🐾 Hebrew term: “Alphabetic acrostic” · Hebrew alphabet: 22 letters (from ת ... א, aleph to tav).

📜 What Is an Acrostic?

In Hebrew poetry, an acrostic poem uses the letters of the Hebrew alphabet in order to begin each line or stanza. It’s a literary form that shows order, completeness, and devotion — the poet takes all the letters from A to Z (or rather, Aleph to Tav) and weaves them into a full expression of grief, praise, or prayer.

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Strong’s (Hebrew): H2617 · Transliteration: ḥesed · Hebrew: חֶסֶד · Pronounced: HEH-sed

Strong’s (Greek): G26 · Transliteration: agápē · Greek: ἀγάπη · Pronounced: ah-GAH-pay

🐾 “The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning.” — Lamentations 3:22–23

📜 The Setting

Lamentations is a collection of five poems grieving the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BCE. The city has been besieged, burned, and emptied; the temple is gone; survivors sit amid ruins. The speaker’s voice (traditionally linked to the prophet Jeremiah) weeps over “Daughter Zion” and wrestles with God’s justice, human sin, and the shocking loss of home and worship.

🐾 “But Daniel resolved that he would not defile himself…” — Daniel 1 : 8

📜 The Setting

When Jerusalem fell to Babylon in 605 BCE, a young Judean noble named Daniel was taken captive along with others of Israel’s royal and educated class. Transported nearly 1,000 km east to the imperial capital, he was trained for service in the court of King Nebuchadnezzar II. There, surrounded by pagan culture and pressure to conform, Daniel determined to remain faithful to the God of his fathers.

🐾 “Can these bones live again?” — Ezekiel 37:3

📜 The Setting

Ezekiel lived among the Jewish exiles in Babylon, beside the River Chebar. Once a priest, now a prophet, he was called to speak to a people far from home. While Jeremiah warned those left in Jerusalem and Daniel served in the royal court, Ezekiel carried God’s word to the captives.

Even in exile, God had not left His people.

You have seen that the Pharisees were born out of the necessity.  They were captives in a faraway land (Babylon) with no Temple and no ‘promised land’. What was their identity?  What was an Israelite (Jew) without a home and a Temple? How do they maintain national identity and worship YHWH in captivity? So, we have looked at how the Sabbath was a bone of contention between the Pharisees and Jesus.

Warning: Do not look at this cheat sheet until you have SOSed the scriptures in the Samaritan Articles.  You will only be robbing yourself of what the Holy Spirit was going to give you.

🐾 Zuko Explains – Samaria Travel & Encounters

🐾 The straw that broke the camel's back... Let’s pin down who the king was and what the letters said, step by step.

📜 The Biblical Account — Ezra 4

After Zerubbabel and Jeshua began rebuilding the Temple in Jerusalem (around 537–520 BCE), the surrounding peoples — including “the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin” (the Samaritans and others settled by the Assyrians) — offered to help.