2 Kings 4-6: There Can Be Miracles When You Obey

It's time for more stories about Elisha! One day Elisha meets a widow who is broke, and about to lose her sons to slavery, so Elisha makes her fill up a bunch of pots with oil, and all she has is a tiny little jar, but it fills every pot and jar and jug that she owns or could borrow from her neighbors, so she can pay off her debts and keep her sons. Now, what I find interesting is that when this woman came to Elisha, he didn't make a sack of gold drop from heaven, or the creditor drop dead. He made her do something. And the miracle only happened because she did what she was told. Sometimes when we look for miracles, I think we assume a miracle happens when we sit back and do nothing, when in reality, God is often calling us to do something that he will use in a miraculous way.


Now we meet another woman, and Elisha's always passing through her town of Shunem, so she invites him to dinner whenever he comes through, and then she convinces her husband to prepare a guest room for him so he'll have a place to stay. Elisha is so grateful that he asks her what he can give her as a thank-you, but she says she is perfectly fine. Elisha asks his servant what he should do, and his servant, Gehazi, points out that her husband is old and they don't have any kids. So Elisha tells her she'll have a son, and she does. Then when the son gets older, he gets sick and dies. She runs for Elisha and tells him what happened. First Elisha sends Gehazi off with his staff to see if that will cure the kid, while he follows the woman back. Gehazi is unable to resurrect the child with Elisha's staff, so when Elisha gets there, he goes into the room and prays and lies right on top of the kid, then stands up and walks around, then repeats, and the kid sneezes seven times and is fine. Talk about a funny resurrection story! Maybe he had a posthumous allergic reaction to Elisha's beard.


Next there's a famine, and some people make a stew, but it's poisonous. Elisha happens to be passing by and asks for meal, and he throws that into the stew and tells the people to eat it. Now, I don't know much about cooking, and I'm guessing these people didn't either since they made something poisonous, but I don't think that adding more ingredients typically cancels out a poisonous one, and I'm pretty sure the people knew that. So this was a very counter-intuitive move, and probably took a lot of faith in Elisha to obey. I mean, what if he was wrong? But they ate it, and sure enough, it was fine. Once again, in this case, obedience was required for a miracle to take place.


Another famous story happens in chapter 5. Remember that country Aram, that Israel's been fighting for the last several chapters? Well, there's a guy in the Aramean army who has leprosy, named Naaman. His wife has a little girl slave who's an Israelite, a captive from a raid. Now first of all, the fact that the Bible calls her a "little girl" tells me that she really is a little girl. Girls were women around 13 (and boys were men at the same age). Anyway, this little girl is so beautiful to me. She's been taken away from her mommy and daddy to be a slave to some pagan woman and her husband in a foreign land, and her master has a disease which, in her homeland, people got banished for, and yet she has compassion on him. Is that amazing or what? I love this little girl. She says she wishes that Naaman could be with the prophet in Israel (Elisha) because he could be healed. And Naaman, far from simply patting the girl on the head and saying "isn't that nice," actually goes to the king of Aram and tells him about it.


Now remember, Israel and Aram have been at war for the last several chapters, spanning a few generations at least. Yet for some reason the king says Naaman should go find this prophet guy – not only that, he volunteers to write a letter himself to the king of Israel, who, remember, is his enemy.

Now, the king of Israel isn't quite as cucumber-cool as the king of Aram. He sort of freaks out when he reads the letter because he thinks the king of Aram is demanding that he heal Naaman, or something like that I guess. He thinks it's another incitement to war. But Elisha hears about it – seems like word traveled fast in Israel, even without the Internet – and he sends a message to the king to invite Naaman over.


Anyway, you know the story. Naaman comes and Elisha sends a messenger to tell him to wash in the Jordan River seven times. Apparently the Jordan is really muddy and gross. Naaman gets angry because he wanted to see the real prophet and get a magic show. But one of his servants, who seems to be more sensible than Naaman, points out that if the prophet had asked Naaman to do something really hard, Naaman would have done it. So why can't he do something retardedly easy? So he does, and he gets healed! And a third time, the miracle was a result of obedience. And from what I can tell, Naaman wasn't 1/7 healed after his first dip, then 2/7, and so forth. He had to completely finish, and then he was completely healed – more than that, his skin became baby smooth! Seriously, it says his skin became like the "flesh of a little child."


Okay, so this is my favorite part. Naaman offers to give Elisha a present, but Elisha doesn't want anything. Naaman asks for some dirt, I guess to make an altar? Because from now on he is only going to sacrifice to the LORD and not to the pagan gods of Aram. Can you believe it?! Naaman didn't come here to be converted or to encounter God; he just wanted to get rid of his leprosy and go on with his life. But having been healed, Naaman has also been washed on the inside. He even goes on to explain that he helps the king into their temple to worship and he has to bow down for the king to lean on him, so he asks for God's pardon when that happens. I just can't believe the change in Naaman. He was angry before that Elisha didn't come out himself to see him and wave his hands and pull birds out of his hat. Now he seems really humble and grateful. I can see why he was well respected in Aram though; he's a dedicated guy.


Anyway, remember how I said Elisha doesn't want anything? Well, his servant Gehazi does. He goes out behind Elisha's back and asks for the gifts that Naaman had offered, lying and saying they're for somebody else (the sons of the prophets again, to be exact). Naaman gives him twice what he had offered to Elisha (also a very generous guy), and Gehazi takes it. But Elisha knows he took it, so he fires him, and more than that, he gives him Naaman's leprosy. Greed doesn't pay.


Then there's a short weird story about the sons of the prophets. They are building a new neighborhood, and while they're cutting down trees, somebody's axe head flies off the handle and sinks into the water, and he freaks out because it was borrowed. Have you ever lost something that you borrowed from somebody else? It is the worst feeling in the world. Especially when it was something important or valuable. But Elisha is a really nice guy and he makes the axe head float up to the top of the water so the guy can get it back. I wish that would happen to me when I lost something.

Okay, so now we go back to the Arameans. The king of Aram – Naaman's boss, the guy who sent him to Elisha – is at war with Israel already again. Israel is winning so badly that the king things there's a traitor among his servants. But his servants are like dude, that prophet in Israel, he can hear the things that you whisper in your bedroom and tell them to the king of Israel. Remember when Elisha asked for a double portion of Elijah's spirit? I think this story confirms that he's got it. The king tries to capture Aram, but he can't because Elisha asks God to let them see all the angelic warriors who are surrounding Samaria, and then he makes them go blind and leads them right into the middle of the city so they can get captured. But he doesn't let the Israelites kill them. On the contrary, he feeds them and sends them home, and they never come back – at least, not the "marauding bands" of the Arameans. 


Once again, I'm going to stop early because this is just going to be too long. I think I've made the main point of my post clear: miracles are not just the result of believing something good can happen. Sometimes they are the result of doing what God tells you to do. Sometimes they require doing things that are illogical, like the woman with only enough food for her and her son, or downright stupid, like washing in a river that's dirtier than you are. I think the point is, if God asks you to do something, you should do it, because you never know what will happen. Sometimes God does miracles when we don't do anything, like the Shunamite woman who got a son just because she was nice to Elisha. Contrary to the popular belief that "there can be miracles when you believe," I think that there can be miracles regardless of whether you believe or not, because if God wants to do a miracle, I think he's just going to. However, it sure does seem to help if you believe, because belief leads to obedience, and God blesses obedience.


I think we have also learned that it's best not to borrow or lend something valuable to another person, unless you have a prophet handy to recover it when it gets lost.

2 Samuel 1-5: David Is King!

When I said last time, the book ends with Saul's death and the valiant men recovering the body of him and his sons, that wasn't entirely true.  I mean, that's how 1 Samuel ends, but the original Book of Samuel was not divided into parts like it is today; it was just written on two scrolls.  So now we're on the second scroll.

It starts out with an Amalekite coming up to David - who's in his house in Philistia still - and telling him that Saul and his sons are dead.  David asks him how he knows, and the Amalekite says that he killed Saul himself.  Now, this might be true - Saul might not have killed himself immediately when he fell on his sword, and he might've seen the passing Amalekite and asked him to finish the job - or, the Amalekite might be lying in order to get some kind of reward from David for killing his mortal enemy and paving the way for him to become king.  Not so!  David is so mad that he has the guy killed on the spot, and all David's people fast and mourn and weep all day long.  David sings a dirge for Saul and Jonathan.  This is where that famous saying, "How the mighty have fallen" comes from.  I didn't know that.

Now one line in this dirge thing is interesting.  David says that Jonathan's love was better than the love of women.  Considering the kind of relationships David had with his wives and concubines, I find that really easy to believe.  Jonathan and David had a friendship based on mutual respect and a commitment to one another; David's relationships with his wives were not really based on much of anything.  The exception to this, I think, is Abigail, whom David seemed to admire for her brain and her graciousness, but the others? not so much (otherwise, why would he keep taking more wives?).  But we'll find out more about David's wives later.

So David then asks God if he should go to Judah, and God tells him to go to Hebron.  Hebron is one of those major cities during this time, by the way.  David goes there, and the people of Hebron anoint David king over them.

But meanwhile, Saul's army commander Abner anoints one of Saul's other sons, Ish-bosheth, king of Israel.  Ishbosheth was not one of the sons of Saul who was killed in battle, so either he was lucky that day, or he was too young to fight.  Either way, he lasts two years, but meanwhile all the people of Judah are following David - no surprise, because David is from that tribe.

Then Abner and Joab, who takes on the role of head of David's army, start a fight to see who will be king.  Joab's side is winning, and Abner runs away.

Then we get a list of the kids David has had during this time: there are six of them, and each of them is from a different woman.  Go figure.

Meanwhile, Abner gets really angry at Ish-bosheth, hereafter I.B., because I.B. accuses Abner of sleeping with one of Saul's concubines.  So for that reason alone, Abner decides to follow David and turn the whole army of Israel over to him.  David says great, just give me back my wife (Michal, who's been living with some other guy this whole time that David's been gone).  So they do.

Now, Joab doesn't like this turn of events.  I think it's because Abner is the commander of the army, and now that he's on David's side, he's probably going to be the commander of David's army, and Joab was just starting to take the title for himself.  Also, Abner killed Joab's brother earlier in that battle.  So Joab and his brother kill Abner.  David mourns him, which is good for his PR with the people of Israel - the ones who have been following I.B.  When I.B. hears about all this, he gets really freaked out that he's going to be next - and he's right!  Some people come in the middle of the night and murder I.B. by cutting his head off while he's in bed.  Now, can you get much lower than killing a guy in his own bed?  I don't think so.  They take I.B.'s head to David, for some reason thinking he'll be happy - weren't they paying attention this whole time?  Didn't they see what happened to the Amalekite when Saul died?  Yeah.  Big surprise, David kills them too.

So at last, with I.B. out of the way, David becomes king over all Israel, and it's David who moves the capital city to Jerusalem.  People build David a house, and David takes even more wives and concubines - because apparently six isn't enough - and he has eleven more sons and some number more daughters.  Now, I know David is a man after God's own heart, but this is really not what God had in mind when he invented marriage.  God made one Adam and one Eve, not one Adam and twelve Eves, and when He gave instructions in the Law for kings, He specifically said they weren't supposed to take a bunch of wives.  David has done that, and it's going to get him into trouble eventually.

Finally we have one more battle with the Philistines.  David may be crummy with women, but he is consistent when it comes to asking God about war.  God tells him to go up against the Philistines, and they win.

Wow, so it really took a long time to get to this point.  David has really grown up from the puny adolescent who had the guts to mouth off a giant.  He's experienced many joys and many sufferings, but one thing has remained constant: his devotion to God.  Unlike Saul, who started to drift away after not very long, David is always seeking God's will when he makes executive decisions as king.  Being in a position of leadership is tough, because you are responsible not just for you, but for everybody under you.  Leaders are held to a higher standard of accountability for that reason.  Saul didn't get that; David, for all his faults, does.

1 Samuel 16-20: David

Now we've reached the part of the story where David enters the scene.  This is a story that I think everybody knows, but it's really pretty fun to read because there's a lot of action in it.  It starts with God telling Samuel to stop mourning for Saul and to go anoint the next king, who turns out to be David, the youngest of eight sons.  At first Samuel thinks that one of the older sons is the chosen one - probably because Saul was a tall handsome guy, and Jesse's oldest son is a tall handsome guy too, but God says that he's looking at the heart.

