Matthew 2

As I suspected in my comments on the previous chapter, this section contains more of the 'Christmas Story' as we traditionally think of it. The visit of the magi, or wise men, is often pictured as being right at Jesus' birth - but it certainly looks from the text like it came later, maybe even as much as a year or two after He was born.

It is also pretty cool that the closest things they had to scientists back then came to worship Jesus, after observing some sort of new star in the heavens. I've often wondered if that was God using a supernova or comet - something like that which He simply timed properly - or if it was something altogether supernatural. It doesn't much matter, just something I've thought about a few times.

We've also got the account of Herod's mass murder of children in this chapter. As with all violence, especially against the young and innocent, it is a tragedy... but it shows just how much some people love power, and how twisted our sinful, human nature can be. It also fills another prophecy about Jesus' birth (Jeremiah 31:15), as does His family's return from Egypt after Herod's death and their eventual settling in Nazareth.

Numbers 9

It is pretty crazy to think that a year has now passed since the events of early Exodus! This chapter covers the second Passover celebration - or more precisely, the first celebration since the real Passover in Egypt. This recognition of God's work was so important that even those ceremonially unclean were allowed to participate!

There is also a description of the way that God led the Israelites in their wanderings, and if it isn't sacreligious to say so it reminds me of the game "Red Light - Green Light". When God's presence lifted, they traveled - when it settled, they camped. Quite elegant, really :)

Exodus 10

I suspect we are nearing the end, as the plagues upon Egypt can't get much worse. This is very reminiscent of some of the plagues in the end times, talked about in Revelation. When I get there in a couple of years I will try to remember to refer back here and compare them.

The darkness that falls on Egypt in the later parts of this chapter is especially creepy, and really hard to imagine. Sometimes when I read things like this in the Bible I think it would make for a pretty amazing TV show - and that would be a pretty cool outreach tool, if done well.

Exodus 9

Today the plagues on Egypt go from bad to worse. The ones recounted in the last two chapters were quite annoying, I'm sure - but not overly destructive or deadly; the ones in this passage are quite the opposite.

The Israelite slaves must have really been a key component of the Egyptian economic structure for Pharaoh to have stood up to all of this in order to keep them. I would say that I wonder what it will take to get him to budge, but we will see soon enough.

On an interesting side note, the last plague (hail) seems strange to me. Obviously hail can be quite damaging by itself, if in a large quantity and good-size chunks, but the storms God used must have been something really special. In addition to the hail itself, there was rain and thunder - which are quite reasonable - and fire (Ex 9:24). The mere fact that fire rained down is remarkable enough, but the fact that it accompanied hail and rain seems quite miraculous. Of course God can do that, but I wonder if it might actually be a reference to something like lightning. If they didn't have a word for such phenomenon at the time (perhaps it was not common in their climate?) it would seem feasible to call that fire.

Exodus 8

Frogs, gnats, and flies - oh my! More plagues for the land of Egypt, because Pharaoh does not learn his lesson. What I find interesting here is that the magicians of Pharaoh's court manage to mimic the first plague (as they had with previous miracles that Moses and Aaron had done), but not the second. On the third, we don't even get told that they tried; perhaps they finally realized how out-classed they were :) After all, they did admit to Pharaoh that "this is the finger of God." (Ex 8:18b, NIV)

Exodus 7

Ah, today we start to see some real action in the struggle between Moses/Aaron and Pharaoh! How amazing must it have been to see a staff turned into a snake - and then to see it take on other snake/staffs and 'swallow them up'? Or how terrifying to see all the water in a river turned to blood? Such miracles are not seen anymore, though as we'll see in a couple of years their like and worse will happen again someday.

In spite of these things, Pharaoh's heart was hard against the request to let the Israelites go. We know from previous chapters that this was actually God's doing, so that He could demonstrate His power and sovereignty in freeing His people, but I wonder what the Egyptians thought of all of it? At what point did the average Egyptian wish that Pharaoh would just let them go - or in that day did the main populous even know of what was going on? Surely they all were affected by the changing of the river Nile into blood, but I wonder if they actually knew the whole story of how it happened and why.

