Joshua 7-12: Six Chapters of War

Jericho is the first of many cities in the area of Canaan to be destroyed by Israel, and once it gets flattened, the Hebrews are chomping at the bit to go on to the next city.  But if you're at all familiar with the story, you know that they jumped the gun on this one.  It's a little town with a little name: Ai.

What happens is, in the case of Jericho (and several of the other cities), God told the people that they couldn't take anything from Jericho.  Not just that all the people had to die, or even that all the people and all the animals had to die, but they couldn't even take gold or silver out of the city.  So along comes this guy named Achan, and I'll give you three guesses what he does.  Yeah.  To be specific, he takes a lot of something: a mantle, two hundred shekels of silver, and a bar of gold weight fifty shekels.  A shekel is 9.56 grams, or a little over a third of an ounce.  200 shekels is a little over 4 pounds, and fifty shekels is about one pound.  Now, I don't know what the subjective value of these things would have been to that society, but right now, gold is being traded at over $1000 per ounce and silver at over $16 per ounce.  So if Achan had taken that amount of gold and silver today (I have no idea what a mantle is), it would amount to about $18,783 in gold and $1125 in gold that he stole.  That's if it were today.

So math aside, Achan screwed up, so after being found out and confessing, he is stoned to death - and not just him, but his family too.  Why is that?  I looked up some commentaries and one of them pointed out that Achan is the fifth generation after Judah, making him one of the older Israelites, maybe in his 50s at this time.  Based on that and the fact that God had previously commanded that no child was to be killed for the sin of their father, I think it is a safe inference to make that Achan's children 1) are adults, and 2) along with Achan's wife, knew about his sin and hid it from Joshua.  Being an accomplice to an evil - or just not saying anything - is sometimes as bad as doing the crime yourself.

So after this matter gets cleared up, so to speak, Israel goes on to defeat every tribe that is in the land God has promised them.  Different people try different things to defeat them, including making a sneaky promise, banding together with other tribes, and so forth, but nothing works.  A total of 31 kings, including the ones we've already learned about in Numbers and earlier in this chapter, are defeated by the Hebrews.

One of the kings mentioned, one of five actually who join forces in an attempt to stop Israel in its tracks, is named Adoni-zedek, and can you guess what city he is king of?  Jerusalem.  If you know any Hebrew at all, you probably know that the word "Adonai" means "lord," and you may also know that "zedek" means "righetousness."  Put those words together next to Jerusalem, and does this name sound familiar to you at all?  It sounds frighteningly close to Melchizedek, the guy Abraham met waaaaaaaay a long time ago in Genesis.  But this guy appears to be bad and definitely not in Israel's side.  Descendant?  Unrelated coincidence?  I have no idea but it's really weirding me out.

What do we learn about God in a chapter that basically is one war story after another?  I think we learn first of all that he was faithful to Abraham and the covenant he made with him and Isaac and Jacob.  I think we also learn that God is punishing the sins of the Canaanites.  Depending oon what city they go to, there are different levels of destruction that must be brought to the city; in some, every living thing is killed.  In others, every living thing is killed and none of the spoil can be touched.  In some, only the people are killed, and in the ones outside the promised land, only the men are killed.  I read this and I recall a passage way back in Genesis that I will paste here for you:

Genesis 15:13-16 "God said to Abram, 'Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years.  But I will also judge the nation whom they will serve, and afterward they will come out with many possessions.  As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you will be buried at a good old age.  Then in the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquty of the Amorite is not yet complete.' "

In other words, God had already given the land of Canaan to Abraham and his descendants, but he was going to give the pagan people in the land four hundred more years to repent and turn from their ways.  It seems from the context like they were just doing things a lot more immoral than what was going around in the surrounding areas, because God didn't call for any kind of conquest or judgment on any other tribes.  And I really believe that if these nations had  turned to God, he would have forgiven them.

And this in turn brings a passage to mind from 2 Peter.  Read it with the Canaanites in your mind:

"[B]y the word of God the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and by water, through which the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water.  But by His word the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.  But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day. The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance" (3:5b-9).

