TORAH READINGS & CALENDAR

In synagogues (and in homes) the Pentateuch (Torah) is read in an annual cycle that brings the reader from Genesis through Deuteronomy each year. Fifty-four Torah readings potentially exist, although the Jewish calendar varies in length from year to year (it’s complicated, but there is a system of “leap years” in the Jewish calendar). So some traditional “Doubled Readings” exist and are built into the calendar. You will find here a list of all fifty-four Torah portions as well as the doubled readings. Then below the list you will find the current schedule of readings (a section I will keep updated). NOTE: The verse references are based on Jewish Bibles which are usually the same as Christian Bibles, but not always. Yes, many things about the Bible, Torah, Judaism, Christianity, etc., are complicated. Time and experience help you learn how to wade through complexities like occasional differences in chapter breaks and verse numbers in Jewish and Christian Bibles!

Genesis	Exodus	Leviticus	Numbers	Deuteronomy

Bereshit Genesis 1:1-6:8	Shemot Exodus 1:1-6:1	Vayikra Leviticus 1:1-5:26	Bamidbar Numbers 1:1-4:20	Devarim Deuteronomy 1:1-3:22
Noach Genesis 6:9-11:32	Vaera Exodus 6:2-9:35	Tzav Leviticus 6:1-8:36	Nasso Numbers 4:21-7:89	Vaetchanan Deuteronomy 3:23-7:11
Lech-Lecha Genesis 12:1-17:27	Bo Exodus 10:1-13:16	Shmini Leviticus 9:1-11:47	Beha’alotcha Numbers 8:1-12:16	Eikev Deuteronomy 7:12-11:25
Vayera Genesis 18:1-22:24	Beshalach Exodus 13:17-17:16	Tazria Leviticus 12:1-13:59	Sh’lach Numbers 13:1-15:41	Re’eh Deuteronomy 11:26-16:17
Chayei Sara Genesis 23:1-25:18	Yitro Exodus 18:1-20:23	Metzora Leviticus 14:1-15:33	Korach Numbers 16:1-18:32	Shoftim Deuteronomy 16:18-21:9
Toldot Genesis 25:19-28:9	Mishpatim Exodus 21:1-24:18	Achrei Mot Leviticus 16:1-18:30	Chukat Numbers 19:1-22:1	Ki Teitzei Deuteronomy 21:10-25:19
Vayetzei Genesis 28:10-32:3	Terumah Exodus 25:1-27:19	Kedoshim Leviticus 19:1-20:27	Balak Numbers 22:2-25:9	Ki Tavo Deuteronomy 26:1-29:8
Vayishlach Genesis 32:4-36:43	Tetzaveh Exodus 27:20-30:10	Emor Leviticus 21:1-24:23	Pinchas Numbers 25:10-30:1	Nitzavim Deuteronomy 29:9-30:20
Vayeshev Genesis 37:1-40:23	Ki Tisa Exodus 30:11-34:35	Behar Leviticus 25:1-26:2	Matot Numbers 30:2-32:42	Vayeilech Deuteronomy 31:1-31:30
Miketz Genesis 41:1-44:17	Vayakhel Exodus 35:1-38:20	Bechukotai Leviticus 26:3-27:34	Masei Numbers 33:1-36:13	Ha’Azinu Deuteronomy 32:1-32:52
Vayigash Genesis 44:18-47:27	Pekudei Exodus 38:21-40:38			Vezot Haberakhah Deuteronomy 33:1-34:12
Vayechi Genesis 47:28-50:26

THE FIFTY FOUR PARASHOT — READING PORTIONS THROUGH THE TORAH (PENTATEUCH)

DOUBLED READINGS

Vayakhel-Pekudei, Exodus 35:1-40:38
Tazria-Metzora, Leviticus 12:1-15:33
Achrei Mot-Kedoshim, Leviticus 16:1-20:27
Behar-Bechukotai, Leviticus 25:1-27:34
Chukat-Balak, Numbers 19:1-25:9
Matot-Masei, Numbers 30:2-36:13
Nitzavim-Vayeilech, Deuteronomy 29:9-31:30

GENESIS

By Derek Leman

REFERENCE:

Cassuto, Umberto. From Adam to Noah: A Commentary on the Book of Genesis, Part One.
Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1944.

Cassuto, Umberto. From Noah to Abraham: A Commentary on the Book of Genesis, Part Two.
Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1944.

Friedman, Richard Elliott. Who Wrote the Bible? New York: HarperOne, 1997 ed. (original was Summit Books, 1987).

Goldingay, John. “Introduction.” In Rogerson, John W. and Moberly, R.W.L. Genesis and Exodus (Biblical Guides).
Sheffield Academic Press, 2001.

Goldingay, John. Old Testament Theology: Israel’s Gospel (Vol. 1). IVP Academic, 2003.

Sarna, Nahum. The JPS Torah Commentary: Genesis. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1989.

Walton, John. The Lost World of Genesis One. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2009.

Walton, John. Genesis: NIV Application Commentary. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001.

Westermann, Clauss. Genesis 12-36. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1981.

Exodus

By Derek Leman

Leviticus

By Derek Leman

Numbers

By Derek Leman

Deuteronomy

By Derek Leman

Matthew

By Derek Leman

Mark

By Derek Leman

Luke

By Derek Leman

John

By Derek Leman

Acts

By Derek Leman

OUTLINE

Prologue to creation (1), Day One (2-5), Day Two (6-8), Day Three (9-13), Day Four (14-19), Day Five (20-23), Day Six (24-31), Day Seven (2:1-3).

SPOTLIGHT

This text has been read mostly for what is not here. Notably absent are answers to questions like, “what was here before the world existed?” Nor does this text answer questions science might ask about origins.

It is not, in fact, a straightforward narrative of an event. It is, rather, a poetic list of facts about the world as it is, and how it is made to support life and have potential for blessing.

A summary of the actual contents of Genesis 1 would be as follows. In a primordial time God created the heavens and the earth. The world was a barren waste at that time, unformed and lacking order. Yet God’s spirit was hovering over Tehom (the primordial deep ocean whose name here alludes to the mythical dragon, Tiamat, who is thereby demythologized). God spoke “light” — not the thing itself, as in photons and energy, but the time period of “light” on the earth — into being. God made order on the earth by causing a period of light and a second period of darkness to alternate. This was the first day of creation and he saw that it was good.

Then God spoke into existence a separation between waters on earth and waters in the heavens, creating order again in the form of a space for life to exist (atmosphere). This was the second day and it too was good.

Day 3 was separation of dry land from ocean. Day 4 was about setting objects in the sky to give light and to mark days, years, and the calendar seasons related to Israel’s festivals (in the future). On day 5, God spoke into being the creatures of water and sky, including sea monsters, swarming and creeping things, and birds and fish. God spoke a blessing over these life forms in sky and sea.

On Day 6, God spoke into being the creatures on land and then made a special creature like him in ways no other creature would be. This creature, the human being, was in God’s image, bearing his likeness, and was made to rule over other creatures. God spoke a blessing over human beings, that they would become numerous on earth and rule other creatures. God gave plant life to the creatures, including the human being, as food.

Then God surveyed his work and found it very good. So on the seventh day, like a Near Eastern king, God enjoyed his work by ceasing and pausing to celebrate. This prefigured another of Israel’s future celebrations, the Sabbath.

What we see from this summary is that God had a purpose in making the world, ordering it in a certain way to follow regular patterns and maintain regular boundaries. The purpose was to give the blessing of life to creatures, plants, and above all to the human beings made in his image. The world, though it looks evil in many ways, is good and God’s purpose in making it was not to cause pain or to curse us. His purpose is blessing.

Inasmuch as the world does not seem so “good” and our condition does not seem so “blessed,” there is an inconsistency between reality and God’s purpose. How do we explain the inconsistency? Do we deny that the world is good? Or do we assume God has a solution? By placing Genesis 2-3 after Genesis 1, the unknown editor of Torah suggests there is more to the story.

OVERVIEW

No action takes place in vs. 1, which is, rather, a summary of what follows in 1:2-2:3. That is, we should not read vs. 1 as if God created a blank planet which was chaotic and then added order afterward. It should be translated, “In the primordial time, God created the heavens and the earth.”

Vs. 2 begins the story and it does not begin at the origin of things. Inexplicably, vs. 2 begins the story with the earth orderless and chaotic. There is no indication how it came to be that way. This echoes Egyptian and Mesopotamian accounts in which a watery chaos existed before the earth was ordered and shaped. Furthermore, the fact that “darkness was over the face of Tehom [the deep],” is a deliberate allusion to Tiamat, the chaos dragon representing the salt waters who pre-existed earth in Mesopotamian myth (Cassuto). The Hebrew Tehom is written as an indefinite noun or a name, and it is linguistically cognate to the Akkadian name Tiamat (Cassuto). Unlike the myth, however, God does not do battle with Tehom, but is instantly master of it. His Spirit hovered over it, like a bird over its nest, ready to cause life-giving order to form on it.

On the first day, God made periods of daylight and darkness. This is not the origin of photons (light itself) but the meaning of “let there be light” is clarified by vs. 5, “God called the light day” (Walton, Lost World). The second day (1:6-8) is virtually incomprehensible to modern readers because we fail to understand the ancients had primitive notions of earth science or think that the Bible would know of modern discoveries about the earth. The authors of Genesis believed the earth was a flat continent of land held up by pillars and covered above by a firmament which held up waters over the land. This “firmament” was a sheet or ceiling of unknown substance and the waters it held up over the earth were divided into chambers for rain and hail. This is evidenced in numerous references in the Bible to what John Walton calls “old world science” and Cassuto documents the use of such ideas in Biblical poems from Genesis to Job.

Day Three (1:9-13) concerns bounding the chaotic waters, in which human life is impossible, and making space for humanity (Walton, Lost World). In Egyptian and Mesopotamian myth the practice of flood-plain agriculture (humans regulating the river flood cycle with irrigation ditches) is explained by origin stories about the gods regulating the waters. Likewise, God bounds the seas and other waters so vegetable life can thrive and feed humankind.

The fourth day (1:14-19) is about the sun, moon, and stars as markers of the seasons, Sabbaths, and festivals of the Torah. Genesis chapter one is thought to have been written by the priests of Jerusalem (the P source in the documentary hypothesis – see Richard Elliott Friedman, Who Wrote the Bible?). They surmised that God’s revelation of the Tabernacle was based on creation (ancient temples were microcosms of the earth and heavens, see Walton, Lost World). Therefore, God’s purpose in the sun, moon, and stars was to mark festival days and agricultural seasons (months from the moon, years from the sun and constellations, festival times based on the moon cycle, etc.).

Day Five (1:20-23) is about filling the heavens and waters with life. The sea creatures of vs. 21 are tanninim in Hebrew (see Isa 27:1 and Ezek 29:3, sea dragon). Cassuto says naming this particular creature, and no other is specifically named, is a deliberate rebuttal of gentile myths about the gods battling sea dragons and the counter-claim by Israel’s priests that the sea creatures are merely a species like any other under God’s kingship.

The sixth day (1:24-31) is about life on the land including human life. Regarding the plural in vs. 26 (“let us make” and “our image”) see comments below on 3:22. Vs. 27 breaks out of prose and into poetry, because this is a way of highlighting it as a crux of the chapter (Cassuto).

What Genesis 1 is really about is human existence, and how God made it possible. He did so as the Father of human beings, and we, the children, are in his image like a child is in its father’s likeness. This is the priestly argument against the gentile myths and their view of humans as slaves of the gods.

The blessing of fruitfulness is not a command, but a divinely ordained promise of good things for human beings, of thriving in the world as the species blessed above all others. Over each of the days God says they are good. This is to eradicate the notion that the world is bad, governed by demons, and that man is the prey of evil forces. We are, rather, the potential masters of earth’s destiny and living in a world that is essentially good.

Only in the conclusion to Day Six does God say it was “very good,” indicating that with the creation of human beings the purpose of the cosmos has reached its high point. Day Seven is related to the concept of ancient kings resting after building projects and enjoying the fruits of their labors (Cassuto, Walton). Periods of seven days and multiples of seven days for building projects were considered ideal in Mesopotamia (Cassuto). The cosmos is God’s palace and he enjoys it on the seventh day, which prefigures the Sabbath day of the Torah (because the priests who wrote Genesis One assume the Tabernacle and Torah revelations are founded in creation truth).
SPOTLIGHT

Human life is cradled in pain and misery. The world we call our home has not only beauty, but also tragedy. The writers of the Hebrew Bible did not hesitate to describe life as painful and tragic. “Let the day perish on which I was born,” said Job (3:3). “Consider the work of God,” mused Kohelet (the preacher in Ecclesiastes), “who can make straight what he has made crooked?” (7:13). “I suffer your terrors wherever I turn,” complained the Psalmist (88:16).

And so we find, in the second creation account, that when God made us, we were initially innocent of all the realities of mortality, competition, oppression, and natural disaster. The writer seems to contemplate the idea that God would have introduced us slowly to our destiny of pain, even shielded us from it in a garden with access to unending life by means of a tree.

The very first realization of pain happened even in that garden, as the Man realized he was alone. Yet none of the animals satisfied his desire for companionship and, perhaps, his unrealized need for sexual love. The story reassures us, however, that God’s intention in making us was good. God did not make us to abandon us to pain.

Furthermore, we see God’s desire to grant us unending life and to place us in a garden that is well-watered, which is mixed with his intention, apparently, to leave us in a world where pain and suffering are real. God’s way is neither complete sheltering nor complete abandonment. There is a way within a larger way, a garden within the world, a reality of joy and desire amid the reality of our mortality and doom.

We find ourselves in the present with a desire for something more. We see eternity and desire it. We taste joy and want more of it. This too is from God whose tree of knowledge carried the perception of both what is bad and what is good. Therefore, the Hebrew Bible also speaks of desire fulfilled. In a fitting phrase about desire and human yearning, Proverbs 13:12 says, “Desire fulfilled is a tree of life.”

OUTLINE

The generations of heaven and earth (4), before agriculture the Lord God breathed life into Man (5-7), God’s garden and the two trees (8-9), the four rivers of the garden (10-14), the man appointed to work the garden and commanded not to eat of the tree of knowledge (15-17), the man names all animals in search of a companion (18-19).

OVERVIEW

The second account of creation begins with a genealogical introduction, the first of eleven in the book of Genesis. The odd thing is that this genealogical section is about earth and heaven, as opposed to human characters. Perhaps this is a poetic way of introducing the initial absence of human beings. It may be a way of insinuating that our origins as human beings can be traced back to the ground and sky.

Vs. 4 has a deliberate poetic structure involving a reversal of the order of heaven and earth: “These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that Adonai Elohim made earth and heaven.” The account then launches into a strange description of the nature of the earth prior to human beings populating it. Two features of this concept stand out: earth was barren prior to human beings and the ground was watered from below.

We might ask how the author knows this. What is the source of this unusual bit of knowledge? How did the idea pass down to an author in the Bronze Age (or perhaps Iron Age) that once the earth was barren and watered from below? One theory is that this notion is a supposal based on theology, the theology of blessing found in the Torah. Nahum Sarna (JPS Commentary) observes that in Torah rain is a blessing from God, and since human beings were not yet on the earth, there had as yet been no rain from heaven. Perhaps this bit of theology, combined with a literary tradition from other primordial myths is how the author of Genesis came to believe that the ground was once watered from below.

The stories of Mesopotamia and Egypt about the pre-human era make much ado about water, agriculture, and irrigation. As is the case with the Nile in Egypt, and the Tigris and Euphrates in Mesopotamia, floodwaters and irrigation canals were crucial to the beginnings of human culture. As for God planting a garden, Umberto Cassuto documents the literary tradition of a “garden of the gods” in the Ancient Near East. “Eden” is related to a root word for moisture, and so probably means something like “a well-watered place.”

When introducing the tree of life, the text uses the definite article “the.” Cassuto says, “The Torah mentions this tree with the definite article, as something well-known to the reader.” He suggests there must have been traditional stories about it already, stories now lost to us. The tree of knowledge of good and evil seems to be about broader awareness of the world, not specifically moral knowledge. Cassuto builds a case against reading moral knowledge into the phrase “good and evil” here. Before eating the fruit of this tree they were like children, innocent, and unaware of what was around them. Many texts in the Hebrew Bible suggest knowledge of “good and evil” as a sign of exiting childhood and growing to maturity. Prior to eating, the first human being and his wife were unaware of the issues of life, the pain as well as joy of living. They were sheltered and lived at ease. Mature knowledge was suddenly thrust upon them, which was difficult to handle emotionally and developmentally.

Cassuto says, “The primary purpose of the Torah in these chapters is to explain how it is that in the Lord’s world, the world of the good and beneficent God, evil should exist and man should endure pain and troubles and calamities.” The Lord God took some dust from such a region and formed Man (like the Egyptian deity Khnum fashioning humankind on a potter’s wheel, as well as similar Mesopotamian and Greek myths). The word “formed” is the same used of an artisan crafting pottery. Again, though such images bother overly literal moderns, the author of Genesis did not shy away from poetic and mythic language. The Bible takes up the mythical themes believed by all people in those days and gives them a new meaning: humanity is unique, formed by the artisan Creator via his imparted breath, and placed in charge of God’s garden and over the creatures.
SPOTLIGHT

Though God had said in the first creation account that this world he made was “good” and even “very good,” a dissonant note has sounded in Genesis 2:18.

“It is not good,” said God. What was not good? The aloneness of the Man. In need of an “ideal partner” (not “help meet” as per the King James Bible or “suitable helper” as per other translations), God provides for gender differences and marriage as a part of our world. The Genesis story celebrates the power of the male-female relationship as a chief happiness for the human race.

Life is full of potential for joy and misery. Romantic love and marriage are one of several joys depicted in the story of the primordial Man and Woman. The desire to live forever, our thirst for knowledge, our drive to possess things that are forbidden, our tendency to rationalize — the Genesis story unravels the human psyche. Life is full of “good” and “not good.” Among the chief joys of life, Genesis highlights romantic love and marriage.

Like the garden in which the Man and Woman have been placed, romantic love is a lush place of joy and desire. It has perils within it, however, such as the desire to possess and control. There is a tree of knowledge of good and evil which represents our desire to take what is not ours or is not yet ours. But there is also a tree of life, a sustaining, joyful source for us which can potentially be found in the male-female bond.

To be alone is “not good.” To have love is “good.” Gardens require tending. They grow beauty. They provide rest. In the words of the JPS translation, Ecclesiastes 9:9 advises a man, “Enjoy happiness with a woman you love all the fleeting days of life that have been granted to you under the sun.” The Hebrew Bible explores the human condition and reminds us of one of its highest rewards, to love and be loved by another.

OUTLINE

No companion found for Adam (20), the woman made from man (21-23), the bond of marriage established (24), nakedness and innocence (25), the serpent tempts and defeats the woman (3:1-5), the woman eats and gives to the man (6), they see their nakedness and lose innocence (7), God walks in his Garden (8), God confronts the man and woman (9-13), God’s curse on the serpent (14-15), God’s curse on the woman (16), God’s curse on the man (17-19), the woman is Eve (20), God makes them skin garments (21).

OVERVIEW

The second creation account is very much an exploration of the human condition. Our mortality and our knowledge have already been treated in this ancient tale, and the subject now turns to another of the great conditions of our existence: love and companionship. Though the Man is placed in God’s palatial garden, all is not well. Mastery over the animals is not sufficient. The male human being needs the female to be complete.

In Hebrew the word for man is ish and woman is ishah, so “this one shall be called ishah for from ish she was taken.”

The perspective of this story may seem odd to us, as the writer considers the difference between human relationships with the animal world and the male-female relationship. Males and females are almost viewed as if we could be separate species, but not really because we are made of the same stuff. The Woman is an ideal partner for the Man. The King James Bible translated the phrase found in both vs. 18 and 20 as “help meet.” Other translations have rendered it “fit helper” or “suitable helper.” The phrase in Hebrew is עֵזֶר כְּנֶגְדּוֹ (eizer kenegdō). Of course this Bible verse has long been at the center of the social issue of male-female relationships in Western culture. As our culture has changed, readers have been able to see something in the phrase that was practically invisible before: the word for “helper” does not convey the notion of subservience. This can be seen easily by the use of this term for God in a number of verses (e.g., 1 Sam 7:12; Psa 115:9). A better translation would be “ideal partner” (see John Walton, Genesis: NIV Application Commentary). The female is an ideal partner for the male, and they are “bone of bone, flesh of flesh” together.

Vs. 24 is striking in that it pictures the male leaving his parents to bind with the female, whereas the usual social practice in the ancient world was for the woman to move into the home of the man and his parents. The verse is all the more striking because it cannot be taken literally about moving from one household to another. Therefore, it’s meaning can only be something deeper, about transferring affections and loyalty. The writer of Genesis observes the human condition and finds the husband-wife bond to be one of the most meaningful elements of that condition.

The author depicts them at this juncture, just before they are tempted and rebel against their divine parent, as being naked and not ashamed of that condition. Most commentators have seen innocence related to sexuality here, though John Goldingay (Genesis For Everyone, Part 1) sees nakedness as a kind of poverty (they don’t even have clothes on their backs). Both interpretations are fitting. The desire to acquire things (greed) and to possess or conquer romantically (jealousy, lust, control) are part of the human condition. By depicting human beings as blissfully unaware of the possibilities of evil suggests to us that evil is not inherent to human existence. We could imagine life as people without harmful attitudes and motivations, much less evil actions, ruining our way of life.

As for the story of the snake — one of God’s creatures, the craftiest as we are told — tempting the woman and the man, the author again shows us something vital to the human condition. Eve and Adam are not moral super beings, but are as easily temptable as you and I. Certain theologies of a “fall” and “original sin” lack support at this juncture, since we find no evidence of humans “before the fall” being of a different moral strength than afterward (see Goldingay’s introduction to Genesis and Exodus in the Sheffield Biblical guides series).

Readers have been trained by later theologies to see many other things that do not exist in this text. There is no mention of Satan. In a brilliant story, which we need not assume the writer believed to be a historical event, we find the human psyche unraveled. We question our benefactors. We jealously lust for that which is not ours. We play word games. We latch on to partial truths as justifications for our own selfish actions, with too little regard for their effect on others. We spoil the joy we could enjoy with our acquisitive drive and desire to possess and control.

Thus in the story the Man and Woman took what was forbidden, questioned God’s words to them, chose to distrust their patron and parent, engaged in rationalization and distortion of the truth, and they succeeded both in acquiring the wisdom they craved and in losing the joy that was already theirs.

Readers trained to see a “fall” and “original sin” in this story go on to make the three curses into a complete “fall” of the world from paradise to meaninglessness and death. But in reality, there are four specific results of the actions of the Man and Woman according to the story: they lose access to the life sustaining tree, there will be enmity between snakes and people, there will be pain in childbirth, and men (viewed here as agricultural workers) will have to expend great energy to grow food.

If we read the story for its own content, instead of importing a lot of content from later theologies into it, we find it already quite brilliant. Death is our greatest complaint as human beings. Snakes are small but greatly feared. Children, our greatest joy, come dangerously and painfully into the world. And survival occupies nearly all of our time and energy, to the point that we feel exhausted and long for rest. It could have been otherwise.
SPOTLIGHT

Sphinxes (cherubim) guard the way back into the garden, a way we apparently would like to find again as a human race but will not. The Man and Woman in the origin story had what we long for: rest, beauty, peace, marital love, and access to unending life. Who wouldn’t want to find that again if the garden could somehow be rediscovered?

Sphinxes in the ancient world guarded the holy. Thus, in the Torah, sphinxes (cherubim) were on the ark cover, which was God’s footstool (his invisible throne being understood to exist above the ark). Thus we see sphinxes blocking the way back into the divine garden, the place representing idyllic qualities human beings must attain to in this life looking ahead to a life beyond in realms known only to God.

Finding themselves banished from the garden, the human beings of the primordial time experienced the formative stages of human evil. In the Cain and Abel story, Genesis explores violence and its root causes as the corruptor of life on earth. “If you do well, [you will stand] upright,” says God. “If not, sin is crouching low at your door” and desires to bring you low with it.

History has proven these words true. Human beings have not done well. Our situation is precarious and life is full of danger. But the text of Genesis offers us hope as individuals, even if we cannot say humanity as a whole will find this hope. “You can rule it,” said God regarding our relative position to sin. This is not about the (later) theological debate about whether we can be “sinlessly perfect,” but God in this story says we are able to conquer base desire and remove ourselves from the root causes of violence and envy. Human beings, individually at least, can evolve spiritually above bestial urges.

Every reader must ask: do I believe the perspective of this story? Can I experience this for myself? From rest in a divine garden to exile in a violent world, our home has changed. The positioning of cherubim to prevent our return to the garden seemingly foreshadows something, the very possibility that there is a future rest for us and that the way back is something God desires us to discover.

OUTLINE

God places the Garden off-bounds and sets Cherubim as guards (22-24), birth of Cain and Abel (4:1-2), Cain’s jealousy (3-7), the murder of Abel (8), God punishes Cain (9-16), Cain’s line down to Lamech (17-18).

OVERVIEW

“Like one of us.” This is the second time in the Genesis story that God has referred to an “us.” In 1:26 we find God saying, “Let us make humankind in our image, after our likeness.” Interpretations through the centuries have focused on three possible meanings: God is referring to himself and the supernatural beings (angels), to himself in the plural sense because God is in some way plural (as in the doctrine of the trinity), or this is an example of a “plural of majesty” (a figure of speech in which a singular person is referred to with the plural indicating majesty). In Hebrew, the phrase in 3:22 is about human beings becoming like any one member of a group, הָאָדָם הָיָה כְּאַחַד מִמֶּנּוּ, ha’adam hahah ke’achad mimenu, “the human has become like one from among us.” The reference has to be to a group of beings who exist separately from humankind. The logic of the verse suggests these beings must transcend human qualities in some way. The only valid options are gods or angelic beings. We find in other parts of the Hebrew Bible just such a concept, the divine council, and assembly of supernatural beings (angels) who can at times be referred to as “gods.” See Psa 82:1; 89:6-8(5-7); 29:1; Deut 32:8 (in older manuscripts, reflected for example in the ESV translation). What does the divine council have to do with the Genesis story? In acquiring knowledge rapidly, human beings have become more like God and the angelic beings who make up the divine council. God considers this rapid ascent of humans to be too much — too much perhaps for us to handle. The Man and Woman are expelled from the garden. A few story points stand out as significant. The Man is put out in order to “till the soil he was taken from.” This is a statement about human life in general: rather than resting in a garden we are destined to work hard for survival. But we, apparently, might want to find our way back into the garden, so the way is blocked by a fiery sword and beings known as cherubim (singular cherub, plural cherubim). Popular images in art have misled people into thinking that cherubim are either winged human beings (an image of angels that has become fixed into art) or — worse yet — toddlers with wings. Cherubim are sphinxes, like those of Mesopotamia and Egypt. The biblical word כְּרֻבִים keruvim (cherubim) is from the Akkadian kuribu (Sarna). And kuribu refers to the man-headed bull figures found outside of Mesopotamian temples and at city gates. They often had the body of a bull, the wings of an eagle, and the head and torso of a man. They were known as well by other names, such as lamassu and the related composite animal-human figures, the shedu. When the Man and Woman are banished, they are put out to the east. In the Torah’s descriptions of the temple, west is the direction of increasing holiness and east is away from that holiness (perhaps related to the unholy human tradition of worshipping the rising sun). In their new home in exile, the Man and Woman do not feel separated from God. He continues to be part of their life and the life of their children (a point John Goldingay emphasizes, see “Introduction” in the bibliography). Eve bears Cain and says, “I have created a man with Adonai.” Umberto Cassuto argues convincingly that she means, “Adonai and I share in common the ability to bring people into existence.” Cain, whose name means “created,” and Abel, whose name means “vanity” (reflecting perhaps his brief life), become part of a story of jealousy and violence. Readers have wondered why God preferred Abel’s offerings to those of Cain. The story does not seem to be about the reason for God’s preference, but the results of the jealousy. And Cain seems to be like those (of us) who worship God in seeming silence. “Why are you angry?” God asks. The next sentence (Genesis 4:7) has been one of the most difficult to understand in the book of Genesis and has drawn much attention. With inexorable logic, Umberto Cassuto shows the logic of the language and what must be the meaning of God’s saying: “If you do well, upright [you will be]; if you do not do well, sin will be crouching low at your door [and bringing you down with it].” Contrary to a theology of the “fall” and “original sin,” God tells Cain that he is able to master his impulse to sin (as Goldingay sharply observes). Cain’s temptation and evil crime are not like the Man and Woman in the garden eating forbidden fruit. Cain’s deed is far worse. In his banishment, Cain asks for some protection from God and, remarkably, God grants it. Cain’s line is summed up in a genealogy and we hear about him no more.

EXCURSUS ON THE CHERUBIM

The cherubim are described in Ezekiel 1:6-11 and 10:14. Cherubim were depicted in golden statues on the cover of the Ark (Exod 25:18-22), they were depicted in the tapestry curtains of the sanctuary (Exod 26:31; 36:8, 35; 37:7-9), were used in Solomon’s Temple (1 Kgs 6:23-35; 7:36; 8:6-7), and in Ezekiel’s vision of another temple (Ezek 41:18-20, 25). The idea that God is enthroned above the cherubim is repeated throughout the prophets and Psalms (1 Sam 4:4; 2 Sam 6:2; 2 Kgs 19:15; Isa 37:16; Psa 80:2; 99:1). Milgrom (Leviticus: Anchor Bible) shows that the Ark is God’s footstool and it is understood the throne is invisible and that the Presence will appear above the footstool. That the cherubim block the way back to the Garden is fitting, since they are the guardians of the holiness of God’s Presence.
SPOTLIGHT

Religious communities have a love-hate relationship with culture. Some Jewish and Christian communities form their own alternative culture. We might think of ultra-Orthodox Jews wearing the same clothing style as their founders in 18th century Poland, as if refusing to change with the times can actually preserve the past. Or we could look at evangelical Christianity in recent history seeking to form its own sub-culture with replacements for media, music, literature, and more.

Are people committed to God to be a part of human culture or not? Are we to replace the larger culture with our own alternative one? Are we to assimilate to the surrounding culture where we find our fit and express our devotion to God within the broader culture? Or are we to be part of culture and be a force to improve and transform culture by wisdom and the power of love?

The Genesis story considers the origins of human culture, and unlike the beliefs of some other nations in the Ancient Near East, the Torah claims the power to invent cultural conventions has always rested with people and not gods. The blessing of God and imparting to us his nature has vested us with the power to invent and teach and pass down a legacy of culture. The author of Genesis observes what should be obvious to us: culture is a mixed blessing, bringing forth the good and the bad, the graceful and the violent, the beneficial and the monstrously oppressive. If anything, Genesis depicts human culture as the place from which people call on God and potentially live for God. As the Torah develops, we see in it a kind of wisdom that transforms culture from within rather than avoiding it.

OUTLINE

Cain’s line from Lamech to Tubal-Cain.

OVERVIEW

Cain’s great fear after he murdered Abel was blood-revenge. God did not withhold mercy from Cain, but put a mark of protection on him. The very ground itself would reject Cain, so that he had nowhere to escape the curse. As a fugitive and wanderer “east of Eden,” Cain built a city and had children. One of the themes of the text is exactly how violent human beings can make a living in the world that curses violence. Building cities, political power, and economies is the human way of wringing a living from the ground.

Another theme through this section is vengeance, blood-revenge, a custom of the ancient world still a cultural norm in the period covered by the Torah. To some degree blood-vengeance was allowed in Torah, which is a parallel case to other things God permitted while at the same time he established their cessation. Slavery, for example, was permitted in Torah, but also undermined by the higher ways of Torah so that it would not always be permitted. The case with blood revenge is the same. Torah assumes the culture of vengeance, providing protections (refuge cities) and legal reforms (only intentional murder punishable by death via the court).

As the reader comes to 4:19-22, the story is confusing because the narrator does not comment with approval or disapproval concerning the various actions and accomplishments of human beings. That is precisely the purpose of this section of the story. Human civilization, as the author of Genesis presents it, is a cased of mixed results. Lamech took two wives. Though no comment is offered, the author of Genesis has already presented the ideal of one man and one woman.

Various human beings form arts and occupations in the world (animal husbandry, music, metal smithing). Cassuto notes that in the surrounding cultures of the Ancient Near East, the gods were general credited with inventing occupations and arts. Genesis attributes them to human beings. Goldingay observes that this is surely related to God’s blessing on humankind, that we subdue creation and rule over it, making culture by the power divinely bestowed upon us. Human culture is both good and bad, graceful and violent, beneficial and at the same time cruelly based on the power of the few over the many.

The inventive generation is the offspring of the seventh in the line of humankind (Lamech is the seventh starting with Adam). Walton notes that Cain’s line is not cursed and there is no dichotomy between a cursed Kenite (Cainite) race and a blessed Sethite race as some have supposed. The blessings of fertility and dominion extend to Cain’s line as to all humanity. Famously the line of Cain and Seth have doublets, sometimes identical in spelling and other times similar. The line of Cain: Enoch, Irad, Mehujael, Methushael, Lamech, Jabal/Jubal/Tubal-Cain. The line of Seth: Enosh, Kenan, Mahalalel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, Noah.
SPOTLIGHT

Genesis artfully contrasts the seventh generations of two lines of human beings. Lamech is the pinnacle of a movement in one direction and Enoch the other. Seven generations of Cain bring us to Lamech who says, in effect, “He slapped me and I killed him.”

The fruit of that direction of humanity is violence and that will lead to the destruction of human beings in a flood. By contrast the other line begins to call on the name of God and in the seventh generation we find Enoch, who walked with God in this life and the one beyond. It is not difficult to interpret the meaning of Genesis at this point. There are two ways. One concerns itself with power, greed, vengeance. The other concerns itself with calling on God and walking with him.

OUTLINE

Lamech’s song of violence (23-24), Seth’s line and humanity calling on God (25-26), prelude to Adam’s genealogy (5:1-2), Adam’s line to Enoch (3-24).

OVERVIEW

The motif of Lamech’s song is blood-vengeance and, more generally, violence. These are the very reasons God will destroy humanity with a flood in the next section. God has already rejected blood-vengeance in the unfolding story. In mercy, God marked Cain with protection, vowing to avenge Cain seven-fold (see 4:15) if anyone chose to disregard the ban by killing him. The logic of the story seems convoluted: God will take vengeance on human beings if they take vengeance on Cain. But the underlying premise is that vengeance belongs to God, whose judgment is perfect, and not to human beings.

In the later regulations of the Torah, punishment for killing can include execution, but only by the judgment of a competent and unbiased court. Lamech, however, takes God’s saying about seven-fold vengeance as license to increase violence. In his song he refers to a specific incident, an incident Torah does not convey, in which he killed a man for a mere blow. The idea is, “He slapped me and I killed him” (Cassuto). He multiplies blood-vengeance to a higher level. This is the kind of violence that is permeating the earth to which Genesis will return in 6:11.

The depressing line of Cain now yields to the slightly more hopeful line of Seth (4:25-26). People begin calling on the name of God, which is to say they recognize his kingship and hold him in reverent awe. It is characteristic of Genesis to end a section on a happy note (see 6:8, “Noah found favor”).

Also, the parallels in the lines of Cain and Seth (including some similar and some identical names) come to their high point in the seventh generation (the number seven being a favorite of the author of Genesis). Instead of Lamech (Cain’s line), the seventh in Seth’s line is Enoch, and of him we read that he walked with God.

About Enoch’s walking with God we can say a few things. First, the expression is used twice, once of his lifetime and once of his passing from this world. In his lifetime, walking with God meant the same thing as in 6:9 where we read that Noah walked with God (lived a righteous life, at least in comparison with his violent generation). In Enoch’s passing from the world, the expression more than hints at a different kind of walking, as in journeying to the realm above. The literary artistry of the passage is compelling: to walk with God in this world is to walk with him in the world to come.
SPOTLIGHT

God has feelings. His emotions about us, the children he made in his image, range from utter regret to joyful favor.

Noah’s time and place was dark, one of the worst chapters in human history. Looking down on that time and place God “saw that every inclination of the thought’s of humanity’s heart was only evil all the time.” So God regretted.

It is hard for us to imagine the All-Knowing experiencing an emotion like regret. We might wonder, “Can God make a mistake?” The words in Genesis depict God as experiencing something for the first time: the pain of seeing his children acting terribly. If this was all God felt, we might despair completely. If our Maker thinks of us only with disappointment, what hope is there?

But the section ends on a high note: “But Noah found favor.” God’s regret is not absolute. Humanity’s dark side is not the end of the story. There is also a bright side. Genesis up to this point has contrasted two ways: violence and the will to power are one direction human beings go whereas calling on God and holding him in reverent awe is our other human direction.

We have a choice, at least as individuals, which direction we want to belong to. We can be like Noah, finding favor instead of making our heavenly parent regret having made us. The way to obtain favor is not too difficult for us. Noah was no moral giant. Acknowledging God and holding him in reverent awe are the beginning of the better way.

OUTLINE

Methuselah to Noah (25-32), Sons of God and Nephilim (6:1-4), God’s decision to destroy but show favor to Noah (5-8).

OVERVIEW

One of the purposes of Genesis is to offer an alternative, Israelite view on popular subjects from the literature of the time. Origin myths in the nations surrounding Israel often involved the origin stories of the gods followed by accounts of wars between them resulting in the current condition of the world. By contrast, God speaks words from heaven and the world is given order that supports life.

In some myths from other nations, human beings are an afterthought or even slaves here to provide food for and do work for the gods. Genesis shows human beings as the God-like creatures placed at the top of the order of the world. Stories from surrounding cultures included legendary lists of antediluvian (pre-flood) kings, whereas Genesis has it’s genealogies of Cain and Seth. In place of technologies given to man by the gods, Genesis shows the line of Cain developing civilization.

And now, in this section, in place of the Titans and demi-gods of myth, Genesis has the Nephilim. They are the offspring of human women and the Sons of God. Cassuto argues that it is not as simple as saying the sons of God equal angels. “Angel” is simply the Greek word for messenger (malach in Hebrew), and refers to supernatural beings chosen by God to be messengers and servants carrying out his work in the world. We might assume that only some supernatural beings are designated by God as “angels.” Some supernatural beings are referred to as “evil spirits.” This brings us to the unusual term “nephilim”.

We might compare it to two other terms used in the Bible for supernatural beings: cherubim (sphinxes) and seraphim (the six-winged attendants of God’s throne). The root word behind “nephilim” is the verb meaning “to fall.” Cassuto says this is not from the idea of “fallen angels,” as in supernatural beings who fell from heaven, but refers rather to the fact that nephilim ceased to exist on the earth. They “fell” to the sword. Unlike the Titans of myth they were not descended from deity but from created beings called the sons of God.

God did not desire that any sons of the daughters of men should be immortal, so he purposed to end the Nephilim and keep man’s upper limit to a hundred and twenty years. The Nephilim did not disappear in the flood and neither did unions between sons of God and daughters of men cease. Vs. 4 indicates they were on earth both “then” and “later.” The flood was about humanity’s violence (as in the previous stories about blood-vengeance) and not due to the Nephilim.