Right after David is anointed as the next king, Saul has really problematic mood swings.  It says that an evil spirit from the LORD torments him.  I've always been confused as to what this means.  Is it referring to a fallen angel type being, a creature that is evil but is under God's control, as all things are?  Or is it more like the angel of death, a good being but one that causes destruction?  I have no idea.  And if it's a demon, then is it God Himself who's telling the demon to torment Saul, or is it more indirect than that?  Why is Saul getting tormented by a spirit at all just because God's Spirit has left him?  These are my questions.  But anyway, it's pretty ironic that they look for a musician to help soothe Saul, and it turns out to be David, the guy who's just been appointed to replace Saul someday.  By the way, I think this makes an important statement about the power of music and the arts, even the spiritual power of art.

Next is everybody's favorite story: David and Goliath.  When I read this story this time, I was struck by the fact that out of Jesse's eight sons, only three of them are at war.  Now what that says to me is that only those three are of fighting age.  From what I learned reading Numbers, fighting age is ages 20 and up, so there are 4 sons between age 19 and whatever David's age is.  The absolute oldest David can be in this story is 16, and that's like if his mom had a kid every 9 months. My little brother is 17.  I can totally picture him in David's role here.  He is super cute, super smart, and super opinionated.  He would have no problem going up to some hotshot gigantic Philistine and telling him to shut the heck up.  He's the kind of kid who really stands up for what he believes in, you know?  I picture David like that, only not blond.  My brother is blond.

Can you just picture a little 14- or 15-year-old kid who hasn't hit his growth spurt yet, running out to meet this 9-foot-tall Yao Ming on steroids?  Yao growls at the kid, who shouts back at him with his voice cracking, I'm going to cut your head off!  Then everybody here will know that there is a God in Israel! You would think, what a punk!  Goliath probably thought David was a punk, and he probably thought that right up until he died.

Thing is, David didn't give himself credit for what he did to Goliath.  It's clear he was pretty confident - he even told Saul that he'd armwrestled a bear and a lion before and won, but he wasn't claiming credit for those victories either.  He said that God was the one who delivered David from those enemies, and God was the one who would kill Goliath.  David had a lot of faith and a lot of courage, but not in himself - it was all in God.  What a dude.  No wonder all the screaming fangirls of Israel fell in love with him after that day.

Saul now goes through a wicked stepmother, "who's the fairest in the land" phase.  He doesn't like being #2 to this punk kid who can't even fit into his armor.  He tries various methods of getting him accidentally killed - send him on a dangerous mission, make him marry his daughter, throw a spear at him - but none of these subtle techniques seem to work.  That's partly because David has an inside man.  It's Jonathan, the honey-eater from earlier.  Jonathan and David are BFFs.  This is where we get a clue about what a great guy Jonathan is, because he knows full well that David is going to be king someday, and that is the job that he, Jonathan, has been brought up for all his life.  But he doesn't resent David.  In fact, it's his idea to make a covenant with David, swearing allegiance to each other all the days of their lives.  That's pretty hardcore.  So when David is afraid Saul is going to kill him, Jonathan finds out so he can warn David.

David has another inside man, actually an inside woman: his wife Michal.  Michal is Saul's daughter.  At first Saul tried to get David to marry his older daughter Merab, but David didn't feel worthy of the honor of being the king's son-in-law.  But Michal was violently in love with him, and Saul wanted him to kill a bunch of Philistines to marry her, so that made it okay.  Michal also helps David escape one time when Saul is trying to kill him, and I think it's pretty big of her to stand up to her dad when he comes looking for her.  Unfortunately, this is the last good thing I'm ever going to say about Michal.

So back to Jonathan.  Jonathan comes up with a plan to warn David if he finds out that Saul wants to kill him. Saul is really furious with Jonathan for being David's friend, and I kind of see why.  Jonathan is Saul's son; he's supposed to be on his dad's side.  Making Jonathan king after him represents everything they've been working for, all of Jonathan's life.  To see Jonathan so willing to give that up to some kid who smells like sheep is an even bigger blow than the son who doesn't want to go be a football player at his jock dad's alma mater because he would rather pursue a degree in musical theatre.

So you can guess what happens: Jonathan warns David, they have a very tearful farewell because they probably know they'll never see each other again, and David takes off running.  He's going to be running for quite some time.

So I think at this point we've seen Saul reach pretty much his all-time low.  I had really really liked him at first, and it makes me sad to see him turn into such a jealous paranoid freak.  I like David though, and Jonathan, and the friendship that David and Jonathan have.  I love the faith that David has in God to protect him in whatever circumstances he faces.  He's going to need that faith for the next several chapters.

Judges 6-9: The Original 300

Okay, before I start, I just wanted to say about the Spartan 300 that when the Persian army was approaching, somebody said they were so numerous that when they shot their arrows, they blotted out the sun.  One of the Spartan warriors replied to this, "Good, then we will have our battle in the shade."  I love Sparta.

*clears throat* But that's not the 300 I'm talking about in this passage.  No, these chapters are about a little guy named Gideon.

Unlike the Spartan warrior, Gideon does not strike me as a very brave, valiant, "it's a good day to die" type of guy.  When we meet him, he is threshing wheat in a winepress.  What?  Well, it's because the Midianites are oppressing Israel right now, and since the winepress was kind of a pit (maybe like an empty swimming pool?), he was threshing wheat in there to hide from the Midianites.  Normally, threshing wheat was a community event, maybe like a party - we'll see that when we get to Ruth - poor sad little Gideon is all by himself, hiding from the school bullies so he doesn't get his milk money taken.  Okay, so maybe I'm not being fair to him.  I'm just saying all this to make a point: Gideon is not the kill-a-few-hundred-people-with-an-oxgoad warrior, or even the shove-a-tent-peg-through-a-guy's-temple-while-he's-asleep sneaky assassin that we saw in the last passage.  He's just a regular guy trying to thresh his wheat.

So the angel of the LORD appears to Gideon, and it seems he hasn't been informed that Gideon isn't like Othniel and Shagmar and all them, because he says right off the bat, "The LORD is with you, mighty warrior!"  Can you picture Gideon turning around to see who's behind him that the shiny man is talking to?  Well anyway, Gideon's response to the angel is really interesting.  He says "Oh yeah?  If God is with us why am I threshing my wheat in a pit?  What happened to all the miracles that we heard about that used to happen?" (my paraphrase)

Note: I don't know if Gideon just hasn't read the Torah or something, but I believe that if an angel appears to you, a miracle of some kind is very soon going to happen.