God is patient with us - he is literally waiting for us to repent, and sometimes he withholds judgment in anticipation of that.  But there is evidently a point at which the time is up, when you either have repented or you are not going to.  The Bible says that today is the day of salvation - not tomorrow, not someday when you get around to it.  We don't know what exactly the Canaanites were doing that God disliked so much, but we do know that everybody does things that are wrong, and I even think everybody does things that are in rebellion of what we know is right.  And in the end, all sin separates us from God.  You cannot endure his presence unless you are no less than perfect.  I don't think it's because God is an Adrian Monk germ-freak afraid to get his clothes dirty; I think it's because our God is a consuming fire and everything that is not pure and holy already will be scorched when it comes into contact with him.  That's a problem, and that problem is what the nation of Israel was created to demonstrate.  The only way for us to enter God's presence is for something completely innocent to stand in our way - and friend, you and I will never be that.  No matter how good you become in your life, you can't erase the bad things you've done.  Only one person can do that, and his name is Jesus.  His blood is the only detergent that can wash the stain of our sins completely away.  All you have to do is take your dirty laundry to him and ask him to clean you.  The Canaanites had four hundred years to get things straight with God, and they missed the opportunity.  Don't let it pass you by.

Numbers 18-20: Who Will Mourn You?

I'm going to focus on two very small parts of these three chapters, but here are my notes/thoughts on the whole passage.

• Chapter 18 is about duties of the Levites.  It says that they will "bear the guilt in connection with the sanctuary."  Does anybody know what that means?  I may have to look it up.
• This is interesting.  In chapter 19 the priests have to slaughter a heifer in the presence of Eleazar (Aaron's son, the next high priest), and then burn it and place its ashes outside the camp.  Those ashes would be used when somebody was unclean, to cleanse them.  I'm not sure if they placed the ashes in water, or if the ashes somehow represent water, because it says they're kept "as water to remove impurity" and speaks about people washing in it.  Anyway, this is what Hebrews 9:13 is talking about when it mentions "the ashes of a heifer" cleansing people outwardly.  I always wondered what that was talking about.
• Then it talks about people who are in contact with a dead person being unclean for 7 days.  If a person died in their tent, everyone in the tent was unclean too, and any jar or anything that didn't have a lid on it was unclean.  I think this must have been one of those sanitation things.  People didn't know about germs until the 1800s so they didn't know why people would get sick from being around someone else who was sick, and they also didn't know how long germs could live or anything like that.  So this was a way of keeping disease from spreading, I think.
• At the beginning of chapter 20, Miriam dies.  The heading "Death of Miriam" is over the first seven verses in my Bible, but the only part that's actually about her is verse 1.
• Then we have another water incident.  This is the part where God tells Moses to speak to a rock and it'll bring forth water, so what does Moses do?  He hits the rock, because that's the method that worked before.  And for this, God tells him he will not enter the promised land, because he didn't trust God to provide - he fell back on something that had worked earlier, maybe because he thought the power was in his staff or how hard he struck the rock and not in God who doesn't really need Moses to do anything in order to make water come from a rock.
• The people reach Edom - if that name sounds familiar, it's the other name for Esau, and it's now the name of the land where his descendants are living.  The Israelites send a message asking to travel peacefully through the land and promise to stay on the highway - they won't even touch the wells to get a drink - and Edom says "no way, get out of here."  I think this shows that the old sibling rivalry is still very much alive and well.  I'm proud of what Israel does, though. Instead of getting mad and attacking Edom, they travel all the way around the country to get where they're going next.
  
• At the end of the chapter, Aaron dies.  He gets seven verses.  What happens is he goes up to a mountain and his priest uniform gets put on his son Eleazar, and then Aaron dies.
  

As you have probably guessed, I'm focusing this post on comparing the deaths of Miriam and Aaron.  This is what the text says about Miriam's death:  "Now Miriam died there and was buried there."  She doesn't even get a full verse because the first part of the verse just says that they arrived in the wilderness of Zin and the people stayed at Kadesh.

