Genesis 35

In today's reading we once more have an affirmation of the covenant between God and Abraham's descendants, along with a second proclamation that Jacob's name shall be changed to Israel (the first was when he wrestled with God). Prior to this Jacob/Israel instructed his family and followers to dispose of all the old idols and pagan symbols they had, which he buried; I guess Laban never got his 'household gods' back!

There is also a lot of death in this chapter: Rachel's nurse, then Rachel in childbirth, and finally Isaac at a good old age. Poor Israel - Rachel was the woman he fell in love with, and yet she was the first of his wives/concubines to die. It definitely explains why Benjamin, the son she had as she passed away, became his favorite: he was his last memory of her, and also his youngest son.

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 27

Here we have the fulfillment of what God had told Rebekah about her sons when they were born. Esau already traded his birthright to Jacob in an earlier passage, and now Jacob (at the behest of his mother) deceitfully steals their father's blessing. It is no wonder that Esau is enraged, but I suppose God's will comes about one way or another. I wonder if Isaac had simply planned to bless Jacob rather than Esau, in accordance with the words God had said to Rebekah in chapter 25, what would have happened. I've always looked at this as a bad act on the part of Rebekah and Jacob, but perhaps Rebekah was acting this way because of what God had told her - trying, in her own way, to obey God. That is a rather odd way of looking at it, but without more details into what each person involved was thinking I suppose it is a possibility.

On a lighter note, how hairy must Esau have been that the best way to mimic his feeling was to strap goat hide to Jacob? Seriously, I've never seen or heard of anyone else with such an abundance of hair! Hairy backs and chests are one thing, but on his hands and his neck? Yikes...

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 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.