To sum up, it should be said that the books of Maccabees abound in stories about feats for faith in God and examples of courage. In times of persecution by the pagans, Christians drew from the books of Maccabees edifying examples of patience and firmness.

The Last Years Before the Coming of the Savior

Further events in the life of the Jewish people did not make it into the Bible. In 63 B.C., the Holy Land was conquered by the Roman general Pompey. From that time on, Palestine, with its four provinces, became subject to Rome and paid tribute to it. Soon power was concentrated in the hands of a cunning Edomite named Antipater, who managed to gain the trust of Rome. From Antipater, power passed to his son, the cruel Herod the Great, who in 37 B.C. declared himself "king of the Jews." He was the first king to call himself Jewish without being of Jewish descent. Under him, in the small city of Bethlehem, the true King and Savior of the world, Christ, was born. Thus was fulfilled the prophecy of the Patriarch James, spoken two thousand years before the birth of Christ: "The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the lawgiver from her loins, until the Mediator comes, and to Him shall be the obedience of the nations" (Gen. 49:9-11).

4. Teaching books

Content:

Introduction. The Book of Job. Psalter. The meaning of the Psalter. The Book of Proverbs of Solomon. The Book of Ecclesiastes. The Book of the Song of Songs. The Book of the Wisdom of Solomon. The Book of the Wisdom of Jesus, the Son of Sirach. Conclusion on the Teaching Books. Selected parables.

"The Lord gives wisdom; out of His mouth is knowledge and understanding"

(Proverbs of Solomon 3:6).

Introduction

In the Bible there are books of moral and edifying content, which are usually called "didactic". In comparison with the books of Moses, which contain direct and obligatory commandments of God, the teaching books are written with the aim of disposing and encouraging a person to a pious way of life. They teach a person to build his life so that it is blessed by God, brings prosperity and peace of mind. This group includes the books of Job, Psalms, Proverbs of Solomon, Ecclesiastes, the Song of Songs, the Wisdom of Solomon and the Wisdom of Jesus the son of Sirach.

In form, most of the Old Testament teaching books are poetic works written in the Hebrew original in verse. A feature of Hebrew versification, noticeable even in translations into other languages, is poetic parallelism. It consists in the fact that the writer's thought is expressed not in one sentence at once, but in several, mostly in two, which together reveal the thought by comparison or opposition, or justification. This is the so-called synonymous, antithetic, and synthetic parallelism. As examples of various poetic parallelisms, the following passages from the Psalter can be cited: