Matthew 1

This chapter features two main parts: the genealogy of Jesus and then the abridged story of Jesus' birth. I'll tackle that first. Matthew doesn't go into nearly as much detail here as some of the other Gospels, from what I remember; in particular I think Luke has more in the lead-up to Jesus' birth.

There will likely be more about the events around His birth in the next chapter of Matthew, but the big takeaway here is that Jesus was born to a virgin. His mother, Mary, was impregnated by God - not God physically coming down and sleeping with her, as some claim, but supernaturally without any physical contact from a man. This is the only such event in history, and I've always thought it made perfect sense since Jesus was sinless. It is clearly stated elsewhere in the Bible that all humans have an innate sinful nature, and that it is passed down from father to son (and daughter) - but Jesus had no human father, and so did not inherit that nature! This was the only way that God could be born into our world, really, and it had been prophesied hundreds of years earlier by Isaiah (7:14). This is the first of many prophecies about the coming Messiah which Jesus fulfilled, and I will try to highlight as many of them as I can over the course of reading through the Gospels.

As for the genealogy, it traces Jesus' royal lineage through his adopted human father, Joseph. He was a direct descendant of King David, which was important because that was another prophecy about the Messiah: he would reign on the throne of David forever (Jeremiah 33:14-17). It also interesting to note so many names from the Old Testament which feature in this list - Rahab, Ruth & Boaz, David & Solomon, and of course the patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob). It really goes to show that the Bible is His Story - the story of Jesus, from His hand in creation through to the end of time. May His name be praised forever and ever, amen!

Exodus 6

Today's chapter is a little odd, in that it splits right in the middle of a narrative and drops into a family tree for most of the rest of the passage. The story picks up again in the last couple verses, but it doesn't really go anywhere. I suspect the next chapter should be interesting, though, as the last thing we read today is Moses once again calling into question his ability to go before Pharaoh. It is a good thing that God is patient, as I imagine that all of Moses' whining was getting old.

Genesis 36

Wow - lots of names today, many of which I can't pronounce. Being that almost the whole of this chapter is a genealogy there isn't much to say, but there is one item of note. In the first few verses we see that Esau and Jacob had so many possessions between the two of them that they couldn't occupy the same area. I'm not sure if it was reasoning Esau thought of or not, but because Jacob was the heir to Abraham's covenant he was to stay in the land of the promise while Esau and his folk left for other lands. It is also cool to see that, though Esau and Ishmael were not the heirs to this promise God still made them fathers of great peoples.

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 11

This is one of the most fascinating stories in the Old Testament, to me anyway, and I wish there was more that was told about it. Following the Flood there was just one language, and perhaps that was also the case before it, and with the combined efforts of mankind at that point they tried to build a tower that would reach up to the heavens. Part of the reasoning given is that they wanted to avoid being spread across the whole earth, which was actually what God wanted (based on his commands to Adam and Eve, which are reiterated to Noah and his family). What I find most intriguing, though, is that God says that having done this with one language "now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them" (NAS). If it were anyone other than God saying that I would think they were worried, especially given the reaction in the following verses. It must be something else, though, since obviously man is no threat to God.

It rather reminds me of Genesis 6:6, where "the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart" (NAS). I'm not sure if this is just the author of Genesis personifying God with fallible human emotions (regret, in Gen 6:6, or fear in this passage) or if maybe the translation of those words and phrases into English looses something - but I do find it very curious. Maybe it is more than that, maybe God can feel regret or sorrow about something He created even if he knew it would be that way before it happened. I honestly don't know, but it is something to ponder.

The rest of the chapter is a simple genealogy, though again with ages that allow us to count time. In this case, we can see that there were 292 years from the Flood to the birth of Abram (soon to be Abraham). Combine that with the number from Adam to Noah (1056), Noah's age when the Flood came (600), and a year for the duration of the Flood itself and we have a total of 1949 years from Adam to to Abram. Combine that with the estimates we can make of when Abram lived, and a rough age for the world can be found :)

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

Genesis 10

Ah, another genealogy - I'm afraid the early parts of the Bible are full of them. For the most part these seem unnecessary to many modern readers, like myself, but obviously they were included for a reason. I just wonder what that was sometimes...

There are two names in this account that do merit mention, though: Nimrod and Peleg. The first of those was apparently a great hunter, warrior, and king, though I'm afraid that his name has been abused in recent years and now can be considered a mild insult. I've often wondered why there was significance placed on this being a "might hunter before the Lord" (my emphasis added). Isn't everything before the Lord, in the sense of His being able to see all that goes on? Perhaps Nimrod was obedient to God, or maybe that meaning has been entirely lost to history.

The other name, Peleg, means "division" - which may be a reference to the split of languages at the Tower of Babel. I'm glad we don't name kids after events anymore these days; imagine someone born on September of 2001 being called "terrorism" - yikes!

This chapter in:
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Genesis 5

This chapter is all genealogy, but unlike some of the later name lists this has two very interesting and unique items:

1) Ages: The account here gives us the age each man was when he fathered the son through which the lineage is traced, and the total age he lived to. Obviously the long lifespans here are noteworthy, but more important to my mind is the number of years from father to son. This gives us the ability to count the years from Adam (whether his age is counted from his creation or from the fall, I don't know) to Noah's birth. That sums to 1056 years, though that might be a year or two off as a total due to months being rounded off each age. Noah himself, as we will find in the next chapters, was quite old when the Flood occurs - but this combined with his age as it will be given is a very cool insight (in my opinion).

2) Enoch: One of two men in the Bible who did not die, or at least that is how I read it. How amazing it must have been - to be so close to God that he would just take you away from all of this trouble! Obviously we don't know the exact circumstance or details of the situation, but I also find it odd that he was taken at such a "young" age (just 365); I wonder what his family thought of that?

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