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.

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.