Genesis 11:10-32

2006.Dec.17 19:43

Trudging to Abram

Read Genesis 11

You know you’re about to have fun when you read a line like this:

Two years after the flood, when Shem was one hundred, he had a son named Arpachshad. He had more children and died at the age of six hundred. This is a list of his descendants: (Genesis 11:10-11, CEV)

Yes, my friends, it’s Biblical fast-forward time. Here we jump through about ten generations, from Shem to Abram. A few interesting (to me) notes:

1. Shem’s son Arpachshad is born when Shem is 100. After that, fathers are in their late twenties or thirties when the son in this line is born (not clear to me whether it’s always the first son), until Terah, Abram’s father. Terah has children “[a]fter [he] was seventy years old” (Genesis 11:26, CEV).

2. Shem lives to 600; after that, there is a general trend of decreasing lifespans to Nahor, who lives 148 years. Terah jumps back up to 205, but the general trend suggests that lifespans moved towards “modern” levels somewhat gradually, but in only a dozen or so generations, after the flood.

3. If I did my math right, Shem was about 556 when Terah died. Arpachshad, Shem’s son, was also still alive, at a sprite 425, with 13 years left. As was Shela, Shem’s grandson, now 390. Eber, Shem’s great-grandson, was also living. The next four generations, up to Terah, had died. That’s if I did the math right, but that strikes me as interesting, and segueys nicely, to:

Abram grew up with a lot of his ancestors still alive, including Shem, who had been on the boat. That’s a pretty cool thought to me, and I like to think that is part of the reason Abram grew into the Abraham mentioned in Hebrews:

Abraham had faith and obeyed God. He was told to go to the land that God had said would be his, and he left for a country he had never seen (Hebrews 11:8, CEV).

In any event, it is Terah, not Abram, who first makes toward Canaan. However, he settles in Haran, and never sees his destination.

Terah decided to move from Ur to the land of Canaan. He took along Abram and Sarai and his grandson Lot, the son of Haran. But when they came to the city of Haran, they decided to settle there instead (Genesis 11:31, CEV).

This decision to settle is left unexplained here. But, I read this chapter with a sense of inevitable movement towards God’s next covenant. God made a covenant with the flood’s survivors in Genesis 9, and the next recorded covenant is with Abraham. This chapter bridges those generations. Certainly many things took place between those begats, but one of the major themes of Genesis is the covenants God makes with humanity, and, typically, humanity botching their part.

The covenant with Abraham has an extra sense of promise to me, and perhaps that’s why I feel something of a narrative break at this point. Genesis can certainly be read as a prolouge to the history of Israel, which is the subject of the remainder of the Old Testament, and central to the New Testament. But for me, Genesis 11 is the end of the prologue, and I think it’s because starting with Abraham, I see the promise of Christ as the head of God’s people. But, that may just be me.

Genesis 12:1

2006.Dec.23 17:59

Read Genesis 12

My apologies. This is going to one of those cheesy have-faith just because, yadda, yadda articles.

The LORD said to Abram:

Leave your country, your family, and your relatives and go to the land that I will show you. (Genesis 12:1, NASB)

Yes, this verse and it alone is going to be the subject of this entry. Here goes.

I’m a security and stability kind of guy. I know some folks (yes, I’m from Oklahoma, and I actually use the word “folks”) who at least don’t act security-and-stability. They’re out looking for changes in their lives. The thing they most don’t want to hear from God is “Stay.” I like the word stay, to an extent. That is, if I more or less like where I’m at, I’m okay with staying. Now, since I tend to stay, my feelings reagarding a bad situation are exagerrated somewhat. That is, I then have an inner struggle between my desire for stability and the present dissatisfaction.

I don’t have a real good idea for which way Abraham leans. I tend to find myself identifying with Lot more than with Abraham (and I will probably spend a good deal of time discussing Lot). That’s not meant to imply I have many good things to say about Lot. Hopefully, as I blog through Abraham’s life over the next, oh, six months if I have to guess, I’ll get a better feel for his personality, but I’m not ready to hazard a guess as to his emotional reaction to God’s saying, “Leave what you know and go.” I know my reaction:

“Please no.”