In all seriousness, though, I think it's really interesting that Gideon is saying that miracles don't happen anymore, O woe is me, etc., right when God is calling him to do something miraculous.  Gideon seems to have excluded himself from that possibility.  When the angel tells him that God is going to deliver Israel from Midian through him, what does he say?  "Who me?  God is going to make me a mighty warrior like Shagmar the Oxgoad-Wielder and miraculously defeat the Midianites through me? Awesome, I can't wait!"  No, he says "I'm sorry, the warriors are in the third winepress on your right.  I happen to be the resident wimp from a family of wimps.  God must have been mistaken."

I think sometimes we have such grand, idealized ideas about the heroes of the Bible that we put them in a separate camp from ourselves.  It's like we think there's a special "hero pool" that God pulls people from, and we're not in it.  Reading through the Bible so far, though, I've become convinced of one thing: there's only one pool, and that's the pool you and I were in.  Now, there's two ways to look at that: one way is to think that means we're all in the hero pool, and that the same amazing stuff that was in Moses and Gideon is in us, and so we are capable of doing just as amazing things as they were.  The other way of looking at it is to think that all the heroes are in the "regular person" pool with the rest of us, and that they are just as unremarkable as the rest of us, but that God did amazing things through them because He is remarkable, and God can do amazing things through us too if we just get up when He calls us.  You can even look at it both ways; I'll let you decide though.

Anyway, so I'll stop ragging on Gideon because I think the "sign" thing is kind of a cool idea.  I don't know if it's because he was doubtful or because he just wanted to be sure - I mean, just because a guy is shiny doesn't mean they're the angel of the LORD - but he asked God for a total of three signs during the course of this story.  The first one is right now, when he prepares an offering for the angel, which the angel burns up.  The second and third signs are after Gideon has already gathered an army together.

Now, I heard a sermon about Gideon recently, so this next bit comes fromn that pastor, not me.  He said that when you're asking God for a sign, you'd better be already committed to doing whatever it is God's asking you to do.  When Gideon asked for the signs with the fleece and the dew, there were 32,000 people in his backyard playing football or something, ready to go to battle as soon as somebody said the word.  Gideon wasn't about to contest the results of the sign if it proved true.

So then God does one of his plot twists and trims down the army just a little - from 32,000 to 300 men.  I think it's interesting, though, that he didn't just tell Gideon to count off or have them pull straws or something, but that it appears He really was looking for a certain group of people, rather than a certain number.  First, God has all the people who are afraid go home.  Then he has the people who drink water in a more "refined" fashion go home.  I think God is trying to zero in on the people who are really committed no matter what, and ready and raring to go, like they're sitting there chomping at the bit and stuff.  Maybe God was looking for these people so that when He cut the army so absurdly small they wouldn't all get afraid and back out.  I mean, what if God hadn't eliminated the scared people? There might be some fraidy-cats in the final 300, and they would freak out and say "no way are we going to win," and run off.  Or maybe if He hadn't done the drinking thing, there would be some people in the final 300 who were kind of slow and wanted to take their time and enjoy the scenery en route to the enemy's camp.  I dunno.

So we all know what happens - the 300 people surround the Midianite camp, Gideon sneaks down and overhears some guy saying that Israel is totally going to win, and then they get pots and torches and basically just make a lot of noise, and Midian is so jumpy that they think they're being attacked so, in the confusion of night, they all start killing each other.  So Israel wins, but that's not actually the end of the story.

First of all, the Ephraimites get miffed that Gideon didn't invite them to the battle.  Gideon says Ephraim has already done a bunch of cool stuff and his little victory is no comparison, so the Ephraimites feel better about themselves and don't push it.  After that, Israel pursues Midian all over the place.  They are really tired and they stop at a place called Succoth and ask for food.  The elders of Succoth say "yeah right, whatever," so Gideon says that when he comes back he's going to beat the tar out of them.  Then he goes to a place called Penuel and the same thing happens, so he tells them he'll tear down their tower.  So he does - he captures the kings of Midian, whose names both start with Z, and returns to Succoth and beats up the elders, and then goes to Penuel, tears down the tower, and kills all the men in the city.  Now, I don't know that this was really necessary, but it appears that suddenly Gideon has become a mighty warrior - so mighty that he kills the kings of Midian himself, after asking a kid to do it and the kid was too scared - and also so mighty that Israel asks him to be their king.  But Gideon hasn't let all the gore and glory go to his head - he says no way, God should rule over you, not me.

At this point it seems that things are going rather well.  But then weird stuff happens - yeah, it's still not over.  Gideon asks for the people to give him earrings, so they do, and he makes an ephod out of the gold and takes it home with him.  Okay, no biggie, but apparently the people of Israel - including Gideon! - start using it in some kind of idolatry.  Sheesh!  Are there no decent guys in Israel?

But then we have a short story about Gideon's kids, who are really precious.  Gideon has 70 sons (from many different mothers, thank goodness), and one of them, Abimelech, wants to be king, so he goes and kills all 69 of his brothers - well actually 68, because on escapes - and the people of Shechem make him king over them for 3 years.  But then some other guy named Gaal challenges his authority, and apparently Shechem decides they like him better than Abimelech.  So they go to battle and - get this - Abimelech wins!  And he burns down the tower of Shechem with about 1000 people, men and women, inside!  At this point I'm really just waiting for this guy to die.  But then, the most awesome thing ever happens.He's marching against some tower in a place called Thebez, and as he's standing under the tower, some woman who doesn't even get her name put in throws a milstone at Abimelech's head, which crushes his skull (ouch).  Only he has another guy run him through with a sword so that people won't say that a woman killed him.  But too late! It's already in the Bible!  Man, that Abimelech guy really bugged me.  I'm glad he got killed by a girl throwing a rock on his head.

Then everybody goes home, end of story.

After all the awesomeness of Gideon's story, it looks like no amount of miraculous deliverance is going to cause permanent change in Israel.  It also looks like no matter how great a person like Gideon is, he can't for the life of him raise kids who follow the Lord.  I'm getting really frustrated with these people and their lack of good parenting.  Is it too much to ask for two successive generations of obedience?  But Gideon himself sort of turned against God with that ephod thing, so in spite of judging Israel and having 40 years of peace, it doesn't look like Israel is really following God that closely at any point in this story, after Midian was defeated.

