In the twelfth ° ° year of Joram the son of Ahab king of Israel did Ahaziah the son of Jehoram king of Judah begin to reign.

And Mattaniah the son of Micha, the son of Zabdi, the son of Asaph, was the principal to begin the thanksgiving in prayer: and Bakbukiah the second among his brethren, and Abda the son of Shammua, the son of Galal, the son of Jeduthun.

For, lo, I begin to bring evil on the city which is called by my name, and should ye be utterly unpunished? Ye shall not be unpunished: for I will call for a sword upon all the inhabitants of the earth, saith the LORD of hosts.

Slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and women: but come not near any man upon whom is the mark; and begin at my sanctuary. Then they began at the ancient men which were before the house.

And shall begin to smite his fellowservants, and to eat and drink with the drunken;

Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance, and begin not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, That God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.

But and if that servant say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming; and shall begin to beat the menservants and maidens, and to eat and drink, and to be drunken;

When once ° the master of the house is risen up, and hath shut to the door, and ye begin to stand without, and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, Lord, open unto us; and he shall answer and say unto you, I know you not whence ye are:

Then shall ye begin to say, We have eaten and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our streets.

And he that bade thee and him come and say to thee, Give this man place; and thou begin with shame to take the lowest room.

29:20 Then Hezekiah the king. Once the temple had been cleansed, the worship services in the temple, with the offerings and the singing could begin. King Hezekiah himself took the lead in arranging and insisting that all be done in accordance with God’s instructions to David through His prophets (II Chronicles 29:25-27).

29:27 the song of the LORD began. It is significant that the songs could not begin before the offerings. Atonement for sin must precede rejoicing for salvation.

16:10 to see corruption. His Spirit descended into Sheol, but He returned to raise His own resting body before His flesh could begin to decay.

58:3 as soon as they be born. Infants naturally begin “speaking lies” and acting deceptively essentially as soon as they are born, for this is our inborn sin-nature, ever since Adam and Eve. It takes the new birth to give a person a true love and respect for the laws and character of God (Colossians 3:9-10).

91:1 dwelleth. Although the 91st psalm does not have a specifically named author, it is possible that it was written by Moses as a supplement to his previous psalm, Psalm 90. Both begin with the theme of God as the dwelling place of the believer, and have various other points of commonality in viewpoint. Both psalms are most easily understood in terms of the wanderings, hardships, and enemies of the Israelites during their forty years in the wilderness.

119:1 law of the LORD. The “law” (Hebrew torah) is the primary name for the Old Testament Scriptures as a whole, especially the Pentateuch. Of the eight different words used for the Scriptures in this remarkable psalm—the longest chapter in the Bible—“law” occurs most frequently. The psalm is an acrostic poem, with twenty-two stanzas, one for each letter of the Hebrew alphabet. The verses all begin with a particular letter in each verse of the stanza (aleph in the first stanza, beth in the second stanza). This structure is clearly intended to stress the literal (letter-by-letter, word-by-word) divine origin of the Scriptures (compare Christ’s testimony in Matthew 5:18). Practically every one of the 176 verses of the psalm uses one of these eight words in reference to the Scriptures. Six verses, however, do not (verses 3,37,90,91,122,132). This may suggest the tendency of man (often identified with the number six, as falling short of seven, the number of completeness—Revelation 13:18) to corrupt or dilute the Scriptures. On the other hand, six verses (16,43,48,160,168,172) contain two such references, so that the total number remains 176, equal to the number of verses. The whole psalm begins with a promise of blessing to those who study, believe and obey the Word of God!

20:11 Even a child. It is never too early to begin training a child in right and wrong and even explaining the way of salvation.

9:1 Galilee. This is the first indication that the region of Galilee, in Isaiah’s time a part of the northern kingdom that was so “afflicted” by the Assyrians, would eventually be the first area in Immanuel’s land to see “a great light” (Isaiah 9:2) when Immanuel would begin His preaching ministry (Matthew 4:12-17).

1:1 How. The book of Lamentations, written by the prophet Jeremiah, contains five poetic “laments,” three of which (Lamentations 1, 2, 4) begin with the sad exclamations “How!” The theme of the book is the prophet’s broken-hearted amazement at the terrible plight of the people who had been specially chosen and singularly blessed of God, but who now had been judged so severely for rejecting their God.

3:1 I am the man. The prophet, still placing himself in substitution for His sinning nation, here begins the central lamentation of the five. This is different than the two before and the one following, in that it has sixty-six verses instead of twenty-two. That is, the acrostic structure is in triplets of verses; the first three verses each begin with the letter aleph, the second three with the letter beth, and so on through the twenty-two letters. Each verse is quite brief, however, in contrast to the longer verses of the other four lamentations.