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

I usually try to avoid writing a blog which goes over the point which has been made time and again about a passage, but today’s passage contains a basic, obvious point which is too important not to talk about again.  Joseph’s life went terribly, but he never saw it as a reason to live as a victim.  His brothers planned to kill him, then decided it would be better to sell him into slavery, where they thought he would be worked to death, but Joseph did not allow it to stop himself from doing the best that he could.  That work ethic resulted in him rising to a position of power within the household of one of the most powerful men in Egypt, although he was still a slave.  Then, when everything was going well for him, he was imprisoned on false charges.  Once again, he refused to retreat into despair, but instead did the best he could and rose to a position of some standing, although admittedly still a prisoner.  Then, after the cupbearer was released, he remained a prisoner for two more years.  Yet, he appears to have continued to do his best throughout that time.  If at any time Joseph had given in to despair, he would not have been in the position where God could use him to save his family.

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.

Ordinarily, my eyes glaze over when I read genealogies such as those in this passage.  However, today as I read over them some things caught my eye.  I am not sure that any of these things will change my understanding of Scripture, but they do reveal some aspects of biblical history which I never thought about before and make me wonder about what those who composed this passage knew that we no longer have any record of.  First, I noticed that Amalek was the son of Esau by his concubine, Timna.  Amalek was the forefather of the Amalekites, whom the Israelites fought later (this is interesting because before today, I thought all of Esau’s descendants were Edomites, members of the nation of Edom).  A little later in these genealogies we learn that Timna was the sister of one of the Horite chieftains who lived in the area where Esau settled.  Which led me to do a little searching to discover who the Horites were.  I found that the Hebrew word translated as “Horite” means “cave dweller”.  I also found that some translators think that Horite was not meant to indicate a nation of people, but merely that these people lived in caves.  To me the passage seems to say that Esau and his descendants became integrated with those who had been living in this region in much the same way that Shechem had tried to make happen with Jacob’s family after he had raped Jacob’s daughter (although Esau’s descendants came to rule this area, which was not what Shechem had in mind).  The other thing of interest I found in these genealogies was that the first listed king of Edom was the “son of Beor”, which makes me wonder if this Beor is the same Beor who was the father of Balaam who was called on to curse the Children of Israel in the Book of Exodus.  If so, this would lead me to interesting thoughts about the worship of God among the Edomites.

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.

Some time ago I came across an article which claimed that the account of what happened to Dinah, Jacob’s only daughter*, indicates that the Patriarchs treated women worse than the society around them.  The logic being that because the account tells us that Shechem fell in love with her after raping her and spoke tenderly to her, her brothers were brutes who killed the man she loved and forced her to be a servant in their households.  But the passage says nothing about what Dinah felt for Shechem and can be read to suggest that she was a prisoner in Shechem’s household until her brothers freed her.  The passage clearly tells us that Shechem took advantage of his position as son of the local ruler to take advantage of Dinah sexually while she was visiting with the women of his town, and her brothers were not nearby.  Then he attempted to use the fact that she was defiled as leverage to bring Jacob and his sons under his father’s control, which would eventually mean under his control.  The passage makes it clear that Jacob found Shechem’s behavior unacceptable, but also thought his sons, Simeon and Levi, went too far in seeking vengeance.  On the other hand, the passage also makes it clear that Simeon and Levi felt like they had no other choice.  Once again the writer does not approve of what was done, but sees God’s plan being fulfilled through the actions of flawed humans.

Jacob was frightened about the possible repercussions to his sons actions.  As a result, he rededicates himself, and his household, to God.  Up until now, Jacob has tolerated  his sons and wives (or, at least, Rachael) worshiping idols.  However this incident made Jacob realize that his family needed to dedicate themselves to serving God if they were to survive in this land.  In response to Jacob’s renewed dedication to God, God renewed the promises He had made to Abraham and Isaac.  We see here the final step in the progression of Jacob’s worship of God.

*At least, the only daughter which the Bible tells us about, it is possible that Dinah’s birth is only recorded because of her role in this account and that Jacob had other daughters…my inclination is to believe that Jacob had no other 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 31-32.