In spite of God’s decision to obliterate humanity and slow the spread of evil and violence, Noah found favor. The word for favor is the same word often rendered grace. Later theologies of “grace” are often imposed on the Hebrew Bible. Thus, for example, those holding to a theology of “imputed righteousness” assume that the only righteousness that “counts with God” is the kind God “imputes” to us through Jesus. Noah is a problem for such a theology and has to be explained. We should let the Hebrew Bible speak for itself and we see the simple assumption of the story that some people follow one way (calling on God) while others follow a different way (like Lamech, based on violence). Noah was favored (“shown grace”) because he was righteous.

As for the state of the world in Noah’s time, it was a particularly dark period. Some people want to make the language about Noah’s time a description fitting humanity in any period (supporting a theology of “total depravity”). Indeed, Genesis says about Noah’s time “every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.” Rather than taking this as a generic description of what human beings are like, Goldingay suggests it is a comment on those specific times. It would be like a historian writing about any of the darkest places and times in history. Goldingay uses the specific examples of the Armenian genocide, the Nazi era, the Rwandan massacre, and the terrible events at Darfur. Noah lived in a time and place like that.

This created a strong emotion in God, even the emotion of regret, which is difficult for us to imagine God feeling since he knows all things in advance and surely knew this terrible era of human history would happen. The author of Genesis manages the tension artfully, contrasting God’s regret in making human beings with his favor toward Noah. Human beings are not a mistake. It is simply painful to God watching the process, the process in which free creatures can disappoint the heavenly parent. But this divine parental pain is redeemed in the joy God feels when human beings live according to his higher purpose for us.
SPOTLIGHT

Retaliation. Conquest. Competition. Jealousy. Discord. From our inner anxieties and miseries we act out in order to harm or at least get the better of others. There is no satisfaction in it.

Yet the will to power, to prevent anyone from hurting us either by not caring or by getting our penny’s worth of cheap vengeance, holds us prisoner if we let it. We may not be power-mad dictators, but we seek to rule our own little world. We must be at the top. We must not lose face.

If we multiply our feelings and inner insecurities by millions and even billions, we begin to understand this messed up, violent human race.

The author of the Genesis flood story singles out violence as the human sin par excellence. But another way contrasts with it, a way that is called blameless, the way of Noah.

This better way is not too hard for us. It is walking with God. It is separating ourselves from the cycle of violence. It is joining with God in the act of saving others instead of seeking to come out the winner of the battle for power and prestige.

What lists do we carry around in our heads of wrongs done to us by this person and that person? What is truly more important than walking with God and being with our loved ones?

This world God made has plenty of beauty and enjoyment in it to go around for all of us. Every day is a new day and the world is full to overflowing. We can better spend our energy on building something positive out of what life hands to us.

OUTLINE

Blameless Noah (9-10), the lawlessness of earth (11-12), instructions for the Ark (13-16), covenant promise and instructions regarding animals (17-21), Noah’s compliance (22).

OVERVIEW

Was Noah blameless in a relative sense (compared to other people in his time period, since it was a wicked era) or blameless in a superlative sense (even though his wicked era made it harder to be blameless)? Thus far, Genesis has defined goodness as calling on God and staying apart from the cycle of vengeance and violence that is ruining the earth. Noah’s “blameless” character may be simply that.

Some Jewish commentators have raised a moral issue with Noah, who they say was less righteous than Abraham. They say this because he did not, at least in the story as it is narrated for us, pray for mercy on his generation (unlike Abraham who sought to have Sodom spared).

Like Enoch before him, Noah “walked with God.” But this righteous character of Noah is apparently not something superhuman, an unattainable level of moral perfection. It is simply the basic, humanly achievable practice of worship and general kindness.

Some later theologies in Christianity debate how morally perfect we would have to be for God to consider us righteous. In some views, we would have to be perfect from birth to death and achieve levels of selfless love beyond human limits for God to take notice. This is not at all the requirement we see in actual stories of the relationship between God and people in the Bible. God counts our worship and frail mortal virtue to be precious and valued.

As for Noah’s generation, the charge is חָמָס chamas, violence. It may seem odd for Genesis to single out brutality and savagery as the quintessential human sin. Many other thinkers have chosen something more intangible (selfishness, envy, pride). But there is one thing that qualifies violence for prime status as the human transgression: it is the visible result of whatever inner condition prevents us as a race from enjoying a good life here on earth. Violence and the will to use it for power mark humanity as a troubled and flawed species.

Interestingly, when we write speculative fiction about the future of humanity (i.e., science fiction) it is a common theme to imagine either a time when we are too enlightened to be violent or another race of beings judging us for our violence. Inner conditions like selfishness, envy, and pride become monstrous when we band together and turn them into violence.

Vss. 13-16 are the first iteration of instructions for making a ship to survive the coming flood, and the instructions, like many other parts of the story, will be repeated. The entire flood story can be separated out into two strands identifiable by repetitions. The P source of the Torah (a document which once existed separately and which was priestly in its theology and concerns) and the J source (older than P, written in Judah) both had an account of Noah and the flood, and these have been merged into the one final story without deleting anything from either account. See Richard Elliott Friedman (Who Wrote the Bible?) for an analysis and breakdown.

Following the instructions God promises a covenant, and this is the first use of this important concept in the Bible. God’s covenants are about rescuing and redeeming, and here God is rescuing humanity by saving one family. The rescue of Noah’s family, which is the rescue and rebuilding of humanity, pre-figures the choosing of Abraham’s family. God saves the world through choosing one family to carry on his name. This saving covenant with Noah is necessary because God will “destroy all flesh.”

Is Genesis talking about a global flood? Readers of Genesis should understand that the author had no notion of a globe. Furthermore, many of the terms that sound global had smaller meanings (instead of “earth,” eretz in Hebrew generally means “land”). The flood of Genesis is simply a story about many human beings, the core of civilization at that time, being destroyed. It was a sort of cultural reset on the earth.

Attempts to use this story as part of a study of earth’s geology are complete misreadings of this ancient text. The perspective of the author of Genesis is that human civilization was slowed in its growth and a new family began human life all over again on earth as part of God’s plan to redeem the world.
SPOTLIGHT

Genesis 7:11 is “old world science,” to use a term coined by John Walton (The Lost World of Genesis One). We think there is only one “science,” but if we paused to reflect, we’d realize before Galileo and Copernicus some very famous aspects of “science” used to look very different. We could equally imagine other great breakthroughs in understanding the universe that changed the language and perspective of science. Even in the ancient world, in the time of the Israelites, there were different ideas about how the world was held together. Concerning the flood story, Richard Elliott Friedman (The Bible with Sources Revealed) points out that the J source simply says it rained while the P source evidences a more colorful scientific belief: the world is a bubble surrounded by waters. Old world science is all over the Bible. The sky has floodgates that let the waters in. The earth rests on pillars (or mountains). What should we as modern readers think about a verse like Genesis 7:11, “In the 600th year of the life of Noah, in the second month on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day, all the fountains of the great Deep [tehōm, like the chaos dragon Tiamat] burst, and the windows of heaven broke open”? The point of the verse is to cause us to wonder, to behold in radical amazement, the forces which are far greater than us but which God controls effortlessly. Our life is small compared to the universe, which is small still compared to the God who made it. The God who controls such forces has made a covenant with us as a human race and has our good future in mind. The story inspires us to be among those, like Noah, who call on God and are “righteous” in our generation.

OUTLINE

Noah instructed to enter the ark with animals (1-5), Noah obeys and the rain starts (6-10), chronological notes and a poetic line about the flood (11-12), Noah’s family and the animals comprised male and female of all flesh (13-16).

OVERVIEW

The Noah story is a combined text from two sources, both of which can be separated out, and each of which tells the complete story. Rather than deleting parts from the two versions of the story and combining them in a single version, both original versions have been left complete. Therefore, every major story element is repeated in a final version that sometimes makes strange reading. One source, referred to as J, is from Judah during the period of the monarchy in Israel. The other source, P, is from Jerusalem and reflects priestly theology and concerns. Because it is natural for us to read the Noah account as a single story, we tend to harmonize conflicts in the story details. Thus, for example, 6:19; 7:8-9, 15-16 say Noah brought one pair of each kind of animal on the ark. But 7:2-3 says seven pairs of clean animals and birds were brought aboard. We may be puzzled at first, but then we harmonize the story by assuming he brought one pair of most animals but seven of others. See Richard Elliott Friedman (Who Wrote the Bible?) for a thorough discussion of the double-sourced Noah story and how to separate the sources into two complete versions. The story tells us (from the J source) why Noah was spared in the flood: כִּי־אֹתְךָ רָאִיתִי צַדִּיק לְפָנַי בַּדּוֹר הַזֶּה, ki-ōtcha ra’iti tzadiq lefanai badōr hazzeh, “for I have seen that you are righteous before me in this generation.” So far Genesis has depicted humanity as dividing into two categories: those who participate in violence and those who call on God. Noah’s righteousness is simply a matter of belonging to the latter group. God has a desire to preserve and increase this trait among human beings. One detail in the story raises the issue of anachronism. The laws of sacrificial animals will not be revealed until much later in history and yet the story (the J source part of the story) depicts Noah as bringing more clean animals aboard than unclean. How did Noah know the difference? A popular way of reading the story assumes that the clean/unclean distinction is something humanity has always known and that dietary laws are universal (required for Jews and non-Jews). Actually, as we will see in Genesis 9:3, Noah is permitted to eat any animal, clean or unclean. We should not assume that Noah knew the difference between clean and unclean animals, but that the writer knows his audience (Israelites) are aware of the difference. We should remember this story is being told much later, in the time of when Torah was developing, and that terms from the time of Torah could be used to explain a primeval story (anachronism). Also, the nations outside of Israel had been practicing sacrificial worship for ages before the Torah was written and the customs of worship in the Torah are not completely unique. Another verse in this section that stands out is 7:11. This is likely from an older Israelite or Mesopotamian epic about the flood. Both the creation and flood stories contain hints of an older tradition of epic poetry about creation, the kind of poetry that shows up in places like Job 38, Isaiah 40, and various Psalms (Cassuto). The note in vs. 16 that God shut Noah into the ark differs from the Mesopotamian stories, in which the heroes Utnapishtim and Atrahasis shut themselves in (Sarna). The meaning is that Noah’s deliverance is not by his own heroism, but by the providence of God alone.
SPOTLIGHT

What is the flood story all about? When civilization on earth was growing monstrous, God destroyed that civilization and checked its progress for quite some time. This had the effect of slowing down the growth of an empire of violence and oppression on the earth. At the same time, God chose a family and established a covenant relationship, which led eventually to Abraham and the rest of the Genesis story. We might look at our world today and think that God’s action was a complete waste. That monstrous civilization came back and human history has been dominated by a succession of empire after empire, by competition with a few winners and numerous losers, by a series of economies in which the minority take and the majority give. Was the flood a wasted effort on God’s part? There are at least two considerations that would see the value in the flood story. First, if God found damnable the human propensity to use violence to build empires, and if at one time he expressed his wrath through destruction, we still benefit from this revelation even if there was not yet a permanent solution. We see that God has spoken. The flood narrative challenges what human beings think is important. There has to be a better way than empire building. Second, the family with which God established a relationship left a permanent mark on the world. Noah leads to Abraham, Abraham to Judaism, Judaism to the faith of several billion people on earth today. Of course, critics may argue that faith in the Judeo-Christian God is ineffectual, that it has brought about little if any change in human destiny. But we may see it as part of a process that is still ongoing. As the world was saved from the flood, it will be saved again in the redemption to come. Some of us look to Noah and Abraham and others, seeing ourselves as part of a kingdom that transcends human empires.

OUTLINE

The waters rise above mountains (17-20), all life but those on the ark perishes (21-23), waters recede from the 150th day to the tenth month (7:24 – 8:5), the ark opened and birds sent out (6-12), one year after God’s first word to Noah, the land was drying, and fifty-six days later was dry (13-14).

OVERVIEW

It may not be obvious to modern readers, but ancient audiences could not miss the fact that the flood story of Genesis is related to the similar tales in Mesopotamia. Not only that, but the Israelite audience was also aware of other flood stories, probably poems told by storytellers. Umberto Cassuto observes that the creation and flood stories show evidence of being related to older Israelite epic poems (and creation poetry shows up in Psalms and Isaiah). Genesis 8:2 is possibly from an earlier flood tale, “Shut up tight were the fountains of the Deep [tehōm, related to the name of the chaos dragon Tiamat] and the windows of heaven, and held back firmly were the rains from heaven.” Perhaps there was a memory in Mesopotamia of a great flood that once destroyed the major population centers. But the Genesis version has its own unique elements, especially regarding the theology of the flood event. Cassuto observes some key points made in the way Genesis tells the story. The ark drifted without rudder because the salvation of Noah’s family followed God’s providence and not human self-determination. All life perished because God, who made life, can also unmake it. The flood’s end is marked by God “remembering” Noah because God’s ways are determined by covenant relationships. God was always in control of the flood and stopped it when he willed it to stop. Should we read the flood story, as so many have done, as being about the entire globe being submerged in water? Such things would not have occurred to ancient readers who knew nothing about earth as a planet. Modern readers are confused by language that sounds earth-wide. Ancient stories sometimes used cosmic language as a poetic device, not to be taken literally. A clear example demonstrating this tendency can be found in Judges 5, in Deborah’s song, which describes an ordinary stream overflowing in the valley of Megiddo. Although the meteorological event would be considered minor and localized, Judges 5 says things like “the earth trembled and the heavens dropped,” “from heaven the stars fought,” “the ancient torrent, the torrent Kishon, swept them away.” Thus, when we read the language of the flood story, we need not take literally its descriptions. “Mountain” can also be “hill” and “earth” can simply mean “land.” The descriptions are perfectly consistent with a devastating local flood. As for the death toll, who knows, but perhaps this flood destroyed the major population center of the time. Some might argue that God’s goal in the story was to literally destroy all human life except for Noah’s family in order to rebuild humanity. While those who wish to read the story as a literal wiping out of humanity could do so. Even a local flood could possibly at some early point in human history have wiped out all human beings if all human beings were concentrated in one population center. Nevertheless, the story could reflect God destroying and holding back the rapid advance of Mesopotamian civilization while establishing a covenant relationship with one family from whom would come Abraham. What can we say about the discrepancies in the story that arise in this section? We read that the flood waters rose for forty days in 7:17 and yet they swelled one hundred and fifty days according to 7:24. It turns out the “forty days” theme is used in a number of verses (7:4, 10, 12; 8:6-12). Likewise, the “one hundred and fifty days” theme has its repetitions (7:11, 24; 8:3, 5, 13, 14). All of the “forty days” references come from the source document known as J and all of the “hundred and fifty days” references from the document known as P (see Richard Elliott Friedman, Who Wrote the Bible?). These discrepancies are all part of the combining of two originally independent versions of the story (by the authors of J and P respectively) into one account. It is possible to separate out the sources and to find two complete versions of the flood story.
SPOTLIGHT

We are at once broken and loved, capable of breaking God’s heart and touching it. Noah’s burnt offerings were pure worship, a giving of love and appreciation to the God who made and saved him. God receives the gift, not like the gods of myth who were eager to eat food supplied by human slaves, but as a parent who gives and receives with his children. Noah’s act causes God to consider that, bent as we are toward violence, we are better preserved than destroyed. The natural order God made in the act of creation (with day and night, water and land, earth and sky, separated to make room for life) will not again be overturned. God’s original intention to make human life possible in the world will continue uninterrupted now. God’s way of dealing with human beings will start to look different, especially when the generation of Abraham arrives.

OUTLINE

God tells Noah to disembark (15-19), Noah makes an offering and God’s pleasure leads to a covenant (8:20-22), God blesses Noah (9:1-2), all animal life is food (3), prohibition of eating blood (4), prohibition of murder (5-6), the fertility blessing (7).

OVERVIEW

God has been in control of the entire judgment and salvation. The ark drifted on its own and was not steered by Noah. God shut Noah into the ark. Now, the disembarkation is also initiated by God, who invites them to disembark and bring out with them all the animals they have preserved. God speaks again a blessing over animal life, that they might increase and spread out on the earth. The reader gets the message that the problems human beings face sometimes are beyond our ability to solve, so that we find we need God to intervene and change the situation. Noah’s offering, like all offerings prior to the Torah, is a burnt offering. Its purposes include thanksgiving and worship. Sarna notes that in the Utnapishtim flood story, the gods crowd like flies around the sweet smell of the sacrifice, eager to eat what the human has offered. In what is likely a deliberate contrast to the pagan story, Genesis reveals that God’s pleasure in the sacrifice was not for his own appetite, but love for humanity and joy in the worship that was offered to him. A race that can offer thanksgiving can also receive love in return. Thus we see, right after Noah’s offering, the benevolent determination of God to save and not destroy. God reasons that though human beings continue to have a disposition toward evil (vs. 21), we are worth rescuing and even entering into a covenant with. What follows in chapter 9 is a section of laws about life, blood, and the life that is in the blood. These laws, often referred to in rabbinic thought as the Noahide laws, are directly related to the flood experience. The flood has taken life. So should human beings have a casual view concerning the taking of human life? No, the taking of animal life for food is permitted, although there is even a restriction involved in this: the blood of an animal shall not be eaten. As for human life, God will judge both animals and people who take human life. The reason human life is sacred, while animal life is less sacred, is that human beings are made in God’s image and likeness. The other nations make images of their gods, but God made us to be his images. Why is the eating of blood forbidden? Genesis does not say, although Leviticus 17:11 provides an unusual answer: blood is symbolic of life and is used for ritual purification. One of the ideas behind the Noahide laws is that there are moral laws which do not require a law-code to be known. Consider, for example, that the flood generation was judged for lawlessness and violence, in spite of the fact that there was no Torah or law-code of any kind. Judaism built on this idea, developing a longer list of Noahide commandments. Some rabbis suggested that the longer list of Noahide commandments was God’s total expectation of non-Jews (i.e., Jews have the Torah and non-Jews have the Noahide laws). We do see, in at least partial agreement with this concept in Judaism, that the dietary laws of the Torah are not placed upon Noah’s descendants as a requirement (see 9:3, where Noah is permitted to eat any living thing, though not the blood).
SPOTLIGHT

God’s might has at times and will again be bent for destruction. Yet this is not the ultimate plan. God’s bow, representing his power, is fundamentally aimed toward life and increasing it on the earth. Genesis shows us a God who prepared a world for life, spoke the blessing of life and increase on the earth, vowed not to end life on the earth, and who rescues and redeems. Life can be cruel. It is all too easy to believe this is because the author of life is callous, unfeeling. If we look at the story of the rainbow, and more fully at the evidence all around us that the world is made for life, an optimistic view of our situation can sustain us. Are we subjects of an impersonal universe or creatures of a feeling, loving creator? Is God a hard master, more worried about judging human beings than offering us a chance at redemption? The Genesis story encourages us to expect benevolence from him, to understand his motives in judgment as subordinate to his motives in salvation.

OUTLINE

The covenant (8-11), the bow of God as the sign (12-17).

OVERVIEW

Genesis has already made use of allusions to elements from Mesopotamian myth, such as the reference to Tehom (the Deep) in 1:2 (a reference to Tiamat, the chaos dragon of the salt waters of the earth). The “rainbow” at the end of the flood story is another such allusion. There is no actual word for a rainbow here, but simply a bow (qeshet, קֶשֶׁת). In a well known story about Marduk in the Enuma Elish, he made a constellation out of his bow, the same one he used to defeat Tiamat (Sarna). God’s might, his bow, is no longer an object of fear (as when he decided to institute the flood) but of protection (through his covenant not to wipe out humanity again by flood). As a side purpose, the allusions to myth in Genesis tend to function as a denial of some popularly believed truth. There is a bow in the sky, Genesis tells us, but it is God’s, not Marduk’s.
SPOTLIGHT

The story of Noah becomes embarrassing after the flood is over and he settles down to become a wine-maker. Is this an old story told to warn people of the dangers of drinking too much wine? Is it a story offering some explanation for the later servitude of the Canaanites to Israel in the land? Interestingly, God does not curse the Canaanites in this story, but rather Noah does. The situation implied, in which at some point in history Canaanites are a subservient people, fits with the time of Israel’s monarchy (after the time of king David). Rather than viewing the story as a prophecy (there is no prophet here, unless the reader assumes Noah is prophesying), it seems rather an explanation after the fact. Why are the Canaanites a subservient people? How did their fortunes diminish in society? What the reader should observe is that the human condition is constantly being affected by things like the will to power, the unbalanced pursuit of pleasure, and unchecked desire to gain more. In the Hebrew Bible, the good life is not about happiness or power, but rather it is a life filled with meaning and purpose. When Noah was saving people and animals, everything was fine. When he settled down and turned his attention to wine-making, a problem arose. This little incident in Noah’s life is a hint that the flood did not solve humankind’s problems. The narrative will soon turn to an even greater demonstration of the evils plaguing humanity.

OUTLINE

Humanity grows from Noah’s sons (18-19), Noah’s drunken sleep and Ham’s shameful act (19-23), Noah’s curse and blessing (24-27), Noah’s death (9:28-29), the table of nations (10:1-32).

OVERVIEW

Grapes are not a common Mesopotamian product, so the story is more likely set in either Syria or Canaan (Sarna). A long time has passed so that vine culture is now thriving and perhaps Ham’s son Canaan is a grown man by now. The story leaves many questions. Did Ham merely look on Noah’s nakedness or is more implied? Cassuto thinks only looking, since Shem and Japheth solved the problem by covering. Sarna thinks more is hinted since the story seems abridged, as if it was too embarrassing to relate in full. Why is the curse on Canaan and not Ham? This is another clue that this story is ultimately about Canaanites, Israelites, and surrounding peoples in Moses’ time and not just Patriarchs from the post-flood generation. Ham includes Canaan and Egypt. Japeth includes the sea peoples (Phoenicians, Hittites, Philistines). Shem is the line from which Abraham will come, the line that carries the knowledge of God to the world. The Canaanites wound up serving Egypt and Israel. Cassuto sees it differently and the whole servitude theme is fulfilled in Genesis 14 with Sodom and Gomorrah serving Chedorlaomer (an Elamite or Persian, from Shem). Noah (whose name means comfort) took to wine making (viticulture), as had been foretold in 5:29, bringing “comfort” out of the ground. What follows the Noah story in Genesis 10 is known as the table of the nations, showing how all the seventy nations of Moses‘ time descended from Shem, Ham, and Japheth. It is repeated with some variations in 1 Chronicles 1:4-23. The table of nations emphasizes numerical harmony (groups of sevens) and God’s providence. There are three individuals with an expanded description: Nimrod (vss. 8-12), Canaan (vss. 15-19), and Eber (vss. 25-30). Nimrod is the first renowned conqueror on earth (a prototype of Mesopotamian kings). Cassuto thinks we have in 10:8-12 a fragment of a larger epic poem about Nimrod which was well-known but has been lost to history. He is said to have conquered Babel and founded Nineveh. The description of Canaan is about people groups which Israel encountered in the conquest and afterwards. Concerning Eber (vs. 21, 25) it is important to note that Eber (Eiver) is related to the word Hebrew (Eevree) and that Hebrew is a term outsiders called Israelites and which Israelites used to describe themselves to outsiders. The descendants of Eber are all people of the Arabian deserts, suggesting Israel saw its origins in this way (a nomadic, desert people).
SPOTLIGHT

Take the general selfishness of one person and strengthen it by banding us together in large groups, and you get something so sinister it can literally wipe out nations and destroy the planet. נַעֲשֶׂה־לָּנוּ שֵׁם na’aseh-lanu shem, “Let us make a name for ourselves.” The stated goal of the people at Babel is about winning something, seeking greater glory. The motive is competition. Everyone wants to dominate. Governments use the language of “common good” and “national pride,” but such goals are warped from the beginning. The building project at Babel has several features worth noting. Lacking stone, they are trying to make a brick tower with inferior technology. The ziggurats of Mesopotamia did not last like the pyramids of Egypt. Their technology seems impressive, but is in reality fleeting. The vaunted pride of nations, the endless seeking of immortality, is a wrongheaded path to building something worthwhile. What lasts is not stone or brick and what matters over generations is not a monument, but rather a culture of caring and equality. Also, their building has a religious purpose and sends a theological message. They imagine that other nations have an advantage over them, since other nations have mountains and hills. So they think in order to have divine power working for them, they need to build a mountain for their gods. This tower will be their Mount Olympus or Mount Zephon or Mount Sinai. The idea behind it is that the gods will come down and serve the needs of human beings. A ziggurat tower featured a room at the top for the deity and a stairway so the powers of heaven could ascend and descend. The makers of Babel wanted to bring God down to serve them. It’s ironic how we think so much of our governments and social aims that we imagine we lead God in developing a better world. The attitude is the exact opposite of reality. Rather than looking for a way to serve the plan of God, they are making plans they feel God should serve. Some people band together to honor and worship the Name and other people are looking to make a name for themselves. There could hardly be a greater difference between the two.

OUTLINE

The story of Babel’s ziggurat (1-9), genealogy from Noah to Abraham (10-32).

OVERVIEW

Babylon, by the Euphrates, lacks mountains. Ancients tended to worship gods on mountains (even Israel, both the righteous on Mt. Zion and the disobedient on the high places). The Greeks had Mt. Olympus and numerous examples of mountain abodes of deity existed in the mythological world of the past. In the Enuma Elish 6.48-79 the gods wanted to honor Marduk and so they built Babylon, molding bricks for a year and constructing a tower “as high as heaven.” The Biblical version of Babel (Babylon), as is the case in every other parallel story, casts the Babylon tale in a different light. The tower is a ziggurat, a mountain-like structure or stepped pyramid. The Babylonians thought they needed an artificial mountain (since Babylon lacks mountains) for the gods to alight on earth and thus serve mankind. The biblical story depicts this as degradation, not progress. People have gone from knowing God as the ultimate sovereign (knowledge of the Most High having passed down from Noah) to a view of deity as manipulable and able to be tamed with human worship to serve the ends of humanity. The original Babylonians desired to make a place where all humanity would congregate and be served by God/the gods (it is not clear if polytheism was yet the belief or if residual monotheism had degraded into a lower view of deity). The biblical story parodies their intention. God makes of Babel (gate of gods) a place of gibberish (babble, in Hebrew balal, Sarna).
SPOTLIGHT

Great things with God often begin in humble places.

A desert nomad is for no known reason singled out and called to come down to the land of Canaan. Nomads travel. There is nothing on the surface unusual about a man like Abram packing up his family and separating from his father’s clan to form a new one in a different land.

But behind the surface something quite unusual is happening. The divine voice speaks to Abram, more than once. This journey is filled with God’s purpose. That purpose is a promise to Abram’s progeny and, more significantly, to all the families of the earth.

Genesis does not yet explain how the families of the earth can find blessing through the man Abraham. Nor does it explain how his descendants, the future nation of Israel, will bless the world.

Writing sometime during the monarchy in Israel and/or Judah, the authors of the Abraham stories in Genesis believe Israel is central to a plan of God for all nations.

From our vantage point more than three thousand years later than Abraham, we can say something miraculous has happened through the people of Israel. The entire planet has been changed and history affected on a massive scale by a tiny people group. So much culture and religion has come to the world through this humble beginning.

Both the Jewish and Christian versions of what follows after Abraham lead to the same ending. The final chapters of this great story of humanity with God will be the reshaping of the world, bringing us back to the potential Adam and Eve missed.

God’s light and wisdom, unending life, desires fulfilled, the experience of love as it was meant to be, all these and more will be part of our future existence. The blessing through Abraham is one vital step in that direction.

OUTLINE

God initiates a covenant with Abram (1-3), Abram journeys with Sarai and Lot (4-5), Shechem and the altar there (6-7), Bethel’s altar and on to the Negev (8-9), famine during which Abram tries to pass Sarai off as his sister (10-13).

OVERVIEW

As the chapter breaks from the eleventh into the twelfth in Genesis, the style of narrative takes a decided turn. The story of Terah’s line had already begun to develop from the genealogy in eleven. But now a new kind of story will unfold, a story told at much greater length, with detail about a set of characters like we’ve not yet seen in the book of Genesis.

Already Abraham’s family under his father Torah had been migrating to Canaan, but arriving in Haran to the north of Canaan they stopped. While in Haran, Abram (not yet called Abraham) hears the divine voice saying, “Get yourself going” (לֶךְ־לְךָ lech-lecha). The command in this form suggests a separation, which is also confirmed in the rest of the instructions. He is to get himself going away from his father’s clan, to journey where God will show him.

We assume as readers Abram has not heard the divine voice before. Hearing it now for the first time, he listens. According to Joshua 24:2, he and his family had worshiped other gods. But which of them ever spoke to him or gave him direction for his life? Something new is happening and Abram has been singled out to receive something from heaven.

There are seven promises in all to Abram: to become a nation, to be blessed, have great name, to be a blessing, that those who bless him will be blessed, that those who curse him will be cursed, and that the whole world will be blessed through him.

The promise “all the families of the earth will be blessed in you” features a verb that could mean “will bless themselves by you” (reflexive, instead of the traditional passive). In other words, it is possible to read this promise as something much smaller: “All the families of the earth will say, ‘May I be as blessed as Abram.’” While this translation is possible, the rest of the Abram stories will show the truth of the traditional translation, for other groups of people will be blessed or miss out on blessing depending on their dealings with Abram.

The remarkable message of this promise is that good fortune will come to the whole world through one man and his descendants. It is a theology of the kindness of heaven through the choosing of one nation, Israel, who descended from the patriarch, Abraham.

The narrator breaks into the story in vs. 6 in an intrusive manner, saying “the Canaanites were then in the land.” That is, at the time period in which the writer lives, the Canaanites are no longer in the land. This is one of many clues that Genesis was written in the time of the kings of Israel and Judah rather than in the days of Moses.

The “terebinth” tree at Shechem is a natural place for Abram to stop. Tall trees stand out in a middle eastern landscape and were naturally viewed as sacred places. God speaks again to Abram from there, promising that this land will someday belong to his descendants.

Abram follows the natural route along the highland road to Bethel. He builds altars along the way at Shechem and Bethel, prefiguring the worship of God in the land of Israel. He lives for some time in the Negev desert, a place where he will not have to compete with powerful neighbors, but can live as a desert nomad with his flocks and herds. This is the lifestyle Abram is accustomed to. However a famine develops and Abram migrates to Egypt.

There we have the first story involving tension and a threat to the divine promise. Childless Abram is promised to become a great nation, but now a foreign king may take his wife. How will the divine promise come true?
SPOTLIGHT

Life spins out of control. Our destiny totters on the brink of ruin. And then a new day rises and there is relief. What seemed to promise unavoidable ruin turns out to be one more thing we overcome in life. Abraham experienced this for a specific reason: God’s promises to him were unconditional and extremely potent.

While we will not have the same experience Abraham did, it is nonetheless true that we benefit from God’s unconditional promises to bless all the families of the earth. This life God has given us is not immune to tragedy, but the direction all things move in is toward blessing and life. So even in this life, harsh and unyielding as it may be at times, there is often reprieve, relief, recovery, and a restart. What do we do in such moments?

Abraham returned home to Bethel, a rather long journey, and “called upon the name of Adonai.” There is power in the act of worshipping God. Genesis notes the places where Abraham established an altar, where he called upon God’s name. Later generations returned to these places. Behind the story of Abraham is something much bigger than one man, a semi-nomadic animal herder, traveling and surviving. Abraham’s life is about a divine promise that will mean blessing for the whole world. Abraham had a place in God’s plan. So do we. Understanding, celebrating, supporting, and being grateful for the promises of God, we find our purpose in life on earth. Life is about meaning, not power or pleasure. Where is our purpose, the meaning of our life specifically, in this plan of God? That is the question we must ask ourselves and find the answer to.

OUTLINE

Threat to the covenant in Sarai’s abduction (12:14-20), Abram returns to the land to Bethel (13:1-4).

OVERVIEW

There is a pattern in these narratives: a threat arises which could nullify God’s promises to Abraham, the threat resolves itself, the covenant promises are restated (Walton, NIV Application Commentary). I will make you a great nation, God promises, but Abraham is childless and now his wife has been taken into the harem of an Egyptian ruler. This pharaoh compensates Abram richly, probably to smooth over the injustice of her forceful abduction (Sarna). Abram is enriched, ironically, because of his own deception (telling people Sarai is his sister). Even when doing wrong, Abram is blessed.

But God ends the threat to the covenant (if Sarai is not the mother of Abram’s children, the covenant promise is broken) by afflicting the pharaoh, who is wise enough in the ways of religion to understand. The threat resolves itself — not because of something Abram did, but in spite of Abram. The divine promise is unconditional. The famine comes to an end and Abram journeys back to his new home in the land of promise. Coming back to Bethel, where he had built an altar (12:8), he “calls upon” or “invokes” the “name of Adonai” (13:4). The same phrase was used in 12:8 upon Abram’s first arrival at Bethel. In a later story, Jacob will come to the same place and encounter God (Gen 28). What sort of worship did Abram offer when the text says he “called upon the name” of Adonai? This may have involved burnt offerings (which we later see that Abram knows how to offer) and a prayer. There are only four places in the Bible that use this description for worship (4:26; 12:8; 13:4; and 26:25).
SPOTLIGHT

Imagine if the outcome of your life was guaranteed to be peace and plenty. Your mistakes would all be erased and only good things would result from your life. The trials and challenges of life that came your way would all be successfully resolved in your favor. Even foolish decisions you made would come out well for you in the end. This was Abraham’s life. In yet another threat to the covenant promises, Abram foolishly offers Lot the first choice at which land to settle. Given first choice where to settle, Lot could have chosen to occupy the places in Canaan which God promised to Abram’s descendants. Instead Lot saw the potential wealth and ease of the Jordan Valley in the oases along the river or perhaps near the Dead Sea (the location of Sodom is unknown). In the narrative world of Genesis, it is important where Abram journeys and builds altars and makes temporary homes. These places prefigure the cities where the Israelites will settle. According to the logic of the Genesis story, God was watching out for the Israelites and guided the life of Abraham according to an unfolding plan. In other words, behind the circumstances and people and places of life, there is a promise of grace and goodness which God told Abraham would be for all the families of the earth. What often looks good to us (the well-watered plain near Sodom) will perhaps turn out to be nothing or even a tragedy. But what seems the difficult, arduous path, settling in the mountains and in places with less water, will turn into light and life in God’s hands.

OUTLINE

The threat of strife between Lot and Abram’s camps (5-7), the threat of Abram’s generosity giving away the promised land (8-9), Lot chooses the territory outside of the holy land (10-13), the Lord reaffirms the land promise to Abram (14-17), Abram builds an altar and settles in Hebron (18).

OVERVIEW

Once again in this section of the story we see the pattern of threat to the covenant, resolution, and reaffirmation of the promises to Abraham and his descendants (Walton, NIV Application Commentary). Abram, rather foolishly, offers Lot a choice which could include him taking the heart of Canaan, the land promised in the covenant to Abram. Instead, Lot chooses the land that looks more prosperous to him. It is without doubt a wisdom lesson that what appears to be wealth (a well-watered plain and several prosperous cities) is nothing apart from God’s blessing. Sodom and Gomorrah will, of course, turn out to be illusory blessings while the greater land of Canaan will, with God’s blessing, be the land of a different sort of prosperity. Still, Abram is led into the promise without his own effort. The divine covenant is fulfilled by grace. Lot chooses land on the edge of and possibly outside of the boundaries of the promised land (the location of Sodom and Gomorrah is not precisely known). This section alludes to what will come, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (vs. 10) and the wickedness of the people there (vs. 13). Hebron, south of Jerusalem and on the primary ridge of the Judean mountains, becomes the primary home of Abram and the place where he will be buried along with Sarai. It is considered one of the four holy cities of Judaism today (with Jerusalem, Safed, and Tiberias).
SPOTLIGHT

We look at the universe and feel dwarfed by it. Is it hostile to us? At times it seems so. Nature seems to have no care about us, being willing to unleash forces that destroy human life and lay our buildings to rubble. Some thinkers and writers have imagined the universe as a cold, dark place and human beings as mere insects struggling for survival in a random, meaningless existence. The Bible does not address this concern with philosophical answers, but rather assumes that human beings have known from the earliest history that there is a Creator of heaven and earth. Melchizedek is an example of someone from the stories told in ancient Israel who did not give in to the prevailing polytheistic views, but who retained knowledge of the Creator. Abraham may have thought he was alone in the world, the only one who knew about the Judge of All the Earth, the Lord whose name he called upon at various altars in the land of Canaan. According to Genesis, this ancient human knowledge was not lost and is, in fact, what the Israelite faith is based on. The universe is not hostile, but was made to be a place of life especially for us, human beings made in God’s image. Abraham was grateful to have discovered the priest-king of Jerusalem who shared his faith in the Creator, he gave one tenth of his share of the spoils as an offering to Melchizedek’s temple. Imagine being lonely in your faith, unaware of other people who share your optimistic view of the universe and your belief in the One God. Genesis presses us to be grateful for relationships and community where these values are shared.

OUTLINE

Details of the battle of nine kings (1-11), Lot is taken captive in the war (12), Abram and his 318 retainers rescue Lot (13-16), the king of Sodom comes to meet Abram (17), Melchizedek blesses Abram and Abram gives the priest a tenth of the spoils (18-20).

OVERVIEW

Genesis 14 stands out from the entire Abraham cycle as unique in style. The detailed and virtually indecipherable war report of vss. 1-11 with its place names and kings is from some unknown source and time. Sarna details the reasons to conclude that vss. 1-11 are drawn from a pre-existing source (the detail of names compared with the anonymous pharaoh of the previous narrative, the use of rare language, and the large amount of material not directly pertinent to Abram’s story). Abram becomes involved in a war between city-states of the east with city-states by the Dead Sea, risking the entire covenant promise by risking his life. Until vs. 12, the war account has no apparent relevance to the Abraham cycle.

Suddenly, in vs. 12, the story comes home. These battles are not mere historical events, but directly affect Abraham and his beloved relative, Lot.

The story that follow in vss. 13-20 shows signs of being older than many other parts of the Bible. For example, Melchizedek calls God “Most High” (אֵל עֶלְיוֹן ‘el ‘elyōn) and “Creator of heaven and earth” (קֹנֵה שָׁמַיִם וָאָרֶץ qōneh shamayim va’aretz). The first of these terms relates more to the Canaanite way of describing deity (older than Israelite) and the second uses a term (קֹנֵה qōneh) which was related in later times by עֹשֵׂה ‘ōseh, see Sarna’s commentary for details).

From a number of references in Psalms and Isaiah, we see a tradition of regarding Jerusalem as a city of righteousness. Psalm 110 suggests that there was a history of priest-kings in Jerusalem, which became a precedent for David who took on some priestly functions and mixed them with his kingly role. Melchizedek, then, becomes a forerunner of ideal kingship in Israel. He seems to possess the knowledge of the Creator, that one god made heaven and earth. Abram finds, to his surprise, that he is not the only person who is aware of the unique God. Sarna describes Melchizedek as follows: “He is patently regarded as monotheist, one of the few select non-Israelite individuals who, in the scriptural view, preserved the original monotheism of the human race in the face of otherwise universal degeneration into paganism.”

