Today, I am reading and commenting on  Genesis 39-41.

First I want to take note that it was thirteen years from when Joseph started this sequence of events and when he entered into Pharoah’s service as the second most powerful man in Egypt.  I am not sure there what significance that has, but those recording the events thought it was important to note that he was 17 years old when the events began and that he was 30 years old when he entered Pharoah’s service.  Let’s follow what happens to Joseph from when he was 17.  I am going to guess that Joseph was no more than 18 when his brothers turned him over to the slaver traders who took him into Egypt and sold him there.  Which means he would have probably been between 20 to 25 years old when Potiphar’s wife tried to seduce him (I would guess he was closer to 20 than to 25).  He then spends several years in prison before providing a dream interpretation to Pharoah’s cupbearer when he was 28.  Now let’s track Joseph’s life up to this point.  At 17, his wealthy father used him as his right hand to manage his assets, sending him to check that his older brothers were managing their father’s goods properly.  His brothers betrayed him, made it clear they were thinking of killing him until one of them convinced the rest to sell him into slavery.  As a slave, things couldn’t get much worse, but Joseph keeps his head up and is soon running his master’s household.  Then his master’s wife tries to seduce him and when he will not give in, accuses him of rape.  He is sent to prison, which is a worse place then when he entered slavery.  But, he continues to keep his head up, maintains his faith in God, and rises to a position of some respect.  I want to note that even though he made the best of his circumstances each step was worse than the one before.  From his father’s right hand man to chief slave of a wealthy man to managing the prisoners, as a prisoner, in a jail.  He gets an opportunity to do a favor for a man with the ear of the ruler of the kingdom, but nothing comes of it (or so it seems).  When he finally comes before the Pharoah, he says that he cannot do as Pharoah asks, but that God can.  Despite things going wrong for him repeatedly, Joseph never let himself become mired in despair.  Each time he found himself in a worse situation he merely did the best he could in the circumstances in which he found himself., trusting God to take care of him.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Genesis 36-38.

The story picks up with Jacob living in Canaan and Joseph being seventeen.  I have always assumed that it takes place after Dinah’s rape at Shechem.  However, there is no reason to believe that is necessarily the case.  Joseph was Jacob’s favorite son, by a longshot, and a tattletale.  The passage tells us that his brothers hated him for that, more for being Jacob’s favorite than the tattletale part.  As is often the case with young men (and young women), Joseph’s attempt to gain his brothers’ acceptance backfired.  The only thing that is not clear to me about the situation is what “tone” did Joseph use to tell his brothers about his dreams.  On the one hand, he may have told his brothers, “You should treat me with more respect.  In my dreams I foresee that one day you will bow down and serve me.”  On the other hand, he may have said, ” I had this really weird dream.  We were all binding sheaves in the field when my sheaf stood up and yours all gathered around and bowed down.  That’s really weird, what do you think it means?”  Whichever way Joseph meant to present it, his brothers took it the first way and hated him even more as a result.  Understanding that Joseph’s brothers hated Joseph for what his father, their father, did rather than because of anything he did is important to understanding what changed between this passage and when Joseph interacts with them in Egypt.

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

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

One of the aspects of the story about what happened in Shechem to Jacob’s daughter Dinah is that we get no idea about Dinah’s feelings in the situation.  Would she have liked to marry Shechem?  Would she have been receptive to his pursuit if he had not chosen to force her?  What was her life like after this?  All we know about her after this is that she accompanied the rest of Jacob’s family when they went to Egypt.  Another aspect of the story is that it was Simeon and Levi who put the men of Shechem to the sword after they circumcised themselves.  The passage mentions that they were Dinah’s brothers as if that explains why they, and none of Jacob’s other sons, took revenge on the men of Shechem for Dinah’s defilement.  Even if you consider that Dinah was Leah’s daughter, and so full sister to Simeon and Levi, Leah had four other sons, who would also have been full brothers to Dinah.  Now I can easily understand why Issachar and Zebulun were left out of this.  They were much younger than Simeon and Levi, but the description of their births suggests that Reuben was only a little older than Simeon, and Judah about the same amount younger than Levi (I would guess that the four were each born about a year apart).  So, why didn’t Reuben and Judah take part in avenging their sister?  I don’t know the answer to that, but I will note that it was Reuben and Judah who later took leadership roles among the brothers concerning Joseph (both when the brothers betrayed him and later when they encountered him in Egypt).

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.

My first thought reading this was, “Why did Rachel steal her father’s household gods?”  I spent some time thinking about that and trying to come up with something to write about that question and its answer.  However, as I thought about it some more it struck me that this account of Rachel stealing Laban’s household gods conflicts with the idea that the Book of Genesis was composed in the eighth century BC (or even that it was composed in the ninth or tenth century BC…note that in BC higher number centuries come before lower numbered centuries).  Further, the fact that this passage records that Rachel stole Laban’s household gods suggests that the story being told here reflects actual events.  As we read the story here, its primary message is about how God looked out for Jacob, protected, and blessed him.  Why would someone, who believes that there is only one God, making up a story to tell that message include that his favored wife stole her father’s idols?

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.

