Joel, Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Micah, Nahum, Zephaniah, Jeremiah, Lamentation, Habakkuk, Obadiah, Ezekiel, Job, Daniel, Ezra, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi. The former is by Nehemiah, the latter, by Ezra. None of the pieces making up the two books can conveniently be called a book in that none was properly packaged; each is a piece of a book and can only become part of a book when all the pieces are collated. As at the time of Jesus’ incarnation, there was nothing called the Torah, the Pentateuch or Five books of Moses – all these came about as the fathers were searching for how to fix the thirty-nine writings into the three supposed books. If there was, someone should have made reference to it. That the three are short forms is evident in that there is nothing that can be said to be book in the sense of the caption “the prophets” or that can be said to be “the Prophets” in the First Testament - all that one can get is the book by Ezra; and as soon as that is taken out, what remains is clearly a book containing the law of Moses and a book of Psalms. These books, by Nehemiah and Ezra respectively are the collections that pass the test of a book, having a beginning and an ending and their authors identifiable; the Book of Psalms is a collection of poems and prayers by different people. As the first five books generally taken to be Torah are evidently volumes of a historical narrative which continues beyond the last chapter of Deuteronomy, the only conclusion is that the book Jesus and His disciples referred to as “the Law of Moses” is the Book Containing the Law of Moses. Jesus would never call black white as to be calling historical narrative a law! 

The author of the Book Containing the Law of Moses opens the book with a prologue showing how the Self-existent commissioned His Emissary on earth, the Self-existent [the Holy Spirit] called the Spirit of God, to restore or bring order to a world that became “without form and void,” saying to Him, “Let there be…” or “Let the…” seven times – Gen. 1:3, 6, 9, 11, 14, 15 and 20 – before He finally said, “Let us make man in our image…” (Gen. 1:26). For the sake of clarity, he explained from chapter 2 verse 4 upward that the One who did the creative work is the Self-existent [the Holy Spirit] whom he identified as “the Self-existent, the Mighty” (KJV – the LORD God), having read the law given by the Self-existent when He paid a visit to Israel at Mount Horeb, and found out that the Self-existent Himself revealed to Israel that the Self-existent [the Holy Spirit] His Emissary, created the sky and the ground: 

THEN God [the Self-existent] declared all these commands: “I am the Self-existent, your God, who brought you out of Egypt – the house of bondage. I must not see you with any other gods: You must not make any graven images – anything crafted in the form of anything that is in the sky above or that is in the earth below or that is in the water under – for yourselves: You must not bow down to them, nor serve them; I, the Self-existent, your God, am a jealous God, visiting the sin of fathers on children up to third and fourth generations of those who hate Me; and favorably disposed to thousands of those who love Me and keep My commandments. You must not swear by the name of the Self-existent [the Holy Spirit], your God, falsely; the Self-existent [the Holy Spirit] will not take as inculpable, anyone who swears by His name falsely. Remember the weekly sacred day, to keep it sacred. You are to do all your work within six days: “The seventh day is a sacred day as far as the Self-existent [the Holy Spirit], your God, is concerned – you, your sons, your daughters, your male and maid servants, your cattle or the strangers who live with you, must not do any work. The Self-existent [the Holy Spirit] blessed the seventh day and made it sacred because He worked for six days to make the sky and the land, the sea, and all that is in them and rested on the seventh day (Exod. 20:1-11). 

By the Self-existent, the Mighty, he was therefore revealing that the Self-existent who ordered the Spirit of God to bring those things about is the Self-existent, the Almighty, and that the Spirit of God is the Self-existent, the Mighty. (The Bible is very loud about the fact that there is an invisible God - Exod. 33:20 - who is not only invisible, but said to be the Almighty [Gen. 17:1; 28:3; 35:11; 43:14; 48:3; 49:24 and 25; Exod. 6:3; Num. 24:4; Job 5:17; Is. 13:6; Ezek. 1:24; 10:5; Joel 1:15; 2 Cor. 6:18; Rev. 1:8; 4:8; 11:17; 15:3; 16:7 & 14; 19:15; 21:22; Ps. 68:14; 91:1], the Highest [Gen. 14:18-22; Num. 24:16; Deut. 32:8; 2 Sam. 22:14; Ps. 7:17] and the Greatest [John 10:29; 14:28], and called (in KJV) by several titles, including “the Ancient of days” [Dan. 7:9, 13 and 22], “the blessed and only Potentate” [1 Tim. 6:15], “He who was, and who is, and who is to come” [Rev. 1:4 & 8; 4:8], and “the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the Ending, the First and the Last” [Rev. 22:13]. Just as the Self-existent is shown to be the Almighty, the Self-existent [the Holy Spirit] is shown to be the Mighty [Deut. 7:21; 10:17; Ps. 132:2 & 5; Is. 10:21; 20:29; 49:26; 60:16; Jer. 20:11 & 19; Rev. 5:1; 10:1 & 18:21], as well as Jesus, the Self-existent, the Son of man [Is. 9:6].) 

