'First' in the Bible

Moreover, Jehoshaphat said to the king of Israel, “Please inquire first for the word of the Lord.”

Behold fire came down from heaven and consumed the first two captains of fifty with their fifties; but now let my life be precious in your sight.”

Now these are their settlements according to their camps within their borders. To the sons of Aaron of the families of the Kohathites (for theirs was the first lot),

Now the first who lived in their possessions in their cities were Israel, the priests, the Levites and the temple servants.

Now David had said, “Whoever strikes down a Jebusite first shall be chief and commander.” Joab the son of Zeruiah went up first, so he became chief.

Of the three in the second rank he was the most honored and became their commander; however, he did not attain to the first three.

Ezer was the first, Obadiah the second, Eliab the third,

These are the ones who crossed the Jordan in the first month when it was overflowing all its banks and they put to flight all those in the valleys, both to the east and to the west.

Because you did not carry it at the first, the Lord our God made an outburst on us, for we did not seek Him according to the ordinance.”

Then on that day David first assigned Asaph and his relatives to give thanks to the Lord.

The sons of Ladan were Jehiel the first and Zetham and Joel, three.

Jahath was the first and Zizah the second; but Jeush and Beriah did not have many sons, so they became a father’s household, one class.

The sons of Hebron were Jeriah the first, Amariah the second, Jahaziel the third and Jekameam the fourth.

The sons of Uzziel were Micah the first and Isshiah the second.

Now the first lot came out for Jehoiarib, the second for Jedaiah,

Of Rehabiah: of the sons of Rehabiah, Isshiah the first.

The sons of Hebron: Jeriah the first, Amariah the second, Jahaziel the third, Jekameam the fourth.

Now the first lot came out for Asaph to Joseph, the second for Gedaliah, he with his relatives and sons were twelve;

Also Hosah, one of the sons of Merari had sons: Shimri the first (although he was not the firstborn, his father made him first),

Jashobeam the son of Zabdiel had charge of the first division for the first month; and in his division were 24,000.

He was from the sons of Perez, and was chief of all the commanders of the army for the first month.

Now the acts of King David, from first to last, are written in the chronicles of Samuel the seer, in the chronicles of Nathan the prophet and in the chronicles of Gad the seer,

The wing of the other cherub, of five cubits, touched the wall of the house; and its other wing of five cubits was attached to the wing of the first cherub.

Now the rest of the acts of Solomon, from first to last, are they not written in the records of Nathan the prophet, and in the prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite, and in the visions of Iddo the seer concerning Jeroboam the son of Nebat?

Now the acts of Rehoboam, from first to last, are they not written in the records of Shemaiah the prophet and of Iddo the seer, according to genealogical enrollment? And there were wars between Rehoboam and Jeroboam continually.

Now, the acts of Asa from first to last, behold, they are written in the Book of the Kings of Judah and Israel.

Moreover, Jehoshaphat said to the king of Israel, “Please inquire first for the word of the Lord.”

Now the rest of the acts of Jehoshaphat, first to last, behold, they are written in the annals of Jehu the son of Hanani, which is recorded in the Book of the Kings of Israel.

Now the rest of the acts of Amaziah, from first to last, behold, are they not written in the Book of the Kings of Judah and Israel?

Now the rest of the acts of Uzziah, first to last, the prophet Isaiah, the son of Amoz, has written.

Now the rest of his acts and all his ways, from first to last, behold, they are written in the Book of the Kings of Judah and Israel.

In the first year of his reign, in the first month, he opened the doors of the house of the Lord and repaired them.

Now they began the consecration on the first day of the first month, and on the eighth day of the month they entered the porch of the Lord. Then they consecrated the house of the Lord in eight days, and finished on the sixteenth day of the first month.

Then Josiah celebrated the Passover to the Lord in Jerusalem, and they slaughtered the Passover animals on the fourteenth day of the first month.

and his acts, first to last, behold, they are written in the Book of the Kings of Israel and Judah.

Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia—in order to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah—the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he sent a proclamation throughout his kingdom, and also put it in writing, saying,

Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he sent a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and also put it in writing, saying:

From the first day of the seventh month they began to offer burnt offerings to the Lord, but the foundation of the temple of the Lord had not been laid.

Yet many of the priests and Levites and heads of fathers’ households, the old men who had seen the first temple, wept with a loud voice when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, while many shouted aloud for joy,

However, in the first year of Cyrus king of Babylon, King Cyrus issued a decree to rebuild this house of God.

In the first year of King Cyrus, Cyrus the king issued a decree: ‘Concerning the house of God at Jerusalem, let the temple, the place where sacrifices are offered, be rebuilt and let its foundations be retained, its height being 60 cubits and its width 60 cubits;

The exiles observed the Passover on the fourteenth of the first month.

For on the first of the first month he began to go up from Babylon; and on the first of the fifth month he came to Jerusalem, because the good hand of his God was upon him.

Then we journeyed from the river Ahava on the twelfth of the first month to go to Jerusalem; and the hand of our God was over us, and He delivered us from the hand of the enemy and the ambushes by the way.

But the exiles did so. And Ezra the priest selected men who were heads of fathers’ households for each of their father’s households, all of them by name. So they convened on the first day of the tenth month to investigate the matter.

They finished investigating all the men who had married foreign wives by the first day of the first month.

Then my God put it into my heart to assemble the nobles, the officials and the people to be enrolled by genealogies. Then I found the book of the genealogy of those who came up first in which I found the following record:

Then Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly of men, women and all who could listen with understanding, on the first day of the seventh month.

He read from the book of the law of God daily, from the first day to the last day. And they celebrated the feast seven days, and on the eighth day there was a solemn assembly according to the ordinance.

We will also bring the first of our dough, our contributions, the fruit of every tree, the new wine and the oil to the priests at the chambers of the house of our God, and the tithe of our ground to the Levites, for the Levites are they who receive the tithes in all the rural towns.

Then I had the leaders of Judah come up on top of the wall, and I appointed two great choirs, the first proceeding to the right on top of the wall toward the Refuse Gate.

and were close to him: Carshena, Shethar, Admatha, Tarshish, Meres, Marsena and Memucan, the seven princes of Persia and Media who had access to the king’s presence and sat in the first place in the kingdom—

In the first month, which is the month Nisan, in the twelfth year of King Ahasuerus, Pur, that is the lot, was cast before Haman from day to day and from month to month, until the twelfth month, that is the month Adar.

Then the king’s scribes were summoned on the thirteenth day of the first month, and it was written just as Haman commanded to the king’s satraps, to the governors who were over each province and to the princes of each people, each province according to its script, each people according to its language, being written in the name of King Ahasuerus and sealed with the king’s signet ring.

“Were you the first man to be born,Or were you brought forth before the hills?

“He is the first of the ways of God;Let his maker bring near his sword.

He named the first Jemimah, and the second Keziah, and the third Keren-happuch.

And smote all the firstborn in Egypt,The first issue of their virility in the tents of Ham.

Honor the Lord from your wealthAnd from the first of all your produce;

While He had not yet made the earth and the fields,Nor the first dust of the world.

The first to plead his case seems right,Until another comes and examines him.

“Then I will restore your judges as at the first,And your counselors as at the beginning;After that you will be called the city of righteousness,A faithful city.”

“Who has performed and accomplished it,Calling forth the generations from the beginning?‘I, the Lord, am the first, and with the last. I am He.’”

“Your first forefather sinned,And your spokesmen have transgressed against Me.

“Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts:‘I am the first and I am the last,And there is no God besides Me.

“Listen to Me, O Jacob, even Israel whom I called;I am He, I am the first, I am also the last.

“Come near to Me, listen to this:From the first I have not spoken in secret,From the time it took place, I was there.And now the Lord God has sent Me, and His Spirit.”

For thus says the Lord God, “My people went down at the first into Egypt to reside there; then the Assyrian oppressed them without cause.

