Day 032 - Exodus 1-4

Exodus follows on directly from the end of Genesis reminding us of where we're at in the development of the Israelite people. The story is a familiar one with many passages being Sunday School favourites, Moses in the bullrushes, the burning bush and God turning Moses' stick into a snake. The wider narrative was somewhat lost on me as a kid and it's was only later that I was able to see some of the bigger picture of what God was doing.

One of the interesting things that leaped out from this passage was the story of Moses' time in Midian. He meets his future wife and her sisters and through helping them effectively wins her hand in marriage. Given God's commands later on about not intermarrying it's somewhat strange that this first great leader of the Israelites was married to a foreigner albeit one who many generations back came from Abraham's family.

The passage that we never read as kids was the one where God comes to kill Moses and Zipporah his wife averts this by circumcising their son. My immediate thought when I read this was to wonder what God was up to, but then I remembered that the covenant of circumcision had been established with Abraham and Moses would have known about it. As I said before this book is a direct continuation of the previous one and just in case you thought God had changed or forgotten the past, this pops up to remind you that this is the same guy. It's also reassuring too because this means that the covenant promises that God made to Abraham are still in place.

Day 023-031 - The Rest of Job

It's been a while since I wrote on this blog and even now having finished Job I'm not going to write about each section. Job is a tricky book to read devotionally as it really needs good study to glean what is useful and what is not as most of the book is four fallible humans trying to figure stuff out. This leads to them misrepresenting God and he affirms this at the end of the book when he turns up. Often I'd read something from Job or one of friends and be impressed by the wisdom of it and then wonder whether it was in fact Godly wisdom. What we have in Job is a book that is the Biblical equivalent of a bunch of blokes talking in a pub and therefore a lot of nonsense is spouted on all sides.

What has struck me most through reading Job is the assumption of God in the midst of suffering which is a marked contrast to the way our modern western society views things. Suffering seems to be one of the main things that lead people to reject belief in God completely, the argument goes something like, "How can God exist if x, y and z are happening." Job and his friends on the other hand are quite happy with the fact of God's existence and couch their debate in terms of Job's perceived righteousness to try to explain why he is suffering.

In Romans 1 we read that:

"For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse."

The Biblical picture is consistent with this and yet we now live in a world where this is denied by so many. The book of Job is therefore a refreshing antidote and a glimpse of a world where God is recognised if not always understood.

Day 022 - Job 4-7

After going through some suffering myself over the past few days, here we go with the first bit of dialogue between Job and his fried Eliphaz. I can tell at this stage that this is going to be a tricky book to navigate through as it contains lots of statements about God and people and not all of them will be true.

I don't really know what to make of Eliphaz's first statement as most of it seems to be his own testimony of things that he's seen and most of it doesn't seem to bear on Job's situation. What he seems to believe is that anyone who is truly righteous will not suffer in the way that Job is. He does then ask the question as to whether anyone can be righteous in God's sight and with his talk of imperfect angels it looks unlikely. Eliphaz advises Job to stop worrying and cry out to God by presenting his case.

Job doesn't respond directly to this, but again cries out to God and rails against him. This time Job goes further than the last by blaming God for his pain and future suffering. He feels that his prayers are unanswered and that he would rather die (or maybe he's praying for death?). He does then have a go at his friends who he says have accused him and again asserts that he is in the right with God.

Job list of questions is a pertinent one, but there is no immediate answer as God is yet to speak in response to him.

Day 021 - Job 1-3

After the length of time it took me to get through Genesis I've finally made it to the next book in the order which is Job. I really want to make an effort to be diligent with this reading plan and stick to it day by day.

So Job, the holy man of God who could do no wrong, who Satan is allowed to inflict terrible sufferings on to try and make him crack.

Today's passage is rather different from most of the book in that it begins with prose and only when we get to chapter three does the main poetic content of the book begin. Obviously divine inspiration is involved as we are privy to God and Satan having a couple of meetings. It's clear that God is in complete control and isn't at all threatened by the presence of his enemy. It's also very clear that Satan is not able to act unless God allows him to, which brings up the thorny question of why he allows him to do anything, a question which even if I could answer it fully would take more than a few blog posts to get to grips with.

As with Genesis, during which this story takes place somewhere, the cultural elements are a little difficult to get round, but by chapter three we have the equivalent of 4 blokes in a pub where the suffering one is surrounded by his mates.

Whilst Job does eventually crack, he doesn't blame God (as his wife would have had him do), but instead laments the fact that he was ever born and then reflects on the peace that 'the grave' would bring him. One thing that stood out for me was where he says in verse 19, "Everyone is there, the famous and the unknown." Death the great leveller, the event that will precipitate us standing before God's judgement, and all the fame and wealth in the world will not change our status. It seems that even in the midst of his sufferings Job is able to make profound statements about the world.