This is what the text says about Aaron's death:
"Then the LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron at Mount Hor by the border of the land of Edom, saying, Aaron will be gathered to his people; for he shall not enter the land which I have given to the sons of Israel, because you rebelled against My command at the waters of Meribah.  Take Aaron and his son Eleazar and bring them up to Mount Hor; and strip Aaron of his garments and put them on his son Eleazar.  So Aaron will be gathered to his people, and will die there."  So Moses di just as the LORD had commanded, and they went up to Mount Hor in the sight of all the congregation.  After Moses had stripped Aaron of his garments and put them on his son Eleazar, Aaron died there on the mountain top.  Then Moses and Eleazar came down from the mountain.  When all the congregation saw that Aaron had died, all the house of Israel wept for Aaron thirty days."

Quite a bit of difference, isn't there?  We don't even know how Miriam died or whether people mourned for her.  With Aaron we get a whole story - that's more than what we got with Abraham, if you can remember back that far.  And we find that people mourned him thirty days.  Remember when Ronald Reagan died, and Bush commanded that all flags be raised to half-mast for thirty days?  That's not what this was like.  Mourning was something very important to ancient people - in fact, some people could do it professionally.  It involved sackcloth and fasting and wailing and all that sort of thing - it was a big deal, and it did usually last for a few days as far as I can recall.  But this was hardcore.

What I find really great about this passage is that it happens right after the waters of Meribah incident, where God tells Moses and Aaron that because of their lack of trust, they won't enter the promised land.  The last significant event in Aaron's life was a screw-up.  And still he gets to go up to a mountain to die in peace next to his brother and his son, and he gets a celebrity funeral.  I think it goes to show, you don't have to have lived a perfect life to die a good death.  But in contrast with Miriam's death, I think it also shows that you're not going to get an epigram like that unless there's a good reason for it.  Aaron may have been number two to Moses for most of his life, and he may have griped and complained about it, and he was even the one who made the golden calf back in Exodus, but he was the high priest of Israel, handpicked by God for a divine purpose.  And the people may have whined about God playing favorites with Moses and Aaron, but when one of their leaders died, they felt it so deeply that they showed him tremendous honor in his death.

I guess it's just something to think about.  Who would mourn you for thirty days when you die?

Numbers 1-4: Let's Talk Math

It took me a while to get this far, because honestly, this book gave me some trouble from the beginning. I kept getting distracted by the fact that there were so many dang Israelites, and I didn't know if the numbers in the Bible were reasonable. I since found a site that really helped me out (click here).

Anyway. This is a difficult book for me to read when I'm trying to learn things about God. Why? Because so far it's a lot of lists and counts and repetition. It's very easy to start skimming and write it off as not important. I mean, how many sermons have you ever heard on any of the first four of Numbers? Speaking for myself, I haven't heard any (although I'm sure there have been some - my parents' church is reading through the Bible in a year and the sermons each Sunday reflect the week's readings).

I was going to do the first six chapters in this post, but chapters 5 and 6 are really on a different subject, so I'll do those next.

Here's the first four chapters of this book in a nutshell:

• Chapter 1: All the men in Israel who are of fighting age (20 or older) are counted. The heads of each tribe and the number of fighting men in each tribe is given. The Levites aren't numbered because they don't fight.
• Chapter 2: God tells Moses where each tribe should camp (north side, west side, etc.), and it tells you again who the head of each tribe is and how many fighting men are in each tribe, in case you had forgotten.
• Chapter 3: Now the Levites get numbered (all the males 1 month old and up), but they are given jobs in the tabernacle. Each clan has a different area of focus. Then all the firstborn sons of Israel are numbered, and the numbers of the Levites are supposed to match up, but there are 273 fewer Levites so the Levites get 5 shekels for every man they lack. This is part of the redemption of the firstborn thing that I'll come back to.
• Chapter 4: The duties of each of the three Levite clans are explained, and they're counted again but only the men between ages 30-50.
  