That the Self-existent [the Holy Spirit] is the Creator is made clear not only because He was commissioned by the Self-existent to bring about order and bring about things in Genesis chapter 1, He declared in several references in the First Testament that He is the Creator – Exod. 4:11; Job. 33:4; Ps. 104:30; 148:5; Is. 40:26; 41:20; 42:5; 43:1 and 7; 45:7, 8, 11 and 18; 48:7; 54:16; 57:19; 65:17 and 18; Jer. 31:22). Interestingly, the Self-existent Himself refers to Him as the Creator (Exod. 20:11):  

For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: Wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it. (KJV) 

The Self-existent, the Holy Spirit - the Emissary of the Self-existent on Earth. 

The Bible is unequivocal about the fact that there is a member of the Godhead, the Self-existent, who is invisible. This is attested to in the following references in the First and the Final Testaments – Exod. 33:20; John 1:18; 6:46; Col. 1:15; 1 Tim. 1:17; Heb. 11:27; 1 John 4:12. As the seven references cannot be disputed or discountenanced, it goes to say that any divine being who appeared to men and so seen by men from the creation, by Adam, till today, is not the Self-existent who is invisible; the One seen by men is the Self-existent, the Holy Spirit - the Emissary of the Self-existent on earth - who also is self-existent. It was in order to reveal Him as the One who was commissioned to bring about order in Genesis chapter 1 that the writer of the Book Containing the Law of Moses made the clarification from chapter 2 verse 4 of Genesis, showing that He is the Self-existent, the Mighty. He is resident on earth. The Self-existent is resident in heaven. The One on earth is the One from whose face Adam hid himself (Gen. 3:10), the One Cain said he would be hid from His face (Gen. 4:14), the One who appeared to Hagar (Gen. 16:11-14), Abraham (Gen. 12:7; 14:18-20; 17:1 and 18:1), Isaac (Gen. 26:2 and 24), Jacob (Gen. 35:1,7 and 9; 48:3), Moses (Exod. 3:2 and 16), Israel, called the Glory of the Self-existent (Exod. 16:10; Lev. 9:23; Num. 14:10; 16:42; 20:6; Deut. 31:15), Joshua (Joshua 5:13-15), Gideon (Jdg. 6:12), the wife of Manoah and Manoah (Jdg. 13:3 and 10), Samuel (1 Sam. 3:21), David (2 Sam. 24:16-17), Solomon (1 Kings 3:5; 9:2; 11:9; 2 Chr. 7:12), Isaiah (Is. 6:1-3), Jeremiah (Jer. 31:3), Ezekiel (Ezek. 1:1-28; 10:1), Amos (Amos 7:7), Zechariah (Zech. 1:8-13), Joseph (Matt. 1:20), Peter, John and James, with His two celestial-messengers (Matt. 17:3-4; Mark 9:4-5), Zechariah (Luke 1:11), Jesus (Luke 22:43), the one hundred and twenty (Acts 2:3) and to John (Rev. 10:1).  