It's a while since I've read Job, but it's structure is familiar to me with it's series of dialogues between Job and his friends. I wonder which of their arguments will resonate with me the most and what my conclusions will be as I read it this time.

Day 020 - Genesis 48-50

It's the final stretch and by the end of the book both Jacob and his son Joseph have died. Jacob takes the opportunity of being on his death bed to gather his many sons around them and prophesy a future for them. Before this however he blesses his grandsons by Joseph, but deliberately switches his hands over so that he blesses the younger one with his right hand. There's no explanation given as to why he does this but I would suspect that it has a lot to do with the fact that Jacob himself was a second son who usurped his elder brother's position.

The book ends a a whimper really with the word, 'coffin,' as Joseph is buried and the scene is set for the next book, Exodus. However we'll be popping ahead to Job next as the events described happened during the period described in Genesis.

Day 019 - Genesis 46-47

Chapter 46 mostly deals with the family that Jacob brings with him to Israel and there are a lot of names in there to try and pronounce. The funniest for my are Muppim, Huppim and Ard, who, my dad informs me were key to a maths problem his teacher once set him and his class. Here we get that first glimpse of how one family will start to become a nation as at this point there are now 70 of them.

The rest of the passage focusses on the happy family reunion and the continued success of Joseph's forward planning to avert the famine. Our focus is once again drawn at the end to God's promise being related to a particular geographical area and even though he has brought them to Egypt, it is clear that there permanent future does not lie there.

Day 018 - Genesis 43-45

Joseph's mental torture of his brothers goes on in this chapter and it reaches new heights as he finds a way of keeping his youngest brother in Egypt. I really don't understand what is going on in these passages aside from Joseph trying to get some kind of twisted revenge for the way his brothers treated him years previously. It doesn't really fit with the character that had been revealed over the preceding chapters and there is a hint that he knows it's wrong as he has to keep leaving to avoid crying in front of his kin.

It does all finally come good in chapter 45 where Joseph finally reveals who he is which triggers a bout of relief on all sides including the Egyptian officials. These last few chapters obviously set the scene for what will happen in Exodus and I can't help but be reminded of watching the Star Wars prequels when you just know that any good that Anakin does is tainted by the fact that he will become Darth Vader.

Day 017 - Genesis 41-42

Joseph has to wait two years for justice to prevail when the king has an uninterpretable dream and the steward finally deigns to remember him. Again Joseph gives God his rightful place by acknowledging before the king who is the source of his ability to interpret dreams. He doesn't do badly at all out of the whole thing as he goes from lowly prisoner to the second most powerful man in Egypt.

Then the story switches tone as we go from worldwide famine to focus in on the continuing story of Joseph's family who come to Egypt to buy corn. There follows a few chapters in which Joseph deliberately withholds his identity from his brothers and it's hard to see why other than to put them through some kind of emotional assault course. He does also try to bless them by giving them the corn for free, but when they discover their money returned to them they panic even more.

Day 016 - Genesis 38-40

It's a bit of a mixed bag today with three distinct stories, one for each chapter.

The story of Judah and his daughter-in-law is just plain weird to our modern ears. The idea that a widow would go to such lengths to carry on a family line seems rather pointless and degrading, but we miss so much culturally here. God doesn't seem to come out of the story well either as his only involvement here is to kill two of Judah's sons for actions that displease him. God has been responsible for the deaths of multitudes beforehand so why is it that I baulk at the couple of deaths here? I guess it's because of the personal nature of the act and that we are told the names of the individuals concerned.

Then we see Joseph end up in Egypt and we start to see the goodness of his character, gone are the boastings of chapter 37 to be replaced by a desire of holiness. This pursuit costs him dearly as he ends up in prison because of the lies of Potiphar's wife. However he soon assumes a position of responsibility within the prison set up due to God being with him.

Chapter 40 sees the beginning of a story for Joseph is famous, but it is to God that Joseph attributes his ability to interpret dreams. This story again highlights for me the difference in storytelling that we have in the OT. There is no mention of the reactions of the steward and the baker to their respective fates as Jospeh interprets the dreams. I'm sure if I'd been the baker I'd have had something to say about my impending death and would have given Joseph and/or God a piece of my mind.

Day 015 - Genesis 36-37

So we're faced today with two rather different chapters and again God is nowhere in sight (though Joseph's dreams are an indicator that he is acting through this story).

It's genealogy time again. Yay! For me recording these into a microphone is a bit of a challenge as I try and pronounce what is written on the page, knowing full well that the transliteration is done in different ways for other translations. Most of the names too are unfamiliar to me and so it's difficult to see their relevance other than to recognise that whilst God's promise is to be fulfilled through Jacob, Esau too becomes the father of many nations. There is the odd familiar name including Amalek whose descendants will one day fight with Israel.

Moving on from there, we are introduced to the final major narrative of the story as Joseph takes centre stage. And he's a bit of a big head isn't he. Even though his dreams are from God, he lacks sensitivity in sharing them with his brothers who already bear a grudge against him due to his being his father's favourite.

