I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Genesis 33-35.

Even in today’s passage we don’t find out why Esau had set out to meet Jacob with an army of 400 men.  However, it seems clear to me that it was not out of hostility to Jacob.  In fact, it seems obvious that Esau was glad to see his brother once more.  There are some interesting things which can be gleaned from the interactions between Esau and Jacob in this passage.  First, Esau initially refuses the gifts which Jacob had sent ahead of himself to Esau, but accepts them upon Jacob’s insistence.  

I am going to write what I think happened here.  Esau had heard that Jacob was coming home, being pursued by a hostile force. So, Esau gathered his men and marched out to protect his brother.  Esau did not realize that Jacob had become a force in his own right and anticipated welcoming him into his “household”.  Esau anticipated bringing Jacob under his protection.  Therefore, Esau was surprised to discover the size and strength of Jacob’s household.  Nevertheless, he was willing to bring his brother under his protection.  Especially since doing so would have made Esau a power in the region.  However, Jacob had no interest in becoming a subordinate in someone else’s household after gaining his independence from Laban.  But, Jacob did not wish to offend his brother by outright rejecting him.  When the brothers parted I believe it was in mutual agreement that they would live separately but without any hostility.  We see that the brothers were amicable from the end of the passage when they came together to bury their father Isaac.

Not long after settling near the town of Shechem, the ruler of Shechem tried to integrate Jacob, his family, and his wealth into the town.  The son of the ruler raped Jacob’s daughter thinking that Jacob would then have no choice but allow her to marry him afterwards, thus opening the door to the whole family intermarrying with the people of the town.  Jacob was not receptive to this idea, but felt that he was in a weak position relative to the people of the region.  However, Jacob’s sons, especially Dinah’s full brothers, were incensed at the idea that Shechem thought he could get away with doing this.  Proving they were their father’s sons, they deceived the local men into thinking they had won and convinced them all to be circumcised.  While the men were recovering, Jacob’s sons attacked the town, killed all of the men, and took all of the wealth, women, and children for themselves.

Jacob, fearing that the people of the area would conclude that he and his family were bandits, retreated to Bethel and rededicated himself and his family to serving God.  I suspect that Jacob was also afraid that his sons would get a taste for being raiders and bandits.  He knew that they could not survive if they roused the people of the region against them.  This explains his renewed insistence that his entire household give up the worship of other gods and dedicate themselves to the Lord.  The passage does not tell us this, but I suspect that during this time Jacob refreshed his family’s awareness of the stories which had been passed down to him from the time of Noah.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Genesis 31-32.

I have never quite known what to make of the fact that Rachel stole Laban’s idols when she fled from him with Jacob.  Certainly the fact that she took them is an important part of the story.  Perhaps part of the reason they are mentioned is to show why Laban was so angry about Jacob’s departure, but that seems like an unnecessary addition.  As I think about it I come to the conclusion that this is included to show us how even the Patriarch’s struggled with idolatry.  Even though they had the stories passed down from Noah about who God truly was, they still experienced the temptation to worship other gods. And even though they remained a separate people from the people among whom they lived, the temptation to adopt the worship practices of those around them was always there.

When Jacob left his meeting with Laban he sent messengers ahead to let Esau know he was coming home.  However, the messengers discovered that Esau was already coming to meet Jacob with an army of 400 men.  We never learn what prompted Esau to set out with this small army.  Was he coming to attack Jacob as Jacob feared? Or had he heard of Laban’s pursuit of Jacob and was he coming to defend his brother?  In either case, Jacob responded to the perceived threat by turning to God.  It was only after asking God for His protection that Jacob sent out his gifts to Esau.  Here is the lesson for us: Jacob called on God for His protection and aid, but did not then just sit back and wait.  He did what he could to persuade his brother to forgive him for his past sins.  

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Genesis 26-28.

There is no reason to believe that the Abimelech who Isaac interacted with was the same as the one whom his father, Abraham, had interacted with.  In fact, there is reason to believe that Abimelech was more of a title than proper name.  One thing we do see is that Isaac had a similar relationship with this Abimelech as Abraham had with the previous one.  First, he tells him and his people that his wife is his sister. Then he gets into repeated disputes over water rights with Abimelech’s servants. Finally, he enters into a treaty with Abimelech.  In both Abraham’s and Isaac’s case these events illustrate the trajectory of their lives.  At the first encounter, Abraham and Isaac were relatively weak compared to Abimelech.  As time went by they became more powerful until Abimelech was frightened that they might raid his lands causing him great problems.  