So as you can see, not a lot happens. What can we learn about God from this passage? What does the author, Moses or whoever, want us to know from reading this?

I think the first and most obvious answer is history. Judaism revolves around the exodus from Egypt. What happened between Goshen and Canaan is not only the basis their holidays, dietary customs, and moral code; it is their heritage. My family has this book of genealogical records that reads like this:

1. (first and last name) and wife, (first and last name).
1. (1st kid's name)
2. (2nd kid's name)
3. (3rd kid's name, etc.)
2. (1st kid's name) and wife, (first and last name).
1. (1st kid's name)
2. (2nd kid's name)

You get the picture. That's all the book is. Why the heck would somebody want to write about that? Because it's history. It tells me where I came from and to whom I belong. There's not a single complete sentence, or even a verb, in the whole thing, but from reading it I learn a lot about my past. I think Numbers is kind of the same way.

In keeping with that, I think another main point of Numbers is that it's history, not fantasy. The numbers in this book are intended as real numbers. Figurative and symbolic numbers in the Bible are generally 3, 7, 10, 12, and 40 (and a few multiples), along with "ten thousand times ten thousand" and "seventy times seven." The author of this book intends for the audience to know that what they are reading is a real story.

Let's keep going with that thought. When God spoke to Abraham and promised to make him a great nation, He gave a figurative number as well: "as numerous as the stars in the sky, and as countless as the sand on the seashore" - that's how many descendants Abraham would have, right? Now in Numbers, we see that God has turned that figurative number into a real number. The promise that existed only as an idea for so long has become a reality, and we can see that the Hebrews are a huge group of people, perhaps 2 million or more in total. God was faithful to Abraham in making his descendants numerous, and because of that, we can trust that God will be faithful to give Abraham's descendants the land He promised them as well, even though we won't see it happen for a few more books.

Now I would like to talk about the redemption of the firstborn. This seems to come up a lot in the Torah, and always under different circumstances. We first saw in Exodus 13 that God said the firstborn of every human and animal belonged to Him and was sanctified (set apart), because of the plague of the firstborn that freed the Hebrews from slavery. Because of this, every firstborn had to be redeemed (bought back). The animals and the sons were redeemed by sacrificing a lamb. Next, in Exodus 22:29-30, we see God mention giving the firstborn of their sons to Him again. Exodus 34 repeats what we saw in chapter 13. Finally here, in Numbers 3:40-51, it says that the firstborn sons are redeemed moreover by the Levites, who do not own any land or fight in battle but are constantly serving as priests, intercessors between God and man. That's why there were supposed to be as many Levites as there were firstborn sons, but they were just short so they had to substitute with money.

To be honest, I'm not entirely sure what all the symbolism behind this concept means. On the surface, it's plain that God wanted the people to know they belonged to Him, and that their possessions - whether livestock or their own children - were a gift that He had given and could take away, as He took the firstborn of all Egypt. I feel like there's more to this, but I don't know what. If anybody has studied this passage, please elaborate on it for me.

Numbers is a difficult book because it appears so surfacey. I think, though, that there's a lot more depth to it, and that the more I read it the more I will understand. As I posted in my Xanga the other day, I'm glad that I don't understand this book very well, because it reminds me of how much more the Bible has to teach me.

Leviticus 1-6: Sacrifices and Burnt Offerings

So like Homestar Runner last summer, I seem to have skipped June. Now that I'm working more-or-less full time, it's been a little more challenging for me to make time for my reading. I will endeavor to post a blog at least once a week though.

There are three parts of the Old Testament that are really, really hard to get through: Ezra and Nehemiah, the Minor Prophets, and Leviticus through Numbers, where we are now. I think, though, that what you get out of these more difficult passages depends on what you put into it.