Last night I said to a friend that I think the reason people live so long is because we learn so slowly.  The history of Israel is really a picture of each of us, or at least those of us who are normal.  Maybe some people follow God whole-heartedly and never turn away their whole lives, and are dramatically and permanently changed after witnessing a miracle, but I tend to repeat the same stupid stuff I've always done regardless of what God is doing.  And maybe stories like this one are in the Bible to remind me that I can't slack off after a major victory; I have to stay committed to following God or all kinds of stuff will get in the way, and I don't want that to happen.

Joshua 1-6: We're Goin' to the Promised Land!

Okay, does anybody else read the story of Jericho with the music to Veggie Tales' Josh and the Big Wall running through their mind?  I do.  "You silly little pickle, you silly little peas, you think that walking 'round will bring this city to its knees?"  But more on Jericho later.

We begin with God commissioning Joshua, following the death of Moses, so this book picks up right where Deuteronomy left off.  Then Joshua appears before Israel and they vow to obey him.

What interests me about this chapter, and also about the end of Deuteronomy, is the charge to Joshua to be "strong and courageous."   Including Deuteronomy 31, Joshua is told to be "strong and courageous" seven times - first by Moses, then by God, then by the people of Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh.  It makes me wonder if Joshua was really not that strong and courageous of a person.  Do you ever wonder why he was Moses' successor instead of Caleb?  Caleb is mentioned more in Numbers - he's the one mentioned as speaking favorably about the promised land way back in Numbers 13, for example.  He seems to be the strong and courageous type.  But I think Joshua had been prepped to take over Moses' job because he was his assistant, and he even went up to Mt. Sinai with him.  I think God wanted somebody who was as close to Moses as he could get.  Moses wasn't strong or courageous either, and we all know how much that mattered to God.  I think that you don't have to be brave to be brave . . . I think courage is something God can give you, and something that comes when you know you're on God's side.

In chapter 2, Joshua sends spies into Jericho kind of like Moses did earlier, but he only sends in two.  Think that's a coincidence since only two of Moses' spies (including Joshua) gave a favorable report?  I don't.  Anyway, they meet a girl named Rahab; apparently she's a prostitute, although I've read that the word could also be translated as "inkeeper."  Either way, she's hospitable and she hides the men while people come looking for them, and asks that Israel spare her life and the lives of all in her family in return.  So they make a deal with her that if she puts a scarlet cord in her window, then everybody within her house will live, but if she doesn't have the cord in her window, the deal's off.  Interestingly, it says she ties the cord in her window right when the spies leave.

Then Israel crosses the Jordan River, only they cross it by God cutting off the water upstream so the people can cross it on dry land.  This seems like a completely useless miracle because we just saw mention in the last chapter of fords, meaning there is a part in the river that is really, really shallow and can be crossed without a bridge.  I don't think that the point of the miracle was practicality, though.  I think the point was to remind the Israelites of what happened at the Red Sea.  I've noticed that God often does things in pairs (you'll hear more about this after I finish Judges) - for instance, Jesus feeds 5000 people, then he feeds 4000 people.  I think it's a way of reinforcing or confirming the message.  Joshua is new in charge, just as Moses was new in charge when he led the people out of Egypt 40 years ago.  Both miracles were signs that the power of God was on this chosen leader, only Joshua didn't have 10 plagues already under his belt, which makes this miracle even more important.  This is a way for God to show people that Joshua is the guy to follow.  It's also, I think, a miracle for the sake of the people who didn't see the Red Sea parted - since, remember, that was 40 years ago.  They've grown up hearing about it, and maybe this is a way for them to experience what it may have been like to see it happen.

Chapters 4-5 are more religious and less actiony.  In chapter 4, God has Joshua make a memorial pile of stones taken out of the Jordan River - a stone to represent each tribe of Israel - so that in future generations, the descendants of these people will ask their parents why that pile of stones is there, and they'll tell their kids about the crossing of the Jordan.  It says that the pile of stones is still there "to this day."  More on that later.

In chapter 5, God tells Joshua to circumcise all the males in Israel.  For some reason, nobody has been circumcised for the last 40 years while they were traveling.  I'm really not sure why that is.  Like, Moses didn't circumcise his kid either until an angel appeared on the road to Egypt about to kill one of them, and even then his wife did it. Did Moses just have a thing about circumcision, so he never told the people to do it?  I don't know.  Or was it like a travel concession - while you're on the road you can put it off.  I have no idea.  Anyway, that's what they do in chapter 5.  But then something really cool happens.

Joshua goes outside one day and sees a guy with a drawn sword.  Joshua asks him whose side he's on, and the guy says he's not on either side; he's the captain of the LORD's army.  Cool!  You can give me battle strategy advice, right? says Joshua.  Well not really.  Joshua falls on his face - which, for future reference, is the appropriate response when you're in the presence of the LORD, as it appears was the case here, because the angelic captain has Joshua remove his shoes.  Then (moving into chapter 6) he tells Joshua how to win the battle.  Basically he doesn't have to do anything except look weird, and God will take care of the rest.  So that is what they do.

Pause for a second.  Did the captain of the LORD's army just say he wasn't on Joshua's side?  Now maybe by that he meant that he wasn't an Israelite, and that probably is what he meant.  But I always felt like it meant something else too, that God is above the temporal divisions we humans make between ourselves.  Just like we say today that God isn't a Republican or a Democrat, He's not an Israelite either, and he certainly isn't under Joshua's command.  I think that it is not so important to have God "on our side" as it is for us to be on God's side.  Think about that for a bit and see if those two perspectives lead to different conclusions.  I think they do.

I love it when God's instructions don't make sense.  Here, walk around this fortified city, as if you haven't been walking enough over the last 40 years.  Walk a complete lap once every day for six days.  On day seven, lap it seven times.  Then blow trumpets and yell.  Trust me, it'll work!  Um . . . are the walls sensitive to sound waves?  But they do it, and it does work.  When they start shouting and blowing their trumpets, the walls fall flat - that's what it says, like "timber!" fall down flat.  They've found Jericho, by the way.  It looks like it suffered from earthquake damage is what archaeologists say.  Except for this one little spot along the wall which was left intact when the rest of the walls fell.  That would be Rahab's house.  Back to her.