As for the meaning of the overall story, it fits into the Abraham cycle as another episode of threat to the covenant followed by resolution and a reaffirmation of the promise. Abram could have been killed in his rather foolish decision to get involved in a war between city-states. As usual, though, God rescues him and keeps the promise alive.
SPOTLIGHT

To be a friend to someone, as Abraham was to God, includes trusting them. The biblical words (in the New Testament as well as the Hebrew Bible) for “faith” include the meaning “trust” (as well as the meaning “faithfulness”). In Hebrew the root word is related to “amen” (אָמֵן) and the verb is הֶאֱמִן (he’emin, “he trusted”). The New Testament word is πιστις (pistis, “trust, faithfulness”). Abraham’s “believing” God was more than some kind of mental assent to a truth. Eager to support a theology of salvation by believing a short list of doctrines (the commonly expressed evangelical Christian version of the “gospel”) many point wrongly to Genesis 15:6 for support. But this entire story, including this verse (quoted twice by Paul, who actually gets the meaning right but is then misinterpreted by his readers) is about something deeper. Abraham is remarkable. He caught a vision for God’s promise and believed and trusted. His was not a shallow doctrine, something like “God is faithful and therefore keeps his promises.” Rather, it was a personal, specific trust based on a love relationship that “God is faithful and therefore keeps his promises.” The two statements are identical, but in the first instance the context of belief is mere theology, assent to a fact. In the second, the statement is part of a relationship that is personal. Given that we are not likely to have the kind of revelation from God that was granted to Abraham, how can we share the sort of trusting friendship that he had with God? Part of the answer is that we look to the experiences others have had with God in the past. Abraham’s story tells us something about God. More than that, we need to seek out a personal experience with God through the passages of life. Yes, this is difficult — given that God is mostly silent and we can easily misinterpret events an their relationship to God’s causality or indifference — but it is not impossible. Trusting him when we want and need big things out of life (as Abraham did) or when life get’s very difficult is a far better way to live than being cynical. Some people will call our belief wish-fulfillment. It’s okay. Trust and love and beauty are worth believing in. If our skeptical friends are right, their lives are no better for it. But if we are right, then having a trusting friendship with God day by day enriches our lives and benefits our loved ones. If we are wrong, then none of this matters.

OUTLINE

Abram refuses the spoils (14:21-24), the divine-shield promise (15:1), Abram seeks a solution to childlessness through his servant Eliezer (2-3), the Lord affirms a son for Abram and a people numerous as the stars (4-5), Abram’s faith is his righteousness (6).

OVERVIEW

There are two possible reasons our story emphasizes that Abram did not take spoils from his rescue mission with Lot. One, we see that Abram is a righteous man who wants nothing to do with Sodom, the wicked city. Two, it is vital that the blessing come to Abram through God and not through his grasping for it.

Having just triumphed in a battle and also having shown integrity with the spoils, Abram receives a divine promise in a vision. The Lord will be his shield (so no worries about reprisals from the foreign kings, Sarna). The image of the divine shield comes up often in the Psalms (Psa 3:4(3) and 5:13(12)). Abram has refused the spoils or reward of Sodom, so God vows that his reward will be great.

Abram takes this opportunity to speak out of his pain. The expression “O Lord God” (Adonai Hashem) is rare in the Torah, a strong address to God in emotion (Sarna). The use of language such as “I shall die childless” suggests Abram’s boldness and emotion in this exchange (the Hebrew is literally “I walk childless,” compare Psa 39:14 for the poetic use of “walk” as “die”). God responds to Abram’s suggestion that Eliezer be the heir by reaffirming the slow-coming promise. Further, God insists that the stars are a worthy image of Abram’s coming offspring.

Against the odds, Abram believes. God knew how hard it was for Abraham to be childless, how the continual disappointment must have made it harder to keep trusting. The fact that Abraham persevered showed God a friendship and trust from Abraham that was extraordinary. God regarded this as righteousness, says Genesis 15:6. Some have drawn the wrong conclusion from this, in my opinion, misreading Paul’s interpretation of Abraham’s faith in Romans 4, and misusing Abraham’s faith as a supporting pillar to a particular Christian doctrine of faith. It should be noted that Christianity is not monolithic, that there are many variations in theology. Nonetheless, one prevalent idea is that God accepts faith — which human beings diseased with original sin are capable of displaying — in lieu of actual right living — which human beings are not capable of. Faith is a substitute requirement of God since moral goodness is ultimately impossible.

Not only does this view misunderstand the New Testament’s references to faith (in many cases the meaning is “faithfulness”) but this theology has nothing to do with the Abraham story. Abraham was not perfectly righteous, true enough. But his persistent belief in God’s promise is a kind of loving trust. In any relationship, loving trust is a good work, an act of kindness and faithfulness. God was touched by Abraham’s tenacity of friendship and love with him. “Abram trusted in Adonai,” says Genesis 15:6, “and he considered it to be his righteousness.” Abraham’s righteousness was seen in his willingness to keep trusting God. This is faith as an act, not a mental assent to some facts. This is active love, not psychological belief. This is faithful love in action.
SPOTLIGHT

We are all familiar with the law of reciprocity (“I will do x for you because you do y for me”) as one model of a relationship. We use this model with people who are not bound in a close relationship to us (business relationships). But we are also familiar with the law of sacrificial love (“I will do x for you because I love you”).

Sometimes people say God is remarkable because he does great things for us and we cannot return these acts of kindness in similar measure to him. That is inaccurate. God’s love is like parental love and we are like children to him. Which of us would not offer the world to our children assuming we had the resources? (And which of us would not go into Egypt and set our children free from slavery or even be crucified to save the lives of our children?)

No, what is remarkable is that God regards us as beloved children. We already possess within us the same kind of love God has, though not in the same measure and not with such purity. We are made in his image. We know that love like God’s exists and we see it in human relationships. The adjustment in our thinking comes in seeing what kind of relationship we have with God. It is not a relationship of reciprocity, but closely bound love. Divine love is not some alien phenomenon completely unique to God. It is the perfection of a kind of love we were made to have ourselves.

God walks alone through the pieces in the vision to Abram. He vows to bless Abram and his descendants as part of a declared purpose to bring good to all the families of the earth. God’s love is directed toward human beings as his children. Reading this remarkable story, we are challenged to love people in the same way, offering to sacrifice ourselves that they might benefit. We are also encouraged to know that we are loved in this way by the most powerful lover in existence. Like Abram, we are children, and God walks through the pieces for us too.

OUTLINE

The covenant between the pieces (15:7-21), Hagar and Ishmael (16:1-16), Abram becomes Abraham (17:1-6).

OVERVIEW

The unusual scene in Genesis 15:7-21 draws this comment from Nahum Sarna, “For the first time in the history of religions, God becomes the contracting party” (JPS Commentary). We read about similar rituals — in which animals are cut into parts, laid out in two parallel lines, and people walk between them — in other Ancient Near Eastern texts as well as in the book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah 34:17-20 refers to an apparently well-known custom in which a calf is cut in two with people passing between its parts. At Mari the expression “killing a donkey foal” is used synonymously with making a binding covenant and a similar reference found in a text from Alakh uses the phrase “cutting the neck of a sheep” (Sarna). A text found in Syria called the Sfire treaty expresses the meaning of the cut up animals: “As this calf is cut up, thus Matti’el and his nobles shall be cut up” [if they do not adhere to the treaty] (Sarna).

God, symbolized in Abram’s dreamful vision as a blazing clay oven, is the only one who walks between the pieces. The implication is that God himself swears to keep his covenant with Abram.

Meanwhile, the news about Israel’s future is mixed with sadness. Abraham’s descendants will experience a period of wandering as aliens followed by enslavement and then oppression. But the end will be freedom and prosperity. None of this trouble will begin in Abraham’s lifetime.

What are we to make of Genesis 15:16? This is commonly read as a sort of justification for the later commands in Torah to eliminate the Canaanites from the land. It is usually read as meaning, “The sin of the Canaanites has not yet accumulated enough judgment for me to command you to destroy them, but I will wait until their guilt is worthy and then command you to do so.” Walton objects, suggesting a completely different translation as well as interpretation (The Lost World of the Israelite Conquest). He observes that Amorites do not equal Canaanites, the Torah does not state that accumulated sin-guilt is the reason for commands to dispossess them, and that the usual translation of Genesis 15:16 has problems. He suggests the following paraphrase, “It won’t be until after your lifetime is over that your family will return here because the destiny of destruction that has been decreed for your friends and allies has been and will continue to be deferred.” Thus, Genesis alludes to a coming destruction for the people surrounding Abraham but says that Abraham will coexist peacefully with them in his lifetime.

After this, still yearning for the fulfillment of the promise, Abram and Sarai try to obtain their desire through a concubine. Abram conceives a child, Ishmael, by Hagar. Ishmael too is blessed, many tribes will come from him. When the child turns thirteen, God appears again to Abram (visibly?) and commands Abram to walk in his ways. What could it mean to Abram, who lived before any Torah was revealed, to walk in God’s ways?

The answer is that Abram will live justly and rightly according to the knowledge that human beings already possess. Culturally speaking, it is as if a king has told someone under his protection to be faithful. Abram knows without special revelation what that requirement means. In a forthcoming story, we will see that Abram has ideals about justice, for example, when God announces his intention to destroy Sodom. In the Bible, good and evil are things human beings already know about even apart from a revealed law.

When Abram’s name changes to Abraham, how are we to understand the significance of the change? Abram means either “exalted father” or (if the second syllable is related to the Akkadian ramu) “the father loves [him].” As for the name Abraham, commentators have long struggled to explain what the added syllable accomplishes. It is not as simple as the text makes it sound (“for I will make you a father of a multitude”) where “father of a multitude” is av-hamōn אַב־הֲמוֹן. The added letter in Abraham’s name stands, apparently, for the world “multitude.” But the name Abraham does not translate directly into “father of a multitude.” It seems rather his name has been “made great” (expanded by a syllable) and the meaning of that syllable relates to the promise of a large nation to come from him. An alternative understanding, first formulated by Ibn Ezra, is that the name is an acronym: ABiR Hamon goyiM, “mighty one of a multitude of nations” (Ibn Ezra, Sarna).
SPOTLIGHT

God sees human beings as worthy, bringing us up to the potential we were created for. We see this in the way Israel comes to be the chosen people. This is very much a choosing beforehand, not a choosing based on merit. Jewish theologian Michael Wyschogrod calls it “carnal election” (meaning “bodily election,” an idea that contrasts with Christian theologies of “spiritual election” based on a prerequisite of faith).

God’s way is first to choose us and then to transform us. The order is crucially important. It seems the Torah has an idea of grace that goes beyond standard Christian theological understanding. Many understand salvation in the New Testament as a sort of earning our place with God by the merit of our willingness to believe in Jesus. In this standard theology, a person earns his or her place and then God does transforming work. But in Genesis, Abraham’s descendants simply are the chosen and transformation does not depend on even the merit of faith. The truth is, some Christian theologies do align with this idea in Genesis (especially where it is understood that salvation is by Jesus’ “faithfulness” not a person’s “faith” in Jesus).

What are are the implications of God’s free and redeeming election? For Jewish people, the election of Abraham means being born into a covenant status as a priestly people to the world (see Exodus 19:6). For non-Jewish people, the election of Abraham means God is bringing blessing to all the families of the earth through the Jewish people. Belief in God, his covenants of blessing, and Messiah have come to the world through Judaism.

If God’s choosing is free, if it is before any kind of merit and in that sense unconditional, then we simply receive it. Faith is our way of appropriating and being transformed by a love we have already received.

OUTLINE

The covenant of election and the land throughout the ages (7-8), the sign of circumcision (9-14), Sarai’s name changed and the promise of a son (15-22), Abraham circumcises his household (23-27).

OVERVIEW

Because of his friendship and affection for Abraham, God chose Israel (which Christian theology came to call election). Genesis describes it this way: God chose Abraham and made promises to his descendants after him. Deuteronomy looks at it from the other side: God delivered Israel from Egypt “because he loved your fathers and chose their offspring after them” (4:37). In Genesis 17 God promises to be God to Abraham’s descendants throughout the ages. And he will give them the land of Canaan as an everlasting holding.

The free and irrevocable election of the people of Israel is part of God’s way of relating to all the peoples of the world and redeeming from within. Abraham did not earn this election. It is free and based on God’s choice, his love for his friend, Abraham.

But what about the sign of circumcision? Does that change the nature of this election, making it earned rather than free? Not at all, the act of circumcision is how new generations take their place inside a free covenant, not a way for people to earn their place in the covenant. Christian theology refers to God’s choosing us and giving to us sacrificially as grace. Some Jewish thinkers (especially Michael Wyschogrod, The Body of Faith) also reflect on “grace” and “election” in the Abraham stories. Wyschogrod’s term for it is “carnal election,” using the word “carnal” in its literal sense for “pertaining to the body” (as opposed to “the soul”). In other words, the choosing of Israel has nothing to do with a prerequisite of faith or good works, but is based merely on birth.

A Jew is born chosen. Circumcision is a sign of new creation, coming after the seventh day of a boy’s life and on the first day, the eighth day, of the rest of his life. It is a sign of grace, of belonging to a promise that is larger than we are, of being marked with God’s mark. Vs. 13 says, “Thus shall My covenant be marked in your flesh as an everlasting pact.” (JPS).

God’s grace is free (as Genesis affirms consistently). And as much as it is free, it is also irrevocable (see Paul’s explanation in Romans 11). But though in some matters Christian theology has agreed with Genesis, in another very important way that same theology opposes Genesis. This is because Christianity has historically believed that Israel is no longer God’s people, having been replaced by “the Church.”

But Genesis uses the word “everlasting” and the phrase “throughout the ages,” giving the lie to the Christian notion of God setting aside Israel as a people. It may be difficult for Christians to understand how a pre-Jesus people could remain chosen post-Jesus, but God’s saving love for Israel and for Christians is really very similar. God sees human beings as worthy, bringing us up to the potential we were created for. This will involve transformation, even painful changes, for the nation Israel and for human beings individually.

Sarah also receives a consonant from God’s name (from Sarai to Sarah) and the promise of a descendant is specified: a son. God consistently chooses Sarah over all other possible avenues for bringing the promise of descendants to Abraham. While much less is said about Sarah’s relationship to God, she is nonetheless the one chosen by God, the mother of Israel as much as Abraham is its father.
SPOTLIGHT

The narrator of this story of a theophany to Abraham is artful in his use of foreshadowing. And the meaning of the story is about the yearning we have to see God’s promise and for all to be right in the world.

In Hebrew, one of the designations of God is Adonai, from the root adōn אַדוֹן (“master, Lord”). What does the form Adonai mean specifically? It is not the simple plural, “lords,” which would be adōnim אֲדוֹנִים, but is the plural with the first person possessive, “my lords.” This is consistent with the practice of referring to God in plural terms, as in the common word for God in Hebrew elōhim אֱלֹהִים (literally “gods”). The One God is everything the many supposed gods are alleged to be, the One who fills all meaning in his singularity. A simpler explanation is to say these terms reflect a “plural of majesty,” the idea that God’s vastness is best described by using a plural.

All of this background helps us understand the author’s clever use of Adonai in vs. 3. Abraham runs up to three strangers who approach his camp in the desert and he addresses them as adōnai, “my lords.” In the plain meaning of the story, Abraham is being hospitable and addressing a group of strangers with an honorific title. But as the story unfolds, we see that one of the three strangers really is Adonai himself.

In visiting Abraham and Sarah, God has two purposes. First, he tells them that their long wait (more than two decades) is nearly over. He will return to them next year and give them a son — at last! The anguish of their wait is nearly over. They have tried to bring the promise in their own way several times. Now God will make it happen.

Second, he wishes to inform Abraham that he is about to destroy Sodom, where Lot is living. God is concerned that his friend, Abraham, should know what is about to happen.

Why does God visit his friend Abraham about these two matters? Perhaps it is because Abraham is the progenitor of the entire chosen people. Or perhaps it is because of a friendship God had uniquely with Abraham. In either case, Abraham yearns for two things. He especially longs for a child of his own, to have progeny and a future name through his offspring. Abraham also longs to see the world set right again, as we will see when Abraham asks God, “Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?” God comes to assure his friend that some of his longings will soon be met and regarding others, he will simply have to wait and trust.

OUTLINE

Narrative summary looking forward (1), the story of the Lord’s appearance to Abraham and his announcement of the coming birth (2-14).

OVERVIEW

What happens in vs. 1? Is this a separate event, a story untold about God appearing to Abraham? To the reader unfamiliar with the style of Genesis it can appear this way. “Adonai appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre.” If this is a narrative, it makes us wonder, what happened in the appearance. What did God say?

Or is vs. 1 a narrative preface stating what will happen in the story that follows? That is, we see that God does appear to Abraham in the story that follows (as one of the three visitors). So maybe nothing happens in vs. 1, exactly as it was in Genesis 1:1. This is a technique of narrative, to announce in advance what is going to happen, and then let the story unfold.

Three “men” come to Abraham, but we quickly figure out they are not men at all. For example in vs. 10, the speaker seems to have foreknowledge about Sarah becoming pregnant. And in vs. 13, this speaker is plainly referred to as Adonai himself. It is possible to read the story as if the voice in vs. 13 is coming from outside the group, a heavenly voice speaking to the assembled group. But since the speaker in vs. 10 uses the first person, and Adonai says the same thing in vs. 14, it makes better sense to assume the voice is one of the three visitors.

Furthermore, in vs. 22 and following, Abraham will have a conversation while walking with Adonai. Adonai’s voice in this story is not coming from heaven, but from one of the visitors.

Then we read that “the men” went toward Sodom but Abraham stood still before Adonai. The final clue is on 19:1, where we see that only two of the three visitors went to Sodom. Doing a little math we surmise that one of the three visitors is Adonai and the other two are angelic beings.

Where did Adonai go? 18:33 says he departed after his dialogue with Abraham.

An additional evidence for this interpretation of the three visitors is that Abraham addresses them as “Adonai” (vs. 3), whereas the usual expression for “lords” would be Adonim. Rashi, Ibn Ezra, and Ramban seek ways around the obvious truth that one of these visitors is God, but Maimonides affirms it (Sarna, see Maimonides, Hilchot Yesodei Hatorah 6:9).

The story in vss. 1-14 emphasizes Abraham’s hospitality and the difficulty in believing the divine promise of a son. Abraham sees three strangers from a distance and runs, not walks, to meet them. He speaks to them in the exaggerated politeness of the Near East and offers them only a little water and a morsel of bread. Then he tells his wife to prepare about five gallons (three seahs) of flour, to kill a calf, and to provide yogurt and milk with this supposedly small meal! In Bereishit Rabbah (a midrash collection about Genesis) Abraham is praised by God for his hospitality to strangers in the desert and it is said that Abraham does this to make proselytes. In the New Testament, this story of Abraham is the basis for a saying about hospitality: “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares” (Heb 13:2, ESV).
SPOTLIGHT

God discusses his strategic action with his friend Abraham. There is no story in all the Bible like this one. And its subject matter concerns us all: divine justice against violent people, the innocent being swept away with the wicked, and the problem of evil in human society.

Abraham has been told that blessing will come to all the families of the earth through him. Yet here, his nephew lives in a city that will be completely destroyed. Abraham bravely asks the Creator what all of us should ask: you who are the Judge of all the earth, won’t you do what is right? Is it right to kill an entire city, two of them even, because of the violent ways of their leaders? What about the innocent who will also die?

Why does God discuss this with Abraham? One of several reasons mentioned in the text can be found in vs. 19, כִּי יְדַעְתִּיו לְמַעַן אֲשֶׁר יְצַוֶּה אֶת־בָּנָיו וְאֶת־בֵּיתוֹ אַחֲרָיו וְשָׁמְרוּ דֶּרֶךְ יְהוָה לַעֲשׂוֹת צְדָקָה, ki yeda’tiv lema’an asher yetzaveh et-banav ve’et-beitō acharav veshameru derech Adonai la’asōt tzedaqah, “For I have known him [singled him out] in order that he might command his children and his household after him to observe the way of Adonai to do what is just.”

“For I have known him.” Nahum Sarna (JPS Commentary) argues the meaning in context is about the specific “knowing” God has for Abraham, a familiarity and intimacy. He suggests translating it “I have singled him out.” Just as we choose friends, close friends, by singling out people worth our time and loyalty, so God has done with Abraham.

God’s friendship with Abraham is directed toward a purpose. Abraham’s line will be known for two things: keeping the way of Adonai and doing tzedaqah (doing right, maintaining justice). This ideal is later expressed in the Torah as a core principle, “Justice, justice you shall pursue” (Deut 16:20).

And Abraham embodies that justice in this dialogue. He does not allow the Ruler of the Universe to destroy Sodom without answering for the seeming injustice in it. He questions God, “Will you sweep away the innocent with the wicked?”

We find ourselves in a world that does not make sense. Tragedy and loss mar what seems as if it should be a beautiful world. Behind it all is a God whose policy we do not completely understand. God invites us to question, to hold out for justice, to expect and desire more out of life than the current state of futility and sadness.

Abraham does not get answers. The problem of evil as a theoretical question is not solved. But as we watch the story unfold, we will find that Lot and his daughters are saved. Would they have been saved if Abraham had not discussed this with God? At the end of the dialogue, something God says implies the incredible power a small group of righteous people might have. We already know it takes only a few violent people to ruin human society. What if a few people who follow the ways of love, sacrifice, giving, justice, courage, and goodness can also affect society powerfully?

The key to living the ways of Adonai will be to know what true goodness is and living it. For that we have the Torah and the prophets.

OUTLINE

Sarah’s fear (15), the Lord’s internal dialogue about whether to tell Abraham (16-19), the Lord’s announcement of the coming judgment (20-21), Abraham’s discussion with God and case for mercy in justice (22-32), the Lord departs (33).

OVERVIEW

There is no story in all the Bible like this one, in which God in human form discusses his ways of justice with a mortal. Only in a few places does the Bible record the internal dialogue of God (his private thoughts, see Genesis 1:26; 2:18; 3:22; 6:6; 11:6-7 for other examples). How much more uncommon then to have God talking out a situation with a human being. This dialogue between God and Abraham is yet another example of the unique friendship between God and Abraham.

Why should God discuss with Abraham his plans for punitive justice on Sodom and Gomorrah? For one thing, Abraham is the father of a great nation. And that nation, Israel, will be about justice as its highest value. Another is that all the nations of the earth will be blessed by Abraham’s descendants, so the painful judgment of a nation for wickedness, a curse instead of a blessing, is something that ought to concern Abraham and Israel. The people of blessing, like God, will desire mercy and blessing for the world. Finally, God has known Abraham, or as Sarna translates it, has singled him out (in a relationship). Abraham’s intimacy with God is beyond the normal human-divine relationship and Abraham is privy to God’s reasons more so than others.

At first consideration it seems to Abraham that destroying Sodom and Gomorrah is inconsistent with God’s benevolence (“shall not the Judge of all the earth deal justly?”). The problem of the righteous suffering along with the cruel mattered not only to Abraham, but to every generation which has contemplated the problem of faith in a benevolent God together with the reality of suffering in the world. This dialogue between Abraham and God does not attempt to answer the question philosophically, but simply affirms that God’s purposes are good and just. When we do not understand we can and should trust. It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, but the problems of evil, we trust, will make more sense to us in the age to come when God brings a world of peace and justice from this world of suffering.
SPOTLIGHT

In the story of Lot and Sodom, the symbolic bad guy is city life. It is not really that the Bible endorses rural life and spurns the city, but rather it is the human propensity to mob violence that the Torah hates. History has shown us again and again that small, unfertilized seeds of hatred and resentment in a person suddenly bloom into a landscape of violence when the rain of herd mentality falls on them. The mass, the herd, the gang, the mob — our gatherings can turn into death in mere moments.

A mild-mannered person becomes a soldier. A relatively harmless bigot becomes a tyrant. An insecure hater finds psychological validation when he or she can stir a crowd to follow in radical action to harm others.

Abraham’s life and ways are rural. As a semi-nomadic pastoral herder, he practices the way of survival that is necessary for his kind: hospitality to strangers. Those who live in the desert-like steppe land cannot survive if strangers murder one another. Being isolated, people like Abraham have less people surrounding them to provide protection. But in a city people can feel secure without such practices of hospitality. They can rely on the accumulated power of the many for protection.

But protection is an illusion and “safety in numbers” is a myth. The process of urbanization has not delivered the human race from the tragedy of mass casualties and the fear of destruction. Instead we have developed larger and larger methods of demolishing territories and populations.

The Torah suggests a better form of protection: righteousness. The way Torah defines it, righteousness includes hospitality, compassion, justice, and loyal love.

We can expect that humanity will not embrace on a large scale the Torah’s advice. Yet even in our small circles we are better off practicing righteousness than not. Who knows what influence we might have if our religion starts looking like justice?

OUTLINE

The two angels come from Abraham into Sodom (1), Lot compels them to accept hospitality (2-3), the townspeople gather and want to sexually molest the men (4-5), Lot offers his daughters in their place (6-9), the people attack and the angels blind them (10-11), Lot’s sons-in-law do not believe (12-14), the angels practically force reluctant Lot to leave (15-17), Lot asks to be allowed a shorter flight to a small town in the plain (18-20).

OVERVIEW

The contrast between Lot’s seeming riches and Abraham’s humble wealth continues. Abraham remains the migrant owner of flocks in the dry steppe land while Lot is the city dweller in a well-watered place. Lot has risen to some status, sitting in the city gate of Sodom. As in Genesis 18 Abraham virtually compelled visitors to accept hospitality, so does Lot. Something of his virtue remains in spite of the wickedness of this city and its vain worship of comfort and ease.

For their part, the angels have come to verify the wickedness of the city. Sarna interprets the intended rape as a policy of the town to molest all wayfarers and prevent new people from coming to the rich town and sharing its goods. The town’s crimes include violence, sexual assault, and failure to protect travelers in their gates.

The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah becomes one of the Bible’s most repeated themes. Westermann (Genesis 12-36, Minneapolis: Fortress, 1981) suggests that in looking at all later biblical references, there were multiple versions of the Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboiim destruction story. Alternate versions have been lost but hints of them remain in biblical allusions.

Was Lot’s offer of his daughters real or was it a hypothetical one intended to shame the violent townsmen? There is a parallel story in Judges 19:15-21, when a Levite and his concubine came to the Israelite town of Gibeah. Westermann compares the events: arrival of the guests, attack and repulse of the attackers, demand by attackers, householder offers his daughters, repulse of attack by guests. The difference in the Judges story is there were no angels to resolve that situation. So the woman in Judges 19 was gang-raped and killed.

In the Sodom story, Lot’s offer (whether real or hypothetical) is dismissed. The miraculous intervention of the angels alone saves them. Lot thought he had become a respected citizen, but his neighbors still resent him as an outsider. The city dwellers have a prosperous, easy life and they fiercely protect it, with brutality to any who dare come for hospitality.

The theme of urban vs. rural life has a purpose in the theology of Torah. The attraction of gathering into large population centers is self-reliance which does not breed faith or justice. We band together as humans to increase power. Yet our responsibility as a human race is not power, but justice. The problem is not the city, per se, but the way we use our collective power. The Torah endorses hospitality, social justice, and love as alternatives to the pursuit of wealth and power for their own sake.

Meanwhile, the angels announce coming destruction and Lot tries in vain to save his sons-in-law. The lure of city life — this story’s theme — prevents them from wisdom. Even Lot is so reluctant to leave his wealth and ease in the city that the angels must take hold of him and force him to leave. Lot begs to be allowed to settle in another small city, which would have to be spared by the angels from the coming destruction. He cannot imagine life in the desert hills. Westermann comments on the significance of this story in the Abraham cycle: “Abraham becomes a witness of the destruction of cities . . . the promise of blessing for the peoples has its line of demarcation in God’s action as judge, the ‘peoples of the earth’ remain exposed to disasters.”
SPOTLIGHT

Even with death approaching, Lot wants to continue having the benefits of city life. The ease and lure of Sodom have infected him. Faced with the news that he and his family must flee the valley immediately, he asks for safety in a small town that is still in the valley. “I cannot escape to the hills,” he complained (19:18), “lest the disaster overtake me and I die!” Lot worries that returning to rural life, semi-nomadic herding of flocks like his uncle Abraham, will be the death of him. He has grown used to their being a settled, urban family.

We often worry about the most unusual things in moments of major life change. It seems to us like the change will be our death. In Lot’s case, the opposite was actually true. Remaining in the city would mean his death. But the thought of a lifestyle change raised fears for him.

So he fixated on a small town on the border of the valley. Could the angels make sure the destruction did not go as far as that town? He could see his wife and family settling there. At least they would not have to brave the deserts once again and become animal herders like they used to be.

Speaking of the town he said וְהִיא מִצְעָר ve’hi mitz’ar, “it is a little one.” Repeating himself he says, “Is it not a little one, and my life will be saved?” In other words, “Do I have to leave behind this city life I’ve grown accustomed to? See that town there on the border, it’s a little one. Can I have a little bit of city life? Can you leave me a little something, O mighty angels?”

The angels grant his request. They allowed Lot and his family to escape to a small town, sparing that area on the conflagration. And the author says artfully, “Therefore the name of the city was called צוֹעַר Tzō’ar [Zoar].” The name is from the same root word in Lot’s earlier saying, “it is a little one” (מִצְעָר mitz’ar, “little one”).

All of this is a signal that the flight to a small city is not a minor detail of the story, but one of the points of the story. The tale not only explains how a city in the Jordan Valley came to be called Zoar, but also examines the fear and lack of trust people have concerning God’s hand in their lives. God was moving Lot out from one life to another. But his concern was to keep as much comfort as possible. Change is difficult. In fact, it was too much for Lot’s wife, who looked back during their flight and was caught up in the conflagration.

By contrast, we see Abraham, who has endured many changes and waited patiently on Adonai. At last in chapter 21 we hear the long-hoped-for news: “Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age.” Change is difficult, but Genesis tells us, God can be trusted. Those who wait, see good things.

OUTLINE

Zoar (21-23), Sodom and Gomorrah destroyed (24-26), Abraham looks on (27-29), Lot moves up into the hills, incest, origin of the Moabites and Ammonites (30-38), Abraham and Abimelech of Gerar (20:1-18), Isaac is born and circumcised (21:1-4).

OVERVIEW

The strange story of Lot raises questions. Why does the narrative bother to tell us about Zoar, the town he asked to stay at but which he abandoned quickly? Is the story of Lot’s wife being buried in salt (or turned into a pillar of salt) a traditional tale that had to be included?

It would seem the main point of the ending is to describe the origin of Moab and Ammon. Moab will be quite important for Israel’s unfolding history, especially in the story of Ruth and the origins of David as the messianic king.

Lot’s request to flee to the closer location of Zoar includes an origin story (an etiological tale) for its name (vs. 20, “behold, it is mitzar [little]” and “is it not mitzar [little]” and vs. 22, “there the name of the city was called Tzo’ar [Zoar]”). Many feel that the account of Lot’s wife becoming covered in salt is also an etiological tale (some of the salt outcroppings near the Dead Sea look like people). The story seems to be about believing God’s judgment, whereas Lot’s wife either looked back, looked longingly, or perhaps even delayed her flight out of longing for her old home. Her desire or delay caused her to be caught up in the effects of the judgment. We get the idea that Lot and his daughters had barely made it into Zoar when the conflagration happened, so that they barely escaped. Lot’s wife’s hesitation cost her her life. The moral is to get out from the place of divine judgment in faith keeping with the divine word.

Abraham (vss. 27-28) is a witness of this destruction, which he had debated God about. He is a believer in justice and the father of the people who will be (ideally) devoted to justice. God’s mercy on Lot is related to his favor for Abraham (vs. 29). Abraham has brought blessing to Moab and Ammon (to the nations as foretold), the peoples whom Lot will sire with his daughters (vss. 31-38). The origin story of Moab and Ammon is not flattering (incest) but explains Israel’s relationship to these people who will figure largely into their later history.

In chapter 20, returning to Abraham and Sarah, we see a repeat of the threat of Sarah being taken into a harem. Only this time around the account is more detailed and rich with theology, raising the issue of God’s justice in dealing with the nations in relation to Abraham. In spite of Abraham’s lie, Abimelech’s people is cursed for harming the chosen. Yet Abraham seeks to bless them, and they are healed. God’s justice, questioned rightfully by Abimelech, is satisfied by mutual blessing between the people of Gerar and Abraham. Questioning God while continuing to believe in his goodness is regarded as a commendable form of prayer.

Then suddenly, in 21:1-4, Isaac is born and the promise fulfilled after twenty-five long years of waiting.
SPOTLIGHT

God hears. We wonder if he will. Sometimes we are too discouraged to even pray. We are silent yet we hope he hears.

In the sixteenth benediction of the Jewish prayer known as the Amidah (also known as the Shemonei Esrei), we say שְׁמַע קוֹלנוּ יהוה אֱלֹהֵינוּ shema’ qōleinu Adonai Eloheinu “hear our voice, O Adonai our God!”

Ishmael is the unchosen. He becomes even the banished. In a scene filled with pathos he is being carried by his mother into exile from Abraham’s clan and she is in despair for his life. We hear nothing from the boy. Even his name is not mentioned. It seems to us that Ishmael is silent in the story.

But oddly, seemingly out of nowhere in the story, we read, “God heard the voice of the boy.” What voice, we might ask? The boy said nothing.

But the original audience could hear it in the Hebrew language: וַיִּשְׁמַע אֱלֹהִים אֶת־קוֹל הַנַּעַר va’yishma’ Elohim et-qōl hana’ar, “God heard the voice of the boy.” Va’yishma’ Elohim. Compare that with Yishma’el, the name of Ishmael in Hebrew.

Genesis has said that Abraham’s family will bring blessing to all the families of the earth. Ishmael’s family does not appear to be receiving that promise. Are the unchosen ones forgotten?

The story reminds us, none of us are forgotten. Not even when we neglect to ask to be heard. God hears. Nothing escapes his notice, even the inner thoughts of the powerless and maltreated. We may come to accept that we will not always be delivered from our troubles in the short term. We may find ourselves put out, rejected, desolate.

But one thing we can know: we are heard. Shema qōleinu Adonai Eloheinu. And he does.

OUTLINE

Sarah’s joy in her son (5-7), Sarah wants Ishmael banished (8-11), God speaks and promises to care for Ishmael (12-13), Abraham sends Hagar and Ishmael away with bread and water (14), Hagar weeps thinking they will die (15-16), God speaks to Hagar (17-19), God blesses Ishmael in the wilderness (20-21).

OVERVIEW

Several oddities lead the reader to ask questions about this tale of fleeing Hagar and her son, Ishmael. If Abraham loves Ishmael, why does he send him away with so little? If Ishmael is older than thirteen, why is he described as though an infant (carried along with the bread and water by Hagar in vs 14, hidden under a bush in vs. 15)? Why is it that when Hagar cries out, God hears the boy and not Hagar?

Nahum Sarna (JPS Commentary) explains that at least some of the oddities are the result of wordplays. The source of Ishmael’s trouble is laughter, perhaps mocking. The reader is supposed to get this with very little explanation because Isaac’s name is related to the word for laughter (Isaac = Yitzchak יִצְחָק, Gen 21:6, “God has made laughter for me,” tzechōk ‘asah li Elōhim צְחֹק עָשָׂה לִי אֱלֹהִים).

As for Ishmael, we hear nothing from him. He is not even named, but is called simply “the child.” He says nothing. We do not even hear that the boy, like his mother, is crying. So it comes as a surprise when God hears the boy, the silent, unnamed boy, crying. But the reader is to understand this is because his name means “God hears” (Yishma’el יִשְׁמָעֵאל, from yishma’ יִשְׁמָע “he hears” and El אֵל “God”).

Another wordplay is found in the note that Hagar had put Ishmael under a bush a bow’s shot away. The boy will become a bowman (Sarna).

As happens many times in the Abraham cycle of stories, the characters represent peoples who will be important in Israel’s later history, as is the case here with the Ishmaelites, desert nomads like modern day Bedouins. Such stories reveal that God’s providential care extends to other nations besides Israel and that their blessing is related to God’s promise to Abraham (Walton, NIV Application Commentary). God hears and his blessing is available to those who cry out. The nameless Ishmael is heard by God and his origin in the Abraham clan brings blessing to his descendants for many generations.
SPOTLIGHT

God is not as concerned with correct form and exact beliefs as many think. Right standing with God is a path and the steps we take on the beginning of this path are as precious to him as the more advanced travels of those who have come further along.

We read in Genesis 21:33 וַיִּקְרָא־שָׁם בְּשֵׁם יְהוָה אֵל עוֹלָם vayiqra’-sham beshem Adonai, El Ōlam, “And he called there on the name of Adonai, Everlasting God.”

El is the Canaanite name for a chief deity, but is also a general term for designating a deity. It is similar linguistically to the way the word Ba’al functions. Many readers assume “Ba’al” is the name of a specific god, but often the name is paired with a place, such as “Ba’al Tzaphon,” which is “the Lord of Tzaphon.” Ba’al is not a name, but a title, and in Hebrew can even mean “husband.”

Similarly, El, as used in the title El Ōlam, is not the specific name of a deity. El Ōlam could be translated “God of Eternity.”

We will read later in Exodus 6:3, “By my name, Adonai, I did not make myself known to them.” Yet here in Genesis 21:33 we read, “he called on the name of Adonai.” Which is it? The probable meaning is this: Abraham was unaware of the personal name of God (yōd-hey-vav-hey in Hebrew, usually translated LORD or Adonai in English Bibles). Genesis 21:33 is one of many examples in which the later author uses the name Adonai in telling the story, but it is an anachronism, a story element out of its place in time.

Abraham likely called on “El Ōlam” and similar epithets for God, such as “El Shaddai.” These titles for God are very much like the kind used by the people in Abraham’s time, the people who believed in many gods and whose definition of deity was much smaller than would actually fit with the realization of the Omnipotent Eternal Creator. And we see yet other indications of Abraham’s religion being colored by his time and culture. He plants a tamarisk tree at the place where he will worship God. The use of trees as sacred places is something specifically forbidden later in the Torah.

Abraham was on the path. He was a forerunner, a trailblazer. He did not have the benefit of the Exodus and Sinai experiences, nor the words of Torah to guide him into more advanced places on the journey. And we see that God was not concerned about this at all. He did not correct Abraham. Whereas religion often emphasizes correct form and right belief, God is relaxed about this. What matters is movement in the right direction, not exactness. When Abraham prayed to “El Ōlam,” he was calling “on the name of Adonai.”

Perhaps we must also look around at people in our world struggling to find meaning and be more affirming of movements toward God even when they are less than theologically precise. And we can relax, forgiving ourselves for partial knowledge and blindly walking along the way with God. He beckons us nearer without criticizing us in the details.

OUTLINE

Abimelech makes a covenant with Abraham (21-24), dispute over a well (25-26), Abraham makes a covenant over a new well at Beersheba (27-34).

