By Bob Wilkin

For the past four years, Scott Sayre has headed a large team of writers and editors who are working to produce the Grace Old Testament Commentary. The GES Board began discussing this project in August of 2020. In August of 2021, we laid out a three-to-five-year plan, including authors and deadlines. By January of 2022, work had already been done on many of the commentaries.

Last year we decided to divide the commentary into three volumes due to its large size. Volume 1 covers the Pentateuch: Genesis (Wilkin), Exodus (Stevens), Leviticus (Wilkin), Numbers (Pierce), and Deuteronomy (Yates).

Philippe Sterling, Ken Yates, and I have been doing final exegetical and theological editing of Volume 1 since the summer. We are on track to have it in print by the 2026 National Conference in May. Pre-orders will be taken during March and April. See the bookstore on pg. 28 or visit our website.

Sam Marr’s sister, Anneliese (aka Anto) Marr, is designing the cover. What you see here is the draft version.

Below are short samples from each of the five books of Volume 1.

GENESIS

3:14-15. The LORD God pronounced judgment on the three principals here, in reverse order…

Genesis 3:15 is the protoevangelium, the first gospel. The Lord prophesied about His own death as a victory over Satan. The Seed of the woman (Jesus Christ) shall bruise your [Satan’s] head, a mortal wound, and you shall bruise His heel, a reference to the death of Messiah. Paradoxically, by dying on the cross, the Lord Jesus defeated Satan. That is true in the Christian life as well. When we suffer for Christ, we are victorious over the devil.

EXODUS

15:1-2. Deliverance prompted Moses and the people to praise the LORD for His victory over the horse and its rider, whom He had thrown into the sea! Moses declared his loyalty to the LORD and resolved: I will praise Him… I will exalt Him. Believers in the coming Tribulation “who have victory over the beast” in Rev 15:2 will echo this song: “They sing the song of Moses… saying: ‘Great and marvelous are Your works, Lord God Almighty…O King of the saints!’” (Rev 15:3). The victory song by Moses and the Israelites foreshadows victory through Christ, the coming triumphant King.

LEVITICUS

26:40-45. This amazing chapter ends with the prospect of a time when Israel will confess their iniquity, humble their hearts, and accept their guilt. When that happens, God will remember His covenant with Jacob, and…with Isaac… and with Abraham. The patriarchs are listed in reverse order. The normal order, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, occurs nineteen times in the OT and eight times in the NT.

Even while the Jewish people were in captivity, God did not cast them away. Nor did He break His covenant with them. Israel returned to the land for over 500 years. But when it rejected the Lord Jesus Christ, Jerusalem was destroyed, over one million died, and the people were scattered.

NUMBERS

21:9. With great haste, Moses made a serpent of bronze (nekhosheth), the same material covering the altar on which priests burned sin offerings (Exod 27:1-8). He then affixed the serpent to a tall pole (nes), used for hoisting a banner or standard (cf. Exod 17:5; Isa 11:12). The sign became visible to everyone in the camp, including the mixed multitude. A seraph’s biteⁱ was not only painful, but fatal (v 6). Once the bronze serpent was lifted up, word spread quickly that whoever looked upon it, even momentarily, would be healed and live.

Continuous gazing was not required, nor was any additional action (cf. Ps 22:27; Isa 45:22; John 3:14). Those who heard but refused to look remained condemned to die (cf. John 3:18).

The bronze serpent had no intrinsic power to deliver anyone but served as a type or symbol of Messiah’s expiatory work. Yahweh alone had the power to heal the sting of death (Hos 13:14; 1 Cor 15:55). In this instance, He directed Moses to forge an instructive tool that would prove useful in the hands of faithful teachers pointing people toward the faith of Abraham (Gen 15:6). In time, Israel treated the bronze serpent as a false object of worship, burning incense to it (2 Kgs 18:4). In much the same way, people today ascribe miraculous properties to purported slivers of the “true cross,” relics of the saints, the Shroud of Turin, etc.

DEUTERONOMY

6:4-5. These verses contain the great Shema, based on the Hebrew word for the first word: “Hear.” Israel was to remember that their God is One (monotheism). This is the very foundation of the covenant He made with them—there is no other God. Because of what He had done for them, they were to love Him with every part of their being. The NT equivalent is found in 1 John 4:10, 19.

The unity of God does not deny the Trinity. God is one Being, but three Persons. A careful study of OT verses that refer to Yahweh and are quoted in the NT shows that many OT references to Yahweh referred to the Lord Jesus Christ. Compare, for example, Isa 40:3 and Matt 3:3, Isa 6:1-5 and John 12:41, and Isa 45:23 and Phil 2:10. Yahweh sometimes referred to God the Father and sometimes God the Son.

CONCLUSION

We are very thankful to Scott Sayre and his team for all the hard work they have done. Work continues on Volumes 2 and 3 even as Volume 1 is about to go to press. We hope to have Volume 2 out by May 2027 and Volume 3 by May 2028.

Thanks to all of you who have prayed and financially supported GES. This project is a partnership of many people.

If you like steep discounts, you might want to pre-order Volume 1 before the end of April. Preorders will be mailed out in late May and early June.

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Bob Wilkin is Executive Director of Grace Evangelical Society. He and Sharon live in Highland Village, TX. He has racewalked twelve marathons.

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ⁱ Seraph is the Hebrew word for serpent.