So Rahab kept her promise, which means that the spies (and therefore all Israel) kept their promise, and when they destroyed everything in Jericho, they let Rahab and her whole family join up with them, not as slaves but as naturalized citizens.  We later find out that Rahab marries a guy named Salmon and has a son named Boaz.  We'll meet him later.  Pretty cool, huh?  And it says that "Rahab has lived in the midst of Israel to this day."

Now, you will find the phrase about something being somewhere "to this day" repeated a lot in this book, but we don't get any sense of when "this day" is until just now when it is used of Rahab.  Notice that Rahab is a living person, so if she has lived in Israel to this day, it means "this day" is during her lifetime, dating the book of Joshua to within a few decades of this event.  Also, I think I take back what I said about Joshua not writing the last part of Deuteronomy.  Among other reasons, the wording about "to this day" is a repeated phrase that I've only seen in this book.  So maybe Joshua did write it after all.

So that's where chapter 6 ends.  I'm going to stop on the high note, because there's bad news and I want to save it for next time.

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?

Exodus 19-40: The Covenant

I'm going to finish Exodus today. It's 22 chapters - wow - but I'll try not to write a novel.

Mostly what happens is, Moses talks with God and gets a bunch of commandments - kind of an overview of what we'll see in the next few books of the Law. The people say they'll obey everything God tells them to do, so then God starts telling Moses about how to build the tabernacle and priestly garments, which takes about seven rather lengthy chapters. Meanwhile, the people down in the camp go ballistic and have Aaron make an idol for them. God gets really mad, and Moses goes back and freaks out and kills a bunch of people. Then Moses goes back up on Sinai for a while and gets more instructions, and then the people make the tabernacle, and then we have a short scene describing God's presence in the tabernacle by day and by night.

So here are some thoughts.

1. I went to a synagogue once when I was staying with my Jewish friends for a weekend. My friend's Sunday school class (yeah, they have Sunday school too) was going over the Ten Commandments. The way they number them is a little different: the first commandment to them is "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt" (Ex. 20:2). I'm not really sure how that's a commandment, but that's how they have it. Then they merge what we consider the first and second commandments into one: no other gods. I just think that's interesting.

2. Murder is punishable by death if the victim is a man, a woman, a child, or even an unborn baby - but not if it's a slave. Why is that?

3. A lot of sins were punishable by death according to the Mosaic Law. If we applied all of them today, we would have the death penalty for the following:
a) murder
b) manslaughter, but you could get asylum
c) kidnapping
d) being an obstinately rebellious son or daughter
e) having a dog that has a habit of biting people and you didn't put him down and he bites somebody and they die
f) being involved in Wicca, astrology, palm-reading, tarot cards, the occult, etc.
g) bestiality
h) adhering to a religion other than the state religion

And that's just from two chapters; there are a few other things that could get you executed. Nobody crucify me here, but I think it's funny that people point to the Law for the reason why the death penalty is in effect today, but only where murder and perhaps rape are concerned. Not too many people want the death penalty to apply to witchcraft or rebellious children. Take that however you will; it's just an observation.

4. The other day I was rereading my very early IM conversations with Justin. It was funny to compare our relationship now to our friendship back then. One thing I noticed is that certain things that we thought would be potential issues back then, did become issues when we started dating. I also saw that even in IM, the same weaknesses and tendencies which each of us has today were present kind of as seeds at the very beginning. Not that we haven't worked through any of those things, but I'm just trying to use an analogy for Israel right here. Right away, as soon as they're out of Egypt - actually no, even back when they're still in Egypt - we can see a pattern of distrust and unfaithfulness. They believe in God, they don't believe in God. They obey Him, they disobey him. It becomes much more evident in chapter 32 - it was only a few weeks ago that they said "All that the LORD has spoken, we will do!" - and already they're saying, "What happened to Moses? He might not come back. Let's make a god we can see instead of the scary cloud on the mountain." This is really foreshadowing what the rest of Israel's history will look like. Like I said last time, yo-yo.

5. This is something I got from my Bible teacher. I don't know how intentional it is in the text, but give it some thought. When the people told Aaron to make them a god, what they meant was a god they could see. They had a god, but He wasn't really tangible. So far, their way of knowing God came by hearing God's word through Moses. Is it any coincidence, then, that when they told Aaron to make them a visible god, he had them take the rings off their ears - a symbol of hearing? Just like Eve in the garden, who heard God's command not to eat the fruit, but saw that the fruit was good, so she ate it. Actually, you could say that a lot of themes in the Bible have to do with seeing versus hearing. "We walk by faith, not by sight" (2 Cor. 5:7) and "now faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ" (Rom. 10:17). Or, as someone once said (I really wish I knew who it was), "In the beginning was the Word, not the video."

6. God told Moses he would kill all the Israelites and then make him into a great nation, and Moses seems to talk God out of it. I mean, the text actually says, "So the LORD changed His mind" (32:14). Was God -really- going to kill them all? Considering that God has been so determined so far to keep His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, I doubt it. Was He perhaps testing Moses then? And if so, what if Moses had said "sure, go ahead and kill them all"?

7. Aaron's a lousy excuse-maker. I don't understand him. The future high priest of the LORD is the one who makes this gold calf thing. Yet when Moses questions him, he makes it seem like the calf made itself - he says he threw the gold into the fire, "and out came this calf." Whoa, strange coincidence! What's weird is that Aaron still gets to be the high priest later.

8. Even after Moses intercedes for the people and asks God to be merciful to them, he has the Levites kill about 3000 people. Was he supposed to do that? God didn't tell him to. Personally, I think Moses has a hot temper. In chapter 11, when Moses warns Pharaoh about the last plague, it says he goes out from Pharaoh "in hot anger." I don't believe that phrase is used anywhere else in Scripture. Then with the golden calf incident, he gets so mad that he breaks the stone tablets that have the words of the covenant written on them. Then he tells the people to kill each other.

9. Right after Moses has the people kill each other, it says that God punishes everyone who was unfaithful to Him by "smiting" them. At first I thought that meant He killed them all, but when you think about it, if the vast majority of the people died, that wouldn't leave very many - and we find out in chapter 38 that there's over 600,000 men when the tabernacle is built. Also, Aaron was unfaithful, and clearly he's still around after the calf incident. Turns out the word use really means "to strike," not necessarily to kill. Personally, I think maybe God hit them with some kind of plague-like thing, even though in the laws He just gave Moses, it says that worshipping another god deserved death. So again, even in His judgment, God is showing mercy.

