January 17

Joseph's Early Years - Genesis 37:1-36; Judah and Tamar - Genesis 38:1-30

This is the Cummins Onan Generator that came up when I googled an image of Onan.  Make of it what you will.

We pause from Genesis' rather quick run through early history to linger on the story of Joseph -- a shepherd, who like David, becomes a king.  

Several things caught my eye in today's reading.  In the NIV, it says Jacob made for and gave to Joseph "a richly ornamented robe" [Genesis 37:3]  rather than, as it says in the KJV, "a coat of many colors."  I wonder if this princely robe -- as I imagine it to be -- foreshadows Joseph's future position in Egypt?  

Ishmael reenters the story.  Joseph will be sold by his brothers into slavery to "a caravan of Ishmaelites." [Genesis 37:25] Ironically, Ishmael's descendants will begin the enslavement of Isaac's children -- a nation through which the world is promised true freedom.  When God's people suffer, it doesn't mean they have lost.  The story isn't over.  And we already know how it ends.  

This begins Israel's path of slavery and freedom.  What Joseph's brothers intended for evil (Joseph will point out later) God turns to good.  And what Pharaoh intends for good to Joseph's people -- giving them the choice land of Goshen -- will eventually become evil, enslaving the people to the Egyptians.  In both Joseph and the Israelites cases, it is God who brings freedom and He will ultimately bring freedom through His Son, a child, too, of Israel, -- Jesus.

And then there's another couple of stories that -- as my friend David Skidmore says -- you won't see on a Sunday school flannel board.  Onan.  Judah sleeping with his daughter-in-law Tamar who takes to be a prostitute.  Some really sorted stuff here and again  you say, "These are God's people?"  Yes, and not only that, as F. LaGard points out in his commentary, these are the ancestors of Christ.  The father of the tribe of Judah, himself, wallowing in the muck.

I don't know about you, but my wife hate's it when the media digs up dirt to sully the image of a hero.  And I love her for here desire that this world was better, kinder, nobler.  But, in a way, that's what the Word of God does here.  We get the dirt on Christ.  Why?  So there is no question that the Lord was born of a very "human" family, no special line, except that God made it special? Or just to illustrate that God takes the lowly things of this world and makes them great?

The short answer is I don't know but He does.  But it's an uncomfortable story to be interrupting the more heroic seeming story of Joseph.

My post from last year on this date.

January 16

Record of the Edomites - Genesis 36:1-43

So I Google the image of Esau and this is what comes up:  A picture of a hairy NASCAR fan, specifically a fan of the number 3 car -- Dale Earnhardt, the Intimidator.  Are hairy backed fans of Earnhardt the modern-day Edomites?  I laughed out loud.  

So Jacob returns home to Canaan and faces no retaliation from the now powerful brother whose birthright and blessing he took.  Jacob must have seemed relieved that he wasn't punished and that revenge didn't come.  Esau moves away because there's not enough space for the two great nations that Jacob's sons will give birth to -- Israel and Edomite.  Jacob is home and now the threat is gone.  Or is it?  

Punishment and revenge doesn't come immediately.  What Jacob has done may never touch him.  But it will his children and children's children.  We live not just for the moment.  We live for our children's and their children.  It is an awesome responsibility but an equally awesome inspiration.

The Bible pauses to record the descendants of Esau.  He has not forgotten Esau.  They are out there, even as the Bible takes up the story of Israel.

My post from last year on this date.

January 15

Dinah and the Men of Shechem - Genesis 34:1-31; Jacob's Journey Continues - Genesis 35:1-29

Hello, Boys and Girls, can you say "Shechem" and "circumcision"?  I knew you could. Now who knows the story of Dinah?

O.K., so what am I suppose to make of today's reading and a violent and steamy story worthy of HBO Films?  

Dinah is violated and her brothers Simeon and Levi not only kill the man who did it, but his father and all the men of the town where he lived.  A bit excessive, don't you think?  Instead of an eye for an eye, it's an eye for everybody who can see.  And they do it using, of course, DECEPTION.  They use circumcision -- a symbol chosen by God to mark his people -- as a means to doom a people.  You just have to wonder what God thinks about that?  

If that weren't enough.  Then another one of the Jacob's sons, Rueben, sleeps with his father's concubine Bilhah.  Thankfully, Jacob doesn't use the same degree of vengeance his sons believe in.  If he'd followed Simeon and Levi's lead, he would have killed the entire clan.  And you think your family is dysfunctional.  

These are a couple of stories, as my friend David Skidmore would say, you won't find performed on a Bible school flannel board.   