The first six chapters of Leviticus go over every kind of sacrifice that the Israelites were to make and what they were for. For the most part it's kind of repetitive, but don't skim or you'll miss some interesting things. Here are my observations from reading:

• I've always wondered why you're not supposed to cut up the birds in sacrifices. All the other animals you chop up and dissect, but the birds you pretty much just pluck. If you can remember back to Genesis 15, Abraham didn't cut the birds when God made a covenant with him. Is that because they're too small?

• What is it with God and leaven? No grain offering could have any leaven (or honey or oil) in it. I find that very interesting. Is this because it points back to Passover, when they weren't supposed to have leaven because they couldn't wait for the bread to rise? Does leaven symbolize something bad as it does in the Gospels when Jesus talks about the "yeast of the Pharisees"? Or was leaven actually bad for them, like how the unclean animals were potential health risks?

• God specifically says several times that the fat of the animal is not to be eaten but is part of the offering to the LORD. I'm not sure why that is, but it immediately reminded me of Daniel 1, when Daniel and his friends refused to eat the king's food - the meat they were served would have been mostly fat. Leviticus tells us why: it was considered sacred. I find that really interesting, although again I don't know why this was the case. Was it another dietary thing? Was it more than that?

• Leviticus 4:3 says that if a priest sins unintentionally, he brings guilt on the people. Does that mean there's such a thing as being guilty for what somebody else did? But if this happens, the people aren't the ones who have to make a sacrifice and repent; only the priest has to do that.

• Chapter 4 is about sins that were committed unintentionally and what you have to do about them once you're aware that you did something wrong. This tells me that motive is not the determining factor in what counts as sin. I like to say that sin is breaking a relationship more than it is breaking a rule, and that's true, but thinking that way can lead to believing that as long as your motives are good, it doesn't really matter what you do. But according to this chapter, you can be guilty without even knowing it. We can do things with a clear conscience and still be hurting God.

• I find it interesting that if a leader sins unintentionally, he must offer a male goat as a sacrifice, but if one of the common people sins unintentionally, he must offer a female. Not sure why that is either. There are a few other times when male or female is specified; most of the time the gender of the animal doesn't matter.

• In chapter 5 it says that if you swear thoughtlessly to do evil or to do good, you become guilty. I think this is referring to making promises you don't intend to keep. What do you think? Apparently our words are important to God. A promise isn't something to be taken lightly or to be made lightly. If you promise to do something, do it. Your word is your bond.

• God makes a provision for poor people, and he makes a provision for really poor people. If you can't afford a lamb, you can offer birds. If you can't afford birds, you can offer a little bit of flour (probably everybody had some of that).

• 6:9-13 states several times that the altar has to have a fire burning continually. This is a very important point. The whole purpose of this sacrifice stuff is to show us the price of our sin and to remind us that we need a mediator to make things right between us and God. But we don't just need that mediator when we lie in court or steal something or whatever; we need it all the time. The fire is a constant reminder of our sinful state, of a relationship that has been broken.
  

All of this talk about sacrifices makes me think of Hebrews 10, which has this to say about the sacrificial system:

For the Law, since it has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the very form of things, can never, by the same sacrifices which they offer continually year by year, make perfect those who draw near. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, because the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have had consciousness of sins? But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins year by year. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Therefore, when He comes into the world, He says,
"SACRIFICE AND OFFERING YOU HAVE NOT DESIRED, BUT A BODY YOU HAVE PREPARED FOR ME;
IN WHOLE BURNT OFFERINGS AND sacrifices FOR SIN YOU HAVE TAKEN NO PLEASURE.
"THEN I SAID, `BEHOLD, I HAVE COME
(IN THE SCROLL OF THE BOOK IT IS WRITTEN OF ME)
TO DO YOUR WILL, O GOD.' "
After saying above, "SACRIFICES AND OFFERINGS AND WHOLE BURNT OFFERINGS AND sacrifices FOR SIN YOU HAVE NOT DESIRED, NOR HAVE YOU TAKEN PLEASURE in them" (which are offered according to the Law), then He said, "BEHOLD , I HAVE COME TO DO YOUR WILL." He takes away the first in order to establish the second. By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Every priest stands daily ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins; but He, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, SAT DOWN AT THE RIGHT HAND OF GOD, waiting from that time onward UNTIL HIS ENEMIES BE MADE A FOOTSTOOL FOR HIS FEET. For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.