He is the Emissary [Angel] of the Self-existent who found Hagar by a fountain (Gen. 16:7-11), called Abraham from the sky (Gen. 22:11&15), appeared to Moses (Exod. 3:2), sent to lead Israel to the promised land (Exod. 23:20-25, Num. 20:16), appeared to Joshua in Gilgal and identified Himself as their Captain (Joshua 5:13-15), stood on the way to stop Balaam (Num. 22:22-35), came from Gilgal, where Joshua saw Him last, to Bochim (Jdg. 2:1-4), cursed Meroz (Jdg. 5:23), came to Gideon while threshing wheat (Jdg. 6:11-22), appeared to Manoah and his wife (Jdg. 13:2-21), seen by David at the threshing floor of Aruanah the Jebusite (2 Sam. 24:16), fed Elijah while fleeing from Jezebel (1 Kings 19:7), sent Elijah to the messengers of the king of Samaria (2 Kings 1:3-15) and smote 185,000 Assyrians (2 Kings 19:35); the One who encamps around those who fear Him and delivers them (Ps. 34:7), deals with believers’ enemies as chaff before the wind and chases them away (Ps. 35:5), persecutes the enemies of His servants (Ps. 35:6), was at Sinai with thousands of His messengers – angels (Ps. 68:17) – and who interceded to the Self-existent on behalf of Israel (Zech. 1:11-14); He is the One before whom Joshua stood in the house of worship (Zech. 3:1-5) and who shall defend the inhabitants of the habitation of prosperity - Jerusalem - in future (Zech. 12:8); the one who appeared to Joseph in a dream three times (Matt. 1:20-24; 2:13 and 19), who rolled away the stone on Jesus’ sepulchre and sat on it (Matt. 28:2), who appeared to Zechariah at the altar of incense (Luke 1:11), and to Mary (Luke 1:38), who announced the birth of Jesus (Luke 2:9), released the gospel ambassadors [apostles] – apostle is a Greek loanword, not native English - from prison (Acts 5:19), told Philip to go toward the south (Acts 8:26), released Peter from prison (Acts 12:7-11), smote Herod (Acts 12:23), stood by Paul on the high seas (Acts 27), the One to descend from heaven with the trump of God to take believers away (1 Thess. 4:16), the One who contended with the devil (Jude 1:9), held a book and asked for who could open and read it (Rev. 5:1-5), stood upon the sea and the ground (Rev. 10:1), fought against the dragon (Rev. 12:7), sat on a white cloud, said to be like the Son of man (Rev. 14:14), came down from heaven, said to have great power (Rev. 18:1) and the One who took up a stone like a great millstone and cast it into the sea (Rev. 18:21).  

He is the “horror of great darkness” which fell upon Abram in the daytime, said to be “smoking furnace and burning lamp” in the night hours (Gen. 15:12-17), the vertical cloudy Figure (pillar of cloud – KJV) by day and the vertical flaming Figure (pillar of fire – KJV) by night, called the cloud or the Glory of the Self-existent and shown to have led Israel in their 40-year wilderness journey (Exod. 13:21-22; 14:19-24; 16:10; 19:9 and 16; 24:15-18; 33:9-10; 34:5; 40:34-48; Lev. 16:2 and 13; Num. 9:15-22; 10:11 and 12; 11:25; 12:5 and 10; 14:14; 16:42; Deut. 5:23; 31:15), was with them in the promised land till He departed and went back to His place – Hosea 5:15 (1 King 8:10-11; 2 Chr. 5:13 and 14; Neh. 9:12 and 19; Ps. 78:14; 99:7; Ezek. 1:1-28; 10:3-4) - and to be with them in future (Is. 4:5; Ezek. 43:1-27); the bright cloud which overshadowed Jesus, Peter, James and John (Matt. 17:5-6; Mark 9:7-8; Luke 9:34-35), the cloud or Glory of the Self-existent which filled the tent of worship (Exod. 40:34-38) in the wilderness, the house of worship in the habitation of prosperity - Jerusalem (1 Kings 8:10 and 11; 2 Chr. 5:13 and 14; 7:2) and took Jesus up (Acts 1:9); the mighty rushing wind which filled the upper room (Acts 2:1-4) and the cloud that is going to bring back Jesus and take believers up (Matt. 24:30; 26:64; Mark 13:26; 14:62; Luke 21:27; 1 Thess. 4:17; Rev. 1:7). He is also the cloud that is going to take the two future witnesses up after their resurrection (Rev. 11:12) and the mighty Celestial-messenger clothed with cloud – Rev. 10:1.  