I wanted to base my writing today around Rachel stealing her father’s household gods.  I really had trouble understanding how it fits into the story here, and I am still not sure that I do.  The first thing I will note is that passages like this one are part of why many scholars claim that the Patriarchs and early Israelites were polytheistic.  However, as I read this, it appears to me that the expressions used here to refer to God differ from those used to refer to Laban’s household gods in a way which indicates a category difference.  That is, the words used suggest that God is a different category of being from Laban’s household gods.  I am unable to say whether that category difference belongs to those who take part in these events (Jacob, Laban, Rachel, etc) or only to those who composed the account (I say “composed” here because I believe these accounts were compiled into something close to what we read here long before they were written down).  If I remember, I will touch on this theme from time to time as it crops up in the passages I read this year.  In this case, I think that Laban believed that God was supreme, but felt that He was too powerful and important to call upon, making it necessary for a mere human like Laban to call upon lesser ‘gods’ (somewhat like the view many Roman Catholics have of God and the official Catholic Saints).  Jacob seems to have had a similar understanding, but with a growing awareness that God will respond to his prayers and requests.  Or, perhaps, they all viewed the “household gods” as beings who could be manipulated and/or coerced into serving the interests of the individual, while God would only serve His interests.  In a way, the account in Genesis of Jacob is about Jacob coming to realize that as he aligned His interests with those of God, God would look out for 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 29-30.

I find it interesting that Rachel was herding her father’s sheep, apparently by herself.  We know from tomorrow’s passage that Laban had sons, why was Rachel with the sheep and not one of her brothers?  Perhaps Laban’s sons were younger than Rachel and not yet old enough to be herding the sheep.  Of course, then one must wonder why Leah was not with Rachel herding the sheep? Or, perhaps Leah was herding a different flock.  I am going to guess that Laban’s sons were still too young to be tending the flocks when Jacob arrived (or, that older sons had died), and that the comment made later that Leah had weak eyes (or delicate eyes, whatever that meant) explains why she was not tending the flocks.  This leads me to suspect that Laban was in a relatively weak position locally when Jacob arrived.  Which led me to another thought.  It seems likely that the other shepherds present when Jacob arrived were young.  The passage tells us that it was early in the day for the flocks to be gathered, but that they needed to be there when someone arrived who could roll the stone off of the well.  Since none of them objected to Jacob rolling the stone aside, it seems like they were waiting for someone who could do so.  So, Jacob’s arrival seems to have immediately strengthened Laban’s position.  Laban was no longer dependent upon others in order for his sheep to access water.  Now that I have noticed how odd it was for Rachel to be tending Laban’s flock, it surprises me that I have never heard anyone comment on it before.  I did find one commentator who noted that the way Jacob addressed the other shepherds about having their flocks gather so early suggests that those other shepherds were young.

The significance of the Rachel tending the sheep indicating that Laban was relatively weak and not wealthy comes from the contrast to where he was more than fourteen years later when Jacob first considers leaving. By the latter time, Laban’s sons have grown and are able to tend his flocks for him, but Laban appears to be unsure if they can manage them as well as Jacob has done.  If I am correct in my interpretation, at this point Laban’s sons would have been young men, not grown men established in their knowledge of life as Jacob would have been when he arrived.

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.

Well, my first thought was, “Well, I guess the idea that Jacob was the reason for the Hebrew phrase for “he grasps the heel” meaning “he deceives” was incorrect, because, after discovering that Jacob had stolen his father’s blessing, Esau says that Jacob was rightly named.  I struggle with the fact that, based on things we learn elsewhere in the Bible, God appears to have intended for Jacob to deceive Isaac into giving him the blessing which Isaac intended to give Esau.  Perhaps if Rebekah had not gotten Jacob to deceive his father God would have found another way for Jacob to gain the blessing.  We will never know.  However, this passage shows us that God uses our sinful behavior to accomplish his purposes.

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.