What's cool about Leviticus is that ultimately, it points to Christ, who acted as man, priest, and sacrifice in His death on the cross. When we read all this stuff about burnt offerings, we're really reading about Him. It's kind of exciting to find connections like that.

Genesis 18-22: Sodom and Isaac

Those are the two main stories being told in this segment.

Summary:

chapter 18: three men (somehow the three of them are a theophany: a manifestation of God in human form) visit Abraham and his wife and promise that they'll have a son within the year. Sarah goes "yeah right" but the guy hears her and says "you better believe it." Then two of the guys leave, but the third one tells Abraham that he's going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah because they're full of wickedness. Abraham asks God to spare the cities if there are righteous people in it, and eventually barters God down to ten righteous people in the city.

chapter 19: Well, apparently there aren't ten righteous people in the city, because the two men from earlier show up in Sodom, get Lot (remember him?) and his family and tell them to leave. So they do, and they settle in the mountains, and Lot's daughters commit incest with their dad (this is gross) so they can't have kids, because apparently they don't think they can go down the hill to the village, just because their father's too chicken to do so.

chapter 20: Anyway, then Abraham goes to visit a king and does the whole "she's my sister" thing with his wife like before, gets caught like before, and comes out with more possessions as a result, like before.

chapter 21: Then Isaac is born. Then Ishmael (Hagar's kid - he's a teenager now) starts picking on him, so Sarah gets fed up and makes Hagar and Ishmael leave. God visits Hagar again. Then we jump back to Abraham, who makes a covenant with Abimelech (the king he scammed in the previous chapter)

chapter 22: Everybody knows this chapter. It's the part where God tells Abraham to offer Isaac as a sacrifice, and just when he's about to do so, God intervenes and tells him not to kill Isaac after all.

I didn't really have any questions this time, but here are some things that either I thought of or somebody told me and I wanted to tell you too:

• Abraham's bargaining with God is really interesting, because you could almost get the idea that God is wishy washy and you can talk Him out of things. I don't think He is though, because He says that his mind is made up about the matter. However, I think He really wanted Abraham to know that this wasn't a rash decision and that He wasn't going to be killing innocent people along with the guilty.
  
  
• Abraham talks God down from finding fifty righteous people to only finding ten, and God says that if there are ten righteous people, he won't destroy the city. I wonder if Abraham could've talked God down even lower, and I think maybe he coudl have. During this whole thing God seems very accomodating of Abraham's request.
  
  
• Genesis is about beginnings, and one of those beginnings is the beginning of redemptive history, or God's relationship with man. As one of my commentors noted, Abraham most likely didn't have a clue who YHWH was when he left Ur; God progressively revealed Himself to Abraham as he went (the idea of progressive revelation is seen throughout scripture: a truth is slowly revealed in increments until they reach a pinnacle in Christ, or something like that). This story sets a precedent for how we are to understand God. Keep this incident in mind when we get into later stories about God killing people: God isn't acting out against the people, but against their sin. If there are righteous people undeserving of punishment, God seems to really want to spare them.
  
  
• I'm not sure how big Sodom and Gomorrah were, but isn't it sad that there weren't even 10 righteous people in it? Lot and his family (that's four people) alone made it out alive (his sons-in-law would have too if they'd taken Lot seriously). And really, I'm not sure that even Lot was all that righteous. The Bible usually notes right away when there's a righteous person amongst wicked people, and nobody does that for Lot until Hebrews.
  
