Deuteronomy 2

This chapter continues to detail the travels of the Israelites as they approached the Promised Land. What I found interesting here was that they were forbidden from taking the lands occupied by the descendants of Esau and Lot. Even though those peoples were not specifically part of the covenant God had still set aside lands for them, and it sounds almost like they were guided to them in a similar fashion to what the Israelites experienced. I can only assume this was because they too were descended from or related to Abraham, and I thought that was pretty cool!

Genesis 28

Here we have yet another instance of a favored son being instructed to take a wife from among Abraham's relatives, rather than the locals. This time, though, instead of sending a servant to find the bride Isaac sends the one to be married - Jacob. Along the way he has a bit of a dream, in which he sees and hears God speak to him.

It seems that God re-affirms his covenant with Abraham's bloodline over and over, but here we have the first occurrence of it with Jacob specifically. This shows, officially, that Jacob will be the heir of Issac through whom the covenant will be fulfilled - just as it came through Isaac rather than Ishmael.

A few interesting things to note from the passage:

- When Esau realizes that his parents dislike the women he married (due to their ancestry), he goes and marries another woman - a daughter of Ishmael. This is closer in to the family line, and so presumably an attempt to curry favor again with his father. I guess I am a little surprised, given all the events that transpired in the last chapter, that he is still concerned about impressing his father.

- After the dream that Jacob has, he promises to obey and serve God - but on the condition that he is kept safe on his journey. Given the vision he had just woken from, one would think that he would be best served not to try and 'make a deal' with God. I wonder what God thought of that...

Genesis 26

Well, the apple does not fall far from the tree they say - and it certainly seems true with Abraham and his son, Isaac. When Isaac moves into a new land he tries to pull the same "my wife is my sister" trick that his father used twice. Just the same as before, though, it falls flat. Will these guys never learn? The thing I find most odd about this, though, is that God does not chastise them for lying. I suppose in Abraham's case it was at least somewhat true (Sarah was his half-sister), but the same cannot be said for Isaac and Rebekah; at best they are cousins, if I read the preceding chapters correctly.

Much of the rest of this section is taken up by the digging of wells, the filling of wells, and arguing over wells. I suppose the important bit is that God led Isaac and his family to a region which was not contested, and where the covenant between them would be fulfilled. There is also a renewal of the peace treaty that Isaac's father had with the leaders of the Philistines.

At the tail end of this chapter we see that Esau married a pair of Hittite women, when he was around age 40, and this did not sit well with his parents. Because there isn't much in the way of details, I have to assume that their concerns were due to the region and people those women were from; I suppose it could also be that he married twice, but given the relationships their other son (Jacob) will have with a total of four women I doubt that is the problem.

Genesis 25

There are some interesting things in today's passage, along with some further genealogical information that doesn't seem to be very critical. Time for another list, I think!

- Apparently Abraham had another wife, who gets a very short account here. I can only assume that she was brought in after Sarah died, since Abraham still lived another half-century or so after that. Apparently she was a lot more fruitful than Sarah had been, but Abraham sent her and his children by her away before he died. Clearly he saw that Isaac was his main heir, through whom God would fulfill his covenant.

- People had lots of kids in the past. I have only one, but I really don't know how I could ask my wife to go through the pain of pregnancy and childbirth again - not to mention I don't want to have to deal with additional years of changing diapers, and I have no idea how I would be able to afford more than one more mouth to feed. I suppose the people we are hearing about here are pretty affluent, and may have had all sorts of servants to take care of menial tasks, but it still seems like such a foreign concept.

- Twins... boy am I glad there is only one of my Gus! Having two sons born at the same time would bring in all sorts of competition, favoritism, and other things that are unhealthy. We can see in this account between Jacob and Esau that there was such tension, and that it turns out badly for one of them (granted it is his own fault, but still).

Genesis 24

This is a very beautiful account of faith put into action, as many of the preceding passages in Genesis have been. Abraham puts his faith in God and in his senior servant, that servant in turn trusts God to show him the right woman for Isaac, and then she and her family trust in God's decision merely based on the words of the servant. It is a pretty big commitment to send your daughter off to marry a man you've (probably) never met, and even more so to be the girl being given in marriage!

