Genesis 32-36: Turning Point

One of my new favorite parts in the whole Bible is coming up in this post.

When we last left Jacob, he was leaving Laban. Now, as he's on his way back home, he hears that Esau is coming toward him with 400 men. Considering that the last time Jacob saw his brother, his brother wanted to kill him, this comes across as really bad news. He gets scared, divides his people up, sends Esau several caravan-loads of animals , and has everybody go on ahead of him while he stays behind for the night to freak out alone.

This is one of the coolest things that ever happens in the Bible: "Then Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak."

Why did God wrestle with Jacob? Why did Jacob wrestle with God? I kind of get the theological significance of this event, but I still find it odd and interesting that God actually had a fist fight with Jacob all night. I bet it was really good for Jacob though. When I was in high school and my guy friends got mad at each other, they would beat each other up and then they'd be friends again. I wonder if this was like that. I mean, up until now we've gotten a pretty rotten picture of Jacob. He's a liar from a family of liars, a cheat, a swindler, maybe a coward, and whatever other nasty things we can attribute to him. For somebody who's called to father a nation that's supposed to be holy unto the Lord, I'd say he's not doing so well. I'm probably reading things into the text, but when I come across this part I think that Jacob's been avoiding God all this time, and now that he's finally alone, he can meet God face to face. And what happens isn't pretty.

This is the redemptive point in Jacob's life. After this point, as we'll see in a bit, Jacob starts acting different. He doesn't become a really good person (his parenting skills, for example, are . . . well, like his father's), but he does start doing some things right where God is concerned. But I'll get to that in a bit.

So God meets with Jacob, and they wrestle. This is what I do like about Jacob: at this point, he and God didn't have a friendly encounter, but they did have an encounter. Maybe they didn't have a very good relationship, but they had a real relationship. I don't know what Jacob thought about God before this night, but one thing's for sure: God had to have been real for Jacob after this point. It's hard to ignore a God who dukes it out with you all night long, then leaves you with a limp to remind you of it.

Other things I'm wondering . . . why did Jacob win? And why did God dislocate Jacob's hip when He wasn't winning? That's just weird. What did He mean, "You have wrestled with God and men and have prevailed"? How can you prevail against God? I mean, I don't think He was talking just about the wrestling match.

Jacob's name, as we all know, means "deceiver" (or more literally, "he grasps the heel," which is an idiom). Israel means "He wrestles with God." That's a fitting name for the nation-to-be if ever there was one. All of Israel's history can pretty much be summed up in three words: wrestling with God. Huh. Not sure what else I can add to that. Do you guys have any thoughts?

So, moving on. Jacob goes to meet his brother, who isn't mad at him anymore. They talk a little and keep going their separate ways. Short meeting, evidently. At least they're all still alive. Next Jacob goes to this place called Shechem and his daughter Dina gets raped, so her brothers kill all the men in the entire village.

Now, I know that we generally think that back in the day women were considered property, and they probably were, but these brothers don't sound too different from my brothers. I'm not sure they'd go kill an entire town if something happened to me, but then again, my brothers weren't raised in ancient Near Eastern culture either. Either way, the big brother protective streak evidently goes a long way back. I kind of appreciate that they cared about their sister and stuff, but they really should've just not let her wander off in the first place instead of going and killing everybody. After that happened they had to leave (my guess is people in other towns were mad at them now), so they went back to Bethel.

What's cool is that when they go, Jacob tells them to purify themselves and get rid of their false gods and stuff (I assume this means Rachel's dad's action figures too). Nobody in the story has done that yet. The next thing that happens is Jacob renames Bethel, which means "house of God," to El-bethel, which means "the God of the house of God." That sounds redundant, but in a forgotten sermon I wrote some notes in my margins that I'm now going to elaborate on. "El-bethel" is commemorating the God of the place rather than the place. Islam, incidentally, is about a journey to a place. One of the things you have to do as a good Muslim is make a pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in your life. Judaism, too, is a lot about places: the promised land, particularly Jerusalem, and more particular the Temple Mount. Christianity, or at least what Christianity is supposed to be, is a journey to a Person. That's why Jesus said whoever wants to worship God must worship Him "in spirit and in truth."


The next thing that happens is that Rachel dies. Okay, and I've got to say something nice about Rachel even though I don't like her, because the other day Justin made a good point that in this culture, bearing children was really the only thing that gave women any worth. So as far as society was concerned, nobody cared that Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah; she was worthless because she was barren. So that's why she got desperate and went crazy trying to have kids. But now she dies having Benjamin, which is really sad.

Next there is one sentence about Reuben sleeping with Bilhah, one of those maids from before. It only gets one sentence, but later on it will be important because Reuben was the firstborn and should've gotten all the inheritance. It's important for the same reason that it's important that Simeon and Levi, the second and third born, were the ones who killed the men of Shechem. You'll learn why another time though, because we're not there yet.