  
• Some people are really concerned about the fact that Lot offered his daughters to the mob at his door in order to preserve the two men in his house. I would first of all like to say that this would have been seen by that culture as a perfectly moral action; hostpitality was one of the most important virtues, if you will, from ancient times up until fairly recently (as students of Macbeth should know). Secondly, I would like to say that the text doesn't tell us whether Lot did right or wrong in this action, like it doesn't tell us whether he was that righteous of a person or not. This is an important distinction: just because the Bible says something happened, doesn't mean it's saying that's what should have happened. My old pastor said once that the people in the Bible are not ideal people; they are real people.
  
  
• Why does Abraham do the same lie in the same situation? Doesn't he remember how it turned out last time? Is he completely nuts? Or is he just like us? Do you have any patterns of behavior that are so ingrained in your life that even if you know they're wrong, you can't help doing them? Ouch. I think I just hit myself on the head.
  
  
• I love that the angel of the LORD appears to Hagar again. Justin said the other day, when we were discussing this, that you get the idea that Hagar's relationship with God continued after that initial meeting. I think this little passage here supports that idea. God shows Hagar that He doesn't just show up once and then disappear; He continues in His faithfulness toward her. That's pretty cool to me.
  
  
• The almost-sacrifice of Isaac is another weird story. I mentioned progressive revelation earlier; it comes into play here. Being of a pagan background, Abraham probably is familiar with human sacrifice, and we haven't seen God tell him not to do it yet. On the other hand, Abraham knows that God promised his descendents would come through Isaac. Plus, God emphasizes the fact that Abraham loves his son. That makes for a really sticky situation. See, Abraham has a pattern of distrusting God's word. God promised him lots of descendents, so Abraham made one of his servants his heir. God promised an heir from his own body, and we got Ishmael. So now Abraham finally has Isaac . . . what does he do? Is he going to take matters into his own hands like usual, or wait to see God deliver on His promise? Look what he says to the young men attending him: "We will worship and return to you" - meaning, we will worship, and we will return. Abraham thinks Isaac is going to be okay (I think he thinks that). The author of the Hebrews thought Abraham was counting on God to raise him to life again after he'd killed him. So basically, what we have here is a HUGE stepping-stone for Abraham, from distrust to trust in God and His ability to provide and make good His promises.
  
  
• I'm almost done, I promise. Isaac, by now, is a big boy. I don't know exactly how old he was, but I've heard he was an adolescent. Abraham is a very very old man. Isaac figures out (unless he's really stupid) what's happening as far as the sacrifice goes, and he could probably take his dad out. But he doesn't. What is almost more amazing to me than Abraham's faith is Isaac's. How many of us in a similar situation would just sit there and let what happened, happen?

That's really all I have to say. Thank you so much for all your comments, everyone. Even though I don't reply to every one of them, I do read them all and I enjoy them greatly. I need to go to bed now.

Genesis 12-17: Abraham's Calling

Today I got a lot of reading done, which was pretty cool. I'm actually in the middle of chapter 18, but I figured it was more appropriate to do 12-17 together so I could do 18-19 together (Sodom and Gomorrah stuff).

In a nutshell: God tells a guy named Abram to leave home and go to a place he doesn't know about but that God will show him when he gets there. Abram goes. On the way he stops by Egypt, tells the pharaoh that his wife is his sister and gets in trouble, then goes back to his journey. Then he separates from his nephew because they're both too rich to live together, saves his nephew from being a POW, meets a guy named Melchizedek, talks to God a few times and enters into a covenant with Him that keeps getting more specific and complex. He gets his wife's slave pregnant, and she runs away, but then comes back and has the baby. Finally, God reveals a sign of the covenant for Abram and changes his and his wife's names.
Questions:

1. At the end of Genesis 11 it talks about Abram's father Terah, who takes his family to Canaan but then stops and settles in Haran, where Terah dies. Then chapter 12 starts with God calling Abram to leave his father's house and go to Canaan. Now, a lot of people say that part is sort of a flashback, that what really happened is God told Abram to leave Ur by himself, and he took his whole family to Haran, then stayed there, then left again to go to Canaan. I'm not sure if this is true, because once again, I think that would be reading into the text a little more than is there. I can see how it would make sense since Terah was on his way to Canaan, but I don't know for sure. Thoughts? Grammar insights?