There is one odd thing that struck me here, though. We get an account that when the servant finds Rebekah and believes her to be the woman God has chosen, that he gives her a ring and bracelets right off. I thought, "wow, did they really use rings way back then for proposals? thats cool" - until a few verses later when we find out that the ring was in her nose! Ew! I'm not a fan of piercings, and especially not big gaudy ones in noses and other odd anatomy. I suppose this would be a good verse to point to, though, when dealing with parents or other family who don't want a girl to get her nose pierced. Hmm... if I ever have a daughter, I'll have to remember to come back and delete this paragraph ;)

Genesis 23

Well, I'm tired this evening - so it was good timing that brought me to this chapter. It is an account of the death of Sarah, Abraham's wife, and his purchasing of a field and cave in which to bury her. I suppose it is interesting that the man who owned the field previously tried to give it to Abraham at first, but Abraham insisted on paying for it. I suppose one could say that he did not want to be indebted to anyone, which is admirable, and moreover Abraham didn't argue or haggle over the price at all. Any real estate agents listening in - how nice would it be if people just paid whatever asking price you set on a property without discussion? ;)

Genesis 22

Today we have one of the more memorably passages from the book of Genesis - God's command to Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, his son through whom God had promised to make a great nation. It took a lot of faith on Abraham's part to believe God's promise in the first place, but to now throw it away would be almost unthinkable. Now that I am a father myself I can better understand what God was asking of Abraham here, and it would be very tough to follow through with.

Thank goodness it was just a test, though! God knew what He was doing, of course, and all that was necessary was for Abraham to show that he had faith enough to act on such a seemingly impossible request. Bravo sir, well done!

Genesis 21

The reading today covers the birth of Issac, through whom God's promises to Abraham are to be carried out. It is rather funny that Sarah laughed again at his birth, but this time it seems to be a laugh of happiness and joy rather than of disbelief. Unfortunately for Hagar and Ishmael, though, Sarah's dislike of them rears its head again - and they are exiled.

The later section of Genesis 21 describes what seems to be a territory dispute between Abraham and the people in whose land he and his family were staying, and then a treaty between them. It shows once more that Abraham likes being a peacemaker, I think, and it explains the name of one of the locations that will be mentioned again later in the Bible (Beersheba). Beyond that, though, I am unaware of any significance to this event.

Genesis 20

So, it seems that Abraham has a habit of hiding the identity of his wife everywhere he goes. This time around it nearly brings destruction on a king and his family, but the crisis is averted through obedience to God (on the part of the king) and Abraham coming clean in the end. Apparently, though, Sarah really is blood-related to Abraham: his half sister, to be precise. Ew!

Oddly, Sarah is also 90 years old here (based on the previous chapters). It is somewhat surprising that a king would want to take such an old lady to be his wife. She must have been a real looker ;)

Genesis 18

The passage I read today is split into two sections, but the two are tied together by the appearance of three men - one of whom is clearly identified (mid-way through the passage, in verse 13) as the Lord - to Abraham. At first they talk with Abraham about the covenant God has with him, making a very personal impression on him as well as his wife, Sarah. She also tries to sneak in a lie, but God calls her on it. We've all lied at some point, and though many of us have been caught at some point or another it usually isn't in quite such a dramatic and straight-to-the-point way. Plus it generally isn't the God of all the universe doing the (very literal) rebuke. Ouch!

The second half of this chapter deals with the Lord's investigation of Sodom and Gomorrah for the evil deeds that He has heard they've committed. It is rather interesting that God is taking the time here to physically check out a situation when He certainly knows exactly what has and has not happened everywhere; given the way that He broaches the topic I suspect it was done just so that a dialog is opened with Abraham on the subject. Abraham pleads with God for Him to spare Sodom (but maybe not Gomorrah?), arguing that if there are some godly people living there it would not be 'right' to kill them along with the wicked. I presume this is Abraham trying to save the life of his nephew, Lot, who went to live near Sodom - but if so he falls short. I wonder why Abraham left the discussion standing at the presence of 10 godly people being enough to spare Sodom; did he think there were that many living there? Was he afraid to narrow all the way down to the one he did know was there (Lot)? Hmm...

This chapter in:
New America Standard, New King James, New International

Genesis 17

This chapter is full of the beautiful promises God made to Abram, as part of His covenant, along with the change of name for Abram and his wife Sarai - to Abraham and Sarah respectively. I imagine it must have been hard to get used to a new name, similar though it may be, at age 100 (or 90, for Sarai/h). Of course getting yourself circumcised, along with all of the male members of your household, would be even harder to do! My wife and I are about to have our new son circumcised, probably tomorrow, and while I'm sure it will hurt him a bit at least it will not be a memory when he grows up. Kudos to Abraham for his faith and follow through!

In this passage we also see that Ishmael is not included in the main covenant between God and Abraham. Sorry Arabs, but this means that the Israelites are the ones who have rights to the Promised Land.

This chapter in:
New America Standard, New King James, New International