Exodus 5

Moses and Aaron finally make their case for the Israelites leaving to Pharaoh, and of course he rejects it. What I find interesting is two things:

1) Moses asks only to let the Israelites take a 3-day journey to worship God, not to leave Egypt forever. That is of course the eventual goal, but God had instructed them to ask for this first. It seems to me like it nearly borders on lying - but we'll have to see how it turns out when Pharaoh eventually grants this request.

2) As a punishment of sorts, Pharaoh demands that the Israelites must continue to meet their work quotas - but now must do so without the aid of straw to make bricks. This tells me that either the making of bricks itself or the building of things with them was a primary task of the Israelites in captivity, and we get some confirmation of that in earlier chapters when it was mentioned that they built two cities in Egypt. I am curious about this method of brick production as well: making them with straw hardly seems to me like it would a strong, effective 'brick', but such manufacturing is not a strong point of my knowledge.

Exodus 2

So I read today's passage to my son, Gus - and while I don't think he got much out of it (he is only 1 month old, after all) it was kinda fun. Perhaps reading scripture each day will eventually become something we do together :)

Anyways, today we are introduced to Moses, who will play a key part for the next couple of books (if memory serves). We see that his birth was in defiance of Pharaoh's decree that Hebrew male children not be allowed to live, and that it was his own daughter who saved Moses' life. How ironic! That also gave him a privileged upbringing, which he forsook when he killed an Egyptian who was harassing one of his fellow Hebrews.

This almost seems like the start of a good comic-book hero story, but Moses flees from Pharaoh's wrath shortly thereafter instead of going on a crime-fighting spree. He'll be back to 'finish the job' someday, though (not by his own planning either!).

Exodus 1

Thus begins the account of the great exodus from Egypt: A new Pharaoh, who fears the strength of the Israelites and the threat they could become, orders that all their male children be killed. Hmm, that sounds familiar - I suspect I'll run into another king with similar paranoia in the early parts of the Gospels.

Other than that, not much to tell here. I do wonder, though, how long it was between Joseph saving the Egyptians and a king rising there who didn't know of him, and in trade for his great help in the past enslaved his family's descendants?

Genesis 47

This portion of scripture covers three things: the settling of Israel in Egypt, the success of Joseph's plans to feed Egypt, and Jacob's desire to be buried with his fathers back in their promised land. Of those, the bit that stuck out to me most during this reading was the middle one.

Joseph seems to set up a socialist economy - he manages to get all of the people's money, then livestock, and then even land in trade for the food they need to survive. At that point, then, the citizens of Egypt are little more than tenant or servants to Pharaoh, but the system seems to work. He also implements a 20% tax, as he says that 1/5th of the goods produced should go to Pharaoh, while the remainder is to be kept by the workers to feed themselves and their families. That seems like a pretty fair tax rate, all things considered, but I should probably stop myself before I go into a rant about taxation. That is better left for one of my other blogs ;)

I wonder if one could go back in other historical records and identify this 1/5th tax. It is noted in the passage that it was in effect still at the time that was written, which at best must have been a few hundred years later.

Genesis 46

This chapter is mostly a listing of Jacob's descendants who went with him to Egpyt, but it does have a couple of interesting things. One is the promise God gives to Jacob that He himself will lead Jacob's offspring back out of Egpyt, after making them a great people there. This of course will come to pass in Exodus, and not without a bit of persuasion - but God is true to His word.

The other odd fact is from the last verse - "everyone who takes care of sheep is disgusting to the Egyptians.” Similar language is used back in chapter 43, when Joseph sits down to eat with his brothers - we are told that the Egyptians find it disgusting to eat with Hebrews. It must have been a cultural issue of some sort, but I wonder what it was.

Genesis 12

So out of the blue God chooses Abram to be the patriarch of a great nation, and guides him to the land that his descendants, the Israelites, will inhabit. I don't know why God picked him in particular, but who am I to question God? I do know that because of this promise and those that God gives to Abram's descendants I believe that even today the Israelis have a right to the lands they inhabit. No offense to the Palestinians, but I have to side with the rightful heirs Abram, Issac, and Jacob.

The second half of this chapter describes a trip to Egypt where Abram was less-than-honest about who Sarai, his wife, was. To be perfectly blunt he must have been quite a coward to put his own life above the sanctity of his marriage. If I'd been in his place I would have proudly announced that Sarai was my bride, especially given the description of how beautiful she was. If I had any real concern that someone would kill me over that I simply would have avoided that area, or come prepared to defend myself.

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