I have never quite known what to make of the story of Jacob stealing Esau’s blessing from their father Isaac.  We know from yesterday’s passage that Isaac favored Esau and Rebekah favored Jacob, but that does not fully explain Rebekah plotting to have Jacob steal Esau’s blessing.  I think that Rebekah did this more because of Esau’s wives than anything else.  Perhaps she even did it to set up the excuse to send Jacob to her brother to find a wife.  Perhaps the most telling part of all of this is that when Esau learned that Jacob had gone to his Uncle Laban’s to find a wife, he went to his Uncle Ishmael to obtain a third wife.  Esau had married his first two wives without consulting his parents.  When he realized how strongly his father disliked the local women, he went, without consulting either of his parents, to get a third whom he hoped would be more to their liking. 

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Genesis 24-25.

When Abraham sent his servant to find a wife for Isaac, there were two elements to his commission to the servant.  The first was to find a wife for Isaac from Abraham’s homeland from among his family.  The second was to under no circumstances ever take Isaac to that land.  If the servant could not find a woman to come to Canaan to be Isaac’s wife he was freed from his oath.  From this we see that it was very important to Abraham that Isaac marry a woman from the family traditions, but it was more important to him that Isaac not return to his homeland and get caught up in whatever was going on there.  It seems to me that Abraham wanted Isaac to have a wife who would reinforce the traditions he had taught Isaac against the traditions of the people among whom Isaac lived, but did not want him to experience the corruption of that tradition which was going on in Abraham’s homeland. 

We can take a lesson from how both Abraham’s servant and Rebekah behaved in this passage.   When Abraham’s servant arrived outside the town where Abraham’s brother had settled he asked God for guidance.  He did not just generically ask for guidance.  Instead, he made a very specific request, “I am going to do this. Let the woman you intend for Isaac respond in this way.”  By making his request for God’s guidance, he made sure that there could be no doubt about the answer he received.  We often fail to do this for one of two reasons.  We either lack faith that God will guide us, or we want to do something that we know is not His will.

Rebekah’s actions are simpler.  She showed great hospitality to a stranger and was greatly rewarded for doing so.  This reflects well on her parents.  She did not even think about it.  When he asked for a drink of water, she gave him one and as soon as he had drunk she offered to draw water for his camels.  I note that she did not actually wait for his reply before starting to provide the camels with water.  Rebekah was well rewarded for her hospitality, but she did so without a thought to receiving such a reward. 

One final note: Rebekah was eager to leave with Abraham’s servant to go marry Isaac.  Perhaps this was just wishing to get out of her father’s house.  Or perhaps this was a similar feeling to why Abraham had left that area many years before.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Genesis 21-23.

Just as God had promised, Sarah bore Abraham a son, who was named Isaac.  When Isaac was about to be weaned, Ishmael, his older half-brother pulled a typical teenager faux-pas.  Ishmael made fun of his baby brother.  Now this may have been simple teenager high spirits, or it may have been spoiled brat bullying, or anywhere in between.  The passage does not make clear.  I suspect it was closer to bullying than not.  Whatever the case may be, Sarah insisted that Ishmael and his mother be sent away.  After some serious soul searching, Abraham complied.  Now Abraham was committed to Isaac as his heir and the heir to God’s promise to him.

I want to take a side note here from my main theme to note that Ishmael at this point was fourteen years old at this point.  The way we often read this story, and the wording makes this easy, we tend to think of Ishmael as a young child when he was sent away.  In fact, he is a young man at this point.  Still too young to truly be out on his own, but old enough to start taking some adult responsibilities.  The fact that Hagar led him around the desert aimlessly until their supplies ran out and then left him under a bush tells us something about their relationship.  Surely by this time, Abraham had taught Ishmael something about navigating the territory they lived in.  Yet he either did not provide any guidance to his mother, or she ignored it.