OVERVIEW

The author stylizes this story with uses of the number seven (Nahum Sarna). The reader will find the names Abraham and Abimelech seven times each. There are seven lambs. The verb about swearing an oath is related in Hebrew to the number seven. Even the place name, Beersheba, has in it the word for seven (which is also the verb for swearing an oath).

The overall effect of the story is to show that Abraham has become an equal with kings in the land. He acquires his first piece of land in Beersheba, a well to which his flocks have exclusive rights. Canaan (Israel) is semi-arid, steppe land close to desert conditions. Keepers of flocks are often found on steppe lands because they are unsuitable for agriculture on a large scale. Rights to the few sources of water in an area are key in the social structure and survival of dwellers in these regions.

Abraham’s travels and adventures end up explaining the origin of names of places that are important in Israel’s later history (Beersheba, “well of the oath,” is a southern boundary town for later Israel).

That Abraham still has ties to his pagan past is evident in that he plants a tamarisk. Vs. 33 connects directly the tamarisk planting and Abraham’s worship, indicating that the tree (or grove) was a cultic object, thought by Abraham to be vital to worship.

Vs. 33 is the only use in the Bible of the term Everlasting God (el olam). Since el is grammatically in the construct state, it is clear that it is not a name, but the word for deity (the Canaanites called one of their deities El, but the word came to be a general designation for deity). Walton comments that El Olam (Enduring God) as a title focuses on God’s dominion over nations and the events of history that shape nations. Abraham is a shaper of Israel’s future as God ordains his course and blesses or curses nations based on relation to Abraham.
SPOTLIGHT

God wants to know. He gives Abraham a terrible test, the worst. What kind of god asks his devoted follower to sacrifice his son? What kind of person would kill his son for a god? Does Abraham fail the test or succeed in that he is willing to do the deed?

Every indication in the story of Genesis 22 is that Abraham passes the test. הָאֱלֹהִים נִסָּה אֶת־אַבְרָהָם ha’Elōhim nisach et-‘Avraham, “That [same] God tested Abraham.” From God’s point of view, this test was real. And then after Abraham shows he is willing to kill his son, עַתָּה יָדַעְתִּי כִּי־יְרֵא אֱלֹהִים ‘atah yada’ti ki-yerei’ ‘Elōhim, “Now I know that you revere God.” God’s purpose in the test was to know something [by experience, by seeing it in action] about Abraham’s trust and reverence.

How can we understand this test? For one thing, gods expecting mortals to offer up a child was a known thing in Abraham’s world. Also, we see from the story that God would not allow Abraham to actually offer his son. It’s bad enough, it seems to us, that God asked. At least we know God would not actually desire a child’s death to satisfy his need to be worshipped. But there is also one other implication in the way the story is told that can help us have confidence in God’s goodness.

The way the story is told, Abraham and Isaac are both struggling to understand what is about to happen. Abraham makes several statements which could be seen as lies, something we know he is capable of, or as hopeful expressions of trust that the situation will end without tragedy.

Abraham tells his attendants, “The boy and I, let us go there and worship and let us return to you” (the verbs are in the cohortative mood, though most translations ignore it). Abraham says Isaac will return with him.

Later Abraham tells Isaac, who is becoming frightened, “God himself will provide the lamb.”

Abraham seems to trust that the outcome will be a good one. No doubt he is fearful. It’s possible he is lying to his son and the servants. The story is deliberately opaque, leaving us to consider multiple possibilities.

But we have to consider, perhaps the test was not “will Abraham kill his son to show how much he adores me, his God and benefactor?” but perhaps something else: “Will Abraham trust that I am not like other gods?”

OUTLINE

Narrative prelude: God tests Abraham (1), the test: requiring the son of the promise (2), Abraham and Isaac journey to the mountain (3-8), Abraham’s offers Isaac but God substitutes a ram (9-14), the covenant reaffirmed and Abraham dwells in Beersheba (15-19), Abraham’s distant family (20-24).

OVERVIEW

Vs. 1 explains God’s purpose in asking Abraham to sacrifice his son. God is testing Abraham. For Abraham, perhaps the test is giving up the one thing that makes God’s promise work and thus lose all that God promised. If he accedes to Adonai’s request, he will have no offspring and thus he will no longer be a blessing after his death. For God, perhaps the motive is to see if a mortal can love him more than life, offspring, and blessings. Will Abraham continue with this deity who takes back the one thing he has desired?

As writer Skip Moen has emphasized in his book, Crossing, the request Adonai makes, “Take your son . . . and offer him,” is not a command. The verb take has the particle of entreaty נָא (na’) following it and should be rendered “take, please.” Abraham is not obeying a command from Adonai, but acceding to his request.

Vss. 7-8 are troubling. Does Isaac suspect? Does Abraham’s answer calm his fears at all? It cannot be, as some have said, that Abraham knew and intended by his words to say, that God would substitute a ram for Isaac. This was no true test if Abraham had no fear God would take back the child of the promise. Abraham is being deliberately obtuse to his son, deceiving him. Yet Abraham’s words are true in a way that the patriarch does not suspect.

God will save the boy though Abraham will not.

The meaning of the story is clarified greatly by vs. 12, when God says, “Now I know.” Readers have spun many theories over the centuries: Abraham knew Isaac would not die or he thought the boy would be resurrected or this was really just God teaching against human sacrifice. All of these theories crumble under the weight of vs. 12. God wanted to know if a mortal could love him with “disinterested love,” that is, love for God’s own sake and not for the things he can give.

The test was so that God could know Abraham’s heart truly. But isn’t God omniscient? Does he need to test us in order to know what is in our hearts? The story teaches us something wonderful about knowing: to know by experience is infinitely greater than to know by cognitive awareness. What good is it to know in our head that a beloved person loves us in return? We want them to show us or tell us. And this leads to a wonderful realization about God: he desires our love. We might imagine the Omnipotent is immune to such needs or think that they are weakness.

“Now I know that you revere God,” he says to Abraham (I am translating “fear” as “revere, hold in awe”). The positive message of this story fits with much we read elsewhere, especially Deuteronomy, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes (e.g., Deut 6:2; Prov 1:7; Eccles 12:13).

But there is no denying the story is upsetting. Would God have a father take the life of his son? How can we relate to a God who would ask such a thing?

This is not a contradiction of belief in divine omniscience. Knowledge is more than cognitive awareness. A higher kind of knowledge, which God seeks here, is experience. The purpose of Abraham’s test is that God would know by experience the depths of his trust and faith. Abraham is the father of faith and his great crisis story shows us what deep faith looks like, loving the Giver more than any gift. If God was willing to take away the very promise that drew Abraham out of his clan and away from his gods, what reason would Abraham have to love God? Only the awe of heaven could explain Abraham’s clinging in spite of God’s taking away. This is exactly what God says in response,

EXCURSUS ON “THE GOD”

God is referred to as “the God” or perhaps “that God” (haElohim) in vs. 1. Walton notes that haElohim tends to occur after an account in which God was referred to by a more specific name. Accordingly, in 21:33, Abraham had just called on El Olam (“the everlasting God”). Thus, in 22:1, haElohim has the force of “that [same] God.” Moriah (vs. 2) is the site of the future Temple (2 Chron 3:1).
SPOTLIGHT

The death of Sarah gives us a glimpse into the way people in Abraham’s time dealt with grieving. The Torah tells us quite a bit more about Abraham than it does about Sarah, but we can see that she led a life of strength in spite of dealing with decades of heartbreaking disappointment. As bad as childlessness is for a modern woman, it was even more an identity crisis for a woman in Sarah’s time. Yet she bore it with a quiet strength.

More than a thousand years after her lifetime, we find a reference to her example in the book of Isaiah. “Look to Sarah who bore you,” said the author of Isaiah 51:2 to a group of discouraged exiles in Babylon. These were people displaced, having been forcibly marched over a thousand miles from their home in Judah to a new place of exile in Babylon. They were now wondering if God and the promises of the covenant were even real. Babylon had destroyed Jerusalem and the temple. The promise of Zion seemed lost. Why would the author bring up Sarah?

Who better understands perseverance when hope seems lost than a woman who longs to be a mother, even more so one who has been assured she will be a mother, and who waits long year after year with no child? Sarah waited twenty five years from the time God promised a child (Genesis 12:4, “Abram was seventy five years old”) until the child was born (Gen 21:5, “Abraham was a hundred years old”). Sarah was apparently a formidable woman. She laughed at God, and though she was fearful when she realized God was aware of her laughter in Genesis 18. Kings wanted her in their harem. And her death at 127 years old was a great emotional loss for Abraham.

His grieving was active and purposeful. He went in to grieve and weep. He got up to secure a burial place for her. Whatever Abraham’s failings (three wives, etc.), we see nonetheless that he loved her.

OUTLINE

Death of Sarah (1-2), negotiations with the Hittite leaders in Hebron (3-9), negotiations with Ephron for the cave of Machpelah (10-16).

OVERVIEW

This first patriarchal death is treated in detail and signifies the importance of mourning and burial rites. We get a peek into the way people in Abraham’s day went about the grieving process. וַיָּבֹא אַבְרָהָם לִסְפֹּד לְשָׂרָה וְלִבְכֹּתָהּ vayavō ‘Avraham lispōd leSarah velivkōtah, “And Abraham went in to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her.” This could mean he went into the place where her body was lying or it could simply mean he sat in some place to mourn. The act of mourning and weeping is what is important in the description. He does not let this loss pass without taking time to grieve. Afterwards we read: וַיָּקָם אַבְרָהָם מֵעַל פְּנֵי מֵתוֹ vayaqam ‘Avraham mei’al penei meitō, “And Abraham rose before his departed.” He “rose” because his posture in mourning was sitting. Modern Jewish custom is based on this passage and also Job 2:8 and 2:13 where Job sat and his friends came and sat with him for seven days.

After grieving, Abraham wants a place to bury Sarah, a place which will be a memorial to her. To do this, he must first negotiate with the leaders of the town. As a resident alien he normally has no rights to purchase land. He will pay an exorbitant price to be made an exception. He refuses a gift because he wants the burial cave perpetually for his clan and gifts could often be legally dismissed later, whereas a bill of sale carried legal weight (Walton). The cave Abraham purchased (its traditional location) in Hebron is the second holiest site in modern Judaism (Sarna).

The story calls the people of this place in Canaan “Hittites,” which is historically difficult since their empire was far north in upper Syria. But more than one tradition mentions groups of Hittites in Canaan and some Hittite pottery has been found in the Canaanite period in the land (Sarna). Furthermore, there is a tradition of a different people with a name similar to the Hittites, from Genesis 10:15, the sons of Heth (kheit, Walton). The “Hittites” in Genesis do not have Hittite names, but Semitic ones, and perhaps could be a different people group (Walton).

There is another element to this story as well. It is one of several examples of Abraham gaining certain land rights in various places in Canaan. These are a sort of foreshadowing of Israel’s later possession of the land in keeping with the covenant (Walton).
SPOTLIGHT

God is the Lord of heaven and the people of promise will represent him among the families of the earth. To an ancient like Abraham, “Lord of heaven” signifies a god who is more than a local deity. As Abraham’s servant will be traveling out of Canaan and up into Syria, the aging patriarch wants it known that all these lands under heaven are God’s territory. The servant will carry God with him wherever he goes on this quest for a wife for Isaac.

As to choosing a wife from among Abraham’s clan, rather than from among the local Canaanite people, Abraham’s reasoning is sound. It is not that the clan of Terah, Abraham’s father, is more righteous or godly. The danger is not that Abraham’s descendants will become morally corrupt if they marry into local Canaanite stock. The danger is assimilation.

Assimilation is the process whereby a group of people lose their purpose and distinctiveness by simply fitting in to the surrounding culture. In one generation, certainly two, a people can be wiped out by assimilation. Marrying into the local Canaanite culture will put Isaac and Isaac’s future children in the position of being closely tied to the culture and society of Canaan. Every social temptation will be to forget about belonging to Abraham’s offspring and instead be absorbed into the families and ways of the land.

By choosing a wife from the old clan, the clan of his father, Abraham is maintaining a distinctiveness for his son. This is why in Judaism the norm is for Jews to marry Jews or for non-Jewish spouses to convert. The Jewish tribe is a small island in a sea of Gentiles and Gentileness can easily erase it in a deluge. To go on through the ages, remaining the people of the promise representing the Lord of Heaven is a charge to remain distinct. If the people of promise cease to exist, because they all marry out of their Jewishness, then the covenant will fail.

Jewish perseverance against the tide of cultural assimilation is one of history’s most fascinating results. Who would guess that a small people in number could stay culturally bound and do so even in a dispersion among Gentile lands? Is the God of the Bible real? Does he show himself in the world? We have to look at the Jewish people and say, “Here is a sign.”

OUTLINE

Legal contract on the cave of Machpelah (17-20), Abraham sends a servant to get a wife for Isaac (24:1-9).

OVERVIEW

Chapter 23 closes with legal language, similar to written contracts, detailing the contents of the sale (Sarna). Abraham met the condition of land sale to a resident alien, namely that he used it as a burial site. Many other contracts from the time specify, as this one does, that the trees are included in the sale. The contents of these verses make us wonder what kind of source material was available to the author. Is it possible that there were written records available, perhaps stored in Hebron, which the author could access?

Chapter 24 begins a new part of the story, preparing the next generation to maintain its place in God’s promise. Abraham does not want Isaac to take a wife from among the local people. While this could simply be a matter of prejudice on Abraham’s part, a better reason comes to mind, one having to do with the nature of being the covenant people. While the covenant was one-sided, with God making unconditional promises, we have already seen that both God and Abraham have an expectation that the people of promise will be examples in the world of justice and righteousness. At the very least, it will be crucial for the covenant people to be distinctive and to preserve their distinctness for the long term survival of the covenant.

A Canaanite wife will encourage assimilation, with Isaac likely raising children who will fit into Canaanite culture and cease to be distinctive (much like assimilation issues for Jews in our time). Though Abraham’s relatives are not followers of the Lord, still their shared culture will help Isaac’s family remain distinct in Canaan. To reinforce the case that Abraham’s choice is about remaining a distinct people and true to the covenant, he insists that Isaac and his family must dwell in Canaan, the land promised by the Lord.

Abraham’s requirement, that the servant put his hand under Abraham’s thigh, is a euphemism for grasping the genital and swearing the oath. The most likely reason for having his servant grasp his genitals is that the circumcision is the only existing symbol of the covenant. Sarna notes that Abraham describes the Lord as “God of heaven.” This is a way of describing God that, in ancient terms, refers to his universal kingship over all the lands under heaven (as opposed to conceptions of deities as local in their power). The servant will be traveling to another land and Abraham clearly believes God’s kingship is not only in Canaan.
SPOTLIGHT

Sometimes in life there are extraordinary events that can only be answered prayers. These stand out all the more because of the hundreds of unanswered ones that precede them. The business of heaven sometimes plays out before us in unexpected ways.

Abraham’s servant prays and asks for a sign, a very specific sign, that the young woman who shows hospitality to him and his camels should be the one. אֹתָהּ הֹכַחְתָּ ōtah hōchachta, “Let her be the one you have appointed.”

Apparently a small amount of hospitality was expected. It would be normal in the nomadic culture for a woman in this situation to offer a man some water. But three things happen that make this sign extraordinary. The first is that the one who offers the water is a young, unmarried woman — exactly what the servant came to seek. The second is that she works far beyond expectation, bringing up as much as 250 gallons of water for his ten camels. Some hospitality this!

The third part of the sign is even more remarkable: she is one of Abraham’s relatives.

We can’t always expect prayers to work out so remarkably well. But as we live our lives trusting and hoping. sometimes life will surprise us.

OUTLINE

The servant’s prayer (10-14), the servant’s prayer answered in Rebekah (15-26).

OVERVIEW

Abraham’s servant journeys to Aram Naharaim, a territory name meaning “Syria between the two rivers.” The rivers in question are the Euphrates and Habur.

Travelers and nomads wandering through the territory of others generally needed permission from a local to use water (Walton, NIV Application Commentary). This cultural feature is the basis of the amazing story which follows.

Seeking a sign from God, the servant of Abraham has a remarkable encounter, one that modern readers are not likely to pick up on. The key bit of information that makes the scene sensational has to do with the amount of water a camel needs after a long journey. Rebekah, a total stranger to Abraham’s servant, welcomes him by an extravagant act of hospitality: watering ten camels while he watches. Ten camels may drink as much as 250 gallons of water (Walton, NIV Application Commentary).

Rebekah will do this with a single jug walked back and forth and poured from the shoulder. Many commentators suggest that the motive of this sign is to find a woman of valor, who is hospitable and hard-working. His prayer is exceeded, since he meets a relative of Abraham’s who is beautiful and a virgin.

The servant returns her generosity with expensive gifts even before knowing her identity. Meeting a bride to be at a well becomes a stock scene in biblical literature (Robert Alter, Art of Biblical Narrative). The usual pattern is a journey, meeting the girl at a well, drawing water, running to announce or greet the traveler, and a feast announcing the match. Similar scenes occur with Jacob and Moses and to some degree Yeshua and the woman at the well in John 4 is a variation.
SPOTLIGHT

What if God does not care? What if he does not see? What if he forgets? Abraham’s servant experiences in a powerful way a faithfulness and and a reminder from heaven that God is still working and will not stop.

אֲשֶׁר לֹא־עָזַב חַסְדּוֹ וַאֲמִתּוֹ asher lō-‘azav chasdō va’amitō, “who does not abandon his lovingkindness nor his faithfulness.” The servant uses two key words to describe God’s faithful love: chesed and emmet (חֶסֶד and אֶמֶת). Chesed (lovingkindness, loyal love, devotion) can have many connotations. God shows chesed in being a benefactor to his children, giving for our true good.

In this case, God has given a wife with admirable qualities for Abraham’s son, a wife worthy of the purpose of Abraham’s family and the building of the next generation. God answered the servant’s prayer with a sign and led him right to Rebekah.

Emmet is faithfulness, following though on what has been promised. Abraham’s life experience has involved two seemingly opposed tendencies. On the one hand, he has had to wait a long time in ways that tested his faith. On the other hand, at times, punctuating the discouraging decades with moments of gladness, God has acted or spoken or in some way shown Abraham his continuing presence.

Abraham’s servant sees all this and his prayer is one we could adapt to use in our lives: “Blessed be the God of Abraham, who has not abandoned his loyal love and faithfulness!”

Another character in the story, a character who becomes the villain, also sees perceptively what is happening. Laban agrees to the match between Rebekah and Isaac because he perceives that a god, the God of Abraham, is behind this turn of events.

כַּאֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר יְהוָה ka’asher diber Adonai, “as Adonai has spoken.” The relentless will of God is moving on the earth, as Laban can see, and there is no resisting it. God has spoken here not in words, but in events. Though Laban will eventually try to turn all of this to his profit (the coming story with Jacob) he nonetheless recognizes the divine hand.

God has acted in chesed and emmet, loyal love and faithfulness. This pair of words is a theme in the Psalms, particularly Psalm 40 and 57. And it becomes a theme in the Gospel, in John 1:14, “We have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” The pair of words, grace and truth, is charis and aleithia, Greek cognates for chesed and emmet. The author of the Gospel sees Yeshua as the culmination of the theme of God’s work through the family of Abraham to unfailingly bring good to human beings from heaven.

OUTLINE

The Lord’s grace and truth (27), Laban prepares hospitality for the servant (28-33), the servant’s story (34-49), Laban and Bethuel give Rebekah as betrothed (50-52).

OVERVIEW

Even something as seemingly small as finding a wife for Isaac is related to the covenant. Abraham’s motives in seeking a wife outside of Canaan have been about the covenant: that his clan should remain distinct as a people and not assimilate. Now Abraham’s servant speaks and behind his words the narrator is making a point about God’s loyalty to covenant.

The Lord of Heaven does not abandon loyal adherence (chesed) nor faithfulness (emet) to his promises. The same pair of words is used in several Psalms (40 and 57) as well as in John 1:14, where it is translated “grace and truth” in most versions (charis and aletheia).

By providing for the further fruitfulness of Abraham’s clan, God has shown his covenant grace and loyalty. Abraham’s clan will continue to be distinct in Canaan, not assimilating into the population ad culture there. Laban takes charge and seems to have a more prominent role than his father, Bethuel. The narrative emphasizes that Abraham’s wealth is the main motive for Laban in agreeing to the match. Laban’s final words are ironic. He does not know the Lord, but he is right that all has happened according to the Lord’s will.
SPOTLIGHT

Unknowingly the nations of the world are drawn toward the culmination of things God has planned. Rebekah’s family in Syria does not know the God of Abraham and they have not been part of the promises expressed in theophanies. Yet as they bless their maiden who will journey down to Canaan and marry Isaac, they unwittingly echo the blessings God has spoken over Abraham’s offspring.

“Our sister, may you become thousands of ten thousands,” אֲחֹתֵנוּ אַתְּ הֲיִי לְאַלְפֵי רְבָבָה, ‘achōteinu ‘at hayi le’alfei revavah. As God had said to Abraham, “Look at the stars, so will your offspring be.” From the tiny beginning of Abraham, the nation of Israel will grow and influence the world. Rebekah’s family may simply be expressing a common, culturally appropriate wish for their young maiden, but in this case their blessing will come true.

“And may your offspring possess the gate of his despiser,” וְיִירַשׁ זַרְעֵךְ אֵת שַׁעַר שֹׂנְאָיו vayiyrash zar’eich et sha’ar sōn’av. The last part of the family’s blessing for Rebekah is nearly identical to God’s blessing over Abraham after the binding of Isaac, “Your offspring will possess the gate of his enemies” (22:17). The author represents Rebekah’s family as unknowingly echoing the promise. The purposeful message here is that God’s plans are not limited in scope to Israel. History will proceed with the inevitable influence of Jewish thought on the world in spite of hatred directed toward Israel. And many among the nations will benefit from the Abrahamic promise.

There is a certain inevitability to God’s plans that is not thwarted by human free will. How does this irresistible undertow of grace pull us out deeper? How do the worst attempts of evil succumb to the invisible tide of divine love bringing us to western shores? The author of Genesis isn’t quite being that philosophical, yet the very idea that the promise spreads from Abraham’s people to all others contains wondrous thoughts.

OUTLINE

The bride price and gifts (53), negotiating to leave without delay (54-58), Rebekah is sent off with a powerful blessing (59-61), Isaac walking (meditating?) in the field sees Rebekah (62-63), Rebekah sees Isaac (64-65), Isaac takes Rebekah as wife (66-67).

OVERVIEW

The custom of paying the family of the young woman a bride price in the form of gifts are referred to in ancient Akkadian texts (Sarna). The gifts compensate the bride’s family for losing her (see Exod 22:16, the mohar). Laban wants a ceremony of ten days before Rebekah leaves, but the servant is eager to return quickly to serve Abraham faithfully. The nurse is someone obviously dear to Rebekah and is named in 35:8 as Deborah.

The blessing is a variation of the very one the Lord spoke over Abraham after the binding of Isaac (Gen 22:16-18). Rebekah’s family, in their blessing spoken over her, unwittingly affirm the covenant blessings promised to Abraham’s line, continuing a theme in Genesis in which outsiders affirm the covenant. Vs. 63 has had a variety of interpretations.

The word rendered variously walk/meditate/turn/relax (lashu’ach) is used only once in the Bible and its meaning is unknown.

This verse is famously interpreted in rabbinic texts as evidence that the Patriarchs prayed the ma’ariv (evening prayer).

Rebekah’s veil was put on to signal that she was a bride. Sarna recounts evidence that veils were worn as part of the marriage ceremony. Isaac takes her into his mother’s tent, signifying that Rebekah is the new matriarch.

Isaac’s love for Rebekah is described in undeniably emotional terms, a rare window into the feelings of the characters.
SPOTLIGHT

The purpose of closing out the lives of people in Genesis with genealogies is to show that God kept all his promises. Unlike the experience we have in life with nearly anything else, the Bible tells us we will ultimately not be disappointed with God’s follow through on things he has pledged to do. In our early years we are anxious, we strive for some place in the universe and worry about getting what we need. As we mature, hopefully we grow in trust and we begin looking more retrospectively and seeing faithfulness.

“You shall be the father of a multitude of nations,” God said to Abraham (17:4). We think of Abraham, rightly so, as the patriarch of Israel. But through Hagar and Keturah he fathered other nations too. 25:6 mentions concubines, perhaps meaning Hagar and Keturah, or perhaps suggesting there were more women in Abraham’s life as well. Many desert tribes came from Abraham and also nations, such as Midian.

Abraham lived to old age, blessed in many ways just as God had said. God did all he promised for him and more. And then we read the note that he was “gathered to his kin.” This expression could mean “buried where his ancestors were laid,” except for the fact that Abraham’s grave was nowhere near his ancestors. Or it could mean simply “he left the land of the living and joined his kin in death.”

But the expression carries with is a hopeful note, seemingly intended as a positive statement and not sad one. Therefore it seems to have been a vague impression people had, before there was a knowledge of specifics about what the afterlife might hold, that something good was in store for at least some people after death. It is doubtful this could have been the notion of Sheol (Hades, the underworld, etc.) where people only halfway lived on as shades (ghosts) who were no longer fully human. This verse about being “gathered to his kin” comes from the Priestly source of the Torah, and as we know from the theology of Leviticus, the priests of Israel expected that where God was there was life, even afterlife.

OUTLINE

The sons of Keturah (1-6), the death and burial of Abraham (7-11).

OVERVIEW

Abraham lived thirty-five years after Isaac’s marriage but the events of those years are unrecorded (Sarna). The Abraham stories begin and end with genealogies (11:10-32 and 25:1-18). The purpose of the closing genealogy is to show how all God’s promises to Abraham were kept. Sarna lists evidences that the genealogy is ancient (for example, it does not use the term “Arab,” which came into use in the 9th century BCE).

Abraham becomes the father of many nations, as promised, because through Hagar and Keturah, many tribes of Arabic peoples started under God’s blessing. Did Abraham take Keturah as wife or concubine (vs. 1 says wife, but vs. 6 refers to “concubines”)? Did he take her before Sarah’s death or after? The problem with assuming he took her after is his age. He was already concerned that he was too old to sire children, yet he had six sons with Keturah. It may be that Keturah became his concubine long before Sarah died.

The best known nation to come from Keturah is Midian, a people with whom Israel will have enmity in the future. Ashurrim in vs. 3 is not the famed Assyria, but another, much smaller people, with the same name (Sarna).

In the death of Abraham, the phrase “gathered to his kin” is of interest. The phrase is used also of Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, Aaron, and Moses. Sarna argues it is not about burial or interment of bones in a patriarchal tomb because neither Abraham, Aaron, nor Moses was interred with his ancestors. The idiom, though non-specific, reflects an early belief in afterlife. Abraham dies old and content, as God had promised (15:15) and the blessing goes on to Isaac (vs. 11).
SPOTLIGHT

So many stories are untold in the Bible, with only vague hints left to suggest something larger to us. Already we are surprised to find that Ishmael’s line is treated in Genesis almost like the chosen line of Isaac. Alone of all the “other” family lines of the Bible, we read that Ishmael was “gathered to his kin.” As was the case with this note about Abraham in vs. 8, the expression probably carries with it a hopeful view of life beyond death. Genesis says this only about Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, and Jacob.

But there is another surprise in the summation story of Ishmael’s line. One of the subgroups of Ishmaelites apparently had a long history of close ties with Israel, becoming temple servants and returning with the people of Judah from exile in Babylon.

One of Ishmael’s sons is נָפִישׁ Naphish. Apparently when Reuben and Gad were settling in the land across the Jordan river (where the modern nation of Jordan is today) they fought a number of people groups, including the people of Naphish (1 Chron 5:19). We hear nothing at this point about the aftermath and the close relationship the sons of Naphish will develop with Israel.

But in both Ezra and Nehemiah, when listing those who returned from exile, we find that the נְפִיסִים Nefisim were among them.

There is apparently some discrepancy in spelling in the records because although the list in Nehemiah is supposed to be identical to the one in Ezra, there are three spellings in all for this people group: נְפִיסִים Nefisim (Ezra 2:50) and נְפוּשְׁסִים Nefushsim (Nehemiah 7:52, what the scribes received as the written form or Ketiv) and נְפִישְׁסִים Nefis’shim (margin of Nehemiah 7:52, what the scribes believed was a more correct form or Qere).

Consider that the list of returnees from Babylon includes Israelites and also people closely connected with Israel. Both Ezra and Nehemiah divide their list into Israelites, Levites, temple servants, and “servants of Solomon.” These last two groups are people who apparently developed a close tie with Israel and came to work on the temple, performing the daily labors needed to maintain the worship activities there. Given the confusion about spelling, it is not difficult to see that the נְפִיסִים are quite likely the descendants of Ishmael’s son Nafish and that they settled with Israel and became part of the broader Israelite nation.

OUTLINE

The sons of Ishmael (12-16), the death of Ishmael (17-18).

OVERVIEW

Ishmael is unique, the only non-Israelite whose life span, death, and a notice of being gathered to his people occurs. Some of the peoples/sons of Ishmael are known from sources outside of the Bible. Some are mentioned later in the prophets (Tema, for example, is in Job 6:19; Isa 21:14; and Jer 25:23). The people of Naphish may have converted/assimilated into Israel by the return from exile (Ezra 2:50; Neh 7:52). The note in vs. 16 that Ishmael’s sons formed twelve tribes fulfills the promise to him in 17:20.
SPOTLIGHT

As the story of Jacob and Esau begins to unfold, a masterful story told by the J source of the Torah, we find a note about Abraham too tantalizing to pass over. God will bless Isaac because שָׁמַע אַבְרָהָם בְּקֹלִי shema’ ‘Avraham beqōli, “Abraham listened to my voice.” Even more than that, the J author, says Abraham “kept” God’s charges, commandments, statutes, and teachings (the plural word for torah is used).

What are we to make of this, since God did not literally give Abraham a set of commandments and statutes and torahs?

To be sure, these are the terms used later to describe the teachings that make up the stipulations of the Torah. Leviticus 26:46, for example, uses “statutes” and “torahs” among its descriptions of the covenant requirements. Deuteronomy uses “charges,” “statutes,” and “commandments” to delineate types of stipulations. The use of different terms for things commanded in the Torah tradition has been a matter of interest to interpreters for a long time. Are these terms specific, technical terms categorizing the laws and teachings?

Rashi explains one viewpoint on the question. The “charges” are boundary issues, negative commands about things we should keep our distance from. The “commandments” are matters we should know about even if we do not have Torah, such as robbery and violence. The “statutes” are matters which cannot be known to reason, such as the prohibition against eating pork or wearing garments with mixed materials. Finally, the “torahs” are both the teachings found in the written Torah and the opinions of the rabbis collected in the tradition and known as “oral torah.” Rashi has chosen to import rabbinic theology into the terminology of this ancient text, which is a good preaching method but is not a sound interpretive method.

There is no evidence from an actual word study of these terms that they represent specific, technical terms. They appear to be used loosely, and by the different source documents of Torah, without any systematic definitions and categories. So all the more we should ask, “Why does the author use multiple terms for commandments to describe Abraham’s obedience to God?” Sarna comments, “The combination of different terms for God’s precepts connotes comprehensiveness” (JPS Commentary). In other words, God regarded Abraham’s righteousness as remarkably complete. And yet, he did not know a single word of the Torah and had not even one Bible verse to read or recite.

There is an important realization here about the way the Torah authors thought about right and wrong, revelation and the human conscience. Human responsibility to justice and goodness does not depend on a special revelation from God. God does not have to send a prophet or produce a law code for people to be answerable to him concerning good and evil.

This has major implications for reading the Bible. Some people are convinced that, “It’s wrong because the Bible says so.” Here in Genesis 26 we see evidence that this was not the thought of at least some biblical authors. Rather, it’s wrong because it’s wrong, and the Bible is human beings whose wisdom and teaching God sent to us to help us see truth. The Bible does not create truth. The prophets comment on truth. Therefore, we need not come up with arcane rules derived from Biblical exegesis to know what is right and wrong. Nor should we believe extravagant claims about the wrongness of certain attitudes and behaviors simply because an interpreter has a Bible text to back up his or her opinion.

Abraham did not know the Torah. He never read Leviticus or Deuteronomy. But he kept God’s charges and statutes in that he cared about justice and sought to follow the path of goodness with God through the days of his life. This note in the Bible should also cure us of another strange religious notion: that God demands perfection and anything less than absolute righteousness does not count in God’s estimation. Genesis 26:5 is one of many verses demolishing such a theology. To be clear, some believe that God demands perfection, which we cannot achieve, and so we need to have God’s righteousness imputed to us through Christ. All attempts by human beings to follow good are considered to be attempts to make ourselves righteous and earn “salvation.”

By contrast, the biblical authors expected us to pursue good things like love, faithfulness, and justice because they are beautiful and worthy of human pursuit. And they describe God as loving good deeds and faithfulness when he sees them in us.

OUTLINE

Isaac’s story and Rebekah’s barrenness (19-21), Rebekah receives a word from the Lord (22-23), Esau and the grasping Jacob are born (24-26), Esau the hunter sells his birthright to Jacob the pastoralist (25:27-34), a famine and the promise reaffirmed to Isaac (26:1-5).

OVERVIEW

Rebekah was barren twenty years (compare vs. 20 and 26). The theme of the barren patriarchal wife suggests that God deliberately delayed fulfillment of covenant promises. The Lord of blessings makes his people wait.

Isaac gets the least amount of independent narrative and less is known of him than other patriarchs, his story being swallowed up by his father and his son. Sarna suggests a few hints that more was known about Isaac in ancient Israel: the phrase “fear of Isaac” (31:42) suggests that there may have been a story behind it and Amos 7:9 and 16 speaks of shrines of Isaac. Isaac lived most of his life in one place, Beersheba, and moved to the Hebron region late in life.

Esau is the progenitor of Edom, the people who will be rivals to Israel and who figure largely in prophecy and rabbinic literature. Deuteronomy 23:8 commands Israel not to abhor Edomites. The prophet Obadiah denounces Edom since they apparently helped the Babylonians in the destruction of Judah and Jerusalem in the late 7th century and early 6th century BCE. Jacob, as a pastoral nomad interested in the business of flocks, is more like Abraham, but Isaac admires his wilder son, Esau, for his prowess. The rivalry between brothers not only prefigures Israel and Edom, but is one of two primary conflicts in Jacob’s life (the other being Laban).

26:5 has been taken by some of the sages as indicating that Abraham knew the whole Torah. Alternatively, the narrator’s purpose in including this statement is simple: as Abraham obeyed all that he knew concerning righteousness, so Israel, now receiving the whole Torah, must keep all of the additional revelation God has shown. What did Abraham know? If God had revealed a lawcode to Abraham, it is certain the Torah would report this. Therefore, the Torah assumes that human beings know what is right by nature and are responsible for this knowledge.
SPOTLIGHT

Abraham was a nomad, but his son Isaac settled down in Beersheba and remained there most of his life. But this part of the story concerns Isaac’s wanderings before he settled in Beersheba. Isaac is a man looking for God’s blessing and his place in the world. When he meets with conflict, he tends to move on, seeking an escape. Yet even in the places he temporarily inhabits on this quest for peace and quiet, Isaac is blessed.

In Gerar he is not threatened by Abimelech, but he feels a threat is possible and acts preemptively to head off danger. He tells the locals that Rebekah is his sister, a bizarre replay of his father’s habit of doing the same with Sarah. Unlike Abraham’s situation, however, Isaac’s wife is never taken into the king’s harem. God seems to give Isaac the peace and quiet he seeks, unlike his father whose life had more tension.

Even though Isaac has not yet found his place, we read וַיִּמְצָא בַּשָּׁנָה הַהִוא מֵאָה שְׁעָרִים וַיְבָרֲכֵהוּ יְהוָה vayimtza’ bashanah hahi’ mei’ah she’arim vayevaracheihu Adonai, “He reaped in that same year a hundred fold and God blessed him.”

Perhaps we can say that from the trauma of his childhood — his father bound him to an altar and was going to kill him for God — Isaac sought rest and did not want strife or the struggle to find blessing. But God blessed him without the need for him to strive for it or live in the face of danger as his father had before him. But Isaac’s son, Jacob, will be even more of a striver than Abraham. The grandfather traveled and risked his life to seek God’s blessing. The father ran from strife and sought peace. The grandson, Jacob, will doubt that there is any blessing for him and think he must make his own. All three end up living in the blessings of the covenant. The larger message seems to be that it depends on God, not us.

OUTLINE

Isaac is afraid and tells people Rebekah is his sister (6-7), Abimelech sees who Rebekah is and forbids anyone to touch her (8-11), the Lord blesses Isaac’s crops (12).

OVERVIEW

What should stand out to the reader is how different Isaac’s situation is from his father’s. No real conflict occurs this time. The king recognizes that Rebekah is Isaac’s wife before any harm is done. And immediately after we read that Isaac’s crop produced a hundredfold. The blessing has increased. While Jacob will find much conflict, this is not due to a lessening of the covenant blessings, but Jacob’s own striving.

Isaac is a settled man (living most of his life in Beersheba) and is thoroughly blessed. This incident likely occurred before the twins were born and is one of many examples of chronological rearrangement in Torah. This Abimelech is the same as the king of Gerar in chs. 20-21. The name Abimelech, which means “my father is king,” shows up again in Judges. It is a common sort of name a king might take.

What are we to make of the text calling Abimelech a Philistine when we know that Philistines (among the sea peoples) arrived in the land during the period of the Judges (much later than the patriarchal era)? The text of Genesis was written in times much later than these events being narrated. It might call him a Philistine because his territory was in what would later be known as Philistia.
SPOTLIGHT

Even blessing can bring on persecution. It seems little in this life will be unmixed with sorrow. Isaac has blessing overflowing his life, but this causes his neighbors to fear him and exclude him. The local tribes refuse him access to wells and watering spots. He seems a threat to their fragile economy which is based on animal herding in the desert. And as human beings we often act out of economic self-interest, believing that if someone else ascends we will be forced to descend to make room for them.

Most of us are oblivious to God’s economy, which is based on mutual blessing, not competition for blessing. As long as we have the mindset of competition for blessing, we will be tempted to push others down in our scramble to raise ourselves up.
We have yet to learn as a human race that blessing is as abundant as air and sunlight. There is more than enough for all.

Mutual blessing is God’s plan (see The God of Israel and Christian Theology, by R. Kendall Soulen). It is the plan announced to Abraham and those who encounter Isaac could benefit from it. But they choose competition instead, barring him from access to community wells and watering spots. They seek to keep all the blessing for themselves as if the formula is “I will bless you when you bless yourself.” But God’s mutual blessing formula actually goes like this: “I will bless those who bless you.” It is further reflected in the words of Jesus (“bless those who curse you,” Luke 6:28) and Paul (“bless and do not curse,” Romans 12:14).

The world never runs out of beauty, though clouds and other dark passings obscure that beauty sometimes temporarily. Just as we need not fear an oxygen shortage because all of our neighbor’s are breathing it, we never need to fear blessing will run out. It is in blessing others that we find blessing for ourselves. The very act of blessing others changes us, changes what we consider to be a blessing, and the cycle of mutual blessing grows and grows. Success looks like competition to some people, but it looks like giving and enjoying life to others.

