Week 32 Haggai
Most things that have been organized could have been organized differently.
I was reminded that the bible could have been organized differently while I was reading Haggai today.
Approximately 641 pages ago I was reading Ezra. Ezra’s story was about how the Jews in Babylon returned to Jerusalem after the exile. They began rebuilding the temple. Then they stopped rebuilding it. I flipped back to Ezra 5. About sixteen years had passed and: at that time the prophets Haggai and Zechariah son of Iddo prophesied in the name of the God of Israel to the Jews in Judah and Jerusalem.
Haggai told them they needed to restart the project. Which they did.
I sat looking at the verse I read twelve weeks ago where Ezra named Haggai, wondered why I had to wait three months to find out who he was.
With a bit of editorial work I could pretty easily insert the content of the book of Haggai between Ezra 5:2 and Ezra 5:3. That way Haggai would appear exactly when and where he’s supposed to appear.
But whoever all organized the content of the bible decided to group the short prophets in a short-prophets-section at the end of the OT.
Which is an okay decision.
But not the only possible decision.
Which reminds me that being mentally wide-awake can be useful in keeping bible content from getting away on me.
Note: quote from Ezra 5:1 (NLT)