Finally, He is the Name [Emissary] of the Self-existent whose assistance men began to seek in the days of Seth (Gen. 4:26; 12:8; 13:4; 21:33; 26:25, 1 Kings 18:24; Ps. 116:13 and 17), whom the Israelite woman’s son blasphemed (Lev. 24:11 and 16), and for whom the house of worship in Israel was to be built (Deut. 12:5-21; 14:23; 16:2-6); the glorious and fearful Name (Deut. 28:58) for whom the house of worship in the habitation of prosperity - Jerusalem - was built (1 Kings 3:2; 5:3-5; 8:17-20; 1 Chr. 22:7-19; 2 Chr. 2:1-4; 6:7-10; 12:13; Is. 18:7); and the One Isaiah saw coming from far, burning with His anger, His lips full of indignation and His tongue as a devouring fire: 

Behold, the Name of the LORD cometh from far, burning with his anger, and the burden thereof is heavy: His lips are full of indignation, and his tongue as a devouring fire. - Is. 30:27 (KJV) 

Those are what He is – personified! The Self-existent called Him “My Emissary” (Exod. 23:21; 32:34), declared that He appointed Him over Israel (Exod. 23:20), said His name [attribute/authority] is in Him (Exod. 23:21), Jesus also called Him “My Emissary” (Rev. 22:16) and He Himself declared that the Self-existent appointed Him over Israel (Zech. 4:9; 6:15).  He has been on earth before the earth became “without form and void,” was commissioned to, and did recreate, the world, was given to Israel and was with them till He returned to His place after He threatened to do so (Hosea 5:15; 9:12), brought Jesus inside Mary, was on earth when Jesus was on earth, raised Jesus from the dead, took Jesus back to heaven, came back to lead the church, will go back to bring Jesus at His second coming, will take believers to be with Jesus, and will come back with Jesus to reign over the new Israel at the millennium, by which time the Self-existent, the Son of man, Jesus, will take over His throne (Zech. 6:13; Matt. 19:28) and assume the office of the Emissary of the Self-existent and the King of Israel (Ps. 118:26; Matt. 21:9; 23:39; Mark 11:9 and 10; Luke 13:35; 19:38 and John 12:13) after rebuilding the palace in the habitation of prosperity – Jerusalem – the Self-existent [the Holy Spirit] assumes the office of the God at Jesus’ right hand (Ps. 110:5). 

Showing Him as the Spirit [Emissary] of the Self-existent and showing Jesus as the Son of the Self-existent make Himself and Jesus visible God and reveal that contrary to the general assumption, the Self-existent [the Holy Spirit] does appear in bodily and non-bodily forms. Though He reveals Jesus to men, the Self-existent [the Holy Spirit] is the One who appears to men in bodily form that men always call Jesus. 

We sincerely hope that no reader will deny that all those appearances and actions were of the Self-existent [the Holy Spirit] and by that be insinuating that the Self-existent [the Holy Spirit] was somewhere watching or sleeping when they were taking place. 

INTRODUCTION TO THE 

BOOK OF PSALMS  

The Book of Psalms is a collection of poems and prayers written by people of Judah, the southern kingdom, before and after the captivity of the country. 

Evidence of Place of Writing: 

Knowing that all the psalmists were from Judah as all who went to Babylon were, and that reference to Babylon is made thrice in the Psalms (87:4; 137:1 and 8), it is certain that they were written in the habitation of prosperity - Jerusalem - especially as many of them were written by the chief musician to the Sons of Korah. 

Compiler(s): 

In all likelihood, Ezra (or his disciple who added the last chapter as well as the appendices to his book – The Book of the History of Adam by Ezra) was responsible for the compilation, especially that some of the Psalms were written after the captivity. The writer of the ones with titles of the psalms, based on the information he could gather from the writings, ascribed seventy-two of the Psalms to David, eleven to Asaph, two said to be for Solomon, one to Heman the Ezrahite, one to Ethan the Ezrahite and one to Moses, whom he called the man of God; others are anonymous.  

In all likelihood, the Psalms were earlier arranged with the Psalms by David put first, got scattered, and re-arranged with the titles supplied to some of them.  