God’s plan to redeem the world is based on the promise to Abraham. He will bless those who bless the children of Abraham. And life tends to work so that blessing comes to anyone who blesses others, so that the principle is not merely in the realm of the world’s relationship to the Jewish people. If we all practiced mutual blessing so much more good would exist in the world. As for Isaac, he won’t find peace until he settles in Beersheba. He is wandering and looking for his place of quiet and rest. He does eventually find it. May we as well.

OUTLINE

Isaac’s prosperity and alienation (13-16), more hostility in Gerar (17-22).

OVERVIEW

Ironically, it is the blessing of God that causes Isaac conflict. The local people do not bless Isaac (thus missing out on the mutual blessing aspect of God’s covenant: “I will bless those who bless you”). Pastoralists tend to have conflicts over wells. Since Isaac is not related to any of them, and because of envy, the local clans try to deny him access to water rights for his flocks.

The story of Abraham’s descendants will not be one without conflict. Even blessing can bring on persecution. Isaac does not respond to conflict with violence or any kind of force. He moves on peacefully. God can bless him anywhere. Eventually he finds a temporary place to recover from the conflict at Rehoboth (meaning “wide place”). In the next narrative, God will reaffirm the promise in light of the difficulties Isaac is experiencing.
SPOTLIGHT

Abimelech realizes what others could not. Isaac has moved away from Gerar to Beersheba because his neighbors feared his wealth and the obvious greatness that surrounded him. Abimelech sees that friendship with Isaac will bring blessing and not harm. So he offers a covenant of peace.

As for Isaac, at last he has found his place of rest. He digs his own well. His wanderings are over. אַל־תִּירָא ‘al-tirah, “Fear not,” says God. Isaac had been fearful and restless. But it is God’s intention to bring him to a place of quiet and peace. כִּי־אִתְּךָ אָנֹכִי ki-itcha ‘anochi, “For I am with you,” meaning “You will be able to see that I am influencing the outcome of your life.” וּבֵרַכְתִּיךָ uveirachticha, “And I will bless you.” The abundant reality of blessing will cover Isaac’s life.

What can we say about the peace and quiet that Isaac found, while many of us are looking for it too? Are we destined to find it as he did? Eventually, yes. But in the short term, there is no guarantee. Time and chance, it seems, happen to us all. There is blessing and curse all around us. Now is not the time when God’s economy takes over. This present world — the Olam Hazzeh — is not yet the place of peace and perfection that we seek. But Olam Haba — the world to come — is our destiny.

Meanwhile, the lesson from the patriarchs for living in Olam Hazzeh is still that blessing others brings us blessing. Isaac had a special outcome from God, as someone God used to show what blessing looks like. He enjoyed many happy years in Beersheba. Whatever may be the outcome of the rest of the years we spend in Olam Hazzeh, it will be better if we learn to see the blessing all around us and spread it to others.

OUTLINE

Isaac moves to Beersheba (23), the Lord appears and reaffirms the Abrahamic promise (24-25), Abimelech affirms Isaac’s blessedness and makes a covenant (26-29).

OVERVIEW

Isaac had lived at Beersheba before with his father, right after the near sacrifice of his life in Moriah (22:19). Returning here now placed him further outside of Abimelech’s territory. At this stressful point in his life, the Lord reaffirms the promise of the covenant in a dream vision (as was the usual method with Abraham). God had said “fear not” once before, to Hagar, also at Beersheba, in response to Ishmael’s crying out. Now Isaac hears the comforting words of God in the same place as his brother (Sarna).

The Abrahamic covenant is reaffirmed and immediately afterwards its power is made evident. Abimelech, in kingly wisdom, recognizes that Isaac is no ordinary pastoralist. The blessing of God is evident to Abimelech in Isaac’s clan and he wishes to make a covenant of equals with this raiser of flocks. A king and a sheep-herder make a covenant as equals, a picture of the mutual blessing God had promised in the covenant (“I will bless those who bless you”).
SPOTLIGHT

Why are there two versions of the Beersheba story? In the northern kingdom they told it one way (Genesis 21:22-34). Abraham kept the peace with a local king, and when there was a conflict over rights to a well, Abraham gave an offering of a feast. His act of generosity was a way to show his integrity. Some of Abimelech’s people had acted badly. Abimelech swore they were not acting under orders. Abraham cut through the confusion and mistrust with a generous gift. He made a covenant and attested under the oath of that covenant that he and his servants had dug the well. And this happened in Beersheba, a town whose name means “well of the oath,” but could also mean “well of the seven.” And Abraham’s covenant gift was seven lambs.

Beyond that, Abraham also planted a tamarisk tree to mark a place in Beersheba as a sacred spot for worshipping the God of the covenant.

In the southern kingdom they told it another way (Genesis 26:27-33). Some years after Abraham, his son Isaac, had moved away from Abimelech, trying to put some distance between himself and the people of Abimelech who quarreled with him about water rights. But Abimelech came to Isaac, in a move that could signal war. It was not war, however, that motivated Abimelech, but a recognition that God was with Isaac. He came to offer Isaac a covenant, a bilateral treaty. They feasted and exchanged oaths and there was peace.

On the morning Abimelech was leaving, Isaac’s servants came to him to report that they had succeeded in digging a well. Isaac named the well “Shibah” (which means “oath”), because he had just made an oath of peace with Abimelech. This, according to the southern kingdom’s version of the story, is how Beersheba got its name.

These stories about the ancestors were passed down orally and over time different versions arose. The Torah, edited and collated by some later editor, perhaps Ezra the scribe, contains both versions of the Beersheba story. The greatness of the ancestors was the stuff of legend and meaningful place names (Beersheba, well of the oath) were fertile ground for stories. It would be impossible now to say if both stories were true, one or the other, or neither.

But both stories concern two things of value to ancient Israel: a connection to the patriarchs and peace with the nations surrounding Israel. As Second Isaiah said to a generation more than a thousand years after the patriarchs, “Look to Abraham your father and to Sarah who bore you” (Isa 51:2). The old promises are connected to the future ones. When we feel like all is meaningless and our hope is lost, we should remember a covenant promise continues to move through history and all of us, Jew and non-Jew, are connected to it.

OUTLINE

A feast celebrating the covenant (27-31), a well called Shibah (32-33), Esau marries a Canaanite and embitters Isaac and Rebekah (26:34-35), Isaac near death asks Esau for some game (27:1-4) Rebekah plots and has Jacob masquerade (5-25), Isaac gives Jacob the blessing for the eldest (26-27).

OVERVIEW

Given his desire to find a place of quiet and rest, it seems Isaac has arrived. A king has come to him bringing a covenant of peace and the celebration of that treaty marks the beginning of a long time of blessing for Isaac in Beersheba.

There are two versions of the story behind the name of the place, Beersheba, one in Genesis 21:22-34 and one here in 26:27-33. The former is the E source’s version of the story (E wrote from Shiloh sometime before Assyria destroyed the northern kingdom in 722 BCE) and places the naming account of Beersheba in Abraham’s lifetime. Here in 26:27-33 we have the J version, written in Jerusalem also before the northern kingdom was destroyed. The J source locates the naming of Beersheba in Isaac’s lifetime. The stories are actually somewhat incompatible: did Isaac or his father swear an oath concerning a well, thus giving the town its name? Both stories are also artfully written. Beersheba means “well of the oath,” and both stories prominently feature a well and an oath. Furthermore, “sheba” (sheva) also means seven, and the names of Abraham and Abimelech occur exactly seven times in the E as well as the J version of the story. We see here a window into the story-telling traditions of Israel and the final version of the Torah includes both well-known accounts, even with their discrepancies, about the origin of Beersheba’s name.

Meanwhile, the saga of Jacob and Esau begins to develop. Esau chooses a path of assimilation into Canaanite society, causing his parents grief. After all, Esau’s grandfather had gone to great expense sending a servant up into Syria to find Rebekah so Esau’s father would not marry into the local population. Esau’s passionate and impetuous nature endangers the ongoing distinctiveness of the Abrahamic clan. This story line sets up the grief of Isaac and Rebekah over their son and the eventual plotting of Rebekah to supplant him with Jacob in the family inheritance.

Again, J is artful in the telling of the story about Jacob stealing the blessing. The word blessing occurs seven times and the verb form twenty-one times (Sarna). The father’s blessing was expected to prefigure the future. If Jacob is to be the one who will carry on the family name and the covenant with God, then it seems to Rebekah her son must have the father’s blessing. The story of Jacob’s life is a tension between his ambition and ignorance of divine providence and God’s lovingkindness to him in spite of these flaws. The wrestling with God story will bring these tensions to a climax. Jacob steals what God is going to give him anyway (see 25:23).
SPOTLIGHT

“Dew of heaven” (טַּל הַשָּׁמַיִם tal hashamayim). “Fatness of the earth” (שְׁמַנֵּי הָאָרֶץ shemanei ha’aretz). These are the ordinary blessings of life and Isaac’s blessing very much fits the viewpoint of a desert dweller, a man who has made his living in harsh places. May you never lack water and may you eat abundant food, is what the blessing amounts to. We might imagine a blessing beginning with something more extravagant. We might hope for a future good fortune filled with some more elevated promise: perhaps wealth or unrestrained joy. Sensible Isaac wishes food and water on his son.

But Isaac’s blessing does move on to some weightier promises for the future of the Jewish people. יַעַבְדוּךָ עַמִּים וְיִשְׁתַּחֲווּ לְךָ לְאֻמִּים ya’avducha ‘ammim veyishtachavu lecha le’umim, “May peoples serve you and nations bow down before you.” This sounds very much like the divine promises recorded in the later parts of the book of Isaiah, which were written during and after Judah’s exile in Babylon (586 BCE and later). It is a very nationalistic promise and it sounds as if it could be based merely on the desire of a people to dominate over others.

Yet the meaning of the covenant with Abraham, the promises that all the families of the earth will find blessing in and through his offspring, is not about domination per se. It is about a torah of peace (a teaching that makes peace) spreading to the nations who come to the people of Abraham to receive it.

Isaac’s blessing undeniably has a sense of wishing dominance upon the son who receives it (“be lord over your brothers”). And so the wish that nations will serve Israel may also be taken to some degree in that light. Perhaps here we see the mix of human desires (dominance) with a larger meaning that Isaac himself may not have fully comprehended (God’s plan of mutual blessing for Israel and the nations of the earth). Scripture is both human and divine.

“Blessed be everyone who blesses you.” True blessing will come to the people of the world through the children of Jacob, the offspring of Israel. At least part of the meaning of this theme in the Hebrew Bible is that the God of Israel will be revealed to the nations through the children of Israel. Scripture and Messiah come to the world through the Jewish people. More than that, blessing comes to those who bless and do not curse. It comes to those who humbly and gratefully recognize and receive the greater dew of heaven and fatness of the earth. Human beings do not live on bread alone, but by every word from the mouth of God.

OUTLINE

Isaac’s blessing over Jacob (28-29), Esau’s return and anguish (30-38), Isaac’s leftover blessing for Esau (39-40), Rebekah’s plan to save Jacob (27:41-46), Isaac blesses and sends Jacob after a wife (28:1-4).

OVERVIEW

When you live in a semi-arid region, dew is an important source of moisture, opening up grasses in the morning for your animals to eat and even providing them some water (Sarna). Therefore the dew-blessing Isaac pronounces over his son is most appropriate for their lifestyle. The meaning is that his son will always have a life-giving supply. Jewish tradition carries this blessing on, since in the Jewish prayerbook dew is mentioned alongside rain as a vital request.

The blessing over Jacob is clear and unambiguous, that God would give him plentiful dew and rain. But the same cannot be said about the blessing over Esau. Its wording is vague, uncertain (Sarna). English translations of vss. 39-40 may miss the subtlety of this ambiguity. מִשְׁמַנֵּי הָאָרֶץ יִהְיֶה מוֹשָׁבֶךָ mishemanei ha’aretz yihyeh mōshavecha, “From the fatness of the earth will be your dwelling.” Does this mean “away from,” as in Esau will live in harsher lands, or “from” meaning he will dwell in the place of feasting? Sarna (JPS Commentary) argues that the blessing is deliberately ambiguous, so that Esau himself may decide if it is a blessing or not.

But there is no denying that Esau’s blessing has a negative side. It lacks the key words “may God give you.” Furthermore, the blessing predicts a yoke and a sword for Esau.

Isaac has given the best already to Jacob and no love for Esau can change the fact that he has nothing more to give. Still, the hopeful aspect of Esau’s blessing is that he will someday throw off the yoke of Jacob. Historically, David and Solomon subjugated Edom, but in the days of Jehoram and Amaziah Edom revolted and freed itself from the Judea yoke. By the time of Ahaz, Judah even lost the port of Elath (Eilat, see 2 Sam 8:13-14; 1 Kgs 11:14-22; 22:48; 2 Kgs 8:20-22; 14:7; 16:6). The story does not end there. Rebekah wants more for Jacob still. When she complains about Esau’s Canaanite wives, Isaac calls Jacob to him and blesses him again. This time, with full intention of extending blessing to Jacob, the aging patriarch expresses clearly that what had come through Abraham will now go through Jacob.
SPOTLIGHT

His is the tragedy of the unchosen. Once the favorite son of his father, a manly man, Esau has fallen into disfavor and lost everything he once held dear. The tragic chapters in his story are a combination of his poor choices and treacherous acts committed against him through the collusion of his mother and brother.

In his youth Esau had sold his birthright, trading his future right to a greater share of the inheritance, based on his immediate need for food. This pattern seems to fit with his later actions as well. He has earned a reputation in writings about the Bible as an impetuous man, short-sighted, weakened by his drives for immediate satisfaction.

Also in his youth, Esau took two wives from the local population. There is no story given to the reader about how Esau came to make this choice. The note, like Esau’s faculty for decision making, is short. Rebekah was grieved by these wives, perhaps for more than one reason. It was her wish to see her sons marry into the Abrahamic clan in Syria, where Isaac had come to find her. Perhaps there was also more to it, either a foreignness to these wives that made them incompatible with Isaac’s clan or something more. Maybe Esau had chosen badly and the wives were of poor character.

Then Esau was the victim of inter-family plotting. He had done enough to alienate his mother, but perhaps even so he did not deserve the cruel conspiracy that deprived him of his father’s deathbed blessing. When he discovered that Rebekah and Jacob has deceived his father into giving the blessing to Jacob, Esau’s cry of grief was palpable: “Have you not reserved a blessing for me?”

How will Genesis answer this question? Will the rejected son wither and die a miserable example of God’s terrible justice? Is the moral of the story that if we fail in our youth to recognize the importance of an inheritance in God’s plan we are doomed to live meaningless lives?

Not at all. We will see shortly in the narratives, after Jacob’s struggle to find his own identity and to discover God’s ways, that Esau has been every bit as richly blessed with the fatness of the earth and the dew of heaven as Jacob. In fact, it is Jacob who will fear for his life and carry a soul-killing anxiety. Esau, like Ishmael, may have been rejected in some sense, not the chosen scion of the line that will continue the Abrahamic blessing. But both he and Ishmael were exceedingly blessed, perhaps as a sign to us thousands of years later that God has many places in his plan.

OUTLINE

Jacob goes to Paddan-Aram (5), Esau sees and takes an Ishmaelite wife (6-9).

OVERVIEW

To the north, in Syria, there is a valley that was once called Aram-Naharaim (“Syria of the two rivers”) and within that region was Paddan-Aram (“the garden of Syria”). This was the home of Laban, near Haran, where the clan of Terah (Abraham’s father) settled. This is where Abraham’s servant came to find a wife for Isaac and it is where Jacob now travels, urged on by his mother. Rather than marry into the Canaanites, which is to be avoided not because the Canaanites were “bad” or “evil,” but because of the danger of the Abrahamic clan assimilating and disappearing onto the local populace, Jacob will marry among his cousins.

Just as the narrative of the stolen blessing was preceded by a side note concerning Esau’s wives (26:34-35), so the story of Jacob’s time with Laban is preceded by a digression into Esau’s story and his wives (Sarna). The effect of these short summaries is to make Esau a real character and not simply a foil for Jacob. Esau’s tragedy is felt by the reader. He has received a bitter lot and tries to make amends for his impulsive ways by taking yet another wife. This time he chooses a wife from the Ishmaelite clan. This, of course, does nothing to change the fact that Esau is now the scion of the rejected line of the family. His is the tragedy of the unchosen.
SPOTLIGHT

How the understanding of God’s nature has declined from the time of Abraham to his grandson, Jacob! Abraham showed evidence time and time again of understanding that the whole earth is God’s domain. Hearing God from Syria, Abraham responded to his call. Finding good places to put down temporary roots, Abraham made places of worship in Canaan. Standing and speaking with a human being who was more than a human being, Abraham said, “Will not the Judge of all the earth do what is right?”

From that lofty understanding of God as being everywhere and being over all things, the clan of God’s promise has descended now to Jacob who saw a dream vision of God at Bethel and thought to himself, אֵין זֶה כִּי אִם־בֵּית אֱלֹהִים ein zeh ki ‘im-beit Elohim, “This is none other but the house of God!” In his diminished idea of the scope of God’s power and rule, Jacob thinks he has accidentally or by luck stumbled upon the local place where the God of his grandfather has dominion.

God plays along. The very dream that God has shown to Jacob is a sort of Bronze Age version of what a deity might look like. In Mesopotamia, where Jacob’s ancestors are from, the gods are worshipped at pyramid-like structures called ziggurats. The main feature of a ziggurat is a staircase leading to the pinnacle. The ziggurat and its staircase are a sort of gate or portal between heaven and earth, between the realms of gods and men. The gods and their messengers use the stairways to do business between heaven and earth. Similarly ladders or stairways between heaven and earth feature (literally or symbolically) in the literature of Egypt and the Hittites. Thus, in the dream God sent to Jacob, he appears as a deity atop a stairway (the usual translation of סֻלָּם sulam as “ladder” could just as easily be “stairway”). God’s messengers (a word usually translated angels, though it means messengers) travel up and down the stairway doing divine business between the two realms.

Jacob’s Bronze Age thinking falls far short of the reality of the greatness of the Greatest Being that Is. אִם־יִהְיֶה אֱלֹהִים עִמָּדִי ‘im-yihyeh Elohim ‘imadi, “If God will be with me,” he says. Jacob isn’t putting all his hopes in this deity who appeared to him. He will go up into Syria on a quest for a wife and when he returns, if this god has blessed him, Jacob will make offerings.

What are we to make of this story? God, it seems, is willing to work with people who are not “right” about theology. He meets halfway a person who is seeking the blessing of his grandfather, someone who is far from being a devout servant of heaven. This is a pattern we see again and again in the Bible. It is people, especially religious people, who insist that God helps only people who know truth or people who do the right things. The God of the Bible is far from a purist demanding rightness. He gently keeps alive the spark of good and truth in his children and nurtures such sparks into burning hearts.

OUTLINE

Jacob’s dream at Bethel (10-12), the Lord promises that in Jacob the covenant promises will be realized (13-15), Jacob thinks the place is sacred (16-17), Jacob makes a standing stone and vows to the Lord (18-22).

OVERVIEW

Several elements of Bronze Age thinking are evident in the story. The word for stairway (or ladder) is derived perhaps from the verbal root “to cast a mound” or from the Akkadian for steps (Sarna). It reflects the general idea, found in more than one element of Ancient Near Eastern culture, of a gateway between the realm of the gods and men. In Egyptian and Hittite literature, we know of a ladder sometimes available to the dead in the underworld to climb to earth or to heaven. The Babylonian pyramid-like mounds known as ziggurats featured a stairway symbolizing a gateway to the realm of gods.

Also, Jacob, upon having this dream, thinks like a pagan, that he has found the home ground of the local deity of his father Abraham, as if the Lord is the God of Bethel. He makes a standing stone altar (something later forbidden, Lev 26:1) and vows to God. In terms of the development of Jacob’s character, this story reveals him as tentative in faith (“if I return safe”) and seeking to buy favor instead of receiving it as freely given. Jacob does not understand grace, the unmerited assurance of the promise to his family.
SPOTLIGHT

Life isn’t black and white. Curses are not without their blessings and blessings are not without their cursed elements. Tension seems to be the governing principle. Life is a tension and blessing and curse hang in the balance.

Jacob made a deal with God at Bethel, “If God will be with me . . . then Adonai will be my God” (Gen 28:20-21). Now, seemingly, Jacob finds his first example of God being with him. He finds and falls in love immediately with the first woman he encounters in Paddan-Aram. But will this be as simply and linear of a journey to a happy ending as Jacob may hope at this point?

Of course not. Complicating his love affair with Rachel will be the scheming of her father Laban and the predicament of her older sister, Leah. In a drama that was Shakespearian before Shakespeare, the pathos of rejected Leah will play out and the sadness of Rachel who, though beloved, is barren. Laban and Jacob will try to get the better of one another. Two women, each with their own tragic situation, and two men, striving to win against each other, this tale is blessing and woe mixed together.

No doubt the storytellers who passed down the saga of wandering Jacob were commenting on the nature of human life. The warp of our lives is blessing and the woof is curse and we try to keep it all from unraveling. Like Jacob, we strive to understand the mystery of God. Will he ultimately bless us? Can we trust him? Shall he be “our God”?

OUTLINE

Jacob comes to the well in Haran (1-3), conversation at the well (4-8), Jacob rolls away the stone when he sees Rachel (9-11), Jacob is received by Laban with joy (12-14), Laban asks Jacob what wages he will require to serve him (15-17).

OVERVIEW

The scene of a man wooing or conversing with a woman at a well is a stock scene in the Bible. We have seen it already with Abraham’s servant and Rebekah. Now we see it with Jacob and Rachel. It will come around again with Moses and Zipporah and also in the New Testament scene with Yeshua and the woman of Samaria. Wells were a scene of social interchange in the semi-arid climates of the Near East.

The stone at the well figures prominently in this story, connecting it with the one that came before in which Jacob laid his head on a stone and made an altar out of it (Sarna). Jacob thought a stone had something to do with his good fortune (he laid his head on it and it seemed to him he awakened the god of Bethel).

Now, this stone at the well in Paddan-Aram is one the locals put over the opening to the well and its purpose is to keep outsiders from coming and easily taking water. The locals say they are waiting for men to arrive and move the stone so they can water their flocks. But when Jacob sees Rachel, he is moved with love and so, fittingly, he moves the stone without help (Moses will similarly distinguish himself as strong at the well in Exodus 2).

The motif of a stone shows how Jacob is experiencing blessing, hearing from and worshipping God and then finding a woman like his mother who will be the love of his life. The story of Jacob’s wooing of Rachel is set up with the usual customs of hospitality and matchmaking. Yet there is a problem, since Leah is the older sister and custom dictates a match for her before Rachel. Jacob’s blessings are not without tension.
SPOTLIGHT

Some call it karma. Others call it measure for measure justice. Some just say, “What comes around goes around.”

Jacob gets some comeuppance from the universe. Having disguised himself as Esau to blind Isaac on his deathbed, Jacob certainly deserves some karma. He meets his nemesis in the equally crafty and deviously competitive Laban.

But, assuming God is in some way behind the events that shape the lives of the characters, we might ask if the Judge of all the earth carries out measure for measure justice in a vengeful way. Is there a law that every bad action must have its balancing penalty.

But we note in the ongoing story of Jacob that this all works for his good. Leah, whom he would never have married given free will in the matter, is mother to Levi and Judah, the two most important tribes. Though Rachel is the prized wife, the object of his desire and love, Leah bears the most children and the ones whose lives will be the most significant in Israel’s later history.

More than that, we see how Jacob’s life is gradually transformed by his time with Laban. The trickster matures and comes to some realizations about life through these trials. By the end of Jacob’s story we can look back and see that God was not cursing him, but blessing him.

Divine discipline is restorative, not retributive. That is, God gives us doses of karma to help us ascend from the ashes, not so we will burn and die. Rehabilitation and redemption are God’s plan, not endless suffering.

OUTLINE

Jacob’s seven years for Rachel (18-20), Laban deceives by giving Leah instead (21-25), Jacob obligates himself seven more years for Rachel (26-30), Leah’s four sons (29:31-35), Bilhah’s two sons (30:1-8), Zilpah’s two sons (9-13).

OVERVIEW

The story of Jacob’s many years of labor for his beloved Rachel is interesting for the window it provides on customs, for its literary themes, and for revealing the origins of the tribal patriarchs.

The seven years of labor is to pay the bride price, a custom known from a number of cultures. Only in Jacob’s case we could wonder why Isaac did not pay it, since Abraham had already paid it for Isaac according to 24:53 (Sarna).

A marriage of cousins seems odd to us, but some nomadic cultures practice it as a way to preserve the clan (Sarna).

The unusual tale of Leah being substituted for Rachel on the wedding night suggests the possibility the bride was veiled on her wedding bed. In 24:65, Rebekah had put on her veil as she and the servant were about to see Isaac for the first time. Nahum Sarna says that there is evidence in Ancient Near Eastern texts for the custom of veiling.

In 29:27, Jacob complains the next morning when he discovers Laban’s deceit. We have already been told he completed seven years of labor for the bride price (vs. 21). So what does Laban mean when he says “complete the week for this one”? According to Nahum Sarna, this reflects a custom of celebrating the wedding for a week, probably with daily feasting and guests invited. So after seven days of his marriage to Leah, Jacob takes Rachel as his second wife and must work another seven years.

The literary power of this story is heightened when the reader realizes Jacob has become the victim of his own trick. Having pretended to be Esau, he is now on the receiving end of a similar deception. But God’s providence is behind it all (Sarna). Leah, whom he would not have married, bears Levi and Judah, the two most important tribes.
SPOTLIGHT

Life can’t be manipulated. Some things are changeable while others are inevitable. Once we begin obsessing with the outcome, it may already be too late. But as we live through joys and disappointments, we want to know, will God remember us?

Genesis turns to the story of two women with two different sadnesses. They are the mothers of Israel and their lives included deep hurt. Leah was the rejected wife, the one who had to hire her own husband to get him into bed. Rachel was the desired wife, but she was unable to conceive a child.

Behind this struggle and sadness was Jacob, a grasper who tried to manipulate life to find blessing and who strove with Laban. Jacob wasn’t deliberately cruel, but his maneuvering and struggle poured over into the lives of his women. The author of Genesis skillfully draws us into their bitter struggle for affection and meaning in life. Rachel’s unfulfilled desire is to have a child. Leah’s is to be wanted.

If they both could see from the larger view how their lives would be viewed today, they would understand how blessed they already were. The mothers of Israel lived in sadness, not realizing they were to be the mothers of Israel.

Rachel tried bargaining for some mandrakes, as if a fertility potion could eliminate her deepest sadness. But the mandrakes became the bargaining tool through which Leah hired her husband to sleep with her and by which she bore three children. The author seems to be making the point that God, not magic, is the means by which the course of our lives will ultimately be determined. Those parts of life which are unchangeable, things like the day on which we will die or when forces beyond our control will bring us blessing or curse, these things lie in mystery with God’s unseen purpose.

But we read of Leah, וַיִּשְׁמַע אֱלֹהִים אֶל־לֵאָה vayshma’ Elohim el-Leah, “And God listened to Leah.” And we read of Rachel, וַיִּזְכֹּר אֱלֹהִים אֶת־רָחֵל vayizkōr Elohim et-Rachel, “And God remembered Rachel.”

Leah prayed and God gave her children. Rachel did not pray, but God did the same. Who can understand the mysteries of destiny and divine providence? It seems, behind it all, one thing we can count on is the kindness of God — both to those who ask for it and those who don’t.

OUTLINE

Bargaining over mandrakes (14-15), Leah earns the marriage bed for mandrakes and bears two sons and a daughter (16-21), God remembers Rachel and she bears a son (22-24), Jacob seeks to leave wily Laban (25-27).

OVERVIEW

A mandrake (mandragora officinarum) is a small plant with yellow fruit and a long root which in some cases splits in two and resembles the shape of a human body. The plant has long had associations with fertility, as can be seen by one particular nickname for the goddess Aphrodite, “lady of the mandrake” (Sarna). They are mentioned also in the Bible’s long ode to romantic love, Song of Songs (7:13-14).

Rachel thinks these will end her barrenness, but in a twist of destiny, the dealmaking over the mandrake plants actually leads to three more children for Leah. But when Rachel does have a son, the author tells us it is because God “remembered” her.

Rachel is the desired wife, but her sadness is infertility. Leah’s sadness, on the other hand, is more painful. She has to “hire” her husband to get him into bed.

The striving between wives is a tragic note in the tale of two graspers, Laban and Jacob, whose manipulations have trapped these women in a bitter struggle for affection. Jacob seeks now to part with Laban, but Laban can sense that God’s blessing, the blessing of Abraham, is with Jacob. Even outsiders can see the Abrahamic blessing if they look for it.
SPOTLIGHT

God comes to us not only as the Great Power of the universe, but also as the personal God who has made himself known in our lives. אָנֹכִי הָאֵל בֵּית־אֵל ‘anōchi ha’El Beit-El, “I am the God of Bethel,” God said to Jacob in a dream. He was reminding the struggling trickster of the earlier incident, when Jacob was fleeing the land in the terror of Esau and in hopes of finding a wife in Syria. Jacob had a dream vision at Bethel of God atop a stairway between heaven and earth.

This incident in Jacob’s life was pivotal. אֲשֶׁר מָשַׁחְתָּ שָּׁם מַצֵּבָה אֲשֶׁר נָדַרְתָּ לִּי שָׁם נֶדֶר ‘asher mashcheta sham matzeivah asher nadarta li sham neder, “Where you anointed a pillar-stone and vowed to me a vow.” We have all had conversations with heaven (the universe, the God of our understanding) and many have done so during a time when our conception of God was immature and when the struggle of life was pressing on us.

God reminds Jacob of his earlier understanding, calling him back to an impulse to reach out to heaven for the good that he seeks. If we all look at our lives, we can see how the desire for true goodness has been there are key times in our lives. It is a desire above all desires, seeking true joy and believing against hope that somehow the universe can provide what we see in our dreams.

These moments of desire for something better are not wasted dreams. They are not foolish. They are what God intended for us and intends for us.

The times in our lives when we remember the aspirations of our youth, when we recall a yearning for true goodness and blessing, when we reach for it from the depths of our soul, these are holy moments. Jacob is on a path to growth, one that will lead him to face the greatest fear of his life and overcome it. The power of God is not something we always recognize, but it comes to us in strange ways.

OUTLINE

Laban turns Jacob’s intent to leave into a negotiation (28-34), Laban manipulates the condition of the flock to minimize Jacob’s portion (35-36), Jacob uses magical means (or pretends) to manipulate the flock (30:37-43), Jacob prepares to leave Laban (31:1-9), Jacob seeks his wives’ consent to leave and relates two dreams from God (10-14), Rachel and Leah also wish to leave their dishonest father (15-16).

OVERVIEW

Laban has grown richer with Jacob’s skillful work over the flocks. Like his grandfather, Abraham, Jacob is a skillful herdsman. Also like him, Jacob has the blessing of God so that the very laws of nature are bent in his favor.

When Jacob’s service is over, Laban offers him a deal to stay. Yet Laban intends to manipulate God’s blessing on Jacob and make it work out in his favor. In the ancient world view, the power of the gods could be manipulated by clever human beings and it was even possible to deceive deities.

Jacob, of course, fully expects this and has his own plan. The first part of the plan is related in 30:37-43 and involves magical means (rods of wood at the trough). Jacob, like Laban, thinks the way to win this contest of cleverness is to manipulate the universe to make the outcome work in his favor. But Jacob already has what he wants before he tries to interfere with destiny. He continues to lack understanding of the covenant promises.

What is really happening behind the scenes is uncovered in a revelation through a dream in 31:8-12. It is God, not magic, that has been blessing Jacob with newborn goats and sheep that will belong to him and not to Laban.

Some interpreters (Sarna, for example) want to find a naturalistic (scientific) explanation for Jacob’s use of peeled branches at the watering trough. But given what we know about magical beliefs in the ancient world and also seeing that Jacob has shown evidence of adhering to cultural beliefs about gods and the universe, it should be no surprise that he would turn to magic.

On the other hand, at some point, through dreams, Jacob became aware that it was God who was providing him with the goats and lambs. Was Jacob hedging his bets and using magic as well as trusting in God’s providence? The interplay of magic and divine providence has already been a theme (the story of the mandrakes). Whatever Jacob may or may not believe, the reader knows that God’s providence is what brought him blessing.
SPOTLIGHT

It is easy for modern readers to miss comedy in the Bible. To grasp the comic aspect of this story, the reader needs to understand impurity (uncleanness) as a concept not only in Israel, but in the Near Eastern world. The laws of clean and unclean (pure and impure) in the Torah are not inventions of the Bible, but relate to the larger culture of the Near East.

If something is “impure” (unclean), it is not “morally wrong.” Rachel does not know Torah, but it is evident from this story that in her culture menstruation is already regarded as unclean (just as it is in Torah, Leviticus 15:19-24). Anything she sits on is regarded as impure temporarily. A man would be reluctant to touch her during her period. Impurity is an abstract concept. To the people of the Near East it may have been a force opening a person up to demonic encounters (demons for them were not “fallen angels,” but shadowy beings capable of causing harm).

Rachel pretends to be in the time of her period and hides the idol stolen from Laban among the items she is sitting on. Laban will not ask her to stand and will not search because of the cultural belief in impurity. It is a perfect strategy of deception.

But it is also high comedy for a narrator who believes idols themselves are impure! This was almost certainly not Rachel’s intent, but the author is deliberately satirizing the status of the idol. Believed to be an item capable of bringing the power of a god to bear on the lives of human beings, the author shows instead the idol being consumed by the power of impurity.

A big part of Torah is a transformative ideology of the true nature of the world and God. The original readers of Torah were susceptible to a thousand superstitions, debilitating fears, and futile dependencies. We are not immune. In this story, the reader knows the source of blessing is God and God alone. Jacob and his wives and family and servants are destined to arrive safely in Canaan, no matter what Laban or anyone else tries to do. There is peace in knowing the end has been decided before the story is over.

OUTLINE

Jacob flees and Rachel steals an idol (17-21), Laban pursues and is warned by a divine dream (22-24), Laban accuses Jacob’s camp of stealing an idol (25-30), Jacob says Laban may kill the thief (31-32), Rachel deceives her father (33-35), Jacob is angry with Laban (36).

OVERVIEW

Sarna thinks possibly Rachel stole the idol to prevent Laban from being able to use divination to find them as they fled. Or perhaps she felt she needed the security of a god to be with her.

Laban’s speech is typical of abusers of others: he plays the victim though he has done worse to Jacob and his daughters. The story emphasizes Jacob’s integrity relative to Laban. Laban’s false accusations include the notion that Jacob forced Rachel and Leah with threats.

Sarna points out the irony of Rachel’s claim to be on her period and thus unclean (ideas of impurity from menstruation predate the Torah): she devalues the idol so much, she sits on it. It is likely Rachel did not intend to make a statement against idolatry, but the narrator does through this story device.
SPOTLIGHT

There is a true country where our blessing lies. For Jacob, that place was Canaan, which later would be called by Jacob’s other name, Israel.

In the Torah, Canaan becomes a liminal place, a land that lies at the boundary between two realms: the natural and supernatural. We see this in the Jacob story in that his exit from the land included an encounter with heavenly beings (28:12, “messengers of God,” usually rendered “angels of God”) and now his reentry is also graced with the appearance of divine messengers: וַיִּפְגְּעוּ־בוֹ מַלְאֲכֵי אֱלֹהִים vayifge’u-vō mal’achei Elohim, “Messengers of God met him.”

Although Torah has been careful to say that God’s power is everywhere and there is no place outside of the domain of heaven, still there is something different about Canaan. It is a place where God’s presence is heightened.

Later in the Torah, the Land, and especially the area immediately surrounding the temple, operates potentially by a different set of laws than those of nature. In the Land itself, if Israel would obey the covenant, the laws of weather will be overruled by divine grace and the ground will become a utopian paradise of abundance. Around the temple, human death is forbidden and any contact with human death is banned from the place. Symbolically the temple grounds represent the lands of Adonai surrounding his palace in supernatural realm, where there is no more death.

If the Land is liminal, being at the boundary between this world and the other one, it means we see a foreshadowing of our true country. God has a place for us beyond the limitations of this place. It so happens that the supernatural will come down over the natural and this present world will be transformed into the world to come. It means we can already see in this world signs of the next one, if we know where to look.

OUTLINE

Laban concedes that Jacob is an equal power (43), a covenant of equals between Laban and Jacob (44-54), Jacob reenters the land encountering angels (32:1-3).

OVERVIEW

Laban has pursued Jacob all the way down to the border of Canaan. There can be no doubt Laban’s intent was hostile. But the “fear of Isaac” (פַּחַד יִצְחָק pachad Yitzchaq, 31:42) has put terror in Laban’s heart, convincing him to respect Jacob as an equal. Sarna observes that the description of Isaac and his relationship with God is double edged. On the one hand, it means Isaac revered God. On the other, it means God put terror in the heart of Isaac’s potential enemies.

Now a thoroughly chastened Laban admits that he is powerless to oppose Jacob. Laban proposes a covenant of non-hostility. Jacob calls the place “mound of witness” (or possibly “mound of treaty”), גַּלְעֵד Gal’eid, a sound-alike for the later place name Gilead. As for a ceremony to accompany this treaty (a kind of covenant that is between equals), Jacob and Laban build an altar and share two covenant meals. Laban provides one meal and Jacob the other.

Sarna notes the consistency of this form with texts about covenants in the period. Also, he argues that this is not likely a late fiction since Aram and Israel were bitter enemies in monarchic times. Laban names two deities, the God of Abraham and the god of Nahor (the Laban clan’s patriarch, see 22:20). He almost certainly is thinking of two separate deities here. Jacob only swears by “the Fear of his father, Isaac” (vs. 53, recalling the earlier use of the term in vs. 42).

Jacob’s return to the land is accompanied by an encounter with angels, just as his leaving the land had been. His coming and going are marked by signs of the divine presence, a visual testimony to him that the covenant blessings are centered in the land.
SPOTLIGHT

Most of the time we are blind to the grandeur, unaware of the mystery, dumb to the glory which has no words. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel talks about other moments, moments of “unmitigated concern,” instances when we “suspend all life-stifling trivialities” and allow ourselves to wonder (God in Search of Man).

Jacob had a moment like that. About to face the greatest fear of his life, all the trivialities which have repeatedly consumed him (such as the necessity of winning) are forgotten. He feels that “unmitigated concern,” facing life for real now, seeing it more clearly perhaps than he has ever before. For the first time in his life he prays for help and admits his smallness.

“I am small from all the lovingkindnesses,” Jacob prayed. קָטֹנְתִּי מִכֹּל הַחֲסָדִים וּמִכָּל־הָאֱמֶת אֲשֶׁר עָשִׂיתָ אֶת־עַבְדֶּךָ qatōnti mikōl hachasadim umikōl-ha’emet asher ‘asita et-‘avdecha, “I am small from all the lovingkindnesses and all the faithfulness which you have done for your servant.” The opening words of the prayer reflect an idiom in Hebrew, using the preposition “from” to mean “compared to.” A better English translation of Jacob’s remarkable prayer would be, “I am small compared to all the lovingkindnesses and all the faithfulness you have shown to your servant.”