10. How big is this group of people right now? A lot of estimates say over a million, but critics say that's crazy because there simply wouldn't be enough room for them; I mean, we know from the beginning of the book that they outnumbered the Egyptians, but we don't know by how much. More importantly, though, is that a line of a million people, even if they were walking ten abreast, would be over 90 miles long by my estimation. Yet in chapter 38, it says that the men over age 20 numbered 603,550. Can somebody explain to me how this would work?

Okay, I'm sorry I made that so long, but seriously, it's 21 chapters.

Exodus 13-18: Through the Wilderness

This is a yo-yo story. That is to say, the same cycle keeps repeating itself over and over, so we see Israel going up and down, up and down . . . Check it out.

First: Pharaoh's army chases Israel. Israel says they should've stayed in Egypt. Moses parts the Red Sea, and Israel is happy and praises God.
Second: The water is bitter and the people can't drink it. The people grumble against Moses. God tells Moses to throw a stick in the water and it becomes drinkable.
Third: the Israelites get hungry and talk about how much food they had in Egypt. God provides manna and quail.
Fourth: there's no water at Rephidim. The people complain and say they should've stayed in Egypt. God makes Moses hit a rock and water comes out of it.

And while all that is going on, the people are coming to Moses every day from dawn to dusk with their problems. She took my toy, my neighbor ate my sheep, they TP'd my tent, I don't know. But apparently just about everybody had some kind of problem, and nobody could work it out for themselves so they all cried to Moses. So Moses' father-in-law (remember him?) comes and tells Moses to appoint other people to help him judge.

Basically, this passage shows us something about people and something about God. It says that people have very short memories. God just did a whole bunch of crazy miracles in the last few chapters, and as soon as Israel gets ten feet away they seem to forget all about that. It's like, did they really think God did all those miracles in Egypt just to leave them stranded in the wilderness? Or would he part the Red Sea but not feed them? How dense can you be, right?

Unfortunately, we do the same thing. It is so easy to forget how God has provided for us in the past because, well, it's in the past. For some reason, every new little problem that comes up appears in our eyes to be this great overwhelming thing, and I guess we think that if God were -really- on our side He wouldn't let us have any problems at all. But as we saw yesterday, that's not the way God works. He doesn't clear the rocks out of the path; he just helps us get past them.

I can't remember what book it was, but I have a feeling it was Stone of Help by Robin Hardy - the main character has this dream where she's walking with God on this rocky path, and sometimes He stoops down and clears rocks out of the way to make it easier. And sometimes He leaves the rocks there, and she trips on them and stuff. She finally asks God why He didn't just clear away -all- the rocks, and He replies, "because if there were no rocks at all, there wouldn't be a path." Something to think about. It might've been that book . . . either way, Robin Hardy has some good lines in her Annals of Lystra trilogy.

This story really makes a sharp contrast between men and God. The people in this story are fickle and seem to keep changing their minds about God. God, on the other hand, is depicted as unchanging. He always has a way to provide for the Israelites, and He always preserves them even if He doesn't make the journey easy for them. I think He really wants the people to just trust that it will be okay. Maybe that's why He leaves obstacles in their path, actually. Maybe He just wants to see if anybody's going to learn from the past and trust Him this time.

Relationships really have a lot to do with trust. You never know how strong a relationship is until you get into a situation where it becomes difficult to trust the other person. Trials reveal who we really are. What kind of person am I under pressure? What kind of person are you?

Exodus 1-6: Israel in Bondage

Welcome to Exodus! In case you ever wondered, the original name of this book was Shemot, which means "names." Likewise, the original name of Genesis was Bereshith (spelling varies), meaning "in the beginning." All the books were named according to the first couple words in the book, and if you read the Hebrew Scriptures those are the names they still use.

So here are my observations:

Why does the story call Moses' father-in-law Reuel the first time and Jethro the other times? My first guess is that Reuel is more of a title or a description than a name. It means "friend of God," and he was the priest, so maybe "friend of God" is another way of saying "priest." I don't really know.

A lot of people who preach on this passage point this out, but God knew how to prepare Moses for his future job. First he was raised in the Egyptian palace as the son of Pharaoh's daughter, so he had the best education you could probably get anywhere in the world, plus his mother no doubt taught him Hebrew religion and history. Then he spends 40 years as a shepherd, which means he had to learn how to be in charge of lots of dumb animals. Very soon he would be in charge of lots of dumb people, and I think herding a tribe of people who don't like you across the country is probably not too much different from herding a flock of sheep. Maybe.

Don't miss the last couple verses of chapter 2, because they're very deliberate. It says, "So God heard their groaning; and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God saw the sons of Israel, and God took notice of them." In other words, God wasn't ignoring them, nor had He forgotten them - just like we saw with Noah during the flood. When bad things happen to us, our first tendency is often to think that God either doesn't care or isn't around, but that's not true. He 1) hears us when we cry out to Him, 2) remembers (i.e. doesn't forget) His promise never to leave us, 3) sees us in our misery, and 4) pays attention to us. Those are four very deliberate actions on God's part.

When God calls Moses, Moses makes lots of excuses. First he plays the "I'm not good enough" card, and then God answers him by saying "I will be with you" - in other words, it doesn't matter who you are. Then Moses asks who he should say sent him (I'm not sure why he asks this; if anybody has an idea, let me know), and God gives him His covenant name, YHWH. YHWH is derived from the verb hayah, which means "to be." That's why it's translated "I AM WHO I AM," in all caps like that. It's God's personal name, His most holy name, the name that describes Him as the One who is. I think it's a pretty awesome name.

Next Moses says that the Hebrews won't believe him, so God gives him three signs which I imagine each symbolize something and could be made into a sermon (you know, because there's three of them, and sermons always have three points): turning the staff into a snake, making his hand leprous, and turning water into blood (Moses doesn't actually do that one at this time, God just tells him about it).