What's my take?  Well, in case there is any confusion here, we're reminded that God's people are no better than anyone else.  There are stories in every church, the church I go to and the church you go to, that would make Roman Polanski blush.  We're not good.  We just acknowledge the One who is.  If there is in any good in us, it's His goodness and, hopefully, a bit of our desire to show our thanks for what He has done.  

God forgive us for the impression we've given others about You through the story of our lives.

My post from last year on this date.  

January 14

Jacob Leaves Laban - Genesis 31:1-55; Jacob Returns to Canaan - Genesis 32:1-32, 33:1-20

When we last left Esau, he was conspiring in his heart how to kill his brother Jacob.  So what are we (and Jacob) to think when Esau comes to "greet" Jacob with 400 hundred men?  Seems a little excessive and ominous.  

Is Esau, who was deceived out of his father's blessing, doing a little deceiving himself?  Is he making his brother squirm?  Well, if so, he succeeds.  And is Jacob's wrestling with God a portent of his struggles with his brother and the Lord letting him know it will be ok? 

While man is always trying to change his identity through deceptive means, God is constantly giving his people a new identity by purging them of their past.  So Abram becomes Abraham and Sarai becomes Sarah.  Saul will become Paul.  And, here, Jacob becomes Israel.  His identity is changed before he meets his brother...and his sins are forgiven.

When he sees that his brother Esau holds no ill will for him or his children, Jacob responds:

"For to see your face is like seeing the face of God now that you have received me favorably." [Genesis 33:10]

In forgiveness we see the true face of God.

My post from last year on this date.

January 13

Jacob Marries and Has Children - Genesis 29:1-35, 30:1-24; Laban and Jacob Outsmart Each Other - Genesis 30:25-43

One of the images that came up when I googled "Rachel and Leah." Interesting.  Make of it what you will.

There are motifs to this story, refrains, reoccurring themes that should be a caution and a comfort.  Man's deception.  God's grace.

Laban tricks Jacob over the identity of the daughter he marries.  Now Jacob knows something of what his father felt when his son deceived him as to which son received his blessing.  A son deceives a father.  A father deceives a son.

Esau sold his birthright for a bowl of stew.  And Jacob's wife sells the bed of her husband for a son's mandrakes.  It amazes me that -- through the domestic battle between Jacob's two wives over their husband and who will give him children and sons -- the twelve tribes of Israel are given birth.  

And Laban?  One wonders why it was necessary for Isaac's son to avoid Canaanite women and go to the country of his father's upbringing...when Laban is given to household gods and divination.  And his daughter?  She deceives both father and husband by hiding the household gods that she has indeed stolen.

And so, man deceives.  God not only forgives.  He blesses.  He will turn all this deception between father and son, husband and wife, into eternal truth.  Just wait and see.  

It's wonderful to read a story and know its end.  But, in the case of this story, that does not remove the mystery.  

My post from last year on this date.

January 12

Trouble Between Jacob and Esau - Genesis 26:34-35, 27:1-41; Jacob Leaves for Haran - Genesis 27:42-46, 28:1-22

What if Isaac knew?  I admit it would be a curious detail to leave out of the divine account of Jacob and Rebekah's deception of Isaac.  But perhaps it is included in the divine account.  What if Isaac was not deceived but willfully gave into the deception?  Perhaps Isaac, too, is being deceptive.  It wouldn't be the first time.  Remember how he, like his father, presented his wife to King Abimelech as his sister?  Deception, it would seem, is as much a part of the family dna as faith is.  Maybe deception haunts the line because deception is how sin entered the world?

This reading begins with this verse:

When Esau was forty years old, he married Judith daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and also Basemath daughter of Elon the Hittite.  They were a source of grief to Isaac and Rebekah. [Genesis 26:34-35]

Isaac isn't happy with Esau's marriages.  After all, Isaac's father had sent to his own people to find a wife for his son.  Wouldn't Isaac be angry at himself or feel guilty that he hadn't sent away to his ancestral country for Esau a wife?  Perhaps Esau was too willful to be persuaded.  Willfulness and rashness seem to be a trait of Esau.  Wouldn't Isaac be worried that the promise of a great nation would pass through the line of Esau?  Esau and his wives are already "a source of grief."  Esau. who was so rash and to have so little regard for his own birthright as to sell it to his brother Jacob.  It makes me wonder.

And could sheep skin on the arms and back of the neck really deceive Isaac?  He does recognize that the voice is the voice of Jacob.  Does he play along only to ensure his deniability?  Lord only knows.  