There ae multiple places in the Bible where it tells us of a man with more than one wife at a time, most of the time that man serves God.  Consistently, the home life of the man involved is unhappy.  The example of Jacob with Leah and Rachel is no exception.  However what I want to primarily cover today is the way in which Leah named her first four sons.  When Reuben was born, Leah said (paraphrasing),  “The Lord has seen my misery, now Jacob will have to love me.”  When Simeon was born, she said, “Because I am not loved, God gave me a second son.”  When Levi was born, she said, “I have given Jacob three sons, now he will finally love me.”  Then when Judah was born, Leah said, “I will praise the Lord.”  With each of the first three, they were a means to an end.  With each, she saw them as a means to gain love from her husband.  When Judah was born, Leah praised God for him.  Not for what he would bring her, or how it would improve her relationship with her husband: she praised God for giving her another son.  You might think that this suggests that she loved Judah more than the first three, but that is not how I read it.  When Reuben, Simeon, and Levi were born, she thought they were blessings because of how they would change her relationship with Jacob. By the time Judah was born, Leah realized that each of her sons was a blessing to her, in and of themselves.   In the same way, we often see God’s blessings to us in terms of how they will change our place in the world.  In actuality, most of God’s blessings to us have value without changing anything else.  Initially, Leah saw the tasks she needed to do to take care of her babies as the price she had to pay to receive the blessings which they would bring.  By the time Judah was born she realized those tasks were part of the blessing.  In the same way, we should view the work which goes along with whatever blessing God gives us as part of that blessing, because it is.

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.

Usually I try to write about spiritual lessons from the passage which I read. but today I just have some thoughts.

Why did Rebekah conspire with Jacob to trick Isaac into giving Jacob the blessing intended for Esau?  We were told in yesterday’s passage that Isaac loved Esau because Esau was a hunter of wild game and Isaac loved eating wild game, and we were told that Rebekah loved Jacob.  However,  the passage did not explain Rebekah’s love for Jacob.  It seems likely that Esau’s Hittite wives played a role in Rebekah’s preference for Jacob.  Actually, I suspect that the aspects of Esau’s personality which led him to take not one, but two Hittite wives contributed to Rebekah favoring Jacob over Esau.  Another question this passage raises: why wasn’t Isaac upset that Jacob had tricked him into giving him the blessing he intended for Esau?  Perhaps he was and the account just doesn’t mention it.  However, I think it likely that while Isaac loved Esau he was also disappointed in him.   After all, Abraham, Isaac’s father had arranged his marriage, but the passage suggests that Esau did not even consult his father before marrying two women whom neither of his parents liked.  Even after Isaac sent Jacob to Rebekah’s family to find a wife, Esau did not consult with his father over Isaac’s unhappiness with his wives.  Esau just went and married one of Ishmael’s daughters.

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.

There are two questions which always cross my mind when I read the account of Abraham sending his servant to get a wife for Isaac.  First, why was Abraham so adamant that Isaac not marry a Canaanite woman?  Second, why was it even more important that Isaac not go back to the country from which Abraham came?  There is a simple answer to the second question, although I’m not convinced it is complete.  Abraham’s father had started the leave the land to which Abraham did not want Isaac to return, but got sidetracked.  Only for Abraham to resume the journey and come to Canaan, a land which God promised to his descendants.  So, we conclude that Abraham did not want Isaac to reverse the journey which he had taken.  Canaan was the land which God had promised to Abraham and he did not want his son to leave that land.  So, that answers that question.  Except that it seems to me that there is more to it than that.  Which brings us to the first question.  Again, there is an easy, simple answer: Abraham did not want Isaac to get assimilated into the culture of the land of Canaan.  He wanted Isaac to raise a family with the values which Abraham had brought with him from his home.  That works, but once again it feels like there is more to it than that.  I feel like the answers I mentioned above are not wrong, but I think that they are incomplete.  Unfortunately, I do not know what the complete answer is.

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 try to find something new to write about these passages each year as I go through them another time, but sometimes, such as today, I find an idea from a passage which I have written about before seems like what I should cover again this year.  So, I am going to write about when Abraham took Isaac to sacrifice him to God.  First, the accounts around this indicate that Abraham was involved with the culture around him, even though he was not part of it.  Our knowledge of that culture suggests that child sacrifice was not uncommon among them.  So, this gives us the context for Abraham receiving the instruction to sacrifice Isaac.  The story of Abraham offering to sacrifice Isaac serves two purposes.  First, it foreshadows God sacrificing His own Son.  Second, it serves as an object lesson that God does NOT desire child sacrifice.

When Isaac asked Abraham where the animal for sacrifice was, Abraham responded with equivocation and what he thought was deception by saying that God would provide one.  It turns out that Abraham was prophesying because God did indeed provide an animal for sacrifice.  So, Abraham was misleading Isaac when he told him that God would provide an animal for sacrifice, but God used what he said to build up Isaac’s faith, and to provide us with an object lesson.  When you know that you have been called by God to take an action but do not believe that you have the resources to execute, act anyway, because, if God has called you to act He will provide the means.

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.

I am often struck by the fact that Sarai’s decision to encourage Abram to attempt to have a son by Hagar immediately follows God entering into a covenant with Abram promising that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the sky.  Then, after Ishmael is born, God gives Abram the name Abraham and Sarai the name Sarah while once more promising that Sarah would bear Abraham a son. And Abraham scoffs at the idea that Sarah would bear a child at her advanced age, and asks God for Ishmael to live under His blessing.  So, we see here that Abraham, the man who is held up as the exemplar of faith, struggled with doubts.  If Abraham had doubts, why do we think that we can’t ever have any doubts?

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