Day 011 - Genesis 27-28

The direction that the story began heading in yesterday is fleshed out further as Jacob continues to steal his brother's position with some help from his scheming mother. God is noticeable by his absence for most of the proceedings and only turns up when it's a done deal and Jacob is running away from his angry brother and looking to find himself a wife. He doesn't then condemn Jacob for what he's done either, but promises to bless him in the same way that he did his father and grandfather. I suppose that in spite of his cheating Jacob's response to God is the right one as he recognises his position and wants to worship God (even if he does put some conditions on it).

Day 010 - Genesis 25-26

Jacob and Esau come on the scene in this passage as the 2nd generation after Abraham and we also get to know more about their parents Isaac and Rebecca at the same time. Like her mother-in-law before her Rebecca has trouble conceiving, but she doesn't have to wait as long for God to give her an heir and when he does it's twins. My younger sisters are non-identical twins like Jacob and Esau though unlike these two my sisters are the best of friends. Isaac's kids seem to grow up in a state of conflict with one being strong and the other being crafty and each is favoured by one of his parents. One wonders how much conflict was caused in their marriage by bringing up these two sons.

Then the record appears to get stuck in a groove as Isaac repeats the mistake that his father made twice by pretending that Rebecca is his sister. You feel sorry for Abimelech as this is the second time this has happened in his land, but instead of punishing Issac he allows him to stay (probably because he is aware on some level that God is with Isaac).

A battle of wells then ensues (yes you did read that right) as Isaac re-digs the wells of his father and comes into conflict with the people now living there. Isaac renames the wells to remind him of the conflict (or lack of it) and I guess when future generations came across these places it would be an opportunity to learn something of their history. I wish we could do this today and I could call this place "Accident" because I fell of my bike here when a car driver cut me up.

Day 009 - Genesis 23-24

So Sarah has died at the age of 127 and now Abraham is looking for a wife for Isaac who is the son of the promise that God gave him. Abraham wants to see the next stage of the promise before he too passes on and so he makes his servant promise to go and find a wife for him. I don't have much to say for today other than that if I'd been Isaac I'd have been deep in prayer all the time that the servant was away pleading with God for him to bring back someone that I'd fall in love with. Fortunately he does and they get married. Sigh of relief.

Day 008 - Genesis 20-22

History repeats itself as Abraham once again pretends that Sarah is his sister instead of his wife because he's afraid that he'll be killed so that Abimelech (another cool name) can have her. This time however God intervenes at an earlier stage by appearing to Abimelech in a dream and thus saving the messy inflicting of diseases that we had last time (though all the women in the palace become infertile for a time). It's cool to see that Abimelech was a God fearing man and although has a special place for Abraham in his plan he desire for a relationship with others as well. It also makes you wonder at the character of the Egyptian king from chapter 12 who suffered more and ended up throwing Abraham out of his country.

Isaac's birth is a joyful occasion and the fulfilment of God's promise to Abraham. However the event is overshadowed by Abraham and Sarah's earlier mistrust of God because Hagar and Ishmael are still around. Abraham has to make the difficult decision to send them away, first at the behest of his wife and then after God tells him to listen to Sarah. We then see God's provision again as he cares for Hagar and her son.

God asking Abraham to sacrifice his son after all the things he had gone through must have seemed terrible to Abraham, it definitely seems terrible to the reader. Many consider God to be cruel in this passage to put Abraham through this ordeal and it certainly seems that way on the surface. When you think about it though and study the text you can see that this is a man who has lived trusting God for many years and he knows God's character. He says to his servants that 'we' will come back even though he knows that God has asked him to sacrifice Isaac. It has been suggested that Abraham believed that God could raise his son from the dead and trusted that he would do so. God doesn't give us more than we can handle and he knew that though this would be a great act of faith on Abraham's part, that he would come through and their relationship would be strengthened.

Day 007 - Genesis 18-19

Following on from yesterday we have the reiteration of God's promise to Abraham and Sarah of a child, this time in the form of a personal visit from the Lord and a couple of angels who are on their way to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. There's an interesting passage where God talks to himself as he walks along with Abraham and decides to reveal his long term plan to Abraham. Whilst he is planning to make Abraham's descendants into a great nation, he is concerned with the entire world that he has created and his desire is to bless us.

Then we have the account of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah which is one of those passage that seems to get talked about a lot, but for all the wrong reasons. I think there a couple of issues that people have here one of which is based on a misconception and the other requires a bit more thought.

The misconception comes from different perceptions of what the Bible is, particularly the idea of it being some kind of systematic instruction book for life. There are elements of that in it, but the passages I'm reading at the moment are simply recounting history and the actions of certain people and God. So if, for example we come across this passage and see the way that Lot and his daughters act and are repulsed by some of their actions, then that's OK. Just because an event is recorded in the Bible doesn't mean that God approves or disapproves of it, it just means that it happened. There isn't a running commentary where God passes judgement on every single event, we have to read between the lines sometimes in the knowledge of what we know about his character.