The next thing that happens is account of Isaac dying, and then it talks about Esau's descendants. The only thing I have to say about this is that it's nice that both Esau and Jacob were there to bury their dad, just like both Ishmael and Isaac buried Abraham; and that if you read through the descendants of Esau there are a few names you might recognize, like Amalek.

Well, that's probably more than long enough. Next time we'll hear about Joseph.

Genesis 27-31: Jacob and the Family Dysfunction

Okay, so it's been way too long since I wrote one of these. I'm in Genesis 36 right now, but I'm breaking Jacob up because there's soooo much to talk about.

Very brief summary: Jacob tricks his twin brother Esau out of his birthright and his blessing. Esau decides to kill Jacob, so he runs away to his uncle Laban. Jacob wants to marry his cousin Rachel but Laban tricks Jacob into marrying Leah first. Leah and Rachel squabble over children and get into a baby-making contest (Leah wins). Then Jacob has some not-quite-fair dealings with Laban to build up his own flock. Then they leave, and Rachel steals Laban's household gods. Laban chases them, they make a covenant, and then they leave and go their own separate ways.

Okay, so I'm about halfway through Genesis, and I really don't like this patriarch family one bit. Abraham and Isaac were bad enough, but Jacob is a whole 'nother story. He cheats, his uncle cheat, his mom cheats, his wife steals, his wives fight over him, and his brother wants to kill him. What is God thinking using these idiots? It's amazing He got anything at all done with them. It's like trying to teach little kids something and all they want to do is beat each other up. You won't get very far. So the fact that God succeeded not only in keeping these bozos alive but in building a nation out of them is very impressive.

An observation from Gary Smalley and Dr. John Trent (they're psychologists or something) is this whole issue of the "blessing." Isaac and Rebekah played favorites with their kids, and their kids knew it. I don't really blame Jacob for wanting to get some kind of affirmation from his father, because he probably never did all his life until he pretended to be his brother. Parents should be really conscientious about making sure all their children feel equally loved. Isaac only had one blessing to give; I think you should have an individual blessing for each of your kids.

I could go on all day about this, but let's move on.

I do feel bad for Leah. I bet it really sucked to know that the only way her dad could marry her off was by tricking a guy into thinking he was marrying her little sister. I'm glad she had a lot of kids, and I'm glad that God used her, not Rachel, to continue the line that eventually went to Christ.

Rachel bugs me. She was pretty, but she wasn't a very good person. When she figured out she wasn't having kids, the first thing she does is complain to Jacob. What can Jacob do about it? Nothing. The second thing she does is give her maid to Jacob to build a family through her. Um, I thought we did this already with Sarah and Hagar. Evidently Rachel missed the memo that this is a stupid idea. Oh, and guess what she names her maid's kids? "He has vindicated" and "My struggle" - in other words, "Take that, Leah!" The third thing she does is she bargains for some mandrakes, which were believed to increase fertility. So Rachel by now has appealed to her husband, her own ideas, and superstition - but not God. I'm surprised God eventually gave her any children at all. Oh, and guess what she named her own son? "I want another one." Sheesh, what a brat. Compare Rachel to Hannah, who did nothing but pray so hard she looked drunk, and promised God that she'd give her son back to Him if she ever had one. I like Hannah; I don't like Rachel.


Now it's Laban's time to shine. For some reason, Jacob notices that Laban isn't happy with him. Maybe it's because Laban's noticed that his flock are all a lot weaker than Jacob's? So anyway, Jacob sneaks away with all of his stuff (probably wasn't easy to sneak), and Laban finds out he's gone and follows him. God actually comes and warns him not to say anything to Jacob, so look at what Laban does when he meets Jacob. This is hilarious. He goes, "It is in my power to do you harm, but the God of your father spoke to me last night, saying, 'Be careful not to speak either good or bad to Jacob.'" Oh yeah, Laban, you think you're so bad. I bet Laban thought he was pretty special for God to have come and talked to him. Probably thought God was protecting Jacob from big scary Laban. Whatever. It gets better. The next thing Laban says is, "But why did you steal my gods?" In other words, he was just talking about the God of Abraham visiting him, and how that's so cool, as if Laban is now on a level with the patriarchs, and then he snaps back to "I want my action figures back!" What a loser.

What Jacob doesn't know is that Rachel stole the action figures. Why, we don't know. But we already know she was a brat, so that's explanation enough for me. Smart Rachel, she almost got herself killed. Good thing she was a woman and could make up a convenient excuse. You mention that thing and guys get terrified. Needless to say, she wasn't searched, so she got away with stealing the action figures.

Anyway, so then Laban (probably really huffy by now) says that Jacob's wives and children and flocks and everything Jacob owns really belongs to Laban, but since he's such a nice guy, he's willing to make a covenant with Jacob and let him keep all that stuff and go on his merry way unharmed. Gee, wasn't that nice of him? So they make a covenant and promise not to ever go onto each other's territory to do them harm. And they say "May the LORD watch between you and me when we are absent from the other." That phrase became a farewell saying called the Mizpah Blessing, which I think is neat.

So now we've seen Jacob's family at pretty much their worst, but there's still more to come. Luckily, though, things will start to get better soon.

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 23: The Death of Sarah

I found this chapter interesting so I thought I'd devote a whole blog post to it. So this will be a little shorter than usual (yay!).

So chapter 23 is about Sarah dying, but really it's about Abraham buying a place to bury her. Seriously, the part about her death is maybe two sentences.

Now, I'm not totally sure what to make of Sarah. See, not very many women are mentioned in ancient literature, particularly ancient historical literature. So the fact that Sarah got mentioned as much as she was, I think, is fairly significant. She was a pretty important lady.

On the other hand, what do we know about Sarah as a person? We know that she was barren (at first), pretty, that she talked her husband into doing stupid things, that she didn't believe God's word to her, and that she apparently really had it out for Hagar. Every time the Bible mentions Sarah, the person you see is not exactly the model wife of Proverbs 31, or even the inwardly beautiful woman Peter talks about.

So by the time we get to Sarah's death, all the author can say about his nation's mother is how old she was and how much Abraham spent to bury her.

I guess it just makes me kind of sad.

I'm trying to ask every time, what can we learn about God through this? Well, first off, God seems stuck on using people who aren't very good. That's a comfort to me personally because sometimes I think I'm like Sarah in all the wrong ways. God can work with your raw material, I guess you could say.

That's actually all I can come up with. What do you think we can learn about God from Sarah?

I'm kind of challenged by this chapter, actually. I don't really get the impression that the author meant it as such, but I can't help thinking that we can take a warning from Sarah's life. When you die, what will people have to say about you? If your life is only remembered for the few most significant things you did, what would those be, and what would they say about you?

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.

Gen. 4-11: Corruption and Judgment

I'm lumping several things together in this post, since right now I'm in the middle of chapter 18 and I don't want to get too far behind in my blogging. Note: This post has been modified from its original version. It has been formatted to fit the purpose of this blog.

To sum up Genesis 4-11, it's all about people screwing up. First Cain gives the wrong offering, and then he kills his brother. Then everybody becomes wicked, so God sends a huge flood. Then Noah gets drunk and exposes himself. Then a bunch of people rally together to build a tower to heaven, so God mixes up their languages. Throw a few genealogies into the mix and that's what it is.

I'll start with questions.

1. Why didn't God like Cain's offering? I think, personally, that it was a kind of sin offering, and the only thing that can cover sins is blood. I'm sure Cain knew that, and while it was nice of him to offer his grain and stuff, it wasn't what was required. That's what I think, but I don't know. What do you think?

2. How on earth did Noah get all those animals to fit in his boat? Even if they were all babies, and even if he collected them by genus or family or "kind" or common ancestor or whatever, that's a lot of animals, especially the bugs.
***Note: I don't particularly think the Flood had to cover every inch of the earth, since people weren't that spread out. But there is archaeological evidence in many parts of the world for a deluge (in Eastern Washington it's called Dry Falls), and that makes me think that maybe it was that big. But what do you think?

3. Why was the tower of Babel such a bad idea? What about its being built did God oppose? The only thing I can say for sure was that the people were defying God's command to spread out and fill the whole earth (I had another thought last night when I read it, but I forgot what it was. I've since begun taking notes so I don't lose anymore ideas).

So now I think the important part is to find out what we can learn about God from all this. It doesn't actually matter very much whether the Flood was a global phenomenon or how Noah got all the animals into the ark. What matters is what God reveals about Himself in the text.

So here's what I think.

1. God is involved with His creation, and He is concerned about us. He interacts with us.

2. God is a God of judgment, but even His judgment is merciful. He sends Cain out to wander in the world, but He doesn't kill him or allow him to be killed. He destroys the world with a flood, but only after 120 years of waiting. Plus, it's not like people all of a sudden got wicked and God started disliking them. It had to be a long process before people became so bad that every thought in their minds was continually wicked. And with the tower of Babel, all God does is stir things up, making people speak different languages so they have to spread out.

3. God is faithful. Genesis 8:1 says that God remembered Noah when he was in the ark - that doesn't mean He forgot about him and then suddenly went "oh yeah, I've got a guy in a boat to take care of." It means He never stopped remembering Noah. And then God promised that whenever He saw a rainbow, it would remind Him of His covenant not to destroy the earth with a flood again. If you think about it, I bet it's always raining somewhere in the world. So maybe God is always seeing a rainbow somewhere and always remembering His covenant. I think that's cool.

Questions, answers, comments, criticisms, concerns - all are welcome.