I try to make my posts about the ways in which the passage applies to our lives or beliefs, but for the last several days they have been more speculation which has been triggered in my mind by what I have read.  While the latter is not what I consider ideal, it is something I expected to happen from time to time when I started doing this blog.   I write this blog in order to inspire myself to regularly read the Bible.  I hope that it inspires those who read it to do the same, even if only to see if my speculation has any basis in what is written.

Sorry for that long preamble to today’s blog, but once again I have been inspired to speculate about something.  So, when Jacob was born we are told he was given that name because he was clutching the heel of Esau, his older (even if only by moments) brother.  If you read the NIV translation notes you learn that Jacob means in Hebrew “he grasps the heel”, and that it was a Hebrew idiom for “he deceives”.  Now, I had heard several speakers, and read it as well, that Jacob was well-named.  As we see later, Jacob uses deception on several occasions throughout his life to get what he wants.  All of the previous commentators I have seen who commented on this idiom implied that those who named Jacob, presumably Isaac and Rebecca, named him this either because they took his grasping of his older brother’s heel as an indicator that he would be a deceiver, or that them so naming him was an indicator that he would become a deceiver.  However perhaps the deceptive behavior of Jacob, the son of Isaac, caused the Hebrew word for “he grasps the heel”, to become an idiom meaning “he deceives”.

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.

The accounts of events which include both Sarah and Hagar reflect poorly on both of them.  Previously, when Hagar discovered that she was pregnant, she held her pregnancy over Sarah (my reading of the wording suggests that Hagar thought that giving birth to  a son would give her ascendancy over Sarah).  Sarah, for her part, rather than admitting this was a circumstance of her own making, blamed Abraham and asked him to make it right.  In today’s passage, Ishmael mocked his half-brother for being less capable than himself, which reflects poorly on the way his mother, Hagar, had raised him.  Sarah, for her part, demanded that a fourteen year old be sent off without any support for showing poor judgement one time.  I do not want to make too much about what this events tell us about either woman (or Ishmael) because they do not include all of the details of what happened so that we do not know if the impression they give us of Hagar or Sarah accurately reflect how they behaved in these situations.  After all, the writer included the account in today’s passage in order to show us that God had a special place in His heart for Ishmael (and I believe Abraham’s other sons), even though Isaac was the one through God’s promises to Abraham would be fulfilled.

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.

There are several interesting bits to the story about Lot’s rescue before the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.  First, the men of Sodom reacted with out of proportion hostility to Lot’s verbal offer to leave his guests alone.  Also, was their reaction his calling their intentions evil, or to the offer of his virgin daughters?  Second, while the NIV translates the passage about Lot’s sons-in-law pledged to marry his daughters, the translators’ notes, and other translations, say that it may mean they were married to them.   Then, the angels told Lot to take his wife and two daughters “who are here” and flee.  Finally, the passage tells us that Lot’s wife was turned to a pillar of salt for looking back at Sodom as it was destroyed.  Other translations say that she was behind Lot when she did so, and some commentators have suggested that the words translated as “looked back” imply that she did so longingly for more than just a moment.   Combining those two things, with the description that the vegetation of the land was destroyed suggests to me that she paused to look back before reaching safety and was caught in the destruction. Jesus mentions Lot’s wife when He warns of the destruction which will come when He returns.  I think the warning here, as many others have said, is that we should not look back on the life of sin we left behind to follow Christ with regrets for sinful pleasures we did not embrace.

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.

Abraham and Sarah are held up throughout the Bible as people whose faith we should emulate, and rightly so.  Yet, here is today’s passage, Sarah, while she was still Sarai, convinced Abraham, while he was still Abram, to sleep with her slave woman in order to provide heirs for Abram, and Abram did as she asked.  Some time later, at slightly different points, both laughed when God told them that Sarah would bear a son before the following year was up.  So, we have evidence that doubt does not indicate a lack of faith.  Despite his doubts, Abraham had all of the men and boys of his household circumcised according to the covenant God had given him when He reiterated His promise.  In response to Sarah’s laughter, she was asked if anything is too hard for God? Sometimes we need to remind ourselves that nothing is too hard for the God who created the Universe and later raised Jesus from the dead.

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