The fact that Abraham had previously sent Ishmael away puts his actions to sacrifice Isaac into a different light then if Ishmael was still around.  After years of not having an heir of his body, then a few years of having one who was half-Egyptian rather than fully of his culture, Abraham finally had an heir who checked all of the boxes.  However, surely if he was truly dedicated to his god, he would sacrifice this son to him, as his neighbors did to theirs.  I do not know whether God spoke to Abraham in an actual voice as the passage implies or not, but a look at his interactions with those around him suggests that he would have certainly felt pressure to sacrifice Isaac from the practices of his neighbors.  Abraham was fully willing to sacrifice his family to server God, but God made it clear that not only does He not require it, doing so is a violation of His will.  We should be willing to risk our families in order to serve God, but God will never call us to a task which calls on us to sacrifice them.

The other two stories in today’s passage reflect Abraham putting down roots in this land.  In the first of these two stories, Abimelech, a Philistine king, approaches Abraham to make a treaty.  I am unsure what the significance is of the fact that he brought his army commander with him, but remember that later David entered into several treaties with people without his army commander, Joab, and Joab later killed those people.  During their negotiations Abraham complained about a well which Abimelech’s servants had forced him to stop using.  Abimelech denies any knowledge of this.  I do not think we are supposed to believe Abimelech’s claim, nor do I think that Abraham believed him.  That exchange was merely the opening for Abraham to establish that the well at Beersheba was his and gain Abimelech’s agreement.  In this exchange,  Abimelech agrees that he will not attempt to extend his territory any further into the area where Abraham grazes his flocks and Abraham agrees that his people will not raid Abimelech’s lands (nothing in the Bible suggests that Abraham’s people raided their neighbors, but we know from history that other nomads similar to Abraham did so).

The final story of today’s passage concerns Abraham obtaining a site to bury Sarah after her death.  When Sarah died near Hebron Abraham approached to local Hittite leaders for a burial site.  Their response was, “You are one of us.  Of course you may bury your wife in our cemetery.”  To which Abraham said, “No, I do not wish to bury her among your dead.  I would like this plot of land over here in which to bury her (and perhaps others who die in my household).”    Here once again Abraham is establishing ownership of some of the land separate from the people among whom he lives.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Genesis 19-20.

As a general rule, Christians have put too much emphasis on the desire of the men of Sodom to have sex with Lot’s visitors.  On the other hand, some of those who have pointed to the real problem illustrated in this story have downplayed it too much.  I think we can assume from the text that the fiance’s of Lot’s daughters were not part of the crowd outside his door that night, which suggests that there were also other men in Sodom who were not part of this crowd.  However, aside from Lot, none of the people of Sodom were willing to in any way rein in the excesses of the troublemakers who beset Lot’s guests.   The city had been taken over by its criminal element.

If we look at yesterday’s passage where Abraham bargained with God that God would not destroy Sodom if He found ten righteous people there, we see the impact a few righteous people make.  In Matthew 5:13 Jesus calls His followers the salt of the earth and warns against losing their saltiness.  In the same way that a little bit of salt transforms the taste of food, so a few righteous people transform the society around them.  The men of Sodom said that Lot was judging them because he protected the men to whom he had offered hospitality.  The lesson of this story is that if more of those in Sodom who were not taking part in the evil of the men outside Lot’s door had been willing to say that doing so was wrong, Sodom would not have been destroyed.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Genesis 16-18.

At one point in yesterday’s passage, Abram had complained to God that all of his wealth would be left to his servant because he had no son.  God promised Abram at that point that he would have a son.  In fact, God promised Abram that he would have as many descendants as there were stars in the sky.  Nevertheless, Sarai became convinced that she would never bear Abram a child and had Abram take her servant, Hagar, as a second wife.  I would like to write, “Needless to say, this did not end well.”  Unfortunately, it does need to be said.  This did not end well.  This is one of several passages where the Bible makes the subtle point that marriage is best when it is one man with one woman.  Variations from that may work, but problems usually result.  However, despite the fact that Ishmael was the result of Abram and Sarai’s wavering faith, God blessed Ishmael.  