In the story of Noah we learnt that God was prepared to wipe out almost the entire human race because of its sinful behaviour. We see the same here but on a smaller scale as he destroys a couple of cities. There's no way of getting round the fact here that this God is capable of killing people and he does so because they have sinned greatly. This basically means that they were living in such a way as be a long way from the way that God had designed and intended them to live. It brings one up short to be reminded of this aspect of God's character sometimes, but we need to be aware of it.

Day 006 - Genesis 15-17

God makes his covenant with Abram and promises an heir for his estate and then Abram has another lapse in trust which leads to a breakdown in relationships. God promises again to give Abram many descendants, but because he and Sarai can't see beyond their own physical circumstances (i.e. Sarai's infertility) they come up with their own way of trying to fulfil the promise. This involves Sarai giving Abram one of her slave girls to sleep with who then becomes pregnant. This pretty much causes all three of them to despise each other and Hagar the slave girl to run away.

God shows his care for all of them by making a promise to Hagar that her son too will be the father of a great nation and clarifying to Abram that is heir will come through Sarah. One of the things that I've sometimes struggled with in the Old Testament is the lack of condemnation of the polygamy that goes on with some of the Godly men that we read about. I've come to realise that by paying closer attention to the text we can let the situations speak for themselves and draw our own conclusions on the matter. Added to this we have the monogamous example of Adam and Eve at the start of the story and here God's desire to use Abram and Sarai's marriage as the the vehicle for saving the world.

At this point we also get the renaming of both Sarai and Abram to their more familiar names of Abraham and Sarah (it's interesting to note that my spell checker thinks that the former two names are errors, but it has the new names as being spelled correctly). The 'Exalted Father' becomes the 'Father of Many Nations' and the 'Princess' becomes a 'Princess' (from what I've read the name changes may indicate a change from a local emphasis to a global one in line with Abraham's name change).

God also initiates the practice of circumcision at this point and all I can say is that it must have been a painful day in Abraham's household. The significance though is a physical sign of God's covenant with Abraham and a sacrifice on his part to show his commitment to it. I want to be willing to make sacrifices that God demands of me, but I'm sure I'm always willing to pay the price.

Day 005 - Genesis 12-14

The story of Abraham (or Abram as he is known as at this point) begins or at least it begins for us the readers. For Abram 75 years of his life have happened and all we know about that is that his dad was called Terah and he married a woman called Sarai at some point in that time. One of the fascinating things about the Old Testament is that mostly we get just glimpses of peoples lives and major events, but it's difficult to get a handle on what there day to day lives were like. Couple that with the fact that we're separated from the events by thousands of years and a radically different culture and there potential for much misunderstanding. At the same time there are aspects of human nature that shine through recognisably that hint at a universal experience of life and the God that created it.

So God appears to Abram and tells him to go to another land where his descendants will one day live and he promises to bless him. It's very easy to focus on Abram's shortcomings and mistakes, but it's easy to miss here his faith in action. There is no record of Abram questioning God at this point, he just takes him at his word and goes. It's a challenge to me as I consider the times that I've said, "yes, but..." to God when the better thing would be to just go and do.

We do hear of Abram's mistakes though shortly after when he ends up in Egypt and pretends that his wife is his sister. It's very easy to criticise Abram for being such a muppet, but what struck me this time round is the way that God intervenes to rescue Sarai from the terrible position that she finds herself in. God obviously has a plan for Abram and Sarai's lives and this isn't it.

By the end of this passage Abram has grasped the fact that God alone is who he should be relying on and giving glory to when he refuses any loot from the king of Sodom. In spite of knowing this he doesn't always act as if it's true and tomorrow we'll see some of the consequences of that...

Day 004 - Genesis 10-11

Just two chapters today so that we can start the story of Abraham properly tomorrow.

Today's passage is mostly genealogy again which again gives me the opportunity to try pronouncing a load of cool names (Arpachshad is now front runner for my firstborn son). If nothing else this tells us the great importance of tracing a family line to the culture that produced the book of Genesis and it's still important by the time the New Testament rolls around millennia later.

The only narrative piece in this passage is the rather strange story of the Tower of Babel. At it's heart it highlight's once again man's self centred desire to determine his own destiny and build his own kingdom at the exclusion of God. Having lived overseas and struggled with the Russian language for three years I would occasionally rail against God for having started off the whole language thing in the first place. This was always tempered by my increasing understanding of how culture and language can give us a bigger picture of who God is and I'm altogether grateful for the many languages that our world has.

Day 003 - Genesis 7-9

There's a lot of repetition today particularly in the first chapter when we're told about Noah going into the boat twice and the animals he would take with him three times. It's a very familiar story, but one that's easy to get slightly wrong unless we pay close attention to the text. We always think that, "the animals went in two by two, hurrah", because of the song and pictures of the event (even the illustration in my Bible has it like that). However Noah is commanded to take seven pairs of each ritual clean animal and one pair of each ritually unclean animal with him. You may think that this is unimportant (and to be honest in the grand scheme of things it isn't), but it does make sense to pay close attention to the text.