Like a man standing with enormous clouds behind him, Jacob saw himself realistically against the boundlessness of infinity. The pressure of fearing his brother opened his eyes to see what was plainly there all along. Truth is not absent from the world. It hides in plain sight.

“I am small compared to all your lovingkindnesses,” could be a prayer worth saying. Perhaps the thought of this prayer could help us see something, a pattern, that has been there all along. It may show us what is likely our future with God too, as we prepare to face our greatest fear: the unstoppable advance of the day of our death.

OUTLINE

Jacob sends word to Esau (4-5), the messengers report that Esau is coming (6), Jacob prepares by dividing into two camps (7-8), Jacob prays (9-13).

OVERVIEW

Jacob is already quite afraid as he reenters the Land, afraid of the brother he twice cheated. The message he sends to Esau downplays his success and the great wealth he brings back (Sarna). He says in vs. 6, literally, “I have an ox, a donkey, a flock, and a slave, and a maidservant.” Jacob’s reasons may include: not wanting to boast to his brother whom he has wronged, not wanting to tempt him to attack, and wanting to surprise him with a large gift.

Then Jacob hears that Esau is coming with 400 men. And we read of his palpable fear: וַיִּירָא יַעֲקֹב מְאֹד וַיֵּצֶר לוֹ vayiyra’ Ya’aqōv me’ōd vayyitzer lō, “Jacob feared greatly and was in distress for himself.” His reaction is twofold. First, he prepares a strategy. Then, for the first time in his life, he prays for help. Jacob has come a long way as a character, arguably being the first character to be developed with some depth in the Bible. The trickster becomes a humbled man praying for God’s help.

English translations smooth out, unfortunately, what turns out to be quite an interesting phrase in Hebrew: קָטֹנְתִּי מִכֹּל הַחֲסָדִים וּמִכָּל־הָאֱמֶת אֲשֶׁר עָשִׂיתָ אֶת־עַבְדֶּךָ qatōnti mikōl hachasadim umikōl-ha’emet asher ‘asita et-‘avdecha, “I am small from all the lovingkindnesses and all the faithfulness which you have done for your servant.” This phrase demonstrates an idiom in Hebrew, using “from” as a comparative word. “Small from all the lovingkindnesses” means compared to them. The enormity that spoke to Jacob was something specific, not just largeness as an existential reality, but the greatness of divine love. He looks now at how his life has played out and sees that it has been God all along.

The two great words of Hebrew Bible ideology are used here together: חֶסֶד (chesed) and אֶמֶת (‘emet). Some English translations would render them “grace and truth” (as in John 1:17). Jacob uses them to describe kindnesses God has shown in his life (chesed) and the way God has faithfully kept his promise (‘emet). He sees now, the way of God with him has been a covenant grant, not a treaty requiring payment from Jacob. The relationship has been one-sided, with God giving again and again.

Now, facing Esau, all these promises seem to be threatened. How will Jacob become mighty in number if Esau destroys him and his family? Jacob has more wrestling to do.
SPOTLIGHT

Do we wrestle with God, truly, or is it actually him wrestling with us?

Jacob sent his servants with large gifts of livestock in successive waves to greet Esau before he, Jacob, would have to encounter him personally. Last he sends his family across the river. The reluctant Jacob is alone on the far bank of the Jabbok at night when God comes in the form of a man to wrestle him.

We tend to read the story backwards. It seems to be Jacob who wrestles all the time with God, trying to squeeze extra drops of blessing from every aspect of life. That may be true, but a more important wrestling has been going on all along: God wrestling with Jacob so that he may, in the words of John Goldingay, “turn Jacob into the man God wants him to be” (Genesis for Everyone: Part II).

Likewise, popular interpretation has gotten backwards the name which God (the wrestling man) gives to Jacob. Israel does not mean “one who wrestles with God,” but rather, “God will prevail.”

The story of the man who wrestles all night with Jacob, it seems, is actually about the limits God imposes on himself in dealing with us and seeking to improve us. He will hurt us, as he puts Jacob’s hip out of socket. He will wrestle with us till dawn, keeping us in distress far longer than we thought we could endure. But he will not, ordinarily, force us to change. We may resist him.

Some think Jacob’s refusal to let go is a virtue. That is the opposite of the story’s message. Jacob needs to stop grasping. In the end, God will always prevail. God seeks to win us, not overwhelm us. But God is the best, the very best, at winning.

Where do we stand? What is it like for us, all alone on the river bank, staring at eternity stretched out before us? How has God been wrestling with us? How will he prevail and when will we just let him?

OUTLINE

The gift for Esau (14-22), Jacob wrestles with a divine figure (23-30).

OVERVIEW

The total number of animals in Jacob’s gift is 550, staggered with space between the groups to increase the surprise or delight in the gift (Sarna).

Jacob’s fear of Esau is evident in this huge tribute. God has so blessed Jacob, he can, in essence, return the fruits of the birthright (double portion of inheritance) to Esau. Jacob himself did not receive any wealth from his father, but paid his own way with Laban during all the years away. So, ironically, though Jacob bought the birthright for lentil stew, there is no evidence he ever actually received it. Meanwhile, Esau, who seemingly lost it for a mere meal of stew, now receives a fortune in livestock that anyone would consider to be a double inheritance!

Still trying to manipulate circumstances to come out in his favor, Jacob has a strategy. He sends the tribute to Esau in waves. Next to last his family proceeds into the Land. Finally, he is left alone on the other side of the Jabbok River, a reluctant, fearful man. And it is now that he is alone that one of the strangest stories in the Bible happens.

The genius of Hebrew narrative is often in its ambiguity and mystery. This wrestling story leads to questions. Is this another incident in which God appears in human form, such as when Abraham debated the “Judge of all the earth” about the fate of Sodom (Genesis 18)? The story is told with deliberate obtuseness. A “man” wrestles with Jacob all night long until dawn. This “man” gives Jacob a new name, much as God gave new names to Abram (Abraham) and Sarai (Sarah). The “man” dislocates Jacob’s hip with seeming ease, the text implying he does it with a mere touch. At the end of the encounter the “man” blesses Jacob (the JPS translation avoids this implication by using a tendentious translation “he took leave of him” instead of “he blessed him”).

Jacob concludes that he has seen “God” face to face. Is he wrong? The number of interpretations of this passage over the years has been plentiful. God. Angel. Man. Himself. A vision of Esau? The angel of Esau? With whom did Jacob wrestle?

The narrative coyly suggests it was, in fact, God. John Goldingay (Genesis for Everyone: Part II) offers some of the best observations. “There is unlikely anything in our experience that gives access to an understanding” of what Jacob experienced, says Goldingay. We may think it is about us wrestling with God (or wrestling with ourselves) about things we want to change in our lives, or avoid completely. But if we read this story as being about God wrestling with Jacob, instead of Jacob wrestling with God, says Goldingay, the story is much richer and more complex.

Why is God wrestling with Jacob, Goldingay asks. God has been wrestling with Jacob all his life, “trying to turn Jacob into the man God wants him to be but failing.” The story, then, may be about the limits God imposes on himself in dealing with us and seeking to improve us. He will hurt us, as he puts Jacob’s hip out of socket. He will wrestle with us till dawn, keeping us in distress far longer than we thought we could endure.

Goldingay observes, “Here is God trying again but succeeding only by cheating, which means the victory is hollow.” God has come to Jacob as a man, and not in the full aspect of his power, because “this makes it a fair fight.” God seeks to win us, not overwhelm us.

As for Jacob, he does not yield. He shows remarkable, but unfortunate, obstinacy in not yielding. The name God gives him, though, should tell us something. Israel does not mean, as some have suggested, “one who wrestles with God,” but rather, “God will prevail.”
SPOTLIGHT

When Jacob answers Esau’s question, “Who are these with you?” his answer betrays the great changes that have happened in his life. “The children with whom God has graced your servant.”

God has graced. חָנַן אֱלֹהִים chanan Elōhim. Someone could object to Jacob’s answer: it is we who procreate and children are the result of the laws of biology. What does God’s “grace” have to do with it? Jacob has reasons to see it differently.

And there is another sign of God’s work in his answer, especially at the end where he refers to himself as “your servant” to his older brother. Jacob has been the one who must win, the grasper, the one who manipulates life in every contest and comes out on top. He is the one who would not let go of the mysterious wrestling stranger, but insisted, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

Now, in many ways changed for the better, Jacob sees himself as Esau’s inferior and looks at his children as gifts from God.

He has learned that good things in life are not guaranteed. The race is not always to the swift. Biology does not automatically reward even the most beloved wife with children. There is a mystery to life and above everything there is a gracious Unseen Power.

That grace became especially evident to him when everything he feared vanished in an instant. Seeing his powerful brother, the one he has cheated and the one he fully expects will want to kill him, Jacob experienced the power of human forgiveness. When Esau saw him, this much-feared older brother ran. He embraced Jacob. And the two of them stood holding each other and weeping.

Sometimes life shows us what the universe is really made of. It generally happens through people. If we reflect well on it, our perspective changes. We become servants and the good things in our lives become gifts.

OUTLINE

Jacob’s reaction to the encounter (31), the custom of not eating the sinew (32-33), Jacob separates the family prior to meeting Esau (33:1-3), Esau greets Jacob with unexpected joy (4-5).

OVERVIEW

After his all-night wrestling session with a stranger who gave him a new name, Jacob is convinced he has encountered God. The name he gives to the place, פְּנִיאֵל Peni’el, means “face of God.” He reacts to the encounter with gratitude for not losing his life: כִּי־רָאִיתִי אֱלֹהִים פָּנִים אֶל־פָּנִים וַתִּנָּצֵל נַפְשִׁי ki rarity Elohim panim el-panim vatinatzeil nafshi, “For I have seen God face to face yet my life is preserved.” It was a general principle believed in ancient times that seeing God would be fatal. Exodus 33:20 says, “You cannot see my face, for a man shall not see me and live.”

Yet God has appeared now, both to Abraham and his grandson, in something more than a vision. Abraham ate a meal with a man who turned out to be a manifestation of God and debated the fate of Sodom with him. Jacob has wrestled all night with him.

Vs. 32 (which is 31 in Christian Bibles) is an unusually vivid bit of narrative description. The narratives in the Hebrew Bible are generally sparse, not filled with much detail. Yet we read in vs. 32, “The sun rose upon him as he passed through Penu’el and he was limping on his hip.” The name of the place, Penu’el, is a variation of the name Jacob has just given the place, Peni’el. Perhaps it was known generally to people as Penu’el and the story about Peni’el is a fanciful origin story. We find Penuel mentioned a number of times later in the Bible, such as in Judges 8:8.

The custom of avoiding meat touching the hip sinew (gid hanasheh) has been specified as involving the sciatic nerve. Kosher meat in some places avoids nearly the entire back half of the animal while in others the nerve is carefully removed so all meat can be enjoyed. The author is clearly writing from some time later in the history of Israel, saying עַד הַיּוֹם הַזֶּה ‘ad hayyōm hazzeh, [as it is] “to this day,” concerning the prohibition of the sciatic nerve. This is one of many notes from the author suggesting Genesis is written at a later point in Israel’s history (later even than the time of Moses, the traditional candidate for authorship).

After all of his fear, the scene of Jacob dividing the camp, being the last to cross the river, and wrestling all night, the scene of the actual meeting with Esau is poignant and unexpectedly happy. There are five active verbs: ran, embraced, falling, kissed, and wept. Instead of violence there is blessing, in keeping with God’s promise. Jacob has clearly been humbled: the one who has sought to win in every contest of life now addresses his brother as a superior.
SPOTLIGHT

Imperfect as we are, we grow and change. Our journey from where we are to where God wants us to be is not a straight line. Nor do we travel there without interruptions and delays.

Jacob lived with the fear of his brother’s wrath, primarily because he stole a father’s blessing. When he met Esau he said, “Please keep my blessing.” Many years have passed by, but the guilt of what he had taken has obviously not been erased. Even though Esau has also become a wealthy man, Jacob feels he must give back the blessing.

Jacob has encountered God in a way no other mortal ever has before or since. Nonetheless seeing Esau is like seeing the face of God to him. Jacob’s struggles with heaven are a mirror of his struggles on earth. What happens in this realm has a corresponding reality in the realm beyond.

Jacob has not changed completely. He deceives Esau once again, politely refusing Esau’s company and pretending that he will visit Esau right away in Seir. But Jacob has no intention of visiting Esau. He is relieved that his brother has not been vengeful, but he remains somewhat afraid. Jacob travels instead to Shechem, where his grandfather Abraham had encountered God.

Upon arriving he builds an altar and calls it “Jacob’s God.” He must give to this God who has blessed him, just as he returned the blessing to Esau. Jacob is rectifying some of the mistakes of his life. He is not perfect, but he has grown. Walking now in his grandfather’s footsteps, Jacob is in a better place.

OUTLINE

The women and children bow to Esau (6-7), Jacob urges Esau to take the blessing (8-11), Jacob separates from Esau (12-16), prolonged stay in Succoth (17), Jacob dwells in Shechem (18-20).

OVERVIEW

Though the major tension of the story has passed, all of Jacob’s fears turning out to be untrue as his brother Esau embraces him, the aftermath of the story hold a few more ironies for the reader. The tribute that Jacob has sent ahead to Esau is a large gift, 550 animals in all. The wording in Hebrew of vs. 11 is artfully ironic: קַח־נָא אֶת־בִּרְכָתִי qach-na’ ‘et-birchati, “Please keep my blessing.” Seeking to pacify his brother and no doubt to ameliorate his own guilt from long years before, Jacob calls his gift the very thing that he stole from Esau.

In vs. 10 Jacob’s words are similarly ironic: כִּי עַל־כֵּן רָאִיתִי פָנֶיךָ כִּרְאֹת פְּנֵי אֱלֹהִים ki ‘al-kein ra’ity faneicha kir’ōt penei Elohim, “for when I saw your face it was as seeing the face of God.” These words are from a man who has just that morning declared, “I have seen the face of God and lived.” Now twice Jacob has seen a face that could bring him death and survived both encounters.

Yet for all this, the ending of the story shows Jacob the trickster is not finished using tricks. Esau urges him to travel to Seir with him and stay as his guest. Jacob makes the excuse that his animals and family are exhausted. He tells Esau they will head slowly toward Seir and meet him there. Esau continues offering generosity, “Let me leave with you some of the men who belong to me.” Jacob talks his way out of this too, implying he will come along to Seir to stay with Esau. But Jacob has no intention of becoming Esau’s guest. He travels instead to Sukkot (often spelled Succoth) and builds a house.

He then journeys on to Shechem, a place where God had appeared to Abraham (Gen 12:6-7). At Shechem, presumably because he knows the story of his grandfather’s encounter, acting at last like his grandfather. Jacob has become a devoted follower of God and calls the altar, “Jacob’s God.”
SPOTLIGHT

Sometimes we have to acknowledge God, acknowledge that he has been near us, that he has brought us to a better place. And acknowledging solely with the mind lacks gravity. Action and a physical change of some kind is best to mark a solemn occasion and a recognition of the connection between the supernatural and the natural realms.

Jacob’s clan is in trouble, having just slaughtered the men of a town out of vengeance. The surrounding towns would quite possibly need to address the threat that Jacob’s family now represents to all of them. Then God appears. “Arise, God up to Bethel.” The divine voice is Jacob’s salvation. And Bethel is not just any place. It is where Jacob had a life-altering encounter with God the first time.

Having learned a few life lessons, Jacob responds with action and a physical change: “Remove the foreign gods in your midst,” he tells his family, “purify yourselves and change your clothes.”

Purify. In ancient cultures this almost always included bathing. It may have included shaving and putting on perfumed oil. Their clothes would be freshly laundered. The act of purification marked the occasion as sacred and recognized the hand of deity in their circumstances.

As for putting away other gods, this had been Jacob’s promise from his earlier encounter at Bethel, when he saw God in a vision with a stairway between heaven and earth.

Physical acts of devotion and recognition honor God and bring peace to our souls. When we leave our relationship with God merely in the domain of mental acknowledgement, our worship is not weighty enough. Giving charity. Purifying. Fasting. Attending a public service. Engaging in extravagant prayer. A random act of kindness. Setting up a memorial. Enacting a ritual. There are many ways of making our devotion something tangible and more real.

OUTLINE

Shechem assaults Dinah (1-7), Hamor and Shechem seek to try to smooth things over with marriage (8-12), Jacob’s sons deceive Hamor’s clan (13-17), Hamor has his men circumcised (18-24), Jacob’s sons slaughter the whole clan (25-29), Jacob is wrathful (30-31), God instructs Jacob to move to Bethel (35:1), Jacob orders all idols put away (2-7), the death of Deborah (8), God appears to Jacob (9-11).

OVERVIEW

The way Dinah’s rape is described is confusing. It is clear that Shechem had non-consensual sex with her since the three verbs describing his assault depict it that way. He took her, lay with her, and raped/shamed her. But then we read that “his soul clung to Dinah” (וַתִּדְבַּק נַפְשׁוֹ בְּדִינָה vatidabaq nafshō bedinah). This is some horrific way of showing love that Shechem has.

Some readers might wonder if this really was a rape. The final verb in vs. 2 is translated in various ways by the English versions: he humiliated her (ESV), lay with her by force (JPS), sexually assaulted her (NET). The verb in question is עָנַה, which in the Piel pattern means to oppress or humiliate. It is used in other contexts for oppression in slavery and also for sexual offenses (see esp. Deut 21:14 and 22:14). Yes, he raped her.

Jacob’s sons are not satisfied with punishing the rapist. They devise a plan that will decimate the entire clan of Shechem’s father Amor. The sons even deceive their father, hiding their plans for mass murder and looting from him. The men of the town are all killed, including Hamor and his son Shechem, and Jacob’s sons take plunder from the surviving women and elderly. It is a cruel vengeance on an entire town for the crime of one man. The sons of Jacob might argue that if the town had dispensed justice on Shechem then the slaughter would not have needed to happen.

Still, Jacob is angry with his sons for their overreaction. He knows that his clan will now be in danger in Canaan, as they will now be regarded as dangerous.

At this point in the story, God appears to Jacob and directs him to move to Bethel, the very place where he had a powerful encounter with God in his youth. Jacob reacts to God’s appearance with a fierce loyalty, directing all his clan הָסִרוּ אֶת־אֱלֹהֵי הַנֵּכָר hasirō et-elohei haneichar, “Remove the foreign gods.” He commands everyone to “purify” (probably meaning to wash and abstain from sex) in preparation for the journey. Clearly in Jacob’s mind this journey represents God saving his family in a crisis and he adds ritual and devotion to the process as an expression of gratitude to God. Sarna (JPS Commentary) observes that this is the first tension between polytheism and the covenant faith in the Bible, as Jacob requires all those in his clan to put away idols. Jacob had sworn to renounce idols if God brought him back to Bethel.

The narrator tells us that a terror fell on the surrounding towns as Jacob traveled. God’s protection was with Jacob in this journey.

35:9 seems confusing, referring to Jacob coming from Paddan-aram (where he lived with Laban) and not mentioning the journey from Shechem. This is part of the nature of the Torah as a combined account of multiple sources. Genesis 34 is thought to be from the J source, 35:1-8 from the E source, and 35:9-15 from the P source (see Richard Elliott Friedman, The Bible with Sources Revealed).

Once he arrives in Bethel, following a note about his beloved nurse, Deborah, dying, Jacob has another vision of God. This time God promises that Jacob will become “an assembly of nations” (קְהַל גּוֹיִם qehal goyim) and that “kings will proceed from” Jacob’s line. This appears to be a hint that Jacob’s family will later split into two nations (Israel and Judah).
SPOTLIGHT

People can never be possessed, no matter how much we desire them. They are always “other” no matter how close we get to them. And the tragedy is, that life often separates people for a variety of reasons. Jacob’s desire for Rachel was probably always greater than her desire for him. She continually eluded him, being the desired wife he could never enjoy as he wanted to (see more in comments below, and I must give credit to a friend for this insight, Drake Dunaway).

Jacob’s sons eluded him as well, trapped in their wicked pursuits of success in ways that made Jacob’s life seem tame by comparison. The story of Jacob’s sorrows and the way the people he loved disappointed him continues all the way through the Joseph saga.

We might be tempted to look at the tragedy we see in our lives and in those of people all around us and conclude there is no hope.

But while people disappoint, the covenant rolls on. Through all of these doleful events and in much gut-wrenching misery, a people will enter Egypt and be liberated. Some desert dwellers will become a nation. A tent-shrine will become a symbol of the connection between heaven and earth. A small city on a hill will become greater than Olympus, as Zion manifests all the dreams of mankind to know God and be joined with him. From this place a misunderstood savior will appear and a tiny movement of followers will see greatness that is yet to come.

Every step of the plan we derive from the biblical authors is fraught with tragedy and misstep and ruin. But the light keeps shining in the darkness and darkness has not overcome it.

OUTLINE

The encounter with God at Bethel (12-15), Rachel’s death (16-20), Reuben’s sin (21-22), Jacob’s sons (23-26), Isaac’s death (27-29), Esau’s line (36:1-19).

OVERVIEW

God reiterates the covenant promises to Jacob at Bethel, the very place of Jacob’s previous vision. The promise will belong to Jacob’s descendants.

Then the author describes God leaving the place and does so in an odd way. וַיַּעַל מֵעָלָיו אֱלֹהִים vaya’al me’alav Elohim, “And God went up from over him.” From this description it does not seem as if Jacob is having another dream, but that the manifestation of God is more tangible. On the other hand, it is possible that the going up is happening in a dream, perhaps going up the stairway Jacob saw earlier.

Jacob stands up a stone and treats it as a kind of altar (or idol) and offers wine and oil on it. He hasn’t received the Torah or been given any instructions on how God is to be worshipped, so the seeming violation of later Torah law is not held against him.

There is some irony about Jacob’s longing for Rachel and the place Bethel, observes Nahum Sarna (JPS Commentary). The first time Jacob came to Bethel he journeyed from there, saw Rachel, and had to be separated from her while working seven years for Laban (plus one more week, due to Laban’s trickery). Now, after the second encounter he is separated from her again. Rachel is the elusive desire of Jacob, the beautiful woman he yearns for and never quite can obtain (credit to a friend, Drake Dunaway, who shared this literary observation in a personal conversation).

When Jacob retells the events of his life later in the book of Genesis (48:3-7), he will tell the story in this same order. He will mention the theophany at Bethel followed by the death of Rachel.

Reuben lays with Bilhah after Rachel’s death to preserve his mother Leah’s supremacy (Bilhah would be a shamed woman after Reuben’s act) and also to assert his claim to dominance in the family (even suggesting that he threatened Jacob’s role as patriarch). The tribe of Reuben was discredited by this act and lost their primacy. Esau’s descendants are listed to show fulfillment of the line of Isaac and the promise of many nations to come from the Abrahamic line.
SPOTLIGHT

History, it seems, has hidden patterns, repercussions from past events spreading across the centuries. Forces we don’t understand are at work in the world. The story of Judah, with its capital in Jerusalem, and Edom, with its capital in Seir, were neighbor nations. Their relationship as nations had once been personal, originating from rival brothers with stories of competition and sorrow.

Long after Jacob’s time, David made war with Edom and reportedly killed thousands of Edomites (2 Sam 8). A bitter survivor named Hadad became a problem later for Solomon (1 Kgs 11).

But the most tragic note of Judah and Edom’s ongoing rivalry happened when Babylon came to destroy Jerusalem. Though we don’t know details, Edom betrayed Judah in some way and aided Babylon in the destruction of everything Judah held dear. The words of Obadiah reflect the bitterness felt in Jerusalem:

“10 Because of the violence done to your brother Jacob,

shame shall cover you,

and you shall be cut off forever.

11 On the day that you stood aloof,

on the day that strangers carried off his wealth

and foreigners entered his gates

and cast lots for Jerusalem,

you were like one of them.

12 But do not gloat over the day of your brother

in the day of his misfortune;

do not rejoice over the people of Judah

in the day of their ruin;

do not boast

in the day of distress.

13 Do not enter the gate of my people

in the day of their calamity;

do not gloat over his disaster

in the day of his calamity;

do not loot his wealth

in the day of his calamity.

14 Do not stand at the crossroads

to cut off his fugitives;

do not hand over his survivors

in the day of distress.

15 For the day of the LORD is near upon all the nations.

As you have done, it shall be done to you”

(Obadiah 1:10–15 ESV)

OUTLINE

The Horites in Edom’s territory (20-30), the Edomite kings (31-39), the clans of Esau (40-43).

OVERVIEW

Edom, the nation that comes from Esau’s descendants, will become a rival nation to Israel in the future. Esau was blessed, as God promised, and saw that the ambiguous blessing of his father (Gen 27:39-40) turned out to be positive. Esau’s offspring did live off the fatness of the land. But they also were, as predicted, a violent nation, a rival to Judah, and at Judah’s low point when Babylon came to destroy, Edom betrayed Judah, Esau betrayed Jacob. History has bitter and ironic notes in it, repercussions spreading across the centuries.

The rather detailed genealogy of Esau and Seir the Horite is important for the later history of Israel.

The note in 36:31 (” before any king reigned over the Israelites”) is additional evidence that the Torah was compiled long after Moses’ time.

The prophetic words from the birth of Esau and Jacob (Gen 25:23, “the older shall serve the younger”) and in Isaac’s blessing (Gen 27:40, “you shall serve your brother”) came true in the days of David (2 Sam 8:2, 13-14; 1 Kgs 11:14-17).
SPOTLIGHT

In the northern kingdom of Israel during the monarchy, they told the story of Joseph. Their version of the story emphasized the greatness of Joseph. But another version was current in the southern kingdom of Judah, emphasizing the transformation of Judah as a man, as a patriarch who gained wisdom through mistakes and a path to redemption. The two versions of the story (from the E source, north, and J source, south) form the Joseph story we now know and love.

It’s a different kind of story than what we’ve seen so far in Genesis, less episodic and more unified. In the beginning, the reader knows Joseph’s dreams are about what will happen and that they are accurate. We also know he was unwise in sharing them. His transformation will be one of maturing and growing wisdom, not so much a moral journey but an experiential one. This is in contrast to Judah, whose journey will be from the moral low of the Tamar episode to the triumphant redemption of a willingness to lay down his life for Benjamin (see below, credit to Drake Dunaway).

Dreams are Joseph’s power. And the hand of God is implicit, not explicit in the story. Unlike Jacob, Joseph does not hear God speak or even see God in his dreams. Nonetheless he credits God with his ability to see and interpret. This is how Israel and Judah came to experience God, not in Abrahamic theophanies, but in silence and faith.

OUTLINE

The Joseph conflict begins (1-4), Joseph’s dreams (5-11).

OVERVIEW

Genesis 37-50 is a different kind of narrative than the earlier parts of the book. To be sure, the typical Genesis section marker (“these are the generations of”) is present in 37:2, but afterward, the usual tropes of Genesis fade away and an extended tale ensues. Although the saga focuses on Joseph as the centerpiece, the character Judah figures prominently (credit to Drake Dunaway, personal conversation on Genesis as a literary text). Given that the patriarchal narrative are a sort of etiology (origin story) for the later situation of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, it makes sense that the story focuses on Joseph (northern kingdom) and Judah (southern kingdom).

The Joseph saga is less episodic and more continuous in its narrative style than the Jacob cycle. In terms of sources, much work has been done to show that the Joseph saga is a combined narrative of parts from two main sources, J and E (J being a writer from the southern kingdom of Judah and E being from Shiloh in the northern kingdom of Israel). Various repetitions and inconsistencies can be seen and relate to the fact that two versions of a famous story of an Israelite ancestor have been combined into one. If anything, the existence of two once-independent but now joined stories, and the likely identification of J and E as the sources, makes the Joseph story more likely (not less) to be based on a kernel of historical truth.

As for 37:1-11, the conflict of the story is brilliantly introduced in a few verses. Joseph was a father’s most-loved among many sons. Joseph gave a bad report on his brothers. They hated him.

The plot thickens as we read of Joseph’s dreams, vivid in detailed imagery and absolutely prescient in foretelling the future the reader knows will surely happen. Nonetheless, it was not wise of Joseph to share these dreams with others. Even his own father berated him for the arrogance with which he related to them the destiny he saw for himself in the dream. The author is, of course, setting up the later part of the story in which Joseph’s unique ability as a seer and interpreter of dreams is the mechanism by which he becomes powerful in Egypt.

The overall meaning of the Joseph saga is not only about Joseph’s rise to power and the relationship of the brothers, but J and E (as well as the Torah’s final editor) saw in this story an ideal understanding of the relationship Israel (the covenant people) could and should have with the nations (imparting the blessing promised to Abraham). God’s role in Joseph’s story has changed from the divine method in the lives of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He appears no more. He speaks no more. Joseph’s experience of God is more like ours, the norm for human dealings with the divine, which is silence.
SPOTLIGHT

The evil impulse is a trickster and we are easily beguiled. Again and again we let emotion stand as the basis for our actions, reacting hastily from a feeling such as anger, jealousy, irritation, shame, fright, or hurt.

The battle in Reuben’s soul over his brothers plan is something we can imagine as readers. We’ve let ourselves give in before to the gang impulse, to the crowd’s evil intent. And like Reuben we’ve felt that immediate feeling of regret, wanting to put on the brakes, a desire to stop before the evil deed is done and we know we will carry guilt for the rest of our lives.

Sometimes, though they seem elementary, the words of Proverbs 1 are what we need to hear. “If they say, ‘Come … let us ambush the innocent …’ my child, do not walk in the way with them.” Reuben will very much regret his part in this and that he did not do more. “Did I not tell you not to sin against the boy?” he will say later to his brothers, “Now there comes a reckoning for his blood!” (Gen 49:22).

His regret will be so deep, he will say to his father, “Kill my two sons if I do not bring him [Benjamin] back to you” (Gen 49:37).

Life is full of regrets. Wisdom is acting from something deeper than an emotional impulse. But it takes time and experience to learn that lesson and apply it.

OUTLINE

Joseph sent to check on his brothers in Shechem (12-14), a man points Joseph to Dothan (15-17), the brothers plot to kill Joseph (18-20), Reuben saves Joseph’s life (21-22).

OVERVIEW

Sarna (JPS Commentary) suggests that this incident takes place not long after the Dinah incident of ch. 34, since Joseph and Dinah are of similar age (30:21-24) and Joseph is now seventeen (37:2). Jacob is perhaps worried about the brothers getting involved in more trouble in Shechem. Joseph either does not know that his brothers despise him or he naively thinks he is safe.

The arrival in Shechem (a five day journey from Hebron) and further journey to Dothan (thirteen more miles northwest) reveals Joseph as obedient and persistent in his duties. By contrast, the brothers are quick to resort to evil.

Reuben tries to save Joseph but has little mastery over his brothers so that he can only partially save him. He later is contrite about his inability to save Joseph (42:22) and offers his two sons’ lives as a promise that he will not fail to protect Benjamin’s life (42:37). The pit they plan to throw Joseph into is a cistern, a reservoir dug into the rock to hold runoff water. Reuben plans to rescue Joseph from the cistern and return him to Jacob, but that plan will go awry.
SPOTLIGHT

Before there was an Exodus, there was an Eisodus. In every mess we want to get out of (exodus) there was a process that brought us into it (eisodus). In some cases we are innocent victims of an external process (as Joseph was). In others, our own actions have unintended consequences that bring us into peril (as the sons of Jacob were responsible for Joseph’s enslavement, so the Israelites ended up in slavery).

What brought Israel into slavery in Egypt was the jealousy of the sons of Jacob when they allowed their brother to be sold into slavery. The irony of destiny is undeniable.

The pattern is simple. In our poverty of soul and smallness we create the situation from which we will eventually need a rescue. In his wealth of spirit and greatness God affects the rescue when the time is right.

The brothers, at least two them, wanted to stop the evil thing from happening. But sometimes when we begin to walk down that road, it comes faster than we imagined. Consequences drop on us like great stones from above. The finality of the ruin we create is staggering at times. Once Joseph is gone, the brothers can only come up with a ruse to deceive their grieving father.

This will become the defining sin of their lives. The sadness of it will make Jacob’s elder days a long sadness. The brothers themselves will not be able to escape the consequences of their actions. They have brought about the Eisodos, the getting into slavery. Their jealousy has consequences they never could have foreseen.

But the way out, Exodus, is already encoded into the events in ways the brothers could never understand. Yes, they put Joseph in a pit and he was sold by some passing nomads. But the final buyer in Egypt was a member of the royal administration. The seeds of a larger deliverance were already planted. When the unbearable sadness of life presses upon us, we need to try and remember, God will deliver his children from all the messes we create.

OUTLINE

The brothers remove Joseph’s robe (23), they cast Joseph in a pit and eat a meal (24-25a), Judah suggests selling Joseph to some passing Ishmaelites (25b-27), passing Midianites sell Joseph to some Ishmaelites (28), Reuben finds Joseph missing and reports it to the brothers (29-30), the brothers deceive Jacob into thinking Joseph is dead (31-35), Medanites (Midianites?) sell Joseph to Potiphar in Egypt (36).

OVERVIEW

This part of the Joseph story shows the most signs of being a composite account, the result of bringing two versions of the Joseph story together into one unified whole. A few of there details are not harmonized completely. Who tried to save Joseph, Reuben or Judah? Who sold Joseph to whom, Midianites to some passing Ishmaelites or Midianites to Egyptians? In the story as we have it, Judah sees a caravan of Ishmaelites and suggests to his brothers, “Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites.” But then in vs. 28, some Midianite traders beat the brothers to the punch when they find Joseph in the pit and sell him to the Ishmaelite caravan. However, in vs. 36, somehow the Midianites still have Joseph and they sell him in Egypt.

Medieval Jewish commentators worked out some methods for harmonizing the story. One way, for example, is to assume that Midianites and Ishmaelites are the same group of people. Another way is to assume extra steps in the story, such as such as Midianites selling Joseph to Ishmaelites, who then sold him back to some other Midianites, who then sold him in Egypt.

See below for another analysis of the story and its origins which finds two sources that have been combined. The details of the two versions are slightly different, with one giving a northern kingdom of Israel perspective and the other a southern kingdom of Judah account.

Regardless of how we deal with the details, the main points of the story are clear. Jacob’s sons are deceivers who outdo their father in trickery. Joseph’s entry into Egypt as a slave, however it happened exactly, will end up prefiguring the enslavement of the Hebrews by Pharaoh. Some refer to Joseph’s entry into Egypt as the Eisodus (migration in) which sets up the later Exodus (migration out). The emotional complexity of the story can be seen in that both Reuben and Judah, though apparently seeming indifferent, try to save Joseph’s life. These unspoken feelings will come up again later in the story in interactions between Reuben and the brothers (42:22), Reuben and Jacob (42:37), and Judah and Joseph (44:32-34). Jacob’s grief over what he thinks is his the dead son of his favorite wife will become an emotional theme involving Benjamin in the later parts of this story. The Joseph story is detailed and powerful on the level of story and also as a prefiguring of the covenant and history.

THE TWO-VERSION THEORY: See Joel Baden, The Composition of the Pentateuch, for a detailed explanation. One version can be found by separating out 37:19-20, 23, 25b-27, 28b, 31-35 (thought to be from an ancient Judean source, J) and the other is in 37:18, 21-22, 24-25a, 28a, 29-30, 36 (thought to be from an ancient northern Israelite source, E). It is helpful to use a computer Bible to cut and paste and view the two theorized stories separately. Separating vs. 28 is crucial to this theory. The first part, 28a, (“Then Midianite traders passed by and they drew Joseph up out of the pit”) goes with the E story in which Midianites removed Joseph and sold him without the brother’s knowledge. Vs. 28b (“… and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty shekels of silver; and they brought Joseph to Egypt”) continues the thought in vs. 27 (“and the brothers listened to him …”) in the J story, where the brothers sold Joseph to Ishmaelites. In the E story, it is Reuben who tries to save Joseph (by suggesting they throw him alive in a pit) and in the J story, it is Judah (by suggesting they sell Joseph). The best evidence for the two version theory is that Genesis 37:28 shows Midianites selling Joseph to passing Ishmaelites while 37:36 shows Midianites selling Joseph to Potiphar in Egypt. This discrepancy is difficult to explain away.
SPOTLIGHT

A daughter-in-law masquerades as a prostitute. The father-in-law, the very patriarch whose name attaches to the people of Judah, the ancestor of David and Messiah, is at that time the sort of man who takes what he wants and follows his base nature. Children’s Bibles will probably need to omit this story.

Judah is going to have Tamar put to death, when he finds out that she has become pregnant. He is her sons widow. In the public eye, she has disgraced Judah’s family by becoming pregnant. Theoretically she is waiting for Judah to give his son, Shelah, to her in marriage.

But Tamar sends some objects via messenger to Judah and says הַכֶּר־נָא לְמִי הַחֹתֶמֶת וְהַפְּתִילִים וְהַמַּטֶּה haker-na lemi hachōtemet vehapetilim vehamatteh, “Please recognize these for me: the signet ring, the cord, and the staff.” Tamar had deceived Judah in the guise of a prostitute. But the objects she took as a pledge that Judah would return and pay her with a goat now prove to Judah her innocence.

The brothers, had deceived their father, and an object and a goat played a role in that deception as well. Judah has been instrumental in urging his brothers to sell Joseph as a slave rather than kill him. But when Joseph is taken away, before the brothers even had a chance to act, Judah participates with the rest in deceiving their father, Jacob. The multi-colored robe of Joseph, they brought it to Jacob dipped in goat’s blood. הַכֶּר־נָא הַכְּתֹנֶת haker-na hakōtenet, “Please recognize the robe,” they said to Jacob (37:32). The words are almost identical to Tamar’s when she shows Judah the signet ring, cord, and staff.

Judah, a deceiver like his father before him, has been deceived. But here, as he stands in a position to lie and have Tamar killed, he sees the objects proving what happened and he stops the deception. He ends the cycle for himself. צָדְקָה מִמֶּנִּי tzedaqah mimmeni, he says, “She is more righteous than I.”

A world of grief happens in the orbit of Jacob’s family. But Judah, for one, puts an end to it, at least for himself, and begins a path of setting things to right. The later parts of the Joseph story will show more of Judah’s development. Faced with a choice, to keep deceiving or put a stop to it, he decides.

OUTLINE

Judah’s Canaanite marriage and his sons (1-5), Tamar and Judah’s sons (6-11), Tamar deceives Judah (12-26), birth of Perez and Zerah (27-30).

OVERVIEW

This tale of Judah and Tamar interrupts and heightens the suspense of the Joseph novella. Sarna observes parallels between the two tales: both involve a deception, a kid from the flock, the production of evidence, temptation to sex, and issues between brothers.

The tale also develops a snapshot of the character of Judah, whose story is an important thread within the Joseph saga. He is the character who will actually learn the most from all of these tragic events. The transformation of Judah from scheming bad boy to repentant son is also an important point to later tribal history. Joseph will become the primary tribe (Ephraim) of the northern kingdom and Judah of the southern. These juxtaposed stories reveal the origins of kingdoms and fulfill the “kings will come from your loins” promise to Jacob in 35:11.

