Rebuilding Zion: An Exposition of the Books of the Exile (Revised)

Frank Binford Hole (1874-1964), evangelist, teacher and author, for many years edited and contributed to two periodicals: "Edification" and later "Scripture Truth". Between 1959 and 1961 he wrote a series of articles for "Scripture Truth" in which he worked systematically, chapter by chapter, through the books of the Old Testament prophets of the Exile: Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi.

Today, in the twenty-first century, they provide as valuable an aid to the application of scriptural principles to Old Testament interpretation as when they were first written. In his clear pithy style, the writer examines these prophecies concerning Jesus Christ and God's past and future plans for Israel. Difficulties in interpretation are not avoided, nor the need to examine the practical response which understanding truth requires from Christians today.

"To say that an outstanding feature of the present time is the almost universal spirit of unrest is to utter merely a platitude. The thing is so obtrusive as to be patent even to a frivolous mind. Clashing of interests, conflict, upheaval and unrest are no new things in the earth. When, since the entrance of sin, did they not exist? Admitting this, however, we venture to affirm that the present epidemic of unrest and upheaval has assumed such proportions that it may justly be termed the leading feature of the age: and further, with the Bible as our guide, to anticipate that it will increase yet more.

It is practically universal in its extent. ... The unrest today is touching every department of human thought and activity. It never did this before. Today violent changes are marked in all directions. Men's minds are working with almost superhuman energy in the manufacture of new ideas and theories: social, political, and theological.

What does it all mean? That is the question which surely must be uppermost in the mind of every sober observer. For the Christian, who bows to the Word of God, and accepts the light it sheds, there is no difficulty in discovering the answer. Human histories give us at the best imperfect details of a few of the happenings of time; the Bible alone reveals to us the golden thread of Divine purpose, running through all history. Let us attempt to discern this by the guidance of the Holy Spirit of God, and so obtain the Divine answer."