What this passage does throw up is the idea of 'clean' and 'unclean', which isn't really explained at this point. We'll get a detailed set of instructions later when we get to the law, but at this point you have to wonder where Noah got his knowledge about the cleanliness of animals from. One can only assume that there was an unrecorded conversation between him and God about the details.

The thing that strikes me about these early passages is the relationship that the characters have with God. God speaks clearly to people and they can choose to follow his guiding or not and they seem to know a way of living that will please God (e.g. sacrificing to him). At the same time there isn't rigourous law set out for them to follow and there's no scripture to refer to at this point. All Noah gets told in chapter 9 is to have loads of kids, to rule of the animal kingdom (making sure not to eat meat with blood in it) and that murder will bring punishment on the perpetrator.

We end today with one of those strange human events that compliment the universal scale of the rest of the narrative. Noah becomes the first drunk recorded in the Bible and his youngest son has a good laugh at his immodesty whilst his two older sons do their best to cover him up and preserve his honour. This event becomes prophetic in Noah's sober eyes and sets up future biblical events...

Day 002 - Genesis 4-6

The first murder, a list of people who reach ridiculously large ages and a handy guide to shipbuilding are on today's agenda.

God's compassionate response to Cain in this passage has always struck me in the past. Yes, God punishes him for his deed, but is moved by Cain's plea and makes sure that he won't come to mortal harm as he wanders the land. He obviously went on to have a prosperous life as the next we hear is that he's building a city for his son.

Cain's descendant Lamech is a rather nasty piece of work and his life seems to be a hint at the greater decent of man that we see in chapter 6. Apparently Lamech's speech to his wives is a brilliant example of Hebrew poetry (it loses a lot in the translation) and begs a question about the quality of the art that we produce. Does the literary, musical, artistic or filmic brilliance of a piece of work justify it's propagation regardless of the subject matter? We had a discussion along similar lines at a recent staff conference and the common consensus was that even if Lamech's poem is brilliant we wouldn't want to fill the earth with his work.

I'm always in two minds when we get to lists of names and genealogies in the Bible. On the one hand I get to try and pronounces all those brilliant names (and briefly consider some of them as potential kids names), but on the other hand it's hard to see the point of them at times. With the one in this passage there is the added complication of the fact that most of them live into their 900's. Are we supposed to take these numbers literally or not? I'll leave that one up to you to decide for yourself. Regardless of the actual length of these guys lives we don't get much of an idea about how they lived or what their characters were like with the exception of Enoch who has the strange distinction of not dying in the usual way because God took him out of the world at a younger age than his fellows.

Then we get another Lamech who seems to be an early prophet when he declares that his son Noah will bring relief to humanity. I bet he didn't have a clue what was coming next and you wonder whether he thought his son was a bit nuts when he started building a boat in the middle of dry land.

Part of my hope in reading through the Old Testament this way is that I'll get a greater sense of God's revelation to humanity and in particular his character. We've already seen in these first few chapters that he delights in making good things and relationships. We also see that there is a price to be paid for disobeying him, but that in the midst of any punishment that he gives there is provision for the sinner. It's still difficult to read of his decision to wipe out humanity with the exception of Noah and company and it's still a struggle to comprehend this God of ours.

Day 001 - Genesis 1-3

We start with what has become a divisive passage, with those that take it literally and those that take it figuratively. It's a pity because it has a lot to say about God and humanity and the relationships that spring from that reality, which are true whichever way you take it.

Our relationship to God, to each other (especially with the mention of marriage at the end of chapter 2), to the world around us and the plants and animals in it is all set up here. Our roles as caretakers of this world that God has given to us is at the same time awe inspiring and saddening as we consider the mess that we have made of it as a direct consequence of the events of chapter 3.

Humanity rebels against God and things, as they say, will never be the same again.

It's a depressing read, but there are glimmers of hope in the promise God gives that Eve's offspring will crush the serpent's head, the first foreshadowing of the Messiah is seen right here at the beginning.

It's very easy to read the story and get annoyed with Adam and Eve for being so foolish, but how often do we fall into the same trap. How often do we question God's goodness in the same way that the serpent did and as a consequence rebel against God? How often do we passively or even actively follow someone else into sin and then blame them for our failure?

The beginning of Genesis reminds us of our rightful purpose but also how easily we fall away from it.

The Idea Behind This Blog

This blog is a record of my odyssey through the Old Testament in chronological order. I’m following a reading plan that takes me through from Genesis all the way through to somewhere in 1 Chronicles. I’m reading from the Good News Bible for ease of reading and to give a fresh perspective on some texts that may have become stale for me whilst reading my usual translation. As I go along I’ll be recording myself reading the text and when I’m done (after about 272 days if I’m disciplined) I’ll go through it all again listening to the files and editing out any mistakes.

With the blog itself I’ll be making a few comments each day on the passage I’ve read. I have an idea of what to expect having read through it before and many smaller passages will be very familiar to me. However I know that there are areas that I find difficult and hard to understand which I have tended to ignore. I hope that by reading in chronological order I will appreciate the context better, particularly the prophets.