So then Moses says (he's getting more personal now) that he's not good at talking. I think Moses might have been like me a bit in that respect, because I'm not very good at talking either, and if God told me to go before the ruler of the civilized world and tell him something he really wouldn't want to hear, I wouldn't want to do it either. God has a really good comeback here: "Who has made man's mouth? Or who makes hi mute or deaf, seeing or blind? Is it not I, the LORD?" This is really, really important. When God calls you to something, He also equips you with everything you need to accomplish your calling, even if it doesn't seem like enough to you. Moses thought that talking to Pharaoh required being able to speak well, but in God's eyes, Moses didn't need that. He gave Moses all the tools he needed, and then promised that He would help him along the way. And He did: He sent Aaron to be his speaker, and He trained Moses along the way, so that by the end of the story we see Moses talking, not Aaron. Which is pretty cool.

This principle is something I realized one day in ballet class, when I was thinking about how bad my turnout was. I realized that God had given me the body I needed to have for whatever task He's called me to do. And whatever that is, I don't need perfect turnout to do it. I have all the tools I need to be the dancer God has called me to be, and I have everything I need to go wherever God wants me to go. All I have to do is use what He gave me, and He'll help me do the rest. That was a huge encouragement and relief to me; maybe it will be to you as well.

Moses finally gives his most personal excuse: "God, please send somebody else." Deep down, he really just doesn't want to do it, and I can't say I blame him. Moses had what seems to be a nice, quiet life over in Midian. He had a wife and kids, a father-in-law who seems pretty cool, and some sheep; what more could he want? Then along comes this wacked-out bush that turns out to be Jehovah God telling him to drop it all and go back to a country where he's wanted for murder and tell the most powerful man alive to give up his number one source of labor. I wouldn't want to do it either. I really don't think God was all that concerned with what Moses wanted to do, because what Moses wanted to do was continue his nice, quiet, safe little life. God isn't safe, and He doesn't guarantee us safe lives as His followers. The only thing He really does guarantee is that He'll be with us. Actually, that's a lot.

That's all for today; tomorrow we'll look at the 10 plagues. Won't that be fun?

Genesis 24-26: Isaac

First of all, has it really been a week? Sorry about that. I stopped reading at night because it kept me up all night, and I kind of need sleep. So I'll have to find another time of day to read it, maybe after rehearsals and stuff in the evening. Better than sitting around watching TV.

Anyway, so this little segment is about Isaac. Here's how it goes:

• Abraham sends his servant to find a wife for Isaac
  
• Isaac marries Rebekah
• Abraham dies
• a list of Ishmael's kids
• Jacob and Esau are born
• Isaac goes to Gerar, the same place Abraham went in chapter 20
• Isaac pulls the same "she's my sister" stunt that his father pulled, and gets in trouble for it
• Isaac gets rich
• Abimelech (the king) gets kind of scared of him and makes him leave
• Isaac's people fight with the Philistines over some wells
  
• Abimelech realizes it's not good to leave on bad terms with a really rich person so they make a covenant

First of all, I think Abraham must have trusted his servant an awful lot. He sent him all the way back to Abraham's old house in Mesopotamia (it says he went to the city of Nahor, which isn't in my Bible map, but I guess it's probably around Haran, which is a pretty far ways away from where Abraham is right now). And he's trusting his servant to find a wife for his son. That's kind of a big deal. Maybe his servant has really good taste, I don't know. Anyway, when the servant puts his hand under Abraham's thigh, that's some kind of covenant too. I don't remember any of the details about that custom though or else I'd elaborate. But suffice it to say, it was a really big deal.

What I find interesting about this servant is that he keeps calling God "the God of my master Abraham," and I'm not sure what he means by that. He seems to have quite a bit of faith in God himself because the first thing he does is he asks God to bring out exactly the right woman and give him a sign to know who she is. Why do you think he calls God "Abraham's God" instead of his God or just plain God? Is it because he's a servant, or is that a cultural thing, or something like that? I've just always found it curious.

This is the first time we see Laban. We'll see him again later. He seems like a decent person so far. Oh, and it really amuses me that they ask Rebekah if she'll go with the servant or if she wants to wait a few days. She doesn't really get consulted about whether she wants to go to Canaan and marry her cousin, but on the other hand, she doesn't seem opposed to it. Anyway, I think she ends up liking Isaac. It does say he loved her. And if I'm not mistaken, that's the first time it talks about a husband and wife loving each other.

I like the description of Abraham at his death: "Abraham breathed his last and died in a ripe old age, an old man and satisfied with life; and he was gathered to his people." Contrast that with the description of Sarah a few chapters earlier. Sarah lived and died; Abraham lived a full life and died satisfied.

The next thing I find interesting is that we find out Rebekah was barren. Everybody knows Sarah was barren and Rachel was barren, but we forget that Rebekah was too because the text doesn't make such a big deal of it. So the first time I read that I thought, "that's a little too coincidental for me." But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it wasn't just a really weird coincidence that the patriarchs all picked these barren women. I think God did it on purpose. I think I mentioned in a previous post, He's very particular about choosing people who don't seem right for the job. For example, when you're trying to build a nation whose decendants will be as numerous as the stars and the grains of sand, you generally don't do it through three women in a row who can't bear children. I think God does that to show that this isn't a fluke; this is Him bringing His plan into action.

Jacob and Esau are an interesting bunch. On the one hand, you have to kind of feel sorry for Esau that Jacob talked him out of his birthright by holding food in front of his nose. On the other hand, what kind of guy is so careless about his entire inheritance that he would trade it for a bowl of soup? I wonder sometimes if Esau is the guy they're making fun of in the caveman cartoons. But I'll talk more about the twins next time.

Isn't it funny that now Isaac is pulling the same lie that his father used - twice - when he goes to Gerar? (By the way, this probably isn't the same Abimelech that Abraham met; Abimelech is just Hebrew for "my father is king" or something like that). This is part of that whole cycle of distrust/deceit thing I was talking about earlier with Abraham. Parents, be careful what kind of example you set for your kids. They'll take it and run with it. Kids, be aware that your tendency as you grow up is to become like your parents. If you don't want to become like your parents, you have to be intentional about it.

God talks to Isaac and reiterates the Abrahamic covenant (the promise He made to Abraham) with him. What's funny is that God talks to Rebekah before He talks to Isaac, at least in the story.

By the way, I think a lot of the problems between Jacob and Esau occurred because their parents played favorites. Don't ever do that. All your kids need to be shown an equal amount of love - and notice that I said "shown." If you love all your kids equally but spend way more time on one than on the others, that's not going to cut it with them.

Okay, so that's about all I have. Next time I'm going to talk about Jacob.

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.