2. Who is Melchizedek? His name means "king of righteousness," and it also says he is "king of peace: (Salem/Shalom) and a priest of God Most High (El Elyon). Abram tithes to him, the first tithe we see in Scripture. Hebrews says that Melchizedek is without genealogy, beginning of days, or end of life (7:3), "made like the Son of God." Does that mean he's like Jesus pre-incarnation, or an angel, or something else? What do you think?

Here's some things I got out of what I read today:

• there's a cycle of distrust in Abram's life. We first see it when he lies to Pharaoh, but we see it again in the way he treats God by not trusting Him to provide a son (15:1-3, 16:1-2). We'll see it again later, just to warn you in advance.
  
  
• God takes Abram's faith and considers him righteous, even though in the very next chapter Abram distrusts God to the point that he sleeps with Hagar to get a child. Maybe that's what you call faith the size of a mustard seed
  
  
• God cuts a covenant with Abram in chapter 15: the ancient practice was to cut animals in half and lay the pieces across from each other, then walk through or in between the pieces as if to say, "may what happened to these animals happen to me if I fail to keep the covenant." This is what Jesus was referring to when He said "no one comes to the Father except through me" (Jn. 14:6, emphasis mine). What's awesome is that the cultural practice was to have both parties of the covenant pass between the pieces, but in Genesis 15, only God does so, in a form that looks like something on fire. Abram doesn't have any terms to keep, which is completely contrary to the lord-vassal-type covenants made in this period.
  
  
• There are random facts in Genesis that make it read more like a personal account: in this passage it's the sentence about the birds trying to eat the carcasses and Abram driving them away. I thought it was interesting that it was included. It may have a theological significance but I don't know.
  
  
• This is just about the awesomest thing I found in this passage: when Hagar runs away from Sarai, the angel of the LORD (probably pre-incarnational Christ) appears to her. This is the first time we see "the angel of the LORD" in Scripture, and He's not talking to Abraham or Moses or anybody important, just an Egyptian maidservant who got pregnant by her boss and beaten by her mistress. The really great thing is that Hagar was an Egyptian who probably worshipped tons and tons of gods, one for every occasion, yet when she was in her moment of distress, none of them came to her aid. Despite all that her culture had chalked them up to be, none of them could help her because none of them could really see her. It was Abram's God, whom she probably didn't worship, who sought her out and comforted her, even prophesied about her son's future. In return Hagar calls Him El Roi ("god sees") and names the place where she met him "Beer-lahai-roi" in honor of the God who lives and sees her.
  
  
• God seems determined to use the most insufficient, unable, and even incompetent people to accomplish His means. Noah was a drunk, Sarai was barren (and maybe had anger management problems), Abram was a liar and let his wife tell him what to do, and Hagar was a foreign slave who wasn't really part of the story at all until now. God doesn't use the people that pagan myths use: the heroic, strong, handsome, and brave. That tells me two things: 1) it doesn't matter what you can do, because God can do anything through you if you're only available; and 2) God is concerned about even the smallest, most insignificant people in the story. Nobody is unimportant to Him.
  
  
• Right after Hagar names God "El Roi," God gives Himself a nickname to Abram: "El Shaddai." Most English Bibles that I know of translate this "God Almighty," which is actually incorrect. The Hebrew shad means a woman's breast, so God is telling Abram He is "God the breasted one," meaning God the nourisher, provider, sustainer. In case you're wondering, the Septuagint (Greek) translated shaddai to ikonos, meaning "all-sufficient," which was the closest word they could come up with. From there we got "almighty."
  
  
• When God changes Abram's and Sarai's names, what He essentially does is insert an "ah" into them. Many people think this is a reference to His personal name Yahweh. So essentially God is giving Abraham and Sarah the identity of belonging to Him, being part of His family or something. Kay Arthur's inductive study "Covenant" has more information about this and other covenant stuff I've mentioned so far. It's a really good study.
  

That's about enough for now. Let me know what you think.