The story begins in irony. What set Jacob apart from Esau in the first place is that Esau took local Canaanite wives, whereas Jacob was sent off to Paddan-aram to find a wife from among the Abrahamic clan. Yet Judah is acting like Esau. Can this really be the father of the southern kingdom of Judah?

Judah’s sons are thoroughly self-centered and without any sign of decency. God takes their lives as punishment for their deeds.

Tamar is a clever woman whose only goal in the story is a noble one: to bring a child into the world as a result of all these men who have possessed her. Having been robbed of this one good thing repeatedly, Tamar takes matters into her own hands and exploits her father-in-law’s base nature. Judah, of course, falls for it, revealing the shallowness of his soul.

But the lesson Tamar teaches his does begin to awaken something better in Judah. צָדְקָה מִמֶּנִּי tzedaqah mimmeni, he says, “She is more righteous than I.” He realizes how he has wronged Tamar and does not wrong her again afterward. Perhaps this spark in Judah’s soul is the beginning of that transformation we see by the end of the story.
SPOTLIGHT

Would we consider ourselves fortunate or cursed if we were to trade places in life with Joseph? Taken away by slave traders, he was removed from his father’s house and everything he knew. But once in the new place, everything he did succeeded and others could see he was some sort of divinely favored person. He was chosen for some sort of greatness wrapped in a giant bundle of pain and loss.

How should we take the descriptions of God’s role in his life? וַיְהִי יְהוָה אֶת־יוֹסֵף vayehi Adonai ‘et-Yōsef, “Adonai was with Joseph.” וַיְהִי אִישׁ מַצְלִיחַ vayehi ish matzliyach, “He was a successful man.” וְכֹל אֲשֶׁר־הוּא עֹשֶׂה יְהוָה מַצְלִיחַ בְּיָדוֹ vekōl asher-hu ōseh Adonai matzliyach beyadō, “All that was doing, Adonai made it succeed in his hands.”

The descriptions sound wonderful. But the reality is, these things are happening to him in Egypt, in the place of his banishment and separation. He received a very bad lot in life, but succeeded wonderfully within it.

And the cycle of loss is not yet over for Joseph. He will lose even more freedom and come to feel utterly alone, abandoned, waiting a long time for help from heaven.

Being chosen for some greatness does not necessarily feel like a wonderful thing. Many who belong to the category of the chosen would say to God, “Would you mind choosing someone else?”

Joseph had the fortune (misfortune) of being made a living example of the covenant promise. God will bless the children of Abraham. He will bless those who bless the children of Abraham. Though the children of Abraham go into exile, God will be with them there. In time, he will bring them out.

One thing we can learn from Joseph’s life is that our circumstances in life do not reflect simple formulas about blessing and curse. A blessing can look and feel like a curse. A curse can look and feel like a blessing. The end and meaning of everything is something we must believe in while we wait the long wait and experience tribulation and loss, confusion and heartache, perplexity and hope. God will bring about good for us. Not yet.

OUTLINE

In bondage the Lord is with Joseph (1-2), divine and human favor falls on Joseph (3-6).

OVERVIEW

The Joseph saga resumes after the Judah and Tamar incident. No notice of divine favor on Judah played into his story at all. Judah and Joseph are contrasted in a number of ways. Judah has been an oppressor while Joseph has become one oppressed. Judah sees the error of his ways and seemingly grows from it. Joseph is the innocent sufferer, wrongly punished for the misdeeds of others.

Joseph’s journey and bondage in Egypt prefigures Israel’s coming bondage. The Abrahamic promise brings favor to Joseph as it will to Israelites in later times. Divine favor on Joseph brings blessing to his gentile master, a recurring picture of the mutual blessing theme of Genesis 12:3 and other parts of the Abrahamic promise.

The strange note in vs. 6 has drawn several interpretations. וְלֹא־יָדַע אִתּוֹ מְאוּמָה כִּי אִם־הַלֶּחֶם אֲשֶׁר־הוּא אוֹכֵל velō-yada’ ‘ittō me’umah ki im-halechem asher-hu ‘ōcheil, “And he [Potiphar] was concerned about nothing concerning him [Joseph] except the food he ate.” What does it mean that Potiphar was concerned about which food Joseph ate? Some see this as a euphemism for Potiphar’s wife based on Proverbs 30:20 (Sarna). Others suggest this is about Egyptians not dining with foreigners based on Genesis 43:32.
SPOTLIGHT

This is stage two of Joseph’s descent into a living hell so he can become a model of divine rescue and blessing. Few of us would say we’d like to trade places. Isn’t the formula supposed to be, “God blesses the righteous?” It definitely looks like God is cursing Joseph.

“I am counted among those who go down to the pit,” says the Innocent Sufferer in Psalm 88, “like those whom you remember no more, for they are cut off from your hand.” The Bible explores the feeling of abandonment, hopelessness. It does not exonerate God from the pains we experience, but lays the charge directly at his feet: “You have put me in the depths of the pit!”

However, another set of texts alludes to the fact that people in pits and prison cells have felt the presence of God with them. About Joseph our story says וַיְהִי יְהוָה אֶת־יוֹסֵף vayehi Adonai et-Yosef, “But God was with Joseph.” Similarly, when Judah was exiled in Babylon, God said, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you . . . when you walk through fire you shall not be burned” (Isa 43:2).

From verses like these, the rabbis made a midrash (a theme for a sermon, in this case an uplifting one). In Sifrei (an ancient collection of rabbinic teaching about the book of Numbers), the rabbis said, “Come and see how beloved Israel is before God; for wherever they went into exile, the Shekhinah [Divine Presence] went with them.” The rabbis use 1 Samuel 2:27 (“did I reveal myself in Egypt?”) and Isaiah 43:14 (“for your sake I send to Babylon”) as proof-texts that where Israel was exiled, God was present. Vs 14 says “I will send to Babylon,” but it does not say whom he will send. The plain meaning is likely Cyrus (see 44:28; 45:1), but the lack of a direct object lends itself to the rabbis’ homily: God sends his Presence (Shekhinah) to Babylon.

It must be scenes like Joseph’s rise from prison, Israel’s exodus from Egypt, Judah’s return from Babylon, the Psalmists’ recovery from suffering, and the sayings about God being with his people that led Paul (in the New Testament) to a wide-ranging conclusion: “God works all things for God for those who love him” (Rom 8:28).

OUTLINE

Potiphar’s wife tries to seduce Joseph (7-10), Potiphar’s wife falsely accuses Joseph (11-19), Joseph has divine and human favor in prison (20-23).

OVERVIEW

The second descent of Joseph into bondage is as dramatic as the first. He has moved from favorite son to slave and then from favorite slave to prisoner.

But the ascent of Joseph is equally dramatic: from slave to favorite and then from prisoner to favorite. With every tragedy, Joseph finds that divine favor lifts him up. No place is beyond the reach of God’s providence.

Just so, the covenant promises will follow Israel in all exiles and wanderings. Some interpreters have suggested that the Joseph story might have become especially appreciated during the exile in Babylon and after. The faithful in Israel, those who clung to the teachings of Isaiah and the community of disciples who came from Isaiah, could have looked to the Joseph story with hope. Vs. 21 assures Israel that “Hashem was with Joseph” even in prison and that, vs. 23, Joseph could succeed through wisdom and righteousness. The most dramatic declines can be reversed and God is with those who trust in him even in depressing circumstances.
SPOTLIGHT

Dreams. Destiny. The unknown. Life with an invisible and silent God is a mystery. We want answers, to know the future, to have security and a guarantee.

A baker and a cupbearer were imprisoned, suspected of acts against the king. Both had highly symbolic dreams. Joseph boldly announces that God shows him the meaning of dreams. Those who told and retold this story about Joseph had in mind two of the institutions of Israelite religion that would characterize it for long ages to come. One of those institutions was and is wisdom, the movement of insight and instruction about living life according to the patterns of good and evil God has build into this present world. The other institution is prophecy, the extremely rare occurrence in which God grants direct knowledge to human beings.

Joseph shows wisdom and prophecy to the baker and cupbearer. One is elevated and another is doomed. It all happens just as Joseph says. But no one credits Joseph for a long time for his insight, for the prophetic knowledge God gives him. He remains imprisoned, ignored, for a long time.

Israel has given wisdom literature and prophecy to all the families of the earth. For the most part, people have forgotten the source, Israel, and show little or no gratitude for the people through whom this knowledge has come. But like Joseph, who was eventually remembered, and elevated out of prison, someday the world will see Israel in a new light. Wisdom and prophecy will be vindicated. Messiah will come with wisdom and understanding, and strike the earth with the rod of his mouth.

Meanwhile, we have wisdom and prophecy to live by. We may not receive direct insight from God as Joseph did. But, to paraphrase Abraham Joshua Heschel, some people at certain times did receive from God and it has been passed down to us. Our dreams and destiny are described therein.

OUTLINE

The baker and cupbearer join Joseph in prison (1-4), dreams and Joseph’s ability to divinely interpret (5-8), Joseph interprets the cupbearer’s dream (9-15), Joseph interprets the baker’s dream (16-19), it happens as Joseph said (20-22), the cupbearer does not remember Joseph (23).

OVERVIEW

This part of the narrative gets at the heart of two mysteries in Israel’s life with God. What is prophecy? What is wisdom?

The Israelites experienced God at the national shrine, the temple. Adonai was not a visible God, he had no image for the people to see. Instead his presence was inside, in the inner shrine, and the people stood outside. Who was this invisible God? How could people know him, what he wants, how to live for him?

Two of the institutions that people could relate to, sources of information and inspiration about this invisible God, were prophecy and wisdom. Torah came down largely as prophecy from Moses. Other prophets spoke with poetry, condemnation and hope, instruction and indictment. Their words encouraged the righteous to improve the world and denounced the social poisons that were and are bringing the world down. Wisdom was a more open movement, including ideas from outside of Israel. It was about patterns woven into everyday life. Living in harmony with these wisdom principles embedded in God’s world will make for a better life.

The dreams of the cupbearer and baker are like riddles, and riddles are part of the world of biblical wisdom. Joseph is a wisdom sage, able to penetrate the riddles and see the pattern. But Joseph’s abilities go beyond wisdom and he receives insight from God when interpreting dreams, making him also a prophet.

Joseph sees what the riddle means. He receives knowledge from God about the future doom of the baker and elevation for the cupbearer. All of us want to know what the future holds. This episode in the Joseph story assures us that God knows. Fate is not as blind as she appears. God holds the future in his hands and knows our personal destiny, in this life and beyond.

But the Joseph story is also a prefiguring of the relationship between Israel and the nations. Israel, like Joseph, is the source of divine knowledge given to the nations. But Israel, like Joseph, is not remembered by the nations as the source of knowledge and blessing.
SPOTLIGHT

God’s rescue sometimes takes the form of a sudden reversal, a kind of event J.R.R. Tolkien called a “eucatastrophe.” It’s a turn around, a lightening of a dark time, a happy ending where none was expected. These kinds of endings happen, not because we overcome all odds and triumph through our abilities. They happen because the universe is made of light and our Maker is Love. He gives at times what Tolkien called “a sudden and miraculous grace” in a world where sorrow and failure have existed so that in the time of blessing we will understand the joy of God’s eucatastrophe (see Tolkien’s essay, “On Fairy Stories”).

So it was with Joseph. The verbs describing Pharoah’s sudden actions to release Joseph are dramatic: וַיִּשְׁלַח vayishlach “and he sent,” וַיִּקְרָא vayiqra’ “and he summoned,” וַיְרִיצֻהוּ vayritzuhu “and they hastened him.” Joseph for his part must quickly wash and shave himself to be ready to appear. The whole dramatic turnaround is described as follows: “Then Pharaoh sent for and summoned Joseph and they hastened to bring him out from the pit. He shaved, changed his clothes, and he came before Pharaoh.”

What will bring the eucatastrophe for the world? What specifically will cause peace to fall on the earth and bring a dramatic turnaround? The vision of Isaiah in chapter 2 describes it as the nations deciding they want to know God’s insight, to find out how God can beat their swords into plowshares and make war disappear. The nations will seek it through Israel, the prophetic and priestly people. It will go out from Jerusalem. Torah and prophecy and wisdom will save humanity.

The writers of the Joseph story see the repository of God’s wisdom and truth, entrusted to Israel, as the blessing with which Israel will bless the nations. It is hard to disagree.

OUTLINE

Pharaoh’s dream of cows (1-4), Pharaoh’s dream of stalks of grain (5-7), the magicians cannot interpret (8), the cupbearer at last remembers Joseph (9-14).

OVERVIEW

The Joseph story is not only about Joseph and his brothers and the peoples of the Near East. It is also a larger story about Israel and the nations and how the Abrahamic blessing works. Joseph is a figure for Israel and he brings blessing to the nations (saving Egypt and the surrounding nations). The thing that makes the nations turn to Joseph/Israel is divine revelation. The nations (Pharaoh, Egypt) must turn to Israel to know God’s will and promises.

Torah declared to us the pattern of mutual blessing in the Abrahamic promise in Genesis 12:3, “I will bless those who bless you and the one who curses you I will curse.” This pattern is evident in the Joseph story: the nations receive God’s word from Israel, in turn the nations bless Israel, in turn God blesses the nations (see R. Kendall Soulen, The God of Israel and Christian Theology).

As for Joseph, he is freed from a long imprisonment, and so will Israel be in a long exile. The description of his release from prison is dramatic: “He was rushed from the dungeon; he had his hair cut and changed his clothes, and he appeared before Pharaoh”.

It will happen suddenly that Israel and many from the nations will find deliverance too. In the second part of Isaiah, the people in exile were promised that they had suffered long enough and a dramatic reversal was soon to come. “Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,” said the prophet, “her time of service has ended . . . she has received double from Adonai’s hand for her sins” (Isa 40:2). “I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert,” (Isa 43:19).

The thing that brought reversal for Joseph was divine revelation. The nations sought out the “torah” of Israel, as it were, the divine insight given to a prophet of the clan of Abraham. Their desire to know what instruction God might have led them to suddenly release Joseph. So it will be someday, when the world wants to know God’s way of peace, as it says in Isaiah, “that he may teach us his ways” (Isa 2:3).
SPOTLIGHT

In the ancient world, prophecy and divination were both popularly practiced. Divination involves a person using secret arts and accumulated knowledge to “read” the future in some way. Prophecy moves in the opposite direction of divination, as it involves a god communicating with a person to “reveal” the future (or the present, a divine message about current conditions and how to please the deity).

The Torah forbids divination (with a very few sanctioned exceptions, such as the Urim and Thummim of the priests). Abraham Joshua Heschel (Prophets, Part II, pg. 238) says, “Divination, which is an act initiated by man, is often accompanied by the feeling of wringing a secret from the gods.” But prophecy, on the other hand, is founded on the belief that “God is the one who demands and judges.”

There was a widespread belief that dreams were secret communications from the gods. Heschel shows, however, that the Bible repeatedly declares dreams alone to be insufficient (pg. 241). So this Joseph story asserts that Pharaoh’s dream alone was not enough, but that God specifically disclosed the interpretation to his prophet, Joseph.

What are we to make of the existence of prophecy and God’s use of it at certain times in history? Heschel brilliantly sums up prophetic theology: “The fundamental thought of the Bible is not creation, but God’s care for his creation” (pg. 264).

The Joseph story is a foreshadowing on a smaller scale of something much larger. One crisis in history localized to a certain region of the world (the famine in Egypt and the surrounding lands) becomes a picture of a more epic reality (the problem of death and evil inflicting the whole world). The relationship between God and the nations is pictured here. God’s way of revealing himself to save humanity is by means of prophecy and wisdom given to Israel and through Israel shared with the whole world. God’s care for his creation is seen in that he reveals to us what he wants from us, what is killing us, and a promise that he will save us.

OUTLINE

Joseph says God, not he, will answer (15-16), Pharaoh’s dreams recounted (17-24), Joseph gives God’s answer (25-32), Joseph’s wisdom and counsel (33-36), Pharaoh recognizes divine power in Joseph (37-38).

OVERVIEW

The writer of the Joseph story, this part being written by E (an unknown author from the northern kingdom of Israel), believes that divine revelation to Israel is what brings wisdom and blessing to the nations. Joseph denies being the interpreter, claiming instead that God reveals meanings to him. בִּלְעָדָי אֱלֹהִים יַעֲנֶה אֶת־שְׁלוֹם פַּרְעֹה bil’adai Elohim ya’aneh et-shelōm Pharaoh, “Not I, but God will answer concerning Pharaoh’s welfare” (literally “will answer [concerning] the peace of Pharaoh”). Joseph is being used by God as a prophet, a vessel through whom revelation comes.

The reader might also notice in Joseph an attitude which will later come to characterize King David as well. Both Joseph and David were figures who understood in confusing times the centrality of divine revelation and power.

The whole Joseph story prefigures Israel’s later history, demonstrating how the Abrahamic promise works. Thus, Joseph blesses the gentiles with divine revelation and is himself blessed with liberation and exaltation. The mutual blessing principle of Genesis 12:3 continues to assert itself.

Joseph uses the language of revelation and prophecy in vs. 25: אֵת אֲשֶׁר הָאֱלֹהִים עֹשֶׂה הִגִּיד לְפַרְעֹה ‘et asher haElohim ōseh higgid lePharaoh, “God has declared to Pharaoh what he will do.” Similarly vs. 28 says God “has shown” Pharaoh what he will do. Vs. 32 adds that כִּי־נָכוֹן הַדָּבָר מֵעִם הָאֱלֹהִים ki-nachōn cadaver mei’im haElohim, “because this thing has been determined by God,” and וּמְמַהֵר הָאֱלֹהִים לַעֲשֹׂתוֹ umemaher haElohim la’asatō, “he will soon being it about.” This is the language of a deity who cares about human history, not one who is aloof. God is revealing these events to his prophet in order to save those who hear the message and act on it.
SPOTLIGHT

What’s in a name? In this part of the Joseph story the reader would have to say, “Sometimes a heap of inexpressible feelings and meaning.”

Joseph descended for a long, agonizing time, only to ascend dramatically. Can we understand joy without first having a painful education in its opposite? Can we appreciate as much good fortunes that came easily and which have always accompanied our lives? In the life to come, would we enjoy the reveries and bliss half as much if we’d not experienced this present purgatory?

“Doubly fruitful” is a name for a son that some people might not understand. Knowing Joseph’s story, the name (Ephraim אֶפְרָיִם) is fitting for the tribe that will become largest among all within Israel. “He who causes forgetfulness” is a poignant sort of name, one people might ask you about if you name your child Manasseh (Menasheh מְנַשֶּׁה in Hebrew).

The clarity of these names is perhaps brought out all the more by the profusion of inscrutable names in the story. Who is Potiphera and why is her name almost identical to Potiphar? The meaning of Joseph’s Egyptian name, Zaphenath-paneah, is elusive.

But the names of Joseph’s sons ring with meaning. “God has made me forget all my hardship,” said Joseph. “God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction.”

When we are looking for simple thanksgiving prayers to offer God, could we do better than either or both of these?

OUTLINE

Joseph is made a ruler of Egypt (39-43), Joseph is married to Asenath and begins his administration (44-46), Joseph implements the plan for mass storage of grain (47-49), Joseph’s two sons (50-52).

OVERVIEW

This section conveys the good things that come to Joseph in keeping with the covenant promise and also how events follow the pattern of mutual blessing (as per Genesis 12:3). Joseph foreshadows the ideal relationship between the clan of Abraham and the nations, between Israel and the gentiles. Joseph blesses a nation, which returns the blessing back to him, resulting in other nations also being blessed in a cycle of deliverance for the entire region. But an intra-family drama is occurring on another layer of the story.

The famine is what will bring the family, specifically the brothers, to stand before the very one they cast out and despised. They did not bless Joseph and, at first, he does not bless them either. But in time, he sees change and goodness in some of his brothers (especially Judah) and relents.

Several untranslatable words and names occur in this part of the story. In vs. 43, the people shout “Abrek!” to Joseph as he passes in the chariot. Following a rabbinic interpretation, most English translations render this “bow,” but Sarna argues the meaning has been lost. The name given to Joseph, Zaphenath-paneah, is also unknown, but may mean something like “God speaks” or “creator of life” (Sarna). The city On is later known as Heliopolis, a great center of Egyptian religion. Potiphera, though a name similar to Potiphar, is different enough to realistically refer to a different person (cf. 37:46).

But other names ring with meaning in this story. Joseph’s sons receive names fitting with their meaning in Joseph’s experience of an ascent from sorrow to blessing. Ephraim (related to the root parah) means either “doubly fruitful” or “fruitful place.” Manasseh (Menasheh, a Piel participle from nashah) means “he who causes forgetfulness.” These meanings are explained by the brief sayings in vss. 51-52.
SPOTLIGHT

We don’t understand ourselves as well as we think we do. There are differing depths in our soul and some hurts go deeper than we can comprehend. We imagine if we can show a good face in our outer self, the part we see in the mirror and the one others see when they look at us, then we have conquered our bitterness and overcome our wounds. We are at our worst in cases where denial of our problem goes hand in hand with acting out to try and cope.

“God has made me forget all my affliction,” Joseph had said. Then his brothers showed up looking to buy grain.

It’s not that the rituals and prayers and acts of self-care and healing are meaningless. It’s a good thing when Joseph rejoices in his sons and reflects on how his heart is healing. But we should not underestimate bitterness and pain. And we should not think that healing is a simple process, occurring once and then putting the illness in our soul behind us for life. The disease, when it strikes again, picks up right where it left off.

Joseph knows his brothers are not spies. His actions are purely retributive. He may excuse his actions and say what he is doing is to test them, to see if there is good in them, or to help them repent. It feels good to think of worthy motives for our actions when they stem from pain deep inside us but the problem is it’s a damned lie. Joseph just wants to see them suffer.

Later in the story, Joseph will say, “You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.” The same can be said of this vengeful charade he puts his brothers through. It may be that Joseph’s harshness is good for the brothers, especially Judah. But the acting out is not something healthy for Joseph and it is not actually something good. Worst of all, Joseph’s actions nearly kill his father with grief about possibly losing Benjamin. What has Jacob done to Joseph to deserve such abuse? We tend to hurt people who don’t deserve it when our behavior stems from hurts in our soul.

Joseph will recover from this. He will repent and have love in his heart again and cry. But he will do a lot of damage before the happy ending comes.

OUTLINE

The famine happens as Joseph foretold (41:53-57), Joseph’s brothers come to Egypt for grain (42:1-5), Joseph conceals his identity and tests his brothers (6-18).

OVERVIEW

Egypt was the bread basket for the surrounding lands. Flood plain irrigation was usually much more drought proof than lands relying on rain, but sometimes even what is dependable can fail us. In years when the Nile did not flood the almost always dependable supply of grain in Egypt dried up. The entire region faced starvation, especially if this happened more than one year in a row.

The drama of Joseph’s family resumes in this section. The brothers face measure for measure justice unknowingly and Jacob, who had deceived others repeatedly, is once again about to fall victim to deceivers through the bitter fallout between his sons.

Joseph puts his brothers to the test quite harshly, putting them in bondage as they did to him. How will they stand up to the strain of imprisonment? Sarna suggests he may also have wished to see how rivalries would affect their decision regarding which brother to send back to Jacob to fetch Benjamin.

John Goldingay calls Joseph out here for bad behavior (Genesis for Everyone: Part II). He remarks on the claim Joseph has just made, that he had forgotten his sorrows and thus named his son Manasseh. “It would be understandable if he has some simmering resentment and if in his naming of Manasseh he is simply kidding himself about having forgotten it all,” remarks Goldingay. As he goes on to say, God could be using Joseph’s actions in the lives of the brothers, even if Joseph’s motives include dark things like bitterness and vengeance.
SPOTLIGHT

For whatever reason among the sons of Jacob, two in particular tried to stop the plan against Joseph and wanted to save him. Reuben and Judah’s remorse over what happened to their brother and their desire to fix a bad situation is coming out even now, years after the fact. וְגַם־דָּמוֹ הִנֵּה נִדְרָשׁ vegam-dammō hineh nidrash, “And now for his blood comes a reckoning,” says Reuben.”

So when they come to their father with the news — Simeon is hostage in Egypt and they must bring Benjamin with them to get more grain — Reuben volunteers to take responsibility. “Kill my two sons,” he offers, “if I fail to return the boy to you.” It’s a terrible thought, that he could offer comfort to his father by killing his own sons. The thought, no doubt, is that just as Jacob has now lost two sons, Reuben volunteers to lose two. It is as if he thinks more tragedy will somehow bring relief from this situation. He is identifying with Jacob’s pain and bereavement but not thinking clearly otherwise.

Only when things get desperate, when rations are so low that starvation looms, only then do they contemplate again going back and bringing Benjamin with them. Simeon has been imprisoned a hostage the entire time. Judah takes responsibility and this time succeeds in persuading Jacob. וְחָטָאתִי לְךָ כָּל־הַיָּמִים vechata’ti lecha kōl-hayammim, “I will stand guilty before you for all time,” says Judah, if he fails to bring Benjamin back.

It’s a terrible thing to contemplate: a life without redemption. Being guilty forever, having no possibility of ever being or feeling good and worthy ever again. Losing all hope of forgiveness from anyone or yourself or from God. Sometimes this is the reality of what people feel, people who have done terrible things.

Judah is not finished righting his part in the wrong of the brothers. He will do more. By the end of the story, his standing will have changed. For his foolish and wicked part in participating in something that went way too far, he will extricate himself from unending guilt by changing and dining better. “Remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes,” says God, “cease to do evil; learn to do good” (Isa 1:16-17). “Though your sins are as scarlet they will be white like snow” (Isa 1:18).

OUTLINE

Joseph sends them to bring Benjamin (19-20), the brothers unwittingly reveal their remorse in front of Joseph (21-23), Joseph chooses Simeon as hostage and sends them away (24-26), return to Canaan (27-28), Jacob’s grief and refusal (42:29-38), the second journey with Judah as a guarantor for Benjamin (43:1-15).

OVERVIEW

The deception in which Joseph hides his identity and pretends not to understand the language of the the brothers provides the perfect literary setting for a revelation of honesty. The brothers unwittingly confess to their crime in Joseph’s hearing, bringing him some satisfaction and a bit of emotional release.

Intent on choosing one of the brothers as a hostage, Joseph’s obvious choice would be Reuben, the oldest. But since Joseph has just heard Reuben berating his brothers for not saving Joseph, the choice of a hostage nows falls to Simeon, the next oldest. One theme in the story is the rivalry between the Israelite tribes. The actions of the brothers prefigure later rivalries in Israel’s history. The author implies that Israel is negatively affected by this competition which prevents unity. So, for example, the tribe of Simeon is doomed by their ancestor’s actions. Simeon, for his wrong in the matter of Shechem (34:25) will amount to nothing as a tribe, becoming absorbed into the territory of Judah.

Meanwhile, with Simeon hostage, the brothers return to Canaan and find they have been deceived again. Joseph has arranged for their payment for grain to be put back in their sacks. Their fear increases yet again. The demand, if they return to Egypt for more grain, is that they should bring Benjamin, the other child of Rachel, the one Jacob will not let go.

Only two things make the second trip to Egypt happen: desperation in light of the famine and Judah’s surety to his father for Benjamin’s life. We see here Judah taking responsibility, showing remorse for his part in Joseph’s tragedy and sympathy for his father’s pain in losing Joseph. The redemption of Judah is working itself out in the story.
SPOTLIGHT

It’s not difficult to see that blessing is the theme of the book of Genesis. Genesis 1:28, “And God blessed them and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply…’”. “And God blessed Noah and his sons,” (Gen 9:1). Then he said to Abraham, “I will bless those who bless you.” Melchizedek blessed Abraham. God said of Ishmael, “I have blessed him.” In Abraham’s later years we read, “Adonai had blessed Abraham in all things” (24:1). As the book continues, the lives of the patriarchs are filled with scenes of an elder blessing a younger.

Rebekah’s family blessed her before sending her to marry Isaac (24:60). Jacob offered to bless Esau, his oldest son, but Jacob tricked the aging patriarch into blessing him instead (27:4 and following). Esau pitifully begged, “Bless me, even me also, O my father!” (27:34). God repeatedly blessed Jacob.

And now in the present story, upon seeing his younger brother Benjamin, Joseph blesses him.

What is the writer telling us with all these blessings? Life has both tragedy and blessing and every person will come forth with some of both. But blessing is what we pursue. The Torah will go on to pronounce blessings and curses over Israel depending on whether Israel decides to pursue supernatural blessings or not. The blessings of Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28 describe a paradise on earth, with freedom from hunger, war, disease, and fear.

Blessing represents the good potential in human destiny and it lies completely in God’s hands and in the ways he gives us to pursue it. Blessing is that joy we seek but cannot quite grasp. It is the beautiful thing almost painful to perceive since our lack of it causes us to yearn. Some have described our pursuit of it as vanity and a chasing after wind.

But God tries, through his prophets, to persuade us to believe. “Is my hand shortened, that it cannot redeem? Or have I no power to deliver?” (Isa 50:2). “Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God” (Isa 41:10). “I will make a road in the wilderness and streams in the desert” (Isa 43:19). “I will bring near my righteousness; it is not far off, and my salvation will not delay” (Isa 46:13). “In overflowing anger for a moment I hid my face from you, but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you” (Isa 54:8).

OUTLINE

The brothers with Benjamin are received in Joseph’s private home (16-18), the brothers ask the steward about the money in their packs (19-23), they are received with hospitality (24-25), the brothers present their gift and bow before Joseph (26-28), Joseph blesses Benjamin (29).

OVERVIEW

Joseph’s behavior continues to be enigmatic to the brothers. Though he has accused them of being spies and has been holding Simeon hostage all this time, now he throws them a feast and seemingly welcomes them with open arms. Of course he is not through playing dangerous games with them and Joseph’s greatest act of treachery is yet to come.

The house steward is apparently in on the game Joseph is playing with his brothers. He tells them that their God, the God of their fathers, must have caused their money to appear in their packs because, he insists, he received their payment. We know that Joseph deliberately had the money replaced in their sacks, so the steward’s words are a lie (see 42:25).

Then Joseph sees his youngest brother, Benjamin, the son of his mother as well as his father. His first reaction is typical of the patriarchs and a major theme of the book. He blesses him. אֱלֹהִים יָחְנְךָ בְּנִי Elohim yachnecha beni, “God show favor to you, my son!” (with “son” here being in an idiomatic sense, a slightly older man referring to a younger one).
SPOTLIGHT

Who we are is in some way determined by the people who come before us. Father. Mother. Siblings. Grandparents. It’s unfair that we inherit attitudes and patterns that keep us from being completely free. We did not ask for the lingering resentments and the games of rank and importance that come with family dynamics, but inherit them we did.

Joseph lines his brothers up by seniority and then he heaps bitterness on his brothers and, though Jacob is not present at this meal, onto his father as well. He has Benjamin served with a much larger portion than his brothers. If the Hebrew is literal, Benjamin’s portion is five times as much!

The pain of Joseph’s life has been caused specifically by disputes over rank and seniority, by resentment about favoritism and a father whose love all of the brothers desired. The cycle has been a long one. Jacob himself resented that his father preferred Esau and the guilt that followed Jacob through years of his life was about how he stole that favored status from Esau and left his old brother barren and devastated.

The grandfather played favorites. The father, a true son of his father, has done the same. The children suffer jealousy and resentment and they have acted out in cruel retaliation which is now coming back on their own heads.

But Judah has the right idea. He seeks to unify the brothers. If one of them will suffer, Judah’s determination is that they will all suffer together. He may not be able to save Benjamin and keep his father, Jacob, from grief completely. But at least they can remain together, taking the punishment now as one, with no rank or seniority but only togetherness.

It is a sad truth that the right answer tends to come to us only in extreme circumstances. הִנֵּה מַה־טּוֹב וּמַה־נָּעִים שֶׁבֶת אַחִים גַּם־יָחַד hineh man tov umana’im shevet achim gam yachad, “Behold how good and how pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity!”

OUTLINE

Joseph is overcome (30), the meal and Benjamin’s favor (43:31-34), Joseph tests them again (44:1-2), Joseph’s agents catch them on the way to arrest them (3-10), the brothers rend their clothes as the silver cup is found in Benjamin’s sack (11-13), Joseph states his intention to keep Benjamin as a slave (14-17).

OVERVIEW

One purpose of the meal scene here may be to call to mind the meal the brothers were eating in chapter 37 while Joseph was in the pit. At the first meal, the brothers were mistreating Joseph. At the second, he is mistreating them.

Vs. 32 is an interesting note about Egyptians and their taboo rule against dining with Hebrews. Most likely Semitic people, including Hebrews, were regarded as barbarians, people who lived outside of the order important to the Egyptians. Hebrews were “other” and dining with them was taboo. Perhaps this note is here to foreshadow the soon coming problems between the Hebrews and Egypt.

Joseph is emotional, but his emotions do not cause him to put a stop to his charade. He has the brothers seated according to a strict arrangement by seniority. He serves Benjamin, the current favorite of his father, five times as much food as the others (literally “five hands,” perhaps an idiom for “several times as much”). It is as if Joseph is protesting the idea of favoritism and showing by this arrangement how much the family dynamic has hurt him and his brothers.

In the end he offers them yet another terrible choice and does so through yet another charade, this time planting a valuable cup in Benjamin’s sack. If the brothers stay with Benjamin, they cannot take the food home and save their families and their father. If they abandon Benjamin, they will break their assurances to their father and slay him with grief.

Judah is the spokesman for the group. Even though he and his brothers are innocent of the theft of the cup, he takes responsibility as if they were guilty. His strategy is to be true to his father and, if there is going to be imprisonment, to keep them all together and to stay with Benjamin. He does not care for his own freedom any longer but is desperate to make the best out of a bad situation.
SPOTLIGHT

Knowing the truth, finding out at last what people who hurt you think, is not always a bad thing. We live our lives imagining the worst. We think they, whoever they is, hated us with some kind of pure malice or that something about us was so odious to them we really should be ashamed of who we are. Deep hurts from our past can define us in our own minds.

Could it be that Joseph imagined all these long years that his father had been relatively unaffected by his loss? Or worse, maybe Joseph imagined that Jacob had been a co-conspirator with his sons. But Judah’s words, uttered in a context where there was no reason for pretense, where his testimony was purely believable, gave the lie to Joseph’s long-held fears. שְׁנַיִם יָלְדָה־לִּי אִשְׁתִּי shenayim yaledah-li ‘ishti, “My wife bore me two sons,” said Jacob. Joseph hears, at long last, that he was not forgotten or unloved. His father counted the loss. His father loved Benjamin all the more because Joseph had been lost to him.

It is a beautiful thing when we find out that we mattered. We mattered to that person or persons in the past we weren’t sure about. Our existence left an imprint. We are not the reject we imagined ourselves to be. Someone loved us.

The truth is, we matter in the present and in the future too. Someone loves us. We left our fingerprint on the universe. Our existence matters. When we se someone else, in this case Joseph, come to that realization, it helps us see it in our own lives. It relativizes our shame and fear that we have been of no account.

OUTLINE

Judah’s appeal (18), Judah recounts Joseph’s demand and the fact that bringing Benjamin will kill Jacob (19-24), Judah recounts Jacob’s declaration that losing Benjamin will kill him (25-29), Judah assures Joseph that Jacob will die with grief (30).

OVERVIEW

Judah’s speech is the thing, at last, that will convince Joseph to end the farce and embrace his brothers. The best motive me might imagine for this pantomime Joseph has perpetrated to their hurt is that he wanted to test them, to see if they had genuine remorse and if they had changed. At worst we have seen in Joseph lashing out in retaliation seeking to soothe old hurts by hurting others. The unusual thing for the reader to see is that Joseph has been willing also to hurt his father. Could Joseph suspect his father in either helping the brothers betray Joseph or somehow not caring that his son was lost all these years?

Judah had been the one to save Joseph’s life by suggesting they sell him to the caravan (37:26). Now Judah’s speech is so full of humility and pathos, Joseph is at last about to lose his emotional control and finally relent to help his brothers. Particularly poignant is the report of Jacob’s grief for Joseph, “Surely he has been torn to pieces!” The effect of Joseph’s loss on Jacob is summed up by the words Judah reports when Jacob says if the same fate befalls Benjamin, “You will bring down my gray hairs to Sheol!”

It seems Joseph has been callous, cruel, waiting too long to see signs of remorse in his brothers that will make him relent and save them. When he finally does relent, however, the past offense them will be truly dealt with and the reconciliation will be deep.
SPOTLIGHT

Bitterness does not have to be the last word. Sometimes we are able to see from a higher point of view. Sometimes we get access to the panorama visible from the other world, giving us a window into something deeper in this one.

The essence of prophecy is the revealing to human beings of a thought or a few thoughts from God. Even the slightest word from God about the smallest thing can, at times, shut down our fears and open up to us a vista we never imagined. One of the great nuisances of this present existence is the ambiguity of it all, the elusiveness of meaning we can grasp and hold on to.

But a small word from God to a prophet, which is an extremely rare happening and not one we should be trying to force or emulate, cuts through the fog and gives us a momentary glimpse of clarity. Real prophecy is rare, surprising, and pointed in its revelation.

The brothers are expecting to have their fate sealed by this potentate of Egypt, only to find first that he is their brother. Then they are expecting all the more for him to be vengeful. The great shame of their lives is being exposed and surely death and servitude await them. אַל־תֵּעָצְבוּ וְאַל־יִחַר בְּעֵינֵיכֶם ‘al-tei’atzvu ve’al-yichar be’eineichem, “Do not let yourselves be distressed or let yourself be angry in your own eyes,” says Joseph.

The word of prophecy is unexpected. It cuts through the normal and brings something extraordinary. God has shown Joseph, a wise man and seer through whom God has revealed things before to his family and also to Pharaoh, that the tragedy and reversal of his life means salvation for the family of Jacob and the whole region surrounding Egypt. One man’s suffering produces salvation for many people.

We learn from the Joseph story that suffering in life is consistent with redemption and deliverance. This is an important lesson because we are prone to a more simplistic view: if God loves us he will keep us from suffering.

There is no more pressing question weighing upon us than this one: must life be filled with pain, regret, and death? Joseph’s prophetic word uncovers a truth about our own lives. God has a purpose in letting us go through this. We are better off with reality being what it is than some imaginary world in which our choices are always protected, in which we always make a soft landing, where nothing can hurt us and we can hurt no one. The real world, despite its maddening ambiguity and senseless misery, is the best one from which God can and will propel us into happier destinies.

OUTLINE

Judah offers himself as slave in Benjamin’s place (44:31-34), Joseph breaks down (45:1-2), Joseph reveals himself to his brothers (3), Joseph explains the divine purpose (4-7).

OVERVIEW

Judah redeems himself by his actions, offering himself as a slave in place of his younger brother. The very thing that Judah and the others caused to happen to Joseph, Judah is willing to take on himself so that his father will not be grieved a second time. We do not always have such a clear chance to redeem ourselves as Judah does here. But growing and overcoming and doing acts of kindness are the best ways to leave shameful deeds behind us.