That the seventy-two psalms are not consecutive in our current Bible must be the result of the scattering the book went through; by the time they located all the Psalms, the fathers of faith could not get the order it was arranged again, though they found the all the seventy-two psalms. One great proof that Ezra could be responsible for the collation of the Psalms is the superscription in Ps. 18:1 (KJV) which shows the same pattern as that of Daniel 7:1-2b and Amos 2:1-2a, which introduces Daniel’s prophecy (Dan. 7:2b – 12:13) and Amos’ prophecy (Amos 1:2 – 9:15) respectively, as shown below: 

Psalms 18 – superscription (KJV) 

To the chief Musician, A Psalms of David, the servant of the LORD, who spake unto the LORD the words of this song in the day that the LORD delivered him from the hand of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul: And he said, 

Daniel 7:1-2a (KJV) 

In the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon Daniel had a dream and visions of his head upon his bed: Then he wrote the dream, and told the sum of the matters. Daniel spake and said, 

Amos 1:1-2a (KJV) 

The words of Amos, who was among the herdmen of Tekoa, which he saw concerning Israel in the days of Uzziah king of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash king of Israel, two years before the earthquake. And he said,  

As they put that of Psalm 18 as superscription, Ezra put Daniel 7:1-2a and Amos 1:1-2a as superscription. That of Daniel and Amos were not shown as superscription because the translators did not realize that the opening sentence(s) of all the incorporated books are superscription; they are supposed to be separated from the messages.  

It is worthy of note that there was no fully packaged book called the Book of Psalms before Ezra wrote his Book of the History of Adam; Ezra or his disciples collected all the poets and prayers he could lay his hands on in the habitation of prosperity - Jerusalem - at their return from Babylon, put them together and titled it The Book of Psalms.  

Having removed all ambiguities from it, for faster assimilation, it is advisable that the entire book be read at a stretch, or at least, within a day, not piecemeal. As the Bible is now available handy - in all communication devices – reading it one or two chapters at a time should now be outdated. With WET, any of the books becomes easy to read at a stretch. In reality, God did not intend that the Bible be read piecemeal.  

Note: 

Discovering that the teaching about the Trinity which every believer is keen to know more about is made clear in almost all the books of the Bible, and seeing that the gospel ambassadors (apostles - KJV) were deliberate in propagating it as it is evident in the phrase, “God the Father,” employed by all of them who wrote letters (Rom. 15:6; Gal. 1:1 & 3; 2 Tim. 1:2; Jas 1:27; 3:9; 1 Pet. 1:2, 17; 2 John 1:3; Jude 1:1) based on the knowledge our Sovereign Master, Jesus, passed down to them, WET has chosen to use parentheses to reveal each of the members of the Godhead, and color to distinguish the words of each of them, from Genesis to Revelation: Diamond blue for the words of the Self-existent, the Invisible; red for the words of Jesus, the Self-existent, the Son of man; and Green for the words of the Self-existent, the Holy Spirit. Besides, for clarity, many other difficult or obscure words, terms, names and places in the Bible requiring clarification are explained, either in parentheses or with a note underneath. A pen-writer sign is put beside each of these words, terms, names and places to draw readers’ attention to it. Also, it is important that readers be aware that many of our regular Bible translations retain many Hebrew or Greek words due to inability to think out accurate English words for them, as in the cases of YHWH, JAH and Adonai. Such words as “Adam,” “Eden,” “Sabbath,” “Jezreel,” “Mahershalalhashbaz,” “Azazel,” “Angel,” “Seraphim,” “Cherub,” “Maroth,” and “Messiah” in the First Testament, and “Angel,” “Baptist,” “Baptism,” “Baptizer,” “Christ,” “Decapolis,” “Tetrarch,” “Legion,” “Apostle,” “Evangelist,” “Deacon,” “Synagogue,” “Proselyte,” “Paradise,” “Alpha,” “Omega,” and “Presbytery” in the Final, have also been given the best English translations in WET.  

Apart from the fact that the presence of Hebrew and Greek loanwords in an English translation is a shortcoming on the part of all the translators, their failure to think out appropriate English words for them has wrecked a great havoc on the church, leading to inadequate understanding of the Bible and the God of the Bible, and causing unnecessary doctrinal differences. In fact, with so many untranslated words, the best English translation on ground is not qualified to be called English translation - it is better taken as partial English translation – and every rational mind knows that the best anyone can get from a partial translation is partial understanding. Since men have continued to improve on Bible translations in order to make the word of God more understandable, it is our belief that God has brought WET about to enhance better understanding of His word. 

