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

When Jacob and Esau met Jacob acknowledged that the bad blood between them was his fault.  Esau, on the other hand, made it clear that he forgave Jacob and invited Jacob, and his family, join his household.  Jacob politely declined Esau’s invitation.  I point this out because when this passage was explained to me as a child it was used as an example of Jacob’s trickery.  Those who explained it to me believed that Esau intended to force Jacob to become subordinate to himself.  I read this instead as Esau offering Jacob his protection.  In fact, the very next story highlights this.  If Jacob had accepted  Esau’s offer, Jacob would never have been in a position where Shechem would have raped his daughter.  Really, this story is really about Shechem and his father trying to force Jacob to accept a relationship with them similar to the one he rejected with his brother.  Jacob’s sons pretended to be intimidated into going along with Shechem’s plan, but not too intimidated.  Yet, after his sons gained their revenge, Jacob feared that the rest of the locals would come after him and his family.  And what was the result of all of this?  Jacob was reminded of the oath he swore at Bethel when he was heading to Haran all of those many years ago.  Jacob returned to Bethel and had his family begin to practice monotheism, worshiping only God.

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

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

Yesterday I wrote about Jacob’s wages from Laban and how he managed to grow his wealth by breeding Laban’s flocks so that the choicest offspring of each generation were those which belonged to Jacob.  When Jacob speaks to Leah and Rachel about leaving Laban, the way he describes his wages from Laban suggest that yesterday’s passage was a simplification of their deal and what happened.  This makes the first explanation I offered for how Jacob’s breeding program worked unlikely, but leaves the second two remain reasonable.  After some years, Jacob reviewed his situation and realized that he had reached the point where conflict with his in-laws was inevitable.  Further, he realized that those who lived in the region owed greater allegiance to his in-laws than to him.  I am sure Jacob’s decision to leave was one which he considered for some time before he became convinced that it was time to go.  It is not clear how God spoke to Jacob telling him to return to Canaan.  Perhaps Jacob heard a voice speaking to him, perhaps some other sign.  Perhaps even, as I suggested a few days ago, he received word from his mother that it was safe to come home.  His preparations when he heard that Esau was coming to meet him with 400 men suggests otherwise, although those preparations could have just been an excess of caution.

The night before Laban overtook Jacob, God spoke to him to say nothing either good or bad to Jacob.  I have wondered for some time if perhaps part of that message from God was news that Esau was coming with 400 men.  Laban would have known the bad blood between Esau and Jacob, but would also have realized that they were twin brothers.  He would not have known if Esau was coming to support his brother, or to kill him.  Even if Esau was still murderously angry with Jacob, he might not take kindly to someone else killing his brother.  However, Laban also would not have wanted to risk being pulled into Jacob’s side if Esau attacked him.  Perhaps God spoke to Laban by supernatural means, or perhaps Laban reacted to mundane information in the way in which God desired.  More importantly, God caused Jacob to have ill-will towards Laban which guaranteed that he would never return to Haran for aid.  Laban accused Jacob of stealing his household gods, which was nominally true since Rachel had indeed done so.  But Jacob was unaware that Rachel had done so and was therefore furious when Laban was unable to prove his accusation.  In fact, as I read this, Jacob interpreted this as Laban telling lies to stir up animosity among his relatives towards Jacob.  I think the thing which I get the most out of today’s passage is that God sometimes uses mundane information to speak His message to us and we need to be listening.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Genesis 29-30.

We have here a second example of polygamy.  And once again it does not go well.  There is clearly jealousy and rivalry between Leah and Rachel.  Which is all I am going to write about that today.  Over a period of time which is not clearly laid out, eleven sons are born to Jacob.  After the birth of Joseph, Jacob talks to Laban about leaving and returning to his homeland*.  Some people believe that Joseph was born seven years after Jacob married Rachel and that Jacob was just opening negotiations for his pay going forward.  It seems unlikely to me that the drama described as going on between Jacob’s wives could have taken place in just seven years.  In any case, Laban did not want Jacob to leave and asked him what it would take for him to stay and continue to manage Laban’s flocks (or a portion of them).  They reach an agreement which Laban promptly violates, just as he had the agreement about Jacob marrying Rachel after working for him for seven years.  Jacob  did not fuss about the fact that Laban had removed every speckled, spotted, or dark colored lamb from the herd, despite the fact that Laban had just agreed that those would be Jacob’s (Laban would certainly have argued that he had only agreed that those born going forward with those characteristics were to be Jacob’s).  Jacob had a breeding plan.  We know from modern study of breeding that looking at striped bits of wood as described would not increase the incidence of speckled, spotted, and dark colored lambs.  I think there are three possible explanations for what happened.  First, perhaps there was a chemical of some kind in the types of wood which Jacob chose which caused the flocks to give birth to offspring with the characteristics which Jacob desired.  Second. perhaps Jacob knew the flocks well enough to know which rams and ewes would be most likely to mate to produce offspring with the characteristics Jacob desired and he placed the wood there as misdirection.  Third,  God just chose to bless Jacob and caused his scheme to work even though there is no scientific explanation as to why it actually would work.  Personally, I think what happened was a combination of the second and third explanation.   I would like to point out that Jacob clearly successful at more than herding and breeding sheep and goats as the donkeys and camels he acquired would not have come from his deal with Laban.