Joseph’s cruel bent has at last come to its end. He is unable to take any longer the emotion welling up inside him. Having discovered how much he mattered to his father and now seeing his brother completely humbled, he relents and reveals himself.

The episode ends with remarkable statements by Joseph concerning God’s purpose in relationship to the freewill choices the brothers have made. Which is it? Did the brothers put Joseph in a pit because it was the divine purpose or did God use the brothers’ choice to bring about something good? Did God cause them to do it? Or did their action result in a counter-move by God that made something beautiful out of tragedy?

The text of Genesis is not attempting to answer that question. For one thing, it would be a foreign idea to them to say that God caused them to do harm to Joseph. The idea of God determining our actions (causing them) fits with some theologies (primarily Christian ones). A number of other texts in the Hebrew Bible can be used to support this idea of divine determinism, but on examination these texts are about God directing nations in a certain direction and not God coopting the dignity and freewill of his creatures.

The insight of the story, the thought that comes to Joseph, is something else. It is that God has used a bad situation for good. Therefore he says to his brothers in essence, “Don’t berate yourselves for selling me here into this place, because God has made something beautiful out of it.” The destiny of Joseph in Egypt fits with Paul’s idea that “God works all things for good for those who love him” (Rom 8:28).
SPOTLIGHT

Life is complicated. The motives of the people around us are complex, inscrutable. Things that begin well can over time become unbearable. Things that begin in misery can lead to great happiness. Effects surely have causes, but rarely can we say there is a simple cause-effect explanation for anything.

The brothers were jealous of their father’s favoritism toward Joseph. They threw him in a pit. Yet Joseph says, “It was not you who sent me here, but God.” It was not really either-or, the brothers or God, but really both and probably more things as well that led to Joseph being in Egypt.

Israel’s destiny in Egypt is good and bad and then good again. But who can know at the beginning of something how it will turn out? “In the day of prosperity be joyful,” says the Teacher (Eccles 7:14), “but in the day of adversity consider, God has made the one as well as the other.”

Israel’s entry into Egypt begins as a curse — Joseph enslaved — and become a blessing — the whole clan saved from starvation. But it will turn into curse again — the enslavement of all the people. As circumstances change it will become clear that Israel’s entry into Egypt was an eisodus (a migration into) that will need to become an exodus (a migration out of).

Any story has many chapters. In some the theme music is joyful and the outlook is rosy. In others the horizon is dark and somber notes are playing. What carries us through? What sustains the wise in hard times and sobers them in prosperous ones? The answer of Torah is knowledge, knowledge of God and his ways. Behind the machinations and complexities there are some things we know because God has told us. He will bless the families of the earth and the center of that blessing is the Jewish people. There will be times of blessing and times where the land is cursed. But God’s purpose is blessing.

The Joseph story is about the Jewish people and the nations and it is a picture of a happy ending, a foreshadowing of something great to come. “Those who wait for me shall not be put to shame,” God says (Isa 49:23). The nations of the world will learn the ways of peace from God through Israel, “for out of Zion will go forth the teaching and the word of Adonai from Jerusalem” (Isa 2:3). We see a microcosm of this in Egypt and the surrounding nations taking wisdom from Joseph and finding survival through a crisis. Life is complicated but we know it has a direction in which it is moving. God has made prosperity and adversity for the earth, but we know which one will prevail.

OUTLINE

God sent me here (8), Joseph sends the brothers to bring Jacob and the whole family into Egypt (9-13), Joseph embraces his brothers (14-15), Pharaoh grants a choice place for Israel to dwell (16-18).

OVERVIEW

“I will bless those who bless you,” God had said to Abraham (Get 12:3). That pattern of mutual blessing has now come full circle in the Joseph story, especially when we hear Pharaoh say אֶתְּנָה לָכֶם אֶת־טוּב אֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם ‘etnah lachem ‘et-tuv ‘eretz mitzrayim, “Let me give you the best of the land of Egypt.” Joseph has saved Egypt and now Egypt saves Israel.

Meanwhile, Joseph’s brothers have been terrified of him. Now he is weeping and instructing them to tell their father how he has ascended to power and to bring their father to him. As Joseph embraces Benjamin, the brothers are still afraid. Only when he weeps and embraces them too do we read “after that his brothers talked with him.”

The brothers are sent off to invite Jacob into Egypt and word comes back to Pharaoh’s household. Pharaoh offers “the best of the land” to Joseph’s family and offers a blessing: “Eat the fat of the land.” Isaac, in his blessing for Jacob (intended for Esau) had said, “May God give you . . . the fatness of the earth.” Now Pharaoh is offering just that.

The covenant blessings announced to Abraham bring a happy result for Jacob’s family and for Egypt as well as the whole region. A leading theme in the story is the potential for Abrahamic blessing to spill over from the clan of Abraham to the world. But the converse side, the “I will curse those who curse you” part, looms in the future when a Pharaoh will rise up who does not know Joseph.
SPOTLIGHT

Reversal. Unexpected good fortune. The redemption of a terrible hurt. The news that Joseph was alive made Jacob’s heart at first numb. The Hebrew phrase is used elsewhere of something enfeebled or crushed, paralyzed. We might say, Jacob’s heart stopped for an instant. He refused to believe. Joseph was alive and, even more, he was a ruler in Egypt.

What was needed to persuade Jacob this was true, not some fantasy or wish-fulfillment, was more detail. The sons told him everything Joseph had said and all that had happened. What happened next also involves a colorful Hebrew phrase: וַתְּחִי רוּחַ יַעֲקֹב אֲבִיהֶם vatechi ru’ach Ya’aqōv avihem, “Then the heart of Jacob came back to life.”

The ru’ach (רוּחַ “spirit”) is part of us that is below the surface. It is not simply our thoughts, feelings, and intentions. The rua’ch resides at a deeper level than that, more submerged, less available to our own sensation and the observation of others. It has been referred to as our unconscious self. It is a place that affects what we think and feel and do, but subtly, imperceptibly.

Jacob’s ru’ach had died a little with the loss of his favored son. The news that one of the great losses of his life had been suddenly reversed brought that part of Jacob back to life.

We can hardly imagine the stakes of our redemption. Most of the time we are numb, immune to the feelings that are possible for us. But great moments come and they overwhelm us. Wonder overtakes us. We submit willingly and fold into something greater than ourselves and surrender to it. When our moments will come — and we will have them, of that we can be sure — we will feel as we never felt before. The one who holds our redemption in his hands will not fail us.

OUTLINE

Pharaoh offers full provision for Joseph’s family (19-20), Joseph weighs them down with provisions and gives extra to Benjamin (21-24), the brothers come to Jacob (25-27), Jacob is revived with hope (28).

OVERVIEW

Was Joseph giving from pure motives or implying vengeful triumph when he gave his brothers extra garments as a gift? Sarna notes the appropriateness of the gift in light of the history between them (JPS Commentary). But perhaps it was a deliberate message.

Even so, Joseph sent them home with provisions and gifts for his father. When they arrived, the author depicts their message succinctly: Joseph is alive and he is ruler over all Egypt. The brevity and impact of the message add potency to the narrative and Jacob’s reaction does not let the reader down. וַיָּפָג לִבּוֹ vayafag libbō, “And his [Jacob’s] heart went numb.” The reader can empathize. The father who has grieved so long hears in one instant that his son is alive and also the impossible to believe news that he is one of the most powerful people alive. Joseph is not only alive, but prospering and achieving greatness.

The effect on Jacob begins as numbness, as we can imagine, the confusing tunnel effect that can happen to us when our world changes in an instant. He could not believe the reversal of his bereavement until they shared with him all the details and everything Joseph had said. Then we read: וַתְּחִי רוּחַ יַעֲקֹב אֲבִיהֶם vatechi ru’ach Ya’aqōv avihem, “Then the heart of Jacob came back to life.”
SPOTLIGHT

Most of the time, God is silent. For various reasons, including our own insecurity and our religious yearnings, we want to imagine a God who talks to us. We are prone to believe claims that people hear God speak. In religious communities, cheap talk about God giving messages is all too common.

The reality from the Torah and the Bible as a whole is this: at most times and in most places, God is both silent and hidden.

Thus, through all of the story of Joseph, not once have we seen God appearing to or speaking to him. Yet as soon as Jacob is faced with a decision about whether or not to go into Egypt, he travels to the family altar and God appears to him and speaks.

With Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, God made himself seen and heard. Not so with Joseph.

The three patriarchs represent the founders, the originators of the covenant promise and the clan that will carry that promise to the whole earth. But once the pattern and promise are established, God returns to his normal plan of concealment.

Our experience of God will be a quiet one and the insights we receive will be inaudible, the muted whispers of the universe revealing what is beyond this world. Seeing for us will be a matter of believing, not perceiving literally. The change from Jacob to Joseph should be a comfort to us, affirming for us that we too have a relationship with God even if he does not appear to us. And it is a caution, not to be too sure of ourselves.

OUTLINE

Jacob’s determination to see Joseph again (45:28), vision of God at Beersheba (46:1-4), the journey to Egypt (5-7), Jacob’s genealogy (8-27).

OVERVIEW

With his soul returned to life, Jacob is determined to see Joseph in Egypt. His resolve is described in one word in vs. 28, רַב (rav, “enough!”).

Having heard all he needs to in order to make his decision, Jacob travels to the family altar in Beersheba. There was some trepidation about leaving the land again. Jacob had returned to the land, the place of blessing, and to leave it again raised questions about the continuity of the covenant promises. Would God go with him to Egypt?

As he had done many years earlier when Jacob was leaving the land, God appears and reassures him. “I will go down with you,” says God. “I will make you into a great nation there.” Jacob is comforted to know the Abrahamic promise will still be in force.

Genesis counts the people who enter Egypt with a genealogy. The number is seventy, a propitious one.
SPOTLIGHT

Few and evil are our days. In Hebrew “evil” does not necessarily imply that an intelligent and malevolent will is behind something. Forces of nature, trails and adversities in life, are called evil too. Jacob described his life in this way, meaning he had seen a great deal of hardship and also that he did not regard his life to be as remarkable as that of his father and grandfather.

No doubt Jacob thought of his early life and rivalry with Esau. He no doubt considered his long years competing with Laban, who was nearly his match in cleverness. His great fear at returning to face Esau. His night-long wrestling match with a manifestation of God. His ordeals with his sons, losing Joseph, watching his sons shame themselves. Jacob had endured many troubles and sorrows.

Yet he had risen above them all. His clan was strong and prosperous. He lived up, in fact, to the success of his father and grandfather in herding livestock.

But he described himself to Pharaoh in humble terms. Jacob who so often strove to be the best humbly accepted himself as last. The change in his self-perception is a transformation brought by the discipline of life. “The reproofs of discipline are the way of life,” says Proverbs (6:23). “Reverence for Adonai comes from wisdom’s discipline” (Prov 15:33).

“Few and evil have been the days of the years of my life,” Jacob said. “They have not reached the years of my fathers in the days of their sojourning.” What can the years of our life teach us? How has the view changed from what it was in our youth? How will it change in days to come?

OUTLINE

Joseph rides out to meet his father (28-30), preparing to meet with Pharaoh (46:31-34), Pharaoh and the brothers (47:1-6), Pharaoh and Jacob (7-10).

OVERVIEW

Judah is in Goshen, the northern edge of Egypt, where the Nile river dumps into the sea. And his aged father Jacob, a wizened and venerable figure now, is with him. Joseph has not yet laid eyes on his father and a remarkable scene ensues. The Grand Vizier of all Egypt (Joseph) rides out on a chariot, stands before him a moment, and falls on his neck weeping. The picture is one of the amazing results of God’s promises to the Abrahamic clan.

Jacob, for his part, feels as if his life has become full now that he sees his lost son alive. אָמוּתָה הַפָּעַם אַחֲרֵי רְאוֹתִי אֶת־פָּנֶיךָ ‘amutah hapa’am acharei re’ōti et-paneicha, “Now let me die after having seen your face!”

Joseph, ever the careful and wise administrator, uses his craftiness to ensure a good land grant for his family. He uses the aversion that Egyptian upper classes had against shepherds and animal herders to gain a place removed from the capital. Goshen is a broad and good land. As for Joseph’s request, he specified it was only for a place for his family to “sojourn” (גוּר, gur, to live as a resident alien). In the Passover Haggadah, this is the basis of a tradition that the intention was only to remain here, and out of the land of promise, temporarily.

When Pharaoh meets Joseph, it is another remarkable scene. Jacob’s age makes him a formidable person, one who has seen much and knows much, so that even Pharaoh is impressed.

But Jacob’s self-description is humble: מְעַט וְרָעִים הָיוּ יְמֵי שְׁנֵי חַיַּי me’at vera’m hayu yemei shenei chayyai, “Few and evil have been the days of the years of my life.” He claims that his father and grandfather lived far longer, which must have led Pharaoh to wonder about this strange family and the blessings they seem to have encountered.
SPOTLIGHT

The brutal economic reality of Joseph’s time is a taxation based form of security which enriches Pharaoh. It saves the people, but at a high price. However, the reader can see this policy does not negatively impact Israel in any way. Their land grant is secure.

The price of survival is this world is often high. Governments form and promise some form of security in exchange for taxation and servitude. People pay and work, hoping the system benefits them according to its promise. In a world that lacks abundance and which does not spread blessings equally, we do the best we can as a human race.

But just as Israel in Egypt lives by a different economy, so the Torah will go on to reveal the potential for a completely different system for sustenance and security. Torah’s system is defined by the Shema, especially the second paragraph, Deuteronomy 11:13-21. If Israel obeys, the land of Canaan will have rain and produce abundant food. There will be both early and later rain, producing grass for livestock so the people may eat and be full with blessing.

The whole system is a hint that in God’s economy there is a potential for unlimited supply. The prophets looked ahead to such a possibility, a day when the land will be a filled with the knowledge of God as the water cover the sea (Isa 11:9). In that day, the harvest time will continue until the next planting (Amos 9:13). Mountains will drip sweet wine and hills will flow with milk (Joel 3:18). As for security, cities will be built without walls (Zech 2:4) and people will learn war no more (Isa 2:4).

The Joseph story foreshadows this, since the people of Israel thrive in a time where the nations make deals to owe taxes to Pharaoh in order to survive. We do what we have to now, but we wait with eager expectation for God’s economy to take over this one.

OUTLINE

Joseph settles and sustains his family in Goshen (11-12), Joseph saves all Egypt and acquires all property for Pharaoh (13-19), Joseph nationalizes the land and makes the people tenant farmers (20-26), Israel prospers in Goshen (27).

OVERVIEW

Saving the people from famine, Joseph acquires their property in full for the throne. Far from caring that they are no longer free holders of their property, the middle classes of Egypt are grateful and Pharaoh’s wealth and power become immense. A new practice is established: all landholders will owe a fifth of their produce to Pharaoh perpetually for being sustained with food through the duration of the famine. The price of security is a huge tax. Joseph is working for the good of Pharaoh mainly, though his actions also keep the people alive through a crisis in which many would have died.

While most of the peoples diminish in greatness during the Egyptian famine, the blessings of Genesis 12 are at work and Israel receives a land grant. Pharaoh acquires the land of other peoples, but through Joseph makes a direct grant to Israel. They are now described with plural verbs, preparing the reader for the next phase of the story, as Israel multiplies and moves toward rescue from slavery.
SPOTLIGHT

What order or pattern is there in our lives? Jacob on his deathbed reflects and sees patterns in his life and in his family.

The text of Genesis helps this pattern seeking along, finding a numerical harmony in the seventeen years Joseph was in Canaan before he came to Egypt and matching it to the seventeen years Jacob has lived in Egypt before he dies. Even Jacob’s age is a pattern, being 7 X 7 X 3 years old, and thus being related to a pattern of lifespans progressing from his grandfather and father (see commentary below for details).

The pattern Jacob sees in his life involves at least four things: God appearing to him, a growing family, the land of Canaan, and an overarching theme to it all which is blessing.

When death approaches, we are going to want to find meaning and a pattern just as Jacob is doing here. Of course, we are not among the great patriarchs of the covenant. But surely, if we learn how to look, we will see God’s hand there in the days of our years, offering us meaning and purpose all along the way. The people who have come into and gone out from our lives, the moments of wonder and joy and sadness that have shaped who we are: there is a message there for us to read.

Jacob knows what his family must do after he is gone. They must return to Canaan, where God promised to bless them, and bury their father. Jacob knows there will be a great inheritance there for them. The pattern has not been without sadness, but the dying patriarch sees meaning in it. God’s promise is there in the seemingly random string of events. It has a beginning and God knows what its end will be. Jacob is just passing it along, doing his part somewhere in the middle of the pattern. As are we.

OUTLINE

Jacob prepares for death and burial (47:28-31), Jacob adopts Ephraim and Manasseh (48:1-9).

OVERVIEW

47:28 is thought by many scholars to be from the P source (a priest or priests writing from Jerusalem in the time of Hezekiah). The verse is mathematical, concerning the duration of Jacob’s time in Egypt and the span of his life. All of the numbers are symbolic. Jacob’s time in Egypt is seventeen years, the same as Joseph’s time in Canaan. And seventeen is the sum of ten and seven. Jacob’s lifespan is 147, which is 7 X 7 X 3. Compare this to Abraham (175 = 5 X 5 X7) and Isaac (180 = 6 X 6 X 5). The pattern in their ages is clear: the last factor counts down odd numbers from 7 down to 3 and the first numbers are pairs ascending from 5 to 7.

This mathematical calculation seems odd to us by modern standards. Consider that there was quite possibly no way for anyone to know how long the patriarchs lived. The patriarchs themselves may or may not have kept track of their lifespan. Somehow, in the mind of the original audience, there was an expectation of a pattern, of a deliberateness in things like lifespans and years spend in or out of the land. It is a way of saying, “God was directing what happened behind the scenes.”

The aged Jacob senses his death is near. He calls his son to his bedside, where he makes him swear an oath using the same gesture (hand under the “thigh,” a euphemism for the genitals) that Abraham used when making his servant swear (Gen 24). Jacob wants to be buried in Canaan, the land where Adonai appeared to him and promised him blessing. The concern of Torah at this point is to emphasize that the stay of Jacob’s family in Egypt was a sojourn, not a permanent move.

When Joseph agreed, Jacob bowed at the head of his bed. Was this bowing to Joseph? To God? The unusual gesture, of such an honored elder bowing in the presence of a younger, suggests some matter of deep reverence is here. Possibly this is Jacob’s high regard for the importance of the covenant promise. The unexpected deference Jacob shows in Joseph’s presence would cement in Joseph’s mind the importance of the request.

Later, Joseph is called back to the bedside as Jacob is about to die. Jacob has several things to say, which all come together in a jumble of ideas that are difficult to group into a clear point. He recounts God passing the covenant promise to him personally in an appearance at Luz (Bethel). God promised at that time to increase the number of Jacob’s clan. He relates this to the fact that Joseph has had two sons in Egypt. Jacob intends to adopt them, probably to solidify the fact that they are members of the family and not foreigners. For inheritance purposes, Ephraim and Manasseh will be among the sons of Jacob, with Joseph’s other children belonging to their portion. He adds the story of Rachel dying in the road near Bethlehem, though it is unclear how her death relates to his other points.

Jacob sees Ephraim and Manasseh and, oddly, asks who they are. Sarna (JPS Commentary) suggests this is not simply a matter of Jacob’s eyesight being poor, but rather this is a formal part of the adoption ritual. It is fitting that the ritual for their adoption will subsume with a blessing from the patriarch. Blessing, which has been a consistent and central theme of Genesis, is going to round out the book here at the end just as it was announced as God’s purpose at the beginning.
SPOTLIGHT

Jacob the shepherd surveys his life and realizes he has been shepherded. It was easier for him than for us. On a handful of occasions, Jacob saw a manifestation of God and heard the divine voice directly. Which of us wouldn’t hope for even one appearance of God and even one message from him?

Jacob’s life has basically been narrated by God. As he was leaving Canaan in his youth, afraid, alone, and immature, God told him he would be blessed and would one day return to the land. “I will not leave you,” God said (Gen 28:15). When Jacob was languishing in Syria (Paddan-Aram), God spoke to him again (it had been more than fourteen years since the last word from God): “Return to the land of your fathers and your kin, and I will be with you” (31:3).

On his way back into the land, when he had sent all his family across and he remained alone on the far bank of the Jabbok, God appeared to him as a stranger and wrestled with him all night: “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel” (32:28).

God appeared to him twice in chapter 35, sharing important words of promise once again. Then, upon hearing news that Joseph was alive, God spoke to him yet again. “Do not be afraid to go down into Egypt,” said the reassuring divine voice (46:3).

Truly Jacob could say “God has been my shepherd, all my life long, to this day” (48:15). This pattern of divine appearances in Jacob’s life is not represented in the Bible as normal or something that happens to everyone. God did not appear to any of Jacob’s sons, including Joseph.

But the Hebrew Bible nonetheless indicates that God is our shepherd too, that he is ever at our right hand, and that the world runs according to wisdom which is created by God. If we survey our lives, as Jacob did, possibly we can see the same truth he did. Are the events that have crossed our path random? Is there some wisdom behind all things? Can we see in the “laws of nature” that something more than “nature” is there? Does the very fact that we can reason about it all not make us wonder and ask how it is that human beings have this ability to learn and know and perceive hidden things? If there is a pattern, if there is meaning, if God has appeared at some times to some people in history, could it not be true that God has been our shepherd all the days of our lives too?

OUTLINE

Jacob embraces his adopted sons (10-11), Jacob blesses the boys (12-16).

OVERVIEW

Jacob gets to see his grandchildren up close and remarks about the greatness of his blessing. He had thought Joseph dead. Now he sees not only Joseph, but also his grandsons. God, says Jacob, allowed this to happen.

Joseph brings the children near, apparently placing them on his knees. This is more than a simple grandfatherly sign of affection, but a custom in adoption rituals. We saw a hint of this in chapter 30, verse 3, when Rachel spoke of Bilhah (her handmaid) bearing children “on my knees.” Rachel meant that the children Bilhah bore would be legally considered to belong to Rachel. The knees likely symbolized physical birth, as if the children were going through birth again, and they would henceforth belong legally to the one on whose knees they were placed during the ritual (Sarna, JPS Commentary).

The place of Ephraim and Manasseh in the future tribes of Israel would be somewhat in question, given that they were born to an Egyptian mother and born outside of the land. By adopting them, Jacob insures their inclusion and importance in the future among the tribes.

The narrative goes out of the way to depict Jacob as reversing the order of the blessing, with Ephraim getting Jacob’s right hand. Ephraim will be the larger tribe, the dominant tribe which, for much of its history, will exceed even Judah in power. Jacob’s description of God, with the image of a shepherd who has led him through his own willful battle with faith, is remarkable. Jacob himself has been a shepherd, raised sons in the occupation of shepherding, and now how sees himself as the sheep before the great Shepherd. Though in his young life he struggled greatly with the faith of his fathers, Jacob is now a venerable patriarch himself, passing down faith in the Shepherd through his blessing.
SPOTLIGHT

Blessing has been the greatest theme in Genesis, from the creation account in the first chapter to the final two chapters in which Jacob has a blessing for all of his sons. In various appearances, God has promised to each of the patriarchs repeatedly to bless them.

What is blessing? It relates to the outcome of our lives. Are we fruitful? Do we have a good place to lay our head? Do we attain some measure of security and abundance in life?

What does it mean to seek blessing from God? Some may believe that if we simply ask God for blessing we will have pleasant outcomes in life. Since most people of faith who have asked for such blessing have instead found that this life is filled with lack, disappointment, the occasional catastrophe, and a general inability to attain satisfaction, many rationalizing explanations have been tried. Didn’t pray consistently enough. Didn’t believe potently enough. We were blessed in our trials and just couldn’t see it. Etc.

In the Hebrew Bible, wisdom writers explore many possibilities, conventional and unconventional. Some wisdom sages were convinced that a combination of straight living and wise choices inevitably leads to prosperity. Such is the theme in many of the sayings in Proverbs. But Ecclesiastes and Job explore the fact that exceptions are the rule. There is no formula for prosperity and blessing. Nothing can guarantee it.

“So I saw that there is more gain in wisdom than in folly,” said the Teacher (Eccl 2:13). “I have uttered what I did not understand,” repented Job (42:3).

Why do we utter blessings when we know there is no guarantee? If we cannot wrest a good outcome from God by the power of our faith or the poetry or even emotion behind our words, what are we doing?

We are cursing the darkness, together with God. We are refusing to accept vanity. We are declaring that desires do have a perfect fulfillment. There is a future and a hope always, as long as God is there. Who knows what difference our blessing might make? In the same way, do don’t know if our skill, wisdom, talents, or hard work will bring a good outcome. But we do know without these things, the outcome is almost guaranteed in the other direction.

OUTLINE

Joseph objects to Jacob crossing the blessings (17-18), Jacob foretells the greatness of Ephraim (19), Ephraim and Manasseh as a blessing (20), Jacob meets with Joseph before dying to confer a gift (21-22).

OVERVIEW

The theme of reversal of older and younger is of course the story of Jacob himself, who supplanted Esau. The cultural law that the oldest son gets the largest share of the family inheritance is referred to by scholars as primogeniture. Jacob reversed that cultural law by taking advantage of his ravished, tired brother Esau in a moment of weakness. Now he reverses it again, passing the larger share to Ephraim. Perhaps this is something that tradition passed down as an event that truly occurred or perhaps this story arose in later days, when the half tribe of Ephraim had become the largest and most powerful among the Israelites.

Nonetheless, Manasseh will become a successful tribe too. The modern Sabbath custom of blessing boys in the name of Ephraim and Manasseh continues from this passage.

Jacob announces that his death is coming soon and confers a gift to Joseph. The problem is understanding the meaning of the gift which is called sh’chem achad. Traditional interpretation has taken it to mean “one greater portion” given to Joseph over his brothers. The idea that Joseph received the birthright (double portion) is affirmed in 1 Chronicles 5:2. Yet, the words sh’chem achad don’t carry this meaning. Most likely this is a reference to the city of Shechem (though the meaning of achad is unclear and it is grammatically in the wrong form). Joseph ends up being buried in Shechem (Jos 24:32). Sarna lists evidence that Shechem may have been conquered in pre-Mosaic times. Jacob’s strange statement that he wrested it from the Amorites with sword and bow does not refer to any story recorded in the Bible, but perhaps this was part of Shechem’s known history. Shechem would become a major city in Manasseh. So though unusual, it seems the meaning of the verse is that Jacob conferred upon Joseph’s son Manasseh the destiny of dwelling in Shechem.
SPOTLIGHT

Jacob’s blessings are a commentary on tribal history, with often obscure references to the destinies of tribes. No doubt the original readers saw details here whose meanings elude us today. Still, we pick up clearly that Judah will be dominant among the tribes and rulers will come from him.

Many scholars, including Richard Friedman (Who Wrote the Bible?) think that this poem was passed down to us via the author of the J source of the Torah. J’s text was written before the destruction of the northern kingdom by Assyria in 722 BCE.

And the astute reader will observe that the poem says nothing about Joseph’s tribes being decimated by Assyria. Yet this is surely one of the greatest events in the history of those tribes.

The only reasonable conclusion is that these words are not prophecies or foretellings of the future. They are commentary on the condition of the tribes in the time of J.

Why put words in the mouth of Jacob? Why imagine in a story that Jacob spoke words about the destinies of his sons and the tribes that would come from them? Perhaps there was a tradition, based on recollections of Jacob’s life, that he did speak about his sons’ future. But Jacob’s words were not preserved. J is providing what he imagines Jacob might have said.

Whether this is what happened or not, the point is that Israel’s history is connected back to the days of the patriarchs. It is a view of history in which each generation is born into a story that is already unfolding. Some parts of the past are affecting the present and future. We did not get where we are randomly, but inherited part of the story of our lives from those who came before us.

Vs. 18 interrupts the story, perhaps because of the sadness of Dan’s story in particular (especially the story of Samson). Jacob’s prayer, which interrupts the tribal discourse, summarizes the view of Torah about all this history: לִישׁוּעָתְךָ קִוִּיתִי יְהוָה lishuat’cha qiviti Adonai, “For your salvation I wait, Adonai.”

OUTLINE

Jacob’s last words to tell what is to come (1), Reuben (2-4), Simeon and Levi (5-7), Judah (8-12), Zebulun (13), Issachar (14-15), Dan (16-17), a prayer of Jacob interrupts the poem (18).

OVERVIEW

Sarna (JPS Commentary) calls Jacob’s blessing a combination of three genres: (1) the deathbed blessing (27:27; 28:1-4, 39), (2) the farewell address such as Joshua’s (Jos 23); (3) the tribal poem (Deut 33; Jud 5). Jacob’s final words mix blessings with woes, make geographical points, comment on historical matters, and mix the past and the future from Jacob’s point of view.

The medieval Jewish commentators noted the many historical references that were future to Jacob and considered them prophecy. Modern critical scholars often consider them later additions (that the writer put words into Jacob’s mouth as a way of commenting on the destinies of the tribes). Both prophecy and later additions are possible. We can recognize in Torah that there are additions from later than the time of Moses and so we would not be surprised to find some here.

The order of the tribes is unique in this poem and is based on the mothers: Leah’s six sons, Bilhah, Zilpah, Bilhah, Zilpah, and then Rachel’s two sons. Special issues in this section include the curious absence of any reference to Levi as the priestly tribe. Judah’s predominance does not begin in history until the time of the monarchy, but is prominent in the poem.

Genesis 49:10 has messianic implications though its exact translation is obscure and much has been written about it. 49:10 in the Hebrew text we have received says, “The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until Shiloh comes.” Almost everyone thinks the Hebrew text has been slightly corrupted in transmission and possible emendations should be considered. One option is translation below, which assumes a minor change and renders it, “. . . so that tribute shall come to him.” A third option is: “. . . until it comes to whom it belongs” (also a minor change in the Hebrew and related to Ezekiel 21:27).

Zebulun is described as doing commerce by sea, though their territory in Joshua is landlocked. Sarna thinks this and similar references refer to interaction with the Philistines, a seafaring people. Jacob’s interrupting prayer in vs. 18 could be a cry resulting from seeing the future of Dan and the sad story of Samson.
SPOTLIGHT

Vs. 26 is enigmatic and beautiful. A slight emendation in the Hebrew text helps the verse make more sense. The text as we have it could be translated:

   The blessings of your father are mightier

   than the blessings of my parents,

   extending to the desires of the everlasting hills.

   May they belong to Joseph’s head,

   to the brow of the one distinguished among his brothers.

Jacob is speaking to Joseph. What does he mean that the blessings of Joseph’s father are greater than those of Jacob’s parents? Possibly the verse might make sense if Jacob was speaking to Ephraim, in which case he might mean that Joseph’s success overshadows that of Isaac and Abraham. But the address is to Joseph, not Ephraim, and continues to be an address to Joseph at the end of the verse.

But if a slight error entered into the text, a slight change in the word translated “my parents” above would change the meaning to “mountains.” If הורי was a mistake and the text read הררי then the verse would be translated:

   The blessings of your father are mightier than

the blessings of the mountains of [ ],

extending to the desires of the everlasting hills.

   May they belong to Joseph’s head,

to the brow of the one distinguished among his brothers.

In this suggested version a word has dropped out after mountains, probably a word in parallel with “everlasting.”

Jacob is speaking about his own blessings and wishing them on Joseph. Since Jacob is dying, he is thinking about the life beyond this one. He sees his life with God as a continual progression from blessing to blessing and is convinced that more blessings are to come. His idea of the life beyond is a beautiful one involving a pleasant landscape (“everlasting hills”) and a joyful outcome (“desires”).

God grants the desires of the righteous, we read in Psalms and Proverbs. Jeremiah 50:19 seems to refer back to Genesis 49: “I will restore Israel to his pasture, and he shall feed on Carmel and in Bashan, and his desire shall be satisfied on the hills of Ephraim and in Gilead” (ESV). We can only imagine what it would be like living in an existence where God grants our desires. The world to come is an idea of something we long for in this life and can never attain. But God can attain it.

OUTLINE

Gad (19), Asher (20), Naphtali (21), Joseph (22-26).

OVERVIEW

Many elements in these poetic lines refer to incidents during the time of the Judges. Gad resided east of the Jordan (in the Transjordan) and warred on and off with Ammonites, Moabites, and Arameans. Asher lived north of Carmel (modern Haifa) on the coast and perhaps prospered by association with the nearby Phoenicians. Naphtali is the tribe of Barak, the general who served under Deborah. Rashi found that the “good words” of Naphtali refers to the rejoicing and the song of Deborah which praise God.

Joseph’s testament is longer, as is Judah’s. In tribal strength, Ephraim (one of the two Joseph tribes) will dominate the northern tribes of Israel as Judah dominates the south. The image of a wild ass is likely a wordplay on Ephraimite (Sarna, JPS Commentary), and emphasizes independence. But the real power in Ephraim will be the covenant relationship with the Mighty One, a Shepherd to Ephraim. And the blessings of Jacob to Joseph are more than the blessings of earlier generations, even enduring to everlasting hills. That is to say, Jacob senses, with little specific revelation from God about details, that the relationship of God with Ephraim (who stands for the northern ten tribes) extends beyond this world to the next.
SPOTLIGHT

Human evil is real. It stems from motives we’d be ashamed to admit. Our feelings were hurt and we lashed out. Our needs were not met so we took from someone else. We needed something to make us feel good, so we took what we wanted. Our sense of self-importance was suffering, so we oppressed someone else. Multiply these psychological maladies by millions of people. Know that they are also the motives of the powerful, those who govern and those who can raise armies of violence. Human history is filled with the repeating pattern of small-minded people taking out their emotional and psychological deficiencies on the masses.

In the Joseph story, sibling rivalry led to a heinous crime. There is no prettier way to see what motivated Joseph’s descent into Egypt. Could something as trifling as jealousy between family members be worth causing anyone to experience captivity and near fatal loneliness?

If the most trivial and banal human instincts lead to death and suffering, what hope is there? We will never, we might think, rid ourselves as a human race of piddling motivations leading to contemptible crimes.

The author of Genesis (in this case, the E source, a priest from the northern kingdom) sees God at work in history to transform petty human acts into a good outcome. “You reckoned it to me for evil,” said Joseph, “but God reckoned it for good, in order to do as it is on this day, keeping alive many people.”

What if God can do two things: transform our corrupted history into something beautiful and enlighten us out from our wretched state of being?In the case of Joseph and his brothers, hunger wiped out all pretensions and pettiness. When faced with the consequences of their action, the brothers changed. And the one who had been put in a bad position was specifically elevated through his experience, not in spite of it.

This story illustrates the possible. How should it shape our view of things yet to come?

OUTLINE

Benjamin (27), Jacob’s last instructions and death (49:28-33), mourning and burial (50:1-15), the brothers and Joseph (16-20).

OVERVIEW

The last tribe, Jacob’s youngest son, gets that last word in Jacob’s poem. If we expected it to be sentimental, since Benjamin is his beloved, we do not find that here. Rather, the description is true to the character of the tribe of Benjamin in the early history of Israel in the land (especially the days of the Judges). Benjamin will be a warlike tribe, a wolf tearing his prey in the morning. In the book of Judges, Benjamin is almost obliterated by the other tribes because of their violence (see Judges 20). Sarna (JPS Commentary) notes that their territory, being between Judah and Ephraim, was a common staging area for war.

Jacob instructs his sons to bury him in the Cave of Machpelah near Hebron. We learn that he had buried Leah there (whereas Rachel was buried near Bethlehem). Joseph has Jacob embalmed or mummified as a powerful Egyptian lord would be. Jacob’s burial is cause for a major occasion in the royal house of Egypt. Once again the theme of Genesis 12, the mutual blessing between Abraham’s clan and the nations, shows up in a powerful way in the Joseph story. Jacob the humble patriarch receives a funeral fit for a king, blessed by the nations.

The brothers worry after Jacob’s death that Joseph will at last seek vengeance. “Am I in the place of God?” Joseph asks. In other words, is it up to Joseph to make justice happen for wrongs done in this world? No, Joseph sees God’s purpose as something different. The brothers sought his harm through jealousy, but that very thing, the evil which they intended, God turned around and made good from it: “You reckoned it to me for evil, but God reckoned it for good.” The specific good Joseph sees which resulted from it all is simple: “to keep alive many people.”
SPOTLIGHT

Being a close reader of the text, Jewish scholar Nahum Sarna picks up on subtle hints in the last six verses of Genesis that things were already not well for Israel during Joseph’s lifetime. Exodus will soon tell us there arose a Pharaoh who did not know Joseph. Maybe the trouble started while Joseph was still alive. But the hope Joseph expresses for his family is that “God will take notice of you.”

“I will sustain you,” Joseph promises his family. He does not say, “Pharaoh will sustain you.” Perhaps from the beginning Joseph knew his influence and power were temporary. Fortunes are so fleeting in this world.

Joseph lived a long life and saw grandchildren and many blessings. When he sensed his death approaching, he gathered family around him and said, “God will surely take notice of you” (וֵאלֹהִים פָּקֹד יִפְקֹד אֶתְכֶם v’Elohim paqōd yifqōd ‘etchem). Another way to translate this sentence could be, “God will surely visit you.” Joseph saw something coming in the future, an incident involving God’s appearance. That can only mean in Joseph’s present time, he was feeling the absence of God as was the rest of his extended family.

If we are honest about our own lives, that is the position we are in. We believe God will surely visit us. But at this present time, he is quiet, hidden.

The Exodus event will be the fulfillment of Joseph’s words. God will visit one particular Israelite, another one he has placed in a unique position, Moses. And through Moses (as well as Aaron), God will speak and lead. He will speak about a covenant and he will lead them on a journey to a promised land where the patriarchs once lived.

God will surely visit Israel in Egypt, but it will be a long time of silence first. We can certainly relate to that.

OUTLINE

Joseph’s promise to sustain his family in Egypt (21), Joseph’s long life and the blessing of grandchildren (22-23), Joseph announces his death and foretells God’s visitation on the children of Israel (24-25), Joseph’s death (26).

OVERVIEW

Sarna (JPS Commentary) finds hints that Israel’s situation in Egypt was already deteriorating before Joseph died. Joseph’s assurance of sustenance in vs 21 and his repeated statement that “God will take notice of you” (or “visit you”) in vss. 24-25, suggest possibly that Israel already felt the weight of being in a foreign land and the need for redemption.

Further, why did Joseph not request burial in the land immediately? His request that they should do this at the future time when God will visit them and brings them into the land suggests that the people of Israel were unable to make the journey in Joseph’s later days.

Strangely, there is no notice of the land mourning or of any great ceremony at Joseph’s death. Perhaps this is all literary foreshadowing of the coming enslavement. The book of Genesis ends with a note that the next step in the promise is vital, that the people of Abraham would inherit the land promised to Abraham.

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TORAH READINGS & CALENDAR

GENESIS

By Derek Leman

REFERENCE:

Exodus

By Derek Leman

Leviticus

By Derek Leman

Numbers

By Derek Leman

Deuteronomy

By Derek Leman

Matthew

By Derek Leman

Mark

By Derek Leman

Luke

By Derek Leman

John

By Derek Leman

Acts

By Derek Leman

Table of Contents