It is a word we use as Christians, probably everyday,אָמֵן (amen). It is first used in Numbers 5:22, and appears in duplicate, 'Amen, Amen'. Amen is also the last word of the Bible found in Revelation 22:21(NIV); 'The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God's people. Amen' (Ἀμήν) as well as a title for Christ! In its earliest uses in the Old Testament it is used as a declaration of agreement and support; famously at Mount Ebal.

Exodus 33 is one of those well known passages that has been talked about and written about for generations – for good reason. In the text the Israelites find themselves at Mount Horeb (probably Mount Sinai but it could equally be one of six or seven peaks surrounding the valley where the Israelites camped). Moses has just returned from Sinai, where he’d been for forty days, and in his absence things had started to descend into moral and spiritual chaos.

When Jesus met the woman at the well, it wasn’t just "any well", it was Jacob's well. Interestingly, the well is not mentioned anywhere in the Hebrew bible, and yet, by the time of Jesus it was clearly identified as belonging to the patriarch Jacob. Knowing how to find water, and dig wells, was a vital skill in the land of ancient Palestine – Abraham probably dug a well at Beersheba (modern Be'er Sheva) and Isaac certainly did.

The account of the LORD’s descent on to Mount Sinai in Exodus 19 is full of surprises. Moses alone is permitted to go up to the LORD, and God firmly instructs him to ‘“Go down and warn the people so they do not force their way through to see the LORD and many of them perish”’ (Exodus 19:21 NIV). The real surprise is found in the next verse where God states: ‘“Even the priests, who approach the LORD, must consecrate themselves, or the LORD will break out against them” (Exodus 19:22 NIV).

The book of Jeremiah is well known for its ‘prophetic parables’. These are short, acted parables that communicate God’s message in a dynamic and even shocking way. The parables punctuate Jeremiah’s prophetic ministry, and they deliver a surprising amount of prophetic depth to the message of the prophet. Those of chapter 13 serve as good examples of this important prophetic device.

‘Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God’ - Ephesians 6:17

The famous figure of speech in which Paul compares the life of a Christian with a Roman soldier, found in Ephesians 6, would almost certainly have had Hebraic connotations in the mind of Paul. As a prisoner, possibly in Herod’s palace at Caesarea, and under Roman guard, the analogy was undoubtedly a fitting one, and yet Paul may have also been drawing upon a passage found in Isaiah 59 concerning the end time coming of Yahweh.