If the theory I presented yesterday concerning Terah and Abram being the keepers of the stories passed down from Noah is correct, it makes Abram’s concern for an heir more important and less selfish.  It also increases the importance of Abram’s heir being raised by Sarai/Sarah rather than by the Egyptian woman, Hagar because Sarai had been raised in the tradition while Hagar had not.  The other thing we have in today’s passage is the introduction of circumcision which set those who followed Abraham’s tradition, and he is now Abraham and no longer Abram,  apart from others who had versions of the stories going back to Noah.  Circumcision was not so much important to set those following Abraham’s traditions from those following the other related stories, but from those around them.  As time went on, those following the other traditions with stories going back to Noah tended to assimilate ever more into the other cultures around and become less faithful to the stories which had been passed down, while those who practiced circumcision kept being reminded of the importance of their stories and called back to God.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Genesis 12-15.

The passage does not say so explicitly, but it appears to me that when Terah, Abram’s father died, God called Abram to continue on his way to the land of Canaan.  The passage suggests that Abram was quite wealthy when he left Haran.  Nothing in the passage says this, but the feeling I get from it is that Abram felt unwelcome in Haran because of his belief in God, just as his father had felt unwelcome in Ur a generation earlier.  If we assume that we have the stories told in Genesis up until this point because Abram passed them on to his descendants we can see how this might have happened.  One of the many things skeptics of the Bible bring up is the similarities between the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Biblical account of the Flood.  Many people claim that the Biblical account of the Flood borrows, or is even derived from, the Epic of Gilgamesh.  However, what if the “borrowing” went the other direction?  

After the Flood, we have a story where Noah’s son Ham comes upon his father drunk and naked and brings this to his brother’s attention.  The implication in the passage was that Ham told his brothers so that they could join him in laughing at their father’s drunkenness.  The important part of this story for the moment is that Noah favored his son Shem as a result of this incident.  Abram was a direct descendant of Shem.  So, the descendants of Japheth and Ham went their own ways after the separation of languages and lost the stories from before the Flood, but Shem’s descendants remembered them and passed them down.

Some time later, there arose among those of Shem’s descendants given the task of remembering the stories the idea that they could gain greater power over their fellows by modifying those stories.  Thus arose the Epic of Gligamesh, a retelling of the Flood story which served the purposes of those who had gained political power in Mesopotamia.   This would have made life difficult for those who continued to faithfully tell the stories which had been passed down, Terah and his children.  I will note that scholars place the origins of the Epic of Gilgamesh at about the same time which other scholars place Abram (as a general rule, scholars who research the dates for the Epic of Gilgamesh are not researching the dates for Abram).  

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Genesis 8-11.

Yesterday, I commented that parts of that passage suggested that perhaps the Flood did not cover the entire earth, while other parts seem to state that it did.  Today’s passage supports the latter and not the former.  As soon as Noah and his family left the Ark, Noah offered a sacrifice of animals to God.  I find it noteworthy that Noah already had a list of animals which were appropriate to offer as sacrifices and animals which were inappropriate to offer.  

After Noah made his sacrifice to God, God swore to Himself that He would never again wipe out all life from the face of the earth for as long as the earth should endure. We rarely take note of the promise which the writer records God making to Himself when we discuss His promise to Noah and his sons made a few verses later. Having promised to Himself to never wipe out all life on earth until the day the earth comes to its end, God enters into a covenant with Noah and his descendants (which includes us). There are three elements to this covenant. First, God reaffirms Mankind’s dominion over the earth, but adds that animals are there for people to eat (in the Creation accounts God had only specified fruit as food for mankind). Second God declares that He requires the life of any creature which takes a human life. I will note that God specifies that humans should take the life of those who take a human life, which seems to be an exception to the rule about taking human life. Finally God presents the rainbow as evidence that He will never again wipe out all life with a flood. I will note once again that while this promise is only regarding flooding, God had previously promised to Himself not to destroy all life until the end of the earth itself.

The final element of today’s passage which I want to comment on is the beginning of Abram’s story, which is the account of Terah’s family. The story contains elements which intrigue me. First, when Terah set forth from Ur of the Chaldeans he was headed for the land of Canaan. However, he never got there because when he got to Haran, he settled there. Second, when he left Ur, only Abram, Sarai, Abram’s wife, and Lot, Abram’s nephew accompanied him. Nahor and his family appear to have stayed in Ur. Yet later it appears that Nahor’s family also moved from Ur. While nowhere in the Bible does it say this, I believe that Terah moved from Ur because he and his family continued to follow the accounts passed down to them from Noah while the rest of the people of Ur had chosen to worship according to other stories.