While we must commend the efforts of the fathers in faith to break the books into chapters and verses, it is noteworthy that, by that, they also succeeded in fractionizing many of the passages, making it difficult for readers to follow some narratives to the end. Accordingly, in WET, all such messages or chapters are merged for easy reading and faster assimilation. 

Please, note that you can read with/without the parentheses. The parentheses are there to aid better understanding of the words, phrases, places and passages that might otherwise be difficult to understand. Also, like the italicized words in KJV, words in half brackets are supplied words; they were supplied to make the reading flow. 

I enjoin you to relax and enjoy the first volume of the second of the three books of the First Testament, in the most readable and seamless translation of the Bible, inspired by the best Writer, in the whole world. 

INTRODUCTION TO THE

FINAL TESTAMENT

The commonest noun in the Bible, “YHWH,” having been demystified, and seeing that it is the last of the identifiers or appellations of God given by Him, in the First Testament, WET has brought in the English translation of the identifier or appellation, translated “kurios” in Greek, into the Final Testament, as “The Self-existent.”

God is revealed in the First Testament majorly in two Personalities (God and the Emissary [Angel] of God – Angel is not an English word; it is Greek. The two are inseparable, the latter being the Representative – Ambassador, Oracle or Mouthpiece – of the former), however, in the Final, in three – God, His Emissary [the Self-existent - the Holy Spirit], and His Son [the Self-existent, the Son of man], who also doubled (Except where it is necessary for identification/differentiation, He is shown simply as “the Self-existent” in WET.) as an Emissary while on earth.

God, in the Bible, generally refers to the Invisible, who, from time immemorial, has been taken to be in heaven. Both Testaments attest to it: He told Moses, “… there shall no man see Me and live.” (Exod. 33:20 – KJV). John wrote, “No man has seen God” and Paul said He is invisible – Col. 1:15; 1 Tim. 1:17; no one has seen or can see Him. This is the Person majorly called God and introduced by Jesus as “the Father” in the Final Testament.

However, there is a deity identified as both “the Self-existent” and “the Emissary of the Self-existent,” seen by many in the First Testament. He is actually the Representative (Angel) of God or the Glory of God.  He is the One assigned to Israel in Exodus 23:20-23, whom God called “My Emissary.” Being, in reality, the Glory of God, He is the One man can see, have seen and continues to see. He is the Self-existent [the Holy Spirit].

Before He took Jesus back to heaven, He was known as the Emissary of the Self-existent — Gen. 16:7-11; 22:11 and 15; Num. 22:22, 35; Jdg. 2:1 and 4; 5:23; 6:11-22; 13:3-21; 2 Sam. 24:16; 1 Kings 19:7; 2 Kings 1:15; 19:35; 1 Chr. 21:12-30; Ps. 34:7; 35:5 and 6; Zech. 1:11 and 12; 3:1 and 6; Zech. 12:8; Matt. 1:20 and 24; 2:13 and 19; 28:2; Luke 2:9 — however, by an arrangement between the Self-existent [the Invisible] and Jesus, in heaven, according to John 14 to 16, on His return to the earth, He became the Emissary of the Self-existent [the Invisible] and of Jesus (Acts 5:19; 7:30; 8:26; 12:7-23) and called the Commander of celestial-messengers - 1 Thess. 4:16 and Jude 1:9.  Just as an Ambassador of a country is the commander/head of all the staff (native and non-native) in the embassy/country, He became the head of all celestial-messengers as well as earthly messengers — Israel and the church (1 Sam. 3:10; Acts 13:2). Being the Emissary of God on earth, He is called in the First Testament, the Self-existent, the God of the whole earth (Ps. 97:5), God of the whole earth (Is. 54:5) and the Lord [Owner/Controller] of all the earth (Mic. 4:13; Zech. 4:14; 6:5) and in the Final Testament, the God of the earth (Rev. 11:4). He is the One called the Spirit of God in Gen. 1:2, to whom God directed His speech in Gen. 1:8-26.