“Surely the coastlands will wait for Me;And the ships of Tarshish will come first,To bring your sons from afar,Their silver and their gold with them,For the name of the Lord your God,And for the Holy One of Israel because He has glorified you.

“Israel was holy to the Lord,The first of His harvest.All who ate of it became guilty;Evil came upon them,” declares the Lord.’”

For I heard a cry as of a woman in labor,The anguish as of one giving birth to her first child,The cry of the daughter of Zion gasping for breath,Stretching out her hands, saying,“Ah, woe is me, for I faint before murderers.”

“But go now to My place which was in Shiloh, where I made My name dwell at the first, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of My people Israel.

I will first doubly repay their iniquity and their sin, because they have polluted My land; they have filled My inheritance with the carcasses of their detestable idols and with their abominations.”

The word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the people of Judah, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah (that was the first year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon),

I will restore the fortunes of Judah and the fortunes of Israel and will rebuild them as they were at first.

the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the voice of those who say,“Give thanks to the Lord of hosts,For the Lord is good,For His lovingkindness is everlasting”;and of those who bring a thank offering into the house of the Lord. For I will restore the fortunes of the land as they were at first,’ says the Lord.

“Take a scroll and write on it all the words which I have spoken to you concerning Israel and concerning Judah, and concerning all the nations, from the day I first spoke to you, from the days of Josiah, even to this day.

“Take again another scroll and write on it all the former words that were on the first scroll which Jehoiakim the king of Judah burned.

“Israel is a scattered flock, the lions have driven them away. The first one who devoured him was the king of Assyria, and this last one who has broken his bones is Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon.

Now it came about in the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the twelfth month, on the twenty-fifth of the month, that Evil-merodach king of Babylon, in the first year of his reign, showed favor to Jehoiachin king of Judah and brought him out of prison.

And each one had four faces. The first face was the face of a cherub, the second face was the face of a man, the third the face of a lion, and the fourth the face of an eagle.

Now in the eleventh year, on the first of the month, the word of the Lord came to me saying,

Now in the twenty-seventh year, in the first month, on the first of the month, the word of the Lord came to me saying,

In the eleventh year, in the first month, on the seventh of the month, the word of the Lord came to me saying,

In the eleventh year, in the third month, on the first of the month, the word of the Lord came to me saying,

In the twelfth year, in the twelfth month, on the first of the month, the word of the Lord came to me saying,

I will multiply on you man and beast; and they will increase and be fruitful; and I will cause you to be inhabited as you were formerly and will treat you better than at the first. Thus you will know that I am the Lord.

It had three guardrooms on each side; and its side pillars and its porches had the same measurement as the first gate. Its length was fifty cubits and the width twenty-five cubits.

The first of all the first fruits of every kind and every contribution of every kind, from all your contributions, shall be for the priests; you shall also give to the priest the first of your dough to cause a blessing to rest on your house.

‘Thus says the Lord God, “In the first month, on the first of the month, you shall take a young bull without blemish and cleanse the sanctuary.

“In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, you shall have the Passover, a feast of seven days; unleavened bread shall be eaten.

And Daniel continued until the first year of Cyrus the king.

In the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon Daniel saw a dream and visions in his mind as he lay on his bed; then he wrote the dream down and related the following summary of it.

The first was like a lion and had the wings of an eagle. I kept looking until its wings were plucked, and it was lifted up from the ground and made to stand on two feet like a man; a human mind also was given to it.

While I was contemplating the horns, behold, another horn, a little one, came up among them, and three of the first horns were pulled out by the roots before it; and behold, this horn possessed eyes like the eyes of a man and a mouth uttering great boasts.

The shaggy goat represents the kingdom of Greece, and the large horn that is between his eyes is the first king.

In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, of Median descent, who was made king over the kingdom of the Chaldeans—

in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, observed in the books the number of the years which was revealed as the word of the Lord to Jeremiah the prophet for the completion of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely, seventy years.

On the twenty-fourth day of the first month, while I was by the bank of the great river, that is, the Tigris,

Then he said to me, “Do not be afraid, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart on understanding this and on humbling yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to your words.