Even Esau seems to suspect this was all a set up.  He realizes his parents aren't hot about his marrying Hittite women.  So what does he do?  He tries to correct it by marrying one of Ishmael's descendants.  Is this really going to please his father?  Or just rub it in?

You have to admit.  It is plausible.  Makes Isaac out to be less of a bumbler though more of a deceptive old man.  Otherwise we're left to think that a deceiving woman and her favoritism ensured that the line of Christ would come through Jacob rather than Esau.  Ultimately God is control...and that only makes me wonder even more.

At any rate, Isaac was most likely deceived and not part of the plot.  And it may have been subtle justice given the deception he'd performed.  I'll warn you I deal often in "what ifs."  It's an occupational hazard as someone in the creative field.  We can't help but think -- is that all, what more, what if?  You've been warned.

I really like Jacob's reaction to his visit from God who affirms that the promise will go through his line.  

When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, "Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it."  He was afraid and said, "How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, this is the gate of heaven." [Genesis 28:16-17]

That's the enthusiasm and wonder I feel when I go for a mountain hike in the Smokys.

My post from last year on this date.

January 11

Abraham Marries Keturah - Genesis 25:1-6; Death of Abraham - Genesis 25:7-10; Last Account of Ishmael - Genesis 25:12-18; Esau and Jacob - Genesis 25:11, 19-28; A Birthright Is Sold - Genesis 25:29-34; Isaac Follows in Abraham's Footsteps - Genesis 26:1-33

Abraham sacrificing Isaac and...

...Abraham sacrificing Ishmael.

The things that come back to haunt us -- as a country and as a people.  Doing the wrong thing can have lasting effects and implications that we would never imagine.  That giving-Abraham-the handmaid thing still shows up in our newspapers.  The descendants of Ishmael and Israel are still going at it.

It's interesting and certainly no accident that Isaac and Ishmael will sort of mirror one another. Through Isaac the Twelve Tribes of Israel will one day be established while through Ishmael the Bible indicates:  "These were the sons of Ishmael, and these are the names of the twelve tribal rulers...." [Genesis 25:16] Both will father great nations and great religions.  Their stories are so intertwined.  Muslims even contend it was Ishmael that Abraham was prepared to sacrifice and not Isaac.

Here's the story as told in the Qur'an and it is Abraham speaking as the story begins:

"O my Lord! grant me a righteous son)!"  So we gave him the good news of a boy ready to suffer and forbear.  Then, when (the son) reached (the age of serious) work with him, he said: "O my son!  I see in vision that I offer thee in sacrifice:  now see what is thy view!"  (The son) said:  "O my father! Do as thou art commanded:  thou wilt find me, if God so wills one practicing Patience and Constancy!"  So when they had both submitted their wills (to God), and he had laid him prostrate on his forehead (for sacrifice), We called out to him, "O Abraham!  Thou hast already fulfilled the vision!" - thus indeed do We reward those who do right.  For this was obviously a trial - and We ransomed him with a momentous sacrifice:  and We left (this blessing) for him among generations (to come) in later times:  "Peace and salutation to Abraham!"  Thus indeed do We reward those who do right.  For he was one of Our believing Servants.  And We gave him the good news of Isaac - a prophet, - one of the Righteous.  We blessed him and Isaac:  but of their progeny are (some) that do right, and (some) that obviously do wrong, to their own souls. [Surah 37.100-113]  [If you like, search the Qur'an here.]

As further explanation, one of the very earliest English translations of the Qur'an says this about the above passage:

It is the most received opinion among the Mohammedans, that the son whom Abraham offered was Ismael and not Isaac; Ismael being his only son at that time; for the promise of Isaac;s birth is mentioned lower, as subsequent in time to this transaction. [Sale, The AlCoran of Mohammed, Vol. 2. p. 312]

And so it goes.  Disagreement and war between Hebrew and Muslim to this very day.

Then there is Abraham's son, Isaac, trying to pass his beautiful wife Rebekah off as his sister and to the very same king that Abraham had tried to pass his wife off as sister to -- Abimelech.  In both cases Abimelech does the right thing.  But I wonder what he thought about God's people?  They marry way over their heads?  They have a thing for their sisters?  They're all a bunch of liars?  Why would such a powerful God look out for these people?

I wonder if Isaac had heard the story about his mother being passed off as his Dad's sister?  And how in both cases his Dad made out like a bandit?  So why not give it a try, huh?

Sin has a way of haunting us and our children and our children's children and our children's children's children.  And so it goes.

My post from last year on this date.