*As a side note I want to point out that Jacob did not view Haran as his homeland even though his grandfather had come from there and most of his grandfather’s relatives lived there.

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

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

As I was reading this I was struck by something which does not fit with our usual understanding of Isaac (or even Abraham before him).  That something has several elements.  First, for some length of time Isaac lived in the city of Gerar.  Second, Isaac gained a great amount of wealth from farming.  Third, as part of gaining that wealth, Isaac also become militarily powerful.  We normally think of Isaac as being a nomadic herdsman, but this passage suggests that he spent a significant part of his life as a farmer.  This story also suggests to me that Isaac was contemporary with the early settlement by the Philistines on the Mediterranean coast, which would push the arrival of the Philistines back a couple hundred years from when conventional archeology dates it.

Next we have the story of Jacob stealing the blessing which Isaac intended for Esau.  I always feel bad for Esau in this story, but I also acknowledge that in some ways his loss of this blessing resulted from his lack of foresight in selling his birthright.  While we only have these two accounts of conflict between Esau and Jacob, it seems likely there were more.  Esau was impulsive and did not always think through the consequences of his actions.  In any case, Esau was murderously angry with Jacob, to the degree that Rebekah thought he might actually kill him given the opportunity.  So Rebekah arranged to send Jacob to her brother Laban for a few years.  There are two aspects to Jacob being sent off that we normally gloss over.  First, Rebekah said that she would send word to Jacob when he should return (might word from Rebekah had something to do with the timing of Jacob’s decision to leave Laban?). Second, Isaac makes clear to Jacob that he should return to the Land of Canaan at some point.  I am confident that Isaac was indirectly reminding Jacob of the story about Abraham’s servant obtaining Rebekah to be Isaac’s wife.  Isaac was telling Jacob that it was OK for him to go to Haran to obtain a wife, but he must not stay there.   Finally, there is Jacob’s vision of the stairway to heaven.  I want to focus on Jacob’s oath.  We tend to view this as Jacob making a deal with God: “God keep me safe and bring me safely back to my father’s household and I will server you.”  I think it was more of a fleece: “If God keeps me safe AND brings me back to my father’s household than God is THE God (not just a god) and I will worship Him, and only Him.”  Jacob was going off to a foreign land where he would have opportunities and he was unsure that he was ever going to come back.  He had heard the stories which his father told about God and the history and creation of the world, stories passed down from Abraham, but he was not sure he believed them.  After all, the people among whom they lived had different stories about the history and creation of the world.  Sure, he had just had a vision which seemed to confirm his father’s accounts, but was it really a vision, or just a dream?

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

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

We have two stories here where there is a subtext about what is going on that I do not think we entirely understand.  Usually, when I write about such things it is because I have had an insight giving me thoughts about what that subtext means.  Today I am writing about it because there are elements to this subtext I never noticed before, but I have no idea what the writer is hinting at.  So, we have the stories of Abraham’s servant finding Rebekah to be Isaac’s wife and the story of Esau selling his birthright to Jacob.  When Abraham’s servant wants to be on his way to take Rebekah back to Isaac, her mother and her brother try to convince him to stay for 10 days, but he insists on leaving immediately.  What I find interesting about this exchange is that it seems to contain elements similar to the negotiations Abraham had when he bought the land for Sarah’s burial.  Actually, the first part of this which I thought seemed to indicate the writer saying something I could not quite make out was when Rebekah answered the question about whose daughter she was by listing her grandfather and grandmother.  Then in the story of Esau and Jacob the writer concludes it by saying that Esau despised his birthright in a way which seems to imply more than just that.  All of this says something about the meaning of family, but I am not sure what.

