Bible Quiz
005
Sons and Daughters in Ancient Israel
1. Sent by her father to care for her “sick” brother, this daughter of an early Israelite king was raped by the devious brother and then unceremoniously thrown out.
2. Due to a woman’s jealousy, this son and his mother were sent away by the father with only bread and a skin of water.
3. Name the Widow who, unlike her sister-in-law, preferred to leave Moab and accompany her widowed mother-in-law back to Judah.
4 Which early Israelite king was permitted to carry out a major building project in Jerusalem that had been forbidden to his father?
5. These two priestly sons tended the ark of the Lord at Shiloh, but their sins brought about the downfall of their father’s priestly house.
6. The priest Eli mistook this famous prophet’s mother for a drunk, but eventually gave his blessing upon her prayer for a child. Who was the child?
7. The Lord killed this son of Judah for deliberately refusing to get his brother’s widow pregnant.
8. Name the King’s son who shot arrows, not to kill David, as his father would have wished, but to warn David to flee.
9. Expecting to be king, this son of David rode in a chariot with 50 men running before him and plotted with Joab and Abiathar.
10. Which leader in early Israel tore down his father’s altar to Ba’al, but did so at night for fear of his family and neighbors?
Prepared by Alan J. Hauser, Department of Philosophy and Religion, Appalachian State University, Boone, North Carolina.
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Answers
1. Tamar. When David’s oldest son Amnon became infatuated with his half-sister Tamar, he feigned illness and convinced his father to send in Tamar to care for him. He raped her and then said, “Arise, be gone” (2 Samuel 13:15).
2. Ishmael and Hagar. After Sarah bore Isaac, she became jealous of Abraham’s older son Ishmael, born to Sarah’s Egyptian slave-woman Hagar, and told Abraham, “Cast out this slave woman with her son; for the son of this slave woman shall not be heir with my son Isaac” (Genesis 21:10). Despite his initial reluctance, Abraham did as Sarah bid after God commanded him to “do as she tells you…” (verse 12).
3. Ruth. After Naomi and her two daughters-in-law, Ruth and Orpah, were all widowed, Naomi journeyed back to Judah. She urged both daughters-in-law to remain in Moab, and Orpah complied. Ruth, however, clung to Naomi, saying “Entreat me not to leave you…your people shall be my people, and your god my God” (Ruth 1:16).
4. Solomon. His father David had an intense desire to build a temple to the Lord in Jerusalem, but the word of the Lord came to David saying, “You shall not build a house to my name, because you have shed so much blood before me upon the earth” (1 Chronicles 22:8). David was told that, instead, Solomon his son would “build a house for my name” (verse 10).
5. Hophni and Phinehas. Eli’s two sons treated the sacrifices to the Lord improperly and lay with the women who kept the entrance to the sanctuary at Shiloh. As a result, a man of God came to Eli and told him, “the Lord declares: … ‘I will cut off your strength and the strength of your father’s house, so that there will not be an old man in your house’ ” (1 Samuel 2:30–31).
6. Samuel. The great prophet’s mother Hannah was barren and, to add insult to injury, her husband’s other wife, Peninnah, was quite fertile. When Hannah prayed silently to the Lord, only moving her lips, Eli said to her, “How long will you be drunken? Put away your wine from you” (1 Samuel 1:14). Once he learned of Hannah’s true plight, Eli said, “Go in peace, and the God of Israel grant your petition which you have made to him” (verse 17). Hannah subsequently bore Samuel and brought him to Eli to be raised as a servant of the Lord in the sanctuary in Shiloh.
7. Onan. When the Lord slew Judah’s oldest son Er because of Er’s wickedness, Judah sent his second son Onan in to Er’s widow Tamar to raise up a child for his dead brother. This was in accord with the law concerning the responsibility of a man for the widow of his brother (Deuteronomy 25:5–10). Onan, however, “knew that the offspring would not bear his name; so when he went in to his brother’s wife he spilled the semen on the ground, lest he should give offspring to his brother” (Genesis 38:9). The Lord then slew Onan.
8. Jonathan. Knowing his father Saul’s intent to kill David, Jonathan carried out a prearranged warning to David. Jonathan went to the stone of Ezel accompanied by a young boy. Jonathan shot three arrows and then called to the boy that the arrows were “beyond” him—a warning to David, hidden nearby, that he must flee (1 Samuel 20:18–42).
9. Adonijah. When David was quite old, Adonijah, his oldest living son, paraded around as the crown prince and threw a party to celebrate his upcoming rise to the throne. However, the quickness of the prophet Nathan and David’s wife Bathsheba in obtaining David’s help allowed Solomon to be anointed king. When news of Solomon’s anointing reached Adonijah’s party, “all the guests of Adonijah trembled, and rose, and each went his own way” (1 Kings 1:49).
10. Gideon. Gideon’s father Joash had an altar to Ba’al, which Yahweh commanded Gideon to tear down. Gideon “did as the Lord had told him; but because he was too afraid of his family and the men of the town to do it by day, he did it by night” (Judges 6:27). When the men of the city subsequently wanted to kill Gideon for tearing down the altar, Joash intervened on his son’s behalf.
Sons and Daughters in Ancient Israel
1. Sent by her father to care for her “sick” brother, this daughter of an early Israelite king was raped by the devious brother and then unceremoniously thrown out.
2. Due to a woman’s jealousy, this son and his mother were sent away by the father with only bread and a skin of water.
3. Name the Widow who, unlike her sister-in-law, preferred to leave Moab and accompany her widowed mother-in-law back to Judah.
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