So, when I see later how Abraham is blessed, and how God uses him, and I want to be blessed and used like that, I have to confront my natural reaction. There’s two issues here, personality and faith. I must confront both. My personality doesn’t want to go, and my faith can be weakened by those emotions. The first is okay. Emotions are okay. Letting those emotions dictate my faith is another story. And this goes both ways. What if God tells me to stay? Okay, good, my emotions may be good with that–depending on the situation. But that’s not faith. That’s relief. If I only listen to my emotions response, my action of staying is without faith, and thus is not imbdued with God’s blessing and power. I can have the emotion, but then the decision must be one of God has told me to do this and I choose to have faith and follow him.

Oh, yeah, this entry was rambling to.

Some thoughts, anyway.

Genesis 12:4-9

2007.Jan.06 19:45

First Excursions

Read Genesis 12

Abram was seventy-five years old when the LORD told him to leave the city of Haran. He obeyed and left with his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, and all the possessions and slaves they had gotten while in Haran. (Genesis 12:4-5, CEV)

So, Abram sets out as his father had begun, to Canaan. There’s not much discussion of the trip itself. The family’s stay in Haran had been profitable, but God told Abram to set off for Canaan, and so he and his wife, Sarai, with Lot and a number of slaves in tow, head off. I’d find it interesting to know more of the reactions of Sarai, Lot and the slaves to this journey. In any event, gold stars for the lot for obedience to Jehovah.

When they came to the land of Canaan, Abram went as far as the sacred tree of Moreh in a place called Shechem. The Canaanites were still living in the land at that time, but the LORD appeared to Abram and promised, “I will give this land to your family forever.” Abram then built an altar there for the LORD. (Genesis 12:6-7)

For the record, I don’t know why the tree of Moreh is sacred, and I’m not going to try to find out. Jehovah appears to Abram again at this point and promises that he will give this land to Abram’s family. The note that the Canaanites were still living in the land may be a bit of humor, seeing as I’m not sure there ever was a time since Abram showed up that there weren’t Canaanites in Canaan. But I could be wrong there.

In either event, Abram builds an altar before Jehovah. This is an act of worship. And I like that Abram obeys first before building the altar. It’s easy but incorrect to thing that worshipping God is more important than obedience. Indeed, I feel that worship that is not grounded in obedience is inherently rude to God.

Abram traveled to the hill country east of Bethel and camped between Bethel and Ai, where he built another altar and worshiped the LORD. Later, Abram started out toward the Southern Desert. (Genesis 12:8-9, CEV)

And then Abram and company travel around some more. He continues to worship, and I’d like to assume that the rest of the group also worships Jehovah, although it’s not recorded here. I do want to note that the family spends time that doesn’t seem “world-changing”. But in those times that aren’t full of “events” can be times of growing closer to God. Just stuff to ponder.

Genesis 12:11-20

2007.Jan.14 15:53

Abusing the Blessing

Read Genesis 12

Now comes the story that makes me question the faith, common sense and human decency of Abram.

It came about when he came near to Egypt, that he said to Sarai his wife, “See now, I know that you are a beautiful woman; and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife’; and they will kill me, but they will let you live. Please say that you are my sister so that it may go well with me because of you, and that I may live on account of you.” (Genesis 12:11-13, NASB)

The story is told matter-of-factly and pretty quick, but I’ll summarize anyways. Abram, Sarai, Lot, and slaves made it to Canaan. Then, poof, hey, what’s up, there’s a famine in the land. So, they go to Egypt. Abram then has an idea. His wife is beautiful and he’s afraid the Egyptians will kill him and take Sarai as a wife or concubine for some fine, upstanding Egyptian. Or, whatever. Anyway, he asks her to say that they’re siblings. She agrees. Sarai is “taken into Pharaoh’s house” (15). God makes stuff bad for Pharoah, whilst Abram enjoys financial blessings. Pharoah figures it out, sends them away, Abram the richer for it.