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

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

I know I have mentioned this before, but until a few years ago I always pictured Ishmael as a toddler when Abraham sent Hagar and Ishmael away.  However, if we pay attention to what is written we realize that Ishmael was already 14 years old when Isaac was born and it was probably two or more years later that he was sent away.  So, when Hagar “put the boy under one of the bushes” he was actually a young man.   Which brings me to Abraham taking Isaac to sacrifice him to God.  Interestingly, when God told Abraham to take Isaac He said that Isaac was Abraham’s only son, even though Ishmael was still alive.  We do not know how old Isaac was at this point, but I would guess he was about the same age as Ishmael when Abraham sent him away.  However, all of what I just wrote is just introduction.  The story of God calling Abraham to sacrifice Isaac is foreshadowing of Jesus.  God said to Abraham, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love…”. Jesus was God’s only son whom He loved.  Then, when Abraham and Isaac left their servants, Isaac carried the wood for the burnt offering.  Jesus carried His cross on the way to His Crucifixion.  Finally, when Isaac asked his father where the lamb for the sacrifice was, Abraham answered that God will provide.  God did provide, both on this specific occasion and later with Jesus’ crucifixion.  I want us to take the lesson from this which I think Abraham took from it: God will provide.  Do as God directs and God will provide what you need.

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

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

I want to comment on what I think are a couple of interesting points, although I am not sure any of them give us any guidance for living our lives.  First, it seems to me from this passage, and several other Old Testament passages that it was common for travelers to spend the night in the town square of walled cities they were passing through.  Directly related to that, Lot was sitting at the city gates and invited these men to stay with him.  When they initially demurred, he insisted.  This suggests that Lot was well aware that the men of the city would mistreat these visitors.  Thinking about that takes me back to Abraham’s “negotiations” for saving Sodom and Gomorrah from destruction.  It seems likely that if there had been as many as ten men in the city who would have acted as Lot did, the rest of the men of the city would not have confronted Lot about his guests.  There are a couple of different ways I can go here, but I think I will go with the lesson for us:  Lot offered up his hospitality in an attempt to protect these men from the violence he knew would otherwise be visited on them.  There is one other interesting thing I want to highlight.  The passage says that the morning after the destruction, Abraham looked down on the plain and saw smoke rising from the cities.  It seems likely that Abraham believed that Lot had been killed along with the rest of the inhabitants, a conclusion which is supported by the fact that Lot lived out his life in a cave in the mountains overlooking the plain.  How might things have turned out differently for Lot and his daughters if he had reached out to his uncle after the destruction of the cities on the plain?  Even if only for so much as to let his uncle know that he had survived.

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

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

The Old Testament allows for polygamy.  Yet, in every instance where polygamy is addressed in the Old Testament, things go badly.  Here, Abram takes Hagar as his second wife at Sarai’s suggestion, but as soon as Hagar becomes pregnant things go wrong.  If we look at the story closely we can see the aspects of human nature which came into play to make things go badly.  One could argue that people could choose to behave differently, but that is not the point.  We learn from every story in the Bible where a man’s relationship with multiple wives are an important part of the story that humans are designed to be monogamous.  There is also a lesson in this account about the importance of waiting for God’s timing.  Abram and Sarai knew that God had promised Abram descendants who would inherit the Land of Canaan.  Since Sarai had been unable to bear children, they thought that they needed to take this action to make God’s promise come to fruition.  There may be times when God desires us to take some action in order to bring His promises to us to fruition.  This was not one of them.  Yet, despite the fact that Abram and Sarai acted outside of God’s plan, God promised to bless Ishmael.

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

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

I am not sure there is much to make of this, but it strikes me as interesting.  When Abram set out from the city of Haran to complete the journey to Canaan which his father had begun, Lot went with him.  Why did Lot go with his Uncle Abram rather than stay with his Uncle Nahor?  It suggests to me that Lot’s grandfather, Abram’s father, had a deeper reason to set out for Canaan than we are given by the Bible.  Of course, that also raises the question of why Nahor stayed in Haran.  I believe that the answers to these questions are closely related to why later Abraham was so vehement that Isaac was not to travel to Haran for his wife.  I find these questions interesting.  I also find it interesting that they do not appear to be answered.  There is just one more hint about the answers to this question.  When God spoke to Abram and told him to go to Canaan, Abram was no longer living in Ur, but when God made His covenant with Abram He said that He had brought him out of Ur.  There is no contradiction here, but it does tell us that God’s hand played a role in the decision of Terah, Abram’s father, choosing to leave Ur.

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

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

Today’s passage contains the reason I do not get caught up in any of the panics about mankind destroying the Earth which come up from time to time.  God promised that as long as the Earth endures, He will never again destroy every living creature.  That means that when people say, “If we do not take action, life on earth will be destroyed,” I dismiss what they are saying.  I know that God will not allow Man to destroy His Creation and He has promised to never again bring about such devastation until all things are fulfilled.  The end will come about exactly when God has planned for it to happen, not a moment sooner, nor a moment later.  Now, this does not mean that we are free to despoil the earth however we please.  We are called to be stewards of the Earth, of all of God’s Creation, but that part comes from other passages.  Whether it be “nuclear winter”, or “global warming”, I do not fear the destruction of all life on Earth, not even of most life on Earth, because God has promised that, as long as the Earth shall endure, that will not happen again.

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