Again it's a strange situation for the modern western reader to get his head around. Here we have a man who has 12 kids by four different women who really don't get on too well. When one of them becomes his father's favourite and then adds boasting to his list of sins most of them have little compunction in selling him into slavery. Only Reuben shows any sign of caring about his younger half-brother.

With the benefit of hindsight we can see how God was to work through this whole situation and once again God chooses people with messed up relationships to advance his plan.

Day 014 - Genesis 33-35

After playing a prominent role in chapter 32, God takes a back seat again and doesn't act directly until chapter 35. In the meantime we get a couple of rather different events going on.

The meeting of Jacob with his brother Esau after all those years apart is a bit of an anticlimax dramatically. If you were making a film of it I reckon most directors would play it more along the lines of Han Solo and Lando Calrissian in The Empire Strikes Back. However there's none of that tension here and Esau goes straight for the hug and the kiss. It's a surprise though, as all we've ever seen Jacob do prior to this is to cheat his brother and he has every right to expect animosity at best and death threats at the worst.

We then get the terrible story of Dinah's rape by a guy from another tribe called Shechem. The text is rather dispassionate and makes it sound as if rape is an everyday occurrence (and maybe it was), but that falling in love with a rape victim isn't. The other thing that strikes me from this passage is that Dinah never gets to say anything and all the talking that goes on is between Jacob and his sons and the Hivite blokes.

You can't help but smile at the rather twisted revenge that Jacob's sons inflict on the Hivites as they con them into getting circumcised and then slaughter them all whilst they're convalescing. However this doesn't take away from the fact that they have just gone and killed a bunch of people. The ending of the passage is rather unsatisfactorily ambiguous about the morality of the whole thing. Jacob is clear in his condemnation of his sons actions (though it seems there are selfish reasons at play here), but the sons try and justify their actions by citing the protection of their sister's honour.

God turns up again at this point with instructions for Jacob to move on and settle somewhere else. There's a purge of idols at this point as Jacob seeks to put worship of the true God in order. God repeats his Abrahamic promise to Jacob here before tragedy strikes in the form of Jacob's favourite wife dying whilst giving birth to her second son.

The chapter ends matter-of-factly with a lost of Jacob's sons and the death of Issac

Hello Again

For anyone who is still following this blog and wondering where I'd got to, you needn't wonder anymore. Yes I'm back and hopefully this time I'll get through more than 13 days worth of readings this time.

Ok, we're jumping back into Jacob's story in Genesis 33.

Day 013 - Genesis 31-32

The idea of the Lord's favour being on one particular person, his family and eventually a nation is a little strange to someone who has grown up in an environment where God is equally available to all. With hindsight it's possible to know where this whole thing is going and when the word Israel pops up at the end of chapter for the first time the modern reader knows that this story is still going on today in some shape or form.

God is extravagant in what he gives to Abraham, Isaac and now Jacob, but he doesn't overwhelm them and they are always dependant on him. It's a slow process as we are now a couple of generations down from the original promise and all that seems to have happened is the accumulation of wives, slaves and livestock for Abraham's descendants.

And then we have this strange wrestling match where Jacob becomes one of the few people in the Bible before Jesus came who actually gets to meet with God in a real physical way. He's just as stubborn as he's always been and it costs him to extent of being crippled for the rest of his life.

This passage has again reminded me of how the Bible is written, not as a God's list of rules for living or a book of systematic theology, but a story of people and their interaction with him. As such it contains little bits of human activity and at times is even humorous. The scene where Laban is searching for his household gods which Rachel is sitting on brought a chuckle to my lips as I was reading it out. It seems that God is not just concerned with the big picture, but with the smaller less significant things of life.

Day 012 - Genesis 29-30

Ok, hopefully I'm back on track now with a bit of a routine and I should be able to do one per day again.

So this is the famous passage where Jacob is tricked by his uncle and marries the wrong sister and then the right one and then there's a battle between them to see who can produce the most kids. It's another strange passage for the modern western reader as we struggle to understand the cultural context of what is going on. Working overseas we had a motto of, "it's not wrong, it's just different," to help us deal with things that other cultures did differently. In this passage however it just seems plain wrong and the cause of much strife. It's sad to see how far humanity has come from God's ideal set out in Genesis 1 and the pain that it causes both women as Leah is unloved, but Rachel is (for the most part) unable to have kids. It's a stark picture of the brokeness of the world, but knowing what is to come I can see the beginning of that hope here.

We Interrupt This Broadcast...

If there is anyone out there reading this blog you'll probably realise that even though it gives the appearance of having one entry per day I've actually been playing catch up since near the beginning. Life has been very busy over the past couple of weeks and trying to record and then comment on a few chapters each day has been difficult. I hope to get a bit more structure into my life once term is in full swing and then I should be able to get back to doing 1 per day.