I’m not a big fan of Abram in this story. The Bible doesn’t seem to offer an judgement on this action, just tells the story as it is. Abram even does this again later. So, I may be completely off on my reaction to this story, but hopefully it’s useful regardless.

Abram is under God’s blessing. Even when he decieves the Pharoah and puts his wife in danger, he is blessed abundantly. But instead of letting the blessings of God strengthen his faith, at this point, he takes those blessings and does things his own way, anyway. I contend that he gains nothing from his deception, and indeed subjects his wife to a bad situation. After all, because Abram is letting his fear control him, he puts Sarai into a situation in which, had Jehovah not intervened, she would likely be given the choice between being raped (even if she consents for her husband’s sake, is that not rape, and her husband responsible?) or her husband being killed (or, most likely, both). Added to that, Abram has been promised blessing and protection by Jehovah; he has no reason to fear!

God’s blessings are not just a ‘yay for me’ gift. They are part of Jehovah’s developing my faith and relationship with him, as well as teaching me the value of obedience. Abram, in this story, has accepted the blessing but does not exhibit any faith from it. Indeed, God desired to bless others through Abram, but Abram instead brings a curse against the Egyptians who blessed him.

Like I said, the Biblical account does not explicitly comment on the morality of Abram and Sarai’s actions. Obviously, I feel comfortable applying other Biblical principals to Abram’s activities (to which I should probably have added some references). Sarai is more difficult. To simply say she should have beat sense into her husband would be blaming one of the victims of this charade; it is after all clear that the idea is Abram’s. But I have to wonder about the connection between this lack of faith and Sarai’s later lack of faith regarding the child God had promised them?

How a leader can cause pain when he or she does not walk in faith and obedience to Jehovah.

Genesis 17:22-27

2007.May.21 02:49

A Family Obeys

Read Genesis 17:22-27 Full Chapter

God finished speaking to Abraham and then left. On that same day Abraham obeyed God by circumcising Ishmael. Abraham was also circumcised, and so were all other men and boys in his household, including his servants and slaves. He was ninety-nine years old at the time, and his son Ishmael was thirteen. ” (Genesis 17:22-27, CEV)

Here, Abraham does the kind of thing that helps explain why Jehovah has so blessed him and made a covenant with him and his descendants: he obeys. He has a bit of a crazy thing to obey, too. He must be circumcised and so must all the males of his household. And he does it, because Jehovah told him too. And all the males in his household go along. I don’t know, but I like to think it is because Abraham has led them effectively and kindly and so they trust him when he tells them what God has commanded. Then again, maybe he didn’t give them much choice. But in either event, they too obey.

Part of me just wants to leave this entry there. The value of obedience to God. Because it’s often a hard thing to get through our stubborn minds. Even more, immediate obedience. Even more, immediate obedience that you know is going to cause yourself and people you care for physical pain.

But I also want to consider something this is not. This is not Abraham creating a little cult to worship him and having half the cult members engage in self-mutilation to show their loyalty. Although it kind of reads that way. I’d say the first thing that demonstrates that Abraham is doing this for God rather than himself is that he is obedient to God’s command on his own body. More importantly, Abraham does not add anything to Jehovah’s command. This is a sign of the covenant between Jehovah and Abraham and his family. Abraham could have abused the opportunity by requiring additional obedience of his household to him–Abraham–but he doesn’t. Just as obedience should not take away from the command, neither should it add to the command. That doesn’t mean Jehovah has to be explicit on all points, but rather that we should not–even through our “reason”–add to ourselves or others additional commandments which God never gives.

It is also nice to note that Abraham is not using circumcision to create/embellish class distinctions. His family, his slaves, his servants, all his household, is part of this covenant (in my opinion, women included–earlier thoughts on that). And Abraham avoids such pitfalls because his focus–judging from his actions–is on obedience to Jehovah.