Accordingly, in WET, He is identified as the Emissary of the Self-existent in the Gospels, but from Acts Of Jesus’ Ambassadors (WET), He is identified as both the Emissary of the Self-existent and as the Emissary of the Self-existent, the Son of man. (Jesus said that the Father, the invisible God, would send Him in His name – Jn. 14:26 – meaning, “as His Emissary”).

As a result, unlike in the First Testament where the Deity is revealed majorly in two Personalities - the Self-existent, the Invisible, and the Emissary of the Self-existent, the Invisible - three Personalities are revealed as deities in the Final Testament – the Self-existent, the Invisible, the Son [the Self-existent, the Son of man] and the Self-existent [the Holy Spirit] - the Emissary of the Self-existent, the Invisible, and of Jesus, the Self-existent, the Son of man. In all the letters, due to the newness of this revelation which was foreign to the Israelites and the main reason the Pharisees, the lawyers and the Sadducees opposed them vehemently, the ambassadors were deliberate in making sure that the three Personalities are plainly elucidated and distinguished. It is for this reason that the God generally taken to be the Self-existent in the First Testament and by all Israelites, is distinguished as the Self-existent, while Jesus the Anointed who came as human being to rescue man from the power of sin and to reconcile man to the Self-existent, the Invisible, is identified as His Son with the conjunction, “and,” in all the letters, showing them as two Entities or Personalities – Rom. 1:7; 1 Cor. 1:3; 2 Cor. 1:3; Gal. 1:3, Eph. 1:2, Phil. 1:2, Col. 1:2-3; 1 Thess. 1:1; 2 Thess. 1:2; 1 Tim. 1:2; 2 Tim. 1:2; Titus 1:4; Philemon 1:3; Heb. 1:1-2 and 13:20-21; James 1:1; 1 Pet. 1:1-2; 2 Peter 1:1-2; 1 John 1:3; 2 John 3; Jude 1 and 4; and Rev. 1:1-2, except in 3 John where Jesus is not mentioned at all. Because of that, the third Personality, the Self-existent, the Holy Spirit [the Emissary of the Self-existent, the Invisible], rather than being referred to as the Emissary of the Self-existent as in the First Testament, being now the Emissary of both the Self-existent and the Son, but specifically given to the Son to administer His body which is the church in this dispensation, is now known and addressed as the Self-existent, the Holy Spirit; the Name of the Self-existent, the Son of man; the Spirit of God or of the Self-existent, the Son of man; the Glory of God or of the Self-existent, the Son of man; or the Power of God or of the Self-existent, the Son of man.

To distinguish Him, from Gen. 2:4 onward, He is called the Self-existent, the Mighty, having shown Him as the One ordered by the Self-existent, the Invisible, to bring things into existence in Genesis 1.

Ignorance of this has led many translators to discountenance some names of God in the original manuscript of the Final Testament and the King James Version such as Jude 4. (Only this knowledge can make one to translate the Bible accurately and give the true meaning.)

For example, Romans:

“For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (KJV).

What the passage is revealing is that all – both foreign nationals and the Jews [Israelites] – have sinned and lost communion (partnership) with the Emissary of God or the Spirit of God. The whole human race lost communion (partnership) with Him in the fenced area [garden] of the pleasant land - Eden (Gen. 3:22-24), He was given to Israel in Exodus 23:20-23, but Israel too lost Him, and so, they were taken captive to Babylon after He departed from His holy dwelling - Ezek. 10:4, 18-19 - having warned them that He was going to leave them – Hosea 5:15; 9:12. By that, both foreign nationals [Gentiles] and the Israelites – all – lost communion with Him.

To buttress this, Paul later revealed that believers in Jesus regained communion (partnership) with Him, having been given back to us on the day of Pentecost, and so, now rejoice in the hope granted by Him, the Glory (Spirit) of God (Rom. 5:2).

To make readers know and be grounded in the truth and defend it biblically, the three Personalities in the Godhead – the Self-existent, the Invisible, Jesus [the Self-existent, the Son of man] and the Self-existent, the Holy Spirit [the Spirit of the Self-existent, the Invisible] – are clearly revealed in parenthesis.