Today, I am reading and commenting on Genesis 48-50.
The description of the death of Jacob shows that the Egyptians of Joseph’s day treated him as if he was royalty. Perhaps some day a cave will be discovered in the land of Israel which contains the remains of several people, one of whom was embalmed in the Egyptian style. I suspect that this will not happen, since it is likely that the site which has already been identified as this site is indeed the site where Jacob was buried. We also see in this passage that Joseph’s forgiveness of his brothers was not just for the sake of his father. This passage strikes home to me because I have siblings who will not speak with each other now that my mother has died. There is blame to share around, but I wish my family could experience the forgiveness which Joseph and his brothers experienced.
Today, I am reading and commenting on Genesis 42-44.
My first thought reading this passage today was, “What about this situation made Joseph’s brothers think about what they did to him those many years prior?” Yes, Joseph had been probing them closely about Benjamin just before they made that connection, but I wonder about it being that simple. In fact, when we read about the brothers’ exchange with their father before coming back to Egypt the second time we get the impression that Joseph asked many probing questions about their family. Reading between the lines about the way Joseph sat the brothers and then what his servant said when confronting them about the silver cup, we see that Joseph had led his brothers to believe that he had supernatural sources of knowledge. In fact throughout this passage we see Joseph use the knowledge he had which others thought he had no way to know to impress and intimidate others (a behavior to keep in mind later when we read about how Pharaoh’s advisers responded to the Plagues).
I also wanted to continue to highlight the differences between Reuben and Judah. When the brothers blamed their current troubles on what they had done to Joseph, Reuben claimed to have told them not to harm Joseph, which he had not actually done. Then, when they asked Jacob to send Benjamin with them, Reuben offered the lives of his own sons as surety for Benjamin’s safe return. On the other hand, Judah offered himself as surety for Benjamin’s safe return. Then, when Joseph threatened to enslave Benjamin for stealing his cup (which he knew full well that Benjamin had not done), Judah forcefully put himself forward to be enslaved in Benjamin’s place. I do not want to condemn Reuben for what he did. Rather, I want to hold up Judah as taking more personal responsibility. There was nothing wrong with Reuben’s words or actions in this passage, but Judah’s were better.
Today, I am reading and commenting on Genesis 39-41.
I think that the story of Joseph is a lesson about perseverance and not giving in to circumstances. He was his father’s favorite son with all of the privileges which came with that. Then his own brothers sold him into slavery. But he did not let that get him down. He still used his abilities as best he could. Then, he was lied about and thrown into prison on the basis of a false accusation (and probably beaten up pretty good along the way). There in prison he once again applied his skills to the best of his ability. Then he helped out a fellow prisoner, who promptly forgot about him for two years. In all that time, he never forgot God, nor did he attempt to take credit for the gifts which God had given him. He could have easily given in to despair, but he did not. He could have used what happened as an excuse to quit. He did not. He continued to do his best to do God’s will.
Today, I am reading and commenting on Genesis 36-38.
As I read today’s passage I cannot help but think about a curiosity. Abraham’s father, Terah, left his family and set off on his own. Abraham did the same. Yes, Abraham brought his orphaned nephew Lot with him, but once Lot reached full maturity he went his own way. Abraham sent his sons by his concubines away, leaving Isaac as the sole member of his family to take over. Isaac’s sons, Esau and Jacob, each went their own way. But Jacob’s sons stayed together and became a nation (as did Esau’s sons). I can’t help but wonder what changed with Jacob’s sons that led to them staying together. Perhaps they stayed together out of fear of reprisals for what they did in Shechem to get revenge for the rape of their sister Dinah.
In the story about Joseph being sold into slavery we have examples of two different styles of taking charge. The way Reuben did things and the way Judah did things. Reuben recognized that what his brothers wanted to do to Joseph was wrong, but he was unwilling to challenge them on it. So, he used his force of personality as the eldest to get them to do something reversible, planning to seek back later and do just that. Judah, on the other hand, recognized his brothers’ discomfort with killing Joseph (which he probably shared) and convinced them to get rid of the “problem” another way. And in a way, Joseph was a problem for the sons of Jacob. He was Jacob’s favorite and spoiled. Joseph was too young to rule over his brothers in the household. Yet, Jacob would likely have tried to make that happen. Since God had other plans, it all worked out.
Today, I am reading and commenting on Genesis 33-35.
I love the story of Esau and Jacob reuniting. If ever there was a person with reason to hate his sibling and never want anything to do with them again, it was Esau. However, when Esau saw his brother again after many years apart he ran to hug him. Jacob for his part acknowledged by his actions that his brother had a legitimate grievance against him. I want to point out that Esau did not forgive Jacob because of Jacob’s gifts. A careful reading of the Bible shows that Esau had set out with a small army while Jacob was meeting with Laban. Yet Esau’s actions indicate he had not set out with the intention of bringing harm to Jacob. Both brothers took action to reconcile their relationship. Jacob gave Esau gifts as an acknowledgement that he owed Esau for what he had done to him. Further, I think the rest of the story shows them negotiating their future relationship. Esau offered for Jacob to come back and join his household but Jacob declined that invitation without rejecting his brother.
Today, I am reading and commenting on Genesis 29-30.
Laban did his daughter Leah no favors by tricking Jacob into marrying her. Perhaps things would have gone better if he had negotiated with Jacob from the beginning for Jacob to marry both of his daughters, but I get the impression that Laban was one of those people who always try to get one over on others. We see the same sort of behavior on Laban’s part when he negotiated for Jacob to get the speckled, spotted sheep and goats, and black goats as his own. As soon as they had struck this deal, Laban had all of the sheep that met the criteria removed from the flocks managed by Jacob. However, Jacob knew a trick to increase the likelihood of sheep and goats being born which met the criteria to be his. We know that the trick described would not have the results described, at least not for the original herd which had no speckled or spotted sheep. But the people who passed this story down were shepherds, so they would have know that as well. Perhaps there was a little more to Jacob’s trick then described here. Or perhaps, in the course of time as the normal distribution resulted in a limited number of speckled and spotted animals it increased the likelihood of other animals breeding with them. In any case, Laban cheated Jacob in both of the deals they made. I like to think that Jacob’s experience with Laban caused him to be less of a cheater going forward. Jacob’s trick with the animals, assuming it was not just the hand of God which enlarged his flock, was underhanded, but did not go against that to which he had agreed. In both the case of giving Leah to Jacob to be his wife and in removing certain animals from the flocks Jacob tended, Laban broke the agreement he had made.
Today, I am reading and commenting on Genesis 26-28.
It struck me today as I compared what happened when Isaac said that Rebekah was his sister rather than his wife to when Abram did the same with Sarai that what happened in Egypt differed from what happened in Philistia. In Egypt, God sent plagues upon the Pharaoh and his household. In Philistia, God merely appeared to the first Abimelech when he took Sarai to be his wife. The second Abimelech realized that Rebekah was Isaac’s wife before anyone did anything. The thing of interest being that the Philistines recognized the sin of taking another man’s wife to bed, while the Egyptians only responded to the consequences. The second Abimelech saw value in allying with Isaac. Initially, he thought that Isaac would assimilate into the population and increase his own wealth. When Abimelech realized that Isaac would not assimilate and had become powerful enough to be competition, he asked Isaac to move on. Nevertheless, once Isaac had moved far enough to not be competition to his own power, Abimelech made a treaty with Isaac, just as the previous Abimelech had done with Abraham.
Today, I am reading and commenting on Genesis 24-25.
I find it interesting that Abraham wanted his son Isaac to marry a woman from his homeland, just as later Isaac sent Jacob there to find a wife. However, I want to highlight today that Abraham insisted that under no circumstances should Isaac return to Abraham’s homeland in order to get a wife there. Abraham insisted that the woman to be Isaac’s wife must come to the land of Canaan. Then when Abraham’s servant found Rebekah, not only was she willing to travel to the land of Canaan to marry Isaac, she was eager to be on her way. While I am sure that the story that Abraham’s servant told about how God answered his prayer played a role in Rebekah’s willingness to pick up and leave her home to marry a man she had never met, it seems to me that she also had a strong desire to leave her family behind. I could speculate on her reasons, but what I really want to point out is that God had prepared her to go. Something about her circumstances with her family made her eager to move on when God asked her to do so. In the same way, God will prepare us to move on when that is His plan for us.
Today, I am reading and commenting on Genesis 21-23.
We often read the story of Hagar and Ishmael being sent away by Abraham as if Ishmael was a little boy. In fact, Ishmael was a young man by this point. He was 14 when Isaac was born and it was several years later when he was sent away by his father. In fact, it seems likely that Hagar ran out of water because she was unwilling to take directions from her son. As I read this story, Hagar wandered in the wilderness, refusing to listen to her son about where to go, until they ran out of water. At which point, God opened her eyes to the good advice Ishmael had been giving her and she was willing to allow him to begin providing for the two of them. As long as Hagar viewed Ishmael as a little boy who she needed to take care of she would not allow him to care for himself, and her, as he was capable of doing. Many parents make this same mistake.
I have previously spent time looking closely at the story of Abraham taking Isaac to offer him as a sacrifice to God. This story serves a very important purpose. It communicates that while those who devote themselves to God are willing to sacrifice their children to serve Him, He rejects such sacrifices. The people around Abraham, and later around his descendants, considered child sacrifice an integral part of their worship. God made it clear that such sacrifice was not something of which He approved. Further, this story is not just about the sacrifice of children by killing them. It also means that we should not sacrifice the time we should spend with our children in order to “serve” God. Children need their parents and their needs should come before the needs of our jobs, or even the needs of the Church.
Today, I am reading and commenting on Genesis 19-20.
When God’s angels arrived in Sodom, Lot immediately invited them to stay at his house. When they demurred by saying that they would just stay in the town square for the night and be on their way in the morning, Lot refused to take “No” for an answer. That exchange suggests to me that Lot know that the men of Sodom would abuse strangers who spent the night in the town square. Then when the men of Sodom came to Lot’s door demanding that Lot turn his guests over to them so that they could rape them, Lot tried to convince them to leave the angels alone because they were his guests. The response of the men of Sodom was to threaten Lot and to complain that he was judging them. I find that interesting because Lot did not tell them not to abuse the strangers because it was wrong, but because they were under his protection. That suggests to me that Lot had previously spoken out against abusing visitors who spent the night in the town square and been told they were fair game. The fact that he extended his protection to strangers who would have otherwise been vulnerable meant that he was